Whatcha Reading?

To encourage myself (and you) to read, I am going to start posting my current book selection. Let's do a recap (no matter how embarrassing) of the last five books I have read, starting with the book I am currently reading:

1. More Die of Heartbreak by Saul Bellow
2. Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani
3. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
4. Jump the Shark by Jon Hein
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowlings

If you have any books I should be reading, let me know--post it on my blog so that other people can have an idea of what's out there as well.

Um, should I be creeped out?

Today's lesson: Don't accuse your coworkers of stalking you.

After a meeting today, this guy named Steve came up to me and said "Do you live west of the Plaza?"

Direction has no meaning to me. In my world, it translates to this:
East = Right
West = Left
North = Up
South = Down

I responded that I thought I did. He then said "I was driving by, and I saw you get out of your car."

I always feel like I should apologize for living so close to the Plaza. I think there's a pretentious stigma attached to living here since the rent is generally a little higher around the Plaza as opposed to north of the river, so I try to justify living on the Plaza with the logic that I went to school at The University of Iowa and could walk everywhere, which I missed when I moved to KC and lived with Brett and Allison in Liberty. You can't do that too many places in KC without getting run over. Which is the truth.

Anyway, I guess I should have just gone into my apologetic explanation of where I lived as opposed to saying "Um, should I be creeped out by this?"

Steve turned beet red. And, realizing that I had just said this to a guy who I don't know very well (but was fairly certain had a good sense of humor), tried to make it better. "So, did you see me in Westport later that day? At the grocery store?" By this point, both of us were flaming red, laughing nervously. Finally, Steve stopped looking horrified and said "You were going so fast, it was difficult to keep up with you." So it was all fine. But then he said "Yeah, I saw some guy get out of the car with you. Judging by the dynamics, I'm guessing he was your boyfriend...?"

At this point, it was my turn to be completely horrified. What had Tom and I done outside of the car, in front of my apartment building, that would provoke this statement? If it was Sunday, Tommy was being silly and kept pulling on me. But we aren't public gropers. Sometimes we'll hold hands or Tom will accuse me of latching on to him, but that's the extent of it. Although sometimes when Tom is acting goofy he gives me these smacky, wet-sounding kisses on the cheek that make me squirm and giggle.

To mask my moritification, I responded "Well, it could have been, but you never know how friendly I am with all my guy friends." At which point we both started laughing too loudly, looking for means of escape. Luckily, someone called Steve over, and I bolted from the room.

I later recounted the story for JS and Kerre. JS immediately screeched "Megan, you didn't! You are evil!"

Including the intern, this makes the second person at work that I have accused of stalking me. Talk about an ego problem.

Nice Nipples

If nipple talk freaks you out, skip this post.

Last night I went to work out at my gym. I seem to have misplaced all the tanktops that I used to wear to play basketball in college, so all I have is a couple of tight, ribbed, wife-beater tank tops and all my Express tank tops with the bras built in. Opting to not go the spaghetti strap route and knowing that it's easy to spot nippage in those tank tops, I wore my sports bra, black ribbed tank, lime green tank on top, and my Hawkeyes sweatshirt.

After running on the treadmill for 15 minutes, I was covered in sweat, so I took off my sweatshirt. Because my arms look nice. I might have a big butt and pastey white legs, but my arms are thin. So I felt good.

But as I was running, thinking about my nice arms, I happened to look in the mirror across from my treadmill. Major nippage. All you could see through the top of my lime green tank was nipples. I almost fell off the treadmill in horror. And there was nothing I could do: either leave the gym with my flaring nipples, or run through the nippage. I mean, most girls nip out when working out, but I'm so flat that it's really obvious. My nipples consume my entire chest.

For the next 30 minutes, my nipples waved hello to everyone at the gym. Through a sports bra and two tanktops. Since Tom is on client-site this week, there was no one with me so that I could make jokes about my nippage to feel less self-conscious about it. At first, I thought maybe it wasn't that obvious, but these two heavyset girls with big boobs came in and started walking on the treadmills across from me. They kept looking at each other, then looking at me or, rather, my chest. I could feel them itching to start talking about me as soon as I was out of ear shot.

So this is a reminder that I should never wear tight, light-colored tank tops to work out in. Or else let everyone become good friends with my nipples.

80s Flash Back

After I took a shower last night following my tortureous gym workout**, I braided my hair into maybe five braids. I went to work with crimped-looking hair. No one said anything to me about it (other than Brett, who was like "Did you crimp your hair?" I'm assuming he was having flashbacks to when I used to crimp his hair with my crimping iron), but some of my engineers did a double take. I think everyone thought I was just having an insanely bad hair day.

