Enjablog

So, a few weeks ago when I was in Wisconsin, some dude at the company partnered with us decided to file a complaint about my “attitude problem.” This was interesting because I didn’t particularly know who he was. But I guess that doesn’t negate the possibility that I was assertive while dealing with people who wouldn’t listen to me.

In any case, their company’s program manager asked him if I was getting my job done. He said yes, so that was the end of the matter.

Until the results of our weight survey came in… and I noticed that there was something strange going on. It looked like there was a module hidden on board that was the culprit for some added weight.

That evening, I received a visit from the program manager and his thugs. (What is this, some kind of HBO show?) Suspecting that the discrepancy would be discovered, (how could it not..?) he thought it would be easier to bully me into keeping quiet than anyone else who would’ve been my replacement.

Um, dude… That guy told you I have an attitude problem. What makes you think I’ll be a pushover?

Apparently, he wasn’t very smart.

In any case, he left me with his thugs to “teach me a lesson.” Fortunately for me, they had a problem hitting a girl. Unfortunately for me, they didn’t have a problem harassing me. They were unprepared for me to not care about their advances though. While they were confused about what to do next, I walked out the door. Conveniently, there was a bike right outside, so I hopped on that and started heading for the airport. That was obviously the logical thing to do… what with it being 50 miles away. Sigh.

Soon enough, a van caught up to me with an angry program manager and some thugs inside. They were trying to run me off an on-ramp when it started raining. Somehow, they got confused by the rain and I was able to get away… and wake up from my nap in time to get to my Sunday afternoon meeting.

Last night I dreamt about mung beans and hybrid vegetables. What’s wrong with me?

I had a mondo bizzaro dream last night. I woke up from it gradually and then just realized that I was lying in bed and not actually doing anything. So, I lay there for a few minutes trying to decide if I should get up or wait for my alarm to go off. After I had waited what I thought was an appropriate amount of time replaying the dream in my head to figure out where I could have done things better and complimenting myself on being awesome, I decided it was imperative that I write this dream down.

I rolled over to grab my journal and felt around for the pen that I knew was there. Finally, I peeked one eye open before turning on the light. It was in that instant that I looked at my clock. Which said 2:35. Which is to say, it was 2:15 AM. That’s not morning. That’s not time to get up. I’m not waiting for my alarm to go off!

But I was past the point of no return. I had to write this dream down.

Five pages and an hour later, I had detailed out enough to satisfactorily go back to sleep.

To summarize: I was a little boy sharing cake with a homeless man until I turned into regular me. I was later tasered, abducted, and assaulted. My friends were replaced with impostors. My attacker’s friend attempted to “save” me by slipping me a roofie. The would-be rapist finally gave up when he realized that he couldn’t take his pants off without putting the taser gun down and he couldn’t trust me not to beat him senseless once he did. (My subconscious truly believes that I am a badass.) Special appearances by Stella (TLD’s car), House’s Corvette from the mobster, and the El Camino from My Name is Earl. It all made sense at the time…

Then, this morning on the bus… Remember how I don’t like kids? 7AM and this 4-year-old is sitting behind me testing out his vocal chords and impressing himself with all the new noises he’s making. Not just cool, weird sounds, but also trying out different volumes. Yes, so fun. Oh! And then legs! They’re so cool. You can kick things with them. Like my seat. I was so close to asking the mother if she wanted help disciplining her child. Because it was clear to me that she needed help. The little girl in front of me had no problems keeping quiet. She was sitting there playing and talking to her mother, but not being obnoxious about it. She was being a normal human being, just smaller.

Ian and I went to this swanky Washington Post gala last night. It was in this big mansion and while we were standing at the top of the spiral staircase, I happened to look out the French doors and saw Miss Manners standing outside on the patio.

Now, I read her column every week and think she’s fantastic, but I didn’t want to bother her. So the two of us stood there for like 15 minutes staring and pointing, trying to decide if that was really her and whether it would be rude to go over and say hello. Or gush, as I would have done.

The strange part was that my hair was all done up and fancy, which is very unusual in the first place, but it was much longer than my hair is now. And I was wearing a dress I didn’t remember buying. But that’s bound to happen every once in a while, right? Through all this, I also never figured out that I don’t have a clue as to what Miss Manners actually looks like.

My dream last night/this morning sucked. It was Friendmas, but the usual crew didn’t make it and Molegirl was hosting. I don’t even know why she was in my dream. I haven’t thought of her in ages. In any case, it ended up being more of a high school reunion type crowd than HOY and definitely not the reunion group that I would choose to hang out with were I awake. I stuck it out though. I should’ve had more to drink. Probably would have if I had known it was a dream…

Then, I fell asleep at my desk this afternoon. I’m not sure how long I was out, but no longer than 10 minutes between the last time I remember looking at the clock and when I woke up. Had another dream, but the details slipped away from me when I woke up because I was freaking out about falling asleep at work. I hate it when that happens. There are times when I wake up from a disturbing dream and I make a concerted effort not to think about it so I won’t fill in the details in my conscious memory. But other times, I wish I could just remember so I can move on and think about other things.

So, you know how I have really vivid dreams sometimes?

