Are You There Lovelies? It's Me. Rae.

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

-Phillip Roth

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Yeah, I know. There really is no excuse.

I've been told: When in doubt, just write. Even if you have no idea what the hell you're doing or saying, just get it out. You can always edit later. 

Ahhh editing. How I hate you.

But what if there's nothing there? Nothing to write? Nothing to say? What if you sit there in front of a notepad with pen or at the laptop, hands hovering over the keys... and there's nothing? 

And what's worse? What if you have no desire to write... at all?

I think I've mentioned this before, but since my car accident back in February, my passion for writing left my body, heart and soul. Usually I'd be exhausted and though my mind would be racing with ideas, my body and frontal lobe were in agreement that it didn't have enough energy or consciousness to life that pen or to type out whatever it was that my children were telling me at the back of my mind. That always killed me, but I'd eventually get something out. But after the accident, after the adrenaline died down and the pain faded, I would just look at my notebooks or computers and think... meh. 

Around this time, I barely even wanted to read. I just wanted to do anything but what I loved to do. Most of my time was spent going to the chiropractor, talking to lawyers, filling out paperwork, taking meds, icing and elevating my leg, public transporting myself to work which meant going to bed early and getting home late, shopping for a car (and finally getting a car)... and let's not forget work itself. Ugh. 

I had writing spurts here and there. I'd update one of my story blogs here and there and try to stay current (which is always the goal), but I swear to gawd it was like pulling teeth.

And then I decided to do something stupid: NaNoWriMo.

So the last time I did NaNoWriMo was back in 2010. Back then I had a beginning, a middle, and an end. I even developed an outline of sorts, made character notes. I was all over that shit like white on rice.

This year? Yeah, wasn't as "prepared" as I was before. November is already an off month for me due to Thanksgiving and my birthday, but last month was just full of fail. I knew I should have just skipped it, saved it up for next year. I had maybe three or four ideas that were still in the blurb phase - just an idea that would be the equivalent of the small blurb on the back of the book telling you what it was about only not so developed or detailed. But something in me wouldn't let go. I just HAD to do NaNoWriMo. 

So... I did. 

Midnight of the first day... BOOM! I wrote... something. Not to sound like a defeatist, but I knew right away I wasn't going to make my goal. 2010 I was very close to the end goal. This year? Oh HELL NO! I won't further embarrass myself with telling you my goal. I really should have just let it go. Or hell, picked a month that has nothing going on for me in it so I can devote all my time to writing. February is good. All that has in it is Valentine's Day, and I'm single for frak sakes. In any case, last month NaNoWriMo was a bad idea for me.

So now I'm back here... trying to keep up with this blog as well as my other writing projects. Before my sad hiatus from the blog world, I did manage some little story blog updates. And they are as follows (in no particular order).

• Kai is at part twenty-four
• Kearie is at part twenty-three with No Good At Being Patient
• Sanya is at part twenty-four with Gates & Tunnels
• Della is at part seventeen
• Arwyn is at part twenty

Yeah. Those were back in October, but they still count. (I'm trying to turn a positive spin on everything.) And even though I didn't make the NaNoWriMo goal, I still wrote some. Toward the end, there were some moments where I had a groove going, and I think what I wrote was pretty good. So yeah... that's something.

Last month while I was trying to work on NaNoWriMo, an idea has popped into my head that just wouldn't be ignored. Currently writing the crap out of that until it behaves and then I can go back to finishing one of my novels.

I feel like I've fallen off track this past year. Could have started with the car accident, but I'm much more organized than I have been these days. My room goes through cycles of improving to holy crap. My energy levels have been utter crap lately. That is in part of the sleep I get.

My insomnia is irritating as hell, but it's usually manageable. Lately I've been getting less and less quality sleep. The older gentleman that lives in the house I'm renting a room from is a bit on the loud side.

He stomps around like an elephant wearing cement loafers. When he talks, he has volume control issues. When he's home, he sits on a chair next to his bed, door open, watching TV. (If you haven't guessed, his room is right next to mine.) In any case, he'll hear something interesting on the news and then have to go tell my landlady about it like a kid saying "Hey Mom! Guess what happened at school today?" But he calls out to her from his door as he's walking to find her. Usually when I'm home, I'm in my room cleaning or reading or writing or watching something on the laptop, but knowing what hours I keep, she's under the impression if I'm home, I'm sleeping, so I constantly hear her telling him to be quiet. He remembers for a second but then goes back to being loud. 

