Ungrateful F***ers!

Okay…this may not make sense to you unless you work with me….but if I don’t bitch about this somewhere, I may very well explode and I’m wearing expensive shoes that I don’t want ruined.

Oh..and if you do happen to be someone I work with. Stop. Stop reading this right now and never read this blog again. Go away. Go read someone else’s blog, but for the love of all that is holy, stop reading this because nothing good can come of your continued readership of this blog.

I’m not kidding. You’ll make the baby jesus cry if you keep reading this, and you wouldn’t want to be responsible for that would you?

Okay…now that “Those People” are gone, Let the Rant Begin!!!

My boss asked me to send out a mass email to all the employees that work at this particular location listing a bunch of Urgent Care centers and Dental Clinics close to the office that are accept our insurance. Kind of a courtesy email since we have a ton of new people here at this location, many of whom have relocated from other countries to be here and don’t have a personal physician. Basically, it was just a nice, helpful email.

I sent that email 20 minutes ago and I have gotten no less than 5 emails bitching because we chose clinics that are close to the office.

You Ungrateful Cocksmackers.

How fucking hard is it to log on to the insurance website and look up information pertaining to your specific area of town, you lazy bastards? These are the same stupid fuckers who bitched because at the last employee birthday reception (which we have on a monthly basis) their choices were limited to chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing or vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing. FUCK OFF!!! The last time I checked it was not written into your contract that we had to provide you with a single goddamn cupcake. I know…I probably wrote your contract.

Sometimes I hate people.

Oh and is "cocksmacker" a word and if so, is it supposed to be hyphonated?

Completely Random Observations

When you work with a bunch of computer programmers and software developers chances are that eventually when you walk down the hall in your office you are going to stop dead in your tracks because you just overheard the sentence “Yeah, but you have to admit that if you look at it a certain way, Lord Vador had a point” like I just did.

When I go to the gym tonight, if Fucking Marlon makes me do what he did on Monday I’ll kill him because I’m just now starting to regain the feeling in my ass.

The above, when taken out of context, has to be the most perverted sounding sentence that I have ever written. Of course, I could put the above sentence into context so that you would know what I’m taking about, but that would take all the fun out of it.

Every time I am watch “The Barefoot Contessa” on The Food Network and see Ina Garten’s husband I have an overwhelming urge to hit that man with a stick while screaming “Dance Hobbit, DANCE”. I am also unable to refer to him as anything other than “The Simpleton”. No…I have no idea why.

I will never understand why, whenever we have a party, Nick and Candace demand that I make these little sausage ball appetizer thingies and then laugh like 9 year olds when Nick asks if everyone at the party has “tasted my wife’s balls”. There is about a hundred percent chance that this is going to happen on Sunday while we’re watching the Superbowl.

I happen to think that The Pixies and Sonic Youth are perfectly appropriate bands to play for your child when you’re trying to get it to go to sleep. If my mom could assault us into sleeping by playing Janis Joplin, then goddamn it my kid will grow up with an unhealthy appreciation of Thurston Moore. – this observation brought on by an odd conversation with Nick, as are most things.

The next person to walk by my office holding a bag from any fast food restaurant that contains a cheeseburger will be hit with a chair and have their cheeseburger stolen because Fucking Marlon won’t let me eat cheeseburgers and I really, really need to because I’m in a bad mood.

I doubt Fucking Marlon will let me have martinis either, but we’re just not going to tell him about that.

After re-reading the whole thing about music choices for the child I don’t have, I realized that if there is any hope for me to have a kid and not have Child Protective Services called on me once week then I should probably stop referring to the child as “it”.

I cannot live without this:


I am still trying to determine if the massive headache I get everyday around 2:30 has anything to do with my complete and total loathing of The Blue Man Group.

Home

The day we signed the papers on our house and thereby entered into what basically amounts to indentured servitude to the mortgage company I cried. A lot. We’re not talking small tears of joy here; we’re talking about the heaving sobs and massive quantities of snot kind of crying. Sure, lots of people cry when they purchase their first home…all that “all my dreams and hard work have finally been realized” shit. That’s not why I cried. I cried because after many, many years of living in Texas purchasing that house is what it took for me to finally realize that I would not be moving back to Chicago.

When you grow up moving about from place to place on a practically annual basis the concept of “home” is a fuzzy one at best. Is home the place that you currently live? Is it the place and friends and school you just left? Is it the city where the entire rest of your family lives? It’s not an easy question to answer at 31…try figuring it out at 14.

For me the answer to that was always Chicago for the simple fact that it’s where my family lives and where my parents grew up. Sure, being the strange “new kid” who always wore black and listened to The Cure in Ft. Wayne, Indiana when everyone else was in pastels and listening to Tiffany may have been a bit trying, but I could always go “home” to a real city with people who loved me and friends I’d had since Kindergarten, and somehow that made all the moving around bearable. I may not have belonged to the place that my parents had moved me to, but I had a place in the world, and that place was Chicago.

My family is large, and loud and crazy. Sure, I may have been stuck in Dublin, Ohio and completely miserable, but just 7 hours away were tons aunts and uncles, oodles of cousins and the two most amazing grandparents in the world. These were the people who loved and adored you no matter what freaky color you dyed your hair that week. And believe me…when you’re stuck deep in the heart of either Texas or Amish country and your lifelong ambition is NOT to be a cheerleader and get married to your high school sweetheart two days after graduation…the fact you have someplace to go where people just simply “get you” and there’s no ridicule is what keeps you sane sometimes.

With all the moving about I always just assumed that one day my parents would just move us back to Chicago. Then we moved to Texas and everything changed. My parents divorced and remarried. I met Nick and moved in with him. My sister moved to Austin. Somehow we had all kind of scattered and it was in Texas of all places. Before I knew what happened I had made a life for myself and it wasn’t in Chicago. Sometimes I still don’t know how that happened.

