Disproving any and all conspiracy theories that imply the malice of inanimate objects and/or intangible collectives: I got paid today.
"Yeah? And?" I hear you say.
Well, I wasn't supposed to get paid til TOMORROW. I had pretty much steeled myself for a long day of privation and fun-lessness and then four (well, three) days of work before another weekend rolled around. But something told me to check the balance this morning, and -WHAM!- paycheck. (I love my bank. They tend to credit me with things that allegedly don't exist yet.)
In the grand scheme of life, this improves exactly nothing; in the grand scheme of the next 14 hours, however, it makes me very very happy.
Chez Gladys became the Communal Beach House this weekend. Saturday morning I woke up to find Damian watching TV on the couch, having woken up early; then Tim called at about 11:00 Saturday night and showed up at nearly 1 AM; and THEN, Damian's little brother James showed up at about 5 AM Sunday morning (with an anonymous girl in tow who I didn't find out about til the two of them left late Sunday afternoon). Well, that brought us substantially over capacity--me and LJ in our room, Damian on the bed in the spare room, and Tim on the sofa--so James and Anonymous Girl apparently got the floor of the spare room. And everybody woke up around noon and came downstairs, except for Anonymous Girl who I still didn't know was there, and there was much bullshitting and loud-talking and male bonding. The guys and Anonymous Girl went off to a barbecue, leaving me (Don't ask. I'm not asking and you shouldn't either) at the house watching the race with Tim.
(An aside: The folks at Lowe's Speedway in Charlotte are gonna have SO much explaining to do after what they did to that track. That race? Was pathetic. 23 cautions isn't "intense" or "exciting"--it's just bad racing, and it had nothing to do with the skill of the drivers. They need to go back and look at their track and decide what needs to happen to make it a viable driving surface again. And what kind of word is "levegating", anyhow?) /NASCAR moment.
LJ came home and went upstairs in typical wordless LJ fashion; around midnight, James and Anonymous returned. At which point I gave James holy hell for the condition in which he left the bathroom when he left--towels on the floor, washcloths balled-up on the windowsill, the shower all grimy--and explained to him that a) this is not a Motel 6, and b) even if it WAS a Motel 6, I am not the maid. Which actually felt kinda good, giving him hell like that, and it didn't hurt matters that Anonymous was standing there listening to the whole tirade. So I fixed French toast for myself and some for Tim, and went upstairs to bed, and talked to LJ for a while. I'm forgiving his past few days of buttheadedness; he's dealing with a lot of shit right now, and just kinda wants to be alone to process it.
Which I can understand, being in the same sort of state of mind at the moment--except "alone" doesn't quite seem to be an option around Gladys's Summer Cottage. Then again, I had plenty of "alone" this winter, thankyewverrymuch, and all the company is kind of a welcome change.
Or it would be, if they'd pick their grubby towels up off the floor...
Monday, May 30, 2005
Saturday, May 28, 2005
Viva La Reznor, and Other Stories
Why Trent Reznor still fucking rules and probably always will...
MTV had negative credibility with me anyway--and to think we complained about them back in '91, about how little of substance and rebellion still remained in that whole concept!--but this takes them to the sub-basement of sellout hell, in my book.
What a sham we've become, this whole generation. Thank god there are a few of us left who won't give in.
In other news of those who won't give in, and who, in consequence, totally fucking rule--can you stand it if I mention the Brit again? On yesterday's ride home, he told me something that no one else at work knows about, something having to do with his history. Having been sworn to secrecy I won't go into details, but suffice it to say I now find him more awesome than ever. He's actually taken to waiting for me at the end of the day even when I don't have the car, so we can walk to the El together. Which is great, but now when I walk in the door at his building, I'm starting to get those LOOKS from the rest of the staff. (You know the LOOK--it's a slightly-older version of the look you get from your maiden aunt when you're eleven years old, right before she says "Oh, how wonderful--you're growing BOOBIES!") And of course I blush--as I've said before, I'll blush not just at the drop of a hat, but even at the suggestion that a hat might someday be dropped, anywhere, at any time--which does NOT exactly convey the cool, nonchalant image I'm striving for here.
(An aside: right now I'm listening to "Fascination Street"--best Cure song EVAH. I'm a big fan of abortive story-songs, where you come into the scene right in the middle and you're left with all sorts of mysteries and unanswerables. Most of the Afghan Whigs stuff is like that--particularly _Gentlemen_ and _Black Love_, either of which would easily make my list of Top Fifteen Albums To Play On Infinite Loop While Fucking. If I HAD such a list. Which, of course, I don't. Um....yeah.)
My task for the weekend: a room-by-room analysis of what it would take to whip the Catastrophe into shape. LJ and I were talking about whether it might not be wise to sell this house rather than sink any more money into its repair. While my stubborn, I-can-do-anything side rebels against the very thought, my practical side acknowledges that yeah, it might not be a bad idea. I think the crux of that decision will be made by whether or not I get this new job, and then whether or not I can refinance and get the money for repairs. It's a good house and I think I can make it amazing, if only I can get the money to fix the few major things that are wrong with it. I don't think I'll make that decision for a while yet--my bankruptcy is scheduled to drop off my credit in about nine more months, which will improve the lending picture considerably--but it's worthwhile to think about it.
My other task for the weekend: more updates. So off I go to...well, probably to do something else entirely. (But at least I'm honest about it.)
MTV had negative credibility with me anyway--and to think we complained about them back in '91, about how little of substance and rebellion still remained in that whole concept!--but this takes them to the sub-basement of sellout hell, in my book.
What a sham we've become, this whole generation. Thank god there are a few of us left who won't give in.
In other news of those who won't give in, and who, in consequence, totally fucking rule--can you stand it if I mention the Brit again? On yesterday's ride home, he told me something that no one else at work knows about, something having to do with his history. Having been sworn to secrecy I won't go into details, but suffice it to say I now find him more awesome than ever. He's actually taken to waiting for me at the end of the day even when I don't have the car, so we can walk to the El together. Which is great, but now when I walk in the door at his building, I'm starting to get those LOOKS from the rest of the staff. (You know the LOOK--it's a slightly-older version of the look you get from your maiden aunt when you're eleven years old, right before she says "Oh, how wonderful--you're growing BOOBIES!") And of course I blush--as I've said before, I'll blush not just at the drop of a hat, but even at the suggestion that a hat might someday be dropped, anywhere, at any time--which does NOT exactly convey the cool, nonchalant image I'm striving for here.
(An aside: right now I'm listening to "Fascination Street"--best Cure song EVAH. I'm a big fan of abortive story-songs, where you come into the scene right in the middle and you're left with all sorts of mysteries and unanswerables. Most of the Afghan Whigs stuff is like that--particularly _Gentlemen_ and _Black Love_, either of which would easily make my list of Top Fifteen Albums To Play On Infinite Loop While Fucking. If I HAD such a list. Which, of course, I don't. Um....yeah.)
My task for the weekend: a room-by-room analysis of what it would take to whip the Catastrophe into shape. LJ and I were talking about whether it might not be wise to sell this house rather than sink any more money into its repair. While my stubborn, I-can-do-anything side rebels against the very thought, my practical side acknowledges that yeah, it might not be a bad idea. I think the crux of that decision will be made by whether or not I get this new job, and then whether or not I can refinance and get the money for repairs. It's a good house and I think I can make it amazing, if only I can get the money to fix the few major things that are wrong with it. I don't think I'll make that decision for a while yet--my bankruptcy is scheduled to drop off my credit in about nine more months, which will improve the lending picture considerably--but it's worthwhile to think about it.
My other task for the weekend: more updates. So off I go to...well, probably to do something else entirely. (But at least I'm honest about it.)
AOL=POS
So obviously I'm back online and the cable bill is paid. But in those 36 hours of online-less-ness, I have learned an important lesson which I will pass along to you, my dearies:
America Online sucks massive donkey balls.
America Online via dial-up? Sucks massive pustulent syphillitic donkey balls.
I ran the phone cord across the living room at about 7:00 last night in an effort to get online by installing the dial-up version of AOL from one of the eleventy-thousand AOL disks that bombard me with promises of 1099 free hours over 50 days. (Just by the way? To use those hours up, you would have to stay online for 23 hours, 50 minutes, 58.8 seconds. Every DAY. That's as useful as offering a billion bananas all at once. You can eat some, you can give some away, but in a very short time all you're gonna have is a bunch of rotten bananas.) So I installed the software, plugged in the line, and clicked "new user".
It dialled the "get access number" number. Then dialled it again. And again, and again, and again, in an endless loop which never connected.
I called tech support--it took me ten minutes just to find the number in the help files, which I'm sure is exactly what they intended!--and got India. At least, I think it was India. It was not helpful, wherever it was. I said "I need a new modem string" and she said "No you don't" and told me to install an earlier version of AOL and try that.
So I installed AOL 8.0 and tried that. Same result. I went into my AOL 7.0 and dug out the old access number, and looked for where I could input it. I couldn't. It kept telling me to create a new location, and then dialled the number that never connected.
Finally, AOL 8.0 let me through, after ten squazillion tries. It got the access numbers, but then whenever it dialled them it kept disconnecting. Twice I got as far as to put my name and credit-card number in before it booted me off without letting me create a user name. But that was twice out of about 150 tries.
At 11:00--four hours later--I gave up.
I have no great love for Comcast--they'll cut you off as soon as look at you--but damn, I'm glad I've got 'em.
It's good to be back.
America Online sucks massive donkey balls.
America Online via dial-up? Sucks massive pustulent syphillitic donkey balls.
I ran the phone cord across the living room at about 7:00 last night in an effort to get online by installing the dial-up version of AOL from one of the eleventy-thousand AOL disks that bombard me with promises of 1099 free hours over 50 days. (Just by the way? To use those hours up, you would have to stay online for 23 hours, 50 minutes, 58.8 seconds. Every DAY. That's as useful as offering a billion bananas all at once. You can eat some, you can give some away, but in a very short time all you're gonna have is a bunch of rotten bananas.) So I installed the software, plugged in the line, and clicked "new user".
It dialled the "get access number" number. Then dialled it again. And again, and again, and again, in an endless loop which never connected.
I called tech support--it took me ten minutes just to find the number in the help files, which I'm sure is exactly what they intended!--and got India. At least, I think it was India. It was not helpful, wherever it was. I said "I need a new modem string" and she said "No you don't" and told me to install an earlier version of AOL and try that.
So I installed AOL 8.0 and tried that. Same result. I went into my AOL 7.0 and dug out the old access number, and looked for where I could input it. I couldn't. It kept telling me to create a new location, and then dialled the number that never connected.
Finally, AOL 8.0 let me through, after ten squazillion tries. It got the access numbers, but then whenever it dialled them it kept disconnecting. Twice I got as far as to put my name and credit-card number in before it booted me off without letting me create a user name. But that was twice out of about 150 tries.
At 11:00--four hours later--I gave up.
I have no great love for Comcast--they'll cut you off as soon as look at you--but damn, I'm glad I've got 'em.
It's good to be back.
Thanks, Ka!
Here are the lyrics to the godawfullest American Idol coronation song EVER.
Tell me if that's not like the worst thing ever written (non-ironically, that is).
Or, as "chaka" over at TWOP phrased it:
Tell me if that's not like the worst thing ever written (non-ironically, that is).
Or, as "chaka" over at TWOP phrased it:
Speaking of "Inside your Orifice," I have to say I had a bad feeling about the syntactic trainwreck that song would be when I saw the title alone. The lyrics, of course, left me smacking my forehead at my own failure of imagination. Because the singer wants to be inside my vagina, where I cry until the storm passes. My crying Scandinavian stormy vagina. Seriously, people. Bring back Ace of Base.
