yonmei

07:20 pm: Work SUX
I hate everybody.
I'm tired.
I don't want to do Event tomorrow.
I don't know what my Yuletide assigment is.
*cries*



Tags: i want a cup of tea and a tonne of sympa, i want a hug, work

08:46 am: Today: a fantasy to-do list
1. By the time I get into work, the server will be working again. By 11am or so.
2. I will be able to correct our database and print out the labels. Yes, corrected.
3. And contact our designer re the comet thing. Yes, phoned.
4. And e-mail the people working at the Event about early trains.
5. I will also be able to compile and send the newsletter.
6. And the Event volunteer will be able to update the registration list.
7. I will finish everything by 6pm and be able to go to a party at 7pm.

I suppose 5 out of 7 isn't bad....

Tags: lists, work

10:41 pm: Nanowrimo and other writing issues
I have been working pretty bloody solidy on the Event. TS#1, who normally reflexively provides support, is on holiday. So he should be. I'm tired of it, and yet feeling at least in control/on top of it because things I knew should get done, are getting done. So. There's that. But there's a stack of for-work writing which I should be getting done and am not as a direct result of doing Event work.

I'm just going to pretend that Nanowrimo starts officially at midnight 14th November.

Tags: nanowrimo, work, writing

06:36 pm: Those brightly-coloured printed ribbons people stick on their badges at conventions these days
Where does one BUY them?

Tags: dundee, work

12:33 pm: I am at work
I am not focussing very well. Though I spoke to MEsamurai who has the same thing I have only about 24-48 hours behind me (she had the thing like being throttled by your own throat on Monday night: I had it on Sunday night) and it was quite comforting to be able to tell someone authoratively "no, you are still ill, you should stay home from work".

All I came in to do today was work out what I had to do for the rest of October, and I shall go home at 4pm whether I have done that or not.

Yes. So that's quite reassuring.

I am thinking about writing a post for feministsf on regendering bad skiffy. For example, What I've Learned From Laura Niven.....



Tags: being ill, work

11:32 pm: I did work today
I had to meet up with someone who is going to volunteer for us. This was great. I was very tired and a bit ill. I went out afterwards for a curry with a co-worker but really I should have gone home and collapsed.

I will come into work tomorrow and figure out what I'm doing the rest of October.

jekesta thinks I was squandering my sick time by not watching snooker. She may be right. The thing about being ill is not having to do anything. The rotten thing is not feeling like doing anything.



Tags: being ill, work

08:44 am: bloody hell
I wish I could make up my mind not to go into work today.

I'm awesomely tired. I'm still getting sporadic nosebleeds, especially but not limited to when I sneeze.



Tags: being ill, nose of a nose, work

10:43 pm: What I did today
I went to Stockbridge Sunday Market via Eildon Street and Inverleith Park. I haven't walked down Eildon Street in years: my great-aunt used to live there. The new owners have planted a hedge in what was Aunt Margaret's garden, which lets them sit by the sunny wall sheltered from direct gaze by the street: it's a very specific and local hedge, because (I presume) they don't want to block one bedroom's view of the firework shows...

I went on through Inverleith Park, which has a pond on which several grown men were playing with toy boats. (There was a cluster of them by the bank, with their controls, looking very grim as if a toy boat was Serious Business. I suppose it might be, if the boat was attacked by a swan.)

There were rumours that Artisan Roast was going to be at the market, but they weren't, so I bought myself a plain and an almond croissant to eat in the office later (but I shall try to resist in future: they aren't making any reductions whatsoever given they're selling their pastries from a market stall, and good though their croissants are, they're not £3.30 worth of good...), and had an excellent lunch of Stir-fry Yaki Udon noodles from HaraJuku Kitchen. There is nowhere to sit down - the market is just a cluster of stalls along Portgower Road, which runs from Inverleith Park to Comely Bank - so I sat down on the pavement with my back against a sunny wall and managed my chopsticks quite nicely, considering I am way out of practice. (For years, I thought I didn't like "Chinese food": it was only after friends asked me to meals at Chinese restaurants that I discovered what I don't like is the state a stir-fried meal gets into when it's stored in little foil boxes for half an hour to an hour and then eaten steamy-soggy, greasy, and luke-warm.) I suppose I could have walked back to Inverleith Park without my lunch getting too cold: next time I might do that, if they're still there next time I go.

So then I walked back via the river path to find out what was going on at the Car Free day on the Shore.

What there was, actually, was even less than Stockbridge Sunday Market: a pen had been put up for a five-a-side football game that looked uncomfortably like a cage match (I suppose they really did need the cage wall on the side by the river, or they'd have lost their football sure as fate) and a set of stalls about energy conservation on the other side of the bridge. One of them was giving away free hessian ILoveLeith bags, so I got one, and another was letting you have a free glass of freshly juiced apple juice, if you cycled for about a minute or so per glass on an old bike that was set up to power the apple juicer.

