Snow greeted me as I walked out of the house this morning. Less than a block from home, the little amber gas pump next to my speedometer lit up.

Normally, I'm a good girl, and follow the advice my dad provides: that is, never let your tank get below half when it might snow.

Really, near May, I didn't think this would be a problem. But I have to admit I debated for a good long time (even though I was five minutes late for work) about whether or not to get gas before going in. Lateness and a meeting spurred the latter choice. Instead, I snagged a couple minutes at lunch to do so.

The older lady in the car who pulled in behind me couldn't figure out how to work the pump. The reflection on and angle of the little screen on the pump (as well as her height, or lack thereof) contributed to the problem.

I have to say I fear becoming that little old lady. The day that technology confuses me to the point that I can't fill my gas tank is the day I should really stop driving. I don't think it'll happen anytime soon, but that certainly helps along my drive to stay current with web and tech developments.

Even better, during my last (first, for that matter) staff review, I was told the entire office depends on me to research and help implement new and better ways to communicate with students via tech and the web.

I like my job.

Judged the Student Film Festival here yesterday, along with five other people. One work felt like a standout to me--an almost concept-piece about a woman who kills God, and the world being unprepared for it. It was also one of the few actually on film, and you could really tell the quality difference. Touches of beautiful color work were included, and simply amazing visuals every once in awhile.

Overall, it was great fun, and I think we turned out an excellent Film Festival. I hope they'll invite me to do it again next year.

I just saw Amiri Baraka, Sophia Sanchez, and a couple younger folks perform and speak. As is my habit lately, thanks again to my fantastic uncle and his fabulous gift of a great little voice recorder, I recorded the entire thing. I intend to convert the files to .wavs and burn them to a CD, if that's possible.

That experience was just amazing. I'd forgotten how much I love the poets that emerged from the Harlem Renaissance--and their younger protoges were also excellent. Baraka read the poem "Somebody Blew Up America," which moved the governor and legislature of New Jersey to try to oust him as poet laureate of New Jersey. His reading style--confrontational, vehement--can be entrancing if you let it.

Also amazing (but not nearly so much) was the girl sitting next to me who later asked: "What's your major?" after asking me for copies of the files. Mental note: email her when I've managed to burn the CD.

While I have to say I'm really, really curious about my background, I'm not $100 plus shipping curious.

I just got my boss's boss (a.k.a. my grand-boss) to say "when last we left our intrepid adventurers" in a meeting. Then he proposed to rename our committee the Intrepid Web Adventurers on the condition that we all had to stand with our hands on our hips, chin up and at an angle, when we said so.

I said that I'd do it only if I got to take a picture of him doing it.

My grand-boss rocks.

See the links for the current events around here that have been occupying way more mental space than, in a just and proper world, they should.

The letter that started it all.
Allies respond.
The editor's retort.
The 'use this for good, not evil' editorial.
One columnist's take.
A professor's input.

Many of the responses to the first letter there show some intelligence. Then again, we also got responses like this one:
"Showing gays kissing illustrates sinful ways."

Sometimes I wonder about humanity.

In other news: The Internet is not destroying the English language.

There's so much I've meant to write. So many entries I've composed in my head, never to emerge again. Often birthed on the drive to work.

For an example of my schedule after work of late, here's my last week:
Monday - mall and dinner with G.
Tuesday - coffee, walk, and drink with A.
Wednesday - planned BBC mystery night with G. and J. My body decided it wanted sleep more.
Thursday - dinner and used bookstore with D.
Friday - birthday gathering/dinner with J., L., and Dax. Bar thereafter with J., G., and a different J.
Saturday - gathering of friends and game
Sunday - work at the club

And this week's been remarkably similar. Why did I suddenly get so popular, and why does it have to suck so bad to have no time to myself? (not that I'm complaining about the company, mind.)

Today's going to be a crazy day here. I can smell it.

It's been a misty morning, sliding into a dreadfully dreary day. Mt. Nittany, when I drove in, had a ring of fog around its base. The mountains just visible beyond the soccer field from my office window are still barely visible. Everything's hushed. It was quiet in the office this morning, although when student volunteers arrived, that changed, as usual.

But now, through the hush, come the yells of the field hockey team as they practice in my office's backyard. They are quieter than yesterday, though, and I have my trusty headphones.

