better late than never

i finally uploaded this week's photos to the photo blog.

new job: the skinny

* things have been going very well so far. for now, it's still a bit slow (in terms of the amount work i actually have to do), but my day-to-day tasks have been varied, and different dormant muscles have begun to be tapped. feeling them limber up again has been nice.

* my desk still resembles a stark, barren cubicle. it's got nuthin' but the iMac, the phone and an "in" tray. i have no tape, no stapler, no notepads, no pen cup, and certainly nothing on the walls because i have nothing with which to affix stuff. creativity-wise, it's not a particularly inspiring environment, so i'll have to work on adding some colour and personality. for now, i've placed a tiny kinder surprise toy of a bumble bee with a flower on its head in front of the keyboard.

* also: the desk surface itself was gross and dirty when i first arrived. i have wiped it down twice and been amazed at the level of grime that had obviously accumulated. ew.

* i'm using inDesign for the first time, and only on the most rudimentary of levels (i basically know how to do three things), but it's fun.

* if i'm lucky, i might get my own office email address so i can stop sending and receiving work emails via yahoo.

* whenever i have to pee, i have to walk past our floor's reception desk to get to the washroom. i drink a lot of water and, thus, i pee frequently. i wonder what the receptionists think when they see me going back and forth so often.

* cutting overset is, thus far, my favourite thing to do. it essentially means trimming a story so that it fits into the allotted page(s). sometimes, cutting one word shifts all the copy so that your overset is gone; other times, it's like a little game as i hunt and peck words and punctuation and watch the overset get smaller one letter at a time. like reverse tetris.

* the compound -- and it really is such a massive complex that it deserves that nickname -- has its own tim horton's inside, as well as a dry cleaners, a convenience store and a surprisingly robust cafeteria. there's even a day-by-day weekly calendar posted each monday, listing all the food items that will be available each of day that week at all of the various food stations (there's about ten). i only discovered this today and, sadly, found out too late that i missed this morning's berry-infused-pancakes breakfast.

* there's a chance this job might last longer than five weeks.

* tonight, just before i left, my editor came to my desk to thank me. he said even though i'm still spending a lot of time waiting around for stuff to do, my presence is valuable and he thinks i'm doing a great job. it's amazing how meaningful something as simple as that can be, and it was a really wonderful way to end day four.

first-day goals

1. learn where my desk is, so i don't wind up wandering around the massive compound like a lost toddler. check!

2. learn where the washroom is, and where it is in relation to my desk, so i don't wind up wandering around the massive compound like a lost toddler with a very full bladder. check!

3. learn where the kitchen is, and where it is in relation to my desk, so i don't wind up wandering around the massive compound like a lost toddler with a grumbly tummy and an empty water glass. check!

4. learn my co-workers' names. check!

yes, they were very modest goals. i don't care.

night-before jitters

tomorrow morning, i start my new job. (to recap: it's a five-week, full-time, in-office writing/editing gig for one of my editors.)

and i'm nervous.

it didn't help that i'd originally planned to spend the week before my start date getting all caught up on all my other work and getting my ducks in a tidy row so i could begin the job with a clean, relaxed slate... only to have my mac die and to then spend much of that prep time running around trying to piece together an e-solution. it put me very much behind schedule, and caused a much more frantic pre-work week than i'd intended.

also, it's been ten years since i worked anywhere other than my living room, and i'm anxious about the adjustment. i feel very much like a little girl on the night before the first day at a new school, with a knapsack full of butterflies and questions.

what will it be like?

what should i wear?

where will my desk be?

will they like me?

will anyone eat lunch with me?

there are the professional anxieties, related to my time away from the workplace. publishing -- the production side, certainly -- has changed dramatically since 2001. i haven't had to use any of the necessary software or applications since then (and, even then, my knowledge was cursory), and i know i've got some learnin' to do PDQ. in these respects, i feel sort of like a woman who left the workforce to raise a family and who's now stepping back into the fray... which has moved forward without her.

will i know what i'm doing?

will i get the hang of things quickly and easily?

am i going to blow it?

and, naturally, the big one:

will i fail?

intellectually, i know i'm capable. if i wasn't, i wouldn't have been offered the job in the first place. i know i can do the job, and that i'm smart enough to pick up the skills i don't yet have or polish the ones that have become a tad rusty. i know my muscles may be stiff, but i'm sure they'll limber up quickly.

emotionally, though, my nerves are buzzing. i just keep telling myself to calm down, quit screaming and remember who i am and what i can do.

i gave my 20s to a full-time job, after all, and i was really, really good at. i was a casual workaholic, a master multi-tasker and i was, for the most part, very happy. so, really, why am i at all worried?

just because it's new. it's different. it's change. and, as we all know, change sometimes poses a challenge for me. as much as i want to be a roll-with-the-punches, go-with-the-flow gal, i tend to get rigid and tense when venturing into the unknown.

i'm certain everything will work itself out just fine and, by next week at this time, i'll be in a much better groove.

but, tonight, i'm kind of antsy.

in the meantime...

perhaps you'd like to (re)acquaint yourself with the latest photos at my photo blog...

