So yeah. I was totally going to look over the initial version of my annual review tonight, but decided instead that I would rather not spend the evening all pissed off. I mean, I'm sure the review is probably fine, but I'm equally sure that it doesn't say that I "have demonstrated competence at walking on water." Since at this point I think that's a fair assessment of my skills, both the performing of miracles AND the constant dying for sins of others,I know I'm just going to be disappointed.
Further, I figured out today that even if I got a 10% raise (a patent impossibility, don't you think), I would still consider myself underpaid by many thousands of dollars. This made me laugh out loud in my cube in a manner that frightened my co-workers. As far as I'm concerned the entire exercise is pointless, but whatever. The boss people have to do that so that they in turn can be pointlessly reviewed and unfairly compensated in the future. It's the circle of life.
I do know that says is that I need to work on remaining more positive on the floor. I suppose that means it's time to up my medication and start douching with rainbows. JOY!
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Sunday, January 13, 2008
On Civility
It would appear that there are any number of adults out running around off-leash who need a refresher course in truth, consequences, and the art of the apology. I know, I know, it’s been a long time since Sandbox when this shit was all originally covered, but that’s why I’m here. Here follows a quick primer on . . .
Civil Interaction One-Oh-Fucking-One
1. Own your shit.
When you were a kid and you hit little Sarah Jane in the head with a plastic bucket in the sandbox, it is un-bloody-likely that Teacher let you off when you said, “I don’t know what happened.” No. You got The Look until you admitted the fact that you did just take a swipe at your little mate in the sandbox, which leads to the fact that . . .
2. Behaviors have consequences.
Or at least they should. Behave like a fucking douche, and expect to be treated accordingly. Using our example, when you clobbered little Sarah Jane with the plastic bucket, she cried and Teacher probably snatched you up by your chubby little kid arm and gave you a stern talking before positioning you with your runny little nose in a corner. After you had used that invaluable time to examine the architectural wonder of two joined walls, you were probably advised to. . .
3. Apologize for fucking up.
Returning to our example, it is likely that after you had ample opportunity to “think about what you have done,” you were told to apologize to young Sarah Jane. It doesn’t matter that young Miss S.J. has since moved onto a snack of lime Kool-Aid and graham crackers and has put you and your little plastic affront quite out of her head. No, your little stunt still warrants an apology. Further, the apology has a set form, along the lines of “I’m sorry I hit you with a bucket and hurt you.” Attempting a variation on “I’m sorry you made me hit you with a bucket,” would get your little snot-nose deposited right back in Asshole Kid Corner.
This, my friends, is really the trellis around which most human interaction ought to wrap itself. Look around, you’ll see these principles at work in the workplace, in the public, and in your personal life. Learn them, practice them, know them, embrace them.
Tune in later, when we cover advanced lessons, such as Cleanliness May Not Be Next to Godliness, But It Is A Helluva Lot Better Than Wallowing In Filth.
Civil Interaction One-Oh-Fucking-One
1. Own your shit.
When you were a kid and you hit little Sarah Jane in the head with a plastic bucket in the sandbox, it is un-bloody-likely that Teacher let you off when you said, “I don’t know what happened.” No. You got The Look until you admitted the fact that you did just take a swipe at your little mate in the sandbox, which leads to the fact that . . .
2. Behaviors have consequences.
Or at least they should. Behave like a fucking douche, and expect to be treated accordingly. Using our example, when you clobbered little Sarah Jane with the plastic bucket, she cried and Teacher probably snatched you up by your chubby little kid arm and gave you a stern talking before positioning you with your runny little nose in a corner. After you had used that invaluable time to examine the architectural wonder of two joined walls, you were probably advised to. . .
3. Apologize for fucking up.
Returning to our example, it is likely that after you had ample opportunity to “think about what you have done,” you were told to apologize to young Sarah Jane. It doesn’t matter that young Miss S.J. has since moved onto a snack of lime Kool-Aid and graham crackers and has put you and your little plastic affront quite out of her head. No, your little stunt still warrants an apology. Further, the apology has a set form, along the lines of “I’m sorry I hit you with a bucket and hurt you.” Attempting a variation on “I’m sorry you made me hit you with a bucket,” would get your little snot-nose deposited right back in Asshole Kid Corner.
