Mildly irritated, but I don't think you can tell.

Just because I should blog.

Oddly enough I don't have much to bitch about this weekend. Sure, people have pissed me off this week. And the second nose/third nostril has been weeping pretty consistently. And I am the candidate of the year for the escrow surgery in my opinion after this week's fun that isn't showing any signs of ending soon. And I was forced to clean the casita like it's never been cleaned before (okay, that's kind of an exaggeration but I did clean the crap out of it yesterday). And I'm waiting on docs for a 9am Monday buyer that they PROMISED I would have by Friday afternoon, which inspired me to make the 9am appointment Monday, which makes me want to kick myself for believing them and further strengthens my distrust of anyone in this business and makes me believe that everyone besides me and maybe Jodi is a big fat liar. But I'm not bitching.

I AM a little bit bitter, though, because I'm supposed to go to this wedding in August in North Dakota, of all the God-forsaken states, and have NO INFORMATION ABOUT IT WHATSOEVER (besides the date). Where are we staying? What's the itinerary for the weekend? Do I fly in Friday and out on Sunday, or are there family-related events I have to be at before and/or after? Is there a room block? Where are you registered? These are things that people travelling from out of state need to know. The betrothed is my nephew, and his fiance (or, rather, "finance", as she spells it on Facebook) is apparently in charge. And doing a piss-poor job of it, I might add. My sister sent an email to the nephew recently asking for details, since she has to fly four people out to the middle of a state we know NOTHING about because we never thought in a million years we'd ever NEED to know anything about North Dakota, and Finance responded on his behalf (is that normal? Do couples share email passwords? Are there NO BOUNDARIES in coupledom?) "Relax. It's five months away." Uh. CLEARLY you don't fly much. Or you have unlimited funds and it doesn't matter to YOU that airfare is increasing rapidly due to the cost of gas and other such nonsense.

I've been looking for any excuse to not go to this wedding, as I envision myself standing around in a barn with hay bales for seating and pork and beans and grain alcohol and a bunch of guests in San Francisco Riding Gear and checkered shirts, and this might be it. I can't stress enough about how life is pretty much a game (and I do it all the time in this blog), so if you want a motherfucking present from your dear Aunt TtheD then by God you better start learning how to play the I'm-Getting-Married game or you're getting nothing from me.

So yeah, I'm bitter and don't want to waste my money or my vacation time (actually I have a ton of one and not so much of the other) going somewhere I don't want to go and witness this vapid, vanilla girl marry my nephew. So just give me an excuse. Any excuse. I am prepping myself for a sternly-worded email to send to the both of them outlining EXACTLY why, at five months out, they need to get their shit together and tell the family what the fuck the plan is (the bitterness is growing as I type). Because I would rather spend my hard-earned money on a plane ticket to Palm Springs and Mexico than on a ticket to Nowheresville, North Dafuckingkota. Am I getting my point across?

Sooo, other than all that, fairly productive work week and weekend, and now I'm off to restock the freezer with green beans and fake meat. There are a thousand other things for me to bitch about, but today I've chosen you, Finance, and you better rest up, because the email I'm about to send you isn't going to do anything to reduce your stress level. Although it's doing wonders for mine.

Second nose

So I have had this situation growing on my shin for a few years. It's only been this kind of bump thing, nothing major, not really anything to think about, let alone fret about. But after December's Cabo trip, I noticed it started to grow. Actually, it grew kind of fast and I was messing with it a little one night and off it popped. Nothing major. Just like a dry patch. Except then it gained some momentum and in a few days it was growing bigger, and then darker, and then one day I looked down and there it was, this second nose in the middle of my shin.

So I decided to be an adult and call the doctor. It started to throb when I talked about it, like it knew suddenly it was the center of attention and was trying to show off. It didn't really hurt, it just sort of throbbed. Pulsed, maybe. Puffing out its chest. It's brown, looking-like-a-second-nose chest.

I was at work, and I mentioned it to some coworkers, as I will do when I am trying to avoid things like being an adult and calling the doctor. Another coworker had a situation on her leg as well - different kind of situation, but nevertheless, a situation. So we decided we'd both call our doctors.

When I went in and showed it to my normal doctor, he didn't seem concerned (not that it probably didn't gross him out kind of, but I think they teach you not to look horrified when your patient shows you the second nose on their shin), and told me he'd refer me to dermatology. I asked him if I should be concerned, and he said if it was the bad kind of situation, he'd have had me downstairs in dermatology already, and he thought it would be fine if I just made an appointment in regular time. So when I got back to work I phoned dermatology and they scheduled an appointment for today.

In the meantime, another coworker and I named this second nose. The second nose became a sort of part of me, and I was learning to dress around the second nose and cover the second nose with my finger when I shaved my legs. Since the second nose realized it wasn't such a big deal anymore, the throbbing stopped and it was just another .2 pounds I was carrying around. No big deal.

Today I went in for my appointment thinking that I would leave with the second nose intact; I did not. He shot it up with anesthetic and sliced (dug?) that baby off (I didn't watch. I told him I had to lay down because I didn't want to see, but wouldn't shut up and demanded a play-by-play accounting of the removal). He checked the rest of ... me... for a third or fourth nose, but found nothing. Then he told me it was clear I did an awful lot of sunbathing and that for someone as fair-skinned as I this was not a really good idea. Then he cauterized the divot (it's a divot), waved around the little bottle he had put it in, slapped a bandaid on it and told me not to freak out if it looked deeper while it healed. He did not say anything about it running, like it's doing now.

