This Was the Species that Was

Good lard: at the office until 11 p.m. yesterday working a proposal due two weeks from today. Caught my Fairfax Connector bus to West Falls Church, caught the last orange line train downtown, which meant I was certain to miss the last yellow/green trains north. So I exited at MacPheremone Square and walked three blocks to the Green Lantern for a nightcap. Four beers and two shots later I cab home, feed them katzen, pack my stuff for the weekend (Lord Pancakes Aren't Animals Are They is shortly coming here to the office to pick me up; hence we hie to Ohio for the wedding of Lord Dan the Obstreperously Intent on Connubial Bondage), check email and LJ, and head to bed for an extremely efficient four hours' sleep before I need to get up and out for an 8:30 mandatory meeting, which fuck you Erica.

So I go to reset my cell phone alarm to Ridiculously Early O'Clock, except my cell phone's not where it ought to be. Wait... no, it's not ANYWHERE it ought to be. Uh. Hmm. Head upstairs to Irv A and dial my number on misterdarkness/peregrin8's phone and run down the back stairs quickly to tiptoe through my apartment, ears up and microadjusting, listening for the buzz of my cell phone (because of course I never have the ringer on, ever). Nope. I try again. Nope. Ok: I left my phone in the cab. I email Lord Broccoli to advise him of my work number and address and that I've lost my phone. I email My Sunshine (My Only Sunshine), maestro_live, that I've lost my cell phone. He emails back almost immediately that he's contacted the cabbie and the cabbie will drop it at his place. Whew. Leave it inside your outer gate, I tell him, and I'll pick it up on the way to the Metro in the morning.

I set the loudest and most annoying alarm clock in the work, ganked decades ago from Travelodge on Main Street, Newark, Delaware, where I was desk clerking, and go to bed for what is now maybe 2 hours 15 minutes' worth of sleep. Except oops. I wake up at 10 a.m. having missed the mandatory 8:30 meeting, but more importantly OH so close to being late already for the 11:30 meeting, in which, in essence, my entire job is being picked apart by an external quality assurance auditor.

Auditui meo!

Emergency mode: deodorant, mouthwash, put on a suit, tie in pocket; email boss: "Very sorry. I will be there by audit time. Long story"; shut down, unplug, pack computer; scram to Maestro's place, grab the phone, head to Metro, green line train sits in the tunnel between Shaw and Mt. Vernon for several minutes. At this point I WILL be late for the meeting. Get out at Archives and grab a cab, who drives me to Tysons and, because he doesn't take credit cards, stops at the Exxon near my office. The ATM gives me a process error. Nothing to do with my account. I am in hell. I am in hell. I am in hell. What I tell you three times is true.

Second try on the ATM and success. Cab drops me in front of my office. I uncoat, brush teeth, slime and ponytail hair, grab coffee— and someone has made double-coffee. So much coffee in the basket that it has overflowed and grounds are everywhere, in the carafe, on the burner, all around the machine. Fucker! What the fuck, fucker? I make new coffee with 4 minutes till my audit. Grab my shit, laptop, notepad, etc. Put on my tie. Head to conference room.

AND I FUCKING KICK ASS.

Auditor asks me question after question and I have reasonable answers to everything. He even tries to get me on an exception to our process (the prop I'm currently working on) where the Capture Plan was skipped due to time constraints. Says to me: "Maybe you should write that into your SOP..." I called up the SOP that he had "perused" (def. 2) and found precisely where I had already written the exception clause in.

I rock.

Another meeting now. Road trip soon.

Before heading to Filthydelphia last Friday, misterdarkness told me to "have fun being proud" (during D.C. Pride)... I responded: "That's me: proud, loud, well-endowed, standing out in a crowd, head in a cloud (also bloodied by unbowed), lost my butler to Egbert Floud, better polemicist than Maureen Dowd, wearing a shroud pursuant to assassination by the House of Saud."( what happened? )

This weekend in brief but not in briefs:

Bailed on a previously agreed-to Baltimore excursion Friday night ( Read more... ) then headed out with maestro and Fabian to the Green Lantern for underwear night ( Read more... ) I stepped down heavily onto the concrete—and onto a 200-year-old rusty nail that seems to have been sticking straight up( Read more... ) Tetanus is fatal in 11 percent of all cases( Read more... )