Now where's my cake?!

Annoying and Boring

2005-04-04T05:49:00.000-07:00

You know, the more I read people's blogs and the various comments, the more I realize how annoying most people are. A guy I know put up a post on picketers and protesters in regards to the Schiavo case and abortion clinics, followed by a lengthy quote from some religious guy. I dutifully put in my two cents on how I'm less likely to sympathize with a picketer's cause if they are in my way of getting somewhere. Like those people who lay down in front of buildings or block traffic to get their point across. I have a hard time feeling bad for them when they get hurt because its like, "Well you're standing in traffic, keeping people in their cars from getting where they need to go-they are trying to mind their own business, so why do you have to be in theirs?" So some moron posts something like, "Well, I don't think your comment is relevant here because the post is about the religious aspects, blah blah blah." I wrote back, "the post and my comment are talking about various aspects of picketers/protesters and all aspects should be considered since the post is a public one." What I really wanted to write was, "Hey, moron, this isn't your blog-why don't you leave it to the author of it to decide what is and is not relevant." I didn't because I didn't want to start a big argument on someone else's post, especially since I work with the author of the original post.

Now I'm just sitting here sighing and wondering why there are so many assholes in the world and why there are so many BORING blogs. So many religious ones. Or tedious pondering about spirituality and religion. I would consider myself spiritual, but I don't go on about it-well unless I'm ranting about the boring parts and the disparity between my coworkers and myself. I think spirituality should be something kept private-like the size of one's underwear-you don't go around telling people about it. Talking about one's spirituality wrecks the specialness and makes it trite if you go on and on about it and your struggles to understand how you fit personally into a larger spectrum.

Cadbury Creme Eggs: manna from heaven

2005-03-18T18:35:00.000-08:00

Once again, spring is upon us, which means Easter is not too far off in coming. And that means that classic commercial of the Cadbury Bunny clucking his way into my heart, bringing with him the best candy that Britain has to offer: the Cadbury Creme Egg. Every year I eagerly anticipate this foil-wrapped gem; even more so than the tiniest buds upon leaf and soil with their bounties of allergies and insect larvae that will somehow find their way into our house.

True, the egg's contents aren't pretty and its foil wrapper is hardly any protection against the abuse of a mouthbreather CVS clerk. Also, you can't eat them while driving and really, are best eaten with something to drink nearby. But come on: it's Easter from when we were kids, of the days of plastic green grass and awful looking pastel baskets. The overcast muddy town comon, Easter Sunday spent hunting for Easter eggs with kids three times bigger than you, who shove you aside to find those plastic eggs filled with even uglier pastel colored maltball eggs that taste like Ovaltine-flavored gravel. Easter with commericals of that bunny and those two kids dressed like a bunny and a chick for M&M's who say, "Thank ya Easta bunna!" "Bwuck bwuck!"

(I swear, I could have been a nuclear physicist, and still could, if only I could clear my head of 80s pop culture.)

So I salute you, Cadbury Easter Bunny!

Booorrrrinnnngg!

2005-03-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

Some people have the most BORING blogs. Some, sometimes; some most of the time. Sometimes when I read them, I just hear white noise in my head rather than their words. Or I think of a duck quacking. Or even a little kid just going, "Mommy, mommy, mommy" and tugging on a sleeve, desperate for attention. I mean, if given the opportunity to read a blog, why pick one topic to write about constantly, or just quote song lyric and think, "Hey what a great blog I wrote." No, you just quoted a song with no explanation as to why. It's like a court stenographer just transcribing. Boring.

Call me Miss Crankypants today

2005-03-15T08:07:00.000-08:00

I’m cranky today. For the past two nights, I haven’t slept well. Sunday night-well that’s a given. I have not slept decently on a Sunday night since I was about 5 years old. It used to be school anxieties-first day of school, first day of the school week, and so on. It went from elementary school all the way to college and has moved on to happen every single Sunday night representing the workweek. I lay down, about 10pm and it takes a good ten minutes to settle down: hair out of my face, pillow plumped so I’m not breathing into the material. I make sure my pajamas aren’t wrinkled or twisted around me, blankets pulled to just below neck (at the neck and I feel like I’m being slowly strangled). I figure out good places to put my arms and try not to fall asleep clenching my fists (speaking of arms-I don’t think human beings were meant to sleep on their sides-it would be so much easier if arms were Velcro-ed on or something, But then we would run the risk of having someone else tear our arms off and beat us with them. Or getting too much lint and crud in the sticky side of the Velcro so the soft side wouldn’t stick anymore.).

So once I’m settled, I think about what I need to do the next day, things I did during the current day, songs I’ve heard, books I’ve read, conversations I’ve had, TV shows I’ve watched. I try not to think about the horror movies I’ve seen. I try not to think about what I would take with me if I wake up in the middle of the night because the house is on fire. I toss some blankets off me, I put some on. I roll over and the whole process starts again. By this time, I’m checking the clock and see it’s 10:30pm and automatically calculate how many hours I have to sleep if I were to fall asleep at that instant. Still nothing.

When I finally fall asleep, it doesn’t feel like I’m asleep. I hear bits of songs (often the same one or two lyrics over and over) and I have vivid dreams that always involve activity-running, being late, swimming in a forbidding ocean (the ocean is never calm in my dreams-there is always huge waves, rocky shorelines pummeled by water, sharks and other large fish). I toss and turn, halfway waking up every time I do so.
I swear, I sleep better in the daytime-provided there is no construction outside or junk phone calls coming in. Maybe I was just meant to have a night job.

Which leads to a deeper philosophical question: how much of ourselves is what we try to impose on ourselves for the sake of convenience or society, and how much happier would we be if we did what our bodies are so obviously telling us to do? For example: if I sleep better in the day, why not take a night job? I do it because more can get done in a day-doctor’s appointments, errands, going out with friends-things that usually are daytime related. It doesn’t help how I can’t sleep at night though. Or the fact I always said I never wanted to work in an office, and ended up being an office toady and at the same time, good at it. If I’m naturally good at it, why do I fight it? Or, why is it that Ashlee Simpson insists on being a singer, when it’s obvious she can’t sing, can’t sustain her voice? Because people around her are telling her she’s good, that if her sister can sing, she should too. When will she say, "Hey you know what? I’m scared performing all the time, my voice isn’t strong, I’m going to go do something else."

When is the point where we just give in to these things and take the road we were meant to travel?

Inanimate objects I’d like to huck across the room today

2005-02-25T08:38:00.000-08:00

-My computer at work. The management systems are slow today and whenever I add a new product to the page I am working on, I stare at the little work bar that tells me the thing is being added and I can literally count to 20 before it updates the page. Multiply that 20 by the number of times I have to add something new to the webpage and well, I’m losing probably a good HOUR of productivity. But hey, if my company is satisfied with the software they use, who am I to complain? Break out the sticks and papyrus to scrawl on!

-My mp3 player. Don’t get me wrong, without it, the average workday would be the 7th Level of Hell (not that it’s already close at least). I love the fact that I don’t need to bring in 400 CDs in case there is something I want to listen to and don’t have. Plus, it has a radio component so I can feel like there is a world out there, with real live people. The problem is, though, the radio component: in essence, I AM the antenna for the reception. This means that if I move so much as a finger, or tilt my head the wrong way, I get bursts of static on one of the three stations I can actually get within a large, corporate building. (What is it with large buildings-you’d think I could get Radio China from this height, but no. I swear they do that on purpose in designing buildings-probably fill the walls with iron filings and aluminum foil. The same thing happened in college for the TV reception, thereby forcing students to sign up for cable packages that included 8 stations worth of ESPN type stations.) I think this is at least one reason why I have lower back pain-trying to contort myself in just the right position to listen to a radio station that plays the same 10 pop songs every two hours.

-My office chair. Being five feet tall, exactly, NOTHING is built sufficiently high or low enough for me to be comfortable. Either my feet are swinging-bending my leg bones, but my arms and back and neck are fine for the desk; or my legs, hips, back are ergonomically correct but my hands are too high which leads to back/neck/arm/shoulder pain. I reiterate: Humans were not made to sit in cubicles all day. We should be swinging from trees, romping in the ocean surf, and eating each other’s head lice. The hierarchy and corporate ladder climbing would remain the same, so what’s the difference?

-The office water cooler. I don’t know where they get the bottled water from, but it ain’t a spring, that’s for damn sure. "Pocahontas" brand: flat tasting when cold, oily tasting when room temperature. Supposedly it’s spring water from someplace in MA. For anyone that has ever been here, you KNOW there are no springs around here, and if there is, the springs are currently paved over.

-Anyone’s stinky lunch. ‘Nuff said.

(One of these days, I will have to write about something positive and happy. I swear I will, someday.)

I can hear a mouse breathing a mile from here...

2005-02-23T07:17:00.000-08:00

I am sensitive to sounds. Apparently over-sensitive, according to my beloved. He calls it "Retard-o-hearing." I call it "Hearing innocuous sounds that send me into a rage spiral." Case in point: I work in a cube farm and today I have been subjected to the rumblings of the conveyor belts in the warehouse portion of my company. It’s something similar to standing on a sidewalk that covers over an underground subway station and hearing/feeling the vibrations through the walls and floors.

There is also a repetitive squeaking sound that comes and goes in non-predictable cycles. Eek eek eek eek…..eek eek….eek…eekeekeekeekeek. Then nothing for a bit, then again.

Next is the click-click-click of keyboards coming and going.

There is the occasional silence suddenly shattered by one of the announcers over the paging system. She has a truly annoying whiny voice similar to the secretary in the movie, "Office Space" ("Thank you for calling Intertech, JUST a mo-MENT!" Only she says, "TODD McCOY please dial exTENsion TWO-four-two-SIX!" half pause, then repeat with the same intonations. We have fastened a piece of foam over the speaker and had the maintenance people turn the volume down, but I guess they received complaints that she couldn’t be heard in some areas so they turned the volume back up since there seems to be only one master volume knob. My coworkers and I are seriously considering ripping out the wiring of that particular speaker (or half-jokingly considering ripping out the woman’s trachea).

And for my complete listening pleasure just today, I have a coworker with a hacking, phelgm-filled cough every two or three minutes, punctuated by the occasional wet, snot-filled blowing of the nose. (This is better left unseen, trust me.) Apparently, cough drops or cough medicine are too rare a commodity to buy, what with the nearest drugstore an astounding ¼ mile away and no Tibetian sherpas available to guide the way. And when someone commented on how he sounds, he replied, "Hey I sound worse than I feel." While I’m glad he doesn’t feel crappy, I also have to note this is his third cold this winter. One word for ya, pal: "VITAMINS."
Other minor sounds in this orchestra from hell: another coworkers headphones as he listens to techno music-the bass thump makes me want to go buy a Glo-stick and look for an Ecstasy dealer. Another coworkers’ headphones that sound like he’s listening to pure white noise.

I know, I could merely turn up my headphones, but even turned up loud, I can still hear most of this stuff, and it makes my own head ring when I listen to my music loudly. I would use ear plugs, but then I’m afraid I will miss something important. But I’m seriously considering it anyway.

I miss having an office of my own…

Whatever day you’re planning, leave me out of it

2005-02-17T08:50:00.000-08:00

I was just in the bathroom at work, washing my hands and noticed the latest magazine someone left on the counter for…um, reading pleasure while on the toilet. (At least that’s what I assume it’s there for-who would leave a magazine on the counter in a ladies’ room for someone else to say, "Hey! Free ‘zine!" and take it back to their desk.) The magazine was an issue of "Real Simple: for body/mind/soul/living" from May 2004. The cover listed titles of articles presumably found within, like "How to have a healthy mind and heart in 20 minutes" and "How to get a clutter-free closet." But one in particular stuck out for me:

"The Best:
swimsuits
mayonnaise
bandages
travel bags"

and I tried to think of how these things would go together and I left the bathroom humming "One of these things is not like the other!" from Sesame Street, and thinking of a Simpsons episode where Homer is buying illegal fireworks at a Quickie-mart and ends up buying a bunch of other items so his main goal isn’t really noticed. He comes home, Marge opens the grocery bag and says, "Magazines, beef jerky, beer, maxi pads, fireworks-Homer, whatever kind of night you had in mind, leave me out of it."

It's Called Rock Salt-Try Using Some!

2005-02-11T06:53:00.000-08:00

After the weathermen were wrong, it snowed overnight-about four inches worth. This turned the rain we got most of yesterday into a mirror-like glaze on the asphalt. This morning, I pulled into my company’s S-curved driveway and promptly fishtailed, sliding sideways for about fifty feet. I should be used to this by now since I do it nearly every time it snows. But I figured that since the state highway was clear, and all the secondary roads were clear, that something as simple as a privately-owned driveway would be treated properly. Well, you know what they say about assuming things…

Anyway, that harrowing incident over, I proceeded to walk across the parking lot. Halfway there, my feet went out from under me and I scrabbled for a hold on someone’s parked car, instead bouncing off of it and falling under the car. That’s when I thought, "Okay you know what? It’s time to go right back home. Oh wait, that means navigating the luge course that is our driveway." I got up, hoping I hadn’t shattered my cellphone or Palm Pilot in my backpack, and that I hadn’t smushed my lunch into a fine pulp and tottered like an 80-year-old to the front doors, watching in the door’s reflection as some other person fell in the parking lot as well. I muttered, "Fuckers" under my breath to the oblivious maintenance guys who were plowing and shoveling nearby.

Three flights of stairs to my floor and at the very top, planted in the MIDDLE of the landing, a yellow sign cautioning, "Danger! Wet Floors!" I briefly considered putting that sign in the parking lot where I felt it was more needed. By the time I got to my desk, I wondered if it would reflect badly on me if I drove out to the local drugstore and bought a bag of rock salt and started sprinkling it, myself, on the sidewalks and driveway. That way, when the maintenance guys saw me and wondered why, I could say, "Well it’s not like YOU guys THOUGHT to do this BEFORE other employees got here!"

