I am a writing machine. Today I have worked a bit more on my story, written the usual metric ton of emails, and managed to toss off a speech in less than an hour for one of my colleagues. I still feel as though I'm having to force some of this writing, but ... other times it flows a bit more. We'll see what others think of the speech I wrote. Not that I usually feel much sense of validation from work stuff, but it's always nice to know what I write is appreciated.

My personal life has become slightly confusing again, and yes Shawn, I know it's my own fault. I know I need to extricate myself from it, and I need to figure out the best way to do that. The only problem is with stupid St. Valentine's Day coming up, there's going to be some feelings hurt more than otherwise, or so I suspect. Urgh. Frustrating, if nothing else.

I got some potentially good news at work today, but I'm not going to do much talking about it until I see whether or not it's actual fact. If it is, well, today was just plain ol' Christmas -- what with getting my paycheque today, too. My big raise has amounted to about a whole $25 more per paycheque than what I was making, back when I first got hired (and before I got stuck with the agency). Hooray for taxes. :P

We have a big branch retreat tomorrow, at which they're going to talk to us about what's going on with the re-org, and various other stuff. Exciting day... urgh. At least I'm getting picked up at my place, so I won't have to try to make it to work for some early early hour in order to get a ride out. I'll still have to be ready a bit earlier than usual, since half the time I don't get in the shower until 8:15, and that's what time my ride is going to be there (more or less), but it's really not that bad, all things considered.

Recent developments and people in my life and even past developments have given me a lot of time to consider what it is I need from a guy I'm going to be able to date and be happy with -- physically, and emotionally. I've done a fair bit of beating myself up over it, since I feel guilty saying "I need this" from a person in order to be content with them. But it's not something I should be abusing myself over, since everyone has personality traits they need to be happy, and everyone has physical things that turn them on. Just because someone is lacking this or that does not make them less of a person, it just means they are not as well-suited to you as you might like.

Rationally, I know that. Hell, I've told that to other people. But when it involves people in my life... very rough.