Category: Velvet in Dupont (Page 5 of 11)

I don’t know why their tails are down. They were staring at the remnants of a ghost town. It’s not like it’s scary or anything. There was no one there but us, which worked out well for me when I had to use a makeshift potty. Curses to big gulps and parts of the country with restrooms every 100 miles.

And we saw the Rio Grande. But we didn’t cross. I’m sure you can guess where we are. We’re trying to work out a plan where we don’t have to go back to D.C. Ever.

Wait…not slightly. TOTALLY Intoxicated.

Okay. Here we are. Next night of debauchery. Cowboys in Dallas Texas. No, not boys. Cowboys as in the BAR. Let’s do an inventory:

Pacifico’s: 3

Pina Colada’s: 2

Bud Light: 3

Shots of Whiskey: 1

Yep. I suck. But, it is long overdue. Tomorrow I will be in Las Cruces. So I’m not sure if drunken blogging will occur. But, I’ll try.

I called the Ninja to check on the status of his home improvement project. After we finished discussing his progress, he asked me how my life was going. Then I told him. Then he said, “You know, this stuff is gold, and it never makes the blog anymore. I’m glad I’m friends with you so I get to hear it though.”

He’s right. He’s 100% right. Couple that with the dozen other reasons why, and, people, it’s time. I think we all knew it was coming.

There’s plenty to say, but I have nothing I really want to say, except one thing.

I’m done.

I had dinner tonight with Giggles, The King of the Dog Park and Sixes and Sevens. Giggles was sent away for work, so it was a catch up dinner of sorts.

Sixes and Sevens, holding up her beverage and looking at me: Mazel Tov!

We were toasting to my aforementioned good news. No, not engaged. No, not preggers. Despite my hatred of Greenspan and the damage he did to our economy while making MY PRECIOUS INDUSTRY the fall guy, I know a good deal when I see one. And people? A house on the Eastern Shore that your company built and needs to get rid of for a drastically reduced price is a GOOD DEAL. I am a homeowner. Again! Two homes in my name, my mini real estate empire has begun!

I would have filled Giggles in on all the details, but I didn’t bother. I told him the one thing that I knew would make his face light up: My front door faces a liquor store.

The King of the Dog Park: So, Giggles, did Velvet tell you what she did?
Giggles: No.
Sixes and Sevens: You haven’t been reading her blog!
Velvet: I haven’t posted it yet. I needed to whale on Greenspan.
Giggles: So? What happened?
The King of the Dog Park: A public blowjob!
Sixes and Sevens: In the Sports Authority dressing room!
Velvet: Potomac Yard baby. Dressing room one. Don’t go in there.
Giggles: Wait, why?
The King of the Dog Park: Bitch didn’t swallow! Poor Sherlock!
Velvet: What the fuck! I didn’t have a beverage to wash it down with, nor did I want to go out and pay for the clothes I just tried on with goop all over my face! So I ripped off a price tag and cleaned up with that. I stuck it under the bench, so really, don’t go in there barefoot.
The King of the Dog Park: That story gets me so hot.
Sixes and Sevens: Why? Because you have a thing for Shirley?
The King of the Dog Park: No. It’s the public sex that turns me on.
Velvet: Well, for him too. He was so fast I didn’t get lockjaw this time. All future blowjobs will occur in public.
The King of the Dog Park: This is masturbation material for a week now.

Update. Just found this!

Dear Alan Greenspan:

Sigh. This is my second letter to you. Much like Santa Claus when I asked for magic mushrooms and Mayor Fenty when I requested the streets be plowed after snowstorms, you did not answer my first letter. I’m not hopeful you will answer this one either.

I know you are very busy with your retirement, alternating between sipping your Mai Tai and making blanket idiotic statements that get picked up by the media, but really, stop. You are no longer the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, so what you say doesn’t matter. Well, I would like to think it doesn’t matter. Unfortunately, stupid people hang on your every word, believing it to be it to be gospel. If you predict a housing market crash, it will surely happen because people “believe” it will happen, and they react as such, creating the very market conditions you warned of, and then you have mayhem.

Frankly, the fact that you even speak at all is so totally unfathomable to me. You created this mess we’re all living out right now. You consistently reduced the Federal Funds rate which, through a whole series of economic events, affected the Bond Market in turn lowering mortgage rates. I know, you were just trying to make sure our economy didn’t tank after September 11th. Understandable. Respectable. But, going from 3% to 1% by June 25, 2003, and leaving it there for a full year? At how many dozens of Fed Meetings did you fuck with the rate? Too many.

See, again, we have this guiding principle about the U.S. Economy: It is self-correcting. It doesn’t need a whole lot of help. Here is where I would draw for you, a supply and demand diagram with the Price and Quantity coordinates. We’d compare guns to butter, or I would dumb it down for you to houses and prices, and explain that when you make money cheaper to borrow, you suddenly put more people in the market to buy a house because they think they can finally afford the American Dream. Too much money chasing too few goods and services makes prices increase. Inflation. Remember? You entice people in the market who don’t want to be there yet, robbing future demand. You also lure speculators (a.k.a. investors, scumballs) into the market. People saw the housing industry like they did bootlegging, day trading and junk bonds – a place to make quick and easy cash. Except everyone viewed housing to contain very little risk because they were speculating on something with an underlying asset – the actual home in which someone can live. This is “artificial demand.” People aren’t there because they need the house, they are in the market because you have made the house easier (read: cheaper) to get and instead of living there, they are purchasing it with other plans in mind.

If you are following along on our x-y axis, you will see that you have more demand, and then supply goes down. Then, prices go up to meet that demand. As we all know, home prices went up. And up. And up. You lowered the Federal Funds rate to an unprecendented 1% and kept it there for over a year. Why? My only explanation is because you are a fucking idiot. The other explanation is senility but I prefer the “fucking idiot” scenario.

Now, let’s look at what happened out here in the real world, away from the corner offices, leather chairs and ivory backscratchers of your world.

Holly and Harry Homeowner went to buy a house. They stretched and saved, and ended up still not being able to finance a home because prices had slipped just beyond their reach. But they believed everyone who said they should go buy a house and they would make a killing when they sold it. So along comes the lender with “creative financing” and sold them some “no money down / no doc” loan they call an ARM, where the rate adjusts. Irony lives and dies in the fact that they call it an arm, because once the rate changes it costs you an arm and the proverbial leg to get out of the mess you’ve created. So the prices start going down on homes, people start foreclosing on loans, and you have things like this happening.

Again, I would like to remind you: self-correcting economy. Your intent in keeping the economy afloat was a wise foresight on your part. But, you should have stopped with the rate reductions at some point earlier than 2003. You should have also increased the rates at a much faster pace than you did. Since you are so good at shooting your mouth off, you should have also warned all those homebuyers: If they can’t afford a fixed rate mortgage, then they can’t afford that particular house. Of course, you didn’t though. You’re saying it now, but back then, you were happy that the homebuilding industry was keeping the economy afloat and that you looked like a hero. You can’t give stupid people a bunch of money and not advise them of some basic financial rules because everyone else has to suffer the fallout when those people mismanage their money. I say it at work all the time: You can’t walk into a room and say “This is fucked up, fix it,” but not guide people in exactly HOW to fix it. If they knew, it wouldn’t be fucked up in the first place, right?
Read this if you want to vomit along with me. (“High housing prices are more of a problem than loans” – whose fault is that now? Asshole.)

No love for you,
Velvet

P.S. Putting names and faces to all this foreclosure does nothing for me. I’ve been reading these articles for weeks now. I don’t feel sorry for these people. They are idiots. Just because someone hands you really cheap money, doesn’t mean you should take it. Again, if you can’t afford a fixed rate mortgage, YOU CAN’T AFFORD THAT HOUSE. It was the buyer’s responsibility to determine that their job as the Assistant Manager at CVS wasn’t going to have a 30% pay increase occur at the same time the “adjustable” portion of their mortgage kicked in. Before one makes a multi-hundred thousand dollar purchase, they need to get some financial advice from someone other than their loan officer who has a vested interested in closing their loan and making a commission. Someone who will tell them, to their face, that they cannot afford this particular home.

It’s me. Before you get any ideas, it’s me I’m referring to in the title. I’m the one who is toxic.

When Sherlock went into his stalk-mode-of-Velvet last summer, I have to admit, it wasn’t the first time that it happened to me. It’s not because I’m being a drama queen, it’s not because I’m making it up or exaggerating. It’s because I know that there is something in my manner of relating to a man that brings out that stalkie behavior. I tend to shut down pretty rapidly, and there is something so psychologically innate in people that when they want to talk, they must talk, and when the person they want to talk to doesn’t want to talk back, they get irate. It drives some personality types to stalk.

This isn’t about me and Sherlock though, who Sixes and Sevens is now calling “Shirley.” We’re magically in love and everything is great. Better than great. This is about the fact that there is something comical for me, in watching just how far someone will unravel because of something I did, or didn’t do. It’s an accomplishment for me. Yes yes, I’m a bitch like that. It’s my “notch” weakness. Some people like to collect notches in the way of sex partners, I like to see how crazy I can make people. I admit it. I’m a pot stirrer with men.

Now, that history aside, I can proudly announce that yours truly, Velvet in Dupont, busy woman who was just informed via email (what? you couldn’t call me boys?) that she has more responsibilities which will take her away from precious blogging even further, has added ANOTHER NOTCH TO HER BELT. Yes, I have to say. I love it. What exactly am I talking about?

There is another blog dedicated to someone’s hatred of me. YAY! (Seriously, YAY.) I just cracked up when I realized that my emailing with an old acquaintance yielded his ire to produce this sole post on my very own URL:

Be careful in whom you confide. A Pisces will not keep confidences for long. They are self-centered psychos and do not care who gets hurt when they are on a vendetta. All the informational weapons they possess will be employed.

Of course it’s no match for the Velvet Parody blog or the blog Sherlock wrote about me (yes baby, I know all about it) but, it’s so delightful when someone else adds their hate to the mix.

So, here we have it. When someone is moved to stalking, or hatred, or a hate-blog, it means that you’ve bothered them. You’ve gotten under their skin. And I have gotten under the skin of the North American continent’s largest cyberpath. Smooch!

Have a good weekend. My free time is dwindling. I’ll try to be back soon. I have big news brewing.

P.S. VOTE FOR NINJA!!

I’ve been in Dallas for Patsy’s Bachelorette Extravaganza. You all know how I love me some cowboys and country music, so I was more than happy to jaunt my ass down for my dose of country. I followed shortly after one Sixes and Sevens, who blew out of town earlier to get a jump start on the party. Needless to say, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when she made it through security. A. Huge. Sigh.

I noticed immediately upon entering the state, that a major mystery of the world has now been solved. In case you live on the east or west coast, and you were curious where the scrunchies had gone, I can tell you. They are in Texas. You can find them on wrists, in hair, on the ground. There are more scrunchies in Dallas than there are rats in D.C.

We decided to hit up a bar named Austin Avenue in Plano for some drinking and people watching. Wow. That’s all I’ve got. Wow. I’m stunned, not for the Kiss cover band, and not for the high hair, but perhaps for the amputees and fake boobs I saw. Sixes and Sevens and Patsy also managed to score a round from some old men sitting in the corner.

Everything is bigger in Texas you know. This is a “medium” sized beer.

Before we moved out of the area where the band was playing, heading to shoot some pool, we were able to watch some serious foreplay in action.

“Mmm, that was a yummy burrito you ate for lunch today!”

We also made it to the world famous Forth Worth Stockyards. This is where one Billy Bob’s is located.

We bought some really cheap drinks and watched the bullriding.

We got sprayed with dirt. I was smart enough to be covering my beer, and also wearing a cowboy hat. Yes, a cowboy hat. More on that in a second. Randy Travis was playing so the place was packed.

The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly standing right in front of this:

Patsy and I snapped tons of pictures for them and have emailed them off to this girl who we don’t know and will never see again. She told Patsy she wished she could thank us for being at the right place at the right time and sending her pictures. It was the least we could do, considering we started shrieking like morons and drew all the attention away from Randy singing “Forever and ever Amen” to ourselves. Fucking typical.

Sixes and Sevens was at the bar closing our tab and I walked up there to grab one more drink. When I got up there the bartender said to me, “What about you, are you from here?” I said, “Nope.” He said, “That’s too bad, if the both of you lived around here I’d do it with both of you.” Then he walked down to the other end of the bar.

I asked Sixes and Sevens, “Did he just say what I think he said?” She said she thought so. I didn’t think cowboys were so forward. Though, I guess we were looking pretty hot among the geriatric Randy Travis fan club, more amputees (WTF is with Texas and amputees?) and scrunchies. Here we are, Sixes and Sevens and Velvet, taking on Billy Bob’s.

We’re hot. Who wouldn’t want to have a threesome with us?

When I looked at the condition of Sherlock’s mattress in the daylight, I had to tilt my head to one side. Then the other side. Something wasn’t right.

Velvet: You need a new mattress.
Sherlock: I’ve had this one about 10 years now.
Velvet: It’s caving in the middle. It looks like a hot dog bun. Though now of course, knowing what I know, and that I know the players of what I know, I understand completely why it is caving in the middle.

I get a lot of mileage out of that joke. A lot. So after several weeks of planning and discussion, the shopping spree was in full effect. We spent Saturday rolling around mattresses. (I know some of you are tempted to insert your own x-rated joke here, but sit tight. I’ll get us there.) Anyway, each mattress was home to a new conversation. It started out pretty mild.

Sherlock: Think you would get a good night of sleep on this one?
Velvet: I like a softer mattress.
Roll to next mattress.
Sherlock: How about this one, can you see us with the dogs between our feet on this?
Velvet: They woke us up at 5 a.m., didn’t they? Fuckers.
Roll to next mattress.
Sherlock: Do you like how the memory foam molds to your shape?
Velvet: No. This sucks. Once you pick a position, you are invested for the night! Though this would be incredibly helpful for homicide investigations. They wouldn’t need to do the sloppy taping job around the body.
Roll to next mattress.
Sherlock: Now, would this one be good for fucking?
Velvet: Oh my God!! Your dick is hard!!

Apparently rolling around mattresses in “Have a good night’s sleep on us…Mattress DISCOUNTERS” got Sherlock a bit excited. Foreplay has never been so easy.

We finally decided on the top of the line, $4000 mattress. I know, that’s an absurd amount of money to spend but there was some logic behind that madness. We discussed that this would be the mattress that we conceived our children in. On. Whatever. Okay, so that’s less logic and more emotion, which violates my number one rule of cutting a good deal. Never never never negotiate when you have your heart set on something for emotional reasons.

After the payment and delivery time was set, we parted ways because I had a shopping excursion planned with a friend. Continuing in the spirit of spending the GNP equivalent of a third world country, Sherlock went off in search of a platform bed at Theodores. We planned to reconnect and hit some more stores in a couple hours. When I was out, I bought a dress. There was a costume-type purpose to this dress. I’ve been tasked to go out and find the sluttiest outfit I could get my hands on. People, you have hired the right woman for this job. When I see “Fashion K City” in a strip mall, I know I’ve hit paydirt. The first choice, a zip up catsuit didn’t come in my size: Extra boobs. I found something equally atrocious, and I mean atrocious. Wow. My friend and I were laughing so hard we offended the employees who probably cherish their associate discount. I rushed home to meet Sherlock to resume the furniture shopping.

I walked in and we quickly decided to blow off the rest of shopping to go have dinner. Then I asked if he wanted to see the dress.

Sherlock: I’m going to pee, put it on.
Velvet: Just look at it and tell me if you like it.
Sherlock (shouting from mid stream:) Put it on.

I climbed into the dress. He walked out of the bathroom and walked around me for the 360 view. Without saying a word, he pushed me into the bedroom and onto the ‘graveyard of whores’ mattress that will be out of our lives Tuesday. He bent me over, picked the dress up, and we fucked. This dress is so far beyond awful but I left it on. My boob popped out of the halter but we kept on like good little soldiers. No, your eyes do not deceive you, I really said “halter.” I haven’t seen or worn a halter-anything since Miami Beach in the early 90’s.

He had his orgasm, I had mine seconds after his and he fell onto the bed next to me. I realized we had not said a word since he told me to put the dress on and went to pee. I rolled over on my side because my original question was still unanswered – lingering out there like the elephant in the room.

Velvet: So, I guess you like the dress?

Two things.

First, that fucking Ninja tagged me for a god damned MEME. Why do they call them that? Anyway, it’s “Five Weird Things About Me.” Fine. This is going to be quick because I’m busy!

1) When Sammy and Thora lose a whisker and I find it in the house, I save it. Shut up. I’m a freak. Might I remind you this is the “Five weird things about me” list not the “why I should be poster child for normal” list.

2) I have a Harley but I’m afraid to go faster than 55 m.p.h. I’m planning on selling it.

3) Yesterday was just one of many days where I had a lengthy and detailed discussion with my boss, one of the highest ranking VP’s in our company, about vibrators, waxing and orgasms. Anyone who thinks that my company finding out I have a blog would be detrimental for my career should reread that previous sentence a few times. If we sit around and discuss that stuff, no one is going to care that I write a blog. And most of them know anyway.

4) I’ve been manhandled and thrown out of a strip bar for taking pictures of Brianna Banks, best porn star ever.

5) I won’t let anyone sleep in my bed unless they have showered. In college, if I hooked up and a guy tried to stay in my bed with me, and he was all sweaty and drunk, I would sleep in the chair until he sobered enough for me to kick him out. Then I would strip the bed, put clean sheets on, shower, and go to sleep.

Don’t tag me again or I’ll beat you senseless, even if I have to come to the Cheights and risk my personal safety to do it.

Second, I’ve been nominated for some contest for Best Blog. I guess I’m supposed to campaign, but like Millhouse says on the Simpsons, “My mom says I’m the best!”

I tried to embed the poll here, but it didn’t work. So just click here and vote for me. Or someone else. Last check, Circumlocutor was beating all our asses.

As work has gotten increasingly busy, I’ve had less time during the day to think about my favorite topic: me. I was driving home Friday after having spent another day out of my office working elsewhere, and I was thinking, “FUCK! I have so much shit to do and I never have time to get it done.” And there it was. That feeling that hits me once every five years where I then change my life in a weekend. The last time this happened, I quit my job, put all my furniture up for sale in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and my ex and I got in the car and drove across the country. Then it happened again on that trip, in line at a Safeway in Frisco Colorado when the cashier couldn’t figure out how to give me cash back. I realized I was selling myself short by not going back to grad school. There were plenty of stupid people in this world. I was capable of contributing more to the world than I had. A couple weeks later, I was accepted to an MBA program. I’m determined. When I decide it is time for change, I’m usually instituting that change within 15 minutes. And it is usually extreme.

So I went home Friday and crashed, knowing that if this was anything like times past, it was going to be a long weekend. I slept Friday from 7 p.m. until Saturday at 10:30 a.m. I woke up, checked the phone, saw Sherlock had tried to check in with me, then he called as I was about to call him back.

Sherlock: The dogs haven’t been out since you got home from work last night?
Velvet: No. And I’m still in bed.
Sherlock: Okay. I’m coming over and I’ll take them out.
Velvet: Thanks. I can’t leave the house today.

I basically assessed that I have a few issues here. The first is that I don’t have enough free time to do the things I need to do. The second is that the things I need to do, like laundry, trump the secondary projects like spring cleaning. First thing was to dedicate the weekend to making the major secondary project of cleaning out my house into a primary project. Second thing, to come later, was to reassess where my personal time goes and why I can’t get these things done.

Sherlock did as promised, and took the dogs to the park for an hour and a half. When he, Sammy and Thora walked back in, all three of them were like, “What the fuck!”

I had everything out of every closet and it was all over the house. I am not a packrat. But those damn boxes my parents brought tipped my delicate balance of useful stuff vs. non-useful stuff totally off kilter.

Sherlock: Holy shit. Can I help you?
Velvet: Yes. Take a picture of the sewing machine for me so I can list it for sale.

I resumed managing mass exodus of things from my closets. Buh-bye Kappa Kappa Gamma shirts. Buh-bye Almost Famous movie poster. Buh-bye fabric I will never use to sew cute things because I’m selling the sewing machine in about five minutes.

Sherlock: I’m done. What’s next.
Velvet: Find a picture of my Harley somewhere and list that for sale too.
Sherlock: Are you fucking kidding me? Please say you are kidding.
Velvet: No. I’m not. Get rid of it.
Sherlock: Well, I’m glad you are throwing all this stuff away, but the Harley?
Velvet: Sell it. Sell everything. Sammy and Thora better hold on for dear life or they are in danger of getting sold too.
Sammy: Fuck you bitch.
Thora: We need our own apartment Sammy.

Magazines and books – gone. Clothes and shoes – ready to donate. Pile of totally useless crap no one wants – sitting on the sidewalk in front of my building with a sign marked FREE on it.

Sherlock: Are you sure you don’t want to do what the Fencer suggested and have a “Buy Velvet’s stuff auction?”
Velvet: No. None of this stuff is any good. Pitch it.
Sherlock: You are kicking ass. Is this bag of trash ready to get tossed?
Velvet: Yes.
Sherlock: What’s next?
Velvet: I have to go through my tapes, (yessss cassette tapes,) and see what I have in there that I can just download online and then toss the tapes.

I sat down on the floor at 4 p.m. with three dozen tapes and the tape player, made lists of what I wanted to download, then pitched the tapes out. The walk down memory lane really slowed the process. I didn’t finish until after midnight. I can’t believe how many mix tapes I had. “Velvet’s Awesome Eighties Mix,” “Freshman Year in the Keys,” “We’re Seniors! YAY!” A sample. Name that tune!

We could fuck until the dawn, making love till cherry’s gone. (mmm hmmm…)
Just hit the east side of the LBC. (one of the greatest sampled songs ever.)
I used to love to make you cry, it made me feel like a man inside. (love this song!)
In 65, I was 17, and running up 101. (good for the treadmill)
Last time that we had this conversation, I decided we should be friends. (I know..)
Tonight’s the night we’ll make history. (Aww!)
If you wanna see me try a beeper number baby when you need me. (Sniff sniff.)
You’re the fastest runner but you’re not allowed to win. (8th grade. Solid.)
Cause you give me a good vibe doncha know baby. (makes me wanna dance.)
If it’s good I’ll call her everyday, got your number off the bathroom wall. (LOVE this band.)
Don’t forget it’s me who put you where you are now, and I can put you back now too. (who doesn’t know the words to this?)
G’s up hoes down while ya motherfuckers bounce to this. (Baliff? Take him away.)
He brought the woman out of me, so many times, easily. (whore!)

I finally went to bed after midnight. I think Sherlock learned that when I get in these moods to clean, I am unstoppable. Anything not nailed down goes down the trash chute. I am the only one in my family who does not suffer from packus rattis-itis. Growing up around stacks of crap made me want to always have clean tabletops and a minimum of crap. And when the crap starts to explode from the one or two closets where it is currently living, then it all must go.

The “Organize my Life” campaign is in full force. Since my free time is at a minimum these days, I started plotting. The one thought I kept coming back to was “What the fuck am I doing? I spend so much time online between work and the blog crap.” Now I have an action plan. It’s started with the decluttering of my life in the way of physical possessions, now it moved to decluttering my free time from distractions. Sayonora Comcast! I’m tired of paying you $100 a month for spotty service at best. In addition to the entertainment distractions you provide, I spend too much time on the phone with you every month, and that’s a time suck. See ya later Netflix, you are eating all my free time because I feel compelled in the Velvet-family-fashion to get my “money’s worth” and watch the movies and return asap. I cannot participate in a plan that says, “Keep them as long as you want!” I know their business model relies on me keeping them forever. It makes me want to dispose those movies immediately after the 100 minutes it takes them to play.

