Though devastated that I am not in NYC to celebrate the happy, happy birthdays of Miss Boom Boom, Savory, and Suss, I am sending the best of wishes. With that said, here is a little something from my imaginary boyfriend that will fill two to three birthday gals with glee!
Much love ladies!
P.S. After a long hiatus of lazy posts and outright nothings, I’m back. Sort of. We’ll see.
It seems that there are a lot of single people in my world these days. People are breaking up at a breakneck pace, looking for love, or just plain bored. Now, I can’t say that I really understand it. For the most part everyone is charming, cute and a wit to boot. Even more confounding, they are looking to me for a bit of help. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I have so many charming, cute and witty friends, I should guess.
So to all those I love and cherish, here is the deal. Tell me what you want, and I will see if I’ve got one lying around. We are working with the “take a penny, leave a penny” philosophy.
Find me on facebook, and I’ll see what I can do.
As for myself, I am off of the market.
I love my friends.
I do. Really.
I think they are great.
Yup. Great.
Okay, so sometimes my friends are a-holes. That doesn’t mean I don’t love them. It means that every now and again, I get the urge to club them over the head, fur trapper style. Or maybe throw some oranges in a pillow case and go to town.
After a week of driving myself into the ground, I did what any self-respecting gal would do.
I ran away from home.
It was off to LBI for me. What ensued was a weekend of companionship, crying, commiseration, and crafting. I napped on the beach and went hard at work on that long over-due suntan. By Sunday, I was more whole than I had been in quite some time. That was, until it happened.
Somewhere around Exit 148, the Professor and I were deep involved in a conversation about class size, students, and next semester’s course load. I asked the Professor what the expectations were for mid-term deliverables. At that point, I needed to duck the spit take of Diet Coke bursting through the Professor’s lips.
“Expectations for mid-term deliverables?!”
Was that me?! Who talks like that? The Professor called me out, tout de suite. Between my horror and the Professor’s amusement, we figured something out. Since my personal world has been a bit of a wreck, I tossed myself into work. By doing such, I destroyed completely my natural cadence of speech. In part, it’s because I’ve been hanging with way too many Brits. For another, my NYC verbal stylings have been blossoming like tulips in spring.
But for all of these reasons, the greatest culprit is the language of Corporate America. In a land where so many things are unacceptable, where granularity and accountability are king, and where transparency will save the day, I can’t seem to carry on a normal conversation. Not for not trying. The only way I’ve found where I might protect the joy I find in words is to openly validate the kooky.
You see, gentle readers. For all of the street, NYC, hipster, B.S. coding that I’ve been injecting into my adult conversations, I have but one touchstone. My one very special saving grace. That’s right. In this place, the land of my childhood, amongst the voices of home, within throngs of my peeps, I cling to the verbal cues of my new digs. I sing the language that is purely Chicago. Therein, my dear friends, lies my crowning achievement. I have overwhelmed my colleagues, friends, and cubical partners with my use of two words that are unapologetically, unabashedly middle America.
I have infected these jaded New Yorkers with the kooky. From the cosmopolitan continental, to the beaten Bushwick brother, to the sullen Staten Islander, and the angry Astorian, I got them all.
There is little more satisfying than hearing these hardened drawls accidentally uttering my favorite four syllables:
OKIE DOKEY!
Coming to a corporate cube near you.
Last Wednesday, I asked the relatively new imperialist, aka Steve History, what he would be doing over the weekend. He answered that he would be going to the track.
Wait a second. “The race on Saturday?” I asked. His response: “I have no idea. It might be.” For those who are countrymen of the relatively new imperialist or have been living under a rock, Mr. History was to see the Belmont Stakes, the third in the Triple Crown, the “run for the carnations.”
Me being me, I asked Mr. History to put down a few bets. He kindly agreed. To make life easier for the lad, I sent him an email:
Hey Mr. History,
Can you place a few bets for me? They are contingent on these post positions being final:
1 Imawildandcrazyguy
2 Tiago
3 Curlin
4 C P West
5 Slew’s Tizzy
6 Hard Spun
7 Rags to RichesIf the post positions don’t change, you can just show this to the guy at the betting window:
Race 11: Belmont Stakes
$5 exacta box 7, 2, 3
$5 exacta key 2, with 3, 7
$5 Superfecta 7, 3, 2, 6HORSES!
Simple enough. I figured that Rags to Riches would win, but there would be an outside chance that Tiago would rock it. Hedge the bets, right?
The race results: 7, 3, 2, 6.
Okay, not that the outcome was a huge surprise, and it wasn’t like there was a huge field, and it wasn’t like I know too much about the horses. Turns out, I know enough to hit the superfecta. In this particular race, it wasn’t brain surgery, but it still felt nice!
At least it did for a little while. Dreams of new 500 thread count sheets evaporated like the steam off a pile of horse manure. It seems that Mr. History didn’t go to the track that afternoon, but attended a barbecue instead.
June 10th resolution: Never send in the British when cash is on the line.
From a corporate America perspective, I have been a bit out of the loopy. Not that it is that difficult to jump right into, but I will admit as readily as the next gal. I am a bit behind on the jargon. Take comfort, dear hearts. I was not completely lost. There will always be the gems that won’t die, no matter how much they should.
“Out of the box” is one. I think that Miss Boom Boom said it best: “If you actually use the term ‘out of the box,’ it could actually be considered ironic.” For those of you still inside the box, that means that the tired phrase is so overused, it is the box. In any case, paper cut to the eye. Fortunately, I have only heard that wretched phrase once since I started at the new gig. Unfortunately, I have only been there since Monday, but hey.
