my brain is mush.  this is a consequence of hours upon hours of internet research.  uggggh.  my brain is a quivering pancake.  yeaaah.  my brain is jiggling jell-o.  blechhh.  my brain is burnt stew. my brain is the flabby skin on a chicken leg.  my brain is a lump of gristle.  my brain is a liquified cucumber still in its plastic wrap.  my brain is a potato that you pick up expecting it to be solid and hard but your finger sinks into it in a sickening way.  ... what i'm saying is my brain appears to be some kind of gross food.

i took my christmas tree to the recycling place today.  it was so stiff and dry that it barely fit through any doors.  it made my car smell nice and piney fresh though.  and it was kind enough to leave behind a huge pile of needles too.  (everyone always talks about the needles left by their tree and i just want to fit in.) once at the recycling place i attempted to take the stand off of my tree, but i couldn't.  so i just hucked it on to the pile and took off like the criminal i am.

one of my housing guys has bed bugs.  and his landlord tried to evict him.  but we disputed it and it went to arbitration today.  arbitration by conference call, which honestly was kind of interesting.  we were all nervous, but it went really well and thankfully we were able to work something out with the property management company and our guy is not getting evicted, which is great because he's older, and not well physically either, and i know he had a lot of anxiety about losing his place which is not a nice feeling.  it's also not a nice feeling to have colonies of bed bugs living in your mattress. it makes me shudder just to think about it.

i don't know if i've ever explained this but at my work we have these weekly meetings called 'decision making meetings'.  i think the name is kind of self-explanatory.  people bring different topics about policy or changes or whatnot to the meeting and we, members and staff, discus/debate and try to come to consensus on a decision.  if there is no consensus then we do not go forward with whatever course of action we may be talking about.  so this week it was my unit's turn to chair the meeting and it fell to me to be the chair.  and we had a number of hot button topics that got people all riled up.  and then the challenge becomes facilitating a group of hot heads in a friendly, respectful but firm manner.  humour is a handy tool but it doesn't always work.  even if i handle things successfully, i am sometimes left with some adrenaline just from feeling other people's feelings, if you know what i am saying.  then i go debrief with some of my friends, say what i think and find out what they thought.  etc.  so..yeah.  that's what happens.

i turn 40 in three months.