we'd totally get fired

From the Continuing Chronicles of Customer Service:

Woman calls, requests quote; her institution needs some sort of air filter to remove dust from the air in the packaging department. I get the info, go to get a shipping quote, email it to her. Realize I didn't get her ZIP code; also didn't get phone number. Type in the last part of her email address to see if there's a website.
Comes up: it's a company that provides healthcare support services to prisons. Talk about institutional.
I get a ZIP code. Send her the quote. She calls back to place the order, having gotten the go-ahead from her department.

I ask what color machine she needs, and suggest sandstone, our most institutional of institutional neutral colors. (Actually it goes with a lot of people's houses, so it sells very well.)
"We should probably get sandstone," she says. Then, over her shoulder (up to now, I'd assumed she was in an office alone) she says, "Hey, we should get baby pink."
Another voice, distantly, laughs and says something indistinct.
"The pink is nice," I say politely.
She laughs, sounding genuinely amused at the idea. "We'd get fired if we bought pink," she says.
"We'd totally get fired," says the background voice.
I fill out the order for sandstone, but for the rest of the morning, I keep imagining what it would be like to walk into this institutional institution and see a cheerful little baby pink air filter humming away.

ugh

Punctuating an ugly day:
Suicide bombers were mentally ill women recruited directly through the psychiatric hospital where they had been being treated. They may not even have known what they were doing.

US Government study during WWII proves that dieting is much worse for you than is currently accepted by science.
The part that really chilled me there is that I am on a 1600-calorie diet. I aim for between 1500 and 1900 calories a day. Am I losing weight? No. I'm not even particularly trying to; I re-set the "goals" thing on the calorie tracking website to give me a loss of about 15 pounds in about 8 months and this is what it came up with for me.
(I usually eat about 1700 calories a day. Ironically, less on days I exercise.)

oh lordy

My mom just sent me a Valentine's card through the mail.
It's cut out in the shape of an orange boot with a yellow flower, with a fuscia plastic gemstone stuck to it.
It says, "Daughter, you have a style all your own." and then "Happy Valentine's Day, love Mom and Dad," in Mom's handwriting.

This has somewhat bitter significance, in regards to an earlier friendslocked post. (Suffice to say, it was a rough day, and I am feeling really insecure about my total lack of a sense of style.)

Sigh.

Anyway, I got home and there was a giant box from Amazon. (Well, a box big enough to hold a couple of books.) It was addressed to Z. I handed it to him. "Oh," he said, "no, it's your Valentine's present."
I opened it.
It was full of bags of air.
Under all the bags of air was a tiny box, about one by two inches.
It was a remote for my camera, which I've wanted for literally years and have never gotten around to buying myself.

Z wins, on many levels.

I just have to figure out how to not feel awful about the fact that I have no sense of style or social nicety whatsoever and will never succeed at conforming even enough to get people to leave me alone.

Bloo hoo hoo etc. I've no time to mope at the moment; my sore knee and I are joining Z at his editor's house for an odd little cocktail party that will probably be highly amusing; he and his girlfriend are the sort of witty and intelligent but not self-important people that host delightful gatherings and are what people always imagine when they think longingly of youngish hip intelligentsia. It should be fabulous regardless of what undoubtedly poor fashion decisions I make, or what faux passes I make in conversation, as this is not the sort of crowd that is much fazed by missteps in either arena.