Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh has been... interesting, thus far.
Yeah, THAT kind of interesting.

It's not bad, exactly. It's more of a... I don't even KNOW. Maybe I'm just discombobulated by being away from Mike for any extended period of time.

Whatever it is.

Belinda texted me ten minutes after I landed... said she couldn't make dinner. Her only explanation was "(timing)" and that wasn't much of an explanation. To me, it felt an awful lot like a brushoff. She hasn't texted me again. I'm kind of... not upset, exactly, but sort of, and kind of hurt.

Lunch yesterday was great... I ate in the hotel restaurant with Adam. "Grilled Cheese" is what it was called... smoked Gouda cheese, sliced thick and grilled, with long crunchy toast (I can NOT think of what it's called) and an absolutely divine tomato concoction and caramelized onions. This was after an argula salad that was pure heaven on a plate. Yum.

Michael had given me $60 on Sunday, insisting that traveling without money was a bad idea. Thank god he did.

The hotel put a hold on my card of $511.70. For four days of "incidentals." The hotel room was already paid for... this is just incidentals. Well, since I only had one paycheck's worth of money in my account to begin with, this of course overdrew my account by a considerable margin. Like... $500 overdrawn (because there are also overdraft charges pending). I am just sick. I had put $150 in the account on Saturday night so there would be SOMETHING there for me to use for meals while I was here... not one penny of that is available. I cannot WAIT to get my staff credit card. A credit card won't present me with these problems.

Mike is going to deposit money in my account tomorrow; I feel like the lowest form of crap for that. THIS time, it's not any poor financial planning on my part, at least; I was responsible and paid my bills and all with my first paycheck, but managed to keep myself afloat anyway. I still have to have my partner bail me out. *sigh*

This morning's policy session was excellent. I have a lot of upcoming policy issues that will require some finesse and finagling on my part to navigate, so it was valuable, too. The rest of the day was just... meh. The activity part was fine... we got some good ideas and such. The rest of it just pretty much sucked rocks.

Jeannie and I skipped the rotations and talked about the JDVNC Board and the varying views of what JDVNC would be doing. It would appear there is a wide variety of belief in terms of the purpose of the coalition; I would guess that's going to be a big issue to deal with prior to the board retreat.

We went to the happy hour thing... it was LOUD and crazy but there was free food and drink, so that's a plus. I met a few new people who will, hopefully, contribute to the coalition's establishment (and thus to my sanity). Then we talked a little while and went our separate ways. I came back to my room and have been doing nothing since then other than surfing vintage clothing websites. I'm just... blah.

******

Tuesday morning
******

It's Morgan's birthday. And I have a 7:30 meeting. Blugh.

Off to shower.