Out of left field!

I told a co-worker I was pregnant last week... and got the most bizarre response I can imagine. Read it for yourself and tell me what you think.

First, some background... This woman is a client that I've worked with through my office for years, so we go way back. She's friendly enough, though inhumanly persistent and tries to manipulate you and get what she wants through transparent flattery. I thought we had a reasonably friendly professional relationship. My office hasn't done much work for her in the past several years; perhaps a half dozen projects a year or less.

She e-mailed me last week asking if we could do a project for her "real quick." Of course, the nature of the project was such that there was no "real quick" about it. My boss confirmed that we don't have the time to take it on, so I told her very nicely that unfortunately we just didn't have the time to work on it right now, and I gave her the contact information for a local creative freelance agency we often use.

She e-mailed back and said thank you, but before she called them, was I certain that I didn't want to take the project off-the-clock as a freelance job? I considered that option for about two seconds. Extra money is always nice to have, but I don't really know how to do what she wants done, and I would end up having to charge her double what a freelance agency would likely cost. And the larger issue is that I am not taking on any new outside work; in fact, I plan to phase out the work I do for my regular clients by September, in preparation for having the baby.

So I wrote her back and very nicely declined the job. I told her that I was pregnant and not taking on any new freelance work right now.

And she said... (and this is word-for-word; it's too good not to post in its entirety):

Pregnant? Eight years ago you were convinced that you never wanted kids. I hope this is something you want and that it wasn’t a mistake that will prove a hardship.

Wait, what? Did she really just say that?!

Because I kinda thought that the appropriate response when someone tells you that they are having a baby is "Congratulations," not "Was it a mistake?"

Now, I am under no delusions that anyone else finds my pregnancy as interesting as I do, but why in the world would you bluntly demand that an expectant mother tell you if her pregnancy was an accident that she would end up regretting?? EVEN IF YOU THINK THAT'S THE CASE??

Seriously. Common sense dictates that you start off with something like, "Congratulations!" or "That's great news!", and if the mother then gives you indications that it's maybe the news isn't so great, depending on your level of friendship you MIGHT then be free to ask if anything is amiss.

And we don't even have a friendship!! We simply have a professional relationship. 

The thing is, I was so baffled by what she said that I couldn't even take offense at it! It was just so completely out of left field, so unexpected and strange, that all I could do was laugh! Well, laugh and tell everyone I know about it.

I wasn't even going to dignify that e-mail with a response, but after suggestions from Doc and some other friends that I not let it go, I came up with a carefully worded reply this afternoon that wasn't mean, took the high road, but also subtly let her know that I didn't appreciate her rudeness:

Wow. That’s by far the most unique response I’ve gotten to my good news. I am 15 weeks along and very happy, especially considering that I lost the last pregnancy... so I’m pretty sure this wasn’t a mistake.

Hopefully the Creative Group can help you find a designer to work on the puzzle piece project.

Unfortunately, subtlety didn't seem to do the trick:

Then I’m thrilled for you. Babies and children are wonderful. I just remember that you didn’t want any for a time there and was worried that this was an unwanted accident. I’m sorry about the loss of one pregnancy, but 15 weeks sounds pretty solid.

Please take good care of yourself. Ultimately all the rest of this work stuff doesn’t matter next your health and that of your baby!

So last week the puzzle piece project took priority over my unborn child; now that she knows that I didn't just slip up in my birth control, the baby's all that matters?

I give up!

Work gripes, cats, bugs, trees

I haven't felt much like posting lately. I've been sick and just not in the mood to write. I'm still not in the mood to write but it's been almost a week so I'm going to try to think of some things that won't bore you, my two readers, to tears.

I'm working from home this week, because our building at work is undergoing renovations. They've ripped out the ceilings, some walls, a bunch of doors, and have turned off the air conditioning. Oh, did I mention that they didn't find new places for everyone in the building to work during the duration? No, people are expected to show up, sit at their desks, suffer through the sweltering heat and humidity, breathe in dust and asbestos and mold and god only knows what else that's floating around in the air, and tolerate the incessant drilling and hammering noises. It's only because my boss is freaking awesome that I'm allowed to work at home while all this is going on.

I wish we could have cats at work. It would decrease the stress level. They are SO CUTE when they are trying to get your attention. Neko has been all over me, all day long.  She's either lounging on my desk, or trying to drape her formidable bulk across my mousing hand, or purring and licking my fingers, or trying various other things to get me to pay attention to her. I might set up a cat-cam tomorrow.

"Ha! I wrap myself around your teacup and leave you no room to mouse! PET ME!"



The other thing that happened last week – the building flooded AGAIN. We had a rainstorm Thursday night and it was heavy enough to flood our floor for the FOURTH time in the three years we've been there. Just like last time, they did not bother to take up the carpets or dry them out adequately. I am sure the mold is growing like crazy. It smelled pretty bad when I went in on Monday afternoon.

I can't understand why the higher-ups are continuously and consistently willing to let their people work in a building that by all rights should not be occupied during heavy construction periods (including during the asbestos abatement from last December, when they insisted that the air quality was just fine but refused to show us air test results), or why they seem perfectly happy to let mold grow underneath our feet and enter our lungs when it repeatedly floods.

