"Puppet wrangler? There weren't any puppets in this movie!" – Crow T. Robot
There were morning pages, and there was another page of short story this evening, and in between there was something approximating work. On my lunch break, I played Portal 2, which is the sort of thing you can do on the days you work from home.
One thing I avoided doing was going outside. It’s apparently very, very cold. I have decided I would prefer to take everyone else’s word for it, at least until tomorrow.
A busy day at work, but luckily it’s the start of a three-day weekend. The office is closed on Monday, and I’m working from home on Tuesday, and honestly I’m looking forward to it mainly for an extra hour or two of sleep in the morning. I am indeed that dull.
I do plan to do some more writing over the weekend, as I’m fast approaching the deadline this short story was meant for. It’s not the end of the world if I miss that deadline, and I can easily rework the story. I just worry that, with that deadline gone, I’ll have an excuse to avoid the work. And I don’t want that. I want to finish this story.
Meanwhile, the stories in the most recent issue of Kaleidotrope — that quarterly online zine I edit and publish — were reviewed at Locus Magazine’s website. Reviewer Lois Tilton, who’s had mixed things to say about the zine in the past, calls these stories “almost all dark, to a greater or lesser degree. Several quite depressing.” But I think she means that in a good way.
And I finished reading John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, which may have made me tear up just a little. But I am a big softy like that. It’s not a perfect book, occasionally a little too clever for its own good, but it’s very touching, and it does that thing that all good books should do: make you miss the characters when they’re gone. I recently discovered Green through his YouTube channel, which I think I discovered mostly because I wanted to subscribe to a YouTube channel that didn’t then immediately vanish.
Anyway, it’s a good book, sweet without being maudlin, and I quite enjoyed it. That, as they say, is all.
Oh, and I (re-)finished playing Portal. On to Portal 2. (You think I’m kidding. I am not.)
This evening, I had these vague plans to go to a local bar with co-workers after work that fell through, either because the plans themselves fell through and nobody was going, or because I just wasn’t interested enough to inquire if the invite from last week was still operational. I hung around until five, finishing the review analysis I was hoping I would finish yesterday, but as I watched one co-worker after another say goodnight and say nothing of the bar, I decided I would probably just go home. I could have checked, since the place is right around the corner, but I really didn’t want to stay out all evening drinking. Two for one happy hour appeals to my wallet, but less to the part of me the drank too much at the office holiday party. I’m not worried about embarrassing myself, just physically feeling like I don’t want to do a lot of drinking. Particularly on a Thursday.
Do you know it was Thursday all day today? There ought to be a law.
So instead of a couple of drinks with co-workers, I went home. And let me tell you, the difference between New York mass transit at 4:30 and 5 o’clock is the difference between purgatory and hell.
I came home and had some scrambled eggs for dinner, did some writing — with some real momentum, if not necessarily word count — and played Portal. Did I mention that I downloaded Portal 1 and 2 again recently? The game’s easier the second time around, but it’s still enough of a challenge — and very funny — that it’s still a lot of fun to play.
So that was my Thursday. I’m sure some other things happened along the way, but those are the highlights, such as they are. “Such as they are” is about the closest I come to highlights, I’m afraid.
Still, tomorrow’s Friday, and then it’s a three-day weekend. Which is very nice.
The cake, though, is still a lie.
It was very dark this morning, dreary and rainy, and every inch a Monday.
I spent the day doing work-type things, sending out close to 150 e-mails in the process. Yeah, it was that kind of day.
Luckily tomorrow’s Tuesday, which means I get to work from home and, maybe more importantly, get to sleep a little later. One should never pass up the opportunity to sleep a little later on a work day, when and if it comes along.
I had an hour-long Emergency Action Plan Refresher Training Session this morning. Aren’t you jealous?
Not quite a year ago, I agreed to be one of our floor’s two male searchers at the office. My duties don’t extend much further than checking the men’s room in case of an emergency evacuation, but I do get a hat that says “Searcher” on it. And I also got to sit through today’s refresher about what to do in case of fire, earthquake, biological or chemical attack, etc. Hopefully, none of that will ever be an issue, but it’s good to know the building takes safety and preparedness seriously.
The rest of the day continued about as expected, although it took a turn for the Thursday-ier after lunch.
I’m quite glad that tomorrow is Friday.