Pig Flu Party

It would seem that the whole world is pretty obsessed with this pig-flu. Oh Wilber, what could you have done to deserve this fate? A once adorable icon has turned foul. While I am grateful that I reside in a state that (so far) has no official cases, I think maybe people are over-reacting a tad. The radio station I listen to played a re-mix of some pig-flu song this morning. It wasn't as bad as you'd think. Phrases such as "world-wide epidemic emminent" do not give off too many warm fuzzies though. I have also been told that the regular old winter-type flu that everyone fights over getting shots to prevent managed to kill off 36,000 people last year. Now, i don't know if that is true, but it makes a hell of a show compared to what MIss Piggy has downed so far. And that is about all I want to give to that subject.

The economy also tops our list of fun-subjects lately. Our company sends out daily 'Headlines' to keep people abreast (ha ha I doubt I spelled that right) of current issues in our ever-exciting world of commercial real estate. Let's be honest, I normally delete that crap without even glancing at it, but it's been a slow day in the office so far so I read a few. This article:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/30/signs-seen-of-recession-bottoming-growth-possible-/

highlights the face that spending has INCREASED this first quarter by 2.2%. ONe would think, Hey! That's great maybe my mortgage will soon level off with what my house was assessed for! Then you read this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/30/AR2009043001583.html

and they say March spending was down .2% and we're all pretty doomed in general. Oh. I think the lesson learned here is you can spin the numbers whatever way you want to get the result you are looking for. Sitting directly next to our head researcher for some time and including these 'numbers' in my bodacious graphic designs, I already knew that. Yes, we actually do almost make shit up to fit whatever we want it to look like. If I know to the degree we swing stuff, I can Only Imagine the crap they cook up over at the Pentagon.

My last rant of the day is regarding Sally-do-gooder of the office. Yes, we are all dripping with pride that you support breast cancer, and Lymphoma research, and Lukemia, hell is there anything you don't have a bumper sticker for? But listen, I can barely afford ramen noodles so I am sorry I can't buck up $86 for your benefit dinner, I"m not donating a Saturday to run for any cures (i'll die from an allergy attack ALONE), and I don't appreciate being guilted by your spam of emails on any of these subjects. It probably wouldn't bother me if it was ONE email per event. It's not. Sally likes to repeatedly email EVERYONE on a DAILY basis for weeks before every event in an attempt to raise the guilt level into submission. Unfortunately, I think it usually just pisses most people off into scoffing her and blocking her emails entirely. Secondly, they are pages long of text. I don't know what they say, but i'm sure it could be accomplished in a much, MUCH, shorter synapsis of the event and what it benefits. Then, Sally dear, you may actually get a response a little more to your liking then the simultaneous "click" of a hundred delete buttons when that puppy lands in everyones' inbox. Just a thought.

Ok Monday, you win.

I have to say that it could just be my imagination, or getting to and from work is becoming increasingly difficult. It seems there is always some major (or minor) catastrophe impeding me from getting to my destination at a normal (for here) pace ineveitably making walking the 16 miles to work a faster option. Like I need a reason not to come to work. (another one anyways).

Today was no exception. ONly, it was Monday morning, beautiful outside, full of hope and promise...you know aside from the laundry list of health issues I've dealt with the recent months that continues to literaly make my hair fall out. Please stop doing that hair, I take back what I said about you previously. Today, as much as I didn't want to go, like trying to shove a cat in a carrier for the vets' office, I was off to the dentist. How I love to hear the cynical voice asking me how often I floss when clearly the answer is: never. About as much as I love my teeth being scraped with a metal hook. I was grinning (well not really) and baring it the best I could. I didn't even go to Dunkin Donuts like I always do afterwards. Just my little way of sticking it to the man, which I also realize is unbelievably counter-productive after the dentist spends 20-30 mins. scraping plaque off my teeth but it's just worth it.

Believe it or not, me sitting around for an unbelievable HOUR at the dentist wasn't my gripe of the morning...although I did notice a stone is missing off my sandles so if anyone sees a giant fake daimond at the springfield dentist give me a shout...No. Again, even at 10:F-ing-fifteen AM, I round my way onto 395 N and come to a hault. Why I ask?! Everytime. I see HOV moving just fine. Should have gone the long way and got on there. W-h-a-t-EVA. I creep along and bail to HOV at the digital "Accident Ahead" sign and hey, should have guessed, so did everyone else and I'm at a dead stop again. The gods do not want me to go to work.

