Posts Tagged ‘ready and row’

parking cars, building walls, and creating structure: oh yeah, I’m livin’ the dream.

August 4th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', girl valet, money, rowing, screw you cosmic muffin, semantics, work

Friday
I keep thinking I need to get one of those Nike watches so that I can clock how far I actually run/walk/traverse in a weekend. Not that it’ll affect anything, just out of curiosity.

HCR is a studio lot – we don’t really valet people’s cars here so much as direct traffic and shfit things around when it gets full enough that parking becomes double-stacked & others are blocked in. Honestly, it’s one of the easier sites I’ve ever worked – I did my first shift yesterday because they needed help this week, & I signed up for another shift next week. Non-tip means that you automatically get $3 more an hour, and the fact that once the call times have passed you’re basically watching a dead parking lot means that I can bring my computer & possibly get some coding done. Add in that it’s only about 1.5 miles from my apartment, and I think I’ve found my new favorite shift.

Friday’s offline project is starting to code the redesign of my portfolio site. it took a while to get something that I didn’t hate, and this I think I can live with for a bit. My present site is woefully behind both in style and in the work that I’ve done since then, so ya know. It’s time.

Best Reason Heard Today of why to let someone park in a spot that lets them keep their keys:
“I’ve got a gun in the car.”

:hands up: Hey, man, park away and keep your keys. No worries.

Friday night:
Shifting Spiffys – I have to say that I’m awfully disappointed in SpiffV!Hotel. When they first offered me a hotel gig, I was like, “rawk! \m/“. After all, in my time at Spiffy!Hotel, I would pull in $70/night in tips & up — not bad for a valet gig in a town where msot of the server gigs are taken because everyone wants to be in the movies.
SpiffV!Hotel, however, is consistently yielding about $25 as a good tip on Friday and Saturday nights, and honestly I just need to make more than that — I know enough about how this sh*t works to know I should be making more than that. So, on Monday i will be going over to Spiffy!Hotel to see if they have any openings on Friday & Saturday night. Luckily for me, they actually have two locations – West LA & Hollywood, so I’m hoping they’ll have work for me at either one. We’ll see.

I realized on my way over that I forgot to leave my white longsleeve in the car, which means I’ll spend the night reminding myself that cold is good for speeding up the metabolism…

—————
Saturday:
You know what car I’m totally digging right now? The BMW 128i. They’ve started showing up more & more the last month or so, and I have to say, if I was going to get a Beemer, I wouldn’t mind one of them. I would pick a BMW over a Benz anyway, just because to me it always feels like the BMW has more heft to it and Mercedes just don’t seem all that stable, but I do like this leetle sporty thing in particular. Nice play, BMW. Nice play.

Malibu
Arrived late to wedding shower because the 101N was s-l-o-w… I’ve got about 2.5, 3 hrs of sleep in me, which has, it would seem, turned me into Britney from Glee. At one point I actually just stopped & went, “Okay, I need to go to my car and get my longsleeve because it breezy and I’m cold so now I’m whiney.” Luckily, the nice thing about working with Dolls is that it’s kind of like our very own little car-parking sorority, so the other three girls I was working with just laughed and told me to shut up. Ah, love – that’s what keeps me coming back here doncha know.

The party that was supposed to get out at 4:30 now wants us to stay until 5:30, thus negating any time I’d have inbetween to get an hour of work in before having to go to my Sat night shift at SpiffV!Hotel. :sigh: LH has to jet, the party that the other girls are going to a mile away as their next shift is starting & she’s got to supervise, so there’s three of us at the end – the Sup, the shuttle, & me as valet to fetch cars. Time to hop to it…

… because we actually didn’t get out until 6pm. The contract had been filled out & signed for 5:30, which means that the company technically gave the client a half an hour of work for free. While I’ll get paid for the half hour I worked, I already know that’s gonna go over great. We finally had to just hand them keys, tell the client the cars were parked nearby & head out – they were an hour & a half over their contract, & we all had other jobs to work. Next time, plan your event better!

Santa Monica
After a slightly frantic dash down PCH, I managed to get to work exaaaactly on time, thank goodness. Unfortunately, tonight was even slower than last night – someone had reserved the pool area for a wedding reception, effectively killing what bar traffic we normally get. Add in that I’m already tired as all hell, & any time I sit for more than five minutes, my head starts to nod. Not. Good.

Thankfully, when J asked if I wanted the choice between taking a lunch or going home early, I was awake enough to call dibs on going home early, and I jetted out around midnight instead of 2am. No additional shift on Sunday meant I pretty much just crashed out & slept after rowing, so I woke up around 5pm, which is… awesomely unproductive.


