Girl Writes Dog

Justin: So I look at your sisters' Facebook replies to your status updates. Your family really doesn't understand your world, do they?

2010-03-04T10:41:00.001-08:00

Quick update: my placenta is low, apparently, and I find out Tuesday if I need to have a scheduled c-section or not. Hoping not, but at least if I do have to, it's something I can look back on and say, "Yeah, that was definitely a necessary procedure."

Otherwise, he's flipped over, appears to be in the correct position, and I'm at 31 o ne weeks and waiting. 42 days left of work. That's still far too many.

Lie on your back and think of England

2010-02-16T05:03:00.000-08:00

This is what happened.

A writer sends our team an irritated email, telling us that we've made mistakes that have overwritten his previously-made corrections. The corrections he needed to make are documented in what's called an "action item".

Knowing that this writer has a short fuse and is easily offended, I send an exceedingly polite reply informing him that had he actually read the action item, he would have realised that he is the one who made a mistake, and that our efforts had nothing to do with it. Not only that, but having made the mistake, he perpetrated the very mistake that he was trying to correct in the first place, ensuring that it would appear in future releases.

That's when the shit show starts.

Sara,

Let’s not start an email war.

Followed by a detailed explanation of how our process, and indeed we, are at fault.

I shrug. A coworker on my team sends an email supporting my claim, and explaining how this could all have been avoided in the first place. I re-read my email, confirm that I was professional (and correct), and leave it be. Let the egomaniac rant. A week without his furious fuming and threats to go to HR is a strange week indeed. I continue to work.

Then I get an email from our manager's manager.

I understand that tempers are flaring on both sides, and I think everyone should calm down. Breathe and count...good?

Wait, what? I was being professional. The writer in question is an established idiot and blowhard. Why am I being treated like a five-year old? Why isn't the writer in question included in this email? Why am I being told to calm down?

Oh, right. Our manager's manager (AKA MM) is deeply afraid of conflict, and subsequently sides with whoever is scarier. Being generally passive and compliant, and certainly never the type to yell at someone at work, that means I'm about to get screwed repeatedly.

My manager supports this with another email:

[Writer] is perfectly within his right to be frustrated at this situation, and an apology would have gone a long way to smoothing things over. It is not a sign of weakness to admit that you made a mistake.

You know, I wasn't even angry about this until I was suddenly told to shut up and swallow. I'm posting this for posterity. Both to show how idiotic and frustrating this workplace is, and to remind me to never, EVER, come back.

I'm also trying to work through my rage so that I don't let it get the better of me and quit. I mustn't quit, no matter what.

Plaster a the most saccharine, sarcastic smile that you own on your face, Sara, and lie on your back and think of England.

My email to Babies R Us

2010-01-15T07:11:00.001-08:00

Hi there,

I've been trying to adjust my registry online, but am having a lot of trouble, since apparently you guys have a thing for pink. About half the time I try to add a blue, or green, or yellow, or really any-colour-other-than-pink item to my registry, it defaults to adding the pink item. For example, try adding the following to a registry:

http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index.jsp?productId=3580568&kw=towel&origkw=towel&parentPage=search&f=Taxonomy/TRUSCA/2567270

And you get the following added to the registry:

http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index.jsp?productId=3582846&kw=&origkw=&parentPage=search&f=PAD/Brand%20Name%20Secondary/Especially%20for%20Baby

Not the same thing. There are now at least a dozen things I'd love to add to my registry, but I can't, because I really don't want them in pink. Most of them are in linens. Towels, sheets, stuff like that.

To put it more plainly, I want to give you my money, but I can't, because whoever coded your website, or whoever does the data entry, is appallingly lazy. Or stupid. Or lazy AND stupid. I'm really not willing to rule anything out. Maybe your "data entry person" is really just a sad little parakeet in a cage, hopelessly pecking away at a miniature keyboard attached to your main database, while it dreams of freedom in the Brazilian rainforest, and frets about what happened to the last parakeet who dared to question authority (RIP Parakeet Coder #54). Maybe its only way of expressing itself creatively is to make everything pink. You go, little parakeet #55. You go!

Anyway, it's a QC issue, please fix it.

Things they don't tell you about pregnancy

2009-12-01T04:38:00.000-08:00

1. You will have to go to the washroom a lot. "Of course," you say, cleverly. "In the third trimester, the baby will be pressing on your bladder." But NO! The hormones in your body cause this basically right from the start. And in the first and third trimesters (or in my case, second and, I'd imagine, third), you feel like you have to pee all the time, because yes, your uterus is pressing on your bladder, making it feel constantly full.

2. You won't know when you're feeling the baby or not. It's really vague, like gas, or sometimes you'll realise that you're just concentrating so hard that you're really feeling your own pulse. You can make educated guesses, but you won't know for sure until, I imagine, it looks like you'll need Ripley for your OB/GYN.

3. The nausea actually lasts for the whole pregnancy. Admittedly, mine appears to be lasting the duration at its 100% strength, but even for normal women who lose the bulk of their nausea after the first trimester, they still feel nauseous for the entire pregnancy. This ignores women who don't get nauseous at all, because they should be dragged into the street and shot.

4. If you get dehydrated, you will get debilitating stomach pain. Yeah, surprise.

5. You will really, really, really miss alcohol. Not to get drunk. Just a nice cold cider on a warm day. Or a nice cold cider because you had a shitty day at work. Or a nice cold cider because nice cold ciders are delicious.

6. The miracle of birth doesn't hit you until...I have no idea. Yeah, at first it's cool. Then you start feeling sick. Constantly. Every day. And everybody's really really happy for you. And seriously, yeah, the little pee stick had two lines on it, but you have nothing to show for it but more hours spent in bed watching Ghost Hunter reruns than you really feel comfortable about.

6a. Okay, it's pretty cool when you think you're feeling the baby. But it gets less cool when you realise it might just be that burrito you had for lunch.

7. Everyone will tell you the most horrible stories they know about childbirth and parenthood. It appears to be a hive-mind thing. Dazed-looking coworkers will tell you that they haven't slept for months, the baby threw up in their face (you'd be amazed at how often this apparently happens), and their wife's been hospitalized for a c-section scar infection, then tell you how the miracle of parenthood is the best thing that ever happened to them.

There are more, but 7 is as far as I'll go this early in the morning.

Paper coyote goes to the farm

2009-11-11T09:59:00.001-08:00

Brief baby update, to get it out of the way.

Spent the first three and a half months barfing my brains out and eating very little. Got dehydrated. Had to go to the hospital for terrible stomach pains, which apparently can happen when you’re severely dehydrated. Got an ultrasound and saw the baby. The baby mooned me. Francis didn’t get to see it, because of the swine flu, and every non-patient being left in the waiting room. (We suspect he got the swine flu after waiting for 6 hours with no news in said waiting room, but that’s neither confirmed nor provable.)

Now I’m rehydrated, mostly, and taking copious amounts of an anti-nauseant. I’m still nauseous most of the time, but I can get three meals down a day, and the atrocious taste in my mouth that apparently can come with pregnancy means that I’m chugging water.

OKAY SO.

…I really have very little left to talk about. Being sick for so long has led to me not going out at all, thus my life has been incomparably boring. When I do go out for long, I get a fever and a headache and have to sleep the rest of the day.

Being pregnant sucks, I don’t like it, and sulkily give the finger to all women who have blissful, wonderful pregnancies. I have acne, my hair is falling out (though that’s fortunately improved with the eating), and I’m tired and nauseous most of the time.

Work is truly awful, though my coworkers are lovely.

I focus on my garden next year. I want to live on a farm, you know. It’s true. A small farm, with several acres treed, and a handful more for our house, small barn, and garden. I want to grow hordes of vegetables, have an orchard of apple trees, and tangles of berry patches. In the fall I’ll let the pigs root through the whole mess, fattening up, fertilizing for the next year, and keeping the hornets down. Chickens will peck through the soil and keep away the insects and perpetual grubs. The inevitable cat (and aren’t all cats inevitable) will bask in the sun while the dog circles it warily.

There’s a truth in farming that I crave, day to day. The honesty of the sun searing my back, of herding chickens in the rain, of hastily covering tomatoes threatened by frost.

I try to not be ignorant. The first few years will likely be spent preparing a garden and raising a dog. After that, if I end up being any good, will come chickens, and perhaps pigs. I wonder if this is all a delusional fantasy, of virtuous blonde milkmaids and strapping young farmhands, where the sun always shines and mold never gets into the rye.

But damned if I don’t want to give it a thorough try.

Husky

2009-09-21T06:57:00.000-07:00

Sara: I'm just so tired. I don't want to do anything. Even cleaning's hard.
Chris: It's character building! Or it'll completely crush you.
Sara: Or both.
Chris: You'll be a well rounded husk of a person.

