Some Blog

Pete and Repeat

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

This morning I made my own hairspray by combining sugar and water in my company wash room.

Let me back up and tell the story.

My week started with hints of awesomeness: New Year’s Eve we did some drinking and I was all dressed up real pretty, I had a relaxing long weekend, and my birthday is coming up. Monday was a pretty lazy day with only a few things that I needed to do, some of which got did and the rest was shoved into my desk for “later on”. Tuesday had a slow start, I generally start with a 10 AM meeting that I call into and promptly put on mute for two hours. Sometimes I take a nap, sometimes I fold origami, sometimes I search the internet for all sorts of hilarity. All three things happened this Tuesday and then I hung up early so my co-workers could take me out for a birthday lunch.

Getting back to my office I observed a bomb of humanity that exploded all over my desk top. Seriously, don’t know why, but I spent the next 5 hours cleaning up the gore that comes with the above referred exploded humanity. By 6 I was ready to run screaming and I was more than happy to go home and do some baking. I find that baking soothes me. Plus I like licking the bowl.

I made cupcakes and just as I was pulling out the first batch Bruce walked in with dinner. Everything was coming together nicely and there was food and I was warm and no one was complaining about their boring ass bullshit needs. I ate my food and then a (ok two) cupcakes and started to bunker down for the night. I set the alarm for 5:45 and 6:00 because I had a 7 AM meeting today that is a 20 minute ride from my place. I took my place on the couch (Bruce snores and when I have an early morning I tend to start the night on the couch rather than spend a few hours wanting to kill Bruce and then moving to the couch) and said goodnight to Bruce.

Imagine my surprise when at 6:40 Bruce wakes me up and says that I am late. But how could I be late? I wanted to be nice to Bruce so I gathered my outfit for the morning in the living room (that means I don’t have to turn on the light and wake him up). I grabbed my clothes, brushed my teeth and twisted my hair in a knot and ran out the door. I made it to the meeting at 7 exactly and I prayed I looked okay.

After my meeting I called interrogated Bruce. Bruce claims that when the first alarm went off at 5:45 he woke me up (“I opened my bedroom door and said hey get up and you muttered something.”) and when I asked if he turned on the light he started to mumble something about telling me to get up. Then I asked, “but what happened to the other alarm?” and Bruce then repeated his story about getting up at 5:45. I asked again if he thought about turning on the light to make sure I was up and this is where he started over in his story. Bruce is always telling me that it’s not his fault when things like this happen, it’s not his responsibility.

And today, I totally realized something, as I was leaving my meeting, slapping on make-up at the red lights so I could go to my next meeting. Bruce is not responsible. He’s many nice things: smart, funny, stable.  He’s just not responsible. So when I got to work and pulled through my bag I found my travel toothbrush, an eyebrow brush/liner and a packet of sugar. I managed to use the toothbrush to tease my bangs at the root to give some volume (toothbrush has now been thrown away), I used the eyebrow brush to pull up the hair at the roots and kind of neaten up the fly-aways. I pulled my hair into a loose and casual french braid and then I mixed a little water and sugar together to make hair spray to smooth down the sides.

One of the people from the 7 AM meeting who was also at my 9 AM meeting complimented my braid and my pulled together look. The upside is that I clearly am in training to kick MacGvyer’s ass in an emergency grooming situation. The downside is that I can’t ever think of Bruce as responsible and that’s kind of a big thing yo.

You Can’t Handle The Truth

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Today I read a story in the New York Times (I’ll give you a minute to skim). And it made me mad.

The new assholes all over the internet are learning all about the internet. Bitches, we’ve all been here for a decade and now you want to talk about how what you write on the internet isn’t private. Thanks. No really, I hadn’t known that.

My mom has found facebook. She’s my friend. As are a bunch of other people that I couldn’t give a shit about in high school and certainly don’t now. I hide pretty much everyone, especially the girls from college and high school who post all about the meal they cooked for dinner and how their children are now fully potty trained. There is a reason why mommy blogs exist, go get a free blog and leave the rest of us alone. What kills me is that my inclination to post funny things about my day (like imaginary miscarriages - more about that next) has been buried because I know it would offend all these people I don’t even like in the first place.

