Small Red Sneakers

Freak

I was in a very boring meeting the other day when I noticed something disconcerting. Starey Stalkerton of the Clan MacGawk was sitting across from me.

Every time I looked in his direction, he was looking at me. And he was looking at me like I was a young boy's kidney and he was Jeffrey Dahmer.

I'm telling you, this guy had serial killer written all over him. He's blonde, blue-eyed, in his thirties, and he was wearing argyle socks. Argyle socks are the hallmark of a serial killer. Really. If you have argyle socks, you may want to get a jump start on the therapy.

So if I disappear suddenly, Mr. Stalkerton is your man. Search his cubicle for mementos of my horrible demise (like a toe or something equally ookey).

Yay!!!

I found out today that my friend Kristin is coming to town soon. I haven't had a chance to even talk to her about it because work has been so insane lately. But I know she's going to be here!

Yay! YAY! YAY!!!!!

Don't tell her (and Kristin, stop reading if you are reading this), but I have a plan. Right before she is supposed to go back home, I'm going to grab her and lock her in a box so she can't leave. I know it sounds harsh, but I do this out of love. I'll make sure it is a big box so she's comfortable. And I promise to feed and water her. Of course, I'll let her out to play. She won't have to stay in the box for long. She just needs to stay in there until she forgets that she doesn't live in California.

If the box plan works, I have a great plan for my favorite little Canadian.

Switch

The other day my mom sent me a newspaper clipping. Apparently my dad and one of his friends made the front page of their local paper. It's a very small town so don't think my dad knocked over a bank or held some strippers hostage or anything. But wouldn't that be funny?

"I thought I'd send you this article about your father and some strippers. Look, there's a picture. Your father's face is blocked by a giant fake boob, but that's him! I'm so pround."

Yeah, anyway. There's a picture of my dad and his friend walking in a snowstorm. The article, of course, is about the snow. Not about two men walking. (Can you imagine? "Local Men Walk".) Not that a story about snow is any better. "SNOW! MY GOD! SNOW!!!!! IT SNOWED IN COLORADO! ALERT THE MEDIA!!!"

Small town. Right. Check.

So even though it was one of those typical small town "news" things? I was still all proud of my dad. I sent the article on to my husband. I was all, "Look! Dad's in the paper!"

Dork.

This is all part of The Switch. See, The Switch is what happens when you get into your thirties and are mostly established and pretty stable and your parents are getting older and are maybe retired. The Switch happens when roles start reversing. The Switch is when you are paying your mom's cell phone bill. The Switch is when you save the stupid newspaper article featuring your dad walking in snow. The Switch is when you leave a voicemail on your parent's machine saying, "Where are you? I've been calling all week! You didn't tell me you were going anywhere." The Switch is when I catch myself talking about my parents as if they are a couple of unruly college students who have stolen a van and are touring the united states smoking their weight in opium.

Not that my parents are doing that. I think. I mean, who knows? They never call anymore. I could fall into a coma and they wouldn't know for days!

Erm. Yeah. The Switch.

Hey loudmouth!

One of our HR reps at work has issues with controlling the volume of her voice. She has VERY LOUD conversations about very personal things with her office door flung wide open.

"Your herpes is inflamed and you can't come to work because your hooha is too sore to sit upright!?!?"

"You've been put on a performance plan because you've been smoking crack in the women's bathroom, Mr. Smith!!!!"

Everyone avoids working with her. I mean, no matter what you need to go to HR with it is not bloody likely to be anything you want overheard.

I sit two cubes down from her office. Some days I feel like shouting from where I am, "Hey loudmouth! We can hear you!"

But I'm afraid she'd shout something back at me that included super-secret-ninja information that I'd rather not be shared with the world.

Blah

My husband busted in and posted a picture of my pretend boyfriend below. It's a good husband who will let you have a pretend boyfriend.

I'm in a slump. A career slump. I don't like my job. I don't have high hopes for liking my job anytime soon. But it is the only job I have so I need to find a way to work with it. The way I have chosen so far is to slack a bit at work and spend loads of time grinching about it with fellow disgruntled workers. Misery really does love company. That and a good round of Dope Wars played on my PDA during a staff meeting. Ahhhh.

Testing

Richie....Salsa!!!!!

cat wuz here...

