And this is why I don’t leave the house much…

For the past few days I have been incredibly irritable, cranky, sullen, aggravated & sleep-deprived. No, I don’t have a newborn baby that I must care for, instead my body decided to birth the mother of all rashes all over my skin parts. That’s right… I’ve got it:

Poison Ivy.

And it’s EV-ERY-WHERE.

*****

I want to die.

-No. That’s not quite it.

I want to kill myself.

-Hmmm… close, but still, that sentiment isn’t totally fitting.

Ok, got it…

I want the rip the flesh from my body, soak it in acid & bleach, scald it in boiling water, pass it through an industrial strength blow dryer and have it re-attached all while I am under heavy sedation so I can catch up on the COUNTLESS hours I’ve not slept ever since Mount St. Hellish erupted all over my oh-so sensitive limbs.

What probably sucks more than the itching and discomfort and lack of sleep at night is the fact that I have no one but myself to blame for this debacle.

Am I unreasonably susceptible to toxic weeds with poison oils? Why yes, yes, I am.

Have I, in the past, contracted said poison oils simply by washing the clothes of another who came in contact with the plant, although I had not? Damn right I have.

As a child, did I come down with multiple horrific cases of ivy poisoning during summer months, so so SO so bad that I once got it inside my eye, causing my lid to swell to the approximate size of a golf ball, forcing me to spend the following days trying to slide a thin layer of tissue between my swollen lids to collect my miserable, unjustly afflicted, childhood tears? This scenario, sadly, is also all too true.

So then why, when warned of poison leaves in the area, did I not flee? Why did I not wave my middle finger in the general direction of my offenders instead of waving the wand of a weed-killing spray in their face. That same blasted wand that literally managed to blast the irritating oils of its plant host back onto my body and clothing?

Because I am an idiot and an asshole.

At least that’s all I’ve been able to come up with.

*****

Do you want to know an interesting fact that I read about poisonous plants? One of the WORST things you can do is to spray them with weed-killer for the exact reason I mentioned above. It causes teeny-tiny offensive poison particles to become airborne, and for those of us with extreme cases of what I like to call “new-born dermatitis” (Do you get hives from moderate alcohol consumption while sitting in the sun? What about from applying certain types of sun block mixed with chlorinated pool water? Then this is you and your life if screwed…) you are risking not only spraying vicious oils all over your skin but you may also end up ingesting them, thus causing a shit storm of shit you do not want to deal with. Trust.

The worst thing about this particular instance is the fact that I didn’t even know I had poison ivy until about 3 days after it first reared its ugly pimpled head. It wasn’t until I awoke one night last week attempting to saw off my own leg with my ragged fingernails that I realized that what I assumed were above average sized mosquito bites were in fact, much much worse.

The next day I noticed a rash had begun to form and spread and those once large circular “mosquito bite” sized blobs on my legs had begun to transform themselves into things that looked more like red sand tropical islands rather than innocuous rosy-red orbs.

It wasn’t until this past Friday night (mind you I contracted the “sickness” on the previous Sunday afternoon) that I realized I had not only entered my home that Sunday, while covered in the offending oil, sat on the couch (which seconds as our bed), touched numerous household items and the cat, before I realized that I was also sleeping on the same sheets since that day. The same sheets that I’d been rolling around in for the entire week wondering why this shit was spreading all over my body like wildfire.

Needless to say… it was too late. A week since I first noticed the rash I am still accumulating new patches of discomfort. I have washed my sheets & any and all associated materials I may or may not have (can’t risk it) touched since the incident twice over now and I am on my way to get a shot of steroids from my doctor because I have left myself with no other options.

The bee and I have barely said a word to each other in days, mostly due to the fact that my emotional range is either that of a crazed, hypersensitive crying lunatic, weeping at the sign of a new blister or bump or that of an aloof, angry madwoman whose main purpose in life is now to eradicate all toxins from my living space.

*****

I’ve seen a doctor, received a shot of cortisone in my arm and am currently taking steroids despite the fact that I was always told they give men breasts and women mustaches. This was a risk I was mostly willing to take and since I already have both breasts and a mustache. I think I can say I’ve won this round.

*****

It is now a day after the doctor and the welts have begun to subside but more than that my state of mind is slightly more balanced than it had been. To put things into perspective I have included photographic evidence from the day I first noticed the bumps arise:

I sent this photo in a text to the bee with the light-hearted comment that my “bug bites” resembled two giant nipples. HAHAHA!

