Salon of Shame

Last night Kate and I became the first married couple to read at the Salon of Shame, a literary event where people expunge the demons and dorkiness of their childhoods by reading from their diaries.

I read selections from 1984, 6th grade, about a doomed software development project that was supposed to be a gift for my sister’s birthday; about “Lasers & Lords”, a Dungeons & Dragons-style game I was creating; and about trying to impress the mother of my current crush to show that I’d “make good boyfriend material”.

Kate read some pieces about a crush she had in her early teenage years. Her reading was hilarious. The mind of a 15-year-old girl is a scary place to be.

Not only are the Salon of Shame events fun events to attend (and participate in), but I feel like I’m learning invaluable insights for when Ruby hits her awkward goth/swoon phase.

Some pictures from the event can be found here:

http://flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/2180347934/in/photostream/
http://flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/2180350800/in/photostream/

Missing Ruby

Work is ramping up for a big release next week, and so I’m working longer hours than usual. And that means I’ll be spending less time with Ruby.

Right now my work hours are shifted a little early than in the morning so that I can come home and have dinner with my family. That tends to not work so well during crunch time, though, as the principals tend to work into the evening and things can really get interesting at work around 5pm or 6pm. So, for this week I’m working into the evening and not getting home until around Ruby’s bedtime.

Ruby’s day is only about 12 hours long, and with the bus ride I can easily be away from home for all of it. Today I managed to catch her for a few minutes at each end of her day but I could, theoretically, go an entire day (or days) without seeing Ruby.

It seems particularly hard to spend significant amounts of time away from Ruby — harder than it is to be away from Kate. I’ll think about Ruby and Kate spending time together and feel like I’m falling behind. I want to be just as important a figure in Ruby’s life as Kate is, but of course in reality that’s impossible. One of us needs to work (and actually, I’m quite happy to be the one earning a paycheck right now).