Seriously?

What's My Age Again??

2012-01-26T22:58:00.003-05:00

So I am basically a bachelor. Nobody thinks of single females as the type to despise food shopping, cooking, and doing dishes. But oh yeah, that is so me. So I have a tendency to get home, look in the barren fridge, have a pepperoncini or pickle slice, and go "I should SO just run out for a sushi roll or turkey burger" (to one of the places within half a block of me that make either option phenomenally convenient).

The other night I am craving sushi, so I head around the corner and order one sushi roll for myself and there is a sports game on the TV. Whatever, sushi is super fast, and I am good watching TV myself and then going home.

The guy next to me is about 65 and seems pretty benign, so when he starts talking to me I am pretty polite. It all seems like normal things; then he gets around to saying, "I have been a huge, huge Mets fan ever since the team came to be! I have loved them since '62! Will always be a fan!!" So things seem to be interesting for me. I asked "so how do you like CitiField?" His completely blank stare should have been a sign that maybe he wasn't totally above board with normalcy. "How do I like WHAT?"
"CitiField?"
"No, that is where the Yankees play."
"No, actually, they have enough money to STILL call their new stadium Yankee Stadium, but we play in CitiField."
"Really?!"
"Yup."
"Well."

I mean, that was kind of sign one. But my sushi hadn't arrived yet, and I was hungry, so we ended up still chatting a bit about stupid things I don't even remember. I start to think, "this guy is a little weird" right as my food comes. Strange Guy goes to the bathroom and the weirdo to the other side of me goes, "yo. yo. Yo, you eatin' Sushi????" So I look over and go, "ha, yeah. Sushi!" and he responds by saying, "can I get me one of those?" I mean, the roll has 8 slices and I paid almost $16 for it. Because I LOVE it. So no, I am not throwing $2 at you for no reason. So I totally ignore that guy and decided the crazy older fella is my best bet.

Boy, was I wrong.

So he gets back and starts telling all sorts of stories about the old days. And finally he gets to "so I'm not sure if you remember this, or heck, maybe you were there, but the '64 World's Fair was one heck of a time."

I mean, seriously???? I was born in 1980; the END OF 1980. I really, really don't like being compared to someone who would remember an event almost 20 years before my existence. Really??? If there is one thing you should never, ever, EVER do, it is telling someone they look like they could "remember" an event that happened 16 years BEFORE THEY WERE BORN. And at this point, I started staring at him in horror and distaste. Add 20 years to my life, and you are so dead to me...

So then he takes a call outside. And comes back in complaining about his girlfriend. I just kind of shrug along with older guy, because what do I know about that crap? Simultaneously, creepy "can i get some of dat" sushi guy keeps trying to "wave" me over, while I am sitting just 2 seats away. (I mean, really? Just speak up...) Then the phone rings again, creepy older guy answers it, and then puts THE PHONE IN MY HAND and says, "you have to talk to her, she won't listen to reason."
I am a wuss, by nature (working on that) so I go, ".....helloooo?" when I pick up the phone. This woman starts yelling at me. "And just who are you? Who do you think you are? You are out there trying to pick up MY MAN?" So I start to calmly explain to her the situation. I mean, why did I even try to do this?? Really, I am so stupid for not going, "oh I just developed a random case of being MUTE."
Oh my God.... I am NOT picking up a SIXTY-FIVE YEAR OLD MAN! I WAS JUST TRYING TO GET SOME SUSHI!!! And why did I field this call? Oh yeah, I am the biggest wuss ever.

"Hi, so I just want to let you know that I am here and there is absolutely nothing inappropriate going on, and he was just talking to me about sports while I waited for my sushi and he was just making small talk while I'm here, which is soon to come to a rapid end as I'm on my way out and there is absolutely nothing, nothing, for you to worry about. I mean, I'm THIRTY-ONE YEARS OLD... CLEARLY nothing is happening."

her: "Well how do you think I feel when I hear that my BOYFRIEND is talking to some... TEXTBOOK EDITOR??!"

She spits the words out like it had been "prostitute" or "terrorist." I mean, really? Editors are SO not that bad. And frankly, SO not a romantic threat to you... we EDIT. Come on....

But anyway this complete stranger is yelling at me over the phone over a complete stranger who I was having less than 0% romantic chats with, and never would, and it just all felt so surreal. And I hate the part of me that goes, "But I have to fix this for him and PROVE that we aren't romantic!" Because how much is that NOT MY JOB in life.

Also, I never, ever, ever want to be the girl who actually speaks to someone on the PHONE when my significant other says "but no, she isn't a big deal!" Because I 100% wasn't, but come on. How pathetic is that. You guys have issues.

Come on.... That's your "come on"?

2011-12-04T22:09:00.002-05:00

So I suck at food shopping; I absolutely hate it and frequently find myself opening the fridge and seeing a barren wasteland.
Today I found myself home around 7 pm with nothing for dinner. I decided to walk a block to a cool restaurant/bar right near me.

I got down there and sit with my new Nook (I can't figure it all out yet, but I am in love with it) and there is a riveting football game on between the Giants and the Packers. I order a turkey burger and a glass of wine, and all is seemingly going well. It is early on a Sunday night so I am just trying to relax before another week of work and get some down time in. (This is the boring back story so it doesn't seem jarring when I jump right into creepiness.)

I finish eating and am having a water just to get me through to the end of the game and head out. The bartender, a lovely girl, comes over and says the guys at the end of the bar have offered to pay for my next drink. I look down and they wave me over. It was about 8:00, so I figured why not. I make a big deal about never making new friends, so I figured I should start being more social. The bartender lady goes "they're really nice!" so I walked down to them and got another wine.

I sit down between the 2 guys and the first one, who was way creepier, immediately starts talking to me in a heavy accent. I am not bad with accents, but I was so not understanding about half of what he was saying. I nod and smile when seems appropriate, but I was way uncomfortable. His first words were just "you are so beautiful. You are beautiful. I am telling you, you are beautiful. We saw you sitting over there, and thought, 'she is beautiful.' You are beautiful." So I just go "okay, thanks" and kind of figure we will get on with some conversation. No. Apparently all this guy has got up his sleeve is to keep telling me how beautiful I am. And, awesome, he does most of it while staring at my chest.

I even got a few "the bartender? She no have what you have" while he uses his hands to imitate big boobs on his own chest. Awesome. Let's keep talking more about nothing but my boobs, shall we?? So then his friend goes, "Today is my birthday. So can I get your phone number and call you one day?" I haven't spoken more than ten words to this guy. WTF? Seriously? No. I appreciate the straightforward approach without staring at my chest, but still. What has happened to people having conversations? And like, actually talking?? Besides something other than my boobies?

The first guy just keeps tapping my shoulder every time I even look away from him for a second, which I gotta say, is a REALLY attractive trait (SO ANNOYING).
So he hands me a business card and says, "I own 5 restaurants. This is one of them. You should stop by and get some food there." So I say, "Ok, thanks!" and go to put it away. He grabs it out of my hand and goes, "Wait, do you speak fluent Spanish? No? Then you can't come here" and puts the card back in his pocket.
Then I get "tomorrow night I come to your place and cook you dinner. You like Spanish food?" I say "no" with extreme vehemence. I really don't want Creepy McGross coming over...

Then he tells me, "you are... you are princess. What do you do?" So I say I work in publishing and he goes, "PUBLISHING? PSHHH. No, you should not work in PUBLISHING!" He says this like it is the most disgusting job in the world.
"No, you are princess! You should be... you should be a building manager!!"

I kind of just stared at him at that point. I mean, I have nothing against building managers, but it was just a weird job to pull out of a hat. Especially for a princess.

So I am finishing up my wine (I mean, you'd have to be pretty damn creepy to make me want to leave some wine behind) and the first creepier guy goes, "May I show you something?" So I go ".... uhm, what?" And he says, "just to illustrate to you how beautiful you are? I have your permission?" so I go "... okay, I guess." And he puts his hand under my boob, palm up, completely trying to cop a feel. And when I slap his hand away and go "no" and he says "you give me your permission?" WHAT? That was a complete misrepresentation of your intentions. Guy.

The friend then began to tell me how beautiful my eyes are, and waxed on and about what a beautiful shade of blue they are.... yeah, I don't have blue eyes.

Then I got hit with the awesomely hot line, "So you have a husband? No? So maybe one day... you and me... you know." And he did that weird hand gesture of like "hook up" that you can't explain, but you know it when you see it.

And this is why I should be smarter about food shopping.

Frotteur!

2011-09-18T22:26:00.000-05:00

So I have been commuting on the subway for a few weeks now. Of course, in any large group you get your... freaks.

I hate crowded subways; I usually wait like, 3 trains even to try and get on one that isn't as bad. Last week I waited for my 3 trains, get on the 4th, and some guy jams in behind me. All seems fine. He was in the middle of the door area and for some reason, moved away from there to get further inside, which was weird. So I ended up in this weird like, half turned position with my bag shoved into a poor guy in front of me. Hate, hate, HATE crowded subways!

So I'm already figuring I'll go the one stop on the express, then get off and wait. Meantime, I am listening to music and just trying to get through this hot, jammed experience. The guy behind me suddenly like, smashes into me and against the back of me. Meantime he's talking to himself and look wicked creepy. So I was like, "oh man, that crazy old guy really has no balance." So it happens again. And then I realized, it is suddenly lingering. So I do the casual shift trying to jam more of myself into the door area and inch of space around me. But the guy follows me. And as I'm annoyed about it, I realize--that's his hard junk pushing against me. I was experiencing one of the most creepy subway events. Yes, way worse than someone falling asleep and putting their head on your shoulder. But no, not worse than the guy who takes his junk out and plays with it while leering at you. Probably somewhere in the middle. I'd equate it to a flasher.

So I am now stuck on the train with a guy rubbing his "member" against me, while talking to himself and seeming overall crazy. And that's the thing--they have you between a rock and a hard place. Or in my case, a "you're a little old so it is more of a somewhat firm" place. So I turn so that my hip is more facing him instead of my fleshy behind. And that doesn't matter. He takes a second break, then starts the rubbing again. As I went to turn again, a little voice went "Hey stupid, turning so your FRONT is facing him is probably not better" so I just jammed my bag between us. He somehow just pushed on through that. So I ended up shifting again and lodging my elbow into his gut, effectively holding him at just enough of a distance that he was still gyrating in an attempt to find someone to rub against, but couldn't quite reach me.

