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serindeI am a week and a half into my exalted position as Director of User Services, Barnard College Information Technology. My kingdom is not large (though populous enough, if you count the rotating cast of student workers), but it is pretty wide of scope. It has also, I gather, been something of a rudderless boat slowly being sucked into a maelstrom for some while. I am slowly orienting myself, feeling out the shape of the problems making up the many tentacles of the Cthulhu of Wrong, and evolving notions of how best to address each aspect, and when. It is a tall order, but I believe it's within my capability. I am trying to say nothing ex cathedra at this time, because I realize that too many people may take it as the word of God rather than just me exploring ideas. I'm also trying to be friendly but not buddy-buddy, as this ship needs a taut captain, not a popular one; this too will be a tall order, as one of the rank-and-file alternates between his Sandman, Superman, and Batman sweatshirts, and another has what appears to be all of the Priest run of Black Panther under his desk, and my natural instinct is to exchange the Masonic signs and handshakes of our kind; but I must refrain, at least for the time being.
I now have an actual commute, if one that pales beside previous daily ordeals. It isn't too bad, really--I catch the crosstown bus at its start point, and so I always get a seat for that bit, which is about 15-20 minutes of reading or podcast time (and maybe I will start taking knitting, though usually I want a longer stretch for that). Bus lets me out at the 1, which is about ten minutes' ride (usually standing), and then a few minutes' walk through the campus. Still, between the transfer time, and the bit of walk on either side, and trying to get there a bit before nine, it's between 30 and 45 minutes depending; a major change. I'm getting up at 7 and leaving between 8 and 8:20, and I'm feeling a little rushed in the morning, so I may have to push that back a bit. I should say "whine bitch moan complain" here, but I'm not feeling unduly oppressed by it as of yet.
One thing I am spending some skull sweat on is the lunch question. My frugal self prefers to take a lunch in, but in my office region there is neither fridge nor microwave. We should be getting a small fridge soon, but there is also the fact that I found it much harder to make Leftover Lunches when I'm just cooking for myself than it had been in a shared situation. And I have 60-90 minutes fewer per day and do I really want to spend what I have left faffing around figuring out what to fix. And I could really use leaving my desk. And the God Box across the street has pretty good food in their basement cafeteria, with an emphasis on healthy stuff. And really, isn't the point of promotions that you can throw money at a problem instead of time? So I'm 80% sure I'm going to continue patronizing them, particularly since their salads are very nice and usually have a flavorful, lean, not-desiccated protein on top. I just need to see a paycheck after benefits so I can rework my budget all proper-like.
My insurance situation is verkachte. Hunter's benefits office has not received Official Notice Of Separation, and won't send me my COBRA stuff til they do; and my Barnard benefits don't start til July; and though I know COBRA is back-dated I will not phone a referral until I have the forms actually in hand, because I do not trust any of these fucks. On Dr. Nick's recommendation, I borrowed a Giant Boot Thingie from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nedlnthred, from when she broke her foot, and have been wearing that for the past couple weeks, and I am noticing a distinct improvement. If I go without it and walk up to the store or the laundromat or [etc], my foot does not hurt in half a block. The base injury is still there, as I notice if I move in certain ways, but it is progress. Still no aikido (and I think the useless 'deshi I spoke to on 4/26 did not pass on my request to suspend my membership, I have to call and shriek a bit) and still no yoga classes for now, though I may try doing a few poses that don't call on ankle twisting. In spite of the lack of exercise, I have actually lost a little weight; I credit this to a talk with Dr. Nick on the way to the game, in which he propounded the secret of his success: "Stop eating that shit." I don't know why this pulled things into focus, it's not like discovering general fucking relativity, and I don't eat most of the shit he's having to tell his patients to stop eating; but since then I've been doing a lot less random grazing (and also obsessing less about whether I am dancing too close to the Cranky Demon in my blood). And it seems to be getting somewhere, so, hey, let's see how far we can ride it.
So in an earlier episode I alluded to an asking-out, and to having received no response; well, I did get a response not long after, and the movie was awesome and the chat after very nice, and then I invited him to come along o' me to a cocktail thing, and that seemed to go pretty well even though it was mobbed in that particular trendy crush where you can't move for minutes on end, but at the end of the night the message seemed to be that, like Colonel Fitzwilliam, he had no intentions. Which is the problem with a cocktail thing in the early feeling-out phase, because by the end one is likely to be in a state where the finer emotional perceptions are, shall we say, blunted. Very. Yes. (And one is never sure if one may have made a bigger ass of oneself than one thought was the case.) So as far as I can tell that's not going anywhere; a pity, as there seemed to be a nice commonality of tastes & interests, but agreeable as he is, I do not mean to make myself unhappy about him. And I had two really pleasant evenings, and I gained some experience, so that's all right. No harm, no foul.
