I’m the chief executive of fantasy land

Sure, let’s call it a resolution

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For the last several years, I’ve spent a LOT of time trying to read brand new books so I can be up to speed when it comes to Hugo nominations and voting.  I mean, by the time the Hugo packet comes out (with free versions of most of the nominated works), there isn’t enough time to read them all before voting, so I have felt compelled.

I’m letting that compulsion go this year.  I will read as many of the nominated works as I can, but I’m okay with reading whatever I feel like, too, however old or not associated to the Hugo awards it may be.

Yesterday, I declared (to myself) that I would only read books I already own, and I would try to focus on the physical books first, not the Kindle books.  So I finished my latest library ebook last night, and then immediately got an email from the library saying one of the physical books I had put on hold was available.

So much for that declaration.  BUT after I finish these TWO library books (while I was picking up the one, I got a second), I will read books I already own.

I can do this

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‘Twas the night before I have to start working again
And all through the house
I am pacing the floors
and if I find a mouse, so help me, I will squish it flat to help relieve the anxiety

Okay, I’m not THAT anxious, and if I see a mouse, I will jump on the couch and scream.  I’m a little bit anxious about being able to find the time, and I’m pretty sure that at least some of the work time every day is going to be when I would usually be sleeping.  But also, I don’t WANT to find the time.  I’ve been perfectly happy spending nearly every waking (and sleeping) moment with Jack.  But NO.  I just HAD to buy THIS house.  (Never mind that I love this house and I don’t actually regret the purchase.)

I want it the way I want it, and the way I want it is to not have to work.  Any idea what the Powerball is up to these days?

Seems plausible

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It’s raining.  It’s lovely.  It’s a nice day, with real steady rain falling, dim lighting so I can have my twinkle lights on all day long, and the store had my favorite creamer in stock, so I can have coffee all day.  (I blend decaf and regular together – I can’t handle fully caffeinated coffee all day long.  I’d die of a cracked skull from bouncing off the ceiling.)

It’s pouring, and I can’t concentrate.

Like, how-is-there-that-much-water-up-in-the-sky kind of rain.

Let’s forget this whole water cycle thing – that’s too logical.  REALLY, my neighborhood is in a giant shower.  Some alien has decided it’s time to bathe and I can’t see it (the alien) because a) we’re all really really tiny compared to the giant alien in its giant shower, and b) we’re off to the side of the tub so we’re not in danger of getting stepped on.

Sure, this alien must be taking a really long, really cold shower (it’s been raining for hours), but hey, aliens aren’t like us.  Maybe it prefers cold water.  And the shower is going on for so long because it doesn’t happen all that frequently, and the alien has a lot of dirt to wash off.

That river that’s just a couple of blocks away?  Nah, that’s a trickle of water heading toward the alien’s giant shower drain.

And when the rain stops and the sun comes out, I’ll know that the alien has stepped out of the shower and opened the curtain again.

I should be working.

Head in the clouds

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Do you care what I had for breakfast?  I didn’t think so.  You’d think I could come up with something to write about that isn’t my breakfast, but you’d be wrong.

I went for a short walk at lunchtime today (this is not the introduction to me telling you what I had for lunch) that became a slightly longer walk because apparently I forgot where we live.  On my way back, less than four blocks from home, I took the first right instead of the second right because I have no idea why, I just did.  And I didn’t realize I had done that until I was most of the way down a really long block that has no cross streets to cut through to my block.  I turned around.  Safely on my block, heading home, I stopped paying attention again, just long enough to walk right by our house.  At least this time I figured it out before I got more than one house away.

I wish I could tell you I was mapping out my first novel or calculating the escape velocity I’ll need when it’s time for me to come home from my first galactic journey or, I don’t know, pondering the true nature of couscous and if it’s possible to have a single cous, but since I don’t remember what kept me so lost in thought as to forget where I lived, we can only assume I was thinking about breakfast.

 

Love at first sight

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I have fallen in love with a pair of shoes.  They’re the ultimate Disney princess shoes, and my heart aches for them.

I saw them on Tom & Lorenzo’s site, and for the first time in my life I was compelled to go to the designer’s website to see more.  If it’s possible to fall further in love, I did when I saw them in midnight blue.

