Need a Little Tenderness

I know that I'm a cranky person, hell, I even put it right in the "About Me" thingie on this site. I am the opposite of a people person. I'm not actively looking to complain about my fellow humans, it's just that I happen to notice that most people (I said "most" ok? I wanted to say "all" but I held back) are self-absorbed, selfish jackasses who live in a bubble of their own making. And this is coming from a guy who has a blog where I write about me me me me me. I'm also a hypocrite so I think we can agree that it works out awesomely.

This morning I was witness to some behaviors that technically aren't a large affront but I think they are symptomatic of a much larger problem within our society. People are super rude and forget that there are other people around who may not want to deal with them. I had gone up to the cafeteria (Cafe Fail) and grabbed an orange juice (dunno why but I had a major craving for orange juice with all kinds of pulpy goodness this morning). I paid for m'juice and then went over to the elevators and pressed the button to go back down to the 1st floor. I was waiting for the elevator to come when some guy came up and stood next to me. He then proceeded to hit the down button (we are on the top floor of a 4-story building). Hey dick? Yea, see how that button is all lit up and shit? That means that I've already hit said button to call the elevator. I know I look dumb and all but I'm pretty sure I did it correctly. Your tapping it again isn't going to make it come any quicker. That's Strike One. The elevator finally came and we filed on. I hit the 1st floor button and settled back into the "don't talk to me" stance (for me that's basically any stance). He leans over and hits the 3rd floor button. Hey dick? You're going down ONE floor? Unacceptable. That's Strike Two.

He must have either noticed that I was irritated by his singular floor ride or perhaps he just felt guilty (both options are unlikely) so he said, "I really tweaked my knee playing basketball" to me. Hey dick? I don't care. Don't talk to me. Can you not see my personal barrier? It's pretty obvious I'm not a chatter. Keep your banter to yourself 'kay? 'Kay. I'm-a-gonna let that one slide though and let you go with a warning. And then, not quite content with the now 2.5 offenses that I have silently charged him with he decides to up the ante by opening up his breakfast sandwich and taking a HUGE slobbering bite out of it. It sounded like this: krinkle krinkle krinkle..."mmmfff CHOMP! scmuSNNmmffPHH! smack! smack! smack!" Holy shit dude. You do realize that you are only going to be on this elevator for like 15-20 seconds right? You couldn't fucking hold off on tearing into that egg and sausage shitstorm for less than half a minute? No? Awesome. Thanks for letting me hear you chew. All this before 8 am too. Lucky me.

The doors open and he slowly wanders out onto his floor while taking yet another huge bite from his sandwich. Holy fuck. Did he even get to swallow the first bite yet? Gah! The elevator doors closed and I was left to go down the remainder of the floors with the stink of his breakfast hanging in the air threatening to permeate my clothes. I looked over and there was a glob of melted cheese and a halo of bread crumbs where he was standing. "God, it stinks in here," I thought to myself as the elevator arrived at my floor. The doors opened and of course there was like three people standing RIGHT IN FRONT of the door as if there was absolutely no way that there could possibly be another person on the planet who might just happen to want to get the fuck off the elevator. I mean, c'mon people. Fucking spread out and let me pass. My only consolation was the knowledge that they are now standing in that guy's sandwich funk. I don't even care if they suspect that it was me. Ok, I care a little.

Disjointed Ramblings With No Discernible Thread (a.k.a. "Normal")

I just can't seem to get around to updating this site on a regular basis. I start out with good intentions and positive thoughts about how I'm going to post at least once a week or maybe even twice a week! Holy shit! And then I get all mixed up in my dumb life and I neglect the site. It's not like I forget or anything. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I become keenly aware that it has been X number of days since I last updated and I'm disappointing literally 10's of people (ok, maybe just 10). Before I know it, I've created this mad pressure in my own head about what the next post should be and how it should be a hugely funny/interesting story about how I did whatever with whomever (awww, yeah. Homey whips out the "whom". boo-ya).

But the days pile up and I still can't think of anything even remotely interesting to write about so I....don't. I simply don't write anything about anything. I even went so far during one of my "whooo-hoo-look-at-me-I'm-gonna-be-all-super-creative-and-I-have-all-these-ideas-and-they-come-out-of-my-head-so-fast-that-I-can't-write-them-down-quickly-enough-and-I-need-to-have-some-sort-of-way-to-get-these-great-ideas-onto-the-internet-so-that-people-can-ignore-them" that I went and bought myself a micro-recorder thing. No, seriously. The idea was that I could simply just record the thoughts that are too precious, fragile and fleeting to try to get onto paper or even a computer text file (or, gasp! a fucking blog post) because of course I'd ALWAYS have this recorder thing with me at all times right? I mean, look how small it is! It's totally not inconvenient or unrealistic at all! So I bought it. I've used it as I had intended exactly zero times. I'm a moron. I did record my cat snoring once though. So that's a win right?

