Loopier by the Minute

Ahem.

2005-08-30T12:42:00.000-05:00

Well, much as I have enjoyed my time here...it's time for me to go home. I'm moving back to this address.

Loopy's Soundtrack

2005-08-28T22:10:00.000-05:00

A buddy did this a long time ago. I kind of started the project, and forgot about it, and came across my draft when I was looking for something on my computer. The idea? If your life were a movie, pick the soundtrack.

Opening Credits: Gorillaz - "Clint Eastwood"

Waking up: Concrete Blonde - "Everybody Knows"

Average Day: Matchbox 20 - "Unwell"

First Date: Pixies - "Here Comes Your Man"

Falling in Love: Norah Jones - "Come Away with Me"

Love Scene: Debussy - "Clair de Lune"

Sex Scene: Nine Inch Nails – "The Only Time"

Fight Scene: Violent Femmes - "Kiss Off"

Breaking Up: Indigo Girls - "Fill it up Again"

Together: Bic Runga - "Sway"

Wedding Scene: Sister Hazel - "All for You"

Secret Love: Morrissey - "The More You Ignore Me"

Life's Ok: Jack Johnson - "Never Know"

Mental Breakdown: REM - "Find the River"

Driving: Luna - "Moon Palace"

Learning a Lesson: Fiona Apple - "Never is a Promise"

Deep Thought: Dave Matthews Band - "Grey Street"

Flashback to Childhood: BJ Thomas - "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"

Partying: Madonna - "Ray of Light"

Happy Dance: Sublime - "Santeria"

Regretting: Tracy Chapman - "At This Point in My Life"

Long Night Alone: Karla Bonoff - "Falling Star"

Death Scene: Melissa Etheridge - "Letting Go"

Closing Credits: Tori Amos - "Tear in Your Hand"

The Fact That I Was Doing Semi-Grown-Up Stuff Ten Years Ago Makes Me Feel Old.

2005-08-25T09:28:00.000-05:00

Work is boring. Let’s do a survey…thanks to WCG .

10 Years Ago:

I had just finished my junior year of college and broken up with GEB. That was also the summer that KT and I really became friends, and bonded extensively over many bowls and games of millipede.

5 Years Ago:

I was working at a small law firm, living in Norman, and I believe that’s about the time that my little Sissy came to live with me. I believe there was some fucked-up boy stuff going on, too.

1 Year Ago:

I was working at a job I loved, starting a blog, dating two guys, and in better shape than I’d ever been…which isn’t saying much.

Yesterday:

I went to the dermatologist because of a stupid rash/infection thing on my arm that’s been there for months. I went to my regular doctor, who just kinda looked at it and prescribed a week of antibiotics which did almost nothing. It’s not like it’s painful or anything, but it’s ugly. And no, I am not posting a picture. The dermatologist said it was folliculitis, and wants me to be on an antibiotic for the next two months. This is not your basic normal antibiotic, either. You can’t take it with calcium or iron (which basically means you can’t eat or take vitamins at the same time you take it), and it makes you extra-sensitive to the sun. Lovely. I already could be the poster child for skin-cancer risk. However, if it fixes the problem, I will stop bitching. That may take 3-4 weeks, according to the doctor.

Also yesterday, I indulged my newly-discovered craving for sushi. (Clarity, this is all your fault.) The SuperTarget near work has a most excellent deli…and one of the choices is sushi. They even have the sushi chefs there if you want something different. When I discovered that a big pile of California rolls has almost no Weight Watchers “points,” it was all over. What sucks is that I start my new job on September 6th, and there is not a SuperTarget anywhere near it, dammit.

Five Favorite Snacks:

String Cheese
Rosemary & Olive Oil Triscuits
Sun Chips
M&M’s
Microwave Popcorn

Five Songs I Know All the Words to:

(My own caveat: that are not by the Indigo Girls, Tori Amos, or REM)

Cyndi Lauper – “She Bop”
The Cure – “Just Like Heaven”
The Pixes – “Here Comes Your Man”
Joni Mitchell – “Big Yellow Taxi”
Counting Crows - “Round Here”

Five Things I Would Do with $100 Million:

Pay off all debt
Pay off friends’ debt
Buy a house
Travel
Set up a charitable foundation

Five Places to Which I Would Run Away:

Coast of Oregon
Amsterdam
Ireland
New York
Australia

Five Things I Would Never Wear:

Anything with a giant bow on the ass
Those “Croc” shoes (ugly. plastic.)
A uniform
Pantyhose with sandals
Low-rise jeans

Five Favorite TV Shows:

Dead Like Me
What Not to Wear
CSI: Wherever
South Park
The Biggest Loser

Five Biggest Joys:

Being right
My kitties
Music
Hanging with my girlfriends
Getting e-mails telling me I have blog comments

Five Favorite Toys:

B.O.B.
Computer
MP3 Player
Crayons
Handheld Yahtzee

Bathrooms and Brain Death

2005-08-23T11:38:00.000-05:00

After reading about Andria and DK and their kitty bathroom issues, it reminded me of something.

Weight Watchers.

Bear with me here. Perhaps I should explain that, during my mysterious absence, I joined the old WW. I lost a little the first few weeks, then, due to stress, I started eating my weight in M&M’s regularly….so the scale was being an evil whore.

Anyway, I sucked it up and didn’t ditch the meeting last night. The scale wasn’t as mean as I thought she was going to be, but she certainly wasn’t very nice. For some reason, she seems to prefer salad and broiled chicken breasts to tortillas dipped in cheese sauce and chimichangas. I got there kind of early and got my weigh-in over with. Then, I sat and watched the rest of the group file in. Without exception, each and every person went to the bathroom before they got on the scale.

I got a new job! I don’t have to be in this hell-hole any more after Monday! And, me being the devious sort, I told the new job I couldn’t start until after Labor Day. Loopy needs a vacation. Actually, what Loopy needs is to clean her nasty house and play some Chuzzle and go to the gym. Anyone want to guess which activity will likely win?

Also, during that “missing in action” phase, I purchased the complete second season of Dead Like Me on DVD. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a Showtime series. It’s completely the most fucked up thing ever. And I love it.

This morning, my friend JS e-mailed. She’s currently on the quest to become a PA, and has been taking a variety of fun classes like Chemistry and Microbiology. This semester, she’s taking Physiology. They have to get on a website to do various things for class, and so the professor asked them to post a little description of themselves…just for “getting to know you” purposes. Here were some of the responses:

Hello everyone. My name is Heather. I graduated from Mustang High School. I am a 21 year-old transfer student and this is my first semester at OU, although I have ALWAYS wanted to go here. I am a pre-nursing student as of now, but I continuously change my major. I LOVE all sciences EXCEPT Chemistry. I also have two long-haired dachshunds named Zoe and Bella. They are adorable!

Hi guys. My name is Meggan Henry and I am from Binghamton, New York. I am a junior and my major is Health and Sport Science and Physical Therapy. I love OU and it is a great campus. My roomies and I just brought a house here in Norman. I love listening to punk music and i love to do just about anything from watching movies to clubbing to whatever. It is all about having fun!

well my name is whitney. im from good ol' Texas!!! but dont worry, im a sooner through and through and truely bleed crimson and cream...i came here simply because i love OU...im a science education major and also pre-dental. i hope to one day run my own ortho practice. until then i just study and hang with my two bestest friends. college life is great and i never want to leave.

Hey everyone! My name is Tiffany and i'm from OKC. My major is PT and I love it here at OU. And for a girl i'm a HUGE football fan. I was coming to all the games even before we were national champs. I work at Johnny Carinos on the southside. One crazy thing about me is I took every class this semester with my friend. How many people can do that with this enrollment process. Well hope its a great semester for all!!!

Welcome to OU Dr. Ketchum!! My name is Josh Davis and in the past two years I have discovered what a great place this is, and I hope that you will experience the same in your first semester at our great university! I'm looking forward to your class. You seem very upbeat and extremely interested in what you do, and that is a nice change from some professors. Anyways, I'm from Claremore, OK which is just northeast of Tulsa. I've lived there all my life and wouldn't change a thing! Three interesting facts about me.........hmmmm, lets see. I am extremely involved on campus; I am currently working on Homecoming 2005, The Big Event, and I was a Camp Crimson Counselor over the summer. I work in the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs (V.P. Clarke Stroud) as a student clerk. And third, I am obsessed with the weather; I think its just from growing up in Oklahoma and always being outside, but I can't wait till spring co mes so I can go storm chasing! Anyways, I look forward to meeting you personaly in class, and I'm looking forward to a great semester!
-Josh Davis

Here was my suggestion for JS for what she should post:

Hi, I'm JS. I am originally from the depths of hell, but I list my official home as Texas. I hate OU (go Longhorns!!), but I'm stuck here for the time being. I have two cats and two children, both of whom share my love for satanic rituals. In my free time, I like to make voodoo dolls, research deadly poisons, and dance naked by the light of the moon.

Taking Nose-Picking to a Whole New Level

2005-08-19T12:09:00.000-05:00

I sustained grievous injuries in my fall from the earth…

Okay, not really. I really don’t have a good excuse for not updating, other than my job situation. See, at the temp job of death, I was sharing an office with STASH and SACK. Therefore, any blogging activities were impossible, because they could both see what I was doing every second of every day. Now, we have moved offices, and I have my own office again. Praise be. Of course, I have had way too many projects. They know I’m going to leave as soon as I get another job, so they just keep dumping crap on my desk.

I have an interview for a job I really want this afternoon. Send good vibes. This place is wearing me down.

So a couple of weeks ago, I went to get my nails done. While there, I overheard a conversation between two college-age chicks. One was reminiscing about the first time she ever had fake nails.

The substance of the conversation was not how they looked, or how weird it is to have them the first time.

Her observation: “It took nose-picking to a whole new level.”

Interviewing for jobs sucks. It particularly sucks when your temp job gives you the daily guilt trip about staying, and when those with whom you are interviewing make you come back three times and then tell you they hired someone else. To add insult to injury, the office administrator said something about “keeping my resume on file” for an upcoming position.

Bitch, please. Unless “on file” is a euphemism for “in the recycle bin,” don’t give me any of your crap. That’s worse than going on a date with someone, thinking it was good, having them make a big production of asking for and writing down the digits, and then never calling.

In addition to hating my job duties, I loathe and despise Microsoft Office. Here is the e-mail I sent to BFRB yesterday afternoon:

TO: [BFRB]
FROM: [GoingLoopy]
SUBJECT: Arrrgh. I HATE MICROSOFT OFFICE.

Have you ever done a mail merge from Excel? If so, do you know why, for the love of all that is holy, every. single. (insert obscenity). time. you try to merge, and there's a zip + 4, Word turns it into a ZERO????

I have tried formatting the data (in Excel) as a zip code, as text, as "general", as numbers...doesn't matter. Word gets it, and it's a zero. Our IT guy can't fix it, either. Any ideas?

The (insert obscenity) is because her work e-mail server wants people to be all nice and polite and not use naughty language.

Fuck a bunch of that.

An Actual For Real Update....Sorta

2005-08-03T19:12:00.000-05:00

Hi.

I have decided, like a number of my other buddies, to make this my primary blog address. This requires a lot of work on my part, but I am most tired of the Diaryland bullshit, and feel that this move will be best in the long run. So basically, I have to move my archives, find a template that doesn't suck, link to all my buddies both on and off Diaryland...sigh. Thinking about this makes me tired. Almost tired enough to just pay for the Diaryland Gold Membership again.

However, then I think about the stupid server crashes and all that other crap, and I become firm in my resolve.

I'll get right to fixing this. Just as soon as I play another game of Chuzzle.

Greetings, Salutations, and All That Shit.

2004-11-23T15:25:00.000-06:00

Hi kids. This is not my real blog, but I'm a complete retard and all of that "FTP server" nonsense made me want to curl in a ball and cry. Therefore, I'll just, like, post a link, m'kay?

Click here for the real fun.

I discovered Blog Explosion, see. And a lot of the Blog Explosion-ers host here. I like to comment. I LOVE to comment. So therefore, I decided to set up a blogger account. And then, I figured, why not use this opportunity to slut around for more site traffic?

So, check it out...it's just your basic sarcastic rant about life, the universe, and everything. I occasionally get all sappy, sensitive, and contemplative, though. I try to mix it up, yo. Don't want to start being all predictable.

You can all comment to your heart's content on my other blog, too...you don't have to be a member of Diaryland.

WT at WM...In Other Words, Just Another Oklahoma Friday Night

2004-10-30T00:17:00.000-05:00

Well, even after yesterday's excruciatingly painful gym experience, I trudged my happy ass back up there tonight. My Inner Lazy Bitch is at war with my Inner Competitive and Stubborn Bitch, and the stubborn bitch is ahead by a nose....tonight, FuckStick's plans included "back and bi's." Nope, I don't mean those who are sexually confused, I mean the REST of the muscles in your upper arm. They still don't hurt as much as the triceps do, but I'm sure that will all change tomorrow morning once the Icy Hot wears off.

So this evening, I had the ex-hot FuckStick mostly to myself. Of course, he was trying to be all cute and charming and shit, but I wasn't having any of that. He was just trying to DISTRACT me from the insane number of reps he expected me to do on the lat pulldown machine and the rowing machine. And more fucking ab crunches. If I don't look significantly more buff and cute at the end of this 8 weeks, I am so giving up and going on the chocolate cheesecake diet.

I did gain a little insight into FuckStick's character tonight, though. He's very competitive. He also happens to be the only trainer at the Y right now who has any sort of clue what he's doing. Basically, he has decided that our little group is winning this here showdown, and we will not be standing in the way of this happening.

Under ordinary circumstances, I would not mind this one bit, and I probably do need a sharp boot to the booty once in a while. Seriously, though, we are going to the Y, where everyone is a winner, and I'm sure that whatever happens at the end of this challenge, everyone will get some sort of stupid certificate about how they had the cutest workout clothes or something. Really, that philosophy is good for kids playing sports, but we're all grownups now and we should all know that someone has to win and someone has to lose...if I weren't so sick of all the election shit, I would make a crack about George Bush being the loser in that metaphor.

Blah, blah, blah. With all this talk about aches and pains and Icy Hot, I'm starting to sound like a freakin' senior citizen. Please stop me before I start talking about my colon.

So after the whole Total Y Experience, I have to go to Wal-Mart (WM from now on). You see, Loopy has been VERY VERY VERY poor for the last week. And Loopy was out of toilet paper and paper towels (which, in Loopy's house, count as dishes), and anything resembling edible food.

Before hitting WM, I stop to have some nachos at Taco Cabana. It's right next door to WM, and I've earned them for being in pain. Taco Cabana provided the first clue that perhaps this was not going to be the quiet "sneak in on Friday while people with lives are out having fun" excursion. The place was fucking packed. So I think, okay, it's not the best part of town, probably just the po' folks having a decent meal and shit. Then....I enter the Evil Empire.

First of all, the carts provide lots of slalom practice in the parking lot. After finally locating a parking space (and yes, my Inner Lazy Bitch won, and I drove around until I found a close one, thankyouverymuch), I mosey inside, and see....one retard trying to explain cart collection practices and procedures to another retard. By "retard," I do not mean someone who is just a person of average intelligence doing some stupid shit. I mean, the mentally challenged leading the mentally challenged. Had I not been so fucking worn out, I would have had to try MUCH harder not to laugh until the tears ran down my face. Yep, I feel them flames, Oh Lordy. What made it even more entertaining was that the one doing the explaining was a fat guy in an elf suit. I really wished BFRB could have been there, but she was eating dinner somewhere nice with her Republican relatives....the only person she could talk to without fear of being discovered was her 12-year-old cousin.

After taking my sweet time unsticking two carts, I fight the crowds to obtain the necessary items. However, tomorrow, OU is going to pound the shit out of the ‘Pokes (OSU)(and I should explain at this point that I really don't care that much about football, but the rest of this freaking state sure does), and plus, it's trick-or-treat night, and ain't nobody got no costumes. At least not in my town. Despite the serious feeling of claustrophobia which settles over me every time I'm in some crowded place (especially crowded places where I would rather not be), I did overhear some amusing things....

(Mustache-y short scrawny dude talking to slightly pudgy chick with a bad bleach job and their teenage offspring-gender undetermined): "Ah don't know why you always have to make some goddamn SCENE." Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

(African-American twenty-something talking on the phone in the meat department): "Girrrrrl, so should I make the ro-tel or just get some hot-dogs or something?"

(Hispanic family, several children under 7, oldest of said children talking on some pretend PA system which nonetheless certainly carried loudly into my auditory space): Gobbledy-Spanish-Gook. I think he was pretending to be something, but I don't know what.

Luckily, despite the overrunning of Wal-Mart with varieties of trash, especially White Trash (WT), they actually did have plenty of cashiers. Mine was even friendly and dressed up for Halloween. I don't think I was very nice, because by the time I fought all the screaming hordes, I could barely keep my eyes open, so we were at monosyllabic grunting communication. I felt kinda bad, because most of the time I try to be nice to the usually rude checkers.

Finally get home. But the Econo-Jug of cat litter is still in the car. My arms don't need to be lifting anything else tonight. GID is coming over tomorrow. I'll freaking make him carry it. For some reason, he likes doing macho shit for me. I think it's because I'm pretty much the independent type and won't let him. However, he can thank FuckStick. I only wish I'd left more stuff down there.

I Used to Think He Was Cute.

2004-10-29T10:18:00.000-05:00

So last night, the Y finally decided to put us in a participating Total Body Challenge group, and actually set a meeting with a real trainer (and not the lifeguard pretending to be a trainer who only works in the mornings when our group is a night-people group). At first, I was excited. I was excited because we were finally feeling like we hadn't just donated $20 to the Y, and I was excited because our trainer is hot. (18, dark hair, buff as hell, pretty boy who makes you reconsider your stance on cradle-robbing hot.)

Well, now I don't think he's even cute any more. He sucks. He is one sadistic motherfucker.

Seriously. I have been working out regularly since March. I do lots of cardio, I lift weights 3 times a week, and I am not a wimp. At least I didn't think so until last night. BFRB has been working out since May, lifting weights A LOT. She thinks our trainer is a super-deluxe dick munch too, although she would still consider him as a dance partner for the horizontal mambo.

I don't think I have felt this incompetent (in a physical fitness sense) since 8th fucking grade. Last night we did "chest and tri's" (that would be triceps, those muscles on the underside of your upper arms, for those of you who are wise and don't make the mistake of going to the stupid gym.) I usually do 3 sets of 12-15 reps at 35-45 pounds on the tricep machine. I thought I was pretty okay there. Beep, wrong, thank you for playing. Our trainer, hereinafter referred to as "FuckStick", made us do that, plus some more free weight shit, plus some pull-up and push-up shit, plus chest presses, attempts at the bench press shit, and then, to top it all off, AB CRUNCH SHIT.

It's a damn good thing that typing doesn't require much arm movement, because I can't move the fuckers. If I lift them, they sort of flop uselessly at my sides (like that part in Harry Potter where the bones in his arm are removed).

Tonight, FuckStick expects us to do bicep curls. And lat pulldowns. And some more back exercises. As if.

Cast Page

2004-10-28T15:42:00.000-05:00

A Cast Page, Instead of Any Thoughts. Because Right Now, My Only Thoughts are "FUCK My Head Hurts" and "HOW Long Is It Till 5 Again?"

Okay. Last week, I got all motivated and was writing my autobiography, and now I think my life is supremely boring and crushingly lame, so I have no desire to finish it. Either that, or I just want to continue denying that my adolescence existed. Anyway, since all I did was tell some stupid stories about when I was a kid, and really wasn't saying anything which made my current journal or diary or whatever word we're calling them this week any more meaningful and relevant. Ergo (and I love that word, by the way), I present to you….THE CAST OF CHARACTERS.

Me. GoingLoopy. 30. Female. Resident of OOOOOKLAHOMA where the wind comes sweeping down the plain. Nope, wasn't born here, nor am I sure I want to live here for very much longer. But right now, I have a job where I can basically slack a lot, so why fix it if it ain't broke? I have three cats, my parents, siblings, stepsiblings, and extended family all live in galaxies far, far away (actually, Houston, Seattle, and Flint, but it sounds better when it's all Star-Wars like). I have an "older writings" journal, and you can click here (or on "The Old Loopy" link above) if you want to read my bad poetry and stories about my quarter-life crisis.

BFRB (Best Friend/Running Buddy), a/k/a TickTrix. She lives in my building. She has two cats. She's 34. We met at a job we both used to have and felt instantly like we had known each other for years. We are co-dependent, and that's why we have problems when someone else (boy someone elses) want us to be in another high-maintenance relationship. Or it could just be that lately, our boys have been pains in the ass, and they aren't worth the energy.

BFRB2 (Best Friend/Running Buddy 2). She lives in Norman, which for those of you misguided fools who do not believe in the superiority of the Sooners, is the home of the University of Oklahoma and is about 20 miles from OKC. I've actually known her longer than BFRB. We met in college, while we were pounding nails in our coffin after a class we had together. She is 40 and has one cat. She is like the big sister I never had.

TM (Third Musketeer). She used to live next door to BFRB and I. She is 20, and I think she has a dog now, because her dad is being a jackass and was going to leave it out on their farm in the country when he moved to town. She moved to Alabama for a year, and recently returned to OKC. She is like a little sister to both me and BFRB.

GEB (Gay Ex-Boyfriend). He also lives in Norman, is 30 (his birthday is two days before mine, and we were both born in Michigan), and has three cats, two of which were my fault (they showed up on my doorstep, and I couldn't have that many, so he needed them.) We met on the way to our very first class on our very first day of freshman year in college. The classroom was very hard to find. We were friends for about a year, dated for almost two, broke up (and not because he was gay, either), didn't speak to each other for a while, reconnected, he came out, I came unglued, and then I decided that he was really a good and loyal friend, and that I probably couldn't continue being friends if he WASN'T gay. Probably makes no sense to anyone but me, but it sure is nice to ALWAYS have a built-in-no-drama-date if you need one, and he moves furniture and cleans house too, and likes to shop, and likes Tori Amos and the Indigo Girls. I should have known better than to date him….

OM (Office Mate). Self-explanatory. She is also a refugee from my former place of employment. She's about my mom's age, but is really nothing like my mother. She has one dog. My mother, for example, would never use the word "blow job" in a sentence, nor would she own lime-green shoes. We were next door to each other at our old job, and we would come up with convenient excuses about leaving shit in our cars so we could go smoke, because they were Nazis and didn't want you to LEAVE THE BUILDING during work hours, unless it was at their behest and would not benefit you personally in any way. We also had no patience with the silly mind-games some of the people there liked to play. And we both really have a shoe problem. We have always gotten along very well.

GID (Guy I'm Dating). He's also 30, has one cat, and currently lives with his mother (don't even fucking start with me.) He is moving out next weekend. He was trying to run his own business, but made the mistake of trusting his father to be his business partner, so the only place the business ran was into the ground. He is somewhat of a socially-retarded dork-boy, but he has some useful skills and attributes. Plus, his work hours are the opposite of mine, so he can't totally annoy and bug the crap out of me all the time. Once a week is plenty, thanks.

FHH (Fucking Hell Hole). My last job. Also self-explanatory.

Pretty much everyone else's acronyms are just their initials. That doesn't mean that the rest of the people I mention are insignificant at all. It just means that I was trying to tell a story and was focused on the plot rather than getting sidetracked by coming up with a pithy, easily-abbreviated description, which would generally involve some sort of complicated sub-plot because my descriptions tend toward the obscure. My, but that last sentence is kind of fucked-up sounding, but do I care? Not last time I checked.

Hopefully, this will clear up any confusion caused by my profligate (I like that word, too) use of acronyms. And hopefully tomorrow, I won't be so completely uninspired. I was trying to write some shit that was deep and poignant, but it wasn't going anywhere today. I need some more thinking time to formulate what I really want to say. Yeah. That makes me sound all hard-working, and tenacious, and shit. Word.

Oh, and one more thing....if you click on that Blog Explosion link from yesterday, you can sign up so that you can promote your own blog...everyone needs some blogging love.

Insomnia Sucks.

2004-10-26T09:19:00.000-05:00

Yep, friends & neighbors, I was up until 1:30 a.m. Again. I don't think I have actually had a good night's sleep since Friday….

Heard from an old, old friend, though…KT, who was my Millipede adversary in college, and one of my best friends during that time. Oh, the memories. Being completely ripped and playing video games (old-school Nintendo style), listening to Tori Amos (Little Earthquakes), the soundtrack to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and REM (Eponymous). Betting on the outcome of these Millipede games….loser had to go fetch the winner a coke and a candy bar. At 3 in the morning. Good times. Anyway, KT is getting married to another friend (really more of an acquaintance), and I'm really happy for them. She's a really good person, always very genuine, real, and caring.

