a long, dark week

sunday night madness

monday:

struggling to get out of bed on a dark, wet morning

half an hour on the phone with hydro-quebec trying to understand how they arrived at our extortion-level final bill. i eventually arrived at the conclusion that if you're staying somewhere for more than a few years it's cheaper to install gas heating, solar panels and a battery.

a day full of meetings, nem politeness, lunch money

seeing some poor guy chasing after a laptop thief in the distance and helpless to assist
walmart vacuum cleaner confusion and a decent $30 pair of sneakers
earache concern
netflix failure

tuesday:

really feeling my son through the skin over gd's belly

up early (only trapped in bed for half an hour) to not go to the clinic, french lessons and the uncomfortable realization that i picked up someone else's gloves by mistake

losing hac to a better offer when we desperately need him, he's the second good asset to leave in recent weeks

running with spotify: i don't know how the steps per minute detection works for anyone else, but for me it totally failed. setting the bpm manually, though? win. that was a great run for 160MB per hour!

finally - late - completing the big project [or so i thought]
an afternoon of hassles

i hate wet and muggy. that's weather that just doesn't happen in winter.
passport pre-loss find, joint salad with little dragon and sneaker pimps
fail videos and house

wednesday:

early up for french lessons and chores

a long presentation, a screwed up sprint planning but a great team review, it's nice to feel like we're all playing the same game

after losing the previous day's policy battle with nem because he succeeded in talking in circles until everyone was so confused that they just conceded, i put a mechanism in place to prevent anyone from easily doing the wrong thing - which wouldn't have been necessary if they'd just listened to me. nem is such a moron, though, that he manually overrode the mechanism, making precisely the mistake he'd promised everyone his method would prevent and thereby forcing everyone to admit that i was right and allow me to implement the simpler, safer procedure that i'd been arguing for.

a surprisingly positive meeting with the head of IT about eco-friendly initiatives

my new-dad co-worker's awesome advice and the excitement of learning how maternity leave works

boxing glove humiliation, i'd forgotten that my new gloves were plain blue. there's nothing like being on the receiving end of an unmistakable look of "what an asshole" from my coach.

walking in warm rain, mentally irritating but emotionally comforting
chihuahua snuggling, early bedtime

thursday:

slow wake on another should-stay-in-bed morning, 4 non blondes and edie brickell and foo fighters

giving pg the go-ahead to ship my stuff - i guess it's time to feel settled. or at least be reasonably certain that i'm not returning to the holy land

leaving a bit late and realizing as i hit the metro that i'd forgotten underwear for after training...

not doing my job, but babysitting nem instead. holding back rage when he told me that due to my clear enthusiasm for git i should consider a job as release manager. what he's reading as enthusiasm is my caring that he doesn't **** up our code-base again. he's so ******* limited that i just want to punch him every time i think about the stupid things he says.

comics: TWO PAGES DONE! nifty and i sat together and actually worked together instead of the usual discussions, and if we can figure out how to work like that online we might proceed pretty quickly.

studying hac before saying goodbye, spending the afternoon forced to do the work of two or three people. i *have* to relax...

... really *needing* to hit the punching bags for the first time since working with megaman, borrowing eighteen ounce gloves and working with a beginner who accidentally kicked me in the chin and made my neck vibrate whenever he hit the pads...

yesterday:

the last dream:
forgotten pasta growing out of a trash can in a corner of my bedroom and my mother upset with me; a visiting friend breaking the toilet
rescuing my pet bat after finding it in a river, returning home while it followed me in the trees. after entering and abandoned building it turned into a colourful, shape-shifting bird who convinced me to trade my soul. huddled ghosts of families warned me, after which i committed (or attempted) suicide by jumping down two stories and landing face first of brick steps
being amongst people in the hospital or asylum watching the previous incident on tv and someone next to me saying he knew the story
breaking out of the hospital and being forced to drag myself up an extremely claustrophobic ladder, squishing a threatening spider with my finger after blowing him away didn't have any effect
gangbangers destroying and exposing crowded family shacks with a football
travelling through apocalyptic wasteland with tv and gps
fighting with a fast-food chef about nutrition in an ultra-shitty mall-type den

starting the day with a plan that fell apart fairly quickly, getting some good work in in good time and under pressure but still not reaching the goal before deadline

lunch break at the bank paying a surprise fedex bill for customs fees that have left me with $2 in my bank account (and my visa's pretty much maxed), being told "just two seconds" by a teller who was actually taking her lunch break (cow).

one manager telling me i need to rest, the other explaining that "that's corporate" when the more you're capable of the more you get screwed. at least the three of us are on the same page, and at least my team's doing (mostly) good things.

once again leaving half an hour later than planned, running for forty minutes and then doing an exhilarating and exhausting boxing class. i - once again - really needed to hit the bags and i let it allllll out.

so... starting the weekend on a good note, followed by a great homemade meal and being subjected to gd's cocoa butter experiment (i smell like chocolate) and rls treatment.

this morning:

after a good night's dreamless sleep and good coffee, i feel like i'm ready to plan a fun weekend :)