All aboard the Katastrophe Paranoia Express

Well, the first day went off pretty well. First days are like that. Pretty good.

What stressed me out the MOST though, was my new commute. Before, my own two feet would shoo themselves out my door and after about 3 - 4 songs on my Ipod, that would be that. BAM. C'est le Commute.

NOW, I have to walk, take a bus, walk some more, or even figure out mysterious 'H' busses. Have YOU EVER RIDDEN AN 'H' BUS? NO, didn't think so.

Everything is variable now. I have to make the bus at 8 or I'll be late. But if the bus comes before 8 I'll miss it. If I miss it, I could walk to work in like 45 mins (I'm already set on walking home when it's not MadStickyHot or raining or sleeting or whatever) but that bus is crucial. The bus before it gets me there too early, the bus after gets me there too late. I need my 8am bus to come at 8am. Or my world will fall apart.

This means, for safekeeping, I have to get to the bus stop at 7:55. That's even taking chance too far. The Mythical L 2 cannot be trifled with. Sometimes when you need it, it won't come for 40 sufferable minutes. Other times, when you harrumph and resign yourself to walk, three pass you by. This morning it came at 7:59 on the dot, and this princess stepped into her coach ready to be whisked away to a shiny new building to be the smiling idiot, frantically trying to remember names and match up departments in her head.

The walk home was actually enjoyable, minus some very SERIOUS engagements with sidewalk chicken matches. I seriously took off about 2 shoulders and sidestepped around 6 people yapping on their phones. I could bus it home-- but really, DC isn't all that big and I owe myself the exercise, though I do miss out on some very important Ray-Ray time.

So, I think this gig will work out nicely. There are some minor complications, but I'm sure they will all get ironed out. It's day #1. How bad could it be?

(biting tongue as so tomorrow night's post won't be "OMG IT GOT WORSE".)

D-day

So full of worries about the first day of my new job tomorrow. First days of new jobs are just the worst. I imagine I will wander around like a lost soul on my way to finding the ladies room, and probably spend the majority of the day reading things and organizing the post-its and a highlighter collection that will live on my desk.

The first day of my old job, I was asked to do some simple things, without any explanation of how they wanted them, and ended up staying late and crying softly in the restroom about my impending firing for not understanding how to set up a certain document. I should have read into that and run screaming for the hills, but instead I stayed for two years because it was easy enough and a short walk downhill.

But I assume (minus crying) that first days of work are uniformly awful. You don't know anyone's name, where anything is, what's important, what's not, and who you're going to eat lunch with (hurrah for having a friend work there!). You always will mess up, and you'll inevitably feel like a complete fool complete with flushed cheeks and red ink on paper.

Tomorrow is a whole new chapter. Perhaps the first chapter of like, part two of a book. New job, in 2 months finally living by myself and ruling my own roost, and sort of settling into life. I had sort of languished in freshman and sophomore year of life, and like a college junior thirsting for something new this job came at just the right time and is going to usher in a whole boatload of changes that I am very excited about. Also, I think this job is going to be important for me career-wise, and I'm excited to learn new things and not languish in boredom anymore. I guess my blog reading routine will get done at home more than the office now.

I'm nervous. This also is par for the course. I'm a pretty nervous character. I suppose all I can do is relax tonight, show up early in a bitchin' outfit and smile pretty.

Thank god we threw a party on Saturday and there's a lot of booze about.

Goodbye, Job.

I leave you with something I drew during the last staff meeting out of boredom so devastating that I thought about the utensils that I could stab myself in the eye with as an excuse to leave and also as a cathartic symbol of the pain and grief you caused me. (and how staunchly I will refuse to work with all women EVER AGAIN.)

It's a piece I've entitled:

Things I'd Like to Eat and Drink: A Staff Meeting of Longing.

Fare thee well, Job.

Stay tuned for tomorrow: sleeping away my one day of vacation before throwing a gi-normous house party and convincing a friend with a car to help us to pick up our keg of cider for snake bite blacks.

Squawk Box

This past weekend was nothing but fun in New York for me. My new job starts soon (and my old job ends even sooner!) and to treat myself, I went to NYC to a weekend of utter debauchery.

I heart New York, it's true. It's so different from DC and it's so refreshing. Politics didn't exist. I didn't know about Brangelina popping. I was only interested in my friends, seeing their new apartments, eating a vodka-melon, and hanging out in the park. Oohh, and that cheapo pedicure. But I digress...

Lately my many retreats in and out of Washington have really brought on a love-hate relationship with the city. I've lived here since 2000. Give me a break. Most people move on by now, don't they? But for some reason I can't. It keeps me here.

When I'm here, I'm so full-up with the politics, and the wonking and the gossip that no one can really talk to me about it or the hands wave frantically and I get flustered because I am SO FULL OF POLITICS THAT I COULD JUST DIE. And my office doesn't have CNN on all the time. And I hit the alarm too fast to listen to NPR in favor of the Today Show.

When I leave, I wonder what's going on in the world. I sneak away to check the Post. I talk a good game (not that I'm involved in politics professionally, but like to leave the impression that washingtonians know EVERYTHING) and always like to argue about things and wear my liberal badge in precarious places and make no apologies at family dinners where the rest of the family jokes about wearing their GOP t-shirts and bringing guns to meet my boyfriend who is decidedly liberal. (note: no guns are actually OWNED by the fam, so they would GO BUY THEM just to SHOCK THE DK.)

I think the world would be easier for me to take if the McLaughlin Group wasn't on TV. I'm sure everyone on the program is a nice individual-- but with their powers combined I can't take the yelling, the screaming, the punditry, and the VOICES. THE SQUAWKING. I swear, my life would be a lot better if they just stuck to journalism that is seen and not heard, or were fluent in ASL. Because everytime I am at the gym on Saturday evenings I have to see it. The DK watches it EVERY SUNDAY. And it's EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME. It makes me need to lay in a room with a cool compress on my face. Or at least escape to his roof deck. With a mimosa. And that cool compress.

I don't understand how people can survive 30 minutes (oh god-- is it an HOUR? I don't even know) of people yelling over each other in competing volumes to really try and get someone from the Times and someone from Newsweek to agree. IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

Couldn't they debate like, which puppy is cuter?