My mom, new to the idea of the internet, was trying to explain facebook to me. No, seriously, she said: “And you can put little tid bits about your day into the box and people can see it all.” My mom then explained to me how you will be told who else you know on facebook because the magic of facebook (I didn’t try to explain to my mom computer logic and how she allowed access to her email address book, I let it be magic). I was honestly so incredulous about the whole “let me tell you about the internet thing” that I called her back when Bruce and I were driving somewhere, put her on speaker phone and had her go through the details of the internet again. Bruce was equally entertained by the dialogue and when my mom gets to the part of her spiel about how when you post something on facebook you have to be careful because anything you write can be read by everyone else and so it’s not really a private conversation and in fact, everyone in America can read what you just wrote (not getting into the details of how, really only friends can read what you write on facebook, didn’t want to confuse the new girl). Bruce chose this moment to interject “everyone in the whole world can read what you just wrote.” My mom actually squeaked “THE WHOLE WORLD!” She promptly hung up, I am sure to go tell her husband that the whole world can read what she posts on the internet.

On one level I just want to laugh, because a) this is laughing all the way and b) it’s like people really haven’t been paying attention all along. Welcome to Web 2.0 fools. Careful to not feed the trolls. I’ve had such freedom here, posting what I want, when I want about who I want without a care. Facebook is painfully dull because I have to be so cautious about who and what and why and how foul. I’ve never had to worry about snark or scorched earth (remember that guy, I fucked him up! It was fun). I talked about sex, drugs and bikini waxing (more about that later too). I’ve talked about Bruce (who by the way, tried to tell me that he didn’t really know how to text with his phone. The fool has a blackberry for his phone and he can’t figure out how to send a text. Douche). I’ve made fun of my family (see above) and said fuck…a lot. It’s been a while since I’ve blogged with any regularity and I don’t know if I have the brain power to do so again for the time being, but I love the ability to come here and say what I mean to say (John Mayer is annoying - stop twittering you fucking tool). SEE! While my life is far less exciting than when I first started blogging, for instance, I don’t drink, smoke or snort anything (oh but I do take pills yay for pills), I think as I find the next phase of my blogging self I will get back on the writing horse.

The laters:

I was at the gym on Monday and my trainer (who I call the Workout Nazi, something that would offend most of my Jewish family on facebook - losers ruining my good times) kicked my ass and made me puke three times. I had eaten half of a granola bar two hours before and my stomach took way too long to digest.  I was trying to do that thing I do when I am drunk and I am going to puke so I breathe deeply through my nose. Unfortunately all I could do was run to the bathroom and vomit. Hard. So I became that bulimic girl at the gym. It was like college all over again without the drunk whores passed out. I knew that all 6 women in the other stall heard the whole thing. I was prepared with a story. If asked if I was okay, I was going to say that I was pregnant (“I don’t know why they call it morning sickness, I have it all day!”). Then I realized that in 9 months they would be like, where’s the baby. At which point I would have to say that sadly I miscarried shortly thereafter.

I was going to facebook the story, but then figured my mom and the facebook mommy bloggers would not find that at all funny. And so I didn’t post.

Also, I’ve gone for a second course of laser therapy for hair removal. By May 2010 I will be like those hairless pussies. HA. No really, HA! I just couldn’t go on with the shaving and the waxing and the hair. Finally I took the plunge. I go, I put on numbing ointment, and a very nice women puts a laser when the sun has never shined. I have the distinct honor of being able to tell you all about the time a laser was slid between my ass cheeks and shocked the hair follicles into submission. The two days after are nice, then there is the growth period where the dead hairs work their way out from the root and then the shedding begins. I love shedding. I feel like if I can live through the electrocution of the hair on my labia (fun with google search key words), which is the most painful thing to happen to me that I will pay for repeatedly, then I can probably do anything.

Pills are awesome. I have been playing with antidepressants to treat my tinnitus. My primary care physician has been refreshingly willing to keep changing things up without requiring me to come in with every prescription change. I’ve not found the perfect pill in the perfect dose. What I have found is that I have an opposite reaction to Elavil (up all night with rhonda shear). Also, Paxil plus sudafed makes me feel like I did an eight ball of coke. You can imagine how much I love Paxil and sudafed when trying to work and not be totally high and fucked up. I asked my co-worker if I seemed high, also, if she thought I was acting straight. She said “yes and no.”

I am now going to go troll the internet and write mean things that all the other people in the world can read.