Friday, May 27, 2005
A Slight Obstacle To Progress
The following is a paraphrase from my dear significant other, upon being informed that if I do in fact get the job I'm interviewing for next week, the division of labor around Chez Gladys is going to have to shift precipitously:
Grocery shopping, cleaning, etc, is "female work".
If I thought for a moment that there was an iota of actual THOUGHT behind this allegation, I would have kicked LJ to the curb long ago (and thrown his ass out of the bed the minute the last word of the previous sentence was out of his mouth!), but I'm fairly sure it's just a relic from his upbringing. I'm dating a CONSERVATIVE, y'all. Didn't realize it til a few days ago, but that's what it is and there's no getting around it. Also? Not really bright, is LJ. I admit it.
Still, I'm fairly good at making people think about things they never thought about before...and...Okay, look. I know. I bitch about his neglect and everything but here's the deal: Neo-Neanderthal gender-role perceptions aside, he's a good guy. I appreciate a lot of things about him; he does his level best to make sure I'm safe and he has a very strong sense of honor, which I only question because he's male and my recent history with males hasn't been flooded with the "honorable" archetype. He's easy to get along with, doesn't complain, doesn't bicker, and he's appreciative, in his way, of the things I do for him.
But there's a biiiiiiiig honkin' hole in his gender logic, to wit:
IF "grocery shopping/cleaning/housekeeping" = "female work"
AND there exist two kinds of work, namely "female" and "male" work,
THEN "male work"= "things that are not grocery shopping/cleaning/housekeeping"
Like building things. Or home repair. Or working outside the house to support its upkeep.
...Oh. Wait. I do those things.
So....what's "male work" then?
Maybe "male work"= "filling the cooler in the back of the truck with ice and beer and finding places to hang out with the guys where the cops won't hassle you for selling weed".
If that's the case? I am SO installing a penis this weekend.
Otherwise, a conversation will be happening on gender equity, fair contributions, the "you eat here too" principle, and the wisdom of not being an asshelmet.
Unless LJ comes up off of about $160 to get the cable and Internet turned back on, I will be blogging only at work for a while.
Grocery shopping, cleaning, etc, is "female work".
If I thought for a moment that there was an iota of actual THOUGHT behind this allegation, I would have kicked LJ to the curb long ago (and thrown his ass out of the bed the minute the last word of the previous sentence was out of his mouth!), but I'm fairly sure it's just a relic from his upbringing. I'm dating a CONSERVATIVE, y'all. Didn't realize it til a few days ago, but that's what it is and there's no getting around it. Also? Not really bright, is LJ. I admit it.
Still, I'm fairly good at making people think about things they never thought about before...and...Okay, look. I know. I bitch about his neglect and everything but here's the deal: Neo-Neanderthal gender-role perceptions aside, he's a good guy. I appreciate a lot of things about him; he does his level best to make sure I'm safe and he has a very strong sense of honor, which I only question because he's male and my recent history with males hasn't been flooded with the "honorable" archetype. He's easy to get along with, doesn't complain, doesn't bicker, and he's appreciative, in his way, of the things I do for him.
But there's a biiiiiiiig honkin' hole in his gender logic, to wit:
IF "grocery shopping/cleaning/housekeeping" = "female work"
AND there exist two kinds of work, namely "female" and "male" work,
THEN "male work"= "things that are not grocery shopping/cleaning/housekeeping"
Like building things. Or home repair. Or working outside the house to support its upkeep.
...Oh. Wait. I do those things.
So....what's "male work" then?
Maybe "male work"= "filling the cooler in the back of the truck with ice and beer and finding places to hang out with the guys where the cops won't hassle you for selling weed".
If that's the case? I am SO installing a penis this weekend.
Otherwise, a conversation will be happening on gender equity, fair contributions, the "you eat here too" principle, and the wisdom of not being an asshelmet.
Unless LJ comes up off of about $160 to get the cable and Internet turned back on, I will be blogging only at work for a while.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Idol
I'm glad Bo didn't win.
See, every year they have a coronation song written for whoever will be the new American Idol. And this year's song was a complete abomination. It was called "Inside Your Heaven" and it is the most ghastly thing ever written, ever, by anyone. And yes, I am counting "MacArthur Park" in that evaluation. Puppies and rainbows and unintentional porno all up out the joint. The lovely folks in the forums at TWOP are having just WAY too much fun creating indecent variations on the title alone. I wish I had the lyrics--it's a trainwreck of epic proportions.
Yeah, Carrie can have it. Good luck with that.
Meanwhile, Bo will go on to greater things, I hope. Like calling me. Or letting me bake him some cookies.
(And by "bake him some cookies" I mean "screw him til he passes out from sheer exhaustion".)
What????!!!???
See, every year they have a coronation song written for whoever will be the new American Idol. And this year's song was a complete abomination. It was called "Inside Your Heaven" and it is the most ghastly thing ever written, ever, by anyone. And yes, I am counting "MacArthur Park" in that evaluation. Puppies and rainbows and unintentional porno all up out the joint. The lovely folks in the forums at TWOP are having just WAY too much fun creating indecent variations on the title alone. I wish I had the lyrics--it's a trainwreck of epic proportions.
Yeah, Carrie can have it. Good luck with that.
Meanwhile, Bo will go on to greater things, I hope. Like calling me. Or letting me bake him some cookies.
(And by "bake him some cookies" I mean "screw him til he passes out from sheer exhaustion".)
What????!!!???
Absolutely the Last Thing On Earth I Need
I missed my train stop today on the way home because of this.
And I STILL haven't managed to solve the little fucker.
AND there's a new one of these every DAY. Plus an interactive site, plus about a squazillion OTHER sites devoted to these evil little grids.
So the best thing I can do is to share them with you.
You're welcome.
(Link via Eric Zorn's Notebook....I'll get him for this someday.)
And I STILL haven't managed to solve the little fucker.
AND there's a new one of these every DAY. Plus an interactive site, plus about a squazillion OTHER sites devoted to these evil little grids.
So the best thing I can do is to share them with you.
You're welcome.
(Link via Eric Zorn's Notebook....I'll get him for this someday.)
Monday, May 23, 2005
Highway Robbery and the Bo Bice Theorem
Unlike LJ--and let me tell you, I was surprised the other day when I found out that this was in fact the case--I still have a Yahoo personals ad up. And yes, I do occasionally check it, more as a reminder that if I so choose, there will be guys out there who might find me attractive. Or at least, might find me attractive based on a now-approaching-eight-years-and-four-sizes-past picture. Hope springs eternal.
However: I feel it is my duty to act as consumer reporter for the blogging community and tell you: Yahoo is a bunch of bandits, my friends.
Yahoo Personals is "free". What they mean by that is, they don't charge you to put up an ad. However, to answer an ad with anything more than one of their cheesy pick-up lines, you have to pay. I don't know how much you have to pay--I'm cheap like that, and so I've never done it.
The other day, though, I was looking at a reply and clicked on a "personality style" link. Now, despite my infrequent meme/quiz-posting on this blog, I'm a bit of a sucker for this type of thing; I'll click on almost any weird little quiz I find. So of course I went for this one.
I learned I'm an "individualist" (Naw--ya think?) with a "passionate" love style. So I've got that goin' for me, I guess. Whatever. But by taking this quiz, I apparently signed up for a Free! Trial Membership in Yahoo Personals Premier. This gave me the ability to answer as many ads as I wanted during the seven-day period. Which, whatever; I'm not actively looking, so...thanks, I guess?
That was a few days ago. Today I got a "Reminder!" telling me that my trial will expire in two days, but I could lock in a special 50% off rate for the first three months if I Act Now!
You know what that "special" rate is?
$38.99.
A month.
Now that? Is totally lonely. And I may be lonely, but I am nowhere near $39 a month worth of lonely--much less, extrapolating from their quoted percentages, $78 a month worth. I'd have to be living on a desert island with no books, no music, and no computer to be that lonely--and if I WAS in that situation, I'd be S.O.L. anyway, what with the no-computer part of that equation. So--no.
And besides, I don't need the personals. I have an active imagination, with which I can convince myself that reality is much rosier than it actually is. Though sometimes I don't even need an imagination; I just need functioning eyeballs.
Exhibit A: The Brit.
You want to know what's hotter than a hot guy? A hot guy with two days' growth of beard and sunglasses. (I believe this so strongly that I am hereby declaring it to be a universal law, which I have dubbed the Bo Bice Theorem, after its most-notable exemplar.) And even HOTTER than that, a pissed-off hot guy, et cetera et cetera.
This Brit is KILLING me, people. Because he so clearly gets it--these are the best conversations I've had in YEARS. But he also clearly sees me as just a buddy--and not the kind with benefits, either, which just sucks extravagantly. At least he's a bright spot in my workday--and god knows it needs a bright spot!
Then again, so do a lot of other things I could name.
However: I feel it is my duty to act as consumer reporter for the blogging community and tell you: Yahoo is a bunch of bandits, my friends.
Yahoo Personals is "free". What they mean by that is, they don't charge you to put up an ad. However, to answer an ad with anything more than one of their cheesy pick-up lines, you have to pay. I don't know how much you have to pay--I'm cheap like that, and so I've never done it.
The other day, though, I was looking at a reply and clicked on a "personality style" link. Now, despite my infrequent meme/quiz-posting on this blog, I'm a bit of a sucker for this type of thing; I'll click on almost any weird little quiz I find. So of course I went for this one.
I learned I'm an "individualist" (Naw--ya think?) with a "passionate" love style. So I've got that goin' for me, I guess. Whatever. But by taking this quiz, I apparently signed up for a Free! Trial Membership in Yahoo Personals Premier. This gave me the ability to answer as many ads as I wanted during the seven-day period. Which, whatever; I'm not actively looking, so...thanks, I guess?
That was a few days ago. Today I got a "Reminder!" telling me that my trial will expire in two days, but I could lock in a special 50% off rate for the first three months if I Act Now!
You know what that "special" rate is?
$38.99.
A month.
Now that? Is totally lonely. And I may be lonely, but I am nowhere near $39 a month worth of lonely--much less, extrapolating from their quoted percentages, $78 a month worth. I'd have to be living on a desert island with no books, no music, and no computer to be that lonely--and if I WAS in that situation, I'd be S.O.L. anyway, what with the no-computer part of that equation. So--no.
And besides, I don't need the personals. I have an active imagination, with which I can convince myself that reality is much rosier than it actually is. Though sometimes I don't even need an imagination; I just need functioning eyeballs.
Exhibit A: The Brit.
You want to know what's hotter than a hot guy? A hot guy with two days' growth of beard and sunglasses. (I believe this so strongly that I am hereby declaring it to be a universal law, which I have dubbed the Bo Bice Theorem, after its most-notable exemplar.) And even HOTTER than that, a pissed-off hot guy, et cetera et cetera.
This Brit is KILLING me, people. Because he so clearly gets it--these are the best conversations I've had in YEARS. But he also clearly sees me as just a buddy--and not the kind with benefits, either, which just sucks extravagantly. At least he's a bright spot in my workday--and god knows it needs a bright spot!
Then again, so do a lot of other things I could name.
Oh, the Hate
This morning I came into the office and said good morning to everyone.
This included Beverly, the Big Boss Bitch, who has the office next to mine.
She followed me into my office and we had the following conversation:
"This," she said, patting a laptop on my worktable, "is Kay's." Kay is her daughter, a sophomore in high school. I have been instructed that I am to update her operating system so that she can use her new iPod.
"Okay," I said. (I'm not happy about or particularly comfortable with doing this, but whatever.)
"Was that your oatmeal bowl in the sink?" she then asked.
