I mean to do some cleaning.

I sit down at the computer to turn on some music during.

....and read Tina's blog, my email, pet 007, etc. etc....

ADD, you are silly.

Also: I tried to look pretty for Jeremy today by putting my hair up and wearing a skirt. But... I somehow ended up looking like one of those Mennonite women. Gaaaar! I don't feel like changing though.

This weekend's been pretty good. On Saturday Jeremy & I kicked it old school at Rosati's. Pepperoni pizza, motherfuckers! ...though, now that Lori apparently reads the blog should I curse as much? Dilemma! He also beat me at the Castle. Now I need to teach him a new game until he bests me at that one, too. Muahahahahahahahah!

Yesterday I hung out with my dad. He'd actually been to a Tracy Morgan performance the night before which makes me laugh. My dad's fairly conservative and I didn't see him being that interested in Tracy's humor, but I guess a few things made him laugh at least, which was good. Apparently his woman Judy was more offended than he was. Which I guess it's official, she is his woman now. I got the "She would never try to replace your mother," talk.

We also had noodles! And saw Surrogates.

Work last night was meh, with a string of extra-annoying customers. My work friend Sally says she is now immune to the charms of Karl. I told her, "Yeah.... I've always been immune to that. There's something about a balding man with a ponytail that doesn't exactly rev my engine." She said, "Well there's something about a man engaged to a lesbian that doesn't rev my engine." Ah, Karl. There is no end to your amusingness to me. Apparently the lesbian got her kid from a sperm bank where gay dudes donate sperm for lesbian couples. And the gay guy gave his sperm to a lot of people, so this kid has a lot of half-siblings scattered about that it has play dates with. According to Sally, "This is too kinky for me.... I'm straight." Um, just because Karl likes a gay woman doesn't mean you're gay for liking him. But I digress. It's actually much more gross that you molest your sons.

I dunno.... I hate to be a jerk, I really am friends with Sally (though I've never been a fan of Karl--for reasons unrelated to this) but this whole crazy soap opera makes me laugh.

Mmmm.... brownies for breakfast!

Though... I wake up late enough I can pretend that it's lunch.

Yesterday started out slow but got good. I cleaned the hell out of my place. It's probably a testament to the squalor I live in that even when I do a big clean like that it still doesn't look that clean. And of course I didn't even bother with my bedroom & and the green room. That would've taken longer than I had. But as it is, I managed to clean up a whole other rabbit's worth of fur.

It sucks that I let things go this long; I really need to learn to pick up after myself. And I wish I had enough energy to clean the stuff up I previously left around. Oh well.

Anyway, the day got better when Jeremy came over. He is the creator of the aforementioned brownies! I made him watch You and Me and Everyone we Know, and he really liked it (as does anyone with a heart). Someday I'm going to talk him into back and forth forever.

Yesterday was awesome, I got to see Jeremy again for the first time in a long while. I ended up being over there like 12 hours... it felt like 2. He ended up having to feed me twice. I feel like I've hooked him on Ben Folds now. He, in turn, played Fur Elise for me whilst I was using the bathroom (classiest dump EVER). I judged him by the books in his bookshelf (Harry Potter! Boo!) and chastised his roommate for going around shirtless.

Right now I am eating a bagel. True story.

I say... there are few things nicer than driving in my car on a beautiful fall day, windows down, blasting the Modest Mouse. I wish I had a yard and had hung out there, maybe I would've gotten more nice weather and Modest Mouse than just the car ride to work. Still, considering how much I hate my job, any day I can be driving to work and not die a little inside is a victory.

Work was pretty alright. No jerks, just the requisite minimum of stupid people. Thurs & Fri are usually my least favorite days because my buddies don't work them, but today ranks up pretty high because I learned of the existence of one agent, "Richard Dong." Yes, my wonderful company hired a guy named Dick Dong. And it was one of the highlights of my day.

