Short Days and Short Blogs...

Just a quick blog today as I wasn't successful in getting a blog up last night. Yesterday, we had really gusty winds which took out my internet for a short time but it was a long enough time to prevent me from blogging.

This morning, the wind has died, leaving really, really cold temperatures in its wake. The weatherman is claiming that it feels like 4 degrees out there with the wind chill. Currently, I'm warm in my house but outside, there are veins of snow dotted around. The snow has settled in the cracks and crevices of the world outside and its an interesting effect.

I'm off to work in a few minutes. I can't complain, however. It's a short day because I'm lucky enough to be heading out to Los Angeles in a few hours. It's one of those last minute trips, the kind you take when you can get a plane ticket for $50 because one of the airlines screwed up the last time you flew.

I'm hoping to not run into flight issues this time. With any luck, I'll make it there without any trouble so that, as planned, I can go to Disneyland with my friend tomorrow.

I do love Disneyland at Christmas. I've probably said it before. It's so pretty and festive. I like that I can leave real snow to go to a place where the snow is fabricated by using bubbles. I don't know if there'll be snow and fireworks tomorrow because it's supposed to rain. What I'm interested in is to see if I get as cold as I used to there or if, I susect, my body has acclimated to the colder temperatures of the Midwest and the cool Anaheim night will feel balmy.

I've been looking forward to this trip all week. It's a great way to make a not-so-great time at work feel better. I will attempt to get a blog up for tomorrow but it really depends on interenet access.

Thus, on that note, I must depart for work. The office awaits. A meeting awaits. Nothing better than starting the day with a meeting. But it doesn't matter. I'm going to Disneyland!

Happy Thursday!

An Ode to Gingerbread Pancakes...

It's a wet night out there. The streets are dark and shimmering with puddles. I think the rain has calmed, at least for time time being but, ever since I got home from work, it's been hammering downwards, making me glad I'm safe inside, the glow of my Christmas tree reflecting against the rain-spattered windowpane.

It's supposed to snow tomorrow morning again. I hope that doesn't mean the roads will be bad for the commuters who have to come into the office from further distances than me. Naturally, I'm concerned for their safety but, also, selfishly, I don't want to hear how 'lucky' I am that my house is so close. I am 'lucky' but, really, it just means I'm quite smart. I bought my house with the full knowledge that I had one left turn from the street on which I live in order to get to my office. Mostly, this is because winter driving still scares me a little; I got a lot of practice last year but the unpredictable nature of tires on ice and snow still keeps me alert in bad weather.

Yet, tonight, it's still just rain. I'm safe inside my house. It's been a festive day for me. Though I had an almost-insufferable three-hour meeting at work, the day was made better by the celebration of a coworker's birthday. All I can say is "Gingerbread Pancakes." We went to IHOP for lunch because there is a restaurant, literally, in the front car park of our building. I think our CEO may actually own the IHOP as well as our office park. We didn't get a discount though. Our birthday girl chose the brunch location specifically because of the gingerbread pancakes. Normally, as a pancake non-enthusiast, I'd be apathetic about speciality pancakes. Yet, I cannot resist gingerbread. Thus, it came to be, that I decided to be adventurous and order them.

Let me tell you, if you like gingerbread, you simply should try these things. The pancakes are basically warm slabs of the delicious baked goodness. You can get them with whipped-cream and festive decorations. I chose just powdered sugar. They were, like a good cup of chai, a celebration of Christmas in my mouth. There's nothing like a bite of warm, soft gingerbread to kick home the fact that it's the holiday season.

It's hard to go back to work in a bad mood after such a thing. Even though the afternoon passed slowly, I didn't mind. I even had a cup of holiday tea to make the day seem even more Christmas-sy. It wasn't the best day at work. It wasn't the worst. It was just another day in which I realized that my job and I are not made for each other. I don't think anyone can say I haven't tried. I've now approached my boss three times with suggestions for ways to improve my job so I'm more productive and help be an asset to the company. Each time, I end up watching my coworker be put on every new project and I get to sit at my desk and keep myself busy.

