Will Work For Vacation

Post Office Douchebag

2009-06-29T13:20:00.003-05:00

I just ran errands at lunch and had a crazy exchange that cannot go un-shared: in the post office, I walk up to one of those tables they have to sort through mail and there's a dude standing there with papers strewn everywhere taking up 3/4's of the table and a neatly stacked pile of mail at the other end. I don't want to be rude, so I say...

Emily: "excuse me, Sir, is this [pointing to neat stack of mail] yours?"
PO D-bag: [glares] "... no"
Emily: [confused] "do you know where this person is?"
PO D-bag: "no"

So I move the pile over to the edge to make myself a one-foot by one-foot workspace at the table to fill out my returns form... In the meantime, Tim gets back from checking his post office box and I move my purse to share my tiny table space with him. At least 5 minutes passes with Tim and I talking while I fill out this Returns form and all of the sudden D-bag starts talking...

P.O. D-bag: [looking down at his mail pile and mumbling] "it would be really rude of you to just walk up and shove my mail aside if that WERE my mail. I would be really upset if you had done that – it’s very rude."

Now, Tim and I both think this guy just has a really dry sense of humor and is kidding. I look up at Tim and he's frozen, mouth gaping, smiling at PO D-bag and silently giggling. I look at PO D-bag and he's still looking down at his pile of mail, but not smiling and not making eye contact. So I'm thoroughly confused and all I can muster is, "p-pardon?"

PO D-bag: [angrily now] "I SAID - I would be really upset if that was my mail and you just walked up and shoved it aside. Its incredibly rude to just shove that aside..."
(silent, gaping mouths from both Tim and I) and he continues...
PO D-bag: "and no I don't work for Dell but Michael is a client of mine..." [emphasis on 'Michael' and 'client']
[about 5 more solid seconds of silence from Tim and I]
And then Tim just goes, "... ok"
And then PO D-bag theatrically scoops up his mail and ha-rumph's away...

Tim and I stared after him for another good 5 seconds and then just burst out laughing. After thinking about it, we were a little miffed at ourselves that we didn't realize he was serious right away because there were a slew of fantastic responses we both would've had if we'd known from the beginning that he was crazy. Such as:

PO D-bag: "and no I don't work for Dell but Michael is a client of mine..."
Tim: "... well does he know you're insane?!"
or
PO D-bag: "and no I don't work for Dell but Michael is a client of mine..."
Emily: "oh, that's great! We need a pool boy, too - can we have your card?"

Unfortunately, we were too stunned to produce any worthwhile sound-bytes from this extremely random and confusing exchange, but in some ways I think our actual situation and responses were even better. I’m sure Tim’s “…ok” pissed him off even more. Man, if only life had a rewind button sometimes...

I Apologize For That Right There, Lord

2009-05-28T16:06:00.000-05:00

There are two specific things that make me giggle that definitely should not make me giggle. Things that, while I’m giggling, I’m secretly trying to figure out how I can dodge the lightning bolts that God is surely charging up to send hurtling to earth to smite me.

For example, try adding the word “the” in front of almost every horrible disease or ailment out there. Get really creative here – I’m not talking about things that already contain “the” in the title, like “the flu.” Think big here. Think ailments that normally make you uncomfortable talking about… try this one on for size: the aids. Or even better: the HIV (pronounced phonetically and not alphabetically). The gout. The arthritis…. There are so many, and they are even funnier when you add them into a sentence – try it. You’ll like it, I promise.

The other thing is swearing. I’m actually hesitant to admit this, and I do feel it’s necessary to admit that I know I should be ashamed of my sailor-esque mouth, but, honestly, I have so completely integrated cursing into my every day vernacular and its damn near impossible to make a point or tell a joke without it. (See, I was being clever right there with that “damn”). Unless it is being hurled at me in anger or hatred, a well placed curse word always makes me giggle. For hours of pure entertainment, though, combining my two awful habits is perhaps the best option. All anybody has to do to totally incapacitate me with laughter is utter “son of the bitch” in a slightly Borat-ish accent and tone.

Try using these fun new verbal judo tools in your everyday conversation to liven up the mood. Just make sure you dodge the lightning bolts.

Jim The Passport Nazi

2009-05-20T20:14:00.000-05:00

** Disclaimer: I apologize in advance to any and all Postal workers who happen to read this entry – not all of you are Nazi’s.

Until this year, I was not privy to the intricacies of the whole passport procurement process. I got my passport at 17 years old, during the second semester of my Junior year of high school, for a trip to Italy that I never got to go on because I needed to stay in the US and go to some soccer camps in the hope of finding one that would think my soccer skills good enough to let me go to their school for free. Which is to say, my mom got me my passport – I just grudgingly accompanied her to the photo mart to get my mug shots, so I was not fully aware of what a treasure trove of story value exists with the entire passport obtaining process… until now.

I won a trip for work, and Tim needs a passport to be able to go with me. The funniest part is that the trip is just to Canada, which of course a year ago (or so) we wouldn’t have even needed said passport, so he’s a little bitter to begin with. Otherwise, though, we are both very excited for a free and much needed vacation. Also, we’re excited because the post office we visit on a regular basis to get our mail contains a passport office run by a middle aged man named Jim who is, without question, smarter than everybody.

Jim works hard, keeping the long hours of 11:30am to 4:30pm Monday through Thursday, and seems to be constantly upset that there are always so many people crammed into line waiting to speak to him. Tim and I have heard many partial conversations between Jim and his poor subjects, and they are always very one-sided and include lots of very audible, annoyed-sounding sighs. Jim’s the kind of postal worker who believes that he has been tasked with absolutely crucial work, and he runs his passport office tighter than the military regiment he remembers from Nam. You must walk up and stop between 2 and 4 inches from the desk, present your documents facing Jim, and be able to rattle off answers to his 37 questions without hesitating for even a second or breaking eye contact with his intuitive lie detector-eyes.

When all was said and done, it was relatively easy for us to deal with Jim, but only because we’d had so much practice listening to his antics of torturing other would-be travelers. I think Jim and the Soup Nazi need to find each other – they are kindred souls and would be besties for sure.

Spy Movies Could Save Your Life

2008-08-26T08:59:00.000-05:00

If you are like me, you gain marginal enjoyment from spy movies. They aren’t the most exciting thing in the theater at the time, but you’re still willing to shell out the cash to actually go see it in the theater as long as you’re going with a group of friends who really want to see it. Plus sides to the outing top out at Brad Pitt (Spy Games, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) or Matt Damon (the Bourne series, of course) being more than pretty bodies running around with pretty faces while they dazzle you with important sounding words that leave you confused as to whether it’s a place, obscure terrorist organization, or some dude’s last name. Of course, with the thrilling plots and action sequences there are always the low moments in spy movie history (Steven Segal’s entire career, anything that Leslie Neilson spoofed). But what’s so great about spy movies is that even the terrible ones have some educational value.

I have only just recently come to this realization, and only because I have spent an extensive amount of time traveling outside of the US. I am ecstatic because I have always gained marginal enjoyment from them anyway, and now that I know how much of a treasure trove of useful information they are I will attend with much more vigor. Here are a few tidbits of gold for all you American tourists out there, all learned from spy movies.

1. Blend in. Assimilate, as it were. Or try really, really hard to. If you’re in a country where you can’t (you’re a 5’9” blonde with blue eyes in Thailand, for example) pick a nationality you could look like and go with that one – ie: stick a Canadian or Swedish flag on the backpack you take everywhere with you, and do your best to fake the Canadian/Swedish-English accent to the taxi driver. If you’re really paranoid, you could even go so far as to buy the Lonely Planet guide to fill-in-the-blank in said language and stick it conspicuously in the back mesh pocket.

2. When exchanging money, or paying for something at a window, like a subway ticket, don’t drop your change everywhere as you try to stuff it hurriedly into your wallet because you are embarrassed that you were the only one in line who didn’t know the exact change needed to pay. The sound of heavy coins bouncing every which way will only make you stick out more.

3. Carry an umbrella everywhere. Even if it’s 104 outside and there isn’t a cloud in sight. Everyone else in the world does it, so if you do it too it won’t be as easy to identify you as an American.

4. If you wake up from your nap in the sun on a remote, tropical island and find that the KGB has freaking relocated their operation to Ko Samet and decided to take every umbrella and seat around you for a 20 yard radius, and as you blink and stare groggily around one of them thrusts a cigarette in your face (not unlike a gesture of offering), what do you do?? That’s right, you take it. You take it, and you smoke it, and you smoke it gladly and gratefully… And then you go back to your room and hack up your lung.

Okay, so maybe these weren’t exactly like spy movies, but the part about blending is. Bottom line here: either learn some Svenska phrases or pick up social smoking so you don’t look like a complete douche-bag when the “cross cultural bonding” opportunity presents itself. There is nothing like turning purple and doing that little hack/wheeze/cough that could make you look like any less badass. Bourne never hacked. Bourne had ten different passports and perfect dialects to go with them all. What do I have? Well, I did hang out with the KGB on vacation.

Cliches, Pinoy Style

2008-08-13T21:24:00.000-05:00

Just some little tidbits of brilliance from my Pinoy friends.

- What is it to me to you?
- When it rains its four
- Long leggedness legs (Miss Philippines at Miss Universe pageant, in response to prompter’s question, “what do you think is your attribute?”)
- We’ll burn that bridge when we cross it
- Looks can be deserving
- You can’t judge a book by each other
- Alma mother
- What’s up for that?
- I’m tell you no, you do, now look at!
- You want something drinks? Or Waiter – can you bring us something drinks?
- Come, let’s join us!
- Well, well, well, look do we have here?
- Because you can never can tell
- So far so good so far!
- That’s what I’m talking about it
- True good to be true
- Once in a new moon
- No holes barred
- Keep your mouth shocked
- Please don’t make fond of me
- The more you hate the more you laugh
- At’s if
- It’s just the tip of the icing
- Here’s more to come
- Connect me if I’m wrong
- I hope you don’t mine
- I want to portrait that role
- The nerd (instead of, ‘the nerve’)
- Give me alone
- I won’t stoop down to my level
- You are so questionable
- I don’t eat meat. I am not a carnival
- That is why I am successful, I don’t middle in other people’s lives
- You can fool me once, twice, even thrice but you can never fool me four
- Keyrec! (correct!)
- Are we fit? (will we all fit? – as in, getting around a dinner table or into an elevator)
- Starsbuck (yes, the coffee place)

Dedicated to Carol and Ms. J, who never judge a book with each other and don't mine the long leggedness legs American joining their daily Starsbuck runs to get something drinks. ;)

If You Can Play Mario Kart, You Can Drive In Manila

2008-08-13T20:47:00.000-05:00

In fact, that might actually be the “simulator” they use when assessing driving skills and abilities – think naval aviators in zero gravity, G-force, virtual reality simulator machines, Filipino style. Which, of course, translates perfectly into being chased by Donkey Kong driving a rickshaw, honking madly while blindly changing lanes and throwing apples and mushrooms at whatever/whoever is in the way… It’s scary, to say the least.

