Voices In My Head

Well, it kind of rained for about twenty minutes but hey!  Rain!  Seeing as it has only rained at my house twice for less then ten minutes each time since May I'm calling this a win.  Today was only about two minutes of heavy downpour but another twenty or so of light rain.  Of course everything is all dried out again already but I'm still happy to get any rain I can. 

Indianapolis is now officially in extreme drought - and we are under water restrictions now.  No watering, washing cars, etc.  You can still water flowers and veggies every other day so long as you hand water.  And commercial car washes are still running.  And golf courses can water (WTF?) but the rest of us can't.  Seeing as I haven't watered anything but the flower gardens in over a month nothing is really different for me.  Now we wait to see if we go on harsher restrictions if the drought continues.  I already turn off the faucet when crushing my teeth, turn off the shower when shaving my legs, do full loads in the washer and dishwasher, etc.  Other than trying to reclaim the grey-water from the washer and shit I'm not sure how much more I can do. 

In other news therapy is going well.  I wasn't all that thrilled with the doc after the first visit as the whole thing felt more like an interview than a conversation - and she kept interrupting me - but my second visit was totally different.  More conversational.  We spent time focusing on some concrete tools like breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation to help control my anxiety.  Because yes, I have some mild anxiety.  Both social and generalized.  Most of which I hold in my stomach and shoulders leaving me feeling nauseous and with a headache.  Hmm - that sounds familiar, doesn't it?  So I'm doing my exercises and listening to my guided imagery thing at bedtime.  I actually think it is helping a little bit.  I've felt a little bit better and been more even keeled this last week than I have been in a while.  And I'm sleeping better, which helps immensely.

I did have a moment at work the other day when I pretty much freaked out.  Thursday was one of those days.  I may have mentioned here once or twice that I'm very busy these days.  Like for the last three weeks I've gotten a new project every five days type busy.  Well, got another one of Thursday.  One of my coworkers was sending me email all morning with shit about this project he was writing the tech design for and needed the ancillary apps to be coded the same way, blah blah blah.  I finally got up, walked over to his desk, and asked him what the hell he was talking about.  (I didn't use "Hell" though - he's one of the really religious peeps I work with and I try not to cuss around him.  Sometimes I even succeed.).  Seems one of the projects that I knew about but was told would not need ancillary work does indeed need ancillary work.  But no one told me.  And no one got me involved while they were doing the requirements.  So it is only now that a developer is working on it and his boss said the ancillaries aren't his responsibility that I'm finding out there is work to do.  Typical really.

So there I am scrambling to find all the documentation and get up to speed on yet another project when my boss comes to my desk and is all "um, can I talk to you for a minutes?".  In my head I'm thinking "dude, you just gave me my raise two days ago, you can't be firing me now" as I'm walking to his desk.  I relax as soon as I realize we are at his desk and not a conference room as that means it can't been too bad, right?  Then he proceeds to tell me that he and his boss, the VP, have decided that I need to go to this conference in August that our main vendor puts on so that I can absorb all the stuff about their new technology since, to paraphrase, its all about services and business rule management systems and workflow processing and I understand all that stuff.  Plus its part of getting me up to speed and being a real architect.  

My first reaction?  No, no, f-ing no!  Don't make me go! 
What I actually said?  Okay.
Then I went back to my desk and spent the next hour registering for the conference, calling the hotel and begging for the conference rate since early registration had already closed, and working with our admin to get my flights set up.   

I've been to these conferences and user groups before so this is not a big deal (and I'm usually kind of bored).  I am a little anxious (ha!) about how I'll deal with all the people and networking shit that is expected of me.  I'll be doing a lot of breathing exercises I think. 

So that's the latest with me.  Today I plan to do a whole lot of nothing.  Maybe read a bit, grab something to eat, and just chill out.  Tomorrow I'm going to clean the house as it needs it big time.  I may start today if I get motivated. 

And now I'm going to go plan Bejewelled obsessively for a few hours.  Later.

Quick wrap-up from post-Super Bowl Indy.

1.  I did NOT come downtown Friday evening.  Google "human gridlock" + "Super Bowl Village" to see why.
2.  I did watch the pre-game coverage, both the official NBC stuff and the un-official local ABC news peeps.
3.  I got bored with the pre-game coverage and switched stations to watch Resident Evil: Afterlife on cable.
4.  The zombies were done destroying the world (this time) in time for kickoff so I switched back to the game. 
5.  I watched the entire freaking thing.  First time ever!
6.  I don't care what ya'll say, I liked the halftime show.  What?  I was a teenager in the 80's!  Madonna is my homegirl, yo.
7.  I cheered like a cheering thing when the Giants won.  Not because I like the Giants but because I don't like Tom Brady. 

And in today's news - I have brained* too much and now the thinker, it is dead.  Time to hit the gym for a few then home to a hopefully early bed time. 

* brained - to think, design, problem solve, etc

I've been super busy with work and I don't see that ending any time soon.  The Project From Hell continues to be both a project and hell.  Lucky me. 

As for this weekend, yes I have to work.  At least I can work from home and avoid all the yahoos downtown.  The Super Bowl is next weekend and all the fan stuff like the NFL Experience and the Super Bowl Village opened yesterday.  Downtown Indianapolis is something of a zoo these days.  And traffic sucks the big one due to all the road closures.  My morning drive has doubled from 20 minutes to 40.  My evening drive hasn't been too bad yet although that is likely due more to not getting out of work till 6:30-7:00 PM most of this past week. 