To be fair, I'm learning that it's not so bad to sit there and keep myself occupied. I'm undertaking a project that has needed to get done for several years. It's coming along nicely. As long as I have time where I'm not instructed how to spend my minutes, I'll keep working on this. I like it because it's the first time in the entire year and couple of months in my job that I've found something I like to do a lot and I think I can do well. It's writing, really. Just like this blog. Just like my novels. Yet the writing at work is instructive and formal, a way to get newbies who are using our software for the first time to understand how to use it. Too many times I've read technical documentation that makes me feel like I need to be in MENSA to understand it. Thus, I tend to try to not make my readers feel dumb and inexperienced. That's the nice part of being on both sides of the fence: You get to know what really is needed, even though the Powers That Be try to be high falutin' and fanciful with their efforts. The people who actually do the work just need instructions in English as to how to get started. That's it.

So, in actuality, work isn't horrible, as long as I can cut most of the people out of the equation. Granted, my desk is literally falling to pieces which I handily repaired with a paperclip and tape (thanks, MacGyver!), my chair is still not dried from the gluing and my computer is the only non-Mac in the entire area, as long as I keep my mind occupied, it's not so bad. Also, I've decided that until I'm told off, I shall continue listening to Pandora and KROQ online since I caught one of the bosses streaming media to his computer the other day. These are the small perks.

Also, there's gingerbread pancakes to be had, just across the parking lot. Combine this goodness with coming home, having a mug of mulled wine and watching "Elf", you have a rather nice, festive day. I love the Christmas season, it makes everything pretty with the addition of fairy lights, spices and Christmas cheer. Yes, as I've said before, I'm a walking cliche but I don't care. It makes me happy and, sometimes, that's all we need in life.

Happy Wednesday!

A Snowy Start to the Week

Another Monday has passed. It started out very snowy. This was quite unexpected. I had gone to bed thinking there was a 'chance of snow' and woken up to hear Mr. Weatherman say it was snowing quite a lot. One quick peek out of the window later and I'd confirmed that it was, indeed, snowing. It was beautiful. There wasn't enough for a full ground-cover but there was enough for a dusting, enough to settle on the festive decorations in people's front yards and declare them ready for Christmas.

Naturally, I was happy about the snow. Driving to work was tough because even though I only have two roads to navigate, some of it hadn't cleared and had frozen over but slowing down and using caution worked nicely. Even though I'd left ten minutes early, I arrived ten minutes early into the office. I was greeted by a coworker who said, "must be nice to be you!" I think it was meant in that way that people use when they're a little jealous but trying to sound like they're being tough and resiliant. However, it came out rather bitter.

I confess that, yes, I do rather enjoy backing out of my warm garage and NOT scraping my car. It was a little tricky navigating down my bendy street that is narrowed significantly when cars park on both sides, as it was this morning, but I also enjoyed that even though the road to the office was snowy and icy, it was a straight-shot. What I don't appreciate is masked-bitterness by people who decide they hate that I live so close. These are the same people who seem to forget that, up until a week ago, I had their reverse commute. It didn't snow during my commuting days, a fact for which I am grateful. Yet, at any time, it could have. I might not have liked it but I made a conscious decision to buy my little house in the neighbourhood in which I now live, knowing that I might have a 45 minute commute for a while.

I do feel for the commuters. It's not that I don't have sympathy. I just don't have sympathy for the slightly-viscious verbal lash-out I got from two people who were angry I had it so easy.

Nevertheless, it snowed. I had visions of peppermint hot chocolate dancing in my head, a reward for a long day at work. I had visions of going into my backyard and spinning and letting snowflakes dance on my tongue.

