monthly mix

Telecommuter

I woke up earlier than I might have liked — on a day when, because I’m working from home, I get to sleep in an extra hour or even two — because I’d scheduled a service appointment with a Verizon phone technician a week ago, and I was expecting them between the hours of eight and noon. I was, of course, foolish to expect this…and I probably should have expected that. The house phone has been dead for about a week and a half, and Verizon didn’t seem too eager to do anything about that. When I put in the repair ticket last Wednesday, I was told (by an automated system, not by a human being) that the earliest they could be out was this Monday. But since I would be home anyway on Tuesday…

Well, after a lot of waiting around (and a few calls on my cell phone to the Verizon service number), the repair tech showed up around 2:30. And while he was able to pinpoint roughly where the problem was coming from — or at least the radius in which to look — he didn’t know the area or have the right maps, and by the time he got back to the office and looked it up on the computer with the foreman, the day would be over. I didn’t mention that it was still not yet three o’clock, or that he was supposed to have been there at least three hours earlier. Honestly, he seemed nice enough and I have no reason to doubt him. I suspect the mix-up (which I didn’t mention) was at Verizon’s end. The tech said he’d come back tomorrow, and the problem’s outside, so I don’t have to be there.

Which is good, because I have an early start of it tomorrow, heading to Connecticut to meet an author and do some campus calling. (And while I think the dog knows what to do with burglars, and he will be here, he’s not especially tech-savvy or good and answering the front door.)

Well, that was Tuesday. This being the first of May and all, then, let me leave you with my April mix of new (or just new to me) music. A short, short mix this month, but I like everything on it:

  1. “We Are Young” by Fun (feat. Janelle Monae)
  2. “Dancing With Myself” Nouvelle Vague
  3. “Listening to Levon” by Marc Cohn
  4. “Little Talks” by Of Monsters and Men
  5. “Hey Jane” by Spirtiualized
  6. “The Night” by Exitmusic

April fooling

March was kind of a weird month for me.

http://www.unreality.net/weblog/?p=8390″>got sick pretty early on, actually still nursing what I thought was a cold from February, and I spent the whole first full week of the month at home with pneumonia. While I was out, two of my co-workers were let go (“made redundant” in our UK office’s phrasing), and it was more than a little bit of a shock.

Shortly after I got back to work — the very day, in fact — eager to shake off the cabin fever that a week stuck at home will cause, I learned that I, too, would be leaving the group. I’m still working for the company, and in the same role, but as a part of our larger development group. In the short term, it’s meant a lot of changes and learning of new procedures, figuring out what I will (and will no longer) be responsible for, and that’s a process that’s still going on. I have a new boss, new colleagues, and while for the rest of the year at least I’ll continue to work on psychology and mental health titles, I’ll no longer even be sitting on the same side of the office as them.

On Friday, I moved most of my things to my new cubicle. My new computer — the one I got last Monday, when some malware basically destroyed the old one — will hopefully follow if it didn’t over the weekend. My work phone number is supposed to be staying the same — meaning, I guess, that my business cards aren’t completely out of date — but I’m sure I’ll have a couple of questions for IT before the week is out.

The good news, I guess, is I can see them now from where I sit.

I spent exactly one month in that first cubicle — from April 4, 2011, actually — and a lot longer working for the same team. I think this change will ultimately be good, though both for my own career and for the team. It’s been just one of many changes to have happened since the start of the new year, and the changes came especially fast and furious throughout March. (I didn’t even mention the fact that I turned thirty-five.) In some ways, quite honestly, I’m glad the month is over. I’m nervous about that’s to come, and what’s expected of me, but I’m also eager to start really working on developing books.

Speaking of books, that whole week at home really played havoc with the rhythm I had going up til then, reading about one book a day. A lot of them were (and continue to be) comics and graphic novels, but even those wound up going unread the week I was out. I seem to have spent most of my time doing little more than watching several seasons of 30 Rock. I’m trying to get caught back up, but my secret, in-my-sick-head-only goal of getting the total up to 366 titles may not be doable at this point.

