Last day

“I think I’m going to buy some of those diet chips”, Diane says.

I prop my bare feet on the edge of her desk and cross my ankles. “Make sure you read the bag carefully. Some of those diet and sugar free foods can cause anal leakage.”

She throws back her head and laughs, the sound echoing down the corridor. I smile and shake my head as she launches into a story about a woman that had to have her asshole reconstructed, due to her penchant for taking the dirt road. I’m going to miss these daily dicking-off fests more than I originally thought. And I’m going to miss her.

I remember the first time I sat in this chair, in her horribly messy office, wearing a brightly striped sweater, black skirt and black old lady pumps. I was a nineteen year old kid with a month old baby at home and I had no idea what I was doing. Diane sat me down, explained the job, spent a half hour gossiping and then showed me around the suite.

I immediately wanted to work here, not even considering the corporation as a whole...just this little area where the work space rang with laughter and the halls smelled of coffee and someone’s breakfast burrito. It was my first “real” job.

But though the woman who hired me is my supervisor, she’s never been just a boss. From the day I interviewed until this moment, this last day we get to sit here together as employee and employer, she’s also been my friend, mother and psychiatrist.

She cosigned for my first loan to help me establish credit, she made cakes on my birthdays and sat drinking wine with me all night on her living room floor. Just recently, when I had to go to the doctor for what was apparently vertigo, she came, without asking, in sweats and tennis shoes on her day off. Just in case I needed someone to hold my hand and drive me home.

She’s lectured me, made me listen to the same stories over and over again, occasionally irritated me so much that I wanted to scream...but I love her. She gave me a job, she gave me a chance and she’s continuously put up with all of my tardiness, grouchiness and immaturity.

And now, after weeks of wondering and waiting, the day has finally come. The transition from old job to new will be complete tomorrow, when I pack up the last box and they cart it two blocks away. I’ve been excited about taking a step up the career ladder, about more money and more opportunities to grow and learn. I’ve been excited about my new chair and my new title, about rubbing elbows with presidents and COO’s. Excited and a little terrified, but not sad. Not until now. Not until it really hit me that in order to grow up and move up, I’ll have to give up a few things too.

This is the last time I’ll sit around with no makeup on and a frizzy ponytail, barefoot and relaxed in the privacy of an office that’s more like home. The last time I’ll dance on tiptoe around her door and primp in front of her mirror to make her laugh. The last time I’ll drink coffee and shoot the shit for an hour in the mornings. The last time I’ll wear flip flops and leggings, play games when no one is looking and close my door for an hour with a current bestseller.

And perhaps the saddest thing of all, right up there with saying good bye to her and other coworkers I’ve come to think of as family - this is the last time I’ll sit at this desk and write.

Office pet

At ten minutes after seven I park on the first floor of the parking garage, as opposed to the sixth where everyone else gets shifted. I stroll past the guard booth, sunglasses covering the worst of a face devoid of makeup. The girl in the booth waves and smiles and I return her greeting, just like every other morning. She likes me, thinks I’m funny. “Girl, you are just too much”, she always says. And I am, of course, but not exactly in the way she means.

I unlock the backdoor, walk through the kitchen and around the corner. My office is the second door on the right; the first is a storage room full of gadgets I’m glad I know nothing about. I unlock it, flip the switch and throw my handbag on the desk. Light floods the tiny room from the single florescent panel and it looks exceptionally bright after the damp shadows of the parking garage.

Three walls are papered in pale blue and the back wall is papered in white with small blue flowers. It was a doctor’s exam room when this suite belonged to a medical practice years ago – the mirror and paper towel dispenser are still on the wall over where the sink used to be. I often wonder, when work is slow and concentration is slippery, exactly how many people have been naked in my office. It just so happens that work is often slow and concentration is, more often than not, slippery.

The desk is a hand-me-down from assistants past – an old, unattractive brown affair with chips missing from corners and pieces of sticky tape that would require too much effort to remove. When I returned here (after a two year absence) it was against a side wall, leaving the computer visible to whoever decided to stand in the doorway. The woman they’d joyously gotten rid of in order to have me back was denied the privilege of moving the furniture, told that it would take the IT department sending someone to redo wires and such.

After two weeks back in the saddle I’d said to my boss, “I want to move my office around.”

