Full Integration Bliss

OMG I thought I was addicted to the Blackberry before but it was nothing compared to what I have going on now... Before, I thought it was super neat to have access to email and internet anywhere and when I first acquired the new-to-me one I have now it was great but I had gotten over it so much it was like... Eh - especially since it wouldn't download all my contacts or my calendar and I still had to manage those on my PDA. The two days it took to finally figure out why it wouldn't sync with my Outlook calendar and contacts last week with my IT folks was painful but I didn't complain since it is a personal smartphone which they didn't have to support. And now that I am fully functional? I am like a drug addict who once in a while would smoke pot and then finds the joy of hard drugs... Or at least how I think that would feel like. I can blog from anywhere! I can be on Facebook all day! I can Twitter at a whim! All the things I couldn't do when my Blackberry was locked down to only work-approved things so I didn't know about and which are now at my thumb-tips blows my mind. I am one seriously happy and seriously addicted girl albeit more effective at those said addictions. I am rejoicing at all the free-time I will once more have available... Maybe I will get back to some serious writing again!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless Blackberry

Inconsiderate and oblivious

What, exactly, is wrong with people? We were at a local restaurant a few weeks ago and what I observed is still bugging me. So here I am with more ranting and raving. Normally our beef is with the service or the food - why is it SO hard to find good service in the food SERVICE industry? This particular night, however, we had a fabulous waiter who was attentive without being at our table too often. No, the beef this night was with two workers - I think you call them hostesses? - who stood right behind our table performing the menial task of wrapping napkins around utensils. I get that it is a mindless type of duty but if you are standing adjacent to customers trying to eat would you really be as mindless as these two who stood there talking loudly and bothering multiple tables around them who could hear every word? A normal person would probably notice the annoyed stares from the patrons but these two were totally oblivious and carried on for 10 minutes. I wonder though, is it me who is just abnormal and this is what "normal" has become? More often than not the majority of people around me are inconsiderate and oblivious to their impact on others far outnumbering those who are considerate and observant. Is this a type of social evolution similar to where we think nothing of walking around with a telephone attached to our ear and carry on conversations inconsiderately imposing our chatter to others around us where without the technology it wouldn't be expected? I know I pay attention more lately to how my behaviour is impacting those around me - although is doesn't seem to be the normal thing to do. What a shame...

Off the Wagon and noteworthy sightings

They say that admitting you have a problem is the first step... After cold-turkey and the ensuing Blackberry withdrawals from my very real habit, I have fallen off the wagon and have my very own little black beauty - I love eBay... - that I will never have to give back to an employer. The best thing is that being removed from the habit for a while I was able to break the Pavlovian cycle of addiction so far as I can tell. Now, isn't that what all addicts say? My own version of 'I can handle it', I suppose. My rationalization seems sound. I no longer have a job where I am required to monitor email 24/7/365 for notifications of system problems and can actually leave my work AT work where it belongs minus the few on-call shifts I have per month. Thus, my mentality about my Blackberry seems much more sane and grounded. I can go hours without pulling the thing off my hip and some nights it stays in my purse where I don't think a thing of it unless it rings. An addiction broken and a new and hopefully non-precarious balance has been erected. I feel so proud of myself! Of course, now I covet the iPhone and am waiting patiently until it is widely available on my wireless carrier of choice.... Ah, the irony!

On another note, I saw the funniest bumper-sticker I have seen in a very long time yesterday on my commute home. Some background is probably in order so the irony isn't lost on the crowd.... Up until about 3 years ago I had a seriously bad-ass Jeep Wrangler. It was lifted and I was always getting "fix-it" tickets because the tires stuck out too far and I refused to ruin it with sissy mudflaps. I had personalized license plates that read 4X4GIRL and the requisite "Jeeper" bumper sticker that reads "It's a Jeep thing... you wouldn't understand." I dare you to find a Jeep that doesn't have that saying posted on it somewhere and you'll have a pretty hard time of it. So, there's the setup. I'm driving home and I see this huge sticker that goes the entire width of the rear window of this stock white Chevy pickup and it says.....

"I got your Jeep thing... and now it hurts when I pee!!"

OMG it still makes me laugh! Of course, if I still owned my beloved Jeep I could never admit to appreciating this sticker but... I don't! So kudos to the creator because that is some seriously funny shit!

