nighttime is the right time
Oct. 12th, 2005 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Spent the entire day at Z's office. It's Press Day; everyone was terrifyingly efficient, and then the file server kept going down, which is Z's problem.
So I'm sitting there and Z's phone rings-- the way their phones work, for internal calls they beep and then the caller says the name of the person he wants, out loud over the intercom kinda thing. So it beeped, and the bossman says Z's name, and the woman at the desk next to him says, "He's in the basement." "Oh good," says the phone, and disconnects. (The file server's in the basement.) People kept stopping by to let him know the file server was down, and being confused because he wasn't there, and then relieved because he was already taking care of it. Several people confessed, "I was worried I broke it," or "I thought it was just me."
So after work we went to the coffee shop down the street to unwind. While there, we see a couple of women in earnest discussion on one of the couches. We drink our Bathtubs O' Overpriced Coffee Beverage, and discuss Life, etc.
Eventually one of the women approaches us, notepad in hand. "Hi," she says, "can I ask you a few questions?"
"Er," Z says, "that depends."
"I'm doing a streetvoice thing for [upstart rival to Z's alt newsweekly]," she says perkily. And then proceeds to ask us some dumb questions.
Z gives her some pithy but rather bitter answers. I give her more considered ones. She takes our names, and then takes digital photos of each of us. She asks us if we read the paper, and what we think of it.
"Well," I say, "Disclosure time. Actually he's the sysadmin for [alt newsweekly]."
"Oh!" she says. "I'm sorry!" Which was a rather odd response. She then awkwardly goes on a bit about how the weeklies serve different niches, right? and how competition is good, right? And then she mentions how [yet a third alt newsweekly] did a really cruel but extremely funny send-up of [upstart weekly] and the staff have all xeroxed it and put it up in the break room, etc. "At least they acknowledged you," I say, with a laugh. "True," she says. And then, a little timidly, "So you guys read our paper?"
"Sometimes," Z says guardedly. He doesn't say, "We sit around in the art department and mock it every Tuesday afternoon, and by the way you guys are trying way too hard," which would be cruel but truthful.
[Upstart Newsweekly]'s very first issue was an article about a performance space owned and operated by [Z's newsweekly]'s art director and one of the sales rep (they're married), so Z's theorizing that it's becoming a rite of passage for the entire staff of his paper to be interviewed in [Upstart].
And oh, the term she used for the feature she was doing is actually the name of that recurring column in Z's paper. It's not a generic name for the Man On The Street column, it's actually the proper title of it. Er, hi. Yeah.
Z thinks he's just not going to tell anybody at work that he's going to be in [Upstart]. But he couldn't stop snickering most of the way home.
Anyhow. I've finished the first draft of the story. The last guy I wanted to talk to emailed me back, and said "so yeah I'm just back after a week away because someone in my family died, and what was so important that you wanted to ask me?" and I'm like, "You know what, my article's long enough." I sort of want to ask the editor if I can just let it be already.
Z is reading through the story and is rearranging the paragraphs, which I wrote in a rather disconnected way. "It's like making a playlist," he said, simultaneously distracted and pleased with himself. "There's good writing in here, it's just not organized right." He's cut nearly 400 words so far, which is good as I was overlength and have things I forgot to mention.
So I've left him to it for a couple of hours, and am lying in a semi-doze in my bedroom thinking about the whiskers on horses' noses. I had an inkling of a ficlet last night around 3 and I wrote a couple paragraphs, but it only amounted to Eomer checking Firefoot's hooves for damage somewhere in Harad, and blanking out as he remembers... something. Haven't really gotten into the flashback, don't know if I will, but there it was, and it's notable as the first bit of fic in some weeks. Eomer and Lothiriel have been having conversations while i am on the threshold of sleep, these last few months, but none of them have made it into written words since the last one posted in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
treigylgweith some weeks ago.
So I'm sitting there and Z's phone rings-- the way their phones work, for internal calls they beep and then the caller says the name of the person he wants, out loud over the intercom kinda thing. So it beeped, and the bossman says Z's name, and the woman at the desk next to him says, "He's in the basement." "Oh good," says the phone, and disconnects. (The file server's in the basement.) People kept stopping by to let him know the file server was down, and being confused because he wasn't there, and then relieved because he was already taking care of it. Several people confessed, "I was worried I broke it," or "I thought it was just me."
