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Entry the Five Hundred and Twenty Fifth02 April 2003 Hedwig Lives 03/4/2 8:46 a.m. Great morning for a run, mid-50s, dry, partly sunny without direct sun. The run itself felt fine and I'm pleased with my progress thus far. We'll see how the long run goes this Saturday. ... 03/4/2 6:14 p.m. Taxes done. A pittance back from DC, but a nice chunk back from the feds. More than I was expecting, actually, which is always nice. Means getting new glasses this year will be no problem, as well as getting new lenses in my current ones for exercising. The ones I want are definitely not appropriate for exercise, and no clip on sunglasses, so will have to keep the current ones. Which is fine, I like these, just not as my primary pair any more. Okay, that was sad. Just saw this woman snarfing something down while she sat at the traffic light in her car. I wonder if that's her entire dinner tonight. I hope not, 'cause that's pretty sad. ... Lazy night tonight. Watched Hedwig and the Angry Inch as it arrived from Amazon today (along with my beard trimmer). Am always pleased with Amazon's delivery schedule - they must pad the expected arrival date to get this effect, and I'm happy to fall for it every time. Hedwig was, of course, wonderful. I've loved the music and the film since I finally saw it last year. The CD is currently on high rotation at work; nothing quite like listening to "Sugar Daddy" when trying to write up a report or Congressional response. Was quite nice to see it again last night, and know I can throw it in the DVD drive any time I get the urge for a little gender bending rock 'n roll. Totally forgot about neighborhood patrol tonight, too. It's been so long since I've been in town for that! Will try and remember it tomorrow so I at least get out and make an appearance. 'Tis pretty important to do so, ya know? Archives |
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Entry the Five Hundred and Twenty Sixth03 April 2003 Topic Hunt/Body Modification 03/4/3 9:02 a.m. Can't decide what to write this morning. I'm feeling incredibly disorganized this morning for some reason; nothing seems to be "on" today. Hair's off, wardrobe is off, schedule is off. Ah, well, I'll work on it as the day goes on and try to get back on track. Been looking around at jobs both in the federal and DC governments. Nothing really promising so far in either, but I think I need to broaden the types of positions at which I'm looking. It's not like I'm limited to either law of finance. Project or program management would work as well, as would some others. This is really what I need to chat about with someone more experienced - where do I go from here? What options would be open to me? It's hard to know where to aim for next when you're not sure of the ultimate target, and I've been aimless for too long now. ... 03/4/3 6:17 p.m. Blank, blank, blank. No ideas about which to write, still. I suppose I should work on visualization exercises or the like, but I don't feel like the bus is a particularly conducive atmosphere for that. T has been on my mind, though he's not called or emailed. I'll chalk it up to his performance schedule, suck it up and call him later tonight. If no word at that point, so be it. I should call S as well. Tis time to bug folks who've been too silent, myself included. Body modifications have been on the brain lately, which likely means I've been feeling some body image problems of late. 'Tis easy to feel a quick change would make all the difference when a more fundamental change is what's needed. I know what's needed, of course, but knowledge and practical application don't always match in me, much to my amusement and consternation. Which gets back to the whole "be proactive" part of the first habit. First step, get back to my gym and make another appointment to get reacquainted and get a workout routine. Second step, start going regularly and actually working out. :-p ... Did neighborhood patrol this evening, was slow and calm. We're going to cut it down to one night a week and a special night, like doing a late night thing on a Saturday or the like. It makes little sense to have two days in a row when people don't show up the second night. It'll work, eventually. Just getting kinks out in the process. I like what we've done, but maintaining momentum is the difficult point now. Should get more volunteers now that it's warmer, too. Some chatting online this evening with friends, so some more social time (neighborhood patrol is social time). Social time is a good thing, for this Moose. Archives |
