Remember, fun is…

…over at the new place, and stuff. 

Clicky clicky it’s so tricky!

Um, yeah. Moved again. I swear, this is the last time.

Pete has transferred all my D-land archives, and I now have my very own domain.

Step right up!

Attempting to Avoid Desk Drool…

Something nice actually happened at work on Tuesday.  Mr. Meeting, entirely unprovoked, brought the paralegals ice cream sandwiches.   

The rest of the week has been utterly boring on a stick.  While I am somewhat glad that the case which was going to make me travel again next week settled (because it was one that we had been told to get rid of, and if we’d had to actually try it, it would have meant a week of 20-hour days), having it settle means that I have not jack shit to do at work.    Oh, sure.  I could put paper in folders.  As the matter of fact, there are several folders which need to be paper-fortified sitting in my office.  But we all know that my hatred of filing blazes with the heat of a thousand suns, and I would rather surf the net and whine.   It’s kind of strange that I’m bored, because last week, I was out sick two days, and the days I was here were mostly spent sniffling, coughing, and generally wishing I was at home.  I actually went to the doctor, because at that point, the case hadn’t settled, and I knew that getting on yet another airplane when I couldn’t breathe through my nose was not going to be very pleasant, so I figured I should get some drugs and attempt to recover.   And I will admit that I was hoping that one of the drugs would be Happy Fun Narcotic-Laced Cough Syrup. 

Alas, my doctor was being a douchebag.  He gave me some antibiotics and sent me on my merry way.  Problem was, the over-the-counter concoctions were NOT DOING ANYTHING, and I was waking up all night coughing and sniffling.  So I call the nurse.  Bitch doesn’t call me back.  I call the next day, when I drug my sorry ass to work, but still felt like a steaming pile, and she was not in the least sympathetic.  She recommended some different cold medicine.    Mr. Meeting told me to go to the doctor downtown who everyone calls “Dr. Feelgood” because he will dispense the prescriptions freely.  Mr. Meeting called them for me, but unfortunately, Dr. Feelgood’s partner was out, and they couldn’t get me an appointment. The only good thing about all of this is that I have almost no appetite whatsoever, and I still don’t….I can sorta breathe, but I’m still plugged up, and nothing sounds good food-wise.  Maybe another week of this and my pants will fit the way they’re supposed to again.  What’s that movie line? Something about being one stomach flu away from my goal weight?  (Well, in my case, it’s probably more like one mild case of  pancreatic cancer away from my goal weight, but the principle applies.)   For those who wondered, St. Louis sucked monkey nuts.  First, because of how early we left on Saturday, there was a lot of boring time.  Second, we had no rental car.  (Fortunately, there was a Borders next door.)  Third, the hearing was bad, through no fault of our own….a witness flaked the hell out.  Fourth, due to said lack of vehicle, we ate at the same restaurant twice a day, every day, from Sunday through Thursday.  It was a nice restaurant, with many tasty seafood entrees, but by Wednesday, I felt as though I might be growing fins and gills, or perhaps a hard shell and some pincers.   

---

 This is St. Paddy’s Day weekend, so get drunk and wear green, but make sure you don’t drink so much your FACE goes green, mmkay?  And think happy thoughts, because Lando MIGHT actually get the whole weekend off, for the first time in a zillion years, so continue beaming the “YOU WILL NOT BE AN ASSTARD” rays into his boss’s brain for the next 48 hours.   

Meet Me in St. Louis.

Guess what?  This entry?  It’s going to feature some nice bitching about work!  I’m sure you’re all just SHOCKED. 

I have a hearing next week in
St. Louis.  In and of itself, this is not a horrible thing.  Getting away from this increasingly weird-vibe shithole is somewhat appealing, but leaving at 7:30 Saturday morning for a hearing that doesn’t start till Monday? Not so much.  We’re allegedly going to “be available for our client.”  Translation:  sit around in a boring-ass hotel room all fucking day for a one-hour meeting.  Heaven forbid our client should have to work on Sunday instead of Saturday.  Way to fuck up my weekend, Mr. Snorty.   