It just seems to me like there should be a lawsuit mentioned. I have half a mind to pry up some carpet tiles and take some photographs of what's certainly growing underneath.

Anyway.

I was sick enough over the weekend that I couldn't go down to Austin with Kathryn, to visit Debbie and tour the wildflowers of Central Texas. I'm bummed about that; I was looking forward to a girls' weekend! Food, drinks, giggles, M&Ms, staying up till at least 11 p.m.... god I'm old. I hope that we can reschedule for a little later this spring.

We have termites. EW! TERMITES! We paid a painful amount of money for the pest control people to come out and shoot poison into the ground around our house and drill through our foundation to shoot poison underneath the house too. I absolutely hate poisoning the ground but don't know what else to do to get rid of those little fuckers. I don't think they managed to do too much damage though. I'm just glad we caught them before they SWARMED. Yes, that is as bad as it sounds. Once they poke out through your walls, it's only a matter of time before they decide it's time to look for a new place to nest, and they come shooting out the little holes they've made in your walls, one after another after another, and fly around until they find a suitable structure to eat. INSIDE YOUR HOUSE. We scotch-taped over their little holes in the walls so they couldn't get out, forcing them back underground where the poison is (hopefully). However, this afternoon we noticed a bunch of them swarming around in our front yard. No idea where that batch came from; maybe from someone else's yard, or the creek behind us. Anyway, apparently today was swarm day so I'm really glad we caught our infestation in time. EW!

Doc did some very cute husbandly stuff over the past few days - today he sprayed that termite swarm in the front yard, and also got rid of a wasp nest that was being built by our garage door. Damn paper wasps. Over the weekend he also fixed my shower; one of the springy washers in the faucet finally disintegrated and the shower wouldn't stop spraying. He turned off the water to the house, after scooping about a cubic yard of yucky stuff out of the water main access hole in our sidewalk, and went to Home Depot and – surprisingly – found the right replacement bit for the faucet. I say "surprisingly" because nothing in our house is standard size, or made by companies that still exist. We really need to replace the whole faucet though, and for that we have to go down to Teter's on Gaston to get the right kind. Apparently it's the only place in town that stocks this old nonexistant brand anymore.

So I celebrated Earth Day by not only telecommuting (which saved about 1/4 gallon of gas and 14 miles on the Prius), but also by being a responsible tree caregiver and having our trees trimmed. The price wasn't as bad as I was expecting, and they look great. Our backyard looks much roomier and a bit sunnier now that the 30-foot tall Bradford Pear has been "lifted and thinned," as they call it, and our ginormous Land of the Lost Buford Hollies growing in the courtyard are still about 15 feet tall, but much thinner and lighter now. We were afraid they might bend and crack under their own weight. I'd post a photo, but without a "before" shot it really won't look like much to you.

Cubicle Life

Living in a cubicle city is interesting. (It's also interesting to note that I typed "living" and not "working"... perhaps it's time for me to think about a change of pace?)

When the only things separating you from your co-workers are five foot eight inch walls and a frosted-plastic sliding "shower door" (which, if shut, apparently indicates that you aren't being a team player), the whole concept of "privacy" is really just a thin social construct that only works if everyone agrees that it's important and abides by the rules. You can't help but listen when someone sitting three feet away from you is on the phone with their doctor, but Cubicle Law dictates that you pretend that you don't. It follows then that you don't ask pointed questions about private conversations you've overheard. Since there's not really a way to have a closed-door meeting in a six by eight space taken up mostly by desk, it also follows that you don't barge in to someone's space when they're talking to somebody else and overrun their conversation.

I haven't yet had an office with a door in my professional life, but hopefully some day I'll be able to make a doctor's appointment without going outside the building and using my cell phone. I also hope that the people I work with throughout my life will always understand that not only is it Cubicle Law, it's also politeness and common sense NOT to enter my office and re-organize my files and my personal items, throwing away what they deem unnecessary, when I'm out sick.

Not that any of this has happened to me. I'm just saying.

Go review yourself

On Brett's blog this week, he wrote about performance review time at work, and it cracked me up so much that I had to share it with some of my coworkers, all of whom feel his pain.

Like Santa, the review fairy has ways to know whether you’ve been naughty or nice. One of the ways is called “The Self Review”. It sounds important but really all it is is a way to take your balls and put them in a vice and give you the opportunity to tighten the screws. See, I told you she was magnanimous. Three things can happen with self-reviews and like throwing a pass in the NFL, two of them are bad. Those two things are you’re honest and you tell your overlords about all the internet you surf at work which then results in you getting a bad review or you totally oversell yourself and the overlords figure that you’re a self-promoting prick with an agenda.

In the end, it shouldn’t be my damn job to review myself. They are bloody well paying my boss to know what I do every day (trust me, he drops by enough that he should). The Self Review is a ridiculous piece of HR double-speak so that the Man can find new ways to screw you....