I got off the train and went to look for an MTA member or something to say, "hey, I got frotteurized," but there were none around and the MTA booth was up a flight, a giant escalator, then another flight of stairs. So by the time I got there in rush hour I figured my "some creepy dude was on a train that left a few minutes ago" wouldn't be much help.

But anyway, I can't understand this. I know it is a psychological condition indicating you ain't right, but do these people have day jobs? I mean, I couldn't just go into a meeting and start rubbing myself on someone at work. Can they refrain from it all in open spaces but in a crowd something in them just goes "must....rub.....on a disinterested person"? So many questions.

And, frankly, what is the ultimate goal? Do they ever "finish" (EWWW) or do they just like, take their member home and handle it?

I like how THIS is my return to blogging. A story about a pervert.

I swear I bathe

2008-10-23T23:15:00.004-05:00

So yesterday I was leaving for work (really late, again) and as I headed out the door I saw my landlord/fake uncle parking his car. (Meanwhile, how someone who is retired can be up, ready, out and BACK before I can even force myself to leave for work is really beyond me.)

I stop to wait for him and notice a lady walks by me, pretty slowly. So I chat with my fake uncle for a few minutes, about pretty much nothing, but just small talk. Then I turn to go to my car, which is probably only 30 feet away, and see that the lady who had walked by is still kinda there. Just loitering near where we had been talking. So fake uncle goes inside, and I start to walk to car.

And the lady is like, "Sweetheart! Can I ask you a question?!"

Now, I get bothered a lot. I don't know what it is about me, but so far on my street alone I have had several weird conversations. One guy tried to sell me a half-eaten muffin from a dirty old rag, one guy just asked for money, one guy was yelling at himself and then me when he passed by, and one guy knocked on my passenger car window one day when I had just gotten in. I opened the window like, a decimeter. First, he asked me for a quarter, and I was like, "ooh, no. I don't have it." So then he asked if he could just borrow my cell phone. And I swear, I am a nice person. But I typically don't like to lend things to strangers, especially things I can't really afford to replace, and they had literally just shut down an institution/rehab in my neighborhood about a week earlier and just let the "healthiest" people go. So I was like "you know, I don't have a cell phone." Of all the inopportune moments, he looked down at my passenger seat where apparently my cell phone was peeking out from my bag. So I broke down and was like, "you know what? I just found a quarter." I gave him that and he seemed happy enough.

So anyway, back to my lady and the story at hand.

Lady: "Sweetheart?"

Me: "[walk, walk, walk]"

Lady: "Sweetheart, can I ask you a question?"

Me: "mmm-hmm?"

Lady: "Just a quick question. Real quick. Honey, can I ask a question?"

Me: "yeah, what?"

Lady: "In the mornings, how long do you wait after showing before you leave the house?"

Now this did give me pause. Because I honestly thought she would ask for either directions, or money.

Me: "Uhh, I actually usually shower at night."

Lady: "At night?! I can't do that!"

Me: "Yeah."

Lady: "But see, I keep getting sick. And I don't know if it is because I leave the house too soon after showering."

Me: "/stare/"

Lady: "I have been waiting an hour. Do you think an hour is enough time? Sweetheart, do you think an hour is right?"

Me: "Yeah, I definitely think that an hour is enough time. You should be good to go."

Lady: "BUT I KEEP GETTING SICK!"

Me: "Well, it is cold season."

Lady: "But this is from showering. You shower at night?! Huh."

At this point, I had arrived at my car already, been putting my stuff in, and was trying to leave.

Me: "Yeah, but I am sure an hour is enough time. One would certainly think so."

Lady: "Yeah. But I mean... I sure keep getting sick."

Me: "Bye."

I also took a moment when I got into my car to reflect on how not only do strangers like to talk to me, they also really like to call me "sweetheart." I get that a lot. I guess it's just 'cause I seem and look so darn nice.

Hair update

2008-10-20T12:18:00.004-05:00

So I think I am getting kind of used to my bad haircut. I am just putting it back a lot. I tend to do those 2 half-ponytails. But the one problem is that people keep being like, "Can't you just put it in a ponytail?"

Here is a photo I took yesterday of how my hair looks when it is in a ponytail. And if you look at me head on, I just have this weird section that sticks straight up about an inch from my head.

And somehow, this picture doesn't even do my bad haircut justice. It is so much worse than I could capture with a mere camera phone.

Haircut

2008-10-12T21:17:00.005-05:00

Okay, so I have no idea what happened here.

I went to get my hair cut, and I went to a lady that I had been to before and I was pleased with. And I even brought in a photograph. A photograph of me with a haircut from years earlier that I liked and wanted again.

So I show the woman the picture and go, "I think I'd like my hair to look like this again."
Hair destroyer: "No, your hair is too thick for that haircut."
Me: "But see, that IS me. That IS my haircut. That's MY head."
HD: "No, that would poof up too much with your hair and would look too big. How about I cut it a little longer than you want, and then do some minor angling towards the front?"

So I thought about it and figured, why not? It's just hair, and even the worst haircut can't be that bad. I mean, it grows out. And usually when I listen to the people, it turns out pretty good.

So I am sitting there watching my hair falling around me, glad that I am cutting off my hair to shoulder length as I wanted. You always have that weird sense of freedom when the weight of your old hair is just falling away from you. And angles are good. People look OK with angles. I was getting excited for my new look.

Suddenly I feel a tension in my stomach: why did she just cut that big chunk from so far back? That can't be an angle, can it? What is happening? But no, I don't know anything about cutting hair. I'm sure it's fine. It must be fine. She knows what she is doing. And anyway, she's done already. The scissors are away in that strange blue liquid. Why worry now? It will be FINE.

I see my sister come back in and mouth, "Oh my God, am I getting a mullet?" She looks at me like I'm crazy and I am appeased. Noooo, it's not a mullet. She'd tell me. It was just that my hair was so wet, so I couldn't tell how it would look.

We finish the hour of hair drying, and I look up again as my sister is staring at me in blatant horror. Then she bursts into silent laughter and hides it behind a People magazine. Oh my God. What is it? How bad is it? I can't have a...mullet, can I? No! I am just being obsessed. I don't have a MULLET. Pshhh.

I do find it a little bit odd that the woman has me facing away from the mirror, though. Don't they usually show you with the big "ta-da!" and are happy when you smile and go, "Wow, it looks great!" even when you just got a trim and you can't even tell that anything was actually cut? I mean, does anybody ever look and go, "MY GOD, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

But I turn, and I see this (see right for Exhibit A--also known as Exhibit mullet-head). That is the side of MY HEAD. MINE! Not some guy in a rusty pick-up truck down in Florida. Me. I live in NEW YORK CITY and I have a mullet. Look at that party in the back! I tell you, IT'S NO PARTY!! I am horrified.

And the worst part is, I am terrified of washing my hair. I have wavy hair, so once I wash this mullet sucker, I am going to look like carrot top. But with a worse haircut. Which I never thought possible until I saw my sister hiding her hysterics behind People magazine, because reading about Britney Spears and her latest antics was less horrific than seeing me in this haircut. She was frightened by the mulletude of it all.

Oh...my...God.

Howdy Stranger

2008-02-04T15:32:00.000-05:00

I must look like the kind of person that you just want to talk to. Strangers are constantly just striking up conversations with me. The thing is, they are all weird. I never get the normal person who turns into a good friend. Just weirdos.

Like when I was at the mechanic’s a few weeks ago, and I was just waiting for my inspection. This nice old man came in, sat down next to me, and smiled. So eventually he started talking about how cold it is. I had to concur; it was indeed a chilly day that day. But then the conversation took a turn:

Man: “You know, my wife is always complaining that she’s cold.”
Me: “Yeah, today it certainly is...”
Man: “And I told her, that is because she doesn’t wear cotton panties.”
Me: “oh...”
Man: “I mean, you can’t wear polyester panties and expect to stay warm. You know?”
Me: “Yeah. Gotta stick with the cotton underpants.”
[I hate the word “panties” as much as Maria, so I chose different wording.]
Man: “Exactly! Well, have a good day.”

Then he just got up and left. Like imparting that important wisdom on me was it for the day.

I have had a woman talking to me about fruit at Stop & Shop, asking me what I thought she should buy. Last week I had a woman at Target yelling at me that they didn’t have enough pants for short people. (She must have thought we were comrades in shortness and figured I would be just as indignant.)

But probably the worst one I ever had was when I went to visit my parents in Florida. My dad took me to WalMart to buy something, and on our way out he had to use the bathroom (he’s old). So I was just standing at the end of an unused check-out line, waiting.

This old man approaches me, so I smile at him. Gotta be nice to the elderly, right?

So I get:
Old man: “Is that what they pay you for?”
Me: [still smiling like an idiot] “Excuse me?”
Old man: “Is that what they PAY you for? Just standing around like that?”
Me: [I just stare at him, mouth agape.]
Old man: “That may be fine today, but let me tell you hon, that won’t work when it gets busy this weekend. They won’t be happy to pay you to just STAND there.”
Me: “I don’t actually work here.” [I look down to be sure I am not accidentally wearing a bright blue vest with a happy smiley face on it, and I surely wasn’t.]
Old man: “Pshh. Kids today.”

And he leaves in a snit! Like I am being unreasonable! Like he didn’t just accuse me, on my vacation, of working at WalMart and not doing a good enough job! Crotchety old guy.

Pick up lines

2008-01-16T17:05:00.000-05:00

So. A few months ago I was on the subway with my friend Leigh coming home. It was really late; probably about 5 in the morning. We had both been drinking (but remember, we were on the subway... so it was safe drinking). I decide to call my friend in Armenia because it can be hard to get in touch with him, and for some reason, it works best when I call him at 4 or 5 a.m. There is much less static and delay.

Leigh and I had been having a conversation, then I rudely make my call on the subway. The entire time, there is this weird guy sitting across from us (picture that famous sketch of the unabomber, but without the glasses--you know, the one that looks like Weird Al), just staring, and occasionally smiling. Repulsed, we both ignore him. I believe he even started somewhat "touching himself" but being that we wouldn't look at his general direction, who knows?

