The roses from my bestest man ever, M. (case you didn’t guess), continue to flourish in rosey splendor.

Five days in and looking dandy. He sure knows how to pick ’em (but not in a migrant worker sense).

I’ve been working in the realm of the not for profit for going onto 20 fucking years. Count ’em, almost 20 with folks who alledgedly work for lofty goals like curing shit and saving people.

Whatever.

When you work in the trenches of the finest of the fine of the goodest of the good of the givenest of the givers, you learn some shit about human nature. Mainly, people suck.

Everyone is motivated by selfish self-interest at some level. The good, kind folks have enough self-reflection to say “Yeah, shit, you got me. It’s all about me.” The dickwads try to convince you they’re looking out for everyone else. Um, hey, smart, helpful people, guess what? I’m bright enough to know when smoke is being blown up my ass.

On the plus side, and reflective of my own self-love, I’ll be rocking a rockstar suite and some comp’ed beverages, as I am the one making all the phone calls and working out the nitty gritty minutia for a company thingamabob meant to build team and whatnot. Call me Mariah Carey; I need bendy straws for my wine.

There will be no “Kumbaya” under my watch, but I will have highspeed Internet.

Quick note to self — You’re walking a dangerous path when you throw out “The Rock” as an interesting, remote place near the city for a retreat to your literal-minded boss. I’m about 86.9 percent sure she was joking when she shot back an email about being intrigued at the possibilites on Alcatraz.

I’m stocking up on raincoats and rubber cement.

Whilst not working on where my work “team” might bond and sleep and talk endlessly about strategy and tactics, I’ve been pondering living. As in, living with a roof over our heads.

At MINIMUM to get something comparable to what I sold, we’d have to drop another 100 Gs over what I charged. Fucking hell.

Probably we’ll just upgrade the rental for awhile, while M. builds his net worth working for the successful competition who lured him away from the little guy. (I’m figuring his new commute will get mighty old during the longer nights/shorter days to come.)

Given the work history, it’s just a painful thing I got pent up, hold in, squeeze together and beat down any oozing to get out work stories. Practically a full day of trying hard to not be a homicidal maniac at worst and flaming asshole at least (seriously, I was a fucking model of team player) today at work is the elephant in my room. But, not enough of a good story, so I’lls just pretend the elephant’s an end table.

I’ll shake it off with this little weasely kiss ass bit. Thing is, you all know, work sucks. It just does. Sure a couple of Type-A CPAs somewhere in the universe get a little wood at the dream of another audit. Maybe even a fair number of people are lucky enough to feel a sense of “personal fulfillment” every now and again. Like, take the Pope, if you dig mass and Jesus and ancient books, he’s probably having fun getting up and going to work in the morning. I mean, shit, he does have an awesome hat and slippers.

The rest of us, though, even on the best day it’s like the cliche goes, “why do you think they call it work?” Every day, day after fucking day, world without end, you’re expected to do shit. Often tiresome, repetitive, frustrating shit.

Still and all, every now and again, I get reminded that I at least get to co-work with some non-assholes. Like there’s a chick who works pretty high up in the business, money, filthy lucre executive food chain who sports a pretty cool tat. I know it, because unlike in the sphincter-tight Northeast, she’s worn shirts that let it shine. And, not only that, she’s easy going with the conversational skills and all. Found out today, she used to work at a true Boston landmark, the Pine Street Inn.

Fuck it, one quick kind of negative work story. So, I’m meeting with a chick who I’ve had some oil and water (actually maybe gasoline and match) convos. Mostly when my boss has put me in the messenger to be shot role. But all sorts of wise folks responsible for my continued payment, asked me to be chill, so I was chill.

Somewhere in our heart to heart with my trying my best to be sweet and communicative and shit, ‘cuz seriously I got the vocab and the mad skills to talk, y’all, I felt the subtle dope slap of “wait a fucking minute.”

She’s letting me know her side of a difficult situation in which she felt painted into a corner and unfairly set up as looking maybe less than sharp or less than sane. OK “fair ‘nuf,” I say both in my head and more or less out loud. And, I say something about, yeah, I understand what you are saying, cool, cool, like, since I felt the same way when I was getting a lot of negative vibrations back on my being an unreasonable, anal retentive bitch, and that wasn’t fair.

Oh, she says, not really the same, because you are.

