I am a faker
Pretending along
Losin' site of my maker
I will die before I finish this song
Jesus Christ, I’m posting song lyrics. I guess this is what it’s come to. Oh, well, at least it's a cool song. I’m loosing the ability to string together coherent sentences. Which wouldn’t be a problem if that weren’t the requisite skill for my current employment. Fuck it folks.
I am a faker.
“If your twenties were going to mean anything they would have meant it by now.”
---Smith to me this morning
"When fun is outlawed, only outlaws will have fun."
--That just popped into my head at about three pm yesterday. I didn't come up with that on my own, did I?
So after an eleven month saga, the project from hell finally ended two weeks ago. As a reward, one of the muckety-mucks decided to have everyone involved with the project over for a brief soiree at her house. The invitation list included me, some fellow peon coworkers, a couple of middle management folks, and four or so people whose business cards have titles like CFO, CIO, COO, managing director, and VP.
So I left the office early to be at the event on time and am caught in a torrential downpour; I was left soaked to the bone below my waist. I arrive at the host's house and in the hallway find myself looking at five pairs of shoes neatly arranged against the wall. I'm told the following: the party was originally to have been held outside in the back yard, but the rain has forced us to retreat to drier quarters and would I kindly take off my shoes before going upstairs.
---allow me interrupt myself those who know me well can attest to the fact that I'm not exactly the most fashion-oriented person out there. I can look kinda sharp at the office in a clean shirt and tie, but it ends there. Those people could also inform you that on any given day I'm in the office, there's about a 50% chance that my socks have at least two large holes apiece. ---
As I'm looking at the shoes I'm trying to remember which pair of socks I put on in the morning, were they of the swiss cheese variety, did they only have one hole each, or (the least likely) were my socks completely intact. After removing the shoes I went upstairs to join the guests who had already arrived (thankfully, those already there were friends and coworkers). I reached the top step to find numerous pairs of eyes trained on my big toes (both nicely framed by inch wide holes). It seems that they'd taken bets on whether or not I'd be wearing holey socks and were quite amused by the outcome.
At any rate, I spent the rest of the afternoon tucking the offending section of sock (or lack there of) under my foot, between my toes, and holding it there.
------
On an unrelated note, we recently received a survey from the corporate office what we're supposed to fill out. Keep in mind that we're on a hiring freeze and many folks have been working 60-80 hr weeks for months. Here's a sampling of the questions:
3) If XYZ corp were an animal, what kind of animal would it be?
8) If you were creating a soundtrack for XYZ corp, what songs would you include?
9) How would you describe XYZ corp in one word?
Xrays do not scan easily. I'm working on a solution.
The management company that owns the building which houses my office hosted an "ice cream social" in the lobby this afternoon. It was a nice gesture and they had good ice cream--I had mocha brownie topped with hot fudge sauce (which had chunks of chocolate), caramel sauce, and chocolate jimmies.
But there was something strangely odd about the entire thing. Picture the scene: a bunch of office workers lined up to get ice cream and toppings, a couple of folks serving them, and in the background... techno. Bass-thumping electronic dance music.
Odd
I'm going camping for the weekend. Out to Assateague island with the wild ponies and shit. Sand, sun, tents, books, and some booze. What more could a guy ask for?
Well, sand, sun, sex, books, and booze would be nice, but I'm going with friends so we'll have fun outdoors, just not that kind of outdoors fun.
Talk to y'all next week. Laters
It's 11:37 p.m. and I'm still at the office. The project from hell ended after 10 months last Friday. I averaged 75 hours a week for the last crunch, right before it was due (i.e., the entire month of May).
I had a nice weekend, I left at 11 on friday and then rushed out to meet a friend and get a bit goofy (I was so tired I managed to do so extremely quickly). Sunday was the Mount Pleasant Festival (also known as Meat-on-A-Stick Day), complete with every sort of Salvadoran or Chinese food your heart could desire. They blocked off each end of Mt. Pleasant Street and had a stage at each barricade. All in all, it was a lot of fun. After a weekend of celebrating the end of the project and resting, I came in on Monday ready to reclaim my professional existence; to once again take up the 9 to 5; to ease into my next assignment. Not to be. I'm in at 11:40 doing cleanup on another project. But c'est la vie. This isn't bitch about work blog. No indeed it is not, this blog, at least for the time being, is...
Broken Toe Blog
And I'm posting broken-toe-X-Rays tomorrow. That's right bitches, X-rays.
And the next day, perhaps broken-toe-pictures. Who knows? The phalangial fun never ends here at BROKEN-TOE-BLOG!!!!
By the way, I think I want to name my broken toe.
I'm getting punchy; later.
So I broke my toe. My little pinky toe on my right foot. The one that goes "wee-wee-wee all the way home." The runt of the litter. The little one that cowers against its bigger brothers. Snapped his primary phalange in half like a breadstick; disconnected the dwarfish digit.
And now I'm on crutches, half of my foot is encased in a molded fiberglass splint, and I've got a gimp shoe to wear around the house. There are few things more pathetic that hobbling around on crutches without a decent reply to the question, "what happened?"
Somehow my current answer just doesn't cut the mustard: "I had just gotten out of the shower and was getting ready for work on Sunday when I accidentally kicked a stack of plastic milk crates filled with books... No I didn't break my ankle, I broke my toe... No, not the big toe, it was the little one." I need a better story. I think from now on at the end of my spiel I'll just add, "yeah the little toe, widely acknowledged to be the most painful toe to break."
