Wednesday, September 8, 2010

One sure sign I've hit the "tipsy" point

If I can't remember where I last put down my glass, I know I'm tipsy. The harder I have to look for it, the tipsier I am.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Disconnect

I logged on to Facebook tonight and saw status messages from the majority of people I'm friends with saying something like "I can't believe my son/daughter had his/her first day/first day back at school!"

I so cannot relate.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

At least I'm wearing matching shoes

Three o'clock in the afternoon. I just now caught my reflection in a mirror and realized for the first time today that, yes, I am wearing a white blouse and a black bra. Sigh.

I remember changing my mind a couple times this morning about what I was going to wear to work today. When I was considering wearing a dark dress, the black bra would've been fine; but underneath a thin white blouse, well ... even paired with a basic black below-the-knee pencil skirt, my outfit doesn't say "professional attorney" so much as it does "professional whore."

Lovely.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

loving the new clerks, esp. the one who (intentionally? or not? can't tell, but either way it's awesome) threw in a "my cousi vinny" reference in memo

I'm wondering if my office is benefitting this summer from the economic downslide our country's been in the past few years, especially as it affects the market for hiring new lawyers. Because this summer we seem to have lucked into hiring some really, truly awesome law clerks, who probably could've gotten jobs in big, high-paying firms for the summer if only those firms were hiring, and I am just loving them.

The work product has been very, very good so far. I almost hadn't even realized just how much work I've got on my shoulders these days, until I was able to hand off some assignments and then get back very helpful research/analysis/memos/end results. Saves me time. And damn, on top of just saving time, these kids do research above and beyond what I would have done in trying to just make deadlines and address what has to be addressed and shit. It's not always right on point, but there's so much of it that there's bound to be helpful stuff there that I wouldn't have taken the time to find myself. Awesome for me, right? I mean especially since I'm currently dealing not just with my new promotion, but also doing the jobs of two attorneys, since we still haven't hired someone to take my old position yet. It's a fuckload of work, I tell you.

Best of all, it's just so damn nice to have fresh new people, personalities, in the office. I love it. They're so nice, and it's fun to watch them interact with each other too.

Tomorrow I have to leave town at 7:45 am to drive two hours to another town for a hearing, the kind of thing I have to do often but usually do by myself, but this time I'll have a very personable, talkative female clerk going with me, who I already like a lot. It's going to be soooo much better spending 4 hours in the car round-trip with company - - that is, company who is very easy and fun to talk to. It's going to make a day that I would normally dread having to go through the motions on much easier to stand, and probably enjoyable in the end.

And tonight I'm still going on my damn workday, at 10 o'clock at night, just at home now instead of the office, working on an appellate brief that is due Friday. (Shit, Friday? As in day after tomorrow? Fuck. Fuck!) I'm tired, I'm annoyed, and I'm stressed. But I was just reading over a memo that one of the other new clerks prepared for me, analyzing the cases cited by the appellants in their brief, and offering his own opinion on the appellant's arguments. And about halfway through his memo, he starts off a new paragraph by stating that the appellant's assertion that blah-da-blah-da-blah does not hold water.

Maybe I'm letting the late hour and long day get to me, maybe I'm starting to get a little giddy and silly or something, but all I can think about right now is this image I now have in my head of this law clerk's words - the words of this very nice, very unassuming, very polite, I mean super super polite, (he calls me ma'am constantly, automatically and deferentially and almost shyly, and I've teased him about it and tried to break him of calling me that but he can't seem to help it), young law clerk - coming out of Vinny Gambini's mouth. And I'm just imaging this scene in my head, this back and forth between an imaginary attorney arguing this brief and an imaginary judge up on the appellate bench, that goes something like this:

Attorney: Does the appellant's case hold water? Does it? PLEASE! ANSWER THE QUESTION! DOES IT HOLD WATER!?!?!?

Appellate Judge: NO!!! It DOESN'T!!! It DOES NOT HOLD WATER!!!!!!



I know I took the long way around in getting there, but I just love any chance to bring up that movie. So after reading that memo tonight, and having that exact imaginary scene run through my head, I just had to take a few minutes to write this post, mostly just so that I could then post a clip of Vinny Gambini and Mona Lisa Vito:

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

2:00 am Wednesday: to sleep, or not to sleep?

Ok seriously, have we only gotten through two days so far this work-week? Because I swear it should be Friday already.

Apparently, along with a big promotion comes expectations that you work harder. Who knew? Sheesh. I've been staying later each day since my promotion, and sooooo not because I feel like I have to put in face time; b/c I soooooo don't ever feel that need. No, it's because there's just seriously more shit to do than I can get done.

