At a time when some people are just getting up and trying to decide how to spend the last day of a holiday weekend and some people are up and getting ready to head to church and some people are trying not to wake up because they stayed out too late last night and know they’re going to feel like crap when they finally rise, I am at the office. I am supposed to be testing the new database server, but the new database server is not cooperating. The new database server is instead demanding a series of reboots, which means my coworkers and I cannot get in to test the programs for which we are responsible. I did get a brief look at it this morning when I first got here, but since then it’s been one “rebooting- we’ll be ready in X minutes” announcement from sys admin after another. So now it’s sort of like lunch hour during the week, when I check my e-mail and surf the web and maybe write up a journal entry, except it’s 9 a.m., I’m not hungry, and this is not how I’d choose to spend my weekend. I’ve just got to keep thinking about the brownie points I’m accruing.

I’ve also just got to keep ignoring my nearby coworker. He’s been having trouble with his computer, which has caused him to swear loudly at it and periodically throw cables around his office (well, it sounds like he’s throwing cables around; I have not gotten up to see). He sounds really angry, and even though I know it’s not directed at me, it still makes my stomach tighten and my brain look around for escape routes. He’s calmer now, but I’m ready to implement my kick out the window screen and run for the car plan if need be. Perhaps if I’d grown up in a different household, my first instinct would have been to go over and see if I could help him, however unlikely it might be that I’d have a solution, but I learned early that approaching an angry person is a dangerous thing to do, especially when they’re bigger than you. Better to do a disappearing act and survive is my motto.

***
Angry coworker just popped his head in my office to commiserate over our inability to do what we came here to do, and he’s perfectly calm, so I guess I can stop devoting a portion of my brainpower to considering whether I should put my car keys in pocket so as not to lose valuable time grabbing my purse on the way out the window. I will now devote that brainpower to reading the very long thread about The Matrix: Reloaded over at The Usual Suspects, now that I’ve finally seen it. Mr. Karen and I went to a twilight show yesterday, hoping everyone else would be outside enjoying the non-rainy portion of the holiday weekend. Our plan might have worked, except the movie’s been out so long that the multiplex has relegated it to one of the tiny screens, which seated just a few more people than our family room. We got there just a few minutes before the movie started — why spend any more time than necessary languishing in the theater when you could be at home doing something up until the last moment was our theory– and ended up in the front row. Sure, it was hard on my neck, but on the plus side, I did get to study the fabrics used in the costumes and the texture of the actors’ skin much more closely than I would have been able to otherwise. Also, when the action lagged, I could unfocus my eyes the least little bit and get a whole pointillist thing going, since the dots on the screen were right there.

***
The new database server has decided to cooperate after all, so I’m off to test and test until I can test no more or when a decision is made to make the switch to the new server, whichever comes first.

***
On a Sunday morning about a year ago, I didn’t have to be at work, but I still found things to fret about.