I really thought I would still be able to sleep, though. I mean, it's not like I was on the phone THAT late. No, it's just my fucked up brain that won't shut the fuck up. Plus, I'm feeling a little guilty, since I blew off going to the Y last night. Yes, I realize I can take breaks, but I feel like such a slug when I do it. I'm irritated at the Y people right now, too, which is yet more of an excuse. See, BFRB and I are doing this whole "Total Body Challenge" thing. We paid $20 in addition to our membership fee to participate in this program, because we need some motivation, yo. However, we have yet to have a meeting with our group and trainer, we think the rest of our group is flaking out anyway, and they assigned us a trainer that only works in the morning….when we ALWAYS work out at NIGHT. We had our body composition tested, and we have yet to receive the results. Many pointed comments have been made to various employees regarding this complete cluster-fuck, to no avail. Seriously, if they don't get their shit together in the next two days, I'm asking for my $20 back. I really do not understand why they cannot run this properly…this is NOT the first time they have done it. I've seen signs every few months since I joined the Y in MARCH. Ugh.

I'm also wondering if it's not time to locate new lodgings. Granted, I live in the ghetto, and I knew it was not the best neighborhood when I moved there. Lately, however, we've gone from the occasional unobtrusive drug deal, random panhandlers, and college kids fighting, to the crack ho screaming at her dealer, a white-trash chick who keeps lurking about trying to get some sweet lovin' from our neighbor, and having gang signs spray painted on our front door. (They just removed the one from over the weekend, and another one was painted this morning….) The problem is, I don't think anywhere else this cheap that's five minutes from work exists, and even if there was a place…I'd have to MOVE. Moving sucks almost as hard as the crack ho does when she's looking for her fix and ain't got the cash.

Gee, it's almost 9:30. Time for my morning smoke break, another cup of coffee, and then maybe some actual (gasp, choke) work.

The Book Club Non-Meeting

2004-10-25T12:50:00.000-05:00

We (allegedly) have this book club at work. Our meeting was supposed to be 3 weeks ago, but no one read the book. Since then, it has been postponed repeatedly. Well, it was today. Our fearless leader (hereinafter "FL") sent a reminder e-mail this morning, and she said you should be there regardless of whether you read the book or not. (The book was One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and no one has read more than about 50 pages. Oprah, I don't know what you were thinking when you made this one a book club book, babe. Seriously.) The idea was that we would have a brief discussion about how lame the book choice was and pick something actually interesting for next time.

FL and I were the only ones there….so we picked out the book for next week, and she gets to be in charge of sending a snarky little e-mail to the rest of our members. (Hehehe. I said "members.")

Other than that, this morning has been most uneventful…of course, we're getting political e-mails again. The ones about how John Edwards is responsible for the whole flu-shot shortage. Think again, fools. Poor BFRB. She works in an office full of these misguided little gremlins, and they keep sending her this propaganda. Which reminds me of the T-shirt Emily Sailers (one of the Indigo Girls) had on last night…it said "WAX BUSH. Vote 2004." A spectator had one that said "LICK BUSH." My, but it is so convenient that the angry little short man has a name which can so easily be misconstrued.

Okay, one more little quickie rave about the concert, and then I swear I'll shut the hell up. Some of their music is political…but what's really interesting is that a lot of it was written before 9/11…and it is even more appropriate now (i.e., the line "the president has no idea who the masses are…"). At the end of the concert, they and their opening act (Girlyman) did an a capella song about world peace. It was a little cheesy, but it was just beautiful and a great ending to the evening. I swear I will shut up about it now. I promise, supermom3604 and warcrygirl.

Sing a Song...

2004-10-24T23:16:00.000-05:00

I just got back from seeing the Indigo Girls in concert, and they rock. Of course, I thought they rocked before the concert, but now I think they rock even harder. Go buy all of their CD's and listen to them repeatedly...and know that they sound just as good live.

It was an interesting crowd...they are politically active lesbians, so we had the gay men, the gay women, and the straight women who dragged their boyfriends. One such couple was sitting next to us (I went with GEB.) To his credit, the man actually appeared to like the concert.

I will never, ever understand why lesbians have mullets, though. Seriously. I can almost understand the lack of feminine fripperies, if I approach it from the "casting off society's bonds" angle (as opposed to the "I hate men, but I'm going to dress like them" angle), but why the bad hair, chickies? I think I counted about 30 mullets in our section before I stopped counting. So strange.

So anyway, it's late, and I need to pretend to be tired so I can get up at the butt-crack of dawn to go to work. If I could go back in time, I would hunt down the ass-monkey who decided that the business world needed to start at 8 a.m., and I would make sure the shitbag died in excruciating pain long before his ideas took the world by storm.

Friday Night in the Big Town

2004-10-22T22:10:00.000-05:00

Okay, I just looked at my clock, and when I saw that it was only 8:38 p.m., my ass freaked the fuck out. I thought it was like 10:30. I was thinking my snuggly cozy bed and my snuggly cozy kitties would be in order shortly. However, staying home on Friday night is boring enough without the added "and I went to bed at 9, too" stigma.

Ahhhh, just removed the gym ponytail holder...

I was thinking about posting another online dating profile. I got about halfway through it and decided that I was too tired to come up with any witty comments. All I was sounding was bitchy. I think I'm going to ignore that stuff for a while. I just get bored with it. Dorks, losers, geeks, freaks...they pretty much find me anyway, so why make it easier on them? Plus, I guess I'm allegedly in a relationship. He thinks so, anyway. Not that I've been cheating on him, or anything, but on my planet, one should not assume that hanging out once a week constitutes something serious. I guess I just don't know how I feel about GID. I like him, and sometimes, he surprises me with his unexpected coolness. Other times, though, I think he's an emotionally retarded, delusional, socially inept freak. Unfortunately, he also happens to be skilled in the sex department. It's so much easier to blow them off when they're bad in the sack....and when you get an unexpectedly skilled one, you know that the sex will be difficult to replace with some that is satisfactory.

I've never understood why anyone would find sex to be difficult, for god's sake. However, some people just don't get it. I don't know who told them that shit was ok, but trying to make them unlearn things is such a pain in the ass. I have always adhered to the philosophy "do unto others." I really can't believe that ANYONE would find genital-chewing, tongue-choking, or manhandling to be pleasurable. Unless they're some kind of masochist, or something. But that's exactly what you get a lot of the time. I guess sex is like everything else in life....there are people who "get it", and people who never will.

I could have gone somewhere tonight, for the record. BFRB2 invited me to come hang out. If it was just her, I would have, but she has her two youngest nieces. I love them dearly. But I have no energy for children this evening. I don't have energy for much, at the moment. I worked all week, I worked out all week (well, mostly) and now I'm freaking tired and just want to set the clock to 420 and chill.

I don't understand the whole going-out-on-Friday-night thing. I can understand happy hour after work, but the get all hookered up and party thing is just beyond me. My, but I am getting old. Although at 25, I would come home on Friday nights and fall asleep reading a book with all the lights on. So maybe I'm just wired in some lame way.

BFRB and TM are not online, either. TM may be at work. Her schedule is always different. And speaking of TM, she wanted me to post a picture that did not feature her holding an imaginary penis and standing over a toilet. She did that on her own, man. However, she is really not psychotic and freaky looking. See?

Last time we did laundry, she said some really funny shit. I really wanted to post it and attribute it to her. But I was in a slightly altered state (I mean, really, how can you do laundry stone sober?) so my mental notes were erased. TM, if you remember what you said about Ebonics (but that wasn't the word, and the word was hilarious), comment. Because I do remember laughing my ass off. In between you poking BFRB and I in the shoulder blades with a straw, of course. Next Friday will be laundry night again, which usually means all kinds of wacky things can happen....

My brain is dead, my eyes are tired, and my fingers will no longer hit the keys in the proper sequence. Therefore, I will say goodnight, and God Bless America.

Reviews

2004-10-22T21:58:00.000-05:00

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I'm Tired of History Lessons Right Now.

2004-10-21T22:42:00.000-05:00

...We'll get back to them. Sooner or later. But I really want to talk about something else besides my whacked-out, fucked up childhood, okay?

So anyway, stupid shit I've seen this week:

(1) A license plate that said "GODFILL". What the fuck is that? A landfill for Jesus, an invitation to do something pornographic, or something else?

(2) An old lady in a big ol' hat and some big ‘ol sunglasses trying to parallel park her big ol' Oldsmobile. Looked like she had failed at it in the past, too....there was a big bumper chunk missing.

(3) People are still googling boss's day shit. It's over, kids. And planning this far ahead would make you an ass-kisser the likes of which the world has never seen. Other dumb shit people have googled to find me: "buy fat-free coffee mate," "supermodel,yo," and "random life changing epiphany." And yeah, I should probably link those to myself, but I don't feel like it. But feel free to self-Google.

A cool thing: I found my diaryland twin.

In other news, the book club meeting at our office has been moved again, dammit. I really thought I could just make my excuses and get out of the meeting and play when they were reading something interesting, but no...I think everyone else has had the same idea, so it's like this battle of wills. What's really amusing is that the book club leader hasn't read the whole thing yet either. I think only the office dork-critter has. She's one of those people that is just clueless, but has a degree, so thinks she has a clue. Yes, I know, I have a piece of paper too. However, unlike a number of people in the lawyer-groupie field, I don't believe that immediately conferred some knowledge. I prefer to think of it as "adulthood avoidance on the parents' payroll." Office-chick is just flat weird. She's one of those people that just doesn't quite seem to fit together right. She's almost pretty, almost well-dressed, almost articulate...and she almost makes me want to kick her.

GID wants me to read some of his writing again. I don't know why he keeps doing this to me. He never, ever likes what I have to say at all. He's very creative, has some great ideas, but his grammatical and spelling skills leave much to be desired. He really wants to get published, but every time I gently suggest that maybe he needs to run the spell-check, or something, he gets all freaking defensive and tells me it's not an English contest. Maybe it's not. However, the editors are likely English majors who couldn't get published, so they're probably going to be nit-picky about that shit out of pure resentment and spite. I didn't think he was ever going to make me read anything again after my comments on the last batch of stuff, but alas, I was wrong. Super. Which means on Saturday when I hang out with him, we'll be having a stupid argument instead of sex. At 20, I would have loved some shit like this...discussing things, having a "relationship", being all deep, blah, blah, blah. At 30, I just want some regular boo-tay and perhaps an occasional dinner/movie date. That is one of the universe's great jokes...at 20, women want relationships, and men want sex. At 30, women want sex, and men want to "settle down." Hopefully, when we hit 40, men and women will want the same thing: someone who doesn't annoy the living crap out of us.

I could probably babble on for days if I were more awake, but I'm really tired. The insomnia fairy has visited this week, and I am feeling it. Does this mean Loopy will go to bed now? I will try. However, I am almost positive I will remain awake for quite some time. Maybe I should take one of my anti-insomnia pills, but when I do that, I have a really bad tendency to sleep through my alarm and get woken up at 7:45 by my little Maggie's starving-child act....and if I just stay awake, I will hit the snooze button 8 too many times and wake up at 7:45. (Gotta be to work at 8, allegedly....luckily, I only live 5 minutes away. But if I don't have time for coffee and cigarettes and MahJong Garden in the morning, I get very cranky.)

What did I say about babbling? Clearly, awake is not a prerequisite for that.

A Loopy Little History, Second Installment

2004-10-20T23:15:00.000-05:00

I probably should have typed this whole thing at once and THEN posted it. But this is more fun. I know you're all waiting with bated breath for my next thrilling installment...because my life is so unbelievably fascinating. Of course, all of us D-Landers think that, or we wouldn't be here, obsessively checking our stats, trying to come up with new and interesting banners, and reading many, many diaries in an attempt to convince ourselves that we're really not so fucked up after all.

Chapter Two: In Which We Move Back to Houston, I Suddenly Have No Friends, and My Life Generally Blows the Goat Ass

After my friend's party, a last night of Barbie-playing with my best friend Sarah, and tearful goodbyes and promises to write, we move away from Pittsburgh. In this process, my mother had some seriously fucked up dreams, one of which my brother and I still tease her about. She dreamed that the moving truck was in the driveway, and they were trying to load the freezer, and it was full of popsicles. Chock full. Popsicle-o-rama. She keeps trying to give them away to all the kids in the neighborhood, but all the kids HATE popsicles and don't want any. This causes my mother to completely freak the hell out and scream "Doesn't ANYONE want a popsicle?!?"

Maybe it's only funny if you know my mom. She's the type who spazzes about everything. Don't get me wrong, we get along very well and I love her very much. Sometimes, though, she really needs some valium or something. Holidays are particularly stressful in mommy's world. It's like she thinks our family is going to quit being dysfunctional and weird for a day and pretend we're like, normal and stuff. This usually results in a complete breakdown about something like side dishes for Christmas. Therefore, for the last two years, my sister-in-law and I have been in charge of beverages. As in, we make sure mommy's wine glass (and our own) are not empty. This has many amusing repercussions. My mother SO cannot hold her liquor. Christmas is much more fun this way.

Okay, back to the moving away from my true home story. We move back to Houston, same house, same neighborhood, same elementary school, and I thought, same friends I had before I left. Wrong. My friends had all MADE OTHER FRIENDS. I was totally rejected and no longer a part of the crowd. I made some new acquaintances, but basically spent the next two years without a real "best friend."

Some stories from this period:

(1) Parents drag children, kicking and screaming, on a motor-home tour of Texas. My favorite part was eating junk food (velveeta and pepperoni on ritz crackers) and suffering the consequences in some remote West Texas wasteland when my dad wouldn't stop the freaking motorhome so I could get over the sick part. I hate camping. And fishing. And hiking. And all of that nature shit. I'm a city girl. I need concrete and pollution and traffic noise and malls. I don't like bugs, slippery rocks, sunburns, lack of showers, port-a-potties, or my family in an enclosed space for two weeks.

(2) My friend April in fifth grade taught me how to TP a house. That's still the only time I've ever done that.

(3) I fell off the swingset in the backyard and chipped my two front teeth. I'm so coordinated.

(4) In fourth grade, our Reading book was the same one we did in third grade in Pittsburgh. I told the teacher this, and she ignored me. My mother finally had to call the principal, they gave me a test, and sure enough, I had done the fucking book the previous year. I got my very own reading book, and a whole shitload of other special activities. At first, I thought this was cool. Then I started feeling all lonely and left out.

(5) At the end of fourth grade, I tore a ligament in my ankle playing softball, and spent the last day of school on crutches.

(6) In fifth grade, my homeroom teacher was a moron. However, our English teacher, Mr. Bridges, was the coolest ever. We all had crushes on him.

(7) Fifth grade also marked my introduction to orthodontia. I had a bad overbite, because I sucked my thumb long after I was old enough to know better. Can you say oral fixation, boys and girls? (And I wonder why I'm fat and I smoke.) I had to wear this nasty big ass retainer thing. At school. All day. That lasted about a week. Then I wore it out of the house, shoved it in the case as soon as I got out of sight, and put it back in when I was walking home from school. Ironically, the orthodontist was very pleased with my progress and let me out of it early. What followed was less fun, but I'll save that story for the next installment.

(8) At the end of fifth grade, we had a pool party. This kid I'd known since preschool or something asked me to be his date. I was horribly rude to him. Like really mean. He was kind of a dork, but then, so was I. (I won the fucking spelling bee, for fuck's sake.) I still feel really horrible about this. His name was David Rodgers. If he by some chance stumbles across this, let me say that I SINCERELY apologize for being such a bitch. On some stupid superstitious level, I wonder if this is not why I've had completely shitty luck with men.

That will be the end of tonight's thrilling tales. Sixth grade belongs to junior high, which was a whole new dimension of suck. Sounds like a lovely project for tomorrow at work.

A Loopy Little History, First Installment

2004-10-20T13:32:00.000-05:00

I have been reviewing what I've written, and I realized that any information anyone has about me is in bits, pieces, and spurts. I just sort of jumped right in to my life. I can't believe I did that. It's like starting a movie in the middle…you can sometimes follow the plot, but you don't always have enough information. Yeah, I did 100 things about me, like everyone else (shut up, Dusty, we can't all be as cool as you), but that doesn't really tell you who I am, what I'm about, and why you should give a rat's rosy behind about reading this drivel.

Therefore, without further ado….

Chapter 1: In Which I Am Born, and My Parents Really Start Re-Thinking the Whole Having Kids Thing.

I was born on May 12, 1974…Mother's Day…in Flint, Michigan. My parents lived in a trailer. My whole extended family lived nearby. My father worked at GM. Then he got laid off. Then we moved to Houston, TX., where I lived until the age of 18, except for the two years we spent in Pittsburgh, PA. I loved Pittsburgh.

Somewhere along the way, my parents cursed me with a younger sibling. I like him now, except for the fact that he's a complete dork. But I sure as hell didn't as a kid. He did stuff like eat my crayons and color in the VERY FIRST LIBRARY BOOK I ever brought home. I was totally mortified about this.

I learned to read at age 3 (or before…I don't remember learning how, I just remember knowing how), and to write shortly thereafter. I used these talents for evil, doing such things as inviting my friends to parties and sleepovers which my mother knew nothing about.

As a child, I loved Mickey Mouse, the color red, macaroni and cheese, swimming, coloring, reading, ice cream, visiting my grandma and grandpa, Strawberry Shortcake, Barbie, the public library, and smacking my little brother upside the head. I hated my dad, my first grade teacher, vegetables, being told what to do, the booger-eyed ass-monkey in my third grade class who had the nerve to make fun of me, the dark, and my little brother.

Some stories from my childhood:

(1) My grandma still lived in Michigan. In the summer, when I visited, we would go strawberry picking. Up until the age of 7, I loved strawberry-flavored anything. That all changed. We picked some strawberries. I ate a huge mixing bowl full of them. The expected result occurred. It looked like a strawberry milkshake. To this day, I have a very difficult time eating pink food of any kind.

(2) My mom took my brother and I to the mall once. I was 9, he was probably 5 1/2. We were moving away from Pittsburgh in a week, and one of my best friends was having a birthday party that night…hence the reason for the mall visit. My brother acted like a mutant from the planet Stupidio the whole time we were there. My mother erroneously included me in these misdeeds, even though I didn't do shit. We went home. She told my dad. I almost didn't get to go to my friend's party, because they were ignoring my protests of innocence. Parents suck.

(3) We had two hamsters named Sugar and Spice. Sugar was a big fat hamster. Spice was a little runty hamster. Sugar would get to the food first and empty the whole food bowl into his mouth pouches so that Spice couldn't have any. Spice had issues anyway…he never gnawed enough to clip his teeth, and we had to do it; he was always kind of sickly. Sugar lived forever. Spice lived about 6 months. After that, we had a hamster named Peanut. He was so fat that when people saw him sleeping, they thought it was two hamsters.

(4) I was a very hypersensitive and stressed out child. In third grade, I kept having these unexplained headaches and stomachaches. They never did figure out what was wrong with me, despite various food-deprivation diets (to see if I was allergic) and taking away my favorite old feather pillow. I read an article as an adult. Turns out I was probably depressed.

(5) Most of my very best friends had younger siblings about the same age as mine. We came up with lots of new and interesting strategies to get rid of them. One of my personal favorites was playing house and making them be the family pet.

Okay, I need to type some work-related stuff at some point. (I always say this. But really, one day, they're going to notice, right?) However, this will be my project for the next few days. Next installment will focus on my adolescent years and why a nice, juicy hot carl would probably have done less damage in the long run….

For the next installment, click here.

Lunch Hour Smackdown

2004-10-19T14:45:00.000-05:00

My office mate and I decided that we could not stand the office for another second. Therefore, we took a little field trip to Ross Dress for Less. Not like I have money. But I stare at my closet every morning with this perplexed look on my face, like I somehow expect that things have appeared in the night. They usually don't. I keep hoping, though…

We came, we saw, we shopped. Evidently the rest of the planet decided they needed retail therapy on this gray and rainy Tuesday too, because the lines at the checkout were very long. Our cashier had this hair that looked like her cat had been grooming it for her, and a bad 80's vest. At least she appeared ironed. Including her hair.

The Ross employees finally get a clue, and they open another lane. The new cashier very clearly states that the next person in line without a return can come over to her lane. I was clearly next, followed by my office mate. Guess we didn't move fast enough, because this bitch behind us starts making a beeline and saying she has to be back at the office. Don't we all, you fucking ho? However, she wasn't fast enough either. This other chick with a bad dye job and some seriously huge glasses (they went nicely with the huge print on her outfit) shoves in front of HER and says something along the lines of "I really can't wait any longer." This woman then proceeds to argue with the cashier about whether her nasty new clothes cost $12.99 or $11.99. Office-mate and I BOTH checked out, and this bitch was still arguing. Yep, you're in a hurry.

Speaking of Tuesdays and why they are lame….

We get this e-mail from our office administrator about an hour ago. There are a lot of people in our office. So, they have decided to make an internal directory. That, in and of itself, is fine. What is NOT fine is that they give us 20 minutes notice on the photo. Everyone on my floor is decidedly unhappy about this. We need to know this crap so we will be sure to (a) fix our hair (b) wear makeup and (c) wear a presentable outfit. Maybe it's really a spot-check to see who is violating our dress code. Of course "no jeans except on Fridays" pretty much seems to sum up the fashion rules at our office….but still. I think this photo will be worse than my driver's license. And no, I'm not posting that picture either. I look like one of those madwomen they used to lock in the attic, or an escaped retard.

I should work, or something. I think "something" is going to win this afternoon.

2004-10-18T12:27:00.000-05:00

I Thought MY Weekend Sucked.

Why am I in such a contemplative funk?? This is crazy. However, I think I may have taken some serious steps toward overcoming my stress-eating problem this weekend. BFRB and I have decided to participate in the YMCA total-body challenge. Perhaps I mentioned this last week. Perhaps not. But regardless, I am WAY too unmotivated to go look today. So anyway, being that the weigh-in is tonight, and to win your team has to lose the most weight, we decided that this weekend would be a lovely time to eat tons of junk food and ditch the gym. (Which sounds much like the old me, now that I think about it…) I really didn't think the old me was too far gone, either…but I think she is. I was MISERABLE last night. Like wishing I had a stomach pump miserable.

Today, I must confess to being hungry. However, I really don't want to eat any more fried shit with cheese on it. So I ate my breakfast Lean Pockets and now I'm having a cookies-and-cream carb control bar. No, I am not one of those low-carb-heads. Can't do it, captain. I must have carbs or I become extra cranky and try to cram a whole day's worth into an hour before bed. I bought them because they had a lot of protein and not very many calories. I was HOPING for a satisfying feeling of fullness that would last all afternoon. Nope, doesn't happen, but it does last marginally longer than a Slim-Fast. I think it's the chewing factor. You can try to convince yourself that drinking a nutritious yummy shake is the same as eating, but your stomach has other ideas…as in, that was a nice appetizer, bitch, you planning to really feed me now? The chewing thing is good. However, the taste….not so good. It will help you in your gazillion ounces of water per day quest, though. You'll need it to wash the strange aftertaste out of your mouth.

Onward, pagan soldiers….

GID needs to fucking get control of his hypoglycemia or whatever the hell turns him into an asshole when he doesn't eat. Friday night, he came over after we did laundry. (In a side note, the Laundry Nazi was most pleasant…opened the door, traded me $20 dollar bills when mine wouldn't work in the change machine, etc. Maybe she got some from that freak who spent all evening following her around the last time we did laundry.) Okay. So anyway, I was running around, tried to call him to tell him to come a little later, but of course, this is the one time he shows up early. And pissed off. And hungry. Hopefully he will not be pulling that shit again. If me being pissed didn't do it, him not getting any might have. I've gotten at least two apologetic e-mails, and he was most nice on Sunday when we went to the zoo. Men are so annoying.

Where was I? Oh yes. I was supposed to hang out with BFRB2 on Saturday, but by the time I got done running around to Wal-Mart and all that shit, I was not in the mood to be any fun. She understood, but I still feel really lame. I spent the evening taking a nap, posting a lame update, and playing video games. I'm such a party animal.

