I'm not sure if I'm cut out to be a contractor. I seem to care more about this project than anyone else.

Case in point. Being the conscientious little content migrator that I am, I raise the issues that are keeping us from doing our work in my weekly status report. (Of course I also bring them up with my boss right away, but she never seems to do anything about them.) So when my boss's boss reads about them she decides these issues are so important, I should submit a daily status report so they can get on them right away. Ok, fine. I do that for 3 days, and still nothing happens.

So then my boss's boss decides, hey! These issues are so important, as soon as they come up you should broadcast them to this distribution list of people who apparently signed up as the project movers and shakers in the last executive meeting. Somehow I don't think they really knew what they were signing up for, and now I don't want to be the one to deliver the message. But this all goes down Friday at 5:45pm and I have to get the fuck out of there. So, against my better judgement -- and already clocking 1.5 hours of overtime for the week I can't even bill for -- as instructed I submit my first ever "ACTION NEEDED!" (caps theirs) email outlining what needs to happen for us to get our work done.

Maybe that doesn't sound so bad, but keep in mind this is at 6PM on Friday, everybody is gone for the weekend, my boss hasn't done a damn thing about any of these issues all week, and now I look like a contractor b!tch on a power trip or something. I mean, you don't go from being a behind-the-scenes "can you fix this?" type person to an "ACTION NEEDED!" type person overnight without some kind of explanation. Plus, I still have an aversion to using caps ever since I got yelled at for putting ONE word in caps for emphasis in a trouble ticket (is it my fault textarea form fields don't have any way to format for clarity other than capitalization? Good lord, I'm never going to live that down.)

So yeah, it's not really the way I would have gone about it. But at least now I've been given an account on the bug tracking database, and I've been invited to the daily QA meetings, and the project manager invited me to a meeting with the developers to talk about some of this stuff. And even though I'm still not supposed to bother the developers, they now come to my cube on a regular basis (Steve says my cube is like Grand Central Station). It's about freaking time!

Which reminds me. ACTION NEEDED: PAY ME MORE!!! ;-)

Whoa. This has been a totally weird week. The company I'm contracting for announced they're being acquired by Wachovia. So either I'll be asked to clean out my desk (won't take long) next week, or they're extending our contracts through August 25th.

Either way, I'm signed up to dog sit in Alameda May 27-June 29. Don't even ask me how that happened.

And this morning I was asked (again) if I would be available for an interview for an article with Alameda Magazine about -- which seems to be on the brink of disappearing.

I keep trying to get back to the right place at the right time. Thought I was back on track, but now not so sure.

News Flash!!!! (this just in from Larry)

Buzzcocks will be at Mezzanine Thursday, July 27; tickets go on sale on Saturday, May 20 at noon. They are also going to be on the bill of this year's Warped Tour, at Piers 30/32 on Saturday, July 8 (the day after Rev Horton Heat plays the Fillmore), along with Joan Jett and a host of others.

Ok, I've got a waypoint plotted back to the right place, right time. I'll just hope for the best.

So, I had this dream last night that (e:PMT) came to visit me (a peep can dream, can't she?) and I was so excited they were going to stay with me and I could finally show them around San Francisco.

Flash forward to Thursday night in my dream. I'm driving home from work and all of a sudden I realize, OMG!!! (e:PMT) have been here for almost a week and they've been trapped in my place and couldn't go see anything on their own because I took the car to work! I was so freaked out. In my head I kept calculating just how much of their time I had wasted -- and wondering why didn't they come last Friday or Saturday so we could have a couple weekend days first? But it all boiled down to me taking the car.

So I get home, ready to make amends, and there's (e:PMT) with my Dad. I don't know how Dad got into this dream, but he's grilling a huge steak for us to eat, so obviously I have to let him stay, haha. Dad loves his meat rarer than rare, but for some reason, it's taking a long time to grill this one. Since it's already 11pm and I know I have to work again tomorrow, I decide to sneak out and plan a sightseeing itinerary for (e:PMT).

