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Post by blackrose on Mar 2, 2010 9:19:31 GMT -5
Happy March!
They're saying 50s next week.
/chants No more snow! No more snow! No more snow! /endchant
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Post by MsAriel on Mar 2, 2010 11:12:05 GMT -5
Hi all!! I'm still around.. lurking but here. Work has been busy, but things are going along fine. Just figured I'd pop in to say hello!!!
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Post by blackrose on Mar 10, 2010 19:06:07 GMT -5
It was beautiful on Monday & Tuesday - unfortunately I was housebound due to being sick, so I didn't get to enjoy it much. Back to work today, where I felt rather overwhelmed with the increasingly insurmountable pile that is my work load.
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Post by blackrose on Mar 19, 2010 7:58:05 GMT -5
It's so nice outside today... far too nice to be stuck in this freaking office. *pouts*
However, there is some good news on the office front. I got a performance reward and small monetary bonus last week. Well, I was told about it last week and I got the money in my paycheck this week. I also had my performance review yesterday, and got exceptional marks, and got a bit of a bump in my pay to go along with that, too - though that won't take effect for another month or so. What with the remodeling of the bathroom and the impending wedding and honeymoon, these are good things.
Of course, I'm also waiting for the other shoe to drop... like for my car to fall apart and I have to use my bonus to fix it instead of being able to put it towards the bathroom or something... *knocks on wood*
In other news, I'm in a play. I only have rehearsal once a week, though, 'cause it's a three act play and she's rehearsing one act per rehearsal, which makes sense, but that means I have to do a lot of memorizing and reviewing lines outside of rehearsal, which I always sort of hate doing, and haven't really started doing yet, so I'm totally unprepared for rehearsal tonight, but ah well...
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Post by Denethor on Mar 22, 2010 21:40:25 GMT -5
Arrrrrgggggghhhhhh!!!! Every attempt to move from page to page, and even more every attempt to reply, from up here uses Internet access so slow that at best I have to cancel navigation and try again, and more often it crashes my browser and requires shutting down the program and "restoring last session" to get back, simply because the service up here is so damn slow. Once or twice Internet use has crashed my whole machine, and I had to shut down entirely and power back up again to even work at all. More gently, it looks like I won't be visiting here as often this week as I'd hoped. (This is great Nordic country for our Heathen members!) But we'll see. At the very least, I took a couple of pics of scenery and the like I can post when I get back. Sort of a booby prize I guess.
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Post by Denethor on Mar 24, 2010 19:07:59 GMT -5
Aaaaaaaaaaaaackkkkk!!!!! The shock has worn off and I'm now entering total-warfare-freakout mode... ...we lost the contract.So, my options are actually less limited than those of the more senior people, because my salary is lower and the other company is thus marginally more likely to pick me up; my own company is more likely to be able to find other in-house work for me (probably at least initially, more of this traveling); and yes, of course, I know I have a good education and regulatory experience and lab experience and all that sort of stuff, and if they can't find anything for us they will offer generous severances... ...but you know how I am, I can't face a thing like this in an economy like this without having visions of ending up on the street. And then I get furious, because there is no reason for a middle-aged well-educated person who hasn't been stupid to ever have to worry about that, and the fact that there are any such people at all who do is just more proof that our society is broken. So if I get a little odd at times over the next few months, you'll all know why. What I might need: friends, energy, whatever-all like that. What I do not need: friendly "advice" that I leave all pride behind and be willing to spend years upon years waiting tables or flipping burgers, politics of any kind (rest assured when I say our society is "broken" I mean in fundamental ways that do not originate in politics, though politics are affected by them); any suggestion, no matter how remote, that personal (rather than collective) "karma" or anything like that have anything to do with the difficulties in life that arise simply because of my placement in history. I do not deserve this shit. None of the others who have posted about similar worries here, deserve it either. No one does. And don't try to tell me "karma" isn't about "deserving"; you know as well as I do that in the modern Westernized version of that concept, if not in the original, it damn well does, and that in these cases it's full of warm and brown. Oh and M, you know who you are, if you are reading this, I know you can hear me, feel free to slap me upside the head if it looks like I can't hear you. I know you're there and I need you and your kind now if ever I did. Dog...gun...woods...NOW...
