Drama Drama Drama

Oh for heaven's sake! I seriously don't understand teenagers. I know I'm only 25 and I was one of them a few short years ago, but I didn't understand them then, either.
The reason I bring it up is that I have a friend at work who is barely 18. Her ever-so-slightly-older boyfriend treats her like crap. I've spent a decent chunk of my time lately trying to convince her to dump his sorry butt. She was seriously considering it until today when he sent her a song he wrote for her. A SONG. It's supposed to be one of those sappy love ballads. I read it and can say with all certainty that it is truly awful. Here is an unretouched excerpt (as background, I should mention that he's in the Army): "Why'd you do it man? Why'd you go? I guess to serve my country and make some dough."
She completely swooned over it.
Wow.
Here's the thing that really irritates me... it's not that she wants to stay with her idiot boyfriend or that she was happy that he did something thoughtful for a change. It's the fact that kids these days seem to think that as long as they have a guitar and understand the word "emotion" they're somehow capable of writing music!
Here is an unretouched excerpt of something a kid like this would say: "Ooooh. I'm filled with ANGST oversomething that no one cares about. I think I'll write a song."
Newsflash, kiddos- We don't want your songs. They suck.
Granted, there are some kids who are gifted. Some people can start at a very young age and produce something beautiful. Beethoven was 4 when he started composing. However, most of us are not like that. We're average. And we definitely should NOT be writing songs.
Why is being a musician or an actor such a big deal to these kids anyway? Why is that the end-all, beat-all answer to life's problems? How did THAT become the dream? When I was that age, I wanted to be the first female President of the United States. I mean, come ON, kids! Have a dream that helps out the rest of the world! Yes, you could be Angelina Jolie and adopt a bazillion African babies, but the likelihood of that is pretty slim.
So come up with a new dream. Be an accountant. A bus driver. A lawyer. ANYTHING but a musician. If not for you, do it for the rest of the world. Save our ears from awful lyrics.
Oh, and if I hurt your feelings, I'll apologize personally... if  it will keep you from writing another song.

Give Me The Gas

You know those crazy lamps at the dentist office that shine light right into your eyeballs while you're teeth are being drilled, just adding another level of pain to your experience? Well, today I named one. Her name is Patty.
I've been making rather constant trips to the dentist lately to have old fillings repaired. Like any normal human being, I'm not a big fan of the dentist office. They give you foul-tasting drugs, make you hold your mouth open wider than you thought you could for longer than you thought possible, and you always leave with the sour taste of tooth dust in your mouth.
There is one good thing about that place, though... nitrous oxide.
Once they put that little tube over my face, I was in heaven. I totally calmed down, and I swear that I was more centered than I ever have been in my LIFE. No kidding. When I sat and just focused on one thing, like the music I was listening to, I was able to get so much more out of it than I normally do. I feel like I understand the way musicians hear music a little more now. I felt every beat running through my body and the passion in every note.
I am not joking when I say that, at one point, I was lip syncing "Bohemian Rhapsody" into Patty. I'm pretty sure the dental assistant caught me, but she didn't say anything. Then I had to play it cool. I sat there and pretended like I didn't feel a thing. I felt like it was a pretty good con, but looking back, she must have known. I think that the big old grin on my face... the kind kids get when they go to Disneyland for the first time... may have given me away.
No matter. Patty and I still had a chance to bond. So even though half of my mouth is still dead, it was a good trip.

The Things We'll Do

I think I'd like to become a reality TV slut.

Why? Because Snooki, one of the stupid stars of "Jersey Shore" has recently been given a deal with Simon Schuester to publish her first novel. I can't for the life of me figure out why she can do it and I can't. I am entirely bamboozled.

To be published, you apparently have to be a whore.

What will she even write about? The day she couldn't rat her hair higher than 10 inches?

The Terrible Tuesdays

Yesterday was a rough one for pretty much everyone I know.