My subway stop is about twenty thousand from where we were, so it took a good amount of time. The guy ends up standing up and standing next to Leigh. He mumbles something like, "My stop next. You want to get off?"
"WHAT?"
"You want to come with me?"

Leigh (rightly so) says, "You need to back up and leave me alone. BACK UP! GET AWAY FROM US!" (or something similar) and he finally just gets off the train.

But the point of this story is this: does that EVER work? Is that guy ever on the subway, sees a total stranger, smiles while touching himself, then says, "my stop is next, you want to come with me?" and get a response like, "you know what? Yeah! That sounds like JUST what I wanted to do tonight..."

Sometimes I just want to understand the thinking process behind all of this.

Camponotus

2008-01-16T16:44:00.000-05:00

When I first moved into my apartment, within about a month I developed an ant problem. It was those chunky big black ones (see left), the carpenter ants. Now, I try to be nice to buggy little things. But those big guys really freak me out.

Anyway, they were pretty much hanging out in my bathroom. I would go in and see 1 running from under the radiator towards the tub, and then in a day I’d see 2 more doing the same. So these were apparently the scouts. And I let them go, and would freak out and scream a little (I mean, look at those tiny little waists and flapping antennae), but I let them live.

This was going on a for a bit, and then one Sunday morning I got up and went to take a shower. I got all ready, opened the curtain...and saw TENS of ants!
(I don’t want to exaggerate, so although HUNDREDS or MILLIONS would have been a lot more impressive here, it was really just tens. Maybe about 50 total.)
But 50 of those big black ants is a lot, especially when you are naked and about to step into a tub with them. There were about 5 at the bottom of the tub, and maybe 10 just crawling on the walls. And the rest of them were smashing themselves down underneath and next to my shampoo bottle, as though it was their little ant church where they were congregating on this lovely summer Sunday. Because I don’t use sugar shampoo, I’m not sure exactly what the draw was. But ewwww. So I was screaming and jumping around, and grabbed a towel to cover myself (because I didn’t want their ant eyes to see me exposed). I ended up turning the shower head on them, and then watched them all just wash away down the drain, their creepy bodies and antennae swirling around in the tub. (The image of it is still burned into my brain; it was like a massacre, all by my hand.)

I decide that day that I’d rather just not shower, and go on with my life. The next day I shower, and when I look over, I see an ant that jammed itself up between the clear shower curtain and the decorative outside one. It was just sitting there, not moving, not doing anything. I think it was judging me. Silently. Effectively.

I still live with the guilt of that massacre today. Enough that I think about it and write down the experience 4 years later. I am haunted. And I am the person that was crying uncontrollably in “Honey, I shrunk the Kids!” because of that scene where their little anty friend defends them against the scorpion. Wait, I must be remembering wrong... Didn’t they live in the Northeast? Who knows.

Hellooooooo Doctor!

2007-12-09T23:14:00.000-05:00

I recently went for my yearly physical. It reminded me of a physical not so long ago... when I realized that I was old enough for my primary doctor to start doing breast exams.
He started a few years before this, and I always found the whole thing really awkward. It's like, what do you do with yourself while he is feeling you up? Usually the doctor tries to chat, which ends up making it feel like a bad middle school date.
So this one year (I think it was the first year the nurse didn't have to come in with us for this exam) I am laid back on the deli paper getting myself ready for it. The doctor moves in, and I am psychologically ready. But then, what do I do with my eyes? Do I look him in the eye? Now that seems too romantic. LIke we are sharing a special moment. Do I shut my eyes? No, that seems too much like I am enjoying the breast exam. Like I have my eyes shut so I can get all the pleasure I can out of this.
I decide instead to keep my eyes open. So I have my eyes open and darting all over the room, from the ceiling to the wall and back again.
I also happen to have a number of nervous twitches. I am a big glasses adjustor. I push on my glasses when I get nervous, or more likely, play with my hair. At the moment of awkward conversation when my doctor is feeling me up, I automatically bring my hand up to play with my hair. But instead of making it to my hair, my hand gets caught in the tie of my doctor leaning over me. I was moving with too much speed to notice, and I let my hand go full-circuit. Suddenly, I realize what happened: my hand got caught in my doctor's tie, and I ended up jerking him down towards me... towards, what happened to be my bare breasts.
Luckily he jerked himself up before his face hit, and we avoided that discomfort. But really... who pulls their doctor's face into their bared chest???

I was comfortable enough with it that I never changed doctors. And this was years ago. Also, in a way, I feel like it brings us closer together. Like no matter what I do NOW, it can't be worse than trying to jam his face into my tatas.

Maybe in a few years I will get up the courage to discuss what we went through at this year's physical...

Niagara

2007-09-26T21:27:00.001-05:00

So I just went to Niagara Falls. SO beautiful. I totally went lame and cried my ass off on Maid of the Mist, exclaiming, "it is just TOO beautiful!"
But I took my friend John who is in the Peace Corps. So I knew from the beginning that he just wanted to see me at his house.
I, however, have a limited amount of vacation. I work in an office, for crying out loud. My 2 weeks are like gold. So i decided that I wanted to do Niagara Falls. I plan the entire trip, knowing it will all come out of my pocket. (As a side note, this is not the point; I don't mind that part at all, it is just relevant to the story following.)

I pick a sweet room. (Almost a pun, it was the Jr. Presidential Suite...) I wanted a jacuzzi because living in my apartment, I never get to take a bath and I really miss those. So I am going all out. Full-on vacation. The room itself costs more than I spent for 5 nights in Paris, air inclusive. Again, all fine. My choice.

So the first night I go to take my beloved jacuzzi. John decides he wants to go for a walk and leaves me in the hotel room. I run the bath; I specifically brought a bath fizzy for just this occasion. I get in and start to feel the stress melting away. I am in there for awhile and I start to feel woozy. Did I make it too hot? I end up pouring cold water over my head, trying to cool off. I decide this is the point at which "smart" people just get out of the tub.

John comes back and finds me, in a towel standing in the middle of the doorway, about to completely pass out. And you know those stupid towels they give you in hotels. I even left a comment card: "If you have a jacuzzi, you should really have robes in the room, or at LEAST bigger towels!" He has to help me to the couch and bring me cold water. Not the greatest start to my "I-work-in-the-field-of-publishing-of-course-i-can-afford-this-totally-
ridiculous-trip-on-my-credit-card" trip.

So the next night we do the whole ordeal: Maid of the Mist (I can sob just thinking about it), Cave of the Wind, Nasty border patrol person asking me where I am going when I walk over Rainbow Bridge. The whole thing. We have a voucher for the dinner, and end up going to the hotel restaurant to use it up. I am sure we will go over, but decide the minute I get there I need a martini. So I get the martini, get an appetizer, get the fancy $35 pork dinner. Again, it is my vacation. I'm not going to live with regrets. John gets a drink too. Then we end up getting another. End of the night, we have spent way more than that little voucher allows for. They bring it over, and who do they give it to? John. Has he paid for the trip? No. The gas to get there? No. So I am annoyed. I take the bill and pay it, then wait for the slip to sign. Do they bring it BACK to me? Nope. It goes back to John. Because he really looks more like the "Diane" of the group.

Annoyance is minor, I move on, have a great time, etc. (See me having a great time, left. I am in yellow, not the 90-year-old man in orange.)

So the following day, the trip is over. All my great joy is coming to and end. They have this great system where you call an automated number with the little slip they give you when you drop your car off, and in 10 minutes your car is outside. (I love not having to deal with people.)
We walk outside with all the lugguge, and I swear the conversation went like this:

Me: "Hi, I see my car. Can we just get right in it?"
Valet guy (only to John): "Sir, can i have your slip?"
Me: "Oh yeah, I have that slip somewhere."

I dig it out of my pocket and give it to the guy with a smile. I can totally be understanding.

Valet guy: "Ok, while your keys are being retrieved, sir, do you need any directions for getting out of here today?

John looks at me.

Me: "Nope, I think we've got it all under control."

Now I start to bristle. I mean, enough is enough. Not that I am bossy person, but I clearly wear some pants here.

Valet guy gets the keys and bring them over. "Sir, your keys."

I snatch the keys out of his hand and can't even help but curtly reply, "They are MY keys. THANKS."

I mean, ok. So you stereotypically think the "man" is in charge of the entire trip; it is his car, his credit card, his keys. Well, let him tip you then. A-hole. Guess what? He didn't. The tip came from my ANGRY hand when I took the keys from the sexist valet man.

Anyway, what a rant. But it is SO tiresome.

Dude, where are my tonsils?

2007-06-13T14:34:00.002-05:00

Leigh asked for this tale. This saga. It isn’t very funny.

As a kid, I think I was borderline between needing to get my tonsils out and the doctor just wanting to leave them be. I got strep throat enough that I could diagnose it myself immediately, and when I did my tonsils mightily swelled. But I grew up at the time when they were coming off that big tonsil-removal phase, and were then thinking that they should try to keep them in as often as possible. So on I went, with tonsils in place.

By the time I got to college, I was probably only getting sick with strep or tonsillitis about 1-2 times a year. But the sick got worse. One time, I went to bed and apparently my fever came on full force while I was sleeping. I had these horrible, nightmarish dreams about The Mists of Avalon, which I was reading at the time. I was standing in a field holding a sword up toward the sky and speaking in a language I don’t even know (weird that my fevered brain makes up languages... does that make me brilliant, or just totally insane?) and it was struck by lightning, and I kept yelling something up to the sky. And I would wake up and turn over or go get water, and go back to sleep and this dream would just keep happening over and over, and I wanted to make it stop but it would come right back the minute I dozed off. I woke up in the morning and went downstairs, where my whole family was. (No idea why—must have been a holiday or something.)

