Thank you, everyone, for your kind comments. Anyone who's ever loved a pet knows this particular pain, and I thank you all for your support.
I posted a few days ago about joining one of those all-women gyms. And I've been fairly good about going--the only days I missed were Tuesday, from laziness, and yesterday because...well, you know. Determined to make up for it, I donned my workout clothes and went in today after work.
Well, I now need a new wardrobe just for working out.
I knew this chain--Curves--had a history of bad politics. I knew the founder was a fundamentalist Christian and blah blah skippy. There are things we overlook when we feel we have no alternatives (and before you go saying "Bally's" I refuse to work out with gym-rats and women whose makeup never runs. If that makes me a bad person, so be it.) I signed my little contract and bought some Payless gym shoes.
Well Monday, as I was finishing up my workout with the recommended stretches, I noticed a sign on the wall. "Protect the sanctity of marriage! Call your representatives and tell them: Marriage is one man and one woman!!!"
I was irked by this, substantially, but it was too late to cancel my contract. Instead I packed my "Can we have our country back now?", W-with-a-slash-through-it T-shirt to wear during my next workout.
Today--wearing the aforementioned shirt--I discovered something new--a small table beneath that sign, with two clipboards....bearing petitions for a state referendum defining marriage as one male, one female--period.
And at that point I decided: I'm going to buy a large selection of EXTREMELY leftist t-shirts. Just to make the point, and possibly to provoke a confrontation, from which I will promptly flee.
Once I'd made that momentous decision, I spent the rest of my workout trying to resolve a philosophical question:
Not five minutes after discovering the petitions, I was regaled with an amped-up 240-beats-per-minute remake of "Y.M.C.A.", quite literally the gayest song ever written (with the possible exception of "In The Navy", which--see above.) How can a company who espouses the inequality and inferiority of gay people then turn around and prominently feature songs by the fer-cryin'-out-loud VILLAGE PEOPLE on their workout muzak??? What do they think is HAPPENING at that Y.M.C.A?? I'll give you a hint, Curves Fundies--it ain't a wholesome game of Scrabble!!!
This is another one of those Things I'll Understand When I'm Older/Dead, I guess.For now--off to scandalize the sweaty wingers.
Aug 11, 2005
Aug 10, 2005
R.I.P Aria, 1991-2005
Today I had to have one of my oldest friends put to sleep.
She'd been sick for some time, losing weight due to an overactive thyroid, and despite the pills I'd been wrestling into her since April, she was getting skinnier and skinnier. The vets said as long as she was eating and got checked every couple of months, it wasn't a worry. Then a couple of weeks ago she came down with pinkeye, so another medication got added to her collection. It didn't seem to be helping much either.
Last night I went into the downstairs bath and she was stretched out behind the toilet. I picked her up and she was just boneless, unresisting. I thought maybe she was just reacting poorly to the heat--the other four cats were in varying states of inertia as well--so I gave her her pill and put in her eye ointment, and put her down near the fan. Sometime during the night she made her way back to the bathroom, and this morning she was still there. I picked her up for her morning pill and she gave me that look. I'd seen the look once before, when my tabby was in the last days of his fight with cancer. "I've had enough," it said.
I opened a can of food and put it down next to her--nothing. She sniffed it once and licked it a little (and spat out the pill I'd given her five minutes earlier) and then just looked up at me. The boys were circling the dish, meanwhile, and she didn't even bother to hiss at them. (Aria had the best crunchy-hiss EVER. She could scare off burglars with that hiss, and she used it every chance she got.) This from a cat who, two days ago, would have ripped your fingers off for a scrap of food. A few days back we sat on the sofa together and shared a plate of spaghetti noodles, strand by strand, and I got nipped a few times for my generosity.
I went to work and called the vet immediately. I knew something was really wrong, and when I brought her in, I found out my worst suspicions were correct. The probable diagnosis was kidney failure, though they couldn't be sure without blood work. Regardless, she was a very sick kitty. "It would take a lot of time in the hospital and a lot of blood-work and treatments, and even then there's no guarantee," the doctor said.
She was fourteen years old. Even at the best, they said it might get her a couple more months, of questionable quality. They said without treatment she might not even survive the drive home.
I held her while the doctor gave her the shot, and told her she was a very good kitty, and petted the stripe between her eyes and thanked her for everything she'd been through with me. And she drifted off without a flinch or a whimper.
Aria was with me through some of the craziest times in my life. Firefly and I picked her out from a vet's office in our little college town, on my 21st birthday, a little handful of gray-and-white fur with what looked like a halo around her. Kitten aura, we called it; it certainly didn't signify an angelic nature, because she was a fluffy little demon.
When we moved back to our respective homes at the end of that summer, Aria came with me--my plans were more settled, or something. She was with me when I met JP, when I married David, when I left David, when JP and I moved in together. She sat like an Art Institute lion outside the bedroom door while JP and I lay dopesick in the heat. The night JP died, she broke out of the room we'd stayed in, and spent the next two days hiding under the bed in the spare room at JP's mother's house, til I came to claim her, Tiger, and my clothes. She was with me through move after move after move, through CR, through everything.
I'm not very good with death. It brings up unresolved issues, I guess. I'm sure there are those who would say "just a cat"...but that cat was, in many ways, the last link to a life I don't have anymore, and people who are gone. So yeah, I'm taking this kinda hard.
I got in the car and left a message for Firefly (Aria's "other mom") to call me; then I came home and kissed all the other stupid cats, even Cassidy, the biter.
Rest in peace, Aria. I'm really going to miss you.
Aug 5, 2005
Aug 4, 2005
Naptime, Please??
Oh my god, I could NOT be more tired.
I am at that state of sleepiness where I actually feel nauseated and dizzy, and each of my eyelids weighs seven pounds.
