So far, it's emotionally barren. This story I'm working on, I mean. The story is adequate but the slash is nonexistent and I was counting on it to fill in the crater-like gaps in my plot.
If I had to describe this one in two words, those words would be "pedantic" and "dull."
This is what drove me away from writing in the first place. I lost track of the characters' emotional lives. My last three failed efforts (many years ago) were less stories than bland recitations of events.
On the other hand, I have decided (in Mallory's honor) to choose the title from a cheesy 70s era song. That will annoy her, which is the sort of thing I live for.
Word's grammar-check program is insane. It's demanding that I replace "we are" with "we is" in one sentence. How much trouble would it have been to hire someone with a basic knowledge of the English language for that part of the program?
Also? After I get locked up for slaying Bossyboots, can I count on y'all to send me letters in the slammer? Because I'm totally going to kill him if he brings me one more office supply to order or asks me to call someone and schedule an appointment for him or fix the erratic phone system or any of those other things he keeps bothering me with. That kind of sexism really pisses me off.
If he'd started working here and my job had been filled by a man, he wouldn't assume that one of his tasks was to put stamps on envelopes, would he?
Jackass.
Posted by AnneZook at 01:11 PMOkay, so Keyless Joe shows up this morning and he's out there banging on the door and I'm refusing to get up and let him in so someone else went to open the door for him but, as I pointed out, the door wasn't locked. Do I look like Carleton, the Doorman? I do not. He could at least try the door handle before he starts banging. Dork.
Since Extension 17 was told he has to come to work every day and clock in and out with me, he's actually been showing up for work every day. Imagine that. I'm making him tell me when he leaves for lunch, too. I hate it - I'm not someone's mother, either, but if you have an employee who won't show up for work if they're not being watched, then you gotta watch them, right?
And did I mention that the all-important contract got signed and Buehler sort of tangentially offered to keep (over-) paying me for a while longer? Because if I didn't, I should have. Also, Buehler was out for most of last week, which was very peaceful. He may and/or may not be in today. Bernie's in today, which isn't good news. He's a bit psychotic.
My story starts with rain.
Behind our building, they've razed a parking lot and maybe a building and they're out there grading and smoothing today. I wonder what they're going to build? The Hershey Kissmobile left on Friday. I never did get over there to leave a note on the windshield, asking it the back two kisses were full of chocolate or not. I sniffed the side of the vehicle and it smelled like chocolate. (Okay, I mostly did it to embarrass the co-worker who was there with me.)
I'm sorry...it's just that I'm accustomed to blogging several times during the day. Even though I don't have anything to actually say, I can't break the habit that quickly.
Posted by AnneZook at 09:24 AMAfter whining about how I couldn't write yesterday, I sat down with the six page, plot-points outline I'd sketched on Saturday and wrote fifteen pages. It isn't good by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm pretending it's a writing exercise and hoping the whole process gets easier (and the quality of the output improves).
I'm a little aggravated that I have another eight pages I meant to bring with me today and key in but then I remember that I've turned over a new leaf and I'm not writing/blogging on company time any more. (This doesn't count. It's before 8:00.)
In the end, I did have to sit down and re-watch episodes of course. Having experience with the show, I was careful to skip the really tedious ones.
No doubt it's a failure of intellect or artistic appreciation on my part but I find myself unable to get enthusiastic about look at me! camera work with endless scenes panning across clumsy portrayals of drugged-out lunatics or look how amazingly clever I am fast cuts and swooshing that have little final effect but to make the viewer dizzy. I can appreciate creative camera work in support of a story, but the camera work, in and of itself, really isn't the point and it should take over the screen.
(It's like contemporary "fashion." "Fashion" used to be about what people wore. Nowadays it's an end in itself. Stick-figures, with as little resemblance to actual human bodies as possible are used as props to drape cloth on. Why don't they just get rid of the models and use dummies?)
This morning, I ordered the two OaT episodes that were released on DVD. In the future, I'll at least have those two episodes and the movie in decent visual quality for watching. It may improve my opinion of the show itself to see episodes that aren't third or fourth generation, who knows?
