Up the Lazy Blogpath; Up the Lazy, Crazy Blogpath

Since it's been a hard week, and I've been expending most of my limited creative juices on IMs, I thought I'd provide a transcript of an IM exchange between me and a work friend after we capped off several days' dealing with difficult clients by holding a phone meeting with those clients.

Sally [alias]: grammatical question: is it clearer or any more clearly?
Sally: I mean "clearer" or "any more clearly"? Am trying to give you kudos
Dr. Rachel Beads [alias]: Context for "clearer" vs "more clearly"? A pedant needs context.
Sally: You did a wonderful job running that meeting. I don't think the issues could have been addressed any clearly.
Rachel: Why, THANK you, Sally! {mwah!}
Sally: that last sentence needs fixin'
Rachel: "I don't think the issues could have been addressed any more clearly."
Rachel: "Rachel needs a large drink, clearly."
Sally: sorry, you have to edit your own kudos
Rachel: "My next drink must be clearer. That last one was nearly opaque."
Sally: hmmm
Sally: work on that please
Rachel: Something tentacular is trying to climb out of my drink.
Sally: oh god, no. [Demonically irritating manager] is in your drink too?
Rachel: Yes, feel free to send kudos to [my immediate manager], and to [demonically irritating manager].
Rachel: OMG
Sally: [Demonically irritating manager]'s f'g everywhere
Rachel: BACK! BACK! arggggg
Rachel: glrkljlslllglllellelellhbhlkbklbnm,nmnn,sfmnm,,,,
Rachel: glug
Sally: LOL
Sally: please try to stop gagging
Rachel: drowning, not gagging
Sally: oh no
Rachel: I just want to crawl into bed (or to the bead table) and forget about frigging [application that customers complain about instead of fixing their workflow] for a few days.
Sally: yes, I truly understand
Sally: I got a heartwarming email from [generally irritating manager] today
Rachel: Chain mail? Oh, email. Sorry, had a vision of her wearing a metal visor and swinging a mace.
Sally: she said after being on a number of “issues calls” w/ me, she's gotten some real insight into just how hellish my job is
Rachel: Gee whillickers
Sally: LOL
Sally: I NEVER imagined that kind of nice note from her
Rachel: She must be mellowing in her old age.
Sally: she concluded it with more niceness
Rachel: Wow. Did she ask you to come to her church?
Sally: lol
Sally: Church of ?
Rachel: Whatever church extends its noodly appendage to her.
Rachel: Just got your kudos [in email]. Thanks, Sally!
Sally: lol
Sally: you're welcome
Rachel: I just got the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster gospel book from [bookseller] today!
Rachel: I will share the Good Word (and the al dente pasta) on your return.
Sally: lol
Sally: ok
Rachel: So, I THINK we're okay until the next disaster.
Sally: yeah, that's how the [work with bothersome customer] goes
Sally: I hate them
Rachel: Thar she blows!
Sally: lol
Rachel: It's a [bothersome customer] WHALE! For any other customer, it would be a guppy.
Sally: I was fighting back some responses [during the meeting]
Rachel: Yeah, me toooooo.
Sally: You were very good
Rachel: Thank you! Did you like how I said that the [ridiculous workaround for a problem that they had misidentified as a technical issue instead of user error] was no longer needed, instead of never f'g needed in the first place?
Sally: lol, yes. Very clever
Rachel: I really felt my voice getting higher and higher as the meeting went on. Good thing it didn't go past 30 min or I would have had all the neighborhood dogs howling.
Rachel: Well, Have a soooper time off, Sally.
Sally: It went unnoticed
Rachel: squeak
Sally: Thanks, Rachel. :-)
Sally: See you on Monday
Rachel: Yes......where's that flask?
Rachel: So are we going offsite next month?
Rachel: I sure hope so.
Sally: not in your pocket?
Rachel: No pockets in this damned dress.
Sally: Yes, let's do the Japanese place on [major street in urban center]?
Rachel: Have to bead a special carrybag.
Sally: Ta Ke Sushi
Rachel: Gi Me Sake?
Sally: very good
Sally: you'll have to wait, Rachel
Rachel: Lo Tso Sake
Rachel: Sa Ke Now Pliz
Sally: There's a place in [nearbly town] that does tastings
Rachel: Good thing we both type quickly
Rachel: Tastings? Oooohhhhhh....
Rachel: oooooooooooooo
Rachel: oooooOOOOOOOoooo
Sally: yes, I can't remember the name, but it's right near [street] by [one of the many Interstate freeways in the area]
Rachel {Googling}: [name of sake company]
Sally: Yeah, think so
Sally: I'll have to check when I drive by tonight
Rachel: Drive-by sake tasting? cool
Sally: wow
Rachel: Can I have that in a go-cup please? Domo arigato.
Sally: lol
Rachel: Aaaawwlllll gone. More sake, please.
Rachel: Domo
Rachel: More, please
Rachel: I'm getting hysterical. Gotta go so I can breathe into a paper bag, and so you can get out.
Sally: ok ttyl
Rachel: byeeee
Sally: bye

Gender Treason

My blood pressure has gone up another twenty points with the media swirl over yet another self-serving, hypocritical book by Caitlin Flanagan.

Puddly-ump summers ago, my dear friend's beloved spouse was one of a group of teachers who participated in a National Endowment for the Humanities program in London. Caitlin Flanagan was also in the group. My friend's spouse recently told me that he's surprised that CF has become a paid writer. He was not positively impressed by her writing then, felt that she used the program as a way to visit family members in the U.K. inexpensively, and mostly remembers her lack of participation and her complaints about the class. She didn't even manage to finish -- she left early, claiming illness in the family. What a waste of skin and oxygen, let alone taxpayers' money.

Caitlin Flanagan can kiss my humanitarian, gender-equitable aspirations.

Some Call It Sleep, I Call It A Horror Movie

Complex, horrifying nightmares R us.

I dreamed that I lived next door to a vicious, child-abusing pervert. He knew that I was trying to get the police to pay attention to him. When I arrived home one day, another next-door neighbor, President Bush, ignored my agitation over evidence that the perv neighbor had broken into my house.

"Cuh-mone, cuh-mone, it'll be awl raht," Chimp said, waving me up the path to his house.

From his house, it was obvious that someone had broken into my house and put up bizarre posters on the inside of the windows. The perv neighbor had done this to make it clear that he could get to me any time he wanted.

But damned Chimp couldn't care less.

Bush, you ineffective, jelly-brained mush-mouth, you!
{shakes fist in frustration}

Hush, Hush, Sweet Mushmouth

I'll be glad when I've finished listening to yet another book by William Faulkner.

Last time I was fixin' to, I mean getting ready to do laundry, this is what came into my head when I was about to grab the wrong laundry basket:

"No, that-air's the cleeen beey'n."

The other day, my husband gave me an autographed copy of the latest book by one of my favorite comic authors.

I thought, "Sho', that'll be some val-yuh-bull in forty year."