Personal
So right now I would like to remind you that J.C. himself is staying with us at APODB. If you haven’t had the chance to see his Holiness then please take the time to do so… I highly recommend confering with the higher being who may decide your fate if your that type of person… you know… bible beating holier than thou morons… although I tend to think if they read J.C.’s blog… they’d realize he’s just another dog looking for a bone… but aren’t we all? I am beginning to digress so I will now stop… but go give J.C. a holla.
This week I am also lucky enough to be staying at a few very cool places. I’ve got a little bed at Warped, Film Cutters Anonymous (just watch for the whole page ad if you do… I don’t know what’s up with that shit… not cool), Tiny Voices In My Head, Gidget Bones Diary, and The Dramedy of Life. Be sure to go visit them and tell them how you appreciate them keeping me out of the gutter for… well… at least 6 nights out of this week… I’m feeling the backyard lounge chair calling my name… so who knows… not that I’m adverse to warm places to sleep… but I just miss sleeping outdoors… it’s a boy scout thing… but I am digressing… so go see them… especially Gidge, Shelly, and Dawn… because they always take great care of me and I get better than futon accomadations over there. If you ever see them renting space… WELL WORTH THE CREDITS… but you’ll find all that out later when I get done compiling my lists.
So now for what you have all come to expect from me… the drama. Well let’s see… The Nick came back from Canada, she joined the 420 club, Musclehead is pleading for forgiveness, and she’s been pissy with me because she thinks I’m not paying attention to her. Oh well. Shit happens.
The Steff has now officially deaded everyone but The Donkey, who last night flew to Ireland, and she was all upset over it… because now she misses him and he sent her flowers… and gag me with a fucking spoon I wanna hurl… and I think once he gets back they will be “official”… although I tend to think the relationship was already consumated… but whatever. So tonight we were supposed to hang out… but I blew her off too and she’ll be pissed at me like she was over A.C. Moore… but if she loves me she’ll forgive me… and if not… well fuck her and I’ll just send her mother and sister flowers for occasions from now on.
Was that it? Oh right… the Ooompa Loompas. Ooompa Loompa 1 started her medic school and is still with her “special” boyfriend. Ooompa Loompa 2 is more of a pain in the ass than anything… always whining and complaining and all this other crap… I should squish her and put her out of her misery.
I think all the drama is covered… oh right… IZZY!!! Yes folks… I will now break from Friday Drama Tradition and talk about IZZY… who by the way hated it when I mentioned her in this blog so for awhile I didn’t… even though she has her own and feels free enough to write about me at will!!!
See ehre’s the deal… we met online… we fought online… we made up… that’s right, online. Then we met in real life… we fought online… we made up… that’s right, online and in real life. Then we fought in real life… and became friends online. You know… e-mails… IM’s… blah blah blah. Let’s face it… we just didn’t work at anything beyond friends due to insecurities and scarring and damage and all the rest. Right. So for some reason during one of our IM sessions I finally said that hey, casual sex is cool as long as you can have emotional detachment… which you can’t. She swears she can. So it’s like… okay… we’ll have casual sex. She hasn’t gotten it in awhile… I haven’t gotten it since her… so yeah… casual sex. Well you know what… those plans got blasted out of the water. But hey… so we made plans for this past Sunday to go to a benefit and then afterwards go back to the casual sex… but as you all saw on Sunday I had to go to Albany. Atomic bomb on those plans.
Now to be honest with you… the last few weeks have been slightly stressful… and although I vent here… sometimes it doesn’t help enough. It is no secret that I take stuff… lock it in… and keep it until I explode. That whole anger management thing really hasn’t helped me and I refuse to go back on the meds for the PTSD. Fuck Zoloft to high heaven and the other shit they wanted to pour down my gullet. I hate the numbing affect and the blah and the way they make me “calm”. To hell with all of that… I need my edge… I need my wits… I need my RAGE!!!
