"I'm looking for something in a broadsword"

Despite my promise to fill in the blanks from the last two weeks I am first going to ask for your opinion on the bridal shower gift I just bought for Holly. Because I am a moron and I waited too long to choose a gift everything on her registry is gone with the exception of chip clips and seriously, I'm not buying chip clips for my best friend's wedding. I had wanted to get her something unique and I'm not a huge fan of registries anyway. If I didn't think she'd kill me for it I'd have gotten her some hideous antique deviled egg tray or an old fashioned guide to wifely duties. Alas, it's not that kind of bridal shower. So I chose these glasses, I picked four states that are meaningful to the couple (four because they're ridiculously expensive...as all great gifts are no?).

My sister was dubious when I told her about my choice on the phone...so...I need help. If you think this is a ridiculous and sad bridal shower gift please speak now or forever hold your peace. I don't want to screw up but then I don't want to get her a blender either, so if you had a house full of basics and a registry that is completely bought up before the invitations even go out please let me know what you'd think about this gift.

I can only assume your boss finally flipped and you're slowly decomposing on some riverbank.

Hi Nick, loved the email. Gee, it has been awhile. It's not for lack of content. The things they have been happening. I just I can't seem to wrap my brain around any of them. There's nothing earth shattering going on, nothing is any worse than it was before. The big issue today is that I actually said the words "this is me resigning" to my boss. I didn't end up actually leaving because...I don't know why...I can't explain how I ended up staying. I'm clearly insane. This the second time I've grabbed my bag with the intention of leaving and we're officially on strike two of a three strikes and you're out purse grabbing scenario. He should now know that I don't need to be there and he needs to work a little harder not to be crazy. He also needs to work on remembering that he spoke to injured employee A and told her she'd be fine before he goes home and tells his wife all about the day and comes back to tell me all the things I did wrong because "how did you know she was unconscious when you took her to the ER?" is a seriously ridiculous question.

On subjects that don't make me want to throw things, Dietgirl asked me where in Scotland the family castle is. Heh, that was totally number two on my list but it's clearly going to be awhile because I've no idea where the family castle is. I tried to ask my Dad but he spent the whole time telling me about his informal book club (would you like 36 random books from strangers, ask me how!) and how when he was in England with the navy he lived off Hershey bars and how HE'S NEVER GOING BACK. He's a bit distracted in his retirement but I'm confident eventually he'll tell me, his brother stayed there a few years back and I guess I could just ask him but I've been busy stuffing one breast at a time into my bridesmaids dress. Hey, look what I did there...subtle. Remember the dress I freaked out and ordered because the first dress was a bit wee (shameless Scotsism)? Well, the new dress in a size larger is just as snug and the only way it fits is if I slip it over my head fully zippered and shimmy things in one at a time. The tailor is going to be super impressed and might possibly weep, I'll keep you updated.

I have more insanity to report but I hardly know where to start. My dearest dearie at work gave her notice two weeks ago and so tomorrow is her last day and I'm pretty sure strike three purse grabbing is very near in the future, like maybe tuesday after my dress fitting. I scheduled the appointment in the nearest possible slot because I feel a need to get on with the weddingness. The unfortunate thing is that I could chain myself to my pilates mat but I'm still not going to lose thirty pounds by tuesday at ten unless I chop off an arm. I'm going to buy some spanx and forget about it. I can't freak out about the wedding and everything else all at once so I'm going to make peace with the wedding and the fat and just be the best bridesmaid I can be at a size 12. C'est la vie. Now I have to go eat chocolate and write a resume and on the next installment of how amy's life turns I'll tell you all about how I think I was drunk last week for the very first time! Yay!

Tastes like George Washington

Holly, bless her, got my name off the 45 dollar wedding make-up list. So of course I just spent 30 bucks on Rimmel at Target. Excellent. It wasn't all Rimmel, I'm rather partial to the Neutrogena products too. They're one of the few companies that has shades fair enough for me to wear, you know which one works...translucent. I've always joked that I'm so white I'm clear and look, proof. It is rather beautiful stuff. I feel 30 dollars more beautiful, I really do. I have to get my money's worth to make up for harassing a bride two months before her wedding. I'd hate to think I tortured her for nothing, that would be wrong.