The first thing I noticed was that the horn is more of a rite of passage on Philippine roads than it is in New York City. It often takes the place of blinkers, actually. Blinkers are way too proactive. No, it’s much easier for the 1982 Kia to just start merging in front of a city bus and then start honking madly as if to say, “you will let me iiiiiiinnnnn!”

It wasn’t long after the horns that I realized the ominous lack of traffic lights. This epiphany was brought on by the sheer terror that seized my mind and body when the hotel taxi driver picked me up from the airport on my first trip to Manila. Approximately 300 yards out of the airport gates he turned left into oncoming traffic without any hesitation or apparent fear whatsoever. I reached for the nonexistent Oh-Shit! handles thinking my death was imminent, and then watched in fascination as cars, busses, and Jeepneys just started slowing down as he honked his way across four lanes.

Another noteworthy observation is that the roads and “highways” in the Philippines are not at all unlike the windy, random, and hazardous roads of Mario Kart. For a third world country, Manila is a pretty prosperous and fast-growing city. As a result, buildings popped up everywhere with no plan or structure to the layout of the city, and as such there are tiny little byways that loop around in every which direction and somehow end up merging out into a major road. I’m telling you, this city is next to impossible to navigate as a foreigner. The taxi drivers we get around the city constantly amaze me. The other day I took one to the mall to go souvenir shopping and the guy squeezed between two cement road blocks to go on a basketball court-sized, completely open and unlined section under a highway ramp. Once we got to the other side I realized there was a tiny road leading out through two more giant cement road blocks that was basically an on ramp to another, bigger road. WTF. This was an actual, designated road! He didn’t just get creative and hope some barriers to get the Americans to their destination. Crazy.

My boss and I have decided that in an effort to maintain our sanity while on the roads of Manila, time in the car should either be spent talking on the cell phone or engaged in deeply heated debates so as to take our attention away from the dozens of death-defying maneuvers our drivers are pulling out of their asses. So far it has worked – all of the events have turned into hilarious story material rather than trips to hospitals. Most of the taxi drivers here just keep a rosary hanging from their rear view mirror, and rub it frantically every time they fly around a blind corner or thrust themselves within a centimeter of an on-coming bus. I thought they should be throwing the oil slicked rags or pineapple bombs out their windows, but then again, I was never very good at Mario Kart.

An Open Letter to Bank of America

2008-04-08T14:50:00.000-05:00

Dear Bank of America,

Where did we go wrong? When we met, so many years ago, we were a perfect match! I had just come off a bad relationship with Wells Fargo, and you were there. I was a high school kid, too broke to pay for a checking account and you, what did you do for me? You said ‘have your checking for free!’ So we started going together, and things were great. I was growing with you, becoming a better, more responsible person every day we spent together. You had a $5,000 spending limit, but I, in an extraordinary display of self-discipline, swore I'd only use two-thirds of it. And I never used more. I did that because I respected you. I respected the exclusivity of our relationship.

But I just can’t figure you out anymore. You have changed from the low maintenance, agreeable BofA I once knew into the multi-national, billion dollar corporation equivalent of an Upper East Side non-working wife – you are sucking me dry, BofA.

But I'm frustrated, BofA. I'm upset and I'm confused and I'm frustrated. Here we are, getting along just swimmingly, and then yesterday get an email from you saying you've increased my credit limit to $13,000.

Well, you know what? That's bullshit BofA. Are you trying to bankrupt me? What in our history together makes you think I can pay off $13,000 in purchases? You don’t know me at all if you think I need a credit line equivalent to that of a small country. Am I not good to you, BofA? Don't I pay your bill on time every month? Yes, yes I most certainly do. What more do you want from me? I give all I can to you, BofA – I just don’t have any more to give. We've known each other a long time, and I thought we trusted each other. I trusted you. You know me, BofA, but apparently you'd rather base your opinion of me on what your gossipy, soulless friends the credit bureaus have to say.

And what gets me even more is the e-mail you sent me today, not even 24 hours after I got your other message. It says you want to make sure I'm protected from identity theft. Oh, really? One minute you blindside me and throw our relationship in my face, and the next you want to protect me like my mother or something?! You should be thinking about protecting me from bankruptcy, BofA.

God, BofA. I just. Don't. Get you.

So what do we do now? Obviously, this changes things. I won't be able to use you now and not feel like a stupid, irresponsible child. From now on, every time you come out of my wallet, I'll hurt a little. Your deep-blue palate and zippy logo will no longer make me proud; it will make me feel small and useless.

But I want to stay with you, BofA. I guess it might be a matter of convenience, which I know isn't necessarily healthy, but somehow I feel like we might be able to salvage things. Maybe it’s the airline miles you give me for every dollar I spend. Things may have changed, but you do still have $8,000 on you since I called your ass and knocked that shit back down. And $8000 is better than nothing. Let's take some time to give each other room to breathe, and see where we are at the end of the next billing cycle.

Warm Regards,
ESK

Cafeteria Ladies

2008-02-21T10:51:00.000-06:00

I can count the number of people who are allowed to call me “babe” or “sweetie” on one hand.

- Betty (my mom) – she spent like 30 years teaching preschool and just has the disposition. And she’s my mom. Mom’s pretty much get a free pass.
- My boyfriend – limited to “baby,” and only allowed because it is only used in private moments and my actual name is still used in 99% of all conversation.
- Pat and/or John – pseudo-grandparents who have known me since I was born, and raised 5 kids of their own before me
- Jesus – this one should be obvious

There is a certain type of person who never uses first names. I haven’t figured out what the reasoning behind it is, but they are usually older, and have enough of a matronly air about them that most everybody just lets it pass and considers it endearing. The cafeteria ladies at work are like this, but they are extra intriguing because they aren’t old, not even a little. I’d be shocked if they were over 30. But no matter who walks through their checkout counter there is never a sir, ma’am, or miss uttered. The CEO of the company, a man worth like $80 billion, could walk through and they’d still call him hon.

Every time I go get something from downstairs, they remind me of the Dane Cook bit where he’s talking about the time he cut somebody in line and got into a verbal sparring match with a horrendous douchebag. It’s the man-fight progression of fake sarcastic jeering until the heavy name calling cuts in: hey Pal…. I don’t think so, Buddy…. Not on your life, Chief…. Bring it Gaylord! For lots of women, the Sweetie --> Babe --> Hon progression is the same. Each time one of these women calls me sweetie I want to punch something. I have no idea why, but it’s the same ire that was invoked in me whenever, during warm-up for soccer games in high school or college, whenever a teammate would say, “let’s go ladies!” I would cringe. Maybe I have a problem with people who use such familiar terms of endearment on perfect strangers because I feel so misunderstood most of the time. Maybe it bugs me because I know people who call everybody babe or hon and they are incredibly shallow, narcissistic, and fake in nearly every way imaginable. In any case, it remains hilarious to see a 50-something year old man be called sweetie by a 25-year-old cashier when purchasing his proudly-brewed Starbucks – the universe seems to have reversed.

Fake Ice!

2008-01-28T23:20:00.000-06:00

My life as I know it changed forever in a ground-breaking way over this past Thanksgiving weekend. During the last eight years I’ve spent in Texas, I’ve played this little game with myself to constantly be on the lookout for the most Texan or country thing I have ever seen. I’ve been unable to top two things since 2004: 1) the phrase, “I’ll tell yew whut…” and 2) chicken fried steak. These and many more of my outsider, “yankee” preconceptions were shattered in four small days.

It all started with the simple fact that our weekend of tryptophan induced Thanks was to be held in Mertens, Texas. You don’t know where that is? Don’t worry, neither does the rest of Texas. Mertens is a small dwelling (not really sure it’s actually large enough to be called a town) in central Texas that exists because farmers still exist. I can’t be quoted on this, but I would bet my right arm that there are more cattle in Mertens than people, hell, probably more tractors too. We were going there because that’s where Tim’s mother and her husband (yes, a farmer) live.

I digress – there is far too much to this weekend to capture succinctly if I get off track – so on Wednesday evening Tim and I pick up his girls and continue our drive out to Gammy and Gampie’s farm. The following day is spent jumping over, through, and on haystacks to keep ourselves entertained, piling in the four-wheelers and racing the pack of dogs for two miles to the creek bed to go exploring, and of course stuffing ourselves silly and watching football.

On Black Friday, our solution to avoiding the shopping crowds and spending craze was to go out to a town just north and visit the ice skating rink Tim’s mom had seen advertised in the paper. Should be fun! Hell, it was already in the high 30s and felt like the north pole, we might as well go ice skating. It was a 40 minute drive to the town, and of course one of the girls wanted to go and the other one didn’t. We overruled Negative Nancy, however, and were soon piled in the car to go. It was a cheerful drive – everybody cheered up and was happy to get out of the house and go skate. We had a little trouble finding the place, but soon turned a corner and saw a picket fence surrounding blinding white, and a lone skater tottering around out there. The girls instantly started chattering and wanted to get going. Tim and I exchanged knowing glances that were later explained to mean, respectively: “this shit is tiny - thank God, now I don’t have get out there and risk busting my ass,” and “an outdoor rink? In Texas? I know its cold but still just 40 degrees… how the hell do they keep that thing frozen?? Is it cooled from underground? A town like this can’t afford that kind of technology… what the hell.”

