Things to Do When You Can't Drink

Recently, I was forced to take a few days off from lounging around my favorite bars. I was busy, broke and sick. (A triumvirate of ills that has fortunately plagued most of my friends as well, so, bonus! Also no one to play with.)

While I was recuperating and letting my bank card rest, I came up with the following things to do when you can't drink:

1) Return phone calls to friends. I am terrible at this. For one thing, my cell phone is actually a prototype built in 1987 and it's the size of my desk and I have to have a dude run behind me with a generator in a suitcase just to make it work, which means that I can't skip messages, and who wants to listen to all of that. So I sometimes don't even get messages for days and days. For another thing, I am a bad person.

2) Consider organizing paperwork. Decide to shove it back in a drawer instead.

3) Do laundry. Realize that skeevy dude who hangs outside the laundromat asking people for cigarettes is always there whenever you do laundry. Wonder if he's there when you're not doing laundry. Decide that he is stalking you. Realize that you are paranoid.

4) Call mother and ask if, in her clincial opinion, you have a personality disorder. Act surprised when she laughs loudly and long, and then says, "Yup! You're fucking crazy!"

5) Contemplate starting fight with mother, then friends, then fella, then coworkers. Realize that this will result in guilt, friendlessness, broken relationship, poverty. Decide to read a book instead. Realize that you are a grownup. Fuck.

Anyway. It's been a valuable experience, my week of rest. And now ... right back to it!

34th Street? Might As Well Be Russia

It's happened already. I have become one of those New Yorkers who never, ever leaves her neighborhood.

This morning I have a doctor's appointment on 34th street. (I have to go get my eyes examined. My head, I will save for a separate visit.) 34th street, mind you, is really no all that far from my home, which is in the LES. However, I never, ever go up there. It's a good thing the city is on a grid and all.

Reset

OK, you guys: You know it's been a bad day when it's 7:22 PM and you think to yourself: Maybe I should just go to bed now.

Whelp, I'm in my jammies, and it's lookin' like a good idea. Today was one of those days when nothing was terribly wrong ... it's just that things sort of didn't work out.

It started off OK. I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep, so I decided to walk to work. I live less than 2 miles from work, anyway, and I always feel kinda dumb about riding the subway four stops, so I thought: Eh, it's a sign. I'll walk.

Unfortunately, I had also decided that I wanted to look cute today, and so I had put on a pair of jeans which, three wearings out of the dryer, fit just fine. Even more unfortunately, they had just come out of the dryer, and so I now have a friction burn on the inside of my left thigh from walking in them. Sexy!

The work day was OK, except that I started feeling ill halfway through work, which isn't weird, since we're all hacking and wheezing these days like a TB ward. (Or what I imagine a TB ward would sound like. I'm pleased to report that I've never been in one.) So at about 4:30, I packed up my laptop and announced that I'd be working at home for the rest of the afternoon.

Home on the subway, doodlededoo, feeling more and more like crap every minute. I waddled upstairs, removed the Evil Jeans of Thigh Suffocation, and settled in to finish up a few things, wearing loose pants as God intended.

When I was through, I decided that I would finish up my book club book. This would be the book that I chose, by the way. The one that no one, not even me, could find, until like last week. And I left it? At the office.

So my chub rub and I will be waddling into work rather early tomorrow morning, to finish my book before my book club decides to stuff it down my throat.

Song for Jayman

Saturday night, I was out with a bunch of friends, eating Mexican food and drinking fruity bitch drinks, and as we were leaving, one of my pals said, with a contented sigh, "Man. I sure could go for a big ol' bowl of marijuana right now." As though discussing a pipe full of tobacky, or a nice cup of coffee. And this cracked me up.

Those of you who know me in real life know that I can't smoke the reefer, because I am insane. High strung folks should stay away from substances that make people paranoid, especially if those substances are illegal. The last few times I got high, I actually thought at certain points, "This is illegal. I am doing illegal things." And then I looked around me for cops to appear, Keystone-style, with tall hats like English bobbies and rubber night-sticks with which to beat me about the head and shoulders.

However, I would like to say for the record that I feel that it's really stupid that I can drink myself into a coma with my beverage of choice, which is beer and not skim milk, in case you were confused, and yet my pot toking buddies can't enjoy a joint without fear of arrest. Not that they have any fear of arrest. People who continue to smoke into their late '20s and early '30s are mellow sorts, generally. But I worry, on their behalf. So it should be legal, is my point, if for no other reason than that I've got enough to obsess about, thanks, without worrying about scraping up bail money for my pals.

