Seriously?!

Really, ReaderFriends?

Really?!

It's been three weeks today since my last post.

THREE WEEKS!

And you didn't say anything!

It's like I'm not talking to anyone.

Or, conversely, I'm talking to a bunch of people who are worried they'll frighten me away with feedback.

Yeah... let's go with that.

SO... We've moved!

We're safely in our new location. I have a new cubicle, far from the madness of my former life.

And it's fantastic.

No, for realsies.

I have four walls, that go all the way up. I can tippy-toe and see over them, but I'm not a rat in a cage on display for my coworkers to antagonize. And I love it.

I have neighbors who whisper their conversations in an attempt not to interrupt my work and what I'm trying to get done. They speak on the phone as if they're normal people. They don't yell, they don't cuss* and they treat each other with respect.

And when I say each other... I mean me, too.

I've gotten more work done in the last two weeks than I had in months. I'm caught up (almost entirely, except for the stuff that just came in) on my invoicing, I'm caught up on my typing and I'm getting a handle on the record keeping that's been hanging over my head since before I started as an administrator for this company.

It's fabulous!

However, things are going so well and I'm staying so busy that it's been hard to keep up with writing. So I wanted to send you this.

In my free time, I've been working in a very sexy production of a classic Christmas ballet. It's helped me both to bolster my self confidence by working with people who make me smile, and to help me keep a lid on my Christmas Spirit by keeping me in a state of moderate exhaustion throughout the Christmas season.

But it's been fabulous. Full of glitter, full of feathers and full of fun.

SO: I hope you have a wonderful holiday, ReaderFriends. I hope it's fabulous and I hope that it brings you all the sparkling things you desire.
* Not aloud, anyway. I hear they're pretty rude-and-crude people once you get to know them, but I don't hear much of anything from them. Maybe they're scared of me, too.

My Self-Induced Insomnia Post

As I begin this post, it is 3:48 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. I am laying in my childhood bed listening to crickets and coyotes outside and realizing just how deeply I have adapted to city life that I can sleep through airplanes taking off and touching down at our local airplanery, but not sleep through the peaceful chirp that used to lull me to sleep every evening.

I shouldn't be awake this late/early. And it's not for lack of trying that I am. I *did* go to bed at a reasonable hour, I promise. But a day of real work has taken its toll, and I currently find myself in that horrid position of having gotten too tired and having worked my intolerant muscles too far the day before and then being awakened in the middle of the night by strange sounds. (I heard the water destinkification machine kick on, and then start draining through our Emergency Drainage System. As a child, I was extremely fortunate to live in a home where my father really knew his stuff and was able to build our home himself, but that means he took some shortcuts... Like attaching the Emergency Drain in the bathroom - for child exuberance in the bathtub - to the Emergency Drain in the wellroom for water system upkeep. That created a weird gurgling from the Emergency Drain in the bathroom, which woke me up in a blind panic that the leaking-pipe-I-have-yet-to-fix had somehow spontaneously burst in July and was flooding the basement-that-has-yet-to-be-hit-by-the-Great-Purge-that-brings-me-here-in-the-first-place. So I rocketed out of bed, asserted that a funny sound was coming from the bathroom, shot into my Mother's bedroom to turn on her light and babble something about "Running water in the basement," ignored her "It's okay - it does that" as early morning babble on HER behalf, and ran to the basement. You'll be surprised - she was right. But by the time I realized, she was already out of bed and on her way down the stairs to make sure I hadn't totally lost my marbles. I love my Mumma. But now, I've put her back to bed and I've worn off my adrenaline and I'm still very much awake.) 

I don't mind being up this early. The aforementioned Father used to get up every single day, without an alarm, between 4 and 4:30 a.m. He would toddle to the kitchen for his coffee from his bedroom immediately above my own, and the sound of his footsteps creaking on the rough hewn joints would stir me from my slumber. I wouldn't get out of bed, but the rest I got between that time and when I really did get up could only be considered "Off and On." And really, I didn't mind. Eventually.

So to be awake this early is reminding me of that. 

But you must be wondering what the real reason for this post is, being that this is a work-flavored blog and *obviously* not a workday post...

Well, my point is that tomorrow is going to suck.

A lot.

