The Turner-Neal Awkwardness Index

In all the talk about Wikipedia’s effects on academia, how people consume information, and the internet at large, I feel like one point gets consistently left out: it makes weird people weirder. I have obsessions I could never have imagined without Wikipedia. I wouldn’t have read a book about the Burgess Shale, and if you asked me what it was I would have said, “oh, wasn’t Burgess Shale a fixture on the Borscht Belt? Why, did he just die?” Actually, it’s a Canadian fossil bed that preserved what are politely referred to as “the weirdest fossils hell-damn-ass ever.” I could talk about how fascinating I find this for hours – which would be a mistake, since no one would be listening, largely because they’d want to tell me about the Nestorian Schism or myxomatosis, which they had just learned about on Wikipedia.

One of my favorite obsessions – and what previous generation even had the capacity to have enough obsessions to pick favorites? – is the Schmitt Sting Pain Index. An entomologist named Justin Schmidt had dozens of venomous insects sting him, ranked and ordered the level of pain on a scale, and added zesty descriptions. The sweat bee, at 1.0, has a sting that is “light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.” The yellowjacket, doubling down at 2.0, is described as “hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.” The tarantula hawk is doubly disturbing, since not only does it eat tarantulas but has a sting that is “blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.” I can’t find the full index online, sadly. I don’t have the words for why I think it’s wonderful. It just is. It’s so aggressively weird and one of the most genuinely creative things I’ve ever seen.

So, of course, I decided to ape it, tailored for my area of expertise.

The Turner-Neal Awkwardness Index

0.0 – You are alone at home, with the door locked, asleep, fully clothed, in a dignified position on the bed.

0.5 – You can’t open a jar of pickles manually and have to pry open the edge with a butter knife that’s already bent from doing this yesterday on the jam. The cat sees everything.

1.0 – During a visit home, you’re watching a Very Special Episode of Roseanne and start to cry. Your father makes an excuse to leave the room, and your mother leans over to you and stage-whispers, “Are you still sad about Todd? You’ll find someone!”

1.5 – You trip and fall in front of several strangers who do nothing to help.

2.0 – You trip and fall in front of several strangers, all of whom rush over to help pick you up and dust you off, and one of whom insists that you take some ointment and a Life Saver from her purse.

2.5 – You forget to wear deodorant to a job interview and spend the whole time with your upper arms rigidly locked to your sides. The heat and pressure exacerbate the problem, so at the end, instead of shaking the interviewer’s hand, you wink.

3.0 – The same wave that tore off the ironic loose neon Jams you wore to the beach flings you several feet ashore. The next wave delivers a dead gull onto your head. As you hop about trying to get all the dead bird parts off, you overhear a discussion of why your pubic hair distribution is so markedly asymmetrical.

3.5 – Midway down the aisle, your body gives the signal, and you have to about-face and RUN to the ladies’ room. A bridesmaid and a washroom attendant have to hold your dress up as your wedding-jitters Taco Bell binge exits gracelessly. Since your dress has no pockets, you cannot tip the attendant. As you reenter the sanctuary, you realize that the odd marriage between the Lutheran Synod and particle-board construction means that everyone heard.

4.0 – Having mistimed the contractions, you give birth in a subway. Fortunately, your husband is by your side; unfortunately, the child is very apparently not his. Everyone on the subway feels free to comment on this, and two debating sides emerge as you try to rescue the situation by delivering the placenta into your purse. Too late, you remember your passport and keys are in there.

I thought of writing a 4+ to match the bullet and (“Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail grinding into your heel”), but awkwardness is finite. Eventually it either develops into a genuine crisis or you die, although at that point you may not care which.

7 Things You Didn't Know About Me: #5

5.) I only became friends with my sister a few years ago. Which sounds weird because now she’s one of my best friends and I was just her maid of honor, but it’s true. I think five years is a hard age gap between siblings. You get stuck in these roles where one of you is the obnoxious little sister who desperately wants to hang all the time, and the other is the bitchy older sister who doesn’t want to hang because you’re nine and hi, I’m in high school. It’s hard to shake that mindset.

This is going to make both of us sound like raging alcoholics, but I think the catalyst for us becoming friends was my turning 21. Being able to go out to bars and drink together changed things because suddenly we weren’t being forced to interact with each other in a family setting anymore—we were electing to hang out in a bar. With our friends. Like normal people. It was kind of the push we needed to realize that “HEY, IDIOTS—you guys aren’t five and 10 anymore. You’re grown-ass adults. Get to know each other.” And we did. Specifically on our family vacation to Napa Valley the summer after my Junior year. There was this extremely important moment between us in a hot tub (emotions were involved—where else?) one night when I was like, “You know what, guy? I like you,” and she was like, “Shit—I like you right back!” and we’ve been friends ever since. Mind you this was also the vacation when we shared “The Most Naked Experience of Our Lives.” That may have had something to do with our bonding. Allow me to explain…

So, a few days into our vacation in Napa, my sister found a write-up for the Calistoga Day Spa in my dad’s travel book. Intrigued by the spa’s hot springs and mud bath treatment, she suggested we take a drive up and treat ourselves to a little spa day. Considering the last time we had a spa day together it ended up being the Gift of the Magi explosive diarrhea/sun poisoning spa treatment swap debacle that was Scottsdale, Arizona, I was in. This spa had large, farcical shoes to fill…and fill them they did.

Now, I don’t think of either Becca or myself as prudes. Because nudity? Fine by me. I, personally, hate to wear clothes. Pants and I specifically have had a long, tumultuous history together. As I’ve mentioned, at any given moment I’m typically wearing a white wife beater with no bra and booty shorts and accidentally flashing my bits to whoever happens to be in the room. And am I embarrassed? No. It’s your fault for being in the room. But as we drove up to Calistoga that day, I started to get a little nervous about just how naked I would have to be in front of my sister. Because remember, we weren’t really friends at this point. She was my big sister whom I both adored and feared. God forbid see my big ‘ole hooters.

“So…I get the concept of a mud bath,” I said to her, “But how exactly is this going to work? Like, will we be in separate rooms? Are you completely naked in the bath? Should I wear my bathing suite?”

“I’m sure it’s up to you. Just do whatever you feel more comfortable with. And we may be in the same room, but I’m sure there’s a little divider or a sheet or something.” OK. I could handle that.

We got to the spa, checked in and were told to go to the locker room and change into the sheets waiting for us. Once we saw how big the sheets were, we decided to skip the bathing suites figuring this would be like any other spa treatment where the masseuse/technician (?) works with you to discreetly move the sheet to continually cover what needs to be covered. We wrapped up and headed for the door marked “Spa Room”.

As I pushed open the door, I expected to walk into another dimly lit, zen room with private little alcoves where we’d individually receive our treatments. Instead, I opened the door to reveal what was essentially a large, sterile garage with two mud-filled tubs manned by what can only be described as a pair of sturdy-looking Eastern European women. Moreover, the tubs were situated directly next to each other. And when I say directly next to each other, I do mean directly next to each other:

In fact, as I looked around the room, it occurred to me that everything was set up in two's and located just a romantic handhold away from each other. And spoiler alert: that is because we had accidentally scheduled the romantic “Golden Haven Baths for Couples” treatment, which according to the spa’s website allows you to “share this wonderful Napa Valley spa experience in privacy with your companion only a few inches away.” We had no idea that’s what had happened, mind you. At this point, all I could think was, “This feels oddly………….intimate.” Suddenly, one of the spa technicians barreled towards us.

