A post in which I pay for being sick

I woke up early, for some reason, yet still felt the time change. I fortified myself with a bucket o coffee, but reasoned that I had quite enough cigarettes last night.

I pretty much knew things were going to be rough today. Man was I ever right.

I got to work, turned on my computer, and watched my desk explode.

I eventually got on top of the wave and was able to at least put out the fires. I thought I was going to get some calls caught up this afternoon, but my boss had other ideas.

He had an inspiration for a power point slide. Apparently these slides spring fully formed from him mind, like Athena from the mind of Zeus. He just doesn't understand that I can't see the vision in his head. So he sends me the vaguest of directions, and then doesn't understand why what I do isn't exactly what he wanted. He gets impatient with my asking questions to try to figure it out. Today, the answer to my questions was "This is really simple." Yeah, that helped. The good news is that I have gotten better at this, and was able to give him what he wanted on the second try. The bad news is that he seems to think I am a bit slow because I didn't get it on the first try. Bosses.

I only took a half lunch, but I had to get away from my desk for just a minute or I was going to go crazier. When I got back, some strange gremlin was in my computer, and commands just randomly didn't work. I didn't have time to re-boot.

By 5:30, I did the Fred Flintstone down the dinosaur's tail and got the fuck out of there. I'll probably be able to catch up tomorrow.

Last Monday there was five inches of snow on the ground. When I got in my car today it was 87 degrees. I got home and opened the windows to get some fresh air in the house. I shot things on the computer for a while to wind down. I did a load of laundry (I'm down to the last of the unusual things that need washing, finally), and heated up the last of the pizza for dinner.

There was an old movie on tonight called Lured, one of the few dramatic leads that Lucille Ball played. This was made in 1947, right before she became Mrs. Desi Arnaz. Kind of a film noir, and quite ahead of it's time, actually. It was set in England. Lucy loses a friend to a serial killer (then called a "homicidal maniac"), and goes to work for the police undercover, answering lonely hearts ads to help flush out the killer. It was excellent. She had that great style of one-eyebrow-cocked wry delivery, like Eve Arden or Rosalind Russell, down cold. Like Rosalind, her great timing worked as well in a dramatic role as it did in a comedy, although there are notably few examples in both of their careers. (For a star turn by Russell, catch Sister Kenny, in which she plays a famous polio nurse who basically invents physical therapy - a bit of a saccharine script, but still a great performance.)

While that was on, I did a little beauty maintenance. Sandal season is coming up, and frankly, I had this nasty hoof problem going on. I was appalled at the state of my feet when I looked at them this weekend. So I got out my blacksmith's hasp and went to work. By the time I had made some progress, the movie was over. I closed the windows, greased the feets up good and turned in. I wonder if straight guys worry about how their feet look, or work on them. I don't usually notice their feet looking particularly heinous (Well most of the time - I did see this guy last summer who was with a woman about half his age. He was wearing Birkenstocks, and had a toe ring on one of his crabby old man toes - it had the thick, claw-like yellow nail and everything. I was totally grossed out). Maybe they just don't talk about it.

I got a message from James tonight, and apparently the Wednesday night dinner thing is over since he got a new job.

It's been a long day, and tomorrow is another one.