I will admit that I woke up angry this morning; there were no stories springing fully-formed from my mind like I had hoped. Even if there were, I didn't have time to write them down; as it was, I ended up putting my eye makeup on in the car ("luckily" there's a stoplight near my house that I routinely get stuck at for three minutes) and showing up nine minutes late to the big boss's staff meeting. Since the big boss was ten minutes late, she was none the wiser, and the presentation I had to give went pretty well. I made the wise tactical move of dressing up (grey sheath dress with big white polka dots, black cardigan, four inch stiletto heels), which made me sit up and feel confident, and served to mask my utterly surly mood. The four inch stilettos also kept me chained to my desk, which was good for my productivity; I only really left the desk for a couple of meetings + lunch with Gyre, and when Gyre and I walked across the courtyard to a nearby cafe, I was taking hobbled, constrained steps like a Chinese concubine. This led to him taking hobbled, constrained steps as well, which I found much more amusing than it really was, and now I have bored you with that detail as well!
I had my usual one-on-one with the big boss this afternoon; perhaps the answer to all my surliness last night is to take a quarter to just work fifteen hours a day for the day job, since that would keep me from stewing about my writing. There's certainly plenty to do to keep me busy this quarter, and while I've been proud of myself for having more of a life than I did before I went on leave, some of my old workaholic tendencies are flaring up in the face of my negative feelings about my writing. After all, I could throw my entire heart and soul into my job until there was nothing left of me, and it could just keep taking...and I will admit that there is a not-insignificant part of me that enjoys being a martyr and would get quite a bit of masochistic pleasure out of overachieving at work and selling myself in the process. I won't do it, but thinking of all the things I could be doing for the big boss if I was willing to sublimate myself for the good of The Man sometimes tempts me.
Anyway, things got a bit brighter after I left work; I had dinner with Chris and Natasha at their house, and Chris grilled a lot of meat for us while we sat out on their deck. They are a v. amusing couple, both solo and together, and they were bickering quite a bit tonight, which I found v. entertaining. They both work for my company, and so we talked a bit of shop, but for the most part we just relaxed, hung out, and caught up. It was a great break, and I'm glad it stopped me from brooding for a few hours. I got home around ten p.m., fired up the work laptop, and worked for the last couple of hours (although there was a good fifteen minutes or so where I fell asleep over the keys while trying to make some slides).
Thanks to those of you who read my post yesterday and didn't roll your eyes (and thanks even to those of you who did roll your eyes) -- while i'm still annoyed and less than thrilled with myself, I'm not in quite such a bad place as i was last night, and I'm sure that it will get better when I figure out how to break through this next set of scenes. Now, though, I desperately need to sleep; I'm only going to get six hours at this point, which is not enough. Goodnight!
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