My day

2009-09-17T07:57:00.000-07:00

Nausea nausea nausea.
Eat.
Hey I feel a little bit bett--
BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!
Nausea nausea nausea.

Rinse and repeat.

My pregnancy thus far

2009-09-16T05:45:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of my 7th week. Tomorrow is the first day of my 8th week of pregnancy. I'm particularly counting the days, because I'm impatient for my first trimester to be over.

See, the problem with the first trimester is that it's the one where, in some ways, you feel your worst. The nausea is unbelievable, though I've only had a few days where I've been nauseous all day. Mostly I get an hour or two a day where I'm not nauseous.

As your body switches gears into baby-making-mode, it also causes extreme exhaustion. I've heard of women waking up, going to work, coming home, and going immediately to bed. It's not an exaggeration. I was doing that last week. Unfortunately now I'm so tired I can't sleep, and can only lay in bed, watching American Justice and Cold Case Files on A&E, nibbling on crackers and looking pitiful.

"But you're creating life!" say some. "It's a beautiful experience!"

No it's not. NO IT'S NOT. WHAT DO YOU KNOW?! AUGH!

Right now, it's miserable and awful, and although we very, very much wanted a baby, and I'm terribly excited (deep down inside, hidden under the nausea and the tiredness), I have nothing tangible to show for it. I haven't heard a heartbeat. No movement, obviously, since it's far too early, and the poor thing's only the size of a kidney bean.

So yeah. Sometimes I wonder if it makes me a bad mother, to dislike being pregnant, but I don't think so. Sure, it's heretical, but seriously, who wants to have the stomach flu constantly for two months? Will it be worth it? So I've been told. And when I see charming little children, my heart melts and a hand goes to my stomach, and I hope that it's really alive.

Are you alive, Bean? You're being renamed tomorrow, you know, from Lizard Baby, since apparently at your eighth week, you no longer have a tail. You should be moving, shifting and discovering muscles you didn't have a few weeks ago. Your heart--please let it beat--has moved into your chest, thrumming like a bird's wings.

Don't worry kid, it's not your fault. Just all the damn hormones. Once you come out, we'll go out a holy war against pregnancy hormones, deal?

Lizard Baby

2009-09-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

How to start something like this? Casually? “Oh, by the way…” Excitedly? “zomg guess what?” Dramatically? “Bursting forth, nature itself brings you…” Sarcastically? “So guess what my uterus did today?”

Oh, definitely sarcastically.

So guess what my uterus did today?

Well, not today, exactly. Or rather, not just today. For the next seven and a half months, if all goes well. Probably longer, with my luck.

Yeah, less than a month after getting married, I went and became pregnant. Yes, we’d been planning this for a while. No, it didn’t actually have anything to do with getting married; the timing actually works out, with me presumably giving birth after Francis is finished school.

My mother’s (sarcastic, hilarious) reaction? “You haven’t even sent your thank you cards yet!”

Admittedly, we haven’t had our doctor’s appointment yet. That’s tomorrow. But three positive pregnancy tests, utter exhaustion, and a nausea that won’t quit all say that yeah, there’s something in there. I will tell the world tomorrow, after we confirm with the doctor that the baby is there.

Did I mention the nausea? I should really mention the nausea. It’s taken over my life, from the moment I wake up until finally, exhausted, I fall asleep. I cut conversations off entirely, a fat chick racing to the bathroom before the inevitable happens.

I keep calling it “the baby” here, but the term doesn’t slide off the tongue. Not that I can’t believe I’m pregnant—though really, it feels more like my body has declared war on me, and seceded from the rest of me so that it can pursue its own dictatorial republic, ruled by the iron fist of a child no larger than an apple seed…what was I saying? Oh, right, the name.

I purchased a book that shows you what stage the baby is at for different weeks. The first week I looked at, week five, showed a bean-shaped thing with a spot for an eye, a red package clutched between its stubby arms, and a lovely long tail.

“It looks like a lizard,” I thought. I took the book to Francis.

“It looks like a lizard,” he agreed.

“I will call it Lizard Baby,” I declared. “At least until the tail falls off.”

“You can’t call it Lizard Baby,” he laughed. “I’m not calling it Lizard Baby.”

We are now calling it Lizard Baby.

Lizard Baby has had a productive life so far. First, the red ball he was holding between his arms has turned into his heart, and begun both to beat and slip into his breast. He also has a fondness for ice cream, patterned fabric, and a lovely yellowed green shade of paint for his future walls (placenta red is so 1999). What Lizard Baby demands, he receives. Or rather, I do. Really it’s the same thing, isn’t it?

I hope this doesn’t mean that I will turn into an Australian rosée-drinking, scrapbooking, Desperate Housewife. Hopefully indicatively, Lizard Baby, valiantly overcoming his temporary disability involving not having an inner ear, has already expressed a fondness for the Magnetic Fields and The Apples in Stereo.

The Big Book of British Smiles

2009-07-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

Gord: I've never worn a kilt, but I've worn a skirt.
Gord: Same thing, really.
Sara: Not to a drag queen.
Sara: A kilt is awesome.
Sara: But a skirt can be FABULOUS.
Gord: It depends... are sequins on a kilt forbidden?
Gord: I think sequins were a big part of 8th century Highland traditions.
Gord: My grandfather mined sequins during the war.
Sara: My grandfather ran the sequin mines that enslaved generations of proud Scottish men.
Gord: But didn't we look grand while we were under his viscious jackboot?

Less a bustier, more an undergarment that defies gravity

2009-07-15T07:04:00.001-07:00

Wedding's going well, though I'm having bustier issues. The boning digs into my ribs until I'm mad with pain. My sister loaned me 5 of her bustiers (who needs five bustiers?) but only two are strapless, so they're the only ones that need apply. The rest, don't call me, I'll call you.

I tried them on last night. Francis was all excited that he was going to see a peep show, until he realised that these were the elastic kinds of bustiers that you have to put on from above, and which can make it hard to breathe until you get them adjusted properly. We wrenched and pulled and I gasped and turned red and bent my arms in strange patterns and he asked if I was okay and I told him that this was normal.

I swear to god, bustiers should do up at the back. Whoever thought it was a good idea to slip a garment that's designed to compress your body over your head was an idiot. Anyway.

Bustier One was too large. My breasts sagged back to my chest. Francis declared it a winner until I told him I might as well not wear a bra at all, and that what he was seeing was the cups, not actual boobage.

Bustier Two was incredibly difficult to get on. It gave nice support everywhere but the breasts, where my boobs laughed derisively at the meager cups designed to support them. Supported better than Bustier One, sure, but unfortunately only a quarter of the boob was covered. I was a B-cup muffintop.

We retreated back to the old bustier I'd bought. I put it on. The cups worked perfectly, though my boobs resembled tactical missiles. It was really comfortable, even when I struggled to show Francis where the boning digs into my ribs. I'll have to wear it for a few hours tonight to find exactly why it hurts.

We removed it and crouched over the offending boning, architects puzzling over a difficult project. Steel boning rather than flexible plastic? Too expensive, and difficult to obtain. Cut out the boning entirely? Drastic, and might ruin the one bustier that actually does hold my boobs. Halve the boning? Moves potential pressure points to my soft internal organs rather than my ribs.

The current Plan F (we've gone through at least A through E) is to use a tensor bandage to wrap the whole package up and hope that it holds. I'm of a mind to top the tensor bandage with duct tape, to add stability and ensure cohesiveness. My mother is appalled that this is even an option, but then, she doesn't seem to understand that the wedding is coming whether I like it or not, and it pays to at least think of options other than a double mastectomy.

"In high school," I told Francis' father, Guy, "I had short hair. When I showed Francis a picture of me, he said I looked like a boy."
He chuckled and nodded at me. "No one can make that mistake now."

My fondest memory, and a dream (and possibly I don't want to work)

2009-05-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

Specks of snow spot my hot face, as I look up at a sky that's not mine, and gasp clouds of laughter into the amber-lit street. "Feliz Navidad!" Justin shouts. "Feliz Navidad!" we sing.

Francis chuckles and pulls me to him, his coat an inverted dalmatian, and his hand is strong and good on my arm. There's still honey on my lips as I kiss him, and Justin cackles at the living city.

I dreamed of mammoths in London, the other night; large as houses, moving stately through the streets, on columns of thinly-furred granite. They were a warm brown-grey, more breathtaking than the crimson and gold banners draping the buildings.

They were in a parade--there was a parade--full of wonders that consumed my attention, but I only had eyes for the mammoths.

