Dark Dreams again

Had another totally bizarre dream last night, that persisted even after waking up twice.

I am starting back at my last job, but the boss keeps moving the furniture around in the offices, so no one can get anything done.

The next day I am stressing out, trying to get to work (with my sister!), running late, leaving home in Bethel Park and suddenly in downtown DC, trying to catch the Red Line Metro, but stuck on an elevator with Japanese tourists, one of whom wants to watch 'Frozen' on a screen in the elevator...

Finally in the platform. The trains are like ancient locomotives, and our red car does not come while blue and orange ones do, on the same track (Metro does not actually work like that).

And it goes downhill from there...

Lost in Charlottesville

Another disturbing dream. I was visiting Charlottesville with my mother and sister (as if that wasn't disturbing enough). Staying at a big old manor house paper bag with half-eaten sandwich Parked car at either old dorm room (now destroyed) or a new condo, sort of at Ashtree Went to Scott Stadium area, then to a huge multilevel indoor mall. It kept getting later and I did not know where my car was, not sure where the house was, and kept getting turned around. Asking people where Rigby Road was, though I really needed to be near JPA, in the dream. Twisting escalator. Finally got on a bus as it started to rain, carrying all these strange characters around. No phone.

High School

I'm having flashbacks to High School. Oddly enough, I was in so many activities that there were sometimes conflicts, and sometimes they got ugly. One time there were two concerts scheduled for the same night, and I had to choose. I had a bell choir concert (I loved bell choir) and also some symphonic band concert, where we were supposed to perform 'Procession of the Sardar' which involved a bassoon solo. I knew we were only doing it because my mother requested it. She was one of those psycho band boosters, made jackets for the directors and was basically stalking the head director, even though he was married. First of all, I had no desire to do a solo or be put on the spot that way, and certainly I hated being manipulated. The bell director said she could fill in, but it would not be the same, while in band there was another capable bassoonist. So, guess what I chose? Bell choir. My mother and the director were furious. Well, screw them both.

JKL

Since my last post inspired more comments than any in recent memory, I thought I'd go ahead and post a more provocative picture of my current crush. Wow is he dreamy or what?

Oh, and I got my nipple pierced today, Randy talked me into it. What can I say, I am weak. I have had my ear pierced 2x but this hurt a bit more. I took the opportunity to badger him about the Mormons and prop 8., At least he admitted that he voted for Obama, so there is hope for him.

Software Updates

As fellow Mac users know, Apple is frequently updating its software. I've been clinging to 10.4.10 for months now, because—after having been a Mac Tech for 8 months--any kind of update brings risks with it. (On some things, I have learned it is not best to be an early-adopter). And when I updated my work Mac, Safari 3 went all crashy for awhile. My iMac at home is also the very last version of the PPC Mac before they went intel.

But Apple changed .Mac to (the all too cutesy) MobileMe and along with that, apparently changed how you connect to your iDisk. I mounted it last night to make a few changes to my web site, and when I tried to unmount, I got the Spinning Rainbow Beachball of Doom for like 10 minutes (I try to be patient, really). I finally had to do a hard restart, which I hate. Then I read that you have to be using 10.4.11 to have MobileMe work properly. Well, crap.

So I gritted my teeth and ran the update, muttering the mantra "It takes a lot longer to boot up after an update... don't panic... It takes a lot longer to boot up after an update... don't panic... It takes a lot longer to boot up after an update... don't panic..." And I reminded myself I have my whole startup disk cloned onto an external drive should the worst happen.

Well, it seemed to come up fine (though for a few minutes the fans went into full-power wind-tunnel mode, which can be a bit alarming, because it means your processor is getting way hot, and I lost a bunch of widgets, what's up with that?) Tonight I'll see if the iDisk connection works okay now. And Repair Permissions of course.

It Lives!

Yuck what a crappy last few days. I went home early Thursday and went to bed. I woke up feeling crappy Friday so I stayed home and pretty much slept all day. Saturday and Sunday I did my Spin classes but very little else. I just mostly rested and slept and watched TV. During my convalescence I watched 4 Voyager Episodes (damn, that Harry was so cute, and his ass looked great in that uniform), The original Matrix (Keanu was smokin' hot), and Real Genius (remember that one from the 80's? With the hilarious 80's fashions and the Tears For Fears music (and Val Kilmer, of course).

