The Great Lake Provokes Intriguing Questions

As I was walking around in Edgewater Park last night after work, I was asked the following question: "What do you have that Emily Dickinson doesn't?" This may be the best question anyone has ever asked me. I still don't have an answer. I might have to do a little more research on that one, but I can think of a few key things offhand.

Weekend Recap

The weekend flew by so fast. I got to spend Friday night with some incredible people at the Old Angle. I never wanted the night to end. Fortunately it lasted into the morning hours leaving me with some incredible memories.

I had to work Saturday morning, which left me tired in combination from the night before so it was a pretty early night. A housewarming party for two of my best friends capped off an incredible day where I fell asleep on my couch listening to Alix Olson by 11:30.

Sunday I got to partake in one of my new favorite adventures: Sharing my weekend adventures with Mindy at Talkies, a cinematic coffee shop in Ohio City. I am addicted to her laptop with WiFi so we chat and get on-line and chat some more. Because I didn’t get to see her this weekend, we had some great stories to share. We add a whole new element to the term “coffee talk” and I feel bad for the people around us who have to sit through our constant laughter. The afternoon brought a trip out to Camp Lieberth where I was joined by a first-timer to the compound. You haven’t paddle-boated until you have paddle-boated with a dog at the helm.

After paddle-boating, I got down to business as my dad and I went over our fantasy football draft. I am sure thirty years ago when my dad first held his princess, he probably never envisioned us strategizing over running backs and quarterbacks, preparing for our live draft next Tuesday night. My mom is so proud. Ahem.

And She Wasn't Even Wearing All Black

I had someone walk into my office to say they needed to get a form and they went "on the line" to get get it, but they didn't have access. For those of you keeping score at home, when she said "on the line" she meant on-line. Though in my mind I made it analagous to Johnny Cash singing "Walk the Line." It was much more interesting that way.

The Apocalypse

Last night I turned off Monday Night Football and picked up a book. Okay, okay, so it is only the pre-season, but still this kind of stuff doesn't happen everyday, so mark the date. By the way, David Sedaris is a genius. I could read his stuff all night and that is exactly what I did!

Finally!

After all the money I have spent at my favorite watering hole, The Old Angle, my money will finally be going to something worthwhile there. This Wednesday The Summer Restaurant Tour will be coming to the Old Angle and forty percent of everyone's bill will be going to The Center. Please join me and my friends as we drink and eat in honor of a place that gives so much to the city of Cleveland.

I Am Alive

For those of you who have called and e-mailed, I am alive. Actually I feel more alive than I have in a long time. I turned my television off last week and haven't really turned it back on since. My life is currently better than anything I could see on the big screen. As a matter of fact my life currently feels like a movie. I am measuring time by frames per second instead hours and days.

The cast of characters in my life has supplied enough comedy (and a little bit of drama) to last a lifetime. Because of my PG-13 blog, I can not share many of those moments, but know I would love to write down everything Tim said to me the other night because he is just that funny.

The setting for this movie has had me all over Cleveland the past couple weeks. Nights spent out in Ohio City, Lakewood, Tremont, the Feast and downtown at work have made me so thankful to be back in the city after my hiatus in the suburbs.

The one thing I am enjoying the most right now is the soundtrack to my life. I have been without a true stereo for over a year, so last Sunday I broke down and got a new one. Over the last week I have listened to every cd I own. My solo dance parties have included the likes of Ani, Ember Swift, Tori Amos, Sinead, Bitch and Animal, Melissa Ferrick, G. Love, The Deftones, Missy Elliott, Alix Olson, Le Tigre, Belly and many more. I had no idea how much I missed my music.

Your heroine even loves working again. I finally have a job that keeps my attention. The people I help on a daily basis are some of the most interesting supporting characters I have ever met. It is such an amazing change compared to my last position. As you can tell from my lack of blogging, I never get a chance to get on the internet for personal reasons anymore. (Whereas I used to spend more than half my time on-line at my old position.) I thought I would miss it, but I don't.

Don’t get me wrong, I will definitely turn my tv back on tomorrow for the series finale of Six Feet Under. I feel like I am actually going to be losing a part of me as I watch the show come to an end. However, my life without television and the internet is much more exciting. I have finally tuned into myself.

Also, I learned a very important lesson last week. Don't ever play softball without a mitt!

Weekend Recap

Baby Showers: Not my forte. Three hours of baby gifts is not how I ever want to spend a Saturday in August again.