When he's asleep with the door closed, I can still hear him snoring though the sound is muffled. This week he's been having health issues (leg pains from what my landlady has told me). So he's been sleeping with his door open these few days. And the hall light has been on. Now I've already established that the dude is a snore machine (what I call "chainsaw symphony"), and since the house has wood floors, sound carries. So imagine me in bed, door closed, lights out... with his door open SNORING AWAY! My landlady's room is on the other side of me. She keep her door closed, too, but she's got the master bedroom so her bathroom is the first space past the door and then her room. Meanwhile, I share a wall with Captain Snore Pants, and MY GAWD!!! He also talks in his sleep, and the bed he has now is very springy and squeaky. 

Now the dude is lovely. He's sweet and caring, and I'm not usually home for very long. I work in the middle of the day, and then I try to run my errands as much as I can after work. Sometimes I have time to be social, so I'm not there all the time, but when a girl is trying to sleep, she can't do that when she's being serenaded by someone nose and throat.

The other night I thought I could use the timer on my Songza app and let it play me out to sleep, but it's late, and I can't have the volume up else it wake people (or my landlady's dogs) up. Plus, I use my phone as an alarm, too, so I need to keep the volume up for that to wake me up in the morning. So right now, I'm just making due, but I fear one of these days, I'm going to snap at him since I'm not a pleasant creature when I first wake up in the morning, and he likes to say hello and try to chat with you even if you're walking away. Since he's been keeping me up the past couple nights, I'm afraid if this keeps up, I'm going to tell him to frak off or something, and I don't want to do that. I'm a good Jedi, dammit. No Sith allowed.

Okay, I've babbled on long enough. I think I need to post this and be done with it.

Just wanted to update everyone that I'm still here, and I'm EPIC FAIL when it comes to writing these days. But hopefully next week (or should I really start next month?) will be better?

Later my lovelies.

Have Goodness! 

Rae

One Day I'll Blog About Writing Again...

A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist.

-Stewart Alsop

It's Wednesday... Hump Day... and I'm in a mood.

Maybe cuz my sinuses are acting up. Maybe cuz I might be getting a cold. Maybe it has to do with my back pain seemingly getting worse or at least getting less localized than it has been. I dunno.

I'm tired. I'm moody.

We got a little pizza party today so huzzah to me and my department. It had to do with clearing out the returned email folder since it was at one point over 30k and we got it down to 500 or so. (Yay us!) We had pizza and sat in the conference chatting and whatnot. Our boss who usually heads up the meetings is in SF at the other office. So it was a pretty chill hour.

Wish I had know we were going to have a pizza party so I wouldn't have ordered lunch. Sheesh.

Been too tired to write. I hate this feeling. I really do. The ideas play themselves out in my head, but there are even times when working out stuff in my noggin, it's hard to concentrate and focus on scenes that I'm mentally working on.

Dammit! I need some crack! That must be it!

I'm here until 8pm tonight. Couple of my friends are gaming tonight and were wondering if I could take care of their kitties (mainly the one that needs her shot twice a day). Normally I'm like "no problem" but then today I was originally planning on stopping by another store to possibly get me a laptop. I know with how tired I've been lately, as soon as I get to their place, I'm just gonna sit on my ass and not move for gawd knows how long. I wouldn't be able to drop in, do what I gotta do and then go. So I would have to run my errand first then head to their place but they said they can give her the shot before they leave (they were only checking with me to see if I could do it - if not, they would).

A part of me feels crappy about that. Like I let them down. Or they're mad at me. I dunno.

I know it's perfectly fine to be selfish on occasion, but I think I take those moments less often than I should. There is stuff that I either HAVE to do (laundry, prepping for a trip, etc) or WANT to do (get myself a massage, take myself to a movie, etc) and then people ask me to hang out or do them a favor, and there are times when I've put my stuff on hold to help them out which I don't mind doing... but then stuff starts getting backed up, and...

Ugh.

Maybe I just need more energy. Maybe I should just take power naps. Maybe I should just get an IV-drip filled with crack coffee.

