In the Loop. Stupid.

Dear Internet,


Yesterday was the first step towards being a real eating, breathing and working human being. By first step I mean I got out of bed, put on dress pants and a nice sweater, heels (believe it or not) and lugged two (yes, two bags) to an office in the loop for my first day of work at a new company. The first few days at a new job are really a trial. And by trial I mean a court case. You are presented, as, presumably, a juror for the first several days and weeks, with never before seen evidence into a situation that you had no a priori knowledge.

During the interview phases one learns minimal details into a company: what you will be working on, who you will be reporting to, if the company is public or private (and therefore revenues depending on that information), goals, and, hopefully, what is really expected of the position. Whether they want to or not, interviewers are often unable or incapable of truthfully expressing some critical components of the role, the company, how they relate, and of course the politics of a company. We all know this, or at the very least, should know that.

Gaining more truthful, or even downright illicit, information is difficult, if not impossible. Which is exactly why during the first few weeks of employment within a new organization new hires are total, bumbling, and at times, idiotic weirdos.

So with that, I take all new corporate challenges within the first weeks very simply. Learn the industry, figure out who is important and who is not, learn who will help you and who won't, and last, but certainly not least, worry about the most important things. What, mind you, are the most important things? I will tell you. Hold your horses.

1. Attempt not to fall and bust your ass on ice.

Since you will be wearing dress pants, a suit, and/or a skirt, walk cautiously at all times as you may fall for no apparent reason, particularly if you are accustomed to wearing sweatpants (Pajama Jeans if you're lucky), tank tops, and slippers, which are much easier to move about in. Not to mention, more comfortable than gabardine or wool. Heels particularly are dangerous the first week back in the real world as you have likely experienced serious calf muscle atrophy.

2. Determine how to get home at various times of the day, factoring in limited service times and CTA service cuts and layoffs.

In the event that you go stark raving mad in the first hours of your first day and realize that you made a horrible decision, be sure that you can escape and get home within 45 minutes of leaving so that you can find a bar to go to in your neighborhood that has a good happy hour special, since in the near future you will be out of a job.

3. If you do not go insane in the first five hours of your first day, find out what, if any, chat applications your company allows you to install.

This is really important. So important that it should probably be number 1. The sheer boredom you will face your first week of work (at least three days) will drive you to all sorts of desperate measures. If you do not have the rights to access websites with downloads for chat, find a work around. As a last resort, contact the Infrastructure Manager from your previous company and ask him to hack into your computer and install Trillian or Digsby.

4. Sit at your desk all day long. Get a bucket to pee in as necessary.

As much as it pains me to recommend this, do not succumb to the temptation to leave the building, wander around the streets, go to Urban Outfitters, find a hot dog cart at 10:00 AM, or chain smoke cigarettes on or near the loading dock. It's really the wrong thing to do, even though it would help pass eight hours way better. Options besides sneaking out: find unbanned and awesome websites like The Oatmeal, some nonsense celebrity blog like Radar Online or Perez Hilton (BTW, can you believe this whole Sammie and Ronnie saga? Both their names end in i-e. I thought they were made for each other!)

5. When you are being finger-printed do not tell the man squishing your digits onto pieces of paper, "I know how to do this."

This will almost certainly throw up red flags to the SEC and FIMRA, but it will also make you look more like a criminal than you already feel. If, by chance, you are wearing a ski mask and for some reason holding up the finger printing store, then by all means tell the proprietor that you know what you are doing. But if you are a regular office drone, or returning office drone, please keep your understanding and knowledge of finger printing to yourself.

6. When finally boarding the bus after 5:00 PM, make sure you are first in line.

You have worked terribly hard this week so far. Especially if you factor in that you haven't left your home during business hours in five and a half months, wore actual real-person clothes, shoes made of leather, and carried not one, but two bags. Therefore, no matter how tired or poor these huddled masses may appear, you are worse off for deciding that going to an office , rather than sitting on your sofa with a computer on your lap, was the way to be.

Tata for now. I am too tired to continue on to number ten.
Shelly

PS -- no good pics either. I'll have to remember to take pictures of the finger print entry machine.

