Caterwauling

I was chatting with Shawn the other day about blow jobs (as we’ve both given many in our lives!). I declared that I hate giving BJs. Don’t worry men — I don’t hate the act itself (unless you push my head down and force it to stay there — I promise, you will get bitten if you try to pull that shit — put your hands behind your head, and nobody gets hurt!), but I hate it that BJs are always, always expected, yet men don’t equally expect to GIVE as well as receive. At least, not most of the men I’ve been with, although some did, unquestionably, give till it hurt. 😉

So I decided that I will give one and only one blow job to any guy I meet in the future. Shawn said that I should get a special badge for that, like they gave us in Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts — would that fall under the Community Service Projects category? ROFL. That way, once I’ve earned the badge, I am under no obligations to go beyond the call of duty — not unless it’s a badge you have to renew every year or re-earn when you “fly-up,” as they call it, to the next level of scouting. 😉

Unless, of course, I find a Boy Scout who’s interested in re-earning his badge in the returns department — in that event, I have no problem with eating meaty popsicles or perpetually cream-filled eclairs on a regular basis!

Seems I’ve been doing my job a little bit too well. Ad revenue went up considerably since I stepped into my job — which therefore meant that I stepped up the editorial content — and so I’m producing mega-size issues of the Veggie Patch Gazette. But now, folks are a bit concerned because I’ve officially blown my printing budget.

You know, I work for a national company, and our members don’t really think of it as a membership — they think of it as a subscription to my paper. I’ve gotten many compliments from these members on the content and usefulness of my magazine. But now, it’s looking like I’ll need to pull in the reins and stick to 40 pages, come hell or high water, from now till doomsday.

Which is too bad, because there are so many story ideas and ads, and even though the manpower is limited, we’re still kicking ass and not afraid to do so. I told Demure that Cruise Director, then, needs to decide what he wants to do, because I always plan for five stories (usually more) and then, in midstream, he assigns two or more extra stories that are meant to either get someone out of his hair or pat them on the ass so that they will leave him alone for awhile. And what that means I do is to take on all the stories, which then have to be crowded into the paper.

She attempted to throw it back on me, to say that if I’d just give him a yearly calendar of special issues, he wouldn’t do that. I said I wasn’t falling for that — I would write and/or assign five stories on any given month. But now that my freelance budget is reduced, and now that Cruise Director has taken what’s left of my freelance budget so that we can write these pat-influentials-on-the-ass types of stories, I feel like I’m going to go postal. I don’t expect her to actually help me or give me any good advice — I just thought I’d sound the warning bell as to why I’m burned out. *Poof*

I haven’t blogged about The New York Times’ Jayson Blair because I want to hunt him down and kill him. But his horrific poetry, found on TSG’s site, is worth a cackle, especially the third one. He can’t even spell! How the FUCK did the NYT hire this little piece of shit? Wait, I already know — don’t answer me, or you’re going to hear some not-very-nice words about quotas, given that I’m the same age and have comparable, if not better, experience than that worthless piece of shit.

I hate it when my site is down. It’s amazing how a little fire in a little room can literally rip the plug out of half the blogosphere.

I just had a revelation, and what do I do with it? I probably wouldn’t have written it about here anyway, but it feels good to at least acknowledge that an exclamation point randomly appeared over my head. 😉

Had a fucked up dream that my association was hosting its convention at the same time and place as my high school reunion. I was running into (and away from) people I haven’t seen in 10 years, and of course I was avoiding my toxic colleagues at all turns. Finally I did stop and talk to some of the folks from high school. There’s one in particular, JO, whom I miss once in awhile, but I ignored him in the dream and talked to the girl I used to call Tuna — odd because I really, really couldn’t stand her when we were in the same circle of sharks (um, I mean friends).

The “Daredevil” soundtrack arrived in the mail yesterday. Just opened it — it completely rocks my frog socks!

I’m feeling weird. Not terrible, just out of sorts. But in a good way. Yeah, I hate being here at work, but if my instincts are correct, I’m going to have a kickass summer. And I’m finally in a position to accept that it’s about damn time a little bit of happiness came my way. 😉 Maybe 29 is going to be “my year”!

Friendster seems to be the love child of Classmates DOT com and Match DOT com, and I’m the newest inductee. If I haven’t already invited you to join my network of friends, sign up for your free account and type in my e-mail address to invite me to join your network. Seems amusing, if nothing else. 🙂 Join the par-tay! 😉

Shan called it this morning, and damn it, she called it right.