“TAKE SHEETS OFF,” she barked at us. We, in turn, stood frozen.

Seconds passed.

“Wait…………like off off?”

“OFF!”

It took me a few seconds, but I finally realized that this woman wasn’t going to discreetly move our sheets around anything; she was going to take them and discard them. Like, for the rest of the day. I was going to spend the rest of the day naked, getting in and out of a series of tubs in a small room missing a fourth wall with my sister and two large, and to the best of my knowledge, Hungarian women who very thought we were lesbian lovers.

My sister and I then turned to each other and exchanged this look that so beautifully conveyed, “SHIT’S ABOUT TO GET REAL NAKED—LET’S GO WITH IT,” without either of us having to say anything. And thank god for that because just then the spa technician, sensing our hesitation, reached out, grabbed both of our sheets and yanked them off for us. Again, up until that point I hadn’t really considered myself to be that big of a prude, but there I was clutching my pearls all, “WELL, I NEVER!”  My hands briefly floundered north and south in a desperate attempt to give myself some coverage, but I ultimately decided to fuck it, suck in, stand up straight and walk over to the damn mud.

The hot mud treatment was actually pretty cool. You basically just float in hot, heavy mud up to your neck while the Hungarian women apply a steady flow of fresh, cold washcloths to your forehead. It was incredibly relaxing and probably would have been sensual had I not been a pubic hair away from an equally naked relative at the time.

As the bath went on, however, my relaxation slowly turned into anxiety as I became increasingly more concerned about how we were going to get the mud off of ourselves. Or out of us, frankly. Because the mud was heavy. And the mud was hot. And the mud was settling. Everywhere.

My concerns were quickly addressed when the Hungarian women reached into our tubs and pulled us out. After they got done removing some of the excess mud by giving us one helluva standing rubdown (which, again, probably would have been sensual had it been done by anyone other than a well-rooted Hungarian woman convinced I was gayer than a chestnut), they motioned towards the wall behind us and said, “SHOWER.”

The so-called “shower” area in question was actually just a tiled wall with two hoses dangling from the ceiling and nary a piece of nylon to separate as far as the eye could see. And let me tell you people something: you haven’t experienced pure embarrassment until you’ve stood an elbow jab away from your sister and shot hose water up your ass while the Lucy and Ethel of the Eastern Bloc leer on disapprovingly. That is embarrassment. That is something that can never be undone. That is something that can one-up any story about tripping up a few stairs at the bank, thank you.

After The Traumatic Showering it was time for our mineral water baths, so Tweedle Dee and Tweedle OOF led us to a pair of old timey Victorian bathtubs separated by the distance of a sweet whispered secret. It was at this point that Becca finally acknowledged the elephant in the room and was like, “Dude. Your boobs are really big.” “Yeah, I know. But your boobs are really nice. Big, but not unmanageable. I think if I ever got a breast reduction, I’d want to make ‘em your size.” I mention this conversation because I love imagining what the spa technicians must have been thinking about the state of our relationship if that was our romantic tub conversation. Talking about each other’s breast size in the most clinical way possible and referring to each other as dude.

Finally, it was time for our last treatment: a schvitz in the steam room. I hate steam rooms. Primarily because I hate heat, sweating, and small spaces. So, pretty much everything about a steam room. This steam room, however, was like a steam room on crack. First of all, they handed us each a meager washcloth when we walked in which was laughably unhelpful. I sat down and held mine up in front of me for a long time trying to decide which direction I should go in until Becca finally said, “Dude. Lower.” Even worse, the steam came in from the sulfur springs so it smelled overwhelmingly like rotten eggs, and it was hot in a way that would make Hades ask for a Dasani. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I have never been so uncomfortable in my entire life. After a few minutes I couldn’t take it anymore, so I stuck my head out the little porthole in the glass door, turned my head to the left, and started gasping for air. Which is exactly when I locked eyes with the incredibly nude woman standing across the room, waiting to start her spa treatment.  “SHIT!” I ducked my head back into the steam room. “BECCA, I JUST LOCKED EYES WITH A NAKED WOMAN ACROSS THE ROOM WHILE I WAS GASPING FOR AIR AND I THINK SHE THINKS I’M A PERVERT SO WE CAN’T LEAVE UNTIL SHE’S IN THE MUD BUT I THINK I’M GOING TO DIE IF I HAVE TO STAY IN HERE ANY LONGER AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO.”

“…Want my washcloth?”

After we got back into the car, we drove in silence for a bit as we both tried to process the sheer absurdity of what just happened. Becca finally broke the silence with one of the most astute observations I think I’ve ever heard: “That……………was the most naked experience of my entire life.” Because it was. It was the most naked experience of my entire life. It made getting a full-body mole check at the dermatologist’s feel like standing in an empty cornfield in a three-piece suit and a chastity belt. I’ve had sex with strangers and felt more modest than that. It was just really, really…naked. But also really bonding, in a weird way. I think all great friendships should start out with a wacky misadventure. I just don’t think they should all be so…naked.

(Sidenote: Every time I write that it was just so…naked, I can’t not automatically say it in my head in the “I THINK THEY WERE…ASIAN” voice from Cable Guy.

So goddamn underrated.)

Putting the "HA" in "hard sell". (Or not, as the case may be.)

I just got a box of our new book, Brainwashing for Beginners, and I only have one thing to say about it: poor, poor Brainwashing. It never stood a chance. It's the Jan Brady to The Misanthrope's Guide to Life's Marsha. Which isn't to say it's bad. It's actually really, really funny. I know this because I just read it for the first time. I don't know why, but I was completely prepared to crack it open and be like, "Oh God, this is B-level material...This is so embarrassing." But it's not at all. I might even like it better than Misanthrope's. YEAH, I SAID IT. And I'm 98% sure I meant it. I think I expected it to suck because the actual process of writing it sucked. When I think back to writing it, all I can think of is computers breaking and strep throat and needing extensions on deadlines and feeling like failures for needing said extensions and that sty I randomly developed halfway through the project (?) and the earthquake in Japan I'm sure our writing somehow caused and the 5,500 words it ended up being over and bleh, whereas writing Misanthrope's was like a great big pizza party. If I could summarize writing each book in a single youtube clip, they would be the following:

Writing Misanthrope's Guide to Life:


Writing Brainwashing for Beginners:


But now that we're five months removed from the entire situation, I feel like I can finally appreciate the finished product. And I do. And I feel badly that I didn't before. And I want to take its little hand in mine and tell it, "I'm sorry I didn't say 'I love you' enough when you were growing up. Because I did. I was just too busy fighting my own demons to tell you and it was my fault. MY FAULT. So please accept this gift Mr. VanVonderen is offering you today because there's a room here full of people who love you like crazy, but we feel like we're losin' ya here and I just want my little girl back." I don't know. I've been watching a fair amount of Intervention on Netflix recently and I'm not offering any apologies for it. When Candy Finnigan cries......weoifjwf. I have no words. It hits me in the gut. Knocks the wind right out of me. And she always does! Especially when children are involved because you know she was adopted and probably relates to their feeling of abandonment. How did we get here? What was I talking about? RIGHT, the book is actually good and you should buy it.

