Awkward Acquaintances and TMI

Normally I don't take advice from comedians, but Dane Cook might have a point. I have recently found myself in a situation where a Snickers bar could be the eventual difference between my life and death. I'll explain.

We have an office weirdo. Every office does, but the magnitude of this man's awkwardness is intensified by the fact that we live, work, and exist in a relatively small, conservative Texas city. This level of weirdness is usually only found in insanely large cities where they can be a member of an entire weird community, with their own weird clubs and hangout spots, where Bomber jackets and horribly awkward comments are expected and, in fact, common. But no, this guy lives here. Works here. And worst of all, he has taken a liking to me.

There is a point where awkwardness turns into straight creepy, and this man could tell you exactly where that point is, and how to sprint straight past GO! and collect your two hundred dollars. I think it started the day I noticed he moved in next door. I had already seen him at work and wondered what was going on in the heads of our senior management to have hired this guy, and then one night I’m out with my best friend and pulling into my driveway I see some dude hauling boxes up the stairs to his apartment, right across the way from me. I think he looks slightly familiar, but think nothing of it. Then I double-take and am sure he looks familiar, and he's looking at me. Then I triple-take, realize its weird co-worker, and instead of saying "welcome to the neighborhood" or "hello again," I spew, "what are you doing here?!" That marked the beginning of a series of the creepiest exchanges I can remember to date, including the famous, "put the lotion in the basket!"

That brief encounter at my apartment complex apparently gave him hope. Maybe he mistook my stare of horrified disbelief for something more akin to a starry-eyed gaze. Maybe he mistook the close proximity of our cubicles at the office for fate, forgetting the fact that he moved floors and evicted a fellow employee to sit caddy corner to me. Whatever the case, my daily routine at work now includes fielding questions about my apartment, our landlords, and my daily workout routine (as he apparently saw me leaving at 5:45am one morning and coming home sweaty 90 minutes later). Conversations, mind you, that are completely out of context for what is going on at the time. His mouth seems to work as most brilliant authors would describe their "stream of consciousness" writing - there are no checks and balances and no system of editing. The problem, of course, is that authors engage in this activity privately, in a journal or diary - when practiced verbally, stream of consciousness is far less brilliant and more like the drunk, senile grandparent at family gatherings who makes all the children cry.

A few weeks ago, several of us from work were sitting at a local restaurant for lunch together. One of the crew, Ryan, is a hilarious story teller, and was recounting the series of events that led to his opening line of, "so I had to tell my 70 year old neighbor to stop hitting on my wife." Basically, when Ryan decided to relocate here for this job, he and his wife bought their house before they arrived in the city. A couple weeks before they were to move out here, they flew out for a weekend to clean the house and get it ready for the movers to put all their stuff in, only to get there and find that the house had been broken into and the box of cleaning supplies and Wheat Thins they had left on the counter were gone. Ryan was talking about how his super old neighbor had started visiting his wife every day, and she just thought he was sweet until one day the old man brought over a CD he had made filled with old jazz versions of booty-jams. Our entire lunch table was joking about their poor, creepy neighbor and laughing about the prospect of Ryan having to walk over there and tell him to stop hitting on his wife when the comment was made in a fit of group laughter that it was probably creepy old man who broke into the house and stole the cleaning supplies and Wheat Thins, and now has them sitting on his own kitchen counter like a small shrine to his wife. Everybody was busting up when Creep-O opens his mouth and says, "yeah, he probably has like a life-sized mannequin in his basement that he puts makeup on and, like, glued little pieces of hair to it to look like her and everything..."

The table was silent for a solid five seconds... which was followed by the the screeching of chairs sliding back on the tiled floor and the rest of us muttering various versions of, "well, I’ve paid so..." as we got out of our seats to leave.

This is where Dane Cook's advice with the Snicker's bar comes in. Recently, the comments have become even more disturbing, and I’m starting to get to the point where I feel like I need to sit down and engage in conversation with him, perhaps offer him an extra Snickers bar that happened to fall out of the machine this morning, for the sole purpose of being skipped over the day his mind finally cracks and he storms into the office with a sawed-off shotgun. Mannequin-boy has become a joke around the office, but I definitely have a stash of leftover Halloween candy in my desk drawer just in case.

