Secret Weasels

2003-02-14T11:06:00.000-06:00

testing

2003-02-11T10:06:00.000-06:00

Five months since I've written anything. No wonder my dreams lately have been laced with flying monkeys pleading with me to stop wasting my life.

According to the monkeys, a site redesign will help ease the transition to come.

Soon, my pets...

2002-10-10T09:18:00.000-05:00

My template is effed up. Please bear with. Sorry.

2002-10-08T09:36:00.000-05:00

Last night, I flipped on the computer intending to pay a few bills and then settle in to some serious website designing for that pet project that will someday make us rich. As I was waiting for the little Volvo to boot (ugly, slow, old, yet outlasts flashier models 10 to 1), I decided to multitask and clean the kitchen.

By no means am I as dedicated to household cleanliness as I could be. Life's too short, better things to do, etc. Cleaning the kitchen usually means loading the dishwasher and wiping off the counters, except on those occasions when I find myself possessed by the cleaning demon and unable to stop until I've disinfected even the bottom of the toaster oven. Those rare occasions are usually precipitated either by emotional turmoil or hormonal imbalance, and I can't be held responsible for my actions.

But as regular readers of this site well know, I am highly motivated by guilt. As I was wiping the counter, I happened to open the fridge and noticed a Tupperware container toward the back containing leftover ravioli that I'd meant to take to work for lunch at some point. The scary thing was, I had no real recollection of ever making that ravioli for dinner, and that container could have been sitting in the back of the fridge for weeks. Months. Who knows.

Spurred on by the guilt of the unrequited ravioli, I gritted my teeth and pushed aside some of the newer stuff to see what else lurked back there.

Turkey. 3 weeks old. Damn, I meant to make sandwiches out of that.

Spaghetti sauce. 2 weeks old. Damn, I just opened a new can of it.

Sesame chicken. Oh god... 4 weeks? 5? That should have been lunch.

One strawberry. Yes, one. The lone remnant of a splurge made sometime in August. How could I have left ONE strawberry in the fridge?

Refried beans. It has literally been months since we had anything Mexican. That's just inexcusable.

Chicken and dumplings, made from an actual, honest-to-god chicken. 4 weeks old. It was a new recipe that turned out just "okay," but the aging leftovers made me feel that it was in fact a terrible waste of the chicken's life.

I spent the rest of the night sobbing over the garbage disposal and never made it back to the computer. Needlessly booted… all for nothing. The computer must hate me.

2002-10-03T09:07:00.000-05:00

Well finally! This morning I am writing to you from my brand-new (to me) iMac. And I should feel slightly guilty about the pleasure it’s bringing me because, due to sudden budget crises, everyone on my team will NOT be getting new iMacs. Mine is the only order to make it through the cancellations. Hold on while I try really hard to feel bad for the catty bitches whining away on their old G3s… mmm…

It almost seems too pretty to be functional. It feels like an expensive, elegant toy or a piece of art. It’s like I’ve visited the fitting room of a really upscale department store in which I clearly don’t belong with a pair of designer jeans, and I’m looking in the mirror wondering, “Am I cool enough for these jeans? Can I really live up to this image?”

I want to BE this iMac, all sleek and powerful with clean lines and uncomplicated features.

I’ve named it Sexy Boy, after the song by Air.

2002-09-30T16:18:00.000-05:00

I wonder. There's a horrible, toxic-seeming smell hanging around the corridor by my office. It smells as if six million black permanent markers have been simultaneously uncapped in a non-well-ventilated space. If there were a toxic, poisonous substance unleashed in my workplace, do you think they would tell us?

I think they'd just wait for people like me to complain. If I don't complain, I'll be endangering the lives of my friends and co-workers (note the distinction). It's my duty as a concerned American to stumble woozily into my boss' office, pass a hand over my eyes and mumble with dramatic flair that my central nervous system is under attack, I've lost all feeling in my tongue, and I need to take the rest of the afternoon off.

But if I hold out, I might be able to work the more serious disability angle. This could be good for an entire sick day tomorrow.

The good news: turkey pot pie for dinner tonight!

2002-09-27T09:39:00.000-05:00

I have such a small reserve of tolerance for stupidity, and some of the girls I work with are dumber than asphalt.

But it's nice to see that things are starting to deteriorate in this pseudo-sorority den of bimbos. They're starting to get territorial, showing their teeth and marking boundaries. I've walked past closed-door meetings and overheard shouting matches with flailing arm gestures.

And so, rather than sitting all of us down and insisting that we get all the issues and conflicts out on the table, my boss (in another stellar display of non-leadership) sent around an anonymous survey asking us to rate the team climate.

1. Do you feel challenged?
2. Do you feel that you have an appropriate amount of authority and responsibility?
3. Do you feel that your accomplishments are recognized and appreciated?
4. Is there an appropriate level of trust on our team?
5. Do you have a sense of our team goals?
6. Do you feel accepted by other members of the team? Do you feel like you really belong?
7. Are you encouraged to be creative and innovative?
8. Are you encouraged to take risks?