NewGirl and I were trying to explain to TLD a few weeks ago how most people don’t know while dreaming that they’re actually dreaming. He didn’t understand. “Things in dreams don’t make sense. How could they possibly be real?” he asks, while conscious.

After last night, it’s clear that my subconscious is on crack. And my conscious is just on vacation for not figuring out I was dreaming.

One of the VPs at work was Willy Wonka. NewGirl, SkunkNut, and I were Charlie. Not like, each of us were Charlie. Three individual human beings were one character. And yes, I recognize (now that I’m awake) that in real life, they’re not called characters, they’re just people. And as a person, only one person gets to be one, not three.

The chocolate factory was a cover for a sweat shop for naval architects. We (Charlie) were chased around the fake store by Willy Wonka and kept getting blocked by homeless people with shopping carts.

And, um, yeah, I just woke up confused. Not thinking, “That clearly was a dream.” The sad part? I couldn’t even figure out a way to write about this pretending like it actually happened. Right, sad. That’s the word.

I took this cooking class once. It was one part Iron Chef, two parts regular cooking class. Basically, they give you a menu, teach you how to cook it, and then as the final, you can prepare that dish however you want. Somehow, partway through the semester I lost interest in the class. The final snuck up on me before I knew it and I had no clue how to prepare these dishes. I headed over to this Wegman’s-like mecca, that was a cross between Borders and a grocery store. I found the recipes that I needed, including instructions on where to find these ingredients, but I had never heard of half these things. Anyway, the timers during the final cook-off went off and the entire hour had elapsed before I figured out that it was my alarm clock that was beeping and not an oven timer.

My alarm clock continues to mess with my head. Wake up to the sound of my alarm clock. I roll over to look at it. There are little mushrooms on this level. How do I beat them? Well, you have to wait until Ian learns German. I don’t think he knows German. I better take a nap while I wait. After all, it takes a while to learn a language. Zzzz…

Just woke up to that recurring nightmare where I’m panicking finals week because I forgot about a class I was enrolled in. It’s always a class that I didn’t particularly care for, so I start skipping it and then completely forget about it by the end of the semester. Now, in real life, I would never do that. Skip a class? Me? heh… Spent most of this dream wandering McBryde. For some reason, the elevators only went up 3 floors. So, every 3 floors or so, I would get out, look for a stairwell or another elevator and try to make it up a few more floors. I’m not quite sure why I kept going up though. I was trying to leave, so it seems like I should have been trying to get to the bottom floor. Also seems odd to me that I would have skipped out on a math class.

Anyway, finals = Christmas; Classes = people. Pretty simple. Now I just need to figure out who math is. -j.

There was this one time in middle school, I don’t remember exactly when, but I got off the bus at the elementary school in my parents’ neighborhood and there was something moving around in the lawn out front. I ventured a bit closer to investigate and there was this alligator with a snake wrapped around it. I couldn’t tell which was attacking which. It was an odd sight. I figured I shouldn’t get too close because I didn’t want to get in the middle of things, but it was one of those amazing times when I thought to myself, “I should take a picture of that,” and I actually had a camera on me. I go to get my camera out of my bag, but when I’m not looking, the alligator charges at me and clamps down on my thigh. I must have had some really thick jeans on because its teeth didn’t actually pierce my skin. I finally pried the alligator off my leg and ran, what I thought to be, a safe distance away. At this point, I figure it’s a good time to try the picture thing again. Get my camera out and look around while it’s turning on. The alligator and snake are both gone. I can’t see them anywhere. Maybe they’re hiding in the grass or something. Or maybe they weren’t there in the first place. Because it was all a dream. And there are no free-roaming alligators in the DC-metro area.

I got nothing. Was going to update with something, but I’m drawing a blank on stories. I woke up this morning to the sound of my alarm clock buzzing… And when I looked over, I distinctly remember thinking to myself, “My alarm clock isn’t working; it’s not waking me up.”

‘nite all. :) -j.

QOTD: “Would it be ironic if, while waiting in line to get a flu vaccine shot, you caught the flu?”

I was at work when I heard that there were cookies in the galleys. So, of course I went around my floor going from kitchen to kitchen in search of cookies. While I was passing through one of the galleys, I recognized a guy as someone I went to high school with. I decided to take a break in my foraging to make some smalltalk with him. Turns out he’s been working there a few months. As we’re chatting, a few other people start gathering in the galley too. Then there’s whispering… Somewhere in there, I remember I need to get a ride to my car. Everybody in my group is either on vacation, or they had already left for the day, so I needed to either find a ride or walk there in the rain. I’m not sure why, but I had parked at PetCo. I ran some errands and walked toward my office building as I went through the stores and it ended up being faster to walk to work than going back to my car. Not such a good idea after it gets dark and rainy though. In any case, he was going on a camping trip, so had no time nor space to put me in his car. Anyway, off to gather more cookies, right? No… the whispering follows me. What are they talking about? What do they want? I’m not just being paranoid. After all, just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me. Anyway, some guy comes up to me and starts making conversation. Then he asks me if I’m a prostitute! No. Go away. You’re blocking the cookies. Sheesh. You’d think it’d be safe to take a nap after work. Oops. :) -J.