The Red, The Shiny, and The Ridiculous

Dear Internet,

I have sort of withdrawn myself from surfing the web and doing all sorts of other interwebually related things this weekend in an effort to run around the city. For the past few weeks I've felt a bit held up inside my apartment, only traveling outside to go to Hyde Park Produce, Exonn, and the liquor store. So I had a fun-filled weekend in Chicagoland, except for Friday night when I was having what one of my friends calls Throwback Friday, which basically means that I drank everything I could possibly get my hands on starting at 3:30 PM because it was my last day working from home. As you can see, I had devolved into a Jack White-loving monster by 7:40 PM.

So after some major recovery hours on Saturday, I headed up to The Loop for some Valentine's Day shopping. Not only was a I nauseous the entire time, I was also thoroughly irritated by the douchebags -- this is the honest term for the worst tourists around -- on Michigan Ave who don't know how to walk down sidewalks, either in the proper direction or speed. They also love to stand in the middle of busy corners, for example Michigan and Ohio or the every busy Michigan and Chicago, talking about which direction Water Tower Place is in, where the Sears Tower is, and of course, where they can find a Starbucks. Asking where a Starbucks is in of itself the most idiotic question ever.

Anyway, what I really should have done -- aside from getting some awesome sushi at Friends Sushi on Rush -- was go back home and get some bread and jelly and make Mike some fancy Valentine's Day breakfast, even including some fancy toast, the next morning.

Totally Tubular V-Day Breakfast Accompaniment.

Instead, I braved The Gap. Maybe you're wondering, and I asked myself a buttload of times, Why go in The Gap on President's Day Weekend? I, even in the mental state I was in, realized the sheer madness of my decision: it would be, naturally, insane in there. And it was. It was about 7,000 degrees, my puffy, sleeping bag of coat was clinging to me, my face was flush, and I was panting as I entered the store. I by-passed all the fun stuff geared towards Shelly and headed up the stairs to the men's section. T-shirts. Get t-shirts and go. This reconnaisance mission was really dangerous, and more similar to Kurtz's travel up the Congo than a regular day of shopping. If you please, we may also compare it to the fictional Nung River in Apocalypse Now.

I made a bee line to the pocket tees, grabbed three non-Metro Sexual colors and then went straight to the register. Well, not exactly straight to the register -- I did stop off to buy some teal opaque tights for $3.99 and two pairs of fancy socks at 2 pairs for $10. In any event, the deal was done.

Following this purchase, I was wracked with self-doubt. I wondered if I should have bought these t-shirts. Were they appropriate for Valentine's Day? As a veteran holiday shopper, I thought my purchases would be well received, but did Mike desire something more stereotypically cheesy? Probably not, but of course it was necessary. And so I went to CVS, one of my all time favorite stopping points. (After Duane Reade, of course.) And bought him a mini pack of SweetTarts and, for the love of Job, these awesome Pez dipensers and Elmo and Sesame Street V-Day Stickers:



Please note that Mike does not have a particular fondness for Pez or Disney characters. Nor does he particularly love Elmo or Sesame Street. These were, effectively, impulse buys aimed at obtaining laughter, a high on candy, and enjoyment in putting the stickers on Solomon and Kitty. Less a kind gesture and more of a joke, Valentine's Day confounds me.

I still, after nearly 28 years on this planet, cannot grasp the relevance and/or importance of Valentine's Day. All of the wilted flowers, shitty chocolates, and retarded copywritten greeting cards are generally too much for me to handle. An excuse to go out to a nice dinner, I'm all for. But random candies and shiny, red heart-shaped boxes with Russel Stover chocolates that have no map of which turd contains coconut and which has caramel is not for me. Which is why when asked what I wanted for Valentine's Day (which is basically just Halloween sans costume) I asked for these David Bowie-inspired shiny, red side-zipper inspired leggings:



They are red and therefore represent Valentine's Day. They are shiny, which makes me happy. And they have side zippers so that I can look like I am going really fast even when I am, in fact, going very slowly. To be completely honest, that picture does not do these pants justice. They are unreal, unholy and fucking insane. I loved them the second I laid eyes on them in December. And here they are in American Apparel's intended state:



I have no idea how I am going to wear these. Or where. All I know is that they are the best Valentine's Day gift ever -- oh, and dinner was good too, but these are insanely awesome -- and I will be wearing them in late March when Mo and BBChug come to Chicago. Mo, get a pair or be square.