Tim had to chat with Negative Nancy back at the car, so I suggested to her sister that we go ask how much it costs and start trying on skates until they were ready to join. We get all our info and walk to the fence to watch the skaters… and it hits us at the same time: its fake fucking ice. I’m immediately horrified and can only think of the 10 year old beside me and how crushed she is going to be and what do I say to her? But I didn’t get anything out because as soon as I look down, her face is already turned up towards mine and she hisses out, “oh my god, it’s not even real ice!!” I could do nothing but try with all my energy to hold in a laugh. That didn’t work. We broke out in a dead sprint to Tim at the same exact time, me reaching him first only because of my longer legs. It took a solid minute for the look of comprehension to dawn on his face, even with both of us repeating our shocking finding in pause-less unison for 60 seconds. The next five minutes were spent catching our breath and quieting our laughter.

Don’t think that just because the ice was fake that the girls didn’t want to skate. Oh no. We paid their six dollars each and watched them march around that giant cutting board for nearly thirty minutes. The rink attendants watched people struggle and kept saying, “just rub your skates back and forth real quick, the warmer the blades are the faster you’ll glide!” No fucking shit – hot metal cuts through two inch thick plastic faster than cold metal? And notice they didn’t say “skate.” That entire establishment was a giant bumblefuck. When the younger one had to go to the bathroom, they told her that if she took off her skates she was done for the day, but then said she couldn’t leave the grounds to go to the bathroom, which was an outhouse in a dark alley across the street. I have a picture of Tim carrying his 8-year old in full onesie ski suit and ice skates across the street so he could set her in the porta-potty to pee. The trip was topped off when “Santa” came rolling down main street. I use quotation marks here because he looked more like a child molester in his faded red suit and jankety go-cart with radio-flyer duct taped to the back with unkempt children strewn about it, sort of waving and haphazardly tossing out candy. After all the shenanigans, we decided to call it a day, but not before gathering in front of the fake ice rink and posing for a picture, replacing the traditional “cheese!” with a hearty, “fake ice!” You can even see families marching in ice skates across the background. I have that photo framed.

Hydro Death Trap

2007-09-14T23:00:00.000-05:00

I will start by saying that I should have written this story a long time ago. My disclaimer, however, is this: the events of this day were so outlandishly bizarre to me that I had no idea how to effectively capture them on paper. I will follow by apologizing for the length of this entry. I tried to be succinct but honestly felt each of the ensuing details was necessary – I hope you can stick around, have I not been worth it?! (rhetorical question, folks, don’t answer that).

It all happened a few weeks ago. I was hanging out with Tim when we thought it would be fun to take his kids either out to the lake or to the pool for the day. We left the decision up to them (without a boat, lakes are probably more fun for adults anyway: barbeque, beer, floaties, cliff jumping… typically non 8- and 10-year old fare). As we expected, the kids chose the pool. West Pool. Specifically, West Playdium Pool… That right there should give you a hint about the kind of people who own and operate said pool, and perhaps even provide a glimpse of their IQ levels. I should have realized then what a nightmarishly horrible situation anybody stupid enough to enter the grounds was walking into.

I need to pause here and say: for any of you who are reading this now and have been to the West Playdium Pool, I will just say: congratulations, the odds of you making it out alive were absolutely against you. They should develop a Purple Heart for bravery and courage just for making it out without Tetanus and all of your limbs intact.

So as soon as we get to the pool, the girls are excited and frantically asking me questions about have I ever been here before? Am I going to get in the pool and play with them? Because ohmygosh its sooo fun here! My answers were “no” and “sure,” respectively, followed by my internal monologue thoughts of yeah sure it’s fun here. Big ass pool in the middle of nowhere, probably a lawn chair on the side and not a slide in sight for kids. Yeah, fun. Holy fuck, if I’d have known I was walking into a situation with limitless story value I would have had a pen and paper out ready to record every hilarious word and observation Tim and I made that day.

The journey began with a ditsy attendant who was so out there I was sure he was high, or drunk, or maybe had been hit in the head really hard very recently, or all of the above. Said attendant (who Tim and I would later name “Claude” – think Hank Azaria from ‘Along Came Polly’) was manning the little spinny Disneyland-esque waist gate leading to the pool. When we didn’t have quite enough cash to get in, Tim produced his debit card. I could go into a lot of detail as to how much of an ordeal the credit card machine was for Claude to handle, but I will just nutshell it by saying, Claude was seriously considering free admittance for all four of us because of the challenge the machine posed. That should have been our first clue… So we walk in the pool grounds and I can immediately see why the girls were so excited to come here. In front of me was an enormous pool, with all manner of play-scapes and fun obstacles.

Everybody heads off to their respective bathrooms to change, and then we all sunscreen up and get in the pool. Tori and Courtney go off to play, so Tim and I are floating and talking, and I’ve hoisted myself up onto this massive pier-looking structure in the middle of the pool (that is covered with astro-turf and cause for many a rug burn). I’m just lying there watching the widespread child revelry all around me, soaking it in, when I just have to say something. I turn to Tim and say, you know, this place is full of hazards! Tim’s eyes instantly bulged and all he could respond with was, I know! I’ve been trying to tell people that for such a long time but everybody just looks at me like I’m crazy! The next couple hours were spent detailing each of the ways one could kill themselves by going to the West Playdium Pool. Here are the highlights:

Exhibit A: The Zip Line of Death. You know at Wild Rivers/Schlitterbahn/Raging Waters, etc how they have those water bridge things where there’s basically a rope slung across the pool with little handles spaced every so often, strategically placed over floating, squishy lily-pad like steps that are usually somehow tied to the bottom of the pool so that they float around and move juuuuust enough to make the lily-pad bridge hard to climb across but super fun? Okay, the Playdium has that too. Except the fun rope is a FUCKING ZIP LINE from no less than thirty feet in the air on one side of the pool that comes to a dead stop thirty yards across the pool about six inches from the concrete lip of the pool in about four feet of water. Oh, and the lily pad steps? The Playdium has those, too, except they aren’t actually part of the zip line of terror, they are just massive, four-foot-across, unmoving, concrete oases strategically placed directly under the zip-line for tanning or lounging, or for little children to pull their drowning selves out of the abyss if they happen to go too deep since there is one person to oversee the entire Playdium experience… but that’s another part of the story, I’ll get there.

Exhibit B: The Playground Slide. The pool also had a water slide. This, however, was not your typical water slide. This “water slide” looked like they’d hired the local hoodlums to go down to the middle school and jack the slide right out of the sand and haul it down to the pool. It was the jankety-ass metal slide that anybody who was between the ages of four and 15 anywhere during the 80’s remembers from the local public playgrounds because it was the same one you would go to steal cups from McDonalds to use to rub down the slide surface to make it more slippery so that you could actually slide down it rather than have your skin ripped and/or melted off from the scorching, not slick metal surface. So that slide was cemented to the edge of the pool with a fucking garden hose snaked up through the steps and plopped over the top so that water was streaming down, thus creating the “water slide.” Oh, I forgot to mention that there were several areas on the edge of the slide that were jagged and possibly rusting from what looks like being hammered back into place.

It was here that mine and Tim’s conversation was broken by a male voice yelling, hey! You have to let go at the bottom of the zip line! after a boy had come careening down the zip line and ran full into the concrete lip at the other end of the pool. The voice came from Claude, who Tim and I noticed was now sitting at the edge of the pool at the deep end now holding a lifeguarding tube, remotely looking like he was trying to lifeguard.

Exhibit C: Diving Boards. If you picture the deep end of the pool as a big L, the low dive was on the small part of the L and the high dive was on the long part of the L. Except, they were both the same distance away from the 90 degree corner. Meaning, as kids were diving off they were literally diving into the same exact place, completely willy-nilly, no supervision or roped off area to aim for. God forbid limbs intertwine and cause mid-air knock-outs.

Exhibit D: The Basketball Hoop. Just in case zip lines and high dives aren’t for you, the shallow end of the pool had a basketball hoop. Well, I think it used to be a basketball hoop. There was no hoop. Or backboard, for that matter. Really, it was actually just a big metal poll that looked like Medusa. Mangled metal supports (at least four of them) were jutting out at grotesque angles, a mere three to four feet above the surface of the water. The hoop had literally been dunked on so hard that it was ripped from its hangings and was left standing in the middle of the pool, a proverbial Pez dispenser of tetanus.

It was at this point that Tim and I noticed Claude was not manning the deep end with his lifeguard tube anymore. He had moved behind the shallow end of the pool to the snack shack area. More specifically, to the mini pool table that was right next to the snack shack area. It was then that our discussion turned to and focused on Jack-Of-All-Trades Claude. So far, Claude was the money taker, pool sweeper, life guard, zip line bucketer **, and hamburger flipper. And now he’s all of a sudden found time to become Claude, patron of the Playdium who just happens to be playing a casual game of mini pool?? Why the fuck is he the only person working in this watery death trap?

** Yes, at the top of the rickety zip line rope was a wooden structure – half jungle gym, half tree house complete with wooden ladder – from which departing zippers would have to manually draw the zip line back and coil the rope into an empty ten-gallon lard bucket before they can zip. I will also mention that the part of the tree house from which kiddie zippers depart is a completely open faced wall – there are no gates or barriers to keep kids from tumbling over the side and plummeting 20+ feet to the concrete below.

Exhibit E: The Blue Iguana Lounge. Finally, the clincher. I am convinced that the above exhibits should be proof enough the Playdium’s “death trap” status; however, for those of you that need one final piece of evidence to convince, here it is. Next to aforementioned snack shack and miniature pool table was the Blue Iguana Lounge. The Blue Iguana Lounge was basically some bar stools pulled up to a cut out window in a falling down wooden shack that looked like it was super-glued onto the side of the snack shack area. It was a full service bar. Remember, this pool is in the middle of nowhereville, Texas in a tiny-ass town so by full service I mean it has a wide variety of beer: Bud, Bud Light and Lonestar and all manner of cocktails: the Jimbo-rita and the Pink Elephant (Jimbo-rita with strawberry syrup). And if those selections weren’t enough for your sophisticated palate, have no fear, yes the Blue Iguana Lounge does serve Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill by the bottle.