Oh, in my entry of random top 10's, I promised to explain when it's ok to tailgate. It's okay when you're on a non-passing type road and the person in front of you has forgotten that they have a gas pedal. This happened on the way home from the laundromat. We got behind some complete moron who kept their speed at a consistent 20 mph. Never saw brake lights. Never saw acceleration. BFRB flashed her brights and tailgated, and the fucker didn't appear to notice. Once we FINALLY got to a part of the road (on which the speed limit is 35, I might add) where we could pass the dickhead, we sense go-to-hell looks and a really ugly hat. The windows were tinted, so we couldn't really determine species and country of origin. What was even funnier is that he was GOING to turn right, but then went straight. I think he was trying to follow us. Going-you guessed it-20 mph. We lost him after the first light.

However lame I thought my weekend was, it pales in comparison to that of my co-worker's. She was helping her mother with a garage sale. In the meantime, while she is out in the cold and wind making signs and injuring her (other) hand (she hammered the first one earlier in the week), her mom gets a call from co-worker's significant other. The S.O. works for a telephone giant as a repair person. They have been obligated to work mucho overtime lately because of the suck-ass weather we've had. The S.O. was trotting out into the yard of her last call of the night, carrying her 28 foot extension ladder, and she stepped in a hole. And fractured her ankle.

So anyway, my co-worker was counting on the S.O. to help with the garage sale shit. Instead, not only is my co-worker having to deal with her mother whining, she has to deal with whining at home, too….not to mention all of the domestic crap (i.e., cooking, cleaning, shopping, bring me stuff, walk the dog, etc.) Further, they just got some new furniture and electronic equipment. S.O. was in the middle of reconfiguring everything when the ankle incident happened. So now, in addition to everything else, there is a satellite receiver with accessories in the middle of their living room. Here's hoping no one trips on it and breaks something….

I'm trying to work today, really I am. Therefore, since I have finished my delicious cookies-and-cream-like substance, I should do the productive thing. Right after I go smoke.

Random Top 10 Lists. Because I'm Too Lazy to Type a Real Entry.

2004-10-16T22:16:00.000-05:00

10 Favorite Songs

1. Indigo Girls "Closer to Fine"
2. Tori Amos "Tear in Your Hand"
3. Tori Amos "Purple People"
4. REM "Find the River"
5. Counting Crows "Round Here"
6. Dusty Springfield "Son of A Preacher Man"
7. Norah Jones "One Flight Down"
8. Dave Matthews Band "Grey Street"
9. Erasure "A Little Respect"
10. Janis Joplin "Me and Bobby McGee"

10 Favorite Books

1. Tom Robbins "Another Roadside Attraction"
2. Pat Conroy "The Lords of Discipline"
3. Dan Brown "The DaVinci Code"
4. Tom Robbins "Jitterbug Perfume"
5. Claudia Shear "Blown Sideways Through Life"
6. Lynne McFall "Dancer with Bruised Knees"
7. Ayn Rand "Atlas Shrugged"
8. J.K. Rowling. All the Harry Potter Books. And I don't think that counts as five, either. They are a unified set.
9. Fannie Flagg "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe"
10. Baroness Von Orczy "The Scarlet Pimpernel"

10 Favorite Episodes of South Park

1. Rainforest, Schmainforest
2. Chinpokomon
3. Chickenlover
4. Cartman Gets an Anal Probe
5. Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride
6. Christian Rock Hard
7. Cripple Fight
8. Two Guys Naked in a Hot Tub
9. Damien
10. Probably

10 Favorite Foods

1. Plain Hershey bars, frozen
2. Ben & Jerry's Vanilla Heath Bar Crunch
3. Cheese enchiladas from Pappasito's
4. Velveeta Shells & Cheese
5. Mushroom Swiss Burger from the Diner
6. My mommy's roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn
7. Peanut butter & marshmallow creme sandwich
8. Chicken salad from the Ground Floor Cafe
9. Garlic mashed potatoes at Charleston's
10. The Crawfish Combo at Pearl's

10 Favorite Video Games

1. Poppit!
2. Mahjong Towers II
3. Rocket Mania
4. Astro Pop
5. Jewel Quest
6. Super Collapse
7. Rumble Cube
8. Pyramids
9. Shape Shifter
10. Bounce Out

10 Things That Completely Irritate Me

1. Alarm clocks
2. Any kind of persistent noise...tapping, clicking, beeping, etc.
3. Stupidity in any form
4. People who tailgate (however, there are a very few instances where it is acceptable to tailgate. More on this when I decide to type a real entry.)
5. Running out of toilet paper
6. Waking up too late to make coffee
7. Having to wait when I made an appointment
8. Insomnia
9. Condescension
10. Being poor

And finally, so I won't end by being a whiny bitch, which I have done far too much lately:

10 Things That Always Make Me Happy

1. Hearing from an old friend
2. Finding random cash in your house
3. Clean sheets and blankets
4. My kitties purring and being all cute
5. Finding out you have something weird in common with someone
6. Hot showers
7. Smelling good
8. Finding a bargain
9. Setting a new high score on a video game
10. Checking my stats and finding out people sometimes really read this.

Just Three Things…and a Three Paragraph Rant.

2004-10-15T14:33:00.000-05:00

THREE THINGS THAT HAVE PISSED ME OFF TODAY
(1) Overdraft fees
(2) Headache
(3) My boss moving a staff meeting and fucking up my lunch plans

THREE REASONS FOR OVERDRAFT FEES
(1) SW Bell
(2) Oklahoma Guaranteed Student Loan Program
(3) My fucking health insurance company which would prefer an unplanned pregnancy to paying for birth control

THREE E-MAILS THAT HAVE ANNOYED ME
(1) Drag your mouse to find Jesus
(2) Person unable to figure out how to click on and follow a hyperlink
(3) E-mail informing me that staff meeting was at 1 p.m. and not 10 a.m.

THREE THINGS IN MY HEAD
(1) I really don't want to call my mom and borrow money
(2) I don't know that I have a choice
(3) Life sucks big purple donkey dicks from the sky

THREE SONGS THAT I WISH I HAD NEVER HEARD
(1) Hoobastank – "The Reason"
(2) Anything by Dashboard Confessional. And don't even try to tell me they are good. Yeah, the music world needs more whiny white boys about as much as it needs…
(3) Michelle Branch – "Everywhere"

Thanks to the MySpace bulletin I received last night from redstarhelix for the idea for the above lists.

If you guys are not getting the picture here, let me state for the record that today sucks. Actually, the last three Fridays have pretty much licked the sweat off a dead whale's balls (that's for you, arc-angel666). I have no idea why, but somehow, Prozac doesn't work on Fridays. I was in a perfectly good mood earlier this week. But today, I feel fat, ugly, worthless, and poor. And at least two of those four are pretty accurate.

I have a headache that four Advil have not touched. I need a cigarette. I need someone to not make donuts appear in our office when I'm in this kind of mood. What I really need is to go home. I wonder if anyone would notice if I snuck out. It would probably be the one fucking day that someone needs me at 4:30 for something. That's the kind of day it is.

Please, make it stop. Or make it ok to have a loaded bong as a desk accessory. Think I could pass it off as a pencil holder? Or a bottle of Jack Daniels could pass for cough medicine?

And a PS for BFRB: I tried to put the quiz in, but the link was too long and it made some FUNK-O-RIFIC things happen on the bottom of the page, yo. So if any of the rest of you want to find out what DMB song you are, give Ticktrix a holler. Further, add HTML to the list of shit that makes me nuts today. Forget one quotation mark and see what happens. Go 'head. I also realize that this is more than three paragraphs. I further realize that I don't really give a rat's ass. I will add this to my list of reasons why I am a complete fuckup today.

Fire Drills, Random Googling, and Body Piercing

2004-10-14T10:57:00.000-05:00

I thought that, after I moved out of my college dorm, I would not have to be subjected to any further fire drills. Oh, how wrong I was. We just had one. In our office building. First, the redneck security guard gets on the loudspeaker and informs us seventeen times that it's only going to be a drill. THEN, the annoying little siren noise and the chick voice saying "Do not take the eleva-TORS" starts. And it keeps going, and going, and going….our floor, with the exception of a few knee-jerk rule-followers, debated at length whether we were going downstairs. Finally, I decided that walking down five flights would not be that suck-a-licious, and that if we were having a fire drill, the least I could do was create some smoke. As my office-mate and I progress into the hallway, the annoying bitch gets louder. By the time we enter the stairwell, it's so loud I'm thinking the building needs to be issuing ear protection.

So we get downstairs, and it's freezing outside. Of course, being me, I wore warm clothes this week….every day BUT today. I really think the sadistic property managers waited to have this stupid fire drill until we had a cold day. It's been beautiful out all week. At least it wasn't raining. But they can toss my salad.

And in a completely unrelated topic, like most newer D-landers, I check my stats obsessively. Here is a short list of the things people Googled to find me:

(1) "Stab Soft Palate"
(2) "Mexican Mullet"
(3) "Boss's Day Stupid"
(4) "Boss's Day Speech"
(5) "Boss's Day E-card"
(6) Many other variations on "Boss's Day".

I think "Mexican mullet" is my favorite. Of course, knowing that random Google searches will find me, that makes me want to come up with some seriously goofy shit. I consider it a creativity-building exercise, rather than just an excuse to say things like "guzzle platypus semen" and "rectal spelunking".

My, but I am sinking to new depths hourly. Maybe I really should work, or something. Of course, since I review medical records, sometimes I read really disgusting shit. Like about a 340 pound woman with bilateral nipple rings and a tongue piercing.

I'll just leave you all with that lovely mental image…..

If We Vote for Them, Will They Shut the Fuck UP???

2004-10-13T20:55:00.000-05:00

The presidential debate is on. I was really into the first two. Now I'm just bored with them. Maybe it's just because neither one of the candidates are saying one thing that is new and interesting. And the sad part is, what they are talking about tonight (that being domestic issues) is the stuff that will really affect me personally.

Blah blah blah...seriously. I know I'm voting for Kerry. I think he's full of shit, but they're all full of shit. At least he's giving lip service to things like abortion rights and equal pay. Bush is blethering on about education. Which is ironic. His standardized testing crap is frustrating the hell out of teachers. And are teachers making enough money to put up with a bunch of whiny brats and their parents? No. My mom is a teacher. She loves working with kids, and hates the administrative crap.

Kerry's usually so well-spoken, but I think he just said "gunnoo." That's approaching "nukular" on my annoy-o-meter. Not quite. But Johnny boy, you need to be sticking with the intelligent and rational approach. Don't start sounding like that moronic redneck.

But they are yelling at each other. That's fun. Gotta love the drama.

I really should be paying more attention to this. I should also be reading the book for my book club meeting tomorrow. I just can't make myself do it. Am I turning into a complete junk-food reader? What I'm supposed to be reading is 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. What I want to be reading is the new Patricia Cornwell book. What I actually AM reading is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the I-don't-know-how-many-th time. Fuck it.

This is why I don't know if I'm mature enough to go to graduate school. Give me an assignment that does not offer a monetary reward, and I don't want to do it. I probably would like that book if I'd actually read it...but the fact that I have to makes me not want to.

BFRB and I actually went to the gym tonight. The Y is having this 8-week total body challenge thing, and we're going to do it. We've been stunningly unmotivated lately...her about going, me about eating as well as I should be. We decided that we need some external motivation...that is, someone will be checking on our progress. And it's a contest, too. Pathetic though this may be, I am a competitive little freak. BFRB has those tendencies, too. The participants are in teams of four people. We were all scoping out the gym for people to be on our team. We finally asked a chick we see there all the time who seems cool, and she agreed...she also has a BFRB who wants to play, so we'll be kicking some ass. Word.

However, the Y was not all sunshine and flowers and rainbows tonight. First off, my ass hurts in a serious way. It's that fucking cardio machine from yesterday. I don't ever do that one, but it was crowded, and that was the only available option. I've spent all day in pain, despite the handful of anti-inflammatory pain relievers. And tonight was lower-body weights night. So now my ass and legs REALLY hurt. Secondly, I managed to pinch my little finger between two slidy weights, and now I have a blood blister. It's ugly. And I can't decide whether popping it would make it hurt less or would just be painful and gross.

Aren't you glad you read this far?

It could be worse. I could be talking about personal itching. Or something. I was surfing the members directory and found this dude talking about his bowel problems. I'm not linking it. I was too lazy to bookmark it, and I don't want to be encouraging that nastiness. Sometimes defecation can be an amusing topic. But it's all in the presentation.

If these two assholes don't quit talking about how Jesus loves them and that's why they'd make a good president, I swear I'm going to move to Canada.

Things That Piss Me Off, Part 9324561

2004-10-12T23:04:00.000-05:00

1. String cheese wrappers. Specifically, EXTRALONG string cheese wrappers. The fucking things will not come off, no matter how hard you try. It's funny...it has some stupid little warning about not using your teeth to open it. Personally, I'm not sure if you could open it with a chainsaw, a blowtorch, and a team of oxen.

2. People eating food items out of the work freezer which do not belong to them. This happened to me today. I decided to TRY eating a weight-control snacky protein bar of some sort for lunch. At 2:30, it wore off. I decided I needed my Lean Cuisine lasagna out of the freezer. Somebody ate it. So then my completely broke ass had to go purchase alternate sustenance. Of course, I had to send an e-mail to our floor bitching about said snarfing of my food item. As it turns out, my former office mate was the culprit...she thought it was hers. So she is buying me lunch tomorrow. Because she is actually a cool person.

3. People who cannot read and/or listen to simple declarative sentences and follow instructions.

4. Little assholes in Ford Festivas who try to tailgate me. I say "try," because when the slow-ass motherfucker in front of me moves and I kick up the gas, this little go-kart masquerading as a street-legal automobile is left in my dust.

5. Sexual-equipment-impaired assholes in big trucks who tailgate me....and then, when you get out of their way, they drive right in your blind spot for the next five miles.

6. Not being able to find things I know were there a month ago. In this case, the missing object was a book I promised someone I had in my possession. However, when I was digging under my bed as part of my fruitless search, I found the brown sandals which have been missing for three months, which were way too expensive, and which I now cannot wear unless I wish to court frostbite. (Okay, maybe that's a little teensy bit of an exaggeration. Perhaps I should say, risk pneumonia.)

7. Insomnia.

8. Midnight munchies when I haven't even smoked anything to make them happen.

9. Being incredi-poor. It's not a matter of IF something is going to bounce...it's a matter of WHEN. Will it be the phone bill or the student loan payment...or all the other random $5 checks and/or debit card purchases I've made in the last four or five days? Knowing my luck, that's exactly what will happen, and I will be charged another $200 that I don't have in overdraft fees. I really have this secret hope that our firm's bank will make a mistake and deposit our paychecks early. Like tonight would be great.

10. Going to Barnes & Noble in said poverty-stricken state and NOT BEING ABLE TO BUY ANYTHING. That's like taking a starving child to Golden Corral and telling them all they can have is a glass of water. So close, and yet so far away....

11. My cat (Maggie) always has to be in my face or my lap or just whiny when I'm trying to talk on the phone or type anything beyond a website address on the computer.

That's all I have to say. I'm tired, and I'm hungry, and sooner or later, one of them will win. And in the meantime, I think I need to play some stupid mindless computer games.

Hail to the Chief, and More Hallway Plumbing Fixtures, and Stuff

2004-10-12T11:40:00.000-05:00

…Good lord, can Boss's Day just be over already? At least now, though, everyone appears to be coming up with some sort of consensus, but we're still having issues about who is in charge….and we're still getting e-mail. At least it's only been 5 this morning.

And I want to know, who the hell at my office supported Jesus's right-hand woman? Seriously. We got this e-mail from her:

Dear Firm:

Many of you have expressed concern and prayers regarding my upcoming surgery (removing fibroid tumors) on 10/12/04. I am grateful for the outpouring of well wishes.

Your response to my book, The Guardian, has been tremendous. Thank you. You will never know how much I appreciate your help.

[MR]

Ya'll, it's like feeding a stray animal…it won't ever leave. And it will expect you to feed it every day.

Oh well, at least the drama keeps us entertained. It's not like we really have the normal work-related crap to bitch about. Most of the people are actually nice, too, but given that I work in the legal field, it attracts people who like to be in charge of stuff. As long as I don't have to deal with this stupid shit, and as long as I don't get 51 e-mails in 4 hours with no actual decision made, I don't really care.

In other news, a sink has now been added to the toilet in my hallway. If a bathtub shows up, I will truly be frightened. I can't figure out why they are there, either….I mean, they are all old and fucked up looking, so I'm sure they are being replaced. There's a dumpster located right outside. I'm sure the homeless people who dig in it would just LOVE a sink and toilet.

Finally, speaking of contributing money to various causes, the fundraisers haven't stopped. There are like three or four of them in the kitchen right now, we get another e-mail about a new one every day, and that doesn't even include the home-based business folks. You see, Jesus's woman is not the only one trying to grab some extra money by guilt-tripping her co-workers. Oh, no. We have Avon, Mary Kay (which is actually a double-whammy, because it's someone's college kid trying to earn money), Home & Garden Party….

Okay. Since I've already gone off on child prostitution, I mean school fundraisers, it's now time to give you home-based business folks a little clue. MY SALARY IS PROBABLY REALLY CLOSE TO YOURS. Therefore, if you need extra money, chances are, I do too.

Yep, today's entry is random and lame. However, you really should go check out discothekid. Right on, my brothah….can I get a "George Bush Sucks Ass!" from the congregation?

Mondays Could Quit Sucking Any Time.

2004-10-11T14:04:00.000-05:00

First of all, it's raining and cold. And it's a federal holiday. That would be Columbus Day, for those of you like me who don't get the day off. Why the hell do we still celebrate this holiday? It's not like he really "discovered" America anyway.

Next, we have the parking garage traffic jam. Evidently, THEIR boss doesn't seem to realize that most of us working folks don't have the fucking day off, no matter how much we need it. Therefore, said boss only has about 2 employees parking cars this morning, which means that the line was down the block and around the corner.

Oh, and yeah, the boss's day e-mails have started again. So far, we're only at 4. I think everyone else is sick of this shit, and they don't care what we do as long as it does not involve them being in charge.

However, even though my Monday has been fairly lame, it doesn't even compare to BFRB's Monday….GSD, the personals guy, has turned into a complete stalker freak. She thought she got the point across to him last night, but alas, no. He e-mails her this morning, and when she doesn't e-mail him fast enough, he calls on her cell phone. She's told him not to call her during the day while she's at work. Repeatedly. He updates his diary with "50 Things about Me"…he read hers, which would be why the reduced number. This list is pretty much about her. It also "jabs" a little about things like not returning phone calls or paying enough attention to her. He has actually updated said diary about 4 times this morning….the last one, before lunch, was a weird cat picture that he said was his favorite???

In the middle of all the boy drama, BFRB's co-worker is being a complete psycho hose beast. She's about to get the axe. She was out of the office Friday, and BFRB covered some things for her at the request of their boss. This morning, she walks in, looks at her desk, and starts screeching like a banshee at BFRB, and quickly progresses to screeching at some clients.

Further, BFRB's dentist is being a complete asswad...and telling her she needs to schedule a three-hour cleaning (on what planet does it EVER take that long? Unless maybe you're a shark and have 17 rows of teeth, or something).

Then, BFRB has to meet GSD for lunch. He's trying to be all sweet, but it's so obsessive she can't even deal. He brings her a flower. She wants to puke. She cuts lunch short, saying she has to cruise back to work. After lunch, he posts some more fucked-up shit in his diary….

Monday is going okay for Monday so far...with one exception.....

[BFRB] is having a bad day at work and I know that she's under stress and all from it, but she seemed way off today and even though she said I had nothing to do with it maybe I feel that I am stressing her out in some way which is contributing to they way she's acting...I dunno...maybe I'm just worrying too much...but I just had to open my fat mouth Friday night and say the three words that I DREAD telling anyone....and I think that's scared her....

I really honestly do care about her a lot, and I want nothing more than a great, wonderful long-term relationship with no worries and no hassle...but have I spoken too damn soon? I think I'm going to get hypnotherapy to erase those three words out of my vocabulary.....I swear I just jack shit up by saying it....and now I hope I can recover from this and not scare [BFRB] away....this sucks...I'm probably worrying for nothing and it's all work-related....

I did get her a rose today to cheer her up...so maybe that will help put a smile on her face today....

You're the best [BFRB]...I'm sorry for putting my foot in my mouth too early."

This entry pretty much sums up everything that is fucked up about this boy. He sounds so rational and normal, until you look at the fact that he's posted 4 times today about her, and he's called, e-mailed, and been to lunch with her in the meantime!! In addition, his entries almost blame her for not being pathetically grateful to have him. Of course, this means that she's going to have to be completely hateful to get rid of him. Men suck.

So much for online dating….

Ahhh, Productivity.

2004-10-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I was going to write this yesterday, but that didn't happen. Actually, not a whole lot that could be construed as "productive" happened yesterday. My day:

1. Come in to the office.
2. Answer call from BFRB, venting about her office drama of the morning.
3. Go get coffee.
4. Answer e-mail from boss.
5. Catch up with office mate.
6. Go smoke.
7. Go get breakfast.
8. Go get flu shot. This involves standing in line for TWO HOURS.
9. Answer e-mail.
10. Go get lunch.
11. Go smoke.
12. Engage in conversation with fellow employee regarding the boss's day brouhaha.
13. Answer e-mails from GID and BFRB.
14. Read e-mail from another co-worker regarding the book she has written.*
15. Do some actual work for 15 minutes.
16. Answer further e-mails from BFRB, GID, and my former office mate (hereinafter FOM.)
17. Have conversation with another co-worker regarding technical difficulties on the computer and our favorite episodes of South Park.
18. Do 5 more minutes of work.
19. Answer e-mail from my dad.
20. Shut down computer.
21. Go get car.
22. Go to gym and bust some ass on the elliptical trainer and the bike (what?? something useful??)
23. Go home and bathe.
24. Meet GID for dinner.
25. Pick up birth control prescription (and something else that actually needed to be done???).
26. Hang out with BFRB to get the latest update on the Guy She's Dating (GSD) and the drama at her office.
27. Read idiot-milk's diary for a while.
28. Cuddle with my kitties.
29. Sleep.

* Up until this point, I actually had some respect for this co-worker. She has some serious balls. When we had a meeting about our supervisor's concerns that we found her "unavailable," this chick said what everyone was thinking: "This doesn't mean we're going to be micromanaged, does it?" And last week, several of us were hanging out in FOM's office, drinking coffee and avoiding work. She came in to pick up the things she ordered from FOM's kids' fundraisers. She and another black co-worker had both bought African-American themed items. They said that it wasn't because they particularly liked this stuff, but since they didn't used to have any of it available, they felt the need to support their people so that multicultural Christmas decorations, toys, etc., would continue to be available. So anyway, this is the e-mail we got yesterday:

"Hello...
Just wanted to invite you to review and/or purchase a book that I wrote and published entitled, The Guardian . . . I've placed copies on each floor's break room for your convenience. The book is a gripping true story about how I faced death but live to tell the story. The whole purpose of the book is to encourage others to NEVER give up!

You will laugh AND cry AND experience every emotion in between. You can read this entire book in one sitting (45 minutes). I really think you'll enjoy this quick read.

I have left an envelope to put your $6.50 check in. You can contact me here or find out more at the below website. I'm having surgery next week and will use the proceeds from this book to supplement my income since I haven't been here long enough to get disability insurance."

There was also a link to her website. Jesus wants you to buy some shit, yo.
Remember, this e-mail went to the WHOLE OFFICE. There are a lot of people that those on our little stepchild floor never see. I still admire her balls, but this is some seriously crazy stuff, right up there with seeing the image of Jesus in the couch on someone's front porch in Anal Wart, Arkansas.
Okay, time to make a stab at (gasp, choke) working. Happy Friday!!

51 E-mails Later...

2004-10-06T14:07:00.000-05:00

Just a brief rant….

Close your eyes, and let's travel back in time to my college years. I did competitive speech and debate, and we had a very opinionated team with widely divergent food preferences…one vegetarian, one who wouldn't eat veggies…you get the idea. Deciding where to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner (we traveled out of town extensively) was very similar to World War III. At one point, we agreed that we would pick restaurants before we left. Well, we did. Then, we get to a tournament, no one wants to eat where we decided, and our coach, in utter frustration, starts screaming that "WE'RE EATING AT WENDY'S DAMMIT." (That is what had been agreed upon earlier in the week.)

What is the point of this story, you ask? Well, group decisions still pretty much suck donkey balls, and the degree of suck increases exponentially with each additional person involved.

For those of you who are not aware, Boss's Day is October 16th. At my office, we pretty much like our bosses. So, at 8:30 this morning, the e-mails about what we're going to do about Boss's Day start. As of this writing, I have received 51 e-mails regarding this momentous decision.

