Judge Not Lest Ye Be Judged

I'm listening to Madonna's Sorry and I'm wondering how long it'll take before someone comes over with a faux apologetic expression on their face and asks if I mind putting that track off "repeat".

Sometimes, I wonder if my tendency to listen to certain songs over and over again is symptomatic of undiagnosed OCD or something.

My office stalker isn't in today and I swear to God, I'm not imagining this, but I actually feel like it's easier to breathe. It's a weird situation. I'm not even sure "stalking" is the right word for it. It's more like, when you're in elementary school and you've got that one, annoying kid who decides you're their new best friend and just clings to you like saran wrap.

I mentioned it to Migrane Sufferer, who laughed and said that at least it was impossible for The Stalker to physically alter her appearance to look like me. She had a "friend" who straightened and dyed her curly brown hair blonde so that she could look exactly like Migrane Sufferer. The only thing I've had to contend with is seeing The Stalker dress like me --- as in, she went out and bought the exact same shirt as me, which means I can never wear it to work again, 'cause, seriously, who the fuck does that? (And I loved that shirt, too!)

I could cover myself in cow dung and she'd do the same.

I've opted to try for a different look lately...mostly 'cause I know I could get away with it, but it'd just look bad on her. Chose a high-waisted flare balloon skirt with embroidery along the waist and a pale green top and flat shoes. Tried to go for more of an Audrey Hepburn-esque look...though with the shitty state of my hair, I don't know how successful I'll be. Worked with some black and white film over the weekend and when I was down to my last few shots, I decided to do a self-portrait, which turned out okay. My hair looks like it's beginning to grow out.

Some mornings, I look like the fucking Lion King.

Memo to self: do not get hair cuts when PMSing.

I'm less upset about it now. Don't get me wrong. Some days, I want to go barrelling back to the salon and stab the hair dresser with her own scissors.

But I digress...

Yeah, the main reason I haven't ranted ad nauseum about The Stalker is because she suddenly announced one day that she was going to set up a blog, too, and I had this attack of paranoia, thinking, "She'd probably shoot me in the face if she read half the stuff I wrote about her."

Delete, delete, delete.

Seriously, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Even all that stuff that I wrote about my family --- it doesn't take a brain surgeon to track down my blog.

When Stanny said, "We all judge. That's our hobby. Some people do arts and crafts; we judge", I had a moment of, "The writers of Sex and the City might as well be talking about me."

But to my everlasting credit, at dinner last night, I kept my face perfectly composed as Shopaholic Girl launched into a gung-ho speech about another friend's latest venture into long-distance, online dating was actually going to work this time.

"I don't know guys, this might actually be the one."

Since I always sort of want to gouge someone's eyes out whenever they float out stuff like the one or fate or destiny, I focused on sipping water out my straw and bobbing the slice of lemon against the ice cubes --- though later, I kinda thought that was probably really disgusting, 'cause maybe they didn't wash off the lemon rind, you know?

I didn't say anything because, on Friday, when I was out with Knows-It-All Girl and she was busy playing pseudo-psychiatrist on me I sort of wanted to shove my little cup of ice cream in her face. It was the first time chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream didn't do anything for me. If anything, those raw bits of cookie dough actually started to taste pretty nasty.

I had this moment of, "Who the hell are you to tell me how I should live my life?"

Okay. I know what you're thinking. Why didn't I say something?

Well, you've ever been so bored with a conversation where saying something else would just mean prolonging it and prolonging it would just seem like death? That's how it felt. It was one of those moments where you agree to do something or go somewhere and then, you realize, "I've made a huge mistake."

But when Shopaholic Girl was talking about online dating girl, I kind of thought it'd be extremely satisfying to do the "I-Told-You-So-Dance" when it doesn't work out. But maybe I'm just jaded. Just because I've put my foot down and said "no more" to dating, doesn't mean everybody else should give up on the hope of finding someone...I mean, for some people, that hope is all they have; hope that somebody out there waits for them, to add another layer of meaning to their lives.

A few weeks ago, that Michael Keaton movie, My Life was on and there was that scene where the oncologist tells him he's definitely going to die and he just gets really pissed off and asks, "Who are you to take away my hope? That's all I had."

I started wondering if maybe I was a bit like that oncologist, 'cause I'd rather tell it to people straight. I'd rather be realistic and deal with things as they really are, instead of hoping for something in vain and then getting disappointed. I'd rather face up to the pain 'cause that's just part of life; nobody ever said it was supposed to be fair or good...we just somehow feel entitled to an easy break even though nobody owes us one.

Anyways...

