Flattery Isn't Getting Me The Hell Out Of Here

So I had an eye doctor appointment tonight.
I had a conference call scheduled at the end of the day that was supposed to keep me at work a half an hour later than usual, but most of the people who were supposed to be on it were no-shows, so I ended up only leaving about 10 minutes later than usual.
This put me at more than two hours between leaving work and having my appointment, but I didn't want to have to go home, sit around for a while, and then go out again.
So I took a roundabout path to Leesburg, then headed to Super-Target where, to kill time, I got a personal pan pizza from the Pizza Hut Express.
The reason I'd gone to Target was to pick up The Dark Knight on Blu-ray.
In fact, I ended up buying the special 2 disc limited edition with the "Batpod" replica display case, as can be seen here:


*Ahem* Neeeeerrrrrrddddddd!

After doing as much shopping as I could, I still had over an hour before my appointment, so, reluctantly, I went home.
Once I got to the eye doctor's I ended up having to wait for nearly an hour, which annoyed me because the only reason I was there was for him to see how my eyelid gunk looked now that I've been scrubbing my eyelids.
While I was there I got multiple compliments on my hair - on both its style and its color - and I was thinking, "That's nice, but complimenting my hair isn't getting me out of here any faster, or making me want to be here. Especially since most of the compliments are coming from a guy."
Eventually I got out of there after learning that I'm doing very well with the whole eyelid gunk scrubbing. So, "Yay me," I guess.
I overheard one of the patients talking about how he bought his wife a Mercedes for Christmas, which the dealership will deliver on Christmas Eve, bow and all, as a surprise.
I didn't think shit like that actually happened anywhere outside of commercials.
Anyway, that's pretty much all there is to report.

Excitement, Passion, And Intrigue...Or, You Know, The Usual

Okay, I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, so you’re all probably eager to get your usual fix of excitement, passion, and intrigue that can be found in the typical Threshold post.
By excitement, passion, and intrigue, of course, I mean me complaining about traffic and talking about taking naps.
So fasten your seat belts; you’re in for a wild ride!
On Wednesday, Scott came over for Riff Trax night. We ate at the Fuddruckers in Ashburn. Business there was so slow as to make us wonder if this was yet another place that closed up shop at 5, though things did start to pick up a little as we were leaving.
We watched the Riff of The Matrix Reloaded, and an episode of Buffy (the Emmy-nominated Hush) that Scott had never seen before and which had come up in conversation one day.
Sadly, Mike and the gang have not yet Riffed on The Matrix Revolutions, so we won’t be able to complete the trilogy any time soon.
On Thursday I had an eye appointment after work. I hate having to do anything other than just go home after work – Riff Trax nights excepted, of course – and I especially hate it on Thursdays, because all I want to do is just get home, get the night over with, and have it be Friday.
Given that I had to sit around for almost an hour before actually getting my exam done, I was more annoyed than usual by the interruption.
The upshot of the exam is that my eyes are doing fine, except for the mucus build-up on my eyelids, so I have to scrub my eyelids every day with some solution that I’m sure is nothing more than baby shampoo, go back in three weeks to see how the mucus is doing, and then go back again for my regular check-up in three months.
While I was driving to my appointment I came to the conclusion that a significant number of the people on the road either

Have no particular destination, and are just driving for the sake of driving, idly meandering their way to wherever it is that they finally end up.

or

Have a destination, but aren’t particularly interested in actually getting there any time soon.

