I’ve spent most of the day preparing my MacBook for transition from part time travel toy to full time work machine. I installed Windows XP on it via Boot Camp, and am now moving my files from my old laptop onto this one. I thought about formatting my old computer, but just takes too damn long – so I’ll nuke everything in sight, delete my profiles, and call it good. My secrets will be safe for yet another day. I am crafty with the delete key.
So, yes. Still alive; just busy.
I am naively, unreliably, cautimistic.
We finally have Words From Above regarding our impending Real Boy Status. August 1st is the big day, the day when our little Space Station worker bees graduate from mere puppets to real life flesh boys.
Except for me. Oh, didn’t I mention that part?
There are some people in our station who will be designated as Consultants, and I am one of them. What does this mean?
I’ve known about the bonus for a while, but given my history of naively believing the things people tell me, I didn’t want to do a dance for fear of jinxing it. I was handed the cheque today (along with my paycheque), so I think it is safe to spill the beans – and spill I will. Bonus! Yay, bonus! Frivolous spending, here I come!
So, I’m cautiously optimistic. Maybe this will work out? I do enjoy random money, and I will enjoy more money as well. Working from home will be interesting, and the random people who marble my ass will be mere MSN pop ups on a screen. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’ll stick around for the ride. After all, they just gave me free money. Sweeeeeeet.
I will use some of it to buy myself some lunch!
I don’t like today. Today has not started out very good, and I would like to request a do-over.
Currently marbling up my ass:
At the Space Station, I manage a specific area that pertains to our overall work. Let’s call it .. Space Domains. Yes, I manage the Space Domains; registering and maintaining them for all our clients. I have a database. It has many informations, including the various registrars I use, the account login names and their passwords. It is a handy file. I keep it updated.
Someone – let’s call her Lucrezia – decided she needed to alter one of the Space Domains I manage. I’m not sure how, since she claims to not have a copy of my handy file, but she successfully logged into the account and proceeded to change the account information to have all information regarding the Space Domains I manage to be sent to her.
Now I can’t log in to do my job. I asked her why – she won’t answer me. I tell her to send me the information – she won’t do it. “I’ll get it to you tomorrow”, she says. Since I’d rather like to do my job, this won’t work. I finally get her to agree to reset the account email, so I can reset the password. She reluctantly agrees – then doesn’t do it, and goes running off to the Space President.
Something is up. I do not trust Lucrezia, or the Space President. I don’t give a flying fuck about the idiotic office politics that seem to be going on; I just want to do my motherfucking job. I am extremely pissed off about all this; it’s underhanded and so very unnecessary. I keep the file for a reason. If you need a change, I’ll make it for you. If I can’t do it, I’ll give you the login so you can do it yourself. Changing the account information so only YOU can access the records? That’s just fucked up. Back the fuck off, Lucrezia. You do your job, and let me do mine.
Also, Talkie Guy needs to shut the fuck up; Visitor Guy needs to start his job already and stop hogging our Space Testing Station; and I need a new job.
I am afraid of three things:
1) tarantulas
2) children
3) tarantula children
Last night, to my delight, I discovered that I am afraid of a fourth thing:
4) walking in the forest in the dark
Whee!
We went to Lighthouse Park last night to watch the fireworks display. I had a massive panic attack on the way to the beach, and it was totally super: I was deathly afraid of falling down.
It would appear that I have very bad night vision. We were climbing over rocks and trees and bears, and I couldn’t see a thing. Coupled with my unsure footing brought on by my super deformed bones, I was convinced that I was about to fall down a very large cliff and into a pit of bears and thorns and it would hurt a lot. It sucked. I hate panic attacks; I spent most of the fireworks sobbing and shaking. I’m sure they were very pretty, but I was in no condition to enjoy anything.
I will not allow myself be talked into doing anything like that again.
Stupid bears.
I’m coming to the sad realization that I did, in fact, have a normal life and childhood – I grew up and went to school and got a job and had friends and everything. I really wanted to hold on to my retcon theory, because it was mysterious and exciting and absurd. I hate finding out that I’m just like everyone else. Normal sucks.
On the great crack pipe that is Facebook, someone started a group for people who worked at the Saanich Road McDonald’s, in Victoria. I worked there from 1990 to 1993 or so, and it really added a lot to the person I turned out to be. I learned a lot working there, and very little of it had to do with fries. People, music, alcohol, sex – yeah, it was good times. Hell, McDonald’s made me lose my virginity and get drunk for the first and 20th times. I have vague memories of being roused out of a random drunken sexual encounter by the police at a house party. There was camping, with breakfast made from stolen hotcake batter and sausage patties. It’s true – before my corruption was completed by computers and the pre-internet, the marinating stage began at McDonald’s.
Dirty.
Now I can stalk people I used to have crushes on. Sweet!
Plans are falling in place for the big Five Slash Ten anniversary celebration this September. Since traveling far away is out of the question (go on, guess why), we decided to go to Salt Spring Island for an extended weekend. I made the reservations this week, and we’re going to this fancy spa resort thingie. As usual, I’ve been trying to talk friends into coming with us – it’s just not a romantic getaway without spectators – but Shan is refusing, saying we should probably be alone. Pfft. We’re alone all the damn time; I want to party! I suppose I see her point – she hates me – but I am looking forward to the trip. I’ve never been to a spa before, and I think I’m going to have a mud bath just for the sake of paying money to sit in a mud puddle for an hour. Fun!
