Sure..just dig into the lunch I stayed up all night making

Tell me if you just don't think this is odd.

I was sitting at my desk, having my lunch - yummy veggies, baked pork chops (they say eating the pig won't give you the piggy flu), some green, leafy stuff stir fried with corn, tomatoes, green peppers and garlic. Smelled good. Looked good. My boss comes to my desk and spies my cordon bleu masterpiece and asks if I cooked it, to which I replied, yes.

"So you don't share your lunch?"

I thought perhaps she was joking so I continued eating, but she was serious. Asked me if when I pack my lunch if I don't keep them (my team) in mind. Ummm...noooo. I don't. Am I a fucking caterer? Do you know how much of a sacrifice it is to stay up an extra hour to pack a lunch, so I avoid eating bacteria-infested food court meals? Am I willing to make such a sacrifice for co-workers, when they can cook for themselves? No. Am I willing to adda picnic basket to my daily bundles? No. Am I willing to start taking orders for the next day's meals in case someone is allergic to string beans? No.

I dunno - I am all about team and stuff and being this happy little office family, but having you dig into my lunch bowl with me, with your fork, or maybe my fork...I am not sure how far she was willing to take this, when I barely know these people, is a bit over the top. Wasn't giving away my yogurt and my much desired pear last week enough? When will these people get that at the office, I am professionally pleasant but personally anti-social?

With an "S" on my Chest - Super Spinster!

Thanks Lou for noticing I was missing. :-) I have not updated for the week and sadly it is not due to anything exciting. Just work. This week has been more of the same - early mornings, late evenings, and it also included early Saturday morning to late Saturday evening. Work, not play. So I am just about to take a shower and head to the supermarket to do my weekly chicken breast feel-up and hope that the stuff you see in movies can maybe happen to me - some hot stud shopping for melons or dog food will give me his number as I decided on beef or chicken for this week's lunches.

Remember how annoyed I used to be when my former boss would try to be all up in my personal life and would pose the why aren't you married, when are you going to get married, when are you going to have kids questions?

Well, I swear to you - when I go to work, I go TO WORK. I don't go to work and lay out my baggage to anyone who would listen. I talk about work and if I meander into the realm of non-work - news, movies, sports etc. I park all my personal baggage outside the door and leave it there. I am clinical to a fault with co-workers.

- How was your weekend, Tamale?

- It was cool.

No, well, I went out with X and we ate Y and I wore Z. Just, it was cool. I keep telling people I am very private when I need to be and I keep non-work stuff out of the way at the office.

But clearly I must have a look, or maybe because the words "boyfriend" and "husband" do not come out of my mouth at least 40 times a day like the other women in the office, as they gab about everything to anyone, cause I went to my manager with an invoice to be approved on Tuesday, looking real special in my new outfit, and she somehow went from invoice to dating and Person X thought she would not get married either and one day she just met the right guy, just like that. And I had to hear her personal testimony too. And I sat and I smiled and did not confirm or deny anything related to my life. But I got the gospel anyway.

I am far too pretty to not have a boyfriend and she understands that the man pool is small and shallow but she met her husband when she least expected it, and just like that she re-married when she thought she would never marry again...blah blah blah. And she knows my hours make it impossible but I have to try.

I would have preferred, "I can let you leave earlier or work from home sometimes so you can go out man-hunting cause I am so concerned." But in the real world, one is simply nosy and never offers any constructive solutions.

I dunno nah...maybe I should just sit on a street corner with a pan and a sign that says "Help the Spinster" and collect donations or phone numbers while ringing my charity bell.

Sunday morning routine

A typical Tamale Sunday morning has begun.

Wake up, roll off pink sheets and head to laundry room. Dump week's clothing in soapy water and put to spin. Add car wash soapiness to water and wash country road dust off the chariot. Enjoy the coolness of the water in the already sticky 7am heat. Take clothes out of machine and hang out to air dry. A little sun does wonders. Immerse tired, chocolate body under shower. Apply facial peel and wait. Read Sunday paper, and remark on how good looking Obama is. Wash off peel and head to kitchen for breakfast. Cut a slice of cold watermelon and take plate of melon chunks to study. Turn on computer and check emails. Start composing first email.

Dear X,
Foreplay is intimate and it depends on the likes and dislikes of your partner...

Sex is interesting, but it's not totally important. I mean it's not even as important (physically) as excretion. A man can go seventy years without a piece of ass, but he can die in a week without a bowel movement. ~ Charles Bukowski

The Indian, of half-sex fame, emailed me this morning for sex tips. There is a bitter irony here in that he is asking ME for sex tips when I am single, alone and not having sex. But this is what friendship is about. You take that Dr Who time machine and go way back to when you were getting serviced and try to force the memories to the surface so you can pen 5 long back-to-back emails, over a plate of cold watermelon chunks, to the recently de-flowered, recently married Indian who does not know his ass from his penis when it comes to sex. The emails are amusing and entertaining me this morning, but the rest of the day lies ahead and at least he has sex to make it easier. Watermelon chunks can only take you so far.

