work

Friday

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It was an absurdly quiet day at the office, with summer hours back in swing for most everyone (but not me) after last week’s holiday break. By two o’clock, it seemed like there were less than a half dozen of us still left in the building.

Inspired, perhaps, by Heather’s recent cubicle exposure, or perhaps simply by the boredom of a very long day at the end of a pretty long week, I started snapping photos of my work area.

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I swear, it’s only carefully chosen camera angles that make my desk look remotely neat. I lucked into one of the larger cubicles maybe about a year ago, and I really do like working at it. Which, I swear, usually keeps me too busy to be snapping photos left and right.

Anyway, that was Friday. Had a spicy seitan burger from a local food truck, which proved to surprisingly tasty for vegan food. Had time to kill before living for the end of the day. No big plans for the weekend beyond writing, which I am determined to do some of tomorrow.

Everything is awesome

I had a pretty good day.

I’ll admit, I’ve been ignoring this blog somewhat of late. Since the beginning of June, some twenty days ago now, I’ve only posted here five times. And three of those posts were lyrics quizzes. While those are (relatively speaking) my most popular posts, they’re not exactly personal or content-heavy.

But there just hasn’t, frankly, been a whole lot of content going on in my life right now. There’s lots to do at work, but the mad rush that marked the beginning of the year has slowed down, as I’ve handed books over to production, and I’ve even managed to take a couple of days off this week. (Today, Friday, marks second day of my four-day weekend.) I expect lots of small crises to continue between now and the fall, but I’m hoping it won’t start getting really hectic again until sometime in October. (I’m going to Banff for two weeks at the end of September, so it had better got get hectic then if it knows what’s good for it.)

I’ve been writing some, but struggling with it, knowing where I want to go with a couple of stories but not really sure how to get there, and struggling also with that thing I always do, editing too much as I go along. (This is why I have too few finished first drafts, but it’s a hard part of my brain to turn off.) My weekly free-writing group didn’t happen last week, hence the lack of a sixth post here for June.

But again, today was a pretty good day.

I woke up around six o’clock and took the dog for a walk, then decided instead of going back to sleep, I’d finish reading Caliban’s War by James A. Corey. (The version on my Kindle said I only had about ten percent of the book left.) The Expanse books have really been terrific so far, and I have to thank Heather for recommending them. (I believe she’s already well into the just-published fourth book in the series, so no spoilers please.) I may take a short break, just to re-orient my brain and read something else, but the third book, Abbadon’s Gate is high up on my to-read pile. (Not literally; it’s on my Kindle. The way the second book ends, there was no way I was not going to immediately buy number three.)

I went for lunch this afternoon, indulging in a local sushi and Japanese buffet place I really like. Between the spicy tuna rolls, raw ginger, and wasabi, my sinuses have never been so clear. But I think I settled that I don’t care for raw octopus. The texture is just…no. Still, it was a good meal.

Then I came home to fold laundry and watch The Lego Movie. You know, as one does on his day off. The movie was a lot of fun, pretty clever, and I say that as somebody who’s never really be a Lego kind of guy. (I mean, I played with them, a little, when I was a kid, but Construx were always more my jam.) If you haven’t seen it, it’s where this post’s title comes from. (If you have seen it, sorry for getting that stuck in your head again.)

And I wrote. Of course, it wasn’t any of the short stories I’ve got percolating, but the silly fake advice column I’m revisiting for Kaleidotrope, but it felt good to get my brain working like that again. And though I’ve had no feedback on the two fake advice columns I’ve written so far — last spring and summer — I’m actually strangely proud of them. They, along with the horoscopes — which are surprisingly tough to write — represent the kind of thing I was to do more of with the zine.

Anyway, it was just a really relaxing yet productive day and I enjoyed it. I don’t know that I’ll have a lot more to post here tomorrow, but we’ll see if I can’t get at least a couple more posts in before the end of June.

Thursday

There was a moment this afternoon when I completely forgot what day it was. But, you know, in a good way. Three-day work weeks can be like that.

It helps that, while I still have lots of work to do, the mad, am-I-ever-going-to-finish-these projects have been finished, or near enough to let me breathe a little easier. Lots to do, and more projects coming my way, but I’m hoping for a quieter calmer summer — spring? what’s that? — than my winter.

Meanwhile, with the warmer weather apparently also come raccoons. I’d heard what the internet seemed to confirm were raccoons the other night when I was out with the dog, and then last night before I went to bed I heard it again. It’s not a cute or comforting sound. I opened my bedroom window and observed two of them in a driveway across the street, and then climbing a tree next to that driveway. One of neighbors came home then, and I could hear her talking on her cell phone, saying she didn’t know what that weird noise was. Another neighbor crossed the street to say it was raccoons (or may possums), which was good, because I was beginning to feel like I was watching the start to a horror movie from my window. It saved me from having to shout, “For god’s sake run!” After looking around the tree for a while, they both went inside, and I went to bed.

Except for the raccoons (most likely not possums) themselves, we haven’t seen any evidence of them, or least I haven’t. We haven’t seen them in the daytime, which is good, and while they do make a horrible angry chittering noise, there’s less concern over rabies. Not no concern — and the neighbors across the street have (relatively) small and (fairly) aggressive dogs, so I don’t think anybody necessarily wants raccoons taking up residence.

They are less cute and cuddly than the stuffed animals of my youth led me to believe.

Wednesday

I took Monday and Tuesday off from work, so it’s a short week for me. Which is just as well, really, since I appear to have lost my monthly train ticket and will need to buy daily and weekly tickets until June. That’s fun, huh?

On Monday night, I watched All Is Lost, which — spoiler warning — is called All Is Lost. It’s a surprisingly compelling (and at times beautiful) movie, given that it’s largely dialogue free and we know almost practically nothing about Robert Redford’s character — the movie’s only character — except that he’s on a boat. If you’ve been waiting for a movie starring a constantly soggy Robert Redford, this is the one for you. I liked it a lot, but it’s definitely convinced me not to take up sailing.

Last night, I picked my parents up at the airport. They’d gone to visit my sister, who’s in Austin for a while for work, and their flight was delayed by three or four hours. Luckily, for me if not them, I knew about the delay before I drove to the airport.

Today I got a rejection e-mail for a short story (a short-short, really) that I’d submitted last week. I couldn’t call it wholly unexpected, but rejections are never fun. (And I say that as someone who sends out plenty.) I’m debating whether to send the story out again right away or wait for another venue that won’t be open to submissions for another few months. Meanwhile, I’m determined to keep working on something else and get that rejected too as soon as possible. 🙂

And that’s about it. Not an exciting week, maybe, but a short one at least, and the weather’s been pretty nice.

Wednesday (also: not my squirrel)

Another decent day, with lots of work to do. I didn’t miss my train tonight, although there was a train delay this morning, which I guess is the universe’s way of evening everything out through aggravation.

Meanwhile, I finished reading Philip K. Dick’s Time Out of Joint, which I liked until the end, when the book just kind of ends.

And I somehow reached an ending on a short story I’ve been writing. This one’s pretty short, less than two thousand words, but the ending just kind of happened, and I’m kind of happy with it. I still need to take another look at the story with fresh eyes, and tidy it up, but I’m looking forward to sending it out and starting in on something else.

And that was Wednesday.