The phantom hand

Just when I thought I had figured out a way to deal with the insanity of my high traffic cubicle aisle - all hail the iPod playing very loudly in my ears - another anomaly has surfaced to drive me over the edge. The other day I'm sitting in my cube, working away, attempting to ignore the drivel of the two inconsiderate workers who just happened to stop right there to have a personal conversation and what do I see but a hand hanging over my cube. (reeee reeee reeee) I couldn't help but stare at it. It had hairy knuckles. It had a watch on a cheap band. I wanted to reach up and poke at it to warn the body attached that someone was on the other side of the wall. The hand still haunts me...

Other than the incredible diversity of people inhabiting the same floor as I do at work - which has really no bearing on what I'm doing there - I am truly enjoying my work at the new job. I have opportunity to grow and am working with old friends and new. And who can complain about a workplace that sets up multiple large viewing screens for the presidential inauguration yesterday and encouraged everyone to come to watch instead of killing the bandwidth in the building. It just doesn't get better than that!

Where's Waldo... writing group style

My so-called FABULOUS life: Holiday Bloopers - "Once"ers, can you find the hidden word among all the silly holiday posting?

It's totally an inside joke... One of my fellow writers put a particular word in his manuscript and now we all are tasked with hiding it in ours. And just like when you buy a new car and then suddenly all you see on the road are ones just like yours, I now see the word everywhere. Like on some random blog by an athlete who went to the Olympics for track and field and then didn't qualify for her medal race.

In light of the insanely silly season that is upon us, I thought that at least some would appreciate the fun! And those of you not in on the joke, I'm wondering what words jump out at you that could possibly be "The" word. There, now we can all have some word sleuthing fun for the holidays!

Happy Hanukkah, Happy Solstice, Merry Yule, Happy Kwanza, Merry Christmas, etc. etc. Or, in the words of my cousin.... "Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate"!

New fence, old grass

I don't know what I was thinking - perhaps that I would swap my old grass for something greener on the other side of the fence? Why is it that people are forever falling for that old adage? While I am loving the new work digs for more reasons than not, today was the first day that I thought the honeymoon must be over... I am now, more than ever before, working in a typical cube farm. Literally my building has 4 floors and with the exception of the squatters from a different company on one of them they ALL LOOK THE SAME with cubicles as far as the eye can seen. The bathrooms are in the same place on every floor, the cubicles are all the same size, shape, color and layout on every floor and even the filing cabinets are in the same place on every floor. Several times I've gotten lost and wondered if I was going to have to go back to the elevator (if I could find it) to see what floor I was on and get my bearings. (I don't know what I'll do when the holiday decorations come down in my dept because that's the only way I know which cube is mine - first with the Halloween spiderwebs and now the Christmas tinsel to distinguish it from all the rest!) Today the thing that has irritated me the very most for the very longest time happened in the hallowed new environment like a bad acid trip returning.... The hallway meeting of inconsiderate coworkers! You know what I'm talking about, don't deny it (maybe you are one who does this!) Two people (or if you're on a lucky streak more of them!) stop right in the middle of the hallway on the other side of your cubicle partition - it is wrong to call it a wall since it doesn't even drown out the muffled sound of a cell phone vibrating from two cubes over let alone the mindless banter of the testers in the next row - and decide to have a meeting! One or more of them usually has a puffed up chest and loud, irritatingly obnoxious voice to go with it because subconsciously they know they are being listened to by a captive audience of at least 15 within earshot who have nowhere to go to escape but the shitters - and even then it probably won't drown out the noise. They talk loudly and at length about things more appropriately discussed in private - or sometimes even outside the work environment! - and never think once about the people they are disrupting with their incessant chatter! (I think I.T. people are the worst at this but it could also be just that it is what I know...) I was the lucky recipient of two of these lovely "meetings" right outside my cube today and I swear I almost stood and yelled at the top of my lungs - SHUT THE FUCK UP OR GET A ROOM!! People, be considerate that there might be folks working all around you before stopping for a "quick" chat... because trust me, there's nothing quick about the chatter of your bullshit when having to be endured by someone trying to work!

Pushing

The BEST thing about my writing group is.... reading all their work and getting inspired to write better myself! Every one of them have a different writing style, a different genre they are currently working on and something different to contribute to me. And when we get together they will all bring their unique perspectives together to give me EXACTLY what I need to make my current project better than it had any chance of being without them. And I get to do the same for all of them! I just doesn't get any better than that. I'm starting to appreciate all the acknowledgements that I always skip over at the beginning of a new book I crack open. I always thought it was cheesy drivel but man will that be me gushing about my fellow writers and giving credit where credit is due. (You guys rock my world!!!)