(no subject)

A totally random and kind of ridiculous memory jumped into my head this morning on my way to work. I was listening to Phil Ochs' "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore," and I was thinking about how the generation just before mine never really had a good hippie cause. Vietnam was before their time and 9/11 and the ensuing political hubbub belongs to people my age (for better or worse...). People my brothers' age had the Gulf War, I guess. So I was thinking about that, and how I felt about it at the time, when I was 8 years old. My knowledge of it then was basically that Saddam Hussein decided he wanted to take over Kuwait, and so he invaded, and America and all the other good guys went to bat for Kuwait, and this was Operation Desert Storm, or something. Actually, that's still about the extent of my knowledge of the situation. Anyway, I remember knowing that we were at war, and that Iraq was the bad guy, and Saddam was the really bad guy. And it was on the news all the time so it was definitely a big deal.

One day in 1992, my friend Kathleen was over at my house playing, and we had the TV on while we were doing whatever we were doing, and I got up to go to the bathroom. A moment later, Kathleen burst into the bathroom while I'm on the can to tell me that "they killed Saddam Hussein! The war is over!" And I was so excited in that moment that I wasn't even pissed at her for bursting in on me like that. I didn't really get the whole war thing, but I knew enough to know that war was bad and we wanted it to end. And killing Saddam meant the good guys won. So Kathleen and I are jumping up and down and celebrating this thing we really don't understand, and then she goes "psyche!"

I don't remember the actual ending point of the Gulf War -- my Saturday morning cartoons were never interrupted with the breaking news announcement that the world was all back to normal. It just kind of stopped being the thing that was in the news all the time. As far as I could tell, America stayed the same, Iraq stayed the same, Kuwait stayed the same, and I guess eventually people stopped killing each other about it. (Or so I thought.)

I have no idea why Kathleen thought this would be a good prank, but she got me for sure, and I guess it just goes to show what was on our young minds at the time. We thought that would be our generation's big war. We had no idea...

(no subject)

It's been a busy day and I'm feeling like I'm well past the point of taking things in stride. I mean, nothing's horrible or anything, but all of the things are making me all of the grumpy.

I've had a particularly high volume of douchebag insurance agents calling all day, asking me to do their jobs for them, and I'm just not amused. One guy really pissed me off because he sent me a loss notice for an accident that happened over a week ago (they're supposed to turn them in immediately) and then told me to rush. First of all, I *always* set up claims immediately when I get them, so telling me to rush doesn't make it go any faster, it just makes you look like an impatient doink. Second, how fucking dare you tell me to hurry when you've sat on the thing for a week. Go fuck yourself. And then I looked over the notice he sent and it wasn't filled out properly at all. So I sent him a reply that was professional, but high in snark. I suggested that if he did his job, I would be able to turn the claim around more expeditiously. He then shoots a reply back to me, "Dear Megan," and apologizes for fucking up, but seriously, Megan? You're looking at my name. It says Meg. It's like people who spell someone's name wrong in a Facebook conversation with them. YOU'RE LOOKING AT IT RIGHT NOW WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? If I hadn't seen so much of it on Facebook, I wouldn't believe people could be so dumb, and I would be certain that this guy was just calling me Megan to be a passive-aggressive tool. But now it's a toss-up. Whatever, I don't care if people call me Megan in person -- it's an honest mistake and everyone does it -- but when you are copying my name from an email I just sent you...? I mean, come on.

I had a 4-mile run today on my lunch break -- this was the first of my longer midweek runs (4 miles every Thursday in March, then up to 5 miles every Thursday leading up to the race), and it was a doozy. The first mile was okay, but after that I really didn't think I'd be able to complete the distance without some walking breaks. Somehow, though, I made it through. I slowed down almost to a 12-minute mile for the last mile, but I did run the whole time. So yay. But then I went to take a shower and the water wouldn't warm up. It wasn't just chilly, but frigid. After letting it run for a while and giving up on hot water, I got in anyway and sudsed up. And then the water died. It just trickled out and was no more. I tried the other shower stall. Nope. Sink? Nope. So I'm standing in the locker room halfway soaped up, freezing, and still pretty sweaty and gross. I wiped the soap off with paper towels as best I could, and got dressed and came back to my office. This is what put me in such a foul mood. But then I had Indian food for lunch and I felt much better about the state of the universe. Still grumpy, though.

I have therapy tonight after work, and then I decided tonight would be a good day to cash in one of my massage credits. The sad thing is I didn't know if it would be worth it for me to stay out as late as I have to in order to fit the appointment in after therapy...I called and they have an 8-9pm slot, which I took, but I'm already thinking ugh, don't I want to be in bed before then? Meh. 9's not that late, and getting a massage is a lot like being in bed, I'll just have to get up and drive home at the end, but it's not like it's far. I'm sure I'll be glad I booked it.