Redemption, renewal, and my love of the “Q” word.

There is a milk crate under my table at “work,” and Sha’Ron has filled it with goodies for us to snack on. There’s popcorn and applesauce and little bags of chips and a package of cookies, but what catches my eye whenever I glance down (as I am wont to do for inspiration) is the bag of Hershey’s Miniatures. I think there might be one or two of the Special Dark chocolates left, and I’m pretty sure I decimated the Krackle chocolates last week, but every time I glance in that general direction I have an incredibly strong desire to root around and the bag and eat something chocolate. It’s barely eight in the morning right now, but I’m still being sucked into the bag of chocolate doom. Yummy chocolate doom, but chocolate doom nonetheless. Obviously I need to eat breakfast more regularly. Or move the milk crate of goodies. Or just polish off the rest of the chocolates and be done with it.

Mondays are always hard.

Breaking News That’s Not So Breaking And Is In Reality Quite Old: The News Goat redeemed himself. Sort of. I’m adding the caveat because I can’t just toss out redemptions willy-nilly. I also have trust issues. But in the past few weeks he has proven himself as being genuinely sorry for what happened and genuinely happy to spend time with me. I thrive on both apologies and attention, so this has been working out well. I’m not going to lie, I do have a bit of the nerves over the possible return of the assholishness behavior. While this is due partly to my self-deprecating ways (I have this firm belief everyone is destined to hate me or move to Kansas), it is a legitimate concern. The News Goat was never a horrible person before he had a bout of the assholishness, which means that him not being a horrible person now doesn’t guarantee anything for the future. So, you see, I have to add a caveat or two to my decree of redemption. I’m in the business of self-preservation, especially since I’m always one heart beat away from being sent off to the funny farm.

“How does one redeem themselves to you?” my (five) readers might ask. Well, there’s a little thing close to my heart known as Comedy Jokes. The News Goat’s first attempt to weasel his way back into my heart was offering to take me to Second City (coming to Charlotte next Month!!!). Ah. The Second City. I love them even though I’ve never actually seen them. And this weekend, I was treated to a improv show at one of those wonderful coffeeshops that also sells beer (I love those places). I’m such a big fan of all things Comedy Jokes, especially Comedy Jokes that are improvisational. Of course I’m saddened by the fact I’m living in The Thrill and can’t lie, cheat, and steal my way into some improv amazingness that’s going on in the queen city, but we’ll just add this to the list of things I’m saddened by not being able to do (e.g. take kayak). Another important factor to redeemption is having interesting and entertaining friends. After Saturday’s improv-viewing, I got to go out and have a Guinness at a pub-like establishment (obviously this is another way to my heart) with the News Goat’s news-y friends, who are smart and funny and all around enjoyable human beings.

Example of smart and funny and enjoyable-ness: It became a challenge to name a dictator for every letter of the alphabet, and it was mostly accomplished, as long as you overlook some of the less dictator-ly dictators we included (i.e. George W. Bush for “W” and Xenu (the intergalatic dictator of Scientology fame) for “X”). Most impressive was that these smart news-y kids actually knew of a dictator whose name starts with “Q.” I am ridiculously humbled by people who know a lot about the real world, as I know mostly stuff that’s fictional, has to do with whores, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Scientology, the Amish, or bad reality TV. Obviously I didn’t contribute much to the dictator game, except for throwing out Xenu, but I enjoyed being a part of it. If only we had thought to write the list down, we could have written one of those learn the alphabet children’s books.

My week last week was full of The Suck, and it even spilled into the weekend a little bit. The Suck has gotten to be so ridiculously overwhelming I’m completely ready to call it quits. Last week I was done with school more than once, done with “work” more than once, and even got done with dance at one point (which I didn’t think could happen). I feel a bit bad that The News Goat got caught listening to me expound upon my doneness with all the things I’m currently involved in, as well as my ranting about how I need to quit and get a job as a secretary somewhere. Luckily he isn’t the type of person who’s all “Chin up! You had a bad week, but you need to stick it out! You’re fine!” Instead he encouraged my quitting fantasy by helping me look for jobs in Charlotte (including the Craigslist personals, because I’m at the point where being someone’s sex slave doesn’t sound that undesirable) and apartments in Charlotte (unfortunately it’s much easier to find a really great apartment than a really great job, damn economy). Because I had such a good weekend, I’m currently not as devastated and ready to up and quit as I was, but since I have coach’s class tonight I’m pretty sure all this positiveness I’m exuding will be dead by 5:15 PM. I will have to discuss my complete aversion to all things in my life that are school related, but not now. I have to “teach” a class in a few minutes.

And by “‘teach’ a class” I mean “give them a list of questions to answer in small groups while I sit there and play on the internet.”

