Round Two

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about being put on unpaid leave. I wasn't laid off, per se, but was just put on "unpaid leave" until the work in the office picked up again.

This morning, around 9:00 a.m., I received a phone call from Mrs. Robinson, saying that I needed to come in to get my chair, and that the guys needed my CAD license key back, etc...

In other words, I was laid off without actually being told I was laid off.

Kind of crappy.

I immediately got up, got dressed, and checked the internet for what I'm supposed to do in regards to health insurance. Our firm - er, my former firm - was under 20 employees, so no COBRA for this gal. However, the State of Texas requires that firms grant me up to 9 months on the group health insurance plan, so long as I reimburse the firm.

Whew. I went ahead and applied for unemployment benefits - which I can't receive until the last week in January, even though I haven't received severance pay or anything - and then awaited the arrival of my sainted (and tired) mother, who was loaning me her minivan so I could clear out my stuff at the office.

I showed up at the office, and the first words I said, right after, "Hey, Mrs. Robinson!" were "So I'm assuming this means I'm actually laid off, now."

She said yes, that until that morning everyone in the firm had been working on different assumptions.

Oldsmobile and our book keeper - not the most competent woman - were dead certain that I had already been laid off. Mrs. Robinson was instructed last week to write a letter to the insurance company telling them to cancel my health insurance benefits.

Ahem.

Radio, Scooter, and Pacman were all working on the assumption that I would eventually be back in the office and that my unpaid leave was temporary.

What we have he-ah is failyuh to communicate.

I informed Mrs. Robinson that, pursuant to State of Texas Regulations, I had the right to 9 months of insurance, so long as I reimbursed the company. I didn't mention that, seeing as they failed to go over all my health insurance options with me at the "exit interview" (which never happened), I could file an official complaint with the Texas Department of Insurance.

I'm nice, though, so I won't file a complaint... unless the book keeper tries to tell me that they're going to defy State of Texas regulations.

I cleared out my physical possessions (including my Ice Age III action figures, aluminum desk accessories, and wireless mouse - both of which were purchased by myself) and loaded them onto my Aeron chair, which served as a handy dandy cart for transporting all my stuff.

I will return on Wednesday to download the digital files showing all the work I performed at the office (I took the extra copies of Specifications I had, since the firm already has record copies).

Because of some rumored hiring going on at my former employer's office (not Oldsmobile's, but a different firm... the one that laid me off in 2008), the guyzos all thought I would have a brand spanking new job to go to all wrapped up and tidy in a little bow.

Heck, I was pretty certain I'd have another job, but wasn't really getting my hopes up. I'd been talking with the former employer every week about the possibility, after they first approached me to discuss my coming back.

About thirty minutes after I returned to my apartment, my cell phone rang.

"That was XYZ Firm," I said to my mom, who was napping on my sofa. "They don't have a job for me, right now." I shrugged. I wasn't really certain about getting the job in the first place, and as time dragged on (almost a month) I got the feeling that it just wasn't going to happen.

My feeling was right on target.

So now I'm looking for a job. One I won't have to move to take. There's plenty of great design jobs out there. They are all, however, in Baltimore, or Shanghai. So tomorrow, I send out resumes, and a letter of introduction for my little entrepreneurial venture (which is now up and running), and we'll see how things go from there.

Once again, I'm back to playing it by ear. But this time, I have rent to pay.

About to Whine About Things Not Worth Whining About

It's getting a bit slow in the office. We were given the go-ahead today on a project (hooray!), but there's nothing for me to do on it, yet, and it's a little project, and I don't know how much we'll have to do in the way of construction drawings and millwork details, which happen to be my specialty.

I finished my assignment for Radio. He had no more tasks for me.

Pacman? Nada.

Scooter? "Uhhhhh... Yeah, but I need about thirty minutes to mark up the drawings. Do you have something to do for thirty minutes?"

Chortle. "Surf the interwebs."

"Sounds good. Go to town."

Hmmm...

I already spend about 30 minutes each day brushing up on design blogs, making sure I know what's going on in the world of millwork details, interior finishes, and the newest soft-furnishings offerings from companies I cannot afford (are you listening, Century, Henredon, and Hickory Chair? Okay, I know Hickory Chair is listening, but Century and Henredon?)

My daily blog perusal is why the guys were astonished when they said wistfully that they wished we could do interiors and I squealed and cried, "Oooh! Pick me! Pick me! Mrs. Robinson and I can do it!"

So I went back to my desk, with Scooter's blessing, and proceeded to venture into digital worlds hitherto unexplored.

I tell you, most design blogs - that is, blogs devoted exclusively to interior design - are depressing. They're cutesy and try to be hipsterish, riding the wave of zombie mania currently sweeping the pop culture beaches... or something

or they look like Z Galerie threw up all over them

or they have terrible grammar and sentence structure.

I know that my proofreading skills occasionally fall short of the mark or that I end a sentence with a preposition. I know I am definitely guilty of the rampant and irresponsible overuse of parentheses. But I also know that my sentences do not sound like a fifteen year old wrote them, and that I don't egregiously capitalize words in questions submitted to my inexplicably wide readership, the answers to which I will never respond or even read.

And I know that, although my dream house looks like the result of an Andy-Warhol/Billy-Baldwin/Dorothy-Draper orgy fueled by Dr. Pepper and lightly salted roasted almonds, I would never feature an apartment on my blog, billing it as something that is wonderful when in fact it is straight-out-of-the-Ikea-box boring. Unless it is as an example of an apartment that is boring, like so:

The above apartment was featured recently on one of the most widely read design blogs in a post entitled "Why does Barcelona have the best apartments?"

