Window Dressing?

This week, I am not fit to mingle with normal people.

Perhaps, in another month, during another week, this would be a false statement. I like people. I enjoy conversation. I accept that any stranger could become a friend—you know, assuming he or she has good hygiene. 

On the whole, I frolic through life with a smile, seemingly competent and at ease with my surroundings.

But this week, I am just off balance enough to be dangerous.

Morning Rituals

Without getting into the weeds, accept my claim that this week has been very busy with work. Early, early (did I mention early?) mornings have met with very late nights; afternoons have been rushed, leaving no time for cooked meals, the gym, or a much-needed oil change. My car and my body continue to make their disapproval known.

It takes an extra 5 seconds to process Sisterita’s question about buying more coffee, and I often find myself approaching the microwave with fresh produce in my hands (which would have ended quite badly). One morning, I put on two different heels...of differing heights. If I was the daring sartorial sort, that could have been forgiven as avant garde. Alas, it was simply sleep deprived delirium. There are several to-do lists floating around in my brain, and they are distracting me.

And, Good Reader, a preoccupied me is a very dangerous me. 

I locked myself, quite consciously, out of my house and car. I actually locked the door and pulled it shut as I was mentally going through the steps, “Grab lunchbox, have my coat, oh yeah, the keys…” Door closes. 

Aftermath: Perspective in the Present

 I stand there—disbelief and astonishment staring back at me from the glass reflection of the door.

Surely to be late to an important data meeting, this requires me to execute a series of humiliating exercises:

1. Alert my boss and her boss (Chair of the board, anyone?) to my folly. “Yes. No. I knew it was locked. No, I don’t have a spare in my mailbox. Yes, I may have to do a B&E.”
2. Curse loudly as I try to wiggle the doorknob open. Futile effort if there ever was one.
3. Walk around aimlessly in the yard in search of an open window.
4. Locate an unlatched window to realize that it is FAR too high to climb into. Use the TRASH CAN to climb high enough to open the window…fail to shimmy into the open space.
5. Visit every neighbor on the block in search of a step ladder.
6.  Finally, wake the next door neighbor, who plays Marvin Gaye at all hours of the day, and request assistance.

The 4 inch heels

Well, Marvin-Gaye-the-Neighbor rescued me. He judged me the entire time. I mean, who wouldn’t? I showed up on his doorstep, with lots of unnecessary hand gestures and apologies—while describing my trash can climbing attempts—in a silk dress and 4 inch heels.

Not only did he come over to assess the situation, but he CLIMBED my trash can when his stool was too short, and climbed into the bathroom window. 

…his shorts may have gotten stuck on the brick. 

He may (or may not) have lost his shorts, revealing his preference for “Commando” dress style in the process. 

I may (or may not) have stood below wondering why the hell my parents gave all the common sense to Sisterita.

After the fastest house-crossing trip in history, Marvin-Gaye-the-Neighbor let me into my own door AND wheeled the trash can around front for me.

I am too embarrassed to take him “thank you” cookies, but I feel it is absolutely required.

Resolution ~ I had a spare key made this week.

The End of the Affair

No longer, friend.

He left me.

At the first sign of trouble in our relationship, he found a new trollop to give him affection and put him up on a pedestal.

And I am still too shocked to be in the grieving stage. I just…well, I can’t process the agony quite yet.

Though I haven’t mentioned it in the blog as yet, there are changes on my horizon. And incredible new job opportunity has been presented to me that I could not be more excited about. It has everything: good mission, exciting research, work with local officials and the school board, and an amazing staff that I will have the pleasure to work with daily.

But, when I accepted this career-altering position I forgot something—and I will boldly make the comparison to realizing as a college student abroad that you have to come home one day—and that is that I cannot take everyone with me on my new journey. Some must stay behind. They are simply characters in a closed chapter of our lives.

And so I have to say goodbye to Don Expo. [Read our story here]

It was sudden. It was a typical office morning and a co-worker stopped by to ask about my new job, catch up, and tell me about the availability of cookies in the conference room, and so on. Then she said it. Out of nowhere.

“So, would it be ok if I took the expo board? I need something as a doorway for my cube.” 

“Uh…Oh. Well, I can ask him?”“What do you mean ask him?”

[Insert embarrassing moment where your co-worker realizes you are actually hesitant to share expo board rights. Work property be damned. This guy is YOURS. But you seek to hastily correct the blunder…]

“No, no! I will have him cleaned off and over there in a few minutes!”

At which point I scramble to clean him with alcohol pads—which is beneath his dignity—and roll his 6 foot beautiful form to the other side of the building. I stared deep into his white reflective surface before walking away. And as all girls know, any decent expo board would have found his way back to me.

But he DID NOT.

He stayed there. He likes his new home. It does not matter to me that I have a shorter, stockier white board at home, who is loyal and followed me across multiple jobs. No, I am certain to mourn the loss of the robust, tall and mobile Don Expo with which I kept a relationship on the side at work. Girls, let this be a lesson: be loyal to ONE of everything. Whether a man, your favorite white board, or your Russian Red MAC © Lipstick. 