Although my current intent is to post this, double check on my Social Networking Site (to make sure nothing has happened in the twenty minutes it's taken me to jot down these thoughts) and then turn the computer off (before it dies) and go back to sleep before my Adventures in Organized Religion (TM) tomorrow. The reality is that I will probably lay here for a while, doze Off and On, and then be useless the rest of the day. Which won't immediately effect me during this Sunshine Period, but *will* create a conundrum on my half-day of work tomorrow, when I really do have the opportunity to take an afternoon nap. Which will then throw me into the expecting-a-nap cycle, which will make 2:00 p.m. every day this work week absolutely intolerable when I have to be awake.

And so, tonight's adventures in the darkness reveal that I really *am* a work-minded individual. If only because I know that my sleeplessness is going to make me tetchy, and my tetchiness induces a lower tolerance for EngineerFriend-isms. 

But for now, as the clock ticks just past 4:00 a.m., my worry should be closing my eyes and keeping my Sunshine for the morning.

Sweet dreams, ReaderFriends, and goodnight.

Green Land

OH MY GOODNESS! You poor dear! Sit down! Sit down!!

I know... it's crazy. It's WEDNESDAY, and it's been over a week since my last blog post. How did you survive?!

(I know. You probably ate lots of bacon and drank lots of rum and got through just fine without me. But humor me, dear. It's been a long week.)

First, I must apologize. The busy nature of my schedule notwithstanding, I've been fighting against this inexplicable bout of writer's block lately. Which is frustrating. I want so badly to share witticisms and fun thoughts with you all, but find myself zapped of creative energies enough to bring these intents to fruition. But NO LONGER! Today, I break the block and *make* myself find something to tell you about. 

What an exciting week it's been! Last Wednesday I packed myself up and got myself together and shipped off for Lands Unknown for my very first ever historical recreation event. (Recreation, as in fun. Not reenactment. We're not doing anything over again - we're starting fresh, because we're cool like that.) I exercised muscles I forgot that I had, made friends I didn't know could be so cool and had an all around glamorous time under a completely different name that was just totally awesome. And it was good.

But all good things must come to an end... As did my adventure. And with the end of my adventure came my re-immersion into 

But then, upon my arrival back in the office, I found I had forgotten to do something before my departure...

Water the plants.

I wish I could tell you I lived in Green Land. No, not the country... I mean the state of being. That happy place where so many of my cohorts can go to commune with nature and bring forth shoots of new life from dry, hardened dirt.

But I do not live in Green Land. I don't visit there, either. I don't call, text, or smoke signal. For the most part... I pretend it doesn't exist.

Why?

Because I kill plants.

No, I don't think you understand.

I KILL THEM. They see me coming, and they just *die.* 

Now this is an unfortunate habit for an administrative person. 

I sit at the Reception desk of my dear office. And the Reception desk is disgustingly close to all communal company areas... Like the kitchen, the copy rooms, and the area where clients congregate when they step off of the elevator. It is the last where I find myself standing, hands on hips as I survey the carnage this afternoon.

I forgot to water the plants before I went on vacation. The current state of affairs finds me gazing at greenery in states of disrepair ranging from slightly-wilty-around-the-edges to mostly-yellow-with-just-a-little-green to back-to-becoming-one-with-the-dirt-from-whence-they-sprung. This means that one of two things could have happened:

1) Some kind soul took notice of their plight and watered them for me on Friday afternoon. Then another kind soul, not wary of the actions of the first, did the same. And now they're drowned.

2) No one has touched the blasted things since I left.

I'm leaning more towards the second on this list. The droopy leaves and absent puddles of water lead me to think that these poor critters are famished, dying for a drink from the wellspring of the bathroom. They cry out to me, "Please, Sunny! Help us! We're dying!"

But that's a problem.

I could water them. But they're so dry right now that I risk OVER-watering. And that's a horrible, fatal thought in and of itself. The oozing, dripping puddles that leak from the bottom of the planters and pool across my desk, the windowsill and my printerstand* wreak havoc on my workspace and my calm. Water stains soak across the paperwork that litters my desk, and inevitably I find myself cussing at an empty roll of paper towels long before the mess is tidied up.

I don't set out to be a horrible plant mommy. It didn't happen overnight. As a child, I helped tend our vegetable gardens and could (for the most part) tell the difference between baby corn stalks and baby pigweed. However, as I grew older, my abilities lessened in direct proportion to the amount of time my father had to help me with my green endeavors.

