BC and I have been pretty adventurous with our breakfast-going the past few months, and this past week was no different.  We’ve been pretty good at trying new places, as well as finagling opentable points in the process. But this week backfired a bit….at least initially. We decided to try out Mr. Crepe in Davis Square (Somerville) because, well, we both like crepes and wanted a bit of a change from the usual greasy spoon stuff. Big mistake.  We made it to the restaurant after the usual Sunday-morning crowd, so it wasn’t extremely busy at the moment, but that made no difference service-wise.  The place is small, HOT, and extremely confusing.  There’s no indication as far as seating yourself versus waiting for a hostess, and there is a hint that you order your food at either the cash register or the counter, but there are also menus on some people’s tables.  In other words, WTF?

So we stood at the front of the place and put on our best ‘what the hell is going on’ faces, but in vain.  We finally had to break down and ask the guy at the front counter:

who, realizing how confusing the situation was for new customers, made sure to put on his most uninterested expression and speak in his most dickish tone about coming up to the counter to order. We came over to the counter and looked all around for a menu of some sort, but there were none. By then EMO had wondered off, probably to smoke the hashpipe or purge, so we had to stop another employee:

to help. When asked if there were menus, she just kind of stared at us before taking one from a couple people who were already seated.  By now there was a line of about six people behind us, all sans menus. There was no effort to find any more menus on the staff’s behalf, and by this point we were both sweating basketball-sized beads of sweat and were about ready to jump the counter and start throwing crepes and raspberry puree at anything that moved. Instead, we just dropped the menu on the counter and walked out, mumbling about how Mr. Crepe could kiss our ass.

Now famished and quickly getting pissy, we came across Rosebud Diner.  It’s old, in a train car, and the inside is cozy.  You can’t talk on a cell phone, you can’t read the paper (because there’s such limited seating) and the servers are all over the age of 60, call you “sweetie,” and in a Jets v. Sharks-like showdown, these women would take down Emo, Crepe & Co. in under 30 seconds.

In short, the breakfast was actually pretty good.  It came in under 15 minutes, we didn’t want to kill any living thing while sitting there, and it was relatively inexpensive (by Boston breakfast standards). So if you’re anywhere near Davis Square and you’re looking for morning nourishment, send Mr. Crepe a one-finger salute for me and head on over to Rosebud.

Right now at work we’re undergoing some major changes.  To prevent three of my five readers from throwing themselves in front of trains in an effort to quell the boredom that would inevitably result from my laying out these changes, I’ll just say that they’re supposedly really big and they take a long time. What I’d like to focus on today is the idea of a meeting and the idea of a meeting called something else so as not to be perceived as a meeting and not having to pay your employees for attending the meeting.

One of the steps in instituting all these major changes at work is that all these different committees got together and made all these recommendations about what needs to be overhauled and who has to do it. Problems is, there are five committees.  And five or six departments. And only parts of what each committee does pertain to part of what some departments do. I realize this is confusing, so here is a flow chart to help you better understand how it works:

That was just a little joke.  No one knows how it really works enough to make a flow chart.

Anyway, at this point, all the committees have to meet with basically everyone who works here in order to deliver all their commandments so that we can magically become a more effective, efficient, welcoming workplace. What this requires is at least five meetings with these committees all in the next three weeks. This is in addition to the already twenty meetings we have per month. While I happen to like meetings (nothing is more effective at burning up an entire afternoon than daydreaming through a two-hour meeting), most other people around here would rather sell their left nut than go to one more gathering of the employees. This is where the brilliance comes in.

At my work, we have these lunches every once in a while when we all gather in the conference room and do something fun.  There’s either a fun presentation from an author or we watch a movie.  Something like that. While this may not sound like anything exciting to you, it’s a f*@$ing carnival around here because most people never leave their offices to take lunch. So this week we get a meeting from the higher-ups because someone got the bright idea to name these committee meetings “lunch gatherings” that we aren’t required to go to, but that will be a “fun” way to go over all these “recommendations” that these groups have come up with over the past year. Hurray! And by the way, this counts as your lunch break, which is great, because there’s nothing I’d rather do on my lunch break than go sit in the conference room and listen to recommendations about what my department needs to stop screwing up!  YAY! And just when you thought that was the last nail in the coffin, at the bottom of the email announcing this plan it says, “And don’t forget to bring your own lunch, as food will not be provided!” Of course it won’t! Thanks for the heads up, asshole! You have a great weekend, too! Hurray! Efficiency, hurray!

