September 17, 2002
There. Now that I've gotten my Weetabix fix and my Jill fix, I'm ready to start my day. An hour late, to be sure, but as long as I can have my little settling-in routine sometime before 10:00, I'm okay. The 8:00 meeting and the 8:30 meeting set my time schedule off a bit, but I'm made of sterner stuff than that.
This month's WordGoddess topic is a day-in-the-life kind of thing. I've done that once before, here, and really, not much has changed at all.
5:20 a.m. - Alarm goes off. Calvin stumbles out of bed, trips over my sneakers (I left them in front of the dresser), and re-sets the clock for another half-hour of sleep.
5:50 a.m. - Alarm goes off again. Calvin gets up and goes into the bathroom. I hear the shower start, and I hear him head out to the kitchen to start the coffee. I hear him yell at the cat for something (probably playing in the stack of read newspapers). I roll over and squinch my eyes shut.
6:20 a.m. - Calvin emerges from the bathroom, coffee and newspaper in hand. He turns on the television and the bedside lamp. I roll over, squint my eyes at the clock, and groan. I have to get up in 10 minutes.
6:20 - 6:30 a.m. - Listen to the inane chatter of Arizona's morning news program.
6:32 a.m. - Proceed to lay in denial, in bed, and mentally calculate how far back in my routine staying in bed until 6:45 would set me. Yell at the cat (who has launched himself up on the bed and is attacking my feet).
6:40 a.m. - Lever my ass out of bed. Turn on the shower. Go pee. Weigh myself. Roll my eyes.
6:50 a.m. - Emerge from the shower. Kiss Calvin goodbye as he is on his way out through the bathroom.
6:50 - 6:55 a.m. - Dry off, get dressed, yell at the cat (who is trying to climb inside my pant leg and attack my foot as it's emerging through the cuff).
6:55 - 7:20 a.m. - Put mousse in hair, comb through, clean out ears, put on face moisturizer, examine eyebrows for rouge hairs, apply base, apply blush, apply mascara, blow dry hair, put up in pony tail, curl bangs, kiss Marie goodbye as she's on her way out to the bus, yell at the cat (who is now trying to climb *up* my pants leg and achieve the summit of the bathroom counter).
7:20 - 7:30 a.m. - Go out to the kitchen. Open freezer to remove a slice of sprouted bread. Yell at the cat (who has climbed into the freezer and is trying to hide behind some frozen chicken). Thaw bread in microwave, and open pantry door to get a paper plate. Yell at the cat (who has bolted into the pantry and is trying to hide inside an empty soda box). Place bread in toaster. Open the refrigerator door to remove yogurt, almond butter, and milk. Yell at the cat (who has climbed into the refrigerator and is trying to climb into one of the door shelves, behind the row of jam jars). Remove bread from toaster, spread almond butter, pour coffee, apply cream and sugar, open yogurt container, get spoon and napkin. Open the kitchen closet door to throw away the yogurt top. Yell at the cat (who has bolted into the closet and has hidden behind the dog food).
7:30 - 7:45 a.m. - Sit in front of computer and eat breakfast. Read Robyn. Read Eliza (yay, Eliza!). Check to see if Sherry has had her baby yet. Check my e-mail. Respond to Heather (Hi, Heather!). Yell at the cat for getting in my dried flowers. Pick up the cat and cuddle him for three microseconds (all he'll tolerate) then swear as he launches himself from my lap and scratches my arm in the process.
7:45-7:55 a.m. - Brush teeth, put shoes and socks on (or, you know, socks and shoes - in what order do YOU put your clothes on?). Yell at cat (who is now trying to play with my shoe laces and scratches my hand). Grab keys, lock bedroom doors (after making sure the cat is out). Pick up the cat for one more snuggle (purr purr purr...). Oh sure, NOW he's all nice.
7:55 - 8:00 a.m. - Drive to work.
8:02 a.m. - Settle in to the first meeting of the day.
8:30 a.m. - Settle in to the second meeting of the day.
9:00 - 9:30 a.m. - Get to desk. Boot up computer and log into network. Turn on desk lamps. Take water bottle to water cooler and fill. Check e-mail, respond to several. Check calendar. Observe that my next meeting isn't until 11:00. Check stock prices. Snort derisively. Read Weetabix and Jill. Remember that I still owe a WordGoddess contribution. Fire up Homesite and start an entry.
9:30 a.m. - Put Fleetwood Mac's Greatest Hits in the CD drive, put on my headphones.