There are a few other episodes I really like but I'm assuming the odds of any of the rest of the show being released on DVD are somewhere between "slim" and "you have to be kidding."
On the other hand, as Lynn reminded me yesterday, a bad show leaves a lot more room for fanfiction. With a really good show, where the characterization is on target and the stories are intelligent and well-written, there's less for a fanfic author to "fix." I guess I should be grateful that the show my brain wants to write about was so very bad indeed, but I don't feel that way when I'm watching it.
It's really, really hard to come in to work in the morning and not dive straight into the 30 or so news sites I've been in the habit of reading over the past couple of years. I feel a little twitchy...the way you do when you're going through withdrawal.
I guess I could actually go to work. I mean, so what if I showed up early? I could just buckle down and get some work done.
Or, I could sit here and be bitter than I forgot those eight pages.
Posted by AnneZook at 08:11 AMSo, no more politics. That should free up 2-3 hours of work time every weekday, if not more.
I've cleared the bookcase next to my chair in the living room of all of the politically themed books, including those I was in the middle of, meant to write a review for, and am now deciding to ignore for a while (if not permanently). I dug out the most interesting books on writing I have and stuffed some of them in the hole, but there's still a huge gap. Very sad.
Last night, I took the two pages of dialogue I abandoned in 2002, gathered up my mental thoughts about a story that have been germinating, and outlined the novel. The outline is about six pages long, indicating I have some work in front of me.
If it gets written. I've run into a rather interesting little problem. I don't know how to write.
I mean, sure, I've done some writing, but it's never been a conscious effort for me. Whether I'm blathering on about politics or helping Walter get Mulder out of his pants, it's always been a stream-of-consciousness thing. I mean, my conscious brain has never been involved. I just put my fingers on the keys and words happen.
Writing has always been in response to a pressure inside me...whatever I'm writing about is in there and screaming to get out. Even the other two novel-length works I've written weren't the result of planning. I had an idea (usually an opening scene) for a story, and I just wrote whatever poured out of me at the moment. Once the internal pressure eased off, I put The End on that story and moved on.
(This naturally doesn’t necessarily produce good stories. I'm inexplicably comforted by the memory of that day, two or three years ago, when I went to my page and yanked off what I considered the 15 or 20 worst stories on it.)
Sometimes, in a sop to the conventions, I used to force friends to read excerpts from works in progress and demand that they tell me if the material was just too stupid to publicize, (I used to have a beta reader of the most conscientious and hard-working kind, but I had to give up using her. For one thing, at that time I was writing too much to be comfortable asking any one person to dedicate a sufficient amount of their time to beta-reading my stuff. For another, she was a better writer than I am. She thought about things too much. For me, thinking and writing don’t have much to do with each other. She was always asking what this or that meant, as though I had any idea.)
For some reason, I'm suddenly reminded that I once produced a lengthy series of rants laying down the law about how to write or, more often, how not to write. I think it's time I confessed, in case any of you read those, that those were produced the same way. I had an idea, sat down and wrote it at white-hot speed, spell-checked it (usually), and posted it. I shudder to think of what I probably said, of the rules and regulations I had no intention of bothering about myself. If I were honest, I'd pull those down and post an apology to the world at large. (Went. Looked. Regretted. Also fixed some formatting problems.)
Anyhow, back to the whole writing things, I'm not feeling pressure at the moment. I'm still very interested in my original idea and I don't doubt that a bit of episode-watching (ghastly idea - OaT was not a good show) will help me clarify the characters, but I'm not feeling the pressure from inside. Without that, I don't have any idea how to write.
I sit there, with pen and paper, and stare at the page. I have characters. I have a setting. I have a story. I even have, I think, good ideas for the plot. I have some bits of business. I have a couple of scenes, a couple of conversations. I have a climax to the story.
I knew I was in trouble when I started writing an outline. I've never outlined a story before. (Well, I mean, I did once, but the story sucked. I think I was outlining in a desperate attempt to convince myself otherwise.)
I have no idea how to write if it doesn't just happen. I've occasionally used a keyboard, but mostly I use paper. I get a pen that has ink. I put the inky bit of the pen on the paper. And writing happens.
