30 August 2006

Maybe Dunder Mifflin Has An Opening

Because I wouldn't mind working with Jim Halpert on a daily basis. And I suddenly find myself in need of employment. Regular readers know I detest(ed) my job, but it was still a punch in the gut when I was laid off this morning for "financial reasons." I'll be in Seattle the next two weeks on a test run at the branch office there. It is a long story, but at least I'll be employed for two more weeks. I might even be able to pay rent in October. Good times. But internet access might be spotty and I don't know when I'll get to write again. I'll miss you!

17 August 2006

Regression Part II

It is worse than I previously thought. I stood in Barnes & Noble at lunch for 20 minutes debating whether or not to spend six hard earned dollars on Elle because they had a one page blurb on John Krasinski from The Office. In my defense, the picture is good. On the other hand, the rest of the magazine will probably never be looked at. Yes, this debate took 20 minutes and yes I might have vocalized part of it and scared everyone else out of the periodical section. And no, I did not buy it. So maybe it isn't as bad as I thought.

10 August 2006

Regression - Its a Good Thing

When I was young, the standard phrases adults used to describe me were:

1. She's so responsible.
2. She's wise/mature/aware beyond her years.
3. She's always dependable.

For the most part, these were very flattering. I never particularly liked the word 'dependable' as it made me think of things like orthopedic shoes and polyester culottes, but I liked that people knew they could trust me. Especially with their children, because that is how I earned spending money. But beside that, it was like being given the golden ticket into adult circles. And I wasn't about to waste it by acting my age.

By junior high I had, both because of personality and social conditioning, cultivated an air of someone older. I had survived my brief foray in to fangirldom during the New Kids on the Block craze of 1988-89 and I had read enough of the 150 million Baby-sitters Club books to know I didn't need to read more. So I dove right into Jane Austen and the Bronte Sisters and renewed my teachers' faith in my advanced reading skills. I also scorned BOP!, Teen Beat, and pretty much any other publication aimed at adolescents except the occasional issue of Seventeen, but that was because of the fashion. And Vogue sometimes had the naked, so I obviously couldn't throw that into the cart while shopping with the parents. During high school InStyle launched and all my fashion mag issues were solved.

I tried desperately to avoid being labelled, or even being, boy-crazy. I had my little crushes in high school, but they were usually on the scandalously non-LDS boys and had more to do with certain aspects of their personas (hair, attitude, 1967 Mustang) than any real desire to date them. Because who finds lasting happiness in high school? Obviously not the mature young woman whose future plans revolved around at least one university degree and a career in some fabulous metropolis, preferably on the East Coast. So I sat back and let everyone else do the high-drama dating thing and planned for the future.

Eventually, being the mature one got tiresome. Especially around the point, during my sophomore year of college, my roommate's boyfriend called me "the mom of the apartment." Not the description one wants to hear when one is attempting to be a mysterious and alluring woman of the world. And thus the regression began.

It took a while to get going, because habits are hard to break and people don't let you change that easily. But it really took off when I moved in with a girl who had a Shrine to David Duchovny that took up her entire side of our room. It spread to my wall as well and eventually came to encompass many TVBoyfriends and travelled with us through several BYU apartments. How can your day not be good when you wake up to Hugh Jackman or Colin Firth or Jeramy Northam or Michael Vartan staring down at you. Plus you have the euphoria of starvation when you spend all your grocery money on glossy magazines. Of course as we moved on and became Responsible Adults who actually had visitors, we had to down-grade the Shrine. But it is still there in spirit.

The problem now is that I don't know how to stop the regression. A real-life boyfriend might help, but seeing as how I'm possibly more single than I was in high school (Yes, there are degrees of singlehood. They range from Spinster With Multiple Cats to I Call Myself Single Because I'm Dating 5 People on a Regular Basis) the boyfriend thing isn't likely to happen. So I find that at the age of 27, a decade after I should have grown out of it, I'm the girl who buys TV Guide because it has a full-page spread on a TVBoyfriend. At least it isn't Teen Beat.