(click here to read the rest, it's worth it)

And I responded:

We have to do something similar, except we rate ourselves on ten dimensions (called The Expectations) - things like “Manages Conflict Effectively”, “Handles Problem-Solving Wisely,” and “Builds Trust,” and write paragraphs on how we’ve performed up to scratch. We are required to utilize ridiculous patronizing language (called The Rating Levels) to do it too. For instance, instead of Excellent, Good, Fair, Poor, we have to say Excelling, Learning, Doing, Absent. I guess that’s so we don’t feel bad about ourselves if we get a rating less than Excelling. Personally, though, being forced to dance around the issue makes me want to shove the Learning and Doing up their Absents.

And then our supervisors do the same rating bullshit for us, and we have a come to jesus meeting where we sit down and make sure our answers match. If they don’t, then we have to have a fun conversation about why exactly WE think we’re performing better than they do, and why we are wrong. (Caveat: my own supervisor is fantastic. I think he secretly feels the same way I do about this process, and he makes it as painless as he possibly can. Thanks, Ben!!!)

And as if that wasn’t enough to make you want to choke on your own vomit, then we have to write The Goals, basically our plan of action for the coming year, listing out What Will I Do, How Will I Accomplish It, and How Can My Supervisor Help Me. How can your supervisor help you? You get to choose from a list of ways called The Supports.... things like Teach Teamwork, Remove Obstacles, and Develop Self and Others. And god forbid you actually put specific projects as goals; your goals have to be touchy feely crap like “increase my interpersonal skills by attending more human resources seminars” or “try to be at work on time”… things that have nothing to do with how well you do your job.

And guess what happens to all this paperwork? It goes up to a file in HR and I’ll eat my own underpants if anybody ever actually reads it.

Drunk teenagers, hardened criminals, and maintenance men

This evening while walking with Brittney in my neighborhood, we found a wallet in the street. Lots of credit cards, $7 cash, no drivers license, but after a bit of digging we located a crumpled carbon copy of a ticket that 19-year-old "Tyler" had received for minor in possession of alcohol. The ticket had his address on it (a few houses down), and probably explains why there was no drivers' license in the wallet. We returned it to a stoned and/or drunk but grateful Tyler, who only opened the door a sliver when we knocked, but that sliver was enough to let out the overpowering odor of stale beer and cigarettes.

It was a little disappointing in that we thought that perhaps Tyler's parents might answer the door and ask how we knew to which house the wallet belonged seeing as how there was no drivers' license therein, at which point we'd gleefully show them the minor in possession citation and Tyler might be grounded until he was 21.

Oh well.

Last night I woke up rather unpleasantly at 2 a.m. to the light of a police helicopter shining in my bedroom window. The helicopter circled my neighborhood, and specifically my street, for what must have been 30 minutes, shining that zillion-watt beam every which way, on roofs, backyards, side yards. As soon as the helicopter left, we heard voices outside and saw a police car and officers walking down our street with flashlights, looking in courtyards. It took me another hour to get back to sleep. I don't really mind the disturbance; I'm glad they're searching so thoroughly for their suspect. It disturbs me, though, to think that there might be a criminal of the caliber that would warrant a helicopter search roaming through my street in the dead of night.

This happens from time to time in my neighborhood. Maybe once every four to six weeks we'll hear helicopters overhead at night. This was the first time that they focused specifically on my street, though. We live a few blocks from some rather shady apartment complexes and an industrial part of town, so it's not entirely surprising.

Today at work I opened the door to the women's bathroom to find a maintenance man standing inside. I was, of course, quite surprised and said "Oh! I'm sorry, I'll come back later." He smiled and said, "Actually, this is perfect. Tell me, does it smell in here?" Was he kidding? Did he seriously want me to come in and take a big whiff? Did he DO SOMETHING IN THERE? I poked my head in and cautiously sniffed – nothing. He pointed at the floor and gave some long-winded explanation about a backed up drain and the bubbling kitchen sink, at which point I noticed not one but TWO huge cockroaches scuttling across the bathroom floor. I politely made my exit and decided to use the first floor bathroom from now on.

Fuckstripe and other fun things

Office Bullshit
It sure has been A Week so far. Some crazy shit going down at work – a tender young employee in my office fired, and a major crackdown on computer security procedures and professionalism in interoffice communications. Are these events related? If I were to know anything about it, would I even say so?

You know, even though I'm pretty sure no one at work knows of the existence of my blog, apart from my two close co-worker-friends, I still hesitate to write in any detail about things that happen at the office. What If, right?

Sometimes I hate that I have a "the office" to talk about. I guess part of me always thought I was going to grow up to be a painter or a chef or an author. Instead I sit in a cubicle 8 hours a day like zillions of other worker bees around the world. I shouldn't complain, I guess; I have it pretty good for a Cubicle Drone. I do get paid to be creative and use my artistic skills, which is more freedom than most people have, even if I do have to do it within the confines of a drab tan six-by-eight foot box.

At The Doctor
Some of the residual effects of my crazy whacked-out hormone problems last fall included "skin tags," which are little benign tumors that are raised off the surface of the skin, harmless but annoying. I had one on the back of my neck that gets rubbed and irritated by my necklaces and clothing. Last month at my appointment, my OB-GYN told me to come back and he'd take it off for me. So I went in today to have the one on my neck and another one on my arm removed.

