WhatsUp9

Wednesday September 4, 2002 -- 10:25am
True Story: When we opened the front doors to the museum today, there was a little tupperware container with a note attached to it, sitting on the ground outside, like an abandoned baby. The note read, "I have never seen an insect like this before. Have you?"

Inside the container (which must have been left last night as it was covered in dew) was some grass and the most enormous, disgusting bug ever. Some kind of hornet type thing with a stinger that was at least 1/2 an inch long.

We brought it to the Animal Nursery. I suspect it will be fed to something.

In other news, Jake's crab met with an unfortunate accident and has crossed to the other side. Apparently it somehow figured out how to get out of its tank and it "took a walk." The body was discovered by the director as he was showing the Winslows around. The Winslows are the somewhat important descendants of the man whom our building is named after. Heh.

Monday September 2, 2002 -- 1:15pm
Good Lord, another day off.

My sleeping patterns have no discernible patterns whatsoever. Without setting an alarm before falling asleep, there is no way to predict how long it will take me to wake up. Thus, I am still in my jammies at 1:15pm. Ugh.

My Moby/Computer Registration issues have been resolved. Turns out I'm just a doofus.

I went to Dan's last night for a BBQ. It rained, but that's ok. Now that it's not a million degrees out, we can actually sit inside his house. I left early, and didn't join them at the bar. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I'm so amazingly non-social, still. I wouldn't say I'm anti-social. I'm not against it, in principle. It's just so much easier to be by myself.

Plus, I was really full and tired.

I have Wing Chun tonight - I think. It's a holiday, but I'm guessing that we have class anyway. I don't much feel like going to that either. Mainly because it's already going on 1:30 and I feel like it's 8am. At 5pm, It'll only be 11:30am for me, and that's not when I normally go to Wing Chun.

My new neighbors are checking out their doorbell, which sounds like a department store door alarm. "You have set off our inventory control device. Please return to the cashier." It startled them. I know this because they yelled, "Whoa!"

You'll have to forgive me. I'm having a bit of an existential crisis this weekend. ("Again?!?")

For some reason, my picture on the Home Page isn't loading. Sorry. Maybe it's time to change it.

Sunday September 1, 2002 -- 4:00pm
Ack. Spat. And not just because it's Sunday. I think it's very cool that the Internet allows regular nobodies like me to communicate with the likes of Larry Kirwan and Moby. However, it just feels cruel when you try to register for things or whatnot, and there's a computer glitch, and you can't tell if you've registered for something or not. Argh. Oh well. Technology is evil anyway. (I guess I should be careful about saying that while I am exploiting evil technology for my own entertainment.)

Good news: The new neighbors are also professional musicians! Friends of the previous tenants, I assume, because what are the odds of two sets of professional musicians renting the same apartment, given that this is Albany, New York, and not some place where professional musicians are on every street corner.

Bad news: One of them is a violinist. Uuuuugggghhhh. I have already apologized to them for my efforts, but obviously I will be too embarrassed to play when they are within ear shot.

I have been a complete yo-yo today. This may, in fact, be the moodiest day of my entire life. Well, maybe not. There was that whole adolescence thing. At any rate, I've decided that coffee is my new Elixer of Life, and I shall consume enormous quantities of it. I thought about finding a socially responsible way to do this, but realized that (a) socially responsible coffee is unaffordably expensive, (b) socially responsible coffee would not involve half and half or refined sugar and (c) getting all hopped up on caffeine on a regular basis is probably not all that socially responsible to begin with.

God, life is so hard.

I spent a great deal of money impulse shopping at Ames this morning. I bought three new cds, which is basically unheard of in the History of Me. Steve Earle (good, but twangy), Incubus (disappointing) and Moby. Which leads me to Moby. If you are like me, and have nothing better to do with your Sunday afternoons, I highly recommend a perusal of Moby's on-line journal. He's got a silly sense of humor, and a more interesting life than mine.

Friday August 30, 2002 -- 11:00pm
The downstairs neighbors, the musicians, are moving out. This makes me sad. No more random opera. No more guitar serenades. They are nice. I liked our building. All good, nice people. Maybe the new people will be nice too, but they probably won't be professional musicians.