I did listen to some music this month, though, and here’s my mix for March for whatever that’s worth:

  1. “Rivers and Roads” by the Head and the Heart
  2. “Les plus beaux” by Fránçois & the Atlas Mountains
  3. “History Book” by Dry the River
  4. “Lego” by Lady Leshurr
  5. “House of Circles” by Mr. Gnome
  6. “Landfill” by Daughter
  7. “Manchester” by Kishi Bashi
  8. “The Concept” by Teenage Fanclub
  9. “Tea for the Tillerman” by Cat Stevens
  10. “Houdini” by Foster the People
  11. “Helicopter” by Bloc Party
  12. “The Dreaming Moon” by the Magnetic Fields
  13. “Turn into Earth” by the Yardbirds
  14. “Skyscrapers” by OK Go

Beyond all that, there’s not a whole lot to report. I spent the rainy day cleaning and watching some TV (Fringe, Supernatural, Community) and doing the Sunday crossword. Regular stuff.

Time now, I think, for bed. I want to be at work early tomorrow.

Marching forth

Today was really rather Thursdayish, wasn’t it?

Since I don’t have much of anything else to say about the day — I mean, I finished reading the deeply disappointing Her Fearful Symmetry, but that’s about it — here’s my music mix for February 2012:

  1. “Paper Plane” by Persephone’s Bees
  2. “Sugar” by the Horrible Crowes
  3. “Ghost Riders in the Sky” by Concrete Blonde
  4. “Raining in My Heart” by Graham Nash
  5. “Hope in the Air” by Laura Marling
  6. “Uku” by Dengue Fever
  7. “Rivers and Roads” by the Head and the Heart
  8. “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” by Jackson Browne
  9. “Smokescreen” by Willis
  10. “Les plus beaux” by Fránçois & the Atlas Mountains

Is it really March already?

January tunes

What songs, you might very well not be asking yourself, did I listen to most in the first month of this brave new year, 2012? Well, if you really want to know:

  1. “Love Makes All the Other Worlds Go Around” by Dan Bern & Common Rotation
  2. “Ok” by Beastie Boys
  3. “Little Black Submarines” by the Black Keys
  4. “Say Yes” by Lucy Wainwright Roche (feat. Ira Glass)
  5. “Outside of the Inside” by Richard Thompson Band
  6. “Dirty Blue” by Wovenhand
  7. “Was a Sunny Day” by Paul Simon
  8. “The Suburbs” by Arcade Fire
  9. “Starlight” by Rachael Yamagata

And yes, that Ira Glass.

December songs

One last bit of 2011 business, and that’s my December music mix:

  1. “Holy Moses” by Washington
  2. “Redemption Song” by Johnny Cash & Joe Strummer
  3. “Telephone Road” by Steve Earle (w/ the Fairfield Four)
  4. “Gangsta” by Tune-Yards
  5. “Gunfight Epiphany” by Robert Duncan
  6. “I Know What I Am” by Band of Skulls
  7. “Trois Gymnopédies: Gymnopédie No. 1” by Erik Satie (perf. by Frank Glazer
  8. “Storm Comin'” by the Wailin’ Jennys
  9. “Shake it Out” by Florence + the Machine
  10. “Buckjump” by Trombone Shorty (feat. the Rebirth Brass Band, 5th Ward Weebie)
  11. “Howlin’ for You” by the Black Keys
  12. “Le plus beau du quartier” by Carla Bruni
  13. “Colours” by Grouplove
  14. “Music Box” by Regina Spektor
  15. “Ripchord” by Rilo Kiley
  16. “Video Games” by Lana Del Rey
  17. “This Sky” by the Derek Trucks Band

Probably not of any interest to me, but there’s what I was listening to, more or less, last month.