"Yeah," I said. "I washed it when I came in--I forgot it was there."
"Well, I find it there often. Please remember to do your dishes."
"Sure, no problem," I said---because it wasn't. I don't expect anyone ELSE to do them; I just forgot it was there, was all.
But do you believe that??? The woman has no sense of appropriateness. First of all, to bring me her KIDS' computers to update--machines that have no bearing on the workplace, and this is not the first time by FAR that this has happened, by the way!--the next sentence out of her mouth should be nothing more admonitory than "Thank you," or "I really appreciate this." But to go from "Here's my kid's computer for you to work on" to "Oh, by the way, wash your dishes"--and for that to be my FIRST interaction of a Monday morning...
I have no Gigantic Bite-Me big enough to describe how much I despise this woman.
I went back downstairs (to stow the homemade cookies I brought for tomorrow's going-away party, which to me is rapidly becoming a case of pearls before big insensitive bitch-ass swine) and looked in the sink. Three coffee mugs and a bunch of assorted utensils. I'm surprised I wasn't told to wash THEM, as well.
This included Beverly, the Big Boss Bitch, who has the office next to mine.
She followed me into my office and we had the following conversation:
"This," she said, patting a laptop on my worktable, "is Kay's." Kay is her daughter, a sophomore in high school. I have been instructed that I am to update her operating system so that she can use her new iPod.
"Okay," I said. (I'm not happy about or particularly comfortable with doing this, but whatever.)
"Was that your oatmeal bowl in the sink?" she then asked.
"Yeah," I said. "I washed it when I came in--I forgot it was there."
"Well, I find it there often. Please remember to do your dishes."
"Sure, no problem," I said---because it wasn't. I don't expect anyone ELSE to do them; I just forgot it was there, was all.
But do you believe that??? The woman has no sense of appropriateness. First of all, to bring me her KIDS' computers to update--machines that have no bearing on the workplace, and this is not the first time by FAR that this has happened, by the way!--the next sentence out of her mouth should be nothing more admonitory than "Thank you," or "I really appreciate this." But to go from "Here's my kid's computer for you to work on" to "Oh, by the way, wash your dishes"--and for that to be my FIRST interaction of a Monday morning...
I have no Gigantic Bite-Me big enough to describe how much I despise this woman.
I went back downstairs (to stow the homemade cookies I brought for tomorrow's going-away party, which to me is rapidly becoming a case of pearls before big insensitive bitch-ass swine) and looked in the sink. Three coffee mugs and a bunch of assorted utensils. I'm surprised I wasn't told to wash THEM, as well.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Friday, May 20, 2005
Half a World Away
Tonight LJ (who is mostly forgiven, at the moment, for his neglect; not because he's done anything about it, but because I'm not really too much up to fighting any more losing battles for a while and have resolved to just relax and do what I've got to do to make myself happy)--anyway, tonight LJ had one of his cohorts over for business purposes. This kid is 18, just graduating from high school in a few days. I listened to him talking to his potential prom date on the phone, throwing in comments (fortunately drowned out by basketball, running water, and sizzling chicken)like "Run away! Run away!" and "Oh, you poor girl; let me tell you what you're letting yourself in for here, sweetie."
Mostly I think I'm just jealous. I'm nearly twice this kid's age and I feel about a million years older. After they left, I got to thinking about exactly why that is.
I think back to when I was 18. I was a freshman in college, completely sheltered. College is supposed to do something about that sheltered-ness, but in my case I was so determinedly obtuse that I refused, really, to let in any experiences outside my comfort zone. I wanted the same friends, or the same types of friends; the same boyfriend, the same ideas. I wanted to pass through college as though it were a long dark tunnel--at the highest possible rate of speed, with my eyes closed tight, concerned only that the light at the end be exactly the same as the light I'd just left.
It wasn't, of course, and it was almost a relief at the end to find it so. Within a couple of months of moving back to Chicago at the end of college (I was 21 by this time) I blew up every single edifice I'd built over the past five years. There was shrapnel everywhere for months, and by the time things settled down completely I was married. A mistake, to marry in the firestorm. I realize that now. But how do you avoid making decisions in a whirlwind when you don't even recognize that the wind is even blowing?
I am famous for this. I am famous for being prematurely okay. Only in hindsight do I ever realize how bad it really was. I guess in a way that might be a good thing--it lets me survive without focusing on being hurt or being angry. But it also has kept me from EVER being hurt or being angry when it would be appropriate to feel those things.
I look back at the past sixteen years of my life and all the things I've done, all the things that have happened--to me, around me, whatever. And looking at all these experiences, the overwhelming feeling is it's really not so big when you look at it all together. That year-and-a-half with JP, of course, is like the Twin Towers in that particular skyline picture: I want to look, because it's beautiful and I know what happened; but at the same time I can't bear to look, because it's beautiful and I know what happened.
And in a way, I think that might be the key to why I'm halfway to being jealous of an eighteen-year-old kid who's got a better chance of going to jail than to an office job; why the past sixteen years weigh so much and why even the good memories are so damn hard to carry around sometimes.
I say--often--that I regret nothing. And I don't; but shame and regret are two entirely different animals. I don't know what I've got to be ashamed of, exactly; I just know that on some level I am. I know a lot of it has to do with CR, how completely I let myself be duped and exploited by him. But there's more to it. Things I did, things I didn't do, people I've mistreated. (Curiously I don't feel anything about the things I did during the years of my addiction, which would be the logical stuff to feel ashamed of; and never having been someone who's been too keen on the disease theory of addiction, I can't even fall back on the explanation that I was sick. It was a disease, I think, but not the kind the addiction experts commonly mean when they speak of it that way. I firmly believe that within my lifetime there will be some discovery that will explain addiction to opiates--if not all addictions--on a purely biochemical basis. That's another post, though.)
I don't know how to forgive myself for the things I've done, maybe because I've never had a real opportunity to forgive anyone else--to forgive something requires that you actually feel hurt or angry about what they did, and in my life that's never been an option I've allowed myself. Gloss it over, smooth it out, laugh it off, no harm done...except to me, it seems. Choke the anger down and put on a big smile. Put on a good front now--you can cry later. Except when it was time to cry I never could; when it was time to be angry I'd somehow forgotten how to do it, or maybe never known how in the first place.
That was easy to handle when I was eighteen. Now that I'm nearly 35, it's a little harder to keep it all together. And I don't know if it's ever going to get any easier. But maybe I can try to remember that feeling of it's not so big, in the grand scheme of things. I don't know; maybe that's the key.
Mostly I think I'm just jealous. I'm nearly twice this kid's age and I feel about a million years older. After they left, I got to thinking about exactly why that is.
I think back to when I was 18. I was a freshman in college, completely sheltered. College is supposed to do something about that sheltered-ness, but in my case I was so determinedly obtuse that I refused, really, to let in any experiences outside my comfort zone. I wanted the same friends, or the same types of friends; the same boyfriend, the same ideas. I wanted to pass through college as though it were a long dark tunnel--at the highest possible rate of speed, with my eyes closed tight, concerned only that the light at the end be exactly the same as the light I'd just left.
It wasn't, of course, and it was almost a relief at the end to find it so. Within a couple of months of moving back to Chicago at the end of college (I was 21 by this time) I blew up every single edifice I'd built over the past five years. There was shrapnel everywhere for months, and by the time things settled down completely I was married. A mistake, to marry in the firestorm. I realize that now. But how do you avoid making decisions in a whirlwind when you don't even recognize that the wind is even blowing?
I am famous for this. I am famous for being prematurely okay. Only in hindsight do I ever realize how bad it really was. I guess in a way that might be a good thing--it lets me survive without focusing on being hurt or being angry. But it also has kept me from EVER being hurt or being angry when it would be appropriate to feel those things.
I look back at the past sixteen years of my life and all the things I've done, all the things that have happened--to me, around me, whatever. And looking at all these experiences, the overwhelming feeling is it's really not so big when you look at it all together. That year-and-a-half with JP, of course, is like the Twin Towers in that particular skyline picture: I want to look, because it's beautiful and I know what happened; but at the same time I can't bear to look, because it's beautiful and I know what happened.
And in a way, I think that might be the key to why I'm halfway to being jealous of an eighteen-year-old kid who's got a better chance of going to jail than to an office job; why the past sixteen years weigh so much and why even the good memories are so damn hard to carry around sometimes.
I say--often--that I regret nothing. And I don't; but shame and regret are two entirely different animals. I don't know what I've got to be ashamed of, exactly; I just know that on some level I am. I know a lot of it has to do with CR, how completely I let myself be duped and exploited by him. But there's more to it. Things I did, things I didn't do, people I've mistreated. (Curiously I don't feel anything about the things I did during the years of my addiction, which would be the logical stuff to feel ashamed of; and never having been someone who's been too keen on the disease theory of addiction, I can't even fall back on the explanation that I was sick. It was a disease, I think, but not the kind the addiction experts commonly mean when they speak of it that way. I firmly believe that within my lifetime there will be some discovery that will explain addiction to opiates--if not all addictions--on a purely biochemical basis. That's another post, though.)
I don't know how to forgive myself for the things I've done, maybe because I've never had a real opportunity to forgive anyone else--to forgive something requires that you actually feel hurt or angry about what they did, and in my life that's never been an option I've allowed myself. Gloss it over, smooth it out, laugh it off, no harm done...except to me, it seems. Choke the anger down and put on a big smile. Put on a good front now--you can cry later. Except when it was time to cry I never could; when it was time to be angry I'd somehow forgotten how to do it, or maybe never known how in the first place.
That was easy to handle when I was eighteen. Now that I'm nearly 35, it's a little harder to keep it all together. And I don't know if it's ever going to get any easier. But maybe I can try to remember that feeling of it's not so big, in the grand scheme of things. I don't know; maybe that's the key.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Suggestions Needed
I'm having a hard time with the book right at the moment; it's too hard sometimes to make myself remember some things. I put a lot of that on my current situation; as Terrance said last night, "I just can't believe you're not gettin' any. If I was living with you...girl, you'd have to fake a period just to get me to back off." Now granted, Terrance is still at that stage where he's trying to impress me enough that I'll screw him--but he's got a point, when you think about it. It's hard to think about how it was with me and JP, when my current situation is so different and so very much not the way I want to live. And I don't know why, and can't get an explanation that makes it any easier--and so I block out certain past memories as a defense. I'm used to that strategy--it's served me well for the past ten years--but it makes it almost impossible to write about those memories.
(Talk to LJ about it, you say? Hahahahaha. :::wipes eyes:::: That's a good one. A conversation with LJ about emotions? About anything abstract, for that matter? About anything that's not directly related to HIM? It is to laugh, aha aha ha ha. Yeah, no, not happening. Nice thought, though.)
Listening to my little Fuck-With-Gladys'-Emotions station on Launchcast (an exercise to try to get my head back into the book, which totally did not work), I realized how firmly my musical tastes are rooted in 1994-ish. Now while I don't see anything WRONG with this, per se, I'd like to expand my horizons a bit.
(Flash, you in particular are gonna love this.)
So I'm looking for suggestions. Throw me some bands/albums/songs/whatever. Genre doesn't much matter--I'll cull my favorites after a few listens.
After all...there's always noise. (And Launchcast was just kind enough to favor me with "Smack My Bitch Up", which, while it doesn't help me with the book, at least puts me into a somewhat-feistier mood. Of course, right at the moment, overcooked pasta is in a feistier mood than I am, so you see how it is with me.)
(Talk to LJ about it, you say? Hahahahaha. :::wipes eyes:::: That's a good one. A conversation with LJ about emotions? About anything abstract, for that matter? About anything that's not directly related to HIM? It is to laugh, aha aha ha ha. Yeah, no, not happening. Nice thought, though.)