Truth be told, I feel really uncomfortable trying to sell this book to you because we're still so blatantly trying to sell the first, but at the same time, I do think it's a worthy purchase. Like our first book, it's an excellent bathroom read. I got an email from a reader the other day saying just that and hoping it didn't offend me, and honestly? I 100% get it and I'm right there with you. Although I kind of feel like an asshole keeping a copy of my own book in my bathroom because I'm worried people will interpret it as me being all, "What? OH, THAT? Mmmmyes, I wrote a book. Two in fact! Well actually three, but who's counting? Bwahaha. Mmmmyes. Tea?" (I don't know why I'm trying to serve people tea in the bathroom...) But it's not the case. Both books are just really easy to jump into and no matter where you land, you're guaranteed a laugh. I keep finding myself in the bathroom flipping through Misanthrope's to pass the time and like, 25 minutes later I'll still be sitting on the John reading it. Which is absurd because a.) I co-wrote it, so I've obviously read it before, b.) that's a genuinely long time to be in the bathroom, and c.) there's just something so shameful about laughing at your own material with your pants down around your ankles. You just feel so exposed.

To give you a little more information on the book, Brainwashing is essentially our guide to manipulating people into doing what you want in everyday situations. It's the next level in Meg and Chris' School of Sociopathy and Witchcraft. Minus the Witchcraft. The book is comprised of 101 objectives (ranging from Get Upgraded to First Class to Convince Your New Husband You're a Virgin), which are broken down into ten chapters: Making Work Work For You (Manipulation Around the Office); Be The Mary, Not the Rhoda (Toward More Obedient Friends); Pavlov's Girlfriend (Sex and Relationships in a Brave New World); How to Get a 4.0 at Symbionese State University (Mind Control at School); George Orwell, Obstetrician (Making a Mark on Your Child's Tabula Rasa); Free Drumsticks and Cheap Gas (Everyday Hypnosis); 72 Virgins, 99 Luftballoons, and Access to the Buffet (Brainwashing During Wartime); I'm Not Not God (Cults for Dummies); Thank You, Sir, May I Have Another? (Stockholm Syndrome and You); and 10.) Bluejeans and Coca-Cola (Deprogramming). Each objective then has 2-3 brainwashing techniques for how to accomplish it.

Like I said, I was all nervous when I started to read it, but then I saw that we refer to Nick Nolte as "Father Time's readheaded stepchild" within the first three sentences of the book and immediately felt better. I also forgot how incredibly Garry Shandling heavy it is and I am not mad about it. Not only is he the object of our dedication, we also have an entire objective based on the idea of trying to get the fictional murder-mystery series The Garry Shandling Mysteries back on the air. (Jeremy Piven is obviously his Watson-like sidekick.) I remember when we got the first round of edits back on the manuscript, there were two notes next to this objective. The first was from the copy editor saying, "I checked—this is not a real show," and the second was our editor's response: "Not yet." Matthew Glazer. You get us. You get us so well and I love you for it.

I'm also still shocked that they let us keep objective #23 in: Get Your Friend to Experiment with You Sexually. I wrote this, without exaggeration, an hour before our second extension was up, and I did it as like a, "Well, they're obviously going to make us take this out, but fuck it—it's something", and I can't tell you how much I respect Adams Media for letting it stay in. Especially since the third brainwashing technique is to "Tape Scissors All Over Your Walls and Hope She Gets the Hint". I mean...to you, sir. To Adams Media. I feel like the book actually benefits from the fact that we wrote the majority of it in an incredibly cracked-out, Hail Mary, what the fuck are we doing? state of mind. It gets weird. It feels like us.

So, if you have the money, I suggest you buy Brainwashing for Beginners. And if you already did, I hope you enjoy it. And if you're Garry Shandling, I hope you really, really enjoy it. And if you're Jeremy Piven, I hope you know how much I really, really, really enjoy you. Every night. To this picture:

And sometimes, when I want to feel like we're actively conversing, to this picture:

But mostly, when I want to laugh and imagine what it's like having you on top of me in sweatpants and a backwards cap, to this clip:


...This entire blog post has been a fucking disaster and I don't know how to end it in a way that isn't "Welp! I'm gonna go masturbate to Jeremy Piven now!", so I say we just embrace it. One more for the road:

God yes.

Where do we go from here?

[I'd like to preface this post by saying that I wrote it early yesterday afternoon when I was f-f-fired up. I've cooled down considerably since then (I went over to my parent's house and ate a rotisserie chicken. It's not important), but I still feel like there's an important point to be made here and I want to make it. I've been pussyfooting (vomit, I'm so sorry) around the fact that something's been going on recently, and I irritate the crap out of myself when I get all 2003 emo LiveJournal and hint that something's wrong but don't actually say what it is. So, this is what it is.]

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This might be a little heavy for a Friday, but I want to break the fourth wall and address a few blog comments.

I swear to God this isn't me be sassy, but I'm absolutely looking for a part-time job and am always looking for freelance design work. I just wrapped up two big jobs, so my schedule is now wide open, design wise. If you have any leads, send 'em my way.

And the bigger issue:

Man. I've gotten this comment over and over again since our book came out, and those comments, along with reviews like this one that only bill Chris as the author, are troubling, at best. This book was a 50/50 effort. All of our books have been. All of our books are also written in the third-person about 101 hypothetical scenarios, some of which are centered around men and some of which are centered around women. It seems absurd to me that anyone would assume that just because I'm a woman, I only wrote the scenarios about women, but that's actually what's happening. And not to get all GeNdeR LOLZ! on you, but, frankly, this shit is going to hurt my career. Our writing style, and my writing style in general, is aggressive, dark, and vulgar, which in turn is interpreted as being "masculine". I always thought that my ability to write from both a male and female perspective was a credit to my writing and would make me marketable to television's male-dominated writing staffs, but how are they supposed to acknowledge my skill as a writer if they think I only wrote the 15% of the book that's about periods and hair dye and GIRL STUFFS? This obviously begs the question: why was our book written mostly from the male perspective? Well, I don't know. It wasn't a conscious choice. Maybe it's because I like lampooning frat boys and frat boy culture. Maybe it's because women are taught to be "nice girls" and aren't typically Misanthropes. Maybe it's because I have an aggressive personality and Chris is a man. I don't know. (But it's a damn good question for an intro to gender studies class at Mount Holyoke, I can tell you that much.)

What I do know is that this has been a major blow to me personally and to my partnership with Chris. Every time I have to explain to someone that, no, we both wrote the book and believe it or not, Chris wrote the scenarios about being pregnant and I'm responsible for most of the "Tits! Bros! Booze!" jokes because I'm just that kind of modern 90's gal-on-the-go, it kills me. Just the fact that I have to clarify this right now on my own blog makes me physically nauseous. It's just so much work to not get credit for. And I'm talking about the books and the four years of blogging I did to lead up to the point of even being asked to write a book. 

