what a sad, sad waste. 

another

why does this editorial, featured along side mine, make me feel like i should be using a walker at age 25? if i knew the man (boy? what do you call a nearly-24-year-old?) who wrote the phrase "I can’t explain in words how difficult it is to say so long to the peak of my mortal person," i'd tell him: you know that's not entirely true, right? so far 25 is much better than 21.

look out

the reluctant receptionist strikes again!

i don't know these people, thank goodness. my father sent me this picture as a forward with the tag line "only in oklahoma." let's hope. 

turn your head and cough

today i'm being thrown from the frying pan into the fire; tossed to the wolves; burning in nebacudnezzar's fiery furnace. wait, that's a different metaphor. the point is, my coworker leslie's grandma died unexpectedly yesterday afternoon, so it's up to me to do the clinic visits for the next two days. if the family asks where leslie is, though, i won't say that her grandma died. i'll say that she "passed away" or "passed on." or maybe just "leslie's grandmother passed." you can't say died anymore.

so, though i'd planned to say "i'm not really comfortable doing these visits until i officially have the position," there's no way i can do that now. you can't be a bitch when you're filling in for someone who's had a death in the family.

i'm nervous about these clinic visits. it's not that i don't think i can do them; i'm sure i can. the problem is, i'm going to have my boss breathing down my neck the entire time, nitpicking every detail. as i told hilary on the shuttle this morning, it's not like i'm gonna kill this kid. i could, however, bring the entire study to a crashing, bloody, screeching halt. feel the power.

i get these people. sadly.

"Hot Chevda

Submitted by Bill Ayres

A distress purchase from the corner shop, Hot Chevda is what happens When Spiced Indian Snacks Attack. In a "Big Value" 750-gram bag, it could be mistaken for Bombay Mix, but instead of nuts and noodles, the primary constituent of Hot Chevda is puffed rice. It's also studded with cloves (yes, cloves) and lightly dusted with sugar. Bangalore's take on Rice Krispies, perhaps?

Initially, it's lightly crunchy with a good curry flavor and sweet aftertaste. Better have some more. A bit of heat coming in now, might have just chewed up a clove, too. Just a bit more and a wave of chili heat hits like a daisy-cutter landing on your tongue. Jesus wept; this is so hot it feels as if your sinuses are going to implode. Eyes are watering like a maced delinquent.

Intermittent cashews provide fleeting relief, but Hot Chevda is, undeniably, the spiciest snack I've ever served. I can only guess that the puffing of the rice provides an increased surface area for flavoring to adhere to, or something. Definitely a talking point and one to lay on when consenting, snacking adults visit. But serve this stuff at a child's birthday party and there will be tears and/or vomit before bedtime."

find this and more wonderfully neurotic people talking about food here.

stripped of my title

this morning before lab meeting (yes, i do attend lab meetings. take that, mr. mccracken, my 10th grade biology teacher!) my boss karen approached me with news on my promotion. i picture you, dear reader, asking, "but robert, weren't you offered that job a month and a half ago?" i just chuckle and reply, "obviously, dear reader, you haven't ever worked for johns hopkins." i'm convinced that human resources doesn't even own a computer--they still use those punchcard machines from the 1960's and prefer sending messages via pony express to email. so it was no big surprise that today, april 27 (also my sister's 21st birthday--happy birthday!), a month and eleven days after i was offered the position, i haven't even heard from human resources. they're busy over there, trying to figure out what's wrong with their mimeograph.

so karen tells me, "well, the reason you haven't heard anything from h.r. is that even though we told them that you're the one we wanted to hire, they didn't think that you were qualified for the position." they didn't think that i was qualified for the position! i've been found out! the solution, karen told me, was that i would maintain my current job title--secretary 3 (one of my biggest sources of shame at the moment is being a secretary with a masters' degree)--but that i would get the same raise i would've gotten with my new job title.

i sat in the meeting with karen, thinking to myself ok, that's fine. you can call me "jackie the dancing faerie clown" as long as you increase my pay. how, though, do i make it appear to karen that i'm in this for more than the money? i put on my concerned face and told her that the plan sounded fine to me.

so, the reluctant receptionist isn't, in fact, going to become the reluctant assistant research program coordinator. but i'll be getting paid like one.

office gossip

if you've read my 'blog before, you know that the woman who works next door to me is a crazy, dyed-blonde, tight-skirt-wearing lady from glen burnie who yells at her ex-husband a lot. she just said:

"yeah, but i'm back on happy medicine, so in two more weeks i should be just fine!"

i thought about running next door and telling her, "you call it happy medicine? that's funny; my friend ben calls them 'crazy pills!'" hopefully, that "happy medicine" will prompt her to get off the phone and put through the promotion for which i've been waiting for the last 6 weeks. but probably not.

hilary just sent me this forward, which was sent to her by another crazy coworker. i'm trying to convince her that she should start her own 'blog, which she could call "d&e transmissions" or something, and would be completely devoted to the crazy emails she gets from her dundalk 'n' essex coworkers. maybe someday....

"GRANDMA'S BOYFRIEND...

A 5-year-old boy went to visit his grandmother one day. Playing with his toys in her bedroom while grandma was dusting, he looked up and said, "Grandma, how come you don't have a boyfriend now that Grandpa went to heaven?"

Grandma replied, "Honey, my TV is my boyfriend. I can sit in my bedroom and watch it all day long. The religious programs make me feel good and the comedies make me laugh. I'm happy with my TV as my boyfriend."

Grandma turned on the TV, and the reception was terrible. She started adjusting the knobs, trying to get the picture in focus. Frustrated, she started hitting the backside of the TV hoping to fix the problem.

The little boy heard the doorbell ring, so he hurried to open the door, and there stood Grandma's minister.

The minister said, "Hello, son, is your Grandma home?"

The little boy replied, "Yeah, she's in the bedroom banging' her boyfriend."

The minister fainted."

shalom

finally, an explanation for why everyone always thinks i'm jewish...here's the real story, as told by my great-aunt to my sister in an email she forwarded to me today:

"Not much is known about your great grandfather Harry Arron as he passed on little history to your grandfather Bill or Bill's brother, my dad, Joe. After much research and locating in Atlanta, Birmingham, Baltimore, Boston, and Cape Cod, we still don't know much, because...as the story goes...

