Taking a few minutes out of my workday (and yes, I'm still up working at 11:30 at night - such is my existence....) to play a bit here. I've already noticed in the few days I've been posting again I'm actually much calmer and relaxed - so I'll take that as I sign that this is a good thing.

We're in the final stretch of creating the new temporary exhibit on the Monitor at Ye Olde Boat Museum and I'm editing the label copy. I need to get it back to our designers tomorrow, but apparently the server is down at work and I can't access my compooter there. So it looks as though I'll be up at 0-dark-thirty tomorrow frantically pecking away in my office (with the door most decidedly closed to keep free range members of other departments from alighting in one of my dead admiral chairs (they're chairs, and they once belonged to an admiral who is now dead - hence the highly technical designation).

It's been rather nice, though, doing research and writing rather than paper pushing and random acts of administration. And tonight, it's all been done to the sound of the ship's clock that my dad built for our Christmas gift! My dad is a whiz at making little brown wooden things, and this clock is absolutely beautiful. It rings the bells every half-hour to correspond with the appropriate ship's watch (though at this moment I don't know whether I'm a larbowline or a starbowline.....wait - I sleep on the larboard side of the bed.....) Anyway - it was 7 bells when I began this entry.

When I first moved to the Old Dominion my roommates David and Kathy had a brass ship's clock that hung right outside my room. I loved it and missed it something awful when I moved. But those things are so blame expensive that I could never justify buying one. Then - out of the blue - my dad up and builds one (he found the innards of it in a clock kit catalogue). What an incredible gift.

By the way - I've sent him a thank you email - but I wanted to let everyone out there in cyberville know what an absolutely godlike creature Richard is. Again, quite out of the blue (like the clock) I received a veritable cornucopia of tweeness in the form of Belle and Sebastian merchandise. It was such a wonderful thing and quite what I needed to raise my spirits (which had been trampled and spat upon by the flu and other nasties).

Well - almost eight bells now. And miles to type before I sleep.... A pleasant 11th Night to you all!