Thursday, May 27, 2010

VENT

OMG

SO get this - my eye doctor's schedule is booked 3-4 months in advance...so if you want an appointment in June, you best call by February or you're out of luck. I know this. I called in February. I got an appointment for June 10th.....

....which turned out to be the date of the most important conference call of the year. It took me weeks to get the appointment, then for various reasons it took me two weeks to get someone on the phone to cancel it. I was squeezed in to a Tuesday morning space in August....very inconvenient, at least half a personal day from work, etc.

This morning my boss comes in, all laissez-faire and SHIT and is like "oh yeah, well....the programmers don't have anything ready. So we're canceling that call and all related calls and scheduling them for a week later. Update your schedule, mmmmkay?"
WTF
WTF
WTF
And she WONDERS why nothing is EVER accomplished?! It's because of this absolute BULLSH*T. Sooooo **irritated**

And I know this is a 24/7 deal for a lot of people, they get jerked around every damn day, so I should be grateful that it only happens to me once in a while. Still though. I swear, if it were any other doctor or dentist, I wouldn't even care, but this just pissed me off no end. Oh, and the fact that I can't see with my glasses anymore is also a concern.

I know my August appt coincides with a conference call, and usually I bend over backwards to be accommodating and call in from the road or from the effing train to join in the conversation, but this time, I'm going to be BUSY. Hmmm. Maybe I should make plans to go to the beach that day with my sister. Hmmm....I have found the silver lining!

Ah, blog venting does serve a purpose.

Monday, May 24, 2010

No Title

Oh there are so many things I could blog about this morning...

A weekend of productivity, Jam's first week traveling, missing the last Braintree train and not freaking out about it, the incredible Lost finale, or even frickin' Grey's Anatomy, how my parents went away and for the first time no one died while they were on vacation.....so much...

But last night I barfed up my lovingly homemade chili and cornbread with vomiting my sister described as "champion" and my mother described as "horrifying" - then this morning, while lying in bed trying to figure out if the remnants are going to make an exit, my father announced that during the washer/dryer installation in the basement, the plumber found a crack in the foundation and the town was coming out to shut off our water....for.two.days.

So yeah, not in the mood to blog, especially when I'm worried about being able to shower and flush the toilet. Eh. Back to my excessive Hulu queue.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Feminism and Irreverence

I have posed this question before, but SERIOUSLY

Why is FEMINISM such a dirty word to some women?

Ugh. I am so tired of hearing women get all angsty and defensive, holding up their hands saying "I'm not a feminist!" or "I don't consider myself a feminist!" blah blah blah. Let me make this as simple as possible: Is it your dream to be submissive to men for the rest of your life? Yes? Ok, then you're probably not a feminist. Everyone else probably should identify as one. I'm not telling you to do anything radical, I'm just telling you to stick up for yourself, and to not let ANYONE convince you that you are inferior or unworthy because of your gender.

What spurned this? Comments on a wedding blog. Ugh. They get hecka ugly, but this is one of the reasons why women should not be afraid to identify as a feminist and fight back a little bit. All this because this poor bride decided to "break with tradition." Oh GAWD forbid. (And just to clarify, this feminist will be walked down the aisle by her dad, then married by a female minister - which one of my friends said was "just wrong - women shouldn't be ministers." Think I need to have the feminist talk with her?)

Now the irreverence.
So Jam and I are a biracial couple, he's black, I'm white. There it is, PC terminology aside (though you can call my caucasian, if you must lol). We joke about race A LOT. Lately I've wondered if it's too much? At what point do you cross the line and make people uncomfortable? Or should we joke about because it does make people uncomfortable and it's a good way to get these conversations out on the table? Eh. I dunno. We've been joking a lot about potential future children. Let me tell you, it gets old pretty fast when you have people who are practically strangers telling you that your children would be beautiful because they will be "mixed" or my FAV "mulatto." I'm like "wait, mulatto....um do we still use that word or did it kind of go out of style with the END OF SEGREGATION?" I could be wrong, hell, "negro" showed up on the census (still confused about THAT) so maybe mulatto is all good for all I know. But yeah, people tell us we'll have cute kids. Um ok, why would you say that. Maybe they just don't know what else to say? I mean I think Jam and I are decent looking people, you know, average, and hopefully we'd have decent looking kids, but you never know when those genes could combine and make something a little freaky, because we've ALL seen kids of all shapes, sizes and colors who come out looking fetal or like little old men. It happens. I don't think our mixed race-ed-ness will help that.