That joke proved even less funny after my leg started to look like this:

if possible, please try to ignore the unshaven-ness of my leg. it’s kind of hard to drag a razor over your skin when your legs are covered in festering sores.

In short…

Happy 4th! Stay safe, have fun, and stay the fuck inside.

It’s My Party…

Today marks the 2 year anniversary of this blog.

Yay!

It also happens to be the day that my most favorite of favorites, my stylized songbird and muse, Ms. Amy Winehouse has died.*

*sigh*

Amy was my Elvis. She was my Madonna. She was my living Jeff Buckley because upon first hearing them both I can remember thinking things would never be the same for me and music. Now I can only hope that she and Jeff are somewhere making some other world happy with their sounds because this one has officially been deprived.

I was a little too young to have felt the direct impact when Kurt Cobain died but I liken the feeling I have is similar to the one all his fans felt when they knew he was gone for good. No more music, no more stories, no more knowing that even if they never performed or made an album ever again, that at least they were out there having a life and being their own unique artist and individual just by being alive.

I tried to explain to the bee how I felt, but mainly I just felt stupid. A 28 year old girl, woman, person whatever, feeling shaken and dispossessed by the loss of someone I had a connection to only in my mind.

I half-jokingly referred to my sadness over her abrupt loss as a state of “EverMourn”. As though I would forever be mourning the loss of her. He laughed and said maybe a better name for my situation was to refer to it as “MournHouse”.

Funny, appropriate, and yet just… *deep breath and… SIGH*

So that’s it. It’s my party and I could cry if I wanted but instead I think I’d rather just remember her as she was meant to be and never, ever, ever forget how amazing it was for the short time we had.

artwork by Reece Ward

*If you’re seeing this in your RSS reader or email or whatever thingy or device you use to view infrequently updated websites and you’re thinking “Hmmmm, this news is old…” Congratulations! You would be right. No, I haven’t been living under a rock for the past month, I’m just really really inconsistent when it comes to blogging anymore and generally lazy and wayward. I felt like publishing this now, so I did. My apologies. That is all.

Fears

After leaving my job a few months ago I thought I would begin a new chapter in my life by filling my days with some much-needed relaxation and allowing myself the time to re-focus creatively and personally.

Instead I’ve been most successful at giving myself an endless array of shit for not being more artistically productive or inspired on a daily basis which makes for what I believe to be some pretty serious irony:

Fear #1

I will never be successful. At anything.

Much like my numerous failed attempts to learn to the guitar/piano/drums beyond plucking strings, poking keys, or banging on cymbals, I cannot seem to move past the point of frustration at figuring out new things which might allow me to find peace in being creative and possibly, somewhere down the line, entrepreneurial:

Fear #2

I will never finish anything that I start.

When I recently mentioned to the bee that I thought I might like to work in a library, he reminded me that most library work is on a volunteer-only basis:

Fear #3

Any and all discernible life-skills I have are at once impractical and completely useless when trying to support yourself financially.

Perhaps it’s because I stopped taking my  meds or the fact that I’ve been unemployed for a while that’s causing a momentous level of despair to creep into my life.

Either way, it seems my ability to differentiate between a justifiable cause for fear or worry against something which is completely fabricated by my damaged brain has never been worse.

But… at least I’m taking it all in stride:

Yep. Totally under control.

These pictures would be great if they weren’t so terrible…

Make sure you spare no expense when purchasing otherwise inexpensive yet generally dependable disposable cameras for YOUR informal post-wedding celebratory event.

Otherwise your photos might end up like this*:

ah, yes... it looks like there could be a table there, and wait! some people AT that table, but for the most part... just blackness.

oh, and look... here's a charming shot of the bride and groom about to kiss! oh, wait maybe not. i mainly just see cupcakes.

oh, my. just... *wow*. this is a great one. this photo brings us just *this* much closer to solid proof that (due to unknown causes) a body CAN separate from it head, causing spontaneous floating head-itis**... specifically during informal post-wedding celebratory events.

**spontaneous floating head-itis can also cause momentary facial blurring which can be very useful if you plan on commiting any major crimes and wish to evade security cams or police survelliance.

