Empirical Absurdity

Too bad "Fail Blog" is already taken.

2010-01-10T17:08:00.017-05:00

So, this blog can been a big, fat, FAIL. Almost Fail-tacular. For those who don't know, Fail-tacular refers to a FAIL so epic, it's almost a WIN. I'm using it in a different sense, however, to mean part-FAIL, part-WIN. The blog was most definitely a fail, in the sense that I completely forgot about it. And therefore didn't write in it. I know you were all heartbroken.

The past two months, however, have been very much made of win. No longer do I "slave away" at a bank in downtown Buffalo, wasting my time on Twitter and Wikipedia, bringing home a salary barely above the government-established poverty line, and wanting to cry because I was paper-pushing at a bank instead of putting my 7-years of higher education to work. I should have been....actually, later. First things first.

Towards the end of October, I got sick. It was the flu. Swine flu. H1N1. It SUCKED. I was by no means deathly ill, or even truly horrifically ill, but I was sick. My fever never got above 101, and I wasn't worshiping the porcelain god like the alarmists on the TV were warning. However, when you're an adult, any body temperature above 98.6 is horrific, and even getting to the bathroom was a chore. What set it apart was the exhaustion. I've had the flu, several times, and was never so tired. This wasn't normal flu, lie-on-the-couch-watching-Star-Wars-and-dozing-on-and-off. I was asleep. Full-on asleep for 19, 20 hours a day. And the worst part of it was I got it on a Thursday--from a douchebag at work who shall remain namelss--spent the weekend in a haze of sleep, coughing, and occasionally getting up to pee then having to struggle with my pillows for 30 minutes to get into a position where I could breathe again, THEN had to go back to work on Monday. Still sick. That week, however, a friend and I got tickets to a release party for Donnie Wahlberg's new single in Toronto. Yes, I am crazy. I know this.

I worked for two weeks still sick. I wasn't given much time to recover and so my recovery was dragged out. I remained on-and-off feverish for 2 weeks, and my cough STILL hasn't completely gone away. Keep in mind it's January now, and I was first sick in October. OCTOBER. Anyhoo, that week I received a call for an interview. At Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Now, RPCI is not just a staple of Western New York, but a world-renowned cancer institution that has paved the way for many ground-breaking cancer treatments. And they wanted to interview me, for a position in Infection Control, very important for a hospital where the majority of the population is severely immuno-suppressed. Finally! I could use that so-far-useless MA in Physical Anthropology for something. And they needed to interview me right away, because the flu was wreaking havoc on the department. The flu I was sick with. D'oh.

Now, I know what everyone is thinking: an interview in this economic climate is wonderful. But I couldn't. I just couldn't go into a cancer hospital with the swine flu to interview for a position in Infection Control. That would have been a hell-worthy trespass. So, I told them I was ill, and respectfully declined the interview. It broke my heart to do it. But, I had to. Well, they called me back to say that if I was sick, they would interview me over the phone. Over the phone, because they recognized my responsibility in knowing that it would be unsafe and immoral to go into a hospital such as theirs with what is still a very unfamiliar illness. Well, long story short, 10 days later I was at my first day at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Between the interview and my first day, awesome craziness ensued. I went up to Tdot to visit a good friend and see Donnie Fucking Wahlberg, who gives the most AMAZING hugs in the world and smells great and remembers everything and by the next morning had seen me act like an idiot 3 times. This time I started crying while thanking him for a kind gesture that meant the world to another good friend of mine, but he is gracious and wonderful and has completely ruined every other man in the world for me. Really, I'm going to die alone because of him. And he makes me dumb. I'm a very smart person, sometimes too smart for my own good, and I turn into a MORON when I'm with him. So, while I managed to get out everything I wanted to regarding my friend, I completely forgot to tell him I was one of the girls he follows. I did eventually, but you know. The night was a huge success, he's awesome, his assistant Johnny (JOHNNY!!) is a hoot, I met some fun people, and the next day in celebration for getting a new job, I bought furniture at Ikea. My I-Got-It-coffee-table. And my Rise-And-Gring-end-table. ;)

The Monday after the party I started my new job. FINALLY, I was being a real anthropologist. I wasn't fighting Nazis and rescuing grails, but they never emphasized that in school much anyway. It's been two months and it's been all sorts of wonderful. I love them, and they love me. Already I'm being considered for a promotion of sorts. And they were pleasantly surprised to find I know how to run stats, which is not a common ability. SPSS is fun.

