When The Smoke Clears

It seems as if any personal creativity held by those who work for the government is checked at the curb before walking in the office door. If it's not, it will be completely quelched. I take great pride in my sense of fashion and display it proudly in the clothes I wear to work. In a vast sea of boring black and grey suits where the only pop of color can be found on an audacious tie choice, I boldly wear kelly green dresses and red high heel shoes (not together, of course) on a daily basis.

Today, I am wearing a brown dress that comes down to a few inches above my knee - I am wearing black tights to off-set the length. Because there are no sleeves, I am wearing a long-sleeved cardigan with a belt. The dress has a slight plunging neckline that does show some cleavage. Not like I'm popping out of the thing. My ass is not hanging out. Sure, it's not a conventional work outfit, but it's laundry day, so I pulled together a look that would get me through the day.

Apparently, me and my scandalous dress have been the topic of conversation around the office all day. Folks were playing "not it" deciding who was going to have "the conversation" with me. My good friend Ann bit the bullet and said she would. I love her for it - I'd rather know than not know. Kind of like walking around all day with spinach in your teeth and no one telling you, you know?

So I work in an office full of fashion philistines. Apparently this is not the first time my clothing choice has raised speculation. Turns out not all press is good press. I better make sure my mumu is clean for tomorrow!

Don't give speeding tickets on the interstate. Or anywhere else, for that matter. In case you were wondering. You can pass them. Especially if they, too, are speeding. They might give you a fine for pitching your tent in a no camping zone or lighting a fire where you aren't supposed to whilst wandering through God's glorious terrain that our government has seen fit to preserve. But you can pass them in the left lane on the highway and they will not give you a speeding ticket. So I hope that the man who was driving the Acura and had all of us backed up on I-95 for 10 minutes because he had no idea what a Park Ranger was is reading this. You have now had your education for Monday.

So there I was, riding along in Patricia's automobile. We'd made it to the Dirty Jerz, about 40 minutes from her parents' house. Colin was asleep in the back seat - he'd been that way for the majority of the trip from DC. Patricia had just exited off of I-95 (which turned out to be a very fortunate thing, as I might not be sitting here typing up this hilarious story if she'd still been cruising along at 65 mph). All of a sudden, arms started flailing in the back seat. Curse words were thrown out. Colin had jolted awake, it appeared, but for what reason, I had no idea. I started to fear the worse - he's got epilepsy too. I've given my brother epilepsy! Oh the shame! But wait! There was something furry flying through the air, too. It landed in Patricia's purse on the floor. Colin clasped the top of the purse closed. Patricia's hampster, Knackers, had managed to escape from his cage while sitting in the seat next to Colin. Instead of going for the tasty pretzels on the floor, he went for the climbing post that was Colin's neck and head. What a way to be awoken from your nap, huh? Luckily, Colin got Knackers to me and Patricia and I got him back into his cage. I breathed easy knowing that Colin doesn't have epilepsy, and Knackers hung tight in his cage where he belonged.

Well, I realized sitting here catching up on other people's blogs that I hadn't updated mine in several days. So while I wait patiently on my boss to arrive, I'll click away at the keyboard and give my devoted readers something to do tomorrow morning (as I'm sure you are all beyond the point of blog surfing to pass the time by now and are getting ready to go home for the day). Yes, my boss is in town, but no, I still don't have a job assignment. And no, I still don't have the cajones to stand up when he walks through the door and demand that he give me something to do. Mainly, I'm a little scared that if I do something that bold, he'll realize just how little I really have to do around here (he's pretty clueless to that fact, believe it or not, as he works in San Diego), and with the budget constraints we have right now, he'll put me on unpaid leave like some other people have had to go on until they find a contract for me to work on. That would be very, very bad as I can barely pay the bills right now as it is. So, I'm keeping my mouth shut and leaving well enough alone. My supervisor knows I hate it, and that's good enough for me.

On a happy note, though, I have one job interview next Tuesday, and possibly another one in the works. I owe both of these opportunities to Becca's dad. He got me the job I have now, though we're not holding that against him. :) I told him that if one of these other jobs works out, I'm going to have to name my first born after him or something. Let's just hope I don't have a girl, though I can always say I named her after Stevie Nicks. I've always loved the song "Landslide". So, enough space berries.... back to the job interviews. I have one Tuesday afternoon at 3:00, so all thoughts and prayers with me, please. It sounds like a really interesting opportunity. Hell.... it'll include actual work, which is an interesting opportunity in and of itself at this point in time. And the other job, well, I applied online for it today. It's for the same company - Becca's dad's company, and I'd actually be working for him. So we'll see how it all turns out.

I've been learning a lot about myself over the last several months. A new city with a new job and new friends will do that for you, but the greatest amount of self-reflection has come from my new church and my desire to become more active in my Faith - my Christian Faith that I have had my whole life but that I've let become a separate entity from my public life over the last seven years since I left home. I used to walk around, saying that I was a Christian (which I was), but just because I didn't go to church didn't mean that I didn't worship God - I prayed every night, so I thought I was ok. My spiritual life and secular life were so far apart you needed a passport to get from one to the other. I would wager that you could ask a lot of people I knew back in Virginia Beach if I was a Christian, and they couldn't tell you. That honestly makes me sick to my stomach now, but at the time, I didn't even think about it, because I just assumed everyone knew that I was. Looking back on my lifestyle, though, I wouldn't have assumed I was a Christian. I drank too much, I smoked, I was the life of the party. I was the person everyone came to whenever liberty call went down because if I was going to be there, that meant that all the fun people were going to be there. Do you know what kind of an adrenalin rush comes with that feeling? It's amazing! It's addictive! It keeps you from coming back early on Saturday night so you can get up for church on Sunday morning, too. And so the downward spiral continues. And I have no one to blame for it but myself. Please do not think that I am trying to pass it off on to someone or something else.

