Caterwauling

Rejected title: Champagne and Skee-Ball

Rejected title 2: D&B Power Cards are useless when swiped betweeen one’s breasts

The past few days have been celebrations of my birthday. And today is the actual day! This is my last birthday when I can say, “I’m 29!” and mean it, because I plan to be 29 for the next decade or so. Maybe I’ll just start spreading the rumor that I’m 26 — think people will fall for that?

Shawn coined the “Birthday Hanukkah” phrase. I won’t say what exactly started it two days ago, but yesterday, we went to Dave & Buster’s, where we had the most incredible time. Shawn bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate my birthday, and we took the bottle and our glasses over to the skee-ball machines, where our process of getting sloshed was well underway.

We were musing how perfect a moment that was — champagne and skee-ball — just because it’s one of our many unique memories that was in the making at that time. Trying to balance the champagne glasses, the bounty of tickets that we were winning, the balls and ourselves as well was just a Kodak moment of hilarity.

The fun was just neverending, and so was the alcohol. 🙂 I was pretty damn trashed within a half hour of being there (two double shots of chocolate cake, half a bottle of champagne, a mudslide and a cosmpolitan kind of has that effect on you!), and I was sitting at Car No. 8 on the Daytona game when I misplaced my D&B Gold Card. I had just received 50 bonus tokens for my birthday, and Shawn had charged my card with another boatload of credits. Lo and behold, with 174 credits remaining, I remembered shoving the card under my knee when the game started, but for those of you who play the Daytona, you know that your seat practically rides around the entire Midway. Hence, I went into a panic because my card was missing.

Several minutes of searching, along with two D&B workers who ripped apart the machine to the best of their abilities, left me cardless for a spell. Then the manager brought over a brand-new card, charged with 150 credits. Shawn decided to play the game for awhile, and suddenly, it hit me. I looked down my shirt, and there was my card, where I’d stuck it for safekeeping. My drunken ass had totally forgotten about that! I never wear pockets, and I didn’t feel like shoving the damn thing into my purse or my wallet, so I went for a place where nobody is going lately. 😉 Gaah!

So we had a blast with the extra credits. Got portraits and photos done of us. We were bummed because the photo-morphing machine was out of order — we wanted to see what our kids would look like. Oh well! Maybe next time, now that I have Shawn hooked on the excitement of that place. D&B’s is Chuck E. Cheese for grownups … only with too damn many kids! We played most of the games and had a terrific time in this theater game where you’re supposed to be saving the earth or something. Who knows, but it had awesome music playing! 😉

Food was great, company was great and the experience was great. After dinner, the waiters came over and sang to me and gave me ice cream. 🙂 Beautifull!

We parted ways about seven hours after we started out, and after some cajoling from Shawn (as well as my glasses breaking for the third and final time), I decided to go to his place, and from there, we went to Nation, where we partied like it was 1999.

I still haven’t slept. I left his place around 4:30 a.m., and I drove for awhile before stopping in the park (the one with the gazebo, the little lake, the fountains and the streetlights shining into the water) to watch the sun rise. I went home to scrub my butt, and I went out again. Got a handful of groceries and rode all over Arlington and Alexandria before arriving home a few moments ago.

On my way out, Shawn gave me one of my gifts (the rest are coming Tuesday or Wednesday; hence the Hanukkah), which I fell in love with immediately. It’s a checkbook cover with Jon Bon Jovi barely clad on it. Shawn even had it personalized for me, which just rocked all that much more! I would’ve loved it even if I weren’t high as a kite!!!

At any rate, it was fabulous to have a fun, free day without the usual job and life pressures kicking my ass. Definitely one of the best birthdays ever!

Tonight, Shan and I are doing dinner, a movie and dessert. I have to get my ass in bed for awhile so that I am not a grumpy mess by that time. I’ve smoked two full packs of cigarettes since this time yesterday, and I am fucking wired! And I know my phone’s gonna be ringing with well-wishers today, so I hate to even go to sleep when I know I’ll have to wake up and pretend like I didn’t get blazed last night and pull a subsequent all-nighter. 🙂 I won’t mind though — I’m still feelin’ pretty damn good!