Happy belated Valentine's Day! And YAY President's Day sales!


Shelly

Doin' the Last Day Right

Dear Internet,

I will be having continual updates. For now, Black Math is it.



Shelly

Good-bye House! Hello World!

Dear Internet,

Over the past five and a half months I've had the luck of rolling out of bed, traveling down the hall half awake, filling my Seagull coffee mug, AKA Remnants of Long Island, with fresh brewed Colombian coffee, wandering outside for a cigarette, and then navigating myself back down the hall to work a full day (well, close enough) from my home office. Next Tuesday dawns a new day for Shelly: I will be venturing off to an office for real, live, honest to goodness work.

Holy Shit!!!! Only now am I realizing the true ramifications of this endeavor. Now I will need to rise, presumably, when the sun is doing the same thing. The cats are already prepared to pounce on me at 5:30 AM, and will certainly be excited in the coming weeks and months because they will be dining on Friskies at 6:30 AM instead of 7:30. This is going to be huge for them. And by huge I mean they're kitty screams will be of joy instead of panic that I'm dead and they won't get Mixed Grill or Salmon Dinner.

I'll need to wear socially acceptable clothes and shoes. Probably even business casual. I'll need to ride the bus, and perhaps a subway. Buy lunch. Talk to people. Do work. What on Earth was I thinking?

Now that I really think about it, working from home is a fantastic concept. Even the words have a nice ring: work from home. Home. It's sort of like saying, "Look like an asshole, drink at your desk, do whatever, as long as you just get the job done." I prefer "work from home" tremendously to Working Remotely. That is a buzzword if I ever heard one. And kudos to the maniac who came up with the whole idea. S/he should really be awarded with some sort of prize for being awesomely lazy and manipulative.

Working from home, aside from allowing me to maintain a paycheck after moving and adjusting to Chicago, has also offered me some fun stuff. First off, I can, if I feel like it, just roll out of bed. I can work in front of a TV to stay on top of the comings and goings of the variety of hosts on The View or check out Giada De Laurentiis' latest creation on Food Network. I can wear retarded outfits. Actually, I'll be honest, they're not outfits. It's just crap slapped together. Crap from seventh grade. And, I can start drinking really early in the day if I feel like it. Working from home, it's a wonderful thing.

But like anything awesome -- like cats, babies, narcotics -- there are some downsides. So when considering working from home as an everyday gig, please consider the following:

1. You will get bored. Often. There's no one to talk to or not do work with. I've taken to talking to myself more than I did originally. I bitch and moan about how everyone is a jerk and needs to get a life, learn how to function, etc. I also live in an alternative universe where I'm really important and relevant.

2. Your cats will sit in front of your monitors at the worst possible moment and make it nearly impossible to check your Jack White RSS feed or watch the latest episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County on Bravo.com.

(I realize that Jack White, The White Stripes, The Dead Weather, so forth and so on into eternity, and The Real Housewives of Orange County do not really mesh, probably shouldn't be uttered in the same sentence, and that I have committed a mortal sin. I also don't care.)

3. It takes nearly all of your energy not to crack open a beer or have a Bloody Mary before 2:00 PM.

4. There's really no excuse for not making your bed or washing the dishes. You have no where to go.

5. Everyone thinks you're still working, even on vacation days, simply because you work from home.

Having said all that, it is important to clarify that there are, obvs, some major up sides to working from home:

1. If there's no one to talk to you can just chat on IM all day. You also can wear whatever the hell you want -- including t-shirts with holes in them, flip flops, no make up, and sweatpants. (I really wish I had bought a pair of Pajama Jeans before the end of this whole work from home thing.)

2. You can do your favorite things: hang out with your cats and obsess over when The White Stripes are going to put out a new album, when The Dead Weather are going to come to Chicago, if you should become a Platinum Member of The Vault and get special records even if you don't have a record player, and watch and learn endless things (I call it research) online. In the past few months I have really learned a lot about Heidi Montag, Kim Kardashian,and some other nonsense. Today for example, I read John Mayer's interview in Playboy.

