Here is the actual playlist from yesterday’s post. Note that our dear author ultimately dubbed it (pun intended) “Mixtape: ‘I Want It That Way,’ ‘Is This It?’ and 18 Other Unclear Songs.” Which I think was wise.
Also wise? This comment, re 14. “Drop It Like It’s Hot,” Snoop Dogg. “There’s a number of things ‘it’ could refer to in this song: I refuse to believe any of them but poop.”
photo credit: World of Good
As you know, my struggles are many and endless. But I’m not sure you really understand the challenges I face, nor the important (even life-or-death) questions that I confront and doggedly resolve on a daily basis. Often my duties also lie in encouraging and mentoring younger editors in their quest for perfect language.
Here is a glimpse, via IM, at my very particular joy—and my pain. As Uncle Ben (not the one of rice fame) once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
photo credit: slworking2
Believe it or not, YUD is working for two weeks straight outside of the confines of her own home. This is unprecedented! Kinda like the old days, except with bigger muscles and less money to show for it.
Today I’m in dreary east midtown, where the rains beat the windows spanning the 15th floor freelancer pen quite mercilessly. Of all the days to stay home, this would be a good one, but here I am. Working girl’s work never done, etc. etc. And, as my cab driver explained to me today (hey, I was running late), when the economy is bad, you have to work when you can. And also, when it rains it can really ruin your hairdo.
Today I have so little concentration that my to-do list (which has 4 items on it, only 2 of them priority) has not even one thing crossed off.
When my electronic prescription refill failed to go through, I hung up rather than actually speak to a “pharmaceutical representative.” I didn’t answer my hair salon when they called to confirm my Saturday appointment and now I have to call them back, too, but have made no progress in that.
I tried to read this article about how breakups are sooooo hard in today’s era of Facebook and digital blah-blah-blah and then I just stopped. And now all I can think about is lunch.
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did manage to make it to the office and am sitting here ostensibly ready to tackle anything that comes my way, but really, focus is about nil until I’m actually presented with something.
photo credit: nevermindtheend
Let’s talk keyboards. See, I’m working with one—how do you not work with one? It would be almost like working without a computer, and goodness knows how we’d get anything done then!
Anyway, when you’re a freelancer you end up getting put at any number of desks with any number of keyboards. The only thing they have in common, really, is that they all have keys, unless you’re working at a really low-brow sort of institution. Oh, and they’re all dirty as hell. (I apologize for the picture and if it makes you want to throw up, cause it makes me want to throw up, and in fact I am averting my eyes quickly so as not to do so.)
photo credit: Peter E. Lee
January 3, 2010. AKA, Day of Great Domesticity. All around the Internets it seems people are cooking and baking and huddling in their tiny and abnormally chilly apartments because it’s 20 degrees and snowing here in New York City.
I, for one, am cooking a lentil stew, with liberal use of red wine vinegar. I have watered the plants and checked to make sure they’re not freezing on my window ledges; I have dressed in ski socks, a flannel shirt, and am trying out the American Apparel shiny leggings. I think I might even like them.
photo credit: Sailor Coruscant
It is a strange sensation to be completely alone on the 15th floor of a midtown office building. When I arrived circa 10:30, the lights in the kitchen were still off. The toilets had not been used since their last cleaning. And it’s cold, so cold I’m wearing my coat, even though the heat is ostensibly on. There’s not even a Bert to keep me company.
Oh my God, as I wrote that, a person turned the corner and looked at me! I have never seen him before, but since I’m freelancing and haven’t been here for a few weeks, nor have I ever met everyone on this floor, that means little.
Rarely is it, since I was laid off in May, that I have to do something so icky, so inauthentic and against my nature that my skin crawls and I have the urgent need to shower vigorously using high-potency Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap.
YUD’s conundrum is thus: She was offered a high-paying part-time gig with a certain client that does rather yucky, corporate things. The stars were in her eyes a little bit, as the figure quoted included two zeroes per hour. She thought, I can do anything for two zeroes per hour!
photo credit: The Old Adalie Plain
Holly jolly ho ho ho!
I can’t believe it’s December, much less a week (nay, 6 days) from when I board JetBlue flight TKTK and head to Florida to celebrate the reason for the season with my Occasionally Working Mother, Soon-to-be-Reemployed Father, Cognitive Neuroscientist Brother, and Self-Employed Sis-in-Law-to-Be.
photo credit: arthus.erea
I have a rather gruesome confession: I am a serial computer killer. Drowning seems to be my favored method of execution, followed by electrocution, and then forcible trauma via a blunt instrument (or floor). Sometimes I intoxicate my victims; sometimes not. It depends what I have in the house.
The thing is, I love computers. Especially my own. I use it daily, even hourly, except when I’m sleeping, and sometimes even then, in my dreams, or if I wake.
So what is this sickness about? Why, every other year or so, must I destroy another innocent machine? Why, oh why, must two things so essential to YUD’s life (liquid sustenance and laptops) be so absolutely terrible for one another?
