Whee...

I am back, and haven't had much sleep. I had to race to make it to
class (I took presentation duties today 100%, as I will Wed., to make
up to my team-partner for flaking out), and now I have a whole twenty
minutes before I have to go to Eviljob.

Meg's happy; she had a nice birthday weekend (we went sight-seeing, to
a casino, and then to a cute murder mystery dinner theatre), and she's
finally found a condo in Vegas that is a wonderful deal, so I won't
have to worry about either her bank account or her safety...whew. I
probably will see it in person sometime this year, but the photos she
showed me are gorgeous. The pool is right next to (literally) a golf
course, and when I mentioned that she should be careful to not be hit
by golf balls, she went through the roof -- I live by a golf course,
and she asked me if *I* worry about getting hit by errant golf balls,
and told me to get back on my meds. Ha, ha. But I'm happy that she's
happy now.

I have (as always, it seems) a looming deadline for Job 2 that I'll be
working on tonight when I get in. I hope someday this will all be
worth it. Sigh.

Ok...if I am prudent, I would leave right now, so...

.

My measle is home

I picked him --or, well, his ashes -- up this morning, and it actually
is a little calming to know that he is with me, if only in a small
way.

I am ok; in pain, but ok. Out of town with Meg for her birthday.

everyone else is ok, but...I have to get some sleep, or my head is
going to explode, or something.

.

Still can't comment, but...

Thank you, and hugs.
:-*

...I will figure out why I can't comment on this browser anymore. Grr.

Ow, My Balls!

Well, ok... So I guess that I have been stressed too much. I know this
cos yesterday I did something very out-of-the-ordinary; I took a group
of co-workers up on their offer of after-work drinks. I was already in
pain (I know that nobody wants to hear about my pelvic pain, but I
have been having that plus headaches), and I figured half a Valium and
a couple drinks might help, then remembered that I am cold-turkeying
the drugs (which isn't helping my pain any, but sometimes I do things
just to prove that I can), and so I had no Valium with me. :-) sigh.
So I went, which I never do; it is a testament to my Job2 co-workers
that they keep inviting me, really. I also don't drink all that often,
though I have nothing against social drinking. I just usually don't
have the time to be 'down' like that, the same reason that I don't
smoke pot.

...any longer.

Anyway, so I went, and halfway through my second double-strength rum
and coke, I realised that I was shit-faced...and in a *lot* of pain,
which was weird -- one of my problems is that I am way too tense, and
well, I had thought that I would be more...relaxed. Yeah.
Fack. So I had to wait until I sobered up a tich, one long
conversation, a greasy burger, and disco fries later. Then I excused
myself, went home, fed the cats, and passed out...then woke up about
four hours later, in even MORE pain.

...so I did something constructive -- I stayed lying in bed, staring
at the wall until the vet's phoned to tell me that Romeo's ashes were
ready for pick-up. I emailed off some shit to Job2 and then phoned in
sick. Then I phoned my gyn because I was in so much pain. She was
booked to the gills, but another gyn in her group had just had a
cancellation, so I swiped it and did housework until it was time to
go.
This Dr knew my old gyn...who died earlier this year. I swear to CC
that sometimes the world is so filled with bad news and evil that I
really have to remind myself why hanging around is worth it; this man
was *brilliant*.

So, a few pokes and what felt like twelve pints of various fluids
later, I am awaiting test results. Yay. I had them fax his rx into the
out-of-state pharmacy that he said my regular gyn would want me to buy
from (cos they don't put some preservative in their stuff my gyn feels
interacts with something), and I have a month to wait for a follow-up.
Once I am dx'd for 100% certain, I will let you know; it turns out
that my regular gyn has copious notes and theories on me that we were
to discuss in June, and today's gyn agreed with one in particular. We
shall see.

So then I high-tailed it into Eviljob and made a significant dent in
shit that's been piling up for the past week that I've been worthless.

Meg's birthday is Saturday, and tomorrow after our seminar, I am
driving out to meet her (and Sabra) for some festivities, and then Meg
and I are going off all day Saturday. Hopefully my rx order will be in
by Monday, cos this weekend is going to suck.

