The problem with getting to work on time

... is that it makes the day too long!

That's what it says on a refrigerator magnet given to me by someone who knows me WAY too well.

Last week I discovered another problem with getting to work on time. Well, in this case, early. I arrived at 7:40, almost an hour and a half before our office officially opens. I turned on my computer and then walked out to the cafe to get water and tea. As I was about to walk back to my desk, I realized I didn't have my little grey fob-thingy to get me back in. I was locked out, trapped in the lobby, and no one else was in sight.

I didn't know what else to do, so I watched CNN for a while, all about Bush's farewell address and the plane crash into the Hudson River. I tried using the lobby phone to call and see if any of my coworkers who usually arrive early had snuck in through the other entrance. Finally, at 8:10, the director of our project came into the cafe. I, of course, pretended like I'd only been in the cafe for a few moments and nonchalantly let him hold the door open for me because my hands were full.

His reaction to seeing me at 8:10 am: "What are YOU doing here so early?"

Adrenaline junkies and blogging

Brilliant.

I'm seriously considering investing in this alarm clock, called the SnūzNLūz:




How it works:

"Connects to your online bank account, and donates YOUR real money to an organization you HATE when you decide to snooze!"

Are you a butcher? Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to PETA
Are you a republican? Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to the ACLU!
Are you a land developer? Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to the Wilderness Society!
Enjoy your freedom? (Blue state version) Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to the GOP. or
Enjoy your freedom? (Red state version) Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to MoveOn.Org
Are you a hippie? Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to the American Coal Foundation.
Are you a Ninja? Set your SnūzNLūz to donate to, hrrrm, we can't find a Pirate Charity at the moment. But there must be one...somewhere...

I'm not sure which charity I'd choose. Any (non-partisan) suggestions?!

So, yes, I admit it, I have a lifelong addiction to the snooze button.

A friend asked me recently how my mornings typically go. Well, I answered, they usually start with me hitting snooze for approximately an hour, then rushing out of the house late for work with unwashed hair, eating breakfast on the way to the bus stop, putting on makeup while riding the metro, and finally slinking to my desk and pretending I've been there awhile already.

So how does this tie into blogging?

I'm not so good at doing things on a normal timeline, or in installments, whether it's getting up in the morning, getting a project done at work, writing a paper, planning a party or a musical number or whatever. I tend to put things off, keep putting them off, put them off some more and then suddenly get it all done in a big burst of hyperfocused energy. My mother calls me an adrenalin junkie. I'm pretty sure this type of behavior has shaved a few years off my life.

So when it comes to blogging ... well, I try to space out posts and all, and I have ideas for posts regularly, but somehow they just pile up and the only way I know how to do this is to catch up all at once.

This is basically a very long way of explaining why there are eight new posts all of a sudden, and inviting you to read all of them (even though I have a feeling this is probably bad blog etiquette or something, and only my mom and like one other person will read them all). Ah, well, all I can say is, Welcome to my world.

Pearls before swine

(Scene: Morning. A reasonably attractive woman in her early thirties boards a city bus and finds a seat across from several other riders, including a man about her age reading a newspaper.)

Man (looking up from newspaper): Hey, you have some dirt on your pants, yeah, right there.

Reasonably attractive woman: Oh, thanks. (Rubs at dirt with fingers.)

Man: I think it's actually from your purse -- it's all dirty on the bottom.

Woman (turning an impossibly large purse to look at the bottom): Oh, no, I must have set it down at the bus stop. Thanks for pointing that out.

Man: If I were you, I'd wait until I got to work and use water on it; otherwise you'll just rub it in.

Woman: Ah. Good point. (Sits still, feeling uncomfortable, wanting to rub dirt from her pants and planning to do so as soon as man gets off bus.)

(Pause.)

Man (looking up from newspaper): You have more self-control than I do. I would have been rubbing at that dirt like crazy by now.

