Well, I Suppose I Asked For It.

Someone found my blog today by searching for this: "how do I put a demon back to hell"

I think I won, but I'm a little worried what the prize would be in this situation. So I'm going back to regularly scheduled silliness. Like THIS (for which I'm unable to find anyone to credit, so if it's you let me know and I'll edit): which is now the background on my laptop.

Because it makes me giggle every damned time I see it.

Yes. Even now while I'm writing this entry.

So I went back to work this week after a lazy, utterly wasted, GLORIOUS month off watching Kevin McKidd on Grey's Anatomy.  It was a four week escape: sleeping, reading, movies, and hiding from the disgusting cold with the dogs. I'm pretty sure I made up for the two months of no-sleep-hospital-stress-extravaganza last fall.

Anyway. I'm back to work now, and my first day went as follows. It's not a typical boring first day (because honestly, why would I want to relive that shit if it was?).

1. Sleep a total of three hours because even though I WORKED THERE FOR SIX MONTHS and it wasn't a "real" first day, apparently my subconscious is a stupid anxiety ball bitch who needs to make me spend the first day of every new endeavor sleep deprived and nauseous.
2. Leave early enough to stop for gas, coffee, and a bank deposit before 8am.
3. Bitch about the injustice that the Wells Fargo drive-through window doesn't open at 7am (the one by my house does, goddammit!).
4. Park a full 20 minutes early. Note, this is nearly an hour earlier than I would NORMALLY go to this job (again, I'd been there six months before getting hired on full time, schedules are flexible at the company, and most people I work with discover quickly that I'm not worth talking to prior to 8:30am anyway).
5. Fuck around on Facebook, Twitter and email in my car. Because waiting in the lobby for 20 minutes is just dumb.
6. Wait in the lobby for 20 minutes anyway because traffic was bad that day.
7. Say hello to multiple co-workers who don't understand why the hell I'm not just going up to my desk (no security badge).
8. Boss arrives, we go up to the new team area (they moved to another floor on my last day).
9. I have no laptop/phone/etc. Boss follows up with IT while I'm in HR doing obligatory passport/ID paperwork and I9 stuff.
10. Return from HR at 9:20.
11. SENT HOME FOR THE REST OF THE DAY because IT won't have a laptop for me until Tuesday, and I'm fired there's nothing I can do without it.
12. Go car shopping with husband. Buy a new (to me) truck. Because what else should a grown woman do on her first day of a new job but go home after an hour and buy a new(ish) car, right?

FYI: I got a laptop Wednesday, which really just means I get to surf the interwebz until I have a project. But I actually love this company and this team and I'm looking forward to working there.

Until I win the powerball.

Or, learn to put a demon back to hell. Apparently that's a needed skillset.

Pays nothing...may Traumatize Christmas Baby Dragons.

Today I spent quite a bit of time screwing off (in a non-sexual, work-appropriate way). As has been my usual MO for the past week or two...because projects have been delayed by forces not in my control (I SWEAR I didn't wave that wand toward work!!).

Therefore, I spend much of my afternoon fucking around on Craigslist. Since that phrase could mean quite a few different inappropriate behaviors, oh DO let me share the best DOD: Distractions of the Day.

Witness: Kiss Car. Note it's for sale to only the ULTIMATE fan of Gene Simmons. I sort of expect to see it tooling around St. Paul soon, since KISS is playing the MN state fair this year. Apparently bloody demon music is excellent family entertainment. (Wait Kiss Army! I've been to a few Kiss concerts and my husband's a huge fan. I think they're fucking fabulous. It's called sarcasm...stop threatening me and for fuck's sake PUT YOUR TONGUES AWAY.)

In other news, I firmly believe this is the BEST CAR AD EVER. I mean, it made me want to grow a beard AND drive a '95 goddam...erm...grand am. Plus, any ad that uses "Jesus Tap Dancing Christ" is a fucking winner in my book: told Husband he can't sell my truck until he comes up with an equally entertaining ad.

