dianaschnuth

Mom stopped by today on her way down to Texas. Yep, I took the day off and had a couple few hours of quality Mom time before she continued on her move South. I guess Gary still hasn’t closed on the house, and their stuff is living in his parents’ garage. (They live a mile away from the soon-to-be new homestead.) Anyway, Mom is planning to drive down to Texas over a span of about three days, after which she’ll join Gary in staying with his parents until they can find a mortgage broker that is willing to work with their credit. (Yikes.)

I’ve pretty much finished tweaking my portfolio page, although there are still a few things I’d like to add. As it is, if the nice folks at HR happen to look at my portfolio (hi, guys!), I won’t be embarrassed about it. Which is a good thing in a job hunt.

As predicted, tweaking my portfolio site helped me remember all the cool shit I used to do (when I had more access to expensive software and hardware). Even better is the fact that I can tell where my shortcomings were in some of the pieces I’ve posted, which means I haven’t gone rusty from being out of the academic environment for almost three years.

Doesn’t it figure, though—on my day off, when I was spending time with my Mom and tweaking my portfolio and hanging out at home with Aaron, I was also experiencing the beginnings of a pretty righteous cold. Now I have to go to work tomorrow with a nose like a faucet. Great.

Hey, HR? If you’re reading this, you might want to hold off and just do a phone interview or something until I get this cold under control. For your sake. 🙂

I’ve been bringing a spiral-bound sketch notebook to work in my purse, so that if I opt not to read my book, or if I have a brainstorm, I can sit in the breakroom or outside at the picnic table and write. I have yet to decide whether it’s had sort of the William Gibson blogging vs. writing effect:

I?ve found blogging to be a low-impact activity, mildly narcotic and mostly quite convivial, but the thing I?ve most enjoyed about it is how it never fails to underline the fact that if I?m doing this I?m definitely not writing a novel ? that is, if I?m still blogging, I?m definitely still on vacation. I?ve always known, somehow, that it would get in the way of writing fiction, and that I wouldn?t want to be trying to do both at once. The image that comes most readily to mind is that of a kettle failing to boil because the lid?s been left off.

Or, perhaps, my daily longhand journaling has helped me focus my thoughts and write more coherent entries—like practicing for a performance. I find that I write things there that I really couldn’t write here: naming names, for instance, or talking about my poop cramps, or just generally complaining about how tired or bored I am during the day. These things may or may not be interesting even to my closest friends, and may or may not get me into trouble if the wrong people read them.

*flipping through recent writing*

OK, here’s a sample of today’s longhand journal entry:

17 September 2004 | 10:33am
Sky Bank Arrowhead Service Center Break Room

I’m in a particularly foul mood today, and I’m not sure why. I know I’m tired, and part of me resents being here when a third of the department is off today. I can tell I’m still unreasonably pissed about [work event deleted]—but that was two days ago. I should be over it by now. I’m also kinda hungry, and munching on my sugar-free wafers isn’t doing much to help that. And I’m pissed off at myself for being ignorant about things, and having to ask questions in the first place. Which is asinine—how am I to know things I just don’t know? I have to ask to learn. I still hate having to bug people—because I know I am.

In general daily news, I still haven’t gotten an e-mail about my lomo photos from Snapfish, and I still haven’t gotten my gift certificate e-mail from Sky. *tired sneer*

I hate it when I get to this point in the evening. I feel like if I go to bed now, I would be giving up some quality time, and would just bring myself a few hours closer to going to work again—but I’m really too tired to do anything useful.

This is possibly the only time I’ve reloaded my browser at the end of one of my auctions—and literally jumped back from the screen, thrown my hands up, and exclaimed, “Holy shit!”