Busy Busy Busy

So for the first time in almost 10 years, I have a job that is fun. Not a little bit of fun. A lot of fun. Basically, my days are filled with meetings.

Meeting Type #1 - Meetings with people who want something from me.

These are fun. Partly because its nice to be able to actually help someone with something and partly because it's nice to not be the one asking for something. People who want stuff often attempt to ply me with pens and stress balls and free food and booze. I usually eat the food and drink the liquids, but I throw the stress balls back at them and say, "Where were you 2 months ago before I quit my last job? That's when I needed the stress ball. How 'bout you invent a time machine, go back 8 weeks ago and give me this thing. Jerk." Actually, I usually politely accept the schwag and then distribute it to people who come by my office or who fall into meeting type #2.

Meeting Type #2 - Meetings with people from whom I want something.

"Why hello sir. You look quite stunning today. May I offer you a beverage? Perhaps a pen with some company logo on it? Stress ball? Anyway, the reason I asked you here is..." These meetings rarely go well. It's not because my lack of charm. It's the shitty schwag that people from Meeting Type #1 gave me. They really need to step that stuff up.

The third type of meeting known is the Informational Meeting. The informational meeting is the one where I randomly jot words down on a page while I nod my head like I am listening to every word coming out of the other person's mouth. Then I doodle around all the words on the page. I like to draw eyeballs, but sometimes the eyeballs look like boobs floating in the middle of a page, so then I have to draw an entire face. But then sometimes I get worried that if the person with whom I am speaking glances at my notebook, they'll think I'm drawing a picture of them, so then I have to add weird punk rock hair, because its the easiest to draw to make it not look like the person with whom I am meeting. Unless they are a punk rocker. And then I have to draw moustaches and sideburns. After the meeting my boss usually asks to see my notes from the meeting, because he saw me scribbling away furiously and thinks I probably wrote down a lot of the details we discussed. Then I have to lie and tell him that I write in shorthand and it's going to take me time to transcribe it. And then I have to type up notes from the meeting based on randomly written words that may or may not be covered by eye balls.

I love my job.

Strippers Galore

So this past Saturday night I ventured to a strip club with my friend and his wife. Strip clubs always evoke a weird sort of childhood nostalgia. Growing up, there used to be this ridiculously tacky and large strip club that I passed twice a day on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden. The name of the place was Showgirl Palace. The Palace had color photos of scantily clad ladies with mall hair and lingere that looked like it would be really hard to figure out how to put on. And the best part was that the photos were literally 20 feet tall. For a while, I figured the place only employed giant strippers. I always imagined it the kind of club where every lap dance could be your last. Dozens of unwitting fools crushed beneath the weight of silicone and hair extensions. So my childhood (read: 20 year-old) imagination was delt a devastating blow when the Republican National Convention came to town. Essentially, people decided that the GOP delegates would be offended with all the lady bits on display and razed pretty much all of the Boulevard including the Palace. 'Twas a sad end to a fine establishment.

Anyway, driving past a strip club on almost a daily basis, if anything, dulled the natural curiousity about such establishments. I didn't go to my first strip club until after I had moved to Florida. It was called the "Booby Trap." And I almost got kicked out because I threw a beer at some guy wearing a Varsity Mickey Mouse jacket. I don't know why I was so offended that he would where Disney gear in the strip club, but I distinctly remember screaming about him not "lettering" and not deserving his "supple leather sleeves."

So Saturday night I met my friends at a strip club in Center City. Now, I expect most strippers to be unattractive. I did not quite prepare myself for the series of total train wrecks that were undulating around the pole upon my entrance. I don't do well in strip clubs for a variety of reasons. First, I don't go places that charge covers. Second, I don't go places where a beer costs more than four dollars. Third, I don't go places where people talk to me and I have to pay them a dollar to go away. Essentially, that's what my entire night can be summed up as. Plus, I don't like when people touch me. I've got personal space issues. Unless I'm comfortable around you, attracted to you or some combination of the two, I don't want to touch or be touched by you. Shaking hands, fine. Pat on the back. Great. Other than that, hands to yourself, lady.

The first uncomfortable touching of the night was when one of the strippers ran her fingers through my hair. Word to the wise: by 8 pm, my long hair is essentially a rat's nest. You're lucky you didn't lose a finger in there. The second uncomfortable touching of the night was when the busted stripper gave me a kiss on the cheek. I almost threw up a little bit. I could feel the kiss burning into my skin and had to use all my will-power not to lose my shit right then and there. Lady, I don't even let my family members kiss me. Especially not during flu season. My grandmother, with whom I have one of the closest relationships, is not allowed to lips-to-cheek kiss me. She's lucky if she gets a cheek-on-cheek peck. And that's my grandmother. Not a 26-year-old with four kids who was bragging about the huge porn contract she just scored. Mwwwwaaahh. That's the sound of me saying hi to the $7 jack and coke I just downed.

Sinking Feeling

So, you may have noticed the lack of posts over the last couple of weeks. The simple explanation is that I've been super busy. The more complicated explanation is that I've switched jobs, and my new job is actually enjoyable, which leaves me less time to whine and moan via blog. Anyway. When I restarted the blog, I vowed that I would try to update at least once a week. Now that I'm settled into the new job, I'm going to try to do that. Anyway.

I don't consider myself particularly intuitive. I think I'm good at reading people and situations, but I believe that this is a result of my observant nature rather than any sort of sixth sense. I usually write any accurate predictions off as coincidence rather than intuition. However, I cannot help but have a sinking suspicion that one day I will find a dead body. And not in a, "I-was-the-one-who-came-home-and-found-that-great-grandmom-had-passed-on" dead body. I'm talking murder victim in the woods dead body. I can't help but feel like I'm going to be the "hiker" or "jogger" that stumbles upon a cadaver when my dog takes off and I chase him down only to be led to a makeshift gravesite.

That being the case, when interviewed by the Police about the discovery, you won't hear me say anything like, "At first I thought it was a department store mannequin that someone had dumped in the woods." Nope. Unlike every other hiker or jogger that stumbles upon a dead body, I'm kind of expecting that the corpse-like figure peeking out from a crumpled refrigerator box is going to be a body, not a mannequin. And frankly, that's only logical. Do people think it's common to dispose of old mannequins by dumping them in the woods? Really though, when was the last time a hiker stumbled upon what he or she thought was a mannequin and they were right? I bet it's pretty rare.

Anyway, I'm not saying that I'm looking forward to discovering a dead body, or that I want to discover a dead body or that I won't be totally devastated and mentally warped by the discovery. I'm just saying that I think at some point in my life, I'm going to be that "jogger" or "hiker" that you read about in the paper.