They’re calling out my name.  “Buy me, Zannah!  We’ll be so happy together!”  I don’t have anywhere to wear them or anything to wear them with, but those are tiny details.  Are they comfortable?  Who cares?  (Okay, I do, but let’s put that aside.)  Do they come in narrow?  Probably not.  Are they more than I pay in rent?  …..Yes.  Yes, they are more than I pay in rent.

Drat.

I love them, I do, but the don’t-buy-them factors are adding up and the practical side of me says I don’t get to be a princess in $2150 shoes that don’t go with anything I own, that probably aren’t comfortable, that probably won’t actually fit, and will sit in my closet unworn because I don’t have any occasions to wear them.

I will have to find some other kind of princess to be.  Like this one.

But oh, those shoes.

The comedian’s a bear!

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I’m so glad I don’t have to write jokes for a living.  There are many, many, many jobs I’m glad I don’t have – SO MANY – but having to be funny all the time?  For money?  SO MUCH PRESSURE.  Also, I’m not funny, so I would fail right away, assuming anyone hired me in the first place.  On the rare occasions where I AM funny, it’s accidental and cannot be repeated (and is usually because I messed up the punchline to someone else’s joke).  Crafting a joke, revising it and messing with the timing to make it funnier – that’s hard.  It’s fascinating, and I love to hear comedians and comedy writers talk about it, but I can’t imagine doing it myself and having the end result make people laugh.  Is that a skill you can learn?  Maybe?  Maybe I’ll add it to the long list of things I want to do.  At the bottom.  And in the meantime, I’ll just enjoy all the actual funny people out there.

Don’t bring me down

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Let’s play a game:

Optimistic or Naive?

1. I ordered a t-shirt.  The tracking information indicates it’ll arrive by 8pm today.  Do I think it will?  Of course I do!

A. Optimistic?
B. Naive?

2. I ordered mouse pads from Amazon.  They’re being shipped by a company from China.  They never arrived.  I contacted the seller, and they responded immediately and said they would ship again.  Do I think I’ll get those mouse pads?  Of course I do!

A. Optimistic?
B. Naive?

3. I travel plenty.  For the most part, my plans take off and arrive on time, I don’t miss connections, and my luggage arrives with me.  Do I think that will continue to happen for me?  Sure I do!

A. Optimistic?
B. Naive?

4. Earlier this week, the forecast showed pretty constant rain through the end of Friday.  Today’s forecast shows rain today, but sunshine and a high of 60 degrees for tomorrow (Friday).

Do I  think the weather will be nice tomorrow?  Yes.  Yes, I do!

A. Optimistic?
B. Naive?

Licensed!

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Congratulate me, everyone.  I finally have an actual Oregon license.  Except that I don’t.  I have a piece of paper that looks kind of like an actual Oregon license, and legally (or so I’ve been told), it IS an Oregon license, but I won’t get the real laminated license for a few weeks.  I’ll be nervous until I do.  It just doesn’t look legal.

On the plus side, I am finally registered to vote.  I’ll take care of this election – don’t you worry.

Useful! And productive!

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I’VE GOT BLISTERS ON ME FING…palms.  The tops of my palms, right under the fingers.  Does that part of your hand have a name?  Doesn’t have the same ring to it, regardless.  I tried the rowing machine today.  Only 15 minutes, but I’ve got four blisters that hurt like hell.  I won’t be doing that again.

Today was a Thursday that felt like a Friday.  Disappointing to find it wasn’t, but at least tomorrow really is Friday and we have a three-day weekend!  Are we doing anything for the 4th of July?  Who knows?  It’s enough not to have to go to work.

Speaking of work, I actually did work that felt useful today.  Most days are all meetings and crisis management, and I never feel like I’m getting anywhere (which is why it’s so stressful).  Today, though, EVERYTHING was down.  All the websites we host, all of our test websites, our ticket tracking system, our phone system, our network – EVERYTHING – was down.  Everyone in the office was sent home because the office didn’t even have internet.  It came back up around 1pm, and everyone came back to work (and I went back to putting out fires), but in the hours between 10 and 1 (eastern) today, I researched and started to create a new writing test we’re going to use on job applicants.  I’m completely over the TERRIBLE grammar three-fifths of my team displays, and I won’t hire anyone else with bad writing skills slide because we weren’t on the lookout for it during the interview.  Everything my team does, all of our communication with our customers, is written.  It HAS to be good.

So anyway, it felt great to actually work on something that can be completed and put to use.  We’ll start with applicants for my team, but I think (because I think highly of myself) that HR will adopt it for the company hiring process.

