RDC called me at work yesterday and asked if I wanted to meet him at the Tattered Cover on the way home. Sure. So, not being on the bus, I completely forgot, despite seeing everyone's sticker all day, to vote. I was lacing up my sneaks to go to step when RDC asked if I'd voted. Now I'd already figured out that meeting him at the Tattered Cover saved me no time over taking the bus all the way, so I didn't have time to sort the laundry and throw it into washers before step, and here he was trampling on my suffrage as well. Riding the bus right by the polling station, I'd've remembered. But I had enough time before class. Zoo, yes; museum, yes; light rail, yes. I abstained from voting on both the convention center expansion and cable/phone line thing on grounds of ignorance and voted against highway expansion.
This morning, I found out that the zoo might be able to provide decent habitats for its pachyderms and big cats, that the museum will expand if it can raise matching funds, and that the stupid governor got his ten-lane highway but ha! light rail passed as well. And the spandy new Convention Center will be expanded, and that the cable/phone thing, which I still don't understand, also passed. Now we need to get all the suburbanites who commute in their Lexus SUVs that they would never risk off road, not that they--or anyone--has need to drive off-road to leave their status symbols at home and take the light rail to downtown or DTC. I completely fail to grok anyone who would rather deal with driving--and it's not driving in rush hour, rush hour, and paying for mileage and parking (not in DTC) than drive to an outlying Park-and-Ride and take a bus or light rail, on which you can read, doze, knit, write, chat, or hey! charge billable hours.
Step was fine. I used one pair of risers instead of two. Tomorrow I'll use two. One woman asked after my absence and I showed her my leg. The instructor didn't abuse me, just said "Hey stranger!" I love step. I want to buy a new pair of weights, though. I think mine are only two pounds apiece, and I am sure I could manage five or even eight pounds. I don't like to use public weights because they get so grimy. They're like payphone receivers. But since I have my snazzy sneakers, socks, shorts, and sport bra, I'd better make use of my investment.
What else did I accomplish? I felt like I got a lot done at work. CoolBoss came in to look at my DayRunner again. She'd been waffling about getting one and then she got one and decided it would break her arm. It's lighter than either of her children, I declined to point out. She did find a calendar she likes with refillable bits and wanted to flip through my DR to see what refills I had. She came in surprised not to see it and asked "Where is it?" It's always on my desk, to the point that one time last week when I took it with me to the 'brary and my monitor went into black screen-saving mode, everyone thought I'd bailed without notice despite my knapsack and jacket. I dug the book from my pack, saying I'd never touched it all day. I use it more for personal than professional notes. She flipped through it, realized what she was doing, and apologized. If I'd had a problem with her looking at it, I wouldn't've let her; and besides I know she was only looking at the refills, not the content. Lots of booklists. A couple of plastic sleeves with pictures. Nothing that says "Interview with rival at 2:00 tomorrow" or plots to overthrow the company.
I began to revise one of my department's two major annual books. The plan at the retreat was to have the books out by the end of the year in the title, not February of the next. I hope this happens. I sent out the fourth number of our newly adopted newsletter to our faithful subscribers. I sent meeting materials to everyone who's not coming, just to keep them abreast of what's going on. I beat my own time for completing a mailing, but this one wasn't personalized so I didn't have to match contents to envelope. I abused my coworker for printing an Excel file and labeling all the columns with a pen (and totally contrary to Excel's format) instead of choosing "Print column and row headers" or whatever it is. Later he wanted to know how to print only certain pages from a master document with 31 subdocuments and I showed him how to expand the master and select a print range across sections and he was all agog, and I was stupid myself for not asking at first why he wanted these pages printed: finally it occurred to me to ask if he wanted to print these pages so he could fax them and he said yes. In the library I showed him a binder called Faxable Book, which is the book copied single-sided to avoid just such tedia as that, the existence of which I am sure I have mentioned. Doh!
Earlier I was nice to him though. He went to the Governor's little victory soirée at the Hyatt Regency last night and that was my turn to be all agog. I wonder if guv'ner Rowland, deep in his cups, sobbed about commie mass public transportation in between toasts to ten-lane interstates.
The Heather-comparing coworker got herself back into my good graces by telling me I had excellent posture. She uses one of those big exercise balls for her back, and I told her I want one as a desk chair, since it would force me to have good posture, but I wouldn't be able to sit in my usual way (left foot directly in front of left buttock with knee up and right foot between left foot and buttock and leg on chair; I'm sitting that way now and do so at work as well depending on how long my skirt is) and Blake wouldn't have a chair seat to share and besides I think he'd hate it anyway. It would probably remind him of a balloon, so big and round and red. I indicated Blake in a picture on the wall behind me: "Plus he'd probably hate it; he hates anything remotely balloon like." She asked about Blake's talking and I told her about how he uses "Good boy" to say or ask or mean different things. She was impressed. Of course. Who can resist? Or maybe she just wanted more forgiveness.
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Last modified 3 November 1999
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