I hate myself for taking Romeo's comforting for granted; I miss having
a Measle to stay by me and ward off The Grim Reaper. I know that
sounds selfish.

ohhh...and I think I need to apologise to some Job2 people who tried
to drag me into a political discussion when we were out; I told them
that I didn't give a good god damn about whatever (Candidate X) said,
and that I was more interested in whether Michael Alig was getting out
of prison this year than who the next President was going to be,
considering the crop of buffoons from which we are picking. To which
someone said, 'who?', to which I said something to the effect of,
'ex-god-damn-zackly'.

Oh, bear in mind that I hate discussing politics (don't EVER discuss
politics with drunk people!), I am miserable, and in pain. All this
equates to zero tolerance for political stupidity. Meh.

Wish me luck tomorrow. :-/

.

950, 1400, 1800

I am so depressed.  I feel so fucking...empty that I cannot even begin to describe it.

 

I know; no one wants to hear about it.  But I miss my Measle.

 

I actually burst into tears the other day watching fucking mechanical dogs playing.  Seriously; I am that badly off.  They are ours (all third gen; we use them in some studies when we use general population people a lot of the time 'cos they're more approachable-looking to civilians/non-experts than most of the alternatives we have), and one of them is injured.  We have to ship it off to the UK to be fixed, and we changed the brain-chip out with the other one to see if it was the body or the brain, and it was just so sad to watch the sick little pup, because it kept dying, over and over.  I have tried to not get attached to any of them 'cos I am going to have to leave for good soon, and of all the things I would fall in love with and feel the need to rescue/liberate, I'm sure it would be a god-damned $5k fake dog.  Or two.  Or five.  As if enough real ones weren't dying unloved and unwanted at the City Pound every day, as if I didn't have four perfectly wonderful cats at home who need me, but I cannot help the way my mind works; the guilt I feel over leaving Romeo's body alone in the cold darkness at the cat morgue waiting to be cremated is indescribable.  And no, I don't believe in an afterlife, or even the idea of an xtian 'soul', and yes, I know Romeo is long-gone and feels nothing.  Knowing that does not assuage my feelings of guilt over leaving his body in the cold, 'cos he hated being cold so much when he was alive.  It has more to do with doing right by those you love even after they are gone than some who-feels-what crap; it's about dignity, about respect.  It's about no one at the vet understanding that I wanted his eyes closed.  Maybe there was no way to do it, I don't know.  But I can empathise with the perceived need to liberate mechapups 'cos they will be lonely without you.  In some way -- some form of lonely.  Like lifeless cat bodies. 

 

Butsoanyway.

 

So as I am watching the dog die again and again, it occurred to me that the two were the colours I'd had to choose from for Romeo's urn (black and white), and I just started crying -- for myself, Romeo, and the poor un-real dog.  Just like Romeo, the brain was fine -- perfect -- it was the body that is destroyed.  I took a picture of it trying to not die, then rebooting itself, then dying again anyway.  No way to win.  Once I pull it off my phone, I'll post it.

 

And it upset me that when White was dying, everyone was just ignoring it, playing with Black...regardless of whose brain was in Black.  There's a lot here, and I am working up expounding on it elsewhere, but..I know that I am boring when I go off on these tangents (or so I infer, based on a sea of facial expressions...or lack thereof), so I'll not belabour the point here, but...it bothers me that no one was concerned (or observed, or followed the train of thought...) that Blackbrain might be (a form of) distressed in Whitebody, having not experienced this before.  Or that Whitebrain feels *trapped* in Whitebody, and a form of happiness in Blackbody.  I know that they all didn't just have Lovely Siameasles with brilliant, sharp-as-a-tack brains die in a collapsing body, but...surely, we have all worked together long enough, no?  It was one of those 'all that I have done for you and tried to teach you has been for nought and because of this, you people annoy me' moments. 

