an office worker and a gentleman

i spent an hour at the carwash today. apparently everyone came out for the Tuesday special. i didn't actually think i was going to be there for an hour, so i didn't bother to sit down when i got there. furthermore, i sit all day, so when i have the opportunity to stand...in the sun...i take it. well, half an hour later i was still standing. i considered sitting at that point because one side of my body was starting to crisp under the direct sunlight. but i would have had to sit next to the guy who was smoking or the guy who was talking too loudly on his cell phone or the guy with the kid who had Cheeto powder all over his fingers. furthermore, chester cheeto jr. was a bit...how should is say?...inquisitive. which is a nice way of saying he had a lot of questions about a lot of shit and made a lot of noise and couldn't sit down. i decided it was best if continued to stand (with my purse blocking my legs, seeing as how i'd opted to wear a dress and not shave).

behind me, a guy asked, "would you like to sit down?" i turned around. it was the custodian of the kid with the orange fingers. he was talking to me. what a pleasant surprise! "no, but thank you so much," i replied. "you sure?" "yes. thank you though." i declined, not because i was afraid his kid would ruin my dress but rather, i wasn't very well going to have this guy get up out of his chair for me. maybe it's all that single-sex education i had growing up or the absence of chivalrous behavior in L.A. that has led me to view such behavior as unnecessary or slightly absurd. in any case, i turned him down, but i was flattered nevertheless. several minutes later, he got up, picked up his chair, brought it over to me and set it down saying, "you should sit. it's going to be a while. and you shouldn't stand there all this time in boots." (yes, the boots). i accepted this time, hell, the chair was right there and thanked him profusely. but i could NOT BELIEVE that he had actually given me his chair. perhaps i'm making a big deal out of something insignificant, but actions like this are so rare. a guy being nice just because? wtf? to top it off, he went to grab another chair for himself, and when he rejoined his son, the little boy asked, "where did you go?"
"to get a chair."
"why?"
"because i gave mine away."
"why?"
"because that's what boys do." (silence)
dad continues, "do you know what boys do for girls?"
"whaa?"
"what do boys do for girls?"
"whaa?"
that's right, kid. that's the same answer you'll have 20 years from now, i thought to myself. way to go. pops on the other hand, that was a different story. chivalrous AND trying to teach his kid a much-needed lesson. i was SMITTEN. it was time for some deductive reasoning: he's already established that he's a gentleman, he's at the carwash so he has a car, and he has a kid so he's clearly not impotent or opposed to family life...with all that established my mind immediately went down the obligatory prenuptial checklist. 1. could i deal with the kid? well, kristin, you aren't really into the whole insta-family thing. and his son seems to lack discipline. but i'm sure you could work with it... 2. would his asian relatives totally hate me and talk about me in a language that i don't understand? probably. do you really want to deal with that? no. but if i promise them mini-tiger woods then they might lighten up...

i wondered if the best course of action would be to engage him through the kid or talk to him directly. i turned toward them, smiling at the son, who by this time was laid out on the ground (who lies down on the ground at a carwash?) and pondered my approach. that's when i noticed the damn ring on daddio's finger. arg. i always forget to look there first. oh well. i really am not prepared to be a step-mom, so i will gladly let his wife deal with the cheeto stains. regardless, i did appreciate the gesture and the fact that he did it and had no ulterior motive made it all the more...magical. it gave me hope that there are gentleman out there...somewhere...mostly at koreatown carwashes, i imagine.

puss 'n boots

you all know i love my boots. i wear them with my real clothes, and i wear them with my pajamas. well, it just so happens that i wore them out (again) on friday night. i got home around 2 a.m. and clopped around on my hardwood floors, partially because i like the sound (it's sexy and official...somewhere on the decibel chart between government translator and the owner of a football team), and partially because i hoped it was more than slightly disturbing to fatty mcmasturbator upstairs. anyway, i eventually took them off, only to put them on again saturday night. i returned home a little after midnight to discover a note taped to my door.
it read:

Hi,
It's your neighbors @ unit C. Can you please remove your heels when you come home in the evening because the wood floors echo very loudly. I hope it's not an inconvenience but the sound from your heels wakes us up every night.
Thank you very much,
snatch 1 and snatch 2

well, when i first started reading it, i assumed it was from upstairs, and i was MORE than ready to give her a piece of my mind. but when i realized that it was in fact from someone(s) else, this threw a wrench in my plans. suddenly i, the crabby, cane-wagging, popo-calling old lady had become the noisy neighbor. who knew?
i DID in fact remove my boots in a timely fashion...and then i drafted this response:

