tis the season.

I may not really like WHAT I do at my job, but I love the people.

I've been really sick the past three days with a stomach flu. Before it hit, people signed up to bring food in for the luncheon we are having next week and me and a couple of co-workers are going in on a pepperoni and cheese platter. This e-mail ensued.


From: Jamiece
To: Kelly, Mike, Jason, Sara
Sara has graciously offered to put the pepperoni and cheese platter together. We are suggesting a $5 contribution per person. Please give your money to Sara. She plans on shopping tonight.




From: Kelly
To: Jamiece, Mike, Jason, Sara
Sara are you sure. I have no problem giving more money so they can cut it themselves???




From: Mike
To: Jamiece, Kelly, Jason, Sara

Kelly,

Sara isn’t feeling well, just let her cut the cheese.

priceless.

Number of people who commented to themselves or their group as I walked by: 32
Number of people who commented to my face: 5
Number of people who took my picture: 1
Having people in the streets of New York City (where I’ve seen everything) pay attention to and comment on something I was wearing: Priceless

where adults act like kids.

Chuck E Cheese is dangerous.

the most wonderful time of the year.

Christmas activities get worse over time. I’ve learned this.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy the time I spend with my family; I do. It’s just that everything is now infused with a sense of sadness and lost childhood. Ever since both of my grandmothers passed (within three months of one another not two years ago) there’s a damper on holidays.

I also spend a lot of time reflecting. I think about how lucky I am, how I don’t know how many more times I’m going to get to do this. I remember sitting on my couch last year at Christmas time, staring at the tree in the foyer and crying because I thought I wouldn’t be around next year for it. (That didn’t work out. Yet.)

It’s scary. I’ve always known waking up to my parents and a tree with presents underneath it. It will be very odd to not have that.

My parents and I did a tradition last night that I would fly home from Japan for, if it came to that. We decorated the tree.

Every year my mom puts our fake, color-coded-branch tree up and proceeds to decorate it with about 4584697 lights, both white and multi-color. This is a task that usually involves several bottles of beer, an occasional electrocution and an old Garth Brooks Christmas album.

Then we all gather to put the ornaments on the tree. Dad and I generally dawn stupid Christmas hats (I was an elf, he a reindeer) and mom just shakes her head at our nonsense as if to say, “How could these two idiots, who I’ve put up with for 25+ years, dare to touch my beautifully crafted light spectacle?”

We switch off between old, traditional ornaments and novelty ornaments. The novelty ones are never a problem, but the traditional ones are a bitch. They’re all ancient, glass and being man-handled above a wooden floor for a good hour. Shards of iridescence are quite common on tree-decorating night.

Every year, when we decorate the SAME. FAKE. tree that has taken up the corner of the foyer for the month of December for twelve years, my dad says the same thing:

“We are never going to fit all these ornaments on this tree.”

And mom responds the same.

“Shut the hell up, John.”

comic book hotness.

Just realized that Ryan Reynolds is set to play Deadpool in the upcoming Wolverine movie.

Unsure of who Deadpool is, so I googled it.

Who is he? He's perfectly Ryan Reynolds, that's who.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadpool_(comics)

open wide.

There is an awful drilling sound coming from the machine shop that sounds like someone getting their teeth drilled and/or cleaned.

freudian slip?

So I was just looking at thefreedictionary.com (where I have a job interview, so I want to make sure I'm familiar with the site) and I thought to put a word in to the search box just to see how the whole thing operates.

Cantankerous.

mouth, meet foot.

Holidays are a time to gather with family. It’s a time that I always seem to reflect upon who I am and how I got that way, picking out traits from family members. Why I’m obnoxious, where my weird eating habits stem from, why my neck and face stain red when I have more than one beer.

This holiday weekend I recognized all this not because of Thanksgiving, but my cousin’s baby shower.