My office is huge. There are about 40 people just on my floor, and there are just as many on each of three other floors. We have e-mail groups for staff, part of the staff, part of our floor, all of our floor…well, let's just say our IT guys aren't taking care of bidness, because the people upstairs got e-mails we intended for just our floor. So everyone has pretty much put in their two cents. In an effort to stop the insanity and reach a decision, a woman in the office next door sent around an e-mail with a definitive proposal:

From: CDP

Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 9:39 AM

To: Five

Subject:

After reading all of the e-mails this morning, some of us discussed how obscenely complicated this whole Boss's Day thing is getting. We think that the little folks on five should be doing their own thing...here's the proposal.

I've called [Spa Name Withheld], and they offer a head-to-toe, hour-long massage for $71.00 (this includes tax). If everyone on 5 contributes $6, that will enable us to purchase a massage for [Direct Supervisor], [Office Administrator] and [Trainer], plus a card for each of them.

Anyone who wants to is still free to participate in the breakfast/lunch/whatever activities upstairs.

Please let me know if you agree with this proposal. If the majority of us do agree, please have your money to MNC no later than next Wednesday, October 13th as she will take care of purchasing the gift certificates. Thanks!, CDP

This sparked another 20 e-mails, none of which agreed about any proposal on the table. Finally, in desperation, I sent this:

From: GoingLoopy

Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2004 11:36 AM

To: Five

Subject: RE:

...because [CDP] heard that was a really good spa, and we didn't necessarily think they would go during the day....

I think the point of this e-mail was to see if we could actually make a decision and stop with all the e-mails flying around (and ending up making the actual decision at the last minute)...it was not to try and make anyone feel left out or obligated. It just seems like we've spent all morning back and forth with everyone upstairs and downstairs and everyone disagrees and everyone wants to do something different for different people. [CDP] was just trying to sort of streamline the process a little.

I think, at least at our end of the hall, we're fine with whatever. This was just a suggestion. If everyone wants to do something else, fine, but let's just get it done already....this shouldn't be this complicated.

Of course, there is still no decision, but someone e-mailed me back and said that she thought it was decided when the first e-mail was sent at 8:30 this morning?!?

One final point, and then I will stop my bitching and do some actual work. On Secretaries' Day (or Administrative Professionals' Day, or whatever the fuck stupid politically correct term they've renamed it this year), everyone on the staff gets a thank you card, $50, and a two-hour lunch. Therefore, why can't we just chip in and get some Visa gift cards or something easy? Why we got to be spreading dissension about massages and flowers and candy and cooking breakfast for the whole office?

Maybe the people in our office are just not busy enough.

Weekends and Wal-Mart and Schnitzel and Noodles

2004-10-06T09:23:00.000-05:00

So, about my weekend, which I've been intending to write about for three days….

I went and hung out with BFRB2, and we did some lunch/shopping type activities, then went to JS's house for dinner (she cooked. It was yummy. I've been full ever since.) However, that was the first time BFRB2 and I have gotten to hang out together in a month. We made plans twice….the first time, she forgot that she had promised to help someone move, and the second time, I had the yucky cold.

I used to live very close (like less than a mile) from BFRB2, and nowhere near BFRB. Now, the situation is reversed….and I spend way more time with BFRB than with BFRB2. It sucks. I hate that friendship is such a function of proximity. Don't get me wrong….I love hanging with BFRB. And I talk on the phone to BFRB2 frequently. It just irritates me that hanging out with one of my best friends has to be such a fucking project. I really like spending time with JS, too….she's a new friend, but a good one…however, we communicate mostly via e-mail. Of course, now I'm wondering in my screwed-up, warped, twisted head…do people really come into our lives for a reason? That is, would we meet our best friends no matter what happened, or is it all a function of convenience? Or coincidence?

Okay, Loopy, back away from the coffee pot slowly and no one will get hurt….

On a completely unrelated note, let me once again state for the record that Wal-Mart blows the goat ass. Their selection blows, their employees blow, the businesses that rent space from them blow, and their customers blow. Why, you ask? Last night, I went to Wal-Mart after I went to the gym. I needed to get my nails done, and pick up the following food items: (1) coffee creamer – Coffee Mate Fat Free Cinnamon Vanilla (2) NutriGrain Chewy Granola bites in Caramel Nut Crunch (3) Orville Reddenbacher's Movie Theater Butter microwave popcorn. They had #3. So now I'm stuck with plain vanilla creamer and no chewy granola bites….and the nail place arbitrarily closed an hour early, so I didn't get that errand done either. Which means I have to go back to the evil empire TONIGHT.

To add to the general frustration, the cashier at Wal-Mart had some serious issues. Story time, boys and girls. The last time BFRB and I went to Wal-Mart, we decided to purchase cigarettes, because they had them on sale for like $2 a pack. The sale was on individual packs only, not cartons. Wal-Mart also only allows you to purchase cigs at ONE register, which is an express lane. This means that you have to stand in line twice. The cashier in the sin lane is an older African-American gentleman who clearly does not realize that Jeri-Curl has not been socially acceptable since the 1970's. So anyway, BFRB and I smoke the same kind of cigs. She gets the last 10 loose packs. When it's my turn, all the moron has to do is open the carton, dump the smokes out, and ring the fucking things up. This happens….after he consults with management and the two of them clearly cannot figure this concept out. 20 minutes later, after all my frozen food has thawed, I finally get my fucking cigarettes.

Forward to last night. Now Mr. Jeri-Curl is working a regular register, since he clearly does not have the speediness required for an express lane. There is one person in front of me, and he has almost no items. Of course, one of the 4 items he has rings up incorrectly. So once again, our fearless cashier must consult management about the price per pound of Granny Smith apples, which takes about 15 minutes by my watch. Then, the idiot cashier starts ringing up my items on the other guy's order. He tries to void them, succeeds, then drags them BACK across the scanner FOUR MORE TIMES, thus necessitating more voiding. Finally, the customer manages to figure out how to work his debit card (how do people not understand this???) and it's my turn at last.

Never go to Wal-Mart hungry. I bought $70 worth of shit and I'm not sure I have any actual food. I'm going to be living on popcorn, sun chips and fat-free dip, fat-free Jello pudding, and coffee for the next two weeks.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about Wal-Mart sucking tomorrow, since I have to go back and get my nails done tonight. Assuming they decide to remain open, that is.

Microsoft Word Can Kiss My Ass.

2004-10-04T11:22:00.000-05:00

My, but it's Monday…

First off, I actually make an effort to be on time. This is foiled by the incompetent fools working in the parking garage where I park my car. Remember, it's valet parking. (Shudder.) This week is jury week at the courthouse, and the courthouse is very near the parking garage. Therefore, all the people who never come downtown and have no idea what they're doing are trying to park in my garage. The attendants in said parking facility are way too busy smoking weed (seriously…one of my co-workers found a pipe in her car) and talking to each other to possibly be bothered with doing their jobs. The cars are backed up down the street and around the corner….so I am sitting in some deluxe gridlock for at least 20 minutes. (This is to go LESS THAN A BLOCK.)

So I finally make it upstairs to my office, and I just have a few little edits to make on some documents which can then be printed and distributed. As I'm finishing the last table in the last document, I get some stupid error message saying that "the table is corrupted." The document was still open, though, and it appeared to be fine. However, it was not fine. When I went to print it, the table decided to re-format itself and replace a large amount of my data with mumbo-jumbo.

Let me backtrack for a moment here and mention that I'm usually the unofficial "tech support" at the office….everyone calls or e-mails me when their software is not behaving. I can usually fix it, too. Not today, kids.

After closing the document (without saving the jacked-up Word-inflicted changes, that is), I rebooted the computer. Document is still fried. I attempt to reformat the table. Sure, it reformatted….but not the part I told it to reformat. We then tried the old "cut and paste data into a new, properly formatted table." Nope. It just put the jacked up formatting in the new table, too.

Time for retyping, friends and neighbors. I hate retyping things. And I hate it even more that the last printed version I have of this document does not contain the stuff I spent all day Friday entering. Can I get a "fuck you, Bill Gates" from the congregation? WordPerfect never does this shit. You can always fix things in WordPerfect. Unfortunately, the WordPerfect makers did not ensure compatibility with Outlook and all the other programs that Microsoft's monopoly forces you to use, so people are switching to an inferior word processing product.

Of course, in the middle of all these technical difficulties, we get an e-mail from our supervisor saying that we need to review all of our data (we review medical records for a class-action lawsuit, and each person doing this job has about 50 people) to determine if they have had a particular type of surgery. We get this communiqué at 9:12 a.m. She wants our answers by 9:50. For those of you who are mathematically challenged, this means reviewing at least 250 pages of documents in 38 minutes. So, of course, I drop everything and do this project, hoping against hope that my document will be mysteriously returned to normal after I close it again. Don't be silly, little girl.

Therefore, I decided to type a brief rant in hopes that it would diffuse some of my feelings of frustration. It's not working. I'm still irritated as hell. One more time, worshipers…"FUCK YOU, BILL GATES."

A postscript: I usually type my entries in the evil program, then cut & paste to post them. I go to post, and diaryland is not working either. I don't even get to officially vent. Grrrr. Can I go back to bed now?

Chaos Theory

2004-10-03T10:19:00.000-05:00

Looking around my apartment, I am always amazed. If anyone who didn't know me came in here, they would think I was insane. You see, I'm not an organized person. I'm the antithesis of organized. I need to be on that "Clean Sweep" show, or have that chick on Oprah come to my house.

For example, my bookshelves. (First in my line of sight at the moment, you see.) They contain: books. Magazines. A McDonald's McHappy Bucket with decorative marbles that don't go in anything since the cat broke the vase. A box of envelopes. Some perfume. Some nose spray and cough drops. The light fixture that won't go back up. The iron. Some candles. A box for the cordless phone I gave away. A bag with miscellaneous mail and receipts. A cup of pens. CD's containing various computer software. A space heater (not running, of course). A hair clip. A jar of vicks. An empty plastic cup.

You get the idea. I am just a random collection of crap. The rest of my house is very similar. I usually know where stuff is, though. It's a coping mechanism. I think that, since I've been like this my whole life, I've learned to consciously remember where I leave things. It's usually totally logical to me. That's why I've found my electric bill in the bathroom and the book I'm reading on top of the refrigerator.

I have tried to get organized and keep things in places which make sense to someone besides me. But it never seems to stick. When I moved into this place, I put things away. I sorted into little containers and drawers. There was nothing under the bed, the bookshelves just contained books, and my nail clippers were not in the kitchen drawer. As time has gone on, though, my apartment once again reflects the inner chaos that is me.

Compounding my organizational problems is the fact that I don't like to run out of things. You would think that this means I always have a replacement on hand (of stuff like toilet paper, toothpaste, dish soap, etc.). But that's not really it. I tend to save the last little bit of stuff for "emergencies." I have a collection of bath and body products in my bathroom, most of which have but one or two uses left. I don't even like most of the scents anymore. But I won't throw them away, either, because they've been discontinued and I can't replace them. I'm that way with other stuff too...I have a freezer full of food that doesn't sound good, but that I won't throw away in case I'm ever on the verge of starvation. Not that this has EVER been in danger of happening.

To most of the world, I seem to have my shit together. My friends just think I'm a little scattered. If any of them had to go through my stuff (if I were in a serious accident or dead or something, what a cheerful thought), they would think I was straight up nuts. Maybe I am. Maybe I should get my shit together. Yeah. I'll get right on that.

Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

2004-10-01T01:20:00.000-05:00

So, once again, BFRB, TM and I make our bi-weekly trek to the laundromat. And once again, we're hungry. This time, after the headache of past experiences, we decide to head for Arby's. We've been there before. The service is much better than it is at Denny's . However, it's almost the opposite extreme...customer service overkill. These folks are not working for tips, mind you. But they are all like "WELCOME to ARBY's" and inviting you to enjoy delicious turnovers and their pepper and pickle bar. It's kind of scary. The people there tonight were not the same ones from the last time we were there, but they all had the same Ghetto-Stepford-Robot look about them. I really wonder what kind of drugs they were on. Seriously.

Anyway, it's a little rainy here tonight, and on the way back to the laundromat, there's a rice-burner full of some sort of young guys, and they are attempting to accelerate very fast on the wet pavement. We're talking, tires spinning, brakes squealing, super-fly gas pedal action. But the car was going NOWHERE. We're motoring along in BFRB's Jetta, and we're about to rear-end these yokels. People like that are so annoying. The ones who are all flash and dazzle and noise, but really, they're not saying too much. (Just like George W. Bush in tonight's presidential debate!!! And there I will stop with the political commentary for tonight...)

After ensuring that we will not be involved in any sort of collision with the Boyz in the 'Yota, we turn our attention to our lovely surroundings. The journey from food to clothing takes us through an interesting area...partly collegiate, partly run-down, partly rebuilding, partly convenience store, partly strip mall, partly mom-and-aunt thelma hair salon. There's a billboard. For a church. And it talks about building people's finances. BFRB was a little perplexed about why a church was talking about helping folks make money, and TM explained that the God tells us we shouldn't be in debt. My comment: "Guess I'll just add that to the list of reasons I'll be burning in hell." BFRB's Comment: "Guess we need to go party...that's SO not what I'm going to hell for."

Adding to the list of completely random shit I'll be discussing in tonight's post, we ran into one of our Laundry Nazis this evening. It's not the mexican mullet girl; instead, it's the long-gray-haired-almost-looks-like-she-has-a-story-but-I-really-don't-want-to-hear-it one. Anyway, she's not being totally annoying on this particular occasion, except for the usual following us around picking up dryer sheets and sighing routine. I overhear her discussing her prison life, the terms of her parole, and the conditions of living in her halfway house with this bizarre nerdy dude. This conversation takes place while I'm getting quarters to put in my machines. The dude is still there an hour later. This guy was really, truly odd. He looked about 20 years younger than the chick. He had a very small head, very short hair, very nonexistent socks, and very high-water jeans. He very much invaded Laundry Nazi's personal space. However, I guess because of her time in the Big House, she didn't seem to take umbrage at this. The freakazoid was still there when we left, and still following her around. They win this week's "One of these Things Just Doesn't Belong" award.

I get home after all of this somewhat shallow observation and contemplation, and BFRB2 calls. She's talking about life-changing, epiphany stuff. She wants to do something to help underprivileged infants....the ones that are falling through the cracks in the system. Let me back up here. She's an attorney. She mostly represents your basic college-town criminals: DUI, DWI, possession of {pick your favorite party drug}, shoplifting, etc. Since she's a fairly new attorney, she also takes the court-appointed files from time to time...the "if you don't have an attorney we'll give ya one" files. (The attorneys get paid a token sum for this representation, but it's better than nothing.) Some of these involve deprived children. Today, she goes to visit her law partner's new grand-niece, and is struck by the dichotomy between this healthy, pink, squirmy little infant and the abused kids she sees in her practice. She doesn't have any kids, and doesn't really want any. But she always has wanted to fight for the underdog. And she makes a good point: who can hate a little baby? She plans to do some research about what she can do to make a difference, because she needs to do something that she feels passionately about.

Gee, that seems to be my problem lately too. I am passionate. But right now, it seems so unfocused. I need a direction. I just keep thinking more and more about what I need to do to make a difference...and I guess I'm torn between the higher-values, socially-responsible making a difference, and the "I want people to read my diary and think I'm the funniest person ever and I want to have a column and a radio show and a TV show and be famous" making a difference. I want both. I want it all. I want to be Oprah. Why is it that when you figure out what you want to be, someone's always done it first? And done it so well that even if you're good at it, you'll always be seen as a copycat/knockoff/lame-o imitator?

...and I wonder why I have the insomnia of bloody death...brain, shut the fuck up. It's late, mama's tired, and her little Maggie kitten is licking the skin off her arm in a pointed reminder that it's fucking bedtime already. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...the sun'll come out...and it's anothah day. And as the literary allusions progress from the sublime to the ridiculous, I best stop typing, or shit's going to get ugly.

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor...

2004-09-29T15:05:00.000-05:00

BFRB and I were conversing yesterday evening about the usual topics: men and why they suck, work and why it sucks, being bored and why it sucks…and then we started musing about WHY we were bored. Well, it's because we're broke, and we can't afford to do any of our usual weekend field trips to various retail locations because we suck at window-shopping.

Seriously. Six months ago, we had money. We went shopping a LOT. We'd hit the clearance sales at Dillard's, cruise by Ross and Old Navy, and wind up at our favorite, Shoe Gallery. Then, we would go have dinner somewhere that didn't have a drive-thru. Now, the only places we go are Wal-Mart, PetsMart, and Laundry-Mart. (Okay, it's really called Swiss Cleaners and Laundry, but I was trying to maintain the symmetry.) Our bills are the same, our paychecks haven't mysteriously shrunk, so where has the money disappeared to??? Did our Christmas gifts/tax refunds just finally run out, or what?

It's not just us, either. Everyone I work with is bemoaning their lack of funds. The rest of my friends (GEB, BFRB2, TM) are all riding the broke bus. None of us can really pinpoint exactly WHY, either. All I can figure out is that in my last life, (assuming I believe that I had one, which let's say I do today) I must have been really rich and a complete fuckstick. That must mean that all of my friends were, too. But really, universe, I have the point now!! I promise that, if I were to suddenly be possessed of great riches a la Bill Gates, I would know how to use them in a benevolent and kind fashion but still maintain myself in the pinnacle of luxury. I don't even mind WORKING for the riches. Just send me an idea, okay? Something which will make my metaphorical ears perk up.

So, if anyone has any ideas for money-making ventures that do not involve selling access to my orifices, donating bodily fluids, or risking death, please let me know so I can steal…ahem….utilize them in a manner which will benefit all humanity, particularly me.

And if you live in Oklahoma, be sure to vote for the lottery in November. We all need a get-rich-immediately fantasy which does not involve driving to Texas.

All the Small Things...

2004-09-28T17:55:00.000-05:00

My illness has finally begun to abate. After one last bout of weird, overdosing on cold medicine, heart racing, hands shaking, freak-o-rificness this morning, I feel much more human. However, certain things that have happened over the last few days have made me wonder…why do things seem to be so much more bothersome when you're sick, tired, and/or stressed out?

For example, computer problems. Everyone who owns a PC knows that the shit will crash periodically, especially when you're about to win the auction of a coveted item on eBay, achieve orgasm, or hit send on the hate e-mail you've been composing. But when you're not feeling your best, the "server busy" message on Pogo games will provoke a whiny, snot-slurping rant about how no one loves you because you can't even play a stupid GAME.

Then we have pet problems. The cat puking on your bathroom throw rug is a weekly occurrence, at least when you have a fluffy kitten like my little Emily:

While you're sick, though, and are just going in the bathroom to grab another wad of toilet paper because you're out of Kleenex, the cat puke takes on astronomical significance…"Even my cats HATE me, I'm so pathetic."

Of course then we have the frustration of dealing with humanity. Wal-Mart on a weekend is never a fun place to be. However, when you've gone there to replenish your supply of Robitussin and Sugar-Free Alpine Hot Spiced Cider Mix, and you feel like a big pile of quivering Jell-O because you have not had a dose of either of them in a whole hour, and you discover that these two items are on opposite ends of the Super Mega Wal-Mart, and then they don't have enough checkers, so you have to wait in line for 30 minutes in the express lane behind the non-English speaking, overdressed woman who can't figure out how to swipe her fucking credit card….need I say more? While this kind of crap is not exactly uncommon when dealing with a heartless corporate giant, it's especially frustrating when your head feels like it has been crammed in a vise and your nostrils feel like they are stuffed with socks and sealed with duct tape and your eyes hurt from the glare of the lights because all they have seen in three days is the dim light in your cave-like apartment.

The list never ends. I remember once, I was trying to wash a bowl or something when I was sick. Don't ask me why I needed to wash this PARTICULAR item, other than my sick little head decided I needed THAT bowl to make soup. So, of course, I break it. And it slices my thumb open. And I cry for an hour. Yeah, the cut hurt, but any other time it would have been a "slap a band-aid on the shit and keep on trucking" kind of incident. Or you finally venture out of the house to get some food, and your KFC Popcorn Chicken is like Popcorn Rocks when you get it home…and your sick ass goes back to KFC and you're pissed off and upset enough to (a) convince the manager to make a fresh batch of Popcorn Chicken (which takes like 30 minutes, apparently) at 9:00 at night and (b) give you a free Little Bucket Parfait, too.

I have this theory that life tends to kick you while you're down. Therefore, it's never just one bad thing that happens. One bad thing sets off a chain reaction of many bad things, and before you know it, you are completely fucked. However, I can't figure out if being sick really fits into this hypothesis. Yeah, a few minor things go wrong when you're sick, and they really make your life miserable. But if they're not really that bad, do they count as bad things in the event cascade, or should you still be waiting for more jacked-up stuff to happen once you have recovered? Is there another shoe, or did it already kick you?

DayQuil, Jack Daniels, and Taco Bueno

2004-09-26T18:16:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year...the time for the disgusting, gross, neverending upper respiratory infection. And it's all thanks to my friends in the office next door. It's sounded like the fucking tuberculosis ward in there for weeks, and they finally managed to breach my immune system's defenses. For the last four days, I have been very very very sick.

This is the part where I whine....

I didn't know my body could produce this much snot, and that it needed all of it so badly. I can't smell, I can't hear, and I can't breathe. I try to blow my nose and nothing happens, except I feel like my eardrums are going to implode.

I've consumed three bottles of Robitussin DM (and/or its generic equivalents) over the last three days. Not working. Box of Day Quil - ditto. Sugar-free hot spiced cider with Jack Daniels...better, but not by much. Spicy fast mexican food...couldn't really taste it, so now it's just sitting there.

I can't really smoke much, and my head is so stopped up I think I'm getting dizzy from lack of oxygen. I can't tell if (a) I'm running a fever (b) I've combined the wrong medications or (c) I'm semi-drunk.

This was not how I planned to spend my weekend. I planned to (a) hang out with BFRB2 and her niece (b) see a movie, have dinner, and get laid and (c) work out a few times. What I've done instead is (a) played endless games of MahJongg Towers II (b) whined enough that GID brought me some cough syrup and (c) sat on my ass for two days.

I wish I had sick time, but I don't. This means I will have to drag my hacking, coughing, sniffling, sneezing ass to the office tomorrow. However, I will use copious amounts of Germ-X antibacterial hand gel so that I don't infect anyone else.

Part of me would love to just go off on someone or something, but I can't summon the energy.

I. Feel. Like. Ass.

Cat Fight!

2004-09-23T16:55:00.000-05:00

This apparently happened last night in ghetto land. However, I heard none of this, because it was on the opposite side of my building. BFRB got an eye-and-earful, though. This tale features underage drinking, theft, women fighting, and the competence we've come to expect from the Oklahoma City Police.

Apparently, the ruckus began about 11:45 p.m. BFRB was watching Oprah and playing on the computer. After muting the sound on the TV, BFRB looks out her window. Four girls in a Blazer-type vehicle were harassing two girls walking to their car. Many allegations were made, most of which contained the words "white trash." The two girls approach the SUV, the chicks in the SUV take off their shoes and jewelry, and the fight begins, complete with rolling on the ground, hair pulling, screaming, and yelling. They would take breaks and start back up. Of course, they have an audience of about a half-dozen horny young white boys. Break up the fight? Don't be silly. They'd have to pay for this shit on the internet later…..

Well, on about Round 3 of Chick Fight 2004, the neighbors come out to watch. Most of these are young black men.

One of the girls who had not yet reached her vehicle had a purse. When she picked it up, everything fell out, and then she kept dropping it on the ground so that she could continue to smack one of the other chicks around. Finally, one of our friendly neighbors walks over, grabs the purse, picks up the contents, and calmly walks back across the street. BFRB screams out the window for him to give the purse back. He of course pretends he doesn't know what purse she's talking about and says that he's just waiting on his crack dealer…I mean friend. So he casually walks back over toward the girls, and before he drops the purse, he grabs the wallet. At this point, BFRB tells the bar boys watching the fight that the other guy just swiped the wallet…and their wussy asses don't want to mess with the boyz in our hood. BFRB asks them to tell the chick, because she clearly has no problem getting in someone's face. They ignore her.

About this time, BFRB runs downstairs, and tells the guys and girls they better get going before cops show up…she can tell that each and every one of these little drunks is underage. They start getting all indignant and telling her that they only have to be 19 to get in the bar. Well, yes, kids, but the legal drinking age is still 21. Of course, they ignore her. The girls in the SUV cruise off, though, right before 6 cars carrying Oklahoma City's finest arrive. BFRB tells the cop about the purse-snatcher, and four cars leave. Then, another neighbor comes downstairs, and tells BFRB about 3 times that she's the one who called the police. The cops talk to everyone, take down some names, stick the girls in the police car for a while, but don't appear to actually arrest anyone. Maybe they felt sorry for the girl who got her wallet stolen. Of course, the four heavily armed officers could not track down one scrawny little drug abuser.