Adopting Domino did not work out, alas. Ranger got begrudgingly accustomed to him, and he was a wonderful loving snugglebunny on couch and chair, but after I went to bed he would spend the entire night pacing the apartment, trying to claw his way out the window, and yowling. After the third day of new job with no sleep, I could not take it any more, and returned him to the House of Wayward Cats. I felt very low about it, and I still feel sad because I am very, very fond of the silly goofball, but it was clear that he needed that which I could not at this time offer. Sigh. Well, Ranger's happy, anyways.
I now have an actual commute, if one that pales beside previous daily ordeals. It isn't too bad, really--I catch the crosstown bus at its start point, and so I always get a seat for that bit, which is about 15-20 minutes of reading or podcast time (and maybe I will start taking knitting, though usually I want a longer stretch for that). Bus lets me out at the 1, which is about ten minutes' ride (usually standing), and then a few minutes' walk through the campus. Still, between the transfer time, and the bit of walk on either side, and trying to get there a bit before nine, it's between 30 and 45 minutes depending; a major change. I'm getting up at 7 and leaving between 8 and 8:20, and I'm feeling a little rushed in the morning, so I may have to push that back a bit. I should say "whine bitch moan complain" here, but I'm not feeling unduly oppressed by it as of yet.
One thing I am spending some skull sweat on is the lunch question. My frugal self prefers to take a lunch in, but in my office region there is neither fridge nor microwave. We should be getting a small fridge soon, but there is also the fact that I found it much harder to make Leftover Lunches when I'm just cooking for myself than it had been in a shared situation. And I have 60-90 minutes fewer per day and do I really want to spend what I have left faffing around figuring out what to fix. And I could really use leaving my desk. And the God Box across the street has pretty good food in their basement cafeteria, with an emphasis on healthy stuff. And really, isn't the point of promotions that you can throw money at a problem instead of time? So I'm 80% sure I'm going to continue patronizing them, particularly since their salads are very nice and usually have a flavorful, lean, not-desiccated protein on top. I just need to see a paycheck after benefits so I can rework my budget all proper-like.
My insurance situation is verkachte. Hunter's benefits office has not received Official Notice Of Separation, and won't send me my COBRA stuff til they do; and my Barnard benefits don't start til July; and though I know COBRA is back-dated I will not phone a referral until I have the forms actually in hand, because I do not trust any of these fucks. On Dr. Nick's recommendation, I borrowed a Giant Boot Thingie from
nedlnthred, from when she broke her foot, and have been wearing that for the past couple weeks, and I am noticing a distinct improvement. If I go without it and walk up to the store or the laundromat or [etc], my foot does not hurt in half a block. The base injury is still there, as I notice if I move in certain ways, but it is progress. Still no aikido (and I think the useless 'deshi I spoke to on 4/26 did not pass on my request to suspend my membership, I have to call and shriek a bit) and still no yoga classes for now, though I may try doing a few poses that don't call on ankle twisting. In spite of the lack of exercise, I have actually lost a little weight; I credit this to a talk with Dr. Nick on the way to the game, in which he propounded the secret of his success: "Stop eating that shit." I don't know why this pulled things into focus, it's not like discovering general fucking relativity, and I don't eat most of the shit he's having to tell his patients to stop eating; but since then I've been doing a lot less random grazing (and also obsessing less about whether I am dancing too close to the Cranky Demon in my blood). And it seems to be getting somewhere, so, hey, let's see how far we can ride it.So in an earlier episode I alluded to an asking-out, and to having received no response; well, I did get a response not long after, and the movie was awesome and the chat after very nice, and then I invited him to come along o' me to a cocktail thing, and that seemed to go pretty well even though it was mobbed in that particular trendy crush where you can't move for minutes on end, but at the end of the night the message seemed to be that, like Colonel Fitzwilliam, he had no intentions. Which is the problem with a cocktail thing in the early feeling-out phase, because by the end one is likely to be in a state where the finer emotional perceptions are, shall we say, blunted. Very. Yes. (And one is never sure if one may have made a bigger ass of oneself than one thought was the case.) So as far as I can tell that's not going anywhere; a pity, as there seemed to be a nice commonality of tastes & interests, but agreeable as he is, I do not mean to make myself unhappy about him. And I had two really pleasant evenings, and I gained some experience, so that's all right. No harm, no foul.
Adopting Domino did not work out, alas. Ranger got begrudgingly accustomed to him, and he was a wonderful loving snugglebunny on couch and chair, but after I went to bed he would spend the entire night pacing the apartment, trying to claw his way out the window, and yowling. After the third day of new job with no sleep, I could not take it any more, and returned him to the House of Wayward Cats. I felt very low about it, and I still feel sad because I am very, very fond of the silly goofball, but it was clear that he needed that which I could not at this time offer. Sigh. Well, Ranger's happy, anyways.