An old post from November 27th, 2002

2009-05-06T09:12:00.000-07:00

I've got this coat.

It's a big coat. Biggest thing you'd imagine, like a parka. I don't know why I bought it. It was all snuggly and warm, but it's ugly and huge and awkward on the bus so I only wear it when it's really cold.

And there's this guy.

He's in my Modern British Lit class. He's always early for class, and so am I, so we started chatting. He's a strange bird, but he's the only person I knew in Mod Brit Lit, I made a point of sitting with him. He introduced me to a couple of his friends who sit with him, and they're nice too. But that's not the point of this story.

I can smell your attraction. I ignore it. It embarrasses me because you don't know.

You walk halfway across campus, in the wrong direction, to see me to class. Fine, all right, I don't care. Keep up because I am pretty and smart and charming and I've never been kissed.

I see you seeing me and I look away.

But you're someone to talk to so we'll do the dance of unrequited love. It's your fault you're blind.

I hate this coat. It's bulky, it's awful, and I glare wistfully at the girls on the bus who wear their cute coats and are looked after by the boys. Old men thank me for my courteousness.

You say I look pretty. I smile and say.

You're dead. Don't you know?

Why do I need to tell you?

Running crack

2009-05-06T07:15:00.000-07:00

It's freezing in the office. One day, I’ll look back and think, “I miss working in an office,” but really, I should just remember that if I’m at home, I can turn the godforsaken temperature up or down any time I want.

I started running. We shall see when this turns into, “I stopped running.” Today may be the day.
I never want to go, until I’m actually out there, and I enjoy it. I can feel my shinbones slowly shattering as I run. When I pause to walk between telephone poles (run two, walk one), my bones thrum disharmoniously for a few moments, before the pain washes out into my muscles and I walk my legs into submission again.

The first leaping step after walking for a time is the most painful.

Or maybe it’s like digging holes.

3k, 3 days a week. We'll see.

Miserable Misandrynous Misanthropes

2009-04-27T05:14:00.000-07:00

Do you know what misandry is?

Misandry: A hatred of men. Or, to explain it to people who think that's ridiculous, it's misogyny, but the other way around. Women hating men, rather than men hating women. (Which, by the way, is the definition of misogyny.)

I didn't, until I became engaged. I knew the concept, but never had a name for it.

We went to Paper Studio, on Carling Avenue in Ottawa, to get our invitations. We knew that we needed to shorten our wedding invitation, because it would be bilingual. We worked on it off and on all day, and finally had hammered out something that was sweet, appropriate, and informational. I wrote it out on a piece of paper, in neat, clear print.

A middle-aged woman helped us. She took our personal information, and then I handed her the piece of paper so that she could transcribe it on the order form. It would take a while, so Francis and I wandered the store, looking at the silly wedding figurines. (A bride dragging a kicking and screaming groom to the altar? Lovely. Both of them ignoring each other, talking on cell phones? How utterly romantic.)

"Oh," the woman piped up. We turned. "Traditionally, the bride's name goes before the groom's name. You have his name first."

"Is there a reason for it?" I asked, concerned that I'd missed an etiquette lesson somewhere along the way.

"No," she said. "It's just tradition."

I looked at Francis. He shrugged. I smiled, and told the woman, "It's okay. You can leave it like it is."

A muffled gasp sounded from behind the cash register. A woman in bedazzled thick-framed glasses glared at us. I later discovered that her name was "Mrs. C".

"Are you Christian or Jewish?" she demanded.

"Uh, close enough," I hedged. What business was it of hers?

"Then the bride's name goes first!" Mrs. C said.

"I really don't mind one way or the other," I assured her. Surely this was a misunderstanding.

"All right," said the first woman who was helping us. "I'll change it."

"No!" I said, frustrated. "It's fine, I like it like that."

"Are you Muslim?" shrieked Mrs. C.

I gawked at her. "No! I just don't care!"

"Well they're the only ones who do it that way!"

"It doesn't matter!" I persisted.

"But it's tradition!" Mrs. C was standing in front of me now. I noticed that strands of her grey hair had sprung from their prim bun, leaving her looking frazzled.

"Oh," I said, as if I finally understood. "Well in that case"--her feathers began to settle--"I definitely want his name first."

Francis coughed. I glared at Mrs. C with all the university-educated indignance a twenty-something can muster.

She yielded. "Fine, but it's not done that way." She fired a desultory salvo off her stern. "Your guests will notice."

Victorious, Francis and I walked from the store half an hour later, with our order placed and Christian tradition flaunted. He gave me a half-smile as the door hushed shut behind us. "My name first, huh?"

"I'm no man hater," I said, brow furrowed.

"Your mother will notice," he teased.

I paused, then smiled sadly. "I know. But she won't understand."

"We can tell our kids one day," he kissed my hair, and I could smell the warm sun on his shirt.

*************

How in the name of Heaven can he escape
That defiling and disfigured shape
The mirror of malicious eyes
Casts upon his eyes until at least
He thinks that shape must be his shape
--Yeats

*************

A week later, I receive our first proof. I send it back with minor changes, but overall am delighted. I receive an email that says that we will hear back from them in two or three days with a second proof.

A week passes, so I decide to call to find out what's up.

"Name?" asks the voice on the phone, who I would later discover was named Cheryl.

"Sara R--," I reply.

"We have nothing under that name."

I hesitate. Nothing at all? That's alarming. We have a month before the invitations need to go out, and it takes three weeks to have them printed in the first place, let alone going through the proofing process again.

"It's under Sara R-- and Francis L--," I try again. "August 16th, 2009...you already sent me my first proofs..."

"Oooooh," she heaves. "Yes, that one. We couldn't call you because the groom's name came first on the invitation. Are you sure you don't want to change it?"

"I'm finding it amusing at this point," I mutter, irritated. Why on earth couldn't they call him?

"Are you sure you're not Muslim?" Cheryl asks.

"Yes!" Twitch, twitch.

"Well, it's not traditional, but all right." I hear typing and rustling in the background. "We haven't heard back from you about your second proof."

Breathe in, breathe out. "I haven't received it."

"Well, we sent it to you."

"That's fine, but I didn't receive it," I persist. "Send it to my work email and my home email again, please? I'll be sure to get it at one."

Some more rustling.

"Oh!" Cheryl says. "Well it's here in our outbox. So I sent it to you."

"It's in your outbox? Not your sent mail folder?" Vague memories of customer service rise to the fore.

"Right," she replies. "So I sent it to you."

"No," I say firmly. "You didn't. But I don't care. Please send it to me again."

"But I did."

"I don't care!" I cry, desperate. "Please send it again!"

"But I sent it."

I don't reply. Obviously her mental record is skipping. I'll let it run its course.

Five minutes pass, of me muttering, "Mmhmm," and "Hmm," to the phone, while she tells me that she sent the email, and can't possibly understand what happened. Five frustrating, irritating minutes. I watched kittens play on YouTube while I waited for her mind to reboot.

Finally I give up. Obviously she's mentally deficient. "Okay," I say, cutting into her mutterings about how she sent the email and isn't Outlook funny. "I'm going to hang up now. You're going to find out what happened with your computer, and email the proofs again. This is my work number. Call me when you know what's going on, okay?"

"Okay," she says, relieved to not have to explain herself any more.

Ten minutes later, I receive the proofs via both emails. My vague fear that my spam filter ate them is now gone--it would have eaten this one too, if it had eaten one at all. I send back a quick email with one minor change, and a note that I didn't want another proof, it could just go to the printer. I also send along the .jpg map that they were going to print for us, to go with the invitations.

Hours pass, and I don't hear back from anyone at the print shop. I fret, and call again, concerned that something else happened.

"Oh yes," Cheryl says. "We received your proof."

I wait. Nothing more appears to be forthcoming. "And you understand the change? And that I don't want to receive another proof, I just want it sent to the printer?"

"Yes," she says. "I sent you an email confirming that."

(Truth: when someone says something that stupid to me, I close my eyes and envision mushroom clouds rising silently in the distance. Then I pretend it didn't happen.)

"Did you receive the map?" I ask.

"Yes," Cheryl replies. "That was in my email too."

(I close my eyes. Prypiat is beautiful this time of year.)

"Excellent." My voice sounds dead. They've won for now. I am beaten. "So how long will it take for the invitations to be ready?"

"Three weeks," she says cheerily.

"All right, I'll call in three weeks."

"Oh, no need!" she assures me. "We'll call you as soon as they're in."

Once I hang up, I make a note on my Outlook calendar for three weeks later. We'll see.

****************

There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me...you can't get fooled again.
--George Bush

****************

Three weeks pass. No call. I'd put it out of my mind since I knew Outlook would remind me when the time was right.

