No Smoking

Seven years ago, my dear friend Billy expressed incredulity when we got the news that Bitching Bubbly Smoking Nonsmoker had been fired, and escorted off the premises of our former workplace. "But she was one of the main characters!" he protested.

Her name was Cheryl, and she died this past week after a few years' battle with cancer. According to the relative who posted the news on her Facebook page, the cancer was beaten - she'd been cancer-free for six months, though she was still undergoing some surgeries. The cause of death appears to have been heart failure.

This is hardly surprising. She kept an upbeat tone, but from the updates she posted on Facebook it was evident she had a crushing amount to deal with: trying to find and keep work, conflicting instructions from doctors, losing her condo off Live Oak, health insurance, diagnoses, moving, the death of her father, moving again, unemployment benefits, finding a job, being laid off, more surgeries, etc. etc. etc. She was matter-of-fact and resolutely un-whiny about any of it, but did occasionally find time to bite the heads off well-wishers ("Stop calling me 'brave!' There's nothing brave about it! What else am I supposed to do, lie down and die?!") Being seriously ill brings with it such a devastating load of things to stress out about that heart attacks seem like a natural side effect of otherwise treatable health issues.

I thought it was funny that she bitched about "Obummer" and continued fiercely criticizing Obamacare, without which health insurance would have been unavailable to her. So she was disinterested, at least. She requested advice on upgrading her computer without losing data; some commenters recommended backing everything up on an external hard drive, and one suggested she contact a mutual acquaintance with a lot of experience in the area. She was short with that suggestion: "He pissed me off once and I won't talk to him anymore."

I hope someone told her that the Sheriff, who managed the Herculean task of firing Cheryl from a state agency, was forced to resign this past year. I wish I had. Cheryl called the Sheriff "Dr. Crummy" and carried a bit of a grudge, understandably enough. It was years later, and hardly the ignominious defeat that Cheryl (and others) suffered at the Sheriff's hands, but at least something happened eventually. And again, in a state agency, that's saying something. Still, the fact is, minus the Sheriff's interference, Cheryl would have coasted along a few more years to retirement, and her life would have been considerably less stressful - therefore, most likely, longer.

Cheryl was never unkind or hurtful, just grouchy. What would the world be without curmudgeons? She smoked, she quit; she groused, she worked hard to be positive. I remember trying to help her with a jamming copier once and she stopped and took a breath and closed her eyes. "You're trying to help," she said. "You're very sweet. Please just walk away now." And you have to respect that, really, more than someone who is always bubbly and sweet and nice to your face and then goes and writes mocking blog posts about you, don't you?

Bon voyage to you, Cheryl. Give Heaven hell.

The Right Start

Yesterday morning my cube neighbor rushed his kid to a band trip, arriving just in the nick of time, only to discover he'd forgotten the kid's trombone.

There's a special sound effect tailor-made for just such an occasion - but you need a trombone to make it.

Sometimes life is like an O. Henry story.

But then, sometimes, it's like this:

This is my new morning commute, the boardwalk I was looking forward to a few months ago. It's so worth the wait. The boardwalk portion is about two miles long, and completes the 10-ish-mile hike-and-bike trail loop around the river-shaped lake thingy in the middle of Austin.

It's about a half-mile coast down a quiet neighborhood street to the boardwalk ramp off of Riverside Drive. It's a beautiful ride in the cool of early morning, with the last of an overnight mist burning off the smooth surface of the water.

Unfortunately, you can't follow the same route back because the afternoon traffic pattern is much less conducive to jaywalking across Riverside - traffic is backed up just enough to get good and angry, without quite coming to a stop - so you have to cross half a mile away at the light and climb up a much steeper street. And it's 97 degrees.

But you don't need a trombone, so that's something.

Drink the Kool-Aid and Nobody Gets Hurt

Each workgroup is to decorate a door in its area in the holiday spirit. Only one will win, and the winner shall feast upon the bloody flesh of the losers.

Whoops! Sorry, got a little carried away there. They'll get a box of peanut brittle.

