too much sleep?

Last night, for the first time in ages, I actually went to bed at a reasonable hour. (11:30 may not seem reasonable to some, but trust me...) Notice how I said "went to bed," not "went to sleep." It took me quite a while to fall asleep, and then I slept poorly, waking up quite a few times during the night. Result: I don't feel any more rested today than I do on any day when I went to bed at the usual late hour. Sigh! It's not fair, dammit.

I guess this is my body's way of telling me that I'm just "meant" to stay up till 1am every night, and if harsh reality means I don't get enough sleep because I have to get up early, well, that's tough noogies.

In other news, I have this weird pain around, like, my kidneys. It's a sharp sort of stabbing pain whenever I inhale more than very shallowly. It doesn't *feel* like muscle-strain pain (something with which I'm quite familiar) but I'm going to tentatively assume/hope that's what it is, and if it doesn't go away in a few days, then I'll consider worrying about it.

I finally removed the last remnants of nail-polish from my toenails. It's been so long since I had naked toenails, they look so weird to me now! It's very nice out today, pushing 60F, so I wore sandals without socks, and every time I look down at my feet I'm like, "huh? my toes are pink!" :) I guess I'll have to re-polish them again soon.

lack of social skills

So, this afternoon the Activities Committee put on what they called a Happy Hour here at the office. In the cafeteria, beer and chips and popcorn for all us worker drones. So there I am sittin' with some of my buds, hangin' out, drinkin' and eatin', talking about our weekend plans or whatever like that.

Along comes the VP of Engineering (also the founder of the company, and former president/CEO before he decided he was sick of doing the business shit and wanted to stick with coding). Sits down at our table, looks at one of the developers there, and launches right into "So this is how I envision [software component] functioning in our next release design."

The astute reader will notice that I didn't mention him a) saying hi, b) making any form of pleasantry, or c) even acknowledging the existence of anyone else at the table. Hell no. Nor was there any of this pesky "Mind if I butt in?" Let alone "Mind if I butt in to your non-work-related discussion, which is taking place during an explicitly social occasion, with a work-related topic?" No. Just sits down, makes eye contact to make sure the person he's addressing is listening, and launches into his spiel.

Well, I don't have to take that shit from anyone, even the founder of the damn company, so I just got up and walked off. I have enough sense of self-preservation to refrain from *actually* biting his head off. Instead I'm just going to steam about it, post about it here in lj, and probably bitch to coworkers about it later.

I mean, I know that "everyone knows" software engineers don't have social skills. And I certainly know that some people think being the founder or being an executive at the company gives you the right to be rude to your underlings. But there are limits, dammit.

progress, maybe

Somewhere in between finishing an annoying project at work, driving home, playing a really tough Schubert on the piano to relax, and changing a recessed ceiling lightbulb, I think I've gotten a big step further in figuring out my current fic project. I pretty much got all the plot threads to line up mentally.

I'm being deliberately a little cryptic in the next couple grafs because of this whole superstition thing I have, where if I talk too much about what I'm planning to write, I end up not writing it. (Or writing it and then deciding it's crap.)

The development of her relationship with Geoffrey is central, and could actually be the whole story if I wanted to go that way -- even if it remains non-sexual. The whole business with the tattoo is character development and important for that, but only for that. Also required will be some more scenes with Preston, so that when he dies, the reader will give a shit. The disposition of Preston's notes after his death can be a throwaway if I decide to stick it in there. The time-travel idea is gone completely; it's lame.

I'm left then with basically two "forks" the plot could go on to. There's the one about the prophecy, which starts off kind of deus-ex-machina and then sort of becomes a comedy of errors. And then there's the one about the trainee, in which the trick would be to keep it from getting a) preachy and/or b) egregiously Mary Sue. (I've pretty much abandoned the one where her relationship with Geoffrey turns sexual/romantic -- the problem, again, would be getting the reader to give a shit.) The fun part is that the dreams can fit into either plot. :)

I think I've decided that the thing to do for now is to polish up what I've written so far -- add more substance to her character, flesh out Preston, introduce Geoffrey and develop that up to a point ... in other words, get a solid foundation down. Then I can get someone to read it, describe the two possible plot paths to them, and ask them their opinion.

Right at the moment, though, I'm going through one of those "everything I write is crap" phases, so maybe I'll wait that out before I do anything more on it. :P