fupafighter

Rejection #1

Ah well, it was bound to happen--yet another girl wants to be "just friends" with me. What makes this particular incident extra special is the fact that we haven't even met yet. So basically, based on an exchange of a few casual emails and four photos, this girl has deemed me "awesome" and total friend material. Okay, seriously, how ugly am I that I've been relegated straight to the friend status without even a face-to-face meeting? Anyway, why would someone be on a dating website to be looking for friends--the site has the word Cupid in it--you know, that mythological Roman god of love in all it's various forms?? Okay, not that, how about that little chubby blonde dude who looks like a giant baby and flies all around carrying a bow and arrow that, supposedly, possesses the magical ability to instantaneously make people fall in love? Was she confused or oblivious to this reference when making her profile and taking the "compatibility" tests? WTF??

I love the "just" part, as well. You can't say, I'm looking for friends, it has to be just friends. As if the just is really needed in there to further clarify the fact that there's no way in hell my tubby ass will ever be your girlfriend, thanks. I get it. Saying "let's be friends" pretty much encapsulates everything you're trying to say, which is essentially "I'm not attracted to you but I think you're really funny so let's be buddies." Friends, fine. Just friends--asshole.

I'm off to a great start with this, aren't I?

OK, Cupid

I've done it again. No, I didn't forget to remove my prior day's underwear from the pant leg of my jeans so it  peeks out from the bottom when I wear the jeans again, but rather, I signed up on (another) dating website. Now I've been down this road before--I feel an old comraderie with Match.com and there have been a few others that I don't care to mention here. I either get bored with the whole culture of "winking" and "poking" or I end up in brief correspondences with women that suddenly fall off the face of the earth. It doesn't upset me--how could it, I've never had the opportunity to meet any of them face to face. There have been a few first-dates here and there--most of them pleasant, most of them unmemorable, and a few (one) that was pretty horrific (but at least memorable).

Due to this lackluster track record with Match, I was kind of hesitant to dip my toe into the cyber-dating waters again. But a fellow single-lady coworker of mine suddenly seemed to experience a surge of dates, and upon inquiring as to the vehicle of her success, she directed me towards a site I had never heard of--OkCupid.com. Okay, the name is cheesy and to be expected, but honestly, the application and site itself is, I shudder to say it, fun. It's more like a Facebook than anything else, and although it does have the characteristics of typical dating sites--the winks, the match percentage, the who's viewed your profile--there's more of a carefree aspect to it. I'm not sure what it is--I find that when I'm perusing through profiles or taking their little tests, I'm not clenching my butt cheeks together and stressing out as to whether or not I'm coming off as a stalker or a tool or a combo of both. It's a website that actually (gasp) allows people to interact without the hangups that naturally happen when you begin corresponding with someone on a website that's sole purpose is to form relationships between singles.

Maybe it's this--or, maybe it's the fact that for some reason I've been experiencing a lot of activity (read winks, emails, actual interest) since signing up. I'm not used to this attention, so I guess I'm singing OkCupid's praises and touting it as, like, the BEST website ever! I'm sure this will change once I get blown off, stood up, and/or blindsided by crazies. Or has the cycle been broken?

For Realz

I don't really know why I'm back here. And I'm certainly confused as to why I keep paying a monthly fee to retain this domain name. Maybe it's because if I let go, then I let go of my one attempt at keeping a forum for "writing" (and the practice thereof) open. It's because I'm afraid to admit that I don't want to be doing this and hence, admitting, that I've failed. That's okay--the time I let this go, hopefully, something bigger and better will have come my way and I can comfortably say ce la vie to the Fupafighter. But for now, she stays, and I'm going to keep promising not to neglect her. These promises will spatter way like little raindrops off water-resistant coating.

I noticed that my last post, over two years ago now, was titled 30 Years Ago. That's kind of ironic, because I just turned 30 last month and have felt a lot of, oh, let's call them "issues," with this new age bracket. There hasn't been anything concrete, really, but just the mundane freak-out that suddenly my twenties, my douche-baggery and alcohol-fueled twenties, have suddenly slipped away. I'm glad to see them go, really, nothing good came out of my twenties. But that's the problem I face--a blank slate ahead of me and no solid foundation to continue building upon. The funny stories are embarrassing. The good nights out were centered around boozing. I know, I'm no different than anyone, but why couldn't I lodge my head at least a few inches out of my ass at like 27? Why am I 30 and one month and staring straight at my colon?