Summit of my annoyance

www.guardian.co.tt

The Fifth Summit of the Americas started here yesterday and there is a lot of hullabaloo about it from everyone for different reasons - the squandermania by our PM in some lame attempt to impress foreign heads of government, unions not being able to protest near the summit venue, citizens questioning the alleged benefits of hosting it here, among others. And I share passionate views about the Summit and all these issues, but sharing them on my journal has never been my style.

US President Barack Obama greets PM of Trinidad and Tobago Patrick Manning at the start of the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad.

However, I will say there is a definite up-side and a down-side to the dratted summit. The up-side was I got Friday off cause my office was part of the restricted zone and we had no choice but to close. The down-side? What's the point of a 3-day weekend when you cannot go anywhere? Obama landed yesterday and they took the entire west-bound lane of the highway for him and the other delegates to get to and from the airport quickly, making the east-bound lane, which on a normal day, is congested, a dual carriage-way. You cannot get to the cinema, the good shops, the good restaurants.

I instead chose a day in the country, which I enjoyed immensely - sitting alone in the park, with a book and a picnic basket. So many things on my mind but under a Caribbean sun with the sound of children laughing, they did not feel so deep and dark as they probably would have, if I stayed at home.

Isn't Chavez sexy though?

Dead-end

The entire weekend has been a disaster. I have been struggling with the depression and hopelessness for the entire time and it has been a pretty one-sided battle thus far. I am surrounded by life - lives going ahead and moving forward, but somehow I have almost given up on my own life. At least for now. I know that down the road I will read this and go, yeah...one of those days. But the emptiness today is swallowing me whole. The emotions are raw and out in the open, and the tears are many. I am exhausted from all this emotional purging, but better now, than tomorrow. I feel like I am in quicksand, struggling to get out, but only getting pulled under.

I think maybe I should just sit this one out today, and let whatever is to happen to me, happen, cause I am just sooooooo very tired of trying.

Fucked up

When Baldie told me this morning that he had been seeing someone, I told him I knew that already and he asked me how I knew. I mean, you have been incommunicado for weeks, totally out of touch. That told me everything I needed to know. I asked him if he thought I was an idiot and he said no. I left it at that. Does it feel any better knowing for sure? No. It feels worse. The day was already going down shit street but that was the last thing to veer me totally into the swamp pit. I felt so low all day. I walked aimlessly through the mall - got my eyebrows done, and they look perfect. But I just feel so incredibly alone. It has been the pervading feeling for a while now, but I felt it intensely today and sat on my bed and cried and cried until I decided to take a shower, apply some makeup, put on some clothes and go to the mall to face the world. But even amidst all the people and all the gnarly kids on vacation, I felt all alone.

Well, he wants to keep in touch and I said okay but I immediately deleted his phone numbers, his email addresses, the 400-odd emails we exchanged in the past few months, his IM info, all the photos of us on my pc, save one, cause I look really hot in it. We can just crop his ass out. Fuck him and his new girlfriend.

And she sits alone in her room trying not to cry and trying to understand why noone wants her.

Closure

Well, I saw Baldie online this morning and after all the "niceties", he told me he has been seeing someone, so I guess I got my closure. So why then am I more hurt, than relieved or vex?

Telephone Love

I hope you all missed me. This is my life these days. Too busy to do much of anything besides nap, cause I cannot call what I do at night sleeping. It's napping cause by the time I really get into it - the whole dreaming, drooling thing, the alarm goes off and I cuss and roll off the bed UNWILLINGLY! Steups.

I am so happy for the weekend. It's a long weekend, and I have no plans whatsoever. It is a bit pathetic. No, it is pathetic. But whatever. I have a book. And a cookbook. And oven mitts.

I also have my cell phone. Let me tell you the story about the happy cell phone.

There once was a girl named Tamale. Cute as hell and with yet another cell phone, bringing her cell phone tally to 3. Her own personal phone, another phone which is also hers but was previously used for business calls at former job, but still used for some work, and stalkers. And the new job phone - the phone passed on from generation to generation, or really, just in my case, from former employee to new employee.

Now this phone I guess was probably in the person's possession for a while and because it was all-bills paid, I am assuming it became more or less like a personal phone. I am the type that if the phone is not mine in any way, shape or form, there is little else I will do with it other than what the owners want me to do with it. So no personal calls (well, not too many), no personal texts etc.