With A Bang

Monday, October 06, 2008

I’m back.

So much has happened.

First there are some blog-cleaning activities that must occur. My email is being overrun by bots sending me ever so helpful information on a variety of narcotics/penile enhancements/opportunities to inherit a fortune from a terminally ill and paralyzed distant relative (no really, it actually said: “it wasn’t so bad after the stroke, but the chemotherapy is quite difficult to take”).

Second the people upstairs are having sex. Slowly.

Third you must know I’ve been cheating on you. I’ve been exchanging emails with someone in the city. I’ve been exhausting all my endlessly funny stories on him. I think I will just go through my emails and paste them in (at least that way you can read all the opportunities I’ve had to make my fortune on the back of someone so close to death).

Fourth I have a wedding this weekend in LA. A retreat next weekend in San Diego. A baby christening the weekend after that. A wedding in Georgia the weekend after that. Then I plan on sleeping for a month.

Fifth Natalie will be mad if end here so I shall soldier on. Natalie also has had the opportunity to soak up my funny goodness. But the things I say to make Nat laugh are not really all that appropriate for this forum. Mostly because I will say something about someone, and then that someone will read it here, and the someone will be like: “Hey bitch! I have feelings.” And then I will be all: “Shut up whore.” This will go on for awhile until one of us passes out from lack of oxygen and we will wake up feeling all awkward or something. And then things will never be the same.

Sixth my apartment is looking pretty supa-fly.

Seventh I don’t know why I am writing out the numbers. It’s annoying me. But I am too lazy to go back and change this. Or add the correct suffix/punctuation.

Eighth my clothes are fitting awfully snug this month. Maybe it’s time to get over the fact that I had some of my toenails removed and get back into the gym. I just looked at some photos from when I first moved out here. I was fit! No really. What the hell happened? Let me answer that rhetorical question: Bruce. Bruce happened. Fucking comfort eating.

Ninth my yearly review went really well last month. I was given the highest possible raise. Yes: 5.3%. Word. Now I have actual projects that I own and people ask me actual questions that I need to be able to actually answer promptly. Whoever set me up in this con needs to be beaten. When I interviewed for this job no one ever said that there would be questions.

Tenth bitches I made it! An even multiple of five. Thank you and good night.

Things My Boyfriend Says

Monday, June 09, 2008

Me: “We have to go to dinner. Let’s get ready.”
Bruce: “Ready.”
Me: “Don’t suppose you’re going to do anything about your hair?
Bruce: “?”
Me: “Your hair appears to be standing on end in the back.”
Bruce: “Sooooo?”
Me: “Take your shirt off, t-shirt too.”
Bruce: “Um, okay?”
Me: “Put your head in the sink.”
Bruce: (with his head in the sink) “What is going on here?”
Me: (Turning on the water) “Less talking, more washing.”
Bruce: “Don’t waterboard me Dick Cheney!”

sated and satire

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Soooooooooooooooo

I went to Texas a few weeks ago. What, you expect prompt updates? Please bitches. The mood had yet to strike.

Texas was fun. I hung out with 19 year-olds with fake ids. No really, that was fun. I must have been a little bit like those kids back in the days of my illegal drunkitude. I also hung out with 30-somethings with real ids. That was also fun. Mostly because we found the most excellent bar eva that served food late and played music that made me happy. (Oh yeah, hanging out with 19 year-olds meant that I knew one song throughout the whole night.) But really the best part of the whole weekend, and there were many wicked moments over the length of the weekend, was the moment at brunch when the band started to play. The sign on the door said Gospel music and my friend and I were expecting the very best baptist choir that Texas had to offer. Imagine our surprise at the blue-grass gospel that accompanied our brunch.

The one thing that Sunday brunch with blue-grass gospel made me realize (no, not that I am a sinner and that Jesus will walk me home, although that is what the lead singer would have me believe) was that I really miss living in the city. A point driven home when my friend and I had a few hours to waste and decided to catch a movie. The movie was hilarious but the theater was a gem. The served more than your usual popcorn and sour patch kids, they brought us a huge bowl of popcorn, warm cookies and ice cream. Also, if the mood should strike, a burger and a beer. Have no fear, my friend made sure to avail herself of the beer.