I also seriously considered quitting my job as a business analyst for a health-care-company in favor of becoming a dragonslayer, except that brought up the Dilemma of DragonSlaying. It sparked a whole ethical dilemma in today's email session:

Me: Being a fucking weirdo, my first thought was "but what if the red and green dragons are husband and wife dragons? I'm not killing someone's spouse. For FREE. WTF dude?"


C: what if they have little baby Christmas themed dragon-ites? That's not cool man.Also if it's green there's a solid chance that it's Puff the Magic Dragon and, dude, that is nothing but good news. Seriously.
Z: Do I get to keep a trophy of this dragon? Because I would mount it's wings on my car, that would look so fucking cool. Husband and Wife or Brother and Sister, either way I'm not risking encoring the lifetime wrath of a Dragon for no pay. The only way this would work is if the Dragon gave me half his heart and was actually Sean Connery. Although I still wouldn't kill it then.

Yup. That was my day today.

JESUS TAP DANCING CHRIST! I MEET JENNY LAWSON TOMORROW!!

UPDATED: Warning: This Post Contains Coworker GIBBERISH

Writing doesn't pay any of my bills: I write because if I didn't I'd wither away into bitterdom. Yes, I just invented a word. I'm that awesome. Or mental. Probably mental.

In my I'm-paid-to-sit-at-this-computer hours, I'm a business analyst in the medical insurance industry. Sounds boring as hell, doesn't it? Sometimes it is (generally those are days when you get multiple blog posts during the day and I'm on twitter/facebook/interwebz WAY more than I should be). Case in point: I'm writing about 10,000 UAT (User Acceptance Testing) test cases for software functionality.

Ok, I'm exaggerating. It's 1,000. I'm not kidding. Sound exciting? It's not. At all. It's tedious and nitpicky, but still better than starving my dogs to death, so I do it.

Sometimes it's challenging, interesting, and even a little fun even though I'd always rather be writing.

Or watching Xena: Warrior Princess.

Or bellydancing, which is the only hobby I've ever had that pays a little bit, and that's a neat little bonus to the fun of it. But being inherently lazy, usually I'd rather be watching Xena.

The past few years I've had a couple higher-stress gigs (one required a lot of travel which I bitched wrote about plenty already), but they were small companies with a "family" feel to them (if your family is high-drama and a lot of work). The current gig is delightfully low-stress: partly because I'm a contractor (therefore I don't EVER work over 40 hours because they'd have to pay me overtime) and partly because it's a large company with all the requisite bureaucracy.

And the requisite gossipy, snarky personalities. During all that time with nerdy developer-types I forgot hilariously annoying that many women working in the same space can be.

Of COURSE I have examples, silly! These are all from the same girl who I can only assume is a spoiled brat attention whore simply because she's so fucking loud and repetitive I'd like to ball-gag her that her inane comments make it through my headphone-filter. Oh sorry, was that snarky?

• I hate when I see people treating their kids like pets: kids shouldn't be on leashes, that's just cruel. Because clearly she's never lost a child anywhere and is a judgy bitch.
• It's like $100 for cable and internet. I'm not paying for HBO when all I watch is "The Young and the Restless" on Soap Network every night.
• I can't believe you lost your kid! What kind of parent ARE you?
• NAME REDACTED put an APB out on her kid in Macys! (please include a bitchy, snotty tone and loud self-important giggling when you read this for full effect).
• NAME REDACTED! LEASHES ARE FOR DOGS, NOT KIDS! (In caps because she yelled it. Repeatedly. I'm only partially kidding when I suggest ball gagging her.)
• Name Redacted, my elbow just burst. Can my elbow burst?
• OMG YOU HAVE TO GET THEIR FRIES (again, yelling and went on about Smashburger fries for a good 10 minutes. Irritating, actually).
• Well I'M not coming in early! Upon the supervisor asking for volunteers to work on authorized overtime. Said supervisor replied, "We already know that, Twit Coworker Name Redacted. You said so three times. We heard you."
• UPDATE: Why are you always isolating me? (upon discovering the person across from her cube is moving out) Supervisor: "Oh Twit Cowroker Name Redacted, if we were going to isolate you we'd put you in a padded room. Or the basement where no one could hear your whining." Fucking AWESOME.

