Flibbertigibbet

An Open Letter to Volkswagon

Dear Volkswagon

I used to own a Passat. I bought it for many reasons including the many safety features.

Your new commercials make me never want to get into a car ever again.

These are the commercials with fun, happy people having a conversation in a car and then they slam into another vehicle.

They scare the bejesus out of me. I've seen two of them about a thousand times each and I always get caught up in the conversation and then I'm suddenly throwing up in shock.

Please make it stop.

Thank you

Flibby

Let Me Tell You A Story

3/15 - Cancelled service with Dish Network and had them send the equipment return boxes to my parent's house since they have the equipment.

3/28 - Am alerted by my property manager that strange boxes have arrived at my house.

3/29 - emailed Dishnet Work to alert them of the error.

4/3 - Still no word fromm Dish Network, so I call. They say they recieved my email and the boxes are now on their way to the correct address.

4/7 - Recieve response to my email saying the boxes are on their way.

4/18 - Still no boxes, so I call. Jason says the boxes are on their way to my parent's house as requested.

4/28 1:30 - Still no boxes, so I call. Sierra says the boxes have been delivered to my house. I inform her of the prior two requests and she apologizes and resends shiping lables. She can't send boxes this time for some reason, but suggests that I go to the grocery store and just get some there.

I think I'm going to call back later and speak with a supervisor to see if I can get actual boxes sent.

No.

That is the answer you can expect from me as your project manager if you:

- Lie to me about or request an unreasonable deadline for the completion of your project.

- Attempt to slip new requirements into your project after I've quoted the work according to the spec I wrote and got client approval for the price I set for the work described therein.

- Send me a meeting request 3 minutes before the time when you want the meeting.

- Wait a week to send me required data and ask if we'll meet the previously quoted timeline which gave no allowance for your 1 week delay.

Trust me when I tell you that it's good for you and your customer that my expectations include among other things professionalism, consistency, and a basic understanding of temporal and spatial relationships. Cooperate with my expectations and your customer will be impressed and we'll all make loads of money.

Taking it Easy

I am extremely tired and sore today.

I can't straighten my left leg completely, let alone do so and flex my foot upward, without pain.

So, I decided to take it easy tonight and skip ab class.

I might eat half a quiche, too. We'll just play that part by ear.

Curious

I just got this email:

Subject: Need Info ASAP From: CA Office Admin

Please provide me with the following information by 12 noon Pacific Time tomorrow, Friday April 28th:

Shirt Gender: select M or F
Size (for long-sleeved dress shirt): select S, M, L, XL, XXL

NY – PLEASE PROVIDE YOUR INFORMATION DIRECTLY TO NY OFFICE ADMIN

How does one politely explain that one respects the privacy of one's clothing enough to not go probing into these things?

Of course, I want a male shirt, but I'm really kind of curious about the female ones. Does that make me bi? Bi-curious? Maybe I'll go out tonight and have a few drinks and see what kind of shirts like me back.

(And before anyone gets REALLY ridiculous, I know the difference between gender and sex. I'm just being silly, folks.)

I Am the Perfect Victim

I am the perfect victim for crime or disaster because I never think anything really bad will happen. I always think people are nice and honest and not up to anything really bad.

Once in highschool some girls said that they were doing a project and needed help from people. They needed people to keep their hand raised, and I agreed to help them and held my hand up all through class. The teacher was at first aggravated but I explained to him that it was for some project and he reluctantly ignored my raised hand for the rest of the period. At the end of class, the girls told me they were just lying to me to see if I would do it.

I don't mind being helpful if I can and why would I think they were just lying for the sake of lying?

Today a guy came to our office and said that he used to own our floor 30 years ago. He wanted to look around to see how it had changed.

Now, I would have escorted him around quite happily.

Fortunately, I'm not in charge of security. Our IT guy met him and said no. He wouldn't even let the guy look around the corner.

I thought that was mean at first, but really, we are dealing with sensitive data and trade secrets all the time. That guy could have been from our competition or something. He might have just been a con man. I have a hard time thinking that's very probable, but that's why I'm the perfect person to scam.

