Went to Paris. Finally. Fantastic.
Will do a write up when I have some time but I think the photos do it justice
November 19, 2009
November 11, 2009
Bring It On: even-star Drinks Beer, Gets Lucky, Learns About Geography
I have recently found myself in a rather unexpected romantic entanglement and come to the conclusion that where these things are concerned we don't make choices. Life chooses us instead.
If I were going to choose, like list out all the pragmatic practical things I would want/not want the situation probably would not tick an awful lot of boxes.
We've known each other in a distant professional capacity for about a year but one day (maybe not the same day) I think we just looked at each other and decided we needed to tear each other's clothes off. But were just not sure how to navigate the whole professional capacity thing.
A mutual professional acquaintance basically just came out and said it was stupidly obvious to everyone but ourselves that we liked each other and needed to sort ourselves out.
All the usual common sense things just got totally steam rolled under this overwhelming chemical reaction.
Is it a bad idea? Am I going to hurt myself?
I have decided that I really don't care. I am going to live it and enjoy it NOW because for the last few weeks I have realised that the only thing that matters in a person is whether or not being with them has made life better than it could have been if none of it had ever happened. That maybe you feel like you have made them happy by just being yourself. Even if it was only for a day.
What is it I keeping telling myself? One thing at a time one day at t time. And that is how I am going to take this. No past. No Future. Just today. As much as I couldn't imagine myself doing these crazy things I would not want to imagine how much I would have regretted making a common sense choice instead of letting life choose me.
Plus he has this really delectable ass. And the MOST delicious accent.
Did this little sampler for him as a remembrance for a lovely weekend we spent together. Classy eh?
If I were going to choose, like list out all the pragmatic practical things I would want/not want the situation probably would not tick an awful lot of boxes.
We've known each other in a distant professional capacity for about a year but one day (maybe not the same day) I think we just looked at each other and decided we needed to tear each other's clothes off. But were just not sure how to navigate the whole professional capacity thing.
A mutual professional acquaintance basically just came out and said it was stupidly obvious to everyone but ourselves that we liked each other and needed to sort ourselves out.
All the usual common sense things just got totally steam rolled under this overwhelming chemical reaction.
Is it a bad idea? Am I going to hurt myself?
I have decided that I really don't care. I am going to live it and enjoy it NOW because for the last few weeks I have realised that the only thing that matters in a person is whether or not being with them has made life better than it could have been if none of it had ever happened. That maybe you feel like you have made them happy by just being yourself. Even if it was only for a day.
What is it I keeping telling myself? One thing at a time one day at t time. And that is how I am going to take this. No past. No Future. Just today. As much as I couldn't imagine myself doing these crazy things I would not want to imagine how much I would have regretted making a common sense choice instead of letting life choose me.
Plus he has this really delectable ass. And the MOST delicious accent.
Did this little sampler for him as a remembrance for a lovely weekend we spent together. Classy eh?
October 21, 2009
If You Don't Tell Me What You Want, I Can't Help You: even-star Has Nothing Better to Do
I am posting because I am stuck at the office waiting for data for a "critical" campaign.
Yes that's right! The lady geek works hard for the monies.
Don't think I post much here about what I actually do to pay the mortgage and keep myself in the style to which I am accustomed to keeping myself.
I only have one job title: Systems Architect
But I do several jobs:
1) I am manager of the web team. This is the team in the company that builds custom Internet based business applications. I stupidly volunteered for this position a few years ago because the team got too big not to have a manager and I was bored at the time. I manage their projects and the scheduling and the account managers and clients and deadlines and personnel BS. The job has grown as I have grown into it.
2) I am, in fact, by practice and by trade, a systems architect. I write specifications for Internet based business and print systems: the database architecture and schema, the use cases, the user interface, the deployment model, what text the client wants in their system generated emails, anything and everything to do with system requirements.
3) I am a project manager. Over and above the big picture of the entire schedule for the team I am generally at any given time involved in managing a specific project. Always something I have spec'd myself.
4) I am a quality assurance specialist. This means I have to test the applications that the team builds. I am not so involved in this area now as I used to be except when there is a new development due to go live. But I have to help the client set up test logs and plans and make sure they get turned around.
5) I am a psychiatrist. Men have egos. Maybe not more than women but different from women. You don't need to tell a woman she is the best thing ever to get her to do her job. When you are managing men who know how good they are at what they do there are a lot of prima donna tantrums to avert.
