Scraps (n. ,fem., singular)

So today was two. two. two-days-in-one! for me since I don’t work tomorrow today was essentially my Friday, but with the usual Thursday stuff included. After work I had a couple of discounts that were about to expire so I figured I’d hit the stores for a little start-the-long-weekend-off-right shopping.

Um, did anyone else notice how hard it rained at 4 today? I swear I did, but somehow that didn’t equate in my brain to the fact that Lafayette would be nearly flooded! Needless to say, not only is the top of my car clean, the inside of the wheel wells have been all-but pressure washed!

So I get to Borders (discount #1) and I have a decision to make: to umbrella or not to umbrella, that is the question. It was still raining but in a non-torrential way and I was parked at the end of the sidewalk so I decided to go without. It was fun. I laughed at the silliness, giddy with the 4 days of freedom ahead, and cleaned my glasses off as I entered the bookstore (sometimes windshield wipers on glasses would /not/ go amiss). Blind though I might have temporarily been, my ears worked fine and the sound they heard was a biddy’s affronted ‘Well’ at my dampened state as we passed. Oh get a grip, lady, it’s only a little water (and I’m much less likely to drip than an umbrella), this isn’t Escape from LA and it’s not acid rain. (Or was is NY that had the acid rain? anyway…) Let your inner child out of the attic would you?

In a stroke of true luck (seriously, the last several times I’ve gone in there–or any place else–it’s been out of stock) Charmed, Season 4, was right where it was supposed to be and it promptly accompanied me to the checkout counter. Now, I thought the discount I printed out was for 25% off but when I checked the receipt at the door it was only 20%. Wouldn’t you know it? I pulled the wrong one out of my notebook! I think I might have actually given them an expired rewards discount! But it scanned so who knows. I still have a 25% off to use before the end of the weekend, so if I’m out that way I might pick up an actual book (gasp!).

Next stop was the shoe store (discount #2) where I really intended to buy some everyday wear sort of low kitten heels or even flats (since I seem to be able to tolerate them a bit more now). But I really didn’t like the ones they had. I tried to talk myself out of them, really I did, but they just kept calling to me… So now I have yet another pair of truly cheesecake peep-toe pumps for the fall. When I described them to palmie over the phone she declared them the quintessential [Scraps] cheesecake shoe and I happen to agree!

I had thought I would then stop by Michaels for some more canvas-boards (I’m feeling painterly this weekend) then I noticed the Fashion Bug had finally opened. I love their clearance racks. 40% off the already discounted price? Why thank you. Then I decided to go ahead and apply for the store card (free tote bag) and got approved (lipstick case and add’l 10% off the entire purchase). So while I left the store with a stuffed bag (including some great straight-legged slacks that will go perfectly with the new pumps) and an invitation to participate in their store fashion show in two weeks, I didn’t actually spend any money there. (Yet… it’s semantics, okay?)

Then Michaels had some of their Halloween stuff out already Dude. Orange chinese lanterns for a buck a piece? Oh yes! And pumpkin shaped doilies? Those, too. And a few odds and ends decorations to stock up for what will be the best BYOP in the history of my throwing them (and this’ll be #5 and I throw pretty cool pumpkin parties so that’s saying something…). And I got the canvas-boards.

But now I’m faced with another dilemma. I have the next four days off, entirely to do my own bidding. This is bizarre. I don’t generally take time off to just do nothing, though I had thought that a slacker weekend would be cool. Except I’m me, y’all, I can’t just do nothing! The dilemma is whether to leave the alarm on for tomorrow morning. Granted, I’m not a morning person in general, but how great would it be to get up at 6am on my day off and get caught up on the comic or write the next article or finish reorganizing the Abyss (which is very un-Abyss-like now)? I mean, really? And then do it again on Saturday and Sunday and even have Monday still to do it again? It’d be like the time in ‘03 when I took most of Spring Break off to learn Dreamweaver and build Rock*Paper*Scissors and all it’s inventory in a week. It was a creative oasis in the middle of my work-a-day world. It was glorious!

And apparently I’m crazy. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do it!

Yes, I know, it comes around every week like clock-work. That’s not what I’m saying.

Take this morning, for instance. I really didn’t think I was going to make the 6am wake-up radio after it took over an hour to get to sleep last night . In fact, I had a very realistic dream where instead of waking up at 6 or even 7, I woke up at 8 when the radio-alarm auto-offs and had to rush to get dressed, brush my teeth, didn’t even have time to wash my hair so I just pulled it up into a messy ponytail and rush to the car, grumbling and cranky, and I’m in the middle of traffic, thinking that I should call the office, when I look at the car clock and see that it’s only 7:20. Apparently I must have hit the wrong buttons and advanced my clock. So instead of ending up 45 minutes late, I was going to be 10 minutes early. This is when the alarm actually did go off and I had the momentary thought of, ‘wow, that was very convincing’. While I wouldn’t exactly say I was chipper this morning, I did have plenty of time to wash my hair, make coffee and toast, and finish the backgrounds on tomorrow’s RA…

Fast forward to the end of the day and we get our second unexpected. I almost talked myself out of writing today. I wasn’t (still am not) feeling well and I needed to get to comic scanned, blah blah blah, but I really needed to get started on Sept’s articles if I had any hope of getting them done in time to get October’s done in time to get November’s done before November begins (at least the drafts… November = NaNo and I don’t know how I’d manage both if I didn’t try to get a little ahead on the paid stuff). But I went. And I wrote. Thing is, I didn’t right the article I intended to: I wrote the next one on the list but only because as I started to list points and notes for the first I realized that some skills for this article were going to be addressed in the next. So I wrote that one instead. I need to do the visual aids for it (it’s another calligraphy article this week) and finalize some specifics (and editing, oh, yes, the editing) but the fleshy outer shell is there. Cool.

Of course, now it’s 9:15, I’m still not feeling well (even after the fail-safe noodles for dinner) and I’m going to take myself to bed with the Frida Kahlo biography and read til I fall asleep.

Did Tom Hanks every play an editor?

Ugh, I just had my first real clash of artistic temperament meets editorial review. Sigh… It’s fixed (and so much for the media black-out at 10pm… I’d already invoiced for the article so I really needed to get it revised [read as: shell of its former self] so I wouldn’t be short of my contract this month) but I’m spent.

