Caterwauling

Paper went to bed today, and I’m fucking drained.

1.a. Got a wonderful compliment when I was at the publishing house today. The customer care reps were pampering me and checking in on me, and when one came in to ask, “What do you think? How does it look?”, I used one of my goofy voices and said, “Pretty!” He laughed and said, “We love it when you’re here.”

1.b. Had some minor paper crises today, but one was funny. Pride Fag, our president, well, his photo got fucked up and we only had a picture of his eyebrow and a corner of his head. While that is unquestionably the most attractive photo I’ve ever seen of him, I had to run back to the office to fix the photo and re-make the page to place it on the publisher’s server for downloading over there. Heh. I told the story all day, and everyone agreed that the eyebrow photo should have stayed put!!! 🙂

1.c. I put up a sign yesterday at work: “Press Day: emergencies only, please.” And I put a smiley face with it, so that I couldn’t be ripped apart for being rude. Wouldn’t you know, I got seven interruptions, all of whom (some more than once) came in to say, “That sign is a great idea!” (Obviously, they thought it didn’t apply to them.)

2. Today’s horoscope: “Don’t continue to waste your energy on paths that are going nowhere.”

3. My second interview with Sports Guy was great, and I heard a rumor that H.R. and Graphics Gal are favoring him. Turns out that they asked some unsuspecting folks like RC and others who saw both candidates in the lobby to give their gut reactions. We’re trying to figure out if the gal is really serious or is just being very formal because it’s an interview process. Gut observations from the peanut gallery indicate that, if I could merge the girl’s skills with the guy’s attitude, I’d have the perfect worker. I still haven’t made my final decision, but he’s lookin’ like the winner. One thing I do know — my decision will most likely outlive me, so I need someone who will be trainable and willing to let the bullshit slide, and the guy seems more likely to roll with the punches. The girl reminds me of myself at her age — opinionated, defiant, passionate. Although, a year at the Veggie Patch has drained all of that, and then some, from me, so I would hate to see her lose that fire the way I keep losing mine. I just hope she doesn’t cast a spell on me when we say thanks but no thanks!!! 😉

4. I’ve reached the end of my rope with the Veggie Patch. I love being the queen of its monthly Gazette, as it truly is a fun job, and it will be even more so once I have a sidekick to split the work with me. But I have a title with little authority, and even in the staff box, Cruise Director is listed above me, and that just goes to show me my place in the (dis)organization.

5. I haven’t really looked at my phone in days, but today I see that six voicemails have cropped up. My god. But the way I’ve been feeling, it is best that I not speak to anyone. I’m temperamental and likely to share my mood with the world, so I am locking myself in the house and packing like a fiend in silence tomorrow, until Shawn and I attend a housewarming party. For my own housewarming, I’m thinking of a haunted one — by late October, I should be starting my recovery from the financial disaster I have just gotten myself into, having two apartments at once. 🙂

6. Had a nice dinner date this evening. Needed the decompression time. Now, off to bed with my eucalyptus stress mask for my forehead! All this thinking has wiped me out. 🙂 Later gators. …

1. Cruise Director’s column arrived after midnight — seven days late. But it’s quite good, so I suppose it was worth the wait, even though my morale sunk into the toilet in the meantime.

2. Time to do corrections! Hopefully I’ll be out of here before 8 tonight. Maybe 7, if miracles happen.

3. Have a second interview with Sports Guy this afternoon, although Graphics Gal (she’s not a goddess anymore) and H.R. are pretty much in love with Witchy Woman and dead-set against Sports Guy. Personally, I am sick over the fact that I feel like, once again, I will not completely own my decision over whom to hire. Perhaps I should just ask to expand my freelance budget and not have to hire anybody. Besides, I like my layout guy too much, and I’ll hate to have to incrementally phase out his services.

4. Shan actually came back today. I had hoped she’d just take another sick day. But we are meeting tomorrow night to officially activate the escape plan. We are, as my old friend Lorraine would say, “Too through.” Shawn and Tiff also want to start their own businesses — seems that entreprenurship is in the air.

5. Apparently my freelancers haven’t gotten paid for last month’s work, yet they worked this month. My layout guy is threatening to not do next month’s issue, and I said that’s fine with me. I can hardly blame him. Hell, I was 10 minutes away from calling the publishing house and asking them to charge us a late fee, because I couldn’t send the paper with a missing column from Cruise Director. I am horrible with my own personal credit, but I take my business relationships very seriously, and I understand that they can and will get other clients … who not only pay, but also pay on time.

