| Wednesday June 25, 2003 -- 8:50am OK. The Rolling Stones are going have their little "SARS is so yesterday" concert up in Toronto. Joining them will be AC/DC, The Isley Bros., The Guess Who, Jim Belushi, Dan Akroyd and... Justin Timberlake?!? I'm worried for the boy! Also, I hate when you're cursing out the traffic for moving too slow, and then you finally get past it and see that the root cause of the hold up is... a hearse. Yep. I'm going straight to Hell. -- 7:45am I have to go to work again?!? I just went yesterday! Tuesday June 24, 2003 -- 6:10pm Somebody came by today and painted all of the walls and doors in our apartment building. For some strange reason that I cannot possibly explain, this included painting the main entrance door shut. I seriously thought I was going to have to sit on the front steps and wait for someone to leave before I could get in - which would have sucked because it's 900 degrees (Farenheit) out there. Of course, it's 912 degrees up here, but that's besides the point! I finally was able to kick the door hard enough to open it. Now. I am not a home maintenance whiz by any means, so I hate to be critical, but, (a) I don't think one usually waits for the first really humid day of the year to repaint and, (b) They painted the door shut! -- 3:30pm Oh Lordy. My boss just came in with the pile of draft letters, surveys, etc. that I've left in her mailbox over the past couple of days and said, "You've been busy!" This can't be a good sign. -- 9:10am So basicially the entire staff except for me and the book keeper is out until noon today. I shall use this time of relative quiet to diligently catch up on the outrageous amounts of work I've fallen behind on, due to my frenzied schedule. Oh wait. Wrong life. I shall use this time of relative lack of supervision to catch up on the antics of Weebl and Bob. Monday June 23, 2003 -- 7:45pm Hmph. I just went to a doctor's appointment that I didn't want to go to that I didn't actually have! It was sort of fun to see the look on the psychiatrist's face when he opened the door and found me sitting in the lobby. My God! Maybe she is insane! Or... could it be me?!? Saturday June 21, 2003 -- 2:30pm I have baked my first rhubarb strawberry pie. I am very pleased with myself. I hope it isn't crap. I have this brilliant idea for a new custom I feel should be incorporated into our culture. I think it should be considered rude to serve anything to guests without first removing a piece. The missing piece, see, would imply that you'd taken some and tried it yourself, to make sure it was worthy of being served. This would also help insecure cooks such as myself when serving experimental pies to friends they'd rather like to keep. Former museum folk will enjoy this next bit. Current museum folk may be substantially less amused. I called over to the museum yesterday and spoke with my replacement. When I asked her how things were going, she replied, "Well, we're in a bit of a crisis right now." Since the museum has been "in a bit of a crisis" since the late 90's, my reply of, "Oh, yeah?" was lacklustre and unimpressed. "Yeah," she replied. "Yesterday, {Truly Wonderful Volunteer} was working on the server, and he accidentally deleted the entire schedule of group reservations!" "Oh my God!" This is a crisis! "Wait," she said. "It gets better." It seems the director (of His Idiocy fame) went on vacation in South America without having paid any of the bills! So bill collectors were storming the place! Their Internet access had already been shut down, and the power company would be shutting them down the next morning if they didn't get some moola. If the power got shut off, not only would the museum have to close to the public, but it would be highly likely that all of the fish and some of the other animals would die. I was stunned. I mean, the guy's an idiot, but come on! I think this will significantly help the coup d'etat effort. I only hope the results will not be even more disastrous. Thursday June 18, 2003 -- 6:30pm This morning, as I was driving down Henry Johnson Blvd., I stopped to let a guy pull out of Stewart's. Instead of the usual hand wave as a thank you, he blew me a kiss! It made my whole day. I hung out with museum folk (only one) for the first time in a month last night. It seems the museum is continuing with its usual ridiculousness. It looks like a bomb went off in there... even more so than usual. Apparently Educator X has gone on a rampage while the director is away. Interesting things are afoot, and I am just fine with watching them from the outside. My new job continues to be less than thrilling, although I am starting to know what I'm doing, and I got my first dose of office politics today. So that was exciting. And I had my first successful referral call today. It was really easy though. She knew exactly what she wanted. All I had to do was look up the phone number. Genius! I went grocery shopping on Tuesday, so there are numerous delicious things to eat in my kitchen. Sigh. It's kind of ridiculous, but I am feeling... large. What I really am is back up to normal weight, but I think any weight gain feels sort of bad, you know? Having said that, I think I'll go make something yummy for dinner! Monday June 16, 2003 -- 4:30pm Say, is that my brain oozing out of my ears? I'm going to have to figure something out here to make the rest of the summer bearable. I'm sure I'll be busier in the fall, but, jeesh. Here's an interesting phenomenon: I gave the director a grant report to review, and she got it back to me the next working day, told me it was great, and that I should put it in the mail! What?!? You mean, she didn't feel the need to make 500 little (mostly stupid) corrections and make me re-do it?!? I don't even think she took it home for her spouse to read! And she skipped the whole waiting-until-the-day-it's-due to give it back to me thing. Is this sort of behavior allowed?!? -- 9:25am It's not quite 9:30 in the morning, and I've already had a strange day. But first, a shout out to my dear friend Alyce whose 20's have come to an end. Happy 30th!!! I woke up at 3am and couldn't fall back to sleep. Sometime around 4:15 I finally gave up and got up. I showered, fed the cats, got dressed for work and... went back to bed. I slept from 6 to 8, then got up again and started my day. Very strange way to begin a new week. Friday June 13, 2003 -- 3:30pm Eh. I suck. 1) Sexy Computer Boy was here, walked past my office, and didn't even glance - didn't even consider the remote possibility of glancing - in my direction. This is because I suck and am repellent. 