In baking milestones, I made my first trifle today. It was terribly american but very tasty according to the South African parents of one of Matt's co-workers. Brownies and jello pudding and cool whip, yep...I'd have to agree with the american bit. I tried to make the world's best brownies but like a damn fool who doesn't learn I didn't use the only cupcake liners that work with those brownies...in my eternal optimism I buttered the cups and you know what...THAT DOESN'T WORK. So, the brownies looked like crap and lo they became the base of a trifle. Dessert ingenuity if I don't say so myself. Matt saved a few to make ice cream sundaes with. I sort of love it when he's selfish with my baking. If I did run a bakery out of the house I'd have to change the locks, he might not let me sell anything.

Speaking of South Africans and lifelong dreams and such, some cutie in Australia tagged me for a meme. An eight things to do before you die meme. Which I thought was really cool, three days ago when I tried to write the post. Damn is it hard. I thought it would be difficult to narrow down to 8 but I'm finding it difficult to pick 8 things worthy enough to be on the list. Open a bakery. One. See my family's castle in Scotland, two. Design and plant a perfect landscape for the house when we build it, three. Land a job that's as good for me as I thought this one was, four. Read every single one of the books my dad hands down to me, five. Throw a party and have all of my friends stay at the new house, six. Take a road trip to California and back, seven. Learn to appreciate how lucky I am, eight. That was effing hard. I had no idea.

"what you eat reflects in your skin"

Yesterday morning I was driving to work and I had this wonderful fantasy about not stopping at the shop. I'd just keep driving and call Matt from wherever I ended up. That would have been awesome. Yesterday did have some high points though, I got the second in my series of "oh my god Holly's getting married" facials. This one was different than the first, more about dirt in my pores than relaxing and pampering. The part of me that's all business was happy and she said she had some very successful extractions. How dirty is your face when the facialist is cooing over the dirt that's coming out? Very, it needed to be done. She had lots of good hints too about being kind to your eyes and applying all lotions in an upward direction because gravity does all the down you can handle. Very astute I thought, I've always applied sunscreen and creams moving down my face, whoops. I expect to look 17 tomorrow since I totally applied my moisturizer in an upward direction today. I'll keep you posted.

I still have so much to do for wedding prep and none of it is sit-ups and it should be. I need to get my shoes dyed and find some jewelry and what am I going to do with my hair? The wedding is at 10 am so apparently we're all on hair and make-up duty starting at the crack of dawn. If I show up with no ideas the morning of either the bride or the stylist will kill me and it won't be pretty. I really want just natural curls and make-up but it seems insane to pay $110.00 and look exactly the same as I do every other day. I should probably go Tammy Faye Bakker to get my money's worth. The bride will LOVE that.

I bumped into an old colleague on an errand today and she asked about work. I told her the truth, which I never do when people ask about my job. She asked if I was looking and I said yes and it was sort of great to tell the truth about this place. Reading that sentence makes me feel like I'm talking about a prison or Hitler's Third Reich when it's really just a well-paying white collar job for a boss that happens to be insane. I think I was pretty honest about working at the bank, I knew it wasn't where I was supposed to be but it was a choice I made and it sort of paid the bills and I didn't have to work very hard. This is very much the same with a better pay scale and if he didn't keep asking me to do illegal things it would be almost even. Customers at the bank always treated me like a moron and now it's my boss.

Sometimes when I reflect on how I feel about work I think I'm over-reacting, it's like I'm complaining that the sky isn't blue enough. Then I think about my mom and what she would say about how this man treats people, me being one of them and I know if she were alive I wouldn't be working here. She wouldn't stand for it and I shouldn't either. 'Course she didn't need the paycheck.

Cranky (in which I whine a lot)

Dudes, I'm at work and I'm a ball of crank. If you looked up cranky in the dictionary it would totally say "there should be a picture of amy here but she was too cranky". I have a lot to do and I don't want to do any of it. They're all horrible things. I'm supposed to call the chicken place and convince them that we don't really need to meet the 400 dollar minimum order and can you please send us chickens. Did I tell my boss about the chicken dillemma Friday? I did. And about the $400 minimum? Yup. Did I leave him a very specific note to CALL ME BEFORE MONDAY if he wanted chickens? I did. But to no avail. He didn't call me because he didn't want to bother me (heh) so now I have to pull 50 chickens out of my ass which is so much more convenient, THANK YOU.

