I am frustrated with my face.

The habitual dry skin I get in the winter is out of control this year, and is so much worse than it’s ever been. I’m scaly and gross all over my face, and it HURTS. Nothing I’ve done is helping at all and I can’t stop clawing at the dried pieces of flesh hanging off my face like some sort of disgusting Kimli jerky. I got a prescription for some soothing creams from the horrible clinic I go to for my meds, but it did nothing – it lacked the steroid component I’m used to getting when my face threatens to fall off. I figured I could work around the cream and keep things under control, so I didn’t bother getting a different cream.

Fast forward to today, when EVERYTHING HURTS. Moving my face in any way is a crusty exercise in pain and bad times, and nothing I’ve done since September has made things any better. Even worse, the zombie areas have spread – there was a time when only the right side of my nose was devoid of moisture, but those were apparently the good days. My entire nose and both sides of my mouth are excessively, horribly dry and my forehead – I have a unibrow made of scales. No part of this is any good at all, and I am depressed and ugly and sad.

I won a shirt because my team somehow came in second in our office Rock Band tournament last Friday, but the shirt I picked out is hitting a little too close to home today:

ow my face

I have a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday after work, and I will not leave the office until there are steroids in my tiny elf hands. I am tired of being gross! In the meantime though, I will mope. Today it sucks to be me (and my face).

Thoughts I had while cleaning out my closet on this snowy Saturday afternoon:

• So that’s where my black tulle petticoat went! I should totally wear this to work on Monday to my job as a whore in a frontier brothel!
• Why do I have so many sequined vests?
• Wow, I sure have a lot of dresses
• I am going to kill the person who designed this closet, but he’s probably already dead because no one this stupid could ever figure out the finer logistics of walking and breathing at the same time
• I need a wardrobe for all my corset. I wonder if I could talk Ed into that.
• Cool, my white dress! Now I can tie-dye it!
• Will I ever wear this latex shirt again? Better keep it just in case.
• My friends are doing a lousy job of keeping me from buying things because they’re hilarious – they’re fired.
• Seriously, fuck this closet so hard. I wonder what would happen if we took off the doors?

Turns out, closet looks much better without doors. We stashed them under the bed, where they’re out of our way and also blocking any monsters from hiding underneath. It’s win-win for everyone, except maybe the monsters.

I think I’ll clean out the storage closet next – I need to dig up the leftover tulle from Tanya’s wedding so’s I can be a princess at River’s birthday party next month.

Yeah, you’re jealous.

i am drowning
there is no sign of land
you are coming down with me
hand in unlovable hand

Okay, maybe that’s a little dire – I’m not planning on taking you with me, and I don’t feel your hands are all that unlovable – I’m just SO FRUSTRATED I NEED TO SCREAM (and/or sing Mountain Goats songs until I’m hoarse and sobbing).

I’m building an intranet for my company, using Sharepoint 2010. With the exception of the two-day course I took on Sharepoint 2010 and my ability to write words on the internet, I have absolutely no experience or skill or talent with intranet building in any way. I am so over my head I feel like I’m drowning and therefore ruining food court tacos for millions across the land. I’ve spent the last two days wading through XML, CSS and Javascript; three things I am wholly unprepared to wade in. All I want to do is change a fucking font size, but is it an easy thing to do? Of course not. To change the font size of a pre-built SP item, you need to somehow unpack the .THMX file, extract the CSS that dictates font sizes, rewrite it, pack it all back up, and trick the system into thinking it’s the original file. WHAT THE HELL, MICROSOFT? NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO READ PAGE AFTER PAGE OF CONTENT IN 8PT VERDANA!

I am frustrated and annoyed that I can’t do this. I hate feeling completely lost; knowing that I am woefully lacking in the knowledge needed to do the things I want to do. I feel dumb and angsty, and my toes are cold. I AM A SAD KIMLI, AND I HATE SHAREPOINT SO HARD I COULD JUST POOP.