Delayed Reactions

I watched the night turn into a beautiful sunday morning. My body and I are still working through some jet-lag issues and my sleeping schedule resembles that of a toddler - early to bed, early to rise scenario - very early to rise. I've felt strange the past two days, and can't really shake what is on my mind so writing is what i have always done.

I broke up with my boyfriend of four years about a month ago. He is what is on my mind lately. I tend to do this thing where I push thoughts that would normally hurt way down inside of me and try to pretend like they aren't there so I don't have to deal with how much and why they hurt. My thoughts in the last three days since returning from vacation in Sweden are my delayed reaction to the magnitude of what I have done in ending things with Doug. It took a month for me to allow myself to return to thoughts of him, our relationship, the fact that its over, and, mostly, why its over. What I am dealing with now in examining these thoughts is searching for closure. As prescriptive as that word is, that's the only way I can think of it right now. There were many years where I thought I would marry Doug. Many years I expected to and would've said yes in a heartbeat. Then something changed. Two years ago I wouldn't have had a clue what that change was, but now I think the only way to describe it is that we both started maturing. And things changed.

As put together as I always like to say I am and try to seem, I am just like everybody else: I don't have it all figured out, and most of the time I'm wondering what is going to happen next and just hoping I'm with-it enough to be ready for it. I would love to be able to sit here and explain with total clarity in concise, complete sentences what happened with Doug and why its over, but I can't. I'm a mix of emotions about it, and most of them conflict. Part of me is so sure of my decision was the best one, but then I remember all of the reasons why I loved him for five years and I wonder if I just didn't give it enough time? Did I give up too quickly? How could I have failed to make it work? But I don't have those answers either - I have my gut. Something wasn't right. If I think about what that "something" is my mind swirls around a thousand things, divided equally between what I should/could have done differently or better, and what he could have. Would those things have made any difference? I don't know, but something tells me no. There was something there that wasn't right. When I feel divided between emotions of complete sadness/failure and liberation/freedom... something wasn't right.

We have broken up before, but this time things are different. It would have been easier if he got mad, got defensive, but Doug is a wonderful person so he was just concerned about me. My thoughts return to him and our relationship now for a purpose, I just don't know what that is. There is more for me to learn from that relationship, more that I can take away with me. There was nothing horrible about our relationship, which is probably part of where my hurt comes from. What I have to remember is that it is not over because I failed at something, or because he did. I truly believe that two people can be great people, just not great for each other. Were Doug and I great for each other? I don't know, and I'm not sure he did either. To be on the path that we were on we needed to know, I needed to know, and I didn't. Something wasn't right. Maybe someday I'll know what that something is, maybe I won't. Maybe that something is just my lesson to learn to trust my emotions and my gut and not overanalyze and rationalize everything. I don't know.

What I know is that I loved him the best way I knew how, and that I love him still - a love manifested in my wish for his happiness. I know I temporarily put a dent in that happiness, but I also know that he will find it again and I hope he can be sure in it. Of course this hurts, and this is hard, and this is a new situation to work through - our relationship wasn't horrible. Doug is a chapter of my life I wouldn't take back for anything, and my thoughts linger on him and our relationship for a reason. All I can do is keep thinking, keep pondering, keep searching myself. I just pray for clarity, healing, and learning from it all, and hope he is finding the same.

Hej... Tack...

For the next several days, I will survive off of "hey" and "thank you." That is the extent of my Swedish vocabulary. Oh, and utgång, but I won't have much occasion to say gate or exit. So far, I've nodded, chuckled, and smiled my way through five different "conversations." Really, it was me politely gesticulating at the imcomprehensive, lightning-fast Swedish as the friendly airport employees address the seemingly pegged 'one of their own'. Uh, nope. No hablo Swedish. Try again. I'm getting good at paying attention to non-verbal cues though. Language, smanguage. Urgän. :) So far I've managed to exhange my US dollars for Krona, catch a bus to the right domestic terminal, check-in at said terminal, get through security, and order an egg and broccoli quiche - all without a lick of Swedish. Although that last one was a mistake. I was trying to get coffee. But I should have started at the beginning, let me go back...