Don’t get me wrong…I love my life and there really isn’t a whole hell of a lot that I would change about it. But, I remember being a kid and going shopping on Michigan Avenue or to the Field Museum or the Art Institute…all the places my mom and dad loved when they were kids. I can see it now…I finally have a kid and going to be all “..and this is where we all used to hang out and drink beer under the freeway bridge”. No stinking Field Museum for my kid.

Again…I’m not at all unhappy with the way things turned out, but sometimes when things get so hectic and you’re running around a million miles an hour being an adult and you don’t feel good and you want someone to take care of you for a change rather than being the one who takes care of everything….you wish you could just go home.

My Dog Thinks He's R. Kelly

What you have to understand about Max is that he was the perfect puppy when we brought him home. No “accidents”, no chewing up shoes, handbags or electronic equipment… basically he gave us no problems whatsoever.

That is until this weekend.

The only thing I can surmise is that the dog has lost his fucking mind. Really, that’s the only conclusion I can come to. It is, literally, the only explanation I have for what happened this weekend.

Friday night I went out to dinner with my mom. Now, Max might have been a bit miffed that we didn’t stay home and do nothing but make him the center of attention, but it’s not like I’ve never left him alone before while I went out to dinner with someone. We got home, let Max out, gave him his dinner….everything seemed to be fine….until he lost his mind and pissed all over my bed thereby imparting an amazingly disgusting smell upon my supremely expensive and lovely Calvin Klein bedding (the purchase of which almost got me shot by ghetto folk…but that’s an entirely different story for another day).

In the midst of my screaming at the dog and ripping the bedding off the bed in a desperate attempt to save the bed linens I hear an ungodly shriek coming out of the guest bedroom where my mom was getting ready to go to sleep.

Yep…Max has pissed all over that bed, too. What really sucked is that neither one of us had discovered this until we had actually laid in dog pee. Yeah…that was fun.

Much screaming occurred. Many loads of laundry were done and much showering ensued. Max had to go into his kennel for the remainder of the night for his own safety.

Now I understand that yes, Max is still a puppy, and yes…accidents will happen, so I was actually okay (albeit extremely annoyed) with the whole incident. I was all ready to go to bed, wake up the next day and not give the fact that the dog had peed all over not one, but two beds in what was probably a 20 minute time span. That is until Max REALLY lost his fucking mind.

My mom comes into my room at unholy time of 7:00 on Saturday morning to tell me that she’s leaving. In my semi-comatose state, I didn’t really give much thought to the fact that Max had just jumped on my bed, since this is something he does all the damn time. Well…I sure as hell gave it a little more thought when the following conversation occurred:

Mom (sounding a little alarmed): Sweetie?

Me: Responds with some kind of unintelligible grunting from underneath the pillow (it was 7:00 on a Saturday morning after all…words were beyond me)

Mom (sounding more than a little alarmed by now): Sweetie, is Max peeing on you?

Me (while head is still buried under the pillow): Of course not. Why would he do that?

Mom: I don’t know but he sure looks like he’s peeing on you.

I move the pillow off of my head just in time to see that Devil Spawn of a Dog lift up his leg and pee all over my head.

Let me tell you this…when you start the day off by having your sweet little puppy who you spoil the hell out of piss all over your head…you’re off to a pretty terrible start and should probably just go back to bed with your dog pee soaked hair and wake up sometime next Thursday.

Of course… much screaming (on my part) and laughing (on my mom’s part) and cowering in a corner (that would have been Max) occurred. Shortly thereafter I took the longest shower I have ever taken in my life (unless you count the shower after I was released from a small 20 hour stay in a Harris County holding cell…another story for another time) and used approximately an entire bottle of shampoo.

Of course after the second longest shower ever, I call Nick to tell him what happened. After laughing for a good ten minutes do you know what his only response was? “Holy Crap, Max thinks he’s R. Kelly, that can’t be good”.

Sometimes I don’t understand how or why these kinds of things happen to me.



See how sweet and innocent he looks? Don't let that fool you...he will TOTALLY PEE ON YOUR HEAD!!!

And This Completes My Reason for Being

That ever present void deep within my soul? It's been filled:



It's a Sterling Silver WINE OPENER FROM TIFFANY'S!!!

I can now combine two of my favorite things in the world into one activity...wine and Tiffany's.

So...whoever happens to be reading this, run out and buy this for me.

Now.

From the Files of Things Renee Says Can Only Happen to Me

First of all, my apologies to Fucking Marlyn; apparently, it’s MarlOn rather than MarlYn. There will be more about Fucking Marlon later because I’ve been sick with the flu and haven’t been to the gym since Tuesday. However, I just want to mention the fact that in a near inhuman feat of discipline that I was in the gym, actually working out at FIVE IN THE GODDAMN MORNING on Tuesday. I am amazing. You will all worship me. Or call me an idiot….you know….whichever works better for you.

Completely changing the topic now:

On my way home yesterday it I realized that I needed to stop and buy groceries if I was going to eat dinner because there was pretty much nothing but some very questionable cream cheese and some Rolling Rock in my fridge, and while I am a particularly big fan of both cream cheese and Rolling Rock, Fucking Marlon would probably kill me or make me run 287 miles on the treadmill if I told him that’s what I had for dinner.

So, I figured rather than running 287 miles on the treadmill, I’d stop and pick up some chicken breasts and veggies. You know healthy stuff that Fucking Marlon would approve of and not make me do 3 and a half hours on the elliptical machine because I ate nothing but crap.

Yeah….I totally would have rather had the Rolling Rock and almost expired cream cheese too.

Anyway. I pulled into the parking lot at the Wal-Mart SuperCenter in Humble and spent the requisite 15 minutes looking for a parking space. The entire time I’m on the quest for parking, I’m stuck behind a purple low-rider truck that contained what appeared to be no less than 15 Mexican construction workers. Now, this in and of itself is not all that unusual in Houston and the surrounding areas.