The only thing I see that this apartment has that apartments in Dallas don't have is a radiator.

That's it.

There's the cheapo flat-screen. The Panton chairs. The boring Ikea-ish white chairs. Boring rug. Minimal wall art on a boring beige wall. Light-tone wood floors (boring? Check). Why is this one of "the best apartments?" Why was it even in the running?

I save pictures I find striking to folders on my desktop at work, then email them to myself at home (compressed into zip files) where I print them off and paste them into my little OCDesign collection.

It seems like lately, there are fewer images for me to save, to collect.

Am I just becoming more discriminating (my word) or picky (in the words of an ex-boyfriend)? Or am I jaded after wading through all the cutesy, un-chic garbage (see Little Augury for a lovely tirade against overuse of that particular term)

Exciting Exciting Excitement

Tuesday morning was the weekly site meeting, with Connie, Pacman, and Big'un in attendance. When I arrived at the construction site, all the fellas were up on the roof, jabbering away, having climbed up a ladder to get there.

Now, I had spent Sunday and Monday with a migraine. Monday's migraine left me reeling, quite literally. I looked like a drunk stumbling down the halls, back and forth between our office and the ladies' room, or our office and the elevators so I could get myself another Dr. Pepper to ward off the waves of nausea.

I declined to climb the ladder, but made my way up the stairs and stood on a roof terrace just next to where the fellas were all standing, Connie's superintendent included.

Oldsmobile arrived after me, and so did Big'un's mom - our client - and we discussed the project. Pacman headed off with Superdeeduper to discuss the ceiling treatment in an area of the house, and I stayed behind, listened to a couple of questions from Big'un and his mom, and then went in search of Pacman to learn the answers.

I asked the pertinent questions, gave a few answers, and then...

Felt weak. And dizzy. And I couldn't see straight. And it sounded like I was underwater.

I was, in short, about to lose consciousness.

This has happened often enough in the past ten years that I can recognize it before it happens. Superdeeduper also seemed to realize something was wrong.

"You okay?" he asked. I couldn't hear him, but I could see his mouth beneath its Yosemite Sam mustache forming the words. I said I felt dizzy, and needed to sit.

A mechanical boot was quickly uncovered, and I sat down on its galvalum surface while Pacman ran to my car to fetch a Dr. Pepper.

After a few minutes, during which Superdeeduper stood by wringing his hands, I told Pacman I was going to go home. I honestly felt better, by this time, although still shaky, but nowhere near passing-out shaky.

This has happened to me a couple of times in the past year that I've worked for Oldsmobile, almost always the day after a migraine, when I haven't slept well, and when I don't have a wad of protein (usually from McDonald's) settling comfortably in the bottom of my stomach.

I went home, fell asleep immediately, and awoke around 1:00 pm, at which point I ate an apple and... something else, I can't remember what, called the office, and hammered out the details for an upcoming excursion to another project in Oklahoma, to take place Wednesday. Pacman was incredibly concerned when I spoke to him on the phone, and I was grateful for his worry. He said Superdeeduper - a nice guy, a good'ole'boy but without the usual chauvinism of a good'ole'boy - had called the office to check on me.

I think it's time to place a call to the neurologist, though. This is the second multi-day migraine I've had in as many weeks, and I can't keep passing out on construction sites... or almost passing out, for that matter. So I'll have to prepare for another round of doctor's visits, probably medication changes, etc... none of which are pleasant, and none of which I'll ever quite get used to.

Just as I start to think I'm back in the saddle again, I fall off the horse.

An Intimate Dinner

For one.

I had planned to go to Happy Hour, this evening, to watch the baseball game and pretend to be a Rangers fan along with the rest of the normally apathetic architects, but when I checked my account balance - it was pay day, after all, and I needed to make sure my money was deposited - I discovered that I'd paid more on my credit card bill this month than I realized.

Quite a bit more.

On what? Well, replacing the clothes that fell apart (and which I will be paying off for a couple of months, it seems), but mostly on... you guessed it: Doctors' bills. $600 worth.

Woohoo! Yes! $600 in one month! So I stayed home and watched "North by Northwest" on the DVD and ate a meal comprised of random food from my refrigerator, cobbled into a "wholesome meal."

Awesome!

Almost as awesome as being accused of "ganging up" with the contractors against Oldsmobile, today. Who accused me? Oldsmobile. My cohorts in this gang? Pacman and Connie.

Hmmmm.... Neither Pacman nor I like Connie. We both have a low opinion of him.

Why was I accused of "ganging up" against Oldsmobile? Well, the contractor ordered the wrong stone, we think, for the house. The contractor pointed to the mock-up of the stone and said, "But it's the same color under all that dirt. The mock-up's just dirty."

During a discussion with Connie - at which Oldsmobile was not present, because he had to leave - Pacman and I requested that the mock-up be power-washed. But only half of it should be power-washed. Then, we could compare the stones properly.

We - Pacman and I - were attempting to explain the logic of this to Oldsmobile, and he began accusing us of colluding with the contractor to prove that the stone on the site was the correct stone.

He would not let us explain ourselves.

He left for an appointment in a snit, as he is wont to do, and returned later, even angrier, because his appointment was delayed by a lax employee at the City of Dallas, and he started in on us again. When we tried to explain, he cut us off, accusing us of colluding.

