Happy new dog, 'suela! Friends just had to put their corgi to sleep--liver cancer. So it's lovely to hear about a healthy happy puppy who snuggles.

Sheryl, I do hope there's a solution that will be found soon. It's so stressful and difficult for you and your DH. My heart goes out to all of you.

ND, I hope the ones who need to pay pay up, and the ones who need to sign, sign. You deserve cooperative clients.

I'm going to step way the hell off the beaten path and give away Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of TIme. It was a watershed book for me. About a woman living in poverty with mental problems, who hallucinates a whole other world. I fell hard for the alternate reality, to the point that I often forget the main story. Dated, as most of Piercy's work is, but still relevant.

Oh, hello, 3 a.m. insomnia. I haven't missed you even a little bit.

Ugh, insomnia sucks. I hope you got back to sleep, Pix.

Murderbot would be a good book to hand to people because a) it’s good and b) it’s short. I loved a lot of the books mentioned upthread, but some of them are a bit long and, if you don’t know what goodness you’re getting into, that could be off putting. All Systems Red is a quick read (and then you’re hooked for the next seven books).

Getting through it~ma for Sheryl and ND.

I hope you got some sleep, Pix

I keep coming back to Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time as the book to hand out. A bit young for some, perhaps, but it has some very good messages about self-acceptance and family.

wtf. Why did my alarm not go off this morning?? I overslept by an hour! And not in a really good sleep way, I was grinding my teeth and having weird stress dreams. (Luckily my alarm normally goes off 90 minutes before I am supposed to start work and I didn’t have any early meetings, but still!) I don’t think I somehow turned it off in my sleep but not sure why it wouldn’t go off!

And now I don’t want to start work because I’ve only been awake a few minutes.

But yay new doggo, boo insomnia.

Ugh, rough start to the morning, meara. Hate that!

I bought some hair salon alligator clips a month ago -- the kind they use to section hair and hold it out of the way -- because I bought one of those effing FB blowy curling things (it actually works well, but that's not my point).

Those clips are the BEST things I've ever tried for holding a casual twist/bun all day with no pain or slippage! So good, I didn't care that they have some logo printed in them and are so obviously salon clips.

Finally occurred to me that someone probably sells decorative ones. Duh. Just ordered some.

I loved that book Beverly.

What book would you force on random people if you could?

Either The Night Circus or Every Heart a Doorway.

If the Wayward Children series ( Every Heart a Doorway is the first of it) had existed when I was a child/preteen, I would have felt Very Seen. As it is, there are specific books from the series that still make me feel Very Seen.

ION: I ended up with a new manager late last year; she's someone I've worked with before, and a great person. But I am a little worried that because of her somewhat narrow focus on only the specific pillar she's in, I'm going to have to put a LOT more work in on my "Give Jilli a Promotion!" doc. Because my focus and team management extends to five separate software pillars, and she (and her manager) don't quite grasp what's involved with that.