The removal was fairly painless, as the only thing I felt was the pinprick of the lidocaine injection and then a burning sensation as it took effect. However, as I sat there on the exam table, feeling weird tugging sensations as he worked, I suddenly started seeing a large number of black spots. I knew from the fingernail experience in 2005 that I would probably lose consciousness in the next 4 or 5 seconds.

This time I was smart and didn't ignore the feeling, thinking it would go away. I told him I was about to pass out and it was almost comical how fast he and the nurse were at my side, laying me back on the exam table. They got me settled and dug out the gauze and scissors and things from underneath me, and had me roll over on my side to finish up.

It was pretty embarrassing, even though Dr. Burt was very cool about it. I guess fainting is pretty common. He even brought me a Dr. Pepper from his personal stash and told me to wait around until I was sure I could drive home.

I really like him as a doctor, and I'd like to make him my primary physician, but the problem is that his office is in far West Plano, while I live in East Dallas. It's a looooooong drive. Of course, my current primary physician is at the same location, so really I guess the question is, do I try to find a doctor I like that's closer to home?

Which is important, because the idea of having a baby is not so foreign to me anymore. I don't relate well to children, have no clue how to talk to them or anything of that nature, but I'm reconsidering my once-fairly-solid no-children position. I didn't think I had a biological clock, but now I'm beginning to wonder. Don't worry (or get excited), we haven't decided ANYTHING yet. This is a very early stage, and we're simply reconsidering a decision we made a long time ago. It could go either way. We'll just have to wait and see how we feel as time goes on.

By the way, Mike and Bob, this does NOT get you off the hook as far as passing on the family genes. :)

Fuckstripe
Doc and I made up a new word as we were taking a walk the other day: Fuckstripe. I was explaining how, as a designer, sometimes I feel inadequate because I'm not as fascinated by man-made patterns as other "cool" designers seem to be. Like stripes for instance... I don't see the big deal with stripes, but real designers sure seem to love shit like that. So I told Doc "Fuck stripes!" And thus "fuckstripe" was born.

Wonder Bread Freemason Bus!

Weird Dream
I dreamed last night that Doc joined a secret society, sort of like the Freemasons. They had come to our house in a huge bus shaped like a loaf of Wonder bread. He let them in and they made their pitch, and he decided to join because members got to wear neckties that had a little lever at the top that when you pressed it, made a really loud train whistle sound. He told me that he really didn't believe what they were telling him, but he signed the papers because he wanted the train necktie. And who wouldn't?!

Mmmmm Chocolate
In other news, I got accepted to be in a taste test focus group study on chocolate bars! Next week I'll get paid $60 to spend 90 minutes eating chocolate and giving my opinion. Can't beat that with a stick.

Work Bites
I spent 8.5 hours at work on Saturday, finishing up a project that was supposed to launch today. We found out yesterday that it has been delayed for another week because the client, at the very last minute, decided that she didn't like any of the copy we'd written. Just a global "I don't like it," no specifics given. I wasted my entire Saturday for nothing. At least I got a free lunch (or was it really free? I did trade my weekend for it!).

Dot-Matrix Printer Bike
I read a few weeks ago about a guy who custom built a bicycle equipped with a laptop computer and cans of water-soluble spray chalk. It received messages that people submitted to a website and printed them out on the sidewalks as he rode down the street. I think he was arrested before he ever got to use it (something about intent to perform criminal mischief/graffiti, and how coincidental that this was during the time of the Republican National Convention in New York City). It's genius, though.

Sick and Tired and Brains and Hail

I've been fighting a mild cold all week. It's not bad enough to keep me in bed all day, but I feel like I'm operating on about 50% of my usual steampower. I bet you didn't know I run on steam, did you? That's why my ass is so big, to make room for the boiler.

I haven't really been able to stay home from work to recover, because this week has been one of the busiest I can remember, and next week will be about the same. So will this weekend; I have to go in to the office tomorrow.

I'm going to need for you to go ahead and come in on Saturday, mmkay? Oh, oh, and I almost forgot. Ahh, I'm also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday, too.

I went to work late two days this week (sanctioned by my very cool boss, of course) so I could try to get a little extra sleep in the morning, since I've also been having trouble staying asleep all night. I'm physically tired from the cold and the insomnia, and mentally tired from a long week at work.

Do you ever get that feeling where it seems like your brain is simply full? It's a weird physical discomfort as well as a mental one, like you've short circuited. It's hard to think, and impossible to find motivation to care about what you're supposed to be caring about. The brain has shut and locked all its windows and put up a sign on the medulla oblongata stating, "No solicitors. This means you." Anything you try to force into it bounces right off.

At that point, the only things to be done are: a little solitaire or sudoku, or a walk across the street to JD's for a sugar cookie and cherry limeade, or an insane laughfest over the cubes (it helps when it's 4 p.m. on a Friday and everyone's feeling the same as you), or Karen's entertainment news report. Basically, something that doesn't require any actual brain processing power.