6) I am an ice queen. I am not there to be liked. I am there to do my job. I do not pity the weak or stupid because through their incompetence we lose revenue and the team gets a bad rep in the business. I yell at people. I have made at least one grown 'man' cry. I say no. I demand that people be specific and put it in writing. I do not pick up the slack of others.
Bottom line: there aint a lot of girls in IT. And when you are a girl in IT you have to be fucking careful when, miracle of miracles, you somehow find yourself in charge of a lot of men in a room full of men whose respect you need to get anything done let alone get a raise.
Guys in my web team I can pal around with because I have to be one of the guys in order to get the respect. But to anyone else I have to be stone cold. People can take this personally when it isn't.
I have a couple friends from work I sort of go out with now and then and they tell me that out of the office I am a totally different person.
Well, duh. I would hope that someone who has a degree in art history, embroiders, cross stitches, sculpts, plays violin, runs miles, crochets bunnais, smooth jives (when not stuck at work), bakes beautiful muffins, raises space tomatoes, cries at sad animal stories, and can put away three pints of Stella with out blinking would not be the same person she has to be for eight hours a day in an office. And that is not showing off. That is just an affirmation of all the things I am that very few people know about.
This is why I don't write much about work here except when it upsets me in some way. I am not that person. I even have a different name when I am at work.
It is sort of interesting to see what all I do written out like that. I have never done that before. A sort of stream of consciousness resume.
I like my job. We have fun here. How many people can get up in the morning and KNOW that they are going to have a pretty good laugh that day? If I gotta work that's the kind of work I want.
But I tell you what. If you tell anyone here that I am not a total bitch and have an art history degree I WILL cut you.
Yes that's right! The lady geek works hard for the monies.
Don't think I post much here about what I actually do to pay the mortgage and keep myself in the style to which I am accustomed to keeping myself.
I only have one job title: Systems Architect
But I do several jobs:
1) I am manager of the web team. This is the team in the company that builds custom Internet based business applications. I stupidly volunteered for this position a few years ago because the team got too big not to have a manager and I was bored at the time. I manage their projects and the scheduling and the account managers and clients and deadlines and personnel BS. The job has grown as I have grown into it.
2) I am, in fact, by practice and by trade, a systems architect. I write specifications for Internet based business and print systems: the database architecture and schema, the use cases, the user interface, the deployment model, what text the client wants in their system generated emails, anything and everything to do with system requirements.
3) I am a project manager. Over and above the big picture of the entire schedule for the team I am generally at any given time involved in managing a specific project. Always something I have spec'd myself.
4) I am a quality assurance specialist. This means I have to test the applications that the team builds. I am not so involved in this area now as I used to be except when there is a new development due to go live. But I have to help the client set up test logs and plans and make sure they get turned around.
5) I am a psychiatrist. Men have egos. Maybe not more than women but different from women. You don't need to tell a woman she is the best thing ever to get her to do her job. When you are managing men who know how good they are at what they do there are a lot of prima donna tantrums to avert.
6) I am an ice queen. I am not there to be liked. I am there to do my job. I do not pity the weak or stupid because through their incompetence we lose revenue and the team gets a bad rep in the business. I yell at people. I have made at least one grown 'man' cry. I say no. I demand that people be specific and put it in writing. I do not pick up the slack of others.
Bottom line: there aint a lot of girls in IT. And when you are a girl in IT you have to be fucking careful when, miracle of miracles, you somehow find yourself in charge of a lot of men in a room full of men whose respect you need to get anything done let alone get a raise.
Guys in my web team I can pal around with because I have to be one of the guys in order to get the respect. But to anyone else I have to be stone cold. People can take this personally when it isn't.
I have a couple friends from work I sort of go out with now and then and they tell me that out of the office I am a totally different person.
Well, duh. I would hope that someone who has a degree in art history, embroiders, cross stitches, sculpts, plays violin, runs miles, crochets bunnais, smooth jives (when not stuck at work), bakes beautiful muffins, raises space tomatoes, cries at sad animal stories, and can put away three pints of Stella with out blinking would not be the same person she has to be for eight hours a day in an office. And that is not showing off. That is just an affirmation of all the things I am that very few people know about.
This is why I don't write much about work here except when it upsets me in some way. I am not that person. I even have a different name when I am at work.
It is sort of interesting to see what all I do written out like that. I have never done that before. A sort of stream of consciousness resume.