...and then I went on to the office where I brewed myself up some coffee, ate my croissants, and watched Evita while I did data processing work for several hours. I took a break between five and six when I walked up to ScotMid and bought myself some tea, because the chip shop across the road was beginning to sing wistfully to me in its siren way, and when that happens, I should probably eat something more sensible.

But I got almost all the data processing done. It's got to be all done for the 24th. Yes, that's Thursday. I have too much to do, and if I got the bulk of it done on Sunday, I could half-watch half-listen-to a movie while I did it.

I first saw Evita when it was a musical in London in 1982: my drama class went on a three-day trip to London during which we saw an alarming amount of theatre, including Evita, The Cherry Orchard, and Barnum. Plus one play we got unexpected tickets for, because (probably) it was so awfully bad. I forget what else we saw. Of the three big evening plays, the one I remember vividly is Barnum: though the songs from Evita stuck with me longer. It was odd: I vaguely knew what the plot must be from having read more history of South America since than I had then, but I don't think I ever really followed the plot of the musical till I finally saw Madonna's film. I'm interested to find that the film doesn't name Che until the credits roll up the screen and you finally (if you didn't already know) find out who Antonio Banderas was playing. (The film does not pass the Bechdel Test. The only conversation two women have is between Evita and Peron's previous mistress, and since it's a conversation in which Evita is telling her she's getting dumped, it doesn't count.)

I also got an e-mail from my sister about next weekend: she's coming up for a visit.



Tags: eating some delicious food, edinburgh, films, just my life really, lunch, walks, work

11:16 pm: Lists of today
I'm sort of watching Night at the Museum, which I last saw on the ferry from Belgium after Ajay and I had virtually no sleep and were pretty much totally stoned from tiredness. It was very funny then. It is still pretty good, but it is easier to spot the plotholes waving in the breeze.

Can plotholes wave in a breeze? Probably.

This morning I discovered that the friend of a friend had succumbed to the forces of evil. Which is to say, he wanted to do something, homophobes believed he shouldn't be allowed to do it, and when it was clear they were going to go on standing in his way and jumping up and down and spitting ugly homophobic allegations, he did eventually just give up. Which is infuriating and maddening and understandable and sad.

We had a meeting about our salaries. I want more money. More than that I want more recognition. That is a wholly complicated topic for another time.

I got contacted by someone who was going to help someone who may be stuck in an asylum seekers detention centre. It was all a bit like a handball getting passed: she wrote from Dungavel to an address in England who contacted us and I passed them back to legal advice group and passed the email on to someone else I work with who passed it on to someone she knows who passed it on to someone who can visit her who contacted us again. And now I know this group exists - they visit asylum seekers in the detention centre and they have no problem supporting LGBT asylum seekers which is frankly a problem in this area, dammit - I can pass other people on to them. So that was a good afternoon after a rotten morning.

I did not manage to fix H#1's web access. Tomorrow. I hope.

I wrote emails to people. I looked up banner prices. I passed on some logos to a leaflet designer. I fixed meetings for next week. I feel like I did things.

On Sunday, I'm going to Stockbridge Market, and then I'm going to walk down to the Shore by the river path to the Car Free Afternoon from 1:30 to 4. I may photograph things.



Tags: just my life really, work

04:00 pm: Workplace sweeties, workplace politics, workplace competition
It is traditional in most workplaces - and ours is no exception - that when someone comes back from a holiday or an overseas trip, they bring with them treats to get shared round the office.

(This was actually DANGEROUS back when H#1 and AlphaSamurai were engaging in unspoken competition as to who could bring back most luscious chocolates from Belgium - when they were both going to Brussels quite often. Chocolates of DANGER and EVIL, so luscious with cream, sugar, chocolates in milk, plain, and white, nuts, honey, nougat... the sort of chocolates you fall passionately in love with even though you know, you know it will not end well...)

FreshStart is allergic to chocolate. AdminSamurai strives to be vegan. EMS#1 is coeliac and strives to be dairy-free. (The only exception either of the last two make regularly is with regard to chocolate.)

Nobody, of course, would be so gauche as to complain about workplace sweeties they can't eat. (Actually, FreshStart kept his chocolate allergy so quiet that I didn't realise that was why he'd refuse anything with chocolate till he'd been working here for 18 months. I think he feels slightly bad about the rest of us doing without shared chocolate now we know, but what can you do?) These are a gift. It's the thought that counts. We all tell each other that. Yes.

Nonetheless, there is a good deal of unspoken competition for who can bring back sweeties from holiday which are definitively overseas treats (ie, not just the same brand names in a different language) and which are chocolate-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegetarian (ideally, vegan).

(An unspoken competition which I silently yet comprehensively won, probably forever, by bringing back a box of pure maple sugar sweeties from Montreal. Top that, cow-orkers. Mega Unspoken Competition Points.)

