I've updated the reading list recently so you can see what I've been up to. Apparently my ground speed is about 46 books a year, which seems fairly respectable, given what else I have to do with my spare time. I note that my second anniversary passed without any fanfare, since I did not post through the entire month of August, which is shitty, but oh well. Better luck next August.
I've also updated the sidebar for the first time in a while.
Furthermore, if you find yourself with even a few extra dollars burning a hole in your pocket, you should totally wander over to Tomato Nation and donate to the fall contest. Forward your receipt to Sarah and win all manner of wonderful prizes AND feel good about supporting public education in America, which really, really needs it.
On Thursday, I had another one of those work experiences that sounds like it happened in a sitcom but didn't really. As is typical, I was running late. Over an hour so, as it happens. I had gotten as far as my boss's assistant's desk, and was discussing the even more egregious lateness with which I'd handed in a recent project, when the fire alarm went off.
Back in December, there was an actual fire at Temp Law Towers, where I've been working since last fall. Something in the elevator... head house? Apparently burst into not-especially-threatening flames, and the lovely, manly firemen of the BFD (...hee) came to our office, sirens blaring, axes at the ready, ladder trucks extended, and did their magical thing. So The Lovely Assistant and I turned around and headed for the stairs, because, drill or not, it's a good excuse to go coffee it up at one of the seven thousand coffee places within spitting distance of the office. But first...
Temp Law Towers is actually a lovely old (really old) office building from the 1880s, and though the inside's been renovated all to hell (weird angles, bizarre doors, and that awful seagreen paint that was so popular in the 1950s) the emergency stairs have been largely untouched and have old, anachronistic tiled walls, stone treads, and iron railings with wood posts. They're mostly unused, because our office building has an ancient, whimsical, terrifying pair of elevators (see above re: fire) and you need a key to get up through the gate between the first and second floors. Of course, you don't need a key to get down through the gate (they think of everything!) but it's kind of a heavy gate, and the stairs are kind of steep, and the gate's a little sticky, and when I hit it, I pushed, and then I pushed harder, and when the gate let go I... went right along with it. Fortunately, my shins and ankles broke the fall as I skidded down the last two treads and onto the landing, with The Lovely Assistant and half the third and fourth floors on the stairs behind me. Stone cold sober, y'all. Haven't had a drink in like six weeks. Sufficiently caffeinated. FELL DOWN THE GODDAMN STAIRS IN A FIRE DRILL. Thank GOD I'm not trying to outrun quadruped predators in the prehistoric wilds.
What have we learned? Well, if this had been an actual fire, thirty people would have tripped over my clumsy, bleeding ass, caused a traffic backup in the stairs, and died. Fortunately, it was indeed just a drill, but I've added yet another notch to my "NOT GOOD IN AN EMERGENCY" belt. Subsequent leg usage suggests that while I am stupid, malcoordinated, and bruised, I am not in fact broken as a result of my misadventures.
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