Cecilia

At the risk of providing more evidence to be used against me in the case to put me away, I’d like to introduce you to one of the characters roaming around my mental landscape: Cecilia.

Before I can tell you about Cecilia though, I need to introduce you to my weird tendency to anthropomorphize various parts of me and then narrate for them. One example would be my uterus. Her name is She-Hulk and she is angry most of the time. My liver is some kind of cross between Bob Cratchit and Eeyore; earnest and hardworking but sometimes sort of depressed and sorry for himself. Even the more abstract parts of me get their own personalities. My paranoia’s name is Bobby. He’s a clumsy British hit man who is after me. I often walk out of buildings and look over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t hiding against the wall and I whisper- “Not today Bobby!” He should really get his whole own entry. That is for another time.

Anyway. Cecilia.

Cecilia is the part of me that takes over functioning when I’m too tired, stressed or drunk to operate my own self as usual. She’s a kind of a last resort autopilot I guess. I sort of think of her as the teenage niece of some other part of my brain who just needed summer work. She’s sweet and SUPER excited to help but really not that competent and so I usually hide her away in the mailroom of my brain doing the less important functions where she won’t be seen. I mostly assign her to things like wondering what it would be like to kiss Woody Allen.

Sometimes though, the rest of my brain checks out for the day and much to my horror, Cecilia takes it upon herself to fill in. It’s like she emerges from the mailroom to find a ringing phone in the office and instead of letting it go to voicemail, she picks it up and tries to do business.

Exhibit A: Last night Cecilia fielded a late night phone call that I have little to no memory of now. Although I was partly, or completely asleep at this time, it appears that I spoke to a friend for 6 minutes at 1:00 a.m. and now I have to figure out if there was any information from that call that I need. Did I make plans? Did I promise to do anything? Did this person profess love to me? Naturally Cecilia took no notes on this call because she is entirely worthless as a secretary. I don’t know how many times I have to speak with her about NOT answering the phone but she’s a little overzealous and really does mean well.

I think the key to keeping her away from my normal functions is coming up with a whole lot of meaningless things to ponder which will keep her busy somewhere in the back of my brain. Also staying as awake and sober as possible at all times.

Daniel is cranky today

Me: It's your turn on Words with Friends. Stop doing that Teaming Agreement and play your word.
Daniel: You shut your whore mouth when you're talking to me.

I got one!

I know what you're thinking, and yes, I pulled this one in all on my own.

Hate mail

I've been delegated to do the merry task to telling my coworkers to stop what they are doing to write down a list of what they are doing and then collect these lists, compile them into one big list, and give them to our director, who never reads them. Every Friday, I send out an email, reminding people to do these lists. Here are some of the responses I've gotten in the last month or so:

“Oh god.”

“Crap.”

“Balls.”

“No. and how come procurement doesn’t have to?!!!”

“You’re a big suckfest. “

“Boo.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Ugh, I was gonna send you a snotty reply but you brought me brain coral…I just spoke with the brain coral, and it too does not like pending lists.”

“You disgust me.”

“I’d like to see your pending list one of these days.”

“Pending List + Kat = Kat Vomiting and giving Jess dirty looks”

“Please, I have this in the bag…you’re a pending list geisha.”

“Dear Ms. T----,
Thank you for your diligence in collecting pending lists from the members of the Cost Proposal Unit at ----------------, Inc. I appreciate your understanding of my usual tardiness in providing the fully completed form. I hope that this early submission and congenial email will fall favorably upon you this Friday afternoon.”

“Can you add P. to your pending list email? I’d say thank you but we both know I’m not”

“This is crazy, I googled your name and it brought up an entry on dictionary.com:
Jessica [Jess-ih-cuh]: A Senior Program Assistant determined to make her co-workers lives hell. She is considered by many to be worse than the scum found at the bottom of a toxic garbage barrel that has seen all manner of hazardous waste tossed into it.
Also: an extinct bird. Sorry.”

“gah.it gets me every Friday even though I know it's coming...”

GUYS. I HAVE TO DO ONE TOO. AND COLLECT ALL OF YOURS! But thanks for making the process more entertaining.

cast not ye your pearls before swine.

Jessica: Want to try some lavender chocolate?
Daniel: Wait, isn’t lavender a flower?
Jessica: Yes.
Daniel: Ok. …this tastes like a bathroom!