Smells Like Nothing

I'm going to develop a permanent tick

2011-08-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

Things were looking up: I figured out a relatively inexpensive trip to take for my impending doom of a birthday (I'm essentially flat broke), my job isn't killing me, my health hasn't totally failed, and each day is another day further from the breakup which makes each day a lovely little gift that heals wounds, albeit SLOOOOOOWLY. I finally take a deep breath, re-assess, figure I have a grasp on things and all is going to be okay and find out today that my younger sister who is a single mother is near financial ruin and needs money support. My parents don't have money. At all. So...now I have to figure out how to support her as best I can and also somehow my parents eventually when the day comes? Sooner than later maybe if my dad loses his job? I know have have clean running water to drink and shoes to walk in so I have no right to complain and this is first world stuff but I have to vent: DEAR SWEET JEBUS UNIVERSE WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO LET UP ALREADY?

I'm going to curl into a ball now and sob for awhile, then pick myself up, and deal with this one day at a time. I can't do anything else. This when I'm going to be taking yet another pay cut very soon.

/twitch

2011-08-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

Someday I will be able to afford to take at least a month off every summer to just enjoy.

44 days until three oh

2011-07-29T20:32:00.000-07:00

tick tick tick.

Any fun suggestions for something to do? Something that doesn't require a passport, mine expired and I won't have enough time to renew...

THE FRIVOLOUS SHOPPING MUST STOP, but first I ramble about internet innoventions

2011-07-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

The internets keeps moving forward without me and I'm having none of it. I'm sitting on my porch (this blog) with a cup of tea under a caftan and yelling at you damn kids with your facebooks and widgets and RSS feeders to get off my lawn! I noticed today that there is some kind of "Followers" feature in blogger. I don't know what this is or how it works and I do not care to find out. I did look at my "Followers" and they all appear to be spam bots so I promptly blocked them, or rather, blocked about three then got tired and said F it. I drink decaf tea damnit.

Sometimes I wonder if I should join facebook and then I laugh and laugh and laugh. No one I know says that it actually enhances their social life. I don't need a place where I have to visit walls and tend to imaginary sheep or fight off mobsters and real ex boyfriends, that sounds absolutely awful. Still, I would like more ways to connect with people, but I like REAL connections, where I know the person actually exists and isn't just commenting on my most recent wall update or whatever so I'll go over to their wall and we'll all just have a big self congratulatory cluster F over how great we are. Ya. No.

As a matter of fact, Teresa Strasser, a writer I love whose blog you should visit and book you should read, has this great article on Social Networking which sums up what I've suspected all along.

The purpose of today's post was to tell you that I'VE LOST MY DAMN MIND and since the destruction of my worldy possessions this last March and starting a new more professional job I have gone on a shopping spree of epic proportions that I certainly cannot afford. There is no question that I needed new clothes, I just didn't need a purple satin wrap dress. Or the 7 dresses I just ordered online. One new pair of cute shoes would have sufficed, not THIRTEEN. I. Have. Lost. My. Damn. Mind. I need help. This has to stop. Having been poor my entire twenties I literally went years without buying clothes. I was well into my professional career, out of college, still squeezing into stuff I got when I was 16 at clothestime (shirts/blazers fit. Pants not so much. I had three total pair of professional pants that I found for under ten bucks each at Old Navy that I had to ask my Mom to buy for me because I can't stress this enough: NO MONEY. NONE. Name brand Top Ramen was a luxury).

Now, having a tiny bit of income, which actually should be going into an IRA and not into my closet, I can't control my new found obsessive shopping. I don't know if it is in response to having lived a famine for so many years or partially a salve for the breakup wound or what, but I have piles of new clothes and MORE COMING. I can't stop it. It's really bad. And the icing on the cake is that I found myself genuinely contemplating spending FIFTY DOLLARS on NAIL POLISH. Nail Polish. You heard me. And we aren't talking eighty bottles here either, we're talking like five bottles of name brand polish. My car isn't paid off. I owe 25K in student loans. I don't have a retirement account. I don't own my own home, I have no assets, my monthly medical expenses match my rent and I'm not Daddy Warbucks rolling in the dough and yet my brain says nail polish is a good idea. AUGH. HELP ME PEOPLE, you're my only hope.

Oh for fuck's sake

2011-07-19T16:33:00.000-07:00

AUGH

AUGH

AUGH

Being as discrete as I can be, since this is news I cannot share because it would endanger someone, how can I vent about a phenominally stupid and shitty thing someone did that they chose to take me into confidance about? And how many times am I going to have to spin around on the grass outside my balcony before the knowledge of said transgression is permanently erased from my mind? SWEET JEBUS.

I'm thisclose to getting into my car and just driving. Who needs work, right? I can just...I don't know.

AUGH

AUGH

AUGH

Catch up so we can move forward

2011-07-13T18:44:00.000-07:00

To recap so we can move forward, in the last 5 months:

-I broke up with my boyfriend. Am still pretty messed up but the first three months I was devastated. I promptly lost 17 pounds but was so week my gastrointerologist made me take anti-naseau meds, which were needed, (I have a dangerous intestinal issue that could kill me at any time, starvation isn't good for it), but I then gained back 25 pounds. BECAUSE LIFE IS A BITCH. If I'm gonna go through something this shitty AT LEAST let me BE SKINNY GODDAMNIT. ahem.

-I was a bridesmaid in a good friend's wedding a month after the breakup. I hardly remember it but I know it was lovely and I held my shit together. It was a gay wedding, and let me tell you, if you want a GORGEOUS wedding you better get two gay guys to throw it for you, no bridezilla has anything on them.

-There was a fire in the unit above my condo and my place was 80% destroyed by smoke, water, and broken glass. It sucked, yes, but it was a blessing: It got me moved out of that place and into someplace nicer. I didn't lose anything irreplaceable (photos and yearbooks, grandparent's stuff, somehow all saved). What stuff I could salvage I just let dry out. My new decorating theme is "shipwreck chic" since the stuff that I kept is warped, cracked, and stained with water damage. I replaced things like linens and clothes, I did not replace furniture. I have enough to get by and with a healthy weekly dose of febreeze I can almost pretend my water stained couch doesn't reek like acrid smoke. It's an adventure! I'm Robinson Crusoe! I don't care.

-My car was backed into. Twice. The wedding, the fire, and the co-pay for repairing my car (TWICE) wiped out my fun money account and dipped into my long term savings. Happy I had the money, but ouch.

-I have a new job. A super seeeeeeecret government job. Am not joking. My job is classified now. It is sorta with the same folks I worked for before but higher up and in a new location though I am still associated with my old co-workers (I'm just higher up than them? Muah ah ahhhhhh!). My office has no windows which is very sad. The pay raise was pathetic. But I have a job, which is nice, especially in this economy.

-My liver is F'd up. Bad. And I DON'T KNOW WHY. If you read here you know I'm a fan of the booze but not on a daily basis, and certainly not bottles of it at a time. My bitch doctor assumed I was an alcoholic until I did a ton of research and discovered that the specific elevated enzymes from my labs are not the same as those of an alcoholic, and my doctor was promptly fired. My liver issue has something to do with insulin resistance and not metabolizing fat very well which makes weight loss damn near impossible and YET I have to lose twenty pounds to help with the problem. I broke my ankle last October but the asses that read the x-ray thought it was fine so I hobbled on it for six months until I demanded an MRI. So: Ankle is bad, body won't let go of weight, yet I HAVE to lose weight. This isn't so much angering as it is sigh inducing. I'm figuring it out, but damn, this medical crap is OLD.

-A friend left her abusive husband and had no place to go. She lived with me for 5 weeks. She was a nut case. Ever been around someone who is in shock and denial but in denial about being in said denial? WOW. I mean, here I am just barely getting my footing back and then hurricane crazy pants came in. It did not fail to amuse me that while I was still waking up crying over the breakup (yes, three months in, at least now at five months that fun has stopped) I now had a full grown adult to care for. The universe had/has certainly seen to it that I have plenty of distractions to keep me busy while working through this breakup.

-I took a ten day training trip that was across the ENTIRE COUNTY, 3000 miles, to do some intensive work training. It was worth the distance but flying is low on my list of fun things to do. Like, under being drilled for a cavity without anesthesia low.

-A dear friend in Seattle had to have open heart surgery and now one of her boys is very sick. I may have my crap going on but it certainly isn't trauma of this nature.

-I jump into the next decade in September. I was supposed to mark said occasion with the now ex-boyfriend on a trip to Europe. I don't know what I'm going to do now. I know I need to be out of here and I don't need the reminder of the breakup looming over me, so I'm figuring stuff out. I would still go to Europe but see above re: wiped out savings and you understand why that is not a possibility at this time.

That is all I can remember, for now. It's been a loooooooooong five months and yet it hardly seems to have passed. I have this to say about the breakup, and then I will try to never discuss it again: I've been through some hard stuff in my life (the last 5 months don't count, I'm referring to losing friends to cancer, losing my fertility, my mentally ill mother nearly destroyed me and my siblings, so so many person tragedies and pains, it is truly a blessing to be standing) and yet this stupid breakup absolutely knocked me straight down unlike anything ever before. My therapist has been great and she pointed out that other people too, the most recent one that comes to mind is Shania Twain (for God's sake she was raised bitter poor with no food/heat, dad beat her and her siblings, then her parents died and she had to raise her siblings at a very young age, and yet she recently said that the most devastating thing that she had to suffer was the breakup of her marriage), have found breakups/divorce to be the most oddly devastating and crippling thing they've ever gone through. I really loved this guy. He didn't love me. I will be okay. It will take several more months. People have suffered love lost and betrayal since the dawn of time, I'm not alone in this and I won't be the last. It still hurts though, daily. But I will waste no more space here on that, because it doesn't merit that.

Onward and Upward friends.

Onward and Upward.

Lord, help me, onward and upward.

And should John Krazinsky of the office suddenly become single please send him my way.

Amen.

A Cause I Can Totally Get Behind (because the Universe is a bitch to me in first world ways too)

2011-07-06T18:31:00.000-07:00

Since I can't actively seem to help my own karma as it spirals dangerously into realms of crapness (I have a way with words, don't I? Says the person who has google Non-Alcoholic Liver Disease obsessively and can no longer form coherant sentences) I'm sending the universe a big F U by helping out this guy.

If you click the link you'll be able to find the original article on Cracked, one of my all time favorite websites (and where I now get 99% of all my knowledge aside from WebMD and Dr. Google) and the explanation that follows. If you can spare it send him a dollar. I worry that the burden of having to respond to approximately 2000 people (some will donate more than a dollar, I did) will probably push him over the edge but I can't think that far into the future. Not when my liver has decided to crap out on me for mysterious unknown metabolic reasons, the only minor help for which at this point is to lose weight and OF COURSE, ironically, said issue makes it damn near impossible to lose weight (which explains the 20 lbs that have refused to drop off my fat ass in the last four to six years). That's like saying the only cure for my sunburn is to stand in the sun, or something. I told you, I'm amazing with words.

Return of the great white dope

2011-07-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

My life has not gone entirely the way I wanted it to. If I were totally frank I would say that it has actually, utterly, and totally gone entirely a way I would not have wanted it to go.

I have never been invited to a big beautiful sweeping mansion for a twilight backyard soiree.

I have never made the acquaintance with eccentric, rich, brilliant rich type folk to have expansive hedge mazes on their property guarded by large beautiful gargoyles that we frolic through at night, breathless, carrying champagne, giggling and scaring each other.

I have never been to New Zealand.

I have never lounged on a yacht.

I have never found myself in the position of being offered a fabulous job that fits all my qualifications beautifully, one where I can ride my bike to work, preferably have a window overlooking some sort of water, and be wry and smart all day, surrounded by good hardworking people that are fun to share a drink with after work (drinking, at this point, is a whole 'nother issue as it has recently been discovered that my liver is very, very bad. I did not imagine that my body would be so wholly feeble and incompetent for the task of living even as it was constantly breaking down as a child and I certainly didn't believe that entire systems, starting with the reproductive followed by the digestive and now the liver would simply give up entirely).

I imagined my life would take many courses, I imagined it would all turn out fine, somehow. But I never set my sites high. There were really only two very specific things I wanted, more than anything, for my life to have: My very own apartment with white walls and a good view, and friends. Oh god how I have wanted, struggled for, momentarily done well with, then lost, friends. The only good thing about getting older, which is not to be underestimated, is having a modicum of control over your life, or at least the illusion thereof. You couldn't pay me to even remember the unbelievable hell that was my early 20s ever again. You couldn't bribe me to experience my mid 20s ever again. And now, closing dangerously in on 30, still struggling with the exact same things as ever, all you would get from me are bittersweet tears over my late 20s.

My life has failed me, in ways small and in ways momentous, over and over and over and over and over again. I am not, I hope, bitter. I am forever hopeful. The girl in me who went to elementary school alone everyday but still somehow believed that friends would come along (and some did, for the first truly wonderful bit of my life in 4th grade and 4th grade only -- it would be six long years before I got to experience friendship and belonging again) still exists. She still always believes that things are going to get better. Even now, she stubbornly insists that even though we are up against a ledge age wise in a city we hate trapped in a job that is killing us and the love of our life just betrayed us and our health is worse than ever, that right around the corner good things await. Friends are there. Fun is there. Just hold on.

I don't know whether she is the sweetly hopeful proof of why humanity continues to exist or quite simply completely, totally, utterly deluded and insane. The best predictor of the future is the past and my past? Not great. But I'm hopeful. Like the end of Sweet Charity, I suppose I'm stuck living hopefully ever after, even though it never works out, and right now, right now: I am quite alone.

Which is, as always, okay.

And this is what I can give you because the last five months have produced nothing but misery and sharing what I wrote with you would make cerebral fuilds leak out your ear. If you had lived the last five months with me it is likely you would not have cerebral fluids left. It has been...hilariously horrible.

And I have missed you all.

2011: augh

2011-04-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

The breakup is still relentlessly kicking my ass.

Luckily the universe decided to help me by distracting me to the point of insanity:

I was a maid of honor in an ex boyfriend's wedding (not this ex, a different one. who is gay).

My apartment was destroyed by smoke and water after the unit above mine had a fire. 6 units in all were destroyed.

A lady backed into my car.

Work is insane.

I'm surviving but heartbreak is an unbelievable bitch. I have a handle on it during the day, mostly, but the dreams I have to contend with leave me emotionally drained and crying by morning. I'd like to take a non-crying shower sometime soon in my new empty apartment but that is one milestone I have to keep hoping for as time passes.

I'm around, I'm heartbroken, I'm okay.

Wow, this is gonna hurt.

2011-02-11T12:13:00.000-08:00

When the shock finally lets me feel it.

Broke up with my boyfriend of three years last night. Over the phone. Because he is a non-commital son of a bitch who has been jerking me around for months and lied about his intentions. That won't make the heartbreak hurt any less, when it does hurt, because right now I'm sorta in a totally dazed shock.

yay life.

I'd like to say we're back in business, but...

2010-12-04T11:42:00.000-08:00

I can't commit to regularly posting yet.

Much has happened that I should tell you about, well, nothing monumental I suppose. Same job (now with 45% more suckage), same apartment (now with horrorfying bug infestation and nightmarishly bad upstairs neighbors), same relationship (now with resentment building on my side as the boy is being committment phobic), same car (no complaints, starts daily!), living in the same city (which makes sense when you read above), around the same weight (give 5 or 10 pounds, I don't know, I haven't weighed myself since last May-ish, but my "big" clothes are tight), mostly the same, really, and yet...different.

The holidays are upon us! Really, we are in the midst of them. This year I've decided to not throw my annual holiday party. I love being festive and I yearn for that warmth society tells us we should have, surrounded by friends, having good food and enjoying the company of others. This year I want a low key holiday. And, if you read the guide I wrote last year about throwing a holiday party I'm also freaking tired of trying to wrangle damn people into some kind of cohesive get together. A year off should be good, I'll be able to approach next year with renewed vigor. I'm tired of people flaking, not having enough people to invite, people showing up and being weird, blowing tons of money on one night, and I'm meloncoly (in a good way, sorta) because I yearn for friends who live around the country, for a get together that won't happen, and I'm not going to settle for a shell of that idea.

I just want, for ONCE, to be invtied to someone else's damn holiday party. The kind where you get dressed up and eat decent food and laugh and have a good time, is that so much to ask for? I don't think I'm making this up, I think these kinds of parties happen, I just want to know why I have made it this close to 30 and still failed to access the kind of social circle said things happen in. I may be depressed, damnit, but I'm not a complete hermit.

This year I'm happy to save money and not dip into my paltry savings for Christmas. I plan on getting a small tree, I'm sticking to a strict budget for presents and foregoing the holiday swaree. A bit of me wonders too if people will even notice or miss my get-together. Maybe that will motivate someone next year to throw their own. And luckily I'll be too busy to really notice it isn't happening. This weekend I have to clean, my apartment is a shambles, (I fear finding more bugs when I clean but that is an entire post, perhaps book, for another time) and relax. Next weekend is busy with family stuff and helping friends move to their new house. The following weekend is full family time as we are celebrating the holiday a week early to accomidate schedules. The following weekend is actualy Christmas, which I hope will be low key and lovely and will be spent with my signifigant other.

This time of year makes me miss friends desperately and yearn for the sort of family my family should be, but aren't. That's okay. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to be lonely for something that I've never had. It's okay that I've been unable to create such things in my life, I'm okay and it is okay and I'm not going to worry about it. Just acknowlegde the sadness and move on. That's the best way I can describe it.

Do any of you have exciting holiday plans you wish to share? Believe me, just being with your family, around a tree, all together is exciting. Or, if you don't do the holiday which requires the tree, just spending time with friends and family this season is exciting and wonderful in and of itself. If I don't post before the end of the year I wish the best for all of you, and miss all of you, and know that I condsider each of you part of my extended family, the one we get to create as adults. Much love and misses, Eris

So my birthday happened

2010-09-14T19:37:00.000-07:00

Among other things. It was okay, I'm okay, I'm still around, but damn if depression ain't kicking the bejebus outta me.

I miss you.

I miss ME.

I need to get me back, somehow, but I have to weather this first.

Work Internet Use (or, Deja Vu, because I know I've mentioned this before, but now with new developments)

2010-08-29T07:39:00.000-07:00

Whereas I don’t think I really, absolutely, totally abused the internet at work (no online gambling, porn, celebrity gossip, shoe shopping, blogging, gaming, plotting against world organizations, etc), I certainly used it more than our policy allows (30 minutes a week, only work appropriate).

I check several email accounts, the news, my bank accounts and some of my favorite blogs from work daily. If things are really slow, or if I’m particularly fed up and really hating on my job I’ll visit cracked or xkcd or just surf around looking for stuff to read. I do all this in a very transparent manner; I don’t try to sneak past the tracking or the work proxy. I enter my credentials, my user name and password, into the proxy prompt every time I go to the web and I know damn well that HR has a list with every site I’ve visited, which is probably fairly ugly and perhaps even a bit embarrassing (and this without me reading up on trashy celeb gossip!).

Over a year ago, I may have even blogged about it here; it came to my attention that my non-work related internet usage was the highest in my division. I was amazed. Other people spend HOURS on the internet. There is printing of LOLcatz galore and shoe shopping abounds and all-around shenanigans of the web variety taking place. That is when I learned about secret DSL and wireless lines and people coming up with creative ways to bypass the tracking proxy. Which REALLY PISSED ME OFF.

In the overall scheme of things my job is fairly lenient and relaxed. At least, in comparison to other jobs I have had. The rules are very realistic and simple and easy to abide by if you aren’t, oh, say, a giant freaking jerk face. Which many of the people I work with, nay, many of the people on this planet are. The obvious and insane abuse of work amenities and time just added to the continually growing list of super messed up crap people pull around here, so I was angry as hell, and even angrier because I knew NOTHING WOULD BE DONE. NOTHING. We have a person who shows up an hour and a half late to work every day, takes two hour lunches, disappears for hours at a time and is a nightmare to work with. Their attitude was so bad that they finally quit last year, which was great, but then, being the failure that they are, they came crawling back. AND WE HIRED THEM BACK. They made it to work on time for about two months and are now back to being a ridiculously F’d up employee, but nothing will be done. Nothing was ever done, (which is why documentation is important oh managers out there!) and they will continue to do 15% of the job I do, in half the hours, for more than I make. My job is really getting me down. But it is worse elsewhere and there are no jobs to be had in this economy and oh lord, did I steal money from blind children in a previous life?

ANYHOO the reason I tell you this is because today, amazingly, my division head said in a big cross division meeting that management is aware that there is rampant abuse of the internet and that it needs to stop. They know about the secret wireless and DSL and better yet some jackasses are using generic login/password combos (the ones we use for testing) to access the internet. They understand that we are stressed (read: lazy entitled bastards) but it needs to stop and they will document it and pull us aside if they have to.

Now, I do abuse the internet at work according to our rules. Ya, I’m not awful, but I’m still not following policy. But I’m also not lying about it or doing anything sneaky, I’m honest about my abuse. That makes me a good person (heh). Of the few constants in my life I can tell you this: I’m honest. I always have been. I always will be. It is important to me that even when abusing work policy I’m still honest about it, and other people should be too. Is that too much to ask? I think not. I’m not saying I’m perfect or wonderful or better than everybody (I’m better than the liars) but I am honest, and non honesty really, really, really bugs me.

Knowing how my employer works nothing will come of the internet abuse warning. If management even tries to talk to someone, which they won’t, then that employee will threaten to grievance and not a damn thing will be done. I don’t care. I’m just super super happy that something was said, that management saw or listened to someone pointing the internet malarkey out (even though I pointed it out 18 goddamn months ago and jackshit was done). It was nice to hear. My standards, indeed, are quite different from what they were three years ago.

Of course, I’m going to have to hold onto this happiness as a distraction because good grief, 6 hours in and I MISS the internet. I’m having withdrawals. I don’t know what my bank balance is or what the local news is (hint: stabbing/shooting/assault in my neighborhood, but where?) or if I got any blog comments. I’m both thrilled at this morning’s announcement and ashamed that I’m this addicted to work internet. A half hour a day is two hours more than we’re allowed a week, which means I’m into semantics. I never lied or finagled my internet, but I abused the policy. I argue that the people up to no good are far more evil and rotten then I am but a broken rule is also a broken rule.

What do you think?

Of Depression, Botox, and My Broken Apartment

2010-08-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

Depression is an admirable and crafty foe. It gets you where you live. At such a time when you really, truly, need to be getting out and getting sun and doing what you like and being social and trying new things the very thought of even putting on shoes make you want to take a long, long nap.

It took me years to even accept that depression has a major chemical component to it. A mixture of my upbringing and society and the awesome head game that is depression itself led me to believe that it is a personal failure and that I'm a horrible, worthless, stupid person for even having to deal with it. Good therapy, much research, mild positive meditation and education had taught me otherwise, and I am grateful. Now I know that especially at times like this when it hits me hard and dirty that it is chemical mostly, and that if I just relax, observe, let go and give myself a break things will be much easier.

I don't appreciate having to deal with it but I am hugely, wordlessly, grateful that I can see it better now and have some basic coping skills. Oh, I hate it. I hate it with every fiber of my being (though that hate is greatly muffled by the depression; it, like the rest of my life, gets smashed into a big burlap sack which makes all emotions and living much like trying to look at daylight through a window coated in three inches of mud).

It doesn't help that I'm still in limbo apartment wise, ready to come home and find the eviction for the landlord's foreclosure on the door. That, actually, is the least of my bothers with the place. It reeks like mold or mildew that no amount of bleach, baking soda, vinegar or lysol sprayed down the kitchen drain will fix. The garbage disposal, microwave, and now dishwasher are all broken.

When I'm depressed I'm unbelievably overwhelmed by things that I normally handle; the very thought of hand washing all the dishes in the dishwasher growing mold is too much for me to bear so I ignore it. I'm even too overwhelmed to just throw them out and start over, seriously, unless you've been depressed that sounds INSANE but believe me: I can't handle it. When things like that start to build the rest falls apart too; laundry isn't getting done. I don't vacuum. I haven't grocery shopped in weeks. I'm too overwhelmed to make good food choices so I eat crap which makes me feel much much worse (I know what processed sugar and fast food do to me and yet I still eat them, knowing full well I'll feel like hell and sleep bad and have no energy yet I can't escape the circle).

For a variety of reasons I haven't been able to see my therapist for over a month, thank heavens I see her this Thursday. 50 minutes won't be enough, but I'll take what I can get.

There is more on the depression but that should give you an idea. It sucks but I don't want to worry anyone or freak anyone out. I'm not now, nor have I ever been (thank God for big favors) suicidal. Homicidal...sometimes perhaps, but suicidal no :)

As for botox, I went in for the consultation. The woman who gave it to me is the same age as me. Her assistant is 24. They both use botox. Seriously. Whereas I really, really want it and the other night I caught my forehead in a mirror in poor light and wanted to weep I just can't justify the lack of concrete data.