And all this extra work is totally cutting into my goofing off time at work, too. I hardly ever have time to catch up on the latest issue of People or US Weekly online anymore. It's a crying shame, is what it is.


For real though, I actually don't mind the extra busy-ness at work; mostly because I've realized that the hours are passing more quickly in the office nowadays than they used to. There's plenty to do, to the point that by the time I have a few minutes to just sit down and chill and not think about anything for a moment, I realize I'm already halfway through my day, and I'm always surprised. That's good. It also means, though, that there's always something more still to do when quitting time rolls around ... which has me thinking about and doing more work stuff at home in the evenings.

I'm never going to be a slave to work again, though. (The way I was back in the days of my old law firm - where they owned my soul; so not worth it.) So tonight I spent a couple hours working on a painting and watching Dancing with the Stars (what? Pamela Anderson is gone? what fun is it going to be to watch now?). But, of course, thoughts of all the shit that I have to do tomorrow, evidenced by my bulging briefcase sitting atop my coffee table, led me back to work stuff before hitting the sack.

And once I was finally determined to quit that work stuff for the night, shit, it was after midnight already. And I was so not tired. Now here it is, almost 2 a.m., and I feel wired - wired about work stuff, actually, thinking about how I can resolve a few things that are going on - and I have an 8 a.m. meeting in the morning. So now I can't decide: is it better to take advantage of being so wired and having all these thoughts about how to resolve work things, by staying up and taking care of some more stuff? Or would I be better off trying to force myself to get rid of those thoughts and focus instead on the darkness and stillness of the night, and make myself get some sleep? If I go the first way, I might actually take care of some shit that I need to take care of, (might as well do it while you're thinking about it), but that means I'll probably end up either staying up all night, b/c it'll be so close to time to get up in the morning that I'll figure the amount of sleep I might get wouldn't be worth the risk of oversleeping my alarm clock out of exhaustion once I did fall asleep; or, the second way, well, like I said, I'd probably, by the time I actually fell asleep, end up getting only just a little bit of sleep - not enough to be restful, just enough to make me oversleep my alarm and run late for my meeting and still feel grumpy for having a deep sleep interrupted.

Did that make sense? This late at night, it's hard to tell anymore if anything I write makes sense. The bed does beckon ... but the mind will not stop thinking ... about the four meetings I have tomorrow, all of which I'll be leading, or the motion I have to file tomorrow, which is mostly done but still needs to be edited, or the hearing I have on Thursday, for which I am mostly prepped but still will need to spend some time focusing on beforehand to freshen up and be ready for, or the two appellate briefs I have to write within the next month, or the three week trial that starts in mid-June that keeps getting closer and closer and that I have to keep preparing for, or the law clerks that will start next week that I'm co-in-chair-of, (yeah that made no sense, but you know what I mean), or the interviews I need to help schedule in order to find a new attorney to come on board and actually help me out with all this shit ....

.... yeah, ok, now that I've written all that, I'm so, so, so, so totally not going to go to sleep tonight, I've decided. Meeting prep, at the very least, for those four meetings, it will be for the rest of the night I believe ... hey, it's a three day weekend coming up, I can always catch up on sleep then anyway.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Friday, April 9, 2010

cele*hiccup*bration

I took myself out tonight to celebrate my new promotion at work. Nothing big, just decided when I got home from work tonight, while drinking an after-work glass of wine, that I should go out to eat someplace I like for dinner. Even if I was all by myself.

So after hanging out at the house on the front porch a couple hours with the kitty cats, drinking chardonnay and reading a book, I went to a New Orleans-style restaurant near my house (excellent crawfish etoufee, I think that's their best dish, although tonight I had mahi mahi), and sat up at the bar and had myself some dinner and a couple more glasses of chardonnay. (I wasn't the only one eating at the bar, btw; place was packed, more than half the people sitting at the bar were eating right there too).

It was a good place to go on a night like that. Casual, friendly, lively, neighborhood kind of place, with good food and a live band playing bluegrass music. Nice.

By the time I left, I was feeling my wine. Even after that cup of she crab soup and the grilled mahi mahi. I think maybe I'd been pouring my glasses on the heavy side at home before even going over there.

