What The? When You Least Expect It

At church today I noticed a new guy, so I went to welcome him to the ward. Turns out he's just visiting. Nuts. There were actually three really attractive guys at church today, but the first two bowed out as soon as sacrament meeting was over. Oh well.

Following introductions we stood around chit-chatting for a bit, then he headed out. I made my way to the Sunday School class I never go to. More than anything, I really just wanted to be with as few people as possible. It turns out that he didn't leave, in fact, he had gone to that class. Well then.

After Sunday School we had combined Relief Society and Priesthood. He came in and sat next to me. Various announcements were made, including, FHE's activity tomorrow night: kickball. I added that we would be starting on time, so be sure to be there at 7, "M'kay?" There was some laughter and discussion on "How was that, again?" etc. Once that all died down, our visitor informed me that he'd be there, to which I replied that he is more than welcome. At the end of class it suddenly occurred to me that no one had said where we meet for FHE (which is different than where we meet for church), so I leaned over to him and said, "Just in case you're really interested in coming to FHE we meet at the stake center," then I told him where that was. He indicated that he was definitely coming, and he would see me tomorrow. Fun!

Oh, and did I mention that there seemed to be some chemistry there? Well, there did. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I'm strangely hopeful. Things certainly happen when you least expect them, and more so when you're definitely not looking!

Good Friends

MapGuy called me last night, since I had sent him a text message inviting him to movie night and he wasn't going to be able to make it. He quickly sensed that something was wrong. He asked me what was going on and I told him that tomorrow is the year mark for ExOfNote. He told me that he was going to come over and spend today with me so that I wouldn't be alone. I really appreciated that.

This morning I got up much earlier than I would have liked and spent the morning moping around and doing art. Fortunately, Lurch's insurance has lapped, so he needed me to give him a ride to church, otherwise I might have skipped. Anyway, church was fine. After church we had Munch 'n' Mingle: potluck baby! I made ok tasting potato salad, nothing to really write home about.

Afterwards my visiting teacher came over and we chatted for two hours. As we were
talking MapGuy called. I ignored it. He called back shortly thereafter and left a message. Then, as we were wrapping up, he knocked on my door and let himself in (I rarely lock my door when I'm home and expecting company—everyone knows it). I was so glad to see him.

Mostly, as much as I wanted to be alone today to have a pity party I knew I shouldn't. I'm so glad that I have such a good friend who cares enough to help me out when I need it, but don't really want it.

Why Are They All Dying?

I think I must have an affinity for old people. Ok, that's not the case. Maybe I'm just more in touch with the (recent) past than those of my generation. And my mom.

On April 11th Kurt Vonnegut passed away at age 84. You know him from books such as Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle. Well, I do, at any rate.

I can't believe I missed hearing about this. Holy cow! It's Kurt Vonnegut, for Pete's sake! But, as both Mumsy and Sissy said, "Who?" I guess I really am more in touch than your average bear. Apparently not that much, though, because (as one of my coworkers said when I shared the news with him), "It was all over the news." Must have been slashdot.

Add that to my grief over Backus passing last month, and I really do seem to have an affinity for old people.

Speaking of which, I seemed to have forgotten to write about that last month.

Backus, the Granddaddy of programming languages, died 17 March. The man quite figuratively gave birth to modern programming languages as we know it. He headed up the team that developed FORTRAN. The thing that amazed me was how silent it was. I think the only place I heard about it was (a) at work on the mailing lists and (2) on slashdot. You'd think, a guy with that much influence on modern computing would garner more than a passing side note.

I think I need younger, or more dead, heroes.

Listmania!

Amazon.com has this feature called 'Listmania.' I decided to give it a whirl and create a list of the top 20-40 hacker/geek movies of all time (that I've seen, and in my not-so-humble opinion). I was going to share that list with you. Unfortunately, I created it using my real amazon.com shopping account (yes, I have a problem), and since I'm just that paranoid with my personal info, I shall have to create the list using a fake account. Sad, but true. Maybe posting this here will inspire me to hurry up and do it already.

Meh. Probably not.

Past

My past seems to be colliding with my present these days. First it was the wedding and hanging out with GayPat, now it's my dreams. I had a dream a few nights ago that old friends and new friends were interacting with each other in everyday situations. It all seemed perfectly normal until I woke up. Ok then.