Sure enough, a note greets me when I get to work. "Invitations should be ready!" it cheers.

I wait a few hours for them to open and get things going, then call.

"Name?" asks a voice.

"Sara R--."

"We don't have anything under that name."

"Try Francis Lacroix," I say.

A pause, then, "Oooooh."

I roll my eyes.

"We couldn't call you because his name was first," says the voice, as if that explains it all. "Yes, they're in."

I tell her I'll be there at three. I'm very excited. Finally, I can get this sorted out.

*****************

What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!
--Allen Ginsberg

*****************

It's Mrs. C. Dammit. I smile at her. She glowers back at me, from behind glittering frames. "Name?"

"Sara R--," I reply.

"Nothing here under that name," she snaps, irritated that I'm wasting her time, I suppose.

I can't help it. I roll my eyes. It's as rude as I'll get. "Francis Lacroix."

Magic! "Ooooh," she says, in what's becoming a common reaction now. "They're in the back. One moment."

I wait, and see her return with two small boxes. I hadn't realised they would be that small. I expected more for what we spent, but then, we only had 50 invitations printed.

I flip through them, and at her glare, mildly reply, "I just want to be certain that they're right."

She sniffs at me and says, "Of course."

The envelopes are perfect, the invitations are simple and lovely. I flip through the box a bit more, looking for the third part. "Are the maps separate?" I ask.

"You didn't ask for a map."

Ah, there. It wouldn't be Paper Studio without some form of idiocy.

"Yes," I reply slowly. "I did."

"No you didn't."

I draw the carbon copied order form from between her fat, begemmed fingers. I direct her to the bottom of the first page, where the original salesperson had written out how many maps we needed, on what grade paper, and that I would be emailing them the map shortly.

She looks offended. "You never emailed it," she accuses me. Of course, that's the only solution!

"No," I say, quietly. I learned that working in customer service, too. Go quiet when dealing with rude people like this. It only pisses them off more, and it's really funny, afterwards at least. "I emailed it three weeks ago. Cheryl--" I point to the woman in question, sitting five feet away and dealing with a bar mitzvah client-- "confirmed over the phone that she received it."

She glares at me between slickly mascaraed eyelashes. "I'll be right back."

I wait. I pick at invitations and flowers, and eventually call my mother for something to do. Before the phone can connect, Mrs. C summons me back to the cash register. "Sara!" she calls across the store, until I realise that she's actually calling me to her, like a dog. For some reason this irritates me. Don't call me by my personal name. I wish you didn't even know it. At least calling me Francis would be funny.

"You never emailed the map," she says when I arrive.

I've lost it. Whatever it was, it's gone. But I still can't bring myself to have the screaming fit that I so righteously deserve to have.

"I sent it," I say slowly. "I sent it, and I called to make sure that you received it, and Cheryl, right there, told me that she received it, that it was clear, and that it would be fine to print."

Mrs. C hmphs a bit, and rifles through my file. With the air of a mother about to lay the smackdown on a back-talking child, she flips deliberately through the papers pertaining to me. Several forms, copies of the proofs...

"There," I say finally. "Right there."

Mrs. C stares at the neat printout, looking as if she's swallowed a slug. She glares at me, now truly irritated to have been proven wrong. "Well, you never emailed it."

"I didn't bring in a copy when I--" I cut myself off, and throttle my temper. "I don't care how it got here, but I need it printed. Fifty. On white cardstock. So that they fit in the invitation."

Finally convinced that perhaps I'm not the incompetent moron I appear to be, Mrs. C tells me to wait, and goes to the back.

Half an hour passes. I flip through more stuff, while the other employees occasionally pass by and stare at me as if I'm mad. Other customers come in and pick up their invitations, with no problem. I guess they put the bride's name first. One of them laughs that her fiancé has nothing to do with the wedding except paying for it. I give a withering glare to a pair of porcelain bride and groom pigs. It doesn't make me feel much better, and they're certainly not bothered by it.

Finally, I'm summoned to the back of the store, where two gentlemen work on computers. "Sara! Sara!" She probably says it with an H, too. I'm surprised to see men working there. Aren't men the Oppressor? Literally, "The Man"?

The older gentleman, a kindly looking fellow, shows me my map, printed out on cardstock. It looks lovely, definitely better than the printout I'd given him! I say as much, and he smiles at me. "I redid it so that it was clearer," he says. "Black and grey is all right?"

"Yes, it's lovely!" I say, truly happy that someone there knew what they were doing. "Thank you for doing this so last moment, and so quickly! It's perfect."

He smiles at me. "Oh hun, it's your wedding! Of course it's going to be perfect!"

The gaydar hums brightly. Ah. That would explain why he was allowed in this sanctum of women's power.

I thank him and bring the maps to the front counter, where eventually Mrs. C joins me to punch in the second half of my deposit. She goes to put away the invitation she'd removed from the box, to show the gentleman what size the map needed to be, but starts scraping at a bit of it with one lacquered nail. A speck of dirt is on the front of the invitation.

"Are there extras?" I'm only mildly concerned. The chances of us needing all 50 invitations was remote.

"No, they don't include extras," she says. Oh. Well, whatever. We'd be careful, and the mark wasn't that bad, though she was bending the flap by bring so aggressive with it. She keeps scraping for another ten seconds, then puts the invitation, still stained, into the box with the rest of them. "It's all right," she smiles at me. "There are always extras."

(But...you just said...I...I was right here! You just...like, ten seconds?!...do you think I'm a fish...?!)

I thrust my debit card at her in despair, only to be waved off. She needed to punch in the sale. Fair enough. A minute passes, and I start feeling rather awkward.

"The machine...it's complicated," she says, as every few moments she plucks a key gingerly. "You're going to get away with less tax."

I don't reply. What is there to say? I offer my debit card again.

"No," she hums, brow furrowed. It's the first time I've seen her look anything but irritated or smugly supercilious. She punches numbers into a nearby calculator for another couple of minutes. I'm starting to feel awkward. A woman and a couple line up behind me. The store isn't big enough to accommodate more than one person in line.

After more muttering at the computer, she finally figures it out, and charges me the appropriate number--"I think," she adds. I glance at the order form to ensure that it's the right amount.

Finally, bagged and receipt-ed, I flee the store. She gives me an almost pleasant, "Thank you!" as I leave.

We got the invitations addressed, stamped and mailed this past weekend. Hopefully no one finds any more issues.

And that's the long, long story of our wedding invitations.

My mother died of chills

2009-04-17T07:31:00.001-07:00

Sooga: I got CHILLS.
Sooga: They're multiplyin'.
Sara: Oh god, no.
Sara: You just destroyed the cool.
Sooga: Nah, just kidding.
Sooga: I don't got chills.
Sooga: My mother died of chills.
Sooga: Don't joke about it.

10% of your brain

2009-03-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

After mistaking the word "organisms" for "orgasms" in the phrase,

"Life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit certain biological processes such as chemical reactions or other events that results in a transformation. Living organisms are capable of growth and reproduction..."

Sooga: Orgasms are a characteristic of your mom.
Sara: Not when she's with you.
Sooga: Oh yeah? She talks about me a lot?
Sara: To her therapist.
Sooga: You know how they say most people only use 10% of their brains?
Sooga: I only use 10% of my dick.
Sara:
Sara: I have no response. You win this round.
Sooga: Then we're done.
Sooga: Same time tomorrow then?
Sara: See you then.

A poem by Franz Wright, title unknown

2009-02-25T08:21:00.000-08:00

I basked in you;
I loved you, helplessly, with a boundless tongue-tied love.
And death doesn't prevent me from loving you.
Besides,
in my opinion you aren't dead.
(I know dead people, and you are not dead.)

Saint Margaret and the Dragon

2009-01-12T10:24:00.000-08:00

I went into the Art Gallery and was a little disappointed to discover that the entryway looked a lot like the Museum of Civilization we have at home. Modern blocks of pale stone and black glass.

I discard my coat in the basement, and stumble back up into the light. I snap a picture of a wide painting at the top of the two sweeping staircases that funnel you inside.

Then I'm in. It's...an art gallery. Lacking direction, I stumble around for a few hours. I ask a volunteer if I may take pictures, and he tells me no, then asks what state I'm from.

There are a great many comfortable leather seats in the art gallery, which is wonderful. Especially after a few hours, I begin to sit and look. I've now seen enough Jesus paintings to fulfil my lifetime quota, but there were others that were magnificent.

(Drat, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump was there and I didn't see it.)

Two particular paintings struck out at me.

One was a series. The Four Elements. I liked the almost obscene richness of the whole thing. Fruits, fish and fowl bursting from their baskets, as thick, rosy-cheeked men and women push them toward you.

