I Like Blue Pens

I’ve got that lightly crunchy feeling between my teeth, thanks to my toothpaste happy dental hygienist. Every time I close my mouth the miniscule sand-like pieces grind together, making strange echoing noises inside my head. Though I will give her credit for being reasonable with the tooth-scraping device, bless her.

After today’s trip to El Dentisto I’ve decided there’s no point in finding a mouth doctor you like because really, WHO CARES. The past three times I’ve been to the dentist I’ve sat in the automatic chair for 40 minutes while some abominably perky 23-year-old scrapes my teeth, takes x-rays and shoves the spit-sucker into corners of my mouth I haven’t seen in, well, ever. Senor Denisto usually rolls in as the Perky Hygienist is making my next appointment on their super-efficient touch screens located in every little room. Glad to see my insurance dollars are going to a good cause. Now, I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more of Senor Dentisto because he’s a tasty and delicious morsel, far above the normal cut of Mouth Gougers I’ve ever met. Hell, he’s a tasty and delicious morsel PERIOD. And it doesn’t hurt his cause that he always makes a crack about my five thousand bracelets and pointy shoes. But I do find it quite sad that he spends less than 30 seconds taking one of the pointy teeth-pickers and poking it at my teeth, only to announce with a great big toothy smile that my teeth are perfect, thanks for stopping by. I mean, I secretly love that he tells me my teeth are perfect because I have an unhealthy obsession with teeth in general. But 30 seconds? This is all I get for being poked and prodded and scraped for 40 minutes? I at least want him to slap my x-rays up on the screen and spend a few minutes looking at them in front of me, if only to give me the impression that Dentisto’s are just as involved in my mouth-health as those perky girls in black and pink scrubs.

And then I ruined my nice clean teeth by eating a baconeggandcheesemcgriddle from McDonald’s. AND IT WAS DELCIOUS.

Then I went to Old Navy because I still had an hour before I could feasibly show up for work. Wouldn’t want to get them thinking that I could come in EARLY. You might remember the last time I went to Old Navy- I woke up one morning and realized I had nothing clean to wear and promptly shuffled my pajama-ed self into my car, across town and into the warehouse environment where they pump steady streams of over-dj’d pop music. I picked up a pair of grey pants and a black sweater and changed in the car, where I was totally busted out by a 12-year old kid who was completely creeped out by the Lady With No Pants On. Today I had clean clothes but I really just wasn’t that keen on wearing them.

So I bought new ones.

And then drove to work, parked in the very back parking lot, whipped off my shirt and attempted to pull on
the tank top I’d carefully arranged for quick dressing. Naturally, there was nothing quick about it. My head got stuck in the arm hole while I flashed WHAT I THOUGHT was an empty rear parking lot. But I could never be that lucky. To the guy in the green SUV: THANKS AND YOU HAVE A GOOD DAY TOO, JACKASS.

Turning My Hay Into Gold Thread

In four days I start my new job, the big snazzy one with a cubicle literally 4 times as large as the one I sit in now along with actual barriers between me and the world, barriers taller than even the above average man, barriers that reach just shy of the ceiling. I will have a new, flat screen computer with top of the line software and hardware. I will work on projects that influence the company culture, generate new business and streamline existing processes. It seems daunting when I truly sit down and think about it—but deep down I know it will be okay. I can learn relatively anything, relatively fast. They liked me enough to hire me above all other applicants and I have to trust their judgment.

Here’s where the problem fits in:
There is no plan involved. I get a better job with better pay BUT THERE IS NO PLAN. I don’t have a track outlined in my head about where I want to go next, what job I want next, what office I want next. When I planned on going to radiology school there was a definite, outlined and subcategorized PLAN. I would attend school- check. Find a job with the traveling health services- check. Spend 6 months in each place before leaving for a new locale- check. Two years later determine a location I’d like to stay in- check. Buy a home- check.

I think what frustrates me more than anything about my current situation is the lack of change. I spent an hour on craigslist today looking at apartments in Amsterdam, thinking how desperately I want to pack up and leave, clean out my savings and spend three months in a run-down studio apartment, eating ramen noodles and making friends. THAT is what makes my heart go a-flutter. How do I get there? I could teach English as a second language, maybe…. if you forget about my heaping pile of credit card debt I’m required to pay each month along with the 17-grand I still owe on the Honda. How do I do it? Am I transferring some genetic need for companionship into the need to pack up and leave? Or am I just predisposed to flightiness, the need for constant change, even though I claim to hate it.

It’s just… today I sat at my desk and thought about the time I spent in the Netherlands and I missed the slice of bread I had for breakfast each morning, nine days straight, slathered in butter and covered in chocolate sprinkles. Like you and I go to McDonalds and expect our packet of grape jelly with our sausage biscuits, the Dutch expect their packets of chocolate sprinkles. And not the generic brown sprinkles found in the U.S.- these are the most delicious chocolate sprinkles ever to be found or tasted. I missed getting on the train in Alcala’ and riding the 30 minutes into Madrid. I missed being able to see the Sacre Coeur from my hostel window. I missed the walk to the university in Spain, the flip flops on my feet sticking to the hot pavement, passing the plaza and the allure of the bakery at the end of row, ordering croissant con queso y jamon, sin jamon por favor. Si’, solo queso because the guy behind the counter could never quite believe I only wanted the ham and cheese sandwich with cheese only, please. The Gap store in Paris I ducked into during a rainstorm, only to be met with the first stacks of clothing above a size 4 I’d been able to find since arriving, speculating that the French kept all their chubby people boarded up in sheds for fear of letting the tourists see the true effects of fresh cheese and gallons of wine. I even missed traveling with Kasi, the undisputed Travel Nazi of the Western Hemisphere.

And I’m sad because I thought I was a grown-up then.
And I’m sad because I thought being grown-up was always going to be like that, traveling with friends and laughing at street vendors and getting stomach cramps on 11-hour flights.
But I’m happy I’ve found a place that lets me pay my bills, live in a nice apartment, visit my friends who insist on living 30 miles away.
And I’m happy I found a venue to vent and write and write and vent.
But I miss parts of that life, when I thought I was a grown-up.

I've Lost My Nail File

I should probably apologize for the last post because which one of you really wants to read about bloody beating hearts? That silence I hear is everyone pinning their mouths together and making eye contact with their neighbor, silently pleading to be released from the wrath of the girl who previously just seemed A Bit On The Funny Side But Turned Out To Be A Prime Candidate For A 9x6 Cell.

Don’t cry for me, Argentina! ß said in contralto Madonnavoice.