If today was payday, it would be awesome instead of just merely pretty great.
The new White Stripes album is super good. The first single really annoyed me the first time I heard it, but to be fair, it was before 8am and I was stuck in traffic – the last thing I wanted to hear was squealy stuff.
I’ve had Icky Thump stuck in my head for the last week or so, but it’s not the whole song – in fact, I get past the song name and it suddenly turns into REM’s It’s The End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine). That is not right. They’re both good songs, but it makes for some hilarity in my head when it’s all smooshed together not to mention the logistical issues of a sing-along.
I took some post-henna pictures, but it’s hard to see the colours. I’ll post them anyway – just pretend you can see the bottom layer of my hair, which is where all the orange is. Also, I need a haircut and my sunglasses are enormous but awesome.
I would really like it to be payday, please.
I got bored last night, so I decided to give henna another try. Last time I henna’d, it turned my head bright orange – not necessarily a bad thing, so I gave it another go. I used Rainbow Henna in Persian Red, mixed with coffee instead of water and with a healthy dose of ground cloves and some saffron. I’m earthy! The result is pretty cool. My head looks like fall; a bunch of browns and reds and oranges all mixed together. It should be pretty cool in the sunlight. I am satisfied.
I utterly ruined some poor woman’s morning, though. I asked for extra salsa to go with my breakfast burrito, and I thought she was going to punch me – she got the meanest look on her face, audibly sighed, then stomped off to get the salsa which she threw into the bag most ungraciously. Jeez, lady – how did you ever graduate McUniversity? Surly fast food workers don’t really bother me, except this woman is the manager and is usually pretty nice. She must be having a bad day, and now I feel guilty for making it that much worse by asking for more salsa. I am a bastard. How I can live with myself, I’ll never know.
I was not kidding when I said my mother and I aren’t close. She knows next to nothing about me, as demonstrated in the following pieces of conversation –
In which Ed covers for me:
Ed: no, Kim can’t come to the phone .. she’s in the bathroom dyeing her hair
Mom: Is she dyeing it blonde?
Ed: Um, no ..
In which we randomly discuss vehicles:
Mom: What kind of car is this?
Me: It’s a Mazda 3
Mom: It’s pretty big
Me: Yeah, it’s why we have it .. I liked the amount of space it has
Mom: You should get an SUV
Me: Um, what?
Mom: Why don’t you have an SUV? I’m surprised you kids don’t have an SUV.
Me: …
My foot hurts. I think I have moldy veins.
Whoever made this is my hero:
I’m back at the Space Station today. Let’s see:
Oh, it’s so good to be back.
My mom is almost all moved. Very few things are left at the house, and what’s there can be taken over in a car load or two. Ed and I spent a couple days setting up her new place, and it’s looking much better than it did. Her new bed was delivered and set up and is very comfortable – hopefully it’ll help her back, because her current 30+ year old mattress just isn’t cutting it.
It was an aggravating trip. I did learn something very important and enlightening, though: I annoy my mother almost half as much as she annoys me.
This was a huge breakthrough for me. My mom thinks I’m a pain in the ass! This is .. good. It restores a sense of rightness in the universe, somehow. We’re not close, my mom and I, and it would weird me out to have a relationship with her that was anything other than forced civility due to shared DNA.
As hard as I try to behave otherwise, being around my mother instantly turns me back into a petulant 16 year old. My curt, one-word contributions to the conversation and incredulous responses to her bizarre requests – I can’t believe you don’t have a hammer! Why would I have a hammer? For the move! – do an excellent job of masking the person I’ve become with the person I was a million years ago. I’m sure the random people my mom introduced me to last week think I’m mentally deficient in some way – well, she LOOKS like an adult, but why is she acting like such a brat? I can’t help it. I try to smile and engage in polite, disinterested conversation like I’ve heard other grownups doing – but I can’t do it. I can get as far as a smile and a hello before my eyes glaze over and I start thinking about video games or boobs or robots again. This is not normal. My mother makes me regress in frightening ways.
I did feel an excellent burst of satisfaction, though, when mom asked Ed if HE had a hammer – his response of “Why would I have a hammer?” was delivered in the EXACT SAME TONE mine was only 5 minutes earlier. Ed was outside with the car when she started in on the hammer that most people apparently carry around with them when moving, so he didn’t hear the conversation at all. Vindication! I’m not insane for not having a pocket hammer! My mom is nuts!
So, when do I get a vacation to recover from my “vacation”?
We just got back from seeing Rise Against for the 4th or 5th time (we’re not stalking them; we’re just big fans). The show was awesome – they were headlining, so they played some songs we don’t see live often – but I got the biggest squee ever *after* the show:
On our way out of the venue to the blessedly cold night air, we passed four scooters parked by the tour buses. I naturally stopped to have a look, then put two and two together – the scooters were, in all likelihood, those belonging to the members of Rise Against themselves. The band and their scooters were the cover story of a magazine I picked up while in San Francisco, so I know they ride. Sure ’nuff, the scoots all had Illinois plates on them. There were two Vino 125s – one was identical to Oscar – a Buddy 125, and a something else I couldn’t make out in the dark. SQUEE! Punk rock and scooters! I am a giddy fan girl.
Ed and I scribbled a note and I left it in the bucket of the Buddy 125. Dunno if they’ll see it, but it was worth a shot. Yay for awesome shows and mutual scooter love!
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