Evil Strawberries of DOOOOOM!

It's not so cold this morning. As I was coming in to the office, I saw three deer scamper off into a nearby field. I miss the deer. I used to see them all the time in my apartment but now, living in a more urban area, I never see any. I see plenty of squirrels and the occasional bunny but no deer.

I woke up in a bad mood this morning. Don't you hate that? I've been trying to be in a good mood but it's the type of day where I just feel like sniping and being crabby. It'll wear off in a while, I hope. I just can't help it. Sometimes, we just wake up in bad moods. I realized I was in a bad mood when I was yelling at my toast for popping up too soon even though it was my fault I hadn't adjusted the darkness level. My toaster is not a good toaster. In order to get the bread to pop up, you have to turn the dial all the way to the left. This is fine until you make toast again and you forget to readjust it. It means soggy toast. Soggy toast doesn't make me happy as crispy toast.

It's still toast, however and I am not a Monkeypants who turns down toast, even the soggy kind.

I am going to try to pull myself out of my bad mood. The problem is that I stay up too late. I plan on going to bed early and then when it's time, I realize I had intended to get a lot more done with my evening so I don't end up going to bed for at least another hour. Nevertheless, it could have been worse. Fortunately, I don't have any meetings today so I can stay at my desk and be bad moody by myself.

Wait, correct that...I do have a meeting. Bugger. Oh well, I'm always complaining I never get invited to meetings while my coworker, supposedly my 'equal' goes to about five or six a week. She's the one that gets put on the project teams. Me, I get to stay at my desk and make sure everything else gets done. Not that I'm bitter.

Oh, who am I kidding?I am bitter today. It's a result of my crotchety mood. I don't even get to go to this meeting today by myself; my coworker is going to join me because heaven forbid I actually get to do anything on my own to show that, you know, I actually have skills.

Still, I quite like meetings. I've taking to doodling and making origami. Yesterday, I made a large pencil topper origami thingy that I called the quadopus. It's an octopus with only four tentacles. Hence the quad part. That's the latin word for four, right? It actually more looks like a circus tent but in my mind, it's a quadopus. I think the origami might have been a bit distracting so maybe I should keep to my doodling.

Lately, my doodlings have been odd. It started with a little picture of fruit that I called "The Evil Strawberry of DOOOOM!" I then drew a sad banana that I labeled, "The Sad Banana." I also drew "Boomer Blackberry." For some reason, I seem to enjoy doodling fruit. I'm not sure why. Yesterday, I drew "The Great and Awesome Pumpkins", "The Raincloud of DOOOOOM!" and "The Squashed Strawberry." Clearly, the strawberry had done something in my mind and had passed off its dooming mantel to the raincloud. Don't ask me, I just doodle.

It's ok until my boss asks me what I'm doodling. I think he thinks I'm not paying attention. The thing is that if I don't doodle, I can't focus. I need to be doing something like that so I can listen. I rarely take notes in meetings anyway unless I deem it necessary. If I doodle, it streamlines my brain so that I can actually listen to the exciting talk of WAR files, API's, server switching and XML files that really doesn't affect me that much. I showed my boss one of my doodles the first time he asked. It was a picture of the Kool Aid Jug Man as a vampire. My coworker was wearing a shirt with the Kool Aid Jug Man on it with a caption that said "Oh, yeah!!!" Apparently, this is something I should know but the only exposure I've had to the Kool Aid Jug Man is on "Good Eats" with Alton Brown on the food network. He was making some disgusting frozen pickles that he flavoured with a 'drink mix' that he wasn't allowed to name for license purposes. However, he gave us a 'clue' by having a Jug Man crash through a wall and say "Oh, Yeah." I figured it was Kool Aid but I had to Google it to see what the "Oh, Yeah" thing was about. I'm still not sure except it was part of the advertising campaign way back when.

I seem to make a lot of things monsters in my doodles. Aside from making the Kool Aid Jug Man a vampire, I made a pine tree into a Frankenstein. In our conference room, we have one of those paintings with Indians in it (meaning the Native American kind, not the Asian kind). They're on a trail in the snow and there are pine trees all around. So I drew a tree and it turned out crooked so I made it into a Frankenstein.

I suppose my corruption of normal-seeming objects into monster-type things speaks of some psychological misfire on my part. I'm not sure. All I know is that it's quite fun to draw Evil Strawberries of DOOOOM! Actually, it's just fun to say DOOOOOOM!" which is probably why I always label my Dooming objects.

I'm not sure what I'll doodle today. I'll let you know if it turns out interesting. I consider it a stream of consciousness thing. I rarely plan my doodles. I just go with the flow. Which, now that I think about it, might not be something I should really admit because that may make me seem a little twisted.

My boss just came by to see how things were going. He does that from time to time. He's not in the office much lately; he's too busy trying to get our new building up and running. We just found out that we'll now be there by the first weekend of December. Two days ago, it was "definitely by Thanksgiving." I know our lease in the current building expires at the end of December so we have to be out by then. As long as the weather cooperates, I can live with it.

My boss is gone now, obviously. He doesn't really have a clue what I do. I think he tries to but he'd rather do the more technical stuff and I can see his eyes glaze over when I tell him what I'm working on. Also, he doesn't really know how to talk to me because he thinks every thing I say is sarcastic which, actually, is not true at all. Still, he doesn't seem bothered with how I spend my time as long as I am working. For the most part, I am. I just think I need to get in a better mood.

Maybe I'll doodle some more evil fruit.

Happy Tuesday.