Caterwauling

Shan called it this morning, and damn it, she called it right.

I’d checked in with her to say hello around lunchtime, and she remarked that she had a funny feeling that, like when I went on vacation to Pittsburgh, my useless supervisor Demure would be on the loose, wondering where I was, as I had a pseudo-personal day yesterday and spent most of today at the print shop.

And sure as shit, almost an hour ago, Shan called to tell me that, indeed, Demure approached her to ask where I might be. Shan was annoyed because she was late for a meeting and was scrambling to get her own stuff together. But we wondered, can’t my supervisor keep track of my work schedule, given that I am out of the office two days every month around this time? Although Shan is more than happy that Demure goes to her and not to Cruise Director to ask where I am, she brings up a good point. At any rate, Shan said, “If you’re worried about her, why don’t you call her on her cell phone?”

Demure said no, she’d just wait to see if I showed up at work tomorrow.

When I supervised Incoherent Twit, I gave her a half hour before I found her ass on the days that she was AWOL. Not that I could have cared whether Twit lived or died, but if I didn’t know where she was, I found out fast.

To help me, Shan offered that even though yesterday was my “birthday buck” day, I was in the office for a few hours. And even though Shan knew perfectly well where I was, she suggested that perhaps I was tending to newspaper-printing issues, just like I was doing yesterday. Demure had assumed that I had dealt with the printing while she was out the week before, so she called in the hounds for the day.

You know, Demure has a schedule of what my deadlines and out-of-office activities include. And today is clearly marked “press day” on my yearly schedule.

So, I was bitter but I left a VM for Demure, saying that the paper had just gotten finished and that it was senseless for me to come into the office for an hour, so I was knocking off a bit early. Besides, I mentioned, I was in during my vacation time yesterday, so that should more than make up for it. I called under the guise of checking in to see if anything was going on, but she never picks up her phone. *whew*

I’m certain that Demure is going to start micromanaging me more than ever after this. Shawn said maybe I should just be nice and polite and check in more frequently, even when I am in the office, just so they can feel like they’re doing their jobs. Fuck that — I cherish what little independence I have left, and I’ll be damned if I have to lick dick any more than I already have to. Demure is, unquestionably, threatened by me, because I officially have no need for her intervention — I imagine that she has to justify her job by reporting my activities to Cruise Director. She can, of course, be helpful to me — when I opt to go to her with questions instead of finding out the answers myself, but oftentimes, she’s the middleman who conveys info back and forth between the exec and me.

I am so tired of working for someone else. This is my year — I just know it. This is the year when I break free of ridiculous employers and their micro- and mismanagement. I never fail to come through with the paper, yet she’s always suspicious of what I’m doing and always wants to intervene under the guise of being helpful.

And for the record, I had e-mailed her as well as the exec last week to say that I wanted to take a personal day yesterday, because there was nothing for me to do at work until press day today. What part of that message didn’t she understand?!?!

Use.Less!!!

Today is press day for the Veggie Patch Gazette. I swear, the only days I look forward to going to work are when I go to work offsite, so I don’t have to deal with my vegetable garden.

I was in at midnight on Memorial Day, in a panic about possibly sending the wrong copy (i.e., the outdated server copy) of the paper to the printer, but I gave ’em the right one. I did have to fix a couple of corrupt PDFs, but that took all of 10 minutes. Unfortunately, I had made a full PDF for Cruise Director and Demure of the server copy, so I had to make a *good* copy and forward it — timestamped 12:22 a.m. In addition to the promised litany of Cruise Director’s comments when the thing comes out, I can certainly expect my office hours to be on the agenda, too.

Tiff said I must be dedicated to fly to the office at midnight on a weekend in my jammies, but damn it, I needed to be able to sleep!

Although I had taken yesterday as a personal day, I had to go to the Veggie Patch to pick up the printing checks, to the tune of $50K, that were a week late. That’s good, ’cause we wouldn’t have a paper without them! But it sucked to have to go into Club Medicated when I didn’t have to.

While I was there, I checked my VM. Turns out Cruise Director had ripped Ad Angel a new one over some decisions the layout guy and I had made with ad placements. Topping the list is that I ran a paid ad twice, when all he wants are his precious house ads run all through the rag. Unbeknownst to him, I had depleted all of the house ads — even the backup ones I had requested to be made for my convenience — so I asked Ad Angel if she minded if I ran an outside ad twice. She’d said OK.