I’d checked in with her to say hello around lunchtime, and she remarked that she had a funny feeling that, like when I went on vacation to Pittsburgh, my useless supervisor Demure would be on the loose, wondering where I was, as I had a pseudo-personal day yesterday and spent most of today at the print shop.

And sure as shit, almost an hour ago, Shan called to tell me that, indeed, Demure approached her to ask where I might be. Shan was annoyed because she was late for a meeting and was scrambling to get her own stuff together. But we wondered, can’t my supervisor keep track of my work schedule, given that I am out of the office two days every month around this time? Although Shan is more than happy that Demure goes to her and not to Cruise Director to ask where I am, she brings up a good point. At any rate, Shan said, “If you’re worried about her, why don’t you call her on her cell phone?”

Demure said no, she’d just wait to see if I showed up at work tomorrow.

When I supervised Incoherent Twit, I gave her a half hour before I found her ass on the days that she was AWOL. Not that I could have cared whether Twit lived or died, but if I didn’t know where she was, I found out fast.

To help me, Shan offered that even though yesterday was my “birthday buck” day, I was in the office for a few hours. And even though Shan knew perfectly well where I was, she suggested that perhaps I was tending to newspaper-printing issues, just like I was doing yesterday. Demure had assumed that I had dealt with the printing while she was out the week before, so she called in the hounds for the day.

You know, Demure has a schedule of what my deadlines and out-of-office activities include. And today is clearly marked “press day” on my yearly schedule.

So, I was bitter but I left a VM for Demure, saying that the paper had just gotten finished and that it was senseless for me to come into the office for an hour, so I was knocking off a bit early. Besides, I mentioned, I was in during my vacation time yesterday, so that should more than make up for it. I called under the guise of checking in to see if anything was going on, but she never picks up her phone. *whew*

I’m certain that Demure is going to start micromanaging me more than ever after this. Shawn said maybe I should just be nice and polite and check in more frequently, even when I am in the office, just so they can feel like they’re doing their jobs. Fuck that — I cherish what little independence I have left, and I’ll be damned if I have to lick dick any more than I already have to. Demure is, unquestionably, threatened by me, because I officially have no need for her intervention — I imagine that she has to justify her job by reporting my activities to Cruise Director. She can, of course, be helpful to me — when I opt to go to her with questions instead of finding out the answers myself, but oftentimes, she’s the middleman who conveys info back and forth between the exec and me.

I am so tired of working for someone else. This is my year — I just know it. This is the year when I break free of ridiculous employers and their micro- and mismanagement. I never fail to come through with the paper, yet she’s always suspicious of what I’m doing and always wants to intervene under the guise of being helpful.

And for the record, I had e-mailed her as well as the exec last week to say that I wanted to take a personal day yesterday, because there was nothing for me to do at work until press day today. What part of that message didn’t she understand?!?!

Use.Less!!!

Today is press day for the Veggie Patch Gazette. I swear, the only days I look forward to going to work are when I go to work offsite, so I don’t have to deal with my vegetable garden.

I was in at midnight on Memorial Day, in a panic about possibly sending the wrong copy (i.e., the outdated server copy) of the paper to the printer, but I gave ’em the right one. I did have to fix a couple of corrupt PDFs, but that took all of 10 minutes. Unfortunately, I had made a full PDF for Cruise Director and Demure of the server copy, so I had to make a *good* copy and forward it — timestamped 12:22 a.m. In addition to the promised litany of Cruise Director’s comments when the thing comes out, I can certainly expect my office hours to be on the agenda, too.

Tiff said I must be dedicated to fly to the office at midnight on a weekend in my jammies, but damn it, I needed to be able to sleep!

Although I had taken yesterday as a personal day, I had to go to the Veggie Patch to pick up the printing checks, to the tune of $50K, that were a week late. That’s good, ’cause we wouldn’t have a paper without them! But it sucked to have to go into Club Medicated when I didn’t have to.

While I was there, I checked my VM. Turns out Cruise Director had ripped Ad Angel a new one over some decisions the layout guy and I had made with ad placements. Topping the list is that I ran a paid ad twice, when all he wants are his precious house ads run all through the rag. Unbeknownst to him, I had depleted all of the house ads — even the backup ones I had requested to be made for my convenience — so I asked Ad Angel if she minded if I ran an outside ad twice. She’d said OK.