 

I am fully aware that 'normal' people do not do/think/feel this sort of thing -- all of it.  I am also aware that in a ton of ways, I am mildly batshit.  Cope with it, or don't; as the stupid saying goes, 'normal' is over-rated.  But on the other hand, normal people don't do what I do all day, every day; it's like a study in how to develop non-sexual paraphilia...and be mildly batshit.  There's a better word for it, but ... whatever.  Some day I need to figure out how to not be googleable; one would think that in all this time I would have managed it, but hey -- I am stupid and busy.  Is that a word?  Googleable?  ;-)  I really do feel as if I have problems to start with; I feel things way too much, I think way too much (it might not come off as I mean it, but this is not a Good Thing), and I am in a breeding ground for left-of-centre thinking, not that I needed any help, what with hugging a mock-up of a search-bot after taping the other week, and that was *before* Romeo passed away. 

 

Well, what?  It did much better than I'd thought it would do given its inferior innards (my fault -- poor planning and resource allocation), and I was very happy with it. 

 

Butsoanyway.

 

So I keep boo-hoo crying with no warning, even though I had a whole year to say goodbye.  It's easy to believe that time won't ever run out when it's in the process of running out...or at least it is easy for me.  I want to write about Romeo's personality and life, but I want to do it without crying and vomiting; give me a few days.  I *still* look for him for a second before I remember that he is gone, and think I see and hear him sometimes -- like out of the corner of my eye, or as if he had *just* meowed in another room.  At least what I 'hear' is his normal chatter, not cries of distress.  He is my phantom-limb friend.  His is definitely a well-established eye- and ear-to-brain pathway after fifteen years and nine months, and just about anything will trigger it...even wishing. 

 

I know, I know...and blog posts full of lugubrious wallowings. 

 

I have to, if you can believe it, come up with sounds that will be used to replace speech for a set of phrases for a project that is so overdue that it is ridiculous.  By, like, TOMORROW MORNING.  Bonus points for identifying my title.  Actually, bonus points and a copy of How To Get A Life, cos it may be needed.  :-)  I know I need it. 

 

I am having a really difficult time getting started on things; this is one of them.  I think it is depression, but knowing what it is doesn't make it stop.  I need to get sleep eventually, as well.  I'm fine.  Really.  Just sad.  Really, really sad.  And stressed.  What makes me even more miserable is that Romeo could always tell when I was down, and used to come sit by me.  He was my best friend. 

 

.

 

Happy Birthday, Easter Squooshables!

I approximate that this is the beginning of Kitten Season each year,
even though it is not on a fixed day (ummm...it isn't, right? Sorry; I
am at best an agnostic), I have decided to make Easter the birthday of
*my* Easter Squooshables cos it' as close as I can figure to their
real birthday, plus it gives me something legitimate to celebrate when
everyone else is celebrating their superstitious nonsense, so happy
birthday to Mister Squooshable Bobby Vinton Baconface Kittypants (3),
Mister Rhett Butler BlueCat Kittypants (2), and Miss Cookie Noel
Kittypants (2). And if you are lucky enough to believe in
reincarnation (not me, sadly), Dr Romeo Detroit might even be an
Easter Squooshable somewhere this season, too. If he is, he's coming
back as a Siamese again, I just know it. ;-)

Happy Birthday, babies everywhere. :-)

.

Grrr...

I can't log in to comment, so I will have to post a response:

Thank you both so much. Hugs -- big hugs. You help a lot, and I
appreciate it more than you know.

Anhedonia

I am ok. Drowning in work, I broke my little toe yesterday, then
smacked the crap out of it again today, and every room I walk into has
this emptiness in it that Romeo left behind. My home seems empty, and
I keep catching myself looking for Rome; even now, in my mind I can
picture him sitting on the sofa, in the window, in the hall, walking
into the room...it wouldn't surprise me at all if he did. He is still
so very real.

I guess what I am saying is that I cannot believe that he is gone.

