the tail end

last thursday:

choc-chip meringues to bed
deep sleep, deep dreams and a very sore arm and shoulder
one dream of being attacked by thugs in an english station, taking them down and forcing one of them to swallow the end of a lit cigarette
one dream ending in a classroom with a really clever joke i can't recall

relatively fast day prep, shopping with mom and then heading off to knysna
a closed market with nothing we wanted
plettenberg bay game reserve:
1. stunning area, stunning weather
2. loads of animals, and three newborn (within minutes) springbok
3. invisible lions
4. wild dogs
5. gd not being the first to need a toilet break
6. me taking on the idiot who lit up a cigarette on the back of the jeep, and after my lecture he admitted to being from cape town (i would've been too embarrassed)

overall, a gorgeous day
getting lost in a township amidst a battle of perspective
sometimes it just takes my mom to say the things i wish i could have said
a good braai and a loud, pleasantly argumentative dinner

friday:

horrible bellyache throughout the night, dreaming of being in a war and finding a use for some cool toy robots on my downtime, japman and dirk diggler joining me with dirk diggler announcing that he was quitting marijuana

bellyache turning into being sick, struggling to help, surprisingly cheap settling (though we later learned we didn't get what we paid for), a long drive with pinching nerves in harsh heat
visiting my second mum, it was wonderful seeing her but her nephew was really intrusive and irritating
getting back to town, everything all good and then a sudden switch when trying to get a good view of the fog
- i'm a superbad businessman when i'm distracted - getting stuck in traffic -
pleasant sundowners with cousins, trying to recover from such a long day
late dinner, flight comic acquisition, how am i the only one watching master chef?

saturday:

a good sleep, at least
ender's game in graphic novel form: excellent, minus a few confusing battle scenes with didn't translate well
pregnancy anxiety plus lack of medication plus fear of flying home

the inconsiderate parker in a busybody village, the garage fill-up failures, the navigation experiment, the it's-all-gone-very-very-wrong experience and returning to cape town under a black cloud

fixing dinner at posticino

...

klm has a "meet & seat" feature? where you can check out other passenger's profiles? if you've logged in using your facebook/ linkedin profile you can see who's who and even pay to sit next to them. what a gross invasion of privacy! what a repulsive punishment for trusting them by logging in with social media! and just think of all the creeps and con-men who might easily take advantage. we live in a world where phishing scams work.

...

sunday:

early up and well, airplane visit, picking up my sister and her husband to return to philadelphia to discover that we'd turned around mere METRES from our destination :/

a good lunch / drinks, a joyful gd, rushing to spend a tea visit with my little cousin and then on to my aunt's for very pleasant drinks, a quick stop by my toronto cousin's mother and back home feeling completely worn out
rest, salad, bombed on the couch

monday:

rls, long night, flight no-change disturbance, hanging in the hive of scum and villainy that is gallows hill: leg humpers, fidgeting touchers and rubbers, "queue start here" fails and right-eye limited, bribing security with a "donation" to borrow a pen, the long poetry-practice wait
my sister and gd picking me up to go to plant - overeating amazing food - and a final humbling pool run before returning home to pack and say goodbyes

smooth exit, difficult as always but it's nice to know we'll be seeing my mom in a couple of months when our son's born

yesterday:

omfg, dude - don't wake the pregnant woman for mealtimes. from complete relief to complete panic in one second flat.
the usual discomfort + the screen that just wouldn't turn off + the remote cord fail + the neighbour's seat overflow + spilled juice
unwitting toe massages and the luck of the big, friendly giant sleeping the entire flight, gd finally managing to sleep and waking up after breakfast, myself being up and down the whole time with rls

super-fast schipol, comics and complaining and not rejecting my vegan meal, the amazing spiderman 2 and ac/dc - rock or bust
a bummer for the rest of the flight

fairly fast and efficient landing - passport control - baggage claim - shuttle - check-in - security check and then four hours to burn, beginning with a discussion on alternate realities that we face daily

grimm fairy tales: the dream eater saga volume one is gorgeous. almost like once upon a time but with far better writing.