The other was a single, understated painting of Saint Margaret of Antioch. This is particularly notable because I didn't know who the painting was of, at first. I thought it was just some Spanish girl. Saint Margaret of Antioch is actually one of my favourite saints. I liked the bright red of the painting, and the modest but distinctly feminine way she looked out. Most of all, she looked quietly competent, and that called to me.

So I admired the painting for a while, taking in all the detail of her clothes and whatnot, then wandered off, still unaware of whom the painting was of.

I wound my way back a few hours later, only to spot it again, and stopped to admire it. That was when I noticed the dragon curled possessively around her feet. I hadn't seen it before at all! "Why," I thought, "If I didn't know better, I'd say--oh." And sure enough, the painting was of Margaret of Antioch.

Well, it struck me at the time, anyway.

2009-01-12T10:19:00.000-08:00

Sara: Francis insists that he doesn't dance, but then we dance while we're doing the dishes or cooking. And I sing songs about what we're doing, to tunes from other songs.
Sara: Last night was "Don't cry for me Argentina," but it was, "Please dry for me Francis-ina, the truth is my diiiishes are wet...all through these soap suds...their sad existence...I washed them for you, and now they're rinse-ensed."
Sara: (Sometimes it's hard to rhyme.)
Agamemnon2: Indeed.
Sara: And then we laughed and decided that we'd make a point of singing and dancing whenever our kids had boyfriends or girlfriends over, if we didn't like said girl/boyfriend.
Velociengineer_Bill: Do it no matter. If your kid's SO doesn't sing and dance with you, kick 'em to the curb.
SuperSooga: Embarassing teenagers is fun.
Sara: Well, when they're teenagers I'll cut them some slack.
Sara: But no, once they're in their twenties, they have to be cool.
SuperSooga: Yeah, you get no quarter then.
SuperSooga: it's about time they learned how the real world works. And it's with singing and dancing.

2009-01-09T07:24:00.000-08:00

The pictures are back of our trip to London, so I'll continue writing what I remember once I have them at hand. In the meantime, this is what I recall.

Trafalgar Square! I barely recall how I got there. Once again disgorged from the Tube onto the streets of London, I blinked into the bright, bright sunlight. The sky seemed huge, even blocked out by buildings--that rich, cloudless blue of early autumn.

A coffee shop to my left. A pedestrian walkway in front, with a closed cart in front of it. The cart is painted a dark red, with yellow lettering, "Roasted Chestnuts." They still do that? A blackened metal tray sits to one side of the cart.

The sign says that the art gallery is to my left, so I head that way. Small shops for the urban elite on my left. Construction on my right, plywood, painted white, a modesty curtain for the earth as it gasps air for the first time in centuries.

A church on my right. A fountain before me, and the art gallery between. I take pictures of the fountain and its leaping dolphins, and the Nelson memorial looming above. The sun is so bright!

The art gallery wasn't as beautiful as the British Museum, but stone pillars and sweeping staircases are always magnificent in their own way. Banners billow out, advertising the newest dead artist.

The correct phrase is #roll 2[1d6]+2...I think

2009-01-09T07:21:00.000-08:00

(10:17:59 AM) Wren: roll 2[1d6]+2
(10:18:03 AM) Wren: Um.
(10:18:12 AM) Wren: #roll2[1d6]+2
(10:18:17 AM) Wren: (OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD)
(10:18:18 AM) Genku: (you suck so bad)

(10:48:31 AM) RPGServ: (notice) Roll for Genku [2[1d6]+3]: 4 3
(10:48:31 AM) RPGServ: (notice) Roll for Wren [2[1d6]]+7: 4 2
(10:48:41 AM) Wren: (13!)
(10:48:47 AM) GM-djones-: (13 and 13)
(10:48:54 AM) Wren: (dun dun DUNNNN!)
(10:48:57 AM) Genku: (No, 10.)
(10:49:02 AM) GM-djones-: (yeah...13 and 10...)
(10:49:09 AM) Wren: (DUNNnn dun dun....)

I remember a lot, but not the sounds

2008-11-07T12:05:00.001-08:00

Eight minutes 'til I'm meant to leave work, but it could be much longer than that, before my build comes back clean. Or not. Which is why I have to wait before leaving. So I'll type and listen to The Apples in Stereo.

A great winged bronze man stretches his arms wide, forever unable to embrace the people who push through the one working door. I push past him, and stumble into a universe of a library. Books crowd against the windows, looking at the people walking by. Bright illustrations of plants cheer from glass cases. Statues are littered about. A king's medal cabinet in one corner. Bookcases filled with shells line another wall. Histories of every place in the known world peek out from among their brethren, or boldly claim entire shelves with leathery volumes.

This is beautiful. Warm wooden floors make no noise, or perhaps their beams crackled under my weight, I don't recall. I...don't recall sound there. There were people. It was busy, though not packed. No whispering, I don't think. Happy chatting, oohs and aahs and smiles.

I wandered for a while, then was distracted by walls and floors filled with Roman and Greek sculptures.

And my build came back, and I'm going home.

It's the sun I remember the most, the sun and the dying leaves

2008-11-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

I didn't update, as promised, mostly because only having an hour's worth of laptop power per day was not enough to start writing and get directions for where I wanted to go that day.

But let's try a post-mortem, hm?

Stumbling into the bright sunlight outside Russell Square station, I was immediately approached by a man in a long coat. "Where are you from?" he asked hopefully, pamphlets splayed between his fingers.

"Canada," I said. "Do you know the way to the British Museum?"

"Oh," he said, disappointed. The flyers were drawn back. Not for Canadians. "No."

There was a sign further up the street. Left, for the British Museum. I walked. And walked. And walked. I turned spontaneously, when I hit a park, and asked a pair of girls where the museum was. They didn't know.

"Oh, we're rubbish, aren't we?"

I strolled through the park, filled with leaves and perpetual pigeons, until I met the University of London. I stopped an intelligent-looking woman in a tweed cloak, and inquired as to the whereabouts of the British Museum.

"There's a back door just up the street to the right, but if you want the full experience, continue farther, then turn right when the road ends."

I did. The houses clustered together on either side of the road, familiar, but not crowded in the sunlight. Stairs spiralled down into the earth on either side of the sidewalk.

The end of the road. Red buses whistle by. I turn right, my feet squishing in the damp foliage plastering the pavement. Four trees--four monstrous trees, their massive trunks bursting from the feeble brick squares that line their allowance--give the path a moth-eaten carpet of shadow.

Oh, I saw it then! Why the woman recommended the full experience! Stone pillars press against an enormous building. Stone gods, clutching bright bronze instruments, play in high-relief atop the central hall. People, everywhere, while pigeons strut fearlessly beneath their feet. The sun bleaches the stone patio, and casts the windows into slanted blackness.

I smile.

Snap snap, pictures taken. A dark pigeon eyes me suspiciously, and I take a piece of his soul as well. Fewer leaves here, but still there are some, haphazardly carpeting my way into the British Museum.

Monday, October 27th, and the morning of Tuesday, October 28th

2008-10-30T12:50:00.002-07:00

It's Thursday now. I haven't had time to write since Monday evening, but I'll try to catch up now.

Once I got back to the hotel room, we went out to dinner at an Indian restaurant.

We wandered around the area a bit before settling into the restaurant. A girl leaned out her second-story window and shouted, "Merry Christmas!" to us. We looked up, smiled awkwardly, and she added, "Happy Easter!"

I'd always wanted to try British curry. I got a sweet honey one, which was delicious, as was the cheese naan that was served with it. After a few false starts at ordering drinks ("Iced tea?" "?" "Gingerale?" "?" "...coke.") we settled in for what was definitely the best curry any of us have ever had. Even Justin agreed, and he insists of perpetrating the ignorant-about-foreign-anything American stereotype.

The waiter was concerned about Francis, who'd ordered the hottest thing on the menu, but Francis was simply delighted with his lamb vindaloo. I put a bit of the sauce on my tongue, only to have it go immediately numb. No thanks.

Their bathroom had pink toilet paper. My bottom has never felt so pretty.

We wandered a bit after that, and finally washed up in O'Neill's pub, of which there is probably a million in England. I ordered a cider, and was encouraged to try the Magners, which I did and which was vastly more rich and palatable than the Strongbow that permeates Canadian bars.

We drank and chatted with the bartender, then realised that we were all exhausted from jet lag, and went back home. We wandered by the home of the "Merry Christmas" girl, and Justin leaned back his head and shouted, "Feliz Navidad!"

**********************

Tuesday began with sleep. I intended to join Francis and Justin at the hotel restaurant for breakfast, but couldn't convince myself to get out of bed until ten, when the maid woke me up by trying to get into the room. No "do not disturb" door hangers there.