She’s on my dad’s side of the family. You know how you read about the stereotypically obnoxious families that embarrass you every chance they get and have really weird habits? They exist and they’re all related to me.

We don’t see each other as much since my grandmother passed away, so it’s nearly shell-shock when we do get together. I haven’t seen my five aunts in months. My hair color and cut have changed drastically (which they should expect by now – I’m like Madonna). This is what I get for it.

“HunEEEE you look BEAUTIFULLLLLLL!”
“I love your HAIRRRRR!”
“I thought it was a WIG when you walked in! I was going to come over and PULL on it!”

That last one coming from an aunt who touches EVERYONE’S hair, because she has none of her own. Her scalp is visible beneath a see-through dome of brownish hair strands. I can’t even call it hair. It looks like a Chia pet, just hollowed out.

I can also be blunt sometimes and awkward in my public speaking. I don’t generally think about what I’m going to say until it’s good and gone out of my mouth (into the awkward silence you go!) and my verbal damage has been inflicted. This rarely hurts anyone; it serves more as humorous relief or one more reason to slap MORON on my forehead.

Everyone was gathered that day from my cousin and her husband's side of the family. Grandmother, great-grandmothers, children of sister-in-laws and aunts. My pregnant cousin stood in the beginning of the shower to give "thank yous" to everyone and concluded with this:

“I just want to thank my husband Kyle for putting up with me. And – you know what no. This is his fault anyway.”

how did it come to this?

I live in a house that holds three people: me, Mom, Dad.

I have no siblings. I have no grandparents or uncles or cousins that live here.

I do not live in a mansion. There are no wings in my house. It's pretty much a square with a very small set of steps. You can hear nearly every other part of the house wherever you're standing.

I always know who's in the house and what they're doing.

So why in the hell does someone always seem to turn water on elsewhere in the house while I'm showering, spraying me with cold liquid unexpectedly?

That is one of my biggest pet peeves. If I was in a situation where someone might not know I'm showering, that's fine; I get it. It's not so much the cold water that bothers me. It's the fact that you can HEAR the water running everywhere in my house. You KNOW I'm taking a shower, yet you continue to flush the toilet or wash dishes.

I’ve finally got a routine down for the morning that puts me at ease and in an okay mood to get to work. I was into that this morning and in the middle of showering when BOOM – cold water.

It’s 7:30. Dad is downstairs, Mom is in bed sleeping. The house is silent.

Can you NOT hear the WATER running? Did you not hear me SLAM the bathroom door purposely, signaling that I was going to be showering?

No. No. Of course you didn’t.

So there I was in the shower, having just rubbed soap all over my face, blindly groping for the handle to crank it full blast, but not too much because then when the water kicks back in my skin will burn off. And let’s never mind the fact that it’s already only twenty degrees outside and the cold water doesn’t help. And I’m running ten minutes late.

Thanks Dad. Happy Friday to you, too.

this will be me in two days.

my town in a nutshell.

just face it, don't pretend.

Oh, and a conversation I was part of this weekend at VGX that made me smile:

"The economy is in the shitter, and I'm going to spend $80 on the sword from Zelda. At least when the world comes to an end because of all this I'll be prepared."

ctrl c, ctrl v.

I'm in a very foul mood today because, not only is it Monday, but it's the start of a slew of days that I have to sit through work and also know I won't be seeing Tony for two weeks. Two weeks = a lot of days to me. It sucks.

Add to this days of work doing nothing but hitting Ctrl C, Ctrl V, Ctrl C, Ctrl V and I want to rip my freshly cut hair out of my head.

I've decided to focus my energies elsewhere: Christmas shopping.

I love to Christmas shop. Generally, I don't even care how much money I spend as long as I'm making the people I buy for happy. I like picking the perfect gifts for people that I know they really need and/or want. It's fun.

I just dropped $112.08 at Amazon.com for a total of seven gifts spanning from my mom to my best friend. With my new check card.

