Frisky's Blog

The Planet is on fire!!

2008-06-02T10:25:00.002-04:00

From some place called the planet, where they are holding Webby's server hostage:

"This evening (May 31) at 4:55pm CDT in our H1 data center, electrical gear shorted, creating an explosion and fire that knocked down three walls surrounding our electrical equipment room. Thankfully, no one was injured. In addition, no customer servers were damaged or lost. We have just been allowed into the building to physically inspect the damage. Early indications are that the short was in a high-volume wire conduit. We were not allowed to activate our backup generator plan based on instructions from the fire department. This is a significant outage, impacting approximately 9,000 servers and 7,500 customers. All members of our support team are in, and all vendors who supply us with data center equipment are on site. Our initial assessment, although early, points to being able to have some service restored by mid-afternoon on Sunday. Rest assured we are working around the clock. We are in the process of communicating with all affected customers. we are planning to post updates every hour via our forum and in our customer portal. Our interactive voice response system is updating customers as well.There is no impact in any of our other five data centers.I am sorry that this accident has occurred and I apologize for the impact. "

Hmph! "Around the clock" isn't good enuff!!

And last night they write:

"As you have read, we have begun receiving some of the equipment required to start repairs. While no customer servers have been damaged or lost, we have new information that damage to our H1 data center is worse than initially expected. Three walls of the electrical equipment room on the first floor blew several feet from their original position, and the underground cabling that powers the first floor of H1 was destroyed.There is some good news, however. We have found a way to get power to Phase 2 (upstairs, second floor) of the data center and to restore network connectivity. We will be powering up the air conditioning system and other necessary equipment within the next few hours. Once these systems are tested, we will begin bringing the 6,000 servers online. It will take four to five hours to get them all running.We have brought in additional support from Dallas to have more hands and eyes on site to help with any servers that may experience problems. The call center has also brought in double staff to handle the increase in tickets we're expecting. Hopefully by sunrise tomorrow Phase 2 will be well on its way to full production.Let me next address Phase 1 (first floor) of the data center and the affected 3,000 servers. The news is not as good, and we were not as lucky. The damage there was far more extensive, and we have a bigger challenge that will require a two-step process. For the first step, we have designed a temporary method that we believe will bring power back to those servers sometime tomorrow evening, but the solution will be temporary. We will use a generator to supply power through next weekend when the necessary gear will be delivered to permanently restore normal utility power and our battery backup system. During the upcoming week, we will be working with those customers to resolve issues.We know this may not be a satisfactory solution for you and your business but at this time, it is the best we can do."

Oh suuuurrre. How much you wanna bet Webby's stuff is on the first floor? :(

(It's actually quite hilarious reading the updates on the situation, because the guy's avatar is his own smiley face, and you just know they're going berserck, running around with cables and wires all tangled around them. *snort*

I'm evil, I know.

And today, after whining about working through the night, they say:

"We now have 90% of servers located on the second floor of H1 online. Support technicians are on location to manually bring the remaining 10% online. "

They say the first floor will be coming up tonight sometime.

I'm not sure we can blame the whole thing on Bill Clinton frying french fries on the stove. "Electrical gear shorted" sounds a lot like a squirrel issue. We get them squirrel issues up here a lot in Canada.

OT WITHDRAWAL!!

2008-06-02T01:27:00.002-04:00

Just had a chat with Dabo in the bar. We both crawled in around the same time --- gasping, choking and exhausted from our long journeys trying to find a way in --- and had drinks while deciding who to blame for the shutdown.

We formed a committee which decided that Bill Clinton is responsible. Dabs voted to blame Hillary, and I voted to blame Obama, so we compromised and decided to blame Bill.

We also decided to have a meeting tomorrow in the bar if RTVW is still not up on Monday. Interestingly, Dabs and I took completely different roads to the bar, and ended up in the same place but at different addresses.

Dabs got to the bar at www.survivorblows.com/chat

And I was at "http://chat.realitytvworld.com/chat/"

Weird, eh?

So, if you're going through withdrawals, try to get in to the bar tomorrow nightish and we can drinque those symptoms away!

*headbutts*

Who's this chicque?

2008-05-31T23:39:00.002-04:00

Lookit that pathetic thing down there. Ha!

Whining about job, job, job as if it were The Only Thing.

She should be ashamed to call herself Frisky. See, one of the side benefits of getting married is that you can divorce that which once was. Not the reason I did it, but I have noticed that it is a pretty decent by-product.