Also, I'm happy TV is back again. It's so weird, before hulu I had managed to wean myself off of TV fairly successfully but I'm addicted again. One of the new shows, Community, was really really funny for a pilot. My favorite exchange (forgive me I don't know characters names yet):

Professor: I'm a professor, you can' talk to me this way!
Greasy Lawyer: A six year old GIRL could talk to you that way!
P: Yes, because that would be ADORABLE!
GL: No, because you are FIVE year old girl, and there's a pecking order.

Haha Tina just linked me to this and it made me laugh.

Bleh....

I'm getting tired of all the stupid work meetings they make me do on my day off.

Today I had to meet with my mentor in Subrogation. I'm not really mad at her, because I don't think she realizes it's my day off, but it seems like we always have our meetings on Weds. But I don't get paid for it, and often I am doing something on Weds because it's my day off and no one on earth can ever hang out with me at the time they're free, because they all have regular schedules. I mean--I guess the regular schedule people aren't affected by a lunch meeting on Weds like this was (I kind of forgot that the other day when Jeremy asked me to hang out and got really angry that I had this meeting to go to instead, but then I remembered that he would be working that day anyway), but like, for whatever reason my dad never wants to hang out with me on days I work (even though I'm free before 4 and he is retired and always free) so Weds seems to be our day we hang out a lot. So... kind of annoying.

But worse is the fact that I do all this stuff so I can get promoted. But I'm never going to get promoted. I feel like I'm even losing progress.... there are promotions I applied for a year ago that I at least got an interview, and now I'm not even getting that.

Anyway, another annoyance is the Toastmasters board is always trying to make me meet on Weds evenings. They wanted me to do it again today but I already had plans with my dad that I made months ago. I begged them to at least alternate, because I always have plans Weds evening, but they were like, "so and so can't come any other time." Well, I can't go every Weds. Or even most Wednesdays. Again, this is unpaid. And board meetings are annoying anyway. Everyone's all hardcore like this is a cult and we need to make people join and make them talk. I'm like, "Hey, if we were low pressure more people would join, and then they'd talk when they feel comfortable." That's how I did it.... I joined to get an hour off the phone every two weeks, and I didn't do much at first, but now I've done a lot. I'm one project away from my CL, a few months away from my ALB, and only four projects away from my CC. I will soon have my own alphabet. So maybe...... don't pressure people. I don't get why they never schedule these meetings before or after the regular toastmaster meeting, when we're obviously all going to be there anyway.

This is making me laugh my ass off....

Shit My Dad Says

Forgive me, avid interwebbers, if you've seen it already.

Bleh.... can't sleep. I really wish I could turn my mind off the way a lot of people seem to be able to do. Mostly I'm thinking about what Josh is angry about me for. Or rather, wondering what it is. I had thought it was over, because I apologized to him like a month ago, but what I hadn't realized is what I apologized for wasn't what he was mad at me about. Maybe I'm just particularly dense, but I really don't know what I did half of the time.

...I thought typing out what was bothering me would help but I dunno. Insomnia's a bitch... sleep is my one escape from my worries (not just this, I'm a natural worrier about everything) but when I have a lot of them it refuses to come, like a Catch-22. Oh well. I did take some sleeping pills. They'll kick in eventually, I guess.

haha.... I Love Patrick Rothfuss

This was orig. an email to Tina but I find it completely hilarious so everyone, enjoy:

This was orig. an email to Tina, but I thought you would find it amusing too:

Tina: I had a crazy dream last night.

I dreamt that someone came up behind me and was groping my breast region. And I was like, trying to get him to leave them alone, but not like, alarmed as I would be if this had happened in real life. But then, I SWEAR TO GOD, whoever it was was like, "Yeeeess! I've touched your booooobs." In THIS EXACT VOICE.

So creepy.

Anyway, this was one of those dreams within a dream, so I like "woke up" and immediately called you to be like, "Tina, I had the weirdest dream." But I wasn't like at home, I was like, working at Borders again and it was Christmas time and for some reason they were making us stay overnight because we were so busy. And your reply was, "Sounds like an HR problem." And I was like, "What the hell does that mean?" but you had hung up already. But then, I realized you meant someone probably really had groped me instead of it being a dream, so I spent the whole rest of the dream trying to find out who there had groped me. True story.