Desperate measures

A lot of my friends are employment challenged these days. Despite what I often read about the economy getting better, I've yet to see anyone close to me reap the benefits.

I wish I could do something to help. It used to be that you could help a person out by telling them about the two or three open positions in your department. Remember open positions? Remember record players?

Deperate times call for desperate measures. Now what does a girl like me do when she is desperate? Usually something that sounds ridiculous. Remember, I am the one who asked St. Joseph to sell my house. You may scoff, but it worked.

So, sort of as a joke, I looked up the patron saint of work today. You'll never guess who it is. Ok, maybe you will. It's Saint Joseph. He really gets around.

His patronage covers the following: against doubt; against hesitation; Americas; Austria; diocese of Baton Rouge, California (who even knew there was such a place?); Belgium; Bohemia; bursars (I don't even know what that is.); cabinetmakers; Canada; Carinthia; carpenters; China; Church; confectioners; craftsmen; Croatian people (in 1687 by decree of the Croatian parliment); dying people; emigrants; engineers; expectant mothers; families; fathers; Florence Italy; happy death (Huh?); holy death; house hunters; immigrants; interior souls (There are exterior souls?); Korea; laborers; diocese of La Crosse, Wisconsin; archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky; diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire; married people; Mexico; diocese of Nashville, Tennessee; New France (My god. I really wasn't paying attention in school.); New World; Oblates of Saint Joseph; people in doubt; people who fight Communism; Peru; pioneers; pregnant women; protection of the Church; diocese of San Jose, California; diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; social justice; Styria, Austria; travellers; Turin, Italy; Tyrol, Austria; unborn children; Universal Church; Vatican II; Viet Nam; diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia; wheelwrights; workers; working people.

Whew! That's one busy saint.

I have no idea how you could get him to help you find employment. To sell our house, we stuck a small stature of Saint Joseph head down in the ground in a most unceremonious way and buried him. Maybe to find employment, you should build a small cubicle in a briefcase, place St. Joseph head down in front of a small cardboard replica of a computer, and bury him with coffee grounds.

Desperate measures, people. Desperate.

When

I was wondering the other day. I do that a lot. Wonder.

But this particular day, I was wondering about adulthood and how one knows when they've attained it. I'm not talking about the age at which you legally become an adult or the age at which you can legally order drinks in a bar. I'm not talking about the age at which you can be charged as an adult for committing a heinous crime.

What I'm talking about is the point where you stop feeling as if you are a child dressed in adult clothing trying to pull off the hoax of the century. I'm talking about the point where you are able to let go of childhood pains. I'm talking about that word "maturity".

While my parents were here, my father brought up a particularly bad childhood memory. It was something we had never discussed before. It was one of those dark, unspoken black spots of my youth. The subject came up, was gently acknowleged, and then passed by as suddenly as it had come up.

When he first mentioned it, I felt a....pang. I don't know how to explain it. It was a mix of fear and sorrow and then acceptance. I didn't find myself wanting to explain what I always felt was his portion of blame for the incident. I didn't want to explain myself. I didn't want to try to make it make sense. It just.....was.

That got me thinking about other memories both good and bad. I noticed that even my bad memories have become coated in some fuzzy layer of nostalgia.

One of the definitions of "maturity" is "Worked out fully by the mind". As I get older, a lot of old hurts and grudges fall aside. I'm much more likely to look back and seek the lesson rather than to force the blame. I spend a lot less time on "why" and more time on "what did I learn". Maybe all those years of therapy are finally having an effect. Maybe I have finally started to work out some of my old issues fully in my mind. Maybe I'm getting more mature.

Maybe I'm growing up.

SPAM

I got an e-mail from Judson Winslow today with the subject line: "Wann have multi-cum?"

Sadly, my SPAM blocker caught it before I could read it. I mean, who wouldn't "Wann multi-cum"? The blocker explains why it identifies e-mail as SPAM. This one was particularly interested as one of the reasons was "BODY: A WHOLE LINE OF YELLING DETECTED".

Well, y'know, Judson is talking about "multi-cum". I'm not surprised he's yelling. The man's excited.

I also got an e-mail from Moses Clifford. His subject line is: "Do you want one lodiffuseng real fast?"

SPAM blocker caught this one, too. But I can see that the e-mail included the following very helpful information: "Enlarge your penis! Instant rock hard erections! Longer lasting time!" I guess "lodiffuseng" is Swedish for "Giant Rockhard Penis" or something. And it must be best to have only one so that they don't fight.

