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I've had a slight stomach bug for the past few days.  Nothing major, but it's certainly not comfortable.  I'm a little nervous about tomorrow's race as a result...it's a 3-mile race in Salem, and I haven't run more than two miles since before I left for Africa.  In my first workout back, I felt good enough to run 3+, but that night was when the bug set in and I haven't done any running since.  As long as I feel better tomorrow, I should be fine...I actually had a great workout yesterday (didn't run, though).  I found the window of time where I didn't feel like shit and went to the gym then.

Still having trouble adjusting to the right sleep schedule.  I don't know what time it was that I went to sleep last night -- maybe 8pm?  I've been waking up at 3am every morning, too awake to get back to sleep, but then after a few hours of putzing around, I am able to take a mid-morning nap around 6 or 7am.  Not ideal.

Not that my weekdays are really any different from my weekends, but I am glad that it's Saturday.  Something about that fact just makes everything more relaxing.

The Return.

I will be playing in my first bridge tournament in almost a year starting a week from today.  It's a sectional in NE Washington, so I'm hardly throwing myself back into the scene all at once, but there are a few larger tournaments right after that, followed by the Memphis NABC in March.  My feelings, they are mixed.

In something like an order of importance:

1.  I am really, really excited to get back to playing regularly.  I love bridge, and I love my bridge friends.
2.  I'm going to have to rebuild my game, and spend some time sucking, and that's going to be frustrating to me.  I still play regularly on BBO, but that's not enough to keep one's skills on the up and up, and I've already tasted a lot of the frustration that's to come.  Hopefully it won't last long.
3.  I'm going to see some people I really don't want to see.  Since I haven't seen any of them in over a year, it remains to be seen what sort of effect this will have on me.  I'm in a good place now and I'm not worried about a meltdown or anything...but I just don't know how I'll feel, you know?  The best analogy I can think of is that it will be like spending a great deal of time in close proximity to the family that you've severed ties with.  

I always appreciated my nomadic, card-throwing life...I just didn't handle it well the first time around.  I really am excited to get back, even though it will probably mean some new (old) things to talk about with my therapist from time to time.