Surviving the Quarterlife

Abby

2010-09-10T22:16:00.000-07:00

So, after WAY too many years without a dog, I finally have a lovable little furball in my life. A huge thanks to my high school friend Mary, first of all for finding Abby (she was a stray), taking her in and taking care of her for a couple days, and most importantly posting Abby's picture on Facebook asking someone to give that sweet little girl a home.

Meet Abby!

She loves to hide under the coffee table (and lately, under the stairs).

She is all puppy: boundless energy, complete with unnecessary barking, chewing on everything in sight, eating whatever tastes good if I don't catch her in time, and everyone's favorite puppy challenge... housebreaking. But she is so freaking cute, it's okay.

She's adorable when she sleeps (even if the picture quality sucks)

I just love my little Abby. Thank you, Mary!

No words...

2010-09-10T22:12:00.001-07:00

Well, maybe just a couple.

Dear Ex-Boss:

THIS is why I ALWAYS cashed my checks at Bank of America instead of putting them in my own bank and letting them bounce.

=P

---------------------------------------------------

Please fire me. Our company says it is going to start charging us $25 to cover its NSF fees if its payroll checks bounce when we try to cash them, unless we check to see if there are funds available before we attempt to get paid.

Return to the Working World

2010-07-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

So, after exactly 54 weeks, 4 unemployment hold ups, multiple nervous breakdowns and a couple of vehicle repossession threats, I finally got a job. Having been out of work for a year, I heard a lot of "Have you found a job yet? ... Oh, you haven't? ... Well, the fact that it's taking you such a long time to find one just means that you are going to end up with your perfect job."

Oh, the pressure of trying to land the "perfect" job. I mean, I was out of work for over a year. I don't have my degree. Of course, I have over nine years of experience and an impressive resume, but that doesn't mean much to employers who are looking to hire a college graduate at $10.00 an hour. I never expected to find the "perfect" job and I tried to remove the pressure that I felt others were placing on me and set a goal to just find any job, anything at all that offered health insurance and paid more than unemployment, which I figured shouldn't be difficult, as my unemployment only worked out to about $9.00 an hour.

Believe it or not, though, even though I really wasn't looking for it, I honestly feel like I found the "perfect" job for where I am at this point in my life. I don't think it's going to be my career position, and I'm not sure I still see myself in that same position in ten years, but I am looking for something long-term while I finish school, and this feels like it. The people in my department are genuinely nice and really want to help me be a success, which is a nice feeling, something I haven't experienced in past jobs (of course, I'm not totally naive -- I'm well aware that my success is directly related to theirs -- I'm just saying that it's nice to work with people who truly reach for the common goal together rather than stabbing each other in the back and letting every man fend for himself, which pretty much sums up my last two jobs). I have excellent insurance benefits, a generous amount of sick/vacation time and nice perks, like a discount on my gym membership and my cell phone bill. My only complaint is how expensive parking is (yes, staff have to pay for parking). But my other benefits are so amazing that really I feel bad even thinking about complaining about the cost of parking. There is potential for moving around and up, and the university does a lot of promoting from within. If I decide to stick with Nursing, and am able to work my way through my ADN, I can pursue my Master's there.

I have really put the brakes on my Facebook and blogging activity since I went back to work, partly because Facebook is blocked at work and it is time-consuming to catch up when I get home at the end of the day, and partly because both activities make me a little nervous now that I am working again. I think I have both my Facebook and blogging privacy settings fairly well locked down, but still, I feel like you just never know, and I would much rather err on the side of caution than be an idiot and get in trouble over something so preventable. I don't know how many people from my department are on Facebook and I don't really intend to find out. I'm not sure it's a wise move on my part to "friend" these co-workers, nice as they may be.

Mentally, physically and emotionally, going back to work has been a big adjustment. I'm not complaining at all, just stating a fact. I really tried not to take my "time off" for granted, but as that time got longer and longer and I found myself dealing with depression and an insane frequency of stress-related migraines, it got to be really nice being able to nap when I wanted during the day and not having to worry about getting up at the crack of dawn. Forcing myself to go to bed at a decent hour to be able to wake up at an ungodly one has tweaked with my internal alarm clock in a cruel way that wakes me up unnecessarily at about 4:30 every morning, which blows. And the forcing myself to go to bed at a decent hour has also proved difficult; many nights I go to bed before 11:00 only to toss and turn until about 12:30 trying to force myself to go to sleep. Hopefully that will get better with time.

Perhaps the hardest adjustment has been trying to transition into a new and unfamiliar industry and trying to make a good impression while the ghost of the ex-boss continues to follow me. I know how ridiculous it is that I'm still talking about this guy nearly three years post-resignation, but there is a part of me that can't help it. Understand, that was my first "real" job, which I got right out of high school and kept for almost seven years, or "a quarter of my life," as the ex-boss liked to say. That was where I learned how to be "professional" and how an office works, how you are supposed to behave, what "quality" work is, what "customer service" is. Some of the lessons were good ones that have stuck with me to this day, like how to politely turn someone down (my director is amazed at how nice my "rejection" e-mails are... LOL). Unfortunately, some of the lessons developed bad habits, which, years later, are hard to break. But I do my damnedest to come into work every day and do the best job I possibly can. And all the while, the ex-boss is there in the back of my mind, and I am waiting for the next hours-long closed-door meeting in which I get told that my work is not good enough and that I am single-handedly sending the company to hell in a handbasket. But so far, that's not happening in my new position. My bosses and co-workers seem impressed with me. I'm not one to toot my own horn and I don't take compliments well. They keep calling me a "rockstar" and I'm trying to accept it gracefully, but in the back of my mind I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, because that's how it went with the ex-boss. He told others how wonderful I was and then told me how much I sucked, lest all his praises go to my head.

As much as I like my job and as much as I'm trying to have confidence in myself, I'm finding that the first month back at work has been both a reality check and a humbling experience. When you're job-searching, you build your resume and you sell yourself in interviews, and even if you're like me and don't have a ton of self-confidence, there still comes a point where you've sold yourself and your talents so much that even you could buy what you're selling. And what I'm finding now is that much of what I sold are skills that are rusty, or good habits that went bad, or things that I just thought were made-up weaknesses that are seriously legit (by the way, can I just say, that was my least favorite interview question? I mean, seriously... I could go on for days with a list of weaknesses. How the hell do you honestly answer that in an interview without making yourself sound like you don't have any weaknesses at all or you're too damn weak to hire?). And I am trying very hard to turn that shit around before someone finds me out, all while trying not to worry too much about it. I spent about six out of the seven years at my first job making myself ill to the point of debilitation with worry about things that might happen, therefore usually ensuring that the things I worried about eventually DID happen. I spent a year out of the year and a half at my last job forcing myself out of bed in the morning and hating every single fucking minute in that office every damn day of the week. I'm trying to tell myself now that NO JOB is worth that. That's not to say that I'm not going to worry, or not hate some days at work, and that's definitely not to say that I ever want to be unemployed again. I guess I am just trying to find the balance, and having a difficult time doing it. I know that I have great skills, yet I know that I have some bad habits that I need to break. I know that I am an efficient worker and a fast learner, yet I know that I'm not very good at estimating how long it will take me to complete a task. What I need to do is work on playing up my strengths and keeping my weaknesses under cover while I work on strengthening them. I am seriously so grateful to be back to work, and generally happy with where I'm at. Thanks to the ex-boss, there's just always this little voice in the back of my mind repeating: "Don't fuck it up."

I will sure try my hardest not to.

Having a bad day...

2010-05-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

But it doesn't seem to be anything that can't be solved by a little Please Fire Me and my new favorite, Shit My Kids Ruined. Now if only I had some chocolate...

Gems from Please Fire Me. I can relate to ALL of these, because they happened to me at one time or another:

Please fire me. My boss regularly strolls into my office to have “a quick meeting” five minutes before I leave, which always last at least an hour.
Please fire me. I had to teach my boss what it means to, and how, to copy and paste.
Please fire me. I start dreading the Monday morning meeting on Friday night.
Please fire me. Today I was reprimanded for doing exactly what my boss asked me to. When I reminded him that he had sent this request to me in email he said, “Well, you should know by now that’s not really what I meant.”
Please fire me. You sent me five texts at 6 a.m. I don’t start work until 8:30.
Please fire me. I can not decipher an email from my boss, which only read: “Wireless is less important please me now important”.

And introducing Shit My Kids Ruined. Speaking as someone who has ALWAYS wanted kids (my first dream job was to be a mom), this site is actually pretty good birth control.

The writing's on the table: "My dad is a ass."

How could you be mad at that sweet little face?

Animal Abuse, part one: poor puppy.

That kid is thinking, "Hmm, I have a straight shot to Momma's OTHER eye."

Animal Abuse, part two: Who says pitbulls don't take any crap?

(Disclaimer: I'm well aware that pitbulls can be vicious dogs. However, if trained to love and NOT fight, as this one obviously was, they are not horrible animals.)

This one is the icing on the cake. This is seriously my WORST parenting fear. I don't care that it is going to hurt like hell to give birth. I just can't deal with vomit. Poor baby. But really... poor Daddy.

Today's spelling lesson is brought to you by the letter "O."

2010-05-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

O. That poor, overlooked letter. The letter that gets ignorantly omitted when so many people attempt to spell the word "honey." Yes, that sweet and simple word "honey." H-O-N-E-Y. How might such an easy word be misspelled, you ask? I haven't the slightest idea, but I can tell you that thanks to the wonders of Facebook status updates, at least once a day, I see the word "hunny" in its place. As in, "(Person) is so excited to be spending the evening with my hunny!" --or-- "Hi hunny! Have a great day. I love you!" Come on, everybody. We do not reside in the Hundred Acre Wood and we are not trying to help Pooh find his Hunny. On a similar note, many of us use "hon" (short for "honey") as a term of endearment. But so many times I see "hun" in its place. "Thanks, hun!" --or-- "Love you hun!" Honestly, it makes me a very angry person. "Hun?" Really? People, this is not the Roman Empire. Attila the Hun (correctly spelled) no longer lives. The correct spelling is "hon." Take note.

I am not sure if I've mentioned this on my blog before, but English was my favorite subject all the way through school (yes, I know I am a nerd). Once I got to high school, I took up residence in the Newspaper classroom and didn't leave for the entire four years. My senior year, I was Editor-in-Chief of the school paper (I know, I know, go me). Point is, spelling, grammar and punctuation are important to me. Incorrect spelling, grammar and punctuation is my second biggest pet peeve.

(My biggest pet peeve is people who chew like cows and talk with their mouths full of food. Don't do it in my presence. It makes my hair stand on end, and I probably will call you out on it. Why, I reprimanded my own mother this very evening. Yes, I am that much of a snob.)

I think that one of the reasons I hold a personal zero-tolerance policy for spelling mistakes is that so many computer software programs include tools for checking your spelling. Some programs even check punctuation and grammar. And since so many of us spend so much time on the computer, I feel that leaves no excuse -- zero-tolerance if you will -- for spelling errors.

Which is why these simple errors make me so mad:

Incorrect usage of "your" and "you're" -- I think this is the most common error I see; even more so than the incorrect spelling of "honey." It is sooooooo (yes, I intentionally misspelled that for emphasis) IRRITATING to me!
Violation: "Hey (person)! Let me know what time your gonna come over today!"
Lesson: The word "your" refers to something that you possess, as in, YOUR sweater, YOUR shoe, or YOUR dog. The word "you're" is saying that you are something, or that you are going to do something, as in, YOU'RE adorable or YOU'RE going to wash the car.

Incorrect usage of "their," "there" and "they're" -- Probably the second most common error. Equally as irritating as all others.
Violation: "Hope to see you their!" --or-- "My kids need to clean there rooms!"
Lesson: The word "their" refers to something that a person possesses, as in, THEIR car, THEIR house, or THEIR kid. The word "there" is referring to a place, as in, over THERE, we'll be THERE, or don't even go THERE. The word "they're" is saying that a group of people is something, or that they are going to do something, as in, THEY'RE so annoying or THEY'RE coming over now.

Incorrect usage of "to," "too" and "two" -- Not as common as you might think, but still common enough to land on my list.
Violation: "I want to go there to!"
Lesson: "To" refers to a person to which you are addressing something or something that you want/need to do, as in, the nurse says you need TO ask the doctor about that or I am going TO the grocery store. "Too" refers to something that you are emphasizing or something that is in addition to something else, such as, that is TOO cute or I need to go to the grocery store TOO. And "two," of course, is a number, which you use when saying that you have TWO dogs or your child is going through the terrible TWOS.

Incorrect usage of "then" and "than" -- An error that my ex-boss made on almost a daily basis. He was aware he had a problem with mixing the words up, and he felt bad about it, but that didn't really encourage him to LEARN the differences and USE them, he just would holler out to me when he had a question because I had no choice but to answer it. He had a dry-erase board on the wall in front of him and I went so far as to write correct examples of their usage on the board in hopes that it would save him from bugging me for the answer to his questions (It didn't. Oh well. I tried).
Violation: "I would rather eat peas then corn."
Lesson: The word "then" refers to a time frame or an event in time, such as, see you THEN or that didn't happen THEN. The word "than" refers to a preference, such as, I'd rather eat peas THAN corn.

And finally, one more lesson for good measure. This is one I learned in seventh grade and it still serves me well almost 15 years later.

"I before E, except after C, or when sounded like A, as in 'neighbor' and 'weigh.'"

So, having said that:
Incorrect: Acheive
Correct: Achieve

Incorrect: Recieve
Correct: Receive

That concludes today's spelling lesson. Go forth and spell with confidence! And PLEASE use Spell Check!

Please don't broadcast THAT on Facebook.

2010-05-06T10:54:00.000-07:00

I'm well aware that I have posted a lot of personal crap on my blog. From problem periods, to eHarmony woes, to venting about my ex-boss and randomly ranting, I use my blog to piss and moan sometimes. And you know what? I'm okay with that. It's MY blog, and so far I think I'm pretty anonymous. I really only have about 3 regular readers (if that). I don't use my real name, location or e-mail address anywhere. Oh sure, those pictures up in my blog header are all really me, but no internet stalkers have come looking for me yet.

But Facebook? That's a different story. I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 Facebook friends. Granted, the majority of them are people I went to high school with nearly ten years ago, and I don't maintain any kind of consistent contact with all 300 of them. Actually, if I'm being realistic, I maybe -- maybe -- regularly communicate with about 30 of my Facebook "friends." The real point I'm getting at though, is that at one time or another, I knew (or still know) every one of those 300 people personally. Some are former Girl Scout friends, there are some former co-workers, some are old neighbors, I have even done the unthinkable and "friended" my mother, aunts, uncles and grandparents.

And so, because I know (or knew) all of my Facebook friends at some point, that's why I choose to use my blog as my venting medium of choice rather than my Facebook page. If I spout off on the blog, maybe two or three people see it. Of course, maybe some random anonymous lurkers are reading too, but chances are good that they don't know me from the next girl they'll pass on the street. It feels safe to vent, rant, bitch and complain on my blog. Facebook does not feel safe. I do not want my grandfather knowing about my "girl problems;" I don't want my ex-boss's daughter knowing what I say about her dad (in hindsight, adding her as a Facebook friend was a HUGE mistake on my part, but I'm not going to be an ass and unfriend her now. She never did anything to me, and it's not her fault that her father is King Douchewad).

But some of my Facebook friends obviously haven't discovered the joy of dumping their woes and complaints out into the blogosphere yet. Maybe some of them don't WANT a blog, and that's okay. Blogs are not for everyone. But here is a piece of advice I would offer up: Before you post something on Facebook, please, for the love of everything good and holy, think twice about what you're putting out for everyone to see. Think about the people who populate your list of "friends:" your parents, your siblings, your co-workers, maybe even your grandparents (hopefully you're not crazy enough to have your boss as a Facebook friend). And while you're thinking about that, remember that the powers that be at Facebook change the site's privacy settings just about every day without telling you what they're doing. So, just because you think your profile is pretty locked down doesn't mean it really is. Remember that potential (or current!) employers can be searching for you. Now, in my humble opinion, get a load of a few real-life examples of things my Facebook "friends" have posted that never should have been shared.

"OMFG, the sex with my man last night was epic! Seriously, next-level shit."
Umm, what?! Now, this girl is not an IRL (in real life) friend of mine. She actually has the same name as one of my former co-workers, and I added her as an FB friend because I was searching for my former co-worker, I found this girl and saw that we had a couple of friends in common, and I thought she was in fact my former co-worker (they look a little bit alike). When I found out she wasn't who I thought she was, we remained friends anyway because we were FarmVille neighbors (FarmVille and Mafia Wars are evil for that reason... I know people who have 1,200 friends, and I would bet $100 that at least 900 of those friends are for gaming purposes only). Anyway, when she posted that, her mom went, "Whoa! TMI." Her dad made some silly little emoticon that looked like an embarrassed little face. Her friends said, "Seriously? You felt the need to post that?" And she was just like, "Yep, it was BOMB, dudes!" Ooookay then.

Mother's status update: "My daughter is a reckless whore!"
Daughter's status update: "My mother is a crazy bitch!"
Yes, I am friends with this mother-daughter pair, and they really do post status updates to that effect. Ladies, take your fights offline, please. The drama is ridiculous.

"I'm pregnant!" (caption to pic of pregnancy test)
This is coming from the same girl in the example above who called her mom a crazy bitch. Now, I really have to clarify something here, because there are times that pictures of a pregnancy test are cute, or maybe even appropriate. If you have struggled with infertility or miscarriages or other issues in getting and/or staying pregnant, please, by all means, post a picture of your pregnancy test and celebrate! I mean that wholeheartedly. If you are newly married or in a committed relationship for a long time and you are pregnant for the first time, go ahead and upload a picture of your pregnancy test. People might think it's cute. BUT... but but but..... If you have solidified your reputation as a ~~reckless whore~~ loose goose and you slept with some guy on the first date and got pregnant, and your family is ready to disown you because they raised you better than that, please do not post a pic of your test. It's not cute. It's slutty.

"My pregnant girlfriend broke up with me and said I'm never gonna see my kid. How do I change my relationship status?" (followed by 43 comments from friends about how this guy really knows how to pick some crazy bitches.
It doesn't make me proud to say this, but this gem came from a family member. Do I really need to explain to anyone why this status (and subsequent commenting) is wrong?

All that said, here is the bottom line: We were all equipped with filters. And many of us do not use them nearly as often as we should. The poor brain-to-mouth filter is too often neglected, evidenced by the times many of us say something and then think," Oh shit, I should NOT have said that." And obviously, the brain-to-finger filter is now being neglected by many, judging by the number of crazy Facebook posts. Please, people, PLEASE -- don't neglect the filter.

Intervention, similarities and finally moving on

2010-04-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

This post started out in my head as another letter to my ex-boss. The more thought I gave to the crafting of the letter, the more I realized I really need to move away from talking to my ex-boss. I'm not sure when I'll be able to stop talking about him -- maybe when my credit is all fixed and I can get through a day on the job without hearing his voice in my head, which to me feels a little like never -- but talking to him through my letters just doesn't seem healthy anymore. It's been nearly nine months since I last wrote a letter to him. That's ¾ of a year. Why re-start something that's been shelved for so long? Prior to that letter, I wrote letters to him every 2½ months (on average). So it was clear to me that by not having written a letter to him in such a long time, I was heading in the right direction. And that’s the story of how this post went from being a letter addressed to the boss to a post written about him. Moving along…

Last night, I stayed up until an ungodly hour to watch an episode of A&E’s Intervention. I have heard of this show before, but last night was the first time I actually watched it. I pushed myself to stay up because I had checked the guide on the TV, and though I could see other episodes of Intervention coming up in the near future, I didn’t see this particular episode coming around again.

If you have never seen an episode of Intervention before, it’s important to note that the subjects of each episode have agreed to be a part of a show on addiction, meaning that they themselves are aware of the fact that they have a problem; however, they do not know that they will face an intervention before all is said and done.

Anyway, the episode I watched last night was the story of Gabe, a gambler (if you click on the link to the video, please be aware that it is only one segment of the episode. I don’t know why A&E did it that way, but links to subsequent segments for the rest of the episode will follow on the right side of your screen). I wanted to watch it because the ex-boss is the only gambling addict I have ever known. In my life, I have known drug addicts and alcoholics, and I have seen how their addictions affect them and how they act as a result, but the only gambling addict I had ever met was my former boss. And he spent so much time telling me and his other employees that he was not an addict that sometimes we started to doubt the thoughts we had about him. Maybe he wasn't truly an "addict." Maybe he just liked to gamble a little too much.

Any doubts I had were blown out of the water by watching last night’s show. Oh sure, there were some small differences. I couldn’t figure out Gabe’s age at first – he looked to me to be in his early 20’s, and it didn’t come out until later in the show that he was 31. My former boss is close to 60. Gabe still relies solely on his parents for financial support. My former boss’s parents have both passed away and he rarely speaks to his two brothers, so there really isn’t any family to support him. But those slight differences were not enough for me to ignore the stronger similarities between my ex-boss and Gabe.

Gabe felt that because he was his parents’ only child, it was their duty to love him unconditionally and support him however he needed it. “Having a child is a lifelong commitment,” he said. “When you have a child, it is your job to support that child for life.”

Uh, what?! Nice sense of entitlement there, my friend.

Let's get one thing straight on a side note here: I do believe that when you have a child, you ARE without a doubt making a lifelong commitment. But Gabe and I see the details of this commitment a little differently. I believe that you have made a lifelong commitment to give your child love and emotional support to the extent that you are able. I DO NOT believe that you must love your 31 year old son so "unconditionally" that you mortgage your house several times over to pay off his debts. It's called responsibility, people, and I'm sorry, you obviously didn't do a good job of teaching it to your kid.

Anyway...

My ex-boss’s mom passed away years before I went to work for him, and I didn’t know him to feel that way about his dad, but nevertheless, he did feel a strong sense of entitlement towards others. He thought that other people OWED it to him to support him. Mostly, it was clients, and his attitude was, “I’ve done so much for you, I’ve brought you business, you’re doing better than you have in years because of what my company has done on your behalf, and so the least you can do is give me a short-term loan of $2,000.” And quite often, it was a short-term loan that never got paid back.

Similarity One: Check.

Gabe described a sense of loneliness that only gambling could fill, and a deep depression that was brought on when he lost money and realized that his creditors were still blowing up his phone with their calls, regardless. He dropped out of UCLA because he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life; he never held down a "real" job because it was “beneath him.” On the show, two of his friends spoke about him; he had borrowed a lot of money from both of them. Both were tired of his manipulative behavior.

My ex-boss frequently described himself as “a lonely man.” He often pointed out that he didn’t have many friends. He, too, dropped out of college. He held a "real" job for a few years, but for the majority of his working years, he has been self-employed, partly because he's a control freak, and partly because it can't be "beneath" you to work for yourself. And I’m no doctor, but I didn’t have to be to see that he was depressed. He slept late in the mornings (judging by the times he arrived at work), went home in the afternoon for naps (which he’d announce before he left the office) and had trouble sleeping at night (which he admitted – but that wasn’t hard to figure out. I received a lot of e-mails from him that would come through between 2:00 and 5:00 in the morning). His relationship with his kids was strained. He and his girlfriend were on and off; usually more off than on. He was “unsure” what he wanted to do with his life (at this time he was 54! A wee bit late to not be sure…) and talked a lot about not being sure if he wanted to keep his business going, which is always a comforting thing to hear when you are an employee of that business. He was a master manipulator, demonstrated perfectly in that he could always talk someone into lending him money, and he could always talk me into working late (and I’m talking seriously late, like 11:00PM or midnight, not just a little late, like 6:00 or 7:00PM).

Similarity Two: Check.

When things didn’t go Gabe’s way, he attempted suicide. When the bills piled up too high, when he lost too many times, when his parents wouldn’t help him out, he attempted suicide. I'm not saying Gabe doesn't have real problems, but I don't think he really wanted to die. His mother said he had “attempted” four times, so to still be alive after four suicide attempts, it seems to me that they were just cries for attention more than attempts to die.

My ex-boss never attempted suicide that I know of, but he hinted on several different occasions that maybe life just wasn’t worth living. Suicide is never a joke or a thing to be taken lightly, so I think that’s a big enough red flag to be called Similarity Three.

Early in the episode, one of the first things Gabe said about his addiction was that he had recently spent four solid days and nights on a gambling spree. He hadn’t slept, he hadn’t eaten, he had just gambled for four days straight.

Holy hell, Similarity Four.

There must be some different kind of adrenaline or something that kicks in to allow a person to be awake for 96 hours without any kind of food, sleep, water, rest, etc. In September of 2007, my ex-boss did the same thing. I knew that he would be going out to the casino over Labor Day weekend. The last time I heard anything from him was Saturday of that weekend, while he was driving out to State Line. It was normal for me not to hear anything from him on a Sunday, and seeing that Monday was Labor Day and our office was closed, it was semi-normal that I didn’t hear from him on the holiday. But on a normal workday, he would call me at least three times throughout the day, so when I returned to work on Tuesday and didn’t hear from him at all, I thought something might be wrong. My co-workers also thought it was odd that he hadn’t called once that day, but they shrugged it off. When Wednesday rolled around and I still didn’t hear from him, part of me began to worry, even as my co-workers were starting to get upset at me for not telling them where the boss was – as if they didn’t know. When Thursday morning rolled around, and all the bank activity that had taken place over the weekend and the holiday began to post to the business checking account, it came to light that the problem was bigger than I realized. My co-workers were still angry that I wouldn’t say the words: “Our boss is at State Line.” But I didn’t have to say the words; my co-workers knew. And suddenly, one of them walked into my office unannounced and verbalized the fear that was running through my mind at that very moment.

“What if he’s dead?” she asked. “What if he committed suicide? Maybe you should call the hotel yourself and check on him; don’t wait any longer for him to call you.”

I can’t explain the relationship I had with my ex-boss in a way that will sound normal to anyone. It was never a physically intimate relationship, although several people (my parents and some clients included) asked me if it was on more than one occasion. The suspicion on their parts that it could have been a physically intimate relationship was not entirely unfounded, as my former boss was physically intimate and did have a baby with the woman who was Office Manager a couple of years before I was, and she was only a few years older than me. When I started working for him, he would tell me over and over: “I’m not your friend, I’m not your boyfriend, I’m not your husband, I’m not your father, I’M YOUR BOSS,” and many years later, I look back on the times he told me that and I believe that it was meant as more of a message to himself than to me. Because over the years, especially after the Office Manager who had his baby quit her job, HE blurred that line between employer/employee and friend. Of course, I let myself open up enough to accept him and care about him as I would a friend, so I am equally at fault for that. It wasn’t a good thing. During the workday, he’d be upset at me for something work related, and then something personal would spill over into that, and suddenly we’d be talking about issues he was having with his girlfriend or his kids rather than the work problem we had in the first place. When his father died, he came into work earlier than he ever had before and sat in my office and just cried for what seemed like an hour. If he was frustrated with something or someone, it was me he vented to. When he began having chest pains several weeks after he’d had a heart attack in 2005, although everyone at work knew he wasn’t feeling well, it was me who took him to the Emergency Room and sat with him for hours. Eventually, he used the term “Work Spouse.” He said that because of the working hours we kept, we spent more time together than most married couples. I should mention here that that was something I WAS NOT equally at fault for. He may have thought we were friends, but in my head I still knew he was my boss, so I looked past the ‘friendship” and worked the ridiculous hours that he demanded because I was afraid to lose my job. But as soon as I heard him say that we spent more time together than most married couples, I should have known that that was my cue to bring our so-called friendship to a screeching halt.

