What a sucky morning.

It didn't start out so bad. Penny slept in, so I only woke up once during the night (though I split the night dreaming about glowing green... things that would turn you to stone if they touched you, and then some other dream about something more mundane that's already gone).

And I got out of bed and got dressed and everything was fine. And Penny was still asleep, so I went downstairs to check my mail, back upstairs to reset the DSL modem, then back downstairs to actually check my mail. While I was doing that, Penny woke up.

She didn't want to get out of the crib. She whined and told me she didn't want to go to school. She cried when I changed her diaper. And then she inexplicably cheered up again, and sat on my lap and watched movies on the computer, and begged for raisins to take in the car.

She was fine all the way to school, and we went inside and she found TJ and we were getting ready to do the dance... and another little girl wanted to dance with us. She took TJ's hand, and Penny... lost it.

She would not take the other girl's hand. She wouldn't come near the other girl. She wouldn't take TJ's hand again. She wanted me to pick her up and hold her, and that was it. She wouldn't even let me dance with just her. She just clung to me and cried, and cried harder when I tried to put her down.

Finally, I had to get one of the minders to help pry her off me, and then take her to the window to wave while I left. She wouldn't wave. She just cried and reached out for me.

I nearly cried, myself, on the way to work.

And if there's anyplace I do not want to be today, it's work.

See, the boss walked into my office yesterday to answer a question I'd emailed him, and caught me with 1) the irc channel and 2) a game of freecell on the screen.

So I got a talking-to. Whee. It's my own fault; I readily admit it. A year or so ago, I took Minesweeper and Freecell off my programs menu, because they were too tempting. Unfortunately, that was replaced about a month later with calling them up directly from the Run bar. And I hate it that I do that. I really do. They're not even personally productive; I'm just as likely to pop up a Minesweeper game while I'm stuck writing as I am to play while I'm doing my actual work.

More, maybe even.

So I really think I have to delete those programs entirely. Remove the temptation, as it were.

But... do without my chat?

Would it make me any more productive? ...Maybe. But I kind of doubt it.

I'm still thinking about what to actually do about chat. The boss is out of the office today, anyway.

But the whole thing still has me seething. I admit that it's my fault I got in trouble, because I broke the rules -- but the point of the rules is beyond absurd to me.

I wasn't dumb enough to tell him what I thought about the rules, or my job. But that didn't stop me from spending the whole rest of the day imagining what I'd say, if I could. I'll probably do it today, too. I can't seem to help myself.

Because it got me thinking about how boring my job is, and how much it's stifling my already-stunted sense of creativity. There are aspects of my job that I really enjoy, but they're pretty few and far between.

Maybe Matt isn't the only one who should be thinking about looking for another job.

And all that, on top of Penny's meltdown for no apparent reason this morning... Ug. Maybe I'll call daycare later, just to reassure myself that she's okay.

Gods know, I need something to cheer me up.

--Liz