My big problem right now is just focus. I feel like I can’t keep my brain on any task for longer than ten minutes. Part of it is stuff that’s going on in my life – I had some sh*t go down on Monday morning that made me upset for the rest of the day, and that pretty much shot my productivity. I called a timeout on that aspect of my life, which unfortunately required using official channels to put up a 60-day barrier against someone. And while I know it hurt them, their damage was hurting me and I don’t have a support structure to take care of me, so after almost a year & a half of trying to be kind about their emotional issues, I drew a boundary to ensure I would be insulated from being used as someone’s designated punching bag.
Granted, this morning it seemed to have gained me a 6’7″ thundercloud shadow who’s trying to figure out how to get around the restrictions I put up & fix things so he doesn’t have to answer questions later, but at least it was something I could row away from for a while, and I didn’t go home in tears, which is progress from my state on Monday so in terms of me paying my rent… well I got more work done Tuesday than I did the day before.

I’m looking into BlankSpaces. While I don’t particularly like the idea of heading into KTown to work every day, the truth of the matter is that home is too conducive to taking a nap, and coffee shops are too distracting. While I don’t want to work for a company, the truth is that I need at least the semblance of office structure to feel motivated to get things done. They have a free day this coming Tuesday, and I signed up for free week trial, so we’ll see – if I’m lucky, I can get enough done in my free unlimited week to justify paying the $200 for 3 mos use of the place. My real worry is parking costs – Hopefully they have either free parking or a reasonable setup with a place that doesn’t cost more than $5/day. We’ll see. It can’t hurt.

Pandora.com helps alot, I will say that. Also, I need to not let the TV run while working – I get a little too involved in how Michael & Fiona are blowing things up instead of concentrating on the structure of my css.

As usual, no matter how hard I try, I seem to be far more productive after the 9 o’clock hour, which is good in what gets done (like this blog entry) but bad in terms of me getting sleep before my workout each morning – especially when Ian’s structuring everything within heart rate zones, so whether or not I get rest has an affect on how fast I’m allowed to row. ;)

There’s a balance here. I know there is. I just need to find it. Hell, I can sit at the catch in a single with oars off the water, you gotta figure eventually I’ll be able to manage this. I hope.

What made me laugh out loud today:

Oregon Trail – the MOVIE!

Music: Look After You – The Fray Look

Wavee US, LLC

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Pavlovian politeness, new toys, & hey – you just can’t fix stupid

July 29th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', girl valet, money, nerdery, rowing, screw you cosmic muffin, work

You know what, you’re right, this is totally my bad – I forgot to factor in that you’re an asshole.

Chat with Sylvie, part deux.
So in the other part of the conversation that I had with Sylvie, I was reminded that no matter how smart you are, or how much you’ve experienced, sometimes you really just need another person to tell you what you already know before you’re ready to accept it as fact and move on. One of the most notable incidences of that in my life was when my b-i-l looked at me & said, “That’s because your mom is a drunk, honey.” We all knew it, we’d all grown up with it, but that was the first time anyone I knew had had the chutzpah to actually say it out loud. And once it was said, & it was out there, I suddenly had the ability to accept it, factor that in as a reality, & move on with my life.

Same thing happened when talking to Sylvie last week. I was scheduled for an appointment on that Friday morning for something & I was seeking her advice on how to approach it. Her response?

“You need to stop worrying about these people – they don’t give a shit about you. If they did, none of this would have happened in the first place. Don’t worry about being nice, don’t consider them in your plans. They don’t give a shit about you, and they never will because they’re children. Be like a man with the town whore – use them for what they’re good for, then leave.”
I know, right? I laughed at that one too, prudish American that I am.

And intellectually, I already knew everything that she was saying – I’d been saying it to myself for a long time now. But hearing someone else confirm what I thought was just me being a b*tch in the comfort of my own head… there was something about hearing it from an outside party that allowed me to emotionally accept it, if that makes sense. And now, I’ve found that I can look at people & think, “You don’t actually give a damn about me. No matter what you say, or how you act, or how hurt you pretend to be by all this, the truth of the matter is that if you cared, none of this would have happened.”

It’s kind of odd, really – after months of being tossed around like buoy in a storm, I walked in & there was just… nothing. I just classified them in the same cubby as my parents, & it made things way better – you’re here, I have to deal with you, but at any second if given half a chance & left the slightest bit unsupervised, you’ll f*ck me over in a heartbeat & act like it’s my fault.

I just need to remember what I was told by the lawyer I met with that Friday morning: “Before we discuss anything, I need to just say – I can do alot, but I can’t fix stupid.”

Can’t Fix Stupid. Check. Lesson learned, let’s move on.

