Rrrrrrromance. (That's 'romance' in Spanish.)

After our zipcar trip up the Hudson last night, Daniel, Randy, Kevin and I stopped for ice cream cones. I was eating mine in a hurry, but I had at least five solid bites of the delicious cone left (and if I'm being honest with myself, those five bites are my favorite ice cream cone bites) when I dropped it on the pavement. Yes. That.

And without even missing a beat, my very sweet and generous boyfriend stuck out his arm and handed me the very last bite of his own delicious cone.

This, ladies, is what you're looking for in a man, whether you realize it or not.

i might get fired someday over these posts who cares

I had two glasses of wine last night after the Baldwins show; I haven’t really been drinking much in recent weeks. The first year or two that I was hangin around improv folk, I was out at the bar a lot more often than I am now, and I’d probably have a few drinks every time, but oof, you can only do that for so long. So now I only really go on Wednesdays and Saturdays, after improv and HST shows, with a few exceptions. And I’ll only have a drink or two, if any, (except for LIT night, right Clayton!? >pukes<) and last night was the same. Two glasses of Chardonnay, and I only had the second glass because Steve the manager bought it for me. THE POINT IS, I have a wee headache this morning from just the two glasses! Silly.

Psycho’s on the war path this morning. She’s been huffing and puffing and exasperatedly sighing all morning long, slamming doors and banging things around, snapping at people and whispering to whomever she can pull aside. And then she stopped dead in her tracks, looked up in a huff and said in a whine, “Do you pray for me?”

Oh gawd.

She meant it too, as a genuine query. She wasn’t just being rhetorical or facetious. Soon she’ll start laughing manically and acting like we’re all soulmates. She’s like a huge child that you have to ignore because there’s no other way for her to understand that her behavior is intolerable.

She’s out tomorrow. This is a blessing beyond blessing.

I feel like I’ve gotten through the thickness of this week and am just gonna sit pretty for the next few now. In case you want to read my preplans about it (tickticktick): Tonight, Dan, Randy, Kev and I will have an evening adventure upstate somewhere. We’re grabbing a zip car and we’ll just drive up the Hudson, chill out, and drive home when we’re sick of it. I’m looking forward to it because I never get to hang out with this iteration of friends and I happen to enjoy them each quite a lot, so all at once is thrice the fun. Then tomorrow, she’s out, which is bliss for me, and then I have a few things to do in the evening. And then Saturday morning I’m off to Chicago. I’m really looking forward to being at home – hoping the weather will be slightly cool, for a taste of fall – sitting on my mom’s couch, having a snack, seeing my family, laffing, catting with the cats, generally being my old Midwestern self.

p.s. Baldwins had a good show last night, I really enjoyed it. We’re finally finding our groove and it feels purdy good.

fruit and mattress

- fruit tastes good
- my mattress feels good
- thanks for foolishly giving me your mattress, Daniel
- i like smooching
- tongue sandwiches smell like pastrami but it still makes me barf to know i'm smelling tongue (a woman in my office eats tongue at least twice a week)
- going to Chicago on Saturday
- excited about it
- my hair feels really nice lately
- i have twiddled my hair (or my mother's hair) since i was an infant, no joke
- maturation feels good
- i'll be 27 soon, that's pretty adult sounding
- Daniel and Randy and Kevin and i are taking a zip car somewhere tomorrow night
- for fun, that's why
- people in the construction industry yell a lot
- we, as a nation, ARE. SO. WASTEFUL.
- i hate throwing away paper
- i'm definitely a child of the mid-eighties recycle everything movement
- cats

I just ate, how am I hungry?

I sort of love this morning. I got very little sleep last night – getting home from improv/bar stuff at 130 or so, and not getting into bed until 2 – but for some reason the lack of sleep isn’t that painful.

I mean, check in with me around 6pm when I have to go to HST practice and Baldwins practice from 630 to 1115, collectively. Oof, that might be a challenge.

