“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups”
-Homer Simpson
My thoughts on Twilight (the idea gets a gracious Tip ‘O My Hat from Savitrii’s post, see here for a howling good laugh!)
Category: Life
(J. looking at our future apartment) “Number fourteen sixty-nine. Seven years after Columbus.”
“…Fourteen NINETY-two?…”
“I’m tired!”
-J. and C.
I have no idea what my problem is, but these days I am well and truly exhausted! The past few nights I go over to J.’s to hang out and have ended up unconscious on his couch for at least an hour at a time. Daylight Saving didn’t help either. In fact, this morning when my alarm went off I thought I hit snooze but apparently I just turned the sucker off and when I again fluttered my lashes open it was 7:41 (when I have to be at work at 8). A really promising start to the week…
“Seriously? I work for the police, it says so right there in my signature. They’re still trying to sell this? Seriously?”
-C.
The major project these days is selling my current housing contract to move into the flat where J. and I will be living post-nuptials. I’ve told my landlords to sell if they can, posted an advertisement on Craigslist and local classifieds, but so far the only inquiries have be blatant scams.
It’s a common set up: pretend to be interested in something someone is selling, volunteer to send a money order to lock in the deal, send a fake check set up to electronically tap into your victim’s bank account when they try to cash it, steal every penny they have. You wouldn’t believe how many fraud and theft reports I’ve taken for exactly the same scenario. Nevertheless, I send out my normal formal response most of these inquiries with my landlord’s information and telling the writer to contact him for more information. “University Police, Investigations Secretary” is written right beneath my name in my electronic signature. Still they ask me to send money on to their starving relatives in Uganda, China, and Bolivia!
I checked the names against our cases, no connections, and deleted them. Would the universe please stop messing around and send me one person who is legitimately interested in buying my housing contract?!
“Every wrong seems possible today, and accepted. I don’t accept it.”
-Pablo Casals
Most of the time my job is at least moderately fun; good people, the occasional idiot that entertains me, minimal paperwork except when said occasional idiot has managed to create a mess of epic proportions, etc. But today I’m reminded of the dark side of police work. A lot of good gets accomplished, but so much more has to be done and people are limited creatures.
To combat the chronic under-staffing, a bunch of us are being trained to help police dispatchers handle the huge influx of information that would come in an a major emergency, as well as threats to the campus. We had to listen to dispatch records from school shootings to see how such things were dealt with from a dispatch viewpoint. That was bad. Then we had to listen to a phone call from a girl from our campus who committed suicide.
The dispatcher who worked with her was amazing, he kept her talking for almost an hour I think while the police tracked her down. But in the end, she went through with it. We heard the whole thing. EMS rushed her to the hospital where she died, her parents had to tell the doctors to remove her from life support because she was brain dead.
Like I said, most of the time my job is good. Today, my heart hurts.
“Yes, we’re supposed to carry them but we don’t. The State building does, but they’re closed on Fridays, and so does XYZ Law Firm, but they’ve closed early for the holiday.”
“At 1pm in the afternoon. Makes perfect sense. So, can you tell me where I can get them?”
– Postal worker responding to my inquiry as to the location of tax forms, and C.
We are in a recession aren’t we. The government is making getting any money at all impossible: not only are we spending about $800 billion we don’t have, it’s now resorting to hiding tax forms probably to discourage people from trying to apply for returns. Ha! Sneaky government I laugh at you! And I’d better get something back this year.
“Intimacy is a four syllable word for, ‘Here’s my heart and soul, please grind them into hamburger, and enjoy.'”
-Meredith, Grey’s Anatomy
Some people are naturally good at relationships: they buy presents constantly, have cutesy nicknames for each other, and count and celebrate every single week/month/whatever of their duality. They wander around in a fond fog until, 9 times out of 10, it crashes spectacularly around them. Then they take some time, recover, and bounce right on to the next lover with varying degrees of trepidation but probably with that butterfly-in-stomach feeling still intact.
I am not one of these people. I suck at relationships. My communications skills are nil and I have an overdeveloped Fight or Flight response. In fact I tended to avoid emotional commitment for most of my life and never dated anyone I actually liked enough to upset my equilibrium. Fairy puts it’s kindly by saying I’m “emotionally stunted.”
Unfortunately relationships don’t get easier with practice (sometimes I think I’m getting worse even after 10 months of practice with J.) and you can’t buy into all the mumbo-jumbo that magazines, prime-time television, and well-intentioned friends try to soothe you with: we’re all clueless. Just as soon as you figure out the rules, the ground shifts under your feet. Luckily I’ve gotten to the point where this sort of freefalling doesn’t scare me as much, mostly I’m left muttering under my breath, “Good grief, what now?” while I plummet. My problem when this occurs isn’t so much that I’m falling, but that I can’t get my bearings until I hit the ground again, at which point I try to reorient while recovering from the impact.