fantastic smoothies, shambling to our gate, a short flight lightly interspersed with confused consciousness, stumbling through the airport to wait through the long line only to learn that the short line was for us, quick baggage claim and a taxi home and prepping for bed and

today:

passing out and waking up and getting to work and doing little but taking forever and a great lunch with cthulhu and star fluxx and standing next to a man farting the blue danube at the urinal and learning symfony and trying to leave early but getting caught by a last-minute issue that took an hour to fix and rushing home to a great dinner and good laughs and the watchmen movie.

fancourt fan

it's BEAUTIFUL here!

sunday:

v&a hyperviper drinks (one too many for me), shopping fail, vegan selection date fail, coffee lunch with krybabie's mother (not pushy at all), shopping success and then a total regression; silently bargaining and forgetting that my south african local number doesn't handle sms'es

a great great-aunt visit, lecturing my uncle about my brother, excellent dinner with company and interesting talks until way late

monday:

until very late. and then waking up needing to rewatch battlestar galactica, packing for the week, returning the rental, a long drive in beautiful weather through gorgeous countryside to hermanus; a stunning house and getting deep into debate with tgtbt and her mother, more driving and stopping at the blue goose in gansbaai for delicious food - i even scored a completely vegan meal.

a long lost drive trying to get back on the road to swellendam, crazy-long drive and getting cold but landing in the lap of luxury

good dinner, a needed rest and final fantasy vi, passing out after a bag of crisps and getting a good night's sleep

yesterday:

not the best pillows, but a great sleep nonetheless. dreaming of privacy violations and shouting at a survey agent in a restaurant, starting the day by removing the worst kind of malware from my mom's computer (anti-virus software, if you have windows firewall and microsoft security essentials, *avoid* mcafee, avg and norton)

long drive to the cango caves:

a) not at all as planned

b) gd wasn't comfortable

c) rude israelis who didn't listen and wouldn't shut up until i said something in hebrew, and demonstrated zero concept of personal space

obviously, those very same israelis would have the same plan as us and we all did the cango wildlife tour together afterwards. fortunately, our very clever guide knew how to keep us (mostly) separate and thoroughly entertained gd by freaking me out as much as possible. at least i can be grateful that gd doesn't need to go to israel to understand why i can't deal with those people.

the lemur experience was awesome.

"as ma is my witness" - if gd's this happy here, and if south africa somehow gets itself back on track, then sure, i'll return with her.

quick shopping at shoprite, almost fighting with the "car guards".

long drive, old people in the way, parmesan spar stress and me-the-vibe-killer trying to be helpful and failing

great dinner, chat, falling asleep early and waking up with only a vague sense of having had incredible dreams

today:

a good night's sleep, but both of us waking from weird dreams and gd with return anxiety

a peaceful, relaxed morning - very peaceful - more reading mind-blowing things in 50 people who stuffed up south africa

k-twang's reply, as patched as can be expected

lost in town, foo bar and then lauren's deli: i haven't had good falafel since i left israel, that place is simply wonderful!

serious shopping, awesome gd dinner, resting

america in the news

boston bombers and southern carolina's slager vs scott.

first, the discussion about the death penalty is absolutely silly. the death penalty should be dropped, but for every sentence of any length prisoners should be put to work on the kinds of jobs nobody else wants. bring back chain gangs en masse, turn prisons into labour camps. who wouldn't think twice about committing a crime when facing a lifetime of hard labour?

oh, and the amount of face time the bombers' ugly mugs are getting is absurd - more fame for them, more incentive for other pathetic morons to follow suit.

second, as gd says: the whole country should be protesting "i can't breathe" right now. omg.

in both cases, paying attention to the media narratives is utterly frustrating. are these "journalists" completely unaware of the effect they're producing?

touching cape town

monday:

relatively smooth check-in and security, the wrong choice of shoes making it offensive to take them off

tuesday:

the worst take-off and flight ever, everything plus hormones, back and neck pain, metal boxes in lieu of legroom, seat dividers that don't raise and inconsiderate leaners; general discomfort, no vegan meal, reading myself to sleep and waking up a short while later holding a giant book, gd's bag on my lap, dry lips, airplane gas and rls.

