I'm not on many lists and on most of them, the other members wish I'd leave (I appear to be on the depressive side of my minor M-D problem. I really hate menopause.) but I stay there, stubbornly refusing to be run off by the combined hatred of everyone in the neighborhood. *
But sometimes I wonder why.
No one talks on these lists. What I need is an alias and one of those giant, impersonal, high-traffic lists where I can post rude remarks to people I don't know and don't care about. Then I'd have some e-mail!
Smarty McPants, I'd call myself. And if someone argued with me, I'd yell, "Pants! Pants!" at them, which doesn't mean anything but would have the effect of confusing everyone until I made my escape.
Or...I could just do some work, but I'm not really in the mood.
In other news, an objective analysis** of the SEN has determined that it's unsalvageable, so I'm now free of the stress of trying to turn it into readable text and I'm feeling cheerful about that. I'm not sure, yet, what I'll try next. If anything. My failure to turn that mess into anything worth reading has rather shattered my illusion that the ideas I had for Sentinel or DS would make decent stories.
If I'm just going to sit here and blog all day, I should just give up and go home. But I can't. I have lunch plans.
________________
* In case there's anyone here who doesn't know me, I'd like to point out that I almost never encounter anything but kindness, tolerance, understanding, intelligence, and humor on any of my lists. It's just that I see no reason to let facts get in the way of a good whine.
In case there's anyone here who does know me, I should point out that owing to A Certain Person's bad influence, I'm back on the diet.
When I said, "after the holidays" I meant after them, which, by my count means next week and I am thinking about doing just that...starting next week.
No one is making me diet (other than that part of my brain which can't resist occasionally measuring my butt and going, tch-tch) but I lack the nerve to sit and eat potato chips in front of someone living on yogurt and bits of fish. I have been shamed into dieting and I'm going to stock up on Sekrit Food in my bedroom and I'll sit in there all evening every evening and eat things.
** I woke up this morning and decided.
Today, in e-mail:
Them:
"The Exchange server has been stabilized - The hardware is working and has been moved into the closet."
Me:
"Perhaps if you let the hardware out of the closet and assured it that we love it no matter what lifestyle choice it makes, it would be less prone to throwing little tantrums?"
______
Them:
"The DSL modem has been found to be extremely unstable - I called and we should have a new modem no later than Friday."
Me:
"If the DSL modem is unstable, shouldn't we consider therapy or even medication before we go to the extremes of throwing it out and replacing it with a stranger? It's our modem, after all. It's problems are our problems."
______
Them:
"The DNS info has been updated and correctly routed - There were numerous old and incorrect entries, so that was cleaned up."
Me:
"I can't help but feel it's a mistake to try and erase our history. You can't run away from who you were. We should, instead, attempt to come to terms with our past, to accept our failings, and to learn from them. It is not only our success that define what we are, those things we have attempted and failed have shaped us as well."
______
Them:
"DHCP, DNS and VPN are being combined into one server"
Me:
"I venture to suggest that any little personality conflicts will not in fact be erased by this new togetherness. Perhaps, instead, we should allow each element a measure of time when it is allowed to go off on its own? Some down time when it isn't under pressure to conform and align itself with competing systems? This might alleviate some of the current conflicts."
Technobabble. Bah.
I was going to write a lot of rants about how stupid the newer fans are, but after I posted my first one, McSwain pointed out in the comments section that not everyone is an idiot, making it clear that I'll just look mean and spiteful if I say anything else rude about fandom in general*. Also, on a list I'm on, someone posted a much more intelligent and rational dream of how fandom could be, so I'm dissed and trumped.
Bah.
We had Purple Mountains Majesty this morning. I love those sunrises. The sky starts blushing in the east, and to the west shadows begin to harden into solid, rocky shapes. As you watch, the east brightens, the color spills across the clear sky, and there they are...the mountains, purple granite nested in a lavender sky.
There's something wrong with the punctuation in that sentence, but there's something wrong with the punctuation of most of my sentences, so whatever.
_______________
* I'm just saying. I didn't come back to fandom to be taken seriously, okay?
So, yesterday I go charging down the stairs in my usual happy-go-lucky, headlong fashion, only to discover at about the second floor that Sparkle has been in there, mopping the stairs. Fortunately I know me and I always have a solid grasp on the railing when I'm on a stairway.
Today I go charging down, burst through the door on the first floor (but carefully...I've whomped people standing on the other side of that door in the past) and came this close to plowing through a plate of glass.
A couple of guys were standing there, holding it up, waiting for the elevator. Thank goodness for those bleeding-heart liberals who insist that things like panes of glass be studded at intervals with markers, so that you can see them. If not for the bits of cardboard, I'd have assumed the two men were just standing there and I'd have tried to dash in between them.
I'm just saying.
I swear, some days I think that if I open One. More. Story. in a fandom I think I know and, ten lines later, find myself wondering whointhehell those characters are, I'll give it all up and buy a Chia Pet.
It's not just that these people don't know the characters or the show, or that they failed to convey what knowledge they did possess over to their story that bothers me.
It's the fact that it's not only okay to write that way these days, it's considered in the worst possible taste to want fanfiction to actually connect to the source material that you're ostensibly a fan of.
I miss real fandom. I miss ClassicFandom. This new stuff is just icky.
I don't seem to have anything on my mind today. That's rather unusual for me.
I'm having a rather one-sided war with PayPal these days. I have no intention of providing them with my bank account information and I can't find a human being there to argue with, so I'll have to stop using the convenience of PayPal to finance my fannish amusements and resort to something primitive involving snailmail. (I had no idea they had limits on accounts, or I wouldn't have put all of that website development stuff on there.)
I tried to trick them by signing up under a different e-mail address, but the website blandly informed me that my sending limit was $0.00, so that didn't help. Pisses me off. I don't mind funneling the (usually) small amounts of money I move around for fannish stuff through them but I don't want their credit card, I don't want their assistance spending my money on e-bay, and I don't want them linking, in any way at all, with my bank account.
Anyhow. So I'm a touch cranky about that and I'm a touch grouchy today because I didn't sleep well last night, but I can't seem to pull all of that together into any kind of useful rant.
I thought about complaining madly about the state of fandom today, always a sure winner, but I haven't paid enough attention to general fandom in the last two or three years to have a head of steam up about anything in particular.
I do have a sort of project in mind that I'll be babbling about later, but at the moment it's 10:00 and I really do need to do some work today.
Statistics amuse and confuse me. For instance, what do Israel, Egypt, Slovenia, Turkey, Brazil, Ireland, the Netherlands, South Africa, and, in astonishing numbers, China have in common? Multiple someones located in each place are stopping by here to visit from time to time.
I find this disconcerting, even though I realize most of these visits are probably from non-human entities. I'm a bit vague on the how and why but I understand there are robots buzzing around the internet, bumping up against sites all the time. Why do robots visit my site and how can I stop them? And how many of those hundreds of Chinese visitors are robots?
Apart from that, who are the approximately 45 live, human individuals who stop by on a daily basis?
I gave this URL to five people.
If each of them told eight other people, they have more friends than I do and I think that's just wrong.
But forget all that. Let's look at search phrases. What are people googling (Jeevesing, etc.) for that results in my site being offered to them?
It's a scary list. I mean, "cargo zippy pants" I understand, since I've blogged my zippy-leg pants more than once, but why would someone search for information on them? (For anyone interested, J.C. Penny, although it may be "Penney" and I just don't care enough to look it up. My only venture into their clothing department in the last ten years.)
It's just within the realm of possibility that I once blogged the word "crankypants" but I'd be willing to take an oath that I never typed the word "supert*ts". (I'm not inviting more hits by actually typing it, either.)
I find "class methos of vowels in java" an intriguing collection of words to search for, but I wouldn't understand it if I found it, so I won't. (But I'm not surprised that "Methos" and "class" is a popular search combination.)
On the other hand, "the chipmunk adventure credits" worries me a bit. I hope no tots searching for information on Alvin and his little friends are directed to my rants about my collection of cartoon co-workers.
If the person who was searching for, "pasta sauce sun dried tomatoes capers artichoke" would share any resulting recipes with me, I'd be very grateful.
I may and/or may not have blogged about the "bnf acronym" but for anyone still in need of information, it stands for Big Name Fan and is a source of some acrimony and even more mockery in fandom. (You're welcome.)
