I had a crazy dream last night that my sister got remarried to her ex-husband. It was in a small castle-type place, and there were only a few rows of people, but it was lovely and they were both really happy. I woke up excited to blog about how happy I was he was “back in the family.” Seconds later, I sighed and realized my brain was on crack.

I should’ve stayed in bed today, because sad happy dreams are better than sad, depressing days.

The job I took uses a system that employs the Porkchop… and his ex-wife. The real fun is that she is the contact for the company, and not him. She knows we are together—that wasn’t a fun day either—so he and her talked and the three of us decided that he’d transfer an account to her and take my account. No muss, no fuss, all handled via IM this morning… or so we thought.

My new boss called their boss to see if it would be a problem having her on their account since they were hiring me, who is dating her ex. Porkchop’s boss, who hadn’t known we were together, brought it up with his ex, who said she knew and that it wasn’t a big deal—but we are all now uncomfortable with the entire damn situation.

Why in the hell would my new boss bring this up? Are they so worried that there will be issues? Don’t they think I’d be smart enough to not take the goddamn job if I thought it would be an issue? Why the HELL would they call his boss? How is our personal relationship an issue at all?

The three of us handled it just fine, and I guess I’m more ripshit because I feel like they circumvented me in this situation and steamrolled the Chop and his ex by bringing it up with their boss. (Who can be a real asshole just in general.) Bear in mind, this was a company I interviewed with and the Chop wanted to hire. So now the concern is that his boss will be all, “Oh, so that’s why you wanted to hire her.”

Apparently his boss then said it wouldn’t be a problem with her and I working together because they are divorced and so blah, blah, blah.

Do you see how they fucking created a problem that we had already dealt with? Now their boss won’t allow the transfer and I get to work with his ex-wife.

I’m really looking forward to this new job now.

Oh, and my fridge is now broken. Something about a compressor and a short and now the insider has no fridge.

AGAIN.

I realize what with all the other good things going on in the world [Hugo Chavez calling Bush “Satan,” Saddam Hussein’s trial being the freakshow of the year, E.Coli in Spinach and iTunes coming out with V7 and making the damn icon freaking candy-ass blue], none of you have thought… “hmm, I wonder what the insider is doing and why she hasn’t blogged?”

None of you, that is, except my cousin, who coincidentally calls and tells me to blog.

And the Porkchop, who is sitting on the couch, mocking me for looking up old high school friends on MySpace (I WAS WEAK and I’m drinking… erm…).

Friday night one of the contract jobs called. He wanted to know if I could flip his new site now. Like RIGHT NOW. Tonight. At 9PM.

Considering I had promised to flip it by September 22, there were a few things that needed finished… according to him, things such as a working search engine, all of the images being uploaded and general site QA were unnecessary.

That was a fun call.

Four days and around 30 hours later, I flipped his damn site last night. And the search still isn’t working.

On the other hand, the other contract job, the deadly one in C (the land of the perpetually lost), has had me working on the same set of brochures for TEN DAYS STRAIGHT…. and there are only five products in those 12 (now 24) damn pages.

First I was just to redesign them. Did that in a few hours.

Then they wanted a different kind of design, one that wasn’t exactly like the website. Did that the next day.

Then they wanted me to rewrite the copy.

First of all, I don’t do copy. AND I am clear about that from the get-go. And, oh yeah, I don’t understand their products, I have NO idea why they are the best over their competitors and wait, wait.. oh yeah, I DO NOT DO COPY.

The head guy brought me into his office and attempted to cajole me into rewriting their copy. So I very nicely explained that it would not be the best use of my time and their money for me to write marketing copy on products that I have never seen nor understand.

The next day the sales guy (who’s been my general boss-type personage) suggested I just edit the copy until it sounds better. So I found myself doing that for the day.

Next day I went in and sales guy tells me that the head guy thinks the design should be a little different. Head guy comes out and says, “I think maybe it should look more like the website.”

At this stage of the game, I’m irritated and BORED shitless. There are only so many times I can redo the same pages with minimal changes for EIGHT HOURS A DAY.

And what’s even better? I’ve given them fully complete files every night and every day they promise to look at them, make changes and get them back to me.

To date: two pages, little notes in five or six places… on SEVEN DIFFERENT SETS OF FILES.

I have some rage about this.

Oh, and my damn refrigerator appears to be broken. It’s making a clicking noise every minute or so, the stuff is defrosting and I refuse to wake up my landlord at midnight. (It’s partially ’cause I’m nice, but mainly ’cause I don’t want to put on clothes and cart frozen food down to their freezer.) 😛

Up side: I’m going to see Regina tomorrow night… 😀

And if you got this far…

Here’s a random bit of nonsensical knowledge that may or may not improve your life: if you put in someone’s name and the word “age” in Google, as in :steve carrell age: you’ll get a little Wikipedia link as the first link that tells you their birthdate.

Random and totally useful when you’re arguing over who is older, Jay Leno or Steve Carrell. (I totally won, seeing as how I pegged Leno as 10 years older—he’s 13, but I was closest.)

Five years ago…

I still lived on the West Coast.

I had just graduated from high school

My sister had just gotten married.

My Nana was still alive.