We finally stopped trying to explain.

We let him tire himself out roaring at us, accusing us of deception, trying to change his opinion, conspiring with the contractor (who we don't like or trust, mind you) against him.

And then when he was good and out of breath, we explained.

We are somewhat back in his good graces.

I have a feeling, however, that I am no longer seen as an innocuous presence in the office; that I have become "one of the guys" at last, meaning that I am finally to be subject to the same fits of temper they are subject to regularly.

I'm used to high maintenance employers. I excel at high maintenance employers. But they're usually of the benevolent kind, who are high maintenance in a "I carry granola bars and spare pens and pads of paper in my bag to keep them fed/supplied" kind of way. The kind who expect you to wipe Wite-Out off their face before meetings.

That kind of high maintenance. Not yelling, accusing high maintenance.

Maybe I'll keep my head down for a few days. Beginning Tuesday. Because Monday, we go look at the stone again.

Which brings me back to my original point: I don't get paid enough for this job.

Cut and Paste

Pacman returned to the office, today, and immediately expressed his satisfaction at how I'd been running our current project. He then left me to continue running the project, while he and Scooter deal with some tricky questions and needy contractors who are bidding a church addition. Let's hear it for earning more Intern Development Program hours for Contract Administration! Woohoo!

I decided to celebrate by... treating myself to a shower caddy. And a little plastic organizer thingy for my medicine cabinet so my tubes of face cream and tweezers don't rain down on my head when I open it to pull out my toothbrush in the morning. I threw in a new cutting board as a prize, too.

Once my shower caddy was installed, and my tubes and tweezers and extractors were all safe and sound in their cubbies, I cleaned my makeup brushes, and decided I'd indulged in enough obsessive behavior for one evening.

Let me rephrase that: enough non-creative obsessive behavior.

Shall I explain?

I'm a scrapbooker. Now, before you decide Ms. Strainedconsciousness has turned into a suburban mother of twelve, I should clarify that it is a highly curated design scrapbook, encompassing multiple facets of design: interiors, architecture (the two are inextricably linked, in my not-so-humble-opinion), fashion, and product design.

My "scrapbooks" are Moleskine A3 sketchbooks and/or watercolor books. They can fit a full 9x12 magazine page, or a multitude of tiny pictures. Recently, I've been arranging - carefully, methodically - the latter.

The pages containing multiple images and are arranged similarly to the salon walls of 18th and 19th century manor houses, with one central painting/image surrounded by smaller ones that are more or less related. I tend to related things by color. For that reason, this lady:

(okay, dame) is surrounded by interior images, all of which have a decidedly orange or red tinge, like so:

And an image of Iris Apfel - who wears the world's most amazing jewelry and spectacles - is accompanied by images of a marine hue. As long as that marine area is not Galveston.

Are you catching what I'm throwing, here? It's a wonderful exercise in the study of interiors and architecture and how they relate to individuals' tastes. In addition to Great Personalities, I also collect images off The Sartorialist website (http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/), firstly to help me in expanding my personal wardrobe horizons and in targeting my wardrobe goals, but also because the way people design themselves can have an impact on the way I design interiors and architectural spaces. The following images are all from the above website.

And I'm in good company, it seems. A collection of Cecil Beaton's scrapbooks is slated to be published in the near future - November, if memory serves. He created his scrapbooks from magazines, movie posters, and snapshots to help him in his studies of lighting photography shoots and how to pose people, and to study how they interacted with their surroundings.

Ms. Strainedconsciousness and Cecil Beaton. Whodathunkit?

Is It Friday, Yet?

I know it's not Friday, and I'm honestly glad it isn't, but good gracious, this week is fraught with difficulties, already!

Out of the past six workdays, I have been on the site five days. Today, Tuesday, I was there twice: once for the regular Contract Administration meeting (guess who's contract administrator since Pacman's in NJ?), and once because the owner's son sent me an email loaded with questions, after I settled the Great Screws vs. Nails Debate of 2010. I felt the need to look at the framing to see exactly what he was talking about before fully addressing one of the issues.

Hmmm... maybe the owner's son needs a nickname... We'll call him Big'un, because he's a big'un (granted, he's tall, not fat).

At the meeting this morning, Big'un questioned the framer's use of nails to attach the joist hangers, instead of screws, like the contractor on the family's ranch house is doing (this being their Texas ranch, as opposed to their Montana ranch: keep them straight, okay?). I told him that nails were acceptable, I'd never seen joist hangers screwed into a studwall before, and that it wasn't necessary to screw all the framework together.

He pulled a framer, on me. "Maybe you could just call Adam and check?" I wanted to smack him right in his 24 year old bearded face. But I didn't, because he's the client's son. Instead, I hailed Scooter, put the question to him, and Scooter reiterated what I had just said.

Big'un didn't seem satisfied. The other contractor, the one at the ranch house, uses screws after all.

I have a hunch that the frames aren't the only things that contractor is screwing...over.

Once back in the office, I researched the exact joist hangers we're using - which specifically state NOT to use screws - and emailed the Big'un to let him know. He shot back a looooooooooong email, full of questions that compared the construction of the house in town to the ranch house (the Texas ranch house).

Apples and oranges, kiddo. Apples and oranges.

