I was in a mall over the weekend. And I had a bit of a headache to start. Which didn’t get better. The chatter of people, the deliberately terrible acoustics, the generally terrible Christmas music – it was too much. I could feel my brain starting to retreat into a dark corner of my skull… and yes, my skull has dark corners – I’m having a CRISIS here!

I took a break, had a snack and a soda in the food court, made some origami for a little kid, and felt a little better.

When I got home, I sat in the quiet of my living room with a book. No music, no traffic noise, even the furnace and fridge were quiet. The loudest thing in my whole house was my cat.

And I settled back down and slowly came back out of my shell.

It took a while and reaffirmed – once again – that I’m terrible in crowds. I didn’t use to be this way. For a while, I even enjoyed the subtle mix of cunning and guile needed to slip through a crowd unimpeded. And while I’ve never been one to cranky my music, noise didn’t really bother me either.

Next thing you know I’ll be on my porch yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

——————-

Since the mall was so chaotic, I decided I needed a bit of order. So, I re-arranged my kitchen cabinets.

Just let that sink in for a moment.

I don’t really know what possessed me… wait, that’s it! I was possessed!

(sign of relief)

Anyway, I moved some things around, threw out some expired cans, and wondered why I have so many cans of green beans. I mean, I like green beans but it never occurs to me to have them for dinner. And, strangely, I only ever think about having them for dinner when I’m buying groceries.

It’s a sickness, apparently.

When I was done I considered moving on to other areas of the house and organizing them, but after a judgmental look from my cat – which is, frankly, the only kind he gives me – I sensibly went and played some video games.

——————–

Working on a project at work this week and while I did everything right and used the software and tools exactly as prescribed – something went wrong.

And it was for some VIP’s.

I usually like to fly waaaaay below that radar, but I was the only one who had the right mix of expertise to pull this off. And, dammit, it should have worked. Instead, too many of the wrong people didn’t get an email.

And we can’t figure out why.

I’ve got a possible – and deeply counter-intuitive – solution that I’m going to try this morning. Essentially, we need to make the email look more like spam.

Yeah.

It’s also super tedious.

Had me kinda bummed out yesterday evening. I don’t like it when the tech fails me like that – we’re supposed to be bros, you know?

Well, can’t win them all.