Operation Pink Herring

Quittin' time

I was supposed to go back to work today. But it's 9:30am and I'm still in my pajamas, and that's not because I overslept on my first day back (although that's totally something I would have anxiety about, and then not sleep because I was worried about oversleeping, and then be so tired that I didn't even hear the alarm in the morning). I'm not going back. I informed my office of this decision a few weeks ago, and now the day is here. The day I was supposed to go back, but did not. The day I guess it becomes really official: I'm a stay-at-home-mom now. 

I've always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. It's what I saw myself doing when I was a kid and I thought about the great, unknowable future. It's something Joel and I talked about and agreed on long before we were even engaged. It was the plan from the moment that we decided to try to get pregnant.

But then Hannah was born. And those first few weeks... they were awful. Really, truly awful. I feel terrible saying that, but it's the truth. I don't ever want to go through that again. Except, we want more kids, so I guess I will just hope the adjustment period is hardest with the first one. Don't tell me if that's not true. I don't want to know.

I don't know why it was so bad, exactly. Part of it is hormones. Oh, the hormones. You can know that you're feeling like shit because of hormones, but that doesn't make you feel any less shitty in the moment. And then there's the lack of sleep. As a veteran insomniac, I thought I knew a thing or two about lack of sleep. I knew nothing. I can totally understand why sleep deprivation is a method of torture. Despair sets in pretty quickly when you haven't slept for more than two hours in a row for two weeks. And then there's the permanence of it all. Well-wishers kept telling us to "treasure these moments!" and "enjoy every minute!" and all I could think was that we'd made a terrible mistake. And oh, I felt guilty for feeling like that. Raging hormones, intense sleep deprivation, and a crushing sense of guilt and despair. Plus, the crying. The endless crying. And the fact that you spend your entire day feeling like you have absolutely no idea what you're doing. Because you don't.  Yeah, I don't think "baby blues" is a strong enough term. It's right up there with "moodiness" on my list of things that need a better name.

In the midst of those brutal weeks, I also had myself a nice little life crisis. Because all my life I'd thought I wanted to stay at home with my kids and Joel and I had worked really hard for a really long time to put ourselves in a financial position where that would be possible and all of a sudden it turned out maybe I had changed my mind. In fact, I found myself fantasizing about going in to the office, where I wouldn't need to feed anyone but myself, for a few hours. Where no one would be crying for five hours straight every single day.

They were dark days, is what I'm saying. One night I was awake at 4am scrolling through my reader on my phone while Hannah was feeding and I came across this post by Sundry. I started crying (and then quickly stopped myself because I realized that I couldn't get out of bed to blow my nose with a baby attached to my boob). People had been telling us that it was going to get better, but no one had come right out and said that this infant thing just kind of sucked. Conversely, people seemed to actually MISS the newborn stage. Why? I could not figure out what there was to miss and I was terrified that something was wrong with me and I didn't love my baby enough. It was so good to read someone else say what I'd been feeling: that this whole stage kind of blew.

Spoiler alert: it got better. Gradually, but perceptibly. One afternoon about four weeks in, Joel and I took Hannah for a walk in the stroller and I told him I felt like things were getting better every day. "Don't you think things are getting better?" I asked him. "They're getting better because you're feeling better," he answered. He was exhausted and tired and worn out, but he didn't suffer like I did those first few weeks. I don't know if that's because I was the one saddled with breastfeeding, or if it was because I saw an eternity of being home alone with the baby stretching in front of me while he went back to work after a week. Maybe I had mild postpartum depression. I don't know. All I know is it got better, and I am very thankful for that.

Still, quitting my job was harder than I thought. I'd wistfully fantasized about getting pregnant so I could quit my job on a daily basis, back when I hated my job. But I didn't hate this job. I actually liked it quite a bit. I was good at it and it paid fairly well and in the current economy it felt a little bit like madness to walk away from such a good situation. 

Maybe it was madness. I never said I wasn't crazy.

I didn't expect it to be such a hard decision, not when it wasn't really a decision at all. We'd made up our minds about this a long time ago, and maybe that's why it was difficult. I looove to second guess myself, especially under the influence of postpartum hormones and sleep deprivation. But this is what's right for our family -- and truly, that's what we are now, a family -- and trust me, I know how lucky I am to have this as an option.

And I do feel lucky. Two months ago I did not. But those of you who said it would get better were so, so right. It got better. It keeps getting better. And I can't wait.

But at least I didn't mention Twilight

One of my coworkers rides the Baltimore metro to work in the mornings. The Baltimore metro is a whole post in itself, but to make a long story short: there is only one line. It goes from a random suburb into downtown, so only people who need to travel along its non-sensical route can make use of it. Largely it is populated by crazy and/or homeless people who ride it around aimlessly. My coworker often regales us with stories of the insanity she witnesses on her 10-minute ride to work.