Courtesy of a dear friend and colleague (who admittedly stole this from last season’s The Bachelor): Good things don’t end, unless they end badly.  I wanted us to find a resolution—and in typical, delusional female fashion, I imagined we could find a way to bridge the long-distance gap. But alas, it is not to be.

This break up will be a tough one folks. Even the red lipstick isn’t cheering me up.

Don Expo: My Enchanting Encounter with Il White Board

This is a love letter. Make no mistake, my heart has been stolen. But to understand my current state of devotion, you must first understand my history….

Yes, you read the title of this one correctly. No, it is not tongue-in-cheek humor. And before I move on, Gentle Reader, let us be completely open with one another: I am a true academic at heart (translation: proud dork), and yet you still read my posts. So, please set the judgment aside and let’s focus on discussing the succession pattern of my expo board addiction. In all its dry erase glory!

In the beginning, there was Expo Board.

He was beautiful. A successor to my hand written notes and charts stuffed inside my Franklin Covey planner book. He was a virtual work of art in the realm of organized color, geographic lines, and ideological progression. Why the latter? Well, when I sit down to organize a “board”, I imagine it is similar to the way an animator plans a story board… 

If you didn’t take my statement about loving expo boards seriously before, now you KNOW! This is a craft.

Action Steps	Story Board	Expo Board
The idea is created.	What, oh what, will my short comic be about?	I need a bit of organization in my life. Oh! Look, an expo board.
The themes are developed.	What grand obstacles will the characters face?	Which categories of my to-do list or calendar will be featured?
The plot line is fleshed out. Graphics take shape!	Scenes develop as pen hits paper. Characters get faces.	The list is given headings and sub-headings! Woot!
The denouement arrives.	The storyline wraps with a funny quip or character action.	The list is prioritized, given color, starred and “approved” for maximum efficiency.

Example of a film storyboard

Expo Board lived a happy life. Standing 24 in x 36 in, with silver framing, he provided a repository for all of my great ideas and accomplishments! He arrived during my tenure at my first post-college job, and kept my world happily spinning on the ever-organized axis of Pre-Planning. On many occasions, and to the never-ending amusement of my co-workers, Expo Board would travel home with me at night. We developed a very intimate relationship—not quite as intense as my relationship to my makeup drawer, but a very co-dependent one. When I left post-college job, there was a ceremony for the handing off of Expo Board*; I felt confident that I was leaving it in very competent and invested hands. Lit-Lover Friend (I struggle to find an apt name here), as we will call her, was excited to be given the responsibility of ownership, and I have it on good authority that she was a good steward of his utility.

For some time after that, all during the “major life change” discussed in post One, I was content to use a small 8 x 11 in expo. A mini, emergency board. Effective, but not nearly vast enough to house all of the major life goings-ons and need-to-finish projects of my daily life. But I was (fairly) content.

Then one day, the incredible happened. I was reminded by the very same co-workers who used to mock my dedication to Expo Board that my eccentric affection for the white surface area was indeed a legacy: Bae posted this love letter. It is the first love letter that Expo Board has ever received, and I can promise you—as we discussed the matter at length in purple dry erase marker—that he was very, very honored. In fact, if his “pink” color pen hadn’t been running low, he might have blushed at the flattering portrait of himself painted into the FaceBook universe for all the world to see.

Expo Board < mini expo < Love Letter Board

As you can imagine, my own emotional investment in the universe of the dramatic Expo-topia was beginning to get out of hand! I was consumed with the terrifying thought that I was keeping some very talented “expo” from his or her true purpose in life: to provide structure and meaning in a rainbow spectrum of colors. 

And who was I to DO such a despicable thing?! 

Was I not the one who inspired others to give their expos the respect and gratitude they so rightly deserved? Do they not organize our lives, designate our household chores to various roomates, and provide a doodle-zone for over-active children? Well, of course they do! 

And with so many expos ABANDONED by their manufacturers, just waiting for a home and a steady hand in penmanship, how could I ignore the call to seek out a lonely, new expo?!

Don Expo

In the end, Don Expo found me.

He was sitting in a corner, just facing me with a sort of resigned apathy. One moment I was rifling through files, desperately trying to figure out a better organizational system then my multi-subject notebook, when he caught my attention. He was cool, aloof even.

I looked up, and my green eyes met his white surface. He was original, he was tall, he was broad—and I was smitten.

He stands 6 ft x 2 ft, has silver framing, and doubles in utility as a rolling cubicle door. YES. He blocks the onlookers with his deceptively boring gray front panel, as he flexibly moves around my little nook like a sparrow in mid-current flight. He moves. Don’t you see?! He adapts to my life, but does his own thing. He might even pay a visit to our neighbors on his own once in a while! Best. Friendship. Of. My. Life.

While the font is quite small, Don Expo is impressively shouldering the responsibilities of my duties as a grant writer, GAP team member, patient (a few Dr appts on there), and girly-girl. His magnetism also makes for ideal color accessorizing in the form of the colored dry erase pens. I am as giddy typing this, as I traditionally am on Christmas morning.

I cannot tell you where this new expo/B-Verbose collaboration might lead: it is possible that I will walk into the office and never see Don Expo again. But, I fail to see how I will ever find another of his caliber, in this or any cubicle-based universe.