So I put my hair in eight braids tonight. I hope my hair is all crazy-kinky so that I will look completely wild in honor of St. Paddy's Day. Maybe I will even put my hair in a side-ponytail. And I am wearing the brightest green T-shirt I own. For all those who don't wear green or who wear orange in protest, BAH-HUMBUG to you. May leprachauns poop in your ears tomorrow night.


**Tom has forced me to go to the gym again. I am a lardass trying to run in the midst of hardbodies. But I look at it like I am in training for Dodgeball. 12 days until the season starts, baby!

Camilla the Chicken

My friend Tim is buying chickens for his farm. I am so excited! I discovered this information after sending out a What Muppet Are You? quiz. I turned out to be Gonzo. Tim was Beaker, although I still think he cheated because I promised free beer to anyone who got Beaker or Waldorf and Statler. This is how our conversation played out (in e-mail). Today I will be represented by the color purple, Tim the color green:

Who were you in the survey?

Gonzo. Which makes sense. I like rats, chickens, and paisley.

Did I tell you I’m getting a bunch of chickens?

I am so jealous! Can I name one? Oooh, we could do an Adopt-a-Chicken program! For example, for three-cents a day I could buy its cornmeal, and you could get Sally Struthers to send me pictures of it!!

That is friggin hilarious! I have an email already drafted so my friends can vote on names, but it will depend on how many I get. One is going to be named Camilla for obvious reasons.

I do like the ‘adopt a chicken’ program. I could even provide a webcam so you can check up on your chicken. Maybe even chicken helmet cams so you can see what bug your chicken is about to eat! Chicken cam is not recommended for those susceptible to motion sickness.

This is so exciting!! I am going to start saving mealworms so that when I visit my adopted chicken, I will be voted the best sponsor ever!

When are you getting the chickens? Are these going to be pet chickens or laborers? And are you raising them from chicks, or will they be full grown, bona-fide egg-bearing chickens?

I’ll order them in the next week or two. Not sure how long till I get them. I’m ordering them from a hatchery. They will be chicks so I can raise them. They are supposed to be friendlier that way. I’m getting them as pets/keep the bugs down in the yard. I’ve been online half the morning trying to find Sally Struthers’ agent. I hope I can get her cheep. Get it!? Cheep!

Tim promised me that I could come visit the chickens. After this exchange, I totally want to make out with him, but I think he's married or engaged or something. Well, he lives on a farm near the city, and that's enough of a reason not to make out with someone.

Anyway, I need to start thinking of names for my adopted chicken. Please feel free to post your suggestions. If I select your chicken name, I will buy you a beer.

Damn Goals

Judy pulled me into our Goals meeting under false pretenses. I thought we were going to be talking about my goals, but after a couple minutes of chit-chat, she said "Okay, I lied, this meeting has nothing to do about goals, but I wanted to talk to you about something and 'Goals' sounded better in case anyone looked at your calendar." (Since the company has been reprimanding associates for booking meeting rooms and marking the meetings as private.)

Turns out Judy has a particular goal for me in mind, although she didn't call it a goal. She is looking to step down as interim team lead at the first available moment. And she's been thinking about who should be her replacement. 10 points if you guessed me. Reading between the lines, I deciphered that it's a crappy management job that only a select few look to do. As an added perk, Judy said that you have to be willing to be knocked down by people since other members of management eagerly look forward to doing that to other people.

I told her I would think about it. It's not like I'm a shoo-in for the position. Other people will apply who have more experience, motivation, are older, blah blah blah. And, as Tommy put it, if I would become a team lead, it would make it that much harder to get out of C___ when the time comes for us to put our anti-C___ plan into action.

But I was flattered that she thought of me. I guess I have some people fooled.

Goalless

Judy scheduled a meeting with me tomorrow. The subject line is cryptic: Goals. Nothing in the message body, no explanation. Just that little ominous word. How do you tell someone that you have no goals at your current job, other than just to make it into work each day and not kill someone before the day is over? I think I'm all goaled out. I joined this committee of eight that determines the entire writing style for more than 5,000 people at C___. I offered to write the HTML and edit the online newsletter for our part of the company. And still do my team's work while working my 48+ hours a week. That's enough. I cannot think of any more goals. Tommy told me to make some up, not to admit that I'm goalless because that probably wouldn't go over that well, even though Judy loves me and would think that it's funny. I told her months ago, before she stepped into the interim team lead position, that I have no direction in life other than to find as much free food as possible and to avoid exercise. So I guess I have two goals. But Tom made me go to the gym tonight, so I guess one goal was crushed today. Damn it.