Puppy A













or Puppy B?

I think that much more productive discussions would go on. The blonde, short-haired lady would like the bottom one because he is VISIBLY exhausted from being reamed by "The man" all the time, and the guy in expensive suits would CLEARLY like the top one, because he's pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. Or t-shirts. Or something. The misc. extra guy from the Financial Times would talk about them being HILARIOUS, because he's British and above puppies. And Pat Buchanan would just say to hell with puppies because THE MINUTEMEN will take care of them ONCE and for all.

Are they working towards good? NO. Is this helping America? NO. Is this squawking and yelling going to change anything? NO. Somehow it's a JOB to scream at someone on Saturday evenings for no end but the entertainment of Washington to chuckle at themselves for a job well done. I suppose these shows exist for some audience, but can't they be PLEASANT. Can't Operaman sing about some scandals? Couldn't a midgit in a bikini interview a Senator?

So John McLaughlin, start squawking about puppies and fluffly clouds or something. Go a little soft in your old age. It would widen your appeal. It would make it better for those of us who wish for earmuffs when people allow other people to get red in the face about taxes, war, and the state of the union. People are ALWAYS going to get red in the face, isn't that what this town exists for?

But puppies? The options are ENDLESS.

*puppies taken from CuteOverload, which makes life worth living.

Gnarls Barkley and my Dad should TOTALLY kick it.

I couldn't help it. I gave in.

I downloaded the Gnarls Barkley CD from i-tunes because having "crazy" and "smiley faces" at my disposal was just too good an offer. Really, both those songs are worth my $11.99 plus tax. Thanks, i-tunes for making me an offer I simply could not refuse. I give you money and you give me fodder for annoying everyone I know with talk of this album like I invented them. Give me a break.

Per my recent discussion of how much I like girl oohy ooohy music, I had to chuckle at myself for buying an album with a song entitled "necromancer".... But WHO CARES. I can't help it. This album makes me feel like I should have a car, and drive it around with this album blaring and do some awful white-girl dances involving invisible lassos, slapping invisible asses, and pounding my open palms against an invisible wall.

Though, I must say with all the buzz that this album is getting, I am totally digging the last song. I blame my love on this disco-flavored tune "The Last Time" that begs "when was the last time you danced?" squarely on my father.

My dad is a character. He's very straight-laced. He doesn't drink. He laughs REALLY hard at a good fart joke, and loves to talk about how he STILL, TO THIS DAY, didn't get The Matrix. He has pocket protectors and his favorite thing in the whole wide world is a sunny day and his deck full of bonsai trees. He is the kind of guy who can't sit still but doesn't really like to REALLY push it activity-wise so standing upright outside in old jeans and fastidiously pruning delicate, expensive plants REALLY just makes him SO HAPPY. My dad is a smart fellow, but one of very simple joys.

My father's other simple joy?

Disco.

My dad was one of those guys who in 1982 was in COMPLETE and UTTER denial that disco had died and that hip-hop, new wave, and the beginnings of electronica had taken over. NO way. Dad still did the hustle, and still had a VERY INTENSE leisure suit of yellow, orange, green, red and white plaid. I AM SO NOT KIDDING. (It made a very good Halloween costume for years. It still lives in the attic so my dad has physical proof that this time no longer exists.) I think he likes it because the 70's were when he was young and cool, and a pretty good dancer. Dad is a quiet fellow, so he sort of just let his feet do the talking. Disco is easy to understand, the lyrics don't make sense (HELLO, MacArthur Park?) and it harkens back to a simpler time where things weren't complicated by kids, money, a job that stresses him out, and a changing world. He and my mom fell in love by going out disco-dancing.

As a child, when my Mom was out and we would hang out with Dad, this meant he put on The BeeGees, or Donna Summer and we'd mug for the video camera. They have drawers full of enough blackmail to last us WELL through our adult lives. My brother would duck down and then appear RIGHT INFRONT of the camera and make gross faces and wiggle around. I would twirl.

At my cousin's wedding in March, I drunkenly told my father that at my wedding the dreaded Father-Daughter dance should be the hustle. You should have seen that face light up. It was like 24 years of dread + how ever many more years until WHENEVER that should be was lifted from his shoulders.

He doesn't dance much these days, but I think when my youngest sibling goes off to college in the fall he and my mom are going to get back to strutting their stuff, empty-nester styles.

So when was the last time you danced? I can tell you mine. Brit-pop night. April.

Proper Etiquette

My hurrah-almost-over job is at a place where a lot of ladies work. There are a handful of men, but it is mostly women, most of the time here. The office is a whole floor, and of course there is a men's room and a women's room to fulfill all our bathroomly needs.

But someone wasn't thinking things through, though I understand the need for equal facilities under Title WHATEVER, and I understand that I should expect facilities to be equal because the majority of workplaces aren't like mine.

There are not enough men to fill up the men's room if they all were in there at the same time. Just enough men for it to NOT be worth it to risk using the men's room. But there is roughly 1 stall per 20 women in this office (that's three total). With that kind of woman-to-stall ratio you tend to come across some poor bathroom behavior. And due to the vast number of women, the estrogen-charged atmosphere encourages you to notice most peoples shoe collections as an identifier if the face isn't visible. And after a nice matching shoe-to-sound session, you know that so-and-so had a burrito for lunch and you are caught along for the ride. Pinto beans and all.

I know women's rooms and men's rooms are different places. But women use the restroom more, and when working in an unfavorable ratio, just makes some of our lives miserable. I hate to ruin some sort of fantasy that the women's room holds-- as if we just have pillow fights with satin pillows and there are rose petals on the floor and everything is soft and pink.

I was raised too Catholic to be ok with all of this, I feel the need to speak up for my sisters in silence.

Allow me to address my bathroom-friends who decide to treat the work restroom like it's your own private colonic session.

Here are five friendly hints

1.) Don't enjoy that there work poop.

This is ridiculous, this nonsense of bringing the paper in or flipping through some files as you take care of some business. As someone who is low-ish on the totem pole, I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO TOUCH THOSE FILES NOW, but it's sort of my job to do so. This shouldn't be a 30-minute spa treatment. GET IN. Get the job done. LEAVE. Don't dilly-dally. Don't chat with me walking down the hallway with the Post under your arm and then leave me to my horror as you walk into the restroom with me and enter a stall ready for some fun.