This morning I had chocolate pudding for breakfast not because it looked tantalizing in it’s see-through container and not because it seemed like a grrrreat (Tony the Tiger!) way to start my day but because pouring a bowl of cereal just seemed like too godamned much trouble. Standing in front of the refrigerator I thought I’m a fucking adult and I can eat what I please. In fact, this realization was somewhat of an epiphany for me and one I’ve seen in others as well. Most notably was Spring Break during my freshman year at college. I woke up in the beachfront condo I was sharing with five other females and wandered into the living room, only to be greeted by my college roommate sitting cross-legged on the pull-out couchbed, eating Pringles and Corona. I expressed extreme disgust with her breakfast (of champion!) choices wherein she informed me that she was a grown ass woman and could do whatever the fuck she wanted. Though I’ll have to split hairs with her on being a grown ass woman at the ripe old age of 19, I do kind of have to agree with her, even if I still find her chosen combination of breakfast foods revolting. As a side note I might add that later in the afternoon, after falling asleep on the balcony post-consumption of roughly 12 Coronas and 2 cans of Pringles, she woke up to the vicious dive bombing attacks of two dozen sea gulls. I watched her spring from her plastic chair, legs tangled in her giant beach towel and run head first into the sliding glass door while screaming “THEY THINK I’M BREAD! THEY THINK I’M BREAD!”

She was rather pale.

My chocolate pudding wasn't really all it could be (get an edge on life, in the army!) but it was infinitely less time consuming than reaching inside the cabinet, pulling out a bowl, reaching inside another cabinet, dragging out the cereal, opening the box AND LET'S NOT FORGET A POSSIBLE EXPOSURE TO PAPER CUTS VIA THE DANGEROUS CARDBOARD, pouring out the cereal, getting the milk, opening the milk...GAH. Even now it makes me tired.

So I thought about how one could make cereal more efficient while I was eating my prepackaged chocolate pudding and realized, shit, somebody has already had this dream, to make the cereal easy for all. But they ended up at the wrong conclusion, which would be those cereal-n-milk bars they sell next to the granola bars in the grocery. I’d like to have a word with the advertising mammoth who decided that the correct marketing ploy would be to show commercials with the graphically enhanced ACTUAL milk transforming into the “milk” that is found between the layers of the cereal bar. This is not only unappetizing but it makes me want to not buy the regular cereal as well, in fear that some of that “milk” may have contaminated the cereal dispensers at the plant. Blech.

You Can Bypass This One If You Want

I wish there was a funny way to say I wasn’t sleeping, that I looked upon the sleeplessness as an exercise in self-awareness or that I found it endearing in a neurotic or mildly wacky kind of way. As in, “That girl looks like she’s not sleeping, WHAT A CHARACTER, THAT ONE.” or “Though obviously lacking in the REM category, BET SHE’S A TOTAL LAUGH.”

I’ve held off mentioning anything that might intimate my lack of voluntary and horizontal slumber because really, who wants to read about the bleary-eyed girl who sits at her desk, hallucinating tiny spiders marching in a line against the cubicle wall. In my vast and uber intelligent opinion, folks want to read about small men who live in trees (David the Gnome!) and make lamps out of human skin or perhaps Rodents Of Unusual Size who live in fanciful forests made of licorice and lollipops and swim in rivers of chocolate with pretty red beating hearts in lieu of shiny maraschino cherries. Obviously I’m exaggerating the scariness that the sleeplessness has wrought upon my aching body OR AM I. In truth I got out of bed this morning, quite intent on avoiding the bloody beating hearts adorning my wooden floor. And even though, logically, I can tell you that THERE ARE NO BLOODY BEATING HEARTS ON MY WOODEN FLOOR, in the haze of my sleep-deprived waking coma I was most certainly afraid of stepping on one. And slipping to my death. Because I am eternally afraid of slipping. On flat ground, on stairs, on linoleum TAKE YOUR PICK. But rest assured that those bloody beating hearts were a detriment to my health by way of ending up ass first on the unrelenting oak of my floor.

Before you submit suggestions please know that I have tried every single godamned one of them. Earplugs, chamomile tea, yoga, nasty ass warm milk, exercise, reading, not reading, television, no television I HAVE TRIED THEM ALL. I have waking dreams at weird times of the day, most involving subjects that normal people do not entertain. There’s no time frame for the night drama that I can pin down, either. It didn’t start with Matthew’s incarceration for drunk jogging, nor did it start with my campaign for My Mother To Get A Fucking Divorce. Please note that I can never remember sleeping WELL, but I can’t remember when the actual NOT SLEEPING went into full effect.

All I can tell you is that the NOT SLEEPING is in full swing for the ??? month in a row, much to the chagrin of my burning eye holes.

And so, as a final touch, to everyone who has ever bitched me out for leaving a party early because I was tired or declined an invitation to a night out because I was tired or gave me the look that implied that I am a sorry ass individual indeed because I so blatantly throw away my chances to meet and greet with the opposite sex because I was tired: BACK OFF. 1) I really am that tired 2) I REALLY AM THAT TIRED and 3) Did you read the second paragraph? Did you? Because if you did then it should be perfectly clear that I most certainly do not need to fucking meet and greet with the opposite sex. If people with herpes can be kind enough to bag it up to prevent the floodgates from opening on their oozing genital sores, passing it onto the unsuspecting world at large then I can be kind enough to prevent the world from having to interact with my neurotic sleep deprived eccentricities.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT IS CONCLUDED.

Hats Off, Gloves On

I totally just got put in the BEST FUCKING MOOD.

 

God Bless whoever put the Jack Johnson ‘Upside Down’ song on their answering machine.  GOD BLESS YOU WITH MANY RICHES, MY FRIEND.

 

Because normally I have to listen to Nelly or 50cent or some other rapper who I totally couldn’t recognize if they slapped me in the face.  Or slow R&B songs.  WHICH I HATE.  Or Mariah Carey.  WHOM I ALSO HATE. 

 

Oh, but you with the Jack Johnson, BLESS YOU.

 

And even though it’s totally unrelated and makes no sense, hearing that song made me think that I wanted to go by the Flyleaf album today on lunch.  Which should seem totally normal to YOU because normal, regular everyday people do such things as buy CD’s.  But I have a problem with shelling out cash for CD’s when I hear them on the radio and hearing only one song guarantees NADA as far as me actually liking the entire CD.  So I normally wait… and wait… and wait… until I forget that I even wanted the CD to begin with. 

 

BUT TODAY I’M GOING TO PARTICIPATE IN POP CULTURE AND PURCHASE MUSIC. 

 

*medium sized happy dance because sitting in cubicle*

Bette Midler (sp?) Would be So Proud.

This company is notorious for it’s gossip mongering, just like any company where the employees have to sit in cubicles and pretend to be interested when really they're slowly bleeding out from intestinal ulcers.

Earlier this week I finally lost my patience with one of our more annoying employees. He mistakenly assumes that not only do we want to hear him talk to customers on the phone at decibel fucking five hundred, but he wants to stand up and do it as well. Because it’s not annoying enough to HEAR him, he wants us to SEE him as well. He’s also a big fan of sports, spouting off scores and personal opinions about everything from baseball to hockey to professional ping pong.