For inspiring me to eat the greasy fried goodness of Krispy Kreme.

Bastards.

After Shawn and I visited Scott in his Pediatrics-wing hospital room the other night, we were nearly mowed over by an Arlington cop who was weaving in and out of traffic at full speed on Washington Boulevard. Our joke was that Krispy Kreme must have turned on the “hot” sign and that said cop was in a hurry for something hot and glazed. Then we looked at each other and were all like, “Mmmm … donuts!”

The Krispy Kreme on Richmond Highway is brand-new, located next to its ghetto predecessor, which has shut down. We were able to watch the donuts being made, and it was Shawn’s first experience with hot donuts, as the ghetto location barely had fresh ones, let alone hot ones. Aaah, hot glazed donuts are so good, you can just sit on them. 🙂 At any rate, thank you, Arlington police, for inspiring us to eat all that sugary goodness. Mmm …

This day just can’t end quickly enough. 45 more minutes, and a new day will arrive. Thank god.

I awoke with a start this morning. On the radio, there was a report that Mikey’s building was set on fire for a third time. I called Shawn in my morning haze but didn’t find out till 10 hours later that Mikey was OK. I’d heard a man was injured and never found out who, so I was on edge today about that. Tiff and I decided that Maddie must be setting the blazes, because that’s where her new little sister is living until we move (and, if you read Maddie’s blog, she doesn’t want a new sister. At all. 🙂 (Yes, I joke my way through crises. It’s my only tried-and-true coping method.)

That’s just scary. Granted, absolutely everyone I know had a bad day today, but this arson business needs to stop. Now. Supposedly, a man soaked in gasoline from the blaze went to the hospital and will be questioned. Marina View Towers is like a college dormitory, and even with newly added security, the fires are still happening. The residents need to get together and either move out en masse or just form a tenants’ association and demand that the apartments be raided, as it’s obviously a tenant doing this shit.

We’re hoping Scott is done recovering from his mysterious illness and can start recovering from his hospital stay, although his buddy Doug courteously provided some thoughtful blogging in his absence. My hits from Scott’s workplace continue to rise, letting me know that his colleagues are graciously sending me some hits in his honor. So in Scott’s honor, I shall send a spitball toward West Virginia and Texas while watching “Golden Girls” and “Family Guy.” Get better soon, old chap, and be sure to post stories about your stay in the Pediatrics/Young Adults wing!!!

Moving Day is officially Wednesday, Aug. 6!!! I reserved the truck a few minutes ago (yes, I’m still at work, for those who care and even those who don’t.) ;-D

Anyone who hasn’t already volunteered (or been recruited against his or her will), come on out and join the party! Fun, food, booze, cameraderie and blow jobs will be provided. However, it’s BYOBJ, ’cause I ain’t gonna be the one giving them. 🙂

And if you’re lucky, either Shawn or I will play the song by M People that belongs to the lyric in the entry title. 😉

So goes the first line of Meredith Brooks’ anthem, “Bitch.” And so goes my day.

I wish to send an engraved invitation to everybody who needs a kick in the ass to fuck off. Seriously, there a black cloud over the Veggie Patch right now, and my head is splitting. And yes, I am going to be here all fucking night.

I had a second interview with Witchy Woman, where I fluctuated between being really fucking impressed by her to wondering whether she wanted to impress me or to impress H.R./Graphics gal … and not both. I told Graphics Goddess that, although the girl is perfect, skilled, talented and smart (and, let’s face it, a perfect fit for the job), there is something just off about her. Graphics gal said, on cue, “What’s off about her is that she’s a threat to you.”

Grrr. But she’s right, and I corrobborated it.

I hunted down my other guy, who hasn’t responded to H.R.’s two VMs from yesterday, to say look, are you interested or not in coming back? He shot back a quick e-mail to say yes, absolutely, and that he’d call H.R. on his lunch hour. I told H.R. that it’s a good indicator that he wants to talk to us in person and doesn’t want to use work time to make calls. She said she’s already annoyed that he didn’t send hera thank-you note, and this isn’t helping.

I never sent her a thank-you note. I figured, I literally wasted three hours of my life being cross-examined by herself and Demure about my psychological well-being. Seriously, why the fuck should I thank them for putting 500 miles on my car to be made to feel like shit for three hours? I know it’s bad protocol, but I do not send thank-you notes unless I give a shit, and hey, the guy sent ME a thank-you note, so he was sucking up to the right person, IMHO.