I have no idea what the hell any of that is supposed to mean, but you can tell that we're a group of 10 women. If we were men, those questions would have all begun with "do you think," not "do you feel…"

The question that really bothered me was number 6: Do you feel like you belong. I'm sorry, but I was under the impression that this was a workplace and not a cheerleading squad. What difference does it make if I feel like I fit in with these people? Who cares if they feel like I accept them? As long as everyone's professional and respectful, why should we even waste our time worrying about team climate?

I think I need a goddamn cigarette. Or should that be I feel...

2002-09-23T13:12:00.000-05:00

Apparently, my eldest daughter's semi-absent biological father is under the impression that parenting is a job with sick days and paid vacation. How nice for him!

I think his confusion comes from believing that when he spends time with her, he does so as a huge favor to both her and me. And so he often calls off on Sundays with excuses that start with, "I'm sorry… I just can't make it over there today" and end with clinchers like, "I had to work late… I'm tired… I'm feeling sick and I don't want to pass it on to her." At this point in the conversation, he pauses as if he's waiting for me to exclaim, "Oh you poor thing! Yes, please go right to bed and we'll manage without you… somehow…"

Daughter and I hang up and phone and exchange a few "too bad he can't make it" words before doing a little happy wiggle and planning a special trip to the park or mall with Dad (step-dad) and baby sister.

But this Sunday was really an exceptional entry in the annals of lame biodad antics. He called off because he simply hadn't had a day to himself in a long time.

That's funny… I wasn't aware that I had the option to bow out of parenting because I wanted a day to myself. Wow! The possibilities! I'm sure that because the kids don't have feelings or thoughts, they won't worry about why I'm ditching them. You can probably put children on a shelf or turn them off for the day. They won't even notice.

When you're a single person, as biodad is (and living with your parents, who undoubtedly cook, grocery shop, and do your laundry for you), every day is a day to yourself. You don't have diapers to change, homework to check, computer games to set up, compromises to make, bedtime stories to read, baths to give, foreheads to stroke, walks to take, questions to answer, and the needs of other people to balance against your own. You wake up, and the day is about you. What you will wear to work, what you will have for breakfast, who you will see later, and so on.

And it's sad, too. Because if he had any real appreciation for this beautiful, thoughtful, creative child that he feels he has the right to call his daughter, he would want to spend every possible moment watching her, talking to her, simply enjoying her personality and presence. Over vacation days, I'll take that benefit of parenting in a heartbeat.

2002-09-18T10:47:00.000-05:00

A few words about the man to whom I've been happily married for three years today…

When I was a kid, I always suspected that I'd grow up and get married. The right boy had to have a sense of humor like my dad's, the common decency not to throw spit wads at girls, and an appreciation for Star Trek.

When I was 17 and still found myself without a boyfriend (because boys who liked Star Trek had no sense of humor… and those with a sense of humor tended to throw spit wads), I started to get frantic. I dated spit wad boys (who were mean to me), sense of humor boys (who cheated on me), and tried to date Star Trek boys (who ignored me because they were also trying to date Star Trek boys.)

I know a lot of people don't believe in love at first sight, so I won't call it that. Something in me recognized something in him. The way he moved, spoke, laughed, looked was familiar and comforting. He was meant to be part of my life before we even met, I'm just lucky he liked me well enough to want to marry me. Otherwise I'd have tried to be the friend who was always there for him, the one he called for advice about his new girlfriend and the one whose heart was always silently broken that he loved me "as a friend."

He's perfect. I don't mean that he doesn't have faults. I mean he's kind, funny, smart, creative, thoughtful, romantic, and fun to be with. We never run out of things to talk about. He's perfect for me and the perfect father for our kids.

It's as simple as this. I'm happy. I never thought I would be this happy, but somehow I ended up with everything I could have wanted. September 18, 1999 was the day when everything started making sense.

2002-09-16T12:26:00.000-05:00

I'm surprised there aren't more suicides in the workplace. This occurred to me this morning after a particularly thankless episode in which all of my ideas were stolen and presented to a client as if my boss had been up all night brainstorming them.

There are a lot of sharp objects here.

Staples. Razor blades. Thumb tacks. The serrated edge of a tape dispenser. Even a sharpened #2 pencil, rightly targeted to a major artery, might be quite effective.

I remember when the phrase "going postal" was coined. Those poor postal workers, the conditions they're subjected to. What? I have more stress than Joe Postman. I could just as easily turn this stapler on everyone here. Don't fear the postal worker, fear me. Fear ME, you bastards! These are Standard Size Sharp Point staples and I'm not fooling around. CLACKET! CLACK-CLACKET!

2002-09-11T13:32:00.000-05:00

An email was sent around work at the beginning of the week encouraging everyone to wear red, white, and blue, and stating that a moment of silence would be observed at 8:46 on 9/11. At that time, we would be welcome to congregate in the courtyard, hold hands, and remember the events of a year ago.

Well, I have on my patriotic t-shirt over blue jeans, but I don't do organized moments of silence any more than I do organized religion. God & I have this agreement: whether she exists or not is strictly between us. But I'm not completely without sentimentality. At 8:46, I clicked "pause" on my CD player and looked down from my computer screen.

What does one do during a moment of silence? My mind flickered over newsreel footage of the towers, the faces of the victims and families, touched on the black depth of sadness associated with so much loss and grief, and of course the anger and outrage that could easily consume a person. But I didn't want to dwell on all of that anymore. I don't need a moment of silence to remember it.

