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.