Harry, an only son with four sisters, was told by his folks to become a rabbi and Harry objected, ran away from home, never spoke about his family, and his family never spoke about the brother that dishonored his parent's request. So the children of the four sisters never knew there was an Uncle Harry. And Harry never spoke of his sisters. Now, none of the sisters are alive, their children are also gone, leaving only the third generation (mine) and at least one widow, the wife of Herman, Esta, around 90, in Baltimore. Esta told Joan and I of the four sisters and 'lost' brother, Harry. Esta thought the came from Lithuania. Harry told me once he was born in Silesia, a province in either Poland, Austria, Prussia, or the Czech Republic, depending on which country won the last war. As Harry was born in Europe in 1881, immigrated through Savannah, Georgia, we assumed the family migrated in the 1880s, and we checked the immigration office in Savannah and found no reference to the. So not much info is available.

What always intrigues me is why Harry ran from being a Rabbi. He told me that the entrance exam for Rabbinical school had a true/false question, "The Jewish people are God's chosen people." Harry answered 'false' and noted the true God would have no chosen people, but is the God for all people. So Harry 'failed' the exam, never returned home, and his name was never again mentioned by his parents or sisters. He had courage. Good luck on your project, sorry we have so little information."

so my jewish roots are cool jewish roots. niiiiiiice.

a-ha!

apparently, the mysterious poon-smell is donna--the woman who sits next door and yells at her husband--heating up leftover spareribs.

according to my boss karen, "did you go back there into her office? it smells like Bucky's Barbecue!"

ew

something around my desk smells like POON. and it isn't me.

F is for Failure

this morning, my sister sent me an example of writing done by her class partner. she's livid that she has to put her name on it, and i would be, too:

"High bangs and feathered hair was in, laying out in the sun to tan was in, gheri curls were in, big shoulder pads were in, and chasing a full course meal with a Diet Coke was definitely in; the time period was the mid 80s to early 90s and women were still moving up the success ladder, two rungs at a time.

Thanks to a little thing called ?Regeanomics? it was the women who were bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan. The Economy had hit a rift and was unstable, women were becoming much efficient in the workplace, but not as secretaries and entry level positions; but as essential corporate executives and stakeholders within that company. Women were bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan, which wouldn?t have been a problem, had the women never left the home to get the bacon in the first place.

It was during this time that varying opinions began to ripple the sisterhood and produced a new category made especially to fit the mold of the financially fit and career seeking woman: The Bitch; with working women on the rise and the mediated Alexis Carrington, women in these positions were purposefully Bitchy and proud of it! (No pms intended). Playing the female dog meant that a woman could basically have totally control of their life and careers with or without the children and be pc, since she was a take charge kind of woman who was sexy with an attitude.? Sometimes being a Bitch is all a woman has to hold onto,? Dolores Clairborn.

As corporate America entertained the idea of in office daycare and other mediums catered to the working mom, she was able to make smoother transitions during the 90s phase. In order to accommodate those mothers who just happen to work outside the home, jobs, after school programs, even carmakers became eager to shift focus on the family as a whole. Now mom was allowed by society say so to work a 9-5 and take the kids to activities, but wait is this onset of another phase?"

i'm no thoreau, but that's an F paper if ever i've read one!

stop the insanity

"this is going to sound really corny," my sister said to me this morning. i replied, "if this is some passover thing, you're going to have to explain it." i don't care if i have jewish blood coursing through my veins, or if i've been to seder and know enough to say shabat shalom on friday. i don't know a lot about judaism. there. i've said it. "no, it's not religious," she said. "i kind of like it that we can start over each day."

how sweetly naive, i thought, sitting at my desk and listening to "dilate" by ani difranco. the truth is, i'm not sure that you get to start over each day. robin continued, "like, anything i did yesterday i can make right today." is each day a clean slate, with yesterday's mistakes wiped away? maybe it's robin's faith that makes her feel like this, and my lack of it that makes me so cynical.

see, i'm not convinced that what i did yesterday or last year can be fixed or forgotten. if everything you do or say is a stone, each one laid on top of the other, the wall might keep getting taller but the stones at the bottom still exist. you don't think about them as much because you can't see them. but they're still there, and when you humpty-dumpty your way to the bottom you get a good look.

enough with the metaphors. the bottom line is, my sister represents how i felt before i began, like so many 25 year olds i know, to feel so damned lost. she went on:

"but like i really over did it this weekend eating wise, but today's monday, so i can start over."

"this is all about food!? you've got to be kidding me!" i guess we all have our issues.

name earrings and phat fronts? i'm there! i wish, though, that instead of "phat fronts" it said "our gold teef is phattest." 

for anyone who ever tries to argue that i don't have the coolest boss in the world, i submit exhibit a. 

the light of jesus christ be with you and keep you

there's an old guy i sit next to in church choir, and if i were leslie, my coworker, i'd say that he's "testing my christianity." in fact, my mother would probably say that, too. apparently, when christians come across someone they find either cruel or irritating, they see it as a test of their christianity; if they love jesus enough, the light and love of jesus christ will shine through them and they will see this cruel/irritating person as the human he or she is, and treat him with dignity and respect.

i, however, am not a christian. the last time i really felt the light of christ shining through me was in 4th grade, the one time i went to church camp. amidst flickering candlelight and 12-string guitars, i found jesus. then i started sucking dick and everything just kind of went downhill. more on that in another edition.

so this guy i sit next to in church choir. he's literally tone-deaf; by which i mean, it's not just that he can't read music. i mean that someone can be sitting next to him, screaming the pitch in his ear, and he's unable to match it. it's almost as if he doesn't care to match it. i understand that it's a volunteer choir, and that he just wants to make a joyful noise unto the lord. either that, or he's just so bored with his retirement that he threw himself wholeheartedly into every aspect of gay church life. last night he actually turned to me and said, "oh, so you don't know this very well, i guess." i thought i'd misheard him. "what?" i asked. "you missed some notes; you don't usually sing baritone, do you?" at this point i'd been quietly seething for an hour and a half. i wanted to scream, "listen, i don't come to your job and tell you how to flip burgers, so don't come to mine and tell me how to sing!"

i can't imagine a christian saying something like that.

make your mark, indeed.

people in baltimore cheating and lying? you're kidding! apparently this is the reason i didn't get my free johns hopkins umbrella:

"As you know, this year was the first time that we were able to make survey participation more convenient for you by offering the online option. The high online response rate tells us you appreciated this method. Online survey respondents were instructed to print a voucher on the final screen to redeem the thank you gift. The voucher, to protect your confidentiality, was a generic form.

