Update the first - holiday season
Jan. 16th, 2004 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitanziRight - it's been too long and too busy and I can't really do a good job going back and describing the past month or so, but the longer I leave this the more intimidating it will be and the more I'll procrastinate. I'll break it down a bit, though, and I hope anyone who feels left out or shorted will forgive me.
This is the short version - you can find lots of detail through other people's eyes, and you can find a list of the other people two posts ago (ok, mostly![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
autographedcat, filceolaire, mokatiki, plaid_dragon, and pola_bear with additional bits from others).
Mid December was actually the lull before the storm for me. I was starting to get a handle on the routine stuff at work, and year end insanity hadn't started yet. I actually started to think I could do this job, and well enough to actually like it. Good people, decent pay, a challenge I could meet and a company that would ask a lot of me but give a lot back. The day before and the day after Christmas were dead slow, in fact, which actually only made me nervous since everyone kept telling me how mad it was about to get.
The day after Christmas (Boxing Day, if you want to be British about it) we acquired the first of the British Invasion!filceolaire, mokatiki,and pola_bear came to stay for about a week before they moved on to other homes, and they were marvelous houseguests. Unfortunately, ACat and I had to work for most of that time, but we did manage to haul them off to the Suttons' New Year Party and we did manage to introduce them to many good things and people. We crammed in a good chunk of Coupling and all the episodes of Firefly, for instance, and I do believe that the first time they met telynor face to face it was at our house. (I am unreasonably pleased by that!) They braved the Atlanta Metro bus system and the MARTA and probably know them both better than I do by now, with side adventures along with us to book stores and Cheeburger Cheeburger and the zoo and the cyclorama and other stuff that always seems more fun to introduce other people to! (Work was also getting steadily crazier, and it was a huge, if unexpected, help to have lots of people at home to talk to and to distract me when I finally got out. Knowing me, the likely alternative would have been me being withdrawn and anxious, and ACat trying to cheer and distract me most nights. As it was, they listened to me rant at least once or twice and their patience and humor helped me keep my sanity - and my job.)
Eventually we said goodbye to them and they went off to their next stop, whenplaid_dragon came to stay for the remaining week before Gafilk. She benefited from their explorations and their maps and tourist attraction fliers, and I think she had a good time too. ACat had some days off surrounding Gafilk, so he was able to be more social, and again there was shopping, and the zoo, and I think also the cyclorama and I forget what all else. I got to some of it, but mostly I had to work - January is strictly a blackout period for days off. I had planned on calling in sick Friday before Gafilk, and was furious when an email was sent out Thursday afternoon saying that anyone calling in sick during January had better produce a doctor's note, or they'd get a written warning. Obviously, I worked Friday. I did manage to go down with ACat to the hotel Thursday night, though, so I had at least a taste of the con before I went back in to work. Seeing that I no longer had any reason to dissemble, I even told several coworkers what I was going to be up to that weekend. There's some definite irony in all this, as it turns out, but that will wait for a bit.
This is the short version - you can find lots of detail through other people's eyes, and you can find a list of the other people two posts ago (ok, mostly
autographedcat, filceolaire, mokatiki, plaid_dragon, and pola_bear with additional bits from others).Mid December was actually the lull before the storm for me. I was starting to get a handle on the routine stuff at work, and year end insanity hadn't started yet. I actually started to think I could do this job, and well enough to actually like it. Good people, decent pay, a challenge I could meet and a company that would ask a lot of me but give a lot back. The day before and the day after Christmas were dead slow, in fact, which actually only made me nervous since everyone kept telling me how mad it was about to get.
The day after Christmas (Boxing Day, if you want to be British about it) we acquired the first of the British Invasion!
filceolaire, mokatiki,and pola_bear came to stay for about a week before they moved on to other homes, and they were marvelous houseguests. Unfortunately, ACat and I had to work for most of that time, but we did manage to haul them off to the Suttons' New Year Party and we did manage to introduce them to many good things and people. We crammed in a good chunk of Coupling and all the episodes of Firefly, for instance, and I do believe that the first time they met telynor face to face it was at our house. (I am unreasonably pleased by that!) They braved the Atlanta Metro bus system and the MARTA and probably know them both better than I do by now, with side adventures along with us to book stores and Cheeburger Cheeburger and the zoo and the cyclorama and other stuff that always seems more fun to introduce other people to! (Work was also getting steadily crazier, and it was a huge, if unexpected, help to have lots of people at home to talk to and to distract me when I finally got out. Knowing me, the likely alternative would have been me being withdrawn and anxious, and ACat trying to cheer and distract me most nights. As it was, they listened to me rant at least once or twice and their patience and humor helped me keep my sanity - and my job.)Eventually we said goodbye to them and they went off to their next stop, when
plaid_dragon came to stay for the remaining week before Gafilk. She benefited from their explorations and their maps and tourist attraction fliers, and I think she had a good time too. ACat had some days off surrounding Gafilk, so he was able to be more social, and again there was shopping, and the zoo, and I think also the cyclorama and I forget what all else. I got to some of it, but mostly I had to work - January is strictly a blackout period for days off. I had planned on calling in sick Friday before Gafilk, and was furious when an email was sent out Thursday afternoon saying that anyone calling in sick during January had better produce a doctor's note, or they'd get a written warning. Obviously, I worked Friday. I did manage to go down with ACat to the hotel Thursday night, though, so I had at least a taste of the con before I went back in to work. Seeing that I no longer had any reason to dissemble, I even told several coworkers what I was going to be up to that weekend. There's some definite irony in all this, as it turns out, but that will wait for a bit.
