And I can go home now!...

It’s happened again: I’m stuck at work with very very little or nothing to do, but I have to stay and “look busy” because work could pop up again at any moment — gracious, no!

The thing is, I actually have many things going on, but they either are awaiting the supervisor once-over or otherwise rely on someone else contacting me (i.e. a contact deciding when they’d like to be interviewed, etc). So I’m working on many projects…but can’t do any of them.

At least I have a moment to practice my blogging. (after surfing the web for…at least an hour and a half now. I swear there is real work that goes on here…)


Movin’ Out!
Against all odds and defying all logic, my parents (read: mom) said I could move into the apartment! Wooo!!!
It was very weird. I’d brought up the “apartment situation” after dinner a few nights before, with my dad present as my strategic ally. We actually (finally) discussed it seriously for the first time ever, but my mom kept making up reasons why it wasn’t a good idea, which my dad and I always readily countered. I thought I was still doomed and that she’d dig her heels in for no good reason and was just going about my life when, *bam!* my mom asks me when I can get the lease.
Afraid that I’m in an alternate universe or in a really nice (but remarkably less bizarre than usual) dream, I proceeded with all the caution of an impala in lion country. Sure, says I, I can get it from the apartment complex no problem…
I bit back my cheering when I realized she wasn’t kidding! Hurray!
Later that same weekend, she starts asking me about things I’ll need “when I move into the apartment.” Further confirmation that it really happened! Now I have the lease at home (we’re waiting to have a lawyer friend look it over on Sunday before I’m allowed to sign it) and my mom and I have, quite amicably, started a box of “stuff I’ll need in the apartment.” So far it has a new first aid kit and a bottle of Jane’s all-purpose salt (that I lurve!), but we’ve talked about such things as a new comforter, blinds, and starting a recipe book.
It’s REAL! I’m really going to be allowed to move into the apartment!

Here’s the interactive part: What things might I need that I don’t already own? The beds – full-size or queen? Special spices we’d like to have? Is Kelly going to be taking anything with her that it would be good for me to replace (pots, pans, etc)? Do I need to get utensils and plates? What stuff do I need for new apartment startup?

Squee!


The Beasties
Hopefully by now you have seen the kitten pictures. Aren’t my babies precious?!? The problem is they are also quite unintentionally ferocious. Going to bed, for instance, is dangerous work. Human feet, you see, are lovely when they are in shoes or bare; they are good for licking, rubbing against, occasionally petting you, and other simple pleasures. But a bad thing happens at night: the instant a human feet slide under the covers, they become horrific monsters that must be crushed by all the kitten powers of biting and clawing!
Needless to say, ow.
The only practical solutions for this are a) locking them out, which is just said because they cry and paw at the door, or b) sleeping under thick comforters where, while you’ll still be attacked, at least you will only feel the thumping of kitten-pounces and not the scythes they keep in their paws.

They’ve gotten a lot bigger; the vet said they’d doubled in weight. 4 whole pounds. They are so beautiful; the vet, who sees cats all day every day, marveled at how pretty our girls were. They are! And they were fairly well behaved at the vet, all things considered. They just lay down in their carrier/tent and meowed a bit in the car, but they were quiet at the vet and kept each other company.


Happy Fourth
Happy post-Fourth o’July, everybody. I hope you had a good time.

I did. I was off of work (hel-lo federal holidays!) and it was 98% sunny, where it has been 98% rainy lately. It was great! My mom and I slept in for the morning (bye-bye 6:30 a.m., I’m still snoozing), fed the dogs we are charged with and got supplies for the mid-day celebration at our friends’ house, including this curve-hugging dress that reminds me of a cross between Marilyn Monroe’s famous white dress and WonderWoman in a toga, makes me feel like a million bucks and was super cheap. (score!)

We went to our friends to swim in the pool and eat her wonderful stuff-your-face food and played a game called Farkle. (It was silly, simple and involved dice). Then my mom and I went home for the block party at our street, where we arrived just in time to grab a watermelon icee and watch the fireworks display. It was great.

I missed my dad and brother some, because they are off on the pinnacle of Boy Scout experiences hiking up a mountain and it was weird being without them. While I was watching the fireworks, I kept thinking about how weird it is that we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence with fireworks.

Fireworks, meant to symbolize the “rocket’s red glare, bombs bursting in air,” are looked upon as a beautiful spectacle. A symbol of war, made kid-friendly. Does anyone else think about this?

I guess what fireworks remind me the most of, though, is “The Sandlot.” One part of the summer montage includes the only night game the boys could play, on the fourth of July. It was beautiful. (For some reason, I have a deep weakness/love for baseball movies. LOVE “The Sandlot,” “The Rookie,” “A Field of Dreams,” “A League of Their Own.” Can hardly sit through an actual game, though.)