Frisky Lastname is now Frisky Newlastname. It's like being reborn!

On Monday I will make my way to the bank to make the official change there. Then I have to call the phone company, hydro, utilities, cable and satellite companies. Then the schools and the library, and the Ministry of Transportation. By the end of the week, I'll be a new person! (It's a good thing I'm out of work...that's a lotta phone callin.)

I'm excited because next week I also get to do my best friend. She's on holidays from that awful place. There have been others fired since me, and now they're trying to get the union in. Too late for me, but I'm really worried about my friend, so this could be good for her. I've never been a union person, but it would have saved me, so obviously I have to say that they're not so bad after all.

Sooo, what else? Oh! I'm getting old. Have to go bifocal. Which sucks for my contacts, but the glasses I wear part-time have to be updated.

Being a woman of leisure makes me want more leisure. How I dread getting back in the workforce after the summer (that is, if I can). I bought a new swing for my deck, and I made sure I got one that folds out into bed. I may just move out there. :)

Having been married before, nothing is really different for me, but I have to laugh at DH who keeps looking at his ring. It's kind of cute.

That's it. I'm boring when I'm happy. :)

May their consciouseseses guide them...

2008-02-28T14:30:00.003-05:00

Here I am, with egg on my face.

Waiting for the lawyer to call with the latest news on my severance package (or should I say "hush money").

I read my entire blog this afternoon, after coming home from having lunch with my friend who is still working in hell.

The warning signs were all there, weren't they? What a fool I was. My friend told me, gently, how my staff double-crossed me and have been bad-mouthing me for many months. I kind of suspected, because they acted weird around me when they were in groups. A lot of it was just typical boss stuff. The problem is, they had the ear of the new guy.

So I'm sitting here at home, out of work, waiting for my hush money, and they are still there with nobody to complain to or about. They bugged me constantly; the biggest mistake I made in that job was not closing my door. But apparently when I did close my door, they complained because I wasn't available to them.

They hounded me. I helped them. I answered their questions and listened to their gripes. They turned on me, and they've gotten what they wanted, but we know what kind of people we're dealing with here, and my friend and I were musing about who they are bitching to now, and who are they bitching about now, because that's just what they do.

I should have been a mean boss. I should have told the new guy about how J spends her days talking on the phone and shopping on the internet. I should have told the new guy about how A is a gossipy time-waster and takes credit for everyone else's work.

Why did I protect these people? They threw me to the wolves.

Saving the world with cinnamon buns

2008-01-15T00:36:00.000-05:00

Oh so warm and drippy and sweet.

Get your mind out of the gutter. Today I'm writing an ode to cinnamon buns.

I found this great recipe for dinner rolls on allrecipes.com. Yes, their recipes are often waaaay overrated, in my opinion. This one, though, deserves it's five stars. I've been making these rolls for a few years, and they are regularly requested at family dinners.

A while back I followed other allrecipes people into the realm of cinnamon bunhood using the dinner roll recipe. I decided today that morale is sofa king low at work, and I am feeling so weary and tired and like a very, very bad leader, that a little offering might be in order.

So, tonight I made them again. It's been a long time.

I've missed that soft stickiness. It's been so long since that sweet earthy cinnamon aroma and yeasty yeastiness became one with my senses. It envelopes me, and I envelope it. I curl my body around that pan of puffy, pillowy curls of swirly sweetness, hugging it like the bread hugs it's sweet surprise of brown sugar and butter and cinnamon. Oh! What's that? Oooooo that's right, I made that drizzly frosting -- molten icing sugar, really -- to drizzle drizzily on the warm rolls.

I've eaten three, because they're the end pieces and I would never subject my staff to the end pieces. Really, when you're going through reorganization and it's getting stretched out longer and longer than so much raw dough, people already feel like end pieces. It's the least I could do.

I hate to put the foil over the pan, to be sacrificed tomorrow morning. How I would love to keep them home, adopt them, give them names, nuture them, pick them up lovingly and cradle them before scarfing them down.

But, it's what I have to do. Will it be worth it? Time will tell. Tomorrow, if I can sit at my desk and send out that email and then hear the pitter-patter of feet racing to the kitchen, joking and giggling about who gets there first, and hear the mmming and the licking of fingers and the heavy sighs that come with comfort food, and they have this one moment of feeling hugged and cuddled and nurtured before they go back to become end pieces, it will be worth it.