I'm not participating, because I'll be off for the day (having worked the weekend - thus escaping, I might add, a lot more lightly than many of my coworkers who had significantly less pleasant duties during the winter storm, such as actually talking to people), but some have suggested that the recent extreme and difficult weather ought to tie into our office holiday observances.

For instance, Santa's sleigh could be locked in ice-bound traffic. Reindeer would be eaten by stranded, desperate travelers. (I think Norway already has a national dish based on this concept, so it's not without precedent.)

Better yet, the Kool-Aid guy could break through the ice walls with his refined-sugar-processed-flavor-product powers and bring peace and harmony back to a teetering civilization (which, I'm sorry, should really not be so wobbly after just two and a half days without unrestricted access to Wal-Mart) - but at what price? What would he tell us today? Is the inorganic, processed-food apocalypse foretold by his wanton destruction of our flimsy man-made structures? Isn't his jolly demeanor in the face of utter ruin the very embodiment of what commercial marketing is all about?

On a similar note, I began my holiday shopping today (it's Christmas shopping, actually, but I like to call it holiday shopping in order to offend the type of people who insist on spelling Christmas CHRISTmas, then spend obscene amounts of money on stuff nobody really needs and take down all their decorations on December 26) with an earnest endeavour to "shop local," as they say.

Have you spent much time in local shops? It strikes me that these shops largely exist to cater to tourists - which is fine - but does make them less than ideal in terms of a place for a local to buy presents for other locals. I mean, I want to support local business as much as anyone, but my boyfriend wants an enamel-coated 12-piece cookware set, and the closest I can find to that locally is a novelty shot glass that reads "Keep Austin Weird."

So shop local, spruce up your office, drive safely, and look out for the Kool-Aid Man. That guy is bad news.

Whipping Boy

Popular culture doesn't always appreciate the virtues of pragmatism.

All the glory goes to the guy with the crazy ideas who refused to listen to naysayers and nervous Nancys and ended up miraculously saving the day. You see? You thought that visionary was a lunatic! But now look, he's up and invented time travel! That'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs.

How much oftener are the naysayers right, though? Nervous Nancys get little glory for rescuing us all from visionary wackos. In movies, someone always stammers, "That's... that's so crazy it just might work!" And it always does. In reality, it's much more likely that gruesome, untimely death is in store for everyone involved.

The Voice of Reason has saved incalculable numbers of lives, but the Reckless Visionary (if he survives) gets all the (surviving) girls.

Such is life, I suppose. Anyway, our fancy website redesign, timed to launch immediately prior to the time it's needed most, isn't working. There was a naysayer in my office insisting that it was a terrible idea to launch during a high-stress period without extensive prior testing. We'll probably make him field all the complaints.

That's what you get for being such a Nervous Nancy.

Of Blips and Blobs

You're doing your makeup wrong.

You might think this is not a particularly big deal, but it is. There are so many online articles about the myriad mistakes you are making: your black eyeliner makes you look older, your blush is too dark, your foundation isn't blended properly, your lipstick makes your teeth look yellow, your concealer is caking into the fine lines under your eyes, your mascara is blobby, you're overplucking your eyebrows and OH MY GOD WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO.

These articles are penned by actual Makeup Artists (because makeup is an Art, and without Art, Life is Meaningless) and they should know.

Oh, also, the solutions for these problems only cost $89.50 and are available by clicking on the link in the article.

I guess it's important to believe in your work. Certainly I like to feel that what I do matters, although of course it's all a matter of context. When you consider that the total sum of human endeavors is an imperceptible blip adrift in an infinite void thinly strewn with cosmic dust, even the noble cause of stimulating travel and tourism in Texas seems a little insignificant.

My junk-food reading habit, though, is to scroll down to the comments threads. If only there were some way to harness the incendiary force of online comments! I mean, talk about your sustainable energy source. Figuring that out is an innovation that will make me rich and powerful someday, along with the invention of the toaster you don't have to tip over on its side to get your bagel out.

People get angry about makeup. So very angry. As angry as they get about the George Zimmermann verdict or Obamacare or food stamps or light rail or Wall Street or Wal-Mart or Syria or Auburn's rather spectacular final touchdown yesterday.* And it just seems like such a vast expenditure of energy. Couldn't something useful be done with it?

