state of the serene

Super tired (nothing new) and very low motivation to do much of anything, which works out because it's a slow day at work today.

Checked out the Python site for a while today, and most of it was gibberish. firecat may be able to help me there.

Tonight's reading should be mellow and, I hope, fun. Come!

Work is good, life is good, and I'm really eager to get some of my time back. Nine more days!

musing

So this nine-more-days thing made me realize how really focused I am on
getting out of Ikea. I feel so good and confident about the improvement
this will make in my life. I will get some time back, true, but I will
also get some stability that I didn't know I needed.

I've been a temp for 22 years. I've always said that one reason I do well
as a temp is that I don't have a need to know from day to day where and
whether I'll be working. However, I've mostly temped in business offices,
and I didn't realize, really, how rough a variable schedule, working
nights and weekends, was going to be on me. I don't like not knowing from
week to week if I'll be free on a Monday night. I don't like being pretty
sure that I will not have weekends free.

The things I'm looking forward to, with the intensity of a little kid
looking forward to Christmas:

• being home for dinner at night
• knowing a week in advance what
  I'm doing in the evening
• being able to spend at least a little time
  every day puttering around my home
• seeing stonebender!
• having more than 24 hours off from work in a
  row

There's stuff I like about Ikea. I like the customer service part. I
like the department -- I'm a cooking-and-eating slut. I like my
cow-irkers, most of them. I *really* like the customer service part. But
I'm tired of working so hard for so little, and I'm mostly tired of giving
up all my time.

I think about this and get happy. That's a good sign, right?

(And someotherguy and I figure we'll actually make out better
financially now, because: (a) I can say yes to UCB more often, and they
pay better; and (b) we'll be cooking more and eating out less, which will
save us tons of money.)

Blog questions

Okay, so I tried blogger, thinking it might be a better choice for putting
my food blog up on my own
domain than LJ. I think I was wrong. I hate the comment interface, I
don't like blogger in general, etc.

I know an LJ can be set up on one's own domain. I did it successfully with
this LJ for a while. But what I'm wondering is if moving over to LJ on
reluctantvegan.com will make me lose my old blog. Anyone know how this
works? Maybe I could just post pointers to the old posts, which I know
are all archived on my domain. Ideas?

ooh!

Hey, remember when I was all infatuated with The Julie/Julia Project? Well,
I just saw it in book form at the UCB bookstore. In the bestsellers
section. Way cool.

the wreck of the edmund fitzgerald

Touching, but not
maudlin, reminiscence from someone who was in the midst of things, as it
were.