Caterwauling

… Garfield!

(Something about those younger men. …)

My boy turned 25 today!

(Story link via Shawn)

Sweet ever-loving cripes.

Left work a few minutes ago. Thought I’d go to the grocery store, but oh hell no. It was pouring like a motherfucker. I got to Duke Street and was absolutely blinded. Never mind the fact that poor Samantha was bravely trying to keep from hydroplaning. I decided to turn around and come home when, after plowing through three inches of rain on the highway, I almost hit a cop. I thought he was pulled completely off the highway and that I was fine in my left lane, but about 5 feet before I would have hit him, I realized what I was about to do, so I pulled over three lanes and made a big fat turnaround.

Little featherweight sports cars do NOT survive well in tohurriquakes.

Rejected headline: ‘Green Eggs and Spam’

Not surprisingly, 70 percent of all e-mail, by 2007, will be spam, according to the ePrivacy Group. That is, if we don’t make any changes from the way things are today.

After tabulating that I receive more than 1,900 spams a week, including crap from assholes who spoof my domain, I think the Internet mascot should be Uncle Spam.

You’ve been warned.

Sue Johanson’s Oral Sex Tips.

Tiff and I watch Sue on the Oxygen Network. Nothing like somebody’s great-grandma telling you how to give head!

(Link via Milk and Cookies.)

UPDATE

Props to Erica for sharing her “Sunday Night Sex Show Drinking Game”! I think we need a chatroom for this! 😉

Club Medicated’s incoming president wrote his first of 12 columns for me. He’s very proud of it. It’s titled, “Meet (Pride Fag).” Now, my readers know that I inserted the Pride Fag bit, but if I actually used that term instead of his name in the newspaper, nobody would be surprised.

Other than misused adverbs, made-up words and a flair for redundancy and “you’re telling me this because. …?”-inspired moments, I suppose it’s not the worst writing I’ve read. I’ll even look past his inserted Internet-speak (do you know how much I hate that kind of shorthand? Use English, asshat!). I’ll even look past his, “Do you care about me yet?” sentences that punctuate the end of every sentence … he’s looking for readers to fall in love with him based on his tales of woe.

And woe is me. Writing sample below — identifiying info changed to protect the insane:

“I was born a poor, gay, (Injun) boy in rural (southern state). This has possibilities for a book or maybe even a movie, eh? I wear each of those descriptors like a badge of courage. I am proud of who I am … I figure it is better than hating yourself.”

< Editorial commentary > This man is no more “Injun” than I am male. But he’s got the gay part right — as if anyone could have MISSED that! Yet he insists on pointing it out to EVERYONE who will listen. < / editorial commentary >

Pardon my French, but this is gonna go over like a fart in church with my readers.

And I’m not altogether that impressed myself.

Besides, don’t all great tragedies begin with, “I was born a poor (insert race) (insert gender)”? A quick Google search of “I was a poor” turns up 4,680 results. At least.

I sent a priority note to Cruise Director, asking if he really, truly read this piece before he channeled it to me. I started the e-mail with, “Great — 11 more months of this.”

And isn’t THAT the sad part, when you think about it? I can (read, have) to deal with incoherent writers (except for Scott, who is going to be my savior), but incoherent leadership is just another matter I cannot handle.

Oh, and Pride Fag punctuated his e-mail to Cruise Director with, “Oh, isn’t Dawn writing a story about me?”

Traditionally, we do stories on the incoming and outgoing officers, but I’m lucky I remembered to put on my scandalous underwear this morning. (That reminds me — I need to do laundry, ’cause I only have sleazy underwear left in my dresser, and not many, at that rate.) Ahem. Anyway, no, Dawn did not do the stories because Dawn has eight million other details to work on. Like making your column sound coherent.

Where is that Exacto knife that I can impale myself on? Oh, there it is. …

I have to thank Shan for trying to block Demure from meeting with me today. Demure needed to see Cruise Director, so Shan gave her the time slot when Demure usually drags me kicking and screaming into her chambers. And Demure didn’t want that time slot, because of her meeting with me. Shan even went so far as to say that it was Cruise Director’s only open time slot, and besides, it’s crunch time for me, so she was certain I would appreciate having that extra time to work on the paper.

No such luck. Demure stalked down to my office with her datebook and explained the situation. She asked when I would want to meet. I said, look, you know how I feel about meetings during production weeks, so I would be fine if we canceled entirely. She pursed her lips and told me that was unacceptable. So now we’re meeting half an hour later than normal.