And it's times like this, when I'm feeling pretty damn freaking buzzed but am all alone, that I realize what a talkative damn drunk I am. Because I keep talking to myself, only inside my head, and I can't seem to shut myself up. It's just drunk me, blabbering away all chatter-like, letting loose internally all these thoughts and conversational tidbits I might let loose if there were someone here to hear them. Of course, I do occasionally let those tidbits loose out loud and direct them towards my cats; Pearl, the older, lazier cat, will at least raise her head and look at me in acknowledgment, but she can't carry on her own half of a conversation. I just get the indulgent "ok, I listened, I gave it a shot anyway" look, and then she's back down for the count, napping away, oblivious to my need to communicate with another living soul. I tell her all about my happiness at getting my new promotion, and all the anxiety I have about it as well, my ambivalence about it in general - still not sure if it's such a good thing or not; she listens ok, but as soon as I'm done, she tunes out. "You've booooooooored me, woman," she seems to say when I'm done, as she stretches her long back and rolls into a new position and closes her eyes.

Well, no problem. I'll just pour myself another glass of wine. Only, see, (and this is what had me deciding to write a post tonight to begin with, right here at the end), I think I must be kind of a little too drunk at this point maybe ... because I think I just poured a glass of red wine on top of what was still left of a glass of white wine. Which was about a fourth a glass ... how did I miss that? That's not a good sign.

Worse, though, is that I'm drinking it ... and it tastes good to me. Go figure.

Holla back!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Promotion!

I just got a big promotion at work. Woo-hoo! Feels good. Well done, me! :)

Monday, April 5, 2010

Some say the glass is half empty, some say the glass is half full...

I say, are you going to drink that?

Birthday card from my mom. How appropriate, for us both.

I just bought a 6-pack of Lime Cactus Michelob Ultra.

I feel like such a girl.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

According to my gay, freaky hairdresser, I'm a freak.

Last Friday, on my day off, I spent a couple hours hanging out at my hairdresser's. I was his first appointment of the day, at 10:30 in the morning, and he was a bit slow getting himself going for the day (which was fine with me, I'm that way too sometimes). He gave me a little color, boosted up my red highlights, which took a while; and he gave some foil highlights to a blond girl while I was letting my highlights sit, went back and forth between us, so the three of us - the only ones in the salon that morning - chatted lots about celebrities and the bar scene and the dating scene and gossip and whatnot. You know, the important stuff.

So we got into this thing with Sandra Bullock and her cheating, tattoed, motorcycle-loving husband. We all agreed that Sandra is pretty and cool and nice and funny, and doesn't deserve to be cheated on, especially in such a grossly public way. But then they said that Jesse James is kind of gross, and she should be with someone better anyway. And I had to disagree with them there, at least to a certain extent. I mean sure, it makes him seem kinda gross that he's apparently fucking any tattoed implanted biker chick that comes his way, while he's married. But as far as their initial getting together, I can totally see how Sandra could've gone for him.

He's hot. He's big, he's built, he's tattooed, he has awesome eyes and long hair, and he seems edgy. I think he's sexy. I think he's hot. I would totally fuck him. At least, if I were Sandra when she first met him, I totally would've fucked him. (And apparently he has a big dick, according to one of his mistresses. And I would bet everything I own that he's good at fucking.)

Jeff, my flamboyantly gay hairdresser, and Amy, the little blond dental hygenist getting foil highlights same time as me, totally disagreed with me about the hot and sexy stuff though.

We moved on from talking about celebrities' dating lives to talking about our own dating lives, and we got to talking about online dating services. Jeff doesn't think they work; he hasn't tried one, but he thinks that people who sign up for match.com, for instance, just keep getting paired up with one another, and basically all end up going on dates with and having sex with the same people. Like a 6 degrees of separation kind of thing, only in more of a three degrees of whoriness kind of way.

So I told him about my past experiences with eharmony, and how I ended up dating a couple people from there I really liked and was well matched with, including the hometown guy who I had a pretty good relationship with for a while there. Jeff asked me how many matches I got in general, from the site I mean, and I told him I might get 8 to 10 matches every 2 to 3 days. He said he couldn't believe I met that many people; I told him I didn't really spend much time getting to know most of them, that in fact there were a lot of freaks that were sent my way. "But they matched you with those people, right?" he asked. "Well, yeah, based on questionnaires and personality tests and stuff, but, you know, bad matches are still going to slip through; some people are just freaks, and some people might just be doing that kind of shit as a joke, not taking it seriously, saying stupid stuff about themselves," I told him.

"Um, Sadie," he said, "I think if they matched you with freaks, it's probably because, well, you're a freak yourself. Well, hey, you think Jesse James is hot, so what am saying; you ARE a freak." Amy nodded her tinfoiled head in agreement.

