Whit keeps sending me the office jargon offense-of-the-day from her cubicle and I love it. Horrific and so uncessary. The latest gem: "Well, I could just throw my crayons on the floor and leave the whole project." Why. Why is this necessary?

I hope this is accurate, and all this will soon be phased out. Its like living inside Walmart with filtered air and generic music piped through my brain. Its so easy and categorized! Ooo! Look at the sensible no-skid shoes. How efficient! Maybe some day we'll see films based in the early 21st century littered with cheezeball buzzwords. Low hanging buckets. Dotted line to low hanging buckets.

Until then, she & I continue to create our own. I can't stop. To be used in board room meetings, or in the heat of the corpo-moment in the cut & paste ER room before a presentation. The goal is to communicate these with the same condescending corpo-conviction yet have them make almost no sense.

"Its fish-fry time, folks".
"No, John, what you need to do is really cannonball this concept right into the birds nest."
"It's a soft-sell, but with under-the-broiler-ideas, Ron."
"Someone has to stop circling the roundabout and chew the raisins."
"I'd like to see which side of the can the teabag sticks."
"Look, I wont be the one caught holding the plunger this time."

I typed this, got called into a meeting, and someone, I swear, said "What's the WIIFM here?" For all of us dullards, that is lingo for "Whats In It For Me". My WIIFM? Anything that will allow me to grab my purse, walk out the front door of this building and not stop until I am at least 100 miles from any board room. Ah, vacation is soon. Beach. Sand. Toes.

Predictably, our highest paying client is a hot-head. And worse, he's brilliant, so nothing 'slips' by. Ever. He intimidates me into a humorless, speechless ditz. "I'll get right on it. Great idea", I dryly squeak. But its not just me, its this way for everyone.

On a call recently, he dialed in from a remote location. Painstakingly, we chugged through each item on our endless status report and the subsequent interrogation. I stared at my upcoming ONE line-item, my dreaded web trends reports, and chewed my cheek.

At a proper stopping point, our account lead announced that Carol, a senior team member and client-favorite, was leaving the agency. But not to worry, our client was reassured, a superstar replacement was on the way from NYC, and until then, Charlie would hold down the fort!

Charlie is a young, quiet and hardworking media guy. At this point in the call, he had his head down, way down, over his notebook that he was furiously pencilling something over and over again.

The last bit of news sunk in. "WHAT?" the client exploded. "FOR HOW LONG?! WHEN DOES THE NEW PERSON START? THERE IS A LAG!" Charlie drew harder. It was excruciating.

Carol and others jumped in to reassure. The client was at last quieted. Humiliated and terrified, Charlie finally picked his head up, with the blood rushing from his cheeks, thus exposing the notebook. I nudged Rob, my boss, sitting next to me and motioned him to look at the pad. Unknown to Charlie, we all strained to see what he'd been pencilling.

Carol, a little giddy with goodbyes and flatteries, couldnt control herself. "OH MY GOD!" she loudly burst in her thick southern accent, "Everybody: Charlie's drawn a noose!" He turned scarlet and was speechless, incredulous, eyes wide. For the first time ever, no one had anything to say, not even the client. I almost had to leave the room, it was so beautifully awkward.

Just now, a few weeks later, I saw him in the kitchen drinking some flu medicine. He cracks me up, all conservative and dry-humored. I applauded him for surviving the 'lag'. He mumbled something and then at once said: "I cant believe Carol 'outed' me like that. MAN. Now that's the sign of a woman-on-the-go." He shook his head and walked off, his mug of flu medicine steaming behind him. Not sure why, but that whole exchange is priceless to me.

Stuart always said that the coolest person she knew was the person who was uncool. Right, I thought, I got it: those that aren't trying to be cool are cool. This worked well for me, as I skewed toward the dot com guys with glasses, or the skinny east villagers.

What she meant was those that aren't trying to be cool or uncool. The person I think she admired the most was a coworker from her first job at a TV station. She was always invited to our "cool" parties in SF, and in the rare instances where I'd stop hobnobbing with writerly friends and say hi to her, I was always amazed by how smart, funny and original she was.