But I never imposed any boundaries on our friendship, and that was why I sat in my office on that Thursday morning worried sick that my boss had killed himself. Of course, the thought that he had committed suicide had crossed my co-workers’ minds too, but for them it was just a thought. I panicked.

That day was payday, and I had signing authority on the checking account, so, as I had done so many times before, I wrote and signed paychecks knowing there was no money behind them. It was a pattern. Payday would get close, we’d have money from customers from recent invoicing, the boss would go gamble to “win” money so that we’d have more than what we invoiced for, he would lose, and then he’d have to borrow money to meet payroll. I knew he had a problem, but I didn’t know how to talk to him about it. Besides, I was only 23 at the time. I was right between his youngest daughter and his oldest son in age. He wouldn’t listen to me anyway. But I always worried that he was going to gamble payroll money away. I knew he’d find somewhere to borrow it from eventually, but that didn’t make it right.

I sat there with my thoughts of paychecks that would bounce and my boss hanging from a shower curtain rod, or overdosed on pills, or with a bullet through his head, or something, for a good twenty minutes. The co-worker who first suggested I call the hotel came back through my office one more time and saw me sitting and staring at the wall. She opened her mouth to say something, probably to ask if I was going to make the call, and I shot her a look that said “Leave me alone.” She walked out of my office and shut the door.

And then the phone rang.

I froze for a second, but then I scrambled to answer it before anyone else could get to it. I knew it was going to be my boss. I answered in a cheerful voice and was met back with a sarcastic, “Well, good morning to you, too.”

I felt the instant relief of, well, at least he’s not dead, and then I felt anger wash over me. But I kept my mouth shut.

He was mad. He spent about fifteen minutes ranting and raving about how our staff wasn’t productive enough, how our customers weren’t paying in a timely manner, how he HAD to go gamble to try to make up for money we didn’t have (So not true. We would have been JUST FINE if he would have left well enough alone and not gambled in the first place. Now we were $5,000 in the red). He went on and on and on and I was just quiet.

And then all of a sudden his entire mood changed in a blink.

“What day is it?” he asked, bewildered.

“Thursday,” I replied, feeling myself getting snippy after fifteen minutes of listening to him complain about a problem he created.

“Thursday,” he said. “Thursday… Thursday?! Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” I felt like saying, “Unlike you, I’ve been here all week.”

I bit my tongue, took a deep breath, and chose not to be a smartass.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I said softly. “It’s most definitely Thursday.”

“Thursday,” he said, sounding genuinely confused. “When was the last time you and I talked?”

“Saturday.”

“Wow,” he said. “Thursday.”

And then it clicked for me. I hadn’t heard from him all week because he had literally been gambling all week.

“When was the last time you slept?” I asked.

“I don’t remember,” he said. “I guess it was Saturday night.”

“How about food? When did you last eat something?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, getting a little whiny.

“Have you been drinking anything?” I asked, and then realized what a stupid question that was. By asking him if he had been drinking, I hadn’t meant alcohol, but we know gambling and drinking go hand-in-hand. What I meant to ask him was if he had been drinking to keep hydrated, so I clarified: “Water? Juice? Soda? Anything? Are you taking your meds?” (Remember, he has heart problems.)

“I have no idea.”

“So what I’m hearing from you is that you have been up for four days straight," I said calmly, inside feeling a strange combination of my heart breaking and rage boiling. "As far as you can remember, you haven't had anything to eat, probably little to nothing to drink, and you most likely have not been taking your meds.”

“Yeah,” he whimpered. “I guess so.”

"Don't cry," I directed a thought at him, as if my thoughts could telepathically transmit and keep him from crying. "Do NOT cry."

He fell apart and started to cry.

The way I felt at that moment is a perfect example of why you don’t become friends with your boss: In the same instant, I wanted to both hug him and kill him.

"Damn it," I thought.

He didn’t speak for a long time, but I could hear the sobs on the other end of the phone. The rational part of me that was angry wanted to hang up on his sorry ass. But the sentimental part of me won out, feeling a fierce maternal instinct kick in that wanted to make that poor tired baby a sandwich and send him off to bed. How lonely he must have been to just sit there and cry to me. If it were me, I would have been crying by myself, but he felt so alone that he needed to call someone so they could hear him. And so I sat there on my end of the phone, over 200 miles away, and listened to him cry for almost two hours. I eventually hung up the handset and put the phone on speaker mode so I could quietly do some computer work while he cried. Finally, he took a deep breath and said: “Well, I guess I’m not on suicide watch anymore.”

I let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “Are you going to be okay to drive yourself home?”

It was another stupid question, but again, it’s another perfect example of why you don’t let yourself get emotionally involved with your boss. I would have left work and driven out there myself right that instant to get him if I thought he really needed me to.

“I’ll be okay,” he said. “I still have a room here, so I’m going to go lay down for a few hours and then I’ll be on my way back home.”

“All right,” I said, “that's a good idea. Lay down. Eat something before you get on the road. Take your meds.” As I said the words, they felt like common sense to me. And I was dumbstruck at the fact that all common sense had gone out the window for him over the last four days. "Lay down." "Eat something." "Take your meds." I might as well have said "Breathe." I mean, come on. Duh.

“I will,” he said, and that was the end of that. After he got back to California, we never spoke of that phone call or that week again. But it's two and a half years later and I still haven’t forgotten it.

I know now, just as I suspected then, that my ex-boss is an addict, and he had a serious problem for a long time before that week came about. But after that week, I saw things in a slightly different light. The company was circling the drain – the boss wasn’t focusing on customer service and therefore was losing clients (and money), two out of four employees (not including me) resigned within a two-week period. I believe that my boss went on that gambling week to try to drown out his depression over what was going on with his business. It’s not an excuse, just an explanation.

Back to the show, when the time for intervention finally came, Gabe was mad. Scared. Pissed. He said he felt cornered. He said he felt he didn’t have any other options. He yelled. He cried. His face turned bright red. He said horrible things to his parents, his friends and the interventionist. He wanted to run, and he could have, but he didn’t. He ended up going with the interventionist and getting into the rehab the show had arranged for him, but he left early against their advice and he relapsed back into gambling.

A few weeks after my ex-boss’s four-day gambling run, my only two remaining co-workers decided they had had enough of my boss’s behavior and they staged an intervention of their own. It took place during a meeting which I attended, but I wasn’t made aware beforehand that they were going to bring anything up to the boss. They tried to be nice in the beginning, just bringing up concerns for the boss and the business, but when you confront an addict, he gets defensive. It got real ugly, real fast. I tried to defuse the situation by reminding him that we all cared about him and were only concerned for his well-being, but I was in an awkward position - I was a wronged employee as well as someone who cared about my boss more than anyone else sitting at that table. I couldn't offer any real help to either side. He said he felt cornered. He said he felt he didn’t have any other options. He yelled. He cried. His face turned bright red. He said a few mean things to his employees. And then, through his tears, he said “I can’t do this right now,” and he got up and left. He continued to gamble and never got help. Over the next month and a half, my last two co-workers quit, one at a time, until the only employee left was me. And I was still there when everything fell apart for the last time.

I haven’t worked for him in over two years, but he continued to contact me after I resigned, and I continued to oblige whatever his requests were, because I felt sorry for him. One evening, I was doing some work for him, and I was deeply concentrating on the computer when I realized he had called my name a couple times and I hadn't answered. I responded to him with a sympathetic, almost affectionate “What, hon?” before I ever even knew what had come out of my mouth. As his employee, the logical side of me knew that he was an addict and that he had a problem, but in some sick way, the emotional side of me felt responsible for not trying to help him see that for what it was and get into rehab and counseling for it. He was angry with me because he felt that I did things to bring his business down, when in reality, his gambling was the ultimate destroyer and I was trying to save something that was past the point of rescue. I have had a very hard time letting go of that job and that boss. As I said before, and will reiterate again, there was never a physically intimate relationship between us, I just let the friendship go too far and he came to be someone I cared deeply about. I let myself get emotionally attached, and I don’t let go of emotional attachments easily. He hasn’t contacted me in over six months, so now it seems that the burden to move on is on me and me alone. I think that the fact that I haven’t written a letter to him in almost nine months shows some progress, but I definitely do need to keep moving forward and away.

A Bad Case of the Mondays.

2010-03-11T10:09:00.001-08:00

Yes, even us lowly unemployed folk can be on the receiving end of a brutal ass-kicking from a Monday with a bad sense of humor. Case in point: This past Monday kicked my ass all day long.

It started when I woke up after a horrible night of fitful sleep, all nervous for an interview for a job with a starting pay at a rate that I haven't been that unfortunate to make since 2005. You know you're desperate for a job when even an interview for a $10/hour position as the "company bitch" can make your stomach do somersaults. And as you're getting up and out of bed and trying to psych yourself up for your interview and your day, you discover that Aunt Flo has decided that TODAY is the day that she's going to bestow her monthly gift upon you. Which normally wouldn't be such a big deal, except for the fact that she didn't show up last month -- WTF, birth control pill, WTF? -- (and no, as I told my mother, unless the second Immaculate Conception is at work within me, there is NO chance I'm pregnant, so move along), so you just KNOW that this go-round is going to be twice as brutal. And it all starts on a day that I'm trying to be happy about a job interview for too much work and not enough pay.

While I'm on the unpleasant topic of Aunt Flo, I'd like to open an unofficial poll. And apologies in advance for being gross, but I just gotta know... girls, would you rather have 7-9 days of "Holy hell, maybe I should just build a damn ark already" with minimal cramping/moodiness, or 5-6 days of "Here a spot, there a spot, everywhere a spot spot" complete with cramps that legitimately make you fear laboring for childbirth someday and mood swings that make you choke up at the sight of the animated bears romping in the woods with toilet paper chunks on their tails in the Charmin commercials? Because I've had it all lately, and I honestly can't decide which option makes me want to jump off a bridge first. All I can say is that NOW I remember why I took Lupron for seven years, and damned if I don't miss it.

Anyway, I made it through the job interview, and it wasn't bad. I left the office still believing that it was too much work for not enough money, but hey, I haven't worked in nine months. If they happen to offer me a job, I'm probably taking it.

On the way home, I'm making mental notes of all the bills I have to pay with my unemployment check that's due to arrive in Monday's mail: cell phone, auto insurance, car payment (that one is 2 weeks late and Chase is now calling me 6 and 7 times a day. Sometimes I feel like answering the phone on the seventh call and saying, "You know, bastards, I don't have any more money than I did the LAST six times you called me today." Never mind that my car is STILL NOT RUNNING, so of COURSE I just LOVE parting with almost half of an unemployment check for a car I can't even drive). But you know, these are necessities... need a cell phone for potential employers to reach me, auto insurance and car payment -- because someday, Jed will ride again... I just need money, period.

And wouldn't you know that in Monday's mail, I didn't receive a check. Instead, I got a "We need to talk to you and have scheduled a phone interview on March 16 (our FIRST available appointment, so don't ask for anything sooner). Oh, and we'll be holding your funds until after our determination has been made, suckaaaaa!"

Well, fuck me. So much for paying for my cell phone, my car, and, oh, I don't know, FOOD.

So I call my wonderful friends at the EDD, not to try to move up the immovable interview, but just to ask what their reason is for holding my money. I start out really nice... But it's hard to be too nice for too long, because these guys turn into assholes real fast. I realize that EDD employees are the EPITOME of "overworked and underpaid" -- I'm sure SUCKS isn't the word to describe what it is to work for EDD right now -- but come on. That doesn't give anyone the right to treat me like shit when I call.

The man says, "Well, let me just take a look and see what's up..." and I wait.

And he says, "Well Miss D[my last name], it appears that you marked on your claim form that you were offered a job and you turned it down."

WTF?! Noooo. I feel like telling him, "No, I did that last summer and it was a mistake that I will NEVER make again, because it resulted in me getting ZERO money for NINE WHOLE WEEKS."

Instead, I take a deep breath and say, "No sir, I know for a fact that I did not mark that box on my form."

He says: "Let me take a closer look. Please hold." And then he comes back and says, "Well Miss D, it appears that you marked on your claim form that you are now attending some form of school or training."

I reply (getting frustrated now): "No sir. Trust me, I of all people would know if I were attending school, which I am not."

And he says, "Hmm. Well let me look at this one more time." And I'm on hold now.

And while I sit on hold, I'm thinking, "What the hell? Is he just going down the questions on the form just looking for a lie to catch me in? Is the EDD just wanting to hold my money for shits and giggles to see if I'm on top of my game? What the fuck is going on here? This is insane."

He comes back on the line and says, "Well D[my first name]," -- because apparently, his having to research the issue three times has now put us on a first-name basis-- "I have found the problem. It appears that you marked on your claim form that you did not look for work on the second week of your claim form."

And that was where I lost my shit. In my defense, it started slowly and I still tried to be nice.

"D[his first name]," I say, because if HE is on a first-name basis with ME, then so am I with HIM, "I am quite sure that I did not mark that I didn't look for work. Is it possible that there could have been a problem with the way the machine read the form when it was scanned?"

And that was where HE lost HIS shit, which started nowhere near as slowly or nicely as me losing mine.

"D," he says, "We are not going to play the blame game here. The machine read what it read, it reports what you marked, and it reports that you marked that you did not look for work. You may very well have NOT marked that, but all I can go by is what the machine tells me. And I know firsthand how nerve-wrecking it is to be filling out those forms and waiting nervously for a check to come 'cause I've been there, but you did what you did and that's why you have no check. And I'm not going to sit here and beat you up anymore, because the situation just is what it is."

I know that RIGHT THERE, I should have stopped that conversation and asked for a supervisor, because that guy just went full-bore asshole on me, but I didn't. For some reason, logic goes out the window in those last fleeting moments before your head explodes.

And so the story continues...

If you've ever been unemployed, you know that not only do you have to check the boxes on the front of the form, which is what the machine reads, but you know that if you DID in fact look for work, you have to fill out the back side of the form stating the names of the companies you applied to, what positions you applied for, who you contacted, where the companies are located, etc.... There are ten lines on the back of the form, where you can write in information for ten different companies, if you even looked that much during that time period, which I did -- in fact, I could have used MORE than ten lines -- and I was ready to point that out to my friend D at the EDD.

The problem with me losing my shit is that I don't do it like a normal person, or at least not like a normal person in my family. There have been jokes that I'm adopted because I don't really look a whole lot like either of my parents nor my brother. If I didn't know for a fact that I was a biological product of both of my parents (and therefore, by default, my brother), the way I lose my shit would be further convincing evidence of my adoption.

When my parents and brother get mad, they get loud (and they can get mean). My mom is a yeller straight out of the gate. She starts out loud and stays strong through the finish. My dad and brother escalate slowly from a normal talking voice to a louder stern voice to an angry voice of epic volume, which they maintain while they deliver their broken-record speeches over and over until they have beaten why they are mad at you into your brain.

But what do I do when I get good and mad?

I cry.

That's right, I cry.

Oh sure, I yell too, but it's kind of hard to distinguish between all the, well, crying. It's a sissy-ass way to be pissed off at someone, it doesn't exactly instill "fear" in the person I'm chewing out, it probably doesn't convey my anger very well, and it certainly never was much good for telling off the ex-boss, but it's what I do. Sue me.

So, crying (and yelling), I go off, gasping for breath as I go: "D," I start yelling, heart pounding, "I have a question for you. Even if I DID mark on the form that I didn't look for work, which I KNOW FOR A FACT I DID NOT DO, is there not a LIVE HUMAN who feeds my form into the machine and pulls it out when it's done, and could that HUMAN not TURN THE FORM OVER TO THE OTHER SIDE and see that THE WHOLE DAMN THING WAS FULL OF PLACES THAT I LOOKED FOR WORK?!?!"

And this is where my friend D started to backpedal real fast.

"Don't cry, D, don't cry," he said. "Generally, no one looks at the back of the forms unless there's a problem--"

"--Well there's obviously a problem here, don't you think?!" I retort.

"But I believe you," he said. "I believe that you looked for work. I hope I didn't cause those tears you're crying. Hey, this is a problem we can fix over the phone! I'll fix it right now. I'm just going to cancel that phone interview and send your information over to accounting for your check to be processed today. Are you okay?"

Take that, buddy.

"Yeah, I'm okay," I sniff, starting to catch my breath a little as my heart rate comes back down. "It's just that if you really understood how nervous a person gets waiting for their checks to come like you say you do, you probably wouldn't have gone off on me like that."

"Right," he said. "You're right."

Men. That's the closest I got to an apology.

Bottom line, he said he sent the check over for processing and that I should see it by this weekend, but to wait 7-10 days before calling, because that's just what the EDD gods do -- they don't entertain any inquiries until 7-10 days have passed. Sure, in another 7-10 days my cell phone could be disconnected and the repo man could be hunting my non-functional truck down, but don't you worry your pretty little head EDD, I won't call you before then.

Near the end of the day on Monday, I realized that that day should have been my uncle's 57th birthday. I mean, really, I knew it all day long, but for some reason it just hit me like a ton of bricks at the end of the day. It brought a lot of the emotions I had been feeling that day into perspective, even with the mood swings courtesy of Aunt Flo and ~~the jerk~~ my friend at the EDD. My uncle and I weren't terribly close when he was alive, but it still bothered me that it was his birthday, because at only 57 he should be here to celebrate it. Plus, it didn't help that I knew in my heart that my grandparents were hurting that day, mourning the loss of a child they'd outlived, and somewhere, my dad was hurting too.

Needless to say, it was a rough day.

More Gems from Please Fire Me

2010-03-09T20:25:00.000-08:00

I know it's probably not wise of me to post stuff like this while on the job search, but I think my blog is anonymous enough that I won't get caught. Besides, I had the worst day ever yesterday (ranting post to come, just because I can), so I needed these laughs.

Ahhh... the comic relief of PleaseFireMe.com.

I didn't write these posts... but I could have at one time in my life.

I ♥ Please Fire Me.

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Please fire me. I was invited to a meeting to discuss the fact that there are too many meetings. Is this a sign of the Apocalypse? Would it be appropriate to wear a tin foil hat to such a meeting in order to avoid vanishing from this plane of existence into the paradoxical universe of oxymoron-land?

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Please fire me. The further up the chain of command you go, the worse the spelling and grammar in emails. After a certain executive level is reached, punctuation becomes optional. Unless you think your message is really important, then you add lots of punctuation, like:

where are we on this?????????????

Each question mark increases the importance of the message by a factor of 100 in their minds.

Don’t even get me started on the poor apostrophe.

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Please fire me. My admins are so cheap, I couldn’t even submit until I got home, because we run on Windows 95. (I died laughing on this one because the office I used to work in ran on Windows 98 until well into 2007).

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Please fire me. My boss comes in at 9am every day, but when it snows 14 inches he comes in at 7 to catch everyone coming in late. (Yep. And if my boss wasn't doing that, then he was calling the office at 7:57AM when I was supposed to be in at 8:00.)

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Please fire me. My boss keeps referring to my “bereavement and unpaid family leave” as “vacation”.

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Please fire me. Sometimes on my lunch break I drive to the park and cry.

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Please fire me. I called my boss to let him know the subways aren’t coming to my house because of the blizzard, and I can’t get to work. He said, “We’ll see what happens.” (LMAO. Once, I called my boss to tell him my car wouldn't start and he mapquested my address and showed up at my house to pick me up for work.)

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Please fire me. Someone brought in shrimp cocktail as an office snack at 9am.

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Please fire me. I tried to quit but my manager told me I couldn't. I said okay. That was five months ago. (That happened to me too. FOUR times.)

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Please fire me. I work out of my boss’s home. As I took my lunch, he gave me a bullet-point list of 12 additional things to do because he wouldn’t have time to get to them today. He is currently taking a nap. (I never worked out of my boss's home, but he would leave the office at least twice a week to go home and take a nap, leaving me with a huge list of stuff to do. Then he'd come back at 5:00PM as I was ready to leave, and keep me at work until ridiculously late.)

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Please fire me. I have to sit in meetings where people value the sound of their own voices more than my ever-shortening life.

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Please fire me. My boss sends me emails, then immediately walks over to ask if I got them. Then we wait together in silence for Outlook to refresh.

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I LOVE Please Fire Me. It's so entertaining!

Please Fire Me!

2010-01-25T19:23:00.000-08:00

From the vein of FML comes Please Fire Me, a gem I just discovered today. Like FML, people can anonymously post reasons why ~~their jobs suck~~ they would be ecstatic to be fired.

I could have posted on that site SOOOO many times over the years had I known it existed. My posts would have looked a little something like this:

Please fire me. My boss just felt the need to tell me that he had the best sex of his life with the former Office Manager. She was 24. He was 50.

Please fire me. My paycheck just bounced for the third time in a row.

Please fire me. My boss's car got serviced today, it's done, and he just called and asked me to "hop on my broom" and go pick him up.

Please fire me. I am sitting in the Emergency Room with my boss, who's having chest pains. THIS is definitely not in my job description.

Please fire me. I am listening to my boss cry on the phone because he's been gambling at state line for a week and he doesn't know what day it is.

Please fire me. I am babysitting my boss's 3-year old son (the former office manager is his mom) while my boss gets his taxes done.

Please fire me. The boss just told me "Thanks babe" in front of a client.

Please fire me. I went down to a client's office to pick up a check and while I was there, the client told me that my boss was the only person he knew who could bring in $2 and turn around and spend $4.

Please fire me. Because my boss had a relationship with his last 24-year-old office manager who is now gone, people think the boss has moved on... to me.

Please fire me. While standing in front of two clients, I'm on speakerphone with the boss and he says, "Love you babe."

And I could go on and on. Yes, my boss really was like that. Yes, people thought we were "involved" based on the way HE acted. And NO, we NEVER were. Ew.

Now onto the hilarity that is Please Fire Me, along with some sporadic commentary of my own:

Please fire me. My boss insists I call him “Emperor”.

Please fire me. I’m self-employed and don’t have the nerve to fire myself.

Please fire me. I’ve written four bestselling novels at my desk in the past two years and no one has noticed.

Please fire me. My manager meeting just ended with, “Heather, try harder not to screw everything up” and me agreeing to it.

Please fire me. I rarely have violent ideations except for when I’m at work, in which I imagine elaborate and gory fork-related murders. ((ROFL))

Please fire me. This whole place would go out of business if I didn’t do all the work for none of the money (plus bagels on Fridays).

Please fire me. I have to share my workspace with the mistress of the boss. So she thinks she’s the queen of the company and she definitely can’t do anything wrong in the boss’s eyes. And that leaves the rest of us in the office treated like dirt. So please fire me! ((I worked in an office like that!))

Please fire me. I just spent 20 minutes on the phone with your OBGYN picking a birth control that is “better suited” to your body. ((Haha, never had to do that, but did spend a lot of time on the phone with the boss's Cardiologist.))

Please fire me! I hate your Face! ((Been there, felt that.))

Please fire me. I just realized I’ve gained 10 pounds since I’ve taken my first office job. ((Only 10 pounds? Consider yourself lucky!))

Please fire me. I just can’t handle the fact that you bring your internal family drama to work…in the office…with intensity…all of you. Not to mention I do twice as much work as your daughter and the hours you chose to cut back were conveniently not hers. ((Yep, been there, done that too))

Please fire me. My boss just licked a self-adhesive stamp.

Please fire me. I work for NBC.

Recent Random Revelations

2010-01-20T20:36:00.000-08:00

Being unemployed lends lots and lots and lots of time to thinking. This is not always a good thing, because I tend to be the person who lets her brain get going into hyper-drive and then I just feel SO overwhelmed. It sucks. I wish I could pace my thoughts.

Here are some totally random thoughts/revelations I've had lately:

If anyone would have told me as I ran from my job two years ago that one day I would miss that job, I'd have said they were absolutely CRAZY. But now, two years later, I look back on that job and there are parts of it that I miss: the camaraderie with my co-workers, the autonomy/freedom/flexibility I had as Office Manager, the proximity of that job to home, my health insurance (we'll meet again someday, Kaiser), and sometimes even my boss -- but only because I knew him so well that I could usually predict what he was going to do or say before he did it or said it (this usually made my job easier, but it could make it a living hell at times, too). Honestly, though, I've been thinking about it and I wonder if I don't miss it solely based on the fact that I'm not working right now, and even that job would seem better than no job at all. Because when I look at it with a clear head, there are two things I surely do not miss: the many "bounced" paychecks that trashed my credit and the fact that I knew my boss so well that I could usually predict what he was going to do or say before he did it or said it. Ugh. Knowing someone in the workplace that well = "work spouse." You've all heard the term, and he actually USED it more than once. Not cool.

My (future) children are going to think I'm the meanest mom ever, because when I say "No," trust me, I MEAN "No." This is a trait I've inherited from my dad, and I don't even have any kids yet. My dad hardly ever said "No" to me when I was a kid, which is why on the rare occasions that he did say "No," it came as such a shock. And I would beg him, "Please, Daddy?" "Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease?" And he would say, "My answer hasn't changed. It's still 'No.' Please stop asking me." Well, hello there, my name is D, and at 26 years old, I have become my father (at least in this regard). I don't say "No" often, but when I do, it's usually with good reason, so PLEASE don't ask me to change my mind. This is mainly directed at someone important to me, who has salesmanship abilities and the persistence of a three-year old who is forever asking "Why?" I think I am pretty reliable, pretty accommodating, pretty willing to lend a helping hand, and I hardly ever say "No," but when I do, it freakin' means what it means. Please don't try to persuade me to change my mind -- it won't do anything for you, and all it'll do for me is piss me off (I'm sorry, Dad. I totally get it now).

It is really scary not to have health insurance. Don't think that one really needs explaining.

Living by the "If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" principle will only depress you. Because I have scratched a lot of backs and... well... all it got me was an itchy back. If you're going to do something for someone else, do it in the spirit of service to others and don't expect anything to come back to you. That way you won't be disappointed if you don't get anything in return, and anything you DO get will be a pleasant surprise.

And finally...

Girls, when embarking on a relationship with a guy, once it starts to get serious, don't just ask if he wants kids one day. Talk about how and to what level he wants to be involved in their lives before you decide if he's the right guy for you. Seriously. Again, this is coming from someone without kids, but I have to vent something that's been bugging the crap out of me lately. My cousin and I are the same age -- we even share a birthday (I'm older by about 10 hours, but I don't act it! Haha). Anyway, she has a nine month old baby girl, and every month she mass-e-mails a baby update with pictures to her family and friends. And every month, this girl is busy -- she acts in community theatre, teaches piano and voice lessons, and is very involved in her church, which gives her baby girl plenty of Daddy time. And every month, in her e-mail, my cousin says, "A big thanks to (hubby) for being so great with watching (baby) this month!" Um, wait.. what? Watching the baby? Dude, this is your HUSBAND. He's not watching the baby, he's spending time with her. Taking care of her. I mean, after all, is that what you call what you do with the baby when you're home with her all day? "Watching" her? I thought not. So one of you needs to change your wording. If you think he's "watching" the baby, maybe you need to rethink what he's really doing. And if HE SAYS that all he's doing is just "watching" the baby, maybe you need to re-think your choice of hubby. My cousin is not the only one who takes this approach that Dad is merely "watching" his kid. I have lots of friends that say that and it just grates on my nerves for some reason -- not sure why. One of my fellow blogger friends (hi, Meghan!) posted a comment on Facebook a few months back laughing at how someone she worked with questioned how she could leave on a brief vacation -- who was going to watch the baby? My friend said that the baby would be just fine at home with her dad... and my friend's co-worker was all, "Really?" And my friend goes, "Um, yeah, if I didn't think he would be an OK person to leave my kid with, I wouldn't have MARRIED him!" I don't know, I guess it's just this old-fashioned, conservative mindset that a lot of people (including my cousin!) seem to have. I don't know whether it's more funny, sad, or maddening. Perhaps it's all three.

