my grandma - i will probably look like her in fifty years
 

all that hay is ours! or rather, my parents' - they disowned me for not talking to them last week.
 

the deer probably weren't very happy when i rode my aunt's scandalous pirate boyfriend's four-wheeler at v. high speeds across the fields...
 

kitchen/dining area
 

can you spot the round barn?
 

idyllic view of the pond from the living room windows
 

our new living room
 

Claudia at the Great Salt Lake - Memorial Day Weekend/Zach and Maggie's Wedding, May 2007

it's not living a lie if you're not living at all

Okay, so my parents apparently thought I died this weekend, and much of my conversation with them this afternoon involved varying degrees of chastisement for not blogging, calling, or responding to emails since Thursday. My bad. I have assured them that I am alive and well, and now I am doing the same for you! Friday, I worked really hard, then had a v. fun dinner w/Terry and a bunch of coworkers (including Subz, Arod, Regina, Kim, Chris, and Sean) in joint celebration of our birthdays. Saturday, I had an early brunch (9am!!) w/Sriniketh, felt ill and so bailed on Julie, and then had pizza and watched a movie w/Heather and Salim. Today, I went to work, did crafts w/Laura for four hours (and left my phone on my desk, which is why I didn't answer the seven calls that my parents left for me), worked on my romance novel, took a nap, and then worked from 9-midnight. Now, I should really go to bed - the next week is going to be hectic.

I hope that all of you are alive as well! Please accept my apologies for any concern I may have caused.

message in a brothel

OMG, I love Craig Ferguson. Loyal readers already know this. In fact, the title of this blog post was stolen from tonight's monologue, regarding how Sting was photographed leaving a whorehouse in Germany. However, my love was just confirmed - he had a sketch tonight in which he ran through the set of 'The Bold and the Beautiful' while Brooke and Ridge were arguing, he interrupted them to tell Brooke he had always loved her, and then made out with her while Ridge looked on. Awesome! 'The Bold and the Beautiful' may be the trashiest of all the CBS soaps, since they never really expanded the cast too much and so it mostly just involves Brooke and Taylor sleeping with various male Forresters while Stephanie occasionally tries to kill Brooke. So, the combination of Craig Ferguson and 'The Bold and the Beautiful' made my night.

I was sad to discover, though, that he's performing in San Francisco tomorrow night - had I known in time, I would have gotten tickets, but I now have plans to have a joint birthday dinner with Terry and a bunch of our coworkers :( Oh, well, swooning after Craig Ferguson in person will have to wait for another day.

I'm in a great mood despite the fact that I worked from nine until now - the weekly meeting that I had today usually goes really disastrously in the sense that we have a lot of long-winded, intense, argumentative discussions that never go anywhere (I believe I described it as 'herding monkeys' a couple of weeks ago), but I was so successful at keeping us on the agenda today that we made every decision that we set out to make and ended on time. This was such an accomplishment that everyone actually clapped at the end of the meeting, which I thought was hilarious. Corporate America does have its entertaining moments.

Okay, I should go to bed, I have to be at work fairly early tomorrow. Goodnight!

doublecross the vacant and the bored

As befitting my newly-elderly status, I wore all black today. Well, except for the armful of red bangles, but that hardly counts in comparison to my usual fuchsia explosion. I also came home and did laundry and worked - it doesn't get more depressing than that.

Here's the best quote that I've read in awhile - it's not exactly inspirational, but it is thought-provoking: ""I paid off a poker debt with sexual favors, and I fell in love," Pamela Anderson told DeGeneres. "It's so romantic. It's romance."" I think that should be eHarmony's new ad campaign - they could team up with partypoker.com and help to match up desperate, broke singles with sexual predators.

This weekend is going to be rather busy - I have birthday dinner plans on Friday w/Terry, two separate brunches on Saturday, afternoon playtime with Vidya, and dinner with some of my former expatriate compatriots. It will be nice, though, I'm sure - if I can survive until then. My throat is starting to feel sore, which isn't a good sign - it can't be allergies, since I've beaten them into submission by my expensive cocktail of allergy medications, so I'm probably getting sick. Speaking of allergies, though, I should really see the allergist who told me to get more extensive tests back in July - I felt rather sick and my mouth itched after I had a lot of guacamole on a sandwich on Monday, and if it turns out I'm allergic to avocadoes too, I might as well just throw in the towel and hope that my advanced age strikes me down quickly.

Okay, bedtime!

out of the womb and into the void

Thanks to everyone who left well-wishes in comments, on facebook, or on voicemail! It means a lot to me :)

Alas, it is no longer my birthday :( I'm apparently just like a little kid - I woke up early this morning and was too excited/happy to go back to sleep, so I took the time to blowdry my hair and iron my skirt (both of which were extremely abnormal activities). I went to work, had a reasonable day at the office, and was taken to lunch by Heather, which was nice. It's strange that we get free ultra-gourmet food every single day, and yet eating out at a run-of-the-mill Thai place is a treat.

In the afternoon, I had my standard weekly team meeting, and the team surprised me and Tolu (whose birthday was yesterday) with cake and champagne delivered by our director and his admin. So we sat around for half an hour chatting and eating one of the best cakes I've had in awhile - Cold Stone's ice cream/butterfingers cake. Mmm. I'm also pleased to report that I can now drink champagne again, despite the debacle at the beginning of July in which I drank two full bottles of champagne and had to be at work the next morning. Yay.

After work, I drove up to the evil city and had dinner at Little Star Pizza with the remaining core of my original college friends - Vidya, Adit, Oniel, John, and Jess. A good time seemed to be generally had by all, except perhaps by Oniel - he arrived late with the flimsy excuse that Google Maps had lied to him (impossible!), and then was not happy when we nearly voted on and ratified calling him 'Fauxneil'. We spent about twenty minutes trying to come up with another nickname for him, which resulted in many inane and hilarious suggestions (one of my favorites was Bill Crosby). I think 'Oniel No Deal' won, although I personally guess that Fauxneil is the one that is going to stick - any previous person in the group who has vehemently opposed a nickname has ended up stuck with it (see 'Santy Claude' and 'Swamplestiltskin' as examples).

But, it was nice to spend some quality family time with that particular group of friends, even if our numbers have shrunk considerably. Time was, I could easily get up ten or fifteen people to see a movie - granted, that was before I burned through a lot of goodwill by conning people into seeing 'King Arthur', but it's just not like it used to be. All sorts of great people have moved away - Emily, Walter, Ritu, Renee, Tammy, Chris, Zach, Felicia, Nita...the list actually goes on and on, and I know I'm going to offend a dozen people because I inadvertently left them off the list, but so be it. The latest and saddest departure was Claudia - it's been three weeks since I've seen here, which is probably longer than any period since I got back from Dublin. We toasted her memory several times tonight, a trend which I'm sure will continue.

Okay, I'm exhausted, so it's time for bed. Goodnight!

who says you can't go home?

I have returned from my sojourn in my native land - which is sad, particularly since I have returned to a world of painful emails and myriad pointless meetings. Actually, today wasn't too bad - perhaps because I cleared out on time and spent a couple of hours at a cafe working on my romance novel. I'm up to 37,774 words, and the scene I wrote tonight was great - it involved kilts, a sheep's head, and a man named Ferguson (an homage to my dear friend Katie, who is perhaps the only person who will find any humor in what I wrote tonight - although there is no MacPherson involved, because international transvestite superspies have no place in Regency romances!)

Many apologies to my loyal readers - I really left you hanging while I was in Iowa, but I shall endeavor to write more regularly in the future. I had a v. relaxing week - I didn't check my work email at all, and I spent quite a bit of time eating, watching tv, and talking to my parents. I also spent quite a bit of time cleaning out my childhood bedroom, as I mentioned before. In general, the week was great, and my parents didn't get divorced or seem to be annoyed by my presence, so I definitely can't complain. I also got to spend some quality time with my brother (although I'm v. concerned that there are speakers built into my bedroom wall and that he can pipe whatever music he wants into my room), I saw my sister and her kids, and I saw my aunt, her scandalous pirate boyfriend, and my uncle/aunt/cousin, as well as my grandmother. The funny thing is that I only left the 'estate' twice - once to go out to lunch, and once to buy some dairy products. I really could be a hermit if I so desired, particularly in a huge house with plenty of sunshine.

Now, though, I shall go to bed - I have to work tomorrow, and then I'm going to the city to have dinner with my California family (who are generally browner than my Iowa family - maybe it's the extra sunshine?). Goodnight!

madeleine l'engle is dead :(

How sad...I loved her 'Wrinkle in Time' series, and I read one of her adult novels when I was in college, which I recall loving even though I should have been reading books for SLE. She was 88, though, so I suppose it isn't a tragedy, but still.

Here's the obit: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/08/books/07cnd-lengle.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

sucio!

My dear reader, I apologize for my profound silence over the past several days - as you perhaps know, I have been on an extended sojourn to the land of my ancestors. It may provide you with no solace, but I have not been neglecting my journaling - rather than writing here, I have been writing in my journal every night while drinking tea and watching 'Craig Ferguson'. Doesn't that sound lovely?