Listening to my little Fuck-With-Gladys'-Emotions station on Launchcast (an exercise to try to get my head back into the book, which totally did not work), I realized how firmly my musical tastes are rooted in 1994-ish. Now while I don't see anything WRONG with this, per se, I'd like to expand my horizons a bit.
(Flash, you in particular are gonna love this.)
So I'm looking for suggestions. Throw me some bands/albums/songs/whatever. Genre doesn't much matter--I'll cull my favorites after a few listens.
After all...there's always noise. (And Launchcast was just kind enough to favor me with "Smack My Bitch Up", which, while it doesn't help me with the book, at least puts me into a somewhat-feistier mood. Of course, right at the moment, overcooked pasta is in a feistier mood than I am, so you see how it is with me.)
Ahh, Vacation
I go back to work tomorrow.
I would like for someone to explain to me, please, how six days can go by so damn fast.
Friday: grocery-shopping/family gathering. Wrote: almost nothing.
Saturday: slept in. Tim shows up mid-afternoon. Make lasagna. Watch utterly kickass NASCAR race. Wrote: some.
Sunday: Tim cleans out the backyard. Lasagna: gone. Fry up a bunch of pork chops. Attacked by One Of Those Evil Stomachaches about 5 minutes before the beginning of "Deadwood" and consequently miss the episode due to puking. By 10:00 I'm fine. Spend an hour on the phone with Terrance as he tries to convince me to come down to Florida with him for the rest of my vacation. Wrote: a little.
Monday: Up at 7 to drive Tim back to the shelter. Also drive to work to drop off wireless router for co-worker who needs it more than me (she just had a baby). Phone interview for Best.Job.Ever. Spend the day checking work mail (less out of diligence than from hope of a message from Cute Brit.) Putter ceaselessly. Nap extensively. Make burgers for LJ and myself at 2 AM. Wrote: nada.
Tuesday: Slept in. Putter through the rest of the morning; work on sanding kitchen cabinets for a few hours. Sneeze a lot. In between, check work e-mail (same as above, and still disappointingly not-happening) and end up being told in no uncertain terms by The Big Tech Guy to "...GET OFF THAT COMPUTER and go enjoy your vacation!!!!" Be awed and amazed by the total slammin-hot wonderfulness that is Bo Bice. Another hour on the phone with Terrance. (Note to Terrance: Constantine and Bo are SO NOT "exactly the same guy". God.) Wrote: some.
Wednesday: well, here I am. (Finally got a note from the Brit, though. Squeeee!) Not sure quite what I'm gonna do today, but at least when I go back there'll only be two days til the weekend.
My phone interview on Monday went pretty well. Apparently they're setting up live interviews for the first week of June, and the guy even said they were very impressed with my background. So I'm holding my breath.
I am so not ready to go back yet.
I would like for someone to explain to me, please, how six days can go by so damn fast.
Friday: grocery-shopping/family gathering. Wrote: almost nothing.
Saturday: slept in. Tim shows up mid-afternoon. Make lasagna. Watch utterly kickass NASCAR race. Wrote: some.
Sunday: Tim cleans out the backyard. Lasagna: gone. Fry up a bunch of pork chops. Attacked by One Of Those Evil Stomachaches about 5 minutes before the beginning of "Deadwood" and consequently miss the episode due to puking. By 10:00 I'm fine. Spend an hour on the phone with Terrance as he tries to convince me to come down to Florida with him for the rest of my vacation. Wrote: a little.
Monday: Up at 7 to drive Tim back to the shelter. Also drive to work to drop off wireless router for co-worker who needs it more than me (she just had a baby). Phone interview for Best.Job.Ever. Spend the day checking work mail (less out of diligence than from hope of a message from Cute Brit.) Putter ceaselessly. Nap extensively. Make burgers for LJ and myself at 2 AM. Wrote: nada.
Tuesday: Slept in. Putter through the rest of the morning; work on sanding kitchen cabinets for a few hours. Sneeze a lot. In between, check work e-mail (same as above, and still disappointingly not-happening) and end up being told in no uncertain terms by The Big Tech Guy to "...GET OFF THAT COMPUTER and go enjoy your vacation!!!!" Be awed and amazed by the total slammin-hot wonderfulness that is Bo Bice. Another hour on the phone with Terrance. (Note to Terrance: Constantine and Bo are SO NOT "exactly the same guy". God.) Wrote: some.
Wednesday: well, here I am. (Finally got a note from the Brit, though. Squeeee!) Not sure quite what I'm gonna do today, but at least when I go back there'll only be two days til the weekend.
My phone interview on Monday went pretty well. Apparently they're setting up live interviews for the first week of June, and the guy even said they were very impressed with my background. So I'm holding my breath.
I am so not ready to go back yet.
Monday, May 16, 2005
Sunday, May 15, 2005
NASCAR Geek Lives
I am a happy, happy fangirly.
Kasey Kahne--"my" driver, for anyone here who hasn't yet had one of my NASCAR moments inflicted upon them--won his FIRST Nextel Cup race last night at Richmond. He blew everyone away, too.
And there was much rejoicing, and much ::::squeeeeeee!!!::::, even though in his little driver-profile interview he says he doesn't like tattoos, which....disappointing. Very disappointing. And also, he needs a haircut kinda badly right about now.
But honey, that boy can DRIVE.
WOOOOHOOOOO Kasey!!!! Go get 'em, baby!!!
(And also--call me.)
Kasey Kahne--"my" driver, for anyone here who hasn't yet had one of my NASCAR moments inflicted upon them--won his FIRST Nextel Cup race last night at Richmond. He blew everyone away, too.
And there was much rejoicing, and much ::::squeeeeeee!!!::::, even though in his little driver-profile interview he says he doesn't like tattoos, which....disappointing. Very disappointing. And also, he needs a haircut kinda badly right about now.
But honey, that boy can DRIVE.
WOOOOHOOOOO Kasey!!!! Go get 'em, baby!!!
(And also--call me.)
Friday, May 13, 2005
Family, Again
I think I must have been switched at birth. Somewhere, I truly hope, there is a 35-year-old woman who looks just like me, who was switched into a family where 80% of the members DON'T have their heads up their ass.
My cousins are in town, along with their parents--my mom's youngest sis and her husband. These are the relatives on Mom's side that I CAN deal with. I haven't seen one of these cousins in maybe ten years; the other I haven't seen since I was 15. So needless to say, I kinda wanted to see them. Generally when my aunt and uncle are in town, all the sibs go out to dinner together, along with whichever ones of the cousins want to join in. The presence of Auntie Cyn, Uncle Bill, and their spawn pretty much made my RSVP a guaranteed "hell no", so for about ten years now I've just been out of the family loop entirely. I've had no problem with that, but then again Lara and Linnea haven't been in town for about that long either.
So when Mom told me they were coming to town and everyone was going to dinner, I said to her "If Auntie Cyn and her crew weren't coming, I'd consider showing up." Whereupon she informed me that if that was indeed the case, then I was in luck; none of them would be there, just the out-of-towners and Uncle Dave and Aunt Linda (who I also mostly can't deal with, but who are much less odious than Cyn and Bill).
This was a few weeks ago, when this conversation took place, and I didn't even know I'd be off today, but I still agreed to meet them all for pizza at 6. I put on a blouse and jeans, not too dressy but still pretty-ish (I thought), and left the house at 3:30. Between the buses and the traffic, it was 5:30 before I made it out to the end of the line, where Mom picks me up.
I knew what I was up against the minute I got into the car. "So listen," my mother said. "Since last time Uncle Dave asked, I told him point-blank that you were still living in Edgewater in your old apartment..."
"Already thought of it," I told her.
"Well, it's just that anything that Dave and Linda find out will get back to Cyn and Bill, and I'm supposed to go to the twins' confirmation next weekend, and if they find out it will just be...you know, the inquisition..."
"Yeah, I know."
"I thought you were gonna get dressed up," she said. "You know...slacks or a skirt or something other than jeans..."
"Mom. It's pizza. It's not formal dining."
"Well, I just want you to look as nice as possible..." (For the record, I DID look nice. Even in jeans. In fact, I got more approving looks from the male population along the bus route than I've gotten in a long time.)
We had gotten back to the house by this time. "Are you wearing your hair like that?" she asked.
"No, I'm going to brush it. I know I look like a rats' nest....the bus windows were open and... "
"Aren't you going to pull it back?"
"No, I like it like this. If I pull it back it makes my head look big."
"Here. Put on some lipstick."
"Mom...."
"Well, I just want you to look nice."
So I gave in, slightly; I put on lipstick, then blotted most of it off. And once again, my mother displayed her uncanny knack of making everything, at all times, all about her. "Do you do this just to annoy me?" she said.
"No."
"Well it seems like it. It seems like anything I say, you have to do just the opposite, just to upset me."
"In this case? It's not about you," I said.
"What is it about, then?" she asked.
"It's about me! I'm not trying to impress anyone; I don't feel a need to be phony about who I am just because some people in your family might judge me and report to the rest of them. I'm not going to be fake about it."
"I'm not asking you to be fake..."
"Yeah, you sort of are."
And of course she got all silent and pissy, and threw in a few cracks about how bad she thought my hair looked (It SO doesn't!), and somehow we made it to the restaurant, where everyone hugged me and was glad to see me, and where I gave the party-line Edgewater address when they asked where I was living (though by the way Uncle Bill reacted to that answer, I'm pretty sure he knows it's a lie, and probably has my actual 'hood-based address. Which would be hilarious, if you ask me...my mother has been SO worried that they'll find out where I'm living, ever since I moved in here. You'd think I was living in a brothel or something.) And after dinner, everyone came back to Mom's for dessert, and as I was setting up plates for Mom as she sliced the cake, Aunt Jenn told me how pretty she thought my hair was. I managed not to gloat....much.
During dessert, Uncle Dave managed to cement his status as Yep, Still A Racist Asshole with the following speech: "So Jason (his son) took the boys over to the old neighborhood, to show them where Mom and Dad used to live...I chewed him out for it afterwards. It's horrible over there, really bad. I told him not to make that kind of mistake again, and he said even HE regretted it once he got into that neighborhood...."
"That neighborhood"--need I further explain?--is predominantly black. Nevermind that his estimations of the area's dangers are wildly overblown; nevermind that there's also a legendarily-racist cadre of white folks living over there, which probably makes the neighborhood more dangerous for the black people than for the whites. Nope...there are Scary Black People there, and therefore it is too dangerous for a 40-year-old man and two 17-year-old boys to drive through. And then he and Auntie Linda went into some ridiculousness about something that someone's friend's sister's hairdresser's cousin had told them, about how if you go down a certain street "THEY" will block you in at one end, then come up behind you and rob you and...I had tuned out by this point, because it was easier to focus on picking up cake crumbs with the back of my fork than it was to focus on NOT ripping these racist idiots a new orifice or two. That was as close as I came to blowing the whole Edgewater/no-boyfriend story completely off the map...I must really love my mother, you know?
At least I got to see Lara and Linnea...who seemed a little less-than-impressed with Uncle Dave's yatterings, as well. I always knew there was a reason I liked those two.
My cousins are in town, along with their parents--my mom's youngest sis and her husband. These are the relatives on Mom's side that I CAN deal with. I haven't seen one of these cousins in maybe ten years; the other I haven't seen since I was 15. So needless to say, I kinda wanted to see them. Generally when my aunt and uncle are in town, all the sibs go out to dinner together, along with whichever ones of the cousins want to join in. The presence of Auntie Cyn, Uncle Bill, and their spawn pretty much made my RSVP a guaranteed "hell no", so for about ten years now I've just been out of the family loop entirely. I've had no problem with that, but then again Lara and Linnea haven't been in town for about that long either.
