unbibium

Coming to the arts district in central Phoenix is like a miniature vacation to Seattle. There's a little coffee place I always go to, and they're in the middle of widening the sidewalks, and I run into old friends sometimes. I feel human again when I'm down here.

That doesn't mean I'm completely immune to cognitive black holes when I'm down here. Normally I use the change of setting to get bits of actual work done. Today I have an internal distraction that I need to clear up first...

I think I mismanaged yesterday. If I had checked FB and Twitter at the appropriate time, I could have met up with people I knew nearby. I also could have made my way to my family's house to bake cookies, or maybe gotten a ride to a friend's family's cookie day...

People at my old workplace are now going on winter break. I caught word on Facebook that two of them are working on a game together. Because that's what you do when you're not depressed: you have ideas for things to do and then you do them. There's no looming sense of inadequacy or unwelcomeness.

this morning I spent a lot of time going through paperwork and making sure my COBRA premiums are paid, trying to squeeze the last drop out of my FSA, and filing an unclaimed property form with the AZ Department of Revenue.

COBRA premiums are brutal and make me want to cockpunch every pundit who went on TV who called Obamacare "socialism". I might get on AHCCCS instead for January but maybe I'll get hired by then?

well, my next interview is at a place that will take me 71 minutes to get to by bus, including a half-mile walk from the bus stop. And the amount of bravery it would take for me to hold out for a Tempe job has increased, because if I get an offer and turn it down I have to tell the unemployment people I turned down work. what have I done?

I went to karaoke at The Vine tonight, and remembered the importance of perspective.

After getting pulled into conversations with random drinky strangers, suddenly I feel a lot less self-conscious about my own awkward behavior.

There was one guy who wanted me to sit down at his empty table, seemed desperate for company. I hope he found it; I was trying to keep my own tenuous group together at the time.

There was another guy who asked one innocent question about my albinism and then spent the next ten minutes apologizing and I couldn't stop him. He had the FBI agent method of breaking the ice: asking forceful "what's your favorite X" questions. His wife was a little more sober and both of us tried to explain the video game Burgertime to him.

That same guy also tried to get us all in on a "game" where we wrote random phrases down on napkins and had to improvise a story about it. Guess what, the story started about a guy on Mill Avenue with a 19-year-old co-ed, and all the napkins had sexual positions written on them, except mine and whoever had the red pen. The red pen wrote "Hitler's dog" and "Gay Marijuana", and I wrote "not a single fuck was given that day", "Rainbow Dash", and "Fluttershy", the first two of each were played before everyone got bored and gave up.

I got two songs in. I butchered a Boston song that I never rehearsed. I did a pretty good job on a Black Sabbath song that I had sung before.

so, yeah, measured against The Vine's crowd, the behavioral bar is set pretty low.

I'm still nervous about my daytime behavior at the job I have yet to find.

Well, the corporate overlords have been very generous.

But the challenge still exists to build momentum back up, and keep it... so, goals:

1. Return that call to SMCI


2. Learn just enough angular.js to know what the big deal is.


3. Get my PDF résümȩ́̄ straightened out.


4. Come up with enough goals to fill up the rest of the week


5. Come up with a reason to put on pants every day through Friday.

Do I chill out at Skeptics in the Pub tonight? Or do I instead go to the party nearby that's way too wild for me but probably adventurous? Or do I try to do BOTH? Or do I just stay home and out of everyone's way...

I'm not so sure people are glad to see me when I show up...

today:

• lunch with coworkers at a peruvian place. there was check confusion.  i should go there for  aproper dinner one of these days, but I've spent so much on restaurants this week.
• solved a problem at work that I thought would be impossible
• leftovers for dinner!
• meetup at papago brewery followed by some improv by JesterZ.
• got home, mopped the floor somewhat ineffectively with that Magicloth mop, and troubleshot a problem with my cable connection -- it turns out the tuning adapter was unplugged.

that's about it.
 

Yesterday I went to Tempe Marketplace with no clear goal in mind. Traffic was horrendous. I thought I'd been to malls during December, but I'd never seen rent-a-cops directing traffic before. But then, Metrocenter had wider streets winding through its parking lots. In any case, I should have rode my bike, but instead I was on the Earth circulator, stuck in a left-turn lane for about 20 minutes as a fat guy snored at random volumes.

The Dave & Busters has a Pac-Man Battle Royale machine, but it's one of those deals where all the players sit down in a row, as though a crowd should be permitted to gather behind them. A crowd never did; the place is too full of big flashy distractions already. The atmosphere wasn't like at Ground Kontrol in Portland, where there was always someone playing, and any stranger could feel comfortable in joining with other strangers. But then, the players were all adults at Ground Kontrol. By contrast, if three kids are playing, and some lone adult in a hat sits at the fourth controller, they finish their turn and leave. I did run into a friend from reddit that was leaving D&B's and he gave me his card.

To avoid this on the way out, I walked to the nearest stop outside the marketplace. Unfortunately, this was two miles away, after I'd been on my feet for six hours. I left empty-handed except for some leftover chips from Chipotle, after six hours. Didn't even see a movie. I did get a haircut though, and hit the Fry's for some milk on the way home.

that night, if I weren't so tired, I would have biked around the neighborhood to look at Christmas lights. I've been doing all my running during the day, and haven't seen most of them. I won't get a chance tonight, since I'm likely to be staying at my parents' house. and tomorrow night may be dodgy, since I plan to be watching Doctor Who somewhere else on my way home.

Thursday:
* a bit of housework
* went to happy hour with the coworkers. first to Loco Patron and then to Giligin's for karaoke. I had fun but I have a feeling I haven't made sense of what happened. When I do, I'll post again.
Friday:
* ran some errands with Mom, had lunch at Subway
* made some curried rice for dinner
* I'm feeling weird and sluggish right now. maybe I should have some coffee.

one of those errands was I sent my macbook into the shop to see what I could get for it for trade-in. not sure.