Some of the jargon comes right back, no matter how hard I tried to avoid this distress. The one phrase that sets me on nails is “speak to that.” You know how it works: “There is no milk left in this container. I am not sure who left it in the fridge, but I am sure that Mr. Generic can speak to that.” Speak to that. Is that even correct English? Every time I hear that phrase, I keep thinking, I am not sure why he will speak to that. A milk carton won’t answer back. Speak to that. No. I don’t think it will ever sound right. Chime in Al?
Not saying that I am an expert, or even an enthusiastic amateur on the language we call English. I will say this. Corporate America has a language all its own. It reminds me of when I see little kids dress up in their mothers’s clothes. They will start with the dress, then the shoes, then put on as much of mom’s jewelry as their tiny arms can handle. Then the hat. Always the hat.
It seems that the machine is like that with language. I can just hear the collective wheels spinning: Here is an obscure word. We should try to use it as much as possible. People will think we are wicked smart. While I am sure that there is an honest way to say what we are trying to say, let’s try it this way. Let’s novate. Much better. That is fun to say! What a fait accompli! Even Todd says so, and verbiage is of Todd’s core competencies. I am sure that it won’t negatively impact our bottom line. In any case, let’s brain dump on this. I will get back to you by end of day. I will have to speak with control to make sure that it is within the appropriate processes, but either way, I will better speak to that by our 3:30 call. If I can’t find you, I will just leave a sticky.
Welcome back, me.
Not too long ago, I was but one of the unlucky hoard. Every morning, I would climb into my Corolla, say a little prayer to my plastic Jesus, and join the legions of do-bees in a daily ritual: morning rush hour. Those who love me might say, “It couldn’t have been that bad. You worked out in the suburbs.” To that, I say, “au contraire.” Those from the city of big shoulders know that when it comes to Chicago traffic, there is no such thing as “the opposite direction.”
Sure. Perhaps in the early morning hours, before the sun would break the horizon, my long drive to Libertyville might have been 50 minutes. Pipe dream at best. Try as I might, there were very few occasions where I would log a drive under an hour and 15. So after a harrowing beginning, my day would be filled with the fun and excitement that only a large, suburban corporate campus might provide. After too much joy, my work day would end, and I would join the traffic once more. If there is anything worse than morning rush hour, it is the evening slow jam. Heaven forbid if there was weather. Some days, I spent hours upon hours in my car. Literally.
There were two things that made these moments bearable: baseball and This American Life. I won’t bore anyone with my endless rhapsodies on baseball, but I will say that Sox trivia will always end with Roger Bossart. Rather, I call your attention to the latter of my saviors.
On Friday nights at 7:00, I tuned into WBEZ for another installment of “This American Life.” Ira Glass et al accompanied me on my lonely trek back into the city, transporting me into the minds of strangers 20 minutes at a time. Funny stories, bizarre stories, touching stories. In truth, there are still times when I sit in my car for a few extra minutes so as not to miss the end of the story. It is that good.
Imagine my shock when I found out that TAL will join the ranks of the talkies. Showtime, no less. Sigh. Reason number 8 to break down and get cable. Anywho, they have the first episode in all of its glory on the Showtime website. It is a beautiful extension of the radio program. Frankly, after seeing the skin of a Brahman bull pulled from a box housed in a hall closet, I began to realize that there are some things that you need to see to believe.
The only thing that trips me out, and this is not a criticism, is seeing Ira Glass speaking. For some reason, I had always pictured him looking like Rick Moranis.
In any case, if you love me, you will infringe on a few copyrights. I’m just saying.
As a Jets fan, I would like to say that I didn’t care about the game tonight. I would like to say that I was just watching to see good football. All lies. As an eight year resident of the second windy, I couldn’t help but hope that the Bears would take it. I really wanted them to win.
Perhaps I should have done more. Maybe I should have jumped on the bandwagon and bought a wardrobe full of Bears paraphernalia. That foam finger could have helped. And the chili. Every time I ate another bowl, they started doing great things. But I was so very full and a fourth bowl seemed like so very much. Maybe if I put my rally pants[1] on sooner… what was I thinking waiting for the fourth quarter?!
Or maybe, just maybe, if frickin’ Rex Grossman stopped being such a pussy and ran the ball up the middle for seven yards here and there instead of waiting to throw long bombs, and maybe if he didn’t trip over his own frickin’ feet, and maybe if he didn’t fumble the frickin’ snap, TWICE, and maybe if he didn’t throw two frickin’ interceptions at the worst possible FRICKIN’ moment, well maybe…
Sigh. It was probably the rally pants.
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[1] rally pants – pants that have been turned inside out and backwards at a critical moment of a game to show support for a team. Derived from rally hat.
I have been trying to book tickets for the holidays, including a New Year’s thing on the right coast. Every time I find a great fare, this dread machine takes it away. Perhaps this is some major bait and switch perpetuated by the industry as a whole. In collusion, they have set out to spoil all of my holiday fun! I can see them sitting in their dank, dark, sinking pirate ships, sifting goonie doubloons through their chubby fingers. MWAH HA HA HA!
Or better yet, maybe it’s my doppelganger. I can see her now, sitting high on her South Side perch, shadowing my every move.
ORD to LAX?
mine.
LAX to NYC?
mine.
ORD to EWR?
mine.
Seriously. Here I sit, thinking of a creative way to work the system, and up pops a beautifully priced flight. Select. Oops! No longer available! We are talking seconds here.
All I have to say to that is ARGH!