The need to move back to a city is hampered by a number of factors, like the car I just leased and my job that is squarely located in the suburbs. But in the end, I’ve told Bruce that it’s really a matter of my happiness and sanity, so I am going to have start looking for a place in the city. Of course this is a tall order because I need somewhere affordable (dang car payment), a secure place to park my car (no street parking for my dang car), and place that is one of three specific neighborhoods that are located next to the highway that would take me straight to my job. I know that finding the right place will take time, and that’s cool, but I would like to be there in the next few months.

Bruce keeps voicing his dislike for the idea of living in the city, and that’s cool. This is not the swan song for Bruce and Some Girl. I am just making the best of a situation and finding my way into living the best life I can in a place where I haven’t really found my footing. The only way I will ever make new friends is if I move. I can’t force Bruce to leave the suburbs but I can make the best decision for my life and that is moving to the city.

The decision was easy to make, now all I have to do is find a place that meets my requirements, and of course that’s always the hard part.

Eastered

Sunday, March 23, 2008

So The Great White Way was fine and for my first business trip ever, was mostly easy. There was a missed flight due to no fault of my own but other than that, I survived being a grown-up. Then my second conference was okay as well. My co-workers are doing their best to make my job as difficult as possible and make really unreasonable suggestions in how they want our research data to be presented. But it’s cool because I made it entirely clear that I wasn’t doing the presentation so if someone in the audience had a question the presenter would be on their own to explain things. I think that they will come to the belief that the data should be shown in as simple way as possible.

The way that this last week went, next week is going to be a beast. The week after I head to super northern California for yet another conference. As much as I like a job that sends me to interesting place, I am almost burned out on this. I always thought I would love being a consultant and travel weekly to a customer site, and maybe I would if it were consistent, but this traveling for a day to be somewhere for a day to spend another day traveling home stuff kind of sucks.

The flip side is that the job itself is going really well. I tend not to write too much about the job but not because funny things don’t happen there, it’s just a different atmosphere than my last job so the “funny things” are much more contextual. Like the last funny thing was that I made the menopausal admin feel bad. See, without a huge contextual story that is totally not funny. And when I say funny, I mean not funny for her. And I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong the day I walked into the reception area of my office and asked if anyone else smelled that odor. (I described it as that smell of old lettuce. Like when you get a sandwich and eat only half and then eat the other half in a few days. The lettuce wilts and gets a very distinct taste. That taste was what I smelled). After spending about three minutes sniffing the air, the admin (aforementioned menopausal admin) said she couldn’t smell it, but she had just eaten her sandwich in the conference room but that it was a freshly made sandwich. Come to two days later when the analyst who sits next to the admin told me that apparently as a side affect of menopause our admin is secreting an odor out of her skin and two days before my odor sniffing adventure the other analyst and our boss had a similar conversation wherein the our boss who can’t smell because of a cold asked the analyst to sniff her (perfectly acceptable in our office) to confirm or deny that our boss was the source of the smell. When the analyst said that our boss was in the clear, the admin asked if it was her. The analyst innocently leaned in to sniff the admin and drew back quickly and was like: “um, kind of.” Unfortunately the way she drew back was more in line with the way people pull back when they open a container of rotten food, you know, all dramatic like. So you can now imagine how unfortunate my whole, “Do you smell that?” thing was.

So I call that funny, because when I was telling Bruce the whole thing from start to finish, the only thing I could do was laugh. I mean the whole thing was really unfortunate. And I totally feel bad knowing what I know now, because our admin is a nice person and is just doing her job.

Speaking of Bruce, who does not entirely find all my work stories as funny as I do, but totally thought the “Do you smell that” story was funny, he’s doing well enough. He’s got some weird pain things going on right now because of a tetanus shot he got on Friday. You see after the whole episode that meant I had to bring him to the hospital I made him get a complete physical (hence the tetanus shot). It turns out that the diet we’re on because Bruce felt fat has worked wonders on him, Bruce is now 5 pounds above his ideal weight. I wondered where I was at in the scheme of things and was rudely informed that I am not just overweight, I am technically considered obese. Damn, that is not good. Bruce seems even more motivated than ever, because those 5 pounds are totally weighing him down (seriously, why is he like this?) and wants to join a swish gym. I’m all in, because unless you’ve forgotten, I am technically obese.