Fixed!

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Today, I fixed a website issue I hope you didn’t know was there.  A few weeks back, I noticed that if you try to get here, to www.inanechatter.net, via any search engine, you don’t get here.  By a wide margin.  Instead, you end up on some Russian pr0n site.  I hope this has never happened to any of you (I assume, if it had, that SOMEone would have said something to me) – oh, hold the phone.

(Searching my email.)

Well, crap.  Someone DID say something to me (although not about the pr0n issue, which might be why it didn’t register) back in December.  Hey, Tim and/or Beth – if you’re still out there, can you let me know if you’re still getting that message?

This redirect to pr0n thing didn’t happen to me all the time, and at first, I only noticed it on my phone, so I figured something was going on there, and I let it go.  The other day, I figured out it only happened when using a search engine, and I got it to happen on two different computers, so I knew I’d have to actually do something about it.

Anyway, today was the day I finally decided to try to fix it.  It only took three hours of searching Google and WordPress forums and trying to remember passwords to get into my GoDaddy hosting account and then changing database passwords and then bringing my whole site down because I didn’t put the new database password in a config file, so I had to ftp to my site’s files and fix it there –

I had to re-learn a ton of stuff about my website, and THEN I found two problems in two different files.  Both are fixed, so the weird text (about viagra) should be gone while the page is loading AND the redirect from search engines appears to be gone, and I AM A WIZARD.  I did this almost entirely BY MYSELF.  (I got John’s help when I was deleting a couple of rows out of my .htaccess file because Google was no help and I didn’t want to delete something actually important.)

I DID IT.

Wizard.

Yup, that's me.

Yup, that’s me.

Queen of the nerds

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I have reopened a nerdy obsession of mine, totally by accident.  I was looking for another blog or website or SOMEthing online to get completely immersed in, so I went to Tor.com to scan their recent posts and found out that Leigh Butler is doing ANOTHER re-read of the Wheel of Time series.  !!!!  Yay!

I’ll pause so you can collect yourselves.

Actually, I’ll pause so you can roll your eyes and say “Who cares?”* and “What’s a re-read?”** and “Oh, THAT series?***  You finished it?***^  You still like it?***^^  NERD!***^^^”

Are you done?

Thanks.  I care, a little.  Enough.  Okay, I care plenty.  I started reading the series in 1990, maybe 1991 because I remember waiting for the third one to come out (1991, paperback 1992), which is basically right at the beginning (the first two were published in 1990).  I have reread those first three of this 15-book series too many times to count.  This is the first series I did that with, where I’d go back to the beginning and read every book out so far to prep for the next book to come out.  It’s the first series I waited for, with years in between books.  It’s the first series that made me go searching online for people who might know something about it.  It’s where I discovered the WOTFAQ sometime in college, where SO many people more obsessed than me gathered to chat and share theories.  I never joined them (they’d been doing it for years – what could I add?), but I read the ENTIRE thing and then went back after each book was published.  (I’m a lurker.  I’m a lurker on reddit, too.)  They all seemed to know each other, and some really did – they went to conventions together, or met there.  (Stories about JordanCon (and DragonCon) may have sparked my interest in going to conventions myself.)

Anyway, I care plenty.  In 2009, Leigh Butler (who was heavily involved in the WOTFAQ and the fandom and the conventions and met Robert Jordan and spent time with his widow after died) started a re-read of the entire series on Tor.com.

Re-read of a series online – she reads through the books and posts summaries and her thoughts and commentary on a chapter or two at a time, once or twice a week.  The commenters go nuts (in a fun way).

She thought she had 9 months before the last book of the series (written by Brandon Sanderson) was supposed to come out.  The last book was split into three, and what was supposed to be done by the end of 2009 took until May 2014.  I didn’t read along (my memory of these books is pretty good – I have read them many many times), and I didn’t start in 2009 when she did (I don’t remember when I found it), but I did read ALL of her posts and a lot of the comments, and it was a fun way to revisit the series and get a LOT out of it while waiting for the last books to be published.

ANYWAY.

I was poking along online yesterday, and I found that she’s doing it again.  Why?  Because when she did it the first time, the last books hadn’t been published, and the things that happened in those books shed a ton of light on things that happened in earlier books, and this fandom WANTS TO KNOW.  Including me.  So we’re all going back with fresh eyes and a new perspective, and I have another fun way to waste time online.