And, wow, I was so jazzed up this evening until I got that email. I was all high on thoughts of planning the next party, had gone out on a recon mission to the party store, jammed out to the radio on the way home, then get hit with: ‘it’s too long, confusing, and too creative’ Seriously, that was the basics. Of course, the editors really didn’t ‘get’ what I was going for (I know all writers probably say that, but there was a serious lack of communication on just what I’m ‘expert’ in and what that had to do with the lamb recipe) and they kept calling it two recipes. No. It’s one recipe, two preparation methods. And not even two full-on methods, it was more of a then vs now with the now being the actual instructions.

Have you ever noticed that the higher emotionally you are the more dangerous the precipice that you dance upon? I mean, seriously, I just about lost it because I took it way too personally at first. Of course, it’s not meant that way, and I knew that, but still at that moment they weren’t telling me the article was broken, they were telling me ‘I’ was broken. Which is stupid because I’m not (though cracked probably wouldn’t be wrong, lol), but I guess I was just lulled into a false sense of security when my other articles breezed through.

The other part really was the timing. We’re supposed to have our articles submitted 4 days before the end of the month. This particular one went in on the 21st (plenty of time) but due to one of the editors having a family emergency (it happens, not much you can do about it) they were backlogged. Still, the article went on “Writer Hold” at least yesterday (if not Sunday… I don’t remember if I checked the status window after I submitted the webcomic article Sat.night) and if I hadn’t asked about it both yesterday and today I still might not know that there were issues that I needed to fix. That didn’t hurt: it pissed me off. I’m still a little irritated but more than that, I’m tired. It took an hour and a half of editing and then moving to the laptop from the desktop because that’s where the image files were that needed to be reassigned.

It was not the ending I wanted for this day and I still have one thing to do before bed if I can get back into proper head-space for it.

I’ll have to see if I can resurrect the euphoria I was operating on before the editing issue arose tomorrow. But relived is never as good as the first time.

Wohoo! I was doing so well on my walk today (the walk I had almost convinced myself to skip before leaving work) that I switched over to another playlist and walked two more songs as I circled around the first connector before heading back to the car. Go me! Of course, now my calves are screaming at me and I have a blister on my index toe, but it’s a small price to pay. (Remind me of this tomorrow when it hurts to move???)

Anyway, so further on to the goal of self-improvement I saw something come across the Digg feed last night about ’sleepy geeks’. Basically the theory is that those who watched television or were online up until bedtime slept worse than those that didn’t. Fair enough, I suppose, I mean there’s at least some validity in the idea that a busy brian does not a peaceful sleep make. So this week I figure I’ll try it out.

Since I aim for bed at 11pm, I’ll do a media black-out starting at 10pm. The intervening hour I’ll use for pleasure reading, research (that’s fun too, and much more low-key, honest!) reading, or working on the comic. A month or more ago I cut out food after 9pm (to prevent digestion competing with sleep and to not pack on late-night calories) so I’ve got a nice little stair-step going.

It also occurs to me that I’m starting to have the care and feeding guidelines of a Mogwai. At least /I/ get weekends off without turning Gremlin

Because I got so very much done this weekend.

Needless to say, no plans materialized from RockStar (so glad I didn’t clear my Saturday night on that ‘maybe’ earlier this week) but it was just as well. Friday night I went through 7 boxes of office stuff: sorting and tossing, those now-empty boxes are being filled by Izzy since she’s getting ready to move next month. Then yesterday I did a bit more organizing, edited my third eHow article for the month (whew! contract fulfilled for this month!), and drew Tuesday’s RA. Thursday’s is almost finished as well.

Then a really odd thing happened. Last weekend we has such hellacious storms that power went out for several hours. Well, last Saturday night (after the storms the previous night) I noticed that the tv picture was a bit, uh, off. Basically there was a big green splotch in the lower left corner and the left vertical third had a decidedly blue tinge. I mean, you could see everything, but the colors were off. Mom had been talking about getting me a bigger set for Christmas this year anyway, and she’s saying it might just be an early gift with this development. In the mean time, if it got to me too much I could grab the tv from Drew’s room since it wasn’t being used.

Exposition over, on to today: I decide that (what with Palmie and I planning to hang out on Friday and as movies will probably happen) today would be a good day to grab the tv so I clear everything but the modem/router off the stand and head to Mom’s. When I get there (and Mom isn’t, but I have a key) I see that Drew’s tv is not just like mine (like I’d thought) and that I’d need to borrow the DVD player as well–I just decided to wait until I could talk to Mom this week. No biggie.

Knowing that the few shows I still watch will be on tonight, I put the tv back up on the stand and turn it on to make sure moving it didn’t completely kill it, right? Dude. It not only worked, the color was fixed. Seriously. The hell? I mean, there’s still a minor ghost of a shadow in the lower left corner, but it’s not bright green and the blue tint is gone. Go figure. Obviously something must have been loose and moving the set around jiggled it back into place (I’d figured the set had received a minor zap from the lightening last week, since it was coincidental) but how did it come loose since I haven’t moved the tv in months and months? Really.

Who knows, I’m just glad whatever it is decided to resolve itself. You know, I never did think to give it a good whack when it messed up. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when stuff like that happens? Whack the hell out of it and get it to straighten up?

I was cleaning out my Junk mail folder tonight (because I’d let it pile up this last week or so) and to make it easier to browse (in case something gets misclassified) I sort all emails by subject. This makes it really easy to see what’s definitely spam because it’s repeated a few dozen times or some such. There were some that caught my eye, though, and I thought I’d share:

Become a CSI: [Scraps]
Hmm… well, I do like /watching/ CSI and it might actually be a very fun job from a cerebral point of view, but I’m not so much on the dead bodies and gross stuff, so thank you but I’ll pass.

Become a teacher, [Scraps]
Again, intriguing. I actually thought at one point in time (back in high school) that teaching college would be fun (oh hell no, don’t put me in front of a room of surly teens, someone would surely go crazy, probably me). But still, I kinda like my current job so I’m good, but thanks.

Become the man you’ve always wanted to be.
Uh, no.