when 4am becomes 9am 

a landing so bad that *i* felt sick, and gd was feeling nauseous from the get-go

well, i promised gd i would find her a place to rest and it was my bright idea to pack our jackets and nobody informed the unhappy pregnant couple that there's a "slow lounge", so we were in london, i dropped a large chunk of our rent money for next month on a hotel room next to the airport and we weren't going anywhere until our flight boarded.

an expensive, but incredibly good sleep, an utterly ridiculously expensive lunch that gd couldn't get down, a return to bed for another while

meeting my niece for coffee, rushing through security and the elevators and train to make our gate just in time; seat rearrangements,

wednesday:

nausea from a to b with and without the overpowering smells, nothing remotely vegetarian (for me), exhaustion giving me daddy practice and scoring gd a few hours' upgrade... sore necks and general discomfort, but a couple of emotional daddy-club moments. not getting any of my reading or gaming done.

super-fast airport clearing, which could have been even faster. a great start to our visit, emotional chicken, resting, my sister and her son and pool talk and my uncle and a walk and AMAZING postacino pizza and gd's appetite returning

thursday:

great sleep, ice-cold canadian, beautiful slow morning, mr price is right, a long i-told-you-to-put-on-sunscreen sunny walk with great lunch and ice cream and a super awkward "black like me" followed by my super-wrong not-witty-at-all response

picking up the car, picking up the girl and her new dress

my sister's big mouth to the rescue, good vibes all around, resting

the sunset drive, a raucously great, long night with gd in her new onesie and protoplasm (our boy's godfather) and his girlfriend and my mom

friday:

late to bed, late to rise

a day of passover preparations

some great fun and positivity followed by some real negativity in the form of my aunt

absolute exhaustion

a reply from k-twang: i was sorry before, with reservations, but now i'm completely sorry and grateful for his clarifications. i have learned a lesson in the ugliest way.

in spite of all that, a wonderful seder and gd receiving a warm welcome into our fold. a good walk after everyone left.

yesterday:

a draft response, straight to bed

waking up from a dream about being a campus failure, getting involved when two thugs tried to terrorize the students.

...

ugly start to the day thinking about the boar at the beginning of princess mononoke, bringing bread into the passover home and gd distraction

shadowslight visit and meeting airplane for a great long lunch at van hunks

totally wasted, the pasta dilemma; big route disappointment and returning to the pizzaria restaurant which was excellent; gd's all-in on (most of) my family and on cape town in general

finally sending k-twang a response, leaving out the following:

i must admit that i'm grateful to hear your side in all this. regarding my knowledge of your plans, i wasn't planning on officiating at your wedding without being registered as an official authority and we clearly had a misunderstanding about that. i'm not old-fashioned, and i couldn't give a rat's ass if you're actually married or not as long as you love each other but to my mind a "wedding" is about celebrating the official moment and i felt - rightly or wrongly - very strongly about it being celebrated along with or even after the fact. it may not be of much consequence to you that i'm conflicted about that after what you've written, i do see where you're coming from even if i feel that things could've / should've been represented differently somehow.

this morning:

i'm not reposting pictures of the kenya attack, they're simply horrific. what was the victims' crime in this case? where's the noise? if i haven't seen any outrage on my feeds, i call "hypocrisy". or "cowardice".

interminalable

*last* sunday:

a most decadent morning spent working hard on a poetry video

le juicy lotus for a great lunch (the owner's daughter shouldn't have talked about us in hebrew)

godmother's for coffee, some helpful advice but a frustrated gd

signing up for fiverr

evening exhaustion

*last* monday:

drafting an apology to k-twang

early coffee mission in freakishly cold wind

not the worst monday - awesome trance, some fun python and a very short nerf battle, an incredible compliment to start my day and my new poem really starting to feel *good*

running around for a dryer part, finally finding it but in the wrong size...

a long chat with my mom followed by a long chat with gd, dinner fail

mind expanded by http://www.newsweek.com/2015/01/02/thats-not-what-bible-says-294018.html

tuesday:

holy #&$£barrel! what *is* it with these people?!?!

http://www.upworthy.com/john-oliver-goes-off-on-a-terrible-practice-that-was-supposed-to-be-outlawed-in-the-1830s

poetry video inspiration, metro practice

being stupidly tired at work, caffeine not helping 

a long lunch prepping my poem

facepalming to my previous team deploying broken code

gd's cryptic midday message

leaving late and tired with a pinching nerve and blurry vision

...

quick shopping and peaceful welcome

<silence>

wednesday:

a good morning, if a little slow, running into an old gym-buddy / new co-worker on the metro while trying to learn my new poem

really? sql injection emergencies? why do we bother performing code reviews?

star fluxx is AWESOME.