3. You can crack open beers at 4:00 PM because it's 5:00 PM in New York. Which usually results in something like this around 7:00 PM.


4. You don't have to make your bed, because you can work in it. I can't do anything about washing the dishes. You should really do that anyway.

5. You technically work later because you're in a different time zone, so you can send nasty-grams at 6:00 PM Central and the jerks on the East Coast have to start working again. Suckers.

In the end, basically what I'm saying is that working from home kicks ass. But it's also boring. Working in an office is awful, but gives you great material. At least if you have worked in the Dunder Mifflin of software. Or anywhere remotely dysfunctional. I'm sad to see my days spent in front of a computer in an apartment on the South Side of Chicago go. I'm sad about losing free flights back to New York. A company paying for my Internet. Friends and family back home. But I'm also excited to get outside, pick up a hot dog at lunch, meet some new people, and generally feel like I'm part of the world again. At least right now. I'll let you know how re-joining the real world is next week.

Shelly

Earthquakes in Chicago: Shelly, Not Surprisingly, Had No Clue

Dear Internet,

I really don't know if I can beat the work Max did with Harold, but the best I can do is talk about some geological happenings in Chicago. Mostly this is news because the snow we have isn't -- it snows pretty much everyday. So anyway... Last night, or I guess really this morning, at around 5:00 AM Chicagoland had an earthquake. This sounds ridiculous and also like a lie, but according to the CHICAGO BREAKING NEWS CENTER:

"A mild earthquake shook northern Illinois this morning.

The U.S. Geological Survey initially reported a 4.3-magnitude quake at 3:59:33 a.m. centered about 5.5 miles east of Sycamore and 3.1 miles underground. But it later revised the magnitude to 3.8, and said the epicenter was just south of Gilberts."

I totally didn't know this at all. First off, why the hell are there earthquakes in Illinois? Tornados, sure. Blizzards, absolutely. Floods, definitely. But an earthquake? Really? Second of all, on top of the fact that we had an earthquake with a magnitude of 4.3 approximately 70 miles northwest of Downtown Chicago, we also have about 18 inches of snow. (This is an estimate because I haven't been outside.) And the snow is just like regular, boring stuff. Even the El is running on time. Thirdly, I have no idea what or where Gilberts really is. Or really anywhere in Illinois besides Chicago, and I don't even know that well. Although... I did go to Rolling Meadows, home of Rod Blagojevich, (who, btw is going to be on this season's The Apprentice) and Geneva, IL for a wedding.

My kitties, Solomon and Lola-Turned-Kitty, totally knew the 'quake was coming. Last night I went to bed at about 10:30. All the episodes of Criminal Minds, on multiple channels, were repeats that I've seen about six times each. Even though my favorite episode -- this lunatic who lived on a farm just over the river from Detroit and was kidnapping homeless people from Cass Corridor and then torturing them. Ultimately he fed them to his pigs. He in turn ate his pigs. -- was on, I just couldn't stay up. This was after about four hours of Bad Girls Club, which, unlike Jersey Shore, has no redeeming qualities. So I decided to turn in. Just about this time Solomon started running full speed up and down the hallway meofing. I use MEOF loosely because he can't actually meof. Instead he makes a high-pitched squeaking noise that sort of resembles a chew toy when you step on it. Or a half-dead Robin.

Following Solomon's lead, Kitty jumped into action, bolting just as fast up the hallway. Sol pried open the bedroom door and squeaked, ambled over to the closet door (banging into the vanity) and scratched at it until I let him in. Kitty followed suit. WTF, KITTIES!, I cried, but to no avail. Back and forth they ran: living room to hallway to office to bathroom to bedroom to closet, and back again. I finally gave up. It was too much for me. And really, it was either pass out or face Mike talking about Karl Marx and Capitalism again.

And so it happened. Northern Illinois had an earthquake in the wee hours of the morning and I had no clue. Even with the cats providing all kinds of unintelligible warnings.