Look, I’ll admit, being a girl is not always the easiest thing in the world some days (like today having to go for that lovely speculum appointment), but there is no way in the world I would /ever/ want to be a man. Seriously. No penis envy here. No desire to be able to write my name in the snow (or sand, or whatever), etc. Not happening.

I don’t envy men, not really. I mean, sure, the business world caters to them by rote (but things are changing) and even the dunderheads have instant credibility (this needs to change faster) but why? Because of a Y-chromosome and exposed genetalia? I appreciate being able to be both feminine and competent in the same instant, and the element of surprise when I do something I’m otherwise ill-equipped or not suited for (in some man’s eyes) is delightful. And let’s not forget the shoe choices!

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate men. Not all of them. A great many human beings fill me unease and distaste–not just men. But those I consider friends are more important to me than all my three-dozen pairs of shoes combined! I’ve loved many in the past and hope to have the chance to love more in the future, some of them I even respected… and that’s becoming more and more important to me as the years go by.

Oh, listen to me, being all psuedo-profound. Phfft! Not that the above isn’t true, but there are other things I like about men. Like when I impress them. Because we live in (still) such a patriarchial society, gaining the respect and admiration of men for anything I do is incredibly flattering. I like how, sometimes, I feel protected around certain ones. Others allow me to do a little bit of nurturing (though I’m no one’s mother, least of all a grown man’s!) without feeling clung-to. Some come to me for advice (that’s a biggie) and some just find me amusing. We all play our parts with each other, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

But after two hours and a large latte I left All Saints with a 1000-word draft for my next eHow article. Whew! Pretty good since I only had the title and a vague idea of what I was trying to say in mind when I arrived. It’s so going to suck (for me, not All Saints of course) when the students are back in full-force and I’ll either have to find another place to write on Wednesday nights come November (as finals approach, so too do the crowds) or battle for a bit of table space.

The point being that writing away from home, away from familiar distractions, is really working for me. The down-side is getting home at almost 8 on these nights, still needing to cook dinner, usually, and not being able to start on something else by the time that’s all done. Small price to pay, I agree, which is why I’ve stuck with so far.

This current article (on managing a webcomic) needs to be submitted by Monday so I’m shooting for final revisions on Sunday and upload that night. I have one illustration to do for it (which will work so much better, I think, than a mere stock photograph of a computer monitor or some such) and at least one round of editing, but the meat is there.

And when I got home, RockStar called. He’d actually tried to call last night but I was in editing mode and did not hear the phone. (Note: when I replace the current cell, I really need to get one with an obnoxiously loud ringer and one with more than 4 ‘rings’ before it heads to voice mail.) There may actually be plans afoot for this weekend. But! As I explained to him, I don’t do vague/maybe/we’ll see at all well: call me when you’ve got a plan (Ah, there’s the Scraps we know and loathe). So we shall see.

I have a nagging suspicion there’s something I’m supposed to do Saturday but cannot remember what it is. That and the apartment is still an unholy wreck and I will not be able to live with myself if I don’t get those boxes out of the living room properly so…. we’ll see. Ugh. (And I’m not a hypocrite, because I cringe whenever I’m necessarily vague as well. So there.)

And there’s something else that’s plaguing me: the 80/20 time management thing. Last week it was part of the Hip Tranquil Chick podcast and last night the Bard emailed me a link to a not-to-do list that also mentioned it (which I’m /not/ going to link to because I took an instant dislike to that toady, bombastic guy who compiled the list and the lifestyle he lives based on the efforts of others and outsourcing to overseas virtual assistants… oh don’t get me started again!). On top of that I know it had come up before the HTC podcast but I dont know where.

So there it is, repetition of this concept, only I can’t get my head around it. I mean, yeah, I looked it up and it was an old Italian economist who noticed that 80% of the wealth belonged to 20% of the people. Which I get. And I get that the ratio is in effect in other places, too. And that his theory is that 80% of effects come from only 20% of causes. So invest your ’causes’ wisely or some such. But when I read it in relation to time management I seem to hear it backwards: that 80% of your effort produces only 20% of your outcome, so you need to minimize the fluff in that 80%. Only that just doesn’t jive with what the economist dude was trying to say at all. I don’t know, it’s making my head hurt (again).

Anyway, another (better) principle that I’ve heard a lot from the HTC podcast in particular is living mindfully, living with intention. I think I will have a better shot at that than this 80/20 thing. Basically (and it was repeated today when I listened to this week’s podcast on the writing life–great interview, btw, really rather inspiring, though don’t expect to hear about me getting up at 5am to meditate and then write for 3 hours before breakfast) each day, each parcel of your life, you should set an intention for that time and keep that in mind throughout the day (etc.) and what you do will work towards that goal.

Of course, it’s possible to have more than one intention going at a time. For instance, my current intentions are to stick to my eHow contract, keep up the webcomic schedule, eat healthily, and try and stay more calm. Oh, and work with my budget more… but that one already sorta had a falter this month, next month I’ll try again! (See, calm, accepting, not stressing about it.) But the guy in the interview (Jeff Davis, I looked it up) talked about each morning in his meditation/yoga time (10 minutes of prep for 3 hours of writing… what was that about 80/20? lol) he would set an intention for that session, like finding a new beginning for chapter three or whatever, but basically to have a single, main intention and use that for the day.

So, my intention today was to write the next article tonight. And I did. No, it’s not submission-ready, but that wasn’t the point. I suppose I had a second intention once I got home: to cook dinner and clean the kitchen. And that’s done, too. So, for the day, I made it. Sure I’ve had the attention span of a hummingbird the last couple of days at work, but my work got done (mainly because that’s what I’m there to do and while the internet is a bit of a distraction, work ethic usually keeps me from over-indulging). It’s at home, when my time is less structured that I need the reminder. Even though I’ve yet to master meditation (please, getting brain-train to slow down to one track only happens in two situations, and neither of them are conducive to productivity–neither of those are sleeping, btw), still, just declaring an intention (to myself, quietly, and reminding myself as needed) seems to help.

I’ll decide tomorrows intention in the morning, right now my only intention is to not spook myself too badly as I finish the chapter on Pere Dagobert in “Haunted New Orleans.” Why do I do these things to myself???

She was better.

