Growing Pains

Thing is, I feel like I'm in a perpetual twenty-something limbo.

Kind of a grown up, kind of a child. It's a conundrum.

Some of my neighbors now want me to call them by their first names. There's a hierarchy and a notion of respect that I just can't seem to mentally overcome (seriously people it would be like me calling my parents by their first names...I'm in no mood for a back-hand).

This is why I'm glad most people call me by my last name...I won't have to worry about this when the tables are turned.

So I was making the best of both worlds this past Friday night: BuckWild, The Butler, HookerJones, C-dawg, Lil Thug, and me, plus a few others, met up at Tapas for dinner - girls night! BuckWild went diving for fruit in the sangria pitcher; pretty sure C-dawg had quail?

Ended the evening at the townie bar with an old friend. Ben and I have known each other for 21 years; from diapers to prom. We had a "holy shit what are we doing with our lives" moment...then we ordered another pitcher and a round of Jameson, toasting to the days of cardboard fortresses and we tried to act like the whiskey wasn't burning our throats. Saw some guys from high school. My friend from college ended her waitress shift and took a seat at the bar with us. Just like an episode of Cheers, I was in a place where everyone knew my name, and it was awesome.

After teetering between my past and my future I landed in the present, circa 2:45a,m when my parents picked me up from the bar ((when did I become so dependent on them?? when did I start having drunken heart-to-hearts with my dad?? what happened to the walk-of-shame??)). I have to say, I felt a little lost.

Where, exactly, does a twenty-something fit in?

One of my friends, still in college, sent me interview questions for a communications project on recent college grads in the workforce. How appropriate. One question asked:

Q: Do you want a family and a career? If yes to both, what, if any, steps do you think you will need to take to manage both a professional career and a family?

A: I wouldn’t know! I'm only 22! That’s something I'd like to ask a seasoned veteran – I can’t keep a goldfish alive much less maintain a relationship…so forget about a family. The education system prepares you to identify mafic rocks but not how to raise a child or balance a checkbook. In the end I think I’ll need to hire a nanny.

So as we hopscotch between our comfort zones and our hopes/dreams, we have to force ourselves to keep moving forward.

Coming back to live at home. I feel like I've been assaulted by Mother Nature's maturity security guard; a yank on the humility leash that is now collared to my neck.

Here's the real mindfuck: platypus. What the hell. Now, that's a warm-blooded critter that lays eggs. So is it a mammal or a reptile? Where, exactly, does a platypus fit in? Did God sneeze when he was zapping that bright idea into creation?

But then again, who am I to question His judgement...I should probably just adopt a platypus and perhaps it will give significant meaning to my quarter-life crisis.

Hate Mail.

My Homie. You suck:

this. is. war.

Decisions, Decisions...

Life is full of decisions.

Man up, twenty-somethings, this is no time to sit back! Sometimes it's tough to keep going. So I tend to follow the Rule of Ss (Sleep, Success, Social Life).

(GRAMMAR 101: Yes, I did put "Ss". There is no apostrophe. If I see one more person write something like "S's" or "during the 1920's"...I'm going to smack a bitch. WRITE IT RIGHT! You'll want to say "during the 1920s" because it's equivalent to "during the years 1920, 1921, etc". Therefore if you write out "during the 1920's" you really are saying "during the of the 1920". Kinda like how "The Butler's mother" = "the mother of The Butler". Thoroughly confused? Great!)

So back to the Rule. The Rule of Ss. Life is a balance of sleep, success, and social life. So to have success and a social life, you better learn to love caffeine. Makes sense right? A trifecta. Hence, sleepers either have to forgo the success or the social life. Again it's all about balance.

<--When in doubt I grab the Cube of Choice. It's the caveman version of the Magic 8 Ball (refrain from the awful cube-and-cubicle puns).

Last night I was in the middle of my Thursday meltdown - I couldn't decide if I should pull it together and drag myself out to the Art Show or lay low and veg. Hmm. After a roll (or 4) of the six-sided soothsayer, I decided to do as it said and "TV" the night away. Actually I didn't quite make it past 8:45pm.

The Cube of Choice includes choices like "Wash hair" and "Pub" and "Sex" and I think I covered the most important ones (aka can't remember the rest). There's always the option to help the Cube along to a favored side...perhaps why I'm only familiar with 4 of them?

BKWasp's momma is visiting NYC for the holiday experience, so while their apartment does not have a husband, it does have it's mother.

The fourth chocolate in my Advent Calendar was a star. Lovely. And delicious. I also took the liberty of "adventing" weekend days (since obviously we won't be in The Office). Hello day 5 and 6!

Today has been an interesting day at The Office to say the least. The extra chocolates and good night's sleep came in handy. Louis and I have broken up...The Butler and HookerJones and BuckWild are still going strong with their executives. It wasn't a messy break up, but neither one of us were ready to move on. This was NOT my decision - oh decisions decisions... The Management is switching things up. My new exec's last name is ...are you ready? you sure? okay, his last name is...

Hiscock.

That is all :)

A Touch of Class

This morning at WTF, we were dishing on the latest updates with Tiger Woods.

Checking out the scoop today on CNN.com, I saw a link under the health blurb: "Sex drive vs. golf drive".