2) I received a phone call from Frantic Frustrated Mother and only succeeded in making her more frantic and frustrated before giving up and passing her off to someone else. This is because I suck and am a ridiculous nervous wreck when talking on the phone to strangers. I want to go home and eat ice cream. -- 11:50am Well, it's Seniors' Bingo Day here at the office. Things get rolling in about an hour. I'm hoping that this means I'll be constantly distracted from the Nothing that I feel compelled to accomplish today. In any case, there will be leftovers. I knew things would get absurd here sooner or later. I took a call this morning from a woman who claimed that the web site she'd been given for us led her to a teen p0r|\| site. Obviously, this is not exactly the image we want, so I checked it out. I tried as many variations of our URL as I could think of and the worst thing I came up with was the web site of a steel company in Chicago. Uh... lady? Take some typing lesson maybe. Thursday June 12, 2003 -- 6:45pm I've been hitting the mood swings big time lately. If you are ever in the market for a mental illness, may I recommend avoiding a mood disorder. Yes, they are among the less expensive varieties - mainly because they are so common-place and relatively easy to maintain - but, if you're going to go for a mental illness, I definitely think you should go all out. Get one that is very obvious to everyone. That way you can avoid anybody's expectations that you behave like a normal human being. They won't be tricked into thinking you are capable of things like going to work and bathing. Even better, get a mental illness that makes you oblivious to your insanity. That way you won't be beating yourself up over it - you'll just assume everyone else is nuts. Yes, I recommend a nice little delusional-psychotic type thing. It's nice that I can see the humor in all of this. I wasn't so amused at 3:00 today when I wanted to curl up under my desk in fetal position. Instead, I went to a meeting that made me want to drive a pencil into my eye. That cheered me up though. The guy who is pretty much in charge of everything in one of the towns we serve commented on my toe nail polish. I was comforted by the fact that someone so important was paying more attention to my toes than to the actual meeting. Wednesday June 11, 2003 -- 4:35pm Happiness is... biting into what you thought was a plain muffin and discovering that it is actually a chocolate chip muffin! Tuesday June 10, 2003 -- 11:45am Today feels better. Some days I just wake up off. Also, we had a "Team Meeting," and it was very silly. This makes me feel a bit better. I have to keep reminding myself that it's all still new. I'll probably be wishing for these days back in no time. I got my new Roladex just now. This is very exciting, having come from a place where I had to bribe people just to get legal size paper. Now I get to fill it up with the new numbers I've been collecting in a pile on my desk. Monday June 9, 2003 -- 8:40pm The highlight of my day took place at about 8:45am while I was waiting at the light to turn left onto Route 146 in Clifton Park. All these geese took off, and you know how geese are always so well organized in perfect V formation. Well these guys were just a mess. I kind of chuckled and muttered, "C'mon, guys. Get it together." Before the light turned green, wouldn't you know it, about 10 of them had arranged themselves and the rest were carefully negotiating their positions. From the rear-view mirror I saw them all lined up and on their way. Geese have the right idea. There are no leaders in a goose flight formation. The one in front does his bit. Then, when he's had enough, he drops off to the back, where he is supported by the tail winds of the others and hardly has to do much work at all. Meanwhile, another bird takes over in the front. They maximize their energy efficiency It is the sheer volume of random crap like this in my head that causes me to go to the ATM without my ATM card. It turns out I don't really want to work anymore. I'm not very happy at my new job so far. I am trying to keep in mind that it's still only my second week, and I despise not knowing what I am doing. I think, more than anything, I miss the interaction with co-workers. I miss my museum folk! I miss someone wandering into my office and sitting down to chat. I miss there always being a pot of coffee on and something to laugh about. I miss the people I considered my friends, who I was so used to seeing every day who I haven't talked to in weeks! Honestly, I'd rather just stay home than go to this absurdly quiet office I don't regret leaving the museum. I couldn't have stayed. I'm just very, very sad and angry that it got messed up the way it did. It sometimes seems like everything that is Good turns to crap. Therefore, I am going to go eat some ice cream... with Magic Shell. Sunday June 8, 2003 -- 11:00am Well, crud. I just discovered that I haven't been saving this page as I update, which means I lost from May 3rd to May 17. All the job-quitting glee and trauma, down the tubes. Alas. I had a flying visit to CT yesterday. For some reason, everyone was telling stories about my years as a huge cry-baby (i.e. Birth to about age 5). I've decided, however, that it's all a ruse. Everyone has one or two stories that they tell over and over. All told, it adds up to about 20 instances of me crying over the course of 5 years. Furthermore, I swiped a couple of my baby photo albums, and there are only 2 pictures of me crying and about 200 of me smiling and laughing. It's a conspiracy, I tell you! (You'll notice that I conveniently have posted this while my mother is out of the country and with limited access to a computer. Make nothing of it! Or else I'll cry.) |
 |
 |