Sleepless in Silicon Valley

So, after much deliberation and bureaucratic wrangling, I have been offered an actual job. No paper and no dollar sings, but it's mine if I want it. It's the kind of job I've been looking for for years, lots of growth potential, good pay, great benefits, wonderful working environment, and the kind of work I want to do (i.e. little to no actual testing, but lots of planning and strategic work).

And I finally have something like a reason to stay here. At least for awhile.

Add this to all of the other factors in the decision matrix, and you get lots of sleepless nights, lots of confusion, and more tears than I want to admit too.

So what do I do? I could try to defer my admissions to W&M for a year, work hard, pay off more bills and save up cash, finish this project and watch it blow everyone away, see if this relationship thing could really be something, and hunt down more and better financial aid in the process. Or, I could suck it up and carry on with my move as planned.

On the one hand, I could use the extra time to find funds for school and wouldn't feel like I was leaving something half done behind me. On the other, I might be staying here out of fear and more wrong reasons than I can count. I can go now and move on with life, resigning myself to being alone for the foreseeable future, or slow down a little and see if I might have more of a future in this area than I thought.

There are a lot of advantages to staying. It's just my motivation I question. How can I be sure I am thinking clearly when I spent most of last night sleepless and grieving for something I have not yet lost?

I want...?

I have to be packed and send all my worldly goods away with the movers in 10 weeks. In 12 weeks, the cat and I will follow, large duffle bag in tow. I've started packing, sort through things, getting rid of baggage, getting ready to move on.

And I am terrified.

What if I am making a mistake? Not so much about school, but about leaving in general, and leaving one person in particular? How does anyone know what to do about these things? What is there to do anyway? Why are there so many questions, and why can't I find any answers?

Work is a bit nuts. It's getting harder and harder not to talk about what I'm working on. At least I can talk to M. about it, that makes things somewhat easier. I'm training two people right now, which is great. Hopefully one of them will turn out to be good and can take over my job when I leave. I think we might have hit the jack-pot with one of them actually, I'm keeping my fingers crossed anyway. The only problem is that since I spend most of the day training people and answering questions and deflecting meetings, I end up working latter so I can get my actual work done. blegh.

So how do you know if you're in love?

Coming to terms with Monday

I never have been good at Mondays. Today is a very example. I have a new contractor starting on my team this morning, and got terribly terribly confused about what time I was supposed to go get him this morning. For some reason, I thought I had to get him at 10. I also have a meeting at 10, and was still at M's house at 9:42, wondering how I was going to get myself caffeinated, email read, to a meeting, and get the new guy all at 10. So I was stressed. Then I get to work, have 3 minutes to grab my sad cereal, send the other temp to the meeting to spy for me while I wait for the new guy, only to realize that he gets done at 11:00 or 11:30, not at 10. GAH!! So I've got myself all tense and stressed for nothing. Grr.

Anyway, after skipping the meeting all together in favor of a latte, I'm feeling some what better. It's still Monday, I'm only half awake, but I had a pretty decent and productive weekend so it's all good.

Friday I went to see HHGTTG with J.and M. and a bunch of old radio/Burning Man friends. We all wore PJ's and towels, and got our picture taken for some promotional thing by the theater and they gave us passes to come back again for free! Yay! M was still feeling sick, so instead of bar-hopping with the towel crowd we went back to J's for drinks and to look at pictures from her trip to Europe. I so need to go on a trip someplace fabulous before I start school. Good luck with that one.

Saturday morning we got up and met N for breakfast at Noah's, M took off and N and I headed up to Napa. Napa was fun. We found a new winery (ok, not new, but we'd never been there) which we fell in love with while tasting whites of all things. Costentino has some very nice whites, lovely reds, and reasonable prices (we thought anyway).

After that, we picked up lunch stuff, went to Praeger Port Works (always a hit), then went to Coppola where, I hate to say it, we did not have fun. There was a large group of obnoxious, trashy drunk people in the private tasting room and we actually left before getting to the Rubicon part of our tasting. The people at the winery were really wonderful, gave us a whole glass of Rubicon, and were very apologetic, but it was annoying. I always look forward to a nice, relaxed time at that winery and getting stuck with annoying drunks with no class instead wasn't much fun. I can expect such behavior from people out in the main tasting room, but we were supposed to be getting a private, club members only tasting. Oh well. Can't have it perfect all the time I guess.

After the Coppola debacle, we went into Napa and grabbed dinner, then went back to my place for tea, where I discovered that one of my house mates has completely ruined my Le Creuset tea kettle (like this one only without the whistle and in Flame). I am very pissed about this. My favorite coffee mug has been chipped and now vanished, one of my new knives got chipped, and now my tea kettle is ruined. So I decided that the person who is reasonable can replace the kettle, and all of my stuff is getting packed up now lest it get further damaged.

So Sunday, I packed up most of my kitchen stuff, 3 cases of wine I am storing at my parents, 4 boxes of books I will be storing there, and all my tea cups. I actually made really good progress on the packing! I need more boxes, especially dish boxes, but I'll be able to pick those up next weekend when my dad is in town. He's coming up to eat and help me pack, and then taking things I want to keep but don't want to move away with him. I also got my laundry done, and managed to still have time to take a walk, get my Fast Pass for the month, and go to M's where I cooked him dinner.

Overall, it was a nice weekend and I feel like I got stuff done so that's something. I have 10 weeks left to pack. Ack. But I think if I can keep my focus, and do a little at a time, I'll be in good shape come July.

Let the hijinks begin!

So today my entire project team is going to some fancy grocery store that has a cooking school to participate in some sort of team-building Iron Chef style competition. Here is what I predict will happen-

The product group will continue adding features to their dishes, and will ultimately produce nothing (except for an impressive list of meal features).

The engineering team will produce a light board that indicates when their dish is done, but will burn their omelet (omlet filling are a v.2 feature) in while connecting sensors and LEDs to the pan.

The QA team will spend an hour producing a single, perfectly roasted and constantly reproducible, potato, destroying the kitchen in the process (oooo look! We found a bug!).

This could be scary. God willing, no one will burn the place down. Between my freakish ability to set fire to anything (M, sorry about your microwave the other day...) and the engineers penchant for connecting electrodes and LED's to everything, this could get scary. Don't even get me started on those product guys, they just egg us all on (Oh! Let's put another bank of lights there! Surely you can increase the output of this oven?)

Run away now if insecure boy-related ranting isn't your thing

Boy is all sick, but we haven't spent any time together in more than 2 weeks. We were supposed to go see HHGTTG with some of my friends on Friday. He totally forgot about this which pisses me off, I have very little to no free time to dick around with and advance planning is the only way I get to see anyone I don't actually work with. But whatever, he's sick, I can get that, but he won't make even half-assed plans for the weekend either. Now one of my friends wants to go to Napa on Saturday, and he's all, "gee, if it means you have to plan I guess you should go or whatever and I'm going to flying anyway maybe." My dad is supposed to come up the next weekend to help me pack and take a bunch of stuff away to store at my parents, and I have to start getting my stuff organized and packed, so I'm pretty much never going to see him again.

Unless it's at work.

The one thing I do not have time for is flaking out on plans, I don't have the luxury of available days to reschedule at the moment. For fuck sake, I got at home at 10 last night, and had to leave again at 7. I don't have free time to do laundry, never mind re-shuffle other plans. I get 2 days a week to have a social life outside work, do housework, and get ready to move. That's it. So I guess maybe that tells me something...either he's clueless about all of this or just not motivated enough to, I don't know, keep track of things? I've been shuffling things around so I can spend time with him when it suits him for the last 2 months. My schedule looks like tetris, it's not that easy to shuffle.

At the same time, he's sick and just got back from a long trip half way around the world, I should give him some slack and not assume that his apparent disinterest in me is anything more than being tired and sick. But I feel like he went out of his way to avoid dealing with me the week before he left, and this isn't helping with the resulting sense of insecurity and marginalization. If he doesn't want to see me anymore, just come out and say it and don't do this stupid passive-aggressive pushing me away but not letting go crap. If he thinks one of both of us are getting too attached given I'm moving to Virgina in 3 months, well, too late buck-o. I've pretty much decided to take what I can get while I can get it, enjoy what time I have left, and refuse to look back with any sort of regret. Why cant he be happy I want to spend that time with him? It's not going to make the inevitable hurt any less to be all weird and distant and cold while refusing to let me go.

Anyway, my weekend plans are now as follows:

Friday night - race back to city from work for HHGTTG thing
Saturday day and eavening - Napa with N.
Sunday day - Laundry, pack, sew 2 comissioned skirts I forgot about
Sunday night - get ready for ass-crack of dawn early Monday commute, more packing and sleep

Finally some pictures!

I had rather a dull weekend. The high lite of the whole thing was dressing up the penguins.



I am particularly fond of the utility belt. One of J's friends referred to the Red Hat wearing penguins as "ABOMINATION!!!" every time he walked past it. Ok, the guy hadn't slept in at least 36 hours, but I guess Red Hat is not his distribution of choice.

Here also I have pictures of the alpaca sweater I am knitting for myself and the alpaca it come from! I spun this yarn some time ago and have been agonizing about what to make out of it for ages. I finally settled on a pattern and got started, and so far am very happy with the results. It's going to be a fairly small, light thing, perfect for spring, and I have enough yarn left over to make another sweater! Hurray! I've already got the pattern picked out for Lacy sweater #2. It's a vintage design, and will be more tightly knit so I don't have to wear quite as much under it.