I got to DFW early. Way too early, in fact. I thought international flights required check-in of two to three hours prior to departure. I was wrong. I did everything from checkin to at the gate in less than twenty minutes and had two and a half hours to kill. I flew from Dallas to Newark, NJ and then from Newark to Stockholm, and then from Stockholm caught a domestic flight up to Skellefteå where Bex lives (the childhood friend i'm going to Sweden to visit). First thing i see at my DFW gate to go to New Jersey... three total guidos (forget about it!) and a family of hassidic Jews - all of their way to 'Jersey.' So my plane is filled with people who are the obnoxious equivalent of Fran Drescher, but somehow i got lucky and get a row with an empty middle seat and a flight attendant just bumming a ride. Iäm minding my own business reading the latest Economist manazine, the whole time fielding stares from dozens of New Englanders trying to place why the hell this blonde, birkenstocked, hoodie-clad... Texan?? Nah! is on her way to New Jersey. After a while i quit trying to quantify how mind-fucked they were and just enjoyed reading my magazine.

Anyway, my journey to Sweden is marked, I tell you. Signs everywhere. In my Economist mag, a 5-pager about Sweden's remarkable economic system and how it has been successful here. Very interesting article, actually... and quite informative. Very karmic. And what is right next to the runway in Newark? A fucking IKEA. I couldn't make that up. The layover in Newark is short, easy. I meet a long-time friend I haven't seen in years who lives in the area, and then I'm off to Sweden. Its an eight hour flight and "overnight" so I'm hoping I can fall asleep. Really when I land there at 7:45am its going to be 12:45am my time, so really I'm getting like 2-3 hours sleep on this "overnight" journey. I ran a bit late through security in Newark, too, so no chance of finding a bar to knock a couple back and help make me sleepy. I supposed I could've found somebody who looked as haggard as I did and tried to bumm some Ambien, but I didn't think of that in time. Anyway, I was lucky to get the hour of sleep I got.

I land in Sweden, the land of beautiful people, and it meets every expectation (or better word, stereotype) I had conjured for it. The fucking AIRPORT even looks like something out of a model train village, complete with the quaint, pottery-barn-tries-to-get-that-worn-but-loved-look red planked barn perfectly perched at the edge of the oh-so-still lake surrounded by thousands of trees busy changing into fall colors juuust off the runway. Seriously. Oh, and the entire International terminal at Stockholm Arlanda airport has hardwood floors. Seriously. If I hadnit been in a catatonic state from flying so long i would've taken pictures. I will on the way home, for sure.

So we're caught up. I might have been stressed about finding my domestic flight up to Skellefteå but I had like four hours layover so I was totally okay with winging it and the possibility of getting lost. Except then I found myself about to board a train to downtown Stockholm and thought maybe I should just find my gate and hang out. So that's where I am now. Hanging out at utgång 53. I am enjoying my quiche (and am grateful for the mistake because as it turns out I was hungry), scorched my tongue on the strongest, best damn coffee I've ever had, and I've watched the overcast crack of dawn turn into a beautiful, sunny day in Stockholm. I'm going to like Sweden.

Climate changes

Its August already?! Damn. It has been a while, again, so I thought I'd say a quick hello and recap a little while...

About a month ago, I was presented with the opportunity to go work out of one of our domestic sites in Roseburg, Oregon for a while. At the time, the only thing I could think of was the fact that an assignment like that would get me out of Texas' notoriously hot July and August weather, and I was quick to jump at the chance. Of course, there were a slew of other things, both personal and professional, that I considered as well when thinking about the move: my parents live up in Seattle now and I'd be closer to them, working in a new site for a couple months would give me a chance to show what I can do and really help another site out, boyfriend is a teacher and July/August is when he's finally out of school and we'd be able to spend some real time together, etc., etc... But ultimately, I decided to take the leap and move for two months.