I like my job. We have fun here. How many people can get up in the morning and KNOW that they are going to have a pretty good laugh that day? If I gotta work that's the kind of work I want.
But I tell you what. If you tell anyone here that I am not a total bitch and have an art history degree I WILL cut you.
September 25, 2009
Seasonal Specialties: even-star Tells a Joke
Q:What do you get when you mix together clay, water, and a cremated psychiatrist?
Not much posting lately. I think it has to do with the time of the year. I am generally more cheerful in summer because of the longer day light hours. So no need to do as much writing. I tend to be out of doors more as well. Especially on the weekends. Doesn't give me much time for cross stitch or painting or sculpting.
Now that the equinox has passed and the days are getting shorter I will be working on more stuff. There isn't much else to do when it is dark at 6pm except get out the needle and thread and do some stitching or make Bunnais.
The last batch of creatures has left me a bit dry in the sculpture department. Can't seem to get the clay to do its thing and reveal what it wants to be. It just kind of sits there all grey and lumpy and silent.
I suppose being grey and lumpy and silent is what most people would consider normal behaviour for clay but I am not like most people. When it doesn't speak I get frustrated and can't stand looking at it anymore. We're like an old married couple.
So I have put it away for now. My 'rents are visiting and there just isn't enough room for the mess with three people in the house. I also have glazing to do.
It is funny now that I think about it. Quite a lot has been going on in the last month or two:
Two weeks in Portugal, dead car, new car, dead fridge, new fridge, dear family friend dying very suddenly in Canada, 'rents visiting.
But even the car thing, though stressful at the time, didn't register much of a blip. These things happen. And they happen to everyone.
I am finally well enough to take my own advice: One thing at a time, one day at a time.
Another milestone in August was being off the meds for a year. I made it a whole year and I am in better shape than I have ever been in my life. Why couldn't they have diagnosed me that first time my mum took me to the doctor when I was 14? It is like I went to sleep when I was 24 and I have just woken up.
What a fucking waste. And I want so badly to make up for all that time.
So maybe that is it. Maybe I am just so pissed off at wasting all that time that now I can't stand wasting time on things like broken fridges and dead ends. Being what ever the opposite of being buried alive is.
Now I show off my legs and go dancing (when I can afford it) and run and make muffins and grow tomatoes.
I guess I am also looking for that person I can connect with. Not something I ever really thought about before. Being a robot I only ever had convenient arrangements with other robots but I am not a robot any more.
And humans are so complicated. I know I used to be one, way back before the medication and episodes, but have trouble remembering what it was like.
Is this what it is like? Wanting to connect? Knowing that today's crisis doesn't matter so you might as well go dancing and talk to the tomatoes?
I hope so.
A: A Freudian slip
Not much posting lately. I think it has to do with the time of the year. I am generally more cheerful in summer because of the longer day light hours. So no need to do as much writing. I tend to be out of doors more as well. Especially on the weekends. Doesn't give me much time for cross stitch or painting or sculpting.
Now that the equinox has passed and the days are getting shorter I will be working on more stuff. There isn't much else to do when it is dark at 6pm except get out the needle and thread and do some stitching or make Bunnais.
The last batch of creatures has left me a bit dry in the sculpture department. Can't seem to get the clay to do its thing and reveal what it wants to be. It just kind of sits there all grey and lumpy and silent.
I suppose being grey and lumpy and silent is what most people would consider normal behaviour for clay but I am not like most people. When it doesn't speak I get frustrated and can't stand looking at it anymore. We're like an old married couple.
So I have put it away for now. My 'rents are visiting and there just isn't enough room for the mess with three people in the house. I also have glazing to do.
It is funny now that I think about it. Quite a lot has been going on in the last month or two:
Two weeks in Portugal, dead car, new car, dead fridge, new fridge, dear family friend dying very suddenly in Canada, 'rents visiting.
But even the car thing, though stressful at the time, didn't register much of a blip. These things happen. And they happen to everyone.
I am finally well enough to take my own advice: One thing at a time, one day at a time.
Another milestone in August was being off the meds for a year. I made it a whole year and I am in better shape than I have ever been in my life. Why couldn't they have diagnosed me that first time my mum took me to the doctor when I was 14? It is like I went to sleep when I was 24 and I have just woken up.
What a fucking waste. And I want so badly to make up for all that time.
So maybe that is it. Maybe I am just so pissed off at wasting all that time that now I can't stand wasting time on things like broken fridges and dead ends. Being what ever the opposite of being buried alive is.