What was unusual was the particularly violent rage displayed by one of the construction workers occupying a space in the bed of the truck. Apparently he was greatly displeased by the driving abilities of his friend and figured the best way to show it was to stand up in the bed of the truck and start waving his arms about and screaming something in Spanish. Now, I don’t speak Spanish very well at all, but I gathered that he was pretty upset by the seemingly constant use of the word “Pendejo”.

After a good 3 solid minutes of screaming and waving his arms about, the man finally sat down and shut the hell up. This lasted for a total of 26.8 seconds because as soon as the tuck made a fairly quick left turn the man stood back up and started waving his arms about and screaming. More use of the word “Pendejo” and what I’m sure were some particularly insulting comments regarding the driver’s “Madre” and a “Burro” followed.

Now…I could have turned right and gone up a different aisle in the parking lot, but what fun would that be? It was far more interesting to follow the truckload of Mexicans around the Wal-Mart parking lot to see if they would kill each other once they found a parking spot. Alas, they did not kill each other; however their method of resolving this conflict was far more hilarious to me than if they had actually resulted to homicide.

The Screaming Guy decided that simply waving his arms about and screaming at the driver was not nearly an efficient enough method to show his wrath, so he decided to try and beat his friend about the head through the little window that separates the cab of the truck from the bed. This did not make the driver of the purple low-rider happy. No..not even a little bit.

Now rather than doing what any reasonable person would do and stop the truck to beat the shit out of his friend, the driver sped up. Yes, he sped up to a rather alarming rate of speed considering he was in a jam-packed Wal-Mart parking lot.

And then he slammed on his breaks.

And then the screaming guy went flying out of the bed of the truck.

And then I had to slam on my breaks to avoid hitting the screaming dude who was now curled up on the pavement in front of my car.

And then I laughed for probably 10 solid minutes because this was the funniest thing I have ever freaking seen before calling my friend Renee and telling her what had just happened.

Her answer? “Why do these things only happen to you?”

I have no idea.

Invasion of the FBI pt. II

Yeah…Yeah…Yeah…I know. As I have been told in the approximately eleventy billion emails from all of you random people out in internet land…I suck for not finishing the FBI story this weekend. However, in my defense, after the traumatic couple of days I had, what with the ice and the FBI and the cat shit (I’m getting to that part), I really, REALLY needed a couple of days just to be a vegetable.

At any rate…..after being informed by the FBI that:

1)They were not, in fact, shitting me
2)The invasion of my office had nothing to do with my calling George Bush a Nazi

This is pretty much what happened….

The very large man with the very large gun and I set out down the hallway heading towards the conference rooms all the while stopping at each and every individual office and cubicle so that he could scream in what I will refer to as his “FBI Voice” for each person to back away from their computers and follow him.

Side Note: The FBI Voice is apparently some part of special training that all FBI agents receive. This is the voice that is used to imply authority and an air of “You have two choices, you can either listen to me or I will shoot you” that is supposed scare the crap out of you so that you’ll comply with whatever request is being made of you.

However, in my case this did not work so well, because it just made me laugh and ask the agent if he’d ever suffered a sever case of “roid rage”.

Annnnnwaaaaayy.

The FBI proceeds to shove as many of my co-workers and I into a conference room as humanly possible. I guess all that busting of human smugglers came in handy for them because when I say conditions were inhumane I really do mean it.

So, I’m sitting in this conference room that I’m sure is now in violation of some kind of fire code when I look around and notice that 5 of my newest employees were looking as though they were about to have some kind of a stroke. What you need to understand is that these poor kids have just graduated from A&M (their first mistake) in December and have been working for us for about three weeks. Besides internships and the occasional fast food or grocery store position in high school, this is their first “Real, Grown Up type Job”. Welcome to your professional life my naïve little Aggies.

At this point several FBI agents enter the conference room and inform us that they are here to execute a federal search warrant of the premises.

You know…just in case all their screaming of this upon entering the building didn’t tip us off.

The Agents tell us that they are not looking for a specific individual (whew!!) and ask that we remain patient because, as they put it, “you all are going to be here for a while”.

He then asked if there was anyone in the room that “had not been searched”. Well…I hadn’t been searched, but there was no way in hell that I was going to mention that. Unfortunately, the agent who had me escorting him around the building pointed to me and said (very loudly) that I hadn’t been searched at which point I secretly hoped that he would be eaten alive by rabid hamsters.

Well…since there wasn’t a female agent available to search me, I was allowed to keep everything I had on me, which basically amounted to my coffee cup. But, it’s a very large coffee cup and I could have most certainly injured someone with it if I had wanted to.

The fact that I had a half empty coffee cup presents a whole other problem. I totally had to pee.

I let the one of the FBI agents know that I really, really had to pee. His answer? “You’re going to have to wait a while until we can get someone to escort you to the restroom”. At which point I told him that if he honestly thought that either he or his FBI buddies were going to watch me pee they were sorely mistaken. He told me that it wasn’t that they were going to watch me, but that someone had to walk with me from the conference room to the restroom and back.

After waiting for about 15 minutes I was forced to yell at the FBI. I let the same agent know that I still needed to go to the restroom. The agent told me that I still needed to wait. The yelling went something like “I believe that even prisoners of war who are accused of crimes against humanity are allowed to pee and if you don’t let me go to the restroom right now, so help me god I will pee on your shoe”.

Oddly enough, this did not endear me to the FBI, but they sure as hell let me go to the restroom. Also oddly enough, this outburst terrified my naïve little Aggies, who thought I was surely going to jail for yelling at the FBI.

After this, there was an announcement that we were all going to be allowed to leave for the day. There was much checking of ID’s and escorting people to their cars and whatnot before we were actually permitted to leave.

By the time I got home all I wanted to do was take a massive dose of Nyquil and pass the fuck out, and that’s exactly what I did. However, shortly before I fell asleep, I smelled something pretty fucking terrible and woke up to discover, that just out of sheer hatefulness the goddamn cat had taken a massive shit on the sweater that was laying on the floor of my bedroom. Bastard cat.