Well, here's my first attempt and something different. Older. Responsible. Aware. Me (oh yes, of course, it's still all about me, did I not make that clear from the get-go?). Maybe it'll be another two years before I come back. I hope not, I hope I don't have to start my post talking about how I'm 32 and feel like I let 30 slip through my fingers. So here we go. I'm giving myself a fighting, writing, chance...

30 Years Ago...

...And um, no, I'm not talking about the last time I posted.  It does feel like that long though. Today (a lil' over two months shy of my year-long hiatus), my boss handed me a book she thought would be helpful to me as an aspiring copy editor. It's entitled the Dos, Dont's & Maybes of English Usage, written by Theodore Bernstein. Frenchie informs me that Mr. Bernstein was a well-known editor at the NY Times for I don't know how many years, blah blah blah. The books looks a little weathered, and rightly so, since it was published in 1977.

It's nothing special at first glance. Perusing the pages of alphabetized words, a basic catalog of commonly misused phrases, contractions, and colloquialisms. I can see how three decades ago a respected editor would certainly benefit from having this linguistic resource handy.

G

GYNARCHY: If some of the extreme feminists have their way, we may one day have a gynarchy. That word comes from the Greek gyn- or gyno-, meaning woman, and the Greek -archy, meaning rule. Gynarchy, pronounced JIN-ar-key, means government by women. Anyway, it's better than anarchy.

Whoa, Mr. Bernstein, don't jump the gun just yet. It'll be a while before those extreme feminists get their hands on that ovum office. And I'm guessing it would be better than anarchy as well. Come to think of it, I think a few bushels are better than a prick any day.

GAY: Homosexuals have recently been taking over the adjective gay. Two things about the adoption of that word are to be condemned: first, that its meaning of merry, lighthearted or joyous is not specifically descriptive of homosexuals and may be completely nondescriptive of some of them, and second and much more important, that if the word is applied in this way very much more, it is going to be lost to the language in its true meaning. Why homosexuals want to use it at all is not very understandable; it is an adjective and only and adjective, which leaves its users without a much-needed noun. How about inventing a word that would serve both sexes--but especially males--as both a noun and an adjective? For openers, how about homex (plural homexes)? There's no patent on that invention; help yourselves, folks.

God forbid that the word "gay" be lost forever in its meaning of merry, lighthearted, and joyous. And he's right--it certainly doesn't apply to all homosexuals. I mean, on the days that I'm in a bad mood, I couldn't rightly call myself "gay." Angry dyke, maybe? Unfortunately this concept of homex didn't take off, though I do think I ate something called that at a Super Bowl party. With nut clusters. Maybe that's why Mr. Bernstein was thinking it could be exclusively applied to men, hmmm.

I guess the above entry should make me grateful for how far along we've come in 30 years. Here were are fighting for marriage and equal rights across the board--in 1977, we were fighting for a word. Well by GOBBLEDYGOOD (sticky muck...issuing from the mouth), I think we got it!   

Dragged Kicking and Screaming...

...back into the blog world. No thanks to BQ Broiler's (ahem, and that is a reminder of the "dossier" my dear) latest post about my very own learning experiences in the corporate--excuse me, publishing--world. It's difficult to describe the shock the system experiences when one has to cast off the Jansport and exchange those pastoral daydreams of wearing a tunic while composing verse in an orchard, with a shield of stubbornness and indifference--tools both necessary when engaged in the daily shit face-off in the communal office pot. The breast-pump room (aka dairy farm) that is now situated behind my desk might have been a little disturbing to me at first, but I'm already slipping into the routine: Yesterday, a woman approached me and politely asked, "I'm so sorry to disturb you, but is this the new pump room?" Fabricating a smile with effort that compelled my butt cheeks to tauten, I replied, "Why yes, yes it is."

Employee of the Month

No, this is not a reference to the J. Crew fiasco.  Though I was singled out for my performance there as well.