Other than all that, things are so normal. I’ve taken to dropping the word marriage into every third conversation, least he forgets what I’m looking for here. Just yesterday we went to lunch with his sister and I told her that if Bruce didn’t propose in a timely manner I would move into a certain neighborhood in San Francisco. Bruce just rolled his eyes because he’s become use to my tactics of mentioning the fact that he hasn’t proposed marriage yet. His sister laughed but I am sure she will now apply gentle pressure to Bruce, mostly by telling her parents to pressure Bruce to propose. We’ll see what happens today at Easter lunch with his family.

And one final point: who finds Flavor Flav attractive? No really stop it VH-1.

The one where I get all religious

Thursday, February 28, 2008

So I now understand why people view buying a car as a painful task that one does only when needed. I get why my mom drove her cars into the ground rather than buying a new car every five years. Seriously, car salesmen are a breed unto themselves.

On that note, my new car should be here by Friday. I am so ready for this whole thing to be over, and this thing, as far as I can understand it, has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the car dealership in Reno that was pissed off with the car dealership in Oakland so Reno was refusing to trade cars with Oakland in order for me to get the car that I wanted.

Note to self: issue a fatwah on Reno

Beyond that, well Bruce is much better. He is his normal smiling, bouncy self. I’ve made him schedule an appointment with a doctor at my clinic because it’s been at least 2 years since he saw anyone for something that was not acute. The doctor of my choice has agreed to see Bruce and will in fact expedite the appointment so Bruce will only 3 weeks instead of 6. Yes, my friends, that’s right, I have connections. Too bad my connections don’t also supply Valium. Okay, my connections are kind of lame, whatever.

On the diet front, even though Bruce had a case of uncontrollable spasms, we’ve stuck with the diet and I am a full size smaller. That is the good. The bad is that I now have to go shopping for clothes that fit. I am not at a place where I want to stop loosing weight so I don’t want to invest too much in new clothes but my shirts are way too big and my pants are like clown pants. I think everyone knows what this means: shopping spree at Target! I suspect that $150 will get me two pairs of pants, three button-down shirts and a sweater. This is the greatness of Target. The only danger is if I wander into the health and beauty section. Then I will leave with $300 worth of hair care products and no new clothes.

And now there is news about work. I’ve finally corralled people into admitting that they too drink booze. I’ve organized a night out with a group of women. The email reads as follows: “For those new to this email chain, your names were sent to me by those who care about your liver’s ability to correctly process alcohol. We are running a test of such measure on Thursday March 6 at 4:59 PM at XXXXXX on XXXXXX Street.” This should be the most fun I’ve had in a minute. Also, I intuit that this night will show who can hang and who will go home early. Yay pitchers of Margaritas.

The other news work is that I saved myself by not being totally snarky for once. I sent an email to a doctor about an issue with a report and by proxy the data from the report. Luckily in the email I mentioned twice that the person who wrote the report has already verified the report in several ways and when we run it in a controlled environment the data is correct. The doctor decided that the best way to handle the issue was to send the person who wrote the report an email chain that originated with my email. I swear, if it weren’t for the blessed baby Jesus I would have written something super snarky and the tech who wrote the report in the first place would spend the rest of her time here figuring out how to cut me. Into tiny piece. And then feed me to Piranhas. No really.

I feel like there was something about the whole set up the last time I found this error that made me think that I would get burned if I weren’t careful. The other part of this is that a bunch of people who matter were cc’ed about this problem and at least all I look like is the inquisitive analyst to a bunch of people who matter. Also, if that tech had just listened to me ages ago when I pointed out the error in the data, instead of talking to me like I am some dumb girl who can’t understand SQL, well then maybe all of this could have been avoided. So you can see why I might have been tempted to write something snarky.

And to round out the big three…um Mazel Tov.

That’s all

Popeye The Sailor Man

Monday, February 25, 2008

I am home from work today, the third time in several weeks. The first two days were because I was sick. I had this creeping yucky that led to me eating 234087234 sugar free Popsicles. Today is all about Bruce.

At about 4:30 AM I was driving Bruce to the hospital because he had uncontrollable full body muscle spasms for an hour last night. I was only awake for about 15 minutes of it before I made him get in the car and it was only once we got there and Bruce started telling his story that I learned he had been having the spasms for about an hour.