So when Mom told me they were coming to town and everyone was going to dinner, I said to her "If Auntie Cyn and her crew weren't coming, I'd consider showing up." Whereupon she informed me that if that was indeed the case, then I was in luck; none of them would be there, just the out-of-towners and Uncle Dave and Aunt Linda (who I also mostly can't deal with, but who are much less odious than Cyn and Bill).
This was a few weeks ago, when this conversation took place, and I didn't even know I'd be off today, but I still agreed to meet them all for pizza at 6. I put on a blouse and jeans, not too dressy but still pretty-ish (I thought), and left the house at 3:30. Between the buses and the traffic, it was 5:30 before I made it out to the end of the line, where Mom picks me up.
I knew what I was up against the minute I got into the car. "So listen," my mother said. "Since last time Uncle Dave asked, I told him point-blank that you were still living in Edgewater in your old apartment..."
"Already thought of it," I told her.
"Well, it's just that anything that Dave and Linda find out will get back to Cyn and Bill, and I'm supposed to go to the twins' confirmation next weekend, and if they find out it will just be...you know, the inquisition..."
"Yeah, I know."
"I thought you were gonna get dressed up," she said. "You know...slacks or a skirt or something other than jeans..."
"Mom. It's pizza. It's not formal dining."
"Well, I just want you to look as nice as possible..." (For the record, I DID look nice. Even in jeans. In fact, I got more approving looks from the male population along the bus route than I've gotten in a long time.)
We had gotten back to the house by this time. "Are you wearing your hair like that?" she asked.
"No, I'm going to brush it. I know I look like a rats' nest....the bus windows were open and... "
"Aren't you going to pull it back?"
"No, I like it like this. If I pull it back it makes my head look big."
"Here. Put on some lipstick."
"Mom...."
"Well, I just want you to look nice."
So I gave in, slightly; I put on lipstick, then blotted most of it off. And once again, my mother displayed her uncanny knack of making everything, at all times, all about her. "Do you do this just to annoy me?" she said.
"No."
"Well it seems like it. It seems like anything I say, you have to do just the opposite, just to upset me."
"In this case? It's not about you," I said.
"What is it about, then?" she asked.
"It's about me! I'm not trying to impress anyone; I don't feel a need to be phony about who I am just because some people in your family might judge me and report to the rest of them. I'm not going to be fake about it."
"I'm not asking you to be fake..."
"Yeah, you sort of are."
And of course she got all silent and pissy, and threw in a few cracks about how bad she thought my hair looked (It SO doesn't!), and somehow we made it to the restaurant, where everyone hugged me and was glad to see me, and where I gave the party-line Edgewater address when they asked where I was living (though by the way Uncle Bill reacted to that answer, I'm pretty sure he knows it's a lie, and probably has my actual 'hood-based address. Which would be hilarious, if you ask me...my mother has been SO worried that they'll find out where I'm living, ever since I moved in here. You'd think I was living in a brothel or something.) And after dinner, everyone came back to Mom's for dessert, and as I was setting up plates for Mom as she sliced the cake, Aunt Jenn told me how pretty she thought my hair was. I managed not to gloat....much.
During dessert, Uncle Dave managed to cement his status as Yep, Still A Racist Asshole with the following speech: "So Jason (his son) took the boys over to the old neighborhood, to show them where Mom and Dad used to live...I chewed him out for it afterwards. It's horrible over there, really bad. I told him not to make that kind of mistake again, and he said even HE regretted it once he got into that neighborhood...."
"That neighborhood"--need I further explain?--is predominantly black. Nevermind that his estimations of the area's dangers are wildly overblown; nevermind that there's also a legendarily-racist cadre of white folks living over there, which probably makes the neighborhood more dangerous for the black people than for the whites. Nope...there are Scary Black People there, and therefore it is too dangerous for a 40-year-old man and two 17-year-old boys to drive through. And then he and Auntie Linda went into some ridiculousness about something that someone's friend's sister's hairdresser's cousin had told them, about how if you go down a certain street "THEY" will block you in at one end, then come up behind you and rob you and...I had tuned out by this point, because it was easier to focus on picking up cake crumbs with the back of my fork than it was to focus on NOT ripping these racist idiots a new orifice or two. That was as close as I came to blowing the whole Edgewater/no-boyfriend story completely off the map...I must really love my mother, you know?
At least I got to see Lara and Linnea...who seemed a little less-than-impressed with Uncle Dave's yatterings, as well. I always knew there was a reason I liked those two.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
I've Never Actually Watched An Organization Implode Before
Today was supposedly the first day of my vacation.
Earlier in the week, though, Amy and Beverly scheduled a meeting with Samuel The Database Killer, to talk about the long and elaborate list of Shit That Don't Work No More No More No More. And the bright idea was advanced to bring in some of the actual USERS of the database--since neither Amy nor Beverly actually use this monstrosity from day to day--as a means of gathering insight as to how, exactly, these problems are affecting everyone's workflow.
They scheduled this meeting for 9 AM today, and I said I'd come in just for the meeting, then go home.
So I sent out e-mails to RuthAnne and Noreen, asking them to pick some representatives from their collective staff to bring to the meeting. Noreen wasn't there--SHE gets to go on vacation, apparently--so she sent her right hand, Lynn. RuthAnne decided to bring one of the coordinators, Sara...and the Brit.
We talked about this yesterday on the way home. I told him "Don't sit next to me, or I'll spend the whole meeting writing snotty notes and trying not to bust out laughing." There are a few people--Sara included--who would pose a similar threat; the three of us sometimes ride the train in the mornings together and snark on the hierarchy. I can only think of a couple more-dangerous combinations of people for this meeting. Sara is pissed because she can't do her job; the Brit has a temper in the face of unearned authority; and I'm just a sarcastic bitch who's tired of all the bullshit. It's a volatile cocktail, is what I'm saying.
So at 9:00 I walked into the meeting, with copies of the Long and Elaborate List in hand. I should have known immediately that things were already not going well when I heard Sara ask: "'Sticking to just this one issue'? What does that mean, exactly?" Fortunately Samuel had to move his car, and the Brit said to me "Did you hear that?? What the HELL is he talking about?"
Which was my question exactly. Beverly herself had told me the day before to bring copies of the lists so we could discuss them; somehow, it seemed, Samuel had hijacked the thread of the meeting before it even began.
When Samuel came back, we all sat down, I passed out the lists, and the fun began.
"Oh no," said Samuel. "We're not going over this whole list today?"
Beverly looked at me. "I thought your e-mail said we were going to discuss the other issue?" (This is the SAME WOMAN who told me less than 18 hours before that I should bring copies of the lists!)
"Um....okay..." There was really nothing more I COULD say; though my first choice would have been what the fuck are you talking about?, I had to reject it as an ill-considered option.
The meeting lasted about an hour. Samuel claimed that a lot of the problems should be solved now, since he'd done some major maintenance on the database last night. None of us really believed it, but we certainly wanted it to be true.
Meanwhile, back in reality: Sara was icily polite, but asked exactly the right questions; the Brit kept his temper in check, but made it clear that the database, as it stands, is a piece of unholy crap. (My translation, not his actual words. He was substantially more circumspect in speaking that truth.) They were both exactly correct in the issues they raised, and they did not criticize any of the myriad number of process and managerial errors they COULD have gone after. They really only wanted to know: When can we expect this set of issues to be resolved? When is it gonna WORK?
It was very clear that Beverly didn't like what she was hearing very much. She was rocking back and forth in her chair, rolling her eyes every time an issue was brought up. Towards the very end of the meeting, Sara was asking Samuel a question and Beverly slammed a pile of papers down on the table, completely impatient and obviously annoyed.
At the end of the meeting, Beverly and Amy said they needed to talk to Samuel, and asked me to stay as well. So Sara and RuthAnne and the Brit walked out, and as they closed the door behind them, Beverly opened her mouth and this is what came out:
"Well, Samuel, first of all I feel like I ought to apologize for my staff..."
I felt my jaw trying to drop and scooped it up with my hand.
"I mean, I have standards of behavior and they did NOT live up to those standards..."
She went on like that for a good long while, and I was just flabbergasted. She was hanging her OWN employees--proven, hard-working, diligent employees, might I add, and I'm not just saying that because they're my friends--completely out to dry, and APOLOGIZING to this shitstain who has single-handedly brought our organization to its knees. I could not believe my ears, except I sorta could because after all, this is BEVERLY we're talking about.
Once she was done, I knew: Sara and the Brit? Were in biiiiiig trouble. And I was pretty sure just how it was gonna go down, too. Beverly would bitch out RuthAnne for having such subversives on her staff; then RuthAnne would send it down on those two, because she's in the same boat I'm in and constantly has to redeem herself in Beverly's eyes, even when she's done nothing wrong.
Just before the meeting, Amy told me she wanted to meet with me about the status of all my little tasks. (Which...why, if I've been there all week, which I have; and if Amy has been there two days this week, which she ALSO has, would she wait til the day my vacation is supposed to start before asking me about my task list? I mean, there's such a thing as common sense here, and such a thing as being set up to fail. I am not normally such a cynic, but there you are.) So of course she had a dozen or two loose ends for me to tie up, and I went back to my desk to get them done so I could leave.
A few minutes later, the Brit came into my office. I put him up on what happened after they left the meeting, and told him as soon as I was done, I'd be over to their building to talk some more. (He was actually scared. Scared he was going to get fired, which...no, and that's what I told him; then scared he had let RuthAnne down, which...god, SO FUCKING CUTE! All the puppy-dogs in the world could not compete with just that one moment of concern and total cuteness. It was even more adorable than usual, and that's pretty much defining a whole new realm of adorable, right there.)
Once everything was done (by now it was 1:00, for anyone who was keeping score) I told everyone I was leaving, and ducked over to the other building. I talked to Sara first, since she had no idea at all; then I went and told the Brit the rest of the story--the apology and all.
"Are you fucking KIDDING me?" he asked.
"I am absolutely serious," I replied.
He got very, very quiet. And even though I don't know him ALL that well, I know this kind of quiet. It's the kind of quiet that comes right before stuff starts getting thrown, the kind of quiet that generally precedes by moments a screaming cursing tirade. I know this kind of quiet, being a veteran of it myself. (Except on him, it's really hot. God, I've got it bad.)
Fortunately his phone rang then, which gave him a little chance to calm down; meanwhile I went back into Sara's office. Sara and Mary and Christina and Kendra were all working there, at various workstations, all trying to do things with the database. And as I watched, one by one, each of them got booted out of the database for no reason at all, back to the Blue Screen Of Death. And one by one, they each looked silently at me for advice, which I couldn't give. Mainly because I didn't have any.
Sara's was the last to go. She looked for a moment at the Blue Screen, then up at me. And the two of us just started laughing, til our eyes were watering.
"I've never actually WATCHED an organization implode before," I said. "It's my first time."
As I was leaving--ready to go home to my first day of vacation, now that it was shortly after 2:00--I heard someone getting ready to transfer a call for RuthAnne, from Beverly. I walked up behind the Brit's desk, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, "Hang in there."
Four days off. During which I have one major family encounter, a couple of days with Tim sleeping on my sofa, and a phone interview (and possibly a real one after that) for Best...job...EVER.
My vacation needs a vacation.
Earlier in the week, though, Amy and Beverly scheduled a meeting with Samuel The Database Killer, to talk about the long and elaborate list of Shit That Don't Work No More No More No More. And the bright idea was advanced to bring in some of the actual USERS of the database--since neither Amy nor Beverly actually use this monstrosity from day to day--as a means of gathering insight as to how, exactly, these problems are affecting everyone's workflow.