“Ok”, she’d replied, then immediately pitched in with the rearranging of furniture. The manager in the office across from mine bundled up wires and reattached lines for me in record time. Then, I decided my walls were far too empty and they requested that someone from engineering build me a large set of shelves to hang. And a few weeks later, just like that, there were two men in uniform attaching a beautiful set of off-while shelves high upon the wall behind my head. I’ve always had a “thing” for storage.

This morning I notice that the big plant on my pretty white shelves is flowering. I usually can’t manage to keep a cactus alive. Indeed, the current resident of the blue bowl isn’t the original. I killed it almost immediately.

“You’re not going to water it”, the boss had said, sounding simultaneously amused and exasperated, after I picked it up at a farmer’s market on one of our famously long lunch breaks.

But I was in love with the bowl and imagining how the spidery vines would trail attractively down the front of my barren new shelves, so of course I bought it anyway. And for awhile it was perfect. But as predicted it was never watered and soon died, the dirt clumping together and the dead leaves crinkling up and curling in on themselves. It stayed like that for months before a fairly new employee from up the hall offered to repot it for me.

“I’ve got a plant that will look just lovely in it. Would you like me to take it home and fix it up?”

“Sure”, I’d said with a shrug. “Why not?” She was the same woman that had left a coffee cup (with my initials on it) on my desk at Christmas, along with a candy cane and a pack of cocoa arranged inside with red tissue paper.

And so this morning, the tiny pink blooms sticking up in the air make me smile – because they’re pretty, because they were free, and most importantly...because they came with their own watering lady.

I head back toward the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee. There’s a cup, two packets of creamer, three packets of Splenda, and a stirrer already waiting for me by the pot.

I amble down the hall, stirring the contents of my cup long after the packets have dissolved. It’s habit; I’ll stir it continuously after each sip. Stopping in the boss’s doorway, I lean against the frame and cross my ankles. I’m wearing leggings, a long shirt, and flats – the sort of outfit she’s repeatedly told me she hates. She looks up from a stack of paperwork and frowns at me, but before she can complain about my tardiness or my attire I say, “So guess what”, and launch into a dramatic story about someone I know.

Most arguments or complaints can be avoided if I have a decent story to share. She gets distracted easily and once I’ve given her something “juicy”, she always feels the need to one up me. It works even better if I ask her for “advice”. And so begins our 30 minute to an hour morning “visit”. By the time it’s over, she’s forgotten to be angry and it’s time to get to work.

It’s 8 o’clock when I log into my computer and kick my shoes off under the desk. Plugging in my little space heater, generously donated by another employee because my little office gets chilly, I warm my toes while I check email. A steady stream of people, from the larger, all female department we share the suite with, keeps the walkway in front of my office ringing with noise. Dragging their bags and their lunches, removing their coats and saying good morning to each other and to me – but I wish they wouldn’t. I wish they’d go through the front door instead; it’s closer to their area anyway.

I grumble good morning in response to their chirps and they smile at me indulgently as if to say, “That Alyson. She’s not a morning person, but we just love her to bits anyway.” None of them ever get angry with me, no matter how rude I am. They treat me like a combination of court jester and adorable, destructive puppy.

When the big boss comes breezing by, it’s another matter entirely. “Good morning Sunshine”, he says to me, not pausing at all in his race for sanctuary. He always calls me Sunshine, never uses my real name, a fact the entire office never fails to find amusing. He likes people even less than I do and trying to catch him in the hallway is about as easy as nailing Jell-O to a tree. He’s always afraid he’ll get stuck talking to someone so he keeps his head down and his feet pumping like pistons. An enormous key ring jingles on his belt loop, alerting everyone that he’s on the move.

I am just the opposite. I pad through the corridors in my bare feet, scarlet toenails vivid in the florescent lighting, the four leaf clover tattoo on my left foot defiantly uncovered. Quietly I pull the stack of mail out of the slot by the front door and leaf through it as I walk. I’ve long thought that my stealthy hallway approach was more satisfactory than the big boss’s loud sprint – the cheek pinchers, as I like to call them, never even know I’m there.

I manage to avoid everyone until early afternoon when the boss pokes her head around my door. “Are you coming with us to lunch today”, she asks.

I tilt my head and pretend to consider it, though I really have no intention of going anywhere. “What are they having”, I reply. She quotes the menu and sighs when I make a sour face. “No”, I say, “I don’t think so.”