And so for a moment, I let go of it. My mind was quiet, I was quiet. The thoughts and emotions all went still. And suddenly, at 8:46 I felt peace rush through me like wind in a wind tunnel, so forceful that it didn't seem to belong just to me.

Maybe it's the kind of peace people look for in their hand-joining and congregating. I hope they felt it too.

2002-09-05T13:12:00.000-05:00

I'm convinced there's something wrong with my brain on a neurological level. Don't laugh. There's always something wrong with me and today it's my synapses.

My main symptom is that I'm dropping things. That's got to be a serious sign of something. (If it's not, it means I'd have to come to terms with being a clutz.) In medical books it will be called something important, like dysfunction of combined synergistic grip exertion. That's what I have.

Oh ye mothers! Permit not your hypochondriac daughters to take up positions with companies which do produce medical textbooks, as it shall lead to unending sorrow and a life of imagined maladies…

Ironically, I despise going to the doctor. Instead of seeking medical counsel, I simply look up this week's symptoms in my handy copy of Physician's Diagnostic Companion, decide on an illness, and burden my husband with complaints until he walks away and turns on his stereo.

I'm the master of self-medicating. The proper dose of alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, ibuprofen, or altoids can cure anything.

In fact, I should put out my own Diagnostic Companion… The Iatrophobic Hypochondriac's Handbook: How to postpone medical interventions by disguising your symptoms

Coming soon to a bookstore near you.

2002-09-04T09:53:00.000-05:00

You'd think I would eventually run out of ways to amuse myself at work, but luckily I've hit on a new one.

Between my office and the bathroom (one of my favorite default destinations) stretches a long corridor that's mostly empty of everything except other corridors, like tributaries to other parts of the building. Were it a river, and had I a name like Sacajawea and a well-fashioned canoe, I might go exploring. But that's for another day.

This particular corridor, I've discovered, is approximately 64 steps long, from my office door to the women's facilities, depending on the step in one's stride. Straight as an arrow, nothing to trip over… "Why, I could make it back to my desk with my eyes closed," I mused.

And so I tried it.

It's very surreal, walking through a hallway with your eyes closed. You can imagine that you're asleep, or that you're trapped in the building after hours and they've cut the power. Or that you're a blind rat in a maze… as if that's really all that different from scurrying around with your eyes open.

About 30 steps into my journey, I peeked through my eyelids just to be sure I was still pointed in the right direction. I very nearly missed walking head-on into a co-worker. "Oh, sorry!" I exclaimed, ignoring the odd look she gave me. "I must have been sleepwalking there for a second. Whew!"

Toward the end, I overshot by a few steps and had to feel along the wall for my office door. If anyone else was watching me, I'm sure I became the day's topic of conversation.

Maybe my next challenge will be to type this document with two hands tied behind my back.

2002-08-29T10:24:00.000-05:00

Topic of the day: Am I a snob?

Conclusion: Quite probably.

Reasoning: Mocking people is one of my favorite pass times. Especially people who bring it on themselves by believing that they're above being mocked. Those are my favorites, because never would it enter their secure little minds that anyone had anything against them.

These are the bland, nondescript, generic label people who plan their lives around everything that's expected and in vogue.

They aim for the center of the bell curve.

And yet, they're also the ones who really think that they stand out in a crowd. They think that shopping off the most popular rack in a department store inexplicably makes their sense of style vibrant and unique.

Please. You should have had this figured out in high school. If you want to be unique, you won't get there by purchasing what's marketed to you.

If having disdain for others makes me a snob, then I am most definitely a snob. I dislike almost everyone around me. And I'm okay with that.

2002-08-28T10:20:00.000-05:00

The lunch crew has laid off. I think my unabashed overconsumption of sushi recently has shocked them into assuming that I'm one of those people who can eat whatever she wants and not give it a second thought, and am therefore unaffected by their dietary scrutiny. Yay. Let them focus all their efforts on the chunky new girl who has enthusiastically joined the weight watchers group here and apparently enjoys the attention.

Tangerine altoids are my new favorite thing. But if they didn't look like little tangerines, I wouldn't like them nearly so much.

2002-08-26T12:10:00.000-05:00

It's Monday and I'm bustin' out!

Not really. I'm sitting at my damn desk like I do every day. I'd like to bust out, but aside from not being too sure what that means, I'm not convinced I'm the type of person who could pull it off.

I did almost steal a bike over the weekend…

I should clarify. Steal back a bike. My bike, which was stolen from me last week. I should further clarify. My old bike, stolen from where it had been sitting out on my patio while it waited for me to decide whether it was in bad enough shape to simply hoist into the dumpster. Its only redeeming feature was the baby seat attached to the back.

And so, yes. Someone stole an old bike with a baby seat attached to it. I can only hope that whoever rode off on it felt like a complete fool with strappy buckles and baby seat padding whacking him in the back of the head. I hope that people pointed and laughed and made rude comments like, "Hey, you lost your baby!"

I was pissed off on principle. Had the thief waited another weekend or so, I would have removed the baby seat and escorted the old piece of crap to its final resting place, at which point I would have thanked anyone to take it.

