| mmmmm, orangey |
[10 Oct 2008|01:18pm] |
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Yesterday I arrived home and my mother and brother were beside themselves with excitement for me to go to the kitchen and see what had been delivered - not one, but TWO baskets of fruit. One was your typical fruit-and-token-chocolate-things basket, except that it was ENORMOUS (as it contained not only a handful of apples and oranges, but a whole pineapple and - get this - a bunch of bananas tucked away in the back). The other was actually an edible arrangement, and my brother was falling over himself to open it. Those things are such a good idea (we had one delivered to the office last Christmas), and they pretty much need to be consumed right away... so now I have a variety of orange wedges and melon slices on my lunch plate (my mom, as i'm leaving this morning: "did you take some fruit? make sure you take some wedges. take some of the fruit!!!") and am realizing that it's been a really long time since I last ate an orange. If ever there was a perk (and I use that term so loosely) to my mother being unwell, it's gotta be the lack of guilt associated with eating this fruit. I mean sure it's come from far far away, but it was a gift - and now that the damage is done, it would be a bigger crime to let it go to waste.
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| solo movie night ftw |
[28 Sep 2008|11:48pm] |
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on Saturday i took myself to see the movie Ghost Town, and it was the best thing that i did all weekend. i'd been planning to see it on the strong recommendation of my cousin who worked on the film (he's a sound engineer), and then when the first TV trailer i saw for it featured one of my favourite Beatles songs (I'm Looking Through You), i jumped out of my chair and was all,"eeeee, this is gonna be so good!" - and it really, really was. I'm not good at describing books or movies - google is better for that - but yeah, it gets my vote.
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| not dead, just busy. |
[02 Sep 2008|10:18am] |
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i spent six blissful days in Edmonton, arrived in Toronto at 11:30 last night, had one of the worst sleeps i've had in a very long time, and am now making a painful readjustment back to my everyday life. i am hoping to pick up on a number of things i'd put on hold during August - most notably mailings of both the e- and snail variety - some time this week. right now, though, it's about all i can do to stay awake through my work day...
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| a quick update (or, the 3pm stretch) |
[20 Aug 2008|03:15pm] |
Before I got up to grab a glass of water, I hadn't moved - or looked up from the work I was doing - in over two hours.
Life continues to be busy busy, as it has been all summer. August has completely slipped through my fingers.
Last weekend in Montreal was good. My slideshow was extremely well received, so the time i put into the it's-just-a-powerpoint was worth it (in other words, it all went down just as i knew it would. you could set your watch by my creative process, but it doesn't work without the blood sweat and tears.)
Found out yesterday that my boss is leaving, which is sad. When I return from vacation, she will have returned to school. So it goes.
I'm on the verge of canceling my gym membership. It's a big step, considering that if I changed my mind I'd have to pay a boatload of money to re-join and I would no longer have my sweet student rate... but I haven't darkened its door in many moons and really, when you can measure something in moons, it's probably been too long.
Yesterday, I was so relieved every time I remembered it was 'only' Tuesday. Today, I'm in a panic every time I realize it's 'already' Wednesday. Run, run, run...
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[13 Aug 2008|10:22am] |
There's an allegro from one of the Brandenburg concertos that I can not get out of my head (coincidentally, it's the background music to my slideshow). Given that I've had a combined 7 hours of sleep over the last two days, my brain is fully engaged in fighting more important battles (ie fine motor skills and generally remembering how to do my job) and so there is nothing left to fight off the earworm. For about 24 hours it has been playing - sometimes loudly, sometimes just in the background - over everything I do, and it makes me feel like I'm acting out a movie montage of my day... or, more accurately, like I'm swimming through some bizarre, Clockwork Orange-type universe. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing...
EDIT: it could also be said that i feel as though i'm in a diamond commercial. any way you slice it, it kind of lends an air of elegance and importance to everything that i am doing.