2.) Never underestimate the power of the courtesy flush.

Have a heart. It's an easy thing to do. Your peers will thank you and trust me, I know that there are little gaps between the doors and the latch in the bathroom. You can see people walk in, you can HEAR people approaching. Have a heart-- and flush. If not, I can see a sliver of you THROUGH the doors that have slight gap and I will clear my throat at you in a passive-aggresive beg for a courtesy flush.

3.) Please, though I am sure that you are GRATEFUL to be going through this, don't sigh as though your bladder is JUST NOW processing the 3 venti skim lattes that you had today because who has time to eat?

Also, when the OTHER effects of coffee take hold, please refrain from any sort of grunts, strains, or vocal explanations for the work that it takes to purge yourself of $14 of coffee. Do you feel good about paying that much money for that much coffee? If only Citrucel had caffeine!

4.) Why did you, lady at work, argue for the removal of the air freshener in the bathroom because of your allergies?

You did us a disservice and a organization-wide memo should have prompted a vote, rather than you deciding to take matters into your own hands. I'd much rather spend five minutes in a nightmare where I'm 15 again and doused in Plumeria-scented-EVERYTHING-Bath-and-Bodyworks-NIGHTMARE then have to smell the bathroom from around 10:30am -- noon.

5.) If you in fact, needed the work poop and were respectful of the above rules, don't CHAT with me when you come out of the stall as I am trying to FLEE your burrito.

Seriously? Just smile and wash those hands. I don't want to chat with you post-poop, it's just too personal and this is a work relationship. There's no one else to blame but you, and I don't know you well enough to rib you about it so please just stop prolonging my agony.

Slightly Masochistic

Nearly every day after work I walk home and go sit on the couch to watch tv just for a bit before I head off to the gym. I have the same routine. I'm a Taurus and we like that sort of thing. Stability. Routines. Etc.

Food Network is my crack. I have a pretty hard weekend Food Network habit. I like to watch Giada De Laurentiis on and marvel at how big her noggin is and how she EXCLUSIVELY wears V-neck shirts because someone told her it would make her head less big-- but really, they lied. I like to watch Ina Garten because she is such a people pleaser who bends over backwards to feed the her friends (who seem to be exclusively gay men) and husband to prove her worth for existing. I like Paula Dean because she puts a pound of butter in everything, and she KNOWS it might just kill her family and there's a devilish twinkle in her eye like that's her master plan.

And then.... There is that EFFING RACHEL RAY.

I watch 30 Minute Meals just about every day. I watch it to incite some rage so I have some steam to work off at the gym. I. Hate. Rachel. Ray. She makes my blood boil. She makes me unpleased to have traces of Italian heritage, a family, be American, be female, and exist.

When I watch Food Network I want some FOOD PORN. Show me the frying close up enough so I flinch when the grease splatters. Show me how you dice things effortlessly, show me gooey sauces and crispy chicken skin. SHOW ME THE MONEY. I watch food TV for the same reasons I read Vogue. SHOW ME LUXURY and rub it in my face how that's not how I can live.

Don't giggle and say "oohhhh these sammies look DELISH!". How dare you blaspheme sandwiches as such. Sandwiches are on my list of "reasons for living", don't you take them away from me.

Don't say "well in my family blah blah blah" BECAUSE YOU ARE LIKE 40 YEARS OLD AND SHOULD HAVE OTHER STORIES TO TELL BESIDES ONES ABOUT YOUR GRANDFATHER.

Don't call your boyfriend your "sweetie", it isn't 1957. Have you gotten pinned yet? Oh you're married? I see. I'm interested to find that a man found you attractive. Does he have any defects?

Don't "sprinkle a little E.V.O.O." When you mean LOAD UP THIS PAN WITH EXPENSIVE OLIVE OIL. Not every occasion calls for extra-virgin olive oil, which is why they make many types. Ass.

Don't let everyone know after every commercial break what you just did. This isn't cooking for kindergarteners in ReCap-ville, we WILL REMEMBER from before the break, or FIGURE IT OUT.

Don't use grill seasoning ON EVERTHING EVER. You have a TV show, MIX IT UP.

Don't tip so effing badly when you survive on $40 a day. And next time you are in DC don't go to Clydes and be real; 2 tapas at Jaleo is not a meal and the Sky Terrace is tourist trap #1.

Must you mention: that you live in the country, that what you are making is "affordable", that you can find this in a local grocery store, that you can of course substitute other things for alcohol because alcohol is scary, and that you don't bake. LEARN TO BAKE.

It's good to know there is help for people like me. That I'm not alone in my utter hatred. Maybe there are other ways of coping.

The problem is that I simply can't stop watching. I hate her cooking style, her food (usually), her SELF-- even her damn theme song. But I still tune in at 6 AND 6:30 because I have to. I punish myself daily with Rachel Ray. And I have no plans to change. This is out of my hands.

picture taken from budgettravelonline.com

good thing my i-pod is pink

I cannot ignore my ovaries. They are loud and proud and they are some bossy bitches.

So when they say, "katastrophe, LISTEN TO SOME CHICK MUSIC" you sort of have to go "ok, ovaries!......But people are so over your chick music." My ovaries are like your Aunt who tries to be cool and asks all the kids if they still listen to music by 'that Canadian angry lady with the long hair' and has just sort of figured out that pleats do nothing for her figure, and her 5 cats do nothing for her social life. They don't know there hasn't been a Lillith Fair for many a year now. They think Sarah MacLachlan is still sort of the queen of the hive. They don't know about the rest of my lovelies.

I've tried to get over chick music. I have stretched my music tastes further lately-- trying to listen to more man-music, or even just PEOPLE music. But I get equally excited when Wolf Trap's newsletters arrive in the mail as I do the 9:30 club e-mails. I love me some brit pop, I'll wag my ass at anything with a jagged beat, yes-- I enjoy enough indie rock to make myself presentable, but really my heart belongs to girls who play an instrument and coo along with it.