And also the other computer isn't here because on Friday you agreed to have it fixed. It's at the fixing place. Why are you asking me who's fixing it and where they are and if they're any good and did we drive that far NOW? Why didn't you ask me FRIDAY? You know, when I said it's time to get professional help (heh) and you said "OK, who do we call?" and I said the Mac guy and you said "ok". Remember that? No, well, obviously. You say you don't want to be hassled about the details and that you want people to just get the job done, well, that involves not telling you every detail about the fixing of a computer that you can't even turn on, 'kay? Also it's not my fault that envelope came back, I am not the post office...and you're grilling me about a STAMP after what happened Friday...NOT OK.

Amazingly I don't want to eat an antelope. I sort of do want a nap though. I want to sleep all the time though, A. because of the rain and B. things are crappy. The weather has been INSANE lately. Matt and I worried about drought for about ten minutes and then it started raining every damn day. I do my laundry with reckless abandon now and that's the most I have to look forward to. I did so well with not being really involved at work, it worked for a long time...5 months if I don't count the super shit-tastic first month. I don't know that I'm necessarily more emotionally attached, I'm just finding it more difficult to do the ridiculous things I'm asked to do. Maybe it's knowing that I could not be paid for doing those ridiculous things that makes me feel how terrible things are here. I'm the person that people are going to complain to when payroll doesn't go through, I'm the person who people threaten to punch when their suppliers don't get paid (oooh, Matt really liked that when I told him about it), I am the conduit to the boss and I really, really don't like it. I do not want people thinking that his insane decisions are mine, that all the mean spirited and cold things I'm asked to do are of my choosing, or god forbid that I actually LIKE him.

I always told myself I'd leave when I couldn't take it anymore "The money is good, just stay until you have to leave or something better comes around". How do you know when it's so bad you have to leave or is the fact that we aren't making payroll at the height of the season reason enough to pull the plug. The worst is what will I tell my father if I quit a job for no real reason except that it drives me crazy. He will laugh, and then he will dis-own me because work is supposed to be hard and you're not supposed to like it and tough luck. Although he might agree when he hears about the finances.

And apprapos of nothing I made some truly awful oatmeal raisin cookies this weekend, they were heinous. The recipe was so bad it should be burned out of the book. Mark Bittman How to Cook Everything I'm looking at you!

"Three weeks ago Tuesday we had summer."

I'm having the world's best cup of earl grey tea right now that almost makes up for the fact that yesterday I almost killed my boss. One of my duties as HR Manager is to talk everyone else down when they get to that point but often there is no one there to talk me down so I fester and then I explode and I end up poking the boyfriend awake at 3am because I CAN'T SLEEP! So far this morning I have sent two resumes and two inquiries and I'm feeling a bit desperate. It seems that I can't take it anymore. It's been a game for me for a while that I can take this job as long as I don't take it home, it's just a job. As long as I can remember that he's the boss and every dumb thing he does leads to his own destruction and maybe I can't catch the deluge in a paper cup and I should stop trying.

For almost six months now I've typed his ridiculous take my ball and go home letters, I've listened to him yell at people for hours only to have no resolution to any problem, and I've watched the messages from collection agencies pile up. The latter is the biggest problem and what really drove me up the wall yesterday. This week we very nearly almost didn't have enough money for payroll. Don't you think that if your company very nearly almost didn't have enough money for payroll you wouldn't stand around supervising people into getting 5 hours of overtime for absolutely no reason. When I approached him about it he yelled at the crew for working into overtime. Dude, you're the owner and the boss and their supervisor and if you think the Jamaican crew you're hollering at is going to volunteer that they're working into overtime you need a brain replacement. Dudes are here to work and if you're damn fool enough to work them into overtime on a non-urgent and also non-lucrative project it's very much your fault.

