catch

Today has been a Bad Day. I knew it the minute I got to work (it was the sinking feeling again) and it got steadily worse as I stood at the coffee machine holding back tears.

My tears followed me to a meeting and then to my office where I quickly finished a needed document and then started planning my Escape.

By 12:15 pm, I was out the door having sent off a cursory "I'm sick" email. I took my dog on a walk and then headed to the Arboretum to shop in generic chain stores that I happen to have sizable gift certificates for. Unsurprisingly, I didn't find
anything I liked, and headed to Amy's Ice Cream for a snack. Ice cream always makes me feel better.

The girl behind the counter asked what I was up to and I told her I was having a bad day at work so I left. She agreed that my Belgium ice cream/Reese's Peanut Butter Cups selection would cheer me up. And she said if I could catch my ice cream I could
get it for free. She armed me with a large cup, sent me to the middle of the room and hurled my ice cream ball at me. It landed squarely in my cup! Yay for free ice cream. All those years of softball come in handy sometimes. I started to feel better
instantly, thanks to a random stranger.

While eating my delicious, free snack and looking at the pretty park behind the Arboretum, it occurred to me that I'm PMS'ing.

It's not that work is more frustrating that usual, it's that I am more prone to, I think, emotional attacks. In fact, I've done this "freak out at work" thing a few times, when it all seems to have gotten the better of me, and I'm willing to bet almost all of them coincided with the same few Pills.

This realization made me feel a lot better, since emotional outbursts at work embarrass and befuddle me. Of course, it makes me wonder how many times over the last many years this has happened and I didn't realize that my hormones might have contributed to it. However, now that I have noticed it, I can track it, and see if it is hormones and figure out if there's something to do about it.

On the feel better front, I followed up ice cream with a movie, a stop at a local bookstore, a nap, and a long perusal through a new cookbook.

Now, I plan on Continuing My Day as Planned. I'm off to buy groceries for my cooking night dish and to do menial chores around the house.

Celebrity

Tonight was a night of random boys with funny names. I went out with my friend Susanne to a "think and drink" at Oslo's, which is termed dubbed by the MBAs to make getting drunk on a Thursday night seem like work. There is no thinking, but there is
copious amounts of drinking. Tonight there was also dancing.

I am somewhat of a celebrity among the MBA crowd (or at least Susanne makes me feel like one) I am introduced as the "reason she moved to texas" and lots of people are excited to meet me or know who I am when introduced as "Kristine". I am constantly
being introduced around, like i am an important person at a fancy party. Plus i am usually one of the only people not in "The Program" so that makes me more unique. Its pretty fun.

Some random guy names Ronald comes up to me and asks if everyone is an MBA to which I excitedly reply I am not. He starts up the Chat. He: IP Lawyer Me: Video Game developer. which gets me whisked off to a corner so he can ask me more questions about that. After 10 minutes of chatting, he asks for my number. With hesitation, I tell him to give me his. He says never mind and leaves. Which suits me fine since he did this funny nervous hand in front of mouth while talking thing that drove me crazy.

Later, while dancing to DJ Mel (it was pretty good. definitely of the generic bump and grind variety, but still quality work) I mention to Susanne that I think some guy nearby is cute. I forgot what my college friends do with that information. They march right over and let the guy in question know.

In this case, Susanne ripped him away from the girls that were flirting with him, tells his friend along the way that I think he's cute, and then we stand there looking at each other dumbly upon his confused arrival. Some dancing occurs. The friends re-arrange themselves on the dance floor to get us closer together. It feels suspiciously like 7th grade and I was hoping DJ Mel would kick in with some Digital Underground or Salt N Pepa or something.

This was not at all "my style".

After a bit, i get a name: Pamon, Payton, something with a P and a mon. We laugh about the guy doing a backbend into some girl's lap, gyrating his pelvis and lifting his shirt and playing with his nipples. She seemed to dig it. It was too painful to
pull away from.

We awkwardly dance a bit more. I get distracted by Susanne. He goes to the bathroom. I get claustrophobic, hot and tired so I leave.

My ears are still ringing. I smell smokey. And I'm glad to be home a little more entertained about single life than before.

like, duh!

its tuesday and its on its way to being one of "those" weeks. yesterday i arrived at home to find a large crate & barrel box waiting for me. surely, someone didn't buy me some sort of random gift, i thought.

nope. its the wedding gift for brinker and matt that should have gone to pittsburgh, but i accidently had shipped to me. so the $15 i paid to the store will again be paid to the post office to get these glasses from austin to pittsburgh. where they should have gone in the first place.

tonight, i spilled wine, not once, but twice on my carpet. there are two new pretty pink patterns on my quickly deteriorating-toward-embarassingly-stained carpet. i guess i'll consider it a step in the get rid of the ugly rug direction.

with any luck, i'll show my full ditsy glory by the end of the week. hair twirling, eye rolling and "i don't get it" aren't too far away. its rare. thank god.

in other news, it seems that the pixies are playing a non-ACL show down here, but I am getting all sorts of conflicting information about it. So far it seems to be at Stubb's in October. When I get more, I'll post to the show calendar.

make it three

So show season is finally in full force here in Austin. After a drought of bands coming through this summer, there is an impressive line-up for fall.