This morning she told us she'd seen a painfully young mother dragging her two-year-old down the metro stairs, shouting "Come on Muggles! We've got to catch the Hogwarts Express so we can do some magic!"

There was some discussion of how this was a cute way to get her child to hurry for the train. And it is! Except... it doesn't make sense. And I really tried to keep my mouth shut, but I couldn't. 

"Heh, I wonder if her kid is going to hate that nickname when he gets older and reads Harry Potter for himself." [Blank stares] "'Muggle' is kind of an insult." [More blank stares] "Because... muggles can't do magic?"

"No, that's not true," another woman replied. "Hermione was a muggle and she did magic."

Oh, dear.

"Well, actually, Hermione was muggle-born." I clarified. "Her parents are muggles but she is a witch. That's why purists like Draco made fun of her. Her parents can't do magic. Because they're muggles. And muggles can't do magic."

"Oh."

And now I can never come to work again.

Adios, 2010

Annual New Year's quiz thing time!  I love reading other people's responses to this quiz every year, and here's to hoping that you do too. 2007, 2008, and 2009 versions, should you care to look.

1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Got a job that I did not hate. Started a (*cough*prize-winning) garden. Celebrated a year of marriage.  Started composting. Crafted a homemade Christmas wreath. Learned how to (sort of) knit.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?I have fallen out of the habit of making real resolutions because I didn't really like the pressure I put on myself to achieve each and every one of them.  Since one of my resolutions several years running was to be less hard on myself, I'd say that means yes, yes I did keep my resolutions.

I did informally resolve to go to yoga more this year, meaning I wanted to clock at least 53 classes during 2010.  Going once a week has been my norm for several years and it's pretty easy to fit in one class on the weekends, but it gets tricky when we go out of town or have company and I then have to try to "make up" the missed class.  In 2009 I just barely squeaked out 52 classes, thanks to the month I took off for the wedding/honeymoon, the three weeks I was incapacitated after my knee surgery, and the ridiculous amount of traveling I did for work, my brother's wedding and related activities, my wedding shower/bachelorette party, friends' weddings... etc. Anyway, this year was much calmer on the travel and wedding side, and I clocked in 64 classes. I'm quite proud! I am signed up for a teacher training course that starts in February, and the course requires that I go to three classes per week (OMG) so next year's tally will be even higher.

I also kind of resolved to lose some of the extra weight I'd been carrying and get into better shape, and I'd say I did fairly well at that. The last time I weighed in at the gym I'd lost a total of about 6-7 lbs. Sadly, that weigh-in was almost a month ago and I haven't been to the gym since then. I have no good reason other than I just never feel like going, even though the damn gym is right in my office building now.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes, the newly pregnant friend mentioned in last year's survey gave birth to an adorable baby boy! 

4. Did anyone close to you die? Thankfully, no, but I am a little afraid that Madison's name will be in this space next year. The old badger is not looking so good lately, and by that I mean he is looking even worse than usual. He's due for his annual vet visit this month which should be a rocking good time, as always.

5. What countries did you visit?This is the first year in a good long while that has not seen a stamp on the old passport.  We did go to Colorado for our anniversary in July, and we made a visit to Vermont in October... but other than that and several weekend/daytrips to New Jersey, we pretty much stayed put.

6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? A new job for Joel, complete with a new location for us.

7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? April 2nd, my last day at my old job, and April 12, my start date at my new job.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?  Getting a new job; realizing that it is possible to not only not hate your job, but to actually like it.

9. What was your biggest failure? I'm really not sure.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I am getting really sick of listing my knee for this question. Guess who's back in physical therapy? THIS GIRL. My settlement had better be very large is all I'm saying.

11. What was the best thing you bought? I'm having trouble coming up with something for this question, possibly because we tried really, really hard to put as much money into savings as possible this year. I did buy this pursein August and I love it, like, a lot. The Groupon for 5 Bikram yoga classes for $20 was an excellent purchase, and we've been getting a lot of mileage out of our Netflix via Xbox live acount as well.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Same answer as last year: Joel's. I would be lost without him.  

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?  Appalled: People who cannot shut the hell up in the movies.  Depressed: Apostrophe abusers.

14. Where did most of your money go? The mortgage was far and away our biggest expense this year.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Quitting my old job. I miss certain things, most notably my old coworkers, but on the whole I am so, so, SO happy to be free of that place.

16. What song will always remind you of 2010? Zero, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Help I'm Alive and Stadium Love by Metric.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
(a) Happier or Sadder? Happier.
(b) Thinner or Fatter? Thinner.
(c) Richer or Poorer? Richer. 

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Hiking. Writing.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?  Sitting around wondering what we should do on the weekends.