I imagine that he goes home to his internet dating website and scours the scads of females for his next victim.

Oh, and his voice is so high I doubt his nuts have dropped.

So Monday night he was, as usual, standing up at his desk and volunteering the information that he didn’t think people should be allowed to vote if they commit a felony. REALLY? THIS IS WHAT YOU THINK? WOW, TELL US MORE ABOUT HOW YOU SKIPPED THAT DAY IN CIVICS CLASS. He also made sure to tell us that he thought people convicted of a felony should be beaten with golf clubs.

And on Monday night I’d had it. I’d had the strangest set of seven days ever in my life history. I’d gotten a promotion- HIGH! Some motherfucker gouged my bumper- LOW! It’s going to cost 500 dollars- VERY LOW! Oh wait, it’s a non-moving hit and run, you’re deductible is only 200 dollars for that one- HIGH! Your brother is missing- LOW! He may be dead- UNBELIEVABLE LOW! Wait, he’s alive- HIGH! He’s been in jail- LOW! Brother hung up on you because of an incurable amount of stupidity- VERY LOW!

So really, my outburst was justified.

I slammed my hand on my desk, pointed my finger in witch-like fashion and told him to SIT DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP. Then I turned around to my computer screen to continue my phone call. With a customer that I had placed on hold, obviously.

So far I’ve been congratulated by no less than seven people. I also received the following exchange of emails that I thought I’d share:

J: Word on the street is that you put the smack down on Monday. Is this true?

Robin: Holy crap. Word travels fast around here. Uh, yeah so apparently I lost all good sense and told Chatty-Pants over here to sit down and shut the f* up. Good times.

J: I CAN’T BELIEVE I MISSED IT!!!

Robin: He was standing up, per usual, ranting about something involving beating people with golf clubs and why felons shouldn’t vote… and I just couldn’t take it.

J: Did you ever know, that you’re my hero?

Robin: And you’re the wind beneath my wings.

He Makes Me Tired

As it turns out, my dearest brother had quite the little adventure. 

After a night of heavy drinking he hailed a cab (one of the total FIVE cabs that reside in that mid-size Texan town) back to the hotel where he planned on crashing for the night.  The hotel is owned by the family of one of his drinking buddies, a boy who once dated a close friend of mine in high school.  They broke up fairly quickly but in the circle of life that is small town America, he became friends with my younger brother a few years later.  I hold no ill will against him.  He’s just a regular guy whose maturity I question at times.  Though I will maintain that when life and the material objects it can hold are bestowed upon you, daily and with much pomp and circumstance, it changes your perception of responsibility.

Translation: His daddy’s got money.     

So Matthew takes his cab, crammed full of his equally drunk friends, back to the hotel.  He walks in the room and falls asleep on the bed. 

HERE’S WERE THE STORY GETS FESTIVE SO PAY ATTENTION.

The first time we heard Matthew’s version of events, he claimed he’d not been drinking that heavily and had stopped by midnight.  At 4:30am he decided to head over to his friend Robert’s house and on the way came across a kamikaze giant black dog who decided to run across the highway, directly in front of his car. 

Personally, I called Bullshit as soon as Dad related that version. 

The second version, and one more likely to have happened because IT’S HAPPENED BEFORE, is that Matthew collapsed on the hotel bed only to wake up in a ditch some time later.  Meaning he blacked out but was still physically able to function.  And got in a car.  And drove it.  Straight into a godamn ditch.

I HOPE YOU’RE STILL PAYING ATTENTION BECAUSE THIS SHIT GETS EVEN BETTER.

So after waking up nose first in a ditch (the car, not his actual person) he decides the following:

1)       He will ignore his cell phone sitting on the passenger seat beside him and not make any calls to any one single person that might possibly be able to remove his ignorant ass from the ditch.

2)       He leaves his guitar, DVD player and stereo on the back seat.

3)       He ignores the seven dollars in quarters resting in his console.  Because that would mean one could use a pay phone later.  But that takes effort.

4)       He exits the vehicle, leaving it unlocked. 

5)       Then, ignoring the open and well-lit gas station a quarter of a mile away, proceeds to jog, yes, JOG, down a deserted highway at 4:30am. 

 

You can only imagine the kind of forethought that had to go into this little escapade.

Matthew gets roughly two miles (TWO MILES!) down the road.  His destination was my parent’s house, roughly eight miles (EIGHT MILES!) away.  About that time, the county popo notices a scraggly white boy running down the side of the road.  Obviously curious as to why ANYONE, much less a booted and scraggly ass white boy, would be running sans running clothes and oh, in the wee small hours of the morning, he turns on his pretty flashy blue lights and comes to a stop in front of him.

One sobriety test later and Matthew is firmly placed on the side of the vehicle partition that you really don’t want to be on.  The side without door locks and window controls. 

Bummer, huh?

He’s placed in a cell.  A cell in the jail. 

DO YOU LIKE JAIL?  DID YOU HAVE A GOOD TIME?

Asshole.

At 2pm he’s allowed to make a phone call.  And of course he calls his buddy, the one with the hotel in his pocket. But all to no avail. 

Voicemail’s a bitch, ain’t it.

At 5:30pm his buddy shows up.  Matthew is released.  But does his father get a phone call? His sister? His mother? Nope.  They drive across town to see about the car, left in the ditch.  BUT LO AND BEHOLD his shit is gone.  They call the police, thinking it’s been stolen or towed away, not yet aware that my father picked it up at 7:30am.  The police have nothing on their impound lots but take his information.  He then goes back to the hotel.  Showers.  Changes clothes.  Probably scratches his ass once or twice. 

THEN HE CALLS.  THEN.  NOT BEFORE.    THEN.

*************************************************

 

So I find out my brother is alive.  Good deal.  I’m ready for him to head back to Little Rock so I can break his fucking knees. 

I get a phone call on Sunday evening, it’s Matthew.  Mid-way through the conversation he makes a joke about jail, telling me how much it sucked.  I inform him I have not one ounce of sympathy and that I’d have left his ass in there.  He immediately gets defensive, telling me he did everything right, he took a cab, he didn’t drive, it wasn’t HIS fault, he had NO INTENTION of getting in his car and putting it in a ditch.  HE DID EVERYTHING RIGHT AND HE DOESN’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME BITCH. *click

 

Yep. I got hung up on.  Because it’s not his fault, is it?

Spin

They always say when you lose someone you’ll feel it.  That the connection of blood-bound souls disintegrates into the ether, leaving you with a strange sense of loss, even when you know of nothing wrong. 

This is what They say. 

