Come what may...

I watched Moulin Rouge for the first time last night. Reuben was appalled that I hadn't experienced this movie, and he sat me down for a good cry. I had no idea, none whatever, what this movie was about or what it would do to me. Oh for crying out loud, give the Oscar to Nicole! Sissy already has hers, and Naomi hasn't suffered enough yet. What a fabulous story, and the color, and the song. Oh, I loved it. I cried from the opening scene! I cried and cried and cried. It was fabulous. And John Leguizamo is just always so cute.

I'm still working. I have to learn how to use Windows XP now. Someone had the brilliant idea to upgrade the company computers to this new OS. I don't have any say in the matter other than to voice my strong opinion against Windows altogether. But anyway.... It looks like a game with all of those big, colorful buttons. I'm not too crazy about Mac OS X either, mind you. I realize that I will have to upgrade someday, but I'm resisting as long as I can...

...until I get my money from Uncle Sam. I got my California tax refund ($216) in the mail this afternoon. I'm waiting for my $1800 from the Feds. Tell the man with the money to come in here and pay me.

I'm going to help Phyllis watch the dogs and the house for a while while Reuben and Wayne are at the Olympics. They leave on Thursday, and I'll be there until next week or so.

Did I mention that my laundromat burned down? Good-bye Milt's.

Poor, poor Elan. I don't know how this could have happened. But it seems like my former company is going downhill à la Enron. I am so glad I got out of there when I did. All 2,000 of my shares would be worthless by now. Oh well. Keep your nose clean, learn how to fucking add and subtract without cheating, and hey, maybe your company won't go to hell. Why is this so hard? And why am I so poor? And why do the people who follow the rules and do what they're told always get the fucking short end of the stick? Bastard republicans.

Oh, and Ken, darling, won't you please, please, PLEASE call me? I miss you so much. Cheesecake on me...not literally, unless you want it that way.

That's all.

Storm

Never a dull moment. We had a training practice session on a live victim today. She was very accommodating, thankfully. I am not a public speaker. I always hated giving speeches in high school, and since I never made it to college, I never got a chance to be scared out of my skin there, too. I used to skip classes if I knew I would have to give a presentation or a speech. They always scared me to death. I would turn beet red to the extent that one time I heard a couple of girls (Future Tramps of America types) comment on my facial color from the back of the room. My hands would get all clammy and gross. I would tremble and stutter. I would have nervous knots in my stomach. It was always horrible. I dreaded it. And it didn't even matter if I knew the subject or not. In fact, there was a few times that I wished death on myself to escape the presentation. Honest. But that was a long time ago.

Now that I'm a sassy queen and now that I've found my attitude, I just don't give a shit. I don't know what happened, but it's like I can get up in front of a thousand people and talk for an hour and not feel a damn thing. So this presentation is not going to be that big of a deal. It's the people attending the training, scientists mostly, who will the pill to swallow. I've already met a few of them, and they're pricks. Arrogant, over-educated, over-paid, and in desperate need of a good haircut. They love to challenge convention, and that's why we have all of the wonderful breakthroughs in science today. So, I'm expecting them to ask us why we decided to put tabs here and autonumbering there. Kiss my lily white ass, is what I have to say. I wish.

I was writing this watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics. I've never watched the opening ceremony before. I didn't think it was all that big of a deal, probably because I'm not a big fan of organized sports. But this is cool. RJ and WL are there right now watching all of this. And all of the gorgeous men that I saw as they paraded by from oh, I don't know, Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary, to say the least. Oh, my.

That's all.

Educating Rita

RJ has introduced me to Pink Floyd. I love it. I took his CDs to humour him, and when I started listening to Dark Side of the Moon, I realized something else I missed out on.

When I was a junior in high school, my English class had a section on poetry. I hate poetry. It's cheesy and sappy...and I can't rhyme. My teacher, a really cool lady, suggested that we bring in lyrics from our favorite songs as examples of poetry. I brought in samples of my collection like Nathan Jones by Bananarama, Juicy Jungle by the B52s, and The Dolphin Song by Olivia Newton-John. I thought these were representative of me. The other guys, and a few of the girls, brought in samples of Pink Floyd. It's like they got together and said, "OK, I'll take in Shine on You Crazy Diamond, you take in Comfortably Numb, and you take in Brain Damage." I wasn't impressed. I thought they were pretentious pot-heads. But fifteen or so years later, I realize the profound lyrics, the euphonious melodies, and the soothing qualities that I poopooed in my ignorant youth. They're awesome. I feel like there's so much catching up to do.

