Caterwauling

Well, I lost one of my moving crew for tomorrow, but for good reason. Shan is in the hospital, so John is out. And it seems I can’t get out of the truck rental. My hope is to move the entertainment center, TV and couch. The rest, I should just set on fire and not worry about moving it. Ugh. I fucking hate stress.

Alternate headline: Things I haven’t used in a year

Wave goodbye to things that I have (sadly) had no use for lately:

1. KY Jelly tube (open for too long)

2. Pack of birth control pills (expired!)

3. Two containers of Astroglide

4. The Plan B pill

5. Assorted condoms (expried again!)

It occurs to me that everyone I’ve slept with in the past year, I’d only slept with once. New goal: regular fuck buddy. Any takers?!?!

I feel like I’ve been working like a dog to make my move happen, but I’m not seeing enough results. I’m wiped out today and plan to do a billion loads of laundry, as my muscles hurt too much for me to lift yet another box today.

Shawn graciously treated me to lunch today, as he also took the day off to do some schoolwork. I needed that escape from tubs and boxes and newspaper and packing popcorn, not to mention that the best way to take care of your friends who are in moving hell is to pamper and distract them. 🙂 Thanks Shawn!

I was most excited at the fact that 7-11 now has sugar-free Slurpees, something that’s been bothering me for years. So today, I got a Diet Pepsi Slurpee. And guess what — it sucks! Diet Pepsi is just nasty in general — what was I thinking when I assumed that it would taste better frozen? Yeeaaaccchh. Stick to the Crystal Light Orange-Pineapple Slurpee, if you’re so inclined to have a sugar-free treat! At least it has flavor. The Lemon-Lime isn’t half-bad, either.

I had my usual moving-night jitters and dreamed that I forgot to rent a truck. Of course, for those of us who know, I DID rent a truck, and when I called to confirm the reservation, I was told that I wasn’t in the system and that my reservation number was no good. So, let’s see if, after giving the company my credit card info for a second time, there will be a truck for me tomorrow.

Well, off to wash my guchies. Perhaps I really don’t need to take all 150 pairs with me, eh?

I’ve coughed these links up from “Inspiring Reading” to “Cast” so that I can access their URLs with much less effort. Welcome Jane and John to the upper echelon of bloggy goodness!

Rejected title: Say a prayer for the little one

I’ve realized that by 2:30 p.m. each workday, that’s when I truly hit my “I’m so disgusted with this place, I could just kill someone” mark.

It hasn’t been a bad day, though. Demure is out; her secretary only cornered me for 20 minutes this morning; no e-mail = no responsibility (today, at least) for what was in it (although we’ve been informed that any e-mail we received after 7:30 p.m. Wednesday is toast); Shan is here and relatively healthy today (minus her newly diagnosed case of ICP; and Cruise Director is nowhere to be seen.

But this is just the time of day when I’m downright stressed out about everything. Of course, today I have plenty of reason to feel that way.

I went home violently ill on Friday, right after H.R. made the job offer to Witchy Woman, so much so that I was incapacitated for the rest of the evening. My body is never wrong — I would only assume that it went into convulsions for a reason. I hope she’s a hell of a lot less formal than she came across in her interview — she has the skills I want and need for her to have, but will she be able to gel with me? It’s not like I have a lot of allies around there — I need somebody who won’t get caught up in the Mouth Almighty/Town Crier end of the hallway fondly known as the Bermuda Triangle.

Speaking of bodies in revolt, although I’d never tell Shan, I’m worried sick over her own health. She’s so damned itchy that she’s been scratching herself with letter openers and Exacto knives. We quip that she looks like a drug addict, continually twitching and bearing bloody scratches on her arms and legs. And with this ICP crap, it’s looking like she might have to plan to deliver the baby early (no problem for her — she’s got seven weeks to go and can’t wait to end the itching and sickness). But I am struck by a huge risk of stillbirth with this ICP business. So is she, but I keep reassuring her that there is a risk even when the mother’s health is perfect.

So today I did something I haven’t done, well, ever. I said a prayer. What I prayed to, I don’t know. If it was heard, well, we’ll see. I prayed for Shan and Alex to both get through this pregnancy and birth as healthily and happily as possible. I prayed for a long and loving life and mother-daughter relationship for them. I prayed that Shan’s health and sanity holds up. I prayed that Alex hangs in there and gets to know this phenomenal woman who is going to be an incredible mother.

I reassure Shan that everything will go well. I tell her that if ever Alex gets out of line, I will remind her how much her mom went through to have her. I beg Shan to put a little more faith in her own strength. I remind her that in two months, we’ll be chugging beers, smoking a blunt and watching her pretty little girl sleeping soundly in a bassinette. I let her know that it’s okay for her to rant and rave and cry and that she doesn’t have to be Superwoman all the time. I ask her to be patient and to concentrate on herself and that baby, even though so many other things are going wrong in her life, outside of her body.

And I wonder what I can do to make things better for her, when she’s done nothing but be an amazing friend and lifesaver for me. And that’s something she continues to do, no matter how wretched she feels or how disgusted she is by work and other worries.

On that note, she’s on a reduced work schedule, and I’m off to call her and make sure she’s leaving around 3 p.m. 🙂 I know I can’t do much to take away her pain, but I might just be the only person at this godforsaken workplace whom she’ll listen to, and damn it, I am kicking her outta here for the day!!! 😉

The office building management has been testing the fire alarm system since 7 a.m. and won’t stop till after 11. I am sick of jumping every half hour, although it is probably the only effective way to keep me awake at this hour. 🙂

I just realized that, at the Bon Jovi concert last weekend, I might have seen Jon’s wife Dorothea. I saw a gal with a baby carriage who looked just like her, and it just occurred to me that she recently gave birth (and that no one in their right mind would bring an infant to a rock concert, no matter where they were sitting). Heh. I should’ve stopped to look at the kid, ’cause god knows he keeps his kids out of the press.