So now that she’s involved in this cyclone of stupidity, she’s making the thousandth plea to Cruise Director and Graphics Goddess to have more house ads in more sizes at my disposal. I reminded Ad Angel that the last time I put a house ad into an empty space in the paper, I couldn’t sit down for a week, after I got my ass chewed out for running a dated ad. That’s the problem — all the house ads that have previously run have dates for special offers on them. So, effectively, I am damned if I run a house ad and damned if I run a paid ad for free — even though the latter makes our advertisers happy and thus more likely to send more business our way. But I digress.

I am probably gonna hear about it, too, that I ran a two-page ad for one of our rivals as the center spread. Ad Angel had e-mailed, asking me to avoid that at all costs, but after we added a bunch of pages and goofed with the layout, I flat-out forgot the request. Personally, I figure that our rivals will be happy with that, which may just make them more inclined to toss some money our way in the future. But Cruise Director will hit the roof. I’ve been warned.

I was so annoyed at the whole ad situation. Nobody cared that I was cutting paragraphs out of stories and doing last-minute interviews (per Cruise Director) on production day — my adrenaline kept me going, but unfortunately, my head can only hold so much information, and certain details escaped me. Luckily, they don’t know how many errors I made on the print order as well as on a couple of files that I sent to the printer, or they’d really have my ass. The good thing about the printers is that they are working hard to earn our money, so they work with me and help me to get over the glitches quickly and quietly — but at work, when you screw up (even a lil bit), your ass is hung out to dry and your ego is sent packing.

I snarked to Ad Angel that I thought workplaces were supposed to be learning environments. But yet no matter what I do, it’s wrong and the whole world feels Cruise Director’s wrath when it isn’t what he envisioned it to me. He was editor of his college paper (100 years ago) and while yes, he does understand my job better than anyone else there does, sometimes I feel like he just doesn’t get it (like when he asked me to spell out New York in a headline — which is a bad journalism practice!). And then he makes comments about the photo quality as well as who is in the photo (i.e., can we cut a particular person out of the shot — when that person was the one who sent the goddamn photo!). Ergh. I could go on. …

Unrelated, I had an eye exam yesterday, as my glasses have bit the big one, and it’s not even like it’s been sunny so that I can wear my prescription sunglasses when I’m driving. I have my mangled frames taped up so that the left lens doesn’t fall out. 🙂 I’m such a dork. LOL. But I did pick up a new pair of glases, as well as a year’s supply of contacts — both of which will be ready in 10 days. Meanwhile, I am attending “Contact Lens Class” on Monday morning, to teach me how to not poke my eyes out. Heh — I’m so friggin’ uncoordinated, I have no doubt that I will be bleeding out my eye sockets in no time!

I totally forgot — my birthday present to myself is an emerald ring set in white gold. The story was bizarre — I had been traipsing around Landmark Mall with Shan, looking at jewelry and bemoaning the expense of emeralds as well as the fact that they can’t be set in silver because the stone is too hard and the metal is too soft for the two to ever work together. Lo and behold, I suggested we go into an upscale jeweler so that she could get a ring guard for her engagement ring, and so help me, we saw my ring — it was set in white gold and it was on sale too! So yay, I have my first emerald in a silver-looking band — and it’s my birthstone too. I promised Shan I’d give it to her daughter on her 18th birthday (because by then I hope to have upgraded a wee bit!). Now to just get the kid out of the womb — can’t wait till September!!!

The newest instance of Gorejacking is alive and well for “American Idol” fans, as they want the votes they inadvertently cast to a Kentucky church’s voice mail box to be added to the 24 million-plus votes that did count in determining the ‘AI’ finalist.

Seems that nearly a quarter million calls were misdirected during the voting process, which would have possibly pushed Clay Aiken through to “AI” status, not Ruben, per this story.

Some folks are speculating that people were hitting the “Q” key instead of “O” when dialing the toll free “IDOL” numbers for their favorite singers.

Funny how nobody caught this during the other two months that the show was aired live.

Look, Clay rocks socks, and he will always be my favorite contestant, but let it lie, people! Same with the last presidential election — I wanted Gore to win, but the whole recounting business left me drained and wanting somebody, anybody to have won, just to be done with it. Suppose there is a recount, and Clay is in fact the winner. So what? Honestly, I don’t care. Show’s over. And if people are dumb enough to misdial and not try again, that’s their own fucking fault.

Cripes, I sent text messages to the wrong numbers, and I was told it was incorrect, so I did it right the next time. Likewise, these callers were reaching a church’s voice mail — did they think God was tabulating the results?!?!

Thanks to Shawn for this gem. 🙂

Fini.