For starters, the ranch house is a renovation. Different methods must be used to construct the houses. They have different building envelopes. And if his email was accurate, which I doubt it was, then their ranch house is a mold/mildew factory waiting to happen, because it's being built to prevent the walls from breathing properly. It took me a full hour to fashion an email that defended the building envelope we've designed without impugning the design of the contractor and/or architect of the ranch house (I'm not entirely certain they have an architect).

One thing he did bring up was staining on some of the framework. I decided to check it out on my way home - so I left to go home an hour early - and took some photos. I'm not happy, because the staining appears to be not so much staining as mold and mildew on the framework. If that's the case, we'll want to rip out the affected pieces and replace them. And by "we'll want to" I mean "we'll make the framers do it."

I also scared the heck out of Lord Midget, the Electrician, who feared I had returned to give him additional directions. He seemed relieved that I was just there to look at the framing and the ceiling in one of the offices.

Just before leaving our office, I was indulging in a fair amount of griping about Big'un, and the somewhat idiotic questions he asked (with the exception of the staining), and Radio made the remark, "You know, you shouldn't be complaining about him. You're really missing an opportunity, here. Sure, he may not be the brightest bulb in the box, but he's rich and not a bad looking kid."

"He's illiterate," I replied, brandishing the typo-ridden email. "Enough said."

"You need to be more materialistic. Money can make up for lots of things, even being an illiterate idiot."

I sighed. "You've obviously never dated an illiterate idiot before."

"You've obviously never dated a rich one."

I smiled. "You obviously don't know my dating history." And with that, I left the office. I have a hunch Radio hasn't spoken the last in his attempt to get me to marry our client's son, however.

At least it would guarantee the firm more business, right?

Eh...

It's been a busy busy week. After discovering that the framers our general contractor hired roughed-in the windows on the front and rear facades approximately 2 feet away from their intended location (really?) and that they are putting up walls where they don't belong and leaving out doors elsewhere, Pacman was in a car wreck.

He's alive, but bruised and cut up from all the windshield glass. And guess who became de facto head of our project?

Ms. Strainedconsciousness, that's who.

I had a meeting Thursday morning with the framers and the superintendent to discuss the windows before they set about rectifying their mistake. During the course of the discussion, one of the framers asked Radio a question, who deferred it to me, and I answered.

The framer replied, "Maybe we should hold off until Pacman can give us an answer."

WHAT. THE. HELL.

I'm not usually the project head, so I don't talk a whole heck of a lot to the subcontractors, but the guy asked Radio first, and when I gave him his answer, he said we should wait until Pacman got back? Which could be as long as two weeks?

I suspected a bit of sexism was involved, and I looked the framer in the eye and said, "I just gave you the answer. Pacman would say the same thing. And I produced that drawings, not him. So you're ready to go."

The superintendent seemed to get a kick out of the situation. The framer just nodded and said, "Okay," in a somewhat cowed voice.

He was much more respectful of me when I met with him on Friday - along with the midget electrical contractor and the interior designer - to discuss electrical outlet and light switch placement. We had a couple of questions for him, and he answered, and then asked me a couple of things, and I gave him answers, which he accepted.

All is right with the world.

I may be pretty and I may look young, Mr. Subcontractor, but you sure as hell better not underestimate me. I can be just as aggressive as Pacman, when you push me to it.

Pacman the Slave Driver

My 1/2-day in the office, 1/2-day at home arrangement is working well, right now. After next week, I hope to be back full-time.

As it it, I worked more hours this week than anyone expected, including Pacman. I offered on Friday to come in Saturday to help him meet a deadline, and he accepted. I showed up a little bit later than planned, but I stayed later than he did, too, to make up for it. Four hours in the office on Saturday is considered downright abusive in our office, where it's A-OK to not work a full 40 hour week: as long as it's somewhere between 35 and 40, you're golden.

And then, Sunday, I showed up to work more overtime without telling him. He was very surprised (even more so, since I looked nicer than I did on Saturday. I pre-gamed by having brunch with the parents).

I took work home with me, too, and completed about an hour of it, once you discount the internet surfing that occurred. Regardless, I finished what I needed to do, so we're that much closer to Issue for Permit set of construction drawings Monday.

After feeling useless and like a drain on the company's resources (hello, insurance, how are you? No, no, I'm not working, this month, I'm lying in bed, scratching Major Tom, and eating ice cream... but it's all because of the chair, so whatever) I feel like I redeemed myself a bit.

Added bonus: This good posture thing is habit-forming. I find myself standing up straighter all the time, even at the grocery store, which makes me feel much more confident. Like I need more confidence. Seriously. Next thing you know, I'll have to get my skull trepanned lest the size of my ego cause a pressure build-up leading to brain damage.

Just one more medical adventure to look forward to!

Tonight, On Medical Mysteries...

I think my medical mystery might be solved. I think I solved it myself.

I think it's my work station.

No, I'm not joking.

I started back to work on Monday, working 4 hours in the office and 4 hours at home. Guess what? Since I've been working at my desk, the pain has increased, and has now spread to my fracking arm.

Again, no, I am not joking.

I posited the possibility of my ailment originating with my seating on Sunday while lunching with my parents, at which point my dad told me he'd buy me a new chair for the office, if I thought it would help me out. I have yet to choose a chair (a chair-looking trip is in order for tomorrow afternoon), but I looked on the interwebs for some research about the proper posture for typing, mousing, etc.

I sit all wrong. My arms are at the wrong angle (well, hello, elbow and thumb pain, where did you come from?) and my feet don't rest properly or at the correct angle (I have long legs, but to reach the floor and rest perpendicular to the floor, they'd need to be two inches longer).

