The Myth & The Majesty

My horoscope for today -- which is hilariously appropriate, although the guys sitting at this table with me didn't appreciate when I implied that it was referring to them: "Your tolerance might be tested today when you are thrown into a social situation with people who you don't really understand all that well. These people are just not your cup of tea, but it is important for you not to let them realize this. It's not about being fake -- it's about being politically savvy and conveying a cool, calm exterior when you're rolling your eyes on the inside. This is a wonderful skill to master, as it will always help you get ahead in life."

Tonight promises a couple more quality hours with my work laptop, a mowed lawn, a cleaner kitchen, and a load or two of laundry. As long as I can get my butt in gear, that is. Which is mostly required -- in 48 hours I'll be back in Sioux Falls for the weekend. So where is my focus? Where it has been for the last two years -- completely nonexistent. My toy poodle attention span does not lend itself to productivity. It's much better for half-hour TV shows and completely pointless blog entries. And it makes some aspects of life damn near impossible.

Oy. This morning had me off and running sooner than any other day in the last five or so months. I hadn't even finished starting my computer when my phone rang. It took an hour for me to get my usual morning tea; by then I had fielded questions on three different projects. What the heck happened over the weekend?! Anyway, things have calmed down a bit since this morning, which means I've managed to work on the things I had planned to do today. Always a good thing. I'm very much looking forward to my calm week. I need to eat out less, among other things. And sleep more. Yes. And, at the end of the week, I get to make my last trek west until Christmas ... It'll be a good one. A weekend filled with music, friends, and 150,000 happy strangers. Gotta love it.

**This is NOT a paid advertisement.** Okay. I don't do this very often, but I have to plug the awesomeness here. What is that awesomeness, you ask? Redbox. Redbox is a DVD rental chain, but it works differently than anything else I've seen. You go to a kiosk (in grocery stores and McDonalds..es everywhere) pick out your movie -- and it gives it to you. It's $1 a night per movie and you can return it to any other redbox in the country. The nights you keep it are automatically charged to your credit card. You can also reserve movies online at their website so they're waiting for you at the kiosk. Very, very easy. If you only rent a few movies a month (like me) it's a fantastic deal. I can't get enough use out of Netflix to make it worthwhile, and I'm not a fan of spending $3.50 to rent a movie I'll watch once and return. That doesn't really work for me. There are a couple things to remember: 1. These are new releases -- usually in the last two or thre

*Cough cough.* Ow. Wow. What a week. Monday was an Arbonne party at Em's ... Tuesday, a bridal shower, Wednesday, the last concert on the Square, Thursday our last two volleyball games -- and then it was the weekend. Friday night I went out to the Square again, this time for "Screen on the Green" -- they showed "The Goonies" right there, in the middle of City Square. I love the Square. One of these days I'll get around to finishing my post about the Square and then we can share the love. It's a cool place. Anyway, somewhere in the craziness I seem to have developed a cold, a fact that does NOT excite me at all. (I get a summer cold almost every year -- but on the bright side, that usually means I don't get one over the course of the winter, or if I do it lasts about three days. My body is very kind to me most of the time.) I also made the painful mistake of eating pizza and fried cheese curds in one day and have since been dealing with odd indigestio

Okay! Obviously I was wrong in my last post. My week went nuts on me. There's been something going on every single night after work and that will continue until at least Monday. I need a breather. More than an occasional lunch almost-break or one night at home alone. My body isn't used to operating at this speed anymore and it's wholeheartedly resisting now. I'll keep pushing myself, but at some point it's not going to work anymore. Oy. For now ... Well, for now I keep moving. Have a good weekend, folks.

Well, here we go again. It's Sunday afternoon and my weekend is winding down. This next week should be much more "normal" than the previous nine days have been ... But we'll see. For instance. It included an all-nighter, a new TV, a wine night, a concert on the square followed by sushi, a night out with Chinese customers and the best steak I've had in ages, one really really late night in Mosinee, and about eight movies. Things I haven't gotten done: - My apartment is still a mess. - The lawn still needs to be mowed. - I don't have food for lunch tomorrow. Tonight I'm spectating at the weekly softball game. Until then, I should be cleaning. Ugh. Oh, what I would do for the inspiration to write something of genuine substance ...

