All the not eating, and walking, and not eating, and calf work-outs on the playground equipment, and not eating, and lunges down the trail, and not eating, has finally, finally, FINALLY!!!!! given me a genuine reason to smile.
My skinny jeans slipped right on this morning.
The jeans that have sat on the closet shelf for the last 6 years waiting for me. Waiting in all their skinny jean glory for me to be ready to wear them again. They’ve tagged along from apartment, to apartment, to best friend’s condo, to current co-worker’s townhome – all the while patiently sure that I would one-day slip them all the way up again.
They always had faith in me, even when I lost faith in myself.
They knew.
When I think about it all, I really do tear up.
There’s just something about a pair of jeans that can do that to a girl I guess.
It’s kind of hard to take a full-body picture of yourself with a cell phone, but I promise these are my legs. You can tell, because I’m the only person alive who considers 2002-jeans with fake-wear marks across the thighs cool anymore. (sorry about the messy bed).
Call me a witch. Or a word that rhymes with witch. I don’t care.
A big part of it had to do with work-place festivities.
See, I’m in the midst of moving from a lovely, darling, mostly private office in McHenry, to our paper’s main office in Crystal Lake. The main office is filled with people and germs and noise.
To me, at least at first, this was the equivalent of switching from a lovely moisturizing, 7-blade, heated, vibrating, purple razor to a rusty nail pulled from a hobo’s back pocket for my shaving needs.
Awful.
It’s no secret that in McHenry, I was spoiled. I had a luxurious, quiet, writing environment where I could easily slip into “the zone.” The magical place where story ledes flow through my fingertips and words align like stars.
Not so much in Crystal Lake. More like the opposite.
And Friday was probably the worst day to jump in.
I had never been in the main office for a holiday. Or even a party. And there was CRAPTONS of Halloween stuff going on.
People were dressed in costumes, and blaring haunted music and eating more calories in a hour that I usually eat in a week – all while I was on DEADLINE! It’s kinda hard to find “the zone” when there’s rows and rows of hanging bats above the department next door and kids keep walking past looking for candy.
And when I went to work Saturday, I was kinda hoping it had all been a bad dream.
It wasn’t. There were still bats.
During my brief free time I started looking for a cartoon I could put on my work monitor to make me feel better.
I finally found one that said “Evil plans are best.” But I was unclear about how this whole, “working near bosses” thing worked and wanted to check with some co-workers to be sure that none of the higher-ups would interpret that to mean I was crazy and had an actual evil plan to like, hack our system (I don’t) or bring down the paper (Again. I don’t).
And someone chimed in that it’s unlikely that in the spectrum of employees I would fall anywhere near the “crazy” side. And that I’d probably have to bring in a life-size cutout of Johnny Depp (whom I love) for people to think that.
Then another co-worker was all “Speaking of which, there IS a life-size cut-out of Johnny Deep near the front desk. Someone brought it in for the pirate-themed Halloween area.”
OMG!
A LIFE-SIZE CUTOUT OF MY SOUL MATE WAS MERE DESKS AWAY!!?
woah.
I went to take a picture. (See below).
My co-worker than said it’d be “crazy” if I brought in a big bag of money. And just like that, the “crazy-makes things so” magic was dead.
But alas, knowing that at least one person in this strange new office loves Johnny Depp enough to buy a life-size cut out makes me thing this whole transition might not be that bad.
And now, without further ado – the photos. Feel free to pretend it’s the REAL Johnny Depp. I do. And tune in next week to read about my evil plan to steel steal him. (editor’s note: Such a plan may or may not exist).
Got the second of three Gardasil shots yesterday to fend off the ol’ HPV.
A nurse wearing an awkward bumblebee costume that could have doubled has a way to hide a pregnancy administered it into my left arm.
There’s a burn after the poke that feels like a fire ant crawled under the top layer of skin, had little fire-ant babies and then let them spread throughout your arm.
“WOW. That, umm, hurts,” I told the nurse, trying to hide the tears I felt inside.
“It typically does with the Gardasil,” she said like an evil bumblebee.
I knew that. I’d already had one shot. But holy needle did it still hurt.
And last time my arm was sore for three weeks. Like can’t-even-carry-my-purse-on-that-shoulder sore. Or why-does-holding-the-steering-wheel-have-to-be-SO-painful sore.
I’m told that’s normal, which I interrupt to mean “Your arm will now, again, be sore for three weeks.”
All this so I won’t get HPV.
I’m not even entirely sure what HPV is or why I should fear it.
Not to mention that the process requires a six-month commitment to getting the doses, and the longest commitment I’ve made, ever, was to the season pass at Great America and that was only five months from date of purchase to close of park.
I have this irrational fear that when it’s time for the final shot, I will find myself someplace remote with either multiple rainforests or multiple trailer parks and no nurses or health insurance in sight and then somehow the first two doses no longer will be effective because I won’t get the final dose in time!
Also, I have a newfound irrational fear of bumblebees.