Right now, I have an ice pack shoved down the back of my pants resting along the left side of my mid-lower back in hopes of numbing myself into some form of happiness.

Today the men (or man?) started tearing up the kitchen floor to do whatever they need to do so the kitchen and laundry room are off limits for at least a day. Suits me just fine. I'm not really there anyway. I do my laundry at least once a week.

Aw crap. Laundry.

I'm debating on next time I need to do laundry, taking my stuff to the laundromat so I can do three loads at once. Sharing the washer/dryer is okay, but the dryer usually takes two tumbles to completely dry when I consolidate my laundry for the week in one load. And lately colors that didn't bleed before are starting to now. I need to be able to do a small load of whites... which means now I need bleach...

Oh damn. And my windshield. It's not major so much as annoying.

*collapse*

Too... much... crap. Not enough energy to blink.

*sigh*

Okay, the rest of my lunch break is gonna be spent walking around to stretch out my aches and pains. Hopefully it'll help.

Thank GAWD I get to see the chiropractor tomorrow.

Later my lovelies.

Have Goodness!
Rae

I Want to Write! REALLY! I Do!

So Monday. We meet again.

We will never be friends - but maybe we can move past our mutual enmity toward a more-positive partnership.

-Julio-Alexei Genao

Happy Monday ladies and jellyspoons!

My mid-left back hurts and my lower back is not too far behind with its gripes. Damn. My body SO needs a timeout from all this pain shit!

What has happened in my life since last I blogged on Friday?

Well two of my friends (Kevin Z & Diana M) got married on Saturday. It was a lovely wedding. There was rain that I wanted to play in SO BAD, but I had to remain girly for the wedding so nope... no dice. The ceremony was beautiful, the entire wedding party looked stunning, and I had a lovely time. I ended up not having to "behave" since someone that was supposed to sit the same table as me didn't... but really, I think that was all for the best. Didn't dance much if at all. Ate a lot of cookies. Had a lot of beverages. Mingled a lot. Laughed a lot. Didn't get a shot at the picture booth. (There was always a line.) A lot of people told me I looked good which I thought was weird but nice. A number of people didn't even recognize me. (I'm guessing it was because I straightened my hair, wore some makeup... oh yeah, and I was wearing a dress.)

I swear, you do one thing out of the norm and BAM! it becomes a thing.

I was also told by some new acquaintances who were fabulous tablemates that it was lovely meeting me, and that I was very entertaining. (Is that another way of saying "interesting"? Cuz we all know what that means.) The common theme that evening was that I was better than cable so... I guess that's a good thing?

Sunday I got up early and trekked all the way to Sacramento for Greg L's birthday. We spent the entire day (board)gaming which was nice. I think every game I played was something I hadn't played before. I won nothing, but I don't ever set out to. I only play on to have a good time, and I did. The subway game "Underground" made me think of "Ticket to Ride". The "flea" card game was cute, and I really enjoyed the German card game "6-something or other...". (My German is a little rusty.) I got to see Kevan F and Janise B and meet some new people. At the end of the night, there were four of us left, and we went out for dinner. Yummy place called "Ma Jong's". Curry noodle are yummy! Just sayin'!

Made it home at a rather quick time than I thought so yay me! I always enjoy going through Benicia at night since it looks spooky and dark. I refer that stretch of freeway near the tollbooth "Gotham". (If you've been through there, trust me. You would totally expect to see our caped crusader batarang'ing his way across towers, etc.)

And now... I'm here.

It's lunch time. I have leftover curry noodles, a potsticker and a piece of orange chicken as my lunch/dinner. I also have a big bottle of Powerade and an orange "ACTIVE" can of AMP. I bought a number of them for the Sacramento excursion since they were on sale, and I wanted to make sure that I was awake for my trip. (I had finished the audiobook of Mary Poppins - SOOOOO not the Disney movie, by the way - and have now gone on to my second to last audio book from the library "Heart Shaped Box" by Joe Hill which is read by Stephen Lang who I think is quite handsome and has a nice voice to listen to... even though he's essentially telling me a ghost/horror story.) In any case, as sweet as he is to listen to, I needed some backup to keep me awake for the drive. I was fine for the most part. My McD's breakfast (sausage mcmuffin with egg, no cheese & a sausage biscuit) even lasted me until practically there.