In other news, we paid our deposit: we’re going to Cuba in May. Perhaps I will defect – I bet they don’t have Sharepoint down there, and I could learn to like rum.

I’ve always been somewhat proud of this ridiculously one-paragraph’d rant that was posted on June 11th, 2004:

I’m annoyed about panty liners, people. While rummaging through my collection of feminine hygiene products, I happened upon a box of black panty liners. I remember buying these; even though they were more expensive than the handily compact ones and came 32 to a box instead of 36, my inner goth gave a rousing “meh” of delight at the thought of panty liners as black as the midnight of my soul. It seemed like a truly excellent idea at the time, but now when my womb is shedding its lining that had been prepared for the fertilized egg it will never receive, I am annoyed. Black panty liners suck. It’s not enough for me to know I am being vaguely protected ‘down there’, I need to see the evidence of the flower of my womanhood. Nothing shows up on a black absorbent surface — I could be bleeding out mango chutney or Ovaltine and I wouldn’t know. I am inconvenienced monthly because I listened to my inner goth, and I’m not happy about it. Not only that, but in order to dazzle you with packaging so you can marvel at how far vaginal technology has come, the box is designed to carry the liners at their full length to maximize the impact. This means they’re not individually wrapped, making them awkward and unhygienic to carry, and they don’t fit neatly into my Vinnie’s Mini Tampon Case. Everything about the black panty liners piss me off. I am pissed off at the difficulties they add to my menstrual cycle. Just who do they think they are, throwing a wrench into places there best be no wrench at all? And don’t even get me started on the OTHER kinds of stupid panty liners — while I personally wouldn’t think to ever wear a thong while leaking out my hoo-haw, there are those who do and thong-shaped liners must seem like a good idea to them. A few years back, companies were putting patents out for panty liners that were soaked with chemicals to help you better understand your menstrual cycle. Good lord! Where has this stuff been since the dawn of time? I don’t know how our foremothers were able to live without a handy colour-changing rag between their legs to tell them they’re about to ovulate so they could conceive their 9th child. These new fangled liners were to come with colour coded charts — purple on gold means you’re ovulating, red means it’s a little too late to be wondering when your period is going to start, blue means you’ve got the clap and pink indicates that the stars are in alignment on the cusp of Capricorn so today would be a good day to ask that hunky office dreamboat out for coffee and “dessert”. WHY is it a good idea to drape my most delicate bits in chemicals? Who thinks of this stuff? My vagina is JUST FINE without help from your caustic concoctions. It does not need to be deodorized or disinfected or moisturized daily to avoid unsightly wrinkles. It does not need designer products once a month to help me forget the embarrassment of being a woman. I do not need a spray to mask my womanly odors. I don’t need “special sized” protection for my fat girl cunt, and nobody needs you to entice an entire generation of young girls into paranoia that they vagina is too big or too small for your products which, while we’re on the subject, are ridiculously expensive for something we have no choice over. I’m a woman. I bleed out my vagina for 2-5 days a month, and you’re making MONEY off my natural cycles. You’re trying to introduce new and excitingly colourful ways to tell me if I’m a cheating whore who’s knocked up and riddled with STDs and just to add insult to injury, you’re dropping subtle hints that I stink and should cover up in case someone can tell that I’m on the rag. OH, and you’re making tampons with “silent” wrappers, too, so no one can hear us in the bathroom because other women would be MORTIFIED to learn that ANOTHER WOMAN is HAVING HER PERIOD in a PUBLIC PLACE when we should obviously be at home bedridden until our womanly cycles are through. It’s punishment, you see, for BEING WOMEN. Well, here’s a hearty FUCK YOU from me and my vagina and all the fun that comes with and from it, including the oh-so humiliating fluid from my uterus and the only organ on the human body specifically designed just for pleasure and any and all scents that might come from this flowering, bleeding, leaking proof that I have a fabulous set of the XX running wild through my body like Godzilla on the streets of Tokyo.

So *there*.

