formerly a fearless temp

And that question is: Why do I still hunt the TWOP boards for Dawson's Creek spoilers? Why? Why? Do I still watch the show? Not really. I saw the Pacey/Joey K-Mart ep and, ok, so I realized that I still possess some latent Pacey + Joey 4EVA!!! fire, but really. Get over it, self! Move on!

Apparently I cannot, because there I go every couple days, obsessively checking to see if there's reliable intel on whether Joey ends up with Dawson or Pacey. I should move past this!! I cannot. Must accept, embrace lameness. It is the only choice.

Massive icestorm up in this piece today, which is mega annoying. Went to go warm up my car, stepped on the driveway, and ended up sliding down into the street (standing up! I did not fall! Like some kind of strange surfer, with asphalt instead of waves and Sauconys instead of a surfboard), a good fifteen feet or so. Tried to warm up the vehicle, but even with a solid half hour of it running with the heat going, still could only pry one door open. Also, because of the whole driveway-as-sheet-of-ice-thing, could only scrape/chip off the ice on the side of the car that was next to the grass. I ended up leaving the car half-deiced, and bumming a ride with the mom unit into work. Felt fourteen again.

Anyway, because that made me an hour late, I could not take a lunch and WOW is the day endless without that nice one hour break in the middle. Also, mountains of work to do. Should probably, you know, do some of that work, so as not to be fired after only my first week as a non-temp.

Off to finish typing up massive memo!

PS. Have been exceptionally lame replying to comments lately and I PROMISE I will respond soon. I feel really bad. Also, owe emails! I suck. If I owe you something, know I feel massive guilt. Here's hopin' that helps.

And now I'm really leaving.

i:

No one calls me at work. Correction: No one I know or would want to speak to calls me at work. A lot of obnoxious people call me at work, trying to reach attorneys who will never take their calls, but I get almost no personal calls. This is because I'm a loser.

Anyway! Today the phone rings, the other secretary grabs it, and says, "It's your mother." I turned to said secretary and said, "I bet you she's calling to tell me not to walk to lunch because it's snowy out and I'll fall and kill myself in these shoes." And, sure enough, it was. I felt so cool.

ii:

Because of said snowy weather and the mom phone call (see, the phone call ruined everything because even if I did disregard what she said, if I ever *did* fall and hurt myself after she told me not to go? I'd never hear the end of it. And I was not willing to risk it.), I ended up eating lunch at this coffee place in my building. Lesson of the Day: Do not get lunch from coffee place that only lists its lunch options on an off-to-the-side piece of chalkboard the size of a legal pad. The lack of interest in the menu options will be reflected in the quality of food.

Anyway! Got soup and half a sandwich and ate my little lunch, la di dah. I finished eating a while before my lunch break was over, and was faced with the Dishes Dilemma: Was this an informal, bring the plates up yourself establishment? Or was it a bit tonier, one where you merely left them to be looked after by employees? Quandary!

Because the cashier lady had knocked a dollar off the cost of my lunch because she thought it unfair that the pea soup cost a dollar more than all other soups, I decided to save her some labor and bring the dishes up myself. Got up, went to the flappy-mouthed garbage can, began scraping out my soup bowl, which was complicated work what with maneuvering to keep the flap door open while scraping, etc. Complicated work I am not capable of carrying out because! Of course! The bowl slipped right out of my hands into bowels the garbage can!

I stared after it in horror and looked around to see if anyone had seen my tardalicious move. No apparent witnesses and I decided to just take off without telling people, even though my mind immediately called up elaborate, dramatic confrontations at the end of the day when the Mean, Domineering Manager counted the bowls and started ripping into the Kindhearted Cashier who had given me a discount. So The Guilt was already warming up when it was kicked into high gear by the guy at the counter looking at me warmly and saying, "Oh, thank you *so much* for bringing these up yourself."

I looked at him, the door mere feet to my left. I could taste freedom! But I gave in because The Guilt always wins.