Last night I learned upon arriving at my bar for work that my boss would be otherwise engaged for the evening and not joining us for his regular shift.  I think I actually experienced liftoff on a cloud of giddiness hearkening to the days when I would have a substitute teacher in class.  Normally, I would have a drink at the beginning of my shift (around 7 pm) then make sure that by the time he walked into the bar I would be sober enough to zip around the stools with a serving tray perched gingerly atop the palm of my hand.  That first hour of his shift is always the worst, but after a few pints of diet coke and a high ball glass full of goldfish, I'm miss perky just doing my duty to get the gays drunk.

I did have my drink around 7 last night.  That same drink oddly refilled itself until I was navigating the bar like an obstacle course.  It was basically empty last night so the number of objects I could tumble over was minimal.  I told the bartender that this reminded me of the days I worked at a little dump that we affectionately remember as Saints.  I would work until 4 a.m. on Sunday night and have to stay open, even though for hours I wouldn't even see a soul.  Those times I would hop over next door to Sip where my friend was working, and just hang having cocktails there.  The bartender was like, "Wait, you just left the bar??"  And I'm like, "totally."   

I then realized, you really want someone like me working for you.  I'm a team player.  I'm a go getter.  I'm loyal to the brand.

I'm a total fuck up.

I had two more drinks after my shift, and by the time CR showed up I was in the beginning stages of word slurring.  When our bar closed, I noticed that even our bar-back had gotten drunk in our manager's absence.  And instead of going home at that point, I was rallying to go to another bar to eradicate what's left of my cognitive abilities. By the time that bar kicked all of us out, I had difficulty maneuvering into the space presented by an open cab door.  It's the price one pays, I suppose, after nine hours of steady consumption.  The prize itself, however, was even greater this morning when I awoke, on my couch, fully clothed. 

The truth is--I can do this right now.  I can lose the ability to speak and walk.  I can not worry about who will be smelling my breath when I get home or the next morning. While I'm unemployed and freelancing (so wait, is freelance the new code for alcoholic?), I'm able to abuse the substance of my choice.  The question is, when this time comes to an end, will I be able to stop? 

FOUR

Ahhhh.  Crack, crack.  Pop.  Stretch.  Ooooh, gotta get these 'ol bloggin' joints back into motion.  And what better way than a simple survey.  This is my take (of course) on this little thing that's being passed around like herpes, this completely arbitrary FOUR. 

FOUR JOBS I WILL NEVER HAVE (or at least really hope not to)

1. Banker or accountant
2. Delivery guy
3. Pedicurist (plus my ethnicity works against me here)
4. Laundromat anything (see above parenthetical note)

FOUR MOVIES THAT MAKE ME FEEL EMBARRASSED FOR THE ACTORS

1. Encino Man (anything Pauly Shore, really)
2. My Blue Heaven
3. Sliver
4. Second Sight

FOUR PLACES I DON'T WANT TO LIVE

1. Delaware
2. Detroit or Flint, MI
3. Los Angeles, CA
4. South Florida (though it might just be in the tarot for me)

FOUR PLACES I WANT TO VACATION

1. Alaska
2. Great Wall of China
3. Serengeti
4. Kauai

FOUR DISHES THAT MAKE ME CRINGE

1. Goose liver (though considered a delicacy to my people)
2. Pasta in black, eel ink sauce
3. Tripe (yup, that's cow intestine)
4. Anything in aspic

FOUR SITES I SHOULD VISIT DAILY

1. NY Times job section
2. Salon
3. Mediabistro
4. CNN

FOUR PLACES I'M AT RIGHT NOW

1. Unemployed
2. Fat
3. Lazy
4. Alcohol dependent

FOUR PEOPLE I'M TAGGING

1. Ellen
2. Law & Order
3. L Word
4. Will & Grace

...Oh wait, tagging doesn't mean DVR?  What is this strange cyberspace place?

1. Dooced.  Period
2. Launderers Heaven
3. Mixed Comp
4. All you have to say is the word POUR and I'm there.

We'll see if this keeps up.  Until then, thanks to Lynn and my hairstylist extraordinaire for giving me some sort of platform to re-enter this peculiar world of blogging.  I think now I'll finish my thesis.  Really.

Part Deux: Busted, Merry Douchemas!