Intellectually, I know that none of this is Chris' fault, but I still resent him for it and as a result, our relationship has become extremely strained. (I cAn HaZ PeRioD???!~) This situation is also hurting the blog because for the past month or so, every time I sit down at my laptop to write a blog post, I get so mad. Because it's like, what's the fucking point? We write blog posts so we can write books that will end up launching Chris' career?? Fuck that noise. I'd rather just watch old episodes of Maude on youtube and cat nap. Life's too short.

So, this leads us back to the question I posed as the title of this post: where do we go from here? Do I suck it up and risk someone big reading one of our books and only taking Chris to the next level because they think he wrote the majority of it? Do I go around the country slapping a sticker on the cover of every copy that says, "Meghan Rowland: tits like a lady, LOLs like a man!"? Do I save myself the time and give up? I don't know what the right answer is. I've been talking this over with my friends and family and Chris for a few weeks now, and none of us know what to do about this.

So, here's what I am going to do: I'm going to keep blogging. I'm going to write my crass little fart jokes in this stupid little blog everyday, Monday through Friday, like I set out to do four years ago. Because next to playing slightly sharp versions of Hall and Oates songs on the bass, it's the only thing I know how to do, and I am goddamn good at it. I don't know if I'll ever make it as a comedy writer, or if Chris will, or if we will as a team, but I do know that I'd rather keep trying and fail than look back twenty years from now and wonder what would have happened if I hadn't quit. So, I will see you Monday morning because I've got a whole notebook full of post ideas, no job, and $9 in my bank account, and if you have a problem with any of that, you can just suck my dick. Brah.

...And, you know, T.G.I. Hagman.

As of 8:00am on October 14, 2011, Larry Hagman is...alive!

Have a great weekend, everyone. <3

I HAVE BIG NEWS!

I'd like to think that I'm pretty good at laughing at myself and all of the soul-rapingly embarrassing things that happen to me on a daily basis. Typically when I blog about something embarrassing, it's like I purge all of the bad energy associated with whatever happened and as other people find it funny, I find it funny too. It's a wonderful little win-win situation. That being said, there remains one event that is still not funny: Sorr about the bag.

"Sorr about the bag" happened Sophomore year of college in my Computer Literacy for Design class and is still unbelievably traumatizing to think about. Shortly after it happened, I documented it in my LiveJournal and last year I wrote about it again in the blog post An Annotated Anthology of Awkward. That means I've purged the negative energy twice, yet it's still too soon to find it funny. If only you could coke-douche emotions...

From An Annotated Anthology of Awkward:

• I forgot to bring a jewel case for the CD that my design project is on. So what do I use to protect my CD? A ZIPLOCK BAG WITH LITTLE BITS OF CRUNCHED GOLDFISH CRACKERS AT THE BOTTOM I FOUND IN MY MESSENGER BAG FROM GOD ONLY KNOWS WHEN. Who the fuck does that? And then to compensate, I wrote "sorry about the bag" on it, but I forgot the "y" in the word sorry. So I had to draw a little carrot and a y, making myself look like an even bigger asshole. So now I'm that girl who came into class 20 minutes late the first day, who's computer is never connected to the server and who presented her first project in a ziplock bag with bits of goldfish crackers and "sorr about the bag" scrawled on it. I am so fucking awkward. [note: I damn near had a panic attack remembering this incident. The next time our class met, the professor (whom I had such a huge crush on) held up the bag in front of the entire class and delivered a five-minute lecture on how disrespectful I was and how designers who don't take pride in their deliverable should change their major. I have never felt so stupid in my entire life. I went back to my dorm room and cried my fucking eyes out. Oh my God.]

That's not funny. You know how when something really traumatic happens you can remember really oddly specific details from it? Well, not only can I remember exactly what I was wearing the day my professor berated me in front of the entire class, I remember what he was wearing and the girl next to me. And when I close my eyes, I can still see what was on the to-do list next to my computer because I remember staring at it while crying my face off thinking, "what's the use of doing any of that because I clearly don't have what it takes to be a graphic designer!" Oh my god. Seriously. To former graphic design adjunct professor Tobin Lehman: go eff yourself, you pompous little twit on a power trip. You have no idea how much you scarred me for life. Because, dude—a private note on my grade sheet would have sufficed; you didn't have to ream me out in front of the entire class. Stupid, sexy Flanders.

Unfortunately for me, my friends really, really like "sorr about the bag" and ever since blogging about it last January, not only does it get brought up (a lot) in every day conversation, it's actually become incorporated into daily vernacular as a way to say I'm sorry. And no one finds it more hilarious than Tulane Chris.

Whereas 97% of all text messages/emails/gchats/voicemails I receive from Ex-Co-Blogger Eddie are updates on Larry Hagman's health, 97% of all text messages/emails/gchats/voicemails I recieve from Tulane Chris are him saying "sorr about the bag" in various contexts. On one hand I'm glad I can bring so much joy and laughter into Tulane Chris' life, but on the other, I really hate this constant reminder of the most publicly embarrassing failure of my life.

From a typical gchat conversation with Chris:

Chris: I know it was really embarrassing for you

But sometimes I imagine "sorr about the bag"

And lol to myself

me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

omg

that story causes me so much anxiety

Chris: I can hear you saying it

I with that was your catchphrase

4:40 PM me: Meg McBlogger: sorr about the bag since 1985

Chris: Meghan McBlogger, how do you plead?

"Sorr about the bag, your honor."
Chris: I was so tickled with that one I had to leave the room and collect myself.

It's so awk to like LAUGH at your own joke

4:45 PM me: let's get matching tattoos that say "sorr about the bag"
Chris: Meghan McBlogger, 1985 - 2060. Friend, Wife, Sorr about the bag.
Chris: Something old, something new, something borrowed, sorr about the bag

4:48 PM me: omg. i'm so tense right now. you're killing me.
and for the record, i'm still sorr about that bag

and i'll be sorr forever

4:51 PM Chris: Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been 24 years since my last confession. I am sorr about the bag.
me: you need to stop.
Chris: ON your deathbed:

Do you accept our Lord, Jesus Christ? Do you renounce the devil, and all his empty promises? Are you sorr about the bag?
Chris: Has the jury reached it's verdict? We have your honor. What say you? We the jury find the defendant, Meghan Catherine McBlogger sorr about the bag.

5:00 PM Chris: I, Meg McBlogger, being of sound mind, am sorr about the bag.

And using it as an everyday replacement for "I'm sorry":

Chris: I have a favor to ask. I need someone to sign for some papers I'm having sentWould you mind doing it and then just regular mailing them?

3:02 PM Like it just needs to be that someone got them

It's a bank thing

But no one I know is HOME IN THE DAY

3:05 PM If it's a hassle no big
I know it's annoying

3:06 PM Sorr about the bag

Cracking himself up. Again.

Chris: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, ARE SORR ABOUT THE BAG

I want to do a "sorr about the bag" of that "oh my god shoes" thing

6:56 PM I'm snickering aloud in the computer lab

And finally, from a text message I received the day I got fired:


While I'm pretty sure Tulane Chris is extremely satisfied with himself and finds this all hilarious, it's still way too soon for me. Four years later.