I want to talk about Romeo, but...I can't right now. It is too hard.
All I can say is that he was three months -- to the day -- away from
his sixteenth birthday, and it is impossible to describe how entwined
lives can become after that time. He has been with me for all of my
adult life, for god's sake...I almost don't know what to do without
him. I have forgotten and called for him to talk to him, even...it's
that bad.

Work -- both of them -- sucks ass, I cannot take any time off, and I
just thank heavens that my team teaching partner could pick up my
slack. I feel like such a loser. A pathetic, Siameasle-less loser.

Even Mr Squooshable looks for Ethiopia Cat; he was waiting by my
refrigerator, where the warm air comes out, and I honestly believe he
was looking for Romeo. In his own Squibbly way, he was kind to Romeo
-- when Rome would come to eat his food, Squooshable would step back
and let him have it, like he knew Ethiopia Cat needed it more than he
did. We are all miserable.

I do not regret picking quality of life over quantity for Romeo,
however. He hated -- HATED -- the kidney diet food, and you know I
tried ALL of them. I had to stuff Cypro down him to get him to eat
ANY, and even then he only ate a bite or two. Why live and be
miserable when I can stop dosing him with Cypro and let him eat normal
food with everyone else, like he wanted? Others may choose differently
for their loved ones, but I chose quality. His last days were as bad
as I wanted him to ever get. I am happy with my decision. He had the
sub-q fluids he needed, his VAL Syrup, antibiotics (when needed),
immodium and tagamet (when needed), and any food he wanted -- none of
the bad-tasting shit.

The night before he died, he purred. And it was quiet, but it was a
real purr, not the pre-death, self-comforting type of purr; I was
rubbing his facemask like he likes, and he was happy. In a way, this
past year Romeo lived through the worst kind of death; a body falling
apart, but a mind that was alert until the end. Being trapped like
that is Hell, but my Measle was strong-willed until the end, and I did
everything I could to minimise his suffering.

No one I am around understands what a loss this is; that's why I ended
up blogging from my phone in the vet's parking lot -- there was no one
else I could tell.

I was so, so lucky to have him, and I miss him so much.

I have to quit now, cos I am making myself feel sick again.

.

My Lovely Siameasle

...passed away this morning.

.

Countdown to a Smackdown

Grr.

I had to work from home for the second-half of the day because of
Romeo; I sent out a to-do list to my Job 2 team, cos after teaching
tomorrow, I have to have a FAST development meeting before I go to do
some school-related overseeing, and then on to Eviljob, and guess
what?

One particular asshat who was (prior to our team's development and
tasking) phoning and emailing me (once I drifted over to this new J2
and my position was official) about how EXCITED they are about this
project, and how THRILLED they would be if I would recognise them as
the superty-duper, *special* little snowflake they know themselves to
be and give them a certain portion of this project, cos that's their
area of (desired) expertise, and would look good on their CV, blah,
blah, blah.

My to-do to them was to give me their thingy-thing part by tomorrow
morning -- the one they have had since JANUARY to accomplish.

They haven't even started. I just checked my email (after no reply up
to now), and I have a looong email filled with all the things I hate
most -- excuses and finger-pointing. Now, instead of being 'thrilled'
and 'excited', they are 'confused' about why I picked this deadline
(this was decided MONTHS ago), and they feel 'let down' from the 'lack
of support'. Well, buddy...welcome to the motherfucking world of
management; when you are tasked with something, you farm it out in
manageable pieces to the people under you. If there is no one under
you, you do it your god damned self. But whatever you do, you
COMMUNICATE; one cannot sit around for three months doing nothing, and
then whine about no one helping...if this jackass had been doing
anything at all this whole time, they would be done by now; this part
they took isn't rocket science. I think what happened is that they got
lazy and figured they would get around to it...and realised that it's
easy, but it's not just twenty-four hours' worth of easy, so now they
are doing that excuse-and-finger-pointing thing.

I may feel differently tomorrow, but right now? Oooohhh. I am *steaming*.

Romeo is still ok. Still sleeping, though he did wake up to eat a few
bites of shrimp.

.

Romeo is at home and dreaming

I wish I knew what his memories are. I hope they are good ones.