20. How did you spend Christmas in 2010?  Christmas kind of blended in with the rest of my week-long vacation this year, which is just fine with me. We stayed home, slept in, watched Scrooged (which I'd never seen before) and then I screwed up our Christmas Ham (which was actually a shoulder roast, but whatever) but it turned out delicious anyway. Christmas was lovely.

21. Did you fall in love in 2010? With Raylan Givens, yes.

22. What was your favorite TV program? Justified. Walking Dead is a close second.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?  Every single one of the stupid hooligans that ruined a movie for me this year by yelling through the whole damn thing. 

24. What was the best book you read? I didn't have a standout best book this year, but here are the books I really enjoyed:

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Watership Down by Richard Adams (This was a re-read, and I think I loved it even more than I did in high school.)

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand 

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Shiver and Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Hey, speaking of books, are you on Goodreads? Me too! Want to be my friend?

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?  Metric. My god, they are good. Also, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

26. What did you want and get?  A new job!  

27. What did you want and not get?  A new job for Joel. And a new house.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?  I always have to ask Joel for help with this question, so here are our combined favorites:

How to Train Your Dragon. You guys, this is the cutest movie ever.

Inception. Lived up to the hype!

True Grit. As discussed.

The Town. Even though this movie was totally ruined for me, once again, by loud punk-ass kids in the theater. At the 2pm showing. IS NOTHING SACRED. 

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?  I turned 29, and I cannot remember for the life of me what I did.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?  Having more than one closet and a dedicated parking space.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010? Jeans, Jcrew tshirt, hoodie and Privos.

32. What kept you sane?  Quitting my old job. This is getting a little repetitive, but I don't know how much longer I was going to survive in that basement dungeon. 

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Tie, between Timothy Olyphant and Georges St-Pierre. Did I mention that not only did I get totally into Ultimate Fighter this past season, but we went to watch the pay-per-view finale? At a sports bar? I never thought I would care about a sporting event -- let alone a fighting sport -- in my life. But between my love for polite, Canadian Georges and my burning hatred for Josh Koscheck, I was no-shit nervous about the outcome of that fight. (Georges won!)
 
34. What political issue stirred you the most? Ugh, I don't know. I hate politics. I am pretty psyched about the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, though. I hope one day my kids will be unable to believe that such a stupid policy was ever real.

35. Who did you miss? My two best friends, who live way too far away.

36. Who was the best new person you met?  Raylan Givens.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. If the other person pulls first, it's justified.

************************

2010 was a great year for us, and I hope it was for you all too. And if it wasn't, well, hooray! It's over! Here's to a happy and healthy 2011. Happy freaking new year, internet.

Again, with the bike riding. Yes.

Word has gotten out, apparently, that I bike to work. I am now getting questions about it daily, mostly along the lines of "But you didn't bike TODAY, right?" (Yes, yes I did. It was cold, yes.) You'll be pleased to know that I am no longer annoyed at all by these comments... zen: achieved! Or more evidence that I should be locking myself in Tyler Lockwood's werewolf shed every month or so. Instead of being annoyed, I'm now finding them kind of hilarious:

You must be in such great shape!

Yeah, so my ride to work takes seven to ten minutes. It's uphill and it takes a little bit of huffing, which is especially apparent in the summer when I start sweating buckets. I often do count it as my daily workout, but really... it's less than ten minutes. It doesn't count. The ride home takes between five and seven minutes because it's 100% downhill, so that certainly doesn't count as exercise. Unless you count the increased heart rate and adrenaline rush from when cars try to run me over.

I take this recurring comment as a complement, especially because it's often paired with something along the lines of "you're so healthy!" (um, thanks but... no. I bring the same granola bar, yogurt, and apple for lunch because I am a lazy, lazy person.)

You must really care about the environment!

I do, and I have the most adorable composting worms in my basement to prove it! I'm glad that biking to work is good for the environment, but that's really not my primary reason for doing it. Before I had a bike I walked to work. The bike just allows me to go faster and therefore sleep later.

It must really suck riding in the winter!

It's not that bad... most of the time.  I've had a couple rides over the past few months that really, really did suck. On my way home from class a few weeks ago it was so windy and cold that I pretty much wanted to die.  I couldn't feel my fingers for the first 15 minutes (which made it hard to brake) and when I did regain feeling, it was pins and needles pain of fire. It was awful. Last week I had to go by the library on my way home from work and it was so cold and windy again that I could not feel my thighs when I got home. That was extremely unpleasant. But as long as I plan my outerwear correctly, it's (usually) not that bad. Sometimes it totally and completely sucks, but so does every other mode of transport -- sometimes. Metros and buses run late all the time. My boss commutes from a DC suburb, and it took him 2.5 hours to get to work when it snowed last week. I was pretty cold on my bike that day, but I'll take that over spending nearly five hours on one roundtrip commute. Biking is not pleasant when it's really cold, but we luckily live in the faux south where it generally doesn't get that cold.