Because I don't have a penis of my very own, I can't really use this advice. Maybe I should hook Moses and Judson up so they can combine their ability to have larger, harder, longer lasting erections and multi-cum. Then they could live happily ever after scrogging like wildebeests instead of sending SPAM to people like me.

Making the world a better place, one hard-on at a time.

Real live conversations at work

Scene: My one on one with my boss.

Boss: I don't feel like working today.
Me: I feel like working. I just don't have anything to do.
Boss: Yep.

Scene: Talking to my friend Paul regarding our $50 bet on who can stay off caffeine the longest.

Me: Hey, Paul. Do you want a Diet Coke?
Paul: No. Can you tell I'm bitter today?
Me: Yeah?
Paul: Yeah. I'm dragging.
Me: How about a Red Bull?
Paul: Yeah. I should have a Red Bull.
Me: Great idea! I'm pretty sure that's caffeine free.
Paul: I'll have a Gatorade.
Me: Darn.

Scene: Catching my friend Erik doing something suspicious with my computer.

Me: What are you doing?
Erik: (Trying to look innocent sitting in MY chair in front of MY computer with MY display settings pulled up) Nothing.
Me: Yeah. Ok, I'm locking this up while I'm in my meeting.
Erik: You suck.

Scene: On the phone with one of our amazing technical support gurus.

Me: I've got a new desktop and I don't have admin rights. I need someone to come up here and install my PDA device. I have the software. It just isn't recognizing the device and I don't have the access to configure it.
Guru: You need the software for your Palm?
Me: No. I have the software. It just isn't recognizing my Visor.
Guru: Your what?
Me: My Handspring Visor.
Guru: Hamstry?
Me: Handspring.
Guru: Ham?
Me: Hand. Handspring. Handspring Visor. It's just my PDA. I just need someone with admin rights to come up here.
Guru: Do you need software?
Me: No. I have the palm software. The error messages says that the device is not recognized. I don't have access to add hardware.
Guru: I see. What is the Visor normally attached to?
Me: Huh?
Guru: Where is it installed now?
Me: Well, it isn't.
Guru: So....you need the software installed?
Me: Uhhhhh....yeah. Sure. That would be great. Can you send someone up?

Reason #45669 why life isn't fair

This is my food journal for today:

Breakfast:
8 oz. nonfat milk
String Cheese
Balance Bar
Orange

Snack:
Mini quiche with spinach

Lunch:
Whole wheat english muffin with lowfat peanut butter
Baby Carrots

Dinner:
Mixed greens salad
3 chicken strips

Snack:
Protein Bar

I also had about 120 oz of water today.

This is what my husband ate today:

Breakfast:
2 bear claws
Pepsi
2 pieces of chocolate

Lunch:
2 5-piece Wendy's Krispy nuggest with BBQ sauce
Side salad
Coke

Snack:
2 Reese's peanut butter cups
1 piece of chocolate
Pepsi
3/4 pack of breath savers

Dinner:
Campbells Chunky chicken noodle soup
10 chocolate chip cookies
Root Beer

Now, ask me if my husband is a fatty boombaladdy. Go ahead. Ask me.

NO! He's not. Not remotely. Not an ounce of fat on him.

If I didn't love him so much, I'd have to kill him.

Far

My cousin Neil and I were always close. We grew up together sharing a stupid love of performing "shows" for each other that usually starred the Sock Monkey and "Lavoris" the stuffed squirrel. We played "Cooking Show", "Puppies", and "Rag Dolly".

We had ridiculous fights. Once he sat high above me in a tree as I was swinging below and spit a chunk of banana in my eye when I looked up at him. Once he chased me around the house with a piece of poo on a toilet brush. You think I kid. He used to make his little brother and sister cry by putting army men in their macaroni or dressing up like an old gypsy woman and threatening to take them away.

Seven years ago, we moved to California at the same time. He was bound for San Francisco where he could more safely be himself. I was headed for Walnut Creek to stay with friends and try to make some sort of life for myself.

Those two days driving from Colorado to the San Francisco Bay Area were two of the best days of my entire life. We talked seriously of finding our soul mates in California. We talked about how sad is was that, of the two of us, I was the one who could have a big, formal wedding and that I didn't even want one. He did want one but knew that, as a gay man, it wasn't likely.