I'm not totally back 100%, but definitely feel way better than I have in awhile. Everyone is talking about how bad the pollen is though.

Fat

I feel fat. Bloated. Tubby. I wasn't feeling well Sunday morning so I didn't ride for my spin class; I'm sure that didn't help. And I was oinky over the weekend. I wish I had a little more self-discipline. Like, I'm about to go out and get eggs and sausage along with coffee for my 'second breakfat' when I really could go without it. My worst vice is snacking at night though. If I could just cut that out I'd probably lose the 5 (or, ideally 10) pounds I'd like to.

Thursday!

Well I had my classes and there was no one with three heads, so I guess the Freakazoid manager (see below) was not there. It was a fun class though, too bad she missed it. Last night was another one of waking up every hour or so. It was nice to have my new Tassimo to make me one quick cup of coffee before heading out.

Tomorrow is the company lunch! Then four days off, then next week is a one-day week (Wednesday) then a 6-day holiday! Whee!

When I grow up...

Hilarious! And so true.

Nightmares of Mine

Whew, last night was a bad night for the ole' subconscious. I had no less than three separate nightmare sessions. I'd wake up from one, then fall back to sleep and start up another. I'm sure it was exacerbated by the fact that it was Wednesday night, when I never sleep well, worrying about waking up for spin class. The worst was round one...

Yesterday my boss (the owner of the company) gave me her laptop so that I could migrate her files to her new laptop. Just before she handed it over, she kind of clutched it and said "I'm trusting you with this, I don't want anything to happen to it."

No pressure! So, as I told her I would, I locked it in my desk, along with her new laptop. I hid the key. So last night, what was my dream? That I came in this morning and opened my desk... and both of the computers were gone. So I woke up in a sweat and laid there, thinking of all the stupid things I had done (not taking the key home, not making sure that the desk was really, really secure, not hiding the laptops under stuff in the drawer... you know, silly paranoid stuff your mind thinks up in the middle of the night when you aren't completely awake.

The second one I don't remember, but it will come back to me.

The third one was about missing class, but not because I was late, but because I went in to teach someone an abs class and lost track of time, then was suddenly 15 mins late. And the new hardass manager was there, and there were all these disruptive people, and the bright lights were on... (spin clas is almost always done in a darkened room). Ugh!

Interestingly, there was an article in the Washington Post about Dreams, basically saying Freud and Jung were full of it, and youre dreams are not symbolic of anything.

So away with the repressed urges and surreal symbols. Today few psychologists believe that dreams talk to us in codes of any kind, and the action in dream research is empirical rather than broadly theoretical.

I think that they are what you make of them, and it doesn't hurt to pay attention to them.

Two things...

...I need to promise myself to never do again:

1. Have the Wild Mushroom Bisque from Au Bon Pain

2. Go grocery shopping after work.

The Wild Mushroom Bisque is delicious, but starting a few hours after I have it, the gastrointestinal repercussions are... impressive. I think I could inflate the Hindenberg.

One of the positive things about working the noon-9 shift was having my mornings free to run errands while everyone else was at work (another nice thing was the relatively empty Metro, and those who were on it were not in a big rush; that was ogg and bad). At 10 am the Safeway is deserted. Usually these days I go on a weekend afternoon. But I didn't manage to get there last weekend and I needed stuff for weekday lunches. Everyone who goes on a weeknight must be just out of work and pissed off. People were snarky and pushy and just generally rude. The deli was stripped almost bare and the guy working it was surly. In the checkout line, I was behind a woman who--of course--waited until the checker had totalled everything before even getting out her checkbook. Meanwhile behind me a woman shoved her cart up against my ass and started unloading before the checker even started on me. This woman behind me must have bumped may ass at least six or seven times as she kept pushing forward. Finally as I was leaving with my cart, she ran over my heel. She said "Oh, sorry." I gave her one of my best evil stares and said nothing.