Speaking of cats, Molly has a problem. A pretty big problem actually. She has a tumor in her little head. In her right eye specifically. I may have mentioned (I can't remember and god knows I don't actually read this) that her eye changed color last year and although the doctor said, "Meh, that happens, no worries", we were worried all the same thank you very much. Her behavior was different (more aggressive than usual) and The Wiff took her back to the vet to get some scans and shit done. Turns out the eye is cancerous. Lovely. So tomorrow (Feb 1st) she goes in to surgery to have it removed. I'm going to have a pirate kitty. Poor little girl. I'm actually really worried about it but since I'm also completely shut down emotionally and don't know how to express how I truly feel, I shall minimize it and move on. Hold on a sec while I turn this stress and angst into a little hard ball that will eventually eat its way out of my chest....there we go.

So, winter. Can we talk about winter for a paragraph or two? The snow has been such a fucking asshole this year. I know that in '94-'95 and '96 here in Boston there was more snow than blah blah blah I don't fucking care. Back then I didn't have a car and I lived in an apartment where it was someone else's job to shovel this shit. Now it is my responsibility (unless I'm in Miami, right Amy? Wheeeeee!). I am old and decrepit and quite honestly I have run out of places to put the stuff. The snow piles on my sad little postage stamp of a lawn are taller than I am. The snow bank at the end of my driveway is the size of one of those huge SUV's. And this week we're supposed to get even more snow. Great. I give up. Just keep snowing on me. Make my roof collapse. I don't care anymore. I can't fight you Mother Nature, you win automatically. I can't even flip the board (which is a great tactic usually when losing a game).



Last week it snowed too but I didn't care because I was in Miami (ok, technically I was in Coral Gables but fuck you, that's close enough). I never "got" Florida but I moved a little closer to being able to understand it. It was lovely I must admit. The weather was in the mid-70's with moderate humidity. Not oppressive but just enough to let you know that yea, the air might be a little "thick" fat boy. I won't bore you with details about the conference because quite frankly you will not care. I'm in this industry and I had a hard time caring about all of the lectures and presentations. There was one presenter who we were told who's journey to Miami from South Africa had taken 40 hours. Well I can tell you right now that that motherfucker should have stayed home. Holy shit. I've never experienced something that mind-numbingly dull in my life. And this from a guy who read The Simarillian on purpose.

First of all the guy was super nervous, so right off the bat he got my sympathy vote. I feel you mister. This is gonna suck for you. Don't worry about it. Head down and press on through ok? I'm here for ya. Then he started speaking in that weird sort-of-German-but-wait-isn't-that-more-of-an-Australian-vibe accent of his. His stutter was so profound that it was painful. I get it mister. Stutters suck. No worries though, we're not going anywhere. Move through it. Keep yer chin up! He then proceeded to go through each of his slides bullet point by fucking bullet point in such soul-crushing detail that I slowly moved from sympathy, to boredom, to indifference, to finally bare knuckled hatred in the span of 50+ minutes. At the end I didn't want to be glad he was done because I thought I might have been hallucinating and he'd be going back up to go through the thing all over again. I might have died if that happened. I certainly lost all interest in the next speaker I can tell you that much.

The take home messages are that I should be more open to going somewhere warm during the winter months (something I've literally never done before) and that air travel still sucks ass. American Airlines is equivalent to taking a city bus for 3 hours (except a city bus doesn't have the potential to fall out of the sky). I spent the bulk of the flight home wishing foul, awful things on the family seated behind me and their 4 screaming children. If any of the wishes have come true then I'm sure I would have seen something on the news by now. I also wanted to stab the guy seated next to me several times. Why? Well I had the window seat and he was jammed in the middle seat between me and one of my co-workers. He clearly wanted to have a window seat because he kept leaning forward and into my space to look out the window. Dude, look, we're on the right side of a plane that's going up the east coast of the United States. Guess what's out that window? If you said "a shit-ton of water and not much else" then you are correct. Sit the fuck back and I'll let you know when we pass over some land that you couldn't identify if you absolutely had to, ok? He was also one of these guys who when the plane finally came to a stop he bolted out of his seat so he can get into the aisle as quickly as possible. Yea, um...you know that we're basically in the back of the plane here right? It's gonna take a while skippy. Ah people, how I loathe them.

