the first proper snowfall of the season
comic inspiration
replacing the dead soundbar with gd's old amp
salting the steps vs clearing them
visiting best buy so they could help me order from their website (shitty, broken website)
a chilled afternoon / evening with a visit from horseman, mr smear being fussy / generally unimpressed by me
monday 28th:
waking up to a distressingly cold child in a confusingly cold apartment - it's 2015 in montréal, a city famous for its cold winters, and we don't have a thermostat and our heaters aren't reliable or particularly effective
long night, a few difficult wakeups, getting up at 7am exhausted and not feeling at all ready for even a three-day workweek
a morning spent trying to fix the laptop gd's brother gave us a long time ago
one signed nda later...
*now* it's winter, all cold and crunchy underfoot
another pleasantly relaxed day at work, getting back into scripting during my lunch break
a badly hurting knee on my way home (massaging it helped, though)
straight to business, an exciting phone call with an amazing artist
an icy walk to the shops, a long time putting mr smear to bed, compiling the artist's package
tuesday 29th:
another difficult night, the psychological wearing-down when you don't know what's wrong
early up with little sleep to a heavy snowstorm and howl's moving castle
my first leg exercise in half a year: clearing our steps and trudging through thick snow to the metro... throughout the day the snowstorm becoming progressively heavier and visibility progressively lower
a slow day getting the job done - and noting the other team conspicuously spending their hours consuming weird porn - until discovering a critical bug in my (now live) project just as gd messaged me to tell me that she urgently needed help
vaccination mission - not too bad, but ending with repeated baby seat stress
mr smear passed out cold when we got home but made up for it in spades when it was our bedtime.
wednesday 30th:
giving up around 1am and settling in the lounge to monitor him and message the artist who has already produced stunning work and we haven't properly begun yet
more than four straight hours of sleep!!!
waking up with my neighbour totoro
carrying the sound bar to work to see if anyone wants to try fixing it before i recycle it, being the only developer there, working really hard on painfully squinty work, trying out the cat lady over lunch (very interesting), abandoning ship to help gd with an unhappy post-vaccination mr smear, picking up his winter jacket and learning how much better walmart is for baby shopping than almost anywhere else here, coming home heavily laden, helping briefly, grocery shopping mission, alternating between dinner, mr smear, exciting comic progress and trying to handle a heavy snow garbage day silently
thursday 31st:
you know what kind of day it is when you realize that your shirt's on backwards and you're holding the book upside down
delivery special: the high chair, my police report and a bouncing toy / distraction all arrived nearly simultaneously. staring at the high chair, gd and i both thinking "didn't we just bring him home from the hospital?"
the successful car seat mission, the barely successful cashew milk mission and the end of 2015 being a quiet night in
friday 1st:
happy new year! here's hoping 2016 will be at least as good as 2015 and provide much more sleep.
sleeping better, but still far from enough, and beginning the day with battlestar galactica and entertaining mr smear with tekken and abe's exoddus. heading out to p.m. to pick up lunch, the long travel and wait and intense hunger, another busy / quiet evening, watching the end of bernie
saturday 2nd:
six and a half hour's sleep!!! amazing. a slow day, finally putting up hooks that i bought in august, big poops and good naps and a big (slow) shopping mission with mr smear's new winter suit
a long day of arguing about the middle east and finally blocking a hard right university associate
the avengers: age of ultron is a lot of fun, but not nearly as good as the original
sunday 3rd:
struggling when forced to wake up in the middle of a dream at 1am, sleeping pretty well the rest of the night
a sunday whizzing by all too fast. lots of snow and minor chores and a home depot mission and a visit from horseman and multiple puking events and a lot of hilarity and being conscious of being present for mr smear making the most ridiculously cute noises while making himself comfortable on my chest
monday 4th:
a long, trying night including a shoulder-height poop, my own uncomfortable belly and three wakeups to a freezing apartment, finally passing out with mr smear on my chest and having a second dream of the scotsman nonchalantly bleeding profusely from his eyes
the second great pooping, watching mr smear with full house (holy crap, the eighties was a weird time) and asterix, being terrified that he'd hurt his arm when he fell over (he hadn't), a brisk walk to the pharmacy in -28 degrees (the garbage men here are hard)
fleeing coughing on the metro, a long, intense day making solid progress, limbo and thomas was alone and ftl, nifty's surprisingly easy comic dismissal acceptance, walmart mission and a badly-timed call home, pigging out on fake pringles on the ride home
good dinner, the ultimate fighter, the beginnings of a throat infection
tuesday 5th:
that turned into an ear infection, a pinching nerve and a couple of night changes, sleeping in an extra hour and getting the day restarted talking about dreams and freud and hillman
the most awkward, nervous-giggling-inducing chat with the scotsman when i told him about my dreams
another long day ending with sore eyes, but walking out feeling remarkably self-satisfied. my lunchtime remembering that ftl is dangerously addictive.
my quote of the day: there should be a queer magazine called "bi weekly".
halogen's response: it can come out whenever it's ready. no pressure.
fast shopping and a visit from horseman
wednesday 6th:
that moment when you're in a hurry and you realize that the instructions for the car seat don't actually match with what you're looking at
the first taxi on the way to the clinic arriving with compromised seats, and the first taxi on the way back from the clinic arriving with compromised seats
little sleep, no breakfast and sudden exhaustion as we got home, but sucking it up and turning around to go to work
you know you're in montreal when it's seven below zero and nobody's wearing gloves
arriving at work to the conclusion that i have a cold, warzone 2100 and ftl for lunch, a long four hours struggling to identify what i was supposed to be doing with the bad queries i was finding, a fun hour or two with a more interesting project and then leaving the office feeling worn out
small victories: dinner, humidifier, dishes, garbage, bottle returns, shower... deserving of an ice cream reward
thursday 7th:
better breathing with the humidifier but still a tough night, starting the day with clone wars (the series, which isn't bad but it doesn't motivate me to watch the movies at all) and mr smear's deceptively large stealth poop
a beautiful white and blue morning, a day full of random, the lunch break combo (warzone 2100, limbo and ftl), the last minute code review and heading to my weekly meeting feeling great about my work and not so great about being ten minutes late for my appointment.