Furthermore, every time I talk to Ms. Whiny, the urge to bitch-slap her upside her (strangely flat and pointy at the same time) head gets stronger and stronger.  It’s been a long time since someone pushed my buttons in quite this fashion, and sooner or later, I fear that I will be forced to push back.  There’s only so much of being treated like a retarded five-year-old who just shit all over her 5000-thread-count sheets that I can take.   

The travel thing is weird to me right now.  When I originally applied for this job, I was unattached.  And honestly, the person to whom I was loosely “attached” for the preceding time period….well, let’s just say I never really missed him much when I was gone.  I’ve always liked to go places (especially when someone else is paying for it…hehe), and had never actually had a job where I got to go anywhere but to the fucking courthouse, bank, office supply store (and that was a rare treat), so I thought it would be fun.  Plus, I got fed a lot of shit about going to cool places.  So far, it’s been your basic Midwestern meccas that I’ve seen before…and I don’t think there’s anything “cool” on the docket until October.  Unless
Cleveland has somehow magically become cool.  At present, though, going somewhere means I will miss someone.   

The Universe does have a way of making you eat your words.  During my quasi-relationship with the former GID, and actually, in most of the ones I had before that, I felt like once a week was a perfectly acceptable…nay, DESIRABLE…amount of time to spend with your significant (or insignificant) other.  But since I have actually been involved with someone whose work schedule and mine are not exactly conducive to weeknight hanging out…someone who I actually want to spend more time with…I’ve realized that perhaps once a week is not enough.  And when that once a week is turned into 8 hours by virtue of a job that is pissing you off more and more with each passing day…well, that just blows the goat ass. 

 

Celebrate VD!

It’s still a silly holiday.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of going shopping last Friday, and finding a few things that I thought someone might like. (A sweater. And some pajama pants, because, despite his insistence to the contrary, he didn’t have any. Sweatpants, yes. Pajama pants, no. There is a difference.)

I was serious when I said that (a) the presents were just because, and not for Valentine’s day and (b) that reciprocation was not required. However, when he went to go fetch breakfast Saturday morning (which was really nice in and of itself), he was gone a little longer than the usual donut-and-sausage-roll-fetching trip.

He came back with a little bag, which he tried to pretend wasn’t there. (”What? The bags had donuts in them!”) I pointed out that I didn’t think donuts came in gift bags. He finally caved and gave me one of these:

Yes, a pink one.  But I like it anyway.

And some games, too…although I believe Final Fantasy XII was really for him… (”Take the game with you! You should play it! But don’t save over my game, ok?”)

But the Nintendo wasn’t for Valentine’s day, either. Hehe.

I shall close with the traditional Valentine’s fun, which involves making a list of the first 10 songs that pop up on your MP3 player/computer with “love” in the title. Note: I am at work, and the selection is far more limited than the computer at home.

Beck – “Think I’m in Love”
Maroon 5 – “This Love”
Pixies – “La La Love You”
Sarah McLachlan – “I Love You”
Elton John – “Funeral for a Friend (Love Lies Bleeding)”
OMD – “So in Love”
kd lang – “Love is Like a Cigarette”
KT Tunstall – “Stopping the Love”
Morrissey – “Trouble Loves Me”
Elton John – “All the Young Girls Love Alice”

Worth 1000 Words, and None of Them are about How I Hate My Job.

Since any entry I might feel compelled to write at present would likely be some combination of obscenities, “boss,” and “work” I decided to swipe a little blogthing from Pine Curtain and let ya’ll invent your own tirades about why Loopy hates her job this week. As a bonus for my lazy ass, this is a photo-essay type entry. I DID have to go looking for them, though, dammit.

ME:

NOT ME:

ME:

NOT ME:

ME:

NOT ME:

ME:

NOT ME:

ME:

NOT ME:

ME:

NOT ME:

ME:

NOT ME:

ME:

NOT ME:

ME:

NOT ME:

When I Grow Up, I Want to Be Rich and Famous. Or Just Rich Would Do.

I hate everyone at work lately. All of them.