What has *not* been lovely, however, is cleaning out my childhood bedroom. The difference between my parents' new house, and my parents' old house, is extreme - I don't think it's even possible to conceive how different they are. Though they are separated by only a hundred yards, it's clear that they wouldn't even be in the same neighborhood under normal circumstances. The new house is gorgeous, and I love my room - I chose a color called 'Bombay' which turned out to be a lovely muted rose color. It's not exactly a color that I would choose as the primary scheme if I were to build my own house, but perhaps I was drawn subconsciously to how I had always wanted my bedroom to look when I was younger. And for one's parents' house, where one goes to escape from everything, a girly bedroom is perfect. Anyway, the new house is pretty much perfect; it looks out over the pond, it's extremely bright (annoying, since my bedroom faces east - I've had to resort to sleeping w/my travel face mask), and there's plenty of space.

The old house, by contrast, is a farmhouse with a hundred years of history. You might suppose that I would feel nostalgic, but I don't feel even a shred of nostalgia - as soon as I saw the new house, I half-jokingly told my parents they could just burn my old stuff. The biggest issue is that the old house smells now - a hundred years of cooking, smoking, dusty gravel roads, and intermittent rodent invasions (pretty common in the country) does not lead to a pleasant underlying odor, and it's been compounded by the fact that it's been shut up and unairconditioned for the past few months. Ugh.

Luckily for me, I have less stuff than anyone else in the house, probably because I shipped many things to California - but Vidya, you should realize that this is proof of what I've told you about my family's packrat tendencies, when I look like an ascetic by comparison to my family even though I probably have more stuff in California than any two of my friends combined. So I've successfully moved it all over to the new house (with the help of my mother, who helped me to pack, and my father, who drove it around on a trailer to the back of the new house). Now it's just a matter of organizing it so that it doesn't overwhelm my new room.

That's all for now - perhaps later I shall regale you with stories of the other fun things I've done this week. However, it's time for me to shower and finish organizing my bedroom. Have a great day!

amarillo by morning

Okay, maybe not amarillo, but I am flying through Dallas, which is an
extremely unfortunate way to fly to des moines. I also talked to Katie
tonight for quite awhile when I should have been packing, so I almost
feel like a texan. I just need a ten gallon hat and an oil well.

Today was a little rough...I was at work for eleven hours, but I was
insanely productive, to the point that I was able to leave my laptop
at home with no guilt and no tasks hanging over my head. Then I talked
to my parents and Katie, went to the mall to get some essentials (aka
expensive skin products at sephora), and then went home to pack
furiously and shower before driving to the airport. My flight takes
off at one a.m., and I will probably get a maximum of five hours of
sleep during my travels, which is unfortunate. Ah, well, at least I am
escaping from the crazy, sinful coast for a sojourn in the heartland.
Goodnight, everyone! When I write again, I shall be in Iowa!

tired!

I can't wait for vacation, but the cost is that I need to get things done before I leave. That explains why I'm awake at 2:30am. Today was actually not too bad at all - I was in meetings all day, but I managed to sneak in lunch with Alaska Matt, who was visiting this week from Beijing. One of my meetings was two hours with an executive coach - she is apparently a cheaper, low-grade version of the other executive coach I'm using, but for some inexplicable reason we have two management development trainings going on simultaneously, and I just happen to be going through both of them within a two-month period. She claimed to bring a 'toolkit' for talking about things like time management, difficult conversations, presentations skills, etc. Since I did not have the energy, desire, or interest to do roleplays, I steered clear of any problem that might involve roleplaying a conversation, and so stuck to time management. Luckily I'm so overworked that I could easily spend two hours venting about how much I have to do, and we did come up w/a few small tips for what I can do to streamline things - although never you fear, I won't streamline by killing off my blog. In general, though, I would have preferred to take a nap at my couch during those two hours, but c'est la vie.

After work, I had a dinner/intervention with Terry, in which we both simultaneously encouraged and discouraged each other about our progress in moving towards life goals. I tried to use my position of age and wisdom to influence her, but since I'm only three days older than her, I don't think she respected me enough :(

When I got home, I took a nap - it was supposed to be half an hour, but it turned into an hour and a half. Rejuvenated, I then worked from 10:30 to 2:30, and I feel that I accomplished a lot. The downside is that I'll only get six hours of sleep tonight - but if I work myself into a state of exhaustion, I'll easily be able to sleep on the plane. Too bad I want to read on the plane instead - I got all sorts of books from Amazon today about 19th-century England and Scotland, including this gorgeous coffee-table book containing hundreds of photos and illustrations of English manor houses and castles. Yay. I'm such a dork.

It is definitely way past my bedtime...I hope all is well in all of your respective lives!

what you want, what you lost, what you had, what is gone is over

Wow, I'm exhausted! I had yet another management offsite today - this one was one where we all get together and talk about our feelings in relation to the entire group. It was good, and the dinner afterwards (at a restaurant in Burlingame) was delicious, but I did feel pretty wiped out as a result. I don't think I fully drank the koolaid - probably because most of the comments just reminded me of how much work I have to do.

Anyway, I was at this offsite from 8:30am to 10pm, then I came home and worked for the past two hours to do the stuff on my to-do list that absolutely, unforgivably had to be done in time for tomorrow morning. Now it's only fifteen minutes until Craig comes on, and I'm debating whether to stay up or go to bed - I may actually be tired enough that going to bed makes more sense. How sad is that? But, my to-do list has reached the magical point where I'm using a variety of capital letters as well as several levels of symbols (squares, double squares, and circles - but I haven't gotten to triangles yet) to denote what has to be done right now, what REALLY has to be done right now, and what absolutely must regardless of any other competing needs has to be done immediately. And because my to-do list is so out of control and I want to go on vacation in three days without anything hanging over me, I think I should really spend the next couple of days slogging like I've never slogged before. Bleh. At least it will make sleeping on the plane easy! Now it's time for bed.

if i don't make it, know that i loved you all along

I'm sure that I've used the lyric in this title at least once, and possibly more, but I like it anyway. Today was interesting - I had meetings straight from 9-5:30, then came home, talked to my parents, and switched into sweatpants before going back to the office to get some more stuff done. I figured I would be more productive at the office, since my apartment was too hot - and I ended up staying there until around midnight. Part of it was spent making crafts w/Laura; the part from 9-12 involved a lot of productivity in the form of emails and spreadsheets.

Tomorrow I have to go to San Mateo for a management offsite, which is unfortunate, so I should go to bed. However, I must say that it was worth staying up to watch Craig tonight - in his monologue, he went off about how he's sick of the obesity epidemic being shown on news stations as 'the battle of the bulge', because it's so disrespectful to the allied soldiers who gave their lives in this epic battle during world war 2. It was pretty great; I also liked when he called Nicole Richie a 'fat bitch' for getting pregnant. Considering that she's about the size of a hamster, that's pretty great.

Now, though, I need to go to bed! Goodnight!

i walked around my good intentions and found that there were none

I was moderately productive today - I woke up this morning and successfully cleaned up my kitchen, and then talked to my parents while driving to Millbrae to have brunch with Vidius Chandicus at Peter's Cafe. It felt like a small betrayal, since that's where I go with Claude, but then again that's where I used to go with Tammy, and the wheel of fortune keeps turning despite my sadness that both of them have moved away. How melodramatic is that?

Anyway, I had a lovely (or as Vidya would say, 'lowely') time with Vidya, and also quite enjoyed Peter's homemade sausage patty. Then, we had an 'adventure' in the form of walking around the block - walking around the block took us briefly through Burlingame, which means that I successfully hung out in two nondescript, strangely-stuck-in-the-1950s towns on the peninsula. We parted ways amidst much hugging and crying (or rather, no hugging and crying), and I came back to Palo Alto, where I did three loads of laundry and worked on my romance novel. Then, I had dinner with John at Hunan Homes, site of many previous revelries - including my graduation dinner, for those of you who were there. We had the mu shu pork, which I had been craving for months, but we departed from tradition and had honey walnut prawns instead of a 'scissoring' (aka sizzling) platter. It was nice to catch up, although there perhaps wasn't as much to catch up on as usual since I've seen him more in the past six weeks than I had in the past twelve months, it feels like.

Now I shall go to sleep - I have to go to work early tomorrow, since I was boycotting my rapidly-spiraling-out-of-control to-do list. This week will be chaotic, as usual, but I leave for Iowa on Friday!

but he talks like a gentleman, like you imagined when you were young

I just did some checking - they've opened a Sephora in the newest mall on the west side of Des Moines. Now that I know that I can get cosmetics, in Iowa, there's nothing keeping me here anymore!

The weekend is good enough so far - I had an incredibly lazy first half of the day, since I woke up at ten, surfed the net for a couple of hours, and then took a nap from 1-2pm. However, I did some work on my romance novel this afternoon - I didn't write anything new, but I went back through the five different notebooks that I've jotted ideas into over the past couple of years and consolidated everything into a notetaking system on my laptop. I feel pretty good about that - I was onto some great things in some of those entries, but because they weren't always in the same notebook, I was having trouble keeping track of them. I then had dinner and a movie with Subz (aka Lauren) - we discussed our respective lives, and then saw 'Ratatouille'. It was really cute, and there was one surprisingly touching scene towards the end that made me want to cry, so I enjoyed myself. It was also good to catch up with Lauren - I definitely don't see her as much as I would like to, which is probably mostly my fault since I have been in people-avoidance mode for the past couple of months at least.

