"How I Spent My Wednesday" by Louise O'Brien

My company likes us to keep a record of how we spend our time. I aim to please so here is today's run down.

7:21 am. Wake up in a panic. A slightly hungover panic. Smak self repeatedly in the head for thinking that Kahlua and milk was the appropriate response to insomnia.

7:22 am Trip over own foot on the way to the bathroom.

7:25 am Take shower and decide that washing one's hair should be optional.

7:33 am Poke self in eye while putting in left contact.

8:05 am Run madly out the front gate of apartment complex thinking I'm going to miss the bus. Notice guy who stands outside complex waiting for his ride to work everyday is laughing. Then notice that there is no bus and am running for nothing.

8:14 am Board bus behind a weird woman who doesn't seem to know what city she's in.

8:21 am Woman behind me on bus begins screaming that the driver has to let her off. Silently look up at the signal string hanging off of each bus window and wonder if she knows what they're for -- to signal your stop on the bus.

8:22 am Another woman behind me tells me my hair smells like sunshine. Debate on whether to tell her hair has not been washed since yesterday. Decide against it and try to look menacing instead.

8:29 am Arrive at work. Trip over own foot a second time.

8:31 am Smack own arm with front door to office building.

8:35 am Walk into office kitchen to be greeted by empty coffee carafe. Mutter the words "Greedy coffee drinking bastards" and slink back to cubicle.

8:36-10:05 am Various work activities too boring to mention.

10:06 am Attempt to fax producer in Century City. Realize have no knowledge of how fax machine works. Inadvertently fax Brazil. Ask coworker for help. Explain that I was dropped on the head as a child and it has forever affected my ability to use machinery.

10:07-11:00 am Search for coffee proceeds at five-minute intervals. Spend nearly an hour hoping someone else will make a fresh pot. Decide it would be sad to have to admit that I don't know how to use the coffee maker either. Suffer in silence.

11:01 am Give up on coffee in office and walk across street to Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Trip over own foot in front of co-workers walking the other way.

11:05 am Order vanilla latte and sigh in disbelief that this stupid morning is not over.

11:06 am Try sample of iced vanilla peppermint coffee drink while waiting for coffee.

11:07 am Spit iced vanilla peppermint coffee drink in waste basket. Shoot dirty look at barista and take latte off the counter.

11:10 am Tell my mother I don't have time to talk to her when she calls/

11:11 am Call mother back and apologize.

11:12-12:00 pm Spend most of hour looking for boss. Vow to staple him to his chair the next time he sits in it.

12:02 pm Realize that no one I was planning to have lunch with remembered that we had lunch plans.

12:03 pm Think about how long I have to wait for them to remember before I can ditch them and go to Pei Wei.

1:01 pm Go to Pei Wei. Wait 10 minutes for food while sipping on soda.

1:06 pm Trip on way to get soda refill.

1:14 pm Pick pieces of chicken out of pad thai that I purposely ordered with chicken because I remember that I don't like chicken.

:00 pm Participate in brainstorming session during which Elizabeth and I decide that it is not appropriate to name a Las Vegas tourism campaign intended to promote local taxpayers confidence in the system either of the following :"Wasting your tax dollars" or "Why the freeway still isn't finished."

2:21 pm Trip over own foot while sitting down. Decide I'm mentally retarded and take candy out of Tamar's candy jar to cheer myself up.

3:01 pm Wonder how many people would like to watch me trip and crack my head open.

3:02 pm Michael walks by and calls me "poppet". Decide he would think me tripping and cracking my head open was funny.

3:30 pm Start singing "Jimmy Crack Corn" with no noticeable provocation. Hear Josh sigh in the next cube. Wonder if the two events are related.

3:31-5:00 pm Compile a media list of 1,000 journalists for a future event. Accidentally delete half my work. Call myself a "foot-tripping idiot of the first order" and decide to go home.

