A busy couple of weeks

By gum, I am full of pizza.

Thank the Gods, it's Friday.

It's been a hectic couple of weeks and I am worn out.  I should have been on annual leave right now, and in Greece, for a fortnight; but things have worked out differently in the end and I'm here instead.

I hardly know where to begin.  There are things where I'm not sure how much it's okay for me to say.  I was interviewed for my job, and I've been told verbally how I did, but not officially in writing.  Some of my colleagues are in the same boat and others haven't been told yet, some of them because they've only just been interviewed.  In theory the new structure for our department is formally anounced next week; so I think I should probably do well not to talk about it until then.

The whole business of getting thus far has been horribly drawn-out.  Different departments started their restructure programmes at different times, and some aren't as advanced as ours.  I cannot wait for it all to be over, and I'm sure I am not the only person who feels that way.  I understand the need to do this, I even agree with it; but it's no less exhausting and depressing for that.

Meanwhile, I've had a good week in other ways.  I got some things done at work that I wanted to get done, wrote most of another chapter at home, of something that had got bogged-down, and had a couple of drinks with some colleagues tonight followed by a very self-indulgent pizza supper. The weather has been bright and cheerful too, and the first autumn colour is staring to gild the streets and the gardens, and the Gardens too.  The autumn festival, the Intoxication Season, is excellent, too, with some really good displays and a terrific programme of talks at the weekends.  The autumn theatre season starts next week for me, too, with "Manon" at Covent Garden with the DipGeek.  I am tired-out, but on balance it's been a good week, at least on a personal level (the international situation doesn't bear thinking about, but this is not a socio-political blog).

I think the worst thing that has happened to me was this morning, when I went to a colleague's baby shower and unexpectedly the chap I've been trying not-to-have the crush on walked in.  I was so taken aback I could hardly look at him at first.  Then there came a moment when he was nearby, taking some grapes from a dish, and I wanted to say something sensible and friendly, something that would signal that I just want to be friends; but my eye fell on his hands, as he stood there peacefully picking grapes from the bunch, and my idiotic brain was completely paralysed by the sight.  All I could think was damn-you-have-such-attractive-hands...  Nothing intelligent occured to me at all; nothing that was adult and friendly and devoid of embarrassing overtones.  I am hopeless.

I do accept, rationally, that he isn't interested in me in the way I am in him.  But my irrational hind-brain is rushing about in bearskins howling, it would seem.  Damn it, calm down, you.

Apparently his office is being moved, though; he's going to be in the same building as me soon.  So I will have plenty of opportunity to teach myself to be calm and adult and a good colleague, and not a mad hairy crazy cavewoman.  I vow to do better.  After all, good grief, I don't even know if he's gay or straight or any one of the myriad nuances in between.  It simply won't do to be cavewoman Ims, acting out and jangling my beads and waving my fancy flint hand-axe.  He's a nice man, he deserves better than that; and so do I.  Friendship's the thing.  That fing wot grown-ups do.  You can do this, Ims.

Epic fail, plus sewing projects

I've been pretty busy at work this week, and this afternoon I managed to lash something up on Outlook.  I'd had a personal email I wanted to answer, from one of my best friends; I dashed off a quick reply and sent it; and it bounced.  No idea why (computers are weird).

So, irritably, as I was trying not to take extra time over it, I went >select all > copy all > new email > paste, entered the first two letters of the intended recipient's name into the "To" box and clicked enter as her name came up, and sent it.  Only to see, next moment, that I had sent it to the wrong person.  Said best friend's name begins with the same two letters as a colleague at work's name.  I email her a lot (because best friends, yup?); but I also email him a lot (because colleague of vital importance).  It turns out they are running neck-and-neck in my contacts list for that initial.

I tried to recall the email, but in the thirty seconds or so when I was still sitting frozen, staring at my screen and thinking "No... no... noo" he had already opened it.  "Recall email" doesn't work once the email has been opened.  Oh sh*t.

Scream at computer.  Write hasty grovelling & embarrassed apology.  Cross all available digits and wait.

I imagine he was still reading, and thinking "I don't need to know this, and my mother is not being a goose about my wedding - my wedding?!? - and why would I need lace and jam jars?" and contemplating how to tell me I'd cocked up, when he got the apology.  He was, of course, a complete gentleman about it, so it isn't an absolute disaster. 

But it is utterly mortifying to do something so bloody stupid; and if I can do it once, I could do it again.  And I could do it in far worse ways.  It's really shaken my self-esteem to make such an idiotic mistake, just because I'm tired and stressed and trying to do something in a hurry.  I thought I was an efficient, professional person who didn't balls things up.  Ha-bloody-ha, so much for that idea.

I suppose it is good for one, to be reminded that one is just as capable of making a really imbecilic mistake as anybody else.  If even Jove nods, then common-or-garden mortal Ims is bound to, and it's a kind of mild hubris to think I can't.

I still wanted to weep for a while afterwards, though.  Epic bloody fail, woman.  Epic.

I came home, ate felafels, felt disconsolate and incompetant, and watched "Great British Bake-Off", which is schadenfreude of the first water in such situations.

I've been trying to cheer myself up, since then, by getting on with some of my sewing.  I bought a dress in the sales for £11; when I tried it on in the shop it was one of those garments that don't quite work, but I could see it had the potential to be something rather smart, with a little help.  So I bought it anyway, and am adjusting it.  I've taken off the sleeves and taken out the zip, and I'm refitting the waistline and the bust darts, and turning the edges of the shoulders under to make it sleeveless.  It's a really unusual fabric, a screen-printed design in grey with green orchids.  I think it's going to be rather snazzy when I finish.

I'm also engaged on cannibalising two other old dresses to make a third; when finished this will have a rather 1920's cut with no waist at all, cap sleeves and a harlequin-patchwork panel down the front.  And I'm converting a black evening dress into an evening top as a present for the DipGeek.  Lots of sewing, then; and when I turn out my winter things I'll probably find more jobs there, too.  I don't have a sewing machine, so this is all hand work.  Luckily  I find needlework very relaxing of an evening.  I feel much better now.  I've almost got over the email fiasco >whimper<