Gonna Need a Lot of Ice

We need to bring back the ice floe. The sheer amount of stupid people who have been allowed to poison our gene pool and clog up our roads with their dumbness has made our society very unstable. I propose rounding up a large group of dumb-dumbs and placing them on a nice, semi-stable sheet of ice way the fuck up north somewheres and then gently nudge it out into the Gulf stream. And then what happens, happens. But Mark, who do you propose we relegate to this fate? Do you have some sort of list perhaps? Why yes, yes I do.

• People who whistle. You are not enhancing any song that may be on at the moment nor are you uplifting anyone's spirits with your monotonous rendition of "Rocky Mountain High". Off to the floe with you.
• The blond, frizzy-haired woman who works in my office. We seem to be on the same schedule for everything lately and I'm tired of seeing her. Walking into work, there she is across the street. On my way to grab some lunch, she's at the salad bar. Time for a wee? She's in the damn hallway. Go away lady. Get on that floe. (postscript: Hey lady, it's called conditioner...look that shit up. Oh no he di'int!)
• The cashier lady in the cafeteria at my work. I get the same thing and price changes every time. I know you hate your job and me for whatever reason but see, I don't care. I will solve both our problems by dooming you to stand on a rapidly melting chunk of ice somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Enjoy.
• People who say "How's it goin'?" How is what going exactly? Be more specific. Y'know what? Nevermind that. Just get on the floe.
• People who say "It's goin'!" in response to people who ask them "How's it goin'"?
• The guy who nodded off during the training I was giving the other day. I understand that trainings are dull but it's not like there was a hundred people in the room. As you may or may not recall, there was only 3 of us in there. So yea, I noticed when your head kept bobbing onto your chest. Hope you can tread water for several days.
• The woman who sits in the cube outside my office. Her laugh is super nasal and I can no longer abide it. She must go.

Wow, that last one seemed kinda harsh. Ah well. I have a bit of a problem. I tend to let things bother me. I notice patterns of behavior and idiosyncrasies in my fellow humans and once I notice something, I cannot UN-notice it, y'know? Frankly, I'm amazed when others do NOT notice the quirks of those around them. "See, he does that thing with his lips every 15 minutes. You mean you've NEVER noticed that? God, it's maddening. I HATE that guy!" I'm even more shocked when these things don't bother people even after I've pointed out how obvious they are. I once broke up with a girl cuz she tapped her leg whenever she was sitting. We'd be at a movie and I'd miss the entire thing because I was just obsessing on the fact that her leg was bouncing up and down the entire time. What the fuck? Stop fucking doing that before I stab you. And when say I "broke up with her" I mean that she dumped me after cheating on me. Whatever, she's on the floe now.

The Wiff and I were watching a film about the White Stripes tour through Canada back in 2007. They wanted to play all the Providences and out-of-the-way places where bands don't usually perform. It's a nice story and if you like the White Stripes, a must-watch. While we were watching the movie, the Wiff mentioned how she liked how they not only toured the remote areas but went out of their way to get to know the area and show respect to the local customs. I barely heard this comment as I was harping on the weird thing that Meg White does with her left arm when she drums. I may need medication.

Put the iPhone Down and Step Back

I've lamented before how I wish people could just walk without having to be connected to someone via their phones. I went for a walk recently and the sheer number of people walking around with a phone plastered to their ear was ridiculous. At one point this woman was walking behind me blathering on her phone and I had to stop and pretend to read a sign so that she could go past me. I just couldn't deal with her conversation interrupting my supposedly refreshing walk. It's bullshit. Put the phone down and walk to wherever you're going. When you get there, if you still feel like you absolutely need to tell Brenda about how awesome your yoga class was and how it was so super hot in there but it didn't matter cuz everyone was in harmony and god the instructor was a total hottie and now you want some lunch and SHUT THE FUCK UP! Oh my god, PLEASE shut up.

