Who's a Disgruntled Employee?

That would be me.

Ok, so I went to our weekly staff meeting today and you know, I sit through those things and I have to consciously make myself not roll my eyes. Have you ever been in a meeting with someone who essentially talks to hear themselves talk? Every “question” is really just a clever way for them to be able to demonstrate their VAST KNOWLEDGE while at the same time giving off a sense of humility, because, after all, it IS a question. Dude, we get it – you’re so smart and so up on critical issues and so articulate and so everything to everyone. This particular guy? He IS really smart and articulate and up on critical issues (I know he reads the paper and watches the news channels, so I’ll give him that at least) but since I have recently come to severely dislike this person, well, my tolerance for him has been replaced by annoyance and then magnified about a billion times.

Why do I dislike him so much, you might ask? Because he’s a jerk. I used to enjoy his company because he was fun and kinda hot -- but that can only take a person so far. I started to resent the fact that he doesn’t work at all (not an exaggeration – he shows up MAYBE six hours a week), and yet, was getting paid more than me, and also? I was doing all of the work on things we were supposed to be doing “together.” And so while I still liked him as a person, as a co-worker, I really didn’t like him at all. But then last week, we got into this huge brouhaha about – wait for it – a computer monitor. It’s a long and ridiculous story, but suffice it to say that I got a new monitor that he felt should rightly belong to him and wouldn’t let go of the issue and was essentially a total asshole and displayed nothing that remotely resembled professionalism about it when he started this ginormous fight with me about it last week when we were alone in the office. So now? I dislike him both as a co-worker AND as a person in general. Hence, my new way of dealing with him is to pretend he’s not in the room. Luckily, that only takes up a small percentage of the work week.

So going back to my original point, that is why today I wanted to stick a pencil in my eye just so I could focus on something other than him talking and the mounting fury I felt when he just wouldn’t stop talking. And talking. And talking. The hour long meeting? Today, it was a two-hour meeting (not unlike the famous "class where time stood still" from days of yore) and I just wanted to scream. I know, that’s not the kind of attitude one should have about one’s job and one’s coworker, but to that I say “whatever.” That’s also not the right attitude, but c’mon, I just sat through that meeting and I’m totally in a mood. Not a good one, in case there was any doubt.

I'm learning to post pictures

My brother -- awesome guitar player, but in this picture he's pretending not to know how to play so that this one girl would "teach" him and then he could appear to be a virtuostic guitar prodigy.

It's not rocket science, however, this picture posting thing is more difficult than it looks. Compounded by the fact that my computer flipped out yesterday and was running at the speed of, oh, I don't know, my mom's driving. And as anyone who's ever been in the car with my mom knows, that's pretty damn slow.

Anyway, isn't my brother cute?

No news is good news

It's January -- so why is it like 65 degrees? I'm not complaining, mind you, as I HATE to be cold, but then I start to worry about global warming. Oh, who am I kidding -- I do not. I try to never be worried about anything on a global scale. That’s why Kendra sighs and calls me “Becki” when I tell her that no, I do not watch the news and only occasionally read the paper. Neither does Becki. She refuses to support what she terms the “culture of fear” by participating in any news media outlet. My reasons are not so lofty – I’m just not entertained by the news and I get tired of hearing about crime and death and destruction. And yes, I realize that my degree is in journalism, but I think that’s when my news apathy kicked in. Perhaps it’s not so much apathy as disgust. I realized that I wanted nothing to do with the world of news, mostly because I didn’t want to be that person who accosts the mother of a murdered child and asks how they feel. The response I got to that attitude was “oh, you’ll get used to it,” and that’s when I decided – I don’t WANT to get used to it. I don’t want to be unaffected by loss and sadness and have my main goal in life be the pursuit of the next best story. I don’t want to intrude on someone’s pain for the sake of “reporting.”

Hey, don’t get me wrong -- I vote and I research the issues beforehand – but maybe I’d just rather watch “Three’s Company” reruns instead of CNN. My brother and I decided once that “Three’s Company” has a tried-and-true formula – there’s a wacky misunderstanding, hijinks ensue, with sexy results (and if you’re Tim, you wiggle your eyebrows when you say “sexy results.”). Even though CNN probably has plenty of wacky misunderstandings, and perhaps hijinks may ensue, it’s not nearly as funny. Like last night, on “Three’s Company” when Jack got a fake mustache because Larry convinced him that it was a surefire way to get hot chicks? It followed the formula perfectly. There’s also a lot of physical comedy. Unlike CNN. There’s never any good physical comedy on there.