Flashback to this past Friday. I got home from a long, hungover and generally rough day at work and all I wanted to do was put on my Jack Daniel's pajama pants, crawl into bed and make love to a sandwich while watching Dynasty. As I walked into my building, Henry at the front desk motioned me to stop and got something out of my mailbox. He handed me an envelope and I was baffled—it was an extremely urgent FedEx envelope with a return address of American Telegram in Las Vegas.

What? Who would send me a telegram? Truth be told, I didn't even think you could send telegrams anymore. Suddenly my heart dropped into my butt—was I finally being served by my ex-bosses? It looked so official, it had to be something to do with that. But don't I have to be there to be officially served? Isn't that what Pineapple Express taught me? WHAT THE FUCK COULD THIS BE?!?!?! Either way, it probably wasn't anything good. I got into my apartment and tore it open, all the while thinking, "like this day could get any worse."

And then I saw what it was:


That's right. Tulane Chris FedEx-ed me an urgent telegram stating, "SORR ABOUT THE BAG".

..............................................................I literally put the telegram down and—completely alone in my apartment—started a slow clap. This kind of dedication to an inside joke isn't stupid; it's art. And thus, today after work, I came home, framed it and hung it on the wall directly underneath my Dr. Dre stickers.


So with that, I announce my big news: On the ninth day of April, in the 2010th year of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, "Sorr about the bag" officially became funny to me.

Thank you Tulane Chris. Thank you.

Enlarged holes and thicker poles. (Happy Monday.)

I fall in love incredibly easily. Not like, for realsies love though. Because that would involve a certain level of putting myself out there emotionally to another human being that I'm not down with because it sounds really stressful and time-consuming and I'm already behind on two episodes of Real Housewives of New York and I don't have any food in my apartment and blah blah blah there are only so many hours in the day so whooooo—thanks, but no thanks. But falling in love with strangers? I'm a pro at that. Ben from Ace of Cakes? Anthony Bourdain's special effects guy? Michael Showalter? The waiter at Big Hunt with the colorful tattoos and the Kermit the Frog wristband? The bartender at Big Hunt with the ridiculously long beard? Yeah. I'm in a committed, monogamous and deliriously happy relationship with each and every one of them. And they don't even know it. Bless their hearts.

Those men aside, there exists a group of people who I can not physically interact with without falling head over heels, knock-me-over-the-head-with-a-two-by-four, stupid in love with: tattoo artists and body piercers. There. I said it. I was honest. Am I aware that it's childish and stupid? Yes. Do I feel better having admitted it? Slightly.

I don't really know what my hang up here is, but I've fallen in love with every single person to tattoo or pierce me in the history of modifying my body. (Except for the woman who pierced my ears at the Afterthoughts in Lake Forest Mall, circa 1990.) (Although let's not lie, she had a shape to her too...) I'm sure you could make some terribly pseudo-psychoanalytical point here about how you give your body to a tattoo artist and/or body piercer and they penetrate you and it's kind of like sex when you think about it so how could you not be left with some attachment to them? But I'd rather chalk it up to: you're hot and heavily tattooed + I'm into that + now you're touching me = I have a lady boner.

And the physical attractiveness of said tattoo artist/body piercer is a complete non-issue. You could look like a cross between Sloth from The Goonies and Phil Spector and I'd still bang you out six ways from Sunday and buy us monogrammed towels if you've got a needle in your hand.

The very first piercer I ever fell in love with was a young gentleman known as American Dan who had a little piercing stand in an oxygen bar on the boardwalk of Ocean City, Maryland. (Hi. I caught crabs just from typing that sentence.) As is the tradition of Beach Week, I spent the week between the last day of high school and our actual graduation ceremony at Talia's grandparent's beach house in Bethany and we'd frequently go into Ocean City to explore the night life of America's preeminent White Trash Playground.

One night, we decided we'd all head to the boardwalk and get something pierced, as is another grand post-high school, pre-college rebellious tradition. (Except I don't think what I did could technically be defined as "rebellious" as I pussed out and only got my mid-cartilage pierced and called my mom first to make sure it was OK. But, you know, the road to rebellion is paved with small, cubic-zirconia-studded steps.)

Once seated in American Dan's sketchy back office, I immediately fell in love with him. Which is odd because if I remember correctly, American Dan had a Jew-fro and a dick tattoo, but still, there I was—a young girl smitten. He was all I could think about for the remaining week. I was convinced I'd let my one shot at true love with American Dan (god...) slip between my fingers, so when my friend Ali decided to go back a few days later and get her nose pierced, I immediately shotgunned being the supportive friend who got to go with her and hold her hand. It was our last night at the beach and I walked into that oxygen bar (Jesus Christ...) dolled up and ready to make my intentions known.

I had a very concrete plan on how to do this.

Step 1: hold Ali's hand and act incredibly cool. And apparently acting incredibly cool meant lying to American Dan and telling him that I was a 20-year old Sophomore at AU. Which, to be fair, was sort of true. Kind of. If you ignore...most of the truth. American Dan asked me where I hung out in DC and I swear to god I replied, "Well, we hang out in Adams a lot, but that scene is getting kind of played out." "Yeah, I totally know what you mean," American Dan responded. I was mentally peeing my pants. I had no idea where that line came from and I was shocked it actually worked. Because I didn't know shit about DC nightlife when I was 18. On any given weekend night in high school, I was doing one of the following three activities:

1.) Sitting in a booth at the T.G.I. Friday's on Rockville Pike eating a brownie sundae with my girlfriends, shamelessly hitting on male waiters to the point of border-line sexual harassment.

2.) Awkwardly holding a can of Busch Lite and desperately wishing I knew how to talk to the opposite sex at a field party in the middle of bumble fuck nowhere Howard County, Maryland.

3.) Driving around in my friend Billy's SUV getting high, ordering a gross number of apple pies from the McDonald's late night drive-through menu and acting extremely paranoid.

Those three activities were my high school experience in a nutshell. Never did we do anything remotely interesting in the city. So kudos to me for remembering some random shit I must have heard my sister say and being able to get it out with a straight face.

Step 2: Slip a note into American Dan's tip jar when he isn't looking and wait for him to fall in love and call me. What did the note say?

HERE'S A TIP: CALL ME! 301-221-####. - MEG

I wish I were kidding. But I'm just not. And the thing is, I thought I had such fucking game with that line. I sat down with pen and paper for like a solid 30-minutes trying to phrase that perfectly and when I was done I gave myself a high-five and walked around the house thinking I was a sex goddess.

So later that night, sexy note a-burnin' a hole in my pocket, I sat there holding Ali's hand in American Dan's piercing shack waiting for the perfect moment to slip it in his jar. (That's what she said.) (She being me.) (AND HOW!) Now, American Dan's tip jar was located on the counter directly above the drawer where he kept his packets of sterile needles. I waited until American Dan had all of his instruments set up on a tray and had his back turned to clean Ali's nose. Then I seized the moment, folded my note in half and silently slipped it into his tip jar. "SLAM AND DUNK!" I thought to myself.