See what I mean? All in all…not the best day.

Just a Normal Day...Until The FBI Showed Up

This, in a nutshell, was basically my day yesterday:

5:00 AM – Wake up to unruly and extremely rude puppy licking my ear and trying to pull the covers off of me because he’s bored and wanted to play.

5:10 AM – Contemplate killing puppy.

5:12 AM – Discover that throat is swollen, ears hurt, have massive headache and basically feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. Need antibiotics and sleep and not to have to go to work.

5:15 – 5:40 AM – Lay in bed debating weather to go to work or call in sick. Eventually decide that I need to go to work and wrap up some projects I’ve been working on.

5:45 AM – Reconsider decision

6:00 AM – Drag ass out of bed. Feed Max. Shower. Get dressed. Take cold medicine.

6:45 AM – Leave house. Head directly for Starbucks as I must have latte before I can even think straight.

7:00 AM – Idiot at Starbucks cannot fathom the fact that no, I don’t want to try the new cinnamon dulce frappa-whatever.

7:45 AM – Pull into parking lot at work

7:48 AM – Unlock office door and promptly spill coffee on myself

7:49 AM – Many bad words coming out of my mouth due to spilled coffee and discovery of massively increased workload. Find that in-box has procreated with email to create exactly 3 times the work I thought I had to get done today.

7:52 AM – Curse the weather gods that I was unable to come into the office on Wednesday due to car being frozen in a block of ice like Brendon Fraizer in Encino Man.

8:00 AM – Start organizing and prioritizing my day. Make plans to be all kinds of productive.

8:15 – 8:30 AM – respond to emails and phone calls…just a normal day.

8:45 AM – Call potential candidate for an open position we currently have to conduct a phone interview

8:50 AM – Hear some sort of strange commotion in the hallway. Get up and close door so as not to disrupt interview.

8:53 AM – FBI Agent busts through the door screaming something about a federal search warrant and telling me to back away from my desk.

8:53:30 AM – I very nicely tell the man on the phone “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to cut this short because the FBI is in my office, but thank you for your interest in our company”.

8:54 AM – FBI man repeats his request for me to back away from my desk.

8:54:30 AM – The only think I can think to do is ask the FBI “Are you Shitting Me?!?!”

8:55 AM – The FBI informs me that the are not, in fact, shitting me.

8:56 AM – I back away from my computer and ask the FBI if this has anything to do with my calling George Bush a Nazi.

8:56:30 AM – I am informed that it does not have anything to do w/ my calling George Bush a Nazi.

Basically, after this encounter the FBI dude makes me walk around showing him where the conference rooms are and demands to know why we don’t have one conference room large enough to hold all of the employees.

Now…while I really would love to finish telling you all about the rest of my encounter w/ the FBI and all, I’m late for a meeting, so this is going to have to wait until I get home from work.

It's Amazing My Sister Made it to Thirty

Actually, it’s amazing she made it past seven. Now, before you misunderstand and think that I hate my sister, what you need to realize is that she is probably one of, if not my very favorite person in the world. My sister is intelligent, she’s beautiful and she’s funny as all hell. Seriously….I want to be like her when I grow up.

I never actually started out with the intention to kill her. I was one of those insanely mischievous kids who would always do one crazy thing after the other, just to see what would happen. I never really gave a thought to the consequences of my actions. My thought process stopped immediately after “I wonder what would happen if….”

Yeah…okay…some things never really change.

There was the time that, upon hearing that she was deathly allergic to bees, I decided to come up with a “bee repellant” of sorts. Unfortunately, my bee repellant consisted of dousing my sister with every perfume on my mom’s dressing table (including an entire bottle of her extremely expensive Parfume de Joy), splashing on a bit of vanilla extract for good measure and then sending her out into the bee infested flower garden in our backyard.

In my defense…my sister was more than willing to go out into the backyard without my having to convince her to do so.

Remember that cold medicine “Contax”? Well, when I was about four years old or so (you know, back before the invention of fire) that medication came in these little capsules that were filled with little multi-colored beads of cold medicine that looked suspiciously like candy. Now, not being a complete idiot and therefore being unwilling to actually taste this stuff myself, I proceeded to rip open about 12 of these capsules; enough so that my hand was full of these little beads of “candy”. Now, someone was going to have to taste these to see if they were, in fact candy, and I decided that someone was going to be Nikki.

My mom came down into the basement just in time to see me shoving a handful of pills into my sister’s mouth. Believe me, by the time my mother was done screaming and spanking me, I was pretty damn sure that what I had given my sister was definitely NOT candy.

Apparently, that basement was the scene of many crimes. Including the time I convinced my sister that it was our dog’s birthday and the only appropriate way to celebrate was to drink an entire bottle of sherry. My mom spent a good part of the afternoon very pleased that her daughters were playing so nicely in the basement. At least until she realized something was very wrong, because we were being uncharacteristically quiet. Mom snuck downstairs intime to see her five and six year old daughters drinking sherry and saying “To Blackie’s birfday party….salute!!” Now where the hell we got the “Salute!” part is beyond me, but my mom swears to this day, that is exactly what we were saying.

My dad came home that night and asked, “Where are the girls?” and really didn’t believe it when my mom said, “they’re drunk”. Until he got a whiff of the alcohol seeping out of our pores and saw the damn near empty bottle of sherry.

Guess we really haven’t changed all that much since we were five and six.
Factor in the above along with that whole thing about me introducing her to my friend Dave, her first hit of acid and numerous other things that I’m more than a little responsible and you can see why it really is amazing she made it to thirty.

And This is Why I'm Probably Going to Hell

It’s not the only reason I’m gong to hell, but it’s probably a major contributing factor. I walked into my office building this morning, freezing my ass off and grumpy as hell because Starbucks ran out of soy milk and I was latte-less. Just as I’m turning the corner and fishing my keys out of my purse to unlock my office, a co-worker comes up to me and asks me to come into her office.