The other possible explanation, of course, is that they’re just douchebags who are trying to ruin things for everyone else, which may actually be the likeliest explanation.
Whatever the case, I find myself continually baffled by the people who seem to be deliberately delaying themselves – and by extension, delaying others – by slowing down as they approach green lights, or waiting as long as they possibly can to start moving when the light turns green, or making last-second, disruptive lane changes (“Wait, I’m not turning right, I want to turn left. Well, I’m sure the people behind me won’t mind while I lumber my way over to the left turn lane.”).
So there’s the “complaining about traffic” portion of the excitement, passion, and intrigue.
Up next is my Friday night, which was full of excitement in the form of taking a nap and then watching a bunch of TV.
Today I went out to go to the comic shop, where, in addition to buying comics I went over the list of subscriptions I had to remove anything I don’t want to keep buying and to update my contact information. I only removed one title – a book they had auto-added a while back – as several of the comics I read are getting canceled pretty soon anyway.
After that I made a quick trip to Super Target to get as much grocery shopping done in a short a period as possible, and then stopped to gas up my car, trying to remember the last time I paid less than $2 a gallon for gas.
Once I got home and ate lunch, I resolved to not take a nap today.
My resolve lasted all of 45 minutes.
And that is your excitement, passion, and intrigue-filled Threshold update.

The Remaining Gap Or Can't Someone Else Do It?

I was supposed to have an eye appointment this evening, but it had to be rescheduled for next week.
However, the appointment reminded me of the fact that when I made my “filling in the gaps” post a while back, there was one that I missed.
(Note that you didn’t miss anything as a result of my lack of posting yesterday. I worked, came home, dozed on the couch, watched TV, went to bed. Exciting stuff.)
In any case, on the day before Halloween I woke up in a bad mood, for no particular reason that I could identify. It was just a lousy, under a black cloud, hate world…revenge soon kind of day.
I told Scott, “I don’t want to do this anymore,” and went on to explain that by “this” I meant all of it: everything that’s involved in being Jon.
I had decided that 36 years of being Jon was long enough and that it was time to retire and let someone else do it. Meanwhile, I could start being Dave, or Steve, or anyone other than Jon.
Of course this wasn’t really an option, and realizing and understanding this fact made my mood even darker.
I wasn’t sure what time my eye appointment was, so I called the office to confirm, and ended up sitting on hold for an extended period of time.
Because I was still Jon, I was, of course, gracious and understanding about the whole hold time thing and said that it wasn’t a problem.
I’d put off going to the comic shop on Wednesday so that I could stop by there on Thursday, stop somewhere to get something to eat after that, and then go straight to my appointment.
Naturally I ended up getting stuck at work later than usual, so after stopping at the comic shop I really didn’t have enough time go figure out where I wanted to eat, go there, eat, and make it to my appointment on time.
So I skipped the eating part, which meant that I still ended up getting to the eye doctor’s early, getting progressively more pissed off about the nature of my Jon-ness and my inability to escape it.
I sat in the car for a little while sifting through my CDs to find one to replace what was currently in the CD player, and while I did so, some lady and her kids pulled up nearby. They got out of their car and one of the kids was blathering on about something, which prompted me to angrily mock him as I sat there.
I got out of my car and spotted a Lexus SUV, parked diagonally across four parking spaces, noted the “McCain/Palin” and “I [Heart] Palin” bumper stickers, and also the presence of a yappy little dog inside and found myself hating the world that much more.
To kill a few more minutes I went into the far too busy Giant to pick up a couple of things, brought them back to my car – yappy dog still yapping – and then decided that it was close enough and went into the eye doctor’s office.
I did take heart in noting that the lady and her kids, who, after my unnoticed mocking, had gone into the eye doctor’s office themselves, were leaving, so I wouldn’t have to put up with them and fight my urge to make fun of the kid’s high-pitched pre-pubescent voice while inside.
Once I went in I was greeted by the girl I’d talked to on the phone earlier, who once again apologized profusely about the hold time, and when I said once again that it wasn’t a problem, she said to one of the other girls working there, “He’s just the nicest person.”
I thought, “If you’d seen me in my car ten minutes ago, or were privy to the thoughts I had while I was in Giant, I think your assessment would be a bit different.”
At this point I need to go off on a bit of an aside. Years ago, when I lived in Ashburn and went to the office location there for all of my eye-related needs, I semi-successfully asked out the extremely attractive office manager who worked there. It was semi-successful in that we ended up going on two dates, but ultimately – and frustratingly – nothing really came of it.
The end result aside, the actual act of asking her out had been kind of an irritating and humiliating experience. I’d gone in for my appointment with the intention of asking her out, but my nerve failed me, and I left without following through on my plan. However, once I got to my car I smoked a cigarette, steeled myself, turned around and walked back towards the office. When I got there, I saw that she was at the desk alone, so, coasting on adrenaline, I burst in and headed towards her. Seeing me, she looked up, and concerned that there might be a problem, asked if something was wrong.
Before I could utter a word, another patient came in. I sighed and decided that total privacy was unobtainable, and started to make my pitch, just as the eye doctor – the owner/senior partner – came back up front to ask her about something.
So he ended up being there to observe the whole nervous mess.
Since I’ve been doing the gentle molding thing, I’ve been treated by one of the associates/partners, who is a pleasant enough woman, which has been good, because, while I recognize that the chances of him remembering that debacle – or at least that I was the person involved in it – are almost nil, I can’t help feeling uncomfortable around the practice’s titular doctor.
Naturally I ended up getting examined by him, which annoyed me, as did the realization that the whole “Ashburn Incident” was five goddamn years ago already.
This was annoying because a. how did five years go by so quickly? b. can’t I just forget about that nonsense already? and c. I really haven’t had a date since that time? *Sigh*
Still, I fought down all of the day’s annoyances and my black mood and stayed “in character” through the whole thing, which took a lot of effort and made me tired. Noticeably so, apparently, as the doctor suggested that after the exam I should go home and get some rest.
On my previous check-ups I haven’t been given any instructions as to how many nights I should have worn my lenses before going in, and this appointment happened to fall on the day after my night off. The doctor requested that I come back after having worn the lenses for a full four nights.
He also mentioned that, while it had been cleared away by my watering eyes in the course of the examination, I apparently have some sort of mucus build-up on my eyelids that can interfere with the production of tears (another fun part of being Jon: the grossness just doesn’t quit), and a good tear layer is essential to the gentle molding process, so he also wanted me to come back to have that checked out, and, if necessary, have my eyelids scrubbed, which just sounds like it’ll be a blast.
This is why I had an appointment for tonight, which has, as mentioned, been rescheduled for next week.
In any case, that fills the remaining gap.
For the curious among you, I woke up feeling considerably less hateful and desirous of retiring from the job of being myself the next morning.
Oh, and the Lexus and the yappy little dog were still there when I got out of my appointment more than a half an hour later.
As for today, it’s been much like yesterday, with the notable exception of my writing this entry.
Tomorrow night is, of course, Riff Trax night, though we’ll most likely start off the evening by watching Hellboy 2 on Blu-ray…after I stop by Target and buy it, at any rate.
Thursday is too much TV night, so you likely won’t be seeing any sort of substantive entries before Frida.

