I am quietly panicking about how I am going to get through the next six weeks. October to November is my trigger season.
I was raped 12 years ago. I don’t know what day it was, although I could reconstruct it from journal entries and a calendar if I had to. Continue reading “Trigger Season”
1. It was nice working in an office for a week… 
Working from home is a sweet gig. I can take conference calls in my PJ’s, and when I have an early morning, all I need to do is roll out of bed and walk five feet down the hall. Even so, I sometimes miss being in an office environment, miss sticking my head in somebody’s office rather than having to email or call to get their attention. Working alone, at home, is isolating. I think the week helped us all feel a little bit closer.
2 … And even nicer coming home. It’s been almost a week, and Z is still talking about her mama going away on a ferry boat. She’s also been a Velcro baby since I got back. Which is fine, because I think I missed her almost as much as she missed me. Not to mention that although A and I can handle long distance, we don’t much like it.
3. It snows in Salt Lake City. Who knew? 
As both my husband and sister pointed out, apparently the 2010 Winter Olympics Committee. I chose SLC as my stopover point figuring there was less chance of having weather-related delays than if I went through Minneapolis. My first inkling that this may not have been the wisest choice was the captain of my DCA to SLC flight saying, “Folks, if you noticed we’ve been zig-zagging over Wyoming, it’s because it’s snowing in Salt Lake and they’re alternating runways to keep them ploughed.” I’ve got to give it to the folks at that airport, though. They’ve got their act together. Ultimately, I was only delayed about an hour.
4. My solution to stress-free gift giving. A and I have very different ideas about gift giving and the holidays. He likes surprises; I’d rather make a list. This has led to no end of frustration on my part, as I find it impossible to get him to tell me what he wants. This year, I tried something different: I bought him “A flavored” stuff that I liked and wanted. Stress-free, it was rather enjoyable. Here’s hoping he likes what he gets as much as I do.
5. Happy birthday to me! I turned 33 this week. It was a pretty low-key day. Normally A and I divide and conquer on the weekends – I get Z and he gets the to do list. It’s efficient, but we don’t get to spend as much time together as I would like. For my birthday, I asked if we could have a day with the three of us. We took Z up to Scandia and chased her around the gerbil tunnels. It was terrifically fun. When A asked her at the end of the night if she had a good day, she said “tunnels.” So I think that counts as a success.
Closing Tabs
I thought planes were one of those things that are too large to misplace, but someone has left three at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. Airport management posted the lost and found notice in a local newspaper, proving that not all weird stuff ends up on Craigslist.
One of the best things about working from home is not having to wear a bra every day.
I’m intrigued by this pen and paper subscription service. Judging by the number of sold out items on the page, a bunch of other people are too. I’m looking forward to the not-so-distant day when handwriting is an art form and paper is a luxury good.
Working at a British shop has turned me into an unapologetic tea drinker. I’ve been using Tea Gschwendner for a bit, but T2 is now delivering to the US and the internet is pretty excited about it. Fellow tea drinkers: what’s your go to?
I’ve not yet managed to bring my camera on any of the business trips I’ve taken over the past year, largely due to luggage/space issues. This tote looks like the perfect solution: there’s room for a laptop and an SLR.
Happy holidays everyone. May your Christmases be full of good food (Chinese food, in the case of all my Jewish friends) and the people you love.
1. I’m back on the East Coast next week. I didn’t realize until a few days ago that I’m going to be gone during the week of Hannukah. A and I normally don’t make it much past the first night of menorah lighting, as evidenced by the nearly full box of candles I got him eight years ago when we first started dating. This year, though, I’d been looking forward to lighting candles with Z.
2. Cooking with a toddler is a whole different ball game. Z has gotten to the age where she very much wants to help with everything, and her enthusiasm is far greater than her skill. And I’ve been trying to cook a bit more, especially when A goes into work earlier, to make his life a bit easier. This means that I’m often trying to keep her out of the raw meat with one hand, off the knife with the other, and away from the eggs with the third. At which point I realize I don’t have a third hand and catch her just before she stuffs a piece of raw chicken in her mouth. It’s all worth it when she eats everything on her plate and asks for more. (Days she doesn’t eat anything, I just want to scream.)
3. The closest I ever came to seeing a STP concert was watching Scott Weiland’s ass disappear into the back of a tour bus.. They played a free concert at USF my freshman year of college. I didn’t have a car at that point, so I spent a good chunk of time trying to find someone who did. By the time we got over the bridge and through traffic, it was over.
** Edit: My brother has reminded me that this isn’t true, and we saw STP together back in 2000 at the WBCN River Rave, and that it was a pretty incredible show. He’s right, on both counts.**
4. We had our first adult dinner party since Z was born this weekend. A set of matching dinnerware is still very much on our to get list, 
so I rolled with it, using vintage Coca-Cola glasses instead of pints to keep the “rustic” feel going. Z didn’t want to get out of her PJ’s, so I rolled with that too. It was good to have company that’s not family (although I love having family too!), and proof that there is life beyond the black hole of poop and temper tantrums.
5. I am most definitely stressed out this month. Part of it is the fact that my big report for work, which was supposed to be done before Thanksgiving, has been pushed back again. This means that instead of having the holidays and our vacation in January clear, there’s a chance I might have to work through some or all of it. Then there’s the holiday season itself, and all of that craziness (including the fact that I’m rapidly running out of time to get any kind of holiday cards out the door). Add in a two year old, the daily battles around bedtime, and the complete inability to get anything done with any sort of efficiency while she’s around, and the result is that I’m needing about 5 more hours in each day than I’ve got right now.
Closing Tabs
Z and I made the gingerbread cake from All Cakes Considered this week, and it was fantastic. I’m pretty sure I ate most of it. In my defense, I was following the recipe.
My mom has always said people are inherently good…
The Worldbuilders Stardust ARC is one of those things that restores my faith in humanity. Every year, Pat Rothfuss puts a signed ARC of Stardust into the lottery or auction for his yearly charity. Every year, without fail, the winner donates it back.
…and inherently dumb.
Red mercury is the holy grail of terrorist bomb plots, strong enough to flatten a city the way a nuclear blast would. It is also scientifically impossible. The result? Cons, conspiracies, and long read piece in the Times Sunday magazine.
This guy spent 4,200 of his 10,000 hours working on capturing a single photograph of a diving kingfisher. Anyone can buy a digital camera and Photoshop and pass themselves off as a photographer, but this kind of patience and dedication is what makes you a pro.
Serialbox is attempting to bring back serial novels, doing it TV-style: each “episode” is written by a team and takes about forty minutes to read. I was initially excited about this, then downloaded the sample chapter for Bookburners and decided the writing was crap about two pages in. And that would have been that, except that I’m seeing all kinds of excitement for Tremontaine, a prequel to Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint. (If you’re into fantasy and you haven’t read Swordspoint, you should). So I’m giving Serialbox another try.
How do you handle the holidays and the end of year craziness? Comment here, because I’m still banning myself from Facebook!