The caffeine is not helping. I question whether even crystal meth would help THIS level of tiredness. I am so tired that I had to cancel my plans for tonight and change them to tomorrow.
What plans, you ask? Well...
I try not to bitch too much about my weight here on the blog--after all, it's one of those things I SHOULD be able to control (and I would, too, if there wasn't so much delicious food in the world!)--but it's been a problem for most of the past ten years. I got a taste of being skinny back when I was an addict--I was a size 11 for the first time since I was in grade school--and I liked it. I've lost some weight in the past few months, mainly after my surgery, but there's still plenty more to go.
So yesterday I went and joined one of those women's gyms, and today after work I was supposed to have my orientation and first workout. I called and changed it to tomorrow. We shall see how THAT goes. (I'm skeptical. And I don't want any overly-chirpy staff trying to "support" or "motivate" me, either. The things that would give me support, the things that would motivate me, are so internal to me that I don't talk about them to close friends, let alone chirpy strangers (although I do post them on a blog where strangers--chirpy or non-chirpy--can read and ponder. So...go figure, or something.))
One of the main reasons I'm so tired, however, belies my comment from last night about LJ. It's uncanny, really; all I have to do is make a dissatisfied comment about the relationship, even in a forum he's completely unaware of, and he suddenly makes some move to pull his ass out of the fire.
Last night I stayed in my air-conditioned room, switching back and forth between "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Rock Star, INXS" while soaking my feet and giving myself a manicure and pedicure. I was perfectly contented, really; but while my nail polish was drying I started to think of tasks that needed doing. So instead of going to bed, I stayed up til about 11, vacuuming the bedroom, moving furniture, etc.
Around 1:00 I was sleeping soundly when LJ came to bed. I always wake up at least a bit when he comes in; generally, though, he rolls over and starts snoring right away. Not last night, though...last night he was feeling chatty.
After bringing me up to date on the latest in the neverending Chronicles of Maywood--he knew both the victim and the shooter in the latest murder there--he told me what he'd been up to before coming home; he and Marcus and K were apparently sitting around drinking and talking all night. "About the real shit," he clarified. And he went on for a while about how the three of them were different from all their other friends; that what they had in common was that all three of them have good women in their corner. Marcus's girl has stayed with him even when he had nothing; K is still with his high-school girlfriend, so they've been through all types of stuff together. And then there's me..."And I told 'em, 'I love my girl and all...I mean, I don't know if she knows it or not, but....'" (This is apparently the only way he can say it, which...yeah, okay, not ideal, whatever--but I'd rather hear it like that than not at all. Which is pretty much what I told him when he said it--"Well, put it this way--it's nice to HEAR it once in a while," I said. I have to keep reminding myself: I'm only his second real girlfriend. Though that doesn't excuse his cluelessness, to a point it DOES explain it.)
He went on, and the general gist of the conversation was how much he really does appreciate me and what we've got. And again: that's nice to hear.
By the time I got to sleep, it was probably about 3 A.M. (hey, it wasn't ALL conversation...) and then I got up at 7. I feel better about LJ....but ohhhhh man, I need some SLEEP.
I am at that state of sleepiness where I actually feel nauseated and dizzy, and each of my eyelids weighs seven pounds.
The caffeine is not helping. I question whether even crystal meth would help THIS level of tiredness. I am so tired that I had to cancel my plans for tonight and change them to tomorrow.
What plans, you ask? Well...
I try not to bitch too much about my weight here on the blog--after all, it's one of those things I SHOULD be able to control (and I would, too, if there wasn't so much delicious food in the world!)--but it's been a problem for most of the past ten years. I got a taste of being skinny back when I was an addict--I was a size 11 for the first time since I was in grade school--and I liked it. I've lost some weight in the past few months, mainly after my surgery, but there's still plenty more to go.
So yesterday I went and joined one of those women's gyms, and today after work I was supposed to have my orientation and first workout. I called and changed it to tomorrow. We shall see how THAT goes. (I'm skeptical. And I don't want any overly-chirpy staff trying to "support" or "motivate" me, either. The things that would give me support, the things that would motivate me, are so internal to me that I don't talk about them to close friends, let alone chirpy strangers (although I do post them on a blog where strangers--chirpy or non-chirpy--can read and ponder. So...go figure, or something.))
One of the main reasons I'm so tired, however, belies my comment from last night about LJ. It's uncanny, really; all I have to do is make a dissatisfied comment about the relationship, even in a forum he's completely unaware of, and he suddenly makes some move to pull his ass out of the fire.
Last night I stayed in my air-conditioned room, switching back and forth between "So You Think You Can Dance" and "Rock Star, INXS" while soaking my feet and giving myself a manicure and pedicure. I was perfectly contented, really; but while my nail polish was drying I started to think of tasks that needed doing. So instead of going to bed, I stayed up til about 11, vacuuming the bedroom, moving furniture, etc.
Around 1:00 I was sleeping soundly when LJ came to bed. I always wake up at least a bit when he comes in; generally, though, he rolls over and starts snoring right away. Not last night, though...last night he was feeling chatty.
After bringing me up to date on the latest in the neverending Chronicles of Maywood--he knew both the victim and the shooter in the latest murder there--he told me what he'd been up to before coming home; he and Marcus and K were apparently sitting around drinking and talking all night. "About the real shit," he clarified. And he went on for a while about how the three of them were different from all their other friends; that what they had in common was that all three of them have good women in their corner. Marcus's girl has stayed with him even when he had nothing; K is still with his high-school girlfriend, so they've been through all types of stuff together. And then there's me..."And I told 'em, 'I love my girl and all...I mean, I don't know if she knows it or not, but....'" (This is apparently the only way he can say it, which...yeah, okay, not ideal, whatever--but I'd rather hear it like that than not at all. Which is pretty much what I told him when he said it--"Well, put it this way--it's nice to HEAR it once in a while," I said. I have to keep reminding myself: I'm only his second real girlfriend. Though that doesn't excuse his cluelessness, to a point it DOES explain it.)
