Heathens for Easter

I forgot to blog yesterday, thus marking the end of my most successful New Years resolution EVER. I might have slacked on a lot of other things (being neater, being more productive, and drinking more water) but I was totally on the ball where my blog was concerned. And the failure is all the more alarming because I had a totally classy topic picked out: cheese whiz.

I wanted to write about cheese whiz because I used to eat it a lot; it was the kind of thing that we never had laying around the house but that my mom always put in my Christmas stocking and care packages. Now, it’s no secret that I like cheese in general. And cheese that can be manipulated with one hand while reading is my favorite kind.

That said, I don’t eat cheese whiz too often anymore. I never made a conscious decision not to eat it; it just sort of turned out that way. I’d love to say it is because I married someone who doesn’t take kindly to eating preservatives and under his tutelage I have changed my food-sinner ways, however, in addition to making me seem like a quitter, that’s blatantly untrue. Mainly it’s just expensive and I’m cheap.

Anyway, I had some cheese whiz on Monday of this week because my mom put some in my Easter basket. (That’s right, my mom still makes me an Easter basket. Every holiday is fundamentally an excuse to give gifts in my family. Sometimes they involve beer. Heathens for Easter!) I’ve never been one for turning down some free ‘whiz, so I squirted it onto a couple crackers while scoping out my blogs. It was pretty damn amazing.

The more amazing thing, however, is the feeling of strange shame that comes from eating cheese whiz alone in your home. I’m sure that the feeling of shame would be more pronounced if you were eating it in public; however, the alone-eating shame was pretty profound. It sort of made me wish that I wasn’t reading the blog of some emotionally turbulent teenager who loves to make bland “Life is Nothing”-statements. In a certain light (a glaring artificial light that made the most of the bright orange cheesy goodness), I might have seemed creepy.

The Emotional Opposite of a Loafer

No one likes to read about someone else’s workplace adventures. Although humanity suffers from the delusion that their workplace drama is enthralling, we also suffer from the equal and opposite prejudice against the copy-machine woes of others. But as previously mentioned in many a blog post, I have conquered this small (read: free) chunk of internet for discussing things that will interest no one. And so I, the most deluded of the delusional masses, will talk about something Awesome that happened to me at work yesterday.

First and foremost, I will dispel any concerns that I might have my days mixed up by assuring you that I did have to work on whatever federal holiday occurred yesterday; if the people won’t stop shopping to honor presidents then I must be there to bring them shoes and explain the sales. And it was busy yesterday, which is another point for my theory that nothing makes a person want to invest in sturdy leather footwear like our founding fathers. The phrase “founding fathers,” in addition to showcasing my inaccurate understanding of President’s Day is an excellent segue into my story.

I was standing around yesterday afternoon in the men’s footwear section trying to look approachable when a middle aged man and his young son motioned to me from the penny loafer row. I trotted over and explained the sale – a three-for-the-price-of-one jobbie that I wouldn’t mention here unless it was integral to the story, for fear of being branded a good employee. The man, a well dressed sort with a thick Spanish accent, pointed out two burgundy loafers, asked for size 10 ½, and stood nearby talking about his abhorrence for rubber-soled shoes while I searched for them.

Usually this sort of imperious behavior really annoys and embarrasses me (I have the sort of disposition that crumbles under the weight of one “shoo” motion), but I was irrationally fond of this snooty man for the sake of his son, who was wearing an oversized t-shirt and sporting a fruit-punch mouth. I found the sizes that I wanted and set them down before asking what third style he would like. The man didn’t answer straight away but grabbed a plain black loafer (a starter loafer?) from the display, turned to his son and asked him if he would like to get a pair of leather shoes. The son, who was sporting a pair of age-appropriate converse sneakers, nearly pissed his pants with joy.

I spent the next ten minutes helping the duo select and size a pair of loafers for the young man. His first impulse was to try on a pair of laced black leather shoes, the kind that I can only imagine that he imagined James Bond (Jason Bourne?) to wear. His father, however, gently reminded him that he wasn’t very good at keeping his laces tied and when the boy got embarrassed, he assured him that loafers were a superior choice. The boy finally settled on the black starter loafer in a 7 ½.

I carried the whole pile of shoes to the register and tallied the total. While the credit card was processing, the father mused to his son about how the boy had gone up another shoe size and how expensive it was going to be now that he was old enough to start wearing leather shoes when at church or helping out at work. The boy, rather than being cowed by the reference to his expense stood with his fruit-punch mouth beaming and offered to carry the bags to the car.