As soon as I got down the stairs, I ran to the bathroom and threw up, then walked out and passed out in the middle of the living room, just as my sister was saying I looked a little “green.” This became my new tonsillitis-induced fever habit. It was a Sunday and I had to leave for college the next day, so I get into the back of my own car, leaving the driving to my friend who only had a permit, and telling another person I was driving back that he was the driver in charge of things that day. (Funny I didn’t let the one with a license drive; I guess it was all those stories about him speeding his station wagon through Ossining at 80 miles an hour that deterred me.) I was sitting in the backseat with some guy I think I never met before but was driving back as a favor. So there I am, crammed in with all of our stuff and a fucking gerbil underneath my feet because some girl asked the permit boy if he could take it and I am a big sucker who agreed before realizing it would be ME put out by the thing. I am confused and half-delirious, sucking down Thera -flu from a travel mug and looking like death while this poor guy who just wanted to get back to school is stuck in the backseat with disgustingly sick me for 5½ hours. We stopped at a rest area and although I didn’t see myself, I know it couldn’t have been good because all 3 of the guys with me kept asking me if I was ok. I do know I kept zoning out and just staring while they were talking.

I slept most of the ride, waking up just to see permit boy speeding through the snow and tried screaming at him that he had to slow down and my car sucked in the snow, but my voice wouldn’t raise itself above an angry whisper. (He did slow down, right after telling me I had to stop freaking out and then skidded across the lane almost into the guard rail. Don’t we already know that I am always right??)

Anyway, this was just one of the times when tonsillitis came on like that, and I’d wake up feeling like death. Last year, I came down with tonsillitis again and it wouldn’t go away after 2 rounds of antibiotics. So they had to put me on another round and steroids. Now that was an experience. I only had to take thep rednisone for a few days, but holy crap! That shit messes with your mind! I would come to work and when someone brought me something to do, it would prompt me to just get ridiculously angry. So I would be like “why the FUCK do I have to do THIS? GOD!” Then in 2 minutes I’d feel so bad, I’d start crying. Then in another 2 minutes, I’d think it was all so silly and just laugh maniacally. I can’t have things messing with my emotions like that! I am already too messed up! I went to cut my avocado for lunch and realized that I didn’t have a knife in my drawer, which I thought I did. So I stared at it, and then cried. Meanwhile, there are knives in the kitchen. But I had the “’roid rage” so I couldn’t relax.

So my tonsils would go down enough that I could kind of breath again, but not ever did they go down to normal. It was like they were constantly on the verge of being like, “and you have tonsillitis...NOW! No, NOW!”

Between 1 of the rounds of antibiotics I went to an ENT who told me I needed to take Zyrtec. He thought that was perhaps why my throat was red. I couldn’t even really respond to that. It made me really angry. Not that there is anything wrong with taking Zyrtec, but I am really anti-medicating every damn thing without really even looking into what it is, and didn’t need Zyrtec! (This was also the guy who when I opened my mouth and said, “Ahh !” responded with “oh my! What big tonsils you have!” It was very fairy tale.) I told him I wanted to get my tonsils out, and he said that a the ripe old age of 26, I was “a bit old” for that kind of procedure and it would be horrible and painful. I pointed out the whole “I can’t breathe, when I go to sleep I have tonsil-induced apnea because they block my air passages, and my voice is new and NOT improved.” He didn’t buy it!

I“got better” after the 3 antibiotics and steroids, and then came down with tonsillitis again within about a month. Which I guess means that I was never really better. I had yet another round of antibiotics and steroids.

I went to my primary care doctor, who is also anti-medication. He was very pro-tonsil removal, and kept telling me that I had to get better so they could take the tonsils out.
Like I didn’t already want that?? Anyway, at this point I was being bounced between my doctor, my allergist, and Mr. “thinks-Diane-is-old” ENT.

So finally, finally, I found a new ENT. I went in and did the “AHH!” thing, and he looked in for 2 seconds and said, “You need to get your tonsils out!” They weren’t even infected at this point, so I knew I had found my match.

(Leigh can back me on what they looked like when they got infected—it was a really unpretty scene in there. When that happened, even the other ENT leaned towards removal. But when they shrank back a big I got a lot of “ehh, you’re old, do you really want to?” Stupid doctors.)

I scheduled my surgery for 2 weeks after my medications ended, and hoped and prayed I didn’t get sick. The doctor said you were supposed to be well and off medicine for 4 weeks, but that because of my jaded tonsil past, they were pushing it. (Hooray!)

The place was weird. You walked yourself up to the surgery room, carrying your own IV bag, and wearing that giant puffy head cover. I got myself into the bed, and when they strapped down my arms I went, “Woah, ok. I’m not as OK with this now”and they immediately started the drugs. So I started laughing and going, “It’s so funny to be here. There are a lot of people here! I feel like I’m on TV!”

Then I woke up hysterically crying (someone doesn’t do so well with anesthesia and this is her reaction all the time) and the nurse was really mean to me! I was freezing cold, probably because of the insanely low blood pressure I had. So I asked for more and more blankets, and then when I finally started to feel better, I asked her to take them off. She went “YOU were the one who wanted them?! Can you remember that?” Meanwhile, post-tonsillectomy voice isn’t all that menacing, so when I went, “Yeah!” and wanted to be rude, it came out as a pained, raspy grunt.

I also flip out after surgery that I need to get out of there. The anesthesia makes me feel totally panicked, and I asked when I could go. They made me drink a glass of water, and then said I could get up and get dressed. As soon as I moved, I felt really nauseated. I held my stomach so the nurse came back and went “oh, nauseous now? Why didn’t you tell me when your IV was still in?! Well, now I can’t do anything for you. And I won’t let you throw up in the car with your sister, because she will FLIP OUT. It will be all brown and gross from the blood you swallowed during surgery, so you better do it here.” Although her description made me want to vomit even more, I am one stubborn wench. So I sat down and told myself throwing up was not an option, and we were going home. The nausea passed.

The recovery really did suck. I sounded like a hearing impaired person and sucked down my liquid hydrocodone every 4 hours to the minute. It did take a week and a half to feel better, but now I feel AMAZINGLY better.

Anyway, turns out my surgery was supposed to only be about 45 minutes maximum,
and it took 2 hours. I asked the doctor at the post-op about that, and he said that my tonsils were “really gross.” Apparently from the infections, they were all necrotic tissue (ewwwww!) and not only were they so huge that he had a hard time working around them, but when he tried to cut into them, they just “disintegrated” so it was slow work.
This also means that nobody told me how much my tonsils weighed after the surgery, which my allergist said they should. Hmph. Too bad I couldn’t take the disgusting pieces and bring them back to that first ENT and say, “I call my ‘heartburn’ dead tissue bits. Here you go!”

Hot Tooth

2007-05-31T11:26:00.000-05:00

The strangeness of events that happen to me extend even to the medical realm. I was going to this dentist that I really wasn’t a fan of, but he was on our insurance, and I was in high school, so I was in that “whatever” phase. He filled a cavity for me...

[wait, wait—total side note—is it my Irishness or something that makes me have the WORST teeth in the world? I mean, I brush. I may not floss every day, but I floss. I use mouthwash. And my teeth are practically falling out of my head! Ugh!]

...and the cavity never stopped hurting. In fact, it got a bit worse. I went to him and he was all, “just give it a bit more time, let me check it...yeah, it’s fine.” And I couldn’t eat on that side of my mouth for months. I was getting really into tepid foods because those were the only things that didn’t pain me. So I ended up going back, and to my great luck, he wasn’t in the office that day. I got to see his dental hire, this girl straight out of dental school who was working with him for the time being before going back for a specialty. So she sees me, and takes me seriously. No writing me off. No acting like I don’t know when my own tooth hurts.

She decided to open up the cavity and see what was going on. She warned me that there was a chance that she would open it up and then I’d have to come back for a root canal, but thought that more likely I would just end up having to get it refilled. So fine. I am sitting in the chair, all prone and slack-jawed. She is talking to me about something or other (which I HATE! Why do dentists do that to you?? Just to show the power they have over you? You can’t answer! You can’t even really nod! You have to just sit there and listen to whatever they feel like telling you and can’t talk back. Ugh!), and all of a sudden she starts yelling “HOT TOOTH! I GOT A HOT TOOTH IN HERE!”
I could do little more than widen my eyes and go “uht? UHT? Ot oot?” The dental assistant came rushing in, and as I had the spit sucker and multiple hands in my mouth, they let me know that my “hot tooth” meant I had to get the root canal immediately. They were rushing around prepping and frankly, it was making me a bit nervous.

(In case you are hoping for further information on the term “hot tooth,” I have done you the favor of pasting below the following paragraph from www.doctorspiller.com/root_canals:

“On the other hand, some people present with what we call a hot tooth. A hot tooth is one in which the nerve is alive, but badly inflamed. The tooth is generally already very painful [mine was!], especially to hot or cold stimuli [yes! YES!]. These are the ones that require multiple shots to get numb enough to work on painlessly. A vast majority of these will numb out with a few carpules of anesthesia administered in the normal ways. A few, however, are so inflamed and acidic that the anesthesia cannot diffuse into the nerve fibers well enough to totally destroy the sensations generated by the nerve in the tooth. In these cases, we may resort to intrapulpal anesthesia. In this procedure, we will drill very quickly directly though the top of the tooth into the nerve chamber (a few seconds is generally sufficient time) and deliver a quick squirt of anesthesia directly into the nerve inside the tooth [oh, we are so getting to this part and what THAT feels like in a few seconds]. It's fast, and always effective.”)

So back to me (isn’t that what blogging is all about?), I am sitting there dreading the whole procedure. I had never had a root canal before, but the things I heard weren’t really fabulous. So as they start setting up for this sudden, immediate root canal, I can do nothing but stare over to the painting of a sailboat on the far wall. I believe I still hate paintings of sailboats because they are ALWAYS in dentists’ offices. At least, my dentists had them. Perhaps they are supposed to be calming? Like the “lite fm” music that they always play. Because really, how can you not just relax and open wide when you hear Celine Dion?

The doctor (I have no idea of her name, hence the “doctor” and “she” business) then lets me know that what she has to do is directly inject the Novocain into the root itself, in order to do the root canal. I had some other Novocain that day and the aforementioned terrible tooth history, so I felt like it would just be more of the same.

Well. Not so much. I am a pretty quiet person; I think I go with the flow. She stuck that needle into the root of my tooth and I vocally protested, used one hand to grip the arm of the chair with a force that probably would have broken a bone, and flailed my free arm for about 3 solid seconds. Which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it really is. It was excruciating. And perhaps because this came before all that other crap I had to have, like getting all 4 impacted wisdom teeth out at the same time, this stands out as the SINGLE most painful dental experience of my life.