They scheduled this meeting for 9 AM today, and I said I'd come in just for the meeting, then go home.
So I sent out e-mails to RuthAnne and Noreen, asking them to pick some representatives from their collective staff to bring to the meeting. Noreen wasn't there--SHE gets to go on vacation, apparently--so she sent her right hand, Lynn. RuthAnne decided to bring one of the coordinators, Sara...and the Brit.
We talked about this yesterday on the way home. I told him "Don't sit next to me, or I'll spend the whole meeting writing snotty notes and trying not to bust out laughing." There are a few people--Sara included--who would pose a similar threat; the three of us sometimes ride the train in the mornings together and snark on the hierarchy. I can only think of a couple more-dangerous combinations of people for this meeting. Sara is pissed because she can't do her job; the Brit has a temper in the face of unearned authority; and I'm just a sarcastic bitch who's tired of all the bullshit. It's a volatile cocktail, is what I'm saying.
So at 9:00 I walked into the meeting, with copies of the Long and Elaborate List in hand. I should have known immediately that things were already not going well when I heard Sara ask: "'Sticking to just this one issue'? What does that mean, exactly?" Fortunately Samuel had to move his car, and the Brit said to me "Did you hear that?? What the HELL is he talking about?"
Which was my question exactly. Beverly herself had told me the day before to bring copies of the lists so we could discuss them; somehow, it seemed, Samuel had hijacked the thread of the meeting before it even began.
When Samuel came back, we all sat down, I passed out the lists, and the fun began.
"Oh no," said Samuel. "We're not going over this whole list today?"
Beverly looked at me. "I thought your e-mail said we were going to discuss the other issue?" (This is the SAME WOMAN who told me less than 18 hours before that I should bring copies of the lists!)
"Um....okay..." There was really nothing more I COULD say; though my first choice would have been what the fuck are you talking about?, I had to reject it as an ill-considered option.
The meeting lasted about an hour. Samuel claimed that a lot of the problems should be solved now, since he'd done some major maintenance on the database last night. None of us really believed it, but we certainly wanted it to be true.
Meanwhile, back in reality: Sara was icily polite, but asked exactly the right questions; the Brit kept his temper in check, but made it clear that the database, as it stands, is a piece of unholy crap. (My translation, not his actual words. He was substantially more circumspect in speaking that truth.) They were both exactly correct in the issues they raised, and they did not criticize any of the myriad number of process and managerial errors they COULD have gone after. They really only wanted to know: When can we expect this set of issues to be resolved? When is it gonna WORK?
It was very clear that Beverly didn't like what she was hearing very much. She was rocking back and forth in her chair, rolling her eyes every time an issue was brought up. Towards the very end of the meeting, Sara was asking Samuel a question and Beverly slammed a pile of papers down on the table, completely impatient and obviously annoyed.
At the end of the meeting, Beverly and Amy said they needed to talk to Samuel, and asked me to stay as well. So Sara and RuthAnne and the Brit walked out, and as they closed the door behind them, Beverly opened her mouth and this is what came out:
"Well, Samuel, first of all I feel like I ought to apologize for my staff..."
I felt my jaw trying to drop and scooped it up with my hand.
"I mean, I have standards of behavior and they did NOT live up to those standards..."
She went on like that for a good long while, and I was just flabbergasted. She was hanging her OWN employees--proven, hard-working, diligent employees, might I add, and I'm not just saying that because they're my friends--completely out to dry, and APOLOGIZING to this shitstain who has single-handedly brought our organization to its knees. I could not believe my ears, except I sorta could because after all, this is BEVERLY we're talking about.
Once she was done, I knew: Sara and the Brit? Were in biiiiiig trouble. And I was pretty sure just how it was gonna go down, too. Beverly would bitch out RuthAnne for having such subversives on her staff; then RuthAnne would send it down on those two, because she's in the same boat I'm in and constantly has to redeem herself in Beverly's eyes, even when she's done nothing wrong.
Just before the meeting, Amy told me she wanted to meet with me about the status of all my little tasks. (Which...why, if I've been there all week, which I have; and if Amy has been there two days this week, which she ALSO has, would she wait til the day my vacation is supposed to start before asking me about my task list? I mean, there's such a thing as common sense here, and such a thing as being set up to fail. I am not normally such a cynic, but there you are.) So of course she had a dozen or two loose ends for me to tie up, and I went back to my desk to get them done so I could leave.
A few minutes later, the Brit came into my office. I put him up on what happened after they left the meeting, and told him as soon as I was done, I'd be over to their building to talk some more. (He was actually scared. Scared he was going to get fired, which...no, and that's what I told him; then scared he had let RuthAnne down, which...god, SO FUCKING CUTE! All the puppy-dogs in the world could not compete with just that one moment of concern and total cuteness. It was even more adorable than usual, and that's pretty much defining a whole new realm of adorable, right there.)
Once everything was done (by now it was 1:00, for anyone who was keeping score) I told everyone I was leaving, and ducked over to the other building. I talked to Sara first, since she had no idea at all; then I went and told the Brit the rest of the story--the apology and all.
"Are you fucking KIDDING me?" he asked.
"I am absolutely serious," I replied.
He got very, very quiet. And even though I don't know him ALL that well, I know this kind of quiet. It's the kind of quiet that comes right before stuff starts getting thrown, the kind of quiet that generally precedes by moments a screaming cursing tirade. I know this kind of quiet, being a veteran of it myself. (Except on him, it's really hot. God, I've got it bad.)
Fortunately his phone rang then, which gave him a little chance to calm down; meanwhile I went back into Sara's office. Sara and Mary and Christina and Kendra were all working there, at various workstations, all trying to do things with the database. And as I watched, one by one, each of them got booted out of the database for no reason at all, back to the Blue Screen Of Death. And one by one, they each looked silently at me for advice, which I couldn't give. Mainly because I didn't have any.
Sara's was the last to go. She looked for a moment at the Blue Screen, then up at me. And the two of us just started laughing, til our eyes were watering.
"I've never actually WATCHED an organization implode before," I said. "It's my first time."
As I was leaving--ready to go home to my first day of vacation, now that it was shortly after 2:00--I heard someone getting ready to transfer a call for RuthAnne, from Beverly. I walked up behind the Brit's desk, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, "Hang in there."
Four days off. During which I have one major family encounter, a couple of days with Tim sleeping on my sofa, and a phone interview (and possibly a real one after that) for Best...job...EVER.
My vacation needs a vacation.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Happy 10,000 To Me
As of about 5 minutes ago, The Story of Why had its 10,000th visitor. It's just a little more than a day short of a year since I loosed this blog on the outside world.
I'll never be Wonkette, maybe, but 10,000 hits a year is a number I can live with.
Thanks to all my loyal regulars (and also my disloyal irregulars, and the perverse freakpeople who want to know about the K@rshner Triplets, canine-hum@n sex, and/or "fucked my d@ughter" stories. Because frankly, I get a lotta hits off those people, and so I can't entirely dismiss them out of hand. But to those folks I will say, I think you all might need some hobbies--preferably the kind that require BOTH hands, if you get my meaning and I think you do.)
I'm sitting here in my room listening to the Replacements, a few hours before the start of my vacation. And as much as I whine and whinge and cry about the state of my life and my loves and my job, I have to say that right now, at 11:39 PM on a May night in Chicago?
All things considered, it's a pretty good moment to be Gladys.
I'll never be Wonkette, maybe, but 10,000 hits a year is a number I can live with.
Thanks to all my loyal regulars (and also my disloyal irregulars, and the perverse freakpeople who want to know about the K@rshner Triplets, canine-hum@n sex, and/or "fucked my d@ughter" stories. Because frankly, I get a lotta hits off those people, and so I can't entirely dismiss them out of hand. But to those folks I will say, I think you all might need some hobbies--preferably the kind that require BOTH hands, if you get my meaning and I think you do.)
I'm sitting here in my room listening to the Replacements, a few hours before the start of my vacation. And as much as I whine and whinge and cry about the state of my life and my loves and my job, I have to say that right now, at 11:39 PM on a May night in Chicago?
All things considered, it's a pretty good moment to be Gladys.
Gave Up
I hereby leave the Brit to his girlfriend.
It's strange. We get along so well, and he's so much fun to talk to and have I mentioned that he's HOT? and the only problem comes when I look at two very simple structures:
Brit<----------->his girlfriend (pretty and political and perfect for him)
Me (intelligent and strange and unique and okay-so-I'm-not-pretty, but loyal and capable and subversive in a different kind of way)<------------>LJ
So the unevenness is only on one side here. His closed system seems to suit him; mine....not so much. And the problem is not so much that I don't recognize that; the problem is that somewhere on my side of the equation is the thing that tells me I'm not going to find what I'm actually looking for.
Which makes sense, because what I'm looking for pretty much doesn't exist anymore. But it doesn't make it easier when I see something that seems like it might be close. And I'm tired of wanting things I can't have.
It's strange. We get along so well, and he's so much fun to talk to and have I mentioned that he's HOT? and the only problem comes when I look at two very simple structures:
Brit<----------->his girlfriend (pretty and political and perfect for him)
Me (intelligent and strange and unique and okay-so-I'm-not-pretty, but loyal and capable and subversive in a different kind of way)<------------>LJ
So the unevenness is only on one side here. His closed system seems to suit him; mine....not so much. And the problem is not so much that I don't recognize that; the problem is that somewhere on my side of the equation is the thing that tells me I'm not going to find what I'm actually looking for.
Which makes sense, because what I'm looking for pretty much doesn't exist anymore. But it doesn't make it easier when I see something that seems like it might be close. And I'm tired of wanting things I can't have.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Snowball
Okay, so thanks to that link from Mr. Zorn , my stats on the other blog have gone through the roof. And the thing about that is, everyone is reading for a while. Like, half-hour visits and 41 page views at a time, and that makes me think oh holy cow, people are going to expect this to be good and to be regularly-updated and all the things a good blog is, and oh holy cow I don't know if I can live up to that.
Fear of success, y'all. Not helpful.
As they say in my 'hood: I'm skurred.
Fear of success, y'all. Not helpful.
As they say in my 'hood: I'm skurred.
Evaluation Redux
UPDATE: Because I just read this part again: "...she also has some difficulty anticipating potential problems and often underestimates the time it will take to complete a task....
Ooh. Kinda like the database guy? Except...not, because back in OCTOBER I told them 1) there were potential problems with this upgrade, 2) exactly what they were, c) exactly what we could do to avoid them, and d) approximately how long I thought it would take to resolve them. And The Big Tech Guy read that document a few weeks ago, after our lunch meeting, and pronounced it "magnificent"....Beverly and Amy, however, accused me of "stirring the pot" and disregarded every single one of my recommendations.
I'm wondering if, in fact, that's what all this is about. I haven't toed the party line with this database upgrade; I've made it very clear all along that I think this should have been done much more slowly and carefully than it was. I've made no secret of my opinion, and I don't regret that...but I do wonder if maybe this evaluation doesn't contain a heaping tablespoon or two of revenge.
(I'd quit dwelling on this, except I told the Brit about it this morning and he's properly outraged on my behalf, and he's actually even HOTTER when he's outraged. If that is in fact possible. It's KILLING me, people, the hotness.)
Ooh. Kinda like the database guy? Except...not, because back in OCTOBER I told them 1) there were potential problems with this upgrade, 2) exactly what they were, c) exactly what we could do to avoid them, and d) approximately how long I thought it would take to resolve them. And The Big Tech Guy read that document a few weeks ago, after our lunch meeting, and pronounced it "magnificent"....Beverly and Amy, however, accused me of "stirring the pot" and disregarded every single one of my recommendations.