My pretend desk.

I have bad allergies (notacoldnotacoldnotacold) and I don’t feel like doing anything. Therefore, all I’ve been doing at “work” is playing with our new (to us) iMacs. We’ve had a leak in the area where one of the iMacs is going to go, which meant it was on “stand-by” in our equipment room. My boss gave me the iLife 08 CD today so I could install it on the iMacs (why they didn’t have iLife on them to begin with I don’t know), and was told the IT people wanted the disc back when they came by with the reimaged GA computer (no more crappy computer for Sha’Ron!). This meant I had to pull out the “stand-by” iMac and set it up (and can I just say how much I love how setting up an iMac means plugging in exactly 3 things?). The most logical place to do this was my table-desk.Then I took a picture, primarily to make the News Goat jealous. But since I’m so in love with this iMac and pretending this is my real desk forever, I’ve decided to share it with everyone:

Doesn’t this make me look all important and busy and sexy? And caffineated, since I’ve got two coffee cups sitting there. A girl’s got to stay awake.

In other news: I’m wearing a skirt today. What’s that about?

It can be so taxing sometimes.

We’re updating the ITC website, and I was given the task of getting a new picture for our home page.

That’s the old photo. We don’t have those iMacs anymore, and we don’t even have those computer tables. I am familiar with that printer, though. It’s in our surplus room. It’ll probably be there forever. This photo also stars Victor, and the less he shows up around here, the better.

This is the new picture. Much better, don’t you agree? I went all artsy with the black and white. I can also introduce you to Sha’Ron, my fellow GA, and Kyle, a GA who works down the hall. And propped up on the MacBook is our mascot, caterpillar from The Very Hungry Caterpillar, who someone left here one day.

Here he is, in all his glory. He wears an eye-patch, because during his early days with us his eye kept falling off. (For some reason this camera has ridiculous brightness to it, so you can’t tell he has googly eyes. Eye.) The problem has been rectified, but it’s embarrassing to have your eye fall off, so he continues to wear the eye-patch, just in case.

What I really enjoyed were the outtakes from the Sha’Ron and Kyle photo shoot. When I went to get Kyle from his office and told him why I needed him, he couldn’t control the glee on his face. “Kyle on a website?” he asked. “Do I look okay? Is my hair okay? Do I need more gel?” Kyle is from Iowa, and seems to have the kooky Iowa sensibility all my friends from Iowa have.

This was Kyle’s attempt to act like he was using the computer. I love the fact I captured his expression, because he has some of the best facial expressions of anyone I know. (Second only to Jana, who is also from Iowa, leading me to believe there’s something in the water.)

This picture is Sha’Ron’s attempt at acting like she was using the computer. “This is the escape key,” she said. “Oh, escape,” Kyle replied. Neither of them will be in the running for an Oscar this year, I’m sorry to say.

Bringing AnorSEXYa Back–Day Five

Yesterday someone called me at “work” to ask what our summer hours were. It was probably a faculty person, but since everyone in the entire building except us has a phone with caller ID, and because of this everyone assumes we also have caller ID and no one ever identifies themselves to us, I can’t be sure who it was who I spoke to. But after assuring her we were open at 8:00 AM, she asked (in an almost snarky way) if the person who was opening at 8:00 AM was someone who actually arrives at 8:00, or if it was someone who would straggle in at 8:10 or 8:20. This is a valid question, considering my boss never gets here before 8:30 (and even that’s a stretch), our administrative specialist (assistant) doesn’t come in until 10:00 (I’m not sure what her malfunction is), and my fellow GA likes to arrive places five or so minutes after she’s supposed to be there (she’s consistent, though: if she decides she wants to be two minutes late to class, she’s always exactly two minutes late to class). I’m probably the only one who works here who believes that the hours we say we’re open are the actual hours we should be open. Still, the woman on the phone irked me, because if you were the least bit worried that was the case, might should you just show up at 8:15 or 8:20 or anything after 8:00? I made doubly sure I was here on time, though, and the mysterious Give-Me-The-Exact-Second-You’re-Going-To-Be-Open woman still isn’t here (it’s about 8:20). Part of me thinks she’s going to show up with a Big Emergency that involves something I either don’t know how to do or don’t know how to do quickly, and because neither my boss nor our administrative specialist (assistant) is here I’ll make the whole place look bad due to my incompetence.

Let that be a lesson to future bosses of the world: Don’t leave empolyees alone, dreadfully alone, unless you’re sure they’e fully capable of launching attack missles (did you hear about those guys who fell asleep?) or solving the world hunger crisis without any help from you.