"I lost your bowl," I said. "I was trying to clean it and the napkins got stuck and so I was trying to scrape them into the garbage can and. It fell. The bowl is in the garbage can. That one," I said, pointing.

The guy looked like he would have rather had me stay quiet so he wouldn't be obligated to do what he ended up doing, which was walking over to the garbage can immediately, me hot on his heels, and sticking his hand into the bowels of the can.

"I'm so sorry," I said, multiple times. "Do you want me to reach in there? I can do it! As long as you have a sink I could use after? I'm so sorry! It's a little to the left, I think. Towards the front."

He ended up having to take off the protective shiny black casing of the can and reach in up to the shoulder to get the bowl. And then he did, and I apologized again and ran out of there even though I still had like fifteen minutes on my lunch break. Even after going down to the basement and buying a Diet Pepsi, I still had ten minutes left but nothing to do so I went back to work. I suppose the shortened lunch break was my penance for making Coffee Place Guy rifle through the garbage.

iii.

Tonight I got home and noticed that my car was parked in an odd spot -- we have a two-car garage and my parents' cars stay in the garage, mine at the end of the driveway so they can pull out of the garage and around my car if they have to leave before me. Tonight it looked like my car was almost in the street, and I just chalked it up to That Ole Ditzy Jess Behavior, and didn't think twice about it.

And then! Then my father calls from work and announces that, oh yeah, it wasn't my fault because he FORGOT that my mother and I carpooled into work this morning and, therefore, when leaving, hadn't looked behind him and PLOWED RIGHT INTO MY CAR! Put a huge dent in the front bumper! I swear, my car grows more ghetto by the second.

Anyway. Supposedly, it should run fine. We'll find out tomorrow when I either make it to work or end up being one of those annoying roadside disabled vehicles I mutter obscenities about every morning for slowing down my commute. Ah, I am such a sunshiny person early in the morning.

And that is all for now.

Is what I feel like, though I'm sure there are girls far more tired than...I. Me? No, I think it's I. Screw it.

My! Stupid! Car! crapped out yesterday. The heat kicked and I had to trade cars with my dad, as per my mother's orders ("Jessica, you cannot drive that car! What if it snows or something and ice gets on the windshield? You wouldn't be able to see and YOU WOULD DIE! [looks to my father] Jimmy, you take her car."), and so I was cruising in the big boatlike Chevy Caprice yesterday. Was twenty minutes late my second day at the temp assignment because of this and because of utterly pointless traffic (everyone was going 30 MPH on a highway for NO GOOD REASON), and walked in to find one of the big partners and the three secretaries all sitting there, watching the door, one of them on the phone with my temp agency asking where I was.

It was very embarrassing.

Anyway! Then got to play chauffeur to my father, who had dropped off the Tarded Electric Lady at the dealership, and then this morning got to play chauffeured and was driven to work by the mom unit. I so felt fourteen years old again, like I'd missed the bus and my mother had to drive me to school. Arrived on time with minutes to spare, and rewarded self for this buy grabbing a hot chocolate in the coffee shop downstairs.

Wow, this is riveting. Let's speed it up, eh?

Soooo, long day at the office, annoying callers, snappish attorneys, and then I left fifteen minutes early (I did not take my afternoon break and cleared it days in advance, so I was not being slothful!) to go to a job interview. Can I tell you how much one does not feel like talking to someone in an interview setting after spending eight hours talking to people in the work setting?

Snow everywhere and, as usual, everyone in Upstate New York forgot how to drive in the snow over the summer. Dudes, this was nothing! This is the kind of snow we will sneeze at come February! But today? Freakouts left and right, people driving off roads, going twenty miles an hour on the major roadways. I can tell I'm cranky when I see an accident ahead and my first thought is, "How could they be so *stupid* and completely ruin my evening?"

Needless to say, was horribly late, which was fine because the interviewer dude was even more horribly late than I, and it was All Good. Had to meet with Big Boss Guy instead, who did a good job of pretending he'd seen my resume before I walked through the door, and then the real interview dude walked in twenty minutes later and guess how long I was interviewed. No, really. Guess. For an administrative assistant to one attorney.