So let’s recap this entire scenario very quickly.

Two diving boards send children plummeting at one another; there is a constant stream of children careening down a 30-foot zip line while dodging unmoving, concrete lily-pads – that is, if they haven’t fallen out of the doorless treehouse; garden hose metal water slide; tetanus-ridden mangled medusa hoop; Claude the solo super employee to who’s repertoire we have now added, “bartender.” As if the above list wasn’t filled with enough causes of death. People, the fucking pool also serves copious amounts of liquor.

I seriously couldn’t make this up. It is honestly a death trap. Coming from my former lifeguard self, I’m shocked there have been no deaths at this place, and I’m not going to lie – I am filled with the same morbid curiosity one has when driving past a massive highway wreck. I have to go back to that place, sans Tori and Courtney, for the sole purpose of watching the tangled web of calamitous potential. From afar, of course. No way in hell am I getting near that damned zip line.

Reflections

2007-09-01T15:15:00.000-05:00

Do you ever wish you could turn off your heart? I do. Sometimes I think life would be easier if all the complications of emotion and love were just gone – that I didn’t have to worry about letting go, because there was nothing to succumb to, nothing to throw my heart at and wonder if it was going to sink in or bounce off and shatter into a million pieces. I think if it were possible for me I probably would have let my mind talk my heart out of the game a long time ago. But then something happens that makes me remember why I always opt to dive in and take the hurt with the joy. Something happens to remind me that everybody usually has what boils down to the same fears, just manifested in different ways – fear of being excluded, abandoned, unrequited, of being inferior, etc. The trick is finding somebody you can show all of that to, and it’s still okay. This won’t mean anything to most of you, but it will to someone someday, and it does to me – and that’s all that matters.

Because waiting for the repeated punch line is the best part of the joke.
Because cautious optimism really means elation.
Because there’s a connection in walking in silence.
Because all that’s missing is a million dollars.
Because ‘miserable’ and ‘craving’ fill empty spaces.
Because rhyming and repeating help.
Because one-armed side hugs turn into real ones.

Rainy Monday

I don't mind
You’re someone who ain't mine
But someone that I'll get
And you don't know how
Hard I've tried
To convince myself that I
Can easily forget

But you left this feeling
Here inside me
One that never fails to find me...

On a rainy Monday
...a feeling inside me
Like the days of summer
On a rainy Monday
...I feel it inside me
In the hopes of one day

I won't lie
I still can't say that I
Admit we went too far
And you won't see me change my mind
But I really wish that I
Could forget the way you are

But you left this feeling here inside me
The battle in my mind still fights me

On a rainy Monday
...a feeling inside me
Like the days of summer
On a rainy Monday
...I feel it inside me
In the hopes of one day

I can see that you're not beside me
But I still feel you shine inside of me

On a rainy Monday
...a feeling inside me
Like the days of summer
On a rainy Monday
...I feel it inside me
In the hopes of one day…

Lyrics by Shiny Toy Guns

There's a lot of joy to be had, and even though I know hurt inevitably accompanies it, the former so far outweighs the latter that I can only believe it's worth it. And I’m not about to give up now.

160GB Pileup on Information Super-Highway, Thousands Lost

2007-08-31T14:17:00.000-05:00

It’s a very strange thing when all of a sudden you don't exist. Funny to think that yesterday I had such purpose, such drive, a “to-do” list that took up three pages of a college ruled ‘5-Star’ notebook. And now? Now I'm drowning in the magnificent vastness of nothing. Is it possible to feel claustrophobic in very open spaces too? I digress…

My computer was stolen. Let me specify: my work computer was stolen – while personal computer pillage would definitely be tragic (think of all the music and photos one accumulates), the fact that it's my work computer that is gone takes the term 'abysmally fatal' to an entirely different level. I’d had that computer for the three years I’ve worked for this company and every iota of information relating to my life and work during that time was in that machine. Everything. Those of you who have corporate-issued computers, you can relate to this. For those of you who may not understand what this means, let me try to explain the magnitude: every email I’ve written and received for three years; every Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, JMP, FrontPage, Adobe, etc document I’ve created or saved; resumes, past performance reviews, all archived materials/projects from the three other roles I’ve had with this company, not to mention everything I’ve been working on for this new job since I took the position this past May. There’s basically no proof that I exist here.

Oh, and my two 3-day ACL Festival tickets (which is now sold out) were clipped inside my day planner which was also inside my computer bag.

Fuuuuuuuck.

So after I ran the gamut of emotions (stopping the longest at anger and then deep, gasping-for-air sadness) I realized that things could definitely still be worse. I could have gotten my car stolen too (work bag was in car, car broken into, bag stolen), which would have put me in a different kind of tailspin entirely. What’s funny and ironic about this situation is that I recently shelled out the cash to buy a 500GB hard drive to back up everything on my computer at home… that until today was still pristine inside its original packaging. You’d better believe ripping that shit off and setting it up became priority #1 after getting home from being violated (robbed).

Anyway, let my experience be a lesson to you all. Just in case you hadn’t already started making a list, here are some things you should take away with you:
- never leave important shit in your car
- if your life is on a computer, back it up somewhere for God’s sake
- if your shit does get stolen, immediately tell your closest friends so they know to come peel your sobbing mess of a self off the kitchen floor
- learn karate and all manner of other ass-whipping skills necessary to take out scum who stole your shit if you ever meet him/her in a dark alley (said friends might try to talk you out if this, OR you can carpool)

Anyway, things are starting to look better now. I got another computer ordered, and some colleagues at work had some emails saved with important stuff in them so they can send it back to me. Now it’s just a matter of assessing the wreckage and attempting to crawl out from underneath this massive disaster of a pileup. Oh, and buy another 500GB hard drive.

Life and Music

2007-08-25T18:50:00.000-05:00

I saw this article a long time ago and thought it was an amazing representation of what music can be. I love music, and this part of the article captures what it is for me. Thought it was great:

"... these are the songs the whole world sings, and will sing forever, songs which define the very point of being alive, which fill our souls with hope, escape, friendship, love, laughter, sex, beauty, oblivion and the timeless freedom of the rock 'n' roll dream itself. These could be the best days of our lives.

And they were. And they still are."

Never Fire Crazy

2007-08-25T18:43:00.000-05:00

Don’t get involved in the first place. I have recently adopted this creed, and highly suggest you do the same. Without knowing it at the time, it all started just over a year ago after I became newly single. This followed the end of a failed 4+ year relationship after which I was launched full swing back into the dating scene I dreaded and have never been good at. This creed came to me after realizing that it was the theme to my dating life.

So let me give you some back-story. My best friend calls me a flirt and a tease and I frustrate the hell out of her with my relationships. I am not purposefully being a tease, I’m just genuinely excited that somebody is being nice, so I talk to them and try to be friends. This is what happens when you go your entire childhood as the fat, ugly kid who is mercilessly made fun of to all of a sudden (over one summer between 7th and 8th grades) growing 5 inches, getting contacts, and getting braces off. I have the mentality of the fat ugly kid who just wants to be liked by people but the moderately good looks of one who wouldn’t necessarily need to humor some of the people who come knocking. No swan story here, but the ugly duckling did at least achieve a decent fare - you know what I mean?

All that being said, I have had the unfortunate luck of finding men in my life to take to break-ups as though I whispered my goodbye into an on-blowing wind tunnel: they pretend that nothing was said. This results in some very awkward phone calls a couple days later when I answer to hear a hearty, “hey, just wanted to see what was going on!” I inevitably talk to them, because I don’t want them to feel bad, and this leads into a saga of confusion and sometimes even another break-up from the break-up relationship because we are spending entirely too much time talking and a friendship doesn’t work when one party gets really mad if I say I’m going on a date with somebody else.

Anyway, I heard the term on the best show ever, Arrested Development (I highly recommend you check it out ASAP if you’ve not seen it - there are 3 seasons, buy them all on DVD), and it just made sense. Never fire crazy. They’ll stalk.

Heaven's Shit List

2007-06-10T15:39:00.000-05:00

First of all, I’d like to start by saying that my friends and I are not horrible people. We’re actually wonderful people, just not the kinds of friends who spend a lot of time talking about sunshine and teddy bears. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not morbid, and we’re definitely there for each other whenever one of us needs it, but hugs and Kleenex are usually pretty short-lived as we’re quickly on to ragging on each other for crying and/or whining and subsequently coming up with random, off-the-wall ways in which the other person’s situation could have been worse – for example:
“At least MFP wasn’t there.”
“Yeah that sucks, but you look really hot today”
“It could totally be worse, Em, you could have no legs.”
“I’m really sorry you broke up with your girlfriend, but think of it this way: you are now a member of the hottest single group of friends EVER.”

For a little back-story, I need to tell you about the Wonder Twins. If our group of friends was a sitcom, we would be called the Wonder Twins. Don’t let the name fool you into thinking it’s just two people – it’s all of us: Tim, Charles, Blake, me, Nate’ and Mike. It started as a joke because Chollie and Timmy seem to always find themselves in situations with the drama at work that you couldn’t make up if you were a mind/body hybrid of Stephen King and David Sedaris. Seriously. The stories slowly started leaking out to the rest of us, and before you know it all six of us were contributing authors to such masterpieces as the Did You Really Just… list and the Great Questions list. Examples include: “Did you really just move desks and take everything but a cloth cap and you have a massive scalp infection, which means you left a spongy headgear of highly contagious germs for the next rep to use your desk?” And (suddenly standing up out of his cube to ask) “Do they sell beer at Chuck E Cheese’s?” And “Is Iraq in Africa?”

