North Shore; No More...

Things I will miss about living on the North Shore...

*Cashier Nancy at Panera Bread in Saugus

*The Guy at Panera that always tells me to "Go-GETTEM!" while he drops the F-bomb making my breakfast sandwich

*The Crew at Starbucks (the newer one near Trader Joe's) - they know my name, where I work, what drink I order and what snacks I like, they always make helpful suggestions when I am at a loss for new endeavors

*My Kitchen

*My Parking Garage

*Shopping at Tah-Gette in Saw-Ghus!

*Malden Center T

*The terrible service at Stop and Shop (Take your pick of which one!)

*Showcase Cinema

*The Squire and the Golden Banana (even though I have never been to either, I always liked the idea of living close to two of the most seedy strip clubs/proposed organized crime hangouts)

*The North Shore Accent (I've grown accustomed to it)

Things I will NOT miss about living on the North Shore...

*My Parking Garage

*My Commute to Work

*My neighbors

*My Ghetto Apt. Complex

*Dog shit in the Hallways

*Apartment Complex staffing that sags their uniform pants and talks on their cell phones throughout the work day

*The Garbage truck pickup outside of my window

*Getting my cuticle skin cut off by the lady at the Gah-Den Nail in Saw-Ghus

*Walking in to a lady with her head down and sleeping on the job at the Garden Nail

*Square One Mall

*Driving to Malden Center T-Stop

*The North Shore Accent

Just my Way or Not Much Say

Its funny to me that when things don't go your way, you are still not offered a helpful solution. Tonight I ordered a pizza. It took almost over an hour to get here. Instead of giving me that order for free, the driver gave me an additional pizza. So in turn, he is actually helping me get fatter than I had planned on, instead of helping me save more money. This hurts, instead of helps.

I had an event scheduled at the store. A rep was scheduled to make an appearance. She was a no show, and said that she was double booked, so she sent me and my team free suits to make up for it. Our business sucked (which is what we SHOULD really be hoping to improve on) yet because of this we got a new suits. Did we deserve them even though we needed her to come out to build excitement around this vendor who we were not doing the kind of business in to deserve free suits.

It makes no sense to me. When its bad, make it worse. Reinforce bad habits with more bad habits. No sense at all.

Douchebag

The guys at my gym are total douchbags.  They show up with gel in their hair, their eyebrows done AND arched, and tribal tats on their arms and around their ankles;  and these are JUST the straight ones!  They are gayer than most the gay guys I know.  They wear sleeveless Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirts and they are on all these diet/weight gain pills and needles.  They are almost more obsessed with their bodies and image then any gay dude I have ever met.  

It is a wonder to me what girls find these guys attractive.  Maybe it is because there is nothing better out there and their gay friends won't sleep with them.  It just seems like it would be tough to date someone who was as vain as these guys.  

These are the thoughts that enter my head while I am turning it out on the eliptical.  The other day  I was on weights and actual witnessed a guy trying to pick up a girl that was working out.  Word on the street is that my gym is VERY cruisy for straight people (because trust me, it is NOT that cruisy for Gays).  No Lie;  The guy actually asked the girl if he knew her from somewhere.  Then he spent 20-30 minutes asking her if she was SURE that they didn't know each other before finally introducing himself.  Then he said "you MUST have a twin out there".   I wanted to just jump in and hurry things along.  The guy was attractive.  He looked pretty masculine except for the high arches in his brows but an overall nice looking dude.  You would think that he would realize that he doesn't have to try so hard.  

On another occasion I saw a female trainer pick up a guy that was working out on his own.  Out of all the guys in the gym he was by far the most puny.  No muscle at all.  By the lack of enthusiasm in his swagger you could tell that he did NOT know his way around the gym.  One thing about him that did seem to stand out, and was almost impossible to go unnoticed was that he must have been quite endowed in a place other than his UPPER body.  He was walking around the gym "showing off" and not making any attempts to hide anything.  This female trainer took note and I watched as she swooped in for the kill and set up a training appointment with him.  Then she kept making purposeful attempts to walk by him and smile and then I could watch as she came up with reasons to go back over and talk to him.  

