Making headway? or treading water?
Thursday, March 4th, 2004 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chanaleh
Last night: Pleasant dinner after work with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pandaulf and Small Cute Boy.
Subsequent trip to the Watertown/Arsenal Mall in which I completed all desired tasks on three principal errands = great success, despite not getting there until 8:20pm due to bus schedule suckage. (1) I had a refund certificate from the Gap, so I went to the Gap Outlet to use it. And found a long denim frum-girl skirt like I've been thinking of getting. And also stocked up on Om body lotion. And then saw that they'd brought back some "limited edition" bottles of three of their old scents, Day and Grass and Earth, of which Earth is the one I liked and missed most, so I didn't think twice about splurging on the large bottle of eau de toilette. Yay! (2) Went to Bath & Body Works to try and exchange something else.jessruth had passed some lotion and bath gel stuff on to me after Chanukah because it was Cucumber-Melon scented, which I thought I would like okay, but actually it was way heavier on the Melon than the Cucumber and fake fruit scents give me a headache. So I had the brainstorm that I could take them to the store and ask if they'd do a direct exchange for some other flavor. And they did! Now I have some Green-Tea-&-Cucumber and some White-Tea-&-Ginger, which are sooo much better. [Thanks Jess! :-) If you want some of them back now, just let me know...] (3) Stopped at Linens'N'Things before they closed to buy a Really Sturdy Grater, because I am sick of the two flimsy aluminum ones I have that are too bendy to slice cucumbers properly. And when I checked out, they also happened to have displayed near the register some of the very chocolates I'd been craving earlier in the day, so I splurged on that too for the ride home. (Which was good, because I had to wait another 20 minutes outside to catch that bus. Good thing it was such a nice night.) The End.
On the outbound trip, finished reading Winter's Tale (which I bought at Arisia). Must... reread... immediately! On the return trip, finished reading a pretty cool article on Esther from the Journal of Biblical Literature 120:4 (yeah, a little light reading, I know, but I did like it) for my women's tefilah group meeting/Purim seudah this Sunday evening.
Got home and deliveredmusicjill her music stand, which she'd forgotten in the car upon returning from the retreat last Sunday. Stopped off and bought OJ and, since I was in the Store 24, eggs. (I prefer to buy white eggs -- because, for kashrut purposes, they seem less afflicted with blood spots and other questionable flecks -- and you can't get them in the earthy-crunchy places I mostly shop, Harvest Co-op and Whole Foods, so I end up going to Store 24 regularly just to buy eggs. Weird.)
Got into bed at 11pm and began reading Girl with a Pearl Earring, which I received as a Valentine's Day present. I totally dig it. It's actually much more interesting and textured psychologically than the film, although the film did provide wonderful visuals as a trade-off. There's a whole lot subtly communicated, about the narrator's own character and the nature of her interactions with Vermeer, that kind of got lost in the screen translation: (a) she very much has an artist's eye herself to begin with, and (b) she clearly has a major crush on him from Day Zero -- even though her narrative doesn't *exactly* come out and state it explicitly, and it's hard to tell how much of it is an art crush and how much of it is a personal crush (but I know perfectly well how intertwined, inseparable, those sorts of things are). Proceeded to have dreams involving illicit kisses with someone on whom I have a minor crush IRL (who is older than me, and married, although he isn't an artist). Gee, I wonder where that came from.
Got, if not 8 hours, a good 7 hours of sleep. This, too, contributes to noticeable dream activity. Felt pretty good today overall. Maybe that's the sleep; maybe also the new skirt. :-)
This afternoon: Got a call from someone new at the place I do freelance catalog work for. Apparently my previous contact won't be returning from maternity leave after all (more power to her!). So I got (a) an update/reprieve regarding the catalog stuff I've had on hold with them (they're going to start over from where we last were and I don't have to move until they tell me what we're doing next), (b) permission to bill for the hours from last fall beginning that set of projects (I've been meaning to anyway, but this will motivate me to do it), and (c) effectively a reset on the other potential project we last discussed (some display advertising I was supposed to work up some ideas on) that's been hanging over my head, so now I just have one quick thing to check into and mock up, and I can do that tonight at the same time as the invoicing. w00t! (And if they pay me soon, I can put it towards the taxes on everything they paid me LAST year!)
Oh yeah, in other freelance news, I also volunteered to design a brochure for this Bookbuilders of Boston spring program that my coworkers are spearheading. I finished a draft today and it looks spiff if I do say so. I'm psyched to show it to them tomorrow. (Plus when it's done, everyone in Boston publishing will see this piece. Yeah!)
Tonight: Resist the urge to make dinner plans, and instead do some much-needed puttering around the house:
• Figure out what it is that I really want for dinner (shouldn't be hard, since I skipped lunch and now I'm starving; but sometimes that just makes it harder to tune into the real signals as far as what to have). I'm now thinking Picante. But grocery shopping might be good, too, anyway; what am I going to make for Sunday's potluck?
• Dishes. (No comments from the Peanut Gallery.)
• Certain grooming tasks I've been putting off.
• Computer tasks (work and invoicing, as noted above).
• Start on Torah reading for Saturday.