This is why I am enlisting help. Who else wants to hit up some girl shows? Namely, who wants to pay $16 to see KT Tunstall and maybe (gulp) $40 to see Ani at the 9:30?

KT Tunstall I will go to alone if I have to. I'll just pretend she's my friend. She's like, my age and Scottish and wears leg warmers, which puts her at the top of my list of PEOPLE, regardless. Also, hello, I sob while watching Grey's anatomy, and her acoustic version of Universe & U flattened me to the back of my couch. Come ON people, $16. Yes, she is a little processed, but she's so stinkin' cute and really knows how to put on a show. Did you see this woman live on TV? On the Today Show? She charmed the pants off Matt Lauer and then sounded like a full band with nothing but a series of pedals where she layered sounds over herself and that she harmonized with. HARMONY. Eat that, Simpson sisters!

Ani is a given. For any girl who's ever been wronged by an asshole, maybe liked girls (and now have loved girls), damned 'the man', or been an angsty teenager that grew up into an angsty twenty something-- Ani is life, if you said yes to any or all of the above. Yes, my mom calls her goat-girl and sorts of bleats "I hate meeeennn" to me when she'd hear her songs. Yes, a lot of her songs are angry, angry anthems. Yes, she could just sing the Buffalo phone book white pages and I would buy it and save the packaging and worship it quietly like I was savoring the last bite of my last meal on earth. I can't help it. I am part of the masses who would vote Ani for president. It's a fact. It is unchangeable. She's the poet of my life and I'd pay more than $40 to see her in her fake nails + electrical tape and black-booted self tell stories and enchant a room. We all flock to her shows to hear her speak. Sure, her playing kicks ass but we crave the cute little snippets that we can repeat and then squeal at each other later like we have the sweetest inside joke EVER.

I start my new job June 5. Clearly, going to a concert the night before my FIFTH day of work is a good idea, but really, it's not up for discussion. I won't even get real wasted. I'd just like to sway and sing along and maybe my ovaries will snap to it. And realize that some chick music is ok. Just as long as you mix it up a little.

Get on the boat

I'm late on the cool-things-on-the-internets boat a lot. Like blogging, the "Numa Numa!" guy and Skype. But one thing that I'm better late than never on is Pandora. I am enjoying it SO MUCH. It's a great way to discover new music, and to figure out WHY you like certain songs, and let me tell you-- makes the day fly by. And who doesn't like the Roman voting?

The problem with it is that you can train it. The more thumbs up, that's more of the type of music it will play. The more thumbs down, and you'll never again speak of Cher popping up on your playlist.

For a radio station which knows I like KT Tunstall, Low, The Cure, Zero 7 and the Killers, it's recommending a lot of:

The Human League
Kylie Minogue
and
Bryan Adams

And I can't really tell what that says about me. Except that I mind the Kylie Minogue the LEAST. Ok, don't really mind it at all. Ok, got really excited when Kula Shaker transitioned into "Come into my World." And by really excited, I mean chair-danced. VIGOROUSLY.

I abuse hyphens when I blog and cry

I'm sure every water cooler that is near a place of employment where females work (and select quality mens) will be abuzz with chatter about the finales of Grey's Anatomy.

Or as I prefer to call it: "the-two-hours-of-television-wherein-I-
either-couldn't-breathe-or-wanted-to-cry-or-kill-myself-
and-I-chose-door-number-two-the-crying-that-would-not-stop."

SERIOUSLY NOW. There will be recap after recap online I am sure so I speak to you who watched it. People are going to talk the whole episode through. Blah blah blah.

Here's what I cannot get past.

You knew that somehow, Denny wouldn't survive. He was a goner the minute he decided to flirt with Izzie and his fate was sealed when he signed those DNR papers. GONER. He made it through the surgery and he and Izzie were supposed to have overly-stimulated-but-under-performing hearted children. I was always interested in their story line-- their love story.

Perhaps, because-- I AM IZZIE (though um, less crazed. Only slightly crazed. I pinch). I understand why she does things. I get her follow-my-gut, then perhaps my uterus, and THIRDLY the brain. Her crazed, ridiculous, illogical, impractical decisions are ones that beg my empathy. I understand why she cut that cord all the while shrieking like a banshee, and I understand why they found her wrapped around his dead body in a prom dress. I UNDERSTAND WHY SHE IS CRAZY. She ignores her brain and follows her heart around like a dumb dog who always wakes up wondering if today is the day that they'll get that steak for breakfast. So to have that dream that she finally allowed herself to visualize just broke my functioning-but-murmur-y heart into about a thousand pieces. She puts herself out there ONLY when her heart tells her so because you don't trust people until they worm their way into it. You may think that you can make lists about how people act, reason with them when they are irrational, and tell them what they should do but who is practical, stable and rational all of the time?

I sobbed like a blubbering fool for the last 20-25 minutes of the season finale. I sobbed because the writers wanted me to. I fell for their every trap because this episode had traps for EACH CHARACTER. This wasn't a game of "which girl from sex and the city are you" and how that corresponds to what you'd mess up in your life by your forties.

This episode had something for EVERY Chief, Dr. Bailey, Mer/Der, Addison, George, Callie, etc-- even Alex. If you identify in SOME sense with ANYONE on that damn show, you cried your eyes out for them tonight. FOR EVERYONE-- the other shoe dropped.

And I cried my eyes out for Izzie, because she was [--------] that close to thinking she had everything in the bag. Denny's surgery went well. They were going to get married. But behind door number three was a stroke. Blood clots. And a dinette set.

But instead, life threw her a curveball. I'm constantly watching for these. Like right now. Everything is great. My lame-ass job is almost done, a new one on the way, my relationships are in working order, my family is all here and healthy-- when is my other shoe going to drop? Who is going to die? Who is going to leave? Who is going to push me around? What is going to go wrong?

This is where I have completely immature problems. I cannot exactly separate fact and fiction in my brain after heart processes it. When I was watching this show, my niece has cancer, my boyfriend is dead, my boyfriend got shot, my girlfriend just shagged another dude in a hospital room, and I just let big secrets fall out of my fabulous latina-mouth on my skinny bad-haircutted-man-toy.