So now that she’s involved in this cyclone of stupidity, she’s making the thousandth plea to Cruise Director and Graphics Goddess to have more house ads in more sizes at my disposal. I reminded Ad Angel that the last time I put a house ad into an empty space in the paper, I couldn’t sit down for a week, after I got my ass chewed out for running a dated ad. That’s the problem — all the house ads that have previously run have dates for special offers on them. So, effectively, I am damned if I run a house ad and damned if I run a paid ad for free — even though the latter makes our advertisers happy and thus more likely to send more business our way. But I digress.

I am probably gonna hear about it, too, that I ran a two-page ad for one of our rivals as the center spread. Ad Angel had e-mailed, asking me to avoid that at all costs, but after we added a bunch of pages and goofed with the layout, I flat-out forgot the request. Personally, I figure that our rivals will be happy with that, which may just make them more inclined to toss some money our way in the future. But Cruise Director will hit the roof. I’ve been warned.

I was so annoyed at the whole ad situation. Nobody cared that I was cutting paragraphs out of stories and doing last-minute interviews (per Cruise Director) on production day — my adrenaline kept me going, but unfortunately, my head can only hold so much information, and certain details escaped me. Luckily, they don’t know how many errors I made on the print order as well as on a couple of files that I sent to the printer, or they’d really have my ass. The good thing about the printers is that they are working hard to earn our money, so they work with me and help me to get over the glitches quickly and quietly — but at work, when you screw up (even a lil bit), your ass is hung out to dry and your ego is sent packing.

I snarked to Ad Angel that I thought workplaces were supposed to be learning environments. But yet no matter what I do, it’s wrong and the whole world feels Cruise Director’s wrath when it isn’t what he envisioned it to me. He was editor of his college paper (100 years ago) and while yes, he does understand my job better than anyone else there does, sometimes I feel like he just doesn’t get it (like when he asked me to spell out New York in a headline — which is a bad journalism practice!). And then he makes comments about the photo quality as well as who is in the photo (i.e., can we cut a particular person out of the shot — when that person was the one who sent the goddamn photo!). Ergh. I could go on. …

Unrelated, I had an eye exam yesterday, as my glasses have bit the big one, and it’s not even like it’s been sunny so that I can wear my prescription sunglasses when I’m driving. I have my mangled frames taped up so that the left lens doesn’t fall out. 🙂 I’m such a dork. LOL. But I did pick up a new pair of glases, as well as a year’s supply of contacts — both of which will be ready in 10 days. Meanwhile, I am attending “Contact Lens Class” on Monday morning, to teach me how to not poke my eyes out. Heh — I’m so friggin’ uncoordinated, I have no doubt that I will be bleeding out my eye sockets in no time!

I totally forgot — my birthday present to myself is an emerald ring set in white gold. The story was bizarre — I had been traipsing around Landmark Mall with Shan, looking at jewelry and bemoaning the expense of emeralds as well as the fact that they can’t be set in silver because the stone is too hard and the metal is too soft for the two to ever work together. Lo and behold, I suggested we go into an upscale jeweler so that she could get a ring guard for her engagement ring, and so help me, we saw my ring — it was set in white gold and it was on sale too! So yay, I have my first emerald in a silver-looking band — and it’s my birthstone too. I promised Shan I’d give it to her daughter on her 18th birthday (because by then I hope to have upgraded a wee bit!). Now to just get the kid out of the womb — can’t wait till September!!!

The newest instance of Gorejacking is alive and well for “American Idol” fans, as they want the votes they inadvertently cast to a Kentucky church’s voice mail box to be added to the 24 million-plus votes that did count in determining the ‘AI’ finalist.

Seems that nearly a quarter million calls were misdirected during the voting process, which would have possibly pushed Clay Aiken through to “AI” status, not Ruben, per this story.

Some folks are speculating that people were hitting the “Q” key instead of “O” when dialing the toll free “IDOL” numbers for their favorite singers.

Funny how nobody caught this during the other two months that the show was aired live.

Look, Clay rocks socks, and he will always be my favorite contestant, but let it lie, people! Same with the last presidential election — I wanted Gore to win, but the whole recounting business left me drained and wanting somebody, anybody to have won, just to be done with it. Suppose there is a recount, and Clay is in fact the winner. So what? Honestly, I don’t care. Show’s over. And if people are dumb enough to misdial and not try again, that’s their own fucking fault.