It is with great disappointment, that I have suspended public distribution of the umbrellas on the East Baltimore campus. Please remember, unlike our annual Best of the Best celebration and gift distribution to all employees, these umbrellas were intended only for those who completed the survey. Yesterday when we began distribution, many employees came with the vouchers as requested. Many others, however, brought photocopied and faxed copies of the voucher as well as stories of lost vouchers. The volunteers who were there to serve gave each person an umbrella even though many of the vouchers were clearly not authentic. But we realized by noon that we were going to run out of umbrellas. So we made the decision to suspend distribution.

I understand that this problem only occurred on the East Baltimore campus. Next week we will determine how we can make any remaining umbrellas available to those who took the survey. We regret any inconvenience this caused to our hardworking employees. Thank you again to those of you who Made Your Mark. Survey results will be available and shared with you in the near future."

bitches!

i'm a winner

after the day i had yesterday, i needed a drink. or five. tom and i went to a game at "grand" central station called buzzer, hosted by baltimore's own tia chambers. apparently, the game used to be better when it was hosted by another drag queen, shawna alexander. my only guess is that it was better because shawna could pronounce exotic words like "savannah" and "barbados." tia has a wonderful method of handling difficult words when she's m.c.-ing: instead of stumbling through them, sounding them out, she just glances at a word, knows in her heart that she's not going to be able to pronounce it, and then makes a flying leap at pronunciation. you can always tell when she's doing it, too; she'll read a sentence and then--right before the scary word--you'll hear a tiny pause. it only takes a moment, but it humanizes her. if there's anything to remind you of the shared human experience, it's a drag queen in baltimore.

so, tom and i went to "buzzer." there are a couple reasons we go on a fairly regular basis. watching local queens try to figure out the intricacies of synonyms should be reason enough. last night, for instance, when asked "what is the first part of your body that you wash in the shower?" (this is gay family feud, after all) the answers went something like this:

"um...my cock!" -buzz-
"my crotch!" -buzz-
"my penis!" -buzz-
"down there!" -buzz-

people, i know you're doing what you can with your junior high educations, but THOSE ARE ALL THE SAME ANSWER!

ok, the next reason we go to buzzer: if tom and i go, we inevitably win something. and, whoever is with us wins. each time i've gone--three times total--i've won the free drawing they do before playing the actual game. this means that i go, win a lottery (something i've never done, ever, before this game), and go up and get my prize without even having to play a too-sexual game in front of a room of queens. each time tom has gone, on the other hand, he gets picked to play, which is perfect for him because he loves it. sadly, the prize i won last night was two tickets to a pops concert at the BSO called "Doo-Wop." i can only imagine what this entails, and none of it is good. a doo-wop pops concert? it's like don davis, owner of grand central station, called god and asked, "what are robert's two least favorite musical phenomena? 50's music and pops concerts? great!"

i'm trying to make t. sell the tickets on e-bay. he'll be a powerseller yet.

allergy eye

oh, an update on the stye. it's GONE. i knew it wasn't a stye! mwa ha ha ha.

tina, bring me the axe

mommy's about to go ballistic. for those of you not up with hip gay culture, for those of you who are in the south, or for those of you who don't share my sick obsession with the movies die mommie die! and mommie dearest, i sometimes call myself mommy. long story short, mommy's pissed. and when mommy ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

the trouble started brewing this morning at lab meeting. it was suspiciously short, so i should've known that the head doc had something up his sleeve. after the meeting he wanted to meet for an additional 30 minutes to talk about recruitment for our study (yawn!). after that, i had to meet with my boss and my other coworkers to talk about how my certification is going. to clarify, before i can start my job as a full-fledged, happy and smiling research assistant, i have to go through certification on something like 12389432 procedures. or eight. so, much like lord valdemort traversing the dangers of the land of fallen hopes, as he tries to get back to the shire with the ring (or whatever), i have to go through certification.

i've been training for about three weeks now. training, that is, for a job that i'm not even being paid for yet. as far as johns hopkins is concerned, i'm nothing but a lowly secretary, and my paycheck reflects that. my boss is talking to me about starting to do my own study visits next week--stepping into my new position--but i haven't even heard from h.r. whether or not i actually have the job. something's wrong with this picture.

on top of all that mess, my boss (using, thank god, veiled language) insinuated that i'm not exactly qualified to be doing this new position, but since they've hired me to do it, they're trying to not "throw too much information at me at once." while this may be 100% true, she didn't have to say it! i might not be qualified to be doing all this science, but you know what? i do, in fact, have a fucking master's degree. it's not like they pulled some homeless person off the street and handed him a labcoat, telling him, "hey. we want you to clean up a little, you know, wash your hands, put on this coat, and then go cure some asthmatics!"

only 1/4 of me is scared, the jewish part.

am i the only one who's frightened by the idea of an old-man german pope who used to be a member of the hitler youth? isn't there like a black catholic nun somewhere they could've secretly elected? heil, benedict!

two remarkable jokes from my father, one hateful towards camilla parker-bowles and the other toward the chinese--all of them.

"Prince Charles was driving around his mother's estate when he accidentally ran over her favorite dog, a corgi, crushing it to a pulp. He got out of his Range Rover and sat down on the grass totally distraught. The whole world was against him and now his mother would go ballistic. Suddenly he noticed a lamp half-buried in the ground. He dug it up, polished it and immediately a genie appeared.