I've decided that I don't want to call that widower and tell him that we never sent him an estimate because the boss didn't think he had any money and sorry about that $100 deposit because you're not getting it back. I'm also not going to call that 100 year old lady in Milbridge to tell her she has to cough up 200 bucks to find out if we can replace her trees after her file was lost for almost a year. I'm not going to tell that employee that they're not allowed to file worker's comp because the boss thinks they're too fat and that's why they got injured. Nope, not going to do it. I hear they're hiring over at the McDonalds, that could work out.

"Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes."

When I thought I was wearing that bridesmaid dress that I'm totally not wearing anymore unless the other one doesn't show up in time in which case I'll have to have my jaw wired shut to fit in it I thought I needed a new bra. You know, a dress bra. A bra that would make my DD's more like an A cup. A whale bone and titanium contraption that bends reality and mixes a really great martini. I really thought if I looked hard enough and opened my wallet wide enough I would find something that would make that dress (bigger) fit. I came to my senses and ordered another dress but not before I spent 100 dollars on new bras.

I'm blaming it on the sales girl. She was fucking amazing. If she was selling used cars off a dirt lot I'd have bought 6, heroine...I'd be a junkie, she was that good. I was only there to browse and she mesmerized me into a fitting room. She measured, chattered, and then brought me the biggest box of brassieres I've ever seen. She really had me convinced that she'd pull out nunchucks or similar if I didn't try them ALL on...so I did and ended up finding the most perfect bra ever. Really, it's the very best in breast technology, it's so perfect it practically hovers in the drawer. So I bought three. In the lexicon of things you buy in bulk when you find perfection...bras are pretty high. Bras, jeans, hair care products that stupid John Frieda discontinues, very important things one could live without but one would inevitably weep all the time.

I'm becoming such a girl in my old age, I bought cuticle cream yesterday. Cuticle cream, is there a less practical thing to spend money on? And tomorrow I schedule my next facial. Mostly these are wedding preparations but I'd be lying if I said I didn't sort of love it. It's so incredibly self indulgent to spend time and money on this sort of thing, it's awesome. I wish I'd discovered it earlier.

"it was only metaphor blood"

Two nights ago I exercised and now I'm dying. AGAIN. I always think exercise ball exercising is going to be all fluff and kittens because really there's a lot of sitting and then the next day you can't sit down without weeping. Maybe that's the beauty of it, the exercise makes it so you can't sit down and there for you must burn more calories...uhm...standing. Anyway ow, and yay at the same time. I sort of love it when exercise kicks my ass like this because I know I did something right. Know what I mean?

I'm quite proud of myself just now, last night there was cleaning and exercise. Today I'm making lists. I love lists. I love them when I am actually crossing things off. Matt's birthday is Saturday and my current list is for all the things I need to do to make saturday birthday-y. I have to wrap presents, and buy a card, and what are we having for dinner and oh yeah the cake...which will probably be a pie. I'm sure there's more. I think I promised to oil soap the cabinets too because nothing says happy birthday like shining pine.

The cleaning of the cabinets is probably going to be his favorite gift. I must admit that since taking on this job I have been a very bad housekeeper. It seems to me that I used to actually wash the floor with a mop instead of just the swiffer and on occasion dust things. I tell you honestly that it's been a long while since I dusted, a dinosaurs roamed the earth amount of time. I don't mean to imply that Matt is a neat freak or a slave driver with the house cleaning. He doesn't make time to do it either so it's not like he complains. It's different when you own your own house though. He built those cabinets and the floor and everything else. Built as in cut the trees, sawed the wood, and used the boards to build the doors and the frames and to make the floor. It's very different than renting an apartment where you don't give a rat's ass about the patina or the scuffs and dents and probably you have crappy linoleum anyway. I really want to be taking care of the things he built for us. He doesn't get upset when I drop my knives and they stand straight up in the wood (I should have taken a picture it was awesome) because somethings you can't control (like me being a klutz). I can control the dirt and the scuffs so I should probably try harder to make time for it. Amongst other things.

