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2001-03-09 I did the work of three people today. Literally. See, one of my peers at work is having the big Chinese wedding with his wife's family in Hong Kong. The other has been out sick for several days. So I managed three people's share of the workload for what has turned out to be one of the most hectic periods our group has ever seen. Last week was a 70 hour week, and I slacked over the weekend. This week is shaping up to be another crazy one. I haven't done this since our company was a startup. I had hoped not to ever do it again. If I'm alive at the end of this I'll kiss my coworker when he gets back in the country. Needless to say, all this has severely impacted my desire to write. Well, not so much the desire as the execution of the task. I've wanted to write, but, frankly, my fingers don't want to do any more keypressing; nor does my brain particularly want to form extra words, aside from the sharp well-chosen ones that I have ready for an obnoxious sales person and an irritating client. But I hold my tongue there, so it's probably good for me to write. One of my designers went missing for a while the other day. She got up from her desk, muttered something about "where did my food go?" and walked away. I never saw her return. She did come back; my post-it note was moved from the top of her monitor to an arm...she literally couldn't get in to "see me ASAP" like I asked, because there's been a parade of people in my office at all hours. Someone had already taken care of what I needed her to fix anyway. I'm drinking a lot more tea lately. Herbal tea, late at night -- usually peppermint or Sleepytime tea. It really does nothing to make me any more drowsy at Midnight, but at least it's been something warm to hold. I'm sure it works nicely for other people. Personally it doesn't even take the edge off. I've been steeped in too much caffeine over the years to let a simple hot bever...yawn..age affect me. You'll pardon my frankness, but with someone in mind, I have to share this exactly as I thought it: I was in the WC, um, doing what people do in there. And I saw it from across the room. My heart sank at the site of it. In an instant I realized that my old nemesis had returned. Mouse Poo-Poo. I suppose I should have given our good-for-nothing landlord a call in the middle of the month to let him know we spotted Mr. Mousie once more. Maybe I'll just retreat into denial and take this as a sign of my poor housecleaning. "I didn't vacuum behind the bathroom door, that's all. The nasty little thing isn't in the house anymore -- he's running free in the ivy by the parking garage." The fantasy might help to assuage the secondhand guilt I can't rid myself of for the glue traps our landlord set for him in the basement. (shudder) What a way to go. Poor little mousie. And I'd mean that except that it was eating my bread flour. Now it's gone too far. Now it's personal. * * * My MP3 player has been making haunted playlists lately. Haunted Radio is an old mindgame my friends and I used to play on ourselves by listening to seemingly random radio playlists and immediately noticing a frighteningly meaningful song or pairing of songs. Also fun was the broadcast of an obscure song someone had just mentioned -- a sort of musical deja vu. These can be welcome surprises, but are usually a little disconcerting, to say the least. Anyway, when I let the MP3 player create playlists for me, it's come up with pairings like "Cities in Dust" [Siouxsie] and "(Nothing But) Flowers" [Talking Heads]. Another was "Bedsitter" [Soft Cell] and "Home" [Depeche Mode]. Interesting. Yes, I have, in fact, been listening to a lot of old New Wave lately. Why do you ask? I find I've been fighting off a bit of a nostalgia attack lately. These songs and the random discoveries of boys I probably went to school with who live in the City now don't help at all. Hell, if he was around during my college days there's probably a 1 in 3 chance we screwed around. I thought about not discussing any of the following this as it's, y'know, sexual and all, but I'll be vague. (And this is unusual, how?) Nonetheless, shyer readers might turn their heads. I had a flashback in my shower (I was showering, that's all; honest) of the cruisy locker room I went to during college. God, those were reckless and stupid times, but I remember it as a time I felt the most comfortable naked, standing there in the cruisy showers, guys looking in to see who was waiting for them. Every now and again I smell an industrial hand soap that's much like the soap they had there, and immediately I'm lost in fond memories of very long showers there.... I don't know what set me to remember that scene vividly. Maybe it was the running out of bar soap and being too busy to buy more, so I used soft soap. Maybe it's some of the less inhibited sites I've been reading lately, like Queerscribe, and Slutboy, and Johnman. Cruising like that can be an incredible ego blast, knowing I could get some man in my bed if I tried hard enough...or at least waited long enough. I'm certainly not feeling so sexy lately. Mostly I'm feeling...fat. Ah well. More tea, less dessert. The opposite side of the spectrum is that sometimes being interrupted in the present by sudden revelations of the past is less pleasant than you might expect. I was honestly frightened during the viewing of some, er, adult photographs because I found one of someone I knew very well. Not just anyone, but a, er, greatly gifted (nudge, nudge) friend I was close with once and with whom the Roommate and I share much history. The experience was somewhere between technically fascinating ("So that's why all the boys liked him so.") and horrifyingly incestuous ("So that's how things are in their family.") The embarrassing part? I kept the photo. I don't quite know what to do with it. I don't really want to keep it because it feels like I've got something I shouldn't. But I feel strange throwing it away. It's my history. I remember talking with him about getting the photos taken. I just, well, hoped to never see them. [Insert Embarrassed Silence Here.] Um...more tea anyone?
2003-03-29 - Moving Notice |