Tuesday night I went to see Electrelane at Emo's inside stage. They were excellent!!! While I have been mildly obsessed with their album for the past couple of months, I wasn't sure how they would be live. But they exceeded my expectations by a long shot. They rocked hard, even jammed out a bit in a way this anti-jam fan liked. Bad ass female rockers had an enamored audience. I think everyone had a crush on one of them by the end.

I even bought a shirt, which I never do. Great show combined with super graphic design on a t-shirt was hard to resist.

Wednesday, I saw some experimental hip-hop at the Parish. Blockhead was pretty good. I chatted a bit during his set, which means it wasn't quite interesting enough. Sixtoo and DJ Signify were great. I hadn't heard a lot of Sixtoo's stuff before the
show, but I dug it and have added him to my CD purchase list. (Sorry, no MP3s for these guys)

Tonight, I am going to Broken Social Scene at the Parish. They were easily my favorite show during SXSW last year, and I am psyched to see them at Austin's best music venue.

Here's hoping I end the week with a third excellent show.

Blather, blather: Talk that got nowhere

So I didn't just get drunk and sleep little while the Women's Game Conference. was going on. I attended most of the sessions, with the exception of the ones I slept or ate through and the ones I skipped to go to "the other side" - the Austin Game Conference.

The short summary of this conference is: good start, much improvement needed. While I liked, in theory, the idea of a Women's Game Conference, I was concerned that it would be a bitter venting fest with lots of talk, little decisive action, and some
polarization between the bitter and not-bitter camps. Now, it could have been worse for sure, but all of those unfortunate attributes were there.

The underlying theme of this conference through the panels, roundtables and questions from the audience was "building consensus of women's experience in the industry" I wish I'd been the one to sum this up so succinctly, but it was Robin, woman of funny and brilliant thoughts.

And frankly, we'll never build consensus. It's impossible to combine 100+ people of a wide variety of experience, age, position, and personality into a well-defined slick mission statement we can all agree on. Fuck, 4 people going to a movie can't all agree on what the highlights were.

"My male co-workers are trying to run me out of the building" seemed to be that underlying mission statement of this conference. But that doesn't represent me or many others I spoke with.

My experience is this: I work at an office full of guys (and this is the third industry I've worked in where that is true).

It's notable only occasionally, usually in random ways that have nothing to do with gender politics. I'm not ignored, though I think we can all agree I am hard to ignore. I am not fawned over or flirted with. I work. I contribute. I am part of a team.

Sometimes I point out things like "most of these character profiles are male, can we mix it up a bit" to which the answers is always, "good point, let's do that." In short, me being female isn't a hinderance. Often it isn't even noteworthy.

Of course a person's experience is unique to her. Some people have been targets of blatant or insidious sexism (and I have seen my fair share of both in previous jobs), have worked for clueless bosses or in an oppressive company culture, and and had morons or totally assholes as coworkers. In no way am I trying to diminish the truth of those experiences.

All experiences are valid. But there is a slippery slope to talk about them in a way that isn't negative or an accusation on the the male-dominated industry as a whole. And it's this slope that keeps women who have had positive experiences in the industry from going to these types of gatherings, and for the ones that did attend, will keep them from coming back next year.

When trying to build consensus around a negative theme, even if not done on purpose, it sounds like a bitch session. We don't need a conference bitch session. Therapists, family and friends are for venting and figuring out how you as an individual can deal with the people around you. Conferences should be for determining action plans, suggesting policies and standards, and most importantly, bringing visibly to the actions that need to be taken by attendees, and the industry as a whole.

And we severely lacked on the action-oriented discussions. It is the first year of this conference, so I am willing to cut a lot of slack. However, next year, I don't want to talk about what issues are facing women in the work place today. We don't need to agree on the issues. We need to introduce solutions to the largest problems (IMO, shitty to no pay or services for childcare and giving birth, unequal pay, and getting more games marketed toward women) I want to talk about what polices we can work toward, strategies we can suggest on how we dealt with specific situations of inequality, and what other industries are doing to solve these problems. And frankly, these aren't women issues. Any solutions to the above will benefit the industry as a whole.