Cats Are Freaks, Part 2

Cuica attacked my head today.

I was sitting on the couch, putting on my shoes, as you do, when she jumped up on the arm and started doing her Kitten Porn routine. This involves her slinking around in a variety of charming and coquettish kitty poses, and meowling winsomely, until the person she's fixated on refills her food or pets her or does whatever it is she's looking for. Because there's something on her mind, that's for sure. You don't get the Kitten Porn routine if she's just being social. Then, you get the Kitten Dance, which consists of her spinning around in a circle, as though chasing an invisible string.

"Meowl," she said, batting her eyelashes. Or something.

"What's up, Cuicks?" I reached for her head to pet her, and she jumped up on the back of the couch, out of reach. So not petting then. Maybe food? "Are you hungry?"

"Meowl." She wound around my shoulders for a minute, and then, no word of a lie, started to chew on my hair.

"Oh my God, you freak. What are you doing?"

Chew, chew, chew.

"Sean, Cuica is chewing my hair."

He came into the living room. "Yes. Yes, she is."

"OK, but why is Cuica chewing my hair?" He shrugged. I craned my neck to look at Chewy Chews. "Cuica? Why are you so crazy?"

As if in response, she jumped on head and sank her claws into my scalp.

"JESUS!" I grabbed my head. Cuica bolted.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine! But she just, like, tore a hole in my scalp."

"She gets carried away. It's like the closest she'll ever get to having sex."

This, by the way? Is where I draw the line. I like Cuica and all, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let her have sex with my head. She'll just have to go back to the telescope. I'm sure they can work it out.

It's Been Nice Knowing You

My allergies are so bad, that I'm sure they're not allergies, but actually some horrible, rare, fatal virus that is in the process of seroconverting right at this very moment inside my sinuses, where it will take root and rot my head from the inside out. And think of how much less pretty I'll be with no head! So much less pretty. It will be a shame, I tell you.

Also, in other hypochondrical news, I need to find an all new set of doctors in the New York area, so that I can call them on an hourly basis and make them tell me that I'm really OK, that everyone gets colds now and again and its probably not the heeeev, and that actually, unlike everyone else, I'm never ever going to die, and isn't that amazing? (Also awful, were it true. Actually, what I want is a speedy and painless heart attack when I'm 112 years old.)

You might think it's easy being this crazy, but it's not. For example, yesterday, I updated my to-do list. Here's what it said:

1) Change credit card to 0% card.
2) Make appointment for yearly physical.
3) Groceries: Buy cheese, sour cream, etc.
4) Refill Xanax.
5) Organize bills, statements, and so on.
6) Get shrink. Ask about shock treatments.
7) Hang pictures.

I have this weird feeling that this isn't what most people's to-do lists look like.

Feline Insanity

I don't know if you know this, but cats are freaks.

I wasn't aware of this, myself, until just recently, because the Hubleys hate all living things, and so I was not raised with animals. Also, and more to the point, I'm allergic to everything. However, my friend Sean has two cats, and I seem to tolerate them pretty well, so as a result, I've gotten to know these critters much better than I usually would.

There are two of them, as I've said, and both are crazy in very different ways:

Joe: Does not like strangers. When I first came over, he would bolt from the room, and then regard me very quietly, stalk me, almost, in the manner of a jungle cat. Now we're pals, so he comes right over and stands at my feet and looks up at me and yowls. I mean yowls. Like it's his job, or something. Sample conversation.

Joe: (Plaintively.) "Yowl yowl yowl! YOWWWWL! ROOOORWWWL!"

Me: "Jesus. What do you want?"

Joe: "ROWLLLLL! Yowl."

Me: (Checking.) "You have food. You have water. What is the matter with you?"

Joe: (Argumentatively.) "Row-row-roooooowl. Yowl. Yowlyowlyowl."

Me: "Well, if you say so. But I guess we're going to just have to agree to disagree."

Sean: "You know that he's not actually speaking, right? Because, guess what? He's a cat. His brain is the size of a walnut."

Joe: "Yowl, yowl, yowl!"

Me: "I agree, Joe. Sean is a very bad person."