Other random comments about how hardy/dedicated/awesome I am

I'll totally take the complements and roll with them, but honestly it's about self-preservation. I feel like I complain about the parking in our neighborhood all the time, but I'm not sure you can understand how frustrating it is until you've actually dealt with it. I used to think parking was bad in our old college neighborhood, where sometimes late at night we had to park a block (or sometimes, TWO!) away from our apartment. It was an annoyance but it didn't ever affect my plans. And then we moved.

I love, love, LOVE our neighborhood. I love it. But the parking, you guys. It's enough to counter out all the awesome things about our location. Here's an example from last night: Joel and I went to a yoga class that started at 6pm. We decided to drive there because we are stupid. Getting to the studio was OK, although it wasn't any faster than biking thanks to outbound rush hour traffic. We parked in Joel's office lot, which is conveniently a block away from the yoga studio.

The class ended at 7:30 and we got back in the car at 7:50. We pulled up in front of our house at 8pm. Then the search for a parking space began. After about 10 minutes of unsuccessful searching Joel dropped me off at the house so I could start dinner (and possibly because he could feel the rage starting to boil up inside me).  I'd made a pizza, put it in the oven, cleaned up the pizza mess, and made salads by the time he walked in the door at 8:35. 7:50 to 8:35. It took him FORTY FIVE minutes to get home from a yoga class that is less than a mile away. It only takes about 25-30 minutes WALKING to get to this place. It would have been a 10 minute ride each way if we'd ridden our bikes. That kind of completely wasted time just burns me up. It's worse than sitting in traffic for me; I just cannot deal. It makes me angry at other cars that I see who've just nabbed a space, it makes me want to bash in windshields when I see people parked in the middle of two spaces, it makes me mad at the people who have off-street parking, it makes me grumpy at the cats because those assholes never have to drive anywhere. It's just not pleasant to feel that way. Nor is it pleasant to feel homicidal, which is how I tend to get after receiving a (YET ANOTHER) parking ticket or a speed camera ticket.

And that is my treatise and confession, Internet. I suppose I could tell all this to the people in my office, but I kind of like hearing about how awesome I am every day.

The grumpy cyclist

An acquaintance came into my office yesterday and told me all about this shuttle I could take home instead of riding my bike.  I would just need to walk a block over to the shuttle stop, wait outside for the shuttle to arrive, and then I could ride it to the stop that is only a block and a half from my house.  The shuttle comes every half hour, she told me, and it's great!  And then you wouldn't have to ride your bike in the dark!

 

Well, thanks. Except instead of walking a block, waiting up to half an hour, and then walking another block and a half, I think I'll stick with the bike, which I have to wait zero minutes for and takes me directly to my doorstep in less than ten minutes.   

 

I know that people mean well, but this kind of "suggestion" really annoys me.  This same lady is also extremely concerned that I have been riding my bike about 5 miles to a class after work once a week.  The ride kind of sucks because it's uphill on the way there, but it takes only about 15 minutes more than it would take me to drive and park, plus it means I don't have to feel guilty for not going to the gym that day. And better yet, I don't have to deal with parking when I get home at 9:30pm.  Yes, it's dark, but I have a super nerdy red flashing light on my helmet, another light on the front of my bike, and I am careful.  

 

Last night I did decide to drive to the class because: 1) I'd gotten about three hours of sleep the night before thanks to a raging case of insomnia and the idea of moving my legs made me want to vomit, and 2) it was pouring rain.  I made it home a little faster in the car, but then I had to drive around for 25 minutes looking for a parking space. Finally I gave up and parked the car in the no-man's-land ghetto and had to walk five blocks home.  I don't think trekking through the ghetto alone at 10pm and leaving my car there overnight is any safer than riding my bike home in the dark.  

 

She means well, I know that.  She insisted on driving me to this class two weeks ago when she ran into me in the parking lot after work, even though I politely protested and reminded her that if she dropped me off, I'd be left with no way home and I would really be fine on my bike.  No, no, she wouldn't hear of it.  In the time it took to cram my bike into her trunk, I could have been three-fourths of the way there and she could have been home.

 

Before I had my bike, a girl at my old job used to be horrified that I walked to work.  "Don't you have a car?" she asked incredulously. Yes, I do. However, parking costs $120 a month here. I live less than a mile away, I like getting the exercise, I like not paying for gas, and I like not killing the planet. I am more than capable of walking, I told her (politely).  Every time it would snow or rain, she'd say "You walked in THIS?" when I arrived. Yes, I walked today.  I've been walking since before you worked here, and I'm still alive.  Occasionally, if it was really, really pouring, I'd drive.  But honestly, when you have to walk to wherever your car is parked, and then walk again from the parking lot to the office, driving really isn't saving much time in the rain.  "But what about when it SNOWS?" she asked.  Well, in the time it would take me to shovel out my car and navigate the unplowed city streets, I probably could have walked in.  And then after work, I'd have to shovel out another parking space, if I was lucky enough to find one, to put my car back in.  So...I'm fine, thanks.