Dear snatches,

so sorry about the heels. i actually had no intention of disturbing you; i was trying to disturb the masturbating lady above me. you guys think YOU have it bad? you should hear some of the things i've woken up to. i will try to remove my boots promptly (i will take them off by 11 p.m. if i'm just wearing them around the house). i will also try to rely on my obnoxious 80s music more as a sound barrier. that's the best I can do. if you really want to get to the source of the problem, go upstairs and tell that 'zilla that if she would stop spending so much time with her hand up her vag, i wouldn't spend so much time with my feet in my boots.

thanks,
boots.
ps. are you all the ones with that little yippie dog that barks every time the wind blows? now that's annoying.

then i drafted a second response:

Dear snatches,

i don't wear heels anymore. what you hear is actually sound of my peg legs tapping against the floor as i struggle to care for myself. i had the lower portion of both legs amputated recently when some thoughtless wench, much like yourself, ran me over in a prius right outside my front door. so sorry if the sound of me trying desperately to get a glass of tap water at night disturbs you.

thanks for nothing,
pegs.

i have yet to give them either one. want to let the responses marinate first. see which way i want to go.
i can't believe there's someone who doesn't like my boots in L.A.

hate is such a strong word

there are a few things i hate. i hate morning meetings that require me to wake up an hour early and come to work to listen to some shit for 60 minutes that i could have read in an email and/or power point slide show in 6 minutes. i hate that i don't have kids because when you do, you get special privileges...like not having to attend morning meetings. "little johnny wouldn't put his sweater on this morning, so you couldn't make it?" excuse me if i call "bullshit!" just be truthful. you wanted to eat freakin' cheerios and watch veggie tales with your damn kids. fine. whatever. me and my unfertilized eggs would have liked an extra hour of sleep and a blueberry muffin. how come we don't get the same respect? i hate that i sit in front of a computer all day, and the stress of boredom is accumulating in my right shoulder, which is causing my right shoulder to be higher than my left, which equates to me turning into a hunchback. i hate that i work in an office full of dog lovers. i mean, i have nothing against dogs. i'm not going to hold the fact that i have been chased by german shepards and hungry rottweilers against the whole population (that would be rather racist). but seriously, i don't really want to hear "cute stories" about how your dog threw up again or about how she pissed on the rug or how the groomer irritated the dog's genitals with the shears. and no i do not want you all to initiate a "bring your dog to work day" and have them all running around sniffing and licking. i do NOT want the first lick i receive this year to be at the hands of a border collie. i also hate feeling like a bitch. for example, yesterday a group of people were huddled in my office, and one woman was talking about her dog who's on its last leg, and everyone started getting emotional and talking about THEIR dogs, and all i could think was, "should i stop playing this computer game? is that rude? but i'm at a really important part, and i might win this level, and...damn it, i will probably cry more if i actually lose this game than i will at this dog story. man, i'm such a bitch." i did win that level by the way (with an expert score). i hate that dates (men not the fruit) make me nauseous. and i don't mean nervous, "i have butterflies" nauseous. i mean "i ate bad egg salad" nauseous. i wonder if it's my immune system trying to fight off the destructive, man bacteria. i guess my body has learned to recognize the initial signs of the invader and simply goes into attack mode. the symptoms are all there. as i'm getting dressed, i feel light headed, flushed, and i really just want to take my clothes off and get in the bed. to make matters worse, the guy usually picks me up, and he's usually a bad driver, and i usually get car sick. i hate that none of the men i meet are tim riggins. i hate when i turn up pandora on my computer, and instead of people realizing that i'm doing it because i don't want to hear them, they just talk louder. i hate that i now have to end my blog because i have another goddamn meeting to go to, to talk about future events that i hope to not be here for! agh.
i am so spiteful today in L.A.

my Secret problem

um...so if you receive an e-mail from your co-worker that reads, "hey, i heard you're leaving..." and you have not found a new job nor have you told anyone that you're leaving, should you assume that you are getting fired? well, that's what i assumed when i received an e-mail this morning that said that very thing. i didn't panic or head for the nearest window. my only thought was, "damn, now i won't even be able to say i have a job when i go to my reunion."

