I Can't Complain

First Dates

I had lunch with a new friend today. It's funny how much those kinds of interactions are like first dates.  This morning I took extra care to wear something nice, and I tried on a couple different outfits before I found one that satisfied me. We were both on our best behavior, and I could tell we were both a bit nervous about how it would work out when it was "just the two of us", but in the end, we really clicked and had a great time.  She even said she'd call me.

Now I just need to find 12 of my closest girlfriends and go over every word exchanged, in nauseating detail, to find out if she *really* liked me. ;-)

But Sometimes I Still Do....

My favorite saying has never seemed more apt.  I have nothing to complain about - I have a job I like, a happy marriage, a nice home, a fuzzy cat, good neighbors, a loving family, and friends that care about me.

And yet here I am, on my birthday, unhappy with my life.   Lately I feel overworked, underappreciated, and stressed.  I feel like I'm letting life pass by me in a blur, without getting the things done that I need and want to.  I work 10 or 11 hours a day, and at night I just some home and flop on the couch, too tired to do anything else.  Even on the weekends there's never enough time to do everything I need to do. I haven't worked out in at least two weeks, and I feel more out of shape and unattractive than I ever have before.  I'm scared I've waited to long to make important life decisions and even if I didn't Larry and I can't seem to get it together enough to make it happen.

I'm sure this, like all bumps in the road, will pass.  Much as I hate to say it, some of this is a due to an unfortunate combination of hormones and the usual sadness I feel around my birthday about another year having passed.

Oh the Humanity

We appear to be having a major drama around here surrounding two boxes of notebooks. Yes, notebooks. 

About a month ago TPTB asked me to create an Answer Book for the new office similar to what we have here.  Ideally they wanted three hard copies to send to the new office, along with the electronic version that's accessible on the server.  To this end, H put in a request to the Supply Nazis... er... I mean the accounting department for 18 4" binders.  The day before the Answer Books were supposed to be sent to the new office, two large, fairly battered boxes appeared in my office.  Inside each box were 9 of the most disgusting, ratty, used up binders I have ever seen.  Some of these things had some kind of wet gook on them; others actually had mold growing on them, and they all smelled like they'd been buried in a hole below sea level for at least 20 years.  Which, upon further review, may well have been the case, as several of them still had their original labels on them, which read things like "Accounting - Business Expenses 1982-1983".

Needless to say, I was displeased (read disgusted and indignant) at having been given 20 year old binders that smell like dead bodies to be sent to our new office. Way to impress the new attorneys. I called J, who was not only displeased, but also unhappy (read frothing at the mouth furious) with the situation, and promised me he'd take care of it.

Shortly thereafter all hell broke loose, and the issue of the notebooks (dubbed "the Biohazards" by F) fell by the wayside. Until last week.  Last week J brought the issue up at a management committee meeting (/me pauses to laugh at the idea of the management committee wasting time discussing 4" binders) and *cough*politely*cough requested that the accounting department not be so goddamned cheap and get me some new, unused, not smelly, completely gook-less notebooks.  Which they did, with a somewhat facetious attention to my *exact* desires.   The lovely brand new notebooks appeared outside my office last week.  Unfortunately, the Biohazards remained in my office for almost another week, until on Friday, I pointed them out once again to J, who laughingly dragged them out into the hallway near the reception area doors.

Today, the guy who delivers stuff and runs our errands came looking for them. I told him they were gone, which made him happy, since that meant he didn't have to risk contracting an industrial disease by dragging them upstairs. Unfortunately, he reported their absence to the Supply Nazis, who immediately embarked on the Notebook Inquisition, which went like this:
SN:  WHERE are the old notebooks?
Me: I don't know.
SN: Well, WHAT happened to them?
Me: I don't know.
SN: What do you MEAN you don't know?
Me: J dragged them out of my office last week, and that's the last I saw of them.
SN: WHAT did he do with them?
Me: I. Don't. Know.
SN: Well, I'm going to get to the bottom of this.