<embarrassing bathroom incident>

learning - at the end of the day- that i'd spent a day doing the wrong thing, but at least learning a lot on the way

a new illustrator on board! perfect timing ^_^

joe rogan - live from the tabernacle

the 11.30 homeless phone call

thursday:

complaining about 6.30am and thinking about four months' time

rushing to the wrong wing of the hospital

...

the most sublime, psychedelic ultrasound experience: we have a little man on the way! seeing him formed, from his brain to his heart to his tiny toes, his posing and his reposing...

... unreal. amazing. beautiful. exhilarating.

...

firefighting while high on the morning's experience, facebook ghost-writing for hac, awesome amba group pushap lunch, manager daddy-lecture and nerf wars, working late but methodically getting stuff done

home late, short rest, dinner and nutrition inspiration, fly swatting

starting my son's email dropbox, being touched by the first hour of the intouchables

friday:

a violently sudden wakeup realizing that i needed to go to the passport office, straightforward procedure, slow but good work progression, godmother dropoff

even as a joke, don't accuse a manager of cheating at fluxx :(

long day, ending late, big compliments

gd's brother's surprise, shopping, family planning, the century of the self and being too tired to eat

saturday:

a great night's sleep but waking up from disturbing, tedious dreams involving people trying and failing to be decent and a dungeons and dragons mission that involved a LOT of spiders and a cherry bomb under the grotesque corpse of a fallout-style alien.

a social media morning, a little stressed about things in general (why can't the world just be cool for a minute?) and skipping what could have been my last opportunity to snowboard this season because it's too expensive and we're about to travel...

a short day resting, chilling, adoring the end of the intouchables (magnificent!), going to bed early

-- kicking rls in the legs --

sunday:

good start mailing the future, warshaw curtains fail and walmart desperation, all while tightening up my new piece and preparing to record

hanging curtain-rails, lunch, shopping, first-world problems, saying goodbye to the old apartment, sudden exhaustion before packing, walking the dog, packing

monday:

sleep of the dead, long coffee and flight comics

rushed morning at work, closing down my sprint, stupid rush to finish packing (i'd done my part) - nothing like having to hurry to wait for many hours because gd's brother wanted to "do us a favour"

flight cancellation on a two-leg trip when travelling pregnant: wow. but the reroute through london is at least a chance to see some family...

linkage! and fat rants.

apple's losing it.

robert downey jr.'s winning it.

guitar solo faces explained.

earl sinclair IS notorious b.i.g.!

tanyer's rules for jiu-jitsu are spot on

america's making strides in the war on the war on drugs! they're now starting to get the message on a federal level. well done!

speaking of backwards things, rick scott is an asshole.

ooh - a tattoo pain chart.

---okay, so i think abby howard's AWESOME. but she did this comic on body image recently that upset me. why did it upset me? because being healthily large is NOT a problem, but being obese IS. it's unhealthy, and it puts a load on our health services and increases our resource requirements when we're already beyond capacity. it's not offensive unless you're sharing space on crowded public transport which isn't designed for obesity, like in economy class on planes; if somebody doesn't like the look, well, that's their problem and they can keep it to themselves.

but my real frustration stems from the fact that she's apparently into science, and she talks about how she's tried eating healthy. really? like, whose idea of healthy? was it a fad diet, like low carbs or paleo? or the "i'm not eating dessert" diet? because if she'd actually bothered to do a little research, she might have come across the huge body of literature that shows convincing evidence that the only "healthy" diet is a whole-food, plant-based one. if you're eating the western-consumer diet, where "healthy" means eggs and bacon for breakfast, red meat and chicken salads and lots and lots of dairy... well, that's not healthy.

