Morning.

Got here early, all dressed up. Darkside came in half an hour later than usual.

I think he's plotting to show up in my speech class and make faces at me.

Break a leg...

...Going to class to give speech. Much fun shall be had.

Collect all Lunatics!

LiveJournal Trading Cards Paid Account Edition azurelunatic User Number: 119504 Date Created:2001-05-02 Number of Posts: 3338 Azz is a computer science student and a witch. Strengths: Cheerful, good writer. Weaknesses: Depressive, obsessive, frizzy hair. Special Skills: Not intimidated by computers, Sense of Fashion. Weapons: DDD cup, Poison Pen, Perky, Lunatic Hug Attack! Spells: Fireball, Super-Coffee Charge, Whammy.

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Speech, speech!

I got A-/B+ for my speech. My time was great; Ashford was not so keen on the fact that this speech centered on Shawn, rather than on events in my own life. He thought my gestures were pretty good, except for the fact that my movement seemed to be part of my gestures, and not really movement on its own.

Darkside

Stopped by his classroom and said hello. Things seem to be going all right. I don't think he was aware that his tone of voice yesterday had hurt quite as much as it did. When reporting on my speech, I blipped in the room and blipped out, since he didn't seem particularly welcoming of me. During the break between the two hours of his Stats class (he has Benes too) I popped in and had a more extensive conversation. This time, he didn't ask me to leave, and he was careful to react in a push-away fashion every time he noticed any physical contact.

I like my unmixed messages!

I am evil. I am officiallly evil.

....and I can write SQL code fully as clunky as Access itself.

To wit:

SELECT COUNT(CUST_NUM) AS [All Your Customers With Orders Are Belong To Larry Fitch]
FROM (
SELECT DISTINCT CUST_NUM
FROM (
SELECT CUST_NUM FROM CUSTOMERS
WHERE CUST_REP = (
SELECT EMPL_NUM FROM SALESREPS WHERE (NAME = 'Larry Fitch'))
), ORDERS
WHERE CUST_NUM = CUST);


[Edit: Sorry, all those who loaded your friends page in those twenty seconds while I was correcting my injudicious use of the <xmp> tag]

Oy vey.

Does anyone know how, before I wander home, to comment code in MS Access variety SQL?

The Hardest Job in the World

I've been seeing the Friday Five asking what the hardest job in the world is. I've seen people answering "Mom".

Having never been one, I would argue that being a nanny, which I have been, is more difficult.

Being a mother, you generally love your children, as they are yours. Being a parent, you have authority over them, as well as responsibility.

Being the ten hour/day, 5 day/week caretaker of children (especially at not an age to be a mother quite just yet in any sane iteration of US society), you get to see their good and bad sides, and get to spend quite a bit of time with them. Given the children, you may or may not love them. Given the caretaking situation, you may or may not have much authority, being limited in choice of reinforcement methods.

(My favorite nonviolent method of stopping a four-year-old's giggle-tantrum [she was lying on the floor refusing to get dressed, giggling, but still staging a strike] was the glass of water. Water, poured on the face from above, will shock the giggler into a mood far more receptive to orders.)

You have all the responsibilities of taking care of these kids, one-on-two, for the hours of the day that you are there. They will drive you nuts. They're not yours. Yet you're responsible for them, for the duration of the job.

I have also been a full-time Auntie, one step down from stepparent, for the last year and a half. Yes, it's difficult, hair-raising, and wonderful; it's not half as hard as watching those two kids was, back in the summer of 1996.


(This is the night before the job started. Not an auspicious beginning.)

Drama.

Votania may or may not hurt Darkside the next time she sees him. I really don't think Darkside knows how badly I reacted yesterday. Votania came home at the wrong moment and saw me crying. Evidently I was crying pretty hard.

Darkside made noise about Votania's birthday, when I mentioned the upcoming evil party on Labor Day weekend. It's nice that he wants to get her something for her birthday. Teased him, slightly, about completely forgetting mine. Still slightly grumpy on that front. She really wishes he'd forget about her and move on. I am probably closer to him than she's been... just not romantically.

How am I really supposed to feel when he gets her things he knows she'll like for her birthday, even if, with regard to paycheck and bill timing, it will be late for the birthday... and, when reminded that my birthday is one particular day, says "Oh, happy birthday", so briefly that I miss it while yawning? He hasn't seen her in over six months.

Yeah, I'm grouchy and bitter. She appreciates his romantic attention perhaps less than he appreciates mine.

I think it's all about to come tumbling down.

Yeah, that just about sums it up.