I do joke about "hybrid vigor" though, being the science nerd that I am. For those of you not as embarrassingly nerdy as I hybrid vigor is basically defined as:

Hybrid Vigor or Heterosis
: An increase in the performance of hybrids over that of purebreds

I was explaining this to a girl at the platelet clinic. I said that while maybe our kids wouldn't necessarily be "beautiful" they would have certain qualities that might give them the most infinitesimal genetic edge over their peers (this is a joke, ok, before anyone really science-y tells me this is impossible). When she asked what hybrid vigor was, I told her, and she still looked puzzled, and I said "you know, it's why all those little mutt dogs live FORever without any health problems while sometimes you get a purebred puppy with two heads or five limbs!!" She looked at me horrified. "You are comparing your future children to mixed-breed dogs?" she exclaimed. Yikes. When she put it that way, it sounded pretty bad. I told Jam and he gave his usual response "Oh. My. Goodness." followed by laughter. But did I cross the line? Should I not say these things. Granted if someone said this to me, I might punch them in the nose - but do I get to say it because I'm living it? Hmmm. I think because I'm me, and I love to get laughs out of people, and at times, shock them, I'll stick with it. There are lines I won't cross, and I think it's good that they're in place (won't say the n-word, don't really joke about slavery,etc) and I can stick with my brand of comedy right now - cause at the end of the day you kind of just have to laugh at the situation, and some people are far too serious...

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Coworker Funnies.

I work with some really sweet people. Yes, finally, after years of suffering with the old assortment of wretched coworkers - it's some days, nothing short of miraculous to me how we've done a 180 over here.

Before moving, I worked with the one and only guy I've ever shared an office with here at the cancer hospital. Yeah, he's the one who said "goodnight girls" every night to me and my coworker and it went up my all-women's-college-educated ASS every time, but at the end of the day, I think is a nice person and would probably do anything for any of us, even though he has come across a little bit sexist, lol. He's a sucker for the damsel-in-distress act and is more than willing to move heavy equipment or set up computers for us females, or do other manly things such as fixing the printer (not that I can't do it, I am simply lazy). He even offered to show me the medical software he is piloting when I was bitching about our electronic medical records system and its general suckitude. Very sweet.

Yesterday I saw him in the kitchen - you would think this would not be a big deal, but since my move diagonally across the second floor, I rarely see him. "Hey stranger!" he shouted. Casual conversation ensued, in which he explained to me his penchant for stealing food and beverages from recently abandoned conference rooms. "I got a whole drawer of soda in the office!" he proclaimed excitedly. Seeing my opportunity, I mentioned donating platelets. "If you like free stuff, you should totally give it a try. There's the food, then there's all the other stuff I've ever received, shirts, towels, bags, cafeteria gift cards, free ice cream cards, raffle tickets for Red Sox tickets, etc, it's great, plus you get free parking, which is unheard of around here." I thought this would be an easy sell. He leaned in close to me "well I really would....but....." he leans back, as if to flex his muscles, "I hit the gym every morning six days a week. I'd have to skip a morning if I donated platelets...and uh....*sigh* *flex* I just can't give that up. It's a sacrifice I'm not willing to make."

uh. ok.

I said "Oh you're big and manly, surely you'd bounce right back." *pause for dramatic effect* "besides, I donate every other week and head home and go for a run." He did not seem convinced, no doubt due to the inferiority of "girl running" as opposed to "boy running." ha. At least I have this one consolation - should he ever donate, my platelet count probably kicks his platelet count's ass, since today mine was 436 (K), which I might add, was more than the sum of the counts two women donating next to me. Hoooolay hoooooo.

Also - did I mention the platelet donating disaster? I think not. Don't worry, it was nothing like this mofo, the granddaddy of all platelet-donating-related injuries:



Briefly, a few weeks ago I went to donate and got a guy who routinely seems nervous around me. I don't know if it's me, if he's just a nervous guy, or what, but as we went to stick the needle in my vein, I notice he's shaking. "WTF" is all I can think, but I try to stay calm around him, so he in turn calms down. He sticks the needle in and blood flies everywhere - on me, on the chair, on my blanket (miraculously not on my clothes), on the blood pressure cuff, on his glasses. Gah, it was nightmarish. Then the vein collapsed and my blood clotted in the pheresis machine. There was a lot of pulling the needle out and pushing it back in, lots of jiggling, before the guy's supervisor was like "Stop and switch arms!" Of course that didn't work because he proceeded to eff up the other arm. I actually felt bad for the poor guy, but my coworker Laura was like 'uh no, he should be fired!!' I figured it was a fluke.

Today I watched him stab someone else, as I was privileged to have the guy who is the BEST needle-sticker-inner ever. She yelped at one point. Luckily her head was turned away, so I didn't see what she did, which was blood pooling around her access site and dribbling down her arm, collecting between her forearm and the armrest. Ick. I was also glad to be a fast donate-r because I bounced out of there before she was finished and had a chance to survey the mess.

Speaking of mess, I got blood on my pants, because my finger stick bled like....I dunno, like I don't have a 436 platelet count, that's for damn sure:




But my pressure bandage matches my nail polish. Delight in the small things, folks:

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

101 Things in 1001 Days

Because I thrive on failure....

You all know I'm addicted to lists.
To me the "Day Zero Project" is the ultimate challenge. Ok maybe the "penultimate" (get it, ha ha ha ha) challenge, with the ultimate being an official bucket list, but Day Zero is definitely up there in terms of badass-ness.