But then, I guess looking on the bright side (as I am so inclined to always do), after that 3 seconds of torturous pain, I had absolutely no further pain for the rest of the procedure. She did whatever had to be done, and I felt nothing. I practically dozed off.

And then that doctor decided that what she was going back to school for her as a specialty was root canals! So I’d like to think that my “hot tooth” kind of played a role in shaping her future.

My Murder of Crows

2007-05-25T10:01:00.001-05:00

This person at work was telling me about how there is a black market out there for baby crows. People will find a nest, scramble up the tree, and while their cohorts wait in the car, they grab the babies while the mama crows are all cawing and pecking at them, menacingly circling their heads. (Doesn’t your job suddenly seem a little better?)

I kind of didn’t get it, but thought that may be because I am a bird hater. But I mean, of all the birds, crows are my favorite. I think I can just relate to them; they like shiny things, sound somewhat coarse, and mimic people. I read that when you sit there going “Hello! Hello!” the crow will eventually repeat it; then you move on to a new word, and soon you can have this verbal crow. Their life span is between 3 and 5 years; so it’s like a cooler version of the parrot (I mean, really—crow can kick parrot’s ass) without the serious commitment. You don’t have to worry about how your grandkids will feel about the crow. Also, you can get a bunch and call it a murder. Apparently scientifically they do call it a flock and it is more just poetic to call it a murder. But that doesn’t make it wrong!

So now I have this plan of getting a murder of crows, and having them do my bidding. I can sit home and be like “crow, get my slippers!” and send the crow into my room. I bet with their intelligence and sharp beaks, they can even open my beer. Or, I can be out somewhere and just yell, “Bring me home, my pretties!” and my murder will all swoop down and grab hold of me, lifting me into the sky and to home. Hopefully their talons won’t just tear my clothes off and I go falling naked from the sky. But my crows wouldn’t let that happen.

A mother's love...

2007-05-23T12:51:00.000-05:00

So I was on the phone with my mother the other day. The very woman who gave me birth. And she says to me, “I pray for you ever day because you are going to hell.” So I pause for a moment and then ask, “Why?”

“You don’t go to church. So you are going to hell.”
Me: “So your God is a forgiving God, eh?”
“If you don’t go to church, you go to hell. Do you even believe in Christ?”
Me: “I believe that Christ makes a good story...”
“WHAT?”
Me: “I mean, I can’t believe in the bible, I think it was made up by a bunch of men. Stories to teach.”
“Have you ever even READ the bible?”
Me: “I took a course in bible studies in college. So I read parts.”
“Well, you are still going to hell.”
Me: “What about everybody else?”
“You and Cara are going to hell. Your other sisters go to church.”
Me: “But they don’t believe in it. They just go because they think they are supposed to, and feel like they have to bring their kids.”
“Well, they still go. When Jesus returns, he won’t bring your soul up to heaven.”
Me: “And is he going to take a plane here?”
“NO, he is going to come on a cloud.”
Me: “I studied clouds. They are just dust particles surrounded by water. You can’t float on that.”
“Jesus can.”
Me: “Then why wouldn’t Jesus use something faster? More efficient?”
“Maybe he will just show up. You know, appear.”
Me: “Like Star Trek?”
“I never saw Star Trek.”
Me: “Me neither, but they do that. They ‘beam’ places.”
“Then maybe, yes.”
Me: “Well, I guess I’ll just be in hell then. Thanks for the call.”

Moving truck horror

2007-05-23T09:13:00.000-05:00

Right before I left for college my parents were selling the house in White Plains. They had nowhere to go, so most everything we owned was being put in storage. Now, the house wasn’t a mansion, by any means. But it was pretty roomy. There are 5 of us, and we all had our own room. There were even 2 apartments in the basement, and an attic full of crap. So we are talking a lot of stuff.

Moving day comes, and for some reason me and my closest sister are the only ones around to deal with the moving men. They load up this gigantic truck, and it was packed to the brim. They had this one really skinny guy in there at the end, cramming things all over. I think they couldn’t have fit another couch cushion in that thing. So we are supposed to head over to the storage place, meet them there, and then watch them unload everything. On the way, we realize that we need to buy a padlock, so we stop off for a few minutes to get one. As we are 1 block away from the storage place, we see the movers standing around on the side of the road. As my sister is saying, “What the hell are they all just doing standing there?” I look down to the right (I was in the passenger side) and go, “oh. Ohhhh.”

The moving truck had apparently not been able to make it up the hill and the brakes went out (personal opinion? They overloaded it) and when the truck started to roll backwards, all the guys jumped out of the cab and the truck slid back, then turned and lodged itself sideways in this tiny ditch. It was a perfect fit. The cab was sticking up, but the box part was practically made for this ditch. And it is the ONLY ditch on the entirety of 9A that I know of.

So we go over, park the car, and run down there, then call my dad on a pay phone (ahh, the simpler times before cell phones were everywhere) and tell him about it. He just got all quiet, then said, “...is there a fire?” And when I said no, he kind of relaxed. So there was nothing else we could do and we ended up heading home.

Basically, people from the area ended up getting lawn chairs and sitting on the side of 9A to watch this whole fiasco. (Really, why??) They got one of those construction vehicles to come and try to pry the box out of the ditch. But the truck was so heavy, so every time the back of the backhoe thing (backhoe? Is that right?) would lift up from the weight, and then it would drop the truck. So it was repeatedly slamming the truck, and all of our belongings, up and down in the ditch.

They put chains around the truck to try and lift it out, and the chains were rubbing and causing sparks. So they had to get the fire department there, and they were waiting with their hoses for the whole thing to just burst into flames. Luckily, that never happened.

Finally, it got to the point that they decided to just cut a hole in the side of the truck and slowly lift things out of it until there was enough weight gone to lift the truck out. At this point, my parents decided to just go out to dinner. (I was too young to realize it was much more about the wine than the dinner, but I’m betting that was the important part.)

My friend Leigh came with us out to dinner, and on her way home had to drive by the incident. Even though it sounds weird in the retelling, the whole thing was extremely dramatic; she sees the flashing lights, firemen, hoses, police officers, trashy people on lawn chairs, and calls me hysterically crying. “Diane!! I JUST SAW YOUR TV ON 9A!! IT IS JUST SITTING THERE IN THE RIGHT LANE! OH GOD! IT’S AWFUL!”

Eventually they got the truck out and as they turned it over, glass and mirror just came pouring out of the hole. The good side here was that my parents had this hideous, awful, nasty mirrored wall unit thing in the living room, which was completely destroyed. Heh.

So all of our stuff went into storage, but we had to get 2 storage rooms—1 was for the stuff that seemed to be ok, and 1 was for everything that was completely broken so that the insurance company could come and look at it and go “oh yeah. Broken.” And determine how much money our broken crap was worth.

So anyway. I have yet to hear of anybody else who has had a worse moving experience.

Seinfeld

2007-05-22T14:04:00.000-05:00

I had to share my favorite quote from Seinfeld:

"Ah, you're crazy."
"Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?"
"It's impossible!"
"Is it? Or is it so possible that your head is spinning like a top?!"
"It can't be!"
"Can’t it? Or is your entire world just crashing down all around you?"
"Alright, that's enough."

I like to say this to people.

Entrails

2007-05-22T10:53:00.000-05:00

Nobody else ever seems to have the kind of problems that I do. I was driving down 684 one evening, going to meet 2 friends at Playland. It is a fast-paced road; I was probably going about 80 mph and there were a number of other cars. So by the time I notice the giant deer carcass in the middle of the lane coming up, it is too late for me to switch. There were cars on both sides, so I just had to smash right over it. I thought everything seemed ok. My car was still working, I didn’t skid over it and smash or anything. So as I am driving, I realize that there are these nasty bloody bits of fur splattered all over the windshield. “Gross!” I thought, then parked at Playland and went to meet my friends.
We spend a few hours there and when we are coming back, I was telling the story about the deer and how nasty it was that it splattered onto my window. So one friend looks and goes “dude, look down there.” On the front bumper, in that little space are entrails. Deer entrails. That somehow, by driving over them, wrapped themselves around in that little space and were dragging all over. So while I was driving, I just had these flapping entrails with me.
“Ugh!” we 3 said in unison. Then tried using a stick to get them off. But from the drive, they had also bonded themselves there and were not budging. I had to go to my friend’s house and they used a hose, sticks, gardening tools, and anything else possible to pry them off of my car.

As far as I have heard, this situation was still pretty much unique to me. Especially as someone who lives in the Bronx.

WWE pipe dreams (but without the opium)

2007-05-22T08:58:00.000-05:00

I have this great plan about when I become a professional wrestler. Right before they announce me in the arena, they will turn all the lights down. Then from behind a white curtain you will kind of see my silhouette as the announcer says, “Tonight, the forecast calls for partly cloudy with 100% chance of...” [at this point he reaches a frenzied level of screaming] “...D-STORM!!!”
And then there will be the crashing sound of thunder, and while the lights flicker on and off, I can bust through the curtain. I still have to work on my outfit. Because in my mind, I am wearing a rain cloud that basically ends up looking like a tutu. But I have a golden lightning bolt across my chest. And for some reason, those shoes with wings on them like that little girl had in Adventures in Babysitting. Maybe I need to confer with a costume designer in the WWE.

The 2-door Saturn

2007-05-21T15:16:00.000-05:00

This story is never as funny in the retelling, but when I try to talk about it, or even just think about it, I laugh so hard I cry.

My friend Do had her car for probably at least 5 years at the point in time in which this story takes place. We were hanging out one night; some of us were drinking. I am always one who is up for drinking, but on this particular night, I wasn’t that drunk. Do was driving her boyfriend and me back to his house for sleeping. He had gotten tired earlier in the night and went to her car to nap. So when Do and I got out there, he was in the driver’s seat passed out. Do went over to try and get him to wake up enough just to move to the passenger seat, and I went to the passenger side to get in. So while she is standing over him, gently going “you gotta move, ok? Hey, can you move? Psstt?” I am standing on the other side, growing confused. He decides that he can just scoot over from the driver to the passenger side without getting out of the car. He is mumbling all sorts of sleepy words, but they aren’t all that coherent. Do is standing there going, “I don’t know, I think maybe you need to just get out and walk around. Uhm, are you sure this will work? Ok, can you please just get out and not shove over?”
I, meanwhile, am standing at the passenger side and am trying desperately to shove the front seat down. For some reason, it just isn’t folding. I was really confused, and starting to get angry when Do looked up and saw me struggling with the seat. So while her boyfriend has one leg on each side and is straddling the gear shift, I am going “wait, I need to get in first! Don’t move over yet!” She finally goes “WHAT are you DOING?” and I say (like she is totally daft), “I am trying to GET IN THE BACK! The seat won’t fold!” So she stares at me for a minute and then says, “I HAVE a FOUR-DOOR CAR!”