“Fine, be that way”, she says without heat. It’s the same thing she says every time I decline to join them and, for the past few months, that’s been quite often. I used to go every day, but the truth is that I usually desperately need the alone time. As long as I make an appearance once a week, she’s kept mostly happy.

When they return an hour later, she hands me a packet of chocolate chip cookies. “Here, you ungrateful little shit”, she says grinning. She’s forever bringing me things.

The afternoon drags by. Sometimes I think its worse, being on the bottom floor and on the side of the parking garage, because there aren’t any windows. I once had a nightmare about being locked in the suite, with the entire lot of them, and all the clocks had stopped working. I wandered around jerking on doors and screaming that it was time for me to be let out, while they stared at me with creepy smiles on their faces. It was very Girl Interrupted esque. Thank god I only had it the once – though now that I’ve mentioned it, it will probably happen again. That’s how those things work with me.

At four thirty the boss prepares to leave. Stopping in front of my office, she says the same thing she says every afternoon. “I’m glad you got to see me today.”

“So am I.”

“You’re such a liar”, she says, and we both laugh...just like we always do. But then a terrible thing happens. She deviates from the script.

“We’ve hired someone to fill that position I told you they might make. Some young girl. We might have to move offices.”

“Where would we move to”, I ask.

“I’m not sure yet, but there’s a possibility we could get cubicles or have to share an office.”

Her face is smooth, resigned. Mine, on the other hand, is incredulous – jaw hanging open and eyes wide. “Give up my office?! Move?!”

She shrugs. “We don’t know what’s going to happen yet.”

Immediately after she’s gone, I’m lost in thought:

If I lose my office, I lose my freedom. If we move suites, who will water my plant? For that matter, where would I put a plant? What about my lovely shelves? What about the...wait a minute. Did she say ‘young girl’? Surely not.

The possibility of another young woman being in the office doesn’t sit well with me. And I’m surprised by that because I’ve always moaned about being the youngest in a sea of old people, with no one to relate to. Now that it’s a certainty, that she’ll be here, I’m just not sure it’s in my best interests.

Right now I’m the only one that walks around barefoot, the only one that wears leggings, the only one that comes in looking like she’s just rolled out of bed, the only one allowed to make off color jokes at the department lunches. I’m the only one that leaves rude notes on the refrigerator and the only one that has to listen to my boss talk about her vagina. I’m the youngest, funniest, cutest, grumpiest...I’m lots of “ists”. And there’s a possibility that this new girl could knock things off balance.

The big boss walks by my door while I’m staring into space, imagining a bleak future sitting in a cubicle next to some perky girl that everyone likes more than me.

“Goodnight, Sunshine”, he says, pausing briefly. “Will you be here much longer?”

“No sir, I’m almost finished. Did you need anything else?”

“No, Sunshine. I’m fine. Have a go...”

“I heard ya’ll filled that new position”, I blurt out.

“Yeah...sure did.” He looks at me expectantly.

“Um, just out of curiosity...how old is she?”

“Oh”, he thinks for a moment, looking toward the ceiling, “I’d say she’s about 45, but I’m not exactly sure. Why?”

I narrow my eyes, then remember who I’m talking to, and smile. “Just wondering.”

“Ok”, he says, looking confused. That’s how he always looks when talking to me – confused or amused.

We say goodnight again, he walks away and I gather my things. I wonder if my boss told me she was “young” to scare me, knowing I wouldn’t like it, or if she really is young to her...because she’s in her 60’s.

Then, as I’m walking through the kitchen, intent on the back door, something on the counter catches my eye. And I smile because, obviously, I was being silly. It doesn’t matter if that woman is 25 or 45 – I’ve got this shit on lock.

There are two packets of creamer, three packets of Splenda, a stirrer, and a cup with a big note on it that says “HA HA HA” already sitting by the pot. Apparently she knows how to work me, just as well as I know how to work her.

*Unrelated note: The videos will be posted by Friday.

Yes, I know father's day was three days ago.

I wasn’t planning on doing a father’s day post, mostly because my dad and I have a tolerate/hate relationship. But it looks like I’m going to do a semblance of one anyway. (Basically it’s all Beta Dad’s fault. You can blame him and his awesome post for giving me the idea. I don’t think of it as cheating since our fathers are two VERY different men.)

