Today's excitement...filing! It's a sign of how bored I am that sorting and filing a small armload of folders gave me such a lift. I made as much work out of the project as possible, too. I spread them out, sorted them into categories, and figured out a filing system that required me to reorganize two file cabinets. Two and a half hours taken care of.

I need to take our rent check up to the property manager office and mail a letter, but I'm trying to space out the thrills. Wouldn't want to peak too early in the day.

Now I'm eating today's second yogurt and munching on soy crisps, pretending I'm eating lunch. (I had intended to go out for lunch, but it's raining and I didn't bring an umbrella.) Soy crisps and yogurt are better for my diet anyhow.

Buehler's out of the office today, so at least I don't even have to be pretending to work. When he called to suggest the filing project this morning, he said when I was done I should just pull out my knitting and relax. I take that as tacit permission to do whatever I feel like doing. (It's a sign of how bored he knows I am that he let me tidy up any of his files. The last two times I suggested doing it, he offered to fire me.)

He's out of the office tomorrow, too. However, owing to the fact that I just volunteered to cut my hours back 1 day a week (until this financial crunch is over), I'm taking the day off myself. Next week I have Tuesday off. Except for the 8:30 meeting I already had scheduled. Which means I'm "off" but I can't really sleep in. Which is probably a good thing, because I'll get more done.

I rather wish I had a book (or a story file) with me, but I don't. This is one of those moments when it would be key to have a jump or flash or pin drive, so you could carry story files around with you, isn't it? Oh! I have one! What a pity I was too lame to remember to learn to use it.

I do have pencil and paper. And I just happen to have brought the Book Of Amazing Rectangles with me. Heh. Heh. Heh. It's not that I was already prepared to goof off all day, you understand. It's just that.... Okay, I was already prepared to goof off all day.

Today's lesson: Foreshortening. It's all about perspective and scale. I mean, some of the lessons are a bit odd. Like, there's this really complicated way to draw an oval. Seems to me it would be easier just to draw an oval, but I can see that if you're doing a still-life or something, where an oval shape is front-and-center of your drawing, you'd want it to be accurate. I like the idea of breaking everything down into squares, rectangles, circles, and ovals, though. With those four shapes, and a handle of perspective and scale, I'll be ready to...well, nothing. I have no intention of doing anything with this skill, any more than I did the last three times I practiced it. I'm just amusing myself.

On the other hand, there are worse ways to spend a cool, rainy Thursday in the office. I spent a little time today banning IPs from my blogs again. Some company in NY has slammed me for 1300+ hits already this month. Pisses me off. And if I could find a way to ban entire countries, Colombia would be #1 on my list, with Germany and Romania coming up fast. I use a combination of four methods to kill spam and I've got it locked down pretty well. The only thing I can't prevent is a lot of garbage in my "latest visitors" log, but I seem to be doing better. All I can do is block the pings...I can't keep them from trying.

Actually, what with the Actual Work I did earlier, and then the eating of lunch and now the writing of the blog, I've managed to fill most of my day. It's almost 2:00. I'm fairly excited about this. Only three hours until I get a long weekend!

(I got permission, in the comments section, to yatter on about Fraser and RayK as much as I want. Which didn't surprise me. But, FYI, I've decided not to at this point. I'm moving along on this story reasonably well. I don't want to either jinx it or talk it to death, you know?)