This evening, a big storm rolled through. I got home from work, complete with hard-boiled brain, and laid down on the bed trying to figure out if I had the energy to go out to dinner with Leslie for her birthday (unfortunately I didn't... I simply wouldn't be able to be "on" and social in any capacity this evening). A few minutes later, the tornado siren in our neighborhood started blaring. We turned on the TV weather station and decided to prepare the closet under the stairs for shelter. Doc rounded up the fuzzy kids, I got the cat carriers out of the garage, and we filled up a couple of water jugs. We put everything plus my cell phone and the laptop in the stairs closet. The tornadoes dissipated before they reached our area, but we did get quarter sized hail for a while, and then some nice hard rain.

3-month followup

I really haven't felt much like writing lately, and I feel bad about that. Not because I'm suffering any delusions that I'm letting down the two of you that visit my blog on occasion; it's more that I feel ashamed for not making myself suffer, powering through my creative block until something forces its way to the top. Art should hurt, shouldn't it? If it wasn't excruciating to produce, it doesn't really count, right?

Ugh.

Work is kicking my butt, and my always-laid-back boss has said that the theme for April is going to be "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger." I'm sensing much overtime in my immediate future.

Brittney has inspired me to try and find silver linings in lemons (pardon my mixed metaphor, har-d-har), so I will say that being busy is much better than being bored, and that May is looking like it won't be nearly as bad. Plus, my boss has hard-coded a happy hour into our schedule for the end of April, so there is that to look forward to.

Today (squeamish warning: stop reading here) I had another sonogram, so my doctor could inspect my inner girly bits. It turns out that my right ovary is totally cyst-free, and my left one only has two small cysts, which are both well within the range of normal. Also, since I began hormonal birth control in January, my periods have been half as long and half as heavy (thank god!) and right on schedule. I wasn't wild about taking The Pill, but I am feeling soooo much better (physically and mentally) that I guess it was probably the right thing to do.

Random Catch Up

I dreamed the other night that at work we had a new building, similar to the old apartment building we used to work in, but more house-like. I shared an office with Amy, in the 2nd floor bathroom. Her desk was in the tub, and mine was in the sink. Our printer sat on top of the toilet. If anyone wanted to bring us anything, they had to shimmy up the drainpipe on the outside wall, and shove their papers in through the window.

Ben and I are phone-interviewing candidates for our open web designer position, and most of the people that we really like want way too much money -- like, $60-$90,000 annually. It's really disheartening. There are two people we're bringing in this week who fall somewhat within the salary range we're offering, so hopefully one of them will work out. If not, it's back to the drawing board, reposting the position and probably end of summer before we're able to hire someone. I'm the only designer on staff right now, and my workload is completely insane. I may only be the dried out empty husk of a designer by the end of summer, if we have to wait that long to get some help.

Last night Doc and I watched "The Science of Sleep." It was a pretty good movie, and a really spot-on representation of the strangeness of the dream state. Things kept shifting, changing, appearing in different places at different sizes, in different environments.

I had a nice productive weekend. Saturday I was awake at 6:30 and doing yoga by 7. I know, crazy. I couldn't get back to sleep after Neko woke me up. I did some gardening and a bit of housecleaning, and Doc and I saw a movie ("The Last Mimzy," which was good except for the cheeseball ending that the studio probably made them slap on there for a family-friendly feel), looked at bamboo hardwood flooring options, and then invited Brittney and Chris over for dinner. We grilled sausages and chicken, roasted potatoes, I made a roasted tomato soup, and we ate outside on the patio. I spent most of Sunday re-vamping Doc's website. He was just wanting minor updates and an additional section, but I insisted that it would be easier to start from scratch and rebuild the pages.

I don't know if I'm stressed out lately, or if it's hormones, or the onset of warmer weather, but my skin is in terrible shape. It's driving me crazy. I do not want to be 34 and have the skin problems of a teenager.

Got tickets! Etcetera

WOOHOO! I am now the proud owner of two tickets to the Police concert in Dallas in June!! Through an odd set of circumstances, I was able to obtain them through a special ticket pre-sale. I think that I will also try to get some tickets at the regular sale on Saturday, to sell on eBay and make my money back.



You seriously don't want to know how much I paid for these tickets. I have NEVER spent this much money on concert tickets before. I sure hope that it will be worth it.

Recent updates:

I got a promotion and a raise at work, and to go along with that, I also get an employee of my very own: a junior designer. I will be shaping the mind and talents of a young artist. Wish me luck!!

Tuesday night I went out for dinner and drinks with Kathryn and Yvonne. I had a fantastic time. It was lovely patio weather once again, and great company.

Today is Brittney's birthday. Happy birthday, if you're reading this!!!!!

We visited our tax man this evening. We owe the government more money than we paid for our down payment on our house (we planned for it, and have enough). Ah, the joys of self employment. At least it wasn't quite as big a bill as we'd thought that it would be.

I got an e-mail from a researcher at the USDA Wind Erosion Research Unit in Kansas, asking permission to publish the photo I took of the dust storm last Sunday on their web site. Pretty cool, eh?

I just made myself sick trying to take a spinny chair photo for my photo of the day. I had to stop because my tummy was churning dangerously.