And then the worst thing that could have possibly happened, happened: right before he pierced Ali's nose, he dropped the needle. I saw that son-of-a-bitch fall to the floor in slow motion and my heart stopped. He couldn't use a dirty needle—he'd have to go back over to the tip jar area to get a new one. Remember the tip jar? That giant glass tip jar I had just put my pathetic little note in? The one you can see into? And the only thing in it was a folded note that wasn't there 30 seconds ago...?

My eyes were as wide as saucers. My breath caught in my throat. "OH SHIT. OH SHIT. MAYBE HE WON'T SEE IT," I thought to myself, "SHOULD I RUN? DO I RUN? I CAN'T LEAVE ALI. OH SHIT. OH GOD. OH SHIT. MAYBE HE WON'T SEE IT?!?!?!?"

American Dan stopped looking through the needle drawer and glanced up at his tip jar with a raised eyebrow. "What's that?" he asked.

"UHHHHHH. UHHHHHHHH....IT'S. NOTHING. I. THAT'S FOR. YOU? NO IT'S NOT. YES IT IS. HI." I not-so-suavely responded.

He reached into the jar, took out my note and started reading it. I thought I was going to explode from embarrassment.

He started to laugh. "Did you leave this for me?" he asked me.

"I MEAN. I GUESS. YEAH. TECHNICALLY, YES, THAT IS YOURS NOW. UNLESS YOU DON'T WANT IT. WHICH WOULD ALSO BE FINE. OR WHATEVER."

"Does this say, 'Here's a tip: call me'?"

"...................It's a clever play on words. OK. BETTER PEIRCE ALI NOW, HUH??!!"

Oh yes, and Ali. My dear, dear friend. What was she doing at this point? Laughing. Just shamelessly laughing at me and my misfortune and watching me squirm. I can't really blame her though because I would have done the exact same thing. But you better believe the second American Dan was done piercing her, I dropped that girl's hand like third period French and flew out of the room and back into the oxygen bar (Jesus...) like a bat out of hell.

To answer the obvious question, no, American Dan never called me. Not like I'd know what to do even if he had. I had just turned 18 and still felt the need to get my mom's permission before rebelling—I think a sexual rendezvous on the beach with someone with flames tattooed on their dick was kind of ambitious. But it did spark a burning love for tattoo artists/body piercers that is still very much alive today.

A few weeks ago, I decided to go to Jinx Proof with Alex to get my nose re-pierced. I originally got it pierced there when I was a Junior in college and I liked having it. It was small and understated. Jazzy and elegant. But then I moved to New York where I had so many emotions and felt the need to express those emotions by driving a huge gold barbell through my right eyebrow as a statement. When I moved back to DC, I took both piercings out as an act of "IT'S A BRAND NEW CHAPTER OF MY LIFE! NEW DAY! NEW YOU! STARING AT THE BLANK PAGE BEFORE YOU, LOOKING OUT THE DIRTY WINDOW..." etc etc, but I always kind of missed my little nose piercing. And now with not having a job or an office dress code anymore, I figured fuck it! Why not get that puppy back, right?

The second I saw the body piercer at Jinx Proof, I fell in love. He was dreamy and covered in classic American tattoos and-a-tee-hee-hee-hee we talked about the weather and he touched my face and I came in my pants and blah blah blah. I tried to be as sexy as I could, which was incredibly difficult with his finger up my nose and my left eye tearing up uncontrollably in pain. I over-tipped him, ran home to Internet stalk him and I found out via Myspace that he's married to an obviously smokin' hot woman. I then cried, ate an entire cheesecake, danced to Whitney's I'm Every Woman and moved on with my life. It was pretty par for the course for the experience that is me going to get something pierced or tattooed.

But then I starting having some problems. You see, because I got my nose re-pierced in the same exact same location as before, the hole has stretched out a bit and my little gold stud keeps slipping through and I almost lose it every time I wash my face or blow my nose or use a shower with adequate water pressure or apply positive pressure to my cheek in the very least. It's starting to get annoying.

I realize the answer is to simply go back to the shop and ask for a different nose ring, but given how dreamy I find this man and how in love I am, I just can't physically bring myself to walk up to him and say, "Excuse me sir, my hole is stretched out and I think I need a thicker stud to fill it."

I just...can't. It's mortifying to think about. I keep trying to think of a different way to phrase it, but when I think about him and then the word "hole" or the phrase "slipping through" at all, I start giggling uncontrollably like a school girl. Unfortunately both are kind of key in explaining the situation. Sigh.

God damnit. God damn my complete and utter inability to NOT fall in love with tattoo artists/body piercers and god damn how absurdly hard I fall, AND MOST OF ALL—god damn my giant, stretched out, been around the block a few too many times, gaping hole. In my nose.

Thank you.

It was either no post (again) or a tripped out NyQuil post. Today, you get the latter.

WHO DAT say they gonna beat my immune system?? Ah yes, this cold. And it has done so successfully. So...sucks to be me. (By the way, in that last sentence, I spelled the word "taken" as "tacken" and couldn't understand why blogger was telling me it was spelled incorrectly for quite some time.) It's currently Sunday night, I just gathered up every ounce of strength I have to take a shower and I'm now lying in bed wearing an American Apparel Afrika patterned dress that I bought and never wore once because it's an American Apparel Afrika patterned dress and a pair of bona fide granny panties because I don't have any clean clothes left. Currently I'm building adrenaline to email my bosses and ask them if our office is open tomorrow; an act I feel torn about. On one hand, our building is primarily DOJ, so if the federal government is closed, the building closes. And the federal government is indeed closed tomorrow. But, I haven't been contacted by Boss #1 or Boss #2 yet...which could mean they're just not that into me a.k.a. I have to work tomorrow OR that they forgot I existed over the weekend. Considering when I called out sick last Friday Boss #2 said, and I quote, "Oh yeah, you don't have to come in today. I thought about emailing you that last night. Guess I should have," I'm apt to think it's the latter. So here I go. I'm going to email them to ask if we're open tomorrow. IS THAT TOO FORWARD? Do I care? No. Ok. Here I go. Another shot of NyQuil for courage. BOOM. Sent.

Oh god. I'm nervous.

So. I promised you the details of last week's conference this morning. Yeah. I'm not going to lie to you, I really did take a Christ ton of NyQuil about 20 minutes ago and writing this post is going to be unique. Normally my personal mantra is "I don't fuck with the Quils" because they make me feel like I'm about to have a heart attack and/or learn to fly, but I've reached that point of being sick where I'm physically tired of being tired but I can't sleep anymore because all I've been doing is sleeping, so now I'm just kind of writhing around in bed obsessively checking twitter every ten seconds to hear news of the outside world. So I thought I'd give The Quil another go. But I can't just not give you the details of the conference because I promised them last week like and I feel an incredible amount of pressure to deliver on that promise, NOT TO MENTION make it amazingly well-written ever since that mind-fuck of an anonymous comment said I never write anymore and even when I do it's not funny and my blog is full of empty promises. So deliver I shall! But I'm slightly worried I'm going to pass out before I finish this post. So now it's DOUBLE the pressure. This is competitive blogging at it's best—me vs. the manifestation of all of my insecurities in one anonymous blog comment vs. the clock VS. MYSELF. And we all know that I have the grace and composure of a fat kid slipping in a communal shower under pressure, so this post is going to be written in an unedited stream of consciousness style. And if you have a problem with that, well then you can go hang out with some other blog. Like LookAtThisFuckingHipster. They got a book deal. Clearly they're doing something right. Go ruin their day with your e-Meekness. (I swear I'm going to let go of that comment in like two days, I promise. EXCEPT ALL OF MY PROMISES ARE EMPTY APPARENTLY, SO WHO KNOWS?!?!!?)