My gym is a regular shit show.

Mikey Mike the Philosopher

At brunch on Sunday my buddy Mike made a valid point.  

He follows my blogs regularly and if I had to guess out of all of my "followers" he is the most religious one.  I am often impressed that he seems to remember the things I write about better than I have.  I guess because to some extent as much as I enjoy writing, a lot of it is just used as therapy for me to get all of the crazy shit out of my head and onto the page, and as most of you know...I am still crazy.

Mike was asking me about how stressed I seem to be about finding a mate.  Then he correlated that between my feelings of being so happy with myself and the person that I have become.  He made the point that if I am so happy with myself then why am I letting something like finding a mate keep me from COMPLETE happiness?  He asked if I thought I would ever get to a point when I was just happy without one.

It was actually a scary thought for me.  It is important to figure it out, I guess, but it seems more fun (and a lot easier to deal with) to just never give thought to it.

What if I don't find a man?  I need to hurry up and find complete happiness now.  

When Mike was talking about the two things that seemed like separate entities it made me realize that I actually contradict myself.  I am not happy with JUST myself.  I am happy with who I am but I am lonely.

I have strived to be more okay with this in recent months/weeks.  I am glad to have found friends like Mike and our other buddy Mike.  I am starting to find some great friends that I work with also and I am just trying to stop looking outside to find my happiness when I can find reassurance from these great friends I have found.  It was Pride weekend and I chose not to go out on Saturday night because I knew that spending the money to get into the club would not be worth the disappointment.  I also realize that if I fear rejection and disappointment when I go out, then I should just not go out.  So I am trying.  I am trying to not go out as much because it only sets me up for failure.  More importantly I have to realize that the guy I want to settle down with does not go out, so what makes me think I will find him while I am out?

This is my life, got to hold my head high, I've got my pride, and no one's gonna take it away

Pride (In The Name of Love)

One man comes in the name of love,

One man come and go,

One man come here to justify,

One man to overflow...

One man went to Pride and lost all sense of hope for the sake of his people.  It was a regular shit show on this past Saturday in Boston.  Johanna and I had decided to venture out to see the festivities and when I checked online I SWEAR that I read that the parade began at 10AM.  I was wrong.  So we got to the city around 930AM.  Overzealous would have been an understatement.  

First we got coffee at Starbucks because we thought the parade was about to begin.  After walking around for about an hour we realized this was not so and sat down for brunch at Aquataine.  I had hoped that at Aquataine I would be able to flirt and make eyes with the cook from the week before but he was nowhere in sight.  I was hoping to get Pride started off on the right foot but alas, it did not happen.

After brunch we pretty much walked up and down the street and back and forth looking for the best spot to stand and watch the parade.  We settled on a spot right in front of Fritz and it was a great spot, we were nestled in between a fun little bunch of beef-bear queens and we managed to keep our front row seats.

The parade died down and I assumed that it was over so we made our way to the block party that was budding behind us in the side street that ran in front of the bar.  While we were waiting in line to get into Fritz we realized that the parade was NOT over and we actually missed the most fun float of the entire parade.  It was the last float and it was playing music and everybody was following it and dancing in the streets behind it.  I wanted so badly to go join in but Johanna was already mad at me for making her pay the 10 to get into the block party that she gave the worst look when I even suggested it.