Yes, I know I'm a thirty-something year-old Monkeypants but if I feel like acting like I'm a child, I certainly will. I'm not too young to be a curmudeonly old person!

By mid-morning, the snow had melted, dashing my cliche winter ideas. I feel certain that if it had continued to snow, I would have had a good day at work. Yet, reality always sets in and so my grand hopes for a nice day at work turned into the usual slightly-irksome routine of trying to seem enthuiastic about my job but feeling slightly violent all the same.

Yet, I don't want to waste this blog venting about work. It was a Monday. That says it all. A snowy Monday beats a normal Monday but when the snow melts, all I have left is a vague reminder that it might have started nicely but it is, after all, a Monday.

Instead, I'm going to just sit back in my nice cosy bed, for this is where I am blogging, and be grateful that I have good friends and a great family in whom I can confide. I have a couple of good friends at work who do understand why I can't always smile and more friends outside who love me, even when I'm negative. Best of all, I have a mother who never fails to let me unleash the wrath of a bad day at work and still doesn't hang up on me.

So, all in all, though it was an un-good day in the office, it started well and ended with me feeling loved and happy for good friends and family. It will truly end with me getting to curl up in a warm bed with a good book and a glass of wine. In truth, there's not better end to a day than that, no matter how bad the middle of the day felt. Any day that starts with snow has an advantage.

Happy Tuesday!

A Festive, Productive Weekend...

I tried to hold onto the weekend but as is always the case with the passage of time, it slipped away from me just as I was enjoying it most.

Friday passed slowly at work. You might be happy to know that my broken chair situation in the office is being remedied. They bought me a tube of glue. Sadly, I am not exaggerating for comedic effect: They spent thousands of dollas on new computers for quite a few of the staff members and they gave me a tube of glue. To be fair, our HR manager is taking care of the actual gluing but part of me would seriously love to take that tube of glue and show them where to stick it.

However, I need my job, as has become my mantra.

Besides, I had an entire weekend to decompress from the fury of being shown a tube of glue. It was a lovely weekend as well so I'm going to start out the week by thinking positive. I feel like the weekend was nothing but business. I managed to completely clean my house, cook a three course meal for my lovely parents who came down to visit and to shop at Jungle Jim's for holiday supplies. (Note to Jungle Jim's: Can you please stock some quail eggs? Your mantra is "Welcome, Foodies!" and any good Food-Network-Obsessed-Foodie knows that quail eggs are important to gourmet cooking. I just want to try them and ever since I made up my mind to buy some the next time I saw them, I've never been able to find them anywhere!)

Anyway, moving on. I also managed to finish my novel completely. Yes, I know I said I was finished last week when I 'won' the National Novel Writing Month challenge. I did win that. I wrote 50,000 words in a month. Well, actually, to be completely honest, it was really only about 3 weeks but I had a lot to do in November so it's hard to write every day. But even though I'd met the word count, it still lacked an ending. I gave it one on Saturday night at about 12:30 a.m. Interestingly, it's not at all the ending I thought I'd give it; instead it's a sequel-hungry, slightly black-humoured ending. I quite like it, actually.

In all honestly, I love this novel I wrote. Not only is it the silliest thing I've written in ages but it's actually quite funny. In addition, it truly has helped me scale that enormous bump in the writing road that almost made me quit a few times. It reminded me that writing is supposed to be fun and if you can't laugh at a demon's version of Red Riding Hood, what can you laugh at?

I'm back to feeling empowered in life because I have something other than my job to care about. I can go home and hide in my own creative efforts and it makes the drag of a humdrum day disappear.

I'm also loving that Christmas is coming. I love the holidays. I love the cliche parts, the classic parts, the parts that make you tilt your head with delight because it's just so....fun. I love the movies: I watched "The Holiday", one of my favourite new Christmas 'classics' with a friend on Saturday and it was lovely. We made dinner, drank wine and just got to be girls. It was fun. I'll probably watch "Elf," while writing Christmas cards. "Love Actually." is soon to be on my playlist. I baked gingerbread today. I have my decorations up and I'm listening to carols. If there's a bigger Christmas cliche than me, I'd like to find him or her.

