Oops.

I live in apartment 35.

Last night I paid an accidental visit to apartment 45. I might have fiddled with the lock for a good 30 seconds, trying to open the door and get inside, only to wonder why my key did not work.

And it's possible that I may have done the exact same thing to apartment 25 a few weeks ago. And just never told anyone about it. Because I thought, "Wow that was really stupid. I must be in outer space today. More than usual. But I'll never do that again."

Sooo... does it count if I did it again, but to the floor above me this time??

If the residents of #25 and #45 are reading this, I'm really sorry if you thought you were being robbed. My bad. I blame it on whoever decided to make every floor in this building look exactly the same.

In other news, I love Michael Scott. Sometimes he just speaks to my soul. Like here:

"Quarterly reports are just unreadable. They're just numbers and boring and bleh. So what I was thinking is that maybe we should have some sort of graphic... like if we have a bad quarter, put in a storm cloud... and when we have a good quarter, fireworks. Or a race car. Now it doesn't have to be a race car... you can just use your imagination."

I pretty much just want to work at Dunder Mifflin Scranton.

When the Dryer Breaks Down...

THIS is how I have to dry my unmentionables:


I'm sorry if you are offended by this. It's just the exact sort of ridiculous thing that would happen to me. And of course I did not have the cash to run them through another dryer... oh yeah, and did I mention it was after 3 am? So walking to the ATM was not really a viable option. (The middle of the night is seriously the best time to do laundry! No wait for the machines.)

...so anyway, it was quite the predicament. Nice, huh?

Fall in New England

...is a very colorful experience.




Unfortunately, winter is not nearly as charming. It snowed last weekend... mid-October. However, I have decided that this was a one-time mistake from the sky, and that as punishment, the snow is not coming back for 2 months. Just in time for Christmas.

In the meantime, it will continue to be fall. I think this MIGHT be why I moved here.

In other news: work is crummy and never-ending... I spent a couple days in the lovely state of Texas this week... I spent one day in Providence, Rhode Island -- which is actually a pretty town that happens to be missing all lane markings... and I'm becoming slightly obsessed with boots. You can't be an East Coast girl without boots. If it were up to me, I'd wear flip flops all-year-round, but my Rainbows do not like the icy weather. My toes become very unhappy.

And also, I used to love baseball, but right now baseball and I are in a fight. One of the playoff games ran into extra innings this week and screwed up my DVR recording of House. When you have a boring grown-up job that takes over your life, you look forward to things like your weekly DVR'd viewing of House, and you become very unhappy when you discover that you only have the first 15 minutes of it. Thanks a lot, Yankees. We are not on friendly terms.

Friday!

I got my Massachusetts license in the mail today. I guess that makes me an official resident. Hmm. (And it has a funny little holographic likeness of an Indian chief, in case you were wondering what a Massachusetts license looks like.)

I think I need to purchase some gloves. Soon.

In other news, hot chocolate coffee is possibly my best idea ever. MAYBE someone thought of it before me, but I've never heard about it. Or I surely would've been drinking it all throughout college. Chocolately and caffeinated... what more can you ask for?!

I love fruit snacks. As of 2 weeks ago. Yum.

I don't love swine flu. It's annoying to hear about, and it's making everyone paranoid. They have started putting gigantic bottles of hand sanitizer in every single conference room in our offices. However, I will confess that I got on the bus recently and sat down next to a girl who started coughing and sniffling... and I MAY have changed seats at the first stop.

And today I heard that your cell phone has more germs than a toilet seat. In that case, we are probably all going to catch the swine flu. Nice.

The Tale of the John Hancock Elevators

I am secretly afraid of elevators. A few weeks ago I rode the elevators to the top of the 102-story Empire State Building. I nearly had a heart attack on the way up, and another one on the way down. I don't think I'm afraid of heights or anything. I don't mind BEING in high places. I just don't like getting there. I'm always feeling like I'm one broken cable away from plunging to a very unhappy ending.

This does not sit well with the fact that I work in the John Hancock Tower, a 60-story building. Our offices are located between the 44th and the 48th floors. Translation: I have to spend a lot of time riding the elevators.

But these are not just REGULAR elevators. They're strange and confusing. And on top of that, I'm pretty much convinced that they're haunted.

Exhibit A: These elevators are divided by floor range. So there's a separate set that go to every 10 or so floors, which is pretty standard for tall buildings. Okay. But these elevators are ALSO separated by evens and odds. So for instance, there is a specific set of elevators that go to the ODD FLOORS ONLY between 37 and 47. To get the the EVEN floors, you have to go UPSTAIRS via escalator (which I am also secretly afraid of, but that's another story). Once you get upstairs you will be greeted with yet another fleet of deathly elevators separated by floor ranges. Somebody told me this is because the elevators in the building are "stacked." I don't know what that means exactly, but I definitely don't like what it sounds like.

So I've been spending a lot of time on the 48th floor. Sometimes instead of going upstairs to get on the elevators that take you to EVEN floors, I just say to heck with it an ride the ODD elevators up to 47, and then from there ride up to 48. Which brings me to be Exhibit B.

The other day I rode up to the 47th floor, ultimately on a quest to 48. Now I swear to you that the HIGHEST button in this elevator was 47. So I reach the 47th floor, step out, hit the button to go up, step back in to the SAME ELEVATOR SPACE, and suddenly the buttons go up to 48. WAIT A MINUTE!! This all happened in about 15 seconds. I was pretty sure that the elevator I had just stepped out of HADN'T EVEN MOVED! I'm not even sure the doors closed!! And even if they did... did some sort of secret elevator with a '48' button come from a hiding space behind the wall???

Later on I even verified that I wasn't crazy by double checking that the 37th-47th floor elevators only have buttons up to 47. So where did this mysterious extra button come from?? Conclusion: haunted elevators. Seriously. I had a haunted alarm clock. It's possible.

I also get dizzy riding the elevators up and down everyday. I think I can get up to the 48th floor in this building faster than I can get up to the 3rd floor in my apartment.

I'm thinking that maybe my next job will be in a very small building where I will become good friends with the stairs.

I Should Be Working Right Now

You know what would be kind of scary? If you happened to step into an elevator on your way to lunch and standing there was none other than the managing partner -- i.e. the "most important" big shot VIP in the whole office. Especially if he were wearing a full suit, and standing with two other big-shots wearing suits, and meanwhile you were wearing a pink sweater with a colorful scarf and your purple bus shoes (i.e. the shoes that you wear when walking to and from the bus because they're comfortable, even if not particularly professional or flattering, but it's okay because you have cuter, more painful shoes in your bag that you fully intend to change into before entering the office), and your hair was extra wild and curly due to the fact that you slept in late and were too lazy to make it neat, because you figured nobody would see you today anyway, seeing as how everybody you are assigned to work with is out of the office at a client site, which is why you made sure to book a cubicle for the day so you could take full advantage of the opportunity to remain hidden and look sloppy. BUT MAYBE you weren't expecting to run into any big shots in the elevator.

Yeah... that would be intimidating.