Writing, reading

Tonight was freshstartwrite, of course.

Lots of everybody there. Lots of insanity. Lots of gossip. All of us in the small meeting room upstairs. We told the lady with the desk right there next to us that if we got too loud -- well, when we got too loud -- to close the door. :D

We had a great time. I didn't take notes this time, mostly because I was working on stuff. I need to make sure that I have the latest version of everything up on the document; I made some local changes about pancakes and clarifying the dinosaur pen.

I had the group in stitches with the start of the climactic battle. rhea_windrider told me after I'd finished the segment that my writing reminded her of lmbujold's. OMG OMG OMG. (Part of that's the reading, though. I can read things with great expression and better timing than they have on the page, but OMG OMG OMG.)

Dinner was good. Much of the random silliness. I didn't take notes. It just was.

Cooking, back burner, and flaming right here right now.

Oh, and hcolleen made "cinza rolls". Those are the reasonably delightful bastard child of cinnamon rolls and hot cross buns. They were definitely crying out for frosting. :D Unfortunately, as tasty as they were, they were also chock-full of walnuts. And slightly dryish tasty buns in combination with the mouth-peeling nut of evil, on top of fresh dental work ... yeah, not happening. I took a small one and picked at it as I wrote the Missive of Doom.

I'm not entirely sure what's up with the Missive of Doom, but it's definitely a chance for me to get my rusty clergy-thoughts in order. I got it special-delivery, but now I think I'm trying to chicken out on the actual delivery, which is a Bad Thing. Eh well, I'll polish it up and then either it will work or it won't work, and gods help all of us on any side of the equation in the case where it doesn't, because zomg not so great.

I am suffering an Attack of Skin. The Wednesday where I wore my disco ball dress resulted in my lovely milk-pale skin (okay, so I'm not absolutely skim-milk-white like I was when I was fresh from Alaska, but I'm still relatively non-tan) turning into a blotchy blotchfest of redness. You know how when you pour syrup into the milk, before you stir it, a few drops will show up on the surface? Yeah. That. It was either a reaction to the dusty dress or a reaction to the tail end of the medication. There wasn't much irritation, and there weren't raised bumps, just redness. I was surprised that I was so upset at the idea of the skin on my upper chest under my neck, the part visible before my shirt starts, being all red and not smooth. Vanity, vanity. That did clear up in fairly short order, but this looks almost like a re-visit except for the fact that it's not just little red blotches, it's Bad Skin in many pores at once, not just a few on the face and shoulders. Bleh.

BWEEP.

Database woe has returned. At least now I have reasonable proof that it's something random with Access, and not me going suddenly insane. ARGH, though.

OK DATABASE WORKED!! THE QUERY RAN!!! I AM HAPPY!!!!

Now I will not get reamed out by Management, even though my product is shameful.

(where by "shameful", I mean of course "not of totally professional quality", because I should be a Trained Professional, yet this is the work of a student.) (I think some of the Japanese guilt is rubbing off on me.)

Oh, and if no one else already suggested it, the cliche is of course "Werewolves of London". Bonus points for Oingo Boingo subject line, dear.

I woke up before the alarm clock, and had a lovely 45 minutes lazing about in bed before it finally did shriek at me. hcolleen can testify that I abuse the snooze button on a regular basis.

Turbo has explained the reason why Windows Defender is giving me errors on start-up: MS in their infinite wisdom came out with a new version and expired the old one, making things just plain not work. He went into the typical end-user reaction: "WOE IS ME I HAS A VIRUS!!1!" (I'd sent him an e-mail regarding the little message, telling him that my computer was
giving me "a party favor", with a screenshot of the error box and the basic troubleshooting steps I'd gone through before poking him. He prefers private e-mail to an automatic trouble ticket.)

Ooo, looks like one of the new versions of a survey might be slightly on crack! I shall have to ask questions about this.

(I have now had coffee. Fear. I'm waiting on the Princess to get some paperwork processed, and exploring things that I'm curious about, because that's the way to solve problems and get in rouble.)

