No complaints

[muckefuck]

Here I am, back at Monshu's, shagged out but no worse for wear. That is, assuming Monshu is not coming down with a cold and/or has not passed it on to me. We'll find out tomorrow.

The meeting with my boss went well, even though she let slip that the as-yet-poorly-thought-out outsourcing project will have a bigger impact on me and my section than previously suggested. However, given how this place operates, I still have months ahead of me to watch it morph from one unviable form to another before it actually incarnates. The important thing is that I got the dang meeting over with and got out by noon.

To my surprise, Monshu was waiting for me on the curb and I made excellent time. He was relieved, because it had just occurred to him that I had no way of getting into the office suite since everyone was packed into the interactive classroom. No arrangements had been made to let in anyone who didn't arrive spot on twelve when the party officially started. What kind of company is this that doesn't make any allowances for latecomers?

When we got to the classroom, everyone was in the midst of a gift swap. (Rules vary; for this one, when your number came up, you could choose to steal an unwrapped gift from another participant or unwrap a new one from the centre table.) I hadn't eaten anything yet, so I hid in the kitchen and chowed down, primarily on some pot stickers that I think were probably homemade. When I emerged, Monshu was standing out the game so I joined him and he rather awkwardly introduced me to a new staff member.

I guess you could call this a pet peeve, but he seems unnecessarily vague when presenting our relationship to co-workers. I don't know why. My sullen inner teenager feels he's somehow ashamed to call me his boyfriend in public, but I suspect it may simply be some misplaced sense of "discretion". In this case, he just introduced me by name and the guy assumed I was another new hire. When he said so, Monshu corrected him, but without clarifying exactly how he did know me. Odd.

No matter; I went to speak to one of the only people there I knew socially and the moderator--who mysteriously knew my name--stepped up and drew me into the swap. I ended up with some crap puzzle, but it was all about the getting there. Afterwards, she put on a classic Rankin-Bass Christmas special and I hung around with a couple contemporaries who harboured similar warm fuzzy feelings for a snowman with Burl Ives' voice and features and fat toothless yetis. Monshu headed upstairs to finish up some work. He returned in time for "Holly Jolly Christmas" and express confusion at the cast of characters.

TRADEMARK muckefuck FOOD-RELATED MULTICULTURAL MOMENT:
There was a big bowl of saffron-flavoured kheer in the kitchen and when I when back for a second helping, I asked one of Monshu's South Asian co-workers "Who brought the kheer?" He seemed not to hear me, so I repeated myself. Turns out, it was my use of the word kheer that threw him. "So you know Indian food?" he asked, delighted. My initial response was basically, Well, duh, who doesn't? but I edited this down to something acceptable. I asked the Great White One about it later and he explained that that employee came to the organisation from a job in the business world, where the accountants he worked with were strictly meat-and-potatoes men. Apparently, he still wasn't over the novelty of being surrounded by a more culinarily adventurous and granola-y crowd.

We left around four, in time to catch the second Express of the afternoon. I left the GWO at B&N to pick up gift certificates (his only seasonal shopping, fucker!) and continued on to the venue for my staff party. Very pretty, but it hardly compensated for the lame food. A bland, cold buffet--intentionally cold, as far as I could tell. My South Asian Friend (let's call her "Lakshmi" for simplicity's sake) was nowhere to be found. The poor scattered thing--so nervous she had already forgotten her keys--had forgotten something else she needed for her performance and rushed back for it.

I made the rounds and then received my speaking notes from her scribbled on a scrap of paper moments before she took the "stage" (actually just a spot we cleared on the carpet). It had occurred to me earlier in the day that some people would have real trouble with that situation--in fact, Monshu and I had discussed it on the train. Both of us have some public speaking training, but we've suffered through too many presentations from people who didn't. At the party, I didn't think twice, I just got up and made the announcement. It's not like spectators who would later be able to recall every detail of Lakshmi's outfit would remember a word I said anyway (provided I didn't gaffe, and I didn't).

Despite the challenging conditions, it went very well. I was so pleased for her, I hung around almost until we were turned out at 7. Then I strolled across E-town to ottr4bear's. (Bad idea--hours of standing in my steel-toed boots was murder on my feets.) When he met me at the door, his other half and Monshu were chowing down. This had a strong soporific effect on the GWO and, shortly after dinner, ottr4bear insisted he have a lie-down. His lover took advantage of the timing to try to make time with me, which he always, always does. But he's nearly the same age as mine and didn't last much longer himself. Ottr and I fell into a really pleasant conversation punctuated with 80's punk and Esquivel. Near midnight, we roused the tired old bear and drove him home.

There it is, my much-envied gay urban "hipster" lifestyle. Please try to contain your slack-jawed marvelling.