So I mentioned on Twitter a while back that I had an exciting medical crisis while travelling in Germany, and I figured I might as well share the details for anyone who cares. The tl;dr version is that I had a minor surgery and I'm totally fine now.
I am terribly behind on responding to feedback and comments, but this week is a bit insane so I probably won't get caught up for quite a while. Apologies in advance for when I answer your comment from January in, like, March. :(
Anyway, hi all! Hi!
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( It's kind of a big image. )
me: so
tangentially
occasionally I ask Sully [my dog]
"What's up?"
And then
"What up dog?"
AND IT MAKES ME LAUGH EVERY TIME
NOT HIM THOUGH.
iykwim: hahahahaa
me: HE DOES NOT LAUGH
iykwim: Why wouldn't he laugh at that???
me: HE IS SUCH A JERK
I just did it again
And he was all
SHUT UP
iykwim: what an ass!
me: So at least your dog isn't a humourless asshole?
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In non-Inception-related news, I sort of took a week off last week. I say "sort of" because I work from home and that means that I work more or less constantly, with slightly more effort to actually be productive during normal office hours and slightly more effort to stay away from work things during non-office hours. So last week was less of a week off and more of a week where I didn't answer (most) email and didn't answer the "office phone" (i.e. a non-descript cheapo cell phone) when it rang. Which led to me spending most of yesterday frantically working to catch up. Whoo. Also, I ended up having to go out of town overnight covering for a friend, which is not technically part of my job but was still work. And also, going to rehearsal on Thursday. See what I mean when I say "sort of"? I'm lame.
There's a new Mexican restaurant chain here called "Burrito Libre". Yes, you read that right. I haven't (yet) eaten there but the name never fails to make me giggle. It sounds like a weird dirty euphemism. "I gotta go liberate my burrito, if you know what I mean." I can't figure out if it's a bathroom euphemism or a masturbation euphemism, though. Could go either way.
- Mood:
weird
I just got one of those calls (yes, at a very late hour) telling me that we/I had screwed up at work. The big issue -- ongoing -- is that I don't think anyone is clear on where my areas of responsibility end. I definitely thought that this particular issue fell outside my jurisdiction and responsibility but there is a price to being the relatively responsible and accessible one in my workplace and that price is that people come to you with all problems no matter how clearly or how often you state, "I am not in charge of this." And fine, if no one else (read: the people who are MEANT to be in charge of this) is actually there to take responsibility, I guess maybe it's my problem by default? Sigh. I feel terrible and guilty and like I should have done something preemptively but god. damn. it. I AM NOT IN CHARGE OF EVERYTHING!
Apparently I am now also the de facto manager of profuse apologies and promises to track down the source of the problem and correct it.
Sorry this is all completely vague. Mostly I am just venting and feeling awful.
[/sad]
- Mood:
sad

I feel like I won some sort of unexpected yet awesome award. I'd like to thank my flist, and Wordpress, and everyone who clicked that little bit more on September 16 to form the all-important bum crack.
\o/
My icon has never seemed more apropos.
- Mood:
impressed
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What kind of undies does Ronon wear, anyway?
This makes me want to read an AU where Ronon and John are co-anchors on a morning news show and Ronon actually doesn't wear pants at all and John spends every newscast looking terrified and unhappy until Ronon initiates him into the ways of pantslessness (it's a word, shut up) and from then on every morning on ANN (Atlantis News Network, but you knew that) it's two happy happy news dudes who are totally not wearing pants below that formica table.
Also, Ronon would be the best newscaster ever: "Today, some guys talked about politics. Boring. While that story runs, I'm going to eat this entire bagel in 30 seconds."
- Mood:
energetic
Part of my job entails working with parents of children aged 8 and up, as I've complained before, and for the last few days I've been fielding repeated calls from a mother whose English is not so hot. I'm not sure if she's just having difficulty understanding me or if she's being a little deliberately dense but I can't seem to convince her that her 13-year-old daughter cannot join our "flagship" youth choir which is for 15-24 year olds. Yes, this daughter must audition for our 10-16 year old group. No, hearing her daughter's voice will not change our minds. No, not even if the rehearsal location for the younger group is inconvenient for them. No, she cannot just audition for the older group and we'll move her as needed. Because the choirs have different leaders and they would want to hear her if she's singing in their group. No, I'm not the leader of either group. Yes, I do work for them, though.
And then, two days later, she calls again and we have the exact same conversation.
*headdesk*
- Mood:
cranky
This is yet another thing they did not teach me in music school -- along with press releases, grant writing, website maintenance, and uniform design.
And yes, me whining about my job means that it's about to start all over again and I am going to gradually disappear over the next 9 months as the season gets going. Whoo! Oh, real life. You are so all-consuming.