Finally, everyone disperses, and BFRB and our neighbor are talking. They agree that our neighborhood pretty much sucks big purple donkey dicks from the sky, but we'll never move. We should, however, invest in a video camera. We could make a shitload of money selling footage to "Girls Gone Wild" and "COPS." Then maybe we could afford to live somewhere besides next door to a 19-to-enter, serve anyone, beer-only, white-trash dive.

I Don't Feel Like Being Funny Today.

2004-09-22T17:26:00.000-05:00

Every time today I have tried to write something interesting, it meanders, rambles, and is generally not interesting and sure as hell not funny. I'm not in a funny mood, I guess. Is it a lack of sleep, or a lack of anything interesting happening in my life? I suppose I could go off on the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad drivers I encountered yesterday…but please. Everyone's heard that shit a hundred times and it never changes.

Maybe that's what is causing my writer's block. The more diaries I read, the more I feel like I have nothing unique to contribute. Nothing intriguing has happened to me personally lately. I could describe the events in the lives of my friends, but they all seem to be having bad luck. Not the funny kind of bad luck either (where you do some stupid shit that really pisses you off at the time), but the kind that just makes you wish you could go kick the asses of those causing the problem.

I know, I know. They need to adjust my medication. I've tried that, though. Didn't work. I've taken Prozac for years, and even though I kind of feel like it's not working anymore, when I tried Effexor, it really didn't work. Sure, there are others. But that would involve taking sick/personal time from work (and I have none)…plus paying for the office visits with money I don't have.

I read this poem in an old "Dear Abby" column:

The Dilemma

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool.

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out for another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk rejection.

To place your dreams before the crowd is to risk ridicule.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To go forward in the face of overwhelming odds is to risk failure,

but risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing and does nothing

has nothing and is nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow,

but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow, or love.

Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave.

He has forfeited his freedom.

Only a person who dares to risk is free.

I think that really puts the finger on my problem. When was the last time I really risked anything? Maybe my friends would disagree, but I don't see that I've really put very much of myself out there anywhere. Minor risks, "safe" risks, but not something I could point to as a source of personal growth and change.

Maybe working out counts. But I've hit a plateau, weight-loss wise…and while sure, they happen, I am quite sure I have something to do with it as well. I have somewhat rediscovered food. I haven't gained anything, but I haven't lost more than 2 pounds in a month. It's just so hard to stay with the program. Am I trying to sabotage myself? Am I afraid of what will happen if I lose the rest of it?

Even though I have tried very hard not to chunk all my eggs (i.e., career, love of my life, etc.) into the "after I lose weight" basket, reading this cheeseball inspirational poem has made me wonder if I am doing exactly that. When I started out on this "journey" or whatever the fuck you want to call it, I told myself that it wasn't about what I looked like, it was about improving my health. That was complete bullshit. It's not about health. If I looked like BFRB (who is about as close to the fashion-model ideal as anyone I know), I would not fucking be doing this working out shit. Why I'm really doing this, bottom line, is that I'm tired of being looked down on. I'm tired of having my options limited because I have to overcome negative first impressions.

But now that I've admitted to myself that it IS about looks and it IS about appearances, if I really want to be out there and risking things, why am I trying so hard to hold on to my security blanket of fat? Am I afraid that I won't have an excuse anymore for not doing more with my life? That my built-in excuse for not putting myself really out there will disappear, and I will have to admit to everyone that I'm not as brave as I pretend to be?

I wish I couldn't act. I wish I was incapable of pretending. But I am Oscar-worthy. People think I'm self-confident and unafraid. Whatever. My fears are not of the usual things…public speaking, death, spiders, etc. I am afraid of the negative judgment of others. In an attempt to stave off said judgment…that is, not be judged on things that really matter, like my intellect and talents, I've designed a package that enables people to judge me as lazy and stupid. Therefore, anything I do that shows something besides lazy and stupid seems that much better by comparison to the bad first impression. Deep down, I guess I'm afraid that my "potential" is not enough to be successful.

Gee, and I thought 8 years of Prozac and 4 years of therapy would help me get over some of this shit, but lately I feel like what I've done is buried it even deeper…and since the metaphorical ground is being swept away from the burial site, my instinct is almost to try and bury it deeper. How completely fucked up is that? And why couldn't I have discovered this at 20 instead of 30?

I'm going to wind this up, since I'm getting nowhere. Thought for the day, from "Dancer with Bruised Knees" by Lynne McFall:

"Out of such long and dangerous exercises in self-mastery, Nietzsche says, one emerges a different person. The trust in life is gone. Life itself has become the problem…..I have never been a religious person….and even though there was no one there to hear it, I said it aloud: 'Amen.'"

You've Just Been Visited by the Random Thought Fairy!

2004-09-21T13:25:00.000-05:00

So the other day, I walk out of my office building, and I see a shiny black super-pimpin' Lexus with a big parking ticket under the windshield wiper. Almost reflexively, the giggle bubbled out of my throat. However, then I wondered why I expressed an almost childish glee at someone else's misfortune. As I pondered this character flaw, I realized that if it had been anything other than a luxury vehicle, I would have been sympathetic to the owner. But somehow, when it's someone whose car cost more than I have made in the last two years, I have a hard time being nice.

It's probably because I've worked for a number of these assholes, and they somehow think they are entitled to respect because they have made money by exploiting their employees, exploiting their clients, and being assholes to everyone who stood still long enough. Therefore, when confronted with evidence that occasionally, their karmic debt will come due, I am helpless to do anything other than rejoice.

It still bothers me that I'm stereotyping like this, though. Probably not everyone who drives a brand-new luxury car is an asshole. For the three people who are not, if the parking ticket was on one of your cars, I'm sorry for your bad luck.

Okay, enough of that self-analysis for one day. Now on to other things that are on my mind….

1. Underwear sucks. Particularly brassieres. You get to pay at least $30 for something which will pinch, poke, and itch, and you are more or less obligated to wear the freaking thing ALL THE TIME.

2. Banks suck. Last weekend, I went places. I paid for stuff with my debit card. I thought the whole POINT of a debit card was that it would not let you spend money you didn't have. Well, it did. So I ended up being charged overdraft fees on things like a $4.00 purchase at Taco Bueno, etc. 10 overdraft fees. So not only was I poor LAST week, I got paid and I'm STILL poor.

3. Men suck. Just on general principles.

4. Insomnia sucks. Sometimes, no matter how tired I am or how little sleep I've had for a week, I'm still up till 2 a.m. Then me and the snooze button fight in the morning, and I lose. Then my cat is stepping on my head meowing at me in between the alarm ringing.

Okay, so this entry is lame. But I am having some sort of lack-of-sleep, brain dead writers' block thing. And I have actual work to do. My, but my life is exciting.

But God TOLD Me To....

2004-09-20T11:24:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I said I wasn't going here…but I few e-mails I have seen in the last week have irritated me enough to reconsider. Folks, it's time to talk about religion. Actually, what's funny is that the religious propaganda e-mails come from the same people who feel the need to inflict their political agenda on the rest of the office, too. Last Friday, a girl sent an e-mail to our entire office (which is pushing 200 people)…asking us to sign a petition to bring back the lame-ass TV series "Touched by an Angel." Allegedly, this was canceled because it mentioned God on TV. Gee, and I thought it was canceled because it sucked rocks! (Well, that wasn't the WHOLE point of the petition, but it was their reason for circulating it. They're trying to encourage the networks not to ignore their Christian viewers. Since when ARE they ignoring them?? Didn't they have some Jesus miniseries on not that long ago? And isn't Mel Gibson trying to get them to show his Jesus movie commercial-free?) No, what these e-mails are for is to make those of us who would rather watch sex and violence feel bad about it. Remember, the people circulating these so-called petitions are the same people who believe we should bomb the shit out of Iraq and support the president in all of his war-mongering, small-penis bullshit. Personally, and maybe this is just me, but I think some fake explosions and carefully choreographed beatings with fake blood pale in comparison to real death and destruction. But what do I know? I'm just a flaming liberal wussy. I don't like those stupid prayer-request e-mails either, but at least that is more understandable and is trying to help someone who is sick or injured; they are not designed to try and instill guilt into those of us who would rather eat broken glass than go to church.

My biggest problem with religion is that it never seems to serve its intended purpose. Since the beginning of time, people have constructed belief systems designed to explain the inexplicable and establish societal norms. In and of themselves, these goals are understandable. However, their application leaves much to be desired.

Think about it. Do you PERSONALLY know anyone whose religion causes any significant changes in their behavior? I think most people are either basically good or basically assholes. Religion gives the good a framework for being nice and doing things to help others. Religion gives the assholes moral justification for being assholes. Not only are they going to continue being rigid, judgmental, and stubborn, we've now provided them a "valid" reason for acting that way…and said reason is impossible to empirically prove or disprove. You can think someone is being hateful and call them on it. When you do this to a religious person, it will turn from an argument about why you shouldn't be a hateful piece of shit into a "but God says you're evil, so that means I have the right to act this way" argument. Even if you cite the lack of evidence supporting their belief system, they will use this to further their cause…you're supposed to have FAITH. If you don't, it means you're evil and going straight to hell. Pardon me, but I think actions speak louder than words. If you profess to espouse a belief system which provides rules for your conduct, you need to be trying to follow all of them, not just the ones which justify your current behavior.

That's the problem with religion-based debates as opposed to political ones. In a political debate, you can at least cite solid facts which support your position. In a religious debate, the facts themselves are not solid. The argument is about the existence or nonexistence of something which will probably never be proved conclusively.

Living in the Bible Belt, the religion with which I have the most experience is Christianity. I don't hate Jesus. He probably even existed in some form. I'm all for the "do unto others" philosophy of life. However, for every person who really lives the biblical teachings, there are five who are rampaging hypocrites or completely uptight sticks in the mud whose definition of "evangelism" involves guilt-trips and sanctimonious preaching at people.

What I'm trying to say is leave me off your list, kids. I am not signing any petition to put any more self-righteous shit on TV. Ya'll have your own channels. Watch them. Don't support the other channels. Don't buy stuff from the companies that advertise during the programs to which you object. But get over the e-mail stupid chain petitions….nobody reads them except the people who circulated them in the first place.

Never Discuss Politics or Religion?

2004-09-16T00:29:00.000-05:00

Given the hotly contested nature of the upcoming presidential election, everyone has an opinion on the candidates, the issues, and the nature of civic responsibility and freedom in a nation at war. Although this IS a free country, some people don't think it should be free…or at least not if "free" means "expressing opinions contrary to the policies of the current administration."

As I believe I have mentioned before, I think George W. Bush is a moron. I don't necessarily love John Kerry, but at least he's not George W. Bush. However, I live in the heart of Republican Bible Belt America, and most of the people I work with don't appear to agree with my opinion. That's fine. In fact, that's their right. My problem is this: they feel obligated to share all of their anti-liberal propaganda with the entire office…but get all offended if you send something back which is contrary to their opinion. And forget sending any political jokes or pro-democrat articles around.

Unfortunately, this can come between friends. My friends are mostly liberal-ish, but some are fairly hard-core conservatives. Therefore, we spend lots of time sending back and forth e-mail slamming one candidate/party or the other. It's all intended to be in good fun, and MAYBE it sparks an occasional political debate…which is not a bad thing. Despite the spirit of good fun and the fact that it's a free country, though, one particular "friend" of BFRB2 gets all pissy whenever someone sends her a leftward-leaning e-mail. Here's an example of the shit she sends back to her "friends." This is in response to the e-mail which suggested going to www.google.com, typing in "miserable failure," then hitting "I'm feeling lucky." (For those 3 people in the world who haven't seen this, it pulls up a resume of sorts for G.W. Bush.)

"I am not impressed that you are so easily amused and find this remotely funny. In this time when innocent people are being beheaded and the liberal left keeps spewing the trash that they do...yes we live in a free country where we have the 'right' to express our beliefs...when it comes to this kind of trash...please do not include me in your list.

I am committed in supporting our President and our troops who are risking their lives for our freedom of _expression and knowing that the best person is leading us in this most terrible of times. Please leave politics out of our friendship. I have included some friends of mine who would also not find this at all funny. Some happen to have served our great country, both in this current engagement and the Gulf War as well. This has upset me enough that I have risked my relationship with you to reply, but I am willing to risk it all to let my feelings be known.

I am certainly not out to convert you or anyone else...that is why we live in this great Nation. Freedom of choice. I choose to not be on your list anymore for political 'crap'. I also do not wish for reply to this either. I wish it to be something that is quietly understood and respected by both of us not to mention.

[KL]

By the way...I have been to this website before. This is a way to get morons to that page...they might learn something!"

Of course, her "friends" expressed their extreme displeasure with her intolerant lack of a sense of humor, and she STILL seemed not to get it…

"What didn't anyone get about just not mentioning anything anymore? … I am not a holyroller Christian and I am not a Rightwinged freak either. But man, I do have the common sense to recognize down right pathetic political (non) humor and I was deeply OFFENDED by it. As mentioned yesterday when I finally opened up most of my e-mail, I was appalled by that particular mailing. I got up out of bed last night to write that because I could not sleep until I got it off my chest. I still slept like shit because I knew this would cause furor amongst you. Well damn me, but I will not be part of those for lack of respect for what our President and others in his cabinet are doing. Nor for those over in the fucking hell hole of Iraq fighting for our fucking freedoms and rights! It's a hell of a lot better than the fucked up job that piece of shit Clinton did.

You can all either apologize to me, for belittling me and pointing the finger at me for writing in my opinion freedom of speech or you can all kiss my ass. I am not thinking that wrecking a friendship over politics is worth it but the choice is up to you all.

I hope that you are all happy. I feel like shit...and I am shaking.

[AC], I was not out of line. [JS], I didn't put [BFRB2] down and there is not anything else behind the message either.

and by the way...I am pissed too. Hope you all are happy!"

Perhaps I should mention that this is a woman who is (a) an alcoholic, (b) a loud, annoying alcoholic, and (c) a loud, annoying alcoholic who hits on other peoples' men when she drinks. I've met this bitch once. I was not impressed, and I was not amused. I WAS amused by her holier-than-thou e-mails, though. I laughed my ass off. I also sent the following suggestion to BFRB2…but she didn't send it. Therefore, I'm posting it.

"I sent this [the Google suggestion] to [BFRB2]. I do not support George Bush. I think he is a moron who has no business being president. However, I DO support the troops in Iraq. They did not ask to go there, and they are doing their jobs to the best of their ability. I feel awful that people have died and I sincerely hope that everyone over there (WHICH INCLUDES MY COUSIN) comes back safely. Caring about the fate of American citizens is one thing....but if you think about it....we're only over there in the first place because Bush the First didn't finish it off 12 years ago!!! The Iraqi people should be free. Everyone should. But that doesn't mean that it's our job to do it, and it also doesn't mean that everyone in America should have to suppress their opinions about the current administration. You are entitled to your opinion. You are the one allowing politics to interfere with friendship. You are the one with the problem, not me, not [BFRB2] not [AC], and not [JS]. An appropriate response would be some liberal-bashing humor. We can take it, even though you clearly cannot."

Here's the point, kids. Chances are, you're not going to change anyone's political opinions, because people have so many deeply-rooted reasons behind their beliefs. Discussion of those beliefs is beneficial, though….it helps to reinforce your current opinion and open your mind to the validity of the arguments of the opposing party. Knowledge is power. (So are vast sums of money, but we will keep all of this on a nice, theoretical level rather than dealing with messy things like the real world.)

And I'm not even going to go there on the religion issue. If you think political arguments are ugly, they're nothing compared to those about whether or not any given religion is "real."

Done Been There, Done Seen That

2004-09-15T12:16:00.000-05:00

It boggles my mind that, in a professional setting, you will encounter people whose grammar makes them sound like they just jumped off the manure truck this morning. I don't know about anyone else, but I cannot get past poor grammar (both written and verbal). Therefore, I have compiled the following list of my "Top 10" written and verbal grammatical errors…and how to correct them.

1. INCORRECT: They come over last night, and we went frog-giggin',

CORRECT: They came over last night, and we gigged some frogs.

2. INCORRECT: I seen that Billy Bob with Bubba's wife.

CORRECT: I saw Billy Bob with Bubba's wife –or— I have seen Billy Bob with Bubba's wife.

3. INCORRECT: I done been to Junior's Bait Shack.

CORRECT: I have been to Junior's Bait Shack –or— I was at Junior's Bait Shack yesterday.

4. INCORRECT: I like them shoes…did you get 'em at the Wal-Marts?

CORRECT: I like those shoes…did you buy them at Wal-Mart –or—I like your shoes…did you buy them at Wal-Mart?

5. INCORRECT WORDS: Flustrated, irregardless, brung, supposably.

CORRECT WORDS: Frustrated (or flustered), regardless, brought, supposedly.

6. INCORRECT: He don't care about me no more.

CORRECT: He doesn't care about me any more.

7. INCORRECT: I think I'm in love with you, and I want to take you on a special, romantic date.

CORRECT: You're hot, and I think we should have sex as soon as possible.

8. INCORRECT: How atypical. Wanda Sue looks like one of them prostitutes.

CORRECT: How typical. Wanda Sue has on a trashy outfit.

9. INCORRECT: I am trying to loose some weight.

CORRECT: I am trying to lose weight.

10. INCORRECT: Where the party at?

CORRECT: Where will we be partying? –or— Where will the party be held?

I know that I have heard and seen many more examples of poor grammar and spelling. Feel free to e-mail submissions for a future list. I'm sure this problem will not be disappearing in the near future. Folks, learn about "grammar check." Even though it's not perfect, it's better than sounding like a complete idiot. Further, if you are going to use big words, please be sure you know both the definition and their proper context. Big words used improperly make you look even more stupid.

Some of my "creative" type friends have informed me that writing is not a spelling and grammar contest. No, but if you are trying to (a) convince someone to give you a job, (b) convince someone to publish whatever it is, or (c) resolve any sort of complaint, it would likely be helpful if you did not come across as a special-ed third-grader.

"Them" is just my suggestions.

...But What About the Lawn?

2004-09-10T18:31:00.000-05:00

Men….Can't Live With Them, Can't (Legally) Beat the Crap out of Them

I really, really wish that I weren't having to write these kinds of male-bashing entries. However, despite my attempts to distract myself with shopping, surfing the internet, and (gasp, choke) actually working, I'm still pissed off.

So, GID had not responded to my e-mail prior to our dinner plans on Thursday. I am not one to make scenes in public, and he knows this. Therefore, we do not discuss the e-mail…in fact, he doesn't even acknowledge that he has received it. However, his behavior (i.e., actually speaking to me, etc.) clues me in that he has, in fact, read it.

This morning, I come to work to find a shitty, defensive e-mail….something along the lines of "Don't you dare belittle and demean me" and "Your e-mail is full of distortions of the truth" and "I am not trying to control you". Ummm…did you read the same e-mail I sent? Because it was all true….and there was no belittling involved. All I asked was if he was still working toward some of his life goals. Guess that's demeaning, because evidently he's not. Oh, and of course, he has to bring up that I talked at one point about going to law school, but I'm not in law school, so that must mean I'm not doing anything with my life either. Hello, moron. What I actually said was that, when my current job ends (it's a special project which won't last more than a few years, but the money was good and it beat the hell out of FHH), I am pondering the law school thing. Plus, if he thinks nagging me about going to law school will upset me, give me a fucking break. My friends have been doing that for years. I've developed an immunity. Say the words "law school" and my brain immediately goes on a cruise to the U.S. Virgin Islands.

But I digress. Point is, he missed the point. So of course, I sent him another e-mail explaining in greater detail what I meant, which should have been obvious to anyone literate….men blow the goat ass.

If there are any guys who can explain to me why men cannot (a) discuss anything of substance or (b) read (or hear) and understand a simple declarative sentence, I'd love to hear the explanations for this. Seriously.

I will close with one of my favorite "I hate men" jokes….

Q. Why do women need men?

A. Because a vibrator can't mow the lawn.

No Boys Allowed.

2004-09-08T14:01:00.000-05:00

I try to avoid being one of those bitter, resentful women who blames all of her problems on the male species. However, sometimes, men are just so fucking retarded that it's all you can do to maintain your sanity.

As I am sure you've figured out, there is one particular man who is pissing me the hell off right at the moment. This guy I'm dating, in other words. Let's call him "GID," which is more polite than "Fucking Immature Asshole." Anyway, I went out of town to visit my mother over Labor Day weekend. She had just moved, and needed help unpacking. I had not seen her since Christmas. GID has (another) new job, and this time, he's working from 3:30 pm to 12:30 am. He does have Friday and Saturday off, but other than a quick dinner on his lunch break, he really can't hang out during the week. (I've always been an 8-ish to 5-ish kinda girl, myself.) Therefore, he EXPECTS me to hang out with him each and every Saturday.

So anyway, when I break the news about going out of town, he starts in on this "I will miss you" bullshit. Keep in mind that I've been dating him for a while and we NEVER see each other more than twice a week, and I did have dinner with him Wednesday. While I'm gone, he sends one e-mail that basically says "I have nothing to say except I miss you." I get back, e-mail him, details about the trip, yada yada. He e-mails me back with more of the "I miss you" shit, a few minor work schedule details, and says we can go to dinner Thursday. I e-mail back to ask him if he's still taking lunch at 7:30…and get a snarky little reply about how I never tell him I miss him or anything, but that's what he expects.

Let me back up for a minute here. The last three or four times I've hung out with him, he really doesn't talk to me. And he doesn't always want to have sex, either….it has to be his idea. Actually, pretty much anything we do has to be his idea, or he acts like a whiny pain in the ass and makes sure I don't enjoy whatever it is either. Further, I make more money, am more intelligent, and do not live with my parent(s). I'm sure that at some level, he's threatened by all of this, and that's the reason for the pathetic attempts to control me.

On with the story. I spend several hours at work composing an e-mail detailing what my problems are with all this crap. I send it. He had likely left for work by then, but I have yet to receive a reply. More control shit.

At this point, I don't know whether to expect a shitty, defensive e-mail detailing every single fault I have, or whether to expect a contrite "don't leave me" e-mail. What I would really appreciate is him opening a dialogue about these issues, but I'm afraid that's too much to hope for….and I wouldn't have to send e-mails like the one I did send if he would open his mouth and communicate like a grown-up.

Then, there's the guy I was hanging out with….more of just a friend with benefits, but I did actually like him a lot…it seemed like I'd been the one doing a lot of the calling, and it was his turn. I haven't talked to him since July. While I realize we were not having some "serious" relationship, a phone call would be nice once in a while. If he's dating someone, or whatever, fine….but at least have the courtesy of telling me that. I don't know whether to be worried about him or pissed off. I want to call, or e-mail, but I'm stubborn that way. I have forwarded a few funny things to his e-mail, so I know it works and the mailbox isn't full….so he's checking it. Or someone is.

I am not trying to imply that all men are assholes. I'm not trying to imply that they are the root of all my problems. However, once in a while…I would just like them to do something that doesn't piss me off.

Get a Condom...or Get a Job

2004-09-02T12:53:00.000-05:00

Let me state, for the record, that I am not a Republican. I think George W. Bush is a moron, the war in Iraq is a mistake, that the minimum wage is way too low, and that big business doesn't need any more tax breaks. I am heartily in favor of the ERA, protecting the environment as much as possible without resorting to living like pioneers, and health care for everyone. However, I have some REAL problems with the welfare system.

BG (the friend with the asshole brother), said that yesterday, she found out that her 20-something cousin is pregnant….for the third time. The cousin is collecting money from the government. She has no job. The kids all have different fathers.

Excuse me, but why should my hard-earned money be going to pay for other people's bad life choices?? I think it sucks donkey balls that I have to pay more in taxes than single parents with the same income….after all, their kids are in public school, and their SUV's take up more of the road than my car. However, since I went to public school, and my mother is a teacher (overworked and underpaid), I can at least get over that. After all, the parents are actually WORKING.

But these bitches who pop out one kid after another puzzle me. Getting pregnant by mistake once is dumb. In today's society, we all know that birth control exists, and that sex causes babies. Getting pregnant twice….is deliberate. Getting pregnant a third time….is just retarded. And expecting me to pay for this shit is completely wrong.