So now Town Crier keeps trying to get my attention. Luckily, I’ve been in meetings and on the phone all day, so she had to resort to e-mail, to ask if we could meet today about some project she just inherited that has not a goddamned thing to do with me. I shot back a, no, actually, I will not meet with anyone else this week because it’s press week. Really, WTF is she going to do other than give me the work to do?

Shan went home early. After she reminded Cruise Director that his article is seven days overdue and that press day is tomorrow, he started screaming at her before finally announcing that he’s going home. So then he yelled at her to go home, because she’s still sick today. She told him she has a few major things to knock out before she can leave (one that involves $35K of Veggie Patch money into the bank), and he flipped and told her to go home. His thoughts to Shan were, “So what? It can wait until tomorrow.” And that’s what she plans to tell our finance people when they ask her tomorrow why the hell she didn’t get that money.

Then he went and sent H.R. to Shan’s desk (she and I were on the phone), and H.R. said she is escorting Shan out for the day. Shan was all like, WTF — did I do something wrong? Am I being fired? But, alas, no — Cruise Director wanted Shan to go home because of her sickness.

You know, I had to say it — if he were so fucking concerned about her health, would he be yelling at her? And why involve half the floor in this decision to ask her to leave early?

I had to go out to the front desk, only seconds after Shan stomped out. RC noticed that I had the same miserable expression on my face that Shan did, and when I said, “This shit is not worth it,” RC reported that Shan had, in fact, uttered the very same phrase as the elevator doors closed. Exactly to the syllable.

I am so fucking tired. And annoyed. And my neck hurts again. And I shouldn’t be blogging (not to mention, there went my intention to guest blog for Scott, because we share a hatred of a certain Southern state and I had some fun things to say on our behalf), but I have got to get at least some of this poison outta my system.

Demure is back today. Planted herself in my office first thing. Asked to see a copy of the paper so she can proof it. (Um, it goes to bed tomorrow, unless Cruise Director tells me that it can’t.) I can’t handle much more. I really can’t. Everyone needs to stay far, far away from me or I will kill them. In fact, my layout guy recommended I put up a sign, “Press Week: Emergencies Only.” I think my sign should be “Go the Fuck Away or You Will Die.” Only problem is, I’d never take the sign down!!!

*updated*

Speaking of friends in the hospital, poor Shan found herself in the E.R. on Sunday as well. She’s back at work today, feeling horrid and worrying whether she will be able to work full-time during these last two months of baby-incubating.

To lift her spirits, I gave her this adorable little baby outfit I bought at Carter’s on Saturday with Shawn. It’s a fabulous dark denim jumper (my children will be in denim. Trust!) with little pink rosebuds and a fuzzy little white rabbit popping out of one of the two pockets. I also bought a pink onesie that says “pretty in pink” with a tiny bouquet of flowers with a real bow on the front. On the back, there is a single pink rosebud where the diaper will be.

And because I am the queen of accessories, I picked up dark denim-and-pink barrettes and a pair of little knit pink booties with a fuzzy (fedora-inspired) hot pink cuff, with little teeny strawberries on the toes. Too frickin’ cute. Shan loved them all and couldn’t stop hugging me. It was nice to lift her up a little bit, at any rate, ’cause she’s not back to great health yet. But I did tell her I will kick her ass if the doctors are wrong and she ends up having a boy! 😉

Addendum: The 60-second commercial

Shan insists that she cannot wait until it is my turn to pop out a little one. Seriously, she pointed at her belly and said that we need to get me one of those. Yikes! She said that in the past few months, she has seen me shopping for no fewer than four babies, and that it’s time for me to start shopping for my own. Hah! At any rate, I don’t know if she realizes it yet, but that was her first instance of “Let’s Indoctrinate Our Single, Childless Friends Into Our Cult!” Tee hee. Look, I will admit that, looking at all the fun stuff in Carter’s, I felt a little bit sad that I may never have the opportunity (or that it may be done with a turkey baster without a throbbing set of veins). But alas, as always, I will jump off that bridge when I come to it, and I will just be a good aunt to other people’s kids in the meantime. And, hey, when it ain’t the offspring of my loins, I don’t have to touch poopy diapers if I don’t wanna!!! 😉

Rejected title: Miracles and surprises and blasts from the past, oh my!