07 August 2006

Three Cheers for Swedish Fish

As most of you faithful readers know, I am trying to eat healthy and get down to fighting weight. I really have changed a lot of my eating habits, due both to my digestive system pitching in and declaring all dairy products verboten and to some willpower on my part. But one of the things I haven't yet been able to totally give up is Swedish Fish. There is nothing like a couple of those lovely red pieces of gelatin to take the edge off the chaos. And yesterday and today have been filled with chaos.

Chaos can be good and bad. Today is full of bad chaos. With my boss on vacation, and my uber-boss at HQ for the week, I apparently am supposed to know everything and act way above my pay grade as both Boss and Uber-boss. This morning, if one more person had stood by my desk and expected whatever arcane information they needed to flow unrestrained directly from my brain, I would have had to punch someone. Or something. Throwing my computer monitor through the window seemed a good option, but I don't think I'm strong enough to get the momentum needed to achieve such a feat.

Yesterday was good chaos. I think. I was sitting in my first church meeting, which was the women's Relief Society meeting, minding my own business when one of the leaders of the congregation tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to leave the meeting and speak privately with him. Seeing as how the woman conducting the meeting had just announced I would be giving the closing prayer after singing the closing hymn, I was a little confused and politely asked if we could wait until I was done saying the closing prayer. So after the meeting adjourned, I had a conversation with this leader, culminating in my being invited to teach a Sunday School class. I accepted the invitation and then went to my next church meeting. Halfway through the meeting, the same man sat down beside me and whispered that there was a slight problem. Apparently, the women in charge of Relief Society had wanted me to teach the Relief Society class and were panicked and asking that I be univited to teach Sunday School and invited to teach Relief Society. The poor leader sitting beside me wanted to know if I could do both. I don't know if he didn't want to disappoint me in changing the class I would be teaching, but really, I would much rather they just put me where they need me, rather than do double duty. And I'm sure the poor people who would have to sit through two classes from me in a row would feel the same. Finally we settled on my teaching Relief Society regularly and filling in as a substitute Sunday School teacher. While both jobs seem a bit overwhelming, it is nice to feel needed.

Even if they did ask me to substitute teach Sunday School on the Sunday I'll be teaching my first Relief Society class. I think I need another Swedish Fish.

03 August 2006

Friday I'm in Love

Well, not really in love becuase my current real-life crush moved without so much as an exchange of pleasantries, let alone a declaration of undying love, and I'm now back to obsessing about TVboyfriends like I did when I was 12. But I am desperately wishing it were Friday. Seriously, Thursday afternoons are the WORST. Especially Thursday afternoons following a night of vampire dreams that kept waking me up.

So, I wish it were Friday. Mostly because it would mean that I was almost free from this office and wouldn't have to face it for 48 whole hours. But also because I am ridiculously looking forward to the new Will Ferrell movie, Talledega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. I really have no idea why, other than I need a good laugh and I find Will Ferrell's brand of absurdity particularly funny. And how can you not see a movie that promises characters named 'Walker' and 'Texas Ranger'? Chuck Norris jokes are gold. Gold, Jerry!

Therefore, in my patented whine, Why can't it be FRIDAAAAYYY!?! At least I have reruns of The Office and my guiltiest guilty pleasure Supernatural to look forward to. Because if it can't be Friday, at least I can enjoy a pint of Soy Dream fake ice cream (flavor: MINTCHOCOLATECHIP! of course) while watching the funny and the pretty TVboyfriends.

02 August 2006

Blame It on the Rain

Yes, I did just quote a Milli Vanilli song. No, I am not sorry that the song is now stuck in each and every one of my readers' heads. It is stuck in mine too. But that is not the point. The point is that I must be the opposite of every SADD person out there. Because yesterday was an extraordinarily happy day for me. Sorry if you were without power or had property damage or whatnot, but I was just thrilled not to have to see the smug face of the sun. It was wonderful to feel the cold in the air, to smell the rain, to be able to NOT spontaneously combust when getting in the car after work. I made a fervent wish that it would last for more than a day. Which is why I woke up on the worst wrong side of the bed this morning and cursed the sun and the climbing thermometer. I want it to stay below 80, to have a hint of fall in the air, and to spare me the misery of any more 100+ days of heat. And yes, six months from now I will be issuing a complaint about the cold, the lack of sun, and the fact it isn't warming up fast enough. If the weather can be fickle, so can I.