Free basing television

Let me start by explaining that until recently I had not seen an entire episode of Lost.

Occasionally, I avoid television with its cold glow and its insidious companion the ass enlarging sofa. I have a love hate relationship with my television and recliner, and I list them as co-dependent relationships. Generally, I don't like what's airing, and I avoid spending any cycles trying to find anything that I'll like for fear of becoming a couch potato. I have honed a television force field that keeps me in the dark about potentially entertaining programs for fear that I will otherwise find myself unable to not watch. I've been slowly dismantling my entertainment machinery first by letting go of cable, then the Tivo service, and reducing video game play.

Why no TV? I know plenty of people who can talk about TV very entertainingly. In fact there are times when I enjoy listening or reading these descriptions more than I enjoy consuming the actual medium. I myself do not share this talent. I tend to swallow shows whole without actually chewing, and come out at the other end a little dazed and without comment. What this left me with was a lot of time devoted to an occupation from which I got little social mileage. In short: it made me boring.

But I like television shows. I especially like "good television" and at the risk of flinging about a subjective term like its gospel I think I can point to some safe nominations. I appreciate a well crafted, character driven story line, good use of sound track, and a gripping drama. If a writing team adds suspense or mystery of any sort then I'm helplessly hooked. I love that "what's going to happen next?" feeling. I gobbled up shows like Six Feet Under and The Sopranos. There's nothing wrong specifically with television programs. What I find difficult is my preferred method of ingesting them, a method I believe I can point to The Sopranos for popularizing.

I freebase TV whenever possible. I will pull out a season or two of a show on DVD, plop down on my recliner in my jammies, and watch television until there's nothing left to watch. I think it's the best way to consume television: all at once. I watched the final two seasons of the Sopranos in a matter of days while I was laid up at home on antibiotics. This is similar to how I caught up to the Sopranos years ago. The feeling of staying on the couch and watching images on a screen for hours on end eventually made me feel sluggish and altogether unhealthy, but I enjoyed it all the same. So when I got together with my friends around the holidays this year, and they presented me with a plan to get caught up with the last three seasons of Lost by January 31st, I was reluctant to answer the call.

I went over to H's house Friday after work. Well, I kinda skived off work deciding that working between Christmas and New Year's is not for me. I went over to his place to knit. I was well on my way to finishing the hat I started on circular needles, and I missed our last knitting session. While I was there he threw Lost into the DVD player and that was pretty much it for me. Smart man. I think H knew there was a strong possibility that I might not get cracking on my mission so just like a good dealer he gave me a taste. Lost has all the elements of programming against which I am defenseless and concentrates them into a powerful elixir. In short this show is like crack, and I am clearly on the rock. H lent me season one Friday night, and I finished it before I went to bed Saturday night... Technically Sunday morning. I was at his doorstep Sunday for season two. Initially I was concerned that I did not have enough time to watch approximately 60 hours of television before January 31st. Now my concern is getting through the inevitable withdrawal while I'm waiting for season four to air. I'm comforted that I'll be forced to watch the show on a weekly basis. I'll be using that as a methadone program until the season ends this Summer.

Back from the holidays

I've returned to work after five glorious days full of family togetherness. Surprisingly, I arrived at the office earlier than usual which made me feel virtuous enough to blog the day away while everything is running on a holiday skeleton crew. This suits me fine: I can get my body back in the rhythm of waking up before dawn and spend some time recollecting my holiday cheer. About which...

My siblings travel from far flung cities in the US and sometimes Mexico once a year to central Indiana in order to celebrate Christmas together, and with the exception of fifth born everyone was here. Fifth born was sorely missed, but we rallied with Christmas cheer all the same. Sunday I picked up second born and his wife, Pipi, at the airport. Second born and I spent Sunday playing video games. I introduced him to Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk Project 8. It went over well. Sunday night was spent shoveling H's fabulous confections in my maw and knitting with Saraswati while trying to ignore Lost. I've made a loose verbal commitment to catch up on three seasons of the show by the opener on January 31st. I fear I may have overextended myself. I am a television camel. I will avoid television for weeks, but put a series of DVDs in front of me and I'll devour them until my muscles atrophy and I need assistance to rise up from the couch. Regardless, this may just be too much for me.

