As much as I hate flying to California every week (and I know I’ve been very vocal in my whining about it – thank you to everyone who’s had to listen to me), work is actually improving. The last couple of days, I’ve actually felt like I’m doing a bit of good here. I’ve actively participated in meetings, I’ve edited documents, and I’ve tweaked our intranet site that we all use to share information. Granted, this doesn’t really feel like an active contribution – it’s more like I do a lot of preparation and talking about what we’re going to do, but I don’t actually *do* anything. So I’m not sure if it’s the work or the travel (or possibly both), but I’ve noticed that I’ve started clenching my jaw all the time. I think I must be grinding my teeth in my sleep, I can’t seem to make my jaw relax when I’m awake. I can do it for a few seconds if I focus on it, but as soon as I stop thinking about it, it clenches up again. It’s giving me a headache.

Oh, and for the record, sitting in a conference room for 9 to 10 hours at a stretch with seven guys isn’t nearly as much fun as you might think. We’re all nerds, we all have our laptops on the table in front of us and no one really says anything to anyone. I’ll hear someone clear their throat and I’ll jump because I realize that except for mouse-clicks and keyboard taps, I haven’t heard a sound from another human for sometimes a couple of hours.

Blah blah blah… I miss Seattle. I miss my apartment. I miss Dave. I miss my cat. I miss Comedy Central. I miss having clothes hanging in a closet instead of stuffed in a suitcase. Whine whine whine. I’ll stop now.