My Rollercoaster from the movie "Juno" You were on my mind at least nine tenths of yesterday It seemed as if perhaps I'd gone insane What is it about you that has commandeered my brain? Maybe it's your awesome songs or maybe it's the way When I look at your face I can tell that you're not going to be stopping soon or even slowing down And if we keep up this pace pretty soon we'll know the name of every kid and every grown up booking house shows in their town And if home is really where the heart is Then we're the smartest kids I know Because wherever we are in this great big world We'll never be more than a few hours from home And that's important because I need to travel I've had this itchin' in my shoes since I was just a little kid And before I had a mini van I road the Greyhound bus My mom would say "I hope some day you get paid for being Kimya Dawson" And now I do and it's not much But it's enough I've got my

It's over. Our Chinese customers are headed back home (or at least they've left Wisconsin -- I'm not sure how many other stops they had on their way back), my early mornings have ended, and the weather outside is a bit too perfect to stay in all the time. I am tired. Tired in body, tired in mind, and even a little fatigued in spirit. I need a real break -- more real than my all-nighter last Friday. So I'm going to take it. I hope. The toughest decision I intend to make this weekend is whether or not to go check out the blues fest over at Fern Island. Rough stuff, I tell you. Have a good one, folks.

... and really, that's all you need to know. (The end.)

12 Things In My Purse 1. My duct tape wallet. 2. My normal wallet. 3. Some form of reading material. (Currently I'm carrying a messenger bag, so I have two magazines and a book.) 4. A little bottle of bubbles from the Stevens-Downs wedding. 5. A Tide To-Go pen. 6. My journal (containing everything from rants about the day's happenings and prewritten blogs to pictures of friends and sketches of things I intend to make. Oh, and shopping lists, sermon notes, phone numbers, a couple of reading lists ...) 7. My camera. 8. My cell phone. 9. My MP3 player and headphones. 10. A travel hairbrush/mirror/sewing kit. 11. A handful of business cards. 12. This coaster.

There are plenty of days where my job is a real drag -- and usually it's cubicle-, computer- or customer-related. But deep down, this is a great place to work. The projects are interesting, the people are a hoot, and the culture of the place is completely unlike most offices. It will surprise no one that an office full of men feels completely different than an office full of women, and around here that's incredibly obvious. The men have us outnumbered 2-1 throughout the building, and 10- or 20-1 in any given engineering meeting. You learn to roll with it or you lose your mind. Its very relaxed most of the time. Not in the Google-wear-your-pajamas-to-work sort of way, but definitely in the familiar-without-going-overboard sort of way. Makes holidays -- especially Halloween -- much more interesting. Most of all, though, there are some incredibly quirky folks that I get to hang out with on a day-to-day basis. There's the crotchety old man who is actually much friendlie

The good news is the restart seems to have worked. The bad news is ... well, really there doesn't seem to be bad news. Crazy week ahead. Customers coming to visit at work and I have a lot of general housework type things to take care of here, assuming I get to spend much time away from work. Hopefully I can -- aside from maintaining my sanity, there are several things I didn't get to do this weekend taht I still want to try. Never enough time, right? Anyway! Back to it. Have a good week, all.

Sometimes you just need to do something crazy. I haven't been sleeping like a normal human being lately. Actually, I just plain haven't been functioning quite right lately. And I've gotten rather sick of it. So sometime Thursday I decided it was time for drastic measures. I needed to find a way to reclaim my head -- and I remembered what always used to help. It's crazy, but sometimes I just need to not sleep. After years of weird insomnia issues, I found that inducing it once in awhile can actually set me back on track. Lo and behold, a weekend finally came along where I was accidentally staying home ... and so I had my chance. (Me at 4AM in front of my decorated bathroom mirror ... which is almost harder to explain than not sleeping.) As such, I've been awake for about 22 hours now. After work and some errands, I got my new TV set up and have been watching movies, cleaning, and working on my various projects since then. A couple of times, I've grabbed a blanket

I am tired. I stayed up too late last night putting together a piece of some-assembly-required furniture (read: came in 150 parts in a box) and it took longer than anticipated. Then, as has been the case most nights for the last six weeks or so, I couldn’t stay asleep. Grr. Tonight, I experiment and see if I can wrestle myself back into a normal sleeping pattern. It's worked before; I don’t know how well it will work this time. Only one way to find out, really. As my travel plans for this weekend have been quashed repeatedly, I'll be amusing myself in town instead. Not hard to do -- there's more than enough going on. Thank goodness. And I still need to clean. August is going to be strange, what with this not-going-anywhere thing. By Labor Day I'll probably be too stir crazy to NOT irritate my friends. Fun.

