Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda...

Were they still together today (which is impossible for a multitude of reasons), yesterday would've marked my parent's 32nd wedding anniversary. I thought about this today because it's leap day and my mother used to tell me a story about how my dad wanted to get married on leap day in 1976 because he thought it would be, a. funny, and b. he'd only have to buy my mother an anniversary present every four years. In this sense (and in most others) I share my mother's sensibility in thinking that his joke is infinitely lame.

So now February's over and I'm more than ready for March to begin mostly because this month marked my first official month at the new job, February is colder than all get out, and March is always a fun month full of birthday and St. Patrick's Day goodness. This year watches me inch ever closer to the dreaded 27, when I can no longer call myself a mid-twenty-er, and when I'll officially have to succumb to the knowledge that I am, indeed, in my late twenties.

This is all sort of stupefying for me considering that I am now doing things that are proto-typical of a late-twenty-er: I regularly (and gladly) contribute to a 401k, I show up to work everyday (for the most part, gladly), and I socialize with co-workers. Okay, so the last one, I've always done, but I mention it because tonight was the first night I've socialized with people at my current job. Back in my Gap days, partying with co-workers was always a little bit seedier, but tonight's festivities had, I don't know... an air of respectability about them. My boss even bought me a drink for christ's sake. If that's not classy, I don't know what is.

After Monday I'll be 26 and I'm sure it's all downhill from here. Were one of my favorite magazines from my teens, Swing, still around, I just know I'd be identifying with it less and less. Bonnie was in her twenties when she subscribed to it and I got the dregs which I ate UP at the time. Swing presented a vision of twenty-dom glam that was so downright enviable, I thought I might shit myself. Little did I know the truth behind all those lies Swing so cleverly packaged.

Well... now I know that truth behind all those lies, and I also know why Swing folded. Sigh.

Pour Myself a Cup of Ambition

I could never get away with that hair at work

OMFG, am I exhausted after my first official week at the new job. Everyone seems to genuinely kind which I told Katie the other day initially freaked me out because I generally distrust kindness. Maybe it's from having grown up in the environs of Los Angeles where all is fake and plasticized, but I've always believed that most people have an agenda. I still, for the most part, believe this. The thing is the Midwestern sensibility of saying something and really meaning it throws me for a loop.

Combine this with a universal office atmosphere of requisite chit-chat and redundant questions about how the weekend went, and you have my proverbial head spinning off my proverbial neck. I'm getting better, however, at accepting my coworkers' kind gestures and salutations with a lot less vinegar and a lot more vim. At my last office job in LA I was surrounded by a bunch of really strong personalities and no one was shy about showing their anger, frustration, excitement, what have you. My boss least of all. He could be a giant bitch, but I also loved him for it. I mean, not when he had me on the verge of tears or anything, but in retrospect he was tons of fun. He would come up to me every so often when he was in a good mood to tell me, "I'm gonna make you cry. I do it to everybody. Just wait."

I'm proud to say that he never did make me cry which I'll attribute to the fact that I was an exemplary employee and not to the fact that I may or may not be emotionally barren.