Mom told me this morning that Cousin S is having a baby in three weeks. I was like, "What! I didn't even know she was pregnant." I swear to God, everything's like a national secret with some people in our family.

When gran was sick, I always figured mom's family would just sort of splinter apart. Gran, after all, was the glue that held everybody together.

The only downside of seeing everybody less often is having less firsthand accounts and ringside views of some of the crazy things that various cousins say and do to each other. Good thing mom's like a tabloid reporter when it comes to stuff like this...though, it kind of makes me go, "Huh?" whenever she prefaces everything with, "Don't tell anybody, but..."

I always wondered how some of my aunts wound up hating each other so much, 'cause I couldn't imagine being on the outs like that with any of my sisters -- I mean, some of my aunts making hating a sport. (Though, maybe that's where I get my hardcore, "You're dead to me!" mentality from.)

Lately though? With Sister 3's new boyfriend, I can kind of see how certain things happen and this little wedge comes between you. My mother says she can see now why Shopaholic Friend's mother keeps saying, "I've raised a fool." That's how mom feels, too.

One of the managers just sent out a mass e-mail saying one of the guys was leaving the company.

I was like, "Who is that?" and since I'm lazy, I shot off an e-mail to the girl sitting a few desks over.

She gasped and then came barrelling over.

"I was asking the same thing and gonna ask you, but I hit reply by mistake!"

The manager wrote back pretty quickly and said the guy sat next to __________.

"You know what'd be funny? If you wrote back, "Who's ________?" and then, after he explains that, you can go, "And who are you?" I told her.

Huh. Just had a flashback to when I was a summer student employee and I was stuck in the file room with this other student. We were bored, so we started doing stupid things like...well, I don't know why, but we thought it'd be cool to kick around the heavy boxes full of files.

I remember suggesting, "You know what you should do? Take a few steps back and run at it and then kick it."

And of course, that sounded like a brilliant idea and that's what she did --- except she missed the box entirely and she fell flat on her back, her head smacking against the floor.

Surprisingly, this wasn't the first time nor the last time I would see something like this. I watched my boss miss his chair once and land right on his ass.

He was the most pompous asshole in the department and everybody hated him with a passion. And there I was, the only person who was completely indifferent to him, witnessing the whole damn thing!

Both times, I thought it'd be rude to laugh, so I just pretended it didn't happen and helped them up. I'd have, like, a delayed reaction or something and find myself laughing about it later...like in the shower or on the train.

And you know what else was really fucked up? I didn't tell anybody about it for the longest time.

Surprisingly, I have nothing to whine about today...well, not here, anyway...and S is right. It's my blog, so if I want to whine and rant to my heart's content, then that's what I'm gonna do. Though, I kinda don't feel like it today --- and that's not to say life's going good at the moment. My life seems to vary between two states of being: bad and okay...not that I'm complaining. In a twisted way, I kinda think that if everything was good all the time, it'd be totally, utterly meaningless.

There are just some days where...well, there's just nothing to say, is there? Your mind's been working overtime, trying to figure out what your next move is and when all's said and done, there's nothing left to do but to wait it out and see what happens next.

And there are also some days when you just feel so goddamned sick of everything 'cause it's like it's the same people you see day in and day out in the work week, and everything's been said, life stories are all caught-up and up-to-date, and there's just that sameness, you know?

In a weird way --- a way I won't really cop up to out loud in front of anybody at work --- I'm kind of glad that the company's winding down, 'cause it means a new start. I think we all kind of get to a place where we get comfortable where we are in life...not necessarily happy, per se, but you're okay where you are and the thought of venturing into the unknown just scares the shit out of you after awhile...'cause you've been stuck that way for so long and it's all you know. And sometimes, something happens that shakes up the status quo, which just forces you to move to this other phase in your life.

Who knows? Maybe I'm just pulling stuff out of my ass at this point in an attempt to make myself feel better.

In this one episode of Grey's Anatomy, Meredith said:
It's easy to suggest a quick solution when you don't know much about the problem or you don't understand the underlying cause or just how deep the wound is. The first real step toward a real cure is to know exactly what the disease is to begin with. But that's not what people want ot hear. We're supposed to forget the past that led us here, ignore the future complicaitons that might arise and go for the quick fix.

Someone asked in the previous post:
Why don't you stop feeling so sorry for yourself and do something about making yourself more valuable to potential employers.

Read "How to win friends & influence people" and actually put it into practice. Go to http://www.resumesecrets.blogspot.com/ and learn how to write a resume that will get you an interview and also show you how to answer the questions they usually ask.

You are in control of your life so stop whining and get on with it.

