Field notes:

Today, a group of homo sapiens are observed near a watering hole. It seems to be guarded by a single male specimen who doles out some sort of intoxicating liquid in exchange for varying numbers of small rectangles of paper.

Special attention is paid to a set of specimens – one male and one female – who seem to be engaged in a sort of game. It is difficult to determine whether it is endeavored for pleasure or status. The game involves stone balls on a raised slab of wood with holes in the corners and long wooden sticks they use to hit the balls into the holes. There seem to be rules about which balls should be pushed into the holes.

The female is wrapped very tightly in pieces of cloth. The male is wrapped similarly, but much more loosely. Before they begin to play the game, they seem to be engaged in a ritual wherein the female arranges the balls incorrectly, and then allows the male to use forelimb gestures and vocalizations to show her how to arrange them correctly.

This appears to be a mating ritual.

I waited way too long to update my expense spreadsheet. And on top of that, this month happened to be when a lot of moneys went out…doctors, allergy testing, long overdue upgrade to pet habitat, vacation weekend, new printer (probably the only thing that should have waited, but it was my promised reward for following through on last months projects). The receipts piled up.

Let’s start over:

What a purdy, relaxing picture, don’t you think?

I was pleasantly surprised at how painful my first day back at work post-vacation was not…until it came back. The music. It’s back.

Oh dear lord in Heaven have mercy. It’s a conspiracy to kill us all.

We’re not supposed to discuss work in the interweb world, so I will say this much: Today I am back at work. I was [see title].

Having some time away from the daily grind was frighteningly glorious. Frighteningly glorious because now I am left wondering exactly what the heck I am doing with my life. But hey. The price you pay.

So to reminisce for a moment, our office holiday party one year was in a private wine cellar in the basement of an upscale supermarket owned by a friend of my boss. It was a fun one, but the best part was that the bathrooms for us were the same bathrooms for use by customers and employees – i.e. the bathroom in the back of the frozen food section behind the dangling strips of clear plastic that keep the cold in. Which meant that we were making regular post-seal-breaking trips to said bathroom in our dresses and high heels, a tad bit of the tipsy. Ascending the stairs, we would emerge from the middle of the snack aisle as if by magic, and then stumble past dumbfounded housewives pushing shopping carts while we giggled at the ridiculousness of it all and weaved to the back of the building.

The wedding I attended this past weekend was similar in that it was held at the train station in downtown Los Angeles. This was an acutely adorable choice because my friend and her now-husband met while living on a train and working for the circus.

best party favor ever:

Though the inside of the train station itself is beautiful, it turns out it also has a lovely little courtyard.

The ceremony was beautiful, and the party was great, and seeing people I love is fabulous. But the best part might have been the clickety-clack of heels echoing in the hall as we walked past the rabble-rousers, cane-bearing old men, and tired parents laden with luggage and sleeping infants allllll the way to the public restrooms where those without homes come to shower their pits in the sink.

I live for these types of delicious juxtapositions. It is not entirely unlike the time we stopped at the Whole Foods down the street from where my grandma used to live, which is also down the street from where Scrubs shoots, to grab something to eat before her funeral. I was waiting in line for a measley little tamale behind a paper-scrubs costumed actor, tired and stressed as one is wont to be before a funeral, eyes a-roll, for him to settle on a meal from the deli that would satisfy his finicky needs. There is something wholly lovely and calming to me about the clashing of worlds and moods that jar us out of our moment and into to the larger picture that all kinds of things are happening everywhere all the time; at your happiest, someone is sad; on the most mundane day of your life, down the street is a life-changing event; at your fanciest, someone else is down and out. It’s fascinating, no?

At any rate, cheers to the happy couple. I couldn’t have been happier to be there. I know they will do well.

A string of bloody suicides across the U.S. have been conclusively traced back to Medicare, authorities told us Monday morning.

These suicides were grouped together and nicknamed the Surprise Suicides back in April because of their common factor – none of the victims had previously shown signs of mental illness, nor exhibited any of the common warning signs. They were so unexpected, in fact, that suicide hadn’t even been suspected initially. The deaths were grouped together only after forensic reports deemed them all suicides and authorities from various jurisdictions decided to pow-wow about the strange and sudden rash of spontaneous suicide in each of the twelve geographically distant cases.

In analyzing the weeks of each victim’s life leading up to suicide, investigators pored over endless amounts of data; friends and family were interviewed, occupations compared, apartments scoured. Finally, a common factor was found in the phone records: each victim had been on the phone with Medicare within minutes of his or her spontaneous suicide. Medicare records were reviewed, but no record of any of the victims speaking with any representatives existed. It was a conundrum.

Late Monday night after hours of fruitless investigation, Officer Joe Schmoe, at his wit’s end, dialed Medicare’s number and was immediately placed on hold.

“A recorded voice told me to hold, and then the hold music kicked in. At first, though the music was pretty bad, I thought nothing of it. It was some sort of early-90’s synth piano sound and the melody was pretty corporate sounding. Then, when the final chords trailed off, I was horrified to realize that the same song just repeated again. I mean…it wasn’t even a different song from the same ‘artist’, it was the very same inane song. I listened in disbelief, assuming there had been some glitch, until the third and then fourth time it started.”

“Suddenly I had this feeling wash over me – something I’d never felt before. I had to stop and think for a moment before realizing that the feeling was of…well…a strong desire to jump out of the window. BAM. It hit me. I’d cracked the case.”

He called his superior immediately and the head case managers were called from their beds into a meeting to discuss this new theory. Under supervision and with safety precautions in place, many more individuals tested this theory by calling Medicare themselves. The results were the same.

A press conference was held Monday morning to inform the public of the findings. The families of the victims were understandably outraged, and action groups were mobilized within hours. After finding themselves under siege via phone (by some brave activists) and at their headquarters, Medicare removed the music from their hold system.

A cold silence remains in its stead, but perhaps the victims can finally rest in peace.