I'd call Jeff a freak himself, in his own way. Which makes me wonder; if he thinks I'M a freak, then what the hell ... when it comes to men and sex, maybe I am.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Most amazing dream ever ...

Last night I dreamed that Brad Pitt gave me a backrub. Mmmm.

In my dream, I was at some fancy event, wearing a gorgeous evening gown. Silver, beaded, backless, spaghetti straps on my shoulders, rich material skimming down my body and flowing and swirling around my legs.

I was sitting on a bench in a packed auditorium, full of dressed-up people, in a row with other women in evening gowns. And all the men in the auditorium were supposed to rub the shoulders of all the women, for some reason. So men started filling in the benches behind the rows of women, pairing themselves up with us. I looked up, and Brad Pitt was coming towards me.

He sat behind me, put his hands on my bare shoulders, and started to massage them. I groaned out loud. I was in heaven. I turned to the woman next to me, who turned out to be my roommate from college, and said "Brad Pitt is rubbing my shoulders!" She smiled and said "Tom Cruise is rubbing mine!" And I thought to myself, "I'm glad my guy's not gay, but I guess a backrub from Tom Cruise is still probably pretty good," but I didn't say that out loud.

I closed my eyes and lost myself in the feeling of his hands on my body. He massaged deep, his hands strong and large, his fingers digging in, warming my body. His hands made their way down my back, his fingers sliding underneath the edges of my dress, gripping my back and massaging all my muscles. God it felt good.

His legs were spread, and he pulled me closer to him as he worked his magic, until my shoulders and head were resting in his lap as his hands moved and massaged my lower back, just above my ass. I started getting really turned on, and I couldn't help but moan out loud.

He pulled me up more, so that my back was resting against his hard chest, and his strong, long legs moved in closer, underneath my own, so that I was sitting in his lap. His arms wrapped around my body, his hands moved to my thighs, and he parted them, pulling up my dress so that he could touch my bare legs with his hands. He began to rub my inner thighs, working his way closer and closer to where they join, and I knew he was going to rub me there too. "Am I going to let him give me an orgasm with his hands, right here in public, surrounded by all these people?", I thought to myself. "Hell yes, I am."

And then, dammit, I woke up! Right then. Opened my eyes, saw the morning light streaming through my bedroom windows, and thought "damn, that was good ... why did I have to wake up? I wanted my Brad Pitt orgasm!"

Sigh. So that was my dream last night. And wow, it was a good one. It just didn't last quite long enough.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Here's To ... Fucking. Shit. I don't know.

Today is my boss's last day in the office. EVER. She's leaving me. I mean, us. Our office.

I am sitting in my own little office right now, waiting for her to wrap up a last couple things, so that I can take her out and drink some wine with her.

And I am trying not to get all sentimental, I mean too sentimental. She's just my boss; she's just leaving work. It's just allergies that have me a little teary-eyed. It's just the wine I've drunk that's making me somewhat emotional. Except, wait, we haven't gotten to the wine yet ... huh.

Dammit. Work's going to fucking suck without her here. But here's to her! God I'm going to miss her.

P.S. I did officially apply for her position today, the one she's vacating in our office, which would include for me, if I were to get it, a promotion, a raise, and the chance to supervise (hopefully, if they were to fill my own position once/if I were to vacate it) another attorney who would work with me. It only took for-fucking-ever for the big boss man to announce that, yes, he is indeed accepting applications from anyone interested in filling the slot she is now vacating. So now that he's finally, finally done that, the application has been submitted. Let the waiting continue commence.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

kids make life difficult

That was my profound realization over the weekend, as I helped my parents babysit my 9 year old niece and my 6 year old nephew. Normally I might not've helped as much as I did, by spending the entire weekend up until now I mean, except that my dad is recovering from heart surgery, and I knew that the two kids plus my sister's dog plus their own puppy would be too much for the two of them. As it turns out, it was almost too much for me, too.

My niece isn't the problem. At nine, she's at least mature enough, even though still a kid, to be polite and well-mannered most of the time, easy to get along with. But my nephew; holy toledo, my nephew...

He's a monster. He's that horribly out of control stereotypical screaming yelling brat that won't listen to a word you say and is out to antagonize everyone often portrayed in movies featuring stereotypical horribly out of control screaming yelling brats that don't listen to a word you say and that are out to antagonize everyone. And I now understand what my sister means when she tells me that on weekends, sometimes she feels like she needs a glass of wine at ten o'clock in the morning and refuses to apologize for indulging in one so early. Especially since that holy little terror wakes up raring to go at five a.m. and never seems to run out of steam.