I can’t be alone here; I know my 203 VIPS at least have a few good stories on the romantic end, Venice is a newlywed learning to deal, and Tink just had a baby and is heading towards being a SAHM. My London girls AbFab, Red, and Marie are all going through travel, romantic, and medical drama. Anyone else feel like they’re constantly playing catchup with life?!
“Oh…the irony…”
-C.
For my high school graduation/18th birthday/going to college present, my dad bought me a laptop. My dad, wonderful man that he is, is always on the lookout for a good deal which is not necessarily a bad thing, but he often forgets his own favorite favorite saying, “You get what you pay for.”
My laptop itself was new but also an already outdated model that was too big and, as it later turned out, one of a line famous for a glitch that caused overheating. Somehow (by hanging the side off the edges of desks, keeping my window open in winter so cold air could blow on it, and buying multiple power cords when one after another was melted through) I managed to make it last for four years without crashes or data loss. However it was too much to hope that it could limp on any longer. I got all my music, pictures, data, and important work off of it and retired the poor thing to my closet.
My parents just got a new computer and decided to send me the old one, also a dinosaur but still very appreciated for its lack of battery incinerating habits. Sadly a couple of days ago, without warning, it simply turned itself off for no readily apparent reason and has since refused to turn back on.
At the time my reaction was a near heart attack and much, “My music! My photos! My writings! Angst, angst, angst! Why me?” You know, the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth routine. I’ve since accepted it and made appointments to have it looked at and begun silent prayers to the computer gods to be merciful.
PS – did you know there’s a patron saint of computers, program, users and the Internet? Found him when Googling “computer problems.” For some reason they picked a guy who died in the 7th century AD; I for one fail to see the connection.
“Beauty knows no pain, so what you cryin’ about, girl?”
-Frank Zappa
Quick update: exercise hurts. Running, which I’m used to, isn’t bad at all, but strength training should be somewhere in Dante’s hell. As a punishment for sloth, perhaps? I’m sure I’ll turn out toned and fabulous, but in the meantime ouch!
Yesterday morning after lifting weights, I was putting my makeup on and was more than a little embarrassed to discover my hand was shaking. My eyeliner was a bit dodgy and ragged around the edges, I looked like a raccoon vibrating from a caffeine high. Today just lifting my arm high enough to apply mascara was a chore.
I need a goal to keep me going at 6am on Friday morning instead of whimpering, “Stop the treadmill I want to get off!” Suggestions? My fallback bribe of choice, chocolate, seems counterproductive for some reason. And legally morphine is out.
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
-Every president since Washington
-Every president since Washington
Say what you like, I’m excited to see this sort of change. I’m glad race is becoming less of an issue than character, that optimism and hope are at their premium, and that people are passionate about the country and taking a major interest in the directions it’s going. More cynically I’m hopeful the media circus is almost over, but in the meantime I think the excitement is contagious even way out West.
Love Obama or hate him, this election has been significant from the variety of the candidates early on, the involvement of the people later, and the outcome in the end. I hope and pray our country continues in strength, security, and prosperity (think the economy’s bad here? Trust me, it could be much worse). To the new president, good luck. He’s inherited an unenviable and horrifically complicated job in a complex global situation. The country currently stands behind him on an unprecedented scale and he’s made some huge promises, I hope he is able to meet his lofty goals for our nation and that the goodwill he’s enjoyed he will continue to earn.
“What are you doing this weekend, anything fun?”
“Sleeping. I can’t wait.”
-Data and C.
I submit that, to a working woman, nothing could be as remotely glorious as a three day weekend. The sheer amount of possibility is fantastic, all those ways to waste time! Half of the joy is making a list of things that need to be done and then blowing off each, one at a time like picking petals off a daisie (she folds laundry, she folds it not…). I’m debating not even getting out of bed until noon on Monday (which isn’t a civil right, but is definitely still worthy of celebration).
Tuesday I’ll spend clued to CNN.com to watch the inauguration, Thursday is Girl Night with my friends from London, and I’m fairly positive Venice and I will hit up at least one store…but until then, I think I will live in my flannel pants, watch old movies that I’ve rented, go running for long periods of time at a luxuriously slow-burn kind of pace, go food shopping only at dire need, and double my chocolate intake on the weekend.
Small Dog Syndrome 