 

and finally…

the very best and worst? photo of the bunch:

at least it had some color…

*it also helps to have significant sunlight. or some other kind of light. just light. in general.

Waterworld. Except subtract the part about water. And don’t expect any Kevin Costner references either…

Since Saturday morning we’ve been praying to the gods of water and early springtime thaw in the hope that one of them might hear us and grant us a taste of modern civility, in the form of luscious, glittering, watery water flowing from the taps once more.

Considering we’ve had a foot or more of snow on the ground for the last month, finding our pipes frozen was likely to have happened. I probably should have been expecting something regardless since I also managed to get two flat tires on two different occasions just since the new year, which leads me to ask:

For who?

For ME?! (presses hands to chest)

Oh, no… (fans hand out as though to say: I simply COULDN’T)

I mean…

I simply COULDN’T.

It wouldn’t be fair to all the other, less fortunate car tires with fully inflated rubber housing…

It seems only fitting that we should top it off with this now.

I mean, it’s not the WORST thing that could happen with the house. No, because the WORST thing that could happen probably-already happened to us last year. And it’s still nowhere near as bad as that time when we had crickets in our bed. Because I’m still not OK with what happened there…

I’ve been fine with not being able to do the dishes or brush my teeth using running water. I’ve learned to “spot clean” myself with baby wipes and de-crust dirty silverware with the leg of my sweatpants.

It’s been a lot like camping. Only a lot less fun.

I even figured out a way to make coffee!

Part one:

Collect some snow.

Part two:

Wait for it to melt.

Part three:

Make coffee?

Because of its “nature-y” ingredients I’ve taken to calling it Winter’s Blend…

But this post isn’t supposed to be about the merits of making snow coffee. It’s about how much it sucks using the toilet when you don’t have any running water.

It’s also been a really long time since we’ve had a proper discussion involving poop on this blog so here you go:

Saturday, 11:30 PM

me: *tummy gurgles* Oh. Um. Yeah...

I think I need to, you know, “go”. Don’t mind me, I’ll be right back…

the bee: Wait. Where are you going?

m: To the BATHroom. I have to “go”. You know, like “go” go.

b: Yeah, I get it but you can’t “go” in there.

m: (squints eyes, furrows brow) Whadaya MEAN I can’t go in there? Where am I supposed to go?!

b: My mom’s house, for one. If you run you could be inside in 10 seconds.

m: Excuse me, but I am NOT going over to your mom’s at midnight just to have to explain the reason for my visit is because I need to “drop something off”. UGGGGH! Embarrassing much?

b: Well, you can’t “go” in our toilet if we can’t flush.

m: (drops to knees and shakes fists) You can take away my toilet, bee… but you can’t take away my priiiiiiiide!!!

b: Oh, please… I’ve known you to use a trash can if you rea-

m: (lightbulb illuminates above head, eyes widen and finger points upward in excited victory)

*door slam*

b: (faces bathroom in disgust and horror)

*shouts* Just make sure you take it out when you’re done! *under breath* …you filthy animal.

unprofessional diagnosis? life-sucking death-belly with a side of the runs.

The week following BlogHer I spent laid up, all fetal-like, writhing and moaning with an intestinal pain so intense I became convinced I must be afflicted with a late stage stomach cancer of which there is no cure. 

My unprofessional diagnosis? Life-sucking death-belly with a side of the runs. At least that’s what it felt like.

The best way I could describe my discomfort was that someone was giving my lower intestine one helluva indian burn, wringing their hands violently back and forth upon my delicate innards. Eating made it worse and my countless trips to the bathroom did nothing to save myself from the pain. On top of that my head was fuzzy, my footing poor (when I could even bear to walk) and there was a gray cloud of limitless funk hanging over my head due to my overall less than stellar condition.

On Tuesday I made it into work only to leave by 3:30 because I felt so shitty.

On Wednesday I called out after spending most of the night like this:

By Thursday I was lured into the false hope of a day without ailment and I decided I would go into work after the doctor’s appointment I had scheduled for that morning. Professional diagnosis? Gastroenteritis. Basically a bad case of heartburn and diarrhea. According to the doctor this could have been caused by either an infection or by stress.