I don’t even remember how it started. I think I loled her twice in an IM and she made some remark about why aren’t I talking to her and am I on automatic loling or something. So that’s what I did. I loled her. She got pissed, and sent me an e-mail asking me what she did wrong and why was I pissed at her. I was still borderline then… and really shouldn’t have done it… but I replied and let some steam out because I hate these needy freaks who think that everything that happens is because of them. Did Steff ask me why I was blowing her off tonight? No. Did Nick poke and prod? No. They know when to leave me be. This one never figured that out… and never will.
So then she blasts me back… and sends me an IM about how proud she is or some shit about who she is… and the e-mail was scathing. I was going to answer it point by point… but I was tired and edgy as it was… but I replied anyway with basically a do whatever you want e-mail… I’m The Asshole and I can deal with it… and even admitted it was me. So then she takes her answer to her blog… which hey… that’s cool… no problem there.
Here’s where I have the problem. So her previous “friend with benefits” is all like “I’ll kick his scumsucking, cockblocking, douche bag wearing, blah blah blah, ass.”… and she’s like “I’ll e-mail you his address… lol”. Hence the reason for my previous post… did you miss it? Go look… you’ll see it… the one where I DON’T GIVE A DAMN!!!
So I came home. I got my drink on. Jack Daniels green label with some Coke here and there. I got Uncle Louie and went outside on the park bench. I waited. Steff called at 11:00… blew her off like I said. Work called… told them to do what needed to be done and not to bother me anymore tonight. I was waiting for my guest. At around 1:00am the cops came by. Of course I know them both… asked me why I was pacing outside with Uncle. I told them I was waiting for stickball season to start. They told me to have a good night and just be sure I hide the evidence. No problem… my neighbor has a dumpster because of renovations to his yard… plenty of room in there. At 1:30am Steff tried calling me or texting me again… I sent her to voicemail. Talk to the machine Donkey lover.
At 2:00am it happened. A black jeep came screeching around the corner and then came to a slowing stop in front of the house. Fools probably didn’t expect me to be outside waiting. The driver’s door opened and closed. The radio was playing the new Tool (excellent album by the way… excellent fucking album) as the driver came around the back of the car. That was when I knew I was fucked. Slap some butter and jelly all over me… I’m toast. Stick a fork in me… I was done. It was fucking Christine.
Now I don’t know how she “miraculously” decided to show up. I have a sneaking suspicion The Steff had something to do with it… although I don’t know how since they don’t know each other, only OF each other… maybe through KC???… but there she was. Wearing her leather MC with hands on her hips and fire in her eyes. She strode over… took Louie away from my now numb hand and asked me in that high pitched 10 year old voice of hers, “Doggy dog have you been bad?”
I swear to god it was the Jack. Maybe it was the wind. Bottom line after 30 minutes of sitting there with her and talking… well… okay… me pouring out my heart inbetween tears… she brought me inside and down here. She laid me down on the couch… booted the computer… and set it so I could fall asleep to the beloved sounds of RUN D.M.C., Public Enemy, and Sir-Mix-A-Lot. She massaged the knots out of my shoulders… kissed my forehead and left. Any reason for me not to love this girl?
For me to go into what was said would take another hour something to write… and besides… it’s one of those things that wouldn’t come out right anyway. Bottom line is that everything between us is okay again. I feel a balance once again because she did what so few can do to me… hit my reset button. It was nice to hear her voice and look into her eyes and feel at peace. Of course I did get a lecture of sorts about attacking her husband… and why I can’t ever seem to make clean breaks in my relationships… and how I didn’t send her flowers for her birthday (4/19) although I did send a card.
As for Izzy… well… I think she has made it pretty clear she hates and despises me… which I’m really okay with. It was a mistake for me to agree to something I know I can’t do… casual sex without emotional attachment… and like I said it was all me… I do feel bad about it though… more from the blog side of things… she writes really well and I know she feels lost with the whole blog template thing… and it would be a shame if she stopped because of little old me.
Anyway… this has been my GDF entry… and so we will return you to the regularly scheduled bones… right after I pray to the prcelain god.