Celebrate Success

At my office now, when a sales person closes a new deal, the boss of everyone hear rings this bell that hangs in his office. He bought the bell for this specific purpose and had it mounted over his desk. It's not a cheap bell either.

I love that.

And everyone is really anxious to hear him ring it. We just got verbal agreement on two new deals and I've heard half a dozen people ask him if he has rung the bell yet. "Not until they sign!" he says.

It's awesome.

In Which I Realize That I'm Gross

One of my coworkers was talking about eating bugs in Vietnam. He was saying that the grasshoppers taste like potato chips with legs and this his wife also enjoyed the ant eggs. To which I exclaimed, "Oh! I'll bet those ARE good."

I have no idea why I think this exactly, but I do think ant larva probably are good to eat. Maybe because I imagine them being like really coarse grits. And I like grits.

My coworker said that you can also get scorpions in Vietnam along with giant waterbugs.

I'm willing to taste things, but I can't imagine living off of a diet of bugs. What the hell are they doing in Vietnam?

What to do... What to do...

I'm looking at my To Do list for today and I'm realizing that I've written only one thing that will take me more than an hour to complete and everything else will take me 5 to 10 minutes tops. In fact, just by thinking about those other things I'm almost done with them.

Work continues to be not very challenging. It's mostly just an exercise in blind man's bluff.

See, I don't know the internal processes for getting things done or who I'm supposed to contact to find out. What I do is try familiar paths and contacts and if that doesn't work I try something else. There really aren't that many possibilities, so it's a very simple game and one that I think any boob should be able to succeed at.

But I am learning some new things about databases and the particular software that my company sells and uses, so it's not a wash. Soon, I will expand my awareness to the actual methods of online marketing, which will be very helpful in the next step of my career.

But today I have a very short and very easy To Do list to deal with.

Tell Her You'll Always Be Together

Chris Daughtry on American Idol is a hottie. I didn't notice until he cropped his beard, put on a suit jacket, and started singing "Have You Ever Loved a Woman" to me.

Fitness with Flibby and Personal Trainer

I need to take some before pictures tonight because yesterday I started with a personal trainer. Right now, I've only hired him to work out with me twice a week for three months, but yesterday's workout was really good. Today, I'm feeling pretty sore, which I love.

But I want to be able to mark my progress. I'll have to pull up those old pictures to compare to today, too, since I was doing weights for a while and I've been doing ab class twice a week for the past four weeks as well.

So, maybe Fitness with Flibby will become a real thing for serious now.

Also, I think I'm going to pick up running a little bit again. I am giving thought to the New York Marathon as my first marathon. It happens in November, so we'll see!

More Evidence that I am a New Yorker for Real

This morning there was a thunderstorm in New York. I don't know if New Yorkers are all that familiar with thunder and lightning because it started when I was walking back from the gym. I saw the flash and then several seconds later there was thunder. Well, the other pedestrians didn't seem to notice the flash of lightning, but when the thunder happened, I heard some girls squeal and several people around me gasp, "Oh god!"

Anway, that's not what I wanted to tell you about. I wanted to tell you about how I have almost mastered the subway trains near my apartment.

Three lines stop at Columbus Circle: orange, red, and blue. The orange line has the B, the D, the F, and the V trains. The red is the 1, the 2, and the 3 trains. The blue is the A, the C, and the E trains. I'm only saying that to prove that I know which trains come to my house.

Anyway, because of the storm, I decided to take the train to work instead of walking. Usually, I take a red train for two stops.

Well, this morning, I was a little bit late leaving and I noticed a train on one of the other downtown-bound rails, so I rushed down. Well, I couldn't see what kind it was and I was just hoping it was a blue and not an orange because orange does not take me to work. Turns out it was orange, but as luck would have it, there was a blue stopped across the platform AND it was an express.

Express is good if you need to cover a lot of distance quickly because it skips stops. I don't usually take express trains because I am not sure where the express stops are. Well, today, I confidently jumped aboard the express A knowing that my house and my work stop are both express stops, so instead of waiting two stops on the very crowded red train, I just rode one stop on a roomy, albeit muggy and smelly A train this morning and I was five minutes early for work!