Danke shoen, Wayne

Did I tell you guys that not only did I MEET Wayne Newton yesterday but he hugged me and welcomed me to Las Vegas? It was SURREAL! It's a long story but basically I was in the same room with Wayne and Shawn Marion. I would have rather copped a feel on ole Shawn (my God is he hot!) but it was tooooooo tempting to make friends with Mr. Danke Shoen. But for the rest of the say I smelled like potent men's cologne and pancake makeup. I don't know what came over me but I blame my friend Stephanie who is so pretty that famous crooners and basketball players flirt with her and take her business card.

Jessica arrives on Sunday. I'm so excited!

Ed Bradley we hardly knew ya

I'm very sad about Ed Bradley. Aren't you? I always liked him. Other than the fact that he was the coolest guy on 60 Minutes (hip, older black guy with an earring) he seemed really smart and not condescending about his brilliance. I like that in a man. Who knew he was friends with Jimmy Buffett, though? Other than Margaritaville and being realllllyyyy funny at basketball games, I'm not sure how much ole Jimmy has contributed to the world at large. Well, there is "Cheeseburger in Paradise. Which is stupid but still kind of a funny song. Even more interesting than the fact that they were friends -- they were introduced to each other by Hunter S. Thompson.

What a freaking cool life! I should have been a journalist. Why didn't I do that agan? Oh, right, 'cuz I'm a lazy candyass who didn't want to go to local city council meetings for journalism class. Because I didn't want to have to take the city buses near my very suburban college. And now I take the bus everywhere because I was too much of a lazy candyass to get my license at 17 like everyone else in the free world. See the irony?

Mr. Bradley, I raise a glass to you. The glass is filled with $4.00 Chardonnay I picked up yesterday at Whole Foods. I hope you won't be offended. I'm a little broke right now.

Dear Mr. Bus Driver

Dear Mr. Bus Driver,
Thank you very much for only making me chase you half a block the other morning before you stopped and let me on. It was very smart of you to figure out that since I was the only person WALKING let alone running on Charleston Boulevard that might mean that I needed to get on the bus. I certainly enjoyed the whoosh of the doors opening and was very relieved, albeit out of breath, when I was able to join my fellow poor people on your smelly bus.
Love Louise

Dear Mr. Bus Driver,
I hope you weren't offended that I referred to your bus as smelly in my last letter. I know this is not your fault. I'm pretty sure the guy who gets off at the same stop as me at Red Rock probabaly works with fish or something because he smells to high heaven. It doesn't help that your shirt hasn't been laundered in a while but I want you to know it's not ENTIRELY your fault. It's mostly fish guy. And the guy who gets on and off the bus holding that dirty shovel. But I wouldn't suggest that we tell him that since he could hit us with that shovel. So let's just keep that info between us.
Love Louise

Dear Mr. Bus Driver,
I don't know if anyone told you this but you are expected at the stop near my house at 8:05 am. You might not have realized this but you arrived at my stop at 8:17, which is a bit later than you were expected. Making me a little later than I expected to be for work. It's not a big deal, BD, but in the future if you could give me a call and let me know you're gonna be late that would be awesome. Maybe you're getting back at me for complaining about the whole running incident the other day. Or maybe it's because of the smelly comment. I certainly hope that's not the case and that you will adhere to the schedule in the future. I certainly didn't mean to offend you. In fact, the more I think about it, the happier I am that you allowed me to get some much needed exercise.
Love Louise

Dear Mr. Bus Driver,
I am fully aware that you don't know my life story so you don't know that I am from New York and therefore well-acquainted with public transportation and the behavioral tendencies of bus drivers. So for me it's a bit weird (and I'm pretty sure forbidden in New York) when a bus driver tells a passenger she "looks very pretty today". I'm sorry that I responded to said compliment with a look of withering disdain. I'm not a bitch. I'm just from the East Coast. I promise to tell you that you look pretty the next time I see you wearing a shirt that fits you and that is properly buttoned. That has not happened yet but, rest assured, I'll be ready when it does.
Love Louise