The most difficult part, for me, was not being able to curse at him, frankly. I mean, when a person gets that out of control, is screaming that loudly, is yelling at you, saying things like "YOU'RE MEAN! GO AWAY! BOO - HA, I SCARED YOU! YOU CAN'T SIT THERE! PLAY WITH ME NOW! YOU SUCK! THAT'S MINE! BE QUIET, I'M TALKING! DON'T TOUCH ME! YOU CAN'T LEAVE THIS ROOM UNTIL I SAY SO!" -- basically trying to drive you completely insane on purpose -- you really, really, really want to yell back, "SHUT the FUCK UP, you LITTLE SHIT!"

Sigh. Maybe this is why it's a good thing I don't have any kids of my own. And now that I'm back home, I'm going to pour a stiff drink, turn on some loud music, and thank God I don't have any.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Ok, I know it's the law and all, but come on ... seriously? Seriously?

It should be Friday already, this week has been so long. But it's only Wednesday. The end of a long, tiresome Wednesday.

And I stopped at my neighborhood grocery store, the one I shop at ALL the FRIGGING TIME, and attempted to buy a few groceries, including a bottle of wine.

And the cashier, some young girl I'd never seen in there before, asked for my i.d. Okay, fine, yeah. But because my driver's license, which granted is quite old now, has started to come apart, with the lamination pulled away somewhat from the card itself, she said she didn't think she could accept it; had to ask her manager. And the manager told her not to accept it, and not to sell me the wine.

Really? Seriously?

I mean, I know it's a law, you can't accept as proof of legal age for purposes of selling alcohol an id that has been mutilated or damaged in any way, and lamination pulling away from the card qualifies as mutiliation or damage or whatever. But I've had a long, long day, working hard, at my job as an attorney, which I've been for TEN YEARS NOW, and THIRTY-FIVE YEAR OLD me was refused the purchase of a bottle of wine at my neighborhood freaking grocery store that I go to all the freaking time?

Were you just WANTING to make me cry?

Kidding, I didn't cry. Accepted it with more graciousness than I fucking wanted to, and just went to the corner quickie mart instead, where they not only know me also, and maybe even better, but on top of that probably don't give a shit, and didn't bother even asking for the i.d. So no harm, I've got my wine, home drinking it now. But still ... SERIOUSLY??????

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

"Sixteen Candles" takes me back to, well, when I was sixt... no, wait, ten; but still, it feels like it takes me back to when I was sixteen ...

"Ted, that's a Rolls Royce!"

"Ted, that's the prom queen!!"

Ted: "I told you guys I was hot."

"Ted, you're not just hot, you're a legend!"

Ted: "Would you guys just take the picture already?"

Man I love that movie. (It's on tv right now, in case you were wondering what brought that on.)

--- "Dammit Ma, I've got my head gear on!"
"Wake up!"
"Where the hell am I?"
"You're across the street from my church."
"You own a church?"

Ok seriously, why do I love this movie so much? Because damn, but I do.

Oh, boy. And I was trying to be so good.

(ok, so the text of this post didn't take the first time ... let me try it again....)

This year I'm sort of co-chairing my office's summer clerkship program. First time I've been this involved in it. I interviewed a bunch of law school students a couple weeks ago, along with another attorney, and we recently conducted a second round of interviews with about half of those students. I'm kinda excited about it, because I haven't been this involved with the clerkship program in the past; so, something new and different to do at work, and it's kinda fun to meet and talk to students. Seriously, we've had some interesting people apply; they actually kind of make me feel a little like an underachiever or something, a little boring in comparison, they've done so many cool things with their lives.

I think I'm a pretty good person to help out with the law clerk program in our office; I'm probably the youngest, or at least one of the youngest, attorneys in our office. So in some ways at least I think I can better relate to students than some of the older attorneys who've been doing this in the past. But I do have to remind myself to be good ... to not, say, take advantage of any cute young male students we might hire. Because, well, ahem, I may have done that in the past. Just a little. Ahem.

At the first round of interviews, I couldn't help but think, though, that one of the young guys totally reminded me of one of our former law clerks. A former law clerk who was also a cute young guy, who I may have, um, sexually harrassed just a little bit at work. (It was mutual though. That makes it ok, right? Sure. Yeah. Right. Of course.) But even though he reminded me of that former clerk, I was thinking to myself "I'm so not thinking of him THAT way, though. Oh no. He's just, you know, bright and interesting and stuff. That's all. That's why I'm interested. For totally professional reasons." Absolutely.