I can’t take this anymore. I really can’t. Meet about what? We had a McManagers meeting yesterday. Demure and I already met on Monday. And our meetings are never less than an hour. I am so ready to cry, it isn’t even funny. I literally have nothing on my agenda this week, other than to work. She’s going to want a progress update. Here’s your update: “NOTHING!” And why does it have to take an hour out of my life to convey that?

… and their awesome quotes!

From Scott, with whom I spent several fun hours chatting and drinking and laughing tonight at Tiff’s end-of-job celebration:

“When she walks, her ovaries clang together.” (about a former supervisor)

From Scott again, this time on his pleasure at serving Atkins-friendly food for his friends this coming Friday (and admitting to be a carnivore himself):

I like meat, too. And beef.

From Shawn, who paid homage to me with some blogthoughts that were inspired by my whore-with-a-heart-of-gold posting from a few days back:

“Until someone fucks me good enough that I don’t need to talk about it anymore, I’ll continue to express long soliloquies about sticking and dicking.” (no further need for explanation there!)

From Dave, who was making fun of me when I mistyped something and mistakenly used the letter “F” — I asked him to name three things that begin with F.

Dave: “Felching, Fellating, and do I really need to tell you the third? Feuding.”

And my response: “Oooh, talk dirty to me some more!”

Shan and I feel like hostages here at Club Med (or Club Dead, as she called it today, when she found Solitaire sitting very still as though she were having an out-of-body experience today).

Speaking of out-of-body experiences, I am editing an article on it. Let me put it mildly: just reading it is like experiencing near death.

Had cottage cheese for breakfast and string cheese for lunch. Now I’m going to go get my fix of veggies in our Veggie McManagement Meeting, although I can safely assume that it will be one cheesy meeting. Now, what kind of cheese shall I have for dinner? (dirty suggestions most welcome!)

Till I get back and can bitch to high hell about this pending two-hour meeting, let me treat you to today’s favorite song, by Chantal Kreviazuk:

In this Life.mp3.

It was going to be something even more bitter, like Evanescence, but I’ll only add that by request. 🙂

Update

The vines of the Veggie Patch are unfurling and just plain committing suicide. One resignation (of a prominent member of the Veggie Patch family … I’ve called him Nervous Norman before). One retirement. Six layoffs. All in two days.

Oh, and Demure told me not to work so hard. Now THERE’S a request I am pleased to accommodate! 🙂 Just kidding — it’s that very attitude of “Veg Out” that is threatening to crumble this organization. But perhaps that’s how people manage to survive working 30, 40, 50 years here without having, oh, ambition cloud their senses.

Diet sucks. I’ve been sticking to it, but I think I am actually above my original weight. Bought a scale last night that works, and I don’t like the number I’m seeing. I think it must be broken. Perhaps it will work better if I stand on it on one leg, with the other leg on the floor. 😉

Work blows. In case I have never made that clear. LOL. We’re in dire financial straits; six layoffs and a general malaise and frustration among the management. I’m waiting for them to let the useless people go, but I may never live to see that. McManagement meeting this afternoon … I’ll be curious to hear WTF is going on. I vote that we throw Solitaire, Mouth Almighty, Town Crier and Busybody off the island next. 🙂

Payday isn’t till Monday. I’m broke till then. Was hoping for a Friday pay so I can go put a security deposit on a new apartment — I want to get the rent special before it expires. Hope they will take it Monday. I have too much going on right now to continue searching for homes … my property taxes are due in July, my car/renter’s insurance starts back up in August, etc.

My current apartment management came in yesterday and fixed the list of stuff I’d asked them to fix. Things are working fine, but I hate how maintenance people leave your house a fucking mess after they leave. Um, excuse me, it was tidy when you got there. Do I have “maid service” tattooed on my ass? They totally trashed the house the last time they worked on it, too.

I’m feeling kind of bland today. I’m very much behind in my stories, and Cruise Director just assigned two to me, between yesterday and today. Um, deadline is Thursday, and I won’t crank out more than two stories, tops, this week. Oh well. They want a smaller, crapper paper? They’re getting it.

Everybody wish Tiff a great last day of work! I was going to work late, but fuck it, I’m joining the celebration at Jay’s Saloon & Grille in Clarendon. Save me a burger, guys! I’ll get there eventually. Readers, join the party if you’re so inclined!