It's never failed me before. I don't understand.
Now that I've seen some formatting things I'd like to fix on my page, maybe I'll waste the day doing that and forget about the writing.
(Note: As I started to post this, it occurred to me that actual case-file stories were never my strong suit. I only ever wrote one and it was pretty feeble. Maybe I'm just being too ambitious? That's a pity, because I'm just entirely over the PWP thing. I'm not getting any and I'm not going to sit around writing stories where everyone else is.)
When you're putting together an idea, what's usually lacking are those little, incidental scenes. The stuff that happens alongside the main story. Ideally, of course, those should be constructed to reinforce and underscore the main themes of the story but if you're a careless writer, like myself, you sometimes just stick in bits and pieces because you thought of them.
Like today, for instance, I thought of a good idea about being stuck in an elevator. This will necessitate much on-line research on the construction of older elevators. If inspiration strikes, or if older elevators are properly constructed, eggs will be broken but that business of supporting a main story theme might even work out.
I mention this because it's a gray, cool, rainy day. We had snow in the mountains last night and some passes are closed for accumulations of two feet or more. My 1-1/2 hour meeting scheduled for this morning just cancelled. My boss is out of town. I'm drinking (diet) hot chocolate in a quiet, peaceful office that has pens, paper, and internet access. I just put my politica blog on hiatus.
I have means, motive, and opportunity. Now I'm looking for my AWOL work ethic, the only thing that might stand between me and six solid hours of on-line research.
If you see my work ethic (it's a sort of shriveled remnant of the giant it used to be), please send it home. Fast.
Posted by AnneZook at 11:25 AMYou like the new look? I think it's pretty.
I haven't changed my template in a long, long time and I was dismayed to see that Blogger now offers only about a dozen choices. I must go read the FAQ and see if they've moved the other 20 or 30 they used to offer somewhere else or if there's some reason why they no longer offer a lot of different templates. I know a lot of people were offering templates on other sites, maybe Blogger just assumes everyone is going somewhere else these days?
I came in today to find our office internet access out, which is frustrating since I've been trying to get online to post an apology for a rude remark I made.
(I'm going off the whole political blog thing, anyhow. I've been at it for two years and it's been very entertaining but I do find it a strain to be constantly trying to give the impression that I'm well-informed and intelligent.
I liked having a political blog at first - no one was reading it and if I wanted to rant and rave and call people names, I could. I mean, that's why I started it, you know? So I could be rude and say things that were stupid without caring if I was right or wrong. I'm not quite sure when I lost track of that goal, but the strain of being open-minded and tolerant is starting to wear me out. (As witnessed by the fact that when we get our internet service back today, I have to go apologize for ranting and name-calling.) I mean, I'm not tolerant by nature, okay? I figure people can either agree with me or go away.)
(For the record, I find that really, really annoying. There must be half a million political blogs out there, most of which are being maintained by people posting stupid or ill-informed opinions twenty times a week, and no one cares. No one bothers to read what they say. I didn't invite anyone to read my political blog and I rather resent the influx of strangers and the moral pressure that came with them.)
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Internet access, or the lack thereof.
There are times it's no advantage to be the person who shows up in the office an hour or two before everyone else rolls in, you know? I mean, since I usually spend that "before official hours" time dinking around on personal stuff, it's not like I can even leave early.
Ah well. I guess I could have gone all conscientious and started work early, but I do a lot of my job via e-mail and the internet (our call-tracking program is internet-based) and without both of those, I'm sort of twiddling my thumbs sometimes. (Yeah, I have phone calls I could make, but I'm not really at my best and brightest at 7:30 in the morning. I'm usually better off sticking to e-mails for the first hour or so.)
The Tweenybopper showed up. She noticed the absence of internet access right away. She logs on to IM every morning and has chat windows open all day. She seems to find it hard to settle down today. (I know the feeling.) I give her credit, though. She is working, which puts her one up on me.
(... pause ... Okay, I went and made a phone call.)