Now though, I should avoid you as well and seek out the comfort of my bed. Goodnight!

magic soaking my spine

So as you may have figured out last night, I came home to the distressing discovery that I had forgotten to put my boeuf bourguignon back in the fridge after reheating it the night before. This was rather upsetting, since there were at least four servings left, and I had intended to freeze them for my future enjoyment. The rest of my day yesterday was fine, though, and I had a lovely dinner with Kim--we caught up on our respective lives over enchiladas at Fiesta del Mar, so I didn't exactly go hungry last night, despite my mistake with the boeuf bourguignon.

Today was a relatively decent day as well; I had to be at the office at 8:30, which was a major downer, but I left around five. I also had lunch with Heather and spent about half an hour catching up with Terry, so that was nice. After getting home from work, I sliced up a bunch of strawberries, mixed some dough for shortcake, and then went over to Shedletsky's house. Tonight was an experiment in merging friend groups - I had been trying to coordinate doing something with my friend Chris (the former TASPer) for awhile, and also wanted him to meet Shedletsky, since Chris is into boardgames. So Chris, his fiancee Meggy, and his friend Ryan all came over, and Shed made french toast and bacon. We then played a couple of board games - and I must have been on best behavior, since Shed's roommate didn't leave the game midway through in disgust/anger like he did the last time I played with him. See, I am growing up!

The rest of the weekend will be simultaneously eventful and uneventful - I have made tentative plans with three different people tomorrow, and if they all come to fruition I will have to bail on at least one of them. Sunday, I'm having brunch with Vidya, which shall be lovely. I also need to work on my romance novel and do laundry, so it should be a busy couple of days. In preparation, I'm going to go to bed! In one week, I will be on a plane bound for ye olde Iowa!

goodbye bourguignon

to the tune of 'Goodbye Norma Jean' by Elton John

Goodbye Bourguignon
Though I never made you before
You tasted great and filled me up
For several days on end

I left you out to cool down
And then promptly went off to bed
Twenty-four hours later
Spores may lurk within your broth

And it seems to me, you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never able to self-refrigerate
When the heat set in
And I would have liked to have kept you
But I was so stupid
Your toxins grew up long before
Your greatness ever fled

Dumping you was tough
The toughest thing I ever did
I created a soupy superstar
And pain was the price I paid

Even though I knew
Oh, my heart still wanted you
All the websites had to say
Was that you would kill me if I ate you

And it seems to me, you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never able to self-refrigerate
When the heat set in
And I would have liked to have kept you
But I was so stupid
Your toxins grew up long before
Your greatness ever fled

Goodbye Bourguignon
Though you never loved me at all
Goodbye Bourguignon
From the young girl in the Palo Alto home
Who sees you as something more than victuals
More than just Frenchified meat stew

And it seems to me, you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never able to self-refrigerate
When the heat set in
And I would have liked to have kept you
But I was so stupid
Your toxins grew up long before
Your greatness ever fled

Goodbye Bourguignon
Goodbye Bourguignon
Goodbye
Goodbye Bourguignon

it took eight years just to realize...no one looks when we say goodbye

I'm watching HGTV - started off with 'Decorating on a Dime', then watched some show about home appraisals, and now I'm watching something about selling houses. 'Decorating on a Dime' isn't really on a dime - it's with a budget of $1000, and three people who have major skills with carpentry and artwork. But, despite the fact that the show didn't give me any great ideas, I got to watch it while relaxing and eating leftover boeuf bourguignon - man, that stuff is delicious. I made fresh mashed potatoes to go with it, and also succeeded in cleaning up my kitchen from last night's fun, so I feel v. productive.

Work was also okay today - every meeting I had contributed to a raging headache, but I relaxed by playing Wii and Guitar Hero for half an hour or so this afternoon before having a conference call from 6:30-7:30pm. I'm going to go to bed before I get sucked into staying up late enough to watch Craig Ferguson - I was exhausted all day today, which probably did nothing to help my mood. Considering that tomorrow and Friday are both really busy as well, I should probably get some rest. However, I only have seven more business days before I go home! And one of those is an all-day offsite next week, so it's not all bad. Goodnight!

tin omen

Tonight was the end of an era - Claude is moving to Yale (aka jail) on Friday, and we got together for one last dinner tonight. The participants were the remnants of our original crew; Adit, Oniel, John, Jess, Vidya, and Sri were all in attendance as we bid a sad farewell to our departing comrade. We had a generally merry time, punctuated by a ritual that I awkwardly forced on everyone, in which we each took a candle, said a nice thing about Claude, and then blew the candle out. In general, though, it was clear that we will all miss her tremendously - particularly for me, this is going to be hard, since Claude was my go-to best friend for all sorts of mischief and merriment, in addition to my partner in culinary adventure. I don't use emoticons lightly, but I shall use one here. :(

Anyway, we had a v. nice evening, and I just parted ways w/Claudia and Vidya. Now, I should really go to bed; the weekend will be soon enough to dwell on Claude's absence. I'm busy at work tomorrow, and will want to clean up my kitchen when I get home (although it's not too bad - I just need to run another dishwasher load and clean up a couple of serving pieces). I will also want to eat more boeuf bourguignon - it turned out fantastically, if I do say so myself, particularly over the mashed potatoes that I made on a whim tonight. I also made a spinach, pear, walnut, and gorgonzola salad that was good, and the quiche that Claude brought was excellent. We topped it all off with some walnut brownies that Sri brought, so in general we had a feast that was worthy of Claude's last supper with us.

Please think of one nice thing about Claude; and now I shall go to bed!

pass the courvoisier

I really need to go to bed - but instead of staying up working until now, I've stayed up cooking until now. Okay, perhaps I wasn't cooking the whole time - and I didn't start cooking until nine p.m., since I was on the phone w/my parents and grocery shopping before then. But I made boeuf bourguignon for dinner tomorrow night - this means that all I have to do when I get home is reheat the stuff and slice some bread, and perhaps make a salad, so that's pretty exciting. The dish wasn't ridiculously difficult, but it involved waaay too much time spent cutting up beef and bacon. The most exciting part was when I poured in half a cup of cognac into the pot and got to light it on fire - I think I singed the hairs off the back of my right hand because I didn't pull back fast enough, but it was very fun to watch.

Now I'm watching Craig Ferguson while my boeuf bourguignon cools enough so that I can put it in the fridge. Tonight's episode is pretty good - for some reason, I laughed out loud when he was talking about the hotel he stayed in in Glasgow this past weekend, and he said 'he was only a bellboy...but that night, he became a bellman'. Craig is v. good at the lascivious, ridiculous innuendos. He's also very good at dressing up as random people - tonight he put on a blonde wig and a purple skirt and pretended to be J.K. Rowling. He held a fake cat stuffed with money, then bought the White House and laughed evilly for about five minutes. It was awesome!

Okay, that's enough for tonight - I should go to bed so that I don't fall asleep during dinner tomorrow. Goodnight!

take this heart...it's ticking like a time bomb

Last night was very fun, although I was paying the wages of my sin today. After work yesterday, I came home, took a shower, and then went up to the evil city with Claudia and her brother Marco. We had pizza at Adit's place with him and Oniel, hung out there drinking wine and watching WWE wrestling, and then decided to make our way to the karaoke place that Adit had recommended. We ran for the bus and managed to miraculously catch it, and Oniel paid ten dollars to cover all of our fares. We went approximately one and a half blocks, but at the intersection where the bus was supposed to turn, the street was blocked off by police tape because someone had been murdered on that street. Apparently the policy in those situations is for the driver to rejoice and just hang out until they open the street, rather than driving a couple of blocks out of the way to get the bus back on track, so he told all of us to get off. He couldn't give refunds either - he could only give transfer tickets eligible for that night only, which was useless to us because there was no other bus available to get us to our destination. It was also v. difficult to find taxis, but luckily John and Jess were in the general area because they were driving to the karaoke place, so they came and picked some of us up while the others managed to procure a taxi.


Karaoke was super fun, and we stayed much longer than I figured we would - we were there from around 11:15 until 2:30. We had our own room, so we didn't have to share with anyone, which was fantastic. We also brought in our own drinks, which was why I ended up feeling so miserable this morning - I had premixed kamikazes before going to the karaoke place, and they're intended to be shots, but we were drinking them more like cocktails - but you really can't have much of a drink that's 1/3 vodka, 1/3 triple sec, and 1/3 lime juice without getting pretty intoxicated. It didn't help that when we got back to the apartment, Adit opened the bottle of port that I had nostalgically purchased (in honor of the memorable port-drinking night that Adit, Claude and I once had together), and I had a glass of that. It was a big glass, too - port should be imbibed in small quantities with dessert, not in a water tumbler, particularly since it's 40-proof, which was an even worse idea on top of a stomach full of kamikaze. Adit did make grilled cheese and eggs, which had some restorative properties, but it wasn't enough. Add to the mix the fact that Adit's new apartment faces straight east and he doesn't have any window treatments, so I was awoken by the relentless rays of the sun at 8am, after sleeping around three hours.

Needless to say, I was pretty miserable and still a little bit drunk when I woke up, but since Claude, Marco, Oniel and I had all stayed over with Adit, we had a fun, leisurely morning hanging out in the apartment before venturing out to procure lunch. I came home around 1pm, took a two-hour nap, ran a couple of errands, had sushi for dinner, and then read a bunch of random articles on wikipedia. Fun times, eh?

Tomorrow I'm going to try to relax some more, or something, but I have a lot of work-related activities that I should do. It will be nice to have a day to myself though--even though I'm fairly extroverted, I have some deeply rooted desires for alone time, and they're not always being met right now. So, in an effort to meet them, I'm going to stop writing this and go to bed!

you might remember that joke from the '80s, but i don't...i was drunk!