Originally posted March 8th 2005 after someone gave me shit about the stuff I was posting (the icons got lost in the archives, so these are new ones):

I’ve taken a page from the ESRB and have decided to code all my posts at the beginning so my readers will be able to tell at a glance what sort of controversial topics today’s offering contains. Here is a handy guide to the symbols we will be using for your protection:

The Internet Journal Rating Board (IJRB)

Sex: This post contains references to the horizontal mambo, the beast with two (or three or four) backs, drilling for oil, plowing the back 40, sinking the little man in the boat, a fuck-a-thon, a Russian salad party, going after the quad when the red armour is up, opening the door for the little old lady, dripping mustard on a yellow shirt at a LAN, and so on and so forth.

Feminine Issues: This post contains my vagina and all the wonders within. If it’s not swearing up a self-righteous storm, things are gushing both above and below the border. Caution: contents under pressure.

Church: This post contains righteous ire directed towards organized religion. While the author does not hold specific followers at fault, the views contained within might blow your conservative gay-hatin’ Sponge-Bob decryin’ birth control withholdin’ minds.

Frivolous Spending: This post may have content of a consumeristic nature. We’re throwing wads of money into the sky and hoping to hit a genie to give us warm golden showers of shiny, shiny gold. Warning! We are living in a material world, and I am a material girl.

Financial Woes: There’s a discarded couch on the money train tracks, and there are hard times ahead. This post contains melodramatic woe and references to Little Timmy and his empty Christmas Stocking.

Angst: We’re one step closer to the edge, and we’re about to break. This post contains recaps of my troubled life, lovingly detailed in dramatic prose with plenty of analogies to an unhappy childhood and Nine Inch Nails lyrics.

Haircut: We’re totally phoning this update in. This post contains nothing of interest whatsoever; I never go outside and constantly wonder why I have no friends. There are only so many ways to make “I watched TV all night” sound interesting, but we’re still giving it the old college try.

Potential Grammatical Errors: Even with use of a spell checker and an online dictionary/thesaurus, this post may contain incorrectly used words that escaped the author’s grasp. Hemmingway himself had a bad day or two, but he was a real author with editors and paycheques and alcohol dependencies where as I am just some yahoo with an internet connection and web space.

Gay Porn: This post contains lustful fantasizing about of two guys going at it bareback, possibly in an uncommon setting like the beaches of Normandy or the Anomalous Materials Laboratory in the Black Mesa Federal Research Facility. Is that a crowbar in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Sausage: This post contains sausage.

To take full advantage of the IJRB system, it’s important to check both the rating symbol (before the post) and also the outraged comments when not everyone agrees with your lifestyle, even though the same “this is my website, so there” rules apply universally. Additionally, online journals that include user-generated content (opinions, links to external websites) should carry the notice “Journal Reading Experience May Change During Online Browsing” to warn readers that content created by players of the game has not been rated by the IJRB.

We reserve the right to add additional warning symbols as the internet changes. If you have any suggestions or comments, please feel free to drop us a line below – but please be warned that your Journal Reading Experience May Change.

.. but Ed made it all better by bringing me Sweet and Sour Pork:

:D It’s a delayed Valentine’s Day present! I posted a link to the porky goodness on Twitter ages ago, and promptly forgot about it – but Ed apparently ordered it for me, and now I have an adorable piece of pork on my desk to brighten my day. Hooray!

Our systems are down at work, and I can’t do very much. You’d think this would give me time to write an epic post full of wonder and delight, but you’d be wrong – I have nothing to say other that my stomach hurts, I have cute pork, and here are some apps you should buy immediately (yes I know these are on the wrong blog – shush):

Tiny Wings

Device: All
Genre: have you ever wanted to fly?
Price: $0.99

Gorgeous art, great music, adorable premise, fantastic game play all for a dollar – what other reasons could you possibly need? Get this app now, and feel a warm glowing warming glow when you play the awesome and support indie game makers.