I wish you could have been there for this part. It's the typical harrowing gamut of all things feared in your life. I'm thinking, "I can't map this out for them! I know how great the view is at the end, and even I don't want to go here!" Then I realized I had also forgotten my camera, so I couldn't even take a picture for them.

For some reason, I was convinced they couldn't see what I wanted them to see unless I showed them, or took a picture. And I was also convinced I couldn't change my schedule so I could go with them myself.

It's kind of like this whole long-distance blog thing, when you think about it. haha.

So anyway, if anyone decides to visit me here (before hell freezes over, that is), I really am a dedicated tour guide. Mi coche es tu coche.

I just got back from the Fillmore Farmers Market which finally reopened for the season today. I was bummed to find out it wasn't open year-round, but I still have the market at Civic Center for the "winter" months. Anyway, I noticed for the first time they take food stamps. Is that unusual? I don't think I've seen that at other farmers' markets.

I'm ashamed to say I did not ride my bike, even though chatting with (e:Ladycroft) inspired me to at least think about it. My excuse was I also needed to refill two of my gallon water jugs at the Safeway next to the market and I didn't want to schlepp them back on my bike. Although when I worked at a 7/11 in high school I used to schlepp two gallons of milk home many a night after I got off from work. Not to mention an ice-cream sundae for mom when she got that midnight craving.

God, I am so old and lazy now. I rode my bike every single day in Alameda. But that was easy, low-stress riding. I think I need to get my city street chutzpah back. When I moved here from Boston, I took to the streets of SF with reckless abandon. I knew how to avoid every hill to and from work. (They can be killers out here.) (e:j3sse) and I would sometimes arrive at work at the same time -- last one into the underground parking lot of our building careening down the ramp and screeching to a halt inches from the bike rack. Nothing like making a grand entrance first thing in the morning to get the adrenaline flowing.

God knows I could use an adrenaline rush these days. Not to mention the exercise, haha.

Just kidding! Damn, I wonder if I'll ever get to say that for real?

Hey, maybe I will! Get your [inlink]joshua;149[/inlink] little (e:butts) out here!

So I have quite a backlog of things I wanted to post about, but this damn job keeps getting in the way. And with absolutely nothing to show for it. I'm realizing more and more I'm not cut out to being relegated to the periphery of a project when there's something valuable I can contribute. I don't care if I get paid the same either way. It's driving me nuts.

I should really just abandon this post altogether. The moment is so lost, and I can't recapture it now. Apologies to (e:mrdt) who managed to leave a comment during the nanosecond it was live before. I can't go into the back story now, so I'll just return to our regularly scheduled blogging, already in progress.

The main theme was going to be how tolerant people are out here. When they say, "it's all good!" they actually mean it. The first few times I heard that I was like, "what do you mean 'it's all good'? That flies in the face of everything I know to be true!"

Well, now I know better.

I really can't possibly explain this in a post. You'll just have to come out here and see for yourself. And this is from the most hardcore cynic I know.

Oh, and a note about my usersound for the audio-impaired:

The Cranberries "Free To Decide"    

It's not worth anything more than this at all
I live as I choose or I will not live at all
So return to where you've come from
Return to where you dwell
Because harassment's not my forte
But you do it very well
I'm Free To Decide, I'm free to decide
And I'm not so suicidal after all
I'm Free To Decide, I'm free To decide
And I'm not so suicidal after all (at all, at all)
You must have nothing more with your mind to do
There's a war in Russia and Sarejevo, too
So to hell with what you're thinking
And to hell with your narrow mind
You're so distracted from the real thing
You should leave your life behind (behind)
I'm Free To Decide, I'm free to decide
And I'm not so suicidal after all
I'm Free To Decide, I'm free to decide
And I'm not so suicidal after all (at all, at all)
I'm Free To Decide, I'm free to decide
And I'm not so suicidal after all (at all, at all)
At all, At all, At all

p.s. - I actually am a bit suicidal after all. But that's firefox/safari/Mac's fault.

This has to be quick because I think I'm about to post a rare w4m ad to help round up an audience for my friend Paul's show at the Makeout Room tomorrow night. It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for a friend, haha.