- Mood:
cranky
I think this clip of Misha Collins in Nip/Tuck summarizes the problem:
When I got home he was in quite the state, and pretty much, uh, stuck that way. He's done this before but let's just say the problem was somewhat more pronounced than I'd seen.
In any case, with a lukewarm bath, lots of football talk, and half a (small) bottle of KY later, I *ahem* fixed the emerging situation. The things we do for our pets. If he was a human dude he'd owe me dinner right about now.
- Mood:
uncomfortable
Parent #1, to Parent #2 (sincerely, and very calmly): I don't know if my 10 year old can handle a weekend retreat at a camp 20 minutes out of town. Five nights out of seven, she's crawling into bed with me as it is. Must just be her age, I guess!
And then:
Parent #3, to me: We'll hold off on committing to the group with a registration form. I want to be sure that this is a good environment for my [11 and 14 year old] boys socially. We've had to pull out of groups before because they weren't making friends. [NB: home schooled kids. Shocking, huh?]
I'm also administrating the communications system for these lovely parents and got chewed out tonight by a parent who "had to find out about an event though my daughter's FACEBOOK". This, even though she is on our mailing list, had a son in our choir last year and therefore had access to our schedules at any time online, and has, in fact, received no fewer than three emails with information about the event. Gee, I wonder how her kids are going to turn out? JESUS.
Thankfully, for every insane control-freak parent out there, we have a nice reasonable helpful parent. But man, the crazy ones make me shake my head. Do parents not realize that the goal of parenting is, in fact, to make sure your child can fend for itself eventually? And that maybe one should start with things like the ability to sleep alone after a decade, or the ability to interact with peers socially, or -- GOD.
[/vent]
- Mood:
frustrated
...you turn to your flist.
- Mood:
curious
Before I forget all the details, and mostly for my own sake,
- Mood:
cheerful
I have never before had to send out emails that I know for a fact will ruin the days of those on the receiving end. While the emails sent are totally completely justified, I *like* the recipients and I *hate* knowing that these poor kids/young adults are going to be sitting on the other end going, "oh, fuck me. FUCK ME." Yuck. I am not a fan of this feeling at all. My insta-response is that I wish I could just ignore the whole messy situation, but that would be wrong. And also kind of how we got into this mess in the first place, i.e. silence is acceptance for the last 12 years.
SIGH.
Can I go back to being responsibility-free but keep the salary, pls? kthanks.
- Mood:
crappy
This revelation brought to you by 7 hours of squinting after my consultation for LASIK surgery. I'm booked in for the end of July but I think I'm going to call tomorrow and try to move it up to June. I was too stunned by the whiteness of the calendar in the booking room to parse out another date in June that might work, but now I can see again it'll be much easier!
Anyone out there had this done? Both my siblings and not a few of my friends have gone under the laser and the only wince-worthy part of the experience for any of them has been the price tag. For me, with my lovely -6.00ish eyes, the cost is about $3400 all told. Ouch. But it comes with the lifetime guarantee and is supposed to be the "latest technology" to avoid halos and blurring with night vision blahblahblah...
Still, squinting through water-speckled glasses on the beach in Hawaii and being utterly fed up with my contact lenses has convinced me it's time. I have worn glasses or contacts every day of my life since I was eight years old and I'm so tired of it. Time to get into the 21st century.
Other fun facts from today:
1) Despite being (considerably) the worse eye, vision-wise, my left eye is dominant.
2) Driving with dilated pupils? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
3) I don't anticipate much discomfort from the procedure since every time the technician said "These drops sting" or "Sorry, that might hurt" I felt NOTHING. Pain threshold FTW!
- Mood:
cheerful
Love you and miss you, lovely online people!
- Mood:
busy
you have a random thought early in the morning and post about it and you can then spend a good portion of the ensuing day gleefully expounding on that thought with all the lovely people on your flist.
[/happy post]
It's awesome when [/happy post]
- Mood:
cheerful
Back in fandom land, I'm torn on the whole Dreamwidth thing -- it sounds awesome, but I'm finally using my LJ enough to justify reinvesting in a paid account, and I don't want to do that *and* buy a membership on DW. Which is sad, I know, but -- again -- artist. Very little spare change floating around my chequing account here. So I probably have to make up my mind by the 30th. Mostly I just want more than 6 icons again. I miss icons!
I've been continuing to watch Kings and enjoying it mightily, but haven't found the inspiration to write any fic in the fandom. I wish I could, because Jack/David would be hot like whoa and, to be honest, I haven't landed on any fic in the fandom that really works for me yet. I have great faith that it could exist, however -- I haven't been looking *that* hard.
Spring has finally arrived here. I can see a narrow band of grass on the edge of my lawn, maybe 1" total, but more importantly, I can also see approximately 1,000,000 winter poos that my dog has lovingly left under mounds of snow over the past six months. Yay for spring! *goes to get a shovel and a garbage bag*
- Mood:
cheerful