April 4, 2000

I

I have the soothing tones of an organ recital playing in the background, and for good reason. I called my ophthalmologist's office yesterday, to see if an eye exam could be fitted in while I was still in town - I face the task of driving on unfamiliar roads soon, and I wanted the added performance boost of something resembling 20/20 vision. To my surprise, there was an opening today, and I gladly took it. But complicating the situation was a lumpy swelling on my right eyelid, one that has failed to simply recede on its own during the last three months; if the exam could be done despite the lump possibly being in the way, my doctor and I could arrange for the lump to be removed at a later time.

II

today is just wrong. NASDAQ is tanked, but is rising again. unfortunately the stocks i watch aren't making a good recovery.

i haven't been eating and i'm now at the point where the thought of eating anything makes me feel queasy.

at work we got this slick new individual cup coffee maker, and it'll be the death of me. i'm going to wind up peeing out everything (well, not Everything but you know what i mean). i'm surprised my eyes aren't brown yet.

i have to clean my apartment. i feel so lazy. i don't want to do anything at all. i feel like drawing and maybe i'll just wind up doing that instead. as my boyfriend says, "shut up and draw". i've not been feeling too inspired lately though.

i slept like crap last night. when i went to bed it was drizzling outside, and the sound of the rain was nice so i opened my bedroom windows. of course, i was woken up at 2am by thunder and rain pouring into my room and soaking my curtains and my bed. it wasn't too smart of me to have left the window open in the rain, but the sound of rain is so lovely, and it wasn't coming in my window when i fell asleep.

work has just been dragging. slow days annoy me. it's drab and dreary outside. and cold. i hate cold. that's probably the primary factor affecting my mood right now.

---

addendum: last night i cut my finger on an anti-theft magnetic metal strip thingy that was tucked in a book i'm reading (69 by Ryu Murakami). it bled a lot. i didn't bother me too much until today when i was peeling the perfect orange. now it's quite painful. i got through it, though. i had three oranges.

I am terrified. Today I was asked to go to a presentation of project A, together with my boss who would give the presentation. I expected to play my usual role of technical gopher, and when I got there the Big Kahuna said, "okay, you talk about project A, while baffo here will tell us all about project B".

Now project B is a huge mess, a very tentative draft of which is scheduled for presentation to the Big Kahuna tomorrow, and definitely not ready for anything today. Besides there is the little matter that I am not the project leader for B, I am just an advisor or something like that, as it was made emphatically clear to me yesterday by Mr. Bar, the real project leader for project B.
I have no problem with that, having my hands full with countless other things, including being the webmaster of a big honking site out there.

So now, this is the situation: the Big Kahuna has decided in his mind that I must lead project B, the Lesser Kahuna and my boss had not been told, Mr. Bar has not been told and is forging ahead with his own demo, I am trying to put together something, and there is another splinter group doing its own little design somewhere: luckily I know that they are doomed because they have no techies and are controlled by graphic designers.

I am thrilled, I am terrified, I will by buy an airplane ticket to an undisclosed destination, liquidate my assets and SKIP.

... later in the day: now we have 4, count'em, four prototype for project B including:

1. My favourite graphic designer's effort, currently being improved and mysteriously accepted by Mr. Bar as a good thing.
2. Mr. Bar's previous prototype.
3. Mr. Bar's previous previous prototype, but it doesn't count for it is loathsome in the eyes of the Big Kahuna.
4. Miss Baz's instant prototype (the splinter group mentioned above), designed by a chrome junkie and complete with two animated thingies per page and big round buttons looking like election pins for the losing candidate and angry fruit salad color scheme.

Mr. Bar has (apparently) not been told that the scepter of command is now in my grasp, and I for sure am not telling him. It is not becoming for people of our sanguage.
tomorrow we all bow and scrape and present and powerpoint in front of the Big Kahuna. The Lesser Kahuna will be there. My immediate boss will be there.

I am sure that there will be much rejoyicing and suckling pigs aplenty.

I manned the help desk alone today. Christine was gone today, as she was yesterday.

I saw some people on the street today that I hadn't seen in awhile, and I saw some people I didn't care to see too. Went to a bar, had a shot.

Came home. Am here. Sitting here. Worn out. Ready to fall over from exhaustion. Worked 7am to after 5pm yesterday, and stayed a bit late today also, and I do not get overtime.

I don't know I own so many books I haven't read. And I don't know why I know so many people who don't know me.

A received a phone call informing me that today was my day to pee into a cup for the random drug testing they do from time to time. It was the first time since I started working here that I had to do that. I haven't really worried about it, since I have never used any illegal drug in my lifetime, but I don't know if or how a false positive could occur, and that wouldn't be something I want to have to deal with.

Our neighbor with health problems gave us a call. We hadn't talked to her in a while, since we subscribed to caller ID. Late last year, due to stupid decisions I won't go into, fainted at a store, hit her head, and because of her health condition (some rare genetic thing that causes parts of the blood vessels to grow like a tumor, though it isn't cancer), suffered some severe nerve damage. We spent couple months taking care of her cats, and visited her at the hospital once, which wasn't fun because she kept pressuring us to help her get out of there, but it was obvious she couldn't make it on her own. And she has this horrible habit of not seeming very appreciative of what people do for her, and always asking to do more for her, no matter how inconvienent it is for us. So we got tired because she was always calling us asking us to do this, or that, and never really seeming to be happy.

Anyways, she seemed nice for a few minutes, like she was just glad to talk to us again, it happened. Had to take out her trash, since it was too full and she couldn't do it. And when I did that, then came the request to go to Walgreens and pick up her prescriptions for her - but of course she didn't have me pay for them, just gave me a blank check.

I can't help feeling bad, and feeling like I should be willing to do these things for her, because she can hardly walk, and has bad control over her hands (before the accident she was pretty much normal), and she needs it. I feel so guilty for not wanting to help, but I have a life also, I have things to do, and I really don't like being treated like doing these things are expected of me. I even feel guilty for being happy I'm moving and getting away from her...

I let my mother in on some of who I am. I wish I could let her know she raised me well.. The best she could possibley do. I wish I knew if she realized other people saw me as a good person, that some found me to be really neet.

There is so much that scares me, and I really need to face up to it.

Sometimes I feel pretty, but it's not me.. like it's a costume. Something that I .. hrm.. I don't know.. but that I feel the outer layer just isn't me.. it's just something I put on.

I mistake people's looks. Are they really looking at me, or am I just paranoid.? I know I do things to draw attention to myself. I wear big shoes, I don't look like your beige, normal girl.. even my race is something that causes me to stand out here.