Friday, September 29, 2006
I've been interviewing a lot of candidates for my firm lately, and I have to admit it's sort of been a challenge. Believe it or not, I find it kind of difficult to sum up someone's worth after talking to them for only half an hour about how being a counselor at a tennis camp gave them leadership skills or how their lifelong dream has been to help large corporations essentially dig at each other with rusty knives. I find myself saying generic things like "Kevin had good communication skills" (translation: Kevin did not scream obscenities during the interview) or "Michelle seemed to have a genuine interest in corporate litigation" (Michelle stayed awake the whole time). And I end up recommending everyone for an offer. I mean, seriously, if I feel like saying bad things about people I'll just turn on the E! network, okay?
I do sometimes think about the fun ways I could freak people out during the interviews, though. Like by greeting them in German. Or breaking out in song halfway through. (My choice would be "The Rose" by Bette Midler.) Or posing elaborate scenarios as questions, for instance forcing them to choose between saving a bus full of orphans that's about to go over a cliff and drafting a super, super important appellate brief. Or taking off my pants.
If I keep thinking like this, I'LL be interviewing soon.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Today I had to go over to City Hall to get some information for work. Having previously spent about six hours there standing in four different lines with three forms of identification just to get one parking permit, I had a feeling that today's more substantive request might be a bit of an ordeal. Sometimes I hate always being right.
Things got off to a somewhat troubling start when I attempted to check in with the receptionist, who interrupted her telephone conversation about cat shampoo only for long enough to tell me that I would have to wait, which seemed fairly self evident, given that I was already in fact waiting. Then, she proceeded to direct me down the hall to what I knew was almost certainly the wrong department, and commenced to filing her nails, something I had felt sure secretaries only did in sitcoms and Archie comics. Upon my inevitable return, she performed a stunning little symphony of sighs before archly informing me that she knew who I really needed to talk to, but that he was out of the office.
Calling her bluff, I asked if I could leave a note for him, the potential exertion of which apparently stirred her to actually check on his presence. Sure enough, he appeared at the counter only moments later, wearing an expression of mixed boredom and annoyance unsurpassed by even the most obviously inbred DMV employees I have encountered in my life. He spent about fifteen minutes trying to convince me I didn't really want the information I wanted before retreating to an implausible story about the "computer being down" and some records being "lost in a flood," apparently believing that two lies would be more convincing than one. They weren't, however, and I persisted.
Several forms in triplicate later, I walked out triumphant. I am, in fact, the greatest of them all.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Can I just say that I am totally swept up in the thrilling emotional current of this season of Celebrity Fit Club? I'd never really bought into previous editions that much; although I enjoyed seeing minor celebrities abused and humiliated, I can't say I found the Snapple Lady's struggles with portion control to be all that compelling. But this season? Damn.
First of all, I like how they have all these people on the show who aren't even really that fat. I mean, okay, so you had a baby and can't quite fit back into your Baywatch swimsuit? That doesn't exactly make you Marlon Brando. Or you've developed some love handles since your Love Boat heyday? Maybe not a crisis that requires a dietician and a drill sergeant. I'm just saying.
I also totally love all the psychobabble they're constantly throwing around about the pressures of celebrity and the link between self confidence and weight. There's lots of crying about how we need to learn to love ourselves and learn that food is not love. Rock climbing walls and stairmasters aren't just exercise tools, they're SYMBOLS of our INNER STRUGGLES.
But mostly I just love Tina Yothers. She's funny, she's compassionate, she's back down to her Family Ties weight and leading the pack in terms of percentage of body weight lost. Get this girl her own show, immediately. Maybe Justine Bateman can costar; she's not up to much.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
For the past several weeks, Roommate Liz and I have had a little game going on. For really no reason at all, we have taken to hiding the bag of Hormel Pork Cracklings that was inexplicably in our kitchen cabinet in various locations around the house.
Here, the cracklings do a little bit of laundry. I'm not totally sure, but I think those are the cracklings' unmentionables.
The cracklings bundle up for the cold in my jacket and child-sized Snoopy cap. With that kind of sensible planning around the house, we're sure to have a delightful winter.
What to wear this evening? For something different, why not glue cracklings all over your body?
The cracklings are sort of fanatical about cleanliness. Here, they ready for their shower.
The good news is we're not really hurting anyone but ourselves this time around.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
I believe I was mocked by an entire elevator full of Germans yesterday.
