oh, how i loathe verizon.

LOATHE.

immensely.

i waited. patiently. for the provider to acquire permission to sell the iphone. months. years, practically.

i hate waiting.

almost as much as i hate verizon.

so i heard they'd be getting it in the fall.

no.

then i heard they'd be getting it in the spring.

no.

then i heard they wouldn't be getting the iphone ever.

and then i debated.

should i go through the hassle of changing service providers (because i did that years ago when i switched from sprint -- UGH -- to verizon)? or should i scrap it all and get the damned iphone already.

christmas was weeks away. i needed to find some resolve fast.

i'd bought the blackberry storm about three years ago, sometime around christmas the first year it'd come out.

i NEVER liked it. it is so NOT user friendly.

but i figured since i'd bought it, i should stick with it (are you reading this, mel? because this would apply to you, sort of, too.)

i'd watch my brother, his wife and their children happily tinker with their iphones with only a small amount of envy circling in my gut.

so finally, i decided to cut the cord and make the switch.

which i do, right after christmas.

my phone number was supposed to be ported from my verizon account to my at&t one. it wasn't.

when i tried to rectify this, the folks at at&t said they would need certain information from verizon which i didn't have on me and was too lazy to drive back to my house, dig through the hell that is my closet for a piece of paper, then drive back to the mall and find a place to park. again. so instead i went to the verizon kiosk not so very far away.

i tell one of the boys behind the counter that i am in need of some information. but i can't remember my password (still can't. not sure why i changed it, actually. the old one was quite memorable), and he's too reluctant to do anything for me without it.

oh, but he's quick to tell me verizon's phones are better. several times.

which is bullshit, really. and i'm not in the mood to hear it. i'm also not in the mood to mess with the whole porting thing any longer.

so i decide to keep the number at&t has assigned me.

you do realize what this means, right?

i now have two cellular telephones.

both with voice and data plans. which means i get two bills each month, each for about ninety bucks.

and i, i am not the most responsible chick.

which means i've been paying for two phones for four months.

in march, i finally got around to going to a verizon store to have my service disconnected. i waited and waited for a particular associate to finish conducting business with his current customer. i waited a really long time. i was asked by several other verizon associates if they could provide assistance. i was adamant that they could not. i waited. patiently. sort of. i spent much of my time spinning circles on my chair. i'm sure the store's employees were thrilled.

the guy finally wraps it up and gets my service disconnected.

so everything should be peachy keen, now, right?

wrong.

i get that annoying, haggling phone call from verizon a week or so later. you know. the break-up call. like the ones you get from your ex because you've not clued in yet to either (a) how miserable he or she thinks you are, or (b) how miserable a person you should be thinking he or she is.

this guy wants to know what he can do to get me to come back.

i tell him something about how i use at&t and am quite content with their service and hang up.

today, i go in to pay what i think is my final bill, and i'm expecting it to be smallish, really.

no. it's like two hundred bucks.

why?

because somehow my service was reconnected.

on a happier note, i found two nifty pairs of shoes today at dsw. to go with the two nifty dresses i bought earlier at target.

one is a chambray shirt dress. what i love the most about it is the wide skirt. the other is a sleeveless, cotton dress in rose with a grey trim around the neck. what i love about it is the color. it's a really good color on me.

i bought a pair of maroon patent leather flats with pewter buckles at the toes for when i wear the dresses at work. and a pair of red patent leather wedges for when i wear them elsewhere.

and yeah, i could've paid off my verizon bill with the money i spent on the shoes, but i was a little steamed, okay? and possession of those shoes is a more permanent thing, after all.

random quarter

one. i've noticed that i keep the fingers of my left hand curled up when i'm not using it. i walk around with it fisted. i wish i could relax. i wish i could be laidback or carefree or capable of saying to hell with this shit with some sort of conviction ... i wish i could be cool.

two. today, i sold approximately thirty-five hundred dollars in pottery barn kids' merchandise, suckered three customers into registering for a pbk charge card, set up two registries and an estimate and created three client profiles so that an associate or i could call a customer up at a future date and haggle them until they've felt the inclination to either spend more money or say to hell with this shit.

three. that i had such a good day at work (i sold more stuff than any of my coworkers ... this has never happened before) came as a shock to me, because i was horribly unhappy this morning, so much so that i was certain i was going to have a lousy day. but my first customer? she was my first credit card sale. so i guess i should've known it would be alright.

four. i do not like that i am now thirty-eight. i do not like it at all. it's actually incredibly depressing.

five. i love bloodstone, also known as jasper. sometimes i wish that were my month's major birthstone rather than its minor one. not that i don't like aquamarine. i do. but you can't confuse bloodstone with any other stone, really. and the aquamarine is so similar to blue topaz. and if i've not cleaned my ring in a while, it starts to look more like a dingy bluish gray, which has been confused for a diamond before (although i marvel at the stupidity of those who have thought it such).

