i'm a pixel here, myself

I am, as ever, thankful for the presence of good people in my life. Thank you all. ♥

Thanksgiving was great; had 14 people for dinner, 16 for dessert, and just generally had a great time. Roommate E and I made turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin cheesecake, and apple pie, and everything else just sort of showed up -- stuffing, squash soup, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans with almonds, brussels sprouts with chestnuts, broccoli, cornbread, rolls, pecan pie, truffles, chocolates, etc. etc. I threw the carcass in a pot after everyone had sat down and worked on the stock and the resulting soup for the rest of the night whenever I had a minute. Today: NOM NOM TURKEY SOUP. Oh, so good. Today I sort of blissed out and had two bowls of the soup :)

Today was the day you could not *pay* me to go to a store, mostly because of crazy shit like the people in NY who trampled a Walmart temp to death trying to get in the store. WHAT THE FUCK, PEOPLE. I did some e-shopping and am starting to make a list for my relatives, as they always ask me what I'd like for Christmas and I never have any idea.

Have to work a bit on Saturday AM, but then we're going rock climbing and then I will start learning music for the *other* concerts I'm going to be giving soon. Whee. J is visiting from out of town, and I'm trying (with Roommate E's help) to get her to move out here :)

a. My FRE is here! <33333333333

b. I was really, honestly trying to make a joke about having known [this] all along, and man wasn't it annoying that I kept having to explain it to women... but then I realized I would be run out of fandom WITH BURNING PITCHFORKS. So, yes. I hate to keep apologizing for my gender around here, but. Sigh.

c. Work? Really, really insane right now. I realize I keep saying the same thing, but honestly, I'm not sure how I'm managing to do everything that I'm doing. And the thing is, most of it is just random bullshit that people keep asking for and at some point I should just say "no", but I'm not that kind of person. Blah blah blah career developmentcakes.

d. Thinking about moving to the city. Yes, again. Logistics and whatnot need to be figured out first, though.

Icon by _kiden, whose pictures are wee and AWESOME. Also, nobody can resist a MacBook. I mean, really.

In related news, OMG WWDC TOMORROW. That + fiscal '09 planning = nobody sees much of me these days. I feel like I'm doing good work, but at the same time, my non-work activities have dropped-off significantly. I have two rehearsals a week, I play bridge (yes, bridge; yes, I am 80) on Wednesdays, I have friends over on Fridays, and I go rock climbing Sunday mornings. This is actually a fairly busy life, but it has taken me some time to get over that whole college thing of overextending oneself. I do miss performing more often, though.

FRE's boyfriend is here, for WWDC purposes, and FRE is flying in next weekend, so I will get to see her! I am not sure what this means for Thanksgiving (she came here for the last two Thanksgivings), but I am just happy to have my FRE around before her thesis locks her in a closet somewhere.

There is not enough Bob/Spencer. The universe should get on that for me.

I love my roommate about 80% of the time. 10% of the time she annoys me by leaving crap all over the living room, but I kind of resigned myself to that a while ago. Another 5% she's angsty or in tears, and I get annoyed, but I know how to deal with that, so it's not *so* bad. But the other 5% she gets even more hippy-dippy flower-child than normal and sings (in her high and breathy singing voice) and plays either guitar (badly) or ukulele (even worse) along with a whole variety of folk songs and Beatles tunes and some indie-pop, but she always picks *the* most annoying songs and I can hear her high, breathy voice and her high-sounding ukulele going "plink" in the other room and AIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Maybe it's time to start rethinking my living situation :-/

Um. In other news, I am fine. Work is work and I am trying to figure out how to break up with one of my singing groups. Over the weekend I made some rice with chicken stock and dill and lemon juice and it was lovely, almost risotto-like in its consistency. And then on Monday a bunch of us went to Santa Cruz for a cookout and I got some nice pictures. I think I'm getting the hang of my new camera, which is good because I leave for Alaska four weeks from Thursday.