Now don’t think I got drunk alone. Last night I went to hang out with The Steff for the first time in at
least a month. Her house was empty and she was having a few friends from her new job over, and had me come over since the last time we planned a night out she thoroughly ditched me for New Guy B. Now what you need to understand is that although these people work at her new job, half of them have also worked for me. In fact, her new boss and I have known each other for years and have equally embarassing blackmailable photos of each other from Woodstock ‘99.So we’re in the basement of her place, drinking,bullshitting, and reminiscing. Somehow and someway, around five people ended up on her bed… which then promptly broke. Yes, The Steff has a broken bed. So guess what I’m doing tomorrow morning? Right… trying to fix The Steff’s bed. After the bed broke, well I guess that was enough ruckus for most of the people there, and in drips and drabs they left.
I was on beer number 9 when we got to talking. The topics were mainly about how to fix her bed, Zooted and Polluted’s upcoming birthday, and of course New Guy A and New Guy B. New Guy A just isn’t cutting it… and New Guy B is like the best thing since apple pie. Now I’ve already met New Guy A, but not New Guy B… so New Guy A knows if he breaks his heart I’ll break his legs. That is very clear between us… although I had already told The Steff that she would be the one breaking his heart. Guess who was right? So I told her she has to be honest and tell New Guy A look, this isn’t working, and all the other niceties that go along with it.
Sure enough New Guy A calls… and she promptly tells him that she’s tired of him and his shit. How he’s a mope, and a loser, and how he never calls her and she’s not calling him anymore. There is a brief pause and then she asks him if she can call him back. Another brief pause, and then she tells him, “Well I’m here with Dog and I haven’t seen him and I’m sick and tired of you!” Right… so now he’s probably pissed off because I’m there, and she basically told him off, and he probably thinks I’m behind it. Guess what? I was, in a weird sort of way, so bring it on New Guy A but remember, I may always be outnumbered… but I’m never outgunned.
So after she hangs up with New Guy A our conversation slides to other things… mainly Th
e Nick. Now The Steff has told me to tell The Nick to call her… but The Nick still hadn’t. Why? Well that’s probably because The Nick now has a boyfriend. That’s right… the Queen of Relationship Phobias has been hooked up with a guy she met over the weekend. Apparently, he’s taller than her, and into motorcycles or something. Yet above all, she claims he is an artist. Hence why I have now taken to calling her a Giant Lover in retribution for insisting I am a Midget Lover… when in reality I am a totally equal oppotunityAs I explained to The Steff, how did I know that something was different with The Nick? She’s actually been nice for longer than a day! She came into work early and with a smile, she’s been happy, and with the exception of a brief outburst of nastiness against my Oompa Loompas, she’s been kind and caring. Of course there is still some hesitation on The Nick’s part… because to her there has to be a problem with this guy who seems all too perfect… and she’s basically waiting for that to reveal itself. I’m sure that whatever it is won’t be too too bad… but this is The Nick… and I’m sure the relationship phobia will kick in.
And with the end of that topic, and my tenth beer, I called it a night. I bid The Steff adieu and headed home on auto-pilot… and thus ends the Drama Update. Of course there is other stuff going on with Pudding… but who really wants to hear about her anyway? It’s bad enough I have to.
Now this morning I still couldn’t understand why I wasn’t able to connect to the Internet. So I sat down at the Windows 74 computer and re-did everything I could remember doing the night before… and that is when it struck me. I forgot to dial-up to the ‘Net. I had been so used to the direct connection on my other computer at work, that I forgot in my inebriated state that I had to actually use the AOL software.
So I h
ave set forth the process of getting cable internet service. I won’t be hooking it up to Windows ‘74. I will be hooking it up to the slightly used Dell Windows XP computer I have been using for my writing. I had purposely avoided hooking that computer up because when I write I wanted as few distractions as possible… but I think I’m probably better off doing it so that I may actually be able to accomplish more in the basement than I have been.With that… I wish you all a great weekend… you probably won’t hear from me until Monday because between riding tonight at the Hills, fixing The Steff’s bed tomorrow morning, Zooted and Polluted’s birthday dinner tomorrow evening, Wolf watching tomorrow night, and hopefully Ice Age 2 on Sunday I doubt I will have the patience… or the mind power to remember to dial in.
