Friday, Aug. 31, 2018 - 5:56 pm.
First, the not nice stuff:
I came into my office this morning to find that my keyboard was not responding. I tried, of course, unplugging and plugging again, twice. It didn't work. I went to get the always helpful IT guy downstairs. He did the same thing I did, and the keyboard worked. It was embarrassing, even though I'd told him I'd done that before, twice.
I started thinking that maybe I was too half-assed in my unplugging/plugging. Beyond that, I was sure this was the job of the Human Flaming Bag Of Dog Poo (HFBoDP). He was in the office yesterday, and I left the office before he did. He was also in the office that other time, months ago, when I came in and found a mess in my desktop and my PC unplugged. That was around the time I blocked him on social media.
I started leaving it unplugged ever since, so I'm thinking, he noticed and he just went for something else to unplug.
I spent a good part of my morning fuming, pissed off. I know I don't have real evidence that it was the HFBoDP, but I have a deep gut feeling about it that I cannot shake up. On the bright side, I learned today from a fellow PhD student that he's moving back home next week. It doesn't make a concrete difference for me, because I barely see him anyway and he'll still show up in the department for supervision, but I appreciate the fact that he'll be physically far away. Or, in a word, gone.
Me being pissed off about this wore out as the morning went on, but because another reason to be pissed off appeared. My friend Eric asked Andrew and I to go with him to pick up the keys to his new flat. It was near the Psych department so it would be a good break; it's a vicarious excitement, too.
That fucking break took two hours, however. By the time we returned to the office it was lunchtime, and after lunchtime on a Friday, Andrew and I don't get much more done.
So I was pissed because I HATE having my time wasted. I know Eric didn't know it would take that long, but I could feel my anger increasing as time went by and there was no sign of us leaving the flat. I tried to regulate myself to not show my anger, and I succeeded for the most part. Andrew caught a bit of my anger, though, but to be fair, I was also thinking of his occasional knack for interrupting me when I'm working at home.
As the meme says, I'm supposed to be writing. I *am* enjoying writing my thesis, or I would enjoy it if I didn't get these distractions. It's a slow process, I'm against the clock, and I need to be left alone for a few solid hours per day.
Second, the meh stuff:
It's the end of August and I didn't hear back from the publishing house about my manuscript. It's been months since I submitted it, and what I wrote has now become both relevant and unoriginal. The publishing house was supposed to say something this month, per their estimated time of response, although they do say they may take longer than that. Why prolong the agony if you're going to say no?
I'm still hopeful they'll give me a chance and request the whole manuscript (and will publish it), but then again, I'm aware they're likely not to. They can very well afford to pass on a nobody like me. I have a second publisher lined up if the first one rejects me, but I can't move on if the first one doesn't fucking give me an answer.
The silver lining here is that I figured how to make the online payment to register my manuscript as intellectual property. It was very easy, so I'm kicking myself for not figuring it out sooner...and I'm kicking the people from the IP office for never replying to my enquiry about alternatives to make the payment online. Anyway, my request to register my work as IP is underway!
Fingers crossed that all goes well and my manuscript is registered in the next few weeks. I've submitted the manuscript online to another publishing house, which never replied, and I'm always scared someone will take my work as pass it as their own. Or it could be that the name is already registered (the name of the story is not that original)...or whatever else. I'm nervous, that's what I'm getting at. I do hope all goes well, though, and I'll have the certificate to show that this work rightfully belongs to me.
Third, the great stuff:
My favorite time of the year is starting! The last four months of the year. The temperature and the daylight quality are slowly changing, soon the colors in the trees will too. This alone makes me so happy, perhaps because I associate these changes to happy childhood experiences...or autumn is just beautiful in its own right.
I get all celebratory when September starts because it's the month in which Simeon was born, when I was in 4th grade and Independence Day was approaching. Decades later, it's funny that a product of my imagination is one of my most notable and stable sources of joy. Also, by now, I've added the Bi Visibility Month/Day to the celebrations. It's the second year I get to celebrate bisexuality, and I've made a Simeon comic strip about it. It will be published tomorrow.
However, nobody reads my comic strips. Maybe the three subscribers to my Simeon comic do (and if so, huge thanks to them), but you know, I always thought I deserved a bit more of recognition than that. I've said this far too many times here, how I find myself wanting to have my comics recognized (and my damn manuscript, not happening either), although I do realize they're probably not worthy of such thing.
It's that frustration of "Hey, I'm here, look at this cool thing I made!". Almost no one turns to look, and those who do, don't think that what I made is that cool. It certainly is not cool enough to publicly react to it, let alone to show it and share it with others. Holding one's work in such high esteem can be painful.
Well, I was supposed to be talking about the great stuff, not to repeat the pity party I throw myself every other entry. Great stuff: autumn and my world of increasingly-queer stick figures.
ALSO: This diary turns *counts with fingers* 17 YEARS OLD ON SEPTEMBER 1ST OMG.
Fourth, a week recap:
Our friend L went back to Spain yesterday. It was great having her around. She is primarily Andrew's close friend, way back from their undergrad days, but I had the chance to have a girls' night out with her and another mutual friend of L and Andrew, also doing her PhD here, and it was really fun. L and I have a few topics in common to talk about for hours.
In that regard, for once, I could have squeezed my excruciating story with Joseph to bond with L. L's long-time partner also left her for another woman. This one time I could have brought up the Joseph topic, and I didn't. Which in a way is cool because it goes to show how much I've grown away from it.
About damn fucking time, too. I spent eight years thinking I wouldn't be able to put Joseph behind me. And now here I am, not talking about him in a conversation full of arrows pointing at him. There was only a brief mention about "my then long-time partner who left me for somebody else", as a stepping stone to another topic. The mention, however, prompted a high-five between L and me. And then, indeed, I went into the topic of interest.
Lastly, looking forward to:
- Getting together with two of my favorite women in the Psych department tomorrow night. To drink wine! One's my current crush (though I haven't talked to her this week), the other's a nice British gal. There was a third favorite but she can't make it. Here's hoping we'll have a great evening.
- Going back to our daily routines after having L over for almost two weeks. We enjoy having friends and family with us, but Andrew and I are also very protective of our little bubble.