The Twerp's contribution to this workplace competition was to bring back... jelly sweets shaped like traffic lights. With gelatin. Chocolate-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free, that's a win. Not vegetarian or vegan: that's a lose. (I noticed that he wasn't offering them to me, but was trying to get AdminSamurai to accept one, which she was declining, for the fairly obvious reason that if it's made out of bits of dead cows hooves, it is not vegan.)





Tags: belgium, chocolate, montreal, work

03:38 pm: Monday afternoon, and rain
I'm drinking hot chocolate, and it's raining outside.

After work, I planned to go swimming.



Tags: chocolate, weather, work

12:35 pm: I has a PINK baby dragon!


(and two three eggs)



Otherwise, well: it's Monday, and I'm doing workplan stuff.

By the way, can Tyson (Ty for short) be a girl's name in the US? If not, can anyone suggest a plausible girl's name for which Ty is a plausible nickname? (I have a mild prejudice against names ending in A.)

Tags: work

09:23 am: Wednesday morning lists
1. Bob's home! Yay.
2. Have important meeting to prepare for tomorrow.
3. Made rye bread with cocoa nibs.
4. Also made more rye bread without cocoa nibs.
5. Saw Star Trek and Wolverine (not the same evening). Star Trek is better technically but Wolverine is more fun. Both have ( spoiler ) Also, which is not a spoiler, Nyota Uhura was a good-lookin' woman at any age: she was not Walking Skellington. Also - Skellington though she was, I could believe she was The Best Xenolinguist Anywhere: she had that attitude. But the other fubsy li'l Baby Officers, who kept appearing while I said What? WHAT? WHAT? (silently) - they did not.
6. Also, lack of chemistry. If they want to expand the franchise from now to eternity, they've really, really got to look for actors who feel like they're comrades and friends and lovers.
7. Also, help my baby cloud dragon not die! Give clicky! Thanks.



Tags: bread, lists, star trek, work

06:00 pm: This afternoon
About 4pm this afternoon I officially finished all of my work for this year. With one day to spare.

...of course I still have reports to write.

Tags: *bounce*, sometimes i love my job, work

11:03 am: All alone at work...
( makes coffee )

Tags: coffee, evil american politics, evil awful mondays, imagine better, work, write write write

10:25 pm: Long day
Wolf does this thing that I love. He sits on my chest with his backside on my right arm and his forepaws on my left, and just completely relaxed, purring like a small motor. That is, I learned to love it when he learned to position himself where I can see the screen and type. It is a good position for a writer's cat. He's doing that right now.

( Long day )

Tags: garden record, just my life really, wolf, work

01:16 pm: Sundayish thoughts
I'm tired and feel illish. That is, not quite notwell enough not to go into work, if I had to work today, which I don't, though I have a feeling there was important painting stuff at the new office which I'd kind of volunteered for yesterday, and didn't even try to find out about. But illish.

American right-wing bloggers are whining about a Guardian TV columnist: here, here, and here.

This is Charlie Brooker they're whining about. Never heard of him? I'm a regular Guardian reader, and I hadn't. That's because Brooker writes for The Guide, which I barely glance at on my way through to the TV listings. It's sort of like complaining about Nancy Banks-Smith.

[Error: Invalid poll ID 371836]

Tags: being ill, evil american politics, work

07:51 pm: My stupid cat has a Very Loud Wail
I mean, really. Loud. Noisy.

( on cats, locks, and wails )

Tags: cats, gallus, work, worrying about my cats

10:33 am: Not a happy bunny
Gallus, my stupid cat, has got herself locked in to the empty flat immediately below mine. It's in the process of being repossessed, apparently - it's empty, it's not listed as "to let" or "for sale" on the espc.co.uk website, and my cat is stuck in there and has (probably) been there since Thursday evening. I assume she's drinking out of the toilet bowl. And, of course, it's a damn bank holiday weekend.

Solutions (which is why this is a friends-locked post):[unlocked, since I decided not to break the window]

1. Break the window and let her out. Maybe call a glazier to fix it. Or maybe not. I'm really kind of pissed with whoever locked up without checking the rooms thoroughly.

2. Call a glazier and/or locksmith, find out how much it would cost to get a windowpane removed (and whether it would cost more than changing the locks).

3. Call the police and ask them for advice.

I think she's probably okay till end-of-day today, and in any case if I'm going to smash the window I'd just as soon do it after dark.

( moaning about physical pain )

And I really, really have to get out of the house and go to Glasgow for a homosamurai forum with brandnewgun. Soon. (I woke up at 6am, stumbled through to the kitchen, made myself breakfast, took it back to bed, ate breakfast... and went back to sleep for 4 hours. Ow, my hip hurts.)

Tags: cats, gallus, work, worrying about my cats