boring, boring, depressed, boring.

General glum-i-tude has taken over from crying and swearing repeatedly.

Since my poor mom heard me say the F-word while sobbing, she's had to have been held back to not drive down here, slap some people around, fetch me and bring me home to eat her Italian mama diet of comfort food to pad the ego and the ass.

I almost wanted her to. I almost wanted to give the world the finger and go be taken care of immediately, but I suppose that's adulthood. Adulthood minus the fact that you might have to borrow money from your parents if your sorry depressed ass can't (or won't) find a job.

In all seriousness, if I could sit on the couch in ill-fitting sweatpants until October, I would.

Which is pathetic and stupid, because I have a pretty good shot at getting a new job at my workplace I think, and I have heard people say nice things about me. I have people high and low sending me jobs, being encouraging, and generally helping me land on my feet. There are jobs for me I could find.

Everyone is hugging, emailing, texting, calling and preventing me from being a slug in ill-fitting sweat pants.

And I'm grateful for them.

But a small, nagging part of me just wants to see me fail.

Part of me wants to get hit by a bus, so I had an excuse to just lay in a bed somewhere. You know, I don't have a woe-is-me-death wish or anything, I just sort of morbidly daydream about some minor broken bones and my jaw wired shut so in 3 months I could emerge shiny and new. Skinny. Ready.

Not this.

So that small, nagging, bullshit part of me is fleeing to the beach to crash my parent's vacation for a few days. To clear my dramatic bullshit head and have it patted by my mom and dad because I can't handle things here myself.

And get a little tanner, since my OWN vacation lo these TWO WEEKS AGO.

I just need to get away from the drama that keeps us glued to coming to work and talking with each other like we were prisoners of war. So I stop beating down on my nice boyfriend because he won't give me enough pity (every hour on the hour, if you please, and louder, with more head patting). So I stop putting off working on my resume. So I stop ruining my own fun.

So my mother can fix me a plate and lie and say I look skinny and good. And my dad can just be adorably geeky and I'll feel like he needs me to survive a bit better because I am the oldest kid and he finally sees me as something of an adult so don't whine, and moan and be dramatic when you could be, you know, DOING SOMETHING?

Because if it were up to me, sitting here right now, I might not.

I'm Mr. Bright-sized.

brightsizing n. Corporate downsizing in which the brightest workers are let go. This happens when a company lays off those workers with the least seniority, but it's those young workers who are often the best trained and educated.

I got laid off today.

I am not one to write about work on the Internet. I don't think it's fair, and I don't want to be punished later in life because I have opinions about work. Apparently that sort of talk is for the water cooler and not on the Internet.

The situation is this, at my nameless workplace. I got laid off. My position no longer exists.

I know this because a big boss at work as well as some fake-nice HR lady told me so.

Today.

In a conference room with a box of tissues and some bottled water. As she brightly talked about how this was going to be BETTER. She was trying to sell me on my three weeks of severance pay as something to be overjoyed about. Like it was severance Christmas and I had been a good girl.

They kept talking about how the new structure of our unit will better serve our partners, and all I could think was, what about us?

In my department of 36, all but about 8 got laid off, including Shiftless Badger. There are positions in the new structure for us to compete for, but you would be doing so with your tail between your legs ready to beg, borrow, or steal to be continued to be paid.

Many of those 8 who retained their jobs spent the day either being dicks about retaining their jobs and how this change could be good for us. The rest of them are mad at us for belonging to the newest, hippest club out there. The laid-off club.

Not that anyone has said laid off.

"Re-aligned". "Right-sized".

It's hard to rationalize this.

That I put in AWESOME, hard work there. I did some killer stuff. Big, important people know I do good work.

And for what?

It's like work dumped me. I feel slapped in the face and punched in the gut.

And now I'm in an abusive relationship, because it hit me, and I have to crawl back for more. I have to go back to work for WEEKS before the "end date". Or I have to go beg work to take me back and interview for other jobs. Which, if I am lucky enough to get, I'll no doubt resent.

I tried drinking beer, but I couldn't get drunk.

I tried pigging out, but my stomach hurts too much.

I have been smoking cigarettes and saying words that hurt the ears of baby Jesus.

I have been calling my co-workers in the department who still have their jobs awful names out of spite.

I cried on my parent's answering machine. I accidentally said the F-word while I was crying about my job on my parent's answering machine.

I cried on my boyfriend's shoulder. On my friend's shoulder. On the couch.

Luckily, I have tickets to the Cat Empire show in Baltimore tomorrow.

It's nice to have something to look forward to.

F, man.

F.

I'm comin' out

My boyfriend is handsome, and I'm not just telling the Internet that because he bought me a blender as a present for no reason when we were at Target today.

He's handsome because he's got the smoothest nose I've ever seen. I'm dating a Jew, and he defies stereotypes with a nose is as perfect as any Colorado bunny slope. It's perfectly smooth and quite proportional to his high cheekbones and full, thick head of hair.

I CONSTANTLY compliment him on his nice hair. He is a straight man who has a trendy haircut. Sometimes his nice haircut gets more attention than his pink tie collection.

But that nice hair is both his pride and a curse.

Namely, because it begins at the eyebrow and creeps like vines past his shoulders. WELL PAST THEM.

Normally, when the topic of the follicle-ly enhanced comes up, he waves it away.

"Ain't no skin off my nose," he says, and rightly so. He doesn't see his furry back. It doesn't bother him, usually.

However, tonight, there was some skin off him. Thanks Sally, Hansen!

Yes, Internet, I waxed my boyfriend's back tonight.

JEALOUS?

He thinks you shouldn't be. I told him as I smoothly applied wax to his shoulders to think of the ladies. Think of us, as we get bikini waxes, with our legs up in the air making idle conversation with a lady who doesn't know my name but knows where I have THAT FRECKLE.

He shrugged it off. He was too nervous to have me ramble on about my own waxing woes. This was him, admitting with a receipt for $10.99 that his back was furry.

I told him, "Don't worry. I did my roommate Julie's legs in college. I know what I'm doing."

That made him feel better. (Truthfully, it was just the backs, and it was like twice.)

I ripped.

That made him feel worse.

He didn't yelp. He didn't say anything. Once I got a "hoo HOO!" in pain, mostly some very deep breathing. That was about it.

The whole process took about 20 minutes. 11 strips of wax later, he was done. Smooth, like a turkey.

He was a TOTAL champ. Maybe it was the lavender essential oils in the wax. Maybe it was his pride. Maybe it was the promise of a post-back-wax milkshake, thanks to the blender present.

He got through it. Soon, he was slurping on a milkshake with lots of neosporin on his back. Soon, he was ready to hit the dusty trail.

As he was putting on his shoes, he said to me, "I think no on the S,B,C. B is just fine."

"B?", I asked.

"Sack, Back and Crack" he smiled, "I don't know how those dudes do it. You must REALLY be committed. No, sir. Not this guy."

I smiled at his bravado. He was gasping in pain at the work of my hands not an hour ago.

A jaunty kiss and a spin on his heel, and he strolled away from my front door with a "I'm going to the beach with my friends in 5 days" spring in his step.

And then I understood.

I noticed the shiny with neosporin skin that was pink with new-ness. This was his neck's coming out party. This was his back's independence day.

The Diana Ross could be heard faintly in the background of his stroll.

DK is free. The Jersey shore shall be his oyster. Going shirtless (with pride) shall be his pearl.