One of those days...

I hit snooze twice. I got to work 10 minutes later than I wanted to. I was running around like a madwoman, quietly pissy, all frigging day. Building to building, carts and boxes and samples and what-have-you, editing this, and dealing with that. Walking to the bathroom to cry because I don't understand LOD and don't have the patience to ask someone. Running to the bathroom to cry when my officemate took her 11th personal call of the afternoon and I can't think straight when someone behind me is yelling at her kid on the phone. My feet and ears were fucking killing me. I FUCKING HATE WEARING HEELS!

I threw my hands in the air and packed up early. I had three VERY heavy grocery bags full of crap that I have to work on this weekend, plus another bag full of baby products I got for my sister, AND my wheeled laptop case, and I struggled with numb wrists and fingers dragging all that shit down the sidewalk, through several parking lots, down the hill, through the other parking lot, and realized I parked somewhere else today. I must have traipsed through the entire fucking campus and climbed two small mountains trying to find my car. I was in tears, 30 minutes later when I finally spotted it.

One of those days that so many things have gone wrong, you just know you're going to get into a car accident or something. Instead, I reached the train tracks in time to wait for, not one but, two trains to pass. And I'm all huffy and pissy, waiting for the trains and thinking about how sore my feet are from walking so far in heels.

And then I see this man limping very slowly on the sidewalk. Probably mid-80's, hunched over and sideways, in a collared shirt with one empty sleeve, swaying, and one arm clutched close to his body that doesn't move at all.

And I was done pitying myself for the day.

Today I was insulted by the garbage man.

I was in the supply room cutting 165 strips of paper with that paper-cutting machine thing, because I was volunteered to be on the planning committee for this luncheon next week. I was trying to mentally calculate how many hours of my precious weekend will be designated to putting together all this crap, half listening to one of the women from legal in the hallway politely ask the garbage collector to please empty the Restricted Paper bins every Tuesday as per their contract. He refused to empty the bins until they were at least half full, and if he was called to empty them on a day other than Tuesday, their department would be charged a fee. She reminded him that the legal department has a need for certain documents to be disposed of in a certain time frame, and that they are on a budget and would like to avoid those recurring fees.

He replied, "Well that contract is signed by lawyers, if you want to see it. And my wife works with lawyers, too, so I know how it is to work with you people."

Then he turned to me and said, "You must have a lot of time on your hands."

Indiana Jones and the Caribean Sea

On the walk back to the building after lunch yesterday, N and I were talking about movies we'd seen recently. She mentioned that her 6-year-old wanted to see the new Indiana Jones movie, so the entire family watched all the old Indiana Jones flicks so he could get an idea of the background. He decided he wanted to be Indiana. She bought him the hat and the outfit, and she told me that every day, she has to lay the outfit on his bed next to his school clothes so he can come home and put the costume on and play Indiana Jones.

I laughed so hard, and she told me she's trying to get him involved in some kind of acting group, but it's tough because he's only a kindergartener.

Today the topic of "motion sickness" came up at the lunch table, and N and I exchanged sea sickness stories from snorkeling trips we'd had.

She said, "You know, I bought my son a snorkel, and he's been snorkeling in the bathtub every night. He wanted to snorkel in the YMCA pool but they won't let him because he's not SCUBA certified yet, but when the neighborhood pool opens up he'll be able to snorkel in that pool."

Then she mentioned, "I'm not allowed to wash his Indiana outfit because he wants it to get beat up and dirty so it's more authentic."

I need to find myself a wife.

You know? Someone to pick out my clothes for the morning and feed me and clean up after me.

Wait a second... Maybe what I'm actually looking for is a stay-at-home-mom.

I realized that I spend half of my life at work. Yes, this includes my 30-minute round-trip commute and the 45 minutes I spend at the site gym after work. But still. 7:45am until 7:45pm and it will only get more depressing when it starts getting darker later and earlier.

I have a few precious hours to myself every evening, and for the past two evenings the time's been eaten up being on hold with Time Warner for screwing with my internet service.

I'm trying to figure out how my current situation feels different than when I was in grad school. I was working the same hours in grad school - I totally was! But I guess I didn't feel guilty about shopping online whilst taking mindless data, or making a personal phone call here or there. I could run to the bank over lunch, or schedule a Health Center visit during the day and just walk there and walk back to the lab. Plus, the MF was cooking dinner for me all the time.