The Wonderful Miz E

The wonderful Miz Erin D. came to visit me this weekend. I cannot remember the last time I saw her...maybe last May, right around Dujka's birthday? She came to KC with her friends Sheena, Gina, and Maggie, the latter two having been my residents during my first year as an RA. They left Erin with me on Friday, and we met up with them again on Saturday to do some shopping on the plaza.

The highlight of Erin's visit came Friday night when I tried to take her to McCoy's in Westport. It had completely slipped my mind that this past week has been the Big 12 tournament, which is hosted at Kemper Arena here in KC. We walked to Westport, only to find it crawling with drunk Iowa State fans. Erin and I realized that there was some irony that she would travel five hours from Iowa City only to find drunk Iowa State fans preventing us from doing what we wanted. Damn Cyclones fans. Bring on the Hawkeyes!!

We decided to take a cab back to my apartment. This little old man who was maybe in his early 60s was our driver. When we got into the car, he asked us if we were in town for the tournament. I said "Nope, we're Big 10 girls."

The driver obviously misheard me and became very excited. "Oh, Big Time girls. That's what I like to hear. I got me a couple of Big Time Girls with me. Well, my pretty Big Time Girls, I'm going to play a song just for you."

He turned his CD player on and cranked up the radio. I caught Erin's eyes, which were wide in disbelief.

"Do you recognize that song?" the cabbie yelled. We both shooke our heads, and he yelled back at us, "It's Another One Bites the Dust." We both let out ahhhs, but after a couple minutes, it was clearly not Another One Bites the Dust. It was Rappers Delight; you know, the song by The Sugarhill Gang that the little old lady sings at the end of The Wedding Singer. Pretty soon, our cabbie started rapping along to it. And he was jivin', dipping his body, arms, and shoulders back and forth. I started giggling, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see Erin biting her lip, trying not to giggle. She refused to look at me. I made the cabbie let us out two blocks before my apartment because I was afraid we were going to start laughing hysterically in the cab. He drove off with the last few strains of Rappers Delight seeping out through the windows.

Green Green Green

Diane was Dylan Kussman's makeup artist for Ten 'Til Noon. He hugged her. Repeatedly. Completely not fair. She said that he got married recently. I don't understand why that should be a problem with him and me making out.

Hole 1

Sunday was perfect: 74 degrees, sun shining, wind blowing. Too beautiful to spend it inside. Tommy wanted to go frisbee golfing and, after holding out for almost two years, I gave in. I can only be a tease for so long.

We went to Water Works Park where there is an 18-hole frisbee golf course. It was almost too windy to play, but we battled through it. Tommy showed me the two most common throws: the backhand and the forearm. I'm most comfortable with the backhand; I'm too uncoordinated to figure out how to throw using the forearm. And I was finally able to bust out the disc that Aaron Bock had given me like three years ago with the unfulfilled promise of us playing together sometime. Commie.

As we were getting ready to leave, we noticed this family who had been having a picnic start to play the course. There were maybe five or six adults and twice as many kids. And there was a toddler in a stroller. As we watched, one of the women decided to walk the stroller along Hole 1 as everyone else played, stroller bar in one hand, Diet Coke in the other. This might have been okay if there weren't a combination of circumstances: 1) it was windy; 2) she was pushing the stroller on dry dirt, grass, and bumps; 3) the course is pretty much straight down. All hills. I had problems walking the course it was so hilly. And here was this woman, pushing a stroller with one hand, down a bumpy hill that could give the straightdown drop of Belleview in KC or any road in Iowa City a run for it's money. Tom and I watched for a while, ready to call 911 when the lady killed her kid, but after a while my nerves got to me and we left. Some people should not be allowed to have kids.

Despite the trauma of watching a child almost die, I had fun. So, Twait, when are we going frisbee golfing again?

I thought I had a new freckle on the middle finger on my left hand, but I realized it was just a spot of chocolate from the mini-Twix bar I ate 15 minutes ago. I licked it off. No new freckle.

Naked Images at Work

This morning, when I went to take my shower, I took a noise dive into the tub. As I was stepping into the shower, my foot slipped, and I flew through the air screaming. Luckily, my forehead broke my fall as it rammed into the tile wall and my left knee slammed into the bathtub. In that moment of freefall, I thought "If I break my neck, it's going to be months before they find my naked, bloated body."