I think that's it for tonight. I hate leaving a post feeling like it's unfinished, but I've suddenly run out of words. I love to write, and running out of words is my curse.

So long, 2009...

2009-12-27T00:13:00.000-08:00

I will NOT be sad to see you go.

Every year, I'm amazed at how quickly time has gone. It seems each year goes by faster than the one before. And every year, I tell the year that's finishing up to not let the door hit it on the ass on its way out. Over the past few days, as I've sat back and thought about this year, I have come to the conclusion that I owe most prior years an apology. I'm sorry. Most of you guys really weren't that bad. THIS year; however, sucked a big one. This year handed me humiliation, fear, pain, loss, fear of loss, honesty (or, really, maybe when to not be quite so honest), and it seemed to hand it all to me on one big plate of smelly, rotten cheese.

I think it's safe to say that 2009 has been my shittiest year yet.

Humiliation -- Humiliation comes when, while out car shopping with your grandpa, you finally end up at the negotiation table at a dealership, and you have a car at hand that's an unbelievable steal (2005 Honda Accord LX; 40,000 miles; $9,000. Yes, you read that right, $9,000! For a four year old Honda without a bazillion miles on it. Crazy deal, I tell you, considering that my insurance company gave me $6,500 for my TEN YEAR OLD HONDA just a few weeks before). You have $3,000 in hand as a down payment. A third of the sticker price for the car! Suh-weet! Your payments are going to be super low, dude. You're feeling good. You were up front about your credit being less than stellar, but the salesperson, being a salesperson of course, tells you not to worry, the dealership will work with you. You turn in your credit application and the salesperson comes back looking genuinely sad (of course she is, she's not selling a car today) and tells you that the dealership just doesn't have a financing company that will make a deal with a person who has a credit score as low as you do. THAT'S humiliation, and it happened at more than one dealership. Thank you, ex-boss. Of course, I can't blame you entirely. It's definitely my fault for hanging in and working for you as long as I did, but those NSF paychecks really fucked me over, buddy, and they're going to haunt me for a long time to come.

Fear, and fear of loss -- This one came in the form of the grandparent I'm closest to ignoring some health-related warning signs, which landed her in the hospital after she was diagnosed with antibiotic-resistant staph and gave her four weeks in ICU (three of those weeks were spent on a ventilator), two weeks in a nursing home, and two more weeks back in the hospital. Lucky for me, she's still here, but damn. Talk about being scared out of your mind.

Pain -- The pain gods had it in for me this year. Everyone gets at least a little bit of emotional pain every year, but I got some physical pain thrown in just for shits and giggles. In the midst of my Grandma-drama (luckily this was during the nursing home period, so she was already on the upswing by then), I woke up one morning in pain like I had never felt before in all of my life. I like to think I'm pretty tough, but I was in tears. Even my mom was scared. Somehow one of my teeth got infected and, having just spent all that time in the hospital with my grandma, I freaked that I had gotten a staph infection in my mouth of all places. My dentist started me on antibiotics, told me she wanted to do a root canal after the antibiotics had had a few days to work, and made me promise to call her if my face swelled, which she swore was rare, but she said it could still happen. Well, rare. Heh. Apparently, if it's "rare," it will happen to me. And sure as shit, wouldn't you know, the next morning I woke up with swelling that had traveled so far up the left side of my face that I couldn't open my eye. I called my dentist, who sent me to the ER with instructions to come see her as soon as the hospital let me go. The doctor in the ER assured me I did not have staph (phew!) but kept me in the hospital on IV antibiotics (and morphine, God bless the nurse) for almost eight hours, which is the longest I think I've ever spent in an ER. Normally they treat you and kick you out ASAP. Then I headed over to the dentist where she did emergency oral surgery -- without anesthetic! Fun times, I tell you. Looking back on it now, I can honestly say that I believe she was trying to help me, not kill me. She said that she had to do her part to get the infection out, but that the oral surgeon was out that day, so there was no one who could put me under -- and she wouldn't put the surgery off because the infection had spread -- and there was so much infection in my mouth that local anesthetics wouldn't do me any good. So, she shot me up a little bit, just to humor me, I think, and I grinned (not so much, it's a figure of speech, people) and bore it. It was an experience that I wouldn't even wish on the ex-boss. She made me come back every day that week and every other day the next week so she could check on me. It got to where I was on a first-name basis with almost everyone in the office, and they all felt bad for me because they heard about that awesome surgery (I only screamed once, I promise, and I'm sure they couldn't even hear me that well because:

I was way in the back of the office,
The door to the room was closed, and
My dentist had both of her hands in my mouth)

It took over two weeks for the infection to go away, and she refused to do the root canal until I was infection-free, which is only smart dentistry, but it made for over a month of visits to her office... more than most people do in five years, maybe more. When it was all over, she assured me that it was just a freak, unpredictable thing that was unlikely to ever happen again. And now I'm a freak about my teeth. I don't have dental insurance, but you can bet I'll still be going to the dentist for my six-month checkup. I think an experience like that would render most people terrified of their dentists, but I love mine. She's awesome. She called me at home so many times during that month just to make sure I was okay. If she ever leaves that practice, I swear I'll follow her. I don't care where she goes.

Loss -- The job. Duh. Six months later, it still sucks. In fact, it sucks MORE than it did in the beginning. And the job market shows no real signs of recovery. Not much more to say on that issue.

Honesty (not so much) -- Note to anyone who ever files for unemployment: Do not ever be honest, ever, when filling out your unemployment claim forms. Say you looked for work even if you were a lazy ass and you didn't. Say you were perfectly fit and healthy to look for work during the week even if you sustained a major head injury and have grey matter oozing out of your eye socket. And most importantly, do not ever, ever, EVER say that you turned down work. NEVER. Because that is a surefire way for your unemployment benefits to come to a dead screeching halt for at least eight weeks, I guarantee you. I just won't tell you how I know.

Well, 2009, I'm glad I only have about four more days of you. And I hope that after all my shit-talking, 2010 is not going to take your side and try to show me who's boss. I'm actually quite optimistic that 2010 will be much better to me than you were; while keeping in mind that things could ALWAYS be worse. But you were a bitch, 2009, so good riddance, sayonara, adios, toodleooo. Leave, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Family Resemblances

2009-11-22T22:09:00.000-08:00

When people see my mom and I together, we usually hear: "Wow, you two look a lot alike!" And we laugh and shrug it off, because we really don't see the resemblance. My mom has a somewhat olive complexion, dark brown hair, and brown eyes. She's relatively small-boned. I am as white as they come, with blue eyes, lighter brown hair, and a freakin' large frame. Sometimes, if I'm not wearing makeup (sorry Mom!), and I catch myself at just the right angle in the mirror, I can see a slight similarity in some of our facial features, but I never see the uncanny resemblance most people claim to see. Here's me and my mom. Judge for yourself:

My brother and I often joke that I'm adopted (we kid). We come from two dark brown-haired, dark brown-eyed, olive-skinned parents. My brother looks like them. Blue-eyed, fair-skinned me? Not so much.

I have always felt that I bore a stronger resemblance to my paternal grandmother. We are similarly fair-skinned, blue-eyed, brown-haired, big-boned girls. Today, I was messing around on my paternal grandfather's family genealogy website and I happened to stumble across a picture of Grandma when she was about my age, give or take a couple years. The resemblance seems much more striking to me.

Taking into consideration our facial features and our bone structure (which you can't see in either of our pictures), I see a MUCH stronger resemblance between Grandma (Dad's mom) and me than I do between my own mom and me. What do you think?

Top 10 public figures I'd like to take a swing at with a bat

2009-11-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

Well, I mentioned the list earlier this week, so I thought I'd elaborate today and share the list in its entirety.

Without further ado, presenting my list of the top ten public figures I'd like to take a swing at with a bat:

1) George W. Bush -- For many things, but most prominent in my mind, for being the worst President this country has ever seen. A lot of people may have a lot of crap to talk about Bill Clinton, and they are certainly entitled to their opinions and they may even be right, but here's a fact: the United States of America had an economic SURPLUS when Bill Clinton left office, and Dubya drove this country into the ground, into trillions of dollars of debt. The most powerful country in the world has now taken a backseat to, say it with me: CHINA . Also, for nabbing Saddam Hussein, not that he didn't deserve a day of reckoning, but because "That man tried to kill my daddy" (while Osama bin Laden is still hiding in some bunker in Afghanistan). Bush was a shitty "leader" -- actually, I think to call him a leader is laughable -- and he was most certainly not a diplomat.

2) Sarah Palin -- For being stupid enough to think that abstinence-only education is the answer for young adults in the 21st century. For taking lessons in ~~truth in politics~~ dodging the issues from Dubya. For thinking that she may even have a shot at the presidency in 2012. The only thing I can applaud her for is her choice to step down as Governor of Alaska. Now if only she'd step out of politics altogether.

3) Osama bin Laden -- Because there is no fucking way that dude should still be alive after the stunt he pulled on our turf eight long years ago.

4) Elisabeth Hasselbeck -- For being the most annoying woman to ever hit the television airwaves. For crying on television when she feels "talked over" or doesn't get her way in a debate, but then talking... and talking... and TALKING when she is uneducated on the subject or doesn't have anything intelligible to say. For answering questions with questions. I am not a fan of people (in general!) making comments about how women should just stay home and be barefoot and pregnant, but if I were, and I thought any woman SHOULD, Elisabeth Hasselbeck should.

5) Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly/Glenn Beck/Ann Coulter/Sean Hannity -- Yes, I realize that I have clumped multiple people together, but they all come from the same vein, and for the most part, I want to swing at them for the same reasons -- among others, for being racist, closed-minded asshats. All of them annoy me for many of the same reasons I find Elisabeth Hasselbeck annoying -- they talk over people, they answer questions with questions, and they believe their point of view is the ONLY point of view. Their political extremism scares the shit out of me. And, I may disagree with people, but I still allow others to at least HAVE their own opinions and I don't resort to name-calling or changing the subject when it's been pointed out (or proven!) that I'm wrong.

6) Dick Cheney -- For being a douche. Dude, your time in office is over. STFU.

7) Barbara Walters -- For reasons outlined in the post that started this whole thing.

8) Oprah Winfrey -- It's not that she hasn't done a lot of good for a lot of people. The girls studying at her school in South Africa certainly appreciate her, as do the people who won brand-new cars for attending her show on just the right day. Of course, Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, Dr. Robin, Suze Orman and then-Senator, now-President Obama all appreciate the "boost" their careers have gotten from the Queen of Daytime. She has gained weight and lost it, and gained, and lost, and gained, gained, gained, gained (hey, she's human). The fact that she has her own talk show, her own magazine, her own XM radio show, and her own little band of proteges mean that MILLIONS of people worship at the altar of Oprah. They buy products she endorses, books inducted into her book club, etc. But seriously, in the last couple of years, her ego has gotten so big, her voice so obnoxious (Maya Rudolph does a SPOT ON impression), that enough is enough. I could go on and on with the things that annoy me about Oprah, but I'll leave it at this: I can't stand to watch her anymore.

9) Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes -- Tom, for obvious reasons: "Jumping the Couch," shoving Scientology down everyone's throats, being an ass to Brooke Shields about a very real problem that needs medical attention, and for just being a creep in general. And Katie, although it can't be easy being Mrs. Cruise, for looking like a homeless person in public (Come on! I'm 26 and my mother won't let me leave the house looking the way you do) and for letting her three year old wear high heels. And we're not just talking about plastic dress-up heels, we're talking real high heels that probably cost a few hundred bucks. The kid is three! Let her be a child for shit's sake. No heels. ** As a sidenote, I just gotta say, I loved that I Googled "Katie Holmes looks like a hobo" and it returned the pic I linked to above. That's awesome.

10) Kanye West -- Need I say more?

BONUS!

11) Joe Jackson -- For being an abusive, disgusting pig of a ~~man~~ PIG, trying to pimp his new record company on the day of his son's funeral. And now, for trying to go after part of Michael's estate for an "allowance," claiming that he needs support as his expenses exceed $15,000 a month. I am not a die-hard fan/supporter of Michael Jackson, but I do think his father is a disgusting bastard.

And finally, these are not public figures, but rather, companies I'd currently like to take a swing at:

Chase Auto Finance -- My car payment is three days late. THREE. Yes, I am unemployed, and no, I do not have the money for you right this minute, but I should in the next couple of days. DO NOT start calling me FIVE TIMES IN ONE DAY until my car payment is AT LEAST ten days late, you fucktards.

--and--

Bank of America -- You motherfuckers. I do not make it my mission to overdraw my checking account, and I realize you guys need to make money somehow, but if you would have paid my SMALLER debits first, I would have only had ONE insufficient funds item. Instead, you paid that one item, and let all the smaller ones overdraw my account, so now I have to pay SEVEN overdraft fees instead of just one. Again, I'm unemployed. Cut me a bit of a break here. I'm not trying to be irresponsible, it's just that money is tight. And now it's tighter because I am nearly $300 overdrawn instead of about $75, which would have hurt a lot less. Fuck you guys.

Random rants

2009-11-17T09:49:00.000-08:00

Here are just a few of the things that are bothering me this week:

1) My truck, and Chrysler as a brand in general. Seriously, Chrysler, fuck you. This is the second Chrysler-made vehicle I've owned, and, like its predecessor, it is a serious piece of shit. I have had more problems with my Jeep in the short ten months that I've owned it (and don't get me started on my first car, the Eagle) than I ever had with my Honda in the three years I owned it. In ten months, my three-year-old Jeep has had to be towed twice, and will need to be towed AGAIN to fix (ONE of) its current issues. My ten-year-old Honda was towed ONCE in three years. I know... comparing Chrysler vehicles to Honda vehicles is like comparing apples to oranges -- it really isn't fair -- but honestly Chrysler, the only thing I can manage to say is fuck you. It should be sad for you when I find a 1999 Honda with 140,000 miles on it to be a more reliable vehicle than a 2006 Jeep with less than 50,000 miles on it. Oh, and I realize that the fact that my car is not fixed at the moment is partially my fault due to my lack of funds from being unemployed, but this part is my favorite: Since August (that's three months for those who are counting), my Jeep has been drivable for... maybe... three weeks. Maybe. Which leaves nine weeks of non-operable, piece of shit truck sitting on my curb. Which, really, translates into TWO MONTHS of paying for a car that I CANNOT DRIVE. Yes, because I really love that. FUCK YOU, CHRYSLER.

2) Barbara Walters. Truthfully, she bothers me during any given week, but for some reason, I felt compelled to watch a bit of her interview with Sarah Palin this morning. This is funny in itself, because Walters and Palin are BOTH on my top ten list of public figures I'd like to take a swing at with a bat, but I digress. What I hate most about Barbara Walters are these two things:

The fact that she believes she is some kind of goddess in the industry... Watch her and you'll notice, she plugs herself EVERYWHERE. She is a plugging whore. On The View, she'll say, "Well, on 20/20, I said this...", on Oprah, she'll say, "Well, on The View, I said that...", and on Good Morning America, she doesn't hesitate to make Diane Sawyer or Robin Roberts look like complete idiots, which they are not. And she talks over EVERYONE, which I hate. So rude, Barbara, so rude! And, I personally think she has a goal of making everyone she interviews cry, which just makes her an ass.

The way she asks questions to which the answers were obvious BEFORE she asked them, and then acts surprised when the answer comes. Like this morning, she approaches the subject of Bristol Palin's pregnancy and asks Sarah Palin, "Did you know your daughter was sexually active?" Umm.... DUH!!! Everyone knows that Sarah Palin is a staunch advocate of abstinence-only education. Of course she didn't know Bristol was having sex, and she told Barbara as much in no uncertain terms. Barbara, you dumbass, either you suck, or your writers suck. But mostly, I just think you suck.

3) Joy Behar. This one makes me sad, because really, I love Joy Behar. I love her on The View, and I was excited about her new show on HLN. For the first couple of weeks I watched it and I liked it. But then the news broke about David Letterman's affair with a staffer, and it's like every night is "Let's Defend Dave Night" on The Joy Behar Show. For the first night (or two, or even three), that was okay. But it has been weeks now since that story broke, and still, all Joy talks about is dear old Dave. People have sex with their bosses or their subordinates more than we know, and it really doesn't get talked about this much. Trust me. I worked with someone who was nearly six months pregnant with the boss's baby before a word was ever spoken about the situation, and even then, it wasn't confirmed that the boss was actually the baby's father until the baby was nearly five months old. That's a long-ass time for no one to say anything about a relationship between a boss and an employee. Oh sure, there was gossip flying around the office because we were suspicious, but I'm talking about rehashing the details of a confirmed relationship as Joy does every night in an attempt to save her buddy Dave. But Dave didn't rape anyone, it was consensual. he is not a criminal, just a lousy husband apparently. And it doesn't appear that he needs any saving, his career is just fine. His marriage might not be, but Joy can't really do anything about that. And Joy, I am tuning out until you move on, sister.

4) My ex-boss. Just because he hasn't called me in two months doesn't mean he's gone from my life, it just means he hasn't felt compelled to bug me lately. But, as one of my former co-workers so lovingly reminded me yesterday, he does have a birthday coming up this week and the holidays are fast-approaching. Given that his own children have shunned him, I'm sure the baby will be reaching out for Mommy sooner rather than later. Ugh. I told my former co-worker, sometimes it sucks being home, because when I walk out my door, I look both ways to make sure he's not walking up to my doorstep for a surprise visit, and before I get in my car (which I haven't done for months now, ahem, Chrysler!) I check to make sure there are no notes taped to the window or slid through the crack in the door, as he has also done before. It's not that I don't feel safe in my own home because I do; he has given me no reason to believe that he poses any kind of physical threat to me. What it is is that he imposes a complete violation of privacy and a complete lack of respect for my own time and space -- by walking up to my doorstep for surprise visits; by leaving notes on my car; and by calling, texting or e-mailing at his leisure and expecting me to drop everything and respond when it has been nearly TWO YEARS since I have been a paid employee of his. Never knowing when I am going to hear from him next leaves me feeling very unsettled, and truthfully, it feels like a control he still has on my life. I resent him for that, and I resent myself for allowing him to do that to me.

I think that's enough for now... I've (unfortunately!) been on a rather short fuse lately, so there is definite possibility for there to be more later.

Oh, technology.

2009-10-05T12:13:00.000-07:00

Facebook, Twitter, online banking, e-mail... These are all tools I use at least once a day. I never looked at them as barriers to real human contact and communication until I got a web-enabled cell phone. I should specify that honestly, I didn't buy the phone because it had web capabilities, really I didn't. My contract was up, it was time for a new phone, I had just lost my job, and so I got the one that was free. I never intended to use the web on my phone - that's what I pay for the internet at home for. But then, one month, I racked up a $15.00 bill for data transmission my cell phone used to download ringtones that I had purchased and paid for separately, so the cute salesman at Verizon Wireless suggested, "Why not just purchase a data plan? It'll waive the data charges you accumulated for this month, and for a flat monthly fee of $15.00, you can check your e-mail, surf the web, and use all the megabytes you want!"

I was sold, just for one month, I told myself. Just until the $15.00 charge passed by, and then I would call and cancel that data plan. Why would I need to check my e-mail from my phone? That's what my computer is for.

I bought that data plan in June. It is now October. Checking e-mail from my phone actually comes in quite handy. Logging into Facebook while I'm sitting in a waiting room makes time pass by more quickly. My ~~addiction to~~ ~~dependence on~~ use of technology is no less now than it was then.

I am especially guilty of relying on text messages for the bulk of my communication and I really can't remember what I did before I had a cell phone. I've never really been one for talking on the phone; so texting has been perfect for me. Thank God my grandma knows how to text. My other grandma and one of my grandpas knows how to e-mail, which is great. And my other grandpa has a cell phone that dials me at random as it moves around in his pocket. Oh well. I guess there's one in every bunch.

But my use of technology has gotten to the point where my friends and family are poking fun at me. They think it's excessive.

My brother, whose very cell phone keypad is glued to his fingertips based on the sheer number of text messages he can send in a day (once, he got in very big trouble for sending 349 text messages in a day -- ONE day!) thinks I'm a Facebook addict for checking FB from my phone on my downtime. I think that's laughable; coming from him, it's like the pot calling the kettle black.

My best friend, who only got a Facebook account because a few of her friends (me included) harassed her, thinks I have a serious problem. I argue that we have mutual friends whose problems are far worse than mine, but she does not back down. "When you are amongst the masses of people posting status updates of what you ate for dinner last night and how your leftovers tasted the next day," she argued, "you have a problem."

Today I posted this status update just to spite her:

Me Just for (best friend)... I'm eating last night's dinner leftovers for lunch today - and they are DELICIOUS -- maybe even better the second time! ;)

I texted her and told her I'd posted a status update in her honor. After she read it, she texted me one single, solitary word:

"Sad."

Sad, indeed. She just doesn't understand the glory of Facebook, is all.

But maybe -- just maybe -- I really have become too dependent on Facebook to fulfill my social needs. I mean, of course, nothing -- and I do mean not one damn thing -- beats face time with my closest friends. But for the rest, that would likely only be considered acquaintances or people I would see at reunions, I think Facebook is a great thing. It allows me to keep in touch with the people I want, ignore the people I don't, and control how much communication goes on (at least from my end). Not too long ago, I said (and I meant) that Facebook could replace my high school reunion and I wouldn't care. Of course, a large part of that had to do with my attitude towards high school in general, but really I still feel the same, regardless. As long as my high school friends keep posting pictures of themselves and their families and we exchange the occasional e-mail or wall post, that's good enough for me.

My best friend and I have a mutual ~~friend~~ acquaintance who relies on the internet for the purpose of reaching out to her social network far too much. If my best friend thinks I have problems, then really, this girl should be in rehab or something. A couple of weeks ago, the girl posted a message on my best friend's wall: "Get on Facebook! Your friends demand it!" which was both funny and maddening for reasons I won't go into here. But, knowing how the girl felt about my best friend's absence on the 'net, I saw fit to post this Tweet while the girl was studying for a rather important test:

"Slowly accepting that @best-friend's account is but a ghost in the Twitterverse. She's got her heart set on letting her "snail mail" flag fly."

I posted it mainly to irritate the girl who DEMANDED my best friend's presence on Facebook. She didn't take the bait like she normally does, but I felt better getting it out there anyway. But in the end, I guess it was also a message to myself: for as fun as I think it would be to have my best friend as a fellow "Tweep" and Facebooker, she's just not going for it. She really is intent on hoisting that snail mail flag; she told me so herself. She believes the written letter is a lost art. I believe that, as it has done with many other things (books with Kindles, VCR's with DVD players -- and even BluRay is hovering over DVD territory already), technology has rendered the written letter obsolete. But she normally wins our arguments, so let's just say she's right.

Last night, Eyewitness News teased a story on the 11 o'clock news: "Are you on 'social network' overload? How to get your life back, after the break."

I fell asleep before they came back from break, but I read the story today.

One person stated that indeed, she thought reading the mundane status updates of 200+ friends was annoying, but she simply read the updates of the people she really cared about, and skipped the rest. I felt like calling my best friend and telling her, "Ha! See? Don't READ about people's leftovers if it bothers you that much! But I'm still on Facebook, and last time I checked, you still cared about ME, so get on there, dammit!"

But I read on... and got slapped across the face by this: "That's what (Boyle) does but admits he'd like to get back to the basics of the phone and writing letters."

And it was like SHE called ME and said, "Ha! Get your sorry ass off of Facebook and actually WRITE a letter, you retard!"

So I guess there has to be a happy medium somewhere. I do really need to call Verizon and cancel that data plan. Aside from the fact that using my phone for functions that a computer was made for is redundant, $15.00 extra in my checking account is always a good thing. I'm not saying that I'm going to cut back on my Facebook usage on the internet, but I do agree the cell phone has to go. And maybe one of these days I will sit down and crank out a hand-written letter.... but no one should hold their breath for that one.

Apology

2009-09-28T22:40:00.000-07:00

Dear Uterus,

I am so, so, so, so sorry that I skipped out on the birth control pills this month. You see, being unemployed, I had to choose between refilling the BCP's and, oh, I don't know, eating.

I figured that since you and me were on decent terms again after a good six months of the pill, maybe I could skip a month and you'd behave. Hoo boy, did I underestimate you. My apologies. Clearly you are very very angry with me for my stupid decision.

Next month, I promise to starve, if you promise to be a good girl again.

Humbly,

D

This made my day

2009-09-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

I love this video, I love this dog... I have watched it so many times and it cracks me up each time I watch it!

"The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades."

2009-09-02T16:42:00.000-07:00

My high school years were not my friend.

I know, most people think I'm nuts for that. After all, your high school years are supposed to be some of the best of your life. And I suppose that for some people that I went to school with, they were. I mean, hey, if I got a brand new BMW for my 16th birthday, I would have been pretty damn happy (shoot, I would have been pretty damn happy with a beat-up Saturn back then, but I digress).

I wasn't one of those people who fit into a "clique" or any kind of group in high school. I had a few friends, but not many. I was by no means any kind of popular. I was more of a loner. I ate lunch in the Newspaper room because it made me look busy and hid the fact that I really was kind of hurting in the friend department. I hated school -- not the academic aspect of it, rather, the social aspect -- and I just wanted to grit my teeth and get through it. I cannot completely dis high school, though. My mom did basically force me to re-join Girl Scouts at the age of 14, and for that, I must say I'm grateful, because it's where I met my best friend, and it allowed me to take two great trips that I NEVER would have gotten to take on my own. Other than that, high school pretty much bit the big one.

But, going into high school, I did have goals. I had dreams. I knew -- or more appropriately, I thought I knew -- I wanted to be a nurse. I was a good student. I wanted to graduate and get the hell out of California. I have family in Rhode Island and my mom's cousin gave me a pretty convincing speech on why he thought I should move back there. I told him I'd think about it after college. He said they had some great schools back there, so why wait? I was sold. I wanted to get through college, begin a successful nursing career, start a family, and come to my 10-year high school reunion happier than I'd ever been in high school. At that point in my life, I held fast to my goals, and I thought my future was so bright I'd need an entire closet full of shades.

I had been, at the very least, a 3.5 student up until the end of my Freshman year. Not exceptional, but not half bad, really. Had it not been for Algebra, I could have pulled straight A's. I went into my Sophomore year with less enthusiasm, but didn't let my goals too far out of sight. I still wanted to go to college; hopefully not in California.

Something was up during my Sophomore year, though, and I wasn't quite sure what. My dad, who had pretty much been my best buddy my entire life, was changing as a person. Our relationship was changing. And it was hard for me, because I was one of those girls whose world revolved around her daddy. My mom had an old high school friend who moved from Rancho Cucamonga to La Verne and bought an old fixer-upper house downtown. She was a personal assistant for a living and she was supporting four kids, so of course she struggled financially. My dad, a self-employed plumber, started spending a lot of time working on this woman's house, even going so far as to re-pipe the entire thing, for free.

In January of my Sophomore year, I failed Algebra 2 at the semester. I earned no credit for the class. I had never gotten an "F" in my life. I was devastated, and maybe a little dramatic, as I thought I heard the faint sound of a toilet flushing in the distance, taking my college dream with it.