********

This was in a Q&A forwarded email I received the other day:

“Describe your dad in one word.”

I hate this directive. One word answers have never been my style and describing anyone that way, myself included, is an irritation. This has less to do with the fact that I’m a descriptive person, and more to do with the fact that no one fits into a one word mold. No one.

My dad is, more often than not, an asshole. I’ve written about our issues before, most of which have to do with his drinking or occasional foray into the world of narcotics and/or gambling. But that’s only part of the person he is, so I figured I should be fair and introduce you to the rest of him. Not just the bad, but the good, the ugly, and the more than slightly ridiculous.

1. He’s very, very good at his job.

Starting as a welder in his late teens, he eventually became a certified steel inspector. He worked for several well known inspection companies, traveling around the US and Canada, until my grandfather (who is also an inspector) started his own company. He worked for Pop for a long time, still doing a lot of traveling, until he and mom divorced and he settled in Oklahoma. He recently returned from a job in New Jersey and is now working close to home.

Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to go on site and see at least part of what he does. I don’t pretend to understand the details of the job, but I do understand respect and it’s very obvious that the men he works with respect his ability and opinion. I used to love listening to his stories about the bridges and buildings he had a significant part in, one of which is my favorite place: the lovely, enormous glass and steel library downtown.

There’s a picture in my photo album that I look at every now and then. In it he’s no older than I am now. He’s standing with a group of men on the unfinished skeleton of a building, his hair in a youthful floppy style just visible underneath his hardhat, grinning and waving with the city skyline and the clouds at his back. It never fails to make me simultaneously pleased and anxious.

2. He introduced me to great music and taught me how to act like a redneck boy, should I feel so inclined.

Though the money spent on his various outdoor toys often made our bills late, I can’t deny they were a lot of fun. I had a go-cart, a golf cart, and a badass ATV that I would drive through the woods and around our back roads like a bat out of hell (with a full face of makeup, of course). He had his own ATV and we’d load them up on the trailer, drive to his buddy’s house for a fish fry, then spend hours in the woods driving the trails and drinking beer. I was usually the only girl on those outings and while they strapped coolers full of beer to the back of their rides, I’d strap a cooler full of Smirnoff to mine.

He had an old bronco that he put enormous tires on – like, mini monster truck tires – and we would take the hardtop off, drive to an old trucking road after a recent rain, and go mud digging. I’ve never been much on dirt or mud, but some of my fondest memories are of standing on the back seat of that jacked up truck, holding on to the roof, and being caked from head to toe in gunk. Afterward we’d drive to the boat ramp and back the truck almost all the way into the water. I’d let go of the roof and just float out over the submerged back end.

And while we were on our little excursions I got a crash course in good music: Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top. I loved rocking out in the front seat with a soda in one hand and a Slim Jim in the other. Sometimes he would tell me things about the bands and sometimes he would just crank it up as loud as it could go.

He gave me a few of his old cassette tapes so I could listen to them in my room. My favorite was Pink Floyd’s The Wall and I wore that thing out. It drove my mom absolutely crazy.

3. He’s unintentionally funny.

When he tries to be funny, he isn’t. His jokes are always stupid and/or embarrassing. And usually, after he cracks one, he does this weird chuckle and says “Huh? Huh?”

One of his favorites was reserved for after big meals and used far too often. He would groan, stick out his stomach, rub it and say, “Hey...I’m pregnant with a baby elephant. Wanna see his trunk? Heh heh heh heh. Huh? Huh?”

Maybe unintentionally funny is the wrong choice of words.

We laugh when he lies about ridiculous things for no reason (which happens weekly), we laugh when he gets drunk and cries about nothing, we laugh at his dancing, we laugh at his solid white enormous tennis shoes, and we laugh at his facial expressions. We imitate his walk, the way he talks, and his speeches we couldn’t help but memorize.

I’m sure that all sounds terribly mean and unnecessary but trust me...finding the humor in that man is essential to dealing with him. If I couldn’t laugh at him, we just couldn’t interact.

4. He’s predictable.

“I brought ya inta this world. I ken take ya out and make anuder un jest like ya.”

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that phrase when I was a kid...

He used to say it in anger, but now that I’m an adult he usually says it in an “I’m being funny and menacing at the same time” kind of way. And I can predict, down to the second, when it’s going to come out of his mouth. And I say it with him. And he hates it.