The only good thing about working all the time is that if I work too late, I get to see Craig Ferguson. I'm taking Felicia up on her suggestion and am going to tag all future posts that mention him, since I'm so in love. Tonight, he had one of my favorite segments - his impersonation of Sean Connery. This one was 'Sean Connery: Street Magician', in which he went up to a guy and said 'I have a trick to make your arm disappear'. Then he drank a lot of scotch straight from the bottle before ripping the man's arm off. Crude, but incredibly effective, and I actually laughed out loud by myself like the lunatic I am.

Anyway, today was fine - I ended up only doing nine performance reviews, and they all went well. I have three tomorrow, as well as a whole bunch of meetings, and then I have to come home, change, and drive up to the city to do some karaoke'ing w/my friends. Tonight, I had dinner with Claude at Left Bank in Menlo Park, to commemorate the good times we've had there and the fact that she's leaving. The service was amazingly abysmal - they brought me the wrong wine (and they tried to charge me for it even though I'd sent it back), they never brought us any water, they didn't bring me my green beans (although they didn't try to charge me either), and were generally v. slow. However, we had raw oysters, which I adore, and I had french onion soup and a delicious chocolate cake, so I was very happy.

Now, my friends, it is definitely time for bed. I'm looking forward to doing some socializing this weekend, but I'm also excited to spend some time by myself - I need to unwind, write in my journal, buy groceries, sleep, etc. Doesn't that sound lovely? Goodnight!

walk me down your broken line

Craig Ferguson is on a freakin' roll tonight. His monologue, regarding mens' and womens' magazines, was hysterical. His second interlude before the interviews was also great - it involved a lot of flashback scenes with some guy who was playing a flight instructor, and the awesome thing about Craig's flashbacks is that he doesn't tape them in advance, so they just run back and forth and slam wigs on their heads while a 'flashback' swirling graphic shows for a few seconds. Then, his first guest was Doogie Howser (who I suppose has a real name and a real career, and I do like him in 'How I Met Your Mother', but he will always be Doogie Howser to me). Anyway, I can't really recreate how great he is, but this does make me feel slightly better about the fact that I worked until now. Although I must say that he just keeps getting funnier - he just said, 'you don't mind if I put the lights down, do you? 'cause I just find you hideous'. That's not funny at all when I write it, but it was great when he said it. Probably because he has the awesomest accent ever.

Also, since when did Lifehouse come back and produce anything worthy of showing on tv? The last I heard from them, it was 2000 and they had that big hit 'Hanging by a Moment'...which, I admit, I liked, but I was fine with them being a one-hit-wonder. Now they're on Craig, which is weird...and they apparently blew all of their previous profits on hair bleach and trendy tshirts. Don't you wish you were a rockstar?

Today was busy, and tomorrow is going to be worse; part of the reason I'm up so late is because I have to give 10 performance reviews tomorrow, and I needed to spend some quality time tonight writing down what I wanted to say for each person so that they got constructive feedback. Since I managed 20 people last quarter who require reviews from me over the next three business days, on top of everything I usually do, I'm pretty much screwed. Oh, well, I'm still going to make time for friends - I'm having dinner w/Claude tomorrow night, and then a bunch of us are doing karaoke in the city in honor of her departure. I'll just have to sacrifice sleep, which isn't really a new situation. Now, though, I should go to bed!

i don't shine if you don't shine

I woke up this morning with a tremendous headache, and so I ended up calling in sick and going back to bed. It was just what the doctor ordered, in my humble opinion. I slept for a couple of hours, spent some time on the phone with my mother, took a shower, made a grilled cheese sandwich, and waded through the work email that had piled up over the past few days. I recovered from my headache sufficiently so that I could go to Half Moon Bay for dinner tonight - I would have had to be dead not to go, since it was Doug's last hurrah before leaving for Denmark, as well as my last chance to see Eric the Viking. I also luckily got to see Jasmine and Michael, whom I hadn't seen in ages. We went to the beach after dinner, where the stars were out in full force (not as full force as, say, Iowa, but the beach was remarkably clear tonight), and where we played a couple of quick, lazy games of mafia. I was a fortunate witness of one of the best displays of mafia defense ever - Erem pretended to be asleep, so convincingly that he drooled on himself, thus evading being lynched and winning the game for the mafia. Even though the rest of the game was pointless (Doug stabbed himself in the face in the first five seconds), that moment made up for it.

Now I should really go to bed - I have meetings straight from 8:30am to 6pm. Ugh. Wish me luck!

you're killing me with your love

So I didn't get as much done today as I would have liked to, but it didn't turn out all bad. I woke up in time to have brunch with Terry; we experienced some of the worst service I've ever had at Hobee's (how can you bring someone a completely empty ketchup bottle? what thought is going through your head? like, 'oh, that girl looks like she might not *really* want ketchup, I'll take her the empty one!' I'm the worst person to do that to...I love ketchup!). We also spent some quality time commiserating about our respective employment situations - not that either of us are miserable, but I think we share the same angst as most of our generation in that we're not sure what our long-term goals are.

After brunch, I went to Target, where I procured some cheap white laminate shelving - it's the only stuff that will fit under my windowsill, unless I spend hundreds of dollars on some ridiculous custom-made shelves elsewhere. Then I spent an hour or so putting the stuff together and generally straightening up my bedroom. I talked to my parents for an hour and a half; my father is good at getting me riled up, but I think I will manage to calm down (maybe!) before I do anything stupid. Then again, maybe not.

I felt in need of some serious midwestern comfort food after I got off the phone, so I went to the grocery store and got the necessary ingredients for tuna noodle casserole (cream of mushroom soup, velveeta, and egg noodles), plus some white bread, margarine, and kraft singles (all of which I was out of). It was pretty much the most midwestern basket of food in all of the checkout aisles at Safeway - in fact, it took a significant amount of time to find those ingredients. Cream of mushroom soup and Velveeta were both relegated to bottom shelves, and the Velveeta required ~10 minutes of desperate searching before unearthing a small box lurking under the pasta sauces. I was kind of disappointed in my casserole - the noodles I bought were thicker, I believe, than the kind my mother uses, and so I had a bad noodle:sauce ratio. Or, perhaps I can be blamed for eating a few spoonfuls of the sauce as soup before I combined them. Either way, I have leftovers, but I will probably be able to keep myself from polishing them off singlehandedly.

The rest of my night was spent trying to make some order of my living room (I failed), catching up on a couple of things for work, and generally doing nothing. Too bad the weekend's over - I could use a vacation. Luckily for me, I'm going to Iowa in three weeks! For now, though, it's time for bed.

you could be my industry

I came to the same disconcerting realization today that I arrive at every three months or so and promptly ignore - I'm turning into my mother. It happens to all girls, I suppose - we adore our fathers, but are destined to become our mothers. Or maybe I'm just extrapolating because that's been my experience. Not that I don't adore my mother as well, and I'm not exactly unhappy with my destiny, but given that I have always prized my independence and valued setting my own course above all things, it's still a little annoying.

I came to recognize my cruel reality when I became aware of the fact that for the second weekend in a row, I have actively avoided making plans to spend time with other people. Not only that, but I've decided to embark on a decorating project. The realization fully dawned on me when I was sitting in my favorite cafe having brunch (at around 1pm - I woke up late, but I call anything on the weekends 'brunch' if it happens before 4pm), and instead of writing in my journal or reading a book like I normally do, I was reading decorating magazines. I was also eating potatoes, which are my mother's staple food. Granted, my potatoes were part of a veggie casserole and covered in black beans, mushrooms, peppers, and cheese, but still.

Anyway, about my decorating project. I'm trying to keep myself sane by setting realistic goals, so that I don't overwhelm myself and stop at the absolute nadir of the project, which is usually what I do. Witness my garden, which has died from thirst...but I had fun while it lasted. I decided that I need to make better use of my existing space, and spruce things up since I will probably be in this apartment for awhile. I wasn't doing a bad job of using my space, but everything felt very cluttered. So today I rearranged my bedroom and the eating area of my kitchen.

Because I haven't been cooking for months, had never bothered to buy kitchen chairs, and so used my kitchen table for storing unread mail and for occasionally cutting chocolate chip chewies, I decided that I was wasting the eating area of my kitchen by using it as a dumping ground. I also had a couple of months' worth of recycling hiding behind the table...which isn't as much as it sounds, given that I usually drink tea and not bottles/cans of stuff when I'm at home, but still. So I cleared out everything, scrubbed the floor, and then moved my desk and filing cabinet into the area. The desk is actually narrower than the widest part of my dining table, so it feels like there's more space. I'm going to get a new desk chair, since my old desk chair is a swivel/wheeled hand-me-down that, while comfortable, takes up too much room and can't be pushed under the desk when not in use. But overall, I'm exceedingly pleased - now I can work in the kitchen, where there is more light, and free up my bedroom for other things.

So the goal of reorganizing the bedroom was that the bed was previously pushed against the wall under the window, which had freed up space for my desk, but wasn't conducive to making the bed, constantly endangered me with the 'night airs' (although night air doesn't cause malaria, contrary to the belief of Laura Ingalls Wilder's parents), and would not have been convenient for my parents if they actually deign to visit me. By moving the desk, I was able to move the bed to the center of the room, putting three feet between the bed and the window, and five feet between the bed and the other wall (my bedroom is 11x14 - I bought a tape measure yesterday and have been using it for everything, so perhaps I'm turning into my father too).