In between then and now, aside from standard holiday fare, some friends and I flew to Boston to see the New Kids perform a Christmas concert for Toys for Tots. A once in a lifetime experience, especially since Donnie sang "Last Night I Saw Santa Claus" from their old-skool Christmas album, and yes, it was just as interesting as it sounds. I was a little embarrassed for him. Not gonna lie. But, it was HIGH-larious. And, I appreciate that he has no problem doing something like that. Just makes him even better. ;) And, as these friends live all over the country, any excuse to get together with them is simply bomb-ass. This time, at a party thrown the night before for Rob Lewis, their INCREDIBLY talented musical director, I was able to tell him he followed me. I'm sure he didn't recognize my name in the least, but I still appreciate that the pretended he did. Also, the concert was the weekend of the "Blizzard of 2009." Pshaw. Those people have no idea what a blizzard is. Quarter of a mile visibility does not a blizzard make. That (see the picture) is a REAL snowstorm, and we wouldn't even consider that a blizzard. Man up, Boston. ;)

So, that's been the past two and a half months. It's been busy, but it's been great. I'm going to chalk never writing in this thing up to it being busy, but really, I'm just lazy. I'm going to force myself to write, though, even though I don't have anywhere near as much to complain about now. It's cheaper than therapy. And I don't want my blog to be a FAIL blog anymore.

Oh, and MRSA? GROSS.

O hey, blog!

2009-10-18T22:16:00.005-04:00

I forgot I had one of these! Told you I'd get bored and stop. Let's see....what's happened in the last 2ish weeks? Um...not much.

Still doing the same old, same old. Work, home, anthropology stuff, sleep, rinse, repeat.

Good things:

1) The Bills finally won a game! w00t! I will forgive them. For now.
2) Storm Chasers Season 3 started tonight!

Here's a story for you: I'm terrified of tornadoes. Absolutely petrified. We don't get them often in Western New York, but we do get them and then I about shit myself. (We actually had two this past summer). A watch sets me on edge and I go out and scan the horizon every few minutes for funnel clouds. A warning sends me into a panic, and then good luck calming me down. I'm talking full-on run into the basement and strap myself to a pipe. And if either occur at night, I don't sleep, because we don't have warning sirens here. I even have nightmares about being chased by tornadoes, and they are usually accompanied by fireballs or the like. Evil. I think the fear stems from when I was a wee child (aged 7) and a tornado hit in Fredonia, NY. I was staying at my grandparents' house, and it ripped a path up 300 yards from their cottage. NOT COOL. Anyhoo, I'm terrified of tornadoes. But I love watching documentaries of them. LOVE. And Storm Chasers is MADE. OF. WIN. Not to mention I have a nerd-crush on both Reed Timmer and Sean Casey. Yum.

An example of Storm Chasers awesome:

What? I didn't say it was a good story. :P

P.S. Sean Casey, I hope you got your footage this year. Reed and the rest of TVN, I know you'll dominate your asses off. :)

I am nice and drunk

2009-10-03T23:16:00.003-04:00

That is all.

Best. Day. Evah.

2009-10-02T22:59:00.010-04:00

Well, okay, maybe not really. But it was definitely up there. And definitely one of the best I've had in awhile. Nothing especially spectacular happened....I didn't win the lottery or magically get awarded that PhD that's just out of reach right now, but many small little things--and two kind of big things--happened that made this day just SWELL. This blog may mostly be therapeutic and about stress relief, but I really have nothing to get off my chest right now. I've been smiling all day, will be smiling when I go to sleep tonight, and will hopefully have a delightfully restful weekend. Grab a bottle and hunker down, folks, this is going to be a long post.

