Three things that seemingly have nothing to do with each other:
1.) I keep having nightmares about snakes and lizards, which according to five minutes of intense Internet research means that something "senseless" and horrible is about to happen, AND/or someone in my inner circle will betray me.
2.) As devoted readers know, I love Dr. Dre and The Chronic 2001 more than anything or anybody in this entire world. I listen to that album with the regularity of a bible thumper reading scripture—shit just never gets old. One of my favorite tracks is the emotional roller coaster ride that is "What's the Difference", featuring Eminen and Xzibit.
I love everything about this song, but specifically, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the exchange between Dre and Eminem at about 2:35, which, in case you work somewhere that doesn't support blasting gangster rap in your cubicle at 10 o'clock in the morning (sell out...), is the following:
Eminem: STOP THE BEAT A MINUTE! I got something to say. Dre, I want to tell you this shit right now while this fucking weed is in me.
Dre: The fuck?
Eminmen: I don't know if I ever told you this, but I love you dawg. I got your motherfuckin back, just know this shit.
Dre: Riiight? Slim, I don't know if you noticed it, but I've had your back since day one, ni*ger. Let's blow this bitch.
Eminem: I mean it dawg, you ever need somebody offed—whose throat is it?
Dre: Well if you ever kill that Kim bitch, I'll show you where the ocean is.
And then Eminmen goes on about how if he were to kill his ex-wife, he'd want to drive around for a while with her dead body in the front seat honking and waving to people, which sounds suspiciously like the plot to Weekend at Bernie's to me, but my point here is this: I love it. I love it because whereas we live in an era when Cam'ron can't even ask someone to pass him the nut bowl without adding a paranoid PAUSE or NO HOMO, ten years ago Dr. Dre could stick Eminem saying "I don't know if I ever told you this, but I love you" to him in the middle of one of the most aggressive tracks on his album without anyone even batting an eyelash. Why? Because they're friends! And friends love each other. Sure the entire thing is padded with some good old-fashioned hypothetical wife-killing, but the sentiment remains the same: it's OK to tell your friends that you love them. To quote Bun B after the untimely passing of Pimp C: "[...] [I]f you really love your homie, don't feel like you can't tell him you love him. Because when things happen, you're going to wish you had said it. You're going to wish you said it louder." PREACH.
3.) Being obnoxiously broke has seriously adverse affects on my friendships: I can rarely afford to go out; I never have people over for dinner because I never eat dinner; I bring cheap booze to parties; and I can't afford to give birthday, wedding, shower, housewarming gifts. Not to mention I keep weird sleeping hours and don't answer texts or emails until 3 o'clock in the morning, so it always seems like I'm blowing you off. What I'm trying to say is: I'm fully aware that it can be a giant pain in the ass to be friends with me. With that in mind, I decided to make my friends Valentine's this year as a small token of gratitude for putting up with me. It took me all of 36 seconds in front of a blank Illustrator file to think of the perfect way to say "I love you": via Dre and Em in "What's the Difference". With that in mind, I designed a 5 x 7 card with their conversation from "Stop the beat a minute..." to "...Let's blow this bitch" on the front, and "You ever need somebody offed—whose throat is it? HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!" on the back: Then I tied the card up with red and white baker's string and popped it in a red A7 envelope:
Now, it was right around the time when I let go of said envelopes and they started tumbling into the mailbox when I realized that not everybody has been listening to The Chronic 2001 once a day for the past ten years, and not everybody has an oddly specific interest in, and knowledge of platonic signs of affection in hip-hop music and culture. Both of those things might just be a "me thing". And it was around when I started walking back to my apartment when I calculated that only three out of the 25 people I had just sent that Valentine to are going to recognize its contents as lyrics from "What's the Difference" and not as Dr. Dre/Eminem slash fiction that I had just cooked up myself and felt the need to physically mail to them. And finally, it was when the apartment door closed behind me that it finally sunk in that in a matter of days, 91.7% of my closest friends and family might think I'm a wee bit of a flagrantly racist, misogynistic, would-be murderer.
SYNTHESIS OF #1-3: To all of the people who received a Valentine's Day card from me this year: I am not a flagrantly racist, misogynistic, would-be murderer. It's from the Dr. Dre song "What's the Difference" featuring Eminem and Xhibit. I did not fabricate that conversation, I do not normally drop hard N's in my holiday cards, and I don't actually fantasize about "blowing this bitch"—please do not betray me by reporting me to the local authorities. I was just trying to say I love you. No homo.
[A note from Co-Blogger Chris: I just wanted to thank everyone who was encouraging/proud/excited/helpful in response to my post yesterday. I didn't really intend for you all to actually help me find a job, of course you all stepped up to the proverbial plate and offered your assistance. Because you're amazing. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. If things get super bleak, I will literally show up at your door begging for work (or a free sandwich). In the meantime, please just sit back and enjoy our blog. You do enough by just being you. Thanks again!]
