it's cold, it's snowy, it's windy. this type of weather is what people expect for the super bowl, not game three of the alcs. but it's michigan, and you never can be too sure.
i'm rushing home today after work, meeting b and rk at home, and we'll all pile onto our bed (because the tv is in the bedroom - it's a small apartment, what can i say?) with a big bowl of popcorn and watch kenny rogers ... i can't say it. mitch albom can say it. but i can't. i can't tell you that i've been looking at the prices of flights to detroit, next weekend ... to watch a game (even if from a bar downtown) that may or may not happen ... i can't say it not only because i'm not sure if i'd laugh or cry while saying it, but also because i can't jinx it for b. he seemed almost depressed after game four against the yankees, because i think he was afraid they'd break his heart, this team. the pain of losing, the further we get into november, will i think increase as well.
that's why i can't say it. i won't tell you what i'm thinking. (i can't.)
Friday, October 13, 2006
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
prank calls and giggles
it is frightful how quickly i can regress back to seventh grade.
my morning round of internet putzing led me to some of the most fun i've had in a while.
for free, you can put your number (please.) on dwight schrute's call list. obviously, i've been going through every number in my cell phone and placing my fellow office watchers on the list. prank calling, and waiting for a reaction. will they know it's me?* that i'm the culprit? good, clean fun.
so next time your phone rights from an unknown number, be ready. it might be dwight berating you for not being adult enough to show up at work on time.
*(probably they will. who else has this kind of time on their hands? and in the epic battle between prank calls and reading about complex litigation, who do you think wins?)
my morning round of internet putzing led me to some of the most fun i've had in a while.
for free, you can put your number (please.) on dwight schrute's call list. obviously, i've been going through every number in my cell phone and placing my fellow office watchers on the list. prank calling, and waiting for a reaction. will they know it's me?* that i'm the culprit? good, clean fun.
so next time your phone rights from an unknown number, be ready. it might be dwight berating you for not being adult enough to show up at work on time.
*(probably they will. who else has this kind of time on their hands? and in the epic battle between prank calls and reading about complex litigation, who do you think wins?)
Sunday, October 08, 2006
sunday morning
and a fine october sunday morning it is.
the detroit skyline, from comerica park, the home of the tigers.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Jim: Ever since I was a little kid, like eight or nine, I could sort of control things with my mind. Dwight: I don't believe you, continue.
it's friday, dreary. a slow, cold, rainy day that demands mid-day naps on the couch under heaps of blankets, not updating databases and running reports.
something had to be done to save this day.
as i watched a fellow office mate spend four minutes scrubbing up to her elbows in the ladies' room, i had an idea. maybe it's my inner jim. who's to say. whatever triggered the impulse, it seemed like the perfect way to liven up a friday afternoon.
13:15 EST - coast is clear. entered the ladies room. placed open lipstick on the shelf by the mirror, in case some came in and i had to look busy. jimmied open the toilet seat cover dispenser and took out the full pack. quickly stuffed into the garbage. closed the dispenser. washed hands a few times - part homage to irony, part hoping to fill the garbage up with paper towels to cover the confiscated paper seat covers.
13:17 EST - inform office co-conspirator of my plan. waited until after the deed was done - didn't want to be talked out of it.
13:18 EST - loud guffaws from the co-conspirator's office. plan well-received.
13:19 EST - back in my cube. am close enough to the restroom to hear the door open and close (and the toilet flush. that discussion is for another day). the clock on the wall ticks loudly, like a little unsanitary bomb just waiting to go off. i wait.
13:54 EST - the janitor makes an unscheduled mid-day appearance to the sixth floor. am giddy that my plan has already worked.
13:58 EST - janitor leaves.
13:59 EST - check the ladies room. no new paper seat covers, but the dispenser has been opened. the cover hangs down, announcing to the world that it's empty. who opened it?
14:02 EST - an unidentified woman enters the ladies room (use astute deduction skills to assume it's a woman because she entered the ladies room). some rustling, no toilet flush. exits the ladies room.
14:04 EST - fake sniffle like i have to blow my nose so cube-mate won't get suspicious. re-enter ladies' room for inspection.
14:04 EST - confirm to co-conspirator that paper toilet seat covers have been replaced.
14:07-10 EST - notice three famously germ-a-phobic women enter ladies room. decided i must come up with a plan to uncover the head germ-a-phob narc.
14:13 EST - realize i still have three hours before i can go home. crap.
something had to be done to save this day.
as i watched a fellow office mate spend four minutes scrubbing up to her elbows in the ladies' room, i had an idea. maybe it's my inner jim. who's to say. whatever triggered the impulse, it seemed like the perfect way to liven up a friday afternoon.