 

 

My supervising paralegal is being a complete bitch and treating me like I’m retarded. There’s no need for that. Some of the things that I have to do right now are things that, because we’d been slow and hadn’t received a bunch of new files, I haven’t had to do before. Excuse me for asking questions and not immediately knowing every single procedure. I hate all the “procedures,” because what they mostly seem to involve is me doing boring, tedious bullshit and then getting bitched at for not doing the boring, tedious bullshit correctly.

 

Mr. Snorty is being a condescending dickweed and not listening to me, and then when he does finally listen, basically confirms that I was right in the first place.

 

 

Ms. Whiny acts like I don’t have shit else to do besides put things in notebooks for HER cases.

 

Mr. Meeting is being high maintenance and turning into Mr. Snorty with the coughing and sniffling noises coming from his office. At least he has not yet taken up recreational ball-scratching.

 

All of them are demonstrating that they have a serious lack of reading comprehension skills.

 

All I’ve done for two weeks is shuffle paper and put it in folders and/or binders.

 

 

I’m not a fucking file clerk.

 

 

If I wanted to be a file clerk, I would have applied for that job.

 

 

I am seriously starting to hate my job, and I wonder what is wrong with me that I hate every job I do after 6 months to a year.

 

I think maybe I really am in the wrong line of work. I would like to apply for the job of “lottery winner” or perhaps “Paris Hilton”. Except that I really hate little yippy dogs and I would require an extensive amount of liposuction to be able to fit one leg in her jeans.

 

I would, however, be sure that my girly bits were fully covered at all times.

 

I don’t think I actually have much chance of winning the lottery, either: I’m not 80 years old and I don’t work in a food-processing plant. I did notice that the recent winners from Missouri had several useless unemployed adult children, and I think they were all male. Perhaps they need to adopt an adult daughter? I think so.

 

Taking care of older people is probably easier than dealing with a bunch of asshole lawyers anyway.

Would You Like a Side of Cranky with That?

Ten things that are currently pissing me off (Pete initiated this trend today, and since I’m feeling cranky but simultaneously incapable of telling an actual beginning-middle-transitions-end story, I thought I would institute as a new, well, that M-word that I fucking think is stupid):

(1)               Ms. Whiny.  I don’t have another actual trial with her till October, but she’s bugging me about wanting fucking notebooks on a case so she can draft the answer.  Bitch, the documents are in the fucking computer.  And I know you know how to find them, because you take great delight in telling me all about what is and isn’t in the everfucking notebooks.  So find them, and shut the fuck up.  You’re not on top of my list right now. 

(2)             The weather.  I think the ice from last week almost has melted, just in time for it to rain and then freeze again this weekend.  My car does NOT LIKE inclement weather.  It is a fair-weather friend.  It’s low to the ground, and rear wheel drive, and the driver’s side window leaks when it rains.  However, it’s also close to being paid for, and so I’m telling myself it has personality and planning what I’ll do with the $500-ish a month I won’t have to pay to the bank after October.

(3)               My supervising paralegal.  She is usually cool, but I swear she’s not getting any or something lately, because for real, if she obsesses over one more fucking folder on one more closed file which is (all together now) in the motherfucking computer and is CLOSED AND OVER WITH ANYWAY I will surely scream and throw things.

(4)               My mail person, who doesn’t seem to understand the note on the mailbox that says “LEAVE PACKAGES IN HALLWAY.”

(5)               Lando’s douchebag boss, who can’t seem to retain an employee long enough for him to have a whole weekend off. 

(6)               The tights I bought from a certain national plus-size retailer which LOOKED like they were the same as the other four pairs I have at home and love, but ARE NOT THE FUCKING SAME.  Less spandex, or something, so they’re all baggy around the ankles and tight around the ass.  Grrr.

(7)               My cats, and I’m not sure which one, for throwing up on every single pair of my favorite shoes.  They were probably ALL in on it.

(8)               World of Warcraft, and its creators/administrators, Blizzard, who, despite much downtime and alleged improvements, STILL cannot manage to keep their game servers active and lag-free for longer than an hour at a time.

(9)               The fact that my boots which are the best in the snow are also the worst for walking any distance whatsoever.  They’re steel-toed workboots, which I bought on sale about 11 years ago and still look almost new.  But the steel part hits right where the seam on socks is (I’ve tried ALL my socks), and the blisters = not cool.  I miss flip-flops.

