It's raining and I CBB doing real work.

I work in a lab. My "desk" is actually a lab table, and I open up the cabinet door of the lab table to tuck my knees/feet in. You got the picture? Black topped, easy-to-clean lab tables? Swirly high chair, feet in the cabinet?

So that's the setting. Lemme tell you about the CHARACTERS.

We'll start with Skipper. His name isn't Skipper. But he's like the manager of this lab, or something. He's not REALLY, but I call him the Lab Momma. He knows where everything is, and why, and how it got there, and if you need things, you go to Skipper for it. He's my favorite of the lab. Super quiet, but sneaky and subtle in his jokes. Every now and then, he'll just randomly get up and walk off. I think he's just like me, but in older man form. Is that weird? What does it say about me that my favorite is the older male version of myself? Gawd, we're AWESOME.

Next we have Mumbles. We have a communication problem. I honestly... have no idea... what he says... It's not that he mumbles, he speaks clearly. He just speaks so SLOWLY, and QUIETLY, that by the time he's to the end of a sentence, I've already stopped listened and moved on with my thoughts and he's still on that same thought.... I feel bad about it. Today at lunch, with that group (SEE PREVIOUS ENTRY), he started a story. But before he finished, NO ONE was listening and had moved on to other convos and he just... quietly... faded his story away... But then again, he stole my original desk space, so don't feel TOO bad for him.

Lastly, we have Hipster Hettie. Does Hettie seem a hipster name? I don't even know if I'm entirely sure what a hipster is. Remember when you tried to tell me? And I was like, Ern. What the what are you on about?? Right, so Hettie the Maybe Hipster is really nice and all. She talks a lot, but not TOO much. She doesn't annoy me, which you probably know isn't all THAT hard to do. Yeah, so, the things that DO bother me about her though is.... she never washes her hair. Or fixes it. Or BRUSHES IT. Ern. Ern. Why? It bothers me. I have to look at it. I'm looking at it RIGHT NOW. Right now. It's awful. And she wears this 80's giant ugly glasses. Again, I just ask, WHY. To each their own, sure, but she doesn't have to LOOK at HER GLASSES. I do. I hate them. We know it's all about me. Lastly, for Hettie, I think she wants to be friends. She texts me all the time, random things, RANDOM things, all hours. -___-

I'm a horrible person. Next time, I'll tell you about the people in the lab next door.

Shrimp Salad

Today I had to go to lunch with the people from my lab and the lab next door. It's someone's last day, so we treated them to lunch. You know my friend that I refer to as the Blatantly Honest Habitual Liar? Her. Her last day. I felt obligated to go eat with them.

So we go out to this eclectic* beach place. It's the kind of place where you eat off paper plates on a screened in porch. Since I know I'll be seriously eat-eating this weekend, I was good and ordered a salad. I ordered a SHRIMP salad. It was on the menu. It said... House Salad: 4.00; add chicken or shrimp 6.00.

The guy taking my order? LOLOLOLOL'd at me when I ordered it. "We don't HAVE shrimp. That's a JOKE! It's a joke, this is a pizza place! LOLOLOLOL."


Dear People,


I hate you. 


No really,
Touz

He explained, later, that it was a running joke because some dude used to always order shrimp and it was annoying 'cuz they didn't have shrimp, so they finally put it on the menu.

....Ern. Ern. *serious looks* This makes no sense. I was all, "...but it's not that funny..." and he thought THAT was HILARIOUSSSSS.

My salad was good, but I'm confused about this restaurant. And feel justified in hating people today.

*this place was decorated in stolen road signs, business signs, junk etc. Everywhere. I sat next to a strand of Christmas lights that didn't have bulbs. And above me? A sign for a Wendy's. But it was upside down. WHY. WHY WAS IT UPSIDE DOWN. It bothered me. I was so bothered.

I work with my former teachers, right? Right. Like, two years ago... I was in their class, now they want me to call them by their first names because "we're colleagues". No, we're not. You were my teacher. That's a whole other big thing. The point is, the quality... and content... of emails I received from these Professionals has drastically changed.

Yesterday I had to borrow a plankton net from the benthic lab. This is the email I received in response: You may use it... but if you mess it up I'll come after your first child and make them spin straw into gold.