Gaiam.com, Inc

Congratuations! You’re in charge!
On Saturday, I worked a Doll gig by Griffith Park. Saturday shifts are hard, because I get out of SpiffV!Hotel at 2am, then I crash in the boathouse parking lot until 7am, row, and then have a couple hours until I have a day shift, after which I go back to SpiffV!Hotel in Santa Monica for my Sat night shift of 7/8 – 2am, after which I usually head down to the boathouse at Long Beach so that I can do a coached practice, get there about 3 am (4 if I went home to get Zoey) & crash in my car in that parking lot until about 6:15am.

So working during the on Saturday? kind of a stretch.

Anyway, so I show up at this gig – I’m already 15 min late because of traffic, and LB says to me, “Oh, great, you’re here – what do you want to do?”

Being the Foursquare Mayor of States the Obviousville, I replied, “I thought I’d be parking cars. why?”

“Well, G called & said we’re training you to supervise today, so until SD gets here, you’re in charge.”

ooooooooooooookay. Me in charge.

This should be good.

Now, it’s not like I can’t Team Captain [TC] – I’ve been working on & off as a Doll for six years, I’ve stepped in when needed, I’ve been a trainer, and in a pinch I’ve TC-ed a couple small parties before. It just takes a certain amount of energy to do so that I hadn’t been prepared to expend that day, so when I found that out, I was like, “effin’ ay – really? I don’t wanna!” But, ya know, G & I had talked a bit back about me becoming a TC, so it’s not like this was happening against my will, just not on my expected timeframe.

So there I am, writing tickets, doing my thing, and SD stops me & goes, “You need to stop saying that.”

“Saying what?”

“Have a great time.”

Now, let me pause to explain a reality here – half the time, when I give some situationally-prompted pleasantry reply, I don’t even know I’ve said it. I’ve been working in customer service for different stretches since the day I turned 16, so for me the sheer habit of smiling and being cheerful to people is so ingrained that I can’t help it. I once had a friend point out to me that when I walk up to a cashier, I’m the first one to initiate the question, “Hi, how are you today?” (Which in my world, comes out as “Hey, how ya doin’?”) I could be in the worst mood ever, and I will smile and be pleasant to strangers because that’s the way I’ve been trained – Pavlovian Politeness, we’ve taken to calling it. The point being that I hadn’t even realized I was saying that. However, it did leave a question, which led me to ask…

“why wouldn’t I tell them to have a good time?”

“They’re here for a wake*.”

:pause for moment: “Oh… right. Okay. Well who know, right? it could be an Irish wake.”

*In hospitality, or maybe it’s just a California thing, they don’t call such events a wake. They refer to them as a “celebration of life”. Yah. True story. While I think that’s actually a better way to approach it, this has cause confusion on the part of a couple of girls who thought “celebration”=”actual party”.

But yah – upshot is that it looks like I’ll be doing more gigs for the Dolls where I’m actually in charge of sh*t, which also means I’ve finally got to get around to cleaning out my car so I can fit the sign in the back. :sigh: Mo’ money, mo problems – so friggin’ true. ;)

——————–

 

I am both a PC & a Mac!
One of the items on The List is for me to acquire an iPhone for myself. This is less because I want an iPhone, & more because of work. To get work for Prem!Co, they send out a pdf of the upcoming week’s schedule, and then you email which shifts you want. Shifts are filled on a first come, first serve basis, so the quicker you respond, the better your chances.

Two weeks ago, I was working SpffV!Hotel on a Friday night when I saw the email for the schedule for Prem!Co come across my phone. Well, I can’t see the pdf on my present phone which I really only got because I fell in the damn marina last March – I got out of the marina, my phone… still down there. (sorry phone!)

Anyway, the schedule came out at 6:30, so I stopped at a 24 hour Kinko’s on my way out of work at 1:30am & filed my shift requests… and they were already filled up. Ugh. Thus, I need to get an iPhone so I can see anything on the internet in order to be able to get work. I’m finally caving.
However, since my contract with AT&T doesn’t re-up until January, I decided to investigate alternate means. I got an offer from my neighbor for his unlocked 1G, which was tempting, but for only $40 more, I was able to win the bid on eBay for a 6-mo old 8GB 3G whose owner has already upgraded to a 4th Gen.

:fist of triumph!:

On the one hand my fear in this situation is that I shall never actually get off the internet. On the other hand, in 3-5 days of shipping time, I’ll totally be able to download the free app that lets you play your iPod like a flute!

 Watching: Invictus Invictus

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Goal for Thursday: don’t freak out

July 8th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', completely random, girl valet, money, rowing, semantics, work

Things that need to be done:

  • row entire workout without ribs hurting from having been hit by motorcycle last Wednesday – it’s been a week, it’s high time this sore ribs sh*t was over.
  • meet with Catering!Client at 11am
  • prep & send contract for Radio!Co
  • prep & send contract for PR!Co
  • finish landing page draft for Super!Tooth
  • finish laundry
  • look for doggie bathing place for Zoey torture, or just toss her in the tub
  • work shift for Prem!Co from 6 – 11:30pm
  • sleep a little*

Other possible activities:

  • worry
  • despair
  • freak out
  • consider giving up on freelance & getting full time job
  • convince myself to get my ass in gear
  • remind myself that no, I don’t need to buy anything at Starbucks’ because I have food & tea at home already & it’s a waste of money.
  • continually remind myself I just need to get the work done.
  • try to work on being okay about the fact that I have to do it myself because I’m alone.
  • lather, rinse, repeat.

*This post is actually progress for me, as it lists sleep in the “Need” category, rather than the optional activities.

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so long & thanks for all the fish.

June 11th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', Uncategorized, rowing, screw you cosmic muffin, work

Note to self: next lifetime, be less clever
I’m having one of those days where I spent a lot of time trying to prove to myself that something wouldn’t work, and I shouldn’t even think about doing it, because it will in no way look better & thus by proving it won’t work, I’ll save myself hours of work having to apply my brilliant idea to the other four pages of massive text-heavy content.

Sadly, I was unsuccessful, because it looks way better in the more labor-intensive way. :sigh:

On a bright note, this client pays by the hour.

——————–

Somebody grab the blue facepaint, I feel the need to yell “Freedom!”
Scored a part-time retail gig on Friday – little boutique shop in Brentwood that caters to products created by women & donates a portion of the profits to womens’ charities. And because it’s Brentwood, the hourly wage is priced to match. (Transl. for non-Californians: more than most pay) I’ve got two days a week there, and since her site is a big hot mess (the owner called me back because she liked the idea of one-stop shopping for a clerk and a designer) I’ll get an ecommerce site credit off it.

The result?

If this works, then in a bit I’ll be able to kiss the State of CA’s unemployment goodbye, which would be just… lovely. Plus, if I don’t have to keep track of things to make sure that I continue my claim, I can simply work like a little b*tch as much as I want wherever I want and work on paying off everything and banking the rest.

of course, it turns out I may need that cash to put down a first and last…

——————–

So. San Diego. That might work.
I’ve hit a point lately where I’m just… tired of Los Angeles. I feel like all that ever happens here is people fighting with one another, and I’m exhausted from it. I mentioned this to Shook the other day, asking if she knew of any assist coaching jobs down by her, and she replied, “Sure. You want mine?”

Seems she’s doing a lateral move at her Rowing!College! and the job’s open for applications. Since everyone who’s left the LA rowing circle for San Diego seems to be a hell of a lot happier than those of us still up in Hell-lay, I figure it can’t hurt to look around.

——————–

Especially since now it looks like I’ll have plenty of time to survey the area…
Since I wrote that passage above two days ago, they have since shut down the rowing team that I used to run. I can’t say as I’m surprised – we were working under the radar, & the guy in charge decided he didn’t like something someone said & narc-ed us out to his superiors, so ta-da, we’re kaput.

On the one hand, there’s the part of me that’s pissed – two years of work on my part are gone, just :snap!: like that. I feel sad for the rowers who are now homeless and the people who had wanted to join up & now have nowhere to go. It was a good thing, my team – we weren’t particularly flashy or fast, but we were there, and there were people who wanted us to continue.

On the other hand, on a purely selfish level… my life just got way the hell simpler. No more organizing things, no more having to jump hoops to keep people happy… no more decisions to make other than the ones that will effect me.

I am, at this moment, oddly… free.

Well, free, and chock-a-block full of rowing domain names that I won’t need anymore & am thinking of putting up for sale. Think UCLA will want to buy uclarowing.com now that I don’t need it for anything? Or USC want USCrowing.com? Oh, LMU, do you want LMUrowing.com & lionsrowingclub.com?

So yes… free, but let’s be honest – still totally me. ;)

Oh, Los Angeles, don’t worry – I’m taking the hint that you don’t like me right now.
This morning, Zoey & I were running along the path from the boathouse that runs down to Dockweiler, and out of nowhere, this boxer-type dog (sorry Closet, this was no CoCo!) came running up from behind us and bodychecks my dog!

I was like, “What the f*ck!” and the owner is about 500m away, going, “Honey, come back…”

Meanwhile the other dog who’d hit Zoey is standing there, looking at us, like I’m gonna be all, “sure, stay & play!” I looked at that little f*cker, pointed towards its owner & sternly ordered, “go home!” and it ran away.

So then I have my dog, who really won’t hurt a flea unless you utterly push her buttons, is looking at me like, “Mommy, wha’ ha’pen’d?”
(Much like her mother, Zoey will bounce around and be full of energy & noise a-plenty, there’s nothing malicious about her.  She doesn’t lose her sh*t often so when she does, it’s spectacularly effective)
I got her back to the boathouse, & we later found that the other dog had managed to slice open the fold of her ear riiiiight on the edge of it – basically, a place where there was no way to put a bandage on it, we just had to keep putting cold paper towels on it until it stopped bleeding. Poor Zoey dog.

I pointed out to Lesley later that it was kind of a metaphor for my life – there we were, running along, perfectly happy entertaining ourselves, and some @sshole decides that since they’re bored or angry or just feel like it, they’re gonna come start sh*t, so I get blindsided from behind & am still lookin’ around going, “Huh?” and wondering why my ear is bleeding ’cause the coward’s already run back to the hole they came from.

Seriously, Universe? you had to hurt the dog to teach me that? So mean, man. So mean.

Zoey had a hard day

Zoey had a hard day

——————–

Result of all this = cross between an elephant & a rhino.
Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing.

In anticipation of saving money to either
a) move
b) go to Not!Grad!School, or
c) just save money

I’m also looking at moving out of my apt & moving in with a roommate. This is a particularly interesting proposition since I have a dog & we have lived alone for almost 9 years now.

I’m hesitant because I don’t know where I’m going to be by Sept, but on the other hand, there’s this part of me that just wants to … ditch stuff. Clean out my life, get rid of everything I don’t really need.

I remember back in the day when DarkLady was moving from LA to OH, she’d just left her apt., sold her car, & had two days left at Polgara’s apt. before she got on a plane. She posted in her LJ something about how she could take the suitcase she had and just… leave. And no one would ever know where she’d gone.

I’m not quite there yet, but I will admit to feeling oddly unencumbered.

——————–

Of course, the reality is that I have what could kindly be referred to as a sh*t-ton of little piddly jobs to do, a couple of invoices to collect on, and a client whose website is about to get yanked for non-payment, so I sadly do not get to just chuck it all & move on.

…but I am thinking about selling my couches. You can’t avoid work by spending time on something that’s not there, right? Totally.

Music: Throw It All Away -Brandi Carlile Brandi Carlile - Brandi Carlile - Throw It All Away

Guthy Renker Corporation

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Suppose I said I am on my best behavior…

January 30th, 2010, posted in LA Livin', cosmic muffin, nerdery, rowing, screw you cosmic muffin

there are times…I lose my worried mind…

oh, cosmic muffin – now you’re just makin’ sh*t up.
My goal for the weekend was simple – finish Hotel!Client‘s site and get things uploaded to a test server so that I could upload to their server early in the week.
Unfortunately, the universe had a different idea, as my laptop decided it no longer wanted to recognize my passport that I use as an external hard drive. Granted, this is completely my own fault — the part where you should “safely remove” a device when you take it out of your computer? In the migrant style of work that I have, I am admittedly rather pants at taking the time to do that instead of just pulling the cord & moving on to my next destination. This is doubly sad because as a former IT drudge, I know that the reason you’re not supposed to do that is that it sends a small electrical shock through the device each time, & eventually, it stops working. (As I said to ZenMistressE today, “Really, can you blame it? I mean, if I kept electrocuting you two or three times a day, you’d probably decide to stop working for me too.” :shrug:)

So yesterday & today was spent backing up the files on that over to my WD Book that I use as my backup. However, in the philosophy of trying to roll with what the universe gives me, I can’t help but think that this was a preventative measure on the cosmic muffin’s part, since when I went to Target today to find 4BG flash drive for a ridiculously low price. Considering that I remember when a 1 GB drive was fantastically huge file capacity & we thought it a great deal at $30, I’m totally willing to cop to having had a “uphill in the snow both ways” moment in technology when buying the 4GB.

However, the files are transferred, so there’s work to be doing when I get home from tonight’s Doll gig. After all, sleep is for the weak, right? *snerk*

Whistle while you do it, damn you!
Doll work is ramping up again as people start to poke their heads out from the party hangover of the holidays. Tonight’s my 3rd gig in four nights, & I just got another notice for one tomorrow afternoon, which sadly meant I had to cancel on seeing Avatar with RocketScienceGuy. I tried to reschedule for Monday night, but haven’t heard back from him, so we’ll see if it’s off to the ArcLight for a 3-D in IMAX I go.

I’m still plugging my way through my backlog of work – one site put to bed & ready to be billed this weekend, hopefully soon the Hotel!Client to follow.

I keep putting off starting work for Utah!Co because I feel like I don’t have time while I have all of these other projects, and I need to get in the groove of doing work for them – if nothing else, my one year on unemployment is March 20th, & while the fact that I’ve been partially working for the last year means I should be able to get another extension without any problem, I really just don’t want to have to do that. And to accomplish that, I need to create a steady stream of work to supplement the fact that most of my clients work on a project basis & thus are not chronologically dependable income. However, on the note of trying to set manageable goals for myself, this upcoming week’s benchmark is to complete their tutorials and just complete one or two simple jobs from their task board to use as test cases of their system & billing procedures. Here goes nothin’.

Discovered last night why Fitness!Client hasn’t answered my emails in regards to them not paying their bill — seems that someone else has taken over the company. Not quite sure what happened there, but have sent the new manager (who I’ve met a couple times) an email asking for a meeting to bring them up to date on the site. Even if all I do is hand over files & get paid the balance of the account, that works for me. I’d rather finish their site & launch it, ’cause it’s a good site, but eh :shrug: sometimes you take what you can get.

Let there be light
One thing that’s going forward is fixing things in my apartment. Over the last few months, the lights have slowly been failing – it’s an old building, and I think the ceiling fans might be only slightly younger than… me. My landlord will reimburse me off my rent of course, but he’s a bit cheap, so I can’t just go out & arbitrarily buy whatever, else he’ll insist on fixtures of his choosing, which would just be… bad. So I’ve been shopping for fixtures the way I’d shop if I owned the place – stuff that’s on sale & doesn’t suck. IKEA won the battle for ceiling lights & a wall sconce, but failed for ceiling fans on an epic scale.
After looking at Home Depot, Osh, & a bunch of other hardware places & deciding I didn’t like any of them, I found fans that I liked which weren’t going to cost my firsborn… in the hardware store across the street from my apartment. (Next time, need to look there first. Go team me.) Finally having the cash, I ordered them on Thursday & was lucky enough that they came in on Friday. As a bonus, when I picked them up this morning, I discovered they were actually $10 cheaper than the price listed in the catalog, which should make my landlord happy as well.

The upshot of this being that next Saturday I shall take the day off Dollwork to stay home while an electrician comes in & changes out all of the lights in my apartment. I’m also hoping that we’ll be able to get a plasterer in – last fall’s rain revealed a leak in the apartment above me, so I have two walls that need to be fixed due to water damage. I’m borrowing ZenMistressE‘s steam cleaner, since I figure at that point I’m going to have to move my bed & the couches so the guys can work, so I might as well just kill a crapload of birds in unison & also steam clean my mattress & couches at the same time. (I have hardwood floors with no rugs, so that’s one less thing.)

Good timing on all that as well, since there are a small cadre of Bronzers coming to town President’s Day Weekend. For me, having Bronzers about is the internet equivalent of a high school reunion, and since Polgara & I are pretty much the designated places to crash, much like any high school reunion I can’t help but want my apartment to look decent as part of showing that the years haven’t touched me a bit. ;)

Holy schneikes, where did you all come from?
Somehow, over the last few weeks, I’ve turned around to discover I have a crapload of rowers on my team. They just bloody well fell out of the sky, it would appear. Crew Classic is fast approaching, and thankfully it’s beginning to look like I won’t have to double up races – I mean, just because I can do two 2k races in one day that Sunday doesn’t mean I want to. I called a meeting with my coaches for tomorrow since it’s all happened rather fast & I think right now I’m the only one that actually knows what’s going on — as I said to the others, “I think that the knowledge should be somewhere other than in my head, since let’s face it – my head doesn’t always work!”

Okies. Time to go meander my way up Laurel Canyon for a bit. 20 cars with a shuttle, a TC & 3 valets — in Dollspeak, that means “Small party with unavoidably messed up semantics”… oy. Hopefully, they tip well.

Music: Not Myself – John MayerJohn Mayer - Room for Squares - Not Myself

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If I just lay here would you lie with me and just forget the world…

December 15th, 2009, posted in LA Livin', completely random, pop culture junkie, schtuffs & baubles, work

Things of note:

- LizB & I need to mark our iPods. We both have the black Classic style, with red rubber cases. Someday there’s gonna be a Parent-Trap-esque mix-up in the boathouse, just you wait.

- during a debate re: Twilight, the following reasoning came up from a twitard: “Well you eat cantaloupe, & I think that’s gross.” Well played, UnknownTwitard. Well played.

- I forgot to pack my boots with the 3″ heels this morning, & thus am spending the day wearing sneakers with my long jeans. Perhaps this doesn’t bother anyone else, but I find it niggling.

- finally got myself a starbucks gift card so I could use & abuse their wi-fi w/o being dependent upon Kate. Being a dork of supremacy, I got the keychain card designed by Christian Siriano. It’s very fierce, and possibly another sign that I less-than-three Project Runway more than I ought.

- feel like I’m slowly getting stuff done. Sadly, the use of the adjective “slowly” is still in there.

- worked at Kermit the Frog’s house on Saturday night. Pictures as soon as I get them off my phone. :sigh: Silly phone.

- also picked up the pages of the Wildlings again, and after two years away from them, now have Kate and Daclyn running around in my head again. This will either be problematic or kind of awesome. We’ll see.

- have a new client whose husband is named Darcy. Yes, that’s right, this girl actually married Mr. Darcy. I kind of love her for that.