Now, before I actually get to the part that’s going to send me to hell, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. You know…so you can have a proper visual of this and all. First of all, I think I’ve spoken to this women maybe 7 times in my life. It’s not as though I’m good friends with her; she barely qualifies as an acquaintance. The second thing to keep in mind is that while her office is decorated with pictures of Jesus and an abundance of silk plants and plastic grapes (no, really), mine has photos from Paris, a picture of The Ramones and a sign that says “Shhh…I’m under the desk hiding from the voices in my head”. Basically what I’m getting at is this: If you walk into our respective offices, you can sort of tell we’re a wee bit different from each other.

I walk into the Land of the Fake Plastic Trees (god, I love Radiohead) and sit down, all the while wondering what it is this woman, let’s just call her Sheila, needs to talk to me about. I doubt very seriously that it can be work related, since we’re in completely different departments. I don’t actually remember cutting her off in the parking lot or anything – so that can’t be what she needs to talk to me about. I’m even more confused when Sheila looks at me with this odd expression on her face and says “There’s something I wanted to tell you this weekend, but I didn’t know how to get in touch with you”.

Okaaaaay.

I just sort of sit there waiting for her to continue and what follows is the most horrific conversation I can ever remember having with someone I barely know. While you will not immediately understand why I found this conversation horrifying, don’t worry…I’ll get to that part.

The conversation went pretty much as follows:

Me: Okay, well what was it you needed to speak with me about

Sheila: I just found out on Saturday that ex-sister-in-law has a brain tumor.

Me (wondering why she’s telling me this): I’m really sorry to hear that.

Sheila: Yes, it’s really terrible. They’re telling her that the tumor is benign.

Me: Well, that’s good, at least it isn’t malignant.

Sheila (looking completely shocked): No, that’s the worst thing it could be, that means she has cancer.

Me (knowing that this is not going to end well): Actually, benign means that it’s NOT cancer.

Sheila: Well, that’s not the point. The point is I had something I want to ask you.

Me: Okay, what is it?

Sheila: Will you please pray for my ex-sister-in-law when you go to church next week?

Me (completely flabbergasted at this point): Um….I don’t go to church.

Sheila (looking ready to douse me in holy water): WHAT?!?! What do you mean?

Me: It’s simple…I mean that I don’t go to church

Sheila (about to start screaming “the power of Christ compels you” like the priest in The Exorcist): But…But…But…. Don’t you believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Saviour?

Me: Look, I’m sorry about your sister in law, but I really don’t like talking about religion and I find it extremely inappropriate to discuss it at work.

Sheila (head about to explode): So you’re not going to pray for her?!?!

Me: Um, excuse me, but I think I hear my phone ringing...gotta go.

Now, I’m sure that there are some of you that are wondering exactly what I have a problem with. Well…first of all, why was this woman shocked because I don’t go to church? I’d have to say that as far as religion goes, I’d best be described as agnostic. To say I’m ambivalent when it comes to organized religion is probably an understatement, but years of having Catholicism shoved down your throat will do that to a girl.

Now, it’s not that I don’t hope that this woman gets better. It’s not like I hold any ill feelings towards this person, I just don’t see why I should pray for her when I’m not all that sure that anyone is listening to these prayers. Sure, I could have just told Sheila that I’ll pray for her sister in law, but wouldn’t that be a) extremely hypocritical and b) inappropriate at best, especially when you consider that I have no intention of doing so?

Yeah, I know…I’m sure this is probably pissing some people off, but I can’t really help what I believe. That’s why they are called beliefs rather than universal truths…and this is one of those things I’m not so sure I believe. I’m not saying it’s not possible, I’m saying that in order for me to accept it, I’m going to need empirical evidence, which no one has ever been able to give me.

But the look that Sheila gave me…it’s like she expected me to burst into flames right before her eyes.

The really perverse and twisted part of my psyche also wanted to tell her that I sacrifice kittens and make fun of orphans in my spare time. Because...ya know…she probably suspects that I do anyway.

Let The Games Begin!

Lately, this blog has gotten a lot of readership, and while I’m grateful for that, I find a little odd. Who would have thought that people actually want to read about the inanities of my life?!?! I’ve gotten over 120 visits this week alone on this site and close to the same on my MySpace site (which pretty much has the same stuff).

Again…I’m not complaining, but it does blow my mind a bit. Who are you people? Seriously, I’m curious. Stop lurking and identify yourselves…or at the very least leave a comment or something.

As a result of this, I’m making some changes to this little blog. Yes, you will still be subject to the whirlwind of crazy that is me. There will probably be more than one drunken rambling and I’m sure there will be a litany of things that piss me off. The main difference is that I’ll soon be hosting this blog on its own domain. I’ll be able to have a little more control over the format and content and I’ll be able to have complete control over the look of the site. Yeay!! I get to make the site pretty at the same time allowing the inner geek in me to get all excited about things like html, bandwith and web design.

Here’s where y’all come in. I need a “title” if you will for the blog and some ideas for the domain name, so I’m taking suggestions. Call it a contest if you will. Whoever comes up with the spectacular name that I will ultimately use for this blog and the new site will totally win a prize. I have no idea what that prize will be, but I’m completely serious when I tell you that there will in fact be a prize….and it won’t suck either.

And while we’re opening the floor to suggestions, if you all have something you’d like me to write about or questions you want answered…ask away. I promise that all questions will be answered and all topics at least given some response, so here’s your chance because once I’m a famous and published author, I can’t guarantee that you’ll get anything more than “no comment” from me. - yeah...right. :)

To Hell With Jeannie...I Dream of Crate & Barrel

My house has become this giant repository for an unbelievable amount of crap. Far more crap than any two people should reasonably be allowed to accumulate in a mere 12 years (yes…Nick and I have been together for 12 years, given an few short lived breakups, this is an entirely different story altogether). Something has got to be done, because it’s driving me more than a little bonkers. That we have so much stuff…not that we’ve been together for 12 years, although there are days that that drives me a little bonkers as well. No, I’m not being a pissy little bitch, I’m fully aware of the fact that it probably drives Nick a little batty as well. Hell…after all, he’s the one that has to live with the whirlwind of crazy that is me.