Computer buying advice...and how not to get it

So I thought that it might be smart to ask some of the engineers I have lunch with if getting a Thinkpad T42 for $1675 was a good deal (this is the system I can get through school, at what appears to be a good price). Ask any group of engineers for computer recommendations, and strangely, the number of system recommended will be an order of magnitude larger than the number of engineers asked. Several of the recommendations even involved the additional purchase of a desktop machine/server farm.

Sigh.

So, my requirements are these:

1 - The system must not cost more than $1675
2 - If it does cost more, I must get a better deal that what the college has negotiated on the T42
3 - System must be capable of running Linux
4 - System must not require the purchase of other systems or data centers
5 - System must not be totally obsolete by the time I get it home
6 - System must be extensible to at least some degree
8 - Must be able to carry this to class (duh)

4-6 are mistakes I made with my sad iBook. I hugely underestimated my future computing needs, and ended up with a system that is now semi-functional, won't do half of what I want, and can no longer be upgraded since Apple doesn't bother to support older hardware and new peripherals and upgrades are almost never backwards compatible.

Anyway, I'm open to advice and suggestions, and also offers to purchase the recommended system. Strong opinions backed up with actual cash, those are the best kind!

I'm having a similar problem with the whole car-purchasing project. 5 people, n(5) different recommendations, none of which are really feasible as far as my bank account goes. I mean, if you really feel that strongly about my need to drive a Aston Martin or 5-series BMW, I'm more than happy to do so if you provide the vehicle.

What I know to be true

1 - The only stupid question is the one you asked me 5 times already today.

2 - Moving day at the office = zero productivity

3 - If people are going to work for you, it would be better if you had some input into the selection process (thus hopefully avoiding true things #1 and #4)

4 - Following directions can't possibly be *that* hard, can it?

5 - Nap time should not just be for kindergartners

It's just been that kind of week.

The massage on Tuesday was hugely helpful. I can move my neck again! Hurray! My back is still stiff and yucky feeling, but it's finally getting better and just sitting in my chair isn't such a drag. I need to get massages more frequently. What with the crazy schedule we are on, weird group tension and drama, and trying to train a guy who's conversation consists mainly of "yup, yup, ok!" these little chances to relax are a good thing.

The penguin knitting has turned out to be as addictive as I had feared. Oh well. At least it's fun, and somewhat productive. I have two finished, one of which I need to sew together, and another well on it's way. All in 2 days, of just knitting during my commute. Sad really. I'm planning little outfits for them already. Hopefully I can get a penguin sized geek utility belt figured out by Monday morning for M's penguin. He'd get a kick out of that.

My team is moving to new building tonight,. so our cube area is an a state of chaos and disarray. this should be a nice challenge for the mail people. I have a package on it's way to me as I type (at least I think it's on it's way, hard to tell sometimes with lousy order tracking systems). Will they be able to find me in my new location when it gets here? Stay tuned and find out!

Look at all the pretty documents!

I'm buried in documentation. Not completed documentation, but all of the documentation I have been not doing for the last few months in favor of actual work. Now that I have someone to help out with the testing, I can get some of the administrative stuff done, and my god am I ever behind! Oh well. I'll catch up, and it'll make the whole process of handing this off to someone much easier.

The saga of the penguin yarn turned out to have a very happy ending. As it turns out, the packages had in fact been delivered to the mail room (duh), and the goob who was supposed to have delivered it to me did in fact walk right past my desk no less than twice holding said package, and failing to identify my cube. Grrrr. I spotted the package on the mail cart yesterday, found the mail guy, and now I have my yarn! Hurray! The yellow isn't as bright as I had hoped, but it will do. Stupid mail room.

Anyhow, I decided to use cascade 220, because it comes in lots of colors, is not expensive, is the right gauge, and isn't icky acetate. Plus it has really good yardage, so I should be able to get quite a few penguins out of my one ball of each color. I already have the back and half a belly done for the first penguin! Yay! I have a feeling these might be as addictive to knit as the felted mice were. At least I know lots of Linux geeks who will give the penguins nice homes.

My back is even feeling better, thank god. Something popped and made an awful crunching sound this morning, and now everything feels much better. Not perfect, and still tense, but the stabby and shooting pains have stopped. Hurray! Hopefully the dull ache and residual tension will get worked out today at my massage appointment. Another week of awful back problems sounds pretty intolerable to me, and I really want to go dancing this weekend.

Dingos, wallabies and whores, oh my!

People need to stop telling me awful horror stories about what goes on in various parts of Australia. I really think J, my newest house mate, takes a perverse kind of pleasure in freaking out with tales of rabid dingos and whores absconding with innocent geek-boys. Oh well. How much trouble can M. really get into all by himself, surrounded by utility-belt wearing Linux geeks?

I've been in extreme amounts of pain all weekend. I have no idea what I did to my back, but it got all awful and hurting last week, and totally unbearable over the weekend. I managed to take one of the boys from work furniture shopping (very successful, we got him a lovely sectional and an arm chair for his otherwise empty living room) on Saturday. I think I made it through the day by virtue of lunchtime margaritas and several gin and tonics, but Sunday was a total waste. I spent the day stuck on the sofa, watching awful TV and trying to find a comfortable position. At least I managed to get some knitting done and hem my pink bias dress, so it wasn't so unproductive as to be depressing.

Anyhow, work is interesting. I'm all hopped up on pain killers and fuzzy headed, trying to train some poor new guy, figure out what our Q2 goals need to be, and track down phantom documentation. We have the most bloated product team ever. It's absurd. I do not understand why it's so easy for us to get more useless product marketing people and so difficult to get engineers, but there it is. It's highly annoying.

The yarn for my wool penguins seems to have vanished into the black hole that is the US postal service or the mail room. USPS claims it was delivered. The mail room claims it's at the wrong post office. I am pretty sure it was in fact on one of the mail delivery carts that rolled by on Friday (only 1 day after being delivered!) and failed to be delivered to me because 1 - my cube is not well marked and 2 - the guy driving the cart is an idiot who didn't bother to ask anyone where cube number x is. But I'm bitter, and have no faith in the system. So there it is. I want my frellin' yarn!!

Actual knitting content!

My commute knitting progress got seriously derailed when I discovered that I could quite happily watch old episodes of Stargate on my laptop while riding to and from work. Well, in the last week I have run out of things to watch and keep forgetting to transfer new files over when I am at M's. So I'm back to knitting!

This week I made a very simple tunnel lace scarf out of some old stash yarn, and started on my lacy alpaca sweater (from the handspun stash). Yay for using up the stash! Moving my yarn and fiber stash to Virginia in it's current state is just a ridiculous proposition, so I am trying very hard to resist the urge to start projects that require new purchases. However, I have not a single scrap of yarn suitable for this project. Knitting wool penguins is about as geeky as it gets, but I think M will like one, Linux geek that he is. Or maybe a pair of them, with little outfits! He's going out of town (well, off the continent really) for 10 whole days, so hopefully by the time he gets back he'll have at least one cute little penguin in a dashing outfit waiting for him.

It's no worse that knitting an army of felted mice really...

I'm trying to decide what to make out of some really lovely black alpaca and white silk handspun that I did a long time ago. It's kind of lace weight, maybe closer to fingering, and the white silk makes the whole thing shimmer like moonlight. Clearly, this needs to be something elegant, but what? I was thinking some sort of shawl or wrap, I'm just having a terrible time finding a pattern like, or even settling on a shape. Everything I've found so far seems either too modern/trendy for my taste, or too old fashioned for the yarn. Gah. Hopefully I will come up with something soon. Some sort of shrug thing might work...

This is pretty much the one major drawback to using handspun yarns. Once I've spent what feels like an eternity spinning something (especially if it's fine or really wonderful fiber), I am terrified to make anything out of it that I might one day get sick of or makes me feel like I wasted the yarn on a less than perfect project. So I hem and haw about the project, and end up making nothing or ripping out 100 times. Which is just perfectly silly, and gets me nowhere, but there it is. Once I get going, all is well, but it takes ages and ages to get started on anything.

In non-knitting news, work is getting progressively more interesting. I am finally getting a second person to help me with this project, and people seem to have finally worked out that hiring in this group is actually an urgent need. We're moving to a new building next week, which should be nice, at least I'll have more room and my eventual team will fit someplace in the same area. My commute is slowly robbing me of my will to get up in the morning, but what can you do? I'm slowly adjusting to having actual sociable housemates, which is a mixed deal for me. After a long day at work and a crap MUNI experience to get home, the last thing I want is to be sociable, but it's probably good for me to not sit around and stew for the hour and a half I manage to remain awake.

Mass-transit rage

MUNI seems to be going out of it's way this week to make me really really glad I am moving in a couple of months. Since Friday, it has taken me well over an hour to get home. Mostly I've been giving up, and taking the first train I can get out of Civic Center to someplace civilized and getting dinner, in hopes that whatever asinine clog-forming event will have cleared up by the time I'm done. It's enough to make one hate humanity in general. Why is it that the more people that are stuck on the platform, the ruder people get? Especially old women with 3 remaining teeth. You'd think they were geriatric hockey players or something, the way they try to shove you in front on oncoming trains. I hate them all!!