You know how on that show, So You Think You Can Dance? there's that guy, Ryan, who's always getting slammed by the judges? Yet, he still stands there, with this smile on his face...even though, you can kind of tell each word's like another hoof in the face?

That's sort of how it felt when I was reading that comment.

Weird, huh?

Okay, I'll be honest, first reaction? I was kind of pissed off. That's why I thought of that Meredith quote. That's how I felt.

But then, I figured I was just being a moron, you know? What am I gonna do? Go and list all of the back reasons for why I've been feeling panicky? Try and justify why I've been feeling whiny (even though, for the most part, I don't say this kind of stuff out loud and just write about it in this blog)? Write down in minute detail every last thing I've been doing to look for a job?

You know what it's like? It's sort of like when you see a fat person and you go, "Oh, why don't they just go on a diet already?"

Chances are, that person knows more about diets and nutrition and factoids about food than anybody else.

And it leads me to this: why is it so bad for me to whine in here? Sure, I'm questioning myself as to why I'm still doing it, but feeling like I'm being judged because of it...well, that just sucks ass.

Memo to self: turn off comments option for other posts.

Oh my God.

Why can't I stop whining?

Or panicking, for that matter?

Oh. Right. Impending jobless state. Right, right. Almost forgot about that for a minute there.

Just because I'm in a bad mood, I sent a nasty cover letter to a place I don't have a hope in hell of being hired. I only know this 'cause I've applied there at least ten times ever since I graduated from school. And you know what, it's not even like I really want to work there anymore, so it was sort of like, "Ah, what the fuck?" Well, either that, or I really had nothing better to do...which is true, 'cause work has come to a stand still, but we're all still pretending to look uber-busy...which we're not.

Basically, I just wrote, "Look, you're obviously not having any luck in finding someone to fill this spot, 'cause why else are you posting this job practically every season? Look at my fucking resume. I have the skills you're looking for. What's the harm in just meeting with me, for fuck's sake? Of course, if you like constantly looking for people, feel free to ignore this resume."

On the job site, they have articles about looking for work-related stuff. Yesterday, I read this article about this woman who got fired for blogging at work. Huh. Well, the way I see it, I'm about to be let go, anyway, so what does it matter?

So, anyway...onto other stuff...ever watch that Bridget Fonda movie, "Single White Female"? Yeah, well, I'm sorta living through that situation and it kind of sucks, to put it midly...and of course, there are the obvious differences. Mainly, I'm not white.

Yeah, that's just one aspect that's made me uber paranoid about jotting down stuff about people in my real life. No more. Geez...if half the people in my life knew what I REALLY thought about them...man, I'd be drawn and quartered.

I was thinking the other day...well, yesterday night, actually...that life, in some ways, is a little like Big Brother. The reality show, obviously. To clarify, I mean that the work environment, actually, is a lot like Big Brother at the moment. My work environment. You've got your alliances, people lobbying to stay in the game for as long as possible...the only shit thing is there's no half million prize.

Okay, so most people would think I was seriously cracked if I said this aloud, but I think most people don't see the wisdom of treating the work environment like a game of Big Brother. Just doing a good job isn't enough. You have to think strategically when forming relationships with co-workers.

Yeah, so, I sort of feel like Dr. Will right now...not that I'm feeling evil, per se, so much as, I feel like I've got a Howie on my hands at work, too.

And man, does it ever creep me out.

It's like being trapped with a stalker in a place you've got no choice but to spend a lot of time in.

Maybe it's a good thing this job's kaput.

On a side note, it's weird how, for some of my journals, people just automatically assume I'm, like, a guy. Why? Why is that?

Never before. Never.

In six months at work here, I've had to walk down from the 16th floor three times. (Twice in one day.) And today's alarm didn't sound like the lazy beep...beep...beep...it was more like frantic clanging, which probably meant there really was a fire. And the shit thing about being on the sixteenth floor is how everybody clogs up the stairwell with each floor you pass.

Just three storeys from the lobby, security comes on across the PA to sheepishly admit that it was a false alarm.

People were pissed.

Onto other wonderful shittiness in the working world...I got this call from a recruiter. Sigh of relief, right? Wipe the sweat off that's been accumulating at your brow.

Uh, yeah...

The recruiter saw my resume and noticed that I'd put down that the company was dissolving. Any chance I knew of any business analysts that I might want to refer?

Okay, so that was like major BS that quickly soured my mood. But get this...she tells me that there are a couple of people she's already been in touch with so I don't need to talk to them...and guess who's on the list? The AVP.