 

 

I am really not sure why this sort of concern bothers me so much.  I hope and assume that it comes from a place of caring, but it feels an awful lot like judgement; like their way is the right way and my way is the wrong way and I should change to make them feel better.  Instead of making me feel happy that they care enough to be concerned about me, it makes me feel rage-y because you know what?  You're not the boss of me.

******************

Five minutes after I published this post, Joel sent me a link to this article which illustrates reason number five (right behind exercise, saving money, saving the planet, and saving time) I prefer biking or walking over driving around this city: $252 parking ticket!!1!  NO THANK YOU.

 

How was your day, honey?

When Joel and I were doing pre-marital counseling one of the things our counselor recommended was a "daily debrief".  Every evening, you just take five our ten minutes to talk uninterrupted about what happened in your day.  It felt kind of silly at first, but it's become a very natural part of our day.  "So, what's going on today," Joel will ask as we're brushing our teeth.  Free pizza lunch at work, maybe, or three-hour meeting that no one is looking forward to.  Evening reports are no more exciting, but it's a good way to catch up when you spend 8 hours apart each day and come home to laundry that needs to be done and dinner that needs to be made and cats that never stop yowling.  Free sandwiches for lunch (my reports often revolve around food of the free variety)! I was accosted by a crazy person demanding fifty cents on my way home!  Had to kick a girl off the treadmill I'd reserved at the gym and she totally gave me attitude, and then five minutes later I realized I had my shorts on backwards! Thrilling stuff, really.

Except for yesterday, when my workplace (which, yes, you can totally figure out, but I'm not naming on purpose here) made the front page of CNN.com because there was a shooting. 

I was puttering around getting things ready for a lunch seminar in the morning.  I set up the laptop and projector, loaded the presentation, opened the door when the catering guy arrived.  I was making what felt like my forty-third trip down the hallway when a coworker erupted out of her office, cell phone in hand.  "Did you get the alert?!" she asked. "There's a shooter!"

Um, pardon moi?

The news spread very quickly after the emergency alert (which I never got, THANK YOU VERY MUCH) went out: there was a shooter in the hospital.  It was rumored he had hostages (this turned out pretty quickly to be false).  Buildings were supposedly on lockdown.  Everyone was supposed to go into their offices, shut the door, and stay away from the windows. 

Of course, what's the first thing people do when you tell them not to look? We wandered into the office with the street view and watched wide-eyed as the cop cars and fire trucks pile onto the street below.  Wait, was that a SNIPER lying across the street?  Look, it's the police helicopter!  Um, is that a SWAT truck?

While there was obviously a very serious situation going on across the street, we seemed pretty safe with a rainbow assortment of law enforcement officials between us and the building in question. There were no sirens, not even from the police cars below -- and I work at a hostpital. There are ALWAYS sirens. There was no announcement from the PA system telling us to calmly exit the building or to take shelter or to do anything, really. In fact, I've seen people here get more worked up over winter storm advisories.

"So, we're still doing the seminar?  The show must go on?" I half-joked.  Might as well, we figured.  And so we did.  We went about our day in an oddly normal fashion, taking breaks to press our faces against the window and watch the corporate security guys hustle around on what was certainly the most exciting day of their jobs.  I sent an email to my mom and texted Joel, telling them not to worry, I'm fine and by the way I think we're on the news.  I snapped a few more pictures with my phone and went back to my desk.

Two hours later, the situation was over.  We saw the SWAT guys shake hands with the police and drive away.  I watched the mayor give a press conference and wondered if I should go downstairs and run around the block to get a cameo the "live cam" CNN.com had set up on the street corner (hint: I did not).  When 5pm rolled around I packed up my stuff and went home, just like any other day. 

It was one of the strangest days at work I've ever had, and the story that has emerged is tragically sad. I hope that I will have nothing even remotely exciting to report tonight.

 

TMI, perhaps

When people talk about jobs and offices in general they seem to focus only on the actual work stuff: title, responsibilities, salary, etc.  That's all important, sure, but I think that things like general office culture and the suckiness of the commute are just as vital to overall job satisfaction.  If you could make a boatload of money saving baby dolphins from cancer, that would be super, right?  But what if you had to sit in traffic for three hours each morning and then sit in a basement office with cinderblock walls for eight more hours?  People tend to discount things like working in the basement and never seeing the light of day EVER, but these things can make you pretty miserable even if you do spend all your office energy saving dolphins and curing cancer. Uh, I assume.  