Oh, sure, they tell you that it has been used as a wrinkle treatment on the market for 20 years now and that there are no damaging side effects but really? How many things, let's just say ALL, always turn out in the history of mankind to have lasting severe side effects? We put lead in candy and asbestos in houses and you know back then they insisted that such things were entirely safe.

Even if money weren't an issue (botox ain't cheap) I am too worried about potential long term effects. Which is an awesome catch 22 because worrying makes me wrinkle more and my wrinkle makes me worried and I go around and around and around and the depression just makes it worse and...you get the picture. The super perky, perpetually smiling women that gave me my consult scared me too; when I asked about long term use studies or if it were safe to start killing my muscles so young or if my face would just slide off someday after years of use they got snippy and blew me off. Really? Any medical procedure, even one as "simple" as botox, should be taken seriously, and if you want to get 1200.00 bucks a year out of me maybe you shouldn't be bitchy when I ask what are very basic and logical questions.

So. No botox for me, yet. Maybe in 6 years if there is more conclusive data...or maybe never. I hate my forehead, it ages me badly, in a baseball cap I'm 22, in a ponytail I'm 38, but fixating isn't going to make it any better.

Thanks as always for coming around. I'm here. I'm probably just depression napping (like real napping but without the satisfaction or joy). And developing some dreadful mold related disease.

Hugs.

Summer Blues

2010-08-20T17:59:00.000-07:00

First I get the three month illness of doom that essentially anhialates my summer and now the fallout from that is being exausted, gaining so much weight that my fat pants are super tight, and a crippling morbid depression I can't shake. I haven't been this down in a long time. I'm around, but life has officially kicked my booty, my big fat flabby untoned unable to make it up stairs without panting booty.

I'd blog but it would be depressing jibberish.

I'll be around when I'm a bit better.

I have 70 bottles of nail polish and I paint my nails twice a year, tops

2010-07-31T16:10:00.000-07:00

Right hand:

I have no retirement account.

I have hardly any savings.

I have student loan debt to the tune of 25k.

In my life I've paid off 50k in medical debt, easily. And my monthly meds are more than my rent.

I have a $350.00 month car payment that will last another five years.

I have no equity.

I own no gold.

I have no rich elderly relatives.

I do not buy lottery tickets.

I just took another pay cut at work.

I'm 28 and I've never not been broke.

Ergo, the obvious conclusion is: I have a consultation for botox next Tuesday.

Because clearly, I am a big freaking idiot. A broke, this close to living on the street, lucky to have a job yet unvelieveably shallow idiot.

Because I am not adding a goddamn forehead wrinkle to the mess above.

Left hand:

I lined up all my polish in ROYGBIV order (visible color spectrum) on one of my bookshelves so you could see my shame. Not only the shame of owning so many polishes and never using them (some are from over ten years ago but still working) but I should also mention the shame in that that isn't my "good" book shelf, I have several and this one just happens to be the catch all for books that I wasn't crazy about but haven't gotten rid of yet, or perhaps books that I do like but are too ugly to be displayed with other books. That and my super awesome autographed photo of Michael Palin:

While taking the above photo I totally spaced and forgot to take the photos of me and the boyfriend kissing, on vacation, etc, down so I had to retake the shot later. I try to keep this blog anonymous, yo. So if you notice that I left something retarded like my birth certificate or drivers license or global coordinates to my condo in the photo will you please let me know?

You wanted pictures, you got pictures. These are my real nails, thank you to Sallyacious for suggesting that my nails were probably dry and needed a good oil or cream, now I use Burt's Bees Cuticle Cream which really helps. I'm also glad I took the picture today because now the left middle nail is cracking and going to snap off at any moment, the nails may look all purty but they're about to implode.

As for the botox it is seriously just a free consultation. For now. I want to learn all I can about injecting poison into my face using money I don't have to desperately cling on to a youth I didn't much like so that I don't obsess while I fall asleep at night over my freaking forehead wrinkle of doom and creep people in my age range out by staring at their foreheads. At least I'm not going out and buying more damn nail polish, seriously.

Seperate yet together, this human thing

2010-07-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

Still sickly, getting better. Today I managed to take a small walk at lunch.

My nails are sky blue.

If you are in the market for good, real, powerful blogging read this post from Sallyacious. And be in awe. The internet brings us close to the vulnerability and strength that people posses in a way we miss during our daily lives.

I rest now.

Because being sick has made me shallow

2010-07-11T18:09:00.001-07:00

Still not writing about the sick (you know, the one that NEVER DIES) or the secondary infections I've picked up that I cannot shake (ouch, fuck, what the hell? shoot me) or the 15 pounds I've picked up during said time. Not writing about that at all.

Instead, a poll. What color should I paint my nails? I own literally every color of polish yet ironically hate the feeling of polish on my nails and never use it. But after two months of doing pretty much nothing my nails are super long and lovely and begging for me to ruin them with polish. So. What do you say?

***UPDATED****

Screw my boring nails and check out this site I just found, holy cow: The Daily Nail. Now THAT is some nail painting people.

Also, the next time I decide to eat black licorice, oreos, hostess cakes and a half gallon of milk for dinner please beat me with something heavy. I don't care if I've been sick for two GD months, that doesn't make me RETARDED. GAH.

Let's talk about something other than the sick, shall we?

2010-07-07T19:32:00.000-07:00

And maybe even try to have a cohesive theme?

Next March I am an attendant in my Gay ex-boyfriend from high school's wedding (old Hollywood, very posh, I am one of only four attendants total which I guess is the word the gays use for multipurpose best man/maid of honor title).

My boyfriend just called and said friends of his are getting married in late August (nice notice on that one geniuses) and OMG can he run out and get fitted for a tux to be in the wedding? Yesterday? I'm all for a fast, easy wedding but they gave him a month's notice. At least my gay friend has the class to give me almost a year notice. Then again, my boyfriend doesn't have to lose weight to look good in a suit and I don't want to be a satin sausage next year so...was my gay friend insinuating that I'm fat? Damnit.

Last summer was the first summer in my adult life that I didn't attend a wedding or two or five or eleventy million. I wasn't upset or anything, just surprised. No bad food? No awkward relative small talk? No quiet judgment/horror at the heavily religious tones in a wedding of two people who planned on holding an orgy in Burning Man later that summer? No having to shell out big bucks for a silly gift the happy couple would never un-box (breadmaker? really? and who makes enough home-made icecream EVER to justify a $250.00 pricetag? No one drinks from crystal anymore people, get your stemware at the dollar store like the rest of us) that would someday be sold at a garage sale for a dollar, still in box, when they split up? Awesome.

My trusty favorite wedding attire didn't make it out of the closet last summer. Yes, I have worn the same dress to several weddings but in my defense none of the weddings were in the same town, with the same group of people, or even with the same date, so said dress racked up plenty of mileage. It is a fabulous dress, totally unexpected yet fun and flattering and always lands me compliments even though the base color is yellow and yellow is SO not my color.

It fills me with joy when something can be worn multiple times. I am still looking forward to the day when I can find use for my old high school dance dresses, well, the ones that I didn't recycle into Halloween costumes (that and I couldn't fit a thigh into my old size zero goods but let us pretend, shall we? Perhaps I fashion them into something tasteful for my niece? Since only a six year old will ever fit into my old twee attire?). Sadly my go to wedding attire extraordinaire cannot be worn to the upcoming wedding in August. Said wedding ensemble (I have to come up with ways to describe it other than wedding dress because though it is a dress I wear to weddings it is clearly not a wedding dress) was worn two summers ago at a wedding that included people that will be at this wedding and though I know all those retarded bastards were tripping out of their minds on booze and other substances hence it is doubtful anyone will remember my dress I still cannot wear something to the same kind of function with the same kind of people twice. (Luckily the caliber of people at this wedding are better than the caliber of people at that wedding. Oh lord. That wedding was AWFUL. It permanently took a chunk out of my trust and faith in humanity.). Which means...shopping.

Jebus I hate the shopping.

Jebus I hate the shopping when I'm 40 pounds overweight. (60 pounds over what I weighed in highschool. GD double chin you are the bain of my existence).

Jebus I hate spending money on anything I'm not guaranteed I can wear again.

Jebus Jebus Jebus.

And lo though I am gaining on 30 and my boyfriend is right behind me and the betrothed for August are keeping pace as well my boyfriend has decided that tickets to the ultimate Metal show (testament, slayer, etc.) are the perfect gift for the happy couple. Even though the bride hates metal. Though, at least it isn't flatware or some other crap they'll never use.

So what is appropriate wedding wear for a summer wedding in a climate where it will be easily 100 degrees? Because maybe if I just sew all my old highschool dance dresses together it'll be big enough to wrap around me...

Hah! I didn't mention being STILL sick even once. Though I think it shows in my work. I am clearly a better writer than this, but you get the gist of things, and we can just pretend I had a cohesive ending.

How many posts do I have with the title Allo? Can I just do it again? Allo.

2010-07-04T12:30:00.000-07:00

Officially I have been sick since BEFORE memorial day and into the 4th of July. My illness has now spanned the only two three day weekends I get off for summer and to say that I am pissed, worried, exhausted, and more would be an understatement.

I am better. I can make it to to work, nap in my car at lunch, and make it home. I can't clean or shop or stay up past 7PM or anything crazy like all that, but I am better than I was before. I am miserable now because my body is wrecked. I'm exhausted and severely fatigued and getting better so slowly, so imperceptably, I fear it will be months before I've fully recovered. I don't know how to speed things along, if there were a way to do it, so I just lay in bed feeling my body turn to mush and cursing the broken garbage disposal that makes my apartment reek regardless of gallons of bleach and baking soda and vinegar poured down there yet mildly thankful that, hell, at least I can finally SMELL again.

And I have this to say: WTF? What the hell did I pick up? Why did I pick it up? Where did I pick it up from? Why does my immune system function like the baby bird that falls out of the nest and slowly hobbles about with broken wings until it dies alone or is eaten on the forrest floor? Why does something as innocuous as a cold lead to total immobility and crippling illness? Do I have to wear a SARS mask the rest of my life just so I can get around? Why do I have the compromised immune system of an 80 year old AIDS patient?

Gah. Enough. I cannot dwell on these things. I have to rally my strength and my focus on the daily grind of making it to work and grocery shopping on the weekend and pray that each day I'm a bit better. Better enough to do laundry. The next day perhaps better enough to blow dry my hair. Hope the next day I'm better enough to get up and start walking again, start being mobile again, but so afraid I'll relapse. I'm still carrying some lingering viral infection of hell and the meds wrecked my body so I'm in a super weakened state; even if my mind wants to get up and do things my body doesn't.

Totally unrelated: Does anyone genunely believe this thing between Katy Perry and Russell Brand is going to work out? And can anyone explain to me why I know who they both are even though I don't listen to her music and I've never seen his comedy?

Happy Fourth of July my fellow Americans. And for my friends out there who aren't of US origin happy summer! Please go out and hike or go the beach for me and send me psychic waves of outdoorsy summer joy. And an immune system, I'd really like one of those too.

Still Sick: Starting on month TWO

2010-06-24T18:11:00.000-07:00

Seriously.

I've been sick OVER A FREAKING MONTH now.

I'm dragging myself to work because I'm totally out of time even though the doc told me to stay home until July 01. And I'm training a new person at work. Because I kicked puppies in a previous life.

And I haven't lost one goddamn pound. NOT ONE.

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People are RETARDED

2010-06-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

And the internet just encourages them. I'm googling NyQuil and I come across this: "can you take NyQuil on heroin?". Really?

REALLY?

You have a cold and heroin just ain't cutting it?

Or is heroin just not providing the high you'd hoped for so you're gonna freebase NyQuil?

Jebus fucktards. When is natural selection gonna kick in already? Or has it? What if evolution is actually working BACKWARD to wipe our retarded race out? Because really? If you're on HEROIN the least of your worries is weather it is SAFE to take NyQuil with it.

REALLY?

Still Sick: The Sickening Continues

2010-06-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

Dragged myself to work yesterday despite exhaustion. By the time I got home my temperature had gone up again. Went straight to bed at 6 in the afternoon. Got up today to go to work, showered, dressed, put on makeup and did my hair, sat down to put on my shoes, took my temperature and it was 100.5. Had to call in. Again. I'm totally out of sick time. I'm totally screwed. And after 3 doc visits I don't know what is wrong. Antibiotics killed the ear infections and the sinus infection but it appears I'm stuck with a wicked viral infection that will not die.

This really, really, really sucks.

Still. Sick.

2010-06-04T13:51:00.000-07:00

Help. Me.

Having reached the end of my rope and being too damned sick to make a cute reference about hanging myself with it or something I have this to say: When I am better I will find a new primary care doctor so help me Gob even if I only see them once before I hypothetically move. WebMD is surprisingly useful and instead of scaring me (like the internet did when I googled sinus infections that never die and sweet jebus the things that came up) it gave me great information and hope. Hope as in: I probably have acute sinusitis which will likely last another couple of weeks and there are treatments (ever hear of nasal irrigation? No? Don't watch the tutorial) that may help, you know, once I have the strength to attempt them.

After two weeks of this, using up all my sick time at work and now I'm using up my precious little vacation time, it was nice of WebMD to at least give me an idea that there is possibly and end in sight. In another 2-3 weeks. Which, FINE, F it, ruin my summer see if I care.

The antibiotics have cleared up the ear infections, mostly, so that is good. Nasal steroids are fucking evil and made me worse, so look for me to post pictures of their untimely death in fire when I get well.

In between med doses I've been surfing the net and there are damn pictures for the new Kutcher/Heigl movie "Killers" freaking everywhere. Now, I love me some Go Fug Yourself amongst other gossip sites but I am sorely disappointed that not one, ONE, place has mentioned the ghastliness of Katherine's hair in the movie:

The movie looks awful. But her hair? WTF? It's like a bad, never-married, older aunt hair cut from the 70s. Who the hell decided that was the look to give their leading lady? Clearly I am not a gossip columnist nor a qualified internet judge of such things with my own spiffy website but something is wrong people. Something is UP. I think the makers of this wretched movie paid the interwebs off so that no one would make fun of Heigl's hair. I can ignore the bad photo shop, the doofy dress, the awful movie premise, and even my concern that Hollywood apparently thinks movie goers are drooling idiots since they can hardly manage to throw us a decent bone every once in awhile but THE HAIR IS UNACCEPTABLE. Google around for more photos of it, I can't take anymore.

There. I've gotten it out there. Now maybe the universe will reward my good deed (hopefully saving hundreds of clueless women from trying to emulate said hairstyle) AND MAKE ME BETTER ALREADY. I'm not equipped for a life as a shut in. I don't even have cable TV and I don't hoard stuff.

I can't have booze on these meds, so, how safe is it to mix my old prescription pain meds and muscle relaxers with NyQuil? Anyone? I just want to sleep the rest of this away...

j/k of course. I know NyQuil has alcohol in it. When I'm better I wholly intend to mix a bottle with champagne and guzzle it, but until then, I'm up a creek.

At least my hair isn't retarded.

I've been sick for days upon days now ***now with less crazy update

2010-06-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

And it really isn't doing anything for my mental well being.

I'm out of sick time at work.

I still had to call in today. AGAIN.

I fucking hate hate hate hate the stupid jackass motherfucker piece of crap asshole doctor creep I had to drag myself to see at urgent care yesterday SO MUCH that I'm writing a goddamn letter to urgent care, and emailing them, and calling their customer service. BULAJDFKLJALIEWUFJLEKDHFLKAJLTFIEJL Ahem. Still ANGRY.

It doesn't help that I've felt like hell for much over a week and see no end in sight and lost the memorial day three day weekend to being bed ridden. It really, really isn't helping my mood any. Sorry. I need to vent a bit and don't know how to get all the crap out without bumming the mood out, ya know?

I called my primary care doc who couldn't freaking see me for at least a week, necessitating the trip to urgent care which cost money I didn't have for NOTHING, begging her to please for the love of god just call in some goddamn antibiotics to my pharmacy already, I'm dying here. I really shouldn't take antibiotics since I'm allergic to most of them and there are a select few left I can take but I literally can't afford, both financially and mentally, to be sick any longer.

I updated the side bar, removed links to blogs that straight up disappeared (Chollyson? You okay out there?) and bloggers who totally stopped updating even longer than I have (CEO, SexedHigherED, people I miss). So the new sidebar at least has active links to blogs I read and love. If you know of any good ones pass them my way.

Was getting spam comments had to turn on comment moderation.

That is the last of my productive energy. If I keep typing it will just be more FUCKFUCKGODDAMNFUCKHATEAUGHGHGHGHHGHGHGHGHG and we don't need that.

No news on moving yet. No idea. I don't know. Make the sick stop please.

***Things that help when you are on the verge of mental collapse: crying your eyes out in your hallway, thus exacerbating your sinus infection but also clearing you out just enough to call the fucktards at Urgent Care, ripping them new ones (seriously, didn't know I had that in me), demanding the right meds, leaving an angry message with your flake of a primary care doc, dragging your disgusting un-showered self to the pharmacy (I haven't been able to smell for 11ish days but I'm sure I didn't smell great), grabbing new semi dangerous antibiotics and super steroids, drag self home, pound meds, pass out. Far less crazy now. Fingers crossed that this works and I'm at least able to make it to work Thursday and Friday.

Also, note to self, figure out how to harbor the awesome angry yet rational skills that I demonstrated on phone today for future use.

Cheers.

Of LA, maybe moving and: How did you overcome the paralyzing force of fear in your life? And were you happy once you did it?

2010-05-22T16:13:00.000-07:00

The boyfriend and I went on a quick fact finding mission of sorts down to the Southern California/LA area to visit friends and to get a feel for the place. The drive was long. We had a fun time. LA is much as I remember it: a pretend city that is mostly suburban sprawl hell, covered in smog, full of itself, and entirely too dependent on freeways.

The boyfriend loves it. He wants to move down tomorrow.

My people essentially originate from the area. Sorta. My Great, Great Grandparents were both indentured German servants, who eventually settled in Nebraska, and then onto California.

My boyfriend and I visited the house my Great Grandfather built in an orange grove while my Grandfather crawled around in one of those adorable white lacy dressing gowns they put both baby boys and girls in. The house, once a symbol of my father's idyllic 1950s childhood, is surrounded by apartment buildings and city muck. My Grandparents sold it a few years before they died, my Grandfather bitter about having to leave his families' legacy, but they were well into their 80s and the neighborhood has ceased being safe a long time ago and they couldn't get around anywhere anymore (hell, getting to the neighborhood itself was a feat). The folks who bought my family legacy were promptly foreclosed on and the house was busted for manufacturing meth.

I'm surprised to see the house is still standing and happy to see that the area seems to have turned around a bit; folks were walking their dog down the street and people were sitting on their porches, something that didn't happen five years ago. The house itself had new siding and flowers and a basketball hoop. I would have stayed to stare longer, trying to capture moments of my childhood visits to them and praying for some kind of sign for what to do with my life, but there was no parking and it is creepy to stare at someone's house, so I got a few covert pictures and we left.

I've been to the area many times. As a child to see family. As a teenager on very, very long school road trips to visit video editing and post production houses, to see television sets, to tour the industry, and later as a last high school hurrah for senior trip. As a young adult I've been in the area to see friends, to attend college conferences, gone to Disneyland. Last year I managed to survive a family trip down to Disneyland, my now adult siblings and I, my parents, and my niece, all in one car and two hotel rooms, to share in taking my niece on her first trip to the happiest place on earth. That was five months before my Grandpa died. My own father, then faced with his own mortality and the fact that his children have all grown, seemed to struggle with his place in the world on that trip. I am struggling with mine too, in a new context: move to LA or not?

I don't know.

I have a half created metaphor for the city floating around in my head that I haven't bothered to flesh out: That LA is essentially Lindsay Lohan; marginally talented, once had promise, sucks you in with the allure of that promise, and then you find yourself with a coked out walking cadaver, a shell of reality, all smoke and mirrors and clawing desperation to make it to the top. LA has lots of jobs, sure, but it is all smoke and mirrors. And did I mention ugly? I've been lucky enough to visit some very pretty places and Hollywood, Burbank, Pasadena, Glendale and even Santa Monica are none of them. Brentwood and Beverly hills are okay to look at, but not real, like play pretty houses in the center of city mire.

Part of me knows that the city I live in is a pit. But a new part of me is emerging; the part of me that is scared to give up a (crappy, miserable) job in this economy. Suddenly the part of me that has always yearned for more and wanted to get out and finally DO SOMETHING is silenced. It is silenced by something saying that I am too old, that I am not talented, that it is selfish of me to want to be a writer (and work in comedy), and that I'm damn lucky to even have a job right now and I should hold on to it with all my might.

Suddenly too, even though it is currently snowing outside, again, a new part of me has popped up and is saying that this city isn't so bad, hell, it is even pretty compared to LA and Las Vegas and, well, all of central California, and most of the central United States, and and and...

I don't know.

I keep returning to I. Don't. Know.

I've scrambled and suffered for a decade. I've had multiple setbacks. And always, in the back of my mind, the mantra has been "When I get out of here I am finally going to try it, to do it, no matter what" because at least trying is actually 99% of the real accomplishment, you know? Yet now I'm surrounded by fear and confusion and...failure. Why do I feel so old all of a sudden? What am I supposed to do? I'm quiet, I try to hear my inner voice, my authentic self, and it...has nothing to say. Nothing to say but I don't know.

I know 28 isn't old, per se, but I should have done this at 18. I'm paralyzed by failure, and doing the wrong thing. Will I be a fool to give up a hated job in a dead end city to move to a city that I mostly hate, even though that city has friends and opportunities and will likely have my boyfriend along with me too?

And how much of this silence is my wonder about the boyfriend, and the relationship? He is totally serious about moving down, getting a good job, and SUPPORTING me while I pursue my dreams full time. He is committed in many ways but there is no ring; do I even want a ring? Do I secretly believe that a ring would somehow protect from relationship woes and trials and issues? I want an insurance, a guarantee, that the relationship won't fail and that he won't hate me if I don't "make it" and that we'll be okay, always, but such a thing doesn't exist, does it? Vows don't make a difference. But I also, as much as I love him for the offer, can't imagine not working a * real * job, being dependent on someone else. That is...wrong. Too many things, my answer: I don't know.

What is the right thing? How do I let go of my notion that there is always a right thing, aand a wrong thing? I want a divine oracle to tell me definitively the answer but in life there is no such answer.

How did you do it? What did you do? Were you ever faced with a major decision, that meant forsaking a "safe" thing, did you feel like a fool? I finally have to choose a path, you know, instead of just hanging out at the fork, and that path means the other path is closed to me, but doesn't it also mean that new paths open up?

How did you overcome the paralyzing force of fear in your life? And were you happy once you did it?

How did May happen all of a sudden?

2010-05-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

Grief guys, I don't even know where to begin it has been so long!

Conan's show was AMAZING and AWESOME and SUPER FUN and almost totally worth the almost $200.00 total ticket cost, I only say almost because though we were close up front we were off to the side. I loved it. I'm so happy I got to go. If it weren't pretty much entirely sold out I'd tell you to get tickets if he is coming anywhere near you.

I only have to wear the retainer at night now. Hallelujah. Those several weeks were an unwelcome flash back to my adolescence. On the one hand: not a time anyone wants to revisit. On the other hand: a good reminder to be patient and loving with the person I used to be instead of constantly negative and critical.

Things with my apartment have been a headache for months now, the least of which is the actual foreclosure itself. Sure, I come home to weekly notices posted on my door and it officially went to auction finally this month but the back and forth and the not knowing or having a time line has been awful. Look, I'll move, I'll pack it all up and go in 24 hours if I have to, I would just like to know WHEN. You may wonder why I didn't just do that but it gets complicated as hell and during proceedings like this in my state it is illegal to break my lease, so if I had said "this is bullshit" and tried to pack up and leave I would have been FINED. So I had to stay, stuck, waiting, for days into weeks into months, prisoner to wondering what was going on and where I was going to go. I thought I was handling it fine but the uncertainty really wore on me, it still does, but at least my lease expires soon and in conjunction with the auction I should finally have an idea of what I can do and start looking for a place. Which brings me into:

Relationship. We've officially been dating for two years. I love him. He loves me. We are pretty happy. He is an awesome guy. I. Don't. Want. To. Live. With. Him. I don't I don't I don't. It is hard to explain but living alone is like my one and only great accomplishment as an adult; I've lived alone for 7ish years and supported myself for at least 10, medical debt and student loans and shitty jobs be damned, and my gut says NO to giving that up. Six months ago if the boy had proposed I would have seriously considered living together but now, after time, and this apartment stuff, I've got to say that I don't feel at all the same. I feel sortof oddly rejected by him, and disappointed that things didn't naturally progress forward, and while I am in no way even thinking of leaving him (it is horrible to even type the possibility) I'm also not going to move in with him. So it gets even more complicated, naturally, with the slim potential of a move to a different city on the horizon which would essentially require us moving in together. All this means that, much like the stupid foreclosure stuff, I thought that I was normal and fine for the last couple of months when in reality I've been a total basket case (albeit a well hidden one, thankfully?) and not dealing with my real feelings or even, honestly, beginning to understand what is right for me and what I need to do. I think I'm okay and then BAM April is totally gone and I've managed to gain 20 POUNDS (jebus mother of freaking gob) in a short time period because I'm so busy being "okay" that I'm denying my true self and smothering my feelings under food. And not exercising, though, to be fair, it is just within the last two weeks or so that my neck and shoulder have been cleared for light cardio again.

