Sep
18
I was driving home from work today and as I motored along Westlake Ave — a busy Seattle street that hugs the west side of Lake Union — I passed a man walking two Boston terriers who were poised mid-process in the act of taking a long and thoughtful shit. Two dogs, the exact same size, the exact same breed (dogs whose faces have always reminded me of Andy Rooney), humped over in unison in that vaguely humiliating dog way, pumping out what were surely identically-shaped turds. And there was this guy holding two leashes strained in two different directions, who was not standing there wishing for death or crawling into the bushes to escape the snickering glances from the cars passing by, but was stoically digging out two plastic bags from his pocket, ready to scoop up and presumably dispose of his dogs’ feces.
Sometimes I am thunderstruck by the inherent goodness of people, you know? Not always, but sometimes.
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I have been trying to stop myself from writing about potty training because while I feel perfectly fine about discussing baby poop, I feel a bit more uncomfortable talking about 3-year-old poop, but I cannot help myself tonight: DEAR GOD THE POTTY TRAINING IS KILLING ME. I am convinced we have fucked it up in every possible way, and even though I swore I would never backtrack once we embarked on this oh-so-rewarding journey, after a recent weekend of our kid holding it until he was in pure misery, we pretty much put Riley back in pull-ups and stopped dragging him to the potty every ten minutes and man, I sure don’t know WHAT the fuck to do at this point. He poops at night and during naps, and no amount of bribery, explanations, supportive discussions, or outright threats is making a difference. Tonight he did something I guess I’d call a shart on our couch and I am no stranger to cleaning up disgusting substances but a plastic bag and a Boston terrier on a busy street is sounding FAR more preferable to dealing with someone’s stubborn refusal to crap in an area designed for crapping, and HELP HELP HELP. Is there something proactive I should be doing at this point? Or sit back and let it be for now? Seriously, any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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Home life in CRAZYTOWN:
Sep
17
The vast majority of the comments I get on this website are helpful, pleasing, entertaining, and basically an utter joy to read. To the very few, though, who took the time out of their busy day yesterday to display their lack of manners, I can only say this: I think I know where you’re coming from, and it’s an ugly, unpleasant place, and I truly hope you find your way out of it soon. I’d tell you to suck a bag of leprous dicks, but I think you’ve got enough unhappiness in your life as is.
In other news, while I was in the midst of navel-gazing about feeling stagnated in my job and pondering my options for the future and how much I’d be willing to change to make change happen and all of THAT happy crappy, my boss up and quit. Things are definitely different now at Workplace than they were, say, a week ago, and while I sure don’t know what it means for the long term — it doesn’t seem likely that they’ll hire a replacement any time soon, is that good or bad? Will my one remaining marketing coworker and I survive the period of time between now and Macworld all on our own? How does this effect some of my goals for 2009? — I feel . . . hmm, it’s hard to describe. Not happy about this situation, exactly, but like at least some small sense of usefulness has been injected back into my machinations there.
I don’t think I’m saying anything here that hasn’t been made common knowledge at my office, but my boss — with whom I thought I had a pretty good working relationship and we got along on a friendly basis just fine — left abruptly, not long after a meeting last week that turned into a bit of a heated discussion between the three of us in marketing. I mean, he didn’t storm out of the building telling me that he hated my coworker and I and our ASS FACES, but man, it wasn’t totally far off from that, either. I know he wasn’t happy and our meeting was surely the proverbial last straw and I don’t blame myself for his departure, but I feel shitty that it ended so badly. I suppose I also feel a little angry and resentful that he chose to write me off so quickly — as a colleague he supposedly respected, as his employee for the past twelve months. It’s so weird, one day we’re cracking jokes in each other’s offices and bullshitting about product taglines, the next he’s cleaned out his desk and left without so much as a goodbye.
Well. So, there’s that.
Since I’ve got nothing but luxurious amounts of extra time on my hands these days, I’ve started writing for a new website. My first post is up today, and some of you may find the blog name familiar. Come by and say howdy!
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My product review site:
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