On funny notes, everyone here at work is in a tizzy doing their annual work reviews, trying to decipher the new formatting. Me, being a worrisome anal-retentive (hey, I’m an only child, what do you want?!), was done a few days ago. Also laugh-worth is my friend, Heather, is having a hell of a time (both good and bad) with her newborn. And an email from my beloved husband from a North Korean website, showing a series of billboards from that country, showing their leader in Norman Rockwell-esque paintings, saving kids from fires and with families doing warm, homey, things. That’s funny to see since here we have billboards of car advertisements, insurance companies and sports talk radio stations along with food and movie reviews. Well, except in Florida, where they have pictures of a smiling (read: toothy and vaguely threatening) George W. Bush, extending his message of warm hypocrisy.

Weathermen or Magic 8-Ball?

2005-02-10T13:22:00.000-08:00

In the twenty-first century, one would think weathermen could do a better job than say, a Magic 8-Ball, when it comes to accurately predicting the weather. But, not so.

For the past four days now, we have been harangued by the weathermen with news of a mid-Atlantic storm. "A biggie, as big as the Blizzard of 2005 a few weeks ago…lots of things going on, with rain on the Cape and up to 15" around Worcester, Boston and southern New Hampshire, northern New England will only get about 3-6 inches." Then, Wednesday morning, it changed to "We have the winter weather warning and watches in northeast Massachusetts and points west but it all depends on if the rain/mix line will collapse and where, leaving us with at least eight inches with snow overnight. But southern New Hampshire will get the brunt of it for most of Thursday." Lunchtime Wednesday brought news of 12-18 inches, with snow promised from afternoon Thursday overnight all the way till Friday morning.

Suppertime news brought us back to 6-12 inches with mixing for most of Thursday and southern New Hampshire was going to get 12-18 inches. Bedtime there was no weather for the first entire half hour of news on two different stations. By this morning, the news said, "Well it’s raining and the rain will continue throughout the day around here, with a mix overnight."

What did we wake up to? Rain. No mixing, no snow. Just trashbuckets of rain from the sky. The weathermen on four different stations all happily said, "This is a HUGE snowstorm for northern New England-central New Hampshire and Maine-ski country is looking to get up to two feet of snow!" Pause. "Oh and the Boston area will see a coating to two inches."

Weathermen suck ass and where did I put that Magic 8-Ball? It’s the 21st century, so let me call a friend of mine-now where did I put that Dixie cup and string?

Adventures in Haircutting

2005-02-07T17:34:00.000-08:00

I made my beloved husband go to to Supercuts this weekend since he hates getting haircuts and by going there, he doesn't have to go as often since they basically learned how to cut hair from watching the movie "G.I. Jane." In any case, he was in the chair all of five minutes and once we left, he told me that he was brutalized audibly by the shrill screeching of gum-popping women yapping about what they wanted for lunch-which, judging by their figures, they were just going to discreetly vomit later.

If that wasn't bad enough, he nearly got whiplash by her twisting his head that would make a professional wrestler proud and grinding the #4 shears into his scalp like a doctor administering a skin graft. I'd hate to see her doing anything delicate, like demolition.

Also overheard between a gy and girl with two kids:

Guy, standing in line to put his name in: "Hey honey, what do I tell them?"
Girl, settling the two kids on chairs: "Take two inches off the top and sides, but leave the tail. I like it."

At this point, I glanced up to see a guy wearing sweatpants, leather sports jacket with "Patriots" emblazoned on the back. He had a thick unruly mop of brown, greasy hair, a mustache and beard with an uber-mullet that grew at least halfway down his back.

Surprisingly, there was no southern accent or any NASCAR paraphenelia present. What a pity.

Mental Note

2005-02-07T09:26:00.000-08:00

I have dry skin right near the origin of my eyelashes (both upper and lower) on my right eye, and my right eye only. The skin looks dry and sometimes it itches. I figured out that I can delicately scrape at my eyelashes the skin flakes, kinda like a sunburn, and when I blink, this skin becomes trapped in the eyelash netting and becomes "floaters" in my line of vision. That's anoying. So this morning, I began scratching at my eyelashes, trying to be careful so as not to poke my eye out (see my other post concerning this). As a result, I managed to give myself an abrasion right at the delicate, thin skin right below the lower line of eyelashes and now it STINGS like a bastard every time I blink. I knew the skin around one’s eyes was sensitive, but I had no idea HOW sensitive it could possibly be. And no, I have no idea why my left eye skin doesn’t have dry skin.

What Else Can We Add to This?

2005-02-02T19:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I saw a commercial for Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper. Yeah, all of that in one drink. It's diet-a world of difference from the full-fledged soda. Cherry-one flavor. Vanilla-another flavor. Dr. Pepper-a flavor in and of itself. Crammed into one drink. Apparently no one in Marketing can think of any ONE new flavor so they are forced to shove four flavors into one. A quadruple threat. What's next? They have already invented turkey gravy soda. Here's my list:

1. Beef chocolate onion ice cream.

2. Tuna maple syrup pickle potato chips.

3. Oolong mint boullion chicken soup.

4. Grape orange pork buffalo chicken strips.

5. Cheerios pizza.

Bon appetit!

Pity Party for One, Now Calling, Pity Party...

2005-01-27T11:43:00.000-08:00

I hate being left out. Then I remember what being part of it actually means in terms of what I have to do to not be left out. Then I don't mind so much...at least sometimes.

Blizzard Notes

2005-01-24T11:28:00.000-08:00

-I don’t remember ever seeing it snow as hard as it did this past Saturday night. Little, tiny, glittery flakes that looked like something out of one of those Christmas movies brought to you by Hallmark.

-Small chocolate Labrador puppies are a great amount of fun at 10pm at night in the snow.
-Having your mittens chewed by said puppy is not.

-Knowing the dog isn’t yours, and therefore you don’t have to take care of it, adds an extra amount of fun.

-I loved looking out the next morning to artfully sculpted snowdrifts.

-I can now wade waist deep in the snow in my backyard.

-I helped shovel out some good neighbors. When going down to inspect one of our cars I was coldly accosted by a neighbor from six houses down, asking if I was the one who parked in front of him. When I told him no, he informed me that on Saturday afternoon, he had purposely left a car’s worth of space between himself and the second car down the road so as to be able to get out without damaging other cars. In the overnight, someone had parallel-parked in that car’s worth of empty spot, and someone else parked closely behind him. I thought of telling him that if he had left that much car-space between cars, of course someone with enough driving skill was going to park in the spot, given the limited amount of parking area we have in our neighborhood. I also thought that if he was that obnoxious, why not go inform our neighborhood Board of Directors (I use that term loosely since they are useless) and find out who the car belonged to so he could go wave a shovel at them, as he was doing with me. As I walked over to where my beloved was shoveling his car, I said, "What’s with him?" Beloved shrugged and said, "Don’t know-he’s telling everyone the same thing as they come down." Our cars freed, I went over and silently began shoveling Obnoxious Neighbor’s car alongside him. He said, "Oh you don’t have to help, I’m okay, really." I kept shoveling anyway. I figure better to stay on that guy’s good side in case I have to use him later.

-Had work today. While I was not surprised, I was annoyed by it. I remember a quote I once heard that our CEOs supposedly said during a snowstorm: "It’s not snowing in California." Meaning, our customers still expect things to be shipped to them, and as a consequence, we must be there to do the shipping (no, I don’t work for the postal system or UPS or any of those. We sell books and crap.). Uh-huh. And if we all crash our cars coming in on barely plowed roads, those customers aren’t going to get their precious junk anyway. I heard a similar sentiment expressed by the Superintendent of Schools in my hometown-who also happened to drive a four-wheel drive SUV-when the students were driving little shitboxes with bald tires to school. It didn’t wash with me then, it doesn’t wash with me now. Sure, I could have stayed home today, but why waste my vacation time when there might be bigger, better snowstorms in the middle of the week rather than weekends that I can use the hours on. Or even better, on those perfect summer days that demand going to the beach.

-Mushed up snow and sand always makes me think of half melted ice cream with chocolate syrup.

-Down a side street, I saw a house where someone had scrawled "Go Pats" on his snowbanks because there was a playoff game this weekend. I resisted the urge to go pee on the message.

-More snow expected this week.

Tea'ed Off, Part II

2005-01-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

Okay, remember that nice yellow shirt that I bought in a lame attempt to work color into my wardrobe and be more cheery-looking at least in appearance? The one which I then spilled Earl Grey tea on?Yeah. Well I poured laundry detergent on it and threw it in the wash. And, Ta-DA! It STILL has tea on it. Now the tea has turned a lovely light purple shade on the yellow expanse. A blemish right below the color, next to the faux buttons, in clear view of the universe, no way it's going to ever look like a shadow or be hidden in a fold. Shit. Ruined, except as a junk shirt or something to throw on at the beach. Possibly I could wear it under a crocheted sweater, but I haven't checked that out yet.

Let this be a lesson: no colors or no tea without a HAZMAT suit (Hazardous Materials). Damn you, Earl Grey!

(Postscript: I got tea and a bagel this morning at Dunkin Donuts and specifically said, "One medium, regular tea, one sugar only." Apparently that means, "Hey, I'm going to continue to speak Spanish to my coworker while I screw up the customer's tea." Plus, the bagel I asked for as "Toasted with veggie cream cheese on the side" was translated to the other coworker as, "Don't toast it, just cut it in half." And finally, the reason why I picked the "harvest" bagel was because I figured that if I am going to get something as unhealthy as a giant bagel, it might as well be a healthier one than the white bread sesame one I usually get. After discovering the tea was defiled, the bagel untoasted, I found out the most unpleasant part of all: the harvest bagel I picked had walnuts and other unidentifiable seeds and grit in it. It was wheat on steroids.)

Where’s My Cake?

2005-01-21T09:44:00.000-08:00

I have the appetite of a little kid. I still eat Lucky Charms and Fun Dip-complete with the little sugary banana-flavored sticks that are used as a transport method to shove colored sugar crystals into my mouth. I like trying new types of sodas, and still eat cake batter off the spoons (though I do at least worry about the raw egg involved). I love the idea of getting dressed up for Halloween, though if I were seen walking on the streets without a little kid in tow, I might look like a stalker. I still laugh at cartoons, and have a secret penchant for teen movies like "Ten Things I Hate About You" and "Bring It On." I own crayons for my own use and still have my Raggedy Ann doll from when I was five, along with my crocheted "nappie" blanket, though both are stored away. I like the smell of Play-Doh and digging through mud for no reason. I am still afraid of worms and some bugs. I only own two pairs of high heels. In high school theatre, I was the only girl who couldn’t apply my own stage makeup and my eyes watered as someone put eyeliner on me, just like the eyes of the boys who were also in the plays. I’m still convinced I can do a somersault, though I’m afraid if I tried, I would break my neck, so I don’t try. Peanut butter and fluff is still an acceptable lunch for me to bring to work, and I love to try out new novelty ice creams and will eat Popsicles in the winter. I don’t like coffee and only recently have begun to like tea. Beer tastes yucky to me and I still use words like "yucky" and "doggies" and "bellyache" instead of "distasteful," "dogs," and "upset stomach." I still laugh at simple jokes like "What did the farmer say when he lost his tractor?" Answer: "Where’s my tractor?"

How old am I again?

Facial Maintenance

2005-01-21T09:43:00.000-08:00

I also watched the Bravo Channel’s "Queer Eye for the Straight Girl" for the first time last night (hey, I figured I need all the pointers I can get). They gave the woman tips on makeup application. First thing they did was show her how to tweeze her eyebrows to thin them out: "Tweeze from here and follow the line of the bone to the edge of your eye, being careful to maintain a nice clean look." The next step was to then pick up an eyebrow pencil: "Here, this brown will make your eyebrows look fuller!" I don’t get it-why pluck out a row of eyebrow hair if you are just going to redraw it in again to gain fullness back? If I ever did my eyebrows (and I had them waxed once, as a teenager-god did it hurt. I cried and the women just looked at me like I was insane.) I know I would screw it up. I would end up with more hair in one eyebrow than the other, or give myself a permanent angry or surprised look because it would only be the exact hairs I have pulled out would somehow be the exact ones that would never grow back, even if all the others did. Every time I see a woman who has shaved off her eyebrows and now has to draw them in every day, I always want to reach over and smear their work with my thumb. Is that cruel?

I Love the...on VH-1

2005-01-21T09:40:00.000-08:00

I was watching "I Love the 90’s: Part Deux" on VH-1 last night and it occurred to me how cynical the commentaries were (even as I was laughing at the jokes). Is it because cynicism finds its roots in the early 90s and still has a hold on us even as the decade is six years gone? Maybe it’s too soon to look back with fondness so we instead cringe and cover up our embarrassment with scorn. When VH-1 showed the 70s and 80s versions of the show, the commentaries were tinged with happiness and longing for the toys, foods and movies of the past, and even though some jokes were scornful, it was more funny because more time had passed. 70s for me was mostly awe: "In 1973 they thought that (insert a pop culture reference here) was cool?" 1975-1979 was "Oh yeah, I sort of remember that!" or "Cool! I had one of those!" The 80s set was a mix of fond memories (leg warmers-awesome!) and embarrassment: "Oh yeah, banana clips and scrunchies-what were we thinking?" but we are still smiling as we remember. The 90s: said in a mixture of disappointment and embarrassment: "Oh…yeah, grunge movement. That was great, but I was so depressed back then. And hearing the music so soon as something of the past…God, I’m getting old." I think if they had done an "I Love the 90’s" in the 2010’s it would be more fun.

One funny part: my beloved all of a sudden singing, "You got a problem, yo I’ll solve it, check out the hook while my DJ revolves it! Ice, ice, baby!" This, from a man who occasionally forgets his wallet even though he remembers to pick up his PDA and phone that were sitting right next to the wallet. I got up to do the Vanilla Ice dance (which consists of standing on one leg, with the other bent, as if just about to climb one stair, and then raising both hands at shoulder level, with arms bent at elbow in a "this is a stick-up!" gesture, then hopping into a spin first one way, then back the other way) and he said, "Yep, I remember Vanilla Ice’s pole-up-the-ass, spinning-scarecrow-dance." We both laughed.

