|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
blogger |
Other recommended blogs: Amy, Calpernia, Claire, Gwen, Kara, Reise, W3bgrl-Auntie Solder.
|
Thursday, 2004.01.01:
|
Melody gushed, "oh, you guys have to have kids next year so mine will have someone to play with!" I didn't really know what to say to that so I just let her ramble on. She was obviously drunk and pawing Steve with her free hand, the other clutching a glass of wine. Still, there's truth in what she said. She's mid-30s and her bio clock was ticking about as loud as the band.
"Well, I'd like to have kids before 36," I said. She sorta nodded at that. She obviously doesn't remember me at all...
I met Melody only a few years ago via Steve's friends network. I have been to her place on multiple occassions. She's even given me a desktop dartboard as a Christmas present. And yet she doesn't seem to remember who I am. Curious, eh? Well, it is true that before I saw her back in November it had probably been over a year. But still...?
It always makes me chuckle when I think of this. And today here Melody is going off on having kids and probably not realizing that I can't. Well, not in the the sense that I'd be carrying my own.
Anyways I suppose you'd be more interested in hearing about my New Years from the start...
I worked from home yesterday but stopped working around 4:00p. I packed an overnight bag, a makeup and nails kit, and the stuff for the evening. I still had items I needed to get and so I left just shy of 5:00p for the mall. I went back to Nordstroms and found a comparable pair of shoes to what Sarah had given me yesterday---I would much rather have used my own pair tonight. Plus, these pair were quite reasonable at about $40.
Next I went hunting for a wool coat that I would wear with my dress because the only wool coat I have goes down to below the waist a little. I want something that goes down to midcalf. I didn't find a suitable one, even if I was going to pay like $350 over at Macy's. Oh well, Jen got a good one at Banana and I'll see if there's one like that later. (I know it will be expensive, but I'm beginning to give up on searching for cheap items.)
But the trip to Macy's was not fruitless. I did find a bra that wouldn't peek through the neckline of the dress---if you saw the photos it kinda drops (not quite plunges) down a bit in front. normal bras tend to show and I was not about to give in to wearing pasties. Ew.
I headed back to the car and it was off to Steve's to fully change. I got there in plenty of time to get ready except for nails. I knew it was going to be tight and I even told Steve, "um, I don't think I can have the nails ready and dry before we leave." But somehow I got started on the nails and ended up finishing two coats before we left. It was a mess though and I wish I had more time to clean it up. So we left the house in a hurry with me still fretting about my appearance.
We stepped out of the cab and into the hotel where we were to meet the other three couples in our party. I dashed downstairs to the ladies room to go and fix my makeup and add some lip gloss since I was too rushed earlier. Everyone was already waiting for us but we all gave a quick introduction and it was off to our table in the restaurant.
Dinner was so-so. I mean, the baked oysters with hollandaise sauce rocked, but the salmon was a total let down. Steve thinks his steak and lobster combo was good---I agree, but I didn't want to be eating that much meat. Dessert made up for the first and second courses though. Everyone loves a good chocolate creme brulée or a gingerbread cake topped with carmelized apples. Muahaha, good. We also uncorked our own bottles of sangiovese and shiraz.
One thing I noted was that none of the women in our party were using nail polish. I kinda thought that it would have been more fitting, but none of them seem to have done that. In fact three of us were wearing fairly simple outfits with simple jewelry. Melody had the nicest by far showing off real diamonds.
After dinner we bopped next door to the adjoining club where they had a salsa band. They even had a bit of a dance lesson at one point which got most of the people on the floor. In fact, the little floor was so crowded that we kept bumping into each other. Steve and I ended up dancing until just before the time when they would begin the countdown. I miss dancing. I ought to do it more this coming year.
I was totally worried that I was going to come undone in more than one sense of the word. I had noted earlier in the evening that the bra, which is a front hook, can detach itself quite easily if you bend in a certain way. That and the whole tucking issue comes up. I mean it would be doubly embarrassing for both things to come loose in the middle of a frenzied dance. ("No!" Scotty shouts. "She canna take anymore pressure!" ) But, quite fortunately, both things held fast through it all.
Anyways, Steve and I headed back to our group and we all got a round of champagne. 10! 9! 8! 7! 6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! And then the crowd went wild with cheers and those little party horns. We all toasted each other. We did not, however, sing Auld Lang Syne thank goodness. And afterwards we just milled about between the group and the dance floor
Steve and I caught the cab back to home and as I stepped out of my shoes I breathed the sigh of relief that comes with having your feet unbound. Of course, that was little consolation because I found out (the hard way) that I had this nasty rash around my neck. Whatever metal is in Sarah's necklace that I borrowed had something that reacted with my skin. Ugh. So here I am typing out this blog while my skin is still on fire. I'm just using the same technique that I used in electrolysis to tune out the pain.
Overall, to be fair, it was a good evening. I haven't been to a New Year's Eve party before and all previous NYEs pretty much sucked. When I'm with my parents we do nothing but watch TV. When I was back living with Seth and Steve I think we played games or something like that. Regardless, this year was funner than the previous ones so I'm really glad I got the opportunity to go to it.