So, all in all, even though it's srill about three weeks to Christmas, I'm already celebrating. Every day will be something small, something nice to remind me of the season whether it's bringing in my miniscule, cute, metallic tree to work to sit on my desk or it's drinking a cup of holiday Chai and inhaling the scents of nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon: All the scents of the season. It might be taking in some leftover gingerbread stars to eat when I'm reaching that point in the workday when I'm ready to pound my head against the monitor. It might be tuning my iPod so that I can hear the Trans-siberian orchestra, my very favourite Chirstmas music, to drown out the chatter of my coworkers who are all just way too happy to be at work.

No matter what I do to honour the season, I love the month of December, several of my favourite people in the world have December birthdays including my parent's and my best friend. It's a good time of year. I plan to appreciate every single moment, and not dwell on that stupid, annoying tube of glue.

Now, if it was glitter glue, that'd be another story.

Happy M0nday.

Broken Chairs and Fear of Change...

It's finally Friday. This has been a very long week even though the days have gone strangely quickly. I can't say it's been a bad week, per se, not in the grand scheme of things. It's just been one of those weeks where, every day, it's been a small thing that's just set the day just a little off kilter.

I'm enjoying my 8-10 minute commute to work. That's my positive experience for the week. Also, I quite like the beaten tin tiled effect in our new kitchen. That's rather nice. I like the fact that someone put brown paper over the back of the women's bathroom doors so that no one can see you when you're going to the loo. Of course, now I have the urge to dig out my boxes of crayons and decorate the brown paper. I won't, however because that would probably be frowned upon. Part of me wants to draw a giant crayon christmas tree with stick people hanging from it with little labels naming who they are.

I probably shouldn't have told you that. Now you'll think I'm peculiar. Of course, you are reading this blog and if you haven't figured that out yet, you should probably back track a little.

All joking aside, I'm trying to ignore the fact that my chair at work is broken and if I lean back too far, I have to do a wild flail to stop from falling completely backwards. It's not even that far that I really have lean back, any sort of weight on it causes a bit of flailing. Also, my desk is scratched, my file cabinet attacked me and I'm one of the few people in my are not getting a nice shiny computer. My computer is too new, you see. My first boss at the company picked it out not long before I started. Now it's mine. Everyone else is getting Mac's. I have a little PC.

It's actually not the PC part I mind. I think it's more a case of "New Computer Envy". While I have to admit Mac's are quite nice, there's something about them I don't trust. I think they're too shiny, too glossy, too slick....even smug. Everything about Apple/Mac's strikes me that way a little. It's like those PC vs. Mac commercials with John Hodgman and Justin Long. They used to be clever with Mac always being just a little slicker than the PC and always making him look antiquated and defective. Now I think they're just mean. Also, that commercial for the AT&T iPhone where they make fun of Verizon and their 'maps' ad campaign. Verizon's "maps" campaign, if you haven't seen the commercials, is to make fun of the ridiculous amount of 'apps' for the iPhone by showing maps of where Verizon has coverage vs. AT&T.

Let me tell you, having a couple of friends with iPhones, the shoddy coverage of the iPhone is not much of an exaggeration. The retaliation campaign has Luke Wilson standing under a map filled with Verizon markers that show their coverage. The markers slowly tumble off the map as Luke Wilson hawks the merits of AT&T's 'smart phones' (i.e. the only phone anyone cares about from them...the iPhone). He talks about how you can't surf the web and talk on the phone like you can with an iPhone. Except, here's my question: If you have no coverage anywhere, what difference does it make if you can talk on the phone and surf the web at the same time? No signal=No real usage. So, shut up iPhone/Mac/AT&T.