It was awesome.

Plus, I'm very snappily dressed this morning in a blue cashmere sweater and khaki suit.

I'm a New Yorker, Y'all!

I have had TWO people stop me and ask for direction this week! TWO! ON SEPARATE OCCASIONS! TO TWO DIFFERENT PLACES!

I was in the same place each time, between Amsterdam and 9th on 62nd street walking to my gym. Maybe it was because I was in my gym clothes that told people I was near home.

Now, I won't say that the directions I had to give were all that complicated.

In the first instance, it was a couple who was looking for Lincoln Center. Wait for it... wait for it... wait for it... Lincoln Center is on 62nd St. between Amsterdam and 9th. I just pointed across the street and said, "All of those buildings right there. If you walk up 9th right here, the fountain is in the middle." I was nice about it and they were surprised they were so close. Of course, I thought it was a joke because I saw them walk from that direction.

In the second instance, I was in the same place and this lady asked me how to get to 10th and 61st. Amsterdam IS 10th Ave. The name changes at about 60th St., so she was tricked by that and the construction happening there.

There are only about six native New Yorkers here. Everyone is from somewhere else. So, people LOVE giving directions because it's like, "I'm a New Yorker! I know my way around!"

No! Bad HTML Monkey! BAD!

So, I just had a conversation with our HTML monkeys who told me that it is easier for them to make every single thing on a webpage a graphic except the form elements or dynamic areas, than it is to use stylesheets and actual text for text elements.

I pointed out that the reason I was sending the pages back to them was because they didn't work, so this "easy" theory they have was really resulting in more work. I didn't even have the energy about how fundamentally evil it is to code web pages that way.

Ridiculous.

I'm not sure I can trust them to create HTML for me if that's what they're going to do. In fact, I'm sure I can't trust them for that and I'm working out a way to make it not happen any more.

I'm the Devil

I have a cold right now, which has thankfully turned into less sore throat and more runny nose, and I'm at work.

I've been at work the whoooollle time.

That's right. Spreading cooties all over the office.

This weird guy hugged me the other day (Sales people are insane) for no reason and I told him I'm sick and he said he didn't care because he is healthy. I think it's because he's a slob and lives in a petri dish; I haven't seen where he lives, but I can tell he's like that. But our IT guy stayed home today because he's sick and so did one of the HTML monkeys. Other people are wailing about being sick, too.

MWA HA HA HAAAA...

Hopefully, it's not West Nile Virus. There was a mosquito in my apartment the other day. I am sure I can kill West Nile Virus dead, but I can't speak to the resilience of my coworkers.

Wednesday Good News/Bad News

On balance, I'm in a pretty good mood today and life is good.

Good News
The weather in New York for spring is gorgeous.

Bad News
I have a bit of a cold complete with congestion, swollen glands, sore throat, and achiness.

Good News
I got to enjoy a really nice walk through midtown this afternoon as I left work at 3.

Bad News
I left work at three because we had connectivity issues so I'm working from home.

Good News
I got a SWEET deal on a completely legally licensed copy of Adobe Photoshop this week and when it comes in the mail I will be able to start posting pictures for you guys. Now and then. When I feel like it.

Bad News
My bank account didn't need Adobe Photoshop, just like it didn't need for me to pay for 3 months of personal training.

Good News
I hired a personal trainer! I'm gonna be smokin' hot for summer in NYC!

Bad News
My foot surgery from last year really has not healed the way it should. I'm afraid I will have to undergo surgery again to have my foot corrected from the correction.

Good News
Foot surgery is not today and the weather is great!

Word *

* To your mother

Overheard in Instant Messenger

Flibby: One of my office mates and I are stalking hot guy*.
Flibby: It is funtimes.
Buddy: um
Buddy: careful.
Buddy: Sometimes they don't like that.
Flibby: Oh he does.
Flibby: Why would he dress like he wants it?
Flibby: His mouth says 'no' but his eyes say 'yes' and I don't care if his back is to me.

