Stop the Morons

Not to make this blog all about my dog, but I really feel like this next story sums me up very, very well.

So my mother was at the dog park the other day with The Dog, and a woman came up to them as they were entering. Now my mother and The Dog are regulars at the park - this is mainly because The Dog has ants in her pants, and she needs at least 2 hours a day of running to keep her from destroying the house - so chances are good this woman had seen them there before. So this woman comes up to my mother and asks – I shit you not – “Do you think The Dog is embarrassed about the way she looks?”

Some background info: The Dog is a rescue. She was born with a fused vertebrae in her spine and couldn’t walk for the first few months of her life. After many surgeries and physical therapy (with horses…in a pool!), she now moves around like a champ – she hops her back legs rather than walking ‘normally,’ she has no tail, and yeah, her hips look a little different. But she’s fucking fine people! She’s happy, we love her to death, and she was absolutely our first choice when we were looking for a dog. She is hands down the most good-natured dog you’ll ever meet.

Oh, and the quickest way to piss me off is to look at her with pity in your eyes. What the fuck are you looking at ASSHOLE?!

Back to the story. So Stupid Woman has gone up to my mother and asked her if The Dog – a fucking DOG – is embarrassed by the way she looks. What kind of stupidity is that? My comment, when my mother told me the story, was, “I hope you responded by saying, ‘No, are you embarrassed by the way you look, Fatty?’”

Sadly, my mother did not say that. And when I retold the story (complete with my suggested response) to my boss – my BOSS – yesterday, she just looked at me, shook her head, and said, “You really shouldn’t be allowed out in public sometimes. You know that, right?”

In all fairness, my boss had to drag me away from a cop that I was yelling at last week (long story). Still, is it my fault I can’t stand stupid, ignorant jackasses? My motto in life: Stop the morons.

Dogs and Stuff

-So I went to visit my parents last Sunday and was chilling out on the couch – look who joined me! Best. Dewlaps. Ever.

Speaking of the awesome dog, she did something 2 weeks ago that still kills me. Where to begin… OK, so my father is a bit of a workaholic. He’s also a very successful lawyer and a great dad, but he is known for being a bit of a scary dude in his office. I don’t know, maybe it was time he was brought down a peg – let’s call it karma.

Anyway it was a Saturday (again, 2 weeks ago), and my father went to the office to pick up some files – he was having a client over to our house for a meeting and needed them. Since he normally runs errands on Saturday mornings with the dog (both are creatures of habit), he decided to bring her with him. Sounds fine, right?

Yeah, it seemed fine. My father worked for a bit in his office, gathered the files he needed, and went to find the dog. She had been wandering, and had somehow found her way to the reception area – there was a motion sensor that kept beeping every time she passed the door; she found this fascinating. Grabbing a hold of her leash, they left.

Fast forward to Monday morning. My father was in court when he got an email from his office manager. Rather, the entire office got an email which simply said: Was anyone in the office over the weekend? Tentatively, my father replied that he had. (I say this is where he went wrong – always know the whole story before confessing to anything.)

Turns out I was right. Long story short, our dog has found the other large corner office, and decided that was a great place to take a massive dump. And my father had already admitted he was there! What was he thinking?! Rule #1: Never admit to being responsible for the pile of shit in someone's office! I mean, I've never been responsible for anything like that before (thank God), but even I know that!

I feel like this is a good time to point out that we’ve had this dog for over 6 months, and she’s never had an accident in the house. Yet for some reason A’s office (A is the other senior partner in the firm by the way) just brought out the animal in her. And wow…it had been sitting there all weekend.

Awesome, right? My father was understandably embarrassed. My mother and I were (and are) so amused by this that we still can’t talk about it without losing our shit. And the dog – well, does she look remorseful?

On the plus side, my parents took A and his wife out to dinner as an apology, and A finally got to meet our new puppy (which he’s been meaning to do anyway). So all's well that ends well. (Oh, and he admits that she’s very, very cute…and very, very big.)

God I love dogs.

-Man vs. Food is on tonight – I am shockingly obsessed with this show. Oh, and I think I’ve figured out why America has an obesity problem. It was a toughie, but I’m really, really smart.

-We’re celebrating Christine’s birthday this weekend – if I survive this it will be a miracle.

-There’s a creepy guy who lives in an apartment across the way from mine. At night he stands at his window and watches me. When I look across at him (glare actually – dude, you’re freaking me out!), he waves. I really, really want this to stop. How do I do that without pissing him off too much? After all, he does know where I live. (I realize new curtains would be a good option, but my cat…she destroys them like it’s her job.) Can I somehow suggest to this guy that he needs to get a fucking TV and stop making me his evening entertainment? Nicely, of course - the last thing I need is another psycho in my life.