Tea'ed Off

2005-01-18T07:23:00.000-08:00

I have to wonder what qualifies as a good enough reason to leave work for the day and just go home, or better yet, should not have come in at all.

First reason: I have a new alarm clock and when it turned on this morning, I fumbled for the off button and instead turned on the radio portion-Lenny Kravitz is not someone you want to wake up to. Then, in attempting to turn that off, I somehow changed the time from AM to PM. I think I hit the snooze button and the reset buttons as well all to no avail. In the meantime, my currently-laid-off beloved is thrashing his way out of the blankets in a vain attempt to help me out, as I am now muttering curses under my breath. I reach for the plug and yank it out of the wall. I’ll fix it later-chances are I reprogrammed it so much that by cutting the power I negated all of it.

Second reason: it’s SIX degrees Farenheit out. That’s right. 6, with a windchill making it feel like -12. As in wear every warm thing you own, and be prepared to peel it off gradually throughout the day. Living in New England, I’m used to cold weather, but just to give you an idea, it’s 11 in Nome, Alaska right now, with a windchill of –1. So it’s colder in New England than the North Pole today. There is no reason to go outside today, at all.

Third reason: I have recently been working color gradually into my wardrobe in a vain attempt to appear more feminine and cheery. Thanks a lot, fashion gurus-apparently you have never tried to drink tea, eat spaghetti or soup in a light colored shirt. I, on this unplugged-clock-6-degrees-outside-morning, tea’ed myself. Yes, tea’ed, not peed. I was slouched down in my chair in my cubicle, drinking Earl Grey tea. And I end up slopping tea right on my shirt. My light yellow shirt. My two weeks old, on sale, comfortable, yellow shirt. Now I know why I usually wear dark blues, gray and black. So now I have a brown stain on my shirt and it’s not even 10am yet. If I go to the mall and get a new shirt, people will know-having seen me in the original shirt. I tried washing it, hoping the awful smelling pink soap in the bathroom won’t stain it further. I had a coworker try scrubbing it for me-that helped. But now I’m just paranoid, convinced everyone is going to be staring at my chest and thinking, "Nice try, Ugly. Just go back to wearing crap so you can keep spilling crap on yourself. You will always look funny in light colors and you have the grace of a truck driver."

Think this will give me a good enough excuse to go home? After all, there is still the alarm clock to fix.

Fatty, Boombalatti

2005-01-10T08:46:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s official: I’m overweight. I went to the doctor’s for nagging lower back pain and got weighed and measured. The doctor cheerfully pointed out that I was at 139 pounds during my last physical in May so I had lost six pounds through the end of summer and the holidays. But (and there is always a "but," isn’t there?) he pointed out that at 5’ 1" (okay so I’m really about 5’ ¼") I should be in the 120 to 130 range. I could lose three pounds, but he said he would be "happy" to see me around 120-125 pounds. Okay, so from 133 that’s only 8 pounds (only?!), but lose thirteen to make 120? I haven’t seen that since my junior year in high school when I played volleyball and was in the theatre during fall and winter, and softball in spring through summer.

Volleyball alone was grueling: double sessions two weeks before school started, with six hours of practice a day, and once school started, two hours every day after school. I knew I was in good shape then and was smart enough to know that it wouldn’t last forever. I was dumb enough though, to not realize that other things would take precedence, and that exercise would fall by the wayside like a discarded gym mat. I see now, that I shouldn’t have let other things take precedence, and that I should have continued to work out.

Anyway, as I drove to work, I was mentally looking at myself: jeans with a hint of spandex in them for "sitting room." Fitted shirt-I finally figured out that if I wear shirts with darts at the bustline, it makes the shirt curve inward to give me the appearance of having a waist without clinging to my torso. I don’t think I’m fat. Sure, I’m a little heavier than I want to be. And I certainly feel sluggish-I no longer think I could dodge a speeding car, do a cool half-somersault and bounce up, unharmed. More like a dive, skinning my hands and knees, and be lucky not to pee myself. Alive, but not graceful. I am NOT thinking about summer and bathing suits.

I am who I am. As my best friend and beloved said, "Hey, you aren’t one of those girls with a bone structure like a bird. You’re more solid than that-not pixie," True. But what does that make me? I could be a pixie/dwarf mix: short like a pixie, sturdy like a dwarf. Or I could just call myself stubby. If I were to be a cheerleader (but please, quickly perish the thought), I could be the one near the bottom, able to hold up my blonde, bubbly counterparts (and quickly drop them on their vapid little heads if I chose). In a tug-o-war, I could be in the middle or front-not an anchor, but a tenacious, dig-in-my-heels puller.

Oh, let’s face it: I’m still Jeanne Garafalo from her cynical "Slackers" phase. Not a bad thing, in on most good things, confidante to the airheads and moping types, but still left out in the cold when the cool stuff goes down.
Anyone up for sit-ups and granola?

Celebrating the New Year with Phallic Symbols

2004-12-31T19:48:00.000-08:00

So, I'm watching "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve" hosted this year by Regis Philbin and the view from Times Square seems to have been brought to us by the Discover credit card-as illustrated by the thousands of orange (licensed as "Discover Card" Orange) jester hats. The ubiquitous "year glasses" are also present-thereby continuing to give the wearer the ability to see clearly and comfortably after years of the bottom half of the number 9 digging into their cheekbones.

The most amusing thing is the thousands of orange balloons people are waving, complete with gold streamers flapping from the top. Each year we see them-long skinny balloons that look like what a clown starts out with before twisting them into amusing swords, poodles and hats.

Is it just me, or do these balloons look like giant penises? And with the gold streamer at the top, it looks like the penises are...well you get the idea. Happy New Year.

I've Got Chainsaws on My Mind...

2004-12-31T05:56:00.000-08:00

This morning I was RUDELY awakened after dreaming about chainsaws to actually hear chainsaws. There is at least six inches of snow on the ground, it's 8:30am and people who live one street over are CHAINSAWING in a seemingly random place. And it's not just one contiuous bbbbbbbbrrrrrrrmm sound. It's brrmmm...brm...BBRRRMMM....*silence....brrrmmBRRMbbbbrrrrr*silence
BRRRMMMMbbrrrmmm...brmbrmbrm*silence again. I was actually dreaming that I was in the woods somewhere and that sound was chasing me somehow.

I woke up and thought, Oh no, please don't be you guys. Don't be who I think it is because I don't think I can take two years of this.

(Backstory: there is a small strip of wetlands behind our house. In the summer, thick groups of trees block the view of the houses that are about 5000 feet from our house. In the winter, we can see into their backyards. Recently, we lost a fight to keep one of those houses from selling the woods behind their house and the contractor who lives there decided he is going to build a road into the woods and six, two-family townhouses, squashed into about 1000 square feet. Our own condo board of elected representatives are too stupid to realize that they are building a ROAD right through their backyards. And within the next year, there are going to be houses filled with families, BBQs and noise within a 12 foot strip of woods. And half the reason why they are stupid? They never went to any of the town planning boards to protest.)

The contractors have done nothing there for months-four months of perfectly good fall days, sunny days where they could have pushed piles of dirt around to their heart's content-which they have done in the past, and always at 7:30am on a Saturday morning until 7pm at night. What do they do? They pick TODAY, a day off for most people, to start chainsawing at 8:30am, to chainsaw a three foot tall tree, ten feet from the edge of our backyard.

The minute I come flying out of bed, yelling "Those fucking fuckers with their fucking chainsaw, I hope they fucking chainsaw their own legs off and lie bleeding where their fucking kids can see them!" and run downstairs and onto the back deck...they stop. Now they are roaming around back there, shoveling aimlessly (did I mention already there are 9 inches of snow on the ground and it's woodsy back there?). What the hell are they doing? If they were only going to chainsaw for fifteen minutes, then why the hell do they choose to do it on a Friday morning most people have off (it being New Year's Eve day)? Why not have done this in October, at noontime? Or even noon today?

Or better yet? Why at all? Why can't contractors think to themselves, "Ah screw it, there's a football game on." Why do they always have to dig and chainsaw and buy big shiny machines that make lots of noise, and yell and hammer and drill and leafblow CONSTANTLY?!

Why do people in general have to make so much noise? Can't anyone sit in companionable silence anymore?

I hope the contractors get lots of poison ivy this summer back there. I want them to find endless problems with building, including flooding in the basements once they are built, the ground shifting the foundations of the houses, so shoddy they end up getting sued by the eventual owners. I want rainstorms to delay their building, and lots of snow that keeps them from starting as early as they planned on in the spring. I want other people to complain to the police about the noise levels. I want snakes to infest their building sites, or maybe a nice rare breed of bird that is protected by the federal government to come roost there for six generations.

I can't wait to be old, just so I can stand in my bathrobe on the porch and scream at them. Then they will look and say, "Old biddy, she just doesn't understand progress." And if they call the police, I will pull the "I'm just an old lady, please don't hurt me" act, and the local news station will feel bad and do a human interest piece on me and the contractors will look like assholes. Actually, by the time I am old, the contractors will be dead since they are in their fifties now. And contractors are notorious for smoking so they will get lung cancer and die sooner. Yes, The Simpsons. "Excellent...">

I'm grouchy. I need a nap before New Year's Eve celebrations. I have a feeling I am going to be spending a lot of money on hotels in the coming months, just to be away from the sound. Maybe I'll send the bills to them...

Pizza and Cannibalism

2004-12-21T09:06:00.000-08:00

I just ate pizza for lunch, sponsored by our company as part of our "Christmas Wind Down Week." Not bad, except that I bit my cheek, way in the back where my wisdom teeth once happily resided, at least three times during the course of the meal. And no, it wasn't because of the comments or topics at the table full of coworkers. The first time it happened, I thought, "OOOOWWW! I just bit a huge hole in my cheek!" The second time, I thought, "OW! Son of a...motherfu...OW! Christ!" By the time I did it a third time, I thought, "OW! Ah the hell with it-can anyone see daylight through my face yet?" I HATE biting my cheeks while eating. I can see why our early ancestors had no problem biting through gristle and bone.

This brings up an interesting thought: all the wounds I currently have on my body at this moment. Here's the list:

1. rough patch the size of a dime on my right wrist-probably eczema. It is winter in New England, after all.
2. two papercuts on the ring finger (that's the "this little piggy had none" if you do the kids' nursery rhyme on your fingers, and use your thumb as your big toe)
3. a papercut on my left pinkie
4. a healing hangnail on my left thumb
5. a healing hangnail on my right thumb (yes, I have this thing about rubbing my index finger against my thumb on both hands in times of anxiety and stress)
6. tip of my left ring finger-I bit the nail down too far (I used to bite my nails voraciously for nearly two decades, and then stopped. Recently I have taken to nibbling again and have painted my fingernails with glow-in-the-dark nailpolish so I would stop. Trust, me, the chemicals found in glow-in-the-dark nailpolish are probably things that the federal government wouldn't trust to be used as street paving material, never mind liberally applied to a human's fingernails.)

Do You Hear What I Hear?

2004-12-17T06:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I kept hearing a bass line coming from somewhere through the wall. That faint "thumpa-thumpa" sound you sometimes hear from the party boys that live across from us, or in a college dorm. So I walked by yesterday where I thought it was coming from and figured out it's some broad in Catalog who was listening to Ozzy's "Crazy Train". Okay, whatever. This morning, I hear it first thing upon coming to my desk. So I casually walk by, and now it's "Let's Get This Started" by the Black Eyed Peas (I can't believe I know this-but then again I sometimes put MTV on in the afternoons and get fascinated by some of the videos.).

I get some tea, and head back, making it look like I didn't just walk by to notice what she's doing. I say-while smiling broadly: "So THAT'S what it is!" like "Oh gee I hear music, where could it be coming from?" She jumps and says, "Huh?" I said, "Oh we can hear the music coming through the wall on our side" (still being nice, like "Haha, it's very amusing to me to know sound can pass through walls!") and she says, sorta guilty, "Oh, you can?" I said, graciously, forgivingly, "Oh it's just the bass line." And she laughed, delighted, and says, "Oh, okay. Well you're going to be hearing it for a few more days." I laugh, as delighted as she sounds, and say "Oh!" while picturing myself yanking the speakers out of the computer and whipping them by the cord, over her head and yelling, "Oh no I'm not, you obnoxious wench-you're too stupid to realize that I'm telling you this because it's annoying-I'm not delighted like you think I am!"

In any case, the whole time we're talking, I look on her computer and she is putting together the sound and picture montage that will be played on giant projectors at the holiday party at the Salem Country Club next Thursday night. The one I won't see because I'm not going! :) I'm so happy they decided to do that and the service award ceremony during that, rather in the middle of the workday on Thursday because it's really annoying-seeing hundreds of photos of people you don't know doing their job or acting zany through the year all to the sounds of Miami Sound Machine or the latest pop song on the radio-songs which you know have swears in them or are about sex, but those parts are carefully screened out in favor of a guitar solo. I usually just cringe and hope no one caught me on camera checking my hotmail or something.

(Postscript: While writing this, I paused to get some water. When I went back through the Catalog Department, the music montage broad was grabbing some tissues while a coworker was getting her more. Apparently, she was suffering from a bloody nose. Let me just say, "I didn't do it!" at least physically, but maybe my thinking evil thoughts caused it. It could happen-remind me at some point to tell you about Maggie the gym teacher in 9th grade and her departure from teaching gym class for a year.)

Lunchtime: Battle for the Sun

2004-12-08T10:40:00.000-08:00

It all started so innocently. How could I have known that lunch would turn into a blog-worthy rant, plus a little passive-aggressive activity thrown in for good measure? I went down to my workplace cafeteria to eat lunch. This is something I don’t normally do as I usually like to sit in the car in the back parking lot, staring out the window or reading a good book away from the sound of typing and machinery from the warehouse portion of the company. Today, though, I wanted to microwave my chicken and potatoes and eat with purpose so I can leave work a little bit early. So I cook and then stroll across the near empty cafeteria to sit by the windows with the sun coming in on my back to warm me. I started eating, and the trouble started when Fatty #1 came across the room to sit at the table next to mine, back to me. (Let me just say here that when I say, "Fatty" it actually has meaning later in the story and is not my usual dose of harsh criticism that I tend to lay upon 98% of the people I come across daily.) Fine. She’s not going to talk to me, or ask what I’m reading. I refuse to let it bother me that I counted 14 other completely EMPTY tables in the cafeteria, three of which are also near the windows. I continue to eat.