I went up to New York for the funeral of a dear friend several weeks ago. Several of my Virginia Beach friends were up there, as well. We all went to a restaurant after the wake for dinner. I ordered a beer to have with my fish and chips. At one point, a friend of mine made a comment about how slowly I was drinking, as he was already on his second beer. I just said I didn't drink that much anymore. He laughed and said "No, really, come on, that's not the Molly we know!" I just smiled. It's not the Molly they know. Maybe I'm getting older and wiser. I don't go out and drink too much anymore. I can't remember the last time I got drunk. I quit smoking over a year ago. But old habits do die hard. I'm not there yet. I went to a Halloween party this past Saturday. All the girls decided that our costumes were going to be "slutty" in nature. I took an old uniform I still have and cut the pants off super short, tied the shirt off in front, wore some fishnet tights, and high heels. It was a big hit with the men at the party, as were most of the other girls' costumes. Then I was sitting in church Sunday night listening to a sermon on worshipping God not just with our words but with our actions, too, and all I could think about was the fact that I had been traipsing around a party and a bar the night before with my derriere half hanging out of a pair of chopped up cammies the night before. So I wasn't drunk. So I wasn't smoking. So I don't swear as much as I used to (still working on this one). Those are all good things, but I still have work to do. I could have just as easily found a costume that didn't make me look like a $5 hooker. There's a balance out there that I know I'm getting closer to. So why do I feel like I'm slipping backwards?

And you want to know the worst part of my nature? When I'm feeling bad about myself, feeling self-conscious about my true nature, I take it out on others. So what did I do this time? I let another part of my nature (jumping to conclusions) take over and accused a good friend of not being true to his nature, and in the worst way. I accused an honest person of lying, and then got in a fight about it. And so the downward spiral continues. And I have no one to blame for it but myself. Please do not think that I am trying to pass it off on to someone or something else.

My computer at work doesn't have a DVD reader. I know! I can't believe it, either. How am I supposed to watch movies? I ask you - why would anyone make a computer without a CD and a DVD reader these days? How many of you have read The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis? If you haven't, you must! They're getting a lot of new hype right now because the first book - The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe - is going to be on the silver screen come December 9th. I am thoroughly looking forward to that day and will be in the theatre with the kiddies, chomping on popcorn and slurping on my diet coke as the four children battle the evil White Witch with Aslan at their side.

But last night, I finally gave into temptation and purchased my first Christmas present to myself - the BBC production of the first three books in the Chronicles series on DVD. These movies are very near and dear to my heart. When I was a child, Mama used to take my brother, sister, and me to our local library, and we'd get to peruse the video selection they had there and check out a few. The Narnia movies were some of our favorites. I can't tell you how many times we checked them out, but I bet we could quote the lines back then. As soon as the BBC put them out on DVD several months ago, I swore to myself I was going to just ask for them for Christmas and wait until then, but I just couldn't wait any longer (what am I, eight?!), so I bought them. And I brought the first one into work today to watch at my desk, seeing as how I have nothing better to do (really - I have no work to do today). Much to my chagrin, my stupid computer has no DVD reader on it - only CDs will play! I can burn all the CDs in the world that I want, but I can't watch a flippin' DVD! Who in the world came up with this brilliant idea?!

So now it's 11:35am and my plan of action for filling the afternoon hours with my 3 hour movie is shot to pieces. So I've been tasked with planning the tailgating portion of an upcoming football game that an army of my friends and I are going to. Burgers and Brats and Beer, Oh My!

Clink. Clink. Clink. My office suite is on the first floor of a thirteen or fourteen story building - it's tall, we'll just stay that, because since I never go above the first floor, I don't know how many stories there really are. The first floor has a couple of gyms, a US Airways office, my office, several little sandwich shops, a Starbucks, a Quiznos, and a Chipotle, among a couple of other things. Clink. Clink. Clink. The entire front of the buildling on the first floor is floor-to-ceiling glass windows, so that as you are walking down the hallway, you can look out at the trees and flowers, the shoppers, and the cars driving by. My office suite is also fitted with these floor-to-ceiling windows to the outside world. It's rather nice, actually. Clink. Clink. Clink. As I don't have much in the way of work, I sit and people-watch most of the day - people going to get coffee at Starbucks, people going to get lunch, people outside on their smoke breaks. I like to people-watch. It fascinates me. Clink. Clink. Clink. BUT WHY DO THEY FIND IT NECESSARY TO TAP ON MY WINDOW WITH THEIR FINGERS EVERY FREAKIN' TIME THEY WALK BY?! Clink. Clink. Clink. Breath in, breath out. I think I'll start naming the people I watch. Hmmmm.... this could be fun. Relaxing. Take my mind off of the clinking jackasses!