Hazy

A fair amount of things since the last post.

Saw Wicked at the Bushnell Theater last night with movie.girl. Amazing show! I highly recommend catching it if they come to a theater near you. This was a rather spur of the moment viewing that she arranged last weekend.

Funny (to me at least) "incident" with movie.girl on Tuesday night. Apparently she'd e-mailed her most recent former fiancé (with whom she broke things off back in Spring of this year) in an attempt to obtain "closure." The discussions this and the subsequent e-mails fostered was nothing short of fascinating. I'll summarize by noting that I eventually asked the silver-bullet question that managed to help her put this guy in suitable perspective. I have to remember how to do that so I can do so again in the future (i.e., ask the "right" question).

Also on Tuesday, in company of movie.girl, I bought too many movies, something like 10 or so. I have far too many to watch. Also need to see a few in the theater, namely Enchanted and Hit Man, though I believe others will be opening soon.

I'm very tired today. I've been operating on too little sleep this week due to: late night working on Monday (not as productive as I'd hoped), usual late night hanging out with movie.girl on Tuesday, and mildly late night with movie.girl last night for Wicked. I'm exhausted. I will get a good night sleep tonight because if I don't I will keel over tomorrow.

Tomorrow night I get to play boardgames. Yay!!! This is fun.

Way too much work to do at work. Waaaaaaaay too much. I am sinking beneath a sea of office actions and applications and it's not getting better. Granted, writing this post is not helping.

Thanksgiving was the usual affair. Turkey, relatives & pie. Notable items this year include my older cousin being 3-4 months pregnant with a boy, my younger cousin going for surgery this Monday to work on a keloid thing with his ear, and my aunt being a little more crazed than usual. Grandparents are doing alright. I bought some DVDs and games on Black Friday.

Traded 2-3 e-mails with a woman on JDate. Currently waiting (hoping?) for her to reply. Will probably suggest a phone call before a meet up as she lives out in central Long Island. Google Maps has it at a shade over 2 hours by car (up to 3 hours if traffic). I'm wondering if taking the ferry (from Bridgeport to Port Jefferson) wouldn't be preferable. I checked and it would only be cost-worthy if I went as a passenger (i.e., too expensive with my car). This is far from an ideal solution for a first meeting, but then we're not there yet, not at all.

Okay, back to work.

Rantings & Ravings

Because it's really starting to get to me.

I've been extremely crunched at work of late. Back on Monday 10/29, I billed about 14 hours, working from 6:25am-6:30pm and from 10:45pm-2:30am. This past Thursday 11/08, I billed about 10.5 hours, working from 9:15am-7:30pm and from 10:45pm-2:45am. I've been semi-frantically trying to get 3 critical application drafts out by the end of today. One has gone and the other two are (hopefully) in good shape to be finished today and sent.

In other words, it's been pretty bad of late.

The fun really starts to pile up when I finish something that's critical. See, although I prioritize everything I do (I have to), previously-not-critical things become critical while I'm working on the then-critical things. I'm pretty much in a never-ending pile of critical work that gets worse and worse every week. It's been like this for at least the past 1-3 months, with me being behind on work since May of this year.

We simply don't have enough people at my firm. I am absolutely swamped, yet I keep getting new work. A while back, I spent a Saturday or Sunday just updating up my docket - adding new things to it, updating my time entries, etc. When I tallied my items, I came to a total of 64 things, including about 10 applications to draft (provisionals, nonprovisionals and conversions). While I'm probably down to only--Crap. I just counted. 64 items, including preliminary amendments and random "check this" things, but not including IDS'.

Ugh.

I'm stuck in this horrible work cycle that's really starting to piss me off.

My bosses did higher someone new who started about 2-3 weeks ago, but he has no experience with patent drafting or prosecution so he won't be "up to speed" (i.e., to lighten the aggregate firm workload) for at least a few months (and I'm dubious beyond that, though I won't go further into detail here).

And there's a new secretary starting Monday, which does me (personally) no good at all.

*sigh*

Well, I need to get to work. Hopefully I'll be done in only 5-6 hours, though I wouldn't place any bets.

Oh yeah, since she got back stateside, I've been hanging out with movie.girl at least twice a week. We speak on the phone pretty often. I'm meeting up with her on Sunday, presumably to watch more of Doctor Who Season 3. She just bought a new laptop (after at least 8 phone calls with me about it in the past 3 days).

Haven't been playing WoW since I hit 70. Have been playing MTGO (Magic the Gathering Online) and spending way, way too much on it. Did go to a boardgame meetup last Friday 11/02. Lots of fun.

I really don't want to do work today. Too bad I really don't have a choice.

"Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Crohns Disease"

Via Boing Boing I found: "Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Crohns Disease" by Tom Humberstone (21.10.2007).

As BoingBoing explained:

Tom Humberstone produced this wonderful comic for last week's 24-hour-comic challenge, called "Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Crohn's Disease." It's an intense and touching personal memoir about life with Crohn's.

As someone with ulcerative colitis, I could relate to what he describes. I experienced symptoms very much like that during the 1-2 months before I was diagnosed. Fortunately I've been in remission for about 1.5 years now and have to contend with very little these days.

On a broader scale, his comic is an absolutely fantastic look into what life is like for someone with IBD/ulcerative colitis/Crohns. Furthermore, the comments left by others with IBD/colitis/Crohns are incredible. As the author explains in the comic, it's a very.. difficult disease. You don't want to mention it to others, to have to explain what's going on. It's humiliating in many respects. But the comments from others.. sometimes you forget there are others out there dealing with the same problems. It's very encouraging.

I left my own comment there but I want to thank Tom (can I call you Tom?) again. His comic was personal, revealing and honest. His sharing was, in many ways, brave. The comments it inspired (and continues to inspire) are reassuring in so many ways. You're not alone. A simple message but one that is too often forgotten.

So thank you. And if anyone out there is curious what life is like with IBD/colitis/Crohns, read the comic.