So let’s sum up: Warm weather in January leads to thoughts of global warming leading to thoughts of why I don’t watch the news leading to what I watch in lieu of the news. Unfortunately, there were no hijinks during the writing of my blog. There are a sad lack of hijinks at my office today. Maybe I'll dream up a wacky misunderstanding and then throw in some physical comedy for good measure...

Quite Possibly the Best Day EVER!!

Why was it the best day EVER, you may ask? Well, I'll tell you. It's because I got a new bed! New! Bed!

When I moved out of my parents' house 3 or so years ago, I had no furniture and so I was graced with a billion hand me downs, one of which was my bed. I liked my bed -- it was comfy and it was queen-sized and I was frankly just happy to sleep on something that wasn't a futon, which probably would have been my second option. Plus, it was free. So I've moved around from apartment to apartment (and if you're my brother, you're cursing this, because the poor kid has helped me move every single time -- six times since 2001) and the bed has been a good bed.

So I move into to my New! House! last May -- it's brand new, I own it, it's awesome. And since then I have slowly been buying new things so that suddenly, the house looks like an actual adult lives there. The first major casualty was my couch -- which was hard, because that was the most comfortable couch in the history of couches. It was down filled...but I digress.

And then yesterday -- the delivery of the New! Bed! It's a king-sized bed! It doesn't have an imprint in the middle so that if anyone sleeps in the bed with me, the New! Bed! ensures that I won't constantly roll to the middle. It's firm, but not TOO firm. And besides the fact that it's comfortable, well, it is SO PRETTY. I went shopping and got pretty things for it. And this is the cool thing about having a New! Bed! and no New! Husband/Boyfriend! – I can have the bed be as PRETTY and PINK and GIRLY as I want it to be. HA! So, I did. I got a pale pink thin wale corduroy bedspread, and pink paisley pillowcases. And I got...eyelet. I LOVE eyelet lace stuff. My shower curtain is eyelet lace. And now -- the New! Bed! is also decked out in eyelet. Eyelet bedskirt. Eyelet-edged sateen sheets. Pretty white pillow shams (matelasse is what the style of those are called -- just a fancy word for "super girly" I think). Eyelet curtains (not on the bed, obviously). I stood at the door of my gorgeous room and looked at my handiwork and I almost didn't want to get into the pretty pretty bed. That lasted about a minute, because as you all know, I am a fan of the sleeping.

So it may not be the best day ever, but it came pretty close.

And then things got "Wheird"

So I did some traveling this week. I went to Boston and Philadelphia, and unfortunately got to spend no time in either place. I did spend much of the time flying -- and this is when I realized that air travel is just one big invasion of your personal space. I mean, there's the concept of airplane seats, to begin with. On the way to Boston from Denver, I had a great seat, marred only by the fact that the girl sitting behind me was one of those people who feels like they have to make a new friend every time they get on a plane and so she talked NONSTOP on the nonstop flight. Almost four hours of her telling her life story to the people sitting next to her. I fell alseep, woke up and she was STILL TALKING. There's the whole issue of trying not to kick the person next to you when you change positions. And, as Kendra said in her blog, the thing about people being possessive of their armrests.

The biggest issue on this trip was that the TSA security lady got REAL fresh with me. People say that folks in Boston aren't that friendly at first? I beg to differ. I was "selected" because I had a one-way ticket to Philly from Boston. Fair enough. I've been "selected" before and it's no big deal. So the lady waved the beeper wand around and of course I beeped at the belly button ring and the underwire bra and the rivets in my jeans. She did the whole "back of the hand feel up" and here's where things got "wheird:" she even ran her hands across the underwire. I really felt that she should have at least bought me a drink first. And so then she goes through my suitcase (dear god, please don't let yesterday's underwear jump out and go skidding across the floor) and then rifles through my purse. All the while chatting with me about how she loves my purse and how my shoes were so cute because they're so small and calling me by name as if we were just hanging out at airport security while she felt me up and went through every piece of my personal belongings. Wow. When I left, I half expected someone to maybe inform me that that would conclude the Innappropriate Touching portion of my air travel and thanks for flying the Really Overly Friendly Skies.