'You have freed me from thousands of years of imprisonment', said the genie. 'As a reward I shall grant you one wish.'

'Well,' said the Prince, 'I have all the material things I need, but let me show you this dog.'

They walk over to the splattered remains of the dog. 'Do you think you could bring this dog back to life for me?' the Prince asked.

The genie carefully looked at the remains and shook his head. 'This body is too far gone for even me to bring it back to life. Is there something else you would like?'

The Prince thought for a minute, reached into his pocket and pulled out two photos. 'I was married to this beautiful woman called Diana,' said Prince Charles, showing the genie the first photo. 'But now I love this woman called Camilla,' and he showed the genie the second photo. 'You see Camilla isn't beautiful at all, so do you think you can make Camilla as beautiful as Diana?' The genie studied the two photographs and after a few minutes said,

'Let's have a look at that dog again.'"


and...


"A woman was very distraught over the fact that she had not had a date or any sex for over 5 years. She was afraid she might have something wrong with her, so she decided to seek the medical expertise of the well known Chinese sex therapist, Dr. Chang. Upon entering the examination room, Dr. Chang said, 'OK, take off all your crose.' The woman did as she was told.

'Now, get down and craw reery, reery fass to odderside of room.'

Again, the woman did as she was instructed. Dr. Chang then said, 'OK, now craw reery, reery fass back to me.'

As she did, Dr. Chang shook his head slowly. 'Your probrem vewy bad. You haf Ed Zachary Disease. Worse case I ever see. Dat why you not haf sex or dates.'

The woman asked anxiously, 'Oh my God, Dr. Chang, what is Ed Zachary disease?'

Dr. Chang sighed deeply and replied, 'Ed Zachary Disease is when your face looks Ed Zachary like your ass.'"

what i like about this joke-forward is that it's wildly, unapologetically racist; but it's wildly racist using a fake-chinese accent that i'm pretty sure george would approve of.

the legend of john henry

i was just downstairs in the hospital nutrition office, getting more free food vouchers so that the participants who come in for our studies can not only get here for free, get treatment for free, and get their medicine for free, but also eat for free.

as darlene, the nutrition secretary, handed me the vouchers, she asked me to sign the log book.

"ok, here they are. i'm just going to need your john henry right there."

as you're probably aware, the saying is "john hancock." as in, a signer of the declaration of independence. get it? signatures.

i didn't say anything, of course, because i didn't want darlene to know what an elitist asshole i really, secretly (or not-so-secretly) am. i walked away thinking, john henry? i know that name. who is john henry? of all the john h.'s in the world that darlene could've picked, she just happened to pick this one: john henry, the steel driving man.

it's not a stye

as i was politely sitting here at my desk, my coworker peggy just asked me "so how come you got a stye on your eye?"

"oh, it's allergies. i woke up this morning and i was like, what the fuck?"

"yeah, it's pretty big."

thanks, peg. thanks. i'll just go get an eyepatch so that you no longer have to be afraid of my leper-eye. you can call me captain robert.

your air-guitar skills are fucking sick

when i was in college and momentarily in charge of the gay group there, i always dj'd the parties we threw. our only other options were hiring some local dj or letting a guy named charles spin. he was good-looking, in a goth sort of way, but he was into "trance music" (i still don't really know what that means. if i'd taken more ecstasy i might have a better idea). right after college, he took a job in san francisco that started at a hundred grand and got married to some girl. the local dj in greencastle, indiana, population 10k, would no doubt have played a lot of journey, styx, baby got back, and the chicken dance. so, i ended up dj-ing. those were some of the best times i had in college: going to some small, queer, school-sponsored dance in a funny outfit, my big book of cd's in tow. i played enough trash pop to keep people happy and enough nine inch nails and punk to make them more than a little confused.

i ran across a website today that gives away the following secrets of amateur dj-ing:

"Guess what DJing is? The biggest fucking bullshit con of all time! People who get over as DJs are making the easiest money ever, because they've convinced every PR person and club owner in the world that they're doing something only a few natural-born geniuses can do. It's laughable. A 70-year-old blind Ethiopian leper with 10 broken fingers can "spin" just as well as any B-list celebrity at any instore party for some gay snowboarding jeans company. I promise."

"COMPLIMENTS: One of the best things about DJing is when you play a really kickass song and people come up to you dancing, going "I love this song!" You get all proud and pretend you wrote it. You're like, "Thanks!" Yeah, I downloaded "Youth Gone Wild," I rule. It's like being told your air-guitar skills are fucking SICK."

find more tricks of the trade here.

while cruising ebay, i found my bathing suit for the summer! it's offically called the "butt out bikini." i call it marvelous. 

you got me feelin' emotions

this morning while doing my daily reading of pink is the new blog, i saw a picture of mariah carey walking her dogs in central park. or something. i'm not exactly sure why mariah has to walk her own dogs; from what i heard, she got a pretty hefty prize for leaving her record label. seeing as she has a new album, songs about tina faye or something like that, my guess is that it was a publicity stunt.

that's beside the point. the picture of mariah reminded me that i had a dream about her last night. well, not really about her. i was hanging out at hilary's apartment (not her actual apartment, but an apartment that i knew in the dream to be hers), wildly talking trash about the esteemed ms. carey. i'm not sure exactly what i was saying, but i'm sure it had something to do with being paid to leave her record label and that she's really packed on the pounds since she dropped her nasty crystal meth habit. hearing someone clear her throat, i turned around to find mariah carey herself standing in hilary's kitchen. apparently they're friends? my, how the mighty have fallen.

it wasn't really mariah, though. gone were the tits that you could fit a honey glazed ham between; she had this perfect little muscular body and i proceeded to tell her how great she looked, that i didn't mean all those things i'd just said, and that tv and pictures really don't do her justice.

i've never been a mariah carey fan--be it "emotions"-era mariah, "dreamlover"-era mariah, or today's scary incarnation. so why have a dream with her in it, filling a space that could have easily been filled by a certain passions-cum-deserperate housewives heartthrob? good question.

luck o' the...

courtesy ms. hilary ryon:

"An Irishman is drinking in a New York bar when he gets a call on his cell phone. He hangs up, grinning from ear to ear, and orders a round of drinks for everybody in the bar because, he announces, his wife has just produced a typical Irish baby boy weighing 25 pounds!