Basically, you have 1,001 days to complete 101 things. The idea of this simultaneously thrills me and scares the sh*t out of me. Am I even creative enough to come up with 101 Things to do?

I'm working on it. And the list is coming...for anyone who even CARES ha ha ha

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Mean Girls

I go to a small, local gym. I tend to see the same people every morning, and while most of them are pretty buddy buddy, I keep to myself. I go in, throw on my sneakers, hit whatever machine I feel like hitting that day (though as time goes on the more I'm going on the bike, definitely my weakest area if I'm going to pull off this sprint tri thing). Then I shower and get ready for work. Usually this involves putting on whatever clothes I've hauled to the gym with me, throwing product in my wet hair, slapping on some makeup and jetting to the commuter rail.

Today I made plans to go out after work, plus I had a meeting and was potentially seeing an old coworker. I kind of wanted to look nicer than usual. I brought a casual dress to wear, and decided that I'd use the gym's hairdryer to dry my hair for a change. I also packed my straightening iron knowing that I can't blow out my hair nicely to save my soul.

This morning after my workout I waited for the "primping lady" to move out of the way. She dries her sweaty hair with a hair dryer and then puts in up in curlers while she does her makeup. This doesn't bother me - I mean it's kinda creepy that she dries out her sweaty hair, but as Jam pointed out, she probably doesn't work up a serious sweat like I do, which is valid. Her primping doesn't bother me either - personally I feel slightly awkward doing my makeup in front of the mirror with a locker room full of people, but I try to be fast and not too vain about it, lol. What bothers me about primping lady is that she sprays about half a can of Aqua Net on her curlers before she takes them out and leaves, leaving the lingering sent of CFC's in the air (j/k CFC's aren't in hairspray anymore, but I'm going for drama here). When I went over to the vacant counter to start my own beauty regimen, I hacked up a lung full of Extra Hold, and fanned the air to try and dissipate the smell.

We-eeell this must've pissed off primping lady and her cronies, because when I flipped back up from drying my hair (I dry upside down when I'm going for speed/convenience) I caught them in the mirror, silent and staring at me. Then it was as though it clicked inside their empty heads that the dryer was off and they all went about their business. Yikes! What'd she say? Did she mock the shortness of my dress, accuse me of getting hair on the counter, or delight in my unsightly and pale legs? Is it me being paranoid? I definitely didn't imagine this. Did I break some sort of gym protocol and were the others shocked at my oblivious breach of etiquette? WTF?

It definitely reminded me of the scene from Mean Girls, the one where Cady walks into the gym after the Burn Book has caused a riot amongst the junior girls and says this:

"Have you ever walked up to people and realized they were just talking about? Have you ever had happen 60 times in a row, I have"

Obviously it wasn't 60 people, it was about 6, but it was that same icky feeling, that same "ok....what did I do....and why are you talking about it." I think I would've felt better if I had something stuck to my butt or something.

Though honestly in the grand scheme of life, what the hell do I care? Talk away b*tches, talk away. I'll only be going to that gym for another three months anyways, and after that it's not like I'll see these people again. HELL I don't see them outside the gym now, why am I worried? I guess it's just that I'd never really felt that icky feeling before. Thanks middle-aged women for finally giving me that experience.

Monday, May 03, 2010

Wedding Vent

OK I just need to do a little wedding guest vent here - b/c the wedding guests who see this will probably laugh, and the ones pissing me off probably read the wedding blog, but not this.

OMG.

This morning I receive an email "Your wedding website looks great, but you should have directions and a forum for guests so we can find rides."

OK so my sister, because she's SMART, embedded directions in the website subheadings "Ceremony" and "Reception" - clearly this person has NOT read the whole website, or she would have seen the stupid freakin' directions. UGH. Next, it is not possible to have a forum on the website. OK I'll give her that. I checked with Jamaal and we both decided that a facebook page might actually be pretty handy. I made sure the facebook group was "secret" and non-searchable. I explained to guests that it's a good place to chat and talk about details such as carpooling or rides to/from the airport. I even posted a few things in the discussion section. I figured that we could have people share wedding photos there too, when the deed is done, lol.

People started accepting the invites I sent out right away. What fun! I was sooo excited.
Then someone, the husband of one of Jam's friends, someone I actually think is great and funny and cool says "what time does the wedding start."

Wait. Seriously?
I mean, maybe I am totally overreacting, but you use this lame facebook group to ask me what time the wedding starts? Yeah, that's why people MAIL you a PAPER invitation with STUFF printed on it, stuff like, I dunno, the stupid day and time?! ARghghghgh.

I tell him to look on the real wedding website. Because at the very least, if you can't wait for the paper invite, frickin' look on the official site we've established to bring critical information to our guests, not some bullsh*t facebook group with 10 people in it.

Gah.
Rant over.