He will wear the most vulgar t-shirt he can put his hands and go out in public. Always. It’s a given.

Probably one of the worst was when my sister was about nine and on a church softball league. He showed up late to a game one afternoon, pulled in the parking lot squealing tires on his motorcycle. From the bleachers mom and I could see him walking through the crowd on the grass. Each time he passed a group of people there was an immediate reaction. When he finally reached the low chain link fence around the field I recognized the t-shirt right away. It was one mom had attempted to throw in the trash just a few days prior. It was grey and had a bulldog on the front. And on the back it said in big letters: Big Dogs Eat More Pussy.

My mother was mortified. Still is, in fact.

“I love ya more n anything in this world. I’d die n go ta hell fer ya...ya know I would”

This is the precursor to every serious discussion, no matter what the subject matter. (Ever seen Brokeback Mountain? Say it with that accent.)

He cannot give a straight apology. It always goes like this: “I’m sorry, but”. He can’t leave the “but” off. This is because it’s never really his fault.

5. He’s got more than nine lives.

The man has been in every kind of accident you can think of and is still alive. And still doing stupid shit. Car accidents, boating accidents, ATV accidents, welding accidents, ect.

After his terrible motorcycle accident last year, where he broke all of this ribs on one side, suffered head trauma, and numerous other injuries...I thought he MIGHT be ready to wizen up a bit. Yeah, not so much.

After a few months of recuperating in Oklahoma, he went back to work in New Jersey. One night he called me and I could tell he’d been drinking. He kept laughing and carrying on while I “mmm hmm”ed and “uh huh”ed, waiting on an opportunity to get off the phone. Then he suddenly said, “I was so drunk the other night that when I was trying to get the key in the lock I fell off the porch, into the bushes, and broke the ribs on my unhurt side!” Way to go, dad.

Since he’s a habitual liar I checked with my sources and turns out, that’s exactly what happened. I suppose his resilience is a bit extraordinary for someone with his chemical history. This is probably why The Grandmother says he’s the antichrist.


But whatever his faults (or his origin), my dad is certainly a special individual.

I’m looking forward to our visit with him in a few weeks. At the moment anyway. Once I’m there, it usually only takes about 24 hours for me to start daydreaming about whacking him upside the head with a frying pan.

Happy father’s day, daddy. *WHAM*

This way for attention

Things have been a bit tough around here lately – monetarily, physically, and emotionally. (I’ll be using this as an excuse for my sporadic involvement in blogland.)

I’ve been alternately slammed with work, then so bored that I have to stop myself from wasting the entire supply cabinet’s staple stock by shooting them randomly at people as they walk past my door. Professionalism is not as entertaining, you know.

I received my lovely income tax return and wept over the most beautiful bank balance I’ve had since, well, last tax season. Then I wept again because every single dime of it went to catch up on bills. But the joke is on me, because I’m still not caught up. Mainly because there’s always something unexpected happening. Like two flat tires, an alignment, and another bridesmaid dress.

That’s right. I’m officially on my way to becoming Katherine Heigl’s character in the rom com 27 Dresses.

The only difference is there’s no leading man to watch me try on my collection of pastel colored finery or make out with me in a car. Not that I’d want to make out with anyone in my car. The inside should be featured on a poster for Ebola awareness or a support group for hoarders. Then there’s always the “who gets to sit in the kid's car seat” awkwardness. You know what I’m talking about? The one that’s not sitting in the car seat always feels like a pedophile and the one that is sitting in it can’t spread their legs comfortably. Unless you have one of those fancy ones with the arm rests that lift up. And a cup holder for your beer.

And did I mention that this bridesmaid dress I have to purchase it the exact same dress I wore in last September’s wedding? Did I? Oh, well it is. Only it’s a different color. Instead of candy pink, it’s called watermelon, and would you believe they can’t (read: won’t) dye the motherfucker?

I met the girls at the shop on a Saturday morning a few months ago. It just happened to coincide with one of my rare nights out at the bars and I showed up wearing brown yoga capri pants, a yellow tank top with a pink one over the top, flip flops, a blue knitted headband (yes, yours Erin), and white disco style sunglasses covering truly heinous leftover makeup. I was, to put it mildly, extremely hung over and extremely cranky.