13:15 EST - coast is clear. entered the ladies room. placed open lipstick on the shelf by the mirror, in case some came in and i had to look busy. jimmied open the toilet seat cover dispenser and took out the full pack. quickly stuffed into the garbage. closed the dispenser. washed hands a few times - part homage to irony, part hoping to fill the garbage up with paper towels to cover the confiscated paper seat covers.
13:17 EST - inform office co-conspirator of my plan. waited until after the deed was done - didn't want to be talked out of it.
13:18 EST - loud guffaws from the co-conspirator's office. plan well-received.
13:19 EST - back in my cube. am close enough to the restroom to hear the door open and close (and the toilet flush. that discussion is for another day). the clock on the wall ticks loudly, like a little unsanitary bomb just waiting to go off. i wait.
13:54 EST - the janitor makes an unscheduled mid-day appearance to the sixth floor. am giddy that my plan has already worked.
13:58 EST - janitor leaves.
13:59 EST - check the ladies room. no new paper seat covers, but the dispenser has been opened. the cover hangs down, announcing to the world that it's empty. who opened it?
14:02 EST - an unidentified woman enters the ladies room (use astute deduction skills to assume it's a woman because she entered the ladies room). some rustling, no toilet flush. exits the ladies room.
14:04 EST - fake sniffle like i have to blow my nose so cube-mate won't get suspicious. re-enter ladies' room for inspection.
14:04 EST - confirm to co-conspirator that paper toilet seat covers have been replaced.
14:07-10 EST - notice three famously germ-a-phobic women enter ladies room. decided i must come up with a plan to uncover the head germ-a-phob narc.
14:13 EST - realize i still have three hours before i can go home. crap.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
on feeling out of place here in october
tigers, meet october. october, tigers. been a while.
thanks to some sudden storms in new york last night, i found myself in the law school lounge today with my lunch, headphones plugged into the laptop and listening to detroit sport radio and trying to contain my anxiety. when verlander wiggled his way out of the bases loaded early in the game, i was giddy and ready to yell, but quickly noticed all the popped-collared 23-year-olds around me yelling at their laptops.
being a midwesterner in dc, i know i'm out of place. even more so where i go to school. but i felt a more profound difference click into place. after game one, i did a little research and had discovered that the yankees' payroll (as of april) was $194.6 million. the tigers: $82.6 million. the tigers' payroll is 42% the size of the yankees'. every starter in the yanks' lineup has been to the all-star game at least once (in fact, the only guy who's only been once is batting ninth). when you buy an all-star team, how are the rest of us supposed to compete? it's elitist. and it's not right.
elitist. now i've been accused (perhaps rightly so) of being elitist ... but it's somehow different. i realized that if i had engaged any of the popped collars about the difference in payroll and how that was just fundamentally unfair ... i don't think i would have been well-received. maybe i'm a work-ethic elitist. i think that money shouldn't get you places, hard work should. i just don't think it's authentic, and what i love about baseball is that it's - authentic. largely unchanged by technology (steroids notwithstanding, another scolding blog to come another day). genuine. unpredictable. at the whim of the baseball gods or karma or (sometimes i believe) how determinedly i can cross my fingers and hope.
the tigers, of course, took the day. back to detroit for two games, needing only those two to send the dynasty money built back to the bronx. who can say what will happen. but as i sit in class with the students whose parents have bought them beemers and are footing the six-figure law school bill, private school from age 5, never having known what it's like to know their parents can't pay the mortgage (i'm looking at you, catgirl - you too, R)... the fact that sometimes midwesterners with strong work ethics and no pedigree can hang with the popped collars - it wasn't lost on me.
p.s. not sure why it's saying i posted this yesterday. i'm not psychic. the date is just wrong.
thanks to some sudden storms in new york last night, i found myself in the law school lounge today with my lunch, headphones plugged into the laptop and listening to detroit sport radio and trying to contain my anxiety. when verlander wiggled his way out of the bases loaded early in the game, i was giddy and ready to yell, but quickly noticed all the popped-collared 23-year-olds around me yelling at their laptops.
being a midwesterner in dc, i know i'm out of place. even more so where i go to school. but i felt a more profound difference click into place. after game one, i did a little research and had discovered that the yankees' payroll (as of april) was $194.6 million. the tigers: $82.6 million. the tigers' payroll is 42% the size of the yankees'. every starter in the yanks' lineup has been to the all-star game at least once (in fact, the only guy who's only been once is batting ninth). when you buy an all-star team, how are the rest of us supposed to compete? it's elitist. and it's not right.