Fuck that noise.

In related but uplifting news, one of the people I hate most at my workplace will now be moving on to a bigger and better publishing house in the sky. *Sigh of sweet relief. No, she’s not dead; she got a better job.  And I am very happy for her, because if I had to listen to her bitching about how oppressed we are for even five more seconds, I would definitely blow a gasket. So here’s to you, suit and sneakers sales conference person:

Here’s to hoping you make it at least a week in your new position before realizing that you hate it just as much as you hate this, and that you’re pretty much doomed to glorified secretarial work until you either hit the Mega Ball jackpot or you stop expecting to be everyone’s boss at the tender age of 25.

One of the things I never anticipated when coming to work in the realm of adults (or more familiarly: the valley of the damned, for my fellow office workers out there) is how significant a role the little things play in your quality of life at work. Yes, a teeny salary can be irksome (reference: me and everyone else here, every other Friday), and frustrating benefits can take a toll (reference: me, trying to get new glasses for less than the price of a used ‘89 Toyota). But beyond actually paying your bills and being able to get your arm sewed back on at a reasonable price, it’s the little insignificant details of a workplace that really make the most difference. To better understand this, please see the thermostat episode of The Office. (Unfortunately, this is also the episode with Dwight’s speech, so the best synopsis I can find of the thermostat bit is: “Meanwhile, back at the office, the employees fight over the thermostat.” Meh.)

Anyway, one of the infinite number of “thermostat” issues we have around here has to do with silverware. There’s never any silverware in the kitchen. Part the problem is we only have about 10 spoons, 5 forks, and, of course, 40 butter knives. The other part of the problem is, people stick things in the dishwasher and the thing is only run every 6 weeks or so. (Because it’s so hard to wash a spoon by hand.) In response, I’ve taken to hoarding. I know it’s wrong, but it’s a cruel world out there, and if I don’t hoard a fork or two, you know Eunice in Publicity is going to have enough forks in her desk drawer to dress a 12-place-setting formal dining table. Well, two-finger salute to that. Starting about two months ago (okay, six months ago) I started keeping a fork in my pencil jar. And a butter knife with my teacup. And then every time we had a company gathering I would grab all the plastic ware and put it in a baggie and hide it behind the expense reports in my bottom drawer. The system worked perfectly until one day last week I left a fork in the drying rack for an hour and when I came back it was gone. Not shocking. I should have known better. Really dropped the ball on that one, soldier.

But since then, everything’s been going fine. Still, you can imagine my surprise when I opened the kitchen drawer this morning and there were about 50 spoons, 60 forks, and 100 butter knives. It literally stopped me in my tracks and I just stood there and stared at it like I’d just found Aztec gold - its shiny reflection hitting my stunned face. All I can think of for a visual is that kid from The Indian in the Cupboard.

That is me. This morning. About an hour ago.

Pure ecstasy I tell you.

So this leads me to believe one of several things: someone got fired and when their desk was cleaned out they found all of Oneida’s output for 1994. Someone bought silverware. Someone returned silverware. Many people returned silverware all at the same time. Someone finally cleaned out the dishwasher. I like to believe it was the first one, and now I can spend the next half hour thinking of who the most likely suspect is.

Good morning, readers. Good morning.

Here in Massachusetts there’s a little holiday called Patriots’ Day. It’s the only holiday I know of that everyone in the whole state (or Commonwealth, as it were) gets off except for the Post Office, which is reason number 47 why it is so magical.

Patriots’ Day is a time when people all over New England (or Massachusetts or something) come together to do one of two things: 1) Go watch Revolutionary war re-eactments or 2) Go watch the Boston Marathon. BC and I opted for the marathon, and it was A-MAZ-ING.