show me a picture of an obese person on a whole-foods, plant-based diet. not vegan, because not eating animal products does not equate to eating healthy. whole-foods, plant-based. you wouldn't be able to keep your weight up if you tried.

apocalyptic

has it been a week? it feels like a lifetime.

last saturday:

a disappointing morning, a good lunch and nap and a groggy wakeup

snowstorm!! awesome stuff, coming down apocalyptic

rls on the bus home

a quiet night in the nothing box

...

when it comes to jokes, timing is everything... so it's unfortunate that this suddenly popped into my head a few months too late:

to all computer geeks, i *do* listen. people kept telling me to go fork myself, so now my girlfriend's pregnant.

last sunday:

a proper start to a sunday, gd's-going-to-be-a-mother's day

"there's no smothering without mother"

tax anxiety, cleaning stress but surprisingly quickly reclaiming a room, landlord disappointment, heavy shopping and a long, fun evening with horseman

monday:

revenu quebec and reading lists and krs-one on mainstream hip-hop

slow morning, fluxx flurry, introduction to a new project and google's ingress

system shutdown due to extreme exhaustion 
python studies, shadowrun planning

leaving late, learning that gd's passport WASN'T being processed and they never bothered to inform her when she'd called last week when we would have had time to re-apply without paying the express fee. later, after much suppressed frustration, learning that they *had* bothered to leave voicemail that hadn't been cleared.

a remarkably crap night.

tuesday:

a remarkably crap morning.

calling in sick. resting. passport canada *almost* pleasurable. resting more.

wednesday:

dreaming of weather-controlled arcologies, a pleasant morning and a good start to the workday. my old boss walking a full circuit of the office wearing the custom panties we bought him

an enjoyable and confidence-building end to the day (impressing the guy who built a wickedly smart system by fixing one of its features)

buying the wrong mounting stuff and not being able to put up the mirror, being inspired to work on a new poem, shopping and chilling and going to bed early

thursday:

a great, early start to the day, the cleaning lady coming in at 8 and us all having a good talk until it was time to leave the women to their thing and get to work

i don't really get how ingress works.

forgotten keycard shame, strategy and bull meetings pride, green team meeting satisfaction

post-lunch investigations, then a long, relaxed afternoon not really making much progress but learning a little along the way

chatting with the guy i'm replacing, discovering that my teammate whose seat i've moved to is an illustrator and arranging a lunch meeting

home, pharmacy, relaxing

yesterday:

bad dreams gone wild: camping and being chased by a tenacious bee only able to defend myself with an unwieldy bag and running for ages, sexually assaulted in bogota and then ripped off by an angry sales clerk

gd's rush-to-work whirlwind, post-tidy loss of all my gear

a slow day with a boring auditing task, cancelled illustrator meeting

cold fingers from ingress training

transferring from 000webhost (who are utterly abhorrent) and spending my evening improving my phone control system, minus a short sugar mission

today:

early up, stabilizing my phone control software

have i been in that starbucks enough that they remember my name? [oh, she simply overheard gd's friend greeting me]

a painful laser treatment, quick shopping + breakfast and chatting with my mum

an afternoon on phone control, with a good nap (with joe rogan live in the background - brilliant) and a visit from horseman and a chat with SxS during which i discovered a huge screw-up with our return flight... our stop in new york? two different airports. %#&$.

sunday:

dreaming about being bullied and fighting back. dreaming other weird dreams and struggling to get up and talk about them without being sucked back deeper into the rabbit hole.

starting the day with biblical stories.

summary report: groovy

monday:

big shopping

amazing pushap lunch

the my-new-team's-in-trouble meeting

six straight hours of bash-hating

in a rush and urgently using a public toilet while wearing a sweater and jacket, which gd informs me is what women usually experience in winter

geriatric evening at walmart, on both sides of the counter

helping a slow crutchwalker home

gd's delicious dinner, homeless o'clock at the dep

gameloading: rise of the indies is awesome! i'm very glad i backed it ^_^

tuesday:

tough getting out of such a comfortable bed, a good start to the day and then getting hit with a fine for jay-walking right outside the metro. with a little tension from asshole-cop...

how romantic, we each got matching fines...

a good start to the workday, long but productive

is the c++ team manager trying to recruit me too?