Some misinformed being actually searched the internet for "the birdcage slash fanfiction" and I feel compelled to point out that if you're talking about the main characters, you can't slash them because it's not slash if it's canon. If you're pairing off some other characters, I'm uninterested.) (Actually, I'm uninterested, either way.)
I am entertained to know that if you search for "dissing ppl", Google will offer you to this site. I don't diss that many people.
I'm slightly phobic, so I'd prefer that searches for "lazy dentist light-tech" did not end up at my site.
I don't know who "edith gilmore" is, but I congratulate her on her "phd". It's a shame that "ronreaco lee" was "committed" but I'm sure it's for the best. I have no ideas about the identity of "ron whites wife" and no information on "lisa rinna merge recent hairstyle". I don't think I've ever talked about "stubble-headed tough guys". I don't anticipate doing so, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. You will find no information on "revitalising vortex" but I am wondering if it's a book, movie, or physics phenomenon?
Another misguided soul is in search of "evil fraser due south slash" and they need to understand that they'll find that here when hell freezes over. (Although, now that I've said that, I can already envision a PWP kind of story where a few moments' amnesia, or a reaction to medication, makes Fraser behave in a way that he later decides he must be very, very, very sorry for. And, of course, it ends in kisses and cuddles. But my idea of "evil" probably doesn't match that of someone who'd actually bother to search for evil, so maybe I was right in the first place with the whole when hell freezes over thing.)
Multiple other searches concerning fanfic pulled this site as well, but most of them have nothing to do with anything I've actually written. People really do need to learn to use quotation marks when they Google. I mean, I've written about fanfiction. And I'm sure I've called someone a jackass, but that doesn't mean you can find "fanfiction on jackass" here. (I'm bemused by the searcher's decision that they needed to specify "in english" in their search.) Other searches included everything from vampires to Law & Order to Jeeves & Wooster, with some other things I don't care to repeat thrown in. (I must be more careful of my vocabulary when I blog. I've probably used all of those words, but when you string them together.... Well, let's just say, I was shocked.)
Two searches did make me smile. "Steve Bacic" and "Spike Xander Slash fanfiction". I'm not wild about S/X but I am, as you know, wild about S. And Bacic...he was yummy back when Andromeda was a new show with fabulous potential and not a flabby vehicle for one overrated actor's unjustifiably monumental ego.
I should just bring the SEN file with me to work, shouldn't I? I mean, as long as I'm going to sit here writing for hours anyhow.
But I didn't. Mostly because I've thrown it aside in disgust. A Kind Friend has picked up the rotting carcass and volunteered to try and figure out if there's anything salvageable in it.
Posted by AnneZook at 08:52 AM | Comments (4)My in-box is completely empty, which is a sad thing. (No, I don't mean on my desk. I mean my personal e-mail inbox.) No one wants to chat with me this morning, leaving me nothing to do but work or blog.
My 8:30 meeting rescheduled to next week, it's not time for my 10:00 meeting yet, and I feel like sliding into the work week very slowly, so here I am.
I love a long, holiday weekend. In fact, I'd like to have a three-day weekend every week. Many's the time I've toyed with the idea of offering to take a 20% pay cut in exchange for only working four days a week. Two things generally stop me.
#1 - At 32 hours a week, I wouldn't be entitled to any benefits.
#2 - A twenty-percent pay cut? That’s insane!
But maybe I could manage it? After all, once I manage to sneak a DVD recorder into the house*, what's left for me to buy anyhow? It's about the only really fun gadget that I want and don't already own.
I'm all about working less and having more free time, but I don't want to give up the money or benefits.** This should surprise no one.
Actually, considering that I'm sitting here dinking around instead of working, and this is a four-day work week already, I should probably just keep my mouth shut.
But. None of that is what we are gathered her for today. Or, at least, it's only tangential.
I'm blogging my New Year's Resolution. I haven't made NYRs in a long time, but this year I'm making one.
Except...now I'm out of time.
________________________
* I need my OaT tapes recorded to DVD. Also, I need two decent sets of Sentinel DVDs.
Sheesh. I'm trying to write two Sentinel stories and three due South stories and at least two more OaT stories and I really don't have time to learn modern technology at the same time, you know?
It's a mystery to me why there isn't some fan out there who owns the necessary machines and is willing to do stuff like this, for a relatively generous payment, so that people like myself don't have to buy equipment and learn how.
A little while ago, I put out a begging letter to one list I'm on. We'll see if anyone responds to my offer of love and money.
** Okay, what I really want is more time for writing, and we all know it. I just spent every free second I had over the last three days writing and I still want more time.
I keep telling myself, in only seven more hours, I'll be home with three or four hours of solid writing time in front of me, but I also keep telling myself that by then I'll be tired and I want to be writing now. I hate wasting my most functional hours on something that merely overpays me grossly, instead of something that aggravates and fascinates me.
Posted by AnneZook at 11:56 AM | Comments (2)The holidays: Over
The pile o'presents: Munificent and satisfying
The eating: Bountiful and delicious
The SEN: 27,000 words lighter so far and the better for it.
The agenda: Back to work tomorrow. Bah.
Posted by AnneZook at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)
9. That's what the temperature is. We await, breathlessly, the moment it moves into double-digits.
So, yesterday's Office Holiday Party is already just a memory. (I got an Itty Bitty Booklight in the Dreidel/White Elephant game, so I did well. One guy wound up with a SpongeBob SquarePants lunch box filled with cans of PlayDough.) There were hard-fought battles over a Starbucks coffee cup and a CD holder made to go over a car visor, but in the end, most of us were reasonably happy with our winnings.
I had one more gift I wanted to buy, but I've scoured the city (or as much of it as I can reasonably reach*) and I can't find it, so I'm just throwing up my hands and giving in. I'm bitterly disappointed and I can't think of anything else I can buy to take its place. I don't want to buy something last-minute just to be buying something, you know?
If I manage to get out of here early today, I will be making sugar cookies tonight. If I don't, I won't.
I can't find the stockings at home and I've no idea what I did with the box that holds them. I rather suspect it's the one I chose to use to prop up the tree this year (to allow more Present Space underneath). Instead of stockings hung by the (non-existent) chimney with care, we'll be having Bag O'Little Stuff Sitting next to a faux hearth.
For today, my entire planned workload consists of "write status report." I don't doubt I could reach a few people, should I bother to call, but at the moment Buehler is desperately trying to get through the work he has to do today so he can leave early to do his Christmas shopping, so I'm remaining available to render assistance.
Me, I don't understand how a man who shops as much as he does (he's a catalog shopper, there are boxes full of stuff he's ordered here in the office) can be not done on 12/23, but.... Well, as I said above, I missed out on the chance to buy one thing through procrastination, so maybe I shouldn't talk.
________________________
* Not including, you know, the Evil of Wal-Mart because I'm not giving them any of my money under any circumstances.
(Also, I've recently discovered that Amazon.com has thrown off the mask and revealed itself as a Bastion of Evil through giving something like 98% of their political donations to The Wrong People, so I'm going to have to stop shopping there. I understand that Barnes & Noble is acceptable, should I need books on-line. It's not easy to Buy Blue but I'm going to be making the effort.)
I turn the heat blower on in the office and in ten seconds, I'm roasting. I turn it off and thirty seconds later I'm freezing. I hate working in a steel-and-glass building.
Today is the office Christmas Games and Party. I'd like to be out there, chitchatting with the rest of the office, but I'm sitting here on hold, waiting for this morning's meeting candidate to pick up the phone. I've been sitting here for seven minutes.
If someone isn't going to be available for ten or fifteen minutes, why not just ask someone to call back? So rude.
Technically our party doesn't start until 2:30 but I assume most people will be doing very little Actual Work between now and then. Even Bossyboots showed up early (for him) and was very cheerful. I was...polite.
I've been spending too much time on the phone/using a mouse recently. My right shoulder and arm are killing me, and sitting here for nine minutes with the phone clutched between my ear and shoulder isn't helping.
I had to shut the door. The Tweenybopper was telling everyone all about how she'd have called in sick if today wasn't the party. (Me, I always assume if you're well enough to go to a party, you're well enough to go to work, but I've noticed that These Kids Today have no sense of responsibility.) Every time I listen to her, I remind myself I need to learn to moderate my own voice.
'Hold' music is bad enough when you might not like the music being played, but being forced to sit here for eleven minutes and listen to commercials really annoys me.