Then, Fatty #2 waddles across the room, heading for Fatty #1’s table. She put down her lunch. She then proceeds to reach behind me and the giant ficus tree that I am partially under and has the audacity to close the blinds across the giant window. I tense my body, but say nothing. I know this woman only as someone who works on the same floor as me, and who I know for a fact, happens to not wash her hands when leaving the ladies’ room. That alone is cause to make me hate this woman, along with her tendency to waddle slowly in front of me and pause for breath in doorways I need to get through. Now, because we know each other by sight, I feel that to say something like, "Uh thanks, you know that sun really is a nuisance, what with its Vitamin A and it being winter and all…" would be inappropriate-meaning only that it would come back to bite me in the ass later. As if she heard my thoughts, she muttered "There, now it won’t be blinding us" to no one in particular (at least Fatty #1, still sitting with her back to me, doesn’t reply). Fatty #2 then sits down, also with her back to me and starts talking to Fatty #1. Willow Tree Woman joins them shortly after.

Now, my question is this: if Fatty #2 is so bothered by the sun, then why doesn’t she suggest to Fatty #1 and Willow Tree Woman to sit at another table? And why does she bother to close the blinds and then sit with her back to the windows anyway? As for Fatty #2, her bulk is casting a shadow over Willow Woman’s face so even she, who joined the lunch at least five minutes after the blinds were closed, isn’t bothered by the sunlight either? I was completely irritated. I sat near the window for the sun. Fatties #1 and 2 as well as Willow Tree Woman had 14 other tables to sit at, with no one nearby, and little to no sunlight at all glaring on their bodies, front or back. Yet some sort of herding instinct left over from prehistoric times compelled them to huddle next to me and my table. Either that or I had inadvertently taken their accustomed table and they were forced to sit at the second-best table near their perceived territory. Next time, ladies, piss on your table to mark it like a good animal should.

Why is it that people do things like this, and take no notice of its effect on others around them? It’s really a matter of common decency-try not to do things that you think might annoy someone else, no matter how crazy it seems to you that someone might be annoyed by your seemingly innocuous actions.
So what did I do? I finished lunch quickly and went to the sink to rinse out my tupperware. I turned passive-aggressive, allowing some of my mashed potatoes to fall into the sink, despite a sign over the sink that clearly states: "Please do not dump food in this sink." The office cleaner is going to have a rotten time. I also pulled too many paper towels from the dispenser and left them on the counter where they dropped. Then, I went back upstairs and to the vending machines where I bought some M&M’s and tore off a half inch corner of the bag and dropped it on the floor as I walked away, happily munching my candy. I’m not a bit sorry for it and have only resolved to eat lunch in my car from now on, or go to the mall food court, even if I am not buying my lunch.

Some Thoughts on Election 2004

2004-11-03T04:43:00.000-08:00

The following are various things I have thought since I voted yesterday morning:

-I have done my civic duty, so now it's my right and privilege to complain as much as I please.
-The Electoral College only worked when there was less than 500,000 people who lived in America.
-They should just switch over to just simply counting the popular votes and leave it at that-no Electoral College. If it works for high school prom queens and student government, it should work for the United States.
-I would rather not know who the next President is going to be until the inauguration in January if it means having an accurate count of the votes, rather than wake up every November 3 and still be unsure just for the sake of expediency.
-We're the United States, not some Third World nation with warring factions and tribes, and yet we still can't get our voting processes under control.
-As a United States citizen, I would like to apologize to the rest of the world for our government. I didn't vote for Bush the first time or this time and I'm sorry he treats you like potential converts and thinks we're better than you.
-Looking at the colored maps of the U.S. with the red representing the Democrats and the blue representing Republicans, I can't help but wonder if living near the coasts of any body of water makes us more open-minded.
-People in the South, Midwest and West are dumb hicks and this election proves that every stereotype I have of them are correct (i.e. living in trailers, marry their siblings, show up on "Jerry Springer" and let's not forget those classy accents).
-It's time to become a Canadian citizen.
-I am reminded of a conversation I had with my husband about an old sci-fi story where the United States were dvided into the Christian States and the non-Christian states. In the story, the United States were divided between states almost exactly along the lines as the elections of 2004. Ironic.
-I heard on the radio this morning that the United States voted for the candidate they deserved, given what the world has come to these days, with its wars, its division of religion, its state of affairs concerning healthcare, economy, and employment.
-The most anticipated turnout was expected to be among the 18-34 year old demographic. I read a bunch of articles yesterday about young people turning out in record numbers to register to vote and how they were going to change this election and prove to the older generations that they weren't the slackers and cynical, angst-ridden group that they were thought to be. The result: a record number registered, and the same amount that voted in 2000 voted in 2004. In other words: the usual low amount. Slackers, you have had yourself weighed and measured and once again, you were found lacking. Now you have to live with it.
-At least all this election stuff has mostly gotten rid of Red Sox banter and discussion in the news.

And finally,
-Don't blame me. I didn't vote for Bush.

I Can't See Coming to Work Today...

2004-10-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

This morning I leaned over to fix the shower curtain so the water wouldn’t splash out onto the floor and when I straightened up, my hair was in my face. I lifted both hands to brush the hair out of my eyes and succeeded in jabbing my right thumb into my right eye. Talk about a bad way of coming to full consciousness. It hurt, and I kept my eye closed through most of the shower. After, I cautiously opened my eye to see if I could still see clearly, then noted with some irony that since I usually wear glasses or contacts, I would be unable to tell if I could see clearly or not in any case. Now here’s where it gets sorta stupid. Later on, I’m combing my hair and I again, accidentally jabbed the same thumb into the same eye only not as hard this time. I chose to wear my glasses today rather than contacts because I figured why subject that eye to further abuse by putting a tiny piece of plastic in it. Plus, by wearing glasses, I had protection, much like wearing those stupid chemistry glasses back in high school.

Every once in awhile, my eye sort of twinges with a dull ache. I can see (as well as I can wearing glasses anyway), and it occurred to me that I shouldn’t have come to work today. After all, one poke in the eye is bad and possibly a sign to call in sick. Twice, however, shows me that I turned a blind eye to fate at the first jab, and the second jab was just Fate’s way of telling me, “Look, this is the second time I warned you. What do you want next? A trip down the stairs on your head?” Then I thought, “What would I say? ‘Hi. I won’t be coming in today because I poked myself rather hard in the eye twice and I just can’t see coming in.”

Let this be a lesson to you. You can still be as uncoordinated as a toddler even as an adult when it comes to keeping things out of your head-holes.

Sports Commentary

2004-10-22T05:54:00.000-07:00

I am begging, imploring sports fans: give it a rest, please. Yes, I know the Red Sox are going on to the World Series. Yes, I know about the "curse." Yes, I know you’ve been waiting for it for a long time. And I have been patient. And yet you still ask for more. You clog our roadways to get in and out of stadiums. You crowd into restaurants that have televisions. You waste store spaces at the mall with your memorabilia shops. We give you scholarships to colleges and universities because you can hit a ball with a stick, or run fast or throw far. Our TV shows are pre-empted so that you can watch live games and replays ad nauseum. When your teams win, you are allowed to roam the streets, destroying personal property, yelling and screaming till all hours of the night. Isn’t that enough?

Apparently not. You want more. What more do you want from us, those that want to go to sleep at a decent hour, that want to eat out, or want to not be bombarded with news reports, commercials, or just watch a simple TV show? We who only want to get to the water cooler or bathroom at work without having to listen to, or participate in, asinine conversations that start with, "Hey did you see the game last night?" or are held as a captive audience to your endless droning of your own personal take on who-did-what or how you would have done differently. Has it ever occurred to any of you sports fans that maybe there are people out there who simply don’t care? Just as there are people out there with different skin colors, or different religions, there are people out there who don’t like sports, don’t want to hear about sports, don’t want to participate in sports or conversations about sports.

I know you find that hard to believe. You’ve probably had too many sharp blows to the head.

Rules of Office Etiquette

2004-10-19T11:53:00.000-07:00

1. Do not eat at your desk. No one else wants to smell your tuna fish/peanut butter casserole. It may smell good to you, but it smells like cat vomit to everyone else.
2. Likewise, do not microwave any type of seafood, or spill your food inside the microwave-other people have to use that equipment too.
3. If you insist on eating at your desk, try not to sound like a dog slobbering over a steak. Mouth closed while chewing, please, and do not slurp your beverage.
4. If your phone rings, please try to answer it in two rings or less. If you can’t, it means your phone is too far away for you to reach it.
5. If on the phone, please keep your voice at a low volume. No one wants to hear how your rash is or hear you berate your significant other.
6. There is no need to crumple paper. Simply fold in half and throw away.
7. Make sure your chair has as few squeaks as possible (some graphite or lubricating oil should take care of that) and please try not to flop into your chair so heavily that the air whooshes from the cushion.
8. When you walk by others’ cubicles, please try not to walk like an elephant.
9. Do not whistle, hum, sing along or tap your fingers if you are listening to music. Cubicles are often connected by walls and tabletops that vibrate when you do that.
10. Do not make any repetitive noises such as clicking your pen or chewing on a pen cap. Repetitive noises are distracting to others.
11. If you chew gum, please do so with your mouth closed. You are not a cow chewing its cud.
12. If you decide to talk to someone in an adjacent cube, do not yell over the wall to them, nor begin talking to them from 5 feet away as you move closer to them. Wait till you get to them, then talk quietly.
13. Please be aware that your conversations are heard by others, even at a low volume, and are likely to be commented upon, thereby drawing more people to your group, and hence causing more distraction for others who have no interest in your opinions.
14. If you sense a conversation is going to be lengthy, suggest talking to the person in the hall, a conference room, or even the parking lot to prevent disturbance of others.
15. Learn social cues from others, i.e. that they no longer want to talk to you or that you may be a complete stranger to them and therefore there is no need to engage them in small talk.
16. Do not sit on the edge of a person’s desk when speaking to them. No one likes to have someone else’s ass planted where they eat their lunch (see #1).
17. Do not lean over a person’s desk so that your legs and ass are in the aisle. No one wants to have to get around you in a narrow space.
18. Do not touch anything on someone’s desk without permission. If they aren’t at their desk, come back at a later time.
19. If you are sick, stay home. There is nothing worse than listening to someone blow their nose every two minutes and/or sniff, and/or their hacking dry cough. If you must come in, take medicines to prevent germs as well as prevent phlegm-filled noises.
20. Try not to discuss things that may irritate the people around you. For example, if you and your coworker enjoy talking about sports, but the person next to you does not, please don’t talk about it for long or move to another area to talk (see #’s 12, 13, 14).
21. If all else fails, please do not talk, move or otherwise draw attention to yourself. No one cares.

A Note I Only WISH I Could Send

2004-10-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

Dear Ms. Ellen Galette,

Thank you very much for getting back to me in regards to the Copy Editor position at NLG. It was nice of you to personally call me to let me know of my candidacy status for the position, given the fact that Ms. Leslie Ackerley, a hiring consultant for your company, never returned my calls, despite my repeated efforts at attempts to speak to her for the past two weeks.

As for receiving contact from you, it is really gratifying to know that you are considerate enough to leave me a curt message, only to tell me that you are looking for someone with "more writing experience," despite the fact that I graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in English with a WRITING concentration, helped formulate several course catalogs at a previous company and currently write monthly newsletters and book summaries that go to thousands of people across the U.S.

It's amusing to me to know that you will probably pick someone who lives three towns over and who would probably not be willing to stay even a half hour overtime, without pay, because of their own obligations, when I live within WALKING distance to your company.

As for your hiring process, I am glad to have wasted five minutes of your time for you to leave me a voicemail with an impudent tone of voice that says you are bothered to have to do it yourself. I pity the candidate you will ultimately choose and only wish I could warn them of what kind of nastiness you deal in.

Sincerely,
All the more wary...

Company Theory

2004-10-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

If you work for a company, here’s a little experiment to try: When you go to work in the morning, in what direction is the sun shining from? Behind the building so it’s right in your face as you walk toward the entrance, or from behind, so it’s shining on the building itself? Do the same for when you leave in the afternoon or before sunset. Where is the sun now?

I ask this because in the past two companies I have worked for, the sun is hitting me in the face in the morning, and hitting me in the afternoon when I leave. So I have established that they built the buildings so that you have to walk from the bright sun, heading roughly east, into the shadows to get into the office, thereby leaving you with the impression of being trapped, forced to walk, humiliatingly, into the corporate entity. And in the afternoon, you are free, but only to be reminded that you are walking into a fading day, westward, another opportunity to miss all the things that go on or that you could be doing, had you not had to work that day.

I wonder though, does it simply have something to do with the shape of the parcel of land the building is on, or perhaps it’s something subconscious on the architect’s part? Maybe some other reason altogether?

Another thing: both companies that I have worked for have problems with their heating and air conditioning, thereby adversely affecting their air quality control as well. How hard is it to build a building that can be heated and/or cooled off adequately? And why don’t they make the windows available for opening-even in smaller buildings-4 stories or less? It would certainly help if there were a fire. Or if it’s simply too hot or too cold in a building-having an open window would be an asset.

The Autumnal Equinox: two views

2004-09-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

I got this from someone else’s blog:

"From the Book of Common Prayer:
‘Grant us, O Lord, not to mind earthly things,
but to love things heavenly;
and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away,
to cleave to those that shall abide;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.’"

Eh.

And yet also, today is Mabon, the fall equinox. I looked on a Pagan website: www.witchvox.com to find out other information, something a little gentler and more involved, rather than us being outside Nature and a Creator outside of everything. Here is what I found:

"The autumn leaves are falling, falling fast
And gusty winds are driving them away
In stormy earnest, or in sportive play,
Until they find a sheltered nook at last
Where round the moldering heaps decay may cast
Her blighting arms to press them day by day
More closely to Her breast, and whispering say,'All dead!
Their fleeting hours of life are past.'
'But are they dead?
Their loveliness, 'tis true,
Their shape and lives are gone for aye; but look
How Mother Earth absorbs them to renew
Her energies, from which their life they drew.
Why call it Death to fall back whence they took Their being?
'Changed, not dead,' says Nature's book."