So.... I'm kind of annoyed at my neighbors right now.

I didn't go into it on here before, but yeah, I backed into their car again. Our parking lot sucks and I suck and so I did it again.

Last time, they like, insisted on going through my insurance even though it was a tiny scratch. I wanted to pay it out of pocket so that my rates wouldn't go up, but they filed it anyway. Oh, plus they go to this hideously expensive shop. The estimate I was shown LITERALLY says that it took $8 bucks worth of parts/paint but the labor bumped it up to $300+ But hey, it's my bad, I went along with it, whatever.

So this time, I wrote them a check for like $350 and gave it to them with the note that's like, "sorry I hit your car again." Thinking, "hey, if they have the money already they won't try to go through the insurance." And on the note I put like, "Let me know if it's more than that." I didn't think it would be, the scratch is not much bigger but I guess the shop estimated like $420 or something. Fine. Whatever. But I wrote the check out to the shop directly so that they wouldn't just paint it themselves for $8 and keep the rest for themselves. I scratched their car, I'll pay to fix that, but not for them to buy a big screen TV or something on my dime.

But after I wrote the check, a few days later they give it back to me with a note that's like, "Hey, I am not going to have time to get the car fixed for awhile and I don't want to have to keep this check sitting around that whole time can you just write it out to me?" I gave them the check back with the lie, "Well I just ran out of checks and it's going to take awhile to get more." This is a BLATANT lie because it was like, check #11 or something, by the way. But I don't want be like, "Hey, I know what you motherfuckers are trying to do just take the fucking money."

So a few days later (tonight) I get it back again with a note that's like "that's okay, we'll wait." Fuck you, man. I sent you an obvious lie for a reason. So I sent it back with a note that's like, "No, it is REALLY going to be awhile." I think if they do it again I'll make some dumb note that's like, "My insurance company says it has to be this way."

Oh the other thing that pisses me off is I'm ALWAYS slipping these notes under their door, because I don't want a random person opening it and getting the check. It has my routing number and account number and all that shit. But they ALWAYS tape it to my door while I'm at work. Anyone could open it.

Anyway..... up until then my day was alright. So that's good.

Man, I think I've mentioned it before, but: Sally who I work with is creepy with her children, she like grabs their butts and talks about their levels of hotness.

So today she said, "It was weird, last night I came home, and my son was in his clothes on top of his bed."

I said, "Maybe it was to foil your plans for molesting him."

Then... "Which one was it?"

She couldn't help but smile, "The one with the really good butt."

I also kind of felt bad for her, apparently people at work have been hitching rides home with her, only they don't actually live near her and it puts her way out of the way. The one is the blind guy I hate driving. I sort of halfheartedly offered to do it for her instead, as I have no real need to get up early in the morning (whereas she gets off work at 2am and then has to like, work at her second job at 7am or something), but she said not to. The other is this lady (who wasn't here tonight) who actually lost her license due to some drunk driving. Which.... I feel like she deserves what she gets for drunk driving, but I understand why Sally doormatted it, and just does it. I loathed driving the blind jerky guy home but never really got the courage to be like, "Hey, you're a dick, I'm not doing favors for you anymore." I just pretended I was busy. Though, I have to say, if I were in Sally's position (the lack of sleep) I think it would be enough for me to man up and tell both of them to go to hell. But... I dunno, sleep is extremely important to me, I know a lot of other people who can get by on less.

Things I need to do:

clean
clean
clean
clean
clean
clean.

So, I hung out with my dad and sister & her family yesterday. The 'Phew made up some awesome jokes.

Q. Why did the duck cross the street?
A. He wanted to get hit by a car

Q. Why did the witch make the train come to life?
A. She wanted to make a robot train

There were more, but it was hard to remember them all, they were all so awesome.

