Help! Does anyone speak “function”?

*Disclaimer: I am partially, if not completely, brain dead. The vegetative state of my brain may be reflected in this post. I take no responsibility…I blame Microsoft. 

I’m currently in the middle of a total life makeover…we’ll call it “Extreme Makeover: Complete Overhaul Edition” (minus that obnoxious Ty Pennington guy…blech). In addition to moving, taking on roomies, and generally crawling back out from under the rock where I’ve been hiding, I started a new job. During the week prior to my first day, I wrote the following as part of a writing exercise:

“I’m so excited, I can’t begin to express! If I was looking for a life transformation, I think I’m about to get one. The people I will meet, the corporate environment filled with all it’s bullshit…it all awaits me, and I’m stoked. Bring on the crap! Bring on the hopeless crushes on married partners and gay men in business suits! Bring on the long hours, the stress, the sleepless nights! I’m ready for it!! I find that, in approacing this new season in my life, I am surprisingly sure of myself. I’m ready. Not nervous, not filled with trepidation, fear, insecurity. Despite the newness and inexperience I have with the environment I’m about to step in to, I find that I am calm. Sure. Confident. Is that out of character for me or what?” 

I am now in week two of the above-mentioned new job. No hopeless crushes yet. No long hours or corporate BS to report. Stress and sleepless nights? Yeah, got those. That calm, sure, confidence? Nowhere to be seen. Let me explain: After finishing day one of training, my new boss informed me the company already had a great opportunity for me at an offsite engagement. Sure, I would have loved to continue to settle myself at the home office for the first few months, familiarizing myself with policies and the faces that surround me. But I’m flexible, I can recognize a good opportunity when I see one: no problem. Fast forward one week to the first day of my 6 week stint offsite. I begin to familiarize myself with yet another new office space, another endless list of names and faces that I’ve no hope of remembering. But I’m charming, funny…I’ll fit in just fine.

Then the bomb drops: “How are your Excel skills?” I say: “Kinda rusty.” The truth? I know how to create a spreadsheet to organize data in a way that makes it easier to read pretty to look at. The next bomb: “Well, you know how to do V-Lookups and Pivot Charts, right?” Suuuure I do. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT?! You might as well be speaking Chinese!

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, try this:

Does =VLOOKUP(C6,’[Vlookup Tables.xls]Division’!$I$2:$J$24,2,FALSE) mean anything to you? Try an easier one: =(O2+P2)/N2. Still nothing?! Welcome to my world! This is the language of Microsoft Excel, the language of functions. I DON’T SPEAK FUNCTION!

I spent the rest of the day trying to learn how to speak a new language. The weight of the situation began to sink in. My mind went into overdrive: “This is a disaster! I’m working at the client site, surrounded by the client, responsible for the data that is directly used to bill the client…and I don’t have an f-ing clue! This was not in the job description!” And then, drifting over the cubicle wall, I hear: “Yeah, so I just need a little more info about this $25, 678,000 charge. I need to be able to categorize it, to show where it is going….no, I’m talking about the one that is $25,678,000. No, the other $25M one…” Twenty-five MILLION? As in, DOLLARS?!?!?! That’s a number I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around…and even if I could, I COULDN’T because it’s all tied up in FUNCTIONS!!!

The commute home took 2 hours. (you heard me right) By the time I was firmly planted on the couch, my brain felt like overcooked mushy broccoli. So tell me: Does anyone out there speak Function?  

*Note: Extensive knowledge of Excel is not required for my overall position, so please don’t feel like I’ve taken a job that I’m under qualified for.
**Note: More Excel today. Much better than yesterday. I’ve got this sh*t in the bag.

Goodbye, MySpace…hello Bloggosphere!

It’s official: I am deleting my MySpace account. Correction–I am attempting to delete my MySpace account (apparently, this is an impossible feat…don’t ask). Truth be told, I really only created my “space” to get the skinny on all my old high school buddies before our 10 year reunion this past summer. Now that THAT horror is over (seriously, why did I bother? different post altogether…stay tuned), I’m deleting the thing.

I only wrote 3 blog entries on MySpace, but what follows is my first and favorite:

March 12, 2007
Daylight Savings? Or Y2K x 2?