Of course, being the blabbermouth that I am, I can't get off the phone soon enough so I can go spreading the panic. At this rate, we'll be getting our notices next week.

FUCK!!!!!!!!

Pride Goeth Before The Fall

So, I'm sitting here, at work, combing through job ads and it's like, I want to kill myself. Okay, no, not really. Maybe it's just 'cause it's Monday and all the ads are the same as from, like, last Monday. Or maybe that's just how it seems. And all I can really think about is how job-searching just sucks ass.

I actually found myself looking at jobs I'm completely overqualified for...which is how low I've sunk.

I really hate HR people right now. I hate them with a passion.

You know what I really hate? It's when three of them decided to intimidate you and take you into a boardroom --- and sometimes, it's not even all that impressive-looking, and you're thinking, "I used to work in a fancy office and now I'm here, trying to kiss ass to get a job in this dump?" --- and there's these three women, all dressed badly, you know? Like the stuff that rapidly aging women from the 'burbs would wear while they power trip all over themselves, acting like they're fucking Donald Trump or something.

God, I wish I could be like the mother on that show, "Everybody Hates Chris."

"I don't need this! My man's got two jobs."

Except, I've got no man and I'd sooner slit my own throat than financially depend on anybody else. Unless the man was in a wheelchair and really, really old and about to die. Hell, that'd be money well-earned.

Job-wise, the only thing I'm picky about is that it can't be in the same office building as the most recent ex. I don't care how much the job offers. I've turned down a job offer before because it was in the same building as another company I used to work for. I decided I'd sooner stab myself than face the prospect of accidentally getting into the same elevator as my old boss.

Yeah, I suppose that's pretty fucked up, but you know me and my pride.

Actually, maybe you don't. I mean, you don't really know me.

Okay, so, for the record, I've got too much pride. It's one of my worst flaws. I don't think it's something I can change, either. Just the thought of having to bump into somebody that I've decided is "dead to me" makes me sick.

In case you couldn't already tell, I have major issues.

Thomas Anderson

So, I keep hearing this song by Thomas Anderson on various shows like 8th & Ocean and the now-cancelled Beautiful People (which, tried too hard to be like The Gilmore Girls but didn't match the quirky charm of it...and for a show that's set in Manhattan, it was so blatantly obvious that Toronto was the stand-in).

I find this song completely haunting...even though I'm not in love. I'm thinking about getting the CD off CD Baby, 'cause that seems to be the only place you can get it. Taking a listen to the rest of the tracks, I think it'll be a worthwhile buy.

It's funny how, when you're facing unemployment, suddenly, there's all this stuff you want to buy. Like the DVDs for Dead Like Me. Okay...so that's it. It's stuff I don't really need. But then again, most things are things that I don't really need. Things you can't take with you when you die.

You can't take anything with you when you die, though.

Managed to check out three restaurants for the Summerlicious festival. The Jazz Festival seems to have come and gone without me fully realizing it. It might still be on, though. Missed out on the whole Street Festival. Opted to go low-key and catch a movie with a friend. The older you get, it feels like the more low-key you become. But maybe I was always a low-key person who sort of felt like I needed to be out there when in reality, I never enjoyed being "out there."

Just going through some of my old blogs, I had a moment of, "I'm so fucking crazy. Why did I go into depth about all these people in my life? Anybody can find any of these blogs and then I'd be dead." I mean, I noticed with my other journal that somebody had actually tracked it down and it's like, "Okay. Fine. Whatever. Just stop writing about things you've actually done and maybe that'll be okay and you won't get into trouble with anybody." Spent an exhuasting amount of time deleting entries.

I Hate Job Searching

Ugh.

Right now, I can't think of anything more heinous than looking for a job.

A day after the captain of our slave galley ship announced that he was sticking several kilos of dynamite right in the hull of our boat and was about to blow all of us up, I was out with my sister. I was barely listening to a word she was saying. When she finished talking, I said, "I think I've lost the will to live."

Why go for rational thinking when irrational thinking comes so easily?

So, along the lines of urban legend-speak, a friend of a friend quit his job in May, thinking he had the wherewithall to do better things and find a better job. He even wrote a really eloquent "fuck you" letter that he emailed to the whole company when he left. It was actually pretty inspiring.

He's still unemployed.

This is an example of fasting when people out there are starving.

Anybody with the following capabilities can do most of the jobs advertised:

1. The ability to read.
2. The ability to speak.
3. The ability to follow instructions.

I have a friend who's trying to get into HR. Maybe it's just how I feel now, being on the outside, banging on the gates, begging to be let in, but some of those HR people are such goddamned motherfuckers.

Seriously.