Now it's off to get a snack and head to bed before the sun rises.
...
I can barely see the screen as I'm typing this. Without glasses or contacts my vision has now degraded to the point where even reading this text on Steve's big Samsung DLP is a strain.
I woke up strangely this morning. When I mean "strange" I'm referring to the fact I'm in an unfamiliar bed in a familiar room yet unfamiliar surroundings in a familiar house. You see, I lived here for six months and I even used to sleep in this bedroom. (It still bears the battle scars of the broken closet rack.) But since I've moved out the room got converted into a guest room with a fluffy queen bed and thick comforters. So even though it's home it's not.
I checked the mirror this morning and around my neck and chest where the jewelry laid there's red and purple spots. I so hate having sensitive skin. I've had rashes covering my entire body before so I'm so used to this, but I hate fighting the reflex to itch. I mean right now my neck is on fire and I can't wait until I can get home to get to my hydrocortisone. GARRRRRGGHGGHG. I hate this!
...
Need a 160 Kbps electronica stream? Try XTC Radio.
...
I've been looking at ultra compact laptops for when I travel. I think I found one I can live with: Sony PCG-TR2AP1. I'm looking for a mobile ultra compact that would be suitable for travelling and light photo editing. It's a lot of $$$ but I figure this is also something that I can keep by my bedside if the moment grabs me and I need to write something down. I want a long battery life. That is a must. The only thing that came close was a Fujitsu Lifebook. Table PCs won't work too well if I'm going to be sitting up in bed keying. Anyways I'm not in a hurry so I'll see how prices go around May of this year.
Friday, 2004.01.02:
|
Saturday, 2004.01.03:
|
Argh. The Producers in Los Angeles' last performance is tomorrow. Argh. And they've cancelled it. Argh. Oh well. I was kinda hoping to catch it if I go down to V-Day.
...
Tonight was a Coppola family night.
Ended up seeing Lost in Translation. Cute movie. A bit slow here and there, but this certainly isn't a testosterone-laden action flick.
And now: a rant. Went to the Café Niebaum-Coppola for a quick dinner. Food was OK. Service sucked. Attitude of the greeter was sucky too. Plus the waiter gave me one of the most expensive cabs. Whatever.
Sunday, 2004.01.04:
|
Monday, 2004.01.05:
|
Ended up on Steve's couch watching the last of Abenobashi Maho Shotengai. Afterwards we just talked like forever. Think of it as group therapy. Sometimes it's nice to have people you can just talk to.
Oh, can I have one of these, please?
Tuesday, 2004.01.06:
|
The LifeBook P5020D is looking more tasty now. Despite the fact it comes with significantly less memory than the Sony TR3A, the batteries are cheaper (by like $200), the wireless is faster, and the HDD is bigger. I liked the TR2A/TR3A style and feel; the Fujitsu's touchpad and buttons felt funny. I don't know. What I need is long battery life over performance. I don't really need the TR2A/TR3A's camera either, but the XBrite screens are quite a bit better looking. Oh well, another 5 months maybe we'll see what comes out.
...
Experienced a new emotion tonight: jealousy. So this one guy we all know is a bit of a girl chaser (not tranny chaser) and his long-time not-quite-girlfriend gal pal came back into the area. We all went out for dinner in a group but here he was paying all the attention in the world to her and like 0 to me. This wouldn't usually have bothered me at all but when I'm around this guy and no one else is he is unusually attentive. Oh well. It's not like I'm going to hook up with him in the end. I'm fairly certain of that. So it's not a big loss.
Wednesday, 2004.01.07:
|
I was so unproductive at work today. It was just one of those why-am-I-here days. I just don't find joy in working, but I think that's largely due to me not having a creative outlet at work. Oh well.
At least I got some of my creative ambitions vented yesterday. I've been talking frequently to this guy I've known for a long while who does remixes and other electronic music stuff. The night previous he gave me a song he was working on and I wondered what was missing from it. I broke the song down in Adobe Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro) to extra a couple of loops and samples from it and remixed a small part in Buzz. I passed the new MP3 back to him and he thought it was cool. So he' s incorporating one of the sequences into his final song. I'd love to post part of it but it's his final work and it may get shopped to someone.
I like doing stuff like that. It's cool doing the team-construction thing even though he and I are separated by 3 timezones. Thank goodness for broadband.
Picked up Renée Newman's Rube, Sapphire & Emerald Buying Guide. Read the first few parts of it. It's cool.
Gosh my work laptop is so much faster these days it's almost usable! Thanks to getting my full 512MB RAM back (instead of dealing with 256MB) the computer is no longer swapping every single window. Awesome.