I'm feeling much better!

...though I am almost superstitious to say so.

Romeo is ok, and I know this cos Mom drove all the way over there to
see him because she knew that I wouldn't be able to. So since Rome is
hospitalised almost halfway between the two of us (this new-er vet is
a much longer drive, but it is worth it), she went. What's funny is
that I went home to work after getting back from the vet's, cos I had
to do some serious booking to make up for lost time. So I put on QVC
just to have some background noise (and cos I like Connemara marble),
and at some point I must have floated off into some half-dream thing;
I was 'hearing' the host and guest arguing with each other about Irish
traditions and whatnot, and it was escalating into a fight...in my
dream. Then the phone rang (Mummers), and I was honestly surprised to
see that the show was normal. How funny.

I also figured out (with a little help) what I was screwing up with
the video transfer, and I am just a god damned moron...but we knew
that. Yep. The good news of that is that the help I got was so VERY
raving about how spiffy our stuff looked...thank Ceiling Cat.

I am incredibly tired. But I am getting a lot accomplished.

And I miss Romeo. :-/

Take me to the specialist...

Romeo is staying at the vet's tonight to combat dehydration and
constipation. He's still stubborn and, well, a typical Measle. I have
been battling a video camera all day; our Canon HV20 does not want to
make friends with Vista. Bleurgh.

As a side note, if anyone wants to tell me how to accomplish this, I
am completely receptive to suggestions.

Anyway, now I am heading over to Eviljob, and am, frankly, depressed.

Yes, more than usual. stfu. ;-)

.

Kitty Brawndo...epic fail.

Ok, not really. Romeo was at the vet's yesterday for dehydration, and
now he is also on amoxicillin. Pfft. He needed 550 ml of fluids there,
I gave another 150 (was supposed to be 200, but he became wholly
intolerant and walked away) today. He also had an enema yesterday,
because Doc figured he was at risk of becoming constipated or
impacted...oh,was that ever fun: Measle poop everywhere.

He's ok today, and he has to go back tomorrow morning for probably
another 550 ml sub-cutaneous fluids. And I have Mom and some others
coming for dinner. Sigh.

We're having a shrimp pasta thingy I make and a loofly salad. Whee.
Hope no one minds Sir Stinks-A-Lot. I mean, it's not like I can spray
Febreeze on him, and right now, he's too sick to bathe.

Happi Pi Day!

I have spent all week taping stimuli for our latest stuff; I am all
achy from all the god damned running-jumping-moving. Blecch. The help
I was supposed to have vanished, so it was just four of us at most,
but largely only two. Eh...at least it's mostly over -- once I get
everything we taped transferred over and all cut up into segments.

Yesterday, I took off mostly, and went with Meg to hear one of her old
professors (now retired) speak, and it was very interesting. He is a
former Station X employee back when it was, erm, ultra-cool to be such
(I know; I am single-handedly responsible for some of the worst word
play on Earth), and Meg was happy that several of her students turned
up, despite having no clue who Turing was (he is still Quite Dead, by
the way, and was not our guest speaker). Sigh. She orgnised getting Dr
X to her uni through some speaker-inviting body she's on (she told me,
but I've forgotten; Meg does all sorts of committee stuffs), and just
as I was kvetching to her about how the bulk of this stimuli
collection and a recent huge purchase negotiation has fallen upon me
due to people acting flaky, and as we're talking (or, rather, I am
talking and Meg is listening), people keep coming up and interrupting
to advise Meg of the video set-up, blah, blah...until after about the
third person, I realised what was going on, and lambasted Meg for
appearing to be empathetic to my situation when she'd clearly pawned
off all the work onto other faculty and grad students. I am
unfortunately having to miss the real get-together (they had to break
it up over two days cos He tires easily), but Meg went. And one of her
co-workers turned up with -- are you ready? -- a MATCHING SISTER
LAPTOP. Srsly. She'd just bought it on Meg's recommendation. I tried
to explain to Meg that she cannot go recomending that *everyone* go
get matching sister laptops, but she just shushed me cos the lecture
had started. :-) At least the third member of our two-sister matching
laptop squad is Sabra, previously mentioned as Stoned-as-Fuck, the
Israeli lady who can knock out PDEs that would make most grown men
weepy-eyed whilst fried to a crackly crunch. Sabra is cool...*but*, I
am still a little miffed over the matching sister laptop thing. Ha. I
will phone Meg and tell he she has to take me to Teavana (and buy) to
make up for it. Hmmph.