So, my new job (and I swear, after this I will officially stop talking about it) is pretty great except for one big problem: the bathroom situation.  At my old office we had a giant ladies' room, with three banks of toilets, two rows of sinks and a freaking COUCH. I never took advantage of the couch (I'm not really sure what it was for... napping?  Relaxing with a cup of coffee?), but I liked knowing that it was there.  I also liked the ability to easily head for the other side of the bathroom if, say, I entered as the same time as my supervisor. 

There was also another smaller bathroom at the other end of the hall that had soft lighting and a little vestibule and a vase with silk flowers on the counter.  This was referred to as The Nice Bathroom.  I hardly ever used it because it was about fifteen steps farther away than The Regular Bathroom and I am lazy. 

I never thought that the thing I'd miss most about my old job was the bathrooms, but after three weeks of using the teeny tiny (you have to turn to the side to squeeze by if someone's coming out when you're coming in) three-stall facility shared by the entire department (OMG) here, let me tell you: I REALLY miss those bathrooms.  You see, I suffer from a serious medical condition known as Stage Fright.  I absolutely cannot pee when I can see the shoes of my boss's boss's boss six inches away from my own.  And that's even worse, because then I'm sitting there silently and they probably think I'm in there to do something other than pee, when really I'm silently chanting LEAVE LEAVE LEAVE I HAVE TO PEE.  And then there's the awkwardness of making conversation over the sink.  What do you say?  "So... come here often?" "Have a nice time in there?" 

The whole situation makes me extremely anxious, so much so that I went to a different floor to use their bathroom at one point last week. Yes. 

It seems like a silly gripe, but I really like coffee and coffee makes me pee seventeen times a day.  I don't want to get caught slinking off to the other floor's bathroom and become That Girl Who Pees In Secret.  I also really, really don't want to pee next to my boss.  It seems the only choice is to give up fluids entirely.  I'm sure that's healthy.  

I've got a tendency to gripe about the many ways men have things easier than women. Hair dyeing, leg shaving, period having; I'll take all of it because oh my god can you imagine: URINALS. All of a sudden I'm grateful to be the one who gets stuck with childbirth. 

Week One: Survived

I'm going to be using my new job as an excuse for everything that's not getting done in my life for quite a while folks, so you might as well get used to it.  Because I'm so very busy (not really), here.  Have some half-written posts I've been meaning to write. 

YOU KNOW YOUR LIFE IS AWESOME WHEN YOU HAVE PARASITE PREFERENCES

So, Henry The Cat has giardia. Again. I’ve told Henry again and again not to drink stream water while hiking, but he just never listens! (BA DA BING!)

That’s just a little parasite humor for you, folks. I’ll be here all week. Specifically, I’ll be here all week giving my cat antibiotics every twelve hours. I’m not complaining, because out of all the parasites this cat has had, giardia is the least gross. But I am a bit bewildered. Except for visits to the vet, during which he travels in the confines of a carrier, this cat has not been outside in over three years. Because we’ve had so many problems with parasites being passed around within my cat herd, I have them tested every year. For the past two years, Henry has been clean. Madison, who occasionally does escape outside to the alley and is in general a dirty, disgusting animal, is clean. So, technically it’s impossible for Henry to have re-contracted giardia. It’s the immaculate parasitic infection!

DEAR GOD PLEASE LET MY NEW ERGONOMIC KEYBOARD HURRY UP AND GET HERE

A few years ago I bought an awesome cyborg-looking wrist brace at CVS when my left wrist was bothering me and I decided I had carpal tunnel syndrome.  Shortly afterwards, I also ordered an ergonomic keyboard and my wrist stopped hurting and I forgot about it.  The ergonomic keyboard turned into one of those things that I just used because it was there, but I wasn’t sure if it really made a difference. 

Well, I left it behind at my old office and one thing has become abundantly clear: I NEED IT. One week using a regular keyboard and my wrist is in agony. You should hear it, crying all night. It hurts right now, typing this. Kind of a lot. I should probably stop typing.  The things I do for you, internet!

I don’t want to wear the brace to work because it makes doing anything with my left hand pretty difficult -- I guess that’s sort of the point, huh?  But I also just don’t want to look like a pussy. If I play my cards right I can probably keep them thinking that I'm not a total wuss until next winter, when I'll have to get another flu shot.  I'm trying to keep it very professional here.  I left my New Moon calendar at home and I haven't mentioned The Vampire Diaries even once.  But if the new ergonomic keyboard I ordered last week doesn’t get here soon, my wrist is going to have to call in sick.

DON'T CALL ME A BITCH

I am not a fan, in general, of fighting sports. I can get behind the idea of self-defense and martial arts, but people actually getting into a ring and beating the crap out of each other seems kind of… dumb. And mean. I don’t like it.