I was heading down to get a cab voucher before leaving my office yesterday, and some sort of seminar was getting out as my elevator hit the 40th floor. (Judging from the participants I observed, it was either a body odor convention or a smugness seminar, I couldn't tell.) One by one, a group of Germans so stereotypical they may as well have been wearing lederhosen and carrying sauerkraut began packing into the elevator, apparently deeming it some sort of Teutonic Clown Car. They began speaking rapidly in German, but since my own fluency now expired about five years ago, all I could make out was an occasional "photographen" and "bier."
What I could clearly discern, however, was the enormous burst of laughter that followed my exit on the 37th floor. I briefly wondered if I had again forgotten to wear pants or if I was in fact Jennifer Lopez, but I could not find any satisfactory explanation for the merriment at my expense. Could it be that Germans hate me?
I guess I'll bear with it for now, but if I lose Luxembourg I'm really going to sweat it.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
I had to make a return at a certain retail chain that will go unnamed the other day, since they sold me a rip with a shirt around it. Now, admittedly, I did not have the receipt, because my cleaning lady is very proactive in terms of defining what "trash" is (she's also started reorganizing my belongings for me -- it's pretty cute), but I have to feel that things could have gone a little more smoothly.
"Nuh uh, nope, I don't think I can do that," the blank-eyed clerk helpfully told me when I explained my predicament. She shook her head vigorously and waved her hands so elaborately I thought that perhaps Marlee Matlin was attempting to make a return as well. Of course, all of her conviction couldn't really save her from the fact that the actual return policy was taped to the counter right in front of her, and read somewhat differently from her admittedly simpler impromptu version. After a lot of pointing and reading aloud, we finally got some consensus. An underling was dispatched to find me a non-ripped version of said shirt.
It wasn't until about ten minutes later, when I saw the intrepid shirt-searcher go by the front window smoking and drinking a coffee, that I realized he probably wasn't coming back. I returned to my friend at the counter, only to discover that she had completely forgotten who I was. Having seen Memento at least six times, I was prepared to deal with this, and managed to get leave to go search for the shirt myself. And I immediately found it, in every size but my own.
This was the point at which I just said "fuck it" and took an exchange for the closest thing in sight. Which turned out okay, because I look pretty spectacular in a strappy pink tank top.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
As promised, our day at the museum was amply documented with photos. Trust me, the guides really, really love it when you constantly ask them to take pictures.
Roommate Liz dramatizes the age old battle between man and machine. My money's actually on the machine in this one.
We also apparently decided to retake Liz's senior yearbook photos inside the giant heart. All we need is a big foam "96" to complete the look.
Roommate Liz spots a whale off the starboard bow. Avast, ye mateys.
I attempt to foster cultural understanding by "doing the robot" with some robots.
Due to some bizarre administrative slip up, I have actually been named captain of this submarine. Our first mission? The Arby's drive through.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Roommate Liz and I went to the Museum of Science & Industry today. I haven't been since I was a kid, and back then my parents were following their general rule of presuming anything potentially fun to be dangerous, so we mainly looked at a lot of diagrams about thermal energy. Today we got to do it all, though. We visited the dollhouse, perhaps the exhibit with the loosest connection to either "science" or "industry," and saw how tiny imaginary creatures can live a life far better than anything of which you or I could dream. We went down into the coal mine with an elderly, hyperactive man who clearly hated everyone in sight and made frequent, wishful references to tunnel collapses and other mining disasters. We even walked through the giant heart, which takes all of about seven seconds and is about as thrilling as walking through Gary, Indiana. It was an amazing morning.
Of course, this did provide me with yet another opportunity to reflect on my own unreadiness to assume any kind of parenting role. As children dashed by me, jamming all the buttons on the flight simulator and cramming cheetohs into the model of the eye, I realized that not only did this behavior horrify me, but it was also not so terribly far removed from the potentialities of my own. I mean, Roommate Liz and I purposefully crashed the submarine simulator against enemy craft and/or whales more times than I can even enumerate. Clearly I am not quite ready to be the grownup.
Photos of the stunning day will follow shortly.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Last night I was over at my friends' house when they blew a fuse. Apparently, in some older buildings you can't watch TV, make toast, run the blender, and create lovely peace sign coasters from a craft kit with an iron all at the same time. This put a horrible cramp in our plans of casting a voodoo hex on Jeffrey from Project Runway, but it did create some interesting fun. For within half an hour we had convinced ourselves that a mass murderer had purposefully cut the power lines and was sneaking up the back stairs to kill us at that very moment. We snuck around the outside of the building holding a variety of knickknacks as weapons, but of course there was no one there. I almost felt silly standing there brandishing that Precious Moments figurine.