Are You My Mother?
Now I realize several of you are of the opinion that my mom is too protective/hard on me. I know at least two of you have told me that, were you me, you’d be looking to escape the house forever and never look back. While I wouldn’t go that far, it is a fair assessment, based on what I have given you as a description. It’s true that she can make my life hellish and digs her heels in for reasons I can’t understand. It’s absolutely true that we have bitter fights that often leave me in tears (never to her face), and that she fights ‘dirty,’ with lots of guilt-tripping and holding of mistakes over my head and unreasonable expectations.
But it is also true that most people that know me here wouldn’t know that. Publicly we are always civil and a working mother-daughter relationship. This is partially because of her reputation as an everyone-motherer and the impression I work to give off as the perfect student/daughter, absolutely. But it is also true because, interestingly enough, my mom and I get along fantastically — as long as we don’t talk about anything involving me.
It’s true. As long as we can avoid any conversations about my life/how I should run my life/the choices I make, we’re peachy. So that means we don’t discuss the apartment (thus my shock when she broke the taboo on her own!), Adam, my grades, my classes, my career, my future job opportunities, etc. With that in mind, however, we are great. We can go shopping together (we spent 9 hours shopping on Saturday, bleah!), watch movies, play with the kittens, cook, go out, whatever and we are wonderful. Haven’t had a fight in weeks.
What’s more, right now it’s just us, with my dad and my brother having been gone for a week now. No fights anywhere in sight.
Interesting, no?

Has Anyone seen my stapler?

8:30- I’m at work, but I’m apparently here before all of my possible bosses and I have nothing to do. I’ve been aimlessly surfing for an hour now… $8 an hour high-speed Internet boredom. (Because, while I have the capabilities for unlimited Internet fun, I’m being watched. I know this. So I don’t do anything too risqué. Besides the risk of the tech guys, my actual bosses could turn up at any time…and who knows what conclusions they’ll happily leap to if they see me reading Matt’s “Horrors of Sex” propaganda. I can only imagine…)

So, in between the modicum of work they have for me, the uncomfortable chair-yoga and the aimless Internet drifting, I’ve felt like writing. A lot. It seems, in the absence of anything better to do, my urge to write — the same urge that left me two years ago at the Mo’ian — has returned, without my generally having any post-work time to actually do it. And, because I get up at 6:30 a.m. now for work and consequently am exhausted by 11 at night and all of y’all are on college time and sleep all day — and so I never really get to talk to any of you — I thought I’d just update you this way, via the bloggy (that I’m actually typing in Word to dodge the ever-watching Big Brother tech guys).

Every morning, Monday through Friday, anyway, for the past two weeks I’ve gotten up at 6:30, an inhuman time generally, greet the kittens that mewl at my feet , get dressed, remove a kitten from my leg, stumble into the kitchen, where the kittens somehow arrive before me even though I left them in the bathroom a minute ago, pack a lunch and a parental unit drives me to the bus station, on the way passing the park where I had my first kiss, Valentines Day in 2000. I scramble onto the 205, which always happens to stick around for another five minutes, making me look stupid for running.

If the weather is nice and I don’t happen to be wearing heels, I get off the bus 15 to 20 minutes later after it trundles into Uptown. I put my headphones in and dance-walk down a hill for 15 minutes or so before arriving at my shiny 17-story building.

*****
Allow me an aside: I have no problem riding the bus — it’s cheap, good for the environment, low-stress (I don’t have to deal with parking or traffic), and I get in a walk while it is still cool. Very pleasant. I do, however, have a problem with men, in relation to the bus. I’ve mentioned this before, but it happens to me just about every day, so it is fresh on my mind.

As I’m walking to work, waiting for my bus at the downtown station, or riding and quietly listening to my iPod or reading a book, I get hit on or leered at. Every day. I can’t understand it. It isn’t like I’m doing anything all that interesting. I’m dressed about as I would for the Mo’ian or, on a good day, a half step above that. Normally in pants and tennis shoes. My clothes are intentionally conservative (thus, ‘work-appropriate attire’). And yet it happens *constantly.* Men, generally well older and often minorities, honk, gaze for an uncomfortably long time, speak to me, etc. When they speak they are (so far) very polite, asking questions, always ending up with ‘so…what are your plans for the weekend?’ Fine. But they don’t stop when I give all the “leave me alone” signals. My eyes are averted, I still have my headphones in, I shift uncomfortably, I say I’m a student (and, in my mind, that means “and too young for you”), I use monosyllabic answers, I say I have a boyfriend. …And they keep it up.

