Weekend

I had a great weekend with Russelle, which I really needed after my awful, awful day at work on Friday. I don't like this place. I've been looking for a new job, but I haven't seen anything good for me. That's scary. I don't want my next job just to be another job. I want it to matter, at least to me. My god, who cares about office supplies?

On Saturday Russelle and I made shirts, and by "made," I mean painted circles on. We've got some business ideas brewin'. Then we went shoe skating on the ice rink the city made at the park across the street. I love the ice rink. It's very charming. Later we decided to check out a wine bar I had read about. It's a cozy neighborhood-type bar where everyone knows each other. It was dead at first, but picked up after the DJ arrived and got the dancing started with mad tunes like James Brown and Rick James. Everyone was dancing together, which I love. This one woman, whom I called Hat because she was wearing a hat, had some really fancy footwork. So we commented on it, and Hat told us she has disco lights and a fog machine in her apartment. WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT? Later we were dancing and singing to the Jackson 5, and all of a sudden Hat pointed to me, as if she was pointing me out to someone across the room, and said, "You have a voice!" I laughed and laughed, because I don't.

Wrong number

Months ago, I kept getting calls from an old man at a Royal Oak number, and he would leave messages looking for someone named Dick. It made me laugh and laugh. Then it stopped. Until today, when I got another voice mail from the old man that said, "It's just me calling for Dick, to see what's up for our big court case on Monday. Give me a call, let me know if there's anything we should be doing." I laughed and laughed, then went back to work. A couple hours later, he called me again: "It's Grandpa looking for Dick. Uhh...still looking for him." So I thought, okay, I better call Grandpa back and tell him I'm not Dick. But what I really wanted to do was call him pretending to be Dick, which I'm sure I could pull off because apparently I sound like Dick in my voice mail message, and say, "Hey, Grandpa, it's Dick. Oh, I'm fine, just having a brewski and watchin' The Girls Next Door. That's what I do, right? Hey, remind me—what is our big court case again? Uh huh... Oh wow... I did? Hahaha, I'm funny! Anywho, this is what you need to do for our big court case on Monday: send a check for one zillion dollars made out to our attorney, Erin Riojas, to the following address—no, she's the head attorney. I don't know why we've never heard of her before. I don't know, Grandpa, I'm only a man!"

Tuesday Dinner

My uncle Dan is in town for business. Except he didn't TELL me that, my grandma did. So I emailed him yesterday and was like, "Um, hello? Are you going to take me to dinner or what?" I like inviting myself to make other people buy me dinner. But to be fair, I'm very, very attractive. We went to an Irish restaurant in Evanston called the Celtic Knot and they had a live music session going on. After dinner, my kind uncle Dan helped me set up my new bike trainer, which is a set of rollers. Rollers, I heard, are for the hardcore riders. The way you use them is by balancing your bike on ROLLERS. I imagine myself pedaling off the rollers and right out the window.

Snow in the morning

Warm sun on a 5-degree day

Kingston Mines

Last night I went to a blues club called Kingston Mines with Russelle, Colleen and Matt, and a few others. It's a big place with two stages and two bands, and the bands switch on and off all night. We stayed in the room with the band lead by Linsey Alexander, who got a LITTLE too close to some women in the audience. He was a trip. He said stuff like, "I wrote this one when I was high" and "Now I'm gonna do one of mine. It's called... 'That Shit Ain't Right,'" which is now tied with "We're Brothers Forever" by that man in a cape on American Idol this week as my new favorite song. The band was really funky, so a lot of people were dancing. I tried to make Matt dance with me, but he refused. That shit ain't right. Oh! I get it now!

Cold Morning

How to give a presentation at work

Giving a speech at work is a breeze. I just gave one this morning about where’s the g-d chocolate milk in the cafeteria!? Turns out it’s next to the regular milk. Excuse me for not being a mind reader!

I’ve tried Toastmasters, I’ve tried learning the material, I’ve tried sleeping with the higher ups to get out of it. Trust me, none of it works. If you want to give a killer presentation that will leave your boss inspired and chanting your name, follow these five steps to success:

1. Wear something sheer. People love sheer clothes at work. Believe me, I know. I wear something sheer every day, and so far no one has noticed that I don’t know what I’m doing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all a walk in the park. You have to mix it up – you don’t want your coworkers to get bored and go running to HR. Wear a sheer shirt on Monday, sheer skirt on Tuesday. But be prepared: it’s draining work. You don’t know exhaustion until you’ve driven to every Chico’s in a fifty mile radius looking for sheer pants. That was NOT a Chico’s kind of day. But I like to think of it as a challenge, and I thrive on challenge in the workplace. So when it comes time for you to give a presentation and you have no idea what you’re talking about, don’t sweat it. Wear sheer. People will be so distracted they won’t listen to a word, and that’s what good business is all about.