I had debated buying new shelves, but shelves are absurdly expensive, and my Ikea shelves are still serviceable - I just hate them, because they're unfinished pine, and I don't like light wood. Then again, I've had them for almost four years and hated them the whole time, so maybe I should do something about it rather than complaining. I want to paint them, but I don't really want to spend all that time sanding and priming and painting - it would involved painting 14 shelves and 4 side pieces, and that just seems like a ridiculous amount of effort. Then again, it would cost at least $400 to buy the shelves that I want to replace them with, and I'd rather use that money to buy other things. In particular, I really want an armchair for my bedroom, but I need to cut out some paper to mimic the chair and see if it will actually fit. I also want to frame some pictures, get some extra lighting for my bedroom, and maybe get some indoor plants. So clearly I should do the smart thing and spend a weekend painting bookshelves. I just need to budget enough time and not expect it to go well, so that I don't abandon them halfway through - although I guess a set of half-painted bookshelves would fit right in in my garden.

Okay, I've written enough - I should really go to bed! Given how much of a disaster my living room in, since it's storing everything that was in my bedroom before I started messing with things, I'll need to be somewhat productive tomorrow. Goodnight!

abracadabera, i wanna reach out and grab ya

I escaped the office for a few hours today, and the combination of sunlight, the feeling of the wind in my hair as I drove down the winding roads to Santa Cruz while blasting Bon Jovi, and the corndog I ate on the Santa Cruz boardwalk all conspired me to feel much more relaxed. So relaxed, in fact, that I felt no guilt in coming home and taking a 30-minute nap before going back to the office, or, when I got home at eight tonight, leaving my computer turned off and watching tv and reading instead. Shocking, I know, and I'll go back to slogging tomorrow, but tonight I just didn't have anything pressing enough to force me to do work.

Today I learned that I need to spend more time in the sun, or more time driving with the windows down and the sunroof open - both of those things make me happy. Too bad the coastal areas here are all usually cold and cloudy - if they were endlessly gorgeous, I might consider living on the coast and commuting. Then again, if they were endlessly gorgeous, I wouldn't be able to afford to live there, because everyone else would too. Sigh.

Okay, I had all sorts of things that I was going to share with you, but I can't remember them, so I think I'll go to bed. But I'm happy to report that the Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics are one year from today! I should start setting expectations at work that they should give me next summer off - between the trip that I want to take to Siberia and Mongolia with my dad, and my desire to hole up in my living room watching the Olympics for two weeks straight, they're not going to get much use out of me. And with that pleasant thought in mind, it's time for bed!

lonely but never quite alone

Shedletsky often describes working in the programming industry as 'slaving in the pixel mines'. I'm not sure what my job should be described as. Slaving in the money pit? I'm picturing raking the coins in Scrooge McDuck's money bin so that he has a nice smooth surface to dive into.

Anyway, today was fine in a moderately hellish sort of way - like maybe I was in the circle of hell where there's just a lot of wind whirling people around, rather than one of the circles involving being submerged in boiling tar. And I most definitely wasn't on the level of being encapsulated in ice and gnawed on by Satan for eternity, so that's a good thing. Actually, compared to that, I had a really good day. I had meetings, but they were boring rather than strenuous, and then I had dinner with Sarah - we started within a couple of weeks of each other at work, and like to have dinner every few months and discuss all of our grand plans for finding a bigger purpose in life (none of which seem to come to fruition). We had amazing gourmet burgers at this place called 'The Counter' in Palo Alto - if my parents ever come to visit me, perhaps I'll take them there, although the number of choices was a bit overwhelming.

After I got done with dinner, I came home, took a nap to sleep off some of the food coma, and then worked for the past four hours. I'm feeling a bit more caught up, but it's definitely bedtime - I need to get up in six hours! Tomorrow should be hectic but fun - I have to go to Santa Cruz for an offsite, so hopefully the weather is good. Goodnight!

i can't wait for this day to end

I've written 700 posts on this blog, and 320 posts on my India blog, for a combined total of 1020. This post will be 1021. The sad thing is that in the month of July this year, I only posted 16 times, which is once every two days. This is a trend that must be stopped! While most of my blog is completely inane, I do like going back to reread it and remember what was going on in my life then, and fill in all of the glorious little details that are missing in the broad strokes that I use here.

Today, however, is not a day that I wish to repeat; the title isn't a lyric (of course it might be, it's a pretty common human sentiment), it's just how I feel. The day didn't get off to a good start anyway - my calendar said I had no meetings until 1pm, and so I decided to sleep in. I got up at 8:37, picked up my crackberry, and checked my email. One email was suspiciously titled 'Agenda for Today's 9am [xx] Meeting' (where xx is the name of the group, which contains a lot of managers, but luckily not my own manager), and the agenda even more suspiciously included a 20min update from me that I was thoroughly unprepared for. I IM'd the leader of the meeting and warned her that I would be late, then got ready faster than just about ever and made it into work by 9:15ish. The unfortunate side effect was that I didn't have time to wash my hair or do anything more than a cursory makeup job - so much for my desire to spiff it up for work. But at least the meeting was okay, even if I didn't have any slides and wasn't happy to be there.

After the meeting, I went back to my desk, where I had a cryptic email from my friend Irish Matt. I found out what he was referencing before I managed to talk to him - one of the guys that I hung out with quite a bit in Dublin was stabbed and killed on a street near the office early Saturday morning. In fact, you can see him here: http://swampfest.blogspot.com/2006/06/as-you-can-tell-second-group-i-went.html. He's the guy in the bright blue shirt, with his arm around Matt. Anyway, he was one of the nicest guys, and every time I went out with him, I had a great time. I got more details from Matt in the afternoon; he was on his way home from drinking with Finbarr (another great guy, he had resigned on Friday and it was his going-away drinks that they were wrapping up) when they stumbled upon what appeared to be a lovers' quarrel between a man and a woman. Mark pulled them apart, seemed to have calmed them down, and even shook hands with the guy - but the guy came back a few minutes later and stabbed him.

It's just completely senseless and unfair, and while I wasn't exactly close to him, I have really fond memories of him. I can't imagine what the reaction must have been in the Dublin office, particularly since he was pretty well-known and he was killed so close to the office. I was unexpectedly really really sad to hear about it - all I really wanted to do was go home and cry, but I stuck it out and stayed at work. I suppose that anyone my age who dies will seem senseless and unfair, but this was particularly senseless and unfair given that he was trying to help someone - it's not like it was an accident (as in the case of Errol), it was a deliberate act.

Anyway, the rest of the day just kind of sucked; I wasn't very productive at work, got pulled into a depressing meeting from 6-7pm, and then went to see 'The Bourne Ultimatum' with Vidya, Claudia, and Oniel. Even that was vaguely disappointing - I liked it, but I am not a huge fan of the handheld camerawork - it's trying to be artistic, when really I just want perfect clarity and steadiness when guys are beating the crap out of each other. Then again, perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind to see strangers killing each other. Also, I would have been happier if Matt Damon killed Julia Stiles - as it is, if they make a fourth one, she'll of course be in it, and I'm sick of her. Ugh.

Okay, this post isn't going to get any more cheerful, so I think I'm going to go to bed. Goodnight!

death to our enemies (we'll make 'em sorry)

I must say that although my three-drug anti-allergy cocktail is making me feel better than I have in ages (it turns out you're not supposed to wake up every morning of your life with a stuffy nose and a congested feeling in your head!), I wonder if it's really good for me in the long run to be taking three drugs, particularly one that involves me inhaling four spray a day of a chemical into my nose. Luckily, I don't believe that Nasonex is a gateway drug to cocaine, but you never know - if you catch me chopping up my Allegra pills with a razor blade and snorting them through a rolled-up twenty, please start asking questions.

Then again, if that's the case, I may just be channeling my secret desire to be a star. I'm not really fashion-obsessed, and I rarely wish that I was taller (except when I can't reach something, or I'm about to suffocate in a crowd)...but I'm rather tired of my wardrobe, which consists of a lot of tshirts and very casual sweatshirts and flipflops. When it's eight a.m. and I don't want to get out of bed, pulling something like that on is about as much effort as I can contemplate. Granted, I usually top all outfits with a ridiculously expensive pair of sunglasses, but the sunglasses only carry me from my apartment to my office, and then I'm on my own.

I'm not sure what, exactly, to do about this conundrum - I want to dress nicer, but I don't have the time or the inclination to go shopping for those mystical 'nicer' things, and when I do go shopping, I end up w/more of the same stuff that I already have. I guess I'm not sure how to put together an outfit that isn't too cute or too casual - even though I wear a lot of skirts, they all fall on the 'cute' rather than the 'professional' end of the spectrum. I would take 'chic' over 'professional' as well, but that's not v. likely to happen. Sigh.