Which isn't so weird. But I replied back that I'd guard the net with my firstborn in mind -- and she responded back with a weird turn about not having kids of her own, so she has to live through her mates, and it got weird.Weird. Avoiding Benthic lab for a while now.

Then today, the BOSS boss -- he sends a mass email. It reads, "OK. I need a firm go/no-go right now (tonight!) for the cruise.

To which I reply, "I'm good and firm on not going."

His response, "LOL....ok....no worries...!"


LOL indeed. I have no idea what is funny. I'm worried about what he might think is funny. I can't handle the idea of it being something about the word firm from my boss. I also can't tell who is the immature one?

Also, am gravely concerned about my uses of quotations "now". *grin*

PS: Also note that my BOSS boss... has written VERY VERY Bridget-esque emails lately. Wondering if he is a fan of the books/movies. He'd probably never admit it, right? 

Updates and stuff?

Update: I saw Pink Pantser AND Black Polo today.  Both on the same day.  And she was in pink.  And he wore the black polo.

In other news, I think someone is stealing my clothes?  Because I seem to have less and less to choose from every morning.  There was a moment today where I was just thinking 'PAJAMA PANTS.  THEY'RE CLEAN.  WHO WOULD DARE OBJECT?'

Everyone.  Everyone objects to adults wearing pajamas in public.  Especially to work.  Sigh.  So bossy.

Also,  I need to talk to you about people who do not understand the function of quotation marks.  I was cleaning out my inbox recently and found a series of emails from grown up people who presumably are college educated who chucked willy nilly quotation marks into their email.  As in:

"Sounds good."  I'll get on that project immediately.

What... are you trying to impart here?  Are you being ironic?  Does it not really sound good?  Or perhaps someone else thinks it sounds good, and you want me to know that YOU don't think it sounds good at all.  It's the other guy.  Or maybe you're quoting someone famous?  Remember that time that Shakespeare said it sounded good.  He just said it SO WELL that we might as well just quote him.  The Bard strikes again.

(On an aside... how would the the Bard say it sounded good?  Imma get back to you on that.)

People also air quote-unquote wrong all the time.  We should follow up with that.

And for your amusement, I found an entire blog about this topic: http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

Once upon a time... (OMG ERN HAVE YOU CAUGHT UP ON THAT SHOW YET? OMG)


I did take a picture of a, let's just say, fat man in a little car in a big hat.  I promise to one day draw for you, since the good Lord only knows where that pic is now.

That said, I hope I have further lowered the bar. Yeah, this post? It has no picture either. This blog? Started to share pictures of funny things we see. So now that you're really unsure what is going on, I'll begin.

In the middle.This is the beginning.

I was going to share stories of how dumb students are, but that's so old news, so I'll tell you about how dumb people are instead. Like... people. All of them? All of them.

I went to the eye doctor today. I've tried a couple of eye docs here since I moved here and I've been "....really....?" at every single one of them. The first made me stand in and among hanging ferns around the reception area for a solid span of time while the secretary talked on her cell phone. I kicked dead fronds on the floor while I waited. Then the creepy eye doctor was rude. Like, really rude and persistent about the state of my contact case. He kept saying things like, "I've NEVER seen a DIRTIER case in ALL MY YEARS."

I feel he was embellishing. It wasn't that bad. Right, so you get the point: Doc Anderson? NO MORE TOUZ EYES FOR YOU. BENCH.

Right so to the meat of this story - today's eye exam... I thought would be ... better. How many for-crap eye docs can BE in ONE town? So I get there ON TIME, right on time in fact, and no one greets me. They're busy, so I la-la-la at the desk for a bit. Then VINCE came over. Asked me if he could help. Told him I had a 5:00 appointment. AND HE says, "oh I'm sorry, there are 3 other people in front of you. You'll have to wait." *insert rant about appointments here* *include capsing about WHYMAKEAPPOINTMENTSIFYOURENOTGONNAHONORTHEM*

He hands me paper work and tells me to go wait around the corner. Cuz he has other customers and they're in the chairs. I'm almost quoting Vince. I should mention I went to the eye doc in Sam's? Sam's. Maybe that's where I went wrong. So I go around the corner, where I'm sitting in the TV's. Then CASSANDRA comes and gets me, and is all, "HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WAITIN?" because apparently she got in trouble cuz I was sitting around the corner "for a good 20 mins". So then begins the debacle of me going by my middle name, not my first.