Finally...they came back on the line. They'll call me back in fifteen minutes.
Sheesh
Later - Okay, it's been twenty minutes and I'm still sitting here. My question is, how long should someone reasonably expect you to wait for them when you've scheduled a meeting?
It's now 33 minutes after the time our 40-minute meeting was scheduled to begin.
Much later - Okay, that was two hours ago. He just called me and asked me to call him back in 20 minutes.
Bah and Humbug.
In other unimportant 'news' I wound up, in my initial review of the SEN, by deleting 15,000 words. Quite easily. Much too easily. Anything that easy to delete shouldn't have been there in the first place.
I mean, when someone reads a story and asks, "was it supposed to be this boring?" you know you have to take Drastic Steps. Erasing 15,000 words seems like a good first move.
A lot of what's left will also have to go but I left the previously written scenes in as placeholders to remind me I have to write something that will fit in those spots. At this point, it seems not impossible that I'll spend the rest of my life rewriting this monster in a vain attempt to make something out of it but I guess everyone needs a hobby.
The next thing I did was to write, "What is my story about?" on a piece of paper. Then I stared at it.
(I wrote this on a piece of paper two months ago, stared at it for a few days, then decided I'd figure it out later. I wrote it down again, two weeks ago, and stared some more, hoping inspiration would strike. Eventually I had to throw the paper away because that huge blank space after the question was getting on my nerves. This time, I'm relieved to say, I came up with an answer.)
Once upon a time, I'm pretty sure I wrote some arrogant nonsense about a story being more than recitation of events. (Yeah, like I'd know.) That's the kind of "what is this about" that this story was lacking. It had plenty of recitations of events, but it wasn't about anything.
I'm pretty sure I got it right this time.
Reasonably sure.
Anyhow. It's worth a shot.
Let's talk about something besides me for a while.*
. . . .
As you might suspect, a long silence ensued after that sentence. It's rather embarrassing, actually. I'm scrambling for something to talk about.
Oh. I know. Take a look at this:
Water Baby II, A. Sequel to A Water Baby. Alex Krycek leaves a life as a sea creature for love of Mulder and Skinner. A baby whale helps him adjust to his new life.
As you might also suspect, three friends are, at this moment, trying to talk me down off the ledge.
Once upon a time, I had an idea of starting up a new movement, a sort of ClassicSlash Fandom universe that was By Invitation Only. To weed out, you see, the people in NewCrap Fandom, with whom I would be embarrassed to be associated if the world held us up and looked at us, side-by-side.
Guess who won't be invited?**
__________________________
* Not really.
** The person who sent me this and broke my brain.
The righteous glow of vindication.
I handed off the SEN to two readers. Reader Number 1 finished last night, causing me to request Reader Number 2 to hold off on reading.
Reader Number 1 and confirmed every single thing about what I suspected was wrong with that monster. The case story is lame, the slash plot hops and skips but never really gets running, the two scenes I personally hated most add nothing to the story, and what is it with those characters who turn out to be irrelevant, anyhow? The story drags, it's amazingly dull, especially the first couple of pages, and most of what's in there doesn't go anywhere.
As Lynn rightly points out, no one reads my stuff to see me making a lame attempt to write serious drama.*
Also, she's mad at me because a couple of passing OC's got clonked on the head from time to time. Sheesh. Fandom is full of stories where someone gets beaten up or even killed, especially secondary OC characters. I clonk someone on the head and she gets all bitter at me.
Okay. I'll admit I hadn't actually thought of that. The fact that I've never written anyone getting hurt before, so she wasn't prepared for it, I mean. But...I mean, you tell people and you tell people and you tell people that something Is. Not. Funny. and then you get someone making beady-eyes at you because it's true? Is that fair?**
Anyhow. I'm already over it. I was over it ten seconds later, because she also supplied a lot of other really exceptionally good feedback and suggestions.
Remember when I told you something had to go? Case or slash, because there wasn't room for both in the story? The case story lost the toss.
I started last night. I have to delete at least a third of the text (I got 10k out of it without breaking a sweat last night), rearrange what's left, compress the timeline for the case investigation, come up with a new climactic scene and a new resolution for all the different threads.
Oh, and the "case story" I have doesn't work, so whatever I keep of it, has to be completely rewritten.
Also, the characterization? She never did figure out who was who. So something has to be done about that.
I'm posting this as an object lesson to y'all. I have been telling you there were major problems with this Stupid Effing Novel and no one believed me.
I feel vindicated. Hah! I told you so!***
_________________________________
* You have to know she totally didn't say that.
** On the other hand, she's the person who wasted two evenings of her life reading it, so she had a right to be aggravated. In spite of what I said, I'm sure she expected this story to be like my other stuff and it wasn't. Not even remotely.
*** Glancing over this before I post it, it occurs to me that I need to stress one thing very strongly. I am glad I got the feedback I did.
I wanted to write a long, plotty story. I did.
It sucked. I wasn't surprised.
The urge has passed.
Now I'm interested in seeing if it's possible to salvage any part of this monster and beat it into some kind of decent narrative.
It's about the process, you see. It's about the writing.
Also? It's good to know that all of the stuff I've written previously wasn't just wasting some unexplored talent for Gritty Drama. No such talent exists.
You know how long it takes to write a PWP? 6 hours. Maybe 7, for your average 15-20 page effort. Max. You can churn out one of those puppies in a day and then have hours and hours of time to do other things with your life.
I miss PWPs.
In other non-news, I've given up on the SEN. I've read and re-read the text so often that I can't even see it any more. Two lunatics friends offered to read with fresh eyes, so we'll see what they have to say.
I look forward, sort of, to shorter writing projects in the future. After this, I'm never again undertaking anything longer than 15 pages.
Four months I spend working on this monster. 75,000 words and who knows what it will be when/if it's done? With luck, above-referenced readers will recommend yanking 50,000 words out of it.
Maybe five pages. No more.
Posted by AnneZook at 09:05 AM | Comments (2)I am going to fucking kill Bossyboots.
That is all.
Many hours later....
I went to Address The Matter* with him, but the sneak was on the phone.
So, I went downstairs, walked in circles fuming, came back upstairs, IM'd Sassy, shared curses with her, and waited for Buehler to come back.
Then I told him to do something about that dipshit* and I took myself out for a leisurely lunch.
___________________________
* Pro-active and assertive!
I'm just saying. If I have to remove those 25,000 or whatever words, that's not the end of the world. I could always save that stuff. Some of it might work okay in a different story.
Or...if I have to remove the other 50,000 words and write some new bits (!!) to bridge over what's missing. If it results in a better story...that's okay.
The point isn't how long it is. The point is that it should not be an unmitigated pile of crap. At this moment, the steaming slash story and the reeking case story are facing off...waiting for the hands of the clock on the town hall to strike twelve.
One of them has to go.
Me, I'm a big believer in peaceful coexistence, but I can't convince those two of the merits of this approach.
Anyhow, all melodrama aside, I finished entering the last round of edits and rewrites, put in page breaks between every scene in the story, and sorted the scenes into "case" or "romance." (Okay...it's not that simple. Many scenes have bits of both)
Then I reprinted the whole mess. I now have piles of scenes that are overall one or the other, case or romance.
Now I'm giving myself a few days' distance. Time to calm down. Become marginally more objective.
Sunday morning, when I'm fresh, I'll sit down, read each "story" by itself, and see what I've got.
I have no particular objection to removing half the story. I just need to figure out which half.
(Sometimes I wonder when I decided that it was a good idea to share, in a more-or-less public forum, every speed-bump and pothole I encounter while writing this thing?)
(Ed. - You didn't decide. It's your massive self-centrism. Anne - I'm not sure that's a word. Ed. - You know what I mean. Now that you know someone is reading this, you should stop treating this blog as a private conversation between your personalities. Anne - As soon as I have a response to that, I'm going to come back here and wither you with sarcasm.)
I'm starting the day's second meeting and I have to get you to reset your browser security options so you can access the website. I walk you through the reset, no problems, in spite of the speaker-phone and what sounds like 15 people yattering at the tops of their lungs in the background.
Then the easy part. I say, "Okay, now close all of the browser windows and then restart I.E."
You say, "What?"
I repeat, a little louder, "You need to close all of the browser windows for the changes to take place. Then you open one again."
You say, "I don't know what that means."
I stare at the phone...I can't think of a simpler way to say, "close the browser windows" than, you know, "close them."