I felt better just knowing the prognosis and having some medicine to quiet my symptoms but my doctor suggested that if I still felt bad on Monday to schedule an appointment with the diagnostic clinic and provide them with a stool sample. Since I wasn’t bowled over with the prospect of having to present my shit in a cup to a stranger I told myself I was on the road to recovery and I was basically as good as new!

Once mid-day hit I realized just how wrong I was. Here’s a peek of me at the office that day:

Not to say that scene is all that different from any normal day at the office:

And YES I do, in fact, give my work phone the finger in real life because I truly HATE that fucker with every fiber of my being and because I’m super mature like that.

Turns out I WASN’T better and the worst was yet to come.

But I survived (even though the same cannot be said for President Zachary Taylor) and I didn’t have to give any of my infected dumps away! Even worse than the crappy way I felt during that whole time, my week of ailment put a serious kink in our “things to get done for the wedding before the wedding which is ridiculously soon and we probably should have been on this stuff a while ago but who knew wedding planning was so hard?! WE DID but we just procrastinated the fuck out of it all anyway because apparently we like to do things the hard way and because of that it might have caused the life-sucking death-belly sickness by adding to the stress of trying to get it all done in the span of 2 months” list.

So yeah.

I’m kind of jealous of Zachary Taylor right now…

I went to BlogHer and all I got was…

a(n all TOO) close encounter with irritable bowel syndrome, an inflated inferiority complex and my period.

Before I get into the moment by moment break down of my conference experience I think I should first preface this post by saying any and all general negativity derived cannot really be blamed on any one or thing other than myself.

This experience taught me, if nothing else, that I am not a particularly good social networker, either on or offline and although I think I might possibly one day be an a’ight blogger, I will never be anything close to an “elite” persona because it’s just. not. me.

I am pretty sure my perspective of the conference was different from that of most attendees. I didn’t stay at the hotel or attend any of the keynotes or parties. 

Because of this?

I’m pretty sure I missed out on a large chunk of the experience. Again, nobody’s fault but my own. From the beginning I wasn’t really interested in attending parties or the immersing myself in the overwhelming social aspect of this event.

In retrospect, I guess that was my first mistake since so much of BlogHer is about hobnobbing and gettin’ down during off-hours.

*sigh*

Let’s do this shall we?

I start Friday morning off fairly well. I get up, have my coffee, get dressed and I’m actually out the door ahead of schedule!

We-ow!

My main goal is to attend all the available sessions so I can gain as much how-to-be a better blogger tids and bits as logistically possible.

There is a welcome breakfast followed by something called “Speed Dating, BlogHer-style” that I’m not all that keen on making it to NYC in time for. Knowing what I know now, my lack of interest in activities such as these should have probably been an early sign to me that I wasn’t going to get as much from this conference as countless others BUT I’m stubborn, so on we go…

Everything is going according to plan, I’m in the car driving up the turnpike, listening to a little Rilo Kiley for inspiration and good vibes when ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL of a sudden… my innards start shouting Mayday! and I have nary a floatation device at hand.

If you know what I’m saying…

I’m talking this is the WORST and I do mean The. Worst. stomach pains I’ve ever had so far away from a toilet in-my-entire-life. I don’t have much recourse here but to take deep breaths and pray to a god I’m not so sure gives a shit about my GI problems.

The severe pains persist all the way through the Lincoln Tunnel up into Manhattan.

Have I mentioned that at this point I have fallen a bit off course and I’m now stuck in traffic on a street I shouldn’t have turned down in the first place?

Because I am.

So I get to the Hilton with some time to spare and I ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun to the bathroom where next to nothing happens. That’s right. Next to nothing. Let’s leave it at that. So whatever, I’m still on schedule and I didn’t crap my pants.

The first session is O.K. Kind of vague and over-generalized and initiate my feelings of inferiority in this particular atmosphere.  It’s at this point where I first start to fear that: I do not belong.

Lunch feels like something out of the first day of highschool; shuffling my way into a large room cautiously glancing about for the sight of a familiar, or at least non-hostile, face.

I begin to feel as I often do when stressed and unsure: not hungry.

After lunch, or as I had – half of a 1/5 of a sandwich and 2 pieces of watermelon, I skip outside to partake in an activity often used as a crutch, security blanket or just plain god-awful but for whatever reason, unavoidable, addiction: smoking. I’m not proud to say that I still use cigarettes as a social tool but I never said I was perfect. Anyway, thank GOD for smoking because that’s where I start to feel the natural ease of fraternization return.