I started the trend. The story is kind of funny now, but at the time, I was about ready to lose it. I spent my lunchtime in my car, taking a nap after a very, very long (but totally fantastic) weekend. As a little backstory, I should mention that I don't like to leave my car parked right outside of the office when I nap. There's a little group of smokers who come outside about once an hour, and I don't really care to have them peeping in my windows. So I move my car about a block away to a different parking lot. It's one I happen to enjoy quite a bit. It's shaded in the summer and somewhat secluded. So yesterday I drove my car over to my Special Napping Spot and dozed off. When my alarm went off, I threw my stuff in the front seat and got out of the car to come around to the front. Here's where things went very wrong... I locked all the doors. Yep. Definitely locked myself out of the car. Definitely had to walk back to work from my Special Napping Spot. Definitely had to call any and all friends who would have access to my spare key. Now, I don't consider myself to be a particularly paranoid person, but I do live in Tacoma. I didn't mind that I wouldn't be able to see good ol' Jonathan (my little Focus) from my office window, but I did mind that my purse was locked inside of him and thrown open, exposing my wallet and other goodies. My keys were in there, too. Anyone who was willing to break out a window would have had absolute control over my entire life. Heinous. Oh, and did I mention that I had an extra set of keys in my purse, too? That's right. I locked TWO sets of keys in my car. Doesn't get much stupider than that. I am fortunate enough to have awesome friends, so one came and saved me pretty quickly, but I was one hot mess until she got there.
A couple of my girls had it rough, too. One is the youngest cat lady I've ever met, and her little Missy had a stroke late last night and had to be put down. She came into work today in her pajamas. I'm hoping she'll be joining the rest of us back in shallow waters very soon after that dive right into the deep end. Another friend spent the better part of the night in the hospital with her mother, who is getting tested for who-knows-what.
Did I also mention that Glee last night was terrible? We all know that Britney Spears has had her on and off years, and I think the episode was filmed to reflect the crazier moments in her life. All of the most loveable characters on the show completely lost their minds last night. Thanks for setting us up for that one, Brit.

I know people say that Friday the 13th is bad, but I think from now on, I'll be replacing it with Tuesday the 28th.

Tick Tock

My job leaves me with waaaaay too much time on my hands.

For the last 15 minutes or so, I've been spying on the guy I share an office with. He's eating a Granny Smith apple. The best part is that he forgot to take the sticker off before he started eating it. Any second, he's going to take a bite out of that little piece of plastic-y paper and glue. I.AM.RIVETTED.
It's the most exciting thing that's happened here in days. I'm literally on the edge of my seat. I've been asking myself questions like "Will he notice that he ate a sticker? Will he spit it out? Will it increase his fiber intake at all??"

These questions seem to need an answer. I feel that I MUST KNOW what will happen.

That's how dull my job is.

The New Me

I have been officially dubbed with a new nickname at work.

You see, my job requires that I dress nicely. That's not too uncommon for someone my age who works in an office. However, in my mind, part of dressing nicely means wearing heels. Not skanky super high ones, but at least an inch and maybe two. I don't think that's a crazy assumption to make either.

Here's where I get myself in trouble... Problem 1: I walk everywhere quickly. Problem 2: The floors in our office are partly linoleum and partly carpet. Everyone knows the sound that heels make on linoleum and other such materials. You'd think I'd be safe on carpet, though. Not the case. The carpet is just as bad! It isn't well padded, so I just go pounding down the hall like a bull elephant on a rampage.

Thusly, the reception desk has decided to call me Thumper because of the noise I make when I travel down the halls. I think I'm more upset about this than when I found out that Bambi's mother died.

The Doctor Is Out

I am so depressed right now. I just read an article online that stated that Neil Patrick Harris, star of such classics as Doogie Howser, M.D. and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (now that I'm writing this, I'm realizing he's played a lot of characters with high degrees...), may be leaving show business for good.
I mourned my loss when I first found out he was gay, because that means I'll never get a chance with him. On the other hand, I'm sure some of the world's most heterosexual men threw their hats in the air in celebration. He's got a pretty decent following in the hetero man crush arena. However, this is all beside the point.
The latest news, which I read today, states that NPH and his partner are having twins by surrogate. I would ordinarily celebrate with them, but the problem is that Neil Patrick is considering leaving acting to be a full-time dad! I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about it!
Why, oh why didn't Tom Cruise make this decision instead??

Tech Talk

You know, I used to be one of those people that felt pretty tech savvy. Alas, I now long for those days.

I decided that I needed a Skype account to keep in touch with family and friends who are far away. I've actually wanted to do it for quite a while. There was just always something holding me back. I learned last week that it was a fear that I seem to have developed of new technology.

The whole concept just bamboozled me. If my sister hadn't called and basically forced me to sign up for it while I was on the phone with her, I might still be living in my low-tech bubble. But she's mean. So here I am.