* I don't know his name. He just turned up today and is sitting in the cube across the way from me making my monitor all steamy. I hope he stays here a long time.**

** I also hope something horrible happens so that he has to sit in my lap tomorrow.

In Which I Plan on Leaving My New Job

So, I realized yesterday that my new job is a step back in terms of responsibility and the actual mental challenge of the work. It may sound awful, but I am overqualified for this position. It's ok, though. It's a bit more technical and the business is much more in line with my goal of pursuing a career in marketing, so I'll get good resume material out of it.

But I resolved yesterday that in less than a hear (9 months-ish) I will either have a clear path to an immediate promotion or I will be updating my resume and starting a new job search.

It may sound terrible to be planning an exit strategy as soon as I walk in the door, but this is business. The facination I have with this job is superficial and will be completely exhausted within 6 months at most. After that, I will be merely refining my personal approach to specific challenges here and showing people how they ought to be doing this work.

*yawn*

Like, right now, I've completed several very small projects successfully at this point and my first medium-size project is ahead of schedule in spite of the bumbling of some other folks in the chain. That's just how I do.

If Ever There Were a Time to Pray, This Is It

I just realized that I am dressed like Ricky Martin*. On one hand, I am kind of terrified that people can see me. And on the other hand, I'm kind of terrified that people will see me and think I'm Ricky Martin.

Hm. Maybe I AM Ricky Martin.

Hm. I wish I were Bonnie Raitt instead.

*sigh*

My work is so boring right now.

* Please note, that simply because I am wearing clothes like him does not mean that I am Mexican** like him.

** I know. Cringe or laugh. Those are your options. Or start a comment war. Whatever.

Order to Chaos

Every night there is a lady who comes around to everyone's cube and cleans things up.

She doesn't just empty the trash. She sweeps the floor, wipes the desktop, and rearranges things in a way that she thinks looks neat. In addition, she changes the height of my chair, moves files and papers around, organizes the cords to my computer and gadgets. If a gadget is not present, sometimes she is so helpful that she pushes the cord back down through the hole in the top of my desk so that I have to get my morning exercise by crawling under my desk to push the cords back up. Yesterday, she helpfully put all of my pens into my water cup so that they would not roll off the desktop during high seas.

I am so happy that I am not left to my own devices about arranging my desk. I mean, what if I didn't have to spend the first half hour of work trying to put things back in useful positions on my desk? I'll tell you what: I would be a lazy slob, that's what. A lazy slob with a useful, but messy-looking desk. And the terrorists will have won. And we can't have that, can we?

Fiddle Dee Fidelity

I've heard a few songs by Regina Spektor from a friend of mine. I hated them. So, when my friend IMed me the other night and said, "Check out her new album," I barely raised an eyebrow to indicate my lack of inclination.

"At least check out these two singles: 'Better' and 'Fidelity.' " They're from her album Begin to Hope, which is due out this year on June 13th.

As far as I can tell, Regina Spektor is a Russian version of Ani DiFranco without the extreme lesbionic feminist communist ideology. Which is kind of sadly ironic if you think about it. But she, Regina Spektor, shifts her pitch, warbles, squalls and generally just makes noise most of the time. She does things that sound like abuse of her vocal chords, but I'm not a doctor or a vocal coach, so suffice it to say I don't like it that much.

Well, apparently, she has a new producer and maybe some actual hired help to play the music. I can't speak to the rest of the album because it's not out yet. And "Better" didn't grab me from the clip on iTunes. "Fidelity" sounded a little better, so I downloaded it out of good faith.

LOVE IT.

Fidelity is loads of fun. It's sweet, sure, plucky, fun, and romantic. Spektor uses her "skills" to her benefit here, so I recommend this song. So get on your iTunes and download it today. It's $0.99 and if you don't like it, well, you're not out very much money at all.