Dear Future Parents, 


Don't do that. First names first. Let's just scrap middle names. What's the point? WHAT IS THE POINT? 


Ta,
Touz

Then I meet the Doc (do you know the Orc that follows Merry and Pip into Fangorn Forest? And tries to eat their legs? Picture him, in nice old man version. IN MY FACE.). He was a nice old man, but Ern, he had hardware in his head. I'm sure he was sick or had surgery, but he was so old and had hardware. In his head. And it took him FOREEVER to turn the knobs and then to write the numbers OFF the knobs. WTF is going on. He was nice, I won't linger on the Doc.

Now I'm passed back to Vince (picture..William Shatner-esque) Who, while I was waiting for the Doc to write the numbers off the knobs, was standing outside the door - talking - nay, FLIRTING LOUDLY - with the next patient. He said to her, "Your husband cheated ON YOU? *WHEWWWWEEEE* She must have been STUNNING." *real quoting* So I follow Vince to the desk, where I try to just pay for the stuff and go. But he's trying to wheel and deal me contacts. Wheel and deal me a tv. A car. A house. NOT PLASTIC I PUT IN MY EYES.

I sat there, PATIENTLY, for 20 mintues while he talked to me. He told me about the woman he'd been flirting with. He talked about my name. He kept giving me HIGH FIVES every time he typed my name.

Dear People That Repeatedly High Five Customers That Are Just Trying To Leave,


Dont.


<3,
Touz

PS. Don't high five customers at all.

Then he saw my Disney credit card and told me his dad died at Disney so he got free tickets for life. As I left, he was still talking about my name and how Molly Red-Haired-80's chick played a character named like me and didn't I know that movie....?

Dr. Awkward

I hid in a cubicle today.  Not even in my own cubicle.  No, I spotted my boss heading for the elevator, and out of fear that he'd hold it for me and force me to ride down with him and thus compound my social idiocy by being stuck alone for possibly 15 seconds with him with nothing to say... out of fear of ALL THAT, I ducked into a cubicle and pretended to be very interested in pictures of some stranger's kids.

Because, really... which is less weird?  Awkwardness in the elevator or getting caught looking through someone else's stuff?

In other news, the title of this blog post is a PALINDROME and the best way I remember how to correctly spell the word awkward.

My brain is in creative atrophy.  It happens sometimes when I'm doing day to day drudgery at work and I find my mind wandering off to weird and wonderful places.  Those are definitely moments I wish I could nudge you, although sometimes the weird and wonderful might be even too much for you.  Yesterday was one of those days, and I ended up nudging my friend Starbuck and my own mother via office instant messenger.

Let me tell you... you know you have great friends when they don't question WHY you're exploring the weird and wonderful but instead just pick up their own flashlight and poke around in the dark corners with you.

Today's noodling... one of the characters living in my head is writing the Great American Zombie Apocalypse musical.  (It's Libby, in case you were wondering which character).  As if that isn't random enough, I spent much of the day thinking up song titles.  And maybe mentally casting the show a bit.  I wanted to share some of those titles with you.

The Great Zombie Apocalypse Song List

1. Things Come Together, People Fall Apart - opening number?
2. Everyone's a Little Bit Delicious (my sister came up with this one based on a song from Avenue Q and this was the exact moment my mother stopped being able to talk about this)
3. Falling Apart Over You - the zombie boy laments his nature... and his feelings for a girl he can't have
4. Give Me Your Brains, Give Me Your Heart - the stirring love ballad between the human girl and her zombie love
5. When I Said I'd Love You Forever -  the tragic parting of our lovers
6. Song for the End of the World - rousing song and dance number at the end of the show, complete with dancing mob of zombies flinging fingers and ears into the audience as they dance.

You have any to offer?

Girls Talkin' About Clothes

I think I've told you about the lady in the pink pants.  She somehow shows up at work nearly every day at about the same time I do... which is amazing considering how long it takes me to get out of the house some mornings.  (Anyway) everyday as I watch this woman climb out of her zippy little red car, I think once again to myself:

1. Pink pants.  Again.  How many pairs of pink pants can a person own?
2. HOW DOES THAT WOMAN WALK SO FAST?

Seriously, she is a speedy little pink blur on the quarter mile walk into the building, and although we show up together, she leaves me in her pastel-colored dust every time.