What kind of person understands resetting their java security level but doesn't understand what "close the window" means?
In the meantime, the phone tells me that the person who wants to set up a training session for this afternoon is already calling me for the third time, Buehler's dialing me for the fourth time in ten minutes, and the message light is on, indicating that yet another missed call is stacking up in front of me.
It's going to be a long day.
The cheery things:
(1) Buehler is out of the office so I don't have him needing anything unless I actually pick up the phone, and
(2) DiamondGirl is calling the EvilComputerPeople and telling them to ship my replacement laptop now, not at some future date.
She said I wasn't aggressive enough with them. I'm not aggressive except in e-mail/blog, okay? I am Not about Confronting The Issue. I am All for the Peaceful Life.
However, she and the Tweenybopper got me all wound up last night and on the way home, I bravely pulled out my cell phone, called the apartment complex office, and demanded that they fix the stopped-up kitchen sink I reported at 9:00 Tuesday morning. By the time I got home at 5:15, the little man was there and working.
Triumph! It's nice to be able to wash dishes.
Well, no, it's not. But it's nice to have the dishes washed.
It's not even 1:00. Because my last meeting isn't scheduled to start until 4:30, I'm not getting out of here until 6:00 or so. And I'm already tired.
I guess it serves me right for goofing off so much yesterday. I spent hours mourning the loss of my new plaything.
Or maybe I just need lunch.
It arrived.
Sleek and silver and light in the hand. Quick to boot up, as smart as you always hope one will be, and as friendly as a puppy. Full of excitingly mysterious attachments and add-ons.
It went.
I miss it already. I only had it for ten minutes...and I miss it already.
The screen was broken. I have called customer service, sobbed my heart out, and still not been able to get promise of a replacement in less than 7-10 days.
There are, I should point out, precisely six working days until my office closes for the long holiday weekend. The odds of me having my precious one in my hands before then are very slim.
I mourn.
Posted by AnneZook at 03:18 PM | Comments (3)“In a few weeks, cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies.
Call 888-382-1222 from your cell phone and follow the prompts. (Or, go to www.donotcall.gov.) It is the national Do Not Call list. It blocks your number for 5 years.”
This has been a public service announcement.
Posted by AnneZook at 01:40 PM | Comments (4)Nothing amazing's going to happen here. I was just stuck for a title to this post.
I'm very tense. My new laptop is supposed to arrive today. I'm desperately anxious to play with it. I'm all distracted and I can't focus on work at all.
I mean, I should focus, because after this week, I'm pretty sure I won't be able to contact any of our users or prospective users until after the holidays. So if I'm going to accomplish an impressive amount of work this month...or even an average amount, I have to do it in the next three days.
I've had a burgeoning lust for a laptop computer of my own for the past couple of years. Before, it was just kind of a toy idea...something to play with. Then when I started writing again in August, I started really wanting it.
Week by week, the desire has grown until now, knowing that I'll have my hot little hands on it in a couple of hours, I'm completely in thrall to my fantasies of what it will be like. I wish I'd sprung the extra $70 or whatever to have a colored cover put on it.
I hope it likes the mouse I bought it last night. I got it a little mouse-pad, too. All new and special, just for it. And I lowered the adjustable desk in my room last night until it was just the right height to use a laptop. I'm all ready for it. I hope it arrives soon.
I used to get this way about men, but they aren't upgradeable.
Chipmunks! The radio by my desk is playing Chipmunks singing Christmas Carols. I love crass commercialization during the holidays.
Only, not that Santa, Baby song, because that's just perverse. Bing Crosby...that's my idea of holiday music. Or Johnny Mathis.
This is bad.... It's still ten days to the holidays. I have seven work days left, and my brain has completely checked out of the whole "working for a living" concept.
Maybe I'll go look at yesterday's catalogues again. I should be able to find something I can order for someone.
In case you were wondering.
E-mail was out for an hour...it's back now, but for how long?
Phones went out, came back, went back out, then came back again.
UPSteve was just here. No laptop computer. Sob. Maybe tomorrow....
The unflavored yogurt was a mistake. Naturally it's healthier than the kind that has fruit and sugar in it...but the taste! There's some sugar in the kitchen...I wonder if you can just dump sugar in unflavored yogurt?
No...there wasn't any sugar. There was some artificial sweetener, though. I dumped some into the yogurt, but now I'm afraid to eat it.
I've never been happy about yogurt anyhow...I'm not comfortable eating something that's advertised as "live and active" and now I have Serious Doubts about what the aspartame will do to it.
...pause...
Okay. That’s just weird.
In a better-designed universe, donuts would be health food and brussels sprouts would come with warning labels.
Posted by AnneZook at 11:58 AM | Comments (2)So, what's new at work? Because I'm sure anyone cares.
This morning, two gentlemen were working on the light bulbs in one elevator. Apparently a bulb had burnt out and this occasioned dismantling the fixture and then standing around, talking about it for half an hour. Either they hadn't brought a replacement bulb (!!) or there was some other hitch in the proceedings I didn't understand because I don't speak Spanish.
The problem, you see, is that they didn't have the ability to turn the elevator off and since it was sitting on the first floor, the other elevator wouldn't stop on the first floor.
This, as you might imagine, was something of a problem for those of us loaded with packages to ship, purses, coffee cups, and lunch bags. I don't mind a few stairs, but not to the sixth floor. Not at 8:00 in the morning, with my arms full of stuff. (Not at any time...I'm okay up until the fourth floor, but then I can feel the effects of too many cigarettes and not enough exercise. I come over all peculiar and I have to sit down and rest.)
Eventually, Sparkle (she keeps the building tidy and gleaming, all day, every day) and I just climbed aboard the unlit elevator and rode up in the dark. And I do mean dark. I'm not often in a place where there is no light.
A tiny box, moving up a narrow shaft, lit, if you could call it that, only by the peanut bulb behind the floor indicator...that's dark. I really need to write an elevator story some day.
Still. It's a good week, so far. For once, I'm not here to rant.
Bossyboots failed to appear until almost noon yesterday, haven't seen him yet today. He called me on the phone once, but he was polite, so that's okay. (He's been sweetaspie to me for days now. If he's being good until Santa comes to town, he needs to know he is not on my Christmas list. I didn't even send him a card.)
DiamondGirl! We hardly knew ye! She's leaving us! (Well...them. Technically she works for a different company.) She got a better, more prestigious job that will be more challenging and pays more money. I don't think that's much of a reason to leave, do you?
Still, because I'm generous that way, I told her we needed to pick a day during her last week when I could buy her lunch.
Buehler is out of the office until Friday, and while I do like him, it's nice to have the office to myself. I'm celebrating by actually working. (Well, and blogging, but as usual, I'm blogging while I'm on hold. Five minutes so far....)
Our work e-mail is down...but it's been down off and on for two weeks, so I'm learning to be grateful for the times it actually works. (And grateful that my own private e-mail provider is so amazingly reliable.)
You know...other than that, it's been fairly peaceful here. Sassy's computer died on her and since she's on the East Coast, that made it tricky to contact her (we work mostly via e-mail and IM) so they got her a new/refurbished laptop and it died the first day she had it.
My brand-spanking-new laptop is supposed to show up today. It better not bust.
The workload continues to increase, which is good. Keeps me busy. We've had 24 new candidates to take on Hell's Own Software in the past week. I like it, the days pass quickly when I'm busy.
I didn't really have much to say at the moment.
Posted by AnneZook at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)Now that I've pretended I care about the normal, ordinary things going on in my life...let's get to the important stuff.
(Even before you read, those of you in e-mail communication with me should take a moment to be grateful. If not for the invention of the blog, you'd have received this in your in-box and even now you'd be feeling obligated to think of some kind of response. Hooray for the blog! No response required!)
(Also? A holiday gift from me to you...this is a third as long the first draft was. I'm becoming the queen of editing!)
(Well, not so much editing. Most of the stuff I took out will appear in another blog post. But no one's obligated to read any of it...that's what I keep reminding myself.)
Okay...wait for it...here it comes....
Yes! There was a marathon, 12-hour rewriting session on the SEN yesterday, how did you guess? Basically, I did nothing all day yesterday but make a couple of pots of soup and fight this pig of a story.
Starting on Saturday evening, I wrote out a list of every scene in the story. After that, I spent hours with my little hammer and chisel, beating the necessary shape onto those scenes. Then I took a deep breath, cursed for a few minutes, picked up the new outline, and started rewriting.