(10)          The fact that both BFRB and I are having some work-type scheduling issues which may make us unable to go to this year’s Bonnaroo.

 

Really, I could go on for a while, but unfortunately, I have to go deal with Mr. Snorty’s bullshit.  Super.

“…where my lovelight’s waiting silently for me.”

This postcard was sent to PostSecret, and I guess it really struck a chord with me. 

 

 

I have lived on my own, away from my family, since I was 18.   I have a life:  friends, pets, car, apartment, job.  “Home” is where I get up in the morning, return at the end of the day, where I wallow in misery when I’m sick, where my pets live and my car is parked.  

 

Since I went to college, my parents have not exactly been parked in the same house in which I grew up.  They divorced when I was in 8 th grade.  During the time I was in high school, my dad had two addresses and my mom had three.  After I moved out, my mom and stepfather moved to Chicago, then back to Houston (to a completely different house) and have since downsized and moved again; my dad was transferred to the Seattle area.  The point is, neither of their houses could be called “home.”   I don’t really have any memories associated with those houses…sure, some furniture and pictures and ugly-ass dishes have survived the moves, but the rooms themselves are devoid of any associations for me.  

 

So when people ask me if I’m going “home” for Christmas, I know what they mean…and I sometimes answer yes without thinking…but it’s really not “home” I’m visiting.   What, does being single and childless = parents’ house is still officially your home?  The place you live, where you spend your time…that’s just a temporary address?

 

I’m going to have to agree with the writer of this postcard and call bullshit on that.

 

When I was a kid (I think it was the summer I was 11, when I spent one of the best months of my life at my gramma’s house without my parents or brother), I went with my gramma to a family reunion.   This was not a usual occurrence.  We lived in Texas, and my extended family (both sides) mostly lived in Michigan.   We sometimes went there for the holidays or in the summer, but it wasn’t every year, and when we did go, we only saw the “immediate” extended family:  grandparents, aunts, uncles, first cousins.   So being at a gathering with a zillion people I didn’t know but was somehow related to was a bit of a shock.  What I remember most about it, though, was how they all identified me as my mom’s daughter:   “[Name]’s girl.”  It totally pissed me off.  I remember talking to my mom and grandma about it, and telling them that I was a SEPARATE PERSON WITH A NAME and wasn’t just someone’s kid. 

 

They just laughed and said that because there were so many relatives (white trash is very good at breeding), they just did it to keep everyone straight.   My mom laughed because she remembered thinking the same thing when she was at reunions as a child and everyone identified her as my grandma’s kid. 

 

Seems like in my family, until you reproduce….you will still be identified as a part of something else rather than as your own person.   And maybe that’s ok, in a way…family reunions are about reconnecting, after all, knowing that you’re not entirely alone in the world…but somehow, to me, being identified as someone’s offspring and not being recognized for who I am, feels kind of lonely…like they’re saying “until you have a husband and kids, none of the life you’ve made for yourself matters.”  

 

Having a husband and/or kids does not automatically make you a grown-up…in fact, one cousin with kids spent an inordinate amount of time living in my grandma’s basement.   But I don’t think he gets asked if he’s going “home” for Christmas. 

 

What’s almost worse, though, is my parents’ expectation that I will be traveling to their residences on Christmas and/or Thanksgiving.  Last year, I finally put my foot down with my dad, and told him that I was tired of spending the fucking holidays in a fucking airport, and if he wanted to see me, he knew where I lived and had far more money and vacation time than I did.   I went there last Thanksgiving, but not this year.  My mom basically knows how I feel about the holiday shuffle, but she still has enough guilt-trip power that I go there.   Plus, since my brother’s in the area too, he’s usually there. 

  

All this talk of home and family reminds me of a conversation I had a long time ago with BFRB2.   She was married at the time (no kids) and I asked if she considered her husband to be her “family.”   That may sound like a weird question, but when you are at the point in your life where you’re still caught between kid and adult, feeling like everything is temporary, watching your friends get married but feeling weird about it, like they’re just pretending and we’re all really still 10, it’s good to hear how people already more established feel about it.   (I’m sure BFRB2 will laugh at that.  She and her husband, while older than I was, had actually both gone back to school and were just as nomadic and unsettled as any of my other friends.   But she was the first person that really showed me what it meant to be a grown-up without having all the parental expectations pinned on the definition.)    