In an effort to explain to my parents how amazing the Boston marathon actually is, I realized that it’s one of those things you kind of have to actually attend in order to realize its amazingness. But if you’re going to continue to reading, I’m going to continue writing. So here goes:

The marathon started before I woke up (3-day weekend, hello). So when I rolled out of bed at quarter to 10, I just flipped on the TV to catch the beginning and then made myself some tea. There’s something about watching an event on TV and then going and watching it live an hour later that makes it all the more celebritorious, if you’ll allow me to make up words for description’s sake.

After lounging for a bit, BC and I got it together and headed out to watch the rest. Reason #3 Why the Marathon Rocks: There is no money involved. You know how community events that involve congregating at a central location with many other town dwellers usually involve the purchase of $5 cotton candy, $2 bottled water, $10 parking and 35 dollars in Tilt-A-Whirl tickets? Not so with the marathon. There is no exchanging of funds at all. None. At all.

Reason # 17 Why The Marathon Is Amazing: There are a lot of people, but there aren’t a ton of people, so while it’s a big exciting event that involves half the city, you can still get right up close to the action to see the runners.

For instance, here is a picture of some kid bearing his teeth who was standing next to me.

He, I, and his family all arrived after the action had already begun, but we still managed to get pretty darn good seats.

Reason #1 Why The Marathon Is Now My Favorite Thing in the World: There’s an immense feeling of civic pride and duty in going out and cheering for the runners. BC and I stood right at the curve where runners go from just running to being able to see the finish line. So it’s pretty much amazing to see upwards of 20,000 people go from looking like they’ve just done a walking tour of hell to looking like Great Aunt Eunice opening the door to Publisher’s Clearing House. Even better than that, a lot of them have their names written on their shirts or on their arms so you can encouragingly shout shout at them as they go by in a fashion such as:

“GO, DAN, GO”

“COME ON, MARIANNE! YOU’RE ALMOST THERE!”

And when they don’t have names written on them, but rather identifying places or organizations:

“DON’T GIVE UP ROSLINDALE RUNNING CLUB! YOU CAN DO IT.”

“GO, PARAGUAY, GO!”

The best part is when someone stops running in front of you for reasons such as they are having a heart attack or they’re bleeding from the head:

and the whole crowd rallies around the person and starts shouting their name or country of origin and when the person is done talking to Jesus and starts to run again the crowd goes absolutely wild for him/her. It’s pretty much amazing.

If you’re interested, I’ve included a video. It’s not Oscar-worthy or anything, but it’s moving media, which seems to be all the rage nowadays. You might want to take some Dramamine before watching it. And please disregard the parts at the end when I insist on continuing to film even though you can no longer see the runners. Also disregard when I point the camera at the street because I’ve neglected to notice it’s still filming. If that wasn’t enough fun for you, here’s another one.

[ALERT: The gd videos aren't posting. Or rather, I am not posting them the right way. I need to go to bed so I'll work on fixing this issue tomorrow. Apologies.]

A final noteworthy tidbit: all the pictures thus far in this post have been mine - no ripping off anyone else’s labor. That’s a first. But since my photo collection here isn’t that extensive, you should check out these other photos on flickr if you’re interested in seeing more of what the day looked like.

Today was pretty much the ideal afternoon. I ate lunch while listening to the baseball game. Then I found a new hobby:

It may not look like a hobby, but it is. It’s called: Reading really funny things about people with plights similar to my own…and other funny stuff too. I came across someecards after we had a little passive aggressive mishap at the workplace watering hole. One day, in an effort to free my lunch from the grips of the fridge, I came across a conversation between Julia and Gulia in the kitchen. Gulia was wiping down our water cooler and going on and on about how she does so every two weeks because she sees people people’s water bottles touch the pouring mechanism on the water cooler (which is spreading the germs of said person to the entire staff), so she likes to wipe it down. Conversation:

Julia: Ohmygawd that’s ga-ross.

Gulia: Totally. I was totally thinking of putting up a sign that said, “Please do not let the mouth of your water bottle touch the water cooler.”

Julia: You totally should. That would be totally great.

Gulia: Yeah, you think so?

Me: (Totally. And we’ll just see how long that lasts before someone rips it down.)

Side note: Two months ago someone exploded their lunch in the microwave and someone else posted a note in the kitchen that said something like, “I am not your mother. Please clean up after yourself,” only much longer and much more condescending. That note lasted all of 35 minutes.