On an unrelated note, I want a man like Big. I want a guy who's big, studly, masculine, and tender just to be friends with. I know, how shallow. But that's all. Honest. OK, the financially independent part is nice, too. I want a guy I can call up at two in the morning and stop by for a friendly dance followed by a roll in the hay. Roll, roll, roll in the hay. And that's it. I want friends so bad that sex has taken a backseat. I know where to find meaningless, anonymous sex when I need it. I want a friend to hang out with more. A gym buddy as well as a fuck buddy. Where does one find that in San Francisco? Again, I'm probably not paying attention, right?

That's all.

Day One—Session One

Alice is a dear, but she's a buffoon. She loves to spill out her "Dos and Don'ts" as if she were Moses himself coming down from on high with the stone tablets in hand. Aw, how sweet. And damn frustrating. I can't see how I can do this for another two weeks straight. I'm going to go crazy. Just watch me.

The lottery is up to $170 million!! It could reach $200 million by this Saturday's drawing. Can you imagine winning $200 million? At cash value, you would only take home just over a quarter of that (unless my math is wrong, and please feel free to correct me), but still that's a huge $50 million!! Oh, what I would do with that. You'd never see me again, and this blog would be full of my escapdes traveling the world. Buh-bye.

X woke me up at 5:30 this morning to complain about the garbage truck that I supposedly paid to wake him up. I'm watching the dogs, forty miles away, and I'm calling the Sunset Scavenger to come and wake him up on purpose...and they do it. What the fuck ever, moron. I gotta win that $50 million so I can move the fuck out of there. Punk ass.

That's all. I can't wait to see Session Two.

Day One—Session Two

OK, this one went a little better, but dear Mae sent those tablets crashing down from Moses' hands and crushed them into the ground. She managed to tell Alice that a lot of her Dos and Don'ts are just silly. Whatever. I loved it.

Happy Valentine's Day, oh by the way.

So then Brian, Head IT Dude, took my laptop away and came back saying he was having trouble with a file that I downloaded. Because I'm not at home right now, I have to dial in to collect e-mail and browse the web. He seemed to think that because the file was downloaded from a dial-up connection, the file was somehow corrupted. When I told him that I had originally downloaded the file from my DSL connection, he just looked at me and said, what's the difference? I couldn't tell if he was kidding or not.

One day down, fourteen to go.

Oh my stars.

That's all.

Day Two—Session One

OK, let's stop the catalogue of events right here. It's all the same. Alice opens her dyslexic mouth and spits out a bunch of rigamarole that makes no sense to anyone in the room except her, and we're left to clean up her mess. This will continue every day, exactly word for word until sometime in March where, either I kill myself, or someone else steps in to take control. This is wrong.

Today she pulled me and JA aside to inform us of a change in the order of the agenda. She wanted to add something that was already part of the training but didn't already have its own agenda item. So, I said, "Well, OK, we can add it to Part 1." She said, "No, we need to add it as its own item." JA said, "But it's already part of Part 1. Why do we need to repeat it?" And rather than giving a reason (or listening to fucking compromise), she said, "OK, we need to give it its own agenda item." I don't understand this. I have never met a person who was so resistant to change or unwilling to compromise that she's literally thrown me for a loop. I'm speechless. All I can do is say "Yes, Alice" to give her her way to shut her the fuck up. And now it's more than an ego thing. It's a matter of common sense of which this person hasn't an iota.

And...AND...I haven't even been paid! In over a month, I haven't received a paycheck, and everytime I inquire about it, RJ tells me that the dickhead CEO will take care of it. OK, well then, after five weeks, where the fuck is it? I mean, really. JA and I are the only ones generating revenue for this fledgling enterprise. PD&DS are designing software that hasn't even been released for sale yet, and so that leaves us. And they can't pay us for our efforts? I would understand if there was no revenue coming in, but considering that I fill out the fucking invoice that requests payment for services rendered, I happen to know otherwise!! So, tell the dickhead with the money to come in here and pay me. Why is this so damn hard? We're a small startup of seven...count us...seven people, and dickhead CEO can't pick up the phone or even send an e-mail to tell us the status of our paychecks? Like what, is he so far removed from us lowly workerbees that he can't stoop to talk to us? Fuck off and die, scum. I left Elan because of shit like this. There is little or no communication in this company of seven people. I would understand if we were 300 or something. But seven!!! He doesn't even know my name, and he doesn't even know what I do. SEVEN!!!

That's all. I'm so sure.

Vietnam

I had the most bizarre dream. I know I said I wasn't going to relate any more dreams, but I have to at least write this one down.