Thursday, 2004.01.08:
|
Got my blood drawn this morning for the usual panel. We're testing the testosterone, estradiol, progesterones, and lipids. I hate fasting for 12 hours because I always get the munchies. But, since last night was a McDonald's night and I scarfed more than my share of French fries (which, btw, were most excellent) I was way full. Fasting to me was pretty much a necessity at that point. Even now I'm not even hungry and it has been 14 hours since I last ate. Hehe. But anyways, what surprised me was the technitian just swabbed me, stuck the needle in, and drew two vials before I knew it. I mean, this was the absolute fastest that I've ever had blood drawn. Even the waiting time was almost nil. So, I went into the office around 8:55a and was done by about 9:05a. In fact, I'm sitting here at work already sipping on my morning Mountain Dew after a casual read of another Fujitsu P5020D review.
Speaking of which.
I'm considering moving my buying window up a few months. I don't know. I want to wait and see what comes up in the March-May timeframe, but there's something else that has been nagging me more often: I don't interact with my roommate.
Sure we get along. Sure we laugh and watch stuff. But, the thing is, it rarely happens. She goes to work early and leaves early. She's in bed by 10:00p usually. I'm usually coming home from dinner by about 9:00p. But in that space of time where we are both awake and in the same location, I'm usually holed up in my room. Ugh. I used to always leave my door open and travel in/out of my room talking and stuff with everyone else. But now I don't. I think I finally figured it out this morning in the shower.
I do a lot of work on my computers. A lot. You could almost say I'm married to these devices. At work I'm always typing on one. At home I sit in at my desk and type away while my door is closed. I get into these really long IM conversations too. (BTW: For those I talk to on IM, it's cool. But the fact remains: it takes up a long time.) So, something has to change. It really does. And here is where the laptop comes in.
I want my own laptop so I don't have to keep guarding my personal info on my work laptop. I want enough power that I can, in fact, work mobilely. (Is that a word?) I don't want to have to keep staying behind closed doors---which are closed only because my room isn't cat-proof yet. (Dude, you have no idea what they did to my artificial Christmas tree that I had put on the kitchen table. That tree is now back in my room.) And I want to be around my roomie more often even if we're doing nothing other than watching the teletube.
So, I'm looking at the computer as something that will enable me to get back into being social because I really am a social creature. I may be a stronger introvert than extrovert but I keep wondering if that is situational.
And this all brings me back to another thought I had in the shower this morning too.
Remember how I was talking about how I thought the best time to transition was younger not because of the physical advantages but the social advantages? I think this is more true now than ever before. The whole thing about transitioning is so that you can become part of a social environment that better fits you, not so you can sorta kinda look like a woman (because, as I always say, we can never physically become women rather just a mere approximation). So I missed a lot of the socialization and it's even more tough at this point. Maybe I'm lamenting about something that really isn't a problem. I dunno.
Anyways, what triggered this was that last night my roomie said there was a baby shower coming up and that I was invited. What was my first reaction? Panic. I didn't know if I should go because I was afraid I might not be able to get along with other women in the room. My second thought was: holy crap, why am I panicking at all? This is a great opportunity. Why are you so afraid? Oh yeah, that's right: you still don't feel you quite belong. The fear of feeling less than adequate can't be absolved until I get more social interaction. It's not that I don't try to find social opportunities, it's just that I don't know how.
Ah, fear of the unknown. But I'll conquer that fear one day.
...
Aw, man! I broke my colleague's Rubik's Magic! I was twisting it and then ... suddenly ... it was a lot easier to move. I looked at the 8 panels and realized 1 string broke! Argh. He tried to console me that it was just a toy and all, but the trouble is they don't make the old black ones w/ rainbow rings anymore. I used to love that toy and got pretty darned proficient with---enough to impress a few people. So here I was in his cubicle trying to recall the transformations when it breaks. Oh well. Maybe I'll try to get the new Homer Simpson Magic. Well, at least the stores seem to still carry the old Master Edition, which I was also pretty good at.
...
Amber loveses the birthdays. It was Marci's day to turn 24. Again. As it has been for many years. And at this point I think we could care less what her real age is. We ended up just meeting for a round of food at a Japanese teppanyaki place---you know, where you're all seated around a hot table and a chef cooks and entertains you. I think there were 8 in our party. All we did was socialize and didn't really give gifts. I think we are at a stage where the real gift is that we are just together. And that's just cool.
Friday, 2004.01.09:
|
Weird. Was walking through Macy's last night and actually saw a Panjabi MC video right there on the store monitors: Jogi. Cool. I also love the Bhangra Knights Vs Husan song. You know you want the ringtone.
Talked to a friend about jewelry making. Sounds cool. I don't think I have the money to be making jewelry at this point but you never know. I have to check out the costs.
Saw The Fellowship of the Ring. Again. For the 3rd (or 4th?) time. Well, that's not true. The group got bored part way through and so we switched to dessert and Eddie Izzard's Dress To Kill. Rollickingly funny.
Saturday, 2004.01.10:
|
I dunno why, but today's a good day. Maybe because the sun's shining, the cats are mellow, or maybe it's because I'm chomping on King Egg Rolls. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area you should check them out. They sell the most narcotic eggrolls out there. You can order them in huge quantities. ("I'll take 80 please.") And they don't break the bank at $0.50 a pop. This morning I'm eating some of the leftover eggrolls. Just reheat them in the oven at 375° after a brief microwaving and you have instant gratification. My fav sauce combo with this is the Huy Fong Sriracha hot sauce. Mmm...
