serinde

So, working as we do a mere mile apart these days, Dave and I finally got 'round to having lunch today. He not unreasonably suggested splitting the distance difference, so I employed Teh Googles and cross-referenced with Yelp, and thus we ended up at this place called Gino's at 61st and Lex. (Rumor has it that it was Sinatra's favorite eatery.)

It was very clear on the instant of entry that we were not the usual demographic. They took one look at our pale Celtic (or in my case, Celto-Slavic) faces, and seated us right next to the kitchen.

But the food was quite good, and decently priced for the area. Will Go Again, possibly dragging along dariodevil for protective camouflage.

I have today off, thank you city guvmint, but nevertheless got up at almost the usual time to see dariodevil to his appointment at Weill-Cornell. (Further humor: it's right near work.) This went promisingly indeed, and he should be on track to get the help he needs.

We were between trains, so stopped at the Subway Inn for a quick pint, because I had always wanted to. It is a happy dive, much like the Holland Bar over on Ninth. Not quite as cheap but the bartender was very friendly. Will definitely go again. They don't have draft beer but they do make a powerful rum and Coke.

Got home, made food, and took the formerly-office-cats to the vet; where I learned they'd picked up conjunctivitis and ear mites from their six weeks in juvie hall Beth's basement. Measures were taken, also vaccines given, and Dusty's ear haematoma was lanced & drained, and boy wasn't that a treat for everyone. Some folks are coming to meet them tonight possibly to adopt them, if they make it through the snow. If that doesn't work, I may have to drive them to Maine, heigh ho.

It's 9 degrees F. out there right now. I've been inside ~15 minutes and I am only just recovering sensation in my ass.

I weathered the Three Minute Run tolerably well. It helped that I went very slowly. Speedy Gonzales I am not, and possibly may never be. I note that if I have to concentrate on pacing myself, it makes it even harder to ensure my right foot's landing on the heel instead of the ball. I'm not sure how much I should worry about that at this juncture. Anyone?

This week's workout is only 18 minutes, as opposed to the previous weeks' 20. And although I feel like Death as soon as I finish a three-minute-run section, I am recovered at the end of the corresponding walk that I could probably do at least one more cycle iteration. (That's just how my stamina rolls, yo.) (That is the sound of elibalin telling me never to try and speak that dialect again.) However there is both the time factor and the Don't Overdo It factor, so I probably will refrain Wednesday.

I took my MP3 player along today, with my normal headphones. This worked well...probably because I don't move fast enough to cause the headphones to slide off.

I should have time to do morning pages right after I get in but I never feel like my head is in the right place. Now, after 15-20 min. of dorking on Teh Intarwubs, I feel like I could. Not sure what that is all about.

Up two pounds, probably due to Saturday's bacchanalia. Damn you, top-notch wurst from the Swiss Pork Store.

(Should I have an icon just for exercise? Hmm.)

I am tolerably sure they gave me leaded coffee at the diner last night, instead of the decaf I asked for. (It's hard to tell with the shot of whiskey in it.) Either that or it was because I was reading Elektra:Assassin for the first time right before bed. I couldn't fall asleep for hours, and there was no comforting darkness behind my eyes, just crazed Sienkiewicz renditions of whatever I was thinking about.

Needless to say, hauling my ass out of bed at 5:20 was not easy.

I hit the snooze button, which is the first step towards damnation, but managed to get up when it went off again. Forcing myself to run, also not easy. Indeed the actual running bits seemed harder than Wednesday. I'm viewing next week's step-up, which is much bigger, with a deal of trepidation. (It's 90 sec. run, 90 sec walk, 3 minutes run (!!!!), 3 minutes walk.)

Same weight as Wednesday.

want to go back to bed arhghghgh

I had a day composed of frustration, self-loathing, and despair (and hormones) and felt incredibly woeful by the time I got on the train. Feelings did not get better, and I was as emo as a truck full of MySpace and listening to "Sister Rosetta" by Alabama 3 when I saw a painting in my mind's eye, the capturing of which was instantly of the utmost importance.

I have paints...somewhere.

OK, charcoal. I would sketch it in charcoal/ash (since we haven't cleaned out the fireplace, aheheh) and paint later.

On what?

I was grimly and slightly-hysterically considering ripping the back off a pizza box when I thought that maybe the Rite-Aid by the train station might have posterboard, at least. And so they did. I twitched in line, feeling like Coleridge hearing the man from Porlock coming up the walk, because I felt that if I didn't get this down out of my head as fast as possible, it would fade like dreams do if you don't write them down first thing you wake up.