In February of my Sophomore year, my dad announced that he and my mom were separating. I, always one to be a little dramatic, blurted out right away, "You're getting divorced, aren't you?" No, he assured me, this was just a separation. That night, my mom took my brother and me out of the house so that my dad could pack the rest of his things and leave. He had already been moving for several weeks, and things were a bit different around the house but it wasn't totally noticeable. My dad used to be an appliance whore, so we had two great stereo systems, two VCR's, etc. My mom couldn't tell, but I had noticed that things were switched around, and my dad blew me off by saying that he had brought the "better" appliances into the house. Riiiiight. That's why they had previously been in the garage for years. The night Dad was leaving, Mom headed back home when she thought that he would be out, only to find her old high school friend's car parked in front of our house. The woman was helping my dad move out. Mom drove away.

To make a very very long story kinda short, my dad and the woman were involved in a relationship, and although they both deny it, I believe that the relationship had been established several months prior to my dad leaving my mom. They dated for about a year and a half (1999-2000), had a very nasty breakup, were separated for about a year, got back together (2001), were engaged within a couple of months and married the next year (2002). They have been married for almost seven years. Of course, the whole situation shattered my mother into a million pieces. Her marriage of twenty years was over, and someone she thought was a friend was a contributing factor. My mom spent the remainder of my high school years severely depressed (of course I can't blame her). My dad was no longer my best buddy because he had a new best buddy, and a "new family" (his words). I struggled with that for a long time and flopped around between periods of speaking to my dad and not speaking to him. I couldn't understand who he had become and I didn't like the new guy. Needless to say, my mom was struggling, my dad was a different person, and I felt like no one cared. I gave that "F" in math the finger, and this time I actually DID hear the toilet flush on my college dreams. I didn't care. During my Senior year of high school (2001), my English teacher asked where I would be going to school in the fall. The "F" loomed over me and I told her I'd likely be going to Citrus, a junior college in my area. Noticeably disappointed, she told me that I was "definitely university material" and that she hoped I'd change my mind. I doubt she knew I'd failed math. She is now my brother's Senior English teacher. I loved her class but I'd hate to go back and see her now. I graduated high school eight years ago and still have never set foot on a university campus (at least not as a student).

The night I told my mom that my dad and his girlfriend were getting married, she cried what we have now dubbed the "cry of death" - it was a guttural cry, it came from way down in her toes and it roared out of her body. It was a sound I had never heard before. She couldn't stop crying. It scared the shit out of me. I thought she might be suicidal. She made it through.

My dad and his girlfriend planned a wedding in Mt. Baldy for a Saturday in October of 2002. My dad left a voicemail on my cellphone that said he hoped to see me at the wedding. I don't know if anyone remembers the fire season of 2002, but that was the year that one enormously huge fire stretched all the way from San Bernardino in the east to San Dimas in the west. The weekend their wedding was supposed to happen, the roads up to Mt. Baldy were closed. They rescheduled for a Saturday in November.

I honestly don't remember what happened with my dad and I between October and November of that year, but I didn't even get so much as a voicemail about the second wedding date. They married in Mt. Baldy on November 2, 2002, while I was in the hospital in Fontana suffering from a severe migraine that gave way to my very first case of vertigo. I had never had vertigo before, and by the time my mom forced me to go to the hospital (I thought the vertigo would just go away on its own and didn't see the point of going to the ER just for being dizzy) I had been in bed for three days straight. I wasn't eating at all or drinking much water. I could hardly sit up because I was so dizzy, so walking was out of the question. I didn't know what the hell was happening to my body, but I knew I didn't like it. After I was settled in the ER, my mom kept asking me if I wanted her to call my dad to come to the hospital. I kept saying no. Later, I found out he wouldn't have come anyway. It was his wedding night.

At the time, it didn't bother me to be excluded from his wedding. He said that due to my behavior, he didn't feel I was deserving of an invite. He also said that if my mom knew the details of their wedding, he thought she'd show up and ruin it. Oh, please. Yes, she had a more than difficult time dealing with the divorce, but by then she definitely didn't want him back, and she'd realized her "friend" was not a friend at all. Years later, having seen wedding pictures (my stepsisters in bridesmaids dresses, my brother and stepbrothers in tuxedos) and having seen the wedding invitation ("Together with our children..."), I can honestly say, fuck yeah, it bothers me. My grandparents had been divorced for fifteen years at the time. It was an ugly divorce, and my dad's wedding was the first time the two of them had seen each other in those fifteen years. What must they have thought when their son's only daughter was not at his wedding? And the invitation? Together with our children?! Are you fucking kidding me? How about, "Together with 5 out of 6 of our children, because we're purposely excluding one of them due to the fact that we feel her head is firmly planted up her ass"? Wouldn't that have been more accurate? I mean, think about if I were getting married and I didn't invite my dad to my wedding. Who would walk me down the aisle? Of course I could ask an uncle, or my brother, or even a good family friend, but really, in that situation, who takes the place of Dad?

Years later, my dad and I still struggle. I guess it's safe to say we're not speaking at the moment. I think this time, it's his idea. I've sent cards for Father's Day and his birthday and haven't gotten a response. We had a rough go of it when my grandma was in the hospital (and the nursing home, but she was back and forth between both places so it's easier to just refer to the whole entire time period as "hospitalization"). Dad and I put on a good act for Grandma's sake, but we spent more time together in those eight weeks she was hospitalized than we had in the previous eight years -- there were days where we would be at the hospital together for 12 hours at a stretch -- and honestly, I can't speak for him, but for me, every single day was fucking hard. A large part of it was that whenever I saw him my stepmom was always with him; the only time my dad and I were actually there by ourselves was the night of my grandma's first surgery -- three days into her eight week stint between the hospital, nursing home and back to the hospital again -- and even then, my stepmom made a huge deal of wanting to leave her night class at PCC to come out to Redlands. Thankfully, just that once, Dad talked her out of it. He told her everything was going to be fine even as we knew that Grandma had just gotten out of a surgery that had taken nearly twice as long as anticipated, and she was being intubated because she was having a hard time coming out of the anesthesia and her breathing pattern was too inconsistent for the doctor to feel comfortable letting her go it alone. However, the next day, my stepmom dropped her class, which freed her from lecture and homework time, and allowed her to be at the hospital all.the.time. I think when it was all over, my dad and I were both spent. Again, I can't speak for him, but I can tell you that aside from the fact that my grandmother came very close to dying and I was driving in excess of 70 round-trip miles per day to be with her (and sometimes she didn't even know I was there), it was mentally and emotionally exhausting for me to spend all that time having to act like my dad, stepmom and I really did get along that well for extended family and family friends, while never being able to let go of the fear that Grandma was in such bad shape that things were always touch and go with her.

I should clarify here and say that my dad and stepmom weren't always at the hospital when I was there. But, with the exception of the night of the first surgery, they were ALWAYS there together. Whenever Dad was there, she was there. A couple of times she was there without Dad, which made for even more fun.

Luckily, I got plenty of one-on-one time with Grandma, rubbing her feet or brushing her hair or filing her nails, and sometimes grabbing her hand(s) so she wouldn't attempt to yank her breathing tube out in a fit of anger and/or frustration -- but several of us had to do that at least once. My dad actually had to lean over her bed, take hold of her arms and sort of pin her down once, she was that angry and determined. The respiratory therapist told us that the tube was lodged so firmly in her airway and taped so well around her mouth that it wasn't likely she'd be strong enough to actually pull it all the way out -- and he warned that the ventilator would sound one hell of an alarm if she actually did succeed in pulling the tube out -- but that certainly didn't stop her from trying. It got to the point where every time I saw one of her hands start moving towards her face, I'd pull it away and hold it for a moment. I looked at my 76 year old grandma and felt like I was scolding a child; looking into her eyes and saying a firm "No." Since she couldn't talk, the only way to tell what she wanted was to try to read her lips (which was extremely difficult to do given the breathing and feeding tubes coming out of her mouth), her facial expression, or her dry erase board if she felt strong enough to write, which wasn't all the time. So there I'd be, holding her hand, knowing that it was unlikely but freaking out that she was going to pull out the tube while it was just her and me. If she looked at me with a little bit of sadness, I knew that she was trying to yank the tube. I'd tell her I was sorry and I'd grab her other hand and hold them both tight for a few minutes until (I hoped) the urge to grab that tube had passed for her. But sometimes, she'd give me a look that said, "You little shit, I just wanted to scratch my nose!" and she'd raise the hand I wasn't holding and do just that -- scratch her nose. That time -- those foot rubs, the nail filing, the hair brushing, and even the hand holding -- it's time we had together that Grandma doesn't remember, and truthfully it's time that I wish we didn't have to spend for the reason we did, but I will always treasure it.

Sorry for going off track; now back to my story.

Neither my dad nor I have gone out of our way to call one another since Grandma came home from the hospital in the second week of May. Do I miss my dad? Absolutely. Do I love him? Of course. I would be lying if I said I didn't; and everyone that knows me knows that I can't lie for shit. But, as he always used to tell me, "The phone works two ways." And for a lot of years, I was the only one picking up the phone. I think I'm over that for a while.

Now, I'm eight years out of high school, and I can't blame my parents' divorce for where I'm at in my life anymore. I can blame my ex-boss somewhat (and I already have a little bit), because I firmly believe that he only wanted me to go to school for something that was going to benefit his business, not something that I wanted to do to build my own life and career. Besides, blaming him for my life not going the way I wanted it to go is something that he does -- he takes a situation HE created and blames it on someone else when things go wrong, or at least not the way that he expected them to go. I can't pawn this off on him. I have to take accountability for my own lack of action in my life.

At this point I would love nothing better than to just take out a load of student loans and throw myself into school, but I doubt I'd be able to make it that way and besides, I do really need health insurance. So I don't feel like I have the luxury of being able to go to school full-time and not do anything else, which is really what I should have done right out of high school. Hindsight is 20/20, and it ALWAYS kicks me in the ass. Now I have to work, not only for my finances, but literally, for my health. I am no longer a teenager covered under my mom's health insurance plan, and not working is no longer an option for me.

I think I was depressed for a long time. It's not something that I want to fly a flag about. I don't know how smart of me it is to advertise that here. I think that once again, as I struggle with unemployment, a slow job market and a serious lack of funds, I am undoubtedly struggling with it again. Life is hard. Anyone who tells you that it's not is a billionaire or a liar. And someone should tell the billionaires that money doesn't buy happiness (but I think they just might know that already).

My 10-year reunion is coming up in less than two years. At this point, I'm not sure I'll go.

It feels so strange to know that the people who were Juniors and Seniors when I was a Freshman have already had their reunions. I am nowhere near where I thought I would be at this point in my life - I only have 36 units of college courses completed (and some of those units are remedial math, which really shouldn't count in the number of units I've accumulated because they don't transfer). Sure, by the time my reunion comes I could have my ADN (Associate Degree in Nursing) completed, but that's IF I can get into the program the first time I apply, and judging by how many applicants the school gets, that's a HUGE "if." A family is not anywhere close on the horizon (although I really wish it were). Shoot, at the rate I'm going, I may just be one of the few people still living at home with their mother. And as far as being happier than I ever was in high school? I would say I'm about in the same place now that I was then, except now I have bills and no money to pay them with. Yes, I'm feeling sorry for myself. Hopefully I'll get over it soon.

Besides, it seems like Facebook has been as good a place as any to keep in touch with people (is it sad that I find a social networking site acceptable for that? I look at it as being the same thing as phone communications for me. I would much rather text than talk. So Facebook is like my texting). It's like a high school reunion, but only for the people you actually want to see - haha. I keep in touch with who I want to keep in touch with and I see who I want to see. Many of my classmates have beautiful children. Some have gotten married, some have not. Most are happy (or maybe, like me, most just look happy on the outside). I had no idea how many doctors would come out of my class. I was looking at just the people I am Facebook "friends" with alone (about 175 out of a graduating class of 330) and to me, it seems to break down about like this: 1/3 are doctors, 1/3 are teachers, and the remaining 1/3 reside in Rancho Cucamonga (I'm kidding, except about the Rancho Cucamonga part. A shitload of people live there). The point is, go class of 2001, you sure did well. I wanted to show you up, and, well, you showed ME up. Congratulations.

On a side note, I have one more little story that is kinda random, but it works for this whole thing. And I doubt my best friend reads my blog too much, so I'm gonna go with talking about this, and if she ends up reading it and wants me to take this next part out, I will.

I love my best friend. I love her mom. She's like another mom to me. I call her "Mom" in real life, and on my blog and on Facebook she is known as M.O.M. (my other mother). My best friend is a year older than me. She's a college graduate but she's had some struggles with employment, largely because her mom is sick. She's the only daughter and she spends all her time taking care of her mom. Until very recently, she hasn't been dating much because the amount of attention her mom demands doesn't afford her much of a social life. She and I NEVER get to go out on our own, because I do consider her mom another mom and her mom considers me another daughter. So M.O.M. is always tagging along for my "girl time" with my best friend.

About a month ago, I was over at my best friend's house, and we were watching a movie up in her mom's room. So, stretched out on the huge bed was me, my best friend, her mom and the dog. The movie ended and none of us were particularly moved to get up and put another DVD in. It was about 3:00 in the morning, we were all stretched out, I was tired and I could see my best friend was tired. I thought it was time to crash.

M.O.M., however, did not. At this point, I should mention that M.O.M. is going to be 60 this year. Out of nowhere, she blurts out: "You know, it would be nice if you made me a grandmother while I'm still mobile enough to enjoy my grandchildren. You know I have health issues and I would like to be able have grandchildren while I am still healthy and mobile enough to pick them up and hold them rather than have them climb up on my lap while I sit in a wheelchair."

Crickets chirped. The dog grumbled, came out from under her blanket, jumped off the bed and left the room. It was comical. It was like she was the only one with half a brain. If I were smart, I would have gotten up and left the room too, but suddenly I felt fingernails digging into the palm of my hand. My best friend was squeezing the life out of me so that she'd keep her mouth shut instead of telling her mom that the reason there are no grandkids yet is because she's not even close to having a husband, because she doesn't have a boyfriend, because she can't date because her mom's insecurities and fears about her illness won't let her (it's not my place to go into what ails her mom, but let's just say it isn't life-threatening at all). The only thing either one of us could manage to say was that her health is not as bad as she made it sound and that she would definitely be a grandmother before she met her wheelchair days. She wasn't having any of it.

My best friend's mom must have had a secret meeting with my mom, because a few days ago, I found out that yet another one of my high school friends is engaged (is it just me, or is EVERYONE getting engaged this year? It also seems like anyone not getting engaged is pregnant this year. Whoa). I told my mom about my friend's engagement and she went off on this whole thing about how "we" need to figure out ways to get ME out there because it was high time for me to find a boyfriend and jump on this engagement wagon myself.

Wow. I know I piss and moan about getting older (and really, 26 does seem much older to me than 25 did), but holy shit. Am I really so old that my mom is trying to push me towards a relationship? As if I didn't already feel as though my eggs were rotting away after participating in the fun conversation between my best friend and her mom, now my own mother is harping on me about my single status.

I used to think that I didn't want a family until AFTER I finished college. Now, seeing how long it's taken me to get where I am, I guess maybe it's time to shift my views a bit. I don't know. It seems like my future isn't the shade-inducing adventure it used to be. I know it's still out there, but I have no idea how to set out in tackling my goals. Some days, I'm not even sure what my goals are, or if I even have any.

What's in a name?

2009-09-02T07:08:00.000-07:00

As a kid, I wasn't a real big fan of my first name. It seemed that Danielles were a dime a dozen back in the eighties. When I was four, one of my mom's close friends had a baby girl and named her Danielle. I went to school with a bunch of Danielles (and a Dannielle). I wanted a less-popular name, like, say, Stephanie (I know, LOL, right?). Even though I wasn't happy with my name as a kid, I can't say I remember a whole lot of people butchering its spelling. These days, the Danielles of my school years have gone on with their lives (I only keep in touch with the other Dannielle through Facebook). I don't know if they've run across some of the spelling issues that I have, but here are a few ways that the spelling my first name has been slaughtered:

* "Daniel" -- this crime is most often committed by men. Dudes, I must ask you, do I LOOK like a dude?

* "Daniell" -- Longs Drugs actually has a prescription on file for me under this spelling. The prescription was called in by my doctor. Obviously, either my doctor or my pharmacist (or both) can't spell.

"D'niell" -- Yes, some twerp at Jamba Juice spelled my name this way last week. Dude, I am sorry that I did not e.nun.ci.ate my name clearly enough for you. It's a bad habit I got from my dad, who has pronounced my name as "Dunyell" for, oh, my entire life. Yes, I know my name is actually "DANyell" but what can I say? I'm lazy. However, for the record, I am not black. My name is NOT D'niell.

My last name... ((sigh)). I suppose the misspelling of my last name is a forgivable offense. Yes, I understand that it is just plain difficult. It's three words, the first two words are NOT capitalized, and the third word bears a strong resemblance to a popular Mexican getaway, but really. If anyone (BESIDES a native Spanish speaker) ever spells - and pronounces - my last name correctly on their very first try, well, I'll be eternally grateful. Until then, I'm holding out for marrying a guy whose last name is Smith. Or Jones. Or Williams. Something simple to say, and something for which the spelling doesn't require multiple attempts and explanations of why some words aren't capitalized but others are. Yes, I know that those names are extremely common, and no, I don't care.

Honest Scrap Award

2009-09-01T10:48:00.000-07:00

Meghan has bestowed upon me the honor of the "Honest Scrap" award!

This award is given to blogs that write honestly and from the depth of their soul, according to her blog.

There are a couple of rules to accepting the award. First, pass the award on to 7 other bloggers, and second, list 10 honest and hopefully interesting things about yourself.

I'm flattered, but have to admit that almost a year after she nominated me for the last award, I'm still a "professional lurker" and haven't made a whole lot of friends in the blogosphere because I don't really make my presence known on too many other blogs. So, while I do have a couple of friends to nominate, I'm also going to nominate some of my favorite places to lurk! ;)

I love reading:

1) Meghan's It's.Just.Me. I love the way she writes, and the more I read about her, I think we're more alike than we knew.

2) Meghan at Hailey Makes Three. Yes, I tagged Meghan twice, but this is where she blogs about the adventures of her beautiful daughter Hailey, seriously, the most adorable baby in the world ♥.

3) Krista at OverMckMama. This may be against the rules of the Honest Scrap award, to nominate an anti-somebody blog, but Krista makes me think, and I like people who make me think. She's been a little scarce lately - I kinda think she had no idea how big a following she'd end up with, and it's a tough job moderating such a large community.

4) AD at A Day in the Life of an Ambulance Driver. Often funny, sometimes political, always a good read. My favorite posts are about his sweet daughter KatyBeth, whom he is raising to rise above her disabilities.

5) Crystal at Boobs, Injuries and Dr. Pepper. So real. So funny. Crystal, you've still got it. Keep going.

6) Chris at Mr. McKnob. Crystal is insanely lucky to have landed this guy. I hope there's one like him out there for me.

7) Big W at Momma Says the F Word. Adorable kids, funny anecdotes. 'Nuff said.

And now, my 10 honest confessions:

1) I am more than slightly bothered that I am at an age where I can say, "Twenty years ago, [this] happened..." and actually remember what I'm talking about.

2) I love my best friend to death, but we're both so random (nothing wrong with random, Meghan!) and dryly sarcastic that we spend lots of time insulting (or, to put it nicely, jabbing at) each other. We say that if you were a fly on the wall during one of our normal conversations, you'd probably think we hated each other based off of the sheer number of "Fuck you!"s we exchange. Trust us, we don't hate each other.

3) I have Flintstone Feet. They are big and wide and oh-so-annoying (not to mention unattractive!). It is next to impossible to find cute shoes in a size 10 wide. And I'm really uncoordinated and can't walk in anything higher than a 2" heel.

4) English was my favorite subject in high school and I was on the newspaper staff for all four years (I spent two years in editorial roles). My biggest pet peeve is poor spelling and grammar. It seriously pisses me off. Especially since, as Meghan pointed out a week or so ago, everything is done in Word or Outlook now. Is it so hard to run spell check? It even checks grammar, too!

5) My second biggest pet peeve is people who chew like cows and/or talk with their mouth full of food. Disgusting. I get mad just thinking about it.

6) I'm weird in that I care way too much for people who have burned the crap out of me (the ex-boss is a prime example. I'm trying to forget that guy), and not enough for people who have gone out of their way to make sure that I've been taken care of (like my mom. She drives me crazy sometimes because our personalities are at complete opposite ends of the spectrum, but I really don't give her enough credit). It's a bad quality, IMO, and I'm working on reversing it.

7) Random things I love: dogs, babies, hugs, long walks, and sweatshirts.

8) I hate doing these "random honest confession" things because I think they make me sound like a strange combination of highly self-absorbed and terribly depressing.

9) A lot of my friends are engaged, recently married, or new parents, and I feel like I'm really behind schedule.

10) I suck at math, lose it around vomit, and am unsure about blood, but every career indication test I've ever taken has told me I should be a nurse. I've vacillated back and forth and even went so far away as to major in Liberal Studies with the intention of becoming a teacher, but I hated it, and after having spent so many weeks with Grandma in the ICU this year, I feel a very strong pull towards a career in nursing.

Thanks again for the award, Meghan!

Crossing the (northern) border?!

2009-08-16T23:30:00.000-07:00

As everyone knows, I'm unemployed. I can't afford COBRA and I have pre-existing health conditions, therefore I do not currently have health insurance.

So it was extra special for me to see this ad in a sidebar on Facebook today... how the &$*@! does Facebook know which ads to publish at what times, anyway?

To top it off, I happened to stumble across this article a short time later. FML.

Is it a sign? Should I be packing my bags? My last name is a little, um, hispanic for Canada. Anyone have any suggestions as to what my new name for my new life should be?!

Angry Idiot.

2009-08-06T22:28:00.000-07:00

Dear Ex-Boss,

A year and a half after walking away from my job, I am still an angry person.

This bothers me, because, as you well know, I am not typically an angry person.

I would like to think that the fact that a year and a half has passed since the last time I officially worked for you, would mean that a lot of my anger and resentment has subsided. But that would be wrong.

------------------

I am angry because I have done things that make me feel like an idiot. I am angry because I did all of those things, in one way or another, because of you and your influence on me.

------------------

I feel like an idiot for not including the all-important words "please do not contact me anymore" in my final resignation letter. That was stupid of me. I put them in the letter before that, and they worked. What a dumbass I am.

------------------

I am angry with myself because I find it hard to stop myself from answering your texts or e-mails. But I am getting better. I still haven't answered your e-mail from last week, and I still don't plan on answering it at all.

------------------

I feel like an idiot for EVER answering ANY your calls for help after I quit, and for giving you a cell phone number that I changed to avoid - that's right - you.

------------------

I am angry that my credit is ruined in part because I was financially irresponsible, but largely because you gave me paychecks I could not cash. I tried to be understanding about this for as long as I could, but a normal person would not have put up with not getting paid for as long as I did. When you finally realized the havoc the inconsistent paychecks were wreaking on my credit, you came up with an idea to pay me in installments over the course of two weeks rather than in one lump sum every two weeks. Unfortunately, by the time you came up with that ingenious plan, it was too late. Oh, and I loved how I had to pay those installments back when I could finally cash my legitimate two-week paycheck - writing you a personal check for the amount of the installment with a note in the memo line of my check that said "personal loan balance paid in full."

------------------

I feel like an idiot being the owner of a blog bemoaning how much it can suck (and how it can sometimes be great) being a quarter-lifer, and yet almost 20% of my entries make mention of you, if they are not devoted to you entirely. I think it makes me look like I can't get you off of my mind, or I have some sort of unhealthy obsession with writing about you, or something like that. When the reality is that you really just screwed with my head so badly, and I can't afford therapy, so I have to use my blog. I could write in a journal, I suppose, but I think it's more fun to post it on the internet and see if anyone can identify you (you'll notice I have never used your name, your company's name, your location, your industry, or any other info that could identify you... so if anyone does it, well, they're just friggin' smart).

------------------

I am angry that I am staring my 26th birthday in the face and I only have 36 units of college courses completed. This one isn't entirely your fault either; I could have gone to school at night more consistently than I did. But you were always changing my hours or my days off, always making me work much later than I was scheduled, making me pull constant Saturdays and the occasional Sunday - it really wouldn't have left much time for studying.

------------------

I feel like an idiot because I let you sway me away from what I really wanted to do. From the day you hired me, you knew that I aspired to be a nurse. I believe (and this sounds conceited, but this is what I think) that you saw a young, college-bound girl, and you wanted that girl to work for you and get a degree in something relevant to your area of expertise so that you could boast about how "smart" your employees are. I took note of the way you made fun of your ~~baby mama's~~ first Office Manager's degree in Food Marketing and Agribusiness Management. I think you just wanted a "smart" employee - an International Business major, maybe - to make your own self look like a "smart" employer. I couldn't have been a Psychology major and continued to work for you - one time, I overheard your ~~baby mama~~ first Office Manager screening a potential job applicant over the phone. She asked the girl if she was a student, and made a conversation asking where she went to school and what her major was. And when the girl on the other end of the phone said that she was a Psych major, your ~~baby mama~~ first Office Manager basically told her, "You know, Psych majors tend to not work out so well here, I don't think this job would be a good fit for you," and she promptly ended the conversation. I'm not quite sure that was exactly legal of her, but it sure was funny.

It was funny because ~~baby mama~~ first Office Manager knew exactly what would happen with a Psych major - they'd have YOU to analyze. And that would have been a full-time job in itself. Trust me, I did it, and I wasn't even a Psych major. But I took 2 Psych classes and a Sociology of Marriage and Family class while I was working for you, and you were most definitely interesting to analyze.

I think it's interesting how way back when, you were mere units away (so you say) from finishing your degree in Child Development. I wonder where life would have taken you had you finished that degree (if it ever really WAS a work in progress to begin with). Do you ever want to kick yourself for choosing to chase tail halfway across the country instead of finishing your education?

And I know I dicked around with the idea of school for a while, only dabbling here and there, never really taking it seriously. But when I finally was ready to get serious about it, I honestly think you felt threatened at the idea of losing me someday. No, I'm not being cocky; I know I was never irreplaceable. What I do know is that I was the only employee who ever REALLY put up with your bullshit, and I think that the idea of losing the one person you could still snow terrified you, especially since the person you could snow held influence over the rest of the staff. ~~Baby mama~~ First Office Manager had left, second Office Manager was none too interested in her job, and you were seriously scoping me out for the role of Office Manager # 3. You must have thought the third time would be the charm. So I got serious and was ready to enroll in nursing school, and you panicked, because, for a self-proclaimed Chess player, you didn't have a clue what your next move was gonna be. So you started filling my head with all kinds of crap. Looking back on it now, I couldn't be more pissed off at myself for actually BUYING the crap you spewed, thereby continuing to work for you rather than going to school like I should have. Here are a couple of my favorite pieces of crap that you hurled to deter me from nursing school:

"You really should major in something related to what we do here, so that when you get your papers, you can continue to work here and I can justify giving my college-educated girl a HUGE pay raise."

(HAHAHAHAHA, because you could SO easily afford the $13.00/hour you were paying me! OF COURSE you'd be able to pay me more!)

"I know that someday you want to get married and raise a family, and I have to tell you, having been married to a nurse, that that is really hard to do when you are pulling 12-hour days. And I would expect nothing less of you than to be a 'stellar nurse.' And it would be incredibly hard to be a stellar nurse when you're also trying to be a stellar wife and a stellar mom. And I know you - I know you want to be a stellar wife and mom - which means your nursing career would suffer."

