Work has been s-l-o-w. Today I took the whole day off, except for one quick trip to trim one case that wasn’t ready for me yesterday. I was also about 3 hours short last week.

I wanted the day off, for sure. Foxy starts her internship tomorrow, so it was nice to wake up late together this morning and have time to enjoy each other before the crazy school year starts again for her. And all that is beside the fact that my job blows chunks, I will never get promoted, and the leadership vaccuum may as well be a black hole.

So I woke up at 10 today, which left me plenty of time for dreaming. For the first time in 13 years, I dreamed that Alanis Morrisette wanted to have sex with me, but I turned her down because I didn’t want to hurt Foxy’s feelings. Thanks, Weeds! Also, the Amish stole all my farming knowledge and wrote a best-selling book, making millions. Also, a friend who shall remain nameless but who is infamous for poking, punching, and slapping asses beat me up. I got upset and tried to find someplace to be alone, but Foxy sent ninjas after me to drag me back into human company.

I’ve been on a blog hiatus, which may or may not be continuing. If anyone still reads this, rest assured that I will return at some point, once the bug has bitten me again. But for right now, I must tell the disturbing tale of …

The Creepy Fired Guy (loud thunder clap)

So there’s this guy at work. Long, long pony tail, bright red rosacea face, ten years younger than my dad, looks 20 years older. Apparently, some time in the past, a much younger woman left him and he was utterly destroyed by it. Now, he’s a depressed, angry alcoholic. He despises any sign of happiness in his coworkers. He is really nice to you if you happen to have boobs though. Until you cross him. One woman had lunch with him because she felt bad for him, then when she wouldn’t go out again because it was the most heinously awkward 45 minutes of her life, he treated her just like he treats the guys. Which is to say mean, dirty, angry, poop.

He’s been reprimanded several times for his attitude, but because most of the time, he grimly proceeds to complete all tasks assigned to him quickly, efficiently, and well, Dientes Hombre was willing to put up with it. Then, last week, he told the nicest guy at the lab to shut up and grow the fuck up because he was talking while he worked. And that was it. But instead of firing him, like you would any normal problem employee, DH gave him two weeks notice, as if he were laying him off.

People around the lab were already kind of joking about CFG being the one who would come to work with a gun one day. But now, we don’t know whether he’s supposed to be there or not. He’s got nothing to lose. And I don’t fit into the hiding place I picked out behind my desk anymore because my knee won’t bend all the way after playing football on SuperBowl Sunday.

Before, I was always the one urging people to lay off CFG, saying he was more like Eeyore than Crazy Postal Dude. “He’s had a hard life,” I would say. Now, with his hygeine plummeting, and even the non-gossips eyeing him nervously, we’re all on edge. Keepin’ the ipod off for longer. Turning around to check the door. Being extra polite.

So now, I’m returning to hiatus land. You can follow me on Twitter @pixiedyke if you want. I promise to let you know if I get shot.

Update: 3/10/2009 CFG failed to show or call this morning. We have relaxed a little. Hopefully he got a new place, where people don’t enjoy their job just as much as he doesn’t.

Foxy’s computer currently thinks she speaks German. The ads in Myspace know this, somehow, so it adds an international flavor to the social networking trailer park. Not as sexy as thinking she speaks Italian, but interesting nonetheless. I’m a geek from way back when we got the internets in 1996 and I ran up a $500 phone bill because there wasn’t a local AOL number, but I’ve never run into this particular problem before. She has no idea how it happened, and it amuses me, so I haven’t researched the fix yet.

No workday tomorrow, since I have oceans and pools and rivers of teeth to swim through still. One day things will go back to normal. One day we will have enough office space to hire the number of people it would take to adequately process a gazillion teeth per day. One day. . .

More on the work thing:

1) I don’t have the other option yet, Jen. If I knew what the other side of the coin was, I’d totally go for it, but there isn’t another side yet. When I was little I wanted to be a teacher. When I was 16 I wanted to be a camp counselor. Now, I want a job that won’t leave me an empty husk of a person after 8 weeks. The real problem is that I can see myself doing just about any job. Flying a jet? I could learn how to do that. Personal Assistant? Doesn’t sound too bad. Making microwave popcorn? Pass the face masks.

2) I do enjoy being 12 on occasion, but those occasions are growing more rare. The people I work with enjoy being 12 all the time. It makes me feel old and tired, and I don’t want to have to tell anyone to stop sexually harassing other people anymore. I’m tired of it. I want to work with professionals. Grownup professionals. Who are only 12 when they’re drunk.