And when he recently came back for a second round of interviews, I was so totally in professional mode. I wasn't able to sit in on the interview from the beginning this time; rather I came in about halfway through, while he was talking to a few other attorneys. And I noticed that he seemed kind of nervous when I came in, the way he was talking to the others. A little ill at ease. Very unlike the last interview, where one of the things that had stood out to me was that he had a sort of dry, smart sense of humor, that he'd made me laugh a few times during the interview. So at one point when there was a pause in the conversation, I steered him back towards a funny story he'd mentioned last time, that had to do with his reason for deciding to go to law school (btw, only person I've ever met who actually had a funny story related to why he decided to go to law school), and I asked him a question about it and asked him to tell the others the story. (They hadn't heard it yet.) And that seemed to loosen him up at least a little, I thought. But it was still kind of hard to tell, since I hadn't been there from the beginning this time.

So after he left, I asked the other attorneys what they thought of him, and they all remarked on how nervous he'd seemed. "Until you came in," they all said.

Uh-oh.

I'm not saying there's anything there, or that I have any inappropriate thoughts or plans or anything, but I can't help but feel like all my good intentions might be just a little bit screwed. Because considering that I was already having, um, certain thoughts about him, and considering my past, well, it doesn't exactly bode well for my good intentions that all 3 attorneys agreed that he'd seemed really nervous in the interview ... until I came in. Hmmm.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Monday, you suck

This Monday morning is off to a terrific start. When I left the house this morning, I totally forgot to pick up some files I'd taken home over the weekend to review for a meeting I have later today; so I had to turn around and go back for them. Got to the office a half hour late. Was already second-guessing the way I did my hair this morning, thinking that the way I curled it and pulled it back and up looked a little old fashioned, which was confirmed for me in the elevator when a woman with really old fashioned hair herself told me how beautiful my hair looked. Then I stupidly stayed on the elevator after she got off and was wondering why it wasn't moving up to my floor, only to realize it wasn't moving because we were already at my floor. Dumb move. My CLE compliance report is due today, I just realized, and once again, I don't know where it even is. (This happens every year; I never learn my lesson.) Seriously, it's March already? Damn. And I'm starting to freak out a little bit because a case I have scheduled for trial next week that I was so sure was going to settle has not yet settled, and if I don't hear something good from the other lawyer by about mid-day today I'm totally going to have to scramble to get my case together for trial, including sending out a stack of witness subpoenas to people with only a week's notice and hoping none of them give me a hard time about it and praying my fucking case doesn't fall apart on me because of it in case I don't get the settlement I thought I would've had by now. And I have another hearing out of town on Thursday this week, and just found out I'll be spending all day on Wednesday interviewing law school students for summer clerkships; there goes my week. Fuck, I hate Mondays.

Monday, February 22, 2010

how sad

I just friended a guy on facebook who I had a major, MAJOR crush on when I was a teenager. That crush started about the exact time I hit puberty and continued forever it seemed. I freakin' LOVED that guy.

And I totally do not recognize that guy in his pictures on facebook. I am looking at his pictures and thinking to myself, "really? THAT guy? THAT's him? No way."

And it's not that he's unattractive. No, this guy on facebook is attractive. He's just so not the guy I remember, regardless. Of course, it IS nearly twenty years later ...

What's happening here? I don't like this getting old shit.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Fuck, Motherfucker!

Holy fucking Christ I just had a little freak-out. Two in the fucking morning and someone's banging the shit out of my front door. Hammering the glass in the little window on the door hard as hell. My heart about near beat out my damn chest it was racing so hard and so fast.

I tried just sitting still in my upstairs bedroom for a few minutes to see if the banging on the door would quit and the person would just go away. I did pick up the phone though, had it in my hand, holding it and waiting to see if I'd need to use it.

Then the rattling started. Rattling door knob, rattling of the brass mail slot in the door. Creepy as shit.

I crept to the top of the stairs and tried to peek down, but too scared to go all the way down yet. But I yelled, loudly, "GO AWAY!!!" And the goddamn knocking and rattling just kept up.

Holy shit did I have to work up my nerve to make myself go down those stairs. Even though the still-functioning part of my brain was telling myself ok, this obviously isn't a burglar, with the racket he's making at the front door. Surely if I yell at him then either (a) if it's actually someone I know banging on my door with a legitimate reason, some kind of emergency or something, they'll yell back and let me know, right? and (b) if it's not, maybe they'll go away if I yell that I'm calling the police, I don't know.