Dear Mr. Bus Driver,
That was not a beer can I was drinking out of the other day. It was a brand new energy drink that I got for free at work. It just happens to come in a tall, silver can. No, really, that's what it was. I could tell you wanted to tell me that I was too young to drink my life away, or that it was innappropriate to be drinking at 8:00 am, or maybe that I looked pretty again. But it's not illegal to drink in public in Las Vegas. So you couldn't say anything. So instead you just quietly resented me. But I wanted you to know that it wasn't beer.
Love Louise

Cupcakes, green sake & famous chefs

It's been so long, dear readers. And I am woefully hungover but I thought I would take this quiet Sunday afternoon to catch you up on my pathetic life. You game? 'Kay here we go.

Halloween at my company is HI-LARIOUS! The first meeting I had at R&R was my Halloween team meeting. We all get split up into teams and then told to put on a skit. Our clients judge each skit, pick the winners and we get prizes. I played Al Gore in our skit -- well, I wore an Al Gore mask -- and my team won 2nd place -- 4 hours of personal time off was the prize, which I will be using to beat the Thanksgiving traffic when Jessica and I drive to L.A. next month. More importantly Thanksgiving at R&R meant free beer and orange cupcakes, two of my favorite things.

On Friday night I took a group of visiting British journalists out to dinner at Aureole which was FABULOUS and made me miss my press trips to France just a little bit. If you have a few extra bucks to spend (quite a few actually) I highly recommend it. The Charlie Palmer is American but he has perfected the modern French restaurant experience. He came out to meet the group and gave everyone chocolate and cookbooks. He has another Aureole in New York as well but it is much more buttoned-up -- it's in a beautiful townhouse in the East 60s and you're not allowed to use your cell phone if you eat there. That would never fly in Vegas so the one here is a bit more fun. There is also a huge wine collection housed in a clear column three floors-high and serviced by a "wine angel" (a young woman harnessed by very strong cables who flies up and down the rows fetching the wine for the diners.)

Yesterday, R&R bought a table to an event at Gold Coast to benefit The Gay & Lesbian Center of Southern Nevada. Penn & Teller were given an award for I'm not sure what (I think I was standing in line at the bar when they announced it) and they were supposed to sit with us but they didn't. They came in, got their award and booked out of there. (If anyone wants to hear the dirty story I heard about one of those funny fellas let me know.) A drag queen named Kenny did a few minutes of singing/stand-up and recited a very dirty limerick about a girl named Louise with pubic hair down to her knees. Tamar had to control herself from pointing at me and laughing. I thank her for that. My favorite part was during this little film about the center when they interviewed members of the seniors group who were just ADORABLE. I have no idea but lesbians that look like grandmas are just cute. Some of them were there and I had to stop myself from going over and pinching their cheeks. I also had to stop myself from bidding on a cupcake-of-the-month subscription in the silent auction. It was a struggle, let me tell you.

Afterwards I met up with Michael and the British group at Social House (very cool restaurant with a woefully small number of bathrooms) where I was tricked into buying a $222 bottle of green sake. Uh-huh. I'm a jackass.

Afterwards we went to Tangerine where we were told that in order to get a table we had to guarantee to buy THREE bottles. If any of you know anything about clubs, three bottles can run you about the same amount as a couple of pairs of Manolos which I definitely could not have convinced my boss was a legitimate business expense. I'm cute but not cute enough to get away with that. Am I? I think the management could have spared a table for us without the bottle service -- almost all the tables were empty and the only full ones had people at them that looked eerily like my mom and dad.

Needless to say I'm HUNGOVER this morning. Those Brits can drink -- not that Michael and I were exactly teetotalers. We went to brunch this afternoon and went over the dinner bill again with our mouths hanging open. $100 for Kobe beef. Did we even eat that? How much did they charge us for water? Thank God the waitress at Egg & I left the coffee carafe on the table. I definitely needed it this morning.

So now I'm going to do some laundry and attempt to get this ink stamp off my hand and look through the bag of impusle purchases I just picked up at Chez Target. I have problems.