2. Relax – have a brewski. Nothing calms my nerves before a big pres like a tasty cold one. Usually I have more than one, depending on the stress level. I say at least three if you’ve got a lot riding on the speech, like a promotion or a big client. I don’t really know what that means, but people always want the big ones. You don’t want to be stiff up there. Instead, you want to hear people say, “Wow, she’s so calm it almost looks like she’s falling asleep!” Now that’s good public speaking!

5. Use a lot of visuals. Audiences can’t get enough PowerPoint. They eat it up. Throw a few sound effects and animated GIFs on there and you’re golden. Maybe a cat meows every time you change a slide, or a pony runs back and forth across the bottom while you’re talking. People will fall all over themselves with cuteness. I’ve also found that clicking every letter into place on each slide really makes people hang on your every word, if that’s what you’re going for. If not, why not try translating your entire presentation into pictures? Most people don’t read anymore anyway. Pictures really tell your audience, “I care about your needs.”

Playmate of the Year

Well, I did it. I applied for a position at Playboy downtown. LET ME FINISH. The job is in photo archiving, which I realize has nothing to do with my career goals. Or maybe it will, when I write it into the book I'll never write.

Don't judge me, I'm very bored. Plus, Nick says looking at naked women all day would be better than looking at angry Jewish lawyers all day, like he does. Not to offend my Angry Jewish Lawyer audience, which I think is up to five now.

Fri Night

Last night after work I went out for margaritas with Brendan and my new favorite coworker, Christine. She wanted to go out for a birthday cocktail. Plus she talks a lot about drinking, so how can she not be my favorite, you know? I think she just wanted to go out with us so she could get carded.

Then Colleen and Matt were in Evanston, so they came over and we went through our high school yearbooks. Colleen was like, "Let's see where all these people are now... Drunk, drunk, drunk, dead, drunk, drunk..." Matt was like, "Didn't you like anyone in high school?" Uh, YEAH. We liked each other. I really want to go to my ten-year reunion in character as, like, a tattoo artist or something. So people think, "Whoa, what happened to her?" I can get fake piercings and tattoos. And then when people start asking me to design their next tattoo, and they will, I'll just say, "Hey, I need to hit the can, I'll be right back," and then skedaddle. Or, who knows, maybe by then I will be a tattoo artist. I'm not ruling anything out.

24

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm the big 2-4. I had forgotten until I walked in the office and saw from lightyears away that my cubicle was decorated in red, white, and blue. I don't think you should have to work on your birthday. There's one for the suggestion box. Instead, I had four meetings. The last one was so painfully boring I just wanted to get up and say, "Riojas, out" and leave. Sometimes when I'm in a meeting, I like to daydream about sneaking out of that meeting. Just slide out of my chair, under the table, and crawl to the door, completely obvious to everyone in the room.

I thought I wasn't going to have any plans for my birthday. My boss said, "So you're just gonna go home and pet your cat all night?" And I was like, "Yeah, until I go to bed." But then Colleen came to the rescue and took me out to dinner (on Matt). It was a lot of fun. Russelle joined us and brought me samples of four different cakes.

So, 24... Not all that exciting. Except I'm sort of almost 30. I'm really looking forward to my thirties. Maybe by then I'll be living my dream life in a one-room log cabin out west—just me and Peewee's glow-in-the-dark clone.

I made myself an e-card:



My mom bought me a pair of ass-kicking boots:



There are so many things I can do in these boots that I can't do in regular shoes. Like see over the cubicle wall, get into bar fights, work for CMT, carry a gun... One two-step closer to my dream life.

Amy!

My friend Amy has confessed to the mailings.
Sweet, innocent Amy.

Mail, Continued

All right. If someone really is signing me up for stuff, it's starting to freak me out, man. My mom said maybe my address got on a list somehow, but it seems like you'd have to put some effort into requesting the stuff I've gotten. On Friday I got a Betty Crocker calendar and it says something like, "Here's a calendar for being part of the BettyCrocker.com community." That's funny, because I don't remember ever being so excited about baking that I had to join an online community.

