cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

Nine more hours and I can stop thinking about work for almost 3 weeks. Nine more hours and I can go home and snuggle my kids, even the one who helpfully gave me this head cold. Nine more hours and I can go home, eat dinner, put kids in bed, and put myself in bed.

Tomorrow I will be running around like a madwoman. I have a haircut at 9:30 and a therapy visit at 11. I have to do laundry - mainly sheets and towels, but whatever's in the baskets since Sunday is fair game. I need to hem two pairs of pants and a skirt. I need to hug my kids over and over. I need to clean - mostly just picking up mess in the bathrooms, kitchen, and den. I need to pack. I need to not panic.

I also need to get rid of this head cold. I'm in the "fuzzy thoughts" stage, which won't help the next nine hours any.

I know this trip will be amazing once I'm on it. Right now, I'm terrified and wishing I was just taking this sabbatical as another stay-cation. Those aren't as adventurous, but also not NEARLY so anxiety-producing.

Yesterday was awful, awful at work.

Today work is going to be awful, awful again.

I don't sleep worth a damn anymore, Fitbit just tells me what I already know.

I started surfing cruise line websites this morning. I'd like to have a gaming cruise where we pack books and dice and bring friends and eat buffet and game and sleep for a week. Money means it's not going to happen, but it's dark and cold and I'm sick of real life right now.

I'm thankful for coffee and email from my family. I'm thankful that Ox went back to sleep last night after I woke him up when I made it home super late. I'm thankful for hugs from Emi. I'm sad that I'm caught up on Night Vale and have to wait for new episodes to come out.

I'm tired. I'm so tired.

I'm thankful for good surgeons. I'm thankful for my mute button. I'm thankful for henna and that I seem to be pretty good at this. I'm thankful for a husband who is nothing but supportive in my quest to constantly learn new things and always offers encouragement when I whine about not being instantly good at something.

And now the most whiny, nasal person in the world is on this conference call. FSM help me.

Dear Sir,

You don't actually want my critique of your process. Really, you don't want me to tell you what I really think of your random, nitpicky, repeated over and over questions. I'll be professional and everything, just don't push me on this. You can't handle it.

Sincerely,
Sabine

-------

Dear South Florida,

What the fuck is wrong with the people who live there? Is it something in your water supply? Is this what happens when people have Vitamin D or humidity overdose? For serious, I've never worked with such belligerent, angry, aggressive, and refusing-to-learn people. Ever. And it's not just one site - I could excuse it as that organization's corporate culture of awfulness - but it's carried over to an entirely separate site. What the hell? What are you DOING to people down there?! What. The. Fuck.

Please drop into the ocean,
Sabine

-------

Dear uterus and hormones,

You realize that if you keep fucking with me, I will TOTALLY CUT YOU OUT OF MY BODY, OMG YOU HAVE NO IDEA. Just stop it with the insanity and mood swings and chronic exhaustion. I'm as stable as I ever get today and I'm freaking sick of this roller coaster of bad. Stop it. Stop it now.

Planning the outpatient surgery,
Sabine

----

Dear brain,

Seriously? This is the song you want to have on repeat? I like it, sure, but I'm not a good enough dancer to do anything to it. Thanks for the confidence, but I don't think it's going to happen.

Confused love,
Sabine

----

Dear coworkers and customers,

When the hell am I supposed to actually do work, guys? "Sabine, can I have 30 min?" "Sabine, I need an hour." "Sabine, you have to be on this call because we'll probably need you but not really". The hell? Not cool, people, not cool.

I hate you,
Sabine

----
 

I have stocked up on cheap snacks and high-test cough drops. I kept Downwood awake for most of the night with my coughing and sneezing fits, for which I'd be more sorry if I hadn't also been keeping myself awake with them. Today seems to be less about the sore throat and cough than it is about clogged sinuses and runny nose.

Have I mentioned that I hate hate HATE allergies? They haven't bugged me for the last couple years, thanks to getting allergy shots throughout high school and college. This spring, however, is kicking my butt. I blame Peanut for messing up my immune system.

It doesn't help that after every long burst of coughing, I get kicked repeatedly by little feet. I don't blame Peanut for not liking it when my diaphragm and other stomach muscles are squeezing her around.

*sigh*

I packed up my stuff this morning and came into work late. I figured that if we'd be driving to Chicago tonight and up until whatever-o'clock in the morning for the go-live, I could sleep in and take my time. Now, I have a day full of meetings and reminding my customers that I won't be around to help them next week, seeing as how I'm going to be out of the office.

At some point, I will stop whining and just get on with things. I feel pretty miserable today, however, so I will go back to eating gummy worms and trying not to gross people out in meetings with my runny nose. Hooray Kleenex!!

I live! Well, I mostly live. I'm doing my best to fight off the Plague that always seems to happen right around the holidays (go, immune system, go!) and did I mention that the holidays are starting? I have orange juice thawing under the faucet and I've been drinking Calm and Candy Cane Lane like they're going out of style. Also, yay for exercise!