This about sums up my opinion of mass transit in this part of world:



In somewhat less annoying news, I finally cast on my lacy alpaca sweater! Hurray! I am using the cardigan view of this pattern, with my usual few modifications. The yarn is a lovely natural color of alpaca that I spun. This was the alpaca my dad got my for Christmas a couple of years ago that I took so long to spin up. I have about an inch of the back done, just enough to see how the lace pattern shows up in the yarn, and it's going to be yummy! Lite weight and warm, with a wonderful soft sheen to it. It defiantly does the fiber justice. The yarn is lovely to knit, just as the fiber was lovely to spin. Once I have a bit more done, I'll post pictures. Hopefully I will be able to go visit the alpaca the fiber came from once I finish the sweater!

Finally, she sews!

So aside from the usual back-achy tired and annoying bug reports with less than no useful information, today is going ok and I am remarkably un-cranky. Hurray! Probably this is because I finally found my bottle of Aleve and sent off my OES resignation letter. All the nasty ick phone calls got taken care of, and I am done! Thank god! I have a few emails to send out yet, but that will take all of 15 minutes and isn't nearly as unpleasant as the phone calls.

Anyhow, the weekend was rather nice in a lazy kind of way. Friday I went to see Sin City with some old friends I haven't seen in ages. I'm not sure what this says about me, but I really enjoyed the movie. Sure, it was bloody and gross, but I didn't find it gratuitous in any way, and actually thought most of it was pretty funny. I guess the whole comic-book feel of the thing helped. Go see it, but not if you have a weak stomach or get grossed out easily.

Saturday I was supposed to go furniture shopping with one of the guys from work, but we were both feeling too lazy, so I ended up staying home and sewing all day. I did take a walk with J, the newest house mate, but it was mostly a hang out and rest kind of day. Which was good, I stayed up far too late Friday night. The only problem with the whole thing was that I was board to tears by about 6, and too tired to do anything effective about it, so A and I watched Le Divorce and ate brie and pate until we passed out on the couch.

Sunday was a bit better, as far as falling asleep goes. M decided to take me out for dinner at someplace he described as "reasonably classy," which threw A. and I into a dress-selecting frenzy. I have exactly 2 half-way decent looking dresses. My closet is in a sad state as far as "reasonably classy" cloths go, plus we weren't altogether sure what that meant exactly, especially coming from an engineer. It was decided that I would have to go shopping. So Sunday morning I hit the mall. 4 hours latter, I emerged with a really pretty vintage looking lingerie dress and a new watch. I really love this dress. It was in the juniors department at Macy's, and so isn't the most well made thing in the world, but it's pretty and flirty and has lace, and looks sexy, but elegant. J. helped me accessorize, and I was off to Palo Alto for a lovely French dinner. Yum! It was a very nice evening, and the dress seems to have been a success. Hurray!

And finally, fiber content! Saturday, I sewed. I worked on the cheongsam I abandoned some time ago, and managed to get the dress body pieces flat-lined. This was a huge achievement, given that I was using china silk, the most annoying fabric known to man. I really don't need to line this dress, but the fabric I am using is vintage, and want to protect it however I can. Plus it will be easier to sew the bias bindings down on the inside with a lining. That didn't take too long, but I was so pissed off at the silk that I decided to do something else for a little while, and made a bias-cut slip dress from Vogue with a really neat asymmetrical hem which they seem to have discontinued. Anyway, it went together really quickly and looks lovely, but doing all the hand rolled hems all over kind of sucks. I did the hand rolling at the neck, and need to hem it tonight, now that it's had a couple of days to hang out.

Since I was taking the train down to Palo Alto, I decided I needed a new brainless knitting project, and cast on a simple tunnel lace scarf. Brainless knitting is a wonderful thing. I find it much easier to relax while watching a movie if I have something in my hands. It slows my brain down, I can relax, and thinking about things one step at a time gets much easier. Why I sometimes lose sight of that I will never understand. Fiber is my therapy. Knitting it portable therapy. Spinning is even better therapy but harder to do on buses and trains.

Things to do before I move:

1 - Find an apartment
2 - Hire movers
3 - Switch banks
4 - Research banks
5 - Start DSL at new house
6 - Climb Mount Tam with M.
7 - Drink Rubicon
8 - Spa day with C.
9 - Visit the light house at Point Reyes
10 - Get a good legal looking suit
11 - Get new glasses
12 - Learn to drive a stick

The list will surely grow...

It's so...green?

A satellite photo of where I will be in 4 months and where I live now.

Eep. This will be differant.

Differant is good, right?

Interesting developments

-I got an offer for a full tuition scholarship from the New England School of Law. I have declined it. Am I insane? Maybe. US News ranks it as 4th tier. Free and 4th tier, and competing with Harvard students for jobs sounds like something that isn't worth loan avoidance in my world. Not when I have top-tier school as an option. But it is really gratifying to see that award letter sitting on the bed. I am wanted. Someone believes in my potential as a lawyer. And that goes a long way.

-C. and I have worked out a plan to extricate myself from OES. Thank god. This means I will be free to enjoy the time I have left in the Bay Area with my friends. I feel a little bad about this, but there are so many things I actually want to do and see before I go, spending an absurd amount of time and energy on something that has become a chore (and a miserable one at that) just doesn't seem worth it anymore.

-Time lines are shaping up on my project at work. I just might see the end of this thing after all, if all goes well. That would be a nice note to leave on actually. I'll either be here to get this baby out the door, or I'll be watching it happen a few weeks into my law school career. I'd much rather do it myself and get the satisfaction of getting it out myself.

-I might actually have time to sew this weekend. Who would have thought? I want to finish the 1901 corset. If I can do that I will feel like I have accomplished something. It should be easy to do. All I need to do is put in the rest of the eyelets, take it in at the sides, and make the bindings and boning channels. Not too bad.

Zoom zoom!

I'm feeling vaguely schizophrenic today, alternating between stressed out of my mind and super relaxed and excited. Very strange.

I had a great weekend actually. Saturday was fairly mellow, my project team at work got together and we had a BBQ at one of the guys houses to celebrate meeting a major milestone. I ended up falling asleep on the floor while playing some railroad tycoon based board game from the 80's, but it was a fun afternoon/evening. Sunday I got some errands done and got all the rest of the icky red dye out of my hair, M. came over, and I took him to El Mansour for dinner (where I even got M to attempt to belly dance, much to the delight of all present) before we headed up to Willows for a track day on Monday.

The track was fun! I thought I was going to fly right out of a few of the cars I rode in, but woo! Who knew I liked going too fast in little sports cars? I was also amazed to find out how much work it is to stay in your seat while riding in a car going that fast around corners. I found myself very sore last night on the way home. Nothing a couple of Advil couldn't solve, but I apparently have a bruise on my shoulder blade and I sort of feel like I do after a day of really hard hiking or skiing. It's a nice feeling actually, exhausted but relaxed and invigorated. I wanna go again!

For some reason though I keep finding myself teetering on the edge of panic. It's the stupidest thing in the world. Sunday I forgot about daylight savings (which is the work of the devil, clearly) and ended up being an hour late for an appointment I thought I was early for. Oh well. It set the whole morning back a bit, but it wasn't that bad. Then I lost my watch, and ended up tearing around the house for 2 hours looking for it, without any luck. Somewhere in the course of late Sunday night or early Monday morning, it was decided that we would not be going back through SF, so I ended up in the south bay this morning without anything to wear to work this morning, without my cell phone charger, without my watch, and without my book or laptop for the ride home tonight. I also failed to leave the rent check at home Sunday (due to the whole watch freak-out), so I'm kind of stressing about that, but oh well. Why all of this is serving to overwhelm me this morning is anyone's guess. I can't even remember how to use vim at the moment. Which is sad. It's an awful application but surely, remembering the basic edit commands isn't too much to ask?

In other news, Loki (A's cat) caught a mouse or small rat on Saturday. That was thrilling. I ended up standing on top of the kitchen chair doing chick-with-mouse freak-out dance, then running to the living room and jumping on top of the couch. It was very sad, but would probably have been entertaining for the casual observer. I hate mice. Especially when half-dead and danging out of the cats mouth. But I suppose it's better there than pooping all over the counters.

Anyway...I'm looking forward to some quality knitting and spinning time this week. I need to try to unwind and relax as much as I can in the next few months. Work is going to remain insane, so whatever I can do to make the rest of life relaxing and enjoyable while I can is a good thing.

I did it! Ack!

I finished the letters.

I checked the box.

I stuffed the eveloped.

I put it in the mailbox.


So I am officially moving to Virginia, and starting classes at William and Mary School of Law on August 15th.

I don't exactly feel calmer about anything at this point, but at least I didn't try to climb in the mailbox after the letter. Which is something.

Now I just have to sort through all my wordly goods, and plan a pretty major move, and try not to think too hard about what I may be leaving behind...

Too many question marks

Ugh. My head hurts. This is turning into another crazy week at work, and I still can't bring myself to actually check the "yes" box on the letter of intent for William and Mary. At least I managed to not only check the "No thanks" box but also mail the letter back to Santa Clara. That was something.

Anyway, I'm freaking out about this. Why is this so hard? All I have to do is write a couple of letters about fellowships, check a box, and that's it. Decision made, life progressing, time to plan this move thing. It's the box that I can't seem to get past.

I'm scared. Frightened out of my mind actually. It's sad to admit, but there it is. The check box means I'm leaving everyone and everything I know and turning my back on what could have been a really amazing relationship. And for what? Right now a big scary question mark. How much am I really giving up? And do I really want to know the answer to that?

In the mean time, I'm trying to write statements of qualification for a couple of fellowships. How is one supposed to open one of these things? Clearly, "You should give me money becasue I look good in ruffle-butt pants" is right out (Thank you D, for that example).

