content

After the negativity of my previous posts, I thought I should let you all know that I'm content right now.

Yes, I'm still feeling overworked. No, I'm not entirely happy with my job at the moment.

But kcprogrammer drove across town to take me out to lunch today. It's a beautiful, warm day. And it was a beautiful lunch. Just what I needed. Thanks.

office space repeats

Dom Portwood: Hello, Peter. What's happening? We need to talk about your TPS reports.
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. The coversheet. I know, I know. Uh, Bill talked to me about it.
Dom Portwood: Yeah. Uh, did you get that memo?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah. I got the memo. And I understand the policy. The problem is, I just forgot this one time. And I've already taken care of it so it's not even a problem anymore.
Dom Portwood: Yeah. It's just that we're putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports *before* they go out now. So if you could just remember to do that from now on, that'd be great. All right!

Trade out the memos with emails, and this is my work reality.

Yes, people, I got the freakin' email. Yes, I've talked to that person. Yes, I know; the person who told you already told me. It's already be handled/dealt with/fixed/controlled.

And you know this wouldn't be an issue if people were direct with each other and if we had a little open communication. But, no, instead we have to try to hint at what we want, and when we don't get what we want, we complain to someone marginally higher up, which just confuses the whole thing because she doesn't understand the issue. And then I just end up even more freakin' annoyed.

isolation

I've been feeling a bit alone at work lately. My two fellow editors who sit on either side of my cubicle wall are a tight little duo. They talk throughout the day using instant messaging. On my right I'll hear a giggle and typing then a few moments later the response giggle and typing on my left.

It's like being in the middle of a conversation without being able to hear a word of it.

And then the two teamed up to ask to go to a journalism conference. Someone must be able to cover for an editor when she is gone, so only two of us could go to this conference. The slots were filled even before I knew they were open.

I don't mean to make is sound like they were working behind my back. They're nice, friendly girls who know how to play the game of getting what they want. I don't know how to play the game.

I just feel very alone and on the outside here sometimes.

you down with opp?

Well, I hope you aren't down with OPP in the Naughty by Nature way. OPP, in this instance at least, stands for Overland Park Police. And let me tell you, a few weeks ago, I definitely was not down with OPP when one of them pulled me over for speeding.

I went to the courthouse on Tuesday to get my ticket reduced to a nonmoving violation. OP requires you to see a prosecutor and then a judge, which seems like a waste of resources to me. I was pleasantly surprised that they didn't even make me pay double my fine (almost, but not quite). Apparently, OP isn't down with big OPProfit.

Other cities just have you mail in double the fine. The ticket in the first place was mostly about making the city a bit of money, so the doubling of that is just icing to the city coffers. But OP doesn't have me pay double and lessens its profits by adding in need for courtroom, prosecutor and judge time.

A side thought from when I was waiting for my 3.5 seconds in front of the judge: The majority of the duties of the cop who pulled me over, the prosecutor who reduced my ticket and the judge who approved it are centered around making money for the city via these "violations." I wondered if they felt inferior to other cops, prosecutors and judges who they see dealing with real crime and delinquency. I wondered if they felt they were being used in the same way I feel my (and many of my fellow editors feel their) editorial talents are being used simply for the advertisers' gain. (Forgive my negativity on my profession; I just finished writing up more than 100 product descriptions.)

purveyor of porn

One of the links in my e-newsletter today was missing the letter s. The product name wasn't plural, so I didn't think anything about the web address not being plural. I checked to make sure the link worked. It did. It had a beautiful picture of a beach scene. I went on with my work.

An hour ago, I got an email warning me to check my links. Apparently, without that s in the address, readers are taken to an adult photography site. I swear it doesn't look like a porn site when you open it!

So I had to go tell my boss before he heard it from someone else. Thankfully, after explaining the situation and him looking at the correct website and the incorrect one — and my assurance that it wasn't on the actual email readers received and only on the website, where it was corrected within hours — he gave a little chuckle and said he saw how that could happen. And if he were the one making the product, he'd change the name.

Whew! I'm glad one of my co-workers urged me to tell him myself. If he had heard it first from a reader or that company, he would have been irate.

But a few luck old men got to go to a porn site as part of their efforts to keep up on their industry.