And then it started bucketing rain on the way home. I howled in frustration but Did It Anyways, taping the soggy posterboard to the back of my workroom door (that also was sub-optimal, let me say), turning off all the lights, lighting six or seven candles, and using chunks of charred wood to sketch--more or less--what was in my head.

I looked at it in the light, after. I have no idea if it sucks or what. But I am going to try and paint it. (Can you paint on posterboard?)

I now feel like the-day-after-Ecstasy.

I went running with the band (as pictured). Mom was right: exercise does make you not hurt...UNTIL YOU STOP.

It was strangely warm and, get this, foggy. This turned out to not actually affect what I was doing (other than "Oooo!"). OTOH, the random spots where the ground slopes down to the walkway and mud has washed all over it from the rain--.

The backlight on my watch has inexplicably started working again.

90 sec. run was easier today, but I think that's because I downscaled my expectations; I tried to obey the screed of "you should not be out of breath, you should be able to carry on a conversation" which meant I was moving about as fast as an arthritic hamster.

2.5 lbs down from Monday's horror, so I'm a whole half pound under where I started a week ago. YAY TEH BUS.

Analysis shows that I do, in fact, land differently on my right foot than my left. It really wants to come down on its ball rather than its heel; and when I force it to land heel-first, it's requiring muscles to do what they have not been accustomed, and that is why I have had a funny ache in my right shin only after these exertions.

In which I realize the reason I clicked the metaphorical "Do You Want To Know More?" button about the Spanish Civil War is on account of two songs: The Pogues' "Lorca's Novena" and the Clash's "Spanish Bombs".

The really pertinent lesson is: if you go out shopping for a very particular, specific item, you are doomed. DOOMED! Whereas if you just go out shopping, in the I Want New Things sense, you are much more likely to be successful.

I just spent eight hours trying to find a knee-length coat for the 30-40 deg. range, preferably not black, but with a bit of verve and spunk to it. Yes, admittedly, it's awfully late in the season for such a purchase, and I expected to have a bit of difficulty; I did not expect the kind of Bataan Death March that ensued.

I did find something, eventually, at our last stop (Nordstrom's). It was on sale, and the price I expected to pay, hallelujah. It is black, but has shiny gold bits so that's all right. And when I tried it on, Beth cracked wise about how I always shop on Carnaby St. SCORE!~

I found another jacket I was desperately desirous of, and it looks really good on me, but I truly did not need it. It was the right weight for what I wanted, but too short--my main goal was to have something to wear to work, and really, it's my ass and legs that get the coldest; and this only barely covered my butt. I could not justify dropping the not insignificant (but 50% off!!) sum on it. Dammit.

Also, I have finished replacing the zipper on my Not-A-Westwood skirt, and it can re-enter circulation. Hurrah!

I've been dorking around with OS X Server as part of my plan for eventual world part-time employee domination off-and-on for the past month; mostly off, due to previously-posted chaos. Today I finally got back to it.

I haven't gotten very far up to this point, not just because of lack-of-time, but because I'm having to learn directory services and how they work and what not. This has not entered my world before, and I was unclear on a bunch of concepts. It's also the first time I've had to build a server that other people are really going to have to use, like in a production situation, as opposed to Here, Have An Account On My Box So You Can Read Usenet. Planning is involved.

So, I determined that when this thing is done and ready to be used, ideally I would like it to pull authentication information for the student employees from the already-extant Active Directory setup they're in; and for the staff members who will have access to it, from the already-extant LDAP that they are in. The fine manual indicates that Leopard can do this. (Though I am still fuzzy on how my existence on the server is going to interact with my user account on my desktop machine. Because it seems like it will be very VERY helpful, and possibly more helpful than I want. I've put that to the side for later meditation.)

So I had a word with Server Admin, and I said "Connect to a directory server".

Obediently, it went and thought about it, and told me it was configured to do that, and told me to use Directory Utility to set up the directory server information. Well, I can't do that yet since I haven't talked to the systems people (which will probably also cause some Drama, as the head sysadmin is allergic to OS X Server after a bad experience somewhere around 10.3 I think), so I figured to just not set that up and play with it locally.

The flaw in my brilliant plan is that now, when I try to log in to the admin account...it's trying to auth me against a directory server that doesn't exist. Oddly enough, it cannot seem to confirm that my username & password are correct. YAY TEH BUS.

Wikipedia's featured article today is on Aikido. Want!.

...do I want it enough to get up stupid early?

...I'm getting up stupid early for running.

...I'll do what I'm doing now til Australia, to see if I can sustain it, and then decide.