hey Claire is not avoiding me;. She came to find me, in my office, to talk shop for a few minutes, then just sat and shot the shit with me over my cup of coffee for like twenty minutes this morning. So that is officially a good thing. Although there is also officially a bad thing. A very bad thing. An extremely unfortunately terribly Nasty McNasty bad thing. A the worst thing in the world except for maybe the bubonic plague bad thing... she's going. She has been umming and aah-ing about going overseas next year and taking a lengthy working holiday and bumming her way from Cape Town to Chicago to Colorado to Seattle, LA and San Diego, Mexico, right through South America and on to Australia and then Thailand and India before coming back home. So it was on and then it was maybe off and then maybe back on again and then definitely off but now it's on. Tickets booked, visas obtained, the works. She's out of here in like 3 months. Palns have changed slightly - it will now just be Canada, the west coast of the US, Mexico and South America, but she's still going. This was the reason, she tells me, for the break-up with the ex - he wasn't keen on her living her life and wanted her to stop everything and support him in fulfilling his dreams; she tells me, "nobody is going to stop me. Not him. Nobody in the world. Nobody. I'm going." She has a beautiful smile which she throws my way as she tells me her story and she looks really excited about it... how do you respond to that? I could be mature and be happy for her - and I am, really I am; I mean that. But I just want to lock my office door and cry my eyes out. laters