This Friday my team is having a barbecue at my boss's boss's house, which, it turns out, is five blocks from my apartment. WEIRD. But it's partly to welcome my real boss back from maternity leave and partly to bid farewell to my temporary boss. And that same day I get to interview my first person; should be interesting! And then the following week I have my first one-on-one meeting with my real boss in... nearly five months. I will have a lot to tell her, including the fact that there are some shenanigans on my team currently in re: power games.

It is Tuesday and it feels like Thursday already. Oof.

1.

Ick, ick, ick.

2. At work we've started planning for FY09 (yeah, next fiscal year. yeah, it doesn't start until October.) and our finance controller decided to change some of our fundamental assumptions less than four hours before he wanted our base plan submitted. Needless to say, that's not happening. We have until noon tomorrow, which is still less than 24 hours to turn this around. If I go silent for a long stretch of time? It's because I've been driven insane by how fast they expect us to make revisions when they change our bedrock assumptions. FUN TIMES.

3. Auditions I have this week:
Thursday - SFS Chorus for Mahler 8
Saturday - Into the Woods
Sunday - Altar Boyz

In summary, Bob Bryar, how so hot?

My subject line sounds like the title of a Panic! song. I leave that without comment.

FRE's boyfriend J is leaving us. He's going back to Scotland to live with FRE and they're going to be adorable. The downside: now they're BOTH in Scotland. At least while J was here, that meant visits by FRE. Now that he's leaving... I will have to come up with cunning plans to get them to come back and visit! And, you know, go to Scotland myself. :D

Music rehearsal continues to be sort of "eh", but our music director told me I didn't have to come to rehearsal for the rest of the week because I seem to have my shit together, musically. I can tell I'm impressing him, which is nice. Now on to that "acting" thing, which I don't do nearly as well :-/ At least our first four acting rehearsals are stage combat! I will learn to throw a fake punch with the best of them, and hopefully will learn how to Fall Properly.

Um. It was definitely a Monday today. What happy and good things happened in your collective world today, flist?

Also, have some ( random pretty )

There, that's better.

Um. So J and I were horsing around, with him trying to get to the unbaked cookie dough on the counter and me trying to prevent him from going through the kitchen door, and when I succeeded in smacking him back against the living room wall, his elbow went through the window. It's a surprisingly thin window, which explains a lot about my heating bills in the winter. Now I have to call my apartment's handyman and see how long it's going to take him to come replace the damn thing.

The moral of the story is: if the host says "don't eat my cookie dough raw, motherfucker", you don't eat the raw cookie dough. Motherfucker.

I love that US magazine thinks things like [this] are news. But really? Yay Nick! I still love the little goober. And he's looking DAMN fine these days.

Also, it rained here this morning. And work continues to be awesome yet composed of terrifying database problems. Whee?

Two more sleeps to Potter Friday! That's what my friends and I are calling this Friday, where we're going to see OotP at the theater, then zooming over to the bookstore to pick up DH. Then I will stay up all night reading and go to rehearsal exhausted on Saturday. \o/

A few things:

1. [WHAT. THE. FUCK.] No, I will not calm down. Who on EARTH greenlighted this monstrosity? With apologies to the gayest not-gay-that-we-know-of member of *NSYNC, that song sucked the first time; we've got to hear it AGAIN? Also, ::bites tongue to stop from ragging on Panic::

2. I gotta say, Bass, your taste in [boyfriends] is improving.

3. My across-the-tiny-back-alley-where-our-trash-cans-are neighbors have changed. I can tell because they keep leaving the bathroom window open. This isn't a problem for them, since the window is at head-height, but it's a problem for ME. How, you ask? That window looks directly in my *bedroom* window, and while my bed is below the window far enough that I'm not worried about them seeing me while I'm in bed, I am not always fully clothed in my room. Imagine my surprise, therefore, when stark-naked me glanced across the way and met the eyes of the guy over there in the bathroom who had just finished his shower. I would cover the window, but it's summer; it's hot! I need my cross-apartment airflow. Thoughts?

4. It is generally a Bad Thing when the order database decides to be wretchtarded all day. ::pounds back the Advil::

5. I haff more questions to answer; those are coming in a minute. Feel free to keep 'em coming, though! (Or leave a comment saying you want questions; those are good, too.)