HOWEVER, I am starting to love this show Joel watches, Ultimate Fighter. Or as I like to call it, America’s Next Top Model for Dudes. It starts out with a theme song that is like a cross between an angry Linkin Park and the techno thump-thump intro from Jersey Shore. The lyrics, when you can make them out amid the screaming, are something like THIS IS THE ULTIMATE! WE ARE THE ULTIMATE! PUSHUP FACEPUNCH ULTIMATE!The show features two teams who compete against each other in fights and people get sent home and I’m actually kind of fuzzy on these details.  But several of the fighters somehow get nicknames, my personal favorite of which was last season’s Big Baby. I miss Big Baby. Treeslam (or whatever his name is) just doesn’t have quite the same hilarity. But the nicknames are awesome.

Big Baby really was a big baby, by the way, and that’s the dichotomy that I’m coming to truly love. On one episode last season two guys yelled the same lines at each other for what seemed like five minutes. One would yell “YOU’RE A BITCH” and then the other would yell back “DON’T CALL ME A BITCH” and they repeated that for so long that I was absolutely transfixed as to who would break the pattern first. "Bitch" is a term that’s thrown around quite a bit. My favorite line from this season so far was when Treepunch (I think) called someone else -- you guessed it! -- "bitch" during a practice fight, and the other guy replied “You can’t call me a bitch! We’re on the same team!”

Basically, these uber-tough guys all live in a house together and call each other bitches and then at the end of each episode they fight. If you have a significant other who’s into this kind of thing, I recommend giving it a try. Just close your eyes when they start bleeding at the end.

MARY MARY QUITE CONTRARY

I meant to write about my foray into the wide world of gardening weeks ago, but it’s just as well that I didn’t because between then and now, not much has happened. It turns out that gardening requires quite a bit of waiting, which in turn requires patience. Needless to say, I am having some difficulty.

The impetus for hobby #472 came when, after a year on the waiting list, we got a call informing us that we were getting a community garden plot in the park a few blocks from our house. I spent a large chunk of my week off between jobs beating that poor neglected plot into submission, and we now have quite a variety of seeds in the dirt. It's exciting.  Yes, it is.

I am in love with the whole idea of growing actual food from teeny tiny seeds, but I can’t help feeling like I’m destined for heartbreak. I am a long-time killer of houseplants and I have no experience with actual outside gardening. I can’t leave the potted herbs I planted on our back patio alone. I check on them every day and then feel crushed when STILL nothing but the basil has sprouted. What do they need? More water? Fertilizer? A nightly lullaby? And then I’m tempted to try all three, and then everything dies.  It's probably a good thing that the garden plot is a ten-minute walk from the house.

I’ve attended a couple of free classes at a local nursery, though, and my hopes are still high. It looks like I’ve killed the cucumbers by misreading the date it was safe to plant (April 20, not March 20, oops) and we might need to re-plant the carrots as well (not good in clumpy soil, double oops), but when we checked this weekend it looked like the broccoli and lettuce were both sprouting! Either that, or there are weeds growing in an awfully straight line.

Because I like to do things 110%, we are also now composting at our house, much to Joel’s chagrin. His exact words, I believe, were “this is an ill-conceived plan.” He is, in all likelihood, correct. But that’s not going to stop me from dumping all our organic waste into a Rubbermaid bin and scouring the state for a single place that will sell me red wigglers, which are apparently the kind of worms you need for composting.  I kidnapped a bucketful of reddish-looking worms from the garden plot and hopefully they are eating their way through all my coffee grinds and broccoli stems.  Either that, or they're all dead.  I can't bring myself to check.  

ADVICE, PLEASE

Finally, I need your input on one of my desk photos.  In an effort to settle into my new workspace I brought in a few picture frames and filled them with some extra prints I had lying around the house. I used one of my favorite wedding pictures, but I’m afraid it’s a little too… passionate for the workplace.

Tell me the truth, internet. Is it too racy? I’m planning to do a print order soon and I could easily replace it… but I kind of like it. Help me. I've expended far too much energy not talking about the new Hilary Duff movie that was on ABCFamily last night (DID YOU GUYS WATCH?) to be The New Girl With The Makeout Picture.

And thanks for all the fish

I felt this odd sense of detachment on the morning of my wedding day.  As we woke up and moved decorations from the hotel to the venue and then went off to get hair and makeup done I kept feeling like it just wasn't real.  Or that it was real, and it just wasn't my wedding.  Until about 3pm, when we arrived back at the wedding site and started getting dressed, I just couldn't process that it was actually happening.  For real.  For me.

I felt the same way on my last day of work last Friday. It was slightly less emotional and there was no photographer following me around, but I spent the entire day feeling like it just wasn't real.  I'm more than ready for a change.  I'm excited about the new job.  But still, it was sad leaving behind the people and the place I've spent 40 hours a week with for the past five years. 

