the sloppy copy

Something is seriously wrong with me, and much as I try to play it cool, one of my coworkers is on to me.
We’re sitting in a row at a laminate counter, our computers and phones side-by-side – no cubicles. And it’s so dark. Why are there no overhead lights?
I feel like I’m drunk. No, not drunk: drugged. I keep moving in slow motion. The cord to my mouse keeps getting tangled and I can’t maneuver it to click where I need to go. Not that I remember where to click next. I keep making rookie mistakes. No, not rookie mistakes; they are the mistakes of some sort of crazy, drugged person.
My hand slides along the mouse and it jerks forward; I click a button that makes everything I had up on my screen disappear. I quickly press the button on my phone that makes it not ring – I can’t be taking calls if I have no programs up! I am panicking. One of the housekeepers is watching me at a distance. She, too, seems to think something is very wrong with me. I call out for my coworker for help. He leans over, presses one button, and everything is back. He probably asks if I am okay. Because, as I said before, I’m acting like I just swallowed a fistful of Xanax.
I go back to my last call. Seems I forgot to ask several Very Important Questions – I am embarrassed because I’m sitting so close to everyone else. I try to call the person back. Only I’m whispering this time, because I don’t want everyone to know what I’m doing. Because hunching over the phone and whispering into it isn’t suspicious at all.

Realizing that I look super-shady, I explain myself to a coworker who didn’t ask for an explanation. Then, in some sort of paranoid fit, I somehow pick up my computer, my phone, everything, and move down the hall and around the corner. Then it becomes more clear that I am working in…a shopping mall? Because now I am in a more well-lit corridor, my computer and phone on the floor outside an open store. There, I see the same housekeeper as before. I go up to introduce myself, because apparently now I am back in my old job, and she is going to be the new lead for my building. She does not shake hands, because she says they are dirty, but she is eyeing mine – they are equally filthy.

Time skips around and then I am taking a phone call. The caller tells me that he is going to pull some sort of prank / grand gesture at his college and he needs to get his satellite radio out of his car. The prank involves climbing on the roof of a building and playing the 60s station on his radio – which is locked in his car.

Feeling helpful, I decide that I’ll just sing some 60s music to him instead. And this is what I sang:

And then I woke up.

In a fit of – I don’t know? Frivolousness? Insanity? Frivosanity? – I decided to look for a nice warm winter coat on the internets. I was dismayed by what I found.

Exhibit A:

HOW DOES THIS KEEP YOU WARM?
Not a coat.

Exhibit B:

Okay, this picture doesn’t make it look too bad, but I couldn’t link to the pic of someone wearing it. In that pic, it looked like some horrendous suit-type jacket that you’d see a 62-year-old State Comptroller wearing.
NOT A COAT.

Exhibit C:

This is what happens when a Hefty bag and a muppet buy three shots apiece at last call and go home together.
NOT A COAT.

…aaaaaand then I gave up.

I am a grown-ass woman with a problem.

I don’t know what to do with my stuffed animals.

I’m far too selfish to give all of them away, even to friends’ children. I’ve steadily done so in the past, but now I’m down to the core group that I just can’t part with.

Is that nuts?

Probably not. I could be saving them for my own, unborn, children. Right?

Except here’s the thing: I tried putting them in a garbage bag the other day, so that I could put them in storage.

But I couldn’t.

Like, because they would suffocate or something.

Ok, I didn’t actually think that. Seriously, at least. But the thought of them getting all musty and gross in some outdoor storage shed? Nope.

I mean, I don’t have them lined up on my bed or anything… but they are in a plainly-visible pile on a shelf in my bedroom.

I thought about taking them to my parents’ house and leaving them in my childhood bedroom there, but those sneaky so-and-sos are slowly reclaiming the room as their own. It’s like they own the house or something. The last time I stayed the night, I was told I could “sleep in the computer room.” More and more of those little odds-and-ends I never knew what to do with are being boxed up and brought to my apartment whether I want them there or not. And I’m not sure Gordie Cow could withstand the stress of moving back-and-forth so many times. He’s seen a lot, y’all. Had a rough life.

So the next time you come over to my place, do me a favor and kindly ignore the (literal) elephant in the room until I can figure out what to do with him. Thanks.

First: there’s are a lot of songs about being “too late,” y’all. I was going to pick some catchy lyric to use as the title but I couldn’t. Too overwhelmed with choices.

Second, but really most important: Christmas is doneso. In the past. Over. Yes, my tree is still up and yes, my gifts are still beneath it. Unwrapped, but still there (does any other family do that?). But the ravaging of colored paper is finit.

And I couldn’t help but notice that I seem to be a few gifts short this year.

I mean, I don’t want to be one of those people, but I just wanted to hypothetically toss it out there that I won’t pitch a fit if your gift comes a little later this year. I mean, it’s already late. But I won’t be angry. So don’t think you should cancel it or anything.

As long as it’s this, of course:

http://www.hammacher.com/product/10963

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,200 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

It makes me mad and, depending on the person, breaks my heart to see someone think they’re not good enough. Now I’m not talking about unrealistic shit – I am not “good enough” to be president. Or run an ultramarathon. Or be a lineman for the county, no matter HOW BAD I want to sing that song and…just really feel it, ya know? I just hate that new years’ resolutions somehow imply deterioration, not growth, during the preceding year.

We are humans, and imperfect, so there’s always gonna be room for improvement – I want to bitch about the public less at work. I want to remember to water my plants. I really want to learn all the words to Wichita Lineman – but these are goals, and they can happen any day, any time. An easy-to-remember calendar day be damned.

Ahem.

That said…

It’s difficult to not get swept up in the promise and, well, magic of this day. I let my mind wander a little this morning and got a little silly thinking about the things I could do every day for a year if I just started now. Eat a balanced breakfast. Call my mother. Start saving for my move to Wichita County. And I realized resolutions aren’t really all that destructive after all if we don’t let them get the better of us.

Because we all need a small vacation, even when it don’t look like rain.

Also, this, if you’re a little confused: