awhyzip

I am taking the day off tomorrow. For no good reason, just 'cause it's summer and I can, so why not?

It's very addicting -- I want to take more days off. And my boss doesn't help with her super-easy-going "oh, and if the weather's bad and you want to take another/a different day off, you can just tell me the morning of" reminders. ;-D (It's like too good to be true... I don't really believe I can just do that!)

So, I called up my doctor (finally) to schedule a checkup, and they found a nice time for me... tomorrow.

(Man! I was hoping to get a second day-off out of the "I have a doctor's appointment" excuse, and they go be too available!)

(Not that it actually matters, since I don't need any excuses to just take a day off. See above, and Yay Contractor!)

My folks have invited themselves up for the afternoon (I'm glad to have them), and then in the evening Jo & I will go to the opening night of Theater @ First's One-Acts. Maybe I'll be able to convince my parents to come too :-)

Update.

Talk Like A Pirate Day is less fun at places where you have a dress code. I made the mistake of checking the handbook the night before, so I learned that my swishy pantaloons are too short to wear (more than 2" above ankle). Anyway, I pretended that the shirt & pants I chose had bucaneer qualities (if you squint real hard), but really I just looked like a classy librarian.

Not that this is in anyway a slur on librarians, or an accurate reflection of what the librarians of my actual experience wear.

Dressing up has ceased to be exciting because I envy the other women their tailored button-down shirts. I want to get me some, but on the other hand I don't because a) I have lots of nice overshirts and b) it's really annoying to shop for button shirts because they don't close over my breasts.
Ordinarily my conclusion is "Well, ha! Breasts good." Lately, less self-affirming reactions -- feeling large & awkward -- have been slipping into my mind.

Your call as to whether this is totally unrelated: all the elevators have mirrored surfaces of brass (or some similar metal). The doors reflect a much smaller image than the wall-with-the-elevator-buttons. It can be disconcerting, if I stand in a way that lines me up across the join.

Standing in elevators is always awkward. Even if I was having a conversation with someone as we waited for the elevator to arrive, I will always fall silent as we step inside. It doesn't make sense. Only until a floor or so has passed will I think of it and consider resuming speech. Then, is it odd to pick back up where you left off?

These elevators at work are posh. Swift, silent, and walled in gorgeous polished marble (except the front wall & doors, which are that mirror-like brass). They also have little TV screens that show headlines + advertizements.
The screens are located above the center of the doorway -- this means they are fairly high up. As a result, people who watch them have a distinctive chin-in-the-air posture. I don't like that. Looks odd. It's also a VERY effective way of avoiding eye-contact.

The plus side of riding reflective elevators every day is that I have been consistently enjoying my new, shorter, haircut. It's fun -- perfect boingy curl-ends hang at finger-height -- and it looks good. Dries quick, and I've even realized that "applying product" isn't necessarily a pain or pretentious.
(On the other hand, I was given the unsolicited advice at Kiddush last week that I should use a different gel. Insulting?)

The unexpected side of the elevators poshness is doorways are deep. They are so undented and well-polished, that until you are right on top of the doorway, you can miss the fact that the doors aren't closed. What looked like the doors was the doorways reflecting each other!

And, not to forget: I remembered to vote. First time regestered elsewhere than my hometown!

Tonight was a monthly socialize & network thingy at a bar in downtown Boston. One of my ex-coworkers had mentioned it, and I ran into him Monday and asked about it. Timing: it was the next night!
I was intending most likely to go, but not quite sure (since I wasn't sure how well I'd fit in if it's mostly a crowd of MBAs). In the end, printing up a sheet of business cards (a task I thought would be quick and good to do beforehand) ended up taking forever. I got caught up in figuring out why the spacing was messing up, and before I knew it, it was too late to get there more than a half-hour before the end. So I punted.

There was a free sneak preview/premiere of A Scanner Darkly Sunday at Brandeis. I meant to go, but oops.
I heard about it from an email list of a student club I'm still on. I probably ought to de-subscribe since they generally do me no good... but every so often there's something cool like this! Or like this would have been had I not forgotten what day of the week it was.

Also didn't do any dishes. I might just go do some now, before bed though. I have a spiffy new dish drying rack -- "extra large"!
The worst part about doing dishes here (no dishwasher) is having to stop because the drying rack fills up. This happened frustratingly rapidly, so I could never get a good rhythym going. Hence, extra large.
The best part has been when brass_rat does some for me. :-D

Oh yeah, and seriously, what is up with the stingy trays under dish driers? In most designs, your cups are supposed to extend beyond the edges of the drier proper, but the tray is never ample enough to catch their drips!
I would love to buy a tray, just the tray, that is large enough to cover my whole sink-side counter area. Does anyone have a suggestion of where to find this? I want it to have a slant in it and a small rim on all but one side, like a normal drying tray, but be about 22 inches wide (along the draining edge). Length could be anywhere from 22 to 30 inches.

:-( They kept me at work until I was tired.

I mean really unable-to-process-two-inputs-at-once tired.

I tired QA is not a useful QA.

:-(



(Which wouldn't be a prob if I got to sleep in this morning, but I have to be in at a "reasonably early" hour (read, 9am) b/c we did not finish the Transition last night. So I am awake, but not bright-eyed. ... Maybe I should have set my alarm to just minimal get-out-the-door time, rather than as I did: giving self a hour for non-rushing.)

My poor PM though, not only did he have to run out into the parkinglot without his coat to catch me when I was first leaving, but I understand he was going to have to slept at the office last night in order to get any sleep-time at all before the morning.

I'm doing stuff. Don't much feel the need to report it, but I suppose I'll like to look back on history later. And maybe a friend or two will be interested.

I went to Arisia convention last weekend. There were lots of things I didn't do, but despite that I had a good time.

Before that I'd been visiting apartments and stressing about how much I could pay and also how I was going to let my housemate know. This week I am not stressing. Also, I now prefer the downstairs East Arlington apartment to the lovely West Medford place. It's good to have options. Either one would be great, and I believe I have a good chance of at least one working out.

Have been fairly bored at work, lots of waiting for releases. I don't enjoy this. Also it makes me nervous, when I think about it, in terms of job security. Should probably do something proactive about this, but not sure what. Maybe I'll talk to my manager (she's moved a few extra projects to my queue, but they are all quickie 1-day things), maybe I'll call back that recruiter who phoned me in December... add some adrenaline. Coworker D- suggested making my own list of ongoing enrichment projects for my spare time. This is a good idea, but I have none that interest me right now. Have already spent several days on investigating load testing tools, which would be on that list, but I'm sick of that. Maybe I'm not focusing enough. I wish I'd simply been on vacation all month.

If I'd've been on vacation, I would certainly have taken advantage of the astoundingly mild & warm weather we had before & after that 20-degree (9 with wind-chill!) day Sunday. As it is, I went out and had a walk in the park behind the office one afternoon in place of my gym class. I really do like going for walks -- I forget that! I tried to make it a brisk walk, but kept getting distracted by how gorgeous things in the woods with snow are.

Also this week I went to Israeli Dancing per Danielle F's invite. I mostly had to stand by the sidelines because of not knowing the dances, but I think I could get better. I need lots of review & practice of basic footwork fundamentals. (Reminds me of fencing class.) In any case, any evening of listening to new Hebrew music is a good one, in my book.

Other events include first leyning class at the shul (TBS), two apartment visits, and a date. I feel very socially Jewish. I'm even thinking about the upcoming WZO elections, because a) my dad sent me an invite to register and b) my shul (ECh) included in its update an entry about this that made me want to write back a letter. Actually, I did write back: a letter-to-the-editor kind of thing, my first. (The article consisted entirely of a letter from a Reform Movement (ARZA) campaign manager, and I was really turned off by his presumptuous and combative tone. It was a rallying-the-troops sort of letter, absolutely against Klal Ysrael, and not also appropriate for a shul newsletter.)

It's almost time for me to start planning my birthday. Feb 21 will be sooner than I think.

Ok, be well. Bye!

My children were in full blown drama mode like I have not ever seen them before!

Picture an 8 yr old boy, face screwed up in a rictus, tears flying from his face everytime he shook his head, beating one hand against the table and crying out "How could he?!"

I thought I was watching Wuthering Heights or something with the manly grief of deep betrayal so out of style these days. Only... on an 8 year old.

---

And before you ask, no, I still don't really know what happened. *Puzzled.* Co-teacher and I were alternatedly in and out of the room during the relevant actions -- we're going to compare notes tonight Monday. The kids did seem to be on healed terms by the end of the day, though.

GUESS who I found at TBS Simchat Torah!! MATTHEW! YAY!!

in other news:
another weekend in which i didn't clean the bathroom. oops. i did buy paper towels & napkins at last, though

need to get remains of my sukkah cleared up before it *melts* (shmugginah rain rain rain)

last night the CEO of my company was wandering around chatting with those of us still in. and i couldn't think of a thing to say to him, stupid tongue-tied-ness

overall been a good week :-)

Remember when I had the flat tire? Remember how I thought that the only place around here I could get it replaced was Natick? Remember the dark bold-face text of doom on that place?

On Thursday I learned that 1) tires can sometimes be plugged rather than replaced and 2) this puncture was too large to be plugged. On Friday I learned, 1) Dedham is a reasonable distance away -- plus the pre-existing knowledge that 1) Dedham is not Natick and 2) there is a Town Fair Tire in Dedham. Ergo, a plan: Friday during lunch, I would drive to Dedham and replace my flat tire at last.

So, lunch time rolls around, and I'm not hungry so I put it off. Then I am in a meeting where much new work is added to my "plate". And this is good, but scary, but good. We found & fixed a pretty big bug right at the end of the week, and version 1.1 is ready at the same time. The developers had to deal with the fact that our source-control system doesn't like to develop two versions at once (deal with that and with and their actual work, of course). I don't like that the tool makes their life harder! I want to defend them from it, but of course, what can I do about that? Nothing; it's not anywhere near my job. And I've got my own tool that makes my life harder: our bug-tracking system. I swear the thing just ATE one of my bugs!