This need to be connected to everything at all times confuses me. Granted I'm an old fuddy-duddy but can't we just unplug ourselves for a certain amount of time during the day (and I'm not including sleep here .. The Wiff actually has a radio that she listens to all night long. I think it's to keep the voices in her head at bay)? I was in an elevator at my office this morning and this woman got on with me. Right there I'm annoyed because she was a swooper. She swooped in at the last minute. I believe she was planning on taking the stairs originally but saw the open elevator and jumped at the opportunity, thus ruining my chance for a solo ride. She hit the 3rd floor button (we got in on the 1st floor) and then immediately took out her Blackberry. Look lady, you're going to be at your desk in what? 5 minutes? Can't you wait that long to check your email? I'm standing there watching her scroll, scroll, scroll through emails when the door opens on her floor and she doesn't make a move. I chose not to say anything because I was interested in seeing if she'd even notice. The doors eventually started to close again and that must have snapped her out of her dreamscape. She lunged towards them and thrust her arm through the narrowing gap (but not the one holding her precious, precious Blackberry). I think the doors actually let out an exasperated sigh as they opened up again. Good work lady, you managed to annoy an inanimate object.

I spend the bulk of my work day in front of a computer so when I leave the office the last thing I want to do is look at another computer screen when I get home. I'm no technophobe, I love me some shiny shiny gadgets and I built my last desktop computer meself (pushes glasses up on nose and gets shoved into a locker...ha! the joke is on you Mr. Bully, I can't fit into a locker), but I can't let it creep into every aspect of my life. It's bad enough that my TV viewing habits seem to have escalated as of late (I blame hockey for this but only because I refuse to shoulder any responsibility for my own behavior) but ever since The Wiff bought a laptop I find myself sitting in front of the TV with the frickin' laptop on my, well, lap. Basically I'm a hypocrite ok? What I'm going to do is curb my own behavior. I admit to having a minor Facebook addiction as well as an obsession with checking to see if anyone posted any comments here at ye olde blog (usually it's a "Nope"). If I can ween myself off this stuff to the point where maybe I get outside a little more often (without my phone), I'd be happy with that.

"The List" or "How I Lost All Female Readers"

My recent business trip to San Diego left me with a lot of time to observe my fellow travelers and it gave me plenty of opportunities to do people watching. I got to see how people for the most part seem to be completely unaware of how their own behavior may impact those seated near them. There was one woman at one of the airports I was in (was it O'Hare? fuck if I remember) who was walking around the terminal blathering at ridiculous volumes on her cell phone about how shitty her boyfriend, job, family and living arrangements were. Mm-hmm. I'm positive it's all THEIR fault. You are totally innocent ma'am. Can you imagine if they ever allow cell phone usage on airplane flights? There will be so much carnage in the skies as people tear out their own eardrums or rip out the tongues of the asshole sitting behind them who is discussing Next Top Model in agonizing detail. I personally will abandon all airline travel if this happens.

There are many games/activities that one can play while people watching. I played a quick game of How Many Times Will This Kid Say "Mom" Before His Mom Actually Acknowledges His Existence (answer: 22). I also had a satisfying round of Spot the Drunk Guy. That was a little harder but I think I spied 2 clearly bombed guys and one borderline tipsy lady. Now at the risk of sounding like a complete creep but in keeping with my policy of complete disclosure: I'm going to talk about The List.

I've talked to several people (granted, all were male friends) and they have all confirmed that they too play this game. I call it a game but it can be serious business depending on the person "playing". Usually The List simply is employed to help pass the time in a boring meeting, in a waiting room, church, or whatever. You name a place where people have to congregate and I'm betting that someone is playing a variation of The List. It is another way to occupy your mind while trying to navigate through your day.

So what is it? The List is the list of people in the room that you would have sex with (some people throw in "under what circumstances" to add another level of complexity i.e. 1 beer, 2 beers, six-pack, etc., but I prefer to keep it more straightforward). It is just that simple and that crude. The List is a very base, very visceral, first impression kind of deal. There is very little, if any, consideration of personality, intelligence or compatibility. There is most certainly zero contemplation with regard to whether the person one is adding to The List would even give you the time of day. That would just be depressing really. I personally call the list "The Ever-Growing, Ever-Changing List of Women I Will Never Have Sex With". Yep, that sounded exactly as creepy as I thought it would. And by "never" I mean two things:

1. I'm married and well, I wouldn't cheat.
   
2. I mean, c'mon, look at me. 

Look, I'm just being honest here and I'd like to ask that anyone who wants to comment on whether or not they do OR do not play this very same game (or a variation on this theme) to please do so.