At this point I think both of us were laughing too hard to do anything but stand there clutching our stomachs. And poor boyfriend missed it all, because he was passed out on the console.

Morocco

2007-05-21T09:27:00.001-05:00

I was just getting coffee in the break room at work and someone in there was talking about my recent trip to Morocco. I never wrote about that here...
So a few months ago my friend agreed to go somewhere with me, and we settled on Morocco. I am not sure why I always wanted to go there, it just seemed like a cool place to visit. So we look online, find a tour, and book a trip that was to take place in about 2 months. (Neither one of us are big on the whole "plan it way in advance" thing. I think the two of us are both too antsy.)

First, we are on the flight and end up sitting next to this little girl. Her parents were placed in different places on the plane, and she didn't want to switch with someone to sit with her dad, she wanted to stay with us. So my friend (who had to sit in the middle after the heinous experience I had on the way to Paris) ended up taking care of this little girl--reading stories, helping her eat, etc. She did steal her cookies though, so I guess that was worth it. But the flight wasn't awful.

We get off the plane and meet with our tour, get to the hotel, and get ready for seeing Casablanca. Now, we were bold in Paris--we got there and walked right out of the hotel and all over the streets and took the Metro and talked to people and stayed out at night. All that. So at 1 p.m. I decide we should go for a walk around the hotel and see what is there. We get 1 block away and a man walks by making kissy sounds. I was like, "wow, I knew that would happen, but still weird!" A few seconds later, another man walks by going "bonjour girls. Hey ladies." A few more steps, and it's "Hey girls! I know where you're from! {kissy kissy} I know you!" This guy follows us for a block talking and making sounds, and now I get really uncomfortable. My friend is all "who cares?" but I can't handle it, so we go back to the hotel. And right there was when my adventurous spirit died.

We did the tour thing and it was fine. The country was amazingly beautiful, and fascinatingly different. But somehow, I am a HUGE hit in Morocco. When we were in Fez I was telling the tour guide, Hassan, about how it was when we left the hotel. He whipped around and said, "You left the hotel?! Here? AT NIGHT?!" and I felt like I did something wrong. I said 'no, not here. It was in Casablanca. In the afternoon. It was light out... I'm sorry Hassan."
And he said, "If you want to go somewhere, tell me. Call me on my cell phone if you are going out at night. You can't go out at night!"
Rather than feeling like I had a companion, I felt amazingly uncomfortable. To have a stranger (albeit a stranger who is being paid to make sure I make it out of the country alive) flip out like that made me feel much less safe.

We go to Marrakesh, the last stop on our tour, and on one of those day tours, Hassan was pointing to a wedding chair in this museum we went into. He decided then that he would come tell me that the men of Morocco really favor pale skin and child-bearing hips. Hunh. Should I be insulted? I mean, yes, in my family the babies practically just fall out. All 3 of my birthing sisters had babies when the nurse swore it couldn't be time, and ended up with the doctor not being ready. One of them even had a doctor with 1 glove on, yelling for his other glove as the baby was coming.
But perhaps having my first real boyfriend tell me a few weeks into dating him that I had child-bearing hips made me a little touchy. Why did Hassan have to go and point that out?

But I had my answer: I was such a hit in Morocco because I am the palest person around, and I look like I could bear a man many fine, strapping sons. Hunh.

In Marrakesh then we end up just going to sit at the hotel bar. I was terrified of leaving at night, as though all the men would just see me reflecting the moonlight and flock to me. We walk into the "jazz club" (in quotes because that name was a real stretch; they should have called it the "cheesy American music that even my parents find too soft" club).
We sit down and order a bottle of wine, and everything seems to be fine. But the guy playing the keyboard just keeps staring over, and smiling. Then he starts winking. Luckily, the way the place was set up had me sitting in such a way that he was straight ahead of me, and thus it was hard to NOT look at him.
On the second night, we are both walking by this place and he sees us through the window. He waves at us, and waves us in. We are greeted with a giant smile and winks as he plays through another painful rendition of a song I never really liked in the first place. We sit, my friend getting a soda and I had a campari and soda. She gets tired and heads up to bed while I finish my drink. I am sitting alone reflecting on the vacation that was going to end soon, glancing through the pictures on my camera. Just as I look up I see the piano guy staring at me, grinning, winking, all very over the top, and then he sings: "Hello? Is it me you're looking for?"
(As a side note, I had a joke with my friend in high school about this song and we always laugh about it. So to now be in this situation, by myself, hearing this guy singing it with a heavy accent and staring at me suggestively was almost too much.) I am grinning behind my hand, but know I have to get out of there.
I call over the waiter, who was never anything but cordial when I was with my friend. "Yes honey?" (What?)
me: "oh, I'd just like to have my bill"
"well, you only have to pay for 1 drink."
me: "oh yeah? Why?"
"because you are just so beautiful." {wink, grin}

I mean, I wonder if my pheramones were just like, of some type that doesn't exist in that country and I am somehow this hot commodity.

On the last night, my friend was sick and went to bed early. So I am sitting with 2 other girls from the tour and they are saying they have wine but the waiters wouldn't open it. I was like, "oh, just take it to the jazz club. That guy will do it." So we walk in and the waiter is like "Hi! What can I do for you?" to me. He opens the bottles for us and we turn to see my piano guy waving and smiling and winking again. So these 2 girls are like, "uh, do you know him?" and i just told them the story about how he likes to wave at me from afar.

We go to sit out by the pool with some wine, and in about 10 minutes the piano guy shows up. He stands right by the door about 20 feet away, just staring. One of the other girls waves back, and is like "man, that is creepy!" He did that 2 more times, and then when our group moved inside to the couch area in the lobby, he did as well. He took his break by sitting on a couch 10 feet away just staring. And if I looked over, he'd smile. But never did he try to talk to me. Just watch. From afar.

I end up heading upstairs at 1 or 1:30 and have to get up at 3 for our trip home. I was really looking forward to getting home. So at 2:45 I hear my friend in the bathroom.
She calls me. "Diane?"
"yaargg?" (I had a lot of wine, and I had no sleep, so I wasn't quick on the waking up here.)
"I keep falling over..."
Me: "maybe you are just tired and it's making you dizzy?"
"Diane? Can you help me up?"

So I go into the bathroom without my glasses and as I help my friend get up off of the floor, I see a big pool of blood from where she just was. I turn in time to see her about to collapse and grab her before she goes down. (In my defense, she didn't say, "Diane? I am lying a big pool of blood." I thought she was just dizzy!)
So as I am slowly lowering her to the floor she is staring vacantly right past me going "Diane? Diane?" in this eery, child-like voice. So now I am about to flip out. The whole back of her head is matted in bloody hair. She had been about to take a pill, and so they were all over the sink and floor area. It was like a scene from a movie; a bloody person passed out surrounded by pills, the pill container lying on it's side and the top on the floor.
We are back to standing up, and I realize that I can't lift her up. So I end up saying "is it ok if I drag you across the floor?" (Also in my defense, I didn't mean like, by the hair or feet. I was holding her up and just meant to let her feet go because every time she tried to walk, she just fell over and stumbled back into me.) SO we get to the bed and from there, I lifted her back.
"Diane? I just need my power bar. Can you get my power bar?"

Anyway, we end up calling the doctor who came and did NOTHING. He said she should get stitches but that he would drive us to the clinic. Overall, I am really glad we didn't go because he was a total scammer. He said one price and then followed us to the ATM machine (as we were leaving the next day, we both spend up our Dirhams down to just enough for airport food) and then demanded more.

So our tour ended up waiting for us, and we had about 5 minutes to get ready and pack and make it downstairs. We left the hotel room in shambles. It looked like a horrible murder had taken place in the bathroom, and another in one of the beds.

We got to the airport in Casablanca, and find a medical area. I am walking in the room yelling about how there is no doctor, and this other woman on the tour was with me. We are about to start opening up the cabinets when this man stumbles out of a tiny door in sweatpants and says, "are you looking for a doctor?" My friend is brought in and they give her stitches there. Including stitching this gauze to her head.

That was pretty much the trip. I am thinking that I will go back to my Europhile ways and just stick with going to a country where people think I am nothing special. Because that seems to work out a little bit better for me.

I will though comment on the fact that Morocco was really beautiful, and being in the medinas was an amazing experience. I wish I had gone under different circumstances, like with just 1 man or a smaller tour. But just look at how beautiful it was.

Yay!

2007-05-17T09:08:00.000-05:00

So I have a bit of an issue with computers and I forgot how to get into my blog. But I did! I had to email and ask and the nice person told me. Slash, they had a mix up with something and now I have 20 thousand gmail accounts and passwords. So now I can blog away. A lot.