I feel so busy and yet I get nothing done. It's not ok. I've been trying to stay up later and accomplish things that I can look back on and care about but it's really hard. I feel like I'm squishing the most important parts of my life into tiny holes of time and it's not really working. The hours at work aren't exactly awful until I step away from it and realize that all my time is spent here or worrying about here and it sucks that I have hardly any time for fun this summer. You wait so long for the snow to go away and then you spend all those beautiful hours in an office trying to keep an egotistical but strangely low-self esteemed boss in check. Weird.

SEVEN

Seven deadly sins, seven-eleven, seven gables on that house in that book that time, seven Reese's peanut butter cups that I ate this weekend. Seriously y'all, seven. It's a very bad no good number. It just sort of happened. My sister was buying these big packs of them for her friends in Prague and I just couldn't seem to resist so I bought some. I looked down at the pack for a minute and there were 8, Matt ate 1 and then the pack was gone so I must have eaten 7. I have no recollection of deciding to eat seven reese's. I don't even like them that much, I simply have no explanation. My meals yesterday were cereal, salad, a bean dish for dinner and a very juicy pear for a snack. Oh, and that inexplicable pack of Rolo's that I bought out of frustration which were totally gross and which I ate anyway. So...normal, normal, normal, normal, INSANE. That's a four to one ratio so I guess I'm doing well.

I can't remember doing anything so completely insane in the last months. I've been quite hard on myself for not being perfect but I can't think of anything that was so bad. I buy and eat lots of veggies and fruit and I hardly ever buy candy. God knows I bake all the time and probably I help myself to too much so I'll have to keep an eye on that. For the most part I think I'm doing OK. I am not a whale and I do walk every day and I'm working the pilates in to my routine. It's on the plate for tonight actually and I've decided that I can't make love to James Roday in Psych until I get my pilates on.

Let us not say tv is a reward, let us say that I'm going to make the exercise my priority. I've always sort of hated the idea of rewards for doing the right thing. It's reminiscent of not being deserving unless you're skinny or killing yourself to be skinny. I've been trying to describe why I don't like it, what exactly is so bad about having a reward for what is really hard work and it's difficult. It seems like telling yourself that when you're skinnier you can do whatever you want and that's just not true so why would it be true now. I prefer to think of things in the way of priorities. It should be my priority to do pilates before entertainment. It should be my priority to eat well and exercise. Thinking about it that way helps my head. When I tell myself things like I can eat this as long as I do that it doesn't really promote me making good choices. Making that sort of deal with myself doesn't help me much, I don't want to be always looking for the next bargain when it's really just an excuse.

about those bunnies

Yesterday's post was supposed to be about frustration and how I don't handle it well but I kept getting distracted. Funny enough, I'm still frustrated today, in particular because I just made my day ridiculously hard by trying to get to the doctor at 7 am (which they told me to do yesterday) only the doctor isn't there till 8 and am I supposed to wait until 8 just to wait again, no...no I'm not going to do that. I made an appointment with a real doctor and hopefully I'll finally get some answers. I'm heading to NH tonight to say goodbye to my sister and happy birthday to my daddy and I'm not packed even the tiniest bit because I was trying so hard to get to the doctor this morning. I'm a little less about to fall apart right now but I'm still not able to really think anything through past the point of blind rage.

I've been set at "Go directly to pissed, do not stop at go do not collect 200 dollars" all week and I'm tired of it. Probably every one is tired of it. I've had to tell every single person at work every day and usually every time they talk to me that I cannot hear them and also please stop talking to me while I'm on the phone because that doesn't work on a good day and it REALLY doesn't work today, thank you. Hi, my name is Amy and I'm a grumpaholic. It must be a testament to my normal temperament at work that people are shocked and surprised that I can be such a bitch. Seriously though, if you were deaf and dying Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday...come Friday if you're not dancing naked in the rain I'm going to assume that you're still deaf and still dying and maybe a little bit on the edge and I'll leave you the fuck alone. That is all I'm asking for.

"It could be bunnies"

The bunny that was our best friend last week ate our two baby tomatoes yesterday and all of my pepper plants and now we're mortal enemies. Matt built a fence and now hopefully the bunnies will be kept at bay. It's very upsetting. I'm also still deaf so that's upsetting too. Worse is that I did pilates last night and kept falling over. Apparently I need every bit of balance I have to do pilates. I did as much as I could and then I called the doctor this morning. She's not there, no appointments...I can go and sit for a few hours until she might be able to see me. I'm so frustrated with being deaf that it sounds almost pleasurable to sit and wait all day for some relief. Geez.

