That's Fun!

Total paranoia is making me take this one down. Hope those of you who saw it enjoyed it.

OMG

New Cell Phone Prevents Drunk Dialing

Finally! Some useful technology!!

But, like, what if you need to call cab?

Actual Quote

JC Chasez sez: "It's wild, man, but I get an impression from perfume. If a girl wears vanilla, I think, 'Oh, she's sweet.' If it's patchouli, I think, 'That girl is smart.'"

or else that girl is a dirty, dirty hippie.

All Together Now

Everybody can give me a great big, "I told you so!"
The job is going fine. This week is better than last week and slowly but surely, I'm getting the hang of it. Now, as long as I never, ever have to schedule a post-op, everything should be ok.

I wish I had anything interesting to report, but I totally don't.

Last Evening's Debauchery

It all began innocently enough at Circa.



The first sign of things to come was when I decided to try to eat this entire creme brulee. I did not succeed.



My lovely girls



Notice how Tom Fleming keeps sneaking into these pictures. Quit it, Tom!!






Goodniiiiiight!

Why Squid Don't Have Surprise Parties

The awesome birthday card that Thomas gave me. Notice the use of the word "dude;" perhaps my favorite word ever.



Flowers that were kind enough to bloom for my birthday, including the elusive red sunflower.









My friend Jennifer gave me this here Big Daddy hydrangea.



We may adopt the stray previously mentioned in "This Cat is the Boss of Me." We have named him Orange Julius.

Happy Birthday to Jina (and me)

Hurrah! It's Thursday and I am home! Fridays at my work are half days with no patients seen, so I'm looking forward to that.

Today Jina, one of my oldest friends, is in town and it is her birthday. I've known Jina since we were 6 years old and we've always enjoyed that our birthdays were only 2 days apart, thinking, in the way that only little girls do, that this somehow made us like twins. We haven't gotten to celebrate together in about 15 years. We're going to the Little Dipper, which should be nice. The last time that we were there, we sat in the window, and randomly, about 6 people I knew walked by. I kept having to stop the conversation and wave. This made me look incredibly popular which made me happy. I think Jina actually said, "Do you, like, know everybody here?" Why yes; yes, I do.

My birthday is Saturday and I will be 29, which I am very happy about. I love to get older. It makes all the mistakes I've made seem further in the past and less insane.

New Job List

Nails broken: 2
Mistake Made: 6 that I can think of off the top of my head
Blisters: 3
Lunches spent sitting in Subway and reading: 2
Incidents of Whispering that I am Somehow Convinced are About my Incompetance: All


Days Worked: 2

But this is not a negative report, believe it or not. I'm tired as hell, yes. My feet hurt, yes. My right hand has been torn to oblivion by scary revolving filing system, yes. But I hope that with some time I will get used to this and maybe even be good at it. I want the girls to like me. The only thing that is really bothering me is that right now I am more a nuisance to them than anything else.

Time to go to bed: now?

I Dress My Pets in Tutus and Kiss Them on the Mouth

Feeling like I should check in, though there is not much to say.

I'm quietly freaking out about my new job tomorrow--not in a bad way, just in the way that you do when things are new and different and you are likely to make mistakes.

My dogs killed a kitten this weekend. I'm really messed up about it. They've had problems with aggression toward cats since I used to commute to Greensboro every weekend and they had to board at their vet. Apparently there was a vet cat there that tormented them in their cages. My vet mentioned it to me once and told me that she did not suggest my ever getting a cat because of it. Since then, the only cats they ever see are the feral ones in our neighborhood who are foolish enough to come into the yard. In November we had an incident with a kitten and since then we haven't seen any cats in the yard. I've looked into ways of keeping the strays out, but I haven't found any that aren't inhumane or wouldn't affect my dogs as well. The humane society here makes it incredibly difficult to trap the cats and since it was working out, I didn't think about it any more. But yesterday they got a very tiny one. I got there in time and there were no bite marks on it; I think it died of fear. I'm very sad.

Several years ago, Gonzo was attacked by a pit bull. I was so angry at the dog and the owner and what I perceived to be just senseless aggression. But I guess this is the same. I know that dogs, domesticated or not, are animals and that we choose to keep them despite their instincts. I know I am probably guilty of anthropomorphising the dogs in the extreme, but I just can't understand why they would do this. I mean, its not as if they are competing for a food source, or like cats ARE a food source to them. There's no perceived danger, so why attack (or terrify)?

Some time early this year, there was an interview with Tommy Lee Jones in the New Yorker in which he said something like, "I respect animals. I don't dress them in tutus and kiss them on the mouth." Um, I totally dress my pets in tutus and kiss them on the mouth. So I guess that's why it's hard for me to understand why they are not and can never be my small and furry children, and are instead animals, sometimes ruthless ones.

