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not among my talents 2003-09-11 Like everyone else in the world, there are things I'm good at and things I suck at. I'm good at spelling and I can always tell what container the leftovers will fit into with the least waste of space. Also, if you need someone to defuse a tense situation with humor, I'm your gal. Things I am horrible at are faking a laugh and parallel parking. Something I totally suck at is keeping a conversation going when I'm bored with it, which I had the opportunity to realize all over again today at lunch. My second in command boss, who I love, had invited me to her new house for lunch yesterday, to see her new place, but I had a migraine yesterday morning so I had to cancel, as I called in sick to work. [It wasn't a bad migraine and I know I could've made it to work, but I didn't want to go, preferring instead to flip through old magazines and daydream about Christmas. Plus I made a large origami dandelion and did some knitting, which was relaxing and nice.] We rescheduled the lunch for today and when it was about time to leave for her house I found out she'd also invited this woman we work with who bores the living shit out of me. Sorry Mom and Dad, but I mean it. This woman may well be the most uninteresting person on the planet, and she was in top form today. Any subject raised by second boss or me was instantly seized on by this woman as an opportunity to tell a story about her husband and/or children, and the stories were horrible! First of all, she goes into Way too much detail. When she talks my inner editor is hard at work, slashing out the unnecessary bits, which is at least 50% of any given story. Second of all, she pauses too frequently, and quite unnaturally. Finally, she uses "I says", "he says", "she says", "we says", and while I am guilty of doing this for comic effect on occasion, she does it All The Time. Also? I realize it's hardly a criminal offense, but she's a breath-intake laugher, meaning that when she laughs, she's sucking in breath rather than pushing it out. Like Horshack, though I hardly like to draw the comparison, because Horshack is much less irritating than this woman. The upshot is that now I feel a little guilty for paying so much attention to second boss's cat, because though I was genuinely enjoying petting the cat (he is very sweet and loving) I was partly doing it as a strategy to ignore the conversation, since I could not Bear to ask follow-up questions about things I already had zero interest in. Second in command boss is a saint for putting up with the woman and I think I owe her a big housewarming gift for putting the conversational burden solely on her. My head doesn't hurt at all today, but my stomach seems to be digesting itself, judging by the constant burning sensation. I've been drinking a lot of water today, because when the cold water hits my stomach it feels so good. Not sure what's going on in there, but I'm laying off all carbonated beverages and alcohol until things are back to normal (stomach was fine yesterday until I had a beer with dinner, and that's when the trouble started). Stupid stomach. In other news, Francisco and I went to the library yesterday in the late afternoon and I turned in a Great book called "Stiff; The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers", by Mary Roach. I recommend it very highly, though if you're easily grossed out you might want to give it a miss. But I'm telling you, it is very very good. I took a break from reading a book my friend Diana gave me to read Stiff, since Stiff had a time limit, but I'm going back to the Diana book now because it is also good. It's called "Parasite Rex", and it's about parasites (duh). I'm really enjoying it and would recommend it also, but the same "easily grossed out" disclaimer applies. Did you know there's a parasite that infects the tongues of fish? What it does is devours the fish tongue and then it remains in the fish's mouth, performing the functions of the tongue. I think that's creepy and fascinating. Also from the parasite book, I found out what the spleen does--it kills old red blood cells so the body will make more. I know people can survive without their spleens, but how do they get new red blood cells? Is there a doctor in the house? My boss has been working on a big project for a few weeks, with his door closed, and I didn't know what he was doing until recently. Lo and behold, he's writing a book. I think he's coauthoring it with someone else in the finaid field, but what I'm wondering is, who will get the proceeds from this book? He's been working on it during company time, which should mean that the Employer gets the proceeds, but I bet you that's not the way it'll work. I also bet it'll be an extremely dull book that will sell like dog turds at a church picnic, so Employer isn't getting gypped out of much money, but it's the principle of the thing. That's all I can conjure up today, kittens. Love,
come over some time & see me - 2011-02-25 |
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