Nobody can believe that any new baby can weigh in at 25 pounds, but the Irishman just shrugs, "That's about average in Ireland, folks...like I said, my boy's a typical Irish baby boy."

Congratulations showered him from all around, and many exclamations of "WOW!" were heard. One woman actually fainted due to sympathy pains.

Two weeks later the Irishman returns to the bar. The bartender says, "Say, you're the father of that typical Irish baby that weighed 25 pounds at birth, aren't you? Everybody's been making' bets about how big he'd be in two weeks. We were gonna call you....... so how much does he weigh now?"

The proud father answers, "Seventeen pounds." The bartender is puzzled, and concerned. "What happened? He already weighed 25 pounds the day he was born." The Irish father takes a slow swig from his Guinness, wipes his lips on his shirt sleeve, leans into the bartender and proudly says, "Had him circumcised"


strangely, a lot of the things i post on here are anti-irish jokes. seeing as i'm 3/4 irish, one would think that i either harbor a lot of self-hate or that i'm insensitive. what's even stranger is that the majority of jokes i get are about irish people--i don't go searching them out--and that the people who are sending them are irish themselves. hmm.

a beautiful spring day--baltimore style. 

not-so-happy hour

hilary has strongarmed me into going with her to happy hour at someplace downtown called 'eurasian harbor.' frankly, when you say the words 'eurasian harbor' to me it just makes me think of people being kidnapped and sold into white slavery, as was captured so magically in a film starring everyone's favorite heartthrob, kurt russell.

so we're going after work to this 'eurasian harbor' with hilary's coworkers, a stunning melange of middle-aged baltimorean women and fairly hot straight med students. hilary has her eye on one med student in particular, which is, i have no doubt, actually why we're going. she claims it's because they have dollar sushi and drink deals, but i can smell the horniness on hilary like day-old perfume.

i'm hesitant to go to happy hour because every time i do, the "one drink" i'd planned on drinking turns into five. because i haven't eaten since lunch (or since my afternoon snack, since i'm clearly a ten-year-old), the gallon or so of gin (usually my happy hour drink of choice) actually skips the step where it's metabolized and goes, unfiltered, to my brain. then, happy hour having ended, i stumble home, wondering what i'm going to be able to eat for dinner. since my stomach is full of booze, i have absolutely no appetite, and usually no food in the house. i pass out on the couch, still in my work clothes, and wake up hungover and hungry around 11.30 pm.

this cannot and will not happen tonight. i hope. otherwise, when you wake me up at 11.30 tonight, please try not to talk too loudly. mommy's head will be pounding.

the receptionist goes global

well, maybe not global.

but, horror of horrors, i am now a published author.

eventually, adult life comes down to this: cleaning the shower in your underwear. 

yummy yummy teriyaki

a conversation with emily:

Emily5423: oh i'm going
Emily5423: it starts with wine at 11am
Robbi607: i wanna have book luncheons
Emily5423: at the top of the indiana repertory theater
Emily5423: apparently yummy yummy good
Robbi607: i'm so jealous
Emily5423: food i mean
Emily5423: i know
Robbi607: "apparently yummy yummy good"
Robbi607: ok, won ton suzi
Emily5423: hahahahaha
Emily5423: i meant food!
Robbi607: like shrimp crackers and hot and sour soup?

on the lam

a conversation that just took place on the phone at work:

"good morning, children's asthma studies. this is robert, may i help you?"

"-muffle muffle- hi. is keisha nefrett there?"

"i'm sorry, sir, i think you have the wrong number."

-extended pause-

"who were you trying to reach again, sir?"

"keisha nefrett. i think she goes by another name. i'm going to have to find out what that is."

"were you trying to dial (number)? at johns hopkins?"

"yes."

"okay, sir, well, when you find out her 'other name,' go ahead and give us a call back."

-click-

freak.

immediately, though, i thought what if someone in my office is on the lam? what if she's been tracked down, here at work, and we have a bounty hunter coming to looking for her!? what if, even better, it's that bounty hunter from A&E!? that would be sweet. not only would i get to meet mad dog or whatever his name is; i'd get to be on television, something for which i can't help but feel i'm destined, even if it's just because my gnome was taken on an amelie-style round-the-world trip like the woman i saw this morning on the today show.

if anyone in my office is gonna be on the lam, it's mayme. zina's too loud to hide anywhere, and leslie is clearly too legit. mayme, though, is a mystery, with her seven children, some of which are hers, some of which are her common law husband's, and the rest of which...who knows?

bad superboy.

thanks, hilary, for the heads up.

who on earth would take perfectly-innocent comic book covers and make sexual innuendos out of them?

someone i'd definitely like to meet.

schmoozing

i hope that everyone reading this has seen the movie 9 to 5, starring dolly parton (at her most countrified brilliant), lily tomlin, and jane fonda. if not, go see it. today. call in sick from your job, or go home, and rent this movie.

just now i was approached by the four top men in our study--two from the NIH and two from the umbrella organization that runs our study--because they wanted a tour of our facility. i was instantly reminded of the scene from 9 to 5 in which lily tomlin's character walks around Consolidated, the company for which she works, confidently talking to the its c.e.o.'s. "actually, our flexible hours program has worked out quite well. maria delgato, for instance, splits her shift with another coworker. right this way, we'll visit the day care center."

i put on my best violet newstead smile, adjusted my imaginary power-skirt, and pushed the down elevator button.

a busy day on the golf course

"You are driving down the road in your car on a wild, stormy night when You pass a bus stop and you see three people waiting for the bus:

1. An old lady who looks as if she is about to die.

2. An old friend who once saved your life.

3. The perfect partner you have been dreaming about.

Which one would you choose to offer a ride to, knowing that there could only be one passenger in your car? Think, before you continue reading. This is a moral/ethical dilemma that was once actually used as part of a job application.

You could pick up the old lady, because she is going to die, and thus you should save her first. Or ... you could take the old friend because he once saved your life, and this would be the perfect chance to pay him back. However, you may never be able to find your perfect mate again.