Also, I don't know if he's a Himalyan or what, but Joe is so furry that he grows dreadlocks, unless he is shaved. He hates being shaved, because he hates traveling, and takes awhile to warm up to strangers, but Sean claims that he's terribly vain about himself after the process, and prances about the apartment light and free and a kitten. I happen to know that he is headed for the Kitten Stylist this weekend. Because I am a person, and so I find out things before cats. Ha ha ha! I win.

Cuica: Cuica was my initial favorite, and I still love her, but she's crazy. How crazy is she? I'm so glad you asked. She thinks the telescope in Sean's room is her long lost boyfriend, and spends long hours lovingly making out with its base. Sean does not allow the cats in his room at night, because they shed like furry little mutherfuckers and he prefers not to wake up under a blanket of hair. However, first thing in the morning, when he opens the door, Cuica bolts into the room and attacks the telescope again. According to Sean, she does this every day. And has been, for about a year.

People say that cats are smart, but I'm just not sure.

THIS JUST IN FROM SEAN:

"Cuica, I'll have you know, has more brain power than a 2 year old: she understands object transference, which is abstract thinking. Most dogs are able to do this, most cats are not. However, she is not most cats. She is Cuica! Man, you don't get it! She's a genius cat."

OK, Last One This Week, I Swear

So, I have a new contribution up at the Black Table. But before you click on over there, ask yourself these questions:

1) Am I related to Jen Hubley? (If so, do not read this piece.)
2) AJ Daulerio thinks he's pretty goddamn funny, doesn't he? (That's a rhetorical question. Of course he does.)

OK! Now that we've settled that: Enjoy.

Fashion Alert: Be the First on Your Block to Exploit the Latest Tragedy!

I saw a guy wearing a New Orleans Saints t-shirt at the gym yesterday. Maybe he was from New Orleans, but I somehow doubt it. I bet he'd taken his FDNY baseball cap off, so that it wouldn't get stuck in a weight stack. Douche.

More Love for the BT

Hello, my friends. Please to check out the ol' Black List, as I wrote an item for it and need constant reassurance.

The New Campaign of Health and Fitness, and Its Effects on My Life

I am on a regimen once again, because I gained three pounds last week, and it has occurred to me that perhaps grown persons should not subsist on beer and cheese. The regimen has consisted of my going to the gym and walking more, and also trying to add more vegetables to my diet (meaning that now I eat some, whereas before, I ate fewer naturally occurring vitamins than the average orphan in Dickensian England.)

All of this has had the following effects on my life, for good and for ill:

1) Because lifting weights has made me sore, and perhaps the merest bit less flexible, I now walk like Mia Hamm. This is not a good thing. Also, I may have to stop wearing soccer shirts, which is a shame, because I love them.

2) My skin is clearing up. I sort of wish this had happened a few years ago, because it would have been nice to have a six month period of time in which I had neither wrinkles nor zits, but apparently that was not to be.

3) I am so thirsty. Is that a beer you're having? Oh my, it looks like heaven.

4) Also, is that a chocolate bar? Please give it to me.

5) Fuck you and your cheese.

6) Maybe I'll just buy bigger pants.

7) Wasn't this supposed to be a list of salutary effects? Well, screw that. I'm starving.

Better Living Through Chemistry

Maybe you're not a fan of taking pills for things, and that's OK. I certainly know plenty of people who feel the way you do. Hippie people, who wear burlap and don't shave their pits. But that's fine. Myself, I am a big fan of better living through chemistry, and here's why: I am totally fucking nuts.

Without some form of medication, the following things would be impossible for me:

1) Flying (Xanax).
2) Exercising (Antihistimine, Ibuprofen).
3) Visiting friends with cats (Antihistimine).
4) Not driving myself and everyone around me nuts (Celexa).
5) Sleeping (Melatonin, Sominex).

There are many more. But those are the big ones.

I was thinking about the medication issue this morning, because I had to take a Sominex last night in order to sleep, and this morning when I woke up I discovered that I had become profoundly mentally disabled and physically inept. In the space of about fifteen minutes I dropped six things and bent my right thumbnail back, so that a charming crescent of blood formed right under the nail. Cute!

Still, the nine hours of sleep were worth it.

Erratum: Creature Double Feature

Hello, Boston area people of my childhood:

I now know that I made a slight error in my Black Table piece, regarding the Creature Double Feature. It was not on TV-38, but rather on TV-56. Now, if someone can tell me which channel featured the Movie Loft, I should be all set with my 70's era New England trivia for the moment.*

* Big thanks to Alexander C. for pointing out the error in the first place!

