New cleaning crew I’ve decided to throw some mone…

New cleaning crew

I’ve decided to throw some money at the neverending issue of cleaning my house. I love for things to be extremely clean. I just don’t like the process of getting them that way. I hate to dust and scrub the floors.

So . . . the decision is to have a cleaning crew come in once every two weeks, just to keep things spiffy around here.

I’m trying out a service. They’re here now, and these women are noisy. They’re upstairs clattering around and banging things. It sounds like there’s a full-scale demolition going on up there. I only hope it looks great when they’re done, for all the noise they’re making.

I tried another crew about two months ago. It was a referral service from another friend. They just didn’t clean deeply, the way I like them to. My floors weren’t gleaming, and they were in and out of here in about an hour, which makes me believe they squeezed me in between appointments.

I made the mistake of telling the owner that I was thinking of having a regular service. Since I wasn’t happy with their service, I wasn’t planning to use them again, but dude was BLOWING UP my phone three times a day asking when he can send his crew to my house. He called both my home and my cell numbers repeatedly. I’m hoping that, by now, he got the hint. I would have given him more direct feedback, just so that he knows how to improve, going forward, but I didn’t want him to try and send the same crew to my house again. I’m over them.

Other than that, have been working my ASS off lately, and leaving my client’s office no earlier than 8:00 every night this week. The beauty of being a contractor is the ability to bill hourly. Love it.

I don’t love it, however, when I feel like I have no time to myself. As it stands, I don’t really have a weekend.

Today, I’m supervising my cleaning crew, and then I’m going to book club tonight. Tomorrow, I have to get up early to cook, get to the office for a meeting in the morning (yep, a meeting on SUNDAY!), and then back here before people start arriving for a gathering that I’m having here.

I’m thinking of taking a solo weekend retreat to a spa. I’m going to look into that.

Not as bad today I’m not in as bad of a mood toda…

Not as bad today

I’m not in as bad of a mood today as I was yesterday. I just think that it won’t get better until this project is over. I hate crunch time — but at the same time, I like deadlines. Oh well.

The column dropped today. It’s about breaking up, so check it out if you’re curious.

Isn’t that a horrible picture of Emily Hughes? Did everyone watch figure skating last night. Poor Sasha Cohen. I really wanted her to win the Gold. It was amazing that she even got a medal, considering those falls she took.

The outfits were horrendous. That German skater looked like what Evel Knievel would look like if he were a figure skater. Yeesh!

Shitty Mood I’m in a horrible mood today. Venomo…

Shitty Mood

I’m in a horrible mood today. Venomous, actually. So much so that I won’t even write a full entry. Maybe later when I’m playing well with others.

No crush! I realized that, for a long LOOOOOOOONG…

No crush!

I realized that, for a long LOOOOOOOONG time, I haven’t had a crush. Not a real honest-to-goodness heavy-heart-beating-pining-yearning crush. Either because there’s no one to have a crush on — at least not someone that I could actually see in person — or because I keep myself so busy that I don’t have time. Or because I only want them during fleeting moments like this.

I have a friend who moves from crush to crush, and her life is full of intrigue. “Does he like me? Does he find me attractive?” She will call me to read the crush du jour’s e-mail messages to see if she’s reading too much into them (usually, yes, she is). But it gives her excitement. Will she see him today? What will he be wearing? What will he think of what SHE’S wearing? I think she really likes the mystery of it.

What also hasn’t happened lately is being the object of a crush. I don’t mind that one so much. Nothing’s worse than knowing that someone has feelings for you that you don’t return. And even if you like them as a friend, you’re forced to be cautious so that you don’t do anything that will take you even remotely outside of the boundaries of friendship.

Whew! Okay, I think it’s out of my system now. I can get back to work.

Long weekend . . . Well, not really. I didn’t ha…

Long weekend . . .

Well, not really. I didn’t have to show up at my client’s office yesterday, which doesn’t mean that I didn’t do plenty of work. In fact, I worked all weekend — either writing or consulting stuff. I didn’t mind because I got a lot done.

A couple of interesting stories . . .