Now I gotta tell you honestly, that one made me think a bit. And it even still scares me a little to this very day. Because you are right - I absolutely do want to be a stellar wife and mom, but I'm not 100% sure that means that my career would have to suffer. I know lots of women who are spectacular nurses and fabulous wives and moms. And I am nowhere near the point of throwing mom, nurse and wife all into the blender at the same time, but let me tell you my thoughts on what will happen when I do: I will give 100% to my job when I am at work, and 100% to my family when I am at home. That's the best I can offer right now. Oh, that, and I won't be screwing the on-call surgeon, like your wife did. Hey buddy, it takes two to make or break a marriage. She might have cheated on you first (and I am not excusing or justifying anything) but I'm sure she had her reasons. As a matter of fact, you even incriminated yourself in that one. Once upon a time, you said that you knew that you had to be a great husband, a great father, and a great provider, you just didn't know that you had to be all three at the same time. There you go, dude. Again, I'm not siding with your ex, but you just explained her behavior right there. You told me yourself that men cannot multi-task. So you were a good daddy, and a good provider, but you were a lousy husband. Oops.

------------------

And so it is with the attitude of an angry idiot that I close this letter. This is where I tell you that I wish I wouldn't have listened to you for so long, because no matter what you think, you don't fucking know everything. This is where I tell you that just today, I went to a Nursing workshop at my school of choice to find out what I have to do to enroll in the program, and someday I WILL be a stellar nurse, a stellar wife, and a stellar mom - all three, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. This is where I tell you that I wish you would stop contacting me (I've told you that in person before, but you listen for shit). This is where I tell you, once again, that I want to move on with my life, and I really don't want you in it. This is where I tell you that you can't control me anymore.

Seriously, dude, go away.

--D

The realization hit a little too close to home.

2009-08-02T22:08:00.000-07:00

Eleven short weeks from today, I will be 26.

Twenty-six.

Holy hell... that is MUCH closer to thirty than twenty-five was.

Like most Californians have done this year, I'm going to go spend the day at Disneyland. Do they sell beer there? I might need one to cry in.

A kiss-off to craigslist

2009-08-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

Oh craigslist, you are lame.

I was introduced to you a couple of years ago when the ex-boss's daughter was roommate-hunting. You seemed like such a cool place: classified ads, job postings, discussion boards and more all rolled into one. You became a place where I posted job openings while working for the ex-boss, from which we hired three great employees. After I left that company, I turned to you again, this time as a job-seeker, and I found my next job. At that job, we continued to use you to post our job openings. We had a happy relationship, craigslist, you and me.

I don't know what has happened to you over the last year, but it seems you are no longer a legitimate place for a girl to find a job. Every job that I've applied to from your site - EVERY SINGLE ONE - has turned out to be linked to an e-mail address that either sends me spam, demands a copy of my credit report before proceeding with the application process, or turns out to be for a completely different job opening together. Just the other day I applied for an Administrative Assistant position, and got an e-mail back from the exact same address I had applied to congratulating me on having the most qualified resume for the Secret Shopper position that was currently open.

WTF, craigslist? WTF?

I no longer consider your site to be a credible and legitimate place to find a job. I will be wasting my time perusing your job board no longer. If I want a random hook-up, or a mystery roommate, or to sell some furniture, or to rant and rave on a discussion board, I might - might - visit your site again.

However, since I do not randomly hook-up, I still live at home with my mom, I don't have any furniture to sell, and I do all of my ranting and raving here on my blog, well, craigslist, it's unlikely I will be using your silly site anymore.

Toodles.

THAT pissed me the fuck off.

2009-07-31T14:55:00.000-07:00

I'm not a confrontational person, and I don't like debates. I think that just about anyone who knows me, knows that. From time to time, I struggle with my religious beliefs and my political leanings. It's just who I am - I'm a struggler. On occasion, I vent my political and religious frustrations on my blog. When I do, I like to think I'm always polite about it - I try not to directly point out that anyone is an idiot or any belief is stupid - in fact, I go out of my way to apologize in advance for offending anyone BEFORE I ever start my rant (see here and here for proof).

Some might say that that's a passive stance for me to take, but here's why I take it: our country was founded on the principle that we could each have the freedom to worship the way we wanted. It took a few hundred years, but eventually, everyone was given the right to vote. And because the country I know and love allows each and every individual person the right to worship and vote the way they damn well please, I figure, well, who am I to tell them how to do those things? That's why I take that stance.

That's also why it bugs the SHIT out of me when people who vote or worship a certain way try to sway me to believe in what they believe in. Ummm, no. By absolutely no stretch of the imagination do I believe that it is EVER okay to use abortion as a form of birth control, but that doesn't mean I think it should be illegal. I sit somewhere in the middle of the road between pro-life and pro-choice. I don't believe that abortion should be denied to a woman who has been raped, but I have a hard time not sitting in judgment of a woman who has an abortion just because she doesn't necessarily want to have a baby right now. But because I am not completely 100% pro-life, I personally was not going to vote for a presidential candidate who would have brought in a vice presidential candidate who would want to outlaw abortion. The same goes for religion. I don't necessarily believe that someone laying their hands on me and praying over me is going to cure what ails me, but I don't disrespect someone who does believe that. It's just that the belief is not for me.

Now remember, I was raised to believe and respect the idea that it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round. I guess that's also part of the reason I take my "passive" stance. It's kinda a "to each their own" thing. You believe what you want, I'll believe what I want, we won't try to change each other, and we'll all get along just fine.

That's why it bugged the crap out of me working with someone who, IMHO, was a religious nut. This former co-worker and I worked for the ex-boss together for about five years (she drove me crazy the entire time). She believes in laying hands, and she asked me many times to come to church with her so that her congregation could lay hands on me and pray over me and I would be healed of my migraines. She speaks in tongues. She feels compelled by the holy spirit to dance at any time, and believes that her daughter's future husband was revealed to her in a dream that she had when her daughter was four years old (her daughter is going to be 26 this year). I tried in as many ways as I could think of to steer our conversations away from religion without being rude. I didn't want to disrespect her beliefs, but they were a bit too extreme for me.

She never got the message, apparently, and today, she sent me an article via e-mail written by yet another religious nut explaining why the current health care reform bill is evil. And trust me, I'm not the only one who thinks this guy is crazy.

What pissed me off is not that I'm a liberal Democrat and that she is apparently some right-wing neo-con. What pissed me off was that she had the nerve to send me that religious crap knocking the health care reform our country so desperately needs. Not only knocking it - calling it evil.

She knows that I suffer from migraines and have found it nearly impossible to obtain my own health insurance.

She knows I'm a Democrat.

She knows I do not share her religious beliefs.

What the FUCK did she think she was doing?!

At the bottom of her message, after the article, she says, "Read this." (Read what? I'm at the end of the article already.) "When I read this I thought about your grandma and my parents. I had a friend who was given a vision that they want to get rid of older and sick people. When I told her about this she then told me about this vision that God gave her."

Um, lady? I'm sorry, but you are batshit crazy. And I am PISSED OFF that you send me this and DARE to try to guilt me into believing this shit by bringing your "concern" for my grandma into it.

Let me tell you something about my grandma. She doesn't believe in that kind of religious crap, either. And she voted for Hillary.

Spewing.

2009-07-30T16:44:00.000-07:00

O.M.F.G.

I am having the kind of week that could potentially allow me to dedicate yet another entire post to the ex-boss. I don't really want to do that. I am going to try not to do that. We shall see. Knowing me, I'll probably do it.

It has been 19 (count them, n.i.n.e.t.e.e.n.) very long months since I quit that job and the man still - STILL - texts, e-mails, and occasionally calls me at his leisure. Never mind the fact that I changed my number when I left. Never mind that he came to my house a couple of weeks after that and put a note on my car begging me for help. Never mind that I was stupid enough to answer the note and give him my new number (God, I'm such a fucking idiot). Never mind the fact that a year ago this month, I told him in no uncertain terms to never contact me again (I guess he thought I didn't really mean it). He's not a danger to me, so he doesn't really justify a restraining order. He's just a huge, huge, HUGE annoyance. For lack of a better word, he's clingy. This guy is seriously the two year old child that I don't have yet. Here's a (kinda long) story that explains just how two year old he was, and still is (and JUST HOW DYSFUNCTIONAL our working relationship was. Sharing this with the blogosphere will firmly cement my idiot status with the world, but I don't care. Explaining the way things were with the ex-boss explains a lot about why I am the way I am now). This is an excerpt from an old e-mail to a friend:

so anyway, among many other things, [old customer] and i talked about my "job title." in the last week or so, i have determined that my job title is now officially "babysitter." because that's all i do. [ex-boss] calls me at all hours of the day (and sometimes the night) and keeps me on the phone just to have someone to talk to. when he's at the office, he calls me into his office to talk to him (usually not about anything work related), or to watch him send e-mails, or to just sit there and make sure he keeps on breathing. it seriously is ridiculous how much time i waste during any given day just "being" with [ex-boss], if you know what i mean. it's totally unproductive time. and if i'm sitting in his office watching him e-mail (or breathe) and i start to think that maybe i could get up to go check my OWN e-mail or go breathe by myself for a minute or two and actually do something PRODUCTIVE, he goes all whiny-two-year-old on me:

"where are you going?"

"what are you doing?"

"why are you going to go do that right now?"

((and my personal favorite.... drumroll, please....................))

"don't leave me."

so the other day i was talking to [old co-worker] telling her about this whole babysitter thing and i used myself as an analogy. as a kid, and later a teenager, and now an adult, i was (and am!) pretty fuckin' independent. but as a baby, i was a total daddy's (and yes....even a mommy's) girl. if my parents were in the room, i had to be holding their hand. didn't matter what they were doing, or even what i was doing, i just had to be holding someone's hand, dammit.

so i was telling [old co-worker] that that's what [ex-boss] is like. he'd like to think that he's independent and can do a bunch of shit on his own like a big boy, but in the end, he's always gotta be holding mommy's hand (and for the record, NO, it does NOT give me pleasure to be "mommy," but [ex-boss] has said - more than once - that we spend more time together than most married couples.... sad, but true. so if i have to choose between being a wife in [ex-boss's] analogies, or being a mom in mine, i'd MUCH rather be a mom).

so we're talking about the whole job title thing, and i was telling [old customer] about the whole babysitter issue (which, in retrospect, i shouldn't have, but we talked about a BUNCH of other things that i don't have time to elaborate on here).... and i used the mommy analogy. and [old customer], god bless him, scraps the mommy analogy and says, "you know what you are?"

and i ask: "what?"

and he says: "awwwwwww....... you're [ex-boss's] blankie!!!!"

There you go. That was long, and maybe I shouldn't have shared all that information, but basically, I spent the seven years I worked at that company being my ex-boss's security blanket. And if you count the year and a half since I QUIT that job, bearing in mind that he still contacts me to this day, then really, I've spent eight and a half years being his blankie.

Good gawd.

So, every once in a while, he text messages me. Occasionally, he'll e-mail. Once in a blue moon, he calls. It's just his little inner two year old, feeling insecure, sitting around sucking his thumb and reaching out to make sure Mommy is still in close enough range to come running when the world gets to be too hard to handle. I know this. I know this. I KNOW THIS - and for some reason, I just can't bring myself to tell this guy to go fuck off and find another mommy.

Last Saturday he texted me and asked me if I still checked my e-mail on a daily basis (duh). There was the baby, making sure his mommy was still right there.

I heard absolutely nothing for almost a week. I spent that week wondering each day, am I going to hear from him? What does he want? And then I was pissed. Why the fuck was I walking on pins and needles wondering if he was going to ruin my day with an e-mail? How DARE he monopolize my time by asking if I check my e-mail every day - why couldn't he just say, "I'm going to e-mail you on Monday." No. 'Cause he's a control freak like that.

Nearly a week of silence, and today, the e-mail came.

Now, just a wee bit of background on my old job: the company set appointments for insurance agents. We were lead generators. There ya go. That's what we did.

But Mr. Ex-Boss thought that HE invented the lead generation process. And that HIS company was the ONLY lead-generating, appointment-setting marketing company for insurance agents around. And then he discovered that he didn't, and it wasn't, and he was slightly amused at the fact that there were competitors out there. And when THEY also generated leads similar to the ones his company cranked out, he stuck out his chest and proclaimed: "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." But after a while, there were a LOT of other lead generation companies, and their products all started to resemble his, or so he claimed. I guess he never thought that HE wasn't the first one to the party, and maybe HIS product resembled some of theirs.

So the e-mail came today, and it was an example of a competitor's lead. And I looked at it, and I thought to myself, "I really don't know why he's sending this to me."

And then I thought for another minute and I realized, "I know EXACTLY why he's sending this to me."

He sent it to me because he wanted me to look at it and connect the dots that the information provided on that competitor's lead was similar to the information that we used to provide - actually, there was LESS information on the lead than what we used to provide. He wanted me to see how much MORE the competitor was charging for the lead than what we used to charge for our more comprehensive leads. He wanted me to realize that that company was selling LESS of a lead for MORE money, and he wanted me to contact him somehow (phone, e-mail, text, whatever) and tell him that he should do the same. Tell him that LESS is worth MORE. That's what he wanted. He wanted consolation that even though someone "took" his process, improved upon it AND charged more money for it, that he could just as easily get the ball back in his court by doing the same. He wanted reassurance. He wanted encouragement.

The girl that worked for him for seven years would have busted out the security blanket and given him the consolation, reassurance and encouragement he was seeking.

The girl that doesn't work for him anymore doesn't give a fucking rat's ass what the competitor is doing.

She did not call, text or e-mail to tell him that everything would be okay. And she's not going to.

She WANTS to call or e-mail and tell him that he's a fucktard. That his financial irresponsibility and his inability to own up to his gambling addiction caused HER financial harm and ruined HER credit (not to mention the other employees that were also affected). She wants to tell him that he promised to keep her insured on the health policy (she has it in writing!), even though she knew both in her heart and her head that he really wouldn't - and because she knew that, all she asked for was a heads-up as to when exactly she would lose her insurance. And she didn't get that. In fact, what she got was a RETROACTIVE insurance cancellation that fucked her over and sent her into a spiral of shit that her new insurance company wouldn't cover because her ex-boss fucked with her old insurance. She wants to tell him about all the times she covered for him with the old employees - "I don't know where he is" - or - "Your paycheck should be good in a day or two", about her friendships that were damaged BECAUSE she covered his ass, about how her mother didn't always believe she was honestly WORKING when she would be at the office late at night simply because he fucked the former Office Manager and got her pregnant, and her mother worried the same thing would happen to her (ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww). She wants to tell him to STOP USING HER AS A MOMMY, AS A BLANKIE, AS A "FRIEND." She considers herself to be none of those, not anymore.

But she can't. The best she can do is blog about it. Because at the end of the day, she still has a heart, and she feels bad for the man who lost his home and his office and his livelihood, even if it was the result of his own illness, his own addiction.

The sad part is that if he does call her and ask for help, she will probably oblige him. Because he knows all the right buttons to push with her. She hates him for the control he still has over her. But even more, she hates herself for being weak enough to still allow him to control her.

She also thinks she's a dumbass for spending a good part of this post referring to herself in the third person.

And she's also PISSED that once again, she devoted another entire blog post to someone who doesn't deserve a moment of her thoughts.

Rants and raves.

2009-07-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

Sigh.

I lost my job on June 15, and haven't really felt much like writing since. I haven't really felt like doing much of anything since, but I digress. Even if I had written previously, they would have just been posts of boo, hiss, and poor me, much like this post will probably be. Despite looking for work nearly every day since being laid off, I have yet to find a new job. I've even applied to a couple of temp agencies, who, normally, find your resume on careerbuilder or monster when you don't want to work for a temp agency, and then proceed to callcallcallcallcallcallcallcallcall you until you cave and come in for an interview.

I haven't heard "boo" from the temp agencies.

On one hand, due to the state of the economy, I guess I didn't really expect to find a job within a month of being laid off. On the other, being unemployed for an extended period of time terrifies me.

The one constant in my life, the ex-boss, is still making his presence known, over a year and a half after I walked out on that job. E-mails and texts continue to come. I think he really believes that I consider him a friend. The man is clueless, and for reasons unknown to me, I don't have the guts to tell him what I really think of him, even though anger boils up in me at the mere sight of his name in my inbox.

The thing about being laid off from my job was that even though I expected it, I was still surprised when it actually happened. And I was hurt when they let me go instead of the office assistant, whom I had seniority over. Economically speaking, though, I made $3.00 more per hour than she did, and I guess seniority meant nothing when $24.00 per day was on the line. It was a completely different ballgame to be let go than it was to be the one leaving. When I quit my previous job, even though the ex-boss never really left me alone, I still felt liberated. I felt like I left on my own terms and like I had done something good for my health and my sanity.

As much as I hate to say it, the truth is that being let go was a huge blow to the ego. After all, there is nothing more edifying than finding out that you're absolutely indispensable. I mean, I always knew I was indispensable, but I never wanted anyone to prove it to me.

And now I'm blabbering.

There was more that I wanted to talk about tonight, but I'm tired... more to come later - maybe.

I'll be able to blog again soon, I hope...

2009-07-14T21:26:00.001-07:00

Been kinda at a loss for words lately... being unemployed sucks.

And no, I am not in eternal mourning for MJ, and I don't even like John Mayer... but this is my favorite MJ song of all time, and this performance gives me chills.

RIP

2009-06-25T22:03:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson |MTV Music

OMG... haha

2009-06-18T12:41:00.001-07:00

see more Lol Celebs

Seriously, you're a real winner.

2009-06-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

Dear Ex-Boss,

Let me tell you something honestly: the day I stop feeling the need to write these letters to you will be one of the happiest days of my life. Yes, I realize how pathetic that sounds, considering that there should be several "one of the happiest days of my life," and none of them should include you. You need to let go. Honestly.

I have to say, before I get to the real reason for this letter, that I have appreciated the many texts you've sent over the last two months letting me know that you have been praying for my grandma. So, for that, thank you.

But I also have to say, that if you WERE NOT contacting me, as I have requested of you more than once, then you wouldn't have even known about my grandma. For that, good grief, please clean the wax out of your ears and listen to me. I don't want to be your friend. I don't want you contacting me. Please leave me alone. Please.

The real reason for my letter is this - a final response to a conversation you and I had, oh, maybe about three or four years ago. You, bewildered that I would go out for drinks with my co-workers, or catch movies with them on a Saturday after work, or get together with them for group dinners, or hit the batting cages (where we pictured your face on more than a couple of baseballs), asked me, in what I now know was either a fit of jealousy or a moment of loneliness:

"Why do you cling to your co-workers? Don't you have any real friends?"

At that exact moment in time, I was shocked. How dare you ask me that? All I could manage to say in my own defense at that moment (not that I really needed to defend myself), was a whiny: "Of course I have REAL friends!"

At the time, I was mad at you for asking me that. It felt like a personal attack. It felt like you were telling me that you thought I DIDN'T have any real friends outside of work. I don't even know why your opinion mattered to me - God knows it shouldn't have - but it did. All these years later, I can look back and see what a lonely man you were then. I believe you still are that same lonely man. I will never forget how you cried to me over President's Day weekend last year because you didn't have an office to go to. It was President's Day weekend, for shit's sake. You should have been with your girlfriend, or your kids, or even at the casino (I shudder to think I just offered that as a viable alternative). But no, not you. You were upset about not having a place to go work. Or was it that you were upset that you didn't have a place to go hide from the world?

I look back on your questions to me now - "Why do you cling to your co-workers?" "Don't you have any real friends?" - and I can answer them with a calmer, more adult, less defensive perspective than I did on that day that you caught me so off guard.

Question 1: "Why do you cling to your co-workers?"
Well, in case you never noticed, we clung to each other. None of us were officially full-time employees, yet the majority of us worked full-time hours, or damn close to it. The fact that many of us were students in addition to working for you, meant that between the hours we spent at work or school, we often spent more time together as co-workers than we did with our significant others or our "real friends." And so we all became acquaintances.

Of course, we did have another thing in common - you. You could be a tyrant. You could be a self-centered, egotistical jerk. You could make any single one of us cry at any given moment for no particular reason at all. We had to vent to someone, and we couldn't necessarily wait until the end of the workday to go home to our spouses or out for drinks with our "real friends" to do it. We'd see one of our co-workers go into your office, you'd shut the door and bitch them out, they'd come out of the office crying, you'd leave, and one or two of us would think, "Okay, we need to grab our crying co-worker and go for a walk." And we would. Or, you'd hold one of your ridiculous three hour meetings, chew us all out and tell us how worthless we all were, and then you'd leave, and, angry, we'd all remain around the conference table and bitch about you after you were gone. The venting helped us all. Being able to have someone to talk to made work more tolerable. And when we all realized how helpful we were to each other, we moved past being acquaintances and became friends.

There were many times over the years that you put me in positions as a manager that threatened my friendships with the girls. I realize that in the real world, for a real job, of course a manager has to do what's right for the company, and sometimes that might mean a friendship is damaged. But, the way you gambled away our paychecks, the way you made us feel worthless, the way you could make us cry - you were delusional to think that any of us would damage our friendships for YOU.

The girls all wised up and started quitting their jobs. I was, as always, the last one standing, and I have to tell you that even though you might not think it's true, I did defend you enough to the point that it did damage my relationships with the girls. Luckily, after I finally left the company too, we were all able to get together and have honest conversations and repair our broken relationships, and I am so glad for that, because it leads me into the answer for Question 2.

Question 2: "Don't you have any real friends?"
You bet I have real friends, and I vented to them more than I did to my co-workers. And they all wanted to give you a piece of their mind for the way you treated me, and for the way you ruined my financial credibility with your bad paychecks, but I asked them to stay out of the situation. I may not have a lot of friends, but there are a few people with whom I am extremely close, and for me, those few close friendships mean more than having a ton of acquaintances. And now, years after my former co-workers severed their ties with you (something I'm still trying to do), I am blessed to count the core group of those co-workers among my closest friends. They are truly amazing women, and we all have great relationships with each other.

Back in the day, you used to claim that our company was a "family," and you dreamed of being involved in (or at least invited to) certain events that took place in our lives, such as graduations or weddings, the way that true family members would be. Well, let me tell you something, buddy... that core group of co-workers IS a family, and you are not included. Let me tell you what's going on just this month, and this month alone:

* One of the girls is graduating from college next weekend. We're all going to the ceremony, and to her party afterward.

* One of the girls is turning 50 and her daughters are throwing her a birthday party next weekend. We're all going to that, too.

* One of the girls sons is becoming an Eagle Scout and will be honored at a dinner ceremony the week after next. At least a couple of us are going to that one.

And we will continue to have college graduations, and weddings, and babies, and birthday parties, and Eagle Scout ceremonies as the years progress. And we will all be there for each other. Because that is what friends who have become family do for each other.

Know who'll be missing from all of our "family events?"

You.

Isn't that interesting?

So I guess I just have two questions for you.

# 1 -- Why did you cling to your employees so much? (And specifically, why are you still clinging to me?)

-and-

# 2 -- Don't you have any REAL friends?

Just wondering.

-- D

I'm not sure what I believe.

2009-06-05T20:06:00.000-07:00

I have struggled with my faith for a long time. I was raised Catholic, but as I got older, I found that what I believed for myself didn't line up with what the church was trying to teach me. I watched my devout Catholic mother struggle through a bitter divorce and subsequently feel shunned by the church she had called home for over 30 years, because the Catholic church does not believe in/condone divorce unless the marriage can be proven to never have existed. In my mom's case, this would have translated to an annulment, which would not have been possible because she had children from the marriage. Among other things, I was baffled by the church's staunch position that only Catholics can receive Communion (if Communion = the body of Christ, why can't all who believe in Christ take Communion?)... I was thinking far far ahead, and realizing I didn't want the church to tell me how to name my future child(ren) - the Catholic church requires you give your child at least one name of a saint in order for the child to be baptized into the church... I was disgusted by all of the claims of child molestation within the church... I didn't understand why Catholicism made it mandatory to confess your sins before a priest, when other Christian denominations believe the only person you need to confess your sins to is God Himself. And personally, I took issue with the church I was raised in, when they "borrowed" (riiiight) money from their school to build a multi-million dollar sanctuary.

** I have to stop for a minute here and let everyone reading this know that this is not a "bashing" post. I respect that our country offers us the freedom of choice when it comes to religion, and I am in no way making fun of, condemning, or intending to offend ANYONE of ANY religion. From time to time I use my blog to vent my own frustrations and/or confusion, and this is one of those times. **

As a teenager, I was a professional "church hopper." I attended various churches with several friends, some family members, and often by myself. Although there was a part of me deep inside that wanted to find a place that I "belonged," I never felt like I really found that place (actually, I believe that there probably still is a part of me deep inside looking for that sense of "belonging," that's probably why I'm writing this post). I continued to pray on my own, to read the Bible occasionally, but I strayed from attending/committing myself to a church.

Over the years I have struggled with many questions that I'm sure a lot of people struggle with. If God is good, why are there wars, why do people suffer and die too young, why do bad things happen to good people? Theoretically, if God knows the exact number of hairs on my head, if he has the power to work a miracle through me, heaven forbid, if I get cancer and God has the power to heal me and he doesn't, well, why didn't he? It becomes difficult to attend church and always hear how "good" God was when sometimes it can seem like the world is crumbling down around you.

Then, of course, there's the issue of who we are and how we got here. If humans evolved from monkeys, what did Adam and Eve have to do with any of that? God may very well have created the world in seven days, but what about the Big Bang Theory? Darwin's Theory of Evolution? Creationism?

I ask these questions not because I am being facetious, or wanting to start a war of words, or wanting to challenge anyone. I honestly just want answers. I want explanations. I'm not picky - I'll take whatever anyone has to offer. I'm willing to listen. I'm open to all opinions, explanations, quotations, facts, and whatever else you can throw at me. And here's part of the reason why:

When my Grandma was in the hospital for those eight long weeks, I prayed. I prayed hard. I prayed more than I had in a very long time. Because of how much I've struggled with my faith, I wasn't quite sure whom it was that I was praying to, and if it was God, was He listening, or was He thinking I was a hypocrite, only calling on Him when I so desperately needed Him?

Maybe He listened and laid His hand on my grandma. Maybe He didn't. I honestly have no way of knowing.

What I do know is that Grandma had multitudes of people praying for her. Friends of hers had intercessory masses read on her behalf. Our family prayed. We asked our friends to pray. They asked their friends to pray. Grandma's friends and their friends prayed. I even got several text messages from my ex-boss letting me know that he was praying for my grandma.

My great-aunt (Grandma's sister) asked the pastor of her church to visit Grandma in the hospital, and he did, several times. Grandma always seemed to be okay with Pastor Roy, however, there was one incident in the ICU where a chaplain from the hospital came to pray over Grandma. She wasn't having a particularly stellar day, and considering that she was on a ventilator, a catheter, a feeding tube, she had a central line in her neck and a PICC line in her arm, and she had about 9 different IV bags pumping various medications and fluids into her body, I think she thought that hospital chaplain was there to give her her last rites. She flipped out - as much as a person can possibly flip out when they are tethered to a bed by wires and tubes and IV lines and a ventilator. She couldn't speak, but it was perfectly clear that she was beyond upset. The chaplain left and did not return for the rest of Grandma's stay at RCH. Pastor Roy continued to visit, and Grandma continued to tolerate his visits, but that was it. We continued to pray. I can't speak for the rest of my family or friends, but for me, it didn't bring much comfort to pray. However, it didn't seem like there was anything else that was appropriate for me to do either, aside from telling Grandma how very proud I was of her and how much I loved her, and begging her to keep up the fight for her life, which I did every single day she was in that ICU. Even now, I still tell her how proud she makes me and how much I love her (THIS MUCH, Grandma, in case you were wondering). She's truly amazing.

