The one with all the rambling

New template


Feels good. Needed a change. Long overdue.


The Netflix Update


Just watched all three available seasons of "Breaking Bad." It had been DVD only but switched over to instant. Loved. It. So. Hard. Can't wait for season four, which should be wrapping up soon on cable. That my parents still have. Hmm.


Kata


Work is good and crazy and supremely awesome and completely fucking nuts. Last Thursday, at the end of a week straight out of hell, one of the founders sent me a direct message on Twitter and thanked me for retweeting Kata news and stuff from our clients, etc. He said "the effort did not go unnoticed" and then asked if I was enjoying myself at Kata. I KNOW, RIGHT? It's like somebody just knew. 


The latest crazy news is the rumor that the writers will become responsible for writing five articles a day. I can currently barely make it to the required daily four and the stress is consuming me. I lucked out today. I got two articles done before lunch, pounded out a third in the early afternoon, and snagged a fourth an hour before closing that was, oh yes, a 250-word review of "Breaking Bad." UH HUH. I snapped that shit up like a hungry turtle nomming on free lettuce. Point, click, IMDb.com, relive passion over devouring episodes, write, upload... forget to include something minor, leave editor a note, sprint away from office mentally crowing, "Four! Four! Quota! Quota!" I'm especially proud because we had a 30-minute meeting this morning and weren't able to access our article assignment website for something crazy like two hours HELLO I HAVE A QUOTA TO MEET AND SOMEHOW YOUR SOFTWARE UPDATE IS GOING TO BECOME MY PROBLEM.


Seriously. The quota? I hate it. If we were cellmates, there'd be some kind of ShawSHANK Redemption all right. King V, after listening to me bitch at length one day a couple weeks ago, basically told me that I have to care less. (It was said much nicer than that, but it was sound advice.) Interestingly enough, it's actually working. I'm finishing articles, giving them a quick scan for clarity and errors, and just letting it go. They can be flagged for rewrites or cancelled for any reason, even if I labored over them for literal hours, so there's no sense in getting into a twist over it.


I was especially happy that an article I chose to finish at home last night, an article that was pitched by The Mad Texter (I had to select it; there was nothing else available to write) was approved this morning. Without hesitation. I think I peed a little when I found out. Something was wet anyway.


Today we had an advice session from the writers who were named "top performers" at Kata last week.


With a measly 12 articles, I didn't even rank. People who had turned in 15 and 18 articles (who are also clearly part-robot and/or on meth) addressed the crowd.


There was glowering. Okay, it was me.


The good news is that I did pick up a couple tips, none of which I can remember now. The one that *I* came up with that I will share should I someday get named to The List of Special Persons Who Are Related to R2D2 is, "This article is not eligible for a Pulitzer. Let it go." I think, subconsciously, that got me through my day. Writing about air conditioners was also easier than trying to smoosh an encyclopedia's worth of information about health insurance into a few hundred words, which was one of the things that held me up yesterday. 


There was also THE TALKING. The table of Chatty Cathies behind me would NOT shut up -- I really can't believe they don't take their yammering on Skype; it's where THE REST OF US SPEND THE DAY TALKING -- and a guy (and apparently part-bear) a table away who kept eating chips as though he'd found them unattended and hadn't had a trans fat in a while and MMMM HULK HUNGRY GAR SMASH SOUR CREAM AND ONION I'm a little scared for my safety could you slow down?


The C4-looking-for-some-nice-blasting-caps level of fevered rage in my brain is making it difficult to come up with a way to ask the Chatties to STFU without, well, telling them to STFU.


Hey, sometime let me tell you about how I can sometimes be melodramatic. Shocking, I know.


The talking is enough that I passive-aggressively changed my Skype status this morning to something about a complete lack of silence in the world nowadays. Maybe they saw it. Maybe they didn't. Fuck it, it was quiet.


OH OH OH.


One of the women who sits at the chatty table (two women, two men) talks incessantly about the most inane shit on the planet. Yesterday she thought she had broken her toe. Did she examine her toe? Did she tape it? No, she talked about it, including getting into a half-argument with one of the guys at the table about the difference in pain levels between sprained and broken toes and said it hurt to walk but then seemed to scoot around the office with no problem and that probably means it's not broken and OH MY FUCKING GOD I'M GOING TO BREAK IT FOR REAL IF YOU DON'T SHUT THE FUCK UP.


Today, thankfully, the table was blissfully quiet for a solid hour, if not 90 minutes. I was able to just. write. and sink into music from Marc Cohn, Stevie Wonder, and Enya. My God it was bliss. At some point in the afternoon, the talking ramped back up but I'd had a hormonal shift since yesterday or I was high on the success of two articles done before noon -- whatever -- and didn't care as much. That said, something was subliminally sparked. The authors were looking for articles to write and Madame Sore Toe said she could hand over an article that she had taken that was about Brazil. Everyone kind of looked at each other and there was mumbling about what was available and MST said again, "This article I have, it's about Brazil" and then more murmured chaos and "There's, like, this article? Brazil?" and I snapped, "WHAT'S IT ABOUT? YOU'VE SAID BRAZIL THREE TIMES." 

Petal. Cracked. UP.

I got a secret Skype message from The Fervent Nosher (who shares my frustration with the talking) and said, "Let that one slip, did ya?"

Halfway through Madame Sore Toe's stammered explanation, I realized I was laughing because WOW that seriously just slipped out and I openly called myself an asshole and meanwhile Petal is still laughing, Fervent is laughing, people at MST's table are laughing... and MST doesn't appear to realize, even for a second, what's going on.

I still don't know what that fucking article is about. Barcelona?


New tunes


I stumbled across Tori Amos' Night of Hunters on Spotify tonight and HOLY CRAP. I have not immediately liked an album as quickly as this in some time. Like, I need to go to a music store tomorrow and buy a CD. No, I don't like MP3s or MP4s or digital bit byte download what-the-iFuck-ever. Gimme a CD! Also, some petunias and a cane to shake at whippersnappers with their hipster haircuts and fancy music. Brats. They probably talk a lot and like Brazil. HMMPH.