One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
I'm just not in the holiday spirit. I'm trying, really I am, but lately I feel more like Ebenezer Scrooge than my actual monicer. It is so unlike me, to be anything other than thrilled with the idea of holiday music playing twenty-four hours a day on the radio and lights hanging from trees and eggnog, blessed eggnog. Thanksgiving seemed to zoom in way too quickly. I only mustered the energy to make two pies, way below my typical holiday limit. I bought holiday cards to send out but can harldy be bothered to sit and write out the well wishes to those I care about. I'm making a lot of progress in my life, good adult-type progress. But then, like a snowball to the face, I keep seeming to fall back down and right into a pile of self-pity and stress induced crying spells. I don't know what it is, actually I know exactly what it is, and I am determined to snap out of it. It will just take some time, but that is exactly what I don't have.

At least now I can drive myself to the looney bin if the holidays take their toll because the new car I just bought myself is one hell of a Christmas present.

This song came on the radio in the car today. I turned the volume up and sang out loud. It's a song that always makes me think of strutting my stuff through a smoke-filled bar with all of the men on their bar stools bending their necks to get a look. And I'm wearing tight black leather pants, the pants are a must!

Brass In Pocket, The Pretenders

GOT BRASS IN POCKET
GOT BOTTLE I'M GONNA USE IT
INTENTION I FEEL INVENTIVE
GONNA MAKE YOU, MAKE YOU, MAKE YOU NOTICE

GOT MOTION RESTRAINED EMOTION
BEEN DRIVING DETROIT LEANING
NO REASON JUST SEEMS SO PLEASING
GONNA MAKE YOU, MAKE YOU, MAKE YOU NOTICE

(CHORUS)

GONNA USE MY ARMS
GONNA USE MY LEGS
GONNA USE MY STYLE
GONNA USE MY SIDESTEP
GONNA USE MY FINGERS
GONNA USE MY, MY, MY IMAGINATION

'CAUSE I GONNA MAKE YOU SEE
THERE'S NOBODY ELSE HERE
NO ONE LIKE ME
I'M SPECIAL SO SPECIAL
I GOTTA HAVE SOME OF YOUR ATTENTION GIVE IT TO ME

GOT RHYTHM I CAN'T MISS A BEAT
GOT NEW SKANK IT'S SO REET
GOT SOMETHING I'M WINKING AT YOU
GONNA MAKE YOU, MAKE YOU, MAKE YOU NOTICE

(CHORUS)

'CAUSE I GONNA MAKE YOU SEE
THERE'S NOBODY ELSE HERE
NO ONE LIKE ME
I'M SPECIAL, SO SPECIAL
I GOTTA HAVE SOME OF YOUR ATTENTION
GIVE IT TO ME
'CAUSE I GONNA MAKE YOU SEE
THERE'S NOBODY ELSE HERE
NO ONE LIKE ME
I'M SPECIAL, SO SPECIAL
I GOTTA HAVE SOME OF YOUR ATTENTION

GIVE IT TO ME

But he's not even cold
My office environment is unlike any that I have ever worked in because of one major distinction: women. My previous office jobs were in two predominantly male fields, life at the computer company meant that I was often the only woman in the lab during any given meeting and the sports marketing agencey was me, the boss and a couple of other guys thrown in for good measure. I know work with two other women and one lonely male. It is so great to have someone to gossip with during the day and talk about scandalous Laguna Beach details with and to actually have someone notice when you are wearing an exceptionally lovely outfit. But I do feel a little bit sorry for the guy, somedays he just doesn't even know what hit him.

I was warned pretty early on by the boss that the one guy didn't so much like girly talk that had anything to do with girly doctors or breasts or vaginas or anything else specifically pertaining to a girly issue. We try to avoid the topics in mixed company just so we don't make him feel uncomfortable. But there are just some things that need to be said at certain times and for those moments the boss has developed a strategy. Whenever something is about to be discussed that may not be to his liking, she simply says "ear muffs" and like a child listening to his mother, he will cover his ears with his hands and humm lightly to himslef until the moment passes.

Yesterday we were all at lunch and started talking about childbirth and the atrocities that happen to the female body in the process. Right before a comment having to do with the vagina she yells out "earmuffs" and without hesitation he covered his ears. When the comment was over she tapped on the table to signal the passing of the topic and he started eating again as if nothing had happened. The whole image of him sitting there at the table covering his ears made me laugh out loud. Because you know that in the back of his head he is cursing the fact that he has to work with all of these chicks.