What's REALLY funny is that *I* had to tell Meg that Sabra is her best
friend...or, well, Meg is *Sabra's* best friend. Meg's BFFs in *Meg's*
eyes went to high school -- one is a vet, and the other is a teacher
also, albeit not college-level. Butsoanyway. I figured this out for
Meg (about Sabra) a few weeks ago, when I found this new soda I
thought Meg would like, so I drove out to her university and bought
one for her, only I had to wait outside her college's building,
waiting for a faculty space to open up (*this* is why matching sister
cars is important, cos I haven't a sticker for her school!), and as
I'm waiting, Sabra comes bounding up, makes me park in the fire lane
(some day, I am going to get so towed from there!) and Sabra and I sat
and talked for two hours until Meg was out of class, like Sabra
was...entertaining me, or something. But anyway, I figured it out
then, and Meg said no...then Meg realised that's why Sabra won't leave
her office ever, just stays in there talking all day. Ha. Meg's a dip,
but Sabra's cool. :-)

ok...I have to do some crap, then i hopefully can sweep up around
here; i haven't fixed my blog page in ever.

sigh.

Don't follow me...I'm only guessing.

Had to file what is basically a quarterly report at Job 2; it is
perilously close to the deadline, and I have been waiting for one of
the other teams to file, so that I could steal their formatting.
Yesterday, I got an email from our head office admin (cos with me,
'perilously close' means you damn well might not get it, ever) telling
me it was due now, now, NOW. So I just faked a format, and submitted
it. Now, this morning, EVERYONE else has submitted...all with my
formatting.

Oh, this is bad.

Party time...boring-style

Today was good. This is despite the asshat at Eviljob who is trying to
pressure the Director to get rid of the parking lot cats. It looks
like I have a battle ahead, but I am prepared. Bring it, man. ;-) I am
drafting a response; this will be a little awkward, seeing as how I
was (intentionally) cut out...until Someone Who Likes Me forwarded an
email, but, well, now I know, and I am preparing to kick some
self-diagnosed, yet heavily-insured and thereby clearly unwilling to
seek either formal diagnosis or treatment and in this way attempting
to use what they perceive as a protected characteristic when it in
fact isn't ailurophobe ass.
Forgive me; much of the above should have been hyphenated, but wasn't
out of laziness.
Butsoanyway.
When I got off work (early, cos I was fast becoming unfit for human
consumption stewing about this), I came home and had a really short
spell of depression/anxiety over the whole thing, turned on the
television, found some Mindless Entertainment (some god-awful movie
about two kids being killed for their money), and somehow managed to
fall into this massive sleep. Sigh.
When I woke up, it was dark and freezing; I was stiff all over, except
for my left arm...which was nice and warm, because Rhett was sleeping
on it. I poked my warm, fat cat armblanket to get off so I could turn
the heat on, and realised that I had all of twenty minutes to get over
near the university for a friend's birthday dinner...and I had
forgotten to pick up her present.
Christ, I suck.
So I opted for late over gift-barren, grabbed a dvd and wrapped it in
the car as I drove (my car qualifies to be named The Deathcoaster on
so many different levels), and tore over there. We had fun, and my
meal was absolutely wonderful -- a perfectly-prepared encrusted slab
o' salmon with spinach (yum!) and potatoes, served on plates that were
very reminiscent of a Denby pattern I had liked almost enough to
commit to (I noted this only to be told by some other friend of Ms
Birthday that some trendy store had them also, cos she'd picked up
bowls similar to the restaurant's there; then we both were advised by
Birthday Girl that we were getting boring, ha!). BG seemed to be
excited about the dvd, so yay. After dinner, BG and I trudged over to
a nearby caffeine store for hot teas, even though we were both
freezing our tuchases off. I love talking with BG; she's very funny
and intelligent, and it was a well-worth investment of time, even
though I am way-tired and the cold made me get crampy. Right now, I am
back on my living room large sofa, only this time I have the heat on,
a pillow, and a blanket; some nights I just DO NOT WANT sleep in bed.
I wish I knew why, because I *know* it's weird. It is sort-of like
being afraid, but not really. And I know -- you're thinking, 'Ancodia,
why in the fuck would you *stay* out on the sofa watching The Hills
Have Eyes II if you're feeling kind of nervous?', and I can only say
it's not like that, it's more like nervous-restless than
scared-scared. And having the damned television on helps; it could be
anything, it doesn't *have* to be a horror movie. Plus, I don't find
horror movies to be actually scary, really. Might as well be 'Ow, My
Balls'. For some weird reason though, I prefer live TV to dvds. I can
fall asleep with live tv on, where it is much harder with a dvd.
I alternate between having a TV in my bedroom, and removing the damn
thing because I believe, deep-down, that a TV should not be *in* there
(there are a lot of people who feel it interferes with sleep), but
when I *do* have the set out, I end up having the radio on, or
something. Sigh. Eh; my cats don't care what I do, so why should I?