*embarrassed*

i think i'm paranoid

I had one of those nights where I go to sleep at 10ish, sleep hard and wake up thinking it's 6ish, but it's only 1ish. I usually have a hard time convincing my body that it should be sleeping; last night it was even harder.

I had woken up from this crazy, vivid dream. It had a bit of a "War of the Worlds" feel to it, except the invaders were kind of like rays of light. Anyway, the dream centered on this small group of children, who, of course, were somehow the only ones miraculously saved when the final extermination came. Then the rays of light came to inspect their new world. They bumped into the children, seemed surprised the kids had survived and were about to leave it at that when one of the kids — the oldest of the boys — started yelling at the rays of light.

Now, granted, he had every right to be mad. Those kids were the only humans left. But given the killing power these other beings had already shown, picking a fight really wasn't such a good idea.

The rays of light had, initially, thought of making friends with the kids — they could be entertainment, perhaps, like pets or something — but then one of them got angry — so distasteful. Well the kid was lucky, the rays of light simply decided to swear off the humans and ignore them. The boy swore to do the same. I seem to remember one of the girls trying to bring the two sides together, but neither would speak. The two groups moved to different areas. And then the dream morphed.

The children went to where another human was in hiding. It was a very old man, so old and withered he was nothing but bones with skin that looked like it was barely holding onto the man's frame. Visually, he would have been a terrific evil character, but he wasn't. He was more like the town's wise grandfather.

He sat and spoke with them, leaning to his right side, which looked as if it all blurred into an unrecognizable mass of tattered cloth and matted hair with no recognizable bone structure underneath. He made gestures as he spoke with his left hand. The arm was long and thin, the skin very pale. From a distance it looked like a skeleton's arm. And one had to wonder how he could possibly have the muscle strength to move his limbs at all.

Before this riddle was solved, the grandfather attempted to right himself. His long hair looked to be attached somewhere around where his arm should be as well as at his head. It looked somewhat like thick ribbons of dark, dripping molasses. Under the heavy blanket of cloth, if one looked hard enough, there was almost a structure that could be his right limb. If it was, he held it close to him and never used it.

He got up, began to walk around. He was trying to impart a few last directions to them before his death. The children told him that he'd survived when the rest of the world hadn't, and this was not the time to die. They needed him, they cried. But as they continued to watch as he talked, they saw the end. His shoulder bone came sliding out from his left side, elongating his arm when he made jerky movements.

Then there was a loud noise. They were coming. The children had to hide. The old man told them that they must leave him behind. They were sad, but also relieved not to have to see his gruesome skeleton.

At this point I woke up and realized that the loud noise was a beep coming from somewhere in the apartment. I couldn't figure out where. I tried to go back to sleep. I worried that someone had broken into the apartment. I went to the living room to check that the bar was down on the balcony door. It wasn't. I tried to go back to bed. But I worried about the safety of my documents and other belongings.

I heard the beep again. The smoke detector? What if there was carbon monoxide. We could die in our sleep. But nothing in the apartment runs on gas, and we don't have a carbon monoxide detector to beep at us. But what if there was carbon monoxide somehow? We don't have a detector. The air, at this point, began to smell a little odorous. (And, yes, I know that carbon monoxide doesn't carry a scent, but I'm in crazy land right now.)

Why was the smoke detector beeping? Were the batteries running low? When was the last time we'd checked to see if it was working properly? Had we ever checked? What if there was a fire somewhere in the apartment building? What if it was on the other side of the building? I then thought about how we didn't have renter's insurance. None of this stuff is covered. And then I thought about key records and papers. They need to be handy to grab them and run out in case of a fire. But they need to be locked away in a safe in case of a burglar.

But a safe doesn't do any good if it isn't bolted into the floor or some other sturdy structure. I then wondered about bolting one to the floor in my closet. Would the floor hold? Or would the intruder simply be able to rip it from the plywood? Perhaps I needed a thick board that ran the length of the closet. Would bolting it to that help?

But back to the fire concern, I needed to be able to quickly open the safe and pull those files out. Oh, and then there are my pictures from childhood in the box just above. Should I take it and drop it off the balcony in an attempt to save them? Would that hamper the firefighters? Well, maybe it wouldn't if the fire was on the other side of the building.

Then I pictured my roomie and I trying to escape from the balcony. We are not as limber as Rick, who so nimbly showed how vulnerable we were to an intruder. Was I being petty and selfish to try to save my stuff? It is just stuff after all — but what about my laptop and my journals filled with my thoughts and story ideas?