I digress. Back to those Mac's. I know they're a lot more reliable than PC's, that they're less prone to viruses, that they don't rely on Microsoft but I still don't like them. I don't trust them. I can't tell you why; I just don't. I like PC's, even if they do rely on Microsoft. To be honest, I don't NOT like Microsoft either. I find their software products easy to use. Yes, I'm not a fan of the Blue Screen of Death which I tend to get rather a lot but in some ways, Microsoft is responsible for a lot of my computer knowledge. To fix a problem, you must learn everything about the problem. Thus...I know more about computers, Windows and Microsoft software than I ever thought I'd learn.

Anyway, I'm sure it'll be my turn to get a new computer in the office in about two years which, I think, is the timeframe of our 'computer cycle'. Every three years, they're replaced. Since mine is not a particularly good machine and it's very slow, I will admit sometimes that can of Pepsi on my desk looks awfully like a good way to accidentally 'break' my computer.

I'd never do that, I promise. I have too much respect for working computers. I've been around too many that haven't worked when they should have.

It doesn't really matter. For me, I'm looking ahead to the weekend. It's been a hard week; I don't like change as much as I should and this has been a week of changes, some of them big. Some of them are smaller, like the fact that I transformed my living room by putting up my Christmas tree and decorating for Christmas. Those are the kind of changes I embrace.

I intend to keep embracing them this weekend. I have more decorations to put up, some Christmas shopping to do and company to keep. I'd love for the weekend to go slowly so I'm going to keep a firm grip on it lest it slips away and, all to soon, I find myself back in my cubicle trying not to flail madly in my chair as I try to stop it falling backwards. I've was told I might be able to get a new chair when I asked my boss if something could be done about my broken one. It's not new Mac but it's a start.

And that would be a change I might embrace without complaining.

Thanks, as always, for reading. I promise my week of New Office venting is officially over. Next week, I shall move onwards. In the meantime, have a great weekend.

Happy Friday.

A Horrible Reliance on Technology...

I promise not to complain about my job today. Nor will I complain about the office building. I tend to get on a subject and stay there for a while so I'm going to make myself move away onto something else.

Technology, for example.

Once upon a time, there was a society of people who used to have to visit one another in order to have a conversation. They could write letters but there was no Fed Ex, no Next Day Air, there was only the old fashioned method of someone delivering a letter as soon as they could. Then, came telephones. Then, I'm pretty sure came telegrams although they might have come before telephones. I'm not sure.

Telegrams were a way of getting a message quickly to someone by having an office write it out and then deliver the message that came over 'the wire.'

For many years, society lived with only one phone in their house and only telegrams and mail post to get messages to one another. If they wanted to speak to their wife, child, aunt, uncle, friend, they had to make sure that the recipent either had access to a little old telephone or they had to get off their behinds and find them.

Then came...cell phones and the internet and many, many ways of finding instant gratification when you needed to talk to someone, get them a message or send them a package.

Thus, I give you....our spoiled little generations who can no longer function without the use of technology because we've forgotten how to do so.

I am including myself in this group because today I experienced a prime example of how useless we are without technology.

It all started when I dropped my phone in the toilet. Fortunately, I hadn't gone to the bathroom yet. Fortunately, there was no one at work in the bathroom besides me so no one could see what I was doing through the backwards-doors-that-you-shouldn't-really-be-able-to-see-into-but-you-can-anyway. I retrieved it quickly, took out the battery and did my best to pat it down with soap without making it any wetter. I also scrubbed my hands. A lot.

Needless to say, my phone ceased working. The screen began to fog. Since this exact same thing happened a few weeks ago, I knew that all I needed was a spaceheater to help dry it out.

And yes, I am freely admitting that this is, in fact, the second time this phone has literally been in the toilet. Both times were clean toilets, thankfully. Both times were a result of me thinking it was secure in my jeans' pocket and was horribly mistaken just a little too late. Both times, I felt like a complete and utter idiot.