I don't mind that low-income single folks can get all kinds of grants and loans to go to college. It's okay that they can get DHS assistance with child care. I have no objection to their kids getting free health insurance. I don't mind that they can get Section 8 housing. I don't even mind much that the government will feed them…with WIC and food stamps.

What I DO mind is that my single, working friends and I can barely survive. We cannot get any assistance at all because we make too much money. However, we don't make enough to contribute to a retirement plan, buy a house, pay off a car, or avoid bankruptcy if something catastrophic happens. In the meantime, these welfare bitches are collecting a check every week for having irresponsible sex, and even though they have all kinds of help available, they continue to whine about not having any chance in life.

I'm tired of people and their excuses. Yeah, life sucks. Yeah, life's not fair. But get the fuck over it and do something productive…not RE-productive.

Big Sister is Watching

2004-09-01T16:31:00.000-05:00

Beware of your e-mail address book, as it could bite you in the ass. I thought I was a fucking tard for hitting "Reply to All" to tell someone who sent me a joke that it was funny. That pales in comparison to these cautionary tales.

The Present

BG, an acquaintance, sent a present to her brother. It was an amusing present…which referred to a skit her brother saw on TV about a whole family sharing one bar of soap and how nasty it was (that you're washing your face using the same soap your mom used on her butt.) A picture of the present is below:

She also enclosed two bars of soap with "For Face" and "For Butt" written on them.

She e-mails her brother to ask if he got it, and gets the following e-mail:

"[BG] just e-mailed me and asked me if I got my present and how I like it. What the hell am I supposed to tell her? If I tell her it was great I'll just keep getting stupid shit like this forever. If I say what I want to and just ask "What the hell were you thinking?" I'll hurt her feelings. Maybe I'll just act like I never got the e-mail."

Well, moron, if you're going to bitch about the present you received to a third party…make sure you type the RIGHT e-mail address into the "SEND" field. Of course, we've all received gifts we don't like, but the appropriate response is to say thank you and then re-gift it at the earliest opportunity.

This e-mail was sent yesterday morning. As of today, the "ball-less wonder" (as he was christened), had still not replied to her e-mail about this. Chickenshit. Apparently, he's been on some holier-than-thou pretentious kick lately. He probably doesn't think he even HAS a butt anymore, because that would be so déclassé.

The Stupid Receptionist

At FHH (my old office), the receptionist was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She was e-mailing back and forth with my secretary (who was upstairs). My secretary got a package, which was actually his new cell phone. She means to e-mail him. Instead, she e-mails the whole firm something like "Hehehe so what kind of toy WAS it?"

The Old Flame

When I shared the story about the present with my Office Mate (OM), she had an even more troubling tale to tell. She got back in touch with a friend from high school. This wasn't really her boyfriend, more of her high-school discovering-sex buddy. Well, apparently he was a slacker in high school…but found himself later. That is…made a shitload of money, retirement homes across the country, etc. So anyway, OM is composing an e-mail to this guy. Her daughter is helping her with the computer stuff, and tells her that if she wants to work on this for a while, she should send it to herself as a Word document. Said daughter converts it, and is trying to send it to their home computer (OM was at work.) Well, she scrolls through the address book…and instead of the home e-mail (which is under OM's husband's name), she sends it to the HUSBAND AT WORK.

It's not like OM was necessarily plotting and planning a way to cheat on her husband…but she was bitching about him. In detail. Making fun of his job, complaining about his lack of money, blah, blah, blah. Needless to say, OM's husband was pissed off. OM didn't even feel like she could e-mail the Old Flame again and explain why she could no longer contact him.

The Ex-Husband

BFRB's friend forwarded her an e-mail from the friend's ex-husband, wherein the ex was saying all sorts of hateful, mean shit to the friend. When she hit "reply", the e-mail saying something to the effect of "What a fucking jerk….he needs to grow up and get over himself" was sent to the ex-husband. I think that's the ex's problem, though….not like the friend wouldn't have sent him something similar (but hers wouldn't have been that nice.)

No Profanity Allowed

Finally, the most troubling of all are companies that censor the content of employees' e-mail…BFRB and I have a third musketeer (we'll call her TM). For the last year or so, she's been living in Alabama. (And ya'll thought Oklahoma was bad.) The three of us have frequent e-mail conversations at work….about men, office drama, movies, books, jokes, whatever. Said conversations are sometimes very important and require the ability to reply in a timely fashion. Well, TM's work e-mail server wouldn't allow profanity to sneak in undiluted…that is, "fuck" had to be "f*ck", ad infinitum. You may think this means we should just censor ourselves. Well, we kinda tried…but how the hell are you supposed to bitch about something (especially a man) if you can't use swear words?? I mean, her e-mail server censored things like "dickhead," too! This meant that often, if the conversation was really intense, she had hours and hours of delay time while the censor typed enough asterisks to populate the Milky Way.

I just don't see the point….we all know that "F*CK" does not say "FECK," and that "D*CKHEAD" does not say "DUCKHEAD." Seriously.

Yeah, modern technology is great. Computers enable all sorts of looking busy which was not possible in the past. However, the "auto fill-in" feature, the "reply" and "reply to all" buttons being too close together, and the alphabetical sorting of your address book can get you into real trouble….almost as much trouble as not locking the buttons on your cell phone and having it auto-answer. True story. A male friend of BFRB2 had just broken up with his girlfriend. He bought the girlfriend a teacup Chihuahua when she lost her old one….because she let it out when she was drunk, passed out, and the dog vanished. Anyway, the bitch left the dog when she was kicked out…and he called her to see if he could find the dog a new home or if she wanted it. Well, her phone answered….but she didn't know. She was in Vegas with her new man, talking about what a loser her ex was. BFRB2's mom now has a new cute little pet.

Point being….you should really be careful what you type. You never know where it might end up.

The Bad Neighbor

2004-08-30T12:39:00.000-05:00

The worst thing about living in an apartment is the close proximity to sub-human life forms. The building where BFRB and I live seems to attract a few of them, because it's dirt cheap. Most of our neighbors are okay. Sure, one of them has a bad habit of leaving her trash in the hall (bagged and tied, but smelly) for days at a time, but for the most part, they are nice people. Our landlord is pretty careful about renters. However, even she makes mistakes sometimes…

This all started about a year ago. BFRB's neighbor moved out. We barely noticed, because she was never there anyway….she was mostly living with her boyfriend but needed an address to keep up appearances. However, when the new neighbor moved in, we rediscovered the meaning of the word annoying.

At first, he was just weird. He was a short guy with bad acne and one of those dwerpy little braided tail things on his head. He was not usually very friendly, except when he tried to hit on BFRB and brought her a snacky from Starbucks. When she blew him off (rightfully so, I might add), he became a complete asshole.

His transgressions included:

1. I was carrying a computer monitor up the stairs. We have a security door. You have to unlock it (it opens inward), which is hard to do when your arms are full. The Bad Neighbor SAT IN HIS CAR until I got all the way upstairs. I'm not saying he should have carried it (although I would have let him), but opening the door would have been courteous…since he was going upstairs anyway.

2. Door dinging our cars. Hard. And I know it was him….he drove a white SUV, and my car has a BIG WHITE DOOR DING. Not just a little paint spot. A big, jackass opening the door really hard and fast door ding.

3. Bad cooking smells. Don't know what he was cooking, but it smelled like ass. Every day, we came up the stairs and smelled this nasty shit. It smelled like a diner after the breakfast rush on Saturday.

4. Super-irritating gangsta rap, loudly.

5. Flushing the toilet and turning the water on and off every time BFRB tried to take a shower…since he was next door, this alternately froze and scalded her.

6. The punching bag. We'd be hanging out watching TV or just shooting the shit, and kept hearing this horrible, repetitive thumping. It practically made BFRB's windows rattle.

As if the above were not enough to permanently inscribe his name on our shit list…there was Max. The pit bull.

It's not like he just called the dog and took it outside and play with it. Oh no. He yelled at it…both in the hall and outside. Hourly. Then, he and the dog would RACE up the stairs….and he would be yelling at the dog for CHEATING. Our stairs are old, they're wooden, and they are very loud. You can hear when someone comes in and out. Usually, no big deal…they walk up the stairs and go in their apartment. But yelling at the dog and pounding up the stairs at 2 in the morning is not cool. After a number of these incidents, BFRB finally opened her door and told him to hush.

Our landlord is adamant that you can't have a dog in any of her rental properties. In an attempt to get rid of the neighbor without fucking up our karma, we devised a plot. BFRB called the landlord over to investigate a smell in her apartment (there really was one). We made sure, though, that he was home and being irritating as hell when she got there. She hears the punching bag and music noises, and knocks on his door…when he finally opens it, she sees the dog.

Well, she told him to get rid of it, but a month later, the dog and the annoying one were still living there and still being supremely irritating. So we came up with a new plan for not ruining our karma but making sure the asshole was kicked to the curb. I just put a note in with my rent check that said "do you know he still has the dog?"

When the landlord finally called, she said that she'd been on his ass for a month, and he kept making up stories about the dog disappearing soon. Finally, after months of this hell, she evicted him…and his replacement is fine as hell. Apology accepted.

Pull Over...It's the Fashion Police

2004-08-26T14:58:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite things to do is people watch….pretty much anywhere. The office, the mall, the airport, restaurants, Wal-Mart, the gym…I try to be a nice person, and not judge people based upon their clothes. Sometimes, however, the mistakes are so glaring, they are impossible to ignore. My years of study have led me to several conclusions.

1. There are a disproportionate number of people who do not now and have never owned a full length mirror, nor do they pay attention to their reflections in doors, windows, or puddles.

2. As a plus-size (but shrinking) woman, I am glad that the fashion choices have improved for fat chicks. However, there are certain items that should not be offered for sale in plus-size shops or departments, because people will buy them…and wear them in public. Among these are very short, pleated miniskirts; very short skirts of any kind; clingy tops which show off little except fat rolls; legging-type pants; bikini swimsuits; short-shorts; and tube tops. Additionally, some items should require approval before purchase, like sleeveless tops, hip huggers, anything sheer or semi-sheer, skirts above the knee, and items which are very fitted. Further, I don't care what size you are…even size 4's look fat when crammed into size-two jeans and an XS shirt. Make sure those low-rise pants are wider than the fat rolls, girls….and if that means buying a larger size, cut the fucking tag out and get over it. This goes for men too. Your waist is nowhere near your ass crack, and if you have to wear your pants that low, buy some new pants.

3. Electric blue is never an appropriate shade of makeup. Your foundation should match your face. You should not have to use more than one washcloth to get your makeup off in the evening. When a new man sees you for the first time without makeup, he should still think you are the same person he went to bed with.

4. If you have to ask if your butt looks fat in those pants, it does. Or you will think it does, which means you'll feel all grumpy and insecure all night, so just don't wear them.

5. Tan fat looks better than white fat.

6. Navy blue does not go with black. Mixing patterns is generally a bad idea on your clothing, although it can be fun in your housewares.

7. Brown or navy or white shoes do not go with black pants or skirts, ever. Camel shoes are far more versatile than white, and tend to look more like grown-up shoes and less like a 4-year-old on Easter Sunday.

8. A mullet is never an appropriate haircut.

What really motivated me to write this entry is this chick who works in the office down the hall. We're talking dark side of 40, dark side of 200 lbs., dark side of the bleach bottle….and wears clothing which showcases her lovely collection of cellulite and fake tan (it's SO orange). Whenever I feel insecure, I just remind myself that things could be worse. I could be wearing a black pleated micromini. With white shoes. And think it looks SO hot.

The Laundry Nazi

2004-08-23T01:24:00.000-05:00

Once again, it was laundry day for me and BFRB. Since we've been doing laundry on Sunday morning instead of Friday night lately, we've encountered a new laundromat attendant. Sprouting a lovely mullet and moustache to go with her clothes which were purchased at Wal-Mart circa 1985, this attendant is way too devoted to her job.

BFRB and I frequently run errands while our clothing is washing and drying....stuff like Walgreen's, Target, PetsMart, etc. We make every effort to get back to the laundromat to restart our dryers within the alloted 30 minutes, but sometimes, we get sidetracked. Two weeks ago, in our first encounter with the Laundry Nazi, we spent a little too long fucking around at Target. We returned to the laundromat to find that the Laundry Nazi had removed BFRB's stuff from the dryer because "people needed it."

Now, one of the cardinal rules of laundry etiquette is that you NEVER EVER touch anyone's stuff. I don't want cooties all over my clean clothes, and neither does anyone else. Second of all, if the dryer space is needed, it would be polite to FOLD the items you removed. Laundry Nazi violated these rules. BFRB's blankets and sheets were in a giant wad, and were halfway hanging off the folding table.

While BFRB was furious, we figured we'd never see this bitch again. The laundromat is not exactly the most long-term employer on the planet. Actually, we've determined that most of the attendants have recently been released from penal institutions, and having a completely useless job is on the list of things they have to do.

However, today, the bitch was back. This particular morning, she did little but give us go-to-hell looks (because she evidently REMEMBERED that we were the dryer hogs from hell). Other customers were not so fortunate. As an individual attempted to place their laundry in a washer, the Laundry Nazi informed said patron that SHE was USING that one (nothing was in it...and what the fuck is she using it for?? Any drop off laundry goes to the dry-cleaner part of the store, which was closed.)The patron had little choice but to put their items in the next washer over.

On this fine Sunday morning, BFRB and I kept a careful watch on the clock, plus, we were both too tired and hung over to think about what errands we needed to run. As we were folding our laundry, though, Laundry Nazi dogged our footsteps, looking disapprovingly at discarded dryer sheets and making a big show of getting in our way to pick them up. She also glared at all the other patrons in turn, just waiting for someone to commit a transgression like leaving their dryer unattended for more than 15 seconds after it shut off. Point is, Laundry Nazi knows what's up in her little fiefdom.

Well, for some reason, a few of my shirts were still damp when the rest of the load was dry, so I chucked them back in there while I folded the rest of my clothes. Being that my hungover little brain (NEVER AGAIN will I drink that much Jack Daniels without eating something more substantive than chips, salsa, and a chocolate chip cookie) wasn't working too well, I left the shirts in the dryer when we left. Luckily, I realized my mistake in short order, and went back about 30 minutes later to get them. Thinking that Laundry Nazi would have been fully aware of the problem, and seeing as how the dryer I was using was now occupied with someone else's shit, I asked her if she knew where my stuff was.

Bitch looked me straight in the eyes and LIED. She said it had been busy and she had no way of knowing. Sure, people need dryers, and you don't know what happened to the stuff abandoned in one. Right.

I finally found my shirts, wadded up on a chair but basically intact. As I left, she gave me this completely fake smirk. Well, Laundry Nazi, the gauntlet has been thrown. We'll be back. And we'll think of something to make your already miserable existence even more miserable.

Charity Begins at Work

2004-08-20T12:45:00.000-05:00

Well, along with good things, (I'll think of some in a minute) August brings the kids back to school. Not that I have any kids. People in my office do, though. They have lots of them. They just started school THIS WEEK…and they're already trying to guilt-trip me into spending money on a bunch of overpriced crap that I don't need or want.

You see, since the US can't seem to adequately fund its public school system, they have to resort to prostituting children. Figuratively, that is. (Give them time.) I'm talking about fund-raisers. Those glossy little brochures full of shit you can buy at the Dollar Store which has been marked up to $17.00.

I wouldn't necessarily have a problem buying one or two things from a kid I knew (like my other best friend-running buddy's (BFRB2) nieces). But I have a REAL problem spending my paycheck on shit I don't want for kids I don't know to go on a trip somewhere or have nice stuff at school. I don't have nice stuff, and you all saw what happened the last time I took a trip. Therefore, I'm a little bitter and resentful about the whole thing. Plus, it's not just one person. It's 30 or 40. That's a week's pay just so people at work won't think you're a stingy bitch.

Well, I am one.

And it's bad enough when the people bringing it are your peers…but when it's your boss(es) … then you really feel obligated to sign in the little box. Sorry, but I think if you're the boss, you (a) don't expect your employees, who make way less money than you, to buy shit from your kids and (b) need to just write your kid's school a check and not make anyone buy icky wrapping paper, useless knickknacks, or various foods which taste like stale packing peanuts with cardboard coating. You know, my dad would NEVER take my fundraising stuff to work because he didn't want to make his employees feel obligated! I was the kid who usually just had 2 people buy stuff because there were 97 kids in my neighborhood.

While we're on the subject of throwing money away, let's also discuss the inevitable corporate charitable fund-raisers. United Way, disease-of-the-week club, ad infinitum. Call me crazy, but I think that charitable giving is a personal decision. If you believe in a cause, for whatever reason, you are free to spend your money as you choose in support of said cause. However, I don't like being peer-pressured into generosity….and neither does anyone else. They try to make you feel like the Grinch Who Stole Christmas if you don't want to donate money to charity…as in, "Come on, just donate $5 a week, so we can have 100% participation." Again….THIS IS MY PAYCHECK AND I WILL DO WHAT I WANT WITH IT. Plus, at this point in my life, I really don't have it to share. I'm still paying for college (both the credit card spending and the student loans), and I have other bills which must be paid so that I personally do not have to rely on the kindness of strangers for food and shelter.

Don't be bringing your little flyers to my office. It's a waste of precious natural resources….and your time.

Getting Nailed Is Not Always a Good Thing

2004-08-19T17:22:00.000-05:00

I believe I have previously mentioned that my apartment has hardwood floors. They look really cool, and are far easier to clean than carpets (when one has a very fluffy cat who upchucks a lot). However, there's one small problem with authentic, antique hardwood floors. That problem is nails. As in old, probably rusty nails.

I'm sure you can see where this story is going….but it's still a good story anyway.

March or April, 2004. After spending Friday evening doing not one fucking productive thing and enjoying this tremendously, I decided to go to bed around 1 a.m. I always wear slippers or flip-flops in my apartment….because of the nails. However, I thought I would be safe when I was two inches from my bed.

I was wrong.

As I went to turn back my covers and fluff the pillows, my big toe crept stealthily off the area rug and onto the bare floor under the bed….and ran smack dab into a nail sticking out of the floor. Hard. As in bleeding.

I did the heel-hop to the bathroom for a Band-Aid in bare feet, hoping like hell I didn't step on another nail with the other foot. After I successfully stanched the bleeding, I started pondering exactly how long it HAD been since my last tetanus shot. After some brain wracking and mental math, the last one I remember was … in 8th grade. I'm now 30. 16, 17 years?

In a panic, I hop on the computer, hoping like hell BFRB will be up and convince me that it's ok to wait till morning (scant 6 hours away) to get a shot. However, she's sleeping. So, I type in "tetanus" on Google. The websites I read all say something along the lines of "if you cut yourself on something rusty, haul ass to the emergency room or they'll be feeding you through a tube in your cheek." Obligingly, I put on something besides pajamas and zip over to one of the nearby hospitals.

At first, I was thinking this whole visit to the ER would be relatively stress-free and quick. Sometimes, I'm such a retard.

So, I see the triage nurse, she removes the bandaid, examines the wound, takes my blood pressure, and sends me to the "insurance chick desk." I fork over the insurance card, fill out a complete medical history, and go back to the waiting room. After about an hour, they put me back in a room…right next door to a screaming child. The lights are so bright. I'm so tired. I try to read the book I brought, but catch myself nodding off.

After about another 45 minutes, a doctor arrives, accompanied by two handy med students. He examines the cut on my toe, asks me if I have diabetes or asthma or some real problem, and scribbles something. When I say that basically, I'm perfectly fine except for the impending case of tetanus, he mumbles something in broken English about a nurse being in shortly and strides off importantly with his students in tow.

20 more minutes. By now, it's 3:00 a.m. In four more hours, the minor emergency (which requires only a $10 copay) would be open. The nurse finally arrives, stabs me quickly with the needle, and runs back out muttering something about "paperwork." I get the impression I'm not supposed to leave. A note: after removal of the original band-aid, I never received any other treatment for my actual injury.

She shows back up with some instructions about following up with my doctor, and at 3:25, I head for home.

The doctor bill and hospital bill were almost $500….and people wonder why our insurance costs so much.

100 Things about Me

2004-08-18T11:21:00.000-05:00

This is an exercise a few of my friends told me to do....so I thought I would post it. You are not allowed to poke fun at my list without affording me the same opportunity to poke fun at yours.

1. As a housekeeper, I'm great at playing solitaire.

2. I actually can sort of cook, despite claims to the contrary….I would just rather have someone else do it….restaurant, friend, Stouffer's.

3. I wish I had discovered Prozac at age 10.

4. I don't use most of the words I know in casual conversation because I hate having to explain them to idiots who don't read.

5. I am most afraid of looking stupid (which encompasses a lot.)

6. I cannot imagine ever living with my parents again, and I don't understand people who do.

7. I have a hard time trusting anyone.

8. I hate that it's difficult to change careers.

9. Hypocrisy is the thing that will piss me off the fastest.

10. I feel less attractive now than I did before I lost 50 pounds.

11. The hardest thing about working out and dieting is the lack of instant gratification. I feel like I've proved to the universe that I can make a commitment (I have been doing this for almost 6 months, after all), and now it should reward me by making the rest of the weight disappear overnight.

12. I feel like I have two warring personalities: the one who is eternally hopeful, and the cynic.

13. I can't imagine not having a cat. I love mine. When I go out of town, I miss Emily, Maggie & Sissy.

14. I hate when women make excuses for men….men they're dating, men they work for, men they're married to, men they gave birth to.

15. I have no patience with stupidity.

16. I hate having to explain things to someone more than once.

17. I believe that respect is something which has to be earned.

18. I have always hated that my name doesn't have a cool nickname.

19. My way of defusing stressful situations is to make wisecracks.

20. Some of my favorite things: chocolate cake, cats purring, thunderstorms, driving with the top down and the music up, cinnamon lattes from the Buzz, the ocean, the first cold day in fall, a group of people laughing, kissing someone who is really good at it, hanging out with my girlfriends, playing stupid computer games stoned, reading a really good book, finding a really good shopping bargain, and good live music.

21. Some of my least favorite things: getting chewed out at work, icy roads, mean people, being left out, shoes that give you blisters, ripping/burning holes in your favorite pants, computer crashes, being wrong, awkward silences, people fighting when you're in the room, car breakdowns, mono, summer, having to hang out with people you hate, and bad live theater.

22. I can never pick just one favorite anything….food, friend, song, movie, book, you name it.

23. Turning 30 freaked me out more than I thought it would.

24. I need alone time or I get really cranky.

25. I will never change my name if I get married.

26. I have a hard time expressing my feelings to people I care about.

27. I don't watch much TV.

28. I hate cell phones.

29. Talking about my finances makes me nervous.

30. It's very hard for me to admit to myself when I'm in love.

31. When I walk by a group of teenage girls and they're giggling, my first thought is that they're making fun of me.

32. I have problems with authority.

33. I don't want to talk about good things that might happen to me because I'm afraid I'll jinx it.

34. If I could be anything I wanted, I would be an advice columnist.

35. I tend to be much better at expressing myself in writing than verbally.

36. I have impulse-purchased a car.

37. I think I tend to shop for shoes or bath/body stuff when I'm the most depressed, because you don't have to worry as much about things fitting.

38. My self-confidence is, in large part, an act.

39. I wonder often what will cause my 15 minutes of fame.

40. It bothers me that my brother and I are not close.

41. The things I do when I rebel have always been way more destructive to me than to anyone else.

42. I am semi-ambidextrous…I do some things better with my left hand and some things better with my right.

43. I hate people feeling sorry for me.

44. I don't like taking baths…I prefer showers.

45. It takes me a long time to get really angry, and it takes me a long time to get over it once I AM angry.

46. I don't like seeing my friends in pain of any kind.

47. People have told me I am intimidating, but I have never ever felt that way.

48. I eat most foods with a spoon.

49. Stress makes me hungry.

50. Boredom makes me hungry, too.

51. I love my family, but I'm glad my closest relative is 500 miles away.

52. My least favorite question is "when are you going to law school?"

53. My least favorite phrase is "you're not living up to your potential."

54. When I feel sad and lonely, I like to read kids' books.

55. I am a horrible insomniac, and have been since the age of 3.

56. I always wished I was shorter.

57. I used to bite my nails, suck my thumb, and chew on my hair. Then I started smoking.

58. I'm not sure about the whole having kids thing.

59. I think the single biggest problem with the U.S. is that it's almost exclusively run by penises.

60. Strangers tell me their whole life stories on a regular basis.

61. In any conflict-type situation, I'm always the peacemaker caught between two warring parties.

62. I'm very stubborn.

63. Once I make up my mind about someone or something, I rarely change it.

64. My first impressions of people, places and things are about 85% accurate.

65. Watching really moronic movies helps me fall asleep. Infomercials aren't bad either.

66. I hate rules.

67. I once went 3 years without having sex.

68. I don't like dating people when I know I'm a lot smarter than they are.

69. I always feel like I'm completely out of sync with everyone around me.

70. If I do get married, I'm eloping. I hate weddings.

71. I hate graduations, too.

72. And funerals.

73. I'm not at all afraid of stray cats, but stray dogs scare the shit out of me.

74. My stupid fear: being in a dark bathroom with the door shut. It's something about the mirror. No idea why, but that seriously gives me the creeps.