Le Tigre: I could watch them perform every night and never get tired. Imagine Divo and Bananarama having musically gifted punk daughters.

Camp Lieberth: Always a Sunday afternoon pleasure. The past two Sundays have been spent sitting on my parents dock reading trashy magazines and navigating through the lake on a Styrofoam noodle.

One more interesting thing to note from the weekend: I have a borderline stalker who works at Heinens. Every time my friend and I go in there, she follows us around the store and acts like she is working when clearly she does not work in every department of the store at the same time. She runs from the deli, to the freezer section and then up to the cash registers and opens her register just for us. I know she has a million things she wants to say considering she couldn’t wait to tell me how much she loves Angelina Jolie in an awkward 19-year-old girl kinda way. I am probably the first person she has ever seen in there she felt like she could relate to. There aren’t a whole lot of women who look like me, especially on Sunday when I was sporting a faux hawk, shopping in the Heinens of Aurora right next to the Barrington Golf Community. I do feel for her. I hope she is able to find somebody to stalk after I leave--just like I had to do when I was her age growing up in the suburbs on the east side, following around women who looked like I do now thinking they could somehow lead me to the Promise Land.

TGIF Part Three

Three weeks are now in the books at the new position. I wish I had a little more to show for it, but I am getting there. The big progression this week included: REVERSE SHADOWING. Day by day they are giving me a little more power, though still supervised power.

Looking ahead to the weekend: I am so excited to see some friends from college I haven't seen in years on Saturday afternoon and then Saturday night will be all about Le Tigre. I can not see this band enough. I am so excited! I will really enjoy the paradox of a baby shower and radical lesbian musicians rocking Peabodys.

Life In The Burbs

Life in the suburbs is something I am trying to get used to. Thankfully I only have to do it for two more weeks. After last night I am afraid I am becoming too acclimated to my new lifestyle. As a testament to this, I can only share my adventures after leaving work yesterday in the big city.

On my way home I sat through rush hour traffic for the first time in two years. I forgot the frustrations encountered on both 77 South and 480 East on a daily basis. Once I was home, I spent a half hour watering plants I wouldn’t even be able to name. After playing with the dog, I was off to Babies R Us. Let me say that last part one more time: I was off to Babies R Us.

My best friend from college is having a baby shower this Saturday and I decided to torture myself by trying to find things on her registry. What a daunting task. We gave up on the registry after finding one thing and went our own route with the gift. I figure any baby gift will be great as long as you throw in a bottle of wine which I plan to do. After going through a baby registry, there is only way place to eat: Ruby Tuesdays. (As you may remember, in there it is always Tuesday.) A typical suburban entrée featuring sirloin and the salad bar ensued.

Once home, the dog was walked and I was in bed right around 10:30. Living out there wears me out. It is like a job. I have to get up an hour earlier and then fight the traffic into the city only to have to fight it on the way home as well, only to get home to chores I couldn’t imagine having in the OC. I sure do miss my city lifestyle.

How To Make Me Laugh Out Loud

Call me on a Sunday morning and when I don't answer, leave a message that says: "Oh you must be at church."

Six Feet Under

I don’t know if I am going to be able to make it through the last couple episodes. Last night was a little bit of a tear jerker. To one of my favorite television characters of all time, rest in peace.

TGIF Part Two

Two weeks down at my new job. I still feel like an invalid at the end of this week as well but at least now I know what I don’t know. Last week, I just walked around like a zombie completely ignorant to everything around me.

One thing I know is that I am really bad at being trained. If only I could pay attention for longer than one minute, perhaps I could get a better handle on things. I try to be an active listener, but it just doesn’t work for me. I see their lips start moving and then five minutes later, they say: “In a nutshell that is how that works, any questions?” This is when my question should be, “Yes, what did you just say again? I am sorry I started thinking about traffic patterns in Cleveland and drifted off.” Instead I just say, “Nope, I think I got it. Thanks.”

That Moment

There is that moment when you realize you have made the right decision to switch jobs. The moment when you say to yourself, “this was the right decision and I am so excited about this move in my life!” That moment came to me this morning.

I was sitting in my office talking to two of my co-workers when one of them noticed my Ani DiFranco sticker. The conversation soon turned to Bitch and Animal and the woman who asked me if I had ever heard of them was so excited when I said I had. I revealed, with a little hesitation, I have Bitch autograph my chest whenever I see them perform. She turned to me and said: “Me too!” That was the moment I knew I had made the right decision to switch jobs. Who cares about the promotion, the raise and the self-fulfillment this job will bring me at the end of the day when I am working with someone who also gets a little tipsy and has Bitch sign her chest.