Monday, third born and his adorable clan arrived from the Rockies. These are healthy people. They eat healthy organic, low-sugar foods, and it's always humorous to watch them adapt to a house that's chock full of junk food with children and good natured but otherwise negligent adults who think it's perfectly fine to "watch" a child by parking it on the couch in front of a television set, a bag of corn chips, and a bowl of guacamole. Come sit with Grampa, we're watching the News Hour. Inexplicably, the kids' focus moves away from the sharp and oh so hunky Jim Lehrer to a bowl full of tasty green mash. Second born bopped back and forth between the kitchen and the family room attempting to persuade his two-year-old to "break the chip for a single dip". The child dutifully paused and looked up at his father with his face smeared green, and when daddy left he returned to using his tortilla chip as a spoon to ladle guacamole into his mouth. I was sitting in an easy chair watching the whole thing. Honestly, I was aghast that second born was putting the kabash on double dipping. I find people who insist on single dipping to be a bit germ phobic. Unless a person is sick I find it a strange practice. I don't have any cooties. Martha, their mother, doesn't agree with this laissez-fair method of child rearing, and there are times when I believe she gets a little frustrated with our 'village'. But she has mellowed to the point of accepting that this is how the holidays look and resigned herself to smolder in silence.

Monday night, second born and I bonded over video games. As is tradition in my parents' house someone was awake at all times leading up to Christmas morning. We are a family of night owls, and Christmas exacerbates the whole situation. We played in shifts until four in the morning. I took this time to finish a hat to match my grey scarf. It's a beanie style hat, and it's left me of the opinion that seaming is not my favorite. I'll be avoiding straight needles for some time I believe. Five am rolled around and the kids who went to bed early were up. I removed myself from the couch and crashed in their room until just before ten. I would have slept longer, but the clock was wrong and I was fooled into thinking it was nearly eleven. I felt out of sorts for the rest of the day.

First born arrived Christmas day around one in the afternoon with her on again off again Mans. Since "family togetherness" is shoved into a few conscious hours everyday, three people were sent to the airport to pick up two. Really, if there was a passenger van available we probably would have stuffed the whole family in it. Seats in the car were sought after, and I'm glad I got a spot. Second born, Pipi, and I went to the airport sporting reindeer antlers purchased on impulse at the only store open at half past eight on Christmas Eve. Naturally, we had antlers for First born and Mans.

Christmas night was spent at Saraswati's parents' house, as is tradition. We rocked out to Guitar Hero, knitted a bunch, played a couple kick ass rounds of Taboo, and tied it up with Soul Calibur 2.

I'll be honest, this blow by blow description of Christmas is getting boring. It went really well, and was the first Christmas I can think of where I didn't find myself wanting to strangle anyone. Everyone seemed to get along really well, and I had a great time. That's really the bottom line for me.

All in soup and Internet cooking

On Saturday I halved an acorn squash that I had picked up in my better-get-all-the-shopping-in trip to Meijers before the snow hit, roasted it in the oven with cardamom and garam masala and then set aside the other half for making soup. I finally got around to doing that tonight, and I think this was the single most important activity to pulling myself out of an otherwise dreary evening. Also, someone at the office decided to bring in an assortment of baking soda cookies, today. They were ghastly. I suppose my fellow co-workers who had sampled the baked goods had better manners than to leave some sort of warning label on the festive tins. "Caution: contents are not as tasty as they appear!" But who is served by such silence? Not the poor cook who isn't going to receive any peer review, and most importantly, it didn't not help me out at all. Yech. Serves me right for grazing in the afternoon.