I’m not sure how much of it I believe, how much of anything I believe.  All I can tell you is how much it can hurt, how much it can feel like your insides are stuck on the spin cycle, how you heart beats so fast you think it may rise through your throat and land on the table.  Every façade we hold together, keeping the world at bay, crumbles and lands beneath your toes.  You hold the phone in your clutches, glancing at the screen, thinking you’ve missed the ring tone, anticipating The Phone Call, dreading it, thinking that this time it’s it.  They’ve found him.  He’s gone. 

You’re afraid to ask for help, afraid that it means it’s real.  Asking for help in the form of someone, anyone to hold you up, knowing they can’t fix it, knowing they can’t make it better or hurt less, but secure in the knowledge that they’ll hold you so close and you can bury your head in the curve of their neck, needing that second of protection, whispering “Where is he?”

****************************************************

 

My father awoke to a phone call from the police department, asking if he was the owner of a white sedan, confirming the license plate, advising it was found unoccupied in a ditch on a highway outside of town. 

My father’s response:  “My son drives that car.”

Repeated attempts to reach my brother’s cell phone, repeated voicemails growing steadily angrier. 

My father picked up the car, still drivable but lodged in the red clay mud found across Texas.  He pulled the car out of the ditch and drove it home. 

Three hours later my phone rings, my father asking, calmly at first, if I know where Matthew is. 

“He’s down there with you guys.”  A pause.  “Isn’t he?”

I hear the story about the car.  The airbags didn’t deploy.  There’s no blood in on the seats.  But it was unlocked, his DVD player, stereo and prized guitar sitting in the back seat. 

We rant and rave.  About how stupid he is, how he’s let his drinking get out of control.  He can’t just have one, we say, in total agreement.  Something is wrong. 

An hour later my father gets in his truck and drives around town, looking for signs of Matthew or his friends.  The parking lot of Fat Jack’s- empty.  His friend Robert’s house- deserted. This is all our combined knowledge allows us to check. 

I call information, looking for the parents of the kids I know he’s with.  I say kids, but I mean men.  They are 23 years old.  A group of boys teetering on the brink of adulthood, unwilling to cross over.  I make dozens of phone calls; in a Texas town of 80,000 thousand people there are a lot of last names to check.  Hoping someone will answer, be willing to track down their son, give out his cell number, something, anything. 

Hours pass.  When I run out of names I call my father.  Still nothing. 

My insides begin to ache.  The tears fall down.  I’m no longer just mad, I’m mad and worried.  Sick with the thoughts of What If, knowing he’s been gone too long.  There’s no explanation, reasonable or not. 

Another hour.  Two.  It’s dark outside.  I’ve turned off the lights because the thought of brightness hurts in that space behind my eyes, making me cradle my head in my hands as I shed what I feel is like the billionth tear.  I haven’t cried this much, this long, I think, ever.  I’m tired, exhausted with worry and grief, preparing for The Phone Call.  He’ll never grow up, I think.  He’ll never find his way.  Selfishly, I think I can’t make that Phone Call to my mother, working in West Texas for the week.  She doesn’t deserve this.  I can’t handle this. 

Brittany and Baker show up, banging on the front door.  Brittany throws her body against mine as soon as she’s inside the door.  She’s the first person I’ve touched in days, that moment being the first time I realized how much I need it.  I bury my face in her neck because I can’t think, my arms are too heavy, this weight too much.   

“Where is he?”

“Baby, I don’t know.”

I call my father again; he pulls out the yearbook, goes through every name.  Hoping something rings a bell, gives us another last name to look up.  We call more numbers in the vain hope someone knows something.  Something that will make this better.

We talk through the names we know, the places we know he frequents, hoping that we’ll trigger a memory, a name.  His ex-girlfriend.  Dad can find her parents house, he thinks.  We can get her number in Dallas from them, get numbers for all of his friends from her.  We have a plan.  Something to do. 

Fifteen minutes later my phone rings again.  It hasn’t been long enough for him to get across town.  This is it, I can tell.  It’s over.  I lean against my bed in the back of my apartment, my legs unable to carry my full weight. 

“They found him.”

I can’t breathe, I try to ask questions but my throat closes up.

My father takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out. 

 

“He’s in jail.”    

People Breed And Don't Ask Me For Permission

There’s this weird fried thing they serve in the company cafeteria on Fridays.  It goes by the name of Chicken Cordon Bleu but LET ME ASSURE YOU it’s like no other Chicken Cordon Bleu you have ever seen. 

For starters, it’s just a puffy fried rectangle the color off-season oranges.  Inside is a strange collection of processed chicken, a very pink slice of ham and lots of oozing strange velveeta-esque white cheese.  Typically, I like neither processed chicken, ham of any kind (pink or not) or velveeta.  Unless that velveeta comes in the form of rotel dip AND THEN GAME ON, BITCH.  So basically what I’m telling you is that every single ingredient involved in the cafeteria’s Chicken Cordon Bleu is, generally speaking, quite repugnant. 

But when combined and fried to golden crispy perfection it is the tastiest confection this side of the Mississippi river.  I allow myself only one of these a month because even though I’ve never seen the box these things inevitably come in and can’t truly state the amount of artery clogging fat or ass popping calories involved in one of these little suckers, I can confidently state that after years of Nutrition Facts readings that the count is probably pretty fucking high.  And I rationalize that I don’t eat corndogs or hotdogs or anything ending in ‘dog’ and therefore I’m entitled to a super-processed snack now and again. 

Today I decided I was definitely due a treat, seeing as how I’d snagged a promotion with a 30% increase in pay and because some ball-less twat rear-ended my car outside my apartment building, leaving me to discover their crime bright and early the next morning, something I will discuss later.  Possibly from jail.  Because I figure that since my bumper is getting fixed on Monday, that gives me two days to find out who did it and ram the ever loving SHIT out of their vehicle.  I have a sneaky suspicion about who the culprit is and I think they’re about to be missing a front bumper come Sunday morning.  But I digress.

I deserved a treat, dammit.

So I purchased my fried perfection of processed-ness and happily meandered over to an empty lunchroom booth by the window.  Behind me were three women steadily eating their lunches of tuna salad, tuna salad and oh, tuna salad.  OH THE SMELL. 

In these types of situations you’re hard pressed not to overhear at least snippets of other people’s conversations.  I mean, come on.  You’re roughly 8 inches from another person’s head and we’re just supposed to politely pretend that WE CAN’T HEAR THEM?     

“Did you know Arthur’s eye just swoll right up?”

“Really? It just swoll up?”

“Yep. The doctor said it might be infected and to come back Monday if it was still swoll shut and they’d do an x-ray.”

“Hells no.  If that was me Idda told him to do the x-ray right fucking then.  I ain’t walking round nowhere with my eye swoll shut up like that.  And you mean it was completely swoll shut?”

“Yep.  Just swoll right up.”