I need to go back out to St Michael’s and shoot some pool. But not this week, I’m thinking… too much to do!!!

Tonight was all about getting the comic done and uploading my lamb article. Both done, the latter still needing to be proofed a bit before submitting to the editors (that can be done tomorrow night, I’m thinking, leaving me free to work on the next webcomic article Wednesday at All Saints’; I just need to decide if I want to do an illustration or two for that one or leave it picture-free). And coughing. Blech, I managed to irritate my throat somehow. Scraps smash! Grr. Cough.

Anyway! Can I get a major WoHoo! because I have now reconciled up through the entirety of 2006! Yes! I am basically current (yes, there’s still the first seven months of ‘07 that need to be done, but being in the same year is tantamount to being caught up when you were over 2 years behind last week!). But tomorrow I need to get back to the normal invoicing and billing (two different things, one set goes out, the other comes in) before digging into this year. Thank goodness I was ahead of the game for a few weeks, otherwise I would have been working nights and weekends to get all this done.

And, um, let’s see… anything else of note? Oh, RockStar called earlier to basically tell me to sleep well. Thoughtful. Odd, but thoughtful. Of course I was cut and pasting the eHow article into the webform so I was a smidge distracted, but it’s okay. I appreciate that someone thinks about me enough to call for such a simple reason. It’s sweet.

That’s what I wish I were in the middle of

So, after Friday-night’s entry I’ll bet you thought I was done for the night and heading for bed. Me too. Then I got some freakish second wind and stayed up til two or three in the morning pulling stuff out of the Abyss. I got enough done so that I could at least drag the 6-foot table over to its new position. There was still a pile of stuff in the center of the room that was mostly magazines I needed to go through. Rather than drag them out and add even more clutter to the rest of my apartment (oh my word, the chaos, y’all… it’s spreading!!!) I just left them where they were (lazy!) and worked around them.

Apparently the hellacious storm knocked out the power just after I went to sleep because the clocks were blinking when I got up just shy of noon. I moved some more stuff, went through the first few magazines, then decided to escape for a bit.

Chelsea and Van have opened a new bookstore: Word Traffic Books on Lafayette (between Lindy’s and Wooly Bully) and their grand opening was Saturday so I had to go check them out. Very cool space. I didn’t get a chance to go back and knit today but maybe next week. Go by and, uh, go buy! lol

Other errands of the day included Office Depot, World Market, and Dollar Tree. Then home for more organizing. I finally got around to working on the lamb again, only to have the weather turn bad. I didn’t want to end up with the power going out mid-roast so I stopped and waited, then after an hour the storm died down. Well, rats. By the time I started (again) it was way too late to roast it that night, and just as well as the lightening started up again! It was not my night… But I did manage, over the course of the day, to assemble the new bookcase and go through a full stack of magazines, reducing it from a full foot to a mere inch and a half of tear-sheets. I still have a /lot/ of work to do before this space is workable (not to mention getting the choas out of the rest of my apartment) but it’s on the horizon!

Then the weirdest thing happened: I had a dream about a guy–that I know! Now, y’all have to understand that I almost never dream about people I know. Almost all of the figures in my dreams are strangers, composites, etc. Occasionally I’ll dream about someone I haven’t seen or talked to for a while (so then I’ll go an call–or, rather, email–them to see how they’re doing). But I seldom dream about people I’m actively in contact with. Except this one guy. Now, you’d think that since RockStar just called I would have dreamed about him but nooo… It’s this other guy. And all we are is friends, he’s a great guy from what I know, and it’s not like I’m having sex-dreams about him about him or anything, actually in this last dream he was a bit of an ass (which is usually not the case), but he keeps. showing. up.

Back to the title of this post: If this were like a Friday or Saturday night, the mood I’m in would have me getting dressed up and heading out to a club. I’m just in one of those moods where I really want to find some trouble to get into, just to shake things up a bit, but the timing’s bad so I’ll be Miss Goodie-two-shoes, work on the Abyss some more, watch Army Wives and head to bed. Sigh…

The first was what I needed (and had) this morning in order to straighten out Oct-05. The latter is what got me off my ass and productive tonight.

Past being a relative term, of course.

It occurred to me, last night, that going through the bank recs was an odd little trip down memory lane; unexpected, too. Two years ago October I was living on my own for the first time ever, I had come to the realization (while driving to my ex’s home to pick up some mail from his front porch and taking a work call on my cell-phone) that by-god I was in my occupation/I had a career, I was no longer in ’someday’ mode I was in ‘now.’ The following month I would take my first ever plane-ride to New England (another first for me) for work training on our new software (yes, another first, everything else was strictly locak OJT). I felt like an adult, finally, and since then I’ve seldom had that ‘I’m a stupid, clueless teenager’ feeling. It’s really liberating!

While working through more bank recs I got into 2006 and came up three credit card transactions made by Mom when she thought that to initiate a charge you needed to press the ‘credit’ button. She was running the cards because I was in middle-of-nowhere-Mi’ssippi at Gulf Wars; another first and possibly an only… it wasn’t ‘all that’ for me. While I only made it through April, 2006, in the bank recs by the time I left work, it’s no wonder the reminders kept coming at home.

Last summer I reconnected with some old high school (okay, some go back to middle school) friends and ended up going to an end-of-Summer pool party where I met a guy who was insanely charming, very sweet, and quite taken with me. Unfortunately, he happens to be very bad at, say, calling when he says he will, so while he’s great to talk to I never really saw anything happening. Guess who called tonight, after more than 6 months of ‘radio silence’?

But it was perfect timing: I was sitting around, not really getting motivated to work on what I needed to, and the phone rings with a number I don’t recognize. It’s RockStar (what? I have a thing for musicians–guitarists especially–it’s a weakness…) calling, I guess, to chat. We spent an hour on the phone just wandering through various topics and left it with ‘at some point, not too long from now, he’s going to make some time and ask me out’. I’m not holding my breath, but it’ll be interesting to see if it happens. Actually, this would normally bother me to no end but since I’m under no false impressions, here, I’ll probably only believe it when and if he ever does. (And half-expect him not to show if we do make plans… which is another thing that would send me over the edge, but maybe since I expect it it would just amuse me? who knows…)

The call, the spark of human contact, was what I needed, though, to get up and actually do something tonight. I know over the past dozen years or so I’ve become a bit more introverted, I need my alone-time more often and definitely need the decompression space living alone affords me. Still, there’s something about the contact high I get from just talking to another person that is incredibly invigorating. So, while we talked, I cleaned my kitchen and started one of the prep tasks for making the lamb. I turned on my laptop so I could organize some thoughts.

