Conversation with My Manager Today

Boss: "So, are you going to the Christmas Party tonight?"
Me: "Nah."
Me: "I mean, why bother? It's not like I can drink."
Boss: "No drinking at the party?"
Me: "No, I mean that I don't want to drink and then have to drive."
Boss: "Oh."
Me: "How Irish am I? Only interested in the party if I can drink!"
Boss: SNORT!

Note to Self:

When you're really, really pissed off about something, be careful how you stomp around the house, because dogs really don't understand that you're actually not upset with them. They will cringe and cower (or look at you like you're insane, if a Pug) as if you are.

A Note to the Woman Whose GINORMOUS SUV was Blocking the Exit from my Complex this Morning

Does your kid really need a ride, personal escort and cushy spot to wait for the school bus when:

* It's 60 degrees outside.
* It's clear and sunny.
* The walk required to the school bus stop is (at the most) 0.1 of a mile on a private driveway.
* There are other kids to walk and wait with.

I mean, your kid does realize that we all used to walk the entire 10+ miles to school, barefoot and through 3 foot drifts of snow, uphill in both directions, right?

Sheesh.

In a Funk

Have you ever gone through one of those periods where you feel so crappy about yourself, that you feel like you just can’t do anything right? Where you feel so down about yourself that you’re at your happiest when you’re asleep?

I’m kind of going through one of those periods right now. I’m not sure what has caused it, but I sure would like to see the end of it now. In a way, I think I’ve been a bit self-indulgent about it, I think living alone for a long time can do that to a person. When you don’t have anyone to talk to much, someone to stick up for you and to even tell you when you’re being ridiculous, you tend to have a self-dialog that can spiral in the wrong direction fairly easily. I don’t usually mind being single, but it sure can get lonely sometimes, especially as I have little to no close family either.

When I get like this, I also tend to indulge in somewhat self-destructive behavior, like eating a lot of junk food and not exercising. And (of course) the worse my eating habits become, and the longer it’s been since I exercised, the worse I feel about myself and the more I want to eat inappropriately, etc. So that becomes a vicious circle that is very hard to break out of. I feel low, eat some comfort food, hate myself more, need more comfort food, really hate myself -- I’m self-medicating and the worse part of it is, I (obviously) realize what I’m doing, yet I still can’t seem to stop. Crazy. Vicious. Cycle.

Being around Ruby (and horses in general) and riding makes me extremely happy and very often will help me forget about all of this crap, but I haven’t even been out to the barn since last Wednesday! Part of it is that work has interfered a little bit, partially that I’ve had a bug that I’ve been fighting off and have not felt very well, partially because I was so disgusted with how poorly I was riding last week (causing me to hate myself even more) and a good part of it is just this funk that I am in. It is causing me to be in a serious torpor. I have a competition this weekend and there is no way I’m going to be even remotely prepared for it. I almost feel like I should scratch maybe, except that I’ll then hate myself even more if I do, I’m sure. After one unfortunate ride last week, my trainer told me that I’m really too hard on myself, that learning to ride (really ride) is a frustrating, life-long process and that she feels that I’m doing well and am right where I should be (given where I started) and that there are just some things that aren’t going to happen overnight. I know that I should cut myself some slack in this one regard, I know that I’ve only been back to it for a year after a very long absence and, from a distance, I am even a little bit amazed that I’ve been able to compete as I have. But when I come away from an hour on my horse feeling completely incompetent, it’s hard to have some perspective. I can intellectualize that I’ve come along way, that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself, but it’s hard to actually feel that way on an emotional level. I start to feel sorry for the horse too, like I’m not doing her justice at all.

I seem to swing back & forth between confidence and feeling like the most inept person on the planet at work too. Sometimes even over the course of one day. Sometimes I feel plugged in, that I am valuable and contributing significantly and the next moment I can feel like I’m completely clueless and a waste of space. I know that I let these negative thoughts take over my brain too much and that I’m also too easily affected negatively by the overconfidence of some of the people in the office around me. It’s almost like the more that I encounter this overconfidence in some, that my confidence lowers in direct proportion. I know that a lot of this is tied to the economic down-turn of the past year too. Things just feel so uncertain and sketchy and that makes me feel paranoid and unstable and (frankly) scared. Still, the work thing has been a factor for good while now, I don’t know why I suddenly feel worse about it. Probably I’m just in a more vulnerable state of mind and so it’s infiltrating my mind more because of that.

