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Christmas banner. In one of these pictures I'm a wee bit drunk. Can you guess which one?

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Picture testing. Is that not a most awesome hat? 

Night, Lights, Georgia, Whatever.

So driving in to work today, an experience that brings me to a murderous rage faster than any other except perhaps Carrot Top commercials, I happened upon something that both soothed and confounded me.

Namely, the oldies radio station playing "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia."  I've never really paid a lot of attention to this song, but I must admit that it is in my top 5 of Songs About a Vengeful Sister Who Allows Her Brother to Take the Fall for A Killing She Committed. 

Seriously, what on earth is this song about?

"Well, they hung my brother before I could say [that I killed that dude who was screwing my brother's wife]"?

Umm, exactly how did this happen before you could say anything? Too busy to go to the hangin'? Or the 'make-believe trial' for that matter?

Really, how is she blaming "the Judge in the town [who has] bloodstains on his hands"?  Methinks she should be looking more towards the crazy woman in the mirror, who's wielding the gun. I'm just sayin'. 

And then she killed the wife, too?  What is she, the morality police? Is she gonna go after the bartender who also admitted to sleeping with the wife, next?  This woman is obviously unbalanced.

To recap, she kills 2 people, allows another to die for it, then she blames the lawyers and the judge after-the-fact, and THEN she goes on to write a hit single about her misdeeds so she can be all rich and whatnot.

I don't like this woman one bit. Way to kill a bunch of people for a record contract, yo.  You'd think she was one of those rappers from the 90's.

(Now you see what going to work everyday does to my mind. I just spent 15 minutes dissecting a 31 year-old country-western song. Kill me now.)

Revealing Insane Insecurites in the First Post

So is anyone else completely freaked out by that Levis commercial where the mannequin follows the guy home because the guy took the jeans that it was wearing? Because seriously, that 45 second segment is the scariest thing I've seen on film in months.

First, they gotta play that "I put a spell on you" song, something I already find vaguely creepy anyways.

Then the slow stalking through the rain.

And when that shadow falls over the guy while he's sleeping? And then the door opens? I'm totally gonna have nightmares for days.

Way to ruin my life, Levis.

Speech Therapy

As anyone who has talked to me for any period of time knows, I have something of an issue with speaking. Namely, that I don’t do it very well. In fact, I’m pretty darn horrible at transferring information via language. I tend to under-enunciate everything, whilst talking incredibly fast. Add to that a mild stutter that I develop whenever I get nervous or hyper, and it’s fair game as to whether anyone will be able to understand a single word out of my mouth on a given day.

I’ve made strides to correct this. When I think about it, I try to slow my speech down and avoid alliterative words that cause the stutter. Lately, I’ve even been working on the enunciation thing, so people can actually hear me from a distance greater than 0.32 feet away.

Sadly, these preventative steps do nothing for me when they are most needed. Because all these speaking issues really only come out in their full, painful glory when I’m very stressed out or nervous. And I ain’t got the time or composure to remember to slow my speech down when I’m tweaked out by the world at large.

So when my new job started to get me a little tense, man were we all in for a good time. But we’ll get to that in good time.

Because, oh yeah.

So there’s one other thing about my speech issues that I forgot to mention. And by “forgot” I mean “avoided talking about like one avoids the black plague, because it makes me look completely batshit insane.”

Sometimes, when I’m hyper or nervous (or just being myself in general) I talk very fast (as we’ve covered). The problem is that when I do this, occasionally I think to myself “Self, did what you just say make any sense?” And when I do, I have a little internal dialogue, wherein I repeat what I just said very quickly, to myself, in my head.

That’s normal, right?

Whatever, shut up, I’ve got miles to go here.

See, the problem is that when I do this, I sort of have the habit of silently but physically mouthing the words as I’m repeating them to myself. This is bad, you see, because this repetition happens to seamlessly follow the quick talking that I just did.

If you can imagine this, you would hear me say something unintelligible and incredibly fast, but sadly my lips would continue to move silently afterwards for some time. This gives me the effect of being the only human being in the entire world who is, in person, a badly dubbed Japanese film.

Sigh.

Let’s all pause for a moment to digest this little nugget of information before we move on.