"No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown."

Forget that, I'm friggin' dying. I have yet another ear infection and the one thing I didn't tell the doctor was "debilitating pain" and I really should have because I am right now in my house wondering how much advil you can take before it kills you. So far I have 6 in my system and if they're having any effect at all I'd be dead without them. I don't recall ever having so much pain that it actually made me cry, this is unbelievable.

I just got called to check on matt's brother's house to look for robbers. They called me brave but it was a welcome distraction. I left work early because OW I couldn't concentrate. That was very silly because as much as I like petting my cat and sitting on the couch, pain with no distraction is unbearable. I should really try and do a crossword or maybe run marathon just to take my mind off it. Probably my boss wouldn't have appreciated all the swearing and lamaz breathing if he'd been there to hear it. Christ. Ow. Fuck. I am not a tough cookie, that much is clear.

metaphor in action

I just washed my hands for the fifty second time and I'm pretty sure it wasn't enough. Do you know how dirty the office toilet is? Do you? Because I'm pretty sure I need at least fifty three washes and a lobotomy to get over what has transpired here this morning. I dropped my work phone in to the toilet and now I want to die. I'm sort of surprised that my instinct was to grab it right away as opposed to screaming or running or maybe crying, but grab it I did and I rinsed it off (probably silly to get it more wet but seriously) and then I started scrubbing my hands. They sort of hurt now actually. Luckily the phone still works. I rubbed an alcohol soaked cotton ball all over it and I'm feeling a little bit better about maybe putting it near my face again sometime in the far far future but maybe I'll just use an ear piece. I seriously hate myself, you have no idea. At least it wasn't the iphone...I can be thankful I'm not that daft. Sugarcrook would probably hunt me down and revoke my phone owning rights if I had dropped that one down the john. Christ, I can't wait to go home.

"I can't want to"

I'm thinking that it's easier to give up all sugar than it is to cut back because somehow when you're only cutting back the lines get a little fuzzy. Remember how I took my microwave for granted and now I'm going to starve and die without it...well, in a similar way I have "forgotten" that I never used to eat ice cream. Somehow...recently...like as in since I decided I was too fat to watch Holly get married and started to err "diet" again I've had a difficulty in not eating ice cream. If I was being super south beach about it it would be easy, NO ice cream. Cutting back is like being in limbo, you know...purgatory. You're not actually like burning in hell fire but your heels are hot if you know what I mean.

So, I made myself an ice cream cone last night. It was a really tiny one but all I can think of is "Whoops, opposite of slimming" and now I want another one. I put about three tablespoons in a sugar cone and I should look up the calories but I'm thinking it's not abysmal. In high school I worked at an ice cream stand and we used to have people order a pint and ask for a spoon, fat people mostly. I remind myself of things like that whenever I think I'm getting a little out of control and maybe I'm over-reacting. I don't want to be an over-reactor, the sort of girl that stops eating for the day because she had a whole bowl of granola for breakfast when she was only supposed to have half but I don't want get complacent about my bad habits either. That case of coke still haunts me and I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to get another case right now.

I've been feeling a little stressed lately and I know I've been making worse decisions than usual. The days where I buy a candy bar at the check out and after two bites I know I don't need it and then finish it anyway are all too frequent...that's not cool. I want to get back to the place where I was justified in my wants because I wasn't making indulgence a habit, or at the very least I was working so hard with exercise that I could easily make up for it. I've been feeling rotten about my choices for a while and it's just starting to really hit home. I'm still a twelve but I haven't set foot on a scale in ages. I'm not out fatting my clothes but I don't feel great anymore. Two miles a day of walking when I can't run (knee...killing me) isn't making up for being a slacker in other areas, not anymore, and I feel really crummy about it. It would be nice to just live again and have these be my habits instead of feeling like playing catch up. Wish me luck y'all.

