*Phew!*

I got Nintendo DS for Xmas, and it has two different brain training games (also a Zelda game and an eye training game).

This brought a certain degree of relief because now I can keep my brain from turning to slurry despite all the envelope stuffing!

I hope you all got what you wanted this season -- I know I'm pretty happy.

Envelope Stuffing

Why is it that I always feel compelled to write whilst stuffing envelopes at my job? Perhaps it's to console my rage, or perhaps it's simply to remind myself that I can still produce words and think thoughts despite the drudgery.

Oh well, I don't stuff envelopes every day -- I was afraid that's all it appears I do. I also order food and open envelopes. :-)

Anyway, I just wanted to make an entry here pre-xmas to wish you all (or, to wish me...who am I kidding, no one else reads this) a happy merry celebratory season. I know I'm having a pretty good time so far. I even went to the mall last night and didn't get too cranky until we were getting ready to leave and my mother wanted to go to Kohl's for the 3rd time in 2 days. I was impressed with my stamina.

Soooo...have good holidays. I'll be back with more tales of envelope stuffing soon.

Ah...December

Or more like..."Ack! December!!!" It's disgustingly cliche, but I really don't know where the time sped off to in the past couple of months. I while my days away stuffing envelopes and phoning caterers about missing table linens that someone else never thought to order or tell me about ordering, and I guess the hours just slide away without me bothering to think much about it. Sad, it seems when I do stop to think about it.

Anyway, it's the Xmas time of year; you know, when it's dark all the time and traffic blows more than usual and wonderful classic songs like "Feliz Navidad" and that damn "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" Paul McCartney travesty can be heard resounding from the heavens all day every day. Yeah, I'm a grinch. Though, as I remarked to my good friend Lanester recently, I have felt more charitable about Xmas this year...I think it has something to do with the fact that no one has any money to go buy ridiculously unnecessary gifts for each other this year so the season feels more authentic somehow...like more how the holidays felt to me as a little kid -- no pressure, just fun.

Also, I get some time off work, so that's always the best gift of all.

Of fog and fogginess...

The fog crept into the corners of the tri-county area sometime last evening to poison my thoughts with its Dickensian associations and make it hard to drive on the highway. It hasn't abated today, but instead stuck around to keep me from thinking clearly...I'm just too mentally tired and want to be home curled up with a book and some hot tea.

Instead I'm stuffing envelopes.

Of course, I am listening to the awesome Juliana Hatfield from my iPod plugged into the weeny little computer speaker-bar-thing in my office while stuffing said envelopes, so things could be more boring and sad than they are.

I visited baby Lily last night (whom I apparently cause to vomit repeatedly), and it was nice to see such a comfy-looking little bundle of person despite the fact that I cause her some digestive distess. I cause myself digestive distress, though, so maybe no one should be surprised. I guess that could be my superhero power -- making people puke and feel bad in their stomachs.

Short attention span

I usually have a short attention span (can you tell by how often I've written here?), but it's really bad today.

So much is going on in the little world around me that I just haven't been processing at the correct speed, and now it's making me not be able to pay attention to producing various correspondence and stuffing various envelopes at my job.

I got some work done this morning, so I guess that's something.

The word I hate most...

Not that I'm even sure whether I will vote in this election, but I've been surviving the assault of people constantly yammering on about it for the past 30 or so months, and from out of the all the pissing and moaning I have heard one word more than any other (well, maybe it's a tie with "change" and "maverick," but still): experience.

And not that anyone cares what I think, but I just want to say how much I hate that word. Yes, it does have something to do with the fact that I've been burned by it, but seriously -- it doesn't mean anything. What is experience, after all, but the fact that you've done something before...you've had an experience? But then there's this pesky other issue of "having experience." How many times must you have an experience before you "have experience" with that experience?

For idiots, I would assume that they could have the same experience day after day and never master the task or learn anything from it -- like me with brushing my hair or getting dressed. I suck at brushing my hair and getting dressed, but I've been doing it for 20-odd years; do I "have experience?" If I worked at the same job for those same 20-odd years, I'm sure you'd say I "have experience," right?

But would you say I "have experience" being a secretary? I've been one for a year and four months, and I feel like I've mastered all there is to master (if you can call it that). My tenure as a secretary has been much shorter than Barack Obama's as a senator and is even shorter than Sarah Palin's as governor of Alaska. Yet, these people do not "have experience" according to many opinions I've heard and read. Of course, maybe you don't think I "have experience" being a secretary...

