Sunday, September 21, 2008

Windowless

Note: I wrote this at work (on Friday, duh) and am posting it now that I'm home. I spent today trying to find a decent priced super large suitcase for my upcoming trip. I did not find anything under $80.00. Bah. My headache and I are off to lay down. Enjoy:

Just another thrilling Friday trying to keep my eyes open at my desk, wondering if I can sneak off to nap in a conference room or better yet take a company car and nap in a park somewhere, because sun sounds so utterly delightful.

When I first took my new job (this job, which is over a year old now) they told me that we would be moving from our windowless warehouse to a new building with windows in about two months. After my experiences at my last job with construction and timetables I knew that two months probably meant 2 years, but it didn't matter, I would have taken a job in an open sewage holding tank if it meant getting the ever living daylights out of my last job.

At the * new * job I spent over a year in what used to be an evidence holding room (seriously, mystery stained carpet and all), crammed in with three other people like sardines, in a tiny windowless cinder block cage, always with the promise of our new window-fied building to come.

Sitting that close to anyone for that long is bound to cause some trouble. I can't even be with myself sometimes; I just drive me crazy. But imagine being in a 10X8 foot space with no air vents, very poor lighting, right next to the garage so fumes constantly waft in, and your typical totally off kilter nut bar co-workers. I'll tell you about them someday. Like someday when the statute for me being Dooced runs out.

In the meantime I will tell you this: When we finally got to start packing up for the new location I was thrilled. Hello Windows! Hello no longer sharing every intimate daily moment of three co-workers' lives, hearing every phone conversation, listening to the guy behind me snore daily while he reeked of Jim Beam, wondering how many dead bodies the guy in front of me had amassed in his basement and listening to the same three stores told daily by the lady next to me as though we had never met and she had never told them before. Hello happiness!

You know what happens next.

They built up the entire interior of the new building with 8 foot cubicle walls so that no natural light filters in anywhere. They blocked all potential window views unless you take a field trip to visit one. The few windows that they didn't board up (for security reasons) they put dark film over and keep the blinds drawn.

I have no window. I have no natural light. I'm back to daily nodding off at my just cold enough to be annoying desk while the person in the cube across from me uses 90% of their day to make personal calls which I get to be a part of because guess what? The cube walls don't filter noise. At all. I can hear an envelope opening clear across the building. They also decided to build mini cube fortresses, so within the eight foot walls I have only 4 foot tall walls, thus totally eliminating any privacy, while at the same time eliminating contact with natural light.

How will our economy ever flourish if they can't even let us have windows?

Thursday, September 18, 2008

On leg shavi

The significant other is out of town for 5 days and I have to say, I am quite liking it. Not that I don't adore him, and sometimes feel like squishing him all up so that I can hold all of him in one hand and smother him and love him and call him my very own, but there is something absolutely delightful about not shaving my legs for four days.



I hate shaving my legs.



I've never even seen my underarm hair grown in, but that is a different story. It is close. It is a much smaller percentage of my total body surface area. I don't even have to look at the area, darnit, it is just a few swipes and I'm done. The leg hair however? Hoo Boy. I've gone entire seasons without shaving it at all. It is so freeing and comfortable to let the little fellas grow in. If it weren't so ugly I would totally never shave again. Alas, even we blondes have to shave our legs; so tomorrow the hair must go before I go to pick up the boy from the airport.



I've caught up on reading, watched a bit of TV, gone lingerie shopping (that, I'm afraid, is a post for another time once my eyesight fully returns and I stop involuntarily screaming. I'm sure with time and therapy the PTSD and flashbacks will fade), had lunch with friends and allowed laundry to form dangerously high piles all over my living room. At least I sorted the laundry, now, if it would just evolve sentient thought and walk itself into the washer, I mean, I can't be expected to do everything.



I thought that in the boy's absence I'd finally have time to scrub my bathroom floor, do a good grocery shopping trip, clean like crazy, iron my sheets and plan out my whole packing for our upcoming trip. Such things did not happen. I may not allow him to see my apartment tomorrow evening. Apparently when I stop shaving my legs I also stop doing things like dishes and vacuuming and laundry. Who knew that an obnoxious task that I abhor is actually the crux of my productivity?



Maybe I can make him take a solo vacation again in the future. This time was work related so maybe I could encourage him to take on more challenges at work. That way I will have another few days to lay around my house like a slob, watching dirt breed, and unintentionally exfoliating my bed sheets with my legs.