No Chance

I had an eye doctor appointment this evening, the result of which is that I’ve been “released.” I wasn’t aware that I was in captivity.
What that means is that my progress is such that I no longer require regular follow-up visits and won’t have to return for six months.
When I was scheduling my next, half year-distant, appointment, the cute-ish girl asked how I’ve been, as it’s been a while since I was last there.
I said that I’ve mostly just been working and trapped in a cycle of making money and then spending it.
She said, “I wish I had money to spend.”
I said, “Well, it’s different for you; you’ve got kids.”
Agreeing that they do tend to eat up disposable income, she added, “But they’re worth it.”
I said, “Yeah, I suppose so. But I can’t take that chance.”
“What chance?”
“The chance that they might not be worth it.”
I then added, “I mean that literally. I actually cannot take that chance, given that people aren’t able to reproduce asexually.”
That seemed to slip past her.
I thought it was funny.
Somewhere in the conversation she mentioned that she’s been legally separated for seven months.
I suppose there would be some who would suggest that she did so rather pointedly.
Meh.
I mean, sure, she’s kind of cute and she has a nice rack, but she also has kids, as in plural, and, honestly, the last time I tried to date someone who worked at my eye doctor’s it didn’t really work out so well.
Of course, the last time I tried to date anyone it didn’t work out so well.
Beyond that, I don’t think that the reference to being separated was actually a pointed one anyway.
Maybe things will be different in six months.
(Yeah, right.)
I think I may have found a picture that I want to draw, so those of you who’ve been waiting for something new in that regard should start holding your breath.
Don’t worry if you turn blue and pass out; that just means it’s working.