As I was walking across the complex to the fitness room on Saturday afternoon, I saw it. The tail end of my baby seat was peeking out from behind the fence of someone else's patio. I was furious! What nerve, to steal my bike and then park it right outside their place as if they had every right to it! But I hesitated (not sure of the proper etiquette for reappropriating one's stolen property) and then decided to proceed with my workout and pick up the bike on my way home.

I fumed for 15 minutes on the treadmill, wondering what to do. Should I knock on their door and demand the bike back? Should I simply take it? Should I call the police and organize a swat team?

I would just walk up and take it, I decided. No need to alert the authorities yet.

All buff and sweaty, I got my butch in gear and strode through the grassy common area right up to the thief's back patio. I planted my hands firmly on the handlebars, intending to yank it free and walk it home.

And, well… this wasn't my bike.

I took my hands off it quickly, trying to pretend that I'd just been passing by and admiring this bike that wasn't mine. Nice baby seat on that bike, yessir. And that seat padding, why, that's a different color than the seat padding on my baby seat.

I would suck at law enforcement. Please don't ever let me carry a gun.

2002-08-23T15:03:00.000-05:00

I like this.

Or is that just my schizoid personality disorder talking?

2002-08-23T12:45:00.000-05:00

Today's personality disorder is... [drumroll]

Schizoid
People with schizoid personality disorder avoid relationships and do not show much emotion. They genuinely prefer to be alone and do not secretly wish for popularity. They tend to seek jobs that require little social contact. Their social skills are often weak and they do not show a need for attention or acceptance. They are perceived as humorless and distant and often are termed "loners."

Although I wouldn't say no to being labeled avoidant. Or even paranoid.

Disorder	Rating
Paranoid:	High
Schizoid:	Very High
Schizotypal:	Low
Antisocial:	Moderate
Borderline:	Moderate
Histrionic:	High
Narcissistic:	High
Avoidant:	High
Dependent:	Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive:	Moderate
-- Click Here To Take The Test --

2002-08-22T10:07:00.000-05:00

Amid the cliques at work, I think I have finally found my people.

It happened just after I had begun work on a painfully tedious catalog and my office neighbor had finally exhausted all possible topics of gossip with those around her so that for once her loud, squealing voice wasn't invading my space. Then her phone rang.

"Hello?… Oh! You're kidding! Okay, thank you!" She hung up and squealed to no one in particular, "I HAVE A FLORAL DELIVERY!"

She might as well have announced that large, scary men were on their way to my office with thumb screws. I saw every exchange she was about to have with everyone who happened to passed her office. They'd say, "You got flowers!" And she'd launch into it: "Oh yes! They're from blah blah blah for blah blah blah and I blah blah blah…" Repeated. Over. And. Over.

Something snapped. This was my limit and I had reached it. As she scampered to the front desk to pick up her flowers, I started frantically rummaging under piles of papers for my emergency Camels. As soon as my fingers closed around the pack, I shoved them into my pocket and stalked outside.

No, not to the smoking lounge where fat women took long drags on Virginia Slims and bitched about their kids in college. Outside. To be alone with the angry string of expletives in my head aimed at girls like that who annoy the living shit out of me.

With my back to the building and my arms crossed in a very clear "fuck off" posture, I lit a Camel and reveled for a few moments in my Bad-ass Angry Girl persona.

When I looked up, I realized I was not alone in my aloneness. These were the people who had obviously stalked out of offices and meetings in the same fashion as me, pissed off and at the breaking point with plastic smiling, backstabbing co-workers. I was among the Dennis Learys, the muttering, angry gesturing, solitary smokers. In the space of a cigarette, they glared at the ground and looked as if they might have hissed and spat at anyone who came near.

I'll never say hello to any of them. I'll never eat lunch with them or chat in the halls. Because for God's sake, why would they want to? It's funny when you realize that the only people you think you could be friends with are people who don't want friends.

2002-08-16T13:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I took the day off from work and returned this morning to discover that what I eat for lunch was a topic of office conversation.

That's right, ten skinny women (and three who are not so) apparently found it amusing that when they passed around the order form for ordering in lunch today, I ordered three sushi rolls.

One of them stuck a post-it to the order form that said, "Are you SURE you meant to order 3 rolls?" Someone else had written directly on the order form: "There are 5-6 pieces per roll. If you don't know what something is, I may be able to help you." As I was looking over all this (since I, in my absence, had been drafted to call in the order), one of them stopped by my office to rub my nose in it further. "We just wanted to make sure you knew you were ordering so much food!"

What my response should have been: "Why would you assume it was any of your business?"

What I actually said: "Oh! I know! You see, whenever I order sushi I try to order enough to get at least two meals out of it! I just really love sushi! I'll probably save the rest of it for dinner tonight, or lunch tomorrow!"

Ha. I will eat all three rolls, and why shouldn't I?

It made me feel so awful that I considered canceling the entire order and sitting in my office crying during lunch instead.

But first, I think I'll write an open letter.

Dear Lunch Bitches,

Thank you for your interest in my sushi order. I'm sure your intent was to help prevent a tragic overconsumption of calories which might result in bloat or weight gain. I appreciate your concern, but I assure you that I am already aware of the calorie and nutritional content of 99.998% of foods on the market.