So yeah. No real writing (as in typing or pen though lots in my mind) has happened. I've been thinking a lot about it though. Just been so tired. I have all sorts of scenes with dudes in my head (and NO, not THOSE kind). There's my spy one where the main characters is talking with her husband. There's another of two old school friends at a wedding. There's a confession scene between best friends. There's also a couple other scenes, but aside from work, my mind just generally gets lazy with creative stuff. (Maybe that's why I lost all the games I played yesterday.) LOL!

Oh well, I will try my hardest to do some writing this week. I promise.

Later my lovelies.

Have Goodness!
Rae

Weddings & Road Trips

So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you.

-Willy Wonka from the movie "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" 

Currently at the office sitting at the slowest computer known to man. It's slower than a snail running through molasses.

Sooooooooooooooooo slooooooooooooooooooooooooooooowww...

Anyways...

I got in at 10am, and since it's Friday, it's a little more lax than the rest of the week though it still has its busy moments. I'm currently on lunch snacking on a salad I got from Hobee's (minus the walnuts) and thinking about my weekend coming up.

I had asked for Saturday off since my friends are getting married. I have a dress and shoes and spanx for the occasion. Tonight I'm going to the Dry Bar after work to get my hair straightened (though Kathy W mentioned that the weather has been overcast lately so I'm not sure if my hair will survive -- here's hoping). Last night on impulse, I got a mani/pedi. The OPI color I used was called "Every Month Is Oktoberfest" which is not only a cool name but a cool color. I got in on my toes and fingers. I even did the oh-so-stylish "different color on the ring finger" thing just to see if I liked it. The dude put silver/sparkles on it. Looks nice. (I had meant to do a load of laundry when I got home, but I was so damn tired, I pushed it to today after my hair appointment.)

So Saturday is the wedding, and Sunday...

I will be trekking to Sacramento for the day. Why? Cuz I have a car, and I love my friends, and it's Greg L's birthday. (I don't see Greg L and Kevan F as often as I should. And Janise B will be there, too.) I had asked for Saturday off for the wedding but for some reason I got both days off. When I got last Saturday off for the bacherlorette party, I had to work the next day so I thought this would be the same thing. Since it's not, and Kevan said, "HEY!"... I'm going.

Other than that... yeah. Nothing too exciting happening in my life. Most of my time has been booked up with prepping for other peoples' stuff. LOL! Ain't that grand?

Need to remember to call the chiro on Monday and make an appointment. Back's feeling a little wonky. The two hour meeting yesterday might have something to do with it. I tried stretching and cracking my back, etc, during the meeting but it didn't help much. Then we broke for a couple minutes after which our boss wanted to play a game. During the break I got up and stretched a bit. Then for the game he broke us up into two groups making me move to the other side of the room. I took my chair and spun it around so I could lean forward against the back of the chair. Someone joked about how I was a cool kid for sitting that way, and I said, "Do I have to keep reminding everyone I was hit by a car? This way is more comfortable and helps me stretch out my back." I kid, but there are people that forget about the big car accident I was in back in February and ask questions like "Why does your leg hurt?" or "What's wrong with your back?" or "Why are you limping?"

*headdesk and facepalm*

I feel a little accomplished today. I did my assigned emails, my assigned restaurant checks, handled customer/restaurant calls, and was working on a menu revision when I had to go to lunch. Almost done with the menu revisions, I finished the price changes for the main part of the menu and then will be working on the catering stuff when I clock back in.

Also been drinking A LOT of water... been keeping up on the hydration train... which makes a lot of stops in piss city. Yeah I get it. Drinking water is good for you, but it makes me feel like I've got the smallest bladder in the world since I keep having to get up and piss Niagra Falls every five minutes (or at least that's what it feels like). I suppose the getting up and walking to and from the ladies room can be considered exercise... even as minor as it is. It helps to get out of this chair every once in a while, stretch out my back and legs.

Unfortunately not a lot of writing news. (Yeah, I suck. Stop looking at me like that.) I was looking over my list of story blogs and kept thinking Maybe I'll wait until October and start afresh. It is rather late in the month - it's more than half over - and I have fourteen blogs to update on a monthly basis (yeah, that was the original plan) as well as update this lovely little creature three times a week. But this blog seems to have become more life stuff versus "I'm writing so much amazingly fabulous crap it's ridiculous" stuff.