Also:

"The changeable strangeness of the weather puts us in a liminal lull: cool misty mornings, hot sunny afternoons, chilly nights of frost and wind. The Equinox is an in-between time; the end of something, the beginning of something else, the cusp of change…And so many of these "perfumes" of autumn, dried leaves and pine needles and grapes ripening on the vine and hot cider with cinnamon…".

Something about fall, and fall alone, is magic, earthly, and part of us. I like the witchvox views much, much better.

Bumble-me

2004-09-22T05:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I was stretching my legs outside my workplace and came across a large fuzzy bumblebee crouched motionless on the sidewalk. I bent down and blew on it to see if it would move and it did, somewhat sluggishly. I picked up a leaf and tried to scoop the bee up but instead tipped it upside down, and the bee responded by buzzing angrily. I nudged the bee upright.

"What are you doing?" a coworker asked, coming down the sidewalk toward me.

Feeling slightly foolish, I said, "Trying to keep a bumblebee from getting stepped on."

She smiled and surprised me by saying, "Really? I wouldn’t have taken you for someone who cares about bugs."

"Really?" I sighed. "Well it’s getting colder out and the poor thing is feeling it. I didn’t want it to get crushed. Better for it to just die peacefully in the grass." I managed to ease the bee onto the leaf, where it used its front legs to rub its head groggily. I laid the leaf under a tree nearby. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, you’re kinda gruff and germaphobic…" she said, walking alongside me.

I veered away, pretending like I was going to my car. "Yeah but that doesn’t mean I don’t care." I continued on my way, she on hers. Jeez, these people really don’t know me that well. I have the capability to be nice and gentle, even caring. I just don’t do it at work-what’s the point? They’re only going to see what they want to see. The worse they choose to see, the better for themselves to see their own beauty.

I have beauty, dammit. They just don’t see that they don’t deserve it from me.

Review of "Garden State"

2004-09-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

(Warning: a few spoilers.) I went to see “Garden State” starring Zack Braff and Natalie Portman. Out of five stars I give it three-right in the middle. The good points: Natalie Portman is a convincing actress, able to play a multitude of roles that range from pregnant teen to worldly queen in the Star Wars prequels. Zack Braff (from a TV comedy called “Scrubs”) is passable though not that attractive. In fact, there really isn't one single guy who was attractive. Not ugly, but just not attractive.

The plot: Braff is Andrew "Large" Largeman, a 20-something guy who comes back to New Jersey after ten years in Los Angeles, to attend his mother’s funeral and try to reconcile with his psychologist father. In the meantime, he decides to come off the various anti-depressants he has been taking for over 10 years-which his father put him on in the first place. He comes across friends he knew, who seem to be nothing more than a group of junkies with no success in life and are even more aimless than Andrew. One of them, Mark, is a grave-digger who steals jewelry from the dead to pawn, and collects trading cards from the first Gulf War to make money. He seems not so much happy with his life as he is resigned and defensive about it. The other, David, is a millionaire who invented silent Velcro and spends his time also getting high and having laid back parties. Large also meets Sam (played by Portman), a compulsive liar and epileptic, who shows him that it’s okay to be flighty yet passionate, love and how to love back.

There are parts that are funny, such as Andrew meeting Sam’s mom and their various pets, including a dead hamster and his attempts at skinny-dipping with friends. I really liked Albert, the man who lives with his wife and daughter on a boat perched at the edge of a valley that is under dispute between contractors and geologists.

The bad points: It's mostly it’s another pseudo-intellectual movie in which the characters spend more time staring at each other meaningfully and in silence, which is somehow supposed to speak volumes about the characters’ motives-kinda like "American Beauty" which I hated. For $6 for a matinee and $9 at night, though, I want my characters to speak. I don’t want to have to work too hard to enjoy a movie all the time. It’s entertainment for me. I don't always want to feel like I have to analyze the silences, the camera angles, the conversations vs. what a character's body language is telling me. I can't tell if all these odd conversations the characters have was supposed to mean something beyond what they were actually saying or when it was simply an odd conversation. With "Clerks" it was pretty easy-you found out a lot about the characters by what they said (even in the dumbest nonsensical conversations about porn or "Star Wars") rather than by what they were doing.

How does one tell if a movie is over your head intellectually, or simply trying to convey too much with too little to go on? I think "Garden State" was an attempt to convey too much in too little. I found myself hating Large's friends, thinking they were screwed up losers. I found myself not feeling anything about Large's relationship with his father. I found myself wanting to know more about Albert, living in his boat at the edge of the Abyss.

I think it was a good idea about going home again in one's twenties after an extended absence, but the follow-through just wasn't that interesting all the time. But maybe that's how life is-not that interesting mostly but there are jewels to be found if you just stop looking. And when you do find it, the trick is to recognize it before it disappears, and don't try to hold onto it, because you will wreck the moment. How's that for intellectual?

For the ending: Large sees his friends are still screwed up but are happy with it. He is still unresolved about his relationship with his father, and he gets the girl. Lastly, he also gets his mother’s jewelry back from Mark, and figures out that he doesn’t need anti-depressants. For the ending, it's the "Wow, what a crazy life, but I'm in it, and I could have enjoyed it all along, but now I have given myself permission to enjoy it." Formulaic, but I think any other ending would have been forced, and there was enough of that in the movie as it was.

(Postscript: And, according to The Internet Movie Database, Jewish people aren’t buried with jewelry, so the whole point of Mark getting back Andrew’s mothers necklace is kinda pointless.)

Now? How about now? Well...now?

2004-09-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

"When are you going to do a blog?"

I'm getting this almost daily now from a coworker. I think it's because I have occasionally posted comments on his blog as well as his friend's blog. I still tell them I haven't started one. It's just easier. Besides, half the things they write about, they end up talking together about, even on their blogs, leaving comment posts for each other. I find this weird-they are best friends, they live within blocks of one another, they have a homechurch together, and they work ten feet away from one another. So why post to one another's blog? Just say it. Funny thing is, they say it's easier this way. Why? To avoid embarrassment? To avoid uncomfortable situations? They already share most of their worldviews with one another so why do they do it? More importantly why do they want to see what I've got to say in writing when they can just ask me or share things with me? Of course, I take the paranoid route and say it's because they want to share the Good News with me. But again, they could do that in person. And I could tell them no thank you-in person. Maybe they can't handle that. Maybe some things are only good in writing because, let's face it-not everything comes over well live just like some things don't go over well in writing. "Who talks like this anyway?"

Anyway, that's about it.

Autumn Fever

2004-09-13T16:55:00.000-07:00

Today was a sort of sickly warm day, like in March when it’s 80 for one day. Everything smelled sort of feverish, milky sky and too bright. I felt like I had a head cold all day, and the weather just emphasized that fact. Well, that and the fact that our company shampooed the rugs over the weekend so the building smells like shoe leather and wet dog. Oddly enough, I preferred the rancid hamster Habitrail smell of unwashed people and fish chowder.

The end of summer always leaves me anxious. This summer with its too few days of blazing, beating sun and dehydrated white-blue sky has left me feeling too hot, itchy and wanting more. Since it doesn’t look like I’m going to get thick warm days that melt my insides and make me feel as though the earth is alive, I find myself in transition, waiting for autumn. But the daily weather is fooling me. Cool at dawn, warmer in the later morning and afternoon, cool again by late afternoon into dusk. It’s two or three changes of clothes a day.

Where is autumn? Where are the brisk mornings with a scrim of ice on my windshield, the sun arrowing its way into my face as I drive to work? It’s not here yet. I’m waiting for the wind to blow my soul clean, make my fingers and toes tingle, my arms and legs strong in layers of denim and fleece. I will turn my face upward to a sky so blue it hurts to look at, trees blaring their colors, tattooing themselves into my mind as if it’s the last autumn I’ll ever see. The smell of folders and new school clothes, the burned leaf, incense, spice, woodsmoke mix that tells me that now is the time to keep my eyes open, to observe everything, make connections and draw myself in closer. Protection, watchfulness, while at the same time, reaching out, taking in the last bits of the season before winter settles its shroud with whispers and quiet.

Chunky Days

2004-09-02T16:51:00.000-07:00

Recently I was on Target's website and came across an item called the Anti-Panti. I would put up the link, but I'm not sure how copyright laws work these days and the last thing I need is a cease-and-desist order from some jackass corporate lawyer. Basically the Anti-Panti is a little circle of material, a little bigger than the diameter of a coffee mug, with adhesive on one side. You stick this little bit of 100% cotton flannel in the crotch of your jeans, thereby eliminating the need for thongs or underwear for "those tricky low-slung or hip hugger jeans." Okay, where do I begin in saying what's wrong with this?

Well, let's start with the fun colors: they come in camoflage, tiger stripe and Day-Glo pink among others. Why colors? They are on the inside of your pants, so what do you care what color they come in? And is anyone going to notice and/or care? Who are you going to show them to? "Hey Janey, check this out! No more underwear for me!" Or, "Billy, I want to go all the way with you, and now it's even easier because there is one less layer of clothing for me to take off!" Or: "Does this anti-panti match my bra? Does it make me look fat?"

Girls have enough issues-bras, periods, tight pants and shirts, bad hair days, etc. Do we really need to add worrying about if the adhesive is going to hold? If it doesn't stick, that puppy is going to creep down one pantleg and out the bottom, and waving hello to the world from the edge of your sock, before finally flopping out sad and forlorn, to the sidewalk.

Logistically, it makes no sense either. The crotch of a pair of jeans is a narrow (maybe no wider than a pencil) so where does all that extra material go? That's right-it's basically folded in half so the edges overlap the crotch and go down on either side. So it's really like wearing no underwear at all which makes me wonder why one would bother with this little streamer of fun.

And finally, those aren't "anti-panties." They are a spinoff invention of what are called maxi pads. Any girl who can tries to stay away from those things whenever possible. Maxipads don't stay where they are supposed to. They bunch up, and they feel like a diaper. Hey, if any guys are reading this and are squirming in embarrassment, too bad. It's about time you knew what your girlfriends and wives put up with on a monthly basis. And you wonder why we're cranky for a week.

I can't ever imagine having this debate with myself: "Should I go with the Anti-Panti or the thong today?" We spend our whole lives pulling cloth out of our butts, so why would we want to invent yet more things that seem inevitably designed to wedge itself in places things should never be wedged?

This product reminds me of the time I went to a Pagan Fair (oh, all right, a Faire) and there was a woman selling reusable pads for women's monthly cycles. Reusable?! Yeah. They were little squares of cloth (again in various fun colors-what is it with fun colors?) that looked like they had been made from preschoolers bedsheets (cowboys or stars and moons anyone?). The basic idea was to use these, and if you needed to change them, you simply took the old one out of your underwear, put it in a plastic baggie (which you have conveniently remembered to shove in your purse or pocket) and put a new one in your underwear. Then, when you got home, you simply rinse out the soiled ones (again if you remember that you have a soggy, bloody bit of cloth wadded in a plastic bag). I was also told you could use the wash water (now soapy and bloody) to water your houseplants and garden, thereby conserving water, saving the environment from harmful plastic and fertilizing your plants all in a few easy steps.

While having this increasingly bizarre conversation, I noticed the woman was also selling fresh picked tomatoes on her table. Needless to say, I went home tomato-less and padless. The environment, at least in this case, can fend for itself. In the meantime, I don't need to worry about my husband, innocently going through my bag for Rolaids, and coming across a minature crime scene.

In conclusion, I have two words for you: Chunky Days. Neither Target's invention or Ms. Pagan Fruitcake thought of that.

Bazooka Joe can kiss my butt

2004-08-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

This afternoon I was wearing sandals and walking across a parking lot to the bank. Flop, flop, flop, pbbschh, flop, pbbschh, flop. Oh, great. I step onto the sidewalk and stand on one foot to inspect the underside of my right foot. Sure enough-gum, finely mashed into the treads on my sandal. First off, who puts treads on sandals? I'm not going to be climbing Mt. Everest with them anytime soon so why more whorls and creases than an average handprint? So I stand on one foot and attempt to scrape the offending muck from my foot. Not only does it work, I'm hopping around like a flamingo. So I go into the bank, cringing with every schhrrpp! sound my foot is making on the flooring and carpeting. I grab a handful of deposit envelopes and go back outside and proceed to tear up little bits of paper, folding them to make a nice stiff stick to scrape out the gum, bit by bit. I can SMELL the gum as I'm working it out of my sandal-cinnamon. Somehow it doesn't smell as good after it's been percolating in the sun and is covered in dirt. Plus, the paper keeps bending and my fingers are coming dangerously close to the offending goo. It took me a good ten minutes to scrape that crap out of my sole.

Singapore used to have rules that prohibited gum. Just recently they repealed that and people can now apply for a license in order to purchase gum. I say, keep the old rules. Sure, I chew gum and like it, but I don't spit it out on sidewalks and parking lots. I will spit it out the window while on the highway-no one is going to be walking there. I have a feeling that these gum chewers are related to, or become the same smokers who think the world is their ashtray and toss their butts everywhere-the ocean, the parking lot, at stop signs, or better yet flaming on the highway to fly under my car and leave me wondering if I am going to become a fireball in twenty or so seconds.

All these oral-fixated idiots should go back to thumbsucking. Cleaner, better for the environment, and not hazardous to your health. And if you get some sort of disease from sucking dirty hands, hey it's just natural selection.