Not that people shouldn't be angry about injustice or speak out against wrongs, but I'm not sure that yelling at strangers on the internet about lipstick is terribly productive. Certainly not as much so as a good cleansing regimen.

------------------------------------
*I might not know a football from a rhinoceros suppository - and, unlike the rhinoceros, I don't really care - but that was impressive.

Bathroom for Improvement

Really, I'm only writing because I haven't in a few days. Lately it seems to be harder and harder to come up with something. And most of what I come up with seems hardly worthwhile at all. Still I have to write something, because otherwise - otherwise - well, because otherwise I won't be writing anything.

If this isn't a perfect metaphor for life, I'd like to know what is.

One of the problems is that what's been on my mind a lot lately is public restrooms. Have you ever tried writing something meaningful about public restrooms? Something that really speaks to the human condition? Something really (sorry) moving??

Public restrooms are an even better metaphor for the pointless and ephemeral nature of human existence than blogging is. You meet people in bathrooms; you can have conversations with them. You can learn to hate strangers anonymously in a public bathroom. You can be angry, territorial, or very, very afraid. You can marvel at the injustices with which life is fraught. Did I ever mention that the president of the internet marketing company I worked for in Corpus never washed her hands after going? Even #2?!? Well, it's true, I'm sorry to say.

I don't know if men's restrooms are so enlightening. I still suspect that urinals are the product of a demented joke played on mankind by some long-dead, self-made designer who was bitter about being barred from architecture school because of her sex. I imagine her in a room full of other early feminists, all sipping cosmos. "I'm going to design the first public restroom for men," she tells them exultingly, "where they all have to pee in plain sight of each other!"

The other women laugh, because of course no sane person would ever do this. But our architect insists - perhaps placing a substantial bet with her friends - that she can bring male society to such a nadir that eventually, they will stand next to one another to pee, vulnerable, exposed - and think this is perfectly normal behavior.

This was after a lot of cosmos, so she was more surprised than anybody when she won.

I get pissed off at work now because the no-count bitchez from right across the hall, who work in an inferior, bureaucratic division where the restroom is darker and more cramped, like to come over to our side to use the facilities. They commit such atrocities as hogging the sink, splashing water everywhere, the unspeakable "hoversquat," and using the handicapped door button to open the door so they don't have to touch the handle, which, ew! might have germs! omg!!1!!1! This leaves the door wide open to the elevator lobby for about ten seconds - not the end of the world, but not very considerate to anyone who may be trying to perform some reasonably private function inside.

But that's not the one that really pisses me off. No. What really bugs me is that these bureaucrettes always insist on taking up the handicapped stall for their, um, lengthier visits. Since our building doesn't have a locker room, and many of us in the far superior, classier division where I work are into regular exercise, and therefore have to change clothes once or twice a day, this means we get relegated to the smaller stalls, where on several occasions I personally have come perilously close to dropping my scrunchie in the toilet.

File that away for future reference, would you? That has to be a euphemism for something - though, I have to say, probably something that goes on in the men's room.

Worst Amusement Park Ever

Robbie and I were just talking about how much things have changed in our old division. Our former lead worker has now given notice – because he found another job elsewhere in the agency, I’m glad to say. Seeing the goings-on in that place is like watching a train wreck in slow motion, only, you know, fast. I’m so happy he could escape before it sucked him down to a watery grave.

It’s a really bad train wreck, okay?

Robbie was suggesting that the last survivor of our new-hire group over there ought to sell tickets for guided tours, and maybe put up commemorative plaques showing where employees of note used to sit. Don’t disturb the remaining denizens of the place, though. They may bite.

So I got to thinking. What if we made sort of a theme park out of it? As far as we can tell, it always was a circus. We could start off with a tour of the cubicle maze, and each paying customer would be given a bag of microwave popcorn to toss to the inhabitants during the tour.