Cripes, I sent text messages to the wrong numbers, and I was told it was incorrect, so I did it right the next time. Likewise, these callers were reaching a church’s voice mail — did they think God was tabulating the results?!?!

Thanks to Shawn for this gem. 🙂

Fini.

Dave and I made it through all six of our “Nightclub Dancing” sessions practically unscathed, except for the few minor injuries I inflicted upon him tonight. 😉

We actually had to dance for the instructor and our peers, not necessarily for grading but to show what we learned. Dave has this favorite step that we do (it’s the most difficult of the moves we learned — damn overachiever. lol) that the class was exceptionally proud of us for doing when it was our turn to do our little showcase. I was surprised that, for perhaps the first time, I actually *got* the steps right. 🙂 I guess I did learn more than I thought I did, but as I have a complete inability to concentrate on anything and a bizarre addiction to perfection, I get kind of frustrated with myself when I feel like I can’t pick things up perfectly. But I did okay … and maybe even more than okay. 🙂

As we were leaving, I gave my business cards to Mike and Stephanie. They seemed happy to stop and talk for a second, and I hope that enthusiasm carries over if ever they revisit my info so that they will actually call or e-mail. 🙂 They are young and fun and seemed like they would be cool to hang out with. I’m probably too much for them — I as usual was the bigmouth and the class clown, so here’s to hoping they aren’t glad to be done with seeing me every week! Heh. They say everytime a door closes, a window opens. Fuck that — the door closed and I kicked it down!

This was an awesome class — I enjoyed absolutely everyone who stuck with it (and I’m glad a few people dropped out — like the domineering asshole who kept criticizing me for supposedly screwing up the steps, when he was in fact leading me incorrectly and I had to lead him instead). Deirdre and Debonair Gary didn’t make it tonight, nor did Bonnie, but I will have to drop Deirdre another note so that I can cultivate our little network.

So, all in all, this entry is less an ending than it is a beginning, I hope. I met some incredible people, and I got a chance to really get to know Dave outside of our usual online bantering. I learned some new dance moves, and I proved to myself that I could actually apply myself to something and actually stick with it for more than 15 minutes without getting bored and giving up. That’s a big thing for me — I don’t concentrate well, let alone commit to anything. Hell, I surprised myself on a number of levels, and it’s difficult to surprise me because I’m always looking, always waiting for the next curve ball.

At any rate, I will think about taking another dance class. Someday. Maybe. 😉 Till then, I bid Bravo! and Brava! to the other survivors in the class. Tonight, I am hanging up my dancing shoes … and taking a nice long warm bubbly foot bath in celebration!

Already high and delirious on my birthday morning yesterday, I decided to risk some rejection and call Brat.

And rejection is exactly what I got.

When I called, the phone rang four times. As it was Sunday morning, I figured he was sitting around, watching NASCAR with the remote in one hand and the cell phone in the other (I’ve witnessed this phenomenon). After the fourth ring, it sounded like he picked up and immediately hung up. Now, I can make all kinds of excuses — VM was acting funky, he was on another line, his doorbell rang (the doorbell connects to his cell phone), etc. etc. — but I didn’t even come up with those until just now. At the time, I simply assumed it was my two-button trick — click on, click off … no annoying VM to listen to.

I waited about a minute or two to see if he would call back — the beauty of cell phones with Caller ID (which I know he has) is that you can just hit a button and call your most recent caller. He didn’t call.

So I text-messaged him: “Aren’t you going to wish me a happy birthday? 29, baby!”

I haven’t heard a peep from his camp.

I’m somewhat confused by the lack of a polite “happy b-day” return message. Granted, I know I was kind of commanding him to wish me one, but knowing him, he’d forgotten about it anyway, and damn it, I have every right to want — and expect — to hear a good wish from him on my day. On his latest birthday, I had signed the guestbook on his website with a simple, “Happy 26th!” which actually prompted him to e-mail me and thank me for remembering his special day.

Was I so wrong to want the same in return?

Why, why, WHY do I bother?

How can he hold me so closely and push me away all at the same time?

I think it’s so appropriate that I gave him a doormat as a housewarming gift. Wipe your feet on me, walk on me and revel in the irony that I really did know what I was doing when I purchased that rug.

Fuck ‘im. Unless I hear something, anything from him soon, he is officially dead to me.