I scalded myself in the shower, then headed out to find the train station. "Headed out" meaning that I sensibly called a cab and made it their problem, after the previous night's misery. Four pounds later I was at the Hatfield train station, with no idea of what to do.

I tried to use the automated ticket service, but there were far too many services available, with a whole lot of names I didn't recognise. Instead I went to the ticket booth, handed the man a 20 pound note, and said, "I have no idea what I'm doing, and I need to get to King's Cross." He blinked, laughed, and asked me if I needed to use the Tube once I got there. I did, and he handed me a ticket that I could use all day, to get anywhere I wanted.

I feebly tried to slip the ticket into the gate, only to have two security men laugh at me and show me where the ticket went. Embarassing, but they were very kind.

Finally, I stood victoriously on the platform. The train appeared moments later, and I spent the next twenty minutes ogling a countryside that didn't look very different from my own.

I ended up in the King's Cross train station, which is enormous, loud, and wonderful. Again, I found a security guard, who yet again laughed at me and pointed me in the direction I needed to go. Where did I need to go that first day...oh, Russell Square Tube Station. I walked and walked, and signs appeared every time I felt as if I were beginning to become lost.

My ticket worked perfectly, as I fed it properly through the gates. (I waited, the first few times, to make sure that when I went through the gates, there was no one behind me!)

I found the tube station, boarded the correct train, and was finally disgorged, blinded and blinking, from the British Underground, onto the streets of England.

And my story ends for now, as I conserve laptop battery power, since we're all sharing one charger for three computers and a series of camera batteries. (160 pictures in two days!)

From Monday, October 27th

2008-10-30T12:50:00.001-07:00

I type this furtively, in the half-dark, while Francis tosses fitfully in an unfamiliar bed.

It is Monday evening, if it can be believed. My day began Sunday morning, with frantic preparations for our leaving. The cat, knowing something was amiss, hurled our poinsettia off the window ledge, while carrying on a rousing dissertation for a phlegmatic grey tom who had taken up residence on the deck. She was promptly removed from the scene and taken to my parents' house, where she, I'm sure, briefly sulked before realising that she had an entirely new audience to adore her.

Kathy visited, bringing her brood with her. Jacob and Ryan screamed at the Wii while Matthew and Emma tumbled around on the floor. Matthew is vociferous as his brother, but lacks the coherence of properly formed sentences. Or words.

Justin arrived at eight o'clock, and the taxi soon after. We all piled in, and discussed World of Warcraft in the light-speckled darkness of the cab.

The plane was uncomfortable and small. Executive class seats at the front consisted of pod-like creatures that swallowed richer people than we. They looked profoundly comfortable. Our seats were tiny and cramped, though we did have personal televisions in front of us. I watched "Baby Mama", which, as expected, was mediocre with occasional flashes of true genius. Then I watched most of "The Happening", which was terrible with occasional flashes of mediocrity. I'll try to watch the rest on the flight home. I can still hope for zombies.

We arrived at Bush Hall on Monday morning, only to discover that they do not, in fact, provide falconry services as advertised on their website. I am profoundly, profoundly disappointed. Otherwise it's lovely. Our room is enormous, with a four-poster, fabric-draped monstrosity of a bed in the middle of it. There's even room for a couch, chair, desk, and two wardrobes as well as a generous bathroom.

Unfortunately, it is, frankly, in the middle of nowhere. After inhaling a delicious steak and ale pie with a cider chaser, and then sleeping off the worst of my adrenaline, I went for a walk. I chased rabbits for a while, and then followed the desk clerk's instructions for getting to the train station. Said directions led me to a small strip of grass immediately beside a series of off-ramps. Cars roared by a few feet away, while I slunk my way beneath the overhanging alders. I gave up after creeping 500 yards eastwards, and headed back to the hall.

I wandered the grounds for a bit, feeling like a lurking ne'er-do-well. Rabbits flashed their tails at me in the twilight as they fled from my footsteps. A ludicrously oversized birdhouse enabled three white doves to eye my passing, while three llamas (or alpacas, perhaps) gave me dirty looks from behind a wooden fence.

By the time I wandered back, a waiter was beginning to watch my movements. He went outside, glared at me, then followed me inside, perhaps to see if I was about to harass the desk clerks? When he saw my room key he settled for a merely superior look. I feel badly. The grounds are lovely...am I not supposed to wander them?

The secret is out

2008-10-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

London embraces me with a smile and a laugh. Perhaps it's been waiting all along.

Drink heavily

2008-09-28T09:01:00.000-07:00

I left a note for myself, in the middle of my screen at work, so that when I came in on the weekend--which I knew I'd do despite forbidding myself to--I'd know exactly what the most pressing issues were.

I'd forgotten that I'd even done it, until I came in to find that same note:

1) Finish last two procedures for Gantt chart section.
2) Write use cases for Gantt charts.
3) Drink heavily.

I briefly wondered if he was colourblind

2008-09-26T08:16:00.000-07:00

Sara: May I make a request about the guild site?
Mike: no requests!
Mike: sure what?
Sara: Pink and orange headers are making my eyes bleed.
Mike: GORD!!!!
Mike: ok.. so maybe making EVERYONE a superadmin isn't a good idea

Beautiful, except for all the snow

2008-09-19T14:19:00.001-07:00

It's looking like another 15-hour day at work, but at least there's real progress as a result, and I won't have to work the weekend. I covet my weekend. I'd rather work insane overtime during the week, than give up an hour of my weekend to work.

I'm building a new garden for my mom on Saturday, but the weather's supposed to be nice, so it'll be fun. She's upset that Francis isn't coming, since he's so much stronger than I am, but he's going to be busy working on the interminable deck.

We're getting to know some of our more distant neighbours, through the deck. The back of our yard faces a long row of other people's back yards. They all have little second-story decks, so they can see over the fences and into our back yard. It usually goes like this:

Woman comes out onto her deck. Looks at our deck. Calls someone out from inside the house.
Man comes out onto the deck with the woman. Looks at our deck.
Woman and man talk for a bit. Occasionally there is gesticulating.
Woman goes back inside.
Man looks depressed/resigned/excited and shouts to Francis about how much he likes the deck.

So we're getting our male neighbours in trouble with their wives, I guess. Or they've got deck envy. It's a pretty awesome deck. When it's done I'll post pictures. It's certainly larger than my first apartment, though that's not hard to achieve.

It's cooling outside, with our side of the planet spinning ever farther from the direct warmth of the sun. It's such a beautiful time of year. I used to think that, in the fall, the trees would draw in their leaves, and push them out through their roots, to flourish in the warm earth-bound fires of Hades. I thought Demeter, in her despair at losing Persephone, would give her daughter trees, when she was trapped underground.

But none of that is getting my work done, so here I go.

"Meow. Meow. Meow. Meow. BONK. Meow. Meow."

2008-09-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

A 15 hour work day yesterday, requiring the judicious application of Advil and a "hungry man" Swanson's microwave dinner, as it was the only thing for sale at the nearby drug store that actually had vegetables in it.

I tumbled into bed when I got home, and fell immediately asleep, with half-formed plans of sleeping in today.

But no. The cat gave me a 15 minute buffer, then began to meow at the door, while banging her head against it. At six in the morning I was blurry-eyed, clutching a tin of cat food in one hand, a spoon in another, with a warm, happy cat curled around my shoulders.

I have a splitting headache, and am trying, ~~and failing, to think of a convenient way to get downtown tomorrow afternoon without getting stuck in traffic for an hour.~~ Found one!

Why do they do these things to children, Pan? Do they all hate children so much that they want to tear them apart like this? Why do they do it?

2008-09-16T11:57:00.000-07:00

It's hard, sometimes, to hear and think of beautiful things while at work. I can feel my imagination, an enchanted giant, rolling fitfully in its cursed slumber.

But no, shh. Sleep again. Quiet now. The world continues; work is done, bills are paid, lives thrive apart from you.

Drugged again, with banalities and platitudes, the giant slumbers on.

Soon, soon

2008-09-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

To tell a secret is to destroy it.

But it bubbles inside like shaken champagne!

Soon, soon.

PS - This happened to me last night.

2008-09-11T11:54:00.001-07:00

I came in this morning only to slice my finger open while cutting a bagel. There was a sharp pain, which dulled quickly, so I continued cutting.

Soon blood was running down the bagel, and I grabbed a paper towel to bind my finger.

"So did you eat the bagel?" Chris asked, when I explained my bandaged finger.

"Obviously," I replied. "I wiped it off, but it's my own blood."

And he and Jonathan laughed and I wondered why, a little.