But it’s so cool and fall-like here in the city for the last few days - what could possibly be wrong with life? I have always adored the fall, in that sentimental, nostalgic, football game sense. There’s a bittersweetness to it that makes everything sad feel sadder and everything happy feel like perfect sweet apple pie life. Plus kisses.

The crazy lady at my job might have quit. More on that later. But she’s not here this morning, at least, and it feels like a taste of freedom I haven’t known since she started here 6 weeks ago. Now give me a raise, dammit.

And to make matters more interesting, I’m going downtown on my lunch break to see about another job. It’s a year long freelance job I already landed at the beginning of the summer, but the start date kept getting pushed back. When I got this new gig, I never told the freelance job I would be unavailable when their start date finally rolled around, just in case it didn’t work out here. Well, things are finally “moving forward” with the freelance job and they want me to come back and meet with them to discuss. So I’m going. It seems the responsible thing to do. Keep the connection open, as Kevin would say. I’ll see what their deal is, what the hours will be like. I can’t imagine I’ll decide to switch jobs, but I want the option available to me if I need it. The place I’m working at now is notorious for a high turnover. People stay here months, not years, and walk out for good one afternoon without looking back. If/when I leave this place I hope to be more graceful about it than that but the harsh reality is that this place pushes grown men with families, families who’re depending on their six figure salaries, to abandon their desks mid-afternoon in tears. So perhaps if the other option looks more appealing, I’ll consider the switch.

I could have just as easily summed that all up by simply saying, “I might change jobs, I might not. I have to go see a guy about it today.”

It feels like fall out there!

I’ve already written several updates that never got posted. I have a habit of doing that.

The vacation was, all things considered, quite lovely, and there was a 14 month old baby along for the ride which is, although I’m sure many will disagree with me, a great way to vacation. I enjoy a nice baby every now and again.

I’m working working working. It’s gotten easier for a host of reasons: 1. I don’t care anymore. 2. The desks got moved around and it’s made my life a lot easier. A LOT easier. 3. 8am isn’t as early as it was at first. I’ve been at this for 7.5 weeks (I added that up just now, I haven’t been keeping track, or keeping a daily count, or carving a chunk of flesh out of my thigh each day – I haven’t!) and 8am doesn’t feel like death any more. I’m sure there are people in the world who have to get up at 4am to be at work by 6am, and for that I’m very sorry, but I’m notoriously anti-early-morning and an 8am start-time was painful at first, even if that sounds lame. But then I got real and came to terms with the fact that it’s just not that early. Apparently that’s called ‘adapting.’

I’ve also done a major clean of my bedroom and Daniel and I worked on some of the common spaces. Major accomplishments were made. And it has done wonders for my psyche. We’ve thrown out probably ten big garbage bags filled with crap. And beyond one pang of regret a day later over throwing out an expensive leather bag I kinda still liked, my show-no-mercy declutterization hasn’t had any negative repercussions. The streamlining of my crap has been a welcome change. And I’m doing more each day and trying to keep up with the tidying up each day. Tonight’s tackle: CLOTHES. Oof.

I’m also enjoying the cool weather. And mah cat. And mah man. And I’m going home for Grandma’s 75th b-day extravaganza which is over Labor Day. Stoked about that. Family is nice.

Dings for everyone.

vacate.

I'm on vacation. In the Berkshires. It is wonderful. I was here over the weekend, had to go back to work in the city on Monday and Tuesday, and returned tonight after work; Kev picked me up from a train station and now here I am at the hotel.

I'm very pleased. Perhaps even thrilled. And happy to be thinking of nothing but relaxing for the next five days.

Bye.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

That concert was AWESOME.

That was the perfect way to spend a Thursday night. I had a FUCKING BLAST.

Pretend there's a photo here.

Thanks Jess...

...for your comment. It actually made me feel a lot better. (And btw, I think you commented a while back and I never responded. Thanks for that one too.)