So far, my entire existence here has been a whirlwind. From the minute I arrived my senses have betrayed my previously allergy-less utopia. I've been reduced to a sneezy, sniveling, red-eyed mess of a woman, which is definitely not fun, or attractive. And the real bitch of it is that I was so excited to get to a place where one can do things outside, in the middle of the day, without melting into the 115+ degree heat index that I've ignored my misery and have been bicycling and hiking through this snot wallowing haze. Allergies really suck.

Anyway, the job has been going well, although honestly I'm learning more of what NOT to do than things to take with me back to my office in TX. I can't help but think of how funny it is that sometimes we think that we're in such hell... until we're thrown into a different situation which is way worse than our own. It isn't all bad, though, by any stretch of the imagination. I've met some great people and there are actually other women around this office who are cool to hang out with, so that's great. And there's the whole pacific Northwest thing that's pretty f'in cool too. A couple weekends ago I went kayaking down the South Umpqua river for five hours with a girl from work and her husband, which was awesome - not a regular occurrence in Tejas, that's for sure. I'll try to be better about posting...

He said, She said - thoughts on U.S. Soccer

I know I’m jaded, but that's beside the point. My point, to be more precise. I just finished watching the United States play Czech Republic in the 2006 FIFA World Cup (soccer, for those of you who are completely clueless), and can honestly think of no other way to describe the U.S.'s horrendous display of "effort" than utterly lackluster and disappointing - but here's the real bitch of it: why the hell weren't our guys ready to walk onto that field and wreak havoc upon anybody who might possibly stand in their way?

After decades of listening to international critics of the sport call the United States young, outmatched, under prepared, and just straight not as good as the rest of the world, we come out blazing in the 2002 World Cup. We left the world stunned and almost ready to eat their words with our Quarter Final finish and lights-out exceptional performance in the Elite Eight versus Germany. Even after our display of athleticism and accomplishment from the '02 World Cup, the United States has to listen to four more years of criticism about our international squad and our success and hard work is gradually turned into nothing more than a fluke by the time qualifiers come around for this 2006 world venue. And this time the US team talked themselves up. Landon Donovan has been all over TV interviews saying how the US is ready to prove that the world's top 10 teams is where we belong and that we need to be looked at as a threat on the world stage for international soccer. Bruce Arena was even quoted as saying that he's tired of preparation already, that he just wants to go show the world what the United States can do on soccer's world stage. We go into the WC'06 with a #5 world ranking, right behind our first opponent, Czech Republic, who just happen to be #4. And we play like we want nothing more than to be home playing XBOX. SOOO frustrating!

The thing that gets me about it is that, as a women's soccer fan and former player, I find myself getting really heated at the men's team when they show such poor effort on the international level. It’s really hard for me to jump on board with the men's fans who hide behind excuses like, "well the US is behind the rest of the world in men's soccer because it wasn't big here a long time ago like it was everywhere else in the world." How long do you need to catch up, guys? At what point will we be willing/able to admit that maybe our nation's soccer talent just lies in our women more so than our men.

My defensiveness surrounding women's soccer and our success at the international level kicks in almost instantly because I just hold the US Women's National Team at a higher level than I do our men. Naturally, I think, as I’m a woman. But it goes deeper than that. I’m tired of being compared to men's soccer - on every level. When our men do well, I’m tired of the arguments that men's soccer is more interesting than women and I'm tired of the chauvinistic musings of all those testosterone ridden men who staunchly maintain that the US Men could beat the US women in a match. Ya think?! Men and women are a different breed, and men's and women's soccer is a different game entirely. I think the men would win as well, but not without being exhausted and given a good run for their money - men are built bigger, faster, and stronger than women biologically. Men should beat women when pitted against each other in sport just based on physical attributes, but I’d be willing to bet the women had more finesse on the ball, team thinking, and strategic forethought than the men did. When our men do poorly, I’m tired of the women's team being brought into the argument out of no where saying that really, women's soccer only just started on the world stage in 1980, and that the US women have a huge advantage. What advantage? Its two separate games.

