bethynyc's post reminded me of the existence of menstrualhut, and I swung over there for a few moments. It's not topical to me right this second, but still a nice female space, and I ducked into one of the conversations.

I was struck that many of the posters mentioned they'd only been menstruating for a few years, placing me in a position of comparative experience. "Holy cow," I thought, "I'm a crone!" Except, in retrospect, I'm not really at the cronehood stage. It's that I'm skipping the Mother phase. I don't mean that I don't nurture other people's kids, but that's not really being a Mother in the whole mystic journey sense.

When you're not planning to spawn, what is it that you are, between Maiden and Crone?

It's still Customer Service Week.

Tuesday swag to date:

• Astonishingly, none.

Tip of the day:

People skills are vital when delivering exceptional customer service, but they must be joined with the knowledge of your products and services in order to produce positive results and satisfied customers.

Yesterday's swag went to grandbuddha - I'm sure he'll come up with a use for it.

Today there was some minor drama as the Customer Relations department is going out for drinks on Thurday, an outing that our group has been included in during past years' CSWeeks. Turns out it is a budgetary issue, not a snub.

You ever wake up in the morning and think "I feel just fine - darn it!". It might have been nice to take the day off, but I feel neither groggy nor sore. Even the morning don'-wanna-get-up is the same as every morning, so it was surely not surgery related. I have Tylenol in my pocket just in case (no, I did not bring the Vicodin to work with me!).

The drive to work was fine. In fact, I felt very alert and comfortable. So, no post-surgery-drug hangover. Given that I have to work to get drunk (although it is less difficult now that I am thirty-mumble and my metabolism is slowign down), it's no surprise that I shook off the effects pretty quickly. I woke right up from the general anesthesia too.

Turns out it was good that I was here as we have a new manager and I got to give him the nickel tour.

Surgery went routinely this morning. Full anesthesia is an interesting experience. cptsarcasm ran a little late, so we went with plan-B and M came to get me and took me home to by brother's place. It was kind of funny watching the nurse give her the instructions to M that she would need to find me mushy foods as M was standing there with 16-month-old K on her hip. M made me (and K) scrambled eggs.

Right now I feel pretty ok, even though I am still on mushy foods (and probably should not go hog-wild tomorrow. I did wind up taking a Vicodin right away though and will proably take another before I go to sleep.

I'm still not 100% decided about work tomorrow. I feel well enough to go in now, but, technically I am not supposed to drive for 24 hours after recovery, which would be 10:30. Given that today was logged as a sick day, then I could log tomorrow as a sick day too, and not use vacation time. On the other hand, I really don't like the way things back up when I am out.

So work did a net security thing on Wednesday and IM is gone (yeah, even Meebo). Phooey. I actualy did use it more for work than for personal use. Now I have to walk to people's desks when they don't pick up the phone and take the chance they're not there.

Whatever it was seems to have killed my usual webradio, so I'm back at last.fm, which I experimented with a while back. Is anyone else using this? It's actually pretty interesting - 'stations' are more keyword or friends based than actual stations.

Tomorrow I do the next round of surgery, ick. I was planning on walking to the dentist and thus avoid having to abandon my car there when I am picked up. I am going the wimpy full anesthesia thing and thus am not allowed to leave under my own power nor be alone for X hours afterwards. cptsarcasm is supposed to come get me and take me to the M House for convalescing.

Work on Wednesday I shall have to play by ear. It will all depend on how well I feel.