Here's my best transcription of the lyrics:

Fidelity
by Regina Spektor

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
Right here in my mind
All of these voices
I hear in my mind
All of these words
I hear in my mind
All of this music
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my ha-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-eart
And it breaks my ha-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-eart

Suppose I never ever met you
Suppose we never fell in love
Suppose I never ever let you
Kiss me so sweet
And so so-o-oft

Suppose I never ever saw you
Suppose I never ever called
Suppose I kept on singing love songs
Just to break my own fall

Just to break my fa-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-all
Just to break my fa-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-all
Just to break my fa-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-all
Break my fall
Break my fall

All my friends say that, of course, it's gonna get better
gonna get better better better better better better better better better better

I never loved nobody fully
Always one foot on the ground
And by protecting my heart truly
I got lost in the sounds
I hear in my mind
All of these voices
I hear in my mind
All of these words
I hear in my mind
All of this music

And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart

I hear in my mind
All of these voices
I hear in my mind
All of these words
I hear in my mind
All of this music
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart.
And it breaks my ha-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-eart
And it breaks my ha-aah-aah-aah-aah-eart
And it breaks my ha-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-eart
And it breaks my heart
Breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart
And it breaks my heart.
And it breaks my heart.
And it breaks my heart.

Walking a Half Marathon

Today, I took a walking tour of outdoor sculpture in Manhattan.

While I was in California a couple of weeks ago (Has it been that long? Time flies!) my friends gave me a gift of Dianne Durante's Forgotten Delights: The Producers and today I decided that I would go check these sculptures out. 1) It's a cheap, interesting thing to get me out of my apartment and 2) it will help me learn to find my way around the city.

I really just started out without actually looking at the distance it spans. It begins up on 120th St. and it ends in Battery City Park. If you were to walk that straight, it's just 9 miles, but the tour took me back and forth across Central Park three or four times as I worked my way down the island. After that THEN I walked the five and a half miles back to my apartment.

Yeah, that's a bit more than a half marathon and it took me four times as long, but it feels the same. Hopefully, I won't lose any toenails.

I'll post pictures and a full summary of my tour another time.

Perhaps I'm Mistaken...

I think they may have recast Ash's voice on Pokemon...

It's a Xing Thing

Tonight, the Blogless Fourth Axiom and I dined at Xing. The decor (along with the name "shing?" "ching?" "zing?") is uber hip, but faddish. The walls in the back where we sat are a red velvet. The ceiling and many of the walls and floor panels are a green, yellow, and blue striped plexiglass that is sometimes lit from behind, which presents an interesting contrast to the red and black color elsewhere. I'm afraid the decor is going to be to out of date in a year or so.

I will say that the bathrooms are nice, though. I love the unisex/stall thing the New York does so often and the bathrooms at Xing are dark, but nice and hip.

Anyway, the food was solid.

For cocktails, I had something called a Rickshaw and the BFA had something that came in a Buddha; I think it was the Electric Karma. The Rickshaw was delicious; very citrousy without being excessively sweet, which can make me sick. His drink came in a Buddha with a straw protruding out of the belly button. The result of the position of the straw was a somewhat vulgar scene that we took in good humor.

Before our appetizer came, we were served tiny bits of raw tuna with a tiny bit of cream cheese and garnish. It was good; just enough to pique the curiosity, but not enouogh to really overwhelm.

As an appetizer, we had the "Crispy Asparagus & Avocado Roll." It was great. It had a slight hint of that fishy taste that I associate with sushi, but it was not unpleasant. The outer crust was thin, crisp, and flaky. As I said, delicious.

For entrees, I had the Crispy Chicken and he had the Seared Tuna. I assume he enjoyed the Tuna; I rudely neglected to ask.

My chicken was flavorful and something I would certainly consider eating again, but I would not call it extraordinary. I was mostly disconcerted by the fact that the "crispy" part of the chicken is the skin. Yes, they served me a dish that had crispy fried skin on the outside. I pushed those pieces to the side and ate the chicken, which was perfectly moist. It was served with some fried rice and a blob of green oniony stuff, which was pretty good. I did appreciate that my food was not stacked but each element was placed on its own space on the place.