The candidate who was hired (out of 200 applicants) had no trouble coming up with this answer. She simply answered: "I would give the car keys to my old friend and let him take the lady to the hospital. I would stay behind and wait for the bus with the partner of my dreams."

However, the correct answer is to run the old lady over and put her out of her misery, have sex with the perfect partner against the bus stop sign, then drive off with the old friend for some beers.

God, I just love happy endings."

NIH fever

today is the second day that the NIH--you know, the national institutes of health, the organization whose leadership i naively assumed i'd never meet--has been breathing down our necks. representatives are here from washington, from north carolina; they're all complimentary of the way that my office is running our study. at the same time, they never let us forget that they're the ones holding the change purse out of which they pull our salaries. (i say change purse instead of pocket book, because writing "pocket book" would imply that they're paying us in bills instead of pennies. and trust me, that ain't the case.)

the point is, even though these people have all been just as sweet as a mint julep on a veranda in alabama in june (that's sweet, right?), there is only so much work that i can pretend to do while they're in my office. that's right, i'm just going to come out and say it: although i'm busy training for two jobs, i enjoy spending my downtime--the time between phone calls, when i'm not in the clinic, when i'm not running errands--doing things like reading my friends' blogs or obsessively checking my bank account. that doesn't even include the amount of quality time i spend with friends, both near and far, on instant messenger. because of this glorious job, i've stayed close (and even gotten closer) to friends from college and high school, people who live in chicago or boston or even farther away. i guess that something good has to come from being forced to sit at a desk upwards of six hours a day.

somethings besides, that is, this 'blog.

for those of you who didn't believe me

heaven or hell? you be the judge.

if my father only knew the blog fodder that his emails become... 

my future boyfriend

we found this on craigslist...it's real. real terrifying, that is!

"I blew all my money on Meth so I can't get a bus ticket to Fort Lauderdale, you luck I will be staying in town, at least until this old guy I know gets his Oldsmobile fix and drives me down the ocean. Let me know so I can work you into my busy schedule of modeling and acting, escort is just a side business, I was in one of these programs while I was vacationing down in Jessup, they said I could start my own business and do businessman as a career, enterpenyour or something, they even gave me some start up cash to set up a office near Patterson Park, they would not give me the cash which was a bummer but they did get me a place with a phone and a desk & chair, its ok but it looks like the stuff my mother used when she work out Social Security in Woodlawn until she went on dissability. The office and phone thing is ok but I told the program people I really need a cell or pager and some wheels, they said they might and check back at the end of the year as see how much money is left over, the program man said there is always lot left over and then they give it away. I am going to get something rad and get this guy I know to paint it purple with metal flakes in it, and he say he can put some bad ass speakers in it. This guy know the program I am in and said he has done alot of gubment cars as he calls it. Told me to start looking for the best stuff and don't worry about price.
So until my program money comes in or this old guy fixes his Olds I am hanging around Balimore doing some modeling/acting/escort stuff, so call me man and if you got some meth or crack to share thats cool, I give a rad bj when I am tweek'n."

as if i didn't already have baby fever bad enough, farrah had to go and send me this picture of madyson. 

spin cycle

i'm just sitting here in this sty, strewn with half-written songs.
taking one breath at a time; nothing much going on.

replace the half-written songs with dirty clothes and unopened junk mail. it's 607 st. paul st. not that there's really nothing going on; there's lots going on. life is busy as always, yet i feel static. despite working a full-time job, directing a short opera at peabody, and singing regularly in church, i feel as if nothing is actually happening. there's a difference between being busy and getting somewhere.

perhaps it's because i've forced myself into suspended animation, my coping method for living with t. the cycle continues: breakfasts get eaten, dinners get cooked, rehearsals happen, books get read, and the hours pass, each one bringing us closer to august 1st. most of the time it's bearable, but sometimes the veneer cracks. it's during those times that i have to stand back and think, what the fuck am i doing? then i have a good cry, piece myself back together, and start the cycle again.

i don't know how darlene can WALK with this fucking rock on her finger. this is just the ENGAGEMENT RING, people! 

(retail) therapy

i've never been a great shopper. that is, i've never been a great shopper until recently. lately i find myself eyeing all the clothes, bags, and shoes and filling my arms with things in my size, eager to try them on. yesterday at filene's basement t. saw the pile of things i'd picked up to try on--everything from a sport coat i had no intentions of buying ("i'm just trying it on for fun." fun? since when is putting on a sport coat fun?) to an awful lavender polo i had no intentions of buying--and his eyes widened in horror. i then made him stand outside the dressing room, commenting on the outfits i'd created. i ended up buying one shirt.

wiltzius (a.k.a. chiquita yellow gold when she deigns to comment on this 'blog) is the master shopper, the shaman from whom i learned the craft. last month we went together to some special spring event at filene's basement. they promised champagne and fruit, but provided warm ginger ale. we still carried it around the store, leaving our trash among the racks of discount, mostly awful clothing. this same trip yielded the coach bag that's become known as "my purse."

even better than andrea's guerilla-warfare-like behavior inside filene's basement is her insistence on using a stroller--provided by the store for mothers' convenience--as a shopping cart. picture it: wiltzius, nothing but a tan flash of yellow gold and attitude, throwing discount couture into a stroller. it's the stuff dreams are made of.

hollertronixified

i stand corrected. i danced for two hours last night; i danced without caring what i looked like or who was watching, because everyone else was doing the same thing. it's the first time i've enjoyed dancing, really, since i dj'd at depauw. and--please sit down if you need to--i now have a favorite dj.

this man--diplo or whatever his name was--seamlessly merged paul simon's "graceland" with the breeders' "last splash;" he wove together hip hop, 90's indie rock, and 80's synth pop. i told hilary, "it's like i'm up there with my record collection." but better, because he played it all in a way that made sense, that you could dance to.

oh, and not once did i feel like i was going to be beaten into faggot-colored creamed corn.

thanks, courtney and kate, for an adventure, and let's do it again.

thanks, dad, for this wonderful picture.