Alas! Like Ralph the Swimming Pig, many of our old division’s star attractions are things of the past. Gone Transportational has gone somewhere else, as has the string of security guards that trailed for so long in his wake. There is no more Coworker-You-Idiot; the section director fobbed him off about a year ago, quietly, on another manager who is a good friend of hers. (Or was.) There’s no more Phantom Pharter, no more Bitching Bubbly Nonsmoker. But we could hire actors to dress up in character suits, and you could get your picture taken with them.

If you happen to be of the female persuasion, I wouldn’t stand too close to C-Y-I.

Speaking of which, there would of course be hands-on activities for kids of all ages. Visitors with a yen for antiques could see what it’s like to 10-key in a page of authentic 1974 pavement statistics, marvel at the greenscreen displays, and thrill to the old-timey bells on the telephones. Feeling a bit more daring? Try entering some data into the mainframe, but be careful: F2 saves your updates. F3 clears the screen. F8 vaporizes the city of San Angelo. So don’t hit the wrong one!

If you’re into really extreme adventure, why not take the “Phantom Pharter Secret Identity” challenge? We’ll issue you a gas mask, which will also provide some protection if you must visit the rest room. Other forms of “protection” may or may not be available there, but a certain amount of psychological damage is practically guaranteed.

Wear a tank top, but bring a parka – the wildly unpredictable AC is an adventure all by itself! And when you’re ready for a break, have a quick one, just 45 minutes or so, in the historic 3-Martini-Break-Group spot. It’s weed-choked and dusted over with ashes now, but if you listen carefully, you can still hear the faint echo of laughter and the rattle of cocktail shakers.

Cap off your visit with a tour of the locker rooms and shower facilities so detailed and thorough, you’ll swear your guide must live there. What could be more relaxing?

We’ll make a fortune! And the best part is that all proceeds go to save the – well, no, actually. Robbie and I are going to spend them all at Dominican Joe.

Things of Value

Only imagine what mankind could accomplish if the energy spent on bureaucracy could be harnessed for good.

A friend and former coworker has now spent almost two full weeks trying to get approval on a single line item from his travel expense report. He's seeking reimbursement for his mileage on the return trip from the airport to his home. They only want to reimburse him for mileage from the airport to the office, which is several miles closer; but his flight arrived late in the evening after work hours.

The disputed amount is $12.32. The number of man-hours my friend has put into researching, documenting, defending, justifying, explaining, and negotiating this claim would get a small start-up company off the ground.

You might wonder why he's putting forth so much effort for such a small sum. But look at it from the other side: by continuing to dig in its heels and fight the claim, isn't his employer explicitly stating that the two weeks of work he would otherwise have gotten done by now is worth less than $12.32? Of course, you can't put a dollar figure on employee morale.

For what it's worth, his trip was to Lubbock.

Istanbul Was a Wafer Fabrication Facility

I'm sad that Sematech sold out, shut down, and shipped off to Albany. Doesn't that sound like a song? I should write a poem about it.

From November 1991 till September 2001 I worked there, so the place, as it was at the time, remains my ideal of what the corporate workplace is supposed to look like. Overall I had fairly few complaints. Just like with any place - Austin certainly springs to mind - as the years passed and the culture changed, I joined in the chorus of complaining about how things wasn't like they used to be.

Anyway, in late December 1991, I had been there a month and a half, and was (as I would be for nearly two more years - remember the "disposable workforce" of the 90s?) a temp. I attended my first company Christmas party. And the CEO and the whole executive staff opened the evening by coming out on stage in cleanroom suits, top hats, and canes, and singing a song about how Sematech was "Puttin' Out the Bits." I wish I remembered more lyrics than,

"Strolling through the shoeroom so happy,
In our bunny suits so white and flappy,
Very snappy!"

Totally random memory, but what a cool place to work, eh wot?

On the other hand, several years later, when one of the AV guys and I collaborated on a short video opening sequence for all-employee staff meetings, we ended up self-censoring all our best ideas, like having a Dalek-like trash receptacle exterminate someone who had left banana peels on the conference room floor, or getting the mailroom guy promoted to CEO for his exemplary pager use etiquette, or asking the COO to strut down the cleanroom hallway to "Stayin' Alive." And what we came up with instead - though I still have a copy of it on videotape! - was not nearly as cool.

