Happy Freakin' Holidays!

I just got a new HD TV. A big one. It is an early Christmas present from my mom. It is gorgeous. Everytime I see it, I imagine that I hear heavenly choirs singing its praises. I have named it Ricardo. I kissed it goodbye this morning.

What I do not love about the TV is the constant presence of my husband in front of it. He just got out of school for the semester break. I think he has one take home final that is due tomorrow, but other than that, he is done until the middle of January. Which is lovely in a way...oh, wait, no it is NOT. HE IS DRIVING ME NUTS. I seriously do not know how much of this I can take. For one thing, to have made it in his field with such a flourish, he is really a lazy person. Take for instance this particular conversation from yesterday:

Me: (I have just come home from work and I am carrying three boxes of soda that he requested I pick up from Target on my way home) Hey babe.
Him: indestinguishable grunts
Me: How was your day?
Him: grunt grunt, Mostly finished my exam, what kind of drinks did you get grunt grunt?
Me: Well, if you'd help me put them up, then you could find out...
Him: grunt grunt, (rolls over on the couch so that his back is to me) What's for supper?

So he's just going to be laying around for a month, which I guess I could stand. I mean, it's not ideal, but at least there would be someone there to sign for my ebay purchases. And he starts back within a month. But no--it's worse than that. He is laying around, and I guess thinking too much, and now he's getting paranoid about weird things. Like money. So he calls me in the middle of the day at work and declares that he is going to "pay a bunch of stuff off." When I say that we should talk about this stuff at home, when I am not sitting at a desk in front of an entire school full of people, he goes completely off, and says that I just don't want to pay the bills, and he is worried that I am spending all our money and whatever. Which is totally not it at all--it's just that I handle the money stuff, and when something needs to be paid, I pay it without any fanfare or freaking out or anything. That's it. So I think he's just laying around, and he has absolutely nothing to think about but weird stuff and he's freaked himself out or something. Now, this, I cannot take. This is just too much. For one thing, I hate thinking about this junk when I don't need to. For another thing, I cannot take him calling me at work and promptly freaking out because he's been laying around thinking about random things.

But whatever. I think it boils down to the fact that I am mad that he gets to lay at home, watching the new TV and doing nothing all day, while I have to go to work and go on with life, and handle things like bills and whatever without freaking out. And I am mad that I don't think there is a single person in my life who would go off and handle things for me so that I could go to graduate school and then lay on the couch and think up things to whine about. Which is not a bad affliction, I don't guess. I mean, no one should have to do something like that. But I just feel kind of used sometime, you know. And I know he doesn't do it on purpose, but every time I come home and see him laying on the couch, knowing that my head is splitting because I just spent another day at this craptastic job, putting off my dreams for one more day, it just takes a little more out of me. And I worry about that day that I just can't physically take anymore.

But tonight I am going to a tutoring event, and I am wearing a new cute jacket, so everything should be ok. There is light at the end of the tunnel. And it's not even a tunnel really. Maybe a short archway...

The Two-Sides of Morgan

I have very recently realized that there are two sides of me, two sides that loathe each other, but only very rarely come into direct conflict with each other. The two sides of Morgan are very much like the Hatfields and McCoys: the rivalry is there, but it takes a certain event or idea to really start the gunfire. These two sides are Regular Morgan and Common Sense Morgan. Common Sense Morgan is the one who willed herself to college, who occasionally goes on diets, who has a 401 (k) plan, whereas Regular Morgan actually did the work in college, downed a bottle of wine at lunch yesterday and then topped it off with a three hour nap, and goes on Ebay shopping sprees. To be quite honest, Common Sense Morgan has been at the helm for a good part of the last year and a half. However, good old Regular Morgan is drawing her sword and making a run for the wheel.

It all started when I got a second job as an SAT tutor. I wasn't really looking for a second job--one just kind of came and found me. It's a one on one tutoring thing, so one can make their own hours, and make a very nice income doing it. Currently, I just work about 10 hours a week, spending a couple of evenings and Saturday mornings doing it. It is fun, profitable and completely doable timewise. It's money that I currently use for frivolous things, like concert tickets, shoes, and holiday lights for Matt. Sometimes I squirrel the money away in our savings account. It's all completely common-sense and well-thought out.