So after work we went to the coffee shop down the street to unwind. While there, we see a couple of women in earnest discussion on one of the couches. We drink our Bathtubs O' Overpriced Coffee Beverage, and discuss Life, etc.
Eventually one of the women approaches us, notepad in hand. "Hi," she says, "can I ask you a few questions?"
"Er," Z says, "that depends."
"I'm doing a streetvoice thing for [upstart rival to Z's alt newsweekly]," she says perkily. And then proceeds to ask us some dumb questions.
Z gives her some pithy but rather bitter answers. I give her more considered ones. She takes our names, and then takes digital photos of each of us. She asks us if we read the paper, and what we think of it.
"Well," I say, "Disclosure time. Actually he's the sysadmin for [alt newsweekly]."
"Oh!" she says. "I'm sorry!" Which was a rather odd response. She then awkwardly goes on a bit about how the weeklies serve different niches, right? and how competition is good, right? And then she mentions how [yet a third alt newsweekly] did a really cruel but extremely funny send-up of [upstart weekly] and the staff have all xeroxed it and put it up in the break room, etc. "At least they acknowledged you," I say, with a laugh. "True," she says. And then, a little timidly, "So you guys read our paper?"
"Sometimes," Z says guardedly. He doesn't say, "We sit around in the art department and mock it every Tuesday afternoon, and by the way you guys are trying way too hard," which would be cruel but truthful.
[Upstart Newsweekly]'s very first issue was an article about a performance space owned and operated by [Z's newsweekly]'s art director and one of the sales rep (they're married), so Z's theorizing that it's becoming a rite of passage for the entire staff of his paper to be interviewed in [Upstart].
And oh, the term she used for the feature she was doing is actually the name of that recurring column in Z's paper. It's not a generic name for the Man On The Street column, it's actually the proper title of it. Er, hi. Yeah.
Z thinks he's just not going to tell anybody at work that he's going to be in [Upstart]. But he couldn't stop snickering most of the way home.
Anyhow. I've finished the first draft of the story. The last guy I wanted to talk to emailed me back, and said "so yeah I'm just back after a week away because someone in my family died, and what was so important that you wanted to ask me?" and I'm like, "You know what, my article's long enough." I sort of want to ask the editor if I can just let it be already.
Z is reading through the story and is rearranging the paragraphs, which I wrote in a rather disconnected way. "It's like making a playlist," he said, simultaneously distracted and pleased with himself. "There's good writing in here, it's just not organized right." He's cut nearly 400 words so far, which is good as I was overlength and have things I forgot to mention.
So I've left him to it for a couple of hours, and am lying in a semi-doze in my bedroom thinking about the whiskers on horses' noses. I had an inkling of a ficlet last night around 3 and I wrote a couple paragraphs, but it only amounted to Eomer checking Firefoot's hooves for damage somewhere in Harad, and blanking out as he remembers... something. Haven't really gotten into the flashback, don't know if I will, but there it was, and it's notable as the first bit of fic in some weeks. Eomer and Lothiriel have been having conversations while i am on the threshold of sleep, these last few months, but none of them have made it into written words since the last one posted in
treigylgweith some weeks ago.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 03:35 am (UTC)What is it about them that are so appealing? Must be because they tickle.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 03:41 am (UTC)And they're funny and soft like velvet. The whiskers are just tickly entertainment on top of it all.
Some people apparently actually tim the whiskers on horses' noses. I can't imagine.
Gasp! I don't have any icons of ponies. So sad.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 04:08 am (UTC)*raises hand* Guilty. When we show, the whiskers are shaved off. (Both his and mine.) However within two weeks they're back to their full glory. His, that is. I draw the line at shaving inside his ears, though. I mean, who can see? And it serves a purpose, keeping the bugs out.
All of the horses I met in Ireland had handlebar mustaches. Now that was a little much.
It's funny how many non-horse-type guys I've seen express shock and horror at women kissing horses on the lips. You've hit it right on the head - the combination of the velvety softness and the tickly long whiskers. My guy will even lick my face in the summer if it's sweaty. (I don't delude myself. I know it's because of the salt, not a true sign of adoration. But I still like it.)
icons
Not even your two horses? Don't you have photos of them you can pare down?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-13 12:49 pm (UTC)