I'm tempting fate by sitting in the Starbucks on Boylston Street across from the Pru by logging in via HotSpot for an hour. Really, I can stop after an hour. Honest. And I won't check my e-mail once. (This particular SB is playing an amazing mix of music this morning -- just heard Violetta's "Ah, fors'รจ lui…Sempre libera” (lovely) -- but the downside of listening to arias in most non-performance settings is that places play compilation albums. You'll hear your great moments of Puccini, Verdi, maybe Mozart, but all strung together and out of their context. It's like listening to just one movement of a symphony. Imagine playing the third movement of Beethoven 5 without the 4th and you'll get the idea.
So now I can catch up with whatever horrors have been ocurring in the world for the past two weeks. Or (much more likely), I can read through the 1,000 posts waiting for me in Bloglines. Other than brief 10 minute chunks of NPR in the morning, I have no idea what is happening outside of the payroll/db migration project I've been obsessed with for the past month. I don't think I've ever worked so hard on a project in my life.
The most difficult part of this project, though, has been trying to communicate to other people what they need to do, and then letting them do it. I am a classic "I'll do it myself so I know it will get done" person -- but with a larger, more complicated project that involves multiple departments, business units, and people, that approach doesn't work. So if I've learned anything, it's that I have to figure out how to communicate to other people what they are responsible for and when.
And just so you know, I haven't checked my email yet this morning. And Cio-Cio-San is now singing the best moment in all of "Butterfly." Not so bad for a rainy Saturday morning.