He went on, and the general gist of the conversation was how much he really does appreciate me and what we've got. And again: that's nice to hear.
By the time I got to sleep, it was probably about 3 A.M. (hey, it wasn't ALL conversation...) and then I got up at 7. I feel better about LJ....but ohhhhh man, I need some SLEEP.
Aug 2, 2005
About Chez Gladys
One of my loyal reader/commentors, eatmisery, asked me a question today which seems to deserve an answer. In response to yesterday's post about the drug spot and its sandwich truck, she asked:
Chez Gladys should be fine. This block is rough, but it's a two-sided coin, you see.
I've posted here and there about LJ and his "job", which I like to characterize as "freelance herbal-pharmaceutical sales". And in this capacity, he is involved with a loosely-allied organization whose members profess similar employment. Really, it's not much different from any other professional organization; it's like the Teamsters, only with more guns. They have their rules, their policies, their ways of doing business, things which are not to be violated, and they police themselves.
The nice thing about it is that all the members of LJ's "union" know each other, or know someone who knows someone who knows everyone. And so, for example, the other morning when I came outside and there was a strange man retrieving something from under our front porch (which he swore wasn't drugs, but c'mon now), all it took was a two-minute call to LJ to ensure that such a thing would never happen again. "I talked to dude," he said later that night, "the one with the motorcycle, the one who runs the block? And he said he was gonna talk to everyone and tell them to stay away from our shit."
Another example: the other day when Tim was here and we were running errands, we came home with our hands full of bags. In trying to juggle everything while taking my housekeys out of my pocket, apparently I forgot to press the "lock" button on the car remote.
Just before he came to bed around 3, LJ went out to get a few things out of the truck that he'd left there--a couple of CDs, some mail. He came back in and said "I think someone was fuckin' with the truck--the glovebox was open, and that little box inside the armrest--like they was lookin' for something." I thought about it and realized what I'd done, and apologized even though they hadn't stolen anything (there was nothing to steal!).
The next day LJ called me at work to tell me that he'd talked to one of his other associates on the block, who told him that he'd seen someone in the truck--probably a crackhead, he said--and that he'd run him off before he could do any real damage.
I've tried to explain this to various friends and family members, but it's hard to understand unless you're here: the drug dealers want trouble just as much as I do, which is not at all. And the worst kind of trouble would be trouble involving me, because of the fundamental politics of race here in Chicago.
See, if a black person kills another black person in this neighborhood, it might make the news, depending on the circumstances. Mostly, though, it's just "expected" somehow. But if a white person dies at the hands of a black person, that's a headline. And if the victim was a white woman? An educated, professional white woman? That would bring down the police like the wrath of God--and THAT would be very, very bad for business. All the drug dealers want is to do what they do in peace, really.
Some of them know me by sight; they'll say hello when I'm sitting out on the porch, or laugh at me when I go stand in the spray from the fire hydrant. They smile at me as I drive past; like my neighbors to the east or the woman on the corner who keeps offering me free kittens, they're just part of the neighborhood. I know they don't quite know why I'm here, though I'm sure some of them see LJ and draw their own conclusions; but they also know I'm not going to interfere with them, and between that and the affiliations they share with LJ, they don't interfere with me either.
Could I sell this house? Maybe. It wouldn't be easy; there are five or six other vacant houses on the block, most of them with "For Sale" signs in the window, and my house (as we know!) has some flaws that need to be corrected before it would really be salable. If it sold, I'd almost certainly make a profit. But if I stay longer, if I fix this house up the way I plan to, I will quite likely make a killing. This neighborhood, sooner or later, will be one of the hot places to buy. I've watched for ten years as the gentrification crept westward, and it's coming closer. I don't think I'm entirely happy about that--there's a reason I don't live in Lakeview or Lincoln Park--but from a financial standpoint it's not a bad thing.
More importantly, though--I feel like this is where I belong, somehow. (Or at least, if I don't belong here, there's an actual REASON for it, instead of the nebulous not-belonging I've felt nearly everywhere else in my life. I can deal with not belonging somewhere as long as there's a good reason. It's that inexplicable, I-should-fit-in-here-but-somehow-I-don't feeling that I can't stand.)
Plus: I'm a writer. Someday all these experiences will be useful...I hope.
"Chez Gladys will be okay, right? Would you ever consider selling the place to move elsewhere? I know you love where you're at, but is it worth it? What would be a good reason to stay? I'm genuinely curious."
Chez Gladys should be fine. This block is rough, but it's a two-sided coin, you see.
I've posted here and there about LJ and his "job", which I like to characterize as "freelance herbal-pharmaceutical sales". And in this capacity, he is involved with a loosely-allied organization whose members profess similar employment. Really, it's not much different from any other professional organization; it's like the Teamsters, only with more guns. They have their rules, their policies, their ways of doing business, things which are not to be violated, and they police themselves.
The nice thing about it is that all the members of LJ's "union" know each other, or know someone who knows someone who knows everyone. And so, for example, the other morning when I came outside and there was a strange man retrieving something from under our front porch (which he swore wasn't drugs, but c'mon now), all it took was a two-minute call to LJ to ensure that such a thing would never happen again. "I talked to dude," he said later that night, "the one with the motorcycle, the one who runs the block? And he said he was gonna talk to everyone and tell them to stay away from our shit."
Another example: the other day when Tim was here and we were running errands, we came home with our hands full of bags. In trying to juggle everything while taking my housekeys out of my pocket, apparently I forgot to press the "lock" button on the car remote.