- trying to get up & running for possible ongoing client, running into problems with their VOIP system. Kind of annoying, as I am hoping to do work on it the week of Christmas/New Year’s when everyone else is away.

- beginning to think that nine years in L.A. has stolen my holiday spirit, since for me, it’s never really begun to feel a bit like Christmas this year.

- did this morning’s erg workout & do not feel like I’m going to die. This is good because my splits were consistently below my 2k goal for the year which is promising, but also sad because it means I’m not going as fast as I could and thus am in for still more pain. Oh rowing, you bothersome wench, you.

- still have the T.P. workout to do on Thursday. Have attempted it three times thus far without completion, and last time had a panic attack, which is… not good. However, aware enough to realize this is mental issue rather than a lack of athletic ability, and am taking steps to get over my shit, so will try again on Thursday.

- created a new playlist for InkSpot, and realized just now that I forgot to add Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley Jeff Buckley - Grace - Hallelujah. wtf is wrong with me, that’s what I wanna know.

- a very nice girl just walked up & gave me a sampler of Cranberry Bread Latte. Thank you, VeryNiceStarbucksGirl!

- having and odd resurgence for the song Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol Snow Patrol - Eyes Open - Chasing Cars. Happened across it again the other day, and just like it all over again.

- have an envelope of cash from valeting this weekend that I keep forgetting to deposit & must do before going back to the boathouse today. Esp. since it’s the last $100 I need to pay that red light ticket, the bastage. 12 years I manage to go without a moving violation of any kind, and then boom – in the space of two months, I get caught by red light cameras twice. Possibly this is a sign that the universe would like me to slow down. Not to worry universe, the loss of over a grand to pay them & the fact that I still need to do online traffic school has made me far more cautious, thanks so very friggin’ much. That’s more than a month’s rent, doncha know.

- My apartment is officially a hovel. No, like, for real. Zoey is spending the day in puppy playgroup with the two dogs next door, and that’s a relief for me since the “drop and go” nature of my existence over the last few weeks has caused me to have the random paranoia of possibly losing my pet under one of the piles of crap that decorate the floor.
One of my accomplishments this week was the purchase of a new Swiffer, and I intend to borrow ZenMistressE’s steam cleaner for my mattress. The nice thing about being in LA at the end of December is that no one else is around, so I intend to clean my apartment, do a crapload of errands, get caught up on work, and not have to worry about traffic to do any of it since the streets will be deserted. Ah, the joy of living in a city that everyone moves to, but very few people come from.

- need to drop off my NetFlix – afraid I became quite addicted to J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Star Trek and kept that group for a slightly inordinate amount of time. Need to get Harry Potter! Yay Harry Potter!

- really want to see Sherlock Holmes, and am finding myself with a growing appreciation for steampunk. Insidious fun, that genre.

In closing, Glee finale was awesomely fun – highly disappointed that I have to wait until April for new eps. However, I have Chuck in the wings and the new BSG series Caprica looks promising, so let’s be honest, my productivity will most likely still have the adjective “slow” attached.

Music: Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol Snow Patrol - Eyes Open - Chasing Cars

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Who says I can’t be free…

October 16th, 2009, posted in schtuffs & baubles, semantics

Who says I can’t be free from all of the things that I used to be… re-write my history… who says I can’t be free?

It’s been a long night in New York City
It’s been a long night in Baton Rouge
I don’t remember you looking any better
But then again I don’t remember you…

–> I could tell you about last night’s party – the underestimation of the client of how many cars so he wouldn’t have to pay as many valets, trying to take cars in Koreatown on Wilshire in the middle of rush hour on a Thursday night, the requirement that we wear mini-skirts, the guys in leiderhosen, the beer maidens, how I clocked 40 miles on my car shuttling the same 3-mile radius, and the situation that caused me to win the Awesome!Award for the night by saying, “Fuck! I was totally going to use that baby carriage as my human shield!”

However, I got to bed at 2am, and I’ve spent the day vacillitating between trying to get caught up on my life and avoiding my entire life, so instead I’m going to go pack my world up into various bags so I can leave at 6:15am tomorrow and get home around 1am tomorrow night, because it’s not even worth driving home after practice when I have a party to work that afternoon on the west side of the 405, so I’m just going to find a CBTL to camp out in & trudge through more hourly work tomorrow for six or seven hours.

