currently in EdnaLand

OMG – I haven’t done a Currents entry since February! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that, since I haven’t made any entries at all other than England Trip Entries since June. Well, except for one not-traveloguey entry ages ago. I’m totally out of the habit, and OD is so maddening that I keep avoiding it. I really love Prosebox, but… yeah. Ignoring it too. I think because I don’t want to give up on OD so am doing cross-posts which means if OD isn’t cooperating I end up not posting at PB either.

WELL. So much for my excuses. I’m making a real live not-England-Trip related entry now. Go me.

Current location: My office. Where I am currently getting very little real work accomplished. Bizarrely, we are in a lull. We haven’t had a lull in ages. Usually we get a summertime lull, but this summer we did not slow down a bit. Which was very annoying. Now I suddenly have nothing at all to do. Which is strange. 

We’ve had a lot of changes in our office recently. None of them are bad changes, but they are…changes. The biggest being that Miss Artsy has left us for another job (which I did mention earlier as it’s a weird job), and we have gained a New Girl. New Girl is fine so far. She’s only been here a week or so, but is pleasant and is not exhibiting any lunatic behaviors. Yet.  

We also have a new direct boss. He is working out fine so far as well. He’s from the Theatre Department so is very theatrical. And amusing. And easy to get along with. He had us send him descriptions of our current duties so that he could look into rearranging some things when New Girl arrived. He asked us to include things we were doing that could be given to someone else to do, and things other people were doing that we could take on. I decided to mention that in my opinion Aggravation Receptionist needed more to do since she appears to do nothing but surf the interwebs and communicate with her extensive and drama-laden family all day long. (I was, of course, more diplomatic than that.) When he replied he said that it’s easy to perceive other people as doing less than we are doing, and he is fine with balancing work life and personal life during the day. (He also said it very diplomatically and kindly but that was the gist). 

So I decided, fuck it. What AR does is not a bit of my business, and although it’s beyond maddening to be working my ass off as she plays online and heaves sighs and languishes and messages her DramaFamily, it is not my business. It doesn’t affect me, I don’t have to take up her slack (well, other than answering the phone and helping walk-in students if she wanders off, heaving sighs to chat with the yakky woman across the hall). Fine. Mr. Organized and I both know very well how AR is, and New Girl will figure it out (and will be the one affected most since she’s the receptionist back-up) and if New Boss figures it out, fine- and if he doesn’t, oh well. I really don’t want to sound like a complainy whiner to him, which is why I’d not said anything before that. It just seems so middle-school — "AR never does any work and I never get to stop working!! It’s not faaaaaair!!!!   Waaahhhhh!!!" And if it really affected me — if I had to do her work for her — then I’d have a more solid reason to complain. So I won’t.

I will, however, not feel a bit bad about doing personal things – like blog-entries!- on work time. When I have nothing pressing to do. Maybe I need to put more effort into balancing my work life and personal life during the day.

Current television addiction: Baker B and I have FINALLY started watching Big Bang Theory. I don’t know why on earth it’s taken us this long– he always turns on the TV after he gets home and watches random stuff while he eats dinner, and we’ve seen bits of it that way for years. And thought the bits were hilarious. But finally we found ourselves with a TV Viewing Gap and decided to commit to the whole series, via Netflix. It is hilarious — we have laughed ourselves hysterically midway through the 6th season at this point. 

On my own, I have suddenly developed a serious addiction to Sherlock. I’d heard good things about it, but not been that interested – I’ve never been a big crime fiction fan and have never read any of the books. Then I saw that it’s created by one of the Doctor Who writers – Steven Moffat. I couldn’t get Baker B interested in it, so watched the first episode myself. And was immediately hooked. It’s set in modern-day London, which I didn’t realize, and is really well-written — twisty and turny, and also very funny. Sherlock is kind of a combination of Doctor Who and Sheldon from Big Bang Theory; Doctor Who’s bizarre brilliance and crazy movements plus Sheldon’s complete lack of people skills and Aspergers-like behaviors. I flew through both seasons (three 90 minute episodes in each, like Vera) and am dying, DYING for the next season to start, since it ended on the most cliffhangery cliffhanger ever in the history of cliffhangers. I’m also on a campaign to get Baker B to watch it since I want to watch it all again now and he’d love it. I’ve already caught him looking at it over my shoulder. He doesn’t want to admit he’s interested. We both looooove Doctor Who so I’m not sure why he’s even trying to resist. 

Currently reading: Arthur Conan Doyle, of course! I just started A Study in Scarlet, the first novel. And I have no idea why it’s taken me this long to read Sherlock Holmes. (I may have read Hound of The Baskervilles when I was student teaching, but wouldn’t swear to it.) It’s great — and the TV show is actually much more similar to the books than I would expect. Other than the show being current-day. Apparently the popular Sherlock Holmes films from the 40s were set post-WW2 instead of the late 1800s of the books, so it’s not the first time.

Current cuteness: Kim came up to visit recently, and my poor little neurotic Eddie wouldn’t come out to see her. Not surprisingly — he is the shyest cat ever. After she went to bed, though, I caught him rolling around on her shoes. Rolling on them, rubbing his head on them…. and the next morning one of his little toy mice was scooted up against them. Later on I found another little mouse in the room where she slept- I think he took one in there for her too. That was a memorable day — Eddie came out and hung around in the livingroom with us while Kim was there. He didn’t let her pet him, but he did not hide. It was a miracle! (He’s only known her for his entire life. Yes, NEUROTIC.)

Ignore that horrible carpet. One day, one day, we will buy new carpet. Or move. 

Well, this was a pleasant way to kill off the afternoon — now it’s almost time to go home. I wonder what the chances are of making this a habit…