Make Up Your Mind

2007-11-07T23:04:00.000-05:00

They swarm me
In my coat, coffee in hand
Question? Question? Question?
Decision! Decision! Decision!
I barely open my eyes
Sit at my desk
Hug the coffee
And decide.

They go away,
And the invisible ones start
Emails and phone calls
What do you think?
What should I do?
I'm still back there
With the last discussion
But I take a sip
And decide.

The lunch bell rings,
But it doesn't stop.
Lettuce? Tomato? Fries?
Decide! Decide! Decide!
I can barely think
Because I'm still back there
But I reach into my wallet
And decide.

They swarm me
In my coat, Diet Coke in hand
Question?
Decision?
Again and again.
Some are interesting
Most are lame.
Think for yourself, people!
But why should they
When I'm here
To decide.

Swarmed again.
I can't remember the last one.
What did I say? Yeah, that.
I can't remember. So confused.
Look at my notes,
Blank paper, no time for notes.
The bell rings, they leave.
It's finally time.
I'm done.

I pack my bag,
Grab sunglasses, purse
The traffic is nuts, damn construction!
Which way should I go?
Decide! Decide!
I follow the lakeshore
Should I drive straight in?
Another day, another decision.
The same decision.
I'm still here.

They swarm me
In my coat, detached and listless
I fall to the couch, and curl up.
Question? Question? Question?
Decide! Decide! Decide!
I can't fire them either
(And wouldn't, of course)
But thinking is futile
I cannot decide.
Get your own damn supper.

Comfortably numb :)

2007-10-17T00:56:00.000-04:00

So high on cough syrup.

Not even my beloved nyquil. It's a prescription codeine-based concoction, fruity with a menthol undertone and lovely rose colour. :)

I am flying higher than a kite.

If we could all take this cough syrup every day forever and ever, the world would be a much happier place. We wouldn't be able to drive or operate heavy machinery, but who gives? We wouldn't.

This is why I miss smoking. The peace, the calm, the relaxness. Is relaxness a word? Probably not, but who the hell cares.

I'm drowsy, but I don't want to go to bed and miss the rest of the high.

The cough? Still there, and so is the accompanying pain in my back muscles, but i just don't care.

Drugs are a wonderful thing. Or things. :)

The people who...

2007-08-10T21:46:00.000-04:00

I'm thinking of a quote.

It doesn't have to be a quote that already exists -- it could be a new quote. Something profound that someone else hasn't thought of yet.

I'm thinking it should start with "The people who..."

But then I can't think of the rest.

The gist of it is "the people who are there for you when times are rough for you will still fuck you over if the time comes when they have to cover their own asses."

But that just doesn't sound very profound.

I've been begging the Ass Dean to tell me why the two big honchos have been noncommunicado since that ugly report came out. Finally, today, he told me. Well, sort of. He told me that what is happening now (reorganization, with me involved, at the helm, and making reorganization decisions and advising him) is not what was supposed to happen after the report was released.

He basically told me, without actually speaking the words, that the knee-jerk decision by these two trusted pseudo-allies was for me to be canned.

New Ass Dean said no way, we have to use the strengths we have. We can't just blow the whole place up and start over. Let's build on what we have. And this is supposedly what brings us up to where we are now.

I'm sure one of the other reasons they pulled the punch is that they were probably told that if a lawyer got wind of the whole thing, they'd be toast.

It takes me back to the conversations I've had with these two over the past year -- "oh don't worry, Frisky, you won't be held responsible for the mess that was left" and "thanks for coming back and trying to clean things up" and "don't put too much pressure on yourself -- it could take a couple of years to clean up this mess" and my personal favourite -- "There'll be a big reward for you when this is all said and done!"

So, the people who reassure you that you won't be left holding the bag are full of shit.

Nope, still doesn't have the panache I'm looking for here.

So, now I know they were actually going to respond to the Finance guy's behaviour by firing me, before the new Ass Dean came to my rescue.

Or did he? Maybe it would have been better if they'd done it? Maybe I'd be, like, the Norma Rae of the 21st century by now? Surely, they would know by now how much I had actually accomplished. Most definitely, I'd be moving through legal channels by now, on my way to a big freakin' payoff!

Aw, I can't be hard on him. He really is a sweetheart and pretty much saved my ass. He told me today because he knew I was worried and he was gentle and compassionate. He reassured me that we were going to work together to make this better, and that he is the only one who truly understands what I've been through because he is going through the same thing. I should focus on the future and all the good that we'll be able to do together. He knows I'm not in a position to complain about things that need to be done, but he is, and he'll do it for both of us.