I laughed my arse off when he tried to reheat french fries by holding them in front of the car's heat vent. He made funny notes in the margins of the atlas as we crossed from town-to-town, state-to-state. I nearly had a heart attack when I left him drive, forgetting why it was a good thing he doesn't have a car.

I had no reason to think we would not be as close as good friends, as close as siblings.

For the first couple of years, we did pretty well. He was living in San Francisco and I was in Walnut Creek. When we saw each other, it was almost always on his turf. Eventually, the times we would get together got further and further apart.

When my husband and I got engaged and I called to tell him the news he said, "How did that happen?" Then he drifted further away.

For a couple of years after I got married, we played phone tag a lot. It seemed like he was avoiding me because he would leave messages for me at home in the middle of workdays acting surprised that he hadn't caught me. But I figured I was being paranoid. It became our mantra when anyone back home would ask either of us about the other, "I left a message the other day."

On our second anniversary, my husband and I accidently ran into him and his boyfriend at the Metreon. He seemed mortified. His boyfriend invited us to join them for a movie but I could tell we weren't welcome.

It has been a year since I've even spoken to him. And I don't expect to speak to him anytime soon. I don't know what happened, but it makes me sad. I talked to Tosha, his sister, about it. She says she doesn't hear from him frequently either and that I shouldn't take it personally. But I do. I'm hurt. I don't know what went wrong so I obviously don't know what to do to make it better.

Now if anyone asks me if I've seen him or talked to him, I just say no. Hardly anyone asks anymore. He only lives about 80 miles away from me but he is so far away.

I'm sad. And I'm angry. And I really, really miss him.

Dread

I've been on vacation for the last two weeks. I have to go back to work on Monday. I would rather bathe in sugar water and then strap myself to a fire ant hill than to back to work. I would rather tongue kiss a homeless person. I would rather have my left leg amputated and then stitched to the side of my face.

Ok...well, maybe I'm being overly dramatic. Again. Maybe.

But seriously, I'm dreading going back to work. If I didn't have bills to pay and a mortgage and a desire to have food and clothing and see a good movie every so often, I'd quit.

The thing I like most about my job is the money. I like having enough money to pretty much do what I want when I want. It wasn't that long ago that we were one of those "living paycheck-to-paycheck" households. That sucked. I don't want to do that again. I also like the benefits, the generous time-off policy, and most of the people I work with.

I don't like being a cube-dwelling corporate slave. I don't like working on the Project from Hell which has been resurrected for 2004. Joy. Rapture. I don't like that thinking about going back to work makes me want to puke.

There's something else I want to do. But it just seems like such a pipe dream. It seems as ridiculous and improbable as saying I want to grow up to be a Princess.

I want to be a writer. I want to write fabulous novels about incredibly intriguing characters. I want to write books that make people laugh and cry. I want to write things that people will quote. I want to create characters and places that people will want to know. I want to write something that matters, if only in the sense that it makes someone think or laugh or see life in a different light.

But I have a problem.

I can't seem to do it. I can't seem to take the ideas from inside my head and put them in writing. It isn't so much writer's block as it is fear. I'm afraid that I'll fail. I'm afraid that I'll succeed. I'm afraid that my someone will read too much into what I've written, identify too closely with a character that isn't them.

I was thinking of making a resolution to stop being afraid. Well, let's face it, that's not going to happen. And some fear is a sensible thing, isn't it? Fear of a gun pointed in your face seems reasonable. Fear of those giant, pop-up inflatables you see at car lots isn't so weird is it?

So, anyway. In the interest of keeping it simple and not overly committing myself (I mean, did you see those things?), I'm making the following resolution.

I'm going to set aside a minimum of three hours each week to work on writing a novel. I'm going to write for one hour on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Writing more than that would be good. But this is what I'm comfortable committing to at this point.

I've got other things I hope for in the new year. I've got plans, goals, schemes....

But I've learned my lesson from previous years of making a whole wack of resolutions only to be sad and feeling losery when I don't get them all accomplished. I'm not making the Big List this year. Unless I make a list of things I am certain to do....sleep in more, have more fun, eat and drink things, breath in AND out.

Hey! How about resolving not to overcommit myself? Sheer genious, that one.