It's going to be a nice time.

Just because we're seeing eachother for the first time since I moved out of his house in December doesn't mean we can't have a nice, normal time together. Just because we've grown apart and together and apart and together and apart and together doesn't mean we can't be together without being together. I can enjoy my time with him and not want more. I can leave that city knowing that, because of him and in spite of him, I've done the right things.

I can't wait to see him, though. I can't wait to talk to him about not getting into school. I can't wait to tell him about my job and the people I've met here. I can't wait to tell him that I'm doing just fine without him. I can't wait to show him that I'm doing just fine without him. And I want him to show me the same,too. I want to see how well he's doing and all the personal strides he's made. I want to see that he's working on himself. I want him to see that I'm proud of him for making those strides.

After my trip in January, I promised myself that I would not go back to the city any time soon. It's amazing how much progress I've made since then. I've managed to rid myself of so many residual feelings in only a couple months. Whether or not I'm 100% ready to actually see him right now is absolutely up for debate, but at least I know I'm ready to be back in the city again.

I'm going to New York this weekend.

I'm going to take the Fung Wah Bus and everything. I've recently been informed that a Chinatown bus (not necessarily the Fung Wah Bus, but they're all the same anyway) went up in flames somewhere en route to New York from Boston last week. I don't have the full scoop but I really couldn't care any less than I already do. That bus could be sitting idle at the stop at South Station completely engulfed in flames and I would put my big, red duffle bag in the underside compartment, cover my face to avoid the flames, and walk onto that bus.

I'm a daredevil like that. Also, I want out, people. I want out of this joint, if only for a weekend.

I'm getting sick of being negative! It's spring! Spring is in the air! Spring is all around us! If I I just ignore the light snow that Mama Nature is threatening us with late this week, then spring is here! Perfect timing, too. I'm so over winter. Winter is so last season. Though typically a fan of snow, I'm ready for the warmer weather. I'm ready for less layers and more skin. I'm ready for new life - new life for myself and for everything around me.

I'm also ready to drive a nail through my very own skull, but that want should subside when I leave this office in one and one-half hours.

Okay, so I’m a camel.

I’m a camel and I carry straw on my back. I have a very strong back, as do most pack animals. I can withstand quite a heavy load. Today, though? I think my back was broken today.

I’m not sure which straw it was exactly. I can’t decide which straw it was that broke my back.

A large part of me thinks it’s the straw where she actually had the audacity to think that we were dressed alike this morning. Call me whatever you’d like. A snob. Whatever. I don’t care. But give me a little credit. Besides the fact that the only real likeness we shared today started and stopped with light khaki pants, we’re talking about a woman wearing a shirt-under-sweater combo (you know, the ones were the collared shirt is sewn into the sweater?) from the Wal-mart clearance rack. Now, I’m not saying that everyone should spend as much on clothes as I do. In fact, I can admit that I spend too much on clothes. But PLEASE. Please spare me.

The more I think about it, though, it wasn’t that straw. I think it was the straw where she incessantly talks about her delinquent daughter as though she’s Jesus Christ sent down from Heaven above to bless us all. The only thing worse than being around a snot-nosed little puke is having to listen to a mother talk about her snot-nosed little puke.

She brought her daughter into the office again on Saturday. Every time the girl opened her mouth her mother would say “Did you hear her!?” or “Isn’t she fantastic!? Did you hear that!?” as if the girl had just stood up and recited Ovid’s Metamorphoses from memory when, in reality, she had just begged her mother for some South Park DVD. I wanted to turn around and shout “OF COURSE I FUCKING HEARD HER. HER MOUTH IS ALMOST AS BIG AS YOURS. ALMOST. GIVE HER TIME, SHE’S STILL YOUNG.”

I’ve been civil all along. I’ve been more than pleasant. Naturally, I’m not going to do anything that could get me into any trouble, but I just don’t have it in me anymore. I don’t have the strength to pretend like I give a crap about what she has to say. Just because she sits directly behind me doesn’t mean we have to be friends, right? As long as I’m polite I’m not doing anything wrong, right? Perhaps if she weren’t such a psycho I’d be a little more certain.

My poor, aching back.

I try not to let my sexuality define me.

I'm not an activist, by any stretch of the imagination. I'm proud of who I am, but have no interest in "gay pride." I'm proud of my accomplishments and I just don't see my sexuality as an accomplishment. It's nothing that I have to strive for or work towards. It just is.