It's alive!

The mac is alive! Sort of. It's had a total lobotomy, but it works, and latter this afternoon I will have most if not all of my data back so I can get on with backing it all up to CD. Hurray! Whatever was wrong with it was causing numerous "overlapped extent allocation" errors. A quick search for this term on the apple support site turned out one, count 'em, one page. With only a cryptic mention of the error and something about corrupt directory systems. Which sounds pretty bad, right? So maybe they might want to go into more details, right? Wrong! Oh well. I found the information I needed, found a nice boy at the help desk at work to salvage what he could, and erased everything and started fresh last night. And it's alive! I just to make sure the iPod stuff is all installed right and find a couple of other upgrades, and I don't have to worry. All I'm using this machine for is playing music and watching videos while commuting, so this should be ok for now.

I'm looking forward to having my brain back. All of my updated Palm files were on the mac, all of my personal email was on the mac, I feel like I'm hobbling along with a bag over my head or something. take, for example, this weekend. I have no idea what I've already committed myself to doing this weekend and am having a hard time coming up with plans. Oh well. It'll work itself out one way or another. I might even end up working! Woo.

Actually, my main goal for the weekend is to decide once and for all where I am going to law school and get the appropriate response letters and deposits in order. Scary. I can do this. It's a big, scary step, but surly I must have the courage to take it, right?

And behold, there was root...

The FreeBSD install went remarkably well last night. Whatever was preventing the boot disk from ejecting so I could put the install disk in the CD drive on Friday was miraculously resolved (possibly due to some intervention by M. over the weekend), and everything went quite smoothly, for a unix install anyway. I now have root! And user accounts! And hopefully today I can figure out why I can't get the machine to talk to an FTP server. Not having a functional web browser (or email) while trying to set up a new system really sucks. But oh well. As long as I remeber the root password I'm all good.

K. is going to help me fix the POiS iBook sometime soon, so that's a good thing. We love K. I found all of my install disks at home last night, like I really want to install an old version of OSX and then have to make a mess out of the system with multiple upgrades again but whatever. As long as I can keep the stupid thing hobbling along long enough to replace it and then put *inx on it, I'm good. Any suggestions from the peanut gallery on a good flavor of unix or distribution of linux to run on a G3 iBook? I understand there are several that will work well.

My financial aid packages from Albany and from William and Mary have shown up. No word yet from Santa Clara on the FA, and no word from the other 7 schools I applied to about acceptance. So, my options at this point are to 1 - Go to Virgina and embrace a known quantity of debt in exchange for an excellent legal education and fresh start on life 2 - Go to upstate NY, embrace some debt and a large scholarship, and be stuck in upstate New York for at least 7 years or 3 - Go to Santa Clara, embrace an unknown quantity of debt, and spend 3 years battling with Stanford students for jobs. Tricky. For all that leaving the state has become emotionally ddifficult in the last few months, I still think this is probably the best idea. Besides, in Virgina, I still have the fall back butter-churning/ale-wife options.

Rage!!

crap software + crap hardware + PMS = RAGE!!!!

I am too pissed off at the world in general to deal with this. Or write a meaningful post even. My stupid iBook (peice of iShit that it is) has decided to go on strike or something and refuses to boot. After much swearing, fsck'ing, and searching for ideas, my only option at this point is to pray I can salvage some of the data on the hard disk and reimage the damned thing. How lovely. My linux box work has crashed, the network is being burpy, and I am cranky and achy and tired, but I don't get to go home early becasue they have decided to move our proposed launch date up a week. Yes, they are moving a launch UP. WTF? No one moves dates up. That's just insane.

I want to go home and finish trying to install freeBSD on the new server. But this is going to difficult, as the install directions are all saved on the useless POiS iBook. Hopefully I need no more data than what I manage to print out at work. blegh.

Who'd have thought?

Honestly, who else could I have gotten?


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Don't Panic...

I am highly amused. Someone has already offered to buy the beautiful perfect Peter Fox boots I won on eBay. For a pair of shoes I now refer to as "My Precious" whilst clutching them to my bosom, I don't think the woman has much of a chance. Hear that world? You'll have to pry my precious boots out of my cold dead hands!!

Ok, enough of the shoe lust. In textile related news, I am finally done with the latest round of stuff for Rainbow. Hurray! One hideous dress project out of the way! I have to make a couple of skirts for the woman to go with the awful top, but what is needed for the immediate term is done and she'll be picking that up tonight. I managed to cut out and assemble the pieces of my 1901 corset over the weekend. Hurray! Well, it's not exactly assembled all the way, it;s still in 2 lining pieces and 2 cover fabric pieces, but that pretty decent progress for a mornings work I think. I could not sleep at all Saturday night, so I ended up getting up at 4:45 AM and sewing all morning. I worked on the Rainbow dresses, finished the curtains for the living room, and got the corset cut out and put together before deciding I really need a cute flippy skirt for the spring, and quickly making one. I need to put it on a waist band, but it's basically done. It's cute. Kind of an a-line wrap skirt with a cute pleated thing in the front where it laps over itself. I'm going to get some matching ribbon and make a bow to go at the waist. Pictures will be forthcoming! I promise!

On the school/personal front, things are not feeling so great. I'm having a hard time finally coming to terms with leaving, but I think this is what I really need to do. Either way, I'm going to have regrets, which is the worst of it. I keep trying to tell myself that everything happens for a reason and has a way of working out for the best in the end, but I'm not doing a very job convincing myself that this is so. I just have to be strong, and trust myself to make the right decisions.

Eck. Being a grown up sucks.

Geek out!

I so totally need one of these to chase my cat.

oh my...

Friday night I got home from to work to find a large envelope from from my first choice law school stuck in the mail slot. I treated it rather like an unexploded bomb, before I decided it was probably some financial aid package stuff, and opened it.

I got in. Eep! I got in to the William and Mary School of Law. This is a very good school, top tier, and has one the best Constitutional law program in the country. I've wanted to attend this college since I was in junior high.

Clearly, this is the offer I should accept. It's a big move, it's far away from everything I know, but that's half the point. I've spent my whole life within 10 miles of the Pacific. It's time to open my eyes, experience something different, and take a chance. Being ready to make the decision to leave is a very different thing than actually making the decision though, and I now find myself hesitating.

My focus for the last six months has been on resolving things, cleaning house emotionally, and freeing myself of unnecessary ties. I was doing well with this, but in the last month or so, this has gotten a lot harder. So now what? Do I doom this new thing just as it's starting to get interesting? Or let it be, go, and hope for the best? I was supposed to be freeing myself from heartbreak, not chasing after it. My head and my heart want two different and totally incompatible things. How am I supposed to decide this now? When I have so little time, and so much is as stake?

This is not the art you're looking for...

Am I the only one who thinks the new De Young looks like a Jawa transport?

The Boots have landed!

I ordered a pair of Peter Fox boots on eBay and they arrived yesterday! I got such a killer deal! For anyone familiar with these shoes, they are Victorian style lace up boots, have hardly been worn (once for a fashion show), and I paid $100. Yay! They are most similar to this style but have more elaborate tooling and a pointier toe. I'll post pictures soon. Love these boots. They are beautiful, comfortable, perfect sexy boots that I will cherish for a long time to come. I could carry on about the boots and wonderful shoes in general for days, but this article pretty wells summs it up. To quote:

If you try out a spectacular pair of shoes and show them to a man, you'll likely receive a heavy sigh that means "Now I have to find parking right in front," when what you really want to hear is, "My God, I will die of pride to be seen with you in those magnificent shoes." Try introducing the same pair of shoes to a female friend: She will spot them in a crowded convention centre, which she will fly across to clutch your arm and gasp, each word given its own full stop, "Look.at.those.SHOES!"

And they will look fantastic with my 1909-ish dress, if I ever get off my duff and make it!

Which brings me to the weekend! Hurray! It's Friday! And I have a whole day and a half to sew sew sew! It should be enough to get the latest Rainbow stuff knocked out, and hopefully at least start looking at making the 1909 dress. I've decided to cannibalize the old teens corset, so I don't have to go spend half the day traipsing over to the East Bay on BART to get a busk. I think I may eventually alter the black and gray silk gown, but I don't know. We'll see how that ends up going.

In non-sewing plans, I'm taking M. on a picnic in Golden Gate Park on Sunday, and am going to try to get up to the the Sutro Baths to watch the sun set. We've have some lovely sunsets this last week, as long as the weather holds it will be beautiful. Saturday, A and S (her new boyfriend! yay!) and I are going to a wine club party in Napa. I'm terribly excited. It's my favorite wine from my favorite winery, and should be a nice event. I wish M. was coming with us, but he's not that in to wine so it's ok.

I'm feeling a whole bunch better today too. It's amazing how fast antibiotics will work. It turns out I felt crappy because I had a UTI, so I looked pathetic and talked to the doctor at work, and she gave me a prescription for cipro. Scary stuff, cipro, but it gets the job done. After one dose my fever was mostly gone. I'm still tired and feel kind of weak, but that's ok. It'll get better.

Updates for today

1 - I got rejected from Georgetown. Not too tragic, all things considered. I just really hope that I hear back from a few other places this week so I can make a semi-informed decision about Santa Clara next week.

2 - My order for DSL has been placed! Finally, I am entering the 21st century and leaving 56k modems in the dust, where they belong. This will be a good thing as the house server is supposed to arrive on Sunday (thank you M!), and I can start wiring the house next week. I find this all very exciting. God, I'm such a geek.