But I’m not — per the latest quiz, I’m a condom instead. …

You Are A Chocolate Flavored Condom!

Addictive and totally decadent.

People are passionate about you – driven wild by your every move.

You are often an object of desire, although you’re usually too much to handle!

What Flavor Condom Are *You*?

More Great Quizzes from Quiz Diva

Rejected headline: Can I get my straightjacket in blue, to match my padded cell walls?

Seems the Veggie Patchers are upset about the long workdays I put in, so they are on the warpath to get me to do my work within the allotted eight-hour workdays. This is going to mean that I have to plan out my days and share my detailed to-do lists with the masses. Shan is already mandated to tell them when she plans to take a piss or scratch her ass (down to the minute, I shit you not!).

It kills me, because I again expected no praise or anything for my work. But here I am at the job today, wanting to bash my head off the nearest blunt object, because my “work like a maniac, and take a day or two to rest, then start the process all over again” working style does not fit within Club Medicated’s padded-cell confines. Perhaps if I downloaded Solitaire or other games onto my computer, I would be more appreciated as an employee. As it stands, the Club Med cruise director has some issues with the latest newspaper that he doesn’t want to bring to my attention until after it’s off the presses. My guess is that, other than his penchant for finding misplaced commas and dashes and whatnot (like Demure does — ugh!), I will get ripped because of my working style.

As long as they don’t get me for all the chainsmoking I do at my desk on production nights, I’ll live through it. But it frosts my flakes when all I do is get reprimanded for a job well done.

I’m going over some resumes this weekend for assistance. I may modify my position search, therefore going for a junior writer (at a lower salary than I was willing to pay an associate editor) as well as keeping my layout guy in place — lord knows I can’t handle re-teaching someone how to put this rag together! I told Frosty that I have to consult my attorney friends, to make a case to appeal to Demure, who ultimately has to approve any decisions I make about my department. And as we all know, Demure can’t handle change, so it will take an airtight case to get her to not say no. And it will take 17 appeals to even persuade her to say “maybe.” Frosty laughed heartily — she knows that lighting a fire under Demure is like trying to melt an iceberg with a pack of matches.

I heard that some former colleagues at Two Strikes got fired. Her Royal Pretentiousness must be on the warpath again. Brilliant employees, both of them. Some resignations followed. I just sent a note to one of those resigning, to congratulate him on getting the fuck out of that hole (although not in so many words!).

It’s a shame how work can and does make your life hell, with no real exceptions. Oftentimes I think about old colleagues and look at current colleagues who’ve been in the workforce 100 years. And I wonder where their spark went, if they ever had one. I’m certain they did, but after years of ridicule and admonishment and disappointment, their fires went out and the pods took over. I don’t ever want to be like that. I identified long ago that what makes me special isn’t my looks or brains or talents — it’s my passion. And with my passion, I can make anything happen for me. And I can’t let any employer stifle my love of accomplishment and challenge.

Speaking of passion, my sex drive really is dead. A cute guy attempted to pick me up outside of Starbucks today, and I let him get away. He seemed young — early 20s, I’d imagine. I’m not into young ones anymore — I’m looking for grown-ups. But he was a hottie, I’ll give him that. I was wearing no makeup, and my hair is in this weird uptwist that took all of four minutes to do. Leave it to me to be schlepping around town with a venti caramel macchiato, lookin’ like hell and feelin’ even worse — only to catch somebody’s eye. Drat! But it made me feel good for a minute. 🙂 Then I realized that his seeing eye dog had probably gotten away. …

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?

Whatever’s at the dollar store.

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?

See No. 1 above.

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?

If it came from Payless or Tarzhay, it’s on my feet.

4. What brand of soda do you drink?

I’m madly addicted to Diet Cherry Coke. Can’t find it in too many stores, so I usually end up with Diet Coke.

5. What brand of gum do you chew?

Carefree bubble gum.