So about an hour later I went back into the kitchen to clean my lunch dishes and there it was on the water cooler: a note that smelled of someone in sales because it was chock full of grammatical errors and they’d thesaurused the shit out of it. I simply rolled my eyes and went about my merry way.

The next day I came in and what caught my eye?

taped over the old note.

After I was done choking on my own spit, I noted that I should check out this someecards. And finally, today, I got around to it. And I laughed the hardest I’ve laughed since the Unethicist was still up and running. It was one of those kinds of laughs where you have to put your head under your desk and pretend you’re picking something up off the floor because if someone walked into your office and saw the glee on your face they would know you weren’t doing work.

When I was done taking 15 minutes to pick that paper clip up off the floor, I played about 30 minutes of Spider (I’ve upgraded to four suits because it usually causes me to have a look of puzzlement on my face - which most closely resembles my expression while working on our books). And then, after doing that for an hour (which by then my boss had been gone for almost 90 minutes - just peaced right on out on a 3-day weekend. No free pass for me. Just, “I’m gonna go. See you next week.” Okay.) Right then I decided to get a little more work done before heading out myself. And just as I hit the X on my game, all the power went out.

Nothing can brighten the day of a cog in the machine like the darkness of your office…and the darkness of your officemates’ offices.

And the eventual sound of firetrucks rolling up to your office as you walk down the street toward home.

Ahh, the first day of spring. Not technically, I guess, but who cares about technicalities. To me, the first real day of spring is the first day you walk outside and it’s not sleet-rain-hailing upwards, which happens more often than not in New England. You know it’s really spring when you finally make the leap from smelly depressing wool winter coat to light springy jacket. You pull your jacket on, walk out your front door, and the little robins are hopping about. Daffodils are singing, dogs are barking, little babies are being wheeled around in their strollers, slobbering goo in all their cuteness. Even the people with the weird-ass lawn ornaments and fake tulips stuck in the ground seem less harmless…

You see that and, instead of cowering in fear, it causes you to just chortle to yourself, “Oh ha ha, crazy jackal tulip lady. Happy spring!”

Everyone about has a little skip to their step. All the women on the way to work are wearing bright printed skirts and the men are sans suit jackets. You feel jolly. You feel great. The thought of getting on the T doesn’t even make you want to vomit. So you descend the stairs into the depths of the train station, waving at the Metro man as you happily take your paper. And as you approach the gates to the T, it hits you like a wrecking ball full of shrapnel that in the right pocket of your smelly heavy wool winter coat is your wallet. And in your wallet is your T pass. And in your closet in your house is your smelly heavy wool winter coat with your wallet and your T pass. And before your very eyes the tulips wilt. The robins fly directly into tree trunks. And the jackalope lawn ornaments explode. And you wish a horrible wintry death on all things pastel as the sweat drips down your back on your trek back to your apartment.

Happy spring, all. Happy flippin spring.

As you can probably tell from the caps in the title of the post, I am at line 44 of the Massachusetts Income Tax forms.  Here are my feelings on this subject:

Yes, it’s that bad.

And the magic of it all is that I have to do it three times - federal, Massachusetts, home state. Just the prospect of having to pay part-year resident taxes in multiple states ever again makes me want to become a permanent masshole, which is really saying something I think.

In other news, it’s opening day for the Red Sox. And they won.  The hits just keep on coming.

You can imagine BC’s and my surprise when, emerging from the Copley T stop on our way to the library, we were stopped dead in our tracks by the following, separating us from the building we needed to be in…

You guessed it: Greece on Parade.

I guess it was Greek Independence Day….at some point last month. And in my infinite American self-centered wisdom, the first thing I thought to myself was, “Greece has an independence day? Independence from what?”

Actually that’s a lie. My actual first thought was: “What the @#$%& is going on?” I can imagine that many people (those of Greek origin not included, sorry) would also be wondering that if they exited Copley only to see first) a bunch of cops, followed by second) a lot of burly men carrying banners from Taxiarchae Archangeles Church, all with amazingly thick black curly hair, wearing white tights and what appear to be dresses, walking down the street to music from a loud speaker being pulled on a flatbed behind a Clydesdale. Or am I wrong and this happens all the time in Boston? You can never really know for sure.