Dave and I made it through all six of our “Nightclub Dancing” sessions practically unscathed, except for the few minor injuries I inflicted upon him tonight. 😉

We actually had to dance for the instructor and our peers, not necessarily for grading but to show what we learned. Dave has this favorite step that we do (it’s the most difficult of the moves we learned — damn overachiever. lol) that the class was exceptionally proud of us for doing when it was our turn to do our little showcase. I was surprised that, for perhaps the first time, I actually *got* the steps right. 🙂 I guess I did learn more than I thought I did, but as I have a complete inability to concentrate on anything and a bizarre addiction to perfection, I get kind of frustrated with myself when I feel like I can’t pick things up perfectly. But I did okay … and maybe even more than okay. 🙂

As we were leaving, I gave my business cards to Mike and Stephanie. They seemed happy to stop and talk for a second, and I hope that enthusiasm carries over if ever they revisit my info so that they will actually call or e-mail. 🙂 They are young and fun and seemed like they would be cool to hang out with. I’m probably too much for them — I as usual was the bigmouth and the class clown, so here’s to hoping they aren’t glad to be done with seeing me every week! Heh. They say everytime a door closes, a window opens. Fuck that — the door closed and I kicked it down!

This was an awesome class — I enjoyed absolutely everyone who stuck with it (and I’m glad a few people dropped out — like the domineering asshole who kept criticizing me for supposedly screwing up the steps, when he was in fact leading me incorrectly and I had to lead him instead). Deirdre and Debonair Gary didn’t make it tonight, nor did Bonnie, but I will have to drop Deirdre another note so that I can cultivate our little network.

So, all in all, this entry is less an ending than it is a beginning, I hope. I met some incredible people, and I got a chance to really get to know Dave outside of our usual online bantering. I learned some new dance moves, and I proved to myself that I could actually apply myself to something and actually stick with it for more than 15 minutes without getting bored and giving up. That’s a big thing for me — I don’t concentrate well, let alone commit to anything. Hell, I surprised myself on a number of levels, and it’s difficult to surprise me because I’m always looking, always waiting for the next curve ball.

At any rate, I will think about taking another dance class. Someday. Maybe. 😉 Till then, I bid Bravo! and Brava! to the other survivors in the class. Tonight, I am hanging up my dancing shoes … and taking a nice long warm bubbly foot bath in celebration!

Already high and delirious on my birthday morning yesterday, I decided to risk some rejection and call Brat.

And rejection is exactly what I got.

When I called, the phone rang four times. As it was Sunday morning, I figured he was sitting around, watching NASCAR with the remote in one hand and the cell phone in the other (I’ve witnessed this phenomenon). After the fourth ring, it sounded like he picked up and immediately hung up. Now, I can make all kinds of excuses — VM was acting funky, he was on another line, his doorbell rang (the doorbell connects to his cell phone), etc. etc. — but I didn’t even come up with those until just now. At the time, I simply assumed it was my two-button trick — click on, click off … no annoying VM to listen to.

I waited about a minute or two to see if he would call back — the beauty of cell phones with Caller ID (which I know he has) is that you can just hit a button and call your most recent caller. He didn’t call.

So I text-messaged him: “Aren’t you going to wish me a happy birthday? 29, baby!”

I haven’t heard a peep from his camp.

I’m somewhat confused by the lack of a polite “happy b-day” return message. Granted, I know I was kind of commanding him to wish me one, but knowing him, he’d forgotten about it anyway, and damn it, I have every right to want — and expect — to hear a good wish from him on my day. On his latest birthday, I had signed the guestbook on his website with a simple, “Happy 26th!” which actually prompted him to e-mail me and thank me for remembering his special day.

Was I so wrong to want the same in return?

Why, why, WHY do I bother?

How can he hold me so closely and push me away all at the same time?

I think it’s so appropriate that I gave him a doormat as a housewarming gift. Wipe your feet on me, walk on me and revel in the irony that I really did know what I was doing when I purchased that rug.

Fuck ‘im. Unless I hear something, anything from him soon, he is officially dead to me.

Rejected title: Champagne and Skee-Ball

Rejected title 2: D&B Power Cards are useless when swiped betweeen one’s breasts

The past few days have been celebrations of my birthday. And today is the actual day! This is my last birthday when I can say, “I’m 29!” and mean it, because I plan to be 29 for the next decade or so. Maybe I’ll just start spreading the rumor that I’m 26 — think people will fall for that?