“Did you get my email the other day about that girl that had an infected eye?”

“The one that had the bug crawl in it.”

“Yep, that’s the one.”

“Naw girl, it wasn’t no bug.”

“Yes it was, I was the one that sent it.”

“It wasn’t no bug, gurl, it was a maggot.”

“A maggot?!”

“Yep. A maggot.  Just crawled right in while she was sleeping and got her eye all infected and it swoll right up.  They had to dig around in thar to get it out.  It was having them little baby maggots under her eyelid.”

“A maggot?!”

“And they almost didn’t get all of ‘em because you know them baby maggots are so tiny and all.”

 

By the last sentence I’d had enough.  I packed up my half-eaten Chicken Cordon Bleu, stood up, thanked the ladies for their delicious lunchtime stories and headed back up to my desk, my much anticipated Chicken Cordon Bleu resting at the bottom of the lunchroom trashcan. 

 

 

Red Sky At Night, Sailors Delight

Yesterday morning I woke up to the sun shining around the edges of my brown curtains.  The little cat, Lilly, was sleeping in a tightly curled ball tucked against my ankle.  The fat one, Llama, was perched regally on the windowsill, his nose peaking out from behind the curtains as soon as I showed the first signs of consciousness.  Nothing about the morning was any different from any other morning that I’ve opened my eyes to but I can tell you, I can promise you, that something was different.  Whatever that extra sense may be, however it manifests itself inside your particular existence, I knew this day was different.

I’d felt the beginnings of a Tingle the afternoon before- but I’d been unable to place it.  If I’m honest, I knew what it was but I was too timid to commit myself into believing such a shift of power could have occurred.  But by yesterday morning it had grown stronger, persistent in it’s attempt to force my acknowledgement. 

But I waited. 

I showered and dressed, pulling my wet hair into a pony tail.  I was anxious.  Anxious and almost dreading the confirmation of what I was feeling. 

So I drove to work. 

The closer I got, the stronger the feeling.

The elevator was crowded, the collection of colognes and perfumes almost visibly hovering in the air above me.  Through the door, across the floor, shoes softly landing on the carpeting.  The phone at my desk, red light glowing steadily from the bottom right hand corner. 

My hand was light, not heavy, not like you’d think it would be.  It felt like I was trying to manipulate cotton candy into a semblance of dexterity. 

And in thirty seconds my life changed, presenting me with a choice that impacts me far greater than most will realize.  It’s a promotion, some will say.  Better pay.  Much better pay.  Better hours.  More responsibility.  An actual career path. 

But until that moment when I picked up the phone, that particular path wasn’t even an option for me.  Until that moment I had only one option- now I’ve been presented with two. 

I can stay here, cash a bigger paycheck and work on meaningful projects.

I can leave here, cash a loan check and learn the ins and outs of a new career. 

I know which one is better.  I know which one I’ll choose.  Sometimes those aren’t the same. 

But if you’re lucky, they are.    

The Few Readers I Have Left Will Now Abandon Me

There is something so disgusting, so foul SO UTTERLY DISTURBING on my person that I almost contemplated not sharing it. But I share everything else, to the point that it makes me uncomfortable. With the exception of the truly introspective pieces that I leave to Brittany-- her sweetness and affirmativeness and introspectiveness is stomachable and lovable because I know her and love her but rest assured if I didn’t know her I’d think those musings unbearably sappy and I’d want to send that person an internet smackupsidethehead so they could shutthehellup about it already. Lovey-ness has always made me uncomfortable and it is only tolerated in the ones that I love because I know I need that perspective to give depth to my callous ways. And yet STILL I share vastly inappropriate pieces of information. And share. And share. Perhaps I have displaced my dependency on the nicotine with the dependency on the internet sharing. Hoping that someday, someone, somewhere will start a world-wide coalition to ban me from all societies of internet bloggers because I JUST SHARE TOO GODAMN MUCH.

It started with a wee bump on the side of my moderately delicate second toe, the one that is longer than my Big Toe. I add this in because I hear it indicates riches and whatnot and if for some reason I was supposed to be on the Second Toe Is Longer Than Big Toe list and was, in fact, accidentally left off, then I can certainly do my absolute best to notify The Powers That Be of their oversight.

The wee little bump was beside the nail, a minor mystery in my world, one that necessitated an action of absolutely nothing because LET’S BE HONEST it was just a wee little bump.

But then the wee little bump became two, then three little bumps. And they kind of banded together to show a united front blossoming out from the side of my toe, nestling alongside my to-the-quick short nail. At this point I pointed it out to my doctor during one of my visits back when I sick for about 17 weeks in a row. His response?

“Looks like athlete’s foot bumps.”

He recommended getting an athlete foot spray- even after I informed him that I’d HAD athlete’s foot in the past (oh yes, let you’re gagging begin- but it was back in the day of four hour dance rehearsals and mass changing rooms so IT WAS SO NOT MY FAULT) and whatever this was, these little obnoxious bumps growing slowly and steadily, were definitely not a side-effect of athlete’s foot.

So I went home and did nothing.

Naturally.

About a month later I noticed four more wee bumps on the pad of my toe, these being separate from the mother ship and obviously making a go of it on their own. I’m happy to report that the little offshoots must have found conditions to their liking because though they didn’t sprout off any more wee little bumps, they CERTAINLY GREW IN SIZE to the tune of me being quite concerned about the utter scariness happening on this one square centimeter of my body.

So I decided to be proactive and telephoned my mother, the one who so blithely informed me last year that my super delicate pinkie toe pain was due to inappropriate shoes and a disposition to the cringe inducing word of CORNS. So obviously her weird foot thing knowledge was going to be vast.

Her Words of Wisdom indicated that I may have something more revolting than CORNS.

WARTS.

OH MY GOD JUST TYPING THAT WORD OUT MAKES THE BILE RISE IN THE BACK OF MY THROAT AND PLAY TAG WITH MY TONSILS.

So I dutifully schlepped to the nearest Kroger to buy some *gag* wart remover. I settled on the kind that comes in liquid form that you paint on twice a day. Because I wasn’t paying $25 for the freeze off thingamabob and I knew the chances of those little bandaid things staying on were, um, NONE. So paint-on remover it was.

The first couple of days nothing much happened. I followed the instructions to wash and dry my feet before applying the mixture twice daily. I waited until it formed a weird shell-like coating on my toe before putting my socks on. I did this for a week and a half* before I noticed on Saturday that something sinister was definitely afoot.

*The box said to apply for up to twelve weeks and hopefully after reading the next few paragraphs you’ll understand why I find that UTTERLY FRIGHTENING.