And no, I'm not saying that from a place of intense bitterness. Me? Bitter? No. That's just fact.

It feels like Toronto's the only place where it's impossible to get a job. Seriously. You hear from a friend of a friend that it's easy to get jobs in Calgary, New York, everywhere-but-Toronto.

*le sigh*

Sometimes, it feels like bitterness is running through my veins instead of blood.

There I go again.

It's like what Roxy said in Dead Like Me:

You know what your problem is? You wake up every morning wondering what the world's gonna do for you, wondering who's gonna bend over backwards, kiss your ass and make you happy when you should just thank God for another day and leave it the fuck at that.

So here's to leaving it "the fuck at that."

God, whining can be so tiring.

1/3 Of Your Time

So I guess this is a bit of a "friend of a friend" blurb...though, neither are friends and in all likelihood, we never will be. That's the thing about famous people, though. Ordinary folks like us don't have a hope in hell of ever mingling with them --- unless, you know, stalking is something you're into.

Took a gander over at Zach Braff's new home for his blog. Tres chic, if I do say so myself. But who really gives a shit about my take on stuff like that, anyway?

In one post, he says he was interviewing Kevin Smith, who claims he spends about 1/3 of his life online...which is a lot of time. I mean, first instinct would almost be to thumb your nose and act like some smug, superior person, but the reality is, if you take the time to write a blog or read a blog, you probably spend close to 1/3 of your life online. There's no sense in denying it.

What did we all do before the Internet was created, anyway?

Seriously.

On the Sunday Times Magazine this weekend, they had a piece about how we have fewer close friends than ever before --- despite the proliferation of sites like Friendster and MySpace and Facebook, which according to my sister, is exactly the same thing as Friendster.

One of my sisters has forbidden me from taking down my Friendster account 'cause she wants to keep her high number of "friends" intact.

You want to know how many "friends" I've got on Friendster? Maybe 9 --- and that's mostly because most of my close friends are so Internet-impaired that they wouldn't even know how to find their way to Friendster unless someone was sitting beside them, holding their hand through the whole ordeal. So, yeah...my "friends" on Friendster aren't really friends in the traditional sense of the word. They're more like acquaintances who are under the illusion that we're friends just because we've made that initial, pathetic attempt at staying in contact by adding each other to our lists.

You can keep a blog of Friendster, but I always figured that defeated the purpose of a blog...which is to write to your anonymous heart's content under the guise of a username.

But maybe that's just me.

In other unimportant areas...

The AC at work sucks. I think it has more to do with the floor we're on, though...the whole theory of heat rising, you know. I mean, I wouldn't categorize this temperature in here as being "hell-ish" at this point, but I do think that I'm stuck in the worst corner...it feels muggy. So, you walk in from the hot, humid weather outside and then get into an elevator that takes you to a hot, airless office.

Two workplaces before this, I sat under the doorway into Antarctica.

There's no happy medium, is there?

Normally, I'd be off at this point, but I'm meeting a friend for dinner, so that means killing time before she gets off work. I had toyed with the idea of walking from here to there, but I'll probably drown in my own pool of sweat if I did such a thing.

Some Bon Mots From Anonymous

"Sir, I'm going to say as politely as possible. I will fuck you up!" - Roxy, Dead Like Me

That kind of thing cracks me up --- mostly because I don't have the guts to say that sort of thing out loud. I have this aversion to getting shot in the face...not that this is a frequent occurrence where I'm from...all ghetto-like references to my area of the 'burbs aside, it's really not that bad.

Well, it depends on what you think about living in the suburbs --- row upon row of cookie-cutter homes where neighbours strenuously avoid eye contact or saying much of anything to each other. I mean, in some ways, I can see how some people think of that as hell. But I don't. Mostly 'cause I think life is already hell.

Or maybe that's just something I like to tell myself, 'cause, you know, the reality of the situation would just cause me to wake up one day, think, "My life is shit" and then promptly slit my wrists...though, that's pretty much a daily occurrence, anyway. Not that I'm suicidal or anything. I just have the tendency to get depressed. A lot. I seriously think I need to go on meds, but you know, self-diagnosis isn't exactly my strong suit.

Someone the other day actually told me that when things are bad, we should take comfort in the fact that things could always be worse. What kind of warped thinking is that?

It kind of made me want to punch her in the face --- though, that, obviously, is another thing that I don't tend to do.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm a ticking time bomb of rage.

One of my sisters asked me the other night why I was so angry all the time, why I'd become so bitter.

I shrugged and told her, "If you had my life, wouldn't you be bitter and angry, too?"

But, you know, the whole self-pity thing can get tired after awhile. And it gets boring, too.