Someone very dear to me, who also happens to be a huge US men's soccer fan and also a player himself, just described today's loss perfectly: it is insulting to him as a fan of US men's soccer and a long time soccer player himself to see the US men come out so flat against the Czech Republic and play like they don't care. They should at least want to come out and shut everybody up and play like they have something to prove.

So, male soccer fans of the United States, don't worry about the women's team right now - they aren't the ones who just caught you flat and beat you 3-0 in your opening game of the World Cup. Why don't you pick something worth while to be concerned about - like the US men's team strategy or training procedures. In the meantime, maybe if you look through your chauvinism you could learn a thing or two from the women - like consistency.

1 step forward, 9,999,999 steps back...

I've brought the phrase "struggle spice" to a whole new level. On a quick side note: for those of you who've not yet integrated that into your vernacular - pick it up, its a keeper. I'm in this new job, and even my damn title is confusing - Process Lead - can you see anything of redeeming value in that? Didn't think so. I knew that with promotions came another level of responsibility that usually requires some adjustment time, but jeez... this is ridiculous.

I found out the day after I got back from Maui (I haven't mentioned that I was in Maui yet, but that story will be coming soon - is a good one) that the boss whose team I was working so hard to get back on was leaving our site to go take another job within our company. Its a great opportunity for him, but I was really bummed out because he's a great guy to work for, and has been immensely helpful in guiding my own career and even personal development. As if losing my boss wasn't a big enough chunk out of my learning curve, this job's training program is what we in mainstream Corporate America like to call, "sink or swim."

I am now five weeks into my new job, and am still struggling on a daily basis to figure out what the hell I should be doing with my time at work. There are some things I know to do: pull certain reports for certain people by certain days or they go apeshit, spend a couple hours each morning analyzing reports on both our previous day's and week to date numbers to find out where we're missing and then try to think of how to fill the gaps so that we're not missing goal... but really other than that I'm clueless - and the worst part is that there is no boss for me to go ask for help or get direction from. Instead, I try one of 700 million random ideas that come to my mind as to what I think might be the right answer, and keep repeating that trial and error process until I want to either jump off of a very tall building or go chew on glass. As a result, I spend lots of time every day trying to look busy and just getting stressed out because I know that there are things out there that I don't know I should be doing right now and in my head I just see this huge proverbial pile of "to do" items getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger...

It's quite an unnerving feeling to go from knowing everything about my job to knowing absolutely nothing about my job and not really even knowing where to start finding anything out. If every promotion I come across at this company is like this I'm screwed. I'll have an awesome title but constantly feel like I have the education level of a kindergartener because I can't figure anything out. I wonder if I should just color the reports before my meetings - at least then my kindergarten education would come in handy.

Don't worry, I'm alive

I know, you wouldn't think that's possible considering how long I've been gone... but then again you don't work for a computer company. I guess I should start by conceding to you all that I'm a slacker when it comes to updating my blog - I'm sorry to the masses who live and die by my overwhelmingly inciteful and inspiring postings. I hope none of you have taken up a new hobby of ripping out your hair since you have been neglected for over a month. Yes, you DID detect some sarcasm...

So let me explain - I'll give you the macro view first. So I've been busting my ass for the past two years for a company where being a complete over-achiever actually pays off - meritocracy is a wonderful system. However, for those who are afflicted with veritably inescapable perfectionism (yours truly) this creates a monstrous problem: I work all the time. 14 hours days are not unusual, in which no detail is left un-examined and un-tackled. Great news for the paycheck, but in the wake of the CHA-CHING! I hear after every pay period I'm left with this awful feeling of knowing I need to do more. So after a year of being a manager, I was getting antsy. I wanted the next position. Less hours (theoretically), better days off, more responsibilities, and most of all - something different. Adult Onset ADD was starting to kick in, and I needed to do something ELSE. So I started to prepare for interviews. Long story short, at the end of April I got word from the guy whose workgroup I was trying to get hired for that there were positions opening up soon and that interviews would probably be starting late next week. Awesome I have over a week to prepare!