The problem is twofold. One… Nick is a total packrat who will freak out if I throw away the essay he wrote for an art history course in college when he was 18 or so. Even though the last time he actually looked at it was when we were packing up our apartment last March to move into our new house. Yes, he actually packed and moved that essay rather than throwing the damn thing out.

The second problem? Well, that would be my shoes, and my clothes, and completely unreasonable amounts of bath, hair and makeup products that I absolutely cannot live without. I do, however, feel that the first problem is more of an issue than the second problem. The first problem makes me trip over plastic replicas of Yoda or a jigsaw puzzle someone gave Nick on his 8th birthday (oddly enough, this is fairly likely to have Yoda on it as well). The second problem? Well…that just makes me pretty, so we’re all going to have to find a way (albeit a more organized way) to live with it.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me. It’s not like there is all this stuff all over the place and you have to move books and old magazines in order to be able to sit down on the couch and you’re afraid to use the restroom because it’s filthy, that’s not the case at all. You won’t find moldy glasses lying about or wonder what that strange and disgusting smell is upon entering the house. My house is really very clean; it just has too damn much stuff in it.

Personally, I can’t stand it anymore. I really hate disorganization and I really hate clutter, but how do you go about getting rid of said clutter without it resulting in a huge fight with the above mentioned packrat husband? I can only come up with two options and neither of those sounds very appealing to me.

Option One: Bargaining. I’m imagining the conversations will go something like this:

“I’ll throw out the boots I haven’t worn in over four years if you throw out the 12 plastic E.T. figures”. Or perhaps “I’ll trade you two half empty bottles of lotion that make you sneeze every time you smell them for the Information Society t-shirt you wore exactly once in 1992”.

The problem with Option One? It will take somewhere in the neighborhood of 8.73 years for us to actually get past the bargaining and start getting rid of some of this shit.

Option Two: Randomly throw stuff out in small increments that will not be immediately noticed and feign ignorance when Nick asks what happened to his “Class of 1989” coffee mug. I think we all know that while this sounds like a good idea…no good can come of this and I’m better off just throwing a tantrum until we reach some sort of mutual understanding. Again…that will probably take approximately 8.73 years until we actually get around to throwing stuff out.

I’m tired of looking around and seeing completely useless crap. I want neat, I want orderly, I want canvas covered containers on my bookshelves that nicely conceal the crap. I want all my picture frames to match. I want cushions on my couch that are not occasionally substituted as puppy toys. I want soft lighting and Crate & Barrel and to FINALLY get around to painting my bathroom.

At this point I’ll settle for not seeing anything StarWars related displayed in public.

Sigh.

I Blame the Internet

I really do blame the internet….I told you all to sacrifice chipmunks and eat rancid bat meat to appease the football gods and you all obviously did not listen. Do I really ask all that much of you internet? DO I? No, I didn’t think so, and yet you STILL could not do this one little thing for me. You suck, internet. And so does OSU (Secret Side note to OSU…just kidding…I really do love you….please don’t use this against me and loose to Michigan next year just out of spite).

Oh…and need I mention that the less said to me about how Ohio State played in that god forsaken football game, the better. Seriously…I will hurt you. My only football hope left is The Bears. Yeah…um…shut up. That’s it…I officially haaatteee football. Football sucks as much as the internet. (Secret side note to football: I totally love you…please do not forsake me next year…pleeeeease…I’m begging you).

Now, add “The Football Game that Shall Never be Mentioned Again By ANYONE at ANYTIME” to the fact that I did something horrible to my back and it hurts like holy hell and is causing me to do nothing but lay down and pop pain meds like they’re tic-tacs and you can imagine the living hell that has become poor Nick’s existence. I’m sure it’s only a matter of hours before “Can you please let the puppy out? I would totally be willing to get up and do it, but I can’t because I’m in pain and I really, really would do it, but you know I probably shouldn’t move because I might make the back angry and it would hurt more and while you’re up could you please bring me spinach dip and wine?” starts wearing pretty damn thin.

Although…I’ve got to say, there’s something to this whole “my back hurts, please bring me stuff” thing. I do believe that I have a god given talent for laying about on my ass while other people do stuff for me. I think I might very well do this better than just about anyone. However, I think that by the time I get home Nick will probably have already read this and I’ll have to get my own damn wine.

Crap.

And I’ll probably have to let the dog out my own damn self.

Double Crap.

I’m also positive that there is no spinach dip in the house and we’re probably out of wine.

Crap. Crap. Crapity Crap.

Anywhooooo, since I really can’t think of anything to write about at this particular moment because there are exactly 132 cupcakes directly across from my office mocking me right now and they’re all I can think about. Well, that and the fact that my back really does hurt means that I’m going to just stop already with this bullshit entry and come up with something spectacular tomorrow. Or maybe just crap-tacular…depends on my mood at this point.

Side Note: no…really, there are 132 cupcakes right here in this very building at this very moment…I’ll prove it to you):

Why I Should Not Listen to NPR

Because before I even made it into my office this morning, this is what I discovered, courtesy of NPR.

1. There is apparently some horrible “natural gas” odor that has caused part of Manhattan and some of New Jersey to shut the hell down until city utility workers can figure out what’s causing it.

2. The majority of downtown Austin has been shut down because there are a bunch of dead birds all over the place and no one can figure out why.

3. The CEO of Home Depot gets fired and gets to leave with a $210 million severance package.

Seriously? I probably should have just stayed in bed today, because after hearing all of this, my brain hurts.

Let’s take these things on an individual basis. Okay, so Manhattan smells a bit and this is apparently a cause for panic. Sure…I don’t so much have a problem with that. If I was running around Manhattan (and dear god, how I wish I were rather than being in freaking Kingwood, but I digress) I might be a tad alarmed by an overpowering aroma of natural gas.

