I don't have the Facebook redesign yet, but I am getting new layouts at Jezebel and the Times this week, and it's stunning how obviously they are designed to be read on iPads. It makes me feel really weird to be on my netbook (which has a sort of bizarrely short screen, so the highly horizontal iPad-y layout is extra-weird.)

askye FTW!

My poor manager. Because we are part of the federal branch of our company, we have to do annual training on time charging processes. Which isn't new. Well, this year's notice went out and some of my teammates are idiots. One asked him about how to calculate OT and who she should contact for approval. Ummm...anything over 80 hours in the timeperiod (has always been this way) and your manager. Another asked what project number to charge for the training. I love the response he sent "as the training will show you, time is only to be charged to projects that take more than 30 minutes. The training, if you go super slow, might take 20 minutes. You. Must. Chill". Ok, I paraphrased. I offered my manager a virtual shot of whiskey.

Just watched the news and areas around us have more snow and major wind. The front of a nearby Harley dealership was ripped off by the wind. We just happen to live in a pocket that didn't get much of the storm.

Someone posted a really awful story on FB this morning, and I am a bad person because my first reaction was to the victim's name. Rehtaeh, really?

That's a local story and that was my first reaction too.

I would be Nasus or Eus.

After reading Bitches I'm seeing Nosilla as an antidote to Bridezilla.

I like to think of myself as a Bridethulhu.

I've started sending notice to my internal clients (basically the guys in the field) that I will only be here for another six weeks. It's harder than I thought: I really like these guys, they've been awesome to me, and if they come back with really nice statements I think I'm going to cry.

how bad would my life be without: TiVo, netflix, occasional flowers, weekly Dunkin? I need a spouse.

Aw, Consuela. I hate when everyone else (besides Management) is great.

msbelle, that sounds pretty bad, honestly. You don't want to suck the joy right out of your life, even if your job isn't actively hateful.

It's performance review time here, and I think I've figured out how to do it -- instead of procrastinating it until the last minute, I've been making notes in the form as I think of them. There is all kinds of stuff I wouldn't have thought of at one time. (And stuff that should be in the database that isn't, it turns out. Good thing that's not one of my goals...)

Sorry, msbelle. Something even better around the corner, fingers crossed.

Ylreveb, which, hyphenated, sounds vaguely Arabic: Yl-reveb. I could live with it.

Marriage equality is important, but so is the equality of non-marriage: of friendship, of solitude.

This is such an important message.

This is why I resist shipping every fictional couple.

It took me decades of living and pursuing research into my own behaviors and reactions, and why they differed from the "majority" or the "norm," to understand my normal doesn't include sexual attraction without some convoluted emotional pre-recs first. I'm sure I'm not entirely alone, and kids like me need some ordinary, positive examples, too. Not every couple in tv or other fictional media has to be sexually paired off.

I like to see examples of friendship too. I would be nowhere without my friends.

And this.

Returned from Boston last night, with whiny, sleepy baby. (She did OK on the flights -- didn't seem to have any ear pain that I could tell -- but man, she was Not Happy to be in her car seat for so long.) Great trip, too short, I want to move back to Massachusetts NOW. Sigh. Also, Rose is in another stranger-fear phase, with bonus clinginess (to me in particular), and it was a bummer that she wouldn't really let my parents hold her. I hope she's over it by June, when they'll be down here for a week with her while M and I are in England...

And I have a bunch of stuff to do at work today -- like, has to be finished in four hours -- and zero motivation. I want a new job. Back home in Massachusetts.

Aw, Consuela, I know that's hard but it's making me kind of happy that you have had people like that to work with! They aren't all nemeses.

Sorry about the low salary on the nice job, msbelle. Hoping for some good news from the internal options.

If I get my Harp refi, I might be able to cut expenses enough that I could live on my temp wages (I'm still dipping into my savings to cover my mortgage every month) but thinking about losing my little luxuries is a downer. Oh well, if it must be done it will be. I don't think I could arrange my life or house to accomodate a roommate any time soon...

I've used Aramat as a pseud fairly often. I like the way it sounds, though many of my dormmates insisted on pronouncing it with another "r" thrown in there for no reason.