This week?  This week is probably going to suck.  Super Bowl.  Traffic.  Meetings for TPFH day in and day out.  I'm a little bit beyond my normal stress level these days.  And I'm pissed at my project manager.  I've been telling him for months that he needs to requisition resources for me, people that have a specific skill set, in order for me to finish the technical design for one portion of the system.  Friday I reiterated to him that I needed this done and asap.  He stood there, looked me in the eye, and said "I have no recollection of that conversation".  Which is pretty much bullshit but whatever.  So I said fine, just requisition them, now, because I can't do this by myself.  I don't have the experience with the tool to write a technical design.  Requirements, yes.  Technical design, no.  He said "I have faith in you".  At which point I f!cking lost it.  It isn't about having faith in me, its about getting the right resources to do the damn job and as the PM it is his responsibility to do that.  Can I do it myself?  Yes.  But it will not be done by 3/30 as I'll have to train myself on the tool first.  His respons was about what I expected - send him an email with what I need spelled out and he'll see what he can do but he expects me to be able to do it myself and on time. 

I will not type what I called him in my head after that conversation.  It is not fit for public consumption. 

So I sent the stupid email - as well as forwarding back several I'd already sent him (don't recall that conversation my ass).  And talked to both the Enterprise Architect that is the guru with the tool we are using and one of my co-workers that is a genius with the thing.  Both are completely booked, can only help answer questions on a limited basis, and let me know that everyone with enough experience to help me is booked on the two project with higher priority than The Project From Hell and are off limits.  Which means unless there's a miracle I'm on my own. 

Yeah, not one of my better weeks.  I wonder if McDonald's is hiring? 

Wish me luck next week and in the coming months.  I think I'm going to need it. 

I know you are all anxiously awaiting the resumption of Vacation Recap Blogging!  It is coming....but not today. 

Work is still super busy and ravenously devouring my brain.  I will be working again this weekend but hopefully from home rather than in the office (unlike last Saturday where I spent 8 hours in here).  I hope to get some recaps up during breaks.  I also hope that it won't take me 8 hours to get everything done as I'd like to enjoy my weekend again at some point.

Sunday was the annual Halloween block party cookout and doggie dress-up party.  I forgot my camera but I'll see if neighbor Y- can send me some of the ones she took.  You have to see some of the dogs in their costumes!  Poor babies - they were really cute but several of the pups were not happy about being dressed up.  I was feeling extremely anti-social all day Sunday but made myself leave the house and go to the party.  I only stayed about two hours but it was good for me to be out socializing.  Plus playing with the dogs helped my stress level quite a bit. 

Today is more work, as usual, and yoga at 5:15 pm if I make it.  I currently have yet another stress headache brought on by being told I'm going to help conduct interviews for our open position.  I am socially inept and hate talking to strangers.  I can do this I just won't like it.  Unfortunately my first reaction was a slight moment of panic, which left a stress headache when it passed.  The yoga will help relieve the stress but if my head is still poundy, poundy I wont' be able to do the yoga.  Kind of a catch 22 type of thing.  We'll see how I feel later this afternoon. 

As for now I'm having soup for lunch (Vegetable Beef with Barley - Campbell's Select, not homemade) and doing some surfing before getting back to work.  The weather is turning colder, which means homemade soup/stew time!  The cookbooks will be coming out and the experimentation will begin here just as soon as my weekends aren't sucked dry by work.  I promise to post recipes and reviews!

I have to take a break for a few minutes.  My brain is effectively mush right now.  My big project is one of those that requires me to do things I've never done before.  I'm writing SQL that is way more complex (and efficient - I hope) than anything I've done previously.  And the code I'm writing is, like, wow!  I am really stretching the old brain cells on this one.  As usual this "growth opportunity" comes with a very tight time frame so I'm not only brain fried but I'm also majorly stressed out.  Google was no help today and the co-worker with the brain I need to borrow is out sick.  

Hence the short break and then I'm moving over to a different program, one that already exists, that I wrote, and that I freaking understand.  

This past weekend was taken up by work, some TV and a movie, and finishing Tethered by Amy MacKinnon.  Good book even though I figured out the twist and the bad guy way before the ending.  I liked how scarred and flawed the main character was.  I also liked that she was well aware of her outsider status and had formed a comfortable life that worked for her.  I also like how there were people around her who kept trying to get her to let them in despite her continuing to rebuf them.  If just felt real to me.  (No, I don't have the emotional scars but I am completely inept socially so there was some empathy there).  The ending was a bit cliche' and the whole thing felt like a first book - or almost like a fictionalized journal, which may actually have been the point.  Parts of the book are still popping into my head and dreams days later so there's some deeper subtext going on beyond what you read on the book jacket.  Definitely worth picking up if you're in the mood to try a new writer and I'll keep an eye out for the MacKinnon's next book.

The garden just doesn't seem to know when to die.  The tomato plant bloomed again and I now have probably a dozen little green fruits on it.  If the squirrel doesn't get them I'll have another harvest soon.  And more beans have come in despite the plants looking like they've been through the apocalypse.  

OK.  Breaks over.  I have to get some more work done before heading to the gym for at least 30 minutes.  I'll check in when I can.