I just realized that the word "etcetera" contains "cetera," as in the singer Peter Cetera of Chicago fame. So I wonder, if your name was something like Edward Thomas Cetera, you could go by E.T. Cetera. That would be pretty damn funny.

Happy Hour Tonight

Had a nice spur of the moment-ish happy hour after work today, largely because of the fan-fucking-tastic 75 degree patio weather. Due to the fact that I was drinking incredibly strong $2 margaritas (love you Gloria's!) only two of the photos I took came out even halfway decent.

the week's update

I've been working on my other website a lot this week so I haven't had much time to write.

Last week kinda sucked, between feeling downright awful for several days (bad period) and some crazy shit going on at work involving deadlines and last minute changes and having to say no and things maybe not working right and the possibility of a trivia slideshow to be presented in front of 2500 rich people going down in flames (it didn't, but it was nervewracking getting there) and talking to managers about lessening the craziness of the crazy shit and just generally being extra crabby.

It was a bad week for a lot of people that I talked to.

Also, I barely ran any at all last week; my leg is still not feeling any better. Now it's doing this thing where if I put any weight on it, it feels like it's going to buckle! Good times all around. I'm going to try to get back into it this week, maybe run some on the elliptical machine, which I like better than the treadmill and it feels better on my injury.

I got a slew of new freelance work and billed for quite a bit from September. I feel that the projects are coming at a good pace now. Nothing like the craziness of the book project. That should be printed and might deliver this week (thus the reason I was working on my business website; my URL is printed in the credits).

We did have a good time out on Saturday night with Kirk, Brittney, and Stan. We ate at a steakhouse and then went to the crazy bowling alley-slash-event and entertainment center. We didn't do any actual bowling, but played some video games, then went to Steak and Shake for ice cream.

Thursday night was a lot of fun. It was Doc's birthday, and I took him to Kostas (Greek food) for dinner. We usually only go there once a year on our anniversary, but I decided to buck tradition. He didn't know that Lori, Joel, and Valerie were going to be there too. We had some great food, wine, and baklava, and I was really pleased that I was able to treat everyone. It feels nice to do that for my friends on occasion. We stayed at the table until after they had closed, talking and laughing. Lori gave Doc some fun little toys and candies, and we played "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans Roulette" where we closed our eyes, took a jellybean, and hoped to god it wasn't the Vomit flavoured one. For the record, I got Earthworm, Doc got Sardine, Valerie got Grass, and Lori got Earwax. Doc voluntarily ate a Dirt flavoured one, and Lori was game and ate Soap and Booger. Joel ate Bacon and declared himself done.

Doc found an old Hi-8 tape of my trip to New Mexico in 1996 with Kathryn and Ginger. We have two ancient Hi-8 cameras; one of them only plays audio and the other only plays video. I don't even remember this tape; I'm dying to see what's on it! I caught a glimpe of my old Honda Accord in one shot. I miss that car!! It had some problems towards the end, but I miss having a manual transmission and I miss having a red car. I might send the tape to a place that will convert it to DVD for a hefty fee.

do not bring shampoo, lotion, or snakes on the plane

I've been incredibly busy the past couple of weeks working on a freelance book project (designing cover, laying out insides), so between that and the mini-vacation that I took to Lubbock and Houston last week, I haven't had a whole lot of free time.

The book is DONE! I think. Just waiting on final client approval and then I'll FTP it off to the printer this evening or tomorrow. I don't know what I shall do with myself and all of my free time. The whole process has been kind of a nightmare of way-too-close deadlines. I think that we'll all know better for next time, to allow ourselves about 300% more time at the end of the process, between final copyediting and the printer deadline.

Doc had some crucial work stuff come up, so he unfortunately wasn't able to go on vacation with me. I knew I'd miss him, but I didn't realize quite how much I'd miss him. It was only 5 days, too. We've both been gone before, to conferences and other work-related things, so I wonder if maybe this time it was because we expected up until just a few days before that we'd be going on the vacation together.

Anyway, the vacation. I went to Lubbock to watch Bob, my BABY BROTHER, get his PhD. That was pretty surreal. It sure made me feel old. Mom reminded me that when we were young kids, a friend of hers tested our I.Q.s for some schoolwork she was doing. Apparently Mike and I are unusually smart, but Bob is off the charts. He moved to Boston for his new job with a government contractor and he has to get security clearance... which I guess means he can't tell me what he actually does. Heh. Not that I think I'd quite understand it anyway.... his degree was in math and his job has something to do with that.