Of course I kind of feel bad because when I woke up to Bruce shivering in bed and gasping for air my words of wisdom were: “relax, breath slowly and go back to bed.” Seriously, I took in his obvious distress and told him to go back to bed. It took a few minutes to realize that something was rotten in the state of Denmark. And when I finally hauled out of bed and told Bruce we were going to the Emergency Room, his lack of a fight made me really scared. Bruce is you basic male stoic so when he was so willing to go to the hospital I knew he was in trouble.

Of course by the time we get there, he can breath and the spasms were done. The diagnosis is something along the lines of an electrolyte imbalance. I think that means that our diet has taken certain vitamins out of our diet and Bruce’s natural aversion to certain vegetables meant that he was really lacking in things like Potassium. Oops. So while Bruce takes it easy at home, I am off to the store for some bananas and spinach.

On this side of things we can say that we are fine and everyone is okay, but in the moment, I think we were both scared. So scared in fact that when we got home we had a conversation about estate planning and writing up our wills. Nothing like a health scare to get us all kinds of serious. 

So this is how it’s going to be

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Bruce and I are back. Being at work this week kind of kicked my ass. Monday was spent staring off into the distance and being confused by my phone ringing.

Tuesday was not much better but at least I was able to follow what people were saying in conversation.

Wednesday would have been fine except for the insanity of all the other people. Both my boss and myself felt like we had been hit by the Crazy Train.

Thursday, today, is probably going to be very very very very slow. I can just feel it. My normal morning commute of 45 minutes took over an hour and when I arrived at work I realized I had nothing to do.

But what you all really want to know is What I did on my Christmas Vacation (by Some Girl).

Bruce and I agonized over where we should go. Bali, Fiji, Tahiti, Bangkok (haha, I said cock), Dubai, Sydney, Hawaii were all rejected mostly by Bruce but I nixed Hawaii and Sydney. After finally waiting so long that we couldn’t find a hotel with a room open long enough we ended up just outside of Belize City, Belize (look it up, I’ll wait………).

So there was sun and stuff. Most importantly, though, there were iguanas. We named ours Stripy. Sometimes there was a second one hanging out near our cabana, we called him Other Stripy. Stripy seemed really civilized, I’m guessing he’s used to the resort guests getting all up into his grill, so we have a billion and 1 pictures of Stripy.

Also there were hammocks. I love me a good hammock; Bruce does not like his feet leaving the earth. After ten days of trying to get Bruce to laying in a hammock with me, he finally acquiesced on our last day. I chose a hammock that I saw someone else using earlier that week. The someone using the hammock was “well-fed” and thus I thought the hammock would very easily hold us both. Alas Babylon, just as Bruce and I were getting comfy one of the ropes holding the hammock up slid down the tree. Slid is such a graceful word with the implication that there was a gentle sliding motion, what we did was more along the lines of falling on our collective asses. Bruce may never believe me again when I say that something is lots of fun and won’t hurt.

There were fun things though, we fished, snorkeled, walked up a Mayan temple that brought us 100 yards straight up to see over the jungle trees, swam, kayaked, and generally hung out. This was Bruce’s first vacation outside of America and his first ever at a resort. Bruce has now been introduced to the wonder that is the all inclusive vacation and by George, I think he likes it. We’ve already started talking about our next big vacation that will take place in about two years.

Bruce and I spend so much time alone, usually we are alone together for the entire weekend that I knew we would be okay on vacation together, but still I worried that there would be a point when I tried to smother Bruce with a pillow or better yet, throw him into the lagoon with the Crocodiles and hope that nature would take its course. I should have known better, if there is one thing Bruce and I do well together it’s solitude.

And because we are going in reverse order, I will now present a list of things I received from Bruce for Christmas: A back massager that attaches to a work chair (or in my case is propped up on the couch while I watch TV), a set of exacto knives, a laptop base for my lap, paper cutter. Eventually I will be getting a new cell phone (I’m leaning toward a blackberry). Bruce, the lucky man that he is, received a lightsabre for the Wii and a piece of art for his new office at work (a decorated and signed lunchbox by Rosanne Cash that was part of a charity auction for the NYC Food Bank). Eventually he will be getting a new watch (I’m just waiting for him to pick one).

And let’s see…before that, Bruce was named partner at his law firm. Yeah, he’s finally a partner. That means some good things and some bad things, but mostly it means nothing is really going to change.