The upside is that I am motivated to get involved in this whole "Women in Games" business. I've been floundering around for a while trying to figure out what I can contribute. I've felt that I don't have much to add, but I realize that isn't true. My experience, passion, and insight are worthy contribution alone. And since I am so hard to ignore and all, I can put that to good use.

The inspiration I took home with me was not from the sessions and panels, it was from the conversations I had at lunch, over drinks, and in hallways. It was about better policies to support families, better management strategies to make sure life comes before work, outreach that can be done to encourage more young women into the industry, and mentorship to help individuals deal with their unique situations.

Conferences: Drinking, Dehydration, and Oversleeping

Professional conferences = time to party. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has herculean days that start at 7:30 am and end at 2 am, with the in-between hours filled with conference seminars, talking with people about said seminars, eating, drinking, and socializing until far to late. This is done for days in a row. That's what makes them fun and not mind-numbingly boring.

And Thursday and Friday, Austin was home to the Austin Game Conference and Women's Game Conference, which meant I got to party, er, I mean attend seriously though-provoking seminars on blah, blah, blah.

Right, it was about the socializing.

And really, my staying up late drinking and getting up early started before the conference did because I fell into the trap of thinking I only had to go to work for 2 days this week, even though conferences always start much early then the comfortable 10 am I need to be at work by.

So Wednesday I stumble into work a little after 10 am, dehydrated, tired and a little hung over from the several beers I drank and 2 movies I watched until 3 am the night before. It occurred to me to fill my LARGE water cup with water. I got coffee instead.

Wednesday night, there was an outing to Club Deville since Robin and Heather are in town for the conference. We had a grand time at Club Deville. Conversation was mostly hilarious all night and I didn't stay too late.

But it was too late to get up in time for my 7:50 AM bus downtown on Thursday. When I got home, I gulped down half a glass of water that was so cold it hurt my teeth and then set my alarm before passing out to blissful sleep. But I mis-set my alarm. It didn't go off. I woke up at 8:30. 15 minutes after I was supposed to be at the convention center. Oh well, The extra sleep was grand. But I forgot to grab my Nalgene before leaving and didn't have time to get coffee.

Thursday post-conference sessions, I went to grab drinks with some people. Then I went to cooking night where we had delicious food and wine. Robin told delightfully dirty, funny stories over dessert. And then Brian, Robin and I went drinking at Lovejoy's with a cute pirate and his very drunk, fairly unintelligible friend. For no apparent reason, the owner bought us a round of shots (I didn't partake since I don't do shots), which was cool.

Friday, my alarm went off in time for me to make the 7:50 bus, but I keep hitting snooze anyway. Conference arrival time = 9 am. Nalgene and coffee were in hand; thirst and tiredness in remission for a while. By 3 pm, I was dreaming of a nap and
decided to head out. At 6 pm, I actually left.

So I could sleep before going out to drink more.

Dallas and I headed downtown for food to be appropriately located in case any of our "maybe we'll meet up later" post-conference drinking plans worked out. Dallas's friend met us at Lovejoy's (not an original choice on my part) with 2 other guys of the slightly awkward nerdy game developer/business types . Somehow, I ended up being the leader of a cheesy-bar-with-hot-young-blonde-women expedition. We had a plan that involved score cards and heckling the one friend as he tried to pick up chicks. We landed at Speakeasy with a loud, shitty cover band. But I didn't pay cover and didn't pay for many drinks, and managed to escape to the less offensive upstairs with a bad ass view fairly quickly.

A totally random guy started chatting up Dallas and I for innocent friendly conversation about Austin vs. California and politics. And then Dallas went to get drinks. And then this happened:

Random Guy: So how long have you been dating?
Kristine: Um, er (trying to find appropriate answer to indicate that we haven't talked about that at all). Not long.
RG: He really likes you.
K: Um, I guess. (beginning to think that this nice friendly guy is a bit of a weirdo)
(Dallas comes back and then leaves again)
RG: But I can tell by your body language that you guys aren't meant to be.
K: Um, well that not quite how it works (now sure that guy is weirdo)
RG: Well you know I can tell about these things. Body language and signals and all.
RG: He totally loves you
K (laugh) Um, nope.
RG: Well he digs you.
K: Sure I guess. I like him too.

(Dallas re-appears and Random Guy abruptly takes off)

We huddle to discuss Random Guy. Apparently his motivations for chatting up Dallas may have been of the trying to pick him up variety and who the fuck knows what his motivations were with all the body language crap. We got a good laugh out of it, and I guess it later lead to the "status" conversation. If I was less drunk and sleep deprived I probably would remember it better.

