KJ

So, hello. It's been a long time. Years, really, since I've posted or participated in fandom or public online activity in any consistent fashion. I apologize for basically falling off the face of the earth, in terms of keeping up my online relationships and fannish connections. There are a lot of reasons for this, and I'll probably share some of them eventually, but for the moment, I'm here with news: I've been laid off from my federal contracting job of nearly 10 years.

( Details behind the cut. )

Anyway, I received notice two weeks ago; I'm on paid administrative leave through early May, and then will receive my accumulated vacation pay and (probably) somewhere between 1-2 months of severance. I am extremely fortunate that our financial situation is such that I don't need to find a new job right away (and it's a terrible time to look for work in my field anyway, with a situation this unstable), so I consider myself to be on an unplanned sabbatical. For now, my biggest task (besides resting and recharging) is figuring out how to spend my time in the short run. I find the structure of paid employment really helpful; without that, my days could evaporate into a haze of sitting around the house. Options that come to mind include travel (some of which is already tentatively planned, like BMC reunion and WorldCon), writing, reading (I've barely read any books the last few years), professional development, and activism. One complicating factor is that T is also not working (he got laid off in 2018 and ultimately decided to retire), so he's almost always around, and I have to factor him into my daily schedule in a way I haven't when I've been between jobs in the past.

Obviously I am very behind on my reading here, but one way I hope to structure my time is to get back into the habit of reading, commenting, and posting. In this time of chaos and uncertainty, one important thing we can do is build and maintain our connections, and coming back to my DW community is one way for me to start that process. So if you are also feeling lost or blindsided, or just want to chat, feel free to reach out. I will do my best to be here.

As planned, I went "back" to the office last week, on Tuesday, so it's now been just over a week of commuting and working in a space that's not my home. "Back" goes in quotes because it's actually not the office where I worked before (same employer, new office), so it feels less like a return and more like starting something entirely new. My previous office was in suburban San Mateo (a suburb about 15 miles south of here); the new space is in downtown Oakland, right on top of a BART station and very near the city government offices. It's an easy transit ride and in the middle of an urban core, which suits me far more the previous set-up. The downside is that almost no one else is there -- right now there are only two other people coming in on a regular basis, so I wonder if we're going to lose this office, too. I hope not, because I do not and have never preferred working from home. But we'll see what happens. I'm less there for the community and more there for the change of scenery, and so far I feel like it's working in terms of letting me leave my work at the office a little more. Whether that translates into feeling more comfortable doing creative work in my home office remains to be seen. Not yet, but it's still early.

We spent much of this weekend moving furniture around, and so I'm now writing from you from my temporary office, which is also our temporary bedroom as well as the permanent living room. The bed was the last thing to move; by the time it was in place, it had gotten dark enough that I wasn't able to take a good picture, so I'll document the whole thing tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see how this works out. My workplace is now only a few steps from T's side of the bed, and he often sleeps much later than when I start working -- not to mention that the kitchen is just on the other side of the room. It's challenging enough to work from home in an open-plan condo when you have some space separation. We'll see how it goes. I might ask about temporarily going into the office while this construction project is going on (we're replacing the upstairs carpet with a lovely oak engineered hardwood) -- I already went in one day last week, on the day the flooring materials were delivered, and it worked out pretty well.

1. I finished Fugitive Telemetry, the new Murderbot novella, and immediately felt the need to read Network Effect again. Not that I didn't enjoy the new one -- I definitely did -- but it felt more like backstory than a prequel, and it made me want to revisit all that tasty, tasty character development.

2. I've been in 2.5 hour meetings every morning for a project management training at work. It's a year-long program that traditionally kicks off with an in-person event at our main office in DC; I was originally nominated for it last year, but it took them until now to figure out how to transition it to a virtual event. It's working pretty well, although it's a long time to be on Zoom, especially multiple days in a row. It's been interesting, and I can see how it will be applicable not just to my dayjob work but to some of my fandom projects as well. But today was the first of two days on finance and budgeting and I can already feel myself start to glaze over. After this week, I'll be assigned a mentor and there will be various follow-up sessions throughout the year. I do hope we're able to do an in-person event at some point -- it's always nice to meet my distant co-workers face to face.