Anyhow, I figured it would be a fine thing to take the time out and make something good for myself. None of the recipes I lazily looked through online looked appealing as they had apple in them so I took a road trip in my kitchen. It felt like I was taking a Sunday drive through soup. I read how to actually make the hard cubes of squash soupy and this was invaluable. Boil half an acorn squash with chicken stock, then let it simmer all said a total of twenty minutes. Throw that in the blender. I imagine that boiling up the squash with water would be just fine for the vegetarians. Might even work better to keep the savory flavors at bay. Since I only had half a squash I added a can of garbanzo beans after considering their mega nutritious properties. This had the effect of cooking myself in a corner. The lovely flavor of the squash was totally overpowered by the earthy chick peas. However, it did open up some doors. This is the rest of it:

1 shallot chopped coarsely
1 clove of garlic copped coarsely
1 1" piece of ginger chopped coarsely (I don't like to take the time to mince)
2 sticks of cinnamon broken up coarsely
1 teaspoon ground fennel
2 teaspoons corriander
13 dried dates

Simmer until the dates get tender and plump up a bit. Garnish with red chili flakes to taste and a dollop of sour cream.

The end result was tasty, and I'm glad I gave it a spin, but ultimately I created a chick pea soup recipe. I think the next go around I'll have more onion, and enough squash to fore go the chickpeas entirely. But if I don't put in chickpeas then I'll probably change the spices around a bit probably go nuts with lemon grass and cardamom. I suspect this garbanzo version would be delightful with chives or leeks or more onion. I'm excited to see how the leftovers turn out. I think soup tastes better on day two. Tell me what you do with it if you tinker with this recipe.

I had a blast cooking as I went. I've been looking online quite a bit as a source for recipes and when I do I've been following all the dosages for every ingredient, and this has served me well. I've even watched YouTube how-to videos setting up my computer in the kitchen for little reminders of how to handle little nuances. I've only encountered one dud recipe, and I'm willing to chalk that up to my inexperience. The instructions are all well and good, but I enjoyed just making it up as I went. Well, it also meant that I could just throw in whatever ingredients I had handy. I was about to add in tofu, but I thought - nah - that's just too much.

Simon says Go Snow!

Friday night I took in a show with a friend for whom I have no blog name. Originally, I was going to stay in on Friday and get some knitting done, then go out on Saturday night, but the forecast looked grim. I decided I should get out while the getting was good. We saw four bands at Radio Radio, two of which were really good. Well technically three were good. The last band lost points for starting their first song out of tune, being last, and having terrible hygiene. The first band was Dan Glenzig. They were a lot of fun to listen to. They played punkish rock and covered some good songs. They were borrowing a guitarist from the next band to perform, and I think that may have led to the cover selections like AC/DC's Rosie, and some Kiss song that escapes me. We arrived towards the end of their set. They are in the "reasons to go see a show" column for me. The next band was Creepin' Charley and the Boneyard Orchestra, and if the four piece band doesn't warrant the title of Orchestra they are certainly helped out by a stage chock full of props including enormous skull caricatures of the band, 9" TVs lining the front of the stage set to snow, and a fog machine. They were performers, and they gave us a show. The front man took his job seriously coming out on stage in a red tuxedo with flames on the sleeves and an Army MP helmet covered in mini-mirrors like a disco ball adorned with red horns. They had a tight set. The guitarist was exceptional. The band played well together. In short I'd like to see them again.

I'm not going to mention the next act by name. He was a one man -ahem- "band" who probably should have moved out of his Mom's house fifteen years ago. He increased speed as he increased volume. He played three chords. He plied the crowd for drugs. When he had finished up for the night he was drinking alone. The whole experience evoked pity.

By the time the next band was up we were ready to hit the road. We rolled over to the Murphy, and hung out with some artist friends of hers who live there. I got to see a couple studios. I felt really honored to see one in particular. It felt like I was walking into a shrine dedicated to beauty. I want some of this guy's art. I just don't know how to work that into my budget at the moment. After the art tour and hearing some good discs it was time to get on home.

I dropped off no-blog-name friend and headed to Meijer's. The reports of bad weather had me concerned and I wasn't going to leave myself snowed in without activities. I bought some chunky maroon yarn, big knitting needles, a frozen pizza, and toilet paper among other things. My fridge and pantry are stocked well enough, and it's not like I'll be stuck for more than a day, but I saw that the quality of the ginger root was good, and one thing led to another. Really, I saw this as an excuse to not leave the house, and I went to bed late Saturday morning excited to wake up in a Winter wonderland.