It's an annoying system. It's online, which is nice, but it uses an annoying frameset and every so often will reload the whole thing inside one frame (doubling up the menus) or will navigate to only one frame (leaving you trapped in that one function). My main beef is that its search functions are no where near powerful enough. Also it annoys me that when I make custom "reports" (in order to get around the weak search), it only lets me filter on some-but-not-all of the fields -- and of course those fields include two of the approx six that I am most often interested in. ANYWAAY, I was going to mention how at this meeting, just before they told me that both versions are ready for testing NOW, they also said that I should start working on some of the demos that we show to people.

I was a little happy to get to work on the demos, because I always like doing new things!

But then, as there was more and more for me to do in a tiny time-frame, I started to get worried. P. looks out for me, now that she is -- oh i forget the whole title -- manager, but I do tend to think I can do a lot more than I really can.

So I'll skip the story about how the tracker ate my bug, which someone important subsequently experienced and I was unable to demonstrate that it was known. I was secretly embarrassed. This was above-mentioned last-minute necessary fix. I'd previously not thought it was so serious, which also embarrasses me.

But enough on that; I was talking about tires. Just wanted to explain to you why it was not until 3:30 that I went out to run for the tire. Meaning it was already 3:30 when I discovered flat tire number two!
Yes, that's right: this time on the opposite corner.
"AUGH!", I cried, with a good dose of bitter humor, "This is NOT a weekly event!"

I am sitting here at home in Northampton. I am accidentally here; I was meant to be in Cambridge teaching right now, or else still at the Retreat, doing I don't know what with my Havurah. But, I am at home and I just finished reading a book by Jonathan Rosen: The Talmud and the Internet. The book is about 130 pages long. It is light in the hand and small sized. The cover illustration has as a backdrop a reproduced page of talmud, smudged just enough that you can see the words but don't read them. In the book, the author muses about his place as inheritor of two cultures, both Jewish, one American, and one Holocaust European. He reflects on the stories of his grandparents, of his literary heros, and of Talmudic sages. Rosen writes that this book began as an elegy for his grandmother. As I read the book, I could listen to him explore issues that are important to him, issues that are also important to me and on my mind. There was no sense of a finalized argument being put forth; this was not a monograph. There were some passages, where the voice I was reading on the page could easily have been mine, rolling forth from my mind as if I had thought the words directly to paper for the next paragraph.

Rosen is clearly an educated Jew, familiar with Jewish sources as well as modern liberal higher education. The respect he expresses for the traditional texts of our people parallels mine. Neither of us live in the halakic, traditionalist, world, nor do we want to, but our modern lives naturally are and must be informed by Jewish as much as by the "Western" canon. To contextualize our lives, we draw on a collection of stories, value statements, and associations, such that I believe we share, of course enriched by family experiences.
Rosen describes his first trip to Europe. In one passage he half-jokingly explains that the symmetrical layout of a page of Talmud exists that if you should, God forbid, drop your Talmud in a puddle, Rashi would at least be farthest from the mud. As Rosen describes several sections earlier, a page of Talmud has a special and distinctive, almost mandala-like, layout. I recall walking in to a friend's house not seven nights ago, and recognizing instantly the wide, black volume spread on her coffee table atop a small pile of books. The content of our evening had nothing to do with the strictly Judaic, being filled with performance art on queer marriage rights, shoulder rubs, and Indian spices (just as Rosen's trip was filled with pilgimages to Chartres Cathedral and a dissertation on Milton). Nevertheless, there is for me a... a... an indwelling presence of Judaism then. I describe it as this, making the association to the Shechina, "in-dwelling presence" of God. For me, this is the awareness is at the heart of my spiritual life.
The indwelling presence is elusive. It is also flexible and wide-ranging. Everywhere? I could riff on each topic's Jewish connection; they would range from joking to quiet moral imperative. Judaism covers all my moods. Nowhere? Everything had some other sufficient reason for which it was done. I live a modern life. I struggle to describe what contemporary Judaism is.
In my Hebrew School class, I am yearning to pass this on. I want to give as assignments non-particularist books like The Giving Tree and Amos and Boris and Could be Worse! so that the families can learn to read all books with Jewish eyes, even if the protagonist is not named Moishe!

Yesterday evening, I discussed with my mother the plans I am passionate about implementing at E. Ch. Lower School. She knew that a curriculum has been written that approximates my idea of the books. I am lucky and grateful to have such a perfectly-tailored professional resource in my own mother. And my father, too. In fact, it was from his bedside stack of books that I took this Talmud and Internet book. And surmounting the 15-book stack, a wide, black volume. (If this were a short story, I would say it was a Talmud, for the parallelism, but as this is Livejournal and real life: it was a Tikkun, whose two-column bold-and-pale layout was just as distinctive at a quick peek.)

I watched the garbage collectors throw our old chairs into the truck, and a big round part roll-crush them down.

Yesterday I met with the new Education Director and it was very good. We talked a LONG time (and also I had some delicious food-thing at Grasshopper). I wish I knew what the delicious food-thing was... it came on the side with my "chow-foon pockets".

I'm reading feed by M.T. Anderson. (And About Face by the guy who designed Visual Basic.)