I was working on some Kai stuff yesterday so that's at least something, right?

I just get stuck in these moments of "What now?" I enjoy what I wrote so far, and I like it, but what the hell? These are continuing series. In my head they play out like television series I watch and enjoy, the fangirl thinking even though they may end in reality, they stay alive in my mind.

And now what?

I hate being stuck.

I'm stuck on my two novels. I have over 100 pages on each of them (maybe 75% - 85% done, minus the editing polish), but I have blank spots. I've tried following the rule of "just keep writing" since I've been known to dwell on something as small as a name for a character thinking "I can't continue on without a name. What the frak am I going to call her?" sort of thing. I make notes in between scenes that I've written so I know WHAT to write, but how to write it... the words are just missing! I hate it when that happens. With my story blogs, there was this stream of "this sounds like a good idea" mixed in with a little "I'll do this" and a little "And now I'll do that"... and then it just all goes POOF! - and I don't like it.

*headdesk*

In any case, I think I've babbled on long enough. As it is, I started munching on my Hobee's salad since noon. Been pacing myself in regards to Wednesday when I talked about taking time with your food. Now I didn't mean for it to last THIS long, and eating a salad all day isn't such a bad thing. I feel so much thinner!

*looks down*
*pouts*

Frak you reality. You win again.

Later my lovelies.

Have Goodness!
Rae

Can I Haz A Nap Now, Please?

Jack Taylor: [curtly] My attitude is derived from your attitude.

Melanie: "Derived"? You must be a writer.

-from the movie "One Fine Day"

It's Wednesday... and I'm at work.

Yesterday was my day off, and it was chock-full (<=== how DO you SPELL that?) of lunch, cracking bones, shoes, disappointment, success, video games, friends, TV shows, junk food cravings and denied naps.

My day started off with lunch with friends. I was invited to join lunch with Jimbo and Leabo. They were lunching with a co-worker who I'd met on a couple of occasions and thought it'd be okay they +1'd me for lunch. I had an appointment at 3:20pm, so 1pm lunch seemed doable. We went to Islands. I went there once before in SoCal (where Jimbo & Leabo fell in love with the place). I had gone just the once with my brother, sister-in-law and their roommate Nate M. I liked the place well enough. Since then I guess the restaurant chain branched out and up. Our waiter was nice though he reminded me of Grumpy from "Once Upon A Time". There was a lot of talk about work, and I remained quiet eating my fries and sipping my raspberry iced tea. Lunch was done by 2pm giving me plenty of time to head out and see my pop doc.

My chiro appointment was at 3:20pm. I got there a little early which was fine since all that tea made me have to pee. While I waited, I looked through some magazines which were mostly health related in some fashion. There was this article that had to do with eating your food slower (since it takes about 15-20min for your stomach and brain to be on the same page in regards to when you're actually full). It was talking about more than chewing slower (which I had heard a long time ago that when you chew slower, you get fuller faster). But the article got more zen-ish about it. That you should savor your food, appreciate it more. It also mentioned distractions such as talking to other people while you eat or playing with your phone, etc, and how you're not really paying attention to your food.

Now I honestly have tried to do this over the years. I have tried to take my time, savor my food, etc, etc, but sometimes I can't help but be a little piggy. If eating with my mom (especially if she's cooked the meal), and she doesn't see her food disappearing off your plate fast enough, she will question her cooking or if something's wrong with you or bug you about why you're not eating (when in fact you ARE... just not at a level she would prefer). I've also been in social circumstances where I'm socializing with friends, and there's still food on my plate and someone essentially says "shut up and eat". I need to get into that mindset of just not rushing my food no matter what anyone else says. After my life dies down a bit (post-wedding, etc), I need to check on gym memberships. My only option really is 24 Hour Fitness since I work such odd hours. I'd love to take a cardio hip hop class, but those are usually earlier in the day (as are dance classes in general) so at least I'll be able to cruise on a treadmill while listening to some audiobooks. Or even some music... if I can ever get my mp3 player back.