BT + JS 4-eva

Good morning, Internet pals! I have a new thingie up on the Black Table. Check it:

Incoming! September 19, 2005

That Girl? Is a Good Eater

I'm probably going to have to have one wall of my apartment removed, so that Jerry Springer can come rescue me and ship me off to the fat farm, because I cannot stop eating. This phenomenon started about a month after I moved to New York. I blame it on the following things:

1) I walk everywhere. My car still lives in Massachusetts, and obviously no one drives in New York anyway. I've also stopped taking the subway whenever I can walk, because when the train is even five minutes late, or God forbid, delayed in a tunnel, I go completely insane and start rocking and muttering to myself. Now we know where all the homeless people come from.

2) I stay up too late, even when I am not out at a free happy hour, which is where I was last night, and aren't you jealous? You should be. Mama got crunk, babies, and then she started talking like this. I blame alcohol poisoning. P.S.: Ma Smash called me twice, and the second time I decided I better pick up the phone. Meanwhile? She's totally going to send me to rehab. You better hope they have Internet access there.

3) No, I am not pregnant, Rolfe. Jeez.

Federlines vs. Massholes: Fight!

So, it looks like Britney finally pooped out her little Federline.

This was, of course, a big topic of conversation at the end of the work day today, because everyone who works for any sort of media company in New York is obsessed with gossip, and if they tell you they're not, well, then, ask them something sports-related, and they'll do their Rainman routine for you. And also? It's the same goddamn thing, sports and gossip. All stats and gawking. Speaking of which, you should also read this blog. Now. Thank you.

OK, but here's my point, other than that it's too late for me to be blogging, as evidenced by my inability to construct a sentence. And that's that my pal Eric is going to go head to head with the Federline family, baby for baby, just to save the species from devolution.

He will be able to do this, because he and his girlfriend are getting married in the next year or so, and because they are 12. My point being that even if I were inclined to start having puppies, I could maybe give the world like five before my ovaries dry up. But of course, I am hideously vain and miserable hypochondriac, so the combined fear of stretch marks and gestational diabetes are probably enough to keep me childless, at least until they develop better SSRIs that don't give babies webbed feet and ADHD.

Eric volunteered for this, by the way. We were all sitting around in the Pit, which is what they call the area where they keep the totally awesome people at my job, and I mentioned that people like Kevin Federline always have at least three babies by the time they're, oh, 28, and that this is why the median IQ is dropping sharply. People like me, I said, have maybe one baby. How can my one genius baby hope to keep its wee head above the teeming crowds of Federlines congesting the world? (And picture them! Eating Easy Cheese and wiping their paws on their wifebeaters. And then beating their wives with their Easy Cheese.)

"That's OK," Eric said. "Because I'm going to have dozens of babies."

I laughed. "Oh. You are?"

"Yes. I am. I am going to have an army of babies and they are going to take on the Federline babies, and they are going to win." (Eric keeps a sports blog. He's very competitive.)

I must tell you that I am quite taken with this idea. Also? My money is on Eric's kids. I mean, he's from Boston, so he's got that going for him.

Edited to add: Please enjoy Eric's own account of his plans for world domination.

Belated Shout-Out to the Sisters Goldstein

If you're not already reading this blog, you must.

The background here is that it's a parody of Stephanie Klein's stupid blog, which doesn't get a link, because it's stupid. Also? The parody is perfect. So smart, so dead-on, and yet so much better written than the original that stupid, stupid Stephanie Klein should have to give these girls her book money.

The rest of the background is that Ms. Stupid-Stupid somehow stumbled across this blog, one assumes in between Googling herself and trolling eBay for pointed shoes, and was so incensed that she threatened to sue them -- for being mean, I guess, since parody is pretty clearly protected under copyright law.

Horrifying

I now have two looong white hairs, one in each eyebrow. They are the thickness of CAT-5 cable and defy the powers of ordinary tweezers. For reals, I thought I was going to have to get a pair of plyers from the Ms. Fix-it Kit my father prepared for me before my move. Which would be fitting, since I believe these hairs are part of my inheritance from him (together with a tendency to be a babblepuss, an affection for most types of music, and an allegedly yi-normous IQ, if you believe in that sort of thing.)

