That Girl's Blog

My Chemical Idol

Holy guacamole, I never would have guessed that I'd hear the name "My Chemical Romance" on American Idol, but I just did, as Randy compared Adam Lambert to my favorite band. And it's funny, because I was watching him (Adam Lambert, not Randy) and thinking that I definitely like him, but I feel like I should like him more, since he's the closet I'm ever going to get to Gerard Way on AI. Which is to say, not all that close, but, you know, it's all relative. I would put him in We Will Rock You before I'd ever let him near MCR, but still, he's fairly refreshing for AI and I'd like to see more of him. (His bad skin kind of distracts me, though. That's terrible, but there it is. Same for Mishavonna Henson's nose. Sorry guys!)

This group was much better than last week's group — there's a good handful that I'd like to see go through and it's actually too bad that there can be only three. Up until Adam at the end, my picks would have been Allison Iraheta (the 16-year-old who nailed Heart's "Alone"), Kris Allen ("Man in the Mirror", and also, he is adorable), and Megan Corkrey (the tattooed girl with the long blonde hair). Throw Adam into the mix and I get confused, although Allison has to stay. But I'd be disappointed that my picks would leave behind Jesse Langseth and Mishavonna. Plus a little disappointment also for Matt Giraud; and although Matt Breitzke isn't one of my favorites, he does have good taste in music.

So, yeah, much stronger group than the first twelve. I disapprove of how they divvied them up.

Job annoyance #232

One of the managers whom I assist "needed" two AC adapters for his laptop. (He has one that is working just fine; he just wanted spares.) I ordered them, the way we are supposed to, through our internal procurement system. He kept asking every day if they were here yet, and finally insisted earlier this week that I use his credit card to order them from somewhere else because they were taking too long. He claimed that was "easier anyway" (we will then have to file an expense report for it, so how he figures it's easier, I do not know). At any rate, I ordered them from Amazon with overnight shipping since it was such a dire emergency. They arrived yesterday morning, I informed him immediately, and they have been sitting at my desk since then.

I'm so glad that I spent the time placing not one but two orders at his insistence, and he cannot even be bothered to get the damn things.

Alternate universe?

American Idol... this Danny Gokey guy, the one whose wife died four weeks before his audition? I don't like him. I think he has happily capitalized on his wife's death to gain attention and pity, I think he's fake, and I think he's overrated. After his performance tonight, I was confused to see the first three judges falling all over themselves. Did we see the same performance? Never mind not fantastic, I thought most of it was just not good.

Tatiana, the psycho girl, actually was better than I expected. She's still crazy, though — that conscious effort to contain the insanity and appear calm and normal was just creepy.

Why do they call it an "on-tray" when it's not served on a tray?

(I know; I'm not much of a comedian, sorry!)

Some guy behind me is talking about a restaurant, and says that he and his wife shared an entree -- but he repeatedly pronounces it ahn-TRAY. He doesn't strike me as the type to deliberately pronounce words so as to sound posh or French or what have you. But I have always pronounced it, and always heard it, as AHN-tray. (Emphasis on the first syllable, or perhaps more or less equal emphasis; he is emphasizing the second syllable.)

Is this a regional thing? Do some (English-speaking) people say ahn-TRAY? Or is he just odd?

On the other hand

There are times when I do value a certain amount of fakery, particularly in the workplace, such as when it comes to overall attitude.

I hate my job — it's tedious, thankless, and depressing. It's a struggle forcing myself to go every day, and not to just get up and leave sometimes. But I still put a smile on my face for the benefit of those surrounding me. It's not (usually) their fault; why should I make them subject to my internal misery and bring them down? Besides, being friendly to people generally encourages them to be friendly back to you, which is at least some small consolation when you're stuck somewhere you'd rather not be.

The other assistant here (The Douche) hates his job, too (in his case, I think it's largely just because he's bad at it — he sucked from the get-go, but he didn't start moaning about hating it until after people started complaining because he sucked). He, however, makes no attempt to hide it. He sits around with this sour look on his face, and spending more than a couple of minutes in the presence of his miserable vibe is a surefire way to bring down one's own mood. Ask him to do something he doesn't want to do (i.e., anything at all), and you can practically see "I hate you and I hate my job" written on his forehead.

I know not everyone is naturally outgoing and chipper, and the less naturally it comes, the harder faking it probably is. I'm thinking of my husband — he is reserved and introverted and not the type of person who you would hire as, for example, a receptionist. There's nothing wrong with that, and that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about someone who metaphorically vomits their shitty mood all over the office because they're too self-absorbed to give a flying fuck about how they might be affecting other people.