I walk into the Crew Jan. 5th, ten minutes late, per usual, and with a touch of a hang over.  My manager, K, is there along with another co-worker and some butchy woman wearing a billowing tent of a collared shirt tucked into her version of Jersey Mom jeans.  My manager and I hug, we exclaim, we laugh about how lame we were on New Years; she shows me new pictures of her baby and I show her the holiday growth of my fupa.  Basically, I did all but rim her in our five minute banter.

My other co-worker leaves the office and this strange woman lurking on the perimeter of our pleasantries now walks in and shuts the door behind her.  K introduces her and in the fog of my recollection I think her name was Nicole, Nicole from loss prevention.  However, for reasons of sheer accuracy in my recount, for her I'll use the initials CP--Cunt Prevention.

She tells me that she's sitting down with some employees to talk to them about loss prevention.  What do I understand is loss prevention?  Did I know we were the highest yield shortage store? What have I heard about theft in the store?  Did I know her queef sounded like a foghorn? 

We sit back and she tells me old tales of lore--safe thefts, register shortages--by the way, did I know that 80% of loss prevention comes from within?  Hoarding clothes, brown-bagging clothing, how funny is tea bagging--God, in that shirt I can't even tell if her tits are sagging.  I'm officially getting nervous.  K, my manager and friend, won't look at me.  I ask her if this is a test, what's going on?  She fumbles with a little giggle and says, "Kind of."  Was this a test of how quickly I could come up with a lie on the spot to save my own ass?  Does she think I stole from a safe? I honestly had no idea where this interrogation was going.  Then again, this is also coming from the girl who came out of the closet at 24.  Genius.

Cunt Prevention tells me that I'm under investigation, asks me why do I think I'm here.  Here meaning deep shit, or here in the office facing-off with her feathered-do? She says it's going to be up to me, how honest I am, to make these proceedings go as painlessly as possible.  She says she's going to ask me some questions, some questions harder than the other questions, and that she probably already knows the answer to the questions she's going to ask me.  Did I have any questions? Yeah, can we play with Lincoln logs afterwards?

Me: I FedExed some packages to friends.
CP: (With yellow legal pad in lap, crossing legs, suddenly it's no longer rank in the office) What items were these and to what friends?
Me: Uhhh, there were some shirts to C. Ryan...
CP: (Writing) Uh huh.  Who else?
Me: There was a tank top and cardigan to Cassie Convert and to R. Bops...
CP: Who is this...Cassie Convert?
Me: Of course. My friend.
CP: The tank top and cardigan weren't paid for.
Me: (Confused) The tank-top was paid for.
CP: Well, unless you can produce a receipt for that, they weren't paid for.  Now how do you think this came about?

Cunt Prevention flips over a label that had been lying face down on the counter.  It's Cassie's shipping label.  I'm a little relieved--at least they didn't think I embezzled thousands from the safe or robbed the bank transport guy.  Now I'm just looking at this frumpy woman and thinking:

Hey, hey, I can get down on my knees and munch your muff...
...and maybe we can just forget about all of this stuff?  Yeah yeah, yeah.

She asks briefly about R's sweater.  God only knows where that's at now.  Cunt Prevention probably used it to sop up her bog-gina.

Did I mention I included little gift messages in each of the boxes?  Basically I all but drew a map to my apartment and provide numbers for my bank account for the "investigation."

CP: Now what was that on the card you wrote?  It wasn't Merry Christmas...it was something, something with a "D"?
Me: (Pausing)  Um yeah.  It was...Merry DOUCHEMAS.
CP:  (My manager stifles a laugh) Now what is that?  I don't even understand that, is that like a different language?
Me: It's a JOKE.  Like your time spent with me here.  It's creeping up on 40 minutes now.
CP:  Well, I just have to make a few calls to see how the company is going to handle this.  If you can just step outside or go to the breakroom for a few minutes and we'll call you back in.
Me: Whatever.

In the breakroom I went into bi-polar-denial mode where I had two different conversations, one with a manger and the other with a cashier, about how wonderful and lovely Aruba is, and my favorite parts of the island.  I said see ya later and walked to the office when Cunt Prevention called me.

CP: Well, I've made some calls.  Now, how do you think the company is going to handle this?
Me: How do I hope, or how do I think?
CP:  How do you think?
Me: Well...I think I'm going to be fired.
CP: The company has decided to terminate your employment, but the good news is they are not pressing charges.

YIPPEE!