It's a good thing he can't see me while he is gone.

Monday, September 15, 2008

27

Lordy how long has it been?

The last 5 months have been quite…delightful. And by that I mean, Thank whatever there is to thank that I get to wake up everyday and breathe and exist and be. I think I’ve gone all tree hugging and hippie-fied on you: Perhaps the meaning of life is simply to live it.

I have nothing profound to say about nearly dying from a ruptured ulcer on my intestines. I can write something funny about how I scheduled a whole day to myself to flip the ever living hell out and how my mind split into two distinct and competing places: First, I should just say fuck all and jet off to a beach somewhere because life is freaky and precious and small and I could be gone tomorrow so screw bills and debt and the trappings that smother us all. Second: I should stay here and really, finally, get all my crap together because if I do die who wants to sort through piles of size four clothing that won’t fit me until I’ve decomposed for at least a year and stacks of financial papers?

I’ve compromised a bit on both, first by actively trying to live every moment in the moment every day (this is fun when you have the right attitude, and not all hard and scary like your brain tries to trick you into thinking) and I’m also cleaning out all the crap I’ve accumulated and trying to make the stuff I will keep organized. There might even be a novel somewhere if I piece together the bits of binder paper and receipts I’ve scribbled things on over the years, but it will take much time to get it all in one place.

My recent birthday, unlike pretty much every single birthday since I was 9, didn’t shake me up quite as much this year. I don’t know if it has as much to do with the fact that I am so damn happy to be alive so much as there is an imperceptible line it seems I have crossed and suddenly I feel no pressure. I turned 27 just a few days ago. Somehow my brain is no longer concerned with my weight or my career progress or the fact that I make no money, own no house, and will be paying on my car long after my great grandchildren have come and gone.

No, instead, it is as though there was some imaginary age line that I had to be successful by and since it didn’t happen my brain just decided to give up, and I don’t mean give up in a bad way, I just mean that since the goals weren’t met by a designated time my internal psycho clock of doom has shrugged off and gone away. “You’re too old”, my brain seems to say, “and we are over it, so we are gone now”. My insecurities no longer want me to weigh double digits and compete with 19 year olds. My failure meter suddenly seized up and isn’t screaming at me every second of every damn day. “So what?” My brain seems so to say, “you didn’t make it so we are gone now”.

It is really, very nice.

I also suspect that is has something with the last vestiges of youth falling away. It is as though I only conceived of ever being in my early 20s and therefore had to cram all success and perfection into those years because there was nothing beyond. I had envisioned nothing for myself in this time and therefore have no crazy standard to live up to. I don’t know if perhaps months of heavy painkillers has finally doped out my brain to such a point that it doesn’t function right anymore or if maybe, just maybe, I’m finally learning to relax and let go, but it is a strange feeling to wake up and think “Hey, I’m okay” and have that be okay.

Bah. Enough introspection. I am still dating the very nice boy who took me to the hospital so many months ago when I thought I just had a very bad stomach flu and didn’t realize that I kept passing out from pain. The very nice boy and I are taking a tropical vacation, my first ever!, in three weeks and though it would be nice to have dropped, oh, say, 15 pounds, that isn’t going to happen and I don’t care. (fear ye not, I have supplemental medical insurance just for this trip)

Work is fine. It pays almost all the bills, nearly every month, and it isn’t giving me another ulcer. Being in that I no longer control the internet access like I did at my old job (working just three doors down from HELL with horrid, crazy people for no money at all), I am unable to blog from work, which, let’s be frank, is the best time to post. I’m freshest in the morning and who doesn’t love to pound out a good entry before the day really gets going?

The other problem is that my co-workers here are not the troglodytes of the past who didn’t even understand email, these people read blogs, and I fear the day when one of them, or the boyfriend, finds said blog. Because YES, judge away, the boyfriend does not know about said blog and nor will he, perhaps ever. Some things have to be anonymous, ya know?

I don’t know how or what 27 is supposed to look like, dress like, or act. But it feels good. Good and old and rather scary with responsibility at the same time. But it feels mature and assured and pressure free. I even had low lights put in my naturally blonde hair which darkened it considerably, which to a normal person may not sound like much but to me was a big change. I like it darker, it makes me happy, and screw it if my mother hates it. I’m a grown adult woman and I’m alive. ALIVE.

Do you understand how neat that is?