Plumber Butt

2004-08-29T15:41:00.000-07:00

I was at the grocery store two nights ago and saw something I have never seen before, and hopefully, never will again. As I was going through the checkout line, I saw a girl wearing a pink t-shirt that was a little too tight for her frame (she wasn't fat, just a big-boned, the type of girl that would have been good on a farm in the 18th century) and low rider jeans. She dropped her receipt on the floor and when she went to pick it up, I was given a clear view of at least four inches of asscrack. No underwear, no hint of a thong, unless they hiked down with her jeans. I didn't know that women could have plumber's butt! I would have thought that, as a girl, she would have checked this little feature out in the dressing room before buying those jeans. But maybe she did and thought it was sexy. Apparently, she's never seen a plumber, or asscrack, before because everyone knows: asscrack isn't all that attractive. Especially if it's on a woman who is about 6'3" and weighs about 175, and bending over in a grocery store.

Gone to the Seaside

2004-08-29T15:18:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a scorcher here, only the 4th day over 90 degrees this summer, at least according to meteorologist Chickage Windler (what kind of a name is Chickage, anyway?). So today, I proposed getting away to the beach, where promises of fried clam bellies, pizza and some shade in the form of an umbrella was enough to get my husband to slather on some sunblock and drive us out to the coastline. We travel light: one backpack per person and one small blanket is enough to sustain us for the day. As we headed north, the clouds grew thicker, the air cooler. By the time we reached the beach, the air was laden with salt and the breeze enough to ensure no umbrella was needed.

I got us pizza, standing at the Happy's Fried Dough counter (where else can you get a slice of extra-cheese pizza topped with a slice of provalone?) and watched the Weather Channel on the TV mounted over the Coca-Cola fridge while listening to the rough chatter of the pizza guys prepping the counter for a day of fried dough, pizza, hotdogs, and lemonade. The midway was not yet open, though the calliope music was already playing. A few older folks shuffled by, wearing sweatshirts and carrying cups of coffee. I ambled back to our spot, finding my love already seated on the blanket, holding a greasy paperbag closed, chewing on the first of hot mushy fried clams.

While we ate, we imagined how weird it would have been for the first person to be seen eating clams:
Person A: Hey, Bill...Eeewww!! What the hell is that?!"
Bill: I call it a clam. It was sorta hard to get at, but it's juicy. Here try one."
Then we thought about how a bunch of creators would have made various animals:
"Okay, how about we make this animal, we give it a rock hard shell. That should throw them off for a few hundred years till they invent a tiny knife that can get in the slit. If they manage to get that open, inside is a mushy, grayish, slimy thing. That should ensure the clam's survival for ages." A few hundred years later, clams are being eaten left and right. The conversation went on and we realized that humans will basically eat anything-even the things that may eat them first, if given half a chance. If anything, the human predators such as shark, became a delicacy for humans. And the most unattractive things ended up being a specialty too (lobsters-think about it-the cockroaches of the sea).

Surprisingly, the beach stayed relatively unpopulated. Maybe a lot of kids start school tomorrow and the parents didn't want to spend the day hassling with sand and sunburns. Not that sunburns were to be had-the skies stayed milky and the wind was a constant cool embrace. Either that or they somehow knew it was sort of overcast and didn't want to bother. Me, I'll go to the beach in winter, in rainstorms, whenever. In any case, it was truly a blessing to not be hassled, or have to move away from obnoxious idiots. Just sit with a nearly unobstructed view of the sea and enjoy the last bit of summer (at least in theory. In New England, one can never tell when a season begins or ends).

I have decided that I will always have to live by the ocean or other large body of water. I could not survive otherwise.

Daily Dose of Paranoia

2004-08-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of paranoia. Most of the time they aren’t noticeable. Even to myself, they are mostly an afterthought. Today is payday and as usual, our checks are delivered to us in their customary sealed window envelope. And that’s when two paranoid ideas rose to surface in my thoughts. So now I offer them to you both as a testament to the ability to be utterly ridiculous, and also as a cautionary tale.

First was the fact that the paycheck envelope is sealed, which leads me to believe that someone could be slobbering all over the envelope before I received it. Now realistically, this is unlikely. The fact is, the company has over 400 employees and for one or more persons to be slurping away on paper products seems rather inefficient. But then again, a lot of things in the daily routine are done inefficiently, particularly in the business world. So I hesitated before jamming my thumb into the envelope flap for this reason and one other.

The second thing was the company memo, conveniently stapled to the germ-ridden envelope. I held it to the light in the hopes that the staple didn’t also go through the paycheck itself. It did. So not only do I need to worry about Hepatitis A or seeing someone’s breakfast burrito bits smeared into the adhesive of the envelope, I now have to worry about tetanus from the staple curled in wait to sink into the soft flesh of my thumb. Add to this the fact that I don’t want to rip the check in my attempt to free it from its paper prison. Nearly impossible.

So I carefully worked around the staple, tearing the memo and envelope instead, and thus freeing my check. Ta-da! Nothing that a haz/mat team and a slew of military strategists couldn’t do, right? Now before I am off to wash my hands, here is a list of other paranoias in the daily grind:

1. Water Coolers. Dirty hands touching the buttons and people who put their water bottle necks right around the cooler nozzle so as to not waste one precious drop of everlasting, life-giving water and simultaneously giving everyone else flu bugs and various unidentifiable diseases found in human saliva
Microwave Ovens. Nevermind the intricacies of the interior revealing what twenty people before me had for lunch (Tuna Surprise, anyone?) but also the fact that the people using the microwave feel the need to lick their fingers and then touch the cook buttons.

2. Sodas from the vending machine. Have you ever seen a delivery guy put those things in there? He’s got hands like a mechanic, the crates are coated in a fine layer of grit and the trucks have never seen a good powerwash, ever. Plus, some delivery guys, when filling out their paperwork use the stacked cans to rest their feet on, making a table of their knee to balance their clipboards.

3. Door handles of the restrooms, including stalls, flusher and exit door. Need I say more?

4. Any door handles in the building.

5. Having maintenance people come touch my computer, mouse, keyboard or phone. Who knows where they have been, crawling around under desks and handling wires behind consoles?

There are more, countless more. I’ll get to them eventually. In the meantime, I feel the need for some fresh air and aspirin. I know, I know…the outdoors is even more frightening. And about those aspirin…

Here's an Interesting...Um, No Thanks...

2004-08-19T17:30:00.000-07:00

So I'm at work today, and a coworker said, "Hey, I've got an interesting book I thought you might like. It's Frederick Buechner's Beyond Words.'" The full title: "Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the Act of Faith." I wasn't interested but took it anyway. It's basically an encyclopedia of religious and spiritual terms as defined by the author, in the form of short stories and thoughts. I looked through it for about ten minutes, then gave it back. I told him it just wasn't my taste. He looked disappointed, and only said, "Oh okay."

Do I take this as a conversion attempt or not?

A few days ago it was a CD of Ani DiFranco's music. About two months ago it was a book called "Blue Like Jazz." When does "Nah, not my taste" sink in? He thinks he knows me, thinks he knows what my tastes are. But he doesn't. Or is it that he doesn't know me and doesn't care and is only interested in his spiritual scorecard?

Since when did my soul become so damn important? It's MINE. No touch!

Olympic Observations

2004-08-17T16:48:00.000-07:00

I am watching Olympic Women's Sabre Fencing-one of the few times that fencing is EVER on TV. It's pretty exciting. I find myself yelling at the TV like some idiot football fan. There are two Americans fencing-if they win, it will be the first time a woman has ever won in fencing. And it's the first time that women sabreurs are at the Olympics. So technically, any medal won by any of the women sabruers would be a first. Stupid announcers didn't draw that conclusion-and one of them has fenced in the past.

While I have been typing, Sada Jacobson of the United States, won the bronze medal. Yay! Congratulations to Ms. Jacobson! On another note, now I have to find when and what channel the gold medal round is going to be played-no thanks to NBC's official Olympics page. That's the biggest mess going. How hard is it to just make a schedule by sport, channel, and time-and I don't mean a general purpose summary: "From 2am-10pm Olympic programming." Yeah, no kidding you are going to have the Olympics. How about telling us WHAT? Morons.

On the other hand, this offers me a perfect opportunity to say that I totally sympathize now with those of the "unknown" sports. To the whitewater rafters, the equestrians, the fencers, the shooters and archery fans and competitors, of all nations and all genders: You aren't forgotten by those who love you and your sport!

(You of the trampolines, synchronized divers, curlers and those other sports that don't really require you to do much except be able to walk upright and chew gum at the same time-HAHAHAAH! Your events are only in the Olympics by pity.) But then again, the laugh is on me-your events get televised.

(Postscript: NBC decided to show some key points of the gold medal round-not the whole match as promised by the Bravo network-and the American girl, Mariel Zagunis won the gold medal for Women's Sabre. NBC also showed the awards ceremony and National Anthem for that. At least Ms. Jacobson got the satisfaction of hearing her anthem played at her medal ceremony. She didn't look too happy though. On the one hand, who can blame her-she is ranked #1 in the world, and she got beat not only by someone from another country, and got the bronze rather than the gold, but also that another American ranked 4th did better than her. I think she should be happy because: A) an American won the gold and she got to stand on the podum and hear the anthem and have everyone see her there; B) she won a medal-something her sister and fellow fencer didn't do; C) it was the first medal won by a woman fencer, ever; and D) that sabre fencing for women made its debut in Athens this year. If it hadn't, she wouldn't be there, period.)

(Postscript 2: Fuck you NBC for your lousy Olympic coverage. Your call sign should stand for Nimrods Being Cheap.)

Big meeting a bust

2004-08-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

Hushed closed door meetings, then a managers-only meeting in the conference room, then a general meeting with the whole company (which means no phone operators standing by, no humming conveyor belts). Nervously, we gathered, holding our breaths, wondering "Will there be layoffs? Are we going public? Have we been bought out? Drum roll please...

Turns out one brother is selling the company to his other brother. They took 45 minutes and a Powerpoint presentation to tell us that, in essence, nothing will change, we will still hold deep commitment to our employees, our customers, to deliver the highest quality at the lowest prices, blah blah blah. What does it mean to us? One brother who makes triple figures decided while flying in his new plane with his flight instructor over the Bahamian Islands, sells the company to a brother who also makes triple figures and just built a million dollar house somewhere in Massachusetts. They both run the company-started it themselves in their parents' garage about 25 years ago. So what's changed? A big, fat, bloated NOTHING.

Now I know my fellow coworkers are pleased, and think that this is great. Or they think this is horrible (the VP is part of that minority). Me, I could really care less. It isn't going to change my day-to-day work.

I'm Sorry, This Animal is Extinct

2004-08-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

I was watching "Jeff Corwin's Animal Planet" show the other night and he showed this fascinating creature from Tansania. It was some sort of insect that looked exactly like a small cluster of leaves, complete with a little brown spot that looked like the leaf was just starting to die. This is how the insect sheds its exoskeleton as it grows. It was perfectly designed so that predators would simply mistake it for part of the scenery and then move on. I started thinking about how cool that was, but then I started to get sad. I started thinking about loggers and poachers and big business coming in and wrecking the rain forests and other places that I can only dream of. And the creatures that live there-the beautiful, and not-so-beautiful, and useful, and fierce and gentle ones that don't know their lives are about to be snatched away from them. How many creatures are there in the world, the ones that we only learn about by accident, watching TV or doing a school report on? And the ones we would never know about, the ones that only environmentalists and people who make their living somehow from animals-like Jeff Corwin, Steve Irwin or Jacques Cousteau (when he was alive) know about? They live on this planet too, sharing it with the plants and other animals. There may be some that have never seen a human, or only see them once in a great while. How can people let all this go away? How can people just come in with machinery and violence, crushing the plants beneath their feet, the same plants that maybe have cures to diseases that are ravaging someone they love, and never know what they have done? How can they not care that maybe their job is only going to last as long as the last giant redwood, and after that, they are going to have to find another way to make a living to feed their families? I started thinking about President Bush, how he has rolled back nearly every environmental protection type law that were put into place by the past three presidents, including his own father? Doesn't he realize the wonders out there? The beauty, the possibilities? No. Very few people do, I see that now. And I find that incredibly sad, almost worth crying over, though I think if I did that, I would start crying about a lot of things, about the injustice of it all, of living only to die, of people starving around the world, of violence and war and people just seeming to go out of their way to be assholes to one another on purpose, and enjoying it on some level, whether it be by physical action or by insulting words or trying to impose their beliefs on another. I just don't get it. There is so much beauty in the world, so much to soak in and experience for what it is, rather than looking for it to be something that it can never be but yet forced to be anyway. And when it's forced, it's forever changed and loses some of its original magnificence and yet that part isn't noticed at all, all for the cheapness of what it became.

Invisibility Factor

2004-08-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

I find myself disliking society more and more these days while becoming more aware of it, rather than just feeling dissatisfied for some unknown reason. It's just something about people...the way they move, smell, make noise. Everything seems too overt, too noticeable, too close to me. Or maybe I'm just oversensitive to it. Some sort of weird symptom of autism-I have read that people with autism often have trouble with certain sounds, smells and textures-finding these stimuli to be distracting or overbearing, even. When I am in a public place, I now tend to walk with my hands on my hips, elbows pointing out as in a warding off gesture for people who get too close to me. Folding my arms against my body used to be a protective gesture, but it seems to allow people to unconsciously get closer to me, sort of like sheep huddling together for safety. The problem is, I don't want people to get closer to me-I want them at least a foot or more away from me at all times. Let them bump into other things, other people, jostling for attention. I have no interest in them.

But here's the irony: the more I put forward the impression that I don't want people to stand too close to me, the more they unconsciously feel a need to lean in close while in lines, to need the same cereal off the grocery store shelf; the feeling that, despite a whole open beach out there, they have to put their blanket down close by. It's like they either: a) feel as though I am in need of attention and they are just the people to give it to me; b) are lonely themselves and feel that if they stand close to me, they will somehow look as if they aren't lonely or, c) are just completely oblivious to the fact that maybe there are people out there, like me, who need a bigger sense of personal space than most.

