It's a heavy metal kinda morning. I'm craving heavy metal music, which is odd, because it's a genre not frequented on my stereo. But driving to work, after this morning meeting thing (I'll get to that in a second), I just wanted to grab fistfulls of my hair, grabbing tight, holding on to my head as I dance around spastically to Tool, Deftones, Metallica. Anything violent, loud, and full of bass guitar. Odd moment. I think I might just do that when I get home from work today, you know, get it out of my system and everything.

So, this morning. 17th annual San Diego Economic Rountable, held at the County Administration Center. Sounds "official", don't it. I arrived before my colleague, got myself a vanilla latte and a muffin, and stood, watching people (official people) mill about as I waited for my coffee to cool. My tongue is STILL burnt. Some woman from the EDD told me, "You better drink that down, you can't bring food or drinks into the conference rooms." After glaring at her incredulously, I took a big swig. Big mistake.

I looked up, wounded, indignant, and said, "I just melted my uvula. Are you happy?" A second later, my associate (notice the important "co-worker" words I'm using for this "official" event) arrived, and we went up to the balcony seating, where I discovered that you could, in fact, bring your coffee with you. That bitch.

Stuffy people, older people, anal people, shuffled in the rooms, opened their little folders and waited in silence. I was all for reviewing the statistics of that past year, seeing the forecasts for the next, in relation to the job-market, consumer market, home sales, unemployment rates, etc. I was very excited to sit down with my packet and get to the facts.

The first man (must have been about, oh, 97 years old) has led these particular discussions for the whole 17 years they've been doing it. He started to speak. Each person on the panel got 12 minutes of monotony, going over their charts, their graphs, something I could have done alone, without the torture of those droning voices. I panicked, thought I might doze off, despite the coffee I practically chugged, the after-tingle of a burned mouth and throat; despite the notes I wrote to my colleague about the man in the glasses, one row up. She thought he was gay. I thought he was just clean, and very, very hot.

So I started imagining that whoever was speaking was receiving oral sex (they were seated, panels in front of them, Police Academy scenario totally possible). And that they were getting it while trying to keep a straight face, keep to the subject. This proved much more interesting. Every "um", every catch of the breath, and I was in near hysterics. Then the old guy started to use the word, "provocative" to describe every point brought up. "That's a provocative point... you have a provocative statement there." Now, maybe thirty years ago, this word referred primarily to "something that provokes thought", but now? It strictly means, "Sex. That makes me think about sex. That 'provokes' me to think about sex."

That's when I left, only an hour and a half into it. I figured, I got the paperwork, I'll review it back in my office, with no distractions. Well, I'll try not to get distracted. We'll see how the day pans out.

-Barbarella

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