And then the whirlwind started. On my day off I got a call from aforementioned guy, telling me that I had four interviews tomorrow. Um, excuse me? Yeah, as in 12 hours from now. I guess I should have been more grateful for the heads up, but all I could think about was the fact that I had done absolutely nothing to prepare. So I spent pretty much all night preparing for said FOUR interviews. Miraculously, they turned out fine, and I ended up getting the job! But that's not why I've been incommunicado for the past month.

I left the next day to go to Colorado to visit my big sister and her new baby, then came back to work for four days, and then left for Maui for eight days (won a trip through work - like I said, meritocracy is amazing). Got back from Maui on 5/21, and for the past three weeks have frantically been trying to figure out what the hell i'm supposed to be doing in this new position. So there are several things in which I feel that you should feel obliged to join in my merriment, and not upset that I've neglected my blog:
1. My big sister had a baby!! (and I got a vacation to go to CO to visit)
2. I got a promotion and am no longer a slave to insanely weird office hours
3. I got another vacation to Maui for free through work

While glorious, all of that stress, unbelievable ambiguity, and ever-changing work environment probably bumped my "acutal age" up 20 years - but don't worry, I'm alive... and have a really kick-ass tan.

Schpeech Impedimentsch

I am one hundred percent convinced that some of the best times I remember I'm going to hell for taking such joy in. Seriously. There's no way that God is too busy doing something else to notice, and I just have these awful mental pictures of a Father Time look-a-like with a halo 'tsk'ing' and scribbling furiously in an enormous book while Saint Peter sits in dimly lit corner, perched on his workbench, dubiously fixing the most impenetrable looking padlock you've ever seen. Regardless of the mental images though, they remain my fondest memories and inspire endless giggling every time it comes to mind. Besides, I'd rather keep telling myself that we all do things that probably make God wonder if he set his goals to high for humanity.

To anyone who has ever been on a team of some sort, you'll know what I mean when I say there's just a random bond that a team setting creates with people who would otherwise probably have nothing in common or not really spend the time to get to know each other. This is how my club soccer team was in high school. The goofy shit that we cracked up about amazes me, but also feels so natural to look back on and chuckle. We were an enormous, dysfunctional family. A few of us in particular hung out together all the time - literally. We did everything together, and looked for fun everywhere. In one tourney in particular, we were playing our arch rivals. We hated this team and it was always a great match. We were all in defensive positions for the team, so our bond transferred onto the field quite well, and also made the team fun. In this particular instance, the game was tense. We weren't playing poorly, but we weren't winning either, and everybody on our team could feel that pressure. There wasn't any laughing going on that game, and we were all perfectly in tune with what needed to be done on the field and we were just trying to execute on it.

At one point, their team got possession and was coming down the right side of the field on an attack. One of their girls got through several of our teammates and was gunning towards our goal looking to send the ball to the opposite side of the field so they could try to score. All three of us looked at each other with a look of understood terror as we watched this scenario unfold upfield, and immediately went about our business. Right as we were falling into place and getting ready to stop this one of their players flew down the opposite side of the field screaming "cross it! CROSS IT!!" This doesn't seem like a big deal, but she had a speed impediment. She had the speech impediment that made "s" sounds come out like they were being pushed through tin foil. So the phrase swimming pool would be hell for this girl, and would later become a phrase that my horrible friends and I would repeat over and over through gasping laughter. Schwimming Pool. Another fun one was Indianapolisch Coltsch. Fun times... I'm sorry, God.