I spent all day knitting in my pajamas watching Miss Marple murder mysteries and drinking tea. There were a million things I wanted to do yesterday, but I stayed focused and finished my scarf. This is my first wearable knitting project, and I'm pleased. It's pictured here, warts and all. This piece is also the first knitting I've done that involved more than one ball of yarn. I I think the best knitting advice I've received is from Saraswati who told me that all knitting has mistakes and knitters know that. So when my eyes travel immediately to the flaws in my work I remind myself that it's just a part of the work.

Snidely Knitlash!

So Maestro and I are getting the knit out and starting a knitting circle. Right now it's just a knitting line since there's only two of us, but Mom may be joining us for the next event. Yay! Our first session was really fun, knitting and chatting by the fire with Bazbeaux's Pizza. Pepperoni, garlic, and ricotta cheese pizza is obscenely good. The garlic sweetens up, the pepperoni has kick, and the ricotta is mellow creamy goodness.

I'm off to my mandatory office bowling party.

Too musical for commercial success

I went to a show last night at Music Mill to see the musical stylings of Over the Rhine, and I do mean musical stylings. The band is a 6 piece from Cincinnati, and you can tell they're from a river community. There's something about river music that's delicious. Very bluesy, jazzy, Old Time, and mish mashed, the lead singer croons in a sultry voice so drippy it could put out the torch she's singing over. Watch where you're aiming that! Singer was backed up by electric piano and a moogish looking thing, cello, violin, upright bass, electric bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and drum kit which included washboard and compact rain stick in the form of many 6 inch rain sticks strapped together. Since there were only six people on stage the instruments were constantly changing as you can imagine. The stage manager was able to work up a sweat handing out guitars in between every song.

To give you an idea of the band's musicality, I think that this was the best performance, most musically sensitive performance I've seen in a set drummer. Period. He let loose and went insane during an extended solo, but it was welcome. Quite necessarily where the drummer goes the band does follow, and so when I say this guy may have been the strongest musician on the stage I think I'm really giving mad props to the band as a whole. The violinist/cellist performs with the Cincinnati Orchestra. He had a brilliant violin solo, so I'm betting the violin is his principle instrument. The upright bassist played electric bass and guitar and sang baritone. The electric guitarist played electric bass and acoustic guitar, and apparently produced the band's last two albums. The pianist was excellent, and he offered up all the between song chatter. He dead panned some beautiful stories, and he made me think of a Eastern Midwestern version of Garrison Keiller. (I consider GK to be Northern Midwestern.) In short he was both hilarious and touching which I find an admirable combination. Played a little stiff though. That's my only complaint about the show. The technically brilliant and smoking hot piano was a tidge stiff.

The show ruled, and I bought their latest non-Christmas album. At the end of the show I just felt happy and a little sad. It's a preposterous notion, but one I haven't been able to shake: this group is too musical for commercial success. I've heard plenty of torchy songbirds released in the last couple years with thin accompaniment in the background, but they can't hold a candle to this lady, and the band is so strong. So where's their radio play? Where's their hit album? They have had a couple songs played on network television shows. Maybe I'm just impatient for what I think what should be. I don't know all the particulars. I don't know the ins and outs of the music industry. I just know good music, and they are good. To me it's simple. Make 'em millionaires and play their music everywhere.

Is anyone else freaked out by that guy?

Every time I log into blogger I am greeted by this YouTube frame of a freaky looking guy. He's a swarthy, meaty looking man sitting on a funky beige couch wearing a bright yellow polo. His eyes are drawn to slits and his hands clasped in front of him as if this picture was taken at the exact moment when he figured out how he wanted to torture and kill his daughter's boyfriend or perhaps a snitch in his organized criminal venture. Either way it doesn't look good, and I see it every time I login to Blogger. I'm assuming that most of you have seen this as most of you post on Blogger, but here's a picture for those of you not graced with such a pleasure. I can't wait till Blogger changes the dash page. The purpose of the photo is to demonstrate a sharing feature on YouTube. I'm just saying this picture sets back the cause of the vlog. Come on, Blogger. Come up with a new feature! Maybe exploit another Google asset like posting directly from the desktop. Make something up. I don't care. Just get rid of that picture.