Ok, here’s the jiggy. Everyone’s been all Y2K’d out about this Daylight Savings change, as if it were the end of the world as we know it (and I don’t mean a super-fly REM song). Never before in my life have I ever given a second thought to Daylight Savings…in fact, my parents have to call me every year to remind me to spring or fall accordingly. And yet this year, what with the BIG CHANGE and all, I find I’m suddenly stressed about the time on my cell phone, computer, microwave clock. Will they reset themselves? Or will I, heaven forbid, have to bravely go where no blonde is ever meant to go and dive into the abyss that is The User’s Manual? In a world that is ever-increasingly becoming “User Friendly”, will I suddenly have to lift a finger, engage my brain, and do something myself?! Something like RE-PROGRAM MY CELL PHONE CLOCK?! Is this a sign that we should all stock up on canned goods and buckle down for the nuclear winter that may inevitably follow (if those boys with the button can’t get the satellite’s reprogrammed in time)?

Just when I thought the world was on the brink of disaster, I awoke on Sunday morning only to find….my cell phone was smart enough to re-program itself! Crisis averted, world saved, birds chirping and all is harmonious again. The geeks at Verizon Wireless had done it, and just in the nick of time! Now, if only I could get them to lose my address and stop sending me my bill…

Yeah, I’m still getting that bill….DAMNIT!!!

She’s ALIIIIIIVE!!!

That’s right, Cyber Whores (CW’s)….I’m not dead. Didn’t kick the bucket, not pushing up daisies, no sleeping with the fishes for me. Much has happened since my last post A WEEK AGO, and as soon as I can get my brain screwed back on long enough to compose coherent sentences, I’ll tell you all about it (wit and charm included, as usual).

I know I’m not alone…many of my favorite bloggers have gone AWOL for the holiday too. You know who you are, fellow CW’s: I’m bored, so START POSTING AGAIN! How am I supposed to live vicariously through your lives (which are far superior to my own) if I don’t know what the heck is going on?! Come on…I’ll show you mine if you show me yours!

Happiness is…

…homemade oatmeal raisin cookies
…a weekend-long marathon of America’s Next Top Model  (shut up, my brain needed mindless stimulation)
…snuggles with Pippin
…endless blog surfing
…going grocery shopping and still having money left over
…The Amazing Race, on tonight at 8pm
…that I’ve had 3.5 days of pure laziness, and the weekend isn’t over yet!

Raindrops fallin’ on my head…

It appears as if the winter season has finally arrived here in Seattle: this morning, I awoke to the sound of the rain wooshing through the downspout outside my window. I know many of you are thinking, “Rain? Isn’t that par for the course in SEATTLE?!” Well….not quite.Most Americans (and probably people all around the world) hear about Seattle, and they picture this:

Or maybe this:

But the truth of the matter is: when it comes to the rainiest cities in the US, Seattle doesn’t even make the Top 10! In fact, on average Seattle records only 37 inches of rainfall annually, compared to New York (and other cities on the Easter Seaboard), which averages over 49 inches!

When it comes to weather in Seattle, more often than not (especially between June and October), visitors to Seattle will be met with a city that looks quite different from it’s reputation:

Seattle is a beautiful city, even in the rain…and we have far loftier things to boast about than our annual rainfall. For example, did you know that Seattle was ranked the most literate city in America in 2005? Moreover, analysis of 2002 Census data showed that Seattle was the most educated city in the US, with over 48.8% of residents 25 and older having at least a bachellor’s degree? We’re also the birthplace of grunge, the hometown of Jimi Hendricks, Eddie Vedder, the Seahawks and the Mariners (and the Sonics…booo). Ever heard of Microsoft? Amazon.com? Nintendo? Starbucks? Yeah, that would be Seattle.

So while you might think being awoken by the sound of rain would really put a damper on your weekend (pun intended…get it “damp”er…oh never mind), I say “Hell no!”. It’s the perfect weather for a Saturday. A rainy Saturday in Seattle means a quiet day reading on the couch by the fireplace. It means soup is stewing in the crock pot for dinner tonight. It means green trees year round, and snow in the mountains for skiing. It means our fabulous city can continue to avoid overcrowding by those pesky Californians.

Final word: Seattle Rocks! I am grateful to call it my home…the rest of you should be so lucky!

Smitten in Seattle…

I took the bus downtown this morning, testing the route I’ll be taking as of Monday. I was there for all of about 30 minutes, just enough time to hit Starbucks, walk a couple blocks, and catch the bus back. Ummmm…working downtown is going to be, in a word, AWESOME. Surrounded on all sides by tall buildings and a sea of busy people, focused and professional, pursuing the “ultimate goal” (whatever that might be), hurrying to and fro. And I get to join them…finally.

