In which I oversleep.

It’s autumn, which means it’s getting cooler and I’ve been a little bit congested and sleepy for the past week. I always get this way when the season changes.

Last night, I made vichyssoise over at KJ’s house, and we each had big bowls of it with some crusty slices of a lovely French boule with butter while watching an episode of season 2 of Doctor Who. I served the soup hot, actually, which means it wasn’t technically vichyssoise but simply potato leek soup, but the point is that it was packed with dairy fat.

I *heart* dairy fat. Oh em gee.

Then I went home and slept until 10:46 this morning. I’m supposed to be at work at eleven. Oops.

In other (knitting) news, I’ve started the second (and final!) sleeve of my Big Brown Sweater and should be wearing it soon! (It’s only been on my needles for twenty-two months.) The yarn is freakin’ amazing and I imagine I’ll absolutely live in the thing all winter.

I’ve also found a home for my old Denise circular needle set, the one that Teh BF’s killer b-day present superseded, the one that NLW gave me when she upgraded to the Knit Picks set herself: I’m going to ship them to Vuboq because he doesn’t have a set of interchangeable circular needles! This makes me terribly happy because I’m glad to see them going to a good home; I got a lot of use out of them while they were mine!

In which I couldn’t break one hundred to save my life.

Bowling
My bro worked for our uncle this week and scored some cash, so he invited me and Teh BF out for a drink after work last night. We went.

…and ended up bowling, via a short visit to the Crossroads (where the open mic was lame), and going to bed – drunk – at midnight. My bowling game totally sucked. I don’t think I even broke 80, let alone a bill.

Out ’til midnight! On a school night!

Work
My bro got hired by my employer. I will shortly be the only person in the office who works with both a partner and a relative.

At today’s company meeting, I got to do show & tell with my new Dalek. I passed out printouts of this, and drove my beloved R/C toy around and had it holler at my coworkers. It was freakin’ AWESOME.

Gigging
I’m pretty excited about the gig this weekend, though more for the vacation-like aspects than for the set itself.

Teh BF and I will be rolling out of here tomorrow sometime between noon and three, and driving about 4 hours to Morton, WA where we have a motel reservation. The venue is about 10 miles from the motel.

The gig’s only an hour, and it’s from 11pm-12am anyway, so we’ll see if we even have a crowd at that hour. Mostly I’m stoked to get out of town, sleep in a motel, eat brunch somewhere interesting.

Elsewise
Right now Teh BF’s momsie is in ER. He took her over there earlier because she was complaining of dizziness, chest pains, and shortness of breath. They may decide to keep her overnight, in which case Kaje may stay here this weekend and I may be going to and from the gig with the band. Which is alright, considering the reasons. I hope she’s okay.

In which there’s a not-quite-exhaustive list in no particular order.

Hormones. I’m having really bad PMS. My joints ache, my feet hurt, and anything fluffy or cute makes me want to burst into loud, theatrical, hiccoughing sobs. I don’t think you really want to know this per se, but it bears remembering when I get all dorky.

Friends. Friday night Teh BF took me out to the P&E after work and we sat at a table with people we knew and who knew us. I have friends again! I can walk into an establishment and know people!

Family. Sunday there was a little picnic in the yard. My aunt was in town for the weekend, and my other aunt drove over from Pendleton, and Kaje brought his mom over, and my uncle and his wife came, and my brother was there… I love my family very, very much. My family rocks. They may have given me all kinds of terrible genes, but they gave me some really really good ones too.

Senselessness. Some asshat attacked Vuboq in broad daylight for no apparent reason a couple of days ago. I’m pissed and worried.

Gratitude. Nearly two years ago NLW gave me some haircolor she didn’t want. I found it and put it on my head Saturday, and now my hair is a totally non-natural and groovy color!

Generosity. Last night it was unseasonably cold. I didn’t take a jacket to the fair gig because apparently I’m stupid, and after the sun went down it felt more like October than August. When I got off the bandstand, Teh BF gave me his jacket and suffered the cold himself as we walked down the midway in search of junk food rather than let me shiver. (I tried to give him his coat back several times but he wouldn’t take it.) That shit is HAWT, bitches.

In which there’s… well, not much at all.

Last night after work, we went to the P&E and had appetizers and cocktails. Then we went bowling.

Today I made soup for lunch.

I have a hangover.

In which there’s reading.