discovering that 78% *is* complete when the original estimate is bad

spring thaw: the temperature's risen and it's almost mid-march and i pretty much missed out on the snowboarding season :(

a pleasant start to an utterly shit evening with an old apartment pickup

luxuria superbia is highly addictive, and very, very awkward in terms of how it makes you interact with a device. the sound and the visuals are amazing, worth the money all round.

wednesday:

a great start to a stunning spring day that i enjoyed in spite of myself, scripting level up, judaica mission


leaving later than planned, but discovering that a few of my teammates are neighbours and into wall climbing 

weirdness synchronization, dinner, luxuria superbia and then suddenly crashing

thursday:

trying to sleep in, battling online, my first day without bandaids since the laser surgery, feeling a good morning on the way to work

good progress (i learned cake), good fluxx, a simple and constructive afternoon, finishing all my tasks and working on a personal project to improve a really dodgy setup

being lectured about overtime by a pregnant teammate who was thrilled to hear about gd and is full of advice

a really nice, chilled evening with exciting news from my mom ^_^

RIP terry pratchett: someone's playing dice with the gods tonight. reading the colour of magic to gd in his memory

yesterday:

an early, but grand morning. the cic dude recognized me and was really cool. taking a long starbucks detour so i could speak to an aerospace recruiter, but he didn't call back so it became an excuse for a very pleasant walk before work.

my manager's so excited and impressed by my performance that he really doesn't want me to try for his other team! and i'm enjoying myself too :)

so it's official, i'm now an "infrastructure developer"

a great afternoon, connecting with the gamers from our QA team, finishing strong and leaving early while the sun was still up!

apartment cleansing with mezuzot and candlelighting and vfmp's housewarming gift of carcassonne's winter edition, which CAN be treated as an expansion pack, even if doing so for only two people was a bit ambitious

today so far:

a short night but a good rest, gd waking up a little before me for pre-snowboard coffee. leaving late but still not too bad considering how much nearee we live to the metro now

*a heart filled with gratitude*

not a bad rest on the bus, taking my time for coffee before hitting the slopes and being floored by some of the feature articles in wired's "sex in the digital age"

ice and powder, a little awkward at first but feeling smoother as the morning progressed

linkage!

i mentioned the wankband recently, but what was really weird was seeing this under the "related" section... could the connection be stronger than mere genre?

from realistic cartoon characters to cartoon characters as humans, this artwork is gorgeous!

security experts want you to know this stuff. it's a good idea.

now, for a different kind of security: an analysis of the 2014 gaza action.

a lot of take-out

thursday:

a long, emotional day but filled with interesting challenges. joining the new team for drinks (but without either of my managers), great fun! awkward goodbyes to a thankfully not-awkward team

p.m. mission. back home with a sulk to receive a bloody good talking to.

friday:

a long night, forgotten dreams, difficulty waking up, johnny macrae's love your weird making my morning

a long, tough day with some light at the end of the ten-hour mark; awkward but satisfying team farewell  lunch and forgetting my thawing lunch in the fridge when i left for the weekend :/

walmart running out of doorstops and it taking me three sections to find someone to confirm it

a relaxed evening, getting to bed early 

saturday:

waking up early too to go shopping for stuff that nobody sells any more and to learn how simple bank transfers don't work in canada. getting a full box of the wrong protein bars - i HATE dates! - and needing a rest before returning to sort out the old apartment 

the very friendly but disturbing woman who thought she recognized me (i was wearing my ski mask)

washing machine with hot and cold switched and weight training with a bloody heavy box of goods

getting the heating switch confused and slowly cranking it up because i was suffering from it being too high

i was about to take a nap when i heard... water dripping from the bathroom ceiling. or, after speaking to the neighbours, what i *hoped* was water.

storming around until the landlord finally responded and gd got home, a busy but good evening and an early night

yesterday:

waking up early in anticipation of the cleaning lady coming in (but daylight savings change, so really early). thought for international women's day: "we're celebrating by cleaning our apartment. i'm kinda helping"

a furiously energetic clean and tidy, good music and good vibes and a habitable apartment.

exhaustion, sling blade, the maroon 5 lighter and a great night's sleep.

