It’s Friday, and this blessed day could not have come soon enough. UGH! This week has dragged by and I’ve been a tired, bleary mess the whole time. Today is the first day I’ve felt even remotely awake. I started writing a post yesterday but didn’t finish at work, and when I got home I was exhausted to the point of near delirium, and just took a bath and went to bed. I slept like a rock and dreamt that some friends and I met Jessica Simpson at a bar, and she pulled me aside and told me she had a crush on my friend Mike (yes, you, Bullard). Hahaha!

I finished the post today, and here it is:

Ouch, y’all. Daylight Savings hurts. I usually wake up at 6:30 in order to get to work by 8, but now it’s more like 5:30. I know what you’re thinking: I’m not the only one who had to Spring Forward, you’re tired too, so stop being a baby. Well, try this on for size: Yesterday my cousin, who had come from Chicago and was visiting our other cousin in Simi Valley, called to say she had missed her flight out of Bob Hope Airport in Burbank (haha, Bob Hope Airport, Love it) and had gotten a hotel room up there, yet had rebooked her flight for this morning out of LAX. Are you seeing where this is going? Yes, I dragged my sorry ass out of bed at 5:30 (formerly 4:30) a.m, drove up to the farthest reaches of Burbank, picked her up along with her 3-month-old baby boy, packed a year’s worth of luggage plus stroller plus carseat into the car, drove her to the airport, and drove myself to work, where I’ve been sitting for the last seven hours trying to focus on a computer screen, and look forward to three more hours of such fun and joy.

I tried to take a nap on my lunch break. I drove to the top of the parking garage where it was sunny and warm, cracked the windows, and pulled out the pillow and chicken blanket from my trunk (for some reason in high school I purchased myself a blanket with a huge chicken in the middle and then smaller chickens lining the edges. At this point I like it in an ironic way, the way people are wearing 80′s clothes) (Please tell me they’re wearing those clothes ironically) (and also it’s the perfect size and weight for my car naps). I climbed into the back seat, lay down, covered up with the chicken blanket, put the sleeve of a sweatshirt over my eyes, and lay there. and could not fall asleep. I was so tired my whole head burned and I felt shaky and nauseous, but I couldn’t turn off my damn mind! I could not stop the thinking! And I knew I only had a small amount of time to fall asleep in order to get a worthwhile nap, and the pressure was too much. It was unbearable, so when my phone alarm went off, I got up feeling just as bad as when I lay down. OH, and I’m a little concerned because the top of the garage is actually about four stories below the windows of our office, and when I woke up I reached into my pants and scratched my butt (JUST THE CHEEK, MIND YOU. JUST THE CHEEK!), and I don’t think anyone could see in my back window from up here even if they were looking, but I would be suuuuuuper embarrassed if anyone saw. Not that I’m not just telling the whole entire internet right now, should they choose to read this, but somehow it would be worse if someone actually witnessed it.

This morning at 7:30, while driving to work and figuring out the details of the nap I plan to take in my car on my lunch break*, I passed an expensive-looking but ugly car with about 4 people in it. The person I happened to focus on as I passed was a girl around high school age. She was smiling and talking animatedly with the people in the front, probably her parents. The sun glinted off her lip gloss, and I noticed as I passed that her makeup was perfect.

And I was left to wonder: Where do these people come from? When I was in high school, I did not wake up until I was sprinting from the car to homeroom, barely setting my foot over the doorstep as the bell rang, and it was a good day if my skirt wasn’t completely hiked up under my backpack so that my entire, entire, absolutely whole entire panties were exposed as I ran down the sidewalk, through the halls, and from the front of the classroom to the back, until a kind, kind soul came up and stood behind me and whispered, “Marcy, we have an emergency.” Yes, that really actually happened. But anyway, until I started driving myself, I would sit in the backseat, all curled up for warmth, dozing and likely eating and/or spilling a bowl of ceareal, while my mom sped through yellow/orange/red/it’s-all-in-the-interpretation lights and careened around hairpin turns. Makeup was applied in homeroom. Otherwise that half hour sitting in a classroom was pointless, right? Why miss 15 minutes of sleep, then just sit there in homeroom doing nothing? Showers were taken the night before, the snooze button was hit a ridiculous number of times, loud complaints were uttered when forced by a parent to finally sit up, wash face, brush teeth, throw on clothes, and stumble bleary-eyed to the car.

Even now, I do the bare minimum of getting-ready-before-leaving to maximize sleep. I shower and lay out my outfit the night before, I always put on all my makeup in the car, eat breakfast at my desk when I get to work, and on the mornings I do shower, have been known to dry my bangs by cranking up the car heater and leaning over towards it at red lights. Who are these “morning people” who are able to get up and be fed, clothed, and bright-eyed and bushy-tailed before 8 AM? Don’t they get bored on the commute if they haven’t left a significant portion of their morning routine to keep them occupied? Don’t they realize that by a little multi-tasking (driving while applying mascara, for example) they can buy 10 more minutes of precious morning sleep?