How appropriate, I thought...but it really is about men and their sex/golf drive and steroids. Seriously? With all the juicy Tiger Woods debauchery, who had the nerve to post that article and not give us the goods?? BORING.

But I found the goods..."Life for wives of pro athletes no fairy tale" (CNN.com)

One pro-athlete wife commented,

"That's their personal life; let them handle it," Butler said. "We don't know what positive things they have done, but the minute something negative happens, [the media] jumps all over it, and everybody wants to know what happened, and that disgusts me."

I now comment,

FAIL. Let that bastard burn in the spotlight and in Hell. Everyone has things they want to keep on the DL...like how I go through 6 packs of Eclipse gum in a day... So when that pro-athlete wife says "personal life" I hope she means like when a family member passes away or relationship details. Yes, it really sucks for Tiger's wife, having to be publicly dragged through this disaster and try to keep her life, dignity, and children together under the media's magnifying glass...no one deserves that. It's a double-edged sword; do the Mrs. a favor by being quiet? or watch T-bag Tiger squirm?

I hope Jay Leno has Tiger as a guest so he can go "I-know-your-Dad-and-he-would-be-disappointed", just like he did when Kanye West de-funked over Tay Swift's music award.

So this begs the question...what will I wear to the art show tonight? Really though, it feels very "Sex and the City" - club. downtown. wine. chocolate. live art. Totally chic.

And just an insight about the view from the cubes: nobody has said anything today about Tiger Woods...can we unblock a few websites and open a window in here? But C-dawg brought Barrel-O-Monkeys in today! I know where I'll be taking my lunch break!

Text Message Wake Up

I wake up at 4:15am every morning. I wake up at that unsightly hour so that I can go to the gym...from now on the gym will be referred to as WTF (weight training and fitness...wtf is also the attitude of the awesome people I train with). It's good times. This is besides the point.

I woke up this morning with 4 random text messages on my phone - this gingerbread crackhouse was by far the most disturbing. The close second place was from Momma: "Please be careful going into the gym - there is a creepy guy next door that has been watching everyone and you need to be very aware!" When I woke up at 2am, I read that and then had nightmares. When I went to the gym, creepy guy next door had all the lights on in his apt that overlooked the parking lot. I readied my keys to strike any possible attackers lurking in the shadows.

Special Request

HookerJones put in a special request for an extra posting today.

For some reason today has been dragging with vengeance. On the sales floor you really have to be a little crazy to get through the day.

Today, HookerJones googled directions for peeling a pomegranate.

My Homie was telling us about her cat...that it defecated on her bed?

I thought of cube jams. Let's just say that I'm trying to fill in lyrics for "I Like Big Cubes" - a parody of "I Like Big Butts" or whatever that song is. Stay tuned.

In desperate need to connect to the outside, I even went to the New York Times website. But really I'd like to talk about Batman. By far my favorite comic book character (not that I am well-adversed in comics by any means. perhaps his Hollywood counterparts have always been really good looking in the Batman blockbusters...).

I digress.

Gotham, the city that is central to the Batman comics, is in fact modeled after New York City (likewise, Superman's hometown is known to be Chicago). I can imagine that the heroic equivalent to our fine city would have go-go-gadget snow mobile wheels.

Season's Greetings

December 1st...first snow! My initial thought was, "Shit, it's gonna be a train wreck on the way to The Office..." - my next thought was, "Shit, when did I grow up?" because really, any kid would be zipping up the full-body suit at the first sight of snow.

New month and a fresh start. HookerJones, C-dawg and The Butler have kicked off the holiday season with a cleanse...well, with a few. Yesterday it was an all fruit/fruit juice diet; things got a little tense circa 2pm when HookerJones caught The Butler red-handed with a protein bar:

**wrapper noise**
((HookerJones' keen senses, finely atuned from the recent starvation, registered the sound of the wrapper immediately))

HookerJones: BUTLER - what are you eating??
The Butler: mmff, no-fing! (silence) ...I'm so hungry!

So today they opted for "all natural" which has my vote since they're allowed to drink coffee on this one.

The thing about this time of year: salvaging every moment of your morning. Example: My Homie woke up at 7:33am, and still made it to the coffee maker by 8:05am. HookerJones and The Butler have resorted to evening showers. Lil Thug has a ghost so I'm pretty sure she wastes no time in bouncing out of her apartment. B-fab and C-dawg repped the 9th Floor this morning at the associate meeting with solid sales convictions, the dreary hours have not hindered our performance or our holiday cheer.

And after scraping ice off windows and skating your car through the sludge and snow...coming home to the holiday tv specials makes the commute and 9 hours in a cubicle all worthwhile. Just like my take on the first snow has "matured", so has my taste for seasonal pop culture. There's always a special place in my heart for A Charlie Brown Christmas and The Grinch, but Chevy Chase's Christmas Vacation is the adult classic (and has been for 20 years!!). I guess it's because we don't look at the holidays through a 9-year-old's frosted bedroom window anymore, we see it through our defrosting windshield while sitting in morning traffic. Tsk tsk!

Thank goodness The Office decided to spring for the instant hot cocoa - nostalgia in a mug. And no December in Cubicle Land would be complete without Secret Santa! (now that's more like it.)