I'm also aware of my weight, weight/height proportion, BMI, waist/hip measurements and ratio, and the exact margin of error associated with weighing oneself while wearing jeans versus khakis.

Thank you also for the implication that I SHOULD be watching what I eat. I'm always looking for signs that validate and reinforce my irrational fears.

And next time you elect me to place your order for you, please be so good as to use a calculator to total the amount you owe. No matter how much you bat your eyes at it, 5.25 plus 4.70 will never equal 8.95. Lack of basic math skills might impede your ability to count calories on my behalf.

Yours Sincerely,
That girl who always sits in her office looking pissed off when you're conversing loudly in the hall.

I think it's important to note that I DID eat all of the sushi. Shamelessly. And damn, it was good.

2002-08-14T09:56:00.000-05:00

It rained well into the evening yesterday and I discovered why people get addicted to exercise equipment.

Recently, my neighbor & I decided to go walking every night to get in shape. Our older girls take their bikes and we push our little ones in strollers. I've never been huge on exercise, but a quick walk around the neighborhood is fairly painless, and it does make me feel better about my thighs.

It was raining. No matter how much you love rainy weather you can't really justify taking a 9-month-old out in it. But after nearly walking out of work due to all the bullshit, I felt like I really had some stress to burn off. So we live in an apartment complex... there's an exercise room!

I expected it to be like everything else in our complex -- crappy, ratty, and falling apart. It was NOT! It was bright, clean, and stocked with stair steppers, treadmills, free weights, stationary bikes, and lots of other things I didn't recognize.

The only downside was that it was also packed with thin, young exercisers glistening with sweat and glowing with health. I was almost intimidated right out of the room, but with a quick little mental pat on the back, I parked myself at a bike and poked at the flashing settings panel.

Level: 0
Time: 5:00
Terrain: Hill

And we were off! Neighbor chose to pound out paces on the stair stepper. I will not use the stair stepper. My knees hurt just looking at it.

As soon as the skinny girl on the treadmill next to me hopped off and collected her towel and water bottle, I hopped on.

Lights blinked at me. Okay, the "+" button for faster, the "-" for slower. What could be simpler?

+, I pressed with my thumb, feeling that I was now one of the slim gym-goers who thumbed buttons instead of poking at them.

It moved, but SO slowly. +, +, +. I thumbed and walked, gradually bringing the thing up to a comfortable pace.

Hmm. TOO comfortable. +. +. +. +. +. Intoxicatingly, each time I upped the speed, an LED number upped the number of calories I was burning per hour. 326…338…365…+! +!

And it wasn't about calories or muscle or heath. It felt good. I was doing this. I was good at this. Everyone at work could go to hell! Whether it was the endorphins or the absolute sense of control that thumbing that little + gave, I fell in love with the treadmill. I wanted to take it home with me and walk on it all day long. I would do anything for it! I would have its children!

I noticed Neighbor eyeing the treadmill enviously from her seat on the bike.

"Do you want to try this?" I offered, knowing that I was prepared to fight her for it if she said yes. Fortunately, she declined.

This is dangerous. I may have stumbled upon something even more addictive than sushi.

2002-08-13T09:44:00.000-05:00

Am I avoiding work? You betcha! I just heard that my 7-year-old and her neighbor friend are sitting outside under a little overhang in the roof watching it rain. That's so cool. Maybe if I were a normal mom I'd want them inside away from the elements. Man. I used to do stuff like that.

I wish I were sitting out in the rain right now...

I hate people. Specifically, one person. One particular person who's making my life here at work a living hell and I want to devote the rest of my natural life to causing her great psychological pain and anguish. If I had the super power to turn people into stone, I'd let her know about it, and I'd stop by her office every morning and say cheerfully, "How's that bagel? Enjoy it! Might be your last!" And then every time I'd see her in the hall I'd throw my head back and laugh derisively. And when I finally did turn her into stone, I'd leave her sitting in her office and bring bagels in every morning. And I'd leave them sitting inches from her stony fingers. And then I'd throw my head back and laugh derisively. Yes. Again.

I don't even know if she likes bagels. The bagel was merely a literary devise. It's symbolic, you see.

2002-08-09T09:58:00.000-05:00

Check out the secret box to the left... The big hush has ended!

2002-08-06T13:36:00.000-05:00

Last night, we had a lightning storm that actually shook the walls of the house. It was incredible. And in a sense, cathartic. Even though I was up most of the night listening to the ear-splitting crashes of thunder and waiting for the roof to explode in an electrical jolt of fire and splintered shingles, I woke up feeling like I had shaken some of the negative stuff.

In the spirit of renewal, here is a list of things I'm happy about.

My daughters are lovely, bright, precious children.

No one in my immediate sphere of family and friends has a life-threatening illness.

Tonight husband will bring home a brand-new copy of the Lord of the Rings on DVD, which we will watch while snuggling on the couch and trading bits of LOTR minutia.

I have at least two very good friends.

One of them is starting a business with me for fun and profit.

One night a week will soon be devoted once again to seeing who gets voted off Survivor.

I have projects and time to work on them.

I'm on good terms with both sets of neighbors, neither of whom plays loud music at night.