I can just picture him packing the kit: "Poor little lamb, she doesn't know these plyers are for the preternaturally long white EYEBROW HAIRS she's about to grow ANY SECOND NOW."

Maybe We Should Get Him a Puppy

Is it just me, or does John Roberts look kind of like a painting by Walter Keane?

I'm watching the confirmation hearings on CNN, and dude guy totally looks like he's about to cry.

Dorky Bragging About Work

We had a conference call for work tonight, with just about everyone from my company on the line, and one of my writers said that I was the best editor ever, pretty much. OK, maybe he didn't use those exact words, but it was very close. I don't even care if he was trying to flatter me, because I love flattery. I love it like homecooking, I love it so much. I love it on bread and I love it in a cassarole and I love it in a food metaphor that doesn't really work. That's how much I love it.

The second I got off the call, one of my coworkers phoned me and accused me of bribing the writer. Which I totally would have done, FYI, but I've been so busy lately that it completely slipped my mind.

So! I pretty much rule. That's what I want you to take away from this discussion. Stay tuned for tomorrow's entry, in which I return to fearing that I am a fraud who will eventually be discovered.

More Ma Smash

Me: I have a pain right here.

Ma Smash: Way high up there?

Me: Yeah.

Ma Smash: That's your liver.

Me: (Panicked.) What?

Ma Smash: Your liver.

Me: Omigod. Do you think I damaged it?

Ma Smash: I think that if you've been having lots of drinks, it's possible that your liver could be sore.

Me: Ahhhh!

Ma Smash: And word to the wise? You only have one liver. Two kidneys. One liver.

Me: Why are you being so scary?

Ma Smash: I'm scaring you straight.

Me: You know me. I won't stop drinking. I'll just worry about my liver while I'm drinking.

Ma Smash: Well, then...

Me: It feels like a stitch in my side.

Ma Smash: Maybe it's a stitch in your side.

Me: It's probably hepatitis.

Ma Smash: Oh my God! You're probably right.

Me: Wouldn't I be yellow, though?

Ma Smash: I bet it's Albino Hepatitis. You know: Your liver fails, but you stay white.

Me: You're such a jerk.

I Need to Start Staying in, Maybe

Ma Smash: Are you at home?

Me: Yes.

Ma Smash: At your apartment?

Me: Um, yes.

Ma Smash: Oh, sorry. It was so quiet, I was confused.

Me: ?

Ma Smash: Every time I talk to you, there's so much noise in the background. I figured you'd given up your apartment and moved into a bar.

The Daily Smyres Email Dispatch

It's like Wild Kingdom around this woman, I swear:

When we were out to dinner last week with Luke's
parents, his dad told us that his neighbors right next
door were having a visiting fox in their garden.
Whenever they'd see it they'd shoo it away. This
happened a few times. The last time the man went out
to shoo it the fox dropped a severed cat's head at his
feet. The end.

Actually, I Am All For Employing the Disabled

The world's biggest comglomeration of dummies works at the Duane Reade near my office. Too bad I'm a hypochondriac and have to go over there 47 times a day to get my various medications, chill pills and vitamin supplements. (Seriously, doesn't everyone have fully one-half of a medicine cabinent dedicated to this stuff? Because my sister looked at me like I was strange when she saw it.)

Anyway, they cannot understand my name, at Duane Reade, unless I write it down on a piece of paper, and they look at me blankly when I tell them which drugs I need, even though I called them in, like, six years ago and they're pretty common medications. Also? They don't have any common sense at all when it comes to the basics of retail. Here's an excerpt from yesterday's sojourn:

DUANE READE DUMMY: Here you go. (Passes world's smallest bag over counter, with medication sticking right out.)

ME: Can I have a bigger bag?

DUANE READE DUMMY: Wha?

ME: A bigger bag. Can I have one?

DUANE READE DUMMY: Oh. Sure. (Shrugs. Rebags the lot. Passes back over the counter.)

ME: (Helpfully.) Because I'm going back to my office and I'd rather not have everyone see my Monistat.

To be fair, she did laugh.

Mrs. P Saves the Day: Part 387

Apparently, the cure for insomnia is to have your sister come to visit and tell you that you're going to fall asleep. This was our conversation last night:

Mrs. Piddlington, observing me sacked out on the bed: "You're going to fall asleep in about 2.5 seconds."