I also had a dream that this roommate and her now-husband were getting married. In my dream they were having a church wedding (as opposed to the Temple wedding they actually had), and she was pregnant. She was so happy for the baby and to be getting married. It was weird, but I was too busy being happy for her to notice that she was going about things all wrong.

I woke up Sunday morning knowing I had to call her.

I put it off Sunday because it was too early, and then Church and then things just happened. I contemplated just sending a text message, but I decided that was way too impersonal for a voice from the past.

So, tonight I called her up.

I was so good to talk to her. I miss her so much. Sometimes I wish we could just all be back living together, figuring out who we are, and growing—growing into the amazing women we will eventually become (an element of whom we are now). I was so happy living with those girls, I'm not sure I'll ever feel that way again. It was certainly the most Zion home I've ever enjoyed.

Oh, she also has a kid. He's 5 months old, now. And totally and utterly legitimated. I'm so happy for her. Their moving to New York this summer, and I've been instructed to go visit her. Ok. Will do.

Most importantly, though, I wonder why I was supposed to call her.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

Nanny has decided she doesn't like me. I think I mentioned this before, but can't find the post, so I thought I'd just mention it again, just in case. I haven't been able to figure out why and it's positively lame. Sweetheart says that Nanny said that she "feels awkward around [me]." I'm not sure what that's all about but whatever.

I decided months ago (like, January) that I wouldn't let it affect my friendships with people in the ward (but, it has), and I would be the bigger person and not be petty about anything, nor would I say mean, spitefull, things about her/the situation. I also decided I wouldn't point things out, nor would I lie.

Nanny, apparently, made no such claims.

Sunday after church a friend was leaving and stopped to say, "See you tonight."

I asked him what he was talking about and he said, "Games, over at Nanny's."

"Oh. No." I replied, "I won't be there."

"Why not?" He teased, "you too good for us these days?"

"Nope," I replied, having just about gotten to the point where I'm tired of this crap, "I wasn't invited, so I won't be there."

"Oh," he said, and we wrapped up the conversation.

That afternoon Lurch asked, "Anything going on this evening?"

"Nothing we're invited to." I replied, perhaps a tinge of bitterness in my voice.

"Seriously? That's ridiculous! I'm going to inviter her over to our place for game night tonight and see what she says."

Later that night I got a text from him, it was a forward of her reply to his invitiation, which reads: "Thanks, but can't my friends in town and we'll all catching up." (Yes, the grammatical monstrosity is her own.)

Neither of us could believe that she out-and-out lied. Does she really think we're that dumb? Apparently.

Lurch was pissed, and declared his intentions to confront her Monday night at FHE.

Fast forward to Monday night.

No Nanny in sight.

The friend who has asked if I was planning on going noticed her absence asked me where Nanny and Sweetheart were. I had no idea and replied as such. Afterwards, a few of us went to dinner at the usual spot.

"So, why weren't you there last night?" he asked.

"We weren't invited, so we didn't go."

"What?" he replied, "I ask her where you guys were and she said she invited you, but that you couldn't make it."

For me that was the last straw. Now I was pissed. More than pissed, livid. I can handle a lot of stuff, but lying about you actions so that you don't look like a prick? No.

"That's bull shit." I replied. "She didn't invite us. We couldn't have been more un-invited if she had called us up and said, 'By the way, I'm having a party and you're not invited.'" Some discussion ensued between the two guys who were invited and if they had asked her about our local and her response. In the end, they agreed that she had responded that she had invited us.

"No." I said again, "That's bull shit. We weren't invited, and it's getting retarded." Then Lurch and I informed the other two how this has been going on for sometime, and it's pathetic. We noted that Lurch doesn't get invited to things because Nanny has decided that, for whatever reason, she doesn't like me. We also pointed out that it's hurting Sweetheart, but Nanny doesn't seem to really care.

Both boys were taken back. I'm guessing this is the first they've heard of it.

Frankly, I'm sick and tired of being the bigger person. I'm done. She wants to not invite me to her little parties, fine. But she shouldn't lie and say that she invited me when she didn't. So not cool.

Unfortunatly, I think things have just moved to the public arena. I was hoping to avoid that.