Anyway, I was triggered into thinking about my clothes because I did laundry this afternoon, and I read InStyle while I was at the laundromat - and let me tell ya, the comparison between Ann Taylor/Banana Republic and Valentino/Chanel is rather depressing. So I called my parents, which was wise, because while I'm bitter that for the amount of money I'm spending on rent here, I could be buying a house in Iowa, at least my parents don't talk about fabulous clothes and accessories. I also had dinner with Claude today - we went to Sakae Sushi, this sushi place in Burlingame that one of her coworkers had recommended, and it was well worth the drive. I had what may have been the best dragon roll I've ever tasted - eel, avocado, and shrimp tempura are three of my favorite things in the world, and the way that they were combined in this roll was to die for. To take it one step further, I've never really been truly tempted to drop the $80+ that one can drop on the specialized omakase ('chef's choice') menus at other sushi places, but I would consider it in a heartbeat here - the presentation was gorgeous, everything was extremely fresh, and while other people may not consider raw fish to be near-orgasmic, I guess I fall firmly in that camp. Oh, and seeing Claude was nice too ;)

Yesterday was extremely chill - I got a facial, spent the afternoon accomplishing things (in the form of tearing up my room and putting together a file cabinet that spent the last three weeks sitting in a box in my living room), and then went to Baja Fresh for dinner. I saw something creepy there - there was a guy whose license plate said the seven-letter equivalent of 'seek a knife', and he was just leaned against his SUV coiling a rope around his arm. It was v. strange. Then I spent a few hours reading a romance novel. As a result of this weekend, I feel rather relaxed - while last weekend was definitely more fun, I think I need this weekend to recover. Hopefully this week isn't too rough! And now, it's time for bed.

i'm practicing your name so i can say it to your face

Today wasn't half bad--I made it into work for an 8:30am meeting, had breakfast afterward, and then had a bit of space to breathe and check email, which is rare for me. I had meetings most of the day, took off around 5:15, and ended up having dinner with the director who likes to do crafts and lend me supernatural romance novels - her son was visiting from Texas and she wanted me to meet him, so we had dinner at an Italian place near the Mercado movie theatre. Before you get any ideas, the son was 12 years old - but she has threatened to take an active interest in setting me up with someone, so that could be interesting. After dinner (which, while the kid was entertaining, made me supremely thankful that I don't currently have children), I came home, took a nap, and engaged in the oh-so-fun Friday night task of cleaning out my bathroom cabinets.

It will be interesting to see how much I get done this weekend; I have the constant goal of cleaning up my apartment and catching up on work, and I almost never do anything on the weekends that would help to achieve these goals. However, I'm tired of my apartment being messy, and I don't want to have another week like the week I just had - I was so behind after going to Tahoe that I never felt like I could catch up, let alone get anything done, and I don't know if I can survive another week of that right now. So, we shall see - although it's just as likely that I'll convince myself that what I really need to do is reread a romance novel or stare off into space or read about random things on Wikipedia.

Okay, my laptop is overheating and I don't want to burn my thighs, so I think it's time for bed!

it was good, it was bad, but it was real

I'm really far too tired to blog, but I shall persevere for a few reasons: 1) my parents apparently think I'm heinous for rarely blogging and for not calling them last weekend; 2) I know that Vidya will check this to see if I mention her and will be annoyed if I don't; and 3) I really should blog more, and always regret when I don't.

Work has been rather stressful; as I explained to my parents and to Vidya tonight, it feels like I've been hit in the head repeatedly with a wiffle bat - not hard enough to cause lasting damage, but still annoying and painful all the same. Going to Tahoe was relaxing in the moment, and I don't regret it, but it contributed to me coming back to work and feeling like I had been thrown into the English Channel with cement shoes and and straitjacket, and expected to swim to France. I'm going to take it easier this weekend, and probably get some work done and try to straighten up the mess in my apartment so that I can feel better at the start of next week.

It hasn't been all bad though - I saw 'Live Free or Die Hard' last night with Claude and Marco, and I absolutely loved it. Bruce Willis is amazing, and the action sequences were awesome. The other patrons in the movie theatre were equally into it, to the point that they succumbed to my traditional social psych experiment and all clapped at the end of the movie when I started cheering. I love to do that - it's always interesting to see everyone start to clap solely because someone else did. Granted, this movie was definitely clap-worthy, and I hope Bruce Willis keeps making these movies until he dies.

Today, I was in no mood to go to work, given that I got home from the movie at 1am, but I made it through the entire day, and even followed through on my plan to go to the evil city and have dinner with Vidius Chandicus. We were originally going to have crepes, but I discovered that she actually eats sushi (not the raw fish kind, but rather the other assorted non-fish-containing Japanese dishes, such as agedashi tofu), and so we went to the sushi place on the corner of the street that she lives on. It was v. good to see her - she's a good person and simultaneously v. entertaining, which seems to be hard to pull off, but she somehow manages. Also, we rarely see each other alone, so it was good that we followed through on our secret plan to sneak away and have dinner without the multitudes in attendance. I may despise the city, but it still makes me laugh - I accidentally drove into the Tenderloin while I was going up, because I was on the phone w/my parents and circling around Vidya's neighborhood, and I was treated to the sight of a crazy homeless guy wandering around in the middle of the street brandishing a big teddy bear at passing cars. Yay. And, of course, I got to see Vidya, so my night was complete.

Okay, that's all you're getting from me tonight - I hope you're satisfied!

the greatest of teachers won't hesitate to leave you there by yourself chained to fate

I need to go to bed, but I decided that it was worth verifying for all of you that I'm still alive and kicking. Also, I'm sad that my blog has fallen by the wayside in my mad dash to corporate success--it used to be a rare occurrence when I would miss a day, but I've been missing with greater frequency lately, and I need to reprioritize my blogging habits. Luckily for me I can type fairly well face-down on my bed with my eyes closed, so I can still relax and type at the same time.

Work has been really stressful, as usual, but has been tinged with a bit of despair because i've been falling into some of my more self-critical moods, which isn't helping to keep me on an even keel. It's rather silly that I'm so self-critical, since in my more cocky moments I realize that I have very little (from an achievement or ability standpoint) to be ashamed or self-critical about. That being said, I don't like to feel like I'm not doing things perfectly, and I'm so busy at work that I can't possibly keep up with everything that's on my plate, which means I'm constantly shuffling projects and trying to find ways to accomplish as much as possible, as quickly as possible, without dropping anything vital. And, of course, I am always dropping vital things anyway, because I'm simply too busy to be able to do everything. It's a pity. This is probably good for me, though, because I'm going to be forced to either learn to let go and do things less than perfectly, or die in the attempt.

Tahoe was both a good and bad thing for me - on the whole, it was extremely good, particularly since I felt very relaxed during the weekend - I realized on the boat on Saturday that I went a full half-hour without thinking about work, which is like a new record for me. I also got to spend some quality time with Claudia and Oniel and John; I see Claudia a lot, but she's moving away, and I see Oniel and John less frequently than I like because they live in the dirty East Bay. But, it's hard to maintain a feeling of relaxation when things are always piling up, and so even though I'm not thrilled that I was in the office until eleven p.m. tonight, I must say that I feel better because I took the time to get a little more caught up on emails and other mundane activities.

I'd like to free up some time this weekend to see my friends and to spend some time by myself - I could really use some personal space. I also want to work on my apartment - it's in rather a shambles, and I want my place to be nice when I come home so that I have one less thing to stress about. We'll see if I can make the time, though - I'm not holding my breath. Now, it's time for bed!

love is drowning in a deep well...all the secrets and no one to tell

I'm back from Tahoe, and I had a great time - but now I'm utterly exhausted. When I got back in the area, I drove straight to Lauren's place for her birthday dinner - I missed the dinner part, but I got to hang out for a couple of hours, which was very nice.

However, it's time for me to go to bed. I should update you on the entire weekend, but this post is meant to serve the express purpose of letting you know that I'm alive. Details will have to wait until tomorrow. Goodnight!

Tahoe

I am back to blogging on my crackberry, at the request of Vidya. I am
in Tahoe, and I have nothing in particular to share...we had a nice
drive up, and now we are just relaxing. I will post more later!

you're the one that i want

What a crazy day! Today was the first day of a two-day management training offsite related to management and communication styles; one of the catchphrases of this executive coaching company is 'building value through values', so you can guess what type of training it was. We spent a lot of time walking through various conversations and better ways to have approached the situation, how to be responsible for one's actions and behaviors, etc. I'm more looking forward to tomorrow, where we get into our personality tests - today contained a lot of stuff I'd heard before in mini-trainings from this company or in the book that I read from them a few months ago, and I was having trouble staying awake in the afternoon due to my constant low level of exhaustion. But, it was good to get out of the office, and it was thought-provoking, and there are a couple of conversations that I've had recently that I now want to revisit.

After the offsite got out, I met Vidya, Sri, and Claudia for coffee at Starbucks. That's an exaggeration - I had a couple of sips of iced tea, and they didn't have anything at all. We also sat in what Sri called the worst table in the entire place, given that it was in the the middle of this very sticky puddle, near a swarm of bugs. Also, the conversation was rather stilted. It was quite strange. Sri and Vidya both had other dinner plans, so Claude and I went to Naomi Sushi in Menlo Park and had a delicious dinner - I love eel, and crunchy shrimp/crab rolls, and raw tuna. I can't believe that I grew up in Iowa and then came out here to ended up loving raw fish. Then we met up with Adit at Cafe Borrone, where we spent around an hour and a half reminiscing, discussing life, etc.

So, it was quite a nice evening - I'm really trying to make more time for my friends. However, that doesn't mean I'm balanced. The training this morning included this discussion of the relationship between 'I', 'We', and 'It' - if you conceptualize these as a three-legged stool, all areas have to be equally weighted in order for the stool to be stable. When I drew the three circles representing my I/we/it, my 'it' circle was huge - I am quite satisfied with what I'm working on right now. My 'we' was also fairly big; while it was much smaller than my work circle, it was big because I'm trying to spend time with my friends and forge new connections at work. However, my 'I' circle was tiny - while I'm happier in the short term because I'm spending more time with my friends, I'm able to do this because I'm sacrificing sleep/self-reflection in order to have time for everything else. Then again, right now I'd rather have friends than sleep, so it's all good.