My Saturday was spent out at the 4-H center working for the nursery I normally work for on Sundays. Some kind of Holy Spirit Lord of the Rings and All Else That Is Holy Retreat Weekend. Not that I’m being sarcastic, I really do think it’s great that people are religious. I’m only being wanky because I had to take care of their kids from 9am-5pm in a wide open room with a non-working TV, three basketballs and a puzzle. Trust me when I tell you that this DOES NOT entertain seventeen kids between the ages of 7months to 15years AT ALL.

After coming home I took off my shoes to, well, be at home. I don’t wear shoes in the house. Not out of some idea that my house must remain clean, more because I don’t like shoes and I know who’s stepped on my floor. So I sat on my bed and tucked my feet under my knees to converse with the kittycats because Mommy had had a long day and wanted to curl up and look at cute furry faces and wet noses. But when I moved my feet over the sheets, something felt notquiteright. Something was catching on the sheets. And it was bordering on being OH SO uncomfortable.

Upon further inspection I found that the offending object that was catching on my sheets was MY TOE. Specifically, THE SKIN ON MY TOE.

The skin had actually started to SLOUGH OFF where I’d placed that day’s application of *gag* wart remover liquid.

I sat on my bed, toe in lap, fixated with what was happening to my now VERY DELICATE second toe. The skin OH THE SKIN was COMING OFF and WHAT WAS I TO DO.

Well, pull it off, of course. Can’t have that shit just hanging about like that.

So I removed it.

And I almost threw up in the process from both the pain and the sheer disgusting-ness of it.

And then I stared at it in total fixation. Who knew that’s what your foot looks like under the skin?

And then I almost threw up again.

And then I had to go to work Sunday morning in flip flops, raggedy toe hanging out covered in faux Neosporin.

And then the girls in the nursery made gagging noises until one of them had the presence of mind to bring out the first aid kit and force a handful of bandaids in my direction.

And then every single 2-year-old wanted to play with my boo-boo toe, which prompted me to hide it from the vicious mongrels by sitting in the corner cradling my foot in lap.

Just like the chickens, I DO NOT JUDGE YOU FOR NEVER RETURNING TO VISIT ME AGAIN.

A Gold Star For Anarchy

Today I have had three cans of Diet Dr. Pepper, four cups of coffee, a Michelina’s Lean Gourmet (shrimp with angel hair pasta) and a small bag of Munchies- Cheddar! mix.

So it should come as no great to surprise to you that I can’t focus on any one thing for longer than .486 seconds, seeing as how my liquid caffeine consumption has OUTWEIGHED my food consumption in mass and volume.

It’s a bit like being drunk, only the really bad drunk when you can’t focus and you really really want to focus and you already have the beginnings of your hangover headache and for the life of your pet cats you just CAN’T FIGURE OUT why you want to curl up in a dusty, unused corner and sleep it off.  Onlookers be damned.   

This is how I feel today.  After my excessive caffeine ingestion.  I also want a cookie.  Or maybe a piece of chocolate cake.  The good kind with the buttercream frosting made by a fat lady who fucking knows what buttercream is made out of – BUTTER AND FUCKING CREAM.  It is not made with splenda and it sure as hell doesn’t get apple sauce as a substitute for oil or faux milk carton eggs as a substitute for eggs that got pushed out of a chicken’s pooper hole.  Not that I’m sure eggs come out of the pooper hole.  But it must be in the nearby vicinity.  Perhaps I should beef up on my chicken anatomy.  Do they have two excrement holes? One for the poop and one for the pee? One that accepts that gentle prodding protuberance from the rooster cat?  Surely not.  Chickens seem like such efficient little animals.  Even if they regularly walk around in their own poo and eat their young.  But maybe that’s turtles or something that eat their young.  I know if my young came in a hard shell format and I had to sit on those fuckers for days, weeks, months on end I’d probably eat one, too. 

I don’t judge the chickens. 

I have to pee for like the eightieth time today.  I should not have had that last can.  It’s just that I was bored and I still had a bunch of ice left in my cup.  It’s the finisher complex.  I can’t buy packs of gum because I will eat them all in one sitting.  Not all at once like a hamster, but sometimes two to three pieces.  I chew until the flavor goes away and then I replace it with a fresh and tasty piece.  AND GOD HELP ALL CREATURES if I buy Tic Tacs.  Gone in fifteen minutes, tops.  I have to finish them.  I have to complete the project of breath freshening. 

GOOD GOD MY BLADDER MAY EXPLODE.

But I just went like 15 minutes ago so I’m waiting for the rest to process so I don’t have to get up in another fifteen minutes because I’m lazy and I think I have an old lady corn on my delicate pinkie toe and it hurts when air touches it. 

Oh, and that cute little Sasha girl at the Olympics got a silver- god job little Sasha girl! You beat out that evil Russian named something like Slutsville (so yeah, I’m like the bazillionth person to make fun of her name BUT I HAD MANY PEOPLE MAKE FUN OF MY NAME when I was growing up so she should take it like a man.  How’s the Bat Cave, Robin? How’s your nest of eggs, Robin? Are you rockin, Robin? SHUT UP. It’s not original, loser. And neither am I by giving Irina a dirty last name but IT’S JUST SO DAMN EASY holy crap my bladder I may die). So yeah she’s Russian and it’s still the Cold War and wah wah wah.  But God Bless Their Vodka.

Today Is Like A Urinary Tract Infection

I am, for all intensive purposes, a giant blathering pussy.

Which is better than a crusty wank but worse than an ill-fitting asshat.

A phone call this afternoon from The Big Boss confirmed my suspicions that the world at large does in fact know that I FUCKING HATE MY JOB AS AN ASSWIPING SPECIALIST.

But instead of being a self righteous gonad or even the aforementioned crusty wank he was nice.

Just. Plain. Nice.

GAH.

Now I have to be mature and shit. Suck up my bad attitude. Plaster the smile back on. ALL BECAUSE HE WAS FUCKING NICE.

Dammit.

These Are The Days Of Our Lives And I Bet Marlana Got Brainwashed Again

Today I have received no less than five comments regarding the fact that I am inappropriately garbed for the apparently vicious weather raging outside.   All comments stemming from the fact that I wasn’t wearing a coat and for that matter, have worn a coat only once this year. 

 

To which I say – ARE YOU MY MOTHER? NO? SHUT THE FUCK UP.

 

I like wearing neither shoes nor coats, the latter being bulky and cumbersome and an article of clothing that WILL make you look like a bloated version of that marshmallow thing from Ghostbusters.  However, most places of business have that pesky rule about No Shoes No Shirt No Service so shoes are a necessity even though you’re guaranteed to get a blister or corn or weird foot smell from what will inevitably be the prettiest pair in your closet.  But there are no such rules regarding coat usage so I say to you again, the person(s) who make it a point in their Very Busy Day to point out my non-coat-ness:

 

ARE YOU MY MOTHER? NO? SHUT THE FUCK UP.

