Category: General

whither MeFi?

a billion seconds of unix time

ought to go to bed. really not ready for sleep. but if I don’t now, it will be bad tomorrow.

reminder, evening admin duty application:

$datepart = substr($item, 0, 8)
strip forward slashes from $datepart
if($datepart == $dateselected):
  continue with breaking apart $item into lines

but I haven’t totally lost my energy – just finished a fleet of updates to zografis. I’m still waiting for access to diversity hair site. (gotta email that guy again.)

on an entirely different note… I’ve mentioned to a number of people that I found my natural sleep pattern, and that it isn’t compatible with my current working hours. now, mind you, it’s not radically different – just 11:30 pm – 8:30 am, or midnight to 9am. but I was surprised that a couple of people expressed…contempt? ridicule? – when I said that I wasn’t suited to be working at 7am. what’s with that? is our work ethic so important that it’s better to be sleep-deprived than to work non-standard hours? whatever. it was enough of an instructional experience for me that I will give up the good part – being in the office before most – to get better sleep.

one person who didn’t express that view seemed to think that I must be a night person because I’m a “techie” – I’m not really either a night person nor am I much of a real techie. (I know my limits as a nerd.) an interesting conversation followed from that.

so, in a self-questioning mode: why was it relatively easy for me to talk to the person in that situation, but not in those others? hmmm. in some ways, I do buy into that faux-pride work ethic thing.

my spirit is split between following my natural rhythms (when I can find them) and wanting to succeed on society’s terms (whatever those are). an important point: when I’m working hard, but paying attention to my body, I am most happy and most productive. something good to remember.

back to work…. <sigh> so hard to be motivated for the other things in my life. this, even tho I really do love my job. 😛

this morning filled the first 1/3 of the book with post-its. lots of work to do, now just trying to figure out where to start…probably with more faux writing, since the on slavery piece was so useful.

finally getting back to the diversity hair site. maybe this afternoon I’ll do a little work on zografis, too.

yesterday we drove to portland – went down to Fry’s Electronics. that was sort of overwhelming, but we got some good deals. alas, it looks like I’ll need a new power supply for this puppy if I’m gonna put in the new mobo/chip. 😛

it’s actually a nice day – I should get out of here!

I’m rereading the beginning of Aila, and am surprised at

• how much I like it
• how much it still hangs together with the ending
• how clear it is where I need to add more, and what that more should be

it gives me hope. I’m going to read it once straight through – no notes, no comments – then once more with a big brick of post-its to mark the places that need work. still haven’t decided if I’m gonna read all those extra copies from the various iterations of the writers’ group. it could either be really useful or really annoying. I’m also going to create a character list and a glossary…I may want to change some of the names, and definitely some of the words.

I hope that only one more “major” revision will be necessary…then probably a minor (grammar/spelling/continuity) revision. and once I get the first few chapters (oh, yeah, I need to break it into chapters, too) done, I’m gonna start looking for publishers & agents.

whew. my work has just begun. 😉

way too much time on the web, not enough time doing other, better things. like cleaning the spare room upstairs. or going for a walk.