I tried to snap a picture while stick-shifting but I was behind a Lemonade stand. You know, one of the carts they haul out at county fairs and carnivals that usually sells yummy crap like Fried Dough and Candy apples. Not this one. This one, aside from the Lemonade printed Prominently across the top, sold "Stuffed Cabbage Sandwiches". Ooooh, yum. I think I burnt a quarter tank of gas creeping my way into DC. To add to my fun adventures, they continued over the Memorial Bridge because for no reason what-so-ever (and that's usually the case here) they closed off an entire road that half the traffic usually takes down to 23rd St. OH COME the fuck on. REally?! I literally could have walked here faster. Then, when I got here, hugely late, the valet was probably sleeping in someones car like he was last time and I had to call to find someone to take my keys.

I do realize that living around a city and commuting is not always fun, but it just seems to get harder everyday. It just seems that traffic has been massive, not moving, and I always pick the wrong road to be on. Add in accidents, ambulances, road closures, parades, and protests and that pretty much sums it up. Although I'd almost welcome public transport, it would cost me about $18 a DAY so it's actually cheaper to screw the earth and drive. Although, when I do take the metro I can see how that could lead to even more griping.

And Just because my horoscope said I was going to have a hugely pessimistic day, I think I'll come up with a few "I'm so grateful fors".

I'm grateful: my nails are looking better since the Vitamin D kicked in.
it's sunny out.
I have such a loving family.
endless possibilities.

Thats all I got. Wow, I am pessimistic.

Boring Tuesday
I wish I had something more interesting to comment on besides the randomly sucky traffic and the various states of my hair, but it's a slow day. I have successfully spent the majority of it updating good-old facebook after dogging the legitimy of it and the creepiness of my parents generation on it in general.

Sooooooooooo, I got a flyer shoved into my door the other day. (I'd like to say I'm pretty sure you're not suppossed to solicite in my condo-community and everyDAY i have shit shoved in my door I'd rather not get) This was actually from the condo-peeps (you'd think they'd want to down-play the constant chinese food menu's distributed but maybe they have a thing for kung-pau chicken) and it was for a nice community 'Adult' movie night. Now immediately my little eyebrow shot up at the term 'Adult' movie. The last time I sat around with a group watching porn I'm pretty sure it was in a dorm room and I was three sheets to the wind. Of course, dirty mind, I sincerely doubt that's what they had in mind but I also noticed a little foot note on the bottom "*children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult".
?
Well for Fucks-sake, no kidding?! You want to have an 'Adult' movie night where I pull out my favorite R-rated films and yet you are not excluding the under 12 crowd in general?! What kind of show are you running here? I've already learned the hard way you don't watch Wedding Crashers in front of your 3-year old if you don't want them learning phrases such as "Jackass". I get that some people don't have, cant' find, or maybe afford babysitters, but that just means you don't go to the adult-only events. If I had any intention of sitting in some uncomfortable folding chair with community popcorn and voting on a lame R-rated film to watch, I sure as hell wouldn't want someone elses' children in the mix. That kind of makes the 'adult' part mute, null, and void. Might as well cancel group porn night if you're letting in the kids.

Real Medicine

See that right there? I'm going to need lots of that. In my search of such lovely imagery I also found this:


What's that? Chocolate "Hiballs" filled with Scotch and Vodka? Say it isn't so. K HIBALLS from K Chocolatier and Diane Krön are filled with Blue Label Scotch and Ketel One Vodka. Now you are talking. I'll have to go home and carve out the easter bunnys' head and give that little combo a try. Nothing says 'responsible adult' like getting trashed in front of your kid while simultaneously shanghai-ing their Easter candy.

What is my deal this time you wonder? My hair is falling out. Not a metaphoric word-play distress way; a literal comb it and it's still in there when you move your arm away from your body way. Lots and lots of it. This would be the work of an evil steroid known as prednisone. Do not take this drug. EVER. I don't care what miracles it cures, it makes your face fat, and when you try and go off it, all your hair falls out. Ok, maybe not ALL of it, yet, but I've seriously shed half of my volume I swear. I have a scheduled haircut I've been looking forward to but I'm not sure if I'll have any left to cut. Now I have more reasons not to look at the mirror. I was using that hair, I'm really quite pissed that there was no verbal warning of all these crappy side-effects. Googling this drug yeilded many unhappy customers as well. I literally felt sick over their stories.

Now I do feel bad for giving my hair crap over the past few weeks for its' frizziness and non-compliance when it came to styling becauase -sniff- at least it was all THERE. Now I have a new beef.