I often use the term organic when referring to situations that unfold in a natural, unforced way. I hate being fake or feeling fake or pressured to “perform” in order to adapt myself to large social settings.  I’m not in the business of getting people to like me under false pretense. I am who I am and unfortunately (for me) that means I’m not all that marketable, at least not to those who aren’t willing to break through my crunchy exterior and the find the warm and gooey mess that lurks beneath my crackly shell.

Try not to take that last part too literally…

I did meet one person who seemed up to the challenge of my (apparently) prickly personality though I doubt I made a huge splash with most of the other folks at the conference. I’ve always been that person who is often pigeonholed as snobby or aloof when really I just hate small talk. Is that SO wrong?

Ugh. It is isn’t it?

So, instead of fitting in or making friends right off the bat, I usually come off as a strange awkward alien or I just make unintentional enemies. The honest to god truth is that of the (very few) people I am still friends with since my childhood I can’t think of a single one who upon first knowing me who just did NOT like me. Then again, I am a shitty friend so, I guess I fooled THEM!

foolish, FOOLISH, sucka...

So day one is over and I leave feeling at least a little better now that I had found ONE person who seemed to not want to flee in terror from my presence. I get seriously lost on my way back to the Lincoln Tunnel due to my having absolutely NO sense of direction (thanks, Dad!). I finally make it home, just a lot later than I should have.

Day two’s drive is EXPONENTIALLY better than day one, with no almost-exploding-bowel-syndrome or inconvenient slow-motion tours down 7th Ave.

On a Friday.

During rush hour.

Because that was fun.

I meet up with my new friend for a smoke before the first sessions of the day and already feel better than I did the day before.

*objects in this picture are not as close as they seem. (i'm pretty sure my camera was on 20x zoom or, as I like to call it, super-stealth-stalk-mode a.k.a. i'm way too embarrassing to actually go up to her and ask for a real picture so this will have to do)

I attend the session with Jenny the Bloggess, mainly because I think she’s cute and hilarious and a complete and total inspiration to me as both a blogger and a humorist and she proves to be all that and more. She is probably even more cute and funny in person even though I never thought it humanly possible or particularly fair to the rest of us. There are numerous times she has the crowd lol-ing in their seats and at one point I’m thinking someone might misconstrue the literal SCREAMS of laughter for screams of slaughter.

Apparently no one else was all that concerned…

As far as day two of the conference, this is the highlight of my day. Aside from lunch, that is. The rest of the sessions leave me feeling *kind of* depressed. I begin to feel more and more out of my element as the day wears on and being that it’s the bee’s birthday my mind is most definitely elsewhere.

I swear that in writing about this experience it was not my goal to bad-mouth or bash BlogHer. It just wasn’t really the right fit for ME. Had I been a bit more immersed in “the scene” or been a mom, or more of a business oriented woman of tomorrow, it may have been more impactful. In a good way. Instead I just felt like I didn’t belong. It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon that I discovered this thing called “Birds of a Feather” where you sign up on a list to sit with/meet like-minded bloggers.

Had I known about this sooner, I probably would have exchanged a lot more business cards…

All in all it was a learning experience and I did walk away with a lot more knowledge than I had to begin with but more than anything I learned that I just don’t belong with the BlogHer crowd. In a few years time? Perhaps. I think I would benefit from a smaller blogging offline network, one where I wouldn’t feel like SUCH a small fish in an all-encompassing ocean of internet experience and clique-ish-ness.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh yeah. I went there…

I want to wrap this up by saying that in almost every way BlogHer lived up to the expectations I set around it before I ever set foot in the Hilton. I knew it would be clique-y and miles above my head technically and professionally. The problem that I had was BlogHer didn’t exceed my expectations, which I had so hoped it would and probably all of us hope will happen no matter what situation we’re thrown into.

And, yet again, whose fault is this?

***please point fingers in direction of computer screen***

Sucka

Somehow I have been sucked into spearheading a project for work that I had absolutely no interest in whatsoever.  

Maybe you’re wondering how something like this happens?  

Well, appaaaaaaaaarently, it’s because I am a sucker.  

Who sucks.  

Mightily.  

