Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2014-01-16 01:04 am
azurelunatic) wrote2014-01-16 01:04 am
Entry tags:
Busy season again!
I'm starting to lose track of my days again! I think.
Saturday: there was sleep. Also Mythbustery things on TV. I took apart the loveseat in order that I might have a little more room to pack. I later measured my cube: I would have to exert some creativity in making things work. So that was Saturday.
Tay is in town! You know, my sole biological sibling, despite the various family I have since adopted off the internet. She has moved to be with her partner, who has so far taken some pains to meet The Family properly, and seems a decent and polite young* man.
We-all had dinner with Guide Dog Aunt on ... Sunday? I think?
Tay plans to take her young man up to Alaska to meet the parents at some point in the not so distant future, because he is important to her and should get to meet the entire family.
Guide Dog Aunt shared some juicy family gossip involving some of the cousins from one of the other tentacles of the family. It seems that one of the ways to get Dr. Aunt Mrs. Uncle Davy to reverse her position on whether a particular young lady is good enough for one of her stepsons is for said stepson to knock said young lady up; to get her in the family way. Dr. Aunt Mrs. Uncle Davy is apparently now advocating marriage, and quickly, as strenuously as she was previously suggesting that this young lady was perhaps a lower bar than the cousin in question should be aspiring to.
I hope said cousin and his partner hold each other in the deepest of respect, trust, affection, and support as they enter this new time in their lives. They're going to need it.
* I'm bad at guessing ages; I'd say he's somewhere over 25 and under 45.
Most of Monday was a blur due to typing up notes from Researcher Under the Radar's** Friday meeting. I drove to work on Monday.
There was a lot of blur on Tuesday, partly due to putting together a nice little presentation for Researcher Under the Radar on his monthly meeting, the one that eats most of my Second Thursdays. The other part involved how various events are suddenly starting to happen again, kicking all the stuff into high gear. I took the train, having managed to get myself a nice commuter pass. I like the train. I don't especially like traveling during peak hours. I'm hoping to find a way to avoid that in my future. I managed to get some spectacular user error, and took the wrong train -- one that didn't stop in Millbrae, and then I didn't realize that the subsequent stop was post-Millbrae, and then expressed all the way to SF. Woops. At which point I had an hour before the return train, which I occupied with a sandwich and yelling at programs -- this time on behalf of Random People From The Internet, rather than myself or my team.
** The artist formerly known as my Junior Researcher is getting a new alias, due to him rather spectacularly no longer being the least in seniority. And he likes to drive fast, and I like quite a bit of the music of Abney Park. The current juniormost researcher may be Researcher Sweatervest or something. Watch me throw names around until one sticks.
norabombay and I started yelling at each other in the comments of her A/B/O primer, which will never not be a source of amusement and delight to me. There's a lot of hurt/comfort potential if your alpha gets an impacted anal gland, is all I'm saying here. I <> Nora, or maybe I <3< her -- either way, expect hilariously fond yelling and maybe hatesex if I can find the harness. (In a regular week, I swear to fuck we spend like at least five hours on the phone, modulo schedules. We know each other's wallet names and make a point to hang out every time we're local. We've known each other since like '97.)
Today (Wednesday) I took the train, again. No user error, but I think maybe off-peak for evening is a definite plan.
There was a lot of whacking around spreadsheets for planning for some upcoming festivities. I now have a price comparison spreadsheet for pizzas. I'm really pleased with it! Pizza is one of those weird things to compare across providers, because the offers are not horribly standardized. So I decided that I had to beat it into price per alleged serving first, which helpfully many of the places suggested numbers, and those who didn't often had diameters listed, and I could compare the diameter against other places that did list number served and diameter. But then, some places have a service charge, some expect tips, and I'm ordering at volume, plus I can't order fractional pies. So I take the number of people served by one pie, figure out how many we'll need to serve our variable number of attendees, then round up to get number of pies to order, then math in any fees and taxes and from there arrive at the estimated total cost, and the actual price per person.