3. Speaking of distant co-workers, it's now been over a month that I'm not assigned to an office and am officially "remote". It's weird. I don't like it. I hope we find out who gets to be assigned to the Oakland office soon.

4. In other media news, we finally started The Mandalorian. We're enjoying it, but T is unmoved by The Child and its cuteness. I am flabbergasted by this.

5. One week and two days to Palm Springs! I can't wait.

So a work thing that I hadn't mentioned here is that my office needs to move. The landlords decided they wanted to convert the land to residential, so they're kicking us out in June 2021. We found out about this upcoming change a little over a year ago now. There was much discussion about where the new office would be, but nothing concrete happened for a long time.

Then, in April, my organization bought another company, also with offices all over the country, one of them in Oakland.

You may see where this is going, but in fact people were quite blindsided when it was announced today that the organization won't be replacing our existing office space. So we have a choice: go remote, or work in the Oakland office.

As far as my personal working life is concerned, the choice is an easy one. The other office is downtown, extremely close to public transit, and a reverse commute for me. Our current space is in a suburban office park, I have to drive, and it's not walking distance to anything. But this is going to be a much harder choice for some of my coworkers, and no matter what, it's going to change who I work with and how.

The weirdest thing of all is that we're still working from home, and it was recently announced that they don't expect us to go back into offices at all until at least next July. So regardless of what people decide, we'll never be the same community working in the same office again. And that makes me sad. Stupid pandemic.

1. T's favorite boba tea place was completely closed until recently, so he bought some tea leaves so we could experiment with making our own. They released a cookbook recently, and today we finally had the ingredients together to attempt a raspberry-pineapple tea fresca, which is maybe my favorite of their drinks (and a seasonal offering which they haven't offered in over a year). It's a little early for fresh raspberries, so we had to add a little extra sugar syrup, but for a first try with the wrong brand of tea, we came pretty close! It's nice to make treats for ourselves when it's harder to go pick something up.

2. Today brings probably the most gorgeous weather since this whole thing started, so we took a walk down to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building. Making that trek on a day with nice weather was probably not the best plan from a shopping point of view -- I think that's the most people I've seen in one place since FogCon. But it still felt more comfortable to me than the last time we went to Safeway: being in open air, plenty of space to pass people at a distance, lines well labeled with six-foot gaps. We didn't buy anything, so it ended up being more of an exercise trip than a shopping trip (although we did stop by a fancy market on the walk home to get the raspberries and a couple of other things we couldn't buy at Whole Foods on Friday), but it was good to be out for sun and fresh air.

3. After finishing Horizon Zero Dawn, I moved on to Persona 5: Royal, which T and I will be playing together. We're only a few days in, and if I recall we're mostly or entirely on rails for awhile, but it was lovely just to step back into that world again. The new content is being introduced slowly so far, just a couple of scenes at this point, but I look forward to both that and to re-meeting all my old friends again.

4. Working at home continues to be about the same. I'm very glad I'm only expected to put in an average of six hours a day rather than eight. (That's my normal work schedule, not anything special because of the COVID-19 situation. My five-year anniversary with this organization was last week, which blows my mind a little. Remember when this was a short-term gig that was supposed to be over in three months? Actually, you might not, because I talk so little about my dayjob here, but I assure you that was the situation when I started. Now I'm a regular employee, getting raises and higher levels of responsibility, and I was even nominated for a promotion (which I didn't get, but I'm well positioned for the next cycle, so fingers crossed). I've never thought I would prefer working at home, and I can now say with absolute certainty that I'd rather be in an office, but I'm glad it continues to be an option.

5. I did a Zoom call with some family yesterday -- my parents, my dad's two sisters, and my 14-year-old nephew, who I haven't seen in person since he was... 10? No, nine, five years ago, when my brother (his dad) graduated from college. I've had very little contact with him over the years, so it was really pleasant to have a bit of actual conversation with him. We're hoping he can come to California for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, which is in June 2021. Let's hope that family gatherings, at least, can be happening by then. I've heard multiple people say that lock-down has put them in better touch with their family than ever before, now that we've moved to a norm of online video chat, so maybe that can be true of us, too.

