Everyone has an Office Space day sometimes

Peter: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, uh, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me- and, uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour.
Yeah, I just stare at my desk; but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch, too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.




This was my schedule today:
9:00: Supposed to come in
9:30: Actually came in
9:30-12: Look at blogs, update facebook, twirl around in my chair, look at missed connections.
12-1: Actual work!
1-2: Lunch
2:15: Actually got back from lunch
2:15-2:30: Actual work!
2:30-3:15: Talk with coworkers
3:15-4:15: Actual work!
4:15-4:30: Think about what actual work I need to do tomorrow.
4:30-4:45: Talk to sister on IM
4:45-5: Write this blog.

2.25 hours of actual work today. Not too bad.

sports theater

So, I am planning on doing a duathalon in April, assuming I don't psych myself out. But I keep running into mucho problemas, some of them legitimate and some of them that are more or less self-created.
Problem number one is I have an overuse injury. How awesome is that!? My calves were getting really sore when I was running, to the point that I had to stop because it was too painful. So I started doing all the stuff that running websites tell you to do -- I got an ice pack, I did stretches, I got tiger balm, I got heel inserts for my shoes, I got new shoes -- but it wasn't really helping. So the other thing you can do is get a brace for your shin/calf. So after trying everything else I, being me, went the dramatic route and got the brace. So now I wear it at the gym and I feel kind of bad ass because I look like a legitimate athlete.
Problem number two is it's fucking cold which presents two problems. 2a is that I am worried that I won't have enough outside training time, so I use that to psych myself out thinking that maybe I should wait because I won't be ready in time. 2b is that it I'm not always all that motivated to walk 15 minutes each way to the gym in 20 degree wind chill weather.
Problem three is that my gym is way too crowded after work. Normally if I go right after work if I get off at 5, it's not too bad. I went today and it was insanity. I waited around for a machine and finally gave up, telling myself that I will come back, which there is probably a 25% chance of me actually doing.
I considered joining the gym next door to my work, but then I was reading reviews of it and one person said they had been to better gyms in Beirut. So I am not going to pay twice as much for a third world gym, which is probably just as crowded.
So until April 5th I plan on limping around with my brace on, moaning about interferences to my "training schedule" and generally being extra dramatic. And hopefully I won't talk myself out of the duathlon.

That's how we do in Clinton Hill

So I was doing my grocery shopping on Saturday at my local Pioneer supermarket. And I'm in the produce section, rifling through leafy greens to find ones that haven't turned mushy brown, cuz that's what you have to do at the Pioneer. And then I see this dude over at the deli, who looks a lot like Food Network celeb Ted Allen...but surely, Ted Allen -- who on many episodes of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy lamented that the proletariat does not enjoy duck pate -- does not shop at the Pioneer. Even though they renovated it a month or so ago, so they no longer store produce on the filthy floor. And they added some organic/natural foods. And they added some fancy cheeses (by my standards, keeping in mind here that I am pretty pissed that the $1.99 cheese I like to buy increased to $2.49). But still, this is no gourmet market. This is where I and the 2,000 denizens of the Lafayette Gardens projects shop. Not Ted Allen.
Turns out, he does. Because I am the master of finding things out about people on the internet, I learned that Ted Allen actually lives a few blocks from me.
And you may be saying to yourself, wait Caitlin, don't you live in the ghetto? Wasn't someone shot on your doorstep like a year ago? And you are partially right, friend. But, as many visitors have observed, one only has to travel a few blocks to get to very nice brownstones and less gang activity. Like, a few blocks in Ted Allen's direction...
So I find an article in New York Magazine from October 2008 in which he discussess his move to Clinton Hill. I found another article with his address, but I am withholding it out of respect for his privacy. What if one of my readers from Kansas decides to stalk him?!
My favorite part of the interview is as follows: When's the last time you drove a car?
Today. I love Clinton Hill, but the grocery stores suck.

Well said, Ted. But, I suppose we all have to make concessions once in a while.

why doesn't anyone i know watch Lost?

Cuz man is it good this season. I think the best since the 1st season. Maybe I should start perusing the message boards or something.

Dating Disaster #6: Self R-E-S-P-E-C-T (just a little bit)

I don't really like or dislike Valentine's Day. When it's your first or second Valentine's Day in a new relationship it can be really great. I imagine that after 25 Valentine's Day you're probably pretty much over Bee Mine plush bumblebees, but maybe it's a nice time to remember that you love each other. I wouldn't know. When you're single, sometimes it's kind of a bummer, sometimes you don't care. Whatevs.
But, I was thinking that a romantic day which I am spending alone, having just polished off about 4 gallons of chocolate marshmallow frozen yogurt and am otherwise doomed to watch romcoms all night because THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE ON!, is a good time to pull out a dating disaster.