Lubbock burned hot (though not as hot as Dallas has been) and dry, except for the Sunday morning thunderstorm that I went jogging in. I know that Montana is known as "Big Sky Country" but I think West Texas deserves that descriptor too. The skies are just... big. Huge. This poem is called "Mesa" and I wrote it in 1994 or 1995.

sometimes we long for
the night after the day

day
of endless blue sky
where the shimmering heat of the west texas sun
bounces in ripples from the road
and bakes color into golden skin
a full tank and nothing to do

yes the day is good but still
we wait for the night
after the day when black lines on the gray asphalt
ooze shiny, sticky on a beautiful barren land
a thin ribbon stretching miles through sage and sand
reaching for the place the sun will rest

and mesas in the distance
sit flat, too flat

blue sky days go on forever
as we wait for the night
we wait as sleepy engine drones on
-but silent enough out here-
away from civilization and towards civilization
hot wind and the top off your car
my hair gets lighter; your lips get redder

even as the sun drops
and evening sneaks into the air, the sky
like the colors of me
even as the sun sets and azure turns to chrome turns to dust
turns to rust
even as the stars emerge
like ice crystals on black velvet
and the engine stops

we lay on the mesa
we make love with the stars with each other
lying on the mesa
on someone's table waiting, waiting to be eaten up
on a world whose sky spins too fast overhead

we lay on the mesa
we see the divine at work
making stars, blowing winds, growing trees
sending the thunder to you and me

on the mesa
the night storm lightning piles up in the western sky

we lie
heat insidiously soaks up from the ground
and wind lifts the hairs on our arms

the mesa is not the end of the line you say
your finger traces my lips
is it enough to get us there?

yes this is the night after the day yes
there will be yes another day
yes another day for us to lie
and wait for night
on the mesa

So yeah. I talk about hating Texas and wanting to move to somewhere that has cool rain, tall trees, hills, and doesn't regularly reach 90 or 100 degrees during the summers. But I think that part of me will always be drawn to the desert... landscapes like West Texas and New Mexico, with flats and mesas and big blue skies and violent storms.

I arrived in Lubbock on Friday night, Bob got his degree Saturday morning, and my plane didn't leave until Sunday afternoon. We ate at One Guy from Italy (Best. Calzone. Ever.), and tried to go to the County Line BBQ which had been recommended to me by a friend – but we found it closed and renamed to something nutty like "Peacock Cove." It sat way out in the middle of nowhere by the airport, and there were a bunch of peacocks roaming around the property. Right across the road was a ropes course/survival camp or something strange like that. The whole setup was just kind of bizarre.

I recognized a lot of the city from previous times I'd been in Lubbock. Actually the whole trip brought back some interesting memories, stuff I haven't thought about in eight or ten years, so that was kind of weird.

so my quest has led me here,
here to a landspace of dry endless sands
and it is my oasis
i thirst for truth and for knowledge
and here i can drink from your mind
cool breeze in bright blue skies here
and the fury of the storm

Sunday I flew to Houston via Dallas to visit mom and dad for a couple of days. That was nice and relaxing. We did some shopping, some cooking, and lots of eating. I performed minor surgery on mom's 4-year-old iMac (as she said, it was so fucked up that I had to "use the unfucking software to fix it.") They're moving to Sequim next summer, and so she had me take photos of some of the furniture that they aren't going to take with them, in case we want any of it.

The whole liquid-explosives-terrorist-plot-foiling thingy happened the day before I flew to Lubbock, so I had to check my bag instead of carry it on (no big deal), and put all my toiletries in my suitcase (if you put everything in plastic ziploc bags to prevent leaking, it's not a big deal either). The only thing that I missed was my chapstick and a carryon bottle of water — air travel makes me thirsty and dry. The rules were relaxed between my first flight and my last flight, though, so I was allowed to have chapstick on the way back. But still no water, lotion, shampoo, or snakes allowed on the plane. Three of my four flights were only halfway full, and I cannot remember the last time I was on a Southwest flight that was not completely full. Almost nobody brought luggage for the overhead bins either — they remained mostly empty. I'm guessing that a lot of folks just canceled their air travel that week. I don't know how else to explain the empty planes.

Update: Working from home, day 5

Working from home is working out pretty well, all told.

It's funny though; I've actually been up to campus almost every day anyway, for meetings, or packing up the stuff from our offices, or gathering files and equipment.

I went in last Friday and collected my office chair and an orange crate that contains most of my job files, because as it turns out, we're probably not going to get our new carpet until April 7. Or possibly later than that. And after the carpet is laid, they have to put our furniture back (it will be really amusing to take stock of where everything ends up, I think). So I'm planning on being at home for another 2-1/2 to 3 weeks. Which is why I went and got my chair (much more comfortable) and my files (guess I'll need them here after all).

My torn/not torn/whatever rotator cuff injury has been pretty inconsistent lately. Today it's felt fine, I barely notice the pain. Friday, however, I was in such constant pain that it made me Severely Grumpy all afternoon and I finally had to "quit" "work" at 4:00 and go lie down on the heating pad.

I've made several empirical observations over the past week or so:

• Doc is really quiet when he works
• Loki sleeps in the bedroom all day
• Neko snuffles me a lot
• I can concentrate a lot better here at home than I can at work
• I miss the comraderie of socializing with my officemates (most of them, anyway!)
  
• Being without my office phone hasn't bothered me one bit
• Even though there's a TV on the table next to my desk, I haven't turned it on at all
• The line between when "work" stops and "off work" begins is kind of fuzzy when "work" and "off work" take place at the same location. I've found myself working until well after 6 without even realizing it.

I've also been able to witness several insanely cute cat interactions, best represented by the following photo:

Having a great time! Wish you were here!