Reese Witherspoon snuffed out Keira’s chances at bringing home Mr. Oscar… but compared to my English Muffin she was in rags… so here’s some well deserved drool time on Ms. Knightley… who I might add can bring home Mr. Watchdog any damn night she chooses:
So now that my oh so extensive Oscar coverage has concluded (sorry for all those who thought I was giving picks… maybe next year), let’s move on to what is really important. Me. Well… okay…so I really don’t rank… but on to other things at least regardless of their importance.I rolled through the Hills with Mailman KC and Little Destruction Friday night. We did some pretty decent work, a legit congestive heart failure in an 80 year old and a cancer stricken 93 year old who was still weak and dehydrated after their round of chemo were the cookie ends of the evening. The 31 year old, well he was the cream. We found him at 4:00am outside a strip club with a head injury. KC and I looked at each other while listening to his “cousin” (I think she might have been one of the strippers because she was smokin’) explain how she had called 911 four times, he was beat up by bouncers, he didn’t drink at all tonight, blah blah blah.
Finally KC interrupted her by saying, “So basically…” and that was the cue. The three of us concluded in unison “He got knocked the fuck out!” She seemed a little startled by our answer, and sure I can see from the outside how that was messed up or sick or ill or crass, but at some point in this job you lose some morality with the obvious liars and opt for the outrageous. So how bad was he? Well going into the trauma center he was a classic unresponsive. He was a GCS of 6… and to put that into perspective a normal person is a 15 and a dead person is a 3.
Once the trauma team got their hands on him, his GCS miraculously recovered to a 12. Why? Two words: Foley Catheter. That’s right, one of the things they do is swab up the penis with some betadine, then take a rubber catheter roughly 6-10 inches long and half an inch in diameter, and shove it up the hole into the bladder. Now someone who is seriously injured will not feel a thing. Someone who is drunk however… well no matter how drunk you are your going to feel it… and you WILL react. Just like he did. Drunken fool.
I got to see Billy Joel Saturday night… sort of. I worked the show but got to see a good forty minutes or so of his 135 minute performance. An entire third of the show without anyone becoming “ill”, which is pretty darn good for a show serving up beer and champagne like peanuts at a ballgame. Of course at the end we got all the intox patrons… probably all friends of his from AA… but who am I to criticize how much is too much. When in doubt… I’ll just go with the Foley.
How was he? Well, he was Billy Joel of course. His performance was in my opinion very good even though he brought some guy named Chainsaw for Highway to Hell and he spent probably half the time on the rotating piano and the other half on guitar. One really nice thing about it was his show was “in the round”. Usually around 3,000 or so seats are shut off because of the stage set-up. His set-up reminded me of Metallica’s Load tour back in 1996 or 1997 where the stage was actually in the middle of the arena. Very fan friendly.
After Billy Joel, I shot down to the Roseland Ballroom with The Nick to cover a rave. It was someone named VanDycke’s The Politics of Dancing 2. When we first got there, it really was not bad at all. The music wasn’t as loud as past raves, the crowd seemed older and less likely to become zooted and polluted, and most importantly security seemed maxed out.
Something happened at 1:00am. I think someone slipped at the controller and sent the volume through the roof. This jump in volume, aside from sending a pounding wave through my skull, must have knocked around two dozen X pills into the beer. By 3:00am we were swamped with dehydrations. By 3:15 I had tackled my first zooted freakazoid who was trying to smack some girl into the next decade. It was somewhat downhill from there. Luckily it came to a quick conclusion at 6:00am… and only one person was transported. A very successful event in my opinion considering some of the others I have done.
So that was the big weekend which kept me busy and offline so I didn’t get to do Sunday what I had wanted to do Sunday… so instead I’ll do it today… a little later on… so stay tuned.
The Milestone
This is a milestone moment. This is my One Hundredth post here on the pile. In honor of this milestone, I think I will now tell you what this is about… since at the beginning I really did not have a clue where it was going.