This is not the first time I have been involved in a freakish overreaction of this sort. In addition to the time my mother and I tried to club a nonexistent intruder over the head with a Badge-A-Minute button maker, I have also been involved in any number of near macings and panic button overusages. I also frequently run the ten yards between my parking spot and front door for fear of being mugged. What can I say? I'm a safety first kind of guy.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
The sun has not been out here in four days now. This has had some strange effects. For instance, I now have rickets. And I have developed a set of gill slits on my neck. I only use them to store office supplies at present, but still, they're there. It's really not a bad look.
No, the only actual impact of the recent onset of ark-building season has been my bizarre emotional state. Whenever there's no sun I start questioning all the decisions I've made in my life, wondering whether I maybe should have had the chicken instead of the fish or if tight rolled jeans really looked good on me. I consider how my life would be different if I were a diamond miner and what kind of relationship I could have had with Urkel if I had just seized the day that time at the Old Orchard Mall. Ahhh, the road not taken.
Oh, and I've delayed taking my dry cleaning in yet another week. Pretty soon I'll be down to wearing my "My Other Car is Oprah" t-shirt and the Austin Powers costume I thought was hilarious when I was in college.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
I am wearing a hat, glasses, and a shirt I bought at Abercrombie in1998. I have not shaved all weekend, which makes me look like I have mange.
There are two bottles of red wine in my recycling bin. Not pictured: ho ho wrappers in the trash.
My hand has twisted into a grotesque claw from too much Gauntlet playing.
This month-old copy of Entertainment Weekly has been thoroughly reread.
I never thought I'd say this, but thank God I have to go to work tomorrow.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Today I bought new underwear in an attempt to exert some control over an existence that has become increasingly unfetterable.
I'll let you know how that works out.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
It's evaluation time at my office, and I couldn't be more excited. What a wonderful opportunity to have people who barely know me pass judgment on my intelligence and ability! I'm thinking about asking that partner who still calls me "Phil" be my primary reviewer; he may not have any idea who I actually am, but at least he's friendly! I bet he'd say I have "gumption" or "get up and go." Which, to be fair, I definitely do.
I always love the categories they come up with to evaluate you. Whether, for instance, you are a team player. That team spirit really comes in handy when I'm sitting in my office all by myself for ten hours a day drafting briefs. Or whether you show leadership potential. Yup, that's definitely what you want assigned to do legal research for you, a leader. Because you never know when Westlaw might form a militia.
Right now I'm just at the stage of filling in descriptions for the work I did this year. I think it's probably a bad sign when it takes several hours just to summarize your work. I'm trying to jazz it up though with some picturesque speech. "Reviewed documents like a motherfucka" just reads so much better.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
So as far as the big high school reunion goes I have next to nothing to report. I didn't get drunk and belligerent and pick a fight, I didn't go home with someone and call them by the wrong name the next morning, and I didn't make horribly inappropriate comments about people's spouses and/or children. I just had some toasted ravioli and some beer and chatted pleasantly with what turned out to be a room full of old people like myself. Mortgages and furniture were common topics. And to think I used to drink in a field with these people!
It was really just, all in all, quite pleasant. The people that I liked best in high school all turned out really well, even if the odds didn't exactly seem to be in their favor. They stopped trying to get high off of paint fumes or fixating over who would be the lead in the musical and got jobs and interests and support networks. They lost weight or got amazing haircuts. Or they went somewhere crazy and random for a few years and got some great stories to tell. They just sort of came into their own.
And yes, of course there were people who gained weight or found out that being captain of the wrestling team doesn't necessarily mean that you're set for life, but even they somehow seemed to be in good places in their lives. They had families, cover bands, car audio stores. Some of them even knew the bartenders.
Not that there's anything particularly entertaining for all of you about any of that.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
My ten year high school reunion is tonight, so obviously I've got so much to think about. What should I wear? Can I really pull off a tube top? Who am I going to see? Can it please, please be the girl who got me busted for driving my Neon over the grass strip in the middle of the parking lot when I was in 10th grade? What will everyone be up to these days? Won't there at least be one or two people who have made tentative forays into the world of amateur adult video? When they say "three drinks" are included with admission, is that like top shelf? And is it weird to ask my sister to drop me off and pick me up? A DUI in Quincy is maybe not the very last thing I need (Paris Hilton's album comes to mind), but it's pretty damn close.
No, in truth, I'm really not thinking about tonight that much at all. My sister brought the SEGA home, so it's mostly been Sonic the Hedgehog. And my dad found a Commodore 64 emulator, so there was some badly-pixelated Wheel of Fortune as well. Wow, it really is a pretty retro weekend. I hope there's an Alanis Morrissette cover band.