The people who tell you they're on your side either are or they are just saying they are.

Oh, fuck it. I'm just not good at this. How about "Shit rolls downhill" or "Trust no one" or "Live til you die."

You know what I really need? Six numbers between 1 and 49.

The more I know, the less I understand.

2007-06-21T23:36:00.000-04:00

There are people in your life who've come and gone
They let you down, you know they hurt your pride
You better put it all behind you baby; life goes on
You keep carryin that anger; it'll eat you up inside

---Don Henley, The Heart of the Matter

Indeed. My tummy hurts.

This has been one of the most difficult weeks of my life. And I don't mean Paris Hilton difficult. I'm talking friggin David Hasselholf's wife difficult.

I thank everyone for the advice. You've given me an objective point of view that I can't possibly get IRL, even though all the information you have, you've gotten from me. So, I guess it's not totally objective, but you know what I mean.

My tummy is ruined. It feels like OJ Simpson has wrapped his angry fist of death around it and is squeezing it so hard that I don't know when I'm hungry and I don't know when I'm full. I don't know whether I'm going to puke or burp.

This morning I cried on the way to work. That damn Don Henley song came on and I lost it. Quiet tears, just streaming down my face and I just let them. Who gives a fuck about the makeup. Then at the end of the day, I got in the car, put on my seatbelt and looked over at city park across from my office, and started to sob. I wasn't really thinking about it, but I just started sobbing. I pulled away from the curb and got out on the road, and at some point during the drive my body just started going into spasms, and I started to really, really cry, like a child. Just this raw despair.

I keep wondering when the turning point is going to come. Then I opened my blog and saw Weltek's post, and I thought, well, you know, Weltek is right. I've been thinking about the whole grievance thing, and how I've still got twenty-five years to retirement, and I've got a litter to think about, and in spite of my desire for justice and my hurt pride and my shattered ego, I have to be a good little girl and suck it up.

OR. I quit, and go the way of GinGin. The way of GinGin is the way I want to go, but I can't do that unless I have a place to go.

So, my plan is to meet with grievance man anyway, and just get his take and his advice just in case I get to plan GinGin and have to prove that I went through all the proper channels.

My "other" boss (yeah, the place is complicated), who is very supportive and who is very new and is pretty disgusted by this whole mess, told me that I pretty much have two choices at this point: I can either tell them "screw you" and leave, or I can tell them "screw you" and prove to them that they're wrong about me. That means seeing them through this big reorganization, and making the place the perfect place that it should be and that I've wanted it to be since day one.

He doesn't want me to go.

But then there's another boss who has been avoiding me for two weeks. He's not really a boss, but he's quite superior to me and has been an amazing friend and source of support over the past year. Until he read the report. Suddenly, what is it? Shame? Guilt? Embarrassment? Not wanting to see me this way, so hurt, so beaten down, when he knows better than anyone what I've been through this year? He still bothers me. The mystery of his silence weighs heavily on my mind. And in my tummy.

The bottom line is: I came back for the students. I came back to make it a better place.

My boss who wants me to stay is going to talk to our new HR person to ask for advice on how he gets through this mess that has been caused by this report. He wants to tell her about our conversations; I say fine. Whatever. It can't get any worse. My tummy could not possibly feel worse.

Don Henley, you are one smart dude. It does eat you up inside. Forgiveness? Hah! For me to poop on! They have one stubborn Frisky on their hands, and forgiveness does not come easily for me. Resolution? Sounds good, but it's also part of the title of that damn report, so now I hate that fucking word.

Pride. That's what it's all about. I can't let my pride be my downfall, but at the same time, I'm too proud to stay. I'm not, evidently, too proud to drive down a busy road while my body is wracked with sobs while other drivers look alarmingly on.

Oh, Daddy. Please help me figure this one out.

Send My Regrets

2007-06-15T10:28:00.000-04:00

Go ahead, say it.

I told you so.

Go ahead, really. It needs to be said. People told me so, and I didn't listen.

April: Office lock is faulty. Lock fails often. We report it -- have been reporting it for months. Nothing done. Big Boss (CFO-level) finds door unlocked while we are at a staff meeting in another building. Boss, to teach us a lesson about being so careless, gets a couple of his minions and they "steal" equipment, mostly monitors, off our desks and hide them in the basement, then leave. They lie in wait until staff come back to office. By this time, I've gone to an appointment and I'm not with