The Slice

I had a nice day with my brother yesterday. He called on Friday night looking to come to Carson and, as he put it, "Go out," but I explained to him that I really don't do that sort of thing here... In fact, I don't really know the majority of this town because I have little or no reason to go to restaurants by myself or travel to the other side of town because I have everything I want to look at within maybe a two to three mile radius. Besides, I hardly drink at all anymore. I know I've mentioned that a fair amount recently, but it's strange to me given how much I used to. I don't know. I never was one for going out on the town even when I drank more. That only happened if someone convinced me it would be fun or I was really drunk already, probably because I can't stand most bars and being around crowds.

Anyway, since that was out, we made plans for him to visit in the afternoon instead. So, he came down around 11, and we went to Olive Garden for lunch. There we talked about a lot of things but mostly about how people are way too addicted to their smartphones and how technological advances are kind of ridiculous. Also, my brother ordered some shrimp pasta dish and a raspberry lemonade, and I ordered some beef dish and an iced tea, which made the waitress laugh and look at us funny. Got to keep them guessing, haha.

After that, we were way too full, so we walked a tiny fraction of lunch off on the bike trail near my house. In retrospect, I should have worn better walking shoes and/or ditched my long socks because the soles of my feet were really sore by the time we got back and my socks kept falling down. Also, I had previously thought the trail was around three miles long round trip (from timing how long it takes me to walk half a mile and extrapolating from there), but while we were walking, I saw someone had marked various distances on the other side of the trail from "Go!" to "2 miles." Huh. I guess it's longer than I thought!

When we got back, my brother had brought along this version of Trivial Pursuit. I liked it a lot more than the original version of Trivial Pursuit actually-- same silly trivia questions, but it takes a lot less time to play, you can choose the topics, and you can bet on whether the other person gets the question right or wrong. Pretty fun!

I also got suggestive hot sauce in the mail (reading the description is making me afraid it'll melt my face off, yikes!) and had a long, silly conversation about it and other things that lasted until it was time to go to bed. Excellent! ;) I woke up this morning feeling really shitty, though. Sniffly, my ear's clogged, and I've got some horrorshow cramp in my right side that's making it difficult to stay upright. (Also made myself dizzy trying to clean out my ear, bonus!) I had plans to clean the house, wash the car (though it looks gloomy out now), and go grocery shopping, but that might get cut down to the bare essentials I need to coast through the week if this doesn't get any better. The other first reader is in Hawaii for the next two weeks, so it'll be pretty bad if I get sick now.

Okay, I should probably try to get whatever I can done now. Just wanted to say I had a good time yesterday. Hopefully whatever this fake illness is will be temporary and I'll feel lame for complaining later. Yep, that sounds about right. It's almost noon. Time to face the day.

A selection of things I've thought about today:

-Sure are a lot of ones and twos in the date today. Hmm...

-Spent my workday proofing a NAC chapter on hazardous chemicals (and I'm still not done with it because it's over 300 pages long, arg). I saw several sections devoted to reporting people who had been exposed to radiation, which lead me to wonder how much of the very dry stuff I was reading was inspired by science fiction and vice versa. Oh no! You'd better watch out! He could turn into the Hulk!
This is similar to when I was reading about highly contagious diseases and found some sections that seemed to talk about preparing for mass viral outbreaks... which just lead me to think about the zombie apocalypse. I may or may not be reading way too much into things (or I'm just really creative at entertaining myself sometimes).

-I collect nutcrackers. This stems back to my childhood when we used to go see The Nutcracker while visiting my Aunt every Christmas. I think I also won a book version of it for a "Dear Santa" letter one year, but I vaguely remember that.
My reasons don't really matter. It usually weirds people out anyway. The conversations I've had with dudes usually go like this:
"Oh, you collect those? They're kind of creepy."
"Meh. I like them."
"Is there some sort of hidden meaning behind those?"
I usually brush this off, but really, I think the only correct answer is, "No. Do you want there to be?"
Menacingly!