It turns out that when the desk where I do my writing is also the desk where I do my dayjob six hours every weekday, it's much harder to convince myself that writing, even something fun like a DW post or some meta, is something I want to do. At the very least, I want to take a substantial break in between, and at least for the moment what I end up doing in that break is playing Horizon Zero Dawn.

I've been meaning to play HZD for awhile now, thanks to strong recs from many friends and also T, who played it twice when it first came out. Turns out that it's a perfect shelter-in-place activity. I won't say much in detail for now, just that the gameplay is pretty fun, the story is engaging, and Aloy -- played by the wonderful Ashly Burch -- is an excellent character whom I love. I look forward to uncovering the remaining mysteries of the apocalypse.

As for everything else, I'm getting by. T and I remain healthy so far as we know. All the data suggest that shelter-in-place is working in California; although it's too early to make any sweeping statements, the hope that there's a point to this exercise makes me feel better about doing it. Working at home is going well enough, although it's confirmed my sense that I'd really rather be in the office, despite the convenience of no commute and easy access to my kitty. Tori has attended several meetings now, including one where I was teaching some of my colleagues how to do a mail merge, and I decided that they didn't need to look at me while I was juggling MS Office programs. So I titled my camera toward the perch by my desk where she hangs out, and she got to be the star of the show. My socialization so far has mostly been with work colleagues, but my regular Sunday TV nights have resumed, with our second one next week. My first D&D session is tomorrow, too! We've made like four trips to some grocery store or another in the last week, which I know is too much. I guess it take time to figure out how much food is enough when you eat literally every meal at home.

I hope you are all staying safe and as well as can be expected. Virtual hugs to everyone who would like them!

It's been awhile since I worked the day before Thanksgiving, and I'd forgotten how empty the place can get around the holidays. If there were even ten people in the office, I'd be surprised. I half expected to see some tumbleweed roll by my cube.

But I had a few things to do, so I did them. I bailed around 1pm, grabbed some lunch, then came home to meet T at our preferred boba tea place. I might do a little more work from home, but more likely I will kick back with my milk tea, do some writing, relax before I have to start my cooking for the night.

Edit: oops, forgot to hit post. The cooking began sooner than expected (see today's #livebaking thread for more details), so that and eating leftover spaghetti and meatballs for dinner is all I've done tonight. But that's fine, as long as I get the writing in eventually.

I disappeared, but I have returned. We went to LA for about a week. The main event was the scattering of my in-laws ashes, so it was a sort-of mix of family obligations and relaxing vacation. On the way back, we stopped overnight in the Monterey area, then spent a day there doing 17-Mile-Drive and going to Point Lobos Nature Reserve. I've been both places, but not for a very, very, very long time, and T had never been to either. The scenery was gorgeous, and we saw many birds and seals, as well as a few otters bobbing around in the kelp (sadly too far away to get a good look or any pictures, but just knowing that I am in the presence of otters makes me happy). T got some seal pics, which I will share once they're ready. I put a few bird pics on Twitter.

Now I am home, probably until the end of September although I'm hoping to get together a houseboating trip sometime before then. Work is ramping up again, though -- my main project was ending, so I lined up some new ones, and then they all got going at once. Isn't that always the way? I even had to turn a couple of interesting things down.

But anyway, I'm glad I got at least one bit of a summer vacation, even if it wasn't entirely a vacation.

1. After a few days off, the rain is back today. Perhaps this means winter is finally upon us? We can only hope.

2. The downside of rain: potholes. There's a section of Highway 101 that basically disintegrates every time we get heavy rain (between Mid-Stick and SFO, for those of you who might be familiar with the area), but this is a level up. That stretch of road is on my commute to work; there is, in fact, an excellent chance that I drove over this stretch of pavement earlier today. Today in reasons I'm glad we didn't repeal the gas tax....

3. Normally work would be winding down for the holidays about now, but thanks to my main project and a few other things, I'm as busy as I've ever been. And next week I'm out of town for a meeting in Long Beach.

4. Still, today I let my project team know that I'm planning to be out the entire week between Christmas and New Year. It's fairly ridiculous that any office expects people to work during that time. When I worked for a dotcom, we got that whole week off without pay. Much more civilized.

5. On Sunday, I went to a craft fair and got a couple of necklaces, some soap, a couple of gifts, and this adorable owl laptop sticker. I can already tell it will make me smile for much time to come.