However, the more I do it, the more that I think I should give up the regular job, and up my hours tutoring so that I have more time to write and just basically live. The hourly rate that I make tutoring is a helluva lot more than I make here, even though here I am on salary. If I just worked 20 hours a week tutoring (which is half of what I work now), I could be making roughly the same amount of money that I make now. And I would have half of my life back. I wouldn't have to be here 40 hours a week, I wouldn't have to do things that I find un-challenging and unfulfilling. I could be myself for 20 more hours a week.

Note, however, that that is Regular Morgan speaking, she of the bottles of wine and shoe fetishes. Common Sense Morgan reminds me that if I give up my current job, I would be making less money, in that, I would no longer be able to count the tutoring money as "extra" income. Plus, I would have no insurance and no 401 (k). That's a biggy. I need insurance. Besides that, I would be losing any resume points that I am getting by working here--I don't know how part-time SAT tutor looks on a resume, but I imagine it would be worse than hardcore office work experience, and I don't want be back at square one if I ever decide to go back to the full-time job world.

But despite all of that, I have pretty much given myself until the beginning of next fall (is it sad that I still think in terms of semesters?) to make this change. I don't think that I want any of this anymore, but it is going to take some engineering to get everything figured out, so I am putting myself on a timeline. How corporate is that? That in itself is reason enough for me to give up this stuff.

Is this bad? Should I contain Regular Morgan before she ruins lives and makes cake batter run in the streets?

I don't know. It probably is bad. I think it has been coming a long time (probably since the very first day I stepped foot in the corporate world if I'm honest about it), but it all came to a head yesterday when I was laying on the bed, fat and happy after drinking a bottle of two buck Chuck and eating scads of goat cheese on sourdough, watching my husband as he tried to string coherent thoughts together and pretending to watch some horrible Michael Keaton movie. And I thought--why isn't life like this all the time? Yeah, I know, one really shouldn't aspire to be drunk all the time, nor should that kind of gluttony be an everyday thing. But, if one can swing it, life really should be easy like that. And if I do this, I think I can swing it.

This all basically boils down to the fact that I don't know what I want to do with my life. But I do know what I don't want to do with my life. And what I don't want to do is to be some corporate drone. I have already sort of stationed myself as this outsider, the antithesis to the other recent college grad who exudes this kind of wide-eyed yet blind complacency with "policy" and "compliance." I think anymore, it is not enough to be the snarky kid who sits in the back and makes fun of everyone's clothes. I need to really be free, to really be me.

Have I convinced anyone yet? Or are you on Common Sense Morgan's side?

Whatever. This is my line in the sand. I'm ready for a change, or at least, to set a change in motion. I think I kinda rock right now.

And if you're interested, I look kind of cute today: Gap Curvy Flare Trousers, Express purple brocade-esque button up with pleating, Gap corduroy blazer that I bought my freshman year of college (which means, yeah bitches, I'm down to that size again), Aerosoles loafer wedges with tassels. I also have on L'Oreal mineral foundation, Benefit Dallas blush, Maybelline Dream Mousse eyeshadow in Suede Sensation, Benefit BadGal lash, and C.O. Bigelow lipgloss in some red tinted glossy color. And I'm having a good hair day. So there. It's ok to be jealous....

Well, I've wasted too much company time. It's a good thing my boss is on a tight deadline and kind of disregarding my entire presence today, or I'd have never gotten this typed.

God, I hope I don't have long of where I have to explain myself like that. Parting will be such sweet sorry, Corporate America, such sweet, sweet sorrow.

Back to work.

Attack of the Ebay Virus, Pt. 2

So I am at work, and I am bored. Have been bored all day. That pretty much explains why I have $164 less than I had this morning.

