New Year's Eve and it's hard to believe
another zodiac has gone around.

While you drank yourself high on hoping
and watched the ceiling spin from the ground.

Counting down from ten it's time
to make your annual prayer.

Secret santa in the sky
when will I get my share?

Then you tell yourself
what you want to hear.

Cause you have to believe.

This will be my year.

This will be my year...Semisonic


Go Ahead Punk: E-Mail Little Squaw @ squawpunch@hotmail.com

AIM: gimletgurl7 (Remember when she used to be here?)

Thursday, January 08, 2004

I didn't write this at work!!! I just made it post when I was at work so Gil would have new content when he got to work. That's love now isn't it?

Okay, here's the situation...one week into the new year work wise and I am already wishing away at least three months. It could make me into a very boring girl. Very very very boring.

But since I am on the topic here's what my average day looks like:

Try to go to bed by 10PM end up in bed by 11PM fall asleep by 11:45PM

Get up at 6AM

Pick up Edgar and give him hugs

Talk to Freddie as he scowls

Shower, etc...

Feed the monkeys

Leave the house at 6:45AM

Get on the bus at 7AM

Get off the bus between 8:15AM and 8:30AM

Get to my desk on average the walk takes about ten minutes depending on what slow people I get stuck behind.


***NOTE***We were listening to 60 Minutes on CBS radio on the way home from Maine which is one of the few pleasures of driving on a Sunday night. I love listening to 60 Minutes. Random 60 Minutes moment...in 2000 after the corporation I work for had aquired CBS I am standing in the CBS compound at the Republican Convention. First of all the FBI men who work the security at the conventions are HOT. HOT HOT HOT Hot in a tall, quiet, mysterious, suit wearing, sporting an ear piece, pistol packing kind of way. Though they are great at their job because when you tell them they are handsome they don't even blink. I know. I tried. So I am standing there in about 100% humidity with about 10 or so winners (the prize was to go to a convention) and it's hotter than hell. And one of my favorite winners (which are few and far between)...I think his name was Dan...he runs up to me and says, "I just had the weirdest experience. I was standing at the urinal next to Andy Rooney. Boy is he old!" Priceless. *** meets 60 Minutes. Talk about a clash of generations.

So anyway we're listening to 60 Minutes and one segment is about this professor at Harvard who teaches a class which is basically about observing your environment. His whole theory was that most people just don't look around and looking around helps you understand how things work in relation to each other. So I walk very quicking to work but I can tell you one thing, I certainly look around. I look around a lot. I particularly pay attention to the changing landscape as illustrated by advertising and construction. Do you want to know something that breaks my heart? Right across from Port Authority on 42nd there used to be a store called Knox Hats. Which was very old school. It was the biggest hat store I had ever seen. My dad was looking for a hat which he had worn in the 70's. Kind of like that Gallagher hat and I knew just where to go, Knox Hats. Knox Hats was apparently a very old establishment. It was just recently shut down. The sign is still there but I think that the building was purchased and their lease probably ran out. That made me sad.

Funniest most controversial advertising I saw was the Linux Penguin sidewalk graffiti. Funniest because who doesn't like Penguins? Controversial because they got in trouble for their sniping tactics because the artwork would not come off the sidewalks and was almost permanent.

Most expensive advertising I have to guess? The airline billboard which featured live people sitting in a plane. It was up the summer I worked at Island. There were people sitting in that airplane all day. Pretending to read, eating snacks, waiting for their moist lemon towelettes...it probably ranks right up there with the "apartment" which was on the W Times Square during it's construction. An apartment full of furniture attached vertically to the wall. I couldn't tell you what it was for. Ikea? Absolute? Not a clue.

My favorite thing to notice is that the sidewalks in NYC sparkle like diamonds in the light (even at night) and it always makes me think of the Paul Simon song "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes". I always wonder if the tourists notice that?

I think that all the things to notice in NYC (including all the people) are just about the best thing about working there.

So back to my day.

Get to my desk by 8:30AM

Disinfect my hands

Check my voicemail (almost always at least three messages or more)

Log on (a lot of the time I don't even log off the night before)

Go to the restroom

Put on mascara and brush hair

Start going through emails

Respond to as many as possible

Eat my breakfast. And this is where it gets embarassing. For the past four months (at least) I have eaten the following thing for breakfast...a peanut butter (Jiff) and strawberry jam (not preserves, not jelly...jam) sandwich on 12 grain bread with a very large glass of seltzer. On an off day I will eat a sesame bagel with butter AND chive or vegetable cream cheese and a Quik chocolate milk. How old am I? The chocolate milk is always a definate if I am dehydrated.
By the time I am all up to date on any new emails it's about 9:30AM which is when other people start rolling in.

First meeting @ 10AM

Second meeting @ 11AM

Hopefully lunch at 12PM which means eating at my desk and catching up on personal email and/or reading my news...

12:30PM back on the email and phone

2PM Meeting or working on the particular project that's hottest

Fielding calls

3PM Meeting or more fielding

4PM Meeting or more hustling

5:30PM I dash out of the building

6:00PM get on the bus

7:30PM get home...dinner, blog, get ready for the next morning and bed...the best time of the day? When I get unexpected visitors and or calls from people I like and of course sitting at the dining room table with my husband.

Rewind and start again.

UGH.

So very very very boring and tired.

Minor comment...Gil just got off the phone with a co-worker/friend who told him that another co-worker showed him the house the he bought on the internet. It's less than 10 miles from our house and it cost $550,000!!! That's not including taxes. It's $12,000 in taxes a year. They pay $1,000 in taxes a month. Just taxes. His wife doesn't work. How the heck does that happen? What if he loses his job? Scary.
posted by JustKeepMum on 10:33 AM