The continuing education schedule mailed to me from the local community college suggests interesting possibilities.

There's enough change in my desk drawer to make a withdrawal from the vending machine, should it come to that.

2002-08-05T15:01:00.000-05:00

You know what I like? The term "meds" as used in psychiatric circles. Did you take your meds today? Etcetera. I think I'll start calling ibuprofen meds. I'll walk out of a meeting, digging my fingers into my hairline, wincing and muttering something about needing to talk to my p-doc about starting the meds again.

I knew a girl in high school who took diuretics five times a day and referred to them as Haldol. Of course, I always thought Haldol was what she should have been taking anyway.

I'm not in a happy place today. And nothing is worse than feeling on the edge of mental instability and being dragged out to lunch to celebrate someone's birthday. I sat at the end of the table, picked at my requisite crab cake, and wanted very badly to stab a fork in the eye of the next person who turned to me and said, "So did you do anything fun over the weekend?"

Of all meaningless office conversation, weekend talk is my absolute least favorite. It starts out on Monday as, "So did you do anything fun over the weekend?" By Wednesday, it has devolved into generalized "is it the weekend yet?" moaning. And then it ends out the week with, "So do you have any big weekend plans?"

The most obvious answer is, "What business is it of yours?"

But most of the time I don't have the energy for a direct confrontation, so I lie. "Oh yes!" I sputter, "I'm going to Japan on Saturday. Then in the evening we'll be at a barn dance where they'll hold a competitive cheese tasting event (I took seventh place last year). And on Sunday, I don't know. We might take all of those dirty men from the homeless shelter downtown out to see an opera."

Then there's always the one who just can't let the conversation die. "Oh really? Which opera?"

2002-08-02T14:31:00.000-05:00

To be an entrepreneur, does one first need to learn how to spell it? It's not often that a word has me running for the Webster's, not when I can usually type a guess into spell checker and wind up with a correct spelling through trial and error. I must have butchered it beyond belief, because eventually the program just rolled its eyes and muttered something rude.

The business kick-off was a flaming success! Beer was consumed. Plans were laid. The product is officially in production. We are green lighted, people!

2002-07-31T15:50:00.000-05:00

Hmm! This is interesting. In cleaning off my hard drive, I found a folder of things I'd started writing but apparently forgot about. Among them was a prospectus for a children's book, and now that it's suddenly new to me again, it sounds like a darn good idea! I may flesh that out a bit and see what comes of it.

I also discovered a file of haiku poems, from what I might refer to as my Haiku Period. And they're not bad!

I say that knowing that as soon as you saw the word "poems" you cringed, just as I cringe when someone starts telling me that they write poetry. It's just that there is so much bad poetry in the world and so many people who think that because they can rhyme two words they're an accomplished poet, I feel justified in assuming that if you write poetry and it's not published in a hardback volume on a shelf in Barnes & Noble, then I don't want to know about it.

Maybe that's harsh. Maybe there are tens of thousands of talented, modest people among us who write decently and simply keep their work in a desk drawer. Maybe they never want to admit to dabbling in the art because it puts you in the same category as that guy in Starbucks who writes poems to impress girls, or the 40-year-old housewife who writes odes to her dogs and the flowers in her garden. Or for that matter, Poet Smurf.

The problem is that unless you can recognize good poetry, you have no idea that yours is bad. If it all looks to you like a few simple lines strung together, then sure! You can do that. You can call yourself a poet at your next bridge club meeting and win the admiration and respect of bridge club members who have never read anyone's poetry outside of that paraded about by other boasting bridge club friends.

Never mind that there are words involved, actual words that actually say something important beneath the surface of what you see. They twist an image like a broken reflection. They force you to look at something you've seen a thousand times every day of your life as if you're seeing it for the first time.

What some people don't get, what isn't ever made clear to them by well-meaning relatives and friends at the risk of bruising their self-esteem, is that there is such a thing as a bad poem. It is not a fragile representation of your inner soul that dare not be criticized or examined too closely for flaws. You should pull it apart, stare it down, and rip gigantic, gaping holes in it. And if underneath its shining, self-expressive exterior you discover that it's not worth saving, you should have the guts to pull the trigger.

This is why I have a hard time with trendy poetry groups. I can't say that I like a poem if it's crap. Everyone else might be able to stand up and applaud and congratulate the writer for expressing himself, but I can't do it.

On the other hand, now you know that if I've ever told you I liked something you wrote, I definitely wasn't bullshitting.

2002-07-30T15:26:00.000-05:00

Fear not, gentle citizens... I-Mac Grrrl is on the scene!

I am getting a new computer at work with unimaginably terrifying, untapped powers that will enable me to open Quark, Word, (get this)…AND Outlook… all at the same time!

With this new machine, I will reach new levels of creativity and productivity, eliminate the word "um" from my speech patterns, and possibly hack the Pentagon looking for pictures of Dick Cheney's richard.

Could I be any more psyched?

Methinks a celebratory Butterfingers is in order, while I figure out how I'm going to clean three years' worth of photos, fiction, and other non-work items off my hard drive in three days, armed with nothing more than a small box of floppies. Um…

2002-07-30T09:28:00.000-05:00

This may seem like any other Tuesday, but it's not!