I’m off to go ice my carpal tunnel syndrome away, smell ya later.

Mrs. Goodbar

Friday, November 16, 2007

As my time in the suburbs increase the things I miss most of what I was living before is public transportation. Shut up!  I know.

I don’t miss the smell of vomit at 8 AM on a Friday morning or begging a nightbus driver to pull over and let me off because I fell asleep and missed my stop. What I miss is what is implied by the public transportation. I miss walking to starbucks. I miss my $15 a day starbucks habit. I miss drunk shopping for Christmas gifts. I miss convenience stores being conveniently located. I miss being at a bar until closing and still being in bed before midnight on Thursday night (hence the smell of vomit at 8 AM on a Friday morning).

With all that I miss, and there are tons more, but I think you get the point, what I miss the most are the people. I wake up missing specific people around the globe. I know that Pussy Willow will never move to San Francisco, that PB is building her life in Boston, that the girls in Texas are in Texas for a reason, that Carrie UnPatched likes life in the country side, that Bonnie has her life in New York, and that Willis has hers by the beach back home where we use to live. I get that all those people in my life are where they always have been and I am the one who keeps leaving the place where everyone else is. It’s just that all these people have, at one time or another, been my person. And for the first time in a long time I don’t have my person.

I just want my new person here to reveal themselves because I miss making fun of the homeless (what, you know you do it too, besides they are just homeless because they are lazy) and eating sushi after Martinis on Friday night. I miss having someone who will call me to tell me that they got home just fine and that guy from the bar passed out in the cab so she just left him there to find his own way home. I miss having a shopping buddy who will listen to me bitch about how annoying Bruce is.

Most of all, I miss someone who tells me that I am okay.

Materially Speaking

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Sometimes the universe sends me signs and sometimes I have to figure things out all on my own. The stuff I figure out on my own is probably an indication that I am maturing as a person. Also it means I am a lot less fun.

The last five years were an exercise in getting exactly what I want and paying whatever it took to get it. Judging from the credit card debt I carried I was paying but add in the emotional toll, I was paying a whole lot more than I thought. Having been gainfully employed for the past two months I can happily say that I have closed most of my cards, paid off the rest and carry very little other than my college loans (which I will be paying until my imaginary children are in college). I think that I am pretty content with life as it is and my needs, immediate and otherwise, are being well met. My desire to shop has decreased to the point that I would much rather not try on clothes and buy something new for the sake of having something new to wear.

All that said, there is a bag that I want to hump. In fact, I may have humped it in my dreams last night. And the night before. And the night before that. This bag is worth more than I spent in rent for the year of 2005. It is what most people spend on their first car. Heck it’s worth more than my first and second cars combined. And yet I covet this bag in a way that I can’t remember coveting anything in my entire life. I don’t know the likelihood of my getting this bag for any one of the various holidays that come up during the next three months. Indications from Bruce are such that I am not expecting this bag to appear magically over the course of Hanukkah, Christmas, or my birthday. The only hope that remains is that my real family will seek me out after all these years of being separated as there was a mix up at the hospital all those years ago and my real family is so pleased to finally find me that they shower me with money and gifts including one very special bag.

What? A girl can dream.

Edited to Add:

People are after me for a look at the bag, here is the ad where I first saw it.

Bane

Thursday, October 25, 2007

My reticence in blogging about work ends now. And not because Amy threatened me with bodily harm and dirty limericks. For the most part work is work. Things happen, I laugh, I go about my business.

But, as I go about my business I have to speak with my coworker, heretofore: Bane. Oh yeah.

“Some Girl, normally when we do this graph we make the y-axis set from 0 to 100%”
“Oh, okay Bane, sure. 100%”

Later that month…

“So Bane I noticed that all the graphs from the last quarter that you said to use as a basis for this quarter all start at 30%.”
“Oh, yeah Some Girl, that’s right. I kind of base the y-axis on a gut feeling about what makes for a good looking graph.”

“Some Girl, please note that you seem to have some sort of hidden image behind the graphs that you did last week.”
“Oh hi Bane. That’s not a hidden image. That’s the word PAGE that excel puts on every page in the print view.”
“Oh yeaaaaaah. Great. Can you make sure it won’t print on the page?”
“It won’t. It’s on every page of every spreadsheet ever made in excel.”
“Yeah, can you just make sure?”
“Sure. Fine. Let me print this out and prove to you that the light gray word in the background of every excel spreadsheet won’t show up in the printed version.”