I was half an hour late and one of the attendants immediately shoved a dress in my hands and sent me to a changing room. It wasn’t until I’d slipped it on that I realized it was from the exact same collection as the previous wedding. At first I was miffed, but then I thought, “Hey! I can get the dress Whitney wore. It still has pockets for my cigarettes and I don’t have to worry about tan lines again. Stupid strapless...”

(The collection I’m referring to is of the mix and match variety. All the bridesmaids wear a different style dress, just in the same color.)

I stepped out of the dressing room in a bright orange number (the try on dresses aren’t necessarily in the color you will be ordering), still wearing my blue headband and white shades. Thankfully everyone found it hilarious. I was afraid the bride would blame me for ruining her fitting by crawling out of a liquor bottle.

“I don’t like this one”, I said.

“Neither do I”, said the bride. “Here, look at the book and pick a style you like and they’ll see if it comes in the color I picked.”

Shoulder to shoulder with an attendant, I leaned over a catalog and leafed through the pages. “What about that one?” I pointed out the dress Whitney had.

“That one doesn’t come in watermelon.”

“That one?”

“Nope.”

“Ok...that one.”

“One of the other girls already picked it.”

I glared at the attendant and the bride, sensing trouble, intervened.

“I loved you in the strapless. Let’s do that one.”

“But I didn’t really want...”

The attendant already had the dress in her hands and she thrust it into my arms. “Go put it on and let’s see, hmm?”

“I already know what it looks like”, I grumbled.

“Humor me”, the bride replied.

I sighed, went back into the changing room, pulled on the dress, and stomped back out. All the girls did that collective murmuring in the affirmative and it was settled: I would wear the blushing twin of the dress I’d worn in September. “...without the headband, please”, the attendant added.

I stomped on her toes on the way out.

In another conspiracy to bankrupt me before thirty, the kid is turning five next week.

Some of you non-parents may not be aware of this, but you can’t half-ass a five year old girl’s birthday party. You might get away with just family, cake, and ice cream for the first two or three years, but after that they expect you to buy stock in Never Never Land, shoot glittery fireworks out of your ass, and invite every snot nosed brat they ever laid eyes on.

Every commercial that comes on the television advertising a toy is followed with: “Maaaaama! Can you get me that? For my birthday, mom? Seriously, I need it.” Every window display that has anything remotely colorful: “Maaaaama! I want that for my birthday! It’s in two weeks, right? Didn’t you say it was in two weeks?”

It’s crunch time and she’s not taking any shit or accepting anymore noncommittal “mmm hmm’s” or “We’ll see’s”.

I was in the shower the other day, blissfully shampooing my hair, when the door flew open. “Mom!”

“WHAT”, I screamed in panic and covered my bizness. (It's a reflex. Flashback from being startled in the shower and maiming myself, you know.)

The shower curtain whipped open and she shoved a glossy toy ad from the newspaper toward my face. “Can you get me this for my birthday!?”

“I’M NAKED!”

“But can you get me this?”

I jerked the shower curtain back into place. “Boundaries, kid! We’ve talked about them.”

“But can y...”

“If you don’t get out of here right this minute there will be no presents and no party! Out, out, out!”

She then burst into tears and ran from the room.

The kid is one of the best actresses I’ve seen. Watching her in action, I’m often torn between admiration, frustration, and amusement. Usually I settle on amusement...and sometimes I taunt her a little. She particularly hates it when I chant, “Liar, liar, pants on fire,”...then once I’ve gotten her really mad switch to, “I see your hiney, so bright and shiny. You better hide it, before I bite it.” (I’m southern. Hide and bite rhyme, ok.) But I digress. Birthdays...

I haven’t picked up a single present or made a single plan yet. Sure, we’ve kicked around a few ideas: bouncy house, dress up party, Tinkerbell theme. But I just can’t seem to make a decision. All of them are going to cost me lots of money and cause some type of emotional and/or physical damage.

The bouncy house was my first pick because once it got dark and all the children were gone and mine was in bed, my cousin and I could get drunk, bounce around, and laugh our asses off. But after thinking about it more carefully (popping, vomiting, etc), it didn’t seem like such a great idea.