It’s funny because as I was writing that post last night, I was actually thinking of you. (You, whom I barely know.) Because I remember you writing things like that before – that you need two weeks away from everything. We are same.

I’m feeling better today, internet. Writing that last night probably helped a lot. And my coworker was in her usual miserable form today but somehow it slid more easily off my back.

Speaking of, I’d like to refer everyone to the comment left by “irritated” on yesterday’s post. I think that might be my first ever experience of a drive-by-inappropriate-blog-comment! which I know all you seasoned bloggers are old pros at receiving. (Btw, if you ever want to read some doozies of nasty comments go to Dooce's blog. That poor woman gets more nasty hatemail…But she wonderfully weaves the best hatemails into hilarious posts on her blog every month or two. I love her.) Luckily, I’m relatively easy going about meanies, so it wasn’t terribly upsetting, but if you have a second, take a glance at it. I’m pretty proud of it – as it’s my first ever.

Oh and I should add, I might take some stock in what “irritated” had to say if I hadn’t written a post just inches down the screen with the title “Happy As Clam.” Somehow I feel like that and other positive entries preclude me from having to justify job stress. Waaaait a minuuuuute…do you have me second guessing myself, irritated? Certainly, no. Back to regularly scheduled self-assurance.

p.s. Beastie Boys concert in Bklyn tonight! Whuuut!

>sighs<

I'm depressed. Simple. I feel crappy. I'm feeling misunderstood and alone in my struggles. I'm sick of it being so fucking muggy and hot all the time. There was a tornado in Brooklyn this morning and I couldn't get into work all day today. I'm sick of getting up early. I'm sick of being sick of getting up early. I'm sick of bitching about my job on here - with Kevin - to my friends - to my coworkers - in my improv. I want to turn the whole world off for 21 days. I want time to stop. I want to go home to Illinois and eat cheese and crackers in my grandparents kitchen while time stops and nothing matters. I'm sick and tired of the crazy woman at my job exhausting the fuck out of me with her insanity - she's the nightmarish great aunt or obnoxious oldladynextdoor that everyone hates. I'm pissed off that I don't know what next, that I have to work daily to rewrap my mind around why I'm doing this, what it gets me, and what reality would be like if I weren't doing it. I'm furious that leaving this job would cause a lot more problems than it would solve. I'm furious that being at this job is causing at a lot more problems than I expected it to. I'm pissed off, I'm tired, I'm hungry all the damn time for no realistic reason, I'm CONSTANTLY HAVING TO DEAL WITH THESE ENORMOUSLY DIFFICULT PERSONALITIES AT MY JOB AND I'M THE LAST PERSON ON THE PLANET WHO WOULD WIN A "CAPABLE OF TOLERATING INSANE BEHAVIOR AWARD." I'm fucking pissed fucking off. Okay? And that's the goddammed long and short of it. I wish everyone would shut up and get outta my face.

And as livinginthemoment, which is how I'm trying to live, would have it, I apparently have three choices: remove myself from the situation, change the situation, accept the situation.

I'll think on that. Meanwhile, fuck this.

Has it really come to this?

I'll try to write more later today. But has it really come to a weekly blog update? Yeeps. That's terrible.

I'm workin like crazy and it makes me tired and I have a little self pity over it this weekend. I had to bail on plans with friends of Kevin's today because I am desperate to get some laundry done and spend a little time at my apartment. I feel awful about it because nobody likes a plan-bailer, but I had to make this decision.

Luckily, I got to catch up with Keith and Phil last night at the bar, which was great. I rarely get to sit down with those guys anymore, so it was really nice to get to chat and laugh with them.

I have been grouchier, more irritable, and less patient lately. And it's taking its toll. Kevin's being awesome about it, but I still wish the circumstances could be different.

This weekend, like the others, will probably go by too quickly, especially with an HST video shoot tomorrow at 9am. I'm livin day by day right now with a paycheck-as-carrot being constantly dangled in front of me.