What I did today at work

Today I worked on a couple of projects from home, and then went into the office late morning. And by "the office" I don't mean Exile Island, the frigid attic (as Yvonne put it) on the 3rd floor of McFarlin Auditorium full of boxes of ancient files, t-shirts, envelopes, and old footballs, and which now features card tables with computers for about half of our staff. Today our main task was to pack up our belongings from our flooded office into orange plastic moving crates, in preparation for the Grand Recarpeting Of Spring 2006 (Until The Next Flood).

The interesting thing about the Grand Recarpeting is that we were told to leave our computers and monitors on our desks, and just to empty out about half of our file cabinets. Apparently, they won't be needing to move our furniture to recarpet.

Are they planning on a) magical levitation, or b) x-acto-ing the carpet around the edges of the desks, file cabinets, and cubicle walls and just laying in carpet squares to fill in the empty spaces? I'm not quite sure how they will manage to effectively lay in new berber without moving the furniture.

But then again, I'm not a Recarpeting Expert. One can only hope that they're not hiring BKM ("the Keystone Kops of office furniture," as Brittney puts it) to do the job. (When reconfiguring divider walls in our old building, one of the BKM guys WALLED HIMSELF IN because he had the plans upside down and put the door opening against a wall.)

But as long as it's somebody else and not me who's lifting and moving my 100 pound monitor (when they don't move our furniture), I don't care. It will be interesting to see if everything gets put back where it belongs (after they don't move our furniture).

The greatest thing about working from home...

... has got to be this.



Cats in laps rule!!

Or is the greatest thing about working from home the fact that I brought home my Mac G5 from work, hooked up its ethernet cable, changed its network setting from manual IP to DHCP, and it just worked without me having to do ANYTHING ELSE TO GET IT CONNECTED? (Yet another reason Macs rule!!) Or is it homemade tea and coffee, and being able to cook my own lunch in a real kitchen? Or is it waking up at 8:15? Or is it working in my pajamas and not having to take a shower?

Oh, who am I kidding. I hate not taking a shower. I feel yucky all day unless I shower as soon as I get up. (Showers rule!!)

Guess who gets to work from home?

That's right! Me!!!! Pajamas + cats + homemade coffee. Oh, and sleeping an extra 45 minutes :)

It's times like this when I'm glad that I picked the field of interactive design over print design. Not that I don't love print design, 'cause I surely do. But not everyone in my office gets to work from home while we're flooded out. I'm just saying.

I got to the office this morning in my rubber boots and discovered that while the carpeting was very squishy with smelly dirty floodwater, they had already managed to remove all the standing water. The rubber baseboards had been ripped away and Karen and Hillsman had hoisted up everyone's computers and anything else that was on the floor. Karen said the water was rising so fast she could barely keep up on Sunday.

This morning the maintenence people had put giant blower fans all over the place... trying to dry out the carpeting? God, I hope not. My esteemed place of employment certainly likes to cut corners and the blower fans were their solution the previous two times the office flooded (did I mention this is the third time in 18 months?) Previously only the two offices closest to the back door flooded. This time the entire basement got it, so we've been assured that they are considering replacing the carpet.

All I can say is: Mold. Eeew. And, health hazard, anyone? The place was already starting to smell weird and dirty and chemically.

I guess this is what happens when we get 10 inches of rain in 40 hours.

We had a staff meeting this morning where we discussed options for relocation (after we considered and discarded the idea of continuing to work in our flooded offices while they reconstruct them). Several of us went to scout a couple of locations on campus that had been offered to us, including the White House building (the little apartment building that we worked out of from 1994-2004).

In the end, it was decided that the web team would work from home, the administrative assistant would work from the desk of another administrative assistant who was on vacation, and the rest of the team would move up to the 3rd floor of McFarlin Auditorium, in a room used to store junk. I'm not sure exactly where they planned to put everybody amidst the boxes of t-shirts, footballs, old lamps, boxes of envelopes, discarded filing cabinets, etc. But whatever, I got to go home!

Anyway, they sent me packing, so here I am with my little home office setup for at least the next week. Great timing, since today I took my home computer in for its logic board replacement, and I was afraid I'd be computerless for a week.

For Sale: Lakefront Office Property!

I am sitting here at my computer in my studio, listening to music loudly, and watching the lightning storm outside my window through the rain. I have rearranged my furniture into a much more pleasing configuration (better feng shui, maybe), there is a painting on the wall behind me whose progress I'm very happy with, a sleek black cat is curled up sleeping on the sofa next to me, and I am drinking a cold diet soda.

It doesn't get much better than this. :)

What's going to suck, though, is tomorrow morning when I go into work wearing rubber boots and jeans. Why would I do this, you ask? I got a call this afternoon telling me that our office, which is located in the basement of an older building, contains approximately 2" of water on the floor. My computer is on the floor, as are a lot of my job jackets and god only knows what else that I have sitting on that floor, all of which is now most likely completely ruined. I think the computers, at least, are OK, as our very own Karen Field and Hillsman Jackson valiantly worked to move everything they could onto the desks before the water got too bad this afternoon. Thank god Karen went in to work to type up a paper and discovered the mess. I have no idea what to expect tomorrow. I don't know where they're going to put all of us while they rip up and replace the carpeting. The building's jam-packed with people as it is.