another interesting meeting
hurried dinner followed by baby monitoring with lego movies and tekken
friday 8th:
a slight sinus infection. a comfortable morning singing and playing with my son, and rescuing gd's brother's laptop with ubuntu. appreciating the fact that sativa is the "right" strain and indica's popularity is the reason i've never been a fan of smoking
narrowly avoiding an official warning, pushap lunch with vfmp, a wishy-washy workday
the guy who gets into training gear to go down the stairs on his way home
shitty tofu from a well-known asian restaurant is very disappointing
saturday 9th:
not the best of nights, waking up with tekken and the realization that i've been customizing wrong all this time (now making the first real progress since before i met gd)
getting riled up by gd's online friend defending anti-science new-age bullshit
another last minute laser cancellation
shopping in the rain, a long, tiring evening of not much
sunday 10th:
sleeping in a little, hunter x hunter (the reboot is only getting better and better)
baby passport photos
returning the new car seat, bad attitude taxi driver who couldn't understand english but i still felt bad about not tipping him
amazing semi-finals and finale for the latest the ultimate fighter season
last time it was leaving the entrance door open all night in subzero temperatures, this time - after we explained that we hear everything and they promised to be more respectful - it was vacuuming at 11pm. can they be such assholes? or that stupid? or so high?
monday 11th:
dealing with rls when trying to get to sleep, managing a couple of hours and then feeling it again
a few times up during the night but it was a pretty easy one nonetheless; a difficult morning, though, with an inexplicably agitated mr smear
RIP david bowie. i don't have anything clever or personal to say, but just like robin williams he was one of those people who leaves a void when they ascend. i found all the raging against his personal life confusing, there was a lot of talk about "rape" but the only things i could find seemed to be consensual. maybe i wasn't looking hard enough? maybe we should just appreciate him as an artist, and not do the whole hero worship thing?
another weird day not really certain what i should be doing, eventually deciding that my workstation is in dire need of a clean format
lunchtime with limbo and thomas was alone, an afternoon rocked by power outages that somehow bypassed our backup supply
firefly and hunter x hunter over dinner, getting to bed feeling oddly awake and clear
tuesday 12th:
waking up around 1am for a feeding and having difficulty getting back to sleep, reading an intriguing set of discussions about the canadian slam scene, immense difficulty waking up for the morning routine
tekken while mr smear scooted around his mats, protecting him as he sat on his bum playing with his toys for a while, then rushing to get ready for work
death of a computer, an exciting snowstorm, the IT intern being really weird about finding my desk, nem being full of upsetting bullshit, returning the awkwardly opened charity envelope, leaving during a team crisis but figuring out the cause just before walking out the door
a busy evening until bedtime,
wednesday 13th:
followed by a busy night, a calm morning right until i needed to leave (venting + miscommunication), arriving late for work
slow and steady progress reinstalling all my tools, but having to deal with live issues under stressful rush conditions and ending up exhausted after a long day. then coming home to go straight back out to do heavy grocery shopping, then help bath mr smear, then miscommunicate badly instead of nap, then go through the whole garbage day routine
approaching midnight with no appetite and a distinct sense of humour failure
thursday 14th:
an uncomfortable mr smear, low spirits morning
soft, light snow on the way to the metro as if the gods had had a pillow fight
bureaucracy revisited, a difficult day working on an enigma that we resolved with some inspired weirdness, heavy and delicious pushap (albeit with some shitty attitude from the waiter), bash scripting fun, almost leaving late for an important appointment
tekken, big field roast sausages (chipotle, painfully deliciously spicy), firefly
friday 15th:
average rest interrupted by indigestion, a morning catching up on social media while monitoring mr smear, a long day trying to avoid doing damage to our code repository, some great limbo and thomas was alone experiences (i got to their inversion points simultaneously, very clever stuff), a little bit of bug fixing in the evening and then home for an exhausted friday night doing nothing
the office idiot chasing me down because he thought my field roast sausage was a real one and he was enthusiastically trying to catch me out - i was offended enough that i couldn't have hid my disdain even if i'd wanted to, and then i felt like an ass for letting someone so stupid get under my skin. did i mention before my realization that the people who's heads i want to bash in the most are the ones least likely to have their cognitive abilities affected by it?
saturday 16th:
making a big mistake while trying to deal with rls and paying for it all the way through the night, a relaxed morning and early afternoon with hunter x hunter and tekken while amusing mr smear (and a pared down version of fluxx by way of introduction), then heading off to the health store and to buy a new baby car seat
of course they've sold out the model on sale and the similar ones are more than twice the price... and of course there're only two people working at babies r us on a saturday afternoon
FUCK. the metro was packed, i was carrying a massive box and they announced my station so i pushed through and got out just in time... for the doors to close behind me as i realized that i had gotten off one station early
totally wiped out after the serious physical exertion, bathing and not-resting and take-out and a failed attempt to continue watching star wars (iv) as gd wasn't feeling well
sunday 17th:
another looooooong night, another early sunday morning. not too bad, beginning the 5th season of the hunter x hunter reboot and being all excited about it. i have adult stuff to do today but... just another few minutes, eh? i need some rest.