The problem here is that, as long as they don’t touch me and remain polite, I can’t bring myself to be rude or mean to them. I think ‘well, yes I want to go away, but he’s being nice, so that isn’t a fair reaction. Just wait him out.’ And I do, shifting uncomfortably until I have a good reason to escape.

And, assuming I can’t do anything about the ones that actually speak to me, they aren’t that bad. It’s the looks, the honking cars. They make me feel like I’m a piece of fresh meat sashaying through a pack of dogs while Pavlov’s bell clangs over my head. (can you tell I’ve been thinking about this for awhile?) I want to paste a sign on my shirt — I’m not interested and honking won’t get you anything!

After all, what do they think they are going to gain? That if they honk at me, they’ll catch my eye and I’ll dart through the moving traffic, dodge the other vehicles, jump in their car and give them a hearty romp? Of course not! So what do they gain? It is just rude. It makes me uncomfortable, more than it is flattering. I just wish they’d keep their eyes on the road and off of me. I’m wary enough, a young woman walking through (granted, a safe) part of downtown alone. I don’t need them to let me know they are watching me.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Common experiences? Alternate perspectives? I know I’m not the only one that this has happened to, but, I guess because I’m the only one out when it does, it’s an isolating experience.
*****

Right, so we’ve arrived at my building. I go in, smile at the doormen, and take my elevator to the 12th floor. I swipe my magic security pass in front of the card reader, smile at any of the accountants who happen to be in, toss my lunch in the fridge — noting that my nectarine was apparently pulverized by the waterbottle — and start a cup of hot tea. I need my caffeine fix in the morning, just to stay awake. It’s now 8:30, and I’m officially at work. I plunk down at my poorly-lit little grey box of a desk and check all three of my email accounts — the work account always is first, of course.

On a good day, something is waiting for me. Boss K, the one technically in charge of me, has sent me an email giving me some useless job like researching every stop-smoking method in existence and creating a file on it. Some days there is a story on my chair for me to proof-read. Proofing takes me all of 15 minutes, at the most. You’d think I was working at lightspeed, by the shock on Boss K’s face when I turn it back in.

This has been the way of things recently. I work too quickly and thoroughly the first time and I’m making myself obsolete. By blazing through all the intern work they have on hand, I finish before they’ve had a chance to compile a new list of things for me to do. I don’t mind any of the work I’ve been given, even when it felt like my eyes were going to fall out after reading “funniest” moments since readers were diagnosed with cancer all day. (People a) can’t write for their lives, and b) don’t have a clue what ‘funny’ is.) As I am out for ‘Intern of the Universe,’ I work really hard to be thorough and (relatively) fast with my work. My aim is to look like a better worker than SMUgirl, my comrade in intern-arms. (Some days, this is not hard. …I had to teach her how to use the Google toolbar. Yup. THAT Google toolbar.)

This plan, however, backfires when I have nothing to do. As now…it’s now almost been two hours since I’ve arrived and worked on…nothing. Last week, I was actually told to “go surf the Internet for awhile…We’ll come get you if we need you for anything.” I did the Internet until even that lost its allure, then I worked on the typography puzzle in the breakroom until I was sent home.

I have no idea what to do. Short of inventing work for myself, I do everything I can find that sorta kinda needs doing. I am vigilant with my emails, making sure readers get answers when they submit a letter… I work on stories as far ahead as I can, short of knowing what they want me to write about. And, of course, working ahead just means that I finish my work early, perpetuating the problem. I have no idea how else to fill my time. I don’t feel right about not working while at work… but I don’t really have other options right now. (short, of course, updating my blog for y’all).

Anyway, I work (or not work) until about 5 pm, then I bolt out the door and try to catch the bus that picks up across the street. My luck with this is not good. Several times I’ve stepped out only to see the bus pulling away, and with it my opportunity to get home early-ish.

I loaf around at the bus stop for another 20 minutes or so until the next bus comes by, and ride that trumbling contraption to the bus station. There I cross to the other side and keep an eye out for the bus from downtown to the transit center. Sometimes it is there already. Sometimes it is on time. Sometimes it isn’t and I wait 40 minutes for one of the buses to make it through highway traffic. Finally, I get on and let my eyes glaze over while the bus rolls around downtown picking up other office workers. I doze. I listen to my headphones. I read a book. Finally, an hour and 15 minutes after I left work, I get to the transit center where, hopefully, a parental unit is waiting to take me home.

From there, my life gets really boring. We eat dinner. I play with the kittens (who have apparently doubled in weight in a month. They now each weigh 4 pounds and can jump straight up from the floor to my waist.) I watch the Food, Travel, Animal or Home Improvement Network with my parents. Occasionally it’s a movie, generally in black and white, that my dad has gotten off of NetFlix, or something on the SciFi channel that my dad and brother happen to be watching.