Much ado about all that above. My therapist is awesome but I haven't been able to see her, for one reason or another, for a long time now and I've been so damn busy just making it through my days and ignoring reality, my true self, my feelings, my gut, that time has passed right on by and I've totally neglected to blog. Perhaps because blogging requires the truth and I've been so busy running from it, and haven't even figured it out AT ALL myself yet.

How have you been?

The Legally Prohibited From Being On Television Tour!!!!!

2010-03-11T18:22:00.000-08:00

Conan O'Brien is bringing his show to the stage with "The Legally Prohibited From Being On Television Tour"

Google it and get tickets!

I am totally amazed that his tour is making it near me so I just bought tickets. They were almost sold out in my area so hurry up!

In blog related news I just noticed that this blog now officially has more posts than my original super popular blog had. For those of you who don't know I had a non-anonymous-ish blog around 2006 that was fairly popular as far as the interweb goes. I had way more readers and that is how I met and made some of the best internet friends ever. I also got attention from local papers and had pretty steady traffic. However, being non-anonymous became a major hassle so I had to do away with it and here, in my very quiet corner of the web, I'm actually pretty happy. It's just funny to look back and see that this much less popular blog (and less updated, less well written, well, less all around) had now surpassed its predecessor in posts.

Now, go see Conan!

Odds and Ends and what the Hell was Sandra/her sytlist/your mom thinking?

2010-03-09T11:43:00.000-08:00

So, just sitting here waiting for a user to call me back so I can knock out a few of the 15 plus work tickets I have to complete in the next…four days. Yeah. That’ll happen.

I hated Sandra Bullock’s dress choice at the Oscars. There. I said it. I may be the only person on the planet but I abhor it with the heat of a thousand hot burning suns and said hatred is only eclipsed by my absolute revulsion at the lipstick color she chose. WHY? WHO WEARS PINK LIPSTICK…EVER? Ugh. Not that I saw the Oscars, mind you, but I have seen pictures of the dresses and every caption I’ve read about Sandra so far has been “fabulous!”, “luminous!”, “radiant!” and not one said anything to the effect of: She is wearing a hideous metallic lame’ mess which looks reminiscent of the dresses the Barbie knock off dolls had to wear in the 80s and sweet jebus who the hell gave her that lipstick color? WHO? Oh the agony.

And that is that.

I’ve got bits of blogs floating about but I’ll be totally honest here: They ain’t pretty. Either I’m trying to write for an audience (which is the kiss of death for blogs, as far as I’m concerned, because they should be personal) or I’m trying to write for me, which doesn’t work, because I don’t have to clarify things for myself and ergo a regular reader would be lost. So I go around and around alternately filling in too much back story and information or putting none in at all, and then ranting, and using the F word as person, place, thing, action, verb, everything, and it is all a hot mess.

A quick idea of what I’m trying to eloquently express or discuss and failing miserably at:

A certain very popular book that I was quite looking forward to getting that has been all over the blogosphere wound up inspiring much rage on my behalf. I wish the author no ill will and think they are perfectly lovely but REALLY? The book irks me in every viable way. It should, perhaps, be taken more as a memoir than any kind of research project or informational item, and as such the book is then entirely dull and useless to me. You have no idea what I am rambling about and that is fine.

I’ve read two other books and want to compare and contrast them and give thoughtful and useful responses to both yet somehow every time I try to get into it I write pages and pages of jabber and never get my point across. I feel like I need remedial English (and this from someone with a bachelor’s in the subject) to remind me how to outline and craft essays because I’m getting no where.

The two books are I Can Make You Thin by Paul Mckenna and The Gabriel Method by Jon Gabriel. Both books address the mind body connection in regard to obesity and weight. Both books come with relaxation CDs with guided visualization. In summation, book one: interesting book, new angle on issue yet totally useless if you struggle with emotional eating and the author’s voice on the visualization CD creeps me out greatly. Would love CD if he got someone else with a non date-rape voice to do the recording. Second Book: really resonates with reasons for over-eating, emotional obesity and mental obesity. Must read for anyone who struggles with weight. Hate the stupid new age crap (past lives caused me to be fat!) but the rest fills in where the first book is greatly lacking: the mental and emotional reasons for fat. The CD seems okay so far in as much as the author doesn’t have a gravely porno molester voice (see book one), which helps, big time.

Whew, that summary helped me get some of those thoughts out; hopefully I’ll explore them more later.

On that note it is several hours later and after swapping a bunch of broken equipment out at a location I couldn’t carry all the items at once so I left a broken monitor in the lobby of the building to come back for it. In 5 minutes or less someone had swiped it. Sucks to be them: It was totally broken. Makes me wonder if I should have left the broken scanner behind because I think people would have been less likely to swipe it? People are weird.

Ciao

What price beauty?

2010-02-25T13:57:00.001-08:00

All I need is a pocket protector and I'm set.

In pursuit of attempting to cobble this semi broken and usually complaining thing I call a body together while running its regular maintenance, I noticed that my front teeth had shifted ever so slightly in the 17 years since I've had braces. I have a permanent metal bar cemented to the inside of my bottom teeth which keeps them from crowding or trying to make a break for it, but the top teeth have only had the benefit of a nighttime retainer to hold them in place and my most recent retainer died quite some time ago. Time to find a new orthodontist.

Now, before I tell you about the retainer I need to remind you of several things. I have tenosinvitis in both arms that flares up if I am not careful with my computer use and requires that I wear two large black wrist guards. The guards start mid-forearm and end below my knuckles. If it is winter I can hide them well enough in sleeves but during any other season I get many questions and looks. I've grown accustomed to this. If I can handle driving and sleeping in them I don't care about work, I'm already a computer technician, people expect us to look odd, yes?

I wear glasses to see close. 75% of my work is up close. I chose thick square frame tortoise shell glasses because, why not?

I wear a regular plastic badge for work which I loop pens and an unbent paperclip (great tech tool) on.

I'm very, very overweight right now so the few pairs of pants that I can still barely button fit me high-water style, which I stubbornly refused to believe until I saw my full reflection across a courtyard in the windows and realized that it isn't just noticeable; it's bad.

My skin has never quite liked me and shows this by frequently turning out "blind" blemishes, rather, those large, deep, painful cysts that last for weeks, along with the blackheads I'm still trying to control (more on my progress in another post) and various smaller deals that pop up and hang around for a day or two. I am by no means acne bound and still get compliments on my skin occasionally, which I think is because I'm pale like a porcelain doll and this is very noticeable when you have a huge, painful, red knob growing between your eyebrows. My skin is also so oily that by 8AM I can soak a piece of paper clear. Blemishes and oil and wrinkles? Oh yes.

My hair is almost always pulled back in some kind of bun which I stick pens in. I can never carry enough pens, and besides, my hands are for carrying random bits of electronics and my good screwdriver.

So, as if being clad in high water pants, glasses, a bun, a badge covered in pens, hair adorned with pens, and wrist braces all day at work weren't already sexy enough I went and decided to get a new retainer to add into the mix. The retainer is of the clear plastic variety and makes me spit when I talk and gives me an awesome lisp. Since some teeth need to be gently nudged back in place I get to wear this thing all day, every day, for 8 weeks, except for when I eat or drink.

It is odd how certain things humiliate me or make me fear people will notice me whereas others don't even phase me. I usually give the above items little passing thought except when I add something new in the mix, like the retainer. I'd currently put my appearance somewhere just above Quasimodo, save for the stiffness in my neck and shoulders which limits my movement, but far far below that of, say, a supermodel. Or a regular model. Or even someone who owns clothes that fit. I'm shy one pocket protector from being the nerdiest mess in this hemisphere.

On the bright side, maybe, I can't chew my cuticles at all with the retainer in (I'd cut back 90% but some still sneaks in) and my teeth and jaw promise to ache for weeks, so I'll be on a liquid diet. Maybe I'll lose some weight and my nails will look even better! I hope.

Just hope nothing else needs upkeep in the meantime. I'm already quite a sight.

quick mention if you care:

My neck and shoulder are very yucky, always with the pain, so excuse major misspellings and typos for the time being. I am going to therapeutic massage after the trigger point injections healed and it is helping but JEBUS I am SORE. My original neck injury from years ago is apparently a mass of scar tissue and the new neck injury is made worse by the fact that my shoulder injury is far more extensive than they realized. In between regular doctor, physiatrist, chiropractor, light physical therapy, and now massage therapy I also have an at home electric muscle stim (look it up) thing I have to use and major pain meds and I still wake up every morning feeling like a football team used my neck and back for field practice.

Ouchie

2010-01-28T16:54:00.000-08:00

Trigger point injections are apparently this thing where they numb the area where your muscles won't stop spasming/knotting up (for me this is my neck and shoulder) and then jab big nasty needles in and inject some substance (it begins with a C, I think, but the pain of the procedure stopped my brain from recording this to memory) into the muscles to break them up and make them relax.

I had this done Tuesday.

It hurt.

When the numbness wore off it HURT.

Wednesday I felt like I'd had, no exaggeration, 30 flu shots in my neck and shoulder. The pain was amusing in that I couldn't believe that it possibly could hurt that much, and every 30 seconds or so it was as though my brain were rediscovering said pain and being utterly and totally surprised. Brain: "WOW! Where did that come from?" Me: "The hands of something truly evil, I believe" Brain: "Unbelievable! I'm laughing at the agony! This is hilarious in its intensity" Me: "I know". And so on. All day long.

Today the pain is far less shockingly entertaining, more dull throbbing ache that makes moving my head all but agonizing. I had this done because I'm still not healing from the fun fall I took at work in early December. I suspect that it actually doesn't help with the original problem. Rather, it causes a new pain so awful that once the new pain dies down you are happy to only have to suffer the old pain. We shall see. In the meantime I'm mostly out of commission, the old pain was nasty and the new pain is retched and I'm fairly crippled and hurty. I fear the permanent scowl my face wears will up my need for botox by several years. Hence the lack of blogging, typing, sitting, breathing, most anything is painful and when things are painful suddenly my motivation to do them, however much I like them, drops exponentially. Hopefully I'll be in less pain soon, and able to blog more actively. Until then send opiate based thoughts my way.

Ciao.

TEAM CONAN

2010-01-09T16:17:00.000-08:00

Always and forever.

Foreclosed Again, Naturally

2010-01-07T16:43:00.000-08:00

Last year the owner of the condo I rented for 5 years got foreclosed on. I was a model tenant, I never once paid my rent late, I kept the unit in immaculate condition and that place was cleaner the day I moved out then the day I moved in. (For those of you who have been for me for awhile you know that cleanliness took me awhile to master, I learned that mold grows in cups of water left for days as well as loads of clean laundry forgotten in washing machines. I have since learned much.)

You can read about it in April 2009 (links on the right).

I’d been handed a pink slip at work (which was later rescinded), I am perpetually broke thanks to student loans and medical debt, and things were looking grim when luck struck and the condo next door to me opened up. It is exactly the same, just a backwards or mirror image of my original one. Better yet it has new paint, carpets, linoleum, and appliances PLUS the rent is cheaper.

I struggled with the decision to take it because I was really, really ready for a change in my life and wanted something with more light and maybe a backyard but my finances wouldn’t allow for such a thing and really, how easy is it to move next door? To the same place, just mirror image? I just put everything as it was and it only took a day. I did eventually reverse the living room because coming home to my bassakwards apartment confuses the dickens out of me daily. Imagine living in your home for five years. Now imagine flipping it exactly reversed and coming home to that one day. It really messes with your relative sense of calm.

Another bonus to taking this condo was that the owners live only a few hours away, so they are real, and I was told that I need not worry about foreclosure because they owned the condo outright. Yay! Security!

Yay! Lies! You know where this is going. You know what my luck is.

That day before New Years Eve I came home to default notices totally papering the entire door. The people who posted them had mangled my Christmas wreathe a bit and one of the pinecones was laying all sad on the floor. I just stood there and laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

Then called my boyfriend.

And my regular friends.

And one friend took me to a “Congratulations you’re being forcefully evicted due to no fault of your own in less than a year!” dinner where I got good and plowed on a work night.

Luckily this time I am far more prepared for this process having had ample experience and unlike last time I don’t have a pink slip in hand. There is even a good chance that my job will hold until June, and, unlike last time, I get a whole 60 days to figure out where to go since they aren’t in full foreclosure yet, just default. Wooo! I totally have this handled.

I do find it amusing that this is time number two, in under a year, on a condo that was supposedly owned outright, that I’m being rendered homeless, and I’m really not upset. My married friends came home to straight orange eviction notices in October on their condo due to the owner going into foreclosure and they had an 11 month old and 24 hours to vacate. My situation is hardly like that. (The friends wound up taking a place in the same complex just upstairs, much like I did, because it was close and seriously? 24 hours? With a BABY? JEBUS).

If I continue to rent condos owned by individuals I continue to run this risk. I’ve done the major apartment complex thing and I don’t want to do it again. Part of the reason I’ve stayed put so long is that I’m in a great location, I’m near a lovely “lake” (pond) where I can take walks if the drug dealers aren’t out in full force, I have enclosed underground parking, and a washer and dryer in my unit. It I move to an apartment complex I get a slew of lousy neighbors, an exposed parking space, and no walking trails or nice central locations.

I can’t afford to rent a house. I will not live with a room mate ever, ever again. I can’t afford to buy a house. The boyfriend has offered to move in together but unless that is like, the absolute only option, I won’t do it: I don’t want to live together before I’m married. I know, I know, spending every other night together is practically living together etc. but my reasoning is a topic for a whole ‘nother blog post entirely.

So, I’ve got to figure this out. At least this time I’ve got 60 days to figure it out. And on the bright side, if I do come home to straight orange eviction notices, there is some law that says I get 1500 bucks to move. My married couple friends got it and my current leasing agent mentioned it. So if I do have to scramble to move for some reason I’ll have the funding to do it, though I don’t see that happening because I know that foreclosure will start March 1(unless the owners pull it out of default, which won’t happen) and I have plenty of time to find a nice van and a space down by the river before then.

How is your new year shaping up?

Part Eight: Er, Conclusion

2010-01-06T20:50:00.000-08:00

Part eight, er, conclusion to my seven part series: “Things I’ve Learned About Hosting a Holiday Get Together”.

There you have it, holiday hosting tips that I hope will help you with your next gathering. If you do have one please invite me, I promise to actually show up on time (6 means 7!) bring whatever dish I said I would, dress well, and not set anything on fire. I won’t even go through your medicine cabinet because really? Who cares? I just want to be invited someplace where I don’t have to do all the work.

Or, alternatively, can someone reccomend a city I can move to where the people aren't idiots? Because I am so ready.

Part Seven: Invitations

2010-01-04T10:00:00.000-08:00

Part seven in my seven part series: “Things I’ve Learned About Hosting a Holiday Get Together”.

Invitations:

People stopped responding to paper invitations ages ago. They also don’t read emails, evites, text messages, or actively listen when you talk to them in person or on the phone. If, for some totally incomprehensible reason, you decide you want to host guests in your home, then you are practically forced to stalk them outside their homes, tranq ‘em, tag ‘em, and drag ‘em in yourself.

Setting a specific RSVP date does not matter. See Guests.

The only bit I can offer is this: If someone sees fit to invite you to something, for the sake of all that is holy RSVP you bastard! It doesn’t matter yes or no, just do it! And then follow up your answer!

If you say no don’t go!

If you say yes then make every effort and actually go!

Be polite!

Bring back common social courtesy!

Be the change you want to see in people!

Don’t be an ass and certainly don’t ask if you can bring strangers that the party host does not know!

Jebus.

Part Six: Smoking

2010-01-03T16:25:00.000-08:00

Before we get to the business of part six I would like to take a moment to do some housekeeping and address the very thoughtful comments I have been getting: THANK YOU! I was starting to worry that perhaps it was just me and I can't throw a decent party to save my life but now I know, somewhere, someplace, people are having successful and joyous get togethers that don't involve inconsiderate guests. Which brings me to my next point: Clearly I need to find new friends. Sigh. The story of my life.

Part six in my seven part series: “Things I’ve Learned About Hosting a Holiday Get Together”.

Smoking:

Assume ahead of time that some people smoke cigarettes. It doesn’t matter if you’ve known these people your whole life, you will be surprised. Remind them to take it outside. If you’re feeling extra festive, dye some kitty litter red and green and pour it into a cheap (non-flammable) bowl so that you don’t get to clean empty beer containers filled with butts off of your deck or lawn. Bonus for not having guests put out cigarettes on your siding or other available surfaces.

This is the shortest bit of advice I’ve picked up, and probably some of the best. I’ve never heard Martha Stewart mention this, but then again, that woman is a powerhouse and probably has an entire book dedicated to kilning your own natural clay ashtrays which are festively and intricately hand gold leafed, and how to grow heirloom tobacco that she then rolls in home pressed paper rendered from Egyptian papyrus.

Part Five: Attire

2010-01-02T18:52:00.000-08:00

Part five in my seven part series: “Things I’ve Learned About Hosting a Holiday Get Together”.

Attire:

Be happy if people don’t show up with visible pant holes in the crotch area, animal hair caked t-shirts and muddy shoes. Have fun getting yourself ready if you have time but don’t go all out, your false eyelashes will melt from oven heat while you slave in the kitchen and your manicure will dematerialize as you wash wine glasses. Wear something cute and all, but comfortable and serviceable: You’ll have to move quickly when a guest moves a candle on the sink to an entirely new location and sets fire to your hand towels.

Not sure what to wear if you are a guest? Unless you’re meeting the queen of England (disregard Slutty Cyrus, who decided a gown cut to her navel and showing off the jailbait tittays was the way to go) then clean jeans, a nice shirt or sweater, and clean shoes always works. Wear presentable socks too, many people demand that you remove your shoes before walking on their carpet these days.

Every holiday season advertisers and the TV peoples start in on the cocktail or holiday dress barrage. I want to meet someone who has had the occasion to both buy and appropriately wear a cocktail dress. I don’t think such a thing exists. I have never been invited to or even heard of a holiday soiree where a cocktail dress was required or appropriate. The cocktail dress is a lie manufactured to make women doubt our bodies in bikini off season and to stimulate the economy by making women believe that $400.00 for 1/8th yard of black satin is not only reasonable but necessary. And oh how I long to not only own one but have a place to actually wear it to someday.

Part Four: Guests

2010-01-01T11:37:00.001-08:00

Part four in my seven part series: “Things I’ve Learned About Hosting a Holiday Get Together”.

Guests:

Guests lie.

They are unreliable, sneaky, suddenly need to leave town for reasons unknown, or worse, have family/friends/religious recruiters in town that they would like to bring along. A definite RSVP is still a shaky maybe at best. Guests who don’t RSVP at all are as likely to show as those that do.

At least half of your guests will ask to bring someone else; a sister, a cousin, their ex (seriously), several friends that you don’t know visiting from out of town (Every. Damn. Year. And you think I would learn not to invite this person), your ex, a priest and a rabbi, your boss, their boss, their boss’ dog, and your mom. I don’t know how to get around this one yet. Beyond people I know and their significant others I think it is weird to invite your family or friends to someone else’s party. Yet it happens, always, every time. Is there a way to be both holiday festive and inclusive while at the same time telling people that their deadbeat friends who didn’t even bring a snack size bag of chips between them are not invited? Do my friends not think that the guests that will already be there are enough? I’ve signed up to open my home to guests that I know, which is hard enough already, now you are making me entertain strangers and weirdoes? Thanks. Note to self: Your invite gets lost in mail next year as I drink champagne in front of my Christmas tree alone and suddenly I’m richer and happier…which fewer carpet stains.

Part Three: Time

2009-12-29T20:50:00.000-08:00

Part three in my seven part series: “Things I’ve Learned About Hosting a Holiday Get Together”.

Time:

If you say 6 people will show up at 7. I used to be very, very upset sitting alone in my apartment at 6:45, insulted that even people who swore they would show up early to help are now not answering their phone and convinced that no one would show up at all. Now I understand that 6 means 7, but only if everything is ready and warm at 6. If I plan to start putting things out at 6:30 and still have curlers in my hair then 6 means 5:45.

I’m not being funny here, this is seriously true.

Imagine me, hair a-curler-ed up, wearing my sweater and spanx and nothing else, applying liquid eyeliner when my first guest arrived. At 5:45. Awesome.

Part Two: Beverages

2009-12-27T15:30:00.000-08:00

Part two in my seven part series: “Things I’ve Learned About Hosting a Holiday Get Together”.

See part one below.

Beverages:

As you get older people already know what they want to drink. This isn’t a dorm party where people are just happy that you have booze. In many cases guests will bring what they want to drink even after you tell them that you will have a bartending college equivalent of beverages, mixers, and booze. So don’t bother.

Stick to one universal booze that you already like or can re-gift if it doesn’t get opened, like rum, have several bottles of cheap wine, and a couple six packs of non-offensive beer on hand. A soft drink or two is fine, but water or ice tea will suffice. You need not buy the following:

Coke
Diet Coke
Sprite Zero
Ginger Ale
Tonic Water
Cranberry Juice
Orange Juice
Limes
Lemons
Oranges
20 pound bag of ice
Bailey’s Irish cream
White Rum
Dark Rum
Spiced Rum
Tequila
Fancy Vodka
Cheap Vodka
Cocktail olives
Vermouth
Grenadine
Pre-made Mojitos
Bottled water
Champagne
10 bottles Red Wine
5 bottles White Wine
Milk
Creamer
Coffee
Sugar
Splenda
Tea

Because this is what will be consumed by 11 guests (excluding me and my boyfriend): 1 bottle red wine, 2 diets cokes, 3 waters. Everyone else actually shows up and brings their own drinks. WTF? If I asked them to bring their own drinks they would show up with handfuls of hay and perplexed looks on their faces (see food). Many of these people have been to my home numerous times before, I have never not had drinks to offer them, so when did stockpiling your own beverages become the thing to do?

One guy brought a mini cooler with his own (cheap) brand of beer. Another guy brought himself a full size sparkling pomegranate beverage and drank the whole thing himself. I understood the guest who brought his own Whiskey because you can see from the list above that that is one of the few things I did not buy but even he refused ice, and just sipped it warm from a glass. I HAVE NO IDEA what the heck this turn of events is about. Is this normal? Is this what late 20s early 30s people do now? Because I need to know before I even attempt to have another party.

Decorations and Food I can buy, where do I inquire about obtaining fun guests?

2009-12-26T17:29:00.000-08:00

I present to you, my seven part series, “Things I’ve Learned About Hosting a Holiday Get Together”. If nothing else so that I have this stuff recorded somewhere in case a year once again renders total amnesia on my part and I try to go about things without careful examination of what actually works.

Let’s begin with the best part of any gathering; at least, you hope it is. I saw a billboard for a super cheap and crappy “Mexican” fast food chain offering a party pack for $8.99, essentially 6 meat tacos (the meat is your guess) and 6 bean burritos in a handy cardboard carrying case to make catering your next party a breeze. If my parties continue to go the way they do don’t think I won’t strongly consider this option next year.

Food:

Most advice columns and articles geared toward hosting informal holiday gatherings say that the host should make things easier on themselves by requesting that the guests each bring a dish or an appetizer to share; thus cutting down on the amount of food the host is responsible for buying and preparing.

I have tried this.

It is a lie.

Guests who swear they are coming and bringing x item with them and can they also bring 3 friends since they are definitely coming will not only not show up but they will also leave a void for the guests that do show up by not bringing the item they were supposed to bring.

Guests are unreliable.

Guests are liars (this is important and will be repeated again).

Guests will bring pizza after you explicitly stated in email and on the invitation that you are providing gourmet pizza. They will do this even after they tell you they are bringing deviled eggs.

If you rely on guests to fill in the food spaces the rest of your guests will starve. People who swear to bring meatballs, shrimp, guacamole, chips, bruchetta and more will, if they even attend, show up carrying the same box of Trader Joe’s assorted cookies. You will have 78 of these boxes by the end of the night.

I do not know why.

I only know this, the cardinal rule of party food: If you plan to host you absolutely cannot depend on people to bring what they say they will; much less to bring something that will round out the menu you wind up having to plan (because people are slackers and they suck and why are you attempting this social stuff anyway? Really? Because no one else ever seems to be on the holiday party wagon and maybe they all figured out a long time ago that spending the equivalent of your rent to keep 11 people entertained for four hours is really, really not worth it).

Also, veggies and dip never get eaten. The dip does, the veggies don’t. Save yourself the wilted snap peas and broccoli, throw out a handful of baby carrots and be done with it.