I Got The Job!!!!

Hooray! I am now a front desk person for a periodontist's office!!

I am very excited. All I really wanted was to find a job I could do competantly without stressing out, that would actually pay money, and where I could qualify for benefits. Now I have that. I was so afraid that I would drive myself into total financial destitution before I found anything.

What's even nicer is that I actually like the doctor and the other front desk girls.

Thank you to everyone who emailed support or gave me lovely references. I feel like I have at least the potential to be a grown up now.

This Could Only Happen to Me

Dude.

Oh, dude.

So, I have a working interview tomorrow in a periodontist's office. I really like this place. I'm excited about it.

Tonight Thomas made a good dinner of sausage and peppers, and after dinner I had a spice stuck between my teeth. So I flossed, right? Like you do.

The spice has become stuck up UNDER MY GUM. It is my FRONT tooth. I can see it under there but I can't get it out. The floss just drives it farther out of my reach.

I am going to work in a gum doctor's office with a spice stuck up under my gum.

Interview-O-Rama

Well, I interviewed twice today. Both went well. I'm going back for round 2 on one of them tomorrow, so that's hopeful. The other guy's secretary isn't leaving until she sells her house, but it seemed like he would call me, whenever that might be. Not that I'm holding my breath, but it's nice to feel some hope.

Currently stuck in my head: Slip Sliding Away by Paul Simon

Several weeks ago I had to do my EOC refresher course for the state, so that I can be allowed to give End Of Course exams during the summer. The woman who administered them had the strangest verbal tic I've ever heard. At the end of each sentence she'd say, "It is." Sometimes more than once!

Megs: So, on page three, I have to enter "4" for private school?

Lurleen: Yes, that's where you want to indicate that this is a private school. It is.

Megs: Okay.

Lurleen: We have to make that designation for the state, you know, for the recording of the scores. It is, it is.

Megs: No problem. Is there anything else new that I need to know about?

Lurleen: This will be the last year for testing in blank and blank. It is.

Megs: Really!

Lurleen: Yup, it is. It is. We're going to wrap those two up and start requiring higher scores in blank. It is.

I'm not sure I'm properly conveying the weirdness of this. I mean, sometimes when she said it, it made sense in context, but somehow the number of times she repeated it made it stop making sense. Like when you say your name too many times and it stops sounding like a word.

I knew it wasn't just me when I glanced over and saw my friend and fellow teacher, Kimberley, doodling "it is" in her notebook. If I'd had a notebook, I would have kept a tally. But I'm not all responsible like that. It is.

100 Greatest Villains of all Time

So Wizard Magazine printed their 100 greatest villains of all time, sparking much controversy/discussion/delight in my household.

Some highlights:

98. The Others (from Lost)
95. Stewie Griffin (Family Guy)
89. Bill Lumbert (Office Space)
79. Cancer Man (X Files)
76. The Socs (The Outsiders)
71. Walter Peck (Ghostbusters)
66. Sideshow Bob (The Simpsons)
62. Gollum (LOTR)
61. Johnny Lawrence (Karate Kid)
59. Bob (Twin Peaks)
57. Principal Rooney (Ferris Bueller's Day Off)
56. John Doe (Seven)
49. Amanda Woodward (Melrose Pace)
42. Keyser Soze (Usual Suspects)
39. Michael Corleone (Godfather II)
33. Tony Soprano (The Sopranos)
28. Jabba The Hutt (Return of the Jedi)
24. Agent Smith (The Matrix)
15. Pennywise (It)
11. Darth Vader (Star Wars)

I'll give you the top ten intact:

10. The Shark (Jaws)
9. Pinhead (Hellraiser)
8. Lex Luthor (Superman)
7. The Borg (Star Trek: Next Generation)
6. Hannibal Lecter (Silence of the Lambs)
5. Zombies (Dawn of the Dead)
4. Dr. Doom (Marvel supervillain)
3. Palpatine (Star Wars)
2. Pazuzu (The Exorcist)
1. The Joker (Batman)

Comments:
I mostly included anomalies or things I thought were funny in my highlights...the list itself was populated with movie/book/tv/comic villains and monsters like Godzilla, Freddie Krueger, Jason Voorhies, Catwoman, Dracula, etc, of course. But I'm sorry, in what world is Principal Rooney scarier or more villainous than Bob from Twin Peaks? And I continue to maintain that Tony Soprano is NOT A VILLAIN. How did Palpatine rank number 3 over Darth Vader's number 11? My husband and his friends from the store decided that this was because the new movies made Annakin so whiney that he is no longer feared or revered...How is Zool from Ghostbusters (best evil spirit name EVER) not on this list? And if we're going to include the mean kid from the Karate Kid, where's Ace Merrill from Stand by Me?

Unemployment Freak-Out Spaz-Attack

Oh, dude, I am in bad shape.