The worst part is that the only person that I've actually Skyped with since I've had it is.... drumroll please... my sister. As a test of the system. Go me.

Star Light, Star Bright

I am wicked tired right now.

I completely blame my roommate for that. There was a big meteor shower last night, and she insisted on waking me up to go watch it. In all honesty, I really couldn't care less. I mean, what am I supposed to say, really? "Ooooh! Look at that! It's a big chunk of space junk heated by friction, causing it to glow! That shining trail of gases and melted matter following behind it is AWESOME!" All in all, the meteor shower was an absolute bust. We only saw one really good one. I guess the rest of the evening surrounding it was kind of amusing, though.

I woke up to one of our neighbors jumping up and down on my bed to get me to come out to watch the blessed event with them. When I finally dragged my sorry butt up, they made me walk up this big friggen hill to the car. I fell asleep on the way to the field where we were going to watch the meteor shower. They woke me up again when we got there and made me walk MORE. I tell you what... I may have said yes to the meteor shower in all its poor timing, but I definitely did NOT sign up for a hike. So we finally get to this stupid field, lay out some blankets and relax while we wait to see some meteor action. We're there for like 10 or 15 minutes before some silly Rent-A-Cop comes and kicks us out. I learned in that moment that all the public parks in the area close at dusk. I had not known that. My roommate did, but she bucked the rules for the sake of the space junk. Also, she said she'd done it plenty of times before and had never been busted. She'd even had a slice of pizza with one of the guys who did patrolling in that area. Well, the fellow we encountered was certainly not interested in sharing any snacks with us. He. was. ticked. We started packing up our stuff right away, but Carley, in what I can only assume was a strange attempt at an apology, told him how she'd never had this problem before and how she spent time in that particular park after dark all the time. BIG mistake. Captain Letter-of-the-Law totally chewed us out for that one. "You guys see that sign over there? The one that says that the park closes at dusk? Well, it may just be me, but I like to follow the LAW." Verbatim.

So in less than an hour, we left the apartment, drove to some field, trekked to the perfect meteor-watching location, got busted by a very angry middle-aged man, trekked back and went home. Probably not worth it for space junk.

Brain Freeze

It's pretty incredible to me that people can be so friggen stupid.

I work with this guy who makes Forrest Gump look like a rocket scientist. We share an office and I swear that my IQ is slowly dropping from being in such close contact with him. He's constantly asking me the most inane questions. I've even had to redo his work multiple times because he's totally incapable. But here's the worst part... the guy can't use Wite-Out! WITE-OUT. It's so simple! It's even the tape kind that you just spread across the page. It doesn't have to dry or anything! He can't do it! I watched him struggle for about half an hour before I finally just took it away from him and did it myself.

The worst part of the whole thing, though, is that while we're still on the same level of the work ladder for the time being, my boss likes him more. She's actually offered him a promotion for a job that I wanted. He turned it down because it would have required that he move out of the Seattle area. Pretentious snob. I would have taken it in a heartbeat! Bah. Alas, I was rejected. I wasn't even good enough to get the job after he turned it down! The WOI (Wite-Out Idiot) not only beat me, but he beat me at a game that our boss didn't even want to consider me for. It certainly makes a girl wonder how others see her.

Soon after this work drama, the power at my apartment went out. Thusly, I was forced to reset my alarm clock. It seemed simple enough. I've done it before. The next morning I was awakened by a coworker who called to ask me where I was. It was 9 am. I should have been at work by 8:30. Yikes. I chalked it up to a late night and kind of forgot about it. That was a Friday. The following Monday, the same thing happened. The same coworker called. Only then did I realize that the time for the alarm was set correctly, but the actual time on the clock was wrong. What a fool. The WOI must be affecting my brain waves more than I realized...