Allo

2009-12-21T22:03:00.000-08:00

Does the way Google changes its logo up for various seasons/events/days delight anyone else the way it does me? It always makes me smile.

I have bits of posts written that need to be cleaned up and edited which I will post once typing doesn't hurt so much. If said items don't get posted before the holidays please have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (or at least enjoy work sanctioned days off, which I hope you all get).

Much love,

Eris

Work

2009-12-18T20:34:00.000-08:00

I’m cleared to go back to my regular tasks on “light duty” which means no bending, lifting, crawling, or twisting. Essentially I get to sit at a desk, all alone, in a virtually empty office at a different location and take care of light duty work requests as they come in.

I like being alone but I fear I will fall asleep if I don’t have some stimulation. I can guarantee that I will fall asleep if I take any of the meds I have for pain or muscle spasm so unfortunately I can’t take anything to take the edge off the pain. Tylenol is like spitting into a lake, it doesn’t make even a smidge of a noticeable difference, and I can’t take ibuprofen due to a previously ruptured ulcer.

So I sit.

And hurt.

Alone under fluorescent lights.

My life is not quite what I’d imagined it would be.

Tuesday? Aughghghghgh

2009-12-15T15:53:00.000-08:00

Sweet Jebus it can't be just Tuesday, I went the whole day convinced it was Wednesday. This does not bode well...

Nothing like...

2009-12-13T19:51:00.001-08:00

Another damn neck injury.

At least this time I have a badly sprained hip to keep it company.

I'm really, super, major ticked off that I slipped but I have to keep reminding myself that it could be worse. I was doing just that (No broken bones! No spine damage! I can stand up!) when I heard that a friend of a friend slipped on the ice the same day as me but she somehow wound up with internal bleeding so...yeah. I'll keep my complaining (the pain!) down to a minimum.

My holiday party was yesterday and the weather cooperated by snowing like mad in a place where we get an inch of snow at a time, tops. People had to cancel because they were snowed in but I still had an okay turnout. Here is the thing: What do you do about the awkward couple that is bickering? The whole time? And not so much just bickering, but really making things uncomfortable? What do you do if you've known this couple for years and things have been getting worse for a long time but you can't say anything because, seriously, who is able to say anything in this scenario? He doesn't beat her but he sure isn't nice to her and now she's starting to talk back which makes for all kinds of awkward. I had just secretly hoped that he wouldn't show, but he did, and it caused weirdness. I don't think it is quite my place to get involved, because I can't bad mouth her husband to her face, so at most I'm just supportive of her and I stay out of it, right? Or is there some polite and firm way to be like "yikes you guys totally bummed out like 8 other people the other night, maybe consider not doing things together in public anymore" (and girlfriend he's emotionally abusive, leave him)?

Yeah. We always say we want our friends to be totally honest with us but when it comes right down to it when is the line for honesty drawn? Another friend just cancelled his wedding because she left him and all of his friends let out a big THANK GOD because we could not stand the woman. She was a nightmare. At one point we all chimed in a bit, not much, and guess what? He essentially stopped talking to us for 6 years. Now that she's gone (we hope) he's socializing and doing things that make him happy again, yet if we even breathe the words that maybe this is for the best he would probably stop talking to us all again. You say you want your friends to tell you if you're doing a bad thing but do you? Or do people just have to make their own mistakes while friends stand sportively, and silently, by?

On to an entirely unrelated topic: My damn hair won't hold a curl anymore. It used to curl up nicely with the aide of a curling iron and now it hardly holds a wave. I haven't changed anything, I usually wash my hair about every third day and I do use the same conditioner almost exclusively, but switch around on shampoo. My hair is highlighted and semi-healthy, I only heat style once a week or less now. Google won't tell me what is up, any ideas?

No real post for you! But maybe some soup.

2009-12-07T21:30:00.000-08:00

Mish mash of things going on since I can't be bothered to actually write anything:

Or actually, I am in AGONY and may not be writing anything again for awhile because you know what is particularly awesome with a chronic neck injury? The person who said slipping cartoon style, feet over head, and landing on their back in a parking lot wins. I'm looped on muscle relaxers and praying this does not get any worse, the least of which would be dealing with workmans comp, I'm not even as stressed about the pain as I am about the potential beurocratic hell.

I'm supposedly having my annual holiday party this Saturday, pray that my neck is better, or everyone gets to sit on pile of clean laundry (it hurts to even think about folding it much less putting it away right now) and they are eating damn sqeeze cheese from those aerosol cans because I'm not cooking squat.

Still hate my job. Still don't know what the hell I'm doing with my life. Here I am, with bonafied wrinkles and everything, and I haven't done a thing. What is my purpose? How am I supposed to help? How can I make the world a better place? These thoughts have been nearly overpowering lately and only with the aid of meds can I share them with you.

Go read The Happiness Project. Very, very good stuff. Especially the interview bits where people wish they could tell their younger selves that happiness is internal, not external, and that things and accomplishments won't neccesarily make you happier if you hadn't already worked on your well being to begin with. This is a book I will definately be buying (full price no less!) and something I want to explore further, hopefully when the shooting pain and muscle spasms stop.

I'm looking forward to my party this weekend even if people have to come over in filth and bring their own food. Must be a sign of maturity: some social things are getting easier for me because I'm actually learning to be chill about them and not stress. Cut to panicked blog post Satruday afternoon where I am weeping and telling you that I just can't handle it, but let us pretend shall we?

I have more but I hurt. Be good. Pray to the neck gods for me.

These Boots Were Made For Display Only

2009-12-01T21:57:00.000-08:00

Because they certaily weren't made for walking, much less wearing.

I have been literally pining over this one pair of boots for, like, half a decade. At least as long as I have seen them in a certain catalog which I know has been several seasons now. I finally broke down, with the help of awesome coupon codes and birthday money, and bought said boots for myself.

Never mind that I have absolutely nothing to wear them with.

Never mind that I can’t even afford to buy anything to wear them with.

Never mind that they didn’t have size 6 so I had to go up to 6.5 (thick wool socks!).

Never mind that it is stupid to spend money on something like this when really what I need are work shoes without holes in them or bras that aren’t going to give my ribcage tetanus or a damn replacement retainer for my upper teeth since I lost the last one. NO! Never mind all that!

Right.

Pshhhhh. Guilt aside from my stupid purchase I’ve been anxiously awaiting their arrival for over a week now. They showed up today. They aren’t quite as cute as they are in the picture, the tread on them is atrocious for folks like me who live in a climate where snow will show up and frankly they are made more cheaply than I would have thought, but whatever, fine. I have my boots.

Boots that won’t ZIP UP MY DAMN CALF.

Are you freaking kidding me? I’ve got NORMAL legs; all my fat is carried oh so sexily in the spare tire region making pants impossible to zip up, not shoes (why can’t the fat just move to my boobs?).

I’ve owned many a pair of boots before, some even knee high, that have no problems zipping up my calf. I’ve tried on many a pair of boots before, of every style, and none have ever had issues zipping up around my calf. These boots are ridiculous. I don’t know whether to be happy to have the excuse to send them back and hence not carry the guilt for my stupid purchase around or whether to be damn ticked off that they are total crap and clearly not designed for the human form. Sure, a skinny model who has pin legs can wear them in the photo but us mere mortals can’t expect to wear them at all.

I would maybe consider googling “how to stretch out boots” to see if I could avoid the hassle of sending them back but I don’t need them to just fit my bare leg; I imagined myself wearing them over those skinny jeans that the kids are so crazy about these days. Or perhaps with thick tights and a skirt. Not that I own thick tights, a winter skirt, or skinny jeans but I’m allowed my fantasies, yes? These won’t zip over freshly saved legs; I can’t imagine how they’ll ever fit over wool or denim. I’m just so bummed.

Know anyone with bird legs that wears 6.5 American size shoe that wants overpriced boots to compliment their wardrobe this year? Bah. If you need me I’ll be quietly weeping on the inside and hollering at the catalog returns folks. I’m not paying to return something that is clearly shoddy workmanship to begin with.

Blue Nails and Community (crap TV show)

2009-11-23T16:37:00.000-08:00

Nail polish is doing an awesome job of keeping me from eating my cuticles into bloody stubs. I haven’t gnawed on my fingers since Halloween, which, as a long time nervous nibbler is HUGE. That is weeks people, WEEKS.

I’m not so much feeling the blue polish I have on now though, which is another sign that I’m entering a different period in my life because this specific blue polish was my absolute, utter, to-die-for favorite in high school. The bottle is over 11 years old and I made a paper funnel and poured nail polish remover into it, shaking each small amount for about 5 minutes, to loosen the polish up and make it viable again. The color is still as awesome as I remembered it and even revived it had done a killer job of sticking but still…this color isn’t working for my anymore. I did this while watching Community, the new NBC sitcom,on my laptop, which is such a major let down of a show that I’m super bummed they even made it. With a cast like they have, and a concept that is ripe for the mining, I can’t understand how the show can be so totally boring, hackneyed, and predictable. It is bad, so bad, and I’m really bummed that I spent money on Amazon Watch Now ($6.00!) to see the first few episodes, but at least I had my nail polish revival project to keep me mildly entertained.

Oh 30 Rock and The Office, please don’t ever leave me. Nothing can compare to you. (Is anyone else loving the new office love drama between Andy and the new receptionist as much as me? I hated Andy before but now he has grown on me and I’m such a sucker for a good office love story after Jim and Pam. Love Jim and Pam too. They are my imaginary friends.)

I’m spending Thanksgiving (American Gluttony Holiday for those readers that aren’t in the US) at the significant other’s parents’ house. What color should I make my nails for said occasion? I don’t want to go all holiday matchy matchy and do orange/brown but I’m also not leaving it this blue.

Debt collectors can suck it

2009-11-21T21:49:00.000-08:00

Debt Collection Companies for credit cards are like the mafia but worse. At least you can reason with the mafia (their daughter is always getting married somewhere, right?). And they don’t farm out their goons to the damn middle east and call 20 times a day. I like to think that the mafia may break your knees but you’ll get some good pasta out of it and not have to listen to your name monstrously mispronounced as some poor English as a second language schmuck harasses you over debt that you can’t pay that they decided to charge eight thousand additional percent on.

I’ve had my share of run ins with debt collectors. I’m much heartier about it now as an adult (yes, I have decided that I am an adult now, see growing up tag in previous posts) and see that there are many mistakes I could have avoided and been tougher about.

I’m virtually out of my bad debt, it only took living in a city I pretty much hate and suffering job(s) I abhor for half a decade but I did it! Yay! And perhaps someday I should get together a really good post, or series of posts, about what I did and learned in hopes that it might help someone else.

The reason I’m on this topic is because one of my favorite websites had to go MIA because debt collectors cyber stalked my buddy and literally harassed them with their own blog words. Jebus. The mafia totally wouldn’t have played it like that. Wire a bomb to your car? Sure. Leave animal heads in your bed? Sure. But finding someone’s blog and exploiting it to collect money is a new unbelievable level of bullshit. I hope that no one I know and love, including my adored readers, and the network of wonderful people I know online, and anyone decent, ever has to deal with debt or struggle with debt collectors. And if they do I hope they aren’t harassed on such a personal level. I’m pretty sure that crosses a major line and it is too bad that as consumers we are still essentially powerless to stop such kinds of harassment from occurring. I mean, really, what can my friend do? File a complaint that will never get read about the companies crossing personal lines? Yuck. And Bah. And I’m sorry.

I’d totally send the mafia after the debt collector if I didn’t want to wind up owing the mafia a favor. Un-named favors always turn out bad.

Letting go of bad habits?

2009-11-14T16:59:00.000-08:00

I’ve started painting my nails.

Which is to say, I’ve kept my fingernails painted for two whole weeks! Two! I very rairly paint my fingernails (black for Halloween, that is it) and I haven’t painted my toenails in at least a decade*.

Polish on my toenails feels horrible. Polish on my fingernails feels odd, but I’m doing this in an effort to not chew my cuticles. As a life long nervous habit collector I’ve decided it is time, after nearly 3 decades on this planet, to get a grip, stop attacking my hands, and do a bit of growing up already.

The succession goes like this:

AGE:
12: start biting nails

19: stop biting nails, start chewing cuticles

20: stop chewing cuticles, start smoking

20.5: decide ugly cuticles better than lung cancer; stop smoking, back to cuticle chewing

21-26: do both intermittently off and on

26: start chewing inside of cheek

27: Sweet Jebus is that a wrinkle on my cheek? From pursing my mouth to chew the inside of my cheek? AUGHGHEHGHGHGHGH

27: chew chew chew the cuticles, try to stop biting cheek

27.5: HATE NEW WRINKLE

27.6: HATE NEW WRINKLE SO MUCH

27.8: OH MY GOB I HAVE FOREHEAD WRINKLES TOO, AUGHGHGHGHGHE

27.9: try myriad of face creams/retina A/clarisonic, nothing works. chew cuticles

28: Damn stupid wrinkles. Damn stupid ugly cuticles. Time to save for laser peel. Why am I almost 30 and still so damn poor?

28.1: Time to paint nails to stop attacking my cuticles. Decide to wait another decade for botox to see if the stuff is actually safe or if it seeps into brain and causes irreparable damage as I suspect is more likely the case. Buy stupid expensive face cream that makes my skin orange (damn vitamin C).

28.2: commence obsessive gum chewing

So far the polish has worked. I’m using a good cuticle cream, keeping things groomed, and avoiding attacking my hands. I haven’t bloodied my cuticles in days now! Yay me! Yay for adulthood and growing up and leaving the nervous habits of youth behind!

This nail polish stuff is TEH CRAP though. My nails reject all polish, whether it be OPI or Wet N Wild. Even with a base coat, 3 coats of color, and a super top coat, the stuff peels almost immediately. I think it is just my natural nail oils or something. I find I have to touch it up nearly daily, and apply glitter polish on top of the base color because that holds things together better. That said, even with 10 layers of tough polish held by glitter my nails are still weak and break and I can’t keep them long anyway since my job is labor intensive. Hell, I can hardly type with my nails past my finger tips.

I’m sure in another couple of weeks I’ll have to strip the stuff completely off and leave my nails bare again. The upkeep is retarded and it can’t be good to suffocate my nails. How do women do this? How do they keep their nails painted? The only conclusion I can come up with is that their nails don’t reject polish like mine do. And yes, I clean my nails then wipe on polish remover to remove oils before I put on the base coat, so I do read internet advice.

So that, oh internet, is my boring bit of news. Nail painting. Breaking the habit of cuticle chewing. What is new with you?

*yet ironically own about 60 bottles of nail polish. Enough to paint the entire rainbow across my ten nails. Invite me to your next slumber party, manicures on me!

Because Growing Up Isn't Hard To Do

2009-11-14T16:57:00.000-08:00

I think I’m mixing phrases here, as the phrase I’m basing this tag on is actually “breaking up is hard to do”. That song is now stuck in my head and I could totally play if off like I meant to use that phrase because I’m breaking up with my childish ways or something but I’m not, and that would be a lie. Maintaining a youthful and vibrant attitude toward life, and yes, keeping even a bit of childishness, is a key component to growing up. Mixed phrases or not I’m keeping it because I like it. My blog, my tag. Suck it.

Clearly I’ve got the mature and respectful part of growing up going for me.

My early 20s were a mess. My mid 20s won’t trigger PTSD flashbacks but they weren’t anything to write home about either. Now, in my late 20s, and closing in on that next decade that seems scary in some ways but actually exciting in others, I find that I’m ready to start making conscious changes toward improving my life, building a real foundation (I need to make an IRA contribution before 30 damnit) and finding my adult identity. From simple things like cleaning out my high school clothes from my closet to bigger things like mapping out my career I plan to document such things under this tag for the next two years. I see examples of how to be young, how to be married, how to have kids, and how to date all in the blogging world but I never see examples of how people actually grow up.

By grow up I mean not eating fast food 3 times a day; I mean having clean clothes that actually fit and can be worn to work that don’t require last minute hem stapling, I mean having a car where the floor mats are visible and learning how to actually host a good party. I mean finding a hairstyle different from the one I wore in my 9th grade yearbook photo, a skin care regimen that combats clogged pores and wrinkles, friends that I can grow older and wiser with, and a damn pair of shoes that go from work to dinner without leaving me looking like a trucker or a prostitute.

Let’s see how this goes.

Starting with stopping some bad habits.

Of Celsius and the one I can't spell

2009-11-12T18:50:00.001-08:00

I live in the Northern Hemisphere.

It is November.

It is 75 degrees Fahrenheit today, tomorrow, yesterday, the whole rest of the week. Try not to be jealous :)

According to my trusty companion Google it is 23.8 degrees Celsius. Which has sidetracked my whole other purpose for this post. My question for you metric folks is this: Does the number 23.8 actually sound pleasant to you? I mean, when I, as a child of the non metric world, hear the number 75 and the word degrees after it I melt into just a bit of happiness. Perfect, sunny, beautiful, warm weather awaits me. Because of this any number between 75 and 85 has a positive connotation for me whereas 23.8 would mean heavy coats, sweaters, mittens and probably setting fire to a trash can for warmth, but for you it might connote all the positive pleasures I listed above. I find that though much of the time I speak the same language as the people I interact with, (and you must be proficient in English to even be reading this), that the things we associate as pleasurable or positive differ greatly region by region, even office cubicle by office cubicle, and isn’t dependant on personal experience even, sometimes it is just dependant on quirks like Fahrenheit versus Celsius.

23.8 indeed.

Celsius is far easier to spell though.

Glass be for windows only says I

2009-11-12T18:49:00.001-08:00

I will not buy your matching coffee table with two end tables.

I will not pay $250.00 for something that is “Practically Brand New!” for more reasons than I can begin to iterate, the first being that if I had $250.00 and were in the market for a matching coffee table with two end tables I would prefer to actually buy something New, not something like it.

I hate to judge further but in this economy what were you thinking buying metal frame with glass top tables? These are impractical tables. You should have just gone to the dump like the rest of us and picked up some of those classy large wooden spools that can be used as tables. Or fashioned some milk crates into furniture using duct tape and ingenuity.

I am trying to not let my own preference for tables that aren’t precarious and don’t shatter enter into this matter, but it is a factor. Glass table tops are never, never, never a good idea. This is actually a rule that probably makes it into my top ten rules for living. Somewhere under always flossing and always letting drivers merge, it is just good practice. Tempered glass or not you are clearly not a person who utilizes their critical thinking skills. If you had, the following may have dissuaded you from your bad purchase decision in the first place:

Glass tops show more dirt, require more cleaning, more dusting, more hassle.
Glass tops break. Tempered or not, you do something stupid, you have an eight inch shard sticking out of your jugular.
There is no storage in such tables. You show me a person who can’t use a drawer in their end tables and I’ll show you a person with a guest room that is packed to the gills with things that belong in drawers. Or a dump.

I really ought to stop reading the employee bulletin board because clearly. I need a more productive hobby.

Or a used treadmill for $450.00.

Bah.

If you can't do, Management is in your future

2009-11-12T18:47:00.000-08:00

My current boss and I Do. Not. Get. Along.

I don’t mean in the way that I haven’t gotten along with other bosses. This boss is not taking credit for my work, lying about raises, ignoring my reviews, being overall catty or weird. I’ve had a slew of bad, bad bosses in my lifetime, yet this one isn’t totally, completely, one of the “bad” ones. We simply Do. Not. Get. Along.

At all.

I cannot manage him and ergo cannot function under his lead.

Through a series of headaches and questionably fortunate events I got to keep my job. We underwent a huge re-org, many people including myself forfeited any sort of raises or promotions, we all took substantial paycuts, many people are on reduced hours and many people were let go or took the “voluntary” retirement. I know that I am lucky in that I got to keep a job, any job, especially with healthcare, in this economy, but sometimes I don’t wonder if being laid off would have been the catalyst to propel me to doing something better, or substantial, or non soul wounding. It more likely would have lead to me being destitute and homeless, depressed and useless, but my mind (which we all know delights in torturing me) chooses to firmly believe that I would have walked out the door of my job with my pink slip and fallen into some sort of travel writing gig or novel deal or stand up comedy career or something. In any case things have been in upheaval since the great re-org of ’09 and to say that I am adjusting well is to say that I want Kirstie Alley to help me with my diet meal planning and healthy eating choices.

My very first job, with taxes and a paycheck and the whole deal, was for a married couple in a small coffee house. The husband chain smoked at least two packs of Marlboro Reds the entire morning, from 7-11:30AM, standing outside scowling and customers while I did all the work. He was the good boss. The wife came in on afternoons and was torture to work with. She was a penny pinching psychotic who screamed at me if I made the icecream scoops too big (in front of the customers no less), used expired milk, kept all the tips and mostly made me dread afternoons for years to come. My parents said I was very lucky because my first experience with a “real” job was with horrible bosses so I would be well prepared for the real world. This should give you an idea of what optimistic, happy folks my parents are. Bosses were mostly downhill after that.

I got along fairly well with the boss before this. Yes, he lied. Procrastinated. Said one thing and did the other. Played people behind their backs. Screwed me badly on a raise. But he never took credit for my work, never badmouthed me to other employees, and (this is the best part) mostly hid in his office away from operations so I was left to do my job in peace. I liked this boss, for all his shortcomings, and the marked lack of friction caused me sadness when I heard of the changes around the department.

New boss is much younger. New boss is kinda a jerk. New boss does have some great ideas about how to repair a department that has been left to decompose entirely on its own for years, how to get deadbeats to at least contribute a bit and how to improve things like documentation and efficiency. New boss, however, poorly communicates, changes his mind constantly, assumes we are psychic, and says charming things like “I don’t care” numerous times a day.

He tells us to email if we are sick and then tells us he never reads his email. He skims emails to “get the gist” of them or deletes them entirely without reading them at all. So if someone is out sick? No one knows. Nevermind the tedium of documenting or asking for help in an email that will never be opened.

He disappears for hours on end.

He schedules meetings and doesn’t show up.

He doesn’t listen to his phone messages. He says he saves them all and listens to them once a day.

He doesn’t answer his phone. He says it isn't productive. But he does talk on the phone to his family. All. Day. Long. I know he is capable of multitasking because he does this while watching youtube.

He cancels our staff meetings then is rude to us when no one knows what is going on.

He is inconsistent. He and I have had issue over this numerous times now. It goes like this: I bring up something that we normally used to do that needs to continue being done. He says he doesn’t care, it isn’t important, tells us all not to do it. We all do it anyway. He comes back after a bit, after talking to the boss above him, and tells us we actually should do it, never acknowledging that he was wrong ( a huge, wrong, pompous ass at that) in the first place.

I have a neck injury and cannot sit in the broken chair provided for me at an offsite location; I request to do my work remotely from my desk. He says I complain too much.

I have a huge issue that management needs to be involved with that is a glaring contradiction to company policy. At first he tells me that I need to tell big important people that the answer is No. Then I make him talk to them since I have no authority and he turns around and yells at me to get it done at all costs even though it is a breach of security and borderline illegal. This has happened not once but nearly a dozen times!

He doesn’t follow through. He doesn’t listen. He is immune to reason. He isn’t actually managing us, as a matter of fact; he gave us a lecture on what his needs are and how to manage him in order to make our working relationship better.

Now I get angry when I see emails from him. I want to snap at him when I need something because he is just going to blow me off then turn around and demand it be done. He thinks he is rational and smart and since he spends hours a day reading productivity blogs he knows how to manage. He doesn’t. He is awful. And I’m not doing any better.

I don’t know how my co-workers relate to him, I only know how they feel about him: They can’t stand him. They’ve all adapted an air of completely not caring at all. They’ve all been here much longer than I and have weathered numerous bosses so they are able to sit in meetings, agree to whatever, then go about their own day and their own jobs. I am going to have an aneurism if I don’t learn to do this. I need to not take things so seriously. I need to not lunge across a conference room table and throttle him the next time he does a complete about-face about something and instead... well, do anything else instead, I guess.

I can’t find a way around him. I can’t find a way through him. I need support and management and his actions impact everything I do so I must find a way to deal with him. All his issues aside, however, we have personalities that do not mesh.

We go together like a pebble in a shoe, like sand in tuna salad, like Britney Spears and moral decency or cognitive function. If he weren’t my boss and just my coworker we probably would have already come to blows.

I feel like I’m sinking into the land of crazy every time I talk to him. I can’t find a way to communicate with him, especially since email, phone, meetings, even one on one sessions seem to be out. What the hell should I use on this guy? Smoke signals? I can’t avoid him entirely, yet I can’t conform partially either; his decisions are crippling my job. I’ve already gone to the boss above him and she did what she could for specific issues but I’ve still got to handle him daily.

It is always something, yes? I should find the Zen balanve in that. The re-org jettisons a few awful co-workers and lands me with this. At least I have a job. I can’t forget that. I can, however, explain nicely to the New Boss that I no longer bother to read his emails (via email) since he has made it clear that he doesn’t read mine. That should go over well.

No longer a charming slice of life blog, now just a dumping place for my mental garbage

2009-08-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

Pretending that I haven't been MIA for, oh, the entire summer, let's just jump to the updating and get it on with shall we?

