miscellany

Today started well, for definitions of "well" that include utter stupidity. I have a meeting (at my house) every third Friday of the month. It is at a time that requires me to get up earlier than usual, even when I';m not training a new PA. This week I had already been to skipped a third-Sunday-of-the-month meeting, and kinda wish I'd skipped been to a third-Tuesday-of-the-month meeting, so this was obviously third-X-of-the-month week, right?

(I have four calendars throughout the apartment. I just apparently /don't pay attemntion/ to them.)

So I got up early, and was ready in time, and waited for the person to show up. About 45 minutes after the usual meeting time, a suspicion started sneaking into the corners of my brain. So I went and looked at a calendar, and counted the Fridays, and ....

*headdesk*

(The best part is, I totally don't remember it happening last week, which probably means I slept in that day and missed it entirely.)

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On the bright side, I'm going to a PDQ Bach concert tonight. \o/

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So, the new PA I'm training. She's very nice and all, and she has the physical capacity to do what needs to be done, but, uh.

I am not a morning person.

Since she is my getting-me-up-and-ready PA, this means she does not see me at my best. Or at my most verbal. Which is a problem when it comes to training a new person, because "the thingy needs... *flapping hands in the vaguely right direction*" works fine with people who know me and my routines and are smart enough to extrapolate.

My new PA ... doesn't, and isn't.

She also talks. A lot. Nigh incessantly. And I'm fine with talking through the steps of whatever we're doing ("okay, so next we put on shoes, right?"), and I can tolerate conversation when I'm awake, but it takes me at least twenty minutes plus some hot tea to qualify as awake. I'm happy being nonverbal (except when instructions or clarifications are good). She? Isn't. Because "we're people, not machines" and so a lack of conversation is bad.

(She doesn't just talk. She also asks questions. Ones that require me to answer. When I am, really, in the pre-verbal grunt-and-point stage of not-yet-wakefulness.)

She wants feedback on how she's doing. I am trying to figure out a tactful way of saying "you talk too much omg."

(Also, while the linguist part of me knows this is just dialect variations, she pronounces "wash" as "worsh", and, linguistic objectivity aside, this somehow gets on my nerves as much as the expecting me to talk thing does.)

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I am having increasing reading comprehension issues lately. Not serious ones, but the sort of thing where I read the wrong words. I was scanning through an online Staples ad and saw "dancing nipples". Took me a few long seconds of staring and blinking before I could re-read it as "cleaning supplies".

Not the same thing, brain.

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The (borrowed) laptop I'm on has been incessantly popping up a dialog box about how the automatic updator has almost finished but the computer will need to be restarted, do I want to restart now or later? ...apparently, Windows has the attention span of a five-year-old on a sugar rush, because clicking "later" means that it will ask the same question in about two minutes. Okay, maybe five. Possibly ten. But, regardless, way too often. Later means /later/, dangit.

I should probably restart the computer or something.

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(hunt for new computer is going awesomely, for definitions of awesome that include extreme flailiness. I kind of know what I want, I just don't know how that translates into specs. And I have no idea what sort of monitor to go for... and and and... *whimper*)

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Okay, okay, /fine/, you silly computer, I'll reboot you already. Sheesh.

notes to self

...lazyweb Erlkönig. Or if that isn't what I'm thinking of, figure out what the heck is.

Also, random quote of the day:

On mules we find two legs behind
and two we find before.
We stand behind before we find
what those behind be for.