RIP powerbook G4

much to my profound dismay and without any warning, my laptop died last night. it cannot be revived. even the apple experts pronounced it unsave-able.

i will be using my old ibook until i get a replacement. but, with me starting my new job on monday and hotdocs starting next week, i don't have time to set-up a new computer, install all my software, re-find the drivers and get myself sorted.

so, for the next few weeks, i'll be livin' like it's 2005. at least online, anyway.

chicago: vignettes

* mom and i flew to chicago on porter airlines. it was our first time flying with them and i can’t say enough good things about the experience. free snacks (cookies, nuts, biscotti!) and drinks (espresso, coffee, tea, pop, juice and water) in their pre-flight lounge... which is available to everyone, not just VIPs. plus: cool propeller planes and a quiet airport.

* we flew into midway – chicago’s comparatively smaller airport (the other being the chaotic o’hare) – and everyone i know who’s flown into that airport has said they cleared customs in a matter of minutes. when we arrived at the customs area, we lined up after a flight that had just arrived from mexico. it was a sunday, so there were only two customs agents working the “international” lines, and it was very, very s-l-o-w. as a canadian, it was also eye-opening to watch mexican men, women, children and seniors – some of whom could not speak or write english – arrive in a country that, based on the proceedings, isn’t terribly welcoming and really doesn’t seem to want them there. each one was fingerprinted and photographed in addition to being interviewed (a condition for those traveling on a visa). several were taken aside to a separate holding area. and all i could think was, “wow. these folks are brave.”

* our hotel was swanky. i realize i say that as someone who normally stays at red roof inn-level hotels, so maybe we viewed it through a different filter and other people might just deem it “nice,” but we were impressed. our room was big, the beds were comfy, we had about a thousand pillows and a flat-screen TV, and there was a leather recliner that mom enjoyed nightly. naturally, i nonetheless completely tossed the place to check for bed bugs before we settled in. (thankfully, i didn’t find any.)

* i loved the soap and lotion the hotel provided and used it often... until our last day, when i realized i’d obviously been nurturing some kind of allergic reaction to it. i had a rash on my shoulders, upper arms, stomach and behind my ears (of all places). ah well.

* in semi-related news, the cold i’d developed before we left on sunday hung on for the entire week, so i spent much of my time with a congested head and a drippy, increasingly red nose.

* in further semi-related news, cold medicine turned out to be the only thing i actually bought while we were in chicago. i’d gone with my spiffy duffle bag barely half-full, in the hopes of filling it with new pants, shirts, shoes and maybe even a jacket... but i did not. granted, it’s not a cheap city and we fully realized that any real deals would be found in the ‘burbs at places like target and kohl’s and wal-mart, but still. i bought nothing. no-thing. when we checked in for our flight home and my bag was weighed, it weighed... no joke... 2.4kg. i actually told the airline clerk i was ashamed at my nonexistent shopping haul. mom didn’t buy much, either, but she did a bit better thanks to some towels, an art institute souvenir and a book.

* we did a LOT of walking. we walked and walked and walked and walked. we’d leave the hotel around 9:30am each day, and return around 7pm. mom discovered her favourite walking shoes weren’t made for that degree of use, and i was reassured that my keens kick ass.

* on wednesday morning, we decided to head out to the lincoln park neighbourhood to check out the zoo, the conservatory and the area. the lincoln park zoo was a depressing place; it’s free, and the lack of revenue really shows. the animals’ environments were small and not terribly clean (there were cigarette butts floating in the water in the seal tank), and the animals themselves all looked kind of haggard and sad. we didn’t even get to the halfway point before we decided to leave. the conservatory was lovely, though, and the neighbourhood itself was gorgeous – some of the buildings date back to the 18th century, and the architecture was fascinating. we also had delicious pancakes at a brunch spot called Orange.