Reunion:

I went. I saw. I conquered. I'm glad I went because now I will never have the regret of not going and wondering what it would have been like but otherwise it wasn't earth shattering, there were no revelations, no friendships rekindled. I did not wear the super sexy dress I blew half my rent on, I wore a webcomic t-shirt with a cropped blazer and fitted pin stripe knee shorts with snake skin print heels and am very happy with the decision. The best part of the whole thing? Honestly? Was my date. I really, really like this boy. Which makes me really, really insane. Seriously. What is worse than not having everything you ever hoped and dreamed for? Actually getting it. And the self sabotage that follows.

Weight:

Sweet jebus it is never going to leave me. I present, for your viewing ONLY and non commenting pleasure, me, in a bikini, 6 pounds ago. Yes I've gained since last month (I've included my double chin but cropped out my hair, the brand of beer I was holding, and most of the backdrop. Sexay!):

Now, I post this for several reasons. First, this is what 30 extra pounds on a tiny frame look like. Second, would it kill me to drop the beer and tone up already? Third, and most important, the reason why I haven't posted in a long, long time: This blog is crap.

Total, complete, and utter crap.

I started blogging in order to practice writing witty and charming and humorous observations about my life and life in general. It has instead become my secondary therapy, the place where I vent all the crap not fit to share with myself much less the world. It isn't funny, it isn't insightful, it's just me pouring out my insecurities and short comings and misery to the world. Most of the blogs I admire manage to write beautifully about their lives in a funny, human, and touching way instead of making the internet their garbage dumping ground. Now, I need it to be clear that I'm far more sane than any of this about 75% of the time, but somehow this became my confessional journal of misery. And you know what? Tough. It is going to stay this way. As a matter of fact it is going to get MORE this way. Much more. You may not want to continue reading because the rants are going to get worse, the insanity and self obsession more intense, overall, honestly, it is going to look like a damn teenaged angst filled diary except that I'm damn near 30.

I've avoided writing for so long because I wanted to avoid constant bitching and harping and being miserable. Then I realized that this is really my only outlet for such things. In therapy we focus on getting me better and positive things. With my friends I don't share nutty insecurities that even I know are retarded and stupid. With the boyfriend I never mention that I feel like a land whale and want to go on Survivor just for the starvation benefits.

I've made so many wonderful friends blogging over the years, and get to be a part of so many lives. The guilt over the fact that this is my dumping ground for total crap has kept me from blogging because I don't want to burden the interweb with it. The world doesn't need more negativity and surely the amazing people I've come to know and love don't need it either. The fact remains, however, that I need an outlet and this is the forum for it. I am choosing to not feel guilty over posting trite crap. I am choosing to let you know that I'll continue to visit your wonderful blogs and I am okay if you stop visiting here because really? Who needs the negativity, you know?

I'm not going to try to craft well written bits or edit myself. When I feel like bitching or being angsty I'm going to do so. I'm not going to try to post regularly, I'll post when it happens.

So I leave you with this: Breast implants. Jebus there were a TON of fake titties at the reunion. And I may be overweight but some of those bitches wrinkled up like Donatella Versache in the last 10 years and I don't know how. Did they smoke three cartons a day and live on the equator? Have they heard of sunscreen? I don't plan to be wrinkled like that even when I'm 80 and that is without botox. Seriously freaky.

And this was supposed to be a short update...

2009-05-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

Wow. I don’t know where to start. First: Sorry for such a long posting gap. Here’s where I’ve been for the last almost three weeks:

Fun Filled Family Vacation!

Or not really. But it was an amazing success because I made it back in one piece, everyone is alive, and I didn’t have to sneak out for cocktails or snort lines of xanax to make it through. I did not, however, in almost a week straight of walking and being on my feet for at least 8 hours a day, lose even one pound. Not one. When I got back I was THREE POUNDS HEAVIER. Those pounds are gone, and I’m back to my starting point, but peeved. That much cardio and standing should equal weight or inches lost. (Don’t mind me, I’m just hiding in the corner pretending like I wasn’t inhaling churros, soft pretzels and pizza the whole time…)

…Mmmmmmm churros. And Pineapple whip. Oh heavens, there was this fresh pineapple soft serve that I had that was simply delightful. I want one again now….

Which brings us to:

Weight Loss:

Oh heavens people, I now have 30 days counting today to lose 10 lbs and firm up. That is IF I decide to go to this stupid reunion. IF.

Stupid Reunion:

Have you ever heard of a ten year High School Reunion costing $75.00 per person? Oh he-yell no. I went to the reunion two classes above me and it was like $15.00 and included two drink tokens. Aren’t these things supposed to be in the High School gym? Mine is being held in a stupid super post locale accessible only by gondola in a super expensive resort town (I grew up there, sure, but we was poooooor….And damn I’m still pooooor) and is “cocktail casual” which I can’t decipher. Do I wear a cocktail dress with tennis shoes? A slinky top with pajama pants? Fuck cocktail casual. If I take along the boy, and I would have to take along a date, it would cost my $150.00. Yeah.

Several things about said reunion:

• I don’t care about anyone going save the one person, a dear old High School friend, who called and begged me to show up so that he’d have buffer. He is bringing his boyfriend and though people suspected his orientation in High School I imagine there will still be some whispers. I do like said friend but he has flaked on me pretty bad the last like 10 times we were supposed to see each other and he has a date and I bet he doesn’t need my buffer. He is likely the kind to ditch me the second someone “better” comes along.

• I wouldn’t be so uncertain about the stupid event if it weren’t so costly. I didn’t pay that much money for my prom tickets and dinner combined, now they expect me to cough this up? If it were cheaper, and easier to get to, and easier to escape from (WTF gondolas?) then I’d just get the tickets and decide that week. But nooooo, the deadline is looming and the tickets alone will cost my grocery and gas budget for almost two weeks.

• High School was okay, and I’m glad I did it, but I don’t live there and I don’t need a walk down memory lane. As much as I bitch in this forum (because y’all have figured out that this is where I vent, right?) I’m fairly happy with my life and feel in many ways that it is just getting started.

• The only compelling reason I really have to go is that I don’t want to regret not going in the future. It is some kind of adult milestone and if nothing I could observe, I guess, but current me has little desire. It is future me that I am worried about. And, there is always that super slim chance that maybe I’ll meet up with someone really great and get to reconnect. For the life of me I don’t know who that will be because I knew most of my graduating class of 300 but I’m trying to be optimistic? So the only thing keeping me from totally blowing it off is some fear that in the future I will regret not going. Yeah. I hate my brain too.

• I’m fat and vain. There. I said it. How can I judge all the crappy girls there if I’m 25 pounds chubbier than I was in High School? And no, I do not think I am wearing it very well. None of it hit my boobs, it all seems to be distributed in my gut, upper arms, and chin. Sexay.

• To reiterate: My only compelling reason to go is fear that I will regret not going in the future and my dear old friend begged me. Otherwise the whole thing will cost me AT LEAST $500.00 I don’t have, I’ll look like a land whale, and my boyfriend may never talk to me again if I force him to attend with me (this is only one slot away from family functions). Yeah. Great. Did I mention that I must now decide by this Sunday? Tickets have to be bought by then. Bah Bah Bah!

Moving:

I’m going on day 5 in the new place with no water. Because I moved on the three day holiday weekend no one could come fix it and now there is bickering between the owners, the rental company and the property management place over what is wrong and why it isn’t fixed. While this is nice and all I STILL HAVE NO WATER. Luckily I only moved next door so I’ve been padding down the hall in a bathrobe every morning (and whenever I have to pee, which is a lot, I drink much water) to shower in my empty old place.

Today when I woke up in the new place there was no electricity. The power company blames this on a “misunderstanding” with the move order. They assure me that it will be fixed by the time I get home today. What do you think those odds are?

Work:

Tomorrow is the big re-org departmental wide meeting. Cross your fingers that something wonderful and magical happens and I somehow get to keep my job. I’ve applied all over the place, including different cities, followed up and done my very best, and heard absolutely nothing back. Things are still bad, regardless of what retarded economists predict the recession to end this year. For who? Paris Hilton? Bitch can’t even pronounce the word because it is more than two syllables long.

So there is your * quick * update. I’ll be able to write again next week when I hopefully have water, electricity, and internet all back up and working. Until then be good and think skinny thoughts for me. Skinny, lottery winning, job having thoughts for me. I know I will think them for all of you :)

Bah to this fatness already

2009-05-14T20:55:00.000-07:00

In response to Sally’s question about how my clothes are fitting: Not well.

I have a (painful, excruciating, ridiculous) family trip to go on at the end of this week and was feeling confidant that I would fit into some shorts from last year. After all, I am back into my (sadly) normal weight range. Normal because I’ve been a minimum of 20 pounds overweight for the last…mmm…five years at least. Hence I’m back to *normal*. Well, perhaps not so much. I can’t button up one pair of shorts. Not one. I know they fit when I went to Mexico last October but I was at least eight pounds less then. Being short means 8 pounds = no shorts for me. I don’t have the money to buy news ones so I’m debating fashioning some stylish culottes out of bedsheets and calling it a day.

I still have 10 pounds to lose by June 27 and that is my adjusted hope, back when this all started I wanted to lose a total of 25 pounds by then which would have meant 15 more pounds, but short of quitting my job (which will quit me June 30th, ironically) and working out nine hours a day and hiring a brilliant team of scientists and chefs to prepare exact nutritionally balanced meals that come in at 1300 calories a day I don’t know how in Pete’s name this would even happen.

Big picture? My weight loss has been slow, but it has been mostly loss, not gain. I’m not seeing any toning of any muscles anywhere but my stamina is better. 8 weeks ago just walking down the street at work during lunch caused my shins and calf muscles to tighten so bad I had to stretch every few hundred yards. Now I can walk at a brisk pace for over 45 minutes, only stopping to stretch a few times, and am getting close to touching my toes again. These are great accomplishments. If I wasn’t considering attending this 10 year High School Reunion (of dooooooooom) then I’d be thrilled. I’d be on track, albeit a slow track, to getting in decent shape, being able to have fun outside again, and I wouldn’t have this deadline looming ahead of me. I’m 25 pounds heavier now than I ever was in high school and it’s not like I have kids or something to show for it. All I have to show for it is years of depression smothered in nacho cheese.

This morning I was really down and googled Nutrasystem. It is basically crash dieting, I know, and not a long term solution, I know, but I looked at it anyway. And got annoyed. It is about $350.00 for one month and that doesn’t include the fruits, veggies, and dairy I would have to buy to supplement their plan. I don’t have that kind of money. I don’t even spend that much money in a month for food. If I am spending that kind of money I expect them to send me lobster on their damn plan because hell, it is low cal if I skip the butter.

The only advantage to Nutrasystem is that it requires virtually no thought. And no thought, I have learned, is the key to my weight loss success. After a few weeks of measuring calories and making myself healthy mini meals I begin to break down. I can’t let my brain being any part of the process; it gets lazy or it sabotages me and I’m back to square one. It may take me a month to take off five pounds but I can put on those five pounds in one weekend: My brain cannot be trusted.

I need a good calorie restricted diet at this point where thought is virtually removed. I did good for 8 weeks on my own but I’m breaking down and not losing weight anymore. I wouldn’t want to put this push in because it is counterproductive to attaining a livable, healthy lifestyle but my ego won’t let me waddle into the reunion looking like Eris the Hut.

So what do I do?

Because Pigeons Trashed my Balcony

2009-05-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

They tore the tarp apart that I used to cover my storage boxes.

They dumped leaves and pine needles and bits of feathers everywhere.

They crapped and crapped and crapped massive piles of bird shit on every available surface.

They knocked over my deck chair and crapped on that too.

They went too far.

I put out mouse traps. Everywhere.

The first day after I put out the traps and came home, several of the traps had been set off and were broken. I reset them if I could, put them back up, and went inside to drink heavy liquor and hide. The pigeons have given me the shakes. I've never been a brandy or whiskey drinker but a few more days of this and I imagine I'd be downing snifters of the stuff without need for a glass.

Four days since the resetting of the traps I haven't seen any signs of them. The traps are still set. The balcony is still trashed. But there isn't any extra trashing of late. I didn't like putting out snappy traps for the bastards, but I tried everything else and I don't want to die from pigeon disease. They can have the balcony when I move out, in a mere matter of weeks now, but until then they need to not use my space as a toilet.

Every time I hear a noise now, a printer starting at work, the upstairs neighbor showering, I jump up and think I need to go scare the pigeons off. I have damn pigeon PTSD. I have nightmares that they are going to smash through the sliding glass door and peck my eyes out. I'm afraid to walk outside.

Oh, and I've lost just about 10 pounds in 7ish weeks. BAH. I mean, YaY weight loss, not so yay on very slow going. But progress is progress, and I've got that.

Sallyacious and the CEO have thoughtful discourse

2009-05-04T19:56:00.000-07:00

The following interaction between Sallyacious and Monty The CEO in regard to my last two posts makes me wish I had a higher blog readership because it is so good. I’m busy pondering their insight and waging war against two evil pigeons who have brought all their evil friends to flood by bacony with bird crap. Read, and enjoy:

sallyacious has left a new comment on your post "Addendum to the post below":

Maybe it's because you're settling for the status quo and selling yourself short.

You were ready to take a bigger step than this, whether you'd realized it or not. Are you sure this isn't a bit like settling for a boyfriend who's a nice guy and all, but who in the end isn't really who you're looking for?

You made the prudent choice, but prudent choices aren't always the most fun or interesting or growth-provoking choices. They're often the choices of stagnation.

Life, according to Carl Jung, gives us pain so that we can grow from it and become our complete selves. Prudent choices keep us in the same place. Only backwards.

Posted by sallyacious to Smells Like Nothing at April 29, 2009

The CEO has left a new comment on your post "Addendum to the post below":

I got caught pondering the last post while you put this one up. I'm going to take a middle course between you and Sally here. I like Sally's Jungian interpretation but think you both missed the object.

It's easy to point at the apartment and say that the next step was into something bigger and better, a better apartment or a house, yet this is the most improbable choice at this juncture of all of the variables under your control.

What do you have some say over? The boyfriend is where you have the most control, and the work you will seek next is the other. Saving money on housing simply makes sense and binds you for a year, or the extent of the lease.

I agree with Sally about growth, but I don't want to use Jung's term of pain, I'd rather use Maslow and Herzberg's term of risk. They actually mean the same thing. By taking risk, you can't be wallowing in all those things that make you feel good and help you avoid pain (like food).

A good risk for you might be taking your computer skills and finding a property developer and discussing job opportunities where you could work your way into floor plans. Or working with an architect doing something similar. Or considering telling the boyfriend maybe you both should date other people.

You should probably check with Sally, my personal biases are probably showing here. I may have an opinion to take responsibility for, in other words.

Posted by The CEO to Smells Like Nothing at April 29, 2009

sallyacious has left a new comment on your post "Addendum to the post below":

CEO - Excellent points.

I should clarify what I meant about pain. Pain comes from being stuck, from not addressing those things in our lives we need to address. We experience the pain because we're not being our authentic selves. So all of Eris' frustrations, etc.--according to Jung--would be that kind of pain.

We have two options when we get ourselves into these situations (and I have been in MANY; I have kind of a genius for finding them, I think, painful situations): we can choose to stay in the pain and remain stuck, or we can face the source of it and grow. But that brings its own issues, and in the end, the choice is between pain and fear.

So your risk is most assuredly a part of the equation. It's just what you take in response to the pain if you want to get anywhere.

Posted by sallyacious to Smells Like Nothing at April 30, 2009

The CEO has left a new comment on your post "Addendum to the post below":

Eris, you are truly graced with Sally as a friend. That is simply one of the most coherent explanations of Jung I have ever heard.

Everyone falls into problems. It what you do to get out that makes you who you become. You have talent. Start a business. Find a need and fill it. What do you need? So do a lot of others. You're smart, please don't forget that. Have a great day! And please, both of you, call me Monty.

Addendum to the post below

2009-04-29T20:25:00.000-07:00

Moving next door is fiscally responsible. I'm getting a decent apartment for a good price. I'm saving a ton of money on moving. They only want a deposit, not first and last. I'm saving money on rent. Now is not the economic climate nor personal job climate to be living out of my means. I know the building, I know the neighborhood. I get to live alone.

So why does this feel so wrong?

I'm ready for change yet this feels like I'm signing up for status quo; like I'm selling myself short, and I don't know why.

What is going on here?

In which my breakdown quiet time keeps getting broken by CHASING GODDAMN PIGEONS OFF MY DECK

2009-04-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

SWEET MOTHER OF GOB WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE PIGEONS GO AWAY?

The first pigeon couple got the hint after I scared them off 10 times a day for almost a week. This damn pigeon couple WON'T TAKE THE HINT and is scarily aggressive. I actually hit one with a broom mid flight when it came in and tried to dive bomb me (I was just waving the broom around people, it was an accident) and 10 minutes later the fuckers were back with twigs and bits of plants for nest building. This nonsense is distracting the hell away from my mind meltdown and not allowing me time to rock peacefully back and forth and mutter to myself. BAH.

Good News:
Found a place to live! Sign Lease tomorrow! It has the same exact amenities as my current apartment but with a better view, new paint, new carpet, new appliances, and new linoleum. The move is going to be ridiculously easy and the rent is $150.00 less a month than what I pay now. DEAL!

Why Eris is Crazy News:
It is the apartment next door. As in, 12 feet away. Which is lovely except that I've lived in exactly one floor plan for over 4 years and the new floor plan is just exactly that floor plan: reversed and backwards. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm going to have heaps of trouble adjusting to this. Never mind the broken toes when I stumble out of bed and smack into a wall in the wrong place; my brain is going to have trouble adjusting. It will be like living in bizaro world, or the other side of the mirror.

Moving there saves me mucho money, time, and effort, and in my current position I really had no choice. I've been looking at places in the same price range that I pay now and was going to wind up having to duct tape bags over single pane windows for energy savings, sleep with a chambered handgun, and beat my clothes clean out on rocks in a creek somewhere. I saw the place I'm moving to come on the market but for much higher rent, which they then dropped, and I lunged upon it like fucking pigeons lunge at my throat when I try to make them take their bird flu and filth elsewhere.

I know this is a good thing. I know I'm really, really lucky. I know.

But I'm really, really, sad and nuts right now. The current apartment has been my rock for almost half a decade. It is the only thing that stayed with me during my formidable young adult years. It is the only thing that has been safe, my home. The furniture has moved, the jobs have changed or been nonexistant, the weight has come on and off (and on), the friends have filtered in and out and disappeared, the relationships have changed (for the better) and through it all I've had my safety, my white walls, and my delicious walk in closet.

I finally figured out why I'm not handling this well: I feel betrayed. I feel like I'm breaking up with something. And I also feel like I'm taking a step back, not forward. I figured when I left this place it would be on good terms and I'd be moving up in the world. Something with a backyard. Something with higher ceilings. Maybe even something in another city. Instead my apartment, my sanctuary, my safety, decided to get all foreclosed on and become a mess and a nightmare and even IF I could have stayed they never would have lowered my rent to match the place next door. I thought we had something apartment. I thought we got each other. Instead you decided to go and hurt me like this, couldn't our goodbye have been amicable?

I want to cry but I can't. I'm not good at crying. A lifetime of suppressing emotions makes that happen. At least I'm acknowledging the emotions that are there as opposed to running, but still, I'm all sad and scared and lonely because I'm moving out of a stupid apartment. Yes.

If I could have stayed here at the price point of the place next door even though the carpets desperately need cleaning and the appliances aren't brand new I would have. This is home. This is safe. This inanimate dwelling has offered the only consistency and care I've had since "growing up". But I couldn't, and I can't. Instead I come home to a place that feels alien and lonely. A place that I vacillate between savoring and being angry at. A place I have to start imagining backwards and reversed so that I don't lose my mind completely.

A place that is technically home, but isn't.

2009-04-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

Every stupid ounce of energy I have is being spent trying to find a place to live, a means of income for my impending unemployment, trying not to break down and eat all the damn food I can get my hands on and chasing gobdamn pigeons off my deck. I'm kinda...close to snapping. My family is a mess, one of my friends is being a superbitch and disowned me (not just me, everyone, so I feel better?), my relationship DRIVES ME INSANE and renders me pathetically unstable/needy/wanting/momentarily happy/totally confused and my neck injury is flaring up BAD BAD BAD.

am nuts right now people. am nuts and 27 and in debt and have NOTHING to show for my nearly three decades on this planet other than crappy furnature that I found on the side of the road and a useless job and

Yeah.

must attempt sleep now.

I’m a total sucker for airplane food*

2009-04-25T13:49:00.000-07:00

Which may be the key to explaining my current contentment.

I’m not doing the environmentally correct thing; and I hate to admit this because I am the person who hates shampoo bottles and thinks we should be allowed to keep one and refill it direct from vats at the store to cut down on plastic waste, but I’ve been buying precut veggies and salads in non-reusable plastic bags and plastic containers and it feels GREAT.

Part of maintaining this current go at healthy eating has been the wonderful ease of buying pre-packaged salads and veggies. My brain associates cutting yummy, fresh, healthy veggies up and partitioning them into reusable plastic bins with depravation and misery. My brain hates taking care of me. It would rather eat half a stale bag of potato chips of questionable origin than make tuna for a sandwich. It would rather dig for 45 minutes though every kitchen bin imaginable for a few errant tootsie roll minis than whip up some whole wheat pasta. My brain: Functional Retardation at its finest (surprised we made it this far, actually).

I keep fresh fruit at my work desk, apples and oranges mostly, along with whole natural almonds and yogurts in the work fridge. I swing by the store on my way in and grab one or two of those veggies that steam in the bag (which I eat raw) and a premade salad by the bagged salads, and I’m happy. If I made the salad myself at home I’d resent it. I’d be angry at it. I’d go to sleep thinking “stupid salad” and wake up thinking “I hate that salad” and by lunch I’d be like “I hate that salad and my life and I’m hungry and I want a cheeseburger with onion rings now gobdamnit”. If I open my fridge and see rows of great, fresh, bite sized veggies in easy to grab containers a dark cloud settles over my mood and won’t go away. I apparently enjoy mystery in my life; I don’t want to know what I’m eating for lunch days ahead of time unless the words “buffet” and perhaps “all you can eat” are included.

I don’t know why my brain is like this; all I know is that it is. And I now know that I can bypass that whole loop if I buy my veggies precut and cleaned and my salads prepackaged all cute like. Hence airplane food: Give me two crackers in a tiny package and 1/8 ounce of peanut butter and I’m delighted. I don’t even like peanuts, or pretzels covered in “fiesta” spices, but if you put three or four in a tiny bag I’m all over it. Which may be why I’m so digging the current diet set up: It’s like vacation food. I don’t have to think about it, I don’t have to put any work into it, the calorie calculations are done by others and there are no plastic containers to clean out. Plus the mystery is still there: there aren’t five tubs of cucumbers and five tubs of salad and five tubs of tomatoes sitting in my fridge angrily nagging at me that I’m fat and a failure and they are all I can eat. No, my fridge is happy and veggie tub free and my brain is fooled by buying things in small doses.

I don’t have to worry about buying, cleaning, cutting, and preparing food for the week. I can wander into the store like a “normal” person and buy normal people food and I don’t feel deprived. I’m not spending hours of my week meal planning raw veggies and therefore focusing on my eating habits and therefore wallowing in self loathing. I can spend those extra hours a week wallowing in different kinds of self loathing, trying to find a new job, loathing, trying to find a new apartment, loathing, struggling with my credit, loathing, yelling at my wrinkles, loathing, you know, normal stuff.

Soon I may be bitching to you about my need for variety. I would love to see some jicama and beets precut and packaged for my convenience, I’m sure cauliflower and broccoli is going to start to wear on me, you know? But that shall be a post for another time.

Now.

If only I weren’t creating so much damn trash I wouldn’t have this nagging feeling of guilt but one thing at a time people, one thing at a time.

*Though luncheables are disgusting and can F themselves. That is one twee prepackaged meal I won’t touch with a ten foot pole.

UPDATE:
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Mmmmm, think they data mine the content of emails much? Because I'm not chalking this one up to coincidence.

I don’t glisten, I sweat Gobdamnit, and it ain’t pretty

2009-04-21T19:18:00.000-07:00

Where I grew up 85 degrees (some number smaller in Celsius, I imagine) is full blown, all out, glory wonderful summer.

Where I live now 85 degrees is the break before we get slammed with 100+ degree weather. Supposedly I’m to take this 85 degree weather and label it spring, which is LIES, dirty dirty lies. Spring is 65 degrees, sunny days, rain showers and brisk evenings. Spring is not supposed to choke the green out of whatever tiny foliage attempts to peak out and turn the world a dusty brown that lasts until it snows again. Spring is not supposed to reduce me to hiding under patches of shade and growling if people get too close.