Okay, it's time for bed!

i remember...i remember everything

Two things I'm excited about:

1) I can't freakin' wait for the new Bourne movie!

2) I forgot how awesome 'The Cosby Show' was - I just watched four or five episodes on Nick at Nite while I was doing some work, and I was laughing out loud at much of it. How many shows make you laugh out loud these days? They were just so great together, even if none of them really went on to have fabulous careers.

Anyway, I worked all day today, then went to the grocery store and ended up breaking my long-standing prohibition against frozen meals. For one thing, I never have time to cook or shop for ingredients, so I end up eating crap. For another, frozen foods have gotten much better than they used to be. So, I bought about eight various frozen things that I can eat, as well as some bread and other essentials. Then I came home and did some work while watching television.

Now I should go to bed - tomorrow I have an all-day offsite in which I'm supposed to learn all about my personality and leadership style, in an effort to make myself a newer, better swampler. I can't wait! Please expect a post tomorrow night in which I am kinder, gentler, more effective, less sarcastic, etc. Goodnight!

frisky monkeys

I'm really tired, but in a pretty good mood. I had a good day at work, even though I had boycotted my laptop all weekend and so was really behind. Around eight p.m., I walked by Laura's office to say hi, and ended up having dinner w/her, which was entertaining. Then I came home and worked from 9:30pm-1:30am, which means that I'm sufficiently caught up that I can go to bed. Yay.

The best thing about staying up, though, is that I get to see Craig Ferguson and lust after him to an unholy degree. Perhaps all lusting is unholy, but I like the phrase anyway. I should really go to bed now - I have to get up in time to go to work and prep for a presentation that I have to give, and I'm driving Adit's car, so I can't drive quite as confidently/wantonly as usual. He had to pick up his drums from wherever they were, and they wouldn't fit in his smaller car. Now that I've gotten used to driving my RAV4, it's really hard to drive a road-hugging sedan, but I will most likely survive. Goodnight!

say a prayer but let the good times roll

It has been a day full of driving. I woke up this morning and went up to Millbrae to have dim sum with Heather and Salim - we ate soooo much, and so when I came home, I promptly fell into a shrimp coma and took a nap for about forty-five minutes. Then, I talked to my parents for awhile, and then Vidya lured me up to the evil city with promises of dinner. I hadn't seen her in awhile, wanted to procrastinate on the work I should have done this weekend, and preferred to be in my air conditioned car over my stuffy apartment, so I drove up. I definitely don't regret that I went, but it took much longer than anticipated - I got up there around 7pm, but it was almost 10pm by the time we ate, because we had to wait for Claude to get done w/a movie, then decide where to go, then stand in line at that place for >30mins, then wait for our pizza for another 45-60mins. The pizza was definitely good, and it was nice to catch up w/Adit, but I didn't really talk to Vidya so much, and I had intended to be home by 10 at the very latest. Now it's midnight and I need to go in early to make up for the stuff that I absolutely should have done this weekend.

Anyway, I could say many other things tonight, but I think I shall go to bed!

when you breathe, i want to be the air for you

I had a reasonably enjoyable day at work today, although I have a lot of work to do this weekend that I intend to put off until at least Sunday. After work, I met up with Claudia, and we drove to Millbrae to have dinner at Peter's Cafe. Yes, we love that place enough that we drove the 3oish minutes each way just to have diner food. I had a steak and a baked potato, and I tried to eat the half-ear of sweetcorn that came with it, but it tasted like death. I'm sure it would have tasted fine to anyone else, but I just cannot abide by the sweetcorn here - it cannot compare to even the bleakest ears of my childhood.

After dinner and much catching up, we came back to my apartment and watched 'The Devil Wears Prada', which had been sitting on my tv stand for a month and which I had wanted to watch ever since it came out in theatres. Watching it was a mistake. For one, all of the talk about how size-6 girls are fat made me feel hideous. For another (and this was much more devastating), the movie, albeit hilarious, essentially highlighted to me that I've completely sold out and betrayed my earlier ambitions, and that even though I know that I've sold out, I don't have any intention of trying to redeem myself. This realization was building throughout the movie as I watched the main character being seduced by glamour, and came crashing to a head towards the end of the movie, when it was pointed out that she was turning into the devil herself. The awful realization I had during that scene was, regardless of what she did in response (I won't ruin the ending by saying what or whether she did anything), I probably wouldn't have taken it as a sign to change my life - I probably would have acknowledged it and kept going.

And that, my friends, is devastating. Life is essentially one fast slog towards death, and what does one want to take along on such a march? Versace sunglasses? Luxury spa treatments? Or a sense of adventure, an awareness of life and humanity, and an ability to see all the beauty in the world before one's life is snuffed out? I'm in the process of choosing Versace, of bleeding all of my creativity and desire into a corporate job that I despised four years ago, of betraying the girl I was by embracing the seductive allure of the fast-paced, comfortable, California life. And the problem is...I'm okay with it. And given how long I've brooded over this, you would think that I would be happy to have some sense of peace over the choices I've made, but now I'm just ashamed of myself for being happy with the fact that I turned my back on who I was and what I wanted.

Then again, you know me, and I can be rather melodramatic. And there is a lot to be said for using your talents to achieve things, and while I may be ignoring certain talents while in a corporation, I am exercising several others to achieve a lot of great things. It would be easier if I was a one-trick pony, but right now my analytical/managerial side is trumping my creative/academic side, in a way that is challenging enough to keep me engaged.

So I'm pretty committed to staying in my current position for awhile, but it's the 'what comes next' that scares me. It doesn't help that I've whined to my friends for years about how I don't want to be a sell-out, so now they ask uncomfortable questions about when I'm going to quit, or suggest that I should be applying to schools, and it just makes me sad. Perhaps I deserve it. Anyway, now that I've fully brooded for one night, it's time to go to bed!

mud like burning

I bought this fancy Hungarian herbal mud masque, which is supposedly all organic and stuff. It also contains cayenne pepper, which made my face feel like burning. However, I love it - my skin feels all smooth afterwards, probably because the top layer of skin was burned off. Yay!

In other news, I finally broke down and took a 12-minute nap at work today; I was completely exhausted, to the point that I couldn't think clearly, and so I shut my door, placed my hand on my mouse (to look like I was working), set my phone's alarm, and closed my eyes. I wasn't fully asleep, but it was one of those awesome trance-like naps where 12 minutes feels like 12 hours. I returned to the living feeling much, much better, and was able to stay in the office until 7:30, come home, and work until now. That may not sound like a good thing, but given that I got through 300+ unread emails that I now won't have to respond to over the weekend, it was actually a win for me. If I get truly bold someday, I'll take a nap on the comfy couch in my office, but I'm not quite that desperate yet.

So work continues to be brutal, but I love it. I'm also trying to do fun things this weekend, in addition to working - I'll probably hang out with Claude tomorrow night, read the last Harry Potter book on Saturday, and have brunch w/Heather and Salim on Sunday. Doesn't that all sound lovely? Now, though, I should really go to bed.

I'm going to leave you with a poem that I had forgotten I liked; the other night, I reread one of my journals from several years ago. It's amazing the realizations that I had come to and then promptly forgotten - I could be so wise if I would just listen to myself occasionally!

'La Figlia Che Piange
O quam te memorem Virgo.'

Stand on the highest pavement of the stair -
Lean on a garden urn -
Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair -
Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise -
Fling them to the ground and turn
With a fugitive resentment in your eyes:
But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.

So I would have had him leave,
So I would have had her stand and grieve,
So he would have left
As the soul leaves the body torn and bruised,
As the mind deserts the body it has used.
I should find
Some way incomparably light and deft,
Some way we both should understand,
Simple and faithless as a smile and shake of the hand.

She turned away, but with the autumn weather
Compelled my imagination many days,
Many days and many hours:
Her hair over her arms and her arms full of flowers.
And I wonder how they should have been together!
I should have lost a gesture and a pose.
Sometimes these cogitations still amaze
The troubled midnight and the noon's repose.

-T.S. Eliot

the fact that i can't think of a lyric shouldn't stop me from blogging

I'm thoroughly exhausted, so I think I'm going to go to bed immediately. It's been a crazy couple of days - I stayed up pretty late Monday night working, woke up early yesterday, and then stayed up really late because I went up to the evil city to see the new Harry Potter movie in IMAX 3-d with John and Jess. The movie was pretty great, particularly the 3-d part; the entire climactic battle in the movie was in 3-d, and so it was rather awesome to feel like things were flying towards you. It got me psyched for the release of the last book this weekend; I'm going to buy it Saturday morning and avoid all internet, tv, and phonecalls until I finish it so that I don't spoil it for myself.

Work continues to be completely hectic, but that's fine. I currently have a raging stomachache that has been ongoing for the past couple of days, so if it continues much longer I should probably get it checked out, but I'm just going to ignore it for now. In an effort to help it out, though, I think I'm going to go to bed.

if this old heart could talk, it'd say 'you're the one'

I had a pretty decent weekend, all things considering. When I finished up with my executive coach on Friday, she said 'what's one fun thing you're going to do this weekend?' and I completely blanked - I had absolutely no plans other than to work. She was v. disappointed in me and said that the next time we talked, I needed to have a plan for one fun thing.

