Made My Day

Facebook message from an old friend: 

"Cunt."

My reply back:

"I miss you too."

Some things never change.

Left Eye

The other day I was running late for work (like usual), but I wearing a sweet outfit and knew I was looking good, so I didn't mind. As I raced out my building I threw on my aviator shades and strutted down the street and into the train station. 

While on the train I stood against a pole reading The New Yorker and feeling like I was in the opening scene of some eighties movie. The busy city whirling around me. I thought to myself, "I'm soooo New York". I noticed some people looking at me and pointing and I thought, "So they know how fabulous I am too. They probably think I'm someone famous. Psh. Toursits." 

The train reached my stop and I emerged from underground even more full of myself than I was twenty minutes before. I turned on some MGMT and rocked-it down the street. I noticed some more people staring at me, but that only fueled my confidence. I was Annie Hall, I was fucking Carrie Bradshaw, I was...walking down the street with ONE LENS in my sunglasses.

Yes, you read that right. Somehow I had managed to walk all the way from my house, ride the train, arrive at work, and not notice that my left eye had no UV protection whatsoever. I only noticed when I saw my reflection in the door to my office building. 

Maybe it fell out just a moment ago? No, the lens was safely  in my sunglass case, which means, yes, I did in fact walk the whole way with nothing but an empty GOLD-RIM encasing my left eye. 

When I told my co-workers, our receptionist(who we'll call Lady M)said that she liked the look because I had sunglasses on, yet you could see how pretty my eyes are. Nice try lady M. 

P.S. If the hipsters trade in their Kanye shades for ones missing a lens, I expect full credit. 

I Heart America [Ferrera]

Ugly Betty has been filming at my office! Here are a few pics I took, but much better ones can be found on my coworkers blog located here. Enjoy! And yes, I did get to see the cast.

Princess and I on set.

Colin had a blast!

Betty is in there somewhere. I swear.

I know, I'm a total dork, but it's the clapper! How cool is that??

Neighborly Love

A friend of mine recently relayed to me that she had gotten down and dirty with a neighbor-friend of hers and how the whole situation had ended up fairly awkward. I was highly entertained by this story and a little sad that:

1. Her first encounter with sex in nearly nine months was so horrible.

2. I did not have my own awkward neighbor story. 

It wasn't until several days later that I realized I do have my own neighbor story:

It was fall semester 2006, when everyone still called me katiep and it didn't occur to me to mind...

I had befriended my neighbor and we had made a habit of hanging out in the early am after all the bars had closed. One night we were at my place just chatting in the living room. I was on the couch and he was across the room in a chair, when all of the sudden he gets up and climbs over the back side of the couch placing his body in between me and the back side of the couch. We were now in a spooning. I thought to myself, "what the fuck is this? A sneak attack cuddle?" Couldn't he just be a normal guy and just rub my leg?  I mean did he really have to press his whole body against mine? That's just creepy.

A little stunned, I just lie there praying for some excuse to get up. And then my my savior came in the form of a phone call from my roommate asking me to pick her up (thank god). I left to get my roommate and as a result cuddles had to go home (shucks). 

While driving in my car I received several text messages from cuddles saying things like, "are you back yet?" and "let's hang when you get back". I texted him back saying that I was pretty tired and was headed to bed. 

After my roommate and I returned, I went to bed immediately for fear of him coming back over and trying another one of his terribly awkward and not sexy AT ALL moves.

As Nemo(you know, the clown fish) and I snuggled into my delicious bed and started to drift off, I heard my door open and someone enter my apartment. Assuming it was my other roommate I didn't pay much attention. Then , I heard a knock at my door...still thinking it was my roommate I said, "yes?" 

Now many of you may be wondering why I would just lay there in bed as someone enters my apartment and then my room, but keep in mind, this was Virginia and this type of thing is much more common in Virginia. People are lazy and an unafraid. We will risk anything to stay cozy in our beds (or at least I will) And no, we don't lock our doors. And if we do, there's a copy right under the mat, guaranteed.

So anyway, my door opens and who is there, but cuddles, in the flesh. Apparently, he thought it was appropriate to come into someone's house and into their bedroom (when the lights were off) at 3 in the god-damn morning. The following is the conversation that ensued. In the dark:

Not knowing what else to say, I said, "can i help you?"

"Were you asleep?"

"umm, yeah"

"Do you like to cuddle? I mean do you want to cuddle?" 

I thought to myself, "I know you do."

But then replied, "I'm going to go ahead and say no...but thanks."

"But I just want to hold you and get to know you better, I swear."

"I think you lost that right when you came into my house and into my room uninvited, can you please leave?"

Cuddles tried a few more times after that before, finally getting the hint when I started locking my door. Our relationship ended somewhat anti-climatically months later when I realized he had unfriended me on facebook. 

Jail Break

Not so long ago, an editor at my office was working with a client who tends to be a bit demanding. One day the client stopped by our office unexpectedly to just "hang out" aka use our internet until he needed to be somewhere.