As you may already know, I hate my job. As more and more time has passed since I started here I have become less and less interested in impressing anyone with my awesomeness. I know I’m awesome. So why should I waste all that magnificence at a place that ranks only slightly above having a persistent stabby migraine accompanied by moderate anal leakage? I just want to do the job I’m paid for and forget this place at the end of my day. That includes avoiding any and all “special projects” that would “look good on my resume” or “present strong innovation for the department”.  

I’m JUST. NOT. INTERESTED.  

mmmmmkay?  

My boss presented the idea of creating a department-wide newsletter a few months ago and I feigned a smile and a nod hoping he would just forget about it like he does everything else in the way of ideas brought to his attention. What I should have realized was that he only forgets the ideas that others come up with. When it’s his idea, one that his boss is now privy to and that will reflect exceptionally well on his annual review, (since it was his idea. you see where I’m going with this?) you can bet the last sugar packet in your grandma’s handbag that it’s going to happen.  

I was told the reason I was approached for this task was due to my having graduated with a degree in Communications.  

When you tell most people you have a Bachelor’s of Arts in Communications it’s usually followed with a closed lipped smile and a raised eyebrow similar to one you might receive if you were 5 years old and just declared you had returned from the moon.  

Apparently, in my line of work, a Communications Undergrad degree screams (use your best Oprah voice): NEWS LETTER!  

Despite my numerous protests and general declarations of disinterest I still managed to get roped into this mess under the pretense that I would work with a group of people to produce the final product. What started as a “group” mysteriously devolved into just one other (highly unreliable) person who, upon our first meeting to discuss said newsletter, stated “Well since this is your project (meaning me) I’ll let you take the reins and you just let me know what you need help with”.  

Yeah, GREAT.   

This is why I didn’t want to be involved with the project in the first place because I knew “being involved” was just clever semantics for “do EVERYTHING”.   

So here I be.  

Forced to actually WORK at work (oh, the HUMANITY!) except as you can see I have chosen to use my time wisely and compose a blog post rather than start on this newsletter mess.  

It’s called prioritization, people…  

My deadline is Friday to come up with SOMETHING in the way of a layout for this exercise in time-wasting. Since I already blew off my responsibility for this project during our last meeting I need to get cracking, otherwise… well otherwise I imagine something truly horrific will happen to me like getting poked in the hand by a bag full of HIV needles that someone disposed of in the public restroom at work instead of in the proper receptacle OR getting mauled in the face by a rabid bear with HIV even though finding a bear in New Jersey is about as probable as finding a bear with HIV so in reality my punishment would be more along the lines of getting a well deserved stink-eye from my boss.  

***  

On my way home from work yesterday I get this text message from the bee:  

ur cat shit all over the place  

Since “all over the place” wasn’t enough detail for me, I asked “WHERE exactly?” to which the bee responded:  

by the door, by the shoes, by the ottoman, by the fireplace, by the litter box, on his legs, on his back, on the side table next to the door, EVERYWHERE.  

I expected to find diarrhea smeared and splattered across every inch of the house based on the level of disgust I could sense from his response to my question. Instead by the time I got home I found a totally un-fazed, mostly shit-free cat and a bee with a severely furrowed brow.  

In my quest to discover what could have been the cause of my little stinker’s butt dysfunction I noticed that, in my haste to make it out the door, I had left the filter complete with the ground remnants of that morning’s coffee in the sink. Since the stinky one is getting bigger by the minute and has recently discovered the joys of the kitchen counter/sink area I deduced he had gotten into my left-over caffeine and thusly exploded his bowels all over the house.  

I thought my explanation/admittance of guilt in the situation would speed up the forgiveness process between the bee and the shit source himself but it didn’t really work the way it played out in my head and instead resulted in a grudge now being held against me.  

Awe-SOME!  

To honor his poop-tasticness, the little orange monkey who lives in my house who is really a cat but probably at least partly a monkey, even more so now since “the incident”, named Scott McKitten, has his own Facebook page and he wants to be your friend!  

He’s new to the whole social networking scene so he might hit you up with a “meep” or a “mrowr” here or there but mostly he just sleeps and plays and looks cute.

He also wants to quiet the vicious rumor that cats suck out your breath while you’re sleeping, especially that of children.

Cats don’t discriminate, silly! They are just as likely to kill a grown human as they are a child and it has more to do with suffocation rather than the act of  sucking breath.  