Okay, so yeah. To recap: I’m a horrible speaker, especially in tense situations.

[Scene: It’s the first full week of Jason’s new job, 4:35pm. Jason is at his desk, writing three emails, sending out 2 faxes, and trying to make 3 calls (while learning how the new phone system works), all before 5:00pm. To put it mildly, Jason is tense.]

Jason [talking incredibly fast]: Hi, thanks for holding. So have you found those papers yet? [silently repeats to himself]

[In walks Jason’s boss]

Boss: Hey Jason, where are those papers at?!

Jason [on the phone, talking a bit, but not much, slower]: I’m sorry, I said ‘have you found those papers yet?’ [does the repeating thing]

Boss [misinterpreting the mouthing]: What was that Jason? I’m bad at reading lips.

[Jason cocks his head quizzically, completely oblivious to the fact that he has indeed become Reporter #3 from Godzilla Vs. Mothra]

Jason [still talking way too fast]: Oh good, well if you can fax them over here that’dbegreatthanks. [again with the mouthing]

Boss [confused]: What are you doing?

Jason [hangs up]: Hmm, I’m not doinganything, am I? [sigh. Does it again.]

Boss: There! What was that!

Jason [dawning comprehension, as this is not the first time his brain has betrayed him]: Oh! Umm….nothing. Really, just a habit….it’s nothing, really, I promise…[wanders off into unintelligible mutterings as he realizes this is helping nothing. Not that the muttering did him any favors.]

Boss [now believes Jason has truly gone batshit crazy]: Oohh-kay. Do you have those papers?

[Jason hands them over.]

Boss: Thanks.

[She slowly backs out of his office, apparently afraid to turn her back to the obviously insane new secretary she’s hired.]

[Jason dies]

Training Day

As you may or may not know, I finally found a job. Yes, all that studying in high school and university, those all-nighters and 40 page research papers, all that networking and those countless hours honing my keen interview skills lo these many years has finally paid off. In the form of a secretarial job.

From part-time carnie to full-time secretary. You’ve come a long way, baby.

…

…

…

So score.

Right?

Not so fast.

For you see, I have neglected to mention the little fact that I am a frickin’ horrible secretary. On my first day of training, trying to work through the Byzantine phone system in the office, I managed to disconnect no less than 8 callers. Considering I only had 10 calls the entire day, we’ll take that as a loss, I suppose.

I also managed to almost destroy the office server, as well as take out the entire building switchboard, when I tripped going into the computer room and ran headlong into the fuse array.

Add to that the part where I almost got towed in the parking garage and was then rear-ended while leaving said garage, I’d call it a pretty complete day.

Oh, but just wait.

So after work I had to go return some pants that I had bought for work the previous day. (For some reason I find that while I’m okay with the first three pairs of 30X30’s, the fourth pair is a bit tough to manage at 36X30. A bit wide in the hips, perhaps.) I head over to the mall where I bought them, battling traffic and just a bit pissed off with the world, considering my day thus far. Particularly with drivers in Dallas (see: rear-ending above) but also not pleased with the world in general.

Anyway, I get to the store and make my exchange very quickly, the sales lady is awesome about the whole thing. I’m suddenly feeling better. That’s short-lived. As I’m making my way out of the store, I have to travel through the makeup area to get into the mall.

[Scene: The Makeup Counter. Apparently it’s a bad time, there are boxes everywhere. Jason clumsily picks his way across the room. Unfortunately, he manages to choose the same path as a little old lady who is coming in the opposite direction.]

Jason: Sorry, ma’am. I’ll back up. [he carefully backtracks through the boxes, almost but not quite falling several times]

Jason [steps aside but still in secretary mode]: Have a nice day!

[The woman, this sweet-looking little grandmotherly type, looks over with a scowl. She flips Jason off and then shuffles on, leaving him standing there shocked.]

Now at this moment, I must confess I did entertain some unhealthy thoughts. Mostly centered around tripping. field tackling, or throwing something at this crazy woman. Somehow, I’m still not sure on the details, I suppressed these urges and made it back home without killing a single soul. Except perhaps my own.

Thus I survived Training Day One, but just barely. Only 15 more of those, followed by another 365 regular days left.

I’ve come a long way indeed.

I miss the carnival.