We are fully aware that we shouldn’t be laughing at these questions, but we just can’t help it. That started a dialogue at lunch today on whether or not God is going to forgive us as we stand in front of the pearly gates. The overwhelming conclusion was: absolutely not. To which most of us shrugged and collectively said, “at least y’all will be there too!” and then we started to make another list comprised of good things we could do to negate the proverbial “shit list” Saint Peter would have waiting for us. That would more closely resemble a To-Do list and would have things like,
- Help an old lady load her groceries into her trunk. Not complain that she’s slow as hell and you just want the parking spot already
- Be a Candy-Striper. Not mess with the candy-striper by asking her to locate the room of your relative who is not checked into that hospital
- Smile unexpectedly at somebody today. Not laugh at somebody unexpectedly today
- Don’t add anything to the “Did You Really Just..” list
You know, simple things….

I don’t know how it happened, but the six of us are somehow the perfect mix of personalities to breed dysfunctional conversations, and they are always hilarious. Take, for example, the following conversation. Topic: Symmetry in double amputees. If you’re a double amputee of the lower extremities, wouldn’t you rather go for symmetry? I mean, if you’ve gotta do it wouldn’t you rather have two hips or two knees, or would you allow them to give you one of each – a hip and a knee. Just seems a little off, doesn’t it? What’s the point of having the knee? You still can’t play kickball. This launched the conversation to a whole new level. The point was quickly made that you can’t blanket the symmetry option because it doesn’t apply to arms. Why? Well, think of the simple tasks that can still be completed quite effectively with an elbow, but that would be significantly more difficult and awkward with just a shoulder: ringing a doorbell, indicating a direction (pointing), rubbing someone’s arm in consolation. You get the point – all much easier with at least an elbow.

I’m going to pause here and just say, God, I’m sorry – and I know my To-Do list needs to be much, much longer. I will also follow with: in no way, shape, or form were we trying to make fun of amputees. The point of my description is that these are the kinds of topics we often find ourselves debating - not the important international topics that one would expect young, intelligent professionals to have on the forefronts of their minds, like world hunger, big oil, how many points the DOW was up/down the previous day, etc.

All I can say is that my friends make me happy, and I love them. And regardless of how long our To-Do list gets I can at least rest assured that when/if we do make it to the pearly gates we’ll most definitely have St. Peter rolling with the story as to how we got there.

OOH! Guys, there’s another good one: “did you really just try to get into Heaven by telling Saint Peter: no really, I totally had a To-Do list!”

Drug-Induced Euphoria

2007-06-09T14:42:00.000-05:00

Right now my dad is making the Oasis as we knew and loved them in the early 90s look like saints with as many drugs as he has coursing through his body. Don’t get me wrong, he hasn’t hit some mid-life crisis and chosen to play it out with heavy rocking and coke usage – he’s having back surgery in a week. But still, just add shot of rum to the mix and he’d be going head for head with Noel Gallagher in 1994.

Apparently my family just has shitty genes when it comes to spines. My mom has scoliosis pretty bad – she’s 5’1” and supposed to be 5’8” if that helps you visualize – I’d had two back surgeries by the time I was 22 years old, and now my dad is in so much pain he just has to lay on the sofa all day, drifting in and out of sleep. Back pain sucks. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy in the world. I mean on the one hand I’m really happy that the doctors have agreed to let my dad get the surgery because I know (from experience) that he’ll instantly feel better after waking up with all that pressure finally off his nerves, but in the meantime he’s on a steroid pack, vicodin, and muscle relaxers to hold him over during the week between now and surgery. I just wish he wasn’t going through it. Steroid packs are enough – they make you either sick to your stomach or insatiably hungry all the time, irritable as hell, and constantly thirsty.

At least he won’t be in as much pain while he has to wait. You know, on the flip side, if I didn’t know my dad was so miserable right now it would almost be funny to see him loopy as hell from being pumped so full of various pain killers. I mean, we’re talking about the most put-together dude I’ve ever met in my life. Anyway, I have nothing profound to say about it all – only that I feel for him because I know exactly what he’s going through right now and he’s on my mind.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

2007-06-09T11:38:00.000-05:00

I always suspected it, but I am now completely convinced that God has an amazing (and somewhat sick) sense of humor. I'll explain.

So, if you've read my blog at all in the past year, you're well aware of my creepy neighbor saga. My friends and I lovingly refer to him by a multitude of nicknames, some of which you have read before: douche-bag, Mannequin Boy, creep-o, MFP... they go on and on. Well you should know by reading that a few months ago he was dismissed from his duties at our workplace - seize that day, ding dong Creep-O's gone, all sorts of relief ensues... Okay, keep that in mind for a minute.

So back in April I get an email at work asking if I'm available to discuss an immediate opening on a team in another one of our sites. The quick version of the story is that I say yes, interview five times, and get a job about 80 miles away at our headquarters complex. I'm stoked. I've wanted to move to that city for a really long time, and it takes me away from the other jackasses around here that I'm just tired of and who treat me like shit on a daily basis. Blake, one of my great friends already lives there and works for the same company I do and he's in the same building I'll be in and we're just beside ourselves with excitement. Then one day Blake calls me and the conversation goes like this:
Blake: oh my god Em, I want to cry
Me: oh shit, why?! (all concerned)
Blake: (says with a wavery voice like he's about to burst into tears. Joking, but very realistic and hysterical) Today, I was over at Traci's desk cuz we needed to meet about something and all of a sudden we felt a presence, you know how that happens?, and we looked up and MFP's head was poking over the cube!
Me: (shocked and appalled pause) ... holy FUCK! What did you do?!
Blake: I couldn't move! ... and he wouldn't go away. We couldn't even finish our meeting because he was just... lingering. And THEN - I got up to go back to my desk and he started FOLLOWING me and TALKING to me!
Me: OhmygodOhmygod, what did you do?!
Blake: (apparently not hearing me) he just stared at me and then said, “so I hear your partner in crime got a job down here. When does she start?”
Me: OH MY GOD YOU DIDN’T TELL HIM ANYTHING DID YOU?!?!
Blake: No, I just said, “yeah, it’s the best news I’ve had all month”… but then he followed me to my desk and I totally thought I was giving him tons of non-verbal clues to go way but he just hung around awkwardly.

So we laugh and commiserate about that for a little while and after I helped Blake find his happy place again we got off the phone and were okay… And then I got another call a few days before I was supposed to start at my new job.

Blake: guess who I saw today
Me: oh God, I don’t want to
Blake: yeah, and I have bad news
Me: ah shit…
Blake: he finally got a desk….
Me: please tell me that the bad news is that he’s next to you
Blake: he’s three cubes away from where your team sits
Me: FUCK! Are you serious?! I want to cry…
Blake: (laughing) I’m so sorry…

Yeah. So after everything I/we went through with Creep-O, it seems as though Round 2 is imminent. UN-believable. And this is why I am convinced that God has an insane sense of humor. Good news out of this is that he either doesn’t know I’ve started my new job there yet, or he can’t find where I sit – whatever the cause, I haven’t had to see him yet and that’s good news. I’ll keep you posted though. I’m sure Blake will “accidently” let it slip for sheer story value.

And so it begins… again.

The Skittles of Pain Killers

2007-05-14T16:19:00.000-05:00

Question: why do they make Advil to taste so damn good? The stuff practically burns a hole through your stomach with all the asprin in it, and the powers-that-be make them with a candy coating that makes me want to take nine at a time... If they are going to continue making Advil taste like the missing brown Skittle they need to quarter the potency so its okay to down like twelve at once.

Just a random thought...

not searching, but not finding either

2007-04-14T23:03:00.000-05:00

Colorful
you swim like you're on fire
live like your last day
drink like its water
there's no tomorrow
and you think no one can hear you
raise your hands to be called on
you know all the answers
you're the most colorful thing that i've seen
You're the most colorful thing that i've seen

you dance like no one's watching
sing 'till the song ends
then you sing some more
and we can hardly believe it
words that flow from your mouth
drink like its water
you're the most colorful thing that i've seen
you're the most beautiful thing that i've seen
you're the most colorful thing that i've seen

you are an enigma walking
make no excuses for the way that you carry on
and we can hardly believe it
the words that flow from your mouth
drink like its water, hon
drink like its water
you're the most colorful thing that i've seen
you're the most beautiful thing that i've seen
you are so colorful
you are so beautiful
you are the most colorful thing that i've seen

Bus Ride
bus ride
then i'm corss-town
i take my seat
and watch the streets go by
traffic lights
then a left hand turn
i'm almost to the street where you live on
can i take you home... to my house
can i take you home... to my house
next block
that is my stop
i close my eyes visualize the day
three steps
two knocks on your door
the doorknob turns
my stomach burns to say
can i take you home... to my house
can i take you home... to my house
there's no wall
there's no ceiling shadow
i can finally show you
without a key without a door or window
to climb through can i take you home... to my house
can i take you home
can i take you home... to my house

Speak To Me
Dialogue communicate / wasted words circulate / catchy phrases inside joke / sitcom pilot simple folk / speak to me with your heart / speak to me with your heart / campaign slogan election year / fiction writer greatest fear / private letters instruction books / formulas ancient script / speak to me with your heart / speak to me with your heart / show me before you don't have a chance / shallow words will drown with water from / speak to me with your heart / speak to me with your heart / speak to me with your heart / speak to me

- all lyrics by Rocco Deluca

Snow Virgins, Board Lessons, and ERs

2007-04-10T08:02:00.000-05:00

One of the things I am most grateful for in this life is that nearly every athletic pursuit I now enjoy as an adult I learned a long, long time ago. My mom tells me I was riding a little tricycle around my big sister’s kindergarten playground at the wee age of two-ish. My parents lied about my age to get me into T-ball and soccer earlier than the required age of five because I was apparently too annoyingly energetic to deal with (and also bigger than most other 4 year olds). And my dad, in his infinite wisdom, stuck my 8-year-old sister and 5-year-old self in skiing lessons for a week while the rest of the adults tackled the slopes together, child- and care-free.

My point is this: all of those sports are difficult, and take most people years to fully learn to the point of comfortably calling themselves intermediates instead of mere amateurs or beginners. This is why, when my best friend announced she was going to learn to snowboard on our vacation this year, I choked on a peanut and said a little prayer for her, and my sanity.