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Post by Denethor on Mar 27, 2010 22:24:57 GMT -5
OK so pretty much nobody got back on here after that, I'll admit it was pretty scary news, especially for me, but I don't think I'm going to turn into such rotten company any time soon. You can all still post now.
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Post by blackrose on Apr 2, 2010 8:32:32 GMT -5
Yesterday I went for a walk at lunch and thought "Now it feels like Ostara" and I thought "pity it's already past" but then I thought "Actually, today is April 1st... which starts Eosturmonath... the month of openings... so, there, happy Eostre month.
I also meant to wish everyone a happy Fool's Day... but forgot to log on... so... oh well... :>
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Post by Denethor on Apr 2, 2010 13:22:05 GMT -5
Yeah, this place shoulda been hopping on April Fool's, but oh well. I am back in town for a week and a half or so and went in to the office. No one in there was in a particularly joking mood, and it was my (now former) supervisor's last day, which was sad. We all traded information so we can keep in touch.
I have the day off today and am basically sitting at home and surfing the net, did a little meditation and such like. Tomorrow I'll go out with my Dad and my sister, since the latter is here with her family for part of the weekend. She'll be traveling back on Easter Sunday, not being especially religious or anything like that. (In fact, the convo over lunch tomorrow may well feature some barbs about Christianity, a religion my sis says is evil and which I tend to say makes me itch. I just hope no one spits in our food). Monday I go in to the office and plan my next travel circuit.
However, today is unthinkably gorgeous, with flowers everywhere which I can smell from inside my apartment - I have the windows open and the whole place is brimming with that fresh spring smell, which science tells us comes from soil bacteria but oh well - a light breeze and sun that is kind of too bright for me to go out in but it makes the indoors look nice. I picked up the new Sherlock Holmes video because that's one I had wanted, I'll probably take it when I travel because watching DVDs on my computer is one of the best evening entertainments available when I'm stuck in some spot where the net is way slow. I'll try to think of more interesting things to post over the next few days, if I can.
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Post by blackrose on Apr 13, 2010 13:28:48 GMT -5
I haven't really had the time or energy to devote to really getting into some of the recent posts lately... but, as per Den's request, I'm posting here just to say hi and I'm alive. I don't know where everyone else is. I wonder how many people even check in in here anymore. I think, after several pokes and prods from Lenny, I'm going to actually have to - *gasp* - create a facebook account (and live in nigh constant fear of showing up on failbook... )
I'm in a show currently, and it's going ok but I'm kinda pissy at my director. So that's fun.
This weekend was tres busy. Had rehearsal Friday night. Saturday was planted a tree we recently ordered (a dwarf purpleleaf flowering plum tree). Now we're hoping it takes and perks up in time. We ran to Lowe's to get bathroom stuff, including a vanity which didn't fit in our car. We called around but none of the people we know with sizable cars were home or reachable, so we had to rent the Lowes truck which, of course, was signed out, so we had to wait 30 minutes to get the damn thing 10 minutes damn the road.
Sunday I had rehearsal again, which did not go well and which is why I'm pissy, then we had more errands to run.
Yesterday the guys showed up to start the bathroom. Yesterday was mostly the demolition phase, though they did lay shiny new copper pipes. We stayed home to make sure the first day went ok, and that the children didn't go too insane. They weren't happy about being locked up in the room at first, but once the noise started they seemed ok with it.
Meanwhile, since it was a nice and cool day, me and Darkk decided to tackle the fence. (More I decided and wheedled him into it.) So we worked on that most of the day, and today I'm achy, tired, cranky... and I fucking have rehearsal again tonight. Yay...
(Ok, so just to vent for a second... in addition to being the kind of director who seems to have no qualms in essentially telling me that I'm sucking on a bad day, she's also been kind of difficult in the costume department. First I was over-ruled on the dress I liked, which is fine, but then I've been looking for brown boots in sandal season. The one pair I found was deemed too expensive, another pair I found not period enoug (its set in 1960s), and another pair didn't have enough of a heel (they do have to have heels 'cause there's a line about it) - but she's not actually looking or helping me find anything, just shooting down everything I do happen to find... Unfortunately, I don't see myself not sucking tonight because of the aforementioned exhaustion and crankiness... so, yippie... )
(Oh, and we have no shower at home right now, 'cause of the bathroom remodel (which will be so great once it's done, what with an actual flushing toilet and everything) - so we'll be using my parents on a semi-nightly basis, but because I have this added rehearsal tonight (which was decided on Sunday because of the previously mentioned suckiness), I won't have time to shower tonight. Lucky you that you don't have to see me in person.)