And if you’re still not convinced he’s “friend” material, he wanted to leave you with this message:  

b mah friend or i shit on ur evrything...

Cry Me a River, Justin Timberlake…

Well, it’s shaping up to be a regular BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH week for blogging. Although I had intended on making another Lenny & Lloyd comic for this week’s post, my wrist started giving me trouble which then led to a loss of sensation in part of my hand which resulted in a diagnosis of CTS from my doctor. So now I’m splinted up and having some difficulty just typing.

I know, I know. Boo to the Hoo.

Hey! You know what I haven’t complained about it awhile?

WORK.

And guess what?

It still BLOWS.

Things are bad everywhere and corporate America is no exception.

When you are the low whoa-man on the totem pole at a place like the one I work for, the only place to go is OUT. As in look elsewhere for employment because the job you’ve got now probably won’t even exist in a few years and lord knows you’re deluded if you think a promotion is even a possibility in your future.

Because it’s not.

They may feed you a decent helping of bullshit to keep you “hanging in there” but the truth is there’s nothing better for you down the line. Sure, they want you to think that there is, because they don’t want to lose the work horses they have while there’s still work to be done.

Maybe you’ve been working there for 20 years. Well don’t think just because you spent the better part of your lifetime slaving away for some soul-eating giant that they’re gonna give a shit about you when the lay-off fairy comes a callin’.

There’s risk involved with any job: corporate, non-profit, independent, etc… but there’s a big difference between faltering due to your own mis-steps as opposed to getting shit-canned because some 6-figure making asshole decides that the best way to save his horribly mis-managed company is by making you redundant.

I’m not trying to say one is worse than the other, because being out of work is the same no matter how you slice it, but I know that I’d rather be the one responsible for my career failures as opposed to some big-wig in a leather chair sending me a pink-slip via our company’s intranet.

***

This afternoon I have an inter-departmental meeting to attend.

Kill me. NOW.

What makes this meeting unlike the others I typically attend is that it’s like HOURS long (2 1/2 to be exact) and it’s mandatory, which leads me to believe that some shit may be or is currently on its way to hitting the proverbial fan. The sorry thing is that I’m kind of hoping for “bad news”.

This is how much I hate what I do: I’d rather face a lay-off at a time when I have no other means of income or another job in the pipeline than continue working where I do.

You might be thinking: What the fuck is WRONG with you?! Why don’t you just look for another job, asshole?

Well, I guess where I’m at now is that I have looked and I don’t want just another job. If my only options for future employment are based around the work experience I already have acquired (customer service, retail sales, copy center employee) I think I’d rather live out of a cardboard box in my parent’s flooded basement.

No, REALLY.

Which only leaves me with one option: I need to take a risk.

I’ve never been good with the prospect of risk-taking. I have low self-esteem and because of it I usually talk myself out of things before I even get the chance to fail. Not to say I’ve not had my fair share of failure, because if falling down in a room full of semi-professional dancers, literally YEARS after you’ve last set foot in a dance studio, during an audition to become a cast member on a Disney Cruise ship isn’t failure well then I-DON’T-KNOW-WHAT-IS.

But seriously folks, it’s GO time. Now or never. Gotta make this happen or fall prey to the vicious corporate machine which will inevitably spit me out more bitter and jaded than I am already.

***

I may have labeled myself as “lazy” in the past but that’s not entirely true.

More like a half-truth.

I can be lazy. I REVEL in laziness from time to time because, DAMMIT, it feels good to do nothing sometimes. However, when crunch time comes around and I’m down to the wire, I can always count on myself to get the job done. Whatever it is.

In short, I’m a highly successful procrastinator.  Some of my best work has been done just moments before it was due.

At least in my opinion…

Which is why I am sort of hoping you’ll help me in wishing for “the worst” for me today at this meeting. Keep your candles burning that some bad news for the department will be delivered which will leave me out of a job here and FORCED to take a much-needed mother-effing-risk in my life.

Otherwise, I fear I will sit complacent in front of this keyboard that has given me little more than a crippled wrist for another 3 years or so just because it’s paying the bills.

For now.

***

In other-news-about-things-I-actually-accomplished-this-week-that-don’t-include-complaining, I acted as guest photographer on the bee’s blog yesterday while he was down with the sickness.

So, scoot your boot on over there and check it out.