I simply hate it when we bond like this.

Ok, so Wednesday I am doing my Monday/Wednesday Thing (the one where I
am out of the house at the crack of dawn, run *constantly*, and am not
done until late evening, and one of my many Things ends me up in a
cluster of quasi-members of one of my labs...quasi-members cos they're
all...::shudder::...ugrads.
one would have to work with ugrads over an extended period of time to
understand the shuddering part; they're young, impressionable, and
often bunny-brained. They have the attention span of a gnat, and when
i say 'impressionable', I am being very...kind. These chirrin are
capable of running across campus for a soda, and when they aren't back
in forty-five minutes, it's fallen upon me (or Karen, or Scooter,
etc...) to walk down to The Union and pull them by the ear away from
dancing and singing with their new Hare Krishna friends all the way
back to the lab, tambourine in hand, newly-borrowed saffron robes
billowing in the breeze. We then have to randomly say, 'I don't care
-- TYPE!', as they yammer on about the horrible government-induced
droughts in Jakarta, religious-based lynchings in East Drambuie, West
Bangalorian pickle raids, and occasionally a UFO sighting or two.
Seriously -- if you have something that needs believing-in, try a
nearby student union. Bring colourful pamphlets. They like colourful
pamphlets, especially if there is a MySpace URL on there; having a
MySpace makes your cause seem more Real.
So I am not an Earth Mother type; shoot me.
So I am babysitting, which involves trying to write some stuff and
watch over them...only I don't *like* them. Or, I try not to. And I'd
been waylaid after class Wed. morning, then I was held up again on the
fifth floor when our Head of Department's office admin wanted to talk
(I love her!), so when I got there, I slipped into one of our side
observation rooms upstairs above the main lab to try to catch up on my
stuff yet still make sure none of them (now over two hours
unsupervised, Ceiling Cat help us) had invited the Hare Krishnas
over,turned the place into a soup kitchen, started listing our
equipment on eBay, or any other of the million things they *might* do
that contributes to my insomnia. And as I'm trying to unobtrusively
lean over the half wall and make sure they are behaving (and ready to
give my best 'get back to work' glare if needed), I hear my name.
Yep, the little dorks are talking about me. They were right below,
under the overhang, so I couldn't lean over, or they'd see the
movement, so I waited out of sheer curiosity with a tich of masochism.
I mean, I don't *try* to be liked, so my assumption is that I am not;
I know there are those who think that I am too hard, a perfectionist,
too frank, and my not being a snuggly huggy-bunny type is a big
difference from some of the others in our group, and...well, I'm not a
favourite flavour; I'm an acquired taste. I know this. But back to the
story:
So I am standing right above them, and they are talking about my eyes,
and I hear, 'smaller...no, smaller...yeah. Ancodia's nose is higher,
though. Hmmm...make her eyes bigger...' and so on. From this, I am
gathering they're drawing something. Then one of them says that I am
taller than Rachel, our lab manager, and that he thinks I am taller
than Scooter...in fact, he has figured that I am the third-tallest
person in our lab (I'm not, but the dork doesn't *know* Tom, who is
over six and a half feet tall and is taking a year off, 'cos his
internship turned into a 90k offer, or any of the other long-time
people, cos he is NEW, and hasn't been around long enough to be
entitled to an opinion on whether or not GRAVITY is working today,
much less anything else), and then they move on to my hair.
...and I'm up there thinking, 'WTF?' as everyone starts yes/no-ing
something about my hair. It's mainly an issue of what colour. Want to
know what colour my hair is according to ugrad group consensus?