Now I show off my legs and go dancing (when I can afford it) and run and make muffins and grow tomatoes.
I guess I am also looking for that person I can connect with. Not something I ever really thought about before. Being a robot I only ever had convenient arrangements with other robots but I am not a robot any more.
And humans are so complicated. I know I used to be one, way back before the medication and episodes, but have trouble remembering what it was like.
Is this what it is like? Wanting to connect? Knowing that today's crisis doesn't matter so you might as well go dancing and talk to the tomatoes?
I hope so.
A: A Freudian slip
August 24, 2009
even-star Is NOT Dead. And Has a Menagerie to PROVE It
Nope. Not dead. Just really busy.
But I have five minutes at lunch today so you get to see what has been living in my head:
But I have five minutes at lunch today so you get to see what has been living in my head:
August 17, 2009
For Christine
Yes Christine still alive! Thank you so much for your concern.
I guess it kinda looks like I went out for pizza and didn't come back.
Been away for two weeks on a much needed holiday. The two weeks before that were insanely busy trying to get everything into a state where I could leave it for two weeks.
Will be back to more regular posting soon!
Take care y'all!
I guess it kinda looks like I went out for pizza and didn't come back.
Been away for two weeks on a much needed holiday. The two weeks before that were insanely busy trying to get everything into a state where I could leave it for two weeks.
Will be back to more regular posting soon!
Take care y'all!
July 11, 2009
Shrink in a Box Makes a Reappearance, even-star Feels a Bit Better
Anyways, yes, a shit day/week whatever.
You have come in to this post somewhere in the middle.
Before this sentence I filled up three and a half pages with stream of shittyness.
Summary: I had a bit of a confrontation at work today with my bosses. The details don't matter now. Perception is everything and when I am worried and tired and under pressure my perception sucks. Or maybe not. Maybe today it was spot on. I have been working long hours to meet what are probably only my own high standards. I expected a bit of encouragement. Well, actually no. I didn't expect it. If I am honest I expected exactly what I got which was shit. Why did I expect it? Because I don't seem to get anything else for doing my best.
So on the way home after a twelve hour day I can hardly keep my eyes open, my stomach is in a knot, my brain is yelling horrible things at me. Gym. I NEED to go to the gym. I will beat my unruly mind into submission. And then I am thinking that there is no way I could get through it. I actually need a certain amount of concentration to be able to do my work out. Jesus. Forty minutes on the tread mill with only my acid spitting brain and Lady GaGa videos for company. I tell you what I would be raving before I hit the first hill.
So I am thinking: I need to do something. I can't eat. Sleep is out of the question. But I need to do something.
From the back of the shrieking crowd in the burning auditorium of my brain comes a quiet voice: There is something I NEED to do.
And then it comes to me: I NEED to write.
I haven't written anything in over a week.
This was actually a bit of a revelation on the drive home. One of those moments when you discover a truth about yourself that you didn't know before. A truth you can't escape. That is so much a part of you that you didn't see it until it was almost too late for it to save you.
I think I have posted here before about this strange form of therapy I find so effective. This purging of the dark spiral and hammering it out into straight grim lines on the page. What I didn't know until today was that this is something I needed to do to survive.
I haven't written anything in over a week and my brain was about to choke to death on itself. A black and jagged cherry pit cutting off the air.
The voice in my head (and we all have this voice so don't you look at me like I am crazy) that fights the darkness has been getting fainter and fainter and all this time screaming to be let out. To tell me all the terrible whisperings of the monster. Screaming at me to pour it out on the page and leave my aching bursting head flaccid and empty.
Three and a half pages of poisonous sour vituperation. Long hand. It's the best way. Something about the physicality of the thoughts flowing out through the ink like puss from a blister. The order they come out in is the order they stay in. No cut and paste editing. No deletions. No interpretation. It is the most honest way. If it comes out then it is something that I believe and I can't hide it from myself. It may be irrational and crazy and paranoid but it was in there and that made it real. Real enough to tie my guts into knots. At least to start with. But then as this aching need to get the thoughts out is slaked my brain vomits up all the irrational and all the damage until only what is true trickles out.
And it stops.
The swirling drunken spiral stops spinning and all those awful "I wish I had said" and "if only I had done it differently" moments go away for a while and there is a stillness in there. A deep and resonating quiet.
I didn't know until just now how many moments like that have been backing up in my head over the last few weeks. I have been punishing myself at the gym hoping to beat them out of me. And while there is an odd empty euphoria afterwards it does not bring the peace I feel right now. All of those moments are gone now. Not just suppressed by endorphins.