Oh, and we haven’t had e-mail at work for more than four days. And I do half of my workload online. Fuck.

And did I mention that the cat shat all over the bathroom floor this morning?

“They’re not strangers — they’re our new friends with pot!” — Carrie, in response to Charlotte’s query whether they should be trying to buy pot off of strangers.

I absolutely loved tonight’s episode. It chronicled the 24 hours after Burger’s “I’m sorry; I can’t; don’t hate me” breakup Post-It appeared in her apartment.

The ladies ventured to the opening of “Bed,” a hot new nightclub with mattresses o’plenty. Miranda miraculously fit into her “skinny” jeans, and she was out celebrating and meeting men while Carrie ran into Burger’s friends who weren’t aware of their 3M Corporation-inspired breakup, which she happily enlightened them about.

Tonight’s theme: why do we feel we need to learn a lesson from everything? Because it just works out that way. If Miranda didn’t get pregnant and have the baby and forget to eat all the time, she’d never have fit into her jeans. If Charlotte didn’t marry Trey, she never would have fallen in love and gotten engaged to her divorce attorney. And if you’re never someone’s girlfriend, then you can never be his ex-girlfriend. And if you never had someone break up with you via Post-It Note, then you’d never be cited for smoking pot on a streetcorner, like Carrie was.

Over ice cream at the end of the show, Charlotte remarked that Carrie’s note was like a “Get Out of Jail Free” card, as the policeman showed some sympathy and decided not to arrest her for toking on the sidewalk, as her day had already been bad enough. But when Samantha urged him to not cite her at all, he said, “I’m sorry. I can’t. Don’t hate me.” *snerk*

Sarah Jessica Parker was altogether too convincing in her blazed state, even down to the deep guttural snorts of laughter. Heh. Reminded me altogether of my own experiences of not making sense and snorting at jokes that really aren’t that funny. Golden Pen and I have had many of those moments together, and we’ve often had two separate conversations going at once, even though we were the only two people in the room. Makes me look forward to a special-brownie celebration at my Haunted Housewarming, coming in October! 😉

I’ve decided that, in honor of the “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s” team’s license plate, “Fab5,” my friends and I need our own plate that reads, “High5.” 🙂 Ah, to have a smokey treat right now. …

But alas, I’m feeling anything but dreamy right now. Although there was much more from the episode that just rocked, well, I’ve got a headache and moving-related pains in every other part of my body, so I’m signing off to do a load of laundry so that I can be ready for tonight’s re-run of “Dead Like Me.”

Who do I have to kill to get a disposable litterbox? I went to four stores today, and not a one was in sight. Fuck.

Went to Chipotle for dinner. There was some gal parked directly behind me (no one was around for quite a few spaces), and she suddenly backed up and went tearing out of the space in a hurry. I thought, “That bitch had better not have hit me.” Sure enough, there are two big scratches under my license plate, where the bumper says “Sunfire.” She had a new gray car with a black top, and it was a Virginia plate that had “DST4” at the beginning of it. May karma bite her in the ass for this one.

Only moved one huge load of crap to the new dwelling. Saw some ants and promptly went out and bought pesticide. Am thinking of taking the can of Raid to work and seeing if it really does kill all the pests in my life. 🙂

Michele points us toward this review of a new French bestseller that capitalizes on 9/11. Apparently it’s a fictional book that depicts people who were trapped in the World Trade Centers fucking fast and furiously as their office buildings crumbled.

Grrr.

Most everything else written about the book is in French, so I’m just taking everyone’s word for it. But I am disgusted nonetheless.

Shan and I talk often of 9/11, how it changed America. We wonder if there were two women, just like us, sitting together in one’s office and chatting about their ideas and the freelance/personal businesses that they were destined to start together, when the planes hit. We wonder about all of the lost potential and the dreams that went no further than that hallowed ground. We wonder if that could have been us — going through the motions of going to work every day until we could venture out on our own and really enjoy going to work again.

That’s the real story of 9/11, if anyone were to do a fictional account. I feel that Beigbeder’s torrid romance story spits on the ashen graves of so many thousands of people, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the families who lost a loved one didn’t either sue his ass or hunt him down and kill him.

I never ask for books to be banned, but I want this one to be. And put this twisted mofo in a burning building with every last copy of his book.

I am tired and sore, and do you think I have even made a significant dent in my moving process? *sigh*

I had my first dinner at my new place last night. Granted, it was from Chez Mickey’s, but for a girl on a budget, it was fine for me. I bought all kinds of pop for when the big move happens, so we’ll all have cold beverages to keep us from dehydrating as we drag my shit up my two flights of steps.

Dumbass (that’s me, for those keeping score at home) wiped out a curb two days ago — I have yellow streaks on both of my passenger-side tires and wheel covers. Of course that resulted in a nearly-deflated back tire yesterday (on which I’ve already spent $50 in patching twice before). Gaah! I took Samantha Jones to the gas station yet again and cried girly incompetence, and the mechanic felt bad for me and checked the tire that he’s become altogether too familiar with. He filled it with air and sent me on my way with a reasurrance that I didn’t do permanent damage. And he didn’t charge me. Thanks, David, at the Mobil Station on Stevenson!!!

At any rate, onward ho. I have about a thousand books and CDs to haul today, although I might follow Tiff’s lead and consider donating to charity my two dozen stuffed frogs that are living in my closet. One less box to haul, if nothing else. 🙂