They’ll never likely see this note. But, the twins in my fam turned 50 on 10/23. That’s 1/2 of a whole centure. The big 5-0.

Happy Birthday(s) to J. and J., born in 1956. Man, that’s hard to get my head around, being as they’re in my very own family. That’s like 350 in dog years.

Sadly, Jane Wyatt passed from this mortal coil. But, damn, at 96 years, she sure had a long run.

I tip my hat to the woman who knew best, in that way women know better than their kindly well-meaning mates. Maybe with Donna Reed and Barbara Billingsley, aka Mrs. Cleaver, she was the seminal perfect woman. (Get it, huh, get it? I said “seminal” for like chicks.)

The construct was simple. They knew the inside skinny and every now and again the man would piss them the fuck off. Then, there would be some moral, metaphorical kind of doghouse. And, hangdog hubby would sit out the storm.

In the end, roses, candy maybe, a cheek smooch and some kind of santized grabass, and life was back on an even plain in a rainbow-studded horizon.

So, guess who spent a chunk of the weekend in the doghouse?

We’ve discovered the deeper, anxiety-ridden, ultimately Type A version of M. He got hired away by the major competitive force in the chosen area of his curren open source fanaticism, embedded technology. Everywhere there’s a chip and goddamnit someone needs to sell the OS and/or software that’s firing them chips into action.

In between his last gig, and the new, sweet promises of milk and honey from the real deal corporation, post-start up and with a current workable business plan, like money baby, bling, bling, he’s taken a couple of weeks. Turns out, he’s more neurotic than I am and that just fucking ain’t a ray of sunshine living. He’s grumpily unemployed and uncertain, despite knowing perfectly well what’s coming next. (OK, to be fair, new place, new people, new office, new rituals, all can stress you out like a motherfucker.)

Lot’s of sitcom variety bickering and if we had a stuffed closet, no doubt Fibber McGee would send it’s contents rattling to the floor.

Lots of fighting energy wasted. Perhaps the darkest hour being the ugly Madonna as African Mother “discussion.”

Formula being formula, by the end of a weekend, which to be fair had it’s high points, like a night out in SF and checking out a house for sale just a left turn and a couple of blocks away from the ghetto, I was pouting, he was doghouse living. (Of course, apart from his stress, there’s the added joy of my job. This week is kind of a test of my sense of humor and any shred of patience extraordinaire. I’d write more, but you know recividism in weblog land is pure boneheadedness.)

One thing about work, I’m learning my own version of a humble Buddhist existence with a dollop of twelve-steppiness. It takes a lot for me to sit by and just watch stupid unfold in it’s slow, creeping path and inevitable, inexhorable progress. To just nod and smile internally is surely a lesson and opportunity for growth.

Angry woman + embattled spousal equivalent = That which I had successfully dodged for over 42 years. Namely, the dozen long stems delivered to the desk.

The receptionists came up to my desk, beautiful vaseload of blooms in hand. I actually told him, “There must be a mistake, those aren’t for me.” He showed me the card.

D’oh. Mortification doesn’t really do justice for my peculiar sense of embarassed shyness while the chicks in the office took note. Inward pleasure I can do, but I’m downright Amish and looking for something “plain” on the showy side. Yup, that’s my secret freakishness.

The card said only, “By M.,” because he helped design the arrangement. (Try ‘splaining the M. appellation to people who cannot know the M. weblog chronicles even exist.)

I took some massively crappy photos. But, one’s kind of cool thanks to a little Photoshop doctoring and a gray background.

I wrote shit. I broke shit. I fixed shit.

Fuck me. Fuck the fact it’s late. Fuck the fact I can’t right about the stressful week I’m planning at the 9-5 salt mine.

Fuck it, I’m becoming an aging prostitute, rich from the niche market of white, middle-aged and chubby. I’m tired of office politics is all.

By my photos might be working. Click left, click above, click below on the cute thumbnail. Just don’t click anything in my face or I’ll just half to hear the clicks of smashing metatarsals.

Yep. I’m cranky. Fuck everything.

What’s better than reading books about oil resources, war and destruction? What uplifts your intellect? What makes you better understand the world in which we live?

40 Awesomely Bad Love Songs

Yeah, I could be reading. I could be writing. I’m behind in all such activities. But fuck it.