Bleagh.

Singular left on Saturday. I become such a lump when she's not around. I don't want to do anything experiential, since the joy in that is purely sharing it with her. So instead I do all kinds of things that I have a null opinion of, since if it's enjoyable I want to save it. I clean the house. I change the litter. That's what I did on Tuesday, change the cat litter.

This year was the least x-messy of any so far. My work doesn't put up decorations and crap, or play xmas music. I've avoided all retailers since Halloween. So it didn't really hit me until about Friday that I would have to plan for everything to be closed on Tuesday. Ooh, and I could get some work done at the office without anyone bothering me.

Well, I was wrong on both counts. I got the call from the boss saying that the Big Project was moved back, letting me off the hook to work Tuesday, plus I found plenty of places that were open to cater to my chip- and chip-dip-related needs. Thank Ganeesha for the Hindis. I guess I've found where I need to be, where there are too many creeds and colors for life to center around a particular one, as it did back in BFE.

Back on Thursday, the boss made a big cut, exactly halving our department. Merry Christmas, you're fired! Actually, I think this was a good thing. She fired in an effort to make it look like she was taking decisive action, to prevent her boss from cutting the entire department. While business tradition dictates that you constantly fire the bottom 20% just to keep people on their toes, this time she simply posed a question to each employee: "Do you want to be here?" Forget firing based on performance. It's rare that someone sucks at their job just because they suck. They usually suck because they don't want to do the job, don't want to be there. So she asked the question (darling you got to let me know...) and half said, "No". Some people were given heavy suggestions as to what they should answer. I wasn't given a suggestion. I answered Yes. I think they kept me because of the Big Project.

The Big Project is one of those things that happen all the time. Managment says to tech-nerd type: "I want the database to be arranged this way. Is it possible?" "Yeah," says the Nerd, "It's possible, but..." "GREAT!" says Management, "So, you'll have this for me on Thursday?" Meanwhile the task itself will probably take a week's worth of hours, due in a few days (days which you used to have off), and Management will be thoroughly unimpressed if you finish it on time, simply because they're not aware of the difficulty of the task. Surely you've all been there. In this case, Upper Management says to the Nerd's Management "do it," Nerd Managment turns around and says, "Do it!" and Nerd doesn't get to present his case to Upper Management as to why that's a Really Bad Idea.

If you accomplish the impossible, the boss will make it part of your regular duties.

To counter this, do what Scotty did: Always behave as though the reactor's about to explode. Like She Canna Take Much More O This. That way, when the boss says Fly Her Apart Then!, and nobody dies, it's like a miracle.

So I've got work on my mind and I've forgotten about xmas and that's when a box arrives from my parents, with presents inside. Y'see, each year I ask my mom not to get me anything, and each year she does anyway. It's not because I don't like xmas, for I do it on my birthday too. The reason is simply that since I lost all of my wordly possessions in a flood, I'm not too keen to stock up on more worldly possessions. I just have everything I need.

So Singular tears into the gifts immediately, since she cannot tolerate a surprise. I hope she reads this, too, because I have one for her (call it a New Year's gift) and she's far far away and cannot do anything about the fact that I have a surprise, I have a surprise, neener neener neeeeeener. I think about it for a few days but since I'm not going to see my parents (or even talk to them until the obligatory xmas phone call) I went ahead and opened them.

They were very perceptive gifts. My mom's getting better. Things that I like. My mom's really good at getting what I didn't even know I wanted. Also, now she buys clothing for me that I would wear, rather than clothing that the type of person she wishes I was would wear. My parents are the type that are so good to you, you feel guilty because you're not as good to them. I suppose this is much preferrable over the usual type of parents.

So Mom calls a week before xmas, to beg to let them buy a ticket for me to go home. No, I thought I was working that day, I made party plans with friends, and I don't say it but I also just saw them at Thanksgiving. For a holiday, not a Tuesday. I'm not coming home. Thanks for the presents, they're awesome. I told you not to get me anything. I'm not going to win this battle, am I?

"No," she says, and then, "You opened the presents? But then there will be nothing for you to open when we're together on xmas!"

Ah jeez. Now I feel guilty about spoiling a get-together that was never going to take place.

At work, our email system has lists, as yours probably does. You can send to "All", or employees of this or that daughter company of the parent, or this or that department, or the people involved with this or that project, etc etc.

So WHY is it that when people want to send a general announcment (usually something stupid like "Who took my lunch from the 6th floor fridge?") they send it to the All list, and THEN to EVERY OTHER LIST!?!?! Wouldn't it make sense to assume that the All list sends to ALL employees? Every morning I've got hundreds of emails waiting, but it's usually just a couple of messages sent to every list that I'm a member of. I HATE that!

If you go to see the "Harry Potter" movie, make sure that there are lots of kids in the theater, instead of just creepy adults. Otherwise, you might be in the wrong type of theater, watching "Hairy Pooter", which trust me, you do not want to see.