But here’s my question: How the hell does anyone in New Jersey notice when something smells bad? It’s NEW JERSEY for fuck’s sake. If you wanted to live somewhere that didn’t stink you should have moved to New York in the first place. Basically…this is what you get for living in New Jersey. Well, that and scary women with enormous bangs who are still obsessed with Bon Jovi.

Moving On….Downtown Austin has been shut down because there are dead birds? I sooo don’t get this, but perhaps that is because I am from a civilized city like Chicago and when we see dead pigeons downtown we step the hell over them and get on with our lives.

Okay, I understand that the good people of the City of Austin are concerned that whatever killed the little birdies may be potentially harmful people, but until you start seeing state representatives dropping down dead on their way to the Capital building, I really wouldn’t worry about it. Let me repeat for you: Step over the dead birds and go about your day. The dead birdies are not going to hurt you. They’re dead and therefore incapable of hurting anyone, which is more than I can say for live birds that can, very possibly, peck your eyes out.

In Summation:

Dead Birds = Not a big deal…step over them…they won’t hurt you
Live Birds = Run faster than Tippi Hedren in a Hitchcock movie…they will peck your eyes out.

Next item….All I can say is that someone, please, please, please fire me and give me millions of dollars. I would be forever grateful if this would happen and happen in the next 20 minutes or so, because my pseudo assistant (we’ll get to this another day) is driving me up a wall and I may have to kill her. I’d much rather get fired and become a millionaire than end up in jail.

Lastly…Today is the Ohio State v. Those pussies from Florida game for the BCS title. You must all sacrifice chipmunks and eat rancid bat meat or whatever it is that will appease the football gods and assure OSU of their rightful victory. I will know if you do not do this and I will come and find you if OSU looses…..which we all know will not happen. And by that I mean the loosing part, not the part about me coming to find you, because that is a (albeit slight) possibility.

DHS in the Freaking Forest

In case you couldn’t tell by yesterdays cursing of all the idiot drivers in the Humble/Kingwood area, my office is in this shitty little suburb of Houston called Kingwood. Don’t even get me started about how much I don’t like this location and curse the office gods that we’re in the middle of a goddamn forest rather than somewhere nice like Uptown or Mid-Town...someplace with sushi, high rise buildings, decent restaurants, nice bars, good bookstores and the like. But nooooo…I have to work in fucking Kingwood. This sucks so bad.

Anyway…Today at lunch I was starving so I decided to go and grab something to eat. Now please understand, as I am stuck in a goddamn forest during business hours, my choices here are pretty limited. Think Wendy’s or McDonald’s and not much freaking else. Not even Panara Bread where I could at least get decent soup or something with pesto or roasted garlic on it.

So, I pull into the Wendy’s parking lot fully intent on getting some kind of salad that will probably contain more chemicals than all the crap under my bathroom sink combined and what do I see? Seven scary looking vans belonging to The Department of Homeland Security! Apparently there was some kind of problem with insurgents or immigrants or swarms of locust and it required SEVEN FREAKING VAN-LOADS of Department of Homeland Security personnel handle it.

Now, I’m thinking a sensible person probably would have opted to go to another drive through somewhere, but I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being sensible in my entire life, so not only did I not find another drive through, I parked the car and actually went inside the damn Wendy’s to see what in the hell was going on.

Y’all. Seriously. There were 15 guys in very official looking windbreakers eating chili and bacon cheeseburgers and shit. If this was some kind of undercover sting operation to flush out the random Al Qaeda members who were operating the grill, it was a miserable failure. Even, José, the guy stuck running the French Fry machine didn’t look scared, and I’m left wondering what kind of crisis necessitates the deployment of 15 representatives from The Department of Homeland Security to descend upon the Kingwood Wendy’s.

Oh…and to all of you who live in Kingwood and are plotting the nasty email that you’re going to send me because I didn’t show proper reverence to your crappy little suburb that’s in the middle of a damn forest, please don’t bother. Once you get decent sushi and good coffee that does not come from a godforsaken Starbucks, then you can come and yell at me for not “respecting your hood”.

Hee Hee. I just read that last sentence again. I am so the hardcore ghetto bitch. Looking for sushi. In a goddamn forest. Helooooo Internet land…is the sarcasm/irony coming across okay? Um..okay, I have officially had way to much damn caffeine today and need to go home, because based on that last sentence...I have obviously lost my damn mind.

A Compelling Drama

Well…no, it’s not really all that compelling. It’s just a recap of the trip to Target I took on my lunch break in hopes of finding a non-ugly and yet professional(ish) wall calendar for my office since I’m an idiot and keep looking at December 2006 because I am incapable of remembering that:

1) It’s not December
2) It’s not 2006
3) I have yet to order/buy a new wall calendar.

11:45 – Look under desk for purse. Realize purse isn’t there. Panic.

11:50 – Run out to car to see if purse is in there.

11:51 – FUCK! When the hell did it get so freaking cold?!?!?!

11:52 – Purse not in car. Resume panicking.

11:53 – Run back into office. Trip over purse that was hiding behind office door for some reason.

11:55 – Car keys not in purse. Panic again.

11:58 – Remember that I used car keys to unlock car to find wayward purse.

12:00 – Look out window by receptionist desk and see keys dangling from car door.

12:01 – Finally leave office.

12:02 - Bitch to self that it is cold and raining. Am freezing.

12:08 – Hey Look….there’s the Target!

30 Seconds Later – FUCK!!! Have missed the turn.

12:09 – 12:15 – Much screaming and very bad words. Cursing of Humble/Kingwood drivers and god himself commences.

12:16 – Target Parking Lot – search for parking is futile. Park in space that may very well be located in the neighboring county and haul my freezing ass into Target.

12:19 – Hmm….If I were a wall calendar, where would I be?

12:22 – Oh look…fuzzy sweatpants with frogs on them. Must have these.