I'm sure this headache will pass.

This entry is what blogging's all about.

Go read it.

How old am I again?

So I woke up with the Toys 'r' Us song stuck in my head (you'd be baffled by how often this happens). I went back to sleep for fifteen minutes, and it changed into "Barbie Girl."

That morphed into something else similarly juvenile, but now I've forgotten what.

This is a vent. This is only a vent. In the event of a real vent, minor explosions may occur. Duck and cover, using any handy desk or table.

To clarify: this references my nightclub job, not my office job.

Anne's rules of chivalry, revised.

1. When I'm doing my job, and it's perfectly obvious that I can handle the load I'm carrying, and you don't work with me, don't take the load out of my hands. That can, believe it or not, be a legal problem, since the insurance that covers me when I'm working doesn't cover you if you drop someething.

2. Don't take it upon yourself to defend my honor when I don't care.

2b. Don't take it upon yourself to defend my honor when it's not really defending my honor.

2c. Don't take it upon yourself to defend my honor when really, I should be telling the manager about the altercation myself. It's cute within reason, but when I protest and/or tell you directly not to do something, pay attention.

3. That's worth repeating: when I protest and/or tell you directly not to do something, pay attention.

4. For that matter, you don't need to open doors for me when my hands are free. My arms work. I do understand it's habit for most, though, and I'll cut you some slack here. However, nigh-hypocritically, you should let me open doors for you. Don't protest and just stand there until I go through myself. If we're playing a 'who's more stubborn' game, I'll win.

5. There's no need to just chat with me when it's obvious from ambient noise that I'm in public. I probably just want off the phone, as it irks me when other people do that near me.

1-5, subsection A. I like messing with gender stereotypes. Let me screw with what rules I want to.

This has been a vent.

I am so, so sick. And you'd think I'd have enough sense to keep something as simple as soup around the house.

Not so, unfortunately.

I'm a little worried that this job will empty me of words.

It's amazing, actually having my words valued, but at what cost? I get home and mostly just want to go to bed, at this point. The weekends totally throwing off my sleep schedule may have something to do with that, though.

On the other hand, I need to stop falling into the metaphor-trap of words as water--fearing the well could run dry. It's a common fear among writer-types, as I understand it.

"It's like I died and went to heaven, and it's an Outback!" - Dax

"There is no Batman without Robin at the front desk." - my boss's boss, trying to describe a two-person job

I'm wearing a brand new white angora sweater, and managing to shed all over everything I come in contact with. Including my own pants.

This has not been a promising morning. No milk for my cereal. Little sleep. Couldn't do up the hook-and-eyelet on the back of my suit skirt. Running late to an 8:00 a.m. meeting. Those sorts of things.

I've been asked out twice in two weeks. It's kind of odd.

And I didn't just say no to this last one, which is unusual. It could work out okay: I could see that. There's actually someone else I wish had beat this last one to the punch--again, as I kind of sidled around it once already, which I rather wish I hadn't, now.

I guess that speaks to how much timing is a necessity--an art form--when dealing with me.

And now, I have to be on my way to my first all-department meeting, on only a scant few hours' sleep. Today should be entertaining, difficult, and enlightening, at the very least.

It was a minor goal of mine to start 2005 with a clean bathroom.

I'd say a day late isn't too bad.

So far, strangely enough, I'm very much enjoying my all-by-my-lonesome holiday. I have yet to put on clothes properly, I've done laundry, opened the presents from my Dad and B. (notably: soft and fuzzy socks, a new leather folio, and these fantastic ear warmers that you can slide headphones right into), gathered the trash to go out, snacked on mint M&Ms, straightened up a little, moved a bookcase about an inch (but what a difference an inch makes), and banished the Christmas music that I woke up with on mental radio by means of a fantastic present from L.: Tapis Rouge: Cirque de Soleil remixes, which he bought while he was in Montreal. Amazing chillout/world electronica material.

Dad had urged me not to be alone today, and to perhaps go to a service. I'm finding it not so bad, though. I didn't think I'd have a problem with it, and I don't. I'm not sure if this is a function of how little Christmas has meant to me since my Aunt passed away, or just evidence that I really, really needed a complete mental holiday from everyone.

Happy whatever-you-celebrate.