Opening my throat, moulding air into music

2008-09-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

I really need to ~~download~~ buy some more Danielle Howle. Her "Kill My Love for You" is my favourite song on the otherwise fantastic compilation album, "The Sound the Hare Heard". I sing it, in the car--only in the car, only alone, so no one can hear me--but my voice always wobbles and breaks, as if teetering on perilous high heels, by the end of the chorus.

I remember discovering that I could sing in the car. I've always loved to sing. It's the truth, if secret. I have a perfect ear, but not a perfect voice, so it's painfully embarassing for me to sing in public. I first sang in the car to learn the lyrics to some obscure Japanese pop song. Then I almost got into a car accident, because I was distracted. But I kept singing. I tried not to, but the radio would be on, and soon enough I'd be howling along with the lyrics whether I meant to or not.

I quickly learned how to drive and sing at the same time, if only out of biological necessity. I sang to everything, whether I knew the words or not. Country, for awhile, while I was still at my redneck high school. Then Japanese pop.

Then I bought my first car, only to be faced with the modern terror that is not having a CD player. Unfortunately, I was in Thunder Bay, which has the most utterly terrible radio stations I've ever heard in my life. Just speechlessly agonizing, I swear. A limited supply of pop trash, "adult alternative", and screeching announcers led me to simply turn the shortcuts of my radio back to Ottawa stations out of nostalgia. I listened to a lot of the talk radio CBC, which was great, and a friend sent me a mixed tape that I listened to for months at a time. In the winter the frozen tape deck would grind slowly up, until it was almost running at normal speed by the time I got to work.

When I moved back to Ottawa, I got my radio stations back, and yowled like a stray cat from morning to night, whenever I was in the car and I knew a few words to a song.

Now I have a CD player in my new car, but I don't use it. I keep meaning to burn CDs for the car, but never think of it, and besides, it seems like cheating, to decide in advance what I'll hear when I'm in the car.

So I sing along to the radio, windows down, one arm perched on the door, feeling like a queen of my castle.

Sheets inhale the wind, puffing up their cheeks with the smell of sunlight

2008-09-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

If you haven't seen Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog yet, you need to go watch it. I downloaded the soundtrack a few days ago. I love it. It's another situation where everything Joss Whedon touches is gold, but in absolute truth, when I watched the first episode, I didn't realise it was a Whedon production until the credits. In hindsight, obviously...but not going in, so I wasn't biased.

Did you know that Whedon and his two brothers are the cowboys that sing "Bad Horse"?

Regardless.

Images that I try to convey in writing are playful and perplexing. I project a picture on a white sheet--perilously pinned and billowing in the breeze in the backyard of my mind--hoping that curious neighbours several doors down will watch and enjoy the fuzzy reverse image.

And then my server breaks and the sheet is torn down, clothespins reeling on a twanging line, and I bind it up and go back to work. Until the next time.

Linger, warmth, on my brow a while: show me not dusk's cold visage

2008-09-08T10:03:00.000-07:00

I have a fever that's been running for eleven days now. I thought I'd shed this cold, or whatever it is, last week, but it came back full force Friday evening. It's left me easily distracted and sleepy, right when I need to be working like mad at work. But sick or not, the work has to be done, and deadlines loom large and heavy, pressing against the glass windows in my head.

Filled with letters, measuring their release

2008-09-05T07:44:00.000-07:00

I have a meeting in fifteen minutes, but was distracted by shiny internet things, and don't feel like wasting ten minutes getting back into a coding groove.

It's true, I don't code per se. I mark...up? I use XML, after all. But really, let's just call it coding because nobody refers to "markup" as a verb, and coding makes me sound smarter.

There's something beautiful in producing a perfectly balanced page of instructions, gently caressed into a form the audience can appreciate and understand. There's little heavy-handedness in technical writing, certainly. Technical editing, sure, but not writing from scratch. Code lights up in my mind, tags start and finish in invisible matching colours, stealthy errors hide for a while, then leap out like glaring, malignant tumours, ready to be smoothed back into the fabric of the page.

Technical writing doesn't reward perfection, since there's no such thing. In code, certainly, but not in the writing itself. Much like art. But that's okay. You quietly go about your work, sometimes spewing great swaths of text, like a breathless printing machine, or sometimes fiddling with an icon or sentence for hours, jeweler's glasses and picks in hand.

Today, near deadline, I am the machine, fixed and steady. Usually I am the jeweler.

I try

2008-08-20T12:19:00.000-07:00

Sara: AUGH. The 21st is tomorrow, not Friday

Francis: Yesss....?

Sara: Deadlines grunt like embedded elephants forced to move from their comfortable dusty holes.

Francis: That's... strangely accurate.

Maybe I will make cornbread after all...

2008-08-20T03:37:00.000-07:00

[13:45] Sara: Maybe I won't make cornbread after all...all the recipes are like, "Add 1/2 cup of bacon grease, 3 eggs, and 5 cups of white flour."

[13:45] SuperSooga: "Eat a string of sausages while you wait for it to bake."

Cottaging, Part One

2008-08-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

Our week at the cottage was wonderful, as always, even if it did rain a lot. We arrived Saturday evening, just in time to sit down to dinner with Francis' grandparents. They're so kind and interesting, and we had a great conversation, despite my utterly abhorrent French.

The first few days were rainy, and I went a little stir-crazy as I spent a good forty eight hours sleeping and reading. I burned through four books in two days, and was well into my fifth one before I realised that obviously I hadn't brought enough.

But then, the third day! My birthday! It dawned sunny and bright. We spent the day swimming, walking, and four-wheeling. I had never been four-wheeling before, until I met Francis and he introduced me to the cottage's resident ATV. He tossed me on the back and we went racing across the Slame for a long time. I felt exhilirated and naughty--burning fossil fuels and endangering us both for personal entertainment!--but it was still worth it.

La Slame, or the Slame, is a large area, two kilometres or so around, that the first mine on the island used to get rid of excess stone dust. This means that there's a fine grey powder, metres deep, covering a quarter of the island. When they were still pumping the stone dust out, it would expose the topsoil, showing the clay underneath. The clay grew very wet and slimy, so the whole area was named "The Slime" or "La Slame".

Now, decades later, the Slame is struggling to rejuvenate itself, and it's doing rather well. Small, hearty weeds poke up through the perpetually damp silt, as water struggles through the stone dust only to find clay underneath. Most of the area is unerringly flat, though in some places deep channels are formed and reformed whenever it rains, leaving steep-walled gulleys several meters deep. In some areas, weeds have grown and died, and grown and died so much, that sturdy desert grasses are struggling to life in protected glens.

And gulls--oh, the gulls! The line the shore, forever cackling and screaming at each other. In some places, they are all that break the unending shoreline. You could see them, still walking on their black stick legs, a hundred feet out into the lake, on what is certainly the biggest sandbar I've ever seen. They barely noticed when we raced toward them, and would demurely flap aside until we passed.

Dogs were a big part of our trip, for all that we don't own one. Two local dogs stayed with us that Monday afternoon, of their own accord. An old black mutt with a red kerchief tied around her neck, and a young white and grey husky with bright blue eyes. It was wonderful to spend time with dogs again, playing and running around. When the sun set, I went out to the rocky point and watched the sun set, with one of them sitting on either side of me.

A few days later, the husky made her own return, and spent a few hours walking with us. Every time we paused, she would snap about midair, and land belly-up, with the most pleading look in her eyes.

I trained a chipmunk to eat sunflower seeds from my knee. He let me pet him as he inhaled the little seed-pile I'd placed there. I'd forgotten how incredibly soft chipmunk fur was.

More highlights later, perhaps.

It's not even made from Chinese people

2008-08-18T11:49:00.000-07:00

Sara: Pick two: chili, shepherd's pie, salmon and clam chowder.

Francis: Chili & Shepherd's pie.

Sara: Okie dokie. Dinner for tonight and tomorrow, then.

Francis: Actually, what kind of Shepherd's pie?

Sara: Haha, you don't trust me. Beef. With potato and squash topping.

Francis: Heh, I could make Paté Chinois. Ground beef, corn and mashed potatoes.

Sara: *puppy eyes*

Francis: Alright, alright.

Francis: I swear, we must be the only couple where we "fight" to know who cooks.

Sara: And to be honest, I'm not a huge paté chinois fan. I find it kind of bland.

Francis: Is not.

Sara: Is too!

Francis: It's deliciousness in layered form.

Sara: It's just...like, three things, mooshed together.

Francis: Layered, not mooshed.

Sara: With very little nutrition.

Francis: Philistine.

Sara: Barbarian.

How gay?