stickyfingers

my coworker's phone was stolen during a study visit today. one moment it was there, the next it was gone.

not only did we have the participant go through her purse and pat her down, acting like we were being affectionate, we went through her 19-month-old baby's pockets.

those babies have sticky fingers.

hollertronixation

i'm terrified.

kate and courtney have invited me to this party at sonar they're going to called "hollertronix." apparently it goes all up and down the midatlantic and their favorite dj from philly is playing. call me old-fashioned, or just old, but i don't have a favorite dj. i don't think that i could tell you a dj if i had to, except for maybe "dj ferrell" from central or the hippo or whereever he's "spinning." i think i'm going, though, just to force myself out of hiding. hilary wants to go, too, but she's also apprehensive. while i'm worried about getting gay-bashed, she's worried about being the only indie-rock girl at a hip hop party. i know that it sounds like we've needlessly pigeon-holed ourselves into a scene, and maybe we have. we should get points, i think, for attempting to take ourselves out of that comfort zone. so, tonight we're abandoning our gay bars and rock shows, and going to sonar lounge to something called "hollertronix."

i've neurotically written kate and courtney 14 emails this morning, asking questions about what i'm supposed to wear and whether or not i'll have to dance. courtney replied that not everyone will be dancing, that "there will be people not dancing b/c they're too cool." i told her that i won't be dancing not because i'm too cool, but for exactly the opposite reason. when i was 18 i could make myself pretend that i enjoyed dancing and would do my best rave-dance impression. nowadays, i get out onto the dance floor and find that my dancing starts out good, but eventually devolves into a step-touch, as my eyes wander toward the chairs on the side of the dancefloor.

the older i get, the more i appreciate sitting down with a drink in my hand. watching all those crazy kids wear themselves out on the dancefloor, i think to myself that used to be me.

read this poem.

p.s.

oh, and the best part? the lunch that started the whole debacle is sitting in my refrigerator at home, where it shan't be eaten by anyone.

domestic bliss

"i hope you rot in hell for what you've done to me."

confused? okay, let me backtrack a little.

i got out of bed this morning, as i always do, at 7.25. i tumbled out of bed, stumbled to the kitchen, and poured myself a cup of ambit...oh, wait. no, that's dolly parton. although, i did get out of bed, go to the kitchen, and start making my coffee. i was in the middle of making my lunch when t poked his head out from under the pillow on the futon--you know, he sleeps in the living room now that we're "roomies."

"sorry," i said. "good morning."
"couldn't you do any of that after you shower?"

for some reason, this request set me off like he'd said "good morning yourself, you fucking faggot!" i'd just gotten out of bed, and i don't remember the three phrases that followed. what i do remember is that the conversation ended with me flipping t off and him responding, "well, i guess it's started." what's started? i don't even want to think about it.

after seething while eating my honey nut cheerios, i opened the door and went into the main room. "i want to take a time out," i said. "i want to talk this out before we go to work." "good luck with that," terry replied. okay, i thought, it's going to be like this. "i'm sorry that i blew up. our relationship is already tenuous, and even thought i'm not being attacked, sometimes i feel like i'm being attacked; and i come out swinging." "let's just see how you like it when i wake you up at 6am next time i go running."

i couldn't decide which part of this was worse--the fact that t was being so unresponsive when i was trying, at least, to be a grownup, or the way t looked. when he tries to be a bitch, or mean, it just doesn't fit his face. he's a kind man, and seeing his face twisted into hatred just makes him look like he's wearing a mask.

he went into the bathroom, leaving me with this look. i followed him into the bathroom, grabbed him by the shoulders, and shook him. if he'd been a baby he would've suffered brain damage and i'd be in jail right now. "i hope you rot in hell for what you've done to me," i told him. he flipped me off, obviously referring to my own motion earlier, and i slammed the door, breaking the doorjamb.

how on earth is it that "i hope you rot in hell for what you've done to me" escaped my lips, as i shook t? i don't think he knows what i meant; i didn't just mean for dumping me. what i feel like he's done--however erroneously--is make me go crazy. granted, i was already well on the way; i just didn't need this last twig to snap. i've never come so close to hitting someone in my life, and that scares the shit out of me.

i hope that by tonight--if not by dinnertime, then by the time church choir is over--we can talk this thing out like adults. no threats, no screaming, just two roommates/ex-boyfriends/best friends figuring out how they're going to make their lives together work.

shove it in

my boss, in reference to the salad she's about to eat, said, "ok let me go munch, and i'll find you as soon as i can shove it in." "munch" and "shove it in" in the same sentence? dirty.

they're men's shoes.

in reference to the white sandals below...

jorge: and I think those shoes don't look all that bad, but then again, I am fashion-handicapped...so, I guess that might support Hilary's argument
robert: well, they're men's shoes.
robert: supposedly.
jorge: no!
robert: YES!
jorge: nevermind
robert: hahahaha
jorge: ABSOLUTELY AWFUL!
jorge: give me athletic shoes ANYDAY!
robert: yeah. hilary goes
robert: 'those look like shoes i wore when i was an early teenager like on easter'
jorge: lol
jorge: so did I
robert: no they're mens' shoes
jorge: no way....
jorge: well, 'no way' for me, at least
jorge: do they match your Coach purse?
robert: well i already bought you a pair
robert: you BITCH
jorge: lol

this picture's to make up for my last entry. see, i'm totally not that mean! 

run ragged

it's my second day of hard-core training for my new position, and i'm exhausted. i keep finding myself being really irritable with people in my office, snapping at them for no reason except that today i'm expected to be super-secretary, answering phones, doing paperwork, working with databases, all the while finishing up my certifications and spending 3 hours down in the clinic. what happened to the gym, you ask? good question. one way or another i'm going. as i told t yesterday, i don't eat lunch at my desk so that i can just work all day with no break. i'm fairly confident that i won't get fired. maybe.

to make matters worse, the lady who sits behind me in the office will not...how do i put this delicately...shut her yap. i understand that she's got a lot to complain about--people not showing up for appointments, being the only person who really recruits people--but i want to turn around and lay down some ground rules:

1. if you have to complain, complain just once about something. don't say the same thing over and over, bitching and moaning about the same thing. be creative.
2. if there's nothing i can do about it, don't try to engage me in conversation. i'm busy, either doing real work or blogging. most likely blogging.
3. we all know how hard you work, so don't remind us three hundred times.

that's really all. if she could follow these simple instructions, everyone in the offices' lives would be happier.

let me finish this angry, hateful blog by saying: i really do like this woman, and she really has been hugely nice to me. i'm just annoyed. five years ago i would've blown up. today i'll take some deep breaths and try to see things her way. inhale; good, now exhale...

according to hilary, these shoes are "awful, and anyone who wears them should be banned." banned from what, you ask? who knows. go shoe shopping with her and maybe you'll understand. 

pass me the lab coat

dear readers, my deepest apologies. upon checking my "site meter," a task i excitedly perform upwards of 46 times a day, i discovered that twenty-something of you have already checked the page for an update today, only to find some disappointing entry about mork and mindy. it was an entry hastily written in anger, and can't be expected to satiate your need for 'blog.

i have a good reason, though. i'm training to be an "assistant research program coordinator," as you may or may not know, and today was my first day in the clinic. i shadowed my coworker, trailing behind her like i was learning how to ring people up at sears or wait tables. instead, i was watching her fill out a gaggle of forms, process samples, and perform spirometry. that's right, i said spirometry. if you don't know what it means, don't feel bad: i had no idea until i started my career in science.

the fact that i can even vaguely refer to "my career in science" blows my mind. i still don't quite understand photosynthesis or really, even, how a baby's made, yet i'm making my living in the wide world of science.

why do i need to know how a baby's made, anyway? except for hilary i'm not going to be knocking anyone up anytime soon.

robin williams rolling in his grave

the bastards at nbc have preemted medium in favor of Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy.

it should be called Mork & Mindy: Remember Them? Neither Do We.

what noise does a chicken make? meow.

i just finished eating a huge serving of "spicy chicken teriyaki" from my new favorite trashy at-work lunch counter: happy teriyaki. "happy teriyaki?" i can already hear you ask. "happy teriyaki!" i reply. "that place looks really dirty," you say. "shhhhhhh, go to sleep," i say.

it's true. the place looks really dirty. well, it's not the restaurant that looks dirty so much as the food from the restaurant that looks dirty. my pile of "chicken" definitely wasn't dog, cat, or eskimo. it tasted like chicken, had the consistency of chicken; the only question is which part of the chicken was i eating, and that's an answer god himself doesn't even know.

i've never gotten sick, and where else can you get two scoops of white rice, a cup and a half of "chicken," three won tons, and a salad for five dollars? if you said "anywhere in east baltimore," your prize is in the mail.

feeding the less fortunate

terry's car got towed this morning. as we were walking to the impound lot--located handily underneath I-83, right next to where the homeless people roost--i thought, well, you're really not a true baltimorian until you've had your car towed. next to the money the city collects in parking tickets, it's baltimore's biggest source of revenue. actually, it might equal the amount garnered by the new, cheap as shit (thanks, david sedaris) round-the-clock "E-Z Park" machines. the point is, towing is big business for baltimore city, and this morning it was t's turn to get screwed.

t. paid the $207 the city charges to get your car out of hock, and the shockingly friendly woman behind the bulletproof glass smiled and said, "you can just go get in your car. i'll open the gate fuh' ya when you come 'round." we found the pontiac and walked toward it; i got out my new digital camera and took a picture. "you're taking a picture of this?" terry asked. "yeah. i'm doing my best to document my shitty baltimore experience, because no one is ever going to believe it after i move."

i saw the woman behind the bulletproof glass watching out her window, waiting for us to drive up so she could lift the gate; as we drove past her, we waved. instead of waving back, she sassily pointed at us, her shiny manicure glinting off her yellow gold bracelets. "now that," i said, "is what i wish i could get on film. that's true baltimore right there." it's a little bit like being on safari in africa--you just can't ever get them to hold still long enough to get your camera out.

aftermath

i've just spent an hour scrubbing the floor with tom, terry, george, and frank. scrubbing. the. floor. no amount of singing snippets of rogers' and hammerstein's cinderella could lighten the situation. i don't even scrub my own floor; if a piece of food touches it there's no five-second rule. it's just trash.

now, having cleaned the cinders off my cheeks and taken off my aunt jemima outfit, i'm making a proclamation:

NO SILLY-STRING AT ANY FUNCTIONS, EVER AGAIN.

this includes:

• bar/bat mitzvahs
• weddings
• funerals
• cesarian sections
• super bowl parties
• boat christenings
• good old-fashioned piano parties
• bus trips
• ski vacations
• housewarming parties
• cookouts
• camping trips

basically, if you can imagine it, don't bring silly string to it. period.

oh, and this. this says the rest of it. 

i think that this really says it all. 

google gulp

sometimes, california computer dorks can be really funny.

april fools.

older. wiser. fewer carbs. same great taste.

i'm 25 today.

i can rent a car, pay less for insurance.
i've been legally drinking for four years to the day, and boy is my liver tired.
five years from today i'll be thirty.
in two years i'll be the age that my mother was when she had me.

i had convinced myself that today would be a normal day; that no one would care that it was my birthday; that once you hit 21, every birthday after that is kind of anti-climactic. i've gotten so wrapped up in my zombie-like schedule that making one day more important than the last seems like a waste of time. after buying myself a ridiculous birthday present (a digital camera, so that i can capture the crazy shit that goes on in my life and post it on this very 'blog), i was complaining to t. that i missed the excitement i used to get from birthdays. "you're having a party. a party with thirty or forty people and a keg." i shut up.

i woke up this morning at 6.30, an hour before my alarm was to go off. i couldn't go back to sleep, excited that it was my birthday, excited for our triple-threat birthday party tonight. my mother just called and told me, "i think that 25 is a much bigger deal than 21. you've started your life. of course, it makes me feel old to know that my baby is a quarter-century, but just know that i love you, and that i'm thinkin' about you. and be excited that you're 25."

i am.