Bookshelf:

Recently Read:

• Lisa Carey, In the Country of the Young

Currently Reading:

• Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers

Next Up:

1. Guy Gavriel Kay, Tigana
2. Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game
3. Orson Scott Card, Speaker for the Dead
4. Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life
5. Howard V. Hendrix, Empty Cities of the Full Moon
6. Tony Daniel, Metaplanetary
7. Yogesh Chadha, Gandhi: A Life
8. Wil McCarthy, The Collapsium
9. Maxine McArthur, Time Past
10. Pat Cadigan, Synners

'I Want You to Kill all the Golfers'

Man, did I only write five entries last month? I'm slackin'! Well, I do put up occasional tidbits in my LiveJournal from time to time, just so you know.

Getting Monique down to see my house has been a comedy of errors. She and Lucy were both invited to my birthday party back in January, but they were both invited to someone else's party on the same day and so couldn't come. Lucy managed to make it down a month or so later, but Monique and I just haven't been able to synchronize our schedules until now. And yesterday, she made it down.

There aren't many people left to show my house to, although my Dad will see it when he visits me next month. Maybe I feel like I'm getting "out of practice" at showing it. Still, Monique seemed suitably impressed with my (as she called it) "cute little house", though she says I need to paint my walls some color other than "boring beige".

I got lots of great dirt on her, too, none of which - sadly - I can reveal without her hiring some of her art-house assassin friends to come down and kill me. So y'all will just have to suffer in ignorance.

I gathered that information at great personal risk, too, since she and Debbi seemed to hit it off fairly well. At least, well enough to spend the afternoon double-teaming me. But I got my revenge since I kicked their asses at miniature golf. We also introduced Monique to Hobees, and hit the ice cream shop on Castro St.

Notwithstanding some of the problems she's related in her journal, Monique seems to be happy and healthy. Maybe if we're crafty we can manage to see each other before another 10 months have passed.

Debbi and I also played minigolf today, at a place in Sunnyvale we'd never been to before. It's in much better shape than the course in Redwood City. I like the themes of their course better, too, although its implementation needs some work: I managed to bonk balls off of a hidden pole in a hole twice, and another hole had a slot that it appeared you wanted to shoot your ball into, when in fact you want not to do exactly that. Grump.

I was unfortunately in "bad loser" mode for part of the game because of some of the problems I had (both with the course and with my own play). I'm sort of cursed with being both a bad winner and a bad loser. I work on trying not to be either, but I've never been very successful. I have a copy of a report card from first grade where the teacher notes that I'm a bad loser. Debbi was pretty peeved at me during the latter half of the game because of this.

I'm pretty competitive, but I don't often feel like I'm especially competitive. I feel more like I'm often not as good at things (like life) as most people, and that I have to fight all the time to keep up, to not get left behind. I know it's not really true, but it often feels that way. (Have I ever mentioned that I worried for the first two years when I was working at Epic that I might get fired? Not a slur on the company, just a basic lack of confidence in my own skills, which took me a long time to overcome.) No doubt the fact that I've tended to surround myself with people who are at least as smart as I am is a factor here, as is the high-stakes nature of life in Silicon Valley (with its very high cost of living).

All basically ended well, relationship-wise, but it wasn't a high-water mark for me.

Anyway, we went food shopping afterwards, and then came come and I cooked more Indian food: A chicken dish in a yogurt sauce which was quite strongly spiced, most likely because of the cardamom pods in it, and secondarily due to the red pepper. It was pretty good, but not as good as the last two dishes I'd cooked.

Debbi's off for the week to a conference he workplace is putting on. So I'll be on my own. On top of that, a bunch of friends are taking this week off from work. John and Becky decided to throw a Bridge-a-thon at Becky's place on Wednesday. I sent them mail saying I'd be able to come after work, since I don't have any vacation to spare.

So Thursday I'm talking to Anders (a cow-orker) with Syd (a manager in my department, though not my manager) listening in when John (who's also a manager in the department, though also not my manager) says, "So couldn't you just play hooky that day? Or just that afternoon," he added when I hem and haw. When I continue to er and um, he stalks off, and a minute or two comes back and says, "Okay, I'm just gotten official manager approval for you to take next Wednesday off." Yes, that's right, he went to talk to Mike, who actually is my manager. Right behind John is Dave, who is John's, Syd's and Mike's manager, with a big grin on his face. I point at John and say to Dave, "This is his idea! I just want to be clear on that!"

Syd puts in, to John: "Hey, do you think you could get my manager to do the same for me?"

I don't really mind, though. An afternoon playing Bridge with friends is always a good thing! I'm just pretty conscientious about my work.

Anyway, we all laughed ourselves silly over this exchange. But maybe you had to be there.

I'll try to write more entries this month. I can pretty much guarantee one on Tuesday. You all know why, right?