When we were done in the library, we made it outside just in time to see the blue Duck Boat (which they took out of commission for the day and covered in white streamers) followed by yet another mile of small children carrying Greek flags and wearing really authentic clothes (most talking on cell phones, by the way). And we also got to witness an appearance by the Italian American marching band, which I am convince got some dates mixed up or took a wrong turn somewhere. All in all it was a pretty good time, albeit freezing cold.

And for those of you who will inevitably comment on here to show off your knowledge bank of Greek history, “The celebration of Greek Independence Day on March 25th draws inspiration from one of the holiest days for Greek Orthodox Christians, the Annunciation of the Theotokos.” (Damn. It was right on the tip of my tongue.) “This is the day that the Archangel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear a child. Bishop Germanos of Patras seized the opportunity by raising the banner of revolution, in an act of defiance against the Turks and marked the beginning of the War of Independence. Cries of Zito H Ellas and Eleftheria H Thanatos can still be heard today.” (Unfortunately, I heard no “Zito H Ellas” or “Eleftheria H Thanatos,” but I am determined to practice it for next year’s parade.) To read more about this, go here, as I am sure Hellenic Communication Service, L.L.C. is probably the most reliable source out there.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that bit of history. I certainly did. And this whole thing prompted me to look up the schedule of parades in Boston in 2008, which can be found here. I pretty much cannot wait for the Haitian Day Parade, second only to the Roslindale Parade. Oh Aunt Em, how I miss you. Happy “4th of July.”

Twice a year everyone at work is forced to get together for what is commonly referred to as “Sales Conference,” but what is probably best known as “Kill me now.” At sales conference, all the editors have to stand up in front of the marketing and sales staff and present the books that will be coming out in the upcoming months. Yes, it is as boring as it sounds. In fact, it is more boring than it sounds. The only redeeming qualities are 1) free catered lunch and 2) the fashion. So it’s kind of like the Oscars. Except instead of being skinny, attractive, and rich, we’re all fat, ugly, and poor. And based on what the editors present, we usually find out how much poorer we’re going to be six months from now.

My favorite thing about sales conference, other than catching a few ZZZs in the conference room and restocking my desk-condiment supply from the lunch table, is looking around at my co-workers wearing their Sunday best for the biggest day of the fiscal year. I don’t know if I’ve ever addressed the fashion issue at my workplace, which astounds me if I haven’t, but here goes. I would say that 20% of the staff shows up in normal business/casual attire. Nice slacks (I can’t believe I am using the word slacks), button-down shirts, ties, whatever. 50% of the staff rolls in wearing khakis and a nice sweater. And 30% roll in looking like the blind homeless guy living in the Copley Square T stop. In fact, the blind homeless guy in from Copley probably works in marketing for all I know.

Anyway, when I enter the building on sales conference morning, a giddy feeling immediately washes over me; it’s like Christmas for grown-ups who’ve given up on their dreams. I begin to imagine what the other employees were thinking standing in their bedrooms that morning, digging through their piles of Led Zeppelin T-shirts and lawn-mowing overalls, frantically asking themselves, “What shall I wear, what shall I wear!?” And you have to wonder what neuron must have exploded in their brains when they finally settled on the ensemble they settled on.

For instance, one of my favorites was the woman who usually shows up in a grab bag of things: Monday can be jeans and a t-shirt and running shoes, and Tuesday is a white T-shirt, flowy flowery skirt, black tights, and the same white running shoes. For sales conference, she chose a black polyester suit and: RUNNING SHOES! HURRAY!

+ = not sexy.

Then there are the witches of Eastwick in the sales department - we’ll call them Julia and Gulia for anonymity’s sake (even though let’s face it, if someone types “sales conference” into Google, I’m pretty much fucked). Julia and Gulia are BFF(!) and in charge of Sales Conference. Both of them are about 40 years old and have small children, and you can tell that they really wanted to be models their entire lives but gave up when they realized they looked like the rest of us. Their most common bond, other than being obnoxious, blond, and working in the sales department, is ugly vintage fashion. You can probably predict the wealth of possibilities this produces for the sales parade. Just imagine what these two will look like in outfits - only uglier and more mismatched than these - 30 years from now:

“Ridiculous” is the only word that comes to mind.