Carl Jung once wrote that everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves...and this made me think, going over every little thing that pisses me off about other people and trying to figure out what this meant about me. What can I say? I'm very self-absorbed sometimes.

So...the thing is, you can't undo anything you've already done. You've just got to fucking move on...but why is that so hard?

I turn to Anonymous for some of his/her bon mots when it comes to puzzling out what my life means and I found this:

Life can either be accepted or changed. If it is not accepted, it must be changed. If it cannot be changed, then it must be accepted.

Makes sense.

P.S. I kinda like this picture of myself:



Yeah. I deliberately kept it small for a reason. I also decided to bury it in an old post...just 'cause...well, most people who read this --- and I'm talking about the four of you out there who tune in regularly to this blog --- only read the most recent posts.

I like the notion of my picture floating around out there on the web.

Stupid Stuff At Work...

So, I haven't been changing my voicemail every day since...well, since I started. Every job I've ever had, I've left the same message:

Hi, you've reached _____________ at ___________. Please leave a message.

I believe in keeping things simple. Well, most of the time, anyway.

And ever since I've started working, anywhere, I've always had my supervisor/manager/slave master complain about how I'm supposed to say this, instead:

Hi, you've reached ____________ at ____________ on ____________ (insert date). I am unable to come to the phone right now. Please leave a message.

Duh. I mean, the only reason you're getting the voicemail is because I can't come to the phone right at that moment. And okay, yeah, it would probably make more sense to include the day so the person would know if I was even in the office or not, but the short and long of it all is that I don't really give a fuck. I mean, if I was going on vacation, I'd probably change the voicemail, but sadly enough, it turns out I'm at work every fucking day.

So, I get this email -- this mass email so as not to name names or maybe it's because there's more than one lazy asshole in the organization -- about how we're supposed to change our voicemail daily. I toyed with changing it every day to say the same thing. Just re-recording the same message and then saying, "But I did change it."

Increasingly, it's been like, "Yeah, well if they don't like it, they can just go fuck themselves."

A friend of mine was like, "Not to get all Dr. Phil on you, but if you're angry, just feel angry." The only thing is, the anger's gotten to the bitter, toxic level, you know? I'm just skipping along the fence of crazy at this point.

Anyway...

A friend who moved to Calgary called last night right when "So You Think You Can Dance?" was starting(!) I didn't feel like it'd be all that nice to go, "Sorry-can't-talk-right-now-gotta-watch-tv."

So, lately, I've been watching MTV's "My Super Sweet 16" which makes me SO MAD!!!! The last episode I watched featured Amanda, who didn't even look 15. She looked more, like, 25 or something. Her dad was a nightclub owner and she got everything she wanted. Like, when she went dress shopping and stopped in at Versace and looked at this one dress that cost $1,730 and she said, "Oh, that's not that bad" like it was a deal or something, I was so livid.

Then, she showed up at a friend's black-and-white formal dress party wearing a slutty maid's uniform 'cause she wanted to stand out and have everybody stare at her instead. Her dad asked her how she'd feel if someone showed up at her birthday like that and she admitted she'd be pissed off.

"That's not the point. I was to stand out. This is my decision. I want people to look at me," she said.

I swear to God, this should be an example of when it's perfectly okay to punch someone in the goddamned face. Just break her nose and give her two black eyes and take that curling iron and burn her face right off.

Lottery Dreams

So, um, yeah. 23 of us went in on the $21 million lotto last Friday. (Though, tempers flared 'cause the original organizers wanted to keep it at 21 people so that we'd each walk away with $1 million --- funny how we've already split and spent the $1 million before we've even gotten it.)

The main fantasy wasn't so much a matter of how we'd spend the money as much as it was how we'd stick it to the Evil Empire's face.

Or not really the Evil Empire's so much as the general manager's, 'cause as far as I'm concerned, his bullshit-we're-in-the-same-boat crap just blows chunks.

That's where the satisfaction comes from.

But we didn't win the lottery.

Duh.

We never really had a hope in hell of winning, but it helped feed the crazy revenge scenarios. After all, it was Gaugin who said, "Life being what it is, one longs for revenge."

Huh.

Four days and still angry.

You'd think I would have calmed down by now, but it's like this cycle where you go to sleep and then you wake up, pissed off with the whole situation --- though, maybe it's more like I'm just pissed off because there's nothing I can do about it.

Or maybe it's the PMS thing.

The Angry Hulk ain't got nothing on me.

What pissed me off was when one of my friends tried to make me feel better about it, giving me the whole, "The sun'll come up tomorrow" speech. I wanted to crack her head open with a baseball bat.