I'm putting weight back on, I'm sure. I meant to weigh myself this morning, but I forgot. Anyhow, I'm trying a new breakfast thing. It's called Nouriche Light and it's a sort of drinkable yogurt thing. It's strawberry flavored. It's not bad. I'd try it again. Not maybe every day, it's a little too sweet, but I'd drink it once a week or so. I have to stop eating my previous breakfast food. It was a sort of oatygranolabar thing and I really liked it but when I checked the label, I realized it has four kinds of sugar in it. That's not good.
Ah...the Three Stooges are here. If they can't fix the internet, no one can.
(They couldn't. The phone company is having an outage for some reason. I have internet based meetings scheduled for tomorrow morning so I told everyone if the access doesn't get fixed, I'll be working from home tomorrow.
Except that it just occurred to me that when I was trying to send someone an e-mail last night, my net access seemed to go out. I was tired, so I didn't really think about it, I just closed down the computer and went to bed, but now I'm wondering if my service it out at home, too.)
I'm not really fascinating these days, am I? I'm obsessing about my weight, my access to the electronic world, working, but without massive enthusiasm, and doing much less in the evenings than I really should be. I mean, last night I went out to dinner (salad bar) and went to the grocery store. Came home, read, played computer games, went to bed.
I may find it necessary to invent a fictional life full of drama and excitement to spice up my blog entries.
A man...no, two men. Maybe employed by some shadowy, government agency, you know?
The kind of men likely to be sent undercover in some weird or unlikely locale to ferret out naughtiness the regular police force is unaware of. That leaves plenty of room for me to spin fantasies for almost any otherwise improbable scenario.
I need to start with one situation...one case...just to try the idea out, you understand.
I mean, say they dislike each other (except when no one is looking), then being forced to rely on each other exclusively for an extended length of time might produce some interesting emotional complications, don't you think? Especially when it's a case of lies, misdirection, danger, and information gathering. Something very hush-hush that keeps them out of touch with their agency for a while. They need to be forced to deal with each other without allies.
A run-down neighborhood and some kind of gang that the local police inexplicably don't seem to be able to catch and a curious conflict of instructions from their boss. Toss in an armload of innocent and oppressed bystanders (maybe some elderly shopkeepers or some vulnerable homeless people) for the gang to pick on. There's some potential there. For one thing, you could use the assignment to force the guys to play along, or at least seem to play along with the gang for several consecutive weeks. That would create a lot of emotional conflict for a couple of law-enforcement types.
Mmmm, maybe one of them should be something of a drama queen. The other one could be the kind that adopts stray kittens but is protective of what he thinks of as his "tough guy" image.
The drama queen needs to be the type to pick up sudden fads and get obsessive about them. He probably does it in part to drive tough guy bonkers and tough guy probably knows this, but he usually can't resist reacting anyhow. A sort of add-on complication, just to ratchet up the tension the guys are feeling, you understand
Tough guy is probably constantly on the simmer...always about to grab the drama queen and punch him in the head, because they really don't like each other except that they do when no one is looking or they're not thinking about it, or maybe he winds up kissing him but that might be getting a little ahead of my plot, there.
It could work.
Posted by AnneZook at 11:49 AMI feel whiny. I've been sick, you know. (Well, I was sick three weeks ago, anyhow. But I still have a little cough.)
Oh. I forgot. I already begged for sympathy on that one, didn't I? Sorry. Didn't mean to be repetitive.
Well, I had The Talk with Alvin. While he'd certainly like to have me back working for him again some day, he's not going to be able to afford to take me back January 1, which was what the original plan was. So, he and the Other Brother Darryl moved out of the office suite yesterday and into a basement office in Alvin's house. I'm about to be Out Of Sight Out Of Mind.
He told me that Friday, so yesterday I asked Buehler what his future plans were.
While admitting that if the (all-important) contract gets signed, he's going to be looking at hiring more people, he stopped short of offering me long-term employment.
It may be that he doesn't want to make a commitment until the contract gets signed. It may be that he doesn't want to interfere with whatever Sekrit Plan he and Alvin originally concocted between them when I was traded to the new team.