I am in a constant struggle against my evil, cynical mild to keep my interpretation of this exchange pleasant. I try not to consider how obnoxious this overbearing father with his leather-soled shoes and old-world manners will seem to this boy when he is a teenager. My mind, sick with pessimism and a lifetime of Lifetime Original Movies, flashes forward to the inevitable scene where the boy turns to his father and tells him that he wants to live his own life and that he doesn’t even like loafers; he is a man who likes slippers or duck boots or whatever the emotional opposite of loafers might be.

I am trying to keep it in my mind as merely what it was: a father who bought his excited son a pair of black loafers and assured him that even people who can’t remember to tie their shoes properly can be adults.

A More Terrible Metaphorical Monstrosity

I know that it is silly for a person who usually only works five hours a day to make any claim of being rushed, but I felt distinctly rushed last night. I got off of work at 5 p.m. (after that arduous and aforementioned five hours of work) and after wasting a hefty chunk of the afternoon chatting, lanyard-free, in the foyer of my workplace, I made my way home. Once there I ate two hastily constructed burritos, slung my messenger bag over my shoulder and moseyed to class.

No one is surprised, I’m sure, at the length and detail that I employing in describing my evening, but those impatient sorts should be heartened because I am about to reach my point. When I got to class I dropped into my seat, brushed a few mysterious capsules (pills? breath mints?!) off of my desk and felt a very familiar feeling settle over me. The moment that my ass hit that spinning chair, an internal timer blinking “3 hours” instantly assumed the foreground of my mind; the count down to dismissal had begun.

This isn’t a particularly deep revelation, I know. The countdown mentality is no rarity in our society of mulitaskery and especially in my personal demographic of cubicle peons. Who hasn’t sat at their desk imagining the giant timer, ticking off seconds? (The timer, of course, never reflects actual time as we know it. It moves with terrible speed or deliberate slowness and probably reflects our eventual mortality.) When we have too much to do we race against a clock that seems to be ticking away minutes out of spite and we begrudge any task that can’t be completed in that allotted time; by contrast, when we want to go home every minute takes hours for the timer to shed.

So, okay, I’m rehashing all of the problems of the modern workplace and though I enjoy that topic immensely, I’m going to jump ship. My intent in writing this was not to open fire on society, but rather to discuss my reasons for voluntarily taking a class (and paying a hefty amount for the book) and waiting with bated breath for it to end. I don’t have any degree hanging in the balance and my mom is never going to find out if I skip.

I think that this might just be the way that I have learned to attend class. I was an enthusiastic student, an eager beaver in academic waters, but I was never afflicted with a desire for a class to go on longer than its allotted time. I liked learning, the chairs were pretty comfy and I didn’t have anywhere else to be but still I wanted to be dismissed. I sat and waited to leave, my senses dulled by the noisy air conditioned breezes universal to classrooms, in the exact same fashion that I did last night. Canceled classes are still beautiful things and I’m looking forward to having President’s Day off next week.

I don’t know if it is a strange manifestation of rebelliousness or some larger and more terrible metaphorical monstrosity, but the countdown to the end of class is back. Whether or not I have actually missed going to school is going to be measured by the pace of its imaginary ticking because there is no other constant where classes are concerned.

Worse than construction/landscaping noises

I want to write about sleep today, but not because Kevin overslept and I got up heavy-eyed and yawning after a solid 8 hours nestled atop my Sleep Number. The idea of sleep, or rather the idea that I should put some thought into sleeping, occurred to me on Saturday when I woke up at 9:30 and gave going back to sleep my best effort. I wasn’t able to – my brain became too alert on my trip to the bathroom, rushed though it was to preserve that sleepy state – and I was a little depressed. It wasn’t that I was amazingly tired; I just wanted to be able to sleep the prolonged, joyous sleep of a teenager again.

The sleep of a teenager is blissful. I don’t claim to understand it (something about the exhaustion of growing or utter laziness) or to be an expert on it, since my latest sleep-ins pale before the more serious exploits of my 1 or 2 p.m. friends. For me it was usually a solid 10 or 11 a.m. and while that is not particularly impressive, I still remember the wrenching feeling of waking up, the reluctance to roll over and face the sunshine. I also remember the way that my meddling parents would open my door and let my dog in to wake me up if I slept too late. The strategy of turning best pals against each other (or me against her, she wasn’t phased by my wallowing her with a pillow) is rivaled only by the frustration of waking up to construction/landscaping noises.