Shawn coined the “Birthday Hanukkah” phrase. I won’t say what exactly started it two days ago, but yesterday, we went to Dave & Buster’s, where we had the most incredible time. Shawn bought a bottle of champagne to celebrate my birthday, and we took the bottle and our glasses over to the skee-ball machines, where our process of getting sloshed was well underway.

We were musing how perfect a moment that was — champagne and skee-ball — just because it’s one of our many unique memories that was in the making at that time. Trying to balance the champagne glasses, the bounty of tickets that we were winning, the balls and ourselves as well was just a Kodak moment of hilarity.

The fun was just neverending, and so was the alcohol. 🙂 I was pretty damn trashed within a half hour of being there (two double shots of chocolate cake, half a bottle of champagne, a mudslide and a cosmpolitan kind of has that effect on you!), and I was sitting at Car No. 8 on the Daytona game when I misplaced my D&B Gold Card. I had just received 50 bonus tokens for my birthday, and Shawn had charged my card with another boatload of credits. Lo and behold, with 174 credits remaining, I remembered shoving the card under my knee when the game started, but for those of you who play the Daytona, you know that your seat practically rides around the entire Midway. Hence, I went into a panic because my card was missing.

Several minutes of searching, along with two D&B workers who ripped apart the machine to the best of their abilities, left me cardless for a spell. Then the manager brought over a brand-new card, charged with 150 credits. Shawn decided to play the game for awhile, and suddenly, it hit me. I looked down my shirt, and there was my card, where I’d stuck it for safekeeping. My drunken ass had totally forgotten about that! I never wear pockets, and I didn’t feel like shoving the damn thing into my purse or my wallet, so I went for a place where nobody is going lately. 😉 Gaah!

So we had a blast with the extra credits. Got portraits and photos done of us. We were bummed because the photo-morphing machine was out of order — we wanted to see what our kids would look like. Oh well! Maybe next time, now that I have Shawn hooked on the excitement of that place. D&B’s is Chuck E. Cheese for grownups … only with too damn many kids! We played most of the games and had a terrific time in this theater game where you’re supposed to be saving the earth or something. Who knows, but it had awesome music playing! 😉

Food was great, company was great and the experience was great. After dinner, the waiters came over and sang to me and gave me ice cream. 🙂 Beautifull!

We parted ways about seven hours after we started out, and after some cajoling from Shawn (as well as my glasses breaking for the third and final time), I decided to go to his place, and from there, we went to Nation, where we partied like it was 1999.

I still haven’t slept. I left his place around 4:30 a.m., and I drove for awhile before stopping in the park (the one with the gazebo, the little lake, the fountains and the streetlights shining into the water) to watch the sun rise. I went home to scrub my butt, and I went out again. Got a handful of groceries and rode all over Arlington and Alexandria before arriving home a few moments ago.

On my way out, Shawn gave me one of my gifts (the rest are coming Tuesday or Wednesday; hence the Hanukkah), which I fell in love with immediately. It’s a checkbook cover with Jon Bon Jovi barely clad on it. Shawn even had it personalized for me, which just rocked all that much more! I would’ve loved it even if I weren’t high as a kite!!!

At any rate, it was fabulous to have a fun, free day without the usual job and life pressures kicking my ass. Definitely one of the best birthdays ever!

Tonight, Shan and I are doing dinner, a movie and dessert. I have to get my ass in bed for awhile so that I am not a grumpy mess by that time. I’ve smoked two full packs of cigarettes since this time yesterday, and I am fucking wired! And I know my phone’s gonna be ringing with well-wishers today, so I hate to even go to sleep when I know I’ll have to wake up and pretend like I didn’t get blazed last night and pull a subsequent all-nighter. 🙂 I won’t mind though — I’m still feelin’ pretty damn good!

But I’m not — per the latest quiz, I’m a condom instead. …

You Are A Chocolate Flavored Condom!

Addictive and totally decadent.

People are passionate about you – driven wild by your every move.

You are often an object of desire, although you’re usually too much to handle!

What Flavor Condom Are *You*?

More Great Quizzes from Quiz Diva

Rejected headline: Can I get my straightjacket in blue, to match my padded cell walls?

Seems the Veggie Patchers are upset about the long workdays I put in, so they are on the warpath to get me to do my work within the allotted eight-hour workdays. This is going to mean that I have to plan out my days and share my detailed to-do lists with the masses. Shan is already mandated to tell them when she plans to take a piss or scratch her ass (down to the minute, I shit you not!).