Sandwiched between the piercings and Na-Na boots, she sat freshfaced with a midwest accent in her mom-shorts and sensible bouncy hair. She was dazzling: without any pretense, boasting, or littany of accomplishments, she was just generally enthusiastic to hear what anyone else was up to.

I mean, she truly didn't care, there was no battle to prove anything. Even though she was one of the funniest people with total creative genius, she felt no need to convey it to anyone. I'm so tired of people trying to desperately prove that they are not at all one thing and are definately another sort of person. Boring. I dont care what people have on their resume or what they drive. I get it. The proving. Uncool.

I find myself spelling out my passwords a lot lately at work, training a new woman here and a few IT issues. I want to change mine to be specific anatomical ones. How brilliant that would be? With no apology or explanation. I'd be running around in my heels and ponytail, calling cheerfully across the office: "Go ahead and log on as me: username is Holly, password is anus." Or writing it on a piece of paper for the HR person, not all ashamed, in big betters. Rectum.

Grey. Blustry. I actually enjoy the early spring, even though I know it brings near-dispair to Scott. This time of year he's stricken with an indefatigable case of cabin fever. If it weren't for his love of the Cheasapeake, I bet we'd be living in San Deigo. Or Death Valley. Whatever.

Happily, we had some visitors arriving, providing solid distraction. Scott's sister's family were all flying up to stay with us for part of last week and the weekend. The cleaning process was initiated weeks in advance-- we still had wedding gifts stashed throughtout the house. Not to mention all the many details I seem to overlook in every day living: smeary fingerprints on the disposal switch, the top of the microwave, etc. Ew.

Scott submerged to the basement, which sadly had started to become a large pet-potty (but who can be mad at the senior and crippled doggy?). Magically, several weekends later, he had transformed it to be a total guy's grotto. Mini-fridge, fish pictures hung, comfy chairs. Its amazing: any male that visits is inexplicably sucked down. It must harken back to a younger day, perhaps second base and beer. Or maybe earlier-- a fort. Seriously, I hear them down there, "Dude, you know what you can put down here?" An underground tunnel? A coke machine? Personally, I'd like to see the Merv Griffin set, but won't interfere.

We were ready, and our guests rolled into town. A routine developed where I would wisk in from work, already a little tired, and turn into this freaky welcome wagon. Betty Crocker on crack. I must have inherited this from my mom, a consummate hostess. I'd deliver everyone drinks, created PAAS crafts with the neices, while preparing dinner-- always insisting that everyone relax and no one lift a finger.

This plan was sure to backfire. I could hear the guys downstairs yukking it up while I lumbered around in the kitchen like a human gorilla, adorned on both arms by little girls clamped on like those koala bear pencils. Pots for dinner boiling over while a kiddy science experiment took place on the precious counter real-estate. Lugging old, heavy dining room chairs up from the basement for each meal, ceremoniously whacking my shins with each step. "No, no. I've got it!"

By the weekend, I was wearing down. We found ourselves museum-hopping in a cold, damp DC one of their last days. I found snips like this emitting from my mouth, "NO. We are not doing that anymore." Pulling away from tuggy hands. I think I fell asleep for like 45 seconds in a museum-movie. I was worn out and, well, mean.

Even though I had turned mean, I was really sad to see them all go. Not surprisingly, Scott and I came down with nasty colds shortly after they left. This weekend we've been gleefully lazy around the house, luxuriating with cooking shows and Heavily Gay TV (HGTV). I had a glass of wine at 4:00 yesterday.

I knew it wouldnt last-- I knew the cabin-fever hadn't let go of Scott. Sure enough, this morning he jetted off in his car, something about a fish store. ? He returned with tubes, new fish, some rocks. Today would be overhaul-the-fish-tank (that I have paid no attention to. Ever.)-day. Its actually really cool, even I am now interested in it--- except for the sad suckerfish who just didnt make it. Sad.

There is one bully in the tank. He zips around and chases away the cheery clown fish. I asked Scott about it.

"When you go to the fish store, the fish are all labeled. Right on the tank, it would read 'Peaceful, gets along with others'", he chuckled, "I saw this one fish's label read simply "Mean'."

How handy! How much easier life would be for us if we could be categorized similarly. I pictured me, outside of the museum with my head encased in a fish tank, marked with a prominant label: MEAN. Run, children!