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It’s that time again:

The Fatness™ The Ten Pounds in Two Weeks Challenge

or

Bringing AnorSEXYa Back

Day Five

I’m sort of out of the habit of weighing myself incessantly (though I’m not quite sure why, since it’s so much fun), which means what I said was Day One really should have been Day Two, and then I decided I’d just weigh myself every two days and talk about The Challenge, except that didn’t pan out either. But now I’m on the ball. I weighed myself yesterday morning only to find out I weighed exactly the same: 162.8 (Boo!). Then I weighed myself yesterday evening (you should never do that) and saw the day had brought another pound to the grand total. Today is officially Day Five, though, and I am 161.6. To celebrate I took the elevator instead of the stairs this morning. I also think my pants fit looser, but that’s really because I’ve worn them a few times since I washed them, and they’re all stretched out and comfy now.

The true test of any weight loss plan is whether or not your pants, especially jeans, fit comfortably/loosely the first time you put them on after washing them.

Mom went home yesterday morning, and I was as sad to see her go as I usually am (slightly, but not terribly so). I’d like if Mom lived close enough for us to get together on a more regular basis, making the time we spend less intense and less stressful for me. I don’t want to see her ever single day (I’m not nearly emotionally stable enough for that), but I think more time together would alleviate the pressure of her dumping all her worries, concerns, and complaints on me repeatedly, basically at one sitting.

(I just want to point out that if I were marking up this blog entry the way I mark up student papers, I would have made a note that I was being redundant in that last paragraph, since I basically explained the same thing two ways, one right after the other. But, as I keep telling my Arch Nemesis, until I get paid for this here writing, I’m not editing it.)

Since Mom and the stress of making sure Mom thinks I’m happy is over, I will be able to dive into The Challenge with gusto. Eating is a bad habit, though. It’s hard to break such a delicious habit. It’s much easier for me to not be eating and not have any interest in eating, only eating when it’s absolutely necessary. Like anything else, though, the more you eat, especially tasty things, the more you get used to eating and the more you want to eat. The Pro-Anas and Pro-Mias say, “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels,” but I think a whole thing of chocolate fudge frosting is pretty close.

(By the way, I’m a huge fan of the Pro-Ana and Pro-Mia internet movements. I should find out if I can add my fandom in Facebook, since Facebook is the end all be all completely accurate representation of who a person is.)

To sum up: The Fatness™ Ten Pounds in Two Weeks Challenge isn’t going as fabulously as planned, but sometimes a slow start means you feel even more fabulous when you reach your goal. Or more depressed when you don’t. Either way, a Challenge is a Challenge.

—

I’ve been wearing my glasses a lot lately (i.e. yesterday at work and today at work, and probably about six months ago). This makes me want to go and replace my black frames the dog chewed up. I really don’t think I’m nearly as cute and semi-hipster-ish without glasses with black frames. Unfortunately I can’t afford to replace the glasses. I really need to look into selling myself on Ebay or something equally degrading and profitable. I’m not above prostitution. It’s a shame, because I’d like to be, but then again I’ve always been a crappy feminist. Might as well just screw the whole feminism thing completely and go right for the degrading sexual exploitation of prostitution. I’m sure everyone will be behind me.

The World’s Biggest Piano Mat

I can’t really say anything bad about my boss. She’s nice and interesting, and she has more than enough “I don’t give a crap” to make working here a pretty relaxed thing. Excuse me, “working.” We don’t actually do much real work. Today I made labels for library books, because we have a small extension of the school library here, and while that was horribly mundane busy work, I did manage to fuck it up somewhat royally. Even after fucking it up and having to redo it, though, it still only took maybe an hour to finish it. That’s how it usually is here: an hour of work, four hours of “work” that involves sitting behind a computer and playing on the internet. It’d be an amazing job, if it paid a living wage.

One of our functions here is to accumulate what is known as assistive technology and other sorts of technology that could be helpful to kids studying to be teachers. Since true assistive technology or educational technology is expensive, we really just have a lot of toys. Most of our toys make sense, though: we have two talking globes, a talking microscope, a Leapster, some of those book-things that can read to you or help you sound out words, etc. Sometimes my boss buys toys that don’t really make sense. This is why we have a toy ATM machine and a toy cash register (as someone who has played with both, I can assure you that there isn’t much learning involved, even if they were bought under the guise of tecnology that can teach about money). Today the newest toy arrived: The World’s Biggest Piano Mat. $39.95. (The price is really what sold my boss. That and everyone’s desire to own a keyboard like the one in the movie Big.)

It is not anything like the piano from Big, unfortunately. It’s really just a cheesy plastic piano that sounds like it’s going to rip when you step on it. We played with it, though, and my boss was most impressed by the demo songs you could play. Because that’s what you want in a giant piano: music you don’t have to play.

I’m going to hold out for the real one.