The hours passed...I started paper-clipping pages together with a "write this later" note, then moving on for a couple of pages, before sheer stubbornness forced me to go back and do all of the rewrites as I went. (If I don't care enough to write it now, will I ever care enough to write it, that's what I asked myself.)
I made it to page 101 before I collapsed, at 8:15 last night, leaving a mere 54 pages to go.
I've written so many new bits, re-written so many old bits, and moved so many other bits from one place to another that I don't actually know what the story itself looks like at the moment.
Also, I deleted. Words, sentences, and entire scenes.
Really, I can't remember when I've had this much fun.*
I haven't keyed any of the new stuff in yet; I decided to stop pretending that transcription was "writing" and do some actual writing first. After I get the last 54 pages rewritten, I'll key it all in, print it out (Using my superfast new laser printer. It's been a very merry holiday season for me already and I haven't gotten a gift from anyone but myself yet.) , and then (with fear and trembling) sit down to read the result.
Happily, the scheme of only writing every couple of days continues to be effective. I'm already seeing that I keep a better distance from the text and that I come to it fresher if I stay away from it on alternate days.
I mean, I'd never have thought of this current approach to the necessary rewrites if I hadn't ignored the story entirely for five straight days.
The bad news? I still haven't managed to capture characterization.
Still...who knows what inspiration might strike during the next round of rewrites?
The Adventure Continues....
_____________________________
*It's a shame it's not a better story, you know? I'm putting a significant amount of effort into turning a pig's ear into a more attractive pig's ear. But maybe that's how it has to be. If I'd loved this story, I'd probably never have been able to hack it up this way. This way, I'm learning what editing is all about...and acquiring, one hopes, a new skill.
Let's take a look at last week's To-Do list and see how we done.
Tuesday:
Order laptop computer -Check (E-mail received - it's shipped!)
Wednesday:
Party - Check
Thursday:
Prepare gifts to be shipped - Check
Write Christmas cards - Check
Laundry - Nope
Friday:
Ship gifts - Check
Mail cards - Check
Finish decorating at home - Partial Check
Mop kitchen floor - Nope
Laundry - Nope
Saturday:
Shop for office gift - Check
Buy tin of popcorn for office - Check
Buy a some new underwear - Check
Finish shopping for Mom - Check
Spend $100 at grocery story - Check
Laundry - Nope
Sunday:
Wrap gifts - Check
Cook lunches for this week - Check
Laundry - Nope
I hate doing laundry. I'd probably hate it less if I did it before I have a mountain of the stuff. I didn't get the cleaning done I wanted to do, either. I mean, I don't actually mind cleaning, you understand. Sometimes I rather enjoy it. I'm not sure why I didn't do it. (Well, yes, I am. See below.) And before I went to bed last night, I realized the kitchen sink is backing up, so I have to call the apartment people and get that fixed.
Today I brought in my mother's gifts and boxed them up, ready for shipping.
Tomorrow I have two more very small boxes to send and then I'm pretty much set for the holidays. Oh, I ordered a few things that are still in transit and I'll have to wrap them when they arrive. And I haven't made any decision about Christmas lunch, but I have almost two weeks to worry about that.
AFter the shipping, I can sit back, smug in the knowledge that I've done all I should do.
Except clean house.
I've decided to start having Theme Weeks. This week's theme has been, "Talking To Strange Men."
I started Monday, by approaching a man who was standing, looking bewildered, on a street corner. I was headed over to Starbucks and I said, to myself, "That is a man who wants coffee, but can't find it."
Sure enough, he was pathetically grateful to follow me to the caffeine.
Also, I've been talking to men in the elevator. Some of them seem freaked out to be spoken to by a stranger, but most of them seem very pleased.
One attractive man I saw in Starbucks on Monday was there again on Tuesday, so I struck up a conversation about how we had to stop meeting that way. Yes, it's a cliché, but he seemed to enjoy it. Sadly, I haven't seen him since.
Also, as I walk down the street, to and from my daily latte journey or in a quest for lunch, I've been smiling at and/or speaking to almost everyone I can get to meet my eye. Again, most people seem delighted.
I do this especially with the homeless I see regularly. I don't think that just because someone is down and out, they're no longer a human being. (Also! I saw SmilingSam today! I haven't seen him in months! You remember SmilingSam, right? He's the guy I used to see every day who never wanted money or anything, but who just walked down the street, trying to smile at people. Every morning we'd smile and say good morning to each other, and he always looked blissful at that moment of friendly, human contact.)
They put plastic wrap in the floor of one of the elevators again! I danced on the air bubbles twice already this morning.
The first time, I did it in spite of the fact that there were a couple of guys in the elevator with me. I could feel the tension radiating from the back of the one guy, who refused to turn around or acknowledge the noise, but the other guy (I see him around the building frequently) seemed to feel he knew me well enough to mention that he would remember never to hand me a sheet of bubble wrap.
Before we reached my floor, I had the time to tell him about a company I used to work at where, when things got stressful, we used to throw bubble wrap on the floor and dance on it on Friday afternoons.
Possibly I should re-name this the, "Week of Public Weirdness" but I won't. Who knows to what heights (or depths) of weirdness I may soar (or plummet) over the next few months? I should save that title, just in case.
P.S. A few moments ago, I found it necessary to inform Buehler that I was glad we were able to provide complete facilities so he could spend the first four hours of his day wrapping presents.
Just because you own the place doesn't mean I don't expect you to put in a decent day's work from time to time.
P.P.S. I should mention, I'm almost on schedule for the Holiday List below. I mailed my cards and got one shipment mailed. Only three more shipments to mail (they can go Monday) and that laundry and housecleaning to do, and I'm braced prepared for the holidays.
Well, aside from all the shopping I still have to do tomorrow.
I kept my mouth shut about this when I first heard about it, but I can't stand it any more.
From Wolfe Video's newsletter:--This Submarine has some hot Sea Men! "Highlander" hunk Adrian Paul is currently filming TIDES OF WAR, in which he plays a gay naval sub commander on a covert mission who is having an affair with another commanding officer, played by none other than "Six Feet Under" star Mathew St. Patrick. The film also stars "The Shield" hottie Catherine Dent!
There's so much room for mockery in that I don't know where to start.
One assumes that a movie that aspires to a more rounded level of entertainment than, say, gay porn requires...acting. (I'll stop there, mindful that I have otherwise intelligent friends who seem inexplicably unable to share my opinion of AP.)
Anyhow, I understand the movie will be shown on some channel I don't remember the name of and hadn't ever heard of when I did.
Nor, quite frankly, would I have been inclined to turn the movie on, no matter who it starred.
Those exclamation points in the description are probably what reminded me of gay porn, not to mention the "hunk" and "hot sea men" and the "hottie" woman. That description has, "Please don't watch me" written all over it.
(Can't help it. I have to ask. What on earth makes people keep casting that man and why? There are a lot of people with talent in Hollywood.)
(Also, I have to wonder if his appearance in this role is the indicator of a career going down for the third time that it appears to be.)
It's certainly a good thing I didn't have any major goofing off scheduled for today. Or even this week. This place has been buzzing for the last four or five work-days. It's also lucky that I rediscovered my work ethic earlier this fall.
At the moment, though, I'm feeling slightly embittered. It's 1:00 and I'd like to go to lunch. And I would, but Bernie, the Tweenybopper, and DiamondGirl all left for lunch an hour ago and they aren't back yet.
Not that I have to wait for them; they're a different company, after all.
The problem is that I have no idea if any of them took their office keys or not and since I happen to be the only body in the suite at the moment (Buehler dashed off a few minutes ago - I have no idea where he was going) and I don't want to leave without locking the door, but I'm afraid I'll lock everyone out.
I wouldn't want to lock Buehler out. I'm in charity with him this week...ever since Tuesday afternoon when we both knocked off working at 3:00 and shopped on-line for two hours.
To tide myself over, I'm drinking a Mixed-Berry, Non-Fat Yogurt-Thing.
It's no substitute for a taco. (I was going to have Mexican yesterday, but I wound up having Japanese, so I'm having it today, instead. Assuming I'm able to get out of here at any point.)
The M-B-N-F-Y-T has 80 calories but essentially no food value whatsoever except for 13 grams of sugars. I'm going to have to switch to the unflavored yogurt...I don't seem to be able to buy another kind that isn't mostly sugar.