3 - I have officially given up on ever getting hired at work. It's a little sad, I really like the people I work with and the work I'm doing (which is saying a lot since I loath doing QA in general), and I think I could really contribute a lot here both in engineering and in legal eventually. Oh well. It'll be easier to focus on school if that's all I'm worried about I suppose. This is only the 2nd job I've had that I will be really sad to leave.

Overall, I don't really feel very well physically for some reason and I'm alternating between quietly sad and a sort of snuggly happy. Tonight I need to get some stuff sorted out in the basement, and figure out what all I need to take with me to work in the morning. At least I'll be able to sleep in some Friday morning. Hurray! It's a wonderful thing. One day a week of not getting up at 6 am is such a lovely thing. I really think I do ok with less sleep as long as I don't have to get up so damn early. I'm just not a morning person.

Perchance to dream...

My commute officially sucks. Even watching the Dr. Jackson show (SG-1 for the rest of you), I can't seem to stay awake on the bus or once I get home. I passed out last night sitting on the futon talking to A. and watching Dr. Jackson while we were discussing the finer points of negligee selection. How truly pathetic. I mean, really, I should be able to stay awake latter than 9:15 on a Monday.

I don't seem to remember getting this exhausted when I was carpooling. I can't think why that would be, I got up at the same time in the morning, and didn't get home that much earlier. I did have time to eat breakfast and maybe make coffee though, which is something. Having a more leisurely morning makes a difference. As it is, I usually hit snooze one too many times, have to rush through getting dressed and ready, and then run out the door with an apple in my mouth like a suckling pig, if I'm lucky. By the time I've made it to the bus I'm all sleepy again.

It occurred to me this morning that my coffee machine has an auto-on timer. Why do I never use this wonderful and convenient feature? Probably for the same reason that I have yet to pry the porn out of the VCR.

I've also decided that I really need a new laptop. The sad little G3 iBook is totally inadequate to the task of running more than 2 applications at once, watching movies, burning CD's, or really doing anything at all other checking email, maybe some lite web surfing, and holding down papers. Editing pictures is a joke, and trying to watch the Dr. Jackson show gets kind of painful whenever the action is too fast and the audio track gets out of sync with the video. Ok, I knew Herodotus's days were numbered (Herodotus being the iBook, and also the Greek historian) way back in October when I was finally got around to upgrading the OS, but this is getting silly. It needs the following:

More RAM. Lots more RAM
A DVD/CD RW
A larger hard drive (that 15 gigs is pathetic is scary, my first computer had a 256MB hard drive, I have that much RAM now, and that's not even close to enough, and this makes me feel old)
Better/faster graphics processor
An Airport card
Another OS upgrade I now have to pay for
USB 2 (which I can't fix, but hey! There are 2 useless old USB 1.1 ports! I should be glad)

So I think, once all this gets tracked down on eBay and various other places, I might as well just buy a new machine with all that extra cash I have lying around (heavy sarcasm here). I want a PowerBook. In fact, I want this PowerBook but with more RAM and the SuperDrive.

Hacking together some kind of system that will work for most things is very geeky and will just have to do for now. There are enough people with old hardware lying around that I should be able to get something reasonable put together to solve at least some of my storage problems, but I doubt there is much to be done about the Airport card or crap graphics. The real question is how much money I should sink into getting more RAM for a machine I intend to replace within the next 6 months.

No more news from any of the law schools...or from work. Eck. So far, I've pretty much decided to go with Santa Clara. Of the available options it will probably cost more out of pocket but the school is better so I'll be able to repay those loans faster.

Whoosh!

Yay! I went skiing! M took me skiing with one of the guys from my team at work and his friend on Saturday. What fun! They all are actually very good skiers/snow boarders. I suck, so mostly I spent the day on the blue and some green hills, trying not to get killed by out of control snowboarders, while the boys (heh) were off jumping off of things on the harder runs. In spite of losing a ski getting on the lift, falling off the lift, getting run over by several snowboarders, and getting run into a tree, I had a blast. The guy from work broke his foot jumping over a mogul so all things considered I did very well.

Snow is good. I had forgotten how much I enjoy going whoosh down the side of a mountain (ok, a hill, if that, given how well I ski) and just being up in the mountains. I'm not really good enough to have "good days" or "off days" at this point but I think if I manage to actually go more often next year I'll be in pretty good shape. I just need to get over the fear of breaking myself.

Sunday was quite nice. I went home for a few hours to sew, be at home with my cat in daylight, and get some laundry done. I did mange to get the latest hideous Rainbow thing cut out, so that's something. I should be able to get some work done this week, I don't have quite so many after-school activities planned, except for sewing and financial aid package type stuff. M and I are supposed to go take an Argentine tango lesson on Thursday, which should be fun, but that is the only concrete plan I have this week. Yay!

Anyhow, J, one of mt friends from the GBACG, come over to sew on Sunday. Her husband was coming back from Iraq last night, so she was pretty excited and nervous and needed some distraction. We both got our latest projects cut out, and had a nice time with the nervous chatter and planning outfits for the eveaning. Why I was so nervous I really don't understand. I cooked dinner for M at his place, it's not like he hasn't eaten my cooking before, but for some reason I was terribly nervous about it. As it turns out, I had no need to be. Everything came out quite well, even if I did slightly over-salt the spinach (which wasn't entirely my fault, I was using a new seasoned salt blend I'd never tried before and it turned out to be more salty that I had expected).

I actually feel pretty good this morning, fairly relaxed and rested, and ready to face the week. Not getting up at 6 AM really helps. Also talking to my landlord about the whole stuck with extra rent again problem was really a big relief. He's a wonderful man, and gave us a nice break on the part the we got stiffed on, so I'm feeling much better about that. Plus we might have found someone to take the extra room for at least a few months. Which would be a brilliant thing. Getting someone in there to cover things while we look for a more permanent solution is a brilliant thing.

Oh sweet lord!!!

In 18 months and 2 days I will be 30. This is tragic and awful. My mother is picking out flowers and centerpieces for my wedding, I'm turning 30 in 18 months and 2 days, and I feel like milk in the dairy case that is approaching it's expiration day. Will I suddenly go rancid on that awful, black day? Is that what she's worried about? "Never mind the groom honey, lets just get these centerpieces figured out!" I feel like I'm about to be auctioned off to some hypothetical husband. Does she know something I don't know? It's very bizarre.

You would think that having my brothers wedding to work on would have distracted her from me and my looming induction into the old-maid/rancid milk club. But no. Why plan just one wedding when you can do the work for two at once! I wonder if she has the dress picked out too? Why can't she just focus on finding me a nice doctor or something like other mothers do, instead of picking out floral arrangements? I know you have to order orchids 50 years in advance, but I don't even want orchids!

Besides, it seems somehow wrong to get married after my baby brother. Or at lest to have a big over-done meringue of a wedding with 6 foot floral centerpieces. Me and my silly Victorian novels again, but still.

The weekend looms, my official un-birthday is on Sunday, and I think I'm cooking dinner for M. Which should be fun. Since my actual birthday is usually over labor day weekend, and hardly anyone comes to my birthday party (what's up with that? you people show up in droves to other parties, what's the matter with my birthday?), doing something nice on my un-birthday is always a good thing. Not that M knows or cares that it's my un-birthday and that I therefore get to wear a silly party hat and eat cake and turn into the Mad Hatter, but it's still nice.

Ugh. 18 months. And 2 days. What a tragic thing to have thought about this morning.

Flambed

Weird head space today...and I can't really figure out what has triggered it. Last night and this morning were lovely, I stayed at M.'s and didn't have to commute all the way back up to the city, so I actually got a half-way decent amount of sleep for a change.

I'm just feeling rather overwhelmed by all these decisions I have to make and the conflicting time lines I have to make them in. Where to go to school isn't so bad, but the questions around work, time lines, and now a certain level of emotional complication make it a bit overwhelming. I think part of my problem is that I am really afraid to trust myself to trust/care about M. I want to, but I'm afraid, partly because I've been burned pretty badly (and rather recently), and partly because I know I have an expiration date. How can I really deal with my own feelings honestly when I know my time is running out? Really, it has run out. I have to make a decision towards the end of the month. What chance does that the possibility of an "us" with?

E. says I need to chill out, slow myself down, and not worry about him or us, and focus on what I need to do. She's right, of course. "Crush Flambes," as she put it, are fine and ok and worrying about forever can and should wait.

I'm also feeling all rejected about work at the moment. I can't get any kind of straight answers about the possibility of getting hired full time, and moving on with my life just makes it look like I'm not interested, but I don't honestly know what else to do. If they can't commit to me, why should I sit around committing to them while the rest of my life passes me by (and why does this sound so familiar, but so out of context? gee.)?

Anyway, it looks like I should finally have a weekend to focus on sewing. No luck on the skiing, or any other real plans to go anywhere, so I'm going to get some work done and knock this last commission out so I can get on with my own work without feeling guilty. Between sewing stints, I need to photograph and measure some costumes I'm planning on selling, and sort through some other stuff to see if I have anything stashed in the basement worth putting on eBay. Might as well work on lightening my material load while I try to scrounge up extra rent/tax money.

Feeble sleepy happy dance

The evil house mate is gone, the locks have been changed, his mountain of shit has been cleared away, and the floors have been scrubbed. We're going to get screwed on the rent and utilities this month, but somehow that's not so bed. Stressful, scary, and just not fun, but not so bad. The house simply *feels* better without that huge ugly stinky wad of negativity sulking in the back room. Hurray! Now I just need to find something to sell so we can make up the extra rent...