Maybe it’s because I went out last night, although not even that late and I only had two drinks, but anyway I just can’t seem to wake up today. Hopefully the lunch hour nap will help. In any case, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I am not, and never will be, a morning person.

* (I have a salad in the fridge so I can eat it before lunch, then spend the full hour in the car asleep. The only kink left to work out is where I will park the car for said nap. The parking garage is far too chilly. I’d like to find a nice spot in the sun so I can crack the window and get a nice breeze without freezing to death. I could go to the top of the parking structure, but then everyone in the building, including all my coworkers, could look down and see me asleep in my car. Not that I care that they know, but I don’t think I could sleep if I felt I was being watched).

This morning, like many mornings, my boss sent an email announcing the presence of doughnuts in the office.  It is always hard to resist because I love doughnuts, but I also do not want to turn into a fatass, so I usually do. (resist, that is).

Well, this morning I was starving to death and had 3 or 4 doughnut holes (holes, mind you, not full-on doughnuts).  Later, a co-worker tried to pressure me into eating another doughnut, but let it be known: I refused to succumb and did not — did not eat another.

Well, it’s evening time and I started getting hungry again about an hour ago, so I went and heated up a delicious tamale.  I assumed the tamale would appease my hunger, making a day-old doughnut seem unnecessary. 

I assumed wrong.

It went kind of like this:

We leave work at 3PM and get to the party at around 3:45.  Scan the room, see nothing on the horizon but potentially awkward conversations. Beeline to the open bar.

Quickly throw back a cocktail while making increasingly less and less awkward conversation with various people at the company.  The awkwardness is directly proportional to the amount of beverage left in our respective glasses.

Find a table and sit down. Finish cocktails.  Beeline to bar.  Throw back another.

Realize we haven’t eaten lunch.  Decide to get food.  Beeline to food spread.

Fill plates.  Head back toward table.  Stop midway and collectively admire our food plates.

"Wow, look how beautiful this food looks on my plate."

"Mine, too.  Look, everything’s perfectly arranged."

"I love how my asparagus falls gracefully over the squash."

"Oooh yes, that really is lovely."

"Look at how my bread is arranged in a perfect zig-zag pattern."

"Wow, that is really nice.  Look at how perfect and round this dollop of hummus is."

"Yes, it really is a perfect dollop."

…..

"What are we doing?  Are we drunk?"

"We must be. Let’s eat before we make fools of ourselves."

Later, a bunch of us took turns taking "prom pictures," and I took quite a few photos of the ladies’ room.  All in all, I’d say the party was a success.

A week or so ago, I wrote a post about my lovely beach-side lunch break.  I looked forward to many happy returns, but the joke’s on me, because now that beach is closed because of this.  Grosssss.  It’s only closed temporarily, but it will probably be a long time before I’ll feel OK about walking barefoot on the sand.

All together now:  EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

Hello, and Happy 2006! I wanted to write a post today that had something to do with the holidays, since we’ve just gone through T-giving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve without so much as a peep about it on this blog.

BUT, First I must regale you with the details of my fabulous lunch break today. First, you must know that the temperature reached a sultry 84 degrees Farenheit today, after having been chilly, gray, and rainy for some time, and second, I accidentally went to the beach on my lunch break. Accidentally because I was looking for Barnes & Noble so I could buy a couple calendars (one planning, one wall) with a gift certificate I got for Christmas. When I clicked for directions on the B&N website, it told me to drive two minutes down Sepulveda and take a right on Rosecrans, when it should have said to take a left. So I was driving down Rosecrans for only like one minute, and suddenly, gleaming before me, was the bluest, most beautiful Pacific Ocean ever, and I said to myself, “Self, Screw Barnes & Noble. I’m going to the beach!” And I did, and it was so warm and wonderful and the air was so fresh, my heart was filled with joy! I took some pictures for you on my crappy camera phone:

Now if that doesn’t make for a great lunch break, I don’t know what does!

Today at work, FOUR of us wore the same exact colors, and only those colors. Burgundy and black. I mean, it’s not like we wear these colors every day. I, for one, haven’t worn the shirt I wore literally in years, because I had lost it and recently found it in the back of my closet. Creeeepy. In this picture, it looks like my shirt is black b/c of my crappy camera phone, but it’s burgundy.

OH, and not too long ago three of us all wore jeans and green/white shirt/jacket combos. Try to pretend this is a flattering picture of me, and that I don’t look like I have a stubby midget torso, a hunchback and two black eyes. Just use your imagination.

Spooky, huh?