The actual block party, once it was underway, MORE than made up for the pride parade.  Tons of eye candy bustling about and it was fun...because I was drinking.  I tried not to let my frustration show for the sake of a good time, but it seemed like every guy I was attempting to flirt with would then turn to their boyfriend and introduce me to them as well.  One of the guys in particular, Keith, laughed and then caught me checking out somebody else.  He enthusiastically suggested I go talk to them as encouragement for hope but I declined.  "No, Keith, cause that's HIS boyfriend," pointing to the guy he was holding hands with, "You all have boyfriends, I'm OVER IT!".  Keith laughed.  I kept bumping into Keith throughout the ENTIRE time I was at the block party.  I probably saw him 5 or 6 times after that initial meeting.  It was as if I could not escape him.  After running into him so much I began to realize that he looked familiar.  Then I realized that he and I had spoken online a few times a while back and had planned on meeting for a date.  His schedule and mine had conflicted and he was rarely ever online to begin with so it never happened.  When he introduced me to his boyfriend I could tell that they were new and fresh and it made me very sad to think about missing out on my opportunity.  

That is how I feel all of the time.  All of the time I feel like I am one step behind when it comes to finding my man.  I know that these are extreme ways to think about it, but when it comes down to it, I am extreme.  

Overall the block party was a really good time.  There was dancing in the street, hot guys with their shirts off, and a lot of people in a really good mood.  It seemed as though people were in a lot better mood than they typically are on a day to day basis in Boston.  I had mentioned this to a friend beforehand about how interesting it is that for ONE weekend we call it PRIDE and everyone turns their bad attitudes into one of optimism and joy.  It seems like if we all did this more often we could promote more of a teamwork effort in our group and then at one point, who knows, maybe we could dictate legislation with the amount of power that would create.

I've got my Pride, and no one's gonna take it away...

Another Bill Bites the Dust...

Rat Race.  That is all this fucking is.  Being a grown up sure isn't what it is cracked up to be.  It seems like my stomach settles every time I send off another bill only to be upset again when the next one arrives.  It is scary living from paycheck to paycheck.  It is hard not to cave and ask dad for more money.  But I did it.  At least for this round of bills.  

I am in a very different place in life than I was in 2007.  That was my glory year.  That was the year that I was really succeeding at work and really getting paid for it by way of bonuses.  

This year.  Not so much.

It is not that I am NOT succeeding, because in my opinion, I definitely am.  This year (and last year) are different because they have set things up differently for me, to say the least, and so I am working without bonus.  A VERY IMPORTANT LIFE LESSON;  

Working without a bonus = NOT FUN!

I have friend that manages to put away $1000 a month of his paycheck.  I don't know how he does it.  Then again, there was a point in my life when I had another friend that was trying to help me figure out how to budget "enough" money to move out of my parents house.  When she asked me what my most recent check was it was close to being what she made for an entire month.  She freaked out at me saying "I just don't know how I would be able to afford it," when she herself owned a condo and had just bought a new car, on top of having (what I consider) a ton of money in savings and mutual funds etc.  So I am at that point again.  It is do or die.  Do I suck it up and figure out how to put this money aside?  Sink or swim.

I can't say that it helps working in a retail setting.  This only leaves me wanting more.  At any given point I could walk the store and pick out things I wanted to buy.  What is worse is that even after I did buy all of them there would still be a great many things left that I was still wanting.

Want is a dangerous thing.

Que Sera; Whatever Will Be...

when i was just a little girl i asked my mother "what will I be"?

How was she supposed to know?

My brother has a one year old.  The rest of my friends have new borns or six-month olds.  Fresh babies.  They have yet to experience the woes of this world.  It feels good, holding babies.  You connect with them, and for a split second you realize that you could be the one to help them feel less pain and sorrow.  Make a funny face, they smile.  Say something in baby talk, and they look at you in amazement.  Its simple.  And for only a quick moment you think back about what it was like to have no cares in the world.  We joke about babies and say that all they have to think about is eating, sleeping, and pooping, yet essentially, they don't have to worry about that either.  Parents (aka baby's personal assistant) puts the baby down when it is time to rest, or when the baby cries to let you know that it wants a break.  Babies don't even have to wipe their own butts, or even stand up to pee.  

Sheesh, they have it so easy.