Tasty Planet

Device: All
Genre: so hungry
Price: $0.99 (50% off sale)

The main idea behind Katamari Damacy is to collect things so you grow bigger so you can collect more things. Enter Tasty Planet: you are goo, accidentally released into the wild from the lab. Eat things to grow bigger to eat other things – start out a mere iota and grow to devour a universe. It’s played entirely by tilt and is really fun – I scared the cats with my loud cheer when I was finally big enough to eat a golf ball. Get it now while it’s on sale!

Viking Tales: Mystery of Black Rock

Device: All
Genre: *viking noises*
Price: $0.99

Row row row your boat, avoiding obstacles and collecting gold and battling enemy ships. I’m not yet viking’d-out, especially when the app has as much to offer as this does. Interesting game play, a lot of personality, and all for a dollar – check it out if you’re in the market for some fun and stuff.

Perhaps I’ll go put this content on the other blog now, but I’m too lazy to take it off here so .. just enjoy it twice, ok?

We got our flowers back from the glass studio! Calling them flowers is a little generous – they’re more Dali on LSD than O’Keefe – but they turned out really cool all the same. Check it:

Not so much glass blowing as it was glass yanking, but a lot of fun just the same. You can make your own flowers on Granville Island for $35 – I’d totally do it again. Glass is awesome.

I just got my Sharepoint server back. See you in April or so, because I have SO MUCH WORK TO DO OMG AHH

This is why I’m not in charge of things.

I’m building our corporate intranet, and embarking on a teaser campaign to generate some buzz before the event horizon; reaching for the low hanging fruit and using a holistic approach to core competency and other exciting marketing lingo that I just looked up on Wikipedia. This is all fine and good – I like doing creative things, even if I kind of suck at it – but there’s a distinctly Communist flavour to all my material. Like, a lot of it. Most, even. Everything I’ve made so far would not look out of place in a young idealist Joey Stalin’s bedroom; lining his walls like centerfolds from Tiger Beat or Bop magazines. I am amused by this. Hopefully others will be as well (or won’t notice, which would probably be best).

capitalism is the reason we can't have nice things

It’s Performance Review day here at the Lab, and this afternoon I have a meeting with my boss to talk about my work and my goals for the future. I don’t mind these things so much – yes they’re nerve-wracking and I’m more than mildly convinced I’ll be escorted out of the building and told they’ll mail me my things (I’d like to see them try – I have a LOT of things), but I know the alternative is actually worse: getting zero feedback of any kind is not as much fun as you might think, because when it finally happens it’ll be a laundry list of all the ways in which you’ve sucked for the last X years.

Most people see performance reviews as an opportunity to see how well their contributions were received in the last year, what their peers think of them both as a person and as a co-worker, and to come up with some work-related goals for the future. I see the whole thing in a slightly different light – it’s a chance to see how successful I was in convincing (fooling?) people I’m totally competent despite my blue hair and wall of Hello Kitty figures, and how well I trained people to say nice things about me when asked. Yeah, there are perks to being a corporate trainer when you’re evil and unscrupulous. Ask me about my brainwashing sessions some time.

I’d probably be a lot more nervous if my boss hadn’t sent me the write up we’re going over today. There are no big surprises on it (except for maybe the nice things – “second to none” is a lovely thing to hear about what you do), and the things I need to look out for are known to me:

• I take too many sick days (which sucks to hear, but a good kick in the ass is all it takes to get me to walk the line on this so I will not be sick any more)
• I forget to tell people what I’m doing on a regular basis (which is kind of hilarious if you think about it; all I DO is tell people what I’m doing – I’m doing it right now!)
• I can be impatient with people less knowledgeable than me (read: I’m bad with idiots slow learners. In a shocking twist, the slowest learners were the ones who complained – see previous rants on learned helplessness and the inability to learn new concepts no matter how many times you’re shown)

Not bad, really. I think I deserve a cookie. A cookie shaped like a GIANT RAISE.

Or, you know, a fat dong.

kimli takes her projects very seriously and ensures they are driven to completion. her results are reliable and professional.