I’m officially working on a major investment project that will require a lot of research on my end as well as a personal project that also requires my attention. In addition to that, I have to pay attention to Sherlock so he won’t dump me, and I’m growing really private in our relationship. I want to write less about the personal things between us and frankly, I don’t really want to write about anything else here either. It is time to close that window into my life. So, I’m effectively reducing my blogging endeavors.*

* The Fine Print:
I have always been 100% honest. Trust me, this blogging slowdown has nothing to do with the current rage of outing bloggers by name and employer or “people” commenting as me with my real name – even though that behavior is unbelievably despicable. It has everything to do with me reclaiming my personal time and reallocating it to things that matter: my dogs, my boyfriend and my two projects. In that order. HA!

I have just misted my underwear. Excuse me while I go change. Read this if you want, back soon.

There now, all better. I’m so happy. And I know Scarlet is happy too. So that makes two of us. I don’t get involved in politics or political discussions at all because what pisses me off about most politicans is that they have their own agendas. That greatly conflicts with my feeling that politicians should serve the people blah blah blah. So let’s see, if Hillary becomes Giuliani’s opponent, score. Who will vote for her? If we’re ready for a woman president, it certainly isn’t Hillary. Besides, I refuse to perpetuate the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton ping pong match for the White House. Get someone else in there already. Since 1988 we’ve had the same two families in there. What kind of democracy is that?

Now before the bleeding hearts jump all over me because it’s just “so cool to be liberal” in D.C., I’d like to state that while I am not a Republican, Giuliani is everything I could want in a president. He’s economically conservative and socially liberal. Though, he doesn’t advertise that fact, which is fine by me. What this country needs is a New Yorker, who can fucking get things done instead of another country bumpkin who wants to fight a useless war or get his dick sucked by some intern. And you can spare me the Giuliani criticism, I will never listen to you. Giuliani will forever be in my good graces for what he accomplished with New York City BEFORE September 11th. Times Square, for example, was a seedy pit of sadness overrun with hookers and thieves when I was a wee Velvet. You couldn’t even go there. I remember going to the Bowery with my parents and holy shit was it scary. I think Koch was too busy drinking and going to Knicks games to bother to clean up the city. A few years of Dinkins, then Giuliani gets in there, and he cleaned it. Instead of handing out vouchers and money to the poor, he had them work for it. In exchange for that money, they had to help in some public project of cleaning a park for example. Brilliant. The man is fucking brilliant.

Okay, I’m done with that for now. On to V-Day.

I’m not a big Valentines day person. I worked at a restaurant for many years and I remember all those pain in the asses coming in, wanting everything “just right” and paying double our normal prices because everything was a “special.” Vomit and gag. Personally, I’d rather not make reservations 100 years in advance just to overpay for some holiday dinner that means shit in la grande scheme. Sadly, it also seems to be the holiday that matters more to the people who have no significant other and therefore become depressed. Last year I was trying to go to bed early until that fucking New Jersey came over with flowers and dinner. This Valentines Day, Sherlock gingerly warned me that he might be out of town for work.

Velvet: So?
Sherlock: Well, it’s Valentines Day, don’t you want to do something?
Velvet: You forget who you’re dealing with. I’m the girl who almost punched out the delivery guy on Christmas Eve when he showed up with your ‘I’m sorry’ flowers because he refused to follow my specific instructions to return the flowers and call you and say they were rejected. I’m not that romantic girl.
Sherlock: Oh. Okay.

So then fate intervenes in the way of an ice storm Tuesday night and there was no way he could go anywhere. Fine. We both worked out of our respective houses during the day. And by “work” I mean, I read the hilarious posts of this new blog that was just brought to my attention Tuesday night. Apparently one of you is commenting as me, with my real name. And yes, I know who it is.

Anyway, Sherlock and I connected for lunch. When he came over to pick me up, he snuck something into my house. It was a heart shaped box of candy with a red Velvet cover. On the cover of the box, he did some Martha Stewart handiwork with glue and glitter, and if it didn’t have our real names on it and a picture of us, I would have taken a picture of it and posted it here. It was like that heart we all drew on our notebooks in 7th grade – Velvet & Sherlock 2getha 4ever! Damn I love him.

Then he got me a card, and wrote some very sweet things in it. It almost made me cry but not really. Later on I read the card again and I realized, I have never seen his handwriting. Other than a shopping list or a reminder note here and there, I have not once seen his handwriting. Does anyone remember what it was like to get a letter? In the age of email, texting and Instant Messaging, there’s no more hand written love letters.

He went back home after lunch, and I fucked around online. Then, while most couples were spending their life savings on dinner, I was cranking out 3.5 miles at the gym bitches! Sherlock came back over later on and we watched a movie and went to bed. And, I’m home again because no one can get out of my neighborhood. I’m sorry Washington D.C., but where exactly do my tax dollars go? Because you certainly didn’t use them for any plowing of snow in Dupont Circle. Nice work.

Ongoing: If you can help Barkley find a home, click here for more info.

It’s another busy ass week for me. Jesus. I was in a meeting out of the office today and have another one in another office tomorrow. No internet! How will I survive? I’m painfully behind in my online endeavors. After I spent two hours at the gym tonight working off all the food I ate this past weekend, I came home, and my first stop was Bloomingdales.com. Oops. Details below. Anyway, I collected the following tidbits last week and here we go…Velvet Variety Hour, installment three.

1. The Dry Cleaner
Thanks to Thora and her affection for vomiting on my down comforter, I, once again, stripped my bed and carried everything to the dry cleaners. When I walked in I could hear the man who owns the dry cleaner say something from the other side of the pile of comforter in my arms and covering my face:

Dry Cleaner: Dog vomit again?
Velvet: “Yes sir.”
I then dropped the comforters and bowed my head in shame.

2. Dupont Circle Should be on Alaska Time
Sixes and Sevens, sounding groggy, on the phone Monday: So, are you on your way to work?
Velvet: It’s 2:15!
Sixes and Sevens: It is?
Velvet: Yeahhhhh
Sixes and Sevens: Ohhhhh. I should go to work.

3. Overheard at a Caps Game:
Girl: Honey can you hold my beer?
Honey: Yeah, are you bringing it with you?
Girl: I can’t hold the baby and the beer and walk down the steps!

10 minutes pass.
Friend of Girl to Honey: Hey, she’s outside feeding the baby and she wants her beer, can you pass it to me?

4. Stupid Velvet
Velvet: I tried to print something off my blog and I somehow sent the entire month of January, which wasn’t bad because I wanted the pictures of what my parents left behind when they were here. I planned on throwing the stuff I didn’t want away. But then I went to the printer and waited for a really long time before realizing something was wrong. I went back to my computer and, yeah, I sent it to another printer in the company.
Sixes and Sevens: OH MY GOD! RUNNNNN!
Velvet: No, you don’t get it. It’s in another state!
Sixes and Sevens: OH. MY. GOD.
Velvet: Yeah. I guess I should call there. Fuck.

The ending to that story is that I have more readers now. Mmm hmm that’s right.

5. Statements I Really and Truly Hope I Never Hear Again:

“Did you see the parody blog?”
“Do you know who is writing the new parody blog?”
“Ohmygod, there’s another parody blog!”

People, I don’t know! I need a fucking Cliff’s Notes blog now to keep up. There’s my recommendation – can someone create a “daily highlights of parody blogs” blog so that I can just read that one when I have time to catch up? Great. Thanks.

6. Blog-a-holics Anonymous.
Sixes and Sevens: Hi, my name is Sixes and Sevens and I’m a blog-a-holic.
Crowd: Hiiiii Sixes and Sevensssssssss
Sixes and Sevens: Velvet said she’s going to put parental controls on my computer if I don’t stop reading blogs all day.

7. Am I Hearing This Right?
Guy at Work: I hate Prescription Medicine. I got Percoset last week and I took one and threw the rest away.
Velvet: What??? HOW COULD YOU??? WE LOVE PRESCRIPTION MEDS IN DUPONT CIRCLE, I WOULD HAVE BEEN THE HIT OF THE DOG PARRRRRK!!!!!!

8. Movie Review
Velvet: This is the worst movie I’ve ever seen. What is it called?
Sherlock: Uh…Co-Ed Sex Parties, Six Hours of Dick Crazed Girls.
Velvet: I think I’m going to throw up. No one should ever watch this movie.
Sherlock: I think it’s good, but let’s give it to Ninja.
Velvet: Ooh. Good idea. I’ll send him a text.

9. Oops
Velvet: I spent $800 on Bloomingdales.com today.
Sherlock: What did you get me?
Velvet: Nothing. (under breath…Unless you can fit into some DVF wraps and a St. John dress. And no I’m not 80 years old, St. John’s new print model is Angelina Jolie, so apparently they are now targeting women my age. Shut up Sherlock. Don’t make fun.)

10. Pontification and Mortal Enemies
When various people who you despise find each other and make friends, is it a real friendship or is it just a friendship based on having a mutual enemy? I don’t know the answer to that, but what I do know is that it is all very very transparent. And convenient. I like my enemies all in one place where I can keep tabs on them.

Yeah yeah yeah. I know. Posting has been sparse. I am so fucking busy at work that it’s ridiculous. I spend more days a week in meetings than there are parody blogs. I have no chance to check my oh-so-legitimate work email much less my personal email or any blogs. I got your emails. I got your frantic phone calls. I am still alive and still in love. Just busy. I’ll stop bitching now.

I had a couple things in the works to post on, but I wanted to clear them with Sherlock first. I asked him and he said he doesn’t care. But in a way, I care. I seem to have a need to write only when there are extremes in the relationship – us at our worst or us at our best. The things in the middle of that continuum seem to define the mundane, at least to outsiders. To me though, that’s the gold. That’s the stuff that makes the relationship. So, here it is – a blast of where we are and how we’re doing.

My breakup/stomach virus weightloss is now in retrograde. It may have something to do with all those milk duds and the non-stop eating out that Sherlock and I have managed to accomplish. Then I cashed in a bunch of frequent flier miles for restaurant coupons. Oops. That ain’t gonna help one bit. That’s a good lead into our weekend by the way.

I’m not that chick who brings her boyfriend to the gym. Not so much a fan of that couples workout thing. I prefer to go to the gym and get in my zone. I notoriously won’t even bring my cell phone to the gym. But, Sherlock wanted to work out with me, so fine. Last Saturday night I agreed to take my gym up on their guest allowance and we worked out together. When we first got there, he did his thing and I did mine. Then we connected and lifted weights together. He said he was just going to follow me from place to place and do exactly what I was doing. A couple times he made comments like, “This is the weight you lift? This is what some guys I know lift.” Guess who was sore the next day? I’ll give you a clue, it wasn’t me. The irony here is that Sherlock has a rocking body and he’s always giving me nutrition advice so I really laughed my ass off at him when he was too sore to get his coat on. Oh, FUCK! I wasn’t supposed to say that. I think we agreed I would post something about my big tough strong boyfriend. Huh. Oh well. Fucked that up and I can’t seem to find the backspace key right now…

So, this past Friday night while you all were drinking your adult beverages, Sherlock and I were running on the treadmill. Yes, we’ve entered the land of lame. I just don’t feel like going out right now. It’s cold and even though the bars are blissfully smoke free, I’d rather workout, watch movies and replace calories expended with milk duds.

Saturday was the day I thought would be the entire focus of my next post, but eh, not so much. Sherlock and I went shopping at Target and the pet store. When we got back to his place, I had plans to meet up with EJ for a real estate brainstorming session. He told me to just leave all the bags because he wanted to unpack and organize everything. As I was leaving, he had started tearing his place apart cleaning. I wasn’t planning on asking him why he was acting all weird because I get like that too. I still have remaining boxes of shit my parents left with me a few weeks ago and that drives me batshit just looking at it. Anyway, back to Saturday.

Sherlock: I don’t want you to freak out but I’m just trying to get used to your stuff being here.
Velvet: Uh, you are the one who wanted my stuff here. While I know you would prefer to have me here naked, I do, like, need some clothes to wear this weekend, and some moisturizer for my face, and you know, tampons because it’s that time of the month.
Sherlock: I know, and I’m not backing up or getting scared, it’s just that I’m a clean freak and I’m trying to get used to this. I look around and just see a house out of order.

I looked around at all the dog toys in his place. Then, at that moment, Thora realized that the bags by the door contained new toys for her to destroy. I watched her dig in one of the bags and grasp a toy between her teeth. She couldn’t manage to free it completely from the bag, but that didn’t stop her from trying to play with it. She has my determination, that’s for sure. So she’s running around the house squeaking her new toy, with a Petsmart bag over half her head, and other toys tumbling out of the bag all over the place. Because it was so damn cute, and because of Esther’s recent loss, moments like that remind me how much I love those little dogs. Sherlock, however, just wanted to clean. So I left.

Sunday we didn’t have a lot in the way of plans, which is how I prefer my weekends. We went to look at a couple open houses in his building, then one in Logan Circle. After that, we went to Whole Foods. He stepped into the hardware store first while I got a jump on the shopping. Whole Foods is such a fucking disaster at any day and time during the week and I’m just not good in crowds. I haven’t had a panic attack in probably over month, maybe longer, but I could feel it starting. Shopping cart long since abandoned, I was at the salad bar trying to make my way through, and I was getting pushed in all directions. I swear that stupid overpriced grocery store is the only piece of New York City we have here in D.C. Why drive to New York when you can just go to Whole Foods? What a nightmare. I called Sherlock from alongside the 7 layer dips and said, “You have to come here now.” I was freaking out. I started to take my coat off in anticipation of pending hot flashes.

He came in, retrieved me, and the cart which was holding my Lobster Bisque and Blueberry Pie (hello!!! SCORE!) and we got in line where we spent the rest of our Sunday afternoon. See why I never make plans? A couple open houses and a trip to the worst grocery store in D.C. hijacked our entire weekend. Actually, okay, that’s not true. We did get home in time to watch the Grammy’s. Though I spent most of it with my sweatshirt covering my face. No, it wasn’t because of the singer of the Dixie Chick’s hellacious white dress that looked like a Parade Float. It was because that Lobster Bisque did something awful to both my stomach and Sherlocks. Sigh. We’ve reached a new level. Isn’t it wonderful?

Hey – does anyone know a good fumigation company?

My dear friend who comments here as “Esther” unexpectedly lost her dog Angus Sunday. The dogpark network lit up fast, as we do when there is trauma of any sort, and we all cried for Angus and Esther. Thora and Sammy got extra hugs tonight. Thinking about the day that Esther must have had yesterday is heart wrenching for all of us doggie-parents.

This is the best pic I have of Angus, kissing Esther’s chin. I’m waiting on more pics to be rounded up.

Bye bye Angus. We will miss you, and know you are in a better place.

Love,

Thora, Sammy, Ted, Opie, Charlie, Jukebox, Sam, Edie, Olive, Lincoln, Seneca, Jayna, Lucy & Jasper.

Last year on February 2nd, Reya inspired us all to participate in the Silent Poetry Day. This comes, knock on wood, at an excellent time for me, since, knock on wood, everything in my life is going so incredibly well, knock on wood. I have never been so happy with the Big Three – Work, Home and Romance. The dogs are healthy. Gloom and Doom are in good spirits. My brother and sister-in-law just had a healthy “Baby Number 2,” and my other brother is doing well also. And Sherlock. Well, I just love Sherlock. So, just like last year, I’m going to post the lyrics of a song that applies to how I’m feeling.

So all of you, have a scandalous weekend. And, here we go:

*****************************************************

Life is a moment in space, when the dream is gone, it’s a lonelier place.
I kiss the morning goodbye, but down inside, you know we never know why.
The road is narrow and long, when eyes meet eyes, and the feeling is strong.
I turn away from the wall, I stumble and fall, but I give you it all.
I am a woman in love, and I’d do anything to get you into my world and hold you within.
It’s a right I defend over and over again, what do I do.
With you eternally mine, in love there is no measure of time.
They planned it all at the start, that you and I live in each other’s heart.
We may be ocean’s away, you feel my love, I hear what you say.
No truth is ever a lie, I stumble and fall but I give you it all.
I am a woman in love and I’m talking to you.
You know how you feel, what a woman can do.
It’s a right I defend, over and over again.

*****************************************************

Oh my. Did you just yack? Yeah. Me too a little. When did I get so sappy? I might have to go punch myself in the face now.

For all the years I’ve been dating, for all the years my brothers have been dating, there is this annoying little glitch in our family circle that has yet to be overcome.

My parents hate all outsiders.

No no, I’m serious. Gloom and Doom hate anyone and everyone of the boyfriend/girlfriend genre. And frankly, they can be quite obnoxious about it. They are very dismissive of anyone who we bring by for an introduction. My brother had a therapist who likened our family to a cult. Don’t believe me? Think I’m exaggerating? You’ll see. Take for instance when I was dating a man who lived in Queens. He was Greek, so I figured it was safe to introduce him to them.

Velvet: Mom, this is Billy.
Mom (Gloom): Hi Bill. Nice to meet you.

It’s subtle, but it is there. The name abbreviation. Get it? They tolerated Billy, he was at least allowed in the house. But the others? Oh boy.

For years this insanity required my brothers and I to “sneak around” with significant others. But then you get to be in your early 20’s and you’re like, “Shit, I have a job, my own money, what the fuck am I doing?” So you foolishly tell Gloom and Doom that you met someone by the name of AtlantaBoy and that you are in love and are going to move in together. You are met with stunned surprise, then something along the lines of “You have proven yourself to be the biggest disappointment of our lives.” Everyone resumes their respective sneaking around, to which Gloom and Doom are wise, and say things like, “You kids don’t tell your parents anything!” But they have yet to realize that we don’t tell them because it is the same old routine every time.

Gloom and Doom boycotted my older brother’s wedding to a non-Greek. Of course there were other reasons why, but I guarantee that if my sister-in-law’s maiden name was something-opolous they would have been there. My oldest brother dated the sister-in-law who got away and she was sure that Gloom and Doom would like her because “no one’s parents ever disliked her.” Poor thing. She was wrong. I went through the cold shoulder / he’s not good enough / we’re going to pretend he doesn’t exist mentality for 6 years with AtlantaBoy. My brothers didn’t fully understand it until it happened to them. After some discussion, we all came to the same conclusion: It’s a Greek thing. Greeks are extremely ethnocentric. Even among other Greeks – if you were from the “wrong” island, my Grandmother would not be seen speaking to you. I guess Billy wasn’t from Crete. Shit, what did I know? I thought I was doing good because his last name ended in -giannis.

So you may find this hard to believe since we’ve all been living, breathing, reading and shitting Sherlock since July, but, Gloom and Doom haven’t heard a peep of his existence. Until Friday. I had this grand plan to tell my mom all about it, to drop the word that there’s a boyfriend and it’s pretty serious. But, somehow, I ended up on the phone with my dad and my mom wasn’t home. He was clearly bored and in the mood to talk. The conversation went something like this.

Dad: How are Sammy and Thora doing with the cold weather?
Velvet: They are okay. They don’t like it too much, but they get by with shorter walks.
Dad: You aren’t leaving the balcony door open for them now are you?
Velvet: Well, not today. It’s 15 degrees out there. And they aren’t even home anyway.

Oops. It came out of my mouth faster than I realized. I hoped he didn’t hear me, because he really has selective hearing, but that didn’t happen.

Dad: Where are they?
Velvet: Well, I was getting ready to tell you and mom this. There’s a boyfriend now, and it’s pretty serious. Anyway, Sammy and Thora are with him today.
Dad: Which guy is this?

We launched into a back and forth with me dispensing the details and my dad jumped on Sherlock’s company website and started looking around. Then he said something that sounded like he might actually be impressed by what this company does. Whoa. This is unprecedented.

Dad: So, how did you meet him?
Not seeing the point of lying at 33 years old, I said, “Match.com.” I also briefly considered trying to validate it by mentioning that my oldest brother met the sister-in-law who got away on match.com, but they didn’t like her either, so no sense in poisoning the well.
Dad: What did you say it was?
I repeated myself. He repeated it back to me, wrong again. There I am, sitting in my office screaming “MATCH DOT COM! MATCH, LIKE YOU ARE LIGHTING A FIRE WITH A MATCH.” Awesome. There is silence. I can hear the wheels turning in his brain. I imagine him looking for my profile. I contemplate directing him to some other profiles I know of on match. Then he speaks.
Dad: Ha! That sucker! You dumped the dogs off on him?

That was basically the end of it. Now, I know what everyone is thinking: “Wow. That went really well Velvet. Maybe Gloom and Doom aren’t so bad.” But, you would be wrong. For, if OlderBrother and Oldest Brother were comment numbers one and two on this post, here is what they would say:

OlderBrother: Why are you bothering me with this shit? I hate them. They didn’t come to my wedding, and besides, we had another baby last night, “cutest baby in the world number deux,” and thinking about them not knowing their grandkids just pisses me off. You just wait, you’re going to get the “WE DECIDED” phone call in a few days: “We decided that Sherlock is an alien homophobe who hates Greeks and wants to annihilate the entire population, and has three wives across the country who he’s supporting as well as several kids. And he’s probably 50 and an alcoholic.”

OldestBrother: Yeah, wait till Dad tells Mom and they develop all their conspiracy theories on Sherlock. They will come up with something ridiculous about him that they can use to tell you that he’s not right for you, then they will say that there’s enough time to get to the Greek Church on Sunday and meet someone. I don’t know why you tell them anything in the first place.

That’s about how I expect it to go. I told my OldestBrother on Friday about the above conversation and he said, “You know, when this is all said and done the only person in this family they are going to be speaking to is a dog. Sammy.”

Sherlock and I went out to dinner tonight to our new favorite restaurant. After we were done eating, I jumped up and down in my chair and clapped my hands while screaming, “MILK DUDS MILK DUDS MILK DUDS.” Sherlock said, “You want Milk Duds?” See, Sherlock has come to understand that when I want chocolate, I really want chocolate with caramel. Milk Duds usually do the trick, but sometimes Rolos or Sugar Babies also work. He also knows that they don’t sell Milk Duds at the 7-11 by his place. So we had to walk a little for them. 29 degrees out there. It’s cold.

We got to the store and he asked me to find him some lip balm. I went off in search of that and shortly after finding it and picking every lip balm product they had and putting it in the basket, I stumbled on the Valentine’s Day Candy. YAY! I love buying those stupid heart shaped cardboard boxes and then eating all the chocolate myself. But, wait! I don’t have to do that this year. I have someone to eat it with. Hooray! So, I started looking through the options and Sherlock came up behind me.

Sherlock: What are you doing? These don’t look like chapsticks or Milk Duds.
Velvet: I’m buying Valentine’s Day Candy. Will you be my Valentine?
Sherlock: Yes, of course. Are we waiting until Valentine’s Day to eat the candy?
Velvet: No. We’re going to sit on the couch and watch the movie and eat it all tonight.

This made Sherlock smile. I thought that our plan was set in stone.

We got home and he had to try to get a stain out of my shirt where some wayward food landed after I didn’t try hard enough to get it into my mouth. I unpacked the bags from the store, (that means I just threw everything on the counter,) and opened the coveted and very exciting Heart Shaped Box of candy. I put the legend out on the counter so we would know what was what. Then I grabbed my soda and the pretzels and headed into the living room. I thought he was just behind me with the chocolate since he had JUST SAID, “I won’t make popcorn, we can just have a chocolate night.”

I got to the couch and he’s not behind me. I waited. And waited. And waited! Then I said, “What are you doing?”

He popped his head out from around the corner and said “Me?” Aggravated, I said, “Yesssss,” and as I said it I noticed that his mouth was moving. He had some food in there. I said, “What are you DOING?” He said he was making popcorn. I could hear the microwave humming from where I stood. I’m trying to wrap my brain around what is going on but it just isn’t making any sense. I said, “So what are you eating?” He just looked at me with this expression like, “This is where I’ve fucked up. I know.”

I walked in there, and he has eaten THREE of the Valentine’s Day Chocolates. What. The. FUCK!!! I said, “You fucking ate our Valentine’s Day Chocolate without me! How could you do that?” He said he thought I left it out for him to eat. I said, “No, we should eat it together. I told you we would eat it on the couch and watch the movie. This is such bad Karma!!”