Today started out like an average Friday (what a cliche opening, am I right?)....I was tired, bleary-eyed, and ready to phone it in all day, but fairly content because, hey, it's Friday. Only 9 hrs until the weekend. Well, as soon as I arrive in the office, a co-worker runs up to me to inform me that one of the printers has "malfunctioned." I don't mean a paper-jam-PC-Load-Letter malfunction; when this particular printer malfunctions, it involves smoke and a fire extinguisher. Why they don't replace it, I don't know, but I'm ok with it. The printer "malfunctioning" means the office comes to a stand-still for a good hour. Sure, we have other printers to use, nothing was damaged, and nobody was hurt, but people love catastrophe. It's exciting, rumors fly, and before you know it someone from Post-closing is running over to ask if the hottie-male-processor really spilled the powder toner and did it really burst into flames. And, it leaves me with a smug sense of satisfaction that despite my lowly position, and despite the fact that this isn't exactly where I wanted my Master's in Physical Anthropology to get me, these people could not function without me there. Good times.

Next, I "work" for a few hours. Work on a Friday involves talking to people and complaining about how long the day seems to be taking. It also involves checking Twitter more often than usual. Who cares, it's Friday! Well, Donnie Wahlberg tweets his good morning, bright and cheery and more exhuberant than is possible for a normal human being at circa 8am PST. I answer with "Good morning beautiful!" and decide, with my dear online-wifey, to try and get a follow. I don't expect one, but he's one of my favoritest people and it's fun to hope and you never know, right? We tweet him a few times. My BlackBerry vibrates, I ignore it because the boss needs to use the copy machine near my desk. It goes off a few more times, and she finally leaves. I check, and see it's mostly new followers. Great, creepy porno Twitter people are following me. DENIED. Then, I see the first unread message, from when it first vibrated as the boss walked up.

"Donnie Wahlberg is now following you on Twitter. "

HOLY. SHIT.

That, right there, unexpected, would have made my day. Such a small thing, but the fact that he takes time to try and answer us, to follow us, is endearing in a way that words can't describe. It sounds cheesy and corny, and quite frankly, ridiculous as we're all adults, but that man and his bandmates have done so much for us, and so much for myself and a close group of friends, that they will forever be in our hearts. That right there would have made the day. But there's MORE.

Not five minutes after I see the follow-message and procede to have a mini-freak-out all over my Twitter page, someone walks by with a piece of office-cake. That's right: one of the highlights of office work. It was someone's birthday, and there was office -cake. SCORE. And it was chocolate hazelnut. DOUBLE SCORE. Milton, eat your heart out.

Lunchtime. I have to light my cigarette with a match because I can't find my lighter, and it makes me feel classy and I spend the entire lunch hour tweeting and pretending I'm smoking using a tortoise-shell cigarette holder. :P

Cut to about 3:30 pm. I'm twitchy and excited from the office-cake sugar, 4 cups of Timmy Ho's, and, of course, my famous follower. My former grad. school advisor emails me. Now, I won't get into the unpleasantness of why I'm no longer in school right now, but let's just say she feels horrible after ignoring my calls and emails about a lack of funding all summer. Well, apparently, she submitted an abstract under my name to present at our national meeting (Physical Anthropology Nerd Party = awesome and socially awkward!) using some data we had played with using a few months back. Apparently, her guilt reminded her of it and she whipped up an abstract and was emailing me to let me know I would be presenting in April. NERD SCORE.