I’m not exactly sure what I miss about teenage sleeping. I don’t think that it is the sleeping in – I have come far in valuing my weekends since my school days. I think it is the way of sleeping more than the length of the sleep. As a teenager and in my earliest years of college I always went to sleep right away and slept all through the night with my mouth slack and drool pooling on my pillow. I think that the reluctance to get up has more to do with that state of extreme relaxation than with laziness or growing pains.

Last night, for example, I went to bed rather early (11:15) and slept fine until 4. After waking up at 4 I spent the next three hours in the state of semi-awareness that is frustrating and simultaneously pleasant; waking up every few minutes and glancing at the clock always assures you that you have so much time left to sleep but the waking up so often makes the sleep pointless. It's always a little unnerving, like staying awake too long after taking cold medicine. My dreams during those brief patches are almost always about work; I used to have the most stressful dreams about scrolling through Word.

I never experienced the half-awake state when I was sleeping the drenching sleep of a teenager. My brain never buzzed with worries about work and fragments of songs left in my head. I just slept and my first thought on waking up was always when I would have time to take a nap.

I am way too topical

I am sometimes too frantic – being a mean spirited person who works from home is very time consuming – to remember that there are mildly pleasant people around who endeavor to be even more pleasant around the holidays. My neighbor just delivered a Christmas present for my dog and reminded me of this.

Don’t worry; I haven’t gone all sappy and cheerful. I could say a million things on the topic of courtesy gifts that would scorch the ears and blight the souls of blog passersby. I could list the many work events that I have attended in my (admittedly short lived) career, the different tins of crappy candy and cheap wine that I have brought to each, and the excuse that I made to duck out early. I could dream up recollections of roommates passed, gifts bought at random and short-notice and gift cards run rampant.

I could probably even talk about that Christmas when everyone in my extended family gave me flannel pants. (Two notes on this topic. First, there is no better way to imply that someone is frumpy and mysterious than to give them flannel pants. Secondly, I think that was the last year that we exchanged gifts with extended family. Coincidence?)

But I won’t go through the trouble of detailing these stories because I will still be a little touched by the fact that my neighbor brought over a present for my dog when I finish. Even though I know that my name was probably written on a holiday to-do list under the category of neighbor as “Kevin and ????” and even though I know that the other neighbors probably received baked goods, I still think it was a very nice thing to do.

I am going to make my neighbor a pie. And I will endeavor to make it attractive. As penance for my previous unpleasant association with courtesy gifts I will try to not make fun of people in Christmas sweaters today. But people with Christmas socks are still fair game.

In which I use the word "adorable" in earnest

Yesterday while at work I attempted to help – and markedly failed to help – some guy that had an absolutely adorable Christmas problem. I know what you are thinking and it’s true: I can only be urged to use silly adjectives like “adorable” when something beyond heartwarming occurs. But this seemed to me very heartwarming. Further inspection reveals that it is probably par for the holiday course for a more seasoned retail worker, but I’m going to ignore that unfortunate logical tangent.

So there was this fellow at my place of work last night who wanted to buy a purse for his girl friend for Christmas. Since I was wandering around doing my “Are you finding everything alright?” shtick and because I possess the general appearance of a lady (though none of the purse-related instincts) he came to me asking for assistance. As we pondered the purses he gave me a short rundown of his girl. Apparently she rides horse but is no cowgirl, currently sports a canvas tote, wears black or grey converse sneakers at all times, and likes classic rock.

I was so ecstatic that someone would describe their girlfriend by saying that she liked classic rock that I forgot for a few moments that I have no working knowledge of purses.

“Which of these purses call out to you?” I said, trying to seem like I believed the purses had the personality and the metaphysical ability to call out. My charge replied that he liked them all exactly equally and I began a small private panic when he asked which models were most popular among young, white women.

This fellow obviously had money to spend and was eager to do so; when I gratefully relinquished him to my boss she persuaded him to get a purse, a few accessories and explained to him where he could get some good perfume.

When I got home I excitedly explained this endearing scenario to my own grumpy boy-person, who was less impressed than I. He thinks that you shouldn’t spend money on whatever the sales people (however helpful) tell you to if you aren’t sure that the person you are buying for will like it. He advised taking the girl in question to the store, observing what she likes, and then returning to buy it. I argued that this was far less romantic. He argued that he did this with me all the time and that I never seem to mind.

Obviously, my life is far less romantic than that of some random classic rock loving girl who is getting a purse for Christmas.