This, my friends, is really the trellis around which most human interaction ought to wrap itself. Look around, you’ll see these principles at work in the workplace, in the public, and in your personal life. Learn them, practice them, know them, embrace them.
Tune in later, when we cover advanced lessons, such as Cleanliness May Not Be Next to Godliness, But It Is A Helluva Lot Better Than Wallowing In Filth.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
On New Years
Welcome to 2008.
In my lifetime, I've made two New Year's Resolutions that stuck. When I was 15, I resolved to quit eating meat. That one stuck--from the I was 14 time I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian for 14 years, and I still don't eat things that are warm-blooded.
Last year, I resolved to spend more time in bars. THAT one, I must say, has gone like clockwork. In the past year, I have passed countless perfectly good evenings in smoky bars only to wake the next morning reeking so of juniper scented-gin that squirrels followed me. It has been, I must say, brilliant.
This year, though, I don't have much in the way of resolutions. Oh, sure. I can stand some self-improvement. I could eat better. I could exercise more. I sure as shit won't resolve to drink less as that will undo all the hard work of last year, but that still leaves plenty of personal improvement possibilities.
2007, it turns out, was a pretty good year. Sure, there was the unmitigated horror of Corporate Happy Fun job, but at this point I've decided that god hates a quitter and I'm staying until the place makes me start burning myself with lit cigarettes. Sure, one of my co-workers apparently gave up reading for the New Year, but fuck it.
On December 31st, 2006 The Boy tried to chat me up. I was drunk, and felt kicked like a dog, and frankly? I thought he was just fucking with me. By December 31, 2007. I was sitting next to him at a wonderful dinner, waiting to kiss him at midnight. It was, I think, a fantastic turn of events, brought about in no small part by the aforementioned bars and gin, and the fact that when given the choice, I took the chance on turning "right to go make out."
So, maybe that's my resolution. Just as much gin, and more right turns.* Might as well take some more chances. They've worked out so far.
*No more making open spots on my make-out dance card. Don't cry for me Argentina, though. . . we're getting married.
In my lifetime, I've made two New Year's Resolutions that stuck. When I was 15, I resolved to quit eating meat. That one stuck--from the I was 14 time I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian for 14 years, and I still don't eat things that are warm-blooded.
Last year, I resolved to spend more time in bars. THAT one, I must say, has gone like clockwork. In the past year, I have passed countless perfectly good evenings in smoky bars only to wake the next morning reeking so of juniper scented-gin that squirrels followed me. It has been, I must say, brilliant.
This year, though, I don't have much in the way of resolutions. Oh, sure. I can stand some self-improvement. I could eat better. I could exercise more. I sure as shit won't resolve to drink less as that will undo all the hard work of last year, but that still leaves plenty of personal improvement possibilities.
2007, it turns out, was a pretty good year. Sure, there was the unmitigated horror of Corporate Happy Fun job, but at this point I've decided that god hates a quitter and I'm staying until the place makes me start burning myself with lit cigarettes. Sure, one of my co-workers apparently gave up reading for the New Year, but fuck it.
On December 31st, 2006 The Boy tried to chat me up. I was drunk, and felt kicked like a dog, and frankly? I thought he was just fucking with me. By December 31, 2007. I was sitting next to him at a wonderful dinner, waiting to kiss him at midnight. It was, I think, a fantastic turn of events, brought about in no small part by the aforementioned bars and gin, and the fact that when given the choice, I took the chance on turning "right to go make out."
So, maybe that's my resolution. Just as much gin, and more right turns.* Might as well take some more chances. They've worked out so far.
*No more making open spots on my make-out dance card. Don't cry for me Argentina, though. . . we're getting married.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Oh, Christmas Tree . . .!
Despite what The Boy might say, we didn’t actually steal the Christmas tree.
Last weekend, Saturday December 15th to be exact, Jason and I went to two different Christmas tree lots in an ultimately failed attempt to obtain a Festive Holiday Tree. It’s not that they didn’t have trees I wanted, or that the trees were too pricey, it’s that there were no trees. None. Zero. Negatory on the trees.