elitist. now i've been accused (perhaps rightly so) of being elitist ... but it's somehow different. i realized that if i had engaged any of the popped collars about the difference in payroll and how that was just fundamentally unfair ... i don't think i would have been well-received. maybe i'm a work-ethic elitist. i think that money shouldn't get you places, hard work should. i just don't think it's authentic, and what i love about baseball is that it's - authentic. largely unchanged by technology (steroids notwithstanding, another scolding blog to come another day). genuine. unpredictable. at the whim of the baseball gods or karma or (sometimes i believe) how determinedly i can cross my fingers and hope.
the tigers, of course, took the day. back to detroit for two games, needing only those two to send the dynasty money built back to the bronx. who can say what will happen. but as i sit in class with the students whose parents have bought them beemers and are footing the six-figure law school bill, private school from age 5, never having known what it's like to know their parents can't pay the mortgage (i'm looking at you, catgirl - you too, R)... the fact that sometimes midwesterners with strong work ethics and no pedigree can hang with the popped collars - it wasn't lost on me.
p.s. not sure why it's saying i posted this yesterday. i'm not psychic. the date is just wrong.
Monday, October 02, 2006
An open letter to the germ-a-phobs who work in my office building
I’ve been meaning to write this letter for a while now, but today’s ridiculous events have convinced me that it’s high-time we’ve had a talk, ladies. This event, of course, is when apparently a code-blue alert was issued upon our ladies room running out of paper toilet seat covers.
I mean, you called the janitor?
You. Called. The. Janitor.
Um, yes, is this the emergency janitorial central headquarters? Yes, I need to report that a restroom on the sixth floor of the coldest office building in the metro DC area has run out of paper toilet seat covers. Yes. Just now. Please hurry!
Nevermind that we’re getting frostbite on our typing fingers and I think one of the penguins that has taken up in the back cubicle has it out for me. No, no. Paper toilet seat covers. Priorities.
It might be important to note that there are probably 12-15 women on my floor, and we share a three-stall restroom. I’ve been in some skanky bathrooms, and I assure you that this one is fine. Seriously. Yet, the majority of the middle-aged women on this floor insist on the paper toilet seat cover and wash their hands like their prepping for brain surgery. And god forbid they’d have to touch the sink handle with their … actual … skin. Ladies. What in the name of all things holy do you expect to catch in this bathroom?!
Let me assure you that I’m a clean person. In fact, I even have a little Purell bottle on my keychain. Just in case. Ok, I get cleanliness! But my god this isn’t the kind of bathroom where a doctor is having sex with a dying patient in a bar! This is an office building. It’s an office building that’s cleaned regularly. And you push paper, not clots through someone’s arteries.
Heretofore, I’ve just laughed at the strange, collective, germ-a-phobia that engulfs my office. But please, ladies, let’s just not make the nice janitor lady cut her lunch short so you can place that thin piece of paper between your deriere and the porcelain, hm?
I mean, you called the janitor?
You. Called. The. Janitor.
Um, yes, is this the emergency janitorial central headquarters? Yes, I need to report that a restroom on the sixth floor of the coldest office building in the metro DC area has run out of paper toilet seat covers. Yes. Just now. Please hurry!
Nevermind that we’re getting frostbite on our typing fingers and I think one of the penguins that has taken up in the back cubicle has it out for me. No, no. Paper toilet seat covers. Priorities.
It might be important to note that there are probably 12-15 women on my floor, and we share a three-stall restroom. I’ve been in some skanky bathrooms, and I assure you that this one is fine. Seriously. Yet, the majority of the middle-aged women on this floor insist on the paper toilet seat cover and wash their hands like their prepping for brain surgery. And god forbid they’d have to touch the sink handle with their … actual … skin. Ladies. What in the name of all things holy do you expect to catch in this bathroom?!
Let me assure you that I’m a clean person. In fact, I even have a little Purell bottle on my keychain. Just in case. Ok, I get cleanliness! But my god this isn’t the kind of bathroom where a doctor is having sex with a dying patient in a bar! This is an office building. It’s an office building that’s cleaned regularly. And you push paper, not clots through someone’s arteries.
Heretofore, I’ve just laughed at the strange, collective, germ-a-phobia that engulfs my office. But please, ladies, let’s just not make the nice janitor lady cut her lunch short so you can place that thin piece of paper between your deriere and the porcelain, hm?