I'm a wimp so I haven't pulled off the bandaid to clean it or wipe away the runniness of it, but sooner or later I'm going to have to. Which means I have to look at it, and I don't want to. This is what people like me do - avoid stuff like second noses and what they become.

A third nostril.

Ew.

Too bad I haven't bought stamps in like 15 years.

(I'm sure I'm going to get some grief for this)

Dear Bicycler:

Hi. I saw you earlier on my way home from work, and I thought maybe you didn't realize a couple of things, so I thought I'd remind you.

The truth is, I didn't actually see you until the van in front of me going 20 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone finally had room to go around you. Then I saw you. Probably because you're so much smaller than the van. And my Civic. Do you remember seeing me? It was raining pretty hard and you were all covered up with rain gear and a helmet so I doubt you did. Since you're NOT a car, you don't have a rear view mirror anyway, so I'm positive you didn't see the look on my face when I realized that you were the reason I almost missed the longest light on the planet with a long list of things I had to get done before I could go home tonight. My windows were up on account of the rain, so I'm guessing you didn't hear all the names I called you at the same time. So that's probably good.

See, here's the thing, Bicycler: you're not a car. And as such, you don't get to ride in the middle of my car-intended street. You have these littler lanes, on the side of the road, out of the way of big vans and medium-sized sedans, and they're the perfect fit for you and your ride. I'm sure you've seen them, most of them have "BIKE LANE" painted in astoundingly white letters so you know where to go. Car lanes don't need those signs because pretty much everyone knows that cars don't have many other places to go but streets and the driveway. So basically it's understood out there in traffic which vehicle goes where.

I wonder if you think that helmet is going to offer much protection should you one day find yourself slowing traffic almost to a halt in front of a really angry motorist who simply doesn't care what happens to him and is driven only by the red spots he sees when somebody really pisses him off. I also wonder what would happen if one day I just decided to drive in YOUR lane instead of my own, at like the normal posted speed, coming right at you with no real warning because your head is covered in plastic. I know I would get in a lot of trouble if I got caught, so is this your motivation? You know that in this town nobody will give YOU any shit for riding in an area that is not designated for you and causing all manner of traffic jams? Because we're so green and all that? It seems like a bit of a risk, but I guess that's the chance you take when you are trying to prove something.

I don't ride a bike to work or to the supermarket, mostly because I don't own one right now, but also because I have a lot of stuff that I have to carry around with me. So I have a car, and I'm sure that smug look on your face means that you find me disdainful and selfish while I single-handedly pollute the atmosphere. That's okay, it's a fairly fuel-efficient car, and while I'm not really into science and don't get how all that equates to the effect on our air quality, I think I'm maybe a little bit more responsible now than I was when I was driving that '78 Chevy Nova. Plus I feel pretty safe in it, what with it's steel frame and all those airbags. Which, you know, you don't have. Even remotely.

So I guess what I just wanted to remind you, dear Bicycler, is that you are not a car. You're just a guy, a human body with no real protection surrounding you, on a little non-motorized vehicle that relies solely on your legs to move faster, throwing yourself out into traffic on a rainy Tuesday night, risking others perhaps but most certainly yourself, and pissing people off that you never knew you shouldn't piss off. Not people like me, but big, mean, pissed off people on the edge of despair that might not be nice enough to just drop you a note.

Take care out there,

TtheD

I just want someone to feel sorry for me

Hey look. It's March.

MIA because I'm working a lot and this desk has become what it always was. I've been on it for six weeks almost. I'd been kind of dreading it before I started on it, it being the desk it is, but the first three weeks were cake compared to what it normally is. And then, you know, all that changed and it started to show it's true colors. And now it's TOTALLY showed it's true colors and some other colors too, some lying, cheating colors and some very nasty ugly colors that should never show. Today was long and never ending and tomorrow will be the same. My guess is so will Thursday.

Plus too when I got home tonight I realized it was still only Tuesday. It felt like it should at least be Wednesday. I feel sort of cheated. Because since I thought it SHOULD be Wednesday at least, now I have to actually DO Wednesday and somehow that isn't fair.

I could tell you about Saturday and how fun that was, and then how I got to talk to one of my favorite people in the world on Sunday, and how even though I am not going to Mexico (did I tell you that?) in April, I might instead go to Cape Cod, but we'll see about that one, and maybe to Palm Springs, but if I do then that would make you not feel sorry for me. So instead I'll just mention that I'm working my ass off in the swan song of my time on this desk, and how I got dumped on by a drunk woman today that took roughly six years off my life that I'll never get back, and how I missed my eyebrow waxing appointment last Thursday with the Master of All Eyebrow Waxing because of this desk, and how I rescheduled for tomorrow at 11:40am, and announced to the entire staff as well as one realtor how there was NO way, NO file, NO CIRCUMSTANCE WHAT SO EVER that would make me miss tomorrow's appointment, only to get a call from Nordstrom tonight to tell me that the Master of All Eyebrow Waxing is sick, and can I reschedule for Friday? I did, but, for now, I cannot be responsible for my caveman-like eyebrows and their hideous unruliness while I close files like a mad woman for the rest of this week. It just isn't my fault. It's this desk's fault.

I'll get through it, I always do. But I won't do it quietly and I won't be happy about it. It will be colorful, no doubt about that, but that color might be a little bit off.