Out of everything I've done at the museum, the very best thing is Movie Night. Tonight I watched from the background as the 14 year old depressed anorexic self-injurer giggled like a 14 year old. Go figure.

Time for sleep.

Wednesday August 28, 2002 -- 5:50pm
I'm going to see Pete Seeger in the park, for freeee-eeee! Yay!

I am a bit battered from Wing Chun on Monday. It was totally fun! I got to play with the big boys (i.e. the students who are more advanced) and it was great! We practiced punching and blocking. I love that moment when something clicks and I figure out what it is I'm supposed to be doing. I worked with several people, but my favorite was a guy with a gentle voice who started out going very easy on me, but was perceptive to when I was picking things up. He gradually picked up the pace and intensity until I would realize that he wasn't really being easy on me anymore.

Of course, an hour of having punches blocked left my arms some lovely shades of blue, but I don't really mind.

Nothing much to report from Museumland, except that we finally get to take down the ever-so-tasteful (detect sarcasm) Puerto Rican exhibit in another couple of weeks, and Jake is bonding a little too well with the blue crab. Other than that it's business as usual, which is to say we're in a state of perpetual disaster.

Gotta go see Pete!

Monday August 26, 2002 -- 7:00am
For some stupid reason, I woke up at 6am on my day off! Well, it's ok. I can get a lot done today. I'm going to start by walking over to The Daily Grind and having an enormous mocha. I'll also check out Lisa'a photos while I'm there. (Lisa's the new administrative assistant person at work. She's a little odd. I like her.)

My cats smell really good because they've been hiding in my clean laundry. They are Downy fresh!

Sunday August 25, 2002 -- 5:00PM
So, even though Ames is trashellerific, I managed to score 2 $7 sweaters and many other bargains. I might go back and look into some new furniture - some actual picked-out-and-purchased-by-me furniture - for the apartment. Don't tell my parents. They really want to unload the end results of the family trait of packrattedness on me and my brother, but I don't ever have a big enough place and my brother won't even move out of their house. It'll really stress them out if they hear about me actually purchasing new furntiture!

-- 10:00am
Oh, I'm sick of everything. Why do people call on weekends to find out things that they know the higher ups have to decide? (I'm at work, FYI.) Silly.

I only came in today because I had to let the other staff in. Then it turned out they had gotten key cards from other people yesterday. At least there is cake.

Ames is going out of business. There's one right up the street, so I think I'll go put in a few hours there and see what I can find.

The educator with whom I had an altercation on Friday has been tip-toeing around me ever since and is being extremely nice. I am pretending to be graciously forgiving, because what the hell is the point of doing anything else?

Friday August 23, 2002 -- 4:10pm
Work was ever so much fun today!

The good news is that the director basically said he doesn't care when the hell I work, as long as I get my work done. So I'm changing my schedule around as soon as schools open. I thought he'd put up a fight just because he is stupid and ornery - but by the time I met with him I had already started slamming dishes around the 4th floor, so maybe he was afraid of me.

-- 7:20am
OK! I don't know where I've been. I've been falling into bad old habits lately, which is to say that I come home from work and sit on the the couch, staring at the walls and maybe consuming a beer or two, until such time when I can justify going to bed. This, after a 2 week long fit of creativity. I guess it's ok.

Yesterday, el jefe had the audacity to tell me that we (the full time staff) were focusing too much on the number of hours we work and not enough on how much we get done. He said this because I told him I want to take this afternoon off to make up for working all day on Saturday. I am also working all day THIS Saturday AND this Sunday AND, by the way, if I stayed at work long enough to get everything done that I need and want to get done in a week, I would have to bring a sleeping bag and several changes of clothes!

I just can't wait until he brings this up at our next staff meeting. I just know that someone's going to burst into tears.

I had a good day yesterday though. I had a meeting about my grant report. I was dreading it because I was afraid there was going to be a lot of work to do to fix it, but actually the woman said that my narrative was among the best she's read. (!!!) The financial stuff was a little screwed up, but even that was nothing that I can't fix pretty easily. Hooray! Plus, I spent 2 hours straight with one of the kids, helping her figure out what she needs to do to start looking for colleges. And the fumes from Bianca's paint in the cafe made everyone sick. Well, ok. That wasn't a good thing, but it happened.

By the way, the slime experiment was soooooo successful!!! It is the coolest thing ever.