75. My stupid human trick is remembering phone numbers.

76. When I don't like foods (i.e., tomatoes, tapioca pudding, citrus juice with pulp), it's a texture problem rather than a taste problem.

77. I love to crunch ice cubes.

78. I can usually sing you the song, but I have no idea who the title and artist are.

79. I'm actually starting to like working out.

80. I claim to hate my hair, but I'm actually pretty vain about it.

81. I cannot stand drinking milk.

82. I'm glad I have a good relationship with my mom.

83. I really love each and every one of my friends.

84. I buy myself a Christmas present every year.

85. I love picking out cool presents for my friends and family, but sometimes I don't have time to do that.

86. I don't want to date any more men who have issues with their mothers.

87. I must have caffeine as soon as I wake up in the morning.

88. It really bugs me when I don't know the whole story.

89. It's important to me to be perceived as funny and smart.

90. I've never traveled outside the U.S.

91. I really want to.

92. I hate it when things are more complicated than they need to be.

93. I wish I knew how to fix my car. I don't necessarily want to do it, I just want to know how.

94. I really hate it when people nose around in my stuff.

95. I sincerely hope that people don't perceive me as a really smart person with no common sense.

96. One thing that always depresses me is knowing my friends went somewhere fun and didn't invite me.

97. I don't like to appear vulnerable in any way.

98. If I think about throwing up, I always do.

99. I really resisted growing up physically…I was embarrassed by getting my period and wearing a bra.

100. This was way harder than I thought it would be.

Call DHS. Or the ASPCA. Whatever You Do, Kill It Before It Can Breed.

2004-08-17T16:30:00.000-05:00

After careful observation of the felines who share my abode, I have come to the conclusion that most volcanic rocks would be better parents than I would. My cats have some serious personality disorders. Sure, at first glance, they appear to be well fed, well groomed, and friendly….but upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that they are, in fact, completely fucking nuts. Oh, I'm sorry, that's not very nice. Mentally and emotionally challenged.

First, Emily, the oldest. Fat, fluffy, and somewhat of a fraidy cat. Every time a friend comes over and pets her, she will either (a) butt her head into every possible piece of furniture in the house or (b) immediately make for the food bowl. She has an eating disorder. Also, she doesn't speak up for her needs….she just kind of looks at you and squeaks. She wants to be picked up and carried around the house, but carrying her outside sparks a complete fur-storm that can never fully be expunged from the article of clothing you're wearing at the time. If she's not done with the whole carrying thing, she will wrap her paws around your neck and cry like a kindergartener with separation anxiety on the first day of school. >

Here are Emily & Sissy, trying to ensure that I never leave them alone...>

Maggie, the middle child. Small, black, and sleek, with a few white spots. A complete loudmouth whiner. You wouldn't think that a critter that small could make that much noise….but my apartment is at the opposite end of the hall and upstairs from the front door, and I can hear her as soon as my key turns in the lock. Additionally, she is the one who will do things like steal lighters, eat plastic wrap, and fish decorative marbles out of vases and bat them around the bathtub at three in the morning. Once, my tub wouldn't drain….so I examined the hair trap. Instead of hair, it was full of marbles. She can get them out of the vase, but not the drain….guess it's cheaper than those stupid ball & scratch pad toys. She's the most outgoing, but tends to freak people (especially guys) out with her "climb on the couch behind you and stick cold nose in ear" trick. She is a possessive drama queen.

Here she is:

Sissy, the baby. Someone's purebred Siamese mated with an alley cat. I got her as an adult, unlike the other two, but she's the most possessive. She growls at people when they come to feed her if I'm out of town. She doesn't like people (other than me) to touch her. She frequently lays on her back with all feet in the air. Lazy as hell. Very territorial. Comes when you call her and drools like a dog. Simultaneously sure she's the boss and worried no one loves her. Doesn't want anything unless someone else has it first….a spot on my lap, a spot on the bed, food, etc. I'm her third owner (the other two were seriously allergic to her.) I think she's trying to make really sure she doesn't get a fourth one. She's clingier than a teenage girl with her first boyfriend.

And this is just what I've done to cats. I don't even want to think about what I would do to an actual human child. What's sad is that people's kids like me a lot.

Flowers, Cake, and Seriously Uncomfortable Underwear

2004-08-16T20:03:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it's because I've never been married, but what the fuck is the big deal with weddings? I was taking a smoke break with one of my co-workers last week, and another smoker we know wanders into the break room. This acquaintance is an attorney, she's 27-ish, and she's usually not very high drama. She's been engaged for a while, but I guess now, they're actually making plans. Said plans are at least 6 months away, and she is flipping the hell out. Even more interesting is the fact that her best friend just got married, and she was doing her share of bitching about it.

Anyway, her freak-out centered around the following:

1. Her dad has plenty of dough, but her stepmom is the cheapest human being alive. She can't get a number from them on what they will pay toward the wedding. Said stepmonster also expects her to only invite 100 people….which would basically limit it to family only. (Ah, modern life with its steps and halves and adopteds and pseudo-relatives.)

2. She wants to go to Mexico, but wants cheap flights/hotels for all of her friends. If she gets the cheap flights, the times suck, and if the times are good, the price sucks.

3. She's okay with eloping, if it means her dad will give them the money he would have spent on the wedding…but only if it's over $10,000.

Okay. Let's stop here for a moment. TEN GRAND for ONE DAY??? Actually, that's really not even possible. You'll spend that on the caterer. It's not even a whole day. It's like 4 hours.

I'm a girl, and I guess I'm supposed to understand this. But I don't. Most of this stupid fairy-tale shit appears to cause nothing but stress. Even though you (or your family) are blowing five figures, you don't get exactly what you want…you have to compromise on the dress or the flowers or the photos or the cake or the liquor or the guest list….blah blah blah. Not to mention, you will drive each and every one of your friends insane with your requests for help with stupid shit that only you care about….and your fashion choices for their bridesmaid dresses. Your fiancé will not give a rat's ass. He will just want to get to the vacation and sex part.

The "wedding industry" is out of control. Instead of being a happy occasion where you are committing your life to someone you love, you end up almost hating them and everyone else you know. Instead of sharing this happiness with family and friends, you feel like you can't enjoy anything because one of the mothers isn't happy and your underwear is stabbing new and interesting parts of your body and you're wearing a dress that weighs 75 pounds. Plus, you haven't slept or eaten in two days.

Then, of course, there's the gift issue. There are a zillion showers, most guests get invited to more than one, and buy gifts for each….plus get zinged for a wedding gift, too. Now, let me just say something here. I am 30 years old, and my towels don't match, I don't have nice dishes or flatware, my bedding came from Target, and I don't think I own one item of furniture that didn't either (a) come out of a box, (b) come from my family or friends or (c) come from a garage sale. I don't own an espresso maker, or a blender that will crush ice, or a sandwich maker. So, in my opinion, some little snot-nosed 22 year old doesn't need this shit either! Plus, the odds are in favor of divorce, which means you'll have a 25 year old with nicer stuff than you….all because she found a man who wasn't a dick. Allegedly. To me, that should be its own reward. If they both have jobs, they can go buy their own shit. I'm not buying people who are younger than I am nicer stuff than I have; and if they're older, they already have stuff. Second weddings (and third, and fourth) should be gift-free.

I think big weddings should be illegal. I think you should throw the big party when people get divorced. That's when they need help, and that's when they need stuff. Either that, or everyone who's 30 and unmarried should get the money from family & friends that would have been spent on a wedding….so they can pay off their loans, put a down payment on a house, and/or buy some matching stuff and furniture which does not require assembly. Then, if they DO get married, they can pay for it themselves. They'll end up eloping.

Shut the Hell Up...I'm Trying to Eat My Quarter Pounder

2004-08-13T14:02:00.000-05:00

Occasionally, when my work becomes so stressful that I can no longer focus, I check on the Internet to see what's happening in the world. Yahoo conveniently categorizes your news for you, so I usually check the major headlines, Oddly Enough (my favorite) and the Weight Loss/Health section (being that losing weight is one of my current projects.) Well, as you may or may not know, you can post messages commenting on the articles. Or at least that is the IDEA. At least on the weight-loss articles, people seem to use these message boards as a place to call everyone the names they didn't manage to think up in grade school. Further, said name calling has not one fucking thing to do with the text of the article.

Their idea of my day appears to be:

1. Wake up. Eat 17 breakfast burritos, a mocha latte, and maybe some fried lard on the side.

2. Watch TV till morning snack time, wherein I consume an entire 3-pound box of Godiva truffles.

3. Watch TV till lunch, when I eat 3 QP's with cheese, a super-size fry, some Ben & Jerry's, a large chicken fried steak with gravy, and a big pile of fried mozzarella.

4. Watch TV till afternoon snack, which consists of one bag each Double Stuf Oreos, Nacho Cheesier! Doritos, and Hostess Cupcakes.

5. Watch TV till dinner: 20-ounce steak, 7 baked potatoes with everything, a bottle of ranch dressing, assorted fried vegetables, and an entire chocolate cheesecake.

6. Watch TV till evening snack, which is some heavily buttered popcorn, a two-pound bag of peanut M&M's, and a large strawberry milkshake.

7. Bed.

Before you immediately write me off as just some fat bitch whining about people being mean to me, let me say something. I don't like people to be shitty, but at the same time, if their comments have something to do with the article upon which they are allegedly "commenting", I'll live. However, when the articles are about gastric bypass or obesity being a problem among more poor people than wealthy people, I fail to see how making comments like "lose weight—you're giving me eye cancer" or "all fat people do is eat Big Macs and watch TV" are germane to the topic. What I find the most strange about all of this is the people who are posting. You would think that those most interested in health and weight-loss issues would be those who are trying to lose weight. Further, you would think that people who take the time to comment would be sensitive to these issues. Instead, the people posting appear to be consulting this section are those who want all fat people's jaws to be sewn shut while they are walking on a treadmill, because that's the only solution that will work in their world.

I really wonder, though, in a country where 2/3 of people are overweight to some degree, why there is still such a stigma attached to being fat. Sure, it can contribute to health problems…but so can pretty much anything, if you believe everything you read. Guess maybe because it's not okay to (openly) hate people for being a different race, or religion, or sexual orientation…so all of the world's hatemongers need a target…and I guess they think fat people are a big one. (Yes, that was a joke.)

I'm not saying these juvenile, misguided souls don't have the right to their opinion. I just wonder how many of them are (a) fat (b) getting there or (c) dating/living with/raising someone fat. All I'm saying is that the place for simple insults is not a message board for news commentary. Start a frickin' diary. Start your own message board. I don't give a shit. But if you're going to post comments about the news, please read the article first and make sure you understand it.

But then, maybe they are malnourished and their brains don't work....which provides even more reason for them to remove their hands from the keyboard, pick up the supersize fries, and insert them one by one into their mouths.

Cell Phones are the Instruments of Beelzebub

2004-08-11T13:05:00.000-05:00

I have a confession to make. I don't have a cell phone. I know I should not be allowed to survive in this new millennium without being available to everyone 24/7, but somehow, I have slipped through the cracks. I tell people I don't have one, and they look at me even more strangely than they do when I tell them I work out.

Let me explain my philosophy. Yes, they are good for emergencies. Sometimes, they are very handy when you need to reach your boss/subordinate in an urgent situation. And they're really handy on bad dates. However, these three uses do not justify the annoyances caused by these devices.

Examples:

#1. Blockbuster Night. You're at the video store, trying to pick out the Friday night feature, and the woman eyeing the new releases is talking loudly to her boyfriend and trying to convince him that he really will like "13 Going on 30" as much as "Terminator 75". This banal conversation continues through the entire store, and ends with her hanging up in a huff and renting what he wanted. You don't remember why you were even there, leave, and go home and watch whatever's on TV, which is usually an infomercial for an herbal male enhancement product advertised by completely gay men looking totally turned off while they kiss women.

#2. Wal-Mart. You're trying to remember the list of a zillion things like toilet paper, light bulbs, and lube that you needed to buy, and the white trash in the next aisle is talking loudly to his woman in the midst of slapping the shit out of his kids. In your haste to escape the noises, you forget the ice pick, spoiling your plans to recreate "Basic Instinct" with your blind date.

#3. Freeway, Rush Hour. You finally get out from the worst of the traffic jam, and are booking along in the left-hand lane, going 80, and focused on being home. You nearly rear-end an SUV-driving yuppie-wannabe talking on their phone…and driving 40. No lie. You honk, you flip, and said SUV driver gives you the glare like "What the FUCK??? You interrupted my TERRIBLY IMPORTANT conversation!!"

#4. Restaurant. You finally manage to make plans to go eat lunch/dinner with a friend you haven't seen in forever. Between the drink orders and the arrival of food, the friend receives 8 phone calls. You eat while they talk to someone else, and then they expect you to talk the whole time they are eating.

#5. Codependence. A cell phone is the single worst item for a jealous/insecure significant other to have. Text messaging is even worse. It's one thing if the stand-up or problem is a rarity in a long-term relationship. It's something else entirely if it's a daily occurrence to make sure the other person is not having any fun out of your presence or hanging out with anyone but you. Here's a hint…if someone doesn't call you back or return your text messages, they don't want to talk to you. Or they have better things to do. Grow the hell up and get a life.

#6. Booty Calls. The cell phone/text-messaging device eliminates the need for any reflective drive-home time before calling someone drunk to see if they will have sex with you. Tip: Text-messaging "are you up?" at 2 in the morning doesn't mean they want to chat.

I find it very ironic that, in an age where we have more ways to communicate than ever, we don't want to communicate face-to-face. No matter who you're hanging out with, chances are they're going to spend more time talking to a third party on their cell phone than they are listening to you. As a non-cell-phone user, let me point out: THIS IS RUDE. Unless you think someone is dead, don't answer the phone. You've got voice mail….the other person can leave a fucking message.

Basically, my bottom line is this. Until I have a job which requires a cell phone, and my employer provides and pays for said phone, I won't be having one. Why should I pay another $50 a month (minimum) for people to annoy me, or to look at my caller ID and not answer? I have voice mail at home and work. I have e-mail. There's nothing that urgent. I promise.

The Day the Universe Said Fuck You

2004-08-10T20:24:00.000-05:00

Okay, a small disclaimer (and I hate them, because I work for lawyers, and disclaimers usually precede a hard-core ass-fucking, but this is necessary, and I promise it won't hurt): since I just started this diary, I have a whole lifetime of stories to record. The following day was in December, 2003. See? That wasn't so bad, now, was it?

It began, much like any other day, with me and the snooze button having a fight. The snooze won, as usual. Finally, I dragged my lazy ass out of bed, got ready for work, and entered the seventh circle. (Actually, a former co-worker and I have re-named it. It's now FHH. Fucking Hell Hole, for those of you who aren't good with acronyms.) At this point, I was three weeks away from accepting another job, but I didn't expect any particular drama on this day. Stupid of me, really.

So my boss is a complete asshole all day long...the usual "why didn't you do X, Y, and Z last week" followed by "I TOLD you to call SO AND SO," since his fingers were broken and he couldn't possibly dial the phone. After putting up with this utter bullshit for 8 hours, I had an appointment with the eye doctor.

At this point, I should back up and explain that I am nearly blind (I only know it's a Big E because that's what it always is), and I hate glasses. I've worn contacts since I was 13, will get zapped with the laser as soon as my insurance will pay for it, and the only pair of glasses I had on this December day was broken. And I broke my sunglasses trying to get a screw to repair the glasses. Anyway, my contacts had really been bothering me, my eyes were all itchy, etc.

As soon as the eye doctor saw my eyes, he practically ripped out my contacts and threw them away. Remember, no glasses, almost blind. After a lengthy lecture on the perils of eye infections and the responsibility inherent to the privilege of wearing contact lenses, he writes a prescription for eye drops and glasses and contacts...and then kindly informs me that I WILL be wearing glasses for at least the next two weeks.

I feel my way toward the front desk, check out (luckily only hit for a $10 copay), and then grope toward the LensCrafters or EyeMasters or whatever the fuck it's called next door. (Yes, I went to a mall eye doctor. That's what happens when your sadistic employers don't consider your optical health to be a valid reason to miss work, unless your name is on the door of the office.)

So, I am confronted with bright, blurry walls, which I know must contain a variety of flattering eyeglass frames. I spend about an hour trying on various things, pressing my nose against the mirrors, and attempting to locate something which will enable me to (a) see and (b) not look like a complete retard for the next two weeks. I finally narrow it down to two pairs, and ask the sales clerk to tell me which one looks the least stupid. Then I have to pick out lenses. You want to talk about getting fucked? Insurance will pay for the office visit, but only offers a 20% discount on lenses, and not a damn penny off the frames. As anyone who has glasses can tell you, the cheap frames make you look like short-bus rider from 1982. To get something marginally okay, it's at least $100. When you're blind, the lenses start at about $160. The kind out of which you can SEE are about $350.

This is the part of the story where the one good thing all day happens. The chick at EyeCrafters is cool. She gives me last week's sale on the lenses (50% off) and puts my order at the top of the pile because she can tell I'm about ready for the white cane. While I am waiting, I wander around the mall touching things....puppies at the pet store, clothing, etc. When my 30 minutes are up, I retrieve my glasses, pay $300, and head to Walgreen's to get my prescription eye drops.

Back to the universe fucking me in the ass. The pharmacist says that, since the prescription is not from my primary care physician, she has to call my insurance company to get approval....and they closed at 5. It's now 8:30. Fine, I say, how much are they without insurance? (I want to get rid of the four-eyes look as soon as possible.) She calmly says...$148.67. WHAT THE HELL???? FOR A BOTTLE OF EYE DROPS THAT IS SO SMALL IT BARELY CONTAINS LIQUID???? I politely stammer that I will pick it up tomorrow and head for home.

At 9:30 p.m., I remember that I haven't eaten since lunch, and decide to nuke a frozen burrito. I wrap it gently in a paper towel, place it in the microwave, and press the "Quick Cook" button a few times. Just about the time I sit down at the computer, every fuse in my apartment blows. All of them. Darkness. Starvation. Blindness. I call my landlord, and she says she'll send over the maintenance guy first thing. I spend the next two hours playing battery-operated Yahtzee by candlelight and wondering what the hell I did to bring on this sequence of events.

The next morning, awakened by the battery-powered crow of a rooster (stocking stuffer from Dad), I get up, take a shower in the dark, put makeup on by the light of a flashlight (and boys, you can't put on makeup with glasses on, so again, blindness rears it's ugly head) and go to work with dripping wet hair in 20 degree weather. At least my boss decided to be nice, or I would have had to shove my $300 glasses up his left nostril.

A Room with a View

2004-08-10T20:00:00.000-05:00

*DEEP BREATH* I live in the ghetto. Within a block of my apartment are: a meth lab, a crack house, a McDonald's, a liquor store, a tire shop run by Hispanics, and an 18-and-up beer-only dive. There are also numerous dogs which may or may not belong to someone, (allegedly) homeless people who never fail to ask if they can "wash my windows" with some nasty old rags and a spray bottle containing a mysterious fluid which closely resembles that green shit Jack Nicholson fell into in Batman, a variety of non-running cars, porch couches, and an apartment complex with gated parking?!? Additionally, I live on a direct path to two major hospitals…so there's always an ambulance lurking about. From my window, I can see the interstate, McDonalds, the dumpster, cars which are not supposed to be there in my parking lot, and the top 2 feet of the state capitol dome (the interstate is in the way). I can usually also see some bar fights, drug deals, people peeing on the side of the building, and the homeless guy with the window rags digging in the dumpster at Mickey D's. He's pretty much quit bugging me since I suggested that if he spent as much time filling out a job application at Mickey D's as he did digging through their dumpster, he might not need to ask me for money anymore.

You might ask why I would choose to live there. The answer is simple. My rent is $230 a month less than my car payment, and it's five minutes from work. And the apartment itself is pretty cool….REAL hardwood floors (more on this later), cool architectural details, and a kickass landlord who sends our super-nice maintenance guy to fix things when they break. Believe me, in 10 years of apartment living, these things have never all been present at once. I'm much better acquainted with landlords like this:

ME: It's 105 outside and my air conditioning is not working at all. Matter of fact, there's a huge puddle forming in my hallway. Can you send someone over to fix it?

MANAGER: Not today….everyone's are breaking. Perhaps tomorrow.

ME (THE NEXT DAY): Okay, it's boiling hot, I can't stay here, and my cats aren't too happy either. Can you please send someone?

MANAGER: Well, we've had some elderly people call since you called yesterday, and we're fixing theirs first, because they are more important than you.

ME: Okay, but can I be next?

MANAGER: No, because if I let you do that, everyone would expect to have things fixed when they call. What, do you think that anyone pays attention to those landlord-tenant laws?

This exchange continued for the next THREE WEEKS, and the outside temperature was never lower than 95. I stayed with friends a lot of the time, and made sure there were many fans blowing and lots of cold water for my pets. Finally, in desperation, I called the management company which owned this complex and explained the situation. They, of course, had no clue that their on-site managers would rather drink and watch soap operas in their AIR CONDITIONED office than they would pay attention to their tenants. My A/C was fixed within hours. After this, I would call the complex office once for every problem, and then proceed directly to the owners. This included such things as a broken hot water heater and a maintenance man who could lift heavy tools to the roof but couldn't move a fiberboard bookcase to get to the panel in the wall concealing the water heater; heat that wouldn't shut off unless you flipped the circuit breaker; water stains on the ceiling; and a freezer which took a week to make ice cubes. In the meantime, every time they had to come over, they threatened to evict me for some alleged violation of the rental agreement….and they raised my rent. Needless to say, I finally moved. While the next place I lived was certainly an improvement, it left much to be desired location-wise. We're talking a 45 minute commute to a crappy $10 an hour job….my paychecks were spent on gas and car repairs. Therefore, I decided to move closer to work….which, on a budget, provides limited options. Sure, there were apartments in a more preserved area…for twice the price…and they were still next to a bar.

However, while living next to a bar provides a source of entertainment, it's also a source of frustration. It would be one thing if these stupid children partied hard on the weekends….but they turn out in force for Wednesday night karaoke. Some of us have jobs, and being awakened by two frat-boy types fighting over some girl in a way-too-short skirt screaming "Oh my God" at the top of her lungs is really disruptive to your REM cycle. One such fight resulted in the police being called. When the officer arrived, he proceeded to get out the BULLHORN. (Mind you, this is 2:30 a.m.) I suppose that, in their training, they're taught to break up drunken brawls by waking up the whole neighborhood.

Another night, another fight…two guys are beating the crap out of each other. One guy finally knocks the other unconscious (or maybe he just passed out from drinking too much cheap beer). The winner hops in the passenger side of his buddy's car. The girlfriend of the loser (who is about half the size of the winner), attempts to drag his ass out of the car. The driver takes off, nearly dragging the girl down the street. She screams at the retreating taillights for a while, then starts screaming at her boyfriend to get up. Finally, another friend gets smart and uses his cell phone to alert emergency personnel. At this point, I hear the only intelligent shouting of the evening…a designated driver telling her (surely very underage) passengers to get the hell in the car because the cops are coming. About 10 minutes later, amid the girlfriend's continued exhortations to the boyfriend to get up, an ambulance arrives, accompanied by….a fire truck. No cop anywhere (not that it would have mattered…the perpetrators were long gone…all they could have done was cite the remaining persons for public intox or disturbing the peace). Keep in mind, this is RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW….flashing lights, screaming sirens, noisy bystanders, and all.

After numerous incidents like these, and no response from police to things like gunshots or vandalism, BFRB (who lives in my building) and I had a brilliant idea. Around the 4th of July, they start selling those little "poppers" (gunpowder & sand in little twisty sperm-like packages). We've got boxes of them. If those fuckers start making noise, we just hop out to the fire escape and toss a handful on the cement. With all the concrete, it sounds like automatic fire. Instant duck and cover. At least that's the theory. So far, since we've purchased them, the patrons haven't been doing anything to wake us up. But it's summer, and the college students/bar's main patrons are on vacation. They'll be back….and we'll be waiting.