I understand this show is General Hospital with better writing at night. I understand these characters are FAKE, and that Ellen Pompeo has bigger fish to fry than McDreamy (more like McEating-Disorder.) But I cannot separate the emotional flogging that I just endured from my cozy apartment with all its ducks in a row. Instead I am here stuffing as much KT Tunstall and Amos Lee as I can into my ears and will probably go to bed with a sinking "you-watch-too much-television-and need-to-kill-off-some-excess-imagination-no-I-MEAN-it-this-time" feeling.

....Sssoooooooo when does season 3 start? I'm a glutton for punishment!

I'm a quitter

But I'm not very good at it. Sure there are lots of things that I don't "do" now that I used to "do". But I don't think actively saying "no, I shall not continue piano lessons through college" is the same thing as saying "Sorry, I'm leaving in a few weeks because other people are going to pay me more and it's going to rule". Not the SAME.

In fact, In my brain I still play the piano. I still do all the things I "quit". I still identify with all of that. I have a tendency to throw myself into everything I do and I really think I'm shaped by everything that I've done. Even if it's something lame, like 12 years of piano lessons.

Working here was like hanging onto a relationship that you should have gotten yourself out of ages ago. Everything is routine and you resent that, the ups are alright and the downs are a mess, you don't know who you are or who this other person is, and you take that frustration out each other. But somehow, you stay. And talk of leaving is hard to really examine. My job and I have had a rough run, and I'm ready to just shake hands, make peace, and walk away. Execpt make fun of it. Just a little. You know, when I'm with other people who have been there too. Cuz really, if you ONLY knew.

I also feel like I've done a bad job at keeping it a secret. Maybe it's because I felt like I owed the people I work with something more than just two weeks notice. Also, maybe I was afraid of quitting. A problem with being something of an introvert is that it sort of gets messed up with being self-centered. Sitting face to face with your boss and telling her about this awesome job offer you got and apologizing for leaving, and being so sorry is going to get you weird looks. Absolutely everyone here has been gracious, and congratulatory, and genuinely excited for me. And also, Hello-- they are going to get along just fine without me.

I'm 24 and in a job that people stay in for a year. In fact, I've had two jobs that they expect to have people in for a year-- back-to-back. It's my time. Give me two gold stars for surviving this long. They expect this, so why did I cry? (a little, I know)

I feel very weird about it. I've been here for nearly two years, and considering this was my first job out of college, and my first promotion, I think that's a long time. It's like my Freshman and Sophomore years of LIFE have gone on here, and I have routines and have figured things out, and L'SIGH it is SO MUCH CLOSER TO MY HOUSE. AND WHERE I GET MY HAIRCUT.

I'm feeling very zen about it. Maybe too zen. Like, I'm worried it was all a dream and I just confused the dream with real life and then I'll have no job. Change can be sort of a sticky mess, and for me generally it's pretty awful and not much goes my way and I have to kick and fight to patch everything up. There's no mess for me to clean up here, and that is REALLY weird.

I have nothing to do, not a whole lot to freak out about. I'm just sitting here filling out new healthcare forms. You can't spill ink when you fill them out online. This is just weird.

To the tune of "you don't make friends with sal-ad!"

I JUST GOT A NEW JOOO-OOB

I JUST GOT A NEW JOOO-OOOB!

Seriously, can't I just give you $12?

I went to Payless this afternoon on a total whim. There's all that bogo nonsense, and I had seen some adorable flats in Lucky magazine that I wanted. I love Lucky magazine, especially because I have a very lovely co-worker who BUYS it and then when she's done with it she passes it off to me.

THEN THE REAL FUN BEGINS. Those stickers Lucky gives you? Bring it on. I usually get a drink, turn on some TV that I can proceed to ignore, and then rip out the page of stickers full of "YES!" and "MAYBE" to lay on the pages where I see something I like. Or would like to like. Or need for further reference when I have to discuss it. Or if I want to buy a knock off of it.

This gives me such great personal joy I cannot even begin to describe. Just like the Simpsons episode when Marge says "I'll just sit here and think of products I'd like to purchase" and then she closes her eyes and hums.

This is my closed-eyed, humming times. Where I can afford to buy that tunic, because someone's told me it's "effortlessly chic", which are two things I like. No effort and looking "sooooo goood!"

But back to the flats. They're cute and like $11.99 or something. So I walked the three blocks to the Payless next to the SALSA (not Spanish, who are these people?) Safeway and stuck my feet in about a hundred pairs of shoes. I tried on nearly every shoe there in size 8 up to 9 1/2. AND NOTHING. There were like three pairs of the flats I was looking for in that store, and not my size, But one close.

I had to talk myself out of buying the cute flats in a 1/2 size too small thinking back to other payless shoes that made me bleed. But seriously, where were all the cute shoes in size 8 1/2 or 9? The two full aisle of 7's were sitting there untouched, but the big-boated ladies had nothing to choose from but heinousness and more heinousness. What gives?

OH. And while I'm on the subject of "what gives?" and Payless, WTF is going on with people wearing THESE monstrosities around? UGLOR. STOP IT. Especially those red ones. Did you read the description? It says GARDEN. KEEP THEM THERE.

So listen up, Payless. Next time I need to get an image of Star Jones hawking shoes out of my mind, and to do so I want to give you $12 for some 9-time-use footwear, be a peach AND TAKE IT.

Katatrophe: 0 Tylenol PM: 1

So yesterday, I walked home from the CVS with 228 pills in my bag. This was weird, purely because a) HELLO, that's a lot of pills and b) I felt like I needed a backpack and a good swagger and to play some house music, walking around looking a little dazed offering the goods to skinny girls with PLUR bracelets and pacifiers.

Well, maybe not. All I did was fill a prescription and buy Advil (necessary, long shift at the 2nd job catering on Sunday) and Tyenol PM, which was on sale for 8 bucks. EIGHT BUCKS! As I've written about before, I am not a great sleeper. It always takes me forever to fall asleep, a la when I get in bed it's at first with Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte on the WB and when I fall asleep my bedfellows have changed to Conan and Max Weinberg. When it's Wednesday night and I am up late worrying in bed, and those damned Ambien and Lunesta commercials come on, they ARE TALKING TO ME. I AM THEIR AUDIENCE. They tease. They taunt, "oh katastrophe, if only you weren't overly anxious, than you too would be dreaming of butterflies and puppies that we put in our commercials to soothe you."