It may be that he's decided I'm a little pricey for the amount of time I spend actually working and not, you know, sending personal e-mail or blogging. (Admittedly, when I think about it objectively, I'm not sure I'd keep on an employee who'd written 700 or so blog entries* on company time over the last nine months.)
(* Presumably he doesn't actually know I'm blogging for an hour or two every morning, but who can ever be positive about these things? I mean, I'm sitting here typing madly at the moment and he's at his desk ten feet away. What does he actually think I'm doing at the moment, I wonder?)
I used to have a work ethic. I'm sure it's still around here somewhere. I should dig it out and dust it off some day soon.
Cough, cough.
I'm getting old. It will be my birthday in a couple of months, and I'll be Much Older. I'm not sure exactly how old (I'm not good with numbers), but I know I'm getting perilously close to the Big 5-0. (If you love me, please don't figure it out and tell me exactly how old I am. I'm really okay with not knowing.)
I looked out my office window and realize that for some inexplicable reason, there are three oversized (6') representations of Hershey Kisses on a trailer in the parking lot of the building next to ours. They're labeled, "Dark" and "Caramel" and "Kisses" and painted to match the foil colors for each candy. I don't know what it was all about, but it was fun to see.Hmmm, what else? I've been watching my S2 Starskey & Hutch DVDs over the last couple of days. They really are just Amazingly Doin' It in a closeted, 70s kind of way, aren't they? It would be hard to write, though. I'm not big on angst and I can't imagine enjoying having to write a story where I'd feel almost obligated to have the guys paranoid and guilty.
I prefer my men post-liberation on the homosexual front. Maybe not wearing tee-shirts or marching in parades, but not afraid of destroying their careers and their lives, you know?
I'm not interested in gritty reality.
The easiest couple I wrote was, of course, Mulder and Skinner. That rather unfortunately resulted in somewhat pointless stories, of course. No need to go through a lot of gyrations to get them together. Just get them alone and it happens. I wouldn't go back to them, though. I think I wrote enough meringue for the two of them to last anyone a lifetime.
The most challenging was Mac and Vic, but that was mostly because the show itself was so poorly written. Characterization was a nightmare. I would up having to make a chart to lock in the characterization before I started writing. On the other hand, as I've said many times, that universe was by far the most promising in terms of potential stories.
I'm aware, in an objective sort of way, that I wrote a couple of Sen stories and a couple of DS stories, but I remember nothing about them. (No...wait...I gave Ray a uniform fetish, didn't I?)
All I remember about writing HL is Methos.
There's no particular reason I'm talking about that today. I just sort of am.
Posted by AnneZook at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)Cough-cough-cough
I forgot to bring the cough medicine with me today.
When Alvin I went to coffee this morning, he asked if I'd heard that he and his Little Company are moving out of the suite next Tuesday. I did NOT hear this. I guess it's my own fault for being sick last week and not feeling like coffee on the mornings when I didn't have early-morning conference calls that prevented me from going.
He's setting up an office in his basement, a sort of "home office" but for him and the Other Brother Darryl both. Alvin says he wants "control of the cash" which means he doesn't want to keep paying for their share of the (very expensive) suite here, which makes sense.
Also, this place is always running some kind of psychodrama and he's tired of being dragged into it all.
I found out yesterday evening that Extension 17 has a severe alcoholism problem. That explains his inability to show up for work. It also explains why they put up with so much from him; they're trying to "help" him. I think that's great, but I also think that "helping" someone has to stop when it means trashing out the lives of half a dozen other people.
Since Extension 17 finds himself unable to show up for work more than one or two days a week, the product we need to ship to customers in order to get paid in order to keep paying everyone's salaries is not being produced. I think you have to ask yourself how far down that path you're willing to go, you know? If you're not shipping product, you're not getting paid, which means that covering payroll every two weeks is a matter of sweat, stress, and strain. I think a very little of that would go a long way with me.
(But then, I'm not really a "people person" anyhow. I'd just tell Extension 17 he was off salary, back on hourly, and that the next time he failed to show up and work for eight, solid hours, he was fired.)