Today, I thought perhaps this is just a really terrible moment taken out of context and he's really in the middle of a perfectly legitimate maneuver. Perhaps he's about to sneeze. I should investigate. Clicking on the picture doesn't actually link to the YouTube video in question. I may never know what this guy is all about.

In other news I ate the Blue Cookie. I broke down during a 9 hour troubleshooting session held yesterday. That cookie monster colored cookie may have been the straw that broke the camel's back because today I feel like my jeans are too tight. I can't stand it. I've been slightly uncomfortable all day. I have finally accepted that I actually need to *gasp* diet. So no more holiday cookies. I may just start carrying dish soap after all. Dish soap and a spray bottle so when I'm done destroying the festive food I can spray the bakers with water. Bad kitty!


That's it. Chunky out.

Nobody wants the blue cookie

I talk about my office in general terms. When I think of my place of work I realize it's rather large from the outside, and "office" is misleading. I work in a large building consisting of two almost wings sitting askew slightly pointing to the East and West. Looking at it from that perspective I work in the West wing, but I haven't run into any decision makers working and walking at the same time with a pack of sweating decision executers in tow huffing and puffing to catch every command. I can't imagine a lot of work gets accomplished that way. To make sure we're all on the same page I'm alluding to Aaron Sorkin's West Wing and, well, really anything Aaron Sorkin ever put on the air involved people working while walking quickly. I don't believe many places get things done in that fashion especially not the White House. I'll bet no one does anything without an e-mail trail, and those who do work that specifically preclude the use of e-mail as a transmission medium most certainly don't follow someone around in a pack while he or she is barking orders. Can you imagine Cheney barking at his staff while tearing through his offices on the way to some important meeting? Can he even do that without risking "national security" or whatever it is that covers his movements? But I digress.

This all started when I was referring to my place of work, a large building consisting of roughly three floors broken into five segments per floor creating 15 "pods". When I think of my office I think of my pod which contains something in the ball park of 100 cubicles. So when I say something like we had an office pitch-in I'm referring to a segment of my building which the Mars company would refer to as "Fun Size".

My office is constantly alerting us to the starting and stopping of a never ending stream of activities. Something is *always* happening that is not work related. I could devote a blog site entirely to these goings on, and with Christmas in full swing it's reaching a fever pitch. I received an e-mail the other day informing me that the Twelve days of Christmas would be starting inexplicably on the 6th, and people are invited to bring in food. And what is the number one choice of food among my geeky brothers and sisters? Cookies. I'm OK with cookies being around, especially if I'm hungry on that particular day, but we're stacked to the drop ceiling in cookies. People are running out of places to stow them. There are cookies in break room, near the supply cabinet, on top of various metal cabinet outposts near the copy machines, piled next to the battery recycling jar...

I ate some lovely cookies today, a bunch of chocolate chip cookies baked into what had to originally be snickerdoodles - they might actually have been better than you are currently imagining them to be at this moment - and some oatmeal golden raisin and craisin cookies. Fancy pants! Very tasty. Somebody brought in store bought peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips. Impossible to resist.

But this is too much of a good thing. I'm already trying to work off my I-quit-a-bunch-of-habits weight that I put on when I - well - quit a bunch of bad habits. I work out, but I don't really eat well. Now I'm surrounded by sugary, buttery, chocolaty goodness. This morning I was welcoming the cookies with open arms. By 1pm I was beginning to think twice. By 2pm I was crashing from the sugar when I noticed that a vendor had left an enormous 15 layer tin of cookies in the network team's area. Aargh! I started toying with the idea of covering all the cookies I encountered with dish soap. It's not just for me, you understand. I work in a rather sedentary industry, and Indiana is a fatty fat state. I'd be carrying out some sort of good deed. I'd practically be a vigilante super hero. I could run around in a cape quickly turning corners surprising purveyors of pastries, and soap up their baked goods only to vanish as quickly as I'd appeared. Naturally, I'd report back to my boss and mentor Richard Simmons. We'd reconnoiter with Susan Powter, have a good cry about all the hefty people who were saved by our heroic destruction of snack food, and then reward ourselves with double chocolate ice cream.