Woman (laughs self-consciously): Well, really it's just par for the course for me. I'm always having minor mishaps -- it's kind of a way of life for me. My friends tell me I'm like the heroine of a romantic comedy who's always falling down and hitting her head, but who gets the guy in the end. Like Sandra Bullock or Meg Ryan or something.

Man: Do your friends always lie to make people feel better about themselves? (Laughs at his own joke; woman laughs confusedly.)

Man: I'm Tyler.

Woman: Nice to meet you. Allison.

Man: Hey, do you read the comics?

Woman: Yeah, sometimes.

Man: My favorite one is this one about a pig and a zebra. Last week, they had a really funny one where the pig ...

(Man keeps talking. Woman's mind wanders to other riders on the bus who are trying to appear as though they are not eavesdropping, which, of course, they are. "Is he hitting on me?" the woman thinks. "Are all these people laughing inside, like I do when I see someone hitting on someone else in public? Is this awkward? Or not? AND -- did he really just say that my friends are *lying* to make me feel better when they say I'll get the guy in the end?"

Man finishes story and laughs, looking expectantly at woman. Woman realizes she wasn't listening and has no idea what he just said and pretends to laugh awkwardly.)

Another reasonably attractive woman (sitting next to the man, laughing loudly): Oh, that's a good one! I love that comic!

Man: It's called "Pearls Before Swine." I have no idea what that means, but it's my favorite comic.

First woman: It's from the Bible.

Man sitting next to woman #1: Yeah, it means, like, not tellin' people your personal business 'cause they don't understand. Like, if I believe somethin', and I know people don't respect that, then I ain't gon' tell those people, 'cause it's special to me.

(First woman stands as the bus pulls up to the metro.)

Man: Hey, nice to meet you.

Woman: You too. Have great day. (Exits bus with a sigh of relief.)


Uh huh. Welcome to my world. :)

Long time, no posty

I'm back.

Just to reassure you, most things in my life are still just the same as ever.

Can you hear me now?

So, last Monday, I come home early, change into my comfies and settle into my bed for a conference call. About an hour in, I hear a knock on my door. That confident, familiar knock, you know, the “RAT-tat-tat-TAT-TAT” you would answer with a "TAT-TAT." Oh, I think, it must be one of our friends, so I get up to answer it, thinking I'll just apologetically motion to my phone, shrug, mouth the word “sorry” and send them on their way.

I put my phone on mute and open the door and there's a perky, overweight girl smiling up at me. She launches into a schpiel about how she's from the inner city and has a two-year-old daughter and is selling magazines so she can to go back to school and get a degree in social work.

Now, it normally takes all my courage and concentration to say “no” to anyone about anything, and this is even harder because I'm distracted by the conference call and taken off guard. I find myself smiling and nodding and being nice, even though in my head I'm thinking, no, stop, you'll only encourage her! So I start to explain the whole conference call thing and motion the phone, which just makes her increase the speed of her schpiel, and before I know it I've purchased two magazine subscriptions to be sent to soldiers in Iraq to read during their free time. I’m still not sure how it all happened. Argh.

Anyway, the magazines are not the point. The point is that I close the door and go back to the conference call, commenting here and there along with the other four people on the call. I start making a pretty important point when Rob suddenly interrupts me and starts wrapping up the call. I stop and try again, talking louder this time, but now Dan is talking over me, and I'm thinking, hey, why isn't anyone paying attention to me?!

That's when I look down at my phone and realize it is still on mute. Twenty minutes I've been talking and no one's been hearing me! I take my phone off mute just in time to sign off, and then sit there holding the phone and replaying the last 20 minutes of conversation, wondering how I didn't realize sooner it wasn't a conversation at all. It was like the restaurant scene in The Sixth Sense, where you think Bruce Willis and his wife are talking to each other, but then after you find out he was dead and she could never see or hear him, you realize that the scene still works without anything he said. So basically ... I was the dead person!

Um, just so I know I'm not writing this blog post to no one ... can you hear me now?