Luckily the weekend didn't turn out quite that bleak, mostly because I was feeling lazy. It was still productive, just not productive for my job - I spent most of yesterday afternoon cleaning up my apartment and sorting my clothes, and I did laundry and washed my car today. I also did not one, but TWO fun things - I had dinner with John and Jess last night, and I had dinner with Terry tonight. I guess I did three fun things if you count talking to my parents, who have suddenly turned into my grandparents before my eyes - they now have multiple cordless handsets for their phone, and so they were both on the line listening, just like my grandparents used to do. Weird.

Granted, I went into the office for a couple of hours this afternoon, and when I got home from dinner, I worked until now (not v. productively, because the task I was doing was boring and unpleasant, but it was still work). However, the weekend was much more relaxing than it could have been, even if I'm not exactly looking forward to the week ahead. Now I should really go to bed so that I can get into work somewhat early and accomplish some of the things that I should have done this weekend. Goodnight!

seasons don't fear the reaper

Today was my first meeting with a woman who is going to give me some professional coaching (similar to a life coach, except in this case, it's a woman w/actual professional experience, rather than Tammy, who would probably on coach me into subsiding on sarcasm and cigarettes - not that there's anything wrong with that!). The coaching is part of a larger program that my company pays for, which involves a two-day training in a couple of weeks on conscious leadership. It also includes one of those absurdly-long (in this case, 250-question) surveys which require you to rank how you feel you are on a wide range of attributes. Not only does the participant fill out a survey, but each participant nominates up to eight coworkers to fill out the same survey. Today's session was the pre-training debrief, and included a discussion of how my personal ratings compared to my peers' feedback.

This is all v. interesting stuff to me - while I may be an ENTJ on the Myers-Briggs test (which makes me a fieldmarshal), I still have a high desire to make sure that I play well with others (a trait that was probably beaten into me because I went to a rural school - if I had gone to an elite private school on one of the coasts, I probably would have turned out completely bitchy and spoiled). So I recognize the areas where I have a tendency to perform badly, and I'm interested in improving them. The interesting thing was that I was harder on myself than my peers perceive me in most categories; after reading through a ton of stuff tonight, here's how things fall out on the 12 categories:

Positive/Constructive Styles:
1) Humanistic/Encouraging (ability to see good in others) - unrecognized strength
2) Affiliative (ability to work on teams and make relationships) - confirmed strength
3) Achievement - confirmed strength
4) Self-actualizing - blind spot (I know myself pretty well and have a 'rich inner life', but don't always share this with others, so they think I'm weaker in this)

Defensive/Passive Styles:
5) Approval (seeking it from others) - unrecognized strength (I seek it more than people think I do)
6) Conventional (conforming too much) - confirmed strength (so strong it might circle back to weakness - I hate conforming)
7) Dependent (depending on others too much) - confirmed strength
8) Avoidance - border between strength and stumbling block

Defensive/Aggressive Styles:
9) Oppositional - stumbling block (my coach said this may be a result of how sarcastic I am; sarcasm can be seen as opposing things even when I just intend it to be funny)
10) Power (seeking power to make oneself feel better) - border between strength and stumbling block (others don't see me seeking power, but I think I do - but it's probably a good thing that my peers don't see me as a power-grasping bitch)
11) Competitive - unrecognized strength (internally I'm pretty competitive, but my peers don't see it as much)
12) Perfectionistic - on the line between strength and stumbling block

So the goal of all this is to get yourself as high on the positive/constructive styles, and as low as possible on the passive and aggressive defensive styles.

I wasn't surprised by much; I was sad to see that my sarcasm comes across as oppositional (I need to stop calling people monkeys when they do dumb things, apparently), but I was relieved to see that my competitiveness and my sometimes-driven approach to tasks isn't seriously impairing my work relationships. But, I'm very interested to take this two-day workshop, and I think the coaching sessions will be incredibly useful in terms of learning how to develop my leadership style in the most effective way.

It's amazing how satisfied I feel at work, even though my responsibilities and headaches have grown exponentially over the past few weeks. I guess I feel like I'm finally in a position where I have so much to learn and so much that I can contribute - if I intend to stay in business, then there's probably not many other places I could be right now where I could be learning this much, this fast.

The one concern is my complete lack of work-life balance; when people asked me today what I'm going to do this weekend, I had absolutely no answer, because the real answer was that I intend to work all weekend, but I don't want to say that to the people who report to me because I don't want them to think that I expect them to work this hard. Sure, I'll probably do a couple of random fun things, and I desperately need to clean my apartment (it's getting to the point where I'm thinking about hiring a cleaning service, I just can't keep up with my household chores, but I also abhor a dirty apartment), but it used to be that I would have my weeks and weekends booked solid, and I no longer make many plans. It's fine - I have hermit-ish tendencies anyway, I have a strong desire to excel in my current role, and I do see friends when I need/want to see them, but I don't want to become a hermit too quickly since I'm still only 25.

Anyway, that's what's going on with me right now - life is good, albeit stressful, and I know that I'm not taking care of myself, so I need to start setting some boundaries so that I don't burn out and/or die from the pressure. I suppose that contradicts the 'life is good' statement, but I am genuinely happy right now, despite everything. Probably because I like to be 'x despite everything', since that implies a challenge overcome. Anyway, I'm going to try to put my apartment in some semblance of order before going to bed - wish me luck!

instead of clowning around let's look for some common ground

Hello friends. I have returned from my long sojourn in manager-land, although I have brought with me additional tasks and responsibilities. The conference that I was at was very interesting - the highlight was a session led by a Harvard Business School prof, who taught a case study on customer satisfaction at a major East Coast bank. She was amazing, and it was probably a bad idea to have her there because now anyone who hasn't gone to business school yet will want to apply immediately.

The lowlight was that we had a minor emergency back in the office, which I had to deal with via cellphone during the cocktail party after the first day of the conference...not one, but two directors tracked me down, as did my director's admin, to find out what was going on. In fact, my director asked me to give him the scoop while also encouraging me to get a drink, which led to me having two rather strong margaritas and almost no food, which was rather silly. At that point the issue had been handled as best as possible at that time, so I wasn't impacting my own performance, but still. Then I did the whole 'schmooze with important people' thing for awhile, before grabbing my laptop and sending out some emails regarding the emergency. The next day, the VP of our whole department also found me at lunch to ask what was going on, which was rather intimidating--but then again, I seem to thrive on stress, so it's probably good for me.

All in all, though, it was v. nice - I got to spend some time with the Irish and Alaska Matts, the discussions at the conference were v. interesting, and the bed at the hotel was extremely comfortable. I was thinking tonight as I was leaving that I could probably be happy in my current role if I let myself be happy - despite all the stress, this is the first time in awhile that I am satisfied with both the level and type of responsibility that I have and the management team that I'm working with/reporting to, and that's a good thing. So that probably means that the chances of me applying to school this fall are becoming increasingly remote. Too bad the chances of me turning 26 in the fall are approaching 100% :(

Okay, I'm exhausted from all this business-y stuff - it's time for me to go to bed. Goodnight!

i ain't missing you at all

It's a good thing that I like my job right now, since I was in the office again this afternoon. I woke up at 8:30 because I was expecting a furniture delivery; they actually showed up early (9am) and were out of here in <5mins, so I took a nap on my couch for an hour and a half or so. Then I got up, slathered on some makeup, and had a nice brunch all by myself at Mike's Cafe. I got the veggie casserole, which just wasn't the same without all the fresh tomatoes that I'm allergic too :( But, it was still delicious. Then, I went to the office, where I did about three hours of work.

Claude came to break me out, and we went to a barbecue hosted by the head of her former lab. Those people were clearly all at a different stage of their life - the prof and another guest there had kids, so we pretty much talked about kids the entire time. The kids were adorable, but I'm so glad that I'm not a mother yet - I would like to have kids someday, but I definitely don't want them right now. We went back to my office around 5pm, where I worked for an hour while Claude read a magazine. Then, we met up with Sri - they were going to see 'Ratatouille', but I was too busy to commit to seeing a movie. We decided to get coffee before they went to see the movie, but then we ended up going to the 7-11 in Mountain View that has been turned into a Kwik-E-Mart from 'The Simpsons'. I had noticed yesterday that there were hordes of people at this 7-11, which was very odd - I went to get a sandwich at Quiznos, and normally that little strip is completely deserted, but I actually had trouble finding parking. There were people swarming everywhere, security guards posted, people taking pictures, etc. Turns out that 7-11 has turned 12 stores across the US and Canada into Kwik-E-Marts as a tie-in with the premiere of 'The Simpsons Movie' later this month, and this particular store was one of them. They probably more than made up for the cost of all the decorations by all the crap they were selling - Sri and I both got slushies (renamed Squishees), which never would have happened otherwise, since we would have just gone to Starbucks. What an absolutely brilliant marketing campaign...I have to admire them, even if there was this white guy who was trying to pretend that he was Indian (although I doubt that it was in line with corporate policy).

So Sri, Claude and I hung out for awhile, which was nice; Sri claimed that I would not see him again until November, which I sincerely hope is not true. I went back to work briefly, then started talking to my parents, so I decided to come home. I did a bit more when I got here (including baking a cake for someone at work), but now I'm tired, so I think I'll go to bed. I hope everyone is having a lovely July!