Finished the newspaper at 11 p.m. Started at 7:30 a.m. Went the whole day, only eating a full box of Godiva raspberry biscuits, courtesy of Mom, who sent a loving care package today in honor of my birthday. I’m surprised Mailroom Dipshit didn’t redirect the package to Zimbabwe, given his penchant for shipping my personal mail to Tulsa, Okla.

The Cruise Director at Club Medicated actually got down and dirty with his edits and two cents. He wanted to see another draft after the first one, but no go. I did leave a printout and a full PDF before I left tonight. I also requested that I take Tuesday off. And I made it well-known that I had plans tonight that I had to give up, although if I know them, they’ll tell me it’s my own fault. ‘Cause they’re just assholes like that.

I had a random thought, how I don’t mind it if my superiors are hard on me, as long as it is performance-related. I get sick of the inconsequential bitch fits from them, but I do take constructive criticism well. I tried to accommodate most of his requests, but given the late hours and what not, I flexed my editorial license and said “Fuck it” to a number of comments.

Head is pounding. Finally ate some crap from Mickey D’s when I left work, but it’s only served to make me feel even more nauseated.

Wondered today if I’ve lost my sex drive. Found myself missing Jeff for a minute — rather, the nonstop fucking. I miss being desired, being ravaged. Constantly … or, at least, whenever it fit into our schedules. 🙂 But I really don’t have any blessed desire to be *with* anyone lately. Where the hell has my libido gone?!?!

For now, anyway.

My beloved Clay didn’t win “American Idol,” but I do wish Ruben well. If only I’d voted 1,300 more times. …

Yeah, I’m bumming. I hate it when my guy doesn’t win. I’m so damn competitive, and it wasn’t even my victory to claim. 😉 I really, really wanted him to win. I know he’ll still have a fabulous career, no matter what happens, though. But he’ll always be a winner to me. 😉

UPDATE: ‘Idol’ to recount votes. Clay for President, anyone?!?! 😉

This morning, when I went to purchase Clay and Ruben’s singles off Amazon.com, Clay’s was the No. 1 seller and Ruben’s was No. 28. I figured that Clay would win “AI,” based on that alone. But I guess with Barry White on his deathbed, people are scrambling to see to it that he’s replaced.

At any rate, Amazon will ship Ruben’s single on June 5, and Clay’s on June 10. I hope they ship them together and earlier. I will be in dire need of a Clay fix soon!!!

Some coffee to go with my bitter? 😉

The real deal

Oh, hell, I’ll say what I’m really thinking. I spent upward of $30 in votes this season, so I have a right to throw in another two cents for good measure. 🙂

I don’t think America voted Ruben as its winner. All of my friends were voting for Kimberley Locke and Clay Aiken. Not saying that Ruben isn’t talented, because he is, but I wondered, too, after the public outcry that Tamyra didn’t win last season, if this were a wee bit rigged this year.

At one point in the season, Ruben was placed in the “Bottom Three” for elimination — I think that was a move strategically done by Fox to get people outraged enough to stop voting for their real favorites and to vote to ensure that Ruben stayed on. Clay never once was in the “Bottom Three,” and not to mention, but the reason Clay even got into the Top 12 was because they had a wild card show in which the public could choose someone whom the judges didn’t choose to push through to the finals.

At any rate, based on this alone, Clay would’ve won the competition. The CD-singles sales figures support this theory. The same people who voted for Idol were buying the CDs, right?

All I can say at this point is that I hope Ruben really doesn’t become the next Biggie Smalls and do gangsta rap — people wanted him because he’s the next Barry White or Isaac Hayes or whatever. At any rate, the talent was supreme this year, and I am pleased that every shape, size and color was represented in the finals. But it still stumps me that, given how racist a lot of America still is, that a clean-cut cute little white boy like Clay didn’t win by America’s supposed vote.

If there is a finding that the competition was rigged, though, the show is over. At this point, they should just be saying that the results stand as-is; and we all know who the winner should have been. 😉

Just to show how little Demure, my supervisor, really has to do in a day:

I give her my articles to read for content only (i.e., to keep us from getting sued). Last week, I gave her one of my articles with that note in bold: Do NOT edit for anything but content.