Now, in 3 months when I’ve had a particularly shitty day at work, and I post a blog ranting about how crowded the city is and how much I hate all the self-absorbed people…someone please point me back to this post and remind me this is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for. Remind me that, in only 30 minutes downtown on a random Thursday morning, I became smitten…

I’m FREE!!!

No, not “free” as in “for sale”…wierdos. I am free in a completely different sense of the word.

I’m free because:
–I will soon be smelling designer perfumes and colognes on my co-workers, and not the stinky sweaty stench of someone who worked all day in their clothes, then slept in them, then showed up for work in them again
–I never again have to answer the phone by saying the world’s longest company name
–I will (god willing) never again be breathed upon by someone who just chain smoked an entire pack of Camels…in the parking lot…five minutes ago
–I won’t find myself in a situation where I am calling the cops to report an employee has stolen a company vehicle and is likely passed out in a drug enduced coma in the parking lot of some dive bar in Kent (note: Kent is the armpit of Western Washington)
–”nepotism” is no longer a thorn in my side
–I will no longer have these conversations:
                          ME: How many pieces did you get?
                    THEM: All ok!
                          ME: How many pieces? Did you count them?
                    THEM: All ok!
                          ME: No, the number. Count. 1? 2? 
                    THEM: Ok. Yes.
                         ME: (under my breath) Oh sweet Jesus… Ok, thank you!
                    THEM: Ok!
–I will get to dress like an adult in suits and heels, not in my jeans and sneakers (ok, granted…I could wear whatever I wanted, but I would have looked like an asshole)
–I will be spending my days on the 34th floor downtown, instead of at a desk in a non-descript suburban office park at the end of a dead end street just over the train tracks

 Yes, fellow bloggers….I have quit my job! I am on to bigger and better things! I am free, damn it! FREE!!!!!!

Cyber whores…UNITE!!

(DISCLAIMER: The following post is destined to be completely retarded, in no way hilarious or witty, and probably not interesting in any way. I am already ashamed.)

Because it is NaBloPoMo, and I take my membership (#5144 baby!) seriously, here I am submitting my entry for the day. It is “late” –note: the current time is 10:41 pm pacific time–and while I would much rather wait until the writer’s juices are flowing before I post again, I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t submit something. Besides, then my blog “stats” would suffer and my rapidly expanding audience of readers (um, yeah…that means you, fellow blog junkie that stumbled upon this post randomly while running a tag search for “whores”) may dwindle in the absence of nothing new to read.

Tonight, I posed a hypothetical question to one of my roommates. My query was thus: if you spend ungodly amounts of time on the couch in front of the television, you’re considered a “Couch Potato”. So if you sit for hours on end surfing the Internet and blogging, what does that make you? Is that still a “Couch Potato”, even if there’s no television involved? What if you’re sitting at a desk, or (as I am) in your bed with your laptop on your knees…”Desk Potato”? “Bed Potato”? Is there a term for one hypnotized by the glow of the computer screen, who can’t remember the last time she blinked? My roommate’s response: “Yeah. Cyber Whores.”

And so, my eyes blurry and glazed over with exhaustion, my head nodding ever closer to my chest, I am desperate for the creative juices to be stirred in me once more. I let out my rally cry: CYBER WHORES, UNITE!!!

Just go AWAY already!!

I’m single. And while I would be more than happy to share my time with a boy, the fact is there’s too much going on in my life right now to deal with any dating drama…and if my dating history is any indicator, there would be DRAMA.I’m not sure what happened in my childhood to turn me into a magnet for lame guys, but boy am I cursed! In any other capacity, I would consider myself a pretty stable and independent person. I’m comfortable with being by myself, am perfectly capable of standing on my own two feet. But when it comes to men, they can use me, treat me crappy, ignore me, lead me on, have double standards, refuse to commit, string me along, give me a complex…and I LET them! (don’t freak: I recognize this is not healthy) The last guy I dated, I’m still in denial about. It was a classic case of someone who demanded upright living and perfection in others (including me), but he was free to do whatever he wanted. There was more hypocrisy in that man than any person I’ve ever known before or since.