I love the internet.

*I do.

**I explained.  Be patient.

***Yes, THAT series.

***^Yes, more than once.

***^^Yes.

***^^^Yes. Stop yelling and JOIN US.

Birds are chirping, too

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It’s SUCH a beautiful morning.  I can almost forgive the constant dreams about work last night and the 40-degree temperature outside overnight and the sub-60-degree temperature in the house this morning because we haven’t had the heat on for over a week and the 5:45am alarm and the 6am start-work time in a cold house and the 6:30am conference call with no caffeine in a cold house because NOW (breathe here) the sun is out and the sky is blue and the grass is green and there are leaves on the trees and a neighbor’s cat just traipsed through our backyard and the heat is on and I’m warm and I’m awake.

What does one do with a leprechaun?

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Eugene has a real leprechaun.  I’m not kidding – I saw him yesterday.  He had a green top hat, a green shirt, a gray beard (medium length, not quite ZZ Top), and he was riding a green bicycle.  I couldn’t tell if he had a pot of gold, and then he got away from me.  He was on his bright green bike, and I was running.  Couldn’t keep up.  I’ll keep an eye out for him.

Oh, I know – he got away because I wasn’t wearing my shamrock necklace.  Damn.  Gotta plan my accessories better.

Self-inflicted

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Remember how I stopped drinking caffeine because I was stressed out and I assumed (I think correctly) that caffeine was adding to the problem (or at least not helping)?  I did pretty well for a couple of months.  I drank only decaf tea or water or decaf coffee, and I was breathing easily, sleeping well, and feeling good.  In the few instances I slipped and had regular coffee, I could feel it immediately (and all day long, with the pressure on top of my lungs and inability to take a deep enough breath). I also found that I can’t have decaf Starbucks coffee at all, although it’s possible they messed up that day and didn’t actually make it decaf.  Anyway, since we moved to Oregon, I haven’t been able to find decaf tea that isn’t herbal (and I really just want my black tea, people), so I’ve been drinking regular English Breakfast tea and having the occasional chai latte.  It’s been going okay!  I haven’t noticed any ill effects, I haven’t felt especially stressed, and I hope this means I can slowly make my way back to normal coffee.

Of course, I say that, but it’s not 100% true.  Yesterday, I had the same type of tea I’ve had all week, but during my run, I spent a lot of time thinking about this whole caffeine and stress thing, and I started to feel it again.  Did I bring it on myself?  Am I okay as long as I’m not thinking about it?  How is that supposed to help me out?  Telling myself not to think about it is about as useful as telling Ray not to think about the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.  If I’m relying on NOT thinking about caffeine and stress to avoid feeling stressed, I might as well get used to a lifetime of having a toddler sit on my chest.

But hey, way to overthink it, girlie.  One day of mild stress after two months of almost zero physical signs of stress, when those two months included a stressful job and a cross-country move, is nothing to sneeze at.

Somewhat eventful

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My outside time in Annapolis was interesting today.  Mildly interesting.  Could be considered interesting if you cock your head to the side and squint.

When I’m running and I come up even with someone who’s coming from the other direction, I acknowledge them.  Sometimes I smile, sometimes I wave, sometimes I nod or say good morning, but I always acknowledge them.  Seems rude not to.  And when I do something, I expect some kind of acknowledgement back.  It seems rude to ignore me.  It doesn’t have to be the same.  You don’t have to wave back if I wave. Just nod.  It’s fine.  It’s similar to getting the little wave from the drive of the car you just let turn in front of you or merge into your lane.

In Ashburn, maybe half the people I passed waved (or whatevered) back.  In Annapolis, it’s been better – maybe 75% acknowledge me back.  Most days.  There was one day, maybe last week, that I must have passed 20 runners and only THREE of them smiled back at me.  Bad day.

Today, I have no idea how many people I passed, but one of the very first was this woman running towards me, and she had the friendliest face.  Her smile was genuine and really nice, and I got the impression that she just really likes people.  It was nice and it helped.  I wish I could have told her that, but it would have been weird to turn around and chase after her.

Then I tripped over a traffic cone and almost fell into traffic.  Annapolis sidewalks are pretty narrow, and when the city puts up signs about parking or road closures, they block the whole width the sidewalk and go out into the street a little.  I was trying to go around it and stay near the traffic cones so I wouldn’t end up in traffic, but I guess I got too close.  And of course there were cars coming.  I didn’t fall (it was close), and my desperate arm-swinging shifted me back towards the sidewalk, so it all worked out.  The driver of the car I almost fell in front of probably thought I was having a seizure, but there’s nothing I can do about that.