Somethings Should Not Have an Anniversary

April 30th marks the 1 year 'anniversary' of the day ExOfNote tried to kill himself.

I'm not doing so well, and I don't know what to do about it.

DC Suggestions

When I went to DC I asked Musician for some suggestions on places we should go and see, since he spent a summer there. He gave me a huge list and the very sage advice, "Have fun and don't stop to sleep!" Well, sleep I did, but I was also sure to have fun.

Today at church he asked me how I was doing and I indicated that I'm ok, and DC was great! His face lighted up and he told me that I would have to tell him all about DC sometime.

I started, "Well, you see, it's this big city on the other side of the country..." He rolled his eyes at me and told me I knew what he meant.

Sure, I'm going to tell him all about my trip. Over a long lingering lunch. Yeah. Right.

Performance Review

Remember how last Thursday was performance review time? Oh yeah. It sucked.

The first thing you need to know is this—3 things happen at review time:
1. We, uh, get reviewed.
2. BONUSES!
3. Pay raise, baby!

First things first
My review was really positive. My team lead told me that I was doing things really well, and blah blah blah. But when it came right down to it, he gave me a rating of "performing" (or, 3 on a 5 point scale). Basically, I'm doing my job, but that's about it.

Um, maybe be managed to sleep through that whole month that I was working 80 hours a week? Moron. I couldn't believe he told me I was just 'meeting the bar' of my current position! I mean, seriously? Then, he had the audacity to bring up the fact that I got a promotion, which happened to be from a level 1 to level 3, effectively skipping level 2. Um, if I were just barely doing my job, why are you promoting me 2 levels?

Second things second
No bonus.

You read that right. No bonus for Granola. The logic behind that? "Well, you got your signing bonus, and so you don't really need another one."

What? No. Let me explain how this works: you offer me a signing bonus so I stick around for a year. Then, you give me a performance bonus because I, as we like to say, performed better than the rest of the idiots on the team!!

Lastly (and this is the part that only makes everything all the more confusing)
I got a 10% pay raise. That's huge! I'm rather pleased about that.

This is why I'm confused/complaining:
If someone is just meeting the bar for their job, and not performing impressively enough for a bonus, why are you giving them a 10% pay raise? I'm not sure I get it. The only thing I can really think of ties in closely with something my lead said, "We had to fight to give you this big of a pay raise, but we really want to keep you on the team." He also mentioned the fact that I've been at the company for more than a year, so if I wanted to transfer internally he couldn't really stop me. Those things combined lead me to the conclusion that he was rewarding me while simultaneously penalizing me. Which is to say: if I try to transfer internally the only bit of my review that the other manager is going to see is that I'm meeting the level of my position (not exceeding). They won't see the 10% pay raise. I think the whole thing was done as a bribe of sorts. There is no way that he didn't know what his actions would do to me when it comes time for an internal transfer. I just haven't figured out how he thought that it wouldn't piss me off.

Oh, and my favorite favorite part of the review? He actually had the balls to tell me that he "expects better things out of [me] this coming year." As if I was almost not even doing my job. Also, he told me that I need to work on my communication skills, and that he didn't want to 'micro-manage' me, but he expected an update on my projects on a daily basis. How is that not micro-managing, again?

Overall, I'm happy about the money, but pissed off about everything else. Maybe he doesn't realize that I'm not OK with being average.

And, She's Back.

Whew. Ok, so it's been a while. Sheesh, I'm sorry.

As I mentioned in the previous post: work has been insane. I shall gripe about that more later.

In the mean time, flip over to my travel blog for a few notes about the trip I took to Washington D.C. A dear friend of mine from University got married on Friday the 13th, so I went out there for that. Also, more on that later. I just wanted to give you a teaser!

Burn Out

I've been working roughly 80 hour weeks for the past month.

It's killing me.

Tonight I left the office at 6 pm and didn't log in when I got home. I felt like I was forgetting something, but I just can't do it any more.

More on that, perhaps, when I have the energy. Lots more.

ARGH!

Darnest Things, In Deed

My niece and nephew think they're twins. I can't see why, either. Their mother's lived together for the first two or three years of their lives, and the kids are 3 months apart. Yeah... no reason at all for them to think they're twins.

In fact (as an amusing side note) I used to joke with myself that my sisters who look nothing alike, but (obviously) share the same last name were going to have some 'splaining to do when the kids hit kindergarten.