-My tree is really pathetic. It has all of five ornaments on it. I also hung the silly stockings I got for the cats on it. (Oh, and those jerks knocked their presents off the table while I was at work today. Good thing they were sealed really well.) It only looks good when it's lit. There are some gifts under it, though! I finally finished my wrapping, which is a relief, and I brought home some of the gifts my coworkers gave me. Pretty sweet. I feel weird about that because some of my coworkers have already opened presents, but I still tend to wait until Christmas to open stuff. You know, unless someone sends me something in the mail. Ha.

-Wasn't there something I was supposed to do today? Oh yeah! I'm supposed to figure out when I can take time off. I like how this is something I can forget until the last second if I'm not careful. Wait, not really. I'm just absentminded sometimes. I was bored all day, and I still didn't think about it until about 4:00. Oh well. I'm thinking about blowing off Tuesday already because why the hell not? Might have some other plans coming together too. Got to talk to some people.

-I wasted a lot more time thinking about what to have for dinner, probably because all I packed for lunch was carrot sticks. (I had soup already in my office because session teaches you to always have food on hand for long days. I was just too lazy to make a sandwich this morning. Well, and I was running late because I had some trouble getting out of bed.) I settled on a tuna melt made with this weird spicy mayo mix I found. Okay, plan made, but I still haven't gotten around to actually doing it even though I've been home for an hour. Fail.

-Um... There was other stuff, but it must not be important. I'm tired because I've been going to bed late. Oops. I should try to remedy that. Easy enough to say now. Ask me where I stand on that issue at 10:00. Bleh. Okay, enough. Time to go actually find something to eat instead of procrastinating for no reason.

EDIT: Oh, also this. Haha.

Sometimes I think of things to say long after I should say them:

"What are you doing?"
"Knitting and watching t.v."
"What? You're not knitting. What are you really doing?"

What I said: "No, I really am knitting."
What I could have said: "Um... Dance party?"

Oh, and about the air conditioner-- It was totally user error on my part. Embarrassing? Yes, but at least I know how it works now and didn't have to get major repairs done to it because of some crazy robbery. Ding!

Saturday (6/5/11) begins at 10:00 a.m. Around midnight, things start to get pretty dicey.

6/6/11
1:00 a.m.(ish): I overhear one of my coworkers claim to be so tired, she's nauseated. I realize I feel the exact same way.( Read more... )

And after a 17 hour day, I am home and have never felt so relieved. And home for more than six hours. Home on a rare Tuesday after working 16 days straight (two 80 hour weeks back to back and over 40 hours in the last three days). Home to sleep and good lord, maybe even shop for groceries or something besides work, before I have to go in at 8:00 a.m. and back to some kind of normal on Wednesday.

Home. Ahh, home. Let me go home. Home is wherever I'm with you.

I feel like I should update because I don't know when I'll have the energy to do so again. I've got a lot of different things rattling in my head but not a lot of motivation to set it all to paper (or screen), so here's a list.

1. Today was "Wear a tie to work and confuse your coworkers" day. I didn't realize it was "Think terrible thoughts and be horrified at the kind of person you are" day as well. Maybe that was just me being semi-sleep deprived and really, really bored.

2. Actual conversation I had with myself on the drive home:
"Hmm, I could have eggs for dinner. Eggs or Spaghettios? Mm, Spaghettios with cheese and beer. Beeeeeer..."*

3. Here's why I might not be around much: I "volunteered" to work Sunday (in quotation marks because they said they need as many people to come as possible, and I'd like to build up comp time since I have no sick days, so it wasn't really much of a choice). It's more than likely I'll be working all of next weekend too because we have a really big deadline on the 15th. So, that means I have tomorrow off; five days on; mandatory furlough day on Thursday (during which I'll be getting my teeth cleaned and driving more because I'm crazy); and seven more days after that.*** Woo, session? Whatever. I'm fine with it.

(The next part of this entry was eaten when livejournal started maintenance over an hour ago. Sigh. Here's what I remember/its replacement.)

4.
Been listening to these fools a lot on the drive home. (Man, I didn't realize how ridiculous this video is until I looked it up. Haha.) I mostly listen to the radio on the way to work because I'm terrified of missing the traffic report. Yep, I'm that lame these days.