For our wine, we had a Syrah/Grenache blend. I don't think the wine was well-paired with the food, but it was good. Bold, spicey, only slightly fruity. The wine selection was limited but covered a wide range of prices. The low end was about $30 and the high end approached $100.

Before dessert, we were served a little plate of three things that we could not identify. The first seemed to be a bit of marshmellow. The second was some kind of cookie. The third seemed to me to be a bit of lychee gelatin, the texture of which disgusted the BFA.

For dessert, I had the sorbet (I love sorbet) and the BFA had the chocolate spring roll. He seemed to enjoy his. The sorbet was superior. It was tart without being acerbic or astringent. It was smooth and not at all chunky. I highly recommend it.

The service was generally good. Our waitress had the odd mannerism of not tilting her head forward when speaking to you (or maybe she actually tilted it back) which had the result of forcing her to look down her nose at you. But she was friendly and recommended the most expensive wines to us for our meal.

With the noise and bustle there is no worry that it would be excessively romantic or anything. I would recommend it for a nice meal out with friends or for a first date.

XING
http://www.xingrestaurant.com
759 9th Ave (between 52nd and 53rd)
New York

I'm a Handshake Person

They do crazy polls on the intranet at my new job. Here's this week's:

Media reports indicate that a simple kiss on the cheek is gaining acceptability as a form of greeting. Do you think a kiss is ever appropriate as a greeting in a business setting?

I am very much a handshake person by nature. I don't mind hugs with my friends if my friends are huggy people. I do tend to be more comfortable hugging women than men. A couple of my female friends like to kiss on the cheek, which I am also comfortable doing. I do not think I would be ok if one of my male friends took to kissing me on the cheek, though.

So, that said, I actually voted that kissing on the cheek is OK among established relationships. And strangely, I found myself in the minority on this poll.

Results
Yes, it’s OK anytime. : 1.60%
Yes, but only if the relationship is well established.: 12.00%
It depends entirely on the situation.: 29.60%
No, but hugs are sometimes OK.: 28.00%
No, only handshakes are appropriate.: 28.80%

And then I remembered that much of the company is in Arkansas and not New York.

A Sad Song

There are a few songs here and there that make me tear up when I hear them. One of them is Emmylou Harris' "Red Dirt Girl." It's sweet and tragic. There's a soft, driving beat through out the song that is accented with sweet, moaning guitars.

Me and my best friend Lillian
And her blue tick hound dog Gideon,
Sittin on the front porch cooling in the shade
Singin every song the radio played
Waitin for the Alabama sun to go down
Two red dirt girls in a red dirt town
Me and Lillian
Just across the line and a little southeast of Meridian.

She loved her brother I remember back when
He was fixin up a '49 Indian
He told her 'Little sister, gonna ride the wind
Up around the moon and back again"
He never got farther than Vietnam,
I was standin there with her when the telegram come
For Lillian.
Now he's lyin somewhere about a million miles from Meridian.

She said there's not much hope for a red dirt girl
Somewhere out there is a great big world
Thats where I'm bound
And the stars might fall on Alabama
But one of these days I'm gonna swing
My hammer down
Away from this red dirt town
I'm gonna make a joyful sound

She grew up tall and she grew up thin
Buried that old dog Gideon
By a crepe myrtle bush in the back of the yard,
Her daddy turned mean and her mama leaned hard
Got in trouble with a boy from town
Figured that she might as well settle down
So she dug right in
Across a red dirt line just a little south east from Meridian

She tried hard to love him but it never did take
It was just another way for the heart to break
So she learned to bend.
But one thing they don't tell you about the blues
When you got 'em
You keep on falling cause there ain't no bottom
There ain't know end.
At least not for Lillian

Nobody knows when she started her skid,
She was only 27 and she had five kids.
Coulda' been the whiskey,
Coulda been the pills,
Coulda been the dream she was trying to kill.
But there won't be a mention in the news of the world
About the life and the death of a red dirt girl
Named Lillian
Who never got any further across the line than Meridian.