Obviously, I didn't break my neck. But I did bruise my forehead and both knees, screw up my neck, and scratch the hell out of my knee. (Which made me realize that my bathtub is not going to be a pleasant one for taking baths.)

As a hypochondriac, I am convinced I have a concussion and had to tell the story to everyone who would listen. It wasn't until my friend Niall said (in his awesome Irish accent) "Mmm, that story would have been hot had you not mentioned the dead-bloated-body part." I then realized that, as I was telling this story, people were probably picturing me flying through the air -- wet and naked. I stopped telling the story.

A*Key

The A key on my work laptop is threatening to go on strike. Today I used her very gingerly, afraid that if I pushed her too hard she would get completely pissed and refuse to work. As a writer, my A*key is, well, key. You don't realize how many words involve the letter A until you don't have the ability to insert it into a sentence. I'm not sure what I will do if she strikes...I'm not scheduled to get a new laptop for another two months. I'm afraid that if I push the computer-people at work to give me a new one, I will get a dumpy old one instead of a nice, shiny, aerodynamic Dell. That would be sad.

In the midst of my A*key drama, Dujka called me after we had resorted to text messaging each other things like "Penis!" and "My nipples are hard thinking of you." She was absolutely giddy (can't say why without disclosing info I'm not sure she wants out yet). I couldn't stop giggling. This lasted for about 20 minutes. When I hung up, Diane (the woman who shares the cube adjacent to mine) said "You're way too serious over there. Why don't you laugh a little?" Which made me laugh harder and miss Dujka profusely.

I love Diane. Diane graduated from college in 1967; has a gray pageboy she cuts herself with a tiny pair of scissors; loathes and protests all social events (although I singlehandedly convinced her to have a barbeque at her house on Royal's Opening Day last year much to the shock of our friend Chris, who has known Diane since 1991 and has never heard her willingly invite people over); is a chainsmoker who has a stereotypical smoker's voice; doesn't know how to whisper; gets lost if you take her to the other side of our floor and tell her to go back to her cube; sleeps on a hide-a-bed that has holes in the mattress that she covers with a rug so that she doesn't get poked by the springs; was an English teacher for nearly 30 years before quitting; goes to bed at 9pm except on Tuesdays when she stays up to watch "Judging Amy" so that she and I can talk about it on Wednesday; voted for Kerry but was pissed about how he ran his campaign; has not been more than 30 miles away from Raytown in like 15 years but will be driving to a beach with her 72-year-old roommate Marilyn in a few short weeks; just traded in her 1989 Volvo for a 2005 Mazda but hasn't adjusted the seat or steering wheel yet because she says that's a weekend task (even though she takes about six 15-minute smoke breaks in her car during a work day), and jumps very easily. My favorite part of the work day is making her laugh. And she sympathized with my A*key problem because she has a tempremental Z key.

Jack Sprat Could Eat No Fat...

...and Megan could eat no lean.

As I was getting dressed this morning, I sat down on the futon to zip up my boots. The futon arm snapped, dumping me on to my cushy behind. I know I screamed, and immediately felt ashamed for being such a girl. But as I sat stunned, it dawned on me that I had just broke Tom's futon meaning:

Not only am I old and out-of-shape, now I am offically FAT and old and out-of-shape.

I am single-handedly crushing large wooden pieces of furniture with my ass. Watch out, or I'll sit on you too.

I Caught You a Delicious Bass...

Tom, Baikie, and I went for Mexican food at Tequira Mexico #1, which has some of the best Mexican food in KC. The restaurant has the lingering smell of cleaning antispetic, but the chicken enchiladas and frozen peach margaritas are orgasmic. Our friend Niall (our very own Irishman), discovered the place. It has what appears to be a giant Gumby wearing a sombrero on the front of the restaurant, although Niall pointed out to me that it is probably a jalopeno wearing a sombrero. I was slightly disappointed, but it makes sense since Pokey was nowhere in sight.