The call ended and I decided to check out those friends that are linked to him in my mind via myspace. And that got me to thinking: I really envy those old friends that have such crazy, yet perfect for them, lives. Kids, a mortgage, family drama, crazy friends… I envy them their ability to hold onto that. But it’s not jealousy, I’m not going to kid myself that I would do well in their situations, but wow do I admire them! It’s just amazing to me that people can stay together for a decade or more, to constantly keep up with people like that: I’m such a flake, I flit in and out of the different social circles but I always have everyone in mind. It’s funny but I was actually thinking about last Summer’s party and how odd it was and yet how comfortable it was–despite the fact I was there alone (a few years ago I never would have accepted an invite without someone to latch onto as a human social sheild), hadn’t talked to any of these people in 12 years at least (some a lot longer and some I’d never met) and yet… I survived and I enjoyed myself. It was another one of those growing-up things I’d failed to master in the past.

I’m fighting the nostalgia off, tonight, but it’s not as hard to do as it once was. I think that’s a good thing.

Work: I’ve reconciled through September 2005 so that’s awesome. The good news is that in October, we stopped doing payroll in house, so there’s a lot fewer checks to verify each month from this point out. The bad news is that in October, we stopped doing payroll in house, and the payroll company screwed up three of the four payrolls in October and reconciling the EFTs made my eyes cross at the end of the day. I have a feeling that tomorrow I’m going to need to dig out the payroll folder from that month to try and figure out exactly what happened (all I remember is having to have the first run done three times and threatening to cancel the contract when they screwed it up again in December if they didn’t get their shit together). Probably I’m going to have to roll a balance over into November to get it to even out, but I’ll make it work.

Knitting: another couple inches done on the front panel of Grecian Plait.

Writing: My second article is published! Woot! And I took a day off from the medieval food article.

Everything else: Nope. Nothing. I feel like I’m coming down with something and that would be a very. bad. thing. Granted, I’m probably due for something, but I changed into pjs as soon as I got home, has a slacker supper (which means I’ll need to go pick-up lunch tomorrow), and layed on the couch with my furry blanket and watched more Girls Next Door. I thought about going to bed early but last time I did that I ended up waking up at midnight and not being able to go back to sleep until 3 or 4 am. Eek! So I suffered through a veg evening (which I feel like I’ve been doing a lot, but not really) and I’ll have to be careful not to overdo this weekend. Should be pretty low-key anyway… things have been pretty quite around Scraps-la-vie, and Palmie’s down with the ‘rents this weekend so no impromptu ‘cocktail hour,’ lol (not that last weekend wasn’t hella-fun, it just wouldn’t be practical to do it every weekend!). I did promise to save her some lamb when I make it for the photo-shoot. Mmmm… lamb…

Wow, apparently I just needed to get yesterday out of my system and today things were much closer to what I like to think is normal.

Of course, work went absolutely insane. Did I mention yesterday what happened? I don’t think I did, not really, so I will now. So. Our software company likes to mess with me, I’m convinced of this. Otherwise how on earth can they stay in business if they routinely ignore checking their reports before sending to clients, etc. I don’t mean to rag on all programmers and I’m really thankful that they got someone in there who knows what they’re doing, finally, but the salespeople/CSR/tech people are horrid. ANYWAY! Back in May I had discovered yet another problem with the check report not pulling in all the information from the payment batch so I had them fix it. Well, it never occurred to me to check (of all the things I already check on that report because they’ve screwed up in the past) that the written amount matched the numeric amount. I mean, really, why would anyone write a report that had those fields pull in different values? Why?

Nonetheless, any check we’ve written in the past three months (including the August 9th checks) that had an earned discount had the discounted amount in the numeric section and the pre-discount in the (legally binding) written out section. CRAP! Only, until this morning I didn’t know that the problem started in May, it could have been so very much worse. And after working my way back, finding the month it happened in, and figuring out what change led to that we luckily only had 2 checks that I had to call and humbly ask that they credit us for the earned discount but I’ve put the software company on notice that if I can’t convince the companies to work with us there, I’m holding them responsible for our lost funds. Two of the 8/9 checks that could be a problem have already cleared (at the correct, intended, amount) and the other two companies hadn’t noticed the discrepancy in the previous months, so we might be really lucky.

Then I had to go tell my boss.

He took it well. I think since I’d already done the damage control that I could and the software company has already sent us a replacement report that seems to be right (until the next occasional situation comes up and we find another problem… it happens quarterly at this point), we both agree that it could have been loads worse and it’ll all work out. But this brought up one of those when-I-get-a-chance projects: the bank recs. Dude, back in ‘04 we had some serious issues with our dot matrix (I know!) check printer dropping pixels and so many checks would come back 1 cent, dime, or dollar off (almost always in our vendor’s favor) that it drove our previous reconciler absolutely bonkers. And since I usually don’t have the downtime required to get in a bank-rec groove but once a year or so, I had managed to rec 2004 in December, but 05-present is still totally undone.

Well, not totally anymore. I managed to get through March of 05 this afternoon and since my schedule is looking pretty light I anticipate having ‘05 done by end of day Friday. Even if I have to stay late to make that happen. But if the other 9 months go as well as these first 3 did, I might actually be able to start on 06 on Friday, we’ll just have to see how long it takes before my eyes cross.

But enough of that job!

Since last Wednesday at All Saints worked out so well I figured I’d give it another try tonight. Two and a half hours and 1300+ words later and I have my next eHow article written. It’s a food article (medieval food) so I still need to actually make the item in question (which I’ve done twice before, once for 100+ people last Fall) and take the in-progess photos to go with the steps and give it an edit-check, confirm measurements and times, that sort of thing. But tonight was super-productive!

At least until I got home.