In the hospital, the night before Grandma was released to go home, after eight long weeks of ICU, step-down unit, telemetry unit, nursing home, and telemetry unit again, we had a heartfelt conversation, just the two of us. She told me that she felt bad because my great-aunt's pastor had been at the hospital the previous day, and she had finally told him thank you for being at the hospital, thank you for praying, but please don't come anymore. She said she felt like both my great-aunt and her pastor were possibly expecting her to come home from the hospital and join the church; something she had no intention of doing. It's not that she doesn't believe in God, it's just that she, like me, isn't quite sure what she believes. She questions the relevance (and actually leans closer to accepting) Darwin's Theory of Evolution. She says it seems more credible to her than believing that the world and mankind were born in seven days. I can't disrespect her for that belief, and honestly, where I'm at right now, I can't disagree with her, either.

In a nutshell, she has a good idea of how many people prayed for her over those eight weeks, but she's not entirely sure it's God that saved her life. We talked about this for quite a while that night. There's a part of me that hates to say this, but I'm not entirely sure it's God that saved her life, either. I believe modern medicine is a wonderful thing, and I know that there were a couple of very powerful drugs that were administered at just the right moment that literally brought my sweet grandma back from the brink of death - no lie. I believe that my grandma is a strong woman who wanted to live and did her part in fighting hard to survive everything she went through. And I'm not saying that our family healed her, but I believe that love is a powerful thing, and I think it's possible that in some of her weakest moments, she may have drawn strength from the fact that we were all there fighting with her, and that she pressed on because love IS powerful and she wasn't ready to give that love and those familial bonds up yet.

So there it is... my confusion, my frustration, my awe and my wonder, all laid on the line for your assessment. If you choose to comment, please be gentle - remember, I am not sitting in judgment of anyone else for what they believe, I am just trying to gain a better understanding of what it is that I believe. Input is welcome, but please be civil - I've tried to be.

Thank you.

"Pull the dwain, I'm dwowning."

2009-06-04T15:47:00.000-07:00

You know how the knock-knock joke goes, I'm sure.

That's how it feels at work right now... Like we're just circling the ~~dwain~~ drain.

It sucks.

That's all.

I LOL'ed.

2009-05-31T20:52:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, Always, the feminine products company, came up with a new slogan.

Have a happy period.

WTF?!

For reasons too gory to divulge to the blog world, I wasn't even HAVING periods at that time (God bless Lupron), but I remembered from periods past that they definitely were not anything to be happy about. Not long after the new slogan was born, a woman by the name of Wendi Aarons wrote what was quite possibly the best kiss-off letter EVER, and she wrote it straight to the Brand Manager of Procter & Gamble, parent company of Always.

I got a good laugh out of that letter for a very long time.

And then, this week, Crystal made me bust a gut (and a pad - I'm no longer on Lupron) with a kiss-off letter of her very own. (And Crystal, for the record, I have an 8th grade period story that could rival yours... never mind having to tie a jacket around your waist... try walking down to the nurses office from the top of the campus with red legs and red shoes, and nothing to hide them with. Oh, the horror.)

I laughed my ass off. I can SO relate. Go read, seriously. You'll laugh your ass off, too.

And now I'm home.

2009-05-29T14:04:00.000-07:00

I've thought long and hard about posting this. Blogs are public and I never know if, when or how my family or friends that don't already know about my blog will stumble across it.

But it's my blog, and it contains the morsels of things that happen in my life. If it offends anyone, I am truly sorry. And if you just don't like it? Tough shit. I've already posted some of the details from Grandma's time in the hospital. Now that she's home, and life is (much) better, I thought I'd share some more.

On Tuesday, I got home from a little over a week of ~~Grandma-sitting~~ ~~taking care of Grandma~~ cooking for, cleaning for, and playing games with the coolest, sweetest, most badass Grandma in the world, while supervising a shower or two and helping her up out of some chairs on a couple of occasions. Considering everything she's been through in the eight weeks that led up to her coming home, she is doing AWESOME, even if she did still need a bit of help with the day-to-day stuff. The only bummer for her is that she had to bring her oxygen home, so she's not completely free yet, but hopefully she will be soon.

Considering that the majority of what I saw for the eight weeks she spent in the hospital and nursing home was a basically bedridden Grandma, save for the two times I saw her walk from her bed to the door and back and maybe a bathroom trip or two, I have to admit that I was (pleasantly) surprised to see how mobile she was. Despite still needing a walker to get around, she's everywhere, and she's truly doing great. So why was I having such a hard time with the whole "Grandma being home" thing?

I'm not a mother (yet). But I have strong maternal instinct. It kicked in in a big way this week. And it took me all the way from having a needy newborn to an independent adult.

Right now, Grandma's receiving her oxygen through a concentrator. It's a relatively small machine that packs a rather large punch, and, contrary to popular belief, it is NOT "virtually silent." The fact that the machine was stationed right outside my bedroom door made it more than a little hard to sleep at night for a couple of reasons. One, it's loud! Two, it's so loud, it masked the (normally VERY loud) sound of Grandma's snores. And three (I didn't really put my finger on this until my second-to-last night there, but this was the kicker), it makes inhaling and exhaling sounds not unlike the ventilator Grandma was on for over three weeks. No wonder I couldn't sleep at night.

The first couple of nights, I didn't make the connection of the similar sounds between the concentrator and the ventilator - I just thought, "I can't hear Grandma snore," which translated in my head to "She must not be breathing," which flipped the switch on my childless, yet still existent, maternal instinct, willed my body out of bed and down the pitch-black hall (please don't let me startle the dogs and make them bark) to check on Grandma several times a night, who was always sound asleep and breathing just fine.

Or the showers. Grandma, securely on a shower chair, doing her own thing, and me, just a few feet away in the bedroom, trying to watch "Jeopardy!" A crash in the bathroom, and I'm on my feet. I know she didn't fall; the crash wasn't nearly loud enough for that - but still... I can't help but call out: "Are you all right?!" She's fine... just dropped the shampoo bottle.

Or the morning she decided she had had it with the way her nails were looking and she wanted a manicure. No problem, we'll just hop in the car and go get our nails done. Sure, we'll hop in the car... after we turn off the home concentrator, turn on the portable oxygen, make sure we have both her purse and mine, amble out to the car with a portable oxygen tank and a walker, get Grandma situated in the passenger seat of her own car (strange, yes), fold up the walker and put it in the back, and secure the oxygen in the back seat. Close the door, get to the nail salon, get Grandma and all her attachments out of the car, load them back up when it's time to go home, unload them again when we get back home... Wow. It's not exactly a fair comparison, but it's the best one I can draw: this must be what it's like to have a baby. Stroller, diaper bag, car seat, etc. Load, unload, load, unload, repeat, repeat, repeat. No wonder new moms are tired.

As the week went on, I think Grandma got tired of my cooking (I'm not the world's worst, but I'm not Grandma either. No one -- I repeat, NO ONE -- cooks like Grandma). She started cooking for us both. She started walking down to the mailbox to get her mail. She started (politely) refusing my help with small tasks. From somewhere deep inside came an odd thought: My baby's growing up. She admitted to having trouble sleeping at night, but I stopped feeling the urge to get up and check on her all the time. Life went on.

She joked from time to time as I cleaned house and cooked dinners and waited on her hand and foot that I was her slave. I think it was an easier pill to swallow than admitting that one of her grandbabies was there to keep an eye on her.

And then one day, she said to me: "I think you can plan on going home on Tuesday. I sure have appreciated your help, but I think it's time for me to start fending for myself."

On the outside, I smiled and said, "Okay."

Inside, my heart sank, and I thought: OMFG. What if she falls? What if she burns herself cooking? What if she can't get out of her chair? What if she tries to drive before she's ready and something happens?

Each day she playfully reminded me that, as her slave, I was one day closer to freedom. And each time she reminded me, if she followed the reminder with asking for something, I'd wink and tell her to go get it herself. We simultaneously cut our apron strings.

The day before I went home, one of my Grandma's former bosses, who is now a dear family friend, called Grandma to see how she was doing. And before she ended the conversation with Grandma, she asked to talk to me. She told me what a great sign it was that Grandma was wanting to do more for herself, which I knew, but then she said, "It's hard, isn't it? You've had a taste of what it's like to be a parent this week, and now your grandma is claiming her independence. She doesn't need you now as much as she did before."

It IS hard. So hard. And while I want to be happy that she's getting better, I can't help but worry that she's not better enough. I don't really feel like she's ready for me to go home yet.

I left Tuesday morning with the understanding that Grandma would call me if she needed anything. Granted, I'm not the only family member - but my dad just had hernia surgery, which eliminates him from the lifting-Grandma-from-chairs game, and my stepmom just had brain surgery. My aunt lives out of state, though she was here twice while Grandma was in the hospital, and then again for a week when Grandma first came home, and I am the only female grandchild living in the state of California, which pretty much leaves me as the only option until my dad and stepmom recover, and even then, I doubt Grandma will want her son or her daughter-in-law assisting with shower duty if the need arises.

But I've been in contact with her every day, and so far she's doing quite well on her own (she even drove today, which scared the crap out of me, but she said her sister was along for the ride, and she did fine). She is an amazing woman and I am so proud of how far she has come and the progress she continues to make. These last couple of months have been beyond frightening, but at the same time, they have brought me closer to her in a way I couldn't have imagined. I am so lucky to have her, so grateful that she is doing so well, and so thankful for the time we've had together.

Home

2009-05-12T15:11:00.000-07:00

After eight long weeks of hospital, nursing home, and hospital again, Grandma is FINALLY headed home today. I am so happy/excited for her! And selfishly, I can't help but be a little happy for myself... driving to Redlands every day was exhausting (I can't wait to go home from work -- yes, I am blogging at work -- and take a nice long nap). My aunt is here from Utah this week to help Grandma adjust to being back home, and next week I start the "night shift." ;) It'll be a long daily commute again, but Grandma is more than worth it. I am so grateful for how far she has come.

Welcome home, lady. May you sleep soundly tonight in your very own bed.
P.S. I love you more ♥

Tuesday

2009-04-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

Can't think of anything more original for a post title, so there it is... today is Tuesday. Whoopee.

Grandma came off of the ventilator on Sunday the 5th, and was released from the hospital last Tuesday. She's not strong enough to go home yet, so she has been in a nursing home for the last week, where she is rehabbing and will continue to stay there until she can walk well enough and be able to take care of herself sufficiently to go home. In many ways, it's such a relief that she's out of the hospital - that she has survived the worst of the staph (though she will always carry a little bit of staph in her system), that she has come off the ventilator, that she can talk and that I can hug her without a mass of tubes and wires and machines in my way (two of my biggest wishes), that she truly is the survivor we all believed her to be.

Yet, in some small ways, it is harder to go visit her in the nursing home than it ever was to see her in any of the 4 different care units she spent time in while in the hospital - yes, even ICU. ICU was undoubtedly the scariest place she was - it was the place where we prayed the most and cried the most tears; but it was a place where she healed... where she slept, where she was kept comfortable, where she was given the medication that "saved her day" according to the Charge Nurse, where she came to breathe on her own again, where she stood up for the first time after 3 weeks of being in bed and took her first 3 steps.

The nursing home is.... well, it's a nursing home, I guess. It's depressing. It smells like... well, I'll leave that to your imagination. It's dingy and the carpet is stained and the nurses look tired and there's only one chair on Grandma's side of the room and it just... doesn't feel like a place that Grandma should be. But she is recovering there. She is walking more on her own. She is gaining some more independence. I sure hope she can come home soon.

On Easter Sunday I got a text message from the ex-boss. I was a little surprised, to say the least, but I don't really know why. The guy will never truly be out of my life, and I guess I should resign myself to that fact. So I proved I had no inner strength, no resolve, and I dignified his text message with a return phone call. And, he caught me in a weak moment (I was just leaving the hospital, which was always hard, no matter how good the visit was, and this leaving was made no easier by the fact that it was Easter Sunday and my grandma had to stay at the hospital...) and he made some pathetic little plea for help, and suddenly I was driving from Redlands to Anaheim to meet with someone I had no desire to see to fix something I had no desire to fix... and I spent about two hours with the guy. I was disgusted with myself. My mom called while I was meeting with him, and, knowing she would have been beyond pissed if she knew where I really was, I pretended to still be at the hospital. As I left that night, he said, "Hey, you know, you don't have to be so unfriendly. You can call or text every once in a while just to say, 'Hey Asshole, how's it going?'" Huh. If the guy knows I would refer to him as an asshole, why does he wonder why I don't contact him anymore, and why I hate it when he contacts me? And why don't I have more resolve to say "NO," or better yet, to ignore him?

This has been one of the longest weeks ever... somehow I got a nasty tooth infection... spent last Wednesday at the dentist, last Thursday in the ER, last Friday at the dentist, and yesterday at the dentist. And I haven't even had my root canal yet. All I can say so far is... Vicodin is goooood (especially when combined with Ativan, so I don't feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin). I have missed a week of work, which... oh well. But I've also missed a week of Grandma :( I can't wait to get back out there and see her again.

Where I've been for the last three weeks... and some funny stuff

2009-04-05T08:53:00.000-07:00

I've been here:

clinging to Grandma every day for the last three weeks (with the exception of a couple days this week, because my dad and I started rotating days). I can't believe how sick she is. She contracted a staph infection somehow (I don't think we'll ever really know how she got it), and by the time that they discovered what it was and got her into surgery to try to flush the infection out, it had turned into sepsis, meaning that the infection had gone to her bloodstream and was starting to affect her major organs.

It's been almost impossible to focus at work during this time. As soon as 4:00 rolls around, I'm out the door and on my way to Redlands. Many nights, I don't get home until 10:00 or later. Unfortunately, due to the economy, I got my hours cut to the tune of one full workday a week. Right now I don't even care. It's one more full day a week I get to spend with Grandma.

She was admitted on March 15, and had surgery on March 17. She came out of surgery unable to breathe on her own and has been in ICU on a ventilator ever since. The first day post-surgery, she was alert and communicating with us by writing on a dry erase board. The next day, she was unresponsive and going downhill fast. The ICU doctor started a central line to give them more access to monitor her blood pressure as well as another way to get fluids and meds into her body. Her primary care doctor warned us that she "might not make it." I honestly think that was the worst day of my life - I can't remember ever crying for anything the way I sobbed at that news. My grandma and I are super close... and I know she's 76 and she's not going to be around forever, but selfishly, I can't imagine my life without her and I'm sure as heck not ready to lose her now. I don't think I've prayed as much over the last three years as I have in the last three weeks. I hope God doesn't think I'm a hypocrite or a fake or something. Luckily for me, just in case I am that transparent to God, Grandma has a ton of other people lifting prayers up on her behalf.

The doctors promised us a roller coaster ride, and they sure have delivered. For every good day Grandma has, it seems at least one or two not-so-good days follow. She's finally starting to come around a bit more, and although she is very tired, she's beginning to grasp the concept of time again and her short-term memory is starting to kick back in. The other day she asked me how long she had been in the hospital. At that point, it had been 18 days, and I was honest with her, but I was afraid of how she would react to that news. She did okay. Then, for the first time in those 18 days, she asked to see a mirror. I was terrified to give it to her. I know, because I've seen, how far she's come over those 18 days. I know how much better she looks. But she doesn't have any idea how she's looked, or what to think of what she'll see when she looks in the mirror. This is the first time she's seeing herself since her surgery, and it could really freak her out. I hold the mirror in front of her face and wait, expecting her to take a quick glance and push the mirror away. Bless her heart, she's all bruises and tubes and wires and ventilator, and she takes that mirror from my hands and slowly examines her face, and then moves on to her neck, arms, shoulders and chest... and what she notices more than anything else is that her hair is a mess. She makes eye contact with me and gestures like she's brushing her hair. Okay Grandma... you just saw yourself in the mirror for the first time in 18 days and all you want is your hair brushed?! I can SO do that.

She's faced a lot of obstacles over these last three weeks but she is strong, so strong. She has beat so many incredible odds in her life, and she will beat this too. Right now she can breathe on her own for small stretches throughout the day, but not enough for them to completely take her off the ventilator. Tuesday will mark three weeks that she's been on the ventilator, and they need to get that tube out of her throat before it damages her vocal cords. If she can't breathe on her own full-time without the ventilator by then, they'll start a tracheotomy. God, PLEASE help her to breathe on her own before then. Three weeks on a ventilator is enough -- she doesn't need the trauma of any more tubes anywhere NEAR her mouth/throat.

This has been such a hard time, but all the same, I have treasured every minute I've gotten to spend with her. And when she squeezes my hand, or, on rare occasions, is propped up enough that I can reach past all the tubes and wires to hug her, it makes everything worthwhile. I sure hope she gets to get out of that ICU soon. Don't get me wrong, everyone - EVERYONE - from the nurses to the physical therapists to the doctors to the social worker has been amazing (our whole entire family can't say enough about the awesome staff at Redlands Community)... but Grandma needs to get out of the hospital, already. Three weeks is a bummer.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

On a lighter note, Crystal posted about this site one day, and it was so funny (and shocking... and sad...) that I had to share. Here are some snippets from fmylife.com.

Today, I was driving on the freeway when I saw a car in front of me swerving across 3 lanes of traffic. Thinking he might be drunk, I dialed 911 on my phone, but I dropped it. I fished under my seat to get it, swerving, and got pulled over by highway patrol and given a field sobriety test.

Today, I thought I heard my little sister playing on my brand new grand piano. Angry, I ran downstairs to stop her. My parents were having sex. On my piano.

Today, my siblings came home for the weekend. At dinner, my dad started complaining at how one of my siblings had gotten fired, one was failing collage, and the other was gay. He went on to say I was 17 and already had a bright future. I'm pregnant.

Today, I saw an elderly man fall in a crosswalk, so I jumped off my bike to help. As I helped him across, the light turned green. At that point I noticed my phone had fallen out of my pocket in the street and was run over by several cars. I then watched across a 6 lane street as someone stole my bike.

Today, I had to make a family tree for one of my classes. When I was going through it, I realized that both my parents have the same last name. So, I asked them about it and they told me that they are second cousins.

Ah, the jewels you find whilst blog-stalking...

2009-03-08T22:33:00.000-07:00

I don't remember how exactly I came across Crystal's blog, but the week I found it happened to be the week that she was on vacation. Apparently, she was such a popular writer that a few days of hiatus just would not be acceptable, so she had some guest writers popping in and posting in her absence. I gotta admit, that seemed a little... cocky... to me. I was new to the blog world and didn't see why she just couldn't shut down for a few days. Now that I've been religiously checking her blog for new posts every day, I see why. The girl is freakin' gifted. She makes me laugh so hard I cry. Her writing style is incredible. When she doesn't post for a few days, I get antsy. When I see that she has posted, I drop what I'm doing and go read.

The day I found Crystal's blog was the day that Ambulance Driver was the guest blogger. I got hooked by his writing style, too, and when Crystal returned from her vacation, I was stoked that I now had TWO new, often funny, thought-provoking blogs to stalk - er - read.

Over the last several months, both Crystal and AD have given me many a good laugh. Crystal paints a painfully honest portrait of motherhood, and AD shows paramedics in a way I don't think I would have ever seen them without his blog. I can't explain it, and it probably sounds a bit strange, but these two people whom I have never met in person can completely make my day with their words.

And so it's no surprise that AD delivered yet again this week. But this time it wasn't a work story, it wasn't a story of meeting blogosphere buddies out in the middle of nowhere for some hunting and beer, he wasn't pimping his book or dreaming of girls wrapped in teddies of bacon, he was talking about (or rather, talking to) his daughter, which in my opinion, is when this guy is at his absolute best. Please click through and read that sweet Love Song to KatyBeth.

Ladies, as mothers, it will give you hope for the kind of fathers your husbands can be. As daughters, it will give you a newfound respect for your own father (trust me, it will - and my relationship with my own dad isn't that great).

Gentlemen, take note. This guy could teach you a thing or two.

And thank you, AD, for your wit, wisdom, and your willingness to share that beautiful letter with the blogosphere. Your beautiful little girl has one heck of a dad.

"It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round."

2009-02-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

My dad used to tell me that A LOT when I was a kid. As I get older, I find myself saying it a lot to others (and sometimes to myself...lol).

Looking back on it and remembering all the times he used to say those words to me, I think he meant them as a way of teaching me tolerance... kind of like: look kid, there are a lot of people in this world and you are not going to agree with everyone, or believe what everyone else believes, or like what everyone else likes, or look like what everyone else looks like, so just accept the fact that we're all different, respect each person for what s/he is, and you'll be a happier person for it. To be completely honest, I really haven't ever thought of my dad as very "smart" (sorry Dad, but if you think about it, you hurt me way more than you "helped" me with my Algebra homework!). But, although my dad may not be "smart," I happen to think he's pretty "wise" (and yes, I do believe there is a HUGE difference between smarts and wisdom).

He filled my head with other wise sayings when I was younger, too. I know those words weren't entirely his: some came from his own parents; others, his grandparents; and it seems more sayings still have been around since the dawn of time. But he heard them all when he was a kid, carried them through to parenthood, and passed them down to me. And most of the words, especially the ones from which this post drew its title, have stuck in my brain.

I'm not a parent (yet), but at 25, I've been told I have an "old soul" (actually, someone told me that at like, 17), and I often like to think that I could tell a lot of parents today how they could do their job better. And quite often, I find the sayings of my dad's generations and generations before coming out of my mouth, which makes my friends look at me like I'm weird and their parents look at me with respect.

So, these days, I remember the seeds (sayings) my dad planted into my little brain... my brain that absorbed those words like a sponge... and I quite often find myself saying, "It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round." And if you think about it, it does. It really does.

I think that lately I've been saying it just to excuse the people in my life whom I would otherwise label as Asshats or Idiots; people I would otherwise judge if my dad's words didn't echo in the back of my mind and make me stop for a minute to take a second look at those people. And damn it, every time I stop and take another look at the person or the situation, my dad is always - ALWAYS - right.

It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round.

It takes doctors and nurses, lawyers and politicians, and teachers and religious leaders, parents and friends, mentors and volunteers. Ahh.... the "good" guys.

But believe it or not, it also takes back-stabbers and cheaters, ex-friends and ex-lovers, morticians and sanitation engineers, bad lawyers and bad politicians, thugs and thiefs. For, if it weren't for the "bad" guys, and the people who take care of our lost loved ones and our waste, what kind of world would we live in?

Sorry, I lost track a bit there. Surprised? If you read my blog much, you shouldn't be! ;)

Point is, there have been quite a few people in my life over the last several years who have brought truth to that old saying - it really really does take ALL KINDS to make the world go 'round. Some of these people have made a positive difference in my life, and for that, I am a better (and more grateful!) person. Some of them I don't know on a personal level (and I'm not sure I'd want to). Some of them have left me scratching my head in confusion, thinking that I thought I knew them, and finding out that I really have no idea who the hell they are. Others have made me cry only for me to come to the realization that they were never worth my tears.

I guess the (verrrryyyy long!) point I'm trying to make is that, while there are people I'm thankful for, there are people who also piss me off and confuse the hell out of me. So, let's take a look at some of these people, because I seem to be more confused than anything else lately, so let's see if we can't make some sense of this.

* My best friend: One of maybe two people I know for whom I would absolutely lay my life down for, no questions... and yet she's someone who can just SO irritate me sometimes! (I'm not married yet, but I suppose this is what having a spouse might be like... perhaps I have found my soulmate in my BFF??) Definitely the only person who has EVER been able to make me laugh my ass off in the midst of some very deep and painful sobbing. Should, in my opinion, live by the motto: "Always late but worth the wait." My sister, and not to be a sap, but seriously - the other half of my freakin' heart. Hands-down, one of the very best people I know. Even if she does have the capability to be a total bitch.

* My English teacher and Newspaper Advisor during my junior year of high school: The only teacher I was ever "afraid" to have before actually having her... who held me accountable for my actions and made me see that although my life matters, I'm not the only one in it who does. Ten years and a lifetime later, she is a dear friend I still keep in touch with.

* My first boss: Someone who has touched my life in a way that I can't fully understand or explain; but yet someone who I can't even imagine I should have just described that way. He ran a small company in which the office staff developed tight bonds of friendship that carry through to this day, even though the staff hasn't worked together in 2 years or more. A lot of times that boss treated me like absolute crap. He made me cry a lot... A LOT. I look back on it now and realize that breaking me down was exactly what he intended - it's how he knew he would get me to do what he wanted me to do - work until 10 on weeknights, work Saturdays and Sundays, teach myself impossible computer programs and applications, take his kids to school... and I get so angry with myself sometimes for letting him get to me that way. He never deserved that emotion from me, and I certainly should not have wasted so much time crying over the way he treated me. I should have gotten smart and moved on long ago, rather than working there for seven years. But sometimes he treated me like I was the smartest, nicest, most amazingly wonderful person he had ever met. Those few times he treated me so well overshadowed the many bad times in my mind, and I never lost respect for him for treating me like dirt, even though my co-workers did. The girls said I had "battered wives syndrome" for that. He had a problem with gambling, which of course inevitably leaked over into the company and affected the company finances. Paychecks were bad, and so was morale. Ever the "battered wife," I quit that job four times over the seven years I worked there until I finally left for the last time. Each time I left, the boss would track me down, tell me he was sorry, things would be different, he would ease up on the gambling, the workload would lighten up, he would think before he got so angry which would therefore translate to him being nicer to me, he'd give me a raise, he'd let me work four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days like I wanted to, etc., etc., etc... Each time I left, I let him sweet-talk me into coming back. Not only did the things he promised never come to fruition, but things stayed exactly the same, and for some reason I defended that boss until the bitter end. The girls lost respect for him (and eventually, they lost respect for me) and they quit, one by one. I was the last one from our original group left standing when the business went under. I have managed with time, to re-build my friendships with my girls, and I am so glad. They are some of my best friends and closest confidants. My former boss is homeless. I can't help but think about him every day. My heart breaks for him. He is an asshole, and a liar, and more often than not he has treated me like shit. I really want to move on with my life.

* My second boss: The only person in my life who has ever made me feel completely worthless, incompetent and stupid. For all the hurtful things my first boss said to me, he never made me feel the way my second boss does. I don't hate anyone, but I might hate him. I try not to let him get to me while I'm at the office, but all that frustration has to come out sometime....

* Parents who take their children to Wal-Mart at midnight on a weeknight: I don't know these people, but I went to Wal-Mart close to midnight a couple of weeks ago (hey, I'm 25 - I can do whatever I want!) and as I was walking in, these parents were walking in next to me with their two daughters, who I'm guessing were probably about 5 and 9 years old, respectively. It was a freakin' Thursday! Come on, people. Go home and put your kids to bed. They should have been in bed hours ago.