six. i am closer to one-forty than one-fifty, which of course has deceived me into thinking, since my pants size is smaller, that my waist is smaller and therefore, my dress size should be smaller. i actually stepped foot in forever twenty-one today with the intent of buying a dress i'd seen a week or so ago that i'd learned was fairly new, so i thought maybe i might be able to snag one for myself.

seven. i tend to avoid shops like forever twenty-one on principle, by the way. too much product, too big a store, too much in the now. and when the line to try on clothes is as long as this store's was today, i feel a little bit repulsed.

eight. anyway, the dress was already sold out. i was not thrilled to learn of this.

nine. while i might have lost a bit of weight, i still look like a fat cow in a dressing room mirror under its bad lighting. i'm not sure why dressing rooms have to present such unflattering angles and whatnot. i would think the idea was to get people to buy the attire rather than leave a store empty-handed.

ten. i'm so not the girly girl. one of my bloggy friends commented on twitter a while back that she'd like it if the undergrad students would dress better. i'd remarked that she'd hate the way i dressed. and she would. some days, i don't much care for the way i dress. i've never had a figure i've felt inclined to show off. i'm all arms and legs (and hips ... good god, the hips ... thanks, mom. thanks mema). anyway. you would think being leggy would be a good thing. when i was younger, i was mocked because my pants were too short. those jeans that are long enough that you can roll'm at the ankles so that the cuffs are resting on your shoes? i've never been able to do that with a pair of jeans. ever. i like the way it looks. i like the bagginess of it. the ease it implies. the best i can do is turn a pair of jeans into capris by rolling them up twice. and i don't like it when the sleeves of a shirt don't reach my wrists. anyway, i'll see an outfit, a haircut ... a sense of style i admire, and i'll want that for myself. i'll be inspired to go shopping and dress better ...

eleven. but then i get into that fitting room, and the things i've chosen, the things that are girlier ... they just don't feel right on me. they don't look right. i don't look right.

twelve. i've never really thought i was anything like my maternal grandmother. but as i get older, i'm starting to see significant similarities. i'm not sure what she'd say to that. i don't imagine it would be good, though. in fact, i can see her scoffing at that and laughing at me. i never really felt as though she thought too much of me. i'm not sure she ever really understood me.

thirteen. but then, i don't think anybody understands me.

fourteen. i've been stuck on the script's for the first time. i am unthrilled by this. very much so. somebody please, please put some good music in my noggin.

fifteen. i want a dog. i know. i've mentioned this before. i want seven of'm. but right this second i feel a keen desire to have a big, red french mastiff. those are the best dogs ever.

sixteen. i wish i could create a story as easily as i could create a character. and then yall could be reading about isa and gus and piper and cate in a book rather than in snippets off this here bloggy. but i can't see their stories. i can only see them. and it's only for a second or two at a time. it's really irritating me.

seventeen. i've become addicted to that game angry birds. so happy my niece and nephew introduced me to it. i spent a significant period of time in baltimore's airport monday afternoon slinging cardinals, blue birds and canaries at green piggies. missing mostly. i'm sure the wonder twins would've gotten a lot more hits than i did.

eighteen. the medicine i've been prescribed for the headaches and whatnot? i'm not sure my ankles like it very much. they're a little swollen. joy.

nineteen. the hut makes a pretty good vegetarian pizza. so from now on, i might be ordering half pepperoni/half veggie lovers on a thin crust. that's some good stuff.

twenty. now i've you are my sunshine in my head. there are worse things.

twenty-one. i can't comprehend why steven seagal was ever popular.

twenty-two. a couple of weeks ago, i lent out my star wars trilogy to a coworker. he has yet to watch it. the thing had been sitting on my bookcase untouched for months and months and months. in fact, i don't think i'd watched it since i'd bought them (or received them ... i think they might've been a christmas present from two years ago or so -- because i'd hocked all my dvds and was rebuilding my collection). anyway. i hadn't felt compelled to watch it, so i figured it'd be alright to lend the thing out. and the longer he keeps it, the more interested i am in watching that series again. of course, the fact that i've been watching morning glory over and over again probably hasn't helped, either.

twenty-three. the top five movies at the box office from last weekend were the diary of a wimpy kid: rodrick rules, sucker punch, limitless, the lincoln lawyer and rango. crap. crap. crap. crap. crap. my god, whatever happened to good cinema?

twenty-four. bradley cooper seriously, seriously irritates me. i can't comprehend why he's popular, either.

twenty-five. or why the world needs the hangover: part ii? really?