Dr. Rob called me back to put me on the stim table. He asked how I was since he wasn't able to see me last week, and I told him I was okay. I told him how much pain I was in last week Monday and how I treated myself to a massage which helped. Then the pain came back so I treated myself to follow up massage a couple days later. But as of then (and now), I feel a lot better save a tiny bit of pinching in my lower left back,

Dr. Rob: How's your shin?
Me: Oh, you know... still contusion-y.

This time was different. Normally he adjusts my upper/mid back (if needed) and my lower back (which is ALWAYS needed). When adjusting my lower back, I usually have to lay on my side, but when he did that and then had me lay face down, he poked around and then asked me to turn on my other side and popped me again. So no lay flat. Just sides for my lower back. And I'm guessing since he didn't see me last week and after hearing how much pain/discomfort I was in, he decided to see me next week and then go back to every two weeks.

I headed back home stopping at the outlet mall in search of shoes for the wedding. Unable to find anything that I liked in my size (frakkin Sasquatch feet), I went to Dave & Buster's and played PacMan Death Match. I walked around first to see what they had since I hadn't been there in a while, and they took out practically ALL the joystick games (and the retro corner) and had lots of shooter games like "House of the Dead" or driving games like "The Need for Speed". I saw some new games out there... though a few of them were based off of smart phone games like Fruit Ninja and Temple Run. Other than that, my games were pretty much gone. The retro wall held Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Spaced Invaders and Asteroids. They still have the single machine that has a lot of old games like Joust, Robotron, Street Fighter... but the power was off. They didn't even have more recent games like Tekken anymore. (Sadness!!!)

Where have all my arcade games gone?

After leaving the mall, I thought about going to Target to grab underthings for the dress and anything that can make my midsection smaller than it actually is (*cough cough* HIPPO! *cough cough*). But then I remembered DSW so I went to this shopping center near the mall that had one... but that one either closed or moved so I had to go back to the one closer to my house where... I FOUND A FRAKKIN PAIR OF SHOES!!!

I found a couple pairs of black heels with the strap around the ankle that were my size and comfortable (and in the clearance section), but they showed my foot which meant I'd have to make time to get a pedicure (cuz honey, my feet look atrocious). I had intended on getting a boot-type heel and had settled on two at Payless that would work if I couldn't find anything else. But then I found a pair. (Yay me!) There were some really cute Dr. Scholl's shoes that were like Mary Janes in a patchwork type of style. They had them in brown and in black. They were also on clearance/sale, but they didn't fit quite right so I didn't get them.

I drooled over some of the boots but didn't buy any. (I'm not a shoe whore like the stereotypical girl. I do love boots, but if I can't justify the purchase, I won't buy them. Also, depending on the length of the boot, I'm usually not able to fit them over my calf since - sadly - my calves are the fittest thing about me.)

The rest of the night was spent eating chili cheese potato wedges and drinking a strawberry shake while I caught up on some shows at Jimbo and Leabo's place (who later went out to get themselves some dinner and brought me back two corn dogs).

Eventually I made it home and to bed.

Nothing too exciting happened today. Got here toward the end of the lunch rush. Answered phone, didn't go to a meeting since we're having some big group core meeting tomorrow. Didn't get around to a menu revision I was given (just prices), but I downloaded a copy of the menu I was supposed to be revise and saved it to my network folder. So yeah. I'll do that tomorrow when I get in.

So yeah. That's all that I've done since last we spoke. Well, I've thought of some story bits and ideas and contemplated NaNoWriMo again, but it's still not solid enough for me yet. I have to sit down with a pen and paper and see if I have enough notes/idea to make something work. I'm also needing that laptop to do my work on so...

Yeah.

And... (looks at clock)... it's almost time for me to get the frak out of dodge so I'll sign this bad boy off right now. And maybe - JUST MAYBE - I might have some ACTUAL writing to report in Friday's post.

Now onto more wedding attire crap.

Later my lovelies.

Have Goodness!
Rae

Life, Writing, Hopes & Other Stuff

Pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl, you should be smiling

A girl like you should never look so blue.

-from the song "Treasure" by Bruno Mars

Well hello Monday... you bastard.

I am currently sitting in the back corner where the PC is that has the program on it that I need to work on production type stuff. After training Matt H on Friday, during the lunch rush today, he seemed to knock a whole mess of stuff out of the park leaving me with not much else to do. After the rush had died down, I started on returned emails.

