Every day the first floor atrium is packed. Chock full of asians, awaiting their tasty fried rice or lo mein or wontons. They've got some special deal with a local Chinese restaurant. There is a password (PASSWORD!) in order to place an order. But that is neither here nor anywhere. What I want to know is how the holy hell are the asians so flipping thin if they eat that shit each and every day? Also, what in the WORLD are they SAYING?!

Work Parties and Sick Babies...What are they good for?

Our holiday party is about to begin. Ooooh. A LUNCH Holiday party. As in, there will be no booze. As in, how CRUEL. Therefore I'm busily type type typing away as to appear too busy to attend quite yet. I wonder how much time this will buy me. I'm also confused because a group of older ladies just walked by (were they invited?) discussing how this office used to be a pediatrician's office. Huh? There were sick babies in here? Uhhhhhhh?

Oh, and speaking of sick babies, babies cough a lot. Like, they have the croup for 2-7 years of their life. We were at Fiji's holiday work party on Monday night (which was a REAL dinner with REAL booze and everything!) and there were like 1 million babies there. Well, more like a human baby per each human adult. (Not sure why I had to point out the human-ness, but whatever.) And they were all crawling around on the floor and running in circles and stuff. It was like a whole small secret society for short people. And then this one girl kept going around kissing the boys. She was one. Playa!

Oh no. I think I'm being summoned. Craptastic.

Did you know that you can watch episodes of the best show ever (aka "My So-Called Life") on abc.com?? Didjya? Because you can. Soooo...get to it. Last night I watched the one where Jordan Catalano randomly kisses Angela in his car and then basically kicks her out. Awesome to the max.

Wow I'm lame.

Crabby Appleton

I am so crabby I want to punch myself in the face.
Today I am sad for every reason and no reason at all.
I feel like growling at every person and every (possibly inanimate) thing I see.

You've been warned. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

UPDATE: I smiled and something inside of me breathed a new breath. Phew. That was getting ugly.

I'm not sure what happened here, but, well, we're going with it.

Without relinquishing my anonymity (hahaha, like anyone cares!), part of my new job is calling schools and police departments. Anyway. My point is this:

Does anyone else find it somewhat amusing and perhaps slightly odd that while I was just on-hold with one particular police department, the song playing was "Box of Rain" by the Grateful Dead (a song I actually quite enjoy, or at least used to)? No? Ok then.

Does anyone else find it amusing and perhaps slightly awesome that while I was spelling my last name (which is the other part of my potential lost anonymity-the horror!) --which I happen to have to spell out quite frequently because otherwise people think I'm not wearing any clothes--and at the end part I'm all, "F.F. like French FRY" and the lady laughed kind of hysterically about it and carried on and on like maybe she was quite possibly craving some french fries herself for some particular reason (hint hint nudge nudge) if you are picking up what I'm throwing down slash catching my drift slash she was stoned out of her gourd? No? OK THEN. BYE. SEE YOU LATER. WHO NEEDS YOU. I've seen those finger-paintings that you bring home and they STINK.

Sorry. Whoa. That just got out of control.

Good year.

The Little Pink Riddler, or Another Awk Worklife for Me

Well, I finally experienced my first awk work encounter at my new non-awk work place. I guess it even happens with socially-adjusted people. Who knew? But at least here people make EYE CONTACT and speak in common languages and use words I can comprehend. Also, they have senses of humor and I laughed (outloud) more than once! I mean, the cake (for 4 people--3 of those being dudes) was a Barbie cake! It had hot pink and purple frosting! AND there was a plastic pink mini diary (with lock & key) that the boys were fighting over. (I kind of wanted it, but I'm new. I didn't want to be the new selfish hoarding bitch just yet.) There were a few looooooong moments of silence where we all just stood around staring at each other. That was fun. (During which I desperately tried not to laugh--man that was hard! Put me in awkward silence situation and dare me not to laugh or break it by saying, "OK. THAT was weird." Really, I'll do it.) There's just something so uncomfortable about the standing. I wish we could just sit down already. There were plenty of chairs! Plus standing while eating cake is hard. Not that I would know since I was totally the lame lady that refused the free pink cake. But I had just eaten! I hate being socially pressured to eat! Especially at work and especially bright pink cake. In our staff meeting afterwards I was continually distracted by everyone's pink teeth, lips, and tongue. I'm talking BRIGHT pink. It took me a while to figure out why they ALL had the pinkness, but after a little detective work, I put two and two together and solved that little pink riddle.