Things just weren't like they was used to been.

Cleavage

TMI alert!

Like that's going to stop anybody.

I was a bit of an early bloomer. By the time I was ten years old, I was reasonably chesty. By the time I was twelve, I was perhaps unreasonably chesty. Toss in a few breastfed babies and the fact that when I gain weight, that's the first place it goes, and... well, you get the picture.

My sisters both grew up to be A-cups, and they are pissed.

The thing is, female body image being what it is, and general, non-gender-specific human insecurity about the things that make you, um, stand out, I was always pretty self-conscious about this particular portion of my anatomy. It took a long time for me to get comfortable with it. Well - I'm not entirely comfortable, actually. But you know what? Men seem to like them, I've noticed. So I go with it. Tastefully, so to speak.

Today is the first day of my second week on the new job. I'm in a foul mood to begin with. As much as the old job pissed me off at times, I'd been there for two years, and it wasn't the worst job in the world (we all know what that was). I'd made lots of friends, I have some great memories (NO PUNS) and it was a fun, relaxed environment in a lot of ways, as long as you didn't mind the fact that everything you did was completely pointless. So even though this job is (presumably) a better fit for me, a better division to be in, and the work is substantially more rewarding, I'm terribly homesick. Plus I just called an end to - something we won't go into. Plus I am extremely unhappy about Romeo. Plus Bill Gates is running a little behind, so PMS is absolutely kicking my ass right now. Plus I forgot to bring my thermos of coffee this morning. Plus it's cold and wet and gray and depressing out.

And now, for the punchline, my new supervisor calls me into her office this morning to tell me that my cleavage violates office dress policy. How mortifying is that?! I was so upset, I wasn't even tempted to snicker when she used the phrase "nip this in the bud." (She really did!)

She didn't mention it specifically, but she gave me a copy of the written dress code, and apparently toe rings and ankle bracelets and big dangly earrings are out, too. "This sucks!" I wailed to a friend, "they're going to turn me into a dowdy middle-aged woman!"

"Yes," he said.

So I'm going to have to go joylessly shopping for some boring clothes. Could I file for discrimination if I can't wear something that someone else could get away with, just because of the way I'm built?

Goddamn it. This sucks. Anyway, I'm done. At least I should be good on web traffic for a while.

Top Ten Signs You Need a New Job

10. While working, you overhear your cube neighbor improvising cheery little ditties about suicide.

9. Your plants appear have eaten your pencil sharpener. They are still hungry.

8. Your manager asks anxiously that you please not plan to be sick anywhere near the holidays.

7. Phlirting with the phlebotomist at the blood drive is the high point of your month.

6. Four hours' solid work in the mainframe database application leaves you with an unusual sense of accomplishment.

5. You no longer have the heart to put together humorous, animated PowerPoint presentations about your surroundings.

4. Of the five trial-size packets of personal lubricant you left in the basket in the ladies' room on Thursday, only one remains, which means that everyone else apparently had a much more interesting weekend than you did. You have seen these women. You are dismayed and alarmed.

3. You find yourself overwhelmed with self-righteous rage if anyone suggests you might take shorter than a 30-minute break.

2. Even the most die-hard skeptics in your office are forced to admit that Scott Adams walks secretly among you.

And the straw to snap the spine of the most stalwart dromedary:

1. It's the end of the day. You're standing at the sink in the office kitchenette, washing out your coffee cup. When you've finished, you turn around and discover someone standing barely eighteen inches behind you. You do your best to convert your involuntary yip of alarm into a "hi!"

It wakes him up.

The Office Bathroom

Leaving work to ride my bike home in the afternoons, I duck into the bathroom with my backpack for a quick change from work clothes into a T-shirt and shorts.

On the counter in the office ladies' room is a small decorative basket someone has thoughtfully provided, stocked with little bottles of perfume and lotion. "For everyone's use," reads a small sign taped to the side of the basket.

At the Gay Pride Parade several months ago, smiling parade-goers riding on floats were tossing out beads, mints, and other little favors to the crowd, including ziploc baggies containing several individual samples of personal lubricants: a few different flavors, in warming and cooling varieties. I've been carrying the baggie of lubricants in my backpack ever since, partly because I thought it was kind of funny, but mostly because I'm really bad about throwing stuff out.