“Some Girl I just want to review the writing of reports from SQL. First you pick the Select, then the from, then the where. Then enter. I mean Run.”
“Okay.”
“So, let’s Select X, From Y, Where Z. Enter. I mean Run.”
Okay.”
“Okay so let’s Select X1, From Y2, Where Z3. Enter. I mean Run.”
“Okay.”
Okay so let’s Select Xa, From Yb, Where Zc. Enter. I mea…”
“I know, Run. I got it. Run, not Enter.”

On top of all this, Bane is about 5’8” and 106 pounds. Awesome. Oh yeah and she has a huge diamond engagement ring and carries a huge LV bag.

The fish seem to be better today

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

This morning I fed them with the light on and they ate in their normal chumming way. They are very violent eaters; they swim around and dart at the food and churn up the water causing all the food particles to swirl around. It’s like they know how to make it look like they work hard for their food even though they are the laziest fish in the world and we hand feed them daily. Bruce theorized that they hang out underneath the filter because that is the place with the least amount of current and therefore they expend the least amount of energy moving their fins to stay in place.

I feel like they were conning me into feeling bad for them and their unnatural fear of the light. I’ve decided as punishment for their manipulative behavior I am no longer going to prevent Bruce from standing along side the fish tank and screaming “HELLO FISHIES!”

Bruce, for his part, is of no help in maintaining the wild jungle that is the fish tank. He is on his way to another country of the Asian persuasion. Yet again he is flying business class to a land that is far, far away and he will come back with annoying gestures and habits. He also better come back with something of the duty free variety that sparkles in the sun. For my part I am supportive, as ever, with regards to Bruce’s travel as the more he’s away the more I can justify buying the new designer bag I want that costs the equivalent of what I spent on rent last year.

Bruce and I went on a bear hunt.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Carrie Patch got married in the woods. There were bears. Bruce and I did what we could to avoid the bears. Specifically, we stayed out of the woods. Also, I drank. I don’t know if that’s on the list of official ways to avoid bears but seeing as I didn’t see a bear I am going to add that to MY official list of ways to avoid bears.

On the way to the bear hunt I realized that my plan of packing on Wednesday night for a Wednesday night flight was a bad idea. Mostly because when I landed I made note of all the things missing. A list ensues.

Shampoo
Conditioner
Curling Iron (size small)
Jewelry
Earphones
Ipod
Clean jeans
Razor
Soap

All these things were purchased at the local Rite-Aid (except the jeans which I washed in the sink). It turns out that it was a good thing I forgot all these things because the shopping trip gave us a chance to escape the Bates Motel. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention we were staying at the Bates Motel in the middle of the woods.

Suffice it to say, Bruce and I had our share of the scary outdoors for this month.

(As always the wedding was great, the bride beautiful and my eyelashes fake. In my head I live in the Valley of the Dolls.)

Code Crazy

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

A patient here would like a refund for his visit. I get a lot of these requests. People do not like to believe that health care costs what it does. They also believe that we are making tons of money off the backs of the insurance companies. That’s so not what’s happening. But I’m not here to tell you about the way of the world, at least not today.

The patient, remember the patient, well he felt he deserved to have the charges on his bill reversed because the doctor he saw was unable to remove the radio transmitter device from his nasal passage. The patient felt that the doctor was getting paid too much for sitting with him for 45 minutes yet was totally unable to resolve the issue.

Luckily for this patient I wasn’t the doctor because there is no way I would have sat with him for 45 minutes discussing the variety of people who are tracking his movements via the radio transponder in his nasal cavity. I would have taken three minutes to call him crazy and then 42 minutes to do a Starbucks run.

And on that note, I have some other things I would like to share.

Quotes that came out of my mouth this past month:

“No you may not cut the back of your hair with nail clippers.”
“Stop trying to make me smell your hair.”
“I will not observe your underwear.”
“I think we broke our fish. They seem to have neurotic fear of the light.”
“Turns out the doctor was right about not jumping on the bed. How’s your head?”
“The hookers in LA have absolutely no work ethic.”
“I thought you just asked me if I thought that was a good dildo.”
“I can’t handle the truth.”