Over! Two! Hours!

Oh God, by the end, I was sitting there and he was telling me about some Appellate Brief and all that ran through my head was, "Don't fall asleep, don't fall asleep, maintain eye contact, nod, look interested, look interested, DEAR GOD STOMACH, DON'T DARE GRUMBLE LIKE YOU DID RIGHT BEFORE LUNCH AT WORK WHEN THERE WERE FIVE PEOPLE SITTING SILENTLY IN THE ROOM WITH YOU, focus, focus, STAY AWAKE." I escaped and ran out to meet my poor mother who had been waiting for me all that time! I felt like such a jerk, but what can one do when one is in such a situation? Bolt out of the interview. "I'm sorry, I have to go, my mom's waiting for me outside in the car...I know, I look old for fifteen, don't I?" Loser!

Ran out to the car, opened the door, and my mother burst out with, "I thought you were DEAD!" I am obviously my mother's daughter as I found her assumption after I didn't appear for two-plus hours in an office building to be completely logical -- I had clearly been kidnapped, whisked out the back door, and possibly murdered. My mother was keeping track of who went in and out of the building and was about to call my father to find out how long she should wait before storming the building when I came running out. I sit here and consider, for a moment, the potential embarrassment factor, and duly thank the Lord for not letting such a thing come to pass.

Then picked up the tarded car at the dealership, grabbed some subs for dinner, and got home at nine and now it's 1AM, I should be in bed, but I promised myself I'd finish this cover letter for another job before I went to bed and I haven't started. Loathe self mightily. What to do??? Do cover letters have to be really long? Blech. I have to be up in five hours! And I will probably have to leave early because of crappy road conditions, which means getting up earlier, which just compounds the self-loathing. Maybe I won't send a cover letter.

Can't do that!! I suck. IT's not my fault, though! I only found out about the job after I got home tonight and i need to fax this in tomorrow and ok, so I've had four hours to do that, but still! I had to harass Kaelie and read Harry Potter fanfiction and get my clothes ready for tomorrow and watch General Hospital! My schedule was PACKED!

Ok. Am going to write something. Hope it makes sense.

And this may, possibly, be my rambliest LJ entry ever.

The Man, aka Mr. Boss, has not been in yet today and since I am such a FABULOUS secretary, I have no idea where he is or when he'll be back. People keep coming up to me all, "Is Mr. Boss going to be in today?" and I just stare blankly all "Uhh....I dunno."

I've finished my work, all my dictation, the filing put away, etc etc. I'm in this odd space of having nothing in particular to do and I'm feeling so guilty! Usually I'm so busy here that I'm always behind on something but I've caught up and can just sit here and stare and get paid for it. I feel so guilty, like I should dock myself pay for not doing anything.

When did this HAPPEN to me? When did I develop, like, a work ethic? This is so strange!

In other news: My stupid car's battery is shot and so are my brakes and my exhaust pipe thingy. Can't put it off any longer and will actually have to shell out the cash or, rather, the plastic. Car Repair Dude seems legit and is the second person to tell me about the brakes -- when I made noises about maybe just getting the battery done (How cheap am I? Or, rather, how out of sync are my priorities? I was all "Hmmm, three hundred dollars for brakes, that could seriously cut into my See Rent in NYC Fund" and actually HEMMED AND HAWED about getting them fixed), he panicked and was all, "I can gather the parts and open it up and have you come down here so you can see for yourself, you really need them done." And then I threw caution to the wind and decided that I didn't want my exhaust system to fall off on the highway in mid-winter and got that too.

OH, why can't I have LOTS AND LOTS of money? I want to be boss of the world and in charge of such things.

You know what? It's ok. It's all ok. EVERYTHING'S ok. You know why? COME SAIL AWAY IS ON THE RADIO! I LOVE THIS SONG! I'm going to sit here at my desk, emphatically lip sing (complete with graceful hand movements) and hope no one catches me.

But we'll try
Best as we can
To CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY ON!!!