It is a conundrum that does not go unnoticed. For my high school graduation, a good friend gave me a wonderful plant encyclopedia that, by rights, should help me grow anything out of plain old dirt. But it doesn't happen. I soak the dirt tablets, I set up the pots, I push in the seeds and sometimes can even get little sprouts to spring up... but then they collapse in a glorious blaze that would make Bon Jovi stand up and take notice. Tender shoots curling, browning and disintegrating back to their origins in a catastrophic meltdown. 

Every. Single. Time.

Actually, I had the opportunity to perform a study in which I tested my hypothesis on the speed at which a plant would die with my care, and without.

A few months ago, I graduated from college. Throughout a series of honors ceremonies, I found myself gifted with six potted plants and one cut arrangement. It spoke volumes to my abilities as, one by one, the plants gave up the fight and stopped trying for me. At the end of the graduation ceremonies, I boxed up all six potted plants and sent them to live with my mother (or, those whom I had attempted to care for and killed entirely, to be thrown away by my mother onto the farm where they could be given the burial they deserve). At the end of the ceremonies, the only flowers that still looked halfway decent were the three-week-old gerbera daisies in a vase on my kitchen counter.

It just boggles me. Why are plants such a necessity in the office environment, or indoors at all? In the movie "Music and Lyrics" with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore, Grant's character states that "Plants make women comfortable." This is hardly the case. Comfort does not spring forth from dead vines curling and crusting around my desk leg. Don't argue health benefits either, as if my measly fichus is going to offset the reams of paper we throw away every day. And as for the aesthetics? Hah. Don't make me laugh. 

The real question is this: How many receptionists cry out in frustration at the realization of the plight of their surrounding vegetation, and the further understanding that their best efforts will almost certainly mean an untimely herbal demise? I'm certain I can't be the only one.

*Not a smart move. 

Venom

Greetings from the non-work world, ReaderFriends!

Today is Sunday. Ah, blissful Sunday. I'm sitting on my couch, dressed and showered and rye-toast-ed (and wishing I had gotten my tush in gear some time in the last few days and dragged my lazybones to the market for juicey goodness...) and more than half an hour early for my Sunday Adventures in Organized Religion. I've surfed all the social networking sites I can take, and have decided to share a little venom from last week to get it good and out of my system so as to avoid angry leakage during tomorrow's impending Noontime Noms!

Last week... was not the greatest week ever. I have been proverbially (and emotionally) shat upon, and my strength was blasted to itty bitty Sunny Smithereens. I was called unreliable, self-serving and difficult to work with. I watched the morale-boosting extravaganza I single-handedly organized fall into the the chauvenistic fuddy-duddy (who told me to put it together in the first place)'s lap, at which point I watched him humbly accept every ounce of credit that was given for said extravaganza during a company-wide meeting, as I stood just a few feet behind him.

At the risk of dragging my personal life into the amazing world of EngineerFriend, I also spent the week worrying about money after a little Shadenfreude moment at my Friendly Local Courthouse left me wishing that I had a credit card, and the income of an EngineerFriend instead of just an Office Wench.

Work is just work, and bad times are just bad times. The work and the hardship and the bad times do not define me, and are not my life. There is more joy to be found and excitement to be had than can be expressed in purple font on one measly web page. I need only open my eyes to see it.

It is now Sunday, and the nastiness of the workweek is all behind me. I've spent 36 hours resting, recovering and releasing it all, and am now feeling thoroughly prepared for another 23. I've significantly imprinted my couch with my dent-inducing-derriere as I killed a four-pack of naturally sweetened root beer and a bag of raspberry chocolates. I've spent time with friends, with food and with cats, and have been loved by them all. I've watched an early-elementary-school child give his grandmother Tickets To The Gun Show and chuckled softly to myself at her proud smile.

But tomorrow, after these 23 hours are over, I will hold my head high and march proudly back to my desk, prepared to take on everything my coworkers can throw at me. Because, in the scheme of things, words are my greatest weapon... So I don't need to let someone turn them against me.

And, if all else fails, I can follow the advice I found in another amazing blog today...

"When all else fails, break something."*

Go forth, ReaderFriends, and have a wonderful last 23 hours of freedom. 

*- Posted by Jane in her blog at spinsterjane.blogspot.com. You should check it out! She's full of wisdom and amazing insight... She talks about dance and gardening and other fantastic adventures... Plus, she likes bacon.