Ah! Victory! At 10:50, I’m finally given a task — research the appropriate ribbon colors for various cancers. …Hurrah?

11:05 – BossM gives me work, spreadsheets and mail merges…due by Thursday. At this rate, I’ll be done with it today. But at least it is work!
12:48- Finally finished compiling a list of ribbons for 8 lesser-known cancers, using only reputable, non-commercial websites. Harder than it sounds. (Can you say busywork?)

3:00- Just finished filling out, copying and compiling four competition applications for BossE (a new one this week!). BossE wanted to enter these contests, but apparently didn’t want to do the busywork bit of it, and so passed it to me. In my opinion, having an intern fill out and handle your applications for prestigious awards is what Mark would call a “poor life decision.” How does she know that the possibly stupid (I mean, she did just meet me) intern who cares not in the least if she wins said competitions, knows nothing about the competitor and has absolutely nothing invested in their winning is going to fill the paperwork out right? All this possibly saves her is the effort of standing at the copy machine as it does it’s little copy job. Woo. As far as I’m concerned, it means she isn’t all invested in winning either. I’d be paranoid, checking over every little detail. She, it seems, is not.

I do it with a smile, though. And I just keep thinking how I’m going to have a ninja-like grip after using a stapler with one hand so often.

Back to the actual work-related work (just two more hours!)

4:45- I’m wrapping up to go home. I didn’t finish the work BossM gave me, but that’s because of the asides by BossE and BossL. It’ll still be done way before Thursday, but filling out a database by reading articles to find names takes awhile. And I think that was the point…slow me down.

It won’t stop me — WonderIntern! The best damn intern in the world!

…I should go, before I miss my bus.

I'm going to go home...and log on to the Mo'ian website and work for THEM for awhile! Yippee!

Weekly Update

I'm sorry I haven't gotten around to posting in awhile. I mean to, but I've just been beset with homework out of the blue lately, and then this weekend was blissfully empty, and I spent it sleeping, mostly, or playing games, or otherwise feeding my need for quiet and calm. And tidying my room even. Homework seems to have the uncanny ability to lie in wait until other homework has already pounced, then it takes your weakness (busy with the other work) to sneak up on you. Then, before you know it, you are standing in the middle of a circle of assignments and they tackle you, snarling, to the ground. It's more than a person can bear.

My birthday was fantastic. Really, it was really nice. Thank you, Becky, for pulling together a birthday dinner for me on short notice. It really made my birthday awesome. And I got a free hat! And an embarrassing song! And a free tequila shot!

For those of you who weren't there, no, I didn't get smashed. Yes, I did drink. I did one "buttery nipple" shot, had a huge (delicious) strawberry raspberry margarita, and the tequila shot. Not even drunk. Just a bit tipsy and giggly. Like a soft-focus movie shot in an old-time movie. And Mexican food; oh, Mexican food, good Mexican food, how I have missed you. Servings bigger than anyone at the table could manage. It was fantastic.

And thank you, Becky, for attempting to take me bowling. A good idea, but it is probably better it didn't work out. Tipsy bowling may not be a good idea, I don't know. But we should definitely do the rollerblading at some point. *nods*

Since then I've been...well, working on homework. Last week was a paper on Cupid and Venus as they are portrayed in four books we read for my Ancient Novel class. It turned out so crappy; I just didn't have any heart left for it. This week is the 10-15 page paper on John Simon, the infamously cruel theater critic. (I get a kick out of him). I'll probably be working/finishing that tomorrow, I guess.

And Saturday is FARC in the Park, if we can pull it off. Keep your fingers crossed.

Tomorrow is my little brother's birthday. He'll be 15. He got the present I sent him (he called to see if I was the one who'd sent it; "I just didn't think about you sending me a present" he said. He's cute sometimes. I offered to take it back...he decided he'd just hang on to it.) I wish I could be there for his birthday. Now that he's in high school, I really feel like I'm missing out, not being around. I'll call him tomorrow :). He likes a girl. They hold hands, he told me. He's not sure when he should ask her out. I try to be a good older sister, being generally supportive, but not probing too much. I want him to be able to talk to me.

I'm still upset about not getting the PA thing, but the upside is that I was offered and accepted a Teaching assistant position on the Mo'ian copydesk for the fall. They wanted me for the summer, but I, unfortunately, need money desperately and still haven't figured out a place to live for the fall, much less the summer. I want to live with Becky, Britt, and Cassie, but my parents are resisting, for unknown reasons. I think it's because my mom fears change. And I'm afraid too. It's a big new step, and I won't have a car; I'll have to depend on buses and the kindness of my roommates. That makes me nervous. But I think I want that more than I want to reassurance I'd get from living on the dorms. And I *really* want my own bathroom, and a bathtub. I'm tired of showers. :P