....sound of phone ringing...
Okay, now I had lunch and answered the phone a couple more times and stuff.
I also, because I'm weird that way, just opened up my Outlook calendar, clicked on April 1, 2005, and wrote myself a little hello, there note.
I thought it might be interesting to me to know in April what I was thinking about in December. (It's tricky, of course. Can't say anything too specific about fandom, which rules out the SEN and LESS.)
I'm hoping it will amuse me when I read it, which is why I chose April 1.
(You're getting a bonus entry today because Beuhler is back and on a conference call and I can't make any calls myself.)
This morning I had an e-mail from Amazon in my in-box, reminding me not to forget to treat myself, this holiday season. Heh. Heh. I think I have that pretty much taken care of.
(I still have the ad for my laptop taped up at my desk. So I can admire it until the real thing arrives.)
Last night...party time! Not a 'friend' party, a party hosted by a business connection of Lynn's, but it was a good party. A chance to dress up a bit, splash on a bit of perfume, and see occasional* admiring glances in the eyes of passing men.
(* A lot more occasional than they used to be.)
Actually, food-wise, it was a fabulous party. I sampled the duck, rack of lamb, shrimp, crab cakes, mussels, sausage-and-sun-dried-tomato-pasta, cheesecake, brie, chocolate mousse, and chocolate-dipped strawberries.
I did not sample the martini bar. (A) I was driving. (B) Don't like 'em.
Nor did I sample the champagne flowing so liberally, although there was one server with a twinkle in his eye and a very inviting smile I wouldn't have minded....
Ahem
If I'd had more than just about one bite of each food item, I'd have exploded, but most of the portions were thankfully very small. There were easily twenty things I never got to try. Crab, oysters, chicken Wellington, a sushi bar, cream puffs, cheeses and fruits I can't even begin to name. (Like that server....)
I've asked Lynn to get me the chef's autograph, when the occasion occurs. Possibly across my newly-expanded hips. I'm headed back to the diet in a few days.
Downtown Denver isn't someplace I have much reason to go during the holiday season, so the chance to walk over to the City and County building to see the lights wasn't one I've had in a long time. (Well, really, never, I drove by them once, many years ago on a bitterly cold evening. It's rather embarrassing to admit I've lived here for over 15 years and never seen the lights before, except in still photographs. Nice to have that omission rectified.)
I had to make the most of last night. Besides my office party, which will take place during business hours, it's the only party I'll be going to this year.
The weather, which has been gorgeous all week, seems to be working itself toward a storm today. There's a blizzard in the mountains with white-out conditions everywhere. The clouds have piled up against the foothills and are spilling over into the Denver sky.
I need for the storm not to visit us, not before Sunday, anyhow. Saturday I need to get a gift certificate for my Mom to round out my holiday shopping and I don't want to drive to that store in a storm.
(I'm boring when I drone on and on about my story, but I think I'm worse when I talk about anything else. I mean...the weather? I'm reduced to talking about the weather? How embarrassing.)
Anyhow. My first meeting is in 30 minutes. I think I'll walk over to Starbucks. I haven't seen BlanketHeadMan since Monday when, regrettably, I'd forgotten to put any cash in my pocket, but I saw MoonMan yesterday. He appreciated the dollar. He's having trouble funding the engine for his rocket, but he promised to do a flyover of my house before he leaves the planet.
Posted by AnneZook at 08:06 AM | Comments (0)A few cells of my brain are seething with lightweight story ideas. (I'm not sure "seethe" is appropriate. Five, maybe ten brain cells are participating.)
"Lumpen proletariat" is a good phrase. It sounds classier than "unskilled labor." And I like "lumpen."
"Pursuant" remains my favorite word to pronounce.
A turkey sandwich is a lovely lunch choice. Light, healthy, and nutritious. I had it yesterday, though. I have to have lunch out every day this week because I didn't go to the grocery store last weekend. Today I'm getting Mexican, which isn't as healthy, but it makes my taste buds dance. No one dances for turkey.
Besides, I'm going to need my strength this week. Mostly in the evenings. I mean, today for instance, my workday started with a scheduled 7:00 a.m. call. Granted, I decided to make the call while I was in my car, driving to the office, but technically I was working, which means I can get off early, which will be useful.
Wednesday: Leave work early, gas up car, change clothes, dash downtown for holiday party and stroll over to look at the city holiday light display. (I hate "events" that are a combination of indoors and outdoors. How do I dress for an overheated party room and a 30-degree wind-chill?)
Thursday: Wrap and box gifts that have to be shipped, write out and address the 22 holiday cards you failed to do on Tuesday (and be grateful it's not 37 cards...which is what you thought it was going to be before you counted), do a load of laundry.
Friday: Ship gifts, buy stamps for and mail 22 holiday cards, finish decorating at home, mop kitchen floor before new life forms begin to evolve, do a load of laundry.
Saturday: Find a gift for under $10 to take in for the 12/22 office party game, find someplace that sells those big tins of popcorn to take in to the office next week, do all of the other things that didn't get completed on-schedule. Also? Do a load of laundry.
Sunday: Start wrapping gifts for under tree.
If, and it's a big 'if', I get all of that done, I can do some editing on Sunday, with a clear conscience. But it's only two weeks to the holidays and it's disgraceful how little-prepared I am at the moment.
I want to be in the holiday mood. I'm fairly indifferent to most holidays, but I do love the Christmas season. It's just that this year it seems to have sneaked up on me.
This morning, also while I was on my early-morning call, I strung some cheesy garland around my desk. It was supposed to help get me in the holiday mood and it might have worked if I'd actually hung it somewhere I could see it.
As I peruse ("Peruse" is another good word.) the list above, I see I left out one notable item.
Tuesday: Pretend you didn't just buy yourself a new coat, four sweaters, a laser printer, and a new printer stand. Order yourself a laptop computer.
Yes, it's true. Upon being informed that I'm being given a Christmas bonus this year, a thing that hasn't happened to me for eleven or twelve years, I immediately squandered most of the after-tax sum on a laptop computer.
Don't care, okay? I wanted it.
I opted out of the fancy, snap-on cover ("bamboo" was the one that appealed to me) and I'm already sort of regretting it. I also opted out of the mouse. They wanted $39! I'll buy one down the street for $10, thankyouverymuch.
And I opted out of some other stuff I didn't really understand. (There's a lot of stuff I don’t understand on computers. Like, there was a choice of about 15 different processors and as near as I could tell, all fifteen descriptions were identical except for one letter or one number. I'm not playing high-graphics games, writing code, or doing anything else taxing, so I just accepted the default/no-extra-charge model.)
I wanted something for writing, so that's what I bought. The only extras I invested in were some extra memory, a Microsoft package that got me Word and Excel, and a virus-scanning program. It came with stuff I don't know how to use (wireless?) but I can make someone explain it to me if I decide to use it.
I could have gotten a second PC for half the price, but I wanted a laptop. It weighs less than five pounds!
I'm very excited about this little purchase. When I see it, I'll have to give it a name.
If I get hit by a bus, my replacement now has a brief document outlining the steps necessary to get a new client on-board with Hell's Own Software. I called it, "12-Step" because I always wanted to invent my own twelve-step program.
I amuse me sometimes. (Well, mostly.)
No one asked me to write it up, but I'm a compulsive documenter.
Also...any writing is better than no writing.
The SEN rewrites continue apace. I didn't enjoy doing them quite as much last night as I did on Sunday (it's almost impossible to overestimate the effect sunshine has on me, versus darkness*), but I still enjoyed them.
It's not out of the question that I'll rewrite the entire story from a different POV.
Bossyboots continues his descent into UltimateDorkdom by ignoring e-mails and not documenting customer calls but today I'm indifferent to his idiocy. I'm trying a new policy of not wasting valuable hours of my limited lifespan in contemplating anyone so unworthy of my attention. (Haven't seen him yet this week anyhow. It's probably cynical of me to associate his absence with the pile of mailing labels he promised me for Monday morning.)
Yesterday morning, I realized that Friday morning's reconfiguration of the phone system resulted in every, single, inbound call being dumped into my voicemail. I procrastinate about dealing with problems sometimes, but I had that one fixed in ninety seconds.
Buehler was out yesterday, meeting people off-site, leaving me a luxuriously quiet office in which to get quite a surprising amount of work done.
