nosehuggers, and other items found in my teacup

Yesterday involved a lot of wrestling with the fucking participant database, which has broken entertainingly in that you can now only search by name, not by product used. Am not best pleased. I spent yesterday and today doing a lot of things that ought to have been done automatically in under 5 minutes.

This week is bug triage week for poor Purple. He has, however, invented a little script to help diagnose a particular sort of weirdass bug he's getting barraged with.

Months ago, I'd complained to Purple that I felt the need for a cry, a drink, and [redacted for crudeness]. Purple had made awkwardly helpful suggestions at the time, which wound up being its own little saga (short version: always check the integrity of your magic wand's cord before use; no injuries except my equilibrium and the device). Today I wasn't feeling that bad, but I did feel the need for a good book, a cup of tea, and [redacted for slightly less crudeness]. I did get the cup of tea -- since it was primarily hibiscus, I dropped one of the dried sweetened hibiscus flowers in, plus a small handful of dried blueberries.

Last night there was a small earthquake, and people were asking each other whether they'd felt it or not. Purple had been up at that hour. So had I. The telling was amusing. There were howls of laughter, and I feel I've marked off a box on a SF Bay Area bingo card.

The hibiscus flower is tentacular when rehydrated, like a little facehugger. However, it's a small facehugger, more of a nosehugger really. They wouldn't be chestbursters, they'd be nosebursters.

I have been training a Pandora station for show tunes. It has decided to include Disney shows in this now. I can't say that I'm going to argue. I may argue with the fact that there are at least three albums out there with the same goddamn songs on it (for every prominent show that's been redone, it looks like, plus the Best Of albums and the live albums) so I may need to gently grouse at the devs a little.

The evening cleaning guy suggested chia seeds to improve the tiredness and general malaise that I was feeling last night. I haven't really noticed a difference when having them and not, which sort of deflated his suggestion. Tonight he mentioned that I seem different from a lot of the other people. Well, yeah.

There is a meeting in the Fix The Goddamned Helldesk Software series on Friday, with someone who apparently knows about making the motherfucker work correctly. The scheduler person called my desk phone to ask if I had recommendations for users. I'd been face-down in the database, and was pretty inarticulate at her for about 2 minutes, at which point she said she'd email. I gave her the names of about six people who I thought would be articulate, helpful, and okay in a rarefied crowd. I then specifically mentioned Beldorion as a person I thought would not be helpful in this group. She then said it was a great idea, she'd already reached out to him, and he was very passionate. I clarified that I felt that if you wanted anyone else in the room to get a word in edgewise, Beldorion was not your man. Oh well.

It's a lunch meeting, so if I get a salad to go from the cafeteria, I can justify also bringing a bag of microwave popcorn. (Purple's suggestion.)

Yesterday, the Stage Manager insisted that I get a compass app on my phone to properly align the compass rug I found at IKEA. I'd been doing it via google maps; I had only been a few degrees off.

I resist other people's attempts to make me share my cloud pillow. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20306575/

Humidity is not my friend.

It turns out that when you combine heat, humidity, and any amount of exertion, I start to pop off panic attacks like they were going out of style.

Have dinner in downtown Mountain View, and queue up for a gelateria? Panic attack due to claustrophobia.

Go to IKEA and try to go through the showroom backwards? Panic attack.

Try to communicate how to arrange two shopping carts so that I can go to the bathroom while Tif watches the carts, then allow me to fill my water bottle while watching the carts while Tif uses the bathroom? Panic attack.

By the third one, I realized that this is really not normal for me, and that my physical state during that amount of heat and humidity had to be contributing.

At some point over the last year or so, I wound up going to a work music thing and mentioned to Purple that I was somewhat claustrophobic, and the crowd might set me off. It didn't manage to fully do that, thanks in part to Purple being mildly obnoxious and distinctly funny, on purpose in order to distract me. I was appreciative.

Later, I ran into some article on computer modeling of crowds, and they weren't getting the crowd dynamics right until they started modeling motion changes on time until collision. At that point I decided to do an audit of my crowd-based claustrophobia if it was just that my collision alarms were blaring.

It turns out that there are two primary drivers for my panic at being in variously crowded public spaces. One is my collision warnings going off continuously. Another is the time-until-collapse alarm. See, my stamina hasn't been too great in the past, and I've been learning to compensate for that. So I always have a vague sense of how much standing time/walking time/walking distance I have left in me. In a crowded place, I also have a vague sense of how long it may take me to get out of the crowd and into some place of refuge/place to sit down safely. When these two timers start to get close (let alone compare unfavorably), I panic. Less common is if/when my brain and communication starts to delaminate. If I can't communicate clearly my need to get the fuck out and sit the fuck down, it's not safe either. Which distresses me more.

Humidity, it turns out, entirely fucks with both my actual stamina, and my calibrated sense of how much ability to keep upright I have left to me. The level of sweating that happens in extreme humidity turns out to closely resemble the amount of sweating that happens when I have burned through all but the very last reserves of my energy. This doesn't make me feel super secure. Annnnnd ... panic time!

One that used to get me a lot was feeling dehydrated. Yay water bottles.

Now that I know this, I can maybe cope a little better. Ugh.

My tweets

• Tue, 20:43: RT @teshiron: Relevant to at least one person I know of on my timeline, probably more. https://t.co/XusJlR2lkR
• Wed, 01:01: My fitbit #Fitstats_en_US for 7/21/2015: 4,559 steps and 2 miles traveled. http://t.co/gFMrr7HEB6
• Wed, 02:49: RT @jai_dit: RT @oakandsage @jai_dit béchamel & teamwork is my new hardcore culinary grunge band
• Wed, 05:24: bitty wee earthquake?
• Wed, 05:48: Dear @twitter ad fuckers: looping flashy creepypasta startle gif is a bad fucking idea for a promoted tweet.
• Wed, 05:50: RT @spencermadsen: suffering from depression? just exercise a lot, socialize more, eat better, and do all the other things depression preve…

"Electriclighting" doesn't have the same ring, somehow.

I am the person who the intern pokes on Slack when there's an obscure abbreviation to be defined.

It turns out that the phrase "putting the old knowledge base articles into the Helldesk software" is best accompanied by painful-looking gestures.

Purple's Windows update took an hour.

The new person at the work cafeteria taqueria is getting better at rolling burritos. Today's effort looked sort of like a blunt, complete with holes at top and bottom. I folded over the more foldable-looking end. Purple laughed at me.

Somehow the topic of https://web.archive.org/web/20061205081603/http://www.brownplasticpackagingtapemonster.com/story.shtml came up. (Well, I know how: via me telling Purple that if the thought of something makes him giggle for that long, he's not allowed to do it.) And then he got to the idea of putting brown plastic packaging tape down in a human shower to prank someone. I suggested that the lights would have to be pretty dim to allow that one to happen. He suggested replacing all the bulbs in someone's house with lights 1/4 the illumination. I pointed out that this would be more nearly literally than usual gaslighting. Both of us are reprehensible and think we're very funny. (We would not do these things. I feel that a good prank is harmless, and gaslighting is harmful.)

I had been craving cinnamon rolls last night. It is hard to come by just one cinnamon roll. Much easier to just get a grocery store tray and then share with the team. "The disc of evil", as my manager called it.

It has cooled down, so sleep will be easier to come by.