We’re doomed.

Dude. He ate the fucking Valentine’s Day Candy without me.

No no no, it wasn’t a hurricane. It was just my mom and dad who came to town this last week. Well, blew through town is more appropriate, on their annual mecca from Connecticut to Florida. Last year, I detailed their stay here in D.C., which you can find here. This visit, while significantly shorter than the 48 hour disasters of past, provided me about the same amount of fodder.

Time elapsed from the moment they stepped into my condo to the time the first fighting words were spat? 1 hour, 14 minutes. Better than usual. I don’t think that broke any records. Phew.

When they got to my neighborhood they called from the street. I could hear my dad in the background saying something. I said, “Who is he talking to?” My mom said, “Oh, he’s just telling the cop that we are unloading and that’s why we are in the loading zone.” I said, “HA! They don’t give a fuck. You could shoot Dad dead right now and they wouldn’t care.” My parents are used to New York City cops who give you a ticket for hesitating in front of a building. When they pick my brother up at his apartment they slow to 15 mph a la Little Miss Sunshine, and my brother has to run and jump in, otherwise they get a ticket for “standing.”

Anyway, my mom and I had a conversation on the phone in December which went like this:

Mom: When are you going to come up here and go through all your childhood memorabilia?
Velvet: I’m not.

Well, she really showed me. After I buzzed them in, I went to my front door to let the dogs in the hall to greet them and went back to drying my hair. I waited. And waited. And waited. They never came upstairs.Twenty minutes passed. I opened the door, fearful they were stuck in my ghetto ass elevator and I saw my neighbor out there. Standing there in my robe, I was a bit caught off guard. I said, “Oh, sorry, thought you might be my parents.” She said, “They are downstairs unloading boxes. They brought you a lot of stuff!”

Oh no. OH NO! FUCK! Whatever is in those boxes will NOT fit in la Casa de Velvet! I’m at the point where I may have to throw out my tampons so I have room for Sammy and Thora’s heartworm pills! Space is not something I just have around that I can find room for more crap.

I went downstairs and my mom was guarding seven, yes, SEVEN boxes in the lobby. My dad was circling looking for parking. I called him. He was lost. I tried to navigate him back but I heard sirens through the phone. He threw the phone on the seat but never hung up. I heard the cop pull him over (who knew they did this in D.C.?) and say he ran a stop sign, or a stop light or something. My dad said he was totally lost. She asked where he was going. He told her. And she told him how to find me. Then she followed him and I got in the car with him and we parked. He said, “Hey, that’s the cop who pulled me over going to talk to her friends. I thought she was going to give me a ticket.” I was laughing so hard I couldn’t contain myself. I said, “Dad, they don’t give anyone a ticket here. She’s trying to see if they have any donuts. She doesn’t care about you and your law-breaking.”

We go inside. Dad started feeding Sammy and Thora various treats. I started opening the boxes. Um. Oh boy. Let’s say that there were some old love letters in there from my high school boyfriend as well as a saucy picture of me in some whorish Halloween get-up that I sent him when I was in college. Fucking great. I’m sure my parents saw that. Groan.

A journey through my childhood, if you will:

A jar of my baby teeth. Aww. Who knew the next set of teeth to come through there would be home to the biggest mouth in all of D.C.

I’m not sure what this is, or was supposed to be, but I made it in Kindergarten. 1978 baby!! Anyway, it seems like a wood cylinder with a face painted on it, and some cotton on top and at the beard. I guess it is the wooden Santa? No clue. I’m still an artist though, bitches.

To the untrained eye, this is a papermache baby I made in art class when I was in 4th or 5th grade. The baby is supposed to be holding a bottle. But I dare you to look closer. It seems the baby is holding an erect penis. I remember my friend Amy bit off the top of a yellow crayon so we could make it the “nipple” of the bottle, but yeah, it just looks like a dick.

Look. It was not only a book on the Middle Ages, but my FIRST – implying that there was going to be a much sought after follow up. I’m afraid I have failed my readers. I’m very sorry about that.

Finally. I got to dig into the other bag that was a mix of gifts not collected at Christmas because I boycotted going home. The bag contains the usual take of gifts, except for one item I pulled out of an envelope. It was this:

Yes. Blue Thong Undies that say “OH” just above the ass crack. Note I said “the” ass crack, and not “my” ass crack, because I will NOT be wearing these. I know, I know, you want to know why my parents got me thong underwear. They didn’t. In the last Velvet Family post, I explained how the parents and brothers can’t resist something that is “free.” Where it says “take one” they go back and take definitely more than one. And they send whatever loot they have collected around to the rest of us. My family doesn’t understand that these things are free because NO ONE ELSE wants them. My brother is perhaps the worst, he cannot resist this lure. He has sent me the “CVS” Commemorative (read: free) Christmas ornament every year since 1997. I keep throwing them away but they keep coming back. Anyway, the origin of the thong undies is unknown, but from some offer online that he answered.

I can only hope that is ALL he answered. I really don’t want to have a free Nuva Ring arrive tomorrow and coupons for a free pap smear next week at some doctor whose license was probably revoked. Ugh.

Merry Fucking Christmas. See why I didn’t go home?

In final parental love, the best and most consistent of all their gifts is the rotting food they left behind. After they were gone I smelled the milk they left. Curdled. Made me yack.

It has been an interesting few days to say the least. First, I have to say hello and apologize to my little friend, Roxy Chanel McPink. I’m not sure why, but through some crazy bullshit that can only be triggered by bloggers with nothing else to do but start trouble, she thought that I was mad at her and wrote part of my last post about her. We had an email exchange where I explained that that definitely wasn’t the case. She said she was in tears driving to work this morning. Oh no! Roxy! I’m sorry. Then she said, “Phew, because I knew you went to bat for me and I thought maybe I missed something and you needed me and I wasn’t there for you.” Damn. I love you. You are a cool chick. See? Friendship. It’s such an easy thing to maintain for some of us, isn’t it? Oh, and Roxy, a couple of the more, well, sad of the blogscene say “Dating Blogs are Sooooo over.” They think if they declare their dating blog finished on a Monday, then jump on someone else’s bandwagon the next day of the “Dating Blogs being Sooooo over” that they are like, cool or something. But, um, aren’t you writing a book and shit? Yeah. Not sure how something (like dating) that people will be doing for the rest of eternity can be “over” but whatever!! Anyway, on that note…

The Year of First Dates has come to a screeching halt. There are a few factors at work here. First, I sidelined a couple of players in the dating game because I got busy, then got the dreaded cold. So, the emails and phone calls continued, but then, I lost interest. Also, I realized, if I could meet someone as nice and witty as Fencer4, and not want to pursue it, it is because something else was at work. Yes. Yes. I know. You know. We all know. Why waste any more time?

I’m so stupidly ridiculously in love with Sherlock and so ready to move on from the Disasters of 2006. Seeing him again last weekend and feeling the way I did was really a shock. The second I put my eyes on him I thought, “Uh oh.” We spent the entire weekend together just staring at each other. The clickety click was back. The impact of everything we talked about over the weekend continued to hit me through the week. I really didn’t realize that any of this was going to happen. My head was so ready to move on and do the Year of First Dates. My heart? Not so much.

I’m in love. And I’m not sure what happens from here. Actually I know exactly what happens from here. We gots all sorts of plans. But the only plans that matter are that I’m fucking madly in love.

It’s not a lyric from a song, but rather a line from a movie. A very good movie I might add.

It’s been a really fucked up few days for me. Really fucked up. First and foremost, my liver submitted its letter of resignation this weekend. I was shocked too to find out that my liver could write at all, but yes, it can and the letter said, “Dear Bitch whose face I have never seen: I quit. I’ve had enough of whatever you choose to poison me with, and I can’t take it anymore. Goodbye.” Though I’m not sure where it thinks it is going, but we’ll see. I should add myself to the Liver Transplant List. Is there a doctor on the blog?

Thursday – Day 1 of fuckedupness
I got to work and someone walked into my office with one question that literally turned into a three hour meeting. Most of my answers were, “Well, let me log into my email and I can answer that,” but, to no avail. The meeting just would not stop. As it neared lunchtime, I got a disturbing S.O.S. message from Sixes and Sevens that said “The King of the Dog Park’s Dog is Missing!” After a phone call, I discovered that the dog was with other friends of ours and took off, somewhere around Van Ness / Chevy Chase area we think. No one is really sure where they were. Anyway, the poor King of the Dog Park was home medicating with valium before setting out to search for the dog. (See it’s not just me who is a pill popper, it’s all of Dupont Circle.) I took off in a hurry and grabbed my torch to join the search effort. Just as I was pulling into my neighborhood to park, Sixes and Sevens called and said, “That fucker walked home. Four miles, and he walked home!!”

You know that dogs really are smarter than people. We just haven’t admitted it yet. I don’t think I could find my way home from Van Ness if I was in the woods.

Friday – Day 2 of fuckedupness
I had to go to another office for work to wait for a meeting whose time was undetermined due to a bunch of other meetings. I waited, and waited and waited. Said meeting finally started at 4 fucking 30, keeping me in the middle of the boondocks until very late. Then I sat in hellacious traffic. How on earth do people live out in the ‘burbs? Anyway, during the day I was thoroughly entertained by an email from Fencer4. Thursday night he had written an email to say he had a nice time and I replied with pretty much the same thing as I wrote here – he seemed like a great guy, not sure if we’re a match but I was willing to go out again. Thursday night I was thinking that my big news to report would be that I was breaking the “first date only” rule, but, I couldn’t get enough time to type that up and things took a much funnier turn anyway. It seems that through an error on my part, the Fencer googled something I said and found…this…blog.

The Fencer has moved to a whole new category. This man is fucking hilarious. His email had me in stitches. He said, “Wow, I got off easy compared to the other guys.” Well, sadly yes, but you were a complete gentleman with a great sense of humor and at least one of the other ones definitely deserved what was written about him – HandUpTheBack2 (who emailed again,) well, arrgh. That still grosses me out. Of course all of this proves that honesty is the best policy, because he didn’t see anything different written about our date here that I had sent in an email. I even told him that I had a conversation with a friend and told her that the Fencer is totally someone who needs to go out with one of my friends. Then I got the email, and he signed it “#4” and I just died. Too funny.

Friday night once I got home, I was sooooo comfy in my bed. It was cold and rainy and I just didn’t feel like moving. But Sixes and Sevens made me get up and get dressed to go out. We left my place around 9 and I didn’t see it again until 4 a.m. Too much alcohol. Really. I must stop. We texted with the Fencer and told him that he must meet Sixes and Sevens, well, we didn’t call her that, we called her by her real name. We ambitiously planned for Saturday but Sixes and Sevens and I didn’t realize that our night (at 1 a.m.) was still far from over. She set her hair on fire and obtained a Flashdance style t-shirt from a homeless man. I almost got locked in the bathroom. We finally walked home with a friend / neighbor of ours who just moved out of Dupont and whose new home was the unfortunate recipient of some vomit from one of his friends while he made sure Sixes and Sevens and I got home okay.

I finally hit the bed at 4 a.m.

Saturday – Day 3 of fuckedupness
The original plan for the day went like this – morning – gym; afternoon – motorcycle show with Sherlock; evening – drinking with FreckledK, Sixes and Sevens and the Fencer – place to be determined.

The day really went like this. I woke up at 2:00 p.m. Texted Sherlock and said I had a hangover. He called and asked if I was going to cancel. I said no that I just needed more time. We agreed he would walk the dogs while I showered. This was the first time I had seen him since I was vomiting my brains out on New Years Day. The time before that was when I threw him out of my house. I was nervous to see him. He got off the elevator and once I saw him, um, well, I texted Sixes and Sevens after to tell her that my undies just got a little wet, and damn him for that.

We metroed to the show, and just as we were pulling up to the Convention center…

I kicked the stool out from under him.

Velvet: So, my friend called me this week and said that she was seeing this weird IP on her blog every hour, and every day there was a different outclick, but always someone we knew. She asked if I could do some research. So I did and came back that I had a match of this girl we know, but thought she was out of town and wasn’t sure why she would be on there all the time. Unfortunately, my friend didn’t have the whole IP. But then she found it, I’m not sure how, and once she gave me that, I was able to figure out who it was. She said she was scared it was her ex-boyfriend, and I said, ‘No honey, actually, it would be my ex-boyfriend.’ So…what the FUCK are you doing? What are you looking for?
Sherlock: Um…
Velvet: What did you learn about boundaries? Nothing obviously.
Sherlock: No, that’s not true.
Velvet: What are you looking for?
Sherlock: Something I didn’t want to find.
Velvet: So, let me get this straight, you are not reading my blog, but you figured that if I fucked someone else I would what – write it as a comment in someone else’s blog? Or that THEY would blog about it? Like people are so pathetic that they have nothing else in their lives than to blog about mine or what I’m writing about on my blog?

The rest of the details are unimportant, we sat outside the show on these couches covering a lot of ground and he agreed that this was the wrong way to go about whatever it was he was doing.

We went into the show, and for reference, TACOMA!, there were no hot men there, so it didn’t matter that I took a boy with me. I looked around the whole place for a pink Choppers hat, but couldn’t find one. Then we left. On the metro, I started to get hot and sweaty and shaky. Damn hangover. The liver wasn’t getting the alcohol out of my body fast enough. I thought I was going to pass out. I considered going home but knew I wouldn’t make it the transfer to metro center or the walk from Sherlock’s metro. We went to his house where I promptly fell on his couch and got under a blanket. We talked about eating Ethiopian food for dinner, but I was too sick. I asked him to go get the dogs from my house and to get my sweatpants too. He did. I canceled my plans with all for the evening and I prepared to exorcise the Friday night demons from my body.

As miserable as I was physically, I just felt so comfortable. This feeling of course, surprised me quite a bit. When he came back with el pupperino’s, they ran in like they were just here the other day. In reality, it has been probably since Thanksgiving since we were all here together.

He came over and sat down next to me. We talked about eating, but I still wasn’t feeling up to it. We ended up talking for a while. He grabbed some slack in my jeans and said, “How much weight did you lose?” I said the “Break-up / stomach virus” was really a boon to my diet. I didn’t expect to lose so much, but I did.

I don’t think I could begin to put into words the conversation that happened from this point. There was a lot of talking, a lot of ground covered, some Ethiopian food, some sleeping, more talking, and while we said a lot to each other, some things really haven’t changed. He knows I’m dating. He’s not dating. The final resolution from me was that I may still love him (more than I realized,) I just don’t like him very much right now. I’m hoping for that to change, but I’m not expecting that it will or not. And the only way I know how to keep my life moving is to keep moving with my life. I told him I was dating. I told him about HandUpTheBack2 and how it disgusted me to have someone else’s hands on me. I told him that the Fencer already found my blog, and proved to be so fucking cool that he must get set up with all my friends who don’t have eating disorders. Sherlock isn’t happy about the place we’re at, but it is better than not talking at all.

I asked him for continued space, and that if this is meant to be, I would come running back to him, as opposed to feeling obligated, forced, or stalked into it.

I finally feel like there were two adults in that room talking on Saturday. Finally.

So, the blogging thing is pretty cool, if only for moments like this. I got a Christmas postcard all the way from Canberra, Australia. Thanks Aussie Em, that was mighty nice of you, especially considering I haven’t yet sent my Christmas cards out. Err. From last year either.

Well, it’s Tuesday night here at Velvet in Dupont and we’re moving right along in “The Year of First Dates.” As I told the Queen of Quantity tonight at the gym, “If he gets a second date, it means someone else doesn’t get a first.”

I went out with the next victim tonight. My first clue something was amiss was the fact that he called last night to firm up plans and left a voicemail. Then he called again within the hour to leave almost exactly the same message over again, with painstaking details about when I could call him and on which phone numbers, until my voicemail cut him off. I wasn’t ignoring him, I left my phone on the charger while taking the doggies for a long walk. When I got home I saw his two missed calls, and he also had sent an email. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, something about if you see the email first then check the phone, anyway. I got the feeling he’s been stood up a lot, or had a lot of dating foul-ups because he was really on my ass to set up this date. Poor guy.

I spent today driving around Pennsylvania for work and learned why everyone I saw there is so obese. They actually had an 800 lb. butter sculpture in both the shapes of Ben Franklin and the Liberty Bell on display tonight at some fair. In a text exchange with Sixes and Sevens where I relayed this breaking news, she told me to stay and take a picture.

Velvet: I would, but unfortunately I have a date with another stalker-in-training tonight.
Sixes & Sevens: If he follows you home, come to my house instead.
Velvet: Historically I never find out that they are stalkers until it is too late.

So I met the date at Union Station and we journeyed into a restaurant and ate dinner at the bar. Other than our love of the Simpsons, we didn’t have a lot in common. We had a positively riveting conversation about how softshell crabs get soft – are they soft in the ocean or are they somehow treated to become soft. It was my job to google that. He’s another “D.C.” guy – can’t tell me anything about his work because it’s highly classified, and what he did tell me (which I forgot) was allegedly “too much” anyway. Okay. I shall take his word on it.

Anyway, he’s named UncomfortableLaugh3 because, you guessed it, at the end of every sentence he tosses in the uncomfortable laugh as his punctuation, heh heh heh. Even in sentences that are not funny, heh heh heh. They got the laugh, heh heh heh. Nice guy but not my type, heh heh heh. And I just checked my email and he’s sent something about the softshell crabs and asking me out for Saturday heh heh heh. But, the rule applies: If I give him a second date, that’s one less person who gets a first date heh heh heh. Oh, I never know what to say in these uncomfortable situations, heh heh heh. I could delay him for a while, or I could be direct and just say I had a nice time, but I don’t think we’re a match, heh heh heh.

While you’re mulling that over, and preparing to advise me what to do, let’s continue in the vein of uncomfortable emails. However, this time it is an email of the variety I don’t care to answer. HandUpTheBack2, if you recall, had texted as I left the bar Saturday night saying something about “And now?” I didn’t answer, because I was grossed out and I ended up on the phone with Sherlock. HandUpTheBack2 texted again in the morning about did he get a second chance. I didn’t respond to that either. Then he sent an email saying that he guessed we weren’t “on” for that night, and it was too bad because it could have been a lot of fun. I wrote back and said, “I think I would feel differently if you weren’t so affectionate with your hands last night. Good luck to you.” He responded again that he wanted another chance, but I filed him away and grayed out his line on my spreadsheet and moved him to the “DATED” section. Yes. I really have a spreadsheet. It’s a fruitful dating season. I have to do my best in the game, and coming prepared with the stats on the players helps, especially when I have three fucking men with the same fucking name. Fuck!

The Sherlock update is that he texted me on Sunday afternoon when I was napping, and then called and texted again a few hours later. I called him back when I woke up and he said he was in a bar and could he call me back. What I said was, “Sure.” But what I thought was, “Fuck that, you tried to get in touch with me three times, and me calling you is like a commodity these days since I barely do it, and you want to call me back?” So we hung up and I sort of knew this would happen – he walked right outside and called me back. I wondered if he was on a date, or just trying to make me think he was. In any case, he had a question about computers that I answered and we chatted briefly. He said he called earlier because he was hoping he could see me, that he missed me. That’s twice now, because as I went down for my nappy time I thought, “It sure would be nice to have Sherlock here now.” Then I slapped myself several times and punched myself in the face for even thinking it.

I texted Sherlock later that night and said (vaguely) that there was a Motorcycle Show at the convention center this weekend and maybe we could try going to that and see how it goes. He responded and said he would love it. Then I hopped in the shower and by the time I got out I had two texts and an email that he had found the info online and purchased tickets. That is so Sherlock. I’m sure he was thinking, “If I FIND the event online and actually BUY the tickets, she can’t back out.” Not like I can’t give him his $13 back, but still.

Date #4 of the Year of First Dates happens tomorrow night.

So I’m back to my online tricks to force myself out into the dating world. Don’t ask what site(s) because it has been a difficult mess in which to wade. Frankly, UNLIKE LAST TIME, I don’t want someone spying out my profile, right clicking and saving my pictures and emailing them to everyone they know saying, “Hey, this is Velvet.” Fucking psycho. Yeah, I know you did that. Bitch.

Back to me.

Clearly I just care less right now than I have been known to in the past. Let’s start (and end with) the hair. I tied it up for work on Friday. When I took it out of it’s cage at the end of the day, it was a little stringy. My first thought: “Shit, I have a date tonight,” was quickly followed by my second thought: “Who cares.” And, I don’t. See, it is this kind of thinking that is going to get me in trouble. Because I will walk into a date with some stud and I’ll have stringy hair and spinach in my teeth because I didn’t care enough to try. And he will probably find it charming. Then I’ll morph into who I really am and he won’t like me because I’m not the same “real” girl he first met. But if I go looking good and being all charming and witty, then I’ll never get rid of them because odds are that 99% of these guys I won’t want to see again. Ever. See? I’ve got myself set up for anxiety AND failure at the same time. A psychologist’s dream I am. Yes siree.

The first date back out there I wanted to be with someone totally not my type. It was my “practice date.” I haven’t been out with anyone in six months. Anyway, the chap who asked me out first was quite aggressive over email, and I just figured I would use the “oh, my poor broken heart, I guess I’m just not ready to date anyone” line if he tried to pursue things. Then we shared some texts and he was mildly rude in some, accusing me of bailing when I gave NO indication at all that I was waffling. I wasn’t. I needed “Practice Date.” We finally agreed on a time and place, and I texted back and ask if he’s done with work and ready. He replies ten minutes before we’re supposed to meet that he’s still tied up with work. I text back to just let me know when he’s ready. Then? Nothing. Zip. Aah, the magic. The man spent the last 24 hours accusing me of bailing, only to effectively bail. And because I am in the “not caring” mode, I remained unmoved, in sweats, ratty hair in a ponytail, no makeup. I knew he was going to bail all along so I never even got up to get ready. HA! So, that’s for you, shitwipe.

Of course the management lesson here applies, that people are always guilty of what they constantly accuse you. The boyfriend who nags his girlfriend about cheating is usually the one who is screwing around. The old boss I had who was so sure everyone was taking money out of his pocket, was in effect, cheating and stealing from others. The guy who accuses me of bailing – will be the one who bails. I sniffed it out and that’s why I never took off the sweatpants.

Sixes and Sevens tried to convince me to come to Local 16, but I hopped on IM with some Greek guy, then got a call from someone else who wanted to meet for a drink. I know, I’m quick. I ain’t fucking around anymore. It’s the year of first dates. Or something like that. And the naming system this year includes a number at the end. Much easier to keep track. So, on Friday night I met BillGates1, so named for his involvement in computers. He’s been into computers since way way way before many of us hit high school. He knows some pretty big names in the Geek Kingdom, and told me who some of his friends are. He’s started a handful of companies, but finds his work boring to discuss. We had a couple drinks, I chowed some mozzy sticks, and he walked me home. No chemistry, but it was pleasant enough and I agreed to go out with him again. Besides, even if it doesn’t work out, I could use a friend like him. Must surround myself with smart people.

I swear, when I got in my elevator, I jumped up and down, not for the sheer excitedness of the date, but because all I could say to myself was, “I WENT OUT WITH SOMEONE OTHER THAN SHERLOCK!!!”

Saturday, I had an impromptu run-in with the adorable etcetera at the Pet Store. Sammy and Thora barreled into the place and I heard someone say, “Is that Sammy and Thora?” Then we identified each other, by blog name, in front of the clerk. Yeah, we’re geeks. And I feel like Sammy and Thora are famous! Hooray! Now if I can just get them modeling contracts…I’d be the greatest pageant mom evah! Oh but etcetera, I wouldn’t wear the get up I wore to the store, I looked like hell. Ick. Moving right along…

In the evening, after I downloaded some much needed 80’s rock, (Helloooo Billy Squier,) I met FreckledK at um, a bar. I have to stop saying names of bars because then “people” end up showing up there. I convinced another suitor I’m speaking to, via text, to come from his bar to my bar. So, he arrives. And he’s not as cute as I had thought. Oops. Then we had a great conversation and he said, “How forward can I be?” I said, “Go ahead.” He said, “Will you get embarrassed?” I said, “Probably. Text it to me.” So he gets his phone and texts something about um, wanting to lick me all over. Yeah. All righty. I took off for the bathroom, but not before he put his hands all over me. And the slide up the back of the shirt, ugh. Then he tried to kiss me. Code RED Code RED! Gotta pee! Disaster averted. Dude, don’t try that again or you might find my fist in your face. I’m so unprepared for the dating world.