–> I got my back unemployment forms in the mail today – found out earlier this week that the reason they’d stopped sending what that when I had that one week in Sept with over 40 hours of work, they assumed I had found a full time job, rather than the truth – I’d just gotten lucky for one week. :sigh: On a bright note, was able to get the situation settled because when I was up at the window, the guy let me call the office direct once I pulled out the legal folder with every scrap of information I’ve gotten from them ever, and he informed me he was making an exception because I was the most organized person he’d ever seen.
um…Thanks. (I think)

Walked up to the Kinko’s on Sunset with Zoey this afternoon to make photocopies of the new claims (I really need to get a scanner so I can save the environment a little & just keep all this crap electronically). Half mile, 3/4 mile walk uphill to discover… I left my wallet at home. eff. Walked back down the hill, find my wallet, and make the awesome knowledge acquisition that Beth‘s printer is also a photocopier, thus only requiring me to walk to the post office on Fairfax rather than all the way back up to Sunset. Yay Beth!

–> I don’t think I’m going to race this fall season. After we did the Bay Series, I bent over to pick up oars with Kate and almost fell on my ass. Stars, baby, saw me some stars. Between my schedule, the stress, and being off my training, I’m just so totally not okay physically, and the fact that a freakin’ Bay Series almost caused me to black out is what we call “an indicator”.
(Lucky for me Kate was the one there with me – no one understands dealing with people that aren’t retaining enough calories like a lightweight rower. *snerk*)

Unless something ridiculous happens, I’m probably going to spend Halloween weekend at regattas in a purely coach capacity. Right now I’m Mom and Dad for my team, and I have this wacky idea that it’s not really Kosher to make the lineup for the boats you’re coaching and admin-ing and rowing in. Last chick I saw that did that ended up in Texas, and really, I just don’t think I wanna go out like that.

–> I’ve been running a lot lately. I’ll get to the boathouse, and just take off down the beach path instead. And when I do go out on the water alone, a lot of times I’ll get out there, look around, and go, “eh, fuck it.” I don’t have any fight in me right now. I’m just tired, and done, and there have been too many months of trying to figure things out on & off the water & in the rest of my life, and right now I just don’t have anything left. However, I still have people that need to be taken care of, and right now either I can try to find myself as an athlete again, or I can make sure they’re okay, and since there’s no one to cover me while I cover for someone else, what I’ve got left has to go into keeping things going for my rowers instead of my own rowing.

Z has a saying that there are three things that make a great competitive rower – natural athletic ability, a willingness to do the work, and heart. Acc to him, you can overcome the first with the second, you can hide the second with the first, but without the third you’re screwed. As I said to Chalecki a bit back, I know enough to recognize that I have completely lost the third, and no amount of pushing can make up for that.

–> Had to sit down with a FigureOfAuthority this morning and have a fun conversation titled, “All the crap that just got me burned? Yeah, someone else just tried to end run it through a new person.” Hopefully my decision to go for the preemptive strike of “We shut that sh*t down, and no matter what you might hear me & mine are far far away from that debacle” will keep us in the clear. Why do so many women have to be bitches, that’s what I want to know. Makes shit harder for the rest of us and our wacky habit of trying to work through problems and actually not having a second meaning behind what we say.

Happy – smile. Sad – frown. Use the corresponding face for the corresponding emotion! ~ French Kiss

–> The thought of everything I need to accomplish in the immediate time frame of my life is such that I’m having trouble getting anything done because I don’t know where to begin. My long term is so up in the air that I can’t even consider anything except staying above water for right now.

Silver linings:
• I did my bi-monthly billing today, & pulled in more than my unemployment allotment, thus bringing myself that much closer to being off the dole — now I just need to achieve that regularly.
• Kate is at Head of the Charles this weekend, which means this former New Hampshire resident may receive honest-to-gods Dunkin’ Donuts munchkins soon. Pity an Extra-Large iced French Vanilla Extra Extra wouldn’t survive the plane ride…
• An overdue client emailed today to let me know she put a check in the mail.
• Sent out back claim forms today & crossing fingers that they process first try.
(stoooopid scan-trons, you’re why I photocopy before I send things in! :shakeyfist!:)
• My slow systematic addition of an extra $20 every paycheck to my car payment while I was employed continues to be A Thing Of Win as it has put me half a payment ahead, a bit of padding that’s saved my credit score’s already bruised ass more than once in the last few months.
• got reacquainted with a possible client from earlier in the summer – he runs a boxing gym, so we may see if me finding my fight again involves… actually fighting again.
• have officially made it through half the month & kept to my tapas of not having chocolate. Am contemplating a different tapas for November to also force me to adhere to a bit more economy — possibly more on that later.
• am having the stress-twitchies outside of meditation. This either means that my body is chillaxing enough that I don’t need the prompt of meditation to let things go, or I’m so stressed that it’s literally just leaking out of my body whenever I sit still. Hoping for the first, more inclined to believe the second.

Finally, the Mostest!Importantest!News!Of!All!

John Mayer - Who Says

John Mayer - Who Says

John Mayer has a new single out.  John Mayer - Who Says - Single

You should probably go get it. Yes, like, right now. Welcome back, Johnny Boy – missed ya.

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