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Entry the Five Hundred and Twenty Seventh05 April 2003 Body Image = Blah Today was all about body image, and it wasn't pretty. It started with getting up and taking a serious look at my chest. I don't like it. There's no muscle tone in it at all, which figures since I don't work it out at all. My legs look fine, aside from being a tad too wide (more on that in a second), but they overbalance the rest of my body. I have a little stomach, and no chest/arms to speak of. Gives a very unbalanced appearance, and I'm not doing anything about that (yet). The running and cycling have led to some very nice looking legs. I have calves some men would die for (thank you good genetics!), and the rest of the legs are pretty well developed, and a pretty nice ass. But get above that and it falls apart. And I know it wouldn't take much to build some muscle there. I have the body type (mesomorph) that tends to a) hold weight easily; and b) gain muscle mass pretty easily. Witness the really nice calves from all the biking I did in high school and which I now get from running and cycling. But I just find the gym so damned dull. Maybe I need to take in head phones or something, but I've got to make some sort of commitment to some weight training, both to balance out my torso with the lower half, and to help with injury prevention. It's just silly that I've neglected it, but I've not been able to get over the boredom hurdle. Was noticing on today's run that my thighs were rubbing together something awful in the last 3/4 mile (about the same time I noticed the hot spot developing on my right arch - fun!). Even after my second shower of the day, before heading out to Remingtons with M, I had to apply more moisturizer to soothe the things. Which is likely because there's still a tad too much fat on them. Ugh. And, in the midst of feeling this lovely pity party about my body, I also have done without caffeine all day long. I want off the stuff again, it's not helping my body, and I want it out of my system. Which means I'll be a royal pill the next week or so as I deal with the withdrawal. And on top of that Richard was out of town, just got back today, but has plans all day with his friends, and Lawrence had to bail because he has other theater tickets with a work friend. Thank heavens M dragged me out of the house or I'd have sat at home and moped instead of at least getting out of the apartment and moping in public. ;-) Both M and I were in moods tonight, and I think we were both hoping the other would help cheer us up, but it did help to get out of the house for a while. In any case, tomorrow I have things to do, so I should be busier with that, which should help keep my mind off the whole body thing. Curse this culture and its obsessions. Archives |
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Entry the Five Hundred and Twenty Eighth08 April 2003 PC Banking Fixed Work progresses. We're about to enter one of our tres manic phases there, so that'll be interesting. Let's hope it works better than the usual! Got my PC Banking fixed finally (it's only been what, three months that I've not been able to download into Quicken?). Hooray! Then discovered I had a charge for bill pay. Boo! Called them, they said someone forgot to see I was grandfathered from the old bank they bought and said they'd credit the account. Yay! So, went through three months worth of transactions, and aside from bank fees (whoops!), I hadn't missed anything. *whew* Decided I'm going to set up a savings account with them so I can transfer seamlessly over to the savings, which I can't do now with the account I have at the credit union. Police meeting tonight which, aside from the prosecutor droning on and on, went well. Was good to meet the folks from the prosecutor's office, since they're all non-elected federal employees. The joys of being in the last colony in the lower 48. Didn't run Monday, was a tad fatigued. Did do pushups this morning. Whee. Gotta start somewhere, and may as well be something I can do easily at home, since I'm more likely to do that. Have to get more proactive, more action and less talk, or something like that. In any case, I need some more muscle mass to help get rid of the gut, and fill out the torso, and pushups will help with the chest and arms and somewhat of the back. Anyway, after random musings, is time for some P.M. yoga, then sleep so I can run tomorrow. Archives |
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Entry the Five Hundred and Twenty Ninth10 April 2003 Meetings/Frustration 03/4/9 9:41 a.m. Running very late this morning. It's day three or four of steady rain and though I got up and ran, I just decided it wasn't worth the stress to try and hurry through the rest of my morning routine at home. It's not like I can do much anyway since they're upgrading our computers this morning so our network connection is down anyway. If there was any doubt that we were getting out of the drought of the last few years, this week should prove it. Do have calls to make once I get in, to set up another police meeting. That means a minimum of three public meetings a month now, two of them with the police. I also want to get in touch with the Main Street organization in the 'hood and see what we're supposed to be doing there. We the commission have two seats on their board and we're not taking advantage of that. That's a mistake on our part, and it needs to be corrected. ... 