I found Sixes and Sevens humping a man by the bathroom. Awesome. Then we caught up on what we had done since we last saw each other a few hours earlier. I went back to my, um, date, who is now known as HandUpTheBack2, and she took off. When I sat down again, the hands were ALL OVER me and he was saying things about how great I looked and blah blah blah. Don’t men realize when you are recoiling and not into their advances? I said something to him when he acted all weird, “I’m totally not out here looking for sex.” Ugh. I have to say, it all made me sick, then it made me think of Sherlock. Damn him for entering my mind. FreckledK invented an excuse about being tired, which was so lame because he knew we were bailing, and we ran out of there so fast I am now officially embarrassed for my entire gender.

Street Talk
Velvet: What’s today? January 6th? Great. 359 days left in the year and what, at this rate, 240 more dates?
FreckledK: Do you like him?
Velvet: I did until he put his hands on me. Then it made me miss Sherlock. And damn me for saying that. It just felt weird to me, like I was doing something wrong.
FreckledK: I know EXACTLY what you are talking about.

Then. I swear. Ask her if you don’t believe me. Sherlock texted me. Right at that moment. 2 a.m. Said he was just thinking about me. I replied, “Me too.” We talked for a bit, but it was so strained. Mostly because I’m a freak. We have not been speaking a whole hell of a lot these days. I suppose he was drunk. But I brought FreckledK home and returned home to man the email. I need an assistant to help me weed through these men. Though, I’m not being picky, I’m just trying to get “back out there.” So I’ll pretty much go out with anyone who isn’t married or a serial killer. Not that I would even know either of those things until it is too late.

HandUpTheBack2 texted a couple times when I was driving FreckledK home, and then this morning at 9 a.m. (WTF??) to ask if he got a second chance. I didn’t respond, mostly because I didn’t know what to say. He sent an email saying something about being sorry it got so weird, and he was drunk and blah. Whatever. And…out!

I was supposed to have a date tonight, but he just emailed about it getting late or something, and there’s the rain, and my having just woken up from a nap so I’m not feeling charming at all. Several others on deck. I’ll keep you posted. And hopefully this nagging feeling that I’m doing something wrong by dating again will go away.

It’s a New Year. When I did the 2006 recap, and read over the last several months of the year, it was like living it again through different eyes. Toward the end of the summer, I lost my anonymity and had a “too close for comfort” situation of readers on my blog – a convoluted mess of a boyfriend, and some of his past paramours all reading every detail. This was not a comfortable place for me at all, and sadly, I went under password. It didn’t stop one of the people from attempting some underhanded methods to bypass the password, but hey, I guess I’m just that interesting or something. Whatever. So, I came back out from the password after I got everything off my chest, but stopped posting about personal things.

You know what? That was a horrible solution. Not that I can’t try to shoot my mouth off with the best of them, but, I’m not as well rounded and let’s face it, not as smart as some of the best. I can’t hold a candle to the wit and banter you will read from bloggers like Cube, RCR, the Circ, and Jordan Baker. I’m not as aware and appreciative of my surroundings as Barbara and Reya, making myself the worst “witness” anyone would want in a courtroom. (“What color was the bank robber’s shirt Velvet?” “Um, he was wearing a shirt? I don’t know, but I was chewing gum that day!”) My stories are nowhere near as “The Simpsons” style clever like Ninja’s, nor are they the best-all-around of I66’s. And I’m not well versed in all things pop-culture like one KassyK.

Unless I pick a fight with one of the cops, or Sammy and Thora vomit off my balcony, I’m so much more suited to writing about boys and sex, sex and boys, drinking, and pills. Besides, that’s what Velvet in Dupont was created for anyway.

So began my New Year’s conundrum. I wondered seriously if I should just hang this up. I thought about starting another blog, but, the thought of that tires me. I prefer to keep going with this one until it dies. I do like my privacy in many ways, but, I’ve got so many awesome readers and friends that I don’t feel like the blog is over. Then I thought, maybe I can superficially coast through some dating and well, blah. That sucks too. The thing is, Velvet is not done. The idea here was about dating in D.C. And guess what? I’m still fucking dating in D.C. Less so these days than in days past, but still, like erosion, it is a slow and painful process.

So. Fuck it. Let’s get back to it. Original and uncensored, with just enough spared to save some hurt feelings and protect my personal life. Today I’m tired and malnourished and in the mood to do a bit of gut-spilling.

In July I met Sherlock. We all know the disaster. Don’t make me relive it. I just got past my stomach virus and/or food poisoning. But since the password, and since the fall, the rollercoaster continued. All of the details are probably just the same over and over, but the bottom line is that he and I are sometimes on the same page, and sometimes we are not. Like most relationships I would imagine, when we are on the same page, everything is wonderful. And when we are not on the same page, things get really really bad. I mean, really bad. Definition of really bad was me laying in a crumpled ball at my doctor’s office saying, “You have GOT to help me!” And Doctor Hot-but-Gay has his hand on the phone and he’s hit 9-1 and is about to hit that last 1 until you assure him that this isn’t what he thinks.

So somewhere after spending a wonderful Thanksgiving together, and having a great first couple weeks in December, like the front desk at the Hyatt, I just checked right back out again. I think I’ve become so conditioned to this fucked up dating style we have here in D.C. that I now think if someone wants to see me twice inside a week then something just must be wrong with them. Okay, I’m being a bit facetious, but that’s just an example of how Sherlock and I would end up on opposite pages. The usual drill was him wanting more of my time, and my pulling back in response. When his plans suddenly changed and he was going to be in town after a planned weekend out of town, he was quite pissed that I didn’t drop my plans. I am just not the girl who fucking bails on all her friends because her boyfriend is back in town. Granted, a lot of you all do it to me. A lot of you. But I do not do it back. I do not click over to talk to a boy if I’m talking to you. I do not hang up on you if he calls. And I don’t make excuses about that. Maybe it makes me a shitty girlfriend, but, that is who I am.

After several heated exchanges, we had a less than amicable parting of the ways.

Then I realized after some things both he and I said during that conversation, that it wasn’t just so easy to walk away. I don’t then, and still don’t now think that the blame for a lot of what went wrong resides with me, but I certainly didn’t help matters.

If someone has a weakness, and you know they have this weakness, and you don’t do all that you can in your power to discourage them away from said weakness, are you somehow partially responsible for what happens?

Sure, you can argue that both parties are adults and adults make their own decisions and have to stand up for those decisions. I would agree. But I also wouldn’t walk into a room of meth addicts and start chopping, cutting, lining and snorting like a hibachi chef going for the Onion Volcano.

So, here we were, having some final, tidying up conversations. Me telling him things I think he needed to know. Him asking questions and doing the same with me. Then, as is typical for members of my family, I just shut down. I was talking and contributing and emailing and even had a phone chat or two to help iron some things out, but I kept it very business, and once it turned into a “How was your day dear” conversation, I dove off the phone, or didn’t respond to that part of the email. Then I stopped responding entirely. At least to him.

What I did respond to were so many other vices in my life. And I spent several weeks doing things to my body that oh, hurt so much and haven’t been done in ages.   When I woke up the other night with the dreaded food poisoning thing, I thought, “Here we go, this is where I finally end up in the ER for what I’ve done. And I don’t even have an emergency contact!” Shit. I should have been so lucky after what I went through for the next 48 hours.

So after several weeks of not talking to Sherlock, refusing all forms of contact even going so far as to fight with a delivery person who just wanted to deliver flowers to me on Christmas Eve so he could go home to his family and not listen to some crazy lady say, “TAKE THESE BACK AND CALL THE FUCKER WHO SENT THEM AND TELL HIM THEY WERE REFUSED,” we ended up meeting again in the strangest of ways.

Well. Not really.

Twenty minutes after I posted my death virus post Monday night and asked for someone to walk Sammy and Thora, guess who was at my door, promising no drama, buying gatorade, putting everything in my kitchen, shaking his head at the dying flowers, and walking the dogs. Yeah. If he was as mean to me as I have been to him, I would have let his dogs rot in hell.

He called to see how I was feeling last night and I was a bitch. Then I realized that I had NO REASON and was totally out of line. I apologized via text and he called. We ended up on the phone half the night. It was a good conversation. For three hours.

I don’t know what to say anymore. We are not on the same page right now. There is a lot that has happened between us to cause a lot of hurt. Hurt that I’m not sure I can recover from. This time though, I’m not going to stand idly around with my thumb up my ass. He isn’t in the picture right now, but he’s not completely out of it either. *Shrug*

With that, I’m back in the ring. And this time I’m up to something hilarious that I hope will yield some funny ass stories again. It was getting a little stale around here. So, I’m opening the window. Letting a little fresh air in. Let’s go.

I just about had all the tainted food cleared from my system when I received an email that made me throw up again.

If anyone recalls the hellacious 4 part series on “OldBuilder,” great. If not, I’ll just give you the very brief synopsis. Opie is a misogynistic, sexually harassing asshole whose hatred of me turned an entire company upside down.

Now, the email:

Just a quick note to say Happy New Year!

I hope 2007 brings you much fulfillment & success.

With Warmest Regards,

Opie

(301) 793-XXXX

Damn. Is he kidding? I have to go hurl now. I forwarded to my boss and said, “I should write back and say, ‘Look, we both know we hate each other. You can take me out of your address book now.'”

Happy New Year to you too Opie. Maybe this is the year you get and keep a job. In other “OldBuilder” news – the Weasel was fired from his next job as well. Awesome.

All together now, People ALWAYS get what they deserve.

I am sick.

I am sicker than I have been in a long time due to Food Poisoning. I feel like I am going to die. Not a good way to start off this year. Be right back. Gotta hit the bathroom.

Last night I woke up at 4 a.m. and ran to the bathroom. Ever have such a vile thing in your body that you don’t know which end it will come out first? Yeah. I sat there holding the trash can sitting on the porcelin bus, screaming for my life. Be right back, bathroom again.

So back to last night. I don’t know how, but I passed out. In the bathroom. I got hot and cold and then cold sweats, and fell and hit my head on the wall. When I woke up I could not get myself off the floor. I’m so hot. Who wouldn’t want to date me? Be right back, going to the bathroom again.

Anyway, at what point do I need to go to the ER? I am much more comfortable in my house with my own vomit and candle filled bathroom than I would be in the ER going to the bathroom in a smock. Sit tight. Going to hit the potty again.

This afternoon I vomited like the exorcist and yes, I recognized the culprit of what made me sick. Interestingly enough, it was a meal PRIOR to the last one I ate. How does that happen? Does the stomach say, “Okay, you, cheese and crackers, you are allowed by, but you butternut squash ravvies, you are staying here while we check your paperwork. Nope, sorry, you are on the do-not-fly list. Get out.” Fortunately I was awake so I didn’t choke on my own vomit a la John Bonham. Speaking of, must go vomit. Be right back.

A couple months ago, I wanted to lose like 8 lbs. so I did the ever effective South Beach Diet. I was quite happy with my weight loss. Then I had some personal traumas and lost more weight without even trying. I was at what I thought was my bottom, which was less than I wanted, but still okay. I was back to my college weight. Fine. No biggie, but all my pants keep falling off. Now with this inability to keep any food in my body, I’m unwillingly on my way to sharing a room with Nicole Richie in anorexia rehab. Fucking sucks.

Shit. Where did my boobs go? God damned it.

If anyone wants to walk Sammy and Thora (seriously) please call me.

January – The first victim of the year in dating was CL#5PornName. (Date #1.) We only went on one date, because I became enamoured with stupid CL#4NewJersey. That doofus. Sammy got a mysterious back problem that almost set me back $3000 for an MRI and such, but he magically recovered. I continue dating CL#4NewJersey (he’s in last year’s count so he doesn’t count for this year,) and El Guapo hits the scene and we team up for some good old Craigslist torture. You all loved it. Here are the links:

1) Choose your own adventure – explains the reason this guy is “chosen.”
2) With the Touch of a Velvet Glove, Abra Abra Cadabra – Enter El Guapo.
3) El Guapo Strikes Again – It just gets funnier.
4) El Guapo Fucks Up – But it is just so damn funny!
5) The Best of El Guapo Recap – Think of the Deli Meats!

February – Things continue on the CL#4NewJersey rollercoaster and then I have a date with CL#2BlueEyes (Date #2.) That doesn’t go anywhere though. CL#4NewJersey surprises me for a Valentine’s Day dinner and things seem to look up. But not for long. He disappears shortly after. It’s Just Lunch sends me out on my 10th date, Ray Romano, (Date #3) but that goes nowhere as well. CL#4NewJersey breaks up with me via email, solidifying his place as the supreme idiot of the dating world.

March – A generally non-descript month for me, though I did meet and start dating another wanker off Craigslist (Date #4.) He had a name consisting of something about a fruit (in general “fruit” is quite apropos though the specific choice of fruit in this case is not representative of his package,) and a place to take outside naps, but it’s all a hazy blur of a truly unremarkable person who told the same three stories over and over. Not so much a “catch” as something you’d like to throw back. Crazy friends included in that package as well.

April – My parents came to visit. That post is still one of my best hits on this blog. Guess you all can relate. Went to Arizona in the end of April and fell in love with the idea of moving out of D.C. It probably had something to do with an incredibly X-rated night with the cowboy. Not sure I can log this one as a “date.”

May – Not a lot of writing in May because one of my aforementioned dates went a little nuts and I just checked out of the scene for a while. It was a nice break.

June – On a major Dating Hiatus at this point. Went shopping at Victoria’s Secret and created the Hunting Guide to help gear myself back up for the game.

July – Went to Michigan to see friends get married and saw Cutest Baby in the World. Reconnected with It’s Just Lunch (who forgot about me) and went on a date with TheBoroughsBaby (Date #5) which had zero chemistry and had a date with SirTalksALot (Date #6) which also went a surprisingly nowhere.

August – Began a drama filled relationship with Sherlock (Date #7.) Found quickly that Sherlock comes complete with other girls he’s dated who are also bloggers who are also reading my blog. To say that this was a mess would be putting it lightly. I went out with OlderMan (Date #8) and he asked me out again but I wasn’t feeling that so much. Also went out with TheConsultant (Date #9.)

September – In my need to get the hell out of dodge, I head off to Atlanta. The rest of the month is pretty uneventful. Some on again / off again with Sherlock.

October – Mid October I finally had enough of the drama and went under password protection for a month. That was relieving, though hilarious to see “people” trying to crack the password as well as use the cache to get in and read. It proved to me that there really are a lot of crazies in this blog world. Things spun out of control and into directions I never expected. My panic attacks increased in frequency up from one or two a week to one or two a day.

November – Blog still under password. I learned a lot about myself by going back and reading these passworded posts. Sometimes you can get so caught up in the day to day that you miss the big picture entirely. It’s much more obvious to me at this point what was going on back then. I only wish I saw it more clearly. In my defense, work kept me very busy to notice the other stuff.

December – Posting is light again. I’m burned out on blogging this month. I’m doing more to take care of myself and trying to not be so deep and to not feel things so deeply. Letting it roll off becomes my new mantra.

When I went back and read some old posts to compile this recap, I realized how fun this blog used to be, how fun my life used to be, and how it seems to have become a big pile of shit and negativity. I’m not happy about it. Seeing it all in one place, I definitely can say that this year is not even close to what I wanted for myself. Last night I had a conversation with Sixes and Sevens and she said that dating is hard, and she prefers to coast superficially through relationships and not get entrenched emotionally because it is just too exhausting. I can totally relate. So, as I’ve said before, this isn’t exactly what I want for myself, but I don’t know what I do want. But, I’m going to keep looking. I think there is a better life out there. I just have to find it.

In any case, the score is as follows:

Velvet: 0
Potential Dating Pool: -9

I think in 2007 I’m going to consider getting back to writing about the original focus of Velvet in Dupont – Dating and Relationships.

I drank again last night. Sixes and Sevens is a bad influence. My night started off relatively healthy. I went to the gym, ran 3.4 miles on a 3% incline, came home and hopped in the shower. Then I got a text that said, “Wine? Champagne?” Damn you evil temptress. I was doing so well!

I grabbed my booze and my dogs, and went over to her place, stopping to bang on the King of the Dog Park’s window on the way. He opened it up and said he would meet me at Sixes and Seven’s house shortly. All of this drinking ensured that I would get home late, drunk, and be late for work today. But, it was a good thing. Driving to work an hour later than my usual time, I stopped at a red light downtown. I looked to my right and saw two men of the blue collar variety standing on the sidewalk talking to another guy whose face I couldn’t see.

These two guys were the hottest specimen I’ve seen in this city since I moved here. I wish I had my camera because I would have most definitely taken a picture. I seriously could not stop looking. Of course, it got the little squirrel in my brain thinking about something.

Growing up in Connecticut, and hanging out in the bars and clubs in New York City and Long Island, good looking men outnumbered the rodents in the city. Every night out yielded a handful of phone numbers from men who I would juggle for months to come. I then moved to Atlanta, and while the general look of Atlantans was different, there were still many hot men to feast the eyes on.

Then I moved here. Hollywood for the ugly. Why are we all so unattractive? I just don’t get it. Am I hanging out in the wrong places? Is it the whole city or just pockets? And good lord, am I becoming ugly by osmosis? I’m really at a loss. By New York City standards, the guys this morning would have blended in. Both about 6 feet tall, light to medium brown hair, one with some unshaven scruff, rough in a take-me-tame-me way, and not manorexic. They spend time at the gym without getting bulky and steroided up. They have the look that they actually play sports instead of watching them on t.v. They stand out in a city washed with “sameness” enough for me to slam on my brakes and stare without fear of getting caught.

When I moved here, my definition and standard of what was good looking changed without my knowledge or approval. The guys in D.C. fall into a few categories. Either he is the nerdy hipster with the trademark black frame glasses who looks like he hasn’t washed his clothes since “Like a Virgin” was number 1, or he’s the politico who spends too much time at the office going bald and not spending enough time exercising off his pot belly. If he doesn’t fall into one of the two above categories, then he has most likely become metrosexual. By process of elimination, I embraced the metrosexual look. I liked the guy who paid attention to what he looked like, bought the Seven jeans, and generally acted a bit gay when appropriate. But that hasn’t worked out so well for me. I just can’t emasculate the man I’m with. And the other types? Well, I’m just not the hipster kind of girl. And the politico? No thanks. I’ll choose celibacy.

But seeing this guy this morning just reminded me where I came from, what I grew up finding attractive and the kind of guy who I am most suited to be with. It’s more workman with toolbelt and less suits and briefcases. It’s more driving an F350 to work and less bike riding with the backpack in tow. It’s more Dane Cook, and less Buddy Holly, Carson Daly or Chris Robinson.

Aah, Dane Cook.

Oh. I hurt. Who else is at work today? Damn it. This sucks. Its a shitty day here in the District – foggy, rainy and quiet. All you people are still away. And I’m here at work, pretending to work. Though, this is for the best, because if I had one more consecutive day off, I would have been in detox by Wednesday for sure. I did a lot of drinking. I mean, a LOT of drinking. And self-medicating. Combine that with not a lot of eating and well, I hurt. HURT!

The weekend is a blur of events, quotes, hangovers and sleep, but heres what I got. If anyone who I saw can contribute more or connect any of the dots, it would be much appreciated.

The Upstairs Neighbor visited. In a drunken picture taking moment, he fell on Freckled K and broke her coccyx. We think. She was whining all weekend. FK, I did some research on broken coccyxs here. It doesnt say anything about if a hot hipster boy from San Fran falls on you at The Black Cat though.

The Upstairs Neighbor came out again on Saturday night but he brought a bodyguard this time. I dont think he wanted to be alone with FreckledK and I again. Damn.

FreckledK made me go to Georgetown on Christmas Eve to go shopping. Oh, the humanity. Okay, it wasnt that bad. I did announce to everyone on the first floor in Banana Republic, This was fun but I’m going upstairs to commence shopping for myself. Merry Christmas to the rest of you though.

After trying on several pairs of pants and discovering that after all these years Banana Republic still can’t make a pair of pants with pockets that lay flat, I went back downstairs to find FK. I saw my bestest friend in line next to her. I started screaming and pointing and he did too, then we all went to eat. The waitress at Clydes asked the kitchen to make me an item off the dinner menu and they said yes and it almost made me cry because I didn’t ask her to do that. I just mentioned that I loved it and wished it was on the lunch menu. Its the little things you know. Then we gave the waitress a ridiculous tip of like $30 on an $80 bill and she almost cried. Tears all around and we werent even at a funeral. Or my familys house.

Christmas Eve I went to dinner with Sixes and Sevens, her mom, and the King of the Dog Park. At some point during dinner, Sixes and Sevens mom mentioned her collection of shopping bags. Anything with a handle she said. I was sufficiently drunk by this point in time. Then I went home and collected every shopping bag I could find in my house and brought them over to her. She literally shrieked with joy. Who knew? I was also supposed to bring my new Taki the Greek speaking Teddy Bear that my brother gave me for Christmas (Dude, you know I’m not 10 anymore, right?) but it was just too embarrassing. “Alpha beta gamma delta epsilon zeta eta theta…OPA!…Mia Orea Petaloutha…Yeia Sou!” Jesus fucking Christ. What. The. Fuck. Did you not see the rocking pink tricycle I got you people? How about your Tourist Trap DVD or that Fekkai Gift Set? I get a Greek Teddy Bear? Fuck. What am I getting next year? A gang bang from Osama Bin Ladin and friends?

I went home and was messing around online and noticed something very interesting in my stats. Verrrrry interesting. I wonder why someone from Lewis Law Firm spent 5 hours checking the google cache for mentions of someone who has proven to be quite the psychotic around here. Then, interestingly enough, later that evening, someone in some redneck state down south did the same thing for a few hours. Christmas Eve people. Christmas Eve. Do you not have anything better to do than to scour a google cache that barely exists anymore for mentions of your nutball self? Or to have someone at a law firm do it? Jesus. What a waste of space you are.

I was about to pack it in for the night. But then FK and KassyK called me from a bar. Leave it to those two to find a bar that is open on Christmas Eve. More drinking. Could I possibly drink any more? Lets see. Yep. I could.

I spent yesterday recovering and checking out rehab programs. Just in case.

Its the Holidays everybody. Have you noticed yet how the holidays bring out the worst in many people?

Last week, Dunkin Donuts on 17^th Street was robbed. Calling all cars, calling all cars, Dunkin Donuts is in peril!

Friday 12/15, 9 p.m., Wonderland Ballroom was robbed by three masked men with guns. They took everyones cash and were out in under 3 minutes. Gentrification is a slow and painful process.

Monday 12/18, 3 p.m. A man was shot and killed at 12^th & U, just outside the 7-11. Apparently it was because of some sort of argument. 3 p.m. people. 3 p.m. Bunch of savages around here.

Monday 12/18, 3:30 p.m. I have to get Sammy & Thora out for a walk and also need to drop off an RX for my anti-anxiety medicine at CVS. I walk down the street and begin to tie them up outside. A man with a goiter rides up to me on his bike and says, Youre really trusting. I said, They wont run away. He says, No, I mean, just anyone could come and steal them. Now, this process of tying dogs outside a store is not my favorite, and Ive done it three times in my life as something happening to Sammy or Thora paralyzes me with so much fear, hence the anti-anxiety medicine RX that I was holding in hand! So I turn around and look at him, and my face must have said it all. He said, Well, I didn’t mean to scare you but and launches into more about how just anyone could steal the dogs and I would never find them. Finally he rides off. I make sure hes out of sight and I run in and drop off the RX and run back out. There are Sammy & Thora, sitting there licking their asses. Who would want to steal a mutt whose tongue tastes like ass? But, for those 30 seconds, I was really sweating it out. Asshole. Thanks a lot. Ill be doubling up when I get my hands on those pills.

