work

Good well hunting

Yesterday was my company’s third annual midtown Manhattan scavenger hunt. I’ve written about this a couple of times before, since this is the third time I’ve participated. It’s all silly and in good fun. You get to leave work early, and the money goes to charity. And this year, I was even on the winning team.

Except I lost my team after the second of what were apparently seven clues, getting separated in the run from Grand Central. After about ten or fifteen minutes of watching other teams — recognizable in our bright yellow banana-themed shirts — pass through but not my own, I walked over to the bar where I knew the scavenger hunt was going to end.

I hung around for another hour or so, basically just standing around outside. Finally, after a number of other people started to arrive, I wandered inside to get a drink. Most of the people there were HR, the folks from three different offices who were running the event, but there was another group that arrived after I did, whose story I didn’t quite catch, but who I think decided somewhere along the way not to continue. These are people from another office, a different company, who I’ll likely never see again…but they did buy me a beer, so that was nice of them. Then I got a free drink when my team arrived — because that’s what the winning team won — full of apologies to me and tales of tired and aching muscles. Apparently, by accidentally bowing out early, I lucked out as well. I got less of a workout, but I also didn’t steered clear of having a heart attack. (I know this may be hard to believe, looking at me, but I am not exactly a long-distance runner.)

I was still a little tired when I got home — two beers on top of twenty minutes running isn’t two beers on top of ninety minutes, but it’s not nothing — so I mostly just watched some television.

I noted this on Twitter, but if you’d told me just a few weeks ago that Hannibal would be one of my favorite shows this year and Community would be my least favorite, I would not have believed you. I should have known I was in trouble when the AV Club’s Todd VanDerWerff, who I feel has been something of an apologist for this not very good fourth season, gave this season finale a D. It was a really dreadful half hour of television, at the end of a pretty lousy season, largely for the reasons that Todd gives. And yet the show has been renewed for a fifth season. I honestly don’t know how to feel about that.

Hannibal, meanwhile, is still on the bubble, though I really hope it comes back. It’s a dark and sometimes very difficult show, definitely not something to watch on a queasy stomach. But it’s also kind of terrific, which is not something I expected from a Hannibal Lecter TV show.

Abracadabra

It rained, a lot, today. Apparently there was even flooding in New York City.

Luckily I didn’t have to go out for lunch, since we had a speaker and sandwiches. The sandwiches, although free, were not remarkable. But the speaker was a local magician, who talked about his career, magic in general, the psychology of misdirection. He performed several tricks and got the audience — myself included, briefly — involved, and I’d say it was probably one of our better “brown bag lunches.”

The rain had stopped by the time I left for the day, and it actually got fairly sunny. So that was nice, too. And somehow I managed to get some work done today. Not completely done — I’m not sure I’ll know what to do with myself when any of the books I’m working on is actually published and off my desk — but measurably further along. Like, I got a lot done yesterday, too — some of which I actually had to repeat today, unfortunately — but I didn’t feel closer to completing a goal.

Today I did. And there was a free lunch and a magic show to boot.

Three-day weekender

Last night, my mom and I went to the simulcast of Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!‘s live show from New York. It was maybe a little odd seeing the show live on a big movie screen, but I’ve seen it live before — once in Chicago, and then at Carnegie Hall — and it was a lot of fun.

Today I didn’t do a whole lot, mostly just took advantage of my day off by sleeping late and lounging about. I watched a little TV — Community‘s episode was kind of dire; Supernatural was okay, but they’re maybe going to the Felicia Day well a little too often — and read some Kaleidotrope submissions. (I think I’m finally moving into stories submitted in February!) And played a little Bioshock. I glanced at my work e-mail, but I didn’t once turn on the laptop I brought home with me.

It’s altogether possible I’ll regret that come Monday morning, but right now I’m in three-day-weekend mode.

Oh, and lest I forget, my music mix from April. It’s just this thing I do:

  1. “A Place Called Home” by Kim Richey
  2. “We the Common” by Thao and the Get Down Stay Down
  3. “Breathing Underwater (Acoustic)” by Metric
  4. “When I’m Alone” by Lissie
  5. “The Humbling River” by Puscifer
  6. “There’s No Home for You Here” by the White Stripes
  7. “The Back Seat of My Car” by Paul McCartney

Wednesday, right?

Today was…you know, I just don’t know. I joked on Twitter that the day just flew by…like a swarm of gnats. And that’s not entirely inaccurate. I just never really got a handle on the day, spent a lot of it doing work that needed doing, but I’m sure if getting anything really done. I had two meetings spring up somewhat unexpectedly in the afternoon, meaning that I forgot entirely about the one meeting (another phone call following up on last week’s campus visit) I already had scheduled. I sent the professor an e-mail to apologize, and hopefully he would have been there in his office anyway, with or without my call.

I’m really glad I’m taking this Friday off, but there’s a part of me that’s thinking I may just bring my laptop home with me and do a little bit of work. There’s just so much of it.