So, Extension 17 tells me a couple of minutes ago that he's going to "do the work that's waiting for him and then I'll be gone" as though he thinks I'm going to care or something. And I'm thinking...well, since you showed up at 10:20 today and then spent from 10:30 until 11:00 making personal phone calls, leaving you, so far today, 7 minutes for actual work (three of which you spent in the bathroom), the "work that's waiting" is probably going to take you two or three years to complete, isn't it?
I didn't say that, of course. It's not my place.
Anyhow, back to the Little Company move. I didn't ask, "what about me?" but I was thinking it. At the end of December, in theory, I was supposed to be going back to work for the Little Company again. They're making better money now but not enough to support three full-time and one part-time (bookkeeper) employees and the webservers and other things they need to keep the business running.
I don't know if Buehler will want me after December or not, either. I think Bossyboots was supposed to be training to do the account stuff I'm doing.
What about me?
I know Alvin expected me to keep doing more work for him when I was in the new job, but every time I did something for his Little Company it made Buehler a little cranky. Since Buehler was the one actually paying me, I had to make the choice. Now I wonder if I burned bridges?
(The arrangement was that if I did anything for the Little Company, Buehler was to bill Alvin for my time but I had LOTS to do for Buehler and the only thing I could really do for the Little Company was play receptionist. If you're already on the phone for hours every day, you really don't have time to play receptionist.)
I am going to ask Alvin when we go to coffee tomorrow. Just flat out.
I haven't been asking him about my future because I know he's been working really hard to get their money flow up and I figured he didn't need the additional stress. I've been being very patient and just working hard at the new job (well, mostly), but now I think it's appropriate to ask.
Also, there's still a problem between a couple of friends and I from last year when I was still working for the Little Company and they were doing contract work for it. One of them I can let go of, but the other I'd rather not lose. I did manage to get together with her a few months ago, we had dinner and talked and I thought all was well, but I never heard from her again. I don't know why, but I was thinking of her today and being sad that maybe that fence can't be mended.
Being sick turns me into a real barrel o'fun, doesn't it?
Posted by AnneZook at 03:04 PMThere are only 13 people on my "to be contacted" list this today. I wouldn't have thought I'd contacted so many on Thursday and Friday. I do hope I'm not running out of work to avoid do.
(Well, there is Project #2, which I've been studiously ignoring for three months.)
You know what I hate? I hate it that my desk faces an aisle where people walk past frequently and I hate how I can see, out of the corner of my eye, that every, single person who walks by tries to catch my eye and chat. The fact that they're up wandering around the building doesn't mean the world is on break.
I also hate people who assume that if you're typing, you're not working.
I mean, okay, I'm not working at the moment but I do approximately 40% of my work in e-mail and I do, in fact, have to think about what I'm saying in e-mail, so I'm not "not busy" just because I'm typing.
People are so selfish and self-centered these days. I'm waiting for the moment, and I'm sure it's not far off, when someone comes up and waves their hand in front of my face when I'm on the phone because they feel that whatever they have to say is more important than anything I could be doing with a client.
Whatinthehell happened to writing someone a note if you needed to tell them something and they were busy?
You could put it on a post-it note, send an e-mail, or just stop and ask yourself if I'm on the phone on what is obviously going to be a long, long call, if you really need to tell me you're going to be away from your desk for six minutes?
I mean, do you have any real expectation that I'm going to be picking up your calls if I'm ALREADY ON THE PHONE?
It's not my fault if you've been working with some guy for three years and he never learned to call your company's main phone number instead of the number shared by all of the companies in the suite. If you want to be positive he can reach your voicemail, give him the phone number that goes to your voicemail. I pick up the shared line when the mood strikes me but everyone calling to talk to me has my direct line, so I don't do it often.
Also, you should ask yourself, "Is Anne the company receptionist and secretary?" and if the answer is no, which it is, then you should stop bothering her with this stuff anyhow because it's sexist to assume that just because she's female she's automatically willing to play receptionist for you.
Also, Extension 17 is really pushing his luck. After not showing up for work for the past two weeks, he showed up for his paycheck on Friday. Big surprise, there wasn't one. Since Buehler was leaving town for four days, he cut Extension 17 a temporary check for most of his money. Today Extension 17 came in and said that if he didn't get the rest of it today, he won't be back to work until he does. Says he won't have gas money.