Tuesday 12/19, 3 p.m., Blockbuster was robbed on 17^th Street, also by armed men. They forced an exiting customer back inside and held the place up. I would like to tell that customer that while I’m sorry for their trauma because I would have most likely crapped my pants, they should have long ago joined Netflix. Who goes to Blockbuster anymore?

I’m going to lock my door, train Sammy and Thora to use the toilet, and not leave until the madness is over.

Two friends asked me this weekend if I would post their respective, current plights on my blog seeking your expert, non-biased opinions. This works out well for me considering that my own weekend passed in such a drunken (cough, among other things, cough) haze that I don’t really recall any material of my own. Though, I do remember a near bar fight with some troll who couldn’t wait 10 seconds for me to pee and found it necessary to bang on the door like a lunatic and I also remember that the bar I went to on Friday was subjected to an armed robbery just minutes before my girls and I walked in. But I digress. Today is about the friends needing your advice.

Situation 1:
My friend Kate has been seeing a guy for a little while now, and he was at her house on the other night. As the evening progressed, they had sex. She told him to make sure he pulled out. Then, feeling a change in the dynamic, she knew that he had come and she asked him point blank if he did. He said no. She got up, and being that this is something we girls will find out anyway (helloooo gravity,) she went to the bathroom and realized that there was now a “mystery” substance coming out of her body. So she asked him again, “Are you SURE?” He said, again, “No.” So she presents her evidence (verbally, not like she showed it to him, though I said she should have,) and he says that he didn’t feel it. She told him she highly doubted he could have an orgasm and not feel it. He’s sticking with his story, denying all knowledge on his part that he actually came.

Now, despite the fact that I have very large balls, I do not have a penis. I cannot answer this question for sure, I just know that of the men I have been with, no one has ever been “not sure” whether they actually had an orgasm or not.

Boys? Little help? Is it possible to come and not feel it? Is he a big, fat, lying, selfish, pre-pubescent boy who can’t control or feel his orgasms?

Situation 2:
Another friend who I’ve named “Sixes and Sevens,” met a guy at a bar. They both seemed quite interested in each other and spent a good portion of the evening talking. The guy seemed to be painfully shy. Despite this, he asked for her number twice and they exchanged information. There were some emails over a couple days that seemed to show interest on both sides of this puzzle. Then there was talk of possible weekend plans. He was unable to meet her Friday, but said that Saturday he would be at a certain bar with a bunch of friends if she wanted to stop by.

The bar in question is not a contiguous space, and while we sat in the bar at the corner, he made his way around the place talking to various people but never came over to say hi to her. She assumes he saw us and didn’t want to come over because he didn’t like her or thought it was weird that she showed up at the bar. I think he was pretty drunk and possibly didn’t see us. He and the friends were really downing the Schlitz. So, what do you all think? Did he see her and not want to talk to her? What should she do? Wait for him to call? Call him? Email him and tell him that she was there and he didn’t see her and she felt like she was intruding in his night out with friends?

Help the girls out with their problems please, as my well of knowledge has been sliced, diced, cut, burned, bumped, blasted, blown and insufflated.

I was walking by a fancy store today, skidded to a halt and turned to feast my eyes on this:

It’s pink. It’s retro. It’s all things I love, and what tricycles should have been when I was bopping around. I bought it, shoved it in Speedracer, and whisked it away from the store so I could send it off to my beloved little niece. You may remember her as the “cutest baby in the world.” Well, she seriously is out of hand adorable. And I’m not just saying that because she’s my niece. See for yourself.

Clearly my brother got to her first instead of my more responsible and not nearly as sweet toothed sister-in-law. Sigh. That pint of ice cream is not for teething babies! It’s for PMSing Aunties. Send it my way bitches, I’m sending you this tricycle in exchange. God, that kid. She is so cute I can’t stand it.

In other cuteness news, Sammy and Thora are out of control with the UPS lady in my neighborhood. She gives them treats that she keeps in the truck. I get notes and calls from my dog walker that they saw the UPS truck and jumped inside. If Thora sees a UPS truck anywhere now, she bolts. I’m back to putting her on a leash because she is totally out of control. She saw the UPS lady driving down the street, and she walked out in the middle of the road with her little bow legs and stopped her in her tracks. The UPS lady had to open the door and let Thora in the truck with her because Thora would not move out of the road. My dog has become a stalker. And no, it’s not just her.

Yesterday Sammy craned his neck from the balcony and saw the UPS lady a FULL BLOCK AWAY delivering a package. She jumped out of the truck and Sammy started shrieking and barking.

I would like to hire them out for the holidays. Everyone could use a warning when UPS is coming, right? Well, I’ve got Sammy and Thora, ready to patrol for UPS, coming to a neighborhood near you. Their price is 3 milkbones an hour.

I spent a few years in my 20’s, training in Kickboxing, and not in a fruity neon lit aerobics studio kicking air. My Sensei was a Triple Degree Karate Blackbelt. Despite the fact that I used to show up for work with bruises a la Ed Norton in Fight Club, I learned a lot about how to fight and general fighting styles. Men and women fight totally different. Women are more vicious. Round for round, a woman will throw more punches per minute, hit harder, kick harder than a man ever will. To this day, that training is branded in my head. But my fighting style is also shaped through generations of Velvet family training.

The father of one Velvet in Dupont grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on the wrong side of the tracks. And I mean, the WRONG side of the tracks. No one goes into his neighborhood now. When my Uncle died, I went up to the house for memories and such, and the man who lived in the attached house said (as I was stalkerishly looking through the mail slot into what was once my Grandparents hallway,) “You don’t want to live here. This is an awful neighborhood.” But, one of my favorite family stories is one from this neighborhood. This little gem, courtesy of my dad, shaped my brothers and I how to respond in similar situations.

When my dad was in grade school in the early 1940’s in Bethlehem, he came home from school one day with a black eye. His dad, my barely-English speaking Grandfather (Papou,) pulled him aside, away from his mother and sisters and asked him what happened. My dad explained to him that every day there was a bully who was beating up the kids for their lunch money. My dad, at 10 years old (and still now at 74) refused to part with his cash and he suffered a daily beating because of it. Papou bent down and said something in my dad’s ear. My dad nodded, and they went about their evening.

The next day, Papou was summoned from his job at Bethlehem Steel down to my dad’s school. He goes in to the Principal’s office. The Principal says to Papou, “Your son is in here because he beat up this boy. Do you have any idea why?”

Papou said, “Because I told him to.”

Of course this caused all sorts of a ruckus until Papou was able to explain what had been going on. Of course the school had no knowledge of this. Everyone was sent home and problem solved. So what did Papou tell my dad when he bent down and whispered in his ear?

“Find a rock tomorrow. Roll it in snow and ice until it’s a big snowball. Then I want you to beat him with until he can’t get up.”

Let’s fast forward 45 years to the 1980’s. My oldest brother, a straight A student, became the target of a bully and a couple of his drug addict friends. The things this group did to my brother were heartbreaking. My parents refused to sit idly by and watch their son be intimidated while the school, of course, did nothing to stop what occurred on their property. One weekend we went on vacation, probably to look at colleges for my older brother. When we got off the highway that Sunday night and were making our way to our house, my brother said, “I just know they blew up our mailbox.” That was what people did in the 80’s. They blew up mailboxes with M-80’s. Vandalism was big in our neighborhood. No one could hang Christmas lights and everyone’s houses were always getting egged and sprayed with shaving cream.

Rounding the corner on my street, there was no mailbox where there should have been. My brother was so upset. My dad told him not to worry. Everyone unpacked the car and went inside. My dad went to get my brother and told him to put his shoes on. It was late at this point, the rest of us were going to bed. My dad walked into the garage and grabbed a baseball bat. He and my brother crept through the neighborhood over to the bully’s house. My dad, at 50 some odd years old, Sammy Sosa’ed their mailbox through the front yard, then walked over to it, picked it up and as my brother tells it, hurled it OVER their three story house into their backyard. I remember my brother saying, “Daddy was PISSED. I had no idea he could throw like that.”

My brother and my dad were walking back home, and my brother said, “You know, we still need a mailbox. We won’t get mail tomorrow without a mailbox.” He and my dad looked at each other and my dad said, “Oh fuck.” They turned back around and my dad ran into the bully’s backyard and got the mailbox from where it had landed just next to their pool. He brought it home to my mom, who then plopped it on a table in our garage and she painted it a different color the next moring. They put the mailbox out where ours had formerly been. Martha Stewart and Sammy Sosa – my parents.

After that, my dad and brother would occasionally sit in the car in the driveway with baseball bats, waiting for the kids to come back and try to blow up the new mailbox. I can remember being 10 years old, and watching from my window. Somehow, I wasn’t scared for my dad or brother. I just knew they had had enough and they weren’t going to take it anymore.

There are other stories that follow, of retailiation much worse, things that happened in our sleepy little town that made everyone wonder about who was really doing what. All in all, I think my brother got the last laugh, because, again, like last week’s lesson, people ALWAYS get what they deserve. Most of the kids in that group stayed on their drugs and didn’t amount to a whole lot in life. But one of them was the pilot of the flight that crashed in Queens just a couple months after September 11. While it sucked for everyone else on that plane, I can’t say I felt any sympathy for that bastard. He was the #2 guy in that gang of kids who picked on my brother incessantly.

Years later, the younger brother of the main bully started picking on my next younger brother. The legacy was passed down to the next generation. He would body slam my brother into the lockers during class changes. My mom doctored up my brother’s shoulder with a bunch of tacks, and taped them backwards to his shirt. Fucking hilarious. The next time the kid slammed into him was also the last.

That, ladies and gents, is how the Velvet family fights. There are countless more stories of my brothers and I being harassed by bullies during school. Each and every time, my parents directed us exactly how to fight back. And you just don’t fuck with Gloom and Doom, they don’t back down. We won’t instigate, but when pulled into the ring, we fight tooth and nail until the other guy is down for the count. My last name is tattooed across my back not to fill space, but to remind me that I’m part of a clique with good old days I remember happily – good old days that trained me for coping and fighting methods that I still use today. I will always and forever, no matter what, be a “insert Velvet’s Greek last name here.”

This one is long, but by far the best of the rest, and I wanted to tie it up and not have to go to a part 5!

On December 2, another surprise walks in the door – Opies predecessor and Ms. Rights old boss, the ex-Controller. He was the one who quit and they tried to get me to take his job. Ms. Right waits for the right time, then grabs him and walks into the Weasels office, and asks him about why he said she was a bad employee. I was SO PROUD of Ms. Right. I still to this day cant believe she had the balls to do this. She said to me, Oh, I’m not letting him get away. And I’m doing it in front of the Weasel, so all our stories are straight. Of course the old supervisor denied everything, and the Weasel was stunned. He sat there with his mouth on the floor like Dominick Dunne when they read the OJ verdict. Does anyone besides me remember that? No? Oh well. It was funny.

Ms. Right called corporate to report on the meeting with her old boss and the Weasel since she told them this during their meeting when they came to town. The HR bats said, “Why don’t you ask him?” Ms. Right said, “Because he doesn’t work here anymore.” Except no one counted on him showing up to say hi a couple weeks later after being MIA for a year. Ms. Right also asked about the status of their investigation. They said they completed their study and found that a lot of things were trumped up by the rumor mill. Ms. Right said, But MellyMel said she heard from Opies mouth that he wanted to fire me because I was black. Corporate HRs response? Its JUST. NOT. TRUE. We thought they were going to help us. Instead, they did nothing.

December 4^th, The Designer, MellyMel, Ms. Right, LongIsland and I have lunch in the conference room. We are laughing and making fun of each other, and a couple managers pop their heads in, with one saying it sounds good to hear laughter around the office after the last few months. Fat Bastard also pops his fat head in a bunch of times, and just stares, as he is famous for. Just staring at the girls and their boobies.

December 7^th, All of us are written up for having an extended lunch as referenced above. Fat Bastard, who as the Purchasing Manager had NO BUSINESS being in the meeting where we were told we were being written up is sitting in there just staring. (Gee Fat Bastard, dont you have some chickens to eat, or some house price calculations to fuck up? Oh, shoot, I ended that with a preposition, let me try it again. Don’t you have some house price calculations to fuck up, asshole?)

I refused to sign the sheet. The Weasel says, You know Velvet, we all just want to move on. I said, This doesnt seem like moving on. I flick their copy of the form back across the table and say, I dont need this, you can have it back. I’m not signing it. Ill write a response to what lies you have here. I walk over to the fax machine and send it off to some lawyer peeps I know who wrote a rebuttal for me in 10 minutes. I knocked on the door where they were still writing people up, threw their paper at them, then walked out. LongIsland called me in 10 minutes and said, OH MY GOD, what the HELL did you give them? They just walked out of the conference room, FLIPPING OUT and said they have to call corporate.

Then, LongIsland turned in a similar rebuttal. Gee, I wonder how it happened that ours were almost identical? A day after that, MellyMel turned in another very similar rebuttal. Again, can you believe the coincidence here? Wow! (The rebuttals were peppered with legalese designed to protect us in case we were fired. It accused them of retaliation for the sexual harassment investigation.) With each letter that arrived, the Weasel told my boss I could be in trouble if I didn’t stop. My boss said to the Weasel, I cant control what Velvet does. She is doing what she thinks is right. Then he said to me, You know I cut us deals to go to the new builder. Cant you just sit tight for 60 days and behave? I said, No. I cant. This is my good name at stake. I have to fight. I cant sit by and let them do this to us. What happened here is wrong. So very wrong. And they allow it. It’s the reason we can’t build a fucking house. Because of all this.

In January, Cocaine Carrie got drunk and called the Designer. Remember I said to not forget the conversation in Hawaii? Well, here it comes. Cocaine Carrie started telling the Designer all this strife in the office was the fault of my boss wife who shot her mouth off in Hawaii at the managers meeting. The Designer let her talk, and she said that the Weasel suspected that my boss was trying to take over, so he told corporate all about it, before any of us had even filed complaints. The Weasel sensed that the tide was turning, that people were getting sick of Opie, and instead of doing something about it, he decided to wag the dog, so to speak. He brought up another issue entirely, the planned takeover by my boss of the division, and told corporate that my boss was going to encourage all of us to file complaints against Opie to make him, the Weasel, look incompetent. So, when we all started calling and filing complaints, they expected our calls, and that is also why, despite our documentation, no one believed us.

A couple days later, they fired LongIsland for no good reason. The next day, my boss gave his notice. He handed me an external hard drive and said, Ive taken copies of all my files. Get yours too. The Weasel asked him to leave shortly thereafter, calling him disruptive.

Opie stepped back into the picture, trying to act like my new boss now. The Weasel actually told my boss he considered making me report to Opie, but my boss said, Are you kidding? After everything that happened? You need her, and thats the surest way to get her to walk out. So the Weasel became my new boss, with Opie sending me email after email asking me to do things and giving me 1 day deadlines when he knew I wasnt even in the office to work on them because I was in meetings all over the state of Maryland.

Then NeedsMeds emails me and tells me to give her the passwords for my budgets. I refused, since some Einstein from their department deleted a bunch of columns once, forcing me to have to recreate them from scratch. She copied the Weasel, so I responded as such and copied the Weasel back. He came to my desk to find out why I didn’t want to give out the password. I told him that I’m responsible for the budgets, and if they get messed up or deleted again, its my neck on the line. I also said, Besides, anyone can look at them by clicking read only, so I dont see what the problem is and why we go through this needless power play every week. He actually fucking agreed, so we asked her together why she needed the password. She said, without looking up from her computer, Opie told me to get it.

Feb 2^nd. I had a meeting with the Weasel and Opie to review budgets. We spent more time in that company reviewing budgets than we did building fucking houses. Later that day, I’m trying to run out for a meeting and the Construction Manager calls me.

CM: So what are you doing?
Velvet: I’m trying to run out of here for a meeting.
CM: No. What are you doing?
Velvet: Um, what??
CM: You know. They want to know what youre doing.
Velvet: Who wants to know?
CM: Well, the Weasel and Opie told me to ask you.

I was evasive. I told him I didn’t know. What I didn’t tell him was that a Fed Ex package arrived at my door that morning, with the offer letter to go work with my now ex, soon to be current again boss at the new builder. The only issue, I had a pending bonus of $5000 that I needed to get processed. It was supposed to be paid on the 15^th, but stupid NeedsMeds, who it seems was now boycotting the use of any brush or comb in her hair, was instructed by Opie to delay it for a month. Payroll cut off on the 3^rd. I needed proof that something I got this easement signed AND recorded before NeedsMeds will process my fucking bonus and I needed that proof within 24 hours.

I grab Ms. Right and we head to fucking Laurel Maryland. I march in to the Sanitary Commission and beg my ass off for the signed easement. The lady said, You people at OLDBUILDER and your problems, I am never doing this for you again. I said, and I promise it was hard to not smirk, Fine by me. I grabbed the letter, dropped Ms. Right off at her house, and headed to god damned Upper Marlboro to record it. In the snow I might add. I called the Recordations office and said I had something urgent that needed to be taken in today. They said I had until 4 p.m. Speedracer and I flew through the snow from Laurel to Upper Marlboro, and got to the office just in time. I asked them to record it on the spot, but because of the time, they couldnt. They did, however, give me a receipt.

I brought the receipt back to NeedsMeds that night and said, Look, see? It was recorded. She put the bonus in by the payroll deadline of the next day.

Feb 4^th. I overhear the rest of the managers talking about the Designer, and very poorly. Their gossip train continues down the office and through the halls from manager to manager. I witness it all, then inform the Designer what they were saying about her. What do I care? I’m quitting. They are all such ridiculous pathetic excuses for managers anyway. If they knew what they were doing, they would just get her on the phone to clarify what happened instead of gossiping. So happy I’m leaving! I signed that offer letter and fed exed it back. I started checking out of Old Builder.

One pending issue left. I had spent the last 6 months at Old Builder finding and negotiating the purchase of a fantastic building in D.C. This project was like my baby, and I was about to jump ship and leave it behind. The broker for the sellers of the building called and asked what was going to happen now that my boss was gone. I said that I doubted Old Builder would want to proceed, as they did not have the ability to build one house, let alone a building of condo conversions. He said in the wake of my boss quitting, he had been trying to discuss the contract with the Weasel who told him he didn’t want to proceed with the project, but he couldn’t get him to sign a termination letter. Fucking typical. I say, Send me that termination letter. He said, Oh, can you sign it? I said, No, but I know who can.

I walk into the Weasels office and with a couple magic tricks, he signs that fucking letter and signs away his right to purchase a building 5 blocks from the White House. Fucking idiot. I faxed the letter to the broker, then called him and said the letter should be coming through the fax now. He thanked me profusely, and said, I think Ill be seeing you again, no? I said, I think thats a safe assumption. Then my ex-boss calls me and says, HEY! How are you? You know, my new company is doing great. We just put a building in DC under contract…5 blocks from the White House. I said, Really? You dont say

I was fucking OldBuilder in the ass left and right this week. Damn did it feel good to strap on for once instead of having to take it.

Feb 15. Hop out of bed. Hellooooo Wachovia.com. I check my balance, see that my bonus is indeed there, and drive to work and resign to the Weasel. Damn that shit felt good. At 5 p.m., NeedsMeds wanders up to my desk, sits down and starts unloading. She told me that she asked for a raise, but Opie and the Weasel said no. Then she overheard them in their office and one of them said, A woman should never make that much money. Oh boys. Boys boys boys.

Feb 16, NeedsMeds says I need to write a resignation letter. It says, To whom it may concern: Please accept this letter as my formal resignation from OldBuilder. My last day will be Feb 28. It should have said, P.S. Please buy NeedsMeds a hairbrush, the Weasel a toothbrush, Fat Bastard 30 sessions with a nutritionist and Opie a blow up doll.

Feb 17, the Weasel told me I no longer seemed happy and we could just make today my last day. Fine by me. I just stared at him, sans expression. He said, Do you have anything to say? I said, Nope. I dont. He gave me my last check and asked for my expense report. He said it would be paid in a week or two. Fat Bastard walked me out. I’m surprised he wasnt in an electric wheelchair by that point he was so fat. Fucking asshole. I called my boss from the parking lot and said, GUESS WHERE I DONT WORK ANYMORE!!

That night I went out with MellyMel where some chick attacked us at this bar and tried to make out with us. Once we got rid of her, MellyMel and I went outside, and some guy who lived in my apartment complex followed me out there. He and I ended up making out, then I climbed to the top of the patio of this bar and was hanging upside down from the rafters. I was so fucking elated, you couldnt have brought me into a bad mood. Until at least 12 hours later.

The next morning I woke up with Bronchitis that turned into the Flu so bad I passed out twice at my house and ended up in the ER. I also passed out in the ER and they dragged me by my arm across the floor to the door of a room where the told me to get up and get in the bed. Who does this?? I would have filed a complaint but I was tired of filing complaints. I had a 103.5 temp for 4 days. Before they released me, they said, Do you need a note for work? I would have laughed if I could have opened my mouth. I like to view this as the catharsis of OldBuilder leaving my system. I was really sick. I mean, really sick. It was horrible. I think I may have died at one point, it was that bad. Actually, it took me 8 months to feel like myself again. I still don’t know what I had.

March 1. I say to no one in particular in my apartment: Is it possible I can no longer work for OldBuilder, yet they are still torturing me? An email from NeedsMeds informs me that she cannot release my expense check until I return the rolodex. (It is MY rolodex from my last job. Not theirs.) I’m done playing games with these fucking ninnies. They have officially fucked the wrong girl.

I fire off an email to the CEO at the Redneck Headquarters. I officially pull out the big guns. It says this:

Dear Mr. CEO:

You may recall that we met when you visited the Maryland Division last February. I worked directly for my boss. We also discussed the fact that you knew my brother, who works at hoity toity investment firm in New York. Sadly, I gave my notice to the Maryland Division and was subsequently terminated two days later. Now they are holding a final expense check for which they are claiming they want a rolodex returned which I have already explained to the Weasel, does not belong to Old Builder. It is my personal rolodex. While I’m no longer surprised by any of their behavior, it is unconscionable of them to hold this check, and might I add, illegal.

Sincerely,
Velvet

I never did get a response from him. He was probably out hunting with Cheney, picking off employees. But I got an email from the Weasel within the hour, who said that I would receive my check “tomorrow.” The fucking hilarious irony? The check was only for $60. So for $60 they were willing to fuck with someone who has a brother in a very high place in a New York Investment Firm, quite important for a public company who wants to look good to Wall Street and who may not want them to know what fucking dickwad poor, sexually harassing managers they are.

A week later NeedsMeds calls me at home to discuss how miserable she is. She goes on and on for an hour. I keep trying to get off the phone with her because she called during peak time and I was out of minutes. Then the crazy bitch goes back and tells the Weasel that I called her and pumped her for info. What. The. Fuck. The Weasel tells anyone who is talking to me that it could be very bad for them. OMG! In my whole life I have never been the bad influence. Now I’m a bad influence on an entire company!

Early April. Someone overhears Opie looking through resumes, picking out the obviously African-American names, saying, No, we dont want another problem around here. Lets hire an Asian. They are submissive.

April 8^th. When I left, Opie and NeedsMeds took the budgets over from me. Opie zeroed everything out and had the buffoon interns start from scratch. Without all the footnotes, formulas and detailed history, they were sufficiently fucked. CompanyGirl flew in from Redneck Headquarters to Maryland to have a meeting, and allegedly her boss was to come the following day. The first day Ms. Right was called into the meeting and she said she sat in there all day watching Opie get grilled, watching CompanyGirl ask where all the numbers were that Velvet and I worked on. Opie kept running out of the room, calling the interns in asking questions, and Ms. Right said it was an entire day of watching him squirm. Around 4 p.m., CompanyGirl called her boss and told him there was no reason to come. Then she turned back to the group and said to Ms. Right, Would you please leave us alone for a minute?