9:31 - 11:00 a.m. - Work on MOR analysis for four of my modules. ("You can go your own waaaaaay (go your own way). You can call it another lonely day...") Get that same sinking feeling I used to get in 10th grade when faced with a trigonometry problem I just couldn't get. Fiddle with numbers. Scratch my head. Fiddle with more numbers. Record assumptions. Close file. Open file again. Stare bemusedly at the formula (Excel), which scrolls down for four lines in the formula bar, and try to figure out why it's not giving me the numbers I want.
I kid you not. Just look at it:
=IF(OR(AND($F$232>1.5,MOD($F$232,0.05)<>0),$F$233>20), "Calculate this manually",($F$233-ROUNDDOWN($F$233,0))*(VLOOKUP($F$232,Ashcroft,ROUNDUP($F$233,0)+1,TRUE)-VLOOKUP($F$232,Ashcroft,ROUNDDOWN($F$233,0)+1,TRUE))+VLOOKUP($F$232,Ashcroft,ROUNDDOWN($F$233,0)+1,TRUE))
11:00 - 11:10 a.m. - Go to cafeteria. Wait for the next person I'm meeting with to show up. Try not to look dorky, like I've been stood up. Get stood up.
11:10 - 11:15 a.m. - Go back to desk. Continue working on analysis. Continue cursing. Put on Andrew Lloyd Webber. Love "The Music of the Night" so much I replay it twice.
Night-time sharpens,
Heightens each sensation...
Darkness wakes
And stirs imagination...
Silently the senses
Abandon their defenses...
Helpless to resist the notes I write
For I compose the music of the night.
Slowly, gently
Night unfurls its splendor...
Grasp it, sense it
Tremulous and tender...
Hearing is believing
Music is deceiving...
Hard as lightening, soft as candlelight
Dare you trust the music of the night.
Close your eyes
for your eyes will only tell the truth
And the truth isn't what you want to see...
In the dark it is easy to pretend
That the truth is what it ought to be.
Softly, deftly,
Music shall caress you...
Hear it, feel it,
Secretly possess you.
Open up your mind,
Let your fantasies unwind,
In this darkness which
You know you cannot fight,
The darkness of
The music of the night...
Close your eyes
Start a journey to a strange new world
Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before.
Close your eyes and let music set you free
Only then, can you belong to me.
Floating, falling, sweet intoxication!
Touch me, trust me,
Savor each sensation!
Let the dream begin,
Let your darkest side give in
To the power of
The music that I write
The power of
The music of the night...
You alone can make my song take flight
Help me make the music of the night.
~sigh~ I heart tenors.
11:15 a.m. - Person who stood me up shows up at my desk. I'm rather cold to her for standing me up (working with numbers, formulas, and spreadsheets puts me in a bad mood). She's a very timid person and I'm usually gentle with her, but today her timidity is just frustrating me. I find myself wishing she'd quit stammering and being all deer-in-the-headlights all the time. I take a deep breath.
11:17 - 11:30 a.m. - Go to her desk, look at some formulas, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
11:30 a.m. - Go to the cafeteria, buy a salami on rye and a bag of salt-n-vinegar chips, and my diet be damned (as it is every day, lately).
11:35 - 12:00 noon - Work on another (different) spreadsheet analysis while eating lunch. Put together quick two-page presentation for tomorrow's Morning Ops, going over new numbers.
12:00 - 12:20 p.m. - Get sick of looking at numbers. Put in Simon and Garfunkel. Update entry with more stuff I did.
12:20 - 12:30 p.m. - Pause CD. Take a Calvin break. Except that he's at lunch in a very noisy place and I can hear the conversation of the guys he's sitting with better than I can hear him. Hang up with him. Call the doctor's office for him to find out if he needs to fast before his blood work. Get put on hold. Tension takes hold. Beer sounds good. So does tequila. Continue to hold. Fiddle with sensitive tooth with my tongue. Wonder why it got *more* sensitive after my dentist's visit last week. Get annoyed. Continue to hold. Get more annoyed. Finally speak to overly-perky medical assistant. Sorry, Calvin, you've gotta fast.
12:30 - 12:31 p.m. - Contemplate e-mail in-box. Wonder if I should even try to weed through the 156 messages it contains. Give it up as a lost cause.
12:31 - 12:32 p.m. - Re-open spreadsheet files. Decide I'm still not quite ready to head back into that again. Close spreadsheet files.
12:32 - 12:35 p.m. - Potty break. (TMI?) Refill water bottle on the way back to my desk.
