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).
I’m pretty sure God broke the Internet today at my job.
Don’t tell my co-worker because she’d totally be p*ssed if she knew that’s what happened. I mean it f*ed up our day craptastically.
But, see, well, I was going to go to lunch the stupidest of stupid guys. A guy so stupid he doesn’t even deserve for me to mention him on my super amazing blog.
But God broke the Internet at my regular office, so I had to go work somewhere else and couldn’t meet him for said lunch.
But then I had this dream that I was searching and searching for him, and all I could get was a glimpse and well.
Ya.
It’s the kind of dream where you fall asleep thinking maybe your thoughts have finally found a peaceful place, and a couple hours later you wake up with a broken soul aching to see him.
I tried to fight it. I walked four miles. I thought happy thoughts. I even switched the radio every time a sad song came on.
But that kind of soul aching lingers. And it spreads. And before I knew it I couldn’t take it anymore and I sent him a text.
I knew he’d reply. He always replies. That’s why the only way this whole awful thing between us will ever die is if I do it myself.
But I can’t do it myself. I need help.
Tons.
So God went ahead and broke the Internet to lend a hand.
I guess he knew it’d be just what I needed to make it to the other side of today with a glimmer of hope that I can move past this.