* on wednesday afternoon, we saw some theatre! i’d looked into what was running in chicago, and what would be affordable, and what would be a matinee, and what would be handy (location-wise), and discovered that Working fit the criteria perfectly. i knew absolutely nothing about the show beforehand, save for the fact that it’s a musical about people who work, so i hoped it would be good and that mom would enjoy it. we picked up half-price tickets at the hot tix booth and crossed our fingers. verdict: it was fantastic! very clever staging, a great cast, terrific songs... and the whole thing was unexpectedly moving. like, really moving. like, vickie-sitting-in-the-theatre-with-tears-streaming-down-her-cheeks moving. and mom absolutely loved it.

* despite my best-laid plans, we did not have sundaes at ghirardelli. for starters, they’re all $8.95. they’d also discontinued the one i used to get (fair enough, since my last visit there was in 2001) and there wasn’t anything on the menu that i felt would justify the price tag.

* on the flight home, i made a new friend.

* mom now has my cold.

chicago: a glimpse

the bean.

a chagall window.

monets.

suitcase parade.

carson pirie scott doors.

stairs.

street bloom.

fire escapes.

chicagoing

mom and i are off to the windy city tomorrow.

i'll be offline and, obviously, not posting while i'm away.

in my absence, please enjoy this colourful photo of carla hall, my favourite Top Chef chef.

dear mother nature, please cut us a break...

the weather forecast for sunday -- the day mom and i fly down to chicago -- isn't great.

it's not even good.

it's for abnormally high temperatures, wind, rain and thunderstorms.

here AND there.

for the most part, i'm not an exceptionally anxious flyer, but flying during a thunderstorm, or during the threat of thunderstorms, or when it's going to be windy enough that the wind merits mention on the news, is something that does make me nervous.

yes, i know the airline knows enough to delay a flight if, say, thunder and lightning and locusts are rolling in, but i'd still much rather take off and land amid clear, sunny skies.

at present, we're really really really hoping something in the atmosphere changes for the better by sunday morning.

s'updates

* we leave for chicago this weekend.

* to that end, we've looked up places we'd like to visit, mapped 'em and printed out directions (for the ones outside of downtown). i had no idea that chicago is filled with caribou coffee franchises. the last time i enjoyed one of their fabulous frozen beverages was a couple of years ago in cleveland, and i have craved them ever since.

* i picked up U.S. cash today and was delighted to see the canadian dollar is over par, meaning our buck gets a bigger bang south of the border. this means a couple extra mint snowdrifts and passionfruit-green tea smoothies at the aforementioned coffee chain. maybe even a pair of keen summer hikers.

* i also went to MEC this afternoon and bought a new duffle bag, which will likely serve as my luggage for both chicago and iceland, and a paperback-sized mini-bag (big enough to hold my camera and a water bottle) for places like the art institute, where knapsacks are prohibited. both were über-favourably reviewed by shoppers, and having them makes me feel rather outdoorsy.

* unfortunately, mom's leg is still bothering her... so much so that, at my urging, she went to the doctor this morning to have it checked out before, you know, we head to america where health care is not free and where we're supposed to be walking most everywhere. (fear not, we both have traveler's health insurance.) thankfully, it's just a pulled muscle or tendon; unthankfully, it may hamper some of our walking plans if it flares up or gets worse.

* i have one more work assignment to finish before we depart. 200 words by tomorrow evening. done and done.

* i have the DVD of The Town sitting on my coffee table. i scored it at the library yesterday and will watch it later tonight.

a less taxing 2011

on saturday afternoon, i did my 2010 taxes.

much like my 2009 taxes, they were a sobering reminder of exactly how awful a year 2010 was for me. it was right there, in black and white, staring me in the face: net loss.

for the second year in a row, i'd earned so little that i didn't even cover my business expenses... nevermind my cost of living. (thank god for savings.) i haven't earned that little in a year since i was in high school and working a summer job and, even then, i'm pretty sure i earned more in two months in 1988 than i did in all twelve of 2010.

net loss.

and, as if that wasn't bad enough, it was more than twice the net loss i'd recorded in 2009, to boot. 

YB was truly horrified when i told her how microscopic my net income was. my parents were shocked and, probably, alarmed. none of them could believe it, even though they all knew how little work i'd had.

but here's the thing: unlike last march, when i looked at my tax return and saw more proof that my life was a disappointment and i was a complete failure, this past saturday i looked at my tax return and actually felt proud.

proud because i had survived that all-around terrible year.

proud because earning almost nothing didn't break me, and because i can look back on the year that passed and feel grateful.

but, most of all, proud because my 2011 is, thus far, tuh-HO-tally kicking the asses of its two predecessors.

after a long, long, lonnnnnng drought, work is coming in steadily again, as are the pay cheques.

i turned things around. *i* did that.

and, when i do my taxes next spring, i already know it'll be with an even bigger grin of satisfaction.