 

Besides, it’s not even that cold outside.  When the temperature hovers at 38-39 for a daily high, it does not give you license to refer to it as ‘bone cold.’ That temperature is regarded as Chilly But Definitely Bearable.  You want to talk about bone cold go build yourself and igloo in whatever that territory is in northern Canada.  Or try and excavate some of that tar sand crap and extract the oil out of it using the heat from your very own breath.  Then we’ll talk about fucking bone deep cold BUT UNTIL THEN you may cease talking.

 

And I’ve totally just had a douchebag moment because I can’t for the life of me remember what they call their little sectioned off areas.  Alberta? Check. Quebec? Check. Is it a state? A territory? A province? It’s like the banality of my job has sucked dry the once bountiful store of useless knowledge buried within the confines of my head, eh?

 

PRETEND THERE IS A TRANSITION HERE

 

So I’m quite looking forward to the evening I have planned with myself.  First on the list is a bottle of orange juice so that I may mix the gallon and half of vodka that’s been chilling in my freezer for countless months.  Not the whole gallon and a half.  Probably just like a cup.  But I’m excited about getting to open up the new kind I bought with the purple label because I am total suckered in by things that are new! and have snazzy labels.  YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY HAS WORKED, MY FRIEND.

 

Though I kind of take that back.  If the marketing strategy had worked I’d remember the NAME of the vodka and not the color of the label. 

 

Upon further review I retract my kudos given to the marketing team of the vodka bottle residing in my freezer with the purple label. 

 

Along with the vodka drinking I’m going to be celebrating the release of season one of Grey’s Anatomy on DVD.  Last night I called the video store on my way home and made sure they had a copy before I got out of my car in the rain.  They did and I was very happy and I didn’t mind getting out in the rain so much.  Light at the end of the tunnel and all that shit.  Bleh bleh bleh.  

 

ANOTHER TRANSITION GOES HERE

 

Today on my lunchbreak I was surrounded by idiots who personalized their license plates to the tune of the following:

 

The tan Yukon with the plate: NPULSV

*soooo are you advertising your impulsive nature in regards to jumping in the sack with random males? The fact that you run up charges on your credit card due to impulse buys of a Gucci nature? What? BE MORE SPECIFIC.  Because left to my own devices I will just mock you incessantly.

 

The gold Buick with the plate: RPM 70

*seriously? This is what you want to put on your BUICK? Are you referring to the rotations per minute completed by your tires because in THAT CASE I would agree with you.  Your tires probably complete a full circle seventy times a minutes, making your approximate fucking speed somewhere around 2.4 MPH.  Thanks, Grandma

 

The white Corolla in the Target parking lot with the plate: CAT TALK

* yes. This is egg-zactly what you want to advertise TO THE WORLD on the back of your car.  I couldn’t have guessed how deep the river of your cat-love ran because I totally didn’t see those I LOVE MY CAT and I’M PROUD TO BE OWNED BY MY CAT stickers on your back window.  I bet you get laid all the time.

The Nexium Isn't Working Yet, So I Can Effectively Blame All Hate Crimes On My Stomach Pain

 

1. Banana clips are not making a comeback.  Sorry.
2. Do not ask questions during a meeting FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF ASKING A QUESTION. It wastes seconds of my life and please, when I cut you off every time you open your vast oral cavity which emits a carrion-screeching-bird-like voice LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES.  I will continue to cut you off and stare you down UNTIL YOU LEARN.
3.  If you’re too vapid to remember what happened in LAST WEEK’S meeting, then SHUT YOUR TRAP and keep your talking hands TO YOURSELF.
4. Do not rehash what I, or anyone else, just said.  Everyone else understood it.  SHUT. UP.
5. We sit in chairs that come attached with their VERY OWN armrests.  Do not lean sideways and REST ON MINE. 
6. We gave you the least important, least involved and least annoying (or so we thought) position in the presentation.  DO NOT pretend like it’s the most crucial portion.  DO NOT ask us to review your notes for the bazillionth time. DO NOT. DO NOT. DO NOT.

 

On a slightly different but always related note, I still hate my job. 

My stomach is still tearing through what little gastric lining is left and preparing to munch on my colon because I’m still at a loss of how I’m going to accomplish quitting my job, going to summer school sans reliable income and healthcare and hoping like a fat kid hopes his momma baked him some cookies for an after school snack that I get in to the program come August.

 

Also, some under-educated overall-wearing buddha-belly sporting ASS SECRETION decided to chainsaw something very important from 6:50am until 7:45am, when I finally gave up the ruse of sleeping and made some coffee.

 

Now, sometimes things just need chainsawing. 

 

Offending trees.

Winter firewood.

Hanging branches.

Live power lines.

Small woodland creatures.

 

BUT TO DO SO in what is effectively the WEE HOURS OF MORNING is just uncalled for.

 

Also, you need a bigger overall size.  Your hip fat was hanging out you ball-less twat.

 

 

SWF seeks a work environment where The Phone is not surgically implanted in my skull.

I need some suggestions.

As previously stated, there's a strong chance I won't get in to radiology school because of those pesky prerequisites.

I'm in a weird work position- my company was dissolved, leaving me in a transitionary stage with another company that took over the responsibility of it's employees. And yes, I'm tempting the hands of fate with this post because I don't necessarily want to get dooced but I can't say I'd just shed a whole bucket of tears if they fired me because of my website. I'd make a button and wear it everyday so people could know how dagnabit cool I am.

Aforementioned transition is how I became an Ass Wiping Specialist.

Which is why I stand at the coffee pot and absorb the blessed silence, away from the idiots of the world who INCESSANTLY CALL MY PHONE.

I turned down two job offers because I was OBVIOUSLY HIT IN THE HEAD WITH A BLUNT OBJECT and thought it would be good and trustworthy and loyal and shit of me to stick out the transition.

Oh, how I was mistaken.

So now, here are my skills:

Writing - I love it, just not sure if I want to make a career in it again. I used to work for local new stations and write newscasts. Fun times- just lots of death and destruction.

Post-production - I can budget and post produce a mean Volvo radio spot. With Benjamin Bratt*, no less.

*I rode the elevator with him when he came to do his voiceover in New York. I almost fainted he was so yummily scented and delicious looking. He asked me how I was doing. I grunted. Obviously I lost about a bazillion cool points for that episode of COMPLETE UNCOOLNESS.

Automotive dealership - I can smile at customers, tell them about throttle bodies and oxygen sensors and file a warranty claim.

Automotive finance - I can approve a contract, check for errors, chit chat with dealers and be generally unobtrusive.

I can make simple power point presentations.

I can work alone and without the micromanaging interference of superior monkeys.

I can work in conjunction with the micromanaging interference of superior monkeys.

I can make simple non-linear edits on FinalCutPro and AVID.

I can bullshit people into thinking I'm smarter than I really am.

