Wednesday, September 30, 2009

In which I throw you a rambling, senseless bone


I am in a pickle. I love that saying "in a pickle," because it makes absolutely no sense. How can you be in a pickle? You'd have to get all meta-physical and start talking about how our atoms really exist in multiple places at once and then we'd have to talk about parallel universes again, and before you know it, you're scraping your brains off the wall.

Anyways, in a pickle I am. Because I have run out of toilet paper. I don't really know how it happened, but I came home this evening and went to the bathroom and used the last of it. The very last of it. No tissues or paper towels. Not even any coffee filters. Suddenly I am living like a GUY. (Once my friend A and I went over to these guys' house. They had two bathrooms. And no toilet paper in either one. No tissues. No paper towels. NO APOLOGIES. Gross.)

This did not happen because I can't afford to buy toilet paper (although that might have been a possibility a few weeks ago). I actually forgot to get some on the way home from work is all. Oooh, I need toothpaste, too.

I realize that I am just being stubborn by not going out to get any tonight, but I won't, because of those five flights of stairs I have to walk up. FIVE. I already walked up them once today. I'm not doing it again. Listen, if you had to walk up all those effing stairs, you would weigh your options, too. When I run errands on the weekends, I try to do everything that needs to be done before going back home, usually laden with grocery and drugstore bags. By the time I get to my door, I'm sweating and panting, but at least I got it all up to the top.

My one big treat that I occasionally indulge in is having my laundry picked up and dropped off. Man, I love that! They come up and get it, then they bring it all back, up all those stairs, and it is CLEAN and FOLDED. Keep your speed boats and Cristal. That, my friends, is the definition of luxury.

Ok, I just located a paper napkin and am checking my purse for kleenex. I'll let you know how it goes.

Keeping my fingers crossed to make it till morning!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

In which I get a whole compliment

My mother called me this morning while I was at work. It always freaks me out when my parents call me during the weekday. I usually assume someone is either in the hospital or dead, so I get really nervous when I see the phone number. I missed the call and it went to voicemail, so I called right back. My mom answered.

"Did you call me?" I asked

"Yes, I did," she replied. "I left a voicemail."

"Well, what did you say?"

"Just listen to the voicemail."

And we hung up.

Uh, ok. Weird. So I waited for the voicemail to pop up on my phone. And waited. And waited and waited and waited. Just when I was about to call her back and make her tell me what she said, the voicemail showed up on my iPhone (greatest invention EVER, with fire coming in a distant second).

My mom greets me and then identifies herself by saying: "this is your mother." Yeah, thanks Mom. Because I had no idea it was you, seeing as how I haven't heard that voice at least once a week for the last, well, let's just say over thirty years. I'll bet the entire internet two hundred and fifty thousand dollars that my mom just replied "yeah, WAAAYYY over." She's a charmer, that one.

Really, both my parents a pretty quirky. For instance, they always split things at meals. Like the world might end if one of them ate an ENTIRE piece of fruit or drank a whole soda at lunch.

"Honey, do you want to split this Dr. Pepper?" my dad will ask.

"Sure. Do you want to split an apple with me or an orange?" my mother will answer. Then later, before dinner she'll ask my dad: "Honey, do you want half of this beer?"

"Yeah, I'll take half that, sure," he'll respond.

Then, after dinner, they'll fight about who will clean up. And I don't mean they throw down and argue, accusing the other of never doing things around the house, I mean, they fight because they each WANT to clean up.

"No, Bob. You sit down and read your paper."

"No, I'm happy to clean up."

"I can do it. It's fine."

"Joyce, sit down and relax. I'll clean up."

"No no, honey. Don't you want to watch your news shows?"

It's seriously twisted.

But getting back to my mom's message. I guess she had just read my last blog entry, because she said,

"This is your mother. And I think you're incredible, too."

Thanks, Mama. I love you, too.


Monday, September 7, 2009

In which I pull yet another crackbrained move...incredibly

Cognitive therapy is all about changing the way you think and is especially helpful if you have a lot of negative thoughts. You know, like when you make a mistake and all you focus on is how stupid you were and what a boneheaded move it was and now, well, your life is over and you should just die. If you have a flair for the dramatic. Like me.

But please. Let me illustrate for you the result of two years of cognitive therapy.

So, we all knew it was going to happen: I did something wrong in my new job and I got yelled at. I deserved it really, because what I did was pretty stupid, and I knew it was the wrong thing when I did it. Hey, cognitive therapy helps change your thinking, it doesn't keep you from making idiotic snap decisions.

I'd love to tell you what I did, because it's pretty laughable, but work blah blah blahbitty blah you know I can't. So we have to leave it at I did something dumb and knew it was a mistake WHILE I WAS DOING IT. Anyway, I went to my boss to confess it, because I cannot stand knowing that I did something wrong and just waiting for the ax to fall.

"I think I just made a mistake," I said.

"What did you do? What happened?" he asked.

I told him. It was clear he wasn't happy, and he expressed it in his classic lack-of-a-finished-sentence style. I stood there, feeling like the bottom was dropping out.

"No. You can't do that. You can't just do that kind of...this is a very sensitive...you can't do that. Don't ever do...don't ever do that again. You can't...how can you? Why would...look, I know that...initiative. And you're incredible. But you can't do that kind of thing. Don't ever do that...don't do that again. You can't...can you undo it? Can you stop...?"

"Yes. I think I can. I'll try. I'm sorry. I won't do it again." I replied. I ran back to my desk to fix the situation as best I could. Then, as usual, I did an instant replay of what my boss had said to me, and the one thing I focussed on?

Incredible. He said I am incredible.

And I focussed on the positive.

I'm positively incredible! Hee hee!