Ambitious plan for today ended in failure. Really, I blame Roommate E, who managed to get sick and sleep half the day, meaning that every time I wanted to do the vacuuming, she was asleep. But we did buy groceries, including a metric fuckton of fresh basil and some pippin apples. The plan was: make a lot of pesto, then make an apple pie. Of course, E got sick instead.

But we did make the pesto. It's awesome on sourdough. And pasta. And tortillas. And... most everything, really. (oh god, YUM.) And today was the most gorgeous all year -- and no end in sight for this weather pattern. ROCK.

Now is the time on Sprockets when we plan for tomorrow:
* interview at 3pm (late lunch with D, J, etc.?)
* vacuuming
* rehearsal
* enjoy all this freaking gorgeous weather

Yep, I think that's a Plan.

I am done with work. No, really. Friday was my last day. I suppose if you want to get technical, my last day is April 6, but for the next four weeks I'm on vacation. Which means being able to sleep in, go to the gym, hunt for jobs, cook healthy food, (write fic?), and get paid for it. It feels so *liberating*. Tonight's get-together with my group of friends was awesome: deep-dish pizza from Patxi's, talking, laughing, playing games. It felt like the best of times. In a twist on the expected, I paid for the pizza (the party email's tagline: "I'm unemployed, so I'm buying you dinner!") and only got a couple of "...wait a minute!" emails :D Such oddities are typical of me, I guess.

The company I've been interviewing with hasn't called me back yet, despite assurances on Tuesday that I'd hear back in "a couple of days". Since their HR department is pretty fastidious, I'm just going to assume that they've got committees and such to go through before they can tell me anything. It doesn't help that their HR department is also notoriously slow. Meanwhile, of course, I am gnawing my arm off.

I have a dozen unanswered comments in my inbox. I apologize. I will get to them tomorrow, when it is not 1:15 a.m. and I am not struggling to form coherent sentences.

I posted a story last night. [everybody knows, it sucks to grow up]. Don't ask me why I posted on a Saturday night, when everyone and his brother was probably out partying. These things just happen. It's Fall Out Boy fic, but... not. It's complicated. I'm sure the three people who've read it would say "it's not complicated; it's futurefic!" but that is *so* not my approach to this story at all. ::hands:: Suffice it to say, Pete Wentz has a daughter, and she's exactly like you'd expect, but the story's not all about her, either.

ANYway. Yesterday I was in the blackest of funks, and now I'm a bit cheerier. I just picked up some super-cheap organic basil, so there's pesto in my future, as well as helping A put together some IKEA furniture. Next week is my last week of work, the show is awesome, tomorrow is the first day for rpfremix signups... not everything in the world is bad. I've been very moodswing-y recently, and I think it's due to job hunting taking all the energy out of me, but if it continues after I'm settled into a new job... well, we'll burn cross that bridge when we come to it, yes?

( my day: a photo essay by Drew, age 24 years, 10 months )

So as you can see, my day was pretty nice. What did YOU do today, friendslist?

Weather is so weird. I called my grandmother, for her birthday, and find out that her house and yard are covered in snow with layers of ice interspersed. I, on the other hand, am in shorts and a t-shirt, as it was freaking 75 degrees here today. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, bringing the temperature back down to highs around 60, but man, today was *gorgeous*.

In job news, the HR woman from the company I interviewed with on Thursday called me at work on Friday to tell me that other people in the department want to talk to me about another job opportunity there -- one that would use my analysis skills, which is what I'm looking for. Now I'm really psyched about the possibility of working there doing something that's not customer service. We'll see how this turns out, but it's my best lead in *months*.

I'm generally in an "I don't want to deal with people" mood, which is not fair to the revolving cast of characters crashing on my futon, but them's the breaks. I expect I'll be back to something resembling normal in a few days.

So the thing that *really* irks me about the job search is that most companies don't feel they have to call or email you when they decide to hire someone else. I've now had this happen on two separate occasions -- I call back after the appropriate amount of time, and they say "oh, sorry, we filled the position" or "oh, we moved that position up to director-level" or some other variation on that. If you simply submitted a resume, fine. Not a big deal. But if they dragged you in for an in-person interview? I feel like that deserves at least an email. Hell, it could be a mass-email, for all I care. I just want them to TELL me.