Well, well, well...if it isn't my old friend—The Business Conference. How are you, Business Conference? BESIDES HORRIBLE AND SOUL-SUCKING. As you may have been able to tell from my emo tweets and lack of posting this week, I've been busy with a customer service conference. All week. I wasn't really dreading this week's conference as much as July's sales conference though, as it's being held in our studio and I don't have to travel anywhere. How bad could it be, right? Wrong. This has been just as painful as Baby's First Business Trip. True I get to come home and sleep in my own bed at the end of the night, far away from the menstrual cramps and midnight bikinix waxing sessions waiting for me in a hotel room with Boss #1, but hosting the conference in our space means just that; we have to host the conference. And what I didn't realize until Monday morning was that we means me. Me. Meghan McBlogger. The same girl who shakily puts a letter opener to her own throat at the thought of having to update the mailing list. A task done sitting down. Do you know how time consuming hosting a conference is? Very. There's your answer. First let's talk about the act of "hosting a conference." Because planning/executing a conference and "hosting" a conference are two very different things. Last week I planned the conference. Which was fine. It was a concept I could wrap my head around. I made hotel reservations, ordered catering, emailed and answered a lot of questions; basically I was useful. It was kind of a nice change of pace. Then there was the actual setting up of the conference, which thankfully went off without a hitch. But then I had to host the conference every day this week. What does that job entail? It entails stepping into a time machine, going back to 1962 and being the personal bitch-slave for 25 disguising, lecherous, old men for a week. And what was that like? Well, here's a little action shot I took with my iphone:
IT WAS HELL! Hell on earth! (Hell on earth. Kell on Earth. I don't remember TV before it. What? Goulet.) First and foremost, I have to be in the office at 6:30 every morning this week. Let me repeat that: six thirty in the god-damned morning.Be there at. To say "I'm not a morning person" is such a gross understatement that it's almost laughable. Doing anything before noon is a challenge for me. And I am in no way just saying that for effect. During summer break from college, my friends from home and I would meet up at our local diner for breakfast every Saturday morning at 10am. To make this happen, not only would I have to set a series of alarms to wake myself up from my disturbingly deep slumber, my friends would have to take turns deciding who would be the one to repeatedly call my cell phone to get me out of bed and then call my house phone and ask my parents to physically remove me from bed when I inevitably stopped answering their calls and/or turned off my phone so I could go back to sleep. Again, that was to go eat an omelet in my pajamas five minutes away from my bed at the completely reasonable hour of 10 o'clock in the morning. And I had to be at work this week at 6:30am. SHIT. BE. LOLZ.
This got me thinking about how it was genuinely a miracle that I even graduated high school at all. Because what time did that shit start? Like 6:40am? The fuck was that about? Like high school wasn't hard enough, it had to start at the witching hour to ensure extra uncomfortableness. First period was always notoriously rough for me. I got through four years worth of first periods like I get through everything else in life: just barely. I'd worked my schedule like a rubix cube to try and figure out what combination of classes I needed to take to make sure I had some bullshit class first period I could zone out in, like gym. Unfortunately that didn't always work out. One year I had Spanish first period but, thankfully my teacher was strangely susceptible to the old Meg McBlogger awkward charm. I don't know why Ms. Cuadrado liked me so much; lord knows I didn't speak a word of Spanish, but every morning I'd wake up late, leisurely get ready, watch The Today Show, enjoy a cup of coffee, read the paper, catch a ride with my dad whenever he happened to be ready (don't rush!)and breeze into class ten minutes before it was dismissed. I'm not kidding; I didn't learn a fucking thing in that class because I genuinely wasn't there for three-quarters of it. But all I had to do was bust out a little charm at the door and old Ms. Cuadrero would let me off the hook. I took this class with Jen and it drove her insane. Rightfully so, of course. Jen would get to class maybe five minutes late and Ms. Cuadrero showed her no mercy. I, however, would stroll in 40 minutes late wearing a t-shirt that said "I'M HERE" on the front and "YOU'RE WELCOME" on the back, Ms. Cuadrero would say, "AYE YAY AYE! LOOK AT THE TIME MEG-HAAAN!" and I'd say "The time, Ms. Cuadrero? Don't you mean the...tiempo? A-HAHAHAHA!" and she'd be like "Oh...YOU!!!", wag her finger at me and that would be the end of it. Meanwhile, if memory serves correctly, Jen got automatically bumped down a letter grade for being late more than five times throughout the course of the entire semester. It was one of those situations where I knew it wasn't fair and I knew I was benefiting from it and my best friend wasn't...but I was in no way willing do something to change it because the alternative was too grim. I'm sorry Jen. It was high school: every lazy girl for herself. Of all people, I know you understand.