I hate character paraphernalia, so Tinkerbell wasn’t at the top of my list to begin with. That leaves...the dress up party, which would be very loud and messy. Someone, who might be dead before this is over with, even suggested we make it a slumber dress up party. Oh, dear gawd in heaven.

Do you know what would happen? Somebody’s kid would freak out and decide at 2 o’clock in the morning that it wants it's mother. It's mother who isn’t home because it’s her first free night out in 6 months and she’s too busy line dancing and snorting coke off the brim of a cowboy hat to the tune of ‘Redneck Woman’ to answer my phone calls. And then do you know what happens? It’ll ask to sleep with me since it can’t go home and I’ll be completely creeped out when it gets all cuddly and grabby. Then I’ll have to get up and make them all breakfast, but someone will be lactose intolerant and vomit all over the rug...right next to the purple eye shadow they ground into it the night before. And, at some point during all that, I’ll likely teach them a few words their parents will later say launched their cutting careers. “This way for attention, dear.”

Sigh. I’ll keep you posted on what we decide.

Either way I’ll likely need a second job. Anybody know a nice pimp?

Does it feel hot in here to you? Must be me. Do do CHHH!

Sometimes I feel a little muddled in the head.

You know, like there’s cotton wool up there and you can’t think so you say what you think you’re trying to think out loud and it comes out something like this:

“My nipples are hard ‘cause I got the chills and it’s not even cold.”

And your big boss is standing there looking at you like you’ve peed on the carpet they just shampooed, but you don’t even care because you’re trying to think about why your nipples are hard when it’s not cold and wondering if you unknowingly had a sexual daydream somewhere in your cotton wool brain and then getting this horrifically angry expression on your face because you can’t THINK and you haven’t gotten laid in forever and if your brain is having sexual daydreams without you then you are really going to be PISSED. Then you say something like, “I’ll have that for you this Monday”, and he gawks at you as you zig zag down the hallway with your head tilted to the side and shouts, “Today is Tuesday!” and your only reply is a maestro finger move in the air and a half sung, “Tuesday’s gone with the wind!”

No? Maybe it’s just me.

And sometimes I feel a little depressed.

You know, like when your four year old daughter says she doesn’t want you to walk her into school this morning because you aren’t wearing any make up and your hair is wet and you wonder who taught this ungrateful child to care so much about appearances and then you remember sitting on the porch and openly laughing at that incredibly fat five year old jumping up and down on the trampoline that isn’t even hers and knowing that if she breaks it you’ll be blamed for it because your fat ass was jumping on it two days ago, but then making a remark about her bob haircut and who does that to a fat kid anyway? Then you hang your head in shame and vow that your daughter will learn that it’s not what’s on the outside and jiggling up and down that counts, but what’s working its way through those fat little insides and if she ever wants another snack pack again she’ll do well to keep that trap shut.

No? Maybe it’s just me.

And sometimes I feel like vomiting.

You know, like when you find out through the grapevine that your mother’s ex boyfriend whom you nicknamed Spongebob because of the ridiculous tattoo on his fat pasty white leg has been asking mutual acquaintances if you are single and if they think you’d be interested in going out with him and when they tell you about it they laugh uncontrollably, especially when you start making those retching sounds and not even as a joke, they’re totally real. Then you freak the fuck out because what if he thinks you owe him something because he fixed your car and gave you that expensive digital camera and a $100 gift card for Christmas and he shows up to put the fucking lotion on your skin and give you the hose he used on your mother...OH DEAR GAWD and the retching continues because he’s probably crazy enough to do it. After all he tried to buy you and you totally let him and you realize that you’re probably going to get stuffed into a van when you leave work by a short, fat man that looks kind of like him but you can’t really tell because he’s got used panty hose over his face and you make a promise to yourself that if this happens you will stab yourself in the jugular no matter what Jesus says about suicide.

No? Maybe it’s just me.

And sometimes I feel sheepish.

You know, like when you write a blog post that makes absolutely no sense but you can’t help it because the alternative is actually doing some work or getting up to go to the copy machine where you’ll surely pass your boss and he’ll shake his head because he’s positive about two things – first that he’s writing you up for wearing that shirt when he specifically told you through another employee that that amount of cleavage is not suitable for the office and secondly he’ll forgive you all your weird habits and outbursts and even your unsuitable cleavage if you’d just sit on his desk one time with no under....

Ahem. I’m sure that’s just me.

Thank you, come again.