Just before he came to bed around 3, LJ went out to get a few things out of the truck that he'd left there--a couple of CDs, some mail. He came back in and said "I think someone was fuckin' with the truck--the glovebox was open, and that little box inside the armrest--like they was lookin' for something." I thought about it and realized what I'd done, and apologized even though they hadn't stolen anything (there was nothing to steal!).
The next day LJ called me at work to tell me that he'd talked to one of his other associates on the block, who told him that he'd seen someone in the truck--probably a crackhead, he said--and that he'd run him off before he could do any real damage.
I've tried to explain this to various friends and family members, but it's hard to understand unless you're here: the drug dealers want trouble just as much as I do, which is not at all. And the worst kind of trouble would be trouble involving me, because of the fundamental politics of race here in Chicago.
See, if a black person kills another black person in this neighborhood, it might make the news, depending on the circumstances. Mostly, though, it's just "expected" somehow. But if a white person dies at the hands of a black person, that's a headline. And if the victim was a white woman? An educated, professional white woman? That would bring down the police like the wrath of God--and THAT would be very, very bad for business. All the drug dealers want is to do what they do in peace, really.
Some of them know me by sight; they'll say hello when I'm sitting out on the porch, or laugh at me when I go stand in the spray from the fire hydrant. They smile at me as I drive past; like my neighbors to the east or the woman on the corner who keeps offering me free kittens, they're just part of the neighborhood. I know they don't quite know why I'm here, though I'm sure some of them see LJ and draw their own conclusions; but they also know I'm not going to interfere with them, and between that and the affiliations they share with LJ, they don't interfere with me either.
Could I sell this house? Maybe. It wouldn't be easy; there are five or six other vacant houses on the block, most of them with "For Sale" signs in the window, and my house (as we know!) has some flaws that need to be corrected before it would really be salable. If it sold, I'd almost certainly make a profit. But if I stay longer, if I fix this house up the way I plan to, I will quite likely make a killing. This neighborhood, sooner or later, will be one of the hot places to buy. I've watched for ten years as the gentrification crept westward, and it's coming closer. I don't think I'm entirely happy about that--there's a reason I don't live in Lakeview or Lincoln Park--but from a financial standpoint it's not a bad thing.
More importantly, though--I feel like this is where I belong, somehow. (Or at least, if I don't belong here, there's an actual REASON for it, instead of the nebulous not-belonging I've felt nearly everywhere else in my life. I can deal with not belonging somewhere as long as there's a good reason. It's that inexplicable, I-should-fit-in-here-but-somehow-I-don't feeling that I can't stand.)
Plus: I'm a writer. Someday all these experiences will be useful...I hope.
Aug 1, 2005
Gentrification: A Setback, Perhaps
Something I've never seen before:
The drug spot in front of Chez Gladys now has its own sandwich truck.
The drug spot in front of Chez Gladys now has its own sandwich truck.
Jul 29, 2005
A Meme
Since I can't get my thoughts together--that introspective post is still percolating, and it's getting kinda ugly in my head--I offer a meme.
10 years ago: JP and I were about two weeks into the final heroin habit. We'd quit for a few days in mid-July, in the heart of a heat-wave; from then til he died in October, we never really even made the pretense of quitting. We were living in our little apartment with Lou, who we'd introduced to heroin, and the kid upstairs had moved his drums into our living room and JP's band (a nebulous construct at best) would jam in the living room at night and the neighbors would come and stand in the doorway and listen.
5 years ago: I was living in a third-floor walkup with CR, who'd just a few days earlier gotten rid of Bertha, the 400-pound woman he'd invited to live with us. He claimed they were just friends but I knew better; she'd been there since mid-June, leaving her four young kids in Iowa and never even calling them. CR had spent the summer playing each of us off against the other, not even letting us speak for fear we'd trade information. Meanwhile, Tim was living in the back bedroom and not speaking to any of us.
1 year ago: LJ and I had just gotten the truck and were trying to get everything repaired. I was going through all kinds of hell with Bob the Plumber, trying to get the house fixed up, and dealing with all kinds of hell at my job as well. (I had to cheat and peek back at last year's blog to remember this.)
Yesterday: I went to work. Because the big boss is on vacation and my immediate boss is too swamped to even begin to show me the ropes, I spent the entire day e-mailing back and forth with the Brit. I bought my lunch with the last $6 of space on my credit card, and my Pepsi with sofa-change and a "buy one get one free" bottle cap. I came home, ate buttered spaghetti noodles, and went to bed, intending to go to sleep, but instead I read "The Circus Fire" til I nodded off.
Today: Payday! I spent most of the day e-mailing with the Brit (I still fucking ADORE this man).Ten I called HR at Place Where I Used To Work to find out what the hell had happened to the vacation money I was supposed to get; I found out that half of it paid out, half of it didn't, and I should get the check for the other half next week sometime. No big--finally we have grocery money! I spent an hour at Food-4-Less and then made a trip to Target for jeans--a size smaller!
Tomorrow: Tomorrow I have to get up at 6 to go pick up Tim and his stuff from the shelter; apparently he's kicked out for not "making sufficient progress" or something. I'm sure I'll hear the story this weekend. He's going to clean the weeds out of the yard. I'm also going to enlist his help in moving a bunch of stuff out to the trash; then I'm going to rearrange my workspace in the hopes of jump-starting my motivation on the book.
5 snacks I enjoy: Breyers' Heath Bar Crunch ice cream; chips and salsa; caramel corn; really garlicky pickles; Ritz crackers with peanut butter and strawberry jelly.
5 bands/singers to whose songs I know most lyrics: This one is hard to narrow down, as I have an eerie memory for lyrics, but I'll try: Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Afghan Whigs, Tool, Alice in Chains.