This was orig. an email to Ryan, but I just need everyone to know how comprehensive my love of buddy cops and finding relationships like that in my own life is:

OH PS Reading about buddy cops on the blog also made me realize I have a buddy cop at work, and it makes me SO FUCKING HAPPY I can't even tell you. In this case, I am the one too old for this shit because he is ridonkulously younger than me (I told you I work with 18 year olds) but we're always working on projects together and the other day I really felt the buddy cop vibe with him. Complete buddycopdom (not that I don't have elements of the buddycop relationship with others) seems to require:

1) we work on something together. Though I didn't know it at the time, there was a guy who was my reporter all the time at TV-10 who was totally buddy cops with me, even to the point that we had to ride around in the same car all the time. This guy reminds me of that guy.

2) When we're around a third person who clearly thinks we are insane and/or complete idiots, and that happened the other day. It is cemented: I have a buddy cop at work.

I feel like I also have elements of buddycopdom with Todd who sits next to me at work too. Again, I'm pretty sure the people who sit around us think we are idiots.

I dunno, complete buddycopdom is something special... it only ever seems to happen with dudes, but I'm never actually attracted to them. Most of the time I'm not even friends with them outside of work. But somehow..... really nice to have.

So I gave a speech at Toastmaster's today. I feel like I do better when I don't rehearse, actually. Though... maybe that's laziness. Anyway, I did alright. I spoke about dinner with my sister not too long ago (posted the story on Aug 22) and everyone thought it was pretty funny. Kids do, indeed, say the darndest things.

I'm 6 out of ten speeches to be a competent communicator! 1 project away from being a competent leader! A few months of doing what I'm already doing to an Advanced Leader Bronze. Suck on that, world!

So my dad stopped by unexpectedly today. He wanted to look at my car; I have a busted tire. Thankfully, it wasn't slashed again, I ran over a screw, apparently.

I got up the courage, and asked him if he's dating Judy. His answer, "Kinda maybe sorta." Apparently he thinks they might be but nothing's been actively discussed. He says that at his age, and with his family's history of Alzheimer's, not to mention the fact that "I look in the mirror and I haven't gotten any better looking over the years," he's not sure why anyone would bother. I pointed out my grandpa and his girlfriend are even older. Anyway, it's all good, whatever they are to each other.

This week should be good, I took Thurs & Fri off as a whim so I'll have a block of 4 days free after Tues. Also, Cash for Clunkers is almost over, thank god. We've gotten a million calls about it, and half the time we can't even help the person and they get angry. Tomorrow and then done. I mean... we've been in queue for a long time now, so maybe we still will be even after all of this. But hopefully less in queue.

So.... on OKCupid, under "What I do on a Friday Night" I have:

Counting the pile of dead babies in my garage. It's actually quite time consuming, because I'll stop to masturbate and lose count. Plus I don't count very well anyway, so its this whole big frustrating thing.


And this guy instant messaged me:

so is everything in ur profile true....even the what i do on friday nights? :P

hahah man I feel like I'll disappoint you
but no, the state took away my dead babies
now I just use dolls with the eyes goughed out
gouged, even

i was concentrating more on the masturbating thing lol
no dead babies is good

nah, I can't get hard anymore now that they're not real babies


......and then he stopped replying. I wonder why.

I had some good times with my sister's family tonight. It was her birthday on Mon, and I missed the family get together last Saturday (they didn't tell me anything about it until Fri night and I didn't feel like changing my plans at that point, then my plans did change anyway, but I didn't feel like doing the family thing anyway at that point). See.... her kids can be nightmares and sometimes: I'm just not in the mood.

But tonight was awesome. 'Phew Harder (about 2 years old)'s diaper leaked, so they needed to change his pants last minute, and none that fit him were clean. So he had pants on that were a little big. We go out to dinner, and my sister and I were busy ordering, and The 'Phew (about 5) starts freaking out about something. We turn around, and 'Phew Harder has pulled his pants down and is walking around the restaurant with them around his ankles. My sister and I are laughing crazy hard. The guy at the counter is clearly not amused.

