i went down to princeton to hang out with my friend margaret. margaret is someone who coincided with and maybe is largely responsible for one of the great inflection points of my life, in the summer of 2003, when i had been spinning my wheels personally for some time. we met and hung out for like ten furious days and i emerged from it with my childlike wonder back, newly invigorated.
anyway, this awesome person who i have seen very infrequently since then, and we both aren't the sort of person (i gather) who consistently keeps in touch. and i saw her today for the first time in forever and guess what? she's still amazing, if anything more so. and hanging out with her and others in princeton was really fun -- probably not coincidentally, i've been having a phenomenal time hanging out with mathematicians since i decided to quit academia. sort of ironic considering that one of the reasons i'm leaving is that by and large i don't find mathematicians to be the greatest companions on the road of life.
and... i mean, i knew margaret was one of those people who i could call up any time if i needed to talk, who would always be there for me. but i guess this is really the first concrete example of that, how we will always be really good friends even if we haven't talked in years.
and as we left, we hugged and it was seriously one of the best hugs i have ever had. i was standing on a train at princeton, and i was relaxing really for the first time in seventeen days, and i wanted the hug to last forever. now i'm on the train going back to new york, back into the belly of the beast, and of course the stress is coming back quickly. but (and you can tell that this really means something since i rarely talk about people by name in my blog) i know that margaret and i will be good friends forever, and that means something, and it's so precious that it makes me want to cry. hopefully i can do that soon. and the sleep saturday night, is the plan, 14 glorious hours or so.
i really do have amazing friends, and even in all of my romantically motivated angst, i do realize how lucky i am to have found so many amazing people over the years. it's really, really spectacular, to be perfectly honest.
day seventeen.