it's jennifer hour! Today's topic: me!

I finally have female coworkers again, which has been a bit unnerving because for the two years I had gotten used to minimal office gossip and grunts in place of good mornings. I didn't have to worry about asking about the details of vacations, babies, weekends, or the like. Because guys could care less about those things, and unless I had a link to a video clip of Paris Hilton getting banged out by a zonkey, I basically kept to myself.

But after only 4 days in the new office, I have been talked to incessantly, offered to be taken to lunch twice, and I already know the names, ages, and sexes of all the office spawn. It's kinda nice. Today they bought me lunch and we all ate it in the conference room. However, what I thought would be a nice 30-45 minute casual lunch break turned into 3rd degree on the last ten years of my life. Who have I dated, what was my major, how often does my dog use the facilities??? I haven't had to talk that much about myself since I interviewed for the job two years ago, and even then I don't think I revealed as much. We had been eating for an hour when I realized that they were all finished and were staring at me because I still had 3/4 of my massive kung pao chicken combination platter in front of me, since I am a lady and ladies don't talk with food in their mouth. But sweet jesus!

Something I forgot about working with other women: you have to step up your game as far as clothing at the office. I've been getting away with no makeup and pant/sweater combos for a long time now, but no longer. When there are other women to critique your wardrobe choices, you have to be a bit more selective than "whatever doesn't have those nasty shoulder bumps from the hanger". But do I really need an excuse to buy new clothes?