This is, and still remains, a way for me to break the writer’s block I have been suffering from. Writing has always been an escape for me and something I have always greatly enjoyed. Not being able to do it almost drove me to insanity. I used to keep a written journal, and in fact I still do, but I needed a way to do it that was easier.
I found that way here. Where I could write snippets as my day progressed and it did not take a quiet place where I could secretly write. What have I been writing about? Well, life in general… and my life for what it is worth… is apparently filled with drama.
The Cast of My Life
There are a lot of people in my life I talk about. Here’s a basic rundown of those who have become stars of the show:
Christine- She is the one true love of my life. If there is anyone in the world I belong with… 
well… it would be her. We went to High School together, College together, and then she up and married her current husband Louis. Not only do Louis and I not get along because of a few things he did while they were going out (all of which made her cry), but he also assured my hating him forever by marrying her on my birthday. Currently, Christine and I are not speaking due to an incident involving Louis Christmas morning. Am I still mad at her? The man in me says hell yeah… but deep down I just really miss her and wish we could have one of our all night chats while Love Actually plays in the background.
Th
e Steff- How do you describe this one? In two words… the best. Since I don’t have Christine, and even when I did, The Steff is by far probably my best friend. O
ur history goes further back than most people realize… but the cementing of our relationship occurred when she stood by me during my divorce and helped me realize that not everything was lost… and MOST importantly, she made me laugh. She gave me inspiration to become a better person overall, especially in writing… and in the meantime took a piece of my heart. She has had a crumby boyfriend the entire time I’ve known her… and he is affectionately known as Officer Crumb. On the list of things I hate, Louis and Crumb are first and second respectively. She loved/loves him with all her heart, and he seems to take pleasure in breaking it. Whenever this happens, I’d find her sitting in a chair in my office curled up in the fetal position crying… and I would do everything in my power to make things right. What’s fair is fair… she’s done the same for me and so much more.
The Ni
ck- Nick is one of those people who both entertains you and incites you at the same
time. We have huge swings in our relationship. She doesn’t have a boyfriend… in fact she claims to be a relationship phobic person. There are times when everything with The Nick is hunky dory… we’ll go have coffee… go to a bar… go see a movie even. Then there are times when everything is crappy… we’ll argue in the middle of the office… we’ll fight like cats and dogs over the phone… and we’ll even throw random articles at each other declaring how much we “love” each other… i.e. “Here babe, I love you so much, catch this fireproof safe as it drops from the second story onto your head.”
Izzy- Izzy
is relatively new… well… sorta… she’s someone who I’ve been talking to for awhile online. We have a lot of common interests. We both love the 80’s, we both write, and we both have friends with issues that makes our life interesting (although, I tend to think while I have all these friends… well, she has me). She’s insanely cutely beautiful, an intellectual on par with myself (I know, that’s not saying much, but it is meant as a compliment), and of course if I can mess it up… well I do… and I had her standing out in the cold for over an hour and only kissed her hand. Nice move me. So hopefully, there will be more of the Izzy… a lot more… and maybe one day… she’ll show us all her true colors… and maybe… we can do a blog together… wow… isn’t that like some mad romantic stuff or what??? I know… the drama…
Me- Yes… me, myself, and I are all documented heavily in this blog. Basically, I meander around New York City working on ambulances and in dispatch centers. I have a thing for writing, a love for the 80’s, an infatuation with all things disasterous, and a sarcastic biting sense of humor. Oh… and I have an uncle… and his name is Louiseville. Don’t make me bring him out to play.
The Others- Of course there are the others who I may mention in passing but who really don’t get touched on as much as the others… such as Mel who is now four months preganant and still trying to figure out who daddy is… Barista who continues to torture me about my hatred of all things Starbucks and always looking for something, never sure of what, but always looking for something… and of course the Pudding who, as my ex-wife, is required to be here for those days when I decide I need to lose my mind because of whatever ambiently stupid thing she has come up with. Then of course there’s my old partner X, and the Boyz at the Hillz.
How did I come up with the name?