* My Godfather, or, more appropriately, his ex-wife: At times over the past 10 years since my parents divorced, my Godfather has been more like a dad to me than my own dad has. Like my dad, he's not smart either, but he's wise. I don't think he graduated from high school, but I have had more deep conversations with him in the last 2 months than I have with my dad in the last 10 years. He is a pretty cool guy, if I do say so myself. I recently became "friends" with his ex-wife on MySpace.... hey, she was my "aunt" while they were married and she is my cousins' mom! Well, she's been filling out some surveys lately, and according to her survey answers, he was an abusive nut who wanted her to abort both of her children! But she's bipolar, so WTF? Is she saying all of this about him now because she knows I'm on MySpace and I'll see it, is she just crazy, or is it true? I've never lived with the guy, but I really can't believe it's true.

* My grandparents: My grandmothers...such wisdom, such love. My grandfathers... so set in their ways, just 'not so good' as husbands, and 'not that great' as fathers. I love all of my grandparents and am lucky to have them all here with me still, but seriously? I have no idea why it took at least 30 years of marriage for each of my grandmothers to figure out that they deserved to be treated better.

And finally...........

* My own dad: The very guy who put those words... "It takes all kinds to make the world go 'round" in my head. The guy who hung the moon, who was the axis my very Earth rested upon... where the hell did he go? He's changed so much since he left my mom. Sometimes I wonder if he ever loved her, and wondering that hurts. Our relationship has changed too... and I think we have both tried to work on it for each others' sake, but it's just not the same. So we each do our own thing, and miss each other in our daily lives. I love my dad, but I really miss my daddy... and would really like him back someday.

Well, I'm still confused as hell! But it made me feel better to get some of that out....

Jed

2009-02-22T18:39:00.000-08:00

Here he is!

Showing off his profile, his mean-looking grill, and his rear view ;)

Seriously? I don't even freakin know anymore.

2009-02-18T23:27:00.000-08:00

Dear Ex-Boss,

What.
The.
Fuck?!

Seriously, you rang my fucking doorbell last week? Are you shitting me? To bring back a Christmas tree that was never mine to begin with and that I never even missed... oh... say... LAST Christmas?

I didn't know you had the balls to come show up at my house, especially after I told you never to contact me again. But that was last July. I should have known that "never again" equates out to about 6 1/2 months in your book. And your visit totally ruined the whole "moving on with my life" plan that I was so stoked about in this post. Your visit also creeped me out because you looked exactly - EXACTLY - like the dream I described in this post.

By the way, for future reference, you DO have my cell phone number. Next time you feel like just dropping by my house on a whim, CALL me or TEXT me FIRST. You might be surprised by what you hear. It may save you the trouble of a visit.

So, for the record, let's clear some things up about your surprise visit that day:

For the record, I don't care that you "turned in" your financed car (also for the record, I know that by "turned in," you mean "the damn thing was repossessed."). Also, let the record show that I told you you should keep your other car LONG before your new friend did, because you and I both knew the financed car was in danger of repossession... but you were so fixated on your gambling that you didn't seem to care.

For the record, I don't care that you were rear-ended in your other car. I also don't care that you (supposedly) suffered whiplash. And I don't believe for a minute that you have the slightest idea what a migraine feels like.

For the record, I don't care that your other car was broken into, either. Maybe if your vehicles didn't look like you lived in them, they wouldn't be so tempting to break into.

For the record, I don't believe for a moment that you 'donated' anything to anyone. I'm sure the only reason you even went into those storage units was in an effort to consolidate your crap in the hopes of avoiding yet ANOTHER auction.

For the record, I don't care that you got "sooooo sick" because you rent a room in a house with no heating or air conditioning. As I so angrily pointed out to you that day, I have lived in a house with no heating or air conditioning for nearly 8 years, and the lack of such luxuries has never - I repeat, NEVER - made me sick... and that's all heating and air conditioning are: luxuries.

Finally, for the record, I don't care if you are surprised by my choice of new vehicle. I gotta tell you honestly, it wasn't much of a choice. I would have loved to buy another Honda, but thanks to you, my credit is so screwed up that my options were very - and I do mean VERY - limited. I don't dislike my Jeep, but I would never have chosen it over a Honda. You're just jealous that I was even able to buy a new car. But let me tell you, it was not easy, and I thought of you every single time I had another credit application get turned down. And trust me, they were NOT nice thoughts.

I just want to move on with my life, and I want that moving on to NOT include you in ANY way, shape, or form. Is that really so much to ask? I have not worked for you in over a year. I really don't understand why you came to my door last week. I threw the Christmas tree away after you left. I didn't sleep for several nights after your 'visit.' Everyone I have talked to says you came here for a reason - you want something - of course, I know this. But I didn't give you a chance to ask me for anything or to state what it is that you want.

That better not mean that you will be back, jackass.

I want my migraines to go away, I want my credit problems to be resolved, I want to get a full night's sleep without having nightmares about you or wondering when you will next show up uninvited, I want my writer's block to disappear (and when it does disappear, I don't want it to go away just so that I can blog about you), and I just want to be a happier person in general. And you going away and staying gone will not solve all of those things, but it will greatly contribute to my efforts to do so. So would you please, PLEASE, just leave me alone?

Go away,
D

I have a serious case of writer's block.

2009-01-29T21:34:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to blog for days, but lack motivation and ideas... So instead, I'm spending a lot of time here, looking at the 'goggies' and wishing I had one.

see more puppies

my random music library showcased in the playlist of my life.

2009-01-22T19:52:00.000-08:00

1) Put your playlist on shuffle ((i don't have an ipod so i used my phone. use whatever you want))

2) Use the first line of the song that comes up to answer each question ((sometimes i used the first few lines so an answer would make more sense...))

This is the playlist of my life! Enjoy...

Music Shuffle - First Lines!

Put your music player on shuffle, and answer with the first lines!

The first thing you say when you wake up::
it's been awhile since i could hold my head up high, it's been awhile since i first saw you (('it's been awhile' - staind))

The last thing you say before you go to sleep::
she's like the wind through my tree... she rides the night next to me (('she's like the wind' ~ patrick swayze))

You get lost in the countryside and in anger you shout::
when i woke up this morning, wiped the sleep from my eyes, i found a new day dawning, and suddenly i realized - you're gone (('tell me i was dreaming' ~ travis tritt))

The person you secretly love asks you out, you say::
little bit of guitar... little bit of truck... little bit of hound dog... and a little bit of luck! (('little bit of life' ~ craig morgan))

Your best friend asks you what you think of their outfit, you say::
i would climb any mountain, sail across the stormy sea, if that's what it takes baby, to show how much you mean to me (('feels like the first time' ~ foreigner))

A waiter is very rude to you in a restaurant, you complain::
i want a girl with a mind like a diamond, i want a girl who knows what's best. (('short skirt/long jacket' ~ cake))

Someone tries to steal your bag! You chase them down the street screaming::
i'm in the business of misery, let's take it from the top - she's got a body like an hourglass, tickin' like a clock (('misery business' ~ paramore))

Your partner has just asked you to get married! You answer::
a lovestruck romeo sang the streets a serenade, layin' everybody low with a love song that he made. (('romeo and juliet' ~ dire straits))

You believe life would be better if everyone lived by the motto::
well my friends the time has come, raise the roof and have some fun. throw away the work to be done, let the music play on (('all night long' ~ lionel richie)) all night!

You just got a detention for something you didn't do! You say::
so long. i've been looking too hard, i've been waiting too long. (('waiting for a girl like you' ~ foreigner))

You have just caught someone telling a whopping great lie, you say::
alright stop what you're doin' cause i'm about to ruin the image and the style that you're used to! (('the humpty dance' ~ digital underground))

Your grandma has bought you a present that you don't like, you say::
daddy hugs his little man, says 'son i've got to go,' and he pulls out of the drive and disappears (('the dollar' ~ jamey johnson))

Some moron just drove their van into your brand new car! You shout::
he wakes up in the morning, does his teeth, bite to eat, and he's rolling (('ants marching' ~ dave matthews band))

You are at a wedding and the bride asks you to say a few words, you say::
stranger than your sympathy, this is my apology, killin' myself from the inside out, and all my fears have pushed you out. (('sympathy' ~ goo goo dolls)) rofl. sorry, bride, whoever you are.

Your partner has just broken up with you, you say::
i guess he's workin late again, i don't need to wonder where he is but i do, he oughta know that by now (('he oughta know that by now' ~ lee ann womack))

You are late for class again! Your excuse is::
john and michie were gettin kinda itchy just to leave the folk music behind (('creeque alley' ~ the mamas & the papas))

When you are scared, to give yourself confidence you repeat to yourself::
another sleepless night i can't explain, somebody said they heard me call your name (('should've known better'~ richard marx))

If you were elected Prime Minister of Britain, you would comment::
starin' at you takin' off your makeup, wonderin' why you even put it on (('fast cars and freedom' ~ rascal flatts))

When asked your opinion of Britney Spears, you reply::
it's hard describing a heartache, aw cause it's a one-of-a-kind thing (('it would be you' ~ gary allan)) hehe

When asked your opinion of God, you reply::
if i should die before i wake, it's cause you took my breath away, losing you is like living in a world with no air (('no air' ~ jordin sparks feat. chris brown))

When asked your opinions on gay marriage, you reply::
there's a light, a certain kinda light, that never shone on me. i want my life to be lived with you, lived with you. (('to love somebody' ~ the bee gees))

When asked your opinion on war, you reply::
2AM and she calls me cause i'm still awake, can you help me unravel my latest mistake? i don't love him - winter just wasn't my season. (('breathe (2AM)' ~ anna nalick))

When asked your opinion of love at first sight, you reply::
lazy yellow moon comin up tonight, shinin through the trees. crickets are singin and lightning bugs are floatin on the breeze - baby get ready. (('fishin in the dark' ~ nitty gritty dirt band))

You have been arrested for murder! In your defense you say::
i found love on a two-way street, and lost it on a lonely highway (('love on a two-way street' ~ stacey lattisaw))

You have had a really bad day, you say::
quit my job, flipped off the boss, took my name off the payroll...screw you, man. (('johnny cash' ~ jason aldean))

You want to tell your partner that you love them, but instead say::
do i stress you out? my sweater is on backwards and inside out, and you say "how appropriate." (('all i really want' ~ alanis morrisette))

Your enemy starts talking to you so you tell them:: life is just a bowl of cherries, don't take it serious - life's too mysterious. (('life is just a bowl of cherries' - judy garland))

When you die, you hope people remember you with the words::
oooh woah oh oh oh oh oh oh oh..... oooh woahhhhh oh oh oh oh oh. come on and dance, come on and dance, let's make some romance.... you know the night is fallin and the music's callin and we got to get down to swingtown. (('swingtown' - steve miller band))

Your last words before you die will be::
operator, could you help me place this call? seems the number on the matchbook is old and faded. (('operator [that's not the way it feels]' ~ jim croce))

The completely random post that explains 2009 so far...

2009-01-10T22:30:00.000-08:00

Rather than a post of paragraphs, the first couple weeks of 2009 can be represented by some bullet points (which, given my writing style, will likely evolve into a very lengthy paragraph {or paragraphs}, but whatever).

* For starters, the employee from my last post didn't get fired, because he did eventually take the test (granted, it was AFTER we closed on NYE, and therefore the clinic decided to treat him without our authorization because he agreed to drug test and so they thought we'd OK the treatment after we found out that he'd been tested). The powers that be declined to authorize the treatment despite the fact that he tested. They graciously (or stupidly?) decided to keep him on board for fear he'd sue for wrongful termination if he got fired. He returned to work, and managed to promptly got in a car accident on his way out to the field as soon as he hit the road on the day of his return. The saga continues...

* On the evening of Monday the 5th, reality sunk in and I realized that due to my credit issues (thank you, ex-boss), another Honda Accord really was not in the cards for me. The clock was ticking and my insurance settlement check was in the mail, so I had no choice but to get moving on finding a different car. So I headed down to Cerritos (I know... Cerritos?! It really was all in the financing, though) and bought me an '06 Jeep Liberty, which I have christened "Jed." Jed devours gas for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and every imaginable interval in between (for some reason, this utterly shocks me... I guess my trusty Honda got waaaayyyy better mileage than I thought, despite the shot catalytic converter and the possibly failing O2 sensors). But despite the fact that Jed gulps gas rather than sips it, I am slowly growing to love him. I have owned a few cars over the course of my driving years and he is the first one I have ever named. I think I named him solely because people kept telling me how "cute" my car was. It is a JEEP. It may not be a rugged Wrangler, but it does have 4 wheel drive (Jackie can't wait to go off-roading in it... this will be a new experience for me), and for Pete's sake, it's a friggin' Jeep! It is NOT cute. It's badass. Get it right. So I decided "it" had to be a "he," and "he" had to have a masculine name, like Tank, or Brutus, or Jed. My brother voted to name him Bill or Dale (bo-ring...). So, Jed stuck. Pics to come.

* Sometime last week I heard a teaser on the morning news: "California residents owed state income tax refunds may not receive them. If you are owed a state income tax refunds, stay tuned to find out what you might get instead." I had to leave for work so obviously I couldn't stay tuned, but we all know now. We'll be getting... IOU's. Are you freakin' serious, Arnold? Jeebus.

* This past Wednesday night I had a dream. I know, the fact that I had a dream is not unusual; everyone dreams. What was unusual was that I actually remembered the dream when I woke up in the morning (this very rarely happens). I suppose I remembered it in the morning because it was more like a nightmare and I actually woke up in the middle of the night right after I'd had it. I dreamt that I had been in a store, and I was walking down an aisle, and had come to the end of it and literally ran smack into the ex-boss (for most people, this would just be an awkward encounter, and they would excuse themselves and keep on walking. For me, with this particular former boss, it would have been a disastrous encounter, given the circumstances of why I left that job and what has happened to the boss over the past year, which is way too much to explain here). I don't remember if I said anything to him in the dream; I just remember that he looked very thin, almost sickly, his hair was longer than usual, and he was unshaven and basically just looked homeless (which he pretty much is). I remember waking up from the dream and just laying in bed kind of in a cold sweat. It was bizarre, and unsettling.

So, the day after my dream, I'm at Wal-Mart in Glendora, a Wal-Mart I haven't been to in AGES because I usually go to the one out by my work in Upland or the one out by my grandma's in Redlands when I'm out that way. Anyway, I needed some personal stuff and I had also dropped off some pictures for my mom that were due to be copied and picked up in an hour. I normally love Wal-Mart and can hang out there for hours, but I was feeling uncharacteristically impatient that night, and so I left before the pictures were done to go put some gas in a very thirsty Jed. I was fighting a migraine, so I wasn't thinking logically, and for some reason I ended up going out an exit where you can only turn right, which screwed me, because I needed to turn left to go to the gas station. Anyway, on my way out that exit, way in the south forty where the truckers and motorhomes and carpool vans park, I happened to notice a single solitary car with no other cars anywhere around it. It happened to be a silver Thunderbird, which is what the ex-boss drives. I immediately freaked - damn that dream! - but just to be sure, I checked the license plate (I have an INSANE memory for numbers... I don't know how or why, but I do). Sure enough, it was the ex-boss's car. All the way to the gas station and while I filled Jed up, I kept thinking how I was going to explain to my mom that I couldn't go back and get her pictures because I saw my ex-boss's car in the Wal-Mart parking lot, even though I did not see him. I couldn't figure out a way to explain it without sounding like a complete loon, so I forced myself to go back to Wal-Mart and get the pictures, looking over my shoulder the entire time. His car was still there when I left after picking up the pictures, and it was still there when I passed by Wal-Mart again three hours later to meet my best friend at the Chili's across the street. It would have been weird to see the car anyway, since the former boss is supposedly staying somewhere near Whittier now (so why the &*@# was he in Glendora?!), but the fact that I dreamt I saw him and then I stumbled across his car in the parking lot scared the SHIT out of me. I'm just glad I didn't actually see HIM. I think I'll go back to avoiding that Wal-Mart now...

* Due to the fact that the city of La Verne outsourced their traffic control to some stupid company that littered my poor Honda (may she rest in peace) with tickets while she was parked safely in her own alley, I had to obtain an obnoxious yellow city parking permit sticker to place on her bumper. Unfortunately, she was totaled before the permanent sticker arrived, and so the rental PT bore a temporary dashboard permit until I returned it to Enterprise and Jed came to live at my house. So I took Jed down to the LVPD to transfer the records for the permit from the Honda over to Jed, and actually encountered a NICE woman working the records desk (this has been a rare experience for me with the LVPD records desk... Nice personnel have been few and far between). She takes one look at my permit application and smiles. "I know your dad," she says. "And your uncle. And your aunt. We..."

"Went to high school together," I say, finishing her sentence. She smiles.

Well, just in case anyone was doubting whether or not La Verne is a small town, you can be sure that it is (now, we all know that a city of approximately 32,000 doesn't really constitute a "small town," but there's just something about La Verne. The people that grew up here never left. Everyone knows someone who knows someone else, and basically, all those people know a bunch of other people's business. You'd think it was a smaller city than it is). And the town gets smaller when your dad has lived here for...((thinking))... 42 years, and you went to the same high school that he, his brother and sister did (of course, it doesn't help that my mom grew up in San Dimas and has lived around here for...46 years. Between the two of them, and even though they are no longer married, it seems that everyone knows who I am, whether they know my mom or my dad). And I suppose my story is not all that uncommon... I mean, after all, I went to high school with a TON of the children of my dad's high school classmates (and a bunch of the children of my mom's classmates, too, even though she went to San Dimas). I guess what makes my story uncommon is my last name. It sticks out like a sore thumb. I can't wait to marry a Smith. Or a Jones. Really, I mean it.

On that same note, I attended my company's Christmas party in December (I know this is supposed to be a 2009 post, but whatever, the point is relevant) and heard a man walking around the party asking who Danielle was. When I raised my hand and smiled at him, he said: "I was really surprised when I got the Christmas party invite and saw the name I had to RSVP to" (there goes that darn last name again!) "I was a good buddy of your uncle's," he told me (for the record, my uncle passed in June of '08. See the blog sidebar for more info). I knew who he was because I had seen him when I was younger but I had no clue that he worked for my company! So I got to sit at my company's Christmas party and shoot the breeze with an old high school buddy of my uncle's. It was pretty cool. I guess that was one instance where the last name wasn't such a bad thing.

Well, that's all for now! Here's to a great 2009 for all of us.

You should know you're getting fired when...

2008-12-31T19:50:00.000-08:00

...you go to an occupational medical center for a "worker's comp" injury and refuse to submit to drug testing.

Yep, some guys are like that. One of the guys at my work was out in the field today and claims to have injured his back as he was climbing down from the wall he was on. He says he was up on the wall because it was easiest for him to laser the distances between telephone poles up there (we're contractors for a phone company... care to guess which one?). The rest of the guys at work say that if you can't laser poles from the ground, then the distances weren't meant to be lasered. No sense climbing up on a wall.

Anyway, this guy, who, rumor has it, drinks on the job and dabbles in some...uh...shall we say...illegal substances, apparently was up on a wall shooting pole spans today and injured his 36-year-old back on the way down the wall. We didn't know this until way after the fact. Before we were aware of the injury, we had some work-related questions for him and a few of the guys had been trying to reach him on his company-provided Nextel: no luck. We tried to reach him on his personal cell phone: some luck, but not much. When the acting supervisor finally got ahold of the guy and the guy told the acting supervisor what was going on, he was on his way to Fullerton (where he lives, I might add. We work in Upland) to get checked out. And then he asked the infamous question:

"Since this happened during work hours, should I tell them (the people at the clinic where he was going) that this is a work-related injury?"

Umm... good one, Sherlock. You're a smart one. Duh!

Now, it's important to mention that our corporate office is located in the Peach State. And since the Peach State is in a time zone that's three hours ahead of the Golden State, the fact that this incident happened after 1:30 PM Pacific time on New Year's Eve was, well, unfortunate. I'm the Office Manager (not the HR Manager) of a satellite office. And my corporate cronies had closed up shop early today and were already well on their way to tossing out the old and ringing in the new. So the acting supervisor and I do the best we can... I talk to the screening nurse at the clinic where our injured employee sought treatment. I authorize her to have our employee treated for his injury. At the same time the screening nurse asks if I want our employee drug-tested prior to the examination, my acting supervisor tells me to make sure they administer a drug test. We end our telephone conversation with the understanding that the employee will be drug-tested and then treated for his injury.

At the office, we go on with wrapping up our day. We're about packed up and ready to leave when the phone rings. I answer. It's the screening nurse from the clinic. She says, and I quote:

"This is (nurse) from (clinic). I gave (employee) forms to fill out regarding his visit here today, and one of them was for a drug test. I told him that it was our mandatory office procedure for him to take the drug test before we could treat him, but he declined to take the test. Do you still authorize our clinic to treat him?"

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Why don't we just write "DUMBASS" on the guy's forehead with Magic Marker? Worker's Comp injury, my ass. Drunk (or high, or both) guy falls off wall. Case closed.

I went out on a limb and made an executive decision. I told the nurse no, I no longer authorized the clinic to treat him. And then I immediately got off the phone and called our company president back in the Peach State on his cell phone at nearly 7:00PM Peach State time and informed him of the decision I had made. He supported my decision, and I exhaled a huge sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, the acting supervisor is sweating. The employee in question is one of his friends' brothers. He's gone out on a limb to help and support this employee time and again because of his friendship with the guy's brother, and he feels cheated. Lied to. Taken advantage of. And he is all of those things. And I feel bad for him.

But not as bad as I feel for the stupid employee's wife and four children. Our supervisor was on vacation this week, and neither I nor the acting supervisor have the power to fire an employee, but I'm pretty damn sure that guy's gonna be out of a job when the boss gets back next week.

Religious Rant, Part One: Megachurches, Religious Zealots, and Siblings-in-Christ, oh my!

2008-12-27T23:58:00.000-08:00

**DISCLAIMER**
It is important for me to say up front that this post is not meant to offend anyone. I feel the need to rant at the moment, but I hope you will find my rant a respectful one. Apologies in advance if anyone takes offense to the coming post.
**END OF DISCLAIMER**

Now that we got that out of the way, I just have to say, religious zealots really grate on my nerves. I am not some poor, lost, atheist*, Godless soul, just because I choose not to attend your church or read your holy books or subscribe to your beliefs to the letter. I am a good person. I believe in God and might even go so far as to say that I love Him (while at the same time, I fear Him), though I have had more than my share of spiritual struggles through the years. I was raised Catholic, but as I grew up, I began to see that the ways/beliefs/doctrines/practices of the Catholic church were not for me. They were not reflections of how I would want to live my own life nor how I might want to raise the children I might have someday. While I respect my parents and grandparents for their beliefs and for their desire to give their own children a Catholic upbringing, when I became old enough to make decisions that pertained to the fate of my own soul, I chose to pursue other denominations of the Christian religion away from Catholicism.

*A word to the atheists: While I think that society in geneeral believes that Christians are generally "good" people, the fact that I consider myself a Christian does not mean that I believe that atheists are "bad" people. In fact, I know some atheists who, in my opinion, are better people than a lot of Christians I know.

Over time, I would say that I have "dabbled" in, or experimented with, other denominations of the Christian faith. I have attended other churches. I have tested the waters, so to speak. I still have yet to feel like I have found a place where I "belong." It may sound silly, but a sense of belonging is something I have a pretty strong desire to find.

However, as I "dabble," my path has been littered with Megachurches, Religious Zealots, and Siblings-in-Christ, oh my. Here come bits from my "disclaimer" again: I admire the Megachurches - the amount of work/evangelism they had to do to get to where they're at is incredible. I understand the Religious Zealots - while I don't agree that their way is the "only way," I can see how they could get so clouded in their beliefs that they might really think that. I respect my Siblings-in-Christ - I find the term "Brother" or "Sister" in the Christian sense of the word to be totally and completely hokey, after all, I really do only have one brother, but I get why the church says we are all Brothers and Sisters in Christ. Now please, pardon me if I do not feel compelled to attend your church with 10,000 members. Please excuse me if I do not necessarily feel the need to subscribe to the belief that I can only get to Heaven if I'm a Pentecostal*. Please forgive me if I do not address you as "Brother" or "Sister," but rather by your first name (or, if we're in tight, your last).

*I don't know if this is really true or not, but I have a distant cousin who is an Apostolic Pentecostal preacher who firmly believes that only Pentecostals will be allowed in Heaven.

I suppose, in order to find a place where I truly feel I belong, what I ought to do is establish a Church of Me - a church where homosexuality is not an abomination; where divorce does not excommunicate me from my religion; where complaining is not a sin, but rather a way to vent my frustrations; where I don't have to pledge 10% of my income in order to feel accepted and loved by God; where I don't have to go out and evangelize to people who slam doors in my face; where I AM allowed to question why God allows bad things to happen to good people and actually get an INTELLIGENT answer; where I don't have to name my kid after a saint in order to baptize her into the faith*; and where I don't feel the compulsive need to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness when I swear like a trucker suffering from a mixture of road rage and caffeine withdrawal.

*This is true of the Catholic denomination - your child's first name and/or middle name must be the name of a saint in order to baptize the child into the church. My grandma wanted to give my mom "Diane" as her middle name but was told she could not for two reasons - one, because my mom's first name was not the name of a saint, and two, the name "Diane" is a form of "Diana," who was a Pagan goddess. Thus explains how my mother's, and subsequently, my own, middle name came to be "Marie."

This concludes "Religious Rant, Part One." More to follow soon.

When did the music of my generation become "oldies?"

2008-12-22T22:45:00.000-08:00

I love oldies music. Some of my favorite songs are oldies. I dig the wail of the guitar on Badfinger's "Day After Day" and the haunting melody: I remember finding out about you / Every day my mind is all around you...

There is something about the sadness in The Left Banke's "Walk Away Renee" that resonates with me: Just walk away Renee / You won't see me follow you back home / The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same / You're not to blame

The Shangri-La's "My Boyfriend's Back" was the '60's equivalent of a kiss-off song, and Lesley Gore's "It's My Party" and the follow-up "Judy's Turn to Cry" are some other sixties classics.

Of course, anything Beatles is classic, and Elton John ranks high on the list of my top ten favorite artists of all time. Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles tie for the top spot on my list (and while I classify them more "Classic Rock" than "Oldies," they still work to prove the point of this blog).

The point is, that as a kid, I grew up with parents who listened to K-Earth 101 and KOLA (Dad also listened to KLOS, a station I have just recently come to appreciate). And, since a kid can't really control the radio from the back seat, that means I grew up with the sounds of Badfinger, The Left Banke, The Shangri-La's, Lesley Gore, Elton John, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Fleetwood Mac, The Eagles, Al Green, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Marvin Gaye, The Beach Boys, Jan & Dean.... you get my point. Those were the "oldies" when I was a kid back in the '80's.

I tuned in to KOLA the other day and heard Hall & Oates' "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)." I quickly switched the station to avoid rear-ending the car in front of me out of utter shock. That song was released in 1981! Granted, I wasn't born yet, but I wasn't all that far behind, either! When did a song from 1981 become an "oldie?"

Disgusted, I flipped to K-Earth hoping to find the oldies I remembered from my youth and almost burst into tears when I heard Cyndi Lauper telling her daddy dear that "Girls Just Want to Have Fun." That one was released in 1983 - the year I was born. Ouch.

I've also heard Michael Jackson's "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" from 1983's Thriller, and Dan Hartman's "I Can Dream About You" (released in 1984) on both stations from time to time.

I cannot tell you how depressing I find this. I am far too young to have the music from my early years be classified as "oldies."

Although, I wonder if maybe my parents didn't feel the same way back when I heard the music from their early years classified as "oldies" in the '80's.