For my running head, I nicknamed it “Licensure O’Plenty.” Everybody here knows that my running heads are always edited once they are laid out in Quark. And, see above, the article was in need of a re-work from top to bottom, including the head.

Anywho, I just found a note from her on the article. She circled the title and wrote, “Too light a headline for this subject.”

Does she honestly think I’d title a front-page article with that?!?!

That was the worst of it, other than the fact that she EDITED it for transitions and punctuation, when I WARNED her that it was a random collection of quotes and nothing more. Go away, woman, and leave the editing to me. Dipshit.

What was I saying about hoping for a light day? Sweet Jesus, I’m going to be here until Mr. American Idol is crowned tonight. Fuck around!

Breathe, Dawn. The last-minute shitpile is not worth a stroke. Not worth it at all. *sigh*

And I think all the birds had a poo-flinging convention on my car this morning. Samantha’s a mess! Isn’t it enough to simply get shat upon at work?

And are y’all still out there? I haven’t gotten any comments in more than a week!

UPDATE

Apparently I was smoking crack when I wrote my five stories this month, ’cause they are in sorry-ass shape. I’m going to be here till American Idol 2004, getting these corrections made!

Demure stopped into the office at 11, our supposed meeting time. She skulked out just as quickly and avoided me. W00t!

Shan told Finance Guy about Demure calling me a disappointment. He said I should write a letter to Frosty, but I’ll skip it. He mused how sad it is that Demure only supervises two people (Convention Queen and me), and we are both disgusted with her and are doing just fine without her meddling. He’s right — I love being here without Demure hovering over me like a news chopper full of gas and not much else. 🙂

Mac Guy sent me a PDF of the newspaper layout at 4 a.m. He also attached a note saying that, hell, we’re already at 52 pages — how about I come up with 4 more pages, because with 56, we’re freer with wherever we can place color throughout the rag. I replied back, “How about not?”

Paper goes to bed tomorrow. And I’ll be damned if I have to come up with four more pages of content and ads. I busted my boo-tay to get the editorial side together this month, as I do every month. I have no love for this paper right now. None whatsoever. I suggested that he turn my color photos into black-and-whites instead. Frankly, I saw how little reaction I received (positive or negative) on last month’s grand 64-page issue, and I guess I just don’t feel like scrambling for a 56-pager when the 52-pager is almost done. Really, though, it’s not that much more effort, but I just was looking forward to having a light day today, given the fact that I worked through the weekend and put in a 12-hour workday on Monday.

That’s the problem with having to meet my own high standards — it’s impossible to exceed them (i.e., no more 64-page papers in the forseeable future!). Besides, I’ll probably get my ass kicked for spending the extra money on papers above 40 pages, which is all that we’re budgeted for. I suppose that I have a long tradition of agency average to uphold. 🙂

Oh, what the hell. You know I’ll probably end up adding the extra pages. Like, what else do I have to do, other than edit all of them and convert them, page by page, to PDFs? 🙂

It was a nervous night here at Chez Dawn during the “American Idol” finals. I spent the whole hour in a warm foot bath with vanilla-almond bubble bath swirling around my twitching tootsies.

I was nervous because I wanted them both to do well. My boy Clay was nervous at first, no doubt about it. But he and Ruben did spectacularly. Two stars were born tonight.

During the first and second rounds, they alternated fabulousness. I loved Ruben’s performance in Round 1 and Clay’s in Round 2. The other performances simply weren’t their best, but even if those were their worst, they’re still better than most of the Top 40 artists on Billboard right now. But then the guys both came back with a ferocity during their final rounds.

I was torn when it came time to cast my 13 votes, but when it came down to it, Clay gave me goosebumps during “Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” so that decided it.

Overall, Ruben is the better performer. But Clay wants it more — you can tell he can taste the sweetness of success. And when it comes down to it, anyone in the Top 5 of “AI” will get a record deal — maybe even the whole Top 10. I didn’t watch the show last year ’cause the contestants weren’t the least bit interesting. This year, the personalities and the talent were top-notch. And no matter who wins and who doesn’t, I’ll be buying all of their CDs when they’re released anyway. 🙂