It's one thing to sometimes have a bad day (or a worse day than normal) and allow it to show through a little — sometimes the discontentedness may need to leak out a bit to relieve some pressure. But you shouldn't punish your coworkers by subjecting them to that grumpiness all day, every day. If nothing else, you only create a cycle of misery that makes things worse for yourself: You constantly project your dismal mood to those around you, they begin to give the same attitude back to you, and then you become even more miserable because your crappy job is now filled with people who are unfriendly toward you and may actively dislike you. What's the point in that?

So I guess I have mixed feelings about fakery. As Jess pointed out, it is a normal part of society, and although I would prefer to see less of it, I can't deny that it does have its value. I would value it very much if The Douche would hide the obnoxiously pissy look that's on his face all too often.

Is 2 minutes to pee too much to ask?

Why is it that every time I'm about to get up to go the bathroom, my phone rings or someone pings me on our internal instant messenger? HOW DO THEY KNOW?

The phone I will typically ignore in that situation, but I have a harder time with the IM, because we have to log off before walking away from our computers, so they'll see my status change to 'Away'. I get so frustrated when I ping someone and boom, suddenly they're 'Away', and I'm left wondering if it was an accident (I pinged them a millisecond before they hit Log Off) or intentional. (One of the managers I assist does this ridiculously often, so I know it's on purpose. So rude.) Anyway, I don't want to be That Person, so I end up getting stuck when all I want to do is just go pee.

Fakery

After this post, I felt rather hypocritical, because even though I said that I'd take an honest bitch over a faker any day, I myself often choose to be fake rather than a bitch.

I'm pretty sure I'm not "a bitch", as in, I'm not a consistently bitchy or mean person. But obviously there are times when someone or something makes me feel bitchy or mean, and there are certainly instances when I hide it and am fake. I can probably find a way to justify it in most situations; for example, giving my mother-in-law a piece of my mind when she's driving me crazy would not be worth the family tension it would cause. Or at work, which is where I fake the most, and it's pretty easy to justify there — being a bitch to the wrong person or at the wrong time could potentially cost one a raise, a promotion, a reference, or a job. But just because there may be valid reasons for fakery doesn't mean I respect myself for it. And besides, if I'm being honest, I mostly do it because I'm a chicken, not because I'm consciously being mindful of the potential consequences for bitchery. I'm just afraid of people arguing with me, being bitchy back to me, or disliking me.

So there it is, I'm a hypocrite: In many of the same situations where I would prefer someone else to just be real, even if it means being a bitch, I myself would probably be fake. If someone in the workplace doesn't like me, I would rather know it; but when I don't like someone at work, I usually hide it.

Oh well, at least I have the decency not to be proud of it. At dinner with my stepmother once, my little sister told her, "You're so fake, mom". Her response? A proud and gleeful, "I know!"

Get me to the church on time...

One would not think, if a person was staying in a hotel that is literally in the (Orlando) airport, that said person would be likely to miss their (afternoon) flight out of said airport. But somehow, said person did. Goodness me.

Okay, seriously. (Kara/American Idol)

So, Bikini Girl gets kicked off on Group Day, and she walks off the stage without hugging the one girl in her group who did get through. Kara and Paula start (stage-)whispering about this, and then Kara loudly calls her a bitch. Which is, of course, completely professional of her.

There is no way that chick was the only contestant to not hug those in their groups who got through, but I bet Kara did not call anyone else a bitch.

The cameras showed Bikini Girl with her group afterward, saying that she wasn't going to get all touch-feely-huggy-huggy because she wasn't going to be fake. I guarantee that this furthered the hatred that most of the audience already had for her (egged on by Kara), but I'm backing her up on it.

The fact is, she didn't like those girls and they didn't like her. Maybe that's entirely her fault, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. They were strangers days before and circumstances brought them to be acquaintances who don't even like each other. Why should she hug the girl who got through? Why should she be all sweet and huggy with them after the fact? That is fake. I would have been far less impressed to watch her hug those girls and pretend to congratulate the one who got through when we all knew that she did not give two shits about them.

This is something that bothers me... people complain about fakeness and fake people, but they cannot stand when anyone actually does refuse to fake it — then they're a bitch or an asshole. Yeah, well, I'll take a bitch who's honest about it over a faker any day.

Also forgot: Top Chef.

Top Chef: I despise Toby, the new judge. What an annoying troll. Every time he spews out one his stupid try-hard analogies, somewhere a fairy dies. Come back, Gail! And when you get there, punch that douche in the face.

I'm beyond tired of Carla; whenever she opens her mouth it's like nails on a chalkboard to me. If I had to share space with her — let alone space that is so well stocked with knives — I would end up killing her. Kudos to the rest of them for having resisted.

Leah, though not nearly on the same level as Carla, is a little tiresome as well, thanks to her whining, quitting, and self-defense mechanism of putting herself and her food down before others can.

I'm behind Stefan — he's both amusing to watch and, apparently, damn good. I figure this is his to lose.