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I doubt her ability to pick up a sport, or even her athletic prowess and/or drive to succeed. I choked because I remember all of the falling; the sore muscles; and the bruised legs, arms, and ass – the difference is that I went through that between the ages of 5 and 10 years old when everybody are just little rubber balls of energy, numb to pain and suffering from physical exertion and uncoordinated mistakes. My best friend, however, would be taking on these feats as a 27-year-old Gold’s Gym ellipser – two very different stages in life.

The trip started out with us missing our shuttle up to Vail (a good friend of mine lives there), but, amazingly, neither of us let that small kink deter or even dampen our excitement. We got up there the next morning and were on the slopes in plenty of time to get a full half-day of glorious spring snowboarding under our belts. Before I go on, I have to make the disclaimer that several people hip to the trials and tribulations of first-time snowboarding had expressed to Nate’ the urgent advice of taking lessons since it was her first time. She was fully on board… and then saw how much they cost and made the executive decision to wing it – to which I had no veto power. So, we get up the first lift on a gorgeous spring afternoon in Beav, I somehow talk her through getting off the lift (rather well, I might say, she didn’t even fall!), and Nate’ gets about 150 yards down the first catwalk to a green and calls it. Time of day 1’s death: oh-quick-thirty. In her defense, I do not claim to be a good snowboard instructor. If I was, I wouldn’t be working my current job in the middle of Texas – I’d be living the high-life traveling from resort to resort making a living off of being on the slopes all day. Anyway, I digress…

After that first day she wisely decided she needed to take a lesson, so she signed up for an all-day’er starting the following morning. She was completely excited to learn, undoubtedly because it was from an actual instructor and not her dippy best friend who was giving her such gold as, “uh, so, like turn your back foot when you start to feel like you’re gonna fall…” Glorious advice, if I do say so myself… ugh – thanks for not hating me, Rooms. Anyway, so she hauls off to lessons and I hit the hill by myself, which was actually kinda nice because I had all day to just get lost and go where ever I wanted. I got cranked by some douche-bag not looking where he was going sometime midday, so I decided to take a break and go check on how lessons were coming along… Only to be met with a gleaming smile as Nate’ held up her mangled arm and exclaimed, “I hurt myself snowboarding!” Greeaaat.

The most bad-ass part about it is that she finished the entire day’s lesson with a wrist the size of my thigh (okay, I flatter myself – even her swollen as hell wrist was smaller than my thunder thigh, but you get my point in exaggerating for emphasis). We finished our time up in Vail and decided to go to the Emergency Room once we got to my sister’s place – that’s where we found out it was broken.

So that trip to Colorado will always be an amazing story for Nate’ – first time in snow, first time snowboarding, fell and hurt her wrist wherein it swelled up so bad she got to spend all day clutching at and being clutched by a hot Australian snowboard instructor, and then went to the ER two days later only to find out she broke it. Rooms, you badass, you – thanks for the great story!

No More Blonde Moments...

2007-04-09T20:35:00.000-05:00

Well, who am I kidding. I’ll still have plenty of them – it’s just that now I’ll look like even more of a jackass because I don’t have the platinum locks to go with it. My mistakes and screw-ups won’t be things I can brush off with a cute little chuckle and wave towards my hair – that would just look ridiculous as a brunette. Yeah, I dyed my hair brown last week. I’m still getting used to it, but I’m pretty sure I really like it. The entire idea of me not being a blonde anymore is something I’ve been curious about for a long time – it’s just that I never took the thought seriously enough to actually go do something about it. It was more just flippant voicing in conversations every now and again about “I wonder what I’d look like with dark hair?” Until one day about two months ago when my best friend and I officially went on a mission to dye my hair dark brown.

We were trying to find fun things to do during a torrential downpour day, so we decided to go rifle through the magazine rack at a huge bookstore in town. I had already talked to Nate’ about wondering what it would look like and she would just shrug and say, “yeah? You should try it then.” But with no real commitment from my best friend I had awful visions of turning myself into Elvira - Mistress of the Dark and wasn’t about to actually do it. Then Nate’ saw a picture in GQ of Cameron Diaz in the sunshine on some island with dark brown hair strategically tousled about her face and eyes and our mission was clear. She looked hot, and the dark hair made her blue eyes totally stand out. So we decided to make it happen.

I made an appointment at a totally swanky salon in the middle of Dallas called Pompeo (didn’t know it was that swanky at the time, a friend of mine with awesome hair referred me) to get it done on my way out of town for vacation. The guy who did my hair was awesome, and I had so much fun picking out the color and watching the whole thing go down! I can’t imagine having to sit through that crap every 4-6 weeks though… ugh – how do those women who are constantly dying their hair do it? This is going to be fun for a while, but I know I’m going to get really tired really quick of having to schedule touch-up appointments.

Anyway, not even two hours after its done Nate’ and I are in the airport to fly out for vacation, and while stopped in the security line (I always get stopped, I have no clue what about me says possible threat to Homeland Security!, but whatever) some dude hit on me. It was hysterical. He wasn’t just some junkie off the street, either – he has four names and a freaking roman numeral! We were laughing about that for a good week. Flirty McFlirterson even gave me his card, and if you’re wondering – yes, I fully intend to email him. I was always told that blondes have more fun, but I think I could make a pretty strong case for staying a brunette! Thanks for talking me into it, Rooms!

Club T.C.

2007-04-08T09:54:00.000-05:00

Before I tell you this story, I have to tell you, trusted blog readers, that I am not at all ashamed about events that transpired throughout that evening.

I’m pretty sure it started back in college. Two great friends of mine love men above all else, and will boldly go where no other image-conscious college junior will go – like an N’Sync concert. They loved Justin Timberlake, but remember, this is pre-hot Justin – this is skinny, curly headed, looks like his voice might crack any moment Justin… but on his way up, I’ll give them that. Anyway, they went, they danced their asses off among screaming pre-teen girls, and they raved to all of us how great it was, completely unashamed (props, ladies).

So, back in like October when one of the duo (now my best friend) called me to tell me that Justin was going to be in Houston for the FutureSexLoveSounds tour in March and do I want to go with her and Chanell. Uh, yes! We basically tell Chanell to get all three tickets when she goes online to get hers. My Mistake #1. She waited online until the second tickets went on sale, and the ensuing conversation went like this:
Chanell: “I got the tickets; you guys owe me $115.”
(Dividing in my head I think, okay that’s not too bad)
Nate’: “okay, so what is that, $57.50 each?”
Chanell: (pauses) “no, $115 each…”
Me: “What the HELL!? Are we sitting on the damn stage?!”
Nate’: (laughing) “we’d better get sweated on!”
I say it like we were mad, but honestly after waiting like four months for the concert to arrive (we got our tickets kinda early) we were excited and sitting on the 4th row juuust to the left of center stage was pretty much worth our $115 each.

So Nate’ and I drove to Chanell’s house in Houston – the plan is get her, go eat, get to downtown H-town for the concert. So we greet and hug, say hi to the fam, and are out – we’re all in jeans, Tay and I have t-shirts on, I’m in my snazzy old school New Balance shoes, Tay’s in flip flops. Chanell’s in a button-up shirt, but she always wears those and she had like sketchers on. I think Chanell and Nate’ had a little eye makeup on, me? Makeup? Pssh! (These details will be important later.)

When we got to the Toyota Center we immediately recognized an amazing venue for people-watching. Nobody had been let in yet, so there were lines curving all the way around the damn building, with ALL sorts of people. The hilarious part about it was that the women were all dressed to the freaking nines to go to this concert. I mean, I didn’t know they made 4-inch stilettos, but apparently everybody there did. So we’re walking through the line in our tennies, jeans, and hoodies watching these sticks of women hobble around in heels they can’t walk in and freeze their asses off because their shirt basically covers their nipples and a strip of skin down their stomach – we were pretty sure we were going to a concert, not a nightclub. Hence the name, Club T.C. It was as if the women thought that by looking all “cute” (enter a multitude of appropriate adjectives: slutty, easy, trashy, etc) Justin would actually make eye contact, realize Cameron Diaz and Scarlett Johansson aren’t enough, pause the concert, and pick them out of the crowd to go backstage and start a life together. Hysterically tragic on their part.

Once we actually took our seats the people watching got even better. The only people in front of us were those who had paid to stand on the floor right by the stage and next to the bar. The concert was actually great, and really fun. What can I say? Justin Timberlake is a good performer. During the intermission, Timbaland came onstage and mixed for about 25 minutes, which is where it really turned into Club T.C. Everybody was dancing, all the clackers were bobbing as much as the stilettos would allow, trying to figure out how have rhythm while trying to clutch their uber-trendy, sequined purses (big enough to hold a tube of chapstick) and their alcoholic beverage at the same time.

And the three of us? We didn’t get sweated on, but we danced and sang our asses off in our Ts, tennies, and hoodies and left with our money’s worth.

Smokes-A-Lot

2007-03-23T17:53:00.000-05:00

There are two types of senior citizens in this world. The first kind make you believe that life truly is a beautiful journey with trials and tribulations that only add grace and understanding to one’s soul. The other kind, however, make you want to revoke driving privileges from everybody over 55 and go Brave New World style creating old folks homes like mad to throw them all in there with nothing to do but watch reruns of Matlock and Murder She Wrote and eat checkers. I distinguish this difference easily: the elderly vs. old people.

The latter lives beneath me in my apartment complex. I call her Smokes-A-Lot, and she’s a nasty, bitter, hateful old woman. Sometimes I feel sorry for her that she just sits in her apartment all day watching TV and getting an occasional visitor (I’m assuming family member), but most of the time I loathe her for the fact that the four packs of hard smokes she wheezes through each day ends up creeping its way up through my floors and vents and fills my entire apartment with her second hand smoke – and she seems incapable of purchasing an Ionic Breeze despite the multiple Sharper Image catalogs I’ve left on her doorstep with the page earmark and item circled in thick, red sharpie. Checkers for her, I tell you. Anyway, she hates me. And I don’t think it’s because of the Sharper Image catalogs – she couldn’t possibly know those are from me.