My Eternal Gratitude

I started receiving birthday mail yesterday. I got a fantastic card from my wonderful mother as well as one from my Nonno (my mother's father). Of course, the card from my mom was fabulous. The card from Nonno, on the other hand... terrible. Just awful. It's been about 5 years since my grandmother passed away and since then, my Nonno has been writing the cards by himself. He's an incredibly stubborn old Italian man who I just adore. He's not a great writer or much for emotion, so his cards only ever had the words "Love, Nonno" scrawled at the bottom. It might not be prose, but it was him. But NOW he's remarried and his new wife insists on writing something that's actually poetic. While I generally appreciate things like that, in this case, I just want what I already know. Bah.
I also don't like thank you cards. My family is insistent on them. It's practically a crime to get a gift and not respond with a thank you card. So yes... I admit... part of the problem is some sort of leftover teenage rebellion or something. I think that the bigger issue is that I have NO IDEA what to write in a thank you card. I want them all to be different, yet I don't want to spend too much time on them because I know that after a day or two, they'll just be thrown away. It all leaves me with very little to work with. So I think my thank you note to Nonno will go something like this:

Dear Nonno (and Diane... *sigh*),
Thank you so much for the beautiful card! I also really appreciate the $50 that you gave me. I wish I could tell you that I'm doing something fun with it, but I'll probably just do something boringly adult with it like get gas for my car or buy food.
Anyway, thanks for my possibly childish but likely adult gift.
Love,
Your favorite granddaughter (and step-granddaughter... *sigh*)

Ok. It might need a little work.

An Afterthought...

Here's a picture of the flowers I got for my birthday. Here's the funny part... they're from a girl. That's right. A heterosexual female getting flowers for her birthday from another girl. My life is full of a depressing kind of irony.

Sublime

After weeks (actually I think it's been more like months) of being without an iPod due to my incredible stupidity on how to work the darn thing, I'm finally back in the black, musically speaking. I forgot how much I love to listen to music! It makes any crap activity ten times easier. Any menial work job... any chores at home... some sort of third option that I can think of right now... it's all easier. My output both at work and at home has gone up dramatically.
Take, for instance, the other day. I'm one of those people who absolutely HATES to go through my mail. If there's a bill, I already have a way to take care of it (i.e. direct withdrawal, which I LOVE) so other than the occasional piece of fun mail from a friend or family member, mail is pretty much useless to me. I also hate shredding all the crap I get, so it just builds into little stacks around my apartment. My neat-freak roommate could not be more pleased about that! Ha. She eventually throws it into a box or a bag and tosses it into the depths of my bedroom where it is promptly forgotten and left to slowly decompose. That's where music comes in very handy. I'll crank up the volume and sing while I trash all the junk mail. It's definitely got a "Whistle While You Work" quality about it... who knew the 7 dwarves would be on to something??
There is a downside though... I also listen to my iPod in the car. You know those people that you laugh at while you're driving because they look so entirely ridiculous while they rock out hardcore in their cars and think no one can see them? Yeah... that's me. I take it to a whole new level though. When people in other cars see me and start to laugh (and I actually pause from my tunes long enough to notice them...), I start singing to them. I normally sing to the world as a whole or whoever is in the car with me, but I don't know... when I see those people laugh, the little girl who used to dream of being a comedian leaps forward and takes complete control. I'm just lucky I haven't been in a car accident while that little girl is in charge! Good Lord, sometimes I wonder how the state of Washington was dumb enough to give me a driver's license...

Baby's First Blog

I was welcomed to the Quarter-Of-A-Century Club today. How appalling. I mean, I guess in the real scheme of things it's not a big deal to turn 25, but it seemed like a terribly morbid way to wish me a happy birthday. I can't say I'm thrilled about turning 25, though. I'm sort of feeling as though I haven't accomplished much in all the time I've had. Birthdays are such a downer.
I suspect that there are quite a few people out there who are saying "Gosh, you're SUCH a pessimist. You've got years and years to go, little missy!" True, but that doesn't mean that 25 isn't a milestone birthday. If I was really that insane than our society would be quite a bit different than the one I know and love. How often do we see 40-something men going out and buying sports cars to celebrate their midlife crises? Well, if they can do that, then I can do this. If you don't approve, I have just two words for you... SUCK IT.
With the start of a new year of my life, it seemed like an appropriate time to begin a new blog. I haven't written on a blog in like 3 years. My inspiration actually came from an old blog I used to have in college. I found it last night and read some of the entries. I used to write such clever prose. I guess my body isn't the only thing aging... the ol' brain is going, too. Ha. Anyway, I discovered that I actually missed writing to an audience of people whom I neither know nor see.
I just hope that enough interesting things happen to me to keep writing. All I've done lately is update my Facebook status and that requires a whole lot less effort. There's a character limit. This gives me the option to talk endlessly about nothing. Oh dear readers, how I pity you!