Checking In

Not much new or exciting has gone on since last I posted, but that pretty much goes without saying.
After two nights of wearing my new, looser-fitting lenses, things are looking pretty good (no pun intended). Vision is getting clear, there’s no pain, and while I don’t share The Dazzler’s ability to stare directly at the sun without damaging my eyes (though I’m not a cheesy character created in a too-late attempt to cash in on the disco craze, so I’m one up on her in that regard), I can at least bear to be exposed to the light of day.
Whether or not I should be exposed to the light of day is another matter entirely.
As I got back to my desk after my third meeting of the day – a meeting that ran a half an hour longer than scheduled – I was pleased to see that my fourth meeting of the day had been rescheduled for tomorrow at 10.
After accepting the meeting invitation I realized that it conflicted with one of my weekly conference calls, and I wondered why it was that Outlook hadn’t informed me of that. As I took a drink of water I figured out why there was no warning of a conflict, and it’s a good thing that my mouth was full of water, as otherwise some of the more sensitive ears in the area around me might have been assaulted by a profanity as I realized that tomorrow is only Wednesday, not Thursday.
Two days in and it’s already been a long week…
At least tomorrow is new comics day, though I’m not sure what’s on the shelves (apart from Countdown to Final Crisis, of course), so I don’t know if it’s going to be a good week or not. I’m suspecting not, given how good last week was.
I finally have all the paperwork I need to get my taxes done gathered together, so now it’s just a matter of hauling my lazy ass in and getting them done. I’m thinking Thursday, as Thursday is payday.
And that’s pretty much the extent of what I have/have the energy to write about, so I’ll bring this entry to a close.

Hail To The Sleep

I woke up a bit before 8 this morning in a mild panic, forgetting that I didn’t actually have to work today. Once I remembered, I went back to sleep for about an hour and a half.
After that, I got up and showered and ventured out into the world with the intention of seeing if the barbershop I go to was open and getting a haircut, then going grocery shopping.
However, my eyes, once again, were jacked – I have an eye appointment tomorrow and hopefully we’ll be able to figure out what the deal is – so while I was going to stop at a branch of my bank that’s near a grocery store (Giant) to get some cash before heading over to the barber shop near the grocery store I was actually going to shop at (Shoppers Food Warehous), I decided instead to use the ATM inside the Giant and just grab a few groceries there.
Then I came home, put in some of the drops I have left over from my trip to urgent care, and then went back to bed.
My eyes feel fine now, but the drops dilate my pupils, so my vision isn’t what it should be.
Shortly after I woke up from my nap Kathleen called and we went to Subway to get lunch.
Yesterday we had brunch and did some (non-grocery) shopping.
My monitor is currently in Virginia – in Chantilly to be precise – but it appears that they won’t be delivering it today due to the holiday, so it’s just going to sit there fr 24 hours, and get delivered when I’m not home.
I asked Kathleen to hang out here tomorrow – she’s got a key to the house – but she has a bunch of other stuff to do, so can’t devote too much time to just hanging out here waiting. Hopefully it’ll arrive early enough.
Anyway, I can’t see what I’m typing, so I guess I’ll bring this entry to a close.

