if you're feeling fabulous

pride was exactly what i needed to get me out of this funk i’ve been in. i texted jason, my best friend from high school, and he came down. it was wonderful because i haven’t seen him in ages, and i love reminiscing about the old days. we observed from afar my ex-girlfriend and her friends (our friends from high school), and freaked out about it together. good thing we’re so mature. but i decided that much like bees, our ex-significant others and various parties to be avoided are every bit as afraid of us as we are of them, and will leave well enough alone unless provoked. still, there was the danger that we would turn some corner and run into them inadvertently, and the threat had us both on edge. luckily we had a sizeable posse of GLBT individuals as protective and ferocious as they were diverse.

we saw some brokeback mountain action:

and this brilliant idea for a sequel, printed on the back of a tshirt (you might have to click on it to be able to read…it’s worth it):

nikki didn’t have any rainbow on, and i had an abundance, so i gave her the sari i had tied over my skirt to wear as a cape. supergay!

lots of people brought their pets:

the bible thumpers got what was coming to them:

we took in some delightful drag show:

it was a day of love and happiness, and i’m so glad i went.

mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful

definitely too tired to think of a title

i didn’t think this new job was going to stress me out so much. i got over the initial ultra-anxiety of being in a new place with new people and not knowing what i was doing, but now things are just insanely busy and all kinds of new responsibilities are being piled onto my desk. for a couple days i was elated, wondering how i got so lucky—days when i did editing and proofreading all day, things i know how to do and do quite well. i got comfortable with my mac, and figured out indesign (the program we use for layout) without much trouble. i even got to write a couple ending paragraphs for articles, which was a little awkward but fine. but now i’m taking over the distribution responsibilities, an area of the company that is currently in shambles, and it’s looking like kind of a nightmare.

in the interest of my future sanity, i think it’s going to be important for me to figure out a way that i can make a living off some of my hobbies. i’ve always avoided mixing business and pleasure that way, because i’d much rather give things away; charging money for stuff i enjoy producing takes away from the enjoyment. but i’m at a point where i can live with that.

or maybe i should get a job as a professional proofreader. i’m sure i could do better than whoever proofread the magazine before i did last week—i caught a load of mistakes that both the editor and the pros missed. i know it’s mostly a matter of having multiple people read through, and i’m sure i missed some errors myself, but few people are as obsessive and meticulous as i am about proofreading. i’m kind of a fiend for grammar and punctuation and whatnot. it might not seem like it, because i deliberately disregard those sorts of rules in pretty much all my writing, but i really am. reading and finding fault in other’s writing would basically be the perfect job for me.

making peace with the unfamiliar

good lord, i got a 4.0. i can’t even fucking believe it. i haven’t gotten straight A’s since high school. i’m astounded that i pulled off an A in literature of the american west. that’s the class i had to write a paper for at the very last minute, a paper that was worth half of the entire semester’s grade. i was basically convinced that my paper made not an ounce of sense, and was afraid to even look at it afterwards to check. such a relief…

i feel a little funny towards grades. of course there’s the issue of priorities, like should i be trying to get an education or trying to get a grade. but also, it irks me that plenty of people who are plenty dumb can get A’s just by working hard, or even just hard enough. maybe that’s how it should be? i don’t know, it just seems like grades should be based more on quality of work, especially in departments like english and art. i worked extremely hard this semester, and that’s probably about the only reason i scored so well. i’ve turned in a ton of crap that i don’t believe deserved the grade it received, case in point that lit paper. not that i’m going to go argue for a lower grade or anything…maybe that would be the ethical thing to do, but it would also be quite insane.

today i started my new job. it was…so many things. i have a ton of stuff to learn. an unexpected job title, too—i thought i was going to be the receptionist, but apparently i’m in charge of distribution, whatever that means/entails. today i mostly sat at my desk and tried to get a feel for the computer (mac! aah new things!), put together a calendar of events for one of the magazines, and answered a bunch of phone calls. i shouldn’t say a bunch…there were times when the phone didn’t ring for like half an hour, but then i’d randomly be deluged for a few minutes. everyone calls at once it seems. god, it’s a lot to get used to. there is nothing more anxiety-provoking for me than to be thrown into a social situation where i don’t know what i’m doing and i have to rely on other people for help, especially people i’m not entirely familiar with yet. so far all my coworkers are totally sweet and amazing, which helps so very much, and the whole atmosphere is pretty laid back. there wasn’t anything particularly stressful about today, but i was still considerably on edge.

i snapped a picture of the crazy amazing desk that is my workstation. i’ll have to get a better photo sometime to really capture the detail. it’s totally one of a kind, i think some local artist made it…the same person also made the matching bench.

what fenders are for

the boise river is so high and fast right now. a portion of the greenbelt near parkcenter is closed due to flooding, and on the other side of the river there’s another closed section where the path is being repaved. i was lucky riding to the mk nature center today—normally i would ride out towards BSU then take the friendship bridge and double back to the nature center, but instead i took the orange bridge route, and the path closure started just a few feet away from the entrance to the center. it’s going to be so nice when all that is resurfaced. it was getting way bumpy and crappy over there.

it was my goal today to find a caterpillar and take pictures of it, but i failed. i was a bit disappointed by the bug selection in general. i saw two butterflies, a beetle, a few bees, and a whole shitload of dead ants—it was depressing, i think they were poisoned, which seems odd and inappropriate considering it’s a goddamn nature center. ants are the only bugs that really creep me the fuck out, but seeing whole piles of them lying there dead with only a few live ones scurrying around all confused and scared…it made me so sad. i watched one ant carry the carcass of a big dead spider. this teensy tiny little ant, and the spider was probably five times its size, but it was totally hauling ass. the pictures didn’t turn out very well, unfortunately. i got some good shots of other stuff though. i was surprised how nice the trout pictures looked—it was quite dark, reflections were totally messing with my focus and obscuring my view, and the glass i had to shoot through was gunky and gross from child hand-smear. blech.