Anyway, enough of that. Phewwww! I made it. And just in time for the holiday party and secret santa exchange next week. I can hardly wait.

PUPPIESSSSSSSSS!

I want one. No, scratch that, I want TWO. A brother and a sister. And then they can love each other and play with each other and keep each other company all day. But living in the city without a yard (the roofdeck unfortunately doesn't really suffice) and a smaller living space is not very conducive to dog-ownership. Now, don't get me wrong, there are TONS of people doing it (and doing and doing it well), but we are trying to be very conscientious about the choice that we make and for it to be a choice that not only pleases us (PUPPIES! YAY!) but will be a warm and loving and healthy and attentive and fun-filled life for the puppies. With that being said, we will soon be acquiring more living space (Yesssssss) and since I work SO close to home now I could feasibly go home and take them out and hang out with them for extra long in the morning and at lunch and I could be home earlier than Fiji. SO. PUPPIES! Needless to say I have begun spending my lunch hour sitting at my desk researching PUPPIES in the area and HOLY CUTENESS. I mean, for reals. Now, this is where the problem comes in...I want them. Like NOW. And well, I can't have them NOW. So there's that. And it may be slightly unhealthy that I am developing attachments to pictures of PUPPIES on the internets. Maybe?

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is SEND ME PUPPIES! Please.

Pretty Tree

Christmas is my lover. Wait, wait. That's just wrong. I just love Christmas, like, a lot. And I just want to snuggle with it. And since it is more of a season and less of, say, an animate object, the closest I get is the tree. I love our tree. LOVE. And so I thought I'd share it will all you blerds. And it's so lovely and wonderful that we put it on the balcony since we're all in the Christmas spirit and sharing and stuff. What's ours is yours. Well, more accurately, our tree is your tree. Well, actually, our tree is our tree, but you can enjoy it by LOOKING at it. No touch. My favorite part is the glittery (crooked) star on top. (Which is kinda cut off. Sorry!) Prettyness!!

(Look! It's snowing!)

(This is inside looking out! Still pretty!)

(this is UP CLOSE. Look at that SNOW! You could just eat it! Well, I could.)

The cold winter morning dries my sore, swollen eyes; my eyelids blotchy. The salty tears provide none of the needed moisture, only further distort my vision. It's days like these that force me to question who I really am. The dichotomy of who I think I am and who others believe me to be. I feel lost, but, yet, simultaneously at home in my outcastness. I've always felt this, I think. At least that's how I remember myself. Almost how I define myself at times, if it suits the moment. I've consistently and almost cyclically floated between groups, between friendships, between lives. But all this motion has started to catch up with me. And I would really like to nestle in somewhere cozy and perhaps stay a while.

Annnnnnnnnnnnd...I'm officially embarrassed

Now that my train ride is like 2.2 seconds in the morning, give or take, I have some free time on my hands. And since my swipecard isn't working yet, I can't get into the building after-hours (or in my case before-hours) and since I slept in like a sloth this morning instead of going to the gym, I had over an hour before I had to leave for work. All of these issues merged and I was forced to watch E! True Hollywood Story. On the Simpsons. And not the cool cartoon ones. The other ones. And if we're being honest, and by "we" I mean "me," I actually sorta kinda started to sympathize with them. All of them. Even creepy-manager-boob-loving Dad Simpson. Now, granted, I only watched about 20 minutes of it while making my lunch and brushing my teeth, etc., but it happened. I started to feel the empathic reaction building in my gut. And you want to know why? Because Jessica was DENIED admittance into the Mickey Mouse Club. Yeah. Apparently she had to audition immediately after Christina Aguilera. I mean, come on. Xtina? She's a genie and shit. (Sidenote: she's apparently posing preggo nude, which I think is HUGELY different than regular nude posing. You are SUPPOSED to be fatty mcgee when you're preggs.) So wah wah Jessica didn't make it and missed out on becoming frenemies with Christina and Britney or making out with Justin (which is truly a sad, sad result. I think you'd agree Julie). And then she went and fell in love with Nick and then she went and fucked it all up in a major way and started slutting herself out. Wah. And there's there pooooooor little Ashlee (who I actually like...I know, weird) who was always in Jessica's (breasts) shadow who used to try to get attention by playing guitar naked in front of company and getting nose jobs and dating guys who wear make-up and stuff.

Anyway, I can't believe that I just had this much to write about the Simpsons. If I can learn all that in less than 20 minutes, imagine what I learned from watching two episodes of that Kardashian show. But that's another tale for another time.