I dreamed that I hooked up with an acquaintance and their spouse found out, so I had to pay them off. The furniture in their place was much nicer than the last time I'd see it - very dark and glossily-lacquered, with a touch of chinoiserie.   

Then I dreamed that I was travelling through a post-apocalyptic world, and reached an underground stronghold populated by three factions. One was of women, one was of death-cultists with juggalo face paint, and I don't remember what the third one was. I tried to join the women's faction, saying I was up for any type of work but I had noodly arms, but both the death-cultists and the womens' faction wanted me. The death-cultists took me to a tunnel into a stadium on a recon mission to show me exactly they'd become death cultists. I saw bleached bone skeletons lying in the stands, but with their eyes intact and moving as enormous bugs roved over them. 

--

The summer intern is gone at last. In his goodbye email, he said, "I'll probably be back part time towards the end of the September to help with XYZ." Like, one - nobody works in this field part time unless they're extremely well-established, old, or self-employed, especially not a dude about to start a master's degree, and two - my boss was just as surprised to read this as I was. 

Also, he was not great, at one point I was trying to show him how to make the SIMPLEST of figures, he kept producing crap, I told him, this seems to be taking a while, why don't you work on something else while I finish this figure? And he said, no, I can do a better job of this than you can. So, I said, well, surely that's a joke, ha ha, good one. And he doubled down and said, no, I was being sincere. 

Afterwards he tried to brush it off again and move past but seemed to not understand the lesson I was trying to impart, which was, although I wasn't mad, he needs to watch his mouth. But he said, can you just forgive me and we move on and at that point I really was lost for words. 

I'm somehow at the point where I'm one of the most senior people in my team (alright, not actually usually a great sign, but it's always been very small) and pretty much unsackable. I like all my immediate coworkers. My last raise put me near the upper limit of the pay range in my location and position. My boss is a very reasonable person and one of the most effective people-handlers I've ever met. Generally, my position is low-stress, I've nearly no greys, and I can count on one hand the weekends I've worked in the last two years. 

Then I look at where my peers from both my university and high school graduating classes, and see how many times they've job-hopped, and I wonder what I'm missing out on. Moving companies - scratch that, moving FIELDS - is how you get really exciting, prestigious roles. And fat stacks, for when momma's gotta buy a new yacht. 

I'm happy where I am, and not looking to move around, but sad that I'm definitely not living up to my full (career) potential. I wonder what I could've been if I actually pushed myself rather than having coasted since I got into grad school. 

Also, I've been thinking about doing a post comparing where my elementary school and high school peers are now. I know that both groups are equally smart, but also that my high school peers self-selected to go through the discomfort of switching schools, and I wonder if that was indicative of any elevated level of risk-tasking or ambition that was only magnified over the years. I'm not sure either how I'd set up the job classification buckets to include enough diversity at a glance, but without being overclassified (overfitted?). Luckily I'm only gonna have a hundred data points from both groups combined, so it won't be too lengthy of an exercise. 

Yay! And, just a few weeks til my designation finishes processing... 

 I have some new creative pursuits on the horizon.

First of all, the BSG finale WRECKED ME BIGTIME. I started crying when the opera house dreams started aligning with the present, except that everyone was wearing TACTICAL VESTS and I couldn't handle the CONTRAST and the SOUNDTRACK and then ughhhh

AND THEN THEY FOUND EARTH, and a bunch of main characters died, another main character clearly hasn't got much time left! And then the characters I was rooting for this entire time got such a MESSY ending, and I guess toilet paper isn't even going to be invented for another hundred thousand years??

So I sobbed messily for half an hour after the end credits rolled while Krogoth ordered sushi. Which is EXACTLY the sort of reaction that four seasons of TV should wring out! So don't misread me here - I don't care that the last season veered from SPACE SURVIVALISTS to RELIGIOUS ROBOTS and then ROBOT MARITAL COUNSELLING, because when the finale hits like a frakking truck I WILL FORGIVE ALL THOSE SINS but also I will cry about it.

AND THEN, because I can't find that angsty post-canon Lee/Kara fic, I guess I'm gonna have to write it myself

Second order of business is to get my act together and really get the 5e space campaign rolling.

But, story first. Really. 

One day, my boss will text me off-hours, and I'll actually hear the it go off. 