In other fantastic news, I got another acceptance letter. This time from Albany School of Law, and it came with a $20,000 a year scholarship! Woo! I really need to do my FAFSA stuff this week so I can get all of that business moving along in the right direction. I've now been accepted into both my safety schools, and only rejected from one school, so I'm feeling pretty good about this. I actually have options! And decisions to make!

Sadly, I owe an absurd amount of money on my taxes this year. WTF? I was unemployed and didn't even get to collect unemployment for 4 months. How can I owe them this much money? Not having any real deductions kind of sucks but oh well. Not much I can do about it now. Next year should be better and at least I'm working so I can figure something out. A huge tax bill plus extra rent for 2 months is just lame though. No more shopping for me for awhile.

It funny, even facing another poverty-stricken month (well, several of them but whatever), I feel so much lighter knowing that the toxic ass is out of my house and that I have someplace to be come the fall. In fact, I have several places to chose from, and that is a wonderful thing. Things in the rest of my life are shaping up to make the decision a little harder than it might have been, but it's all for the good. I may not know where I'm going yet, but at least I know that I'm going someplace.

Pictures from the Gaskell have been posted.

There is a duckie in my bra, and it hurts

I really do love A. She never fails to amuse. We are, when taken together, a thing to fear, but that's ok. We haven't scared away anyone worth having yet, so it's got to be for the good.

Besides, she's fantastic with a ruler, even if her porn did break my VCR.

Had a wonderful weekend, full of all kinds of good things except sewing productivity. I got home Friday to the best bunch of mail ever. It turns out, that after all the crap last week with the letters and everything, I got accepted someplace! Woo! I got in to Santa Clara! Ok, this is kind of a no-brainer acceptance, but if I can get work to get a move on this is the perfect school and life will be wonderful. I have some more letters to get sent in a hurry, but at least I got in someplace, so no matter when happens with work I know I will have something to do in the fall when my contract is up.

Besides happy law school news, I went to the Gaskell with A. and M., got mostly done with the curtains for the living room, got some shopping and chapter stuff done, and that's about it. I've been appallingly lazy, given how much crap I really need to get done, but whatever. Just now, I could care less.

In less happy news, the evil bastard of a housemate finally left. Without any notice. This is bad. It's great that he left, we are all very happy about that, but he didn't bother to tell anyone he was leaving, so now we are stuck trying to find an extra 3rd of the rent (again) in the space of 5 days. Something will work out, somehow, but I'm actually getting a little freaked out. Another month of paying double rent is not going to be a good thing. Hopefully we can find a new housemate fairly quickly. At least A. is rational about all of this and willing to help with the extra rent. That's a marvelous thing, on so many levels.

Better and better!

Sometimes things happen that remind me to just listen to my mother. If I just remembered to do this most of the time, life would be ever so much easier.

The latest spectacular example of this would be these stupid letters of recommendation. There I was, freaking out about my chances of getting in to any school at all having been shot to hell, and had I just listed to my mother's assurance that all would be well I could have saved myself 3 days of horrible stress and anxiety. So far, I've heard back from all the schools and they all said it was fine, and I can just send anything missing directly to them and not to worry it will all be ok. Yay! I have a prayer! And both of the schools in the area are ok, so I might even have bi-coastal options!

Anyhow, I have to make a couple of calls and get copies of the letter sent to a few different places, but I'm in good shape.

So between the huge wave of application related relief and a very pleasant evening last night (that chocolate port drizzle sauce never fails), I'm feeling pretty spectacularly good today. I have a ton of work to get caught up on after a very unproductive week, some hardware requests to figure out, and other random clean up and administrative stuff to take care of but it's going to be a lovely day, and a lovely weekend, and life is good.

Oh yeah, and we are starting a boylympics site, I just have to register the domain today and decide how the charts and graphs should be built. Anyone interested in helping to build a score-board system should apply directly to the IBC.

Semi-yay!

I emailed a bunch of the law schools that I applied to, and to my very great relief I still have a shot at at least 3 of them. This is good. One does not require letters at all, one needs just one letter which it already has, and the third is ok to wait the few weeks it will take to get the second letter and assured me I would still receive the same consideration. It's lovely to know that when I am rejected it will be in the usual manner rather than because I was dumped onto the heap of incompleteness.

Of course, this means I must now get on the ball and do my taxes so I can send in the financial aid forms. blegh. Doing taxes is no fun. Between unemployment, lack of unemployment, and temp jobs it's going to be a bit confusing but it shouldn't be too bad. I didn't make enough money to worry about too many deductions and things.

Stranger things have happened

I love A. and I love my parents. After a truly lousy day yesterday, I'm feeling much better thanks to them.

A. and I ended up staying up till 1 AM, watching silly TV, picking out outfits for today, and cleaning my room while tormenting boys on IM. It was quite nice, and actually relaxing in a strange way, to spend most of the evening sitting on my bed giggling like a 12 year old school girl. I'm still stressed and confused but at least my room is a cleaner and saner place to be and I'm going to be ok with this. As my parents said, stranger things have happened than this all working out ok in the end.

Out of some burst of hopeful enthusiasm, I ordered new ski pants and a jacket. Yay! They were on sale, marked down, and one clearance, and the got the whole thing, with shipping, for $75. I'm pretty happy. My pants have left Hodgkins, Illinois, and should be here on the 1st (an otherwise black day, but at least I'll have pants!). I desperately want to go skiing sometime this year. There is a ski bus that runs between the city and various places in Tahoe, I might just give it up and take a day trip on that. Skiing by myself is sort of pathetic, but at least on the bus I might meet people and it's not like I spend much time talking to people I ski with anyway (seeing as I suck, and they mainly want to go on runs that are actually on an angel and not be embarrassed by the crazy flailing chick tumbling down the side of the mountain like Goofy).

Tonight should be fun too. A friend is coming home with me after work and I'm going to feed him crepes. Yay for eating the rest of these crepes! The buckwheat batter came out too thick, but tasty, so the crepes are not as thin as I would like. I'm going to have to work on this batter recipe some. The sweet crepes turned out perfectly, as always. I love Julia Child. She will never lead you wrong. Now it's just a matter of thawing the left over crepes out and heating them up again.

I'm looking forward to the weekend too. Saturday is the Gaskell, and I'm going to try to pour myself in the Madame X dress, now that she has a new (and hopefully more containing) corset. Aside from that, I am going to sew sew sew! And I am happy about this. I have one project to do for a Rainbow client, and then I can focus on my 1909-ish dress and maybe finish the cheongsam, which I now have no use for but since I already cut out the (hideously expensive, vintage, and irreplaceable) silk brocade I really should finish. It's going to be a lot of hand sewing. Hopefully I can get the machine work done this weekend so I have a good handwork project for the evenings next week.

Another one bites the dust...

Unless a miracle occurs, it does not look like I'll be getting in to law school at all this year. There is very little chance that this last letter of recommendation is going to make in to the system and to the admissions offices on time. This sucks. I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself.

I suppose I might as well subject myself to the interview process here again. The inevitable rejection won't be fun, or get me anywhere, but what other options do I really have? It's not like I have any leads on other jobs, and the same deficiencies that will prevent them hiring me here will still be a problem anywhere else. In all likelihood, interviewing here will just make me feel more useless and stupid than I already do, but I have to do something. The thought of going back to temping hell is just unbearable.

Anyway, nothing much else of note is getting done. Work is insane, I'm exhausted, I'm frustrated, angry, and PMS'ing which is so not helping. Why must so many things about my life be in the hands of other people? And why can't they follow through in at least something like a timely manner so I can go on trying to figure things out for myself? It's not like I have a huge number of options to choose from here people.

At least I have this to amuse me:

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Sprinting across the fields, brandishing buzzsaw hand extensions, cometh Heidigrace! And she gives a cruel roar: "I'm going to smash you so heinously, you will see ultraviolet!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings :powered by monkeys

Kung-Fu and Caffine

Why am I so tired?! The weekend was actually lots of fun, I got stuff done, entertained people and was more social than I have been in about a hundred years, yet somehow I feel as though I went straight from Friday to Tuesday without so much as a pause for breath.

Of course, it was a hideously busy weekend. I did the following:
1 OES meeting
1 Memorial service
1 Birthday party
Cooked crepes for 4 people
Made 3 pounds of truffles
Shopped for trampy school girl looking outfit
Saw Ong-Bak The Thai Warrior
Unclogged stopped up bathroom sink
Cleaned kitchen twice
Cleaned living room
Vacuumed all visible carpet
Got bikini wax
Transfered massive collection of CDs from crystal cases to binder CD case thing. Have to get another case thing.
Cleaned and re-arranged furniture in my room
1 load laundry
Received one law school rejection letter

Not too shabby I guess. But man, some sleep in there or relaxing would have been nice. I'm getting stressed out about my school applications. This missing letter of recommendation is a huge problem. Today I need to figure out where I need to send a replacement letter and find someone to write it for me. blegh. An academic reference would have been nice but oh well. What am I going to do? Hopefully this hasn't blown my shot at getting accepted anywhere. The application fees are so expensive, I'm going to really pissed off if I have to start this all over again next year.

Floopy

For some reason I'm feeling very overwhelmed today. Between memorial services, birthday parties, house cleaning, and getting ready to cook and bake for an undetermined number of people tomorrow, I can't quite figure out where to start. Clearly, unclogging the bathroom sink was a priority. I wish I knew what my asstard housemate put down there (not to be confused with A, the other housemate, who is marvelous). Every time I get the drain unclogged he promptly clogs it up again with his disgusting man gunge. Down with man gunge!