You see, I haven't been on Ebay since I spent nearly $200 on a J.Crew party dress last Christmas. I had sworn it off. But then yesterday, I started thinking about how I wanted a new cashmere cardigan, and before I knew it, I was on Ebay, bidding on stuff that I had no business bidding on. At the end of today, this is what I have ended up with:
1. One J.Crew cashmere argyle sweater in green (that I don't have to pay shipping on, given the lady who had it lives in Berkeley, and so I will just go and pick it up)
2. One pair of Gap Curvy Flare jeans (my faves). You never know when you need an extra pair of jeans.
3. One small bottle of Dior Addict, my favorite perfume.
4. One NIB (new in box, for the un-Ebay initiated) palette of Nars Orgasm blush. I'm sure that I'll still remain partial to my Benefit Dallas, but everyone loves this stuff, so I'm giving it the old college try.
I am still bidding on...The Owl Bag from Paul and Joe's Target collection. You know the one I'm talking about. It is an "it" bag, and I missed out on it because it sold out all over the Bay Area so fast. So now I'm going to have it. If it costs me another $60, I will have it. I MUST HAVE THAT BAG! Which means that this time tomorrow I will be panting and sweating and cursing the day that Ebay was invented. But I WILL HAVE THAT BAG. I will even pay for the super-fast shipping on that sucker so that come Casual Friday, that bag will be dangling beautifully from my arm. MARK MY WORDS, BITCHES.

In other news, I have developed an overwhelming urge to reinact Clueless on this poor girl that I work with who insists on coming to work with her hair in this sumo-wrestler style ponytail and in these really thick wool blazers with SHOULDER PADS (wow, I love the caps lock today, huh?). Now, wool blazers are ok, I guess, if you live in Maine. But we live in California. There is no need for wool in California. Yeah, it's a little chilly here every once in a while, but thick, cheap wool? Hell to the no. What is the saddest is that this girl is younger than me! And she dresses like my grandmother! I feel bad, because seriously, if I didn't get to dress cute to come to work, well, my job would suck that much harder. In fact, there would be no reason to even show up. I'm being serious here. I mean, I lose so many brain cells just by sitting at this desk all day, the only way I can justify it is to say that at least I look nice doing it.

Lord, I need to go back to school. Growl. I never thought I'd actually be thinking in those terms.

Well, I should go. I have a date with my husband, a six pack of Amstel Light and the Oakland A's.

Go Swisher!

A Break-Up Missive

Dear Law and Order,
We need to talk. Really. I know you weren't really expecting to hear those words from me, but, let's face, the writing is on the wall. It's over, Law and Order. Yeah, we've had some good times, but it's time for me to move on. In fact, I have moved on already. Don't look at me like that--you had to know that it was going on. No, it's not important "who with." The point is, I've moved on. And I know you're sad now, but you're going to move on too. Ok?

Oh, where did we go wrong? I think it started when you insisted on having a goddamn twist ending on every single episode. That was just too much. Yeah, I know I'm being harsh, but just listen. Ok? Plus, you know I love me some Southern Fried wit and humor, but do you have to hit me over the head with Fred D. Thompson. Look, I get that he's a country lawyer who made it to the big city. But if I hear one more quip about I will punch you in the throat!!! Ok, I'm sorry, that was out of line. I'll calm down.

Law and Order, we have always been so close. You got me through high school, you got me through college, and we still have some great times when I'm folding laundry and you're on TNT and I can't find anything else to drain all those hard earned brain cells. But I can't make time for you on your new night, Friday, any more. Sure, I might let the TiVo record the first few episodes. But you're not going to be the number one priority in my schedule any more. I'm sorry. I have to move on.

I'm sorry. But hey, at least we'll have the marathons!