We rented Napoleon Dynomite after that, since we were all trying to recover from our drinking binge on Friday night--a crazy night full of bar hopping, sake, birthday cake shots, and dancing to techno music. I'm not sure what was the best part of Friday night: Baikie's drunken dancing or talking to his friend, Laura. I have never talked to a sober Laure. She's always drunk, but incredibly funny and has an awesome voice, a raspy Demi Moore-like voice. I could listen to her talk forever. Anyway, Napoleon Dynomite rocked. Gosh. It made me think of Dujka, since she's been talking about that movie for a while now. It made me miss her. I've been trying to get a hold of her forever, but that four-hour time difference is a killer. Come to think of it, I've just been really crappy about getting in touch with people. I have a couple dozen phone calls and e-mails that I owe people. So, if I owe you one, sorry. I'm trying to wait until I'm in a good mood, and there's only a small window of opportunity for me on that. :-)

Oh, I guess one exciting thing about turning 25 is that I can finally rent a car without having to spend a stupid fee. You know, since I rent so many cars. And supposedly my car insurance will go down. Just one of the perks to saying good-bye to your youth.

In lieu of turning 25, I'm going to get shit-faced tonight (Hi, Mom!). And how much fun will it be to celebrate 25 on February 25, 2005? Celebrating 25 on 2-25-2005!! Yippee!

So go do a shot of something in honor of me.

Hello Mid-20s

I have been 25 for over 24 hours now, and I don't feel any different. I feel kind of like Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles when she's on the phone with her best friend, Randy, at the beginning of the movie and right before she realizes that everyone forgot her birthday:

"Nope, I look exactly the same as I have since summer, utterly forgettable. No, I didn't expect to wake up transformed. I just thought that turning sixteen would be so major that I would wake up with an improved mental state that would show on my face. All it shows is that I don't have any sort of a tan left."

Is it pathetic that I can still relate to Molly Ringwald movies?

Good-Bye Early 20s

Hello, mid-20s. Sadly enough, I no longer have a shot at being a teenage mother; a young tart; referred to as being in my early-twenties; or a gymnast.

Here's how I spent my last day being 24:

• Overslept. Instead of getting up at 5:45 a.m., I rolled out of bed at 6:15, yet still managed to make it to work by 7:30. Some dumbass decided to schedule an 8 a.m. meeting, Monday through Friday, indefinitely. Bastard.
• Spent all day editing text, trying not to fall asleep at my desk.
• Looked at an engineer's vacation pictures from his trip to the Caribbean last week. I saw a picture of him half-naked. Not really a good look for him.
• Intended to leave work by 5:30 pm, but left over an hour later. Drove home singing to "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell and "Faith" by George Michael.
• Stopped at SunFresh and picked up three red potatoes, five slightly green bananas, a gallon of skim milk, and a pint of Eddy's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream.
• Made an omelette out of eggs, little sausages, and moldy cheese I bought three days ago at Target.
• Watched Lost wearing nothing but my underwear and an Express tank top.
• Ate the entire pint of ice cream.
• Realized I looked like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance, except dressed in all white sans leg warmers. Did the crazy running in place dance where the "Maniac" song plays until I got a cramp in my leg and became lightheaded. I need to save my energy for basketball tomorrow. (Damn it, I have to play basketball on my birthday.)
• Washed all 1200 dishes that had piled up in my sink.
• Said "Yay, Sark!" when Sark appeared on Alias. (Colleen, I was thinking of you!)
• Decided to straighten my hair so that I can be straight-haired Megan tomorrow. Maybe I'll wear a low-cut shirt and a super-tight, super-lowcut shirt tomorrow. Start 25 looking like the hussy that I am.

So...only a few hours of being 24 left. I hate uneven year ages. But I'm thinking I'll go out, get smashed on Friday. What better way to celebrate 25 then celebrating on February 25, 2005? Celebrating 25 on 2-25-2005!! Almost as good as turning 24 on 2-24-2004 last year. Tom, Brett...get your Designated Driver gloves on!

Insomniac

My insomnia runs in cycles. No matter how hard I try, I can't control it. And I find myself doing weird things. One night, I spent an hour reorganizing my pencil holder. An entire hour.

I'm in a cycle right now. Last night, I finally went to bed at 1 a.m. (late for a working girl), and woke up at 5:30 a.m. It was difficult being at work, having to focus on boooorrring text. I kept dozing off at my desk. But things hit an all-time low last Friday when I locked myself in my favorite stall at work, laid down the little sanitizer-wrapper on the toilet, sat down, put my head on my knees, and took a 10-minute nap. I woke up to the sound of someone taking a dump. I hope this cycle ends soon. But I'm a little nervous -- usually, when I get into a bad sleeping pattern like this, it means that someone I love is going to die. I just hope it's stress.

Mail Call

Intern-Boy sent me a Valentine's Day/early birthday card. He sent it to my old address, so it arrived yesterday. It has an ominous "Hope to see you soon" written in it. He's been IMing me pretty much every day, but I've stopped responding. Brett is threatening to send him my blog site.