Plus I'm upset about interpersonal stuff with other people, work is driving me crazy, people aren't returning my calls... blah blah blah...
So...
In other news, there are a few clothing items I've been coveting, but all of our money is going towards the bathroom and/or the vacation fund (or books), so I'm being good... and it sucks. New clothes always make me feel happy. I'm such a girl sometimes...
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Post by Shannon on Apr 13, 2010 21:28:44 GMT -5
Sigh.
So I got the 'hints' that were left too....
I am in the biggest, freaking funk of my life. Do you ever feel like you're just a ghost in the world?
Facebook. My mom's side of the family is all on there, and my mom recently invited me to 'friend' her and the fam. Going on there is like a daily freaking reminder of how little I mattered to the people who were supposed to be biologically committed to loving me. I hate all this self-pity, all this obsessing about the past. What do I think the end goal is here? That we'll reconnect and I'll be 12 years-old again and my life ahead of me with no mistakes... Intellectually I know to let go, my heart won't listen. She's got me playing this stupid Farmville game and I've become obsessed with the symbolic metaphor it represents. If my mom fertilizes my crops she obviously loves me, right? If my farm is awesome then all the aunts will think I'm awesome, right? Shotgun, meet inner-child.
And that is all I have to talk about because I have no life, no jobs, no events, nothing. So I'm watching all the episodes of Bones and getting fat. Yay for the path of the soul.
Anyway. Facebook. I was thinking since Q, Born, Starfish and I are on there that we should all just sign up. Someone (probably me?) can make some completely neutral- sounding group for us ex-grovers to have forum-type discussions without work or family knowing what we're in to.
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Post by Denethor on Apr 13, 2010 22:11:41 GMT -5
(6th attempt to post this message.) The room you used wasn't the meat locker was it?... (!)...you should check. Stories like this are all over the Internet, lending credence to the idea that social networking spells the downfall of civilization. (And the answer is you'd be 12 years old again with different mistakes ahead of you. And maybe the ones you did make in real life would turn out to have not been all that bad. Not rotting in jail are you? No huge drug problem? Murdered anyone? If the answers to those things are no, then those are things you did right. Also in the things you did right column, I'd put Ben and the kids, and any skills you have gained or things that make you happy, and any number of things you have done that I don't know about.) As to inner children, I keep mine sequestered in that meat locker from the above response... In an unrelated note, I am a bit anti-Facebook because my last name is quite searchable, I am sure if I sign up with my email a Googler could easily find my page whether it's my display name or not, and thus everyone from potential employers (now a concern again) to my hundred year old grandmother will have as a first impression that I am agendered and believe in archangels. Shotgun, meet any sort of privacy. That coupled with the anti-privacy debacle Facebook recently had are why I've been digging in my heels; I've gotten your various invites in my inbox too. Not sure what I would do if we go there. Just letting you know; if there's a workaround I might still consider it. This week I'm at another hotel Internet that tends to go out in the middle of posts, email replies, &c. Very annoying. But I'll try to keep in touch anyway. Thanks for taking the hints guys. It's good to hear how everyone's doing. Good luck with houses and families. Sad to hear about pissy directors and funks. Gawdz Shannon but I know that "ghost" feeling; be careful with it, it tends to go with depression. A good screaming fit sometimes helps temporarily. Some kind of work or exercise can help even more. You're not a ghost to me, if that helps.
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Post by Shannon on Apr 14, 2010 12:15:24 GMT -5
You could use a new email just for it, and put your 'real' name as Denethor Spinoza or something. If you do, look me up as Shannon Felton (pic of Jill standing on Beau's (dog) face.
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Post by Denethor on Apr 15, 2010 0:02:42 GMT -5
Point. I'll consider that. "Denethor Spinoza" - I kind of like that, even if M smacks me. I visited the pork brains plant this morning - Gawd'z own truth - and may never sleep again, so expect plenty of participation from me in whatever online fora I visit.
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