So Much For That Idea

First of all, happy birthday to my niece Jourdan, who is 21 today.
Because it’s a milestone birthday – and because I’m a wonderful uncle – I sent her a check for $100.
Her reaction upon seeing this was to say, “Holy fuck!”
Class act, that niece of mine.
Of course, anyone who’s ever lived the poor college student lifestyle can understand her unrestrained excitement.
Las night, because my eyes have been fine for the past few days and I’d completed the course of antibiotic eye drops, I decided I would give the Gentle Molding lenses another shot, figuring that if they bothered me it wouldn’t be a big deal because it’s the weekend.
When I woke up this morning (inexplicably at around 7:30), I took them out and everything seemed fine, but within an hour my left eye was burning and watering and sensitive to light (though not nearly so bad as last Monday).
So I guess I won’t be trying that again soon.
Hopefully this isn’t an indication of some permanent problem that will prevent me from using the lenses.
Presumably it’s the fact that I have a head cold/sinus infection thing going on causing the problems, but I haven’t really been experiencing any symptoms of that in the past few days.
In fact, it wasn’t until my eyes started bugging me (my right eye doesn’t seem to be irritated, but rather responding in sympathy to the left’s plight) that my nose started running. Is it some sort of allergen? The symptoms feel a lot like an allergic reaction.
In any case, I’ll give the lenses a rest for the week and maybe try to set up an eye appointment for Friday evening to get them checked out.
Not much else is going on, and my vision is kind of hazy right now, so I guess I’ll bring this entry to a close.
I may be back later with a Keyword Kraziness entry.

I'm "Looking" Better All The Time

Last night it occurred to me that I should do something with what little free time I have remaining, so I e-mailed Scott to see if he wanted to have lunch today.
As Stacy had given him a ride to work, I had to pick him up, which meant actually having to talk to the security person at the gate in order to get in to the parking lot, as I no longer have badge access. I wasn’t on the visitor list, so she had to call Scott to confirm that I wasn’t a security risk.
Once I’d picked him up we headed for a Chinese buffet place, where I remarked that the “easy listening” music that was playing sounded like something straight out of a soft-core porn. I could totally picture Nicole Sheridan and Evan Stone getting it on with that music playing in the background, as it sounded more specifically like something that would be in one of the “Bikini” family of soft-core porn movies, which Sheridan and Stone have often appeared in (it could just as easily have played during a girl-girl scene featuring, say, Kennedy Johnston and Beverly Lynne).
The food was good, and it wasn’t to pricey. I may have to go there again sometime, as the Chinese buffet place here in Leesburg is only so-so.
I’ve got an eye appointment in a bit. I’d thought it was yesterday, but they called me yesterday afternoon to confirm that I was on for today. I’d scheduled it at 5:30 because when I was last there a bit over two weeks ago I thought that I’d still be working at the job that I didn’t want.
My eyes have been doing pretty good, I think – though I guess we’ll find out if that’s true after my appointment – and in particular they’ve been holding their new shape fairly well even on the morning after my night of not wearing them.
I’m not sure why, but I feel as though other people should notice the improvement somehow. I’m not sure how they would notice, though. I mean, I started wearing contacts in 2003, so people are used to seeing me without glasses already.
I guess it’s just that because I feel different I should somehow look different. The notion brings to mind a bad joke my dad would always make whenever someone got new glasses. He’d say, “You ‘look’ better.”
It was always good for a groan.

Waiting To Bail

My last update on the job I want was that they hoped to have final approval before today. The key word being “hoped.”
Every day this week on my breaks I’ve gone outside – there’s no cell reception inside – to check my voicemail. Monday and yesterday, I had nothing all day.
The first time I checked this morning, that trend continued.
However, the second time I checked I heard, “You have one new message,” and my heart skipped a beat.
Turns out it should have kept beating. It was just someone from the contracting company I’m working for calling to introduce himself, as he is going to be my new point of contact.
I was really hoping the call would come today, given that it was the last day of classroom training, meaning that tomorrow we’ll be out on the floor doing actual work.
I’ve decided that if/when I get the job offer I’m just going to bail on this one immediately. I really don’t see the point of sticking it out. Sure, I’d get paid for my time, but I’m not really hurting for money right now and I’d honestly just be wasting my time and theirs by hanging out and being pointlessly trained for a job I’m not actually going to do.
I left early today because I had an eye appointment. Though my initial results were so encouraging, and while things are still going well, there was such a drop in my vision from yesterday to today (last night was my night off for wearing the contacts) that the eye doctor decided I should go with the standard five nights on, one night off pattern rather than the three on, one off.
I can still see better within my bubble of clear vision and don't need my glasses for things like using the computer, but the range is considerably shorter than it was just yesterday, so that’s probably for the best.
And that was pretty much my day. I had fewer distracting thoughts about Carla Gugino, which, I suppose, is a good thing