In other news, the new Starbucks guy gave me a fork with my oatmeal today. A fork with my oatmeal. WTF?

To fix my day I've ordered 4 Unicorn Fart Lip Balms from Etsy. They smell like thin mints. Fucking tubes full of AWESOME. Also, Etsy may be the devil...
This whole post was totally random and if you made it this far I love you a lot. And you may need some professional help...just sayin.

UPDATED: Unicorn Farts are on their way! WOOT!

Turns out I AM a slacker

Yesterday, the worst flash flooding in 40 years hit my hometown, causing likely tens of millions of dollars in damage to commercial buildings, roads, and homes in the area. See pics here. It's strange and awesomely horrifying all at once, and apparently my brain is avoiding worrying about my relatives up there (a few are trapped in their farmhouse right now because the water washed out the road on each side and the river rose to within 40 feet of the house) by focusing on stupid shit. It's selfish and dumb and there you go: if I think about the pics of my hometown too long I get teary eyed, so I do this instead.

For example: the current Mayor is only a couple years older than me...in fact, I went to high school with him. Now I was utterly unsurprised when he ran for Mayor, and even less surprised when he won. The man was class president and the poster child for a future in politics: he gave a shit about stuff going on in the community. I applaud him for that, because while I like to think I wouldn't panic in a disaster situation (I don't really know, to be fair), I'm pretty sure I'm not a good choice to lead a city through a disaster. Mayor Ness, however, seems to be doing a fine job so far: kudos to you dude!

That was the second reminder of my slacker-ness today. First was digging out my college transcripts for my current job, because apparently the background check doesn't actually go into the school records like everyone else does, so I need to prove I went to college. Sigh. It took me six hours of digging through papers to find the damn things.

And when I finally found them, I was slightly ashamed. I was a solid B student in college: not because I couldn't get A's...because I was lazy. Seriously, there's NO reason I should've gotten a C- in an English Literature class, or a C in Cultural Anthropology. Those were part of my majors, for Gods' sake...meaning I was relatively INTERESTED in them. Sigh. I never thought of myself as a slacking gen-x-er, but the proof is in the transcripts after all. If I could go back, I'd apply myself.

The way I'm applying myself now, to my current job, by writing this blog post. And pointing out that the Red Cross of MN always accepts disaster relief donations and I'll be watching for the offical call for volunteers when cleanup efforts begin.

Thank goodness the seals and polar bear survived. I wonder if they have counseling at the Como Zoo for them?

Poking the Bear

I started a bit of a snark war on the Huffington Post yesterday. I read this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-hannah-grufferman/mommy-wars_b_1584446.html and saw a comment from a fool basically saying women need to stay home and make babies because that's the way it's always been.

Well, the historian in me couldn't take THAT, so I had to respond to the jackass's comment. As of this morning I've gotten FOUR replies from him, all in a very condescending, chauvinistic tone. I'm pretty amused: sometimes it's worth the effort to poke at insecure bullies just to see what happens. Snort.

I'm debating responding to his response, but since he essentially outed himself as a fool I don't think it's necessarily worth the effort. Therefore, I'm blogging about it instead.

UPDATE:

Yeah. I couldn't keep my mouth shut, so I DID end up responding. Sigh. Smart isn't always my strong suit, I guess, but sexist intimidation is so irritating.

Thus Ends UE

Got a job this week, and while my wallet (and my husband and everyone else I know) is celebrating I'm just a bit melancholy about the whole thing. My dream is to make enough money to be able to stay home and write without being on unemployment so I can justify the home-time...and while the adult in me is proud that I'll be pulling my weight again, the dreamer is quietly mourning that my time off went by so quickly.

Now, the key will be to get into some sort of daily writing habit so I don't lose momentum on the book when I go back to work. Of course, the key to THAT goal will be finding an hour or two in the day doesn't cut too deeply into husband/family time. Let the juggling act begin!