I'm wondering if, in fact, that's what all this is about. I haven't toed the party line with this database upgrade; I've made it very clear all along that I think this should have been done much more slowly and carefully than it was. I've made no secret of my opinion, and I don't regret that...but I do wonder if maybe this evaluation doesn't contain a heaping tablespoon or two of revenge.
(I'd quit dwelling on this, except I told the Brit about it this morning and he's properly outraged on my behalf, and he's actually even HOTTER when he's outraged. If that is in fact possible. It's KILLING me, people, the hotness.)
BEST. Post. ANYWHERE. Ever.
Good morning, campers. It's 6:15 in the morning, on a day when I have the car and don't need to be up til 6:45 except that I can't sleep because I'm so damn het up about this whole evaluation thing and also? LJ SNORES, y'all.
But this post? Snorty-laughing-noise. And snorty-laughing-noise makes EVERYTHING better.
But this post? Snorty-laughing-noise. And snorty-laughing-noise makes EVERYTHING better.
Monday, May 9, 2005
Worst Evaluation Ever
Oh yeah--it's time to go, definitely.
I got my evaluation today, and it was completely for shit.
"Gladys has been asked several times over this last year to dress more professionally..."
Um, no. There was ONE conversation in which Amy intimated that I dress the way I do because I'm "uncomfortable with my femininity"--no direct request was ever made, much less "several".
"Setting a more professional tone in dress would help her and her work be taken more seriously by other staff members."
So would not being constantly undermined by my superiors in front of others. Guess we've ALL got dreams.
"She has great analytical skills, but sometimes has to be prodded to completely think through a problem...she also has some difficulty anticipating potential problems and often underestimates the time it will take to complete a task."
And sometimes I have to gather the same train of thought twenty thousand times because of all the interruptions. But that wouldn't have anything to do with it, now would it.
"Her supervisor often has to prompt her to run ideas, problems, and purchasing recommendations past others."
Translation: We don't trust her judgement and we make sure she knows this whenever possible.
There's more. It goes on like that. I'm supposed to meet with Amy and Beverly tomorrow, to "discuss" this. (Translation: another harangue.)
Thank god I've got a phone interview for another job tomorrow; the hope that THAT will come through is the ONLY thing that's keeping me from writing my resignation letter.
I got my evaluation today, and it was completely for shit.
"Gladys has been asked several times over this last year to dress more professionally..."
Um, no. There was ONE conversation in which Amy intimated that I dress the way I do because I'm "uncomfortable with my femininity"--no direct request was ever made, much less "several".
"Setting a more professional tone in dress would help her and her work be taken more seriously by other staff members."
So would not being constantly undermined by my superiors in front of others. Guess we've ALL got dreams.
"She has great analytical skills, but sometimes has to be prodded to completely think through a problem...she also has some difficulty anticipating potential problems and often underestimates the time it will take to complete a task."
And sometimes I have to gather the same train of thought twenty thousand times because of all the interruptions. But that wouldn't have anything to do with it, now would it.
"Her supervisor often has to prompt her to run ideas, problems, and purchasing recommendations past others."
Translation: We don't trust her judgement and we make sure she knows this whenever possible.
There's more. It goes on like that. I'm supposed to meet with Amy and Beverly tomorrow, to "discuss" this. (Translation: another harangue.)
Thank god I've got a phone interview for another job tomorrow; the hope that THAT will come through is the ONLY thing that's keeping me from writing my resignation letter.
Sunday, May 8, 2005
Saturday, May 7, 2005
George Costanza Lives On
I have discovered The Thing I Possibly Hate Most.
This morning, my lovely little Launchcast radio station is having "Fuck With Gladys" day. I would feel worse about this if I hadn't, in some better mood now past, specifically programmed it with songs guaranteed and intended to fuck with me in some way.
Anyway, one of the songs it played is from 1993, by a band called Deacon Blue, "Your Town". It's a song with memories attached, although they're memories about something that didn't happen til AFTER the memory was attached, if that makes any sense. It's a breakup song, a divorce song, with a little more optimism and malice than most. Cool tune, anyway.
Squishy nebulous brain-o-mine, though, insisted on a little time-travel to go along.
Back when I left David, with all the drama and terror involved in having my infidelity with JP discovered and confirmed, I expected the whole world to come crashing in. I would drive extensive distances to call JP from untraceable pay-phones in Wal-Mart parking lots; I was always looking behind me, over my shoulder. Some of it was paranoia and --dare I say it? guilt?--but some of it was understandable. David was not the most stable human I'd ever known. He was never violent with me, but I always sensed that possibility--and he talked MUCH shit. I remember a voice-mail one morning, threatening me with all sorts of legal and financial ruin for daring to screw him over. I understood his anger--I was totally in the wrong--but it still scared the hell out of me. I think that was a major deciding factor in why I didn't attempt to work things out with him, which he'd begged me to do for a long time after I left--on some level, I knew he was never going to let it go, not really, no matter what I did.
He was a petty little bastard. Really he was. For example:
When we were together, there was this hot-dog place we used to go pretty often, right by his old workplace. The people who worked there knew us; the owner knew us and talked to us often. It was one of those places where if you were a regular customer, they just loved you to bits and would do anything for you.
A few weeks after I'd left--and now please, keep in mind that I was being very kind in my communications with him, despite all provocations to the contrary--I was trying to make this as painless and merciful as possible for David, no matter what I WANTED to say to him--anyway, a few weeks after I left he said he wanted to go out and talk for a while. He tried to explain that he "understood" me now (the mechanism by which he had acquired this supposed "understanding" is a blog post for another day, and still makes me giggle when I think about it) and that he wanted me to come back and try to work things out. Which, no. Wasn't gonna happen. Which, in the kindest possible terms, I tried to tell him.
And of course, he got pissed, and informed me of the following:
Apparently, the owner of the hot-dog place had made the grievous mistake of asking David where I'd been lately, and got an earful. Whereupon the owner agreed that a commemoration of my evil, black-hearted ways were needed, and promptly created a lunch-special in my honor...
...known as the Floozie.
And THIS, dear readers, brings me to the Thing I Possibly Hate The Most.
Because it was this morning, while listening to that song--now fully ten-and-a-half years later!!!!--that I came up with the perfect retort* for that information.
Ten and a half YEARS!!! That's SO not fair.
*(For the record, it was "Well, I certainly hope they used the foot-long hot dog for THAT one...")
This morning, my lovely little Launchcast radio station is having "Fuck With Gladys" day. I would feel worse about this if I hadn't, in some better mood now past, specifically programmed it with songs guaranteed and intended to fuck with me in some way.
Anyway, one of the songs it played is from 1993, by a band called Deacon Blue, "Your Town". It's a song with memories attached, although they're memories about something that didn't happen til AFTER the memory was attached, if that makes any sense. It's a breakup song, a divorce song, with a little more optimism and malice than most. Cool tune, anyway.
Squishy nebulous brain-o-mine, though, insisted on a little time-travel to go along.
Back when I left David, with all the drama and terror involved in having my infidelity with JP discovered and confirmed, I expected the whole world to come crashing in. I would drive extensive distances to call JP from untraceable pay-phones in Wal-Mart parking lots; I was always looking behind me, over my shoulder. Some of it was paranoia and --dare I say it? guilt?--but some of it was understandable. David was not the most stable human I'd ever known. He was never violent with me, but I always sensed that possibility--and he talked MUCH shit. I remember a voice-mail one morning, threatening me with all sorts of legal and financial ruin for daring to screw him over. I understood his anger--I was totally in the wrong--but it still scared the hell out of me. I think that was a major deciding factor in why I didn't attempt to work things out with him, which he'd begged me to do for a long time after I left--on some level, I knew he was never going to let it go, not really, no matter what I did.
He was a petty little bastard. Really he was. For example:
When we were together, there was this hot-dog place we used to go pretty often, right by his old workplace. The people who worked there knew us; the owner knew us and talked to us often. It was one of those places where if you were a regular customer, they just loved you to bits and would do anything for you.
A few weeks after I'd left--and now please, keep in mind that I was being very kind in my communications with him, despite all provocations to the contrary--I was trying to make this as painless and merciful as possible for David, no matter what I WANTED to say to him--anyway, a few weeks after I left he said he wanted to go out and talk for a while. He tried to explain that he "understood" me now (the mechanism by which he had acquired this supposed "understanding" is a blog post for another day, and still makes me giggle when I think about it) and that he wanted me to come back and try to work things out. Which, no. Wasn't gonna happen. Which, in the kindest possible terms, I tried to tell him.
And of course, he got pissed, and informed me of the following:
Apparently, the owner of the hot-dog place had made the grievous mistake of asking David where I'd been lately, and got an earful. Whereupon the owner agreed that a commemoration of my evil, black-hearted ways were needed, and promptly created a lunch-special in my honor...
...known as the Floozie.
And THIS, dear readers, brings me to the Thing I Possibly Hate The Most.
Because it was this morning, while listening to that song--now fully ten-and-a-half years later!!!!--that I came up with the perfect retort* for that information.
Ten and a half YEARS!!! That's SO not fair.
*(For the record, it was "Well, I certainly hope they used the foot-long hot dog for THAT one...")
Thursday, May 5, 2005
A Few Good Things
Know what I had for dinner tonight?
Cake.
A biiiiiig SLAB of cake.
CHOCOLATE cake.
VEGAN chocolate cake.
Bought for me, might I add, by one Cute Brit. As a thank-you for the transportation.
(And also because he was getting cake for his girlfriend, about whom he talked for much of the ride home. :::sigh:::
But still.)
Fucking EXCELLENT cake. If I could eat that for every meal I'd be a vegan for sure.
And he actually took his hair out of the ponytail in my presence today, just for a minute, causing me a major covert :::::squeeeeee!:::: and the sudden need to occupy my attention elsewhere for a moment or two.
DAMN this guy is hot.
(I'm a complete sucker for long hair. It's a sickness, I think.)
Also? My suspicions have been confirmed--there's a total freakboy in there somewhere. I knew it.
Life is SO not fair, can I just say?
Freakboy-hotness, cake, and :::squeeee::: aside, though--it's kinda cool to have a guy to talk to who actually talks BACK. And with whom I can hold an intelligent conversation, in which -I- am the half who can't always keep up.
I'll settle for "friends".
(But only if I HAVE to.)
Cake.
A biiiiiig SLAB of cake.
CHOCOLATE cake.
VEGAN chocolate cake.
Bought for me, might I add, by one Cute Brit. As a thank-you for the transportation.
(And also because he was getting cake for his girlfriend, about whom he talked for much of the ride home. :::sigh:::
But still.)
Fucking EXCELLENT cake. If I could eat that for every meal I'd be a vegan for sure.
And he actually took his hair out of the ponytail in my presence today, just for a minute, causing me a major covert :::::squeeeeee!:::: and the sudden need to occupy my attention elsewhere for a moment or two.
DAMN this guy is hot.
(I'm a complete sucker for long hair. It's a sickness, I think.)
Also? My suspicions have been confirmed--there's a total freakboy in there somewhere. I knew it.
Life is SO not fair, can I just say?
Freakboy-hotness, cake, and :::squeeee::: aside, though--it's kinda cool to have a guy to talk to who actually talks BACK. And with whom I can hold an intelligent conversation, in which -I- am the half who can't always keep up.
I'll settle for "friends".
(But only if I HAVE to.)
Wednesday, May 4, 2005
Condition Critical
My dreams lately are full of heroin.