03/4/10 9:13 a.m. What fun. Went out to JR's last night with friends, at their invitation, and reaffirmed why I dislike the place so much. I will not be accepting invitations to go back. The late night, the lack of decent sleep, and the subtle symptoms of caffeine withdrawal have combined into one thoroughly foul mood this morning. Was almost tempted to hit the coffee shop on the way in, but that's so not worth it. I need that stuff out of my system again, and delaying the process will only make the whole thing worse. ... Did some cleaning this evening in anticipation of Saturday's party, and next week's parental unit visit. Stirring up the dust did nothing to help my allergies, but it does look better in here. A bit more of that tomorrow and then grocery shopping and last minute cleaning/baking Saturday morning. Richard's been getting frustrated at our schedule and the lack of touch. My mood of late has not helped that, I'm afraid. Last night was just another pissy night for me, and I wasn't terribly accessible to anyone, much less Richard. Not a good thing. I'm not sure how to "fix" this, aside from getting over the caffeine addiction (again), and get my moods and what not normalized. The funk I've been in for the last couple of weeks has not been good - the few times I was in good moods either I was out of town or he was. Frustrating, to say the least. Anyway, a night to get to bed early, get some really good sleep, run in the morning, and then get ready to host friends this weekend. Archives |
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Entry the Five Hundred and Thirtieth14 April 2003 Detritus/Sleep/'Rents 03/4/11 8:53 a.m. My run this morning just dragged, as if my legs were made of lead. I cut it short, around 2 miles instead of the more normal 3, just to prevent injury. "The mood" is still here, albeit a bit lessened after running. Part of this must be a craving for warmer weather and sunlight, both of which have been in very short supply the past week. I know I shouldn't be a slave to environmental factors, but I definitely crave sunlight on a more regular basis. ... 03/4/11 6:13 p.m. Last night I went through a variety of old workout magazines I had stored over the years. I was looking for different planned routines, seeing if there was anything useful. I trashed the lot of them. They've been gathering dust for years, none had anything useful, so out they went. Now I need to remember that little exercise the next time I feel drawn to purchase another one. There's a lot of accumulated detritus like that, things from where I might or might not have needed/been interested in something or another. ... The party went well, though only half of those who said they'd come did. Oh well. We watched Van Wilder, Summer Catch, Tarantula (original 1955 version), an episode of Flash Gordon (again, original B&W version), and then Showgirls. All bad, all fun. I look forward to the next one - some have already been suggested, like Barbed Wire and anything with Madonna in it. Tonight is an early crash night. In a big way. No decent sleep yesterday, reception tomorrow, parental units the day after... I need to run in the a.m., so sleep is definitely in order. The cats are loving these temps, as am I. No need for a jacket, though I still wear a sports coat to work. Would love to have this all year round, but not willing to move to San Fran to take advantage of it. ;-) My skills are too limited to DC at the moment. Ah well! I could stand with a touch more humidity, though - skin's still a tad dry. But isn't that the way of things, you get almost perfection and complain about it. *grin* Weather is supposed to be perfect for the parental units' visit Wed/Thurs. Am looking forward to their visit, no matter how short it is. Would love to have them for more time sometime so we could take in more around town, especially more restaurants. ;-) But will be fun. The only thing I said we must do is the Roosevelt memorial - my favorite of all the presidential or otherwise memorials. Quite neat. Archives |
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Entry the Five Hundred and Thirty First20 April 2003 Various/Support 03/4/15 8:20 a.m. Not used to heading in this early but I have a nine o'clock meeting so early I go. Did run this morning, two miles as opposed to three, and th early night of sleep helped tremendously. Reception tonight for the GLLA's annual awards dinner. A friend of mine is being honored, so I thought it would be good to attend. I've never done anything with the group, but I know their history in town and it is, to my mind, a good one. The extra sleep last night was precisely the "reset" that I needed. I never napped this weekend, so was coming off a greater than usual sleep deficit. Was good to crash prior to ten p.m. for once. I should be so good (so well planned?) every night. 