To self, mimicking a child "Teacher, why do Niece and Nephew have two mommies?"

Teacher: "Well, some kids have a mommy and a daddy, and some kids have just a mommy, and some kids have two daddies, even. Niece and Nephew happen to have two mommies."

Ahh, the delight my twister mind gets from that still. BUT, that wasn't the point of this post.

My sisters no longer live together. But, they live blocks apart.

My older sister, Sissy, was at our oldest sister's, Sissi, house. Nephew, who is Sissi's son, was harassing her. After a bit my 4 year-old precocious neice could take it no longer. "Nephew," she bossed, "Quit 'taganizing your mommy."

If'n I ever have kids I want them to all be that precocious!

As Nice As...

A couple of weeks ago MapGuy, Lurch, and Ninja were over at my place late one Sunday afternoon. We were all sitting around chit-chatting about nothing in particular. Out of the blue Lurch says, "Ninja, as nice as your legs are, would you mind tucking it in." Apparently, she was flashing him a little too much leg up her knee-length skirt.

I was quick to complement him on the polite and creative manner in which he handled that. Ninja was a bit embarassed, but I thought it was cute.

Fastforward to last night. Lurch and I are out at dinner. I reached across to the left side of the table with my right hand, and, apparently, flashed him a little too much. He looked up at me and made eye contact whilst motioning to pull of the neckline of my shirt. I did so.

Then he started to chuckle to himself. "What?" I asked.

"I was just thinking about what I said to Ninja the other night, and how it really wouldn't work here. 'Granola,'" he said mimicking himself, "'as nice as your breasts are...'" We both started laughing.

"Yeah," I said, agreeing, "I don't know if you can talk about my breasts." We laughed and left the subject drop, quickly.

Yet Another Catastrophe

Because we all know I can't go too long with out a major injury, the following should not come as a surprise...

This afternoon Mumsy answered her phone when I called, "Hey, Sweetheart! How was Conference"

"Hey, Mumsy!" I replied, "It was good. Guess what happend to me today."

"I dunno..."

"Well," I said, explaining, "I was hanging out with Sweetheart's aunt and cousin and his friend, and, well, her cousin and his friend are 8, and we were roughhousing. And," I pause, "I broke my leg."

In the background I hear her call to my father, "Granola broke her leg!"

She was, understandably concerned, "Did you really break it?"

"Yup. I'm sitting here with a bright orange cast on. It's pretty cool looking!"

She started quizzing me about how I would get to work and get around and stuff. After a couple of minutes I decided to end her worry and agony, "April Fools!!!" I cried out, laughing. My friends joined in with me. Mumsy, on the other hand, did not. Rather, she accused me of being a terrible child.

It was funny. In about 2 days she'll be laughing. A lot.

In other April Fool's jokes I announced to Sweetheart that I am in love with Lurch and don't know how to tell him (um... YIKES!) I broke down and told her the truth very shortly thereafter.

Oh, and Lurch sent out a text message telling everyone that he was called up from inactive duty and was shipping to the Middle East tomorrow. Yeah. That one isn't even possible since he was medically discharged with a handicap. Tragically, no one beleived that one. I was hoping Sweetheart would, but she saw right through it.

All in all, another good April 1st.

Siblings

Lurch, MapGuy, Sweetheart, and I were all at Sweetheart's aunt's house for General Conference. (It rocked, by the way!) During breaks between sessions we had Hawaiian Haystacks. MapGuy hates tomatoes, so he was unimpressed when Sweetheart's 9 month old neice was gumming a piece. We laughed, then I said, "I don't know why you don't like them!"

"Because they're gross," Lurch offered.

"What? You don't like tomatoes?" Sweetheart asked, this was kind of an interesting surprise to all of us.

"No. They're gross."

"Why didn't I know that?" She asked.

"More strange, why didn't I know that?" I asked, since we spend way too much time eating out together.

"Because you're dumb," came the reply.

I sat there with my mouth hanging open while everyone had a good laugh at my expense.

"I am not dumb!" I countered, "I'm the smartest woman alive!!"

"Yeah," came the chorous of disbelieving replies.

LittleBrother really needs to get home, Lurch is starting to take out his sibling comments on me.