Stopped by a jewelry shop. Had a long chat with the people there and looked at all their stuff. Gosh the stuff is expensive. But the good thing is I now know one of my ring sizes so maybe I'll see about getting some in the near future. My lil' jewelry chest is filling up. I have a strong feeling this year is going to be a very expensive year for many reasons.
Saw Something's Gotta Give. Loved Nicholson and Keaton. Great on-screen chemistry.
Sunday, 2004.01.11:
|
I will open a can of Whoop Ass. No, really. I mean, I really will. In my relentless quest to find the best-tasting and most effective energy brews I have found Whoop Ass from the Jones Soda Co. Mmm...taurine.
...
Found the cats did a nasty on the white blanket on my bed. Argh. As part of the change of the way things work around here I'm trying to leave my room open just a wee bit more often. So that means making the room relatively cat-proof. That means putting away the good stuff (i.e. clothes) and storing all the small tiny stuff (i.e. audio connectors, labels, tools). That also invites the problem of cat hair going everywhere so I threw a blankie on the bed. Well, little did I know that it isn't just hair that gets everywhere. So now there's this stain on the blanket. Well, at least it came out with the wash.
That meant a trip out to get something else to cover my bed. A housewares store was selling a twin size blanket for $20. Eh, for that cheap it's perfectly fine to be trashed. So with that on my bed I don't mind the cats staking their camp on it. (My room's windows face the sun side so the cats love it.)
...
The evening ended up being ho-hum. Everyone pretty much abandoned me today. The usual online people weren't. A couple friends I called up for dinner bailed due to stomach flu. Another didn't want to leave his house. And the roommate was out. It was just me, the cats, and a microwave dinner. Oh, and 5 leftover eggrolls. So I watched a bit of Simpsons season 1 and worked on this site. Yay.
(Boring.)
Oh I got my latest computer backup onto CDs. Ugh. This totally blows. I now back up about 6.8 GB of data. After splitting them into 620 MB chunks I had 11 CDs to burn. I have to either be more selective with my backups or I have to get a DVD burner. 11 archives is just too many. My old backup split program couldn't take a file more than 4 GB but I found a different split utility.
Scanned in a few photos from my past. I came across one where I was on a beach in Hong Kong and had written out the date there. It's funny. I have this way of dating most of my trips by writing the date in the sand. Heh. Another thing I noticed: hm, I was a cute kid. And there were a few with me and my ex. It kinda brings a tear to the eye when I remember how much fun we had.
Monday, 2004.01.12:
|
Got my latest results from my blood panel back and apparently we're looking good:
Interestingly enough, there were differences from the last blood panel I took. Note the estrogen levels went down, the testosterone went up.
hormone normal range 2002.12 2004.01 testosterone 260-1000 NG/DL male
15-70 female14 NG/DL 32 NG/DL estradiol 21-50 PG/ML 77 PG/ML 50 PG/ML progesterone --- --- 7.4 NG/ML
You may be looking at the numbers wondering why are they so low. One thing to consider is that I use transdermal patches and gels. That means I get a near-continuous dosage of hormones rather than with pills or injectibles where you would see large peak levels. My endo is against cycling as she thinks it creates greater risks for cancer. So far the continuous delivery appears to be working quite well.
Tuesday, 2004.01.13:
|
Under the circumstances I'm doing frickin' awesome. Today I was all numbed up on an EMLA generic and we did (another) round of genital electrolysis. Argh. I hate this. Now, the only redeeming factor of genital electrolysis is that it is quite possible to carry on a conversation with your electrolysis operator---as opposed to getting your lower lip done where about all you can do is grunt. Of course, your senteces are punctuated by the occassional "Aa!" "Ergrrhm" and "Omigodomigodomigod!!!" (Not to really use the name in vain, but when your fists and teeth are clenched sometimes you just say the first thing that comes to mind.)
Fortunately, today was fairly good.
Finally now I'm sitting at home still debating if I should just call in sick to work. I'm not in pain but I'm not feeling great. Actually, now the itching begins. I hate this part...
But in other news, cool things are a-brewin'. So that guy friend I've been writing music with has sorta inspired me. I'm back to tracking and almost fiercely at that. We've been trading sound clips and music back and forth now for prolly 2 weeks. It's a lot of fun and I think both of us have stayed up considerably late. Anyways, if you want to hear what I'm up to check out a small sound sample:
Untitled Sample. (3:09)Personally, I think it's cool. But, the final product will be completely different since his style and mine are very different.
Listen: MP3 (3.0 MB)
Wednesday, 2004.01.14:
|
Thursday, 2004.01.15:
|
Another round of morning DDR. I really ought to go to the gym considering I have a membership there, but I'm too lazy to wake up, drive to the gym, do my thang, and drive back. It's just so much easier to pull the dance mat from the closet and hop around in the living room. Plus, I'm still apprehensive in public.