5pm. Freedom! There's an accident on the 190 coming home--no one was hurt--and even though I had to get off the thruway and drive through the ghetto, I was happy and ok with it, even if I did ignore the stop signs. I didn't have any plans tonight, and had specifically planned it that way, because it had been a long week and the previous weekend had been incredibly busy. I was looking forward to being alone with a bottle of wine and some History Channel. I walk in the door, take off the high heels, and my phone rings. One of my best friends from Undergrad was about two minutes away from my apartment. She lives in Syracuse--three hours away--and we hardly get to see each other because work and life gets in the way. Her office closed early, and she figured she'd drive out to surprise me. LIFELONG FRIEND SCORE.

So, it's been a good day and I felt the need to share. Sometimes all it takes is a printer starting on fire, or someone you've idolized since you were five (someday I'll explain how Donnie Wahlberg inspired me to be an anthropologist, but this is getting long enough) following you on Twitter, or a piece of office-cake, or lighting your cigarette with a match instead of a lighter, or being on the receiving end of a kind and potentially career-enhancing gesture on the part of someone you assumed didn't care, or a friend surprising you to really make it an amazing day. And when all those things happen on the same day, it's mind-blowing. :) And for today, I say "WOOOO!"

The Springfield Connection

2009-10-01T22:54:00.005-04:00

Weird things can jog weird memories. And sometimes those memories make you burst out laughing, while everyone in the Tim Hortons' line (no, that is not a punctuation error....apparently, Canada doesn't like the proper usage of apostrophes, as it is "Tim Hortons," not "Tim Horton's") stares, and slowly backs away for fear that you've recently escaped from the Buff State Psych Center.

I used to work as a Supervisor at Tim Hortons. Those were dark days, but it paid the bills and I got free coffee. Because I was the only one who could make change without punching it in the register, I was always at the window to keep drive through times down (I pride myself on my ability to do third grade math). One day, an old, POS came rumbling through, and the backseat was--I shit you not--full of boxes filled with jeans. There were maybe 10, 15 boxes back there. Filled with jeans. And this was all I could think:

Cut to me, almost 4 years later, standing in line at a Tim Hortons in downtown Buffalo, NY during my lunch, watching as a teenager served a man in a rumbly old car with tons of boxes in the back seat. I giggled for the rest of the afternoon. :)

If I were to pick one thing....

2009-09-29T20:59:00.003-04:00

...that I've learned from working in a bank is that people have some fuck-ugly, or "fugly," if you will, houses. There comes a point during the work day when you just know that you simply aren't going to do any more work that day. Sometimes it strikes at 4:45, a convenient time, but more often than not it strikes approximately 27 minutes after you've arrived. When you work at a large financial institution, it's crucial to learn how to look like you're working when in fact you're not. The best way to do that is to look at appraisals. You have a file open, you're on an official, sanctioned site...it's win-win. And occassionally your work-load requires you to check out that appraisal, thus increasing your I'm-not-doing-any-more-work-today efficiency rating.

And man, do people have some fuck-ugly houses. Maybe instead of buying that flat-screen tv, you should fix the hole in your dining room ceiling. Just throwing that out there.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

2009-09-28T19:39:00.011-04:00

I was going to write about something uplifting that happened at work today, but I have to say something. Get ready for a lecture, people. Sometimes I'm ashamed of my generation. Well, what used to be my generation. I'm always ashamed of what my birth year was switched to (damn Millennials...you'll never take me alive!!!!)

You see, I used to be a member of Generation X. Depending on who you asked, the last year of that generation was anywhere from 1979 to 1985. I conveniently chose to go by those experts that spoke of a range including 1984. 1984 was a good year, and a scary book. Then that big committee of old white men who decides the fate of such things as generation names and Coke recipes went and changed it. X ended in 1979. I became a Y. A millennial. I guess I can concede to a mix of X and early Millennial. That nice, beginning part of the Millennial generation that played on wooden playgrounds and metal slides, never rode in a "child seat" and didn't have to suffer through Phonics in school. But I digress.

One of the defining characteristics of younger Gen Xers, particularly those with two X chromosomes, was an unnerving love of the New Kids on the Block. I won't go into that. We all know what happened, and we all know how it ended. And anyone who was/is a real fan was unabashedly excited and unashamed about the recent reunion.

