Pros and Cons

Man, this was a stupid weekend. Missed work yesterday because Heather, the World’s Nicest Person, was in town—which I’d have been gleeful about, except that she was in town for one of her mom’s concerts, and invited us along. Now, I love me a symphony, but her mom plays in the Orchestra at Temple Square, which meant the concert was at the Tabernacle, which is a building that drains all the joy out of life.

It is hard to describe the Tabernacle, largely because there isn’t much to describe: I’m not sure how it manages this, but it is somehow offensively bland. It contains one admittedly cool two-story pipe organ lit by neon stage lights, several acres of fake ivy that I assume was supposed to be decorative, and two floors of relentlessly uncomfortable wooden benches. It is hard to properly enjoy the legendary acoustics of the place when you can’t feel your legs. Even Heather’s family can’t stop it from depressing the hell out of me.

That alone wouldn’t make for such a lousy weekend, but in the last couple of days I have also:

• Made my manager angry because I had not squared missing work like I thought I had,
• Incurred the much more problematic wrath of my digestive tract,
• Unleashed one of my patented 30-Second Total Meltdowns at work,
• Had New Stove #3 break,
• Suddenly and inexplicably pissed off a patron I was chatting amiably with,
• Fail to do my Torn World duties,
• Run over my foot with a book truck, and
• Heard no fewer than three of Dad’s My Glorious Mac Is Better Than Your Stupid Ugly PC speeches.*

I do not like this list, so I will make another. All the good things that are going on the last few days:

• Super Mario Galaxy 2, which may not contain the Rosalina Waltz** but is still super fun.
• The weather. It is grey and cold and rainy and windy. This kind of weather makes me very, very happy, especially when the leaves are still red and orange.
• I did get to see Heather again!
• John Scalzi’s Agent to the Stars. I hereby wish to restate my proposal to John Scalzi that he be my best friend forever.
• My stories’ dialogue. The Scalzi Effect is at work—I am writing much snappier dialogue myself now!
• I am a tortoiseshell again! I’ll take a picture tomorrow when I’m less depressed.
• Right at the end of work, just as we were closing, I heard a patron mention that she was from Kenya. “Wewe ni Mkenya!” I said. “Ni ńchi nzuri!”*** She almost fell over. “We’ll have to talk next time I’m here,” she said, because my scary manager was chasing everyone away by then. I always like being able to use my language skills.
• I got to talk to my brother tonight.  The conversation, as always, went straight to Batman.

Really, not so bad a weekend. But lousy stuff tends to eclipse happy stuff, and I’ve been having a stressful few months, so I’m still a little bummed out this evening. Perhaps this week will be better!


*As my brother notes, converts are the worst. I swear that within an hour of buying his first Mac Dad was an insufferable Macass. It is nice that he likes his computer, but I am tired of having that tied with “And your computer feeds kittens to puppies!”

**Anybody know where I can get a file of this song? It’s from the first Galaxy game—the music played on Rosalina’s spaceship.

***“You’re Kenyan! It’s a good country!” Yes, I am not a big Kiswahili conversationalist, but I made my point.  My point was: “Kenya! Yay!”