Thanksgiving with the in-laws was very nice. We got to get out town for a little while, Rain got to stay overnight at Grandpa's, and it was good to see Downwood's grandparents. His whole family are very nice and don't seem to be quite so breathing-down-your-neck as some of mine. We need to spend more time down there - or have them come to us - in general. I'd really like to have that happen.

Black Friday was spent at my desk at work. I got a couple of Major Projects Nearing Set-In-Stone Looming Deadline sort of done. The really slow part, the part that takes a solid block of time to just sit there and work through the code? Yep, I got that hammered through and the Projects passed back to the original owners for edits and rework. This was good, since I got another Major Project dropped on me this morning (due very early Thursday). Here's how that conversation went:
( Annoying coworker conversation. This will kill brain cells. )

This weekend was the D&D Certain Death Invitational. My players created very standard, very basic, very PHB/DMG 10th level characters of reasonably good alignment. They were told by their boss, the High Poobah of the Heroes' Guild, that they were needed to mop up a litter of baby chromatic dragons. They set forth with a chicken-livered guide and, after debating whether or not it was a good idea to ring the doorbell at the secret entrance to the dragons' lair, managed to beat down a magma drake.

I then called each player aside. I confiscated their character sheet and handed them a new one.

The baby dragons of Tiamat's Day Care - Quality Care for All Evil Wyrmlings fought valiantly against the wrongdoers of good who were trying to wipe them out. The players cheered when their original characters took damage and did a pretty good job at holding their own against the enemy. We had to call in reinforcements when the blue got KOed and the green got splatted (huge crit when she only had 3 hit points left. splat.), but Evil held their ground. A couple of the heroes got away, but they were seriously hurting when they did. I call this a stunning success!


And then we come to tonight's subject line. I was trying to come up with something to make for dinner tomorrow night that wouldn't require me to get dressed and go to the grocery store tonight (ie, anything that needs advance prep was Dead Out - chili, roast, lasagna, etc). I poked around in my freezer and found venison loin, ginger, and orange juice. Since I helpfully have garlic on hand At All Times and I found both the soy sauce and the rice wine vinegar, I'm thinking that this marinade is going to be delicious. I just have to stop on my way home tomorrow for veggies and get Downwood to start the rice and it will be a Wonderful Dinner. Yus.

But since I hear my book, my tea, and the couch calling me, I will stop with the typing and make with the recreating. I love being an adult! Maybe, just maybe, I'll throw in the DVD of Hogfather that I picked up at Borders yesterday...

So, um, yeah. Things are not what we would call "good" in the mental and emotional landscape of the Sabine. It's been pretty dismal for the last month and doesn't really look like it'll get better until, conservatively, March. I'm trying, I really am, but I'm operating on the reserves that I was able to squirrel away over the very busy summer.

Work is, of course, my biggest stressor. Downwood's concerned that it's siphoning off pieces of my soul. I'm not entirely sure that he's wrong. I try to leave work stress at work, but little bits of it stick to me when I go home. Some of them fall off when I go to the gym, some of them get blown off when I'm walking the dog, any that have adhered at all get squashed when I go to dance class, and the rest usually get peeled away slowly by other interactions.

Yes, my team lead knows that I'm about to break and he's gotten me some help. This would be good if I didn't have to train them how to take over for me. One is very, very new and is getting a baptism of fire. Poor guy. The other knows what he's doing in general but not my app in specific. I'm more concerned about the first than the second, naturally. I think they'll both do stellar work eventually, but for now it's something else that I have to work into my schedule.

Seriously, there can be NO CRISIS from now until December, I have that many things on my plate at work. Dammit.

It doesn't help my equilibrium any that those little bits of work stress that flake off during nights and weekends? Just like an old band-aid, they seem to be pulling bits of me away with them. I feel like my creativity is drying up. I half-compose entries and then can't remember a word when I have a chance to type. My plotbunnies have escaped their cage or just grown better camouflage. I'm scrounging around my subconscious to find enough material for the games I run and play, but I'm about hitting the bottom of the barrel.

Also, I think I'm drinking too much Tazo Calm tea. There were a couple days last week that I think I can chalk up to an ADE between the tea, being a girl, and work stress. Yeah, that was not so much of the good.



Ugh. Too much whining. There are good things that are happening. There are some really good things. I went to my first ever dance workshop on Saturday. My arms still hurt, but it was TONS of fun and I learned a lot. We went to Med Hookah to watch Sonya perform that night and HOLY CRAP was it a blast! Thursday nights are my absolute favorite of the week. Mondays are a close second because Downwood goes off to play Flames of War and leaves me alone for an evening. I get to dance in the more-open living room, sing as loud as I want to whatever music I want, and generally enjoy a little "me time". I'm even getting better, though I wouldn't yet say "good", at dancing to Chicky. Because who doesn't love a good drum solo?

Music is good for me. Techno belly dance is unsurprisingly good for debugging code. I'm still slowly working my way through the second Malazan Book of the Fallen while I work out, and my new mp3 player should be showing up next week to give me tunes to accompany me while I read. It's even blue! How cool is that?!