So we sit down and are eating. About 1/2 way through the meal, the 'Phew announces, "My daddy made me smell his butt." Again, we all start dying laughing, while the 'Phew keeps earnestly trying to convince us, "He really did!" This goes on for nearly the rest of the meal.

Then, 'Phew Harder finishes before everyone is done, and wants to run through the restaurant..... with his pants around his ankles. He manages to do it several times. the 'Phew insisted on narrating it as well, "Mommy! He pulled his pants off again! Now he's running!" 'Phew Harder was making us laugh so hard that the 'Phew started to try getting his pants off to get the same laughs, but my sister managed to convince him not to.

Of course, later, when we got to their house there were the inevitable hissy fits or whatever. The 'Phew is extremely bossy and gets mad if you don't do everything he says, and 'Phew harder is extremely moody and will get mad for no apparent reason at times. And my brother in law gets extremely angry at them, and it's a whole big thing. But at least I got some laughs out of it.

In other news, I am now fairly sure that my dad is dating a lady named Judy. My orig. suspicion came when he told me she was coming to his house to help put things away (he'd had to take a bunch of stuff out of his closets because they were being painted, and was putting it all back) the other day. I mean.... you have to really like someone to help put their shit away, right? Also: he's been playing golf with her a lot. And he HATES golf.

So now that I was alone with my sister's family, I decided to inquire if they knew anything about this Judy. I said, "Hey, is dad dating a lady named Judy?"

My brother in law was immediately like, "HA!" and my sister was like, "Don't give him more ammunition!" Apparently they had been arguing whether or not dad's been dating this woman for a little while now. They didn't know the closet thing, but apparently my dad's been hanging out with her all the time and telling them stories his hanging out with her. According to my brother in law and his friend Nick, "No guy will do all that stuff with a lady unless he's interested in her." According to my sister, "You know dad! He's a friendly guy, and he's bored a lot." Her defense about the closet thing is, "She's retired and widowed like dad. She's probably just bored." Dude, I don't care how bored I am, I'm not helping clean someone's house for them unless we are super duper close. I didn't even help my own dad put his stuff away! Though--I was sick at the time.

Anyway, it seems fast, but if he's happy I'm happy for him. The only thing is, since her name is Judy, I can't get this song out of my head. She's not that kind of girl, booger!

So here's a review of the Time Traveler's Wife. No one probably cares, but I'm itching to get it out of me.

So I had expectations, because I read the book. I expected something wonderful.

But I also know there are very few things based on a book that are as good as the book.

Anyway, the basic premise of the book is that there's a guy who time travels. But it's not a scientific advancement, it's a genetic affliction he has. I call it an affliction, because it's completely involuntary and causes him quite a lot of trouble, inconvenience, and even mortal danger at times. For whatever reason, the time traveling often takes him back to places or people that are important in his life. One of these places is this meadow where his wife grew up. So for her, when they first meet, he's like in his 40's or something, and she's 6. For him, when they first meet, they're more even ages and he has no idea who she is though she's known him as a semi-regular fixture in her life since she was a child.

It's not a science fiction novel. That is, it's not written like a science fiction novel, and they keep it in the "literature" section, not the science fiction section. And I know tons of people who wouldn't be caught dead reading sci fi who love this novel. It's won tons of awards, has been a huge bestseller, etc. etc.

Anyway, I don't really recommend seeing it to anyone, now that I've seen it. It's fairly faithful to the original work, in that they didn't add anything bad. But it's so.... shallow. There's no real reason to like or dislike the characters, or for the characters to even be together, except "destiny." But while the book does say that things can't be changed or prevented when he's going back in time (such as the car accident that killed his mother), it doesn't act like they're together because they have to. It is the other way around, he is drawn to her past because he already loves her in the present. And they have personalities, so you see why they love each other. I dunno, I'd hoped it'd be somewhat more like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind... I felt like those characters and their unconventional/tragic love story were fleshed out, so I thought it was possible these characters and their unconventional/tragic love story could be fleshed out. But... maybe it's just better as a book.