Mormon hugs & three-toed sloth open mouth kisses to you all!

Oh, and just so this post isn’t TOTALLY random:

UPDATE:

It’s now after the meeting and I’m still totally employed.

BUMMER…

Hair Apparent

I am a hairy beast.

I fucking hate it.

It’s embarrassing and time consuming and a source of major shame and body image issues for me. It’s unfortunate because I feel that I’m actually a very low-maintenance person save for my obsessive need to rid my body of any and all excess hair. If I was trapped on a desert island and I could only have one luxury item you could bet your bottom dollar that mine would be a set of tweezers.

I once went a week without shaving my legs and the result was horrifying. Each leg contained enough black bristly hair that I could have brushed my own head with that shit. All it takes is a soft breeze to come rustling by and my set of freshly shaven legs will immediately sprout porcupine quills.

I remember first shaving my legs in the 5^th grade or so. Admittedly, this might have attributed to the problem I have now. I probably started a bit young but you have to understand that puberty, for me, came with some very unexpected surprises for a girl who, up until that time, was naturally fair-haired. As the hormones started coursing through my body so did the immergence of my Italian heritage. At least that’s who Imma blame for this shit.

I’m half Italian. This, in itself, says a lot.

1/4 from my dad & 1/4 from my mom and for whatever reason I think that made me like DOUBLY hairy. I’m also a bunch of other shit but that did little to balance out the hirsute-ness imbedded within my genetic code. Before I started shaving I used depilatories which, needless to say, with my EXTREMELY sensitive skin resulted in nothing short of disaster. And, as I’m sure you’ll agree if you are even remotely furry, that once you START ridding your body of hair it’s almost impossible to stop unless you want to look even WORSE than you did before.

I had heard the old wives tales that said the more you shave the darker and thicker the hair would return and that scared the living SHIT out of me. I mean, I was already behind the 8 ball with hairiness and I certainly didn’t want to screw myself over any more than Mother Nature already had. By the time I hit the 6^th grade I had started waxing… EV-ER-Y-WHERE. Legs, arms, face, stomach, back, anywhere I felt the presence of hair unacceptable. If I could find some peach fuzz, that shit was immediately sentenced to death by the ol’ hot & sticky wax and riiiiiiiiiiiiip.

This, also, was probably not the best idea I ever had. I can remember the day I decided to wax my upper lip even though I really didn’t need to. By the time I had ripped the strip from my mouth I had turned my nonexistent lip fuzz into a red skin mustache. I went to school the next day and told everyone that I had scrubbed my face too hard the night before. Yeah. Pretty sure nobody bought that.

I try to be thankful for what I’ve been given because lord knows there are fates worse than being hairier than a wildebeest. Were I not this way, I’m sure I would just find another area of my physical form to obsess over and focus my disgust upon. Shit, I do that anyway: cheesy thighs, flabby arms, double chin, flat ass, giant square hips, fistfuls of love handles, spare tire stomach…

Damn. If I wasn’t already spoken for, I’m pretty sure folks would be crawling through the innernet to get a date with the sexy-piece that I am.

I’ve spent a lot of my life lying to myself or living in denial about certain realities. I know I’m not alone with that practice. It’s just been recently that I’ve even been able to consider facing some of the harsher truths in my world. The more I embrace them the more I find myself “OK” with them and able to move forward to become the person I want to be. It’s weirdly refreshing; I only wish it hadn’t taken me 27 years to realize all this. I was born 3 weeks overdue so I guess being a “late bloomer” is just inherent to my nature.

So there you have it!

Perhaps as part of my desperate need for weekly therapy that I’m too cheap to pay a professional for weekly blogging schedule I will include an expose’ item, such as this one, where I mostly embarrass myself but in actuality help myself by being more open & honest and likely connecting with at least ONE other person out there who has a similar issue.

What are your thoughts on this idea?

Would you like to share a tidbit about your most unfavorable physical attribute?

Damn straight you will!

I just outted myself as a wooly mammoth, yo…

The least you can do is leave me a comment with tales of your horrendous toenail fungus or pervasive back-ne.

Oh, and before I forget…

Make sure you check out Mean Girl Garage to vote for this season’s Out of Tune Idol Winner! (Jules was nice enough to ask me to be a judge even though I totally flaked out on my duties last week…)

So hit those comments, bitches!

I’ll wait…