I fail to color coordinate my shoes. <-- not necessarily a skill, but it definitely livens up office decor.

I like puppies but not dogs, stacks of post it notes and long walks on the beach with my laptop.

HELP. ME.

I'm willing to go back to school- but not for a masters in rhetoric and writing which sounds like oodles of fun but guarantees NADA in the job department. I'd just be 40 grand in debt working a less-than-30k-a-year job with a really snazzy degree.

HELP. ME.

I am SO having a mid-twenties life crisis.

What's really funny is that I totally just burped on the phone while leaving a message for a customer.

Ayudame, por favor.

Yesterday I used the day I had taken off work to get one of those nifty tube cameras shoved down my throat while heavily sedated (thank you Mr. Valium and Mrs. Demerol) to attend my advising session for the school I want to attend in the fall. According to the ever-so-knowledgeable nurses I would be coherent and talking within an hour of the surgery, giving me plenty of time to be driven home, dress to impress, and be driven to my advising session.

The driving portion was accomplished by none other that my mother, who decided that having a camera shoved down one's throat was a terribly risky procedure and getting a little prick on my arm with a needle full of sedatives was just too dangerous to fathom. Which meant she immediately "volunteered" herself to drive up from Texas to sit in a freezing cold waiting room for close to three hours.

Because a high tolerance for sedatives runs in the family (thanks, Dad) I was extremely conscious for the procedure and was none too pleased with having a plastic coated camera shoved over my tongue and down into my gastro cavity. The nurses were astounded when I immediately started talking as soon as the gag-inducing device was removed- and talking IN COMPLETE WHOLE SENTENCES, MAKING COMPLETE WHOLE SENSE-- and promptly wheeled me into the recovery room where they ordered me to lay down for 45 minutes for "observation."

After about 15 minutes and after I'd asked for something to drink about a half dozen times, they finally acquiesced and provided me with a cup of lukewarm apple juice. Which was delicious seeing as I hadn't ingested sustenance in liquid or solid form since 7pm the night before.

Five minutes later, after a conference behind a curtain (I COULD STILL HEAR YOU, IDIOTS) they agreed to let me go early, seeing as how my vital signs were stellar and my ability to walk, talk and be a crankypants bitch had been proven many times over.

So my mother dutifully signed me out of the clinic and immediately drove me through Wendy's where I inhaled a spicy chicken sandwich, lettuce only, in about 2.5 seconds. And then gulped down a 20oz Aquafina in half that.

After my stomach had been righted to the proper balance of Full, I smoothed out my hair as best as possible, put on some makeup and hopped back in the car to be chauffeured to my advising session. (Pesky nurse rules. If my mother hadn't overheard them telling me not to drive all day I could totally have convinced her it was totally okay for me to drive.)

I walked into the room 15 minutes early, sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs and began to review the handy dandy little packet someone had so conveniently left for us hopeful students to review.

Then we watched a 30 minutes film.

THEN we had a speaker who informed us of the following:

Over 200 people have applied for this program.
Only 22 will be accepted.
Yes, only TWENTY TWO PEOPLE OUT OF TWO HUNDRED.
*suddenly I was unable to breathe

We were called, one by one, into our personal advising sessions where I was informed of the following:

My college algebra is over 7 years old, I have to retake it
I need not only Anatomy and Physiology with a lab, I need Anatomy and Physiology ONE AND TWO with labs.
I have no proof that I took a computer course in college (my degree being so advanced in the use of computers, no beginning class was required. THIS IS WHY IT SAYS MY MAJOR WAS TELECOMMUNICATIONS- did you think I graduated unable to use a COMPUTER??) So guess what else I need to take?
That's right- A BEGINNING COMPUTER LITERACY COURSE.

Oh, and I was INFORMED that though my transfer GPA was stellar, because I have four, count them FOUR classes I need before I can start in August, it is unlikely I'll get accepted. I may, MAY, get a provisional acceptance. Or I may get alternate status.

So here's the thing: I don't mind taking these extra classes. I'll smile when I give my two weeks to attend Summer 1 and Summer 2. I WILL SMILE, I TELL YOU. But to say I may not be accepted?? That my chances are so slim??

I THINK MY HEART ACTUALLY STOPPED BEATING FOR AN ENTIRE MINUTE.

I can't do this. I can't be in this job, work in this company, smile at these idiots. I can't do it. The only thing that keeps me sane is the fact that I'M LEAVING. I have to. I have no choice. Staying here, in this job, with these people IS NOT AN OPTION.

It's just NOT.

Every time I get up for coffee I pray that the pot will be empty.

Giving me reason to stand, silently and without need for conversation, for three and a half minutes.

Midol Ain't Got Nothing On This

Turns out Matteo was less inclined to turn down free punani than I thought, no matter how much he may have wanted to defend my honor.

After a tearful two-hour long phone conversation- Matteo, apologizing for being such a blatant heterosexual and me, accusing him of being a disloyal and opportunistic legless amphibian- I hung up the phone with a two ton brick residing in my lower intestinal track.

Not only had The Notsoex NOT learned her lesson, Justin Bloober never displayed any outward signs of jealousy AND MY BESTEST FRIEND NUZZLED WITH THAT HEINOUS COW OF A GIRL.

And so I went to college that next year. Where I learned all about karma.

AND SUDDENLY ALL BECAME CLEAR.

Fucking life lessons.

Hot Shots, Part Deux (featuring a post-Heidi but pre-Denise Charlie Sheen)

Personally, I love learning valuable life lessons.

Though, if I'm honest, I'll admit to you that at THE TIME of the aforementioned incident I was not aware that a life lesson was, in fact, being learned. I was merely overcome with the kind of blinding anger that makes you think (if you're female) that maybe that Bobbit guy really did have it coming.

Because hacking off human appendages is a totally acceptable manner in which one may channel their anger. Totally.

So, getting back to the actual story, I was only able to bask in the glow of my revenge for a grand total of two days. But back in high school two days was like 4.7565 months. You could wow your friends with your long-standing relationship of two weeks because IN THE WORLD THAT IS HIGH SCHOOL two weeks was like an unfathomable eon-ic amount of time. So two days... well. That was a long time in which to bask.

But at the end of day two I was informed of some very unfortunate circumstances. Though 'informed' may be the wrong word choice. Witness, maybe. Yes, we'll go with witness. Because it definitely happened within my field of vision. But it was transmitted into my brain via a fax transmission from the Powers That Be with the glaring RE: line first gaining my attention:

RE: Your revenge has backfired you ignorant pissant

Because there in the Burger King, a moderately popular hangout simply because the land that is Small Town America is populated with generic eating establishments rife with possibility for the teenage adventurer, WAS THAT BLAZING HUSSY OF A NOTSOEX GIRLFRIEND AND MY BEST FRIEND MATTEO, NUZZLING LIKE DEER IN MATING SEASON.