5 things I would do with $100,000,000: Fix up this house; pay off the mortgage; pay back my mom all the money I've "borrowed" from her over the past 15 years; take a year off and travel around the country in an RV; and give money to Firefly for her Amazon trip, to Tim to get his feet under him, and to the Brit for grad school.
5 locations I’d like to run away to: Seattle; Berkeley; Atlanta; Florence, Italy; Vancouver.
5 bad habits I have: Swearing, overeating, picking at my cuticles, TV watching, and procrastination.
5 things I like doing: Writing, crocheting, cooking/baking, sex, and home improvement.
5 things I would never wear: Anything tight; anything midriff-baring; high heels; spandex; socks with sandals.
5 TV shows I like: Amazing Race, American Idol, Deadwood, I Love Lucy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
5 movies I like: West Side Story, O Brother Where Art Thou, Shrek, The King and I, Camp.
5 famous people I’d like to meet: Kurt Cobain, Barack Obama, God, Nelson Algren, Zach de la Rocha.
5 biggest joys at the moment: My new job; my house; the Brit; my own mind; chicken-fried rice.
5 favorite toys: My computer; my sewing machine; my power tools; Legos; Play-doh.
I'm thinking this would pretty much be an embarrasment of riches for any mental-health professional who came across it, but oh well. :) I won't tag anyone, but take it and run with it if you'd like--I'd be interested to see how some of the rest of you would answer these.
10 years ago: JP and I were about two weeks into the final heroin habit. We'd quit for a few days in mid-July, in the heart of a heat-wave; from then til he died in October, we never really even made the pretense of quitting. We were living in our little apartment with Lou, who we'd introduced to heroin, and the kid upstairs had moved his drums into our living room and JP's band (a nebulous construct at best) would jam in the living room at night and the neighbors would come and stand in the doorway and listen.
5 years ago: I was living in a third-floor walkup with CR, who'd just a few days earlier gotten rid of Bertha, the 400-pound woman he'd invited to live with us. He claimed they were just friends but I knew better; she'd been there since mid-June, leaving her four young kids in Iowa and never even calling them. CR had spent the summer playing each of us off against the other, not even letting us speak for fear we'd trade information. Meanwhile, Tim was living in the back bedroom and not speaking to any of us.
1 year ago: LJ and I had just gotten the truck and were trying to get everything repaired. I was going through all kinds of hell with Bob the Plumber, trying to get the house fixed up, and dealing with all kinds of hell at my job as well. (I had to cheat and peek back at last year's blog to remember this.)
Yesterday: I went to work. Because the big boss is on vacation and my immediate boss is too swamped to even begin to show me the ropes, I spent the entire day e-mailing back and forth with the Brit. I bought my lunch with the last $6 of space on my credit card, and my Pepsi with sofa-change and a "buy one get one free" bottle cap. I came home, ate buttered spaghetti noodles, and went to bed, intending to go to sleep, but instead I read "The Circus Fire" til I nodded off.
Today: Payday! I spent most of the day e-mailing with the Brit (I still fucking ADORE this man).Ten I called HR at Place Where I Used To Work to find out what the hell had happened to the vacation money I was supposed to get; I found out that half of it paid out, half of it didn't, and I should get the check for the other half next week sometime. No big--finally we have grocery money! I spent an hour at Food-4-Less and then made a trip to Target for jeans--a size smaller!
Tomorrow: Tomorrow I have to get up at 6 to go pick up Tim and his stuff from the shelter; apparently he's kicked out for not "making sufficient progress" or something. I'm sure I'll hear the story this weekend. He's going to clean the weeds out of the yard. I'm also going to enlist his help in moving a bunch of stuff out to the trash; then I'm going to rearrange my workspace in the hopes of jump-starting my motivation on the book.
5 snacks I enjoy: Breyers' Heath Bar Crunch ice cream; chips and salsa; caramel corn; really garlicky pickles; Ritz crackers with peanut butter and strawberry jelly.
5 bands/singers to whose songs I know most lyrics: This one is hard to narrow down, as I have an eerie memory for lyrics, but I'll try: Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Afghan Whigs, Tool, Alice in Chains.
5 things I would do with $100,000,000: Fix up this house; pay off the mortgage; pay back my mom all the money I've "borrowed" from her over the past 15 years; take a year off and travel around the country in an RV; and give money to Firefly for her Amazon trip, to Tim to get his feet under him, and to the Brit for grad school.
5 locations I’d like to run away to: Seattle; Berkeley; Atlanta; Florence, Italy; Vancouver.
5 bad habits I have: Swearing, overeating, picking at my cuticles, TV watching, and procrastination.
5 things I like doing: Writing, crocheting, cooking/baking, sex, and home improvement.
5 things I would never wear: Anything tight; anything midriff-baring; high heels; spandex; socks with sandals.
5 TV shows I like: Amazing Race, American Idol, Deadwood, I Love Lucy, Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
5 movies I like: West Side Story, O Brother Where Art Thou, Shrek, The King and I, Camp.
5 famous people I’d like to meet: Kurt Cobain, Barack Obama, God, Nelson Algren, Zach de la Rocha.
5 biggest joys at the moment: My new job; my house; the Brit; my own mind; chicken-fried rice.
5 favorite toys: My computer; my sewing machine; my power tools; Legos; Play-doh.
I'm thinking this would pretty much be an embarrasment of riches for any mental-health professional who came across it, but oh well. :) I won't tag anyone, but take it and run with it if you'd like--I'd be interested to see how some of the rest of you would answer these.
Jul 26, 2005
I Learned A New Word Today
There is, apparently, a reason I'm not in charge of naming enterprise systems.
If I was the person whose job it was to name a system that people would be using every single day in millions of companies all over the globe, I'd like to think I would be merciful. I would name it something snappy, like CODA or ARPI or maybe MEOW (don't ask me what the acronyms would stand for--that's not my point.) Or I would name it something cute, like Rabbit or Ducky or Bonbon. Something easy to remember; something easy to pronounce and spell.
