The Lady in the Next Cube is gone, either fired or transferred. Her place has been cleared out except for an empty datebook and an old McDonald’s toy (one of hundreds she used to have). It’s a sad day. I knew her name, but I’m not sure she ever knew mine.
Category: Landmarks
Fairly important thingy
I’ve talked before about my “secret writing project,” which hasn’t been all that secret, since it was easy to find if you explored NewsBruiser’s navigation at all, and anyway I told a bunch of people about it. I’ve never actually described it here, though, and that’s what this is.
Anacrusis. One hundred and one words, five days a week, for almost a year. I posted my two hundredth entry there last Friday, and today–its big debut–is the two hundred and first. I’ve missed a week here and there, and one month during The Great Web Host Debacle of last fall, but overall I’ve been pretty regular and I’m getting better. I hope those continue to be true.
If you’re interested, you can hit that random link a few times to get an idea of what it’s like. I hope you enjoy them. That’s where most of my creative energy has gone while I’ve been not drawing my comic; I’m nervous about this, but it’s been almost a year, and I think I’m about ready for an audience.
I’ve been staying mum about it, because I didn’t want to jinx it like last time, but I have now actually won a round of BlogNomic. I’m quite puffy with pride, although I couldn’t have done it alone.
If you’re at all interested in malleable gaming, I think you should join BlogNomic now–I’m going to put a lot of effort into making this round fun. All you have to do is post a comment on one of the more recent entries, stating your name, your wish and your email address, and we’ll get right to you.
NewsBruiser is misbehaving but this will show up eventually
It’s been a year since my first day at this job, although it doesn’t say so under Today in History. This is the longest I’ve ever held any job, even if it has mostly been for two days a week.
Guess I should talk to somebody about a raise.
After about a year, it finally occurred to me that I work in a cubicle, a space that is in its very nature designed to be modular. I’ve never really liked the way things were arranged in here. Today, I did something about it.
After about an hour of work, some sweat and some very odd looks, my forty-two square feet of space are now much more accommodating. I moved a big cabinet and some shelves I never used into an empty cube nearby, and wiped away a lot of accumulated dust. It feels bigger and lighter, and my workstation is finally in such a position that nobody can sneak up on me while I’m sitting at it. Or walk by and notice that I’m typing in my online journal instead of working. The downside to this is that I may occasionally have to make eye contact with the humans now, but this is a small price to pay.
I can actually use my whiteboard now. I’ve never decorated the walls of this place in any way, as my little symbolic refusal to be a cube-drone; I still don’t know if I will. But this does feel a little more like my own place now.
Inertia is a strange thing. I feel like I just built a house.
I have a new cell phone. I’m not really happy about this.
On the one hand, my family and I have had a chronic problem with going over our minutes, partly because we were all sharing the same plan and Ian and I used a lot more than Mom and Caitlan. We only had 800 minutes between the four of us, which didn’t work out that well. So it’s nice that Ian and I have our own plan, so Ian can ruin my credit instead of Mom’s. Also we have twice as many minutes to use, and now that I have Cingular unlimited wireless-to-wireless, I should be using significantly fewer minutes anyway.
On the other hand:
- I have to transfer all my contacts from Layla. Manually.
- This new phone is not Layla; it seems flimsier and less shiny, and definitely can’t be used as a flashlight.
- One nice thing is that it doesn’t have a broken extendable antenna. Then again, it doesn’t have an extendable antenna at all, so when I have bad reception there’s not a lot I can do.
- Oh, and the new phone is not red.
- Plus its keypad buttons are that annoying two-in-one rocker style, which makes it more difficult to use without looking.
- And there aren’t as many of them, which means reduced functionality.
- But I can google from my pocket! Which is something I’ve always wanted to do.
- But that’s going to end up costing me a lot of money, at a cent per kilobyte.
I don’t know, maybe I’ll learn to like it. I did with Layla. I still have Layla, in fact, although she doesn’t connect to anything anymore. I’ll probably take her battery out once I’ve got all my contacts and stuff transferred, to use as a backup, since it’s the same kind as the new one.
In many ways I still hate having a cell phone, but I’d grudgingly accepted Layla. This newcomer is not so easy to handle. I feel like a friend has moved away, and a smaller, more annoying person has taken her place.
The new phone does J2ME apps, though. I better get cracking if I’m going to port rfk.
This is pretty gross
Before I was born, my father had surgery for periodontic disease. They gave him a local anaesthetic, cut his gums open, pulled the flaps up above his teeth, and used metal tools to scrape away the dead tissue underneath before sewing them up again.
I’m a six-year veteran of badly administered braces, and I’ve had five regular teeth pulled plus four badly impacted wisdom molars. I am no stranger to dental horror, but I really want to avoid the above experience. Thus it was that yesterday, I began flossing.
It makes me feel old and boring, and when I swish water around in my mouth, it feels like my teeth have shrunk.
Jon and Amanda are married!
Last night I went to my first-ever rehearsal dinner–pancakes at Cracker Barrel, followed by a leisurely visit and then a hesitant drive to the chapel out in the middle of Shelby County. It was hard to find, but deservedly so: it’s a gorgeous spot, and somehow entirely cicada-free.
I got to host Jon’s bachelor party, which consisted of coming back here with Ken, Chris and me and watching A Mighty Wind and laughing a lot. We throw some pretty wild parties.
This morning Ken kindly picked up Maria and me and drove us back to the aforementioned chapel, where we took pictures (one of Jon’s WWE-style entrance, one of Amanda’s, and then some less important ones) and waited.
Eventually there was a wedding. The bride wore flip-flops, and the reverend’s microphone kept fuzzing out. It was sunny, and outside, and butterflies kept zooming through the service. Amanda and Jon were very beautiful, and I’m so proud and happy that for this little while, I don’t even miss them.
Have I mentioned yet that I’m done with school? I’m done with school, as of the day after my birthday. I ended up with two Bs and a C, balancing the two Bs and an A from last semester, and finish my first year of postgraduate education with a pristinely average 3.00. I did some complete crap work, in places, this spring; I got thoroughly and undeservingly rogered in others. It all balances out, in 3.00 Land.
One more year of this and I’m done with school forever. Whoof. I am ready for that.
Maria is responsible for basically all of this
I got four Hellboys, two Supermans, a tombstone, a whoopee cushion and Graeter’s Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake. I had a gonzo adventure with my friends and we drove off a cliff. I ate two orders of the best ribs in the universe. I won eighteen zillion games of Crimson Skies.
I have to invent a final project from thin air tonight and turn it in tomorrow, but I had a very good birthday.