Business Travel for a Dummy

I am so glad to be home. Where was I? I was in San Diego helping to run some trainings at our office out there. The big roll-out date for this project was on Monday the 7th and my boss sent me out to do the training for the SD group (don't think that this was in any way fancy. It totally was not). I was to fly out on Sunday the 6th, do the training on Monday the 7th, and then fly back on Tuesday the 8th. This is all fine and dandy but here's the thing: there isn't a direct flight from Boston to San Diego and so I was going to have to catch a connecting flight either in Los Angeles or Chicago. Can you guess where BOTH of my connecting flights where? If you guessed Chicago then you win! Chicago in December...what could POSSIBLY go wrong?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The flights out where fine. I actually had no one seated right next to me so I was less uncomfortable. I refuse to say I was in anyway comfortable because having to sit in a big, metal tube with a couple hundred jackasses as it hurtles through the air while the chick in front of me flings her seat backwards crowding my personal space is in no way my idea of luxury. And I got to have a lovely 2 hour layover in Chicago. Do you know what you can do at an airport with 2 hours to kill? I have no idea. I'm honestly asking. All I did was finish up my book (Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safan Foer. I had started this book awhile ago but never got that far. I tore through it on this trip. It is a really great read) and people watch. I may have mentioned that I don't really care for people but I sure do like watching them.

Airports and air travel tend to bring out strange behavior in people. Either that or perhaps because of the close quarters, these idiosyncrasies become enhanced. I'm the type of person who needs to not only be on time but preferably early for any appointment. So I'm the guy sitting at the empty terminal a good half hour before anyone else shows up for the flight. Traveling stresses me out and so to ease my tension I will overcompensate by checking my boarding pass and gate information a couple hundred times to make ABSOLUTELY sure that I'm at the right place at the right time. I know, I know. Leave me alone. What I do is I'll go to the gate (super early) and sit and watch people. This also helps me chill out and feel better about my own quirks. People is fucked up, yo.

Finally I get to San Diego and you know what they say about southern California and all that crazy sunshine! I got a fucking downpour. It rained and rained and rained. Oh, and then the winds kicked in. The hotel we (I say "we" because the guy I share an office with [Seth] also went out. He works with the group I was going to train and hadn't actually met any of them yet) stayed in was in La Jolla which is just north of San Diego and supposedly quite swanky. All I saw was rain and flying palm fronds (hee! fronds). By the time I got to the hotel after several hours of travel (my plane left Boston at 7am EST and it was now 3:30pm Pacific time, so what's that? Like a day and a half or something?), I was pretty beat. I went to my room and pretty much crashed. I didn't even grab any dinner.

The next day the weather was even worse. All the local news stations were going on and on about how this was the worst storm they had seen all year and yada yada. Great. Nice timing O'Malley. We went to the office, banged out the training (at which I am much improved thank you very much) and then took a cab back to the hotel. We were going to get together with one of our vendors out there and have some dinner but I found out that this was actually more of a meeting rather than an interesting night out. I bailed on that and I'd like to say that I went exploring the area around the hotel but did I mention the goddamn rain? Yea, I stayed in and watched TV. I am a party animal people. Whatever. At least I got to watch Hoarders which is only the bestest show on the planet.

And then it was time to head back. We had the same flight out of San Diego and the same connector in Chicago (we didn't fly out together). As a matter of fact, it was the same plane that would take us into Chicago and then eventually to Boston. And with a 45 minute layover, that should mean that we won't have to get off the plane right (or "de-plane" as the flight attendants called it. Fuck that fake-ass term. This ain't Fantasy Island bitches)? Wrongo. When we finally got into O'Hare after hanging out in a holding pattern for 40 minutes, they told us that we'd have to get off the plane and then reboard in twenty minutes. Sonofa... Fine. The snow was kicking Chicago in it's frozen nuts and I was dreading having them tell us that oops, sorry, we can't fly out tonight. The odds were kind of stacked against us.

But, huzzah! We did manage to get back on the plane only an hour later than predicted and they flew my sorry ass back to Boston. I got into Logan at around 2am and I praised the Wiff for scheduling a PlanetTran car service to pick me up and ferry me home. That was pretty sweet. What really worked to my advantage is that my boss is super cool and told me not to come in to the office today. As a matter of fact, he told me to just take the day to make up for the loss of my Sunday. Schweet. I was so glad he said that 'cuz I didn't get home until 2:40 and I didn't really get to sleep until well after 3:30. I would have been toast at work today. And not yummy toast either. More like stale-ass bread that you hope will be ok once you pop it in the toaster but after a couple of bites you realize it just tastes like sadness. Yup. Just like that.