The more things change…

Gah!  

Okay; I accomplished little today.  It ended up being one of those days where I spent most of my time getting everything ready to tackle The Big Project, yet my pencils kept rolling off the desk, so I didn’t get a whole lot done.

Well, figuratively speaking—I wasn’t really arranging pencils on my desk.  They were mental pencils.

No, I am *not* the most mental pencil of them all.  Shut up.

Yes, I can so too hear you.

Butsoanyway.

The New Job II is going okay, I think.  I like everyone there, and I think everyone likes me so far.  There may be one person who is iffy about me, but eh—can’t win them all.  I just have a lot of catching up to do, because our focus (see how I am being all team-y and inclusive?) now is different from Old Job II’s focus, primarily in the sense that each lead individual has their piece, and that is their One Thing—there is no hopping around from Thing to Thing like at OJ2.  This is both good and bad.  It is good in that I will—it seems—finally, exclusively, get credit for the thing(s) that I do.  No more Sophies sneaking onto stuff by hinting that it would look good on their CV.  No more crediting of 5+ people for the work of one or two.  That part rocks; at conferences, if I had to politely deflect any more questions about why one of our major projects has a million billion authors, I was planning on screaming.  Or, worse yet, the enquiries as to how some yahoo I have never seen before can tag along for the ride just ‘cos we have superty-cool buzzwords (we are—or were, rather—well-known for our sexy keywords) and seem to be just tagging anyone onto anything.  So that part is good; no more contributions becoming diluted or stolen out from under me.  Plus I am getting a LOT more personal attention—as in, my new group has made it clear that they want to help me.  Go figure.  It’s a freaky and novel feeling.

The bad part is that this is different enough that I have to play catch-up.  And that there is less room for error.  Or fucking off.  I have, basically, done got sold to The Big Boys.  Eek.

So I have been doing a lot of catching up and looking busy.  

Eviljob is all the same.  As ever.  And no, I still haven’t caught (1) Mehitabel, or (2) any more kittens.  I haven’t because (1) I have been too busy, and it is hard enough making sure the two I do have are happy, healthy, fed regularly, and in a clean area (god, are they messy), (2) I *still* am not sure where she is hiding them, since for the past few days I have been doing something at dawn and/or dusk when they are out playing, and (3) this is not completely simple, like I set down the trap and the kitten walks into it (don’t I wish!); I was kind-of hoping that it would be, but each time I have tried—successfully or not—it has taken a few hours.  Cookie alone took the entire day.  So I may be looking at just trapping them for neutering and release in a few more weeks if things keep going like this.

And in Gossip News, my one friend (more Meg’s than mine, but that’s not the point) whom I have mentioned before (the stoned Israeli girl) has generated upheaval in this little group-ish social circle thing by deciding to up and cheat on her partner, whom she might as well be married to, considering how long they have been together.  This is shocking because she is essentially throwing over a Perfectly Good Guy for a dork who is, in my book, basically a bum.  And there is the requisite dirt-throwing (I now know more about their sex life and her personal habits over the past nine years than I believe the bounds of Good Taste and Propriety should allow), and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and…all that.  And we know that I am a Low Drama Girl.  Oh, yes, I am.  

So blecch.

This New Guy is also married (bwaah!!), but…check it out…his wife doesn’t understand him.  And he’s not attracted to her.  

I think I am one of the few women on Earth for whom statements such as these set off air raid sirens.  Ever see Airplane?  Like what goes on in Striker’s head.  Yeah—that.  :-)  Yes, I am apparently one of the few—to other women, these seem to be adorable and endearing statements that further fan the flames of love.

Oh—sorry—the flames of LURVE.

And this girl (who, if this shit keeps increasing on the drama scale, I will have to name.  Yes, something nicer than ‘Dipshit’) is *so* clearly substituting newness for intimacy that it is amazing that she could be so blind.  She is one of Those who feel that they are hep, cool, and all liberated-like if they come off with that old, ‘sexually, I am more like a man’ crap—which usually translates into (and this comes not only from me—this has been a topic of major discussion over the past couple of weeks, and I have corroboration) the fact that the speaker has not the first clue about what actually constitutes intimacy and making love, much less what turns her on, and is instead relying upon any number of ‘shortcuts’ (e.g., freakiness, novelty, sheer numbers, physical attributes, etc…) to ‘do’ it for them.  

And I am not saying that everyone who does [whatever] does it ‘cos they don’t know what turns them on and/or how to have a healthy adult relationship; I have done enough in my life so far that I am well aware that some things are fun just because they are fun.  What I am saying is that when someone like this—an otherwise intelligent woman—pops up with this crap about being ‘like a man’, expresses that she has not been physically interested in her partner for years, and one adds to it the fact that she ‘hates’ to cuddle, does not like to take showers—for fun—with her partner, sees ‘no point’ in taking time to prepare oneself for a date (yes, that is a quote), believes that play that does not lead to orgasm is ‘useless’ (yet another quote; I *told* you I had learnt more about this person and her relationship and habits then I ever, ever wanted to know; I have scads of detail here, but I am just doing a drive-by venting), and rushes to sleep with New Male so quickly (we’re talking within days of meeting) that all hopes of a relationship seem laughable, and so on…I am saying that this person has NO clue about herself and what makes her tick sexually and relationship-wise, and has even less of a clue about what makes others tick.  My thinking is, ‘sure—dump Perfectly Good Guy (who is STILL putting up with your shit, even through all this current humiliation and your prior lack of putting out for over a year) and run off with New Guy; in a couple of years you will be bored of him as well, and moving on to someone else, and that makes the issue of your compatibility together a moot point’.  There.  Problem solved.  

Because I think that until she fixes herself, she is not going to find anyone who is going to stand the test of time in a relationship.  If I restricted myself the way she is restricting herself, I would be bored with whomever I was with also!  I think anyone would!  

But this has divided a bunch of us—there is the faction that agrees (more or less) with what I am saying here, and then there is the faction that sees nothing wrong with anything she is doing, and feels that she should ‘follow her heart’ and that means running off with New Male.  

Assuming he actually left his wife, that is.

And I do say ‘blecch’, but in truth this upheaval, combined with the cat upheaval, has helped to distract me from my own personal drama.  

I have really not done well in keeping up with all of this.

Okay—a while back I dated someone, and the nutshell explanation is that he was a freak and a jerk.  Just trust me on this; he was.  And now he is getting some local attention, and I have to put up with seeing or hearing his name on a damn-close-to-daily basis.  

But I can’t really discuss that right now, ‘cos I am upsetting myself again.

I need to get some sleep so that I can get up early tomorrow, and if I go into this now, I’ll be up all night.  Again.  

Sigh.  G’night.

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