It's weird--I've never liked working. I have a lazy soul. I'm always the person who wants the least common denominator job: low responsibility, ability to call in sick, etc. But it seems that perhaps the last three years of high responsibility, high workload, no option to call in sick has taken its toll on my personality. Don't get me wrong: if for some reason I were suddenly rich and did not have to work, I wouldn't. My ultimate #1 dream is to be a housewife. If I were home right now because that was the plan, I'd be delighted. But knowing that I should be working right now and am not is making me insane. I can't enjoy any of my favorite stay-at-home activities. All I do is freak out. And do tons of laundry in order to somehow justify my existence.

Trying to stay off the internet in case future employer calls...My presence here may be spotty for a bit.

Shoe Fairy

As if in answer to the day of crappiness and my complaints about my broken flip flop, the shoe fairy visited my house last evening. She left a new black pair of slides in my size on the front porch, then dissappeared into the night. Thank you, shoe fairy!

The Case for Kissing My Ass

Ok, so dude, this day has not gotten any better. On my four mile walk, it poured. My kind husband took my car to come and try to retrieve me from the rain, but I got home first and thought my car was stolen because his wasn't there either (so I thought he wasn't home yet). Why wasn't it there? Because it was dead in the parking lot of Harris Teeter.

But I remembered something I wanted to blog about: what my teaching assistant gave me on the last day of school.

The class was just beginning and my assistant said she had a present for me
from the class. I opened the package to discover The Case For Christ: A Journalistic Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus. So clearly NOT, in fact, from the class, but from my evangelistic assistant. I am so incredibly offended by this.
First of all, Quakers ARE Christians. I don't know how many times I'm going to have to say this to all the people who want to convert me to Christianity. I am a Christian!
Secondly, even if I were a devil worshipper, it is inappropriate to randomly try to convert all of those around you to your way of thinking. Imagine if I were a devil worshipper and presented my assistant with The Case for Satan as a parting gift. No one would think that was appropriate.
Thirdly, this is a SCHOOL! A non-denominational school. Today as I was cleaning up my room I found that she had distributed Jesus themed coloring sheets to my class on the last day of school. (It is her job to aquire and distribute coloring sheets while I read to the class). If a parent were to call and complain about that, I would be in big ass trouble.

I cannot understand the need in any person, Christian or otherwise, to try to convert others to his or her religion. My religion is personal, as I assume yours is. I would no more give out a book called The Inner Light to all those I worked with than I would pee on my desk.

Things that Suck

I seem to be suffering from some sort of ennui and cannot blog. Nothing of any interest seems to be happening to me and I feel kind of blah and un-funny. Some of you may think I'm blah and un-funny anyway.

My boring list of complaints includes unemployment and other financial woes, that I broke my favorite pair of flip flops, a strange and somehow disapproving conversation with my father, a car on its last legs, that my dog ate chocolate this weekend, the lost free email account (why does EVERYTHING this week have to cost money or involve money that I do not have now and fear that I will never have?)

Anyway, I just feel sad and cannot think of anything good to write about and yet I feel sad because I cannot write on the blog.

I'm going to go hide under my bed for a while. But then I have to walk 4 miles around Greenfield Lake. Another thing that sucks.

Happy Last Day of Teaching!

So 3240 (paid) hours down, 3.5 hours to go. Half day today.

Today I have to retire one of my most beloved names, Miss Meg.

I feel sad and scared...and yet, after this week with the kids so jacked up and crazy, relieved. Some of these kids I've been teaching for 3 years. Seriously, I think that's too much for any teacher. We've just got to be able to hand them over at some point. I'm ready to see them go on to drive someone else to distraction.

And yet, who am I kidding. I'll always miss them. Hell, I dream about them when we're on break. How can it be that I won't be yelling, "Tone it DOWN, elementary school!" on Monday?

Invalid Account

What a rude shock to come home yesterday and find that the free AOL I have enjoyed for 6 years was gone.

I was never really supposed to have it in the first place. My ex-husband worked for Time Warner Cable, and when AOL and Time Warner merged, he got a free email account. When we split up, he obviously kept the road runner and turned over the AOL to me. Shortly thereafter, he quit Time Warner Cable, but the email account never went away. I've been happily using it ever since. 6 years later, I'd kind of forgotten that I wasn't supposed to have it. I figured that system was never going to get audited if it hadn't already. But lo and behold, yesterday I tried to sign in and got INVALID ACCOUNT. hrm.

Now I'm considering DSL, as its cost per month is about the same as actually having to pay for AOL. Plus, then, I could join the rest of the world and blog at some sort of regular speed. Which would be good.

Still, though. I always did like free.

ps. To those to whom I recently gave my email address: yeah, that's wrong now. Put my middle initial in it (W, like our beloved president) and you'll have it.