Instead of mowing the lawn, which needs it quite badly, I decided to do a little cooking. I prepared a stir fry to take to work all next week. It’s chocked full mushrooms, green peppers, red peppers, tofu, cabbage, and some tomatoes. Mmmm. But what I really spent all afternoon doing was grilling.

I grilled some angus burgers, bratwurst (not healthy but TASTY), and chicken. I don’t have to really cook until next Saturday now. The chicken has been cut into bite sized strips ready for re-heating and dousing with wing sauce–you know how I love my chicken wings. The brats are just right for a quick microwave & mustard covering. The angus burgers…well how can you go wrong with those?

I thought about having people over to enjoy my meat, but I’m not up for entertaining and it’s MY meat. Mmmmeat.

Last night my phone rang around 12:30am. It was Joshy Josh, here after referred to Virile Josh. He was on his way home from dancing with work buddies and needed to share the male point of view on said dancing. What ensued was an hour conversation with one urine break (because though friends we don’t need to hear each other create water-like substance) which left me laughing so hard I couldn’t return to sleep till 3:30am.

Sometimes that’s just what you need.

In other news, I’ve reviewed my lease and it turns out that I’m a month-to-month renter now (which I hate) and will be given 30 days notice if I have to move.

The other evening someone questioned why I blogged. Isn’t it so 2001? My reaction was a little along the lines of whaaa? This particular person then admitted to being a forum troll, which then caused me to think isn’t that so 1995–but I was trying to be social and not start a fight so I said, hmmm.

But then, why do I blog? Well, it’s to keep peeps updated on me. Though the postcards go out biweekly or so I don’t take the time to write down every little thing on those. The postcards are usually either: Rock Fist Up–Life Mother Fucking Rules or Rock Fist Down–Totally got shafted this week. The blog has details. Messy, gory details. It’s a place for the peeps to go and see how bad is Kansas this week? How many times did she black out and drive home? Is the pirate flag flying? You know the important things.

Some people are saying that blogs shouldn’t last more than a few years. Okay. I’ve had this a few years. I’ve gone through some template changes and currently even thinking about getting my own webspace and running wordpress (oooo….a challenge!), but since I don’t live anywhere near most of my friends I don’t see this dying soon. If somehow magically I found a new job that allowed me to visit my friends on a monthly or bimonthly basis, well then this blog might die. Holy shit, if I visited all my friends on a monthly or bimonthly basis this blog would most certainly die–hell I would never be home and rarely actually working–my kind of job!

Do I care about this blogs popularity? Not really. That’s not what it’s here for. Back when it was called Cats, Dogs, Tree, Spanish Men I was number one when googling for gay naked Spanish men (don’t ask why). Now I am less easily run across and happy about that. Sometimes I wish I had the readership of Justin, but those days are becoming fewer and fewer. I suppose it’s growing older and becoming more comfortable about who I am (anger and all) and what I can realistically expect from my life. Today, for example I can expect to go to work where there may or may not be any patrons and get my haircut, which may or may not be stylish. I do not expect to hear from anyone besides possibly my parents and a random friend or too while they are driving to exciting places to do exciting things. That is life.

I’ve rambled enough. Look for a review of Apocalypse Now Redux on movie thoughts soon. And if you have time Joshy Josh pointed out a great thing in Mel Gibson’s new film. Watch the preview: when you see the monkey hit pause and go back frame by frame to the people covered in flower.

The good news just keeps rolling in. The house that I’m living in is going on the market. Anyone care to purchase an investment property complete with renters?

I’m pretty damn sure that I just saw Bad Boy Ben picking up trash along the highway. All shaved and deloused. Of course it was hard to tell breezing by at 45mph, but pretty damn sure. I thought about circling back around to check and see and possibly say hi, but then thought…the chain boss might not appreciate that and I was giggling way too hard.

Back in library school there was a required management class. I took mine with the great management guru (MF Chris’ advisor). At the time I was very annoyed as I got pigeon-holed and didn’t get the marks I thought I should–as I was exploring other management styles than what I was suppose to, or so I assumed. However with my first professional job I’ve found myself thinking about that class a lot. This stems from what I viewed as very poor management within my department.

My now previous manager was what some call a diverger. Divergers are good at understanding people, resigning problems, brainstorming, and have an imaginative ability; however they have troubles recognizing problems and opportunities and lack ideas. I am technically an accommodator. I am good at getting things done, leadership, and risk taking, while I often have impractical plans and things aren’t directed towards goals (which I’ve spent a lot of time on fixing these things). As my former manager and I had different personal styles this caused me considerable stress. Why you ask?

Well, former manager is a baby boomer, while I am a tweener. I am big into group work, sharing, delegation you know all the crap that the school systems decided was important about 30 years ago. Former manager, however was not a sharer. For 6 months I went into his office daily and said, what’s the word? I brought ideas, lists of things to do. I got in response…okay get on that. Never a do you need help? Never a let’s discuss that. I felt very alone. And as if my ideas were fine and rather unimportant since none of them seemed to really matter to him. So about 6 months ago I stopped going to his office.