Dear Gastroenterologist,
How could you do this to me? I feel like a victim. I came to you to FIX my problem. My small problem of gargling digestive issues. You put me through procedures and put me on drugs and took 12 of my vacation days away while I sat in the HOSPITAL. I think I would rather have my old problems back and the not really knowing what the heck it wrong then to have scheduled intravenous treatments, no hair, fat face, AND gargly digestive issues. YOU SUCK. You didn't fix anything!! I'm not BETTER. This is NOT BETTER. This is WORSE. If you had asked me do you want to have digestive issues or be fat and bald I'd have gone with the first one. I think most GIRLS would. I know you are not sporting much hair up there and maybe you don't understand but this is a HUGE deal to me. When Brittany Spears shaved her head at least she still had a normal face. And money for wigs and extensions. I don't think the Hannah Montana wig my 6 year old has is really going to fool anybody. This is BAD. VERY BAD. Thanks a friggin LOT. I hope you get herpes from someone.

This is not proper gym attire. For the most part, I generally don't go to the gym and 'check out' other people. I'm not looking, i'm just working out. I'd like to think the same about you too. However, if you are in a gym, on a machine, sweating and grunting, i'm going to wonder why the heck you are wearing a suit. I'm going to wonder why you have a dress shirt and dress pants and dress shoes on that you are putting bodily fluids into and not changing OUT of when you head back to whereever it is you came from. I'm also going to wonder why the hell you haven't been ESCORTED from the premises for that alone.

Strange-suit-guy lets' call him, did not forget his gym clothes. Normal people when they forget their gym clothes, don't GO to the gym. There is no reason, other than a large monetary bet that you won't do it, that you couldn't just not go that one time. And even if your life depended on you completeing a set of 30 inside your lunch hour, City Sports is but a block away and their tissue t's are a great deal and quite comfy. I can only question your mental capacity when I see you MORE THAN once pulling this little stunt. It's been at least thrice I have witnessed this dude. He just doesn't get it.

Let's move on to shorts-guy. Those shorts are not meant for you. Those shorts are really not meant for anybody not standing on a stage after three weeks of carb-denial, laxitives, general dehyddration, a hefty tan salon package deal, and a bottle of baby oil. No sir. You can stop strutting back and forth and pick something to do that doesn't involve bending your knees or sitting for that matter. Just a mental note, if you can see that your thighs are whiter than paper and your underware tan lines are showing, DO NOT WEAR THE SHORTS.

OMG. I really am not a fan of routine. I think I've mentioned. I like doing something different everyday. Partially why my aquarian soul is almost content with this graphic design gig despite the fact I'm hocking real estate and not Louis Vuitton. Most of the time I am doing something different everyday. Somehow lately though, I have been doing and redoing the same damn thing every single day out of no fault of my own. This displeases me greatly.

Yesterday alone I did 22 fucking eblasts. This morning the same 4 from the same person have to be redone for an unknown reason (they never tell me) and those same 4 had already been redone at least 4 times last week. 4 out of 22 isn't a lot of redoing, but I think maybe one of those was new/original. All of the other were redo's. I can understand/accept the fact updates happen, but that is NOT the case if this crap is occurring on a daily basis. Let's couple that with the fact a corporate online program was established to take this specific task OFF my plate when in fact, it has created MORE work. Super fun. Super fun daily. I digress.

I've also realized I've been on steroids for 90 days. 90 days. That's a long time. Side effects include "redistribution of fat cells". Oh yes, I avoid looking in mirrors because I think I'm starting to look like the fat-Monica they used to make on Friends. My chin is not my chin. I hope to hell this goes away and goes away soon. I should only have about 10 more days on this stuff. I am way to vain (turns out) to survive as ugly or fat. In fact, i'm giving all those with less than average looks or more than average weight a lot of credit for not jumping off something that could kill you on the way down. Honestly, I don't have the mental or emotional strength for people to not be nice to me based on my looks. Sad, shallow, maybe, but the truth. Ok, it's really sad and shallow if I can't accept myself for anything less than i'm used to but why should I? I didn't do this, evil drugs did this (I hate drugs), it isn't me, so why should I even attempt to be OK with it? I really can't cope with not being cute. I can not. That I can accept. Don't get all judgy either, it has been scientifically proven that people are nicer to people that are good looking. This isn't aging, this is worse than aging. This is being changed like playdough inside a span of 3 months. Not cool drug companies, not cool at ALL.

Stairway to Heaven

It's probably a bad sign when in a stairwell the thought crosses your mind to throw oneself down it to avoid work and life in general. Yeah, that's probably not good. Although I did hear that Tuesday is the most stressfull day of the week since we have to catch up on all avoided during Monday's weekend recap. You know I never felt like Tuesday was so bad until I heard that. Thanks radio.