Maybe this is all just a matter of chemistry. I know that when I’m riding consistently (5-6 times a week) that I feel better. If I can manage some other exercise on top of that, even better still, although finding the time is rough. The endorphins and whatever other chemicals produced by the activity seems to keep me on a more even keel. Riding and being around horses also fulfills me beyond that on a more emotional level. I don’t quite know what the answer is, but I have to pull myself out of this funk somehow and hopefully make it a more permanent thing. Cycling endlessly through these periods has become rather old.

Note to Self:

When you're browsing around the company cafeteria and nothing really appeals, and you look at something in particular and think to yourself, 'I'll bet that's not very good.' Do yourself a favor and trust your instincts and get a simple salad, or a chicken sandwich, or a yogurt. Because otherwise you might end up throwing that lunch away and end up with something inappropriate like, oh I don't know, a brownie and a Diet Coke, or something. Not that I would know anything about this from experience or anything.

Observations from a Week

You wonder what the grocery clerk REALLY thinks when all that you are buying are a bag of giant carrots, greek yogurt and beer.

It’s shocking what some people consider appropriate work wear on a Friday.

Self-Important-Meeting-Hijack-Guy (SIMHG) being out on vacation = good mood.

SIMHG back in the office = bad mood.

Being stuck on endless meetings with SIMHG = foul mood.

Arriving to work at 7:50 AM on an otherwise quiet Friday to find SIMHG already there = despair.

How many forced security patch install/reboots in a week are necessary and prudent and how many are approaching ridiculous?

Who knew horse chiropractors / vets could be so cute?

You have to question your skills as an equestrian when you jump, not once, but three times into the jump standards in the course of one hour.

Your social life has reached an all-time low, when the high-point of your week is the “special extended” episode of the “Real Housewives of Atlanta”.

You refer to a colleague on a meeting that you are running for a customer by the wrong last name. (You know for a FACT that you did this once, but suspect and fear that it may have actually been twice).

Dogs are very forgiving.

Being able to go to bed early one night and read for a solid hour = complete luxury.

Realizing as you walk around the office one day that your eyes have not stopped rolling once.

Wondering why some women wear so much perfume.

Laughing at how some people love to charge down the hallway to the cafeteria, like there is a prize involved for getting there first or something.

With a hurricane bearing down on New England, the biggest concern on all the news channels is how this will effect the Red Sox schedule.

When a building in Boston needs to be evacuated, it makes the local news. This never happened in NYC. Well, except for on 9/11/2001.

After a week of muttering to your laptop, you expect it to answer.

You’ve spent so much time during the week muttering and cursing under your breath. In. Your. Cubicle. That the intern who sits across the aisle is seriously afraid of you (and finally admits on Friday that he next expects your laptop to come flying his way).

Things I’ll Never Understand

Why, when I use my debit card at the card reader machine at the grocery store (or the gas pump, or wherever), it asks me first what the card type is to be, such as credit or debit. Yet, I am still prompted later in the session for my PIN, regardless of the fact that I selected “credit” for card type. I then must go through the added step of canceling or continuing from the PIN prompt screen. Why even ask the user to select card-type anyway? The machine can tell what kind of card it is, I would think the only purpose would be to bypass the PIN prompting if you want to use your debit card as a credit card. But I have yet to find a machine anywhere that doesn’t ask for PIN, regardless of the card-type selection chosen at the start of the transaction. This is just one of those stupid little daily things that make absolutely no sense to me. Why, why, why?

What Was I Thinking?

Do you ever get yourself ready in the morning on a sort of autopilot, only to arrive to work and suddenly realize that you're completely mis-matched? Well, it happened to me this morning, I still can't figure out exactly what happened really.

This is what I'm wearing:

* brown suede shoes
* darkish brown pants
* this sort of olive-y, greenish top
* black cardigan

The bottom half would have been okay with a different top, and the top half would have been okay with a different bottom. But together? Not so much. Now I'm going to feel all out of sorts all day.

Big Brother Really IS Watching!

Received a nasty-gram today from EZ-Pass. Apparently I was clocked going through the EZ-Pass toll too fast one day and I've been warned that repeated offenses could result in the revocation of my EZ-Pass privileges -- GAH!!! Next they'll be monitoring your speed through EZ-Pass on just the general roads & highways. Is nothing sacred?

A Note to All Those Clueless Drivers Out There:

If you're driving along the highway, and you come to a section of the road where the broken white line becomes a solid white line, it means that you are meant to stay in your lane and not just change it at will. This is not merely a suggestion, but an actual LAW. How come so many people don't realize this??? Sheesh!

