I recently bought a cute little fixer-upper in a nice, quiet neighborhood. It was in my price range and in the neighborhood i like and, hey-all those do it yourself shows look like so much fun! Well no more! Never again will I do anything myself! Henceforth, i will PAY for someone else to do EVERYTHING! Painting, flooring, laundry, shaving, EVERYTHING! Unfortunately for my current project, I am out of money. Like most fixers, the more we dug into this house, the more it needed. And sadly, we are moving in today. But at least when we sleep on the floor tonight, under half painted walls with our food slowly spoiling on the counters, we will be sleeping on new carpets, and, hey-who needs a refrigerator anyways?
A married man just told me my hair looked nice. why would a guy make a comment like that unless he was hitting on someone? and why would he hit on someone while wearing a wedding band? thank goodness for the ring-otherwise i would've said something about getting the hot male perspective!
is apparently wrong. my boss told me so. she came into my office one day and said-I need to ask you a question.- my normal paranoia has been pushed aside lately by the amazing amount of comments i've gotten along the lines of - we're SO glad you're here-we would hate your job-the last guy who had your job went crazy-we're so glad you're here instead of the crazy guy-blah blah blah, so I blithely sat there, expecting nothing. She smiled anxiously and said -Some people have said that they've smelled alchohol coming from your cube. are you drinking at work?- i suddenly got this picture of me, pulling a pint of bearhugger's finest whiskey from my bottom drawer, pulling the cork out with my teeth and drinking down half the bottle. it certainly would make my job easier. unfortunately, i likes me the paychecks, so i do my job sober. i wouldn't advise it; i work with the public. today, this guy took up 20 minutes of my day alternately insulting my job and scratching his armpit. just his right armpit. with great abandon, full hand, elbow swinging...at any rate, instead of grabbing my boss by the lapels and screaming -who said that whowhowho?- i denied, we laughed, and she left, secure in the knowledge that her best donkey was not getting loaded at work. but since, i have been completly obsessed with who, who WHO would say that? especially when, a week later, my boss did something silly and, with a terrier's inability to let things go, i said-NOW who's drinking at work? and she laughed and said-i couldn't believe it when they came in and told me that.- and i thought-THEY? now there's more than one?!? i want to find these people and obtain some just, poetic revenge. however, i can't think of anyone who would do that to me. and now, i look at everyone at work with suspicion. i spent the rest of that first day asking everyone who came into my cube if they smelled anything funny. They all said no. Bunch of liars.
yesterday, the plant lady told me that i should really take the dead leaves off my plant. so, like a monkey picking lice off her baby, i started peering through the plant, pulling off anything that wasn't green. and i actually liked it. it was the most relaxing thing i've done since i became too poor to afford yoga. of course, 5 minutes later, my boss came by and told me to get down because, apparently, standing on your chair in the office is a safety hazard. and 10 minutes after that, my phone rang and i almost broke my neck falling off the chair trying to answer it, but for a blissful 15 minutes that day, i was peaceful. i was zen. i didn't feel like lighting anyone's desk on fire. it was a good break.
i discovered today why cubicle walls are padded. it's so when we
denizens of the cubes go crazy and start banging our heads on the
walls, we don't hurt ourselves.
I do not collect house plants. whenever someone gives me a plant, i accept it graciously, and when we're alone, give the plant a long, sad look, and say, "I am so sorry." Because i know that despite my best efforts, that plant will end up a dead, dried husk in my garbage can. Someone once gave me a cactus, and we looked at each other with some hope and the thought that ANYone can keep a cactus alive! I put it in a sunny window and took good care of it and hardly ever watered it, right up until the day it ended up bleached down one side and gooey in the middle in my garbage can.
A year ago, I started a new job, and to welcome me, my new boss gave me a beautiful fern. CRAP! i thought-a LOVE fern! from my new boss! a boss love fern! Well, i would like to pour blessings on the head of the black thumb who invented the self watering pot, because thanks to that invention, i have kept that love fern alive for the last year. Unfortunately, the dumb thing won't stop growing and has become this droopy, bleached, rootbound mess. It got so bad that my boss started giving it weird looks everytime she came in to my cube. So the other day, I recruited the lady across the hall to help me repot the love fern. I cleared my desk and spread out some paper and watched while she elbowed me aside and took over the process. I figured she needed the props, so I just let her go. I thanked her profusely and said, "you'll be the plant's..." stepped nimbly over grandmother and settled on "auntie."
Well, I overdid the praise, because now she's in my office three times
a day, watering or trimming or offering advice. I heard that she
and the lady next door were in here while i was at lunch yesterday
trying to lift it up onto a higher shelf! When did I lose custody
of this plant? and of my cubicle? If i move it to a more
remote location, would she just start moving furniture to get to
it? But if she doesn't water it, that plant is doomed. I
couldn't find a larger self watering pot and without her help, it will
end up like all the others. just a notch in the belt of my bad
plant karma. However, i have killed before. It's a small
price to pay for the return of my privacy.
I am a collector. I pick up bits and pieces of whatever catches my eye. Unfortunately, I get bored easily, which means that my collection is like a raven's nest-full of junk and trinkets from myriads of places. Music, books, trivial facts, china, shoes, I even (I am ashamed to say) have a collection of 12 amazingly well-dressed teddy bears. I also like to collect stories. And I have nowhere to put them. So, my sister suggested I get a blog. Hopefully it wasn't just so I'd shut up...
It's actually a haircut that sparked this blog. well, a haircut and my sister's endless nagging...i decided, at 7:30 at night, that i MUST have a haircut IMMEDIATELY. i also needed toothpaste, mustard and beer, so i went to the hairmasters, conveniently located next door to a grocery store. now, i knew going in that i was taking my life into my own hands, paying 15 dollars for a haircut at 7:30 at night, but i wanted a shorter version of exactly what i had-a bob. a short, patricia arquette bob. isn't that haircutting 101? so, i sat down at the girl's station and was instantly relieved to see that she had a little strip of paper taped to her mirror that said "hair master." unfortunately, they must have been judging on volume, rather than quality.
what i
wanted was this-
What i got was THIS!
sheesh-i should have had my MOM cut
it! and THEN, the girl says, it makes you look BUBBLY! are
you bubbly? i thought really hard about everyone i knew,
including my daddy and i could not think of one person who would
consider me to be bubbly.
There are a few saving graces to
this story. First, everyone i meet loves it. when i went to
work the next day, the first thing anyone would say to me was,
wow! you look amazing! I even got an anonymous phone call
from someone who, i think works across the floor from me raving about
my hair...also, i am vain enough that, as long as everyone else loves
it, it's okay that my hair is ugly for awhile. and now i
know-next time i go to hairmasters, bring a picture!
