Looking for my marbles

Since moving to Connecticut, we have conformed to the hands-free cell phone driving laws by utilizing bluetooth earpieces... which I have begun to use beyond the confines of my automobile, perhaps against better judgment.

I had a minor victory this morning, but given how overwhelmed I have felt during this past week, a minor victory was a real high point. A small confidence-boosting experience would carry me a long way, or so I thought. I was so pleased with myself that I gave the wife a call to share with her the small, but significant, good news.

Invigorated, I called my wife to communicate the high-point of my nascent postdoctoral career. As we spoke telephonically via bluetooth earpiece, I walked back and forth across the inner quad next to the building in which I work; I had no idea that I was at that very moment supposed to be attending a lab meeting... a meeting at which all but one of my ten-or-so co-workers were waiting for me to join them... a meeting in a room with a view of the inner quad... the very same inner quad on which their newest labmate was at that very moment pacing back and forth gesticulating semi-wildly, speaking animatedly, as it appeared, to himself... or the voices in his head.

One of the lab members mercifully came to retrieve me and tell me about the meeting I was supposed to be attending. When I came to the meeting room and saw that the entire group had watched me apparently cracking up on the lawn, I nearly did for real.

I've decided to take it one hour at a time. A day is just a little too much to ask for.