Monday:
Weekends always fuck up my sleep schedule. I did get six hours, and four hours of bonus nap on Sunday afternoon, but that wasn't enough, even though I did have nice clean laundry. That left me in a cranky as hell mood.

Purple worked from home, which is certainly a reasonable life choice for him to make (I didn't inquire as to why, and he didn't volunteer any information). That does make work a bit quieter and generally with a lower chance of hugs.

I popped into the cafeteria hoping that, having last week nearly actually started crying when one of the cashiers said something friendly about hoping I'd found what I'd wanted (I had not wanted a sandwich, I'd wanted a burrito, but there had been too god damn many bell peppers), that the message would have been passed on.

The problem with bell peppers:
Very occasionally, I will be able to eat a little bit of perfectly raw green bell pepper and it will taste good to me.
Most of the time, when even bell pepper juice gets on something, it tastes disgusting to me.
When I actually eat bell pepper, the taste nauseates me and my stomach is unsettled for several hours.
If I'm very unlucky... well.

The message had not been passed on. At the burrito station:

* Possibly-Spanish rice, garnished liberally with chopped bell peppers
* Light beans, garnished liberally with chopped bell peppers
* Dark beans, garnished liberally with chopped bell peppers
* Mixed grilled vegetables, with bell peppers as about 1/4 of the mix
* The meat I would have wanted, with bell peppers soaking in the juice
* The meat I would have settled for, if not for the bell peppers sprinkled over it
* The meat which probably would have had too much spice and/or tomato, but I might have tried, except that, too, had bell pepper all over it
* lettuce
* sour cream
* guacamole
* tomatoes, which I also need to be careful with because raw tomato has good odds of blistering my mouth, and will give me the shits if consumed in the amount they put on the burritoes
* cheese
* various salsas, which, see the problem with tomatoes

At this point my blood sugar had started to do the thing. I popped over to the next line, which had chicken curry that I wasn't altogether certain about, but it was a short line and I was reasonably sure it wouldn't actually make me sick.

I stomped back to my desk and crankily picked at my curry. I knew that the bell peppers were not the thing actually giving me emotional flux, but they were certainly not making things any better. When I stomped off to the bathroom before declaring it time for a milkshake walk, I sobbed for about thirty seconds in the hopes that it would make me feel better. It didn't help much.

The helldesk thing is just complete escalating woe. At this point I've been getting like a few dozen ghost notifications a day, and the person who has been placed into a project management sort of role doesn't seem to understand why someone might want to be involved with someone else's facilities ticket.

Lunch being unsatisfying, I declared it time for a milkshake walk. radius stopped by my cube, and we went upstairs to retrieve Mr. Zune if he was about. He hadn't been about, but he was walking back toward his desk just as we approached. We waved him over, and he came with us.

There is still one peanut butter truffle taped to the local helpdesk door.

radius's weekend had included darning the little holes that a Macbook had chomped in his bright orange software-from-my-friend's-department t-shirt, and so he was wearing that. Mr. Zune and I admired the darning.

We greeted our faithful milkshake bunker commando, the one who knows me by name (but pronounces it subtly wrong in a way that no longer feels alien). I mentioned that I'd thought I'd seen him on Friday, but I wasn't quite sure. It had indeed been him -- there was a painful saga involving a malfunctioning trunk lift on a vehicle. There was bleeding.

I selected a cheese danish with a scoop of the chocolate-chocolate-chip ice cream, lactose be damned. (I believe I had in fact remembered to take my milk-pills this time.)

I related the saga of That Time I'd Not Recognized My Own Sister to Mr. Zune and radius. radius let me know that at some point in the future, "all of this" (his below-shoulder mane of mighty hair) was going away. He held up his badge for comparison/inspection. I studied it carefully.

Despite milkshake, I still had the headache.

I did hear back about the bell peppers. The cafe manager was apologetic and understanding. And then I told her about the various ways I had tried to give feedback. She became very apologetic, said she would get on the asses of those responsible, and could she comp my lunch the next day?

Purple's general understanding and patient qualities have been somewhat strained by the bell pepper saga. He is not actually sufficiently in the hospitality planning department of life to recognize that no, there is actually a problem when the same commonly averse/allergic ingredient is in all the dishes at one particular station. His position is that it's a common enough ingredient in the cuisine, it shouldn't be surprising that it's present. My position is: in EVERY GODDAMN DISH THO?!?!

There is research to be done, and believe me, I am still alive. I scheduled research participants. Yay.

At a reasonable hour, I decided it was time to pack up and go home, in part because I still had the headache. I said goodnight to Purple (who, happily for me, does show up on IM when he works from home) and went home.

Whatever I did to my hair, I regret it. I spent part of the evening brushing it out, with a spray bottle of oil to help the knots slide apart. I think part of the problem is that some of the ends have reached an awkward length.