Love,
Morgan

101 Ways in Which Today Has Sucked (ok, it's just 10, but doesn't it suck that it's not 101?)

1. I went to bed too late last night, and I couldn't get up this morning. It was very nearly impossible.
2. I burnt my heel on the iron this morning (don't ask) and have been limping around all day.
3. I forgot to pack my lunch today.
4. It's Monday.
5. Everyone here is grouchy, esp. my boss.
6. My place of employment is facing massive budget cutbacks. Massive.
7. My feet hurt.
8. I heated up a Weight Watcher's frozen dinner that a co-worker gave me for lunch, and it had somehow gotten NASTY. As in, rotted NASTY. I don't know how, I don't know why, but I thought it looked suspect. But being quite dumb, I took a bite of it. Oh. My. God. How foul.
9. I had to eat a bag of popcorn and a Hershey's bar for lunch. By the time I realized how nasty the dinner was, I didn't have time to go out for anything, and that was the only thing in the vending machine. Disgusting.
10. And it's September 11, and I feel horrible that in the five years since I woke up and found the world changed, I have remained pretty much a selfish, mean person who thinks more about her Weight Watchers dinners than about children whose parents lost their lives trying to save another. I keep hearing people say things about how 9/11 changed them, and I regret having that it didn't change me. I was a freshman in college the day that it happened, I was sitting in biological anthropology class, trying to look cool and be a star. And now, I am five years older, and I am sitting at work, still trying to look cool but with the cold realization that I will probably never be a star. It's sad. Perhaps it has made me more wary of airline security, more cautious of those around me. Or perhaps not. I don't know. I am still just a girl, a girl who doesn't understand half of what she should. A girl who will go home tonight and watch baseball and eat a salad and feel pretty secure in her overpriced house with her sad-eyed husband. Perhaps the world has changed, but I have not, and I feel so sad that I missed this boat. I want to feel something, I want to know what the world is made of now. But I don't, and it is sad. I think that that is the saddest thing about it all: that we are all stuck in this grand chaotic mess and whether we change or not depends not on that mess, but rather on our own icky, ill-conceived selves. Events do not change us, but rather, we change us, and it breaks my heart that I have not managed to change myself.

It also breaks my heart that I am a big rambling sap. Lord.

On a Cold, Windy Day

I am so sleepy right now. It is such a cold, nasty day out there. I just went to my favorite Chinese restaurant for lunch, where a co-worker and I divided a large hot and sour soup and a pot of tea. It was lovely, but now I am ready to turn it all in and sleep for a bit. Good thing that my boss is in a meeting--he he!

We haven't gotten the mail yet today, but I am really hoping that my jeans and lipstick come in today. The jeans I am currently wearing--more on that later--are a little baggy in the butt, and it makes me look weird. Note that I am happy that I am having that problem, but jeez, I need some new jeans. Need them, need them. And the lipstick wouldn't hurt either. Now, I love, love, love shopping online, but sometimes the delayed gratification kills me. This is one of those times. Someday I will learn that I should spring for the two-day shipping.

I did take my mental health day on Wednesday, and it was great. I went to the ball game, sat in the $2 seats, ate popcorn, and just generally relaxed. Then I came home and watched bad TV. It was funny though, because the next day, I show up for work (with a sunburn no less), and everyone is like, "Oh, how are you fee-ee-ling?" I felt mildly bad for deserting my coworkers...ok, wait, now I didn't. So I crafted some answer about my cold, and went to the office to put on more powder, in hopes of downplaying the pinkness on my nose.

Ok, time for the daycaps:
Today's Outfit: Gap boot-cut jeans, Ann Taylor Loft coral v-neck shirt (I seriously love this shirt--I have it in coral and white. I got in some bizarre buy one get one deal, and at the time I just thought I would wear them on the weekend. But they are so soft and comfy, I feel like I'm going to them more and more), J. Crew white blazer with tortoiseshell buttons, brightly colored t-strap Birks--yeah, I know, they're Birth Control shoes. But they're comfy, and my boss likes them a lot (she of the Manolos and Ferragamos), and hell, it's casual Friday.

Today's Make-Up: Bare Minerals foundation and Mineral Veil, beloved Dallas blush, Cover Girl mascara--you know that type that they advertised on America's Next Top Model...the kind with the funky brush...it's that kind, Kiehl's clear lip balm. (Note: I think my husband stole my Benefit Bad Gal Lash, which I love. I can't find it anywhere. Not that I think my husband is the type to wear mascara. But well, I can't find it, and it's the only logical answer for what happened to it.)