i began to wonder what led to my downfall. was it my hours on perezhilton? my fantasy footballing? my playing Diner Dash 1, 2 and 3? the updike novel on my desk? my blogging and disguising it as work? i e-mailed my co-worker back just to verify that this was in fact the case (considering he's worked here for 15 years and handles the checks, i assumed that if anyone would know that this pay period was to be my last, it would be him). i very lightheartedly replied, "i am? i didn't know anything about that. am i getting fired? did you just give me a heads up?" he didn't respond. determined to know how much longer i had before i would be lying on my couch all day watching court shows, i wrote "AM I GETTING FIRED?" in black sharpie on a sheet of paper, walked over to his desk and held it in front of his face. he laughed, said no, i wasn't getting fired. not to his knowledge anyway. but he had heard from a couple of people that i was leaving.

i feel like i'm missing something. i went straight from visualization to resignation without the manifestation. damn you, Secret. nowhere was it mentioned that you could screw the process up. nowhere did it say "visualizing your desired career may result in nothing more than rumors circulating around the workplace. use at your own risk." i'm sure this "information" was born out of the fact that i leave for writing-related meetings whenever they arise. i don't deny that, and i'm flattered that people think i have something lined up and am on my way out the door. however, that's not the case. and it's not that big of a deal. it's just that i have a hard enough time not living up to my own perfectionist expectations let alone those of other people that i unwittingly created. whatever. just another minor work annoyance--a little worse than people who say "sorry" all the time, but not nearly as bad as people who talk way too damn loud and too damn much about nothing at all.

i am still employed, L.A.

reunions

my 10 year high school reunion is coming up next month (that's right, bitches. i'm old). and though i'm actually looking forward to going back and seeing people because my high school was awesome and i loved my classmates and i love any excuse to go back home, i'm also sort of dreading it. if i could go back and pretend to have strep, so i couldn't talk then it would be cool. but seriously, what am i going to say? "hey, (insert name of cute blonde girl). you look great. oh, two kids, really? wow. congrats. married to a cowboys player? sweet. you've published a book, too? yowzers. yes, you are fantastic. me? oh, well...i...i have a job. yeah, which...you know is good in a recession. and i have an apartment, which is good...you know, with foreclosures and all. kids? no...but i have this plant that just keeps, growing and growing. you should see it! boyfriend? no. but this guy did offer to take my up in a helicopter over vegas and buy me a steak at the cheesecake factory."

i don't really want to have those conversations. i'm delighted to hear about others' success, yet i have no desire to discuss my life. plus, i have to buy a ticket home. on top of that i HAVE to buy a cute outfit to compensate for my shortcomings. a lot of money being spent for something i'm half-dreading. and do we really need reunions? i mean with facebook and all that we already know what's going on in all of our lives' and how we all look and who rejected whose friend request.

so what is the point? i guess it's such a long-standing tradition that no one wants to get rid of it. furthermore, i guess it's different when you get to size someone up in real life instead of an airbrushed glamour shot of their "good side" posted on the internet. and i guess i am looking forward to our $50 all you can eat/drink restaurant party that night where someone will more than likely get drunk and some shit from like 12 years ago will come up and somebody will cry, and the words "bitch" and "snatch" will be tossed around like fluffy pillows (i DID go to an all girls' school). and more than likely someone's husband will seem more gay than straight, and someone's nose job will be a national tragedy, and everyone will forget about my plant and my steak...
it's actually starting to sound like a shitload of fun.

princess in a prius

i have nothing against priuses. i appreciate their quiet, sounds-like-your-car-just-died motor and the fact that they limit the amount of shit that clots in our lungs. however, ever since i was hit by one, i'm a little bitter toward them or perhaps just the folks who drive them.

one night last week, i was mindin' my own business, taking my groceries out of the car (and by groceries, i mean double roll toilet tissue, paper towels, chips, arizona iced tea and string cheese. oh and a 10 lb. bag of potatoes). i have to park on the street, and as i walked to my car, i noticed a lil' black prius double parked right next to me. the gentleman behind the wheel was clearly waiting on his companion to come out of a building, but i didn't think much of it.