I would not, under any circumstances or for any reason, name it...
...Vormittag.
But apparently that's just exactly what the enterprise system at New Place Where I Work is called. For the past two days I've heard that part of my job is going to be to develop documentation for the Vormittag system. And every single time I heard it, somewhere in the recesses of my mind a little voice said the WHAAAAAAAAAT? (In exactly that voice used by the fat guy in Jaws, right after they catch the little shark. You know: Richard Dreyfuss says "It's a tiger shark," and the other guy says "A WHAAAAAAAAT?" That's the voice.)
Vormittag. It sounds like an obscure Austrian curse-word. It sounds like something Corky St. Clair would fit into his re-enactment of "Das Boot". It sounds like something my cat would cough up. (I would like to see Firefly's reaction to this word, resembling as it does her unfavoritemost word in the whole world, the one we refer to between ourselves as "the v-word". As in, I got so drunk last Saturday that I spent all day Sunday doing the v-word.)
I am seized with a helpless, reckless impulse to accost strangers on the street and startle them with a hearty, "VORMITTAG!!" before capering away, giggling like a madwoman.
Is that so wrong?
If I was the person whose job it was to name a system that people would be using every single day in millions of companies all over the globe, I'd like to think I would be merciful. I would name it something snappy, like CODA or ARPI or maybe MEOW (don't ask me what the acronyms would stand for--that's not my point.) Or I would name it something cute, like Rabbit or Ducky or Bonbon. Something easy to remember; something easy to pronounce and spell.
I would not, under any circumstances or for any reason, name it...
...Vormittag.
But apparently that's just exactly what the enterprise system at New Place Where I Work is called. For the past two days I've heard that part of my job is going to be to develop documentation for the Vormittag system. And every single time I heard it, somewhere in the recesses of my mind a little voice said the WHAAAAAAAAAT? (In exactly that voice used by the fat guy in Jaws, right after they catch the little shark. You know: Richard Dreyfuss says "It's a tiger shark," and the other guy says "A WHAAAAAAAAT?" That's the voice.)
Vormittag. It sounds like an obscure Austrian curse-word. It sounds like something Corky St. Clair would fit into his re-enactment of "Das Boot". It sounds like something my cat would cough up. (I would like to see Firefly's reaction to this word, resembling as it does her unfavoritemost word in the whole world, the one we refer to between ourselves as "the v-word". As in, I got so drunk last Saturday that I spent all day Sunday doing the v-word.)
I am seized with a helpless, reckless impulse to accost strangers on the street and startle them with a hearty, "VORMITTAG!!" before capering away, giggling like a madwoman.
Is that so wrong?
Jul 25, 2005
First Day
Today went well--not terribly exciting, honestly, but I think I'm going to like it there...
...once they get the air-conditioning fixed.
I feel as though I've been slow-cooked in my own juices all day--like a pot roast.
I definitely like my bosses, though. They as much as confessed that they're not quite sure what all I'm going to do; the official job title appears to be "Jack of All Trades" and so I'll be doing a little bit of everything. Which is fine with me, but I'm anxious to get started.
(Not that the past is behind me, even the parts I wish would go away: at 9:15 AM I got a call from Amy looking for a password to my old machine. Like the new tech couldn't have reformatted the machine--oh, wait. That would only have worked if the new tech was THERE, as opposed to keeping his own schedule totally not in keeping with everyone else's. Much more pleasantly, around midday I heard from the Brit, via e-mail: "Weird, your not being here." Yeah, to say the least. I miss him so damn much.)
I think I'll like the new job; I just wish it would START.
...once they get the air-conditioning fixed.
I feel as though I've been slow-cooked in my own juices all day--like a pot roast.
I definitely like my bosses, though. They as much as confessed that they're not quite sure what all I'm going to do; the official job title appears to be "Jack of All Trades" and so I'll be doing a little bit of everything. Which is fine with me, but I'm anxious to get started.
(Not that the past is behind me, even the parts I wish would go away: at 9:15 AM I got a call from Amy looking for a password to my old machine. Like the new tech couldn't have reformatted the machine--oh, wait. That would only have worked if the new tech was THERE, as opposed to keeping his own schedule totally not in keeping with everyone else's. Much more pleasantly, around midday I heard from the Brit, via e-mail: "Weird, your not being here." Yeah, to say the least. I miss him so damn much.)
I think I'll like the new job; I just wish it would START.
Jul 24, 2005
Regrouping
I am nothing if not resilient.
Also "stubborn".
Plan B: quiet persistence. (Which I don't think will be a hardship for either of us; I just got an e-mail from him at my real-life addy, wishing me good luck for tomorrow. Such a sweetheart that man is.)
Things happen, you know. Stuff doesn't always work out the way people plan. And as long as I'm THERE--as long as we're in touch--there's always the possibility that he'll be whacked in the head by the clue-brick.
In the meantime, I have a new job to start tomorrow. And a house to reconstruct, and a book to write, and...Yeah, I'll keep busy.
Also "stubborn".
Plan B: quiet persistence. (Which I don't think will be a hardship for either of us; I just got an e-mail from him at my real-life addy, wishing me good luck for tomorrow. Such a sweetheart that man is.)
Things happen, you know. Stuff doesn't always work out the way people plan. And as long as I'm THERE--as long as we're in touch--there's always the possibility that he'll be whacked in the head by the clue-brick.
In the meantime, I have a new job to start tomorrow. And a house to reconstruct, and a book to write, and...Yeah, I'll keep busy.
Jul 22, 2005
Aaaaaaaaand.........KABOOM.