Shadow Boxing (Plus: Yay!)

My second day of work was a little more craptacular than the first, simply because it involved doing even more of what made yesterday so craptacular, namely “shadowing” some of the existing employees and watching them work.
Now, this is sort of standard for training, and would actually be useful if it weren’t for the fact that, having been provided with no basic explanation of exactly what the people we’re watching are doing, their actions are largely incomprehensible.
Sure, they try to explain as they’re doing it, but that’s not the same as getting an overview beforehand.
But that’s all we did today for the whole day, up until the last half hour when we were brought back into the training room to verify that the logins we had been given for some of the things we’ll need to be able to log in to were working (and to change our temporary passwords for said logins).
Still, the day ended on a bit of a high note. Before heading off to work this morning I sent an e-mail to my potential boss at the job I want to let him know where things stood with me and to ask where things stood with the job.
While I spent the whole day watching someone else use a computer, I had no access to one myself until the login thing at the end of the day, and I can’t get a signal on my cell phone there, so all day long I sat and wished I could check my mail.
Once I was finally able to do so at the end of the day, I found that I had a response to my e-mail. He said that he expects to have final approval before Wednesday of next week, and that once he does they will immediately make me an offer.
(And I will immediately accept.)
So that was cool, and gives me the hope I need to keep gritting my teeth and wading through the crappiness of my new job.
Next week we’ll be doing some actual training in the use of the tools and learning the processes and procedures – which is what we should have been doing this week – rather than just shadowing people, so that should be more tolerable.

The Best Thing Ever Department:
When I wake up in the morning I find myself feeling like Fry in the Slurm Factory on Futurama, croaking in a dry, hoarse whisper that I am, “so thirsty.”
Somewhere along the line I discovered that the greatest thing ever – at least in terms of combating that morning desiccation – is ice-cold, flat 7-Up.
It’s seriously like the nectar of the gods.

Punking Out On Christmas Department:
Last year, in an odd change of pace, I actually bought everyone on my list real, honest-to-goodness Christmas presents, rather than simply giving money.
This year? Not so much, as I mailed my mom a check yesterday with instructions on how and to whom to distribute it.
I just couldn’t come up with any gift ideas for anyone (except my nephew Jeremy, but I thought it would be weird to single him out for a real present, so he’s just getting money like everyone else) this year, so it was just easier to whip out the checkbook. There are a couple of people around here who will probably get actual gifts, though.

The Clear Vision Bubble:
After I managed to kajigger the lenses out of my eyes this morning, my vision was even clearer than it has been. It’s still not at the level that my glasses or regular contacts brought it to, but I can definitely make my way through the world with ease with my reshaped corneas.
It’s kind of like I have this bubble of clear vision around me, the range of which falls just short of what I was able to achieve with wearing corrective lenses. I’m also finding that the bubble doesn’t really shrink throughout the course of the day anymore, and I’m always able to see near objects with a heretofore unseen (no pun intended) clarity.
One of the obstacles to seeing things at a greater distance as clearly sans glasses or contacts is the that I tend to see “halos” around illuminated objects that obscure them slightly, though this is apparently normal, and seems to be lessening.
Tonight will be the first night I sleep without the lenses in, then I wear them again for three nights starting tomorrow, and then I go to the eye doctor’s to get checked out after work on Wednesday.