The eventual result is that it looks like we're going for Costco for the bulk of the order (the uncomplicated dietary requirements) and then going with one of the more expensive providers for the vegan and gluten-free. We also have more positive RSVPs than we budgeted for, so we could possibly request more money, but I'm going to see if we can find a way to whomp this into our budget.
(Currently the sheet is for only one kind of pie from each provider, or an average pie price; I have another spreadsheet for juggling service ratios within a single provider. I arranged for a nice diverse spread of snakes at last year's conference despite having not the most lavish of budgets by realizing that cookies for 40 could just as easily be cookies for 20 and fruit for 20, with maybe crunchy things for 5, or whatever.)
Sometimes in the busy swirl of All The Things, you need to enforce a moment to contemplate the ephemeral nature of that which is, and consciously let go of things that you have been carrying around with you but that you do not need. Sometimes in order to make that happen, you have to set up a calendar appointment so you don't get interrupted, and go outside and immerse yourself in natural elements, like sky and wind and earth and trees and fire. At these times, contemplating concrete ways that your life has recently changed or improved might be helpful, to figure out some feelings or cognitive strategies that once were useful, but have since passed into irrelevance.
Assume hilarity with the Renaissance Man as a constant, and you'll probably be correct. I am rediscovering all sorts of delightful anecdotes. Consider Mommie Alice's run-in with a poorly placed concrete pillar. Consider Mommie Alice and the pixy stick. (Right, it was Joshling who uttered the fateful words.)
Finally got the chance to call the BFF tonight. Hilarity with him is also a constant, but more polestar than compass. Compass is in-hand, but could be trivially lost. Polestar is. Perhaps obscured at times by distance, daylight, weather, but eternal and returning. Time with him is like time in water of the perfect temperature: uplifting, without the minor aches, every disparate part no longer catching and holding as I move. The charger near the sphere of decent service (one more thing I won't miss about here, I think) just stopped working for reasons which may be related to being suddenly not plugged in (oh argh, no, builders and boundaries) and his battery has become dodgy, so we nearly talked me out of battery and we entirely talked him out of battery.
Saturday: there was sleep. Also Mythbustery things on TV. I took apart the loveseat in order that I might have a little more room to pack. I later measured my cube: I would have to exert some creativity in making things work. So that was Saturday.
Tay is in town! You know, my sole biological sibling, despite the various family I have since adopted off the internet. She has moved to be with her partner, who has so far taken some pains to meet The Family properly, and seems a decent and polite young* man.
We-all had dinner with Guide Dog Aunt on ... Sunday? I think?
Tay plans to take her young man up to Alaska to meet the parents at some point in the not so distant future, because he is important to her and should get to meet the entire family.
Guide Dog Aunt shared some juicy family gossip involving some of the cousins from one of the other tentacles of the family. It seems that one of the ways to get Dr. Aunt Mrs. Uncle Davy to reverse her position on whether a particular young lady is good enough for one of her stepsons is for said stepson to knock said young lady up; to get her in the family way. Dr. Aunt Mrs. Uncle Davy is apparently now advocating marriage, and quickly, as strenuously as she was previously suggesting that this young lady was perhaps a lower bar than the cousin in question should be aspiring to.
I hope said cousin and his partner hold each other in the deepest of respect, trust, affection, and support as they enter this new time in their lives. They're going to need it.
* I'm bad at guessing ages; I'd say he's somewhere over 25 and under 45.
Most of Monday was a blur due to typing up notes from Researcher Under the Radar's** Friday meeting. I drove to work on Monday.
There was a lot of blur on Tuesday, partly due to putting together a nice little presentation for Researcher Under the Radar on his monthly meeting, the one that eats most of my Second Thursdays. The other part involved how various events are suddenly starting to happen again, kicking all the stuff into high gear. I took the train, having managed to get myself a nice commuter pass. I like the train. I don't especially like traveling during peak hours. I'm hoping to find a way to avoid that in my future. I managed to get some spectacular user error, and took the wrong train -- one that didn't stop in Millbrae, and then I didn't realize that the subsequent stop was post-Millbrae, and then expressed all the way to SF. Woops. At which point I had an hour before the return train, which I occupied with a sandwich and yelling at programs -- this time on behalf of Random People From The Internet, rather than myself or my team.