I guess my life is dull and i haven't been up to much. I went out to Montauk this past weekend with a friend of a friend. It was a nice place, I think. I didn't see much of it during the day. It seems like a lot of kind of creepy older guys. For instance, the first night 4 of us were at the bar and the 2 other girls went to sit in a booth. (Apparently the smart move, because they were more "inaccessable.")
So I am talking to my "friend" who was with me, and this older man--I may say about 50--come and sits a seat away from him. I forgot the man's name, so let's call him David. That sounds like it could be right. So David sits down and offers us some pieces of a kit kat. He starts talking to the person I am with, and is spewing chocolate out as he talks. So my friend decides this is the optimal time for a cigarette. I say, "You know, i really don't think that this is a good time for you to smoke."
"Nah, don't worry. You'll be fine."
He gets up and leaves and I am left there with this man. This David. He moves down 3 stools so he is sitting almost on top of me.
He starts talking, and is so drunk I can barely make out what he is saying.
"Where you from?"
Me: "The Bronx."
"The Bronx?? I HATE the Yankees!"
Me: "Oh, well... I'm not actually ON the Yankees."
"Screw the Yankees..."
Me: "right."
"So if you are all the way out here, do you have a place to stay?"
Me: "yup, staying with my friend."
I point meaningfully at the door and stare longingly at it, willing my friend to walk back through the door.
"Oh, because you know what? Those girls next to you? They're BITCHES."
I turn to my left and see 3 young, pretty nice looking ladies.
Me: "Really? They look pretty nice to me."
"No, they're bitches. HEY BITCHES!"
They all ignore him and keep chatting and drinking their light beers.
"I know, because they are my cousins. BITCHES."
The entire time, the crackery chocolate is breaking free, flying from his lips. I shrink away.
"So you have a place to stay?"
Me: "uh, yes. As I said, I'm staying with my friend."
"Oh. Because if you need a place, you can stay with me. I'm a good guy."
Me: "yes, I bet."
"I mean, I tell you. You may wake up on a cold bathroom floor and have no idea where you are or how you got there..."
Me: "??????"
"...But your pants will BE ON. Your pants will STILL BE ON."
At this point I just stare.
Then he says something else and grabs onto my arm, so I shove him with my hands away from me and say, "yeah, no. No. Ok, stop."
Then my friend walks back in (for a fast smoker this seemed like a real eternity to have to wait for him) and this guy sees him coming in, gets up, and just leaves the bar.

The moral of this story is that smoking doesn't only hurt you, but it also really hurts your friends.

Oooh, they make me so mad!

2007-03-09T16:06:00.000-05:00

So I know I skipped for awhile. Things slowed down a bit, dog-wise. But then today, I am having a bit of a crummy day anyway. And all these FREAK dog people are getting receipts about their emails, so they know that I am deleting them. And they are getting SO MAD about it.

So this person says:

"I would really appreciate a response to my email. I have sent the need to 50 people and they wondering if this is a true case or note."

The dog bitch came out full force.

"I don’t know how I got listed as the main contact on this. I was only CC’d on one of these emails and now have gotten thousands of emails about it. I really have no information. I am trying to get back to as many people as possible, but it isn’t working.
Please spread the word, if you can, that I am not the contact. I truly wish people would look online before sending such things to 50 people.
Please don’t respond, as I am quite tired of getting these dog emails to my work address."

Can this lady understand anything? Apparently not. So I get an answer.

"I am sorry.
I did look on line and nothing came up that is why I sent it out.
Perhaps if you were CC’d on one of these emails you should have responded to that person as to remove your name off the email.
And responding to people who are really concerned that the email is not true would have stopped the process a while back if you would have responded so we wouldn’t send it out further.
This website http://www.snopes.com/cgi-bin/comments/webmail.asp
Will post that your message association to 2 labs needing a home will stop you from receiving so many emails."

So what do we learn from this:

People in the midwest act like they are all cheese and sunshine. But no. There are seriously screwed up attitudes lurking in there, just waiting to leap out should you ever cross them and there is a dog involved. Make it 2 dogs, and you just better put that address straight in your "always Spam that bitch " folder.

I mean, seriously? She thought that MY name showed up on the original email I was CC'd on and I sat there going "hunh, that's weird. Wonder why I just got an email saying to contact me at work. Funny coincidence." I know she doesn't know me, but I am really not that inept. Frankly, I think that I should just start making flyers and putting HER name and email address on it. Because petty though it is, it would really make me happy to think of her having this problem and having to deal with OTHER bitchy people, like herself. Ha ha. Just thinking of it makes me smile.

We also know me well enough to know that this stubborn attitude can't let something like that go. Someone needs to have the last word all the time.

"I have responded to over 2000 people.
I did report it to snopes.
Obviously, when I was CC’d on it MY OWN NAME wasn’t listed as the contact, there was nobody shown. It was days later, long after it had spread. Someone ELSE when forwarding it saw it truncated and put me down instead."

Then I immediately put her address as spam so I wouldn't have to see anymore of it. I just really don't like people.

It's getting old.

2007-02-27T16:47:00.000-05:00

So my new tactic seems to be working pretty well. I answer as many as I can throughout the day, and most people are nice. I should really be the optimistic person here going, "wow, what an outpouring of support. How nice."
But I'm really not there yet. First off, I think that most of these people wouldn't do shit to help a person. I think that animal people love animals so much because they have issues with people. And I get that. People suck. I have a lot of issues with most of the ones I meet, too. It's a lot easier to love the dog you can kick around and scream at that still stares at you with admiration and respect than the person who ditches you after a few screaming matches, or even leaves after nothing but is just tired of you. But still. I can't really respect that "I help animals all the time and do nothing for people." It's just me. I can't.

So anyway, I started answering all emails with this:

I'm sorry, I don't know how I got listed as the main contact on this. I was only CC'd on one of these emails and now have gotten thousands of emails about it. I really have no information. I am trying to get back to as many people as possible, but it isn't working! Please spread the word, if you can, that I am not the contact. I don't even know if this is real or not.
Thanks!

I thought it was nice. Not that I am bragging, but I find it clear, informative, brief and yet decisive. As in "please stop emailing, I know nothing." I still get a lot of, "Wow! Sorry!" replies. But fine. A lot of people have even said, "I will let everyone I know know that." One woman told me she took down the flyer about me. (Which I STILL don't get.)

But today I get the response:

This is a real inquiry about the dogs. I am sorry if my email was a problem. [Someone] listed you as the contact. Should I contact [her] instead?
Thanks,

Seriously? Am I wrong in feeling like, "are you kidding?" I mean, was I not clear enough? Do I need to revise my copy-and-past email to take some of these people into consideration? Am I being too judgmental? Whatever.

My new tactic

2007-02-26T13:08:00.000-05:00

I decided to try a new tactic for awhile. I have been pasting in to all the emails I get the same message, basically saying, "I don't know how I got listed as the contact but please spread the word that it isn't me! I have gotten thousands of emails!" I am getting a lot of nice responses, but it's one of those things where I don't really want an answer. I already am getting a ton of messages. Don't answer to say sorry. But still, it's nice of people. I thought maybe it would dwindle down, but today there doesn't seem to be any lesser number of messages. Maybe even more.
This whole thing is so strange.

People are mean.

2007-02-22T17:34:00.000-05:00

New message from someone in Chicago:

Re: IF YOU ALREADY FOUND A HOME FOR THE PUPS COULD YOU JUST SAY SO?

Because apparently, she could see that her message was deleted without being read today.

Like after the day I had I could let that go.

"COULD YOU MAYBE RESEARCH THIS ONLINE AND FIND OUT THIS LOOKS LIKE A HOAX BEFORE BARRAGING MY WORK EMAIL WITH USELESS EMAILS??????????"

I am really over the dog thing. I think it's time for a new job.

Do keeps reminding me to look at it from the point of view of the other person, who thinks that they are 1 of, say, 30 people asking about the dogs and it is rude for me to not answer. But they are 1 of 2000. And I really did try to think of it that way. But you don't send someone an email in all caps. It is NEVER acceptable.

come on!

2007-02-22T13:52:00.000-05:00

Today I got 3 phone calls. One woman left me a message this morning, and then called back within about 2 hours. I let her know I knew nothing. She basically just repeated everything I said in disbelief.

"Yeah, that's the right Diane but I have NO idea how my name was associated with this. I know nothing about it."
"...you know nothing about it."
"No."
"...you don't know how your name was associated with this?"
"Nope."
"...but you are listed on the flyer."

[side note: WHO THE HELL MADE A FLYER?? Or is it flier? I don't know. BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER NOW. What matters is that there IS one. That SOMEONE made with ME on it.]

"I don't even know if this was ever real!"
"...you don't know if this is real?"
"No. And I got 2000 emails to my WORK email."
"...ok. Sorry to bother you."

Then the radio station emailed me back though saying they took me off their site. They were very nice, and said it is too bad and all that. Then I guess I'm off Craigslist Detroit, too. But it doesn't seem to be slowing down all that much. As of now, I got 130 emails today.

UPDATE! I just got an email from some woman that said "can you please just answer this before deleting it"
I went back to my deleted folder (which, we know, is done automatically) and saw that she did email me at 4:17. This latest email was from 4:53. So basically she was saying that it was rude of me to not answer her within 40 minutes? Because really, she can't know that she was deleted. People from Oklahoma can apparently be quite pushy!
So that one warranted a personalized response.

dog update

2007-02-21T14:34:00.000-05:00

So far today, I received 200 emails and 1 phone call about the labs. The caller was VERY nice. But I am still peeved about this whole thing. And then I keep getting people saying, "you shouldn't be sending that from work!" or "No good deed goes unpunished!" But see, I didn't try to do any kind of good deed. I didn't care about the dogs. I don't even particularly like dogs at all. I am not a good deed doer. I am a sit back and complainer. I feel like I just want to go buy a bottle of wine to take home with me. But wait! I can't comfortably go to the wine store. "clink, clink." I need to never go on "dates" with people that work at my favorite stores.

This is what my inbox/deleted items looks like.

Bed

2007-02-20T11:39:00.000-05:00

I think I am ready to go into hibernation. Just sleep for a few weeks. Then get up and eat some honey.

post offices

2007-02-19T21:12:00.000-05:00

So I am always bitching about post offices. It is really frustrating to be staring at someone who controls your mail and is totally vacant.

Not that ALL people at post offices suck. Just the ones at the PO near me. Just a few weeks ago I had to send 4 big boxes of books to Armenia.

(Long story sidebar here: I have a John [not John like in the prostitute sense, that is his name] in Armenia in the Peace Corps. He asked me if my company ever donates books. I went through a big ordeal in order to get books that were going to be thrown in the trash, and finally got them together to send to this other guy. Wait, this story really wasn't so long.)

So I spent some time finding out the best way to send things, and they have M-bags if you are sending books or journals or any publication. You can send 66 pounds in 1 bag, and it is just $66 dollars. Or something close to that. I go to the post office to pick them up one day.

"Hi, I have to send a bunch of books to Armenia, I think that M-bags are the best way..."
"....."
"OK, so does that make sense? Are they the best way to send this stuff?"
"..... What?"
"To send about 4 boxes all filled with books, they are about 25 pounds each. Do I do the M-bags?"
"....."
"Ok, so do you CARRY M-bags? I read that most post offices don't have them."
"yeah."
"Can I have them?"
"How many do you want?"
"4?"
[she walks away, with the speed of a dead snail.]