Another theory I have is that all humans give off pheremones of some type. Like fireflies flashing out their little beacons, or certain species of moths that release scents to attract a male, we too give off scents that our animal instincts have never forgotten. Scents that used to say, "Hey, fertile female here, come on over and show me a good time right before I bite your head off!" are now translated into "Hey, I'm really peaceful over here and it's a great spot so bring your radio and unruly kids!" Nevermind the fact that I glare at people and put my elbows out in stores-my scent tells a different tale. Or maybe it's the fact that I'm female. I look like I could use company, any company. To men, I look like someone they could tell me their sorry tale to, or to women as someone who is nonthreatening and totally loves kids. Maybe I need to start looking scarier-shave my head or get a tattoo of a devil on my upper arm. Or just act drunk while in public, or maybe just mutter to myself more than I already do. But how does Dan attract these people, like I do? He's obviously not female. He doesn't talk much sometimes, so maybe that's a sign of gentility. Maybe as a couple, we look nonthreatening and friendly.

I've also found that the more I withdraw from society, the more people tend to stand too close, to bump into me. It's as if as I will myself invisible, I become invisible to them and therefore leave myself open to be smacked with purses, run over by strollers, or bumped into by people who find the store display windows more entertaining than walking in a straight line. This could be a good thing, if it didn't take so much effort on my part to dodge those that don't see me. I spend more time getting out of the way of others that I'm ready to scream. If someone so much as brushes by me these days, it takes a lot of effort to not turn and yell, "Hey, yutz, watch where you're going! You're not the only one on this sidewalk/mall concourse!" They need to be told, to be snapped out of their stupid, lumbering, oblivious dreamworld. Of course, it's not for me to do that, though I would sorely like to some days. With my luck, I'll pick the one person who happens to be daydreaming because they are strung out on crack, got fired, can benchpress 300 lbs and are just looking to pummel the first person who irritates them even a tiny bit. It's worse when walking with Dan-if I said something to the idiot who smacks into me, that guy will take it out on Dan, simply because he's the male. For some reason, when a girl makes a wisecrack, and another guy hears it, he mistakenly thinks it's the guy you are with's fault and needs to be taught a lesson. Whatever. Like a girl can't insult with a guy's precision.

So, what to be done-withdraw from society and work on my dodging skills? That's a lot of effort. Can't I just wear barbed wire or electrify my clothing or spray noxious fluids like a skunk? Or let them sit close, polluting my atmosphere while I grin so hard that my lips feel like they are going to split open with the effort of being polite? Hhmm...none of these seem like viable options.

Conversations with People

2004-07-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I like having conversations with people anymore. Most people anyway, and only live conversations. It's a lot of work. Most of the time, when I talk to people, they are more anxious to get out what they are saying first, and when it's my turn to talk, they aren't that interested or tend to do other things while I'm talking. Of course, part of that is because I am Queen of the Tangents. It takes me forever to get to the point of a story because, in my mind, there are so many other parts that I qualify as just as interesting as the point. Some people would call that the mark of a good storyteller. Apparently, I haven't met one of those people in a long time. People also keep reminding me that I am a good writer. I have it figured out now. They tell me that so I will write things down and they can get to them when they get to them and skim to the best parts.

Mostly now, at least at work, when people start talking to me, I squint at them, like I don't quite understand what they are saying. They take it as me being stupid, and they stop talking soon enough. Little do they know, I am squinting because I am cringing. The conversations always seem to end up in the same place-about God. That's a place I do NOT want to go to with them. It makes me uncomfortable. And it would make me uncomfortable to say, "I'm uncomfortable with this conversation." So mostly, I just squint and try to look sick so they will go away.

When I talk, people don't seem interested. True, I don't have a wide range of topics to discuss at this point, but come on-I listened to your dumb story about a boyfriend, or something you read, or heard on the radio. I tend to be talking to people lately that are younger than me and I remember what it was like to be that age. I also remember that I had more serious issues on my mind. Not all the time, but moreso than these folks. There HAS to be more stimulating topics than the ones mentioned above.

Now here I've gotten myself on enough of a tangent that I had to look back at my first paragraph to see what my point was. Even I don't know what it was anymore. :) Ah yes, live conversations. That's where I squint and hope for it to be over soon. With email or letters, I can just answer the parts I want to answer, and whenever I want. True, I do answer fairly quickly (nothing much else to do at work) and take on a majority of the topics. With live conversations, you have to look interested, you have to stay focused, and with some of the conversations, know there is an underlying agenda attached, or some difficult topic I may not have any clue about. Take for example, my coworker, James. He's a really nice guy, but his blogs are full of intellectual, weighty and often political topics. That's fine, but a lot of the time, I have no idea what he's talking about. Why can't he just write about silly things, or just ordinary things like how he went grocery shopping or what he did over the weekend? Look at me, I am talking about conversations, for Pete's sake.

Yes, I realize I have probably contradicted myself-first saying let's talk about something serious, then saying let's talk about something silly. That's me-Contradiction Girl, in addition to Queen of Tangents. I leave you now with a crappy poem, simply because I want to go make S'mores before Dan gets mad and wonders where dessert is. Of course, as I mentioned before, he's watching "RoboCop" so he probably hasn't noticed a good hour has passed. Oh, and it's Peter Weller that stars in it. What an ugly guy. No wonder no one has heard from him in ages.

I am the Before Girl you see with the limp hair and ill-fitting clothes-
the one who you see before the shampoo comes, before the makeover show.
I am the Queen of the Tangents,
Weaving tales that people have to wade through to gain insight.
I am the green, the red, the blue
but only if you go outside to see me.

Oh, PS, tomorrow night is a "Blue Moon"-a full moon that occurs twice in the same calendar month. The first full moon was July 2. The last time we had a Blue Moon was something like 2001. Enjoy!

The Sounds of Silence

2004-07-30T17:08:00.000-07:00

So I haven't written much in the past week here. The problem is, I have plenty to write about, but at the same time, in writing what I really would like to write about I may end up alienating people. I would love to talk about how my coworkers annoy me at times, for example. But if they ever found this...well I guess that wouldn't be a bad thing-they would leave me alone more than they already do. I don't have much else to write about. I go to work, I come home. The people who read this already know about my coworkers and already know what I do outside of work. I live a fairly simple life. Uncomplicated.

Can I just say that we are watching "RoboCop" right now and it's really sucky. The main guy is an ugly fellow, and there seems to be this kid who seems to have made it his lot in life to kill RoboCop. He's not that great looking either. It seems like this movie is on every Friday night. Worse, it's distracting. I usually type with music to block everything out but I'm just too lazy to go pick out a CD and start it up. Okay, there. Now I've got "Pure Moods" running because it's soothing. But I am still distracted. God, this movie sucks...and it's too loud because we have the AC running, and this is where the deafness starts where we are always going to end up listening to the TV too loudly. It's all the more distracting because of this stupid movie. There is something about having something on the TV and doing something else while it's on as background noise, but it has to be the right kind of background noise. Just putting anything on won't do-it becomes more of an annoyance than anything else. IT'S SO LOUD!

My husband calls this my "retardo hearing." He thinks that I hear things too sensitively, things that aren't that loud at all. I feel like my entire day is surrounded by machinery. The machinery of AC at night, or at least a fan. In the morning, it's the hissing onslaught of shower water. Then news reporters (I refuse to call any newspeople "journalists" these days) jabbering. Then in the car it's the sound of the car intermingled with other cars, trucks, motorcycles. Once at work, it's the sound from the conveyor belts throughout the building and the AC that occasionally sounds like a jet engine on an F-16 is taking off. Plus coworkers having yet another conversation about the downfall of the morals of society. When I come home, I have the TV on but it's so soft that I can barely make out the words. I like that. Somehow, after dinner, it gets loud again, and then it's back to AC and fan for the night. Even this afternoon, while sitting in my car in the parking lot at work, there was a tractor trailer with its engine on, sitting in the back lot. At various times throughout the day, I went out and it was still running. I think the trucker was probably sleeping through the day and left his engine running so as to keep his TV or AC on. You would think he would have ran out of gas before the day was half over.

What's wrong with silence? Or at least sounds of nature? Even when you go to the beach, you have people playing radios, as if the ocean waves are a nuisance. You have people having the stupidest conversations. People saying whatever comes to mind, making wasted actions. I would love to be the type of person who only speaks when it's worth saying something, such as "Hey your pants are on fire!" Or, "I love you." And no wasted actions. No more itches or bugs to swat at. No tripping while walking. No staring at something or someone while I am far away in my mind and then when I snap to, I don't have to look away quickly to keep from staring. No limbs falling asleep. No wedgies either. Just be graceful in mind, words and body. And quiet. No loud commercials.

DNC Done, But Stay Away Anyway

2004-07-30T17:01:00.000-07:00

It's Friday and now we can safely say the DNC is over. I can attest to this by the amount of traffic on the road this afternoon. I don't know what it is, but there seems to be more people than ever on the road lately, and they all seem to be trying to kill me. Apparently having been in the mountains or by the ocean for the past week has made everyone forget how to drive, if they ever did it correctly to begin with.

Honestly though I really shouldn't joke about this. A coworker recently lost her husband in a car wreck earlier this week and she got the phone call while at work. What makes it worse is that she has also lost a father, brother and close uncle in the past eight months as well. I cannot fathom the depth of her loss. Sure, I can sympathize on one level, having had both my parents die in the past three years. On the other hand, I cannot know the darkness that she must be feeling in her heart at this point. What do you say? What can you do?

The Burning Questions

2004-07-23T18:41:00.000-07:00

I just recently wondered how many times in my life I have come close to dying so far. Maybe through accident or by my own blunders or someone else's blunder. I wonder how many times I have blinked, or exhaled. How many hours have I spent asleep and at red lights or had a stomachache? Have I changed anyone's life for the better or for the worse? Do perfect strangers remember me for a chance remark or a similar situation we both experienced? What have I forgotten that was important to me? When I die, I hope I can learn all the stats of my life. My husband told me he read a book that explained just how many times the entire human body has shed its cells and gave birth to new ones-they estimate every cell by the time you are ten years old. Which means that every cell in my entire body has transformed a number of times since my birth. That means that I am definitely not the same person I once was. Every cell changed-nothing of my "original" being exists anymore. Unreal.

What is with you people-part deux....

2004-07-23T06:34:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe how some people think. Puffed with self important, pseudo-intellectual claptrap, they are convinced they are right. They try to convince you they are right, and worse, try to convince you to think like them. I don't know what circumstances have taken place in their lives for them to arrive at their current mindset, but whatever it is, I hope it never happens to me. It seems like such a horrible way to live. They aren't really living, as far as I'm concerned. They are floating along on their cushion of ignorance, choosing to be that way on purpose. What a waste of space.

Counting Down to the DNC

2004-07-23T05:01:00.000-07:00

I was watching the news this morning and saw a story on a guy who owns a pizza place across the street from the DNC. He is being forced to close up his shop for the week for "security reasons." He put up a large banner over his store that says, "Say DNC thanks for nothing! Bush in 2004". The city of Boston called him yesterday to tell him to take the sign down. He is refusing. He owns the building, he owns the shop, and his banner is not on anyone else's property. He said, "The sign stays up." Someone will probably rip it down at some point, but I hope it stays up as long as possible. A lot of media outlets are boosting their spin already, saying that most people are happy for the DNC coming. However, if you do even a bit of digging on the web, you will find that most people think it's a bad idea. A horrible idea. One news agency even did a poll stating that a narrow majority of MA residents think the DNC is a boon for the state. However, the agency pointed out that they polled ALL of MA. Which means people who live in outlying areas of MA such as Lenox, Orange, and Dudley are voting-people who don't have to drive into the city each day, people who have no need to visit the city more than once a year if that. OF COURSE they think it's a good idea-they could care less. They'll be laughing their asses off on their farms and in suburbia watching the news each night, saying, "Well them there city folk are havin' a time of it, uh-yuh."

It just goes to show you that the people who make up statistics LIE. My father-in-law told us a story last night about how he took a class in statistics and the teacher showed how results can be skewed. The students were given a map of the United States. There was a large black blotch taking up most of the middle of the map and they were told, "This is how many people were killed during the Vietnam War." Then they were given another map with a tiny black dot covering New York City and told, "This is how many people were killed during the Vietnam War." The same amount of people, as recorded by the black parts of each map, told it two different ways. The first map made it look as though many, many people were killed-this would be a map used by those against the war, perhaps to show the magnitude. The second map would be a map used by those in favor of the war to show that it's really an insignificant amount of people (leaving it to the audience to figure out that it's the same amount of people because they are packed into a much smaller area).

My conclusion? Everyone lies to get their agenda across first and best. I leave off with a quote from "The Karate Kid": "Strike first, strike hard, no mercy sir!" That's how people work when they have something to prove, right or wrong.

2004-07-20T10:42:00.000-07:00

It’s well known that the Democratic National Convention is coming to Massachusetts. What isn’t so well known is how it’s the little things that no one on the Committee overseeing this nightmare seems to have taken into consideration. For example, the Boston Globe reported today that the trashbarrels are being removed from all public streets, leaving behind only the wire framework bolted to the ground that supports the barrels. People are now resorting to throwing their trash into the frames which, being only frames, weren’t designed to hold trash. So for all the good that people think they are doing, they might as well be just throwing their trash on the ground or pitching it into open car windows. When this was reported to the department that deals with trash in Boston, their solution was to unbolt the frames, leaving nothing on the sidewalk for trash. I’d like to be the first to thank the city of Boston for effectively setting its standards back over 200 years to a time when people merely opened their windows and threw their trash into the gutter to join the open channels of raw sewage and garbage that ran down the open cobblestones. In England during the Middle Ages, they did the same thing. Their reward? The Black Plague. While I don’t think Boston is quite headed in that direction, they leave themselves open to rats, flies and the wonderful smell of the previous night’s supper leftovers rotting gently in the summer sun. It will be quite a sight for the delegates to come upon, especially while they are busy pissing on Boston residents’ lawns due to the fact that Boston is also closing down the city’s five public toilets promptly at 5pm. (One aside I would like to point out: the entire city of Boston, which touts itself as the "Walking City," only has five public toilets in its entirety, unlike its European counterparts. Sure, Boston is great to walk in, so long as you don’t have to take a piss.) Here’s a solution: have the delegates and guests carry their Starbucks cups and "Boston O4" travel mugs around to pee in, and carry them back to their hotel rooms at night for emptying. Whoever thought that going back to the Middle Ages for tips on sanitary practices has obviously never put their own trash out, or had to buy a Coke at Au Bon Pain just to get the key to the restroom.

