Month: November 2011

Monday morning.

It’s probably been said before, but what gets me about buses is the way the segments of the trip are so distinct from each other. You go on the first leg of it, and it doesn’t matter how quickly the trip went our didn’t go; the next leg of it will go on its own schedule. There’s no way to save time, no way to have a quick trip in one part… carry over, I guess?

What would you call that? Granularity?

All of which is a way to say that while I ran out of the house this morning in such a hurry that I had to ask John to feed the cats for me, I am currently on the fourteenth minute of a scheduled ten-minute wait at the highway bus stop, and I would much rather have spent this time at home. Also, I do not have coffee and it’s chilly, so I am a bit grumpy.

I sit and watch the clouds go by…

Someone I know just got published.  It’s actually (I think) quite a good story, and you can read it here, at the latest issue of On the Premises.

I think this is teriffic for her, and I am happy to pass along good things I have heard people say about it.  And it’s paid-published, which I suspect adds an extra element of awesome to the whole thing.

I can’t even feel properly jealous, and someone I’m writing with said something that had me figure out why.  I’m not jealous because I’m not in the same situation.

Because Rachel Verkade?  She actually finishes her stories.  And then she sends them out.

If I did that, I could feel jealous.  As it stands, I read her stuff.  And the things some of my friends write.  And I follow the people I know about who are getting their stories out, or getting a collection out, and I just look at the progress they are making, and I think…

I don’t know what I think, actually.  It’s not very detailed or coherent, it’s sort of a slow sad wishing that I was there.

That I was focussed enough to try to get there.

What the hell am I doing with my life and my time, anyway?

A weekend, now that that means something.

The first day at work went fairly well.  I believe I can do the job they want me to do, everyone seems pleasant, the number  of transfers on the commute is annoying but manageable.  I may see about angling for earlier hours after a week or so; we’ll see.

That said, I am stress-tired in a way I haven’t been since the last fiscal year end I was working in government.  Got home and ordered pizza on the cheap deal in the mailbox and then curled up and unwound.  There was a fire.  I am very glad we have a fireplace.

(…for reasons besides the fact that if we didn’t, it would be very very hard to be glad about there being a fire in the house.)

Thought the cats were going to be quiet, but turns out there was evening squabbling.  Managed to get half a glove right after reknitting it four times.  Trying to get through the last of the House of Fear anthology and sort of quietly gleeful about how AHS handled Tate and Hayden.  Can’t wait for the next episode; in the meantime, may catch up on Misfits or try Bedlam tomorrow, when I have the TV to myself.

Sudden employment.

Five o’clock came and went today, and no word from the temp agency.  I figured I could look forward to maybe a Monday start date; looking over the SOW, the start date was October 17, and this kind of delay is not atypical.

Five thirty-four rolled around, and I got a phone call.  The temp agency said the client wanted me to start tomorrow, if I could.  I said that’d be fine, got the address, agreed I’d get them a void cheque tomorrow, all the little perfectly normal paperwork fusses that come along with this.

I’m ambivalent about it, and a bit unhappy to find myself so.  I mean… employment!  Employment is a good thing.  I’m just worrying about whether it’ll be a good job, if I should have kept looking, whether or not they’ll realize I’m a horrible fraud and should never have set foot inside the building as soon as I actually need to start working…

All the little perfectly normal fusses that come along with this.

They’ve seen my resumé.  It is a decent resumé; more, it is an honest resumé, and I suspect that matters more.  I’m hoping thatit’ll all be fine and by this time Monday[1] my biggest problem with the job will be that it’s 20 minutes from downtown so I can’t meet people for lunch.

Just wish I’d had a little more notice, you know?

—
[1] Not Friday.  I probably won’t stop worrying that fast.

Oddly awake.

Yesterday I was up until four in the morning. And then I was up and functional by eight. Somehow I’m still not tired. Admittedly there was a nap in there, but…

One of the people I write with a fair bit of the time is doing NaNoWriMo. It’s rough going so far (mind, that doesn’t mean much yet), but she’s doing it. I, meanwhile, have written the hundred words of fiction in trip fragments this week.

I mean, it’s just been Hallowe’en; I practically feel guilty about not trying. It’s the time of year for (proper Lovecraft) ghouls and curiously meaningful scratches and shapes standing in the dark in the still of your room and just watching you.

You think.

You can’t see their eyes, after all.

(Oh yes, this is absolutely going to help me get to sleep. Because I needed a chaser after reading a third of the way through the House of Fear anthology. It’s a nice mix; part actual ghosts and part haunted houses (which are subtly different, but I fear I repeat myself), with a side order of the weird.)

Beginning to get sleepy, at least.  The nice thing about the phone is that I can post in my room and don’t get distracted by the joys of the internet or the horror of the Sierra Madre. Much easier to lie down and go to sleep if you don’t need to tear yourself away from a computer motor.

(That’s the Sierra Madre from Fallout: New Vegas – Dead Money. Which is a quite well-done little horror story set in a haunted house… one which both corrupts its victims and is inhabited by ghosts, now that I think of it.)

Tomorrow I’ll try and get my books sorted, I suppose. And maybe I’ll hear back about work. The estimated start date just keeps creeping forward; at this point I’d be surprised if anything happened before Monday.

(stasis)

We have been sitting in the doctor’s office for an hour and five minutes now. It is boring. For the record.

Apparently we’re next in line, but I don’t know when that line is next moving forward. For the moment, this is largely a chance to practice typing on Swype.

There is one bonus; there is some kind of pseudo-Scrooge romcom movie playing on the waiting room, and John has said that he takes back everything bad he has ever said about my taste in the movies he watches with me.

And as soon as he starts editorializing on the movie, a get called in. Onwards!

Madness and the pet monster.

“I really need your help. I don’t want to be like this. I want to be a good person.”

Right, well, Tate has just gained a ridiculous amount of sympathy from me.  I have been there.  I mean, I haven’t nearly chewed anyone’s face off to make a point or defend my crush, but I have been there.  (Yes, more American Horror Story, although no spoilers this time.)

Knowing that there’s something wrong, but that even then the mind you use to understand that truth is off.  And knowing isn’t enough to fix it, thinking about it isn’t enough to fix it, wanting it isn’t enough, trying isn’t enough…

It’s hell, and there is no-one I’d wish that on. Continue reading “Madness and the pet monster.”