Me: "No, I'm not."

Mrs. Piddlington: "Yes, you are."

Me: "Zzzzzz."

So, she used the Force on me, is my point. "These aren't the droids you're looking for, and you're getting sleepy." Either that, or the eight nights in a row of social activity finally caught up with me. You know, one or the other.

The insomnia thing has been with me for four years now, ever since I lost about thirty pounds and (apparently) screwed up my thyroid, or my hypothalamus, or whatever it is that regulates sleep. I'm betting Jayman will know and post about it shortly. Truly, I don't need to use Google anymore. I can just rely on my commenters. Isn't that nice?

But here's my point: I slept for eight hours last night, and it was bliss.

Blog Wars!

Most people delete disapproving comments. Here at Jennie Smash, we make separate posts about them. This is not because we are fair, or balanced, ahem. It is because we have, as a very intelligent shrink once informed us, "a tendency to perseverate."

Anyhoo. For those of you who don't read the comments -- and why don't you? Do you have jobs or something? -- here is the short version of the argument below. Basically, I am terrified that Roe vs. Wade will be overturned, and having one-two justices appointed by Chimpy McGee fills me with fear. However, as an anonymous commenter pointed out, there are of course many other issues involved here, both in terms of who should get appointed, and in terms of what the Supreme Court does on a day-to-day basis. (By which, I mean, of course, get pedicures and drink mojitos while slave boys fan them with palm fronds.)

But I get mad. So I suggested my anonymous pal get his head out of his ass. This wasn't nice, and worse than that, it was a bad way to conduct an argument. But I'm not very mature. You all knew that.

However, all other issues aside? The thing that fills my wee heart with fear is the idea that someone could swoop in and decide that I am not actually the owner of my lady parts, but rather their summer caretaker or such. That my uterus and other associated bits are actually state property. That seems, I dunno, like Communism to me. And while the Supreme Court nominations aren't the other thing that can affect my reproductive freedom, it seems sorta silly to say they're not a big factor.

However, if you're looking for in-depth political commentary, anonymous, you probably want to read a news site. Jennie Smash is more of, you know, a blog.

I've Been Meaning To Comment on Certain Events

But the world is ending. Just thought you should know.

Seriously, my uterus and I bid you a fond farewell, and if you should happen to see either of the remaining two horsemen of the apocalypse, tell them they're fucking late.

A Few Notes on My Assimilation

Supposedly, it takes five years to become a New Yorker. That may be true, but I've noticed some interesting personal changes already:

1) Willingness to try new things, including weird food. Note that I say "willingness", not "enthusiasm." I'm not really a foodie and never have been. I could live happily on grilled cheese sandwiches and milk. This is horrifying to many of the people I've met here. For instance, Sean has informed me that he is going to make me eat sushi. I've only tried it once before, and it doesn't count because I think I spit it into my napkin. My friend Meredith made me eat a purple octopus on a cracker. I swear to God that's what it was. In the end, I drank all the saki and gnawed on a cucumber roll and that was it.

2) Increased ability to drink. My tolerance for alcohol will soon rival that of the average sailor. I've also started cursing a lot and threatening to keel-haul people. Do you think there's a correlation?

3) The birth of the personal invisi-bubble. I tend to look at everyone: homeless people, kids, cops, street vendors. Everyone. In the past, this has resulted in my being hit on by gross men in bars, winding up with fourteen tons of free handouts on the street, and having to tell untold numbers of Scientologists that I don't want to take their free personality profile. Now, however, I'm lucky if I recognize a friend on the street, because I have developed blinders. I got my invisi-bubble about two weeks ago, I figure, and while it's made life easier in some ways, I mourn the stories I'm missing while I dart through foot-traffic without looking at anyone, using my new city sonar to miss fruit carts and Hasidic rabbis and baby strollers.

The biggest change, though, I think, is how happy I am. Before I moved here, my uncle told me that New Yorkers were the happiest people he knew, because they're always busy. I don't know if that works for everyone, but I can tell you that as a hyper-social, slightly neurotic, chronic insomniac type person, I've never been happier in my life.

Fun at the Office

I just left my machine for two seconds to get some coffee, and when I came back, there was an email on my desktop with the subject line:

"i need to learn how to lock my computer"

Some coworkers of mine who shall remain nameless think they're pretty goddamn funny, but they'll get theirs. Oh yes, they will.