What was even sadder, as someone who considers herself staunchly anti-clutter, was the amount of stuff I dredged from the back of filing cabinets and the dark corners under my desk.  It took me two trips with the car and one final pack-mule ride on my bike to drag home the contents of my tiny office, including:

• Receipts and return shipping labels for everything I've purchased on the internet over the past five years
• A forgotten foldable shopping bag I didn't know I had
• A copy of Glamour magazine from July 2006
• A set of return address labels with my maiden name on them
• A sheet of 2-cent stamps
• Two blank thank-you cards
• A very short phone cord
• The notebook that we used to keep track of our shared expenses before we got married.  Before we got engaged.  Before I learned that Excel is a lot easier than a paper, pen and a TI-83 with an aging battery
• A CD titled "wedding photos 2005," the contents of which I can only guess at (that was a big wedding year)
• A yellowed computer mouse
• Two MP3 data CDs, from before I had an MP3 player
• A plain manila folder containing my marriage certificate, birth certificate and passport
• A floppy disk containing a bunch of stuff from my master's program
• A pair of used Asics that I never got around to sending to Nike's shoe recycling program
• An entire shopping bag filled with shoes from under my desk
• A never-worn baseball cap
• One of those license plate frame things
• An old calendar
• An medium-sized American flag on a stick
• A Halloween jack-o-lantern pail
• A broken hanging folder file
• A dirty Tupperware container
• A nasty pair of flip flops (used for showering at the gym, which I did all of three times)
• A dirty t-shirt (used for summer days when it was too hot to ride to work in a nice shirt)
• Nearly a dozen cardboard boxes of varying sizes and shapes, all filled with tissue paper
• A fork, knife and spoon
• Eight packets of sugar-free hot chocolate mix
• $10.37 in coins and loose dollar bills
• A Coach keychain, still in its gift box
• A table runner, still in its gift wrapping
• Four coffee mugs, a pint glass and a bud vase
• A ziploc bag filled with used sandwich bags (We re-use them. It's gross, I know)
• A sheet of pills that I think are for allergies
• A long-lost coffee shop loyalty card with $16.34 left on it
• Two bottles of Tylenol (one in an Alleve botle, one in an Excedrin PM bottle)
• Approximately 700 napkins and four plastic utensils

And that, my friends, is not even taking into account the three boxes of stuff that I threw away all the things that I bequeathed to my coworkers.  Trust me, I'm suitably mortified at my own hoarding.  And I paid for it when Joel started rooting through the box designated for Goodwill and picking out things he wanted to keep.  

Farewell, little basement office.  I'll miss some things about you.  The cinderblock walls will not be one of them.

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For those of you who have inquired how the new job is going and if it's responsible for my absesnce from Internetville this week, fear not!  It's going absolutely splendidly because I haven't actually started  yet.  I took this week off as a between jobs vacation.  So far I've spent ten hours weeding our new garden plot, gotten a hair cut and written scripts for several Justified episodes in my head.  It's been glorious.

Make it work

Welcome, viewers, to this week's special installment of Project Runway Mission: Put Together: The New Job OMG Edition, sponsored by our friends at Ann Taylor Loft*!

(*By "sponsored," we mean don't I wish.)

Dress: Ann Taylor Loft; Sweater: Target; Necklace: Gift from Joel

Not pictured: Black Nine West Flats

For this first  look, our designers were inspired by the fact that the model's Serious Business Suit no longer fits.  I mean, it would fit if it were still its original size but someone had it taken in a few years ago when they attained their goal weight for all of five minutes.  A risky move!  Our designers scrambled and selected this simple gray dress from the closet as a business-like substitute.  It has pockets and is our model's favorite work dress ever.

Our model's limp hair and grim facial expression are courtesy of a nasty stomach bug and for the actual runway show she wore a different necklace and ditched the sweater.  The photo above was provided from the outfit's practice run the day before, and if you don't wear important outfits for test runs to ensure that belts dragged out of the back of the closet won't start cutting off circulation after ten minutes, well, then you're a brave lot of souls.  Shut up. 

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Serious Business Suit: surprisingly NOT Ann Taylor Loft; Long-sleeved tee and necklace: you guessed it

Not pictured because there's not a full-length mirror to be found in this town: Nicole Miller gray flats

Our companion look, inspired by the dry cleaner designer's  ability to restore the Serious Business Suit to its original proportions, was ready just in time for the highly anticipated Bryant Park Show Second Interview!

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Corduroy Jacket, long-sleeved tee: Ann Taylor Loft; Bootcut Jeans: Gap

Not pictured: brown boots that I don't have a photo of anywhere

And lastly, our third look represents a combination Casual Day at the office and our firm belief that you should always look put-together when you're giving notice at your job.

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And the winner of this challenge (me, since I GOT THE JOB!) gets to break her spending freeze and buy this necklace as a New Job Prize: 

The lovely Mrs. Squirrel is going to claim that I totally stole this idea from her, but WHATEVER.  It was in my original sketch.