can you have the Mondays

on a Wednesday?

My coworkers had flowers delivered to our house yesterday. They are spectacular. And they almost made me happy. Finally after I had plowed through two dinners (yes, I made myself two separate dinners. And for the record, I only made Joe one.) and was trolling through the refrigerator for cheese my husband asked me when did you last get your period. Thinking this was a loaded question I shot back "February 3rd but don't worry pregnancy would be like immaculate conception at this point." To which my husband delicately replied, um, you're due for your TOM next week; that explains why you keep eating everything in the fridge and why you are so cranky and tired, take it easy on yourself huh?

Firstly, this is the cutest thing ever. The fact that he was trying to make me feel better about my (miserable) little life by reminding me that I have a serious case of PMS is really funny. But I must say it's slightly more than frightening when your husband can determine the exact point of your menstrual cycle based on the amount of food you are consuming and your mood. Poor Joe, poor, poor Joe.

I came into work this morning at 7 a.m. after swinging by Panera to get danish rings for my coworkers (as a thank you for the flowers). I got to my desk, made myself some coffee and proceeded to look at the Ann Taylor Loft website for 2 hours. When people get here I actually have to do work or at least look more like I am doing work. The thing is, most of my coworkers come in after 10, and I can't do any work until they get here because I everything I write has to start from them. So I finished my to do list yesterday and I am starting 3 new projects today, but I can't start until the project managers get in. I could simplify life and come in later, but personally I don't want to be here from 9 until 6 or 7 p.m. so I come in between 7 and 8:30 and generally speaking, dick around for an hour or two until others start to roll in. Sadly I am hoping that eventually my job wont rely so much on other people's input and I can just do my work and go home. However, this week I don't really care because I still have to put in 24 hours for the week and I am leaving early on Friday, so I am purposefully choosing to be unproductive whenever possible.

My job is rather boring and tedious, which is the tradeoff for the flex hours, short commute, increase in pay and unmonitored time. Plus, I work with engineers, most of which are lovely people, but a few are short on people skills and cause me to be short on patience. For example, last week I released our first (in a year) internal newsletter that I worked my ass off on. One of the founding partners sends me an email that reads "why is the font all blocky, this looks like crap." Being appalled and angry, I respond with an email that says Wow in the subject line, with the following message: "You're not a very nice person." Look at this point in my career I am so sick of taking shit from people that I am beyond worrying about repurcussions. Anyway, he brings his laptop down to my desk and shows me his screen and the newsletter for some reason is coming out all pixelated and grainy. This effect has nothing to do with my work, it's the way his computer converted the file (and I might add that this man is a computer engineer with a PhD in graphics and visualization so it's not like he didn't know this).

So with his laptop in hand he shoves the screen in my face and says no really it looks like crap. And I was like that's fine but you have to understand that what you wrote was highly offensive and it hurt my feelings; I need you to be more specific in your criticism so that I can accurately address the problem. Being flat out mean doesn't help me fix anything and it makes me unhappy in my job. He then has the balls (and maybe I'm overreacting but it's my story, so I retain the right to overreact if I so choose) to say to me you should have thick skin you worked in the media. So I said, what does that have to do with having thick skin. And he said in the media you are always being judged and criticized so you should be able to take it. So I flatly said, well I don't have thick skin, my skin is very thin and it blisters easily and I shouldn't have to take any type of rudeness if it isn't necessary. To which he responded well it does look like crap. I said that's fine, I'll fix the conversion properties, and I no longer wish to talk to you anymore right now.

I have gotten very ballsy in my old age.

So that's my job. Tedious and socially dysfunctional, with great benefits. Thank God they agreed to let me work from home once Joe and I start our family. It's like the silver lining in the storm cloud some days. Okie dokie, it's 9 a.m. and people are rolling in, off to work.