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| missing link |
[12 Aug 2008|12:32pm] |
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Okay, so in and among everything else that has been going on, I seem to have forgotten that i will not be at work on Friday, and I will not be in Toronto this weekend. I obviously haven't forgotten my aunt and uncle's anniversary, or that it's in Montreal, or that we are driving there, or even that we are driving there on Friday.. I just somehow hadn't made the mental leap from those facts to I can't make social plans this weekend and, perhaps more crucially, I will not be in the office on Friday, so everything that is to be done by Friday needs to be done by Thursday, or put in a state wherein someone else can take it over on Friday, if need be. Basically, that means that my already tight timelines are, well... let's just say I really shouldn't be on LJ right now, heheh.
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| yeah yeah yeah, everything's fine |
[11 Aug 2008|12:14pm] |
Best conversation of the weekend (between my sister and me)
"I'm sorry you have to cook on your birthday"
"What? I don't care, I like to cook"
"You do?"
"Uhh, yeah..."
"Huh. I never knew that, I thought you just did it..."
"... cause nobody else does?"
For future reference let the record show that, while it is true that I am not always in the mood to cook I do, in fact, mostly enjoy it.
Also, while I'm here, I think it's funny how people were generally hung up on what I shouldn't be doing on my birthday! This year's list includes: waking up/getting up before someone else (umm, sorry? i had to pee?), cooking, laundry, grocery shopping, clothes shopping, shopping for gifts for other people, and driving (seriously?). Granted, I do hate Sherway with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, but I had to go to the mall and there was a window of time on Saturday in which to do it. Don't get me wrong, I understand the sentiment - it's your day, you should relax and not have to do anything taxing - but these are everyday sorts of things that I mostly like to do, and that needed to be done. It was more of a big deal to argue about whether I should be doing these things than it was to actually do most of them! So, yeah, people mean well, but are sometimes just silly. I had the F-word hurled at me on several occasions this weekend, but I got over it - they only say it cause they care.
EDIT: okay okay, it was a tie for best conversation. I walked in the door on Friday afternoon, and had the following exchange with my mom:
"I'm home! Are you up or down?"
"Down, I'm at the computer"
(walking downstairs) "Hey, how's it going?"
"Well I had another conversation with voojko about the song, and he doesn't like our idea for the order, so - see how many numbers I have here? - I'm retyping it, and i talked to chocha and now she wants a presentation bouquet, but I thought she'd been talking to her kids and I don't think she has..." (et cetera for about five minutes, and then she looks at me) "...oh my god, you've been crying." It was mostly funny because of the way she said it. I will be very happy to see this next weekend be over...
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| TGIF |
[08 Aug 2008|11:31am] |
It's been a busy week both in an out of work, and even though I have lots left to do, I'm glad to see its end. The other half of my department comes back from vacation next week, and I am infinitely glad that there will be more people in here to juggle all that needs to be juggled. I've got a massive project whose tentative due date is two weeks from today, and all I can do is laugh when I imagine that deadline.
Ran into my boss at the coffee shop this morning, and had a nice chat on the way to work. I was telling her my powerpoint woes, and she laughed and said that yes, knowing me it would be good, but i would probably be working on it until the last minute. What can I say - I have problems starting creative projects, and even bigger problems letting them go. Deadlines totally rule my life. Also got onto the topic of my birthday and stuff, had some stuff put into perspective... I guess that's a fringe benefit of being surrounded by not-too-much-older coworkers, I end up getting lots of reassurance whenever I worry aloud about my age. Fun times.
A word to the wise: if you're ever trying to get me to do something, telling me that my family will not explode if i'm gone for two days does not make a compelling argument. In addition to not winning any points (i happen to like my family, kthx), it is (at least in the specific case to which I am alluding) entirely beside the point as well.
I was invited to a cottage this weekend, and have declined because of the mess of things that I need to do that will not wait. It would be really nice to go, but between my birthday dinner on Saturday (everyone is excited for the inaugural dinner on our brand new barbecue - for people who are used to eating steak and sausages every Saturday night during the summer months, the fact that we have not been able to barbecue this summer is kind of a big deal) and getting stuff ready for my aunt and uncle's 50th next weekend (this is really a lot more involved than we thought it would be... also, I am still without a dress) i need to be in town this weekend. my weekday evenings are never as productive as i hope or imagine them to be, and right now this stuff just can't wait. So yeah, good idea, bad timing. Also a bit of bad communication re: this whole thing, but I'm gonna try not to dwell. Life goes on.