I keep wasting precious blogging time by refreshing my work e-mail. Stop that. There was no need to type that. I'm wasting time again. Oh my god, just tell the story. SO! Last Monday morning I rolled into work assuring myself that the conference probably wasn't going to be as bad as I was expecting. I mean nothing's ever really as bad as you think it's going to be right? Well, wrong. Not 30 minutes after arriving at work (at 6:30, mind you) shenanigans were under way. As previously mentioned, the conference was full of gross, old, dirty VPs from corporate who individually breeze in and out of the office all the time but had never been there en masse before. Apparently when they get together, they like to play adorable pranks on each other. And that's cool, because I get that. Alex and I have a long-running joke of stealing each other's iphones and putting a picture of a cat penis as the wallpaper. Shit gets goofy sometimes; I get it. However, I don't really want to be involved with their shenanigans. Especially at 7 o'clock in the morning. It's an inside joke between the VPs that I make terrible coffee. Which actually doesn't offend me at all. I'm not a Starbuck's barista and between me and you, I haven't washed that coffee maker since the early days of '09, so I'd be more concerned if they did like my coffee. First thing Monday morning after I begrudgingly made a pot of coffee, Head VP of Sales came up to me all giggles and grins and hands me a cup of coffee. "HEHEHEHEE! MEGHAN! After we go into our meeting, come in, interrupt and say that you made this cup of coffee especially for Frank [VP of Government Sales.]" "Uhhh...why?" I asked. "I put four heaping tablespoons of raw coffee grinds and a shot of soy sauce I found in the fridge in there!"

Sir. I am not the Dax Shepard to your Ashton Kutcher. It is not my job to help you punk an honest to god 78-year-old man with a rancid cup of coffee at 7 o'clock in the morning. The problem, however, is that VP of Sales is Boss #1 and Boss #2's boss, so what he says pretty much goes. "Do......do......I don't.....Do I have to?" I stammered awkwardly. "THIS IS GOING TO BE A RIOT!!!!!!" VP of Sales said as he handed me the cup of coffee and scampered into the board room.

I awkwardly waited a few minutes and opened the door to the conference room. The room fell silent and 25 people looked up at me. "Meghan, can we help you?" VP of Sales, at the head podium, asked. "Yeah....I ah. I made this cup of coffee. [Sigh] And I made it especially for Frank. I guess." "Well aren't you a sweetheart!" Frank said as I ushered the coffee over to him. "Yeah. No problem." I stood there as Frank took his first sip, ready for him to spit it across the table and VP of Sales to let him in on the joke. But something even more awkward happened instead: he liked it. "Mmm, thanks again!" Frank said. I looked up at VPoS, expecting him burst into laughter, but instead, he looked back at me and matter-of-factly said, "Thank you Meghan, that will be all." HE LET THAT POOR OLD MAN DRINK THE ENTIRE CUP OF RANCID SOY GROUND WATER! I felt awful. I wanted to throw myself across the table in slow motion while shouting, "NOOOOOOOO" and whap the cup out of Frank's hand before he took another sip, but knowing where my paycheck comes from, I just said "Oh...ok" and walked out of the room like a little bitch.

An hour later, the boardroom adjourned for a quick break and Frank came up to my desk to thank me again for the coffee. Suddenly VPoS came up, grabbed Frank by the shoulders and said, "You know what was in that coffee right??" "No..." Frank said suspiciously. VPoS broke out into a fit of laughter and said, "Meghan put coffee grounds and soy sauce in there Frank! AND YOU LIKED IT!" Frank looked around, laughed a little, looked at me and said, "Meghan, did you really do that?" It was at this moment that my heart broke into 10,000 distinct little pieces. I looked up at VPoS with pleading eyes waiting for him to fess up, but he just continued cackling like a jackass. "I...I.........VPoS made me!!!!" I said pointing directly to VPoS' face. Yep. I sold that bitch out. And by bitch, I mean the man who signs my paychecks. Was it "the smartest decision"? Probably not. Do I value my job enough to take the fall for poisoning the coffee of a 78-year-old man with an Asian condiment? Definitely not. "Oh Meghan, you killjoy!" VPoS said. "We're just having some fun with you Frank! Come on, let's go get more coffee—but keep Meghan away from the soy sauce. A-HAHAHA!" The two then proceeded to walk away arm-in-arm, Frank glaring at me the entire way.

And that was Monday morning at 9 o'clock in the morning. MONDAY. MORNING. I decided then and there that the only solution to the week of problems lying ahead of me was to get fired. I put something up on my gchat status to that effect, which caught my mom's eye and in response she sent me an email that essentially said, "AWWWWW, HELL NAW." In that moment, that just wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear. I felt incredibly frustrated and trapped and what I didn't need was an email saying "BLALRIGHT! Just blew up the opening of the cave! Shit's blocked with a boulder! Six more weeks of winter! BYEEEEE!" Thus, I sent her back an equally obnoxious email. Which she responded in kind with. And we're still not talking. Which is incredibly irritating and inconvenient when you're having a god awful week and you think you're coming down with a cold and you don't know if you refrigerate chicken sausage or put it in the freezer. Because what's a mom for if not times like those?

I feel like the best way to adequately discuss the heinousness of the rest of the week is to introduce you to a few of the cast of characters I was working with:

- VPoSales. I believe you remember his work from the Oriental Java Express episode. Perhaps enough said.

- Frank. VPoS seriously did irrevocable damage to my relationship with Frank. Frank used to love me. But like...grossly love me. I hate to be That Guy who's like "Oh my gawd, my co-worker's keep hitting on me, life is so HARD when you're this attractive," but I think Frank lovin' him some Meg McBlogger had little to do with my mediocre looks and more to do with the fact that he's an old business man and I'm a young woman with giant tits. I could have a bag over my head and a stutter and I think he'd still want a hand full. Prior to The Coffee Incident, Frank exclusively referred to me as "Pretty," which I was kind of into only because the Indian woman who threads my eyebrows on L street's name actually is Pretty, so it made me feel kind of exotic and talented in hair removal. Every time Frank walked by me, he would extend his long Mr. Burns-esque forefinger, bring it to the top of my head and rub it back and forth in what I called a "finger noogie" while asking "And how's Pretty doing today?" Pretty is pretty impressed at how such a small part of your body could make me feel so entirely molested, sir. And how are you?

But after Monday's Coffee Incident, he never gave me a finger noogie or called me Pretty again. This could actually be chalked up to a small win on my part, except that The Incident had some negative ramifications as well. Prior to the incident, Frank and I had a nice little unspoken agreement: I'd let him call my Pretty and occasionally grab my ass as long as he didn't tell my bosses that I was rarely on time and did as much work as a tranquilized lemur. I kind of liked this dynamic. It felt sort of delightfully retro and Mad Men-ish. But when I was 10 minutes late Tuesday morning, Frank 100% ratted me out to Boss #1. I was shocked. I had been a half an hour late before and he'd patiently wait outside for me but I'm ten minutes late after giving him one little botched cup of coffee and he sends out a press release?? I think not! You can kiss this mediocre ass goodbye, sir.