And that's how it could go down. But I think I have the antidote that could stop the insanity: The Colts Cookie. Lordy, I'm glad we have such a successful sports team wearing a color that no one would eat, and yet people try to bake the Colts into Christmas. Witness exhibit a to the right here. Now who is going to eat that cookie? Clearly no one I work with. Even the Post-It note asking all of us to "Help yourself" could not entice a taker. That tupperware dish was full of cookies, including the chocolate chip snickerdoodles, but all
that remained today was this sad little dye job. Believe me cookies is cookies is cookies where I work, and still no takers for this one. I mean, if I was really hungry I would eat a blue cookie, and then I bet it wouldn't taste any different. So really the blue cookie is just a hunger litmus test. "Are you sure you want that snack? Well alright then." So in the future I'm going to ask that all office bakers try a little tenderness and a whole lotta food coloring.

I said Gahlic

I have been cooking a lot of Indian dishes recently. Mostly I'm perfecting my palak paneer entree with rice which I cooked last night. The long and the short of it is that I'm cooking with a lot of onions, chillies, and garrrlic. I love the flavors, and I love that something as boring as spinach can kick the taste buds so strongly with the help of some spices. It's healthier than the perogies and bratwurst I've been eating, too. However, there's a little problem:

I'm now sweating garlic.

I work out at lunch, and afterwards I hit the shower. While I was soaping down, I detected a strong odor of garlic. I thought I smelled it on my gym bag earlier, and I chalked that up to it being in the kitchen while I'd been cooking all weekend. Um. Maybe. Or maybe it's because the bag contains my sweaty gym clothes, and my flesh reeks undeniably of odoriferous allium.

In high school there was a popular Latin teacher named Barcio. Strange that a Latin teacher should be popular, but I hear that's fairly common. I imagine young Latin enthusiasts would have to hone serious humor oriented verbal survival skills not unlike young homosexuals. Thankfully, their passion actually strengthens linguistic skills and sharpens the sword they carry. That's my theory. - Anyway, this Barcio guy was popular - as in referred to without title popular. Barcio said this crazy shit in class. No one had anything bad to say about him save one issue. He sweat garlic. Apparently, the man consumed (most likely still does) large quantities of garlic, and if any of his students were distressed about him they'd undoubtedly bring this up. Reportedly, his pores oozed garlic oil, and if he worked himself up in class woe was it to those seated in the front row.

Sure the guy was cool, but I don't want to be garlic girl. That's not hot. Although, I refuse to change my eating habits. I love garlic. It's healthy and tasty and makes otherwise bland food (pasta, rice, spinach, chicken - anything) fabulous.

I've recently developed a taste for onions as well. My future looks smelly.

Working for the weekend

It's Monday which means I can come down off my oncall cross and hand my pager (yes they still make them) to a co-worker. Fabulous. The weekend was fairly uneventful - I mean, I went out and bought socks uneventful - but good all the same. I did get someone to babysit the pager Friday night so I could go out to the First Friday art festivities happening all over town. I went with a friend whom I've hung out with here and there for the last year. I'm glad I took the time. I got to see a lot of new art, and the one artist who really stood out was my activity buddy's favorite, Emma Overman. I think of her work as a much softer and gentler Edward Gorey. It's hard to really put my finger on it, but she paints adorable pictures of impossibly cute young people (mostly girls) which are both cartoonish and totally authentic. I don't do her justice so here's a sample from her website:


Check her out. She also has some children's books out that would be perfect for nieces and nephews this Christmas.

Saturday was errand running day when I bought the aforementioned socks. Sunday, after a week of little activity, my normally silent sentry decided to get loud. The oncall pager blew up with some bad issues. Typical. I made a point of setting up my change window an hour earlier than usual so I could watch Blanche and Romeo work the mic for their drag debut, but the network god Geekorus saw my attempts at having a social life while "on the clock" as impudent and he grew jealous that I had friends so he sent down a monkey wrench in the form of not fully baked configurations for new equipment through which I was supposed to send production traffic. His aim was true, and what should have been a simple twenty minute conference call turned into a two hour slog. I don't know why I'm surprised. The rule: if it isn't in production then it isn't actually working. The corollary: If it isn't working then all installation estimates are useless. I was only able to get away after my fellow trouble-shooters succumbed to my jedi mind tricks, begged off for the night and suggested we pick it up in the morning with some more input from the people who set up this equipment from the start. Woohoo! I flew off to Talbott's to catch the tail end of the show. I just managed to catch Blanche in her second costume and to see Romeo's last number. They both sizzled. All the ladies were smokin' and I was glad to fork over some money for a good cause. I'm glad I went, and it looked like B and R were having a good time. I hope they managed to soak up the royal goodness from the event. Meeyow, my babies.