I can see now that maybe what happened was not the best and that maybe I could have done something better but what the hell can I do about it now? NOTHING. So why does my psyche seem so determined to gnaw itself bloody until I give it paper and pen to chew on? It would rewind and play, rewind and play again and again and again as if somehow I really could go back to the moment and change it. A scratched record. Writing pushes the needle out of the skip and keeps it going forward.
My intestines have stopped trying to digest themselves. I can think about something other than how I might have made a bad decision like no one else ever fucks up ever. The hell with that.The future doesn't feel so futile and over whelming and scary. The hell with it.
I'm hungry now. I think I will go to the store and get pizza or something.
You have come in to this post somewhere in the middle.
Before this sentence I filled up three and a half pages with stream of shittyness.
Summary: I had a bit of a confrontation at work today with my bosses. The details don't matter now. Perception is everything and when I am worried and tired and under pressure my perception sucks. Or maybe not. Maybe today it was spot on. I have been working long hours to meet what are probably only my own high standards. I expected a bit of encouragement. Well, actually no. I didn't expect it. If I am honest I expected exactly what I got which was shit. Why did I expect it? Because I don't seem to get anything else for doing my best.
So on the way home after a twelve hour day I can hardly keep my eyes open, my stomach is in a knot, my brain is yelling horrible things at me. Gym. I NEED to go to the gym. I will beat my unruly mind into submission. And then I am thinking that there is no way I could get through it. I actually need a certain amount of concentration to be able to do my work out. Jesus. Forty minutes on the tread mill with only my acid spitting brain and Lady GaGa videos for company. I tell you what I would be raving before I hit the first hill.
So I am thinking: I need to do something. I can't eat. Sleep is out of the question. But I need to do something.
From the back of the shrieking crowd in the burning auditorium of my brain comes a quiet voice: There is something I NEED to do.
And then it comes to me: I NEED to write.
I haven't written anything in over a week.
This was actually a bit of a revelation on the drive home. One of those moments when you discover a truth about yourself that you didn't know before. A truth you can't escape. That is so much a part of you that you didn't see it until it was almost too late for it to save you.
I think I have posted here before about this strange form of therapy I find so effective. This purging of the dark spiral and hammering it out into straight grim lines on the page. What I didn't know until today was that this is something I needed to do to survive.
I haven't written anything in over a week and my brain was about to choke to death on itself. A black and jagged cherry pit cutting off the air.
The voice in my head (and we all have this voice so don't you look at me like I am crazy) that fights the darkness has been getting fainter and fainter and all this time screaming to be let out. To tell me all the terrible whisperings of the monster. Screaming at me to pour it out on the page and leave my aching bursting head flaccid and empty.
Three and a half pages of poisonous sour vituperation. Long hand. It's the best way. Something about the physicality of the thoughts flowing out through the ink like puss from a blister. The order they come out in is the order they stay in. No cut and paste editing. No deletions. No interpretation. It is the most honest way. If it comes out then it is something that I believe and I can't hide it from myself. It may be irrational and crazy and paranoid but it was in there and that made it real. Real enough to tie my guts into knots. At least to start with. But then as this aching need to get the thoughts out is slaked my brain vomits up all the irrational and all the damage until only what is true trickles out.
And it stops.
The swirling drunken spiral stops spinning and all those awful "I wish I had said" and "if only I had done it differently" moments go away for a while and there is a stillness in there. A deep and resonating quiet.
I didn't know until just now how many moments like that have been backing up in my head over the last few weeks. I have been punishing myself at the gym hoping to beat them out of me. And while there is an odd empty euphoria afterwards it does not bring the peace I feel right now. All of those moments are gone now. Not just suppressed by endorphins.
I can see now that maybe what happened was not the best and that maybe I could have done something better but what the hell can I do about it now? NOTHING. So why does my psyche seem so determined to gnaw itself bloody until I give it paper and pen to chew on? It would rewind and play, rewind and play again and again and again as if somehow I really could go back to the moment and change it. A scratched record. Writing pushes the needle out of the skip and keeps it going forward.
My intestines have stopped trying to digest themselves. I can think about something other than how I might have made a bad decision like no one else ever fucks up ever. The hell with that.The future doesn't feel so futile and over whelming and scary. The hell with it.
I'm hungry now. I think I will go to the store and get pizza or something.
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