Believe me, I realize how lucky I am my parents set a stellar example to "live for today" even with four kids. I took it for granted as a kid, but now that I'm of the age of deferred gratification, I can see how valuable a lesson it really was. My mom died at age 60. If they had put off their dreams of traveling until they retired, she would have missed out on Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, South Africa, Australia, the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, just to name a few. Of course, if it had been left up to Dad, she would have spent her lifetime vacationing in a tent [inlink]twisted;229[/inlink] within driving distance of home (albeit, with Dad driving, that could be a long way). But she wisely became a travel agent when they moved from Baltimore to South Carolina, and from then on found an affordable way for them to travel.

Unfortunately for me, I had already left for college by then. So my youngest brother was the benefactor of Mom's resourcefulness. Yeah, I still haven't been to South Africa, Australia, Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, among others. But he has.

So all I'm saying is, how stupid would it have been to wait? I'm not saying everybody's thing is to travel. But if you want to see the world, just get out there. We're all going to leave this planet one day. See it before then if you want to.

Just in case you were wondering.

I mean, the relentless traveling since he retired is one thing. I'm talking just in the past 12 months or so: sailed to the Bahamas on a friend's sailboat Feb 05; 3 weeks in Austria/Germany Mar-April 05; 10-day family sailing trip in Antiqua June 05; camping with grandkids July 05; one month in China Sept. 05; road trip with German relatives to New York and Washington DC Oct. 05; Christmas in New York, Massachusetts, Maine and Tennessee (another road trip in the Jetta) Dec 05; 7 weeks in New Zealand/Australia Feb 06.

Is that over the top or what? I'm like, Dad! Did your doctor give you 12 months to live and your forgot to tell us?

If you think he's doing all that because he's rich and can afford to, you're wrong. I'm not even going to argue with you. Believe what you want, I don't give a shit.

So he gets back from NZ/Australia and goes directly into scheduled surgery to replace his hip. Something he's been putting off way too long. (We've been watching him contort himself to get up and down and around for the past 2 years. But as my brothers point out, it's hard to argue with someone who hobbles onto the tennis court looking like a lame old man but then whips your butt.)

In typical form, he gave us a matter-of-fact, blow-by-blow account of the procedure -- highlighted by his post-op dinner menu. Then -- and this was something new -- he sent us a picture of his scar. Now, I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure I know what part of him they had to open up to replace his hip, and I really didn't want to see a close-up of that part of him. But just to prove he really is entering his eccentric period, he wrote to say he saved the seven staples from his surgery after they were removed and will give each of us one of them. Gee thanks Dad! Just what I always wanted!

Well, I guess if the tooth fairy had to handle my baby teeth the least I can do is give him a shiny quarter for one of his staples. But do other peeps Dads do stuff like this?

Anyway, I thought Dad might finally enjoy some down time after the surgery, so I sent him a copy of "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" (he's into morbid humor) -- figuring he would have to be an armchair traveler for a while. Wrong! They've already booked a 15-day trip to the Netherlands/Germany/Switzerland in July, and another camping trip with the grandkids before that.

I give up. When do I get to retire? lol.


Dad & Jean, Bahamas


Dad & Jean, Antiqua


Camping with the grandkids


Comparing bellies with Budda.


Dad's hip scar. Hey - if he doesn't want a picture of his butt on the internet he shouldn't send it to me!

p.s. - anybody want a staple? haha!

or should I say, rice pudding?

Anyway, my ex turned me onto tapioca. A very simple but magical-seeming food. At least the way he made it.

While I was waiting to checkout at my favorite Asian supermarket, I passed by the tapioca section and picked up a couple packs for him on impulse. The pastel confetti colors looked like fun, and I couldn't resist the acid lime green. Hey, maybe these would score high on the rainbow diet, haha. I'm not sure if they're supposed to be for bubble drinks or pudding, but he'll figure out something to do with them. Maybe I'll keep the green one for myself. It does look kind of disgusting, but I've been known to eat almost anything.

this is only the tip of the iceberg, but it's a start.

what they say / what it means

likes to cuddle / will be all over you like a cheap suit the second he's within groping distance

looking for daytime fun / the best time to cheat on my wife/girlfriend is when's she's working her ass off to support me

I'm selective with women preferring quality over quantity / I use this ridiculous line every time, but only the really stupid/naive women fall for it.