A couple of miscellaneous things that don't really deserve their own post:

Why is it that the "bad guys" are called the foriegn and scary-sounding "Taliban" and "al-Qaeda" and the "good guys" are called the Star-wars-esque "Northern Alliance"? Don't they have an Arabic name too? These guys are, of course, the very Soviet-allied regime that we trained bin Laden to get rid of, and rightist totalitarian regimes installed by the U.S. always turn on us, and now we're proclaiming the Northern Alliance our allies. These guys are nasty. Torture, butchery, plundering, systematic rape into the tens of thousands of victims, child rape... read the Amnesty International Report on them if you've got a strong stomach. Women in Afghanistan under the Taliban can't be educated and are treated like second-class citizens, but those same women kill themselves when they see the Northern Alliance coming. Scary stuff. Remember, Reagan taught us that they're terrorists if they're on their side, when they're using our weapons (and terrorist tactics a la Noriega) they're "freedom fighters". The U.S. keeps hopping from the frying pan into the fire, back into the frying pan, all the while complaining that we're getting burnt and nobody's allowed to ask what we're doing on the griddle in the first place.

Here's my link to KPMG, as dictated in my personal web policy regarding corporate hubris, at the suggestion of Mr. Nosuch. Please click on the link and if possible convince your company not to use their services. I find their policy hilarious, by the way. I wonder if anyone who mails something to their corporate snailmail address receives a cease and desist letter unless they've entered into an agreement with them in compliance with their physical location policy?

Guadalupe has moved in, and we're glad she's escaped the slippery slope that one's hometown can be. I myself never would have escaped my hometown had it not been for Singular Girl, who always dreamed of a better life even as a teenager. It's overwhelming to think that my two closest friends in all the world I would never have met had the first one not come to the same college as I and then a few years later had I not heard the radio ad for the job where I met the second and happened to have had a pen handy. It's as if Singular swung by Black Hole Ohio Shit Town #1 to pick me up and drag me out of the greedy grasp of my roots, and then we both swung over to Black Hole Ohio Shit Town #2 to pick up Guadalupe. John Couger Mellencamp Jingleheimershmidt says hold on to 16 as long as you can and the rest of your life just goes on long after the thrill of living is gone but fuck that shit. My life at 16 was pitiful, I was pimply, angsty, nerdy, and quite the asshole. I lived in a town where every Sunday morning the churchgoers sidestepped the vomit piles from the previous night's drinkers because if you've only got one commercial street then the bars and the bethels gotta share the block, yagimme? I had no idea how the world worked and no idea that I didn't know. Nowadays I haven't made it to the top but at least I know where the top is and exactly how high it's possible for one to go instead of thinking that the best I could hope to acheive was Grand Poo-bah of the Elks and a gold watch when I retire from forty years at the plant. Yeah, Johnny Cougar, I was born in a small town and I grew up in a small town and you know what? IT SUCKED!!!!

Confidential to James- Man oh man, it sounds like you've been behaving yourself in a way that would make many a monacle drop in shock into a martini but would endear you to anyone who's worth befriending. I guess that's why we found you so entertaining despite your offense to so many of the senses. Do Kiwis notice when other kiwis are drunk? Oh, they do? Whoops. Treat the opinions of folks who are too big for their britches as though the opions were beer: Just piss 'em away. But I don't think I need to advise you on not giving a shit. Here's an extra tip: Ladies love it when you express your interest as an integer representing the number of goats that you would fuck to get to them.
Oh no, the boat's gotta go? That's it, we're not coming. Damn. Oh, and don't forget, the limerick begins "a mathematician musician named James"... just to get the requried number of syllables and maybe some alliteration in there. That limerick is only funny if you know the details, namely a) you are 89, b) you really did play a gig for the old folks at Thames, and c) sex at your age is like shooting snooker with a rope. You may think I'm clever but the sad fact is that I cannot command my brain to produce those sorts of things, they just pop out of my mouth and completely bypass my brain. I guess that's why I promote a no-revision policy since I can't ever add anything to my words if I make a second pass. Singular and Guadalupe often have to endure this spouting, sometimes yelling very angrily at me to stop because they cannot catch their breath, but they don't seem to understand that I don't have any control over it. Like when I was talking to Preacherman the other day about a very serious issue facing his church and he was quite upset about it but I couldn't help but tell him he was getting all hot under the collar. I don't think he thought that was very funny. Or when my old boss was getting mad at me because I couldn't sort the fraternity invoices because I didn't know the letters, a travesty to the boss who was a former fratboy. So he was griping at me for asking him every few minutes what this squiggle or that was and finally I just threw up my hands in despair and said, "IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME!" He didn't appreciate that very much. Nor did Lupe and Singular appreciate it very much last night in a conversation about male sterilization procedures when I pondered what a vas deferens a day makes. I guess I'm just underappreciated, and must rely on people like plusRich, who have a taste for fine humor.
Oh, and hush up about Chicago and how much it sucks, you only hate the airport, which is 20 miles away and I hate it too. Anyone who had only been exposed to a city's airport is likely to have a low opinion of the city itself. Besides, we're only living here until we can raise the funds to come live on your couch, right? Or are you occupying it, of late? ;)

P.S. Check out punchbaby.com where there's a rather funny commercial featuring kiwi rugby players dancing the haka.