Overwhelmed

I know I haven't posted much lately, though at the new job I don't feel worried about doing it from work at all, after all I am basically the IT department, and even though I was granted unlimited internet from the IT dept at the last place because I was sort of their Mac stepsister, I still worried about it getting logged.

Anyway, I've actually been pretty busy at work. It's really different from the last job, which aside from the IT work, was fast-turnaround production, bam bam bam. There they had paperwork that told you what needed to get done, when it was due (almost always a rush) etc. Here it is far less structured and formal... and I am finding, a little frustrating. I'm doing a lot of 'preflighting' of print jobs: making sure the images are all CMYK, checking the bleeds, the fonts, the page numbering... But even that is kind of left to me to figure out. And I seem to have to ask when something is due almost every time. One guy (a 'fabulous' queen) is actually pretty organized and gives me most of the info I need, but with most of them it's a game of question and answer (mostly by email, even though we are sometimes across the room). On the fun side, a lot of their clients are GLBT organizations.

All this combined with the kind of jarring switch back to regular day hours (ugh, the packed Metro cars!) has been kind of disruptive. Everyone is very nice, but there has been a lot to learn, and getting used to their way of operating is going to take some doing.

I'm Back

It's been a tough week but it's almost over. My current employer really wanted to keep me (which was very flattering) but I decided to move to the design place, Hope I made the right decision. I made a few friends at the current place, and I'll miss some of the eye candy, but the alternatives they were offering just didn't sound appealing enough even though I was going to get out of the most stressful part of the job.

Yeesh, 3 job changes in barely over a year. Is this a life crisis?

Oh and I had super-bizarre dreams last night.

Sigh

Well, I finally had my meeting with the Big Boss (BB) yesterday (he travels a lot so he is hard to track down). The purpose of the meeting? To tell him that I appreciated my time there but the stress was too much and I'd been offered a job at a nice quiet little graphic design firm (and to make sure he didn't consider it a violation of my rather restrictive non-compete agreement).

It didn't go as planned... of course. Things started to get weird while I was waiting outside his office and the IT director came up to me and said "So, how much of my salary would I have to give you to get you to stay?"

I was literally speechless. First of all, how did he know, and second, gee was I that valuable to the IT department?

I finally managed to say "I guess word got around." He actually sat and we talked for a few minutes. I've actually enjoyed working with him, as well as most of the other IT guys. He was very complimentary and said that since I had started up in Graphics, their lives were so much easier because I handled all the day-to-day crises that come up with the equipment there; then he was worried that they were putting too much on me. I said no, I liked that work; it was the insane architects' deadlines in production that stressed me out.

Then he left and I heard raised voices from the BB's office and thought, 'oh great, he's going to be in a bad mood.' But then he comes out all smiles and takes me in to the conference room. I think he knew what I was going to say. So I made my little speech and I'm barely done when he starts in with 'I appreciate you comng to me, you did the right thing,' followed by telling me that everyone loves me and he desn't want me to leave and he can tell who are good people instantly, etc., etc. and says he wants to start a marketing department and I could work there, or he wants to restart their graphics department, or I could be the regional technology expert "and you could travel around to all the branches..." at that point I must have made a face because he said "Or not." LOL! That was two of the things I hated about the consulting job: driving around all over town, and meeting people. I want my nice little Metro ride and a desk where it's quiet and I don't have to interact with a whole lot of people, especially clients. Argh. Oh and about the stress he said "Maybe you are being too conscientious." Too conscientious?! That's a new one.

Anyway, he practically told me I could write my own job description, and said "of course we'll want to review your salary as well." I said I would give it more thought. Talk is easy; none of these new things would appear instantly, and there would be negotiations and getting it all in writing...

Still, I find myself in a position that most people would find enviable: I have an offer at what seems to be a great little design place, and my current employer is apparently willing to throw money at me and let me completely change my job just to keep me.

Yet I'm miserable.

Should I Stay...

I got formally faced with another 'opportunity' yesterday. As any Libra knows, these sorts of things can be paralyzing (unlike a decision about 6 months ago; that one was easy). This one, not so much. Time to make the ole pro and con lists...