Call on me

Sanity is scarce on the ground when I've had more than one cup of coffee. That stuff's a strong drug, yo.

I am discovering a new love for my Pandora station "Makes Me Cry", and have been shoving more songs in there. Unfortunately, it keeps coming up Bob Dylan, and while he has very good songs, his delivery puts me off. But if I keep refining the station, maybe he'll fall out without me having to thumbs-down any of his stuff unless I really can't stand it.

The song I've been singing to myself most lately is "Paint Your Picture." The chorus just haunts me in the good way.

Management will cause a phone to be installed in the training room. This will allow her to summon me for things. Snarky Lady is going to pout, because this may be disruptive of training classes. (There is no actual phone in the room, and that is sort of by design, not accident. Snarky Lady likes her privacy.)

Management is thinking about putting me through Access classes to get my skill levels bumped up. That sounds like fun. She's thinking I'd start at intermediate. I know I'm not advanced yet.

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I got through work all right. Now cooling my heels at the dentist's office. I am early for my appointment. There is a moderately irate lady in here.

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There was some question about whether or not a lady was dentally healthy. It was the batty old mom & conflicting information. All was settled eventually.

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The weird hole at the center of everything has shifted. My teeth will be fine at length. ... This time I was all freaked out and jumpy.

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More x-rays and then gods know what. Dr. J has kid patients not inclined to be cooperative. So filling might happen today. Then the crown. I have a book.

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The dentist saying "Open!" over and over in the voice of command does not sound like fun for anyone. My whole lower sinus area is numb. I want to geek out.

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The ranking stuff has gotten really interesting again. Management has tricks she wants my DB to be able to do. Since I have it doing things smoothly now...

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My gums always wake up first. They are starting to do so. I have a hunch I will want a nice hot bath tonight. I have a little more waiting. Yay book.

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Root canal and filling done. Crown next time. All dizzyfaced now. No longer feeling like geeking out with my DB. Want book, best friend, bed, channel.

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25th thursday @ 4.

Thursdays never got the hang of me.

I'm getting through the morning paperwork in a rather fast blast these days. I like that. Today I was done with the rest of the stuff before the Princess got done with processing and uploading the stuff that I needed to download. So I poked at things. The database did its thing, and did its thing in a reasonable amount of time. That made me happy.

When I stopped through Management's office, she told me that now that Traveling Management was done with her expense reports, that she'd be appropriating me for database purposes, to see how much I could hack a certain function out of the thing. As she detailed what she needed, my grin got bigger and bigger, and I told her that I'd ship her off her pre-made set of data, the one that I just got finished pulling for her this morning now that Snarky Lady explained how to un-jam a jammed-up database of the Access sort (and yes, I did compact and repair it as well as doing the quick & dirty trick), and then I'd hack on it to get her exactly what she needed out of it.

Then she talked about the idea that I'd be doing more random database things around the office, and talked about the possibility of getting me actual database training. Like, classes. The company, sending me to database training classes, to level up my proficiency and have me learn things in a formal and organized fashion. OMG. Training. Wow. (The company's good about reimbursing people for actual work-related expenses, and a Management-recommended course for professional development would certainly be work-related.)

I worked on that until it was time for me to get out of there, and then spent another fifteen minutes showing Stressy College Chick how to work a certain little data trick. Then I zoomed off for my dentist appointment.

like water for chocolate

Next Wednesday is V's last night with the group in quite some time. When she returns, she won't be an Arizona resident any longer. It's just too difficult for her to try to stay here when almost all of her work (housesitting, petsitting, organizing) is on the East Coast. She's in and out, our happy technophobic poet butterfly, and lately she's been more out than in.

samurai_ko offered to bring her brownies, in honor of the occasion. Last time she did that, the theme of the group was "Smut & Chocolate." Everyone had their different take on the theme. It all worked out really well, even though by the end of the group we'd managed to range from erotica to heavy petting to romance to gay porn to sweet and pure sensuality, and no one quite hit smut. The collage of writing went really, really well with the chocolate, and it was the usual happy fun delightful mix the group always comes up with. So the general plan is to try for another.