Today's Purchases: hot and sour soup, pot of tea, Starbucks coffee

Have a good one!

The First Day of Classes...

and boy am I tired. Combine a crazy day with the remnants of my cold, and you get a very tired, grumpy Morg. Ok, so I'm not that grumpy now that I am home, but I am tired. And I was grumpy. Seriously. You would not have wanted to be around me.

But I am home now, and it is cool. Both orientations went off without a hitch, and I spoke with my direct supervisor to make sure she was aware that they, indeed, had been totally rockin' orientations. She said she was aware, and that they were making note of it in my portfolio, which basically means that come promotion time (possibly in March), I could be a happy camper. So that was good. All in all, I came home feeling tired, but accomplished.

Matt has gone to the A's game tonight (we, through a long and strange process, acquired a field level seat for tonight's game for free, and since I didn't feel like going, he went), so I am home alone. It is quite nice, if I do say so myself. I called my mom and gossiped for a while, and I laid around and was just generally laze. I made myself a big salad, and enjoyed it while watching the game. So it is low-key and nice. I have basically talked myself into taking a mental health day tomorrow, and going to the game myself to buy a bleacher seat ($2 Wednesday's, you see). I have plenty of sick time accrued, and I don't really ever use the days for anything--last June I had to basically just lay out of work for three days to use them, as I was going to get them taken away if I didn't. So I think it would be a great idea. It will be a nice reward for getting all of my work done, and there is nothing quite like baseball when it's those last waning moments of summer.

Which brings you to ask--When did you become such a baseball fan? Little known fact here: I basically have always been a huge fan, at times more, and at times less. When I was a kid, I was completely obsessed with the Atlanta Braves. I collected all their cards, my mom bought me the jerseys for Christmas, I dreamt of becoming an Atlanta Braves broadcaster. Sad, but true. Hey, I was a tomboy! However, I soon discovered boys and shoes and make-up, so I gave it up for a while. Kind of sad, actually. I always kind of kept up with it, but never exclusively. Now, that I have moved to the Bay, and am just a Bart ride away from the A's, I have rekindled the baseball love. It's also cool that Matt, my academic husband, has just discovered baseball--he had never even seen a game before this year. And he loves it. So I am kind of introducing him to the game, which is fun, and also getting reacquainted with it. It is like coming back to an old friend, kind of. It is amazing what I remember from my past obsessions. Seriously. I could hit you with some obscure fact right now, but I'll spare you.

Ok, now for the daycaps:

Today's Outfit: black Michael Michael Kors pants (comfort due to cold and business), striped Express button down shirt (great Fall colors, I think--it seemed like the right thing for the "first day of school"), denim jacket, black wide hip slung belt from Target, black Aldo ballet blats. And I must say, this was a pretty cool outfit that I put together today. I have not worn this shirt in a while, because it is just this odd length. It is too long to wear out alone, and too short to really tuck (well, I guess,you could tuck it, but it doesn't look good). So I got the idea to wear it out with a belt. And sure enough, it kinda works. Especially since the belt is really cool. I got it at Target from the section of Russian-inspired accessories. I kinda felt that I had to have it, because my husband was in Russia at the time. It's wide and it has cut outs and a big silver circle buckle. I think it rocks. So it made me feel good all day.

Today's make-up: BareMinerals foundation and Mineral Veil, Benefit Dallas blush (it don't get no better!), Sonia Kashuk eyeshadow in Neutral Territory, Benefit lip gloss in Rave Reviews alternated with Kiehl's lip balm. My lips are in a sad state from the cold, ya'll. You would not believe. And I didn't wear mascara because of the cold. Even though it is waterproof, I didn't feel like tempting fate.

Today's purchases: Nada, save a tank of gas.

Have a good one ya'll! Hopefully, I'll be relaxed and rested come this time tomorrow.