Weeks ago, I had this idea to send myself to the spa on my birthday - get a nice massage or body scrub or something - just treat myself instead of worrying about planning some sort of an event with other people (seriously, what people? mostly everyone i like is far away, and I'd rather have a drink with one good friend than a pity party filled with friend-of-friend warm bodies). when i told Nat that i thought i'd "just hide away" (realizing my poor choice or words the second they escaped my mouth) on my birthday, her reaction was "that's so emo!" It's funny, because for once in my life I was trying to be less dramatic and more matter of fact. Last year I wanted so badly to gather a group of people for my 25th birthday, and that attempt fizzled and left me feeling sad. Seeing as my birthday is (despite what my Leo-self may think about the other 364 days) the one day of the year that is actually all about me, I figured I would focus on myself and forget about trying to bring other people into it. I don't mean that in a depressed, "oh look at me all alone" sort of way, but in a self-nurturing, "I totally deserve to spend 3 hours getting pampered" one - because I totally do, and it's something that I know would leave me feeling good. I'm slightly regretting that I didn't just go with my gut and book something weeks ago, but once again, life goes on. I'll book it for another Saturday sometime soon. It's nice to do what I want, instead of what other people think I should do.
In other news, I guess the Olympics started today, and I'm already sick to death of hearing about them. I'm just not interested, and the media makes it increasingly difficult to tune out or turn a blind eye.
Hahah, it's amazing what I can type up when I spend 2.5 hours writing a sentence here and a few words there as I'm waiting for stuff to come off the printer. My phone has not stopped ringing though, so I'd better sign off. Happy Friday!
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[04 Aug 2008|01:05pm] |
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music |
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mandibles - mood alarm |
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This is so not the long weekend I thought it would be, but I guess things have mostly worked out. I'm still bitter that I wasn't at Camp, but my brother's been working some crazy mad hours and I would never hear the end of it if he'd missed them. My uncle ended up needing us to pick him up from the airport - he came home from Greece with a fractured wrist - so I went with my mom to lift retardedly heavy suitcases into and out of our trunk. I spent a great deal of time not being able to sleep on Saturday night, but around 2:30am I had a creative epiphany (i always do - can't sit around and wait for it though, there is always a struggle first) about that slide show for my aunt and uncle, so now i've got a concept and can spend some productive time on it. I also did a bit of shopping: In a surprise move, my sister offered to come with me to this little store that i like - i mean she was actually, genuinely interested in checking out this place where she had zero chance of finding anything at all for herself - so I searched for an outfit to wear to the anniversary, and am now torn between( these two dresses )
The first one fits like a dream, but it's about twice what I was hoping to pay for a dress. I love the pattern but it's very memorable, and I'm trying to decide whether I'll have enough occasions on which to wear the dress (it'll carry into fall, but not winter) while, at the same time, not overwearing it. (ahahaha, i know i know, my life is so hard). They've only got one in my size, and I've got it on hold until Wednesday.
The second one is - despite having been in the e-mail newsletter - not yet on the sales floor, but it's made by the same company and I'm hoping it will have a similar fit. From the pictures I'd say that it's the more versatile of the two, and if it looks as good as the first one then it'll be no question... though I really really like the first one too, and wish I could justify buying them both. I'm supposed to get a call when this one actually comes into the store sometime this week, and am hoping that it's on Wednesday.
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[02 Jul 2008|10:48am] |
i was away on Friday afternoon and all day Monday. Tuesday was a holiday. I get to my desk on this morning and it looks like a tornado has hit, leaving a mess of papers in its wake. Now, as much as I hate the thought of anyone going through any of my things, I've (mostly) come to terms with the fact that in this job, it's kind of inevitable. So, yeah, while it's not unusual for someone else to need something that's on my desk - in fact, that's the reason why everything is spread out in little piles - i do not understand why someone can not take 30 seconds to straighten out the mess they have made, especially when i know for a fact that my desk was tidy when I last saw it.
on a more positive note, this day that feels like a Monday is actually a Wednesday. sweet.