Our desks at work were designed for the halcyon days when hand drafting ruled the world of architecture. They are intended to be stood over, leaned over, as you curse while your smallest-nibbed Rapidograph pen gets clogged and you suck on the nib in vain in an attempt to get the ink flowing before deciding you don't have time for this s%@* because you have a deadline tomorrow so you go drop another $20 on a new pen that will get clogged two months down the road.

Ahem. Not that I have any experience with that from college, or anything.

So today, I set about correcting my posture as best I can, under current working conditions. I don't lean back in my seat, because my ergonomically-challenged chair forces me to slouch. So I sat up, shoulders back, probably looking like an utter prig.

When I got in the car to drive home, I realized that my poster there, too, is terrible, as I lean to one side, resting my right elbow on the console, bending my left leg, and resting my left elbow on my left knee to drive. Oh, sure, I might look amazing in that devil-may-care position, cruising around in my superfly 2005 Honda Civic, but you know what? The devil truly is in the details, and right now he's causing a royal pain in my... hip. And leg. So I rectified my posture driving too.

Have I noticed a change? Well, frankly, no. But I'm also not sitting at the correct height for my keyboard. I'm getting a little keyboard desk thingy to go under my desktop to lower the keyboard and mouse to the appropriate levels for ergonomically correct typing/mousing tomorrow (Pacman is sacrificing his because he doesn't like it).

In the meantime, I'll just carry on, looking more like a girl at a finishing school than a superfly superstar. But no books will be balanced on this head, thank you very much. I refuse to sacrifice my superfly hair.

That's simply too much to ask of a girl.

In My Own Little Corner, In My Own Little Chair

And if anyone can tell me what that's from, I will buy you a beer. Well, maybe not, because you can Google anything these days.

I'm back at my apartment, as of Thursday, and it feels so wonderful to be in my little home again. I've been cleared to drive, so I start back to work on Monday, and I'll work 4 hours in the office and 4 hours at home. Pacman is ecstatic, since there's gobs of work to be done on his project, and he needs me "desperately," according to Radio. Hmmm...

I went and did something enjoyable, today (pedicure) since there hasn't been much of that, lately, and then decided to drive by the projects in my neighborhood to see what my firm has been up to, in my absence.

We've been up to a lot. One of my projects has topped out and is almost entirely sheathed in plywood, already (whoop!). I didn't get out of the car to look at it, though, since I was wearing post-pedicure flip-flops, and those just aren't safe for a construction site. Also, there's a big fence around it, and I couldn't remember the combination to open the gate. The other project is one I've only done shop drawing approvals for, and it's also sheathed in plywood, and is much larger than I thought it would be. It swallows the lot. Enormous.

And now I'm back in my apartment, having just written some checks to a laboratory that did blood tests for my surgery and pondering how I'm going to keep all my medical bills for the year organized. I usually just throw them all in a file folder and let them stew until taxes roll around, but there's a huge quantity of them, this year, so I'm thinking it might be time to buy a binder and stow them all in there, in order, with the Explanation of Benefits forms nicely arranged with my invoices, etc.

At the very least, it gives me a reason to visit the Container Store once again, right?

That Answers That Question

I went into work this morning, and the first thing I did, okay, the second thing I did, was discuss my current health issues with Oldsmobile. (The first thing was deposit my purse and my can of root beer at my desk, but that's not important). Since I cry like a French futbol player, these days, I teared up, and my voice cracked while I tried to explain to him in the least embarrassing way possible what's wrong with me and that it's causing pain.

His response? If I need to work from home where I can lie down, then work from home. If I need to take a few days off, that's fine, they won't dock my pay.

"The most important thing, Ms. Strainedconsciousness, is for you to get well." He assured me that my job was secure because I'm a vital asset to the company, I'm so professional with clients, and because I'm so adaptable within the company. They need me for all the little things that spring up that Radio, Pacman, and Scooter aren't available to do (or, as is more often the case, just don't want to do, because it's boring).

So I've just finished up a bit of commercial specification writing, prone in my bed, and I'm about to make myself some lunch and read for a few minutes - but nothing so mentally taxing as The Economist, because I am still on muscle relaxers, so I'm kind of spacey - and then I'll return to my specifications for the rest of the afternoon, feeling less stressed about work than I have in a long while.

Speaking of muscle relaxers: it is damned hard to type when you're on muscle relaxers. Thank goodness for Microsoft Autocorrect, because otherwise there would be all sorts of typographical flotsam and jetsam all over my usually impeccable specifications.

In an hour or two, I'll give myself another injection and call my primary care physician to raise a point with her about my current treatment, and a point I raised with the surgeon I'm seeing who was kind of dismissive of my point, to see if she thinks it has any merit. Maybe she'll want me to come in to see her, and maybe I can schedule it for the same day as my next appointment with the surgeon so I won't miss work on multiple days (since I'm trying to double-up for efficiency's sake).

Woes Coming to a Close

My apartment was bombed, today. And by "bombed" I mean "the maintenance guy set off two flea foggers." I still have no idea how I came to have fleas in my apartment, unless I carried them home with me after lounging in a friend's backyard (which is the most likely option, at this point).

The big source of excitement for the day (apart from the bombing raids in Highland Park) was having Mrs. Robinson and Pacman back me up against Radio as to why we should not hire a gentleman named Luigi (not his real name, of course) for a contract job we may or may not get.

