A post in which it is an endless day

And a pretty crappy one.

Wednesdays have now become the bane of my existence. I have to do the weekly slides on Wednesday. Doing the work isn’t the issue; it’s trying to get everyone else to do their work that is the problem. I had my slides all outlined yesterday afternoon, all I needed was people’s status reports on their accounts. I have three people I have to get them from, and none of them had submitted by 10am this morning. The slides are due at 3. So I spent the day begging, had two of them come screeching in at pretty much the last moment, and finally got the stuff to my boss. The other new development is that he is apparently insatiable for more, and more, and more details. I have room for about seven words per account on the slides. So my status comments have to be detailed to the nth degree in seven words or less. Needless to say, this perfectly balanced magical haiku is damn near impossible to achieve. As has happened for the last three weeks, he rejected most of the comments on one slide and I had to go back to that person and start all over again. So I spent most of the day begging some indifferent woman on the west coast to do her *(&&^^%%$!! job. She doesn’t like doing the status report, but has been pressed into service because her boss is tied up in the seemingly endless special project. She seems to have decided that if she does a half-ass job for long enough, the responsibility will be taken from her. And in the meantime, she’s making my life a hell.

So it was a long, frustrating, stressful day. By the time it was over my neck, which has become increasingly stiff, was killing me. By the end of the day now I can barely look over my left shoulder. I’m pretty sure it’s just stress, but it makes driving interesting on the way home sometimes. By the end of the day today, I got a sharp, stabbing pain any time I tried to look to the left.

I knew I had dinner out with the attorney and my boss tonight, so I had packed up my shower stuff. That way I could go ahead and work out and then get cleaned up for dinner. I was very glad I did! I went into the gym ready to rip someone’s head off and piss down their bleeding neck-hole. I came out just wanting to maim them.

I feel fragile and out of sorts this week in general. I was thinking today about a movie I saw a while back called Home for the Holidays. In the movie, the conservative sister Joanne (played very well by an actress named Cynthia Stevenson) gets in to a huge fight with her family, and storms out of the house. Her brother and sister follow her home, where they find her ferociously exercising on a stair-stepper. When they try to continue the discussion, she says "Do you mind? This is the only part of my day that I really like." That's how I feel. On edge, intolerant, and brittle - and like the only thing standing between me and a major depression is working out every day; and I have no real idea why.

I met the guys at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. We were 5. Jeff, the attorney, is a nice enough guy, but I try to keep my professional distance because he isn’t that great of an administrator (in my opinion). We use him because he is big buds with our corporate counsel. This is my other problem. I have a strongly ingrained dislike of schmoozers, and this guy is pretty much a professional. My boss was there, who is also a nice enough guy, but a born-again Christian whose wife rules him with an iron fist. You always get the feeling that he would just love to un-bend a bit and have some fun, but he isn’t allowed. After a while it is a strain. Jim, our alternative financing guy, is nice enough for an extreme right-wing arch-conservative republican. He does have more of a sense of humor about it than most of them do, but we have to be careful where the conversation goes when we’re in a social setting. Ben, who works in our credit review department, was there also. He’s a sweetheart, has a great sense of humor, and is one of my very favorite people in the office. But he’s a straight newlywed, and we only just have so much in common. The four of them play golf, but I don’t, so at least at times I could let them talk about golf and drift off for a bit; but by and large I was responsible for more than my fair share of keeping reasonably charming conversation flowing.

For three. And a half. Fucking. Hours. It became excruciating. At least this time wasn’t as bad as the last time. The last time, my boss decided that we had to talk about business the whole meal because it was a business dinner. He has relaxed a bit from that, anyway. He and Jeff are going to be at some convention together, so they were laying plans for getting in golf games and visiting “private clubs” together (I didn’t ask, nor do I want to know, but probably just golf places). I had to admire Jeff for the ability to pull the stick out of my boss’s ass to that extent; but then that is what he does, and it will further cement his interminable presence as the out-sourcing corporate counsel of choice for the company. It is thus well worth his while - as was picking up the tab on an exorbitant meal. I suppose I would have a lot more money if I thought that way – it certainly has done his finances no harm – but it just feels like using people and being insincere to me. One of the many reasons I have been passed over for promotion, I suppose.

We finally left the restaurant at 10pm. We had gotten there at 6:30. I was stuffed with rich food (which I am not used to eating in bulk in the evening like that), pre-dinner cocktails, appetizers, salad, three bottles of wine, post-dinner cocktails, coffee, and dessert. I was so full I didn’t even order an entrée, but I had the best bowl of lobster bisque I have ever eaten. It was phenomenal. We had mashed potatoes drizzled with truffle oil, fresh asparagus perfectly cooked; crisp yet tender to the base. The creamed spinach was done in a butter-based cream béchamel sauce. There were scallops perfectly broiled in butter and topped with a red pepper pesto, the shrimp broiled in a cream/scampi sauce. We had delicious calamari, crisply perfect, robed in a sweet and spicy sauce, and served mingled with strips of sweet roasted red peppers. There were crab-stuffed mushrooms that were richly decadent. My Caesar salad was lightly dressed, which was actually a bit of a relief with all the rich fare on the table. Jim’s salad, however, was a lettuce wedge with blue cheese dressing they obviously made there. There was so much blue cheese in it that the texture resembled cottage cheese, and there was a side ramekin with extra dressing. Two of the fillets they served were crusted with a thick layer of blue cheese that had been browned under the broiler. They looked overly rich to me. The steaks there are served on 500 degree plates, garnished with herbed butter that melts down over the steak and sizzles on the serving plates. As they served the entrees, the air was filled with the smell of sizzling hot butter, surely one of the most bewitching perfumes in the culinary repertoire. Seriously, after smelling them, you were just prepared for them to be delicious. The wine was lovely – a clear pinot noir with heavy notes of black cherry, and a rich cabernet sauvignon that tasted strongly of blackberry and had the signature sparks on the palate of a good red. Jeff has excellent taste and the money with which to indulge it. I always let him pick the wines when we go out. The desserts were good, and obviously made there. The coffee was served in individual French presses.

In short, everything was there to make it a memorable meal, with the notable lack of company of my own choice. But everyone was nice enough and on their best behavior; and whatever Jeff truly thought of my anecdotes he chuckled politely. Since we were there for so long I ate way, way too much.

Justin had called during dinner, but I couldn’t take the call. When I got home, I had a message from him on the home answering machine as well. I wouldn’t have called him back so late if he hadn’t called so many times, and specifically asked me to call when I got in. We talked for a while. I think he was a bit worried about me. It was good to talk to him. He was telling me about glass he bought while on the Mystery Trip.

Eventually, though, he let me go. I crawled onto the bed like a huge, stuffed, corpulent slug and collapsed. Ugh. Tomorrow is another work day.