[Guitar riffs, some words I don't know about angels gathering]

They said
Come sail away!
Come sail away!
Come sail away with me!

COME SAIL AWAY, COME SAIL AWAY, COME SAIL AWAY WITH ME!

[psychedelic synthesized action]

Seriously? This totally makes it all better.

Just finished up watching the FX movie about Bobby Kennedy and man, I don't know what it is -- maybe the combination of being Irish, Catholic, from the Northeast and also a member of a close extended family -- but the Kennedys just kill me every time. I remember when John Jr. went down in his plane a couple years ago, I had to go in to work for my summer job and called home every ten minutes to see if they had found him floating safe and sound off the coast of Nantucket or something. It's like they're family: I don't care what they do, what trouble they get in, no matter what, I will always love the Kennedys. They're like my long-lost third cousins twice removed and you know, family's family. Family can do no wrong. Ergo the Kennedys can do no wrong. See, my insane devotion makes sense!

Anyway, the RFK thing: I am in no means an unbiased person when it comes to Kennedy-based productions, so I say nothing. I was into it. I may or may not have cried a few times. Again, remember the Kennedy fixation. They are my people! If only they would realize this and bestow upon me a small chunk of the family fortune.

My day contained two exciting events that both centered around trips to the grocery store. Trips as in multiple journeys; I had to go twice, which was annoying but not unfamiliar. I routinely visit the grocery store multiple times a day because I always, always, always forget stuff. Even when I have a list. Often when I have a list. Today I even forgot something on my second trip but was too lazy to go back for it.

Anyway! I was in a bit of a funk on the way to the store, but then I heard Elvis's "In the Ghetto" on the oldies station and that perked me right up. Is that not the funniest song ever? I believe it's from that fabulous Elvis film co-starring Mary Tyler Moore as an undercover nun, Change of Habit. Also highly recommended.

Speaking of unintentionally funny songs, does anyone else out there crack up whenever they hear that song "Hero" from the Spiderman soundtrack? There's just something about the rugged, impassioned delivery that cracks me up every time. I swear, it doesn't get much better than to be sitting in my car, over-emoting with sweeping hand gestures while belting out "love would all save us/but how could that be/look what love gave us/a world full of killing/and bloodspilling/and blah blah." Good times, man. I lead a very full life.

Anyway! As I was saying! Exciting Grocery Store Event Numero Uno: I used the sticker machine on the way out of the grocery store because how much self control do I have? If you answered "none," boys and girls, you get the gold star! Bought yet another sticker, justifying the purchase with the thought that perhaps the sticker machine would one day run out and there would be no more *NSYNC stickers EVER! And how tragic would that be? I must take advantage of the sticker machine while I can! I put in my fifty cents and got ready to get my usual grainy super-early Sync sticker and what did I get? Why a NO STRINGS ERA STICKER! How exciting is that?! I am thinking that perhaps they restocked the machine! With later pictures! Andtheyaresobeautiful! I was starting to think I had purchased all of the stickers in there, but now who knows how many mysterious No Strings era stickers there are in there? The possibilities are endless! How very exciting!

Again, I live a very thrilling life.

Then I came home and parked my car in its usual spot in the street and had a long internal debate over locking the doors. Honestly, I probably don't have to, since I live in a quiet neighborhood and really, there are far nicer cars, well, everywhere, so I doubt anyone's going to be taking mine. Anyway, I had an extended internal debate over car safety and maintenance (ultimately deciding to lock all doors to, if nothing else, create a good habit) before getting out to unload the groceries.

I went around to the back of the car and started unloading groceries out of the trunk, leaning a bit on the back of the car while doing so. "Hm," I thought to myself, "How odd. The car moved a little bit when I leaned in." I didn't think much of it and continued unloading, and then realized that the car WASN'T STOPPING. And then I looked into the car and saw that -- dun dun DUN! -- I hadn't put the emergency brake on! The car was rolling down the street and I had like six bags of groceries in my hands!