Today, July 30, 2002, is the day that we'll look back on fondly 20 years from now when we're mightily successful and richer than hell, as "the day it all began." Today, we hold the first official business meeting of The Company.

The Company is capitalized because it is a brand-new, yet-unnamed entity, and also because (since it's a SECRET) I won't be revealing the purpose or products associated with it.

Suffice to say that I am excited. And absolutely convinced that it will be a huge success. And even if it weren't going to be successful, which it will, it would still be worth doing because it's fun-filled and life-affirming.

I'm very, very, very, very excited.

And now I have to go work on the business plan.

2002-07-25T10:04:00.000-05:00

I'm like a complete child around sugar. When a vendor brings in eight dozen donuts, somehow I feel like I've been given permission to eat until I am sick. If you set eight dozen donuts in front of my seven-year-old daughter, she would be able to control herself. She would have a donut or two, step back and say, "Wow, that was good. Now I'm full." Not me! You shouldn't let me in the same room with donuts. Clearly I am not able to handle the personal responsibility. I have two eating speeds: on and off.

Of course, I exercised last night. My metabolism is in shock. My muscles hurt like hell. Sugar takes the edge off, as well as negating any health benefit that exercising may have provided. Meanwhile, my lithe, athletic daughter zipped on her bike up and down vertical hills, jumped rope, climbed a tree, and when she saw me coming back from my ankle-weighted walk, she snagged my ankle weights and jogged with them around the house a few times just for fun.

Man. Remember that?

2002-07-22T10:14:00.000-05:00

And without warning, work has ground to a screeching halt.

I'm still in panic mode. I'm still in "write this 12-page brochure in 5 minutes" mode. So I had one project left on my desk that was supposed to last me all week. It's done. I'm bored. And the week is stretching out ahead like a few hundred miles of dead Kansas flatlands.

I want to be busy. It's not that I have any unusually strong work ethic, or that I'm opposed to killing time on the clock. But I can't look like I'm bored, and I can't ask for more work. If I did, my boss would either a) give me busywork, or b) downsize me. Neither sounds like more fun than I could devise on my own. So here's my list of scheduled activities for a typical day this week:

8:30-9:45 Log in, check email, check web email, check alternate web email, respond to emails, check hits counter on site, check hits on alternate site.

9:45-10:00 Attempt to doctor the office coffee with varying amounts of Folgers Cafe Latte mix so it reaches acceptable drinkability levels.

10:00-10:15 Scavenger-like, wander around the building looking for departments who have brought in bagels, donuts, leftover birthday cake, etc.

10:15-10:17 Duck into a bathroom stall and consume findings before anyone wonders who I am and why I'm eating their department's food... or judges me for eating cake with my fingers.

10:17-11:00 Head back to office and open various Word documents, arranging them on my screen so they look important. Lay out several printed drafts on my desk and mark them up with arrows and margin edits. Stick cryptic post-it to computer that says, "Mtg JB 11am - br. WBS htst!"

11:00-1:00 Lunch.

1:00-3:30 Blog, blog-hop, toss a few emails, surf sites of interest, post on message boards.

3:30-4:30 Rifle through scheduled jobs to double check that nothing is due before October. Yep, still caught up. Ah. Contemplate leaving early.

2002-07-19T11:02:00.000-05:00

In neighborhoods where the white trash mingles freely with the rest of the population, you see a lot of odd things. This morning, as I drove through one such neighborhood on my way to work, I noticed that I was so out of gas that I was probably riding solely on an engine powered by good will and best wishes.

And since there was no clean, homogenized Amoco in sight, I pulled into the local Joe's Gas & Smokes 4 Less, apparently owned and operated by men who like a nice coating of motor oil on their skin at all times. Given that it was 7:30 in the morning, I'm not sure how they had the time to become so thoroughly greased, unless they rolled out of bed and showered in it.

Fortunately, it was a pay-at-the-pump operation and I was able to stand back, pump my gas, and engage in everyone's favorite game...

Deconstructing the Local Gas Station Patrons

By far the most terrifying character (even more gut-wrenchingly horrific than the man who stood beside his Volvo singing 80s ballads at full volume... with no radio accompanyment) was a girl smoking a cigarette while filling her tank.

I'd noticed the millions of signs posted near the tanks warning people not to smoke, and on some level I knew they had to post the signs because people did this mind-numbingly stupid thing, but I'd never seen it. I'd never been standing twenty feet from the potential fireball of death, watching as she used her cigarette hand to unscrew the gas cap, red-hot ashes dangling precipitously just inches above the open tank.

She had large blonde hair, curled and sprayed into place in true white trash form. She wore a cut-off shirt and cut-off shorts. She was barefoot.

Obviously this girl had been reared by someone who took the time to teach her the fundamentals of curling iron usage and hair spray application, but had neglected the finer points of truly practical knowledge that is usually passed on from parent to child, such as the value of wearing shoes to protect one's feet. And the underlying physics of inflammatory substances and incendiaries in combination. Nothing complicated. Just the fire-plus-gas-make-big-BOOM basics.

Like teenage sex, only with more third-degree burns.

2002-06-28T09:52:00.000-05:00

I don't like loud shoes.