It's entirely outside my area of authority, but I was talking to Buehler and I volunteered to lend Extension 17 twenty bucks for gas money until Friday. Just now I went back to give it to him and HE'S NOT HERE. He has a habit of leaving the light on in his workroom when he slides out of here, making it hard to know when he actually left the building.
This guy really should be on hourly, but he's on salary and there's just no recourse beyond firing him.
Well, it seems that while I wasn't paying attention (I'm usually not), Extension 17 has only been here one day out of the last two weeks. (That, for those of you who are curious, would be today. Payday.) Presumably, from what Buehler was saying earlier today (before Extension 17 showed up, which he didn't so until noon) we'll be having a change of staff soon.
Part of me doesn’t want to pass judgment on someone else's lifestyle or problems but part of my thinks, rather bitterly, that since I have to show up and work every day, other people also collecting regular paychecks should have to do the same.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Anne. I had Monday and Tuesday off. I left an hour early on Wednesday. I left at 1:30 yesterday. Who am I to be pointing fingers?
Still. I usually show up. And I do have to work late tonight. I've been sick for four days, but I'm not whining about it, I scheduled the meeting and I'll get through it.
I also heard myself (well, "read" since it was in e-mail) volunteering to take a 6:00 a.m. meeting next Friday. (The Mad Doctor's computer crashed and he's not sure he'll have it fixed by then.)
I can usually be counted on to come to work regularly.
BossyBoots was in here a few minutes ago, telling me all about how he dials in to listen to his voice-mail but he can't hear anything. I didn't volunteer to go look at his phone. Either he really has a problem and someone else will also report it, in which case we need to call the company who sold us the system and ask if they're having problems, or he's doing something wrong.
At the moment he came in, I was in the middle of lunch and didn't feel inclined to abandon my nice sandwich to go stare at his phone. (There's little else I can do but look at it.)
He's sort of on my list since the day he came in and announced he was going to be mailing something to someone and he was assuming that once he had his document printed, he could just hand it to me and I'd find him a stamp and an envelope and stuff. Pissed me off. It's not like he could imagine I'm a secretary. I'm the one giving him instructions what work he's supposed to do half the time.
It's because I'm female. Men automatically assume a female must, regardless of her other responsibilities, be the one to handle purely clerical tasks.
I don't feel good. Sort of dizzy. Maybe I ate too much lunch. I had a big hamsammich, a handful of (low-fat) chips, and some cantaloupe. Doesn't sound excessive, does it?
I'm sick. That's why I left work early Wednesday and Thursday. A summer cold or something, courtesy of Buehler, who was kind enough to show up for work for three solid weeks while he was sneezing, coughing, and saying he didn't need a doctor.
This is the third time I've been sick in the last three years. I never used to get sick. I hate getting older. (I'm sure it's because I'm getting older. I have hot flashes, too. I'm a crone.)
The problem is that I don't exactly feel bad enough to go home to bed, but I don't feel coherent enough to consistently focus on work, either.
I'd like to promise myself that I can sleep this weekend and really get rested, but I don't seem to be able to sleep in on the weekends any more. Not like I used to. (I hate getting older.)
I'm a sick, wrinkled, flabby geezer.
But, enough about me.
Some time later
I couldn't think of anything else to talk about. Sorry.
I could talk about what I've been reading, but I've been reading "The True Believer: Some Thoughts On Mass Movements" and I don't think you'd find that fascinating. (I did, FWIW.) I'm also reading, "The Emerging Democratic Majority" but I'm not far enough into it to talk about it and in any case, I created a different space to talk about politics. I could talk about my novel, the one I meant to go back and work on during my two vacation days this week but since I was sick, I didn't work on it, so that's pretty much the end of that conversation already.
Besides, I was going to stop talking about myself. I remember that now.
I relented and I'm calling the phone company to see what's wrong with BossyBoots' phone. I shouldn't take advantage of my heavily medicated state to make myself unpopular with coworkers. I may want something from one of them some day.
Besides, it all looks like work, right?