That said, can I just say that I can be such a homo sometimes?

Take last night, for instance. After watching Jake in Progress (related story coming up), I flipped over to CSI only to find that CSI was not on. After a few minutes of surfing I stumbled across some show on The Discovery Channel about pregnancy. Always hungry for knowledge, I thought I'd settle in and learn about how babies are made! Additionally, a girl in my office just had a baby so I thought this might arm me with some impressive factoids with which I could dazzle and impress my co-workers! I was psyched! I was ready! I was going to learn!

And then a commercial came on, I flipped over a couple channels just to pass the time, saw that the Men's Figure Skating World Championships was on, and never looked back.

Miracle of life? Eh. Men in sequined vests and tights swishing around the ice to Singin' in the Rain? Sign. Me. Up.

In equally as gay news, I was having a very normal morning, just reading some entertainment news from cnn.com, when I clicked on an article about John Stamos' new show, Jake in Progress. Now, this is a quality show. I watched the previews last Sunday and then the two new episodes last night. Good show. Not my point here. My point is that, in the middle of the article, John Stamos says:

"I never thought I'd be single at 41, never in a million years. It's for the best, and it's exciting. But a lot of it's depressing."

And then I start crying like a stupid, ugly baby. I cried like a stupid, ugly baby right at my desk in my office. I didn't mind revealing to the girls in my office why I was crying, but when the homeless man that I lost last weekend came in I had to play it off like I was crying from laughing.

I must be channeling some of Mother's crazy, menopausal mood swings or some other such nonsense.

Additionally,

if loud mouth behind me doesn't stop talking about how "fantastic" her bathroom looks in lavender and mint green I'm going puke up my lunch, re-eat it, then puke it back up again.

Yesterday, in a rash attempt to quell my hunger,

I bit open a packet of duck sauce and sucked it dry. I don't have any packets of duck sauce left, but I have soy sauce and grape jelly and I'm not quite hungry enough yet to eat either of those but I can't make any promises about what might happen in one hour's time.

The Boss Lady left the office for the day early this morning. Her kitty had surgery yesterday and needs tending to. Now, I love animals. I'd typically do more for an animal than I would for a person. But what about meeeee? She left me all alone in this office with two complete nut bags!

The woman behind me? Her voice is like a drill in my ear. A big, nasty, whiney, foul-mouthed, grammatically incorrect drill in my ear.

Then there's the bathroom bombardier in front of me. While she hasn't dropped a stinky load in her pants or anything, she's just on my last nerve. She talks to herself and sings to herself and knocks on wood and taps her pen on her desk and rustles her papers and she laughs with her customers every time she's on the phone. I asked her yesterday "Who were you just talking to? Bill Cosby?" My customers are never very funny. I feel a little short-changed.

Actually, that sentiment kind of sums up my life right now. I feel a little short-changed.

I lost a bum today.

I don't think that was politically correct.

I misplaced a homeless person today. I guess I didn't misplace him, per se. I just lost track of him. I really can't be blamed, though. He was at least three, maybe four sheets to the wind when he went to sleep on the table in the little room next to my office. I was supposed to wake him up at 10am, but I think he woke up earlier and started wandering. I'm hoping that his impaired motor skills limited him to the bottom floor, eventually forcing him to just leave the building, but I fear that he somehow tackled the stairs. I fear that he somehow managed to make it up into some other department. I fear that some unfortunate person in advertising is going to come in on Monday only to find a dirty, disoriented man knocking over desk chairs and bumping into fax machines.

Also, my co-worker brought her 11-year-old daughter in to work with her today. The building is closed on Saturdays. We still take calls, but no one can get into the building, so it's very casual. We can be loud, wear jeans, and, apparently, bring in our children. I'm typically very good with kids. Though I'd rather club them all like little baby harp seals, I'm typically very good with them. This one made me want to club myself like a little baby harp seal. She spent the majority of the morning reading the not-so-witty tag lines off of the South Park t-shirts she so desperately wanted. There's something really unsettling about hearing an 11-year-old girl say "I just went and fudged your momma", let me tell you.

This is my job, people. This is my job.

Yep!

I'm joing The Polyphonic Spree, just as I'd anticipated!