03/4/18 8:56 a.m. Parents come and gone, rest period over, time to knuckle back down. Was a good time out to enjoy this city and what it has to offer. I'll do a long run tomorrow after some nice rest tonight. Am a trifle sore from all of the lifting I did the past two days. I did weights for the first time in ages on Wednesday, then yesterday I hauled home a case of wine I had ordered from my local guy, then brought up the 70+ lb. metal headboard Richard was kind enough to get me. Ouch. Was good, stark proof that I need to do more strength training, though. 03/4/19 9:07 p.m. Why do vegans have to be so damned frumpy? I mean, really. It's not bad enough that we complain at meal times, it's not bad enough that we alienate our friends & family with our lifestyle, but do we have to look bad too? And it's not like there aren't vegan hair care products, among other personal hygiene habits, that would do perfectly wonderful things for one's appearance. It just pains me to see people who end up looking like they just crawled out from under a rock representing our community. Richard and I went to a VSDC event tonight, and I even volunteered to host the next event, a game night, at my place. Other than the gripe about appearances, they were fine. There was the usual overly-vocal, obnoxious vegan, but most were okay. I will say that even if no one else does, I'm drinking. Hell, that might even guarantee that I don't host again. ;-) ... Okay, finally the 20th. This was a rough weekend, very emotional, because a close friend voluntarily admitted himself to the hospital for psychiatric concerns of his. He's much better, much more stable than he was on Friday when he went in, but will of course have a course of treatment to bring him back to "normal." I visited Saturday and today, and he was much, much better today than Saturday. I think the meds had not kicked in yet on Saturday. We're hoping he'll be released tomorrow and then be able to get some rest with various friends at their houses. I'm hopeful for him; I think he's resilient enough to get past this, and I know he'll follow through with getting the help he needs out of his HMO, so I think he's going to do fine. We just have to help him through this initial rough spot and let him know he's loved and supported. Archives |
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Entry the Five Hundred and Thirty Second24 April 2003 Upgraded Long story short, my computer locked up Wednesday night on a camera install, so I got a new hard disk and now have Windows XP on the machine. Took me all night (it's actually Friday morning early now, but I'm posting this as Thursday's entry), but it's up and working and I was able to slave in the old hard disk and save all my data. *whew* So, am tired, am in need of sleep, am not going to get it, and must, must, must go to work tomorrow/today because I'm off Monday through Wednesday for this trip/conference in Tampa. Wow. I'll go in late, I think, and beg off as not feeling well, which won't be untrue, given the little amount of sleep I'll get now. Worth it knowing the computer is working now. But next time around I am so getting an Apple computer. Archives |
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Entry the Five Hundred and Thirty Third27 April 2003 Sleep/Tampa 03/4/26 5:24 p.m. An odd day, one punctuated by lots of sleeping. I just barely made the train out to have dinner with NRJTM, having got up from a nap barely in time to run out the door. Did get cat stuff, which was one of my major tasks for the day. The other was a long run and that got subsumed by the need to nap. I fly out too early in the morning to try one tomorrow, but I can do some weights in the morning, and I'll be taking running gear with me to Tampa. ... 03/4/26 6:10 p.m. Got here, realized in my haste to get out the door I forgot the letter which was the whole purpose of this journey out to the 'burbs. D'oh! Hopefully he has the electronic copy and we can reprint it here. If not, I'll have to beg a ride home and haul it out there. Lord, I feel stupid. What I get for one long night without sleep and an inadequate recovery period. ... Crisis averted. He printed & signed what he needed to and I have in hand to stick with the letter and mail in. *whew* Dinner at Sweetwater was good, our waitress was fabulous (as always - she's their regular), the food was good (chicken salad sans chicken, add dates & pine nuts), the beer (chipotle porter) was excellent. Very nice. Especially considering it's mainly a steak house. *grin* ... 03/04/27 6:19 a.m. Not enough sleep again last night - too keyed up from packing and the like. But am packed, am ready to go, just trying to shake off the last of the sleepies before heading out to the airport and down to Tampa. Thank heavens I'm good at what I do and that means I get to go out on these conferences and speak. I love the travel, I don't have to pay for it, and I get to meet colleagues from all over the country. Yay! Now I just have to talk to these people about 8:30 a.m. flights... Archives |
