Two plus two is ten

I feel rather off today, and I'm not sure why. Normally, I'm in a really good mood the day after I spend the night at Nate's -- I always sleep well there, and I heartily approve of Nate's overall "sleeping curled up together like cats" policy -- but today I just feel kind of tired and grouchy and unfocused, and I don't want to work at ALL.

Some of this, I think, is the weather. It's cold still. Really, really fucking cold. And as much as I like chilly weather and rain, I'm starting to get incredibly sick of it...especially since it's almost freakin' May. This is the point in the year where I want to be wearing t-shirts and lightweight hoodies, sneakers, that sort of thing. Instead, it's still peacoats and scarves and heavy-duty winter socks. Blargh. Annoying.

My job also annoys the hell out of me, but nothing new there. Basically, I think I'm just pissy because I had to march through the rain and the cold to a job I don't like, and I didn't have time to do my own coffee so I'm stuck drinking the swill here at work. Taken singly, each of these might not be so bad, but combined? Perfect storm of low-level crankiness.

Also, I have to do groceries tonight, and that's never something I look forward to.

Eh, I should probably just allow myself to be grouchy for a while. It's been ages since I've had a randomly pissy day, and in terms of the big picture, everything is going well. Nate and I are probably going to the beach this weekend, whether the weather cooperates with us or not (Northwest beaches are awesome in the rain anyway, although I'm the sort of person who always pushes it with wave-dodging and ends up soaked to the knees when the inevitable misjudging occurs); I got my notice of admissions from Clark, which means I can fill out my FAFSA form, apply for the border county waiver, and -- come May 8 -- register for my class; I got the CNA course brochure from PCC and I think fall or winter might end up looking good for getting my certification; the attorneys got giant food and wine gift baskets for the staff yesterday, so now I'm up to my eyeballs in cheese, truffles, and alcohol; and I think I might bake bread this Sunday, just for the hell of it.

Not too bad, really, all things considered. Now if only I could be home with a book instead of here at work...

As much as I complain about my job, sometimes I can't help but love it a little. A goodly number of the attorneys and staff are gone this week on account of spring break, and so things have been almost painfully slow. Seriously, none of us are getting any work done whatsoever.

The head partner's solution to this? Throw a party! At 3:30 in the afternoon! With sushi and alcohol and cake! He doesn't need a reason why. It's his goddamn firm, that's why! It's spring and it's a Wednesday and he wants some fucking cake and sushi!

I wish I could say I was paraphrasing, but I'm really not. My boss is a crazy man.

It should be noted that the only reason we're waiting until 3:30 is because the office manager objected to the idea of alcohol at 3:00. We don't actually close until 5:30, so I'm all kinds of amused by this. I'm not crazy about sushi, but I am all about the idea of booze and cake, so today is definitely shaping up to be a good one. Also, this cracked me up:

( Law Firm Theater: Conversations with Associates )

I think I want this shirt. No, scratch that -- I think I need this shirt. I know there are only a few people I know in RL that would get it, but I don't care. I neeeeeed it!

I also love the Miskatonic University Antarctic Expedition hoodie, but I can't quite justify the expense of that one. Heh.

Today is one of those pleasantly low-key days where none of us have much to do beyond general file maintenance, and we're all taking great advantage of that. Quite a few of the attorneys are in one of the conference rooms watching basketball (sorry..."taking a lunch break"), and I've been bouncing between actual work and trying to solve Dracula's Riddle -- I got stuck in the marsh because I needed to listen to an mp3 (I think?), but I can't do that on this computer. Booooo. I'll have to play more when I get home tonight; otherwise, it will consume my thoughts until I go mad, and I can't be having with that sort of thing.

Tonight, I've also decided to go on a Powell's expedition. WOO! :D It's been a while since I've gone, so after I throw some jeans on and hit the pharmacy, I'm off to Disneyland my favorite place on earth, where I shall wander for hours and molest the books and -- if luck is on my side -- go home with delectable goodies of the bookish variety.

Mmmm. Books. If I could eat them, I totally would.

You know, aside from those few times when I was completely without internet access, I think this is the longest I've gone without posting. Weird! And probably unimportant!

Heh, I don't know. Work's been running me ragged lately, and the time change threw me off even more. I caught myself staring at the clock yesterday, trying to figure out what the numbers 2:35 actually meant. Obviously, they meant something, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it was. Two? Thirty-five? What? It was like trying to read binary. I'm sure I didn't help matters by staying out until four in the morning, but that's just Tuesdays. One of these days, I'm just going to say "fuck it" and schedule a personal day for Wednesday so I can just spend the night at Nate's and sleep in until eleven the next day (he works the brunch line Saturdays and Sundays, so his "weekend" is Tuesday and Wednesday...it's a little crazy, but we seem to be making it work).

Our relationship at the moment is one of those strange, ambiguous things where it's not entirely clear what we are and I don't know whether I should think of him as a boyfriend or not. It's not that the ambiguity bothers me -- to my immense surprise, I'm actually okay with it -- but I have to call him something when I talk about him to people, and lately I've been referring to him mostly as "Nate, this guy I'm dating." For some reason, this seems to confuse everyone. The "I'm dating someone" thing seems to shock them just as much as the "I'm dating a GUY" thing, so...I don't know. Maybe I just come off as really introverted and asexual to everyone? I have no idea!

