Ramblings

It's quite late Sunday night. We watched the Mavs win a championship, we watched Mary Shannon discover an unplanned pregnancy on In Plain Sight. We watched hours of Leverage this weekend, gearing up for the season 4 premiere.

I gave myself a facial today; something I've started doing on a weekly basis, along with manicures and pedicures. My skin is looking better. Still a few breakouts, but I notice them less when the rest is looking luminous rather than dull and blotchy. One of my colleagues noticed my painted nails and said in great surprise, "You look like a girl!" earlier in the week. Ouch.

Another week passed, still busy. I meant to go in this weekend, just for a few hours, but I let me talk myself out of it when I realized I could access it all from home. The problem, of course, is that I never got round to actually working. I'm feeling a bit worn out at present; tired of all the work I've been doing, tired of the pressures of centralization looming, tired of being one of 3 busy people in an office with more than 3 staff. My office-mate sneered about my workload, because I have staff to assist me (the statement being that I didn't need to worry about Tuesday's deadline because my staff is doing the work for me), and I was nearly foaming at the mouth. My staff does prepare the documents she has to prepare herself, and we have 4 times as many as she does, which all require review in workflow, because I don't prepare them personally. Bah. I know, and my supervisors know, what I do.

I've found myself quite irritable in the past week, another sign of low patience and deteriorating interest in overtime. It seems the limits have been reached, as every little thing seemed to ignite another fire of indignation. There was plenty of ranting behind the scenes, and plenty of bitching about how much easier things would be for us all if they would all just give me what I ask for when and how I ask for it. Truly though, if group A had given me the figures I requested, I could have given them a budget by now, instead of having to answer multiple emails and have a face-to-face meeting because someone read an old report incorrectly. Annoying.

Anyway, I need to let that pass. Last week and soon we start a new week, sure to be full of fresh annoyances. Like annoyance at myself for not having completed my damn work this weekend so I'd not be so pressured tomorrow and Tuesday with deadlines.

Ah, well. I don't regret the time away, to be honest.

I'm back in a place I frequently find myself: wondering if I could be pregnant and whether or not we've been at all wise about how we've gone about this if I am. I'd wonder if the relief I feel when I'm not pregnant is a sign of something, were it not for the fact that the relief comes only after a day or two of intense sadness. In the midst of it, trying feels right. It's only in the waiting - until time to test, until time to try - that I think we're best off just stopping for a bit. That draws nearer though; if this cycle was a bust, we've got one, maybe two more, before our break. I honestly sort of look forward to a break, but not whole-heartedly. The one bright piece of news was that I ovulated within 'normal' time frames on cd 21. The hormones seem to be all in line, with a nice post-o jump and early onset of sore boobs, so we'll see how it goes, I suppose (like there's any choice at this point. snort).

Other news? I've been greatly enjoying Stephen Fry's audiobook readings of Harry Potter. I was lucky enough to get my hands on them and they are wonderful. Fry is an excellent reader and the British versions of the books are simply delightful. All leading up, of course, to next month's premiere of the final movie. I'm terribly excited, and dreading it. JKR kills of one of my favorite characters, and I'm still a bit annoyed (or a lot - hence why I correct her egregious error in fanfiction). Still, the Phelps twins are among the favorite people I follow on Twitter, and I really do think they've got some talent, so I'm eager to see it play out on screen. But. . . Fred dies, and then the movies are just . . . over. Forever! Sadness.

DH is well, I suppose. This past week was a bit rough. He wasn't sleeping well, and consequently wasn't feeling well, which often coincides with a general malaise and dissatisfaction with his life. Add to that other things like difficulty in his hobbies, and it isn't always a pleasant place to be. Not his fault - he makes serious efforts to curtail his moods and not direct them at me, but there is no way for me to escape his unhappiness in this house. It eats at me and leaves me feeling anxious and apologetic, no matter how pleasant he tries to be. I'm trying to figure out a better way to deal with it, because frankly, he puts up with a fuck of a lot of ups and downs with me. . .

I've just finished catching up on some fiction that was lost in queue. The two most recent Val McDermid books in the Hill/Jordan series. She is fantastic thriller writer, but the books have morphed since the earlier ones, and as she's moved a bit further away from sexual serial offenders to the last two books, they've gotten better and better. Always strong and compelling, these last two have a bit less sensationalism in them, and they are utterly fantastic. Her stand-alone books are also fantastic, particularly as many of her characters make delightful cameos, and I'm on the lookout for a book released earlier in the year in paperback that hasn't yet made it's way to iBooks.

My own writing has stalled a bit. I need to work on the pieces that are half-published, but one is so light and fluffy that I just feel meh about it (though it's been very popular). The other is a grief-study, and it's at a sensitive point. I just killed off Hermione's father in a terribly guilt-inducing way. Several people commented that it was lovely, an accurate portrait of grief, and one person said it was terribly out of character and she whined too much. I laughed at that, and sighed, because my very first reaction was "Oh, you are so lucky never to have experienced real grief" and my second thought was "For goodness' sake, she's known this for all of a few hours. Give her a day or two, please!" What can I say, I expect I've done a bit of projecting and probing in this project. But it's good. And I feel it when I read it. It's good. Not perfect, by any stretch, certainly not. But I'm still proud of it. That doesn't stop me from wanting to work on other pieces that are a bit more interesting to me right now. Ah, well. I'll get back into it soon, no doubt.

The cat and dog have been sweet lately, which is sort of oddly reassuring and affirming. DH came home early from work one day, and he reported that the dog did what he always does when I'm home and DH is not - that is to say, he huffed, and whined a bit. Frequently begged to go out to see if I was outside. Looked accusingly at the dog parent left at home, sighed, curled into a ball, with ears pointed alertly towards the door for any sign that the missing dog parent might soon return. Nice to know he loves me too, I suppose.

That's about it. It's late and I need to go to bed and avoid last week's habit of late bedtimes - wonder if that had to do with the irritability, come to think of it. The weather looks to be dreadfully hot. No surprise - summer in Texas - but my least favorite part of living here, no question. It could be worse, of course. It could be Not Texas. . . though I admit my fantasies of visiting jolly old England are more frequent this time of year.