See, I didn't make enough money to possibly conceive of using a credit card for online purchases before this job. Now I can do that.

It's going to become a bit of a problem, I think.

"i take my job seriously."

Why couldn't this have been me?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289242,00.html

oh no you didn't.

I got smoked by a gamer this weekend. A fifteen-year-old black kid with a total disregard for gravity who nearly cracked my jaw.

We went to the video game convention in Philly. Thus far I’ve been to a horror convention and a comic book convention. Both were quite interesting and a lot of fun, but this one topped them all by far.

What was the first thing I saw upon walking into the convention center? Super Mario. A middle-aged fat man dressed as Super Mario and not just THAT but he was the RACOON Mario. You know, from the third installment of the game? Tail and ears and I’m-still-not-sure-how-he-got-overalls-that-big and everything.

In addition to this Mammoth Mario were some Storm Troopers, random Anime characters, a Ghost Buster, Darth Vadar and Master Chief; the latter two I have pictures with. Master Chief was, hands down, the best costume there.

It was interesting to be in the world of gamers, to see the many different platforms that host games and the many different people each game attracts. There was also LARPing and Cosplay, but I will save that for a separate entry – it’s a whole ‘nother beast entirely.

Still owning only an old school XBox and an N64, the highlight of my day was the section of actual arcade game machines (think PacMan) and the huge projection on the wall of people playing Asteroids.

My least favorite part of the day was getting run over for a free t-shirt.

There was a section that could be considered the epicenter of the convention that had a stage where raffles and contests frequently took place. There was an open floor littered with gaming chairs and bean bags in front of the stage. Tony, Kev and I went there for a raffle and some giveaways. We stood for a half hour before the raffle actually started to go off. By that time my feet were burning (because I’m the jackass that decided to wear Nine West pumps to a video game convention) so I sat down in a chair on the floor. I was about five feet from the crowd in front of me. The girls on stage started throwing out t-shirts and shit got hectic. I began scooching my way back and then there it was: a perfect navy blue t-shirt flying in my general direction. I leaned back in my chair, outstretched my arm and saw the fabric just brush my fingertips – before I got landed on and elbowed in the jaw.

I’m pretty sure I heard a collective “Oh!” from everyone standing in front of me. The pretty girl in the heels just got smashed worse than a Koopa Troopa by a kid about twice her size. He rolled off of me quickly and I kind of just sat there, arm still hanging mid-air, outstretched for the shirt I’d never get. Kev and Tony turned around and I think they both wanted to laugh, but they asked if I was ok instead.

No, I’m really not. Never mind the fact that my jaw is throbbing and I think my elbow twisted a way it really shouldn’t, I want that shirt, could you beat the fifteen year-old-up for me please?

and i will whistle a jaunty tune.

So, I was just searching for a pencil in my desk. I found one, but it had no tip. It hadn't even been sharpened once.

I know of no pencil sharpeners around here. None mechanical, none manual.

I just finished all of my projects and have nothing to do. There was a pair of scissors in the drawer next to my virgin pencil.


I actually considered sitting there and whittling a point to the pencil using the pair of scissors.

nose-blowers and cracker-crunchers.

I’m a noise junkie. I cannot do anything in silence. I hate being alone with my thoughts, which usually whiz off in all different directions that are unnecessary. Having music helps deter my mind from going down such paths.

I sit in a cubicle for eight hours a day in a department that not only has half the lights shut off, but is DEAD. SILENT. When someone pages a person over the intercom it’s like a bomb going off. I can’t even bite into the Chicken-in-a-Biskits I keep at my desk – I’m afraid I’ll cause a heart attack from the explosion of noise.

Everybody knows my business through sound. The first week I worked here I had a cold. People literally labeled me as the snot-nosed kid because all that was heard beyond my cubicle walls was the wet noise of boogers followed directly by the thunk of a wadded up bunch of tissues flying into my garbage can.