At the moment, I'm on a conference call. It's tricky, because our phones went down and we all had to use our cell phones. So I don't have a "mute" button and I have to type very carefully.
Today's noontime product demo, scheduled with a woman who has scheduled and cancelled three times before, was cancelled. Also, she called up to ask what it was all about...something I think she'd have been better off asking before she scheduled the first meeting, but what do I know.
I have to really focus at work this week. I figure I have about eight working days left to get through to people before crowded holiday schedules and holiday vacations put a stop to all progress until after the first of the year.
This is me...focusing via blog. (It's a Zen thing.)
____________________________
* I've decided to blame what appears to be my unusual sensitivity to SAD this year to the Impending Change.** I find it disturbing that today, the back of my mind is full of yesterday's sunshine pouring over my writing desk, while every day last week, I sat here in bright sunshine with the back of my head full of the darkness encircling the tiny island of light that I was writing in, in the evenings.
This disturbs me for many reasons. For one thing, it indicates that while I'm sitting here, drawing far too high a salary for the work I actually do, my brain is convinced that "reality" exists at my writing desk and nowhere else.
For another, it.... Ummm.
I'm sure there was something else. I appear to have forgotten what it was***, but I think The One Who Shares Living Space with me maybe shouldn't have pooh-poohed my thought of getting a full-spectrum light.
Does anyone know anything about those? I mean, is it just a kind of light bulb you can buy or does it require special fixtures or fittings?
__________
** My doctor assures me that this is not, as I had thought, fifteen or twenty years early. My hot flashes assure me that I am, yes, proceeding apace with the process. I am not amused by this. I thought you had to be sixty or sixty-five for this to happen. I was quite surprised to find out that it can happen, and still be considered "normal" almost any time after a woman is 40. Surprised, but not pleased.
*** I forget things sometimes. I blame the Impending Change. So far, the I.C. is also responsible for occasional bouts of surliness, my inability to walk across a room without tripping, and my disinclination to get out of bed on Monday mornings. (Based on that last one, the I.C. has been I. my whole life.)
This is the blog entry I meant to write before I started talking about the SEN and myself a while ago. (Well...this blog entry is about me, too, but at least it's not me whining about the SEN, which should be a nice change.)
So...the weekend! We had cold but otherwise lovely weather. In fact, I had a lovely, productive weekend.
Saturday morning, I took my usual, indulgently slow start to the weekend day. Halfway through my first pot of coffee, I decided to look for the Christmas cards I bought, then laid aside neatly to await the holiday season. I go to my room and look on the available surfaces...no cards in sight.
Two hours and three lawn-and-leaf bags full of trash later, my room and closet were very tidy, but the cards were still missing.
I took a break...went to the living room to have some coffee and sit down for a few minutes, and spotted the cards on the table beside my chair.
I'm not organized. Sometimes I think losing something in my room and having to look for it is the only way it ever gets cleaned out. Fortunately I lose something four or five times a year. It helps keep the mess from taking over.
Saturday afternoon...the usual lunch-and-shopping parade. This week it was Mexican food and a trip to Target to stock up on shampoo, paper towels, and suchlike staples. (I had a headache and a burning desire for a laptop, so I decided to avoid more tempting stores.)
I found an inexpensive butcher-block style table to use for a printer stand, something the second printer made a necessity.
Back home...Some Assembly Required. Hooray! I get to use my electric screwdriver!
And then, of course, we had to rearrange half the living room to make a space the new table and the one we moved out, and every piece of furniture we moved revealed just what a lousy job of vacuuming I've done in that place over the last three months. Embarrassing. (Writing and housekeeping aren't compatible. Especially when you have an ostensible full-time job as well.)
Sunday, the usual loitering around the house, either writing, editing, or pretending. I dug through my notes to see what else I have to work on when (if!) the SEN ever moves out of my brain.
Three Due South, one Sentinel, and, yes, I'm sorry, three more OaT. These are all considerably shorter than the monster that's been sucking up my attention for the past three months.
(For any of you who wonder why I sometimes babble on and on about boring things...I've been sitting on hold for 8 minutes and 29 seconds. Writing blog entries is what I do when I'm on hold.)
The DS and the Sentinel are rather pointless stories of the I thought of some dialogue kind, the same stuff I used to write so much of. (Lynnzo was kind enough to volunteer to be guinea-pig to read the outlines for a couple of these. She laughed out loud. I think that's promising, don't you?)
Two of the OaT stories, you'll be happy to hear, already exist in first draft. I wrote them 'way back when and then threw them aside in disgust. I'm hoping that the distance of a few years and the Educational Experience I've had with the SEN will allow me to turn them into actual stories. Assuming, of course, I wind up having learned anything from the SEN besides not to bite off more than I can chew.
The other may and/or may not turn out to be a sequel to the SEN. I've always wanted to write (those fatal words....) a story with a lot of mood in it. I wrote one I thought wasn't bad for HL many years ago, but the one person I showed it to didn't like the way I'd ignored character development in favor of emphasizing story tone, so I put it away. Now I think I'm ready to try again.
Sometimes I'm not sure if I like writing, or I just love paper*. I printed out all my notes on all seven** stories, stuck them into special folders I bought for that kind of thing, and found a special place for them to wait in my newly tidied room.
(Four minutes and forty-six seconds, this time.)
It almost seems a pity to write the stories. They look so promising, there in their matching folders, you know?
My head hurts and I don't like people who use 'hold' music on their phone systems. I understand it lets the caller know they haven't been cut off by accident, but I preferred the olden days, when someone would actually talk to you.
______________________________
* Paper and pens. The Massive Rewrite project I'm undertaking on the SEN necessitated going through a printed draft of the story and marking different passages with one of two highlight colors, to indicate which "angle" the scenes needed to be rewritten to fit. Other edits I decided on as I went were marked in red ink. The actual re-writes are in purple ink. I don’t know how people manage with fewer than nine pens, four highlighters, and six colors of post-it notes***, I really don't.
** Maybe eight. No, seven. Maybe eight. One of the OaT stories exists in two formats. One is 21k words and has some stuff I love in it. The other is 5k words and lacks the stuff I love but, I suspect, is a better story.
That is going to be an interesting project. Possibly I can pull the 5k out of the 21k and replace it with other material. Possibly I'll have to choose one story or the other and risk having to delete my favorite OC. It's very exciting.
Why do I have to work for a living? I could be home making theses decisions!
***And laptop computers. How can I continue to write without a laptop computer? I find myself reluctant to write more than the shortest possible version of any scene when I'm writing on paper, because I always have the threat of transcription looming over me. Sometimes it's a problem because a scene needs to be more detailed.
I don’t think it should count that I just spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a laser printer and a printer stand and a chair and a chair mat and paper and pens and new clothes and books. I need a laptop. As the holidays grow nearer, and sales begin to appear, I have a Deep-Laid Plot to sneak out and buy one, one day.
By the time the person responsible for reining in my excesses realizes I have it, I'll have had it for too long to be able to return it for a refund. Doesn't matter what she does or says, even if she tells Mom on me. It will be mine! Mine! All mine!
If she promises not to tell Mom, I'll let her borrow it.
Friday, I started a blog entry.
I don't know if the SEN will be completed, and I don't know if I really care. I'm willing to forgive a story a lot of flaws, and work through a lot of things to correct them, but "boring" is unforgivable. At the moment, I've decided to stop consciously thinking about it. My un/sub/whatever Freudian term is appropriate/conscious sometimes tosses up useful suggestions if I leave it alone to work on a problem.Who knows? Inspiration may wash over me at an unexpected moment, solving all my problems and boosting me back into one of those manic moods.
Or, not.
I didn't actually manage the "not thinking about it" part, but I had a brief visit by the Inspiration Elf late yesterday afternoon.
On the one hand, it's good because what I thought of should solve the most major flaw in the story. At least, I hope it will. I re-edited the first 30 pages and it's working so far.
On the other hand, it's bad, because it means some fairly massive re-writes. (Only 120 pages to go....) And some minor, but important re-writes to two scenes.
After I complete those, I have to decide if I really want to write an interesting story or not. If I decide I do, I'll have to reconsider those thematic, structural, character function sorts of things. (Seems to me that if it's not going to be funny or sexy, there's no reason not to keep using it as a Learning Experience and going back to try and add some nuance and layer in something beyond the merely obvious, superficial action.)
