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.

( The more detailed version is here, below the cut. )

Thank you to everyone who sent me adorable glass hearts on LJ on Valentine's. They are so pretty and lovely. <3

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!

So xenakis linked to a comic by beatonna and said OMG Steinway! And then somehow I spent half my Friday doing this. Uh, NSFW textually at least.

( It's kind of a big image. )

My dear IRL friend iykwim is having a crap time lately with work. I do a crap job at cheering her up over chat. Seriously, this is the kind of conversation we have almost every day:

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?

Okay, I just *may* have spent some significant procrastinatory time this morning looking at pictures of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy and getting a little wrapped up in all the awesome yet hilarious hotness.  What can I say?  sparktastic is a horrible, horrible enabler.  And has all the good crack, too.

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.

Gah, RL.

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]

I'm so proud.  I was looking at my blog stats for the last several days and, guys, you made a statistical bumprint for me!


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.

siria has written awesome Ronon-sans-pants fic!  I refuse to settle for any stories where Ronon is wearing pants from now on.  (This is mostly okay because unless the author refers specifically to Ronon's pants I can go on pretending that he is pantsless in pretty much every fic.  It's kind of amazing.)

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."

I don't know what's gotten into me lately with the sudden burst of fic -- oh, wait, I do, it's called procrastination -- but I've been at it again.  I realize I keep talking about fic and not producing any but everything is in beta at the moment.  Anyway, there may be a shorter (a mere 14,000 words -- again, procrastination) fic appearing here sometime before the long-ass fic that I am reworking and rereworking.

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*

Today I'm working on collecting a debt (in the range of several thousand dollars) owed my employers.  This always makes me so grouchy.  I know there are processes and channels for registering complaints but it's all such a giant pain in the ass, and so confrontational and stressful to boot.  Why can't people/businesses just not be assholes and pay up?  WHY?  (Aside: this all comes about as a result of that awesome Icelandic volcano last spring, and a last-minute international tour cancellation, and there is much drama, and lo, we are owed a refund, and lo, it comes not to us.)

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.

Well, I suppose it could be worse. Some dogs destroy property when they're alone and bored. My dog decided to find other ways to entertain himself while I was out for about 4 hours this afternoon.

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.

So part of my new job (BTW, hai hai hai flist! I read you, I do! I just have zero energy for posting these days!) involves working with parents of children aged 8 and up. And while I've always had distaste for the abstract notion of "helicopter parenting" I'm now being forced to deal with it face to face. Allow me to illustrate:

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]

...you turn to your flist.

( Cut for pot-related question. )

Before I forget all the details, and mostly for my own sake, ( here's what it was like for me to have Lasik surgery yesterday... )

As part of my new role in my job, I've had to take on more of a leadership position as regards rules; specifically, their enforcement.

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.

It's nice to have pupils that constrict when in bright spaces.

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!

Remember how I said that thing, about how RL swallows me whole on occasion? Yep, it's one of those months.

Love you and miss you, lovely online people!

It's awesome when 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]

Last weekend we had a major concert (two, actually) and it was lovely if completely exhausting. So far this week I've spent one day watching baby niece #2 (and subsequently engaging in the Epic Battle Of "YES YOU DAMN WELL DO NEED YOUR DIAPER CHANGED, SCREAMING CHILD") who is now 13 months old, gone to a staff meeting for my church job, and had a very brief informal meeting with my boss for my other job. Not so productive, but such is the life of an artist, right?

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*