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How much time can I spend looking for something I’ve already found.

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The weather this week has been, and it seems it will continue to be, the perfect combination of moody, damp, and warm for an autumnal murder mystery.

This morning I resumed listening to a murder mystery I’ve been failing to finish for more than a year, despite the persistent encouragement of a particular member of the household. It isn’t entirely the book’s fault. Admittedly, it is an intimidating one thousand pages long, which feels less like reading a book and more like accepting a temporary position, but mostly I’ve just had other things higher on my list of priorities.

The increasingly overt insistence at home that I “finish the damn thing” has finally worn me down. So, here we are. My money’s on the woman in white, in the vault, with the ceremonial dagger.

The story has begun to unravel. I have a feeling this week’s bout of petulant self-pity may just have been fully quelled by one of the more tangential characters.

“Shit happens and luck happens. That’s life. You deal with the shit and make the most of your luck, when you can get it, cos it don come around too often…you know what holding onto fucking resentment does? Gives you fucking cancer.”

I don’t know that I harbor much resentment, but I would amend that giving fear too much authority probably isn’t particularly good for the constitution either. I’m still occasionally surprised by what manages to get under my skin, though I’m pleased to report my recovery time has improved considerably. Think I’d better clock in and put a ticket in the queue for thicker skin.

This morning we had an all-employee town hall, the year-end business broadcast live from a room that seats perhaps two hundred people, while tens of thousands of employees scattered across the globe watch virtually. Most of us attend in the common fashion: alone, staring at a laptop, while senior leadership assures us that we are very much all in this together.

Since there seemed little reason I needed to be seated for this particular exercise in corporate togetherness, I thought I might listen to the town hall while getting a few steps in. Better yet, I’d go for a run to the river. Two birds, one livestream. I changed into joggers, an oversized hoodie and trainers, put in my headphones and started out.

Somewhere along 7th, I found myself behind a woman who caught my attention. She was wearing tight dark trousers and a black ruana covered in little white polka dots, with tan Birkenstocks that revealed toenails lacquered a deep purple (quite a classy shade, actually, more aubergine). Under one arm she carried a stack of important-looking papers. In the other hand she held her phone out in front of her, GPS directions plainly visible on the screen.

It became apparent fairly quickly that she had no idea where she was going and was also very late getting there. She would glance down at her phone, look up hopefully at the next intersection, then break into a determined run, papers clamped beneath one arm and Birkenstocks slapping against the pavement. By this point she was visibly perspiring, which seemed an unfortunate development for someone presumably on her way to do something important.

None of this would have been particularly noteworthy had she not maintained a pace remarkably consistent with my own. We continued like this all the way down 7th: me, dressed and equipped for cardiovascular exercise; her, lost, late, carrying paperwork and running in sandals. For several blocks, I waited for the natural order of things to reassert itself. It did not.

We parted ways somewhere near the federal building, and with her went a not insignificant portion of my confidence. Apparently I’ll need to make some improvements to my Zone 2 pace if I’m ever to be invited to join another sports team, recreational or otherwise.

After the town hall and my humbling jaunt to the river, I resolved to get caught up on as much work as possible. It’s been several weeks since I’ve had the luxury of being properly productive, and after yesterday I was rather looking forward to it.

I sat down at my desk and decided I’d begin by getting my texts under control. There were 160 of them. This is not normal, mind. I haven’t suddenly become tremendously popular. There is an upcoming girls’ trip, and the corresponding group chat has reached the stage at which it seems capable of generating new messages faster than I can read them. I stopped trying somewhere around 20.

I have half a mind not to go on said trip, on the off chance better company becomes available. To be determined. People make time for the things they love, and at present I’d rather leave a little room in the calendar than commit myself irrevocably to a rap concert and chicken wings in Atlanta.

Another thread requiring my attention belongs to the startup, which, against considerable odds, finally has legs beneath it and two actual paying clients. My connection to this teetering enterprise is a personal one, which makes declining their recent invitation to become a “founding partner” somewhat delicate. It is an appealing title until one discovers that the principal responsibility of a founding partner appears to be donating hours and hours of professional labor for free. I’ll need to find a deft way of saying “no.” And “no” is most certainly what will be coming out of my mouth. Or, more accurately, leaving my device and arriving in their inbox.

After a few hours of meetings, documentation, culling interview transcripts, and troubleshooting, I decided I had earned a coffee and walked over to the nearby hotel. The coffee in this particular lobby is excellent, though half the reason I go there is the smell.

It’s one of those fancy hotels with its own signature scent, the sort of place where even the air has been through a branding exercise, and I appear to be precisely the mark they had in mind. I stepped through the marble entrance and took an unnecessarily deep breath.

At the desk, the concierge was admiring a bouquet of flowers that had just arrived. I recently attempted to have flowers delivered to a hotel myself. The operation was bungled rather spectacularly, though perhaps for the best.

Anyway, I’m off now for more domestic duties. I’m particularly excited to attempt a new gravy recipe for the meatballs currently thawing in my fridge, which is about as much excitement as I’m prepared to introduce into the evening. Cross your fingers for me. And for no unwelcome weather events tonight, although, given the conditions in the forecast, an evening storm would complement the climax of the murder mystery rather nicely.

I intend to finally find out whodunit.