So, EFF YOU BRAIN, I bought Tylenol PM. Baby step towards being soothed. I took some last night to ward off the monstrosity of a headache that I was dealing with and hopped into bed early, thinking I had tricked the system.

Ohhhhhh but on the contrary, Tylenol PM reigned supreme over both me, AND my brain.

Last night I had a dream that I was canoeing on a very flat river. Then, I saw a VERY large face that looked just like the dude on MAD magazine with a VERY large mouth gaping open and dove into it, with a backpack on my back and a snorkel. When I surfaced, I looked up and realized I was in a strange land. Middle-Earth-ish. Then I met up with a group of backpackers (who may or may not have been Australian) and they were like "WE ARE SWIMMING TO NORWAY!" and I was like "saaahh-weeeeet! I'm in" and so we put on flippers and swam in very shallow water UP STAIRS, AROUND TREES, and then on a very flat indoor studio that didn't look unlike the TLC's "Waterfalls" video set.

So after swimming, we surfaced at the beach. In Norway. Which was hot, by the way. Flat, flat, flat and then huge mountains in the background. Lots of people walking in crisp white bathing suits. You could see people skiing in the mountains in crisp white snow-bunny outfits. It was like Capri had thrown up on Norway and Michael Kors was their god. Then we hear shouts of "oh no, THE TIDAL WAVE IS COMING" and apparently, the tidal wave was ONLY for the non-Norwegian. Norwegians weren't susceptible to such conditions, so all us lowly backpackers had to go back down into the sand and swim back (yes, swim through the sand), this time UPSTAIRS.

One of the backpacker friends said that we could hide out at his mom's place, because the tidal wave wouldn't find us there, but we had to keep up. So I swam my little heart out and when we came up for air near his mom's house, they were all trolls living in gummed up pink and purple tee-pees, but for his mom, who was a woman I saw on TLC's What Not to Wear and somehow got mixed into the dream. I was the only one that could keep up so I went into his mom's house, which was a trailer. It was snowing in this troll heaven, and his mom gave me a flannel jacket and let me sleep on the pull-out-couch. I could see the teeth of the large mouth I had swam into high in the distance and I fell asleep on the couch looking at fish in a fishbowl thinking "if only I had gills". And then I realized that I was in fact, UNDER WATER. And all I could think was NOT "gasp! How can I breathe" but "gasp, my hair looks like THIS?"

What I don't get is the TLC waterfalls set conjoined with TLC's What Not To Wear. Too much TLC.

So thank you, Tylenol PM for such an engaging evening. Shall I meet you tomorrow, same time-- same place?

Wherein I make a bad hair analogy and run with it

It's officially the season for change. Temperatures are warming, hemlines are rising (Vogue said so this month, so it MUST be true), and all possibilities are on the mend.

Today, to celebrate these changes, I whacked off all my hair. It felt awesome. My hair used to be down past my shoulders and has been incrementally crawling upwards towards my ears. I had 5 or 6 interim chops that each felt so good, that I might be officially addicted to the drug of haircut-thrill. It's like, half the thrill of doing something bad (props to my fallen sister, Chloe, the eyebrow ring of angst, who lasted 10 months) but better than new-outfit thrill, THAT'S FOR SURE.

I had very short hair when I was a teenager. I cut it all off, from below shoulder length to quite short, thanks to some movie-inspiration. I had just seen Sliding Doors and the short hair business that Gwyneth Paltrow sported, and coveted it.

Ok, actually the longer story is this dude Mike, sat behind me in biology and would sing me the "Adams Family" theme song to me, because apparently my long, dark hair reminded him of Cousin Itt. I never appreciated this, but he seemed to think it was really funny. Perhaps in hindsight it is; my hair is very thick and there is a lot of it, and it had a tendency to be triangular in nature. So in the interest of about 60% spite, 40% get rid-of-5-lbs of hair, I chopped 11 inches of my hair off and showed up the next day and told him to shove it with a big grin.

Lately, I've been yearning to get back to the short-haired times. Short-haired times are the ones where I was optimistic-- hopeful for the future. I knew what I liked and I was in an emotional place where I was a little too naive to worry too much but just wise enough to worry some.

I feel more like MYSELF than I have in a long time, if that makes any sense at all. It's been a slow process of me re-acquainting myself with feelings of deja-vu in good ways. It's remembering what it's like to be into music, needing to hear a song because it's already coming up your throat and out your mouth but just didn't know the words. It's having outlets for creativity so you remember you are worth more than your cubicle and (in/de)flated job title. It's reading books you love to read because you sort of maybe wish you were British and in a hoopskirt, denying your love for Mr. so-and-so because he was cross with you once blah blah blah..... and you are unabashed about the daydreams thereof. It's being more connected with friends, and understanding sort of maybe even just a little where your insignificant speck belongs with the galaxy of others. It's about having my life sort itself out after the confetti of college-life hung in the air all sparkly and suspended and it's all gently getting reacquainted with where it will rest.

So, the short-haired-times are hopefully leading somewhere good, taking me back to a road I got tripped up on. I am a Taurus, and we are notorious for being resistant (or at least anxiety-prone) to change. But there's nothing more shocking than changing what looks back at you in the mirror, because you know that change was $45 and fleeting. But what's to come is worth more. After that, hopefully a (FINGERS CROSSED OH PLEASE OH PLEASE) new job and (FINGERS CROSSED OH PLEASE OH PLEASE) new apartment will just be the icing on my butterscotch krimpet.

Motherly Advice

I call my mom to discuss tomorrow's second interview for potential new-job glory.

I tell her everything I know and how excited I am for it.

I tell her I am nervous a little. I tell her I bought a new shirt to wear under suit for the occasion.

Her response?

"Oh Honey, just don't use the F-word and you'll be FINE."

Words of wisdom I shall carry with me for life. Thanks, Mom!

My Friend

is an internet sub-D list celebrity! It's Michael Goldberg!

His blog has been linked to by a site that has access to a large group of 14-year-old boys and therefore has found his target audience.

We befriended him lo these many years ago at GW for that very reason.

