More Things I've Learned

Always pee before you leave.

Take a bottle of water for the road.

Trying to negotiate the times for doctor’s appointments for myself the way I can for the kind of scheduling I do at work will result in a pissed off secretary and a 45-min. delay in the waiting room.

Don’t try to pass someone on a two-lane road just because they have slowed down to 10 mph for the past half-mile and have had their right-turn signal on for even longer; they might change their mind at the last minute and turn left, INTO YOUR CAR, resulting in you coming very close to wetting your pants and a hopefully-inconspicuous-to-your-husband very small paint scrape just above the wheel well. Ahem.

When in doubt, use the larger of the two pots.

Sleep can be delicious.

I can do urine, I can do poop, I can do vomit, I can do blood. I cannot handle pus.

Always write down the confirmation number.

One gets much more what one might call “common courtesy” from the male sex when one wears a skirt to work. One should do this more often, so one can be lazy and not have to open one’s own doors or walk up the stairs because the elevator was not held for them. However, one is lazy and does not like to shave every day.
One one one one.

The weather is rainy and gray and my mood has been the same – I think I need a haircut.
So I apologize for being unposty lately – I’m sorry, my chickens.

I’ve been listening to music to pull myself out of my funk and block out the bad karma flying around my head around here, so in lieu of yet another diatribe on the merits of caffeine/stupidity of people/awesomeness of [pop culture phenomena], I’ll share a couple of songs with you.



The Flamingos, I Only Have Eyes For You


This is probably the most well-known version of this song, and it’s my favorite. I think of American Graffiti when I hear it (SUCH a good movie, but I have a thing for [young] Ron Howard – it’s the red hair), and to me the echoey effects of the backup singers conjure romantic, foggy summer nights.


This is Photograph, off of Jamie Cullum’s Catching Tales that I posted about previously. (Sorry I can’t find a better video, but I like the album version better then the video cut of the song.)

I love the opening piano line – it’s new and innocent and hopeful, and I love how that fits so perfectly with the message of the song: “When I look back on my ordinary, ordinary life, I see so much magic though I missed it at the time.” Dude. Word.

Aw, this is cute. I love this song to begin with, but the ukelele gives it this nice, mellow charm.

All Around The Limbo Clock

And a big limbo thanks to Paige at I *Heart* You for creating the post that dredged up the memory that has this stuck in my head from now until the end of time.

Ugh, I am soooo over July.
The past several weeks have been busy and rough, and I wish that life had a fast forward button so I could zip through the next few weeks without having to actually deal with them. I dragged myself out of bed and through the motions of getting ready this morning, and I was pulling in the parking lot here at workwhen I realized that I may have forgotten to apply deodorant this morning. Hmmm. I have a stash of stuff for such occasions, but I’ll admit that as soon as I got to my desk and saw my inbox, I forgot about it…until a few minutes ago when I went to the bathroom and saw in my reflection three large telltale powdery white streaks across the shoulder of my navy blue shirt, which I’ve apparently been parading around with all morning. Awesome. Not so much a Secret, I guess. (I know, that was weak, but I had to.)

I was out of the office most of the day yesterday to attend a funeral for my great aunt. I spent 8+ hours with my mom and assorted family that I haven’t seen in probably five years, since my grandfather’s funeral. (I thought about it again and realized they probably came to my wedding in 2004, but I can’t remember a lot of that day). It was kind of surreal. I get extremely uncomfortable at funerals, and I did not really know that aunt nor do I know that branch of my family very well. It was physically and emotionally tiring to speak in platitudes all afternoon. I hate doing that; I hate being fake and formal, but apparently I’m good at it. I don’t know if that’s something to be proud of – I don’t think adding “Excellent bullshitter” to my qualifications necessarily makes me a more valuable employee.

As usual, I am struggling for breath under mounds of unfinished work (and yeah, I know, I’m whining about feeling overwhelmed but I still find enough time to whine). I am very, very close to waving a sad little white flag and admitting that I Really Don’t Know If I Can Do This. I keep thinking that I’d feel better if I could just have a really good cry, and (self-serving as it sounds) I’d thought that the funeral might be a good, obvious trigger, but no dice. I listened to a sappy song, finally alone in my car on the way home last night, but I could only squeeze out three little half-assed tears. I never thought it would be so frustrating to be unable to cry. Maybe that’s what it’s like to be a dude…

If only all my problems could be solved by singing and dancing and swinging around some luggage...