Black Saturday

Hi Y'all. I'm back in New York on Black Saturday. Black, because instead of touring around the city with Raj and his friends who are in town from Michigan, I'm sitting at my office working for Dragon Lady - who is so much less stylish and fascinating than Merryl Streep. Ugh! Though my devil apparently has a personal shopper, a fact I involuntarily learned during one of my firm's painfully awkward "women's teas," she most certainly does not wear Prada. Someone, please give me a new job, or kill me now. For serious.

I'd love to update you all on my trip to Houston, but alas, the bi-atch has demanded I work my fingers to the bone the entire weekend. She's out for blood. Apparently, based on what she said through gritted teeth while bulging her eyeballs out in my general direction during my meeting with her yesterday - my fist day back in the office since coming back to NYC on Thursday afternoon (I absolutely could not bear to come into the office right away) - she assumed that I would be working while on vacation. Is she nutz? Oh, absolutely.

It turns out that after I worked late into the evening Thursday to finish everything that needed to be done asap and then sent out a detailed updated task list to the entire team documenting my work and the outstanding projects, no one else continued working on the task list. Even though there are two other associates working on this nightmarish project, and eventhough I requested my vacation two months ago and sent out two reminders that I was going to be out of town on vacation. When I told Dragon Lady on Friday that I had not done any work since leaving for vacation, she said, "Didn't you have email in Houston?" in a really nasty tone of voice. I replied that I had "blackberry acess," and then said, "It was not my understanding that I was supposed to continue working on my vacation. If that was your understanding, I apologize for the misunderstanding." Misunderstanding, my ass. What an effing bi-atch. Goddess, I hate her.

Oh, I can't even talk about this any more. I continue to despise her with the white-hot intensity of 1,000 supernovas. Especially, as I'm sitting on my ass at my desk on this gorgeous day. Yes, I feel a touch sorry for myself. Just a touch. At least I have Ani, Eminem, and the Postal Service. If you have not listened to "This Place is a Prison," you really must. It's perfect for understanding the precise nature of my current place of employment. Enough of the whining about work.

Houston was a mixed bag, as visiting family often is. Despite my best efforts, it often feels like I'm sucked back into a vortex of old behavior patterns. No matter how much I try to point out that I'm 31 years old, I swear my Dad ends up treating me like I'm 16 and I sometimes end up acting and feeling like I'm 5. Ok, maybe 12. You see my point. And though it's very exciting that my mother has now moved to Houston and is thus 1,000 miles closer to my dad and my brothers, there was still the same old tension around going from one house to another and the guilt associated with being at one parent's house while not seeing the other one.

At my dad's Raj and I had a lot of fun. We spent most of our time playing with my niece and nephew. I crushed them all at Monopoly. I wasn't going to, but then they all started mocking me, so I had to prove them wrong. Eventually I weakened and made deals with my niece and nephew after my niece started saying that she was not going to talk to "Auntie Buttercup" because I was crushing them. (They are 12 and 10). I made no deals with Raj however, because he refused to admit my Monopoly dominance. I'm sure a rematch is in our future. The only thing I was disappointed about - despite how much fun it was to spend with the kids - was that my dad and stepmom didn't appear to spend a lot of time trying to get to know Raj. They were very hospitable and friendly and they chatted with him, but they seemed focused on the kids, and not Raj and I. However, all in all the whole parents meeting boyfriend thing went pretty smoothly.

The high points of the trip were seeing my mom and her new house, having Raj meet my Dad, stepmom and other family, spending a little QT with my dad and brothers, and seeing Prue and her husband Astro again. Prue - who I think I mentioned is pregnant - looked great. I was so happy to see her again. She looked healthy, relaxed and happy, and her new house is adorable, especially the kitchen. The entirety of my apartment could pretty much fit in her bathroom and walk-in closet. Ah, glorious New York. The other highlight was setting off fireworks in our front yard. That was pretty damn cool.

***

Ok, I was doing fairly well mood-wise, but Raj just called me. He and his friends went to the Moma and are now about to go to an Italian coffee place and walk through the park. I'm so jealous and miserable I feel like crying.

Instead, I'm going to cease this entertaining blogging and get back to my atrociously boring and unfortunately endless work.

Although I had, as recently as yesterday decided that my Plan B (in the event that I do not get a job anytime soon - I went on an another interview yesterday) was to stay at the firm through January, get my bonus, and travel for three months, at this moment I do not see how I could possibly continue this bleak existence for six more months. Ugh!