Also, this is the second phone I dropped down a toilet. My other one was at an airport. Never do that. Just a word of advice.

Anyway, so, I spent the whole afternoon being just a little obsessed with the fact that my phone was not working. I tried to dry it. I kept putting the battery in to see if it was all better. Naturally, it was not. My biggest worry is that I have no landline at home so my cell phone is my only method of contacting the outside world. Well, except for my office phone and the computer. I intended to post on Facebook that my phone was out so if anyone needed me...email, don't call.

Of course, that was when our office network died. When I say died, I mean that the phones went out and our computers couldn't connect to the internet at all.

Now, to most companies, this would be a large inconvenience but there would be ways around it. For us, it was paralyzing. Everything we do is on a network or connected to via an internet connection. Our software needs databases that are off-site to which we network. The documentation I was working on is web-based and so without a working internet connection, I couldn't do anything with it. 100% of my current workload is internet/network based.

I was not the only one. In fact, almost every single person in our company couldn't work. We spent about an hour and a half waiting hopefully for something to get fixed. We socialized which was rather fun, actually. We all kept attempting to connect. There was nothing. We couldn't call out, we couldn't call in.

Normally, I'd be able to update Facebook or read email on my phone but when it takes a dive into the toilet, it sort of puts a damper on that idea. (pun intended).

Thus, I had a perfectly nice, wholly unproductive last hour and a half of work. I won't lie and say it wasn't fun because it was. I got to talk TV, mock the weathermen and discuss tea with my coworkers. We probably could have gone to the exercise room and fought over the fancy elliptical machine or treadmill but I think we were all afraid the network would go back up and we'd be caught slacking.

I think we're all just slightly paranoid at the moment.

Thus it was, I finally left only ten minutes earlier than usual. Because I'm a technology junkie and also because I was afraid I'd really murdered my phone this time, I decided to take a precaution so I bought a pre-paid phone from Target.

I know. I probably could have waited. Yet there was this crushing sense of feeling completely cut-off from the world without having my phone. I knew I had missed a call or two. I had text messages I couldn't read. Naturally, I began to fear for the worst.

It turns out that I hadn't missed much because now my phone is slowly coming back to life. It's drying out in front of my spaceheater and allowing me to make calls. Now I can put the prepaid phone away but keep it for emergencies. For example...if I drop my phone into the toilet again.

Which I hope I don't.

Tomorrow, I'm hoping we're back up and running at work. If not, we'll find ways to amuse ourselves. I think the bosses got their cable TV hooked up on their very large flat screen TV's that they have in their offices. I won't make a comment on that but I'm sure you can imagine how that makes us lowly employees feel. Maybe we'll all flood into their offices so we can amuse ourselves while we're waiting to be able to work again.

Technology. There's no escape.

Happy Thursday.

About Those Fancy Toilet Doors...

I'm trying not to go insane at work. It's my new goal.

I've figured out what the problem is with the new office location: It's too much, too soon. Until recently, my software company was a little business. We were small, slightly cramped in our old office and a little informal. These are all the things I liked about my job. Even though it was sometimes interruptive, I quite liked seeing everyone who came downstairs to get coffee in the mornings and saying hello. I quite liked that when we had meetings, we had to fight over chairs and all tried to get a place at the table. I quite liked the fact that while I could work, it was ok if I checked my bank balance or listened to KROQ online.

Now, in our new building, we're suddenly a big, giant corporation even though we're still the same 27-ish group of people we were before. We're in this massive building which is very nice and fancy but really doesn't suit who we are. Interestingly, I think it's supposed to suit who we're supposed to become: A major competitor in the educational software market.

Yet, I don't quite see that happening. You see, you can take a group of fish out of a small pond and plonk them into a lake. They might like the new lake but they're quite attached to that small pond and it's better to slowly introduce them to the new surroundings that dump them and run. If you do it slowly, it means there's less fish who are likely to go belly up and float to the surface of the lake in defeat because they can't find their tiny little hole in wish they've been secure for a while.

