I try to keep in mind the beginning of The Great Gatsby:

   In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
   "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the same advantages that you've had."

With this entry, I become Y2K compliant. I hadn't been using four digits in this site's filename dates until today. Come to think of it, my usage of the 4-digit year has been sporadic at best; it must become habitual at once.

Another one of these tedious status meetings today - as I predicted previously the frequency has been reduced - it's now every other week instead of weekly. Today's cookies, homemade, were very good - cake-like & crunchy rather than squishy - but what do you think of people who talk during meetings? I mean, someone will be standing up next to the view-graph projector droning on, and two people sitting nearby have a semi-whispered conversation? And sometimes just at a regular conversational volume, like they're at a movie or something <1>. I think it's disrespectful, selfish and distracting. However, in some work environments this behavior has become common. I remember a project review I attended a few years back, with the Army - maybe two dozen plus people, a packed meeting - and there would always be a few of these little side discussions going on, with participants coming and going. Today's meeting was blissfully short, calm & uneventful, unlike the earlier horror - that was the time I selected a healthy box of grape juice from the drink table on my way in. After carefully inserting the little pointy straw I took a sip, and then somehow lost track and suddenly realized I'd squeezed the box, spraying its purple contents all over my white shirt. Fortunately my rôle was so minor I could easily fade, but some perturbed looks were thrown my way as I fled.

Long talk with D today. Even though G has returned, things are not peacefully resolved between them. She is newly into chakras and tennis.

Can't begin with the beginning of Gatsby and not end without the great ending:

   Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter - tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning -
   So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.