Back when I first stopped using, I would dream about heroin a lot. I would dream about the places I used to buy; I used to dream about scoring, about the cops chasing me or searching me. I'd dream about cooking it up and drawing it into the needle.
The one thing I never dreamed about was actually USING it. I would wake up just at the moment in the dream where I'd pick up the needle, and when I'd wake up completely I'd feel cheated, angry, lost.
The night before last I woke up and looked at the backs of my hands; that's how convinced I was that I'd shot up. I remember even thinking in the dream of the five years clean that I was throwing away--not that time matters to me like that. I remember in the dream actually feeling the heroin hit my bloodstream and it was exactly how it felt.
I am so angry these days; so much of my life, despite my placid little surface, is wreckage underneath. Riding home with the Brit tonight, we talked as always--and after I dropped him off, I thought about the things I'd said. I am not as composed, not as together as I would like anyone to believe. Under the surface I am absolutely raw, questioning everything I've done over the past few years to build my life back up. I have spent so much time and energy building up an elaborate facade of Someone Who Is Okay, Really--except it's only a facade, only a front. I am nowhere near okay, and the mess is starting to leak out around my edges. I'm sure everyone else has seen it; I'm starting to see it myself, and it scares me.
I am lonely as hell.
Back when I first stopped using, I would dream about heroin a lot. I would dream about the places I used to buy; I used to dream about scoring, about the cops chasing me or searching me. I'd dream about cooking it up and drawing it into the needle.
The one thing I never dreamed about was actually USING it. I would wake up just at the moment in the dream where I'd pick up the needle, and when I'd wake up completely I'd feel cheated, angry, lost.
The night before last I woke up and looked at the backs of my hands; that's how convinced I was that I'd shot up. I remember even thinking in the dream of the five years clean that I was throwing away--not that time matters to me like that. I remember in the dream actually feeling the heroin hit my bloodstream and it was exactly how it felt.
I am so angry these days; so much of my life, despite my placid little surface, is wreckage underneath. Riding home with the Brit tonight, we talked as always--and after I dropped him off, I thought about the things I'd said. I am not as composed, not as together as I would like anyone to believe. Under the surface I am absolutely raw, questioning everything I've done over the past few years to build my life back up. I have spent so much time and energy building up an elaborate facade of Someone Who Is Okay, Really--except it's only a facade, only a front. I am nowhere near okay, and the mess is starting to leak out around my edges. I'm sure everyone else has seen it; I'm starting to see it myself, and it scares me.
I am lonely as hell.
My Workday
I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much I hate her so much
Do I sound like a twelve-year-old having a tantrum? Good. If I am to be treated like a twelve-year-old I will damn well take advantage of that status and ACT like one, at least long enough to get this rage out of my system.
The database fucker can bring our operation to a total standstill and get paid beaucoup bucks for the privilege and that's FINE, she can talk to HIM like an adult, but when I can't answer for two files which my browser shows I downloaded over a month ago, somehow it's okay to yell at me like I was one of her kids? While on speakerphone? With the same database fucker who is already allowed to treat me like I don't know what I'm doing, though of course the bitch claims that's somehow MY fault???
I have three weeks of vacation pay coming. It's the 4th of this month and I've paid all the bills.
If I still feel this diminished and dismissed and PISSED tomorrow, I think I'm going to put in my two weeks notice.
I am not saying I was right. I am not saying I shouldn't be more on top of things. But I am not a twelve-year-old child, and I have reached my limit.
Do I sound like a twelve-year-old having a tantrum? Good. If I am to be treated like a twelve-year-old I will damn well take advantage of that status and ACT like one, at least long enough to get this rage out of my system.
The database fucker can bring our operation to a total standstill and get paid beaucoup bucks for the privilege and that's FINE, she can talk to HIM like an adult, but when I can't answer for two files which my browser shows I downloaded over a month ago, somehow it's okay to yell at me like I was one of her kids? While on speakerphone? With the same database fucker who is already allowed to treat me like I don't know what I'm doing, though of course the bitch claims that's somehow MY fault???
I have three weeks of vacation pay coming. It's the 4th of this month and I've paid all the bills.
If I still feel this diminished and dismissed and PISSED tomorrow, I think I'm going to put in my two weeks notice.
I am not saying I was right. I am not saying I shouldn't be more on top of things. But I am not a twelve-year-old child, and I have reached my limit.
Monday, May 2, 2005
Insult and Fucking Injury
Today I found out that there's a good chance I'll be losing my job soon.
I didn't blog this, but last week I had lunch with The Big Tech Guy. It started when I called him to ask a question about the network, more specifically about something we'd been told to do by Samuel, the Not-Affilliated-With-Place-Where-I-Work Database Guy. I thought he was wrong about the source of the problem and went to TBTG to get confirmation of my hunch, which is that Samuel is speaking through an orifice other than his mouth. The conversation went from there and he invited me to lunch so we could talk openly about exactly WTF is going on here.
I spilled everything. My guts, the beans, the whole enchilada. (If, in fact, an enchilada could be spilled.) The cat was let firmly out of the bag. Pick your cliche--I did it. I was just that fed up. We--and by "we" I mean everyone here except the bosses, who dwell blissfully unaware of FileMaker Pro and all the injustices that can be done to it by an incompetent dweeb--are being held hostage to poor design, no testing, and hapless implementation. It's a clusterfuck, plain and simple. Our old database sucked--but everyone, to a person, has now voiced the same lament: I miss the old database.
I knew--TBTG told me--that a variant of this conversation would get back to the person above Beverly. I told him I was okay with that but that I'd prefer to have my name kept out of it as much as possible. Not that it would matter--there's only one place, maybe two, that TBTG could be getting his info. I knew it would come back on me before I opened my mouth, and I decided I would be okay with that, if and when it happened.
Well, it looks like it's gonna happen.
Today I got a very cryptic e-mail from TBTG, telling me he needed me to come to his office as soon as I could, that he'd heard some things and thought I should be made aware of them. And when I got there he told me: the bosses' boss--Beverly's boss--now has her spoon firmly in this steaming pot of stew, and a change is gonna come. Apparently they're thinking about several options, and among those options is reorganizing the entire department, bringing my group under the aegis of the big department boss, giving database duties to one of the department techs, support calls to another, and handing off the so-called "clerical" parts of my job to someone who would make a lot less money. (It gives me great satisfaction to know that I actually HAVE been doing three people's worth of work.) My position, along with several others, would be eliminated under this plan. It's not 100% definite that this is the plan they'll go with, but it's probable.
TBTG was very apologetic--his exact comment, and those of you who have voiced this sentiment in the comments sections of days past should find this very entertaining, was "You deserve so much better, and you have for a long time." He's got mad connections in the area, so I sent him my resume and he's gonna talk to some people. All of which is great, and for someone who was just informed that her job was on the way out, I was in remarkably good spirits.
Then I got back to the office.
The database situation has now brought certain operations to a complete standstill, and most catastrophic of these has been Noreen's program. She has deadlines that need to be met, and there is a very good chance that they won't be. And finally, FINALLY, months and months too late, Beverly and Amy have noticed that There Is A Problem. They figured this out early last week, when several promises were not delivered upon by Samuel or his minion.
Today things really reached a crisis point. I was told that one of the functionalities was complete and ready to go, only to discover that the new way of doing things had left me about six hours worth of data entry and verification. And even then, there's still hugely time-sensitive stuff that doesn't work. All day, Samuel tried to get a hold of his buddy, who doesn't carry a cell phone, to fix what's broken--and couldn't. When it became apparent that what needed to happen was not going to happen til Samuel could get hold of the Minion, here's the solution they gave me.
"Well, Gladys, you could take a laptop home and Samuel could call you on your cell phone when it's all ready and you could work on the manual data matching at home...right?"
So guess what I'm doing tonight?
Hint--it does NOT involve studying for my Food Service Sanitation test, which is tomorrow.
(I was also told "I wouldn't have a problem with you coming in early and doing the matching then..." Yeah, I bet you wouldn't, bitch.)
Now I get to go home and explain to LJ why I'm quite likely losing my job. Yay.
I didn't blog this, but last week I had lunch with The Big Tech Guy. It started when I called him to ask a question about the network, more specifically about something we'd been told to do by Samuel, the Not-Affilliated-With-Place-Where-I-Work Database Guy. I thought he was wrong about the source of the problem and went to TBTG to get confirmation of my hunch, which is that Samuel is speaking through an orifice other than his mouth. The conversation went from there and he invited me to lunch so we could talk openly about exactly WTF is going on here.
I spilled everything. My guts, the beans, the whole enchilada. (If, in fact, an enchilada could be spilled.) The cat was let firmly out of the bag. Pick your cliche--I did it. I was just that fed up. We--and by "we" I mean everyone here except the bosses, who dwell blissfully unaware of FileMaker Pro and all the injustices that can be done to it by an incompetent dweeb--are being held hostage to poor design, no testing, and hapless implementation. It's a clusterfuck, plain and simple. Our old database sucked--but everyone, to a person, has now voiced the same lament: I miss the old database.
I knew--TBTG told me--that a variant of this conversation would get back to the person above Beverly. I told him I was okay with that but that I'd prefer to have my name kept out of it as much as possible. Not that it would matter--there's only one place, maybe two, that TBTG could be getting his info. I knew it would come back on me before I opened my mouth, and I decided I would be okay with that, if and when it happened.
Well, it looks like it's gonna happen.
Today I got a very cryptic e-mail from TBTG, telling me he needed me to come to his office as soon as I could, that he'd heard some things and thought I should be made aware of them. And when I got there he told me: the bosses' boss--Beverly's boss--now has her spoon firmly in this steaming pot of stew, and a change is gonna come. Apparently they're thinking about several options, and among those options is reorganizing the entire department, bringing my group under the aegis of the big department boss, giving database duties to one of the department techs, support calls to another, and handing off the so-called "clerical" parts of my job to someone who would make a lot less money. (It gives me great satisfaction to know that I actually HAVE been doing three people's worth of work.) My position, along with several others, would be eliminated under this plan. It's not 100% definite that this is the plan they'll go with, but it's probable.
TBTG was very apologetic--his exact comment, and those of you who have voiced this sentiment in the comments sections of days past should find this very entertaining, was "You deserve so much better, and you have for a long time." He's got mad connections in the area, so I sent him my resume and he's gonna talk to some people. All of which is great, and for someone who was just informed that her job was on the way out, I was in remarkably good spirits.
Then I got back to the office.
The database situation has now brought certain operations to a complete standstill, and most catastrophic of these has been Noreen's program. She has deadlines that need to be met, and there is a very good chance that they won't be. And finally, FINALLY, months and months too late, Beverly and Amy have noticed that There Is A Problem. They figured this out early last week, when several promises were not delivered upon by Samuel or his minion.
Today things really reached a crisis point. I was told that one of the functionalities was complete and ready to go, only to discover that the new way of doing things had left me about six hours worth of data entry and verification. And even then, there's still hugely time-sensitive stuff that doesn't work. All day, Samuel tried to get a hold of his buddy, who doesn't carry a cell phone, to fix what's broken--and couldn't. When it became apparent that what needed to happen was not going to happen til Samuel could get hold of the Minion, here's the solution they gave me.
"Well, Gladys, you could take a laptop home and Samuel could call you on your cell phone when it's all ready and you could work on the manual data matching at home...right?"
So guess what I'm doing tonight?
Hint--it does NOT involve studying for my Food Service Sanitation test, which is tomorrow.
(I was also told "I wouldn't have a problem with you coming in early and doing the matching then..." Yeah, I bet you wouldn't, bitch.)
Now I get to go home and explain to LJ why I'm quite likely losing my job. Yay.
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