Yesterday I got a prayer hankerchief/chain letter from televangelist Don Stewart. Oh this one's a doozy. I'm supposed to write on the hanky the amount of money I need to pay off my debts, send it back to Don so he can rub some oil on it or some shit, then he'll send it back to me to use as a touch point. The letter is nuts. It's like, "WHATEVER YOU DO, don't keep this hankerchief! [Uh, done.] PLEASE OBEY THE WORD OF GOD. DON'T BREAK THE FLOWING OF GOD'S SPIRIT FROM MY SECRET PLACE [Hahaha!] OF PRAYER [Oh.] TO YOUR HOME! DO EXACTLY AS I SAY!" And of course it asks for money: "I say, 'Give God your best, and He will give you His best.' Sister Nori gave God $150. That was her best. Then God gave her His best. Erin, God knows what you can do." Oh, so Sister Nori gave $150 directly to God, Don? What is God going to do with $150? HUH? HUH, DON? Buy himself a Wii? Go to BestBuy.com and order an IPOD NANO, DON?

Hot Dogs

Yesterday Russelle and I went to a hot dog joint called Hot Doug's. She saw it in a book about cool places to eat and shop in Chicago. So we got there and the line was out the door and down the sidewalk. We waited in line for an hour. But you know I'd wait a lifetime for a hot dog. Not even a good hot dog, just a regular hot dog. We decided the hot dogs taste so good at Doug's because, after waiting in line for an hour, anything would taste good. Then I used the restroom and the toilet overflowed. So I freaked out and ran back to the table and said, "The toilet overflowed! I don't know what to do!" And Russelle said, "Let's get out of here!" And I said, "OKAY." So I can never go back to Hot Doug's.

A good reason to be late for work

The past few days I've gotten the following things in the mail:

Day one. A sample of cat food addressed to "P. Riojas."

Day two. A wine poster from Redwood Creek. The letter says, "Dear Erin, Thanks for your interest in our Redwood Creek vintage prints! I'm amazed at how much excitement these prints have generated... I get a real kick out of reading your suggestions for new prints..."

Day three. A booklet about psoriasis called Speaking Clearly: Living Well in a World That Doesn't Understand Psoriasis. The letter says, "Thank you for requesting Speaking Clearly... Your free copy is enclosed. We understand how difficult the emotional and physical effects of psoriasis can be," etc., etc.

All right, who is signing me up for stuff? The psoriasis book is my favorite.

Snow in the Neighborhood

New Year's Eve

I came home a couple days early on Sunday because I had been worried about my little Peewee, even though Brendan was taking care of her and called me regularly with cat reports. She was so happy to see me and hasn't left my lap since.

I thought I would be alone for New Year's Eve, so I bought a bunch of snacks and some wine yesterday morning. I was just going to eat Cheetos and watch CSI all night. Brendan invited me to his elaborate theme party that involved costume changes, but I put the kibosh on that, because I'm not Cher. Colleen and I had been trying to get me a ticket to the sold-out party she was going to downtown at the Rock Bottom Brewery. We tried Craigslist, and it looked good for a while when a guy emailed me and said he had a ticket. But he never returned my call, so it was back to Cheetos and Marg. Then the Rock Bottom Brewery called and said ONE ticket had just become available, so I ended up going out. I was Colleen's date, since Matt had to work, and our friend Christine was here from Michigan with her boyfriend. The party was fun. They had an open bar all night and... I don't really remember anything after that. PSYCH! There was a buffet and a (bad) DJ and a champagne toast at midnight. It was nice, and probably better than mouth-kissing Peewee at midnight. It also reinforced my idea for a business venture: a disguise kit for women. There was only one bathroom each for men and women, and of course the line for the women's bathroom was always long and painful. What women need is a disguise kit that they can use to disguise themselves as men and use the men's room. Something small enough to fit in a purse, with a fake mustache and maybe a wig or tie or something. I don't know, the deets will be smoothed out later. All I know is that it's a money maker.

Last night Christine asked if we have any new year's resolutions and I said no. But I've thought about it long and hard, and I think I've come up with a few good ones.

1. Get a better job. Ideally downtown so I can take the train.

2. Write more. Start and finish something.

3. Watch more TV. I think I only watch the average amount. I could watch more. There's a lot of TV out there that I haven't discovered yet. Like that Hannah Montana girl. I have no idea what the hell that show's about, but I intend to find out in 2008.