Good Hair and Bad Driving

2004-08-09T19:59:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, I went to get my haircut at your basic upper-end mall hair salon. When I walked in, my hair was down to the middle of my back with a few long layers. When I walked out, it was shoulder length with lots of layers. This was unintentional, and it has to be the worst haircut I've had since the SuperCuts mistake. (Ear-length bozo hair, right before a job interview.) Since the recent bad haircut experience, my hair has not looked good once. Now that some of the original length has been recovered, it's in dire need of a trim, but I don't want to go back to The Butcher Shop.

I blame all of this on my old hairstylist. She was amazing. I never once received a bad haircut from her. But, she up and quit the salon where she was working, and I've never seen her again. Dana, where did you go? Did you know you were dooming me to a bad-hair future? And, of course, when I asked BFRB who cut her hair (which is just like mine), her stylist wasn’t taking new clients….grrrr.

And while we're on the subject of things that piss me off, let's discuss tourists and why they suck. I live/work in or near downtown Oklahoma City….where the bombing happened. I drive past the memorial every day on my way to and from work and to and from the gym. Every time, I am confronted with some moron in an SUV who either (a) is driving way too slow, (b) doesn’t know where they are going, so are prone to sudden unannounced lane changes and driving the wrong way down one-way streets, or (c) do not seem to understand stop signs or traffic signals. A tip: almost every gas station has a street map….and downtown Oklahoma City is far from complex. There's really only about 4 north-south streets and 10 east-west ones. The one-ways alternate. If you are going the wrong way, turn right and turn right, and you will be going the correct direction. Just a suggestion, of course. Not like I'm trying to crush anyone's individuality.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to the memorial existing, nor do I feel anything but sympathy for those who were affected by the bombing. However, I do object to the tour buses, RV's, and cars who seem to be competing to see who can make me the latest for work or cause grievous harm to my person and/or vehicle. For example, this morning, one of those ugly station-wagon like SUV's with Minnesota plates executes a right turn (he had a stop sign, I did not) RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY CAR. I, of course, take this opportunity to show that I know where the horn is. Then, he basically STOPS in front of me…so in addition to a near-wreck, I am now stuck behind this fucking asshole. I pass him, and he just looks at me like I'm a psycho bitch.

A word to all you tourist types…during the week, you are in the middle of an area where people are at WORK. That means they need to get there, go to lunch, and run errands. I'm sure that when YOU are at work, and need to get places, you don't appreciate some moron running lights, parking an RV in the middle of the street, driving the wrong way, wandering in front of cars, and generally clogging up the works. Please park safely, obey traffic laws, and walk across the street when the sign says "WALK." These are all things I'm sure you do at home. You can see the memorial just fine in two minutes when the light changes. Additionally, use of hazard flashers to double-park and take pictures is a NO-NO.

I believe that's everything pissing me off this morning…but it's only 10:30, and it's Monday. I'm sure by the end of the day people will find new and interesting ways to annoy the shit out of me. Stay tuned.

Working Out, Bounce Out, and the Failure of Retail Therapy

2004-08-09T01:15:00.000-05:00

All week, BFRB and I have been planning a shopping field trip for today. I had convinced myself that, despite a week which is remarkable only for its utter lack of anything interesting happening, I would have some "fun" today. Instead, I left with no impulse purchases and a completely foul mood, despite BFRB's best efforts (including the old standby, comfort food in the form of cheeseburgers and onion rings) to make me perk the fuck up.

For those who have not yet figured it out, this is not a funny story, nor does it offer any pithy observations on life. This is about a crisis in confidence. You see, for the last five months, I've been doing some serious weight-loss work. I've gone to the Y 6 times a week, tried to stay away from comfort foods, and managed to lose 50 lbs. But before you start with the exhortations of glee, I should explain that I have another 90 or so lbs. to lose. It's only in the last two weeks that anyone has even really NOTICED that I've lost weight (other than the friends I have bored to tears about the struggle, that is). I've lost enough that almost none of my clothes fit, but not enough to buy what I want and have it look good. Hence the crisis.

Logically, one would assume that such an accomplishment would offer a boost in self-confidence. Perhaps that was the case at first. However, now, I feel worse than I have in a long time. At this point, I can almost hear the "they need to adjust your medication" emanating from the background. Illogical and fucked up though this feeling may be, it's very much real.

Perhaps a metaphor is in order here. Let's say, for example, that you have a car that is a complete shit pile and barely runs. I'm talking '78 El Camino here. You decide to give it an engine overhaul, repair the worst of the rust holes, and put some new tires on it. Your friends, who have been subjected to the car's various grunts and groans and unexpected vent holes, congratulate you on taking a step up. However, the asshole in the BMW X5 in the next lane just sees a piece of shit.

That's about how I feel right now...that I've done some minor repairs on a crappy car. It runs better, looks better, but ain't nobody going to be confusing it with a Lexus. The problem is, I have worked my ass off for those new tires and engine, and I FEEL like I've earned at least a new Pontiac by now....but that's not how the loan officer at Big Bob's Autos-R-Us sees it.

I don't have any friends undergoing this particular experience, so I decided to consult message boards on the internet....and it's all decidedly non-helpful. Either it's assholes talking about how fat people shouldn't be allowed to breathe, drive, wear clothes, eat anything, or receive medical care; gastric bypass patients who, while they were or are in a more similar place, are more focused on whether or not to tell anyone about the surgery or how to deal with the dietary restrictions imposed by the surgery; or people asking questions about diet drugs that really don't work. Very few people seem to be doing the weight loss the old-fashioned way.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against people who had surgery. I just thought it was a better idea to try to avoid having my entire intestinal tract cut and pasted into new and interesting shapes. And I realize that taking a pill seems preferable to spending hours at the gym. It's just difficult to do this blind and alone.

Along with this, add in the fact that I'm easily bored....and now that the initial learning phase has worn off at the gym, it's very hard to maintain focus. BFRB has been going with me, but seeing as how she's about as close to the model-thin ideal figure as possible, her reasons are different, and she is a lot more able to slack without adverse consequences.

Last week, I got a t-shirt at the gym (we have a tracking program for workouts, and I reached a milestone.) I went to do laundry this morning, and being that it's laundry day, not much could be considered clean. However, I didn't want to wear the t-shirt to do laundry....because I didn't want the "yeah, right, you work out" looks. I get them enough when I tell people I go to the Y...the appraising glance and the incredulous expression. I just couldn't deal with that today.

My whole solution to my foul mood and general frustration has been to play computer games like Bounce Out for hours on end. Why deal with reality when you can avoid it?

And You're Telling Me This Because...

2004-08-06T12:10:00.000-05:00

For some reason, I seem to have "I care" tattooed on my forehead in some kind of ink only visible to those who work in menial jobs. Case in point: at work, we park in a valet-parking garage. (It sounds really posh, but you wouldn't want these people driving your car, nor would you want to wait for them to bring it downstairs at 5:00 with the rest of the planet.) The attendant who hands out tickets in the morning feels the need to show me pictures of her child, discuss her new job prospects, and tell me about her new dining room set that her best friend has too. Why? She doesn't tell other people this shit. It's not that I don't like her, but really, my ass is running late every morning, and I don't have the time to listen.

It goes further. Every single time I go to a convenience store for cigarettes or gas or a soda, the clerk feels the need to tell me about their medical problems, the evil manager, how hard it is to keep the bathroom clean, how difficult it is to operate the credit card machine, and how rude most of their customers are. In the meantime, while attempting to figure out the credit card machine, the clerk manages to charge me twice for my gas….and this wastes even more of my time calling the bank to get the charge reversed.

Waiters and waitresses somehow think it's okay to bitch about their evening while they are serving me dinner. The cashier at Wal-Mart tells me about her asshole husband. The trainer at the gym tries to make me see that Jesus is Lord. The kid next to me on the airplane wants me to play a game with him and tell me how much he likes raspberries. Even my therapist broke down and told me about her personal problems once or twice.

WHAT IS IT? WHY CAN I NOT GO ANYWHERE WITHOUT SOMEONE TELLING ME THEIR FRIGGING SOB STORY?? I realize your jobs suck, and you're probably poor, so your lives suck. However, all I want to do is eat dinner, purchase my items, work out, park my car, or get to my destination. So please, buy a diary, buy a dog, buy a friend….but don't confuse me with someone who cares.

Bacon, Eggs and Crack Whores

2004-08-05T10:54:00.000-05:00

One Sunday morning, my best friend/running buddy (BFRB) and I were making our biweekly trek to the Laundromat. Once our clothes were in the washer, we decided to go get breakfast. Since Denny's was located relatively close, we elected to go there. Big mistake. Right up there with Napoleon invading Russia.

Our first clue that this would not be a quick and easy egg-munching fest presented itself immediately. The cashier and another employee were attempting to put new paper in the register. The other employee made eye contact, but chose to ignore us. The cashier was too busy figuring out where the paper went to notice we were there. This went on for about 3 minutes. Finally, these two rocket scientists managed to complete the operation, and the cashier actually said "hi" and "we'll be with you in a moment." While this was polite, it made no sense, given that we were the only customers anywhere in the vicinity. After about 5 more minutes, they finally decide to get us a table.

We were sitting in the smoking section (and spare me the lung cancer lectures, okay?), and there was only one other table filled. When our waitress finally decided to grace us with her presence, we recognized her as the other employee fixing the cash register. This was the second indicator of a truly fucked breakfast experience. It was clear, once we had the opportunity to get a good look, that she would much rather be smoking crack and giving $10 blow jobs than working this morning. She took our drink orders, and we asked for an ashtray. She introduced herself as "Jackie," even though her name tag said "Jacquetta," and advised us to "hollah Jackie" if we needed anything.

Clearly, even though we could see the kitchen and drink machines from where we were, it took a REALLY long time to walk back there and locate our beverages. We would have "hollah-ed Jackie," but there was no sign of the bitch. She must have been back in the kitchen seeing if she could light her crack pipe off the grill. Finally, after another 10 minutes, she brings our drinks…but still no ashtray. (We end up flagging down another employee, who brings us an ashtray promptly.) After the drinks are served and she at last takes our order, she proceeds to hold a 20 minute conversation with the only other people in the section about other job prospects. At this point, we really got worried. She didn't go to the kitchen to check on our food, and, in fact, didn't look at us. Let me mention that what we ordered was stuff like eggs, bacon, and toast, none of which take more than 10 minutes to cook.

When she FINALLY ceases to converse with the folks, does she go to check on food? Oh, no. She bustles around the section, gives us placemats and silverware, sashays around with the coffeepot, and finally goes back to the kitchen.

At this point, I must mention that another couple had entered our section, and were sitting at the bar. They ordered their food shortly AFTER we did. When Ms. Crack Ho finally decided to saunter back to the kitchen (the crack must have worn off), she brought them THEIR food FIRST. By the time she deigned to grace us with her presence, a good 40 minutes had passed since we ordered, and our food was slightly chilly. However, by now, we were ravenous. (Remember, too, that our clothes were at the Laundromat, waiting to be dried….assuming no one stole them or dumped them on the floor because they needed the washer. Furthermore, we both had plans later in the day, and said plans required laundry to be done by 1:30…and it was noon. We got there at 11.)

After shoveling our food down our throats like Ethiopians at a smorgasboard, we grab the check (which was not split, nor did our crack ho ask) and head for the register. Of course, by this time, there were a whole bunch of churchgoing folk waiting for tables, and more waiting to pay. After ANOTHER 10 minutes, we get to the register, and ask the cashier to split the check….the same cashier who didn't know how to change the paper. She goes to get her manager, who, despite bathing recently, is clearly stupid white trash. I pay first, and tell her I don't want to leave a tip on my card, thanks. She gives me a shitty look, but doesn't say anything. BFRB pays second, and also says she doesn't want to leave a tip. At this point, the white trash bitch starts in on her about how they work for tips. BFRB points out that the service sucked. Instead of sympathizing, the manager says that we should have asked for her to tell her about this. Who the fuck were we supposed to ask? Our waitress was busy smoking crack and looking for a new job, the cashier was clueless, and there was no one else around. BFRB reiterates that she's not leaving a tip, and the manager goes off on her about how they are busy and they work for $2.13 an hour and how she clearly doesn't understand their plight. BFRB says, "I waited tables in college." However, the white trash at the register ignores this completely and keeps going on about how she doesn't understand. Rather than arguing further with someone who has the IQ of a sea sponge, we leave, making it clear to each and every customer in the area how dissatisfied we were.

Jackie, let me "hollah" something at you and your boss: FUCK YOU.

Crazy for ICU...or, What I Did Not Do on My Summer Vacation

2004-08-04T19:53:00.000-05:00

Crazy for ICU...Or, What I Did NOT Do on My Summer Vacation

MY BEST FRIEND WON FRONT-ROW TICKETS TO MADONNA!!!

You may now be thinking to yourself that this is either (a) a critique of has-been rock stars trying to relive their glory days by charging too much for tickets or (b) a rave about how amazing the concert was. Well, you would be wrong. This is a story about why you should never create unnecessary drama, and what is wrong with health-care professionals in this country.

Our story begins at the end of June. My gay ex-boyfriend (GEB, for short—long story) calls me at work freaking out because he won tickets to see Madonna's concert in Chicago July 11th. Well, I assume that (a) since I'm his best friend and have been for a long, long time and (b) he called me first to tell me, that I am accompanying him to the concert. Plus, his ass is in law school and he's poor, and I have a decent job and a decent car which can finance and make the trip. Silly me. I should have known it wouldn't be that easy. Gay men can create drama out of a simple phone call to decide what time to go out Saturday night.

Enter GEB's ex-boyfriend and alleged friend. He was next on the call list, and then, I get this e-mail asking if HE can go to the concert instead. GEB's ex lives in another city, and he sure as hell won't pay for GEB's plane ticket. However, GEB still wants this ex to be his current, so he attempted to blow me off in pursuit of the dick. After many emotionally-charged e-mails back and forth between all three of us, he finally saw the light and said I could go.

On July 7th, I wake up feeling like my entire intestinal tract is being inhabited by angry aliens. The 8th and 9th are not any better. We are scheduled to depart for Chicago (a 12 hour drive, we're too poor to fly) on July 10th. Well, I don't feel better. I'm in tears. I'm in pain. All I want is to sleep with occasional breaks to drink Gatorade and eat saltines. But, of course, being the idiot I am, I made the hotel reservations on Hotwire…in my name….so I had to be there or GEB would be sleeping at the bus station. I had no choice but to go. We stop at the gas station, I grab my trusty Gatorade & crackers, and we hit the road for "my kind of town."

The drive, luckily, is fairly uneventful, and it is not marred by any run-ins with the highway patrol. After a few wrong turns, we finally find our (unmarked) hotel, and are pleasantly surprised by its cleanly newness. I still feel like shit, but at least I'm not puking. That all changes the following morning….

July 11th. I get up, take a shower, and am brushing my teeth when I notice that the whites of my eyes are a little yellowish. Attributing this somewhat ominous development to the fluorescent light in the bathroom, I shrug it off. However, upon application of the toothbrush to my upper palate, I suddenly get back in touch with my old buddy Ralph.

At this point, GEB suddenly realizes that I'm not making up this whole being sick thing, and he gently suggests that perhaps I should go to the doctor. At this point, it's 10:30 a.m. We have to be downtown at the concert arena by 6:30 p.m. I locate a 24-hour minor emergency clinic in the phone book, and after a seriously shitty set of directions from the receptionist, several wrong turns, and another set of directions from a gas station attendant, we finally locate said minor emergency clinic. Luckily, I didn't have to wait that long.

The nurse whisks me back into the innards of the facility, weighs me, takes my blood pressure, takes my temperature, makes me pee in a cup the size of the one that comes with cough syrup, and then sticks me with what will be the first of many needles. After filling at least four or five multicolored test tubes with my blood, she tells me to lay on a gurney and stabs me with yet another needle to start some IV fluids.

After what seems like a year, the doctor comes in and tells me that my liver enzymes are elevated off the charts. This begins the first set of questions about my alcohol consumption habits. Seeing as how I'm really an occasional (like once a month) social drinker, I know that this does not have a damn thing to do with what is wrong with me. After establishing I'm not an alcoholic on the edge of liver failure, he tells me he's sending me to the emergency room for an ultrasound, because they think I have gallstones. I did inform the doctor and nurse that we had somewhere to be later in the evening (by this time it was about 12:45 p.m.), and they said that it wouldn't be a problem.

Flash forward to emergency room. After a short wait involving some screaming children and parents, I am taken to a room. At this point, I am in pain, scared, tired, and cranky as hell. They come in and played with the IV some more, then got out the test tubes and the needles again. This time, the tech missed, mumbled something about a smaller needle (apparently, my veins are the size of Asian vermicelli) and came back with an allegedly smaller needle….and left me with my first set of bruises.

This whole time, I have not once been offered anything for pain, nausea, or my general comfort. Finally, when the nurse comes in to tell me my ultrasound will be at 3:30 p.m., I start bitching about how miserable I am….so it finally dawns on them that maybe I need something besides a saline drip.

At last, I am wheeled to a dimly lit chamber, where an attractive man awaits with some warm lubricant. Sadly, this was only the ultrasound technician, but it was the high point of my whole hospital experience (other than 2 days of morphine derivatives, that is.)

By the time they come back with the results of the ultrasound, it's 5 p.m. Surprisingly, no obvious gallstones. Do you think this means I get to leave and go to the concert and follow up with my primary care physician? Don't be ridiculous. I am informed that I will staying overnight, and CAT scans are mentioned. Somehow, that doesn't really compare to a free concert, but I am on enough drugs by this point that my disappointment is muted. I tell GEB to go ahead and go, because one of us should at least be having some actual fun.

The wheels of the gurney once again roll, this time upstairs to a room. My roommate is very old. I will later discover that she is also (a) not a native English speaker and (b) very hard of hearing. I am connected to various monitors, given instructions on the TV remote and call button, and then pretty much left to entertain myself until it's time for my next shot. They even give me some footie slipper socks in a lovely shade of puke beige (which coordinates effortlessly with the blue and purple patterned hospital gown), in case I want to go to the bathroom. Not like I need to….I haven't had anything to actually drink in about 12 hours.

3 a.m., July 12th. The night nurses come in and decide that they need some more blood, because clearly the first 12 test tubes weren't adequate. Conveniently, they decide to stab me with needles BEFORE my next pain shot. I always love the feeling of being probed with sharp objects when I'm half awake at 3 in the morning in an unfamiliar setting.

4 a.m., July 12th. The monitor attached to the IV line starts beeping endlessly. I can't tell if it's mine or my neighbor's. Nurse finally arrives to shut it off, after 10 minutes. Glad it wasn't telling them someone's heart quit beating.

7 a.m., July 12th. Shift change. The morning nurse and lab techs arrive. At this point, we're approaching 24 hours without liquid refreshment. I complain of dehydration. They explain that I'm getting plenty of fluids and I can't have any liquids because of more planned tests and/or surgery. After they leave, I go to the bathroom and drink from the faucet. They can kiss my ass.

Here's me in the hospital...dehydrated as hell. Note the Michael Jackson-like glove. It was to keep the IV in place, or make me look like a retard. Not sure which.

10 a.m., July 12th. More needles. More bruises. More painkillers. By this point, GEB has arrived. He asks the nurse when a physician might be arriving. The nurse makes noise about surgery in the mornings and emergencies and doesn't venture a guess. Luckily, I had GEB bring clean underwear and real pajamas, or I really would be cranky. I kept the footie socks on, though. They matched my purple and green pajama pants beautifully.

12:30 p.m., July 12th. I see the first doctor since 4 p.m. yesterday. Said doctor starts yapping about tests and possibilities and how elevated my liver functions still are. More pointed questions are asked about my drinking habits. He pokes, prods, and tells me the gastroenterologist will be there shortly. The bill for his five minutes is $350.00.

2:00 p.m. The gastroenterologist finally arrives. She is very pregnant. She has lots of colorful brochures detailing the functions of my internal organs....and lots more questions about my alcohol consumption. Apparently, I'm not having a CAT scan. I'm having an ERCP. For those of you not versed in medical technology, this involves shoving a long tube with a camera and some surgical instruments down the patient's throat and then possibly snipping and slicing to remove obstructions of the common bile duct. At least they sedate you. She said that, even though the ultrasound didn't show any actual gallstones, there may be "sludge." Super.

3:30 p.m., July 12th. I am wheeled downstairs for the "procedure." The nurse says GEB has to come with me, because I won't remember one fucking thing that the doctor says after I come out from under the sedation. The nurses in this area of the hospital are all wearing lead-lined cheerleader outfits. The first nurse attempts to put on a hospital gown over my pajamas. The second two nurses do something with drugs and then wake me up afterwards. The doctor (yet another one, because the pregnant one couldn't do x-rays) says that they didn't find even a hint of sludgy gallbladder residue, and that they need to test for hepatitis.

4:30 p.m., July 12th. These sadistic aliens finally decide I can have clear liquids. Apple juice and jello have never tasted so good. GEB informs me that he has nowhere to stay overnight. I give him money for the Motel 6. He's also driving my nowhere-near-paid-for convertible. He's a horrible driver in an unfamiliar town. Is it time for more drugs yet?

Overnight, July 12th-13th. Beeping monitors, loud conversations between the nurses and my non-English speaking, deaf roommate. Just another night in the depths of hell.

6:00 a.m., July 13th. The vampires are back. Last needle stick. The bruises on my right arm are growing hourly. I am beginning to resemble a heroin junkie. I ask the nurse when the doctor will be there and when I can go home. She utters the usual "I have no way of predicting that."

2:30 p.m., July 13th. The doctor finally arrives. Tells me that her "best guess" is that I have mono or some other kind of mysterious viral infection. She does, however, tell me I can go home. Good thing, because the jello didn't taste nearly as good at breakfast and lunch. Equipped with various medications for nausea and pain, GEB and I locate Walgreen's and a gas station (since he clearly did not notice the dry gas tank and the handy warning light). At 4:30, we set out for home.

8:45 p.m., July 13th. We arrive in St. Louis. On the way there, I had foolishly promised a visit to the arch. GEB held me to this. In serious pain, I climb the 80 zillion steps, visit the restroom and the gift shop, and wait for him to take some pictures.

2:30 a.m., July 14th. Tulsa. We're on the wrong fucking turnpike, and I have no money. Guess falling asleep was a bad idea. Eventually stop at Wal-Mart to get cash and ask directions. We'll get home….just an hour later than planned.

5:30 a.m., July 14th. Home at last. I fall into bed and sleep for 3 hours, then call work and my doctor's office. They inform me that I have an appointment at 9:30 Thursday morning. I take another painkiller and go back to bed.

10:00 a.m., July 14th. Wake up. Call mom. Very upset that I didn't call from the hospital. I explained that we had a cell phone with no charger and that the custodians of evil didn't let you dial long-distance on their phone. Still, the conversation is over relatively quickly.

3:00 p.m., July 14th. Mom calls again, totally freaking out. This time, it's an hour of me promising that if I'm ever abducted by aliens for medical experiments again, I will call her immediately and give her the phone number.

8:30 a.m., July 15th. I call the doctor's office to make sure they are getting my medical records faxed from the hospital, and am informed that my appointment is, in fact, NEXT Thursday. After chewing some ass, they agree to a 3:30 appointment.

3:30 p.m., July 15th. See the doctor. He agrees that I probably do have mono. Sends me to the only lab my insurance will pay for to have some more blood sucked.

4:30 p.m., July 15th. Arrive at the building which is supposed to contain the lab. I am informed by another tenant that this lab hasn't been there for 2 years, and that they need to quit handing out that stupid list. She tells me to go down the street to the real lab.

4:45 p.m., July 15th. After finally figuring out how to get into the parking garage, I go to the lab with great trepidation. The lab tech immediately makes for the right arm, which I jerk away in a panic. He looks at the bruises, bemoans the incompetence of the techs who did it, and gently takes blood from the left arm. This is the only site that is not bruised. This man deserves a big, fat raise.

2:00 p.m., July 16th. I start calling the doctor's office, inquiring as to the results of my lab tests. No response. I need to know if I can work Monday or not. I don't have any sick time, and haven't for a week.

4:30 p.m., July 16th. Still no response. I call the doctor's office again, and get an answering service. I'm panicking.

4:37 p.m., July 16th. The nurse finally calls and confirms the diagnosis of mono. She also makes some noise about not working for another week. I throw as much of a fit as I can muster about how not physically taxing my job is, and she finally gives in.

8:00 a.m., July 19th. I return to work and have to tell the story of my capture and release about 70 times. At least I didn't get fired.