12:35 - 12:41 p.m. - Check Hotmail. Politely decline the multiple offers for penis enlargement, questionable sexual fetishes, and height-increasing shoes. Also receive a very odd e-mail from an unknown sender which reads:
"This is a very new game
This game is my first work.
You're the first player.
I expect you would enjoy it."
Wonder if I just got some kind of virus.
12:41 - 12:58 p.m. - Head on over to the Shape Up Boards. Try to re-dedicate myself to my diet and exercise plan. Feel tired just thinking about it. Crave cookies. Womanfully ignore the craving. Suck down some more water.
12:58 - 1:05 p.m. - Realize I'm cold. Decide a cup of coffee is in order. Walk to cafeteria. Get a cup. Put six sugars in it. Put a half-inch of half-n-half in it. Fill with Starbucks. Fiddle with the cardboard/paper thingy that wraps around the cup to preserve my delicate hands from the heat. Get in line at the cashier. Admire my ass-kicking boots while I'm waiting. Pay $1.57. Curse because AcronymCo raised the price of coffee again.
1:05 - 1:06 p.m. - Go to my boss' desk to let her know I'll be in at 10:00 tomorrow (the phone guy is coming to fix an issue we've got). She's not there. Walk back to my desk.
1:06 - 1:07 p.m. - Realize I'm in an insanely bad mood. Realize that this may be, in part, due to the fact that I've been sitting at my desk since my aforementioned potty break, with my headphones on (yes, even removing them when I left my desk, putting them back on again when I returned...), but with CD still paused. Fix the situation. Headphones are not earmuffs, after all.
1:07 - 2:00 p.m. - Return my attention to the damned spreadsheets. ("Time it was, and what a time it was, it was... a time of innocence. A time of confidences.") S&G ends. Put in Robert Plant's "Now and Zen". ("I'm happy dancin', I'm dancin', I'll dance on my own...") Get tired of it in short order. Go back to Andrew Lloyd Webber. Because love changes everything, you know. Look, a new day has begun.
Continue to glare at formulas (I'm not making this up):
=(E62 + E61 * ( 2 - IF(E62>0, 1, 0)) + E60 * (4 - IF(E61>0, 2, IF(E62>0, 1, 0))) + E59 * (8 - IF(E60>0, 4, IF(E61>0, 2, IF(E62>0, 1, 0)))) + E58 * (24 - IF(E59>0, 8, IF(E60>0, 4, IF(E61>0, 2, IF(E62>0, 1, 0))))) + E57 * (52 - IF(E58>0, 24, IF(E59>0, 8, IF(E60>0, 4, IF(E61>0, 2, IF(E62>0, 1, 0)))))) + E56 * ( 104 - IF(E57>0, 52,IF(E58>0, 24, IF(E59>0, 8, IF(E60>0, 4, IF(E61>0, 2, IF(E62>0, 1, 0))))))) + E55 * ( 728 - IF(E56>0, 104,IF(E57>0, 52,IF(E58>0, 24, IF(E59>0, 8, IF(E60>0, 4, IF(E61>0, 2, IF(E62>0, 1, 0)))))))))/104
2:00 - 2:30 p.m. - Leave desk, soak up a moment of sunlight as I walk between buildings, go to gown room and put on smock, goggles, gloves, and ESD straps. Go out to factory floor and meet with ergonomist to assess one of my modules. Take measurements. Interview technicians. Talk about options.
2:30 - 2:35 p.m. - Back to my desk, where I commence to work more on the presentation for tomorrow's Ops. Realize that I won't be here, because of needing to be home between 8-10 for the phone guy. Ask the appropriate people (three) to reschedule me for Thursday. Get feedback from boss on changes required for Ops presentation.
2:35 - 2:58 p.m. - Begin making suggested changes to presentation. Rearrange format to OSIR (Objective/Status/Issues/Recommendations). Click on save, only to have my computer freeze up. Frantically click on "Cancel" when questioned if I want to shut the program down. Program shuts down anyway. Click on another open program. It's not responding. Click on Outlook. It's not responding. Swear enthusiastically. Succumb to the inevitable. Reboot computer.
2:58 - 3:05 p.m. - Go to cafeteria (AcronymCo's largest conference room!) and await attendees of next meeting. No one shows. My usual 10-minute rule is shortened to five minutes due to my lack of patience.