Then later, I was driving down a narrow street with cars parked along one side and barely enough room for my car to fit, and a family was walking down the sidewalk toward me, and this woman was walking in the road.  Not partly on the curb and partly on the street, not near the curb, just IN the street.  She didn’t seem worried that I was driving her way and might hit her.  I mean, I didn’t, and I wouldn’t, but still.  Don’t walk in the street when there are cars driving AT you!

Anticipating an explosion

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The car was COVERED in pollen this morning.  Yesterday, nothing.  Today, blanketed in yellow dust.  We weren’t even parked on the side of the street with the trees.  It’s a darn good thing I take allergy medicine all year long, but even so, I’m a little nervous.

Spring is here, and with it comes much discomfort.  And here I am, sitting in my apartment with EVERY window open.  I’m just asking for trouble.

Sidetracked

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This afternoon, I got up from my desk in our front room and headed to the kitchen with the express purpose of checking our tomatoes to still if they’re still edible.  The kitchen is two rooms away.  As I walked through the room in between, I remembered that tomorrow is Thursday and immediately thought, “Yay Thursday!”  I started thinking about how much I like Thursdays.  They’re such nice days, announcing the upcoming weekend but without all the stress of trying to get ALL THE WORK done before the weekend (which is why I’m less in love with Fridays).  They’re friendly days, nonthreatening days.  I did a little Thursday happy dance (premature, but maybe I was practicing for tomorrow), and by the time I was done, I was through the kitchen and standing in our bedroom, with NO memory of why I’d gotten up in the first place.

It came back to me within a few seconds, and yes, the tomatoes are still edible (I know you were wondering), but DUDE.  Am I flaky?  Just old?

I’m not that important

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Surprise!  Going to the office stresses me out.  It did today, at least.  I got in early (ten to 7), assumed I wouldn’t do much of the work I’d hoped to do (because that’s what happens when I’m in the office), tried to leave at 3pm, found myself swamped with things I’d be leaving half-done, and put my laptop to sleep at 3:45 hoping that all of the things I had open would still be there when I got home.

Luckily, they are all still there, but so are emails from people I can’t ignore.  So here it is, over 11 hours after I got to the actual office this morning, back on my work laptop feeling all anxious that I didn’t do some things.  I’m working on letting it go.  I replied to the people I can’t ignore.  Everything else that’s clamoring for my attention can be done first thing tomorrow.

I know this.  It’s not that important.  I’M not that important.  Nothing that needs to be done is a matter of life or death.

I’m repeating this.

I want to be able to relax tonight.

Ommmmmmmm…..

I HAVE to remember to take pictures

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This morning, I saw a guy running across the bridge with his dog.  Not unusual.  His dog was carrying a stick.  Not unusual.  The stick was as long as I am tall, and the dog was carrying it sideways on a narrow sidewalk.  Unusual.  And hilarious.  And John was right in front of me and DIDN’T NOTICE.  He needs to look around more.

Later, I was walking back from coffee with Jess, and I noticed a guy smoking.  I mean, HE was smoking.  No, I mean, smoke was BILLOWING out of his mouth and hovering in a big white cloud behind him.  I’m sure there was a cigarette (or a giant torch) or something involved (there must have been, right?  He’s not a chimney.), but he was at the far end of the block and I couldn’t see it.  Just the smoke.  Coming out of his mouth.  Oh my god – he’s a dragon.  I missed my opportunity to meet a dragon!  Damn it.

Like sleeping on a cloud. We hope.

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Our new mattress came today!  We tried out half the mattresses in the store yesterday afternoon, picked one, and it appeared in our apartment this morning!  Like magic.  For all I know, the delivery guys were special mattress gnomes whose sole purpose in life is to bring new soft mattresses to people who’ve been sleeping on the same cheap one for 15 years.  Maybe 15 years is what it takes to get delivery gnomes instead of muggles.  All I know is that I got in the shower around midmorning, and by the time I got out, our old mattress was gone and the new mattress was in its place.  I wonder if they bake bread or fix shoes.

This picture is more exciting to me than it is to you, I know.

This picture is more exciting to me than it is to you, I know.