Anyway, I have an awful headache, too much housework to do, and I can't find my party happy face. I have 2 hours to get my groove on can kick this headache, and maybe clear off my bed. It disgusting. My house has gone spectacularly to hell. Between A. moving in, the continued recovery from Dickens, and the amount of time I don't spend at home during the week it's gotten pretty bad. If people are going to be here Sunday I really need to get things worked out so as not to embarrass myself. blegh. At least the unpacking chaos is understandable. It's just starting to make me a little crazy.

I've decided to go low-maintence and low effort for this evening and just wear an old Italian Renaissance dress that I finally fit in to again. It's actually a little big, but it looks nice and should stand up ok with an evening out in the rain. ANd it's way less work than any of the other things I have that fit right now. I don't have to do anything spectacular with my hair, so it won't melt in the rain, and it's comfortable. Yay for comfortable!

Scores are in!

Again, retouching to protect the innocent. Note that inanimate objects are not hidden/smudged out.

A chance in hell?

I love having girlfriends (and metro-sexual guy friends, who are almost the same). I had dinner with A and X last night, and decided to start collecting Things to Say to Boys Who Haven't got a Chance in Hell.

Here is the list so far:

I am so far out of your league...
...if your league were to explode I wouldn't hear the sound for 3 days.
...it would cost you $2 to send me a post card
...you Doppler shift to the infrared
...if you tried to mapquest how to get here, it would to tell you to go fuck yourself
...you'd need oxygen tanks and a Sherpa just to get here
...you are tempting the wrath of God by breathing the same air
...you need a satellite just to communicate with me

My reaction to you is like a noble gas, inert.
Why is it that every time we talk I ponder the merits of defenestration?
Other good excuses

In less light-hearted news, my great-aunt passed away a couple of days ago and I just found out last night. I hate the phrase "passed away." It sounds like something ships do. I wasn't terribly close with her, but my mom is rather upset. Between that and having to preside at an OES funeral service on Saturday...it seems like these things always come in sets, and get progressively closer, so I'm wondering who might be next.

So between being pissed at the Gormless Yotz, work related drama, missing law school application materials, and funerals, I'm not in a very good head space. I really wish I was able to get out of Dodge for at least part of the weekend, but no such luck. Saturday is all booked up, and everyone will be gone and having fun by the time I can leave. Besides which I have sewing to do for other people and I might as well get it done and out of the way.

This morning's commute sucked too. Some guy was getting arrested on MUNI so I nearly missed my shuttle in to work. At least I made it, but only just, and not without a fair amount of anxiety. I think maybe getting a motocycle would be a good idea if I end up keeping this job.

For those of you who have asked, here is a definition of gormless.

Get me out of here!

I'm having a career/work place dilemma. Once again, noises are bing made about converting me into a real employee. I find this highly annoying. If they want to hire me, they need to just make me an offer and get it over with. I do not have time to get strung along like this. The last place I was contracting at this went on for 3 years. Three years of 3 to 6 months contracts. Supposedly you only get a year here, but still, I have to decide which law school I'm going to in the next couple of months. They don't get a year to make their minds up about this.

My manager keeps asking me what it is I want to do. How can I really answer that if I have no options? I haven't been accepted to any schools yet (turns out one of my letters of recommendation is not in my LDAS file for some reason but I'm getting that figured out), and I have no job offers. All I have is a contract that expires on my birthday and a bunch of questions. Would I take a job here if it were offered? I don't honestly know. I do know I have no desire to go through the interview process again only to be told "no thanks." If they follow the usual process around here, I won't get any kind of decision until long after I have to decide which school I want to go to anyway, so I fail to see the point in any of this. I have an expiration date. My manager knows what it is. If they can work within that and give me something to consider, I'll consider it, but what's the point in any of it if nothing is going to get done until it's too late anyway?

In the mean time, I'm pissed off and kind of stressed out and I just want to go home, or anyplace away from here. I do like my job, I like my co-workers and I like the work environment, I just don't like getting strung along by some asinine set of procedures that make it next to impossible to do my job or live my life. They are hardly paying me enough to make the 4 hours a day I spend commuting worth it, I don't particularly want to deal with this crap too.

To top things off, D. The Gormless Yotz has decided that he doesn't want to go to the Rubicon dinner after all because he wants to do to some crap community musical theater audition instead. WTF?! We've been planning this for 2 months. He knew when those auditions were, he shouldn't have said he would go, and certainly shouldn't have waited until now, when it's too late to find another person to go with who can afford a ticket and I've already sunk time and money into the whole project. The bastard. I'm seriously pissed. He's getting fed to the cat tonight.

At least I know where I rate in his world though, that does make thing easier.

When geeks get board...

geeks make charts!

Not exactly a rousing success of a V-Day, but at least A. P. and I had some fun last night. I got my sushi, we drank wine, and watched the St. Valentines Day Massacre thing on the History Channel while working on this (image has been retouched to protect the innocent):



5 points if you can figure out what's going with this little project.

Work seems to have settled down a bit after the last couple of weeks, thank god. The training session I gave yesterday went quite well, or at least well enough as I have not as yet been sacked. Yay! With any luck I will be at an acceptable level of behindness by the end of the week, without having to work too hideously late. I still find it strange that I actually want to work longer hours and take my work home, and the big pain in my professional life is my employers refusal/inability to allow me to do this.

Not to sound too much like Bridget Jones but...it's 2:30. Not so much as a wilted carnation. Well, except for one lousy email from a semi-freak that was sent to 25 other people as well. Which hardly counts.

And to make it even more exciting I have to give a training session this afternoon, which all of the scary boss people will be at, and I'm nervous and feel unprepared.

Someone needs to take me out for sushi tonight, that's all there is to it.

V-Day Massacre?

Eck. Through some horrible, tragic error I woke up at 5:30 this morning, thinking it was 6:30, and didn't realize my mistake until it was far too late to get back to sleep. How very sad. At least I was able to get to work on the early shuttle. Being here at 7:50 on a Monday morning is kind of freakish, but its quiet and peaceful and I can at least try to get some things done.

Of course, after the weekend what I really could have used was some sleep but oh well. Friday night was a lot of fun. P. took me to El Mansour for a nice dinner. I love this restaurant. They have wonderful Moroccan food and a belly dancer who makes all the guys in the place try to dance with her. Watching these guys attempt to shake their hips I cam to appreciate how truly miraculous the survival of the species is.

Anyway, Saturday I helped A. unpack, got my cheongsam pattern alterations done and cut out the silk before E. and X. came and roused me from my torpor and dragged me off to SIN for the Sloth party. I really need to get better cloths, thank god this was all about being lazy. I ended up wearing my sushi pants and a little mesh camisole. Not that exciting but it seemed to be effective. It was a very mellow, if late, night.

Sunday I got up at the a**-crack of dawn to get over to the lodge building and set up the breakfast. Overall, the breakfast went quite well. We made more money than we had budgeted, and everyone seemed to have a grand time, and thank god that it's over for another year. I hate getting up early as it is, trying to get up early after a night at a club and spending the rest of the night trying to get the cats to stop spitting at each other is just ridiculous.

My perversity got the better of me yesterday though, and I picked up a bunt cake from the bake sale to bring to work for my engineers. Not only have I brought them cake, but I up and wore a skirt and lipstick. Woo! We'll see if I can cause a seg-fault in anyone's head, going all domestic and girly like this. It's a good way to distract myself from the inevitable train-wreck that is Valentines Day.

WTF?!

What the hell is the matter with people?!

And then it get's worse... I'm offended on so many levels...

Yesterday's hero

One of the somewhat distressing things about people actually reading this blog is that it rather puts a crimp on what I can say here without fear of recrimination. Technically, all is quite anonymous. However, my friends know I keep this, and now many of my coworkers do too (and not just the ones who cleverly found it on their own when I started working here, you know who you are). Anyway, I must work out for myself how deeply I care about this, and decide what level of professional detachment is really appropriate for my current workplace. So far, just about none seems to be the right and expected thing, but I'm still having a hard time with that concept. Too many years in the financial industry will do that I suppose.

Anyhow, this has turned out to be quite an interesting week. Things at work have been nuts, but through dedication and hard work we were able to get a nasty project off without a hitch. So yay for us! Last night was truly remarkable though. I had made plans to go watch movies at a friends house after work, which is all well and good, except that I got a call while racing down the freeway from one of the release guys asking me if there is any way I can please test a build they want to push out tonight. I told him that I was not at work, but he just happened to be in luck since I was going someplace I would be able to get back on the network and test. Which I proceeded to do until about 8 but not without a valiant attempt on my friends part to distract me. At least everything worked, and I get to be the hero of the morning, or evening, or whatever, and also terribly mysterious and alluring since I was able to resist temptation. Or something like that.

So tonight activities center around dinner with a guy I met at Dickens, who insists that he did not meet me at Dickens, and ran in to again at the Mardi Gras party last weekend. Seems like a nice enough guy, so we'll see what happens. I did find his tribe membership listings a bit, hmm...interesting? but who I am to say anything about that sort of thing? A. and I spent a considerable about of time considering outfits for today, since I won't be able to get back home to change whatever I wear tonight needs to work for the office too. It's a tricky thing.