Gad. Never in my life have I been subject to so many environmental things, and simultaneously. Cats, snow, earthquakes, lack of groceries -- it's unreal. It's basically come to a point where the only way I can deal with it is acting out:



And acting out like the heroine of Seinfeld, nonetheless. What a fucking idiot I am.

Drop, Cover and HOLD ON!
Shellly

Harold the Extraordinary Cat

Dear Internet,

He loves to eat:

Harold/Cartman from First and last name on Vimeo.

Of Football and Taxes: Even Ziggy Stardust and Booze Can't Help

Dear Internet,

I've had a seriously delayed reaction to yesterday's Super Bowl. While I sat through the fourth quarter, which, to be completely honest, is the only quarter I watched, I looked on in dismay at The Indianapolis Colts and Peyton Manning and thought, WAIT A MINUTE! I wasn't having that reaction because I actually fully understand football, or because I finally realized what was going on, or because I realized I had drank too much and thought I was having DTs, or because I was tired and had a headache. I realized that I was being more self-absorbed and angry to actually watch the game or even write a new post. Too self-absorbed to right a blog post? Whoa!?

So now, at this time of night, my post is far from relevant, and in fact it's a little boring, but I feel the need to point out a couple of things about the game to end all games. I'm not actually talking about football either. Why would I? Kim Kardashian was missing from TV shots (at least the ones I saw) and I didn't even know Jeremy Shockey was on The Saints until he scored a touchdown. So, without further adieu, here are the highlights:

1. Charles Barkley should lay off the Taco Bell.



Did anyone else notice that this once supreme athlete now loves Tacos and Gorditas? For Pete's Sake, Charles. Give the kids something to work with. Not Tiger Woods Disasters and Tacos. What comes in this box that rocks, that rocks? A Cheesy Gordita crunched to munch... a $5 box that sticks to your butt, stomach, and thighs. Enough is enough. Oh yea, and why are you running for Governor of Alabama?

2. Anyone going to the Go Daddy website to see the uncut version of their Super Bowl commercial is not buying domains or SSL certificates.



I highly doubt that the majority of Americans watching the Super Bowl have any idea what an SSL Certificate or a domain is, or what either is used for. So while the commercials are vaguely interesting, and I suppose dirty (I never bothered to go to GoDaddy.com to find out if they were because I don't need a domain or an SSL certificate), they serve no overall purpose. I really want to know if there is a spike in sales of SSL Certificates. Or if anyone is getting anything out of this. It makes me tired just thinking about it. Go Marketing!

3. Never do your taxes on Super Bowl Sunday. Also, never do your taxes yourself.

On Saturday I mentioned that I had learned that my company's HR manager decided that I didn't need to pay Illinois state taxes, even though I was living there. I only learned this after I decided it was time to open my W-2.

Every year I (and of course you if you are working and/or are not self-employed) get this piece of paper that tells me how much money I made and how much money I paid in taxes. That part of it is fine for me. I mean, thanks for the summary and update: I forgot how little I earn. The part that really ticks me off is that every year I have the same reaction,

"Are they f-ing kidding me? Is that what I'm worth? I kill myself for these jerks?! What the fuck are they thinking? I'm not doing anything anymore!!!!!"

The number of exclamation points used above is for re-enactment purposes and to make me look less infantile and crazy. I probably used more and was a lot less coherent and logical. This same thing happens every year, and this year was no different, except I was on the edge of psychotic break or something or other they say on Criminal Minds(I have no idea when they changed the logo) because I might have to pay taxes to a different state! On top of that, this year I decided to do my own taxes. Which, by the way, unless you're Max and begin the entire process with a fifth of rum, diet coke, some ice, a pack of Winstons, and some David Bowie, there is really no reason to proceed because you're just going to end up more insane than you already were.


So Sunday, for all intensive purposes, was terrible. I harassed Mike, who is not an accountant, about how to file in two states, ranted about how I should be an anarchist, cursed Barack Obama because I have to pay taxes at all, yelled that my company's HR person is an Autistic Spectrum Reject, and drank most of the Old Style in the house. So just around the 4th quarter, I decided, maybe I should watch this game... And I was disappointed again. I'm actually still upset about it, which is why this post is so shitty.

I'm sorry,
Shelly