snotty snotty me

I'm homo sick for the second day in a row. I never believed in the causality of a wet and cold environment and the catching of a common cold. Alas, I have caught one. The day before my symptoms appeared I spent four hours in the cold rain wearing drenched and equally cold spandex on the company's annual bike ride. I hadn't ridden for over two years, but thanks to silly Spinning classes the 40 miles that I rode werent' all that bad. It was just the bone-chilling four-mile descent at the end of the ride followed by the two extra hours I sat around in previously mentioned sopping sports duds as I awaitd the arrival of my boyfriend and dry clothes (he was shepherding someone two and from the emergency room for stitches).

So, yesterday, I was a good sick person, in that I didn't do anything more than knit with my friend B as she awaited SBC to fix her land line, then drive her to work (from which I left carrying over $150 worth of yarn and needles). While I did swing by work to grab my laptop (since 2005's budget is due and an RFP to redesign one of the sites), I left relatively quickly. I didn't turn it on until this morning, opting instead for the comfort of Netflix and more knitting.

This morning I've been more of a multi-tasking sick person, finishing up the RFP and now dealing with two of our sites being down. Funny thing, I'm getting more done, or at least I'm more focused here at home than I am at work. I gave myself an hour for the RFP then a break for personal email and blog stuff. It's nice not having connectivity on my work laptop. This is being posted on my personal slaptop.

Time to get back to work/sick. I need to get these websites up.

10:29 a.m. 2004-10-26

frittering the hours away

Another day of online wandering in lieu of a laser focus on the tasks at hand. I frustrate myself with my lack of motivation and/or work ethic. Granted, I know I do my best work in bursts, but that's no excuse for the inordinate amount of time I spend avoiding work.

Today's accomplishments include upgrading my phone from TDMA to GSM, finding a sweater pattern I'd like to knit, and thinking about selling knitted goods at our craft fair. I looked at the document I spent two days fiddling with last week. I attended not one, but two meetings. My inbox is all kinds of tidy, so that's good.

It could be a case of not being motivated at work, or inspired by current job. But I don't really want to do anything else professionally. I'd like to just be at home, napping, knitting, sleeping, learning, or writing or hanging with friends.

It could be a general laziness. What was it they labelled kids? Under-achievers or under-challenged? How hard is it to email people to tell them to change things on websites? What advance degree is required to make lists and assign deadlines to items? Where is the manaical drive that made me want to be the best and why has it been missing from my jobs since 1999 (four years after college)?

This de-evolution doesn't bode well for future endeavors, like, say an MFA. Or quitting work to be an entrepreneur. But it sure makes time fly.

On an unrelated note, this weekend involved hanging out with MS backstage at his band's (three letters about a state of sleep) show with his friend TC (who's got a fast car), a visit from Mbira (who was married in Seattle in August, and my beloved buying a glockenspiel at an estate sale. That last one brought the most joy.

4:44 p.m. 2004-10-18

be more present

I just got back from the potty and experienced a momentary lapse of memory. As I unbuttoned my fly, I realized I didn't know which pair of underwear I was wearing. Not that my underwear choice is relevant to my work or a conscious act each and every day, I just felt I should be able to remember which pair I pulled out of the drawer a scant two-plus hours ago.

My fingers told me that it was some version or a boxer brief tighty-ish something. It wasn't a simple open fly that makes urinating a grab and go affair. However, it didn't feel too form-fitting, so it couldn't have been a recent Target purchase, although the cloth was obviously a cotton knit that's very similar.

As I finished up and was shaking off, it hit me. (not the pee-pee, dirty bird.) I remembered. The grey Joe Boxers from when I first moved to SF. Sorry, eager readers, the tale ends here, there's no memories of sexcapades in these manties. It just felt disconcerting to not know what color undergarments I was wearing.

Heather gray, like my motivation.

9:50 a.m. 2004-10-15

holly hobby

I found myself in the book store, buying No Plot, No Problem before I could do anything about it. I don't need this book, as I'm about to go through my first NaNoWriMo in two and a half weeks. I still haven't finished the Writer's Workshop book I started, I rarely do Natalie's little writing practice stuff (despite the workshop I started attending on Monday) and I've abandoned The Artist's Way morning pages more than once. All this and I still don't know what I'm going to write about.

This lunchtime biblio-excursion was after a morning spent looking for an amp for the newly-arrived bass that TB sent. I have yet to plug it in and fell asleep reading the Bass Guitar for Dummies book last night. BFF doesn't have any time for my first lesson, so I'm jonesing to fiddle with the thing on my own.

Lastly, in hobby-world, the lovely hat I'm knitting for my boyfriend is not finished. Yeah, I jumped on that bandwagon a few years late, but I do love my first hat and will invariably learn more complex knitting techniques in due time. You know I have to get up to par if I'm going to become a business partner/entrepeneur...

Why is it that I want to cram every waking hour with another activity? I live in a state of constant stress and feeling undone an incomplete. Sure, I left the time-consuming world of training for Ironman behind, but I have a whole new triathlon of projects to keep me busy, not to mention printing and GameBoy Camera...

...and I complain about not getting enough sleep.

1:25 p.m. 2004-10-13

the fruit of my last year's weekends

Florida is hot and humid and lived up to my every low expectation. We only had a few smatterings of raindrops on one afternoon, and a couple of the mornings the concrete was wet but I can't verify if it had rained. There was no apparent hurricane damage in town, just a lot of brain-damaged white trash, mostly tourists.

I have no reason to go back to Florida ever again in my life, and to paraphrase my trio partner's boyfriend, I won't even check it off my travel list as "done" as I don't want to admit to myself that I was ever there in the first place.

The swim meet was the best part of being there (as opposed to the lousy service, overprice meals, and tropical vomit decor). Mornings were spent cheering and yelling for Tsunami swimmers, the manfriend, the teammates, the new girlfriends (how could you not love someone named Gussie?).

Afternoons involved meeting in the skyway of the hotel to landdrill, 12 men and women gesturing as an iPod played ABBA or Ricky Martin and our coach yelled counts at us. We'd then wander back to the pool for practice and run-throughs. Our three days of competition were compressed into two; Saturday was duets and trios, Sunday was team and solos.

Let me cut to the chase. I won gold in both trio and team events.

Granted there was no other team entered (other than two soloists from France), but they didn't judge us in age groups. Our team of eight (for which I am captain) was against our team of four (which includes our coach), and my trio (young and beautiful B, lean and lanky S, and myself) was against the wiser (by which I mean older) trio (comprised of muscley, little R, consistently off-count C and the most experienced male swimmer W). The judges scoring was generous. I can think of mistakes I made in each routine, but I'm super proud of our efforts.

Better still, we drew bigger crowds than the water polo games and they even clapped along during JJ Fad's "Supersonic" in our trios hip-hop short program. Needless to say, I'm not quitting; I'm hooked on performing (like that's anything new); and I can't wait for a chance for my local friends to see the moist madness/splashing silliness. (I don't believe I've mentioned that Evening Magazine will be filming us on the 23rd.) I promise to let you know.

I spent most of the weekend with B and S, my trio-mates and Mr. Man and my little sister, S's boyfriend K and Coach S. It was fun to pal around in that high school group-think kind of way. I've found eating dinner and breakfast at home rather lonely (but also less frustrating).

I didn't sleep super well at the Sheraton Yankee Clipper (and, no, we never synchro'ed in the bar's portal window into the pool, as featured in Analyze This).). It was lovely to sleep in our own bed last night (not to mention the East Coast time zone difference early sexual wake-up romp this morning). Despite the sunburn, it's damn great to be homo.

12:29 p.m. 2004-10-12

past - future