Well...imagine my horror when one day, I picked up the phone and there was a message on it. I could not understand who would have sent said message seeing that noone I know has the number. I opened it and it said,

"Baby, I could not sleep last night. I miss you so damn much I cannot wait to see you and suck you."

Okaaaaaaaaaaay. I just assumed that it was a personal text meant for the person who used to have the phone. But because I am farse I decided to dig up on the phone and see what else was on it.

Welllllll....

I realised the text came from one of the dudes in the office - a very engaged dude, and the former phone girl (FPG) is very married. There were a slew of these "I'm at home away from you" type texts on the phone, both from him and then in her sent box. I was a bit alarmed especially since dude seems so quiet (this is the same dude I thought was hot on me, but I thought he was too quiet for my tastes...ha!) His texts were overwrought and filled with angst and longing, and hers tried to console. She got a new job by the way, so she no longer works there, so I guess the illicit office romance hit a speedbump and he is not dealing with it too well. I wondered if anyone else knew about this. I also wondered if she never thought to frickin' delete her text messages before giving up the phone. I also wondered if he did not think that maybe I have the cell phone now that she is gone and I get these messages.

There were also 2 video clips - one of a naked man, who was not the text dude, walking around a bedroom smiling, and the other of her in a pink and white nightie, talking seductively to the man (if "come fuck me" can be considered seductive), while lying on the bed.

I went to the bathroom, got some Lysol and wiped that phone down cause clearly it has been places. Places I am not sure I want to know about, or have my ear and mouth exposed to. In any event, I have asked for a new phone and will probably get it within the next couple weeks. Or they can just pay the bill on the phone I hardly use and make life easier on everyone cause I know where MY phone has been.

Taking the dick away without explanation

I just got raped. By the medical profession. The medical mafia. Where one doctor sees you, refers you to a specialist even though he knows there is nothing wrong with you, but the specialist is also from some little child-rearing village in India. You see said specialist at the break of day on your fucking weeekend, only for doctor #2 to tell you in less than 5 seconds that there is nothing wrong with you, but still rapes your pocket of $400!

I feel totally violated! Just to clear something up though - the specialist was not the fertility doctor, but rather an orthopaedic doctor. I apparently just have a normal, stress-ridden, I-need-a-vacation spine! $400 I could have spent on some shoes or a new outfit. Steups.

So that episode of Oprah I mentioned was really powerful for me cause it highlighted that

1) there are millions of dumb women out there

2) men like these dumb women cause they can do as they will with them, thus leaving the not so dumb women like myself, manless, sexless and snuggle-less

3) I think more like a man than even men themselves know

Oprah was talking to Steve Harvey about his book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, a book I think I am going to buy to share with my girlfriends cause they do some dumb shit.

And Lermie is screaming out loud - What is Steve Harvey doing? Why is he revealing the secrets???

As they discussed some of the points in the book, some of what I will call gospels, I sat there and nodded and mmm-hmmed and almost "amen'ed" cause the shit he was saying was just so true and I thought, why don't women get this? The woman who asked about being obligated to have sex with a man cause he bought dinner was just one of the women out there who don't get it. I got it. I have been getting it for years. When Steve said women should not lower their standards just cause they got older, I wanted to tape that shit and blast it across the airwaves to all the women who have told me I have too high standards. I nodded when he said not to go overboard with the standards thing - I am not anal about shit like height, putting the toilet down etc. There was a group of women who had LISTS...long, long lists outlining this so-called perfect man. I am not like THAT. But there are just some basic shit I require - respect, honesty, drive, all his hair (lol...not going beneath that bar again...tried it, and it sucked) and good decent values. Is that too much to ask, for crying out loud??

Don't get me wrong. I do dumb things too but not too many. One thing I will in fact admit to doing and being part of the dumb sisterhood for is the whole closure thing.

Women want closure. Women love closure. When a woman has been "he's not into you'ed" by a man, she wants to know more - why aren't you into me, what did I do, who did you meet, when did you realise, how did I mess up, where did it go wrong?

I am totally guilty of wanting closure. Lock me up and throw away the key. I don't get men just thinking they can walk into your life, stick their dick in you, and then without warning, or explanation, leave. That gets me. That sends my blood boiling.

But as Steve said, men don't do closure and women need to get this. Men pay for that dinner and write it off as a loss and move on. Cause there is another woman around the corner who may give up the pussy for some chicken dinner, or who may just be what they'e looking for, as opposed to you, the dumpee, the no-closure heifer.

And I listened to Steve and I said, "okay, I understand that men just move on...that's cool." Do I agree with it? Hell no. I find it a bit hard to just move on. In fact I get damn vex cause I think I am da shit. lol. And I wanna know why, what, when, how etc. To this day, Baldie has not contacted me to say, "well, I just did not feel you" and that annoys me. It annoys my ego that this not-so-great fucker did not think, I, Tamale, was fantastic. lol. It is an ego thing for me. I make no apologies for this and will take my criticism for it. But I tell a dude when I am not feeling him. I tell him what he did not have to make me want to be with him. It's not hard. And they always wanted to know, so why is it wrong for me to want to know? I know there are other sordid sardine in the ocean but that does not help my closure issues.

