Miss B’s blog

After telling this story at a get together with friends who are still reeling at the thought of it I decided to share this true tale with the blogosphere in hopes of ridding myself of it...if only for a moment.

I recently started a new job (okay in July) and am consistently amazed at the events that occur on a daily basis. I have filled my days over the past months decoding terms like flipping (emailing) and being referred to as "tiger" by the Managing Partner's elderly (think John McCain) yet endearing father-in-law. This I can deal with, but one specific term has been haunting me for the past month..."unbundling."

Recently one of the partners who is normally "out of the office" (which means "working" from where ever and emailing me to update his contacts about 15 times a day) asked me to work on a project putting together something for our investors, but in his usual manner seemed to forget about it for almost a month, so I did too. Then one day he emails me and asks me if I know how to "unbundle" a pdf. I reply with, what does unbundling mean? He then explains that it means to "take apart a pdf." To this my answer is no, but I have TONS of tech savvy friends (including mysef) and one of them must know how to do it. I was on the case...
 
I started by asking my fiance who owns his own IT consulting company and he had never heard of the term "unbundling" but certainly wanted to know more. I then went to my roommate (a producer who works on a mac) and she had no idea what it ment but after careful explanation knew that this was something which required adobe pro (something my office would never have) and no, she had never heard of it referred to as "unbundling." Hmm...

Back at the office I was asked how the "unbundling" was going, to which I replied, "I'm still working on it." This answer oddly seemed to be enough for him and he proceeded to leave for lunch and not return until the following day (he does this a lot)

The following day I was asked again about the "unbundling" and I told him what my roommate had told me...we didn't have the software to do it and if we only had the original document before it was pdf'ed we wouldn't need to go through all of this. He looked slighty confused and blurted out a few more senseless sentences pepper with the word "unbundle." I began to wonder where he had read about this illusive "unbundling" or what jackass was messing with him because he said it ith such conviction as if he himself has once "unbundled."

The subject again fizzled and he was unexplicably missing from the office for days, apparently leaving his assistant to ponder the mystery that is known as "unbundling." At this point the mere utterance of the word "unbundle" makes me cringe and I am blabbing about it to everyone I know in order to prove to myself that this is indeed a made-up word. I became almost determined to prove him wrong and destroy his cool, unwielding assurance that unbundling was certainly a well-known and accuarate term for being able to manipulate parts of a pdf and I was not just his sad little uncultured troll of an assistant who just didn't get it.

So today I sluggishly dragged myself to my unfulfilling and somewhat absurd place of work and was again confronted with the term. Now, I feel that I should mention that I was still harboring a resentment from an irritating email the day before where the same boss accused me of sending an email to the wrong address when I cut and pasted it from an email sent directly from him. (So, perhaps I was a bit on edge.) Again he gave me a packet to "unbundle" and create a new document from and I responded telling him that I had never heard of unbundling and we needed the original document or adobe pro in order for me to do what he asked and none of my super tech-savvy friends had ever heard of the term! He responded with "fine, then you can re-type the entire thing into a word document." The "entire thing" is 15 pages of tables and figures...I am now a believer and am desperatly seeking an unbundler to fulfill all of my unbundling needs...know anyone? 

The other day my boyfriend sent me the link to an ebay auction happening in Australia. A man is auctioning off his entire life....everything. His house, his job, his friends, and all of his possessions. As part of an effort to start his life over after a failed marriage.
So, naturally being the self-involved person that I am I have to ask myself..could I ever do that? Automatically the answer was yes, as I am a habitual re-starter. I am constantly imagining how I can live my life differently and CHANGE. This may be partially in thanks to my New York, (better job, better apartment, better clothes) state of mind, but what if I have no one to blame it on but myself? What if I, Miss B am never satisfied and will spend the rest of my days seeking out a happiness that I will never achieve, because there will always be sometime better to aspire to? Or what if I m a complete bullshitter and total lazy ass and I would never actually really do this? Okay, its definitely the latter of the two, but isn't it fun to imagine?
So, in the spirit of childhood creativity here goes...what would I miss the most? My friends, family and of course my little dog Harpo. Currently I reside on my best friend's couch so missing a real home is already a part of my daily routine. Now I'm sure the little things like oh...I don't have any clothing, or more importantly a job, but who needs those when you have $350,000 (at least that was close to the bid when I last checked) in the bank? Wouldn't it be fun to throw nostalgia to the wind and go for it? Buy new clothes, find a new pad, new friends, new, new, new. Nah...after a few shopping sprees and one or two personal hygiene disasters (oh, I don't ave any deodorant, toothpaste, tampons, you get the idea) you would want to call someone up and share you new found everything with them, but you couldn't because they aren't your friends or family anymore, they would be this (really creepy and uber rich) other person's. What would you do then?
And what kind of people would want to hang out with YOU? I can already imagine the awkward banter with someone you've just met and a potential new friend (let's face it...you need someone to talk to) "So, you gave up your entire life because you got dumped." ...FREAK! Or you will get the weirdos who are fascinated by your decision and want to hear all about it...ultimately so they can blog about it or have their fifteen minutes of fame on the local tv network in the random town that you will soon be living in.
More importantly how could you allow someone to ruin your whole entire existence? Relationships can leave you reaching for the razor blade , but isn't this a bit much? Aren't the people you are throwing (selling) away supposed to be the ones you need the most when you are enduring what very well might be the most difficult time in your life. How can you reject those who love you in the same way this former love did to you? Haven't you ever heard of making new memories? You shouldn't  but you can, you are just coping out. My Grandfather used to tell me that an education was important because it was something that nobody could ever take away from you, well memories are the same way. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to move on because no matter how far you run and how many possessions you give away you will still have those memories in your head and although they may fade and become less painful, they still aren't going anywhere.