At that point, I should have continued slaloming around the greater NoCo area and obtained a freaking tree. However, it was snowing and I wanted to get home and commence the Christmas Cookiepalooza I had planned.
This is me, though, and nothing can ever be simple. I didn’t go out on Sunday to get a tree. And Monday I had to work late, and The Boy was Christmas shopping and I wanted to go with him. Tuesday I didn’t feel good, and didn’t want to go out in the cold. This brings us to Wednesday, December 19th.
Now, I get that the 19th is, as The Liquor Fairy insists, a wee bit late in the season to go out shopping for Festive Holiday Trees. However, I assert that that’s just fucking stupid. People regularly used to put their trees up on Christmas Eve, and if capitalism was working as it should, there would be sufficient trees to meet the demand right up until Christmas. This is yet another failure I will lay at the feet of 7 years of a semi-literate Republican president and our ineffectual Congress, but I digress.
The first lot I went to did have trees, but they were a bit too mangy even for my taste. I understand that, when shopping less than a week before Christmas, some arboreal aesthetic compromises might have to be made. I do not hate on the little ugly trees, I just don’t care to put one up in my home. Plus, I don’t do long needles, which rules out at least half of the trees on any given lot from the word go.
We went then to the second lot, where in 2005 I got my tree like, three days before the damn holiday. Whatever. No trees. Not one.
By this point, I was threatening to start banging my upper body and head repeatedly back against my car seat like an emotionally disturbed child, a threat singularly terrifying to The Boy because he knows that I’m likely to actually do it. However, continuing up the road, we come to the Florissant Jaycee’s Tree Lot. As we get close I can see from the tree that they have veritable shit ton of trees, so I get to feeling pretty sassy.
Then we pull up and there is no one there. Empty trailer. Wet trees lit only by the sickly glow of the sign of the nearby Kmart. The hours on the trailer said that they should be open, but they weren’t.
I suggest we get out and look around. The Boy, anxious not to see his girlfriend have yet another meltdown, agrees, thinking that perhaps we can find a tree and return for it later.
“Fuck this,” I say. “If we find something, I’ll slide a check through the window.”
Nervous laughter.
“You think I’m kidding?”
“No. No, I really don’t.”
Which is why I love the man.
They did have a tree, full with short needles. It smelled of pine, and did not rain a shower of needles when shaken. It was, in short, good e-fucking-nough. “Let me get my checkbook,” I said, turning back to the car.
The Boy proceeds to follow with the tree. “No! We have to put it through the thingie!” I said, pointing the Tree Binding Plastic Netting.
The best part of this story, I think, is not the “buying” of a tree from an unattended dark tree lot, but the fact that we couldn’t get the tree through the damn tree netting thing.
First, he tries to shove it in wrong end first, which I think explains a lot about our sex life. Then, he refuses to apply sufficient force for the job at hand. Then we manage to stuff it through--directly through—leaving the tree unencumbered by netting, which is kind of the point.
I am almost no help because I am laughing hysterically the entire time. Finally, we get the tree bound up, and then we hacked through the plastic net with my keys since neither of us had anything better. Finally, I stuck the check through the mail slot, along with a note written on the tree’s tag telling what I had done and advising the Jaycees contact me at the number on the check in case there was some kind of issue.
I figure I won’t hear from them. They were probably at the bar.
Last weekend, Saturday December 15th to be exact, Jason and I went to two different Christmas tree lots in an ultimately failed attempt to obtain a Festive Holiday Tree. It’s not that they didn’t have trees I wanted, or that the trees were too pricey, it’s that there were no trees. None. Zero. Negatory on the trees.
At that point, I should have continued slaloming around the greater NoCo area and obtained a freaking tree. However, it was snowing and I wanted to get home and commence the Christmas Cookiepalooza I had planned.
This is me, though, and nothing can ever be simple. I didn’t go out on Sunday to get a tree. And Monday I had to work late, and The Boy was Christmas shopping and I wanted to go with him. Tuesday I didn’t feel good, and didn’t want to go out in the cold. This brings us to Wednesday, December 19th.