But I think it went like this:

D: (talking about something not at all related to the rest of this thread, but I don't remember what)
K: So are we hooking up or dating? (sips drink)
D: Dating, I think.
K: OK. Good. How does that relate to dating other people?
D: (paraphrasing gratuitously for the next couple of lines) Well I think I can date you and date other people
K: (offers high five)
D: Serial monogamy isn't quite the right model for me
K: (offers high five)
D: Often I end up exclusively dating someone very quickly and I don't want to do that.
K: (offers high five and possibly a drink cheers) Great. Glad we agree on seeing other people.
D: If that stops being OK for one of us, we can talk about this again.
K: Yep. Wow, this conversation was shockingly successful. Great. (insert some random babblings about me not wanting to be monogamous. beats the shit out of me what I specifically said. I just know I said something)

Shortly after this, we are ditched by the friends as he pursued some chick to another bar, and we are drunk and tired enough to leave. And this marks the end of copious alcohol drinking for days in a row.

Alarm Struggle

A couple of weeks ago, I promised myself I would start waking up earlier so I can get to work earlier and leave early enough to spend time outside while its still light. The first couple of days went great. However, since then I've been having a
worse-than-usual struggle to wake up.

I've always hated waking up. My alarm can go off for an hour while I sleep through it. I have an impressive array of sleeping-through-the-alarm stories that date back to childhood. It's set on ridiculously loud, and roommates and boyfriends have hated it for as long as I've had either. However, I can (usually) wake up no problem when it's important (flights, appointments).

Yesterday (my day off), I woke up without the alarm before 9 am. I was excited to start my day of free yoga, swimming and errands. It occurred to me that my recent waking up problems might be because I dread coming to work, and therefore don't want
to wake up.

And this morning my alarm went off at 8 am. I hit snooze a couple of times and was "awake". Awake enough to notice I wasn't super psyched to get up, but I should get out of bed anyway so I could leave work early. And then I fell back asleep. Off and on. For an hour. I got out of bed at 9 am and made it to work by 10 am. Sigh. (For the record, I’m working the likable job bit)

It's beautiful out today. Cool, sunny. As I drove into the parking garage at work, I was overwhelmed at how much I didn't want to be here. I had an awesome 3-day weekend. Hung out. No schedule. Did fun stuff like yoga classes, swimming, BBQ and Polvo's) and also had time to lay around and read, run errands, and plant my new tree.

So try as I might, I can't seem to motivate myself to get up early to do something I dread even if it makes the non-dreadful part of my day more interesting. So instead, I'll show up at work on time to late.

Today, I'll write blog posts while I eat my delicious salad of spinach and argula (thanks cooking night, via Randy I think, for the yummy salad recipe) at my desk, mourn the fact the my ICQ isn't working so I only have my AIM buddies to distract me, and leave early for my haircut and go grab coffee at Mojo's where I can sit outside and read my book and pretend I don't have a job I can't wake up for.

i'm sinister

Apparently sinister means left-handed. I've lived 27 years without knowing that. And this weekend two different people told me. Just being left-handed was enough for me, but now I have this delightful adjective to go with it. I've always liked how it rolls off the tongue. Lucky me. I'm sinister every day.

straighter already

I took my third yoga class this week. The first was the Iyengar beginner's class on Saturday with Brian, subject of the highly-commented upon post about said yoga.

The second being a Hatha class on Monday that I didn't like and today being the magical class Yoga Yoga said was Hatha but seemed like Iyengar to me (based on my deep hour and half of knowledge from Saturday and no clear understanding of the specific differences between the two). Clearly I need to do more research. (Recommend away folks)

There was unanimous opinion among class attendees on the magic. It was a small class and I'm fairly sure the magic came from the instructor going around and gently tugging on our heads and shoulders while we were laying in Savasana. Delightful tingling ensued. It was lovely, lovely, lovely.

I'll credit Brian with lots of yoga education in the last few months, which has made more interested in learning the technique, which in turn, has made me much less competitive. I used to fall into the trap of thinking I should be able to stretch more than that 50-year-old woman across the room even though I am out of shape, have terrible posture, and have hamstrings so tight I can sit down and either put my legs out straight in front of me or keep my back straight. But not both. In short, I used to find yoga painful.

This time around, with a mindset more closely aligned with the spirit of yoga, I am finding it much more enjoyable. Miraculously, I find that I've been sore in my shoulders and upper back all week from KEEPING MY BACK STRAIGHT. Even now, sitting in my bed, my back isn't rounded. Just a couple of good yoga classes has made me much more aware of my back muscles and what they are doing. Those of you who know my posture know that me not slouching is a BIG DEAL. Ha, I have hope of not being the hunchback grandmother yet. Perhaps Brian is right and yoga will cure all my ills.