Now the stars still fall on Alabama
The night she finally laid
That hammer down
Without a sound
In the red dirt ground

A Damn Near Perfect Playlist

I am in a fantastic mood this morning. I slept well. I went to the gym to participate in that damnable spin class. I got my clean laundry from those people I pay to wash it. And I walked to work in beautiful weather wearing a new jacket I bought at H&M.

While I was walking to work, I listend to my "I Heart the 80's" playlist on my iPod and the shuffle gave me a damn near perfect playlist for my walk from 10th and 57th to 8th and 39th.

Check it:
Tide is High - Blondie (4:42)
Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes (2:24)
Mickey - Toni Basil (4:14)
What I Am - Edie Brickel & the New Bohemians (4:57)
Footloose - Kenny Loggins (3:42)
Karma Chameleon - Boy George and Culture Club (4:01)

Total time in transit: 22 minutes. ("Tide is High" was almost done when I turned my iPod on this morning.)

A couple of those songs are kind of ehn, but they were paced perfectly for where I was when I was walking this morning.

So, join me in having a happy Tuesday!

I Wish I Liked...

Beer. I don't really like beer. I always TRY to drink beer, but I mostly don't like it. I can drink Coronas with a lime, though. As long as it's really cold. I used to be able to stomach Killian's oddly enough. Haven't tried that in a while, so maybe I'll give it a shot sometime when people ask me out for beers.

I also wish I liked Mexican food. Don't get me wrong on this one, though. I don't hate Mexican food -- except the kind you have to put together yourself. If there's anything that pisses me off in a restaurant it's being served food with "some assembly required." There's always something on the Mexican restaurant menu that I am willing to eat, but I don't do so with zeal.

But I wish I liked sushi most. It seems like SUCH a good idea. Rice? I like that. Avocado? I like that. Seafood? I like that. But I don't like sushi. And it's a food that posh people like myself seem to like. But I just don't like it.

A couple of my coworkers went with me to California and they asked if I wanted to eat sushi. My obnoxious habit of answering a question precisely and then qualifying the answer kicked in. "No, I don't like sushi, but I love Japanese food." And, of course, every time they would mention sushi, I would say, "No." I wasn't doing it to be funny. I don't like sushi, but I do like Japanese food. Teriyake, stir fry, fried rice, fish, rice, etc. But they kept referring to Japanese food in general as sushi and I kept correcting them because it was dissonant. And now it's a funny joke.

Sushi is one kind of food, like ice cream or pasta. But you don't refer to Italian food as pasta. Although, I would wager that many people do think Italian food is just pasta.

Unfortunately, I don't like Mexican food, beer, or sushi. I used to not like Chinese food, but I've found several dishes of Chinese food that I enjoy. So, who knows? Maybe I will like sushi one day... in addition to other Japanese food.

What on earth was the point of this post again? Never mind.

Long Day

I've been at work for 11 hours now. The time really flew by! I had several projects and deadlines today, so it was great fun.

Unfortunately, I had a meeting with some friends and I've missed that now. They wouldn't fault me for productivity, though.

WEEEEE!!!

Forever's Going to Start Tonight

"We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks."

Apropros to nothing this totally 80's moment was brought to you by Bonnie Tyler and a "Total Eclipse of the Heart."

Rainy Day

Today is a rainy, dreary day in New York. I really like the rain, so it's not awful in my mind, but the tempurature is in the mid-50's so, it's a little too cool to really enjoy. But that just means that it's a nice day to lie in bed and read a book.

Personally, I haven't slept well for the past couple of nights and I really welcome this opportunity to get a little extra sleep.

On the other hand, I was stuck in my apartment all day yesterday waiting on UPS and I may get out of here out of pure defiance.

In other news, my new dresser and bench arrived yesterday and this morning my new bed and desk chair got here. The only major piece of furniture that I'm waiting for now is my sofa, which probably won't be here until May.

*yawn*

Later!

Shocking New York Thing #2

No, it's not the weather. This is New York. Please. We have skyscrapers. Weather. Whatever.

No. The shocking thing to me is how many people smoke.