Also, if you like fantasy, swashbuckling, and thiefy-rogues, you really need to read The Lies of Locke Lamora. Holy cow. I was laughing really hard in places and totally threw off Downwood's football groove when I shouted encouragement at the main characters near the end of the book. It's TOTALLY worth getting as a paperback. I used my shiny Borders coupon to get the sequel over the weekend. I read the prologue and put it down. I don't know if my nerves can take reading what will happen in the story in order for it to end up in that situation. Eesh.

I also read Empire of Ivory, the fourth book in the Temeraire series. Um...wow. It was a very good story, but the ending made me cry. I was sitting in DFW at the time, so it was a little awkward, but...wow, can naominovik tell a story. I'm scared to see what the next book is going to be like.

This Saturday, my mom and stepdad are driving up early Saturday morning. Like they're leaving their house at 5:30 early. I got us tickets to the Wisc-Northern Ill football game, which will totally rock our collective socks off. I'm hoping to run pirates for Sunday at about 5. I'm thinking of making a loaf of bread and a pot of soup. Mmmm, soup.

Next weekend, the Czar and his lovely wife will be in town. There shall be much talking. Yes, Darwin commands it.

The weekend after that, my dad and my youngest sister will be in town. They're coming in Thursday night, so I took Friday off work to hang with them. I haven't seen him since the wedding and haven't done a particularly good job of staying in touch with him, so this should be good. Since they have to drive from here to Kansas on Sunday, I'm considering running pirates that evening, too.

The weekend after that, my favorite (and biggest) customer is upgrading. So I have to be at work all day on my birthday. I have nothing polite to say about that.

The weekend after that, is our anniversary. There will be no plans made for that weekend. Well, none that involve anyone outside of me, my husband, and possibly our dog.

The weekend after that is Thanksgiving. I think we're going to my in-laws' for the feasting day, but I don't know about the weekend. I'm thinking of holding a D&D Certain Death Invitational on that Saturday. I've had the plot around for a long time, just never run it. If I have any brain over the next week, I may send out the invites, just to see who would be around that day.

The weekend after that is December. Sheesh. Really, at this point, I shouldn't wonder AT ALL why I have very little energy left - all of it's going to other places right now. This sucks, but I don't have a lot of choice. I'll keep holding myself together with tea and tunes, random silliness and cute hamsters, and petting my dog every morning and sleeping next to my husband every night. And maybe, just maybe, I'll be able take a week or so off in December and try to recharge a little bit.

Seeing that tomorrow is Hippie Christmas, if anyone in a downtownish area happens to pull aside a small dresser in somewhat decent condition, I will come get it after work. This isn't a life or death thing, but it would improve the organization in my craft room by several orders of magnitude.


On a totally different topic, I am very thankful that my team lead thinks my Problem Child Customer is making ridiculous demands and he's fed up with them, too. Also, if you heard a gleeful cackle about 5:20 this evening, that was me finding PROOF that my initial assessment of a major problem was correct, it actually IS All Their Fault, and someone was either lying by omission or (and this is much more likely) they just don't have a freaking clue.

I've noticed this trend: they call tech support but then insist that we don't know what we're talking about. Why pay our (admittedly) exorbitant rates for outstanding service if you don't intend to listen when we tell you what's wrong and how to fix it?

So, apparently, all I need to do is complain about my job on LJ and two of the three major problems I have will all be resolved by 3 pm. The third problem is resolved, as far as I'm concerned, but since I'm not allowed to tell customer that I know they're lying to me and I have proof, that one's going to have to wait until Monday to be resolved.


In other news, half-price margarita night is wonderful. Yeah.

I forgot my headphones on this trip. This has made for an unhappy Sabine, since I'm sort of dependent on them for when I really need to concentrate on something.

But the other people in the room just said that I could play music out of my laptop's speakers so long as they get veto power if it gets annoying or too loud. So now the Corrs are singing pretty and my life has returned one more step toward "normal". Now if I could just quit having to be at work 6:15-7, this would be pretty sweet.



EDIT: I had to turn my music off and now they're badgering me to figure everything out without giving me what I need to troubleshoot. Yeah, this is going to be a .super. day. I need more coffee...

In about 2 hours, I'm leaving for the airport to go to Texas again.  I'm there until Saturday night and I think I only have plans made for tonight, but I'm not sure.  I don't have a car this trip (boo!), so I will be relying on the kindness of others to chauffeur me around.

Dart, your trims are packed in my suitcase. 

The weekend was packed with fun and excitement - I made a doublet that only needs a little more trim on the cap sleeves and the frogs put on the front, watched a bunch more Supernatural, got to RP the happiest little car bomber ever, made a batch of Really Awesome Cookies, and mostly succeeded in not thinking about work too much.

Also, the cheap mp3 player that I had is dead.  It won't charge off of either my USB port or the wall charger.  It also likes to proclaim that it's full of juice, but then dies after about a minute of play.  This just won't do, so I'm in the market for a new music player.  And since it's been a while since I had a poll, here you go.