I know I've complained about the lack of privacy already. I've complained about how I'm limited in what I can do on my computer anymore. No more fun web-surfing breaks. So, today, I thought, well, ok...I can work with this. If I choose to take my lunch at my desk, I can take the 30 minutes I'm allotted for lunch and catch up on my web-surfing. I felt relieved.

Then, of course, we had a Staff Meeting of Doom. We were told that everyone is expected to leave their desks for lunch and that there's no excuse anymore. There are nice tables all over the building, little break areas that look out the window. My ungrateful little whine is this: I don't WANT to look out the window! I can do that when I head towards the bathroom. I want to SURF the INTERNET!

I'm not allowed to do that anymore. I'm sad. Now I'm even sadder that I can't listen to Pandora radio or KROQ anymore because our tech support believes we don't have enough bandwidth to support us doing this. My silly question is that if we're a software company, shouldn't we, you know, have a fair amount of bandwidth?

Apparently not. I do have an iPod so it's not like they've said that we can't listen to music (yet). It's just that there's something quite nice about listening to internet radio because even though you know what's on their playlist, there's still an air of unpredictability about the stations.

Still, I'm trying to think positive. After all, I'm not allowed to complain in the office and there's a certain amount of negativity that gets burned off by not having an outlet. Unless, of course, you have a blog...like me. Hence...you lucky readers get to hear my woes.

And while we're on the subject of not being allowed to complain, this is a wee bit of a nuisance at times. Before we moved into the new building, we were told that no expense was spared in designing the bathroom stalls especially to give us privacy while we went to the toilet, to give us our own 'room'. I liked this idea but I think it might have been better in theory than in practice. You see, I suspect that the workmen put the bathroom doors to the women's stalls on backwards. I think the idea is that you're supposed to be able to see out, not see in to where ladies are...doing their business. It is a wee bit off-putting to go into the bathroom and accidentally see someone on the toilet through the door when all you really wanted to do was check underneath to see if there were feet there. However, since mentioning that tiny little problem would constitute a complaint, no one is saying anything. Thus, we women get to go to the toilet and feel like we're being watched. Which we are. I've taken to trying to avoid looking at eye level if the stall door is closed. It's not quite as open as it could be but I can still see more than I'd like.

I promise to get off the subject of my new building very soon. I'm getting to be a little paranoid, even here in the blog. I'm a teensy bit worried that maybe we're even being bugged. There are these strange little 'eye in the sky' things that have been called 'smoke detectors' but they look a bit spy-ish for my tastes.

I might be feeling a little paranoid, however.

Seriously, I'm trying to adjust. I did get a lot of work done today which I suppose is the point now I've been deprived of all the distractions that made me enjoy going to work. I've also figured out which part of my job I really enjoy most in the past two days. These are accomplishments and when I look back to even a couple of decades ago, I'd be far less spoiled already than I am now. I probably wouldn't even be allowed to work. Perhaps I ought to put a few pictures of Jane Austin heroines around my cubicle to remind me of what might have been had I been born a couple of hundred years ago.

Seriously, I'm not as bitter as I might sound today. I came home from work feeling slightly less angry than yesterday. I managed to do some writing and just the fact that I could sit down and have something silly and quirky come out that easily was just a nice feeling. It reminded me of what I love to do in life. My job is what I do to support that love. It's been a long time since I've felt like this and it feels good.

So, tomorrow, I shall go to work armed with an iPod full of new music and just grin and bear it when I'm told that there's no more KROQ.com for me. I'll take a book to read during my mandatory lunch period and I'll keep trying to get work done. Then I'll come home and enjoy the fact that it's not my life: It's just a job.

It helps that it's payday tomorrow too. And it's supposed to snow! Two of my favourite things in life!

Happy Wednesday!