But I promise to work on it. Everything else though - I might as well have a 10-inch penis cause I think like a man and I get the rest and wish women would get the rest. Like why do men cheat? Cause there will always be a woman out there willing to be the other woman, without regret or remorse. That's so simple. Why do we pull our hair out over it? We are our own worst enemy and one day we hopefully will figure that shit out.

Oh...I am getting too passionate about this. I have a date with my cookbook. Let me keep it.

Pain in the ...

I think I may be one of those bosses that employees would hate. I dunno, but I guess I expect people to be industrious and do what they're being paid to do. I don't expect everyone to get to work the time I do, or leave when I do, or eat lunch in 5 minutes to get back to work as quickly as possible. But I do expect that if you are responsible for a project that you seize ownership of it and do it and not gripe about it. Or take a sick day to avoid it. Or expect a reward to do it.

I work with these kinds of people. They shall remain nameless and I know I said I was not going todo this but it is grinding me. It is grinding me cause my boss keeps telling them they're awesome when I don't think they're awesome. I find them lazy and very rude. And when they do one thing, it's almost as though that one thing made up the week's quota of work. So earlier this week, Dude spent a total of 30minutes helping me with something. He got an awesome "congrats" from the boss for it and following the wave of praise, he said he wanted a day off. She reminded him that he had a project that needed to be done today, for me, but since he got all this glorious praise, he felt entitled to a day off, so guess where he was today? Not at work doing the project, lemme tell you. Guess who was the ass to start it, despite knowing better, but did it anyway cause it is HER large project that would be affected if it were not done? You guessed Tamale? Take some praise.

So he takes a day off thinking I would do the entire thing and he would come next week and sit on his ass. I did less than 25% and left the rest there after my back started throbbing. Idid not...I repeat...did NOT kill the Pope in a past life.

Dudette now - rude motherfrigger. I avoid asking her for anything cause she is extremely surly, but after she got the talk earlier this week, I said I would make the effort to not be so evasive. So I tell her I need some help with same said project Dude stayed home to avoid. I go in and start on it and 45 mins pass and I am still there alone. No problem...I rally on. She comes in and sits down and looks at me. I tell her I need some labels printed. She prints them. Disappears. Returns 20 mins later. I tell her make a couple packages for me. She makes them. Disappears.I do 98% of the work on my own, and the steam was coming out of my ears and off my back. I was lucky to get her 2% and will now tell you how I managed to accomplish this. Cause she told me she would only help if I got her lunch. Yes, her doing work she is being paid to do, hinged on me getting her lunch. You better believe she is still waiting for that fucking lunch!

I really hate laziness at work. It sends my blood hot.My boss encourages them though - and they know they can get away with things - sitting on Facebook all day and taking forever to do one little thing. It's not my style. I dunno...I guess I either adjust or attack.

Not worth more than a chicken leg???

When you look at tv, you can learn so much. You can learn about what's happening around the planet. You can learn how to make a small bedroom seem larger through use of colour, mirrors etc. You can also learn how no matter where technology takes us, there are always going to be people with no damn sense.

Oprah. Oh no, not that Oprah does not have sense. Her guests. I am watching Oprah the other day and the episode which I think requires its own spinster-loving entry features one woman Skyping in from somewhere. And her question goes something like this

- How do you not feel oblgated to sleep with a man after he has bought you dinner?

I was aghast! Is this where women have evolved to, that we think because a man buys us a pasta dish and a slice of cheesecake, we are obligatated to spreadeagle in humble appreciation?

What was even more alarming was the fact that this was not a 20-something year old woman, who I would give a little leeway - not much, but a little. This woman was 50-frickin-3 years old and asking how to get around sleeping with a man after he paid for dinner. This was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard, seen etc. I was truly sad for this woman and wondered if she was still single at age 53 or whether she had been married and was out of the dating game for a while or something - some reason why she asked such a dumb question.

I would hope that when a man asks me out and when he pays for my pork ribs or my ravioli, he would not be paying for my...excuse the bluntness...but not paying for my pussy. I mean, this is even worse than prostitution. At least a prostitrute gets some money to pay bills, buy shoes, food, travel etc. The dinner date just gets, if she's lucky, a nice meal and if not, heartburn and diarrhea. The food ends up in the toilet bowl a few hours later, while a cheque can be invested.

If these are the men out there in the world, then I am burning my thong and applauding my spinsterdom cause I am worth more than a plate of chicken!