Blackety-red.

No, not 'red'. Not 'auburn'. Not 'hennaed'. Not even 'dark auburn',
which would have been the ding-ding-ding answer. Blackety-red.
These chirrin intend to take the GRE. A couple of them are graduating
in the Fall semester. That's graduating COLLEGE, now. And they're all
with us forexperience and letters of rec., which means they plan to go
on.
...blackety-red???
So then they quit me, and start on Fluffer. I can't take the curiosity
any longer (plus, 'blackety-red' is fast becoming a migraine
headache), so I go downstairs; six of them are on the floor around a
television, and one more is at a computer station nearby, trying to
see if Fluffer is in Facebook. I can see they have unpacked our Wii
crap and set it up (we got it as a 'thank you' bonus for a consulting
job, and only used it once in a small study, then packed it back
up...these kids could smell a video game a mile away). When they see
me, they are all happy, and start in with this 'Ooh! Show her! Show
her!' chattering (I swear, they remind me of the mine-mine-mine
seagulls in Finding Nemo when they act like this), and at this point I
have a pounding, blackety-red headache coming on, and one finger on my
eye to keep it from twitching. They switch the screen to this pastel
one, with little avatars all over, and then click an icon that blows a
whistle, and all the little avatars line up. Almost everyone in our
lab -- most everyone I can recognise; these little ankle biters have
put some real effort into this. We have a virtual lab of Miis.
Not that I knew anything about Miis before today (remember, please,
that I am working two-plus jobs on top of the school crap, and am
limited in what I can keep up with, pop culture-wise), but...this is
cute. Very cute. *They* are cute. Sometimes. This is why I go get them
from the Hare Krishnas. And why I let them play tennis and stuff for
the rest of the day.

Sigh.

eek.

sigh...I have had two -- TWO -- post totalled by the browser on my pda
timing out. granted, they were really long, but grrr.

now i am on a different phone-pda-smartphone-whatever...we'll see how
this goes.

ultimately, it ended up being a good thing that Flake flaked, cos that
very day, i had to spend the whole day at Eviljob anyway. we're having
a teensy bit of upheaval at Eviljob, and I've been dealing with it
since Friday, and took today off. I have to get to work on Job2 stuff,
cos i've fallen behind there, now. And I keep forgetting to
capitalise, so bear with me.

sigh.

I am heading a project that I don't want at Job2, and i am frankly
having a hard time getting motivated...and it has to be out the door
in two months; this sucks serious butt. We are making video clips with
non-human actors as stimuli, and it's usually something i enjoy, but
for some reason i am just not into it right now. I am admittedly tired
of coming up with these...the people with the money love them,
but...it gets old. But i did negotiate a pretty good suite om Fri &
Mon that really pushes J2 along towards getting all prettied-up like
old J2 was, gosh darn it.

I would be enjoying this more if we had the slave labour we had at J2.

sighness.

In Other News, i have been getting calls for no reason from That Guy
From Ever Ago. I suppose I should have more to say on that, but right
now I don't.

ok...time to get back to work so that I can duck out early and go play trivia.