I just finished Jay Lake’s Mainspring, a fun piece of steampunk with a lovely spiritual element. I want the follow-up, Escapement, but it just came out in June and I don’t like reading hard-backed books ’cause they’re too heavy. It doesn’t appear to be available in ebook format, which sucks.

Over at Tor, they’ve got free shorts posted! Cory’s The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away is a great read, and I’m knee-deep in Down on the Farm by Charles Stross now.

Baen’s posted a YA list with links; a lot of the books are in the Free Library which means you can read ’em right now!

I *heart* sci-fi.

In which there are a few topics.

Home
Woke up this morning all cuddled up with teh BF in his bed, which we affectionately call “The Taco” because it’s 30 years old and has a ditch in the middle. The fan was going, Bindu was spread out on her pile of blankets and pillows in the corner, I was warm and comfortable and I couldn’t figure out if it was a work day or a weekend because the alarm wasn’t going off.

It turned out to be a work day, damn it.

After awhile, I got motivated enough to get vertical and take the dog out to pee. Kaje made me a cup of tea and we sat on the steps. Then there was eggs and toast, and I got dressed, and we all piled into the Buick to go drop off the dog before work.

They were driving an entire house down Alder street! Two storey, no roof, and power crews moving lines! It was pretty cool.

After changing clothes and getting my teeth brushed at home, we came to work with literally one minute to spare before our shifts began.

Work
My employer deployed home-made office dividers yesterday, so I’m now back in a corner with a little wall next to me. The dividers are dark gray, and my desk is black… it’s pretty gloomy.

Add the wretched overhead florescent lighting and it’s just like a real cubicle farm! I need a lamp in here, something with mellow incandescent lighting. The glare of the overhead’s killing me, now that all the furniture is black, but I do kinda like my little cubie.

Greed
I’m going to buy myself something electronic and cute for Xmas this year. (Like that’s a surprising announcement, eh?) To that end, I’ve been surfing the Apple store with a vengeance and I’ve updated my ThinkGeek wishlist too.

On the want list so far is a new iPod (my 30Gb is full), a new laptop or mini (because mine’s falling apart in its old age and therefore isn’t very portable, plus the sound output is hashed), or a Kindle (because while the eBook is cute, it ain’t wireless).

Also being considered are a new digital camera or a new cell phone, but those babies are pretty low on the list because I’d probably never carry a real camera – I use my phone – and phone replacement just happens when it happens and there’s no point in planning for it.

Travel
I can’t wait to go to Vegas. I can’t wait to go to Vegas. I can’t wait to go to Vegas! For my birthday!

In other news, I upgraded to Firefox 3 and my computer didn’t explode.

In which I keep you all up-to-date on all that I’m not doing!

I want a shiny new theme for this site that is both excellent and gorgeous, but I can’t find it. My graphics software is on my home machine and due to my exciting work and love life I never have time to do art, and I don’t like any theme out of the box and it all sucks and I’m sick of this theme.

On the subject of work, it’s freezing in the office and I generally wear a sweater and socks and slippers in order to not to get pneumonia. Outside, it’s August. The contrast is killing me. The work itself is, well, the work: I listen to people describe their problems, try to figure out what the hell they’re talking about, and fix it. Most of them are nice; some are rude; some are astonishingly, heart-breakingly stupid. But some of them love me, and send in emails telling management to give me perqs like – well, read it for yourself. Company cars and trips to Paris! They really, really love me!

I kinda like them too, truth be told. The only thing that would make this job better (besides moar munny) would be some chance for growth, but there’s really nowhere to go here. This isn’t an ISP as much as a connectivity reseller, so there’s no engineering department to transfer into or even a proper management echelon to claw through: the place is too small for that. In other words, I’m a first-tier support technician until I get bored and quit.

Normally I stave off boredom by carving myself niches (read: creating new departments); here, the best I can do is take on special projects that I only work on in between calls. Not really a career path, exactly, but I’ve been here nine months and I still like it. So, we’ll see. There’s always that flight attendant thing.

My love life is rockin’. We’re out of the hostage-taking phase and I sleep at home a few nights a week now, just like a real girl. We adore each other, are both complete card-carrying dorks, and it’s damn groovy. We’re going to Kelly’s tonight to bitch about work and possibly eat some fried foodz! Yay!

In other news, I tried to install Linux on the ThinkPad today, and it was an epic fail.