CP: And, this won't be on any employment record, and in the future if you want to use J. Crew as a reference, they will give you a neutral one.

People, if I EVER need to use J. Crew as a reference, I have officially hit rock-bottom and I give my friends (or anyone for that matter) permission to push me in front of any moving vehicle of mass transit. 

And that was that.  I gave Cunt Prevention my allotment card.  I punched out for the last time.  K walked me out to the front of the store.  I told her I was sorry and I never intended for this.  She said she knew and put her hand on my back.  There was no public humiliation, clearing out of desks and lockers.  The store was near empty and no one even looked twice. And I walked out of J.Crew, Columbus Circle, with trouser legs, cardigan sleeves, a pair of gloves and magic wallet trailing from my pants...

Naaah.  But that would've been pretty funny.  I left my jacket there in the office so at some point I'll have to have the security escort back in the store to get my shit.  Maybe I'll just 'pick up' some things while I'm there.

Hey, they don't call me Snatchalie for nothing, right? 

Anyway, Merry Douchemas to all my friends!  I can't wait for ya'll to see the gifts I steal for everyone next year!

Part I: Busted, Merry Douchemas!

I was fired.

I was fired from J. Crew.

I was fired from J. Crew for stealing.

Those are the facts and I can’t deny them.  That’s the rumor that is circling store #700 right now, and the people I once joked with, drank with, and complained about the mess in Shipping & Receiving with can only now speculate about the levels of my moral bankruptcy.

Just to clarify: I didn’t walk in and collapse shelves of pristinely folded cardigans into my bag, nor was I prancing out of the store a virtual layer cake of outfits.  I decided to pick up (and pay for, imagine that!) a few gifts for friends and co-workers, have my manager ring me up for the items upstairs, and then (gasp) I was going to FedEx these little tokens on the company’s bill.  Up to that point, that was my greatest criminal endeavor.

Synopsis from there: brought piles of stuff upstairs, manager was busy and kept jumping away from the register, fucked up ringing me up on the different credit cards/debit card that I specifically outlined, bullet-pointed, and diagrammed for him.  I gift wrapped while he was ringing, brought stuff downstairs—in short, I noticed after the fact, while I was clandestinely boxing and wrapping my friends’ gifts, that a cardigan for CC had not been rung up.  I literally exclaimed out loud, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” and being frustrated, annoyed at my manager’s flakiness and incompetence, I just said, “Fuck it.”  We’ve all said “Fuck it,” and I really meant it—fuck it.  It being the company, the Man, the idiocy, the wait, the unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy of it all.  Fuck it, she’ll love the cardigan.

On December 19^th I sealed a box that I thought contained a tank top and cardigan when in actuality it held January 5^th inside.

Day Two

I promise to quit the countdown after today. This is the second day of my three-day New Year’s body cleanse.  This isn’t the crazy Cajun lemonade diet that I tried over the summer.  The one where I couldn’t peel myself off of my couch after the 36^th hour, therefore sealing the certainty of my lifelong dependence and addiction to caffeine.  Oh well, some things I’ll never give up.

Yesterday I drank protein shakes at two-hour intervals.  Today and tomorrow it’s all about the fruit.  So if I don’t die of a diabetic sugar shock, then I might end up at the oncologist after my colon blows.  I don’t feel too cleansed, in fact, I feel like an oompa loompa with a severe gastrointestinal disorder.

On an empowering note, a friend of a friend who is kind enough to indulge my cyber meanderings, wrote me a rousing email regarding facing his fears for the New Year.  He was one of the hundreds of crazies—oops, I mean ‘the inspired’ ;)—who sprinted bare-bottomed into the frigid waters on New Years day, entering the ranks of the well-known group collectively called the Polar Bear Club.  He mentioned that a girl had made laminated cards with the message:

“She said a spacecraft has to travel at 7 miles per second in order to escape the Earth's atmosphere when heading to outer space.  We're revving up, getting some serious momentum going, and using that as our theme for January, and beyond.”

Though I think I’ll refrain from giving my labia frostbite, I think it’s a nice thought to keep in mind, especially when powering through the rough patches.  Bravo to you, though, for facing the fear of contracting pneumonia!

I also promise to stop with the lame New Year empowerment paragraphs.  I think it’s just some bad Tony Robbins that I ate.  It’ll pass.  With the fruit.