You'd almost think that by now I wouldn't be, given that it's about 7 months full-time, but every now and then I get scared and turn tail. Like New Year's Eve. I totally wasn't thinking I'd be up to it but I went through with it and had a pretty good time. (BTW, I got some of the pics back and looks like everyone had fun. Tho, I must admit I still think I look kinda scary in pictures. I wish I could make my face a bit more narrow, but it's not too bad.) And there's potentially this baby shower thing going on. I think we're expecting at least 2 dozen women to be there and I'm kinda freaking about that right now. It's one thing to be in public where you might only meet someone for 5 minutes at most. But to be there in a room for like 3 hours with everyone else close-up. Uh... uhmmm... *sigh* Yeah.
I heard there may be a better Pentium M coming out soon which would be awesome if they can integrate it into either the Sony or the Fujitsu sublaptops I've been looking at. I'm doing a lot more music these days and any bit of processing power would be appreciated. I also know that I must have at least a gig of RAM and preferably faster than a 5400 RPM HDD.
In my latest of thoughts on this issue, I'm actually beginning to waver on size a little. I wanted something tiny tiny because I don't want to give up the space in my backpack. But, some of these other ones like the Toshiba Portége aren't all that big, sport an awesome battery life, and are more powerful. They also might be more comfy when on your laptop and typing. I don't know. The Fuji P and the TR2 fit very conveniently on an airplane tray w/ room to spare...
Friday, 2004.01.16:
|
I'm so chirpy today and I don't know why. Oh well, cool.
Real girls hit hard. I had no idea there was a women's professional tackle football league until today. All I gotta say is: cool.
I finally figured out why I was getting redness and bruising until my estradiol patches: they itch and when I scratch the area it is hard enough to cause bruises. (!!!) Well, so I have tried insanely hard not to scratch my last two patch areas and I've had zero redness in that area. Cool.
My code still is broken. Stupid convoluted Java hierarchy. I don't care if this is a so-called typical MVC model. It still sucks. Hey, you try tracing variables that get passed from a web client to a servlet to an action bean to a database package to a forwarding JSP to a tag library to a data bean to a rendering bean. We're talking multiple entry/exit points, global variables, and dynamically-generated SQL queries. Totally un-cool.
But, a cool/weird thing happened in my e-mail box this afternoon:
Hey Amber,Whoa. On the one hand I feel like I'm a replacement for the other girl. Pssh. But on the other hand, it's kinda cool that a guy I met only once at a party last year would actually bother to look my name up from our network of friends. I don't quite know what to make of this yet, but I do have to say when I saw him that time I thought to myself: hey, he's kinda cute.
Hope you remember me, we met at _____'s party once..
I hope you don't mind me asking?:-D
Our company party is tomorrow.. I am not sure wheather you already have some good plans for tomorrow evening... If not I would be more than happy if you could join me. One of my friends was supposed in joining me, but she ran into some issues for saturday evening..
Let me know.
Regards,
-- P
NOTE: Contents edited to protect the innoc---err... whatever.
As an afterthought, this thing about me quite possibly liking guys isn't a hard thing for me. (Someone commented something to the effect that I had made the switch to being attacted to males pretty easily.) See, I never really was super-attracted to girls. I wasn't really all that attracted to boys either. But I always thought it would be cool to be the female in the relationship because I thought it would fit my personality so well. Hm, maybe it does?
Saturday, 2004.01.17:
|
Woke up real late and decided I still had to get up and do something. Thank goodness for DDR. Entertainment and exercise all in one. So I've done most of the songs for DDR Max 2.
In the early afternoon drove over to the airport and picked Em up. Her plane came in early; I was fashionably tardy. It had been a while since we'd seen each other so there was the obligatory hugs and stuff. We loaded up my lil' mobile and it was off to the hotel. She checked into this cool place where you can sorta feel it's a cut above the norm for hotels and yet doesn't seem oppressively snooty. Her room is plain yet modern stylish at the same time. The sunlight pours in through the large window as you overlook the city below.
We were joined by Em's friend, Tyler, and we milled about the room until we got antsy for a snack. There was a sushi place round the corner and so we ducked into there. The restaurant was bigger than it might seem at first and since it was in the late afternoon it felt pretty deserted. As we munched we explained to Tyler the difference between sashimi, nigiri, and maki. Em had this maguro sashimi---I really can't eat that much raw fish. I think cooking things really brings out the taste. Oh, both of them liked the eel (unagi) which, by the way, is cooked sushi.
At the end of the eve I took Tyler home. But there were valet fees to be paid and $33 was the charge. Damn. I forgot how expensive parking was around here. But valet was the most convenient option in the beginning.
I eventually got back to my neck of the woods and was bored as heck so I called up Steve who just had his new leather couches delivered. Coolio. So I brought some extra food and we watched Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise. Weird movie. I dunno if I like it or not. Pretty scattered.
Sunday, 2004.01.18:
|
Egads it's the 18th already. Argh. Surgery draws closer but so do deadlines at work. I just feel so burned out some days. Gah.