In other news, a muscle in my thigh has been twitching all day, causing me annoyance. Also, I’m leaving tomorrow morning for San Francisco, where I’ll spend New Year’s Eve for the second year running. Yippee!

This is likely my last post in 2005, so see you next year!

[11:44] marcymint23: FYI, I just took Advil and Codeine, having already taken 2 Alleve this morning, to try and tranquilize the elves in my uterous that think it’s good fun to rip and tear at my insides.  If you see me behaving strangely or passing out in my chair, can you wake me up? 
[11:44] erin2000: hahaha, yes
[11:44] erin2000: i had that problem on monday.  stupid uterine elves.
[11:45] marcymint23: Gosh, I know!  My uterine elves are SO rambunctious and oblivious to my feelings.

(Screen names have been changed — haha, suckers)

Yesterday was a Frosty Root Beer day.  You may think that is a good thing, but you are unfortunately mistaken. 

A while back my boss sent an email to my department at work asking us to refrain from loudly complaining about our clients after getting off the phone with them.  He said something along the lines of, "If you need to blow off some steam, go into the kitchen with someone, get a frosty root beer, and get it off your chest."  Well, we’re all still making jokes about the frosty root beer comment, and yesterday I needed a frosty root beer like Bob Saget needs a new job that doesn’t involve him trying to be funny.

It started in the car on the way to work.  I was running late, and every lane I chose suddenly became the lane that was completely stopped while cars in all of the other lanes were zooming past me, a-la that scene at the beginning of the movie Office Space. Classic.

I was listening to NPR, which I should never do in a bad mood, and when I heard about the bill congress is trying to pass that involves huge education budget cuts, I got so angry that I could literally feel my blood pressure rising to the level of an old, fat man who smokes 2 packs a day.  It was at this moment that my red light turned green, and the lane next to me began merrily tooling through the green light, while the 3 or 4 cars in front of me just.   sat.    there.   and.   sat.    and.    sat.    and.  sat.    there.  I yelled and moaned in despair and rage, and finally lay on my horn out of dire frustration, and at last, the guy in front decided that yes, he did want to get where he was going, so we could all now proceed through the now-turning-yellow-again light.

At this point in my journey I began to take stock of my situation, and did some analysis as to why I was feeling more irritable than a three-year-old whose 7-year-old brother is repeatedly flicking her in the back of the head, while dangling her favorite doll by its hair just out of reach.  I called up my mental wall calendar, which this month features rainbows and hot air balloons on a sky-blue background with fluffly clouds, all late-70s style.  October’s mental calendar was unicorns on a sparkly night sky, also rather 70s-elicious.  Anyway, I realized that yes, I am in the absolute crux of PMS.  This explains a lot.  However, it seems as though the universe knew that I was already experiencing a monstrous level of irritability yesterday and decided to pick on me like the afore-mentioned 7-year-old big brother, because when I got to work, the annoyance only got worse.

The second client I spoke to was so rude, SO rude, for absolutely no reason whatsoever.  She is one of those people who is determined to always be blaming someone for something, and the whole time I talked to her she kept cutting me off and just being an absolute witchy woman.  When I hung up I shouted, "Y’all, I need a frosty root beer SO BAD!"

After that, things slowly began to improve.  I didn’t get a frosty root beer, but I ate some Halloween candy, which made me feel both better and guilty, and later had a delicious lunch, which boosted my spirits considerably. Today has started out much better, and I have high hopes for a Frosty Root Beer-free weekend.  I’ll keep you posted. (Lucky you)!

One of our clients just called my co-worker "hon."  Let it be known that I hate it when strangers call me pet names, especially "sweetheart."  If you are my relative, boyfriend, or good friend, you are welcome to call me whatever you want (with a few exceptions, of course).  If you don’t know me, don’t call me "hon." It is patronizing and barf-inducing. 

marcymint23 (5:15:36 PM): you know what i just remembered?

Erin2000 (5:15:49 PM): hm?

marcymint23 (5:15:50 PM): remember how cabbage patch kids came with names and adoption papers?

Erin2000 (5:15:57 PM): yes

marcymint23 (5:16:26 PM): i had a doll whose name was Meryl, which I didn’t like, so I actually got an official name change from the Cabbage Patch company with a name change certificate, etc. and chnaged her name to Marilyn.

Erin2000 (5:16:41 PM): shut the hell up.  that is HILARIOUS

marcymint23 (5:16:54 PM): can you believe that shit?  i took it so seriously.

Erin2000 (5:17:04 PM): HAHAHAHA

Erin2000 (5:17:11 PM): i can picture myself taking it super seriously too

marcymint23 (5:17:25 PM): there was also a pledge you were supposed to take when you got the doll. you held up your right hand and swore to take care of it, etc. in front of a witness, and i did that too!

Erin2000 (5:17:33 PM): i’m SURE i did that