The very best part about the whole conversation was I would never have expected him to ask me about Ani DiFranco when I first met him, and I most certainly would never have expected her to pull out a picture of Bitch from her desk when I first met her.

Thought For The Day

My boss gave us this quote this morning:

"Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are--you aren't."
-Margaret Thatcher

Hopefully he wasn't trying to say something about me with this thought.

By the way, he is hilarious! To keep things light, he quotes lines from "Mommy Dearest"--what else could you ask for in a boss?

TGIF

Finally! It is finally Friday. The last day of my first work week at my new job and I couldn't be more excited. Don't get me wrong, I love the job, but I am so exhausted from the amount of intake I have done over the past five days. I can't wait to not be the "new girl" anymore. Last night I was actually in bed asleep by 9:15. However, I did have to get up at 10 for Being Bobby Brown on Bravo and then go back to bed. If you get a chance, you have to catch this show!

The New Blog Entries

This job is going to have me running all over, all the time. I love that. My blog will suffer. Many posts are going to look like today's:

New job is so great, can't wait to tell everyone about it. Running around like crazy. Rumor has it LeBron is going to have his own reality show on MTV.

Thank You

I may have hated a lot of aspects of my current job, but I really loved some of the people I worked with over the past three years. Tomorrow is my last day and as I look back, it will be my co-workers (not all of them, believe me) that I will miss the most. I wish I could take some people with me in my new professional adventures but I guess this is part of growing up and moving on (it seems like I have been doing a lot of that lately).

There are a couple of people that saved my ass on a weekly basis but who made me laugh on a daily basis. You know who you are! If you are reading this which I am assume you are because there are only three people in my office with this blog address, than I want to say thank you. Tomorrow I will tell a bunch of different people how much I will miss them and what a difference they have made in my life, but to the few of you I bonded with beyond work issues, who got my stupid jokes, who knew exactly what I was thinking before I said it and who looked out for me so often, from the bottom of my heart, Thank You!

Thank you for all of the real conversations we had. Thank you for making it fun to be in this office. Thank you for helping me with the boring little tasks I could never complete due to my attention span. Thank you for laughing with me when nobody else knew what I was talking about. Thank you for going along with all the stupid things I did. There aren’t enough words to describe how much I will miss you. We have become like family and I will never forget you.

If You Ignore Sexual Harassment, Is It Still Sexual Harassment?

Last night I had an interesting experience inside my favorite little ghetto gas station. I try not to throw the word ghetto around loosely, but in this case, it really fits. This is a gas station I have driven away from on more than one occasion because I was pretty sure they were being held up inside. Nonetheless, it’s close and the cashier is a nice guy who likes to talk sports with me. His cousin from Brooklyn on the other hand is a little much.

His cousin hasn’t been around since football season when we used to talk almost every other day about the comings and goings of the NFL. I thought he was a little crass to other people, but he never said anything weird to me, so I didn’t really care. Last night he may have crossed the line, but I ignored him, so it doesn’t really count, right?

The conversation went a little something like this:
Him: “Hey baby where you been, I haven’t seen you in months. I have been missing you so bad.”
Me: “I need a pack of parliament lights and ten dollars of gas.”
Him: “I know you were missing me.”
Me: “Did you guys see the home run show Bobby Abreu just put on at the home run derby?”
Him: “I wake up every night thinking about you.”
Me: “The guy hit 24 home runs in the first round alone--nobody has ever even passed 15 in that round.”
Him: “Sometimes when I wake up my sheets are so wet…”
Me: “You guys getting ready for the football season?”
Him: “I know you will be going out with me by the time football season rolls around.”
Me: “I am really looking forward to my fantasy draft this year. It seems like forever since the Super Bowl was played.”
Him: “You know you got me so hot right now.”
Me: “It was good to see you guys. Take care.”

Maybe it was sexual harassment, maybe it wasn’t. I was trying not to pay attention.

She's Back

After months and months, Aquamego has gotten her act together and has started updating her blog again. Oh how I have missed the windy city stories from my old roomie. This is one of my favorite blogs in the world because she is such an incredible writer and her perspective is so unique. Welcome back, I missed you!

Irony

The ironic part about wrapping up my job is that this is the most work I have done in the three years I have been in this position.

More irony...the CAVS desperately need a shooting guard with range and they sign Larry Hughes.