Category Archives: Diary

In Which She Muses On Stress

I know I haven’t been terribly communicative, but it’s my sandbox, and I’ll play when I want to. Expect me to be very absent over the weekends, because I simply have no time or inclination to fire up BiFrost, Computer of the Gods after three solid days of teaching.

It’s been a pretty exhausting weekend. Apart from the teaching of four three-hour classes, there was a birthday gathering, and three separate stressful situations that I was involved in or peripheral to. The highly ironic aspect of the weekend was courtesy of the stress-management lecture I gave, and the subsequent lecture I taught on how to function as an effective counsellor.

(See, Tal? Those ten-plus years of offering you tea after a break-up gave me training! Thanks!)

I will not go into details, because all of it’s confidential. As a priestess and a teacher I function as a counsellor, and I stick to a counsellor’s rules of engagement. I can, however, offer you my basic conclusions:

A) People in general have to smarten up and become aware that there are other individuals in the world around them who matter too. Grow out of the six-year-old I’m-the-centre-of-the-universe identity thing, and join the adult perception of cause and effect. Please.

B) Common sense is all too uncommon. I think it’s connected to (A) somehow.

C) Taking advantage of others just sucks, okay?

D) While it’s acceptable to feel tear-limb-from-limb anger, acting on it is a no-no.

Today is dreary and I have candles lit to help cheer things up while I read an excellent book for review. If anyone wants to take a look at how and why a Wiccan ritual is set up the way it is, read Deborah Lipp’s Elements of Ritual.

I’m also reading Sarah Water’s Fingersmith, a stunningly well-plotted and -written work about a Victorian underworld scheme to liberate an heiress from her fortune. I’m taking Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Avatar in small mouthfuls to savour it, unlike my consumption of the previous two books in the series when they were released. And I’m still going at Hermione Lee’s Virginia Woolf and Lucasta Miller’s The Bronte Myth. The latter isn’t so much a biography as an examination of the whole marketing/legend that has grown about the Bronte family. Fascinating stuff, if you’re a literature addict or a Victorian pop culture nut (score two for me!).

I think I’ll go for a walk. Fresh air, some rain, exercise, maybe the used book store.

Argh

I realise that I haven’t ranted about my latest “it’s not fair” experience. Prepare for Rant Mode.

Now that I’ve started wearing my glasses 95% of the time, I’ve discovered that one pair is not enough. Why? Because if I take them off at night they get left on the bedside table when I toddle off to work the next morning, or by the computer, or — once — beside the computer at work.

So! Responsible Autumn locates her last set of frames and resolves to have up-to-date lenses made for them. She shops around.

My prescription isn’t that high, and I don’t need progressive lenses or bifocals or anything fancy. All I need is basic lenses with anti-glare so my computer screen doesn’t slay my vision.

I’m still going to have to pay between $160 and $210 for a new set of lenses.

Slowly it penetrated into my stunned brain and I remembered why I usually buy new frames as well. It’s not that much more expensive.

I ranted at my husband for a while, and then decided that I’d look into contact lenses. If I have to be wearing the things most of the time anyway, I might as well. I’ll need an optometrist appointment, but they might end up being cheaper. And I certainly won’t leave them in odd places. Then my current glasses become my back-up vision enhancers.

It’s worth a try. It might be hopeless, but at least I’ll know.

I think the most frustrating aspect of the situation is that I’m trying to be responsible by having a second pair with me. It’s akin to replacing socks with holes, or buying new underwear: it shouldn’t be this expensive.

So when I found this quiz on Roo’s blog this morning I took it, and now I feel much better, because it’s really me.

My inner child is ten years old today

My inner child is ten years old!

The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether
I’m off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost
in a good book, or giggling with my best
friend, I live in a world apart, one full of
adventure and wonder and other stuff adults
don’t understand.

How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

When Worlds Collide

Oh. My. God.

Neil Gaiman sent me my next story assignment.

No, I don’t mean I’ve been inspired by something he wrote or a quote on his blog. Nothing so abstract.

There was a postcard in my mailbox this afternoon from Neil Gaiman. And he used green ink in his fountain pen.

The address part was, of course, filled in with Ceri’s neat printing. I expect that this is her delicious secret. I thought that it had something to do with Scott’s birthday, but apparently not.

I’m rather stunned.

Oh, the topic?

A line of people that never ends…

Which, when you think about it, really sums up the moment in which it was written.

Briefly

Despite my quiet monitor, dual hard drives and new cordless ergonomic keyboard, I’m still having anti-computer issues, so here’s a summary of Life in General:

Regarding that ergo keyboard: things are just a bit off, and I keep hitting odd buttons, which creates situations where I have to go back and delete or re-type. My arms and shoulders are happy, though.

I think the US publisher still hasn’t received my press packet and NDA. I’m mildly stressed, and I can’t locate the tracking tag that the post office gave me. My desk has been cleaned a couple of times, new equipment has been installed, and the apartment has been thrown into turmoil twice over the last week for various reasons, so it could be anywhere (except the places I’ve looked, apparently), or even thrown out.