Shoes that draw needless attention to themselves by clacking against the floor or smacking against my feet, that squeak, hiss, or protest in any way, do not belong in my wardrobe. I start to feel like they're mocking me, talking to each other as I walk in some alien shoe-language.

But if they look really, really cool, I can forgive them for it. The shoes I'm wearing today are platform sandals, about five inches tall, and loud as hell. They practically scream "swish-ka-THUNK!" And since I'm competing with my shoes for attention, I have upped my bad-ass quotient significantly, staring down anyone who dares turn to see who it is that's thunking down the hall. It's ME, niggah! Yeah, that's right, you turn you'self back around...

I can't blame the shoes, after all they weigh eight and a half pounds apiece. I know this for a fact, because when I stepped on the scale this morning, I was wearing the thunky shoes, and that explained why the scale read 17 pounds heavier than I would like to be.

I learned to apply this logic while I was pregnant. As you gain weight, the books explain, the weight is distributed in a certain way: 8 pounds to the baby, 13 pounds to fluids and placenta, 22 pounds to the three Tombstone pizzas you ate at 2 a.m. the night before... (and right up to the day I delivered, I still entertained the belief that I might give birth to a 53-pound baby, who perhaps partially resided in my enlarged thighs).

The same logic applies after pregnancy, of course: 8 pounds to the jeans, 3 to the cotton t-shirt, 17 to the shoes, 22 to the three Tombstone pizzas... By the time I've subtracted everything, I usually end up weighing about 62 pounds. I must go see if anyone brought in Krispy Kreme donuts this morning, to pad my emaciated frame.

2002-06-26T10:01:00.000-05:00

Being a non-smoker requires too much committment. I don't know why this is such an all-or-nothing proposition. The implication of the term is that non-smokers do not smoke. Never. Not once. A single cigarette bummed from a friend over a bottle of wine, and you find yourself slammed into a new category: you smoke. You are a smoker. You dwell in reeking, coughing shadows with the rest of society's outcasts and looked-down-upons.

But it's one cigarette every now and then. One pack lasts me months and sits untouched for weeks at a time as I go about my non-smoking life. I doubt I'll ever find myself sneaking out of parties to light up in a lonely dark alley behind the house. I'll probably never be faced with the choice of using my last four dollars to either buy a gallon of milk or a pack of Camels, and end up using orange juice on my cereal in the morning. My car and clothes don't smell like smoke, I don't have cigarette burns on my sofa or a coating of ash dusted over my coffee table. And the parking lot outside my apartment door is not littered with butts I've thoughtlessly flicked away. The butts are there, yes, but they never belonged to me. Honest.

So I inhabit a weird place in between the smokers and the avowed never-smokers. To be seen with a cigarette in my hand is to be labeled a smoker, and in some ways I have no problem with that. Smokers are among the friendliest people that walk the earth. They gather outside buildings in unspoken camaraderie. They share lighters. They freely offer one of their own cigarettes to someone who just ran out. A smoker among smokers is always among friends, always with at least two things in common--that cigarette poised between two fingers and the disapproving glares bestowed by 9 out of 10 passers-by.

Once, on my way to an art class, I walked across the college campus carrying an art bin, sketch pad, and lit cigarette. An old woman who was obviously an instructor looked at me with disgust and said, "Ewww! Yuck!" I was shocked, until I remembered that in this moment I was a smoker, "deserving" of her rude comments. I smiled at her, and she stuck out her tongue and turned her back.

2002-06-24T09:54:00.000-05:00

This morning I sat up in bed and couldn't remember how old I was.

I had a three-year range in mind, and figured that I probably was older than the first number. But was I? At least I knew the year I was born, so I did the math.

I am 26. I think.

After a certain point, it's just not something you keep in your mind every day. Certainly not the way you did when you were 6, counting down the days until you turned 7, earning the added year and with it all the privileges, responsibilities, and prestige that the new age entails. Once you're past the fun milestone ages, 13, 16, 18, 21…what's the point of keeping track anymore?

My oldest turned 7 yesterday. It's the age in my memory that the "child" me is stuck on. If I think back to myself as a little kid, I see 7-year-old me in pigtails, cut-off shorts, and scabbed-up knees. It's when I started school and began to settle into being the person I am, with interests, ideas, opinions, and all those things you spend your childhood stifling so you can fit in with the popular kids. So it's weird to have conversations with my daughter, this little girl who is no longer a stammering toddler struggling to put words together, who in fact now has a sense of herself and who she is in the world. She's an intelligent, expressive being. It freaks me out.

This person didn't exist seven years ago, and now she sits with me on the couch and describes the plots of books she's reading. I tuck her in at night, and she confesses that sometimes she feels as if her friends don't really like her. She expects more from me than a hug and a reassuring smile. She wants real answers and not just promises that everything will be okay in the morning. She knows better.

Parenting is getting complicated because she's getting complicated. And I still feel like I'm the same 7-year-old, demanding that my mom keep pace with me and the rate I'm changing.

2002-06-20T10:07:00.000-05:00

And so it begins.

A commemorative limerick:

I did something that I've never done before.
I pinched my finger in the bathroom door.
Wasn't paying much attention
But I thought that I should mention
The finger that I pinched is kind of sore.