I Cry Freedom

October 4th, 2003

Beleive me, there’s nothing more satisfying than driving away from your office on a Friday afternoon knowing you have two days of unabashed freedom ahead of you… Freedom to dress as you like, forgoing the starch and khaki uniform of the work week… Freedom to see the sun as you emerge from your bleak, windowless cubicle in to a full blown Florida Afternoon, sunshine bursting from every nook and cranny… Freedom to sleep late, eat more, sigh less, read a Rollingstone, listen to your favorite cd, dabble your painted toes in the pool, dabble your painted toes in the ocean, dabble your painted toes in a bathtub filled with bubbles. While we are talking about pools, let me share a piece of advice—if you are looking for Pool Safety Fences, make sure to contact a professional company with many positive reviews that can guarantee top-notch quality. Anyway, let's move on.

On Fridays I cry freedom.

As I am loathe to admit, since starting my new job I have blogged less and slaved more. I always said that this change in my life, the change from happy-go-lucky student to white collar workin’ woman wouldn’t affect the amount or quality of bloggage. I thought that instead of writing about dorms, tests and the brainwaves in the cafeteria’s Jello, I would reflect on life from a more “real life” perspective.

Well, real life is exhausting!

I have officially become an old woman. I awake at the ungodly hour of 6:30 each a.m. to drink tea, get clean and iron my clothes. Let me tell you people, after having ironed maybe once a year for the past five years, this whole day-to-day thing is quite depressing. Thus, I am going to only buy clothes made out of heavy, gawdy polyester from now on - then I will *look* the part of my granny status!

Ahem - back to my day…. I leave the house at precisely 7:41 am in order to fight traffic for twenty miles, taking forty five freakin’ minutes of my life’s energy. My solace is that I get to spend quality time with the one I love, Ruby the Redneck (as my lovely car originated from West Virginia). I listen to the same cd every morning and afternoon - NothingLess’s thirty minute gem, appropriately titled, Beyond Therapy.

Because that’s what I am at 7:41 in the a.m. - beyond therapy.

When I get to work I typically have nothing to do for about the first hour. Because my desk is located smack dab in the middle of the office entry way (read: not even a cubicle!) I am afraid to do time-passing things, such as check my email, file my fingernails, or whistle dixie. That being said, I typically spend the first golden moments of my work day shuffling papers and writing myself random notes like: “today, try not to look bored,” “today you will have chili for lunch,” or “today, don’t forget to take good notes.”

At some point in the morning I will be given a task which makes me feel very important and productive. I will ride that out until lunch time, when I’ll unsnap the lid on my seventies-era tupperware, revealing the contents of last night’s leftovers. Be they lasagne, fish sticks or the aforementioned chili, there’s nothing so sweet as some tasty leftovers at midday.

After lunch I will recieve one or two more tasks, which again, make me feel very important. I will stretch the last task out so that it ends at approximately 5:26 when I can start packing up for the day.

At 5:30 Rube and I leave work, and on the first straight stretch I get to I gun it. The only thing is, since Ruby is a Corolla, the effect of this putting the pedal to the metal, if you will, is hardly spectacular. Ruby’s response is to make a loud “rrrrrrrr” sound and slowly change gears. I grimace as the mom in her soccer van easily and effortlessly glides past my struggling roadster.

Spent, I get home about 6:20 p.m. I have some dinner with Angelface (who does the cooking! Woo hoo), sort through the day’s mail, watch some tv and then fall asleep around 10 p.m.

Granny I say. I’m a total old woman…. but today is Saturday so I’m going to bask in the glory of my weekend freedom. Thus dear readers, granny must bid you adieu.

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