Smokers. Everywhere.

This is 2006 and I am surprised that anyone anywhere smokes. But especially in New York.

I have known for almost 30 years now that smoking is bad for you. As a small child, I convinced my own mother to stop smoking because it is such a distasteful habit.

Here in New York, where people cross the street in front of speeding moving vans, where people sometimes run across dead homeless people on the sidewalk, where that one guy in the mid-90's shot some kids on the subway... they're smoking.

It's ridiculous.

Someone Can Take a Hint

I make a lot of trash. A LOT. This may surprise some because I save all kinds of crazy things. Right now, I am trying to break myself of the habit of saving every receipt I am ever given. I have owner's manuals and, often, original packaging from things I don't even own anymore.

But I make a LOT of trash. I use papertowels to wipe my mouth when I eat. I throw away pop cans. I use paper plates. I print out long documents and then thrown them away when I'm done reading.

Well, when I got to my new job they gave me a tiny little trashcan. I don't mind. I can cram a lot of trash into a tiny trashcan. It only surprises the janitor who comes to empty my trash and finds that the 1 gallon trashcan under my desk weighs 57 lbs.

This morning when I came in, my trashcan was upgraded to the 3 - 5 gallon variety. I am happy about this for two reasons: 1) I won't have to spend so much time compressing all my trash and 2) someone in my office actually pays attention to how things are being used and ensures that the proper equipment is available.

I love that!

Make New Friends, but Keep the Old. One is Silver and the Other is Gold

I learned that song at Girl Scout Camp.

I'm in New York now and I have just one friend here, really. My friend, the blogless Fourth Axiom, is someone I met during the process of interviewing and moving up here.

To some people, such a drastic change like this without a support network would be very scary. To me, it's not scary so much as it is frustrating. Sometimes I want a change of pace. I'm used to having a few friends, two or three, that I can call on to go out or go to dinner or just watch tv.

Of course, I still have those friends, but they're far away. I call and IM them, but that really doesn't meet the need.

What I'm getting at is this: Who wants to be my friend?

Fitness with Flibby

You know, for all my talk of getting into shape and then not really getting into shape like I wanted, I really am exercising more than I did all through college. So, if you look at it from THAT perspective, I'm really kind of sort of in better shape than ever.

Except for those times when I was in better shape. Of course.

Well, I joined a new gym here in New York. Let's do a little economic comparison:

In Georgia, I paid $12.50 a month, which I will admit is low even for Georgia. For a really good gym with classes and all that, $50 in Georgia is not out of the question.

Here in New York City, I am paying something north of $85 a month.

But I live in the New York City and it's worth it.

I really do need to get into better shape. I went to a gay bar a while back and I was smartly dressed and it took like ten minutes to get the bartender's attention. And there are hot guys all over the place.

I'm not really complaining about the hot guys part, mind you. I'm complaining about not getting the service I want and deserve and I'm vainly connecting that to a reason to work out. Stick with me here.

ANNNNNNNYWAY, I joined the gym and my new gym offers classes, which I think is great because it is easier for me to work out with a buddy and classes are like working out with 30 buddies. Buddies I've never met before but buddies nonetheless.

This morning I went to spin class.

I hate that spin class is called "spin class" but "stationary bike class" doesn't come out as easily.

Spin Class is a fitness class devised by satan. I'm not complaining because I like that sort of thing, but... well, yes, I am complaining. But I'm complaining because it's really hard, which is actually a good thing.

Spin Class is two days a week in the morning. In the evening of those days, I am now going to ab class.

Ab class is another thing that the prince of darkness devised.

Right now, I'm unable to sit up or walk, which really is the best part about getting into shape.

So, here we go again!

Farting Cartoon

I'm watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Gig 2 right now on Cartoon Network and someone has layered a sound track of fart sounds on top of the show.

It is very annoying.

Turn on Your Television Right Now!

Oh my god, girl! You will not believe! Hanes has a commercial on right now with all these hot guys playing dodgeball in their underwear. I'm not kidding! You've got to see it!

I'm going to go smoke a cigarette.