Anyways, woke up semi-late and got a chance to fit in yet more DDR before I went out to see Big Fish. Steve, Seth, Kelly, Rod, and I met up at the theater. Seth was in better spirits but he's still all funny around me. I just feel like such an outsider with this group now it's pretty sad. Oh well, friends come and go.
Big Fish was a fun movie albeit long. It's all about tall tales based on this one guy's life. Fact and fiction mingle in extraordinary ways. And by the end of the movie you begin to understand what makes this guy so special. The way he touches people with his words is like no other. His son would like to disagree but he too seems to finally come around. By the end of the movie I was in total tears.
Drove back to see Em and Tyler. Didn't do much---sort of a repeat of yesterday. But we had a nice dinner where we kinda snacked. It was a various assortment of cheese, crab cakes, duck, and scallops. I had a merlot and Em a cosmopolitan. We finally ended up in Em's room talking for the longest while until she got so sleepy she just melted into her bed.
Monday, 2004.01.19:
|
As Ellen Feiss might say: nngh? I have just been made aware that there are some people who have pirated my site code. No biggie, really. I don't really care about copying because this information (and source code) is all visible for you our loyal readers. (See, we teach you about transsexuality and web site design at the same time, eh?)
However.
Do me a favor? Please remove references to my StatCounter. The part of the code block begins with:
<!-- Start of StatCounter Code -->Remove that, k? Oh, and if you're copying the entire site I highly recommend using Mozilla as your browser and HTTrack.
Thanks.
Tuesday, 2004.01.20:
|
Today's Terror Level is: Bert. And today's happy picture is courtesy of Boring 3D: pachyderms.
I have no life. I went in to work this morning about 8:30a and ended up leaving the office around 8:30p. I think I'm going to go home, eat, and whine about my pathetic life. Oh, and since I've finished up the book about gemstones now I get to read Oracle SQL Tuning by Mark Gurry. Oh joy. (Well, I am told it's a good book.)
Wednesday, 2004.01.21:
|
No, I do not want 3 more inches. No, I don't want to see what Paris Hilton did on video. And no, Mrs. Ashatu Abacha, I do not want any part in your Nigerian scam. But, once in a while something comes your way (no pun intended) that just makes you laugh. That's right, I'm talking about:
Yes, show your love on March 14th.
And now for something completely different...
I was toasting up some bread this morning and when the toast popped up I was quite pleased to have a perfect Hello Kitty on one of the pieces of bread. Yup. Perfect. This doesn't happen all that often because one of the eyes might not show through or the whiskers would be fuzzy. But there it was in all its toasty perfection.
Friday, 2004.01.23:
|
Today was such a frustrating day. We had this meeting where we're deciding who gets the action items. Guess who? Me. 90% of them. The lead programmer is leaving the group and the other junior person doesn't know enough since she just joined. Oh, and on top of that I'm still responsible for the stupid manual script monitoring. This is going to be hellish.
But I got a good laugh out of the penguin game. My personal best is 320.5. Still one guy I know got around 363.
My hair is all nasty now after having walked in the rain for 20 minutes. It was Tina's bright idea to walk from her house to dinner and down to a karaoke bar. Going to there was just fine. The bar was pretty packed most of the night and there were a couple of guys that could really belt it out. Steve was all saying, "hey, you should sing something." Like I would? Ha. Kristina, my ex, actually popped by. That was a surprise. She and her girlfriend didn't do anything really. No talking, no drinking, nothing. Oh well. The rest of us were singing along with the crowd though; my voice is pretty sore right now.
Saturday, 2004.01.24:
|
Spent the day roaming around the Bay meeting up with people. I met up with a friend and an acquaintance at a real nice restaurant. It was an interesting conversation because this acquaintance has spent a lifetime travelling and lecturing around the world so he was filling us in on his little adventures. Of course me with all my new interest in travelling enjoyed hearing about all these other places.
Later in the evening I was feeling antsy so I called up Steve to see what was going on with the other gang. They were meeting up to go to this Irish cultural dance thingy---a céili. So there were a small group of us sitting along the wall as the other people were learning the dance steps in the middle of the room. But we all eventually got up the nerve to go up and join the crowd. It was fun. There were like 4 or 5 different dances they did where there was a lot of moving around in lines and spinning around.
Tina was all antsy afterwards so we ducked into a bar down the way. Mel wanted food but the bar's kitchen was closed. So we ended up leaving without having ordered anything and there was a cafe up on the second floor of this bookstore. We got some hot drinks and snacks. Somewhere along the line Tina and Steve get this idea that they should call one of those 1-900 porn numbers. Don't ask. But we laughed about stuff.
Sunday, 2004.01.25:
|
Met up with a friend who needed a ride to the airport. In her hotel there was this piano all by itself with no one playing it and no one really near it. (An idle piano is not a happy piano.) I had checked with the hotel staff in previous days if it was OK to use it and since I had the green light previous times I just sat down at the console and twiddled with it. There was some background music being played through the lobby and I figured out the chords to it. So I was all ad libbing and being harmonious with it. After the song ended I noticed two men approaching the bench who notified me that the piano was off-limits. Drats. So I apologized and called up to the room where she was staying. She was ready to go so we gathered her things and we were off to the airport. We eventually parted and she flew home to her comfy own bed. I paid the last of the parking fees and hit the highway back to my own home. (I am so tired of paying for parking.)