I was at a birthday party on Saturday night, and a friend was telling me about her strange encouter with a would-be stalker. Long story short, she ended up calling the police after he continued to harass her. The police checked his record, and found out that he is wanted in GA for two counts of sodomy. WTF?

Someone needs to explain this to me. I’ve never understood how the sodomy law can be enforced. If two people are having consensual sodomy, there should be no involvement of the legal system, right? So how do people get caught? If it’s rape, the primary charge is rape. But unless there’s some sort of sting operation, or you’re caught in public with your rabbit in the hole, how the hell can you get charged with sodomy, not once but TWICE? The only other thing I can think is that it involved a minor. Just what kind of weirdo is this, anyway?

The funny thing is that the state of GA doesn’t take their laws seriously because they refuse to pay to extradite him, leaving him to continue his sodomy with Chicago residents. At least this time he picked a state where sodomy is perfectly legal. Isn’t it? I have to happily plead ignorance on that topic!

Went into Jamba Juice on Halsted yesterday and was served by an Asian man who simply had “Hung” on his nametag. My superego had to keep my id from laughing and making a comment. Such self control.

I pulled into the parking garage this morning, and the very nice attendent told me, in broken English, that I have a flat tire. He rolled out the little compressor, and filled it for me, and volunteered to change my spare in a few hours if it went down again. I only had a $5 on me, but I plan to hook him up later for being so kind. It’s patethic that I’m so surprised when people are nice. I guess I always expect people not to be. What’s that about?

The Gods of Tire Maintenance are not kind to me. It seems that there are certain things that keep happening to certain people, coincidentally. Mine is tire failure. And it can’t be my fault, because I certainly don’t go looking for things to run over just for the hell of it. It just happens.

Has anyone seen Halle Berry’s hot new boyfriend? Yummy. Then again, her last one wasn’t terrible. But what am I talking about? She’s Halle Berry. Of COURSE she dates yummy men. Hate her.

What’s going on in this world? Bush approves of C…

What’s going on in this world?

Bush approves of Cheney’s Handling of Mishap

What a hilarious news item. Well, of COURSE Bush approves! Should we have expected otherwise? The President, who taps phones without knowledge, is certainly completely onboard with Dick Cheney’s glossing over his shooting “incident.”

Short of this being an Elmer-Fudd-like accident, the entire thing makes no sense to me.

And speaking of dumb criminals, what’s with the Entwhistle guy? He’s the one who killed his wife and child, immediately fled to England, didn’t attend their funerals, and hadn’t bothered to figure out that someone would rummage through his computer and realize that he’d been searching Google on how to properly kill someone. WTF? If nothing else, he should be jailed for stupidity.

Jeez!!!

Waiting . . . I’m waiting for another one of thos…

Waiting . . .

I’m waiting for another one of those calls again. Not from a man. Valentine’s Day is technically over for another year. Thank God.

This call is way more important than anything I could receive from a member of the opposite sex — unless the call in question is placed by a man, in which case I’d gladly receive it.

I just hate waiting.

Happy Valentine’s Day! I was supposed to go see a…

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I was supposed to go see a movie with my cousin tonight, but it looks like our timing might be off. Therefore, I’ve decided to do something that shows the highest level of love for myself — work out and clean my house.

I don’t love to clean the house, but I love having a clean house. I have a few loads of laundry to do, and I think I’m going to treat myself to a few new office supplies to give myself some incentive to organize my office, where my paperwork seems to have gotten away from me.

Of course, in keeping with the Valentine’s Day theme, I’m doing this with a bottomless glass of red wine. Syrah, probably.

Maybe I’ll even go get new catnip for the kitties.

I know . . . it doesn’t sound like fun, and there’s certainly no romance involved, but it’s definitely a great day for me.

It’s the weekend! And, of course, Valentine’s Day…

It’s the weekend!

And, of course, Valentine’s Day is coming. The column this week is about Valentine’s Day, and in honor of VD, I was interviewed by NBC5 on “the day.” Click here to hear my Valentine’s Day Podcast!

I’m not really excited about the sound of my own voice, but if you guys want to put a voice with the blog, knock yourselves out!

Reasons not to be a freelance journalist . . . H…

Reasons not to be a freelance journalist . . .

Have we forgotten about Jill Carroll, the hostage? WTF??