Luigi first appeared on our collective radar when he emailed his resume to the firm. Mrs. Robinson wrote him an email in reply, informing him that we don't have any positions, right now.

So he called, just to make sure.

Three times. In three weeks.

And then, out of the blue, he appeared in our office with his portfolio and proceeded to hang around for two hours while the guys listened to him lecture about the joys of ArchiCAD and how great he was at it, and then pulled out drawings.

Two hours. Of billable time. Wasted by a guy who didn't make an appointment.

Because we don't have any openings. Which we told him.

I was unemployed. I understand it's frustrating. I understand you get desperate. But no amount of desperation should drive you to interrupt the workday for people and cost them money. Because that's what he did.

He has continued to call every couple of weeks to beg for a job.

To refer to his "requests" as begging is not an exaggeration. His voicemails are along the lines of "Please! I really need to work for you!"

So now, we're looking at possibly having a large short-term workload, and Radio and Oldsmobile were kicking around the idea of hiring someone on a contract basis.

Luigi came up, because Radio feels sorry for him. Radio is the only person in the office that pities him that much. The rest of us, despite the fact that two of us were unemployed for extended periods of time and so should be sympathetic, are immune to pity in Luigi's case. His incessant calling - we've told him we have no positions available, that we have his resume on file, etc... - has driven us all to dislike him intensely.

Do I feel kind of guilty for disliking this man, who I have met only once? Yes.

But I also know that, if we were to hire him temporarily, he would expect us to keep him on permanently, and would probably refuse to leave. It would be like Bartleby, The Scrivener, but in real life, instead of a Herman Melville story (if you haven't read Bartleby, I highly recommend you do so).

So Luigi-Bartleby won't be coming to work for us any time in the future, near or not. I wish him luck in finding a job, but if he keeps his current approach up, he'll never find one.

He needs to start hitting happy hours. That's how all the best architects get their jobs...

Progress, At Last!

What kind of progress? Progress in that our client's son - the one who has refused to say "Hello" to me, shake my hand, etc., has finally acknowledged my existence. I'm going to chalk this up to the fact that I was infinitely less intimidating in my amazing beauty since I was sweating like a hog and slowly growing a lovely shade of pink under the influence of the Texas sun.

The fact that I looked like a condensation covered glass of Guinness (I was wearing a black shirt) was the son's fault, in fact. He decided that a meeting to discuss the project at 3:00 in the afternoon was an excellent idea.

I disagree with him, but he is - or rather, his parents are - the client. So I spent my afternoon sweating and my skin decided to thumb its nose at my SPF 60 sunscreen by getting rosily red anyways.

So there.

I ended up leaving work early, to head home to work, because 1) I felt disgusting and was in dire need of a shower, and 2) I'd been bitten by ants six times since I'd returned from the meeting at the job site.

I was not bitten by ants AT the job site. I was bitten whilst sitting in my cubicle, typing project specifications. With my feet off the floor.

Why are there ants in my cubicle? I can only presume that the combination of scorching heat outside, cool air inside, and errant blueberry muffin crumbs are to blame.

Tuesday evening, I had dinner with my mom, and she bought me a blueberry muffin to eat the next morning for breakfast (thanks, Mom!). I dropped a crumb. And I didn't realize I'd dropped the crumb. And then I felt a sting on my finger.

The ants had scaled my desk and were crawling across my hands. I touch-type, so I don't look at my hands when I type, and hadn't noticed the ants crawling across my fingers as they searched for more nourishment.

The crumb was on my desk shelf, 18 inches below my desktop. Those were some hungry ants. I cleaned the area around my desk, got rid of all errant crumbs, and continued working, assuming the ants would be gone by morning.

I was incorrect. The flow of ants from the crack in the brick wall by my desk had gathered strength and was a veritable storm surge. I abandoned my sandals and put on my boots and asked Mrs. Robinson to please call the building manager to request an exterminator's services, ASAP. She did so.

While I was at the job site, slowly roasting in the Texas heat, making sure I rotated rotisserie-style so the juices would baste me evenly, the building manager came and put out some ant traps with bait in them around my desk to kill the ants, and said someone would spray in the evening so I wouldn't be exposed to the chemicals right off the bat.

Guess what? Ant bait makes ants want to be around you even more. The flow of ants increased, and whether or not they died inside the little traps or not, I don't know, but the conga line of ants in both directions didn't seem to abate any.

I was bitten six times before I informed Pacman - my only remaining coworker at this point - that I was leaving, because I kept being bitten, and it hurt, and it sucked, and I was going home. He gave me a half-hearted "Cheerio" and I flounced out the door.

Hopefully, the next opportunity I have to flounce won't involve ants.

Missed Connections

I had a golden opportunity today, and I missed it. It completely and totally blew by me, and I'm regretting it.

Okay, I'm sort of regretting it. Kind of.

Not really.

Apparently, around 8:00 a.m. Pacman called me to invite me to an oh so exciting concrete pour at the job site. It was slated to start at 10:00 a.m. sharp. My cell phone was set to 'silent' by some strange quirk of the fates, so I missed that call. I also missed the one informing me that it was going to start at 9:00 a.m. instead of 10:00.

I checked my phone while waiting for the elevator at the office building, standing in the lobby in cute spangly sandals. My new work boots were at my apartment. My old work boots were also at my apartment. Yes, my wellies were under my desk, but...