He and she are barely even friends any more; the only reason they really have anything to do with each other is because I'm linking them.

He gets her stuff for her birthday and for Yule. He got Nephew a movie for Yule, and me one as well. He gets stuff for her birthday, if he's reminded that it exists, even if he will be getting it for her late.

My birthday? When he's reminded of it, he wishes me a happy birthday, and lets life flow on.

Shows my relative importance.

It's the being thought of as worth taking the time to please that I envy. Let the bitterness flow. I'm on some sort of downswing, and it's coming out. Bright hot bitter blood.


I wanted to have sex last night, or at least be held. Bad idea, very bad idea. As I told Kimmiebeth (wonderful Kimmiebeth!), I'm recovering from six months of snuggles every night. Now I'm down to virtually zero. Not good thing.

(no subject)

What Goth Are You?

Yay for kids!

Nephew and I washed dishes together. He learned a new word: Responsibility. This was after dinner (chicken hot dogs, corn on the cob, cheese), and after the trip to the office to report that the garbage disposal is acting oddly (they were closed; we called, and will come by in the morning), and after learning that the Winnie the Pooh learning games will run a lot better on Windows 98 when we get that reinstalled on Enki, because they're really not rated to run on W2k.

Ahh, this is the life.

Terry, the cool chick in maintainence, says the hot water's going to be off for a while, but it should be back on within the next few hours. Cool, very cool. So should the a/c.

Nephew and I raced to the office and back. I'm not horribly out of breath and stuff like that; I'm happy that my legs are allowing me to do that, and my lungs are too. Maybe I'll kick the ass of the asthma symptoms I used to display, by not pushing myself too far. I'm just feeling a healthy glow.

Tonight feels like a night for housekeeping.

Lunatic Bulletin

Nutritionists == idiots, in some cases.

Ron stopped by the Breakfast Table of Unstable Doom this morning to talk about cool sugar substitutes, and I shared some of my experiences in babysitting the trio from next door back home in Alaska, the two younger diabetic sisters and their older non-diabetic sister. Ron is evidently diabetic (didn't know that!) and he shared a story from his past encounters with nutritionists.

Did you know that in the past, some clue-negative nutritionists claimed that diabetics should eschew sugar (well, duh, that part we figured) and also avoid protein, and load up on carbohydrate-heavy items like bread? Hooooollleeeee shit. I got the "Holy shit; please allow me to punch someone" expression on my face and fist, and Ron agreed with me. He's unfond of Big Brother Knows Best tactics. He'd figured, by what he'd been reading, the actual medical literature on the subject, that protein was OK and carbs were not -- and now, evidently, nutritionists are finally realizing this.

Good gods.

What idiots some people can be.

Disasters Abound

Well. Let me start listing them. votania had a Really Bad Feeling before heading to work, and sure enough...

• The water was turned off for repairs right when I needed to wash my hands from the WC


• Doesn't it just suck when the brand new computer game freezes and doesn't respond?


• Twice is more than just coincidence, around here.


• Nephew's new Winnie the Pooh 123s game doesn't work on Windows 2000 Professional


• Ditto for the Winnie the Pooh ABCs game


• Disney installers don't like to give the system back.


• Did I mention how we had to nerve-pinch the system twice to get it working again after those fiascii?


• Now that the water is on again, the hot water is out


• Oh, and when I was doing the dishes, we discovered that the garbage disposal was making Those Funny Noises that mean that something's stuck in...


• The thing that was stuck in the garbage disposal looked like an integral part of said disposal that had come free


• Um, did you hear about the A/C being out? Fill out your maintainence request tomorrow; tonight we're pretty busy with the water and the A/C...


• The ex-pornstar in our apartment complex is a really nice guy and all, and it's really sweet that he'd have an erotic dream about me...


• Damn, I need a shower. Where's that hot water?


• Oh, yum, that bag of Doritos I've been saving for myself and a special occasion. Now only if my stepping on them a few days ago by accident in the dark hadn't opened them...


• And only if I'd realized this before I'd carried them, open end down, across the room...

On the upside, Votania has some very good news. We'll see how that turns out.

Learning every minute...

Explored maps with Nephew this afternoon. Showed him how Arizona started with an A, and asked him to find other state names that started with A. He pointed out state names that ended with A, and I read the names, and pointed out where the A's were in the name. We had fun. It was more fun than sitting down and exploring a book with laid-out stuff to do in it would have been, and I think he learned more.

He's going to kick ass in Geography, I think.

Dinner included Science: people in a desert need to drink lots and lots of water (we've been stressing this lately), and ice is made out of water! Very, very cold water!