I make great first impressions, what can I say?

My only savior is my headphones. I have an MP3 player that’s stocked with 500 songs. That’s not a lot when you spend eight hours five days a week listening to it. Alas, some songs really get me through the day.

So I sit here in my silent cubical and have fun dancing in my head while everyone else around me suffers from nose-blowers and cracker-crunchers. I make sure I’m especially obnoxious when I make the slightest movement and why not? I can’t even hear what I’m doing, my music is so loud.

my will. to what, i don't know.

For the past two days at work, all employees have been required to attend an open enrollment session. During the session, reps from all different insurance companies talked about benefits and such.

It was truly pointless for me to attend as I’ve yet to hit my 90-day mark in order for me to achieve any benefits at all. I had to go (stupid sign-in sheets). So, for eighty minutes I sat myself in a hard, cold metal folding chair and watched the clock directly in front of me tick down. I was losing time away from my much adored cubicle, but I was gaining ass sores and droopy eyes.

The only thing that really caught my attention was the man from MetLife, an animated gent with a porn stache who was there to talk about life insurance. He mentioned wills and my ears perked up.

I’m twenty-two. I don’t plan on dying any time soon (you bet your ass I just knocked a dent into the wood desk I’m sitting at), but I thought about it – who would I give my shit to?

I don’t have much to give. At this point in my life I’ve just graduated from college and still live with my parents. Unless someone wants my increasing debt or dirty laundry, most of my friends are shit out of luck. I still own things that I treasure that have to go to someone, not a big yellow dumpster.

There are two things that are arguably my most expensive assets (collectively): my shoe collection and my book collection. These are things I take pride in, as I’ve been working on them both for as long as I can remember and they comprise my favorite things in life.

My shoes would have to go to a fellow size 8, 8 ½-er. This is a common size, but you’d be stunned – all of my friends fall either tragically short or above that standard. So, instead of giving them to a friend of mine that may be my size but not up to snuff fashionably (because of course I am – and also a bit of a shallow bitch, obv), I’d give them to the Salvation Army. Did you ever see the shoes in there? I would kill to walk in and find a two dollar pair of Nine Wests, but all I get are Naturalizers or square toes. And the ones that do fit me smell or have some sort of substance stuck to them.

My books would be split between my aunt, my cousin and my best friends Kelley, Joanne and Cara. That sounds like a lot of people, but trust me – there are plenty to go around. I imagine the more educational and classic ones would go to my aunt and cousin. The horror books would go to Kelley. The girly and humorous ones would be bestowed upon Jo and Cara.

My laptop’s gotta go to someone and that someone would be Joanne. She lives in the basement of her house with a very large family (half of who should be moved into their own place thankyouverymuch) and she has to share everything as the youngest of three. Girl needs something to call her own (besides her dignity and pride – which God bless her for still having some after putting up with her sister’s antics).

My DVDs and video game systems will go to Tony. There is no other person more perfect. Though he continuously mocks my N64, I’m sure that if he had it he’d play it all the time.

Or trade it in for money.

Yeah. Probably that.

I was crowned prom queen my junior year of high school. That and my high school and college yearbooks, along with copious amounts of photo albums, are the big memories of my earlier years. My cousins could have those. I’m sure they could learn a thing or two. (A picture is worth a thousand words, you know? Ones of me doing keg stands are worth infinitely less: “don't” would probably suffice.)

My most prized possession ever is my writings. I’m talking stories from third grade until now. Fanfiction, essays, work on my novel, poems, diaries and random scribbles on napkins. They’re my innermost thoughts; my most carefully crafted words.

These would go to my mother. She is also a writer so I think she’d benefit most from them. This would probably help her realize why I was so difficult to raise. And why there are so many miles on my car.

Everything else is fair game, kids. Feel free to ravage my belongings. You’ll probably only find it beneficial to you if you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, mini erasers, or sepia colored pictures of pop culture icons.