At first I did the most rational thing one could do in such a situation -- plant your feet, grab hold of the back of the car, and try to stop it with brute strength. This method apparently works only if one is a superhero, or at least a regular visitor to the gym. I then decided that I'd have to get in the car and turn off the brake that way, and spent like ten seconds trying to disengage all of the grocery bags from my wrists while watching the car slowly pick up speed. I got so that I only had the bag with the gallon of milk on my left arm and decided to throw caution to the wind and just jump into action with the milk attached to my arm.

Of course, immediately after jumping into action, the bag untangled and I ended up dropping the milk in the middle of the road before jogging (ok, not quite jogging, more like walking briskly) alongside the renegade station wagon. I cursed myself for letting Sensible!Jess win the internal car safety debate over Lazy!Jess, thusly making the whole deal even more annoying because I had to dig out my keys to get the stupid door open. It was very dramatic and action movie-esque, except for the part where there was no real danger and the whole episode was moving at a snail's pace.

Anyhoo, in the end I emerged triumphant! I stopped the car, kicked it into reverse and backed the car back into its original spot with the driver's side door open, naturally knocking over the gallon of milk with said driver's side door along the way. (The milk remained unharmed. Those plastic gallon jugs are tough, man.)

Have to go back to work tomorrow, which means I have to go to bed at a sensible hour tonight, which makes me bitter and angry. I want to stay online! I want to read LJ! I owe people emails! There is all this fic out there I want to read but haven't had the chance to, what with work and seeing friends and chasing down renegade station wagons eating up my time!

Off to hit the sack. The sack=brother's couch, that is, since my parents have decided that my room smells too much like Raid for me to be sleeping in there. I'm all, thanks, guys, I've already been sleeping in there like three nights now. Thanks for the heads up, hope there is no irreparable brain damage.

Off to the vaguely smelly couch!

I'm sure you all have been sitting on the edges of your seats, waiting for an update on the saga of my mildly ghetto car. Tonight is your lucky night!

I went up to Monro today to get my inspection done, and also to figure out if the 85 repairs the dealership told me I absolutely had to get were legit since the reason I supposedly needed these repairs was because I couldn't pass inspection without them. And so I went and sat there and had braced myself to shell out like nine hundred bucks when the mechanic came out and was all, "Jessica? Your car is done. That'll be fourteen dollars." And I was all, "Fourteen dollars?!?! The car is ok?? No repairs?" and the guy was all, "No, you're good to go for another year," and I was all, "Really? Everything's ok?" and he was all, "Yes, and it'll be fourteen dollars," and so on and so on until I gathered myself enough to hand over my check card.

Those BASTARDS at the dealership! They were going to ROB me! They were LYING! The BASTARDS! Can you believe it? They were going to make me pay through the nose for repairs I DON'T NEED! The BASTARDS!

The upshot of the whole sitch is that now I want to erect a shrine in Monro Muffler's honor. Because they rock. Last year I had to wait to get my inspection and they fixed something on my car for free because I had to wait. I heart them.

After the dealership, my Big Fun Saturday continued with a trip to my grandfather's to help him make a copy. He knew I was coming and when I got there he was asleep, and so I spent an hour sitting in his kitchen, eating no-sugar-added ice cream (which was better than I expected), and watching the Mets while waiting for him to wake up. I told myself I was being nice and considerate, but really I just wanted to sit in the AC and watch the Mets. After an hour I gave up on letting him sleep and went upstairs to ask him what needed to be photocopied, passing a series of Pro-Life pamphlets along the way which I turned over as I passed. The best ones? "Conceived in Rape: A Story of Hope" and the bookmarks with a dead fetus laid out on the American flag. Very nice.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you ever want an ego boost, go help a senior citizen with one of their technological problems. I blew my grandfather away when I pointed out the surge protector in his room and informed him that it needed to be plugged into the wall for the copier, which was plugged into the surge protector, to work. And then I copied the bill he needed and typed up an envelope and he was just so WOW about the whole thing. It was pretty funny. I did end up blowing a fuse but I fixed it (which I know is very simple, but for a ditz like myself it's a major accomplishment). It took two tries, but I fixed it.