Today while I was changing, the baggie fell out of my backpack onto the floor. I picked it up. I started to put it back in my backpack. My eye fell on the pretty little basket.

Well, I really didn't need them.

So Much for Being Taken Seriously

Playing with the magnetic letters on my cubicle cabinets today, I arrived at a decision.

The panicmonger is no longer to be referred to as “the panicmonger.” She is heretofore to be known as “DA OBFUSC8R.” Effective immediately.

And speaking of magnetic letters, if you have a job where you never get client visits, the last thing you need is a client stopping by to ask you a few questions.

An internal agency client of mine, who is usually safely located in Odessa, turned up in my cubicle today and introduced himself. He was just passing through.

I always think it’s great fun to meet someone I’ve only dealt with by email or over the phone, but I don’t really have the kind of workspace where people who don’t know me can safely drop in. Especially people from West Texas. “OMG!” proclaims my cabinet, “BILL GATES IS KICKING MY OS.” Below that is what really ought to be my work section’s official motto:

DATA ARE IRRELEVANT
FORMAT IS EVERYTHING

Add to this the fact that it’s Friday, which is Watering Day, and I have several incontinent plants, so the client was having a hard time finding a dry spot on my desk to spread out his papers; and that the map of Texas pinned to my wall, which he was attempting to use to point out a project location, is largely obscured by a big pop-up flower made of paper panties.

Well, I guess if he’s working from home, I don’t have to worry about him barging in unannounced anymore.

Half Crazy

If you sometimes need to take a mental health day, and I needed one today, but I only took a half-day, does that mean I'm only half-crazy? Or look on the positive side. I'm half-sane!

Robbie sent me a picture of his desk phone at his new job. It looks just like the ones we used to have at USDM! They have speakerphones, caller ID, hold buttons, call waiting, call forwarding, conference calling, all kinds of crazy shit. Can you imagine? They get to use the internet any time they want, as long as they get their work done! And, if they sometimes have to leave early, it's no big deal because they're salaried, with the understanding that every so often they'll have to work late to finish a project or attend an important meeting. As long as nobody's skipping out early on a regular basis, and everybody's job is getting done, everything's copacetic. I mean, my God. It almost sounds like - I don't want to make anybody faint here - but it sounds almost like the people in charge believe the employees are responsible adults!!!

Crazy, isn't it?

Also crazy was last night's cold front. It's been cool enough at night, the last week or so, to sleep with the windows open, which is nice except that Dave and other woodland animals are scampering, scuttling and crunching around in the leaves and grass in the backyard, which always makes me think that bad guys are lurking right outside the window. And of course, as close to South Congress as we are, it's entirely possible there are a few drunken bassists on the loose back there. But last night, around 3:30am, I woke to a deafening roar of sudden wind and rain. Do you know how they always say an approaching tornado sounds like a freight train? I assume they mean minus the horn, but it was loud enough to freak me out a little. I was glad my street is fairly low on the hill that slopes down to the creek; this morning, all my plants seemed to have survived, but every street in the neighborhood was littered with sodden leaves and branches and debris.

Ongoing rain and the sudden chill pretty much scuttled my plans of riding my new bike to work this morning. Ain't she purty?

That's a very kind early Christmas present from my dad. I haven't gotten to the store to buy a U-lock yet, which is why, you may observe, the bike is on the inside of my house.

I was at sixes and sevens without Robbie there, so for lunch I just came home, where I found all four cats blissfully cuddled up on the bed, snoozing off the cold and rainy weather, and realized it was absolutely necessary for me to brew up a fresh pot of coffee and join them.

What? I'm not crazy.

Robbie's Last Day

Here I am at Robbie's desk. You can see the deep sorrow I feel at his imminent departure.

The problem with forbidden pleasures is that you're always so scared of getting caught that you can't really enjoy them. But you have to do it anyway, just to be able to say you did.

I'll write a long post about the saga of his last day later.

