Just "X"

My name is too damn long. This is evident after having to scrawl it on credit card receipts at 1:50 in the morning.

21 letters total. 21 letters that seem as if they go on forever in a loopy, upwardly tilting way. I came to this conclusion under the guise of Graphology, while sitting with the rest of the unwashed waiting to sober up after too many fiery (yes, there was actual fire involved) shots at Sharkeez last weekend.

The thought of this as an actual profession is... mildly interesting? It prompted me to think back to when I used to work at a company called ISN – Information Systems Network, where I was trained in the covert operation of document evaluation, criminal records and questioned document authenticity verifications. The job description sounded like a secret spy mission. It wasn’t. The office was located in a very non-descript building in El Segundo, California. For some reason which I have always questioned, the entire place was filled with women. All of the employees in this entire office BUILDING, were female. Even the janitorial staff.

All women or not, I didn’t fit in. Clearly. I realized this within 2 hours of my first day of employment, though it took me 2 weeks to realize the non-existence of males bodies. The office itself was blissful. Private industry has its perks, mostly based on free stuff. We had a kitchen stocked weekly with snacks and beverages and an individually climate controlled environment. Everyone had their own security badges and keyed entry passwords. The “puffer” technology was barely emerging. Cutting edge, baby. In this case, the machines were being used at the main office entrance to check for drug residue or weaponry I assume. I just know I was violated by that doorway everyday with jetstreams of air shooting straight up my vaginal canal and out my ears.

I quickly grew to dislike my position at ISN. It was interesting, but also the closest thing to working in a sweatshop that I come in contact with. There were quotas to meet. Fancy dry-erase boards with notes all over the place. My office mate Di used to color her fingernails with the red markers and use the green markers to paint her piggy little toenails on the days she wore open-toe shoes. The office supervisor, Bettina was a bitch. She took a month vacation to have a boob job and got ungodly white veneers on her top front teeth. When she came back, she had a constant buck-toothed grin due to the fact that she could no longer pull her lips completely over and drooled uncontrollably on her perpetually hard marble nipples.

I quit that place before I was fired. Actually, I quit minutes before I was let go, but hey, whoever says it first wins, right? The experience I gained was pretty cool. I absorbed their tools and have been able to use my skills to pay the bills on quite a few jobs after that fiasco. How very Law and Order-ish of me.

Evaluate your own signature and see what it says about you.
And never get a mouthful of toothy veneers. You’ll never be able to say “M” words properly again.

Beans is bye-bye.

Beans left me. I’m trying to deal with this somewhat amicable separation peacefully. With breakups, I never look back but I might have to make an exception in this case.

We gutted her cubicle yesterday morning. No, her body wasn’t even cold yet. I confess my total hoard:

4 – unopened Post-it notepads
1 - handful of rubber bands (if I hadn’t shot most of mine at her purple balloon while she was here, I probably wouldn’t need them.)
9 – white imprinted envelopes
2 – boxes of black ink pens (V took one & I took one)

The girl didn’t leave much to steal. And she left on Friday without officially saying goodbye because God forbid, I had to take my LUNCH to pick up her 'going away gift' at the same time that she was approved to sneak out early. Skank.

Beans loves her new home. I wish her bright light, plenty of snacks, and pray her new plant lives through the cold months and her neglect.

Let's get physical! In an awkward, unattractive, unfulfilling sort of way.

I hit the gym early today. Earlier than usual anyway. It was the first Sunday in a long while that I was able to get up and functioning before noon. There was a Pilates class with a new instructor that I was interested in trying out and it started at 9:30. For once I was on time. The aerobics room was sparse and I couldn’t tell who the heck was the instructor (Marisela).

These women all obviously knew each other from previous once-week class participation of some sort. They were all older than me with tan, spotted, leathery skin and expensive looking tennis shoes. They greeted each other by their first names and seemed to gravitate toward pre-determined sections of the work out area. No one greeted or even spoke to me. Clearly I was an outsider.

I followed their actions – having been a member of this gym for six years and never actually set foot in this room before. Up until this point I thought this was where the trainers dragged and stored the gelatinous bodies that collapsed in the Spinning classes.

Hockey mom in front of me walked to the weight room and came back with a foam yoga mat. I did the same. Plus-sized PTA mom to my right grabbed what looked like a bouncy Bocce ball from the storage area near the front mirror. Hers was bright green. I picked up a bright green ball too. Petite Asian soccer mom (who, for whatever reason, kept on her weightlifting gloves the entire time), spread her fluffy Nike towel over the yoga mat. I shook out my blue, not quite-a-washcloth-towel I ripped off from a Carnival cruise ship and spread it over my mat. The corner of my towel had a chocolate pudding stain. I flipped it over and tried to remember when I had chocolate pudding last and why it would be on my towel.

Marisela blended in with the rest of the average women. She had a thick German accent which I hoped wasn’t the sign of an exercise tyrant. No German accent ever sounded pleasant. The first couple of songs on the boom box were No Doubt. I perked up. Marisela dove right in without so much as a “Good morning class.”

“Sit on your hiney, legggs spred all zee way oot in frunt. Grab zee ball!”

I grabbed zee ball. Suddenly I was mildly retarded. I don’t take aerobics classes for this simple reason. There’s too much going on. We were supposed to be stretching, holding the rubber bocce ball in front of us. The ball in fact was weighted. I read the printing as beads of sweat immediately formed on my eyelids. Six pounds. That little green sucker only weighed six pounds? Why did it feel like 20? I looked around the room. Everyone else had yellow balls except for Helga Von Muscle on my right, and myself. Yellow was a happy color. Yellow was also probably way lighter. My fault for not reading fine print.

We flexed and shifted. The obliques work was probably the worse. I gave up on translating Maricela’s orders and just mirrored her movements. The ball became slippery with sweat. I arched and crunched it over my head bending my arms as she instructed and almost dropped it in my face. Looking decent went out the window.

The class ended with everyone in a plank position. I couldn’t hold myself up on the mat properly. My arms kept slipping from under me and the sweat was making them itch. I felt totally disgusting. The class didn’t even last a full hour and here I was looking like a rape victim. I collapsed in a puddle of perspiration next to my yoga mat. I knocked against the stupid 1,000 pound rubber ball and watched it roll against the wall. I’m sticking with the meatheads on the other playground from now on.