Anyone else out there suspect that this is going to be an Olympics for the history books? Forgetting for the moment that world records will be shattered and underdogs will prevail -- this is the first Games in a Communist nation in over twenty years, and the furor being whipped up over this is phenomenal. That furor is, in more respects than I care to admit, warranted. China’s politics are unpopular, but the apparent guest treatment is what’s really getting people Try any search for the rules in place for visitors and Chinese citizens alike and you're inundated. The rules are extensive, yes, but the outcry due to them is even more prevalent. It's not as though rules of conduct at the Olympics are a new thing; this is an international bonanza, a point where athletes and visitors can make or break the rest of the world's outlook on their country and its citizens. By all means, you are expected by your own country to be on your best behavior. But. But when the rules are given

I really like this place over the lunch hour. It's the quiet. I know that. You see, this is by no means a quiet place to work. It's an office, sure, but it's a loud office. Always, always I am surrounded by conversations, ringing phones, computer noises, other people's radios, and for the last few months, various construction noises. One of the first things I do every morning is start up my noise replacement -- my MP3 player, without which I would likely never concentrate. Except from 12:00 to 12:30 every day. Computers are abandoned; the conversations move to the lunchroom and nearby fast food joints; people stop calling in; construction workers take a break. For half an hour, it's gloriously empty and quiet. Normally, I'm off with my own crowd, yukking it up at the lunch table. This week I've been staying in my cubicle, usually because I have work I need to finish before some afternoon meeting. Today? Today I just wanted to enjoy the quiet for a b

(My arm wasn't quiiiiiite long enough for this angle.)

(The end.)

Aside from realizing that I'm going to be much poorer in a few days, this is an average week. Average in that "holy-cow-what's-going-on-here" sort of way. It's funny. I took a week off and spent my time in a funny half-vacation, sleeping odd hours and doing as little as necessary for the first fourteen hours of every day -- then working my tail off for the remaining ten. It was a lot like school but quite decidedly not a good idea. Now, a full week plus later, I still can't sleep my "regular" hours and Lord knows that the weather is not cooperating. This morning I woke up to a spectacular, beautiful, but irritating thunderstorm at 2AM. Not appreciated. Tonight? I can't cool off and sleep. But I must keep trying, because in eight hours I need to be up and on my way to work Bah humbug. Sometimes being an adult really stinks.

Yesterday's post and my current search to replace my old TV (whom I am tempted to name Moby both because it's ginormous and because I have an unhealthy complex about naming inanimate objects) have gotten me thinking about the whole video media thing. When I moved five months ago, I decided I wasn't going to get cable in my new place. There were a couple of reasons ... For one thing, it's too stinking expensive, especially since there's not necessarily anything besides "Law & Order" on at any given time. And while I am occasionally in the mood for "L&O," it's not a 24-hour addiction with me. Also, it seemed silly to spend the money to watch hours of TV on my particular set -- a 25-year-old, 21-inch wood-paneled piece of almost-modern art that magically fits perfectly in the cheap-as-free entertainment center I acquired from an old housemate. The picture flickers, the color sporadically disappears, and the sound sometimes freaks out. A

Mia Sorella will tell you that I am a bit too forgiving of movies. I might say she's too harsh. The bottom line is that I enjoy most movies. However, there are a few that really stand out in my life for one reason or another, most of which I can -- and do -- watch over and over and over. Each one has the year it was released, the actors I knew/remembered, a description of why I like it, and a "viewing group rating." In other words, here are twelve brief reviews of some great movies. ----------------- My Twelve Favorite Movies (in no particular order) The Philadelphia Story 1940. Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart. This one's just great. Really. You don't get more classic. The dialogue is what gets me during most of it. (Adults. Safe for kids' viewing -- no sex, drugs, violence, or swearing -- but they probably won't "get" a lot of it and they'll get bored.) Garden State 2004. Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard. This m

Whew. It's Friday. Already. Or is it finally? I can never tell. Statistically speaking, July is my worst month for posting. I'm serious -- until this year, I averaged 3.8 posts in the month of July. This year I brought that up to 5.2. Yes. I keep track of these things. In any case, it's August now, and if I can get my rear in gear I'll actually post some real content. I have, as we speak, two "Discovering Wausau," four SWG2L, and two 12Things posts in the works. I also have a trip post that needs pictures. Which is to say, I have nine half-written, real-content posts that I just need to finish so I can stop posting random crap. Novel idea, eh? For now, though, you get the crap. Why? Because it's a Friday afternoon, I'm at work, and I'm just killing time until I get some feedback on an equipment estimate I sent off earlier today. Oh, and I'm COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY BRAIN-FRIED. I love vacation, but it sure messes with you the nex