Today that weird-ish co-worker of mine who makes the big stinkies in the bathroom was wearing a shirt.

It was red and it was black and it was plaid. I told The Boss Lady that it was the type of shirt that you can only wear if you're a) chopping wood, b) listening to The Indigo Girls, or c) chopping wood while listening to The Indigo Girls. This was right after I made The Boss Lady some really hot earrings out of the perforated edges with the little holes that you remove from either side of that really old printer paper, two paper clips, and some jewel-toned Crayola glitter glue.

I think tomorrow I'll make her some heels out of two tape dispensers, a pair of scissors, and a couple of manila folders. Office supply couture will be the wave of the future, I tell you.

Kevin over at the admissions department at that one school called my cell phone while I was at work.

He was very flirty again. He was just calling to let me know that he'd found my application and that I should be hearing back from the school in a couple weeks re: yea or nae. (Also, I'm sure he was calling to say that he was dreadfully in love with me despite never actually meeting me, but his phone must have died or something...)

I've already come to terms with the fact that I'm not getting into an art school any time soon. Worry not, though, for I have just made an alternate plan. I'm going to run off and join The Polyphonic Spree. You know The Polyphonc Spree, don't you? I remember when J came back from the David Bowie concert here in town and told me about the really bizarre group that had opened. He told me that there were about 30 of them (24 in actuality), they all wore white robes, and they sang freakishly cheerful songs (I later learned that I knew them from an iPod/VW Bug commercial from a few years back).

So, yeah. I'm totally going to join up with them. I just watched a 30-minute concert of theirs on TV. I'm not going to lie to you. This is something I can do. Not just do, but do well. I say this because they're awful. Everything about them is awful. None of them can sing (not even the lead singer who looks a lot like Jesus with a perm) and none of the musicians can really play. I haven't touched an oboe in 4 years, but believe you me, that shouldn't be a problem for The Polyphonic Spree.

Or I could just become a member of their little back-up choir. I watched their choreography. The head bob. The to and fro sway. The high-step march. The 'round and 'round spin. Check, check, check, and check.

If they don't take me in as a performer (although, there are so many of them I bet I could just hide somewhere in between the girl with the frizzy red hair and the french horn player and they'd never even know I was there) I suppose I could write for them. Here's a little something I just came up with that would be perfect for The Polyphonic Spree:

The sun is shining/
It makes me smile/
The rain is falling/
It makes me happy/
La dee doo dee daaaaa

The sun is shining/
It makes me smile/
I'm happy 'cuz I'm smiling/
I'm smiling 'cuz I'm happy/
Dee doo bee boo deeeeee

I'm just relieved to have a back-up plan, people, because heaven knows I need one.

I work with a woman.

She is 60. I know this because the scary man with the Chester the Molester mustache who shovels the snow and empties my trash can said that he was born in 51 and she said that she was born 6 years earlier. I used my super-duper mathematical skills of wonder to come up with 60 years of age. Anyway, she's 60 and she makes really big stinkies in the ladies' room.

I didn't know anything about the stinkies in the ladies' room until this last week. Apparently, every morning, when she stands up and announces "Bathrooooooom!" and disappears for 15-20 minutes she's either dealing with some serious Gastroenterological problems or mixing noxious chemicals. The Boss Lady said she walked by once and thought that maybe someone had brought the dumpster inside the building.

I feel most deeply, though, for the 3 lovely girls from the classified department. The ladies' room is actually in their office area. Let's face it: It's one thing to smell the stinkies of one of your beloved co-workers, but another thing entirely to be forced to endure the stinkies of the weird-ish old lady from the department next door.

In one personal account one of the girls told me that her eyes literally tear every morning. The smell actually makes her eyes water. Another girl told me that she has, on several occasions, gagged herself into fits of dry-heaving. They have to open up every door and window just to air the joint out.

So, because I feel bad that my co-worker is dropping bombs on their side of the floor, I fashioned little gas masks for each girl out of a coffee filter and an elastic. A peace offering of sorts. Maybe not the most successful peace offering but I had only the best intentions.

To make a stinky story short, I noticed today that she hasn't gotten up and stated "Bathrooooom!" in three days. I fear for the lives of the classified girls. One of these days she's going to have to go real bad and blow a hole right through the wall, killing each of those three lovely girls. Either that or the stink is going to be so bad that it will burn their pretty eyebrows right off.