Saturday, September 30, 2006
shame on them.
this is frightening. how is it ok to think that we need to indoctrinate youth in america like they are in pakistan? really? this is really what our nation is coming to? seriously.
these people are exploiting their children for their political beliefs and it's disguisting.
shame on them.
these people are exploiting their children for their political beliefs and it's disguisting.
shame on them.
how many years of college does it take to change a lightbulb? is 15 enough? UPDATED
i'm afraid of my car. on a few levels. sometimes on bridges, i have images of being thrown off the side like that yugo that sailed off the mackinac bridge when i was a kid. but more than that, i'm scared of taking care of my car. i can get the oil changed, but whenever something comes up that requires a [gulp] mechanic, it tends to turn me from a confident, educated modern woman to a bumbling, frightened, shaking sucker. and i'm pretty sure they have some kind of sensor at garages that sense fear. i must send it off the chart.
my check engine light has been for years. years. after about six traumatizing visits to the mechanic, i stopped going. now, i get scared when the check engine light turns off. lately, the driver's side headlight has been on the fritz. for a while, just pounding the light a few times would jolt it back to life, like those shock paddles they have in the emergency room. but it stopped working. this morning, out of nowhere after breakfast, B and i had a gust of bravery and stopped at the auto supply store to buy our own headlight. we're smart, educated, clever people. surely we can change a simple headlight, right?
make sure not to touch that glass with your finger, the cashier said. otherwise, it will probably explode. m'kay. B had read the owner's manual, and it looked pretty straightforward. this cashier was probably just trying to freak us out.
so we came home and lugged all our tools down to the parking garage. B was excited to prove his testosterone levels. the excitement quickly turned to cursing those crazy south koreans that built my car. not his car, of course. my car. (note: any of you that have ever enjoyed even one beer with B knows all too well his disdain for foreign cars. he, of course, will only own an american car. he refuses to put his name on the title of the kia. no joke. so, obviously, if this were an american car, the headlight wouldn't have even burned out, according to B. and if it did, changing it would be nothing short of a delight.)
ninety minutes, a brief moment where B thought he should remove the side panel of the car, and a google consultation later, we decided to discard the stupid owner's manual's directions and just took out the battery. from there, it was a quick job to get that old bulb out and shove the new one in. (B touched it quickly, but it didn't explode. nice.) and there was only one little spark when B was rehooking the battery. mission accomplished.
but imagine my surprise when i hopped in the car to run to the grocery store. (B needed celery - he's making homemade chicken soup for dinner. DAMN i love this man.) it wasn't until i was pulling out of the parage garage that i noticed it.
the check engine light.
it isn't on anymore. gulp.
UPDATE: the check engine light is back. phew.
my check engine light has been for years. years. after about six traumatizing visits to the mechanic, i stopped going. now, i get scared when the check engine light turns off. lately, the driver's side headlight has been on the fritz. for a while, just pounding the light a few times would jolt it back to life, like those shock paddles they have in the emergency room. but it stopped working. this morning, out of nowhere after breakfast, B and i had a gust of bravery and stopped at the auto supply store to buy our own headlight. we're smart, educated, clever people. surely we can change a simple headlight, right?
make sure not to touch that glass with your finger, the cashier said. otherwise, it will probably explode. m'kay. B had read the owner's manual, and it looked pretty straightforward. this cashier was probably just trying to freak us out.
so we came home and lugged all our tools down to the parking garage. B was excited to prove his testosterone levels. the excitement quickly turned to cursing those crazy south koreans that built my car. not his car, of course. my car. (note: any of you that have ever enjoyed even one beer with B knows all too well his disdain for foreign cars. he, of course, will only own an american car. he refuses to put his name on the title of the kia. no joke. so, obviously, if this were an american car, the headlight wouldn't have even burned out, according to B. and if it did, changing it would be nothing short of a delight.)
ninety minutes, a brief moment where B thought he should remove the side panel of the car, and a google consultation later, we decided to discard the stupid owner's manual's directions and just took out the battery. from there, it was a quick job to get that old bulb out and shove the new one in. (B touched it quickly, but it didn't explode. nice.) and there was only one little spark when B was rehooking the battery. mission accomplished.
but imagine my surprise when i hopped in the car to run to the grocery store. (B needed celery - he's making homemade chicken soup for dinner. DAMN i love this man.) it wasn't until i was pulling out of the parage garage that i noticed it.
the check engine light.
it isn't on anymore. gulp.
UPDATE: the check engine light is back. phew.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
a new, remarkable low
six law student volunteers pretending they are lawyers, one socially awkward professor, lights too low, illegible fake jury directions. a crowd of blank, dull eyes stare back as crazy t states her case.
two in front of me: myspace.
one in front and to the right: paying verizon bill.
even H checked her email.
one in front and to the left: solitaire.
a few over: shopping.
it's an accurate representation.
and me? reading an entire script from an episode of the office. from season 2.
today, ladies and gentleman, we have reached a truly remarkable low.
sigh.
UPDATE: in the front, to the left: reading the maryland poison center website. wtf. maybe brain poisoning. from boredom.
wrest from the cold hands of a right-wing conspiracy
it's a beautiful thing to see lady justice twart the vast right-wing conspiracy that brought down the most popular politician in macomb county, michigan for 20 years ... thank god it took only his political career, not his freedom.
B and i couldn't be happier.
B and i couldn't be happier.
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