It's like, let me be pissed off. Let me rant and rave and bitch and moan for however long it takes for me to get this out of my system. Why does everybody have to be so relentlessly optimistic and happy all the time? For some of us, life sucks every now and then and we need to glory in the full-blown misery of it all, goddamnit.

The general manager walked past when I jokingly told one of my co-workers, "It's like I've lost the will to leave."

Okay, granted, it wasn't a funny joke. Losing your job's not the end of the world, but it'd be so much easier if you could make somebody pay.

Here's a little story about the CEO of the Evil Empire, as told by our general manager when he was installed into his position and when he was turning on the fake folksy charm, trying to win us over.

The GM had booked a room at a hotel in Italy for the CEO --- a room generally used by Prince Charles when vacationing in that region of Italy --- and the CEO called the GM, all pissed off, because the room wasn't "big enough" for him.

Don't know why the GM decided to tell us that story on the first day he was working with us. Were we supposed to all chuckle and feel charmed by our eccentric CEO? 'Cause, you know what? I wasn't charmed. I just wanted someone to drill a hole through the guy's forehead or a hammer an extremely rusty nail up underneath each toenail. (I've watched way too many horror movies.)

Sister 2 joked that my middle name was now "Bitter", but I think "Enraged" is more like it.

When Life Hands You Lemons...

Yeah. We're still laughing about what happened yesterday. And I think it has more to do with reaching the hysteria stage of the cycle. (The others being denial, anger, and acceptance.)

In keeping with the whole rats-on-a-sinking-ship metaphor, it sort of feels like they launched a canonball into the hull of the ship and it's like, there's absolutely no way of clinging on.

The other day, I read in the paper that 75% of people think it's wrong to steal office supplies.

Yesterday, I decided the bulk of my time would be spent at work looking for another job. The other percentage would be spent wiping clean the supply closet as a passive aggressive way of saying, "Fuck you."

Though, yesterday, when the red-haired, pinchy-faced HR bitch announced that they'd set up a questions box in the coffee room, I considered writing the following on strips of paper and just cramming them inside:

FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU LARGE.

YOU CAN GO FUCK YOURSELVES.

I HOPE YOU ALL DIE A LONG, PAINFUL MISERABLE DEATH.

Petty? Yes. Mean? Yes.

Wiping away tears of laughter, my sister was like, "Well, they'll all die eventually, Jo."

That's not the point. When you're hysterical angry like this, you want the sooner-rather-than-later variety.

I joked that we should have waited to get on the elevator with El Presidente and Red Haired, Pinchy Faced Bitch when we skipped out of work early yesterday. The other girl was like, "Yeah, the elevator's small, there's no escape and there's no cameras. We'd just cover both their heads with bags and smother them."

I asked my mother yesterday, "Why'd they do it on a Thursday? What kind of guarantees do they have that one of us isn't going to stew all night and come in the next day with a sawed-off shot gun? Or a machete? It'd be a total crime of passion and everybody in the company would have been like, 'Yeah, they only did what we all wanted done.'"

One of the girl's boyfriends is convinced we're totally cracked, the way we're still laughing and joking around about this.

But seriously, what the hell are you going to do if you're not going to laugh about it?

*
So, Big Brother All Stars kicked off last night. Yes. I fully realize that it's uber-crap television...but as with all bad television, it's so bad, it's good.

And I also needed something to tide me over while Season 2 of Veronica Mars downloaded (now, THAT'S quality TV).

CTV --- the Canadian channel that carried season 1 of Veronica Mars last summer --- opted not to air season 2 because the head of programming at CTV obviously has shit for brains. I mean, this is the network that airs "Comedy Central". Seriously, who the fuck watches that show? It's not even funny. Just watching the commercials annoys me, 'cause the "actors" remind me of irritating kids who try too hard to get a laugh and all you really want to do is knock them upside the head for being the blights on society that they are.

Yeah, so, anyway, on the CTV message boards, there was this whole campaign to get them to air season 2 of Veronica Mars and some guy suggested downloading via TorrentSpy, but CTV quickly moved in and said, "No, no. That's wrong."

Whatever. I mean, if we can't watch it on CTV and we don't get UPN (or whatever the hell the new channel's called), then what the hell are we supposed to do?

And need I remind you that in my impending jobless state, I won't exactly be flush with money and able to waste money on the DVD.

*

Anonymous Writer's Tip of the Day:

When life hands you lemons, just take in every goddamned sour drop of it even if it kills you --- 'cause even if you whine about it, you can't ever let 'em see you weak. You've got your fucking pride, after all. And the rest of those assholes? Well, they can just go fuck themselves.