A Glimpse Within

I bet I have more magnetic fridge letters in my cubicle than any other employee where I work.

Maybe more than any employee in any workplace.

Perhaps I've set a new world's record!

Perhaps you would like to see what my subconscious is thinking of at work?

Perhaps I'm going to tell you anyway.

GQ duck ROX UR bRA

UFOs R HERE
SO GNAW A BULB

BETHY IS A LOVEY GIRL

NO WHAMMYS

SLAP GODZILLA
RUN AWAY

WhEE
TRM IS FUN!

NOT

BE
NICE
OK

HELP
DO SOMEthIng
I am flowery

What?

Guarded

They're installing a new badge-reader system at work, which will, theoretically, eventually work with the new badges we were issued a few months ago. So far it doesn't, so today they just turned off the alarm and propped all the doors open.

But we're safe! Because, remember, we have that extra security guard posted at the end of our hallway.

Of course this extra guard was posted there several months ago, shortly after a somewhat deranged older employee, who had been stalking my cube neighbor A., got fired.

The guard is still there, though A. has been gone about a month now. But there were always two or three days a month when the guard's station would be empty. We never could figure out if there was a pattern to this. But this morning, Robbie and I were speculating that, long-term employees being largely creatures of habit, perhaps the former stalker is organized enough to call in and indicate whether he's planning to be a threat each day.

It's been going on for quite a while, so I imagine the conversations are professionally jovial. "Hey Rick, how's things? Thinking about coming in with an Uzi today?" "Nah, it's gorgeous out today, nice weather to enjoy a few cold ones out by the lake." "Well, have a great one, talk to you tomorrow!"

Turnover is pretty high for the extra security guard position. These people - hourly contract employees - must get incredibly bored just sitting there in one spot, day in and day out, on perpetual watch for someone who almost certainly will never come in, not that they'd have a chance in hell of recognizing him if he did. So there's a different guard about every other month. The last one was a woman, but the new one today is a guy.

He caught my eye pointedly as I walked past on the way to my desk this afternoon. "Well, hello there," he said, "how are you today?"

I smiled and nodded and looked away and mumbled something, but he kept his eyes hard on me, and I could feel them sticking to my backside all the way down the hall.

So today I got sexually harrassed by a security guard posted to protect a woman who's no longer there from a stalker who most likely was never much of a threat to begin with.

Your tax dollars at work!

Dressing the Part

Some months ago, as we were milling around aimlessly at work (as is our wont), one of my friends commented, "I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of growing old, though, because old men always wear those pants that come way up to your chest."

"You wouldn't have to do that," I said.

"Oh yes, I would."

The lady who lived in this house before us was older and quite respectable, which is a shame because it means that I don't get any good clothing catalogs in the mail. The combination marketed towards older women is a bit befuddling: the clothes are simultaneously butt-ugly and much more expensive than anything I would ever consider buying. Trousers are high-waisted and loose-fitting. Well, every item in the catalog is loose-fitting, except of course for the (ahem) foundation garments, which were still called girdles when I was a young lass. The colors are vivid and jarring, there are lots of busy fripperies like ruffles and beading and fringe and embroidery, and there's not a peep of cleavage to be seen. These clothes are not designed to draw attention to your best features - they're designed to hide and distract from as much of you as possible.

The models in the pictures are not older women, and do not seem to be particularly in need of girdles. You can see in their eyes that they're only dressing like this because they're getting paid.

At the other extreme, the previous resident in our apartment was apparently a gay man, which was great because I got International Male catalogs for a while. There's nothing else like looking at pictures of well-oiled, tightly-muscled men clad only in leopard-print spandex thongs and the occasional mesh tee - and, unless you're really good at suspending disbelief, a few pairs of rolled-up socks - to give you a fine appreciation for the nuances of fashion. But for some reason I don't think I noticed what the prices were.

My friend recently left the agency for a job in the private sector. I'm not sure if that will hasten or slow down the aging process. You'd think working for the state might preserve youth - sort of like being in suspended animation - although, looking around, I have to admit it doesn't seem to have had that effect on some of the old-timers.

I can't say much for their fashion sense, either.