** The artist formerly known as my Junior Researcher is getting a new alias, due to him rather spectacularly no longer being the least in seniority. And he likes to drive fast, and I like quite a bit of the music of Abney Park. The current juniormost researcher may be Researcher Sweatervest or something. Watch me throw names around until one sticks.
norabombay and I started yelling at each other in the comments of her A/B/O primer, which will never not be a source of amusement and delight to me. There's a lot of hurt/comfort potential if your alpha gets an impacted anal gland, is all I'm saying here. I <> Nora, or maybe I <3< her -- either way, expect hilariously fond yelling and maybe hatesex if I can find the harness. (In a regular week, I swear to fuck we spend like at least five hours on the phone, modulo schedules. We know each other's wallet names and make a point to hang out every time we're local. We've known each other since like '97.)Today (Wednesday) I took the train, again. No user error, but I think maybe off-peak for evening is a definite plan.
There was a lot of whacking around spreadsheets for planning for some upcoming festivities. I now have a price comparison spreadsheet for pizzas. I'm really pleased with it! Pizza is one of those weird things to compare across providers, because the offers are not horribly standardized. So I decided that I had to beat it into price per alleged serving first, which helpfully many of the places suggested numbers, and those who didn't often had diameters listed, and I could compare the diameter against other places that did list number served and diameter. But then, some places have a service charge, some expect tips, and I'm ordering at volume, plus I can't order fractional pies. So I take the number of people served by one pie, figure out how many we'll need to serve our variable number of attendees, then round up to get number of pies to order, then math in any fees and taxes and from there arrive at the estimated total cost, and the actual price per person.
The eventual result is that it looks like we're going for Costco for the bulk of the order (the uncomplicated dietary requirements) and then going with one of the more expensive providers for the vegan and gluten-free. We also have more positive RSVPs than we budgeted for, so we could possibly request more money, but I'm going to see if we can find a way to whomp this into our budget.
(Currently the sheet is for only one kind of pie from each provider, or an average pie price; I have another spreadsheet for juggling service ratios within a single provider. I arranged for a nice diverse spread of snakes at last year's conference despite having not the most lavish of budgets by realizing that cookies for 40 could just as easily be cookies for 20 and fruit for 20, with maybe crunchy things for 5, or whatever.)
Sometimes in the busy swirl of All The Things, you need to enforce a moment to contemplate the ephemeral nature of that which is, and consciously let go of things that you have been carrying around with you but that you do not need. Sometimes in order to make that happen, you have to set up a calendar appointment so you don't get interrupted, and go outside and immerse yourself in natural elements, like sky and wind and earth and trees and fire. At these times, contemplating concrete ways that your life has recently changed or improved might be helpful, to figure out some feelings or cognitive strategies that once were useful, but have since passed into irrelevance.
Assume hilarity with the Renaissance Man as a constant, and you'll probably be correct. I am rediscovering all sorts of delightful anecdotes. Consider Mommie Alice's run-in with a poorly placed concrete pillar. Consider Mommie Alice and the pixy stick. (Right, it was Joshling who uttered the fateful words.)
Finally got the chance to call the BFF tonight. Hilarity with him is also a constant, but more polestar than compass. Compass is in-hand, but could be trivially lost. Polestar is. Perhaps obscured at times by distance, daylight, weather, but eternal and returning. Time with him is like time in water of the perfect temperature: uplifting, without the minor aches, every disparate part no longer catching and holding as I move. The charger near the sphere of decent service (one more thing I won't miss about here, I think) just stopped working for reasons which may be related to being suddenly not plugged in (oh argh, no, builders and boundaries) and his battery has become dodgy, so we nearly talked me out of battery and we entirely talked him out of battery.
no subject
You both have a lot to answer for.
(I first started talking with
no subject
It seems like simultaneously forever and just yesterday.