2008-07-31T11:25:00.001-07:00

Moxiane: Gayer than a treeful of monkeys on laughing gas.
Sara: Not sure if it's gay enough.
Moxiane: The tree is in San Francisco.

A week of feeding the soul

2008-06-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was spent at the orgy that is Ribfest. It's norminally called the Chicken and Rib Festival, but really, everybody knows you're there for the ribs. The trophies have giant bronze pigs on top of them, for pete's sake.

We tried Albequerque's Uncle Sam's ribs, since they won last year. They were dry, unfortunately, though that may have been because we got there before the lunch rush, and they'd been sitting on the grill for too long. Still disappointing for the price. The sauce was fantastic, however, and easily made up for the dry ribs.

Spending time downtown is always enlightening. While not exactly rustic, I'm also not exactly a city girl. They had hand-washing stations all along the street, which you used by pressing a pump with your foot. Genius, if mundane; especially in the middle of a festival centred around getting your hands covered in meat and sauce. (Gay festival references go here.) We explored the locks next. We stood at the lower locks as they filled, and the cool spray that settled on my arms smelled of water weeds and rotting wood.

Wednesday I saw Sophie Tilgner's "Making Deals with Gods" at the Ottawa Fringe Festival. It was fantastic, of course. One of the actors from Sophie's early shows made a reapperance. I had hoped he would! He's a tall, hairy beast of a man, but he is equally delightful to watch. He varies between great, loud, monologues that make the walls shake, tender whispers that make you lean forward in your seat, and sudden pauses that last exactly long enough to be funny. He is the closest thing to Bruce Campbell that I've ever seen. I hope he does well, and stays in these faintly comedic dramas. It's obviously a perfect place for him.

The other actors were equally good, though not knowing them, I wasn't as immediately smitten. Three women and one man, they were all uniquely beautiful. That sounds like a back handed compliment, but it really isn't. Their looks just suited their roles to a tee, with no one trying to shoehorn themselves into roles they couldn't pull off. (Jessica Alba as a scientist in Fantastic Four? Suuure...) The woman who played God was absolutely breathtaking. Eyes right out of poetry, with curves that could kill a man, and a face that just shone.

Anyway, the story was of course fantastic. Poor Sophie gets short shrift from me--I assume her shows will be wonderful, funny, and well-plotted, so compliments are both increasingly sparse and heartfelt. I'm hesitant to pick a favourite of the three mini-plays, but I think the first, The Miller's Daughter, was definitely one of the highlights. It seemed light and funny, with a moderately serious undertone, but an early plea from the heroine that startled the whole theatre was followed by a darkening plot. I'll say it: Buffy-esque, in all the ways that term can be a compliment. All three ended in ways I didn't foresee, which, frankly, makes me as delighted as it does depressed!

Regardless, I'm off to see WALL-E, which I suspect will be less enlightening but have better special effects. Sorry Sophie!

2008-06-03T10:41:00.001-07:00

Murazor: I'm pondering placing an order for a new monitor
Murazor: while listening to The Sisters of Mercy
Sara: They're not really sisters you know.
Sara: Or Merciful.
Dan: Or of.
Sara: Really the only accurate part is "the" and "o--Dammit Dan!
djones: Or o...damn you Dan.

Flesh versus meat

2008-05-21T11:47:00.000-07:00

We have several packages of of venison in the freezer that's been waiting to be eaten. Last night, I take out four chops (about 2/3 the size of a pork chop) and let them thaw.

I wake up just before six, remove the cat from under my legs, and am in the kitchen minutes later, still yawning. I start butchering the chops for a stewed sweet and sour venison--they'd been in the freezer long enough that I was worried about freezer burn, so I figured stewing was the most forgiving option. I grab the package, feel that it's squishy enough to not be frozen any more, and slit open the butcher's paper with a knife.

Bright red blood rushes over my hands, cold and thick. It spreads down my fingers, fills the bottom of the sink, funneled by the streaming butcher paper. When I try to shift the package to one hand, more blood gushes out over my wrist. A chunk of flesh smacks wetly into the sink.

And I'm thinking, "This is that moment. This is when someone turns vegetarian." And I am disgusted.

But then I realise, I'm not disgusted with the meat. I'm disgusted that I don't do this more. That I don't see the brightness of the blood and smell the coppery tang every time I eat. Blood ran through this; it was a muscle, bunched and unfurled by orders from a brain that could think, and see, and feel.

And now it's dead.

I don't know if that's right. I certainly am not discarding it--that's worse than just eating it. But the experience has definitely brought me closer to my food, and the feeling is uncomfortable.

Certainty

2008-05-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

A new job, a new life, again. I'm resisting re-inventing myself this time, but staying the same feels uncomfortable and weird. I don't know if I can handle it here, so I'm afraid of becoming friendly but worthless. I'm certain that I am the worst of the 300 employees here.

And now a god's honest truth post

2008-04-23T12:02:00.001-07:00

As Justin says, my blog is better at remembering things than I am. So.

Today is my third-last day of work at the first real, career-oriented job I ever got. It's both good and really, really sad. Sometimes something shitty will happen, and I'll think, "Thank god I'm leaving," and then I'll think about how fun it is to work here when shitty things aren't happening.

Like today, it bit us all in the ass that we don't do version control. That means that we save over our old documents with our new data. See where this is going? Our new documents became corrupted, and now we only have a very old backup from a backup CD we burned a year ago.

The new place has lots of fancy stuff like "version control" and "style sheets" and "managers" so it'll be a step up. I swear.

So when you look back Sara, and think, "Dear god, I can't handle this new job, what was I thinking?" remember that yes, you can in fact handle it, so suck it up, princess.

For posterity, Francis' and my first emails to each other. Nerds in love.

2008-04-23T10:50:00.000-07:00

From: Sara Reynolds
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 8:00 AM
To: Francis Lacroix
Subject: CCS Questions

Hi Francis,

Alison’s assigned me to rewrite/update the Contact Center Scheduling data sheet, and she recommended that I e-mail you to ask if there are any new features since versions 4.1/4.3ish?

(By the way, Justin mentioned that you and some guys play WoW on Zuluhed server. Is that right?)

--Sara

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Francis Lacroix
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 9:37 AM
To: sara reynolds
Subject: RE: CCS Questions

There’s most definitely some new features since the 4.1-4.3 releases. However, to get you a specific list, I’d need to load a machine with the 4.x release and compare it to one of the current releases. Just off of the top of my head, I can think of additional Schedule Builder options, Mass Delete, Mass Recurrence, Mass Timeoff and various miscellaneous options such as “Convert To…”.

Yep, that’s correct. Mike, Patrick, Gord and myself (as well as Mike’s girlfriend and some of my friends) play on Zuluhed, Alliance side. If you want to join us, new people are always welcome :).

-Francis

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Sara Reynolds
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 10:18 AM
To: Francis Lacroix
Subject: RE: CCS Questions

That’s great, thanks! I’ll start with the ones you listed, and work my way through the archived DRNs as well. I’ll be hitting you up to check the accuracy of the data sheet later though: lucky you.

I went onto Zuluhed and made a draenei hunter last night, figuring that if I was wrong about the server, I wouldn’t lose much work. (In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have picked such a stereotypically stupid class, when trying to meet people at work…)

Anyway, her name’s Nutmeg. Do you know a few character names of people at work, offhand? I always feel weirdly isolated on a new server, until I meet a few people.

Aaaand now I’ll stop bugging you about WoW and go back to work. Thanks for your help!

--Sara

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hehe, no problem. Like I said, it’s been a while (a few years) since the 4.x releases, so I’ll have to do a bit of investigation. And some of the smaller changes may not have made it on the DRNs in the earlier versions, since processes were a lot less strict or meticulous.

As for WoW:

Our Guild: Mercenaries

People from work

Mine: Kardarkan (Lvl 70, Prot Pally), Sylthia (Lvl 58, Fire Mage), Sornasias (Lvl 26 BM Hunter)

Gord: Toeless (Lvl 58, Warlock)

Mike: Valen (Lvl 68, Ret Pally), Comatoast (Lvl 40something, Warrior), Seraphir, and countless other alts

Patrick: Mouraseigh (Lvl 66, Rogue)

Other People

Exco (Lvl 70, Holy Pally), Engelus (Lvl 49 Hunter, not in guild)

Oniela (Lvl 67, Affliction Warlock), Lanel (Lvl High 20’s, Hunter)

Burann (Lvl 67, Rogue), Some priest, high 20s, can’t remember name.

If you see the others not from work, just let them know you work with us. Very friendly bunch. We also sometimes go out for supper as a bunch, since we’re all here in Ottawa, though it’s mostly a spontaneous thing.

And don’t worry, I can never be bugged about Wow ^_^

-Francis