Well, that wasn’t as hard as most people think… considering my name history. My CB handle a great number of years ago was Dog… for no other reason than that was the way I worked, like a dog. When I first became a manager, my crews began referring to me as Watchdog. Then somehow someone else was calling him that in Virginia… so I added the NYC to designate where I’m from. Now everyone has skeletons in their closets… so… I just happen to have A Pile of Dog Bones in mine…
The Finale
Finally, to cap off this One Hundreth Post… here is a sample of my writing. This comes from the novel I am currently working on:
It was around two o’clock in the morning. My partner Dial, the slim dark skinned guy you saw me with tonight, and I were curled up in the front of our ambulance casually watching the scene at Club Calypso. The doors would swing open and closed every minute or so, allowing the reggae beats to wash over us like a wave coming in and ebbing away from the shore. Under the dim streetlights below the El train its denizens would ride that wave of sound to the beaches of silence. Alternating between the flashing strobe lights inside for light hearted fun and the dark corners outside for dark deeds.
This is our holy day service. It is here that we sit to commiserate over the week past while those inside the club push the past week a little further along. Usually the high point is signaled by the sounds of gunshots or the slick silence of highly polished metal sliding through tender meat to release the red flow. Our service is one that usually culminates in pain and misery. We deliver communion to the poor wretches in the form of oxygen and bandages. We accept them into our sanctuary and deliver them with the glow of rotating lights and wailing banshees in a box to you and yours on the hill. That is how it usually goes.
But tonight our lord, our dispatcher Marcus, called down to us in his raspy voice from up above, “One David, I need you for the intox.” My partner and I both looked at the microphone, neither of us moving to take it. “One David, I know you’re out there. Answer the radio or I’m giving you the tone,” he called again.
Still staring at the microphone, my hand disobeyed my conscious mind and reached out to lift it from the cradle where it lay by instinct alone. Bringing it to my mouth, I caressed the cool plastic on the side and spoke my prayer, “Drop it on the screen.”
With that, our altar flickered to life and the bell chimed. My prayer had been answered. Clearing the top from the clutter of potato chip and peanut bags we could read that the mission set before us would be one of ill repute. It was at Continental Avenue and Queens Boulevard, inside the hole of the under dwellers. My partner shifted our iron temple into drive, bathed the street in the red and white of our rotators, and pierced the night with our siren sending us on the way.
These nightly crusades are our mission in life. To tend to the sick and care for the injured. To help those who cannot help themselves. To ease the pain and suffering that people find themselves unable to bear. All of these are noble causes. In truth it is more cab rides than saving lives out here. There are those who try to deny it, but I accept it as my task in this life. Perhaps it is yet another failed attempt to receive reconciliation for the sins of my past, but I have begun to think it is simply that the hours suit me.
So… with all that said and done… thanks for reading… thanks for being a bud and picking through the pile… and hopefully I’ll see you again at post 250… and then THAT will be the Biggest Bone of Them All.
-The NYCWatchdog
categories: APODB Blogging Personal Christine The Nick The Steff
See, the city itself is divided into 5 county like land masses known as boroughs. Most people identify New York City with the borough of Manhattan. It is after all the home of the Empire State Building, Wall Street, the Chrysler Building, and Madison Square Garden. The other boroughs are the homes of other such landmarks, such as Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, Shea Stadium in Queens, Coney Island in Brooklyn, and… well… Staten Island has the ferry.
As for healthcare in New York, every borough has designated trauma centers and specialty sites as well as a wealth of clinics and doctors. Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx is one of the premiere hospitals… although one would never guess it. It is a level 1 trauma center, has a barriatric unit, but it also houses the only city snake bite antidote unit… seeing as how it is only a mile away from the Bronx Zoo makes it more understandable. What most people don’t realize, is everyone in the outer boroughs ends up going to see the “specialist” in Manhattan… and everyone in Manhattan usually goes to the “premier” doctors in the outer boroughs. In other words… we are constantly doing the inter-borough shuffle.