Who knows what's coming next, if anything even is. (I'm keeping my faith, personally.) The advent of Twitter has brought us closer to our obsessions than anyone ever did. And seriously, all you people who were hardcore back in the day, I can't even imagine functioning like that without the internet. But, despite all the great things the interwebs can do for us, they can also bring out the crazy. The mean. The stupid.

People, don't ruin a good thing. Stop the rumors, stop the bitching. If poor Jon Knight doesn't want to tweet his every mood, that's his right. Donnie Wahlberg can't follow or tweet every single one of his followers, so don't act like he's personally slighting you if you don't get a response. They doesn't owe us anything. If anything, we owe them. We owe all of them for this. So the next time you have an urge to say something, just let it go. We're lucky we got to relive something from when we were younger. I was 5 for the first ride, and I don't intend on acting that age for the second ride. I suggest some other people think about that. Be grateful, be happy, and try not to fuck it up.

End rant.

Oh, and that thing that happened at work? Well, it wasn't much, but sometimes all you need is someone saying "thank you" for something you would have done anyway that completely turns your day around. So be happy. And try not to fuck it up. ;)

So it begins.

2009-09-27T18:43:00.000-04:00

So here it is. I've been toying with a blog for sometime now, but we all know ideas are better said than done. Most of the time. This time I've decided to follow through. And here's why:

I've been under a lot of stress lately. Drastic upheaval in my life's plan (thanks a lot SUNY Buffalo, and thank YOU, Gov. Patterson, for your budget cuts to all levels of NYS education) have forced me to leave the warm, safe haven of graduate school (now there's a contradiction of terms) and venture out into the real world, sans that PhD I longed for. The real world where a Master's degree in Physical Anthropology is completely useless. The real world where I'm making less than $10 an hour as a temp at a bank to do a job they pay permanent employees at least $16 for. The real world where health insurance is currently a luxury and overtime has to be approved by the manager. The real world where coworkers ask, "You have a Master's degree? In what? Why are you working here?!?"

I yearn to respond how I would like to, "You know, because I really enjoy working under people with half my education and potential." But I bite my tongue, because even though I'm angry, I'm not stupid. I know the economy is bad. I know the job market in Buffalo, NY, was sub-par at best before the recession. I know there are people who have it worse than I do, and I should be grateful for what I have.

But although I know these things, it doesn't mean I have to be happy with them. I'm better than what I'm doing, and make of that what you will. I won't apologize for my education and ability, and my wish for something more suitable.

Enter the stress...high levels of which do not bode well for an already anxious individual with obsessive complusive manifestations. Enter ways to reduce said stress.

I started smoking more. Once upon a time I only smoked when I was drunk and with other smokers. I'm by no means a pack-a-day smoker, but it's not a good thing. I'm not currently trying to quit, but I'm trying to try.

I joined a gym. Sure I've lost weight, and it cuts down on the physical tension, but quite frankly, running, and paying for a membership to do so inside and in front of a tv, doesn't do much for relieving mental anguish and anxiety.

Someone suggested therapy. I laughed. How cliche, am I right? Anyhow, my current predicament prevents that; I'm not crazy enough to get it for free, and not independently wealthy enough to pay for it. Then the Idea Train hit, which kind of hurt as I've been out of school for 5 months and have taken thinking for granted. Why not do that blog? Everyone's doing one, so I won't be accused of being self-important. It'll be like free therapy....a chance to rant and ramble, to talk about the good or bad, to lay down funny one-liners and insightful musings to the unseen masses of the interwebs. I don't know if anyone will see this. Or if anyone will care. I'm actually a very happy person, with good friends and big dreams. And this blog will be a way for me to find that person again. And if I think people are reading, I'll keep up with it.

So there it is. This is my free therapy and a chance to find my way again. And maybe I'll be able to entertain some people along the way. :)