My old dresser was staring me in the face when I got home and I knew I needed to get rid of it. So a couple calls to local charities found a place that would take it and off it goes. Yay. I get a tax deduction and someone gets a cheap dresser.
I happened to be in my parents' neighborhood so I gave them a ring and headed over to their place. As usual they were worried if I would be obviously girly. Mom asked if I was wearing make up. Sheesh, no I'm not, thank you.
We all said hellos all around. Mom and I ended up talking in the kitchen. She told me about my parents trip to Chinatown for some dim sum and stuff---they almost never go to Chinatown because we live in suburbia. They were amazed how things have changed over the years.
In other news, somewhere in the house my baby pictures book is lost. Nuts. I had taken it out months ago to scan some photos many moons ago. I think I know where it might be but I don't know for sure. That will really suck if I have permanently lost it because there are so many treasures in there.
At the end of the day it was a typical meeting with the Chans. I got loaded up with much food and New Year oranges (for good luck).
...
I've decided I am really just pathetic. I mean, I think I understand yet another piece of why I'm displeased that I waited so long for transition: I'm reliving my teenage years. In my 20s. As if I could. Imagine me enunciation this: pa-the-tique. Argh.
There I was painting my nails this even watching the new Freaky Friday with Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsey Lohan. I'm wearing my converse sneaks, some sort of zip-cargo crop pants, a black sweat jacket, and my Megatokyo T-shirt---I could have just as easily been using my Emily the Strange T.
I'm thinking back to where I was in those long-gone years of middle school and high school. I'd love to relive those years. I think if I had been stronger I would have done life so differently back then. For one I would have pursued music with a vengeance---probably ditched the computers except for MIDI sequencing and making pretty web pages. How cool it would have been to be back in those years (and have brought my Korg X3 and my JS-100 too). What different life it would have been.
But cry not for me. I'm pathetique, remember?
Monday, 2004.01.26:
|
Thanks to Andy's Anagram Solver I now post to you some of the various permutations of my name:
- ah crab men
- a chem barn
- can bam her
- can ma herb
- charm bean
- her cab man
Tuesday, 2004.01.27:
|
The nails seem to be holding up. I'm using one of my favs: Orly Sky Blue-Pink (435). A basecoat, 2 coats, and a topcoat came out OK. I think I definitely need to use a ridge filler and lay on the coats a bit thicker.
Slowly but surely the rest of this site is coming together. I had no idea how much content there is here. But it's a good thing that this site got reworked because it gives me a chance to do some more editing on long-forgotten content.
Wednesday, 2004.01.28:
|
I'd like to go down to V-Day but it's looking increasingly like I may not be able to go which is a real pity. Pressure at work is building and our system may need quite a bit of debugging post-deployment. So I'm in a real bind. There's another couple people who I may go with but with me in this iffy situation I don't want to be the one that holds them back. I dunno. We'll see how things pan out in a week or so.
Had a little chat with my counselor last night. It looks like we're all "go" for SRS later this year. She said my letter from her is a sure thing and I'm set to talk with another psychiatrist I'd seen years ago for the second letter. Yay. One more thing removed from my long list of to-dos.
Thursday, 2004.01.29:
|
As if spironolactone isn't already enough to disturb my nightly sleep patterns---because it's a diuretic---I got paged at 5:30a this morning. I was all in bed, warm, and trying to sleep when ... beep beep beep. I turned over and it took me a minute to realize it was in fact my pager going off. I crawled of bed and looked that the blurry screen and it said my app had a Priority-2 failure. Nuts.
So there I was on my hardwood floor in my bedroom shivering and logging onto our network. I seriously needed coffee but that was not going to happen. I called up the tech guy that sent the page and he tells me the app is down. I checked the app and it was just fine. (?!) So I asked him to get our app server support people on the line. Before I knew it we had paged 3 other people who normally handle Priority-1 critical issues. Oops---not my fault on calling them; the tech guy did it. I learned pretty quickly how our production uptime test system works and found the problem was an app server issue, not the application itself. A quick restart of the affected servers did the trick. But, man, that took until 6:30a to really diagnose what's going on.
Why am I complaining? Well, this was my first support call because the guy who normally does support in our team is leaving as of, uh, today. I'm glad I got the experience but it was a harsh introduction. I just wish I could be properly trained on all aspects of this system. Instead everyone is too short on time and our main knowledge experts are leaving our group for other jobs. What a mess this is...
Fortunately, I've been documenting all of these things.
I believe in leaving legible trails for other people (including myself) to follow procedure and to learn how to work environments. I've found that most developers don't have this mindset. I guess I'm lucky enough to have a mind that works well for problem solving and information organization.