It wasn’t nearly as hot at the Cafe this week as last, but it was still pretty warm and I was sorta drained by the time I got home. Plus it was eight o’clock: way late for dinner so I made something quick, made a sandwich for lunch tomorrow, checked my email and crashed on the couch to watch more Girls Next Door, Season 2, and started on the front of the Grecian Plait sweater; I’m like an inch and a half in on the front so not bad progress (the bottom section is a quick pattern stitch so it’s semi-instant gratification knitting, yay!). Nothing more’s getting done on the Abyss tonight, definitely not, and I think that’s my only other really big thing. Oh, exercise. Well, that hasn’t really happened at all this week, but I should make up for it this weekend if I get to moving stuff in, out and around the Abyss: vigorous housework definitely counts as cardio!

So. First thing first: not nearly as perky this morning at 6am as yesterday and I accidentally grabbed the cranky pants (or skirt as it was) from the closet so I was not a joy to be around. Thankfully I was quite content to stick to my office and not venture out unless necessary. Too bad no one else got that memo.

Basically it happened: I jinxed myself. It was inevitable. Concentration? Shot. Productivity? Nominal. Overall wellness? Not exactly there. And then I got the phone-call.

Last month I had a chance to go by the vampire’s for my serotonin check but then the office never called with the results. When I called yesterday to schedule my annual I asked about it. This morning the nurse (yet another new one, why must I keep breaking them in???) calls to let me know the results were normal so they didn’t bother calling me. Um, hi, check the file babe: it used to be high so knowing it was normal again is sort of important. But of course it’s not her body gone haywire, I’ll bet she eats pizza once a week without becoming violently ill or having an irregular heartbeat for a freaking week and a half afterwards. I had to ask again to get the actual number: 82. Compared to the 217 from last fall thi is good news.

Let me repeat that: this is good news. I know this, I’m happy about it, and it fits since I haven’t been sick lately (well, okay, except last night but thats what I get for eating at Chilli’s, even when I eat something safe like grilled chicken soft tacos: such is life). The only dilemma it poses is the reason why: more that likely it’s because I have myself on a rather restricted diet, basically nothing that’s high in tyramine or seratonin–what I call the game of let’s not aggravate the tumor (or whatever it is). The other option is that the high reading was a fluke before and my body self-corrected. The only way to really prove that is to ditch the dietary restrictions (what I wouldn’t give for pizza or good old spaghetti sauce; seriously!) and see what happens both physically and chemically but that’s taking a pretty big risk knowing the potential damage it could do. That just doesn’t make sense. So I’ll keep doing (or not doing) what I have been and hope for the best.

Im still on the fence about the one test we haven’t done yet: the bone marrow biopsy to rule out systemic mastocytosis. It would mean yet another doctor and a rather painful experience with a needle, but at least it would be one more thing we could either confirm or deny. Considering there’s been very little definite about this whole process the last two years, the potential for another inconclusive finding is high. Do I want to put myself through it? I don’t know… I’m such a wuss when it comes to pain, on that part I’m a definite ‘no’, but I’ve also been so adamant about trying to find a cause for the skin flushes and the digestive issues, the heartbeat irregularites. The usual suspects all come up no, so we’re on this short list of rares and maybes. I will say I’m a lot more calm about it now than I was about 12 hours ago when all this came back up again. I could get away from the majority of the doctors and just hope for the best, but what if we miss something that could be treated or fixed and I wouldn’t have to be so hyper-aware and high-strung when it comes to every activity, every committment I make. Coin toss anyone?

But some good news! Let’s end on a happy note. Since I wasn’t in a frame of mind to do much tonight, I finished the back panel of the sweater tonight, so I guess that puts me around 30% done for this project in only 4 days? Not bad for a garment. And I got the lacquer done on the keyboard and mouse (pictures another day, once I get the monitor dressed up as well I’ll do a page of the process with lots of pictures), reattached all those keys and guess what? It works!!!! I’m typing on it now. It’s still one of those tiny space-saver laptop-type keyboards and the mouse is not at all ergonomic, but it’s now cute and awesome and works and I can free up one of the USB ports on Minnie. Actually, I can keep the scanne plugged in all the time and still be able to have a swap-out port for the external harddrive and camera cord to share. I should really get a hub but now that I realized that Sonja has a built-in card-reader it may not be nearly as necessary for everyday stuff.

I’m crossing my fingers for tomorrow to be better.

In one of those bizarre twists of fate, with barely 6 hours of sleep, I was up somewhat bright eyed yadda yadda at 5:45 am when the alarm started. More than a little amused at the song playing as I made up my bed (Teenagers, My Chemical Romance–I so need to download this album from iTunes), I was ready to go before seven so had time for toast and coffee and 30 minutes of sketching on Thursday’s RA before heading to work.

Okay, so here’s the thing about work lately: I’m scarily efficient. Dude, I conquered the clutter-stack on the middle of my desk. I can actually /see/ desk, and my desk calendar that hasn’t been flipped since January, 2004, (no, I’m not kidding…) and it’s been that way for almost a week! I’ve tied up projects from months ago and taken care of filing that was just sitting in the ‘whenever’ pile (i.e. the bottom basket from my inbox). I don’t know what it is? I feel like I’m in one of those movies where the characters do that freaky speed-up thing that’s supposed to be (and is, to me) scary and not-right. I mean, it’s totally odd. And now I’ve probably jinxed it and I’ll go back to being just a smidge behind the eight-ball tomorrow?

But, anyway, so I’m heating up my lunch (at 2 because I had the insurance renewals come in this morning so I decided to do the 20 employee notices and a little algebra before pausing for a nosh) and I’m noticing that the 8-foot table we have in the break room really is too big for the space and rather overkill since we never have that many people in the room at once and it hits me: My 6-foot table in the Abyss (I swear it’s still there, even though the craft supplies have tried to claim it as their conquered mountain) would work much better under the windows and then the 2 half-shelves under the windows now could be stacked, using the vertical space that is currently the only space in that room, and allow room for a whole ‘nother bookcase while freeing up center-space in the room at large! My word, I’m brilliant!

Of course, the downside is that in order to pull this brilliant switcheroo I have to get at least half of the contents of the Abyss out of the way. So, once I start that little bit of insanity the rest of my apartment is going to look like the DMZ for a while, but it will be so totally wonderful that I’m willing to give it a go. A Saint Bernard with a cask of vodka would not go amiss, mind you. Or, well, how about a dalmation with a fifth of gin?