at some point, his raven-haired lady friend sashayed down the stairs and into the car. then they were set to leave, however, i guess their destination was behind them because instead of putting the car in drive, the driver put it in reverse and proceeded to back up. before i could even complete my "what the fuck", the prius ran smack into my car door, pinning me between it and my car. were it not for the protective cushion of my thick, double roll toilet tissue i am certain that my barren uterus would have suffered permanent damage. "oh my god. oh my god" was all i heard through their open window. the male driver asked, "are you okay?" "yeah, i think so," i replied, trying to figure out how the hell they could do something so stupid. i mean, two people, BOTH of them had seen me at some point. and why was he going backwards down the street? dude...

the passenger kept up with her "oh my god"s. then the guy asked me if my car was okay; i checked her. she seemed okay enough. then the lil' prius princess said, "oh my god, is our car okay?" and she looked at me like she wanted ME to inspect it for her. the guy said, "don't worry about it." princess: "no, but can you look?" and she looked at me again. hello! you just assaulted me with your vehicle, and now you want me to inspect it for damage. "uh, yeah...there's a dent that sorta looks like my ass where you HIT ME, shithead!" i wanted to tell her to get her spoiled ass out of the car and look for herself because clearly, her exclamations had not been out of concern for me but rather the condition of her friend's eco-friendly vehicle. but my better self overwhelmed me, and after a quick inspection, i said, "there's a scrape, but i don't know if that's new or old." they thanked me and then continued, BACKWARDS, down the street.
unbelievable.

so here's my advice. beware of all LA drivers; they are the worst. and pay careful attention to LA drivers in priuses. they're crazy, like the rest of LA's drivers, except they think that since they're saving the world one acceleration at a time, they can do no wrong. their choice of weapon should not be overlooked either. you can't hear the prius or smell it. you don't know it's upon you until it's too late. it's like the freakin' navy seals of cars. so watch your ass. literally.

i hope i did not offend any of my prius driving friends in L.A.

old at heart

i am such an old biddy. i go home after work, eat in front of the tv, bathe, and i'm in my pajamas by 7:15. i watch crime shows with the volume up way too loud and then fall asleep with all the lights on. on top of that, i don't like noise (that produced by other people anyway). i've called 311 a number of times on folks who were keeping me from getting my good sleep. in austin, the guy who lived under me would play music ridiculously loud at 3 a.m. I don't feel like anyone should have to listen to their walls thump to the beat of Ace of Base after 11 o'clock. i'd call the po-pos and lie really still 'til the police came. then i'd press my ear up against the wall, so i could eavesdrop on their ineffective reprimanding. i also called the police on my old neighbors in LA. they too were causing quite a stir, but this was less music and more...screaming and beating the shit out of each other. these two guys would throw each other around like rag dolls, hitting walls, slamming doors. at one point, the whole closet came crashing down. so i think i did all of us a favor on that one. i've also been known to sit at the window and watch tow trucks tow away illegally parked cars in the middle of the night. seriously, all i need is a goddamn herd of cats and a hearing aid.

anyway, i had another old lady moment this weekend when a slew of youngsters at 2:45 saturday morning were playing music and causing quite a ruckus outside. i had to be up at 7, so this was not going to work for me. after about fifteen minutes, i made the call and waited. when i saw the red and blue lights flashing on my wall, i crept to the window. that's when i realized that there were like 5 car loads of people out there. i couldn't really get a good view of what was going on because of my drapes. i tried to crawl into the kitchen and watch from there, but i have no window coverings, and i didn't want to be exposed. i was sure someone would spot me, and i'd have all my windows (or skull) bashed in. from what i COULD see and hear though, there were imaginary lines being walked and ABCs being recited backwards. i DID feel bad when i saw them all sitting on the curb with their hands behind their backs. and i felt really bad when, after a search of vehicles, i heard some kid say, "officer, that's not mine. i swear." and then somebody else yelled, "ain't this a bitch." yeah. yeah, it is a bitch. sorry about that. i just wanted some sleep; i wasn't trying to send anyone to the slammer for possession. my bad.

i don't know what the end result was. couldn't really tell.
would i do it again? i'm not going to lie. yeah, i would. i can't help it. i'm a biddy!!! it will probably get worse as i age. so word of advice, keep your kids out of my yard (when i get one), or else i will come after them with my cane.

letter to the editor

Dear MD-

Sorry about ex-bf. Armchair psychology based on nothing but a blog post: you're mythologizing him because you're manless and dogless, and because you only see him at his good moments these days. You'll find better.
If that helps you feel better, go with it. If it doesn't, how the fuck would I know anything about it anyway?