MSNBC is running a “living history event,” where the actual footage from this day in 2001 is being broadcast in real time. In other words, it’s like seeing it happen all over again.

One of the hardest parts for me is that I clearly remember watching this happen with my Nana, who was living with us at the time and undergoing treatment for cancer. I remember her looking at me and saying, “You know, the world is going to change now. It will never be the same.”

My family didn’t lose anyone we knew that day. I think to some of us on the West Coast, it seemed surreal and incredibly far away. Once I moved here, and met people who had lost someone, and spoke with those affected, it crystallized and became real.

I was down at the site six months later, then two years later, then four years later and I’ll probably be down there again sometime this year.

If you’re in NYC, and you get the chance, go down to the site.

It’s the only place I’ve ever been in New York where the silence is only broken by the sound of tissues and tears.

Friday night was a bit raucous, as J and I and several friends went and heard her boyfriend’s band at a local bar.

And did shots. Lots of shots. I thought we’d only done four, but J informed me yesterday at the beach that we’d done six, and since one of our friends didn’t want one of hers, I had done seven.

I was very ill Friday night, lol. Two vodkas and seven chocolate cake shots and I was one tanked little girl.

I’m never drinking again. OK, well maybe I’m never drinking that much again. Even this morning, a day and a half later, I’m still feeling icky.

Several weeks ago I dropped my cellphone for the, oh, say, 30th time, and a little part broke off. It was a small piece of gray plastic that holds the battery in. Fortunately, I was able to shove the two halves back in and voila! the battery stayed on.

I dropped it again on Monday in Texas. On concrete. Which was gray.

My sister and I spent several minutes looking at the ground until we realized it was futile and gave up.

I now have a phone where I have to wrap a hairband around it to keep the battery on.

Stylish, no?

I checked with my ::coughevilsatanicbastardcough:: phone company and it turns out that I get an upgrade to a new phone (presumably for free, but what is ever actually free..) at the end of this month.

So I’ll be ghettoing it up for the next month.

If you call and you’re suddenly disconnected, it’s because I needed to put my hair up.

🙂

I had this insane dream this morning and I woke up all in a funk—I hate that.

I was at this parade that’s in the town next to mine and the cops kept blocking me in with tape. Eventually I got out of there and found myself in an expensive neighborhood, right on the water. I pulled in and found myself blocked in with that damn tape again, so I decided to cut across an inlet and get out that way.

I drove through a yard, then jumped in the water, carrying (what I thought was my car, but now, I’m thinking.. no) something over my head. To my left, running along an embankment, was myself, yelling at me that there was a shark, right under me, touching me.

Next thing I know, I feel a bump and suddenly I’m flying across the ocean riding on the back of this shark, who I just know is going to drown me and eat me.

I fade away from that and find myself reading a newspaper where a local is being searched for, but presumed missing, after his body was carried away by a shark.

Yeah. Scary. as. all. holy. hell. I woke up in a dead panic.

I was planning to go to the beach today, but I’m all wigged out now. Nice, huh?

My friend J is going to a Red Sox game and texted me last night, asking to borrow my camera.

This morning I pulled the camera off the shelf, grabbed my stuff and headed to work. Wisely, I checked to make sure the battery was good and that I had emptied the contents of the memory… I hadn’t.

215 images? From when? WTF was I doing with my camera for the past six months?

I started downloading to my computer a few minutes ago.

The first picture was a very cute yellow lab-type dog. Who’s is that? I don’t know a dog that looks like that.

The next was a butt. Who’s was that? It looks like.. no, yep, that’s the cousin’s husband… Ohhh, OK, then that means that’s her dog. Oh yeah, yeah, I remember that. Kinda.

Santa hats, trees and sweaters—ahh, Christmas, 2005. It’s all coming back to me now.

There are pictures of me interspersed with those of my cousins, my sister (um, was there some sort of fashion shoot that one of the little people did, ’cause I did not take these pictures, lol) and my parents. I look happy, healthy and tan (duh, I was going to go to Hawaii in a week)—and it’s odd seeing myself that way. I remember that night I got sick, just a little stomach thing, but we now know it was the beginning of the really bad illness. I’d had a drink or two and my liver had already slowed functioning and was unable to process it.

The next set of pictures were of me when I was sick. I vaguely remember us thinking it would be good to have a reminder (like I’m ever really going to forget)… there’s my eyeballs, my stomach, my chest and ahh yes, the battle bruises from the psycho nurse from hell. Yeah, never going to forget those.

It’s odd seeing your recent past, one that you can only partially reconstruct, flash before you. I don’t have any solid memory of Christmas.. I don’t remember taking these pictures of my arms and stomach. They’re blurry and out of focus, so I assume I was trying to take them—but I don’t honestly know.

It’s a very odd way to start the day.

Finding out Kate Spade was having an Internet sample sale 12 hours after it started…

Tears people, TEARS.

All the good ones were gone! 🙁

I actually don’t know if I’m allowed to mention this in cyberspace, but I’m going to anyway. G wasn’t feeling well so he’s in the hospital hooked to IVs—apparently he’s severely dehydrated. They won’t let him talk much, so I’m kinda unclear about what’s going on altogether.

Anyone else who reads this/knows me, 2006 is not the banner year for us. Be warned now.

Send happy thoughts West.