Unsought Meaning

Sometimes I wonder why the things that seem to give me the most meaning in life come from exteral sources. Regardless of how perfect the revelation is I usually end up asking myself, "shouldn't such inspiration come from within?" Its like I'm biting off of somebody else's truths. I find inspiration and meaning in the smallest things, and I wonder why these instances of clarity can't come to me more often. I heard this tonight, and loved it. Bitten or not, I think its beautiful.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

I've also remembered this since I was forced to memorize it in 9th grade Honors English, oblivious to what this could possibly mean at the time, but somehow never being able to get it out of my head:

INVICTUS
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

Funny how much meaning we can find in some things...

Professional Kindergarten

I always told my family and friends growing up that I could never teach gradeschool, and that, in fact, I could never teach anything less than college or graduate classes because I would end up killing either my students or myself. That would inevitably draw some disapproving looks, but at least I was confident in the fact that I knew myself and could be honest about my shortcomings as a self-professed perfectionist loner. With all of my horrible people skills in mind, I decided to enter into Business school in college and study something that would immerse me in Excel spreadsheets, Outlook, and a played down version of 'TPS reports' that wouldn't make me want to chew on glass. I secretly prided myself on the fact that I was going to do great things within my hugely ambiguous, amateur notion of what "business" was, and felt an almost maternal pity for those who were sentencing themselves to a life of servitude as educators, hospitality agents, doctors, etc - they were always going to be so... needed.

I graduated college with not one, but TWO degrees, and promptly went to work for a computer company whose most successful spokesperson has recently gone down in history as the guy whose stoner antics propelled an entire market to spend billions by just saying, "duuude!" I was big time. I worked hard, got promoted, and was all of a sudden a people manager a month after my 24th birthday. I used to scoff and roll my eyes at those infomercials that obnoxiously boast "so easy even a child could operate it!", wondering how those people became so obtuse as to associate their product with the intellect of a five-year-old. Now, after over 18 months of people management experience in one of the most high-stress environments imaginable, I realize that the joke's on me. I may not be in a classroom, but I have a whole team of five-year-olds. The only problem is that they range from ages 20 to 43, and until now I never thought to have smelly-good markers or felt boards with fun cut-out shapes to keep them interested and productive at work.

So now I am totally convinced there is some sort of hidden brilliant management tip I can find in those infomercials. How is it possible that one can make something so simple to understand that a child could completely understand and operate?! At least if they didn't understand after the 19th explanation I could tell myself, "they're kindergarteners, and they're five." The problem I find myself currently in is that my Kindergarteners are 30, some with real kindergarteners of their own - and I just really don't think they're intellect levels should rival one another. Alas, the similarities I'm seeing in this work and my sister's several years of teaching kindergarten are astonishing. Here are some fun examples:

• They ask every 15 minutes if its time to go home yet
• They'll delete emails before even reading them and then get mad at me when they don't know what I'm talking about in meetings
• Every time they don't want to do something they miraculously have to pee
• They only have to ask me something when I'm on the phone
• They have coloring books to keep them entertained while on the phones and have actually fought about who stole the blue crayon

Occasionally, I look around and wonder how I could have been so arrogant as to think that my corporate America life would be so much different than this. At least I know I could always make a career move into teaching if this whole corporate America people-management thing doesn't work out for me. I mean hell, I'll already have all the smelly-good markers and coloring books.

Satan has a new ice pick

I have a blog. That sentance in and of itself is enough for me to know that modern advertising is horrifyingly successful. Is my fortress of nonchalance and strategic exile from all that is Emo all for naught? Have I betrayed my efforts to remain so cooly uninterested in everything hip for this?

See, it's in this sort of instance that one would hope for a moment of blinding clarity so as to brilliantly articulate through writing what the answer to that not-so-rhetorical question could possibly be... so of course I have to admit that the only thing coming to mind for me is a befuddled, "uh-uh." I imagine you'll learn that about me as the time and pointless writings continue - blinding clarity and I aren't the best of acquaintences.

I should have known a blog was next in line for me - just like so many others my age who were uncharicteristically drawn to the lure of the nameless internet. I never thought I would be so transparent to the marketing powers that be as to join in the trendy rush. We should have known, gang - hell froze over with the iPOD, we've just gotten used to the temperature.