See, we have this automated system where we send out email reminders to our customers. Unfortunately, the companies we're contracted with don't let us know when someone has left the company so then we get all these emails bounced back to us since the messages keep sending even though the email address it's going to is inactive. So bossman wants us to (when we have the time, of course) go through the returned emails, look up the account it was sent to, change the settings (aka de-select the "please send me email reminders" etc), and then delete the emails pertaining to that one person.

*headdesk*

From my joyous desk head plop, you can tell how much I enjoy this, but alas... I do it. Why? It's part of my job. Sure it makes me cross-eyed after a while, and I have to stop to rest my peepers, but it's really not all that bad. Tedious? Yes. But not that bad.

At the moment I'm eating a peanut chicken salad with peanut dressing. It isn't all that great, but it's food. I also got some white corn guacamole and chips as an appetizer. Still pretty healthy in my opinion. That'll be a snack for later.

So what has happened since last I spoke with y'all.

Had my work review on Wednesday. Been here a year, and it was all good in the hood. My little raise will be effective on my anniversary date.

Thursday powerloss started which made me grumpy. Had to go to the store to get stuff since all my supplies were at home. I also went with friends to watch Rifftrax version of Starship Troopers. That was fun. After that we went to a pub and ate a bit and then went home.

Friday after work, I found a dress to wear to my friends' wedding. (Huzzah!) Now I just need shoes. I found a couple pair at Payless that looked cute, but I'm going to check out a few other places and see what else is out there before I commit.

Saturday I woke up feeling like death warmed over (due to powerloss) as well as a terrible sinus migraine. Truly no bueno. Was asked to come to the bride-to-be's (Diana M) house early due to exploding penis cake (it was ejacutastic - Jess F makes the best cakes). There were pictures before dinner where I had yummy sushi. Then it was off to karaoke where Diana sang in Japanese. WTF? I had known that she liked anime and stuff, but wow. I sang a few songs. Jess wouldn't sing, but then I suggested that we duet on Careless Whisper since she plays a mean sax solo. The song was wrong, rearranged differently so I messed up the singing part but Jess was the star of that duet. Eventually we made it back to the house where we were all mostly tired and didn't bother drinking. I didn't have any dick cake. The head of the "penis" sat on a plate, the cream having long since dried and the outer shell of the crown had gotten hard (no pun intended). Being around it made me not hungry for cake. I headed home where I think I slept decently for a little bit and then prepped for work the next day.

Work was all right. Got a little nauseous and migrainey toward the second half of my shift, and I have no idea if it was random or due to powerloss. I'm betting the powerloss. Took a LOT of meds (I'm a medicator), and drank LOTS of water (I pee a lot). I got out of work on time. Tried paying my car insurance online but apparently when I got the insurance, they store the card info that you input and do an automatic debit from that card. I'd rather not, but oh well. I'll live with it. I have a car. That's all that matters to me.

Nothing much else happened to me. I went to Sprouts and got some lunch before heading to work yesterday. (They make yummy things.) I need more Good Belly. I bought some on my way to Fresno a couple weekends ago, and my mom likes it now. I wonder if my brother ever got the other container I left for him.

I've been writing in my mind... not so much on the page or anything. I've also been reading/listening to books. Recently finished "Frankenstein: Prodigal Son" by Dean Koontz (the reader sounds like John Tesh but isn't him) and "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins (gave that book to Tom G since he was interested in it). Presently listening to "Marry Poppins" in the car and reading "Vampire Academy" when not in the car. I have a goal to read all the young adult stuff that's coming out in movie form. Question is, The Last Apprentice series is what the movie Seventh Son is based off (I think it comes out next year, January some time). But which book? I read stuff in order. Part of my OCD. Ugh! It's based off a book that comes out in
December? WTF? Frak you internet!

I have a few months before the movie comes out so we'll see. There's that and "Divergent". And I'll have forever until I need to read "Mockingjay". (I really don't like the way they ended "Catching Fire". "The Hunger Games" ending was fine: cliffhangery with a sense of completed story. "Catching Fire"? That ending can suck a dick.

Okay. I really need to sign off on this post. I'm getting bibliogrumpy. LOL!

Later my lovelies.

Have Goodness!
Rae

Running On Fumes...

You're fucking up my chi.