Now, I get that the 19th is, as The Liquor Fairy insists, a wee bit late in the season to go out shopping for Festive Holiday Trees. However, I assert that that’s just fucking stupid. People regularly used to put their trees up on Christmas Eve, and if capitalism was working as it should, there would be sufficient trees to meet the demand right up until Christmas. This is yet another failure I will lay at the feet of 7 years of a semi-literate Republican president and our ineffectual Congress, but I digress.
The first lot I went to did have trees, but they were a bit too mangy even for my taste. I understand that, when shopping less than a week before Christmas, some arboreal aesthetic compromises might have to be made. I do not hate on the little ugly trees, I just don’t care to put one up in my home. Plus, I don’t do long needles, which rules out at least half of the trees on any given lot from the word go.
We went then to the second lot, where in 2005 I got my tree like, three days before the damn holiday. Whatever. No trees. Not one.
By this point, I was threatening to start banging my upper body and head repeatedly back against my car seat like an emotionally disturbed child, a threat singularly terrifying to The Boy because he knows that I’m likely to actually do it. However, continuing up the road, we come to the Florissant Jaycee’s Tree Lot. As we get close I can see from the tree that they have veritable shit ton of trees, so I get to feeling pretty sassy.
Then we pull up and there is no one there. Empty trailer. Wet trees lit only by the sickly glow of the sign of the nearby Kmart. The hours on the trailer said that they should be open, but they weren’t.
I suggest we get out and look around. The Boy, anxious not to see his girlfriend have yet another meltdown, agrees, thinking that perhaps we can find a tree and return for it later.
“Fuck this,” I say. “If we find something, I’ll slide a check through the window.”
Nervous laughter.
“You think I’m kidding?”
“No. No, I really don’t.”
Which is why I love the man.
They did have a tree, full with short needles. It smelled of pine, and did not rain a shower of needles when shaken. It was, in short, good e-fucking-nough. “Let me get my checkbook,” I said, turning back to the car.
The Boy proceeds to follow with the tree. “No! We have to put it through the thingie!” I said, pointing the Tree Binding Plastic Netting.
The best part of this story, I think, is not the “buying” of a tree from an unattended dark tree lot, but the fact that we couldn’t get the tree through the damn tree netting thing.
First, he tries to shove it in wrong end first, which I think explains a lot about our sex life. Then, he refuses to apply sufficient force for the job at hand. Then we manage to stuff it through--directly through—leaving the tree unencumbered by netting, which is kind of the point.
I am almost no help because I am laughing hysterically the entire time. Finally, we get the tree bound up, and then we hacked through the plastic net with my keys since neither of us had anything better. Finally, I stuck the check through the mail slot, along with a note written on the tree’s tag telling what I had done and advising the Jaycees contact me at the number on the check in case there was some kind of issue.
I figure I won’t hear from them. They were probably at the bar.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Tuesday Redux
Tonight was a quiet evening. I got out of work in a pretty good mood, mostly because I'm off tomorrow and don't think there is much my co-workers can do to fuck up too badly while I'm gone. After admonishing them to try not to do anything irritating in my absence, I left for home.
In the car, I heard a Christmas song about a dude standing in line behind a kid buying shoes for his dying mother. The kid wanted his mother could look nice if she met Jesus on Christmas eve. A Christmas song about shoes, dead moms, and standing in line. Fun. Wish I wrote that.
I came home to meet The Boy. We were going to go get a Christmas tree, but it is rainy and crappy outside, so instead we went out to forage for food. I embraced the shame and we went for buffalo shrimp, which in the Lou is a fraught experience involving a trip to Hooters that I don't want to talk about but have to admit before The Boy snitches my ass out. There were buffalo shrimp, and the place was almost devoid of other customers, which was pretty much all I had hoped for.
On the way home, the car began making a new and distinct noise. My car health philosophy is exactly the same as my personal health philosophy--wait to see if it gets better. It didn't get better; it actually got worse. The Boy and I decided that it sounded like dragging. The good news is it's not a bum. The bad news is that it will require actual repair requiring something other than zip ties. I'm hoping a half-assed tack weld will do the trick. I'm willing to let the guy at Meineke look at my boobs or something if that will help. I'm not proud.