I didn't want to go to the site. It was day two-and-a-half of a migraine for me (because I forgot to take my medicine on day one, and only took the nausea medicine, not the actual migraine stuff, since I'm kind of absentminded sometimes) and my 'old complaint' was acting up, to boot. Heh. Heh heh.

I'm punny.

Yes, the 'old complaint' for which I had surgery, once upon a time, and for which I thought I might need surgery, but right now I don't need it, but I might in the future if it doesn't heal itself, which it might if I take this medicine, so take this medicine, and here you go, and it still hurts.

So I missed a golden opportunity to wear my new work boots. And I'm oddly okay with that. Because I haven't bought gel insoles for them yet.

Projected Baby Boom in Dallas

I suspect that, round about the middle of November, give or take a few days, there will be a boom in baby deliveries in Dallas. Why? You're most likely assuming it's because of Valentine's Day, but you're wrong.

The reason for the boom de bebe is the Great Blizzard of 2010.

Wait. This is Texas. We don't have such things as blizzards. And yet, as I write, there is snow on the ground outside - because it's taking forever to melt - and a slew of slushy snowmen. It began snowing Thursday and continued on into the night, knocking out the power at my own little abode for 14 hours.

I didn't have power for 14 hours! As a result, all the food in my refrigerator had to be tossed, so there are some lovely frisbee-shaped discs of frozen-thawed-refrozen soup in my trash can. After I make dinner tonight, I will be taking out the trash. Double-bagged of course.

On the upside, I didn't have to go in to work on Friday, because nobody could/would drive to the office. Only Pacman made his way to the office, and that's because he could simply take the train. Mr. Robinson was snowed in at her house and could even get out of the driveway. Radio and Scooter had to take care of their kids, whose normal daycare accommodations were closed due to the iced over streets. Oldsmobile couldn't get to the office, either - although he dearly wanted to - because his driver couldn't get to him.

What did I do with my day off? After the power came back on, I worked from home, because I thought ahead and brought some redlines home with me. Until the power reasserted its presence, however, I lay in bed in a big sweatshirt under my enormous duvet reading Dwell and The Economist. Not a bad way to spend the day off, albeit a chilly one.

You Say It's Your Birthday!

Well, it's not mine, so congratulations if it's yours. Actually, there are two awesome birthdays, today. Oldsmobile turned 458, give or take a few, and one of my friends/family members had a baby! When I told Olds that my friend had a 10 lbs. 5 oz. baby, on his birthday, his reply was, "That's a wonderful birthday gift." He seemed pleased that someone I love was born on his birthday.

As a consequence of Olds turning 543, today, we celebrated. All day long. Mrs. Robinson decorated his office with balloons and yellow streamers - he was positively delighted - and we took him "somewhere scuzzy" for his birthday, as per his request. When we told him last week we wanted to take him to lunch for his birthday, his request was "somewhere scuzzy." We jokingly told him to bring lots of $1 bills, at which point he remarked that I would need a blind-fold, since my eyes shouldn't be subjected to such horrors.

Where was "somewhere scuzzy?" Adair's Saloon, as mentioned in my May 17, 2009, post (yeah, I had to check to see which one it was. I'm not that OCD). We ordered 2 pitchers of Shiner Bock and hamburgers all around (there were 6 drinking, plus one elderly non-drinking driver - not Olds, thank goodness, but his chauffeur, who is still pretty darned old). Radio, Pacman, and Scooter seemed to think it was amusing to have me drink more than anyone else at the table because I was just doing interior elevations. Thanks, guys.

We returned to the office and ate canasta cake, courtesy of Mrs. Robinson. I think she makes her buttercream icing with Crisco instead of butter, though. It was still delicious, and we all entered a carb/alcohol coma following the meal + drinks + cake. Oy.

I actually accomplished quite a bit of work following the lunch/binge, seeing as we have marketing mailers to send out. The firm for which I work has never sent out marketing materials, before, but we are, next week. As a result, I have 100 mailers to seal after I finish writing this entry. Hooray, work! I don't mind, actually, since I can get through 50 in about 10 minutes. It's just sticking a little sticky tab over the closure. I did 150 at work, today, while I waited for drawings to print.

I'm just good like that.

Then this evening, we had a cocktail party at one of Oldsmobile's friend's homes. So we all left work at 4:45 - a full 3 hours after we finished lunch/drinking - and went and had wine and "horse dervers" at her amazing home.

Her dining room is orange lacquered. The whole thing. I covet her dining room. And, yes, I told her as much.

I met a couple of lovely people at the cocktail party, managed to make them laugh (score!) and then had dinner with Radio, because everyone else had dogs/kids to get home to. Actually, Radio has a wife and son, too, but his wife and son had already eaten, so we grabbed some food. And, because we're in the architectural profession, another beer.

Yay, architecture.

In 30 Minutes

I hope to be in bed. I've spent the better part of the week getting entirely too little sleep, being absent-minded at work, and not accomplishing anything productive when at home. It's all a bit overwhelming for this girl.

The office has been somewhat in turmoil, this week, due to some missing artifacts that are highly valuable. What are they, you ask? I can't tell you, except that one of them is a key that gives access to the other, and the other is worth a ton of money, so the two combined are pretty darned important.

Aside from the key-loss stress, there's the stress of being under a deadline that has already passed, and which is not my fault for being missed. As usual, it is the fault of the client who made demands that were simply unreasonable, then set up roadblocks to those demands being met. Frustrating at best, but enough to make a girl cry, at worst.

