If I were joking, you'd be laughing. Do you look like you're laughing?

Yesterday morning, I had this conversation with my boss:

Boss: How was your weekend?
Me: Good. Yours?
Boss: Oh, fine. I love your hair color.
Me: Thanks?
Boss: Is that your natural color?
Me: Yeah.
Boss: It's very pretty. I used to have pretty hair like that.

Does that sound weird? What if I told you my boss was a man? I mean, I'd be lying if I said that, but it would be weird, right? If my boss was a man? And told me I had pretty hair? Anyway. Moving on.

This morning, there were some of those tiny, chocolate donuts sitting on the counter. This counter is where all the free-for-all food goes. Some mornings there is banana bread! Other mornings there are muffins. Sometimes a bag of McDonald's breakfast sandwiches is sitting there and SOME MORNINGS a bag of chocolate chip cookies is sitting there. Like yesterday. Yesterday there were chocolate chip cookies. When there are cookies on the counter in the morning, we call them breakfast cookies and eat them for breakfast and since we call them breakfast cookies they are healthy. It's true. SCIENCE.

Right, so, there were tiny donuts. And I had no idea where they came from and I don't even particularly LIKE these tiny, chocolate donuts (the taste, it has a hint of plastic) but I ate one anyway. And then it occurred to me. I had no idea who'd put the donuts there. No one ever knows where the food on the free-for-all counter comes from. These donuts could have been planted by an evil evil-doer planning to do evil by...I don't know, poisoning the HR department. That'd be pretty evil. Plus, lots of people want to poison us right now on account of it's open enrollment and IT'S ALL OUR FAULT THAT BENEFITS COST SO MUCH. Ahem. Then I decided I didn't really care if the food was poisoned and had another donut.

You guys, this is the longest week ever and I know I say that every week but this time I mean it. I have volunteering tonight and at some point this week I really need to get an oil change (my car needs lubed something fierce) and I need to get a wedding card because, oh, did I tell you? I'm going to another wedding this weekend! This is good, though, because lots and lots of friends are going, too, and faraway friends are coming to visit and this doesn't happen nearly often enough. I may need all of next week to recover from their visit, so it's a good thing that A) next week is Thanksgiving week and B) I did not do anything stupid like agree to run a 5 mile race at 8 AM. It's not often I make good decisions, so I'm relishing the one I made to NOT run for a while. Especially since I think Jillian Michaels fucked up my knee.

Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.

So it turns out that skipping a week of running is NOT, in fact, a good idea. I went running after work yesterday and wanted to die fifteen times. It's true. I counted. And then I thought I actually MIGHT die when I ran into the coyote.

Coyote: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Me: Um.
Coyote: Ahem. Excuse me.
Me: Can you let me pass?
Coyote: No.
Me: Please?
Coyote: Only if you can answer three questions.
Me: Sigh. Fine.
Coyote: What is your name?
Me: Jennie.
Coyote: What is your quest?
Me: Um. To go home and collapse on the floor until my heart rate returns to normal.
Coyote: What is your favorite color?
Me: Blue.
Coyote: Really?
Me: Yes.
Coyote: You're not just saying that? Cause of the movie?
Me: No. I'm not just saying that cause of the movie.
Coyote: OK, fine, go ahead.
Me: Byeeeeeeee!

He was really nice. He didn't try to eat my face once, which was nice.

The other night, I went running IN THE DARK. I got home from volunteering and saw that Heidi had been to the gym and so I shamed myself into running. I'm not going running by myself in the dark anymore. At least not around Halloween. Because . . . see . . . that's when ghosts come out and do stuff. And I don't know for sure, but I think if zombies were going to attack, it would be on Halloween because they could just hang out on someone's porch, pretending to be a Halloween decoration, and then when the owner comes out of the house they'd be all, "AAAAAAAAAAUUUURRRRRGH! I WILL BITE YOU NOW!" only not so articulate. True story. Also, it's dangerous to run at night. There are still piles of branches and crap from the windicane that happened A MONTH AGO and when I ran by a big pile, I didn't see a stick sticking out of the pile and it scratched my leg. It's OK, though. It's just a flesh wound.

Hee! I just had this conversation with one of our field agents in Georgia:

Me: HR, this is Jennie.
Her: Hey, Jennie.
Me: Good morning! How are you?
Her: Oh, god, you sound so Northern.
Me: . . .

I mean . . . I talk to her almost EVERY DAY. Hey, remember when my blog had a point? Yeah, me neither.

PS: I still need help with my Halloween costume idea. Please do my thinking for me, I'd be very appreciative. Here are the stipulations: I don't want to wear a wig, so whatever I dress up as has to have dark brown hair. I don't want to spend a lot of money. I'm lazy, so I don't want to do a lot of sewing or gluing or anything. I will be outside, so I'm not dressing as slutty anything.