Cruise Director gave me all of the word documents I had given him, with a few minor corrections. I am pretty darned impressed. 🙂 Perhaps he’s just like me — it takes awhile to get the old ass in gear, but once it’s in gear, there’s no stopping till the task is complete.

Had bizarre dreams last night about J.O. In it, we were laughing and he was holding me. He basically said to take advantage of it, because he wouldn’t stay for long. Dreams about him have always been a security blanket of sorts for me. I forget about him for months at a time, but then when life is stressing me out and I’m reaching the end of my proverbial rope, visions of him enter my slumber, and I always feel better. Sad to say, it’s like he’s my rock, even when I’d rather pelt him with a rock or 10. 🙂 And I always dream about him before his birthday, and as I found earlier this month, before Tuna’s birthday. (Don’t ask me about Tuna, but suffice to say that after I graduated high school, I didn’t have to put up with her anymore, so I didn’t. But I wonder if those two stayed friends.) Bleah. At any rate, he looked great, and his presence had the intended effect, because I felt pretty good when I got up this morning. It’s a good outfit day, good hair day (so far), and I bathed with my cucumber-melon stuff, so I am all fresh and sweet this morning, like always. 🙂

I wonder if he ever found this blog. I doubt he did. But I did get a great letter last night from someone who does read the blog, someone who knew me “way back when” and had a few inspirational thoughts to share. I vaguely remember telling him about the blog, but you know how they say, “Dance like no one’s watching and love like you’ve never been hurt before”? That’s how I blog (for the most part). I don’t suck up to people but I really don’t hurl daggers, either. I just say whatever enters my mind, and sometimes I forget that it’s being read. It’s kind of like the newspaper I edit. I write to my heart’s content and produce what I think is a good product. And then, like this month, the letters to the editor came raining down like an avalanche — with equal parts praise and disgust — and it reminded me again that people do read what I have to say.

And as far as the personal “letter to the editor” from my old pal, I’ve only sung his praises when, in fact, he got a mention (*whew*), but really, I’ve always had ONLY good things to say, and it’s kind of neat how I paid him a compliment here and there and really had no idea that he was reading my words. Just goes to show that, when you’re checking your usage statistics, you never really know who belongs to those IP addresses. But it’s wonderful when you find out it’s a friendly spirit!

… to Scott, who’s landed in the hospital for some R&R and some prescription drugs. I’ve been missing his blog, and now I know why we haven’t seen any updates in awhile!

We chatted for a few (three?) hours this evening — he’s amazingly coherent with vast amounts of Percocet in him, and funny as always. Think good, healthy thoughts for this fabulous young lad, so that he can finally come home already! 🙂

I left work at 3 for a late lunch, and I never went back. Sure, I have plenty to do (and some of it is overdue), but my headache never really got better and I was craving a sandwich from the mall, so off I went. I ended up purchasing a toaster oven, as my microwave is still in Pittsburgh and will be till I haul my ass up there for (maybe) Labor Day. Luckily, I had a $50 G.C. to Hecht’s, and the oven only cost about $24 after the G.C. was deducted. w00t! I picked the prettiest one (rather than the most functional), in black and chrome.

I left the Patch with VMs still unheard. Cruise Director has this habit of leaving you messages while you’re sitting right there, so you know for a fact that he did not dial you directly — you know he wasn’t in the mood to speak to you. I have no problem with this. At Two Strikes, HRP reveled in picking up the phone and ripping you a new one, at the highest possible volume and regardless of who was in your presence. And Demure, my current “boss” (and I use that term loosely), refuses to pick up her own phone but goes apeshit if you don’t answer yours. Trust me, she will hunt your ass down, even if it means tracking you down in the jane or in the upstairs kitchen, because everything’s a crisis to her. She hunted me down at Shan’s desk one night at 8 p.m. to tell me she had been searching everywhere for me to give me a piece of paper I had been looking for. Shit, if she’d have left it on my chair, I think I would have known where it would have come from, eh? She’s just one of those people who does the least thing and seemingly expects a gold star for her forhead. I hate people like that. I am someone who quietly does my thing and expects little to nothing in the way of recognition. People like her sound the damn trumpets every time they dislodge the hair that found its way up their asses.

But, as always, I digress. It’s been lovely having Demure on vacation the past week or so. It will be devastating to me when she finally drags her crusty ass back on Wednesday or Thursday (dear god, if you’re out there, let it be Thursday. Or Friday. Throw a girl a bone down here!).