Take my dad, for instance. He was born in 1954. That year, these were a few of the chart-toppers:

Bill Haley and His Comets' "Shake, Rattle & Roll"
The Chords' "Sh-Boom (Life Could Be A Dream)" -- played in the "cruising" scene in Disney/Pixar's Cars
The Chordettes' "Mr. Sandman"

Or my mom. She was born in 1957 (I'm sure my parents LOVE me giving away their age, but whatever...) That year saw the following songs on the charts:

Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue"
Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock"
Jerry Lee Lewis' "Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On"

Ahhh. ((Sigh)). I suppose having the music from my early childhood years being considered "oldies" is somewhat of a rite of passage or something.

It just seems like a really hard pill to swallow.

Yep, it's totaled.

2008-12-19T23:16:00.000-08:00

Or, more appropriately, I guess - I loved (past-tense) my Honda. I am so bummed that it's totaled. Like I said, though, I definitely would not want to salvage it because I know it wouldn't be the same car once I got it back. I sure am going to miss it, though.

I'm going to end up with about $2,700 for a down payment on my next car once the Accord is paid off... not as much as I would have liked to have gotten, but definitely nothing to sneeze at, either. I don't know where else I would have been able to get $6,000 for a 10 year old car with 141,000 miles on it. Go, Honda, go! And, might I add, thank you Mercury Insurance!

My dad is trying to talk me into a brand new car since he thinks I might be able to get a deal due to the state of the economy. Sadly, I don't really have the credit for a brand new car (thank you, stupid ex-boss and your stupid NSF paychecks), and I don't want to take the hit in terms of loss of value for buying a brand new vehicle. I would be more than happy buying a car that's 3 or 4 years old (heck, my Accord was 6 years old when I bought it and I NEVER had a single problem with it! My Hyundai Accent was 2 years old when I bought it and it SUCKED). Dad also thinks I should consider a Hyundai because of their low cost and their great warranty (I have to admit, a 10-year/100,000 mile warranty is pretty sweet), but the idea of another Hyundai doesn't really excite me. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, threw it away. Besides, I told my dad, the next car I buy needs to last me at least five years, if not more. And in the next five years, I could be married, with a baby (or babies!)... don't laugh, it could happen. My dad laughed. I felt like kicking him. Bottom line, a car seat (or seats) would be mighty squished in the back seat of a Hyundai.

I would really love to have another Accord, and if I can't work that out, I'm giving some serious thought to an Explorer. My dad had one before and I LOVED it. It will cost a little more for gas (lol) and also a little more to insure, but I don't know... it's something to think about, for sure.

In the meantime, I'm waiting for my "total loss check" to come and am stuck driving my little PT Cruiser for the next few weeks. I wish I had more than 30 days of rental coverage (even though 30 days seems more than generous) because then I could wait for my income tax refund and I'd have more money for a down payment. But I shouldn't complain about the Cruiser, it's not awful - it's just not something I would want for myself. My poor brother doesn't even fit in it! I had him, his friend, and my grandma in the back seat tonight, and they were pretty squished. My brother and his friend were good sports (and so was my grandma) but it was a tight squeeze. I know the three of them would have been just fine in the back seat of my Accord.

((Sigh)). I really hate car shopping. But, while I am going to miss my Honda a lot, I do have to admit that the prospect of a new (or, at least, newER) car is pretty exciting!

Wish me (and my credit) luck on the search. I'll need it!

My poor Honda

2008-12-18T12:37:00.000-08:00

The pictures really don't do the damage justice.

Initially, since I never saw us get hit, I had thought the impact was all on my mom's side of the car. Imagine my surprise when I found out it was actually on MY side. No wonder I couldn't open my door to get out of the car.

Poor car. Nothing beats a Honda, though. Had this accident happened in my old Hyundai, I wouldn't be here to tell the story.

Thank God for airbags. My chest hurts like you wouldn't believe, but this thing saved me from going through the windshield.

A huge thanks to Meghan's amazing mom for picking my mom and I up from the scene of the accident, staying calm in an emergency (my mom was flipping out!), and taking us to the hospital.

My mom and I will be fine. Mom went back to work yesterday but my doctor wants me to stay home until Monday. I should know for sure about my car pretty soon... but given the fact that it's 10 years old and both of the airbags deployed, the general consensus is that it's probably totaled. I have mixed feelings about this. I am really going to miss my Honda but I don't think I would want it back even if it were salvageable - I know it wouldn't be the same car. I just hope I can get enough of a settlement to pay it off (I just bought it 3 years ago!) and have enough of a down payment for something else.

'Tis the season to make over the blog

2008-12-09T23:07:00.000-08:00

myspace layout

Well, Christmas is coming whether I am ready or not! I have hardly done any shopping and I am so far from "ready" it's not even funny, but the least I can do is give the blog and the playlist a little facelift.

I wish it was cold enough here for there to be little droplets of snow on the trees outside, but since it's still well into the 70's, I figured I could use my blog to dream a little.

Enjoy the new tunes!

Merry Christmas =)

"Going where no man has gone before" - a TMI post.

2008-12-06T19:14:00.000-08:00

Did you read the title of this post? Then you are sufficiently forewarned. And since (I think) the only readers of my blog to date have been the wonderful Meghan and (maybe) my best friend, along with a few random moms from the blogosphere, I am totally OK with posting what's coming. If you're not in the mood for learning more about me than you ever wanted to, then this definitely is not the post for you.

So, now that we've gotten THAT out of the way, let's get to the meat. It's no real secret that I joined eHarmony. I was kind of quiet about it in the beginning, just because I am crazy superstitious and didn't want to "jinx" any possibilities I may or may not have had going for me. But that was back when I only had a three month membership and didn't want to damage what little time I had to find Mr. Right. The initial three months ran out, I thought I had met someone pretty cool (even though we only met in person once, we had been talking and texting for two months before that) and I didn't renew my membership because I didn't want to "jinx" any possibilities of a relationship with Guy # 1 (I really need to stop being so damn superstitious). When I realized Guy # 1 was a flake, I re-upped my membership and gave myself an entire year to meet my matches, so to speak.

I'm trying to be a little less superstitious now, and go with the flow a little more. I don't tense up when my girlfriends or my grandmothers ask me what's going on in my little eHarmony world. I have talked to a few more guys and have had some fun getting to know them. Nothing serious has evolved yet, but I'm totally okay with that. After all, I still have 11 months left.

A while back, while I was in the midst of my text relationship with Guy # 1, Guy # 2 came along. We e-mailed briefly, but nothing developed. A few weeks ago, he e-mailed me out of the blue, briefly explained why he, too, fell off the face of the earth, and asked if I wouldn't mind talking again? I never mind talking, so thus began a flurry of e-mails between me and Guy # 2.

Well, one of the features of eHarmony does this thing called "Must Haves/Can't Stands," and it's pretty much what it sounds like. Guy # 2 called me out on one of my "Must Haves"... abstinence. (at this point I should mention Guy # 2 is 30... not a big deal as far as the age difference, but surely he's not abstinent. And that doesn't bother me in the least... I don't care if he's not a virgin, so long as he understands that I am going to remain one, if not until marriage, at least until I'm damn sure he's committed to me and only me). The problem was that one of Guy # 2's "Must Haves" was passion. He didn't feel that made us a very compatible match, and I didn't disagree with him. He had all kinds of questions as to why I would be 25 and still a virgin, exactly how far had I gone, what was going to happen if we did end up in a relationship, etc.

They were all valid questions, so I answered him honestly. I gave him the all-clear to move along if he wasn't OK being with someone who really had no intention of sleeping with him before things got serious. But he kept on e-mailing, so I know he was still interested. In a nutshell (not that anyone asks, but it's important to the story), I'm a virgin for two reasons:

1) Because of a promise my junior-high best friend and I made to her mom when we were like...13. At the time, it was a religious thing. We were good little Christian girls, and as good little Christian girls, we promised not to engage in pre-marital sex. My religious tendencies have come and gone over the years, but I still think that's honorable... after all, if sex = love, and marriage also = love, why not wait for marriage?

2) But I never thought when I made that promise to my best friend's mom at the ripe old age of 13 that I would be 25 and unmarried. (I'm not saying that's old, I'm just saying...) So now that I'm older, I guess I'm thinking that it's maybe not marriage that I need to wait for... maybe commitment is good enough. And no, commitment doesn't come on the first date, nor the second... or even the third. Besides, if I were just looking for sex, I would have joined this site, and it would be costing me a lot less money than eHarmony! And, of course, I can always go here for free. But I'm not just looking for sex, which is why I didn't explore either of those alternatives.

So he goes on to tell me that he believes it's honorable to remain a virgin for religious reasons, and even if I'm waiting for commitment, that's not a bad reason either, but if I'm just 25 and haven't slept with someone just for the sake of not sleeping with someone, well......... So I put the ball back in his court. I tell him that I will not close the door on the idea of a sexual relationship with him should our relationship get to that point, but I make it clear that there will be absolutely nothing going on until we are sure that we are committed to each other and only each other. And since he's the one that wants this so bad, and since he asked me a ton of questions about my abstinence, I threw some questions back at him. How many partners has he had? Would he be willing to be tested for STD's before we got together? (IF we decided to get together?) And what about me... after all, if it came to that, he would be my first. I wasn't sure what I thought about that... what did he think?

So he says he's had 9 partners. Um, OK. He's a guy. I understand. Nine is a lot, but I am willing to overlook that. He says he always uses protection *unless* he's in a relationship. Which tells me that this guy doesn't respect my commitment theory as much as he said he did. And if he's not protected while in a relationship, what if the girl's not as clean as he thinks she is? Or what if he's not the only guy she's doing? That was Warning Number One.

Warning Number Two was a combination of what I interpreted to be his hesitancy to get tested along with wanting to put the birth control thing entirely on me. Regarding the testing, he said: "Sure. I'm pretty sure that I'm good, but, sure." Uh, whatever. And then he dropped the entire birth control thing in my lap, because, if we're in a relationship, it's his "personal preference" not to have to use a condom. Hey, I'm a big girl, and I have no objections whatsoever to taking the pill, really, I'm fine with it. But if the only reason he wants me to take the pill is because it's his "personal preference" to not have to use a condom? Well, it's looking like maybe it's MY personal preference not to sleep with this guy after all.

Warning Number Three came when he talked about what he thought it would be like to be with me for my first time. I have to give him credit here, he did actually express concern about making my first time enjoyable and special, and he promised to take it slow. (OK, so maybe I was leaning the other way for just a second....) And then he said that the idea of being with me was exciting, as there was (and I quote): "...something intriguing about the possibility of going where no man has gone before... so yeah there's some self-interest in that."

Um, excuse me? "Going where no man has gone before?"

At first, I thought that was funny and I brushed it off as this guy just trying to get me to loosen up, or whatever.

But then I thought about it some more, and I e-mailed him back, and told him that he deserved to be with someone who met all of his criteria, and that someone wasn't me.

After all, we're talking about my first time, here. And I may be 25, and it may well be time to "just do it," to quote Nike, but I am not going to waste my first time on being someone's 10th partner, even if it meant he would get to go "where no man has gone before."

Ugh.... maybe I should just go join a convent.

If you don't have anything nice to say...

2008-11-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

...then don't say anything at all. That's what my mama taught me, and I guess it's kinda why I've stayed out of the blogosphere for the last couple of weeks, because I just don't have anything nice to say.

I don't have anything nice to say to my next door neighbors, who keep hogging the laundry room. Hello, you are not the only people who live here, and you do a ridiculous amount of laundry every week. Maybe you should go to the laundromat, like I've been having to do because I can't get a load in edgewise.

I don't have anything nice to say to a certain member of my extended family, who recently made a frivolous (and therefore unnecessary) purchase that blatantly takes advantage of other family members' kindness.

I don't have anything nice to say to (or about) my former boss. I thought I was doing really well moving on with my life and then his birthday was this week, and I thought about him off and on for a few days before, and then for the entire day of his actual birthday. I was so pissed with myself. I complained to my mom about it. At least she was gentle: "Well, you did work for him for seven years..." Ugh. Don't remind me.

I don't have anything nice to say to the boy who fell off the face of the earth. The least he could have done was have the courtesy to send me a text and tell me he was not interested. I have not let that throw me, though. I have jumped right back on the horse. There are plenty more fish in the sea, and I am worth it.

I don't have anything nice to say to Kaiser, or Aetna for that matter. Kaiser, you suck for dropping me after 25 years of continuous coverage, and Aetna, you suck for threatening not to cover pre-existing stuff after I provided ALL of the appropriate documentation. And the things you are threatening not to cover are not even pre-existing. And you're friggin' expensive. And did I mention you suck?

I don't have anything nice to say to the parents of the various children that my brother hangs out with. I cart your children various places and ALWAYS bring them home from wherever they are when they're hanging out with my brother, and you NEVER bring my brother home when he is hanging out with your child(ren). What gives?

I don't have anything nice to say to the head honcho at my office, who went to lunch mid-crisis on Friday afternoon. Thanks, asshat. YOU were a lot of help.

I don't have anything nice to say to the company that La Verne Police Department has outsourced their parking/traffic control to. Two MORE parking tickets for parking in my own alley as I am supposed to do per a letter from my landlord in conjunction with the LVPD? Bite me, LVPD, bite me hard.

Wow, that was kinda cathartic. I feel a little better. And maybe I do have some nice things to say, after all.

I have something nice to say to everyone that has supported me during my first AVON campaign. Thank you for your orders, and I look forward to serving you in the future.

I have something nice to say to my grandma, with whom I had a wonderful time last weekend and with whom I am spending Thanksgiving with next weekend for the first time ever (I usually do all holidays with my mom's family). I am really looking forward to it, even if probably we will be sad for a little while. I love you.

I have something nice to say to the makers of Mucinex. Thank you for a great product that has helped me to feel much better much faster than I normally would have without your product! Even though your commercial is nasty, you really do make boogers pack their bags (haha). And, because my grandma has been so sad, thank you for breaking my congestion up enough that my nose made funny noises every time I had to blow it (which was many, many times), because that made my twisted grandma laugh her ass off for three days.

I have something nice to say to the powers who control gas prices. Thank you! Thank you so much. I filled up for less than $30.00 today for the first time since I have owned my current car (it's been three years already). Keep up the good work, would you please?

I have something nice to say to my Psychology instructor. Thank you for a painful, but insightful semester. I am really looking forward to what the rest of the semester holds, and truthfully, I'm going to be a little sad when it's over.

I have something nice to say to everyone I've met in the blogosphere. Thank you for reading! Thanks for challenging me, for supporting me, for inspiring me with your stories. This truly is an addiction of the best kind :)

I have something nice to say to my mom, who gave me the most perfect Christmas ornament today. I have no words. Thank you.

I have something nice to say to my best friend, who can always put a smile on my face. I love you more than you know and I would be so lost without you. And I have hives.

Well, that was interesting, actually. I started the blog on a pissed off note, and I must say, it (unexpectedly) ended rather nicely! Guess I should take the time to say nice things more often!

Your tip's in the ATM machine.

2008-11-06T19:48:00.000-08:00

Today after work I went to get my eyebrows waxed. I know, I sounded like a full-on threading convert back in this post, and I'd like to think I am... but I don't know of any salons around my house that do threading, and I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of going to the mall and making a public spectacle of myself at the "Brow Shapers" kiosk tonight. And my eyebrows were so fuzzy, I couldn't stand another day looking like a grizzly bear. So, feeling stuck, I headed out to my trusty nail salon.

I should have known to just turn around and leave when I signed in and noticed that neither one of the two girls that usually do my eyebrows were there. I looked around for any familiar faces. There were only three girls working, which shouldn't have surprised me - this place has been pretty quiet for months. Sorry to be stereotypical, but THAT is surprising to me, because this particular nail salon is in north Glendora... surely the ladies living above Foothill haven't cut back on their mani/pedis! Anyway, of the three girls working, I only recognized one of them: the one that is ALWAYS cold to me, no matter how much I try to kill her with kindness. The one who makes extra certain to speak softly in rapid Vietnamese to her co-workers while looking at me the entire time. The one whose name I haven't bothered to ask, because on the rare occasions I call for an appointment, I don't want it to be with her. The only one in that salon who pastes on a fake smile that you just want to tear off.

The other two girls were giving pedis, so I knew I was going to get stuck with her waxing my eyebrows. At this point, I should mention that I am VERY critical of my eyebrows. I don't care if my hair grows out and my color gets so bad that I have roots all the way down to my neck. Chipped nail polish? So what. But I am VERY particular about my eyebrows, and I hate how they can sometimes come out uneven after waxing. This girl is infamous for crappy wax jobs with me. But I can't wax my own brows and I wasn't going to go through the torture of going home and plucking my hot mess all by myself, so I sucked it up and followed her to the torture chamber - reminding myself that my bear brows needed this. She moved like molasses; gingerly applying the wax to my eyebrows, barely pressing the strip down so that it hardly "grabbed" the brow hairs, getting wax stuck in my hair and then debating on how exactly to get it out, tweezing ever so slowly.... one at a time, until I just wanted to smack her hand away and finish the job myself.

When she was done, I got up, left the room, and walked up to the front desk ahead of her. I handed her my debit card when she finally caught up. I have gotten so used to the convenience of my debit card that I practically never carry cash anymore. She stared at me blankly.

"You have cash for me?" she asked.

I interpreted that as, "You have a tip for me?" and flashed her the two dollars I had in my wallet.

"No," she said, handing me back my card. "You have cash for me?"

Feeling myself getting more impatient by the second, I asked, "Is your machine broken?"

"No," she said. "But ten dollar minimum."

"Oh," I said, understanding. "There is a ten dollar minimum purchase to run the card." I think this is stupid, but whatever. I realize they often have to pay their merchant service provider by the card swipe, so I can understand they probably need to have a minimum purchase amount to make their card swipes worthwhile. But I still think a $10.00 minimum is stupid, especially since, believe it or not, you can get a lot done at a nail salon for less than $10.00. Like an eyebrow wax. That only costs $8.00.

"Yes," she said, keeping those two dollars I flashed her fresh in the back of her mind. "Ten dollar minimum. ATM at Vons. You go get cash?"

"Fine," I said, and walked out, irked that I was going to pull $20.00 out of the bank for an $8.00 wax job. For a second, I contemplated just getting in my car and leaving - after all, my eyebrows were done and so far I hadn't had to pay for anything. But I like the other two girls who normally do my nails and eyebrows, so I'd need to be able to show my face in there again. Plus, there's just something to be said for not being a thief.

I walk into Vons, a store I don't know my way around because I never shop there - they are ridiculously crazy expensive - and hunt for the ATM machine. I find it tucked alongside the store by the wine, which at this point sounds WONDERFUL, and stop dead in my tracks when I realize the ATM machine is owned by Wells Fargo. I bank with B of A.

I stick my card into the machine and pull $20.00 out of savings, pissed that I am going to get charged by BOTH Wells Fargo AND B of A for using a non Bank of America ATM. Wells Fargo notified me prior to giving me my money that they charge $3.00. I have no idea what B of A charges because I don't pull money out of non B of A ATM's, but I'm sure it's at least $2.00. So, that $20.00 I was pulling out for my $8.00 wax just turned into AT LEAST $25.00.

I marched back into the salon and shoved the $20 into HER hands. She looked at it, then looked at me and asked: "How much you want back?"

I ran it through my mind for a second that I had just paid a minimum of $5.00 in ATM fees because I couldn't use my debit card to pay for my $8.00 wax, and I came thisclose to telling her: "I want all twelve dollars back. Your tip is in the Wells Fargo ATM machine over at Vons."

But I didn't do that. I just told her to give me ten dollars back and I left. I don't normally make appointments at the salon; I usually just walk in, but I think that, in order to avoid her in the future, I will start calling ahead of time and making appointments.

Oh, and, trust me - the $10.00 minimum purchase thing has been noted for future reference.

I did this...

2008-11-04T21:59:00.000-08:00

And for the first time in a very long time, I feel like my voice was truly heard. I can't wait to see what these guys

have in store for America.

I must say that I am disappointed at the projected results for Prop 8... :(

Overall, though, SOOOOOOO STOKED that Obama won! And so very moved by his speech :)

The crisis is in full swing.

2008-11-03T18:05:00.000-08:00

It must be that Karma has come back to kick me in the ass for laughing off the idea of a mid-life crisis (see this post for my initial thoughts). I spent a good hour and a half on the phone with my wonderful life-saving former co-worker Victoria Saturday night, and during that time I did plenty of venting (so did she, but she's a few years older and in a different situation than I am), which led her to say:

"Relax... you're not crazy, just going through your quarter-life crisis."

Really? "Just?" On one hand, aside from being an amazing friend, Victoria is like a big sister to me and I could have just sucked it up and taken her reassurance at face value.

Relax.

I'm not crazy.

Just going through my quarter-life crisis.

On the other hand, everything seems so huge, every challenge so insurmountable. This doesn't seem like "just" a passing phase that I'm going through. For example:

Bills consume me, to the point that working full time (and then some!) making $18/hour just isn't enough to make ends meet (mind you, I still live with my mother!). I have recently become an AVON representative and I am seriously considering applying for seasonal jobs at Target, Macy's, OSH, wherever is hiring... even Wal-Mart (hey, just because I love to shop there doesn't mean I want to work there, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!).

The guy who I met on this site (hey, still no judging allowed!) turned out to be a flake despite my best hopes and most positive thinking. I thought we had a pretty good "first date" and to me it seemed like we had a lot in common. He promised to call during the week and I never heard a single word from him. I sent him a couple of text messages throughout the week and never heard any response to those, either. My mom thinks he could be painfully shy (she likes to give people - especially potential boyfriends - the benefit of the doubt). I think he probably just didn't like what he saw, which is funny to me, since we were built about the same. But I'm not going to spend a lot of time wondering why someone who I spent two months getting to know through e-mails and text messages and phone calls meets me once and drops me like a hot potato. I took the money I don't have (I know, I said I was poor, and I am, but this is something I want to do for myself, dammit) and I re-joined that site for a full year. And I posted some more true-to-life photos of myself so that anyone who communicates with me can see what I really look like, which, to be honest, I'm not all that uncomfortable with. I have a few more curves in a few more places than I'd like to, but they're probably not going anywhere anytime soon, so it's best that whoever "meets" me meets the REAL me. And don't misunderstand my reason for re-joining the dating site... I am not uncomfortable being single. I don't "need" a man. It would just be nice to have that companionship... maybe a little fun, and a little romance (and I certainly wouldn't complain if I found love, that's for sure!). Regarding "needing" a man, it's quite the opposite for me, actually. After watching my mom (and a lot of other women from her generation) skip out on college to get married young, stay home and raise the kids, only to divorce after 20+ years of marriage and then have to "start over" with little or no college education at nearly 50 years old... yeah, I pretty much decided that was not a life I wanted for myself. I don't regret or resent any of the choices my mom made... I just came to the conclusion that if someone who vows to love you until the day they die can get up and walk away without warning (by the way, my mom was my dad's second wife, so he is now on his third marriage)... then really, the only person you can depend on is yourself. And I think that's why I've put such a focus on school, even if it is taking me FOREVER to get through. I have struggled with my self-reliance, and sometimes I just want to give up - it's hard to work full-time and go to school too. I applaud anyone who does it. It's really difficult but I know the rewards are going to be well-worth it in the end.

Work is crazy... my assistant got an "incentive" (bonus) on her last check - for what, I have absolutely no idea. Not to be mean, but the woman seriously would not know initiative if it jumped up and bit her in the butt. So the Friday before last, I have to leave at 4:00PM (which, by the way, is the end of my NORMAL workday) for a doctor's appointment, and because she is slow and still confused about certain things (after nearly 7 months on the job!) she worked until 9:30PM that night and even had to come in for an hour or so on Saturday. Then, this week, because she worked so hard and so long on Friday and Saturday, she takes off Wednesday at 4:00, Thursday at NOON, and Friday at 4:00 (she is supposed to work until 4:30 every day). AND she gets a freakin' incentive! I was so pissed. I have been at my job for almost 10 months now and I have never gotten an incentive. And I work my ass off, most days doing her job AND mine... Again, don't misunderstand my rant about the incentive... it's not about the money. I could really care less that she got an extra $100 on her paycheck. For me, it's all about the recognition... I mean, of course the money would have been nice, but seriously, WHAT did she do to deserve it? She doesn't get up out of her chair unless you ask! Getting her to go talk to the other engineers when she has a question I can't answer is like pulling teeth... I do not understand AT ALL. What, she works until 9:30PM one time, works two hours on a Saturday one time, and she gets an incentive? Please. I work until at least 8:30PM every single Friday. Grr.

There was more I wanted to say, but this has gotten long, and I need to leave for class in a few minutes here. I really hope I find a seasonal job... I need the extra money! I also hope the job market starts looking up real soon, because I want out of my current job so bad... :(

Meme in pictures

2008-11-01T23:28:00.000-07:00

Stolen from Meghan.

1.Go to photobucket.com
2.Type in your answer for each question into the PhotoBucket search bar.
3.Only use the first two pages. Choose your favorite photo to represent your answer.
4.Copy the html code and paste it here.
5.You can only answer in picture form.

1. What's your first name?

2. When is your birthday?

3. What kind of car do you want?

4. Where did/do you go to school?

5. What is your favorite season?

6. What is your favorite type of shoe?

7. What is your status?

8. What is your favorite movie?

9. What is your favorite song?

10. Who is your favorite Disney character?

11. What is your favorite clothing line?

12. What is your favorite dessert?

13. What is your favorite letter?

14. What is your favorite vacation destination?

15. What are you most afraid of?

16. What is your favorite TV show?

17. What annoys you the most?

18. What is your job?

***ok, i'm cheating... haha i'm an office manager. this was the best pic i could find!

19. What's your favorite animal?

20. How old are you?

I get by with a little help from my friends.

2008-10-31T23:59:00.000-07:00

I am officially a quarter-lifer... and have been for two weeks now, but I can finally say it without feeling the need to hyperventilate. LOL.

My friend Jackie promised me that 25 was something to celebrate. I said that was crap. She said I was right - so why not drink to it, then?

I'm not much of a drinker, but she did make a fantastic sangria that night, and I drank four glasses! That's so rare for me... anyone who knows me knows I have two beers and have to be put to bed ((haha))...

Anyway, here are some pics of me and my wonderful friends who helped me face 25 with a smile ((unfortunately, my best friend Beth's car broke down in Anaheim and she couldn't come.. I was so very sad and Kimi and I really missed her))... The pics are on my Myspace and Facebook profiles too so some people might be sick of looking at them already, but TOO BAD!!! Haha. Anyway, here we go:

This is Jackie. Next to Beth, she is the second best friend a girl could ask for.

The pic below is of three crazy chicks (Jackie, me, and Peggy) who worked in an insane asylum for a lot of years... luckily we all wised up and quit last year (not all at once, although we did want to try for that). Now we're pretty much BFF's, despite the fact that we sometimes wanted to kill each other at work ((we blame that on the boss playing us against each other... none of us are really the murderous type)).
This is Kelly. A long time ago, she also worked in the insane asylum with me and Jackie, but back then, it wasn't quite so insane. And besides, she got smart and got out, before the boss could warp her brain the way he warped mine.

And this is Kimi. She and Beth go back to... Kindergarten, I think. I met her when I was a freshman in high school and I joined the senior Girl Scout troop that her mom and Beth's mom were leading. She is, hands down, without a doubt, my sweetest friend.

I am so thankful for all of my girls! ((Especially Beth, who always makes me laugh... and Jackie, even though she made me face 25 head-on.)) I really am so blessed to have such wonderful friends.