12:24 – Why the fuck do Fuzzy Sweatpants with Frogs on them only come in XSM or XXXL? Am neither tiny, bobble head looking Olsen Twin wannabe or Huge Giant of a woman on whom Fuzzy Sweatpants with Frogs would look ridiculous.

12:25 – Right. Am here for wall calendar.

12:29 – Oooooh…pretty stuff for currently scary guest bedroom. I should definitely decorate the currently scary guest bedroom. Oh wait…the mother is currently occupying scary guest bedroom. Maybe should wait until the mother vacates the premises. Sigh.

12:30 – Ask disgruntled Target employee where she would be if she were a wall calendar.

12:31 – Stare blankly at disgruntled Target employee waiting for a response.

12:32 – Maybe Target employee is not disgruntled. Maybe Target employee does not speak English. Um…"Yo quiero Wall Calendar?"

12:33 – Fuck it…will find elusive wall calendar myself.

12:38 – Oh my god…THE CUTENESS!!! Tiny baby bathrobes!!! With ducks on them!! I wonder if they will fit Max? I wonder if Target will let me bring Max in to try them on. Wonder if Max will eat tiny bathrobe.

12:40 – HOLY CRAP!!! Have found elusive wall calendars!

12:41 – Get really annoyed upon realizing that calendar choices are limited to: The Art of Zen Flower Arranging, Happy Bunny (which although juvenile and hilarious…not appropriate for work), Sharks and other Terrifying Creatures of The Ocean, The History of Fire Trucks, and (I wish I were kidding) Nuns Having Fun.

12:43 – Decide to see exactly what Nuns do when they are Having Fun.

12:44 – Discover that Nuns apparently ride roller coasters, go to the grocery store and to pubs to drink Guiness.

12:45 – Hmm…maybe should have been a Nun.

12:46 – Look at watch and realize have exactly 15 minutes to get out of the parking lot of death and back to the office.

12:48 – Oh Look….little turkey sandwiches on mini-bagels. Must have this for lunch because I am starving.

12:52 – Stand in insanely long line waiting for disgruntled Target worker to take my money and let me leave with adorable mini bagel sandwiches, diet coke and dark chocolate truffles for candy jar in my office, which has never actually had candy in it.

12.55 – Parking Lot of Death

12:57 – Cannot get out of Parking Lot of Death

1:00 – FUCK!!! Am still in Parking Lot of Death. Debate running over old women and small children in attempt to get out of the damn parking lot.

1:01 – Resume cursing of Humble/Kingwood area drivers and god himself.

1:15 – Pull into office parking lot.

1:16 – Drop purse while getting out of car.

1:17 – FUCK!!! Purse was open and lovely new Chanel lipstick has just rolled under car.

1:19 – Retrieve lipstick. Get off wet ground and prepare to run into the office.

1:20 – Very high heel of new shoe caught in cuff of pants. Fall flat on face in large puddle of nasty parking lot water.

1:21 – FUCK!!! Am wet and have torn the hem out of my pants.

1:23 – Enter office. Boss in reception area giving me very strange look, but as she is a very wise boss does not mention that I am:

1) Late coming back from lunch
2) Extremely wet
3) Have torn pants
4) Do not have wall calendar that I had told her I was running out to get.

I will now kill time until I can go home, grab a glass of wine, pull the covers over my head and not come out until next week.

Grrrr. Just Grrrr.

Fuck Fuck Fuckity Fuck!

Um...so..yeah...I'm pretty much smoky. Like bacon or gouda...only with nicotine. And tar. And (apparently) rat poison-y goodness.

I totally suck.

I totally only had one cigarette.

It totally is helping save the lives of the innocent people who work in my office from the killing spree on which I was about to embark.

Well... it was either smoke or eat Doritos and the damn vending machine was out of Doritos. They only had something called "Hott Fries" which freaked me out or Sun Chips and seriously??? I kind of need the non-healthy variety snacks here.

Bastard vending machine refillers. You set me up to fail!

Seriously??? I'm about one step away from living under a bridge w/ the other junkies. I'm like some kind of really pissed off heroin addict, only with much better shoes. And without the freaky pox marked skin and the track marks and shit.

Oh and can I just say...those "Commit Lozenge" thingies? TOTAL BULLSHIT! Our receptionist gave me one of those suckers because she smokes all the damn time and can't just run outside for a cigarette whenever she wants because she actually has to do shit like answer the phones, so she uses these nicotine lozenges until she can go to lunch and actually smoke. Well, maybe she's not quite as crackhead about the nicotine as I apparently am, but those things do not work for shit.

Okay...enough already....I promise a post tomorrow that has nothing to do with either smoking or not smoking.

The Crazy

So, since I quit smoking for an entire day and a half…complete basket-case. I can’t concentrate; I have the most horrible headache and the crazy bitchness…pretty much out of control.

Let’s put it this way, I called my doctor to tell him to call me in a prescription for something to combat The Crazy and made his new nurse cry. I actually told this poor woman that if the doctor didn’t call me back in the next hour that I was going to go on a killing spree and she would be the one solely responsible for the dozens of innocent lives lost because she’s incompetent and can’t get the doctor to call me back.

Nice, huh?

Oh yeah..also? WORST EMPLOYEE EVER. That would be me.

My boss came into my office after reviewing the results of a huge project I’ve been working on to tell me what a fantastic job I’ve been doing and how she’s very proud of my career development. And what was I doing when she came in to praise how productive I am? Totally fucking around with this entry. Yep…I am sooooo productive. I should be given a larger office. With windows. There should be a bronze statue of me in the lobby; one that depicts me in all my productiveness, holding a cigarette.

Any way…I realize that the first entry of the year should be some wisdom filled missive about the upcoming year or perhaps the unbelievable amounts of knowledge and self-realization that I gained in 2006…but instead…here’s a picture of my dog:



See how cute Max is?!?!?

Yes, I know…this was a total bullshit entry, but really all I can do at this point is think about cigarettes, so you’re all lucky you even got this much and you really should thank me for it.