More so than anyone, Talia really bore the brunt of my morning abuse. (Yeah. I don't know why I have any friends either.) Talia is the epitome of a morning person. By the time I'd drag myself out of bed and keel over onto my desk like a corpse, Talia had already gone for a run, taken a shower, watched a solid hour of TV, had a heart-to-heart with her mom, did the grocery shopping for the week, saved a Somalian orphan, performed open heart surgery and starred in a one-man off-off-Broadway hip-hop production of Titus Andronicus met with mixed reviews and ultimately judged as "too ahead of it's time." And I resented the hell out of her for this. She was everything I wasn't (awake) and everything I wanted to be (not part house cat.)
Talia and I had first period together twice and the results were disastrous. First we had pre-Calc together, a class I would show up on time to, but then proceed to completely zone out in and not listening to a damn thing our teacher said in for 40 minutes straight. Then the night before a unit exam, Talia would come over to "study" and I'd be all, "So...what did we learn this unit, buddy?!" and she'd teach me everything we learned in the past three weeks while I was sleeping with my eyes open. When we got our tests back, I'd hold up my A+ and give her a thumbs up and she'd look down at her B- start to sharpen her pencil into a stabbing mechanism. Teresa was the real badass in that class though. She'd roll up sunglasses still on, Redbull in hand right literally seconds before the bell rang and Mrs. Linthicum would be all, "Teresa! Where have you been??" and she'd be like, "NO DICE. Can't make it to your class; so don't ask." I was like, WOW, SHE'S LIKE THE JAMES DEAN OF MORNING HATERS! AND SHE'S SO DREAMY!!!1
I think I feel the worst about how I treated Talia when we took Ancient and Medieval History first period together. Before judging my actions, keep in mind this was second semester of senior year, a time in my life where a.) I was about to graduate and who gives a flying fuck anymore? and b.) I had just worked my entire high school career to get into NYU, only to be rejected due to an administrative error. The wounds were still fresh and I wasn't exactly "all there." I had to be on time to Ancient and Medieval History; there was no way around it. Not only did I actually respect the teacher, I had her later in the day again for AP Psych and her husband for Philosophy; two classes I couldn't exactly fuck up and charm my way out of. Every morning I'd painfully drag myself into class feeling like death warmed over only to find Talia already sitting at her desk (Lord knows she'd already been there for hours repainting the classroom with a toothbrush...) all bright-eyed and bushy tailed. This greatly offended me. I know she's my best friend, and I realize this sounds horrible, but I would just slump into my seat and glare at her with burning hatred in my bleary eyes as she'd talk a mile a minute and jump around her seat like she had just chugged four liters of Mountain Dew. "Hey Mayyyyyggles!" she'd chirp merrily as she grabbed my forearm in excitement. "SERIOUSLY TALIA, DON'T EVEN TOUCH ME RIGHT NOW," I'd growl back (eyes black, foaming at the mouth,) "YOUR HANDS ARE COVERED IN PANCAKE BATTER AND YOU SMELL LIKE SIMPLE SYRUP." "Oh...sorry, Meg. I just thought—" "I SAID DON'T TOUCH ME." I don't know why I did this. She's Talia. She'd been my best friend since seventh grade. She went on my family vacations. Sadly, at that ungodly hour her positive demeanor irritated the hell me and the fact that she had had breakfast and I hadn't might as well have made her Pol Pot in my eyes. Every morning she'd have to endure roughly 20 minutes of me manically ranting and raving about what various breakfast pastries were supposedly all over her hands and how she wasn't allowed to look at or touch me before I'd slowly wake up and return to my civilized self.
Somewhere into the semester, Talia figured out that if she gave me apple slices (mother nature's natural coffee,) it expedited this process and made both of our mornings considerably more tolerable. Our morning routine then became the following: I'd pout my way into class and unhappily plop down into my chair and without saying a word, Talia would reach into her bag, pull out a ziplock baggy of sliced apples and gingerly place them on my desk. Then, like a small child, I would num-num my apple slices in silence until the last one was gone, and we could finally begin a normal conversation like two normal human beings.
One of the more depressing moments of my life was the morning of my first college class—a 9:55am eastern religion class. As I sleepily sat at my desk waiting for class to start, I looked around the room full of strangers and it struck me that not only did nobody in this class have a ziplock baggy of apple slices for me, I might not ever meet anybody else willing to deal with my batshit crazy neuroses like Talia again. A knot formed in my stomach and my eyes welled up with tears. The second I got back to my dorm room I frantically IM'ed Talia all "I HAD A MORNING CLASS AND NOBODY HAD APPLE SLICES FOR ME AND I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!!1" Then, of course, Ex Co-Blogger Eddie knocked on my door all "Y'ALL TRYIN' TO HAUL OUR COMFORTERS INTO THE LOUNGE TO WATCH MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000?!?!!??!!?" and I knew that yes Virginia, there are people just as weird as you at college. But it's a lonely feeling to be surrounded by irritating morning people who don't tolerate or try to work with your anti-morning curmudgeonry. That's what I've felt like every morning this week at work. It's been cold, lonely, tiring and full of sexual harassment; the recap of which will come tomorrow. Right now I'm still in the thick of it. But if you'd like to bring me a baggy of sliced apples, I wouldn't refuse 'em.
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