Category: Uncategorized

Bleh.

I may have to bail on the bikeathon. It’s expensive to get out there, and the minimum donation to raise would cost me more than the plane ticket at present (I’m extraordinarily bad at fundraising). Plus it’s days off work that are rare and precious to me. <ponder, ponder, ponder>

Finished PatternMaster. Good book. Did some dishes (yay dishwasher). Went skating along the eliza furnace trail with Laura & Nat. Must find regular partners for such workouts who are also entertaining conversationalists. Makes everything so much easier =)

Came back to the office, and have slacked for several hours. =) Might actually want to do my homework and/or study for my spanish quiz tomorrow soon.

Dinner would be good too =)

Later, folks.

I had trouble sleeping for no readily apparent reason. But, then I got up, hitched a ride with kaote and her squeeze to ‘s and ef2p‘s wedding. It was a loooong ride. Much conversation ensued on the way there. We discussed gender roles, stereotyping, leadership, war, military life, sexuality, history, and the social machinations of the group through which I met Elissa.

Eventually, I settled down and made major progress through PatternMaster by Octavia Butler, which I like, and which does do a good job of conveying her recurring themes of oppression, control, independence and hope. It’s a rough mix, but she manages it well.

The wedding was beautiful, the hupa and the contract were beautiful. The mountainous background was stunning, especially as the sun was setting. It was good to see them, and to join them in celebrating their commitment. Also good to see other friends whom I never see (such as meerkat299 and shimmeringjemmy) Dinner was tasty and surprisingly vegan friendly. I ended up sitting with friends, despite some mixup that left me without a seating card (whoops), probably because I RSVPed reaaallly late =) I danced a bit with Barbara, but had a serious headache, so I went out to the car to lay down for a bit. Ended up being more than a bit, but I came back somewhat refreshed.

I met a few interesting people. Ended up hitching a ride home with a friend of Cortney’s, and his family (I was more on their way than I was on kaote’s. Unusual fellow, must chat with at some point.)

Friday and saturday were spent quickly cleaning the apartment (and may I say that regan and I did an amazing job given, all things considered). Prepared dinner for party on Saturday. Failed to prepare in terms of dishes and silverware. Also, inadequate lighting. Bleh.

long and involved

So, I may be trimming people off my friends list soon. And I would like to make two points.

1. Friends is an idiotic thing to call the group. Subscriptions is more accurate.
2. Just because I crossed you off my subscriptions list doesn’t mean I don’t like you, I think you’re boring, or I think you’re a bad person.

A lot of people start their lj off with a declaration of purpose or intent. I didn’t really. I started it off with a loudly opinionated, stunningly inarticulate [for me] post about a political topic that I fell quite passionate about. I never really said why I’m bothering.

Unsurprisingly, for those who know me well, it’s a little complicated.

I’m writing about my life, about my beliefs, about the occasional thing that catches my attention for a few reasons.

1. To examine my life, and to have others include their observations. I’m all for a more examined life, and others can bring a more complete (if not necessarily more accurate) perspective. Through the examination and perspectives, I hope to build a better life for myself.
2. To practice my writing skills. I am articulate, at the sentence-paragraph level. But in the construction of larger parts, I lose place and sense of what I’m doing. So, I’m practicing.
3. To keep up with people far away. I have friends who are not in town (and for that matter, friends nearby who are pretty busy), and I would like to know what’s going on in their lives. If the feeling is mutual, they can know what’s going on in mine.
4. To share and to vent. To provide a forum for emotional expression that would otherwise get squashed or whatever. Several of these posts will be private or targeted to specific audiences (I realize this is far from a perfect medium for that).
5. To meet interesting new people. I’m listing this goal more as an observation (I tend to go out, find the journals of interesting strangers, and start reading them) than as a purpose or mission statement.

Love my coworkers, like the office, iffy on the job itself. Whachya gonna do?

I felt out of sync with the world. Trapped amid the swirling flotsam that is my life. My officemate cinyras moved off into her own office, recently vacated by a swell guy who managed to find a much better job. I managed to catch up the email client support work, more or less. None of my typical friends to talk/hang out with were around or available online. ACLU people were less than entirely happy with the changes I made to the database, so more rounds of revision, but hopefully only to the data entry forms, not the underlying tables, at this point.

Much slaying in halo, a bit of a revisit to slaying in starcraft broodwars. Found myself being a little snipey in my lj comments. Bad me. No tagalongs. Must prepare for party tomorrow. James made other plans for this evening. =(

Very tired. Ended up eating indian truck food. Was good.

Also ended up going on a walk past all 5 of my former residences in squirrel hill. Kinda roundabout, but it suited my mood, helped me get a bit more perspective on myself and life. Lots of memories for each place.

Chatted with Tom and Dion for a bit. Dion knows my ex steve remarkably well. Lots of history there, very interesting. Tom is good to talk to. I should hang out with him more.

Blah.

Sleep.

Later.

Designing a database is a royal pain in the ass. Especially when the other parties involved insist on changing the specs after you’re done. But, I am done with the aclu database, barring spec changes and excepting the querying & reports. Note, my impression is this is kinda like saying “I’m done with my bachelor’s degree, except for all those upperclassmen courses”.

Finally!

This week has totally sucked, timewise. Between spanish (5-7:30pm, m-w & 2:30-5pm r), work, spanish homework, cleaning the apartment, and cooking my first meal in ages, not to mention finishing the first source for my research paper take 2, I’ve had just about no time to work out, or eat right. I did both today, it felt good.

I just wish the full body elliptical aerobic machine had been available at some point. The body heat from lifting followed by 20 minutes of that thing is just incredible, and turns a cold shower into something adjacent to heaven.

Now onto more aclu database hacking