Clearly, I don’t handle heat well. My genetics would have me in Northern London or Scotland somewhere, where the sun hardly ever burns through the mist and touches pasty European descended skin. My internal temperature gauge cannot regulate anything above 70 degrees. Around 75 I get uncomfortable, by 85 I’m vaguely annoyed and angry for no reason, by 100 I’m whimpering in a bathtub full of ice and trying to remember my name.

The heat dragged my lunch walk down today. It added five minutes to my time. When I arrived back at my office after my 2.2 mile loop I was a sweaty, blotchy, panting, disgusting mess. And I still had four more hours in which to grace my co-workers with my presence. I wouldn’t call myself fully ripe, but I would say I wasn’t spring fresh either.

I had hoped that what with it being APRIL and all that I would still have at least a blessed month before the heat hit in which to cram in physical activity during lunch. Sadly it appears that this is not the case. This current heat spell is here to stay. And I’m going to have to find a new way to get physical activity into my day that doesn’t involve soaking through my bra and undershirt right before important company meetings.

I envy my father’s generation. When he was growing up all they railed on about was the next ice age. The global climate trend was toward the cold. Now damn global warming has taken over and things are heating up. You won’t see me whimpering and confused in an ice age, is all I’m saying.

Damn heat.

Tired of my diet ranting yet?

2009-04-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

Fine then, I will give you a break.

I've spent the last week looking at apartments in the ghetto, reading apartment listings on every website available, driving all slow and creepy like down neighborhoods I like, and getting frustrated.

I'm getting absolutely no where in the apartment hunt.

Technically I only have two requirements: Safe and must have washer/dryer in unit. You would be surprised how hard it is to find these two things combined. My current place, while cute on the inside, really is in a don't go out after dark neighborhood but is a bit safer because it is an enclosed building. Well, it was, until someone drove into the lobby through the wall of windows just this week. Now I suppose if you really wanted to get in you could just push aside the caution tape, step gingerly around the shattered glass remnants and spray paint the interior of the elevator all you want. Because yes, in the time that I have lived here, people have tagged the elevator. The tagging luckily is usually confined to the outside of the building but still, this isn't the super best building, you know?

Technically I may only have two requirements but the list of hope-fors is longer. I want high(er) ceilings. My current ceilings are low and of the popcorn variety. My friend just moved to a fabulous place with vaulted ceilings and moulding and windows on more than one wall (my place only has windows on one side of the unit). I was drooling over the place until she pointed out her one problem: No closets. There is a tiny, shallow closet in her bedroom and that is it. She doesn't even have a pantry in the kitchen. I don't understand where she is supposed to store her sheets, towels, and shoes, much less coats for guests and her vacuum cleaner. She's paying the same price for that place that I am paying for mine and while mine feels like a dark, sad little dungeon after seeing her bright and airy domicile I must be grateful that I have no less than three closets, including a walk in! Plus I have a balcony that I have classily decorated with rubbermaid boxes full of crap covered in a tarp. So I guess I have to add must have storage to my list of needs. I really don't have that much, but this place is really small (all of it went to closets, methinks).

One question though: If you were building a beautiful development of swank loft two story townhouses what would make you decide that two bathrooms, one per level, was a smart idea for a space less than 600 square feet? Why wouldn't you put in a washer dryer in on of the twee bathrooms? Why would anyone think that a space than small would need two bathrooms? WHY? Because I tell you, I would have snatched that place up in a second. Apparently many people would save for the idiotic bathroom deal. I think the lease people are tired of being asked why there are two toilets per yet no washer/dryer. Common sense people: It ain't so common.

It’s all in the numbers

2009-04-15T18:24:00.000-07:00

The part that drives me nuts* about weight loss is that it is all a numbers game. A pound of fat is 3500 calories. A deficit must be created weekly of 3500 calories to lose said pound. This must be done with eating and movement combined. Movement must include cardio and strength training. Strength training is needed because muscle burns more than fat, it revs the metabolism, helps shed fat weight and get in shape much faster than cardio alone.

So I set about to eat healthfully, make good choices, slowly learn about real portions and what my caloric needs are, break a sweat and build some muscle, but the numbers are daunting. Actually knowing exactly how to lose a pound (in a numerical sense) rather takes away the mystery of it all in a not great way. I don’t care about the man behind the curtain, I am fine being in the dark about things. I have a terrible suspicion that like a cartoon character run off a cliff, if I didn’t know the numbers, and the character didn’t realize gravity existed, I would lose more weight in bliss and they would never fall. I fear that the universe will now make me follow this formula because I know it, whereas before I might have slipped by mostly unnoticed and lost, say, 22 pounds in just a few weeks.

If I was eating over 2,000 calories a day regularly then dropping to 1400 should have resulted in just over a pound lost a week. If I take that 4200 deficit and add 100 cals a day burned extra with movement I get 4900, which is about a pound and a half lost per week. If I want to really lose 2 or more pounds a week I’m going to have to find higher intensity ways to burn calories off because I can’t/won’t/will lose my damn mind if I attempt to restrict my calories any more.

This is rational, mathematical, and lovely on paper. It is not, however, happy to my brain or my fat gut. Perhaps I have been far too heavily influenced by years of media showing starlets/paid spokespeople/your mom losing weight practically by magic or performing special moves and eating special food because I really want to see that 5 pound loss in one week poof! Like magic.

Real weight loss takes time. It takes time and a shift in paradigm (sorry, work word). It could also take methamphetamines but I’m trying not to resort to that until two weeks before the reunion, you know? I try to look at that as a last go to effort, not a long term solution.

I’ve gained a average of 3 1/2 pounds per year since I was 19. That is an average because the weight came in waves, and I managed to lose the same 6 or 8 pounds over and over again for months in and out. But if I think of it in purely mathematical terms I’ve gained 28-38 pounds in 8 years, I can’t expect to lose all of it in three months. But I want to. I’ve never been a good one for planning, my papers are always written last minute and my projects completed in the wee morning hours. I’ve sorta been treating weight loss the same; ignoring the project and figuring I’ll be able to cram and save the day at the last minute. And it doesn’t help to see magazine covers promising 20 pound weight loss in three months and walking off 10 pounds by Easter. I know that the media lies, photoshops everything within an inch of its life, and tries to make us miserable about our bodies in order to sell us stuff. I know this. Yet a little part of me is still pissed that I haven’t dropped ten pounds in two weeks, which, I guess if I really wanted it I could try to pick up dysentery.

In the great weight loss journey the next steps are these:

Gently increase physical activity.
Do not aggravate injuries or conditions.
Join a cheap gym again.
Keep eating the way I am, but let there be a bit of play. If my body still gets the occasional pasta or pizza in right proportional sizes it won’t keep storing up for the famine.

I’ve got to increase calories burned up to about 400 a day, or 2800 a week, to meet the 4200 calorie deficit created by diet to add up to 7,000, or two pounds lost a week.

I can do my strength stuff at home with tapes in the AM, and hit the gym for cardio and intervals in the PM. I can still take walks at lunch, but those are more to stretch out and get away from my desk. I really can’t break a sweat or go jogging during lunch…in my work clothes…down the busy street we’re located on, which means I’ve met the limitations of a lunch walk.

Great! So I have the next step in the game plan. Only…What in heaven’s name burns 400 calories a day besides 3 hours of cardio? Any ideas?

*Mmm, this is a misnomer. Everything about weight loss drives me nuts. Nuts…like peanuts sprinkled on bananas and real whipped cream with chocolate sauce. Gobdamnit, I can’t even add a footnote without having a food fantasy.

Does the caloric content of a lean cuisine include the box too? Because I need something a bit more filling.

2009-04-10T21:30:00.001-07:00

You know it’s time to distract yourself with something else when you spend over an hour (at work) looking up various gummi candies on Amazon (Jelly Babies, Wine Gummys, Haribo Jellies, Jujyfruits) and can’t seem to stop yourself. I want to whip out the credit card, order every variety, and eat my way through pounds and pounds of corn syrup, food coloring, and gelatin.

Yes.

This is not good.

For nearly a week I’ve been stuck at XX2.4. I’ve been getting activity, limiting my calories to 1400 a day but not starving myself (technically, I guess) and eating healthy but MAN! I want to bury my face in some damn Jelly Babies right now. I want to wear a brown trench coat with a long striped scarf and pull out wax paper baggies packed to the brim with them. I want to stuff my mouth full of the black Jujyfruits, which are the best kind, and bite the heads of of gummi bears like a French revolution caught in candies. I don’t just want to go to Candyland, damnit, I want to annihilate gumdrop palace and eat all the goods inside.

Strange to see what cravings my body puts me through.

I’ve learned that I shouldn’t “starve” myself. If I let myself get all hungry then my body thinks it is in a famine and fights harder to conserve calories. Today, in particular, this is an issue because right now I’m hungrier than all out and I have to eat something but it is 4 hours until dinner and I’d hoped to save my calories for then. Ah well. Have to suck it up, eat an orange, and stop shaking.

My weight loss progress has been slow. This will be the end of week three of real dieting coming up and I’ve only lost about 6 pounds. Okay, so that is ideal, I know, about 2 pounds a week, but for me it feels like torture. I’m not sure I can do eight more weeks of daily salads while increasing my workout intensity but I’m going to have to if I expect to atcually lose this weight.

I really want to see movement on the scale so I’ve contemplated dropping my calories to 1200 for a week but that is impractical and nearly impossible, plus I’m worried that my body would freak out and convert all the lettuce I’m eating into saddle bags. (I did the 1200 cals a day thing once upon a time, with the HMR program, and yes, I lost weight. But I was gassy and cranky and tired and insane much of the time, the program was costly, and I gained weight back the second I ate one Cheerio).

I know that in my adult life I’ve been 10 pounds less than this. In my early adult life, not courting the time I got back from overseas and weighted 98 pounds, I’ve weighed far less than this. It’s strange because I can’t even imagine 10 pounds ago. I know it happened, I know it was there, and yet, why the hell did I let myself get back here? Why oh Why oh Why is the glory of a cheeseburger with onion rings and a malted worth more in the moment than my longer term health and happiness?

And why does my body think that pounds of gelatinized artificial syrup goo constitutes nutrients? Frankly, I blame my body for this. It is the one that makes me look at candy online all day, it should know better. It should take the damn carrots and cauliflower I gave it two hours ago and be delighted.

Ready for a change

2009-04-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

Come on Universe, I'm open to something new.

Of hunger, cleaning, and WTH is up with boys?

2009-04-04T16:18:00.000-07:00

I better get something posted fast while I still have a grain of energy. I just ate an orange and that should help boost my poor blood sugar level enough to allow me to type. Again, I'm not starving myself. I'm not being stupid. I eat healthy stuff when I'm hungry. But DAMN how my body fights it. This body thing doesn't know what it wants. When I eat crap and fast food I'm tried, sluggish, and cranky. When I eat healthy I'm tired, sluggish, and cranky. Someone invent the damn food pills already so I don't have to put up with this nonsense.

I spent today cleaning in a semi-lucid state (see: low blood sugar, or rather see: lack of nacho cheese) because my social life is dwindling and this place needed a scrub down. I live alone. My housekeeping skills are far better than days of yore (like when I learned that mold grows in cups of water left around the house). Yet it takes an entire day of scrubbing, mopping, dusting, vacuuming and bleaching to get this place to par. I don't even know where half the filth comes from. It's like secret dust fairies sneak into my apartment the second I leave and coat this whole house in their dust of the non pixie variety. I fear ever having to live with another person, or having nice things, how on earth will I stay on top of it?

Speaking of living with another person I have a question about the difference between boys and girls. If a boy asks you to move in with him what does that mean? To me it means I get double the cooking, cleaning, shopping and organizing in exchange for half the shower time, a snoring bed partner, and having to keep my legs shaved all the time. I see absolutely no point in living together.

HOWEVER, I am tired of trying to decipher the boy brain. What does living together mean for the boy? Does it mean that he wants to make a bigger commitment or that he likes the idea of having real towels in the bathroom and not drying off with laundry? Does it mean that he is falling in love with you or that he likes the idea of having milk with an expiration date that exists in the future and not the past?

Do boys even THINK about such things or are they just clueless bastards sent to this planet to torture women? And furthermore, why is it impossible to pry said motivations out of said boy? If you ask: Why do you want to live together? What does this mean? Does it mean anything at all? And you STILL get no answer at what point can you take him to small claims court and demand your sanity back?

The scale says one thing, but my pants say another: You have a long way to go sweetcakes

2009-04-01T19:14:00.000-07:00

I am quite proud of my emergency weight loss skills. I’ve gone from XX8 down to XX2.8 in under two weeks, which, great! I’ve almost undone the damage I did while eating my way through my recent life obstacles (or opportunities as self help books would tell me to call them). This is all fine and dandy except:

I effectively wasted a whole month. I was supposed to be eight pounds less that I am now, starting on April 1.
Which makes the next two months that much harder.
I’m not losing weight by starving myself but I’m also not eating the way I would if I weren’t dieting which means:
I’m dieting
And I swore that I wouldn’t do this dieting stuff again
I justified dieting by deciding that I needed to undo the eating damage I did by justifying my emotional eating spree
The whole point of losing weight this time was learning to lead a healthy, active, non-restrictive lifestyle
Yet here I am, yo-yoing again
Bah

Well. I cannot beat myself up. I just can’t. I can’t undo the past. I can, however, get myself to XX0 and start back in on trying to do this weight loss the mature way. Right now I’m eating a yogurt, 13 almonds, an apple, raw veggies, a salad with lean protein, an orange and a super light dinner everyday, amounting to about 1400 calories. For a person of my size this is apparently what I can expect to eat and “maintain” my weight. Damn being short, I bet tall girls get to eat pizza more often. I also bet ten pounds on a tall girl doesn’t size her out of her whole wardrobe, but, fine. Short it is.

I am eating healthfully, I’m not starving myself (yet I feel hungry, damn stupid addiction to sugar and fat) but this isn’t something I’m going to be able to stick to for the rest of my life. Unless someone zaps the part of my brain that finds food delightful I’m not going to be able to eat a salad everyday for lunch until I die. My arteries are calling out for trans fat, I know, they are gluttons like that and don’t know what is good for them but still. My arteries should be begging me for more raw broccoli, not alfredo dipping sauce.

I’m doing a workout video about every three days and walking every day that I don’t do the video. This is because of my neck injury, I have to take getting in shape very, painstakingly, obnoxiously slow. Which might be a good thing. I get so obsessive about the weight that I probably would have tried working out 8 hours a day, hurt myself, and set myself back even further. The neck injury is keeping me from being an idiot.

I still need to lose 25 pounds by mid June. Send skinny thoughts my way.

Checking In

2009-03-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

This week my computer bit the dust when I got some kind of virus in it. Luckily, being a computer tech (read: having access to Google) I reformatted the thing and it seems good as new. I'm scared to surf around the evil Internet now, though, because I'm not sure how I got the virus in the first place, and because it took EIGHT hours to reformat this baby. Older model laptop + Dell + out of date everything makes for a non easy job.

Speaking of jobs I still have one through July 1. Work has been just about as fun as you would imagine any crappy situation to be: Those not getting laid off are getting pushed into lower positions or forced to take substantially less pay, those that are getting laid off are heartless zombie drones that can hardly make it through the day. I'm only half joking when I say I hope one of my co-workers doesn't wind up going on a shooting spree. I work with much redneck or ex-military folk, there be a great many guns between the lot of them.

I've managed to go from XX8 to XX4 since last Friday and I'm doing my best. I overdid the workouts a bit and couldn't walk all day today for the pain in my shins and the blisters on my feet, so today is a day off. I'm also doing better with food. I want to be at XX0 by the start of next week, I'm just not sure how that will happen, so let's say I will be at XX0 by April 4th. That is a decent goal, I think. I mean, this is real weight I'm dealing with here but not real, real weight, right? This is weight I packed on the week I found out I was both losing my job and almost kicked out of my apartment (neither of which are my fault, thankfully, but still). Which means this isn't cheesecake from the 90s, which has settled in and created a home in my thighs, this is free floating weight that hasn't had time to put down stakes or start a family. I hope.

I don't know if I ever updated but the bank will let me stay in my apartment until the lease is up in July. Whew! Three months to find a new place is far more manageable than 48 hours. Of course, finding a new place will be awesome when I'm borderline unemployed and penniless. But that bridge? I shall scale when I get there.

Seems like all I can do is update lately, but work really is taking a huge emotional toll and working out saps up what little energy I might have had left. But know this: You guys are still some of the best friends I have in the world. Thank you.

Pigeons

2009-03-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

I have pigeons in love who want to build their home on my balcony.

One is white, one is grey and purpleish. I think the white one is female but that's just a guess based on nothing.

They bring their friends by to check out the place and I have to keep shooeing them off. If they weren't desease infested filthy vermon who were trying to nest in my storage boxes three feet away from where I watch the sunset I doubt I'd be bothered.

Google isn't super helpful. Well, that is to say, google has a few ideas on how to get rid of them but there isn't a whole lot I can do. Pigeons are tenacious buggers and it seems my only recourse is to buy metal spikey things to discourage them from moving in. So I'm off to try to find metal spikey things in hopes that they don't cost much because, you know, I don't have much money what with being laid off and all.

Any other suggestions? On the weekend I can scare them off but come Monday I fear they'll have a housewarming party and move right in.

What is the first step?

2009-03-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, when I remember how old I am, I panic and feel miserable. My life has no path. I've not done anything I want to do and yet I have no idea how to do those things. In the last year or so, as things have started to marginally improve, I've still not managed to do anything productive. I can't believe that here I am, 27, with no career path and seemingly no real career skills. I can't believe that in 3 months I'll be laid off and back to where I've been before; unable to get a good paying job with benefits to support myself.

Sure, I have lofty dreams of just liquidating what little I do have, throwing the rest in storage, and moving to Spain or something, but I don't quite have the nerve to do that. And I'm not even sure that that is what I want to do! I know I want to write, and be creative, and be recognized for these things. I know I want to be surrounded by other creative people. I want to go on Conan and be witty and funny damnit. I want to get on stage and deliver a decent enough stand up routine that I'm not pelted with watered down drinks. I want to write for a funny show, I want to collaborate with interesting people, I need to act and collaborate and be a part of something that entertains people. But I don't even have a clue how to get there.

And I'm scared that it is too late.

I know that it is never "too late" in the grand scheme of things and that I'll regret even further not doing anything substantial with my life but I feel like I'm a decade behind the game and I don't even know where to begin. I've got this ticking clock, finally I guess, of three months that must force me into action but after a decade of inaction I don't even have the tiniest shred of a clue where to begin. Failure is made worse by fear of failure, and by inaction. My life is ruled by fear and inaction. I can't even fail because I can't even try.

I'm pissed too that I can have come this far, and done a pretty fair deal as far as work goes, to still have no real marketable skills. My degrees are useless, my extensive job experience apparently doesn't count for much and as for working in the field of technology I don't have any certifications (expensive) so in applying for more "day" jobs to sustain me a bit longer I don't even qualify. I am very good at my job and very good at computer support and repair yet that won't show as anything in a pile of very qualified resumes. I should be in this powerless position in my early 20s, still just trying to get a job to get by while I figure out the rest in my off time but I'm not; I'm damn near 30 with nothing to show for it.

I've got a condo that I'm being evicted from because the owner is a deadbeat, I've got a job that I'm losing in three months and apparently no qualifications to get me another, I've struggled for years to no avail to make good friends, and a relationship with a wonderful guy who...well. That is another series of posts entirely.

I actually do have a bit of motivation, a feeling that finally after a decade of struggling and overcoming every obstacle that I am in a place where I can break free and try to get out there and see what I have to offer. Yet no where to start. No idea what to do. I'm inhibited by my own obstacles. I should just pretend that this is a quarter life crisis and that I'm not a failure at life, that I'm just totally switching gears. People do it all the time. There is no shame or failure in doing what I really want to do.

I don't know what the first step is. I don't know what the second, third, thousandth step is. And I'm scared by time ticking away because there are things I want for my life but I fear that I'm putting them in jeopardy be essentially deciding to live a life of poverty for years in some far fetched hope that I'll ever generate revenue doing and pursuing what I love.

I'm stagnating and dying inside doing what I do now and better yet, I can't even do that anymore! Life is very politely pointing out that I can never hope to have a job that pays enough to keep me indoors with food and medical at the same time (which enrages me, I've been working full time since I was 15 and this is what I have to show for it? The hell?) but it isn't pointing me in any other direction. And I'm back to that fear again; I can't bear to live another 10 years of failure. I fear not doing what I want to do, I fear not knowing how to do it, and I fear that attempting anything else will never work out.

Potpourri

2009-03-19T17:35:00.000-07:00

First off, Happy Birthday Isabel's King:

Sorry I can't post a real pic of me. Keeping it on the down low, ya know.

To catch you up:

I'm still fat. Actually, I'm fatter. Being Jobless and homeless does not wear well with me. If I had, oh, say, any coping skills at all I wouldn't be shovelling goddamn food in my face like a fat kid at candyland but I'm working on it. I've done better this week and will be back on track by next. Unless an anvil falls on my car or something. Then? It is on. On like being unable to button any of my shirts.

My face is actually healing up fairly well. It is no longer oozing and bloody, it is healed over, but the size is still bigger than the original mole. It is a big pink spot right now, and it itches like all out, but I can't really touch it. I just rub Mederma into it a few times a day and cross my fingers.

Meeting the Parents was fairly painless. His mother was cold and non-talkative, as he said she had been his whole life. My mother was hopped up on OTC and prescription meds but luckily recovering from a cold so she couldn't say much: SCORE! Now I just need to figure out what the heck I'm doing. When he's here I adore him, can't live without him, want to see him every minute of every day. When I'm alone I love it, want to curl up with a book or do laundry and take long showers and not worry about taking up all the hot water. My stupid self can't make its mind up: Do we want to marry him and entwine in wedded bliss or do we want to remain independently dating with our own space? I don't know, but it is coming up close on a year and by this point I need to figure out if I'm happy or if I'm wasting my time.

Anything I'm missing?

Jobless and Homeless? Time to meet the Boyfriend's Parents!

2009-03-15T13:55:00.000-07:00

Because nothing ever happens as an isolated incident, ya know?

Tonight at 6PM my time I am wandering into a non-offensive American chain restaurant that likely has license plates and saddles nailed to the walls to sit down and meet the boy's parents. In the last week I've eaten my way out of every pair of pants I own, my skin looks like I wash my face with Crisco and I'm sporting a very sexy double chin. On top of that nothing says catch like "meet my sweet adorable jobless, homeless, prospect-less girlfriend. I swear she doesn't wear clothing fashioned from what appears to be bedsheets, this is just a one time deal, I hope..."

Yeah.

Better yet my massively dysfunctional and totally inept parents may meet the boy tomorrow. I say may because though the dinner time is set, reservations have been made, and everyone says they will be there, there is a 10% chance my parents will show. My mother in particular is not good at things like "leaving the house" or "showing up" or "not staying up all night drinking and pounding xanax with ambien and living in her own damn imaginary world where everyone and everything is out to get her even though she's never done a damn thing in her whole life".

My parents live elsewhere but were planning on coming here to see some other relatives of ours that will be in the area. It will be like a mini family reunion provided that my mother actually shows up. I don't doubt that my dad will make it down here, but even if my mom does the drama surrounding the trip will probably leave her unable to make it to dinner to meet the boy even though every time I talk to her she demands to know if I hate her because I won't "let" her meet the boy. This is twofold: I'd "let" her meet the boy anytime she ACTUALLY LEFT THE GD HOUSE, however, that never happens, and she is a crazy manipulative narcissistic borderline with manic depression, bipolar and and other slew of fun issues so really? Maybe it is good that she never leaves the house because I'm not sure the boy will know what to do with her. I've lived away from her for nearly a decade and have had therapy for half as long and I still don't know what to do with her.

So pretending like my parents will show that means today I'm meeting the boy's family and tomorrow he is meeting mine. And I have to wonder; how did this go for you?

We're not college or even high school kids anymore, we're full fledged adults, so meeting the parents doesn't just happen when you swing by to pick up your date one night. I don't know what this is like for "regular" people with "regular" families (I know you hate the quotes now, sorry) so I don't know if I should consider meeting his family a big deal or not. The boy is entirely not useful in this area; he is a BOY. He has a boy brain. He does not think about the meaning of things, he does not read into things. He does not wonder if by my bringing him to meet my gene pool I am attempting to take the relationship to the next level. Hence I am going to do the same; since the impression I get from him is that this is no big deal, even though normally it is like a big relationship milestone, I am going to treat it as such. That doesn't mean I'm not going to spend the next three hours desperately trying to wedge myself into a girdle and weeping into a pile of clothes that don't fit, it just means I'm going to treat it with the same non-reverence as him.

So, most of you are married, or have been, or are in relationships. What was meeting the parents like for you? I've met the parents of boyfriends before but I was younger so it didn't seem like such a potentially big deal. Plus I wasn't all in love and sprung over those boyfriends.

What do you think? How did it go? And would you be worried if your son's date showed up wearing pajama pants and a parka (as these are the only items that fit right now)?

What makes Jobless even better?

2009-03-13T20:53:00.000-07:00

Homeless.