But thank God for friends. I can just hear the love and concern in their voices amid the cries of "gimp," "hop-along," "skippy," peg-leg," "toe jam," "why didn't you go to the doctors on Sunday when I told you to, you Dumbass," and "how's the hang nail you pussy."
To all of them, I say this: A broken toe effectively ended baseball legend Dizzy Dean's pitching career. Poised to be one of the greatest ever, he was hit in the toe by a line drive at the '37 All-Star Game. Dean attempted to return to soon and modified his windup to favor the toe. He was never the same.
OK, I'm accident prone. There I've admitted it. Some people might say I'm clumsy, but I think accident prone describes it better. Shit just happens to me. Sometimes it is a direct result of clumsiness, and other times, well, it's just dumb luck.
Take this from a couple of weeks ago: I was at a friend's house, just getting ready to bbq and have a couple of beers after a long week at work. He's really excited because he just put up his hammock and he knows I need a relaxing day to do essentially nothing. The hammock has been up for a couple of days, it's attached to a tree on one end and a six-foot 4x4 post, cemented into the ground, at the other. My friend (who is at least 20 lbs heavier than I) had been lounging in the hammock for most of that weekend. I sit in the hammock, slowly swing one leg up, then the other, and am horizontal for about .3 seconds. At that point the 4x4 snaps at the base, I crash to the ground, and the large board comes crashing down on my head pulled down by all 180 lbs of me. My housemate later said I looked like I'd gone ten rounds with someone.
My stepfather has an interesting take on this phenomenon. He believes that I function as a sort of karmic magnetic field; I block the random shit from happening to friends and family and somehow divert it to myself. He developed this theory over a number of years. Years filled with beds I was sleeping in randomly breaking in the middle of the night; lone rusty nails left on a freshly swept floor mysteriously finding my feet; women behind the wheel while having seizures on lonely country roads miraculously crashing into my car. That sort of shit.
But I have digressed. My original point was this my accident prone nature (combined with a sense of adventure and recklessness, and perhaps a dash of stupidity) has landed me in a fair share of emergency rooms, hospitals and doctors offices. As a result, I'm reluctant to go to these places as an "adult." I just don't like them, and unless I'm in fear that I've actually done significant damage, I'd rather not go through the hassle. Growing up in a rural area, we had one doctor’s office in the town. If you weren't having a life threatening emergency, you could go there. Terrible sore throat and fever, they'd give you a strep culture. Think you broke your wrist, they had an X-ray machine. None of this crap where you have to go you your primary care physician (which I've never been to and who informs me that he can't see me till at least 6/9), who then sends you to a radiologist, and then it's 4 days till anyone looks at your Xrays.
So, Sunday, after getting out of the shower before work, I stubbed my right little toe. I stubbed it on a milk crate. [Shut up, I can hear you laughing] I looked down and the damn thing was kinda pointing out to the right, away from my foot. I pushed it back nonchalantly, walked into the living room where my housemate was making breakfast, and continued getting ready for work. [editors note--above 2 sentences should read: I screamed "fucking-ass-monkey-balls" looked down and noticed the toe was pointing off to the side and smacked it back to its normal position while unleashing a string of profanity that I can't really remember, but which ended with "God damn, I fucking suck.]
So that was Sunday. Today my foot looks like a rainbow with the OYG left out--it's just R and BIV and some brown thrown in for good measure. In short, it looks cool. But cool colors aside, it fucking hurts, I can't run or ride my bike, and if I want to I can easily push it off to the right at an unnatural angle. So I've decided to go to a doctor. I went on to my medical plan's website and was presented with the option of "Live Nurse Chat." (shouldn’t someone on the web design team have considered the connotation of that phrase, it just screams internet porn.) Those who know me won't be surprised that I clicked that link in an instant.
(A brief note about “Live Nurse Chat.” Before you log on you’re asked to check a box, yes or no, if you are experiencing symptoms. If you say yes, they immediately log you off and tell you to seek medical attention.)
My sexy registered nurse was named Elaine, and she treated me with all the TLC you’d expect from someone on the Internet purporting to be a woman:
Elaine: Hello, Chris, welcome to myuhc.com nurse chat. My name is Elaine. How may I help you today?Me: Quick question: I just enrolled in my health plan, haven't seen my assigned doctor yet, and he can't see me for at least a week. Is an urgent care center an alternative, what are those centers for?
Elaine: Are you having a medical problem?
Me: I think I may have broken my toe over the weekend. It's not incredibly pressing, certainly not worth me going to an emergency room in a major city three days after the incident.
Elaine: I'm sorry you're not feeling well. Let me find a general reference for you to review so that you can understand what is going on...Me: Actually, I was just wondering if an urgent care center is the appropriate place to go. I don't need reference.
Elaine: Here is the information you requested. It should appear below. If not please cut and paste the following into the address bar of your browser: http://...
Me: I don't need information about foot injuries, I just need to know if an Urgent Care center is the appropriate place to go.
This session has timed out.
Elaine was less than helpful. “So what I can understand what’s going on?” See here you dumb digital bitch, I know what’s going on, my fucking to hurts. What kind of idiot do you think I am?
Anyway, I think she's a bot. None the less, before I find an urgent care center I'm going to log back on and find out what she's wearing. I think we could all have some fun with this.