But I digress. The reason for this post is that I’ve been thinking a lot lately about one ex in particular (not the above mentioned hypocrite). I have this strong desire to reconnect with him, and I’m not quite sure why. Let me fill in the background:

I almost wouldn’t consider him an “ex”: we officially only went on a couple of dates. However, we met on-line and spent the better part of a month talking every day on the phone before we even met. When we did finally go on our first date, we realized we had met previously on a few occasions at the church I went to. I was in leadership there, up in front of the congregation on a weekly basis, and I was always able to pick him out of the crowd: he was thatcute. Needless to say, by the time we actually went on our first date, there was a lot of emotional involvement already (at least on my part). He seemed to be an amazing Christian man, with a love of God and a spiritual mindset very much in line with my own at the time. The night of our first official date, he took me to dinner at a great restaurant. Afterwards, he pulled over and bought me flowers. Actually, he pulled over to this organic market in our neighborhood, took me to the florist dept (which is expansive and full of gorgeous blooms) and told me to pick whatever I wanted. By the end of the evening, I knew his entire family history, his hopes and dreams, his struggles and shortcomings. He told me (and I quote) that as far as he could tell, I “…dot all the ‘i’s and cross all the ‘t’s.” I was smitten. We went out several times after that, but within a few weeks, he’d decided that I didn’t quite “complete him” after all. So much for dotting i’s and crossing t’s. I was annoyed. Here was a guy who appeared to be all of the things I was looking for, and had basically told me that I was the same for him. But now he just wanted to be good friends. You see, I had become “one of the most important people” in his life, and he “really valued and cherished” me. So much so, that he wanted me to be his best friend, someone with which he could share everything in his life…including all the juicy details about the new girls he was dating. Ummmm, NO! Uh Uh, sorry dude.

Ok, so I’m pretty cool. I’m a great friend. I love to give relationship and dating advice to my peeps, guys and girls alike. But when I’m attracted to you, and I want to be more than just friends, hearing all the details about your newest romantic conquest just isn’t ok with me. There was a time when I would have hung on, played the “best friend” role, convinced that when all his other relationships failed (as was inevitable), he would see that what he really needed had been in front of him the entire time. (Yeah right…when does that actually happen in real life?)

So I severed contact with him. He didn’t understand. I went through the typical routine of deleting his number from my phone and his email from my contacts list, and it was satisfying. I fought against the urge to give in and call him, and I triumphed.

Then, at 8pm on a Monday night last February (close to 10 months since the last time I had even thought about him), my cell phone rang. The number was vaguely familiar, but I wasn’t sure about it and I’m not in the habit of answering calls from numbers I don’t recognize. I let it go to voice-mail, but none was left. Again, a week later a call from the same number…no voice-mail left. The weekend after my birthday (which is at the end of February), I received yet another call from the mystery number. This time, the caller left a message. It was him! Wishing me a happy belated birthday, apologizing for having missed it and hoping I was doing well. He signed off “Talk to you later!” as if we’d only just spoken the other day, and would be talking again real soon. WTF?!?!?!

I didn’t call him back. I told everyone I knew about it, and got mixed advice…some friends said to call him. After all, I was officially “over it” and could feasibly handle being legitimate friends with the guy. Others said that if he really wanted to talk, he’d call again. He never did. A month or so later, after having a dream in which he cameoed (nothing dirty, shut up!), I sent him a text out of guilt. I felt bad that he’d sent me his good wishes and I hadn’t even responded to say “thanks”. If he got my text, I’ll never know. I haven’t heard from him since, and its been at least 7 months.

So why, after all this time, is he nagging at my mind again? Why do I have this urge to call him out of the blue, just as he did to me almost a year ago? Last night, I found myself willing my phone to ring with him on the other end, just so I could be let off the hook. Why, after all these months, do I suddenly want to be friends with the guy, and nothing more? (for those of you who may think I’m subconsciously fishing for a new BF, trust me…I’m not)

I won’t call him. But what if I did?

Music to my ears…

“I want to hold you”. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that from a member of the opposite sex. Arms around my neck, a kiss on the cheek. “I want to hold you.” Yeah, it’s been a while, but I heard those words today…from my 2 1/2 year old nephew.

Apparently, “I want to hold you” means “I want a hug, Auntie.” “I want to hold you” means “I want to sit on your lap while you type so I can reach in and push all the buttons and mess you up, Auntie.”

Oh my…I am soooooooooo single.