So. Tired.

Well, not even exactly tired in the usual sense (though I am running
on a caffeine deficit today; I think an iced coffee may be in order
soon) but just feeling run-down and out of it. I didn't sleep that
well because of course this today was the dreaded Early Morning Spin/
Abs Class Combo of Doom, but I did go to bed early last night. And
normally after class I feel energized but today I felt... tired. I
went home and got undressed and crawled into bed with a big cup of
water for an hour or so. Then I had a Dr appointment (basically to
just get new prescriptions for my allergy meds; and can I say that my
health insurance at this job sucks!?), and now at work feeling... tired.

Itchy & Scratchy

The last few days my skin has been so itchy, but almost entirely just at work. Is work giving me a rash? Yesterday afternoon it was almost intolerable. I don't seem to have any kind of redness, nor is my skin particularly dry-seeming. It just itches, and just on parts of my upper body, like my upper arms. I had stopped taking my allergy meds a couple days agao, but I take that for the coughing I get from tree pollen, and that has tapered off. The other main factors are that it has been real hot and humid again the last couple days, and they finally got the AC completely fixed on our side of the room, so the temp is 72° instead of 78° F, so I wonder if that has something to do with it.

I need to make an appt with the Dr. anyway for a new prescription, but it seems like I may have another reason. Anyway, I guess I'll make an extra effort to drink a lot of water too, since I'm sweating more than usual (between afternoon gym workout and just the long walk to and from work in the heat).

Off to the Library.

Tired

Stayed up too late again, this time watching the rather silly and uninvolving Alien vs Predator on TiVo.

I'm going on a weekend trip. I will be glad to get away from here for a couple of days, but I am really dreading the driving, especially in my not-too-great mental state right now. Wish me luck. What did people do before Mapquest? I wish I had one of those Garmin thingies (love that ad by the way).

Hm, it seems that you can't burn a podcast onto a CD through iTunes, which sucks. Guess I'll have to listen to it on the iPod directly. Oh, I just remembered that I have one of those gadgets that gos in your tape deck put lets you plug into a different mini-jack device! (yes my car has a tape player--which I have never used--and a CD player).

What's Going On

Class is thankfully over. Around 30 minutes into Spin this morning I felt lightheaded and like I was about to have some kind of out-of-body experience. Not dizzy, or like I was going to faint (like one time a couple years ago when I was in a Spin class and dehydrated). It was weird. Now after second breakfast and on my 3rd cup of coffee, I'm feeling a little chilly. I could go turn up the A/C but just don't feel like it.

Yesterday at work I was in a horrible mood for awhile; it was one of those days when the equipment just wasn't cooperating. A couple of people were out, and for about an hour in the afternoon I was the only person in the whole department of six. I think I scared a few people with my grumpiness. I felt better after the gym. (Side note: Have I mentioned that there an awful lot of hot guys of all races where I work? All seemingly str8 though.)

There is a serious family situation right now that I just can't deal with, and I can't even really talk about it right now. It's taking just about all my effort just to get through each day. I really don't want to go back to counselling, but I'm beginning to think I may have to.

I'm still thinking way too much about you-know-who. The tree pollen is horrible. I need a new pair of sunglasses. I need to go to the grocery. Maybe I'll wear my iPod while I'm in there.

Virginia Tech

This whole thing has left me very shaken up. Maybe it's because Virginia Tech is like the friendly-rival 'other' state school here in Virginia, and as a U.Va. graduate, my imagination immediately transposed those events to places at the University. The dorm became Lile, the engineering building was Thornton Hall, (where I had several classes and played D&D late into the night) or Campbell Hall, the Architecture School where I spent most of my days. At one point in the afternoon I started to feel physically sick, and at the gym of course it was all over the tvs, and I nearly broke down right there. It just seems so wrong that a bunch of innocent kids could be gunned down like this. And of course it shouldn't matter, but it saddens me even more that it is turning out to be an Asian guy that did it. Why would anyone do this? How hurt and damaged does someone have to be?