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Entry the Five Hundred and Thirty Fourth29 April 2003 Tampa 03/4/27 8:46 a.m. Off to Tampa. Takeoff was surprisingly smooth, given the wind out today. The advantages of larger plane versus the little turbo props I'm used to flying down to Columbia. Was doing some thinking on my walk to the pet store yesterday. The bus wasn't going to come for another 45 minutes, and it's only a half hour walk through the park, so walk I did. And on the way I had time to think and no distractions, which is a rarity for me. Typically I have something going on, music, TV occasionally, the computer, etc. A distracting world for me is a comforting thing, I think. Background noise is comforting, proof that I'm still there and receiving "input." So, with one of those rare moments to just walk,mostly alone, and not have to balance the bicycle, or think about when my stop is coming up, I let the brain run off on its own. Some of it was on principles and standing up for them, even when doing so may be unpopular or inconvenient. Some of it was on this irrational lack of motivation to do a even the most basic follow up on so many things. I suppose the follow up issue is one of momentum. I put things off which should just be handled and gotten out of the way. I know that I should just do it an be done with it, but once I allow that first delay it just begins to snowball and my little brain flows into all these awful scenarios about what will happen now that I'm minimally late and so it gets delayed again and the apprehension gets worse, etc. in this never ending and ever-escalating cycle until I finally knuckle down and break it. I wish I knew where that came from so I could do away with it. In the meantime big stickies saying "Decide NOW!" and "Follow up, follow up, follow up" reside on my computer monitor to remind me to just get it done and over with. Part of what bugs me at work and I think contributes are the choices I have to make between giving good service to our field offices and following up with their myriad needs and trying to think out and distribute good policy guidance. The demands are such that the choices I make in order to meet the minimum needs of our offices don't allow me to choose to do the higher level policy work that I honestly prefer. I don't like the number crunching, but it's a necessary thing; without those minimal things we wouldn't be able to function, so those things have to be taken care of first. The lack of adequate staffing simply forces the decisions to be between getting the bare minimum done and done well and letting minimal standards slip while I tend to other fires. ... Just typed up my speaking points on here. I think the talk tomorrow is going to go well, and I'll just appear all the geekier when I whip out the Palm to do my talk. ;-) There was an excellent article in the Post the other day on principals being given Palms once they completed some technology training for their schools and using those to take notes and track their schedules at school using the same type of portable keyboard that I'm using here now. Was an intriguing concept, an one I liked, though carrying the keyboard with me all the time would be a bit of a pain. Easier than a laptop, certainly, and more stable than the tablet PCs that have only just been reintroduced to the market (plus the handwriting recognition isn't all that stable yet on those). I'm torn once again between technology and my good old paper planner, which I think I still prefer for meetings, as nice as it would be to type notes - it's just too distracting to type and pay a decent amount of attention in a more intimate meeting setting and type accurately as opposed to, say, a university lecture. Would have been nice to have the Palm for notes in law school, though! Now I just have to see if there's some way to get work to allow me to beam files from the Palm to my work PC since I only sync with my home PC. 03/4/27 4:04 p.m. In safely, and already the beginnings of a light sunburn play across my arms an hands. We ate outside at a vastly overpriced buffet on the compound of the hotel. Was good, but not quite worth the price, especially to little ole vegan me. The price was mainly for the abundance of (expensive) seafood there, of which I did not partake. Oh well, 'tis only money. Came back and laid down for a bit and watched some Disney. Didn't sleep, but am hopeful I'll do so tonight. Was disappointed to see there's no Cartoon Network on the TV, so my usual travel amusement is one. Perhaps for the best, more time to write and read. Had to have the cleaning lady cut off the alarm in the room beside mine. With the TV on it wasn't bad, but it came directly through the wall with nothing else making noise. 03/4/28 12:03 p.m. Developed a bit of a headache this morning. Not sure if this is the sleep, though I slept fairly well, or allergies, or what. Took a quick nap and popped some stuff. Hopefully with lunch it will pass. ... 03/4/29 12:38 p.m. The headache hung around somewhat. Slept long and fitfully after a night of drinking with the other participants and am finally now getting much-needed calories. Head is doing okay but for the lack of food. I suspect I'll sleep well tonight, or at least I won't have any problems crashing at a decent hour. Archives |