Is it just me or do happy people look ignorant? Okay, maybe not ignorant...but kind of out of it, like perhaps they are missing something, not completely mentally challenged, but just out of our lexicon. The other night I was standing outside of my second job, people watching and I saw this woman walk by. Her long hair flowing behind her with a boho outfit on and a huge smile on her face. Not the kind-of smile you have on your face for a fleeting moment when you are thinking of something that makes you happy or at least that amuses you. This was a look of total happiness, like all was and always has been right with her world. Like smiling like a damn clown was the most natural everyday occurrence, because her world was completely lacking in anything that could possibly upset her. Kind-of like the happiness children exude before they become adolescents who despise everyone.  
I don't know why it struck me, but I just couldn't help but think....she must be special, perhaps her smile was not one of inclusion of all that is right with the world, but an exclusion of all of the awful things that normal humans encounter because she was too clueless to understand that no one should be so happy. Who knows maybe she was just a tourist..those Europeans with their universal health care, obscene vacation time, and insane conversion rate should be so happy. 

The other day I walked out of my office to grab some lunch and was approached by a seemingly normal Wall Streetian. He said “hey, are you an intern?” I failed to respond as I do find it hard to speak when my mouth is open in sheer disbelief. Again he asked, “are you an intern, because you look really young?”  
Now, I normally don't have to dig very deep to respond in my innate sarcastic manner, but something about this question just threw me off.  “No, I actually work in the building.....I'm a lot older than you think.” ARGH! WTF? Is this guy for real? REALLY...I mean REALLY! What an idiot. I guess I stumbled across one of those guys who drinks scotch for lunch or who hasn't been properly socialized and doesn't play well with others and may or may not have bodies stashed in his freezer.  But anyway, what annoyed me the most was my response to this question and the fact that this is not the first time I have been approached by a man who asked me a question about my age and gave me a “once over.”
Perhaps I am in the wrong, maybe I unknowingly wear a tattoo across my forehead that says, “intern” or “young girl.” That must be it! Clearly I roam around NYC attempting to seduce dirty old men with my virginal qualities. Beat it creeps! I'm 26 years old for crying out loud!
So now I ask myself, what should I have said? What tag line can I store in my memory for the next episode of what not to say to strange people on the street. Here is what I came up with:
1.No, actually I am an unemployed circus performer...are you hiring?
2.No, I work for homeland security and I just wanted to see how difficult it was the infiltrate the building's security...carry on  
3.Yes, I am...WOW how did you know? You are SUPER smart! What do you do?
4.No, I'm not a F*&^%ing intern! Are you here to sing up for the focus group about penile implants?  Oh, excuse me was I out of line? Well guess what? SO ARE YOU!
5.No! You ignorant degenerate fool! I have a full-time job here making sure that young girls do not grow up feeling self-conscious when approached by an unsavory imbeciles like yourself!
Oh,  don't you love drama to break up the day? 

I had another of my three part series of dentist appointments tonight. Let me start by saying that I am not a big fan of the dentist BUT I am also not one of those people who is absolutely terrified or at least I like to think so anyway. When I sat in the big chair I started to get a little nervous while anticipating the unnecessasarily large novocaine needle. I clenched my fists and it was over with only one outburst by yours truely, then the drilling began. AHHHHHHHH!!! Lets just say that  maybe I need a bit more novocaine than your average person...ok fine I'm a big girl I can take it...once again the monstrous needle emerges and then the drilling.........it still hurt, but I tried to hide it fearing the needle more than the drill and the resulting shooting pain. "Are you ok?" my almost too sweet dentist asked. "because your fists are clentched?" I hadn't realized that I had my whole body twisted as if I was a POW suffering yet another torture and my right hand had actually gone numb as a result of the clenching. I nodded that I was infact fine and I even gave a pathetic grin. In an effort to keep my mind from the staggering pain I tried to think of worse things that I could be going through. Here is what I came up with.....
1. having hundreds of razor blades thrown at my naked body and then being thrown into a vat of lemon juice
2. biting my own tounge off and eating it
3. being stuck in the desert in the middle of a sand storm with nothing to cover my mouth and breathing in sand until I suffocated
4. having my pointer finger sliced into a million little pieces with a tiny knife...similar to that if a piece of garlic being cut into tiny itty bitty pieces with a razor blade all while it was still attached to my body of course!
By the time I got to number five I couldn't help but wonder where the hell the adrenaline was that would make me numb and dull the pain just long enough for me to refuse another shot of novocaine....who the hell did I think I was..James Frey? Wait, that wasn't even true...God why am I such a baby about the stupid novocaine needle?
6. being burried alive in a coffin like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, but not having the Kung Fu skills to get out
7. being caught in an avalanche wearing only a bikini and flip flops
8. having someone perform an autopsy on me while I was still alive...I've seen a video of one (don't ask) and it's not pretty, they carve you up like a  turkey and then sew you back up like nothing happened!
9. being chased and then killed by Chucky...that damn doll scares the crap out of me!
ok...theres no time for 10 she's finished!!! Thank god! Who knows what crazy thing I would have thought of next!
In the end though I survived and she even gave me a discount:-) I think it was out of pity and because she needs me to come back now, not one but two more times! Maybe I should just hit up happy hour before my next visit...nothing relaxes me like a Jack and coke:-) See you in two weeks doc!