During the show I realized I still have a drawer full of "girl stuff": nail polish, eye liner, mascara, lipsticks. I can't seem to throw them out even though I haven't exposed them to oxygen in well over a year. I tell myself it may come in handy. You know, in case I have to hot foot it out of town in disguise I suppose. I was always terrible about refreshing makeup keeping mascara for years (but there's still some in there. How can I throw it out?) I like the blue nail polish. I won't get rid of that. I think the rest of it can go if for no other reason than hygiene. I'm not poking eight-year-old eye liner in my eyes even if I do have to dodge someone.

Bowling for bonuses and booby traps

Today, the first of two required holiday bowling parties is being held for a segment of the IT division of my company. Since someone has to be available to work on each production system in the event of an outage the division is split in two with half the group going on one Friday and the other half the following. Managers go to both, and attendance is mandatory. Management rents a bunch of lanes at a local bowling alley and give us two drink tickets per person. People generally drink, bowl a couple games, have a white elephant gift exchange, and call it a day around 5ish. Attendance is mandatory, and I think that casts a shadow over the proceedings. I enjoy getting out of work early. I enjoy bullshitting with co-workers, but when I'm told I must it feels a little strained. Last year I went through my two drink tickets before I had bowled my fifth frame... on a team with my boss who doesn't drink all that much. And the bar was most assuredly taking my money.

I'm attending next week as I'm oncall this week, and I'm actually looking forward to it. Last year I got drunk, played pool with a couple guys - one of whom asked me out even though I thought I was pretty clear I wasn't interested - and drove home drunkish during rush hour traffic on a Friday during the holidays on the North side. 'Tis the season, Officer Friendly! This year I'm not drinking so I think it will be pretty easy to maintain focus while I'm in the presence of the higher ups. Last year it was a little touch and go. Also I actually know people so I won't be spending a lot of time on the outside looking in. At least that's the plan.

I'd say I get along well with my co-workers, but we don't make plans together or anything. There was a time when I went out drinking with the guys some Fridays until everyone went home for dinner, but that time is gone. It's for the best. Once a co-worker lobbied heavily to attend the lingerie show at a nearby bar and I actually felt my resolve slipping. I have a simple personal rule: I shall engage in no salacious activities with co-workers even if we are eyeing the same candy. The lines blur too quickly. Furthermore, I've been to titty bars where I was pulled into the show against my will. Quite unexpectedly a stripper pulled my shirt up over my head. Believe me, if I had known that was a part of the deal I would have worn a different bra. And furthermore I didn't get a cut of the tips. Shenanigans, O'Flannigan!

Lullaby

Listening to Brahms' 2nd Symphony and feeling uneasy, I decided to ditch anxiety and start knitting. I picked up an old scarf that I started eighteen months ago. Yes, I knit a little. I'm not accomplished at it or anything, but I do enjoy it. My trip out to Persephone and Bunyan's place reminded me and since I couldn't decide what to do with my Monday evening I picked up the needles and yarn.


Last night I finished the tag team crossword puzzle Persephone sent me along with the myriad toiletries and night clothes I left over Thanksgiving. Crossword puzzles seem to pick up steam for me. The first ten minutes I spend staring at the squares wondering how anyone completes these things then little by little I find clues that could be for me. Chipping away the puzzle eventually fills in like a reverse sculpture; the whittled away bits are what's interesting not the stone left behind, and I can't believe that I got through what was once seemingly impossible. Crosswords are kinda weird that way. Persephone is write: it is easier when someone starts it.

Crosswords and knitting. Sheesh! Winter is a part of the life/death/life cycle, and that's all fine and good, but do I have to turn into an eighty-year-old grandma during December?