without going into too much detail, it feels like the pieces of my life are sort of falling into place. the recrafting thing i mentioned: some random process spun me into a supersaturated solution, sugarlogged and waiting for a flash point to start falling into a nice crystal. i don't want to jinx things or pressure life or overanalyze, and i'm not really doing that (one of the amazing things about the past week is the extent to which i've actually been able to relax and have fun and be happy and not overthink too much) here, but i really like it when my happiness derivative is positive.
i just got back from a weekend trip to vegas, which perhaps is a good illustration. i was horribly sleep-deprived the whole time, but managed to have a great time anyway (today's bridge excepted; some day i will learn my lesson about 10 am starts); the casino part was not exactly profitable, but that didn't really put too much of a damper on things. in some sense, i derive perverse utility from losing money: the fact that it actually doesn't bother me is concrete evidence that i'm not a materialistic person, the fact that i have a real job and don't need to come close to worrying about tens of dollars and can convert it into happiness (more precisely, lose a small amount of money on average because the variance is in my linear utility regime), and the fact that hey, i'm not good at everything (mind controlling the dice) and that's okay.
it's weird how that fits into my life, but it does. the trick, of course, is not to be a too compulsive gambler; if i start going to random indian casinos to play craps, feel free to stage an intervention. but paying, i don't know, $20 on average for a weekend's worth of gaming (with high variance, of course), is well worth the entertainment.
so being happy sleep-deprived is something that hasn't happened in a while. it's super cool to have happy things be what's keeping me up instead of garden-variety insomnia, and it's super cool that it doesn't immediately kill me the next day. not that i don't still love sleep with all my heart also.
then there's the paradigm of the weekend trip, another potential way to convert money into happiness (something that's basically always been impossible to me, not that i really had or have or project to have a ridiculous amount of money or anything.) this vegas one is the second one i've taken since i started work, the other time being when i flew out to new york for danielle's birthday extravaganza, and they've both been excellent. this schema fits very well in my life; i used to think i didn't like traveling, but i have to admit that my traveling recently has made me quite happy, so maybe i'm wrong.
and of course there are some really nice places and people to visit for weekends who are quite close. most of my flying in the past several years has been between san francisco and points quite distant, flights that take a whole day. but vegas? it's just a few hours, all things included. seattle? totally doable. san diego? portland? i like these places and it's so excellent to be able to do that for a weekend regularly.
these are some pieces, anyway, and i'm super excited about the future. and maybe, just maybe, it's gonna be the future soon.