I stand there and wait a full 5 minutes. So my helpful friend returns with these giant sacks. They appear to be the stupidest idea ever: giant sacks for books/periodicals? Why? Who is going to lift that? Whatever, I take them.
At that point the woman next to me working at the PO, not even the woman helping me, turns around and says, "Just when are you going to mail those?"
"I guess tomorrow, maybe later in the wee-"
"Oh, 'cause I was gonna say, we are closing soon. Ha. As long as it ain't today."

I look up at the clock which reads 4:42. They close at 5. Apparently I can't mail my M-bags with only 20 minutes for them to figure out how to mail things.

(Another story side-note: I went to this same post office to mail John a package about a year before. I fill out all the international crap, customs forms, etc. I get up to the counter and the woman goes, "I thought you were sending this internationally."
I look blankly at her and say, "yeah..."
"Well, your package says it is going to AMERICA."
I check my own writing, making sure I didn't do it wrong.
"No, I'm sorry. That actually says ARMENIA."
"ARMENIA? WHAT?" She types it into her computer and up comes the name.
"Well, I never even heard of that! Hunh.")

Anyway, I take the bags and shove them in my car for another day. About a week later, I finally have the boxes packed and ready to go. Do comes to help me carry them to the post office, because they are heavy. We get there, and get up to the counter, boxes on a little cart and M-bags in hand. I had filled out most of the international shipping information, but really, isn't that stuff always confusing? So we make it to the lady. A different lady than I had the week before. She looks thrilled to be dealing with this at, again, 15 minutes to close. (I have a knack.)

I explain to her that I have the bags, but haven't yet put the boxes in. She looks at me, somewhat angrily. "It's not my job to put the boxes in the bags." Seriously? Do and I both try to explain that were we to put 2 boxes weighing about 30 pounds each in these bags, we would need to hire Hercules to come and then left it up to the counter height (which, being a shorty, is probably at about my shoulders). She rolls her eyes and says again that putting the boxes in the M-bags is not her job. After further arguing and claims of, "Well, if you want us to carry them around and back there, that is fine. Otherwise you will have to lift them up there yourself" she works on it. She then decides that only 1 box is allowed per bag. Not true, but financially it didn't matter. So we go with it. We get through all of this, and she ended up actually being nicer towards the end. I leave, and a few days later realize that in my haste (I get stressed rather easily) I didn't ask her to give me ANY of the shipping labels that the shipper gets to keep. All I have is a useless receipt showing that I paid $120 for stuff to be sent. So now I am just hoping that these things make it to the recipient. And really feeling peeved that these people have such control.

The day I started to hate dogs

2007-02-19T20:05:00.000-05:00

So really, this whole story is the reason behind the blog. Because I think that the most absurd things happen to me. A lot.

Let's start at the very beginning. So I get an email at work to my work email from someone saying, "know anybody who wants to adopt these 2 labs?" I think "no." I was CC'd on it and it went to a few people. I did forward it to my friend Leigh to look at the pictures, and that is it. It went no further by my hand. So how am I now cursing these dogs, you ask?

I get 2 emails later that day with phone numbers of people interested. I thought that they just did a reply all and thought, "what a dumbass. Like I want to see this." If I only knew...

Well, the message was one that really went right for the heartstrings. I didn't see this until later when it was forwarded to me with a request for the dogs. It had been circulating with the following message, and 2 really cute pictures of the supposed dogs (see 1 example below):

2 Black Labs need home ASAP
The owner of these 2 beautiful labs has terminal cancer and can't care for them anymore. He is heartbroken and hopes to find a family for them while he is still able. These boys are 4 years old and have been raised together and he would like very much to find a home who can take them both so they can stay together.
Details: Two beautiful 4 year old purebred male Black Labs, Hunter and Fame, both neutered. They are truly wonderful dogs. The owner's grandchildren can crawl all over them and like a typical lab; they just lay there and love it. Both are up to date on their shots, housebroken and very well behaved. He would love to keep these two boys together if possible as they were raised together and are the best of friends. If you know anyone for these two pups or if you are interested in them, please contact ME@mygoddamnworkemail.

The next day, I got 20. I realized that for some reason, I was listed as the main contact for anybody interested in adopting these dogs. They emails start coming in at a phenomenal rate. I am totally at a loss; what do I do? They were multiplying exponentially. Finally, I found out that the supposed dogs (I still doubt their existance, but Do is convinced they were just adopted on January 23) have been adopted. I compose a simple email I can copy and paste in all message I get. I am trying to head this thing off at the pass. Most people were very nice, one woman told me I was "an angel for trying to help those dogs and that poor man!"
One of the people I wrote back to I included the "I have no idea how this happened and spread so fast" sentence. And she said, "I know! I got it from 2 people AND saw it posted at church!" WHAT??

They start showing up hundreds at a time. My inbox never stops dinging. All day. After a week, I call the help desk. The guy didn't even see the humor in the whole thing. He was all, "Why would you use your work email to adopt out 2 dogs?" I kept saying, "I DON'T HAVE ANY DOGS! I KNOW NOTHING!" And still, his accusatory tone. Finally we try to set up rules. I kept saying, "But Entourage doesn't work properly with Macs." But he was sure it would work. Nothing. No improvement. I call my I.T. guy Monday and beg for help. (He, at least, has a sense of humor and is very nice.) We tried going to postini, trying to get more messages "quarantined." There was no way to set up rules about subject/text there. We could have changed the few options, but (luckily) I wasn't getting any sexually explicit, racially insensitive, or get rich quick dog emails. So it was no use to me. I asked, "but why are the rules not working? WHY?" And I got: "Because Entourage sucks. Everybody hates it. With our Macs, nothing works quite right with this program." Cool. No options.

I go home and inspiration hits me: I log into my Webmail from my PC (I know, I'm a user of both; I should feel shame). I set up the rules there. It seems to work! . . . But just a little. I am still getting about 1/5 of the emails that somehow sneak past the rules. Still better than before!
I set it up to send all of these messages straight to the deleted folder. Yes, I do feel guilty--but really, can you blame me for having my fill of this?? It was out of control!

Friday I go to lunch and am telling some friends the story. We laugh about it . . . then I get back to work and had TWO VOICE MAILS from dog people. Yes, voice mails. Not clear how. Not sure why. Not exactly sure who really has enough time to hunt somebody down for 2 dogs, but whatever. I guess some jobs are low-stress. Needless to say, I don't call back. The last thing I need to do after receiving over 1,000 non-work related emails at work is start making long-distance calls.

I talk to my boss, who finds this the most hilarious and horrific thing at the same time. She can't stop laughing (especially the bit about church), but agrees that I need a new work email.

My friends all look on the internet; I am posted on blogs, radio station web sites, a realtor's site, craigslist in CHICAGO-area (still not clear as to how almost all of these things are in the midwest; I am clearly not). It has grown far out of control, and is one of those things that will never stop. No date; touching story. I am screwed. In fact, there are several people out there from North Carolina, Colorado, and even more places that seem to have their emails listed for the SAME story.

I get in to work today and there, as the first email, is one about the dogs. Over the weekend I only got about 100; it seems to slow down when people aren't at work. Maybe 10 made it to my inbox. This one happens to be the first. So I happen to see it in the preview window.

"Re: Since you're not going to reply and neither are your friends who forwarded your message to other states"

I know I shouldn't have read it. I KNOW that I should have clicked them all straight to the deleted folder. But I have been dealing with this for TWO WEEKS and having some midwestern BITCH give me attitude was the last straw. So I read on.

"You might want to add what state you're in when advertising something over email and sending it to friends who don't use discretion about who they're sending it to. I continue to get phone calls about these dogs, and I'm in INDIANA!!! I'm sure your ad is STILL being forwarded around."

Am I just being sensitive? I mean, first-thing on Monday morning to see this after two weeks of pure FUCKING HELL about these dogs probably wasn't a good combination. I don't like Mondays as it is. I didn't want to wake up on President's Day, when most of my friends and family were on vacation. And I come in to that? Hmm. I decide to just go to the kitchen for my coffee. Maybe I just need the coffee. Maybe I can take some deep breaths and calm down. But no; I get more agitated the more I think about this. Giving ME attitude? Seriously? So I answer:

"I have nothing to do with this. This is NOT MY AD. Some idiot put my WORK EMAIL as the main contact when I was only CC'd on it. So maybe YOU may want to do some online research before sending a nasty email about not responding. It took me 2 seconds to look on google and see that this has happened all over the country with different emails. Apparently you were after the initial FIVE HUNDRED responses, which I did answer.
I'm sure it's STILL being forwarded too, and have to change my work email address because of this. But it's always nice to see emails like this when I get in on Monday morning."

I feel a little better; and yet, unreasonable. Why do I feel so guilty about not just taking it anymore? Not sure; maybe that is for another day's blog and much more therapy. But I do feel bad. But I think this is the woman who left me a voice mail. Not that I really listened to the whole thing; I deleted it and stared at my phone in horror, picturing what happened with the email happening with the phone. (And my company is too cheap to give me a phone with caller ID.) But she emails me, leaves me a message about how I'm not calling back, and THEN sends me this (what I deem to be) nasty email? I couldn't just take it!

So now I'm the dog bitch. The one who doesn't give a shit that some poor fool is dying of cancer and just wants to find a new home for these animals. I am the evil girl in New York who is destroying any chance of them finding a new home. (Except that they already did . . . if they ever even existed.)

I go back to my boss and say, "please, can we change my email today? I can't handle all this." She calls the help desk, and we get the nasty guy again. He not only gives her attitude, he denies that the rules he set up don't work. Which they totally don't. So he sets up some more, and then I have to call Do at work to set them up on her PC. Because even at my completely inept level of computer knowledge, I still know more than that guy.

Anyway, that about brings us up to date on the "dog debacle" as I call it. And I pretty much wince when I see/hear/read anything about dogs right now. But I'm sure there will be more. Much more.

Why I have a blog

2007-02-19T13:20:00.001-05:00

The weirdest problems always seem to happen to me. And I end up retelling the story a ton of times. So here, I will just put all my life events.