I decided that she’s an ‘old person’ almost immediately after I moved into my complex. So here’s the back-story: Where I live looks like a row of super big houses, but each building is actually four apartments: two upstairs, two downstairs. I got a great deal on my place because at the time the owners were renovating each apartment and making them SUPER nice, but our building they couldn’t do yet because Smokes-A-Lot and the old dude next to her have lived there for like 10+ years and aren’t going anywhere any time soon. So I asked the landlords if I could move in upstairs at the pre-fixed-up rate, and they and gave me leave to do whatever I wanted to the place since they were just going to gut it after I moved out anyway. One day pretty soon after I had moved in I was hanging pictures at like 3 or 4 in the afternoon. I was on my 4th picture and as I was hammering the nail into the wall I hear banging coming from below. She actually started banging on my ceiling because I was hanging pictures! It’s not like each nail took me 19 tries to get in the wall far enough either, I’m talking two, maybe three taps from the hammer and I was good. This warrants angry banging on the damn ceiling?! Freaking old people.

Anyway, she does little nasty things all the time just to remind me that she sucks. She doesn’t own a car, and yet if I ever happen to park in the space labeled A (which is one space away from my D, mind you) she’ll leave a note on my car telling me that’s her parking space and move my car. If I leave a trash bag on my balcony to take out to the dumpster later she’ll move it right in front of my back door so that I trip on it leaving for work in the morning – sometimes she’ll even leave her trash on the steps up to my apartment in hopes I don’t notice that it’s not mine and take it for her. Sometimes I’m nice and I do, but most of the time I give her a taste of her own medicine and put it right back in front of her door. Now, readers, don’t get all bent out of shape and think that I’m being mean to Smokes-A-Lot. I’ve seen that bitch run after her little yappy ankle-biter of a dog when it gets out, and other than chronic emphysema she’s got nothing wrong with her under that ratty-ass old housecoat.

My friend Blake used to have a Smoke-A-Lot living under him, too, but she wasn’t bitchy. She was just kind of stalker-ish and would somehow know exactly when he got home every day and be waiting for him to walk up the steps so she could talk to him. That’s a way better Smokes-A-Lot than mine. Anyway, the point is that there’s a Smokes-A-Lot in every apartment complex, and I promise, nay, guarantee a good stories if you can find yours. I’ll keep you posted.

I have good news and bad news...

2007-03-06T21:29:00.000-06:00

Well, really there is no good news for you, readers, unless of course you are able to join me in a collective sigh of relief upon hearing my news.

I'll start with the bad news for you: all the stories about my creepy neighbor (aka mannequin boy, aka Operation 303, etc.) that you all love so dearly are going to stop. Why? Well, he got himself fired for being a douche-bag.

Which leads me into the good news for me...

In all seriousness, there is a part of me that, strangely enough, actually feels bad for the guy (I think there's a complex for that... its a Syndrome... a city... Stockholm Syndrome? Something like that. Google it). Yeah, okay so not as bad as the syndrome, but I mean the guy has no friends other than online World of Warcraft guild buddies and two dogs, is from the east coast so has no family in the area, is a social deaf/mute with no people skills, and now has lost his job. It’s sad, and the part of my soul that God is trying really hard to save from eternal damnation is working overtime to conjure up these feelings of pity and well-wishes on Creep-O’s behalf. I won’t get into details on why he’s “no longer with the company” (I love bullshit corporate America terms, don’t you?) but he’s out. Cube has been cleared out, and a peaceful quiet has descended upon my row. Its glorious.

The funny and ironic part is that he’s still my neighbor, which has made my arrival home each evening like a scene from a fucking Mission Impossible movie. I’ve had to resort to rolling by my complex parking area like I’m trying out for a damn rap video, and then depending on where Creep-O’s car happens to be I have two options: 1) drive all the way around my building to park on the other side and walk up the front stairs, only to brave Smokes-A-Lot complaining about the fact that I walk in my apartment, ** or 2) park in my space in the back, in full view of Creep-O’s back door, and work with the evening shadows to shimmy up my back stairs before he sees me.

** Smokes-A-Lot is a nasty, bitter old woman who lives in the apartment below me. She chain smokes what must be 9 packs a day in her apartment, leaking fumes up through the vents causing my whole place to smell like smoke unless I leave every window open and fan on and Febreeze every day, and the old goat has the nerve complain about every last movement or noise I make in my apartment. If I talk with my upstairs neighbor (the cool one) on my balcony for 10 minutes I’ll get a note pinned to my door later on telling me to keep it down because her yappy little ankle-biter of a “dog” gets too excited to rest when there is “so much commotion outside.”

So I guess the bad news is that I’ve lost a “shoo-in” source for good stories, but the good news is that with my newly restored sanity I’ll be able to come up with other outlets from which to find inspiration to write. And to Creep-O, here are a few things I’d like to personally thank you for:

- for teaching me the importance of double bolting my locks
- for being the “Karen” of the group (if you don’t know what this means you need to listen to Dane Cook)
- all the laughs (even though most were at your expense)
- for providing me with constant opportunities to think before I speak and not say everything that pops into my head

It has been interesting, Mannequin Boy. Cheers.

Dopplegangers and Shadow People

2007-02-13T21:55:00.000-06:00

First of all, I could not make this up.

This story starts with two of my friends driving back from a Texas A&M basketball game late at night. They were listening to a local radio show in the middle of podunk-ville which was discussing, at length and in all seriousness, the complexity of Shadow People and Doppelgangers. For those of you who are not in tune with the world of creepy, “oh my Goth” night people, don’t worry – I had no clue what the hell that meant either. So to clear it up a little for you here are some definitions:

Shadow People = evil spirits who try to destroy your fleshly being
Doppleganger = your mirror image but they are inherently evil

Riiiiiight. Anyway, Blake and Tim’s vast learnings on the subject were immediately passed onto Nate’ and I at work the next day, in a conversation entirely too rambunctious for its setting and which involved uncontrollable, hyena-esque laughter. Apparently, one very concerned patron of the radio show gave an emotional recounting of a tragic and fearful event in which she narrowly escaped with her life after her shadow person tried to eat her organs in an attempt to take over her life. What is hysterical to me is that all four of us instantly latched onto this AWESOME new vocabulary and have now started tossing around the terms “doppelganger” and “shadow people” like they are a part of anyone’s normal, everyday conversations. The terms are especially useful when describing particularly torturous situations, mostly involving the Operation 303 crew and my creepy-ass neighbor. An example would sound something like this: (Tim to Blake two hours into an excruciating Chamber of Commerce magic show) “I kinda wish the shadow people would kill me so my doppelganger were the one who had to watch this shit instead of me.”

Incase you would like more insight into the Doppleganger, this website provides an astounding amount of information and stimulating debate as to what, actually, a Doppleganger is and is not. http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/viewarticle.php?id=201
And I quote: “Upon the Earth these creatures cannot hold their former figure so they take a shape that can live in this one. … angels and demons alike have had a fascination with man. When on Earth their first form may seem like that of a spirit ghost. … Even if the Doppelganger is but a myth the story told by them is really one of mankind. We often change and have a sense of duality. Like the doppelganger we but wonder through life searching for that form, that thing we call self, so that we may serve that purpose, so we may end the quest.” -- Alcien Semhazai

What the fuck is this guy talking about?! My favorite part in that quote is when he misspells “wander” in the last sentence, making him look like an even bigger douchebag as he tries to speak intelligently about shadowy evil ghost people who are replicas of our human forms. This stuff is fucking classic if you ask me.

Here’s another fun opinion from “Ophiel” (on the same website mentioned above):
The doppelganger are replacements that come from various underground facilities. (So apparently now we can pluralize the word in the same way we use ‘moose’ for both a moose and several moose – I learn something new every day, I tell you) It is unfair to label them souless. (Unfair, I tell you. UN-fair!... and I think you meant to put another “L” in soulless) Though clones, like us, information is incoded into their genes. (okay, its “encoded” but I’m with you). Most cases of a sighted doppleganger are reported after mass catatrophies (imagine that word with the missing “s” where is should be and try to follow along) where they can be intergrated (or “integrated”, but whatever) into the stream of the holographic universe. (What the fuck is the holographic universe? He lost me…) The person witnessing his doppleganger is usually in a state of distraught, (can you be in a ‘state of distraught?' or did you mean “state of distress?” Dipshit) very depressed, or on the verge of a life changing experiance (“experience”). The feeling of opposition one gets from them, meaning if your good the\'re (I mean good lord, do you KNOW what spell check is?) evil and vice versa, Is simply the manifestation of the latter problems that brought the doppleganger about. Nothing about it is opposite seeing as though duality is strictly a disease of the mind. Okay these last two sentences I don’t even know where to start. First of all, “latter problems”? I didn’t hear of the former, how can we already be discussing latter? And secondly, WTF.

I swear, I don’t even have to write anything myself in this entry and this shit just keeps getting funnier and funnier. My favorite thing about that website is that these people are trying to speak so profoundly/competently about this topic, as though they were discussing the origins global warming or the effects of capitalism on emerging nations. Let me remind you: we're talking about evil shadowy replicas of existing humans.

Anyway, creepy neighbor and his Op:303 clan overheard the four of us talking one day, and have become determined to join our conversation at the slightest hint of the word doppelganger. It really is the perfect cap on our lengthy debate regarding his complete uber-weirdness that he and his Op:303 crew have been so excited and willingly participatory in our discussions involving shadow people and doppelgangers. Apparently, the two wreak havoc on the world of WOW. Somehow I feel like I shouldn’t be surprised by that.

Maybe I can find my Doppleganger and figure out how to make her be the one that has to listen to the 303 clan discuss, at length, the party their guild threw on WOW last night. I’m sure I can work out a deal with the Shadow People to let me meet my Doppleganger without them having to kill me. Having an identical evil twin at my disposal could come in extremely handy, and would definitely knock up the story value of any situation.