Last week, we managed to catch the same elevator up to our respective floors together, and it was the first time I'd ever been in close contact with Pink Pants Lady (Pink Pantser?).  As I noted her pink socks in pink shoes, pink pants, and pink polyester blazer over a pink blouse, the doors opened on my floor.  She gave me this wonderful smile and told me to have 'a blessed day'.  And then the doors closed and took her away.

Did you track that?  Because while I was thinking 'does she have a little pink jet pack hidden somewhere on her?', she was thinking blessings at me.  That makes a girl feel pretty crummy about herself, let me tell you.

It sort of changed how I feel about her too.  My amusement over the PINK! has not diminished, but there's also some warmth to it.  I mean, this woman is fully committed to pink.  She's all in.  I can't even commit to blow-drying my own hair for more than two mornings in a row, but this woman has a fully pink wardrobe and she is unashamed.  It might mean something powerful to her, or it might be a way to express herself, or it might be a strange quirk we don't quite understand (but heck, we all have them... some of us just wear our pink deeper inside).

I really wish she drove a pink car, though.  It bothers me.

***

Along the same lines... do you worry about wearing clothes too often and people noticing?  I worry more about wearing clothes on the same day of the week too often because there are some people I ONLY see on Mondays and Tuesdays or on every other Thursday.  What if I wear a blouse I love two weeks apart, but it's on a Thursday?  There might be people in the world who think I'm the Pink Pantser and only own ONE blouse.

First world problems, right?  Maybe most people don't even notice what other people are wearing.

The point is that I just started my new job and had a meeting in someone's office, and I met all of these new faces for the first time.  This group has won an award recently, and I was admiring their photographs posted up on the filing cabinet: one for the newspaper, one at the big meeting where they got a plaque.

'How embarrassing,' I remember thinking, noticing that one of the men was wearing the same shirt in both pictures.  It was almost like he only owned the one shirt, right?  Then I turned my head to look at this guy, who happened to be in the room with me.

Touz, I kid you not... he was wearing that same shirt.  HE REALLY ONLY OWNS ONE BLACK POLO SHIRT.

(In an updatey sense, I've seen him several times since, and he actually owns several shirts, although they're all polos.)

Ern is Bossy, pt. 1

Hey, Touzer.  I think maybe I've overwhelmed you in that big ol' leap from 'hey, we ought to BLOG about this' to actually setting up a blog.  I don't think either of us has spotted any typical Touz-Ern stuff worthy of photographing lately (or in a long while, actually), but I still have stories that I want to share with you.  Stories... or tangents.  Or rants.  Or observations from my day to day that make me think TOUZ.

Plus your phone is broken right now, so I can't even send you mildly amusing-and-annoying text messages.  My stories are piling up.  I'm going to post for us both until you find something you want to write about.

Don't be mad, bro.

***

I only just realized recently that I know someone named Albert Bert.  Al Bert.  His email address is something like al.bert@email.com (don't email this address... what if it WORKED??).  What's sadder than the fact that I've known this man for years and years and only JUST realized that he's just a walking first name is the fact that his parents knowingly gave him said name.

I can't decide if his parents were brilliant, dumb, or just had a twisted sense of humor.  Maybe a bit of all three?  It's like naming your child Matthew Hew or Edward Ward or Phillip Lip.  (Now wondering if Lip is a real last name and if I should change mine.  Ern Lip.  Ernie Lips.  That's pretty hot.)

Dear Parents of the World:

If at any point during the naming of your child you chuckle or guffaw, please immediately throw that baby name into the trash can and come up with something different.  Preferably without any crazy additional vowels or letters worth extra points in a game of Scrabble.   Because honestly, parents... if you think the name is HILARIOUS and you love that kid, imagine how funny it'll be to people who have no vested interest in the potential mental anguish of your child.

Much love to you,

Ern

I know this sounds cranky, and believe me... I've had some doozy names within my own writing, but all I can think is that if you name your kid Bilbo (because you LOVE Tolkien, clearly), then your kid can't possibly to ANYTHING but live up to that name.  And be a Bilbo.

Naming your kid Saruman is fine, though.  Just FYI.