 

Most of the time, when I go to my mom’s for Christmas, it’s good…despite the occasional annoyance or drama, there are enough moments (like my brother and my grandma and I all trying to make each other laugh during the blessing before dinner) to make me glad I went.   This year was pretty good, although I did miss Lando….I knew I would miss him, because I’m used to spending weekends with him and we only got a little time together before I left…but it sucked just the same.  

 

Strangely, even though the stepfamily/parents in two different states thing has always been a little weird, or awkward (the parents got remarried my senior year in high school and freshman year in college, and some of the step-siblings were long gone from the house, so it’s not like we know all of them very well), there was none of this “you’re not my real family so I’m not gonna try” thing.  My mom spent an inordinate amount of time this year stressing about who was coming to dinner what day because of all of our stupid picky food things…mine, my brother’s, my stepsister’s, and her live-in’s.   My stepmother, while she has issues, included us in her family gatherings over holidays.  (They make weird food.   Have I written about this before?  The first few times we had holidays with her, which was really not many before she married my dad, because they dated off and on for four years and broke up every year right after Thanksgiving and got back together before Valentine’s day, her family did not make any mashed potatoes.   Dude.  Those are a staple.  EVERYONE has mashed potatoes.  WTF?)   So it was weird for me hearing Lando’s tale of drama regarding his stepmother.(I guess she tries to just feed his dad’s relatives snacky food, and makes her own blood relatives actual meals.)Whatever annoyances I have with the multiple relative gift-buying pretending-to-be-nice horseshit, there’s never been a question of “yours” or “mine.” Part of that is my mom.  She went out of her way to ask everyone what they liked, buy all the weird hippie food that my stepsiblings seem to eat, buy the strange shit that my stepfather likes (herring. VOMIT-O-RAMA.), and cater to various picky eating tendencies of myself and my brother.  (Me=no pink food.  Him=ketchup on everything; no potatoes unless they are French fries.)  When I’m at my dad’s, I think my stepmother is so grateful to have a buffer that she’ll cook any fucking thing any of us want. 

How the hell did I get off on this food topic?  Guess my Pop Tarts weren’t filling enough this morning.   I was talking about how when you’re single, no one seems to acknowledge that the place you live by yourself is “home.” 

A few days after I got back from Houston, BFRB2 called to catch up on the holidays.  Apparently, hers were mostly good, but she said that by about the 4^th day, she wanted to be at HOME.  Her house.  Her pet.  Her peace and quiet. 

Amen, sister. 

 

The 8th Circle of Dork.

Amazon, you can kiss my white dimpled ass. The last time I preordered something from you (Harry Potter), it arrived in a special box on my doorstep the day it was released. But evidently, while you will cater and pander to book dorks, you’re leaving video game dorks out in the cold.

I pre-ordered World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, which was released at midnight January 16. It’s not here. And, according to those assholes, it wasn’t even being SHIPPED to me until January 23. However, should I be willing to pay $22.48 for overnight shipping…they would ship it today.

When I ordered Harry Potter, I didn’t pay for fucking overnight shipping, thankyouveryfucking much. And furthermore, if the motherfucking game is IN STOCK, why did you not at least SHIP the fucker yesterday? Grrrrr. In the meantime, since you can’t just order ONE thing from Amazon, they held up my book and CD too.

Assnuggets.

So I guess I’m going to have to go to the Evil Empire or Best Buy or some shit, in the snow, to buy it. Yes, I’m dorky, but everyone ELSE has it. I am not patient enough to wait two more weeks for it to arrive…especially since I only have one more book I haven’t read.

Ugh.

In a completely unrelated tidbit, but one that nevertheless still relates to the “Loopy=Dork” theme, I’ve been organizing stock trade confirmations for discovery in a case, and one of them is for Eastman Kodak.  So now I’m sitting here humming “Kodachroooooooooooooome, give us those nice, bright colors….” like a fucking retard.