But seeing as my phone lives in my dressing table... that day is not today.  

I'm living for my company's corona updates. Would love to see what's going on behind the scenes with the communications team. In chronological order: 

• Earlier this month: 
  • We have a task force. keep visiting clients.
  • Nevermind, stop visiting clients unless it's mission critical
  • one of the teams on the 3rd floor has decided not to come in anymore, but it was a strategic managerial decision, not a corporate directive. also we are cleaning the elevator buttons more. 
• This week:
  • continue not visiting clients, conferences, or literally anything, but please come to work if you feel alright. ask your manager to work from home if your situation requires it. we used more hand sanitizer in the last three days than in the last month, please just wash your hands.
  • please keep coming to the office if you feel good, unless you were traveling, in which case dont come in. but we gotta deliver on client projects so la
  • One of the satellite offices down the street gets a spousal corona case, whole floor asked to work from home for next two weeks
  • Floor of the office where I work gets a spousal corona case. Whole floor evacuated, asked not to come in for the next week (because the spouse was last in the office early in the previous week)
  • The CEO: I know you're angry and afraid

For context, it's split between desktops and laptops. My entire team has laptops, most others are on desktops. Only two people on my team were still in the office on Wednesday. The immunosuppressed guy hasn't been seen since last Friday. Mr Italiano and I haven't been to the office since Monday. My boss went on vacation last week, got back, and has been working remotely ever since. 

 - I passed the PEO ethics exam
- someone liked binge-reading my fic so much they skipped work to read it. So, :D but also :O 
- - All I've got to do now is finish the last two chapters and stick the landing... 

So there's a guy at the office with nifty hair. Ever since he stopped wearing vests and collared shirts his hair has looked even niftier than it did before.

So today he was like, "Oh, I like your piercings," referring to the conch piercings in my ear.
I said, "Thanks, they were a graduation present to myself." 
And he said, "I too got myself a graduation present." 
"What, your motorcycle?" 
"No, something more like yours. Your piercings, I mean."

He hasn't got anything in his face.

My mind slipped right into the gutter.

It took all my willpower to maintain eye contact and say, "Cool. OK." 

 And like, mention that I find it interesting as both a member of the LGBT community and an engineer in training?  

3-card spread

• Past: 8 of pentacles - reversed
  • End of dissatisfaction with efforts, end of misdirected effort, and lack of preparedness
• Present: Seven of pentacles
  • Success, the fruits of labour, sustainable results
• Future: The Empress
  • Lush femininity, fecundity. All in abundance. 

So... the answer is "yes", I think. 

Monday
- Went to work
- Everyone on my team peaced out around lunchtime because the snow got us spooked
- Got a lift to the bus stop
- Caught a bus to Guelph
- Bus driver stopped behind a stopped bus to transfer passengers from broken bus to our bus
- Pedestrians aren't allowed on the 401
- Had to wait for the MTO crash truck
- Waited an hour and a half for crash truck
- Students on the bus miss a lab and a bunch of meetings
- Misery all around
- Crash truck shows up. Half dozen passengers transfer.
- Three hours to go home.
- Getting sick from waiting for bus and sitting in bus

Tuesday
- Worked from home because of snow on roads
- Got sick halfway through
- Took half the day off to get better
- Got worse.

Wednesday
- Just fully sick
- Took day off at home being sweaty
- Fever broke around lunchtime
- Still disgusting

Thursday-Friday
- Still feeling gross
- Not taking any chances
- Work from home until Monday.

- Smashing down all the seasons of The Good Place
- Making plans to play the Legends of Andor 
- Playing Prison Architect
- Getting dibs on the cat I wanted to adopt from the Humane Society - Yoshi is a grey tabby, eight years old, and I'm going to sign the adoption papers on Wednesday! 
- Becoming intrigued by the misshapen lyrium-infused statues in the Dragon Age 4 trailer (DA2 is, after all this time, still my favourite)
- Went to an autonomous vehicle workshop with a deep distrust of robots and the government, came out with a better understanding of how to market AVs (i.e. preparing for the ten-percent city as a palatable first step, using incentives/nudges/etc to overcome cognitive biases about personal vehicle ownership)
- Networking feels so different when you have something to offer besides the desperation of unemployment