It is a little hard to be cheerfull or optomistic in this economy though. The weather hasn't been helping. Actual, nothing is 'helping' and everyone I know seems to be pretty darn miserable lately. I'm not sure what is going to kick everyone out of their ruts, but I hope it happens soon. Summer has to come eventually and sunshine always makes me feel better. I knew I needed a mental break so although I could not take a full week off, or afford to go to the Carribean or even FL like I wanted, I took a few days and went to see the folks. It's always interesting going back to upstate NY.

I present subject A.


Yes, that IS a full camoflaged truck. And yes, the driver was also wearing full camo gear. The back said something like "Ducks Umlimited" and had stickers of flying ducks all over it. Hot. SExy. Not something you see much around DC now is it?

Aside from that fun encounter, it seems that the gods above like to consistently remind me why I left Syracuse by demonstrating their typical weather patterns from the moment I cross state lines. This trip was no exception. I have heard they've had rather nice weather the past few weeks from my mother, and I knew we were having some nice sunshine and 60's coming our way, but I went NOrth anyways. What did I get? Snow. That's right, snow. I'm not talking a few flakes mixed in with the rain, i'm talking break out your snowbrushes - where did the grass go?- 4 inches of snow. WHATEVER Syracuse. I'm not moving back, OK? Happy? You can take your cheap cost of living and lousy job market and bury it out back under the snowman that never melts. I GET it.

I've also noticed at a few family functions that my family has increased in size without adding people. I also blame this on the general depression cloud that is upstate NY. What did I do all weekend long? Eat. Yep, I think I probably packed on 5 lbs. in 3 days with the Doug's Fish Fry, Dinosaur BBQ, half-moon cookies, and general onslaught of homemade meals. Granted, I wouldn't eat like that all the time if I still lived there, but there isn't much else to do aside from go out to eat.

Although, in contrast, I have heard that southern states are the fattest...so maybe that just blows my theories out of the water...although you do need more calories to survive a heavy winter so..

..anyways, I am looking forward to some sort of lift from this cloud of gloom that just seems to be everywhere. Nice weather please show up and make people less miserable, economy please recover, face swelling please go down, and while i'm at it can I have some insight into what the whole point of life is? It was worth a shot.

In the hole to the Man.

Well, I've made it to Wednesday. Woo-hoo! I am sure it has a lot to do with the wonderful steroid drugs I'm slowly being weaned off, but that euphoria and general optomism is pretty much gone. So is the caffinated feeling that kept me doing a million things a day. On the upside, I actual sleep at night. I've gained back a normal amount of judgement and stopped randomly buying shit and making generally bad decisions. On the down side, I think I feel the 2-month sleep deficit now.

I'm sure that not much has changed in the traffic patterns, but all the sudden I am really stressing out on my commute. It is ALWAYS something lately. Accidents, merging construction, ambulances passing through, broken down cars, you name it. I have found it on my way home and been sitting in non-moving traffic. I'm just feeling very drained in general. I decided I need to get out of this town and take a few days off.

let's check that PTO balance: -7.34 hours. Negative. Nice.

I added up my 2 hospital stints, but turns out I was also deducted for not showing up the Friday AFTER Christmas (thanks Santa) and some other random sick day I didn't know about. Ugh. Super. I still have to get out of here for my own mental sanity so I"m taking 16 more hours this weekend bringing my tally to -23.34 hours. I will then be in the hole until roughly July when I would like to take some more time off. Super. What can you do?

I"m not sure how or why I had this epiphany to take a road trip to my home town. Honestly, it's likely to stress me out even more, I mean we are talking about parents. My always supportive mother who thinks I'm too old to have children, that Girls night out is for whores and hussies, and who throws out my stuff I leave at her house and pretends she doesn't know where it went, the one who was convinced I was sleeping with people before I even lost my virginity, the one who said to my friends "you know she drinks and drives all the time" (?) (!) (no I don't) that one -she will be there. I have asked if she'd be willing to adopt the 80 lb. mutt that is in serious need of an actual yard (she has 2 acres) but she says no. She says no a lot. I must have walked through a secret relm of smoking weed or an opium den in or something when I ever came up with this idea all on my own and then opened my mouth to spread the word. The good thing about traveling 6.5 hours to see parents is:

1. they entertain my child so I don't have to
2. the dogs can run around freely so I don't have to walk them OR pick up after them

That's it. There is only 2. It's a big 2 on my weekend docket though. In hindsight, and I know I have been loving hindsight lately, there are easier ways to relieve the listed 2 stresses above without driving 6.5 hours each way to NY, but, I've made a commitment, and goddam me for following through with EVERYTHING I ever commit to in my life.

I really need to cut that shit out fo-sho.