I actually went about 3 months without even really speaking to him, and it didn’t seem to matter to him. Now, if the situation would have been reversed I would have gone to the employee and asked what was up. But no. Absolutely nothing. When former manager announced his retirement/decision to leave I refrained from doing a happy dance in the building, but believe me I did one.

Everyone asked if I would be taking over. NO. Though my friends and colleagues have faith that I could do the job it comes down to a couple of things. I don’t have managerial experience…not really. Sure I’ve been the team leader all the time and I’m a take charge person, but actual manager stuff…nah. And this is like my Latin education. Having basically no management for a year does not help one to be a better manager (that’s right even though I was in Latin class for a year I didn’t learn a thing because the professor decided I was a trouble maker the first day and ignored me the entire year–thus my Latin truly sucks). No, I need a mentor and I know that. So when the decision came down about Interim Manager I was quite pleased.

Monday is the first official day of Interim Manager’s reign. We already have several meeting set up about the direction of the department and collaboration is highly stressed. The Interim Manager is a converger. He is good at problem solving, decision making, deductive reasoning, and defining problems. This is the dawn of a great thing. Plus we’ll be hiring a new manager soon and I, of course am on that committee and you know I won’t let them hire someone who will suck. Things are indeed looking up.

Vacation means not doing what you normally do and relaxing. So when on vacation in Key West I didn’t brush my hair. At all. This has caused some problems. First it took me the better part of a day to brush all the tangles out, but more seriously my hair won’t behave anymore. It isn’t exactly going nutzoid, but it’s passive aggressive I’ll do it, but I’ll do a shitty job is really getting to me.

Sushi Tuesday I attempted to sport straight hair, maybe 60% was straight the other 40% crazy wavy. Grr. And the days that I decided to go curly/wavy…strangely limp. Perhaps I just need a haircut, well I know I need a haircut, perhaps I’ll get a haircut. Acupuncturist Robin gave me a stylist recommendation and her hair was cute, so I’ll check that out. The only person who has cut my hair so that I love it is Cara back in Larryville, thus I’m a bit hesitant to try anyone else. We’ll see. We’ll see.

So in this weeks The Week there is an expert from this article. I saw this and immediately thought of MF Chris and his demand for romance in his life. I took it to him at Sushi Tuesday. He hasn’t read the whole article, but initial thoughts were rather negative about the bases of the article. Or at least I interpreted them so.

The conversation worked back around to an earlier one where I had quoted a friend saying to ask to be romanced was very selfish. Chris has shared this with his circle and the response from them is something along the lines of, “my god…the millennials are cold and cynical.” Now that’s a little harsh. First I didn’t say that being selfish is a bad thing. Everyone should be a little selfish, but with most things too much is just ugly. Second, don’t judge an entire generation based on this as it was said in relation to purposefully asking to be romanced.

Basically I want it to be known that I don’t dislike romance. In fact I like romance. Romance (my personal definition) includes holding hands while watching tv. It includes going for ice cream just because. It includes buying flowers for no reason. Getting something that you know the other person will like. A lot of these traits can be applied to friendship as well-what sets them apart is the physical aspect that will most likely come post romantic gesture. (I’m talking rabid rabbit sex here.)

On the flip side, I would never ask for any of this as that wouldn’t be romantic. And that’s what selfish about Chris request for more romance. If you ask for it it negates the purpose–kind of like forced volunteering.

Last night was sushi night. I love sushi night. It’s the evening that no matter what I do I’ll probably be between 10 and 15 minutes late. Jasmine’s will be loud and the fish tasty. And then Waterworks of course. Yeah sushi night.

However, last night went a little, well Saeri. I was a little late (parking and every red light on Thomasville Road I swear). I enjoyed my tako sashimi, MF Chris cried not so good (but he was a little lit). The conversation was held at near yelling due to background noise-back to the romance discussion (will say more on this later). Then going to Waterworks.

Waterworks was nice and empty when we arrived. Bartender Lauren was there, I gave my belated birthday wishes and apologizes for not celebrating it with her. She gave Chris shit for being gay (which he isn’t). I laughed and like the drunken ass that I am made it into a running joke which I was later chastised for.

Bartender Lauren was sitting with Acupuncturist Robin. I demanded to know who Acupuncturist Robin was and of course made a new friend. How could I not she had a RAZR. Her friend Film School Justin showed up and we discussed film school and his ex-girlfriend. Chris injected more about relationships (again more on that later). And then it was decided: different bar–well this was after a shot of vodka something or another.

So Finnegan’s Wake it was. Chris went home like a responsible adult. Not me. Oh no. I went to Finnegan’s where I ran into Meegan & Julia, along with meeting NOFX Ian (idealistic to a fault 23 year old) and several other fun/interesting people. I had more vodka drinks. This was a bad idea (especially since I stared the evening with Sapporo). I went to the bathroom. And then I fell. I skinned my knee like an idiot. The irony was I had stopped drinking at this point and was actually getting ready to head home. Or is that coincidence? Anyway I hereby decree that I’m seriously not doing this during the week anymore.

My cards have a typo on them. I know that I sent some out with a few notecards this week (obviously I’m still on more of a vacation than I realized as I didn’t catch it till last night and I didn’t even catch it) so you may keep those if you wish, but you will be receiving a corrected version in the future. You may keep them for yourselves or hand them out to random hot men for me.