So overall, I am at least making some progress on the logistical front. I'm still not sure about the emotional/interpersonal front; there, in particular, I still seem to be treading water more than anything. But perhaps the above is enough for one or two days.
pandaulf and Small Cute Boy.Subsequent trip to the Watertown/Arsenal Mall in which I completed all desired tasks on three principal errands = great success, despite not getting there until 8:20pm due to bus schedule suckage. (1) I had a refund certificate from the Gap, so I went to the Gap Outlet to use it. And found a long denim frum-girl skirt like I've been thinking of getting. And also stocked up on Om body lotion. And then saw that they'd brought back some "limited edition" bottles of three of their old scents, Day and Grass and Earth, of which Earth is the one I liked and missed most, so I didn't think twice about splurging on the large bottle of eau de toilette. Yay! (2) Went to Bath & Body Works to try and exchange something else.
jessruth had passed some lotion and bath gel stuff on to me after Chanukah because it was Cucumber-Melon scented, which I thought I would like okay, but actually it was way heavier on the Melon than the Cucumber and fake fruit scents give me a headache. So I had the brainstorm that I could take them to the store and ask if they'd do a direct exchange for some other flavor. And they did! Now I have some Green-Tea-&-Cucumber and some White-Tea-&-Ginger, which are sooo much better. [Thanks Jess! :-) If you want some of them back now, just let me know...] (3) Stopped at Linens'N'Things before they closed to buy a Really Sturdy Grater, because I am sick of the two flimsy aluminum ones I have that are too bendy to slice cucumbers properly. And when I checked out, they also happened to have displayed near the register some of the very chocolates I'd been craving earlier in the day, so I splurged on that too for the ride home. (Which was good, because I had to wait another 20 minutes outside to catch that bus. Good thing it was such a nice night.) The End.On the outbound trip, finished reading Winter's Tale (which I bought at Arisia). Must... reread... immediately! On the return trip, finished reading a pretty cool article on Esther from the Journal of Biblical Literature 120:4 (yeah, a little light reading, I know, but I did like it) for my women's tefilah group meeting/Purim seudah this Sunday evening.
Got home and delivered
musicjill her music stand, which she'd forgotten in the car upon returning from the retreat last Sunday. Stopped off and bought OJ and, since I was in the Store 24, eggs. (I prefer to buy white eggs -- because, for kashrut purposes, they seem less afflicted with blood spots and other questionable flecks -- and you can't get them in the earthy-crunchy places I mostly shop, Harvest Co-op and Whole Foods, so I end up going to Store 24 regularly just to buy eggs. Weird.)Got into bed at 11pm and began reading Girl with a Pearl Earring, which I received as a Valentine's Day present. I totally dig it. It's actually much more interesting and textured psychologically than the film, although the film did provide wonderful visuals as a trade-off. There's a whole lot subtly communicated, about the narrator's own character and the nature of her interactions with Vermeer, that kind of got lost in the screen translation: (a) she very much has an artist's eye herself to begin with, and (b) she clearly has a major crush on him from Day Zero -- even though her narrative doesn't *exactly* come out and state it explicitly, and it's hard to tell how much of it is an art crush and how much of it is a personal crush (but I know perfectly well how intertwined, inseparable, those sorts of things are). Proceeded to have dreams involving illicit kisses with someone on whom I have a minor crush IRL (who is older than me, and married, although he isn't an artist). Gee, I wonder where that came from.
Got, if not 8 hours, a good 7 hours of sleep. This, too, contributes to noticeable dream activity. Felt pretty good today overall. Maybe that's the sleep; maybe also the new skirt. :-)
This afternoon: Got a call from someone new at the place I do freelance catalog work for. Apparently my previous contact won't be returning from maternity leave after all (more power to her!). So I got (a) an update/reprieve regarding the catalog stuff I've had on hold with them (they're going to start over from where we last were and I don't have to move until they tell me what we're doing next), (b) permission to bill for the hours from last fall beginning that set of projects (I've been meaning to anyway, but this will motivate me to do it), and (c) effectively a reset on the other potential project we last discussed (some display advertising I was supposed to work up some ideas on) that's been hanging over my head, so now I just have one quick thing to check into and mock up, and I can do that tonight at the same time as the invoicing. w00t! (And if they pay me soon, I can put it towards the taxes on everything they paid me LAST year!)
Oh yeah, in other freelance news, I also volunteered to design a brochure for this Bookbuilders of Boston spring program that my coworkers are spearheading. I finished a draft today and it looks spiff if I do say so. I'm psyched to show it to them tomorrow. (Plus when it's done, everyone in Boston publishing will see this piece. Yeah!)
Tonight: Resist the urge to make dinner plans, and instead do some much-needed puttering around the house:
• Figure out what it is that I really want for dinner (shouldn't be hard, since I skipped lunch and now I'm starving; but sometimes that just makes it harder to tune into the real signals as far as what to have). I'm now thinking Picante. But grocery shopping might be good, too, anyway; what am I going to make for Sunday's potluck?
• Dishes. (No comments from the Peanut Gallery.)
• Certain grooming tasks I've been putting off.
• Computer tasks (work and invoicing, as noted above).
• Start on Torah reading for Saturday.
So overall, I am at least making some progress on the logistical front. I'm still not sure about the emotional/interpersonal front; there, in particular, I still seem to be treading water more than anything. But perhaps the above is enough for one or two days.