One of the (several hundred) new hires sent out a new-hire-wide email on the server advertising that her 20-year-old kid sister was finished with college coursework for the summer and had come to live with her until August. She is willing to provide babysitting/housesitting services to any coworkers until then. I was tempted to reply. "Please, dear college student, be my personal nanny. Cook dinner for me and iron my school clothes... Please? I will pay you... a lot..."

On a somewhat satisfying note, I went to do some online banking this evening and noticed I got paid today. And I was all, "I'm rich, bitch!"

Hair and crap like that

I want to donate 10" to Locks of Love or whatever it's called. Only problem is that I have awful, awful, ugly, terrible split ends and the amount of hair I'm willing to get chopped is currently about 9 inches. Should I just deal with the ugliness of split ends for another few months or can someone recommend a good place to get a trim that's cheap? Also, do I need to cut a 10" braid off myself or do salons around here participate in the program?

Please help because my hairs are feeling ugly.

Happy Birthday! I'm so sorry!

Today was N's birthday and the Birthday Club organized a half hour to meet in her office, have some cake and juice, and wish her well.

When it was about time to light the candles and sing, about 5 people asked me where B was. He is musically inclined. I had no idea what I was about to experience without B in the room.

Someone started the song. I don't know who, but it started out as a complete non-melodic drone, almost like a slow, muffled chant, which grew increasingly quieter as the song progressed, and became nearly silent by the time we got to the part where we say her name, because no one knew if we'd be calling her by her whole name or her nickname.

It was about the most depressing birthday moment I've ever witnessed in my life, and to top it off, after we stopped singing/chanting, the British dude in the office got a couple words into the second verse, we all looked at him, and he quit. But you know, at least he sang those couple words because it gave us something to talk about, we 15 people in the office standing awkwardly and avoiding eye contact. We could talk for 2 minutes about how British people sing another verse.

Then like 3 people clapped when she blew out the candles. I wish I had a video camera, because it was so damn depressingly awkward that it could've been an episode of The Office.

American Gladiators

Does anyone think that one dude is hot? That one with the Ken-Doll face and those legs that are each the size of my entire body and boobs way bigger than mine? Is he hot? Or does he just freak people out?

Because he gives me the creeps.

People who annoy me

These aren't just mild annoyances, these are things that drive me absolutely insane to the point I want to scream and squeeze and shake people into submission:

People who spend 10 minutes cutting their salad with a knife and fork before eating it

People who say "irregardless"

People who say "supposebly"

CHRONIC SNIFFLERS

People who take it upon themselves to inform smokers that smoking is unhealthy

People who don't pronounce the L in words that rhyme with "old" such as "hold" and "cold"

People who define an acronym with a series of acronyms

VEGETARIANS*

Uninformed, uneducated, ignorant, outspoken members of ANY political party

Parents who enable/encourage their high-school-aged kids to drink/do drugs/be promiscuous/break the law and essentially encourage them to grow up to be equally awful adults

Lazy women who play the "damsel in distress" card to get men to do their work for them

Coworkers who think SEX is an appropriate topic to discuss at the lunch table with the New Hire



*Choosing such a diet for religious reasons is perfectly respectable and commendable. But the rest of you? Come on. Stop trying to prove a point, because none of us care. Eat a frickin' steak to remind yourself how good it is.

Happy thought for a Wednesday

I saw a squirrel, a canary, a wren and a dove sitting around a dish of seeds my neighbor put on his porch, all eating together.

There was quite a bit of chatter/tweeting but I don't know what they were talking about.

Support

A few weeks ago I started noticing posters in the hallways and in the women's bathrooms advertising the "Women of Young Babies" group meetings and I wished had a little kid so I could meet some women my age to talk about something we had in common. The other day those posters were replaced by "Weight Watchers" posters. For a split second I wished I were involved in Weight Watchers because, you know, at least I'd have some people to eat lunch with.

Why can't there be a "Normal People" group, where we meet and talk about how our day went, and have lunch together sometimes and just be friends? Why isn't there a "New Hire" group or a "Young Scientist Lunch Club?"