Other things to note:

1. Commuters are being encouraged to use I-95/Route 128 instead of I-93 to get around the state of MA. Anyone who lives here knows that those are the only two routes to get anywhere major in MA. To close and reroute these routes is the equivalent of blocking off a staircase and elevator in an office building and encouraging people to use the rope ladder out the windows.
2. The planners are already hard at work putting a positive spin on things. Their catch phrase: "Let’s Work Around It." I’d love to know who came up with that one. I guess "Let's Have Rich, Out-of-Touch Politicians Invade" was taken.
3. The same planners put out a poll that had people from around MA voting on whether or not they thought the DNC in Boston was a good idea. Not people who specifically live in the North Shore, South Shore or the city themselves, but ALL OVER the state. There are a lot of people who still live in very rural areas of MA and those people were involved in the polls. Of course people who live three hours away from the city and don’t work there think this is a good idea. They could care less one way or the other because it won’t affect them.
4. There will be NO traffic helicopters in the skies to monitor the traffic situation, yet the planners seem to think that they will effectively be able to monitor traffic from the ground to get an idea of what routes need to be open or closed. The Secret Service and other government agencies will only have their own aircraft in the sky, but will not allow even ONE journalist in the air, even when offered to have them screened for security.

There are tons more issues that are routinely being ignored as well: Pregnant mothers are encouraged to call 911 if they go into labor (something tells me there are going to be a ton of stories of women giving birth in the backs of ambulances while lodged in traffic or "emergency lanes" of roads). They have yet to explain how people are going to get their mail during that week, or even how they are supposed to go grocery shopping.
The funniest part of this whole thing (and believe me, at this point, all that residents of MA can do at this point is laugh) is that the DNC planners have claimed that they have been working on this project for the better part of two years. If that is the case, then why are all these brilliant ideas being sprung on the unsuspecting public only in the last two months?

What is with you people?!

2004-07-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

We went to the beach this weekend and once again I was reminded of how much I seriously dislike people at times. We arrived on the sand around 10am, staking out a spot on the back part of the sand, maybe 4 feet in front of the wooden fencing and dune grass, right at the edge of one of the open-air restaurants that has live music for most of the day. We figured that by being this far from the water, and far enough away from one of the entrances, we had a pretty good shot of having a peaceful day. We should have known from past experience it was not meant to be.

Within an hour, a family of six showed up: Grandma, Uncle, Dad, Mom and two kids aged about 9 and 12. And guess where they chose to sit? You guessed it. In that four feet behind us. They proceeded to set up two umbrellas, two towels and an untold number of beach chairs. Grandma chose to set up shop directly behind me, her gnarled and disgusting feet less than four inches from the end of our blanket. I happened to have been sitting at that point, not laying on my stomach. If I had been, I would have been playing footsie with her-something that even now fills me with nausea. The other members of this family were close enough that Uncle laid his towel out six inches from my husband's head and Dad put his feet close enough that they were practically in our backpacks. I fumed, slightly and finally moved our blanket a good eight inches further away, at least enough so I could lay on my stomach. If anyone had been passing by, they would have thought we were all from the same family. Now on the one hand, I understand that Europeans have a different idea of personal space-they think nothing of sitting closer to strangers than people from the U.S. do. But these asses were clearly American, speaking perfectly coherent English.

To add insult to injury, nearly an hour later, I was asleep under a towel when some clod of a teenager stepped on my foot as he walked by, choosing to pass within inches of us rather than walk the 6 foot pathway between various blankets. I didn't wake fast enough to yell at the Clod and I am still filled with regret about it. So, let me say it now, "Hey! Asshole, watch where you're going!" I also wish I had been allowed to grumble a little bit louder to the Family. Or at least have gotten to say, politely, "Hey-if you wanted our spot, you should have gotten here earlier." Or: "I have this thing about my personal space...if it's invaded, as it is by you right now, I have a tendency to go a little bit ballistic, and I'm sure you don't want that. I will make it my business to go ballistic as well." Or better yet, a simple, "Hey, morons! Do you fucking mind? There's a whole beach out there, so back off!"

The reason why I couldn't say any of these things? My husband is horrified when I say things like this. Why? Because things that get said by a girl usually gets the boy she is with beaten up. Strangers tend to mistakenly think that if the girl said it, the boy must have put her up to it. It goes back to the idea that women, by nature, are quiet and demure and would never deign to toss out insults. I'm living proof that image is terribly wrong.

So now I ask you: WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! Do you not have any sense of personal space? Do you not watch where you are going? Do you have no sense of your surroundings at any given time? Do you even realize there is someone like me, or worse, standing in line behind you? Let me answer for you: NO. You are stupid, blind, oafish SHEEP. You deserve to be hit by cars, to have your wallets stolen, to be cut in line, to be denied the last piece of candy, unable to get what you most desire. They say that people eventually get what they deserve. I only wish I was there more often to see it happen to you so I could LAUGH.

Awhile back, there was a story in the news about a woman who got beat up by another woman for having 13 items in the 12 items and under line at the supermarket. Now, while I don't condone beating people up (although there are some people who truly deserve it), I really don't blame the Beater. The 13-Item woman probably does this all the time, probably runs red lights with the rationale of "Oh I'm in a hurry right now, just this one time won't make a difference." She doesn't see that "this one time" turns into every time or that another 500 other people think the same thing at any given time and this is how rules get broken and people get hurt (case in point, me getting stepped on). If enough people have this "I don't care about anyone except me" attitude, whether it be sitting too close at the beach, having 13 items, or running red lights, then of course it's no wonder the world works the way it does. Everything builds off of everything else, starting small and getting larger by the day. It works for mountains, river gorges and people.

Sheep. This explains a lot. Sheep have this fascinating trait built into them that makes it so they cannot stand to be alone, subject to mob mentality and, most importantly, not that bright. Just like people. Just like the Family, the Clod and untold others.

Or is it that we have this sort of body language about us that draws the Crazy People, the Clods, the I-can't-bear-to-be-les-than-four-inches-away-from-my-fellow-man People, and the other most irritating sort of folk to us? We look innocent enough, seem to keep to ourselves, no obvious signs of insanity. There is something about that that draws them near. Maybe I should develop some sort of noticeable facial tic, or drool a lot, or curse in every sentence I speak-fake Tourette's Syndrome? Or just start dressing oddly-put my clothes on backwards, wear a big hat. Dye my hair bright blue? Something to put people off from us rather than draw them near.

I wonder if there is any way I can buy 8 feet of barbed wire, coil it up to carry around and unroll it the next time we go to the beach, or drape it over movie theatre seats, and other public places? Portable privacy. Would that keep people away? Or draw unwanted attention?

Can't leave well enough alone...

2004-07-16T19:06:00.000-07:00

The subject header says it all. That's why I'm here, writing. Plus I find myself growing addicted to this thing which is always bad. It's kinda like when I was in college, when we were on something called the Vax. Or maybe it was VAX. I don't know what that stood for. Hang on...

"WHAT DID VAX STAND FOR?!"
"I don't know. I think it stood for...you know, I don't think it stood for anything."
"Oh."

In any case, you logged on, and it was a black monochrome screen with green lettering and a dotted line that divided the screen in two, or more. You were one person talking/typing, and you could talk to other people on the VAX as well. The cursor would jump from box to box as you typed. And we were drunk on it. My friends and I would go to the library and all log on. Let me rephrase that: we would walk across the quad together, talking, go into the same library, log on to computers three feet from one another, and type/talk to one another. No, we aren't retarded. We just thought it was the best use of our time. Yes, we all graduated from college. Well, almost all of us. There was one guy we knew, Will was his name (chances are, he'll never see this so no chance of libel), and he didn't graduate. He dropped out with a .5 average. That's because he played pool in McGoveran Lounge all day. Literally-6 or so hours per day. Last I heard he went off and became a landscaper. But I digress.

I was reading my last post and realized (aside from how crappy it was) that I was very unclear in what I was talking about. Okay so you want to know what the "difference" is between me and my coworkers. Drumroll please...no wait, don't do that. Chances are you are rattling your hands on your desk in a lame attempt to sound something like a snare drum. Either that or you are rolling your tongue and spitting all over the place. So stop already.

The difference is that we are different religions. I won't say what we are. Yes, that's it. You might not think it's that big of a deal. Three years ago, I would have said the same. Now I know that it's a big deal...at least to other people. Not me. It still isn't a big deal. I still try to make it not a big deal. That's very difficult to do. I don't think it's me making it difficult. I don't think they make it difficult on purpose. They just don't know me. And I don't make it easy. And I don't want to make it easy, either. Like I said before, coworkers are coworkers. I don't mean that in a cruel way. It is what it is.

I find myself thinking of the Dear Reader. How bored or confused you must be reading this. Or just thinking, "This is such a piece of crap. I should go back to reading about that guy's sexual fantasies or that chick who can't decide what kind of dog she should buy." In a way, blogging is like writing to strangers who will then judge you and even if you don't hear them, you can fill in the soundtrack yourself. I suppose that will get better, the more I do. Tired now. Signing off.

Two Worlds and a Door

2004-07-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

So, two of my coworkers have been pestering me to start a blog. They say things like, "Hey, you should start one because then we can have all sorts of cool discussions about stuff." I said, "Yeah, but there are three things: first, I don't know if I would be able to write one without basically wearing my heart on my sleeve; second, offending everyone in creation and; third, if you want to have a cool discussion with me, just ask me a question." One of them said, "Yeah, I could do that, but I find that I pay attention more when it's writing as opposed to a verbal conversation." I can see that. With writing you have a chance to reread stuff, make notes, or just ignore it. On the other hand...

I started this blog. And today, he asked me, "So did you start a blog yet?" I told him no. Yep, I lied. Why? Here's where things get convoluted. He wanted me to start a blog so we could have conversation. Problem is I'm perfectly happy only having conversations with him at work. Work people are...well, coworkers. Here's how I look at it, and you may think otherwise-this is just my two cents: They aren't friends per se, they are coworkers first, then acquaintances, which I consider different from friends. Acquaintance coworkers are people you have lunch with, complain about the boss with, maybe hitch a ride with to work-related events. They aren't people you hang out with on the weekend. So by starting this blog and telling them it's begun and they can read it, that would be opening a door I'm just not comfortable in doing. I mean, it's nice and all if they want to be friends with me, but I'm not yet willing to open the door between my work world and my non-work world. I have opened the window, at least, but that's it. And honestly, I have to wonder about the quality of work-related friendships. Are they genuine? It's hard to say. Call me suspicious and paranoid. But here's why.

Yes, this gets more complicated. We are very different people. At some point, I'll give in and reveal more, because I'd really like to for a change, and this may be the place to do it-just not yet. Let's just say we look at morality and social values in different ways. Sure, there are some similarities, but there is enough difference to create a lot of drama if we were to start sharing blogs. Drama I really don't need at this point. I already know we have fundamental differences in the way we look at life, and I'm pretty sure that both coworkers know this as well, though I don't know how much they know. I am different from them. For now, it's just easier to keep the door shut. Eventually, I'm sure they will be smart enough to figure out that I have started one. When/if they confront me about it...well I'll climb that fence when I have to.

For now I like having the freedom to be both public and private, without people commenting. I like being able to write what I want for now and be anonymous about it. Who doesn't secretly like being anonymous, even for a short time? If that wasn't the case, we would have "Secret Santa's" or "Secret Admirers". To be someone new, or to be who you really are, without your regular life interfering. Maybe this is why little kids play dress-up or why people want to be actors. No it can never go on forever, but we do it anyway.

Getting Old...

2004-07-15T17:35:00.000-07:00

So I had a doctor's appointment today and while I was sitting in the waiting room, trying not to touch anything (germs), I was looking at the old folks. Honestly, I was sorta creeped out. I mean, I know on the one hand I probably shouldn't be-after all, they are people too and it's important because they are a living link to our past and so forth. But I was a little bit scared and sad as I looked at them. There was one guy who had a lot of old looking tattoos on his arms-they were dark and filled in and thick looking. I thought about my own-the one on my ankle with its bright colors, and the two black ones I have on my back, with their fine details. There was a woman who was dressed in bright, floral print and had a smart, sensible haircut. I thought about my long brown, and currently frizzy, hair. I looked around and wondered if I would find myself here, in the waiting room forty years from now and what kind of shape I would be in. And that made me sad. I already knew that getting old sucks, I've seen the worst of it too often. But to be reminded of it on an otherwise not-bad day...

Then I started thinking of how they were dressed. For the most part, they were wearing what can best be described as "business casual." Pantsuits, slacks, button-down shirts, and the occasional tie. Lace up shoes and nylons. I was trying to think of the last time I wore nylons, or even a skirt for that matter. It seems like I only dress up for funerals and weddings now. For these folks though, this wasn't "dressing up." This is how they dress every day for every occasion. They come from a different generation than us, where it was important to look your best every day, even if you never left the house. My generation, when we get to be their age, isn't going to look that good. We are going to become Walkers at the mall, but we are going to be dressed like slobs. Our ensembles will consist of sweatpants, Nikes, and old concert t-shirts, with a flannel shirt for warmth. Elderly grunge. People younger than us will look at us and think, "Jeez, you can tell they grew up in the 80's and 90's." I wonder what they'll be wearing. Hopefully it will be better than what they wear now-maybe kids will go back to wearing jeans that actually fit them (too big or too small is the style at the time of this writing), and wearing ball caps with the brim either completely in the front or completely in the back-no more of this tilted rakishly off to the side like they're drunk (of course, who knows, they could be drunk). We did that in the 80's and you know what? It was stupid then, and we saw that, and that's why we stopped.

The curtain opens and...

2004-07-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

Well, here is my first attempt at blogging. I have the feeling it's going to be stilted and awkward at first and therefore, not that great. It's kind of like being onstage for the first time, or doing a book report in the second grade. I promise I won't be hiding behind my cheap, yellow-lined paper, mumbling my words in a rapid monotone. I'll be covering a range of topics depending on my fancy at the moment. That being said...enjoy.