But tackling the mountain was only the first brilliant idea of the afternoon: I have plastic paint. And those shelved that are stackable? Totally white(ish) plastic. I should totally paint them black and red to match the keyboard/mouse/monitor mod they will be near, right? (The answer here is ‘yes’, smile and nod, my friends, smile and nod and pass the martini and everything will be fine!) So, now the plan is to evac the Abyss (sweet pasta!), paint and lacquer the old shelves (whee! all the pretty colors), then reassemble the Abyss into something of a working space so I can stop working on the couch or the kitchen table. I can do theees!

First things first: a little recon. I was torn between the metal heavy-duty shelving available at stenchMart or the slightly more economically priced Rubbermaid utility shelves at Tar-jay (more plastic, more paint), but eventually decided on the latter before leaving work. After informing Mom of my plans, she suggested dinner at Chili’s (eh… the only non-stellar portion of the day, chain food, blah) and then to shop. Dude, I totally scored.

I never did find the Rubbermaid shelves I was looking for because first I found the store-brand version of the metal heavy-duty shelves at half the price of stenchMart and still $20 lower than the Rubbermaid set would have been, and in a black finish no less: it was fate I tell ‘ya. And it was in a box I could actually lift (sorta, okay, I levered it into the cart and then into my trunk, but I did carry it inside after changing shoes… big heavy box + black strappy 3″ heels = me as a victim of gravity. again.) BUT! Since I was, uh, ’saving’ $20 on the shelves that I’d already reconciled spending, I went for a little stroll and found Girls Next Door Season 2 marked down just right. Double score!

Oh, and the add to the fun when I got home what was waiting for me? My Schoolhouse Rocks and Donald in Mathemagic Land DVDs. Yes! Media trifecta! Woot!

But now I’m late for bed, having finished this week’s comics, knit three inches on GP, and moving the first few bits out of the Abyss and into the hallway. Staging area is staging area. Tomorrow night I’ll seal the keyboard/mouse/ears, move more Abyss stuff, throw out a bunch of magazines I’m never gonna read, and finish (I hope) the Panhandle website. And do the shopping for the next eHow article: it’s food related

The call came just after I sprayed the second coat of white. Palmie’s car had stalled and she was stranded in the Prince ‘Rat parking lot. Off I go to the rescue, while it’s totally pugs and pomeranians outside, and consequently do not hear the three attempts Palmie made to tell me it started again. So we ended up hitting Moe’s for an early supper and gossip-fest since we hadn’t talked in, oh, a day.

Since she had no other plans and I felt like having company, we made an impromptu movie night of it. First watching Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, followed by several episodes of Firefly, and ending with the last few epis of the Girls Next Door, Season 1. Meanwhile I kept spraying and taping and such and by the time she left I had both the red and the white jobs done, saving the black for today. I also started the Grecian Plait sweater between the coats.

Now the black is down, the letters, numbers and symbols have all been done for the keys, the ‘ears’ are painted and the red linen has been dotted and is drying so I can ‘Stiffy’ and sculpt it into the monitor’s bow. Not a bad job for a weekend. I have some touch-ups to do with a brush on some edges, then I’ll let the paint cure for 48 before hitting it with a couple coats of sealer. And my first mod will be done.

Now I really need to get on the ball and draw next week’s RA strips. What? me? easily distracted? The hell you say…

So I go out looking for the rest of my supplies for the mod today. I got a late start since I didn’t get up ’til eleven (but since I went to bed at three it was a normal nights sleep, so to speak) but found the right paints at Home Depot. It’s a different brand, but it’s still made for plastic so I think it’ll work. Paint acquired I go in search for the more specific odds and ends which I figured I’d find at the local Scrapbook store.

Now, I’ve frequented this store for the last, oh, seven years or so. The owner knows me by sight, even today when I haven’t been in there in quite some time. She thought I must have moved away since I had been so scarce but I told her, the truth, that I just hadn’t been scrapping lately. In fact, I went mostly digital. Then I commented that I had thought to come out to one of their crops with my laptop and harddrive and hang out. To which she basically said “don’t bother.” Now, I understand that digital scrapbooking doesn’t help her business all that much, but I have been known to spend several hundred dollars a quarter there in the past, I still buy my albums and pages there (some of the more pricier components to a scrapbook, price per item compared), direct people who come into work looking for special papers (we’re a print shop, not an overstock paper store) there, tell my friends to go there because I support local businesses, and go there when I need specialty items that I know they carry, even if one of the big box stores carries it too. Now I get a kiss-off because I’m no longer part of her target audience? Well, excuse me…

In fact, the whole experience kinda put me off in general. I had been planning on then going across to the Miracle to see a movie at 2:05 but by the time I was finished at SBM and then went into JoAnn’s (consolation yarn shopping since they didn’t have the rub-ons I wanted) it was 10 minutes to the film and I was no longer in a commaraderie-mood to share a theatre who however many other people were going to see Becoming Jane.

I’m not mad. If I’d been mad I would have told Karen to take the $3.50 pack of crystal stickers I was buying and shove them up her ass. I didn’t. But I don’t think I feel the same loyalty I did as early as this morning. I was just surprised. And I don’t like to be surprised, not like that, the unpleasant type. Anyway, I came home, ate lunch, and retaped the mouse. I decided to go with just making dams for the openings on the mouse-top and going ahead as planned. Of course, as soon as I applied the first coat out on the patio the thunder started to bump. Oh well, it may take a bit longer to dry between coats, but I’ll get it done.

That’s exactly what that blasted keyboard is not doing.

After popping off and reassembling the key-tops onto painters tape to keep everyone together and in order and paintable, I started to attempt to pry the case apart. First of all, this plastic bruises and scrapes like a freaking peach! What the hell is up with that? Second of all, they glued the thing together. Oh, yes, I went to attach the skinny little front piece and see what was holding it together. What? Oh, yes, some sort of double-sided sticky foam stuff and I just said to hell with it. I mean, even if I got it apart how was I supposed to get it back together?