I don't need another "Work-Life Balance" seminar because, you know, my life is work right now. I have nothing to balance.

List

Top Some-odd Regrettable Purchases from my Recent Past:

Shorts with text on the butt in 2001
Four ugly Ikea pillows in 2002
A car without keyless entry in 2003
An elliptical trainer in 2004
Sub-par digital camera in 2005
Economy-sized cheap laundry detergent in 2006
Three dresses I'll never wear again from the VS catalog in 2006
Two more unreturnable dresses from one of those stores on Kirkwood in 2006
White white white running shoes in 2007
An obnoxiously gigantic laptop case with wheels in April

...I'll add to this as I see fit.

Stupid sky.

Hey, how about some rain?

Vancouver?

The invitation came in the mail today. "Colleen and Guest." I admit, I had doubts I'd actually be invited, even after the "Save the Date" arrived toward the end of last summer. Now, he is a great friend of mine, who I haven't seen in God knows how many years. We interned together 3 different semesters/summers and he's one of my favorite people in the world. I even took a weekend road trip with John to see him in Memphis in 2005. I guess that answers my question - I haven't seen him in 3 years. His fiance, who I assume is planning this whole shindig whilst simultaneously preparing for her research proposal at Vanderbilt, overlapped internships with me for a brief stint at good ol' DuPont. I think she's lovely. I am so honored to be invited to the wedding.

I've never been to Vancouver. I want to go.

Problem being: Flights are long and expensive, and if the BF comes with me (I wouldn't go without him) I will want to buy his plane ticket (zero chance of this happening) and pay for the rental car and several nights in a hotel. A long weekend will cost, as a rough estimate, $1600 and 4 days for the two of us.

The additional problem is that I have 5 vacation days this year. I need to take at least one to attend my 10-year HS reunion (which I'm helping to plan) and another 3 between Christmas and New Year's. How much vacation time can I spend going to this wedding?

I've never been to Vancouver and I want to go.

I fully expect this couple to attend my wedding, if/when that might happen. If they didn't come I would throw a fit. I think the world of these people.

I have never traveled somewhere and come home wishing I hadn't gone.

I can't read what I'm typing.

So please excuse any typos.

I got back from the eye doctor around 6:45pm tonight and am just starting to get my vision back. Gil was instant messaging me in 40 point font, probably as a joke but, believe it or not, that's what I needed. I still look like a frightened cat in the mirror and it's been almost 3 hours.

The optometrist, who looked quite young, called me sweetheart a few times, and talked to me in a sing-songy voice, "Okay? Now I'm going to ask you to put your chin right here hun, and look at the doctor through those silly big glasses! Now look down at your little toes!" He actually said "little toes." When he noticed that something appeared abnormal around my optic nerve, he asked me, "Does anyone else in your family have a history of glaucoma?" I said no and waited there while he wrote in my file for about three minutes. Silent. He took photographs of my nerves and compared them to a database that spit out something about it being within healthy limits. I couldn't quite make out what was wrong since he was speaking to me in babytalk. "This is the part of your eyeball that talks to your brain. And if you look at something and it doesn't talk to your brain, it's like, 'Hey! I didn't see that!'"

Please. I didn't appreciate being spoken to like that when I was 5.

Anyway, the peepers are still better than 20/20, I don't need glasses, and I don't think glaucoma is something I'm going to worry about. They used to tell Poppy he was going to get glaucoma for years, and he's 62 and still doesn't have it. He didn't wear glasses until he was in his 50's either. I told him on the phone today, "I got your eyes, Pop. Your eyes and Mom's teeth." He said, "Well, that's a shame."

Two Happy Thoughts for a Monday

There is a woodpecker who lives in my backyard and I hear him going at that tree every day when I get home from work. I assume it's male, and it pecks really fast so I think he's just a teeny tiny pecker.

Dinner tonight is 10 McCain's smiley fries, and it makes me so happy to see all those little guys smiling up at me from the plate. :-)

A flameless candle is actually a lightbulb, Glade.

We need a new word that means "wireless."

No one says "horseless carriage" anymore. We shouldn't call it "wireless internet."