I left while Grandpa was mid church lecture ("It's so simple, God gives us so many hours during the week and to give one back to him on Sunday, blah blah blah") and held myself back from saying, "Well, bud, I try to be a good person for God and my fellow man all the week long, not just for an hour on Sunday, and were you aware that you have to get up early for mass? So ridiculous!" but then I realized that my argument was slightly flawed because of the whole Saturday afternoon mass thing and the fact that I spaced and missed my blood donation appointment on Wednesday afternoon so I really haven't been doing much for God or my fellow man as of late.

Anyway, then spent the evening with Anna eating an obscene amount of pasta salad and watching Hedwig and the Angry Inch, another one of those movies I liked but am not sure I fully understood because I can be dumb with these things. I tell myself it's just that I need a couple viewings to really capture the nuances and understand the layered meanings and emotional truths of a film, but really it's more likely that I'm just a bit dumb and need to see things twice to Get Them. Maybe more than twice.

And so went my Saturday. Such an exciting life, isn't it? I wonder what wacky adventures I will have tomorrow! I think I might go to WALMART! Woohoo!

I was SO productive today! I drove all over creation and ran eleventy billion errands and got a crapload of stuff done! I almost don't recognize myself! Then I look down at my bright red Micky Mouse T-Shirt from 1994 and realize that I am the same old dorky me.

Hey! How appropriate! My bright red Micky Mouse nightshirt is, in fact, a PATRIOTIC bright red Micky Mouse nightshirt. There's like a flag background and USA running down the side. I wear it in honor of the fourth of July or, possibly, because all of my other PJs are in my pile of dirty laundry.

Of today's accomplishments, the two major ones were (1) Opening up a new checking account, and (2) Going to the DMV and getting a new license because yes, I am a moron and I lost mine. I actually lost it several weeks ago but have been in denial and only got my butt in gear today when I realized that I needed it for my trip in a few weeks (ORLANDO!). I was all paranoid when I went to the DMV because I didn't have the proper forms of ID (they said I needed my social security card and I don't know where that is -- how responsible! I only had a passport.), and then when I got up there they didn't ask to see anything at all. I was seriously all stressed, preparing what I was going to say to the teller if s/he challenged me, working on calling up tears if necessary, while waiting in line.

The DMV is a place that totally lives up to the hype for me. A horrid, horrid place to be. All stagnant air and outdated wall posters and huge lines and unpleasant tellers. I was in line for what felt like ten years but was actually probably a little under an hour, and I think I developed a bond with my neighbors in line. I felt like I slightly understood what it would be like to be in war or another traumatic experience. I feel like if I ever pass one of the two guys in front of me or the mother-daughter team behind me in a supermarket or something, our eyes will meet and we will recognize each other, nod somberly, because We Have Shared Something. We know something beyond speech. We shared the horror of two tellers simultaneously closing their windows to go on break, we made inane comments about the weather to each other. We laughed, we cried, we silently considered a hostile takeover of the county offices to speed things along. Maybe that last one was just me. Anyway, it was an experience.

En route to the DMV I performed a rather poetic move illustrating why I shouldn't receive a new license when I drove the wrong way down the one-way street our county DMV is housed on. I ended up having to reverse and go the right direction facing the wrong way because it was too narrow to turn around, and then perilously three-point-turn into traffic. I thought I was going to die but didn't care too much because it was almost 100 degrees and I'd like to believe the afterlife is air conditioned.

Pre-all this, I did my banking and dude! I got free stuff! I have this oh-so-cool bright blue gym bag for opening up a checking account. It was so exciting.

Also, because I haven't talked about this lately: The Mets are killing me. Really. I can't take it! I can't! WHY DO YOU FORSAKE ME, NEW YORK METS?! WHEREFORE DOTH THOU SUCKETH? Or something.

Happy Fourth, all! I plan to think happy thoughts about my favorite founding father, James Madison, who was an elitist sob but really, weren't they all? I still heart him.