Realizing this line of thought was silly and not conducive to sleep, I tried once again to push away all of these thoughts and sleep. The beep again. I'm sure at this point it's the smoke detector. About ever 10 minutes. Probably low on batteries. Don't want to disturb my roomie by checking it now. Must remember to mention it to her. And I readjusted the covers and went to sleep.

This morning, I didn't notice the beeping.

a short break

Work's been busy. And it will probably stay that way through April. I've been working in e-newsletter hell today. I'm such a print girl at heart. I'm trying to embrace this digital medium, but some parts of the process of getting from idea to internet are just ugly, boring and stupid.

I say this because I, of course, am more comfortable with the familiar. On an up internet note, my chapter blog is doing well. I added a link to the site feed — which I should consider doing for this blog — today, as well as adding a post with a follow up question after our meeting yesterday.

I've asked the other board members to help get the ball rolling and post their comments. Somehow I think I may be waiting on that for a while. Some of the board members can be a bit slow to act at times. The positive to that is that all my work will help give me a good position me for the vice president spot on the board next year.

And now for to Valentine's Day notes:
First, I found out that the husband who I wrote about in "flower points, part two" is a faithful reader of my blog, which tickled me. Also relating to that post, the guy who sent the flowers to the girl got an excited phone call of thanks. And my roomie did finally get her flowers — roses not daisies, but still flowers and quite pretty.

Kcprogrammer confessed to being outdone on this one, but he reasoned that was OK considering his past record and the flowerless record of my roomie's boy. (My roses, by the way are lovely. I didn't have the right vase to properly show them off at the time, but have since done a change out and the roses are sitting pretty.)

Second, kcprogrammer noted that AT had made a post about the 14th on her blog, and my blog was postless on the topic. For those who don't want to know Valentine's details (i.e., Big-Bold-D), stop reading here. For the rest of you, I had a nice, quiet evening with my sick boyfriend. Yes, he's sick in the head — well in the ears-nose-throat part of the head. But he came over anyway (he's so sweet) laden with gifts (he's too good to me) and did a fair job of pretending to be impressed by my ability to bake from a Dunkin Hines box (he's such a liar).

We ordered Wheat State and ate our favorite pizza, Pa's Barnyard, while watching my favorite movie, Amélie (he's such a sport). Then he went home to rest and recuperate, and I went to sleep hugging the cutest little furry stuffed animal. I'm pretty sure he's a dog, though there's a slight chance he's a bear. ;)

sleep work

I slept well last night. Now, I know that this isn't something worth posting for most people. But the fact that I went to bed at 11 p.m. and basically slept until 5:30 a.m. is a pretty amazing thing for me.

And I'd like to know why.

I wasn't calm or relaxed. In fact, I'd been riled up all day. Kcprogrammer probably thought I was half insane with my broken thoughts and jumping topics. (For the record, I am 1/6th insane, which--while higher than for most--is within the acceptable range.)

For comparison, the previous nights were the tossy, turny, sweaty affairs with all the appearances of periods of deep sleep but none of the benefits.

So what made last night different? Perhaps it's similar to the whole "How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a Tootsie Pop." The world may never know.

flower points, part two

The Rose Next to a Rose
Originally uploaded by theCallowQueen.

I am so impressed with one of my male friends right now. He is contemplating sending flowers to a girl at her office for Valentine's Day. His actual plans for implementation needed a bit of refinement, and thankfully he ran his idea past a few females before he acted.

I don't mean to sound harsh on men here. I simply mean that you boys can be awfully clueless as to how to impress a girl. And we girls are simply clueless as to how you cannot understand what is so innately obvious to us. It's just a confusing cycle of confusion.

(If you're trying to remember what the original "flower points" post was about, you can read it here. And if you want to see some of the pretty roses my boyfriend has picked out for me, you can see them all here. Yeah, I made them into a slideshow. I'm a dork. And I have another set of roses to add to that bunch.)

Anyway, so my friend has the germ of a brilliant idea. This is something I'd been thinking about, actually. With the expectation of roses on Valentine's Day, how is a guy to separate himself from the pack? How can he impress his girl without having to shell out the big bucks at a jewelry store? (Not to mention the monumental task of trying to pick out something at said store.) The answer: Add a little twist to the expected. Instead of giving her the roses that night when you see her, why not have the roses at her work that morning?