-Stanley from the movie "Swordfish"

Woo hoo! Pardon the loopy. Not a lot of sleep, and I plan on working a little overtime.

Why? Cuz I get off at 4pm, and working the overtime won't get me out of here too late. I need to get some production stuff done (per the request of my team). Also I still have dress shopping to do as well as find shoes... ugh.

Okay. Today I opened which meant I had to be here at 7am which meant I had to get up around 5am due to where I live and who I live with. I didn't get much sleep the night before so coming to work was crap. I got here and since I was by myself for a couple of hours, I had nothing to really keep me busy. Before you ask, NO - I did not fall asleep at work. I would never do that. I have taken naps during breaks or lunches, but I have never fallen asleep during a shift.

Eventually people came in and things started getting busier so that helped a bit. Had a Red Bull and a soda during the course of the day (soda was some awesome Butterscotch Beer I got from Ike's Lair... tasty).

Toward the end of my lunch, I was asked if I could train the admin dude up front (son of one of the drivers) how to use the production program I was using so he could help out with the new SF menus we'd been getting in. Now let me just say that I haven't been doing production much, and after the office manager trained me on just a few things, she went on "vacation" for a couple weeks, and left me pretty much to my own devices. So really? Train someone else? It's like, "Hey, you know the holiday Thanksgiving, right? Teach this guy how to cook dinner." WTF?!?!?

The only lead was going on lunch after me and then one of the other associates was going in for her review after that, so I was going to wait until my lead got back (he wanted there to be two CS people in the department) before I went off to be a teacher.

Admin guy (Matt H) is pretty cool. I babbled about like I do making pop culture metaphors and comments, and he was laughing CUZ HE UNDERSTOOD THEM!!! Praise Jeebus and the holy awesome angels! Someone that speaks NERD! So I walked him through an entry and then let  him do one on his own for me to review and VOILA! - it was all good. The training part took a little longer than I thought since I wanted to make sure he had the proper authorization to do everything. In the end, training started at 2pm and ended when my scheduled shift was up. I logged out of the Mac I was working at, moved to the PC computer in the back corner and hopped online, getting on our instant messenger so Matt could ping me if he needed help... which he did. Not able to fully understand his two questions, I had to stop what I was doing and walk up to the front to see what he was talking about. He asked, I instructed, all was well. He left at 5pm (my original intended time to stay until for overtime), but then helping him, I wanted to get a little more done than I had, but then fatigue was setting in so I just stayed until 5:30pm. I grabbed my gear, hopped in my car, and headed to ROSS (the location nearest work). But then that location is near The Milk Pail... so I stopped for snacks (and a healthy energy drink), gulped the drink down and headed into Ross.

Now there are several locations around me, and the first one I went to, I actually found dresses in my size but they just didn't fit or look right in one way or another. Other places I had gone I had no luck (everywhere the only dresses that seem to be available are prom dresses so... frak that). Ross was my first success so I reasoned I could find something if I just bounced about from location to location. And there was much luck.

My method of trying stuff on (before they put a limit on how much crap you can bring into a fitting room) was to grab a frak ton of stuff so I can get it all over in one fitting. (I'm not too keen on trying on clothes. Not sure I ever was. After successive failed attempts at fitting something right or feeling pretty in something or finding something that didn't make me feel like I looked like a jelly rhino in a tubetop two sizes to small, I gave fitting rooms the finger and only did it when it was absolutely mandatory.)

Even before I got as pleasantly thick in the bod as I have at present, my body was already a weird structure with things not fitting right. (Thanks Mom and Dad for mixing your DNA together and making my figure as frustrating as all hell.) The plan is to slender down some. I don't think I'll ever get back to the double digits, but hey... low triples would be nice. And a gal can dream, can't she?

So the plan for the evening became hanging out with Jim and Leah. We had dinner at IHOP, made Leah almost piss herself by doing impressions of nerdy voices as well as Bob Dylan sings the greatest hits. Then it was back to their place for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (which I had never seen, but they had, but then realized they didn't actually own). So now I can safely say I have seen the first movie before the second one comes out.

Almost passed out on their couch since my belly was full of breakfast for dinner, I was all snuggly on the love seat.

Overall it was a long day, and sleep is my prize for surviving it.

Later my lovelies.

Have Goodness!
Rae