Anyway, here are some more fun websites to check out on the subject. Check out the last one, there’s actually an org for Shadow People. Hysterical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppelg%C3%A4nger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_people
http://www.shadowpeople.org/

Operation: 303

2007-01-24T21:40:00.000-06:00

So there is an episode of the American version of The Office where two coworkers mess with the weird guy’s head by sending him fake letters from the CIA and telling him to do certain things. There’s also a hilarious episode where they send him letters to himself from himself in the future, but that’s for a different story. Anyway, I’ve kind of stolen that concept but tweaked it a bit to make it more pertinent to my own office environment. I'm on a mission to mess with my neighbor. Well, not my neighbor, neighbor - she's cool and has done nothing to deserve the level of "messing" I'm thinking. I mean my creepy, "Awkward Acquaintances and TMI" neighbor (if you haven't read that entry in my blog yet, stop reading and go do that). To those of you who know me and want in on it, just say the word, I could use all the help I can get.

Now, you might be thinking that it’s cruel to think of screwing with people like this. To those people I will say only, did you read that blog story I just told you about?! Why do I want to do this? I dunno... vindication, because I can, good ole' fashioned fun, whatever - you name it. This guy is getting on my last nerve. Every day at work I have to watch him literally find ways not to get anything done, which, apparently, gets harder after six months of doing it. He rolls into the office at 9:45am after staying up all night playing World of Warcraft with all his weird cyber buddies, leaves the office at 10am to make a 30 minute coffee run, then spends the next two to three hours tracking down every other WOW player in our office to talk about the neat-o escapades his fucking mage (or whatever the hell the characters in that game are called) had last night (which, by the way, include raiding zeppelins in mid-air, throwing parties for his 'guild', and attending the weddings of other WOW players for the, I quote, free booze - WTF?! ). Right about then its lunchtime, and we all know that takes 90 minutes. In the afternoon he might bother to go to a conference call, but then he's so exhausted from all that work he'll have to find something to yell at the admins about and then go find his WOW cronies again and spend the next hour and a half talking strategy for tonight's quest, then he'll spend about an hour aimlessly walking around the site so nobody can find him to ask him to do anything, and he's out the door by 4:30pm max to get home and start the cycle over again.

So maybe you can see why this guy irks me. Hence, Operation 303. It is very simple, which is why it’s so brilliant. There are three WOW players who all sit right by me at work, and who constantly engage in very animated conversations about some random ass WOW topic. To them, one comment made to passer-by (my friend Blake who's a manager there) can set their little gamer, quest-hungry brains spinning: hey, did you get the details on operation: 303? They want us to get started on that ASAP. WOW’ers hear, but they aren't included, and it sounds like something important - I get instant Dwight-like reactions: What? What is operation: 303? Can I be involved? Is it dangerous? ... No, I tell them, you shouldn’t have heard that. Besides, it’s not like video games, and we don't need anymore help, thanks. I can see the wheels in their heads actually spinning.

What is Operation: 303? Hell if I know. World of Warcraft = WOW = IIIOIII = 303... Just something I thought would be fun. And, oh, it is.

Power Yoga ≠ Harmonious Serenity

2007-01-23T21:26:00.000-06:00

My best friend and I are on a kind of never ending quest to be gloriously fit. We haven't "let ourselves go," as it were, but we both remember skinnier days where we were at the height of our soccer playing and track running years, and we really really want to get back to that level - except that we've agreed that its really flippin' hard when there's nobody around to yell at you to keep going.

For as long as I've been fit, it was because of the sports I played and the teams I was a part of. There was no option to stop running - you veer off to the side, hurl, and catch your ass back up with the team ASAP so you don't end up making everybody go again. Sure, I could train on my own back then, but it was a lot easier to push myself into running a few more sprints when I knew I'd be manned up with fucking Flo-Jo reincarnated as a soccer player who happens to be the other team's wing midfielder in my game this weekend. Now though? I'm 20-something, just worked a long day, and am perfectly fine ellipsing away on level 4 while catching up on the news with my trusty The Week magazine. The only problem is that at that pace it would take 5 hours a day on that machine to get the chiseled, bounce-a-quarter-off-my-ass body I'm going for. Sure, my friend and I could motivate each other, except we’re too good of friends for that. Meaning, in the 45th minute on that machine, no matter how encouraging or motivational she sounds when she tells me, you’re almost done! Why don’t you knock it up a few levels and really finish strong?! I have no problem giving her a "go to hell" look and telling her to bite me.

It is with this realization that we decided we needed an intervention, and as we’re not fit enough to join a sports team just yet, we thought that this Power Yoga class at our gym would be perfect. I mean its yoga for pete’s sake – a little stretching and some core strength? Yes, please! Umm, apparently we were wrong. All you birkenstocked, Prana-wearing, modern-day hippies do not be fooled. "Power" Yoga is NOT just the peaceful stretching to the sound of waterfalls that you're used to. Power Yoga, as it turns out, is exactly what I should have expected from the title - and now I can't feel my shoulders.

The only sense in which power yoga is a path to connect with your inner being is that you are going to become acutely aware of every tiny, individual muscle in between each of your ribs that you never knew existed but which are now causing you searing pain with every stretch of your lungs as you breathe in and out. I have an entirely new level of respect for yogis. I mean the human pretzel thing always looked ridiculously hard, but I would just marvel knowing that I’d never try that shit. What is astounding about practicing this art is that all the stuff that looks easy takes an unbelievable amount of strength to execute. Maybe that’s the key – once I get gloriously fit and my body can handle these poses yoga will open my mind up to the harmony and serenity people always rave about. And hell, if nothing else at least the quarters will by flying!

Corporate Debutantes

2007-01-09T20:42:00.000-06:00

Last Wednesday I hated my job. Well, really, I hated my bosses for keeping me at said job, but at this point that's just getting a little too nitty gritty. The point is, I was pissed, and here's why:

I work for a huge company. Global enterprise, multi-billion dollar type of huge, and it never ceases to amaze me how we ever get anything done. So here's the back-story. A little over nine months ago I moved into a new position at my job. The typical time in role for this job is 9-18 months before you can effectively say you've mastered it and are ready for something bigger and better, or even just something different. I knew taking this job that I would be ready to move on after around nine months, so, naturally, about two months ago I started getting the word out to other divisions that I would be looking to move to another role soon (in about 3-4 months). I tie off with my boss, let his boss know, and get back to my work.

Well, six weeks ago a buddy in another division calls me up saying he's working on creating a new job that I would be perfect for - am I interested? My answer is heck yes, so I go tell my boss, and I tell my boss's boss, and they say to keep them posted. That job came through last Wednesday, and when I went to aforementioned bosses I definitely got the Big Company Cop-out, Lumberg'eque, uhhh, gee, you know, we really can't afford to lose you right now... answer. Apparently, the way it works here is that your boss(es) have to agree on some set date in the future that they deem fitting for your departure from role, and (god forbid) if for whatever reason your departure would leave your current team in any state of disarray or deficiency they have full authority to hold you back from accepting any other positions. So really, I'm under some form of weird, unspoken rule contract... I just don't get paid $24 million for it. Once said departure date is agreed upon, there is a whole process of announcing your "eligibility to relocate" that is seriously nothing less than a corporate version of a debutante ball where a bunch of big wigs from all different divisions sit around in a room, throw your name up in a PowerPoint slide, and proceed to discuss at length every strength, weakness, and potential job fit they might see for you. Its so involved and intense that I'm mildly shocked that I don't have to show up in a white dress and a tiara escorted by the son of a prominent Honorable Mr. So-and-So.

The good news is that, while I can't take this job, I did get my bosses to agree to my release date and I already have other opportunities in the works. In April I will be unleashed into our own little corporate society, ready to find the perfect job fit and move. I get all fluttery just thinking about it, and, technically, April is spring so I guess I can wear white...

Wall of Fame

2007-01-05T01:16:00.000-06:00

Every solid, life-long friendship has an identifiable beginning. For Mary and I, it was Post-It notes - I guess post-its have a unique purpose for everybody. In college, we had an entire wall of our dorm room covered with them. It didn't start out that way, but as the year went on more and more things found their way onto the Wall.

Before you get too enraptured by our incredible work ethic and study habits, these post-it notes were not formulas. They weren't even vocabulary words. Really, they had nothing to do with studying or education whatsoever - they were a year's worth of inside jokes, hilarious quotes, and single words that could make either one of us crack up at even a hint of the slightest utterance. It was a year's worth of building blocks to one of the strongest friendships I'll ever have in my entire life, all randomly posted to the wall of a dorm room at UCLA from two people who didn't know each other three months ago and were thrown into the same situation with the same concerns, fears, and goals.

Admittedly, we were the outcasts of our floor, and that's where most of the comments began. We were the two soccer players on a floor of people who had studied their whole life to go to UCLA. We were the two who had to get up at 5:30am for 6am strength training and be able to shower and make it to 8am lecture when the rest of the floor didn't set their alarms to go off until it was enchilada day in the cafeteria. We were different. One day we decided to count the number of times daily we heard the phrase, "are you guys, like, twins?" Which was funny and ironic to both of us because Mary is, in fact, an identical twin. To the UCLA-ers, however, both blonde, both blue eyed, both soccer players = twins. So began the Wall of Fame.

We started to write down every inside joke, every hilarious quote we heard, and other one word reminders of things that would set us off into laughter in a heartbeat. It was our outlet. It was our connection.

I thought of our Wall of Fame today, seven years later, because my best friend Nate' just finished telling me the greatest story ever about getting hit on at a New Year's Eve party. A drunk, nasty, middle-aged married white man definitely said to her, This is my song. It should be your song, too, because you've got junk in your trunk. I have made the executive decision to reinstate the Wall of Fame with that quote. And Mary, in your honor I will add:
fanny-pack guy
damn! I dropped my highlighter
and Mary, can you turn off the lights??

Love you guys, and welcome to the Wall of Fame.

Awkward Acquaintances and TMI

2006-11-17T16:36:00.000-06:00

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

2006-10-08T09:47:00.000-05:00

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...

2006-09-26T12:48:00.000-05:00

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

2006-08-03T16:05:00.000-05:00

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

2006-06-13T18:25:00.000-05:00

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...

2006-06-09T16:48:00.000-05:00

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

2006-06-09T15:45:00.000-05:00

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

2006-04-28T15:29:00.000-05:00

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

2006-04-25T00:23:00.000-05:00

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

2006-04-23T20:28:00.000-05:00

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

2006-04-19T22:33:00.000-05:00

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.