2000-10-14

So last week I managed to pull the longest continuous day ever at work. Twenty-two hours. I'm half proud and half embarrassed. They brought in lunch and dinner for us. In fact, lunch was brought to us three times in the past week. That's a good barometer for how busy it's been. That could also explain why I'm still in such a bad mood, and why I'm so unmotivated to actually make progress on this mega-project before I leave for vacation.

The fact that my stock options are currently worth about the price of a nice dinner out isn't helping. At least I have options which are vested below the stock price. There's a fair amount of grumbling from some of the people who arrived later than I did (that's, um, just about everyone there now, since staff has changed three times) who have options which are totally underwater.

As a "thank you" for a different project, I got to go to dinner with the staff on the project, which I had to hack my way out the door to get to. No, I can't do this tonight. No, you don't need this tomorrow morning. No, I am not your step'n'fetchit. I was embarrassed by the Republican salesperson who loudly proclaimed that Magic Johnson should die painfully from AIDS related complications, who confused the (obviously gay) waiter and then called him a "bitch" because the waiter was losing his patience with the table's incompetence in ordering a bottle of wine. I thought about getting up and leaving, office politics be damned; but his outbursts subsided. On top of that, since the restaurant was known for its seafood, the vegetarian meal kinda sucked.

If this is thanks for a job well done, I'll have to stop doing jobs so well.

Maybe it's just the season. But I'm listening to a lot of Siouxsue and the Banshees. I did buy a lot more black clothes. (Now I don't have to wear the same three pairs of pants for seven days between launderings, nor the slacks that fit around the waist in a manner which cannot be described as "slack".) Though this doesn't actually help diffuse the feeling of being a poseur. In fact, the seasonality of it makes it worse. The only thing worse than a December Christian is an October Goth.

Of course, I'm the same person who was looking for black decorator ribbon in December last year.

To be honest I feel a bit disposessed -- separated from the "mundanes" at work, from the "normals" of the city, who are legion and always in my way getting from place to place. The condition is usually cured by temporarily making my outside look somewhat like what the inside of the head feels like. But now is not the time to paint my nails black, nor shave my head, nor to wear eyeliner or even my top hat. My parents are coming here tomorrow; I'm meeting the Boyfriend's in a couple weeks. Must fit. Must suppress uncontrollable urge to tweak the nipples of normal culture this week. Must stuff the freak flag back in the closet for a little while.

I turn thirty in the next week or so. Surprisingly, I'm pretty nonplussed about it. The people I know can attest to the fits I've had about my birthday before. I've been reasonably well behaved about it this year. Nor have I had the fits of panic that I'd expected might come with the life odometer rolling over in the tens column.

But I still don't want anything for my birthday.

OK, I have a suitcase to buy, and a toilet to clean, and homosexual-oriented materials (books and political fliers -- get your mind out of the gutter) to stash away from my father's prying eyes. Sigh.

_Casey

2003-03-29 - Moving Notice
2002-06-04 - Accordians and Ambassadors (Diary Fragment)
2002-05-24 - Manias (Diary Fragment)
2002-05-09 - See this little island here?
2002-04-24 - Bored and Drippy.