There were a lot of closed doors, but ultimately they fired him for zeroing out the budgets. According to NeedsMeds, he was really fired for the sexual harassment, but they were just waiting for another excuse. Part of me wished I could have hung in there for the extra 6 weeks it took to see him get fired, but, they needed me to leave to provide them with the excuse to fire Opie. (Sarcasm on its way in 321) Well, I’m so happy I could provide that for yall! Yee haw! Yall come back now when you learn how to really run a company, ya hear?

If anyone is keeping score, I’m the reason Opie got hired, and I’m also the reason he was fired. If I had wanted that job, he wouldnt have gotten it. And if I had stayed to be the budget bitch, they wouldnt have found their excuse to can him. He left my boss a message saying he was fired for not outing yours and Velvets mistakes. Then he emailed me the same garbage. My dad was like, Wait, he EMAILED YOU as if he never created all these problems? This guy is insane! Months later, my boss received a phone call from someone at Old Builder, and they said, We found old paper copies of the budgets, and everything was on target. Opie really did a number on this place.

The End.

OH, wait, you want the closing credits with each person’s fate. Okay.

NeedsMeds had a meltdown, quit, went back to Old Builder and then quit again. She showed up on my caller ID about a year later, and I picked it up. She hung up on me, and then I called her right back and she let the machine pick it up. I should have left her a message: Hello? Your crazy-meds ran out. Better get more before your insurance expires.

Opie went to work for another builder where he promptly asked his assistant if she shaved or waxed her pussy. He was fired within a year. Hes now job hunting again, and used my boss for a reference on a couple jobs. My boss said to anyone who called, Only hire him if you want all the women in your office to file a lawsuit. He is now using someone else I know for a reference, and that person hasnt provided him a good one either. My boss said, What? Hes using someone else? Wonder how long it took him to figure out I was slamming him all over the place. Its a small industry with consolidations daily. I doubt hell work in this town again. He can’t get a good reference.

Fat Bastard was fired. My boss saw him at a restaurant last week with his wife and kid, trying extra hard to use a coupon they didn’t qualify to use. Hes been out of work for 6 months and told my boss things were really bad. My boss said he was a dick about it. Well, he always was an angry asshole.

The Weasel was demoted, then fired. He now works for another builder but is allegedly miserable. They have him out in the field, instead of in a cushy office.

Cocaine Carrie was very miserable without the above people to keep her company. She called my boss at his home number to speak with him, presumably about a new job. Except she didn’t get that far. His wife answered. And she lit into Cocaine Carrie for everything she said to the Weasel, and all the trouble she caused. She said, None of you people helped my husband when he was at Old Builder, and now every one of you who is miserable or has been fired have come crawling back for a job.

People always get what they deserve. Remember that kids.

About a year after working for my current company, a company I love, I was on a business trip. My boss said I made a good impression on the President of another division and he wanted me to fly to Texas and hang out in his division for a week to see how things operate.

Velvet: No.
Boss: What? Why not?
Velvet: If I didn’t learn it at Old Builder, I would be a fool.
Boss: Oh, you don’t think hes on the up and up?
Velvet: No. I don’t. I’m better at it this time around.

Two months later, he was fired for sexual harassment. My boss came in and said, That manager was fired. Seems someone filed a complaint about him.” That’s what makes this company so great, they don’t tolerate that crap for a second.

Once you’ve suffered at the hands of an Opie, you can spot another one miles away. Sexual harassment isn’t about sex and some horny bastard who isn’t getting any at home. It’s about control, every single time.

*Entire story is true and happened over the course of 16 months at a top national homebuilder. Commenters who can verify that the preceding 4 posts are in fact, very true, are MellyMel and Kiki.

Okay, so it is now September. At our monthly division meeting, the Weasel made an announcement that no one is to call Corporate HR, and that they dont want to hear our problems.if we have issues, handle them with Opie. All the girls look around the room like, What the fuck?

One night in September, after Ms. Right is officially slated to join our department and escape the clutches of the evil Opie, the Weasel catches me on my way out of the office and tells me how untrustworthy Ms. Right is, and how she makes so many errors, and you have to constantly check her work, and that all her supervisors have had problems with her. Might I mention to you readers, that Ms. Right is not only a woman, but an African American woman? See where this is going? Yeah. Anyway, a week later, our Regional Accounting department come to town and mentioned to the Weasel that Ms. Right seems really happy in our department. He says, right in front of me, and I’m not kidding, Well, we are really happy to have saved an employee from quitting. When we have someone good, we like to keep them.

In the end of September, we are doing our fiscal year end budget meeting. I put my laptop on the conference room at the corner closest to the door and walk into the kitchen for some water. When I come back in, my laptop has been slid down the table, for no reason other than that Opie wanted to sit at the head of the table. And were talking about a conference table that seats 24-28 people. (Its a control thing, see? I only put my laptop there b/c it was closest to the door, but Opie likes to be at the head of the table. Its like when your boss chair is higher than the visitor chairs. Its because (s)he is exerting a perceived sense of control.) I said, You took my seat. He said, Well, you can sit on my face. The meeting ensues, and the Weasel asks me how things are going with Selma since our email war. I reply that shes still out of control and that someone should stop her bullying the rest of the admins. The Weasel says, Youre a manager now, you should say something to her too. My boss later said to Opie, Hey, you heard it, shes a manager now, put her raise and bonus through.

Putting me in the same management class as Opie, bringing my salary oh-so-much-closer to his, and giving me a bonus set into motion an entire office war.

The end of September. I walk by the reception area to see a temp waiting to interview with Opie. I know shes a temp, because she worked for us the prior spring, and Opie raved about her. Later:

Velvet: Hey, glad to see you got that temp back. I know you guys really liked her.
Opie: Can you believe she has 12 cats now?
Velvet: What? She said she was reconciling with her husband. Why would he move back in now with more cats there?
Opie: Why not? Thats a lot of PUSSY!
Velvet: Youre disgusting.

The next day, the Weasel walks up to me as I’m checking our mail at the reception desk.

Weasel: You know, if youre going to say that kind of stuff, you probably shouldnt say it to our HR person.
Velvet: What?
Weasel: You know, that comment, you shouldnt say that stuff to the HR person.
Velvet: What are you talking about?
Weasel: The comment about the temp. Opie told me what you said.
Velvet: What did I say?
Weasel: You knowthat thingabout the tempand her cats.
Velvet, raising voice: ARE WE TALKING ABOUT THE PUSSY COMMENT?
Weasel: ShhYes.
Velvet: I didn’t say that! He did.
Weasel: He said you said it.
Velvet: Well I didn’t say it. He said it.
Weasel: And he said you did.
Velvet: I didn’t say I’m not capable of saying it, but I didn’t say it. He did.
Weasel: He says its you.
Velvet: Hes lying.
Weasel (with a grin like hes calling my bluff:) You knowwe can settle this right now.
Velvet: Ill meet you in his office.

We meet in there and have the stupidest, most childish of fights. You said it, No, YOU said it. I stomped off, as Greeks are known to do, saying, “Opie, you aren’t making me take the fall for this.” The Weasel caught me in the hall and said the only non-asshole thing he said to me in my time working there: Are you okay? Because I do realize that if you said it that you are the type of person to own up to it, and since you insist he said it, I do believe you. I shrugged it off. But then I got this email from Opie:

If it wasn’t you who said it…it was somebody else…I couldn’t come up with that on my own… …. 🙂

XOXOXOX

My boss told me behind closed doors that I needed to get this documented, because things were going to get bad and we needed this to be down on paper. So I forwarded that email (including Opies XOXO kisses) to the Weasel, copied my boss and wrote this:

Dear The Weasel:

I received this email regarding our earlier conversation in Opies office, of which I am still seething. Opie verbally mentioned the person who he now alleges made this statement; however, I really think who said it is irrelevant. The fact that he repeated it and ultimately blamed it on me is very upsetting. We obviously do not have everyone on board with the new teamwork spirit. I thought you specifically addressed the blame game and asked the Managers to pass this information on to their staff. Wasnt Opie at that meeting? Again, I am not offended by the comment itself as much as I am by being blamed behind my back without a chance for immediate defense. I am upset to think that for hours or perhaps overnight, you were sitting with the feeling that I was responsible for saying this.

I have a review pending and I need reassurance from you that you know my name was mistakenly involved in this situation. I dont want any of this to negatively affect me.

I know that you want us to handle problems internally, however, there is more here and it might be bigger than handling within the division. You recommended at our last staff meeting that we could go to Opie with our issues. I am not alone in this division in my feelings that I cannot trust him. He is not a viable outlet for HR Complaints and Confidential Matters. Among the many inappropriate comments he has made to me, I personally witnessed a derogatory comment he made about one employee to another. These things may need to be on some sort of record. There are too many incidents at this time to ignore and I dont know that we should be sweeping these issues under the rug.

Thanks,
Velvet

The Weasel called me into his office, we had a quick chat, mostly so that he could stop me from calling Corporate about what had happened. He said he would take care of it. The next morning, the Weasel called me into his office again. He said he was extremely disturbed by what had transpired and spent a good portion of his evening thinking about it. He said he was 50/50 on whether to just fire Opie or to give him one more chance. He decided to write him up and give him his final chance. (The reason for this is that the fiscal year end AND the Hawaii Managers Meeting were rapidly approaching he needed Opie to fudge all the numbers he could and be available to explain them when asked. The Weasel has no sense of finance, numbers and sadly, PROFIT.) The Weasel said he had to ask me if I felt sexually harassed by the comment. I so so so badly wanted to say yes. I knew that if I did, Opie would have been fired in a heartbeat. But who am I kidding? I’m offended by very little. So I said no. But I did tell him that very few of the women in the office trust him and that this is not the first time something like this has happened.

Lets pause for a recap: If Opie didn’t grow to hate me when he was interviewing and knew if I accepted his job, he wouldnt get it, if he didn’t grow to hate me when he saw me getting salary increases and bonuses that rivaled his own compensation, he certainly hated me now that I put his fat little neck on the chopping block.

So they write Opie up. My boss is in the room. It doesnt go so well, Opie is obviously really pissed off and starts blaming a bunch of shit on me. My boss says, “You don’t get it. If she really had it in for you she could have had you fired for what you did. We’re a public company, do you think they want this kind of press?” The Weasel strips him of his HR duties and they pass them off to some other Accounting flunkie, NeedsMeds, who Opie and the Weasel become the puppet masters for anyway.

Opie sends an email to the CompanyGirl apologizing for his comment, and copies my boss and the Weasel. He predictably doesnt copy me, the one whose name he attempted to drag through the mud. Why should he?

After the Opie-getting written up saga, this is when the Division President called me into his office and asked me if I wanted to “go to the company ranch.” I put this story in Part 1, but here it is again, now in the context of what was going on in the office, it will make more sense why I said no. Recopied from Part 1:

When they asked me, a long time member of PETA, a vegetarian, a woman and other labels of all things that seemed to not belong at this ranch, I said no. The Division President (hereinafter referred to as the Weasel) said, You shouldnt say no. I said, You want me to share a room and eek, a bathroom with someone I dont know, in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone, no computer, and no TV, watching guys hunt and kill things that I would be likely to leash and name Scruffie? I’m saying no. Needless to say, it didn’t go over very well. But that was to be expected. I had already helped blow the whistle on their rampant sexual harassment. They didn’t like me very much. And I thought they were trying to get me out to that ranch so they could kill me. There was no way in fucking hell I was going to go.

The Weasel, Opie, Cocaine Carrie and my boss go out to Hawaii in the end of October for the Company-wide Managers meeting. All anyone is talking about in Hawaii is the HR problem in Maryland. My boss then wife gets drunk and tells Cocaine Carrie all sorts of stuff about the Weasel and how inept he is as a manager. What she doesnt realize is that Cocaine Carrie and the Weasel are sleeping together. No one at the office, including my boss, ever knew this conversation took place for several months though. And, remember this conversation, it blindsides all of us shortly.

Meanwhile, back at the office, it was like mutiny. The inmates were running the asylum, people were fighting, screaming at each other, and the two lone managers left, Fat Bastard and some other manager who I actually thought was pretty cool, played golf all week.

So, the boys and Cocaine Carrie get back from Hawaii and suddenly there is a really weird vibe in the office. (Again, we didn’t know about the conversation between my boss’ wife and Cocaine Carrie. It takes months for everyone to find this out.) Opie and the Weasel joined forces on one side with Patty and Selma, and my boss was on the other with the rest of the people. The history here is that my boss had saved that division from shutting its doors by acquiring a lot of land and making them a lot of money. Most of the smart people knew who to side with. A few remained in the middle, but as Ive learned with my family fights and with this, you have to stake a claim in one side, otherwise, you get shunned by both, and if both turn on you, you could end up the new enemy.

Opie built up his harem of Accounting people from 3 to now 8. There are 8 people in Accounting. What the fuck they are all doing when admittedly from his own mouth, most of the accounting was done at a corporate level is beyond the rest of us.

Early November, my boss shows up at my desk.

Boss: Something is going on, I need you to call the CompanyGirl.
(Again, CompanyGirl is the Regional CFO and right under the CEO of our company. She is highly respected by the guys at the top – President, CEO and the rest. It is shocking they “let” a woman as high as CompanyGirl was, as she was one of two who made it this high in the company.)
Velvet: What am I calling her for?
Boss: These guys are setting me up. They are trying to make our department take the fall for us not making any money this year, and really its the fault of Purchasing because FatBastard has no fucking idea what hes doing. But I need you to fish around and see why they are on this witch hunt.
Velvet: What am I going to say?
Boss: Ask her what info they are looking for. Then try to tell her whats going on here.
Velvet: What? Youre going to get me fired.
Boss: Come on. You made friends with her when she was here, you took her out. I need you to do this.
Ms. Right slides her chair over to my desk and says: Yeah, you need to call her. Shes your bud.
Velvet, to boss: Are you going to protect me if something goes wrong?
Boss: Yes.
Velvet: God damned it. Okay.

So I made the call, and of course, got the point across that they were trying to blame our department for everyone elses mistakes. She must have called Opie and the Weasel to “clarify” what she was asking for, and that took the heat off all of us. For a bit. When my boss relayed this to his then-wife, she said, If you ever leave, you have to take Velvet with you. Shes incredibly loyal.

Mid November, MellyMel had some surgery that ended in a bit of a complication and she took a couple extra days off. When she came back to work, the girl literally had a tube coming out of her body to drain an infection. Opie told her that she better start looking for a new job because she had taken so much time off everyone wanted her fired. I said, Cocaine Carrie had a facelift and was gone for 2 weeks and no one said shit about that! MellyMel came to me at the point of tears. I called my boss who was not in the office that day and he said, Time for her to report it to HR. Its a violation of some sort. So she did. And then that is where MellyMel and I became good friends. She used to be on the other side with Opie and Patty and Selma. But, now, she realized that it was not doing her any good. Then she unloaded all sorts of stuff she knew. Hooray! I had all new goss – a lot of it about me, but typical stuff of Opie having disclosed both my salary and the Designers to Patty and Selma and that he called the Designer a gold-digger among many other names. His hatred of both the Designer and I was solely because our salaries were hovering closer and closer to his own, he had a Russian Mail order bride spending all his money, he just knocked her up with the 4^th kid and was totally miserable. Oh, and Kiki, he said that he was sorry you had quit because you had the biggest titties in the office.

At this point, aside from Patty and Selma, all the women in the office banded together. It was a good feeling. But of course it doesnt last.

November 18. I’m sitting at my desk, and LongIsland calls me. She said, You will never believe who just walked in. HR from Corporate! These two old bats spent two days interviewing select people, including myself, LongIsland, Selma, Ms. Right, the Doormouse and some managers including my boss and that other guy I said was pretty cool. One of the HR bats was wearing so much makeup, that Ms. Right and I had a skit routine of her getting ready in the morning. We would do the visual of her putting on powder, then more foundation, then more powder, then more foundation. She actually took calls on her cell phone as we were giving our reports. The other one, in this long flowered prairie skirt (hello rednecks) was taking notes. When you said something really offensive, she would write like a crazy person, then slow down to a more normal pace until you started saying, then Opie said he was going to rip my dress off and they would write at a furious pace again.

After they meet with everyone, they end up in the Weasel’s office. We are all heading out to lunch, and end up walking out with the HR bats and the Weasel. The Weasel was going to lunch with all the manager boys. But then he asked us where we were going, and ends up coming with us. LongIsland told him he had to pay! So I call my boss, who is still upstairs and say, “We’re going to the Italian restaurant and you will never believe this. The Weasel blew off the guys to come with us.” My boss asks where he is. I said, “In the other car with LongIsland.” My boss looks out the window then says, “Tell me if that car turns around for any reason. I’m going in his office.”

My boss goes in the Weasel’s office while I’m on the phone still. He finds his notes from his meeting with the HR bats. All it says is “Go on company outing” and “Buy tee shirts for staff that say ‘Old Builder.'” My boss says, “Jesus Christ. HR missed the whole point of this. They think we just need to have some bonding experiences.” This is the moment he made his decision to quit. November 19.

I went to Italy for 10 days right after this. The morning I was leaving, my boss called me and said, Are you coming back? I said, Yeah, why? He said, I was afraid with all this shit that you wouldnt come back. And my wife made me call you to tell you that I cut a deal for us to go to a new company, so you cant stay in Italy because you will have a new job soon. I flew back to Dulles on November 30. When I went back to work, it seemed like everything was getting back to normal. I was incredibly wrong.

I suspect you will need the following to keep the rest of this saga organized.

Cast of Characters:

My Boss Same boss now, a Senior Vice President at Old Company
The Weasel Division President. Looks like a weeble from all angles.
Opie The Controller
Fat Bastard Opies sidekick and another useless manager. At one point loses 30 lbs. on the South Beach diet, but then, seems to gains 11 lbs. a week, by some miracle of dieting combined with Krispy Kremes.
MellyMel You see her comment here. We both work at the same builder now, thankfully a different place than Old Company. She replaced Kiki when Kiki walked out.
Patty and Selma Two sales Administrative Assistants ugly as shit and smoke a lot.
Ms. Right My boss and my wonderful department coordinator, formerly Opie’s assistant from accounting.
Cocaine Carrie Sales rep who routinely shows up in the office, incoherent with white crust dangling in her nostrils. Also rumored to be sleeping with the Weasel. A visual: Both the Weasel and Cocaine Carrie are around 5’2.
Kiki My friend in the Construction Department, walked out in April of Year 1.
Doormouse Marketing Assistant
LongIsland The Receptionist
The Designer Helped customers design the interior of their homes. I shared an office with her, also my friend.
NeedsMeds Opies true Accounting Assistant who becomes HR.
CompanyGirl – The Regional CFO.

This story starts in January of Year 1.

Opie starts working and initially seems to be one of those guys who is under the mistaken impression that he was hired to change things. Unfortunately Old Company and its employees were VERY RESISTANT to change. Opie starts out by being Mr. Nice Guy, to everyone. He sucked up to everyone in the office – admins, managers and everyone in between. In addition to being the Controller, he was also our division Human Resources dipshit.

In February, just a couple weeks after Opie started, our CEO came to town to tell us how great and wonderful we were. We all had an offsite meeting, and Opie told LongIsland to call for a temp, and to request someone “cute and blonde so the CEO will think we really have our shit together.” A funny aside, the Weasel sent out an email announcing this visit, copied the CEO, then spelled his name wrong in the body of the email. I had not laughed that hard since my High School Geometry Teacher backed up and fell into the garbage pail.

In late February, the Regional CFO, CompanyGirl, came to town to meet Opie. I had some awful cold and had come in late to work, only to do a few things, then was going right back to bed. Opie demanded I stay to talk to them. I said, “You better change your tone with me or you will be dealing with them on your own.” I ended up coughing and hacking my way through a meeting with Opie and the CompanyGirl until 8 fucking 30 at night…when I had planned to be in bed by 4. CompanyGirl sung my praises and I was in good with her from there on out.

Okay, so Opie decided that the only member of his department, Ms. Right, couldnt get anything right and he wanted to hire another Staff Accountant to help her. (By help, I mean, he couldn’t control Ms. Right, who worked at Old Company for 5 years and was very well versed in all things Accounting. So he wanted to control her via a “middle man.” Or in this case, woman.) In March, he beings his interview process.

After Interview #1:

Opie: I interviewed a great girl last night for a Staff Accountant.
Velvet: Um, did you say last night? I was here late, I didn’t see you.
Opie: Oh, I didn’t do the interview here. We met at a bar.
Velvet: Really?
Opie: Yeah, take em to a bar, get a couple drinks in them, and then the truth comes out.
Velvet: Truth? What kind of truth?
Opie: This chick is great. Shes 25, really hot, doesnt want to get married or have kids, shed be perfect for this kind of job.
Velvet: Am I really hearing this right? You cant ask someone if they want to get married or have kids on an interviewat a bar no less!

Opie waved his hand at me to brush me and my girl-silliness off I suppose. I told my boss who then told Opie that he cant hire that girl because of the circumstances of their interview. So Opie calls the staffing agency and gets another prospective employee to come over. He interviews her in his office. The paper thin walls allowed Kiki, sitting in the next office, to hear the entire interview, including Opies world class questions like, What color is your thong today? and the ever-popular Are you married? This one, a little smarter than the last barmaid, actually reported the incident to her staffing agency. Girls just out of college are really smart these days. If this happened to me 10 years ago, I probably would have answered the question and never thought twice.

By May, Opie had honed his interviewing skills and finally got someone to accept an offer though sadly not for his department. She was going to be a Marketing Assistant. Someone actually nicknamed this girl the Doormouse so thats the name I’m going to use. He told me that he finally got a hottie to work at our office. Of course this wasnt before he interviewed one of my drop dead gorgeous friends from grad school (think Salma Hayek) who he said was too hot to work at Old Company and none of the guys would get anything done. It was probably true, but he still shouldn’t have said it. And it’s not a reason to not hire her.

Over that summer, LongIsland took a cruise with her boyfriend, who bought her a Louis Vuitton bag in the islands. Selma came into Opies office when I was in there and said, He bought her a Louie! They obviously had a conversation prior to my coming into his office. He said to Selma, She must be good in bed. Selma walked out and said to LongIsland, We decided you must be good in bed. LongIsland promptly filed a complaint. Selma, as the messenger, took the fall for Opie and never ratted him out. Why? Because he promised her he was going to be in charge of the place one day and she believed him.

One night during the summer I was leaving the office. I popped my head into my boss office to say bye and Opie sees me in the hall and stands in my way. I say, You are in my way. He says, I’m going to rip that dress right off of you. The Weasel hears it, but walks the other way instead of doing something.

These stories go on forever by the way. What follows is a chronological string of unrelated stories, but giving you an idea of what Opie was like, and the demeanor in the office.

Other famous Opie-isms:

People around here dont respect me, but start jacking with their bonuses and they will learn to respect me real fast.

Our company CFO has no business going to the guys on Wall Street because that job shouldnt be done by a woman, it is for a pin-striped wall street guy.

(To the Designer, when asked why she was no longer informed about Managers meetings:) Because its a guy thing.

(To other employees:) Unfortunately I have to give LongIsland a raise today.

(Loudly, in the hall:) Everyone knows the Weasel and Cocaine Carrie are FUCKING!

(To my boss, when the Weasel warned him to stop openly discussing everyones salary:) I know who squealed and I’m going to get back at her. (It wasnt me by the way.)

Selma, often drunk at work, starts blind copying the Weasel on emails she sends to me and anyone in my department. The Weasel (because hes a stupid fucking moron) hits reply all, outing Selmas blind copy action. Selma and I had an email war about it, and it was obvious the Weasel was encouraging this behavior.