3) My job does allow me to have a house and a garden and a car. Granted, I’m stretched, but I can keep those things going on my salary. I can’t afford to take a pay cut, however. I can’t get a roommate until I finish the bathroom.

4) I firmly believe that the American consumer is the lowest form of life to ever evolve. Even normal people turn ugly and greedy and mean. I like talking to creative and technical people. I never, ever, ever want to talk to a customer again.

Between Foxy getting back at 2:30 this morning, the dog getting up (and getting me up) every hour to go outside, and the fire either going out or heating us out of the house, I got about a half an hour of sleep last night. It’s amazing that I’m still upright. That could change at any time.

I’ve decided to learn how to break down chickens as fast as Hung. So far, I’m down to 7 minutes per. When I get to 30 seconds I’ll be there. I’ll let you know. Don’t hold your breath.

I’ve decided that I either have to actually dedicate myself to the dental lab or find something new. Unfortunately, the dental lab is apparently the highest paying gig in town for art majors who don’t want to do solo web design, so I’m kinda stuck. It’s time to get my certification, since I’ve been in the field for 5 years, but if I do that, then I feel like I’ll have to stay. But its soooo boring. 50 little teeth march out my door every day. And if I get promoted, 15 metal caps march out my door every day. And if I get promoted again, 10 porcelain teeth march out my door every day. For The Rest Of My Life. It sounds like a death sentence.

All these local bloggers are comin’ out the closet, and I don’t think that I should. I mean, pretty much everyone who actually reads this already knows me. Except for the people I’m going to meet at Blogiverswhosawhatsit. But this blog is no longer the first result when you Google my name, and all in all, I think that’s a good thing.

Every once in awhile, when they are involved in a break up, my exes search for their blognames, so they know how to find me. And every once in awhile I get an email from an old camp colleague. And I think that’s just about all the exposure I need. My sister calls me out when I bitch about her, and my dad calls me out when I get too harsh. I’m not ashamed of anything I’ve written here, but I know that my boss doesn’t want to see it. Even if there’s nothing in here about work, and there is a bit, here and there, he wouldn’t understand much about the way I live my life. I may have become too valuable an employee to get rid of for this blog, but someone who might hire me won’t know that. They just know I get drunk on the weekend and make out in the street with my girlfriend.

Among other things. While I don’t think that precludes a person’s worth as an employee, would someone else? I see myself as being fairly tame, all told. And I’m out about my sexuality to anyone who cares to spend 2 minutes talking to me. So do I really have anything to hide? I guess its just better as an open secret. That sounds right.

I am beginning to thaw.

We played our last softball game tonight, this time against Biltmore Estate. Last week, we lost to Scully’s. As far as I’m concerned, Scully’s has two black marks against it: shitty food and assholey, cheating softball players. They yell when they’re rounding the bases, hoping to make basemen drop the ball. They hang out outside the dugout and get in the way of plays. They say things like “Easy Out” when certain players come up. While this may be true, it’s rude and does not foster community, and plus it’s D League recreational Softball, you douchebags. After the game, instead of the usual robotic “Good Game,” they responded to our congratulations with “Thanks.” Not just one guy, although the jerk with blonde dreadlocks should never walk in front of my car, but half the team. Six assholes on one team is a very high average.

The BE team was at least polite about handing us our asses. And to be quite truthful, I wasn’t looking forward to playing again tomorrow night. Since it hit 34 this evening, and promises to go down to at least 37 tomorrow, you will see no tears on my face once my ducts melt.

This morning at 4 am, I woke to find Bear vomiting lovingly on the other pillow. He does that sometimes, just to make sure I’m paying attention.

I am still not blogging about my incredibly frustrating work situation, but I feel the need to blog about how I’m not blogging about it just to make you understand how incredibly frustrating it continues to be.

Foxy and I had our first “Well, I don’t know, what do you want?” discussion and it went very well. We’re still on the same page, or at least reading the same novella. It has dirty pictures, this novella.

More softball tomorrow night. We still don’t practice, and our shortstop just found out she’s pregnant. We’re playing Scully’s. We’re going to go down in flames.

And other things I had only suspected up until now.

I woke up at 7:35 this morning, because my cat jumped on my back and began yowling frantically. He was watching out for me, unlike my demonspawn clock radio, which doesn’t care whether I get to work on time or not.

I didn’t even do anything outstanding last night that would make me late for work. I feel that if you’re going to be late, you ought to have had enough fun to make up for the stress. I went to EMc’s party for about 20 minutes, tried and failed to watch Fight Club, which is incomprehensibly macho and a little boring, read a few poems, went to sleep. This is not a good enough evening to make me late to work. I shall strive for better this evening.