Add to all this the OES fund raiser on Sunday morning and a sloth-themed fetish party I really want to go to on Saturday, and I'm truly living a dissipated and sleep deprived, though heroic, lifestyle. I have no idea what to wear to a sloth-themed (as in the sin, not the tree-dwelling mammal) fetish party though. I was thinking that a leather or PVC corset and my yummy sushi pj pants with slippers would be quite fetching, but I haven't got the corset part anymore. Very sad, but a good excuse to carry on with the corset making! I'll have to figure something out. I have a whole day to think of something!

I will have a delightful and fun-filled weekend before the devastation that is V-Day. It's on a Monday. How appropriate. I'm ashamed to admit it but I have some lingering hope that it will not all be in vain this year. We shall see.

Oh my

What can I say?

I refuse to point out the many, obvious puns.

Close to tied up

in my latest new corset that is. All I have left to do on my fabulous pink and brown Madame X corset tonight is a bit of hand sewing on one section of the binding and putting in grommets. Yay! I really like the look of this corset. The brown satin brocade was a good choice. I'll post pictures as soon as it's done (hopefully tomorrow but no promises). Who knew that chocolate brown and pink would be so fabulous?

Since all of my other corsets are massively too big and have been sold off, given away, or recycled for parts, I'm having way too much fun planning the next one. I have some giraffe print velveteen that just might turn into a new waist cincher. Not the post practical fabric choice for functional underwear, but I was thinking it would be fun for an outwear sort of corset. Maybe with brown satin casings and bindings, that would be kind of fun.

Hopefully this weekend I will finally get started on the cheongsam. I've pretty well given up on going to the erotic food thing in Sonoma so I should have all day Saturday to work on this and at least part of Sunday afternoon (Sunday morning I have to be a big stupid fundraiser breakfast for OES). Once I get going on that I can start on the corset for my 1909-ish dress. That should be fun. I still need a busk but I can at least get the pattern worked out and everything cut and put together before this becomes a huge issue, and can work on the Regency corset while I'm waiting for the busk to get here. How very practical of me!

I'm out of RAM

Because I work with geeks, and must attempt to blend in with them in a Jane-Goodall-with-the-gorillas manner, I have taken to describing my various ailments and failures in terms the geeks will understand. Today, I have run out of RAM. I cannot start any more processes and the ones that are running are starting to bog down and freeze at random intervals.

At least one of the huge messes I've been trying to sort out has finally gotten figured out and I can carry on with my job. Yay! I would feel much better about this if I had half a clue why everything starting working right, but I'll take what I can get and call it a win. At least I can get this thing tested and out the door and won't have to worry about it next week. Which means I can get back to what I'm actually supposed to be working on some point in the near future.

Well, that and attempting to write a best practices document. How absurd is that? It's worse that the the one-eyed leading the blind. This is more like the one-eyed with cataracts and an astigmatism leading the blind. Oh well. It's actually kind of fun, and the sort of thing enjoy doing. Trying to find ways to do thing better is always interesting.

Pictures from the ball!

The weekend was a grand success! I've posted pictures from the ball so everyone can share in the horror that was my hair. I am happy to report that it took just under an hour to get the hair on my head, which isn't too bad. There were some slight engineering difficulties, counter balancing the loops was kind of interesting but once I got it figured out the whole affair was quite comfortable and secure. Except for riding in the car, it was great.

K. and I got to the ball right on time, and were immediately struck by some of the costumes. People really went all out for this, the level of effort and creativity was quite impressive. I ran into a very old friend I have not seen in a hundred year, she's gotten herself engaged and she and her finance invited us to go on some pirate ship thing, so now we need to make 18th century cabin boy-girl outfits. Yay! I've always wanted to be a cabin boy-girl!

I got to dance both Congress of Vienna's, and for the first time ever managed to teach someone how to do it on the floor. Who knew I could back-lead someone through a Congress? Never mind that I was teaching Lestat how to do it. He did very well actually, and didn't even make a move for my neck, which was actually somewhat disappointing. (PEERS does more theatrical balls than Gaskells, they have people playing specific characters and for some reason had the whole crew from the Vampire Chronicles at this one).

Sunday E, K, and I had a nice little stitch-n-bitch at my house. It was quite fun. We watched Wives and Daughters, sewed, drank tea, and carried out about all kinds of things. My new corset for Madame X is nearly finished (who knew I could crank out a corset in a day?). I just need to do the bindings, put in the boning, and put in the grommets. I'm stuck on the grommets until my order from Grannd Garb gets here. It's supposedly been delivered, but hasn't got to my desk yet. If I don't get it by this afternoon I'll have to get hold of the receiving people. I need those grommets!

Oh the humanity!

What an horrific week. I've been completely slammed at work. Mostly with stupid environmental problems too which makes things utterly unpleasant. Trying to resolve these kind of problems takes forever and usually means that nothing else is getting done. So then people who need me to do something with the environment start calling me in a panic, and everyone ends up running around like a chicken with it's head cut off getting nothing done and making a huge mess. Agghh!!

It appears that at least part of the problem may now have been worked out. I can only hope. I've turned into a raving lunatic though, which doesn't help with anything. The more crap that gets piled on the less I am able to cope with. Oh well. With any luck things will get figured out on Monday and next week will be less stupid.

I've decided that I really don't need to deal with people who are oblivious and don't listen to anything I'm telling them. It's pointless. These same people seem to take some kind of perverse pleasure in making me feel small and worthless too, which I don't really understand.

Last night was strange. The opera was pretty good and quite enjoyable, but they did run into some technical difficulties with the supertitles. It was a dress rehearsal after all, so that was rather to be expected. I ended up getting stuck in a bizarre and tense social situation I was utterly unprepared for afterwards though. It was the kind of thing that made me really wish I had a car. Going home would have been a good idea. As it was, I ended up not getting home at all, only getting maybe 4 hours of sleep, oversleeping due to an alarm clock operator malfunction, and getting to work late with the beginnings of a migraine. Nice. So much for my OES meeting tonight, I am stuck here till 8 trying to get caught up on all the work I haven't been able to do because of strange environmental problems, and feel rather like crap to boot. I have some rather urgent banking to tend to, and haven't been able to get away to do it at all this week, so hopefully I won't be in too much trouble if I do it tomorrow but it's stressing me out. That is, unless I have to come in to work in which case I am screwed. Plus I think I am getting/already am sick.

Yet somehow, it just don't seem to matter that much. Getting some sleep tonight should help some with the whole perspective thing, I can take care of what I need to do around the house, and tomorrow is the Mardis Gras ball which promises to be lots of fun. Yay fun! Dancing the night away will be a good release.

Quiz for the day:


You are a Sphinx! You are mocked for your unusual
appearance, but you are very loving and
devoted. People just need to give you a
chance!


What breed of cat are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Enough already!

I am so done with this week. At least the work parts of it. It's been nuts. I feel like I spend most of the morning trying to explain that as much as I would love to give you status, I just got here and have been explaining to you why I have no status to report the whole time, thereby preventing me from doing any actual status-producing work or finding out if I can even do any status-producing work. Then I go to meetings to which 37 extra people who have no idea what's going on have been added just because it seemed like a good plan at the time. The swarm approach to doing things just isn't that efficient and makes me crazy. I feel like a raving bitch in these meetings sometimes, but no one else seems capable of taking control and getting things done (or even interested in those sorts of things, which I find bizarre).

Anyway. Non-work things are actually pretty much ok. I pined all the foliage down on my dress last night, had a grand time with my new house mate, and am actually really looking forward to the opera tonight and the dancing this weekend. Also sleeping sounds like it will be fun, not that I am clear on how much sleeping in I'm going to be able to do realisticly. I can but try, and anything latter than 6:15 is a good thing.

E. and maybe K. are coming over to sew on Sunday, which should be fun. The current plan is to work on the Madame X corset and the cheongsam. We'll see how that actually works out. I will be happy and count is all as a success if I can get anything at all done on either of these projects.

Feels like Monday

What a horrible morning. I ended up getting to work an hour late after a series of absurd misadventures trying to get a FastPass. At least I got the damned the thing and made it to work, with the bag of tiaras and the dress I am supposed to be sending to my mom (if I can find a box to mail them in anyway). In the meantime, I am taking comfort in wearing one of the tiaras. That always makes me feel better, however silly I may look sitting in my veal-pen wearing a tiara.

I made very good progress on my foliage last night. In fact, it's done, I just have to pin it to the dress in a more permanent manner. Right now it's all on with straight pins. Tomorrow night I will make any little fiddling adjustments and safety pin it all down. I think it turned out rather well.



Here also are pictures of the orange dress I did for the reception this weekend.



I'm feeling in a very bad mood this morning. Last night was rather nice, I worked on making my foliage, and watched the SciFi channel, and was generally mellow. This morning was just awful though. Hopefully today will get better. I'm supposed to have dinner or something with one of the guys from work. Not sure what the deal with that is, but it should be ok. We've been trying to find a mutually do-able day to get together for months, so however bad the rest of the morning was I can't really justifying canceling at this point. Tomorrow my new housemate is coming over to drop off checks, pick up keys, and figure out paint, and I have to pin down all of the foliage on the dress since I won't likely be home at all on Thursday. It turns out I'm going to go see the dress rehearsal of D's opera. Yay! I'm rather excited about this actually. I wasn't sure I would be able to see it at all, which I felt really bad about. He's very excited about getting to do this, and I want to support him in it as much as I can (which isn't much, or at least as not as much as I feel like it should be).

Anyway, must get to work. As you can see, the cat has been very helpful with the sewing efforts.