So tell me, what does it mean to "have experience?" And what does having experience really matter? I personally think one's ability and willingness to learn mean much more than this experience nonsense. Of course, this is coming from a person with more experience in learning than anything else.

One in my long list of "things for losers"

I will never be an event planner. Planning events is time-sucking and banal. Figuring out seating arrangements and floral centerpiece decorations could not be less thrilling for me (maybe this is because I'm generally misanthropic, but I like to imagine it's because I have more significant uses for my time).

Printing/mailing invitations? Annoying.

Receiving RSVPs? Also annoying, and something that can more effectively be done by an answering machine or an email inbox.

Making name tags and place cards? Come on...are you serious? Everyone hates name tags, don't they?

But alas, I am female and somebody's secretary, so I guess I'm doomed to plan events for now. And I apologize in advance if I forget to order something obvious like table linens or neglect to update the caterers on the guest count as of right this minute. I just didn't think about it.

My name

I always thought my name was weird and singular -- "Kelly Kleinfelter" does not seem like it would happen twice, you know? Upon Googling myself, however, I have come to find that there are several similarly named women out there (not sure whether there are any men). Some spell it "Klinefelter," but it's still the same name.

This makes me wonder about their lives and the lives of their families. My name has meant a lot to me and has shaped some experiences in profound ways. I can not say that having this mouthful of a name hasn't been a burden for me.

Are they constantly asked to spell out their/our name? Does this annoy them? Embarrass them?

Are they amused by creative misspellings of their/our name? (For the record, the best I've seen so far is "Kelley Caleinselczer").

Were they ever called "Kelly Feltersnatch" by teasing boys in high school?

Mom quotes

I have intermittently collected quotes from my mom in the past, as she so often comes out with so many memorable utterances. This is a project that I realized quite recently should become a more regular focus. To start, I offer one of my favorites to date:

As she stands considering a flyer posted on the bulletin board by the registers at the grocery store, she questions, "what's this about confederate coupons?" I ask, "you mean, counterfeit coupons?" before making some crack related to worthless Civil War era currency (I never said I wasn't both a nerd and a smart ass). She proceeds to laugh and laugh as she always does following one of these misreading accidents that happens much too frequently since she refuses to wear her glasses.

Oh, my mom.

So it is written...

My horoscope told me I should write a poem today, but I just don't have it in me.

Do you think I can save it for tomorrow?

The big D

While not a literal roast beef concern, my excessive student loan debt is related. After all, it is a concern, and it directly affects my ability to afford roast beef (and other items essential and non-essential to my survival).

It's hard not to get a little sad, then a little panicked, (then a little bitter) when I see that date in 2032 (June 28th) on which I can plan to celebrate the payoff of all student loans incurred over the course of 6 years of private post-secondary education. At least I only have $88,829.29 left to pay! Good thing I majored in English and then went on for that useful MA in art history/museum studies. Oh wait...

An on-topic post

My parents got home from "the shore" yesterday afternoon.

I returned from a long day at work to find them puzzling over what to eat for supper. Unsurprisingly perhaps, they selected roast beef dinners from the Twin Kiss after much discussion.

My mother was concerned because the roast beef wasn't "quite right," but rather chopped much too thinly according to her preferences. Additionally, the included beef gravy was not believed to be the correct consistency, though I had to disagree.

The meal ended with much of her roast beef dinner being stored in the refrigerator uneaten.

It's begun...

And in it's beginning, I feel I would be remiss not to mention where it came from and where it's going. (I know it's probably cliche, but humor me -- I'm tired, and being cliche is always a problem for me when tired).

If you know me well, you're aware of my dreams to make the world see itself in terms of my small, but bizarre perspective -- to really experience the madness the way I have (and do). This is why the Roast Beef Concern is necessary.

My father inspired the original Concern, which was imagined as a quarterly publication, with fretting over a Twin Kiss roast beef dinner near the sink in the outdated kitchen of his ranch-style home. I labored over whether this should ultimately remain the Quarterly Roast Beef Concern, but I settled on dropping the "Quarterly" because I don't want to hold myself to any restricting schedules. What can I say? I'm a free wheeler, baby.

As for where this is going? Well, once again, if you know me well, you're pretty much sure this isn't going anywhere. And I can't guarantee that I'll write any more than what you're reading now, but if I do...it's going to be freaking GREAT!