On Monday I found out that my condo is being foreclosed on because the owner didn't pay the lease for over a year. I've lived here for five years and never paid my rent late, keep the place in great condition and don't run a meth lab (clearly that is what the warehouse at work is for).

It has been the week of hell and it took days just to get tentative answers. I still don't know if the bank is going to give me 48 hours to vacate or if they'll let me stay til I find a new place.

What with losing my job I figured one of my options would have to be renewing my apartment lease when it came due in three months. I mean, I've lived here for five years and I was really ready to move on but I don't have the funds for first, last, a security deposit and moving. It was just more economically feasible for me to continue to try to live here than find a new place in light of the job loss I'm facing.

Worse yet it has been the week from hell. No one has answers, no one is helpful. I did find one free advocacy group in town that at least lead me in the right direction but they also scared the wits out of me; apparently (like we all didn't know this) this is happening all over the country. Families that pay their rent and are responsible are being tossed out as owners default. I'm lucky I don't have kids or even a house plant to take care of so I can't imagine what this would be like for a family.

Needless to say the week has been...bad. And I'm sorry to report that I gained six pounds.

Six.

Pounds.

I'm not kidding. This isn't water weight either, it's real weight. When I wasn't calling my sketchy property rental place for the twentieth time in one day (I'm not kidding) or tracking down any renter lawyer that would talk to me I was shovelling food in my face by the bucket-full. My caloric intake could have fed a heavily populated island for a month.

When I know what I'm going to do I'll update you.

In the meantime I'm fat, jobless and pretty soon homeless.

And testy. Don't give me motivational crap about pulling through and rainbows and the power of happy thoughts. I'm tired from fighting with clueless and worthless bureaucracy and trying to find another job in a hellacious economy. I'll be Pollyanna later, right now I'm Jabba the Hut.

Layoff Chic

2009-03-06T20:16:00.000-08:00

I'm losing my job in 116 days.

It is fabulous to finally be with the "in" crowd, you know?

Today when I rolled out of bed I had a tough time choosing what to wear. It has been a hell of a week and I'm not ashamed to tell you that I haven't handled it well at all. Whereas I probably haven't gained any weight I haven't managed to drag myself out of bed for any workouts, instead using the extra morning hour to lay awake contemplating misery, so I certainly haven't lost any weight. Which means I'm still limited to two pairs of pants. Both of which accumulated stains of some kind this week and hadn't yet been washed (I've been spending my evenings a bit distraught too, if you must know, and have let the laundry slide.). I picked the lesser of two evils, pulled an undershirt out of the laundry pile as well and went with a big, bulky, navy blue cable knit deal I've had for years to complete the ensemble.

The cable knit was left over from a house party in which I lost my favorite grey fleece, as though the universe had taken my wonderful zip up and as a consolation gave me a heap of yarn that was even then, 8 years ago, beyond it's appropriate wearing years. The thing keeps unravelling on me and I just keep stitching the sleeves and hems up with navy blue thread. The yarn itself is disintegrating and bits are sticking out everywhere, which I just trim with scissors when I have time, like today while I listened to the woe and misery of my co-workers I sat and trimmed the sleeves while the item was still on me.

The heavier bits of the cable knit are pulling from the regular knit creating uneven wear and if, like today's omission, I don't put a long sleeve shirt underneath, bits of my shoulder and arm flesh are exposed. I have thought, on more than one occasion over the years, "oh dear, this thing is beyond wearing to work anymore", a thought I've had right before shrugging and throwing it on. I'd sometimes regret the choice at work when I'd notice that the thing was dying on me in a most unflattering way but promptly forget such troubles when I got home. Plus I've been working on a limited wardrobe my entire adult life (we won't even get into the hand me downs and follies of youth) so the thing had to, by necessity, always make its way into the winter rotation.

Today I complimented the beauty with my ugliest scarf, doubled socks with holes in them over to protect my heels, threw my dirty hair up in a bun and was off. I may not be the shining beacon of fashion, never up on the current trends and lacking in any designer pieces what so ever but I do believe I have a flair for accessorizing important life events. Depression coupled with being overweight and losing my job in just over three months? Oh I worked it. I worked it good. I was the queen of the ball. These other bitches don't even know what competition they are entering, they may try to throw a cardigan on or scuff their shoes up a bit but I KNOW this baby, I work it. It is mine. They just can't compete with my layoff chic. They don't have years of wherewithal coupled with decades of poverty experience.

They may whimper about losing their house or going on food stamps but I ask you, how will they look doing it? They won't have the haute couture air of having been beat down by every circumstance in every conceivable way for years, they won't be able to pull off ratty sweaters and two dollar button downs from an estate sale like I will, and I know the jealously will kill them. In the new era of frugal being in, designer being out, reuse being in, new being out, I will reign queen. The holes in my faux leather, eleven year old shoes that I keep alive with brown sharpie and hope will lead the way.

And finally, my time has come. I'll try not to be too distant and aloof and forget about all of you but let's face it; I'm of the elite now. I get what made the rich so special, they didn't just think they were better than us, clearly they were better than us. And now they're just fashion road kill, their relevancy lost in the tidle wave of what is hip and new, life's wonderful irony making that which made them special now make them total outcasts, unable to gain any of their footing back.

I have arrived mah peeps, this is my game now.

Important Weight Loss Note

2009-03-01T10:01:00.000-08:00

When working on weight loss do not , I repeat, DO NOT, weigh yourself more than every two weeks. If you can go longer that is much, much better, but in the very least WAIT TWO WEEKS.

Your weight varies so much day to day that you will drive yourself crazy and wind up miserable and even sabotage yourself.

I didn't take my own advice, weighed myself yesterday, saw that I was up FIVE POUNDS and basically ruined my whole day. Today? Those five pounds? Totally gone. Idiot. From henceforth I am only weighing myself on the two week weight in day and at NO OTHER TIME. It would be craziness to do otherwise.

Mole

2009-02-28T14:07:00.000-08:00

*Please oh please oh please let my skin heal correctly. Please.*

Because nothing says sexy like an oozing face wound

I got cosmetic surgery on Monday.

No, it wasn’t lipo and I didn’t boost my B’s to plastic D’s.

I had a mole removed. From my face. From the area between my lip and nose on the left hand side.

I’ve literally been saving my pennies for this for years. It cost me $114.00 and I’m hoping it was worth every cent. I say hoping because the wound is…a bit bigger than the original offending item, and I’m rather worried. I’ve done years of research and I knew what to expect and I know that it will take at least a month before I really begin to see what I am going to wind up with but that isn’t stopping me from freaking the ever living heck out. Why did she take such a large portion out? Three times the size of the mole? Will any of the scar creams really work? Did I make the right decision?

I just don’t know.

No one says they ever even really notice my moles. They aren't big and hairy. They aren't masses of blackened protruding skin. They are small, petite, workable. But I see them. In every mirror. In every picture. And more are showing up yearly.

My skin is of the mole-d persuasion. Before this removal I had four, now three, prominent moles (or beauty marks as my mom calls them) on my face.I was okay with the current three because I’d had them since I was a toddler. The removed one showed up when I was 9 or 10 which makes it an unwelcome interloper. I’d promised myself for years that when I became an adult I would do something about it. And then, one day a month or two ago, I realized CRAP I am an adult now. I better do something about this.

It is fulfilling a promise to my younger self. I’ve failed in so many ways at so many other promises that I knew I had to do it. So I booked the appointment and did it. It hurt like hell, the shot made me nauseous, and since the mole was right near my nose the smell of them cauterizing the wound made me even sicker. I’ve had chunks taken out for skin cancer that weren’t as painful as this.

I’m keeping the wound moist with Vaseline (I’m allergic to antibiotic ointment) for the next two or three weeks, I can't wear a band aid to cover it because I'm also allergic to adhesive bandages, and crossing my fingers. It wasn’t even so much the mole, really, it was what it represented: I’m an adult now. It is time I started doing all those things I said I would do. Starting with a raw, painful, oozing open wound on my face. To compliment the bout of cystic acne I have errupting on my chin.

Woooooo

Tipsy Blogging

2009-02-26T18:48:00.000-08:00

Ah Internet.

I have been hitting the bottle.

So this is bound to be discombobulated rambling.

I don't have an eating problem, I have an emotional problem. I don't face/deal with emotions and instead I eat to cover them up. This is sorta a relief, actually, knowing that food isn't really the issue: my current inability to face issues like an adult is. I bet the majority of adults don't face emotions well and that everyone had a crutch they lean on and mine is food.

That and my self image is jacked up. I look at myself as a failure and a loser and fat. So guess what? I subconscientiously mold myself to fit that perception. Self fulfilling prophecy.

I'm getting much better at the emotion deal though, therapy and introspection helps. But when I have to face really scary things I just break down.

I didn't work out this morning.

I ate fast food twice today.

I know.

I'm scared, primarily, about the boy. My family is a mess, I'm likely losing my job this summer, I still have no savings, I'm overweight and overwhelmed and pissed that I'm this close to 30 and still a fuck up but the boy thing is what is really getting me right now.

I'm scared.

I really like this one. Or, I did, but we have our issues. For the first time in my life I started thinking in terms of "us" instead of me and what it would take to survive. I started to see a future together, wanted to see a future together, and adore(d) him. But I fear (know?) that he isn't on the same page. Whereas I am envisioning marriage and building a life together he is still in a party phase. He's so nice and wonderful to me. He really does care about me.

Just...not in that way.

I never thought I'd find someone I sincerely saw a future with. I didn't understand the idea of building a life together with someone until now. And after I've talked to him, and the therapist, I'm suddenly afraid and kinda alone again. Whereas he would probably be fine just dating for a long time further I'm looking for real commitment. I'm looking for the real deal. I'm ready to have an intimant, passionate, committed relationship with someone, him, and he...not so much.

So I'm scared. Scared because all the other issues listed above I've lived with for a long time. But losing him, us, is new to me. Losing the perception of what I thought we had. We're still together but I have so many questions. How much am I willing to sacrifice for someone who is nice to me? How scared am I to leave what is wonderful, but won't pan out, in the hopes that something else is even out there for me?

Before him I'd never been with someone nice. I feel like an abused puppy that is falling over itself the first time it is shown kindness. At the same time I feel that what we have (has) is special and I shouldn't beat myself up for falling for it.

I don't know.

I don't know.

How do you make someone love you and commit to you? You don't. This I know.

So why doesn't he love me and want to commit to me?

Why?

On Writing

2009-02-23T19:31:00.001-08:00

I need to keep a notebook on my bed and sleep with a pen in my mouth because it always seems that I compose brilliant pieces of work when I am trying to fall asleep at night. I’ll also have to devise some sort of water proof transcription system for my shower, which is my second most brilliant composing place. My brain only wants to write my future best selling novel when it has no place, not even a receipt and some charcoal, where I can write it down. And being the temperamental artist my brain fancies itself to be, it never, never remembers what it came up with and it never, never comes up with anything when I am at a bloody place where it will be preserved for posterity. No, my brain prefers to work informally and alone and it is so stuck up it won’t replay any of its ideas twice.

This is very frustrating.

Particularly last night, when, lying very near the precipice for sleep my brain came up with some brilliant bit of work; funny, charming, in exactly my voice, yet it let the sleepy bit of my brain say “No, we’ll remember this later, you sleep now”. I wish the bit of my brain that realized what a dead end hell my job is and how much I want to actually do something with my life, even if it is just write down things I like for solely my own amusement, would step in even once in a great while and smother the sleep bit long enough for me to get some of this down. But noooo, here I am, yet again, kicking myself for letting something wonderful slip through my fingers like so much mist.

Damnit.

All I remember this morning is that it was really good. I don’t know the subject matter or the direction. I don’t have the faintest inkling of what on earth it was about. This isn’t the same thing as being drunk either; when you think you’ve come up with something fucking brilliant and upon review realize that you are an idiot. No, this really was brilliant and now it is gone forever. I’m quite distraught.

Many successful writers state that you simply must treat writing like it is a full time job, even if you’ve already got a full time job. You must plant yourself in front of paper, a typewriter or a computer, for X number of hours a day and simply write. No excuses. Act as though your very livelihood depends upon it. This sounds quite practical and is something I should probably do but it is unlikely that my most inspired stuff would ever be created in this environment.

My mind only generates truly good stuff when it is distracted or busy or desperate, like when I’m in a particularly boring class or at work, for some distraction. Two of the things I love best that I’ve ever written were both composed in math classes, one written on the back of a test I’d failed and the other written in response to a test I’d failed. My most inspired ideas happen when I’m driving or in meetings or scrubbing my bathtub. I’ve gotten a bit better at carrying notebooks and pens with me so that I can jot them down but sometimes I can’t write fast enough so I lost the prose I wish to present them in or later I go back and read the scribbles and wonder what I was even getting at.

Perhaps, for me, the best solution is two fold: sleep on a notebook with a pen in my mouth and then take those inspired ideas and work on them like a full time job. I may not find inspiration when I’ve scheduled the time specifically to write but maybe I’ll be able to interpret the inspiration scrawled in sleepy script across a notebook page and get it typed up. If nothing else I’ll have a reason to justify all the ink stains I imagine my sheets are going to accrue.

2 Pounds Down

2009-02-22T09:05:00.000-08:00

23 to go.

By June 1.

Good Morning Internet!

In the Great Weight Loss Journey I have embarked upon my goals are lifetime long term. I am learning how to eat in a healthy and non emotional manner. I am learning how to address my feelings as opposed to stuffing them with fast food. I am learning how to incorporate exercise into a regular routine. In short, at 27, I am learning how to live a healthy and fulfilling life that doesn't revolve around obsessing over food, not fitting into my clothes and both punishing/rewarding myself with food.

It is not easy.

I'm quite pleased to see the scale finally, after a month, budge down a couple of tiny numbers. By this point my goal system would have me down 6 pounds but I'm not freaking out...yet. I'm learning what it takes to actually lose and maintain weight for my body which is a good thing. Exercise was key in this recent weight loss so it will remain key in the upcoming months and then maintenance of a healthy body weight for my height and size.

I've started working out in the morning before work and though I can't even make it through an exercise tape entirely yet I am taking it slow to not injure myself further. Plus I'm not coordinated; it will take me weeks to even begin to get the complicated moves and steps down. Easy for beginner's my arse, half the time I'm marching in place or flailing my arms around trying to keep up with the chipper, overly tan, surgically enhanced freaks of nature squealing at me to keep going and feel the burn.

As an aside I don't understand why videos specifically marketed to women require genetically impossible women with breast implants wearing bikinis to get me motivated. Not that I want to see someone like me on film, sweating and grunting and looking overall awkward and confused, but it would be nice to see someone wearing, oh, I don't know, a TANK TOP and shorts that completely cover their ass. I also don't want to see totally ripped and cut women with biceps the size of my thighs. If my goal is lean healthy muscles why do they choose to showcase female body builders with no hips, big plastic boobies and a tan so orange Lindsay Lohan would cringe? Don't get me started on capped teeth or platinum blonde hair either, I just have to have faith that the moves I'm attempting to perform won't make me look like a roided out she-male.

In this next upcoming two week span the goal is again to lose three pounds. Actually, more like 5 would be lovely. That will put me under the next round number and into a different realm. The exercise I'm not too worried about, I just have to continue gradually and gently increasing my ability without hurting myself further. As it is my neck and shoulders and back are KILLING me today, but that I attribute more to strength rehab than anything else.

I'm better with my eating but not great. I'm identifying when I am genuinely hungry, eating when I am hungry, eating slowly and enjoying every bite, and stopping when I am full... 6 days out of 7. Because I don't yet have the skills to address my emotional eating. After a lifetime of suppressing and masking my anxiety and stress with food it is extremely hard to reprogram my coping skills. I derive a great deal of pleasure in the act of mindlessly eating, and eating alot, it is calming and soothing. I have not ever given myself another way to treat myself well; it has always been food. On this all I can do is continue to do the above and also, when I am particularly anxious and nutty, try writing out my feelings or talking them out in order to face them head on and not swallow them covered in nacho cheese.

I'm oh so tempted to go into heavy diet mode again. I want to see those numbers on the scale drop so, so bad. I'm tempted to eat nothing but salads and hard boiled eggs for the next two weeks. But that in itself is a form of emotional control, both in punishing myself with food and depriving myself of food and escaping my yucky feelings with hunger. But that doesn't work, not in the long term, and though I've managed to yo yo 10-15 pounds over the last several years the numbers never stay where I get them to. And it isn't even the numbers that I really care about; it is the tire of flab around my belly, the clothes that don't fit, the way my chin and neck are no longer two distinct and separate entities.

By Saturday March 7 I am confident that I will indeed really be down three pounds. Now I have a grasp on what it takes. I'm also living, for the first time in weight loss history for me, a normal lifestyle that I can accommodate.

Yay weight loss!

Silver lining comes tinged with BAH

2009-02-17T18:17:00.000-08:00

Today at work it was announced that we're taking a pay cut effective yesterday.

I can't really afford said pay cut but at least I have a job, yay!

At least I have a job until the end of June, after that there will be heavy layoffs. Even through June isn't guaranteed.

I no longer have any TV channels because of that digital change over dealy, which doesn't bother me too much, but it still sucked to come home to a TV of fuzz.

I thought by now I would have saved enough to maybe get a good TV set (mine is a twee hand me down) to avoid losing my signal in the digital transition but in light of current economic times it is best if I keep my money under my mattress.

My family is still in upheaval.

But I exercised this morning before work :)

So to recap: family is in shambles, I am making less money in a job I am likely going to lose fairly soon and I don't have Simpson's reruns to comfort me.

But I'm making progress on my two week weight loss goal. And hell, when I'm living in a cardboard box by the river in a few months just THINK of how much weight I'll lose! Dysentery and TB totally give you that sexy runway model look.

woooooo

Stupid Freaking Idiot BAHBAHBAH

2009-02-15T18:32:00.000-08:00

Today is my hide day yet I need an outlet and no one is answering their phone. Perhaps they are all nursing hangovers of love from yesterday and are resting? Hmmm? I was having a perfectly lovely day, staying in, napping, hiding, recouperating for the week ahead and then got the crappy news that my younger sibling had run away. Again.

Fun Fun.

I am sure they are okay and I know where they went but the weather they left in yesterday, with unreliable teenaged idiot drivers, is a hellacious mess. And the unreliable little bastard said they'd call when they got to their destination and they didn't. So it falls on me to try to track them down even though their cell phone is off.

I know said person is okay, I also know said person is a freaking idiot prone to intense whims on teenaged angst ridden stupidity which makes knowing that they are okay just that much harder. I wish I could be laid back and relaxed about this but instead I'm tense and freaking out and very, very upset. My younger sibling went to a place about a 10 hour drive from my parent's house and is probably doing things underaged people shouldn't be doing right about now and I swear to gob if they wind up getting hurt I will hit the roof.

So how is your relaxing Sunday evening? Since every single person on earth is currently unreachable and leaving me to fester in my craziness?

BAH

02/16 Edit
Got ahold of bastard at midnight last night, turns out they also stole I mean borrowed the family car to do this. They are alive but all is not well. Must...resist...urge...to eat and eat and eat myself into a coma. BAH

Weight Loss Update - Workout When?

2009-02-12T21:17:00.000-08:00

I read something interesting The Happiness Project on blog today: In Stop Being Bored By Your Daily Routine the writer observed that “it’s often easier for me to do something every day than it is to do somedays” and notes that if she only does something a few times a week she winds up arguing with herself when it will get done. This is exactly my problem with exercise. If I tell myself I’m going to do it four days a week I wind up pushing it back or juggling it around when really, like work or brushing my teeth, I should attempt to incorporate it into an everyday thing so that it becomes routine.

My recent two week trial, the one I failed last week, has shown me that exercise is the missing key for me right now. I struggle with my eating (if you know me you know this as well as I know that nacho cheese is delicious on everything) but I’m doing a bit better with it right now (more on that to follow in another post). I have to find a solution to incorporating exercise into my life and since nothing has worked before it is time to explore new options.

Ignoring the fact that I can’t find the motivation to exercise, that most days I am in too much pain to do it, and that my evil inner voice says things like “you’re doing it wrong”, “you aren’t going to lose weight that way” and “what is the point?” the main issue with exercise is that I haven’t incorporated it into my scheduled routine. If it is something I do every day, or on a schedule, then it will be easier for me to stick to the time and just do it already. I’ve been muddling over the exercise issue for almost a year now. How/when do I fit in regular workouts around my work, eat, sleep, bathe, see boyfriend, try to be social, see family, schedule?

I am a morning person so that would be the best time for me to fit it in but I can’t get over the mental hurdle of waking up at 4AM to do this. I’m already up at 5:30AM on weekdays for work and on alternating sleep-over nights I doubt my significant other would love it if I got out of bed even earlier. As it is I’m waking him up almost two full hours earlier than he needs to wake up which is damaging his sleep schedule. M, W, and F I have set strength rehab for two hours after work which are also the current date days with the boy, so I have to rule out running to the gym afterwards (providing that I somehow magically found the energy to do so, but we’ll ignore that for now). Tuesdays and Thursdays after work alternate other appointments: chiropractor, regular doctor, therapist, and my attempts at a social life with friend time. And I’ll be honest: Sometimes on Tuesdays and Thursdays all I look forward to is crawling home, taking a handful of muscle relaxers and passing out at 5:00 in the afternoon. I’m in pain most of the time and I can’t take muscle relaxers if I expect to function, hence, it is like a quiet restorative vacation to pass out mid afternoon in a pile of drool, even if it means my laundry stacks up and the only thing I have in my cupboards is expired alka seltzer and some questionable lentils.

Saturday or Sunday all day I have to hide. I have to do nothing. I have to lie on my couch or bed, devoid of thought or action, for many many hours. I know that this isn’t the best coping skill but it is the only way I’m able to manage my depression and social exhaustion. It is a relief, actually, to have figured this out because now I can be productive at least 5 days a week, maybe 6, whereas before I could barely function the majority of the time. I’m not kidding when I say I must do absolutely nothing: I can’t even schedule a work out or I get panicky and angry and resentful at having to do something. No cleaning, grocery shopping, blogging, socializing, nothing can be done on this day. I’ve learned through trial and error that I must curl up in a ball and sortof enter a stimulus and though free environment for a full 24 hours. Which leaves me with what, exactly? A promise to workout on Saturday, if I’m lucky?

Not good.

I’ve also toyed with pushing my work schedule back an hour so that I have that extra hour in the morning to get fit. I’m torn because I love being one of the first people in and since I’m at my mental peak in the AM I feel more productive. But really, what does it come down to? Do I spend my productive time working out in the AM because that is what is important to me or do I again try to fit in workouts after work which has been a glaring failure?

After writing this all out I think I’ll attempt pushing my schedule back to work out in the morning. I may not like being at work that late but why don’t I just try it? If I don’t like it or if it doesn’t work out I can always switch back.

Yes. I think I shall try it. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. I keep trying to go to the gym a few times a week after work but that never happens. I need to make exercise part of my routine so that it gets done daily and I’m not arguing with myself over when to do it.

I’m going to email my boss right now. And the significant other; I hope he can sleep through me grunting and panting in the other room while he tries to get in the last two hours of his sleep.

Belated Feb 07 Weight Loss Update

2009-02-08T10:42:00.000-08:00

Um...

Well.

Let us focus on the positive: I didn't gain any weight. That is good, right? However, the goal was very specifically to lose 3 pounds (or 1.36 stone per LaLa) in two weeks. Which didn't happen.

I didn't lose an ounce. I weigh, to the tenth of a pound, exactly what I weighed two weeks ago. And people, my double chin would argue that this is not my "ideal" weight.

I could pretend that it is muscle gain but that is entirely unlikely. I can do a whole quarter of a pushup girl style (up on my knees) now but that alone would not burn three pounds of fat and replace it with three pounds of muscle.

So.

Yeah.

Meh.

The goal stands. Three pounds in two weeks. By February 21 I WILL be down three pounds. I WILL BE. I just don't know how...

Smells Like Budget

2009-02-07T17:51:00.000-08:00

The daily grind of a 9-5* eventually wears on even the smallest of things. Take, for instance, the monthly budget. I find it rather disheartening to know that I’ll make exactly X number of dollars* every two weeks and there is not way that that is going up or changing. Don’t misunderstand: stability is a beautiful thing. What I am trying to say is that seeing it all on paper, the next twelve months, broken out into exact two week segments, with no wiggle room or space for change, is phenomenally depressing. I feel like a worker bee who has just been given an outside complete view of their life in the hive: Work. Gather pollen. Die.

That is my complete outside view of at least the next year (providing, of course, that I am not laid off): Work. Eat. Die. Fun, yes? Yet, structure and routine are very, very important for my ability to function. My depression is manageable when I have a semi rigid schedule to follow. If you start throwing things like staggered work time starts at me or closing grocery stores I shop at it seems that my internal leveler can’t re-balance as well or as quickly as other folks’. I crave a change of scenery yet without fail I always adjust miserably to such things.