5. I wrote an entry about poetry in my paper journal that reminded me of my friend Jason. Actually, you've been on my mind a lot, buddy. Write anything about flaming bunnies lately?

6. Self-awareness has been in my thoughts as well. I've been kicking around some connections between general awkwardness and the sense of hyper-awareness I've experienced all my life, but the ideas haven't quite gelled yet.

7. Anyway, that's about it. Hope you all have a good weekend. I think my day off is mostly going to be spent doing laundry and sleeping. So exciting. Maybe a Christmas party with my brother? We'll see. I should call him before I forget, but that sounds like a project for tomorrow.** I'd rather zone out in front of the television like the unproductive lump I am. Catch you later.

*I had neither of these. I went to get the Spaghettios out of the pantry and ended up with ravioli and a glass of milk instead. So it goes.

**Geez, I forgot to take my phone off silent and ended up missing his call last night. Oops. Kind of leaning toward not going, though. Will have to talk to him at a more decent hour.

***I did the math wrong on this one. (I was an English and paralegal major, so sue me.) It's actually four days on, furlough day, then eight days on, if that makes any difference at all. Really need to not think about that stuff when I'm so tired.

Last night, I dreamed a group of people down the street were spying on the house. I went for a walk, and when I came back, they had broken in and were trying to take things. I confronted them, and the woman said she was allowed to be there because I wasn't Fiona. I was a little surprised by this and argued with her about my identity. She tried to ignore me by messing around on her laptop. I responded by picking up her laptop, unplugging it, and using it to hit her and the other burglars.

My mom called and asked, "So, what happened?"
Cell phone in one hand and laptop in the other, I calmly answered, "There have been people watching the house."
After a little back and forth about that, she said, "Oh, you're in the middle of a fight, aren't you?"

Moral of the story? Um, don't break into my house or I'll smack you in the face with a laptop?

I woke up feeling kind of sick, but I'm hoping it's just my allergies acting up again. We'll see.

I found the eyeglass cleaning cloth I thought I lost in a bar while out with Peter tucked away in a pocket of my purse. Ha! Got to love it when my drunk self does something nice and thoughtful instead of messing things up.

I got more work today! It's not enough to pay the bills yet, but I'm grateful for the experience! Also, I'm still working on applications that might not go anywhere! <3

I spent way too much time reading this comic the last few days: Girls with Slingshots

And I'm having a beer! Woo! Happy Friday, all!

EDIT: Oh, and I think I'm funny.

(7:39:18 PM) NerdKatie24: just got like 3 random text messages from 3 totally different people
(7:39:19 PM) NerdKatie24: wtf?
(7:39:20 PM) NerdKatie24: ahhh
(7:39:35 PM) Chicken Hippie: ummm did someone put your number in a bathroom?
(7:39:46 PM) NerdKatie24: 3 different people in 3 different cities?
(7:39:54 PM) Chicken Hippie: a lot of bathrooms?

For any argument, I say, there's a cliche
waiting in the wings to save the day

because no one knows the answers
(or because, he says, there are no answers at all)

Chicken Hippie: i like triscuits
NerdKatie24: oh? then you should invest in some cracked pepper & olive oil variety..
Chicken Hippie: those are the best ones
NerdKatie24: they may help reduce the risk of heart disease
NerdKatie24: that's what the box says.
Chicken Hippie: really?
NerdKatie24: yup
NerdKatie24: so now you have to buy them or you will get heart disease
Chicken Hippie: lol
NerdKatie24: like it's something you can 'catch'
Chicken Hippie: women are more likely to die from heart disease
NerdKatie24: it's true
NerdKatie24: cuz they were not eating enough triscuits
Chicken Hippie: lol

I'm trashing a note paper I keep under my keyboard, and it has a transcription of a dream conversation (between a detective and a beat cop) from January 28, 2009. Seems a shame to get rid of it for some reason:

"Here's a twenty. Go buy me a newspaper about the Laker's game."
"Huh?"
"Can you tell I'm out of my element here? The best of my kind, and I've been reduced to being asked to buy toothpaste and scrub out bottles. The law's been pared down to cater to strippers and sycophants. It's all for them, and yet the strippers and the sycophants still want more."

Anyway.