I don't know which is worse: making an ass of yourself where everyone can see it, so you're at least forced to laugh at yourself and can thus preserve a shred of dignity...
...or making an ass of yourself only in some secret hopeful naive recess of your own mind, so that when the true depth of your delusion and silliness is exposed, you have no recourse but to writhe in the total agony of having been a sucker, AGAIN.
"So I'm going to do this marriage thing again," he said on the last ride home today.
Followed by something something something blah blah something something and counterpointed by the screaming kettle-whistle sound of every stupid, silly hope I had, deflating.
There were times over the past few days when I would catch my mind going in some way-too-hopeful direction and I would open my eyes and say out loud Stop it. You're being an idiot. You know better.
I knew better.
I KNEW I knew better.
You see what good knowing-better does me.
Thirty-five years old and still I haven't learned. Or maybe I have, and I just hoped I was wrong.
Sucker.
...or making an ass of yourself only in some secret hopeful naive recess of your own mind, so that when the true depth of your delusion and silliness is exposed, you have no recourse but to writhe in the total agony of having been a sucker, AGAIN.
"So I'm going to do this marriage thing again," he said on the last ride home today.
Followed by something something something blah blah something something and counterpointed by the screaming kettle-whistle sound of every stupid, silly hope I had, deflating.
There were times over the past few days when I would catch my mind going in some way-too-hopeful direction and I would open my eyes and say out loud Stop it. You're being an idiot. You know better.
I knew better.
I KNEW I knew better.
You see what good knowing-better does me.
Thirty-five years old and still I haven't learned. Or maybe I have, and I just hoped I was wrong.
Sucker.
Jul 21, 2005
What a Day
Oh ho ho ho ho ho.
Wow.
There was a conversation today that I can't quite process yet. (No, nothing definitive or irrevocable was said, but that wall--the one that ensured we talked only about 99% politics, office and otherwise--was very clearly breached today.)
I'll go to the end because it seems illustrative.
We sat in the car for about five minutes in the parking space on the other side of the street in front of his building, talking about international politics as usual (I TOLD you, we're NERDS); then he got out and said "see you tomorrow" and walked away.
As he crossed over to the median he turned and waved.
And a few feet down the street, turned and waved again.
And once more as I pulled out of the parking space into traffic.
I laughed the whole way home.
I'm trying to talk myself out of the things I'm thinking; I'm trying to talk myself out of thinking there's anything more to this than the absolute shallowest surface interpretation of "friendly concern". I'm not succeeding, and for a change I'm not sure I should be.
And ohhhhh, I am going to miss this man.
Wow.
There was a conversation today that I can't quite process yet. (No, nothing definitive or irrevocable was said, but that wall--the one that ensured we talked only about 99% politics, office and otherwise--was very clearly breached today.)
I'll go to the end because it seems illustrative.
We sat in the car for about five minutes in the parking space on the other side of the street in front of his building, talking about international politics as usual (I TOLD you, we're NERDS); then he got out and said "see you tomorrow" and walked away.
As he crossed over to the median he turned and waved.
And a few feet down the street, turned and waved again.
And once more as I pulled out of the parking space into traffic.
I laughed the whole way home.
I'm trying to talk myself out of the things I'm thinking; I'm trying to talk myself out of thinking there's anything more to this than the absolute shallowest surface interpretation of "friendly concern". I'm not succeeding, and for a change I'm not sure I should be.
And ohhhhh, I am going to miss this man.
Jul 20, 2005
Okay, I Guess That's Better.
But I seriously have to get a fucking handle on my self-esteem as it relates to men.
It goes a little something like this: if the guy I'm interested in gives me even the slightest, most fragile sign of interest, or of anything my over-eager mind can even interpret as interest, then all is well with the world. Otherwise: gloom and black despair.
Guess which option we went with today?
And he's not INTERESTED. He's FRIENDLY. There's a difference. But someone please explain that to my interior eleven-year-old girl. Preferably using a large, heavy object--a cudgel, perhaps, or a large housebrick. And while you're bludgeoning, please ALSO explain to this interior eleven-year-old brat that she is NOT entitled to control my self-image. Because she's really, seriously dancing on my last fucking nerve.
(Friendly, interested, or in-between, it was still great fun to spend the day e-mailing each other with a running dialogue between George Bush and Karl Rove about (among other things) whose turn it was to feed Cthulhu. (Yes, we're nerds. Don't ask.))
People at work are starting to grasp that I'm not going to be around any more, which is a) true and b) awesome. And it has benefits, as well: Noreen (yes, the same Noreen with whom I spent my first three years at war and the last two in an uneasy detente) brought in my favorite coffeecake--and an extra whole coffeecake for me to take home--this morning. And she hugged me and told me how much she was going to miss me, and how even though we'd had our differences, she felt like she'd learned a lot from me. Which...wow, you know? Just...wow. (Also, coffeecake.)
I'm pretty sure that some of the accolades, though, come from the almost-universal unhappiness with which the announcement of my successor has been greeted. Sam is a great tech, but he's not an easy man to get along with--especially when women try to tell him what to do. (It may be cultural.) Everyone who knows anything about him has had to be reassured, more than once, that he will take good care of them. But what they're really looking for, I think, is reassurance that Sam will be as easy to run over as I was--and I can't give them that. (I've almost killed him three times in the past two days, so you can imagine how reassuring I'd be anyway, under the circumstances.)
Today on the train home the Brit asked me if I'd be celebrating this weekend. And I thought about it for a minute, and I told him: "Probably not. I'll probably go home and go about my business, and get up on Monday and go to work, only it'll just be a different 'work'." And I thought about how sad that was, though I tried not to make it sound to him like "poor me, I have no one to celebrate with"--except...well, I HAVE no one to celebrate with. I SHOULD, but I don't. I don't have a problem with that; I'm a solitary person and people, by and large, are hard work for me. But it just seems kinda wrong to me that even the person I'm supposedly closest to probably won't acknowledge that anything is even worth celebrating.