All I'll tell you about Goldberg is that he was involved in a very cruel yet very hilarious-in-hindsight prank involving me and my stuffed penguins.

OH yeah, internets, that's something embarrassing about me.

Hello, my name is katastrophe, and I am a girl who

a) still has stuffed animals (I know, I know. I'm THAT GIRL)

and

b) I have a penguin "thing". A collecting "thing". It's a problem. I know.

I was 18 and just finished taking my first college exam. I was over-caffeinated, sleep-deprived, and recovering from what would then be a pattern of pre-exam anxiety attacks that would grip me for about half a day, and only eventually let up a few hours after the exam when I could finally nap.

I came home to my freshman-year dorm room to find my door slightly ajar.

I FREAK.

Yes, we all sort of kept our doors open. It facilitated the borrowing of things and the notes to leave. But this was unusual. I ran up to my room and burst through the door. To my horror, I found my stuffed animals swinging by nooses around their necks from the ceiling, in some sort of stuffed animal suicide pact.

I gasped. I looked to the floor.

Strewn beneath them were all my class materials from THE WORST CLASS EVER THAT I TOOK IN COLLEGE: Attitudes towards DEATH AND DYING.

Yes, that's right. At 8am Mondays and Wednesday I got to learn about death, which was not limited to grief, psychologies of death, cultural attitudes towards death, and types of death. The professor collected funerary photography and shuffled about the campus ensconced in floral mumus and a morose air about her 400 lb self.

Back to the penguins-- which were gently swaying with the heat coming out of the vents, their glass eyes looking past me. It was like someone knew I was coming, and gave the penguins a good shove so that I would find them swinging. There was a suicide note, but I was too overcome to read it.

This was the icing on my panic attack cake. This was my 18-year-old breaking point. Before bills, job interviews, housing concerns and sort-of real life dicisions. These penguins were with me from a very early age, and are the closest thing I have to a security blanket. I had flitted around the backyard with one tucked under an arm on some sort of imaginary adventure as a child, snuggled with them to help me fall asleep as an awkward kid, and clutched them while I cried when high school boys broke my heart.

I did the only thing my exhaustion would let me do. I burst into tears. It was funny exactly 72 hours afterwards, but it was a great joke to return to. A la "It's not like she hung your penguins or anything! god!"

I think I let Goldberg have it for like, two WHOLE years. My tears weren't the desired outcome, and the culprits immediately tried to make me see the humor in it.

The college humor.

So have a heart. Visit CollegeHumor.com and click the link "banging the queen". Yes, that's what his blog entry is called. He's also linked at right, so checking him out that way is probably easier. In fact, bookmark him and read often.

He really will cream his pants if his site meter stats get any higher, so help a guy out who is living at home and going to law school IN NEW JERSEY. He could really use those nerd-rays of sunshine.

Let me say that again: HE IS LIVING AT HOME AND GOING TO LAW SCHOOL. IN NEW JERSEY.

Have pity, click on through.

The numbers on today

Number of women in obscene dark stretch denim cat-suit-type-things that were offensively tight and involved a jacket or shirt attached to a long skirt that made me gasp a little with their heinousness (not the ladies, but the get-ups): 3 (!!!!!)

Number of times I sighed deeply wishing for a new job: 17

Number of times I played web boggle and scored below 20: 5

Number of times I played web boggle and scored below 40: 11

Web boggle high score: 48

How many times I wished for a nap: 3

How many times I actually said slightly audibly "Damn I need a new job": 2

Number of times I closed my eyes and sighed with glee about how good my sandwich was: 2

Number of times I wished for more potato chips: 1

Number of times I tried to articulate in blog entry how weird today was and then scrapped it because I sounded like a whinny loser: 3

Number of times I was like "hmmm... blogs aren't just for complaining, you know": 2

Number of minutes I spent praying to the gods of the interviews that the interview place I went on would finally call me back. You said you would, place, and I know you take a long time BUT COME ON: 17

How long I spent online window shopping: 1.5 hours

What my time sheet will reflect: database clean up and donor research

Number of new blogs I started reading today: 3

How many times I wished to have Mischa Barton's new puppy as my own: 19,000

How many minutes spent trying new experiment of making tea in my nalgene and then putting it in the freezer and in 3 hours I have iced tea that is thick and delicious: 21 (here and there over the 3 hours)

How many tea bags that takes: 2

How many times I had to not think about cheese because I OD'ed on it last night at Banana Cafe: 6

How many references to my upcoming birthday did I make today: 9 (shameless!)

Number of engagements to which I am going tonight: 2

Number of beers I intend to consume: 5 - 7

Number of slices of pizza I wish for dinner: 1 (beers count as food tonight a little)

Probability that the Nat's game will be rained out tomorrow: 99%

How sad that makes me on a scale of 1 - 10 with 10 being the highest: 8

How many people I read about on the internet that quit their jobs today and made me salivate with envy: 3

Web boggle score for the word salivate: 7

Things I learned this weekend

In no particular order:

1.) Brisket is some pretty tasty stuff.

2.) Dog hair doesn't come out of pajama pants magically in the washing machine. Who knew you had to brush it off first? And wash things twice?

3.) Asti makes all family get-togethers even better. For AM Asti enjoyment, a mimosa. For PM Asti enjoyment, with some raspberries in the bottom of the glass. For anytime enjoyment, chug from bottle and wink at your cousin.

4.) Canal street is not a fun place to drag a little wheelie suitcase through, no matter HOW lost you are, HOW above asking for directions, HOW hot it is, and HOW you are SO-GOING-TO-MISS-THAT-CHINATOWN-BUS.

5.) It is worth getting lost in Chinatown to buy your mom a $2 pair of souvenir slippers because it made her day a little.

6.) Also worth it cuz you got yourself 2 pairs!

7.) Knitting these slippers wasn't as hard as I thought they would be. I can count, therefore; I knit. One slipper down, the other to go.

8.) Grey's Anatomy isn't going to be on until the 23rd. GRRRRR, ABC, GRRRR.

9.) Pennsylvania DMVs mean BUSINESS.

