How I spent my afternoon
I did something novel today: work from home!
I had a book I had to work on that was in Quark 3.32 for PC, and it had to stay there because it depended on a certain proprietary XTension that would only work in same. Needless to say, nowhere at MITP does there exist such a platform... but in my Luddite household, that's what I've still got installed, naturally. So I took the files home, did the formatting changes I had to do, and made PDFs of all the files (two separate versions of each chapter).
Of course, then I had to sneakernet them back to the office so I can print them out. So I'm back here. :-)
Before I left, I set my temporary voicemail greeting to say "call me at home if you need me". In dialing up, though, I accidentally started playing the first message in my mailbox.
I don't know how many people do this, but I have this habit of saving one or two early (often first) voicemails from people I am newly in love with... and this one was, let me simply say, many months old. And playing it to hear it on purpose is one thing, but pricking myself on it by surprise is another.
To hear in a familiar voice the note that used to be there of "I was thinking of you and cared enough to call," the undertone of "I want you and miss you and can't wait to see and talk to you"...
God, I didn't think it would catch me like that. I really didn't. I had to put the phone down.
Plus it makes me feel the irony and the guilt all the more keenly, how exactly on the other side of that equation I've been, even more recently. (But there's no point in mulling that over now. *sigh*)
I had a book I had to work on that was in Quark 3.32 for PC, and it had to stay there because it depended on a certain proprietary XTension that would only work in same. Needless to say, nowhere at MITP does there exist such a platform... but in my Luddite household, that's what I've still got installed, naturally. So I took the files home, did the formatting changes I had to do, and made PDFs of all the files (two separate versions of each chapter).
Of course, then I had to sneakernet them back to the office so I can print them out. So I'm back here. :-)
Before I left, I set my temporary voicemail greeting to say "call me at home if you need me". In dialing up, though, I accidentally started playing the first message in my mailbox.
I don't know how many people do this, but I have this habit of saving one or two early (often first) voicemails from people I am newly in love with... and this one was, let me simply say, many months old. And playing it to hear it on purpose is one thing, but pricking myself on it by surprise is another.
To hear in a familiar voice the note that used to be there of "I was thinking of you and cared enough to call," the undertone of "I want you and miss you and can't wait to see and talk to you"...
God, I didn't think it would catch me like that. I really didn't. I had to put the phone down.
Plus it makes me feel the irony and the guilt all the more keenly, how exactly on the other side of that equation I've been, even more recently. (But there's no point in mulling that over now. *sigh*)