Every once in awhile, there's a very common theme across more or less my entire life. Earlier in the week, it seemed like uncertainty was the watchword of the moment, but now it seems like anticipation is the much better description.

As such, it applies more directly to certain specific things that aren't quite the "big picture" concepts I was griping about before. In the most positive sense, it's manifested itself in my soccer game. In the last couple of weeks, I've noticed an increase in my ability to read the game, to anticipate passes and shots and subsequently do a good job of intercepting or blocking them. This is the point where the game "slows down" while you're playing it, and it's a pretty big rush. Plus, my Friday team has only lost once in the past four weeks, so I'm feeling good about that.

Of course, the anticipation lends itself to everything else pretty well. I'm waiting to see how my immediate employment prospects pan out. I'm waiting to see if we wind up finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and how that affects the two sides of the ongoing debate (as a sidebar, it's almost looking like a more civilized debate right now, with nearly 100,000 gathered in what was, last I saw, a largely peaceful demonstration in NYC, and both sides getting along at dueling rallies in Chicago). I'm waiting for the new soccer season and the opportunities it may or may not bring. I'm waiting to see what kind of success my two bands will have before adding a third and/or fourth. And so on and so forth.

Because uncertainty isn't really the whole deal here. Sure, there's uncertainty in outcomes, but the outcomes themselves are on a defined timetable. There's certainty in the chain of events, and being a process junkie, that's never really an issue. However, I'm sort of at a loss to plan the next chain of events, to get the next set of ducks lined up in a row, until some of these things start to play out, and sometimes I can deal with that. Sometimes I can't. With a couple of days of perspective, I'm seeing the game a bit better, and hopefully that allows me to get in a position to change it.