spur of the moment

I have been doing this interesting thing lately where I have no life outside work. Did I say interesting? I meant retarded.

I have a lot to accomplish on a very short timeline, and then there's the small matter of how sometimes our tools are, shall we say, difficult ornery inimical satanic, and also I actually love the linguistic-y part of my job and so why wouldn't I arrive by 7:00 a.m. every day and not leave until 13 hours later? It all makes a lot of good sense, especially if you've just arrived from the planet What The Fuck Are You Thinking in the galaxy of Dipshit.

One benefit of going in early is that there is always enough room on the bus that it will actually stop to let you in. One morning when I departed home at a more reasonable hour, and I am not making this up people, I had to watch SIX buses go by my stop, each one so full of passengers that the driver would not allow anyone else to get on. At that time of the morning, even on those occasions when the bus has to stop to let someone off and you sneakily wedge yourself in via the rear doors, you are only asking for trouble. By the time you reach Market Street you will have someone's BlackBerry or vintage brooch embedded in your cheek and your body will resemble something designed by Frank Gehry, only with slightly less deconstructivist élan and a lot more throbbing spinal pain.

All this is leading up to why I ended up at work today wearing these:


Having settled into the sleep-deprived, adrenaline-fueled, hummingbird-like whir of Project Where Everything Is Due Yesterday mode, I can sometimes forget to maintain the understated and professional demeanor for which I am ever so famous. And so it happened that I had declared a certain event that was to take place this afternoon as the [Project-Related-Thing] Rodeo. And then I decided to dress for the occasion and also threaten my colleagues with spurring, should they be foolish enough to question my authority or fail to freshen my beverage in a timely manner.

You heard right, I said spurring and I meant it. I brought these in, too:


Come to think of it, those could come in kind of handy on a crowded bus. "Howdy! Oh, was that your shin? I was so distracted by your cell phone conversation that I forgot I was wearing these. Is there...oh, my...is there a doctor on this bus?"