And really, it's not that big a deal. I'm 99.99% certain that he's not seeing anyone besides me and he seems to genuinely enjoy my company, so that's really the important thing right there. Everything else will work itself out in time. *nod*

( For your general amusement, have some brain-breaking conversations I overheard in the lunchroom yesterday )

The universe has a really horrible sense of humor. Apparently, things can go well in my personal life or things can go well at work, but both at the same time would knock something crucial off balance and that is Not Allowed. When part of your day involves getting bitched out for following an official company procedure because it apparently doesn't apply to this one case? Yeah. Awesome.

Also, my desk looks like a filing cabinet threw up all over it. When I have messy piles of paper because they're organized that way according to my own obscure and incredibly specific mental process? That's fine. When I have messy piles of paper because I'm running out of room to put stuff and people keep fucking with it when I'm away from my desk and everything gets all screwed up because it wasn't added according to my own obscure and incredibly specific mental process? FAIL.

Stupid work. At least I'm going over to Nate's tonight. That helps make this bugfuckery bearable. :P

Aww, my first drunk post. How special. XD Anyway. I can't even express how happy I am that Friday has finally arrived. This has been the week from Hell. GOD. They gave me all of E's cases, and one of them -- this massive, sprawling, horrifying thing of pure evil -- goes into depositions this week, so I'm now expected to know the ins and outs of a case I've never touched so that I can have documents prepared exactly to the specifications of an attorney I've worked with but once...who changes her mind all the time.

Not that she'll admit to changing it, oh no. You just have to know that she has, go back and retroactively fix everything, and then anticipate when she wants it the way it was before.

Paralegals: The New Psychics!

To make a mid-length story short, I'm basically doing the work of two people right now, and it's driving me insane. Still no progress on the job front, although that's to be expected, given that it hasn't been that long since I buckled down and got serious about searching and applying. It's the same thing that happened when I finally got serious about finding a new apartment -- even though I was ready, it took the rest of the universe a little while to catch up. I know I'll find something eventually, so the trick will be to stick this out without going completely bugfuck in the meantime.

But today is Friday! Fridays are good. Fridays are amazing! Fridays mean donuts, and Friday means sleeping in the next morning, and this particular Friday means I'm seeing In Bruges at the Portland International Film Festival after work. Yeee! I'm so excited for this: a) I love dark comedies about gangsters, especially if said gangsters are Irish and/or English; b) I love Ralph Fiennes, and want to do dirty things to him marry him; and c) this is the first time in I don't know how many years that I'm going to see a movie by myself, and I'm wierdly giddy at the prospect.

You know what's also weird? February is the six-month mark for the breakup, and aside from my work-related woes, I've never felt happier or more secure in myself. I don't know. It's kind of awesome, actually. I'm enjoying this whole "optimism" thing.

Oh my god, I forgot how much work it is to look for jobs. My eyeballs feel like they're going to melt. On the plus side, though, I made it through the grueling OHSU applications process and was able to apply for several of their admin positions, and tomorrow I'm going to whip out some cover letters and get resumes sent off for a bunch of writing/editing jobs. I doubt I'll be lucky enough to get said jobs, which is why I'm also applying for admin positions at places like OHSU. :P

I'm just really, reeeeeeally tired of being a paralegal. It's weird. I can feel myself burning out. There's a horrible, scary part of me that just...doesn't want to show up at work anymore, ever, not because I don't want to work ('cause I do, actually), but because I don't want to work there. Occasional forays to technical seminars aside, everything I do is mind-numbingly dull. One of my coworkers keeps passing all of her crap jobs along to me (seriously, that's a whole rant in and of itself), I don't feel any sort of satisfaction in what I do, half the people I work with drive me bonkers, and I'm BORED. I'M SO GODDAMN BORED.

But I'm busy, too. Those of you who have worked office jobs know how awful that is, to be insanely busy all the time while simultaneously being bored out of your skull. Doing admin work at a hospital probably won't be any better in the long run, but I'm thinking short-term right now. I have to. Because sometimes I look at the other paralegals, the ones who've been at the firm for five, eight years, and it scares the crap out of me that I might one day become the hopeless, simmering fonts of sheer rage and despair they are. I wish I could say I'm exaggerating, but...my god, the paralegal coordinator? She's the angriest, most relentlessly frustrated girl I've ever met in my entire life...and she's been there for almost nine years. I'm coming up on my third. It's definitely time to move on.

I think I'm getting sick again. :P There's some weird death plague going around the office, and my co-workers are dropping like flies. Then they come back for a day or so, either relapse or catch something new, end up at home again for a while, and it's lather, rinse, repeat.

Death plague, people! Death plague!

But I've decided that I don't much feel like getting sick, mostly because there are some depositions going on next week that I kind of need to be on-call for in case the attorneys need, I don't know, a more aesthetically pleasing binder*, so I'm drinking ungodly amounts of water and herbal tea and pretending like everything is A-OK.

Which, oddly enough, it is, aside from the vague "wait, am I getting sick again?!" ickiness. I've been in a ridiculously good mood since Monday, which is insane considering that nothing whatsoever has happened to cause that sort of unholy cheerfulness. If anything, I should be more grouchy than usual -- I haven't been getting nearly as much sleep as I should, work is alternately boring as fuck or horrifyingly busy, I've been plagued all week by the persistent feeling that every day was a Thursday (except for today, ironically, which felt more like a Tuesday), and we've been sorely lacking in sun breaks. And yet? Good mood! I'm at a loss to explain it.


* I wish I could say I'm not speaking from experience here, but...trufax are more horrifying than fiction.