20 years

Today is my 20th Anniversary with this same employer -- even the same division of this employer.  I've held 6 positions during these 20 years, and I expect this one to be my last.  I'm flatly not interested in another promotion or moving to a different division.  Let me do this for 6 years, 6 months, and 17 days more, and then I'll retire and do something else with my "work" hours.

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I'm back to my wacky work-from-home sleep schedule.  Not really a schedule, my sleep happens at all hours or not at all.  I don't get anxious about it -- if I'm not sleepy I'm not sleepy.  If I'm sleepy, I take a nap if I can.  It's low stress.  I've got a 9:45am meeting this morning that I need to prepare for, so I'll be getting up soon anyway.

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Now that the OTC meds have worn off, I have some residual symptoms from the food poisoning, but it's more manageable/acceptable than it was Wednesday evening.

I may try some yoga today, either before or after I head downtown.

As for heading downtown ... I'm not sure what I'm going to do there for once, I may not be able to play with toys yet.  It's been my weekend institution during Quarantine!

I need to stop at the Post Office on the way, I need to mail a couple of things that require nonstandard postage.

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The FMJ has shipped!  I only know this because the last time I bought a device from this company I registered with Australia Post for tracking updates.  This morning I received an email directly from Australia Post.  I did not receive an email from the company, and when I check my account at their website it still claims my device is "in production".

Australia Post says 10-18 business days for a delivery to the US.  I should remain in my custom metal cage until then.  When the FMJ arrives I can trim pubes before putting it on and freezing the keys.  I hope I like it!

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I keep hearing of more people getting their COVID shots.  I'm envious.  My boss and his wife got their shots even though they already had COVID.  A gay couple much younger than I am both got their shots recently -- they apparently qualified in their state because they're HIV+.  But here in Maryland my asthma gets me nada.  I'll just keep hiding from the world as best I can.  At some point supply will exceed demand.

I remember back when the 2009 H1N1 vaccine came out, I went to a mass vaccination site and waited in a super long line to snag my shot.

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I like the MIDI keyboard I have at the house so much better than the older one at the condo, I'm seriously thinking of buying a second one for the condo so I have the same model at each location.  But the amount of time I'm spending using them doesn't seem to justify the expense ... it's like the board games I buy and never play, the books I buy and never read.  I'll probably buy it, though.  I like having the same stuff in both locations, to some extent.  But I'll probably wait until the next time I actually use the keyboard at the condo -- prove to myself I'll use the darn thing, and feel the inferiority of the old one under my fingertips.  I'm also wanting to have copies of my instruction books at both places, LOL.

Magger Frane

Not feeling like an optimal pen name for me, but it is unique, search for "Magger Frane" and you get absolute zero results from the search engines.

It takes time and effort to come up with an original name these days.  I felt like a drug company marketing specialist, trying to come up with a name for a new drug that hasn't been used before.

But, it does sound less 100% American Male than my previous pen name.

more on Magger Frane

The initials, MF, I chose those because I wanted a nonbinary name, and also because MF can stand for motherfucker, heh.

I found a unique name generator on the web, and had to test a lot of the results to make sure they were truly unique.

For years now, I've been thinking up names and then I find somebody else already has that name.  Mattin was just the latest, and greatest, of those who got my names first.

So, now I have a name that nobody else has.  At least, nobody on the Internet has.  Magger Frane.

Can I learn to love this name?  Does it matter?

The point, I guess, was to come up with a unique name that I didn't hate.  That was difficult enough.  Let's not get too fussy.

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More importantly, at those moments in my life when I choose new screen names or pen names, there's usually something about to burst forth, changes in my personality, changes in my perspective.

We don't have to like Magger Frane.  Imagine if Bug stopped caring about whether people liked Bug.  Some people still would.  But what if Bug stopped caring.  Like me or not.  I like you, or not, and you like me, or not, whatever.  Instead of pulling one petal after another, "He likes me, he likes me not, he likes me, he likes me not,"

toss that flower into the DisposAll.  Flip the switch.  Walk away.

I've seen this happen to other people, usually older people than I was, they stopped caring about what other people thought about them, and ... it wasn't because they wanted to become more powerful, but they did become more powerful, because they stopped cockblocking themselves,

Skyfall is the best Craig Bond

How did it take me six hours to rewatch this film?

So, I don't need a big blowout butt toy night to enjoy the condo, I can watch an old fave film and chat with peeps and deal with after-6pm work emergencies, and

stuff.

So far my GI tract is behaving here ... but is that the OTC drugs or actual healing?  I'll find out in a couple days, I guess?  Probably both?  Hoping I don't need a doctor visit for this crap, but it's been difficult, I mean, they don't call it "food poisoning" because it's fun.

didn't think I'd be up this late, haven't had caffeine or chocolate and didn't sleep much last night, but, like I wrote before, I don't stress about sleep during Quarantine, I sleep a lot, or I don't, whenever, it feels sort of hunter-gatherer, before we all figured out time and clocks and alarms,

I'm awake when I need to be, and when I don't need to be I'm either awake or asleep.  That's how it used to be, before the discovery of time.

better than BSG?

I told T & B in the group chat that 3rd season Outlander was Ron Moore's best, so when T saw me next he said, "Better than Battlestar Galactica?"

Do I have to weigh these against each other?

Yes.

Yes.

Outlander is overall better than BSG, so far.  How do I defend such a statement?  Why must I rank them?  Why did I open this argument?

If I had to go into hyperspace and only carried enough disk space for one, would I take BSG or Outlander?

So far, I'd take Outlander.  But is this a recency effect?

Why did I have to superlative?  Outlander is emotionally heavier, deeper, BSG has sci-fi, but Outlander has people dying because they have no technology.  No technology is emotionally heavier than technology.

But even so, I could probably write a heavier story with technology.  No, Outlander is heavier than BSG.  The horror is more individual.  The focus on fewer people, that's probably why.  Instead of the human race at stake, we're loving these few people we come to know.

And the Scottish accents, that's probably it.