10.) And by BUSINESS, I mean make it clear how much of an idiot you are for not waiting for your camera card to get in the mail before you decide to prance into the photo center ready for some glamour shot of a new license that will be horizontal, not vertical like your UNDER 21 UNTIL APRIL 26, 2003 trading card.

11.) Attention PA drivers: That camera card is very important. Don't show up without it, lest Yvonne at the Rosemont DMV give you some 'tude for how dumb you are.

12.) Century Coach is vastly superior to Today's Bus.

13.) Some people, like the girl sitting next to me on one of my busses, would like a tattoo of an oversize octopus sitting in a lifeguard chair on a lovely shoreline.

14.) Other people at one point wanted a tattoo of Kermit on their stomach.

15.) Dave's parents two favorite stories about him as a child involve polka and a gerbil named "Husky" respectively.

16.) You can't go wrong in a sort-of-smelly Chinese restaurant with sweet and sour pork.

17.) Teen night at a local Peruvian bar is probably the scariest thing you could possibly imagine.

18.) When in doubt, shamelessly tease your boyfriend in front of his parents to gain their respect.

19.) Swiffer Wet Jet is probably the most amazing invention since pasteurization.

20.) Scrapple contains some nast pig bits. That's why it's delicious!

21.) Seltzer water is a gift from God.

22.) Septa makes me sleepy.

23.) Amtrak makes me hungry

24.) My brother Neal makes a kick ass power point presentation.

25.) My brother Kevin leaves ridiculous messages on my cousin's facebook page.

26.) I am officially too old to talk about facebook.

27.) Wawa's 2 soft pretzels for 99 cents is something to call home about.

28.) I still remember how to drive.

29.) I am impressed my 17-year-old brother Neal listens to more NPR than I do. He is well on his way to yuppie-dom.

30.) Rita's Water Ice is just as good as I remembered it.

31.) My family on both sides have the following general characteristics: Loud, hungry, gossipy, bossy and nosey.

32.) Confusing Penn station and Grand Central station is dumb when you proclaim your deep conviction that the ATM you need is there, only to realize after a few laps around that you are in the other station.

33.) Amtrak employees mumble. Both on the PA and off.

34.) When in your parents house for 24 hours, eat as much food as you can, no matter how un-hungry you are. You'll relish the memory of those 4 oreos later in your oreo-less house.

35.) Bassett hounds are a little stinky, but OH so lovable.

Playing Catch up

We all have reading that piles up on us. First it's summer reading as a kid, then reading in college that you skim the night before, and then the adult version: the publication pile-up.

Right now I only get 2 magazines, Vogue and Vogue Knitting. The DK complains of the Economist or Foreign Affairs stacking up on his desk (snobs, the both of us). I used to get Glamour in Spanish but that subscription had run its course. It was always the month behind gringa Glamour, and really, once you know the Spanish words for thong, doggie-style, and lip-liner I feel the novelty had passed.

My roommate works with lots of publications, hence we have lots of them sitting around the house. This makes for extra pile-up reading, because now you feel the need to read things that you didn't know you needed to read. Like Mother Jones. Or The New Republic.

[Sidenote: I refused to let myself be the kind of lady who writes about things I've read to show how interesting/well-read/globally connected/better than you I am. I understand that they have their audiences and I read blogs like that, but that's not my intent for this space be book report-ville.]

However, I read a really interesting article regarding the New York Times in The New Republic, and its abundance of luxury porn. And I have to say that I fall for it, in the New York Times, and elsewhere-- hook, line, and sinker.

Hello, My name is Katastrophe, and I am a luxury-porn addict.

I am a devour-er of all sorts of luxury porn. Note my shortlist of magazines. Sometimes I swindle co-workers into giving me Vanity Fair and Dwell. I have apartment therapy bookmarked at work AND at home so I can get my fill of design/apartment/modernist porn. I get Daily Candy DC because hell, of COURSE I want to know about where to get sleek French underthings and buttery soft handbags in the District and it's posher outlying suburbs. I watch Cribs and The Fabulous Life of...... . I troll the goss blogs. I hear Oprah says it's good being rich.

Luxury porn is everywhere, and I lap it up al fresco in a plastic bowl outside the fence of the cafe du you'll-never-have-a-Prada-dress-though-it's-been-a-life-goal-
since-you-could-spell-Prada.

I don't get paid a whole lot. I work a small-time gig. I won't buy wine that's more than $15.99. I go out to lunch maybe once a month. H&M is more how I roll. The most expensive handbag I ever purchased was $45 at Loehmanns because it's the closest thing to turquoise butteriness I could ever hope to afford.

I don't think I've ever had "rich" on a list of my aspirations. I'd like to not fret everytime I check my balance online, but I don't need to be wearing that Prada dress every day, and wouldn't appreciate it if I had a whole closet-full. Part of luxury porn is seducing you with and desensitizing you to wealth, price, and what you are worth. It's like I don't blink when I see how much dresses cost in Vogue, or bat an eye that a rapper with the word "Lil" before some sort of animal noise as a name makes more money that I ever will, and has the closet to show for it.

What the article had to say was that the New York Times wasn't always put in that position. People like me GET Vogue for the fashion-porn (and yikes, Dolce and Gabbana, your ads are porn-porn) and to step into actress's French mansions, Christian Louboutin stilettos, and Narciso Rodriguez gowns. Which is worse-- getting your luxury porn where you know you can find it, or turning to every day sources for fur scrunchies? (yes, they actually referred to them in said article).

Fur scrunchies? Shouldn't that send out the signal for collective vomiting throughout Manhattan?

But I digress. It made me wonder why I seek out luxury porn. I'd like to say it's because I am grooming my good taste for the future, when I can look at Vogue and then find a knock-off that isn't so knock-y--off-y. It's for ripping pages out and bringing them to Ikea, to H&M and to Target. But when I am faced with spending money, I balk at prices on clothing that Anna Wintour wouldn't blow her nose with.

I would say for someone my age, I live in luxury. I have a roof over my head that isn't my parents', a double bed with soft sheets, food in the fridge, clothes rattling in the dryer, some disposable income for booze and the occasional savings for some sandals. This is enough for me now, but I worry there will come a day where that won't do.


P.S. ha ha oooh the web statistics on site-meter are going to be HILARIOUS with the use of the word "porn" so frequently.