The next week one of our million dollar homebuyers calls the Construction Superintendent to ask a question about their house and he responds by calling them White Trash and hanging up on them.

In July, Ms. Right expresses an interest in moving into my department. Opie tells me her salary, and what a horrible worker she is, that she doesnt have an education beyond high school, and is a real Nine-to-fiver. He simultaneously is telling Ms. Right that she shouldnt work for us because we are up to something.

Opie had previously determined that the two people in our division who were reimbursed for mileage could no longer be reimbursed due to some company policy about not paying mileage. (Cheap Old Company felt that we knew we were in a business where we may have to drive to subdivisions, and we should suck it up.) Opie told both employees who it affected that their salaries would increase accordingly to offset the mileage loss. One employee was female – The Designer; the other, male. Both drove roughly the same miles a month and both received a $500 reimbursement check each month. Opie increased the males salary by $700 a month and The Designers by $400. Each knew the other was compensated differently. When Opie asked the male how it was working out, the Designer said, I notice you didn’t ask me how it worked for me since you all screwed me so bad. They end up having an argument where the Designer tells him this disparity is discrimination and storms out. Opie turns to the guy and says, Shes ridiculous. Its like asking all the guys to get their dicks out to see whose is biggest. I said, Hellostill in the room. Opie says, Oh you dont count.

Suspiciously, the Weasel was still managing to scrape mileage checks from Old Company. No one seemed willing to cut him off. Rules don’t apply to all you see.

In the end of July, everyone who wasnt in upper management was told they now had to punch a clock well, on the computer. I asked Opie about overtime, and he said the company wouldnt pay it. I said, Well, if they arent paying it, then what do I do about that? He said, You can either work a 40 hour week which will hinder your chance for a promotion, or you can put in for your overtime and they will eventually fire you. After further review of who became exempt and who became non-exempt, surprise surprise, all the women were now clock punchers, and all the men were big tough salaried employees. Even though there were men who were levels below me, every single guy in that office was magically salaried and all us sluts and hos were all hourly.

The first week of August, I emailed Corporate HR to ask a few vague questions about how they made this determination of hourly vs. salary. After several ridiculous emails, they called me and asked me why I was asking them this question, as the determination was made inside the divisions for who was hourly and who was salary. Before I realized it, I was spilling my guts about what Opie said, and had emails to prove it. They asked me to forward the emails, which I did.

The next day was our Company Outing, on some stupid boat out to St. Michaels Island. (Whose fucking idea was this? Yes, lets put a company full of people who hate each other on a boat and sail them through the swamps of the Chesapeake Bay.) That morning, my boss called me to verify that first, I was awake (yeah, I suck at getting up,) and two, how I was getting to Annapolis. Unfortunately I was meeting the bozos at the office and carpooling. Then he said, Hey, something happened. Opie and the Weasel were behind closed doors last night for a while, seems someone finally called HR on Opie and I think he got written up. The Weasel is trying to figure out who called, but when he asked me I said, It could be any number of people. I said, Oops. I should probably tell you something. He was hysterically laughing when I was done. Then he called the Weasel and said, Hey, I just asked Velvet and she has no idea who could have done this. And the Weasel said, Oh, no, no one would ever think it was Velvet. HA! I had them still fooled at this point in August, Year 1. The worst part, I got to the office parking lot and ended up having to ride to Annapolis with the Weasel and FatBastard that morning. I was so freaked out they were going to corner me and throw me overboard that I got rip roaring drunk.

Fat Bastard, while I haven’t mentioned him much, was hired about a week or two after Opie, buddied up to him really fast, and acted like a weirdo around the office. He would be in a conversation in the hall with someone and if a girl walked by he would stop, back away from who he was talking to, acting like he was letting you by, and then stare at the girl, up and down, up and down. UGH! It grosses me out just thinking about it.

All right. So, that summer a couple things were going on. First, Opie had packed the office with temps. I have no idea what they were doing, but one by one, they started quitting. Some of them would leave after the first week and not come back. Others made it one day. One actually left at lunch and didn’t come back. Another said she had a doctors appointment at 10:30, she left and was never heard from again. That temp allegedly called their agency and said we were the most screwed up company shes ever seen. An hour and a half it took her to figure it out. I said to my boss, Damn, it took me 5 months. That chick is smart, we should hire her. Another temp wrote a letter to the staffing agency detailing why she wouldnt return to our company. It listed mostly all the assholes (Selma, Opie etc.) and accused them of various things. I felt that letter was really symbolic of what went on at Old Company. Opie and the Weasel chose to laugh about it, reading it over and over all week long.

The second thing going on was that all summer, homebuyer after homebuyer came to settle on their new house. I sat next to the settlement room and could hear through the wall what was going on in there. Most of the settlements went down the same way. The buyer handed over their cash, then they were told that there was no U&O (Use and Occupancy) permit for their house and they would not be receiving the keys. Just like on a gameshow, they were told fabulous accommodations would be provided by the Rockville Motor Inn. (Or some other shitty hotel.) Families literally had moving trucks in our parking lot, waiting to get their keys so they could spend their weekend moving. People took days off work, only to find out there would be no new house for them. Ive never seen so many irate, dissatisfied customers. People would scream and yell, or cry at the settlement table. Why? Because we were the biggest fucking asshole builder who had NO BUSINESS building houses. Some customers actually created an I Hate Old Builder website. I said it over and over, When the market turns, we are going to be sorry we treated people this way.

LongIsland found a survey on the internet of all the DC Metro builders and their customer service ranking. It was a percentage, not a ranked number though. So, you’ve got homebuilder A, and all their customers are satisfied, they get 100%. Homebuilder B could also rank 100%. Well, there are all the homebuilders in the area, pretty evenly spaced, from 100% down to 55% customer satisfactions. Then there was one lone builder, far from the pack, down at 17% satisfaction rate. Guess who? Yea.

Customer service was in the toilet, and the division was headed there as well. Summer was cooling off, but the fights, they were just heating up.

Working on Part 3. And I’m really tempted to start posting real names so if you guys run across any of these people, you’ll know.

The shit, so to speak, has been hitting the fan at work for a few months now. Its no secret I work for a homebuilder. And, its no secret that homebuilding is suffering a horrible miserable downslide due to the assholes of Greenspan & Company. Again people, you cant fuck with a self-correcting economy without lube for too long before it snaps back and bites you square on your unemployed ass.

Well, not my ass. Not yet anyway. Ive survived another round. And learned a new definition of irony: Being asked to witness and notarize the termination letter of a man who has hated me from his first day at worka man who tried to make me his secretary, who was sadly mistaken to think I, yes, I, would be filing his papers and filling out his Fed Ex labels. I know what youre thinking, Why Velvet! You didn’t get an MBA to be someones secretary! Okay, maybe you werent thinking it. But if you were, I would say to you, Dont forget I got a FOUR POINT OH OH OH!! So I definitely dont want to be that bitchs secretary. But unfortch, in this industry, they see a woman coming and they see tits and someone they can make take dictation. Or just dick. Depends which builder you work for.

My company now is blissfully, and I mean blissfully with the times. Our Headquarters is in a pretty metropolitan area in a non-redneck part of the country. This is key my friends. Pay attention to where your company’s Headquarters is located – it determines a lot about your corporate culture. My old company (hereinafter referred to as Old Company,) had a headquarters in yeeeeee hawwwww, Cletus, the middle of fucking nowhere. Why were they there? Because they chose to be cheap, over having a bit of a sophisticated presence. Old Company made no bones about how cheap they were, and encouraged it from the top down to the lowest levels of the company.

Anyway, the President of Old Company had this ranch out in the middle of bumfuck Texas, that was literally 3 HOURS from a cell tower. It was so fucking far from anything relevant that even the tornadoes won’t go there. Every year they pegged a couple of suckers from each division to go “out to the ranch.” It was supposedly an honor to be asked. You would be flown to Dallas, then to some smaller city west of Dallas (no, dont say Ft. Worth and no I dont remember where it was,) then driven 3 hours in ATVs to the ranch. Events that occurred at this ranch included hunting, killing things, shooting anything that ran and skinning various animals.

When they asked me, a long time member of PETA, a vegetarian, a woman and other labels of all things that seemed to not belong at this ranch, I said no. The Division President (hereinafter referred to as the Weasel) said, You shouldnt say no. I said, You want me to share a room and eek, a bathroom with someone I dont know, in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone, no computer, and no TV, watching guys hunt and kill things that I would be likely to leash and name Scruffie? I’m saying no. Needless to say, it didn’t go over very well. But that was to be expected. I had already helped blow the whistle on their rampant sexual harassment. They didn’t like me very much. And I thought they were trying to get me out to that ranch so they could kill me. There was no way in fucking hell I was going to go.

I always say now to my friends who worked there with me and read this blog (Kiki, MellyMel, FreakyN) that I wish I had a blog when we worked there. My parents said they were glued to the phone every night at 6:00 waiting for my update call of what happened at work that day. It was their nightly entertainment. And in the first phone call, my dad gave me some invaluable advice: Document everything. So I did.

Strap on your seatbelts. Fun story of a top national homebuilder (and I mean TOP) and shady goings-on coming in installments, but startinnnnng NOW!

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Just as a first relationship shapes you for future relationships, your first job seems to operate in a similar manner. My first job was working for Nine West, as a Production Buyer. In my division, and in the whole company, there were endless examples of intelligent, talented, sophisticated women in Management. Retail proved to be all gay men and bitchy women, but the example that these women set was what I thought I would encounter for the rest of my career. How wrong I was. After three years at Nine West, I moved to Atlanta for the ill-fated relocation to live with my then boyfriend, AtlantaBoy. I got a job in the buying office of the now defunct Richs Department Stores. What a hellhole that place was. But still, tons of intelligent women, whose opinions were coveted, roamed the halls of Richs Corporate Offices. And a few rednecks. It was, after all, Atlanta.

When I left Atlanta, I left retail behind for good and moved to Maryland for grad school. Through a couple hurdles, I got a job working for a Land Developer. As nutty and sometimes shady as this man was, I learned a lot and he let me manage a lot. When someone else in our office balked at a project that involved going out to see a suspected murderer’s mail order bride and strong arm her into signing away her property, he said to him, Fine, Ill put the pit bull on it. Guess who the pit bull was? Yeah. I learned my work ethic from all those tough, smart, strong women through the years who took no shit from anyone, always knew their stuff, and looked great while doing it. I learned to not underestimate the value some expensive clothes can buy you in terms of impressions. But working in Land Development? More a jeans and sweater kind of job. Some days you get to wear boots and trek through the mud. It was a nice dichotomy for me actually. I liked not having to be so buttoned up.

So I continued working for the Developer, and when I graduated school and left the burbs behind for DC, I got two job offers, both with top builders. One was in Orlando, the other, local in Maryland. I opted not to move, though I wonder what my life would have turned out like if I went to the land of all things Disney.

Three months into my time with OldBuilder, the Controller up and quit. The Weasel (remember, the Division President) freaked out to my boss, the second in command, saying, What are we going to do? My boss said, I dont know what YOURE going to do, but if I was you, I would figure out who in this office is qualified to be a Controller, and ask them if they want the job. The Weasel looked at him with a blank stare. I know now he was probably only considering the men in the office, not any of the women. My boss cut off his daydreamy gaze and said, VELVET! Ask VELVET! Shes the only one in here with an advanced degree for Christsakes.

So after much hemming and hawing, mostly because a girl could never be so smart to work a calculator and stuff, the Weasel asks me to take this quiz. Its a personality and aptitude test. Having just come off the runway from grad school, and having completed a very useful Leadership major, I buzzed through the test with ease. It had a bunch of different parts and covered a completely wide range of areas. One part had questions like, Id rather spend the day a) fixing my car or b) making a collage. Then there was the math section, the verbal section, and then a couple sections with questions like, I think most people, when left alone, can be trusted true / false. It was really an odd test, I did what I thought was right and submitted it.

Monday morning my boss came in my office and shut the door. My heart dropped into my stomach for a split second until he bust out laughing. He said, The Weasel called me Saturday morning and said he got your test back. Apparently no one has ever scored as high as you did. You were like a 99% match for the job, with a 0% error, meaning, you werent trying to lie or fudge your answers. I was in shock. My boss went on to tell me that they were going to offer me the job, and I should be ready with my answer. I already had the answer being a Controller is a more of a later step in a career. And numbers and finance jobs are always easy to get. I liked what I was doing, and I wanted to stay in Development. That is what I told everyone, they agreed and then hired a man I’m going to call Opie. During Opies interviews, he asked if there were any other candidates for the job. My boss said there was someone internally but it didn’t look like she was going to accept it.

Shortly after Opies arrival, he determined by process of elimination, that I was the only possible candidate, and from that moment on, he had it in for me. When I tell you what this man did to me and to the rest of the women in the office, you may be shocked. Or you may not. But it was diabolical, and twisted, and as someone told me the other day when his name came up in conversation, Theres just something wrong with him.

Part II coming next.

The Queen of Quantity said I was on fire last week. I’d been shooting off one liners faster than Dane Cook would have on the Titanic. I’d share, but, for them to make any sense, I would have to trot a long way in background for the punchline. It’s too hard. Just know that I’ve outlined a game plan for her on a chalkboard she made in her house. (Fucking Martha Stewart wannabe without the jail time.) I like that chalkboard. I could use one next to my bed refrigerator.

Anyway, in an effort to fully utilize the creative genius spilling out of my body, I’ve decided to create a quiz for you. I don’t know why really. Okay, I know why. In an email exchange with Barbara, I put in one of these quiz questions and then answered it for myself.

Let’s call it the “Would I Want to Be Friends With Velvet?” Quiz. The first question actually happened to a friend of mine – one of my all time favorite “if I was stranded on an island I’d want you there with me” kind of people. But I made the rest up, I swear. Okay, let’s go.

1) You are partying in Georgetown. Two friends in town from Boston, both of the opposite sex, (if you are gay, these people are both the same sex as you) befriend you. After several drinks on their tab, they offer you a ride home. In the car, one of the two begins to hit on you. It is obvious that the other person is also interested in you, and becomes irritated at their friend. They have a fight and stop the car and demand you get out of the car. Telling you they can’t give you a ride any further and leaving you in the middle of no where, they want directions to their hotel. You:

a) Give them directions to their hotel and walk home shaking your head. Fucking tourists.
b) Convince them to let you stay in the car until you get them to their hotel where you know you can get a cab.
c) Give them the wrong directions sending them straight into the ghetto out of spite, and fend for yourself on the ride home.

2) Your house is on fire. You have two children. You can save only two things, what are they?

a) Your two children.
b) One child (whichever is closer) and your narcotics.
c) Your Gucci purse (with the drugs in them) and a picture of both kids.

3) If you could only listen to one music act for the rest of your life and it had to be from this list, you would pick:

a) Tim McGraw
b) Carrie Underwood
c) Metallica
d) Blues Traveler
e) John Mayer
f) The Killers

4) Your favorite swear from this list is:

a) Fuck
b) Motherfucking cocksucking son of a bitch
c) Shit
d) Gosh Darn it

5) The character you most resemble from Sex and the City is:

a) Charlotte
b) Miranda
c) Carrie
d) Samantha
e) Magda
f) None of the above

6) How many times have you left one or more undergarments at the home of a one night stand, just so you could get the hell out of there?

a) Never, your undergarments are too nice to be left behind.
b) Never, your undergarments are too holey to be left behind.
c) Once, when (s)he fell asleep on it and you didn’t want to wake the beast.
d) Undergarments? What are those?
e) Every weekend bitch. Every weekend. I’m in the double digit loss-o-meter.

7) Your best friend is:

a) Your sorority sister / frat brother from Freshman year. Hey man, we “rushed” together!
b) Your pet.
c) Your right hand / the Hitachi Magic Wand is also acceptable here.

8) You have had sex in the following locations. Check all that apply.

a) Airplane at 30,000 feet.
b) On a nude beach in broad daylight.
c) At work, in someone’s office, during the prime business hour of 10:30 a.m.
d) In the bed of his/her ex. For revenge.
e) At the end of a very crowded pier at dusk.
f) On a motorcycle.
g) In a model apartment.
h) In a swimming pool of an apartment complex.

9) In the next Presidential Election you will vote for:

a) Rudy Giuliani
b) Rudy Giuliani
c) Rudy Giuliani

Scoring:
Add up the points for your answers.
1) a: 0; b: 5; c: 10
2) a: 0; b: 5; c: 10
3) a: 2; b: 0; c: 10; d: 0; e: 0; f: 8
4) a: 5; b: 10; c: 1; d: 0
5) a: 0; b: 0; c: 0; d: 0; e: 0; f: 10
6) a: 5; b: 2; c: 0; d: 4; e: 0
7) a: 0; b: 5 – unless your pets are Sammy and Thora, then you get 15 points; c: 10
8) 5 points for every item you checked.
9) 5 points for any answer.

Points:

0-25: Hurry! Breathe in a mirror and tell me if there’s fog on it! You are so boring you may as well be dead.
26-50: Why the hell did you have to pick the Blues Traveler? Come on! It’s your own fault. I can’t help you if you can’t at least try to help yourself you know.
51-80: You have some signs of promise. Continue your debauchery and check back with me in a couple months. A strict diet of alcohol, drugs, thievery and loving New York City and everything it stands for should get you on the right track.
81-100: Ooh. We should be friends. There are a couple things I may have to slap you around for, but all in all, this is a great effort.
101 + We should be best friends. What? We aren’t? What are you doing this weekend? I must hang out with you.

My Answers & the “Logic” Behind Them:

1 – C. Look, you HAVE to send tourists into the ghetto. Especially if they are assholes.
2 – C. Come on. You didn’t say that my dogs were in the house. It was kids. You can make more of those. Besides, mine will probably be brats who set the fire in the first place.
3 – C – Metallica. Obey! Your! Master! If you can’t listen to that, at least you should have picked a Brit sounding rock from a band who are really from Vegas. If you ever or still listen to the Blues Traveler, I hate you. I hated you in college, and I hate you now.
4 – B. It’s really the only way to go. Motherfucking cocksucking son of a bitch.
5 – No one I am friends with should ever compare themself to these vapid, useless characters who did nothing for feminism besides prove that every female blogger fancies herself a Carrie-writer, deserving of a book deal and all sorts of expensive shoes. No one is as stupid as Charlotte what’s her name. Samantha in real life would have burned off her CLIT and be HIV-positive. Miranda exists people. Go down to K Street right now and look up at all those lawyers in the offices that are still lit. She’s still working, and she would never get Steve because she’s too much of a bitch. Magda would have run off with the baby by now.
6 – I don’t leave the house without my bra and panties, but I can appreciate those who do, so some points there as well. If you let the beast fall asleep on something, then I have no points for you. You haven’t been paying attention here at Velvet in Dupont. The fine art of the strip is important. You act like you are casually tossing your clothes off in the heat of the moment, but make a mental map of where everything lands. And nothing should land in a place where it can’t be retrieved later.
7 – I tried to pick both B and C, but the damn scantron wouldn’t let me. So I did choose the dogs. It took a lot of thought though.
8 – Points maxed. I’ve done them all. You should too.
9 – Any answer is acceptable here, though I actually chose “A” because I was so excited at seeing the name shown there, that I chose it first. Kind of like the “OOH OOH PICK ME” kid in 2nd grade.

That’s all I got. Okay, my funnier material still resides on that chalkboard in the Queen of Quantity’s house.

I have been ridiculously busy with work. The rundown of what is going on is layoffs, layoffs and more layoffs. I narrowly avoided getting tossed out in the last round, and now, it seems there’s been a complete realignment of responsibilities, with a lot ending in my lap. It is fine with me, really. I love being busy. It means there will be less posting. And, zero blog reading. So if I miss something big someone pleeeease send it to me. Great. Thanks.

So, not only is my industry totally male dominated, but there are pockets in the industry (more than I care to admit) that are a complete throwback to the 1950’s. You’ll just be plugging away and all of a sudden you hit a brick wall and you’re like, “WTF? Why is this all going wrong and I can’t make any progress?” Then, after exhausting all the possible alternatives for why things are off track, the only explanation that you can assign to this gross display of incompetence in your path is the fact that you are a woman and the men don’t think you should be doing this high level of a job. Yes, yes, it’s true. There are some men who think that when the female body was built, once they fit the tits in, there was no room left for a brain. Luckily my boss and two of the three other men in my office are not like that.

Without giving a lot of history that could surely get me added to the next blacklist, something interesting transpired over the last week. Someone set into play the domino effect, and some people were interested in getting a gauge of public opinion. Since I have my ear to the ground on that, I started fishing around a la Geraldo Rivera to get the feel for morale. I’m just going to dive into the middle of the convo where my boss asked me what I found out.

Velvet: By the way, HateBoy doesn’t like me.
My Boss (sighing:) No. He doesn’t.
Velvet (laughing:) You know, having my blog has taught me that not everyone is going to like me, and that many of them don’t even have a fucking good reason. I used to care about shit like that, but now, I don’t.
Boss: Well, you shouldn’t.
Velvet: It actually makes me laugh.
Boss: You want to know why he doesn’t like you?
Velvet: Because I’m just a stupid girl?
Boss: Well, yeah, I think there’s some of that in there. But he doesn’t like you because he can’t control you.

That statement stopped me in my tracks for a second, if only to recognize something quite interesting. In my dating life, the guys who couldn’t “control” me, actually ended up liking me more. Funny that it’s the opposite at work.

When people like you, they like you in varying degrees. Some are hardcore, loyal friends, doing anything and everything you need. Others “have your back” when you need it, but aren’t always around. Others just consider you a friend, wouldn’t say anything bad about you, but wouldn’t go to bat for you either.

There aren’t so many varying degrees of hate. Recently I’ve seen all sorts of behavior online that basically amounted to people stating in one way or another that they don’t like me or don’t like other bloggers, and they act out on that dislike, attacking us personally. I will always say, “Wow, I’m really surprised at how far some people will go with their hate.” But you know something? I don’t know why I say that all the time. It’s like the “I’m going out and only having one drink” lie. I never have one drink and I’m NEVER surprised at the lengths people will go to to show their true colors. All these hateful people behave the same. Once you figure out what it is that drives someone (in many of these online cases it is usually jealousy,) it’s easy to deal with them. Once I classify you as the enemy, I know exactly how to proceed.

So, HateBoy and I have to work together on a project that he tried to get me thrown off of. Except that once my boss discussed Velvet’s experience, ability to get this done, and oh lord tossed in the whole MBA thing, (4.0 bitches,) he shut up in a jiffy. But it made him hate me more. Men without advanced degrees tend to be jealous of women with them. At least that’s been my experience.

HateBoy so obviously hates me that you can see his skin crawl when I walk into the room. When you drive someone to such hatred, so much so that they seem to have an emotional reaction when they have to be in the same room with you, you know you have them. I love it like I have never loved a contentious work situation in my life. He has proven himself to be a poor communicator at best. (Read: He comes off sounding sleazy and illiterate in meetings.) So, I’m rubbing my hands together, waiting for him to fuck up. Because when he does, and I get to verbally lambast him in front of whomever happens to be around at the time, I expect to make company history.

Friday night I went to the I-66 / VP of Dior sponsored Happy Hour. Because this event was downtown, and I really despise our whole bullshit taxi system, I rode my poor neglected Harley to Mackey’s. I squeezed that bitch in between two cars and walked inside to greet the bloglings.

I did the usual Friday night routine: gym, no dinner, start drinking. This is not the best way to go, especially when Virgile Kent arrives because he starts passing the shots. For some reason, I become a very ungracious Velvet when VK hands me the secret elixir, screaming “Oh NO, I CAN’T POSSIBLY do this SHOT!” But I swigged it down, alongside a few beers and I was sufficiently buzzed. I know, what happens next is just stupid.