Seen walking into work this morning:

A man wearing a suit. Now that's something you don't see everyday (nowadays anyway).

Self-Importance Abounds

At a lunch hosted by a vendor today, I end up sitting near someone who also happens to work for my company, someone I had never met before. We introduce ourselves and say where we work.

Self-Important Company Guy: "I'm in charge of this product!"
Colleague and myself: "Really? What group do you work for?"
(in the meantime our group handles hosting for this product for our company, one would think we would have heard of him, if he was "in charge of it")
SICG: "I work for XYZ (business group)."
Me: "Oh! Do you work with BC?"
(someone from XYZ group who I've worked with previously)
SICG: "BC works FOR me."

Our branch rep sits down at our table and introduces himself to SICG (obviously didn't know who he was either).

Branch Rep: "Which business unit are you with?"
SICG: "XYZ Group"
Branch Rep: "Oh, I know BC from that group, I've spoken with him quite a bit."
SICG: "BC works FOR me."

Alrighty then. We get it. You're extremely important being in charge of the product and managing BC and all.

Do you ever get the feeling that some people have an extremely inflated idea of their own importance? I mean, that's fine and all, but why do they always have to drag everyone else into it? Sheesh.

Observation: Automatic Faucets

I mean. With the Swine Flu apparently sweeping the nation, it might be a nice option to be able to control the water temperature when washing one's hands in a public restroom. You know, because hot water might be a bit more effective against killer germs than say, cool to tepid water. Just a thought.

You Know that You're Having an Aggravating and Frustrating Day When:

You're sitting in your cube already muttering & cursing to yourself and it's not even 10 AM yet.

Sheesh.

Knackered

I'm surprisingly tired for a Monday night. Odd. I didn't even go riding.

Things I Hate about the Gym

* Locker rooms. No matter how old I get, nor how many years I continue to have a gym membership, I don't think I'll ever feel truly comfortable using a locker room. I really, really hate changing in "public". I know there are some out there who think that this is some flaw in my personality and that I should just get over it. But I don't like it, I feel incredibly self-conscious. Always have, always will. Everyone has their thing. This is one of mine. I also hate the constant running of blow dryers and the way some women feel that they have to spread their crap all over the place.
* LOUD and BAD music. I mean, comeon. I am at the gym at work. I work for a conservative financial company. Do you REALLY think most people want to listen to horrible disco or (worse) mind-numbing techno music? Besides, most people have iPods at this point anyway. Now, because of the loud pounding horrible music, we all just have to crank them up and risk permanent deafness. The alternative is to run screaming from the gym -- that's what this music makes me want to do.
* People who invade personal space. Like the guy who absolutely MUST use that the treadmill next to me, when all the other remaining 8 are free. Or the woman who decides that the locker right next to mine is ideal, even though the rest of the room is empty. WTF???
* Self-congratulatory pompous asses who want to make sure everyone in the room knows great they run, or how much they work out. I listened to this guy today tell three different, completely unrelated, people (at different times) that he ran 10 miles yesterday and that "Heineken" he had afterwards was the best he's ever had. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're all so freaking impressed.

blah.

Horse Tack

I think I'm addicted to horse tack. I keep looking at stuff online and shopping for it and buying bits & pieces of it. So far I have bought or ordered:

* A saddle (on eBay a couple of weeks ago -- I hope it works for both Ruby and for me).
* A bridle (on order, hopefully will be here by tomorrow).
* A bit.
* A girth (hopefully arriving with the bridle & bit).
* A breast plate.
* Galloping boots.
* Various saddle & wither pads.
* A pair of reins (nicer than the ones that come with the bridle), purchased on my way home from Boston today.

In addition to the above are also sundry items like fly spray, turnout sheet and other stuff.

Oddly, I have not purchased one article of clothing for myself (either for work or for play) for the new season. That's extremely unusual.

I may be a bit of a freak

But, sometimes I rather like Mondays. In fact, very often this is so.

Out of the Loop

This is how out of the loop I am: I didn't even realize that the Academy Awards were being held tonight. I just happened to stumble across a blurb on Yahoo! about it. Sheesh. Not that I care, mind you. I wouldn't have been watching it anyway, but still, sometimes it amazes me how clueless I can be about this stuff.

The Problem with Salad Is ...

A) I always take too much

and

B) There is always someone up my butt at the salad bar.