The editor didn't particularly want to see this client so he decided to go watch a movie in the transporter located in his office. The transporter is a story all its own, but for the purposes of this story, all you need to know is that it's a small spaceship type fort(shown below) with a TV and DVD player inside it (seriously, don't ask).

Tin foil is so futuristic.

Anyway, the editor, who we'll call Jim, goes into the transporter and the client, who we'll call Stan, comes downstairs to my office to hang out. Since my office is right next to Jim's office I go into Jim's office and warn him not to come out of the transporter because Stan is right next door. Jim continues to watch his movie and Stan continues to browse the web in my office.

Twenty minutes or so go by and I am called upstairs for something. When I return to my office I notice that Stan has relocated to JIM'S OFFICE while Jim is STILL HIDING IN THE TRANSPORTER. I should mention that the sound in the transporter is heard through headphones essentially rendering the viewer deaf to all outside noise.

Reenactment

So to recap, Stan is about three feet away from the transporter and Jim is inside the transporter with no idea that Stan is outside. Awwwkwarrrrddd.

If Jim were to just pop out of the transporter, Stan would start to ask questions and poor Jim would be caught in the act of trying to hide from his client, not to mention thoroughly embarrassed.

I realized action must be taken and fast. Just as I had done previously, I needed to somehow inform Jim that Stan was outside, so that he would not come out until Stan had left. I threw around a few ideas...

1. Sending him a text with the risk of Stan hearing the alert noise and getting up to investigate.

2. Entering Jim's office and saying very loudly "SO STAN, YOU ARE JUST GOING TO BE IN JIM'S OFFICE FOR A WHILE THEN?"

3. Send Jim a morse code warning by means of tapping on the wall adjacent to the transporter.

After consulting others in the office, I decided to send Jim a text warning him about Stan's presence...

Stan remained in the Jim's office and Jim remained in the transporter...

We waited...

After what seemed like hours (but was actually about 20 minutes) I got bored and went back upstairs to let my coworkers know that Jim was indeed still trapped in the transporter.... just waiting(Jim told me later that the movie had ended some time ago and he was just sitting there in fear for quite sometime).

During this time various people went into Jim's office to try and lure Stan out of the room.

"Hey Stan, come watch this cut, it's really neat"

"No thanks"

"Hey Stan, would you like anything to eat? Let's go to the Kitchen and you can pick something out"

"Nah, I'm good"

"Hey Stan, I think someone's on the phone for you"

"Just transfer it in here, will you?"

He would not fucking budge. Jim would have to live in the transporter, forever.

By now, the whole office was in a tizzy and trying to think of ways to get Stan out of the room. After our many attempts we knew it would take a miracle, something unprecedented, so obviously, some kind of Apple product. And that's when it hit us, Stan LOVES iChat video chats. And really who doesn't? You can see AND hear the person when they're not even in the same room! Amazing.

So, the new plan was for me to tell Stan that our receptionist had invited him to a video chat via my computer (so he would have to get up to come see) and then someone would run in to get Jim out while Stan was busy enjoying the live picture and delayed audio of someone he could easily talk to in person by just taking the ten steps to the next floor.

I approached the room once more.

"Hey Staaa"

"Hey was someone on the phone for me?"

"ummmmmm, I think I'm getting a video chat!"

I quickly ran into my office and shouted, "Stan, Momo wants to video chat with you"

Instantly Stan popped out of his seat and was in my office chattin it up with Momo, the receptionist.

"Hey, Momo, can you hear me?"

"Yeah, heeeyyy"

"What's up?"

"So it does work...cool"

"Yeah..."

"Ok"

"Ok"

"Later"

"Bye"

Meanwhile, someone ran into Jim's office, threw open the transporter door (where Jim was sitting shoe less and almost out of oxygen) and pulled Jim out and into his desk chair.

After completing his very boring,very technologically groundbreaking video chat, Stan reentered Jim's office to find Jim sitting at his desk almost as if he appeared out of thin air, and shoe less.

"Whoa Jim, where did you come from?"

"Uhhh, I was working in the other room, on some graphics... for... your video."

"Dude I didn't even know you were here today"

"Yep, just cutting away (that's an editing term, editors are cool like that), I'm actually going to head back in there."

And just like that, Jim stood up and walked out of the room, right past Stan, in his socks.

I think I'm starting to understand what people mean when they talk about how rewarding one's workplace can be.

Message from Printer to Me

ERROR: undefined

OFFENDING COMMAND: E

STACK: 

Apparently I now have to ability to offend more than just my fellow man. My powers are growing.

IM Convo with Heather

Me: I love France, I think about it all the time...like a boyfriend I never quite got over.

Heather: I think about Europe and New York, but more like a cousin I once kissed.

Me: ummm...what? Like embarrassed and ashamed?

Heather: No, more like a forbidden yearning.