Then there’s the art department. This doesn’t even require explanation, other than to say the editor usually rolls in wearing a cream-colored linen suit and combat boots with the pant legs tucked into them. Google images can’t produce a picture similar to the one tattooed on my brain, which is shocking, I know. So I’ll leave you with this.

Please consider it in the context of everything we’ve just discussed.

Especially Julia and Gulia.

I was looking for a bit of inspiration for this post, seeing as I haven’t updated in a couple days (150, to be exact), and I came across a series of quotes about the library. Now, I realize that when doing searches in quote databases (or databati, for the British audience), the majority of those you’ll come across will be fruity and not worth the server space they’re taking up. For example:

Senator Lyn Allison’s “Libraries are the key to ensuring that the divide between information rich and poor is kept as narrow as possible.” Lies.

and

J. Donald Adams’ “There are times when I think that the ideal library is composed solely of reference books. They are like understanding friends; always ready to meet your mood, always ready to change the subject when you have had enough of this or that.” Who reads reference books? No one.

and

Anonymous’ “Nobody graduated from a library; Nobody graduated without one.” Um, I won’t even go into what a load of shit that is.

And when I was done throwing up, I understood why I was always marked down in early undergrad writing courses for starting my papers with quotes: a) no one in high school taught me how to write and b) why start off a paper with someone else’s shitty quotes when you can start it off with your own.

In this instance, I am going to make an exception and start off with someone else’s shitty quote, reverting back to the ways of my freshman writing seminar on minority American Indian Spanish feminism lit. So, it is with much chagrin that I apologize to you, Prof. Vasquez, in that by writing what I am about to write, I am spitting in the face of your entire philosophy on rhetoric, the English language, and life in general. I would feel a little bit worse had you not always been such a giant douche bag.

(Side note: It’s always nice to see that when you’ve forgotten the name of a former professor and you Google him to find out where he is because he’s not showing up in the directory of your alma mater, you come to discover that he is employed at a college that is located 2.8 miles from where you are currently sitting. And then you rethink your bus route home.)

On to the spitting:

“I was the pride of the public library… until I discovered Smirnoff.”

(Seems a little anticlimactic, now that I’ve taken 24 paragraphs to introduce it.)

Anyway, this anonymous quote from an “advertisement” seems more the ticket here, as you can probably tell from the frequency of the F-bomb dropping in my previous posts. And, it is especially relevant given that the earth’s homeless, poor, and lame make their homes in the bathrooms of the public library, no doubt because of Smirnoff.

Anyway, what I am building up to is that this past weekend BC and I visited the downtown public library so that I could get a LIBRARY CARD! Hurray! And walking up to the circulation desk/information help area, I realized that the Boston Public Library reminds me not so much of the quaint little library I grew up with, where everyone who worked there was an 80-year-old clone of the 80-year-old woman standing next to her (see below):

Librarian: Mary (morning shift)

Librarian: Frances (day shift)

Librarian: Eunice (afternoon shift)

But instead, reminded me more of the DMV……or prison. Instead of Mary, Frances, and Eunice, the BPL employees look like what I believe they are: convicts and various other degenerates. For instance, the guy at the middle booth was Blue Lou Marini ( sax player - The Blues Brothers).

Look me in the face and tell me that doesn’t make you uncomfortable.

In fact, you could probably find most of the BPL employees in a photo of the Blues Brothers’ band, singing/serving at Folsom Prison.

The employee who helped me can best be channeled photographically here:

…only angrier, and with horns and a forked tongue. And, creepy, she wore rubber gloves, which I cannot figure out. Paper cuts? No. Scene with the 12-year-old from Squid and the Whale in the school library?  Probably. Ick.

While Korea’s Satan was processing my application, I also happened to notice this little gem hanging in the “Employees only” space behind the circulation desk:

DO NOT PUT ANY FOOD OR BEVERAGES (DRINKS) ON ANY OF THESE SHELVES.

You have to wonder what brought about the need to define “beverages.” My money’s on Blue Lou.

In conclusion, I got my card after showing 37 forms of ID, signing over all my wordly possessions to the circulation desk, and providing a blood sample, and I am very excited. Very, very excited.