So amidst all this, here I sit, trying to get a simple blog entry in. It really almost didn’t happen again, mainly because I got sidetracked with an article about another blogger I already mentioned… but no one should think because the boroughs burn with calls that the drama comes to a halt!
So, yesterday Izzy called me cute. This was over an IM in the afternoon… and I was elated. Of course, she basically deflated me by saying how she felt I was funny, amusing, and a clown to her kind of cute. Right. So after feeling like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for about ten minutes, I then wanted to tell her to get her shine box.
Last night I was supposed to call her from AC Moore where she wanted yarn and I had some frames to pick-up for some holiday photos. Of course, as I was about to leave work, a crisis occurred. After three hours in dealing with it, I finally made it to where I could head home. So I called… and it rang 10 times. So I raced… ate probably around 5 lights on Pennsylvania Avenue, and got home in time to catch her online.
She was doing something… probably talking to another cyber buddy… and said she’d call me in fifteen minutes. I of course said no problem. After logging off I grabbed some spaghetti and sat down to watch some wrestling. A minute later… Breaking the Habit is coming from my phone. Steff.
She had just gotten home from work and had some questions about a protocol that had come up. Of course, she called me, because whether people realized it or not, my partner Freakzilla and I have been responsible for causing a number of protocol changes over the years due to our “extraordinary interpretation and resourcefulness” while working in the field. That line actually appears seven times in our Department of Health files. Yes… the NYSDOH keeps a file on me. Nice to know I’m loved by bureaucrats the world over. So I explain to her why the protocol says what it says, and the ways to document around it… since it is one I have not yet had the opportunity to alter… and we talk briefly about life.
She hasn’t called Crumb… and inside I am grateful as all hell… but she’s really still stuck on him and the New Guy just ain’t cutting it. She asks me what’s wrong… and I’m watching the clock… denying anything is wrong and basically trying to yawn signaling I need to be asleep. She relents and we say goodnight. I put the phone down. A minute later… Rescue Me is coming from the phone. Barista.
After the usual “Hello my munchkin” banter, we get to the heart of the matter. She wants me to work on her resume AND get her a job at a hospital where I’m friends with one of the bosses. How does she devise all this? Well… because it’s where The Steff now works… and her new boss being my friend. In 12 years in this business I have made 3 personal recommendations in my entire career. Why? Because I do have somewhat of a reputation to maintain regardless of what people may think. So if you’re not X, Freakzilla, or The Steff… get it on your own.
After telling her this nicely… she continues to yap about how horrible her life is and so on. I listen to her complaining about the boyfriend who is moving out, and her whining about work, and her bitching about Jen the Red and if it was her asking I would give it to her (which… as much as I love Jen the Red… nope, sorry, nada, nunca, nyet). Finally… she gives up after 17 minutes… and moves on to harass whoever is left on her list.
Then, I put the phone down, and just as I’m about to start eating… here comes 1,2 Step from the phone. Finally. Izzy. So last night’s phone call was 141 minutes and 49 seconds according to my cell phone timer. Not too shabby for a guy who traditionally doesn’t talk if I do say so myself. Our range of topics ran the gamet from who’s playing in the Superbowl to why I’ve been more emotional over the last few days than normal. So, finally, at 1:30 this morning… we said goodnight.
So today, I come back to my desk to see an IM from her… and she’s flipping. Losing her mind over something that happened. Now, I admit, I was pretty damn needy yesterday… and had been looking forward to another day of neediness… but I figured I better turn around and be the man for a change. So… I think I was. I told her my opinion… and more importantly listened to what she had to say. After some serious thinking… I gave her how I felt about it in a way I think she understood.
In the end… guess what? Well… she had needed a drink tonight… but I’m on my way to a CPR Refresher (which is SO stupid… but I need to do it for my other state certs)… so instead… it’s going to be dinner tomorrow night. Imagine? I actually have a date… well… I think it’s a date… I mean… I never really asked if it was a “date” date… did I have to? Isn’t it? Oh boy… now I’m starting to hyperventilate… well… anyway… there it is… I have a date for dinner tomorrow night with a girl who giggles.
And that just makes my freaking knees weak.