This dating disaster will take what should be a familiar pattern to those of you who have read Dating Disasters 1-5. I am not sure if this is just my unfortunate taste, a side effect of casual sex, or typical for most dudes. Anyway, I met this guy at a party and yadda yadda yadda ended up going home with him. I was pretty drunk, so after we're done I passed out in his bed. I woke up about an hour later to this dude all touching on my lady parts. I mumbled something about how I was sleeping and shifted my position to be less accessible. But this guy is not one to be easily disswayed and contorted his arm into what had to have been an uncomfortable position just to continue to molest me. I sat up, "umm, I'm going to go home." As I tried to crawl over him to get out of bed, he pulled me down on top of him, "Hey wanna go again?" Uuuugh. No. I don't. So I left. Later I am telling my friends about this, and almost unanimously they say I should give him another try because "we were both drunk" and "he's a friend of a friend so he can't be that bad" and "it was probably just an isolated incident."

So this is where my poor self esteem and bad decision making comes into play, because when he texted me later I was all like, oh yeah let's get together. So eventually we got drinks. He asked me to go home with him and I declined. He didn't push it, unlike Dating Disaster #5. So I thought, well, maybe it was just a one time violation. And I agree to see him again.

At get-together #3, I intended to just get together at a bar near my house but the bar was crowded and loud and we ended up going back to my apartment. I should know better by now, but still invited him up and started downing screwdrivers. A lot of screwdrivers. Pretty soon I was drunker than I have been in a long time and I don't remember much until the morning when I woke up. But apparently we had sex and I woke up at 5 am with one of the worst hangovers I have ever had. My head was pounding, I couldn't get back to sleep and this dude in my bed keeps thinking that maybe he should try to touch my boobs. I got up to get some advil and was like, "um, hey, would you be offended if I asked you to leave?" So I am not sure what my response would be in a situation like that. I would probably feel stupid and embarrassed and just leave. I am pretty sure that I would not say, "Just give me a couple more hours honey". A couple hours?? In a couple hours I have to be at work! But what am I supposed to say...I mean, I don't want to be rude. So I just laid back down and said, "don't touch me." "Well...this is awkward," he grumbled into his pillow. Yeah, for me and you both, buddy.

We started talking about random stuff, because what else are you supposed to do when you are massively hungover and there is a rather large naked man who won't leave your apartment. Then the guy decides that he should give me a backrub, which was actually kind of nice and did make me feel a little better. But no one ever does anything nice without expecting something in return, so, predictably the back massage turns into a game of "let me see how much I can touch your boobs until you move my hand." Ugh.

So in the course of this conversation he kind of laughs awkwardly and says something about me asking him to leave my apartment twice. And I was like, wait what? Twice? I just asked you once. "Uhh, no..." he says "You also asked me to leave like right after we had sex."
Are you kidding me right now? Seriously? I ask you two times to leave and you still don't do it? Who does that?

To me it sort of enters this kind of rapey, aggressive, disrespectful territory that I'm not all that comfortable with. After he left I was really angry at myself for not making him leave in the morning when I asked him. I assume I was too wasted to be very convincing when I asked him the first time. But I was annoyed that in the morning I said to myself, "well I don't want to be rude" instead of "you know what, I have a right to ask you to leave and have you comply."
I was expecting him to be a three-texter before he got that I didn't want to see him again. But I was wrong, it was only 2.
Although, speaking of people who don't get it, Mole Guy requested my facebook friendship the other day. At first I didn't even know who it was...then I recognized the headshot. I at least had the self respect to click ignore.

A Horrible Warning is the premiere destination for all your vices

So, as you know, every once in a while I like to see what people are searching when they come to my blog. In the past I have been THE place for pictures of Robin Weigert as Calamity Jane, as my blog is the first link in google pictures. Also, when people are concerned about warnings around amish friendship bread, google likes to refer them over here.
But recently, google searches leading to my blog have gotten notably more lurid.
The other day, a poor speller from Staten Island was interested in "laundry atiction". What is THEIR laundry addiction, I wonder? And was my blog helpful?
In Japan, someone was referred here due to their curiosity regarding, "why teenager take picture of lady underwear at escalator". We love to write about that here at A Horrible Warning.
Anf finally someone googled, "Went home from bar, had sex" and was led directly to my post about going home from the bar with someone and having sex, which is why google is so amazing.

In updated news, it turns out that I LOVE octuplet mom, what a personality disordered nutcase! I can't handle how much crazier and crazier she is turning out to be!

The good old days weren't always good, or, I am sure one day I will look back on these years with nostalgia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KmUwVA3BqI

Anyone else who has posted the above 30 rock clip in their blog has done so to talk about what a hottie Jon Hamm is. Well not me. I am posting about Oswald. Because I HAVE Oswald in my building. I didn't know that was like, a thing, in New York. But it must be. If you don't watch the clip and didn't see the episode, basically Liz Lemon goes to give her neighbor his mail and a crazy guy answers the door. And then they explain that it's Oswald who lives in the basement and helps out sometimes.

Well, picture Oswald...but make him black, mute, and an alcoholic and make Liz Lemon's fancy tv writer's building into a dumper social worker's building and then you have my apartment and the guy from this post who lives in my basement and sometimes washes the window in the door.

I don't know his name, so in my head I usually call him Chris because sometimes he wears a Dickies-type work short with Chris sewn on, even though I am pretty sure it came from the garbage. Maybe I will switch it to Oswald.

One time I saw him stabbing a caged rat with what appeared to be a sharpened stick. True story.