Thursday, September 29, 2005

You just don't fit in

I caught the premiere of Martha Stewart Apprentice a couple of weeks ago. I was curious. I was a fan of her TV shows and still pick up the magazine once in awhile. But soon into the show realized I had no tolerance for adults generally acting like junior high school students. I was set to write comments about how that is not reality TV and why do they even call it that?

However, in the past couple of weeks, it's hit me like a wet fish. It *is* reality. Adults act like immature teenagers. It's most prevalent when they are put behind the wheel of a car. There's pages and pages of comments on that (and if I am to post this one in a timely manner, will let you use your own experience with this to fill in those paragraphs).

It also happens at work. I was always flabbergasted (love that word) at "office politics." Now they are kind of funny but also kind of sad. I remember one former co-worker complaining he couldn't sit next to another former co-worker because "she keeps looking at me." It didn't matter that they were cube pods set up in fours, with half walls, and her desk directly faced his. I've seen other former co-workers who were very easy to work with face-to-face but constantly running to the supervisor "he isn't doing it right," "she screwed up the files." It was just short of "I'm gonna telllll..."

I haven't missed that since working freelance. I still see a lot of this in emails between project managers and project leads and just chuckle to myself. I have the luxury of not being in the office, being able to ignore email and phones (for a little while at least) and mostly be removed from it.

So I guess why I can't stomach any more Apprentice, the only reality show I really watched, is because I've lost tolerance for this behavior. I mean really (or perhaps, WTF?!), what is the point of acting like this except making yourself look stupid? Then again, maybe that's my opinion of it. One person's stupid is another's normal life. But then again - I know everything.

[postscript: okay, fine. you got me. that was immature. sometimes you just get so angry that comments like that come out. but hey, they make it through filters easier than %##@$%$!!]

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Goombah shirts and Power Panties

Men should not be allowed to shop by themselves. Especially when there's a specific requirement to what they wear. My darling hubby took off the mall one Saturday while I was off at book club. If you know my hubbie, you know that a Hawaiian shirt is his look. My perfect dress is a gorgeous blend of pink, red, orange and yellow. His assignment - a *solid color* shirt that matches my dress for my baby sister's wedding.

He found his perfect shirt and also bought a new pair of dress pants. The pants needed alterations so he didn't bring either home, instead snapping a photo of the outfit on his camera phone. Okay, camera phones are not high definition, but I swore this looked like more than one color and like a bowling shirt or perhaps an Italian Mafia shirt.

The clothes were ready Wednesday. We were leaving for Albuquerque Thursday morning. So in a brief moment of clarity, I decided to bring my dress with me to pick up his clothes. It was a very good idea. While the shirt is nice, it is three colors in large stripes and does not go with the dress one bit. The salesperson came to the rescue and led me to the perfect solid color shirt -- just one color -- in kind of a sherbert orange. It was perfect and looked fantastic. He got to wear his Goombah shirt for the rehearsal dinner -- it looked nice and actually went pretty well with my rehearsal dinner outfit.

While I was at Nordstrom's, I picked up a pair of "Power Panties" by a company called Spanx. Even though I have lost weight, I still have some lumps and bumps to corral. My previous piece of "shape wear" is a size 22. So this brought me to the Power Panties. I thought maybe they might give me superhuman abilities. Wearing this rather comfortable garment was fairly uneventful - perhaps I just gave off the vibe. Don't mess with me... I am wearing my power panties.