I Once Was Blind But Now I See

After just one night’s use of the lenses, my vision in my right eye was 20/20 this morning, much to the eye doctor’s amazement. While there was considerable improvement in my left eye, it wasn’t quite as dramatic, though that’s only to be expected, given that it’s the eye in which I have an astigmatism, and that even with glasses I was only ever able to get it to 20/25.
The improvement will wear off in the course of the day, but eventually it will last longer, and it was sufficient that I felt confident to drive without wearing my glasses, something I never would have dared to do just a day ago.
Because my eyes responded so well, I only have to wear the lenses in a 3 on, 1 off pattern, as opposed to the usual 5 on, 1 off.
I’m having a little bit of difficulty adjusting to actually being able to see. It’s as though my brain can’t accept the fact that my eyes are able to see without glasses. It’s similar to what I went through when I first got contacts.
The lenses didn’t bother me at all while I was sleeping, but they do require a little bit more finagling to take out than my regular contacts, but I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.

Unsealed Deal

So my interview went pretty well. The guy interviewing me pretty much told me that I would be one of the people offered a job, as he said that, looking over my résumé and just talking with me for a few minutes he could tell I’d be a perfect fit.
This was after I told him that I’m pretty much expecting another job offer. He said, “That’s too bad. For us, I mean.”
I told him that the deal wasn’t sealed, though, and to keep me in mind just in case things don’t work out.
When I got there I was greeted by someone from the recruiting company. All I’ll say is that apparently there are a lot of hot chicks working in the field of technical recruiting.
I let her know about the potential/likely job as well.
After that it was off to the comic shop to meet up with Scott. Stacy and the kids were along for the ride, as they’re down to one vehicle.
Due to Thanksgiving, the new comics won’t be in until tomorrow, so we all just went to eat at the Mexican restaurant. After dinner we got to see Santa riding around in a horse-drawn carriage.
(Some lady in the restaurant had spotted him going by the window and came over to let us know for the kids’ sake. The kids were thrilled. Vicki said, “I can’t believe I got to see him!”)
Yesterday morning I went over to the eye doctor to make an eye appointment and let them know that I’m interested in the Gentle Molding procedure, as I have the money for it in my Flex account and need to use it before the year’s end.
Longtime Threshold readers know that a few years back I attempted to date the office manager from the eye doctor’s Ashburn office. Things didn’t work out that well, and we really only went on one date. Though she was always friendly, and full of excuses for why she never returned my calls every time I saw her, after a while it became clear that there was a message I should be getting, and when you try too hard to date someone without getting any sort of cooperation they call that stalking, so I gave up trying.
In any case, while I was making my appointment with the girl at the desk, the office manager of the Leesburg office was on the phone, not paying any attention, until she heard me say my name, at which point her ears pricked up and she turned to look at me. After she got off the phone she said hello and was suspiciously friendly. I have to wonder if I’d ever been the topic of conversation between her and the Ashburn office manager (whom I refer to as Stone Face, given that she was the most inscrutable and unreadable human being I’d ever met and her face, which was still gorgeous, was as inexpressive as stone).
I know that my one real date with Stone Face was a point of contention between the two office managers, as Stone Face had blown off her own office holiday party to accompany me to the AOL party.
Given the spectacularly embarrassing manner in which, coasting on pure adrenaline, I had burst in and asked Stone Face out – in front of several patients and the eye doctor – I’m sure that, at the time, I was also fodder for inter-and intra-office gossip, so I can’t help but wonder if, after I left yesterday, the Leesburg office manager placed a call to the Ashburn office that started off with something like, “Guess who was just in the office?”
Of course, I don’t know if Stone Face still works in the Ashburn office, or is even still around. The last time I saw her, which was quite a long time ago, she was wearing a ring. While she was fairly friendly, in her stone-faced and expressionless manner, I wasn’t there long enough for us to actually have a conversation.
Anyway, I just thought that the reaction my name elicited from the Leesburg office manager was kind of funny and worth mentioning.