The Evil Empire Strikes Again

Um. Yeah. So, six weeks after our general manager was unceremoniously turfed out the door, we all got called into the main boardroom again.

"This is it," I said. "We're getting canned."

So, yeah, you joke about it and you might have even seen it coming, but when El Presidente started things off with, "Unfortunately..."

I wanted to just get up and say, "Excuse me" so that I could do the following:
1. Start looking for jobs
2. Raid the supply closet
3. Destroy some furniture
4. Grab something sharp to gouge somebody's eyes out

El Presidente was roaming the corridors this morning --- which is never a good thing, 'cause frankly, I wasn't even aware we had a president until six weeks ago when we were all called in and it was announced that our GM was out and a big strapping old Irish guy who has the same name as a former Dallas star was in.

I mean, he was never ever here.

Oh, and the red-haired, pinchy faced bitch from HR was eagerly nipping at his heels, which is an even worse thing, 'cause the sole purpose of red-haired, pinchy-faced bitch's existence is to be there when divisions are put under.

She stands there in the corner, with her thick arms folded across her square chest as she tries to muster some false sense of empathy.

I later joked that, it would have been funny if we'd all just started screaming --- not words so much as high-pitched animal noises --- and lunged at the senior management team like a pack of hyenas...you know, so it'd be more obvious how fucking angry we were at this bullshit.

'Cause that's what this all is. It's bullshit.

Especially when Dallas Star goes, "We're in this together."

This would have been a good moment to stand up, jabbing a finger at him and screaming, "HORSESHIT! We're not in this together. There's you and then there's me."

All this shit about how we have to stick together and still work under the same level of efficiency and professionalism that we always have was just...ugh. As far as I'm concerned, we're all rats on a sinking ship and I owe not even a drop of loyalty to anybody.

You've got to look out for number one.

And you know what else? Don't bloody tell me that you're sad or upset about having to do this to us, 'cause this morning, the old boys club was roaring with laughter behind the GM's office door.

So...the rationale behind all of this is that the Evil Empire (which, by the way, took over the last company I worked at) has also taken over this company and they don't see us as "viable" anymore.

Whatever.

Why'd they have to tell us this today? The least they could have done was wait until tomorrow and then sent us all home to recuperate. Less chance of one of us showing up to work tomorrow with a machine gun.

Superman Returns

The thing about this movie is that it's very long. And the last thought you want to have just as the opening credits start is this:

I think I might need to pee.

Not, "I want to pee." It's "I think I might need to pee."

The next last thing you want to do is to climb over people and stumble out of the darkened theatre, making a mad dash to the washroom only to discover you don't really need to pee and then run back only to find you've missed a good 15 minutes.

Not that the movie was overly complicated and required a lot of thinking or anything like that.

No.

Scratch that.

Does anybody want to explain how somebody as skinny as Kate Bosworth was able to singlehandedly snatch at the Man of Steel's cape and save him?

Speaking of Kate Bosworth --- love the dark hair. It makes her look so much more classier, you know? I kind of wondered if, whilst filming with Brandon Routh or even James Marsden, she ever thought that a manlier man would be nice for a change...'casue Orlando? He ain't manly.

He's cute and all, but he kind of looks dirty, too. Dirty in the strictest sense of the word i.e. he doesn't look like he bathes all that often. Just a general impression that I get. Don't know why. It's probably, most definitely untrue.

And how come nobody can tell that Clark Kent is really Superman?

Maybe if I put on my glasses, I'll be able to singlehandedly fool the world into thinking I'm somebody else, too.

Now wouldn't that be nice?

And seeing James Marsden, I kept expecting him to bust out in his X-Men garb. I was afraid they'd kill him off, which would have been a shame, considering he was pretty damn heroic given that he didn't have any superpowers of his own. Still...there was something noble and decent and good about him. But that's how he always comes across, you know?

Canada Day

01July06 003
Originally uploaded by Anonymous Writer.

Every July 1, I attempt to take pictures of fireworks with my digital camera --- not because I really want to remember them, per se. It's because I find it difficult. It's usually me, standing there, muttering, "Fuck!" after each picture's taken because the timing of the burst is never quite right.

Yeah. I should have just set up a tripod --- but did I? No.

I should have adjusted the aperture so that it was wider --- but did I? No.

And why didn't I do this?

Because, it's been a whole year since someone reminded me to do these things and I've forgotten.

I'm going to do a yearly log of these shitty shots and maybe do a comparison thing in an album that I will call, "Learn From Your Mistakes."