"the regime from which the radicals want to break free"

Last night I got a facial and it was very nice. Calming and relaxing and now I'm all glowy. And unfortunately I'm pissed at myself because they did not do extractions and I did not ask for them. I really wanted her to take my old skin off and sew on some new skin. I wanted her to extract the HELL out of my pores man, a serious amount of extraction, I wanted to see a pound of pore dirt...possibly an avalanche. I am a bad advocate for myself and that's the truth. I'll have to ask for new skin next time. I'm trying to not be too annoyed because I enjoyed the massage and the hot towels and the resting with no phones ringing or food to cook or dishes to wash.

And then I got home to microwave myself a quick dinner and whoops! the microwave is broken. The start button will not be pushed. You can push every other button but to no avail. There is no hot and steamy microwave action. Course I've had the thing since college and with all those moves it's amazing it's lasted this long. I poked around walmart but I am loathe to buy a new one...you get to know a microwave, you build a relationship. I know how long it takes to pop corn in a brown bag without burning it in the current not so much working microwave...it never lets me down, it's about trust people. My sister's microwave boils water in 3 seconds, the one at work couldn't boil water if you put the whole thing on the stove, it's a tricky business. But I have to make a decision soon because apparently I use the microwave all the time. If you'd asked me last week I'd have said I hardly use it and I'd have been lying because it's like having my arm cut off to cook without it.

In, like, relevant news I've taken up pilates again. OUCH and DUDE. Wow, on the one hand I can still do the teaser, which took me forever in the beginning, but it's VERY UNPLEASANT. I don't remember pain, I remember work and sweat and possibly a subtle burn but out right pain is new. I'll get over it. I should consider myself lucky that I was able to get through it after such a long absence. I have definitely been lucky to not have gained a hundred pounds when I stopped, I'm still in the same sizes...maybe just a little squashier. I hate myself every time I stop my pilates routine and have to start again but somehow it doesn't keep me on the thin and narrow. It's no different this time. I'll have myself for another few weeks and then I'll be so high off endorphins I'll tell you all to go out and marry Ana Caban. I'm sure of it.

"When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half"

I've been getting REALLY annoyed about my dsl not working. You know what helps? Paying the bill.

OH MY GOD!

manic panic

Befpre I tell you about how I made my boyfriend drive for four hours for no reason because I freaked out about my bridesmaid dress not fitting can we talk about the bear that got run over yesterday? A BEAR. Practically in our front yard a 300 pound bear came running up an embankment and over the guardrail and some old dude in a cadillac creamed it. A BEAR. Something must have scared the crap out of it because bears don't do civilization if they can avoid it. it took 4 neighbors and one very interested British tourist to move the thing into a truck and the last I saw they had it down at the store to drink coffee and chat over and soon it'll be a rug for the cadillac driver. Which is surprising because I thought for sure he'd be dead. I would die if I hit a bear with my car, no doubt.

What was that about freaking out and driving to augusta? Oh yeah, well it's been increasingly obvious to me that this october wedding is just getting closer and I should probably get things in order. I made a dress alteration appointment last week. An appointment that I will have to change because that dress isn't as close to fitting as I thought. There is only one god damn david's bridal in Maine and it's in Portland and since you can't order online Matt and I started driving. It takes approximately 7 years for those dresses to order and ship so we really had to do it right then. The store doesn't open until noon so we were in Augusta by the time we were able to call and learn that we can order by phone, heh. I really need to disable my panic button, I'm thinking tranquilizers.

Since we were in Augusta we drove around and saw the state house and the museum Matt wants to go to and a very nice looking downtown in which EVERY store was closed. I tell a lie, the hallmark store was open so we browsed for lack of anything better to do. Even the coffee shop was closed. Dude. So the trip was a total bust unless you count feeling anxious, eating junk food and wasting gas as a good time. Yay whoopie pies! I'm less freaked out but much more broke at the moment. I hope the dress is nice, it better look fucking awesome.

Don't make me get the hose!