It kills me, because I again expected no praise or anything for my work. But here I am at the job today, wanting to bash my head off the nearest blunt object, because my “work like a maniac, and take a day or two to rest, then start the process all over again” working style does not fit within Club Medicated’s padded-cell confines. Perhaps if I downloaded Solitaire or other games onto my computer, I would be more appreciated as an employee. As it stands, the Club Med cruise director has some issues with the latest newspaper that he doesn’t want to bring to my attention until after it’s off the presses. My guess is that, other than his penchant for finding misplaced commas and dashes and whatnot (like Demure does — ugh!), I will get ripped because of my working style.

As long as they don’t get me for all the chainsmoking I do at my desk on production nights, I’ll live through it. But it frosts my flakes when all I do is get reprimanded for a job well done.

I’m going over some resumes this weekend for assistance. I may modify my position search, therefore going for a junior writer (at a lower salary than I was willing to pay an associate editor) as well as keeping my layout guy in place — lord knows I can’t handle re-teaching someone how to put this rag together! I told Frosty that I have to consult my attorney friends, to make a case to appeal to Demure, who ultimately has to approve any decisions I make about my department. And as we all know, Demure can’t handle change, so it will take an airtight case to get her to not say no. And it will take 17 appeals to even persuade her to say “maybe.” Frosty laughed heartily — she knows that lighting a fire under Demure is like trying to melt an iceberg with a pack of matches.

I heard that some former colleagues at Two Strikes got fired. Her Royal Pretentiousness must be on the warpath again. Brilliant employees, both of them. Some resignations followed. I just sent a note to one of those resigning, to congratulate him on getting the fuck out of that hole (although not in so many words!).

It’s a shame how work can and does make your life hell, with no real exceptions. Oftentimes I think about old colleagues and look at current colleagues who’ve been in the workforce 100 years. And I wonder where their spark went, if they ever had one. I’m certain they did, but after years of ridicule and admonishment and disappointment, their fires went out and the pods took over. I don’t ever want to be like that. I identified long ago that what makes me special isn’t my looks or brains or talents — it’s my passion. And with my passion, I can make anything happen for me. And I can’t let any employer stifle my love of accomplishment and challenge.

Speaking of passion, my sex drive really is dead. A cute guy attempted to pick me up outside of Starbucks today, and I let him get away. He seemed young — early 20s, I’d imagine. I’m not into young ones anymore — I’m looking for grown-ups. But he was a hottie, I’ll give him that. I was wearing no makeup, and my hair is in this weird uptwist that took all of four minutes to do. Leave it to me to be schlepping around town with a venti caramel macchiato, lookin’ like hell and feelin’ even worse — only to catch somebody’s eye. Drat! But it made me feel good for a minute. 🙂 Then I realized that his seeing eye dog had probably gotten away. …

1. What brand of toothpaste do you use?

Whatever’s at the dollar store.

2. What brand of toilet paper do you prefer?

See No. 1 above.

3. What brand(s) of shoes do you wear?

If it came from Payless or Tarzhay, it’s on my feet.

4. What brand of soda do you drink?

I’m madly addicted to Diet Cherry Coke. Can’t find it in too many stores, so I usually end up with Diet Coke.

5. What brand of gum do you chew?

Carefree bubble gum.

Finished the newspaper at 11 p.m. Started at 7:30 a.m. Went the whole day, only eating a full box of Godiva raspberry biscuits, courtesy of Mom, who sent a loving care package today in honor of my birthday. I’m surprised Mailroom Dipshit didn’t redirect the package to Zimbabwe, given his penchant for shipping my personal mail to Tulsa, Okla.

The Cruise Director at Club Medicated actually got down and dirty with his edits and two cents. He wanted to see another draft after the first one, but no go. I did leave a printout and a full PDF before I left tonight. I also requested that I take Tuesday off. And I made it well-known that I had plans tonight that I had to give up, although if I know them, they’ll tell me it’s my own fault. ‘Cause they’re just assholes like that.

I had a random thought, how I don’t mind it if my superiors are hard on me, as long as it is performance-related. I get sick of the inconsequential bitch fits from them, but I do take constructive criticism well. I tried to accommodate most of his requests, but given the late hours and what not, I flexed my editorial license and said “Fuck it” to a number of comments.

Head is pounding. Finally ate some crap from Mickey D’s when I left work, but it’s only served to make me feel even more nauseated.

Wondered today if I’ve lost my sex drive. Found myself missing Jeff for a minute — rather, the nonstop fucking. I miss being desired, being ravaged. Constantly … or, at least, whenever it fit into our schedules. 🙂 But I really don’t have any blessed desire to be *with* anyone lately. Where the hell has my libido gone?!?!