My horoscope today:

Don't despair over the loss of something you never really wanted.

Slightly profound I think. Mainly because I do that, and so do many of the women I know. It's just so easy to get caught up in the disappointment of something, even if that disappointment is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I'm working on it though, early New Year's resolution perhaps.

I'm thinkin' that it might be love...

I almost feel like it's too early for a confession, I don't want to jinx anything, but it just feels right.

I love my new job.

Okay, I said it, it's out there in all of its schmaltzy glory.

You see, I originally left corporate america all those years ago because I felt like I wasn't doing anything. Like at the end of the day, I hadn't accomplished anything other than selling more product and making the machine bigger and richer. It was easy to let go knowing that someday I would be able to help someone--or so I hoped. Each morning, when I walk into my office at the new job I can't wait to see who I get to help that day. And when I leave, it's with a smile on my face unlike any I've ever had after completing a job. The people in my office make me laugh until my sides hurt and the students remind me how much fun it is to be young. I'm still shuffling through the learning curve and soem days are more stressful than others, but it's good stress, if that is even possible.

Like I said, I know it's early, but I think I'm going to like it here.

My Soul's Trouble
Saturday night we went out to finish celebrating Barbara's 26th birthday. Earlier in the week we did a suprise carrot cake and Nano delivery, I missed the Italian salute on Thursday but the Saturday Mexican food and pub crawl had my name all over it. (See, my friends truly understand the philosophy of the week-long birthday celebration!) It all started innocently enough with tacos and Negro Modelo in Austin, then on to a place where Lance Armstrong is once again shamelessly displaying his yellow jersey coolness in Austin, then to the Gingerman where I drank a very tatsy pint of Stronbow, a beer whose taste I acquired at nineteen when drinking cider in London pubs was all the rage. By the time we made it to the last bar a little past midnight, I was certainly back in the flow of nightlife in Austin.

And then that's when it happened, as it always does anytime I go out in this city, I have to attract a crazy.

They come in all different shapes and colors and luckily this one had left the gold teeth at home. He traded it in for a more Rico Sauve feel complete with the full on suit on the roof deck where he sat waiting patiently with his twin-like friend. It took a while but apparantly my ass shaking to whatever song was playing was just the motivation he needed to have the following conversation with me:

Rico Sauve (shaking my hand): I just had to come up to you and say that you are the most beautiful woman in here.
Me: Ahh, that's very sweet, thank you.
RS (still holding my hand): You know, your soul, it is so bright. I could see it when you walked in here. But it looks like it is going away, like the people you are with are taking your soul away.
Me (pulling my hand away): Umm, I'm pretty sure my soul is just fine.
RS (looking at my boobs): But I can see your soul and I just want to dance with you. I want to dance near you and around you. Come on, I am nice, I won't bite.
Me: No, my soul isn't going anywhere and no thank you on the dancing.
RS: But please, it would make me so happy.
Me: No, really, I'm good.
RS: Well, I just needed to say that. And I will go back and sit but I will be looking at you and your soul.

This is why going out is such a joy, the crazies always seem to find me. But of course, Rico's buddy managed to find Steph that night as well so I wasn't the only lucky lady that night.

But damn my pesky soul, she is always getting me trouble.

Front Page News
Who knew that having an actual job could take away your blogging time? Apparantly, not me.

So I am on day two and a half of my new job, the half day is applied because I didn't have to be in on my first day until two o'clock. I know! A job that lets you sleep in on your first day...not a bad gig at all! Anyway, it's been all parties and gifts and paperwork since I got here, even managed to squeeze in some decorating of my office. Sure I'm missing sitting in my pajamas until after As the World Turns but it feels kind of nice to put on real clothes again and then read about yourself in an article published in the university newspaper. (I am nothing if not flattered!) I realize that I have so much to learn and that it is going to take forever to remember all of the names being tossed at me, but so far, so very good.

In other news, here's how I celebrated my halloween:










The costume--she was minimalist with a point.

The halloween party I attended was... interesting to say the least. All of the party guests were great, it was the hippy commune in the middle of the forst that caught me off guard. And the man in the dress who almost popped his top while stroking my boots. Why did I let a man in a dress in the forest rub my boots you ask? Because he asked, and obviously living in Manhattan where the crazies keep to themselves taught me nothing. I know now of course, to be wary of men in drag smoking pot in forests where women are dancing on stages with their bosoms hanging out and the guys in the bunny and the monk costumes are making their private porn montage in the middle of the festivities.

You know what, now that I think about it, halloween--still not my favorit holiday.