Ahem. So it's Monday and I'm grumpy about this job situation. Everyone tells me "it's a good thing that you're getting interviews!" and... it is. But it's hard to get excited about getting interviews when it means being constantly "on" and then getting ignored. Now it's back to the drawing board, with my list of places to look rapidly dwindling.

RIGHT. In "things are happy" news, Roommate E got a VCR for free the other day, and she spent an hour or so yesterday watching Jeeves and Wooster and making her students brightly-colored valentines while I was preparing dinner (mmm, fried rice). It amuses me that as I go technologically forward (with the Wii), she's going backward. Yesterday we had lovely weather -- warm enough to open up the apartment for a while and get some air flowing -- and this morning it's cold and I'm shivering in my sweater on my bike ride to work. Oh, Bay Area weather. ♥ Oh! And it's almost The Day After Mid-February Day! ::rubs hands together, gleefully anticipating cheap Conversation Hearts::

So, first, leggyslove had a couple pictures I hadn't seen: ( Sam + gun, boys in HUGE COATS )

Second, Roommate E continues to amuse me. Phone call, three minutes after she and her boyfriend have left the apartment: "What does 'prurient' mean?" ::facepalm::

Third, the interview! It went smashingly, I think -- the last guy I interviewed with, who was my contact to this job, was very candid with me: I'm their most qualified candidate, but his boss is worried about hiring me because he thinks I might be OVERqualified and might jump ship after only a month or two. I sent a very nice thank-you email to him saying basically "thank you and your team for interviewing me; the position sounds perfect for where I am right now and I sincerely hope you consider me as a candidate." I hope to know within the week.

I have done all the calculations to figure out what I will and will not accept in terms of their offer to me: it's got to be more than the value of my salary and benefits from my current job, plus a bit more to compensate me for the hassle of commuting. It also happens to be somewhere around the 2/3 mark in the scale of what they were offering. Here's hoping for that top third!

Has it come across that I really just want to get hired?

For those of you in need of an excess of cute: [try this].

Today was much better, if only because I have been getting Out Of The Apartment and getting things done. I talked to the boy briefly this afternoon, and a longer talk is in the cards for tonight. I am doing laundry. I am returning to the competent, capable person I know I am. This is also making me feel much better about my interview tomorrow (!) because if I can do laundry and go grocery shopping, I can tackle this interview. (Note: not "this interviewER", as I was originally going to write -- that would probably result in me NOT getting the job.) God. I thought weekends were supposed to be relaxing, not stressful.

To that end, I'm taking the roommate and her boyfriend to Fry's this evening. Hopefully, I will find something to amuse myself that I can purchase with some of my Christmas money. I'm really waiting on the Wii, but until they're readily available, I will have to make do with something else. I think the roommate wants Myst III.

Hi, really not thinking about that interview tomorrow.

Also, who can get me a really ginormous version of [this]? I may be grinning like a fool over this new development.

Debits:

First day back at work in three weeks, and it decides to rain. Oh, the suckitude. Then there's the work side: phone calls, rearranged priorities, the whole bit. And one of my bosses wants something by tomorrow. RIGHT. Thank god this is a two-day workweek.

I just sent a note to my dentist, authorizing him to charge my credit card $650. All because I'm an idiot who can't read the fine print on how much his dental policy will pay for in a calendar year. These fillings had better damn well be awesome.

It's not even noon. ::pokes at things with sticks::


Credits:

Awesome friend A, who got me the contact that led to this job interview, just got hired by Google! And is moving back here from LA! This makes me so, so very happy.

between_names, I got your Christmas card last night. It was in a whole mess of mail that I'd had held by the post office while I was away. Thank you!

Rehearsal tonight! I haven't seen these guys in a month.

Audition dates for Jekyll and Hyde have been posted. Now I need a 1-minute monologue. And a copy of the soundtrack. Suggestions?