The past week has been fun and even exciting. I’ve had enjoyable meetings, which may seem like an oxymoron, but it wasn’t. However, the meetings and deadlines and new assignments pushed my big client onto Friday, so that I had eight hours of link requests yesterday.
Four hours a day is about right. When I was an in-house SEO, I went up to the store on Tuesdays and did link requests there, where there were lots of interruptions. Now, I do four hours a day, and do other things for the rest of the work day. This is because it is hard on the body to spend eight solid hours at this task. You run applications and stare at forms bristling with data and sort and resort and click on things and quickly scan the sites to guage their usefulness and analyze their language and compose a letter from the one of your collection of email addresses that seems most likely to appeal, and fill out online forms, and type URLs over and over and over, and it gets wearing on the eyes, the wrists, and the hands.
So when I got to the end of my eight hours, I copied the cat.
I had a book, but that was roughly what I did and where I did it.
For the Summer Reading Challenge, we are supposed to read two books a week, blog about the books, and also show where we’re reading. So that’s where I was reading.
What I am reading: Brian Wiprud’s hard-boiled yet humorous series about a taxidermist who gets into scrapes with the underworld. And not just gangsters, though that happens. He also gets involved with carnies, cults, and the paranormal.
Who would have thought that a taxidermist would have such an exciting life?
I think it’s good to read these books all in a row. The first has an apologia for taxidermy, and by the time you’re halfway through the second you’re over your disgust. Booksfree has been kind enough to send them to me one after another so that I can do this.
In addition to lolling around (I didn’t quite finish that last night, and must complete it today), I also have to do housework, minor furniture moving, and grocery shopping.
Chanthaboune and I are having a virtual meeting about our book audition, and I will have to capture some of the ideas we’ve had floating around and pin them to — um, not paper, but the virtual page.
Also my website. I’m using a template that The Computer Guy already made, which will be a savings. I’ve got the HTML for the template, but the CSS is somewhere inaccessible to me, which means that I’m having to imagine that the text and images are in the places where they belong.
Speaking of which, thank you for the votes on yesterday’s images. I particularly liked how evenly divided they were, though I have eliminated #1 from consideration.
How about these?
I could just have one of them sitting in the logo spot on the template, with the words “fibermom, plyer of the dark art” neatly beside it.
More harmless-looking than the curly energy light one?
Though I do like that one a lot.
Alissa said it made her think of science. And that made me think of something a knitting designer wrote recently.
“Since my training is in the sciences,” she said, “I tend to gravitate toward casual clothes.” This was an explanation of why she had designed a gray hooded sweatshirt. If I were going to make a gray hooded thing, I’d make Rogue, rather than aiming for the look of a $12.95 gym clothes kind of garment, so I wasn’t tempted by her design.
That’s not fair, by the way. I didn’t click on the thumbnail. It might be utterly gorgeous in a larger picture.
But I am wondering whether that can be my excuse for being ill-groomed and poorly dressed. Being a computer guy presupposes that I will be ill-dressed, ill-groomed, ill-fed, and ill-rested. I’m trying hard not to give in to that, with little success. But, since I don’t look like a computer guy except in the sense of having worn the same pair of jeans all week and fished a wrinkled polo shirt out of the laundry basket (the clean laundry!), I might feel more justified if I claimed that is was my scientific training that caused me to look like a homeless person.
The exhaustion and pizza delivery boxes are strictly computer guy.
Today, however, though it certainly will involve a few hours at the computer working on the book audition and the website design, is not a day for giving int ot he computer guy ethos. It is a day for rising above that, for bringing civilization into the household in the form of groceries, cleanliness,coordinated throw pillows, and intentional food.
I may even finish that blue nightgown-like top.
The very idea of intentional food bores me. Just keep around some meats, cheeses, and a good loaf of crusty bread. Stock the fruit bowl with dates and dried apples and you’re good to go.
Though this might be spoken from the mouth of a bachelorette.
I need to introduce you to Essex Boy. Crisply pressed shirts, dark denim jeans (never anything remotely worn), polished shoes, Burberry where applicable, a penchant for pale blue and pale pink shirts currently very keen on checks, and I don’t think I have ever seen him in a t-shirt in my life. He’s our Wintel guy….
Me? I wear what I feel like. So anything from a tailored suit to slightly disintegrating jeans with a rugger shirt. Via dresses, Guide uniform and a strong 50s vibe in the summertime.
I can’t even generalise regarding being customer facing, or not. But I do make slightly more effort if I’m meeting someone out of the department (although that isn’t the only time I’ll make an effort!)
~x~
@chanthaboune – Sandwiches and dried fruit on this plate. Sole meuniere, brown rice pilaf with almonds and shredded carrots, steamed green beans from the garden, and Chocolate Mousse Torte on that one. Pick.
@pink_hebe – Yeah. I put on aun wrinkled shirt, shoes, and a jacket for my client meetings. Lipstick, too. Just didn’t change the jeans.
You might want to consider the possibility that the Unkemptness thing is genetic…
And I should point out, while I’m here, that Margaret Mead was famously Unkempt.
Intentional food for one Is sandwiches and dried fruit.
Aww, your cat is adorable! Our cat does that too! I still prefer the images on your last post for your website, but that’s just me.
so which websites designs have you narrowed it down to? did i miss one? the first logo makes me think of fruit. maybe because i was sandwiches between 2 cherry vendors today at the farmer’s market. you might just need a crystal ball for a logo. but that’s probably altogether tooooo spacey.
I bought the Rogue pattern. I blame you. But it’s so sophisticated for a hoodie! There are so many beautiful things I want to knit! I think I could knit from my stash for the rest of my life.
@alissasorenson – See, I need to improve my attitude there. I think you think of your stash as welath, and I tend to think of it as neglected stuff on a to-do list.
Sounds like your time with the therapist is being very eye-opening.
@JewelE19 – I think you’re right, though. More eye-catching.
@formerprincess – Well, I like the whole-page background ones, but I think they won’t be compatible withthe template my Computer Guy is using, and there is a space for a logo, which of course I don’t have. So I may send him several images and leave it in his hands. At the moment, I’m leaning toward the light one further down the page — the oen with blue and yellow light coiling around. I don’t know what it is, but it makes me think of energy and thoughts and stuff traveling through the internet.
i like that one, too.