My doctor is so pleased with how things are going that I no longer have to see her monthly. We’re down to quarterly.

For some reason, now that the weather is tolerable, my allergies are hitting hard and fast. Thank the gods for Reactin.

The Kim Possible DVD contains four episodes only. Fortunately they were all episodes I hadn’t seen, so I loved it from start to finish. I’ve enjoyed later episodes from the first season more, though.

The new electric baseboard heaters were finally installed yesterday. The wire they used is bright red, to indicate that it’s a live wire. The landlady wanted the cheapest and fastest labour possible, so the wire is just stapled to the ceiling as opposed to set behind baseboards or fished through the ceiling. It looks terrible, and the electrician agrees. We call them our apartment go-fast stripes.

First classes of all three sessions went well over the weekend. It feels like we’re right back in the swing of things, as if we never had a summer break.

I found two second-hand books I’d been looking for. Hurrah!

Enough!

Mumbles and Mutters

I want a mouse with a scroll wheel set into it. I use one at work and I love it.

I want an optical mouse. I now hate my mouse cord. I’m still considering a light tablet.

I want to try an ergonomic keyboard. I almost had a free one, but it won’t work for various reasons.

I need to put new lenses in my previous pair of glasses, because now that I’ve started wearing glasses all the time, I take them off and forget them in odd places. My glasses on the coffee table at home do not help me when I’m sitting in an office staring at a computer screen. (Two pairs of glasses might mean I lose them twice as often, but at least I’ll have increased my chances of having an operational pair close to hand.)

The Kim Possible: Secret Files DVD was released this week, as was the second season of Angel, and the second season of 24 comes out on DVD next week. Either studios are counting on the arrival of student loans across North America, or it’s all an evil plot to keep me in abject poverty. (What? You didn’t know that I’m a huge Kim Possible fan? So huge that I want a new cell phone so it can beep like her pager? Yes, I’m a geek. Sue me. How can I not love a show with a theme song that begins, “I’m just an average girl/And I’m here to save the world”?)

I’m tired of slow dial-up, and I want high-speed or DSL.

And the problem with waking up before dawn is that you’re ready to do things like banking and shopping before banks and shops are open. Drat.

Autumn PotPourri:

Over the past three days my back has developed that nasty kink in it that had me lying on the floor eighteen months ago. I’m trying to avoid movements that trigger the intense pain, but I forget sometimes and yelp embarrassingly. This isn’t so bad at home, where there are only cats to look at you condescendingly, but when you’re freelancing in an office, people turn around.

My press packet and the NDA haven’t reached the US publisher. I’m a smidge anxious. It should have been there by Wednesday.

There are five books at my local secondhand bookstore that I covet. Problem is, they’re all ten dollars or so. They’re trade paperbacks, so I ought to look at the encouraging fact that fifty dollars is significantly less than the hundred dollars or more that I’d pay for them new, and all of them are in mint condition. I do have a paycheque that needs to be deposited, and a morning free today. Hmm…

I woke up at 4 AM so I got up and began sorting through all my teaching stuff. Yes, CMS level 1 sessions begin again tonight! I love beginning classes again; I meet new people, discover new points of view, and refresh my own knowledge as we go. Then I get to do it again tomorrow morning with another level 1 group. Saturday afternoon, though, I get to start a new level 2 group, which will include several of my past level 1 graduates (Joy!), and on Sunday I have a level 3 group of equally marvellous ex-level-2 students. (Yes, if you think all of that through, I’m teaching from Friday night straight through to Sunday afternoon.) The first session of all of these ends in early February, so I’m looking forward to five months of study and watching people make new connections and acquire new skills and knowledge.

This is always a stressful time of year, though, what with people scurrying about and re-integrating their schedules and what-not. Orchestra begins again for me next Wednesday, for example. I’m glad the weather has become sane again, at least. Everyone can be thankful for that. If you can’t get outside for half an hour, at least look out a window often!

So Much For The Vacation

Home again. It feels like I didn’t have a vacation at all.

I tried to have a nice quiet tea-hour with my oldest girlfriend this morning and we were interrupted by the electrician and three phonecalls in and two out. Then I went into work for a nice quiet session of freelance data entry and was drawn into the whirlwind that is the wholesale division. Skippy came over to do battle with newly acquired computer bits ten minutes after I got home. I’m exhausted. I’m in the process of denying the scratchy feeling in my throat and the vaguely nauseous feeling that’s been nagging at me; I refuse to be sick.

Lord Skippy has blended the guts of two computers (“Your chocolate is in my peanut butter!”) and has created a new taste sensation which I have dubbed “BiFrost, Computer of the Gods”. Two hard drives! Two! Muah-hah-hah!

I’m exhausted, so I’m stumbling off to bed. Besides, if I take off my glasses and lose them one more time I think I’ll scream.

Just wanted to let you know that I’m alive. G’night.