One of my boys gave me some Venezuelan chocolate this morning. He's a sweetheart. I slipped him a cupcake in his lunch bag and hopefully he doesn't think I'm crazy or that we're getting married. It's hard to know. It's been a really good morning actually, I even saw our resident bunny this morning. Last night ended sort of on the rough. Matt and I had a rare date and I left early. Well, technically I left after ten hours but it's pretty much up to the boss as to what is early and what isn't and that scale is never the same twice. But anyway, he doesn't seem too mad today and Matt and I had a nice time. Bangor has this open air market on Thursday nights and there was also a concert and it was really like living in a town that is alive for once. It was really, really great. We had thai for dinner and Matt almost died with the goodness. I love making him try new food he really doesn't want to and then forcing him to admit that he loves it. Small pleasures.

On my sick day I ordered some shoes for the big wedding in October. I've been meaning to do it for ages and it occurred to me that since I have to dye them I should probably get on task. I should also order a girdle because I have been a serious slacker and I don't exactly fit in my dress without a slenderizer. I have two months and it would be optimistic to the point of foolishness to think that I could do enough pilates to be a size 6 by october so it's time for spandex. I'm also going to try to cut some carbs, like umm that cupcake I gave up today...and make ab work a priority and probably some weights since my dress is halter. And then I'm going to buy a wrap and a sweater and a paper bag to wear over my head when I realize that I've had a year to get my act together so I wouldn't feel fat at this wedding and I've done nada about it. And also, because what's a paragraph without fifteen uses of "And" as the first word of a sentence, I should've saved some money because weddings are effing expensive even when you're not getting married...so many clothes to buy...although probably if I didn't dress like a straggled teen I could put together a nice outfit for the parties and the dinners without shopping for hours. Everyone should just live in sin, it's so much easier.

trying not to die

You know, spending much of your early morning sleeping hours unconscious is not actually as restful as sleeping. And also the vomiting. Hi, I'm totally at work and I shouldn't be because this sucks. I got very sick for no reason at about 4 am and passed out in my bathroom and woke up to kitty feet in my face. She seemed really pleased that someone was sleeping on the floor with her. Mostly I was really pleased that I didn't puke on her. That would have been a very different blogpost, the kind where you die at the end because it's just so awful. This sort of thing happened to me a few times in college and directly after and generally it goes away and then I'm fine. It does seem to always happen in the summer so I'm thinking it's some kind of dehydration attack. I'm trying really hard not to google the symptoms, I might be clinically dead based on the wisdom of wikipedia.

So I'm here at work faking being alive and shopping and blogging. I ordered myself a dvd I don't need and I do need some shoes for that wedding and I just realized that my other two heads haven't materialized. Bummer. I'm more annoyed about having to write the seller than I am about not receiving them in the first place. It's a hassle buying heads over the internet, be warned. Not like buying wedding shoes at Zappos, that's a piece of cake. Wedding pun totally awesome. Home, I'm going home now. Y'all have a good day!

mo-ron

So...at the moment I'm locked out of my office. For the third time in two weeks. I can't learn. I'm a learning free zone. Clearly I still have the interwebs and also my cell phone so pretty much I can still work but it's very frusterrrating. And also, I'm not sure if I have 10 more spanish dudes coming tonight or not...I can't tell. I think he said they were delayed but if they're not delayed I'm going to have to set up 10 beds by myself and I might die. I was just about to type "I wish I spoke spanish betterer so I can understand this guy" but in all fairness my boss and I speak the same language and I don't get any clearer answers from him. It's just my plight...to anticipate the unclear of speech and clearly insane. And also I HAVE to stop locking myself out of my freaking office.

The first time I locked myself out of my office, my BFF was here and she gave me her key. "Whooops! What would happen if she wasn't here! Better be more careful!" The next time she wasn't here but was on her way back so I just had an early lunch and then she let me in. "Whoo! That was lucky, better not do that again!". This time she's in the middle of nowhere, my boss is in the middle of nowhere and the only other key belongs to the bookkeeper...who very graciously is letting us pick up his copy. By us I mean not me because my car keys are locked in my office...and the only other available vehicle is a backhoe so the very sweet delivery van man is picking it up for me. Thank Christ, I was running out of alternatives. The girls downstairs actually have a lock picking kit which they lent me which I suck at. My life of crime is not going to involve house breaking, sadly. If it happens again I'm going to have to hide a copy under my skin like the Bourne Identity. This is getting ridiculous.