So that's what I did; yell out that I was going to call the police, that is. And dammit but I could see the shadowed outline of the person, tall, tall person, at my door, through the window in the door, lit up from behind by my front porch light. And that just freaked me out too, even though, again, my brain is all "he's not trying to be stealthy here. He's probably drunk or something."

But yelling out that I was going to call the police totally did not work. The guy kept rattling the damn brass mail slot on the door, which was really freaking me out more than the knocking for some reason; just, creepier, you know? So I started thinking, shit I really am going to have to call the police.

And this next part I figured just can't be good for my psyche; do you ever have that dream where someone's out to get you, harm you, breaking into your house or something, and you pick up a phone and try to dial 9-1-1, but you can't make your fingers hit the right buttons, you keep trying and keep failing to call the right number? Well that fucking happened for real. It was so dark in the house, because I hadn't turned on any lights inside this whole time, that I couldn't see the buttons on the cordless phone in my hand, and as I actually tried to call 9-1-1 for real, I couldn't punch in the right numbers. I kept hitting the fucking pound sign every time I tried to press 9.

This whole time I'm still yelling, btw, yelling "go away! right now! I mean it! That's it I'm dialing the police RIGHT NOW!" and this whole time I'm really TRYING to call the police and starting to freak out even more that I can't dial the number right - what if he fucking starts to break in, and I REALLY need 911 and still can't dial the number right?"

Out of panic and frustration I got right up to the door and put my face right there at the window and finally took a good hard look at the person on the front porch, which I'd been too scared to do before - felt safer to keep a distance from the damn closed, locked door - and I can totally tell this guy's drunk. He's standing in one place, but weaving in the air, looks like he's about to tip over in any which direction and fall flat on his face, or on his ass or whatever. And he's young, college age looking, and ok, wearing clothes that look like a college guy who'd gone out that night might wear. And I yell at him again about calling the police, and it's like it doesn't register, he's not even looking at me through the window, more looking off somewhere, like he's, well, off his ass drunk, and still weaving and shit. So I'm totally convinced now that this guy has been out drinking at the bars that are in walking distance of my house actually, that he's out of his mind wasted, and is trying to either get someone to let him into a house that he thinks belongs to him or a friend or something, or has just randomly started knocking on doors. So I take another chance and yell as loudly and harshly as I can so it'll maybe get through to him, "DUDE!!! YOU'RE! AT! THE! WRONG! HOUSE!!!!", and finally, FINALLY, he turns around and walks to the side of the porch and jumps down to the ground and walks off.

I spent the next 5 minutes maybe running from window to window trying to see where the hell he went, but I couldn't catch sight of him again. Down the street a ways, several minutes later, car headlights came on, and a car pulled out and drove off and quickly turned down another street, and I was thinking "holy fuck, I hope that's not that guy, driving a car that drunk," but it was impossible to tell.

So now here I sit in my house, too fucking keyed up and, yes, still a little scared, but now just generally scared of the dark and things that go bump in the night kind of scared now, and I know, I just know, I'm not going to go back to sleep tonight. No fucking way. I'll be listening out for that guy to come back, even though I seriously don't believe he will, I think he finally got that he wasn't where he thought he was and took his drunk ass off to some other place. But fuck that was creepy.

And my frazzled fucking nerves are really not dealing well with this at all right now. Tonight I was supposed to try to get some real sleep, for more than just a few hours, to try to rest some. I've been running on fumes for a few days now. Had an extremely long couple days down at my parents', at the hospital down there actually. My dad had open heart surgery on Monday. He came through it fine, as the doctors keep telling us, but shit, that kind of major surgery just makes you worry. A lot.

I got back to my own home late this afternoon, going back to work tomorrow now, and was already feeling the effects of several days of going without sleep, or with very little sleep, and not eating real meals, just crackers and shit here and there, and way too much caffeine, and generally being worried, just worrying all that time. But you know, in a calm way, just sitting in a hospital waiting room kind of way, waiting on surgery, waiting on surgery results, waiting on post-surgery stuff, then waiting during the intervals of time for when they allow visits in the cardiac ICU, shit like that. A lot of sitting and waiting, and worrying.

My dad's doing well, for someone who had this kind of surgery I mean. I am letting go of that worry somewhat of the wondering if it'll all go okay part, and now just hating it for him that he's in so much pain and in the hospital (though in his own room now, no more ICU), with all that stuff hooked up to him and bandages and all he's going to have to suffer through to let his body heal from that kind of surgery.

But fuck, fuck, FUCK!, this stupid fucking drunk ass motherfucking asshole banging on my motherfucking door in the middle of the fucking night, having to yell at him and him still not go away for the longest time, trying to dial 911 to get the police to come and make him go away, not being able to dial the fucking numbers on the phone because my hands were shaking so hard and it was dark and my fingers wouldn't press the buttons my brain was telling them to press, this is just fucking ... ARGH! ... I don't know what it is; but it's too!! much!! It's just fucking too much.

I'm going to go sit in the fucking dark now and wait for the sun to come up so I can go back to work. Glad I at least got 3 hours of sleep before that fucking fuckhead scared the shit out of me for the night. Fuck.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Lovin' on N'Awlins

So I'm a day late writing this post, but ... can I just say how awesome it was watching the Saints win the Superbowl? Pretty damn awesome.

I've gone to a Superbowl party here and there in the past, and even when I haven't I've at least still tuned in to the game myself at home on the tv. But I've never actually had a team I rooted for be in the Superbowl before, so this was a new experience for me - watching the Saints play on Sunday. But I did live in New Orleans for three years, and damn but I love that city; I mean I love, love, love that city. And I really like football, too. Maybe it's just the Southern in me that was raised on tailgating and drinking beer at football games being as much a part of fall as eating boiled peanuts and drinking beer on the beach is a part of summer, (drinking beer pretty much goes with anything southern, did I mention?), but for a non-sports kind of person I sure am a sucker for a good football game. So all that combined, well, damn but I was happy to watch the Black and Gold win big on Sunday.

So with all that said, I just gotta pay this tribute: who dat!!!!


Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Finally. Jesus.

I never understood the point of having a "don't ask, don't tell" policy in the military. Really seems to me like the only thing that actually comes of it is to put down the morale of military men and women who are homosexual, and who the hell needs that; why do that? Stupid. So I'm very glad to see that it looks like that policy's about to end. It sure wasn't doing any good for us, and probably only made us look like Neanderthals to lots of other countries.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Why I love my state

As The Daily Show with Jon Stewart pointed out so brilliantly last night, South Carolinians don't discriminate when it comes to who they'll fuck. Horses, hot Argentinian babes, poverty-stricken school children who get hungry at lunchtime; we'll fuck 'em all.

And yes, btw, the horse story is true. And yes, it did happen twice. Second time being while he was out on probation after having been arrested for doing it the first time. With the same horse.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Sign of the Times

Over the holidays, my parents kept my niece and nephew, 9 and 6 years old respectively, for several days and nights while they were on vacation from their school, while my sister and brother-in-law were going to work. My parents apparently reached for new things to do at times to keep the kids semi-entertained and under control; one afternoon ended with them taking my niece and nephew on a driving tour of the small town in which they live, pointing out things they thought might be of interest.

One of the things they decided to spotlight on their little driving tour was the first house that they lived in when they first moved to their town. My sister was 3 and a half years old, and I was 3 months old, when they moved to the tiny little town that I grew up in. And their (I should say our, except I have no memory of it) first house in that town was a one-story brick house, neat and tidy and very cute and all but a bit on the smallish side. The house that they bought just a few years later, that I grew up in and that my parents still live in today, is a much older house, made mostly of wood not brick, but much bigger.

Well when my parents pointed out their first house to the kids, and explained that that's where they lived with my sister when she was little, before they moved into the house they live in now, my nephew asked them, quite somberly and seriously, "What happened, did you lose all your money and have to sell it?"

So funny and sad at the same time. Funny because, well, it's just funny that a six year old boy would come up with a question like that for my parents; and sad because with the economy as it's been this past year, which by the way coincides with my nephew being in first grade and attending public school for the first time, we figure he's picked up on the fact that a lot of people are having hard times, and maybe some of their parents are having to move out of their homes because they can't afford them anymore.

And I know I should be more touched by the sad implications than the funny ones in thinking about that story, at least if I was a good person I should be; but I can't help but laugh every time I picture that little kid asking my parents if they lost all their money and had to sell their house. Who knows, maybe he thinks the house they live in now looks more run-down than that newer though smaller brick house; I don't for sure what he was thinking when he asked that question, but he sure was serious about it.

Unfortunately for my nephew, he never did get an answer to his question; as my parents told me this story, and I asked them what they told my nephew, they looked at each other in surprise and said "well shit, we were laughing so hard I don't think we ever did give him an answer."