But I’m not stopping. No. I just taped off the sections underneath the keys, taped off the 5 little mushy buttons of the number pad , and taped over any other bit that couldn’t be painted. It’s ready to pain tomorrow. Maybe.

The mouse I just didn’t even try. Okay, I did, but it was pretty clear that it wasn’t meant to come apart. I’m not completely certain how many steps it’s going to take me to get it painted because of needing to accommodate the open channels that allow the right and left to click independently, but even if I have to paint it with model paint I’ll make it work somehow. I still need to find the red Krylon Fusion. I found white no problem, and it’s going to be the base-color anyway, so I can start in tomorrow. But I need to find the red so I can get it all painted within the 24 hours the can recommends.

I’m still thinking over the tape-job on the top of the mouse. Maybe the solution will come to me in my sleep. These things usually do. Or in the shower tomorrow morning.

That’s how much I need another project, right?

Here’s the deal: When I got the Mac mini, being of limited creativity [grin] I decided to name her Minnie. Yes, I know. I’d joked about putting ears and a bow on the 6.5×6.5×2 cpu but never did. To go with I purchased a wireless desktop (keyboard and mouse) from Kensington that worked quite well, until the mouse decided not to sync. Ever again. Tech support said that model was on backorder so I elected to wait a bit rather than spending the $$ on a new one and sending in for reimbursement. In the mean time I hooked up my graphics tablet and used it’s wireless mouse. And I waited.

That was back in May. It’s now August and back last month I realized that my temporary work-around was becoming strangely permanent so I contacted Kensington again. Still on backorder, but since it had been so long they offered me a compatible replacement at no charge and I didn’t even have to send the non-working one back. It came in this week.

Y’all, we are talking the butt-fugliest keyboard and mouse combo you’ve ever seen. It’s this old beigy-gold, kinda like the Apple IIc and Commodore cases of yore. Only with a slight metallic tint mixed in. On top of that, it actually has a space on the top where you can ‘dock’ the wireless mouse when not in use (like that would fit on the tray under the desk) THEN flip up the ridiculously thin keyboard (using the docked mouse as a kickstand) and ‘personalize your space’ by slipping a 4×6 photo in the sleeve on the underside. Right. Like I want this thing having any sort of profile on my desk? And don’t even get me started about the mouse.

So I joked to palmie that maybe a mod would be in order just so I can bear to look at it.

And then I spent time this afternoon surfingsites on how to take apart keyboards for cleaning/painting. I’ve already confirmed that yes, the keys do come off with a little prying (but it’s more like the keys on Sonja than a regular keyboard, the low-profile type) but I’m not quite sure how to easy get the case open. There are no screws so some gentle prying will be necessary but I think I should be able to make it work. I’ll save the details for another time, when I actually get it done, but I may be able to do the disassembly and base coats this weekend

So today Palmie and I were discussing the merits of potential home-ownership.

Basically, two years ago I figured by now I’d be putting a downpayment on a small home of my own or getting ready to. Obviously I haven’t nor am I about to, so what happened? Well, one thing led to another, my absolute brain-failure when it comes to the concept of saving money, and I’m still not fully unpacked here. In the interim, I’ve discovered that it’s not all that important to me after all.

I’m single. Likely to stay that way for all intents and purposes, at least as far as my living arrangement is concerned. I don’t have kids. Another thing that I sincerely doubt will change. So while it might be nice to call some place mine, let’s face it: it wouldn’t really be mine for 30 years, provided I stayed there the entire time and didn’t refinance or move after 7 years which was the industry standard back when I took my mortgage broker license training. So I’m 31 now and if I bought a home in the next 4 years I’m looking at having a house payment for 30 years. Not to mention the burden of upkeep and property taxes which, honestly?, scare the living daylights out of me. Something about a whamo! once-a-year bill that makes me queasy.

The benefits of being able to do what I want with a place just don’t make me all aquiver.

But then there was the equity issue. What do I really need equity for? I mean, going back to the singlehood thing: there’s no one to benefit from it in the long run. What am I going to use it for? Improvements to the house I’ve been paying for all those years? Or maybe to pay off credit card debt that’s accrued thanks to surprise upkeep issues or things of that nature. I’m just not compelled. Then there’s also the alone-issue with a house: if I have too much open space around me I feel a bit vulnerable and nervous. The irony is that I’m actually claustrophobic. Go figure.

Palmie, on the other hand, would love nothing more to live in a secluded country area. She needs things like a yard and only people she wants around, that sort of thing. Me? I prefer a little more community, even if I don’t actually know my neighbor’s names.

Then I said it: My be-all end-all would be some industrial concrete-and-steel loft area decorated in black and white with occasional splashes of accent color. Some place open but, as lofts go, connected to other properties. Open, maleable space. Might even be enough to quell the slight gyspy tendency that comes from having moved so often as a child.

She replied that I’d actually have a better chance of finding a treehouse than some ultra-modern loft.

Then I opened the mail.

Included in today’s batch was a postcard touting a survey on, essentially, the feasibility of live/work spaces for artists. If you’re interested in participating in the survey, go to artspacetallahassee.org and check it out.

Dude, a planned artists community? A home with built-in or adjacent studio space? Community special-task areas, gallery space, etc? Living in a hive of creativity? I’m so there! Granted, I’m not a full-time working artist by any means, but that also means I’d be able to pay my bills. There are upsides to having a day job, you know.

Palmie said it was a sign. I just say it’s what can happen when you toss out to the Universe what you really want; even to someone who has no ability to supply that desire.

Truthfully, my current apartment really isn’t all that bad. The one thing I wish it had is washer-dryer hook-ups. The laundry room is only a building away and Mom’s is about a 5 min drive if I’m low on quarters, but still, that would be the one main convenience that I lack. That and slightly better soundproofing. But even then, it’s not so bad. I recently renewed my lease for a third year, so I’ll be hear at least until next June. Maybe then I’ll decide to upgrade a bit, but I don’t see myself buying any property in the immediate future. I’ll stay a renter, with someone else to cover upkeep and repairs.

The upshot here, however, is that I do feel a bit of a kick in the ass to get some work done on the Abyss. Perhaps I’ll drum up enough energy to tackle the space in there so I can actually start working in there, instead of here at the dining room table, or on the couch.