3:05 - 3:21 p.m. - Return to desk. Attempt to log back into network. Discover network is down. Unable to access e-mail. Unable to access Ops presentation. Unable to access Internet. Decide that life is a vale of tears. Put on Seal CD ("Bring it on!"), and update entry with more tedious details of my day. Wait for network to come back up.
3:21 p.m. - Network still down.
3:22 p.m. - Attempt reboot. Sometimes this works to re-establish network connections.
3:28 p.m. - Didn't work. (Notice that took me six minutes?)
3:29 - 3:32 p.m. - Idly wonder what life would be like if we didn't live it in one hour blocks of time. Wonder what it would be like if an hour was 30 minutes, instead of 60. Realize that we'd still call it an hour, and instead of spending (usually) one hour per meeting, I'd end up spending two hours per meeting. Dismiss line of thought as symptoms of spreadsheet overload and network frustration.
3:32 p.m. - Stare at the picture of the pretty horsey on my desktop.
3:33 p.m. - Windows Media Player siezes up. What the fuck is wrong with my computer now? Now I'm even being denied music?
3:34 p.m. - Fuck. Fuckety fuck fuck fuck.
3:35 p.m. - Attempt to clean up language.
3:36 p.m. - Give it up as a bad idea. Shit damn hell.
3:36 - 3:40 p.m. - Calvin calls. I woe at him for a bit. He's on his way home. I momentarily dislike him for that reason. It passes.
3:40 p.m. - Network access returns. Woo. I can get back to work.
3:41 p.m. - Again with the woo.
3:41 p.m. - 4:12 p.m. - Decide that any more spreadsheet staring is detrimental to my health. Re-do the changes I did to the Ops presentation, that I lost when the network tanked. Answer some e-mail. Try to check my Hotmail account. Discover Internet access is still unavailable. Re-try Windows Media Player. It works (what the fuh?). Listen to Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 (which rawks for the first 6 minutes or so), followed by Grieg's Piano Concerto (LOVE the beginning), followed by Brahms Piano Concerto No. 2 (so perky!), followed by Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 (the beginning has "sunrise" written all over it), followed by Satie's Trois Gymnopedies (short - totally background music for a Sex in the City-esque stroll around Manhattan at night), followed by Gershwin's Rapsody in Blue (clarinet will always make me think of movies from the 40's). During the musical interlude, attempt to access Internet again. It works. No, wait, the Intranet is working. Can't. Get. Out.
4:12 p.m. - Network access again lost.
4:12 - 4:19 p.m. - Potty break. When I get back to my desk, I use the handy-dandy in-phone directory to contact a co-worker. (I have a display phone - press "directory", dial in the person's last name, and the phone number is displayed on the screen.) Try to convince her to present my material at 5:00 since she's seen it three times and worked on the project with me. I am summarily denied.
4:20 p.m. - Fuck a duck. Shit damn hell.
4:21 p.m. - Realize that looks like I'm saying I had intercourse with a water fowl. Contemplate rewording. Decide to keep it for comedic effect.
4:21 - 4:35 p.m. - Read through what I have of the entry so far. Wonder if anyone will read all the way through to the end. Boggle at how tedious my day can be sometimes.
4:36 p.m. - Twiddle thumbs. Try to get into e-mail again.
4:37 p.m. - Nope.
4:38 - 4:58 p.m. - Chat on the phone with Calvin.
4:58 - 5:30 p.m. - Go to conference room for final meeting of the day. Log into teleconference with overseas participants. Hope it goes better than it usually does. Present information I've already given to three other forums this week (and it's only Tuesday). Deal with the language barrier. Rather, beat my head upon the language barrier.
5:30 - 5:45 p.m. - Shut down computer, turn off desk lights, walk out to truck, start it up and pull out of AcronymCo's campus, navigate traffic, pull into my neighborhood, stop at the mailbox, check mail, get back into truck, pull into driveway, get out of truck, walk in the front door. Almost trip over cat.
5:45 - 5:54 p.m. - Look through mail, toss out junk.
5:54 p.m. - Sit down at computer to finish entry and upload. Yell at cat who attempts to jump in my lap and instead succeeds in clawing the shit out of my knee.
5:55 - 5:56 p.m. - Record what I assume will be the rest of the evening's activities. Eat dinner (soup and sandwiches because I don't feel like cooking). Feed the dogs. Feed the cat. Watch T.V. Snuggle with Calvin. Yell at the cat for other reasons. Go to bed.
5:56 - 6:01 p.m. - Make changes to archive page, index page, and insert links to "next" on yesterday's entry.
6:01 p.m. - Post entry and go on with my evening.
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