Alright, back to work – I’m in meeting hell this week.

Who's a Huge Loser?

It’s been a weird and difficult month. Difficult because work has been…trying (we had another reorganization – for those who are counting that’s 3 in the past year - and we had a trip to Germany thrown in there, and an executive retreat last week which was…um, strange). It was also difficult because I lost 3 people in the past month – 2 coworkers and 1 close family friend. The family friend was actually my nephews’ godmother; she was in her mid-30s, had gotten married just last year, was kind and accomplished, and she died. It hit everyone hard, struck me as profoundly unfair, and it affected me in some truly unexpected ways.

Which leads to the weird. You see, when someone so young and wonderful passes away, it really puts things in perspective. For me it gave me a feeling of ‘seize the day’, ‘no regrets’, ‘you only live once’, etc. etc. And I did something I’ve NEVER done before in my life – I asked out a complete stranger.

I blame it on Paris. Actually, I blame it on sitting down and re-reading the book, Blame it on Paris. The book is a memoir of sorts. In it the main character, Laura, finally gives in and asks out a guy that she has had a crush on for a while. She doesn’t even know his name. And as I was reading the following passage (after a couple of cocktails), I lost my mind.

(A brief set-up: Laura leaves her name, number, and a party invitation for her waiter – a guy she’s liked from afar for months – under the tab at his restaurant. She expects never to hear from him and is in complete shock when he calls. She goes to her friends – the very people who talked her into doing this – to tell them.)

At work, Valerie and Giulia stared at me as if I had just shown up in a beret. “You actually DID it? You asked out some man you didn’t even know? I’ve never known anyone to do something like that before!”

I counted to ten. “You told me French women did that kind of thing all the time. You told me you wouldn’t hesitate a second. You told me I was a wimp, you-“

“Are you kidding? I’ve never seen anyone do anything like that in my life. We just made all that up to encourage you! We didn’t think you would actually fall for it!”

I folded my arms. “Why is it that all my friends have a vicarious taste for adventure for which I’m always the damned patsy?”

Valerie grinned at me. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

I don’t know what it was, but it stuck me while I was reading – if she can do it then why the hell can’t I? So I emailed a guy I’ve had a crush on from afar, and I asked him out. (You get no more info from me on this – just know that he was a complete stranger.) I didn’t actually think I would send the email. I did.

When I woke up the next morning all I could think was, ‘Oh no. No no no no no. I didn’t, did I?’

I did. And he had emailed me back.

Shockingly, he was very nice about my moment of insanity. And being the bravest man in the world (apparently), he agreed to meet me. It was both amazing and embarrassing. And of course, now I actually had to go on the date.

I won’t get too into it, but I was nervous. Now you guys know that I don’t get nervous over guys – men are easy for me. I don’t mean that in a conceited way, but since I generally don’t give a shit about them, I tend to come across as pretty cool. I’m fun and I have my shit together. I don’t panic, I don’t worry, and if I want to see them again, I normally do.

That is not what happened. I blame some of it on the fact that I felt pretty pathetic and stalkerish over what I had done, and some of it on the fact that I had sort of built this guy up in my mind over time. In other words, I already liked him – he had all the power before it even began.

Long story short, it was like I had taken a truth serum before we met. I was a fucking spaz, tossing out information about myself that I NEVER talk about. Hello, I’ve been writing this blog for years and never once have I mentioned that I used to be an actress. That’s because I feel stupid talking about it. He found out within the first hour of meeting me. I talked…a lot. He was actually pretty awesome.

So it should come as no surprise to anyone (least of all me) that he hasn't exactly been jumping at the opportunity to see me again. But it’s bothering me. I think it’s bothering me for a lot of reasons. Top of that list is ego, of course – you like someone and you want them to like you, and when they don’t…it sucks. There’s also confusion (with myself, not with him) – I mean, why do I care? Why am I thinking about it so much? When did I regress back to high school, a time when I hadn’t figured out guys (or myself) yet? So what that it didn’t work out – at least I gave it a shot, right?

Well, yes. But I think what’s really bothering me is that after the month that I’ve had, I feel like it should have turned out differently. I mean, why do something so completely out of character for nothing? If I’m going to grab life by the horns, shouldn’t something extraordinary happen? If I’m going to put myself out there and actually care about the outcome (for once), shouldn’t I be rewarded for that? And then I think, ‘What, are you 16 years old? Cut that shit out!’

Since when do I believe in fate? Since when do I care about a first date? Since when do I even notice if I haven’t heard from someone in a week? What the hell? Where is my dignity and can I please have it back?

OK, self-therapy session over. As you were.

Other than that – GO YANKS! (At least that part of the month was awesome.)