(By the way, I foresee receiving emails from you kind-hearted readers being like, "Oh silly Meg! You should have gone to HR the second anyone was inappropriate!" To that, I remind you that I work every day with a man called Russell the Homophobic Co-Worker. Political Correctness isn't exactly in this company's mission statement.)

- Matt Hill. Ugh. Jesus. Matt is the VP of Marketing and he makes me so ungodly uncomfortable I don't even know where to begin. Whenever Matt's in town, I always have iced-tea and cookies on hand because it feels like an episode of To Catch a Predator could go down at any given moment. I feel like Matt could be attractive, but he's got one of those wispy facial hair situations going on where you don't know if it's hair or dirt or a shadow of a broken dream and the only thing that you are sure of is that you're incredibly creeped out. Here's a perfect Mike story that happened at some point during the week (the days started to blend together after a while...) while I was sitting in on a meeting. I was sitting across from Mike during said meeting and towards the end, I could tell he was fiddling with something under the table. As the meeting adjourned, Mike pulled his hand out from under the table and tossed a screw from under the table at me and said (and I am in NO WAY making this up,) "There. Now I can say I've screwed you," before dramatically walking away.

Now, not only is this irritating because being sexually harassed in the workplace is always irritating, it's irritating because that screw served a purpose; namely, to hold the fucking table together. So now not only do I have to dedicate time from my busy schedule to emotionally heal from the trauma of that sentence, I also have to add "put screw back in conference table" to my agenda for the day. So thanks a lot for making my job harder, asshole.

- Young Kid. Shit if I know what his name was. I don't think we were ever formally introduced and I still don't know what his position in the company is. He's probably my age and not too horrible to look at. However, I lost interest in him completely after he came up to me and asked, "Do you know if there's an available bathroom nearby?" This question like, knocked my fucking socks off because it's the queerest way ask, "Where's the bathroom?" that I have ever heard of. Which is exactly what I told him. And I don't think he appreciated it. "Wait. Did you just ask where the bathroom was?" I asked after staring at him blankly for 20 seconds. "Um. Yeah..." he replied. "Oh. Wow. That was probably the weirdest way someone has ever asked me where the bathroom was in the history of ushering people to the bathroom. I'm almost impressed" "Oh," he deadpanned, "Well, Meghan. Where is the bathroom, then?" "......Pass the elevators and to the right." Honestly, there's a certain beauty in meeting someone, not liking them and having them not like you right back and then moving on. It's like reading the last page of a book first; it feels so wrong and yet cuts out some unnecessary effort.

- IT Guy. IT guy was my fucking JAM. I loved him. He was seriously the one person throughout the entire week who was nice to me and I'll never forget him for it. As his name implies, IT Guy is an IT Guy sent from Iowa to make sure things at the conference ran smoothly. I mean, what is there to say about IT Guy really? He's a portly gentleman, about 50-years-young who's ass broke two of our swivel chairs without a hint of remorse or embarrassment, which is the most hardcore thing I've seen in quite some time. Every morning we'd get coffee, sit at my desk and talk about macs vs. PCs and the details of his recent divorce, which I was more than up to. (So just to reiterate, when cornered by a fat person in IT who wanted to break chairs and talk about computer platforms and their divorce lawyer, I thought to myself, "Now this is a conversation that I can really sink my teeth into!" That's how dire times were.) IT Guy also warmed my heart when at a certain point he turned to me and asked, "So exactly how far away from The White House are we right now?" "Um, we are currently two blocks away," I answered. His little IT eyes widened and he said in the most heartfelt way, "Gosh. It just must be so cool to live somewhere so historic and important every single day of your life." I don't know dude. It touched me. And not in a Frank or Matt kind of way. I feel like everyone in this city (myself included) is busy being ironically detached and too cool or too connected and important to stop and be like, "Yeah. Shits kind of cool here." I literally opened my mouth to say "Meh, it gets old," realized what a giant schmuck I was about to sound like and instead said, "You know what? Yes. It is really, really cool, IT Guy." I felt good about myself until 2.2 hours later when I was back to thinking, "God, I hate this fucking city." But isn't that just the DC way?

[Ok. So that's as far as I made it last night. And I did get a snow day today! So, Becky, I will be coming over to your place to play with you and Cella shortly because if I have to hang out with myself for one more hour, I am going to go crazy.]

- Cris. Notice I'm spelling that as Cris and not Chris, as Cris was the only other female in the group. She's from the Midwest and was incredibly stuck up and demanding. I mean, I get that I was everyone's bitch for the week, but if you're going to send me out into the freezing cold at 7 o'clock in the morning to "fetch" name tags, it wouldn't kill you to say please. I thought people from the Midwest were supposed to be all nice and shit? At one point, Cris came up to me and asked if we could use a projector and move the conference to a smaller area of the studio that had better acoustics because someone in the group has a hearing problem. I set off to look for the projector and shortly discovered that Boss #1 was using it on a job site that day, so sucks to be you. I walked up to Cris, who was standing around with Young Kid, IT Guy and a few other random people and delivered this news. "BUT. BUT. BUT WE NEED THAT PROJECTOR." "Yeah. Well. Boss #1 has it so it looks like you'll have to stick with the conference room." "BUT WE NEED IT." "Tough titties ma'am. Let's all just speak slightly louder and move on." At this point IT Guy turned to me and said in a booming voice, "It's just that someone in the group has a hearing problem and it would make it easier for him if we could relocate." "SHHHHHH SHHH SHSH SHSH SH!!!!!" Cris hissed at IT Guy, "He's standing RIGHT behind us! That was so RUDE!" You could cut the tension with a knife. Everyone sort of stared at eachother awkwardly and I could tell that IT Guy was incredibly embarassed. It was clearly time for old Meg McBlogger to save the day:

"WELP! Good thing he's got a hearing problem. AM I RIGHT OR AM I RIGHT?!" I said.

Why I thought that I, of all people, could make an awkward situation less awkward is beyond me, but I maintain that that was an incredibly funny joke. Cris, however, did not agree with me. "That was innapropriate, Meghan" she said in her obnoxious little Midwestern accent. I awkwardly shifted my eyes around and then proceeded to literally slink away back to my desk. Like, if you look up "slink away" in the dictionary, you will see an illustration of me awkwardly walking backwards and not making eye contact with anyone and trying really, really hard to dissapear.

So that, in a nutshell, was my week. It sort of blew. And then I immediatly got sick. WAMP, WAMP. But! I can only interpret how incredibly shitty (pun inteded!) the beginning of this year has been to mean that the rest of my year is going to be recockulously awesome. Right? RIGHT??!?! Because you can't just get repeatedly kicked in the groin for 12 months in a row. Right? RIGHT??!?! Right. Good. Well I'm off to do laundry and seek out people who aren't myself. If you're in DC, you should totally bring me a non-perishable item because, frankly, I'm out of food and too lazy to ski my way to Trader Joe's. KTHNX!