The fact is, the notebooks were dragged to a spot generally designated for trash, so I suspect they got thrown away.  That said, I don't understand what the big deal is.  These notebooks were in a storage locker for TWENTY YEARS.  Now suddenly it's a major issue that someone threw them away?  And Larry wonders why I buy my own supplies. 

So there it is. The Great Notebook Drama.  Tune in next week to see if J survives the Attack of the Supply Nazis.

It Doesn't Help. Really.

I'm standing in the elevator lobby in my parking garage this morning when a woman who works elsewhere in the building comes in.  We make the obligatory 8.7 seconds of small talk required of two perfect strangers waiting for the same elevator on a Monday morning.

With that out of the way, she undertakes to investigate why the elevator is taking "so long" (read it hasn't come during the 8.7 second small talk period).  She cranes around me (I was standing in front of the elevator buttons) and discovers that despite my clearly incompetent looks (I am, after all, well dressed in business clothes and carrying a briefcase and several file folders) I have managed to actually push the correct button to summon the elevator.  She hesitates a while longer (read 1.25 seconds) and then, dissatisfied with the way I'd pushed the button, reaches around me and pounds it a bunch of times. 

Despite the fact that this is one of my biggest pet peeves, EVER, I did try not to give her a "look".  This is the South after all.  Apparently, though, my face has not gotten the memo about us being more polite to strangers,  because it gave her a LOOK in spite of my brain telling it not to. 

Realizing that she not only looked foolish, but she'd just impugned my ability to properly press the correct lighted button, the woman stammers out this explanation: "Sometimes you have to pound on the button to get it to come."  Yeah. Sure.  Hitting the button five times instead of one makes the elevator come faster.  In fact, if you hit it 20 times, it will skip all of the other floors, and zoom at light speed to your floor, and then give you an express ride to your destination.   Do people really believe this, or is it just something for them to say so they don't look like morons for pushing a already pushed button?  The worst part is, the elevator arrived shortly thereafter, which undoubtedly only reinforced her belief that pushing the button repeatedly makes it come sooner. *sigh*

It must be Monday.

The Pony Express Rides Again?

So, I'm waiting for this package which was apparently handed over to the nice people in the brown uniforms on October 28.  And don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining - it hasn't even been an entire week since they got it.  But... I went to check on its progress today, and it looks like this (you'll need to click on "View Package Progress"). It's literally been scanned in every state between its origin and here.

How on earth are they getting this thing to me? Pony express? The time honored legless midget method?  Actually, I have this vision of a long line of brown-shorts-clad men spanning from Secaucus, NJ to my front door, tossing the package the package down the line.  And each time the package is tossed over a state line, a cheer goes up along the brown line, and the lucky catcher scans it in, until finally, the penultimate tosser yells "go long" and makes an incredible 80 yard pass to his teammate in the brown uniform, who spikes it into its spot behind the rocking chair, and does a victory dance on my front porch.

Guilt

I finally did it. I admitted to Larry that I don't enjoy spending time with the Argentines.  I know he considers them his friends, and that's good, but I simply have nothing in common with either of them. For whatever reason (either out of residual guilt about the circumstances they're in now, or because he genuinely likes hanging out with them), Larry insists we go out to dinner with them whenever G is in town.  I swear we see them more now than we did when we all lived in the same building.

Normally I can go and make small talk and politely nod and smile while they talk about Western blots and immunocytochemistry and other fascinating subjects, but after the two weeks I just had, I don't have it in me.  So I told him so this morning.  He did that kicked puppy thing that I *hate*.  He said he understood and that he wasn't upset, and then he gave me this sad look that made me feel like the world's worst wife and biggest bitch.   

So now I feel like a giant heel, and won't even be able to enjoy my evening on the couch, eating mac & cheese for dinner. Plus I think I'm getting a head cold, which is probably my bad spouse karma coming back at me.