Speaking of which: this site. It's basically the same thing that I do at work. I do a bunch of processes, figure out more optimal ways of doing things or take the advice of others, and then regurgitate it in a more consise format. I should really get out of programming and go into media design. You never know: I might be there one of these days.
Yawn.
My energy is so fading fast. Good thing I have some mint-chocolate chip cookies Mommy gave me this weekend. Mmm.
...
Whenever I have doubts that about whether or not I'm "girly enough" to be a girl (for lack of a better description) I always find an example which shows that even normal GGs don't always know everything.
I got into a conversation with one of my female colleagues about nail treatments and hair products. She apparently didn't know that some of the things other GG friends recommended even existed. There was a moment where I was thinking to myself, "huh, I don't feel so bad for not knowing." That's not exactly a nice thing to say but I don't know how else to describe it...
...
Watched a little of Andrea and Calpernia's Finding Your Female Voice DVD. Really interesting. I'll have to write a report on it later.
Friday, 2004.01.30:
|
Stacy's Mom by Fountains of Wayne is just so wrong. The video is worth a giggle or two tho.
I am so tired right now. It's 2:40a---actually I should have logged this to the 31st but oh well. I just got back from being sociable with the group. It's about 1.5 weeks before Jen goes in for SRS and this was about the last chance for her to try to get plastered so of course we had to. Actually, it was Aaron and Mike's idea.
I got an IM from Christian around 10-something saying an impromptu group was forming and they were meeting up like now. So I like shut down my laptop and like drove out to like the bar. And, like, it was kinda boring and like no one was really having all that much fun. But Jen took down a cosmo and she was like smiling. I don't think I'd ever seen her that shade of red before. Hah.
Well, not needing to settle for mediocre someone suggested relocating ourselves to another bar down the street and off we went. The sidewalks were lined with clubbers and the occassional group standing outside the entrance to another restaurant. But we went to the old standby where almost every Friday that I've been there a cover band was playing No Doubt. Not this time: it was a cover band playing Outkast.
We eventually did find a nook at the far end of the room where it was only slightly less noisy. I mean, I still couldn't hear the other side of the table and we were all yelling. Sarah was hoarse by the end of the eve. But, on the way to the table I notice this guy lean over and say something to Jen. He seemed OK I guess. Anyways, a bit later I come back from the restroom (which, by the way, had no door locks on the stalls [which required quick thinking to secure the door {but that's another story later}]) and Jen's missing. Everyone at the table is looking in one direction and there was that same guy chatting up Jen---he'd bought her a drink. Not bad for Jen at all. About that point Jen was absent from the group for the rest of the evening.
The rest of us ended up yelling at each other. The band started playing some other stuff and Christian nudged me to get up and dance a little. I shrugged, a couple others got up too, and we all went up there for a couple of songs. The room is fairly long, narrow, and packed with warm bodies. The dance floor was just a tiny section of hardwood not currently being used by the other currently-drinking patrons. So we squeezed ourselves into the mini-mass of people. That was kinda fun.
It alternated between that and going back to yelling around the table. Mike held down the fort (with our bags and coats). Actually I don't think he saw anyone else he liked---the guys there were not quite his type I guess. (Yes, it was a mostly straight bar from what I know.) Anyways, by the end of the eve Jen had this other guy's phone number and was carrying 4 of the cosmos he'd bought her. However, it was a bit more challenging for her to walk on her own so Sarah and Christian ended up sorta carrying her. We all went our separate ways.
I came home to my lil' laptop and I connected back to work. I saw the jobs I fired up just before dinnertime had finally completed these 6 hours later. They reported erroneous results. Sigh. I've been fighting this database since probably 8:30a and here it is 2:30a and I'm pooped. I really hope we can refine our process so I don't have to spend so much manual labor and so I can get my Friday nights back to do fun things versus monitor scripts.
Saturday, 2004.01.31:
|
Today I met Claire and her friend Amy for the first time. After a bit of drama trying to pick up them and Tyler we finally found a pizza place where we could eat cheap. Not. It worked out to about $18 a person even though it was only 2 pizzas and 1 entree. I think the appetizer and the dessert put us over the top. But they were tasty no doubt.
Lunch completed, we went walking down the Haight just browsing for stuff. Tyler spotted some shawls/scarves and while her inner voice told her to buy them apparently her self control overruled that decision and she walked away empty-handed. But not for long. There was always Nordstrom Rack. I found a couple things that caught my eye but I just couldn't get them in the right size. Poo.
I dropped the three of them off at some point and I scooted back down to my hood to meet up with Steve, Rod, Seth, and Kelly. Turns out Rod finally got that house he was looking for. Get this: well over $500,000. Ack! How can I ever afford that? Geez. Realestate in this area is just bonkers. Even on dual family incomes it's hard to make ends meet I tell ya. I may eventually move out to somewhere else because of that. Anyways, Seth was in better spirits tonight and we seemed to get along OK.
|
Entries may show the mood for the day. From best to worst moods here's the list:
-
Ecstatic -
Happy -
Good -
OK -
Blech -
Sad -
Abysmal
|
 |
 |
|
|