Speaking of not proud, after we retired to the house, we shared some valuable time vegging out in front of our laptops, where I found this, and had a big snotting, sobbing cry.
Yeah. D'you have a pet growing up? Yeah? Grab a tissue. Grab the BOX.
In the car, I heard a Christmas song about a dude standing in line behind a kid buying shoes for his dying mother. The kid wanted his mother could look nice if she met Jesus on Christmas eve. A Christmas song about shoes, dead moms, and standing in line. Fun. Wish I wrote that.
I came home to meet The Boy. We were going to go get a Christmas tree, but it is rainy and crappy outside, so instead we went out to forage for food. I embraced the shame and we went for buffalo shrimp, which in the Lou is a fraught experience involving a trip to Hooters that I don't want to talk about but have to admit before The Boy snitches my ass out. There were buffalo shrimp, and the place was almost devoid of other customers, which was pretty much all I had hoped for.
On the way home, the car began making a new and distinct noise. My car health philosophy is exactly the same as my personal health philosophy--wait to see if it gets better. It didn't get better; it actually got worse. The Boy and I decided that it sounded like dragging. The good news is it's not a bum. The bad news is that it will require actual repair requiring something other than zip ties. I'm hoping a half-assed tack weld will do the trick. I'm willing to let the guy at Meineke look at my boobs or something if that will help. I'm not proud.
Speaking of not proud, after we retired to the house, we shared some valuable time vegging out in front of our laptops, where I found this, and had a big snotting, sobbing cry.
Yeah. D'you have a pet growing up? Yeah? Grab a tissue. Grab the BOX.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Merry Christmas
Well, my effort to be all cute and hostess-y was thwarted by the cocksmacks at eVite and their stupid limit to the size of photos that they will let you upload. The bastards. I'm sure that I could cut down the size of the photos I'd taken, but wrestling the beasties has left me exhausted and unwilling to fight with my computer.
I think Jack looks mighty damn cute, even if the look on his face suggests a gulag survivor.
Peanut butter. The ultimate dog training tool. If it will make The Beast hold still while wrapped in Christmas lights, I'm not sure what it can't do.
Bella looks so fucking cute in her Santa Suit that I wallowed on the floor after bursting a blood vessel in my brain.
I think Jack looks mighty damn cute, even if the look on his face suggests a gulag survivor.
Peanut butter. The ultimate dog training tool. If it will make The Beast hold still while wrapped in Christmas lights, I'm not sure what it can't do.
Bella looks so fucking cute in her Santa Suit that I wallowed on the floor after bursting a blood vessel in my brain.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Tonight, On PBS
So, tonight Le Boy and I were watched a documentary about a lunatic Frenchman exploring the most dangerous place on Earth. Oddly enough, it was not a visitor's guide to Detroit, but a film about a dude in a submarine exploring the bottom of the ocean.
One of the shots was of all these phosphorescent jellyfish, blooping and floating through the sea. Watching their aimless, mindless, actions all I could think of was my co-workers. And calamari.
Which leads, logically, to the next thing, I want to corner the market on the aquatic beasties that inhabit the darkest depths of the ocean--floating around in super-heated toxic water, blind and thoughtless. I want to gather them up, raise them out of the depths. The lack of pressure will cause them to swell to many times their normal size and I will SELL them to snooty gastronomes and the Japanese for thousands of dollars a pound, never mind the fact that their flesh stinks of sulfur and tastes of briny rotten eggs.
Think about it.
One of the shots was of all these phosphorescent jellyfish, blooping and floating through the sea. Watching their aimless, mindless, actions all I could think of was my co-workers. And calamari.
Which leads, logically, to the next thing, I want to corner the market on the aquatic beasties that inhabit the darkest depths of the ocean--floating around in super-heated toxic water, blind and thoughtless. I want to gather them up, raise them out of the depths. The lack of pressure will cause them to swell to many times their normal size and I will SELL them to snooty gastronomes and the Japanese for thousands of dollars a pound, never mind the fact that their flesh stinks of sulfur and tastes of briny rotten eggs.
Think about it.
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