OK, I was at Red Lobster with the whole work gang. Desi was irritating me to pieces, and Wayne was taking her side in our arguments. So I sat at the table and pouted while everyone else went outside to have a ciggie-poo.

While I was looking out the window watching them have a good time, I fell asleep, and when I woke up, I found myself in an airport. I had a first class ticket to Vietnam on Vietnam Air. After trying to convince myself that I was really going, I got to the gate and had the stewardess show me to my seat. She said I was on the upper deck. As soon as I started to climb the stairs to get up there, the plane started moving, only it wasn't as slow and lumbering as a big 747 usually is. It was jerky and fast like a city bus.

So I got up to the upper deck and found a large, squarish compartment with windows on every side. There were seats along the perimeter of this compartment, and it was mostly empty. The design of this cabin reminded me of a club house. There were even tables in the corners with lamps standing on them. So I found my seat and sat down. There were foreign magazines scattered all over the place on the seats and on the floor, and I thought, great, now I can finally read a decent magazine.

And then I was on a city bus going through a downtown area of a city. I knew I was in Vietnam, but I didn't know where. All I could think of was that I left my cell phone at the Red Lobster and I hoped that Peachy picked it up for me...Oh maybe I should call her...but how because my cell phone is in San Francisco. Hmmm.

The bus took us down a street that was bordered on both sides by upscale shops similar to a mall. The shopgirls were standing outside talking with one another, and I could hear what they were saying. One girl I passed was telling me about bush-whackers and how she liked gay men better than straight men because gay men weren't bush-whackers.

And then I woke up to Buddy and Rosie's cold, wet noses in my face.

That's all.

This is why I love

This is why I love Apple!

Garages

I had a dream that I was at a pharmaceutical convention somewhere with Reuben. I knew that I couldn't work for him anymore, so I decided to find a job in that city instead. I found a construction job and thought that I could do construction. I showed up at the site and saw nothing but thugs and criminals, so I left. I couldn't do that job after all.

On the way back up to my floor in the hotel, I thought that maybe I could work with matabang kalabaw and Susan again. They were at the same convention. What was I thinking? Of course not!

Somehow I ended up by myself, sitting in a chair surrounded by windows. I heard a voice to my left say, "Garages are supposed to be lonely." I looked up to see Ellen Degeneres. I said, "What?" She said, "Garages are supposed to be lonely, not people." "Oh, OK."

Then I realized that I was on a plane at an airfield. Only it wasn't inside the airfield, it was outside of it. The plane started to move and I realized I was trapped. But then I thought "eh, why not?" The plane followed the automobile traffic towards the departure gates. From my vantage point, I saw a middle-aged gentleman in a blue 60s Mustang convertible cut off an elderly man driving a yellow Mercedes convertible just like the one Jennifer Hart used to drive.

Then I found myself walking up the ramp from the plane to the airport terminal. There was a lady walking next to me. She was Nancy Dussault, the mother from Too Close for Comfort. She was in a green silk robe and slippers with a fuzzy towel draped over her arm. She said, "Are you lost?" I said, "Where was that plane going?" She replied, "Reno." I thought, "Why was Ellen Degeneres going to Reno?" She said, "Come with me to the mops department," but we ended up in women's lingerie.

I left the shopping center and saw Las Vegas and the Strip. I knew I could get home via the tram along the strip, so I turned to walk toward it, and I found myself in a neighborhood in my hometown. I started walking, and I even passed a Dairy Queen. There were two army studs working the joint, one with blue hair, the other with multiple piercings in his left ear. They were both wearing BDUs. I thought, "I would love a chocolate dipped cone, medium please, and a Buster Bar."

That's all.

Mean people suck

After a long and emotionally trying weekend, our training sessions have been put on hold until further notice. In as few words as possible, let me say that Alice is more than a buffoon, she's incomptent. She knew she was getting in over her head trying to manage this process, and in the end, she made herself look foolish. So, rather than accepting responsibility for her actions, she blamed me and JA for being rude and unresponsive to her needs. RJ called me up on Saturday and bitched me out for it all. I bitched him out for believing a liar and told him my side—the real side—of the story. Looong story short, Alice gets her way, she gets the training all to herself, and we get to sit back and watch her fail. It sucks, but it's the only way.

So, my stress has been transferred from having to train a bunch of idiots to sitting and waiting for her to fall on her sword. I guess I can do that. I just fear that there will be a huge mess to clean up afterwards. WTF, I'm getting paid.

Or am I? I'm not going there right now. This whole startup thing is leaving a very sour taste in my mouth, and this time I think I'll spit. (Sorry for the graphics.)

That's all.

Teeth

Does anyone really like the dentist? Check this out.

People suck

Don't they?