I got ON the motorcycle and rode home. I became a veritable daredevil, bobbing and weaving through assholes causing traffic jams where there didn’t need to be any. Then some douchebag asshole lady tried to make a left turn in front of me, into a traffic jam. Had she completed her turn, she would have stopped dead, and I would have crashed into her. But instead, I leaned on that little horn, forgetting how loud that mother is, and she stopped. I weaved around her shaking my head at her, hoping she realized how stupid she truly was.

All of this is irrelevant because the point to this story is that the motorcycle was dead the next morning. There were several scenarios that could have resulted in a dead battery, but it just meant it had to spend 24 hours on the charger. Sunday night, once my precious machinery came off the charger, I wanted to ride it up and down the garage to just make sure it worked. I cruised around a level, climbing higher in the garage when I looked down and realized Thora was running alongside me. I bust out laughing. She was so fucking cute. Her tongue was hanging down to the ground, her ears were popping up and down and I swear she was smiling. When I stopped, she stopped and looked at me. When I started going, she took off. I measured her run. She hit 12 miles an hour. Jesus. That’s faster than I can run – who knew?

I went back to see what was keeping the little sausage my other lazy dog Sammy from accompanying his mommy. He finally joined in. Here you go. I know it’s not clear, but some pictures of the Velvet family:

This post lovingly dedicated from Sammy & Thora to their friend Jake. We miss you buddy, woof woof.

An artist never really finishes his work; He merely abandons it. ~ Paul Valery

Dear Blog:

I love everything about you. You have been here for me for the last 18 months. They haven’t all been good times, but I’ve learned a lot and I have you to thank for that…I guess. I mean, I could thank myself too I suppose. I’m the one who over the last year and a half dated about 40 men. Very, very poorly I might add.

But the nature of our relationship, dear sweet blog, has changed. In writing about my dating escapades, I have somehow become…hunted. Allow me to explain. I have had the following happen to me since I started this blog in June, 2005:

• I’ve endured a horrible, threatening parody blog that likes to come back to life to spew the incoherent ramblings of its psychopathic author. What kind of 40 year old man with a wife and kids threatens a woman’s dogs who live on the other side of the country? Such a good example you are setting for your daughter there, crackpot. I can only hope your Amanda is the victim of harrassment like you enact on me. That would be schweet.
• I’ve had readers contact me to tell me that someone was searching for me on technorati, looking for bloggers who link to me. Am I really that interesting? Shit, just email me. I’ll tell you what you want to know.
• I’ve had a “reader” unravel* in my comments, then contact my commenters and strike up a conversation about me. *Unraveling = great fun and entertainment for the rest of us, by the way.
• I’ve also discovered from several people that another certain someone (who has repeatedly attempted to forge a dating scenario with me) has been contacting various “suspected insiders” and asking them to divulge the password. The “insiders” didn’t make up a very long list, and it didn’t take very long for that information to make its way back to me. Who does this? I mean, when you are striking up a conversation with someone you barely know and have rarely spoken to, then you ask for a password, doesn’t it like, click in your peasize, webnovel writing brain that what you are doing is INSANE?
• I’ve had many solicitations from readers for dates – readers I’ve never heard of, who have never commented and became irate when told, “no.”
• I’ve found references to me on other sites calling me a “trainwreck skank.” Really? I’m a trainwreck skank? Huh. Who knew that someone could use such vicious words about a woman they DON’T FUCKING KNOW. And I’m sorry that your life is so, snore, boring, yawn, that what you perceive as a “trainwreck” is a boatload of fun for me. It’s what they call “living.” But really, stay on your couch watching Oprah get fat, get thin, then get fat again.
• I’ve also seen people bitching online about why they can’t read Velvet anymore because of the password, and why doesn’t she just “close the blinds all the way?” I own the domain and the content and I can do whatever I want. I can grant a password. I can tell you no. Stop being such a baby.

Why does all this bother me so much? Initially I was disturbed by these people and their evident psychoses. My first instinct was that there are some definite personality traits that seem common to a lot of bloggers. Seriously, I know many bloggers with self-admitted mental illnesses. It makes them act out in ways that are, well, not understandable to me. But of course, part of my growth as a person involves the act of constantly looking at my own behavior as well. What have I done to drive some of the above people to this behavior?

I’m stumped. I’m not sure what it is that I’m writing about that’s making some people crazy. I don’t think what I write about is very controversial. It’s always about me. There’s no deep level commentary. There are no statements intended to stir people. DCPD excluded. (Aussie Em – that’s the D.C. Police Department, not to be confused with the other acronym I use here, “CVS.” Love you Em!) I have a simple formula here at Velvet in Dupont: I date, and I write about it. So what? But obviously, it isn’t as easy as a “so what” for some people. I don’t want to be responsible for driving any more people to the levels of insanity I’ve seen from them, all because they want to read this blog and/or get to the writer – me.

That said, I’m returning my dating, sexcapades and other personal romantic information to the nightstand drawer. This, ladies and gentlemen, is no longer a personal dating journal. You will now find mundane stories here about Sammy and Thora, Dupont Circle, me getting more tattoos, as well as generic dating and relationship posts that may draw on past personal experience, may be about friends, but will not be current with my life right now. Perhaps one day I’ll get saucy and toss in a post about a coatroom blowjob just to see if everyone left is still awake. Don’t count on it any time soon though.

“Art has to do more than look good. It has to disturb the inner spirit.” – Luelan Boddan, with many others stating a similar observation.

Is writing art? I have no idea. I don’t think so because it comes so easy to me. But I’m obviously disturbing a few (already unbalanced) people. I don’t want to be responsible for any more of this insanity. It puts all of us in danger, as we have to share the streets with these psychopaths. I’m sorry about that. I won’t do it again. I can’t guarantee there won’t be any future password protected posts, because sometime’s a girl’s just gotta have secrets. But I’ll try to keep that to a limit. It’s not my intention to exclude people who have been so nice and supportive, but, it’s hard to understand how some of the strangers feel entitled to have my life broadcast to them. This isn’t a book. Y’all aren’t paying you know. In life, there are no guarantees.

To the rest of you, the majority, who sent emails to check in and who expressed concern, you all are awesome. Thanks for your well wishes. It didn’t go unnoticed.

French kisses to all, except the 40 I’ve dated and the five six seven of you who belong in an asylum. You know who you are.

Velvet

Thora’s 7th Birthday was Sunday 11/5/06. I gave her a toy and she used it as a pillow for night night time.

Sammy also slept, in the cutest pose ever

.

And we sprinkled the neighborhood with our love. I did feel it would have been more appropriate for Sammy to actually use the urinal, since he’s now learned to crouch over holes in the ground and inject his poop in there. He’s just one step away from toilet-trained.

Writing fast, running back into another meeting in a few minutes.

Okay, so I’m not sure if he has the password or not. I can’t tell on my site stats who gets by it and who doesn’t. It just shows the hard link with the post number after it, but you can land on that page anyway if you click the title without knowing the password. The site just takes away the rest of the posts and puts you on a page with just a password box for the post you clicked a title for. So I see that he went in yesterday and was on the hard link, i.e. velvetindupont.com/p=853, but again, I don’t know if he was actually reading. There have been three coincidences where he said something the day after I posted about that very topic. But, I could just be panicking. Keep in mind, after those crazies I dealt with last spring (Mr. Banana Hammock and company) hacked into my computer and regurgitated shit out of my hard drive, I don’t put nothing past no one.

Ok. Where am I? Monday night was Sherlock’s drive by. Tuesday morning I got an email from him. It was long. Really long. Basically he wrote it as a letter to Thora, saying Happy Birthday to her (which is what freaked me out) but, then of course there’s a P.S. “Tell your mommy” section. I was most irritated at him using the dogs to try to get to me, but there were also some things mentioned in the email that really just upset me – namely his threatening to go on a date with someone this week and mentioning having been out with someone already. I wrote back short answer that said something like “Unbelievable you can’t keep it in your pants until you find out where we stand. Can I assume if you are dating other women that you will stop driving by my house as well?”

He wrote back another email yesterday afternoon, much much longer, and I was just leaving work when I saw it. I read it quickly, started to cry, snuck out of work, cried on the way home, read it again, then got ready to go take some STUPID media bistro class (People – never ever do their classes!) for three hours. In the cab I fired off a text because I was so upset. The text said something about “How could you send me an email like that. Thanks for making me cry for an hour today. You love yourself too much to love me.”

He called within a minute, but I was already in the class. I texted back that I couldn’t talk for 3 hours. He said to text when I was out – he was at a concert and put “alone” in parenthesis. I texted on my way home, he left his concert and walked home in the rain while talking to me. I really don’t know what to say about the conversation. It breaks my heart. The emails broke my heart already, but the conversation sucked as well. The emails, shit, I can’t even reprint what he wrote because it’s just so hurtful. And manipulative. Seriously manipulative. A psychaitrist’s field day. We are clearly in this mode where he thinks I was trying to hurt him on purpose, and he was therefore trying to hurt me back. I took a Klonopin before the call so I could try to stay calm, and of course I barely remember a lot of what was said for the two hours we spoke. But I do remember a couple of my main points. Awake and non-medicated, I’m surprised at how much logic my points seem to have.

I said that I wanted to be with a man who was “looking” for me. Meaning: I want a guy who is mature enough to not be just ratcheting numbers, not sleeping with anything (cough cough) that comes along. I said, (and I KEEP saying this to my therapist) that I want a guy like my brothers and my dad. Then, this is where I started crying, because there is something so genuine and admirable about the way my brothers and father treat women. I told him that my brother was on this dating hiatus when he met his wife. He was sick of wasting time and money on worthless women, decided he’d rather be alone than with someone not right. He went out one night on a whim, was incredibly rude to my sister-in-law, but then found her sneaking into the men’s bathroom at the bar because the ladies room line was too long, and he just knew he had to get to know her better. The story I have on video of him telling how they met is fucking hilarious. And that’s what I want – a guy who is waiting for me, not waiting for the least of all evils to happen by – which is what I think I was for him.

To me, being alone is fine. But I’m an “alone” kind of woman. His emails insinuated that he can’t be alone and therefore was going to keep looking for someone to make him happy. I suppose that I can somewhat understand this mentality, but having actively dated for three years now (blogging for half that time,) I can say that it gets tiring. Remember when I met Sherlock – I wasn’t looking for anything serious, and allegedly, neither was he. But all that changed.

He said near the end that he wanted to promise he wouldn’t call, but that he didn’t know if he was going to be able to keep that promise. I cried as I told him that I really and truly want him out of my life, that this has been too difficult and too painful for me to deal with, and despite the love, I just can’t go on like this. Then, I asked him to not call. I assume he’ll replace me relatively quickly. And the argument about there not being a lot of viable, good looking, single ladies is irrelevant. We’ve seen that he isn’t very discriminating as to who he wines, dines and beds.

I’m sick to my stomach. I woke up this morning wondering if I just let this whole relationship be a casualty of the blog, instead of the other way around. I wonder if I made the right decision – and you don’t have to confirm it for me, I’m wondering for myself, not from a third party perspective. Of course I get from your all’s view, this has been nothing short of a disaster. I wonder, well, I’m wondering a lot of things. But that’s where it stands. Or doesn’t stand anymore I guess.

I’ve got my uniform on. I’m just trying to stand up and go to bat.

Dear Sherlock:

I am writing you this letter to tell you why I am breaking up with you. Of course you will never see this letter, but I will read and reread it to remind myself why you and I are do not need to be together any longer.

To write a letter in the style of Papa of Velvet’s, I am going to make you the infamous numbered list. My dad makes numbered lists for two reasons. First, he is a lawyer. Just the facts ma’am. When you have a list with numbers, you know what the facts are, where they are, and you don’t have to read between the lines to get them. Second, he thinks most people are stupid. Therefore, the numbered list is a way of spelling things out in such a simplified manner that there is no room for misunderstanding. It’s a bit of a psychology trick. Dad is smart.

Let’s go. In no particular order.

1) When I was in N.Y. and we were quickly on the way to a “reconciliation” of sorts, you squeezed in one more date, but you lied to me. You told me you were “going out with friends.” You came clean afterward, but promised “no more lies.”

2) You neglected the mention of a “fuck buddy” until after I agreed to stop dating other people. Then after we got through that, you apologized and again promised “no more lies.”

3) Your crazy ex-other-fuck buddy, Rachel the ugly TravelGirl attacked me, publicly, on my blog, and you said you didn’t want to be in the middle. Only when I informed you that there was a “middle” because of you did you change your tune and start siding with me.

4) You came clean (only after threatened by In-need-of-rhinoplasty-TravelGirl) that you slept with not only the original fuckbuddy, but her (TravelGirl) and someone else in the two weeks we were not together. (But you were full-on stalking me.)

5) Before we had unprotected sex, you assured me that you always used condoms. You used the word “ALWAYS.” But then, after you and I did our testing, and tossed out the latex, only then do you tell me that you slept with Travel Whore sans condom. Not only does this disgust me for the sheer fact that she is ugly as shit, but, how could you do something so reckless with our lives?

6) You shared intimate details about me and the first time we had sex with, as Ashburnite has coined them, “the hags.”

6a) You also lied to the hags and told them I’m on meds. I’m not, but I probably should be now because of you. Thanks for that, asshole.

7) The night after we first slept together and I told you it was nothing more than sex, you somehow found it okay to show up at one of the hags doors, talk to her for two hours about me, then try to fuck her. I may be somewhat quick to jump in the sack, but I could never have so little regard for not one but two people as to jump in this quickly. It screams sleaze. Screams.

8) You have taken away my ability to write freely. The blog is now password protected and I have you and only you to thank for that. Yet…you still stop by to check the titles of the posts. What the hell?

9) You told your ex in Texas all the intimate details about us, our fights etc. Have you learned nothing?

10) Your sense of humor sucks ass. If I have to explain a Woody Allen movie to you, uh, yeah, it’s just not going to work.

11) You stalked me at Chi Cha Lounge, Cafe Citron and a Poison concert. I don’t appreciate this behavior at all. I’ve taken an ex to court for less shit than this. Don’t think I can’t find 500 Indiana Avenue again, bitch.

12) You read the blog entry about how my ex-boyfriend wrote me a whole note explaining how to get the flat tire changed, and you took it upon yourself to do the same thing with the remote control. If I wanted another AtlantaBoy, then I’d go back and get myself another AtlantaBoy.

13) You read my blog and changed like a chameleon into what you thought I wanted you to be. Only, you couldn’t sustain it for very long. I’m not sure who you are and who I’m dating, but what we have so far doesn’t feel anything close to genuine. And I’m comfortable moving on knowing that I don’t really know the real you. Because I suspect, that the real you is a needy, co-dependent, non-Woody-Allen-joke getting, non-Sarcasm-getting, sex addict.

14) You are not my type. You are too tightly wound. I’m the last of three children and I fall completely into that stereotype of the rebel and the family “black sheep.” I imagine myself dating some hipster guy who goes to London a bunch of times a year, or some guy with 27 tattoos, who just fell off a Harley – one that he’s been riding since birth, not one he bought because he didn’t want to be trumped by his girlfriend.

15) I still love Sammy and Thora more than you. If there were a fire and I could only save two of the three of you, I would save Sammy and Thora. That’s just how it is.

16) The other night after your 18 consecutive call marathon, when we finally spoke, you went into a stream of consciousness of things you were thinking. You said, and I’ll quote, “I still want all those things with you. I want to hold your hand when you have your baby…” Did you catch it? You said, “YOUR” baby. Not “our” but, “Your.” As if this was something I wanted that I forced you to go along with. Please note that before you, I never even considered having kids, ever. I like my life too much to have to sober and un-drug up for 9 months (or more!) to be a baby maker. “Your” baby. Remember that. It’s very telling.

I admit to having given you mixed signals, but it was only because I had hope that this could change and work out. It was also because I knew what an incredible douche you were, and that you are head over heels in love with me. Watching you squirm, gave a very sick sense of satisfaction, like poking a dying snake with a stick. But, I’m done.
No more kisses for you,

Velvet

I had a FUCKING GREAT post tonight. I mean, really truly great. And now it’s trumped by this information:

I was just walking the doggies and we took an extra long walk – a rare event for the last walk of the night. Though, if I had retreated home when I originally wanted (10:00 instead of 10:15) then, Sammy would not have gotten out that last poop and I wouldn’t have seen Sherlock driving by my house.

Again. Sherlock driving by my house.

I do feel like sending a text that says: “Since you can’t honor boundaries, and acknowledge the no-stalk zone of 17th Street, I’m not going to honor proper break up rules. Consider this your notice.”

The thing is, I’ve been stalked before by TheCop. So I am never surprised by what men are capable of doing (women too) but it doesn’t mean that I actually believe it will go as far as it does. Showing up at Citron was by far the scariest thing that has happened in the Sherlock stalking show. It’s the delusional “I thought you saw me, I thought you smiled at me” crap that reeks of TheCop, whose real name is Nick, because who the fuck cares now? Password! HA!

Anyway, I genuinely feel bad that he feels he has to behave like this. I know if I would just talk to him it would all go away. I went out the other night and drove by his house (I was going in that direction) and yeah, I looked up to see if he was home (he wasn’t) but, then I thought, “What the hell would I do if he saw me?” That thought alone was enough to get me the hell off his street and on to a parallel one.

In other news, yesterday was Thora’s birthday. She’s seven. My little girl is all grown up!

I made my list. I checked it more than twice. I have many many great reasons to do this breakup. I have reasons to walk away and not look back. Yet, I haven’t done it. I clearly suck worse at breaking up than I do at dating.

Every time I think about picking up the phone and having the conversation, my heart starts racing and I feel like I’m going to black out. What. The. Fuck. Why is this so hard?

Who the hell goes to the gym on Friday night at 6:30 p.m. when it’s 30 degrees outside? Really. Who? Me, and the U-Street Metro, that’s who. Right when my left cheek has decided to give birth to two unsightly zits. My luck fucking sucks.

Walking in, I bumped right into him on his way out. I may be the tiniest bit crazy, or perhaps the tiniest bit optimistic but I think he looked happy to see me. He actually smiled and stopped in my path. Quite a contrast from the other times I’ve bumped into him where he looks about as uncomfortable as one would look, say when a pair of boxer briefs is shoved up their asshole. With a car tire attached.

We talked for several minutes – much longer than any of our last attempts at being unawkward and friendly. Exchanging small talk was nice, but it still stung. He looked good. He always looks good. He seemed relaxed. We said goodbye and I went off in search of an elliptical machine.

As I climbed away, of course he stayed in my mind. I thought the timing pretty funny considering I JUST saw his girlfriend in Washingtonian. I thought about the time we spent together and how easy it was to just fall in love with him. Finishing my easy Friday night workout and realizing the gym visit was anything other than a breeze, I went home.

During my shower, Sherlock popped into my mind. I started collecting my anger at all the things he’s done to me. I said them out loud in the shower. I decided to make a list. Expect to see it soon by the way. (Suggestions & reminders appreciated.) I stepped out of the shower, grabbed my towel and then I asked myself: Why did I bump into the U Street Metro at the gym? Because coincidence resulted in both of us being there? Okay, sure. But, in the absence of religion in my life, I pay close attention to “signs.” It’s a holdover from “The Celestine Prophecy” being one of my favorite books.

The U Street Metro was put in my path to show me that I shouldn’t settle. I should wait until I feel that way again about someone else. If he asked me to take the blog down, I would, without hesitating. But Sherlock? I don’t feel that strongly about Sherlock. It might be part love, part attachment. But it has burned me out. I went to the gym last night and said to the Queen of Quantity, “I want to love a man as much as I love my dogs.” She didn’t think that was stupid at all, in fact she agreed wholeheartedly.

I dried off and fired up the laptop. The date of this post is staring at me in the face: Today is AtlantaBoy’s birthday. Another man I fell head over heels for. Another sign. It’s time for me to get up to bat and send the other team home. This game is finally over.

Eighteen missed calls. Let me say it again. Eighteen missed calls. I went to the gym and left my phone at home. When I returned home after two hours, there were EIGHTEEN MISSED CALLS on my FUCKING phone! You know who it was, don’t pretend you don’t!

I called back, got voicemail and said, “Are you on fire? Because this is excessive.” He called back when I was blasting the new shit I just downloaded (club music, not country this time) and I didn’t hear when he called back SEVEN MORE TIMES. Who does this?? I was dialing in to check the voicemail he left, and he called again. I clicked over and said, “Funny how you painted me to be crazy to those two chicks you nailed, and you’re acting again like a complete psycho.” We proceeded to have a conversation in which he ended up hanging up on me (again.)

In the 25 minutes we spent on the phone, he said that yesterday (Monday) was the first day we haven’t spoken since we started dating. I said, “Yeah, it was fucking Monday! You know I just got ridiculously busy at work and I had a lot of shit to do.” He said that if I wanted to call him, I would have, but I chose not to. Okay, point taken. But I said, “I don’t like having to check in.” Then he accused me of pushing him away. Moi? I would never do such a thing. (Cough. I just choked on something. Was that sarcasm??) Most of the conversation was him yelling at me, telling me I’m manipulating him (interesting coming from him) and me not caring – which he called me out on. My retorts to his rundown of the last 48 hours of our “non-speaking” included gems such as, “I told you I’m not a good girlfriend” and “I hate having to answer to someone.” I should copyright that shit.

The truth is, and I did say this – sometimes I just like to disappear into my own little world. It’s not normal, but it’s what I do. Look what I did with this blog – I ripped it away from so many people and only let a fraction back in. When I feel too exposed, in any capacity, I shut down and back off. I can’t explain it, it’s just something I’ve always done. When I was in high school, I used to go up to my room, shut the door and turn off the lights and listen to music for hours. In college, I’d stay in on a weekend, when I knew everyone would be out, just so I could have the place to myself.

Trust me, I need more alone time than the average person. My latest “alone time” wave started last week. I warned him long before the weekend that I wanted to do a lot of stuff around the house and wasn’t going to want to go out. (Mail piling up, clothes need to be weeded through and donated, etc.) Friday, he was nagging me to come over and I really didn’t want to. He came over, and distracted me from the cleaning I wanted to complete. Then Saturday I saw the U Street Girlfriend in Washingtonian and it put me in a shitty place emotionally. I then forced myself to go over to Sherlock’s so I didn’t have to hear the nagging. By Sunday he pissed me off with his inability to get my sense of humor. When we had sex on Sunday it was so…boring. I knew if we didn’t have sex he would really think something was wrong. So I prance into the bedroom and we have the boring sex and I’m like, “Okay, gotta go. It’s late.” He said, “No, it’s an hour earlier, I haven’t changed the clocks.” I was like, “OH GOOD! I have shit to do at home!” I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. He even said it was like I was running out. I was. I didn’t want to be there anymore.

By the way, we haven’t kissed since, um, before this latest blow up. I know, how are we managing to have sex for the last week and a half without kissing? It can be done my friends, let me tell you. I’m shocked that I’ve been able to pull it off. I just don’t feel like kissing him. Every time he tries, I move away. Fucked up, I know. All this latest saga with the Travel Girl shit and her subsequent email and him following me to Citron and hiding at the bar, it did a lot of damage. A lot. I think the kissing thing is too personal. Make your jokes, I’ll fuck him but not kiss him. Yeah. So? I don’t want to hold his hand or sleep over either, so there!

When I lived with AtlantaBoy, he and I had a fight, similar to what Sherlock and I just had, where AtlantaBoy said, “I wish you knew how it felt when I get shut out.” And I said, “I wish you knew what it was like to live with black clouds EVERY DAY. You can see them coming but you can’t stop them. And all you want is to be alone.” Anyone who forces their way into my path when I’m like this will be destroyed. I may live to regret it, but I’ll still destroy it in the interim.

So Sherlock ended the conversation by saying, “I’m not giving up on you. I hate being shut out, but I’m not giving up.” Then he hung up on me.

See, the irony here is not that he’s been shut out of my world. It’s that I’ve shut myself out of his. Really, I’m the one on the outside looking in, he just doesn’t know it.