a painful move and a long week

saturday:

copper branch with vfmp, shake powder run and coffee - dizzy and tired and an uncomfortable moment of tacitly agreeing to leave an understanding unsaid

feeling like shit, lying down and then greeting gd with a difficult conversation that resolved a few important issues

an evening of packing and self care. and freaking out about not having packed in time, and a rushed, highly successful mission to steal a fat stack of newspapers from the metro

sunday:

early up to move

vacuum weight training , -15 and overheating 

a knot of cables

indoor slush, frantic confusion, a nightmare whirlwind of good spirits, scrapes and bruises, hormonal stress and a neighbour antagonizing gd's 6'11" brother and his hired hand who're serious brawlers

i'm quite pleased with myself for the kind of shit i can carry

desperately needing the pizza and a proper break... the BEST nap but very short. returning with gd for the bathroom, then returning alone a few more times.

the mind-bogglingly bad decisions gd's brother made while helping us pack (not only did we start too late but our old apartment is so small that we ran out of space after three boxes)

the curious incident of the shelf foot lost in the snow in the nighttime - calling gd to help me identify a possible match, giving up and the finding it two meters further on.

monday:

after almost 18 straight hours of physically demanding effort and high stress (not including the previous night's frantic last-minute newspaper stack stealing and packing), i was surprised to put myself to bed in our new bedroom around 1.30am feeling exhausted, but otherwise pretty darned good.

i got up six hours later in the body of a geriatric. with little strength, a sore everything and a slight shake. just in time to meet my new team at work. happy monday!

...

finishing why men don't listen and women can't read maps, which should be updated and then be set as mandatory reading in every junior high / high school on the planet

a buyer for my bluetooth keyboard, a super-awkward interview with two potential managers vying for me

finishing minimum requirements, being kicked out early, a walmart run in gorgeous post-snowglobe weather, a bookshelf purchase and urgent pizza and a nap so great i woke up stoned

quick shopping (a successful draino experience), and being overwhelmed by the amount of crazy shit in my news feed, from the horrific photos of the fire in cape town to ISIS pulling off a real-life titus andronicus moment by feeding a hostage to his mother, from a weasel on the back of a flying woodpecker to a man freaking out and attacking his whole office...

facebook survey irony

tuesday:

fresnaye dreams, back in the house i grew up in; my uncle cooking and his guest leaving the toilet in a sickening state, k-twang around but we're avoiding each other and then meeting a strange family on a lawn where our backyard used to be.

getting on a shuttle flight with a torn ticket, huddled in a small cabin. wire's in front, hands me a giant sketch book he's been scribbling in and invites me to collaborate - i complete a crappy but readable comic strip and then learn that the book belongs to the girl next to him and she didn't authorize anyone touching it, she's mortified and the rest of the cabin (including my team's QA guy, though his eyes are tiny green emeralds set inches deep into his face) jump on me. i wake up moments before my alarm goes off.

there's a 24 hour stompie hotline, cape town? use it!

i love our shower, i don't love that we're not yet ready to make breakfast but gd's got friends coming to help out today [or not]. stepping out into a brilliant sunny morning still yawning but looking forward to the day.

back to bash scripting, and then delving deep into apache territory. it looks like at least half of my new position is going to be fun and challenging and not at all what i signed up for

an evening of shopping, simmering, step-by-step unpacking

yesterday:

going to bed in a blackout, jumbled dreams, cracking open the window to combat the extreme dryness

DAMN. i've never been so relieved to see so many status updates about rain before... i pray it's enough! [it wasn't]

http://view.vzaar.com/2900141/player

some morning frustrations, but a great start to the workday. presenting our manager with his "beloved tyrant" shirt in front of the boss (for whom we had nothing) was pretty awkward. even more so when he said "*i* didn't get a shirt", so now we're ordering him a personalized thong.

a long, tough afternoon chasing my tail and growing more and more tired by the minute 

1. lessons from why men don't listen and women can't read maps might have been absorbed mentally but they're not so easily put into practice

2. purim sameach: reading bible stories to gd

3. titan ae

and passing out early, in spite of really bad rls

today:

waking up to brush teeth, then flop back down into long, strange dreams

no need to rush every morning

half moving desks