Work has been busy for me lately, and all my remaining brain cells have been taken up thinking about precisely what I'd like to say about the latest episodes of Hey Paula - don't get me started! Don't EVEN get me started.  (I'll work up something over the weekend about that, it'll be better than what I can dash off right now - I've got clips I need to edit to make my points.)

So I had these work meetings yesterday and the day previous, and the Tuesday event included a workout at Equinox followed by a James Bond-themed dinner with required costuming.  I spent all of Monday worrying about what to wear, and how uncomfortable I would be in the middle of a humid July dressed in a suit immediately following a workout, and how I was going to truck three outfits (day, workout, costume) to work and still manage to stick it in a locker during step two, and distracted myself enough that I didn't get too worked up about the fact that I was very likely going to have to see or be seen showering with my male coworkers.  The answer to my costume dilemna came in the form of this photograph:

Nice cameltoe, Ursula.

Yes, praise Oprah, James Bond didn't always wear a tuxedo or a suit - sometimes he wore a pair of khaki pants very much like the pair I already own from the Gap, and he occasionally threw on a shirt that looked very much like the one I was able to find for $20 at TJ Maxx.  Yea, for Oprah is mighty, and the bargains are plentiful at the TJ Maxx.  I printed out the photograph and if anyone asked, I'd say, "See,  I'm James Bond in Doctor No!"

In another stroke of luck, one of the other four guys that I work with went to a different job within the company and was replaced by a girl, and suddenly in the middle of Tuesday I realized that I easily looked waaaaay better than at least two of the remaining (straight) coworkers, who resemble Bob Hoskins more than Brad Pitt, leaving just the one fellow homosexual to worry about, but who I figured I might be able to avoid in the locker room.  Maybe.

So following the workout I figured I would just get it over with and sort of rushed through the changing process at the gym, which had a series of little rabbit warrens of lockers branching to the sides off the main hallway leading to the showers.  I picked the last little area on the right, and had managed to shower and get back into my underpants and undershirt before my coworker emerged from the shower and went to his locker, which, unbeknownst to either of us, was two feet from the one that I'd chosen for myself.  (Due to the Law of Gym Lockers, if there's someone you'd prefer not to be changing next to, his locker will be directly next to yours purely by happenstance 100% of the time. )

So there I was, with my gentilia and stomach flab completely covered, having avoided seeing the other two straight obese men entirely, and next to me was my coworker in his towel, which revealed that not only did I look better than he did, thank Oprah, but it had slipped low enough in the back to reveal that he had a tattoo in a very naughty place! 

Advantage: McDavis! 

He Blackberried away for awhile in the locker room after making brief small talk, and I finished changing before he started.  I thought he was delaying changing near me - hey, it's the sort of avoidance tactic that I would employ -  but after I'd fully dressed he asked me to do him a favor and retrieve his tuxedo from the coat check outside the locker room near the entrance, which I guess would have been my salvation had I gone with the suit idea.  I got him his tuxedo, giving us both a reason for him not to take his towel off before my exit, but not before I saw his tattoo of what appeared to be a crown over his ass crack, the meaning of which I'm still trying to parse: Queen?  Princess?  King of the Bottoms?  Its intended meaning could really could be anything, couldn't it?  But what it really means is I know one slightly embarassing fact about him and so far he ain't got nothing on me, and that's the way I like it.

One of the interns is from Austria, and she was unable to stop making Natalja-style observations about everything, such as the gambling age in her country, which has superior tap water free of chlorine, and I was trying to remember if you can gamble at 18 or 21 in Minnesota, and when I mentioned it was so long ago I couldn't remember which age it was, a couple of the ladies were suprised since they said I didn't look a day over 26.   That was nice, because 26 is two years younger than the already-wildly-falsified age of 28 that I've celebrated repeatedly over the last six 28th birthdays that I've had.  It was a great victory for me, and for sunscreens in general.

That is all.