On the other hand (I'm very handy these days), I could be sick to death of the fool thing by the time I finish the already-planned rewrites and any of the other seven stories outlined and waiting in the wings might step up and demand attention.
But the really good news is that last week's aggravation seems, in hindsight, to have been me hitting the wall on this project. I'm now past the bitter recriminations over the idea that writing is largely about re-writing and I'm rather enjoying the process.
At least...I was yesterday. The problem with using Sunday as my Writing Day is that I' m still in the mood on Monday. After a day of focusing on the story and a night to sleep on it, my brain is buzzing with ideas, and it's a long time till the next Sunday. Or even, it seems at the moment, until Monday evening.
So...what's up with Bossyboots today? Well, about three weeks ago, Buehler and I discussed needing shipping labels for active clients. Bossyboots said he'd run labels for the project.
A few days later I asked him about them and he said he was working on them but didn't have addresses for everyone. I told him to tell me who he needed addresses for and I'd get them.
A week later, I reminded him of this and he said he was getting the addresses. So far, so good.
Monday he presented me with an Excel spreadsheet. I pointed out that "labels" were required, not a spreadsheet. After I handed him mailing labels, sent him a file giving him the address of this office where he is working (I put the address in an e-mail but he insisted it had to be an attachment...but I think I gave you the Saga Of The File Format yesterday, right?), and explained about re-sizing fonts, he produced labels. So far...a little annoying, but still easier than doing it myself, so, okay.
Today I start putting labels on boxes. I do two cartons full 46 boxes) before it occurs to me that I have a lot of sheets of labels for a project that only has 48 active clients. I inspect said labels.
Some are for active clients, but not all of the active clients, because he did not, in fact, get the missing addresses.
Most of the labels consisted of some prospective clients, some clients "accepted" but not active, some people who said call back in six months, and some people who said never call me again.
Okay, it's partly my own fault. I should have inspected the labels when he handed them to me yesterday and I didn't. I knew I should have, at the time. I've been in the workplace long enough to know you check stuff before you send it out. And worked with him for long enough to know that what you get is never quite what you needed.
This does not, in my book, excuse him handing me something that was so far from what was requested.
And none of this, even more, excuses him, upon finding me ripping labels off some boxes, throwing other labels away, and searching through the remaining labels for "active clients, none of this excuses him saying, "well, okay, I'm going to lunch."
I don't like to feel this level of incandescent rage on a Friday.
Sorry about the comments, everyone. I'm having to keep the site pretty well locked down, with only the last three or four posts open for new comments. Seems like the instant this new site came up, it was found by the spammonsters and I have to check my logs several times a day to clean out the comments section. It really keeps the volume down if there are only 3-4 open posts they can toss their trash into. I'm looking into a blacklist to get them outta my hair.
The SEN continues to suck and I'm back at the point where I wonder what it is that made me think I knew how to write. I know I wrote some stuff several years ago but between now and then I seem to have lost some critical number of brain cells and I no longer remember how it was done.
The LESS ideas, which struck me as humorous and entertaining a week ago look limp and lifeless today.
Didn't get home until almost 8 last night (late meeting, then had to go pick up a prescription), so all I did was read and eat.
I don't understand it. I had a Serious Carbohydrate Breakfast. It's Friday. The sun is shining and I've already sucked down a Venti Latte. I should be chipper and cheerful.
But I am glum.
Bossyboots isn't even here today and he has my stomach in knots.
I say, what's the point of having call-tracking software so we can enter notes and everyone knows what's going on with each client if you're not going to enter the kinds of notes that allow others to actually understand what told them?
I don't care if he's in the office or out on a particular day, other people's schedules are not my business, but I'm sitting here facing the fact that I'm going to have to call him and ask him specifically about every one of these six clients that the call-tracking software suggests have been ignored for the last eight weeks, or I'm going to have to call the clients and ask them if anyone from our place has, in fact, been working with them. Neither solution is a good one.
The potential clients come to me, first. When they're "sold" on the product, they go to him for installation, then to Sassy for training, then back to me. In theory, anyhow. At the moment, they're stagnating at the point where he supposedly takes responsibility.
I clearly understand that he'd love to get a string of calls from me while he bustles about on his personal errands today. He's the sort that loves to give the impression of being Busy and Important to everyone around him, plus which he could then tell Buehler that I called him six times, so he wasn't really "off" today and (per his contract) should be paid. So I refuse to call him.
We don't actually have a strict hierarchy around here, but if we did, he would report to me, and not the other way around. I refuse to start nursemaiding him just because I' m more conscientious about good customer-handling than he is.
. . .pause....
Okay, I called one client. He did send her some info, but she didn't understand what she was supposed to do with it. So she hasn't done anything. While she's not doing anything, her boss is telling the people who pay us to handle this project that we're not doing anything.
Now I'm sure I should call the other five. I could easily make up the deficiencies in the information he provided to them, if only he'd documented what he actually told them, which, of course, he did not. "Sent links and docs" is not, to my mind, a sensible call note.
I. Am. So. Angry.
Bossyboots is Pissing. Me. Off. again today.
On Monday, I send an e-mail. What installs did we do this month? I get nothing from him. Buehler asks, did you get a reply? I say, no. Buehler says, ask again. I do. Bossyboots finally responds this morning, says no installs this month. I put '0' in the monthly report and send it out.
Bossyboots sends out an e-mail saying my numbers are wrong, there were installs, and he's 'checking into it.'
I go back and ask what his problem is. He says he didn't see my e-mails asking what installs we did this month. This, you understand, in spite of the fact that he answered one of them less than two hours ago.
This kind of bullshit just infuriates me. Any sensible chimpanzee would make himself a note and send me the numbers at the end of the month. The fact that I have to actually ask him, and always more than once, to get them out of him, is irritating enough, but then to lie to me just, as near as I can tell, so that he's able to send out an e-mail saying I'm wrong, makes me see red.
I'm not a secretary and I'm not a gofer and he's a part-time, contract employee. Where he gets off acting like it's my job to chase him around and wheedle information out of him on whether or not he's done any work is a mystery to me.
Since he'd already made it to Today's List an hour ago* my entire day is now going to be wasted fantasizing about slow and ugly ways he could die.**
I had a whole fun post on writing planned, but now I'm in a foul mood.
__________________
* He wanted me to send him some information in a file.
I said, "what file format." Since this information could be presented in a Word document, html, pdf, or any of fifteen other kinds of graphics files, I didn't see this as an unreasonable question.
He wrote back, "just attach the file and send it to me" as though there were some nonspecific format called "file" that I could use.
Posted by AnneZook at 11:17 AMFandom became a wasteland for me a few years ago I attribute that to a lot of factors, all of which are someone else's fault. (And I'm at peace with this position.) First, of course, there was the dearth of decent shows on television. (This year, as I think I've said frequently, I'm watching Navy NCIS and nothing else.) That's number one.
At that time I was bored of my old fandoms, burned out on struggling to write OaT, and discouraged because there wasn't anything in that fandom I wanted to read anyhow, and no place to talk about it. (My friends were more than tolerant, but even my ego stops short of nattering on endlessly about something no one else cares about. Certainly after the first year or so.)
It's your fault. You all left the fandoms I was actually interested in and went off to write insults removed* stuff I didn't care about. The scavengers and bottom-feeders** moved in and it became almost impossible to find the good stories being posted amongst all the misbegotten garbage. After a while, it just didn't seem worth the effort.
The point of this entry is to inform you that I hereby demand that everyone I know stop dinking around with fandoms that don't attract me and write something in a fandom that does. And let me know where you post it, so I don't have to go looking for it.
And none of your rapefests or angstwallows. If I want to be depressed, I'll go back to politics. I want a giggle. Or at least a smile. XF, DS, SEN , OaT or even HL,*** I'm tolerant, you can write in any of them.
I mean, I'm writing in four of them myself, at this very moment. (Well, I have things started. Whether or not they'll see the light of day remains a mystery.) But I don't read my own stuff, so I require that someone else write something for me to read.
Do you guys re-read your own stories? For pleasure, I mean, not with an idea to editing or anything. I frequently wonder how many fandom authors read their own stuff and enjoy it.
______________________
* This was a better post before I removed the rude bits insulting fandoms that don’t interest me, but I'll probably lose fewer friends with this one.
** I probably should have removed that one, too.
*** Five fandoms, no waiting! Not necessarily slash. Any of them, really, could be gen. As long as they're light.