One of my good friends and a former co-worker gets roses from her husband every year delivered to her at work. She beams. It's their special thing. And what's even better, it's their special thing that she gets to show off. The expensive show-off route is, of course, found at that jewelry store. The items there are what roses are not: portable--and sparkly. Anyway, back to the beaming and the placement of the roses at work instead of the dining room table. The women all ohh and ahh and comment on how thoughtful her husband is and she gets to reply with praises about how sweet and good to her he is--and so you don't go into sugar shock from all this sweetness, I'll stop here.

So when I was listening to my 53rd commercial on the radio enticing men to such-and-such store for their Valentine's Day roses, I pictured the mad rush. The swarm of men all after the same thing, each thinking that he must give his woman roses in order to not look like a schmuck. And that's when I thought about my friend who gets flowers at work and how other guys could earn points with that. Then I thought of posting these thoughts on my blog.

I didn't at the time because I didn't want this post to imply that this is what I personally wanted or, more important, expected to receive this Feb. 14. (Although I'm also not saying that it isn't what I personally want. Considering this is my first Valentine's Day where I'll have a real valentine, I could go crazy with hyped up demands and expectations. But that just wouldn't be fair to the poor boy, now would it?) Then a week later that guy friend of mine actually thought of the idea himself, and the brilliance of it came back to me. And I had to post--rambling though it may be today.

The whole rose thing really is a bit out of hand. My roomie would say to skip the roses and give her daisies. (And I really wish that her boyfriend would read this and get the hint. Sadly, I don't think he reads this blog, and he's already been practically bludgeoned with hints.) And I, of course, am annoyed by the consumer obsession but at the same time want what everyone else has--if not more. So, going with that all I really want is an evening alone with my boyfriend where I can simply enjoy his company, but if there happened to be bells and whistles, I wouldn't shut my eyes or cover my ears.

But I'm getting away from my point: Girls like getting surprise presents delivered to them at work where they can show them (and you by extension) off to their co-workers. In fact, this works even better on non-Valentine's Day days.

blog cheating

Yes, I've been busy. No, I haven't updated this blog very often in recent weeks. No, I haven't been keeping up with others' blogs. (And for that I'm sorry. I'll catch up soon.) But I would be lying to say that I hadn't been blogging. In the between times of my busy schedule, I've been working on creating a blog for an editing association I'm involved with.

I'm quite proud of my work. (Send me an email if you'd like the address to my new blog.) And it's turning out to be a great opportunity for me to learn more about html and coding and all that jazz. Plus, I think it looks cool and that I created some clever workarounds to limitations imposed by the blogging format.

The woman who runs the group's national website wrote to me yesterday saying that the blog looks so complete that she'd like to take down the static page for our chapter (which she maintains) and replace it with my chapter blog. I feel so honored. She and another member are both working on blogs for their respective chapters. I'm riding the front of the wave. It feels really cool.

In many ways, creating a blog is like creating a magazine. I get that same addicted rush to work on the product and then that same giddy feeling when my baby is ready to be presented to the masses. Of course, after the creation and initial presentation period, they are quite different. There are no do overs in the world of print. And while the ability to later change, manipulate and perfect may be attractive, it is deadly to a perfectionist like me. I can fine tune from sun up to sundown and still find more that I'd like to tweak and alter.

So in all my tweaking and altering, I've neglected this blog. And then, when I come to finally post, I sit and stare. What to write? When one has neglected someone or something for a long period of time, reconnecting becomes harder. The longer I go without posting, the more memorable and deep I feel the subject matter must be when I finally do make that post. But that pressure pushes me to avoid posting. And the nasty cycle begins. (YellowDancer21 has been having similar issues with updating her blog.)

So an update on me: I've been busy. And I've found that in being busy I lose the ability to think and write about the broader world around me. My observations are limited to the minutiae, the elements of the tasks before me (read: BORING). Right now, I could give a very thorough discussion on pens and the inks within them. If you ever want a comparison chart...

And, since I know you are all secretly asking, yes, things are still good with the boy. He still hasn't run away screaming from my craziness nor has he mutated into an unbearable, rude jackass -- the two most common relationship enders. So, I'm thinking I may just keep him around awhile.