I have not cried. Well, not about the assignment in arrears, but I did kind of lose it today when I found out one of my friends is newly unemployed. The guys in the office, poor souls, attempted to comfort me by discussing it, leading me to laughingly cryingly say ",Don't talk about it, and I'll stop crying! Jeez, you'd never know y'all are married!" They all laughed in response to this, and remarked that men as a whole have no idea what to do when women cry, regardless of their marital status.

On a completely different note, I purchased an album by Yo La Tengo, and just read the full title:

I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your A*s.

I think I'm going to love this band even more than I previously thought...

Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work: Part Deux

I will start off by saying that I am absolutely in love with our new receptionist. We ended up hiring the more matronly candidate - the peons overruled Oldsmobile and lobbied hard - and she began her first day of work by completely organizing our materials/products library.

Be still my heart!

She's amazing, and funny, and chatty - but not so much that I can't get any work done. She's the sort of person who will ask if we have anything we need her to do, which is wonderful, and she cheerfully performs any task we have.

L

O

V

E

I ended up in the office Sunday for about 5 hours. Pacman and I missed our deadline Friday, so I went in to see if I could make sense of the bloodied pages he left on his desk. I picked up the red-lines I could comprehend - sorry, Pacman, but I don't know what squiggle-squiggle-circle means - and highlighted the ones I fixed so we won't waste time checking them.

Ahem. Pacman does not highlight the things he has fixed. It's exasperating.

I bet our new receptionist would highlight changes she made.

And now I have to come up with a nickname for our receptionist. Hmmm...

We'll call her Mrs. Robinson.

Just Like College All Over Again

Except not at all, really.

Today, after 5 hours of tagging details - interspersed with a few joyous minutes of designing details - I heard Pacman yell from the other end of the office, "Damn it! I need ice cream."

As anyone in my family will tell you, I am always up for ice cream.

I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice cream!

Scooter immediately asked, "Where could we go for ice cream?" We checked the Internet to see what was near our office - Paciugo's is now closed, so no pricey gelato for us. Eventually, we settled on walking down to the CVS after Pacman announced that he wanted an ice cream sandwich.

We locked the office door - Radio, Lola, and Oldsmobile were all out momentarily - and bolted down the fire stairs and out into the stifling heat of Downtown Dallas on an August afternoon. A five minute walk landed us in the air-conditioned environs of the downtown CVS, with its throngs of homeless buying cases of Natural Light and its white collar workers picking up Band-Aids.

We stood in the ice cream section - just past the beer, which made us wonder if we shouldn't have just headed to the bar on the first floor of the building - and debated whether to buy a 4-pack of the Nestle cones with chocolate and almonds on top, or if we should buy 3 individual ice cream sandwiches. The ice cream sandwiches were on sale, so we grabbed them and headed to the cash register.

I love Downtown because of all the people there from varying social strata that you wouldn't normally find interacting. The woman in front of us - with a gold tooth, but not the whole tooth, the kind that just sort of wraps around partially in the front - had another identifying feature: a bar code tattooed on the back of her neck. I guess it was to complement the three stars tattooed on the side.

Once back in the office, we began speculating: was the bar code there for quicker processing at the county jail? What would she ring up as if scanned? Would she be expensive or cheap?

Because of the tattoo's location, we couldn't see the SKU, but I suspect it was either some significant number (to her) or a string of curse words.

Why did the adventure remind me of college?

When I was in school, we'd be up at the architecture building all night, and occasionally, we'd make a 3 a.m. run to the local QuikTrip to get a huge soda and a hot dog or some chips (or those chocolate cream-filled cupcakes). There were always hapless drivers who'd turned the wrong way en route to I-20 while looking for gas, and their Land Rover would be parked next to a Cadillac sedan from the mid-80s with 26" chrome rims, and there'd be a female "hitch-hiker" in the parking lot, asking for money.

Of course, the QT smelled much better than the CVS. There was plenty of debate about the smell, but we finally settled on:

TRASH + FOOD GREASE + CHEAP PERFUME = EAU DE CVS DE VILLE.

Work Work Work Work Work Work Work Work

The past two weeks have flown by at a snail's pace. So much for metaphors.

I'm working on construction details, right now, specifically those dealing with millwork (READ: cabinets).

I have never been so bored in my life.

It's not so much the details themselves that are stultifying tedious. I've actually found that I enjoy designing the details themselves.

"And then, the drawers will open, and machine guns will fly out on their Hafele spring-mounts that we cannibalized from the ironing board kits, and p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p there go the burglars!"

The boring part is going through each interior elevation and tagging the details. So on page A8.3, there's a detail for how the counter top meets the cabinet below it. I have to go through, find where that occurs on the interior elevations for the kitchen, and put a little round circle on the page with a tail that intersects the counter top/cabinet in the elevation. I have to make sure the numbers inside the circle say "A8.3/35" if it's number 35. Other wise, the counter top might end up being built like the edge of the cabinet is supposed to. Or something.

I'm good at this sort of thing, because I'm a natural proofreader (I am obsessed with finding mistakes in writing - not necessarily my own, but usually - and a book is ruined by a simple grammatical error). But it's not as much fun to go through and look for discrepancies in your own designs, and it's more difficult to pick them out.

Pacman feels my pain, and occasionally comes by to check on me while I'm working, which is uncommonly nice of him and a bit out of character.

I suspect he's coming back just to make sure I'm not surfing the Internet.