Saturday morning ramble

I've decided not to go see Jennifer Oullette read today, even though I'd love to hear her. I was leaning toward going, even though Politics & Prose is a pain in the ass to get to (pick your poison: content with the red line on a weekend day and then walk fifteen minutes, or drive through DC). But the ironic, deciding variable is that my brain needs a break from science (so I won't be going to a reading on the science of the self).

Having to learn and think so much during the work week that one needs a break over the weekend is a first-world problem, even in the first world. Even in my world. I'd hate to have a job where I didn't have to learn or think. And I wouldn't relish too much brain rest--such as that imposed upon a friend of mine by her doctor, after she incurred a concussion. But this week--capped by a happy hour, last night, where I found myself in a conversation about plutonium disposition, and launched by a trivia night on Monday--makes me wonder whether I need a life.

Both of these after-hours events were a blast, but trivia with a team of good friends who work on the same issues I do and happy hour with people I hadn't met before but who work on the same issues I do... make me want to run the f* away from those issues. And that bleeds into staying away from related issues. Or science. About this time last year, I felt like I could use a break from the arts (another first-world problem, I know). A year later, I can't wait to go to the ballet in a few days... but I'll be abstaining from the Space Week festivities.