In this, as it seems to be in all other things as well, my life is a dichotomy. I could not function in an environment where I didn’t know the amount or originator of my next paycheck yet knowing the exact amount and originator of my next paycheck depresses me in some way. It’s like I’m trapped in a box of expectation, this precise box, and all I will manage to do, no matter how poorly or well I work, is make that exact amount every two weeks, pay these exact bills, eat this exact food and go home to the only apartment I can afford.

And heaven forbid I think this! For I could lose my job tomorrow and then what?!? I don’t know if I even like stew made from boots and fish skeletons; and I can hardly adjust when my couch is moved, how will I function when I have no couch?

I have no idea how my brain and I are going to work things out over the upcoming years. It is decisively split on nearly every level, and both sides of the split are always tinged with melancholy. When I make my budget out for this month, which is precisely the same it will be next month, and precisely the same it has been for a year’s worth of months, I will be sad knowing that there will not be any extra money coming in or any wiggle room. And now it has the added edge of not knowing if I will even get to make the budget out as it is for another year’s worth of months or if I’ll be hoping my state’s unemployment fund has'nt yet run out.

Am I particularly crazy in this? Does knowing exactly what the year has in store for you, two miserable and poor weeks at a time, all laid out exactly, sorta depress you? Does it make you feel trapped? Or am I not making my point clearly?

*Even more so when I know 40 hours a week is more than most other countries, except for the crazy ones (China I am looking at you) work in professional fields.

*Which may soon be X number of dollars minus X percent in an effort on my union’s behalf to keep all our jobs.

Internet Access At Work

2009-02-05T19:39:00.000-08:00

They’re really enforcing the Internet Use policy at my work now. It was always strongly enforced at least, it was in my department, but they’re really cracking down now. Other departments’ entire job functions seem to be keeping Zappos and Macy’s online divisions in business. I get to spend hours cleaning up computers infected from hours of web browsing and clearing out literally tens of thousands of cookies per machine as part of my job functionality and have as yet, aside from online shopping and reading gossip sites, to figure out where their job functionality is.

In light of the tough economic times and the fact that things are only going to get worse the HR department has decided to milk every last ounce of productivity they can from every employee in my division, and to ensure that that is happening they are looking at our internet hit reports. Like most businesses my internet access is linked to a user name and password. Every site I visit counts as a “hit” in the proxy. Most sites I visit count as numerous hits because of all the embedded crap. I have never visited a dating site at work in my life yet my proxy hit report has recorded, due to embedded link, that I’ve gone to some singles place several times.

The proxy hit report is fairly skewed. The original determinations for acceptable, neutral, and unacceptable were never changed from the factory settings by the folks who implemented it. That means whereas personal email is considered totally unacceptable chat sites and social networking are acceptable and neutral respectively. I don’t understand why it would be okay for me to spend all day on MySpace trolling for hotties yet checking my gmail is totally out of line.

The report isn’t an accurate representation of what each of us is actually doing on the world wide web. It only tracks hits, not time spent per page or overall time spent on the internet. My department understands this because I work in IT. Other departments, however, don’t understand that total related hits are not the same as total time spent surfing the web. The one hit someone gets for visiting a shopping site and spending 6 hours finding the perfect penny loafers actually looks better to those departments than the 100 hits I take in 10 minutes for surfing tech forums embedded with crap trying to find a solution to an issue. I never visit youtube at work (and rarely at home, actually) but I still get hits on my proxy report for it because it loads with some of the trashier tech forums.

When the reports were ran in December I was number two for hits in my division. I swore to myself I wouldn’t let that happen again. About 20% of my web visits were entirely non work related. There is no way I can justify trashy celebrity gossip sites as being mission critical, even if I say that I need to clear my mind in order to focus on tasks better by judging starlet fashion choices in my head. I knew I could do better than that so I cut out all the *bad* sites in January and was looking forward to my proxy report for the month.

Well.

I dropped my total hits by almost 3,000. Good Job? No. My hit count for the month? Moved me to FIRST place. The hell? The bloody freaking hell? I know what my co-workers are up to. There is no way I’m number one in hits, even if I do rely on Google University to help me with the majority of my work. Yet, there it is, in black and white. Even worse, I’m way, way higher than anyone else in total hits. Number two is 1,300 below me. To have made it out of the top three I would have to have 2,500 less hits. And to add insult to injury, after avoiding trash for an entire month, my unacceptable sites jumped up an additional 7%.

Hence: Arbitrary.

I shouldn’t be reading trashy gossip sites for any number of reasons period, and especially not at work. But I’m not going to stop checking some of my personal email, and I like to see my bank balance daily. I know I could totally cut these things out as well and only do them at home but they fall within acceptable time use of the internet policy, even if they are considered unacceptable by the proxy report. I also know that there is no way I’m ever going to drop out of the top three highest monthly hitters in my division because I rely on the internet for work related answers. Well, that, and I’m not spending 6 hours a day surfing the web on the secret unrecorded DSL line the, er, more seasoned folks are tapping into.

I couldn’t understand how some people could spend hours a day on WoW forums and reading Fark headlines while my two minute Netflix visits were tagging me as an internet inhaling time waster. It’s because I’m at least honest with my misuse of company resources, others have just rigged a way around it. Which: Great. There are plenty of obnoxious and crappy things I get to deal with daily and this is just another. I’m number one in internet hits on the proxy report yet in reality I’m probably number 33, and our division only has 20 people…

At my old job I was the proxy monitor and I won’t say I didn’t abuse it. Can anyone remember my old blog? And how much of that was posted directly from work? Now nothing blog related happens at my job. As a matter of fact most of what happens at my job is…job related. Go figure. In the meantime I’m trying to cut my proxy hits again for the month of February, just as a game to compete against myself. I want to see, with absolute work use only, how much of my hits will still come up as “unacceptable”. It isn’t easy, I do enjoy taking mini mind breaks during the day and just checking to see what is happening in the world but those need to stop now. I’m going to call for my bank balance daily and only visit one or two of my personal email accounts every other day.

If it ever comes down to me being counseled for my over-use of the internet it will be easy to justify the number of hits and the sites I visit. In a way, however, I wish my department would be fair before it ever came to that and crack down on the folks who are circumventing the system. But in the grand scheme of things, does it matter? It surely isn’t fair, and withdrawals from celeb gossip gave me the shakes last month, but should I waste energy on it? I guess I should be happy I have a job and focus on the positive; like evening things out. Maybe I will start letting the air out of the tires of the jackasses who are on the secret DSL all day so that they get to suffer a little everyday too. I’d like to see the HR policy on that.

I'll just...naaa

2009-02-02T18:35:00.000-08:00

Just ranting, nothing to see here, move along. Come back in a few days when I post something substantial.

I'm tapped people. I'm tapped and I need a nap. Or Twelve. Work is a bitch right now (for those of us lucky enough to have jobs they are bad but I can't even begin to pray and hope enough for the unemployed), my apartment needs a good deep cleaning (plus whereas my holiday decorations made it down in a timely manner the boxes are still in my living room) my car is filthy both inside and out, I am in desperate need of a major shopping trip (light bulbs have burned out all over this place and all I have left to eat are uncooked lentils and, um, alka seltzer), I'm not fitting in the workouts I would like, I haven't seen my immediate family in 6 weeks and I need to go see my grandfather like yesterday. My sheets need to be changed. I need to figure out why, even though I don't leave out rotting garbage and I dump bleach in my sink drain daily my place still smells sour when I get home. I need to dust. I only managed to steam half my carpet the other weekend and I need to do the rest. My closet needs to be cleaned out. My CD player has been broken for months and since there is no way I can afford a new one I need to dismantle it and see if I can fix it, or, more likely, render it fully useless so I feel accomplished. The stuffing is coming out of the bottom of a chair I need to fix. I have filing to do. There are stacks of papers and books and odds and ends all over my desk that need attending to. I got four new to me books to read. I'm SINGLE people. I don't have pets. I don't have children. And I STILL can't keep on top of things. Plus, I was social no less that THREE times last week, not even including time with my boyfriend. At this point I don't quite know how to explain to the boyfriend that yes, I adore him, but sweet jebus, I need to hide and hide now. I think I've mentioned before that I hope he takes a week long work trip so I can have guilt free time to myself again. I have to shower, brush my teeth, do my hair, dress myself, eat, drive to work, be productive and functional like everyday. When does it stop?

blerg.

2009-01-31T19:39:00.000-08:00

Yeah, no title because I'm not creating eighty posts with the title "weight loss update". Instead I'm going to label the posts in an attempt to create some organization. This here is just a quickie because I am busy sobbing uncontrollably and screaming at the universe/myself/my stupid degrees because I just filed my taxes. And yeah. The number I made last year is again really, really sad. Like I qualify for federal aide sad. And I hate myself and lack of earning power right now.

Anyhoo:

I have not and will not weigh myself until February 07 so I don't know how I'm doing on the three pounds in two weeks goal. I made it to strength rehab all three times this last week but only managed to fit in two exercise sessions. My eating is okay... not the worst it has ever been but not the best. And I've all but cut out the booze which were just extra calories anyway.

Cheers. I'm off to research kidney resale values.

Damn flourescent lighting

2009-01-29T13:39:00.000-08:00

When I leave my house in the morning I look pretty good. I usually manage to shower, brush my teeth, put on mascara and clean clothes. Today I took extra time with my hair and makeup (Eyeliner! Shadow! Blending!) because I am meeting an old co-worker for lunch (yes, one from the JOB OF HELL). I kinda ratted my hair out into a poof, twisted the ends up into some buns (long hair) and then slid on two accordion like headbands so that the poof is contained and I look, in my morning delirium, both work professional and trendy.

Yeah.

The fuck?

I get to work and after washing my hands in the bathroom I catch a glimpse of myself. My hair looks like warmed over shit. It is awkward and flat in some places, poofy and snarled in others, and it is not doing my forehead any favors to have my hair so severely pulled back.

What looked like expert blending at home has become splotchy and hideous, makes my eyes look squinty and my forehead has become oil slick shiny in less than an HOUR since leaving home. My nose is peeling, blackheads visible, my cheeks look like a drive by clowining with blush, the coverup I applied is the wrong color and I have a huge flakey patch of skin next to my mouth. What. The. Hell.

It is no wonder I hate coming to work. I leave my house looking like a normal human being and once I pass the threshold I'm transformed to a bridge troll who clearly doesn't have over a decade of hair and makeup experience. I feel like I'm akin to Britney in that sad interview where she did her own hair and makeup, the one where her hair extensions were screaming audibly in horror, her false eyelash was flapping in the wind and it appeared that she only put purple eye shadow on one eye, and, oh gob, I'm chewing gum! Shoot me! Shoot me now!

Part of my goal this year was to find a face care system that works for me, start addressing the wrinkles that I'm getting (botox, I'm looking at you) and come up with a way for my makeup to look natural and decent. I've known in the back of my mind that what worked for me at 16 is no longer working for me a decade later and that my skin is getting worse that it was ever in my life but I've been avoiding the whole thing for several reasons:
A) Lack of money. The few things I tried (Philosophy can F itself, it burns! Burrrrrrrrrns! And caused acne so bad I SCARRED for the first time in my life!) were total wastes of time and money and made my skin worse.
B) Lack of knowledge. I don't know what I'm doing here people. I realize I need some kind of cleanser and exfoliater and now I need retinols (or peptides, or free radicals, or something) but I have no idea how or in what. Plus I need sunscreen and moisturizer and I need to stop the wrinkles now but sweet baby jebus I am only one woman! I work and feed myself, isn't that enough? Now I need to figure this out too?
C) There is too much "information" but not enough information, you know? I could read everything the internet has to say on the subject and come away knowing no more that if I'd just spent that time rubbing nacho cheese on my face and watching infomercials. Delicious and mind numbing.

Today just reinforces my need to get this taken care of. I know, I know, it is shallow to worry about such things but looking like hot crap makes me feel like hot crap and feeling like hot crap spills over into every aspect of my life until I can't even get out of bed in the morning.

If you need me I'll be blotting my forehead with printer paper and crying over my hair. You know, Britney and I may be kindred spirits in some ways. There are days when I just want to shave all my hair off too, I mean, mine is related to the frustration associated with having to clean it and style it daily, not with trying to get out of drug testing because my ex husband is trying to takes mah babies away but you know, it is all essentially the same, right?

Internet Accountability

2009-01-25T10:33:00.000-08:00

I am looking to you, Internet, to be my support group and accountability crew.

I will lose, and keep off, 3 pounds in the next two weeks. By February 07 I expect you to check in and make sure that I have lost the weight.

That is a small, manageable chunk, yes?

Only three pounds. (What is that metric? 8 stone or something? Do I have to convert kilos by pi? I expect you metric folks to do that conversion on your own too.)

I am holding myself to the requirement that I work out 6 times in the next two weeks. That is a small, wonderful number. I will also be going to strength rehab 6 times in that two week period as well but that won't count as the workouts.

My theory is this: The grand total of the weight I want to lose is daunting so I have decided instead to break it into manageable chunks. I can do anything for two weeks and I can certainly manage to lose 3 pounds. I'm actually very excited and relieved about this. 3 pounds is not a number that freaks me out.

However, this also means that YOU, yes YOU Internet are along for the ride and I fully expect you to be the support that my conscience needs to get this going. Plus if I am accountable to people that I actually care about (and I care about you Internet) my chances of success are even that much higher.

So come on! Comment or email and show your support! I know that at least three of you still read! I expect to hear from Andy, Ashley and of course Sally. Hearing from The CEO or Hollowsquirrel would be nice too but after a nearly 9 month absence from regular blogging I don't expect to get you guys back right away. Maybe if I blog regularly for awhile again I will start seeing everyone again.

I have an apple or orange to eat now so I'll catch you later. Certainly before February 07.

One step forward, half a step back? Maybe?

2009-01-24T15:48:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how to quantify 2008. When I look at cold, hard facts it was both a year of positive change and forward growth but also a year of great sadness, difficulty, and major issues.

My Grandmother passed away and the next day I nearly died.
But this drove me to attempt to live life in the moment and try things I wouldn't have done before.

I got out of the crippling debt that has haunted me for years, mostly.
But I jumped right into a car payment that has me cursing the lack of public transportation in this county daily.

I listened to my therapist and let myself be vulnerable in my relationship. (Gah, how new world, I bet tribe people in the rain forest don't have to let themselves "be vulnerable") (GAH, but I bet tribe people in the freaking rain forest don't have to deal with the same caliber of baggage western culture dumps on us, discussions about drug use, pornography, previous relationships etc.)(Cripes I wonder if I could survive in the rain forest?) This is a big, big thing for me and even if I walk away getting really, really hurt I know that it wasn't my fault and that I tried.

I maintained a new romantic relationship in 2008 but I wish I'd made more friends. I don't know how to make friends but I wish I had tried, again, even if it is always an exercise in frustration. Damn, actually, I just wish being social didn't give me the heebie jeebies in my stomach and make me want to hide in my closet. Take tonight for instance. I have an actual eVite to go to an actual get together to potentially meet some new people and I can't even bring myself to shower I'm so damn shaken. I wish in 2008 I could have gotten over my social phobia. Sometimes it is worse than other times and right now? It is super powerful. I should just go, I know, even if it sucks, and what am I afraid of but rational thought doesn't ally my fears.

Theoretically, If I hadn't been one walking health disaster after another and half crippled for most of the year I really, really wish I'd gotten more exercise in 2008. Much like the mental block that freaks me out about social situations I seem to have developed a huge mental block against exercise. Even if I could go jogging without hurting myself right now I don't know if I'd do it. The exercise motivation widget ran off (heh) with my damn social situation abilities.

I do focus on the accomplishments of 2008 but that makes me yearn much more powerfully to have truly meaningful accomplishments in 2009. I want to get healthy and lose 25 pounds. I want to see friends more often and do fun social things. I want to make money and keep digging out of debt. I want to save money and build for my retirement future. I want to make strides toward a fulfilling and meaningful career and get out of my J O B. I want to have healthy relationships and attitudes toward my family so that I'm not drained and crazy every time I have contact with them. I want to maintain my individuality and sanity while being in a mature, mutually respectful relationship.

But right now? I just want an excuse to not go to this thing tonight. How can so much of me want what is good while the little part that needs to hide always wins?

What do you want for 2008?

More Humiliating Confession Time

2009-01-22T16:29:00.000-08:00

I really, really, really love this song: Poker Face by Lady Gaga (if the link doesn't work just YouTube the title).

Seriously.

LOVE.

It makes me want to fashion my hair into a bow and dance around my living room like a crazy person.

It makes me want to wear a one shoulder black latex jumpsuit to work.

It makes me want to find my best pair of granny panties, pair them with high heels, and rock a night out on the town.

My friends, I have lost my mind, and it has a soundtrack.

Now, I know what you are thinking. You look to me as a discerning woman of musical taste. You know that I find pop repellent, injurious to true creativity and an insult to the intelligence of humanity. You know that I strive to seek out creative musicians and albums produced by people who love the art and are trying to express more than their famewhoring needs to gyrate to synth pop. But, oh, Gob. Do I love this song.

Muh Muh Muh Muh Mah Poker Face
Muh Muh Muh Muhhhhhhh

And I really kind of dig the singer too....

She's not traditionally pretty but there is a charisma about her that is stunning. She studied all the "real" musical artists at music school and her name is a derivative of a Bowie reference. Singer aside the song has invaded my soul and is pumping through my bloodstream.

I plan to spend the evening fashioning all of my bedsheets into this rocking leotard/hood combo:

Bonus, I totally got a digital camera for Christmas so I'll be able to share my sewing endeavor with you! And hey, if you happen to have yards of spandex laying around please send it to me...I need it. For my poker face.

Awesome. I have back fat now.

2009-01-19T17:07:00.000-08:00

I went for a walk yesterday. Re: Weight Loss that WILL happen, gobdamnit, I am tired of this being a focal point, so I can get the hell on with whatever the rest of my stupid life is supposed to be.

I had to do something I've never done before...I had to keep the top of my fat pants closed by double looping a hair tie around the button because I couldn't even get them zipped half way.

Yes, Yes. The humiliation.

I knew it was getting bad when I couldn't fit into any of my work pants for the last several weeks. I've been getting away with wearing jeans that have stretch in them since before any holidays and though my job can be warehouse work associated I don't think it is super professional to take advantage of that and wear jeans every day. Even the one pair of work pants that are usually my go to "oh girl why'd you eat 4 churros and the supreme nachos today" pants they too won't quite zip up anymore.

So.

Yeah.

Walk time. The walk was lovely and brisk and cold and rejuvenating and hurt the ever living hell out of my neck. I can hardly move today. I didn't wash my hair today because arms over shoulders was a painful proposition. I see a chiropractor once a week, am in strength rehab three times a week, have a doc note excusing me from lifting so much as four pieces of paper at once AND I'm still taking muscle relaxers daily to help with the spasming. It has been over nine months now and while I know the prognosis was at least six months to a year I was hoping for more like the six month option.

In the meantime I have no idea how to lost weight without substantial movement. In October, for my tropical boyfriend funded getaway, I had lost the weight primarily through calorie restriction and excruciating visits with the elliptical machine. I think I gained 5 pounds back just eating the pretzel bag on the plane as my body was so confused about carbs. Whereas that was nice I want to see actual, honest, long term lifetime weight loss that I maintain without woe. And without home liposuction machines.

How is 2009 weighing up for you?

Because Columbia can Suck It. And because sometimes, knowing someone out there believes in you, is the most powerful thing in the world.

2009-01-17T18:50:00.000-08:00

For Sallyacious, my loooooooong over due tag:

7 things not known about me by whom, exactly? The world wide web or truly secret secrets that no one at all knows? Because I don’t know if I have that many. I shall try.

1. I still prefer to sleep with my baby blanket. If it is not available I sleep with a scarf or sweatshirt around my neck. I have to have something around my neck to sleep. Perhaps I was a vampire victim in a previous life? No idea, but it took years to wean off of the actual baby blanket and now it is practically paper thin. I fear one day it will simply disintegrate and honestly, that day, a little piece of me will die along with it.

2. I don’t paint my toenails. Ever. I like my toenails to be clean and short and shaped nice and I hate the look of polish on other people’s toes. I received a compliment once, years ago, that my toenails looked nice because they weren’t painted, and that has stuck with me ever since. Odd how sometimes one little compliment can influence your life so much, yes?

3. I don’t decorate my desks at work, or bring in personal items, so that if I ever have to storm out for any reason I don’t have to come back to collect my things.

4. I have never stormed out of a job. Though heaven knows I have had more than enough reason to. Still, I’m a white collar schmuck with a useless degree(s) so I guess I’m lucky with whatever I get and shouldn’t ever complain. The economy is such that I should be happy with what I’ve got and shut up already (so much easier typed than done).

5. Relationships, or the prospect thereof, frighten me and make me sad. I feel that our current state of society makes it nearly impossible for people to connect in long term meaningful ways, that it demeans monogamy, and in turn negates all the wonderful things that can come from a strong lifetime relationship. I think that things like internet pornography are truly damaging and hurtful to both men and women but I find that I am in the minority when I try to speak out so instead I fear I will spend my life alone because there are no men left who A) want commitment B) don’t consider internet smut to be damaging and C) find beauty in age. I will not be left in my 40s for someone met in a chat room much less a 22 year old found in a coffee house but I don’t know how to prevent it or even find someone in accordance and that, among other things, is what breaks my heart a little each day. And don’t go commenting if you think that porn is harmless blah blah I know your point: I’ve heard it a million times. That doesn’t change the real first hand damage I see it do to people and relationships, so comment elsewhere.

6. I want kids only because I can’t see a future, if I am lucky enough to make it, when I am elderly without them. But that is all. I don’t see having them or raising them or affording them, and I’m infertile, so I had to give up on the idea of carrying them ages ago. Hence, I don’t actually want kids. At all. Is it possible to adopt adult children when I am elderly?

7. If I were 20 pounds thinner right now I think I would be happier. Read: I think I would be, but in reality, I probably wouldn’t be. Happiness is a state of mind that has more to do with what you choose to feel rather than outside influences. Therefore I choose to be happy as I am now, regardless of weight, and I’m not going to beat myself up. I only have the choice in this moment, at this time, and unless I’m going to jump up from my desk chair and run across the united states, eating blades of grass and drinking rain water along the way, I’m not losing these 20 lbs anytime soon, so I’m happy where I am. Though damn, it would be wicked awesome to just take off like that, wouldn’t it? I’m not sure how my car payments would get made though…

Addendum to 7: I wrote the above a couple weeks ago and I’m in a pissy, super bad mood today. My ten year reunion is coming up (f that) and though I don’t want to go (it is 7 months away) (5 months now...SH!T) it has been a craptastic month and I’m freaking out about the fact that I’ve packed on 30lbs since high school that I can’t seem to lose and I’m stuck in a stupid city in a crappy job and… and…and, well, you get the picture. Hence, I am not, at this precise moment in time, super happy with being 20lbs overweight, and if someone walked up to me right now with a handful of amphetamines I would strongly consider taking them do get skinny. NOW.

But.

This doesn’t negate #7; it just goes to show you that I am like Tinkerbell, and apparently can only feel one emotion at a time. Right now that emotion is hateful crazy unhappy self and world loathing. I am working on making the next moment better.

Addendum Addendum (added in 2009)
Now we’re looking at 30 pounds. Good gob. Somebody slap this whopper out of my hand and tie me to a treadmill.

Windowless

2008-09-21T16:25:00.000-07:00

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?

On leg shavi

2008-09-18T18:34:00.000-07:00

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.

27

2008-09-15T17:32:00.000-07:00

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?

How many more titles can I make called Yes I Am Still Here?

2008-08-23T18:18:00.000-07:00

Am. So. Tired.

But still alive, so NOTHING to complain about.

My guts are still in a tumble, and my belly is still swollen and sticking out, but if the inflammation goes down more I may avoid surgery. My energy levels are still incredibly low, yes, even lower than when I am going through a depressive episode, but since I can attribute it to something I am taking it marginally better.

My neck hurts. Always. And if I don't pay attention and wind up guarding it my back pain winds up excrutiatingly bad. 6 days out of 7 I have a pretty good attitude about constant, ridiculous, ongoing pain but by day 7 I'm not so optimistic, especially since I can't take the edge off with any painkillers (hello ulcer) and drinking is not an option (what am I, really stupid?) and I can't just run my head into a wall to knock myself out (that would exacerbate the neck injury, me thinks).

My birthday is coming up so of course I'm getting all introspective and miserable. This health chapter of my life started the end of April and has eaten up four months of my time. I always get down on myself this time of year and not really doing anything for so a long time has left me antsy. Where is my "career" going? Why is it so hard to find decent friends? Why did I make it another year still being 20 lbs overweight? WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?

What the hell indeed.

Tonight I am sitting home alone because I am too tired to even attempt to find someone to do something with and instead I am probably going to fall asleep while the sun is still out only to wake up to back and neck spasms at which time I will watch basic cable infomercials until I fall asleep again. But even for all of this I cannot stress enough: I am still alive. And that is very, very good.