So, I really have to start hanging out with the biker crowd. This cute biker guy struck up a conversation with me while we were waiting to order dim sum to go on Sunday. Damn! he was cute. And I never noticed those tempura-fried mini-fish with the eyeballs until he pointed them out. Yeah, that would be way easier to consume while you're biking down Clement than most other options. And today I saw several other promising specimens of same the genre... My God! Those guys have impeccable control...

Balancing upright at stop lights, that is -- what did you think I meant? haha!

usersound: Eisley / Plenty of Paper

Ok, get this. Another craigslist style non-love story.

So this guy seems interesting from his post -- down-to-earth, enjoys going to "alt bands kind of concerts." So we decide to meet for a beer at Lucky 13. I recognize him from his photo, although my suspicions raised by the blur-motion over-flashed quality bear true. Just goes to show the mind fills in what it wants if you leave something to the imagination. Anyway, he's not bad-looking, and god knows I'm no grand prize. So we get a couple beers and settle into a table by the jukebox.

I"ll just cut to the chase here instead of boring you with the middle part.

The next day I send him the "nice to meet you" email, thanking him for the beer and saying next time it'll be on me. I was a little conflicted about that, because I didn't feel any sparks and couldn't tell if he did. So I'm not sure if I want to give the green light, whatever that means.

Let me just back up here and say, no one could have been happier if our eyes had locked across a crowded a bar, and we spontaneously abandoned our still foamy Racer 5s, hopped on his motorcycle and dashed back to his place to screw our brains out. But it didn't happen that way. Sigh.

So, back to reality.

He writes back:

Hey Lisa - Thanks for the email. I like the music and tech connections, but I gotta admit that when you left I thought you weren't interested, while I would have been happy to go to one of our places, get high, and listen to music. :) Perhaps I should have suggested that.

I have plans for tonight and have work going on intermittently through the weekend, but if you wanted to come over and hang out for a bit, that would be cool. Give me a call tomorrow or send your #. Ending with his number.

So I'm thinking we're on the same page, and this is a good opening to keep the expectations on track, whatever that means. So I write back:

Hey Jeff - I'm not sure exactly how interested I am, to be honest. I'm a bit of a loner, and I tend to think too much (a habit I'm trying to break). It's a combination that has made it very easy for me to talk myself out of things in the past (another habit I'm trying to break). All I'm saying is, you seem interesting, and I'd like to get to know you better -- even if we just end up being friends, or another craigslist story. That's enough for me for now, if it's enough for you.

That being said, listening to music and getting high sounds like a great way to get to know each other. I have to tell you though, I'm a lightweight in that regard and prefer to stay that way. But a little goes a long way, and I'd be happy to join you some time. btw, I'm not telling you this as a set-up to take advantage of me. ;-)

So he writes back:

Well OK then. Pretty much what I perceived. No worries at all.

Can I be somewhat crass, and suggest that I really wondered, as I was sitting across from you at the bar last night, if we could just be lovers, knowing that we could also occasionally do stuff together outside the bedroom. Something about you stirred the carnal within me, and I wondered if we could speak better with our bodies than our words. I would like a regular lover without much in the way of strings. I'm safe and clean, selective with women preferring quality over quantity. It might just nourish all that each of us needs.

Give it a thought, then stop if it stirs something else and give it a go. We could have fun.

So a few things immediately run through my mind. First, I'm relieved the guy was at least attracted to me enough to make the suggestion. Second, that sounds like a refreshing and appealing idea -- I just wish I felt more of an attraction in return. Third, wait a minute? Is he saying I'm a boring conversationalist? I think I'm offended by that! ;-)

Ok, so maybe I do think too much. I'm not one to kiss and tell (although everything up to that part is fair game, apparently), but I think it's ironic I haven't even kissed the guy, yet here I am blogging about whether or not I should meet him for a sex date tonight. Is that weird or is it just me? Don't answer that.

UPDATE:

Ok, THAT was a bad idea. Don't ever let me do that again.