Two more days, anyway. Woo hoo.
It goes a little something like this: if the guy I'm interested in gives me even the slightest, most fragile sign of interest, or of anything my over-eager mind can even interpret as interest, then all is well with the world. Otherwise: gloom and black despair.
Guess which option we went with today?
And he's not INTERESTED. He's FRIENDLY. There's a difference. But someone please explain that to my interior eleven-year-old girl. Preferably using a large, heavy object--a cudgel, perhaps, or a large housebrick. And while you're bludgeoning, please ALSO explain to this interior eleven-year-old brat that she is NOT entitled to control my self-image. Because she's really, seriously dancing on my last fucking nerve.
(Friendly, interested, or in-between, it was still great fun to spend the day e-mailing each other with a running dialogue between George Bush and Karl Rove about (among other things) whose turn it was to feed Cthulhu. (Yes, we're nerds. Don't ask.))
People at work are starting to grasp that I'm not going to be around any more, which is a) true and b) awesome. And it has benefits, as well: Noreen (yes, the same Noreen with whom I spent my first three years at war and the last two in an uneasy detente) brought in my favorite coffeecake--and an extra whole coffeecake for me to take home--this morning. And she hugged me and told me how much she was going to miss me, and how even though we'd had our differences, she felt like she'd learned a lot from me. Which...wow, you know? Just...wow. (Also, coffeecake.)
I'm pretty sure that some of the accolades, though, come from the almost-universal unhappiness with which the announcement of my successor has been greeted. Sam is a great tech, but he's not an easy man to get along with--especially when women try to tell him what to do. (It may be cultural.) Everyone who knows anything about him has had to be reassured, more than once, that he will take good care of them. But what they're really looking for, I think, is reassurance that Sam will be as easy to run over as I was--and I can't give them that. (I've almost killed him three times in the past two days, so you can imagine how reassuring I'd be anyway, under the circumstances.)
Today on the train home the Brit asked me if I'd be celebrating this weekend. And I thought about it for a minute, and I told him: "Probably not. I'll probably go home and go about my business, and get up on Monday and go to work, only it'll just be a different 'work'." And I thought about how sad that was, though I tried not to make it sound to him like "poor me, I have no one to celebrate with"--except...well, I HAVE no one to celebrate with. I SHOULD, but I don't. I don't have a problem with that; I'm a solitary person and people, by and large, are hard work for me. But it just seems kinda wrong to me that even the person I'm supposedly closest to probably won't acknowledge that anything is even worth celebrating.
Two more days, anyway. Woo hoo.
Jul 19, 2005
Things of Which I Have Had Enough, Already.
1. Raging heat and humidity.
2. LJ, who didn't come home last night (He said he was staying "at his momma's." File under Excuses, Highly Unlikely; cross-reference with Excuses, Done To Death.)
3. The Brit; or more accurately the Brit and his girlfriend; or still more accurately, the fact that the Brit hasn't the slightest interest in me on anything more than a friendship basis.
4. The fact that ugly, hateful, mean, cruel, vindictive people get laid more than I do.
4a. (Which is "none".)
5. And have someone waiting for them to come home at the end of the day.
Numbers 6-854, inclusive: My job.
855. Missing JP.
856. The guilt that has cropped up in the past few days about JP, about Lou, about Sophia, about everything I've done wrong in the past ten years.
857. George W Bush. And the fact that his quacking has pre-empted "Forensic Files."
858. Too many damn cats.
859. Have you EVER tried to put ointment in a cat's eyes? Not easy. In fact, barely possible.
860. The fact that my mother is not capable of planning a two-hundred-mile journey without leaving maudlin phone messages, laying out all her personal papers, and making a list of phone numbers to call "just in case something happens". I mean, you're going to GREEN BAY, not Calcutta! (Yes, I know it COULD happen; I prefer not to dwell on it, and wish she wouldn't either.)
861. The fucking TAPEWORM. I ate FORTY-FIVE MINUTES ago and I'm already hungry again. Jeez.
862. Feeling like "everything's going right for a change, so why do I feel so shitty?"
863. Feeling this shitty in the first place.
I'm going to bed now.
2. LJ, who didn't come home last night (He said he was staying "at his momma's." File under Excuses, Highly Unlikely; cross-reference with Excuses, Done To Death.)
3. The Brit; or more accurately the Brit and his girlfriend; or still more accurately, the fact that the Brit hasn't the slightest interest in me on anything more than a friendship basis.
4. The fact that ugly, hateful, mean, cruel, vindictive people get laid more than I do.
4a. (Which is "none".)
5. And have someone waiting for them to come home at the end of the day.
Numbers 6-854, inclusive: My job.
855. Missing JP.
856. The guilt that has cropped up in the past few days about JP, about Lou, about Sophia, about everything I've done wrong in the past ten years.
857. George W Bush. And the fact that his quacking has pre-empted "Forensic Files."
858. Too many damn cats.
859. Have you EVER tried to put ointment in a cat's eyes? Not easy. In fact, barely possible.
860. The fact that my mother is not capable of planning a two-hundred-mile journey without leaving maudlin phone messages, laying out all her personal papers, and making a list of phone numbers to call "just in case something happens". I mean, you're going to GREEN BAY, not Calcutta! (Yes, I know it COULD happen; I prefer not to dwell on it, and wish she wouldn't either.)
861. The fucking TAPEWORM. I ate FORTY-FIVE MINUTES ago and I'm already hungry again. Jeez.
862. Feeling like "everything's going right for a change, so why do I feel so shitty?"
863. Feeling this shitty in the first place.
I'm going to bed now.
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