Goings-on at Hyde Park Hallmark

I was looking at the poor selection of Mother's Day cards after the gym, not able to get as weepy as I would've liked because I left my tissues in the car. Anyway, a woman stepped closer to me and bent down to reach for a card when, what I thought was a coat draped over her right arm, licked me. I didn't know dogs were allowed in stores. I guess there's a fine line these days between "pet" and "accessory."

Next, a 60-something-year-old couple moved closer, and the snooty-looking woman pointed to a card she was holding, showing her husband, "Well that's a very German spelling of 'daughter' - it's d-a-u-G-H-t-e-r." Her husband pointed to another card and said, "They spell it like that here, too. I think that's how you spell daughter."

Age-ism

At a Kroger's in Bloomington, several months back, I was loading about six weeks' worth of groceries onto the checkout counter on a Saturday afternoon. When I put a bottle of whiskey on the belt, the middle-aged man behind me had the balls to ask, "Are you old enough to be buying that? It's for your father, isn't it?" I replied, "I'm older than I look." He made a couple more jokes, to which I replied, "I haven't lived with my father for over 10 years." The cashier, who heard the banter between the two of us, explained, "I'm still going to need to see your ID." Fine. I handed it to her and she said, "Wow, you do look much younger than that." I hope like hell she didn't tell the man behind me my age.

A few days later I drove my Honda to Firestone for an oil change. I had been going to the same Firestone for the five years I lived in Bloomington, so they've had my car on file and seen me there countless times for oil changes and tire changes and various what-have-yous. I handed my keys to the same man I'd seen every time I'd gone in, and he said, "Thanks, kiddo. We'll have your car ready in about an hour."

KIDDO?!

At my new job, about six of us females were having lunch together, and I pointed to a group of awkward intern-looking-folks who were carrying trays to the dishwasher and asked, "Did new interns start working this week because I've seen a bunch of those kids walking around." Kate laughed and said, "Some of us might consider you a kid. What are you, about 23?"

The next day, a coworker messaged me with a comment about how the pictures of "that little girl" on my desk couldn't have possibly been my daughter because I "couldn't be 30 years old." I asked, "How old do you think I am?" He replied, "Just a guess... 22?" I said, "You realize I was in school for 9 years before starting here." "Yes, I realized that but I thought you looked young."

Who the fuck am I - Doogie Howser?

Tonight, I was carded at the gas station for buying cigarettes. This is the last straw. The cashier read the birth date on my license and said "Oh, whoops." (And the first person to give me hell for enjoying and savoring the occasional cigarette because I should know better is going to get it. I do know better.) Point is, I am five feet tall. Not gonna grow any more. Doesn't mean I'm 12. I have long hair. Also doesn't mean I'm 12. In fact, I was probably done growing by the time I turned 12, and I'm tired of being judged and treated based on my height and the length of my hair. I have the smile lines. I carry myself like a 27-year-old should. I walk well in heels. I speak well. I don't know what more I can do to portray myself like and be treated like an educated, adult woman.

Any advice is welcomed.

I finally did it!

I've somehow become a breakfast person. I don't know how this happened, since I never used to care much for breakfast, or anything relating to mornings, at all. On the weekends I got in the habit of sleeping until noon, waking up hungry, and running to Subway or Taco Bell for lunch. Now that I'm on a normal-person schedule, I can't stay awake past 10:00pm (don't tell Jennifer!) and today I woke up at 7:15 without an alarm.

On the drive to Ikea, I kept wanting to stop at a restaurant but they were all closed. I parked in the Ikea lot at 10:07am, 7 minutes after the store opened its doors. The lot was only half full. I knew I wouldn't be able to spend two hours shopping on an empty stomach so I made a beeline to the cafe and got the "regular breakfast," no bacon, double potatoes. French toast is actually pretty good, which I learned today.

I had that full-sized ironing board in my cart about 20ft. from the check-out. But I took it out and stuck it in a random furniture aisle. I left with a new garlic press, a meat tenderizer, a wall-clock (which I hung above my fireplace and looks amazing), a corkscrew (I am 27 and this is my first corkscrew), a set of coasters, a set of knives for Mom, and a table runner that ended up being too short which I need to return.

I went to Target afterward for curlers and a utensil holder. And I saw a full-sized ironing board and I bought it. I just bought it. I put it in my spare room, which I can finally use because they installed the new carpet today. I have a spare room and a standing ironing board. I feel like such an adult.