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| headdesk |
[27 Jun 2008|11:55am] |
i've just been asked a tech support-ish question. fine, fair enough, by virtue of the fact that i belong to this department i can expect to get some tech-y questions and am expected to help when i can. my co-worker said they would forward what their client sent to them so that i could understand what is going on.
fine, fine, everything is fine, except...
i'm now staring at two e-mails and a website that are ENTIRELY IN JAPANESE.
is it home time yet?
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| i don't mean to complain, but i'm going to complain |
[23 Jun 2008|11:07am] |
i am stuck in this most uncomfortable state of extreme fatigue and extreme restlessness. i've had coffee, i've eaten breakfast, i'm drinking cold water, and i still can't wake up. i'm wearing comfy clothes - jeans and sneakers and a long shirt - yet i can NOT get comfortable in my chair, can't find a good position, and i'm having a great deal of difficulty focusing on anything. all i want to do is stretch out on my bed and take a nap.
i should be happy that my week-long headache is finally maybe almost gone, but this might actually be worse.
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| death-like symptoms |
[20 Jun 2008|11:56pm] |
"I'm sorry you're feeling bad."
"That's okay, Mama. It's 98% not your fault."
"And it's 98% not YOUR fault!"
"It's my fault I'm sick?!?"
"No, I said it's not your fault."
"You said 98%. It's 2% my fault? You think I went out looking for sickness? I mean, who the hell gets a head cold in June, anyway?"
"Lots of people."
"Well, that's frigging retarded. I'm going to bed."
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| i can't resist |
[29 May 2008|03:28pm] |
i suppose the downside to spying on someone else's e-mail is that i can't share my hilarious findings with anyone who will appreciate their hilarity - at least not without blowing my cover.
don't ever tell me your password to anything, EVER. i won't go out of my way to commit it to long term memory, but chances are that i won't forget.
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| eyecandy, earcandy |
[25 May 2008|12:55am] |
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music |
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battles - atlas |
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People won't be people when they hear this sound
That's been glowing in the dark on the edge of town
People won't be people, no
The people won't be people when they hear the sound
Won't you show me the beginning of the edge of town
you will totally love it, or (more likely) totally hate it.
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| things to remember when designing an ad, #269: |
[23 May 2008|02:27pm] |
it's usually a good idea to include your company's logo and website URL somewhere in the layout.
spent my entire morning perfecting the design, switching the various images and pieces of text around like puzzle pieces until they fit together *just so*, and now i have to reshuffle every. single. element.
GUH.
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| Magazines |
[15 May 2008|11:29am] |
I want a magazine to read, but I am clueless as to the various titles out there - especially when faced with an above-average selection (read: not Shoppers Drug Mart). Subject matter is of no great importance, I'm really just trying to increase my awareness for when i'm scanning the magazine rack. Ultimately, whether I buy one comes down to whether the particular issue in my hand looks appealing - and the criteria for that will change by the hour. So, yeah, please recommend a publication (or several, if you feel so inclined).
GO!
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| shit, shit, shit |
[13 May 2008|10:34pm] |
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music |
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sufjan stevens - chicago |
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my potential vacation plans are being foiled by the hour. by the second.
a bunch of stupid shit happened at work today and i don't feel like writing about it now except to say that i can now almost certainly not even bother to entertain the notion of going to the Osheaga Music & Arts Fest or the Edmonton Folk Fest this August.
god, i hate everything.
... i guess it's back to the drawing board.
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| PSA |
[10 May 2008|06:00pm] |
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music |
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MIA - Bucky Done Gun |
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just in case it wasn't clear the first 15 million times i said it:
I CAN NOT SHOP WITH OTHER PEOPLE!!!
you have been warned.
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[09 May 2008|10:05am] |
Slings & Arrows arrived yesterday. That was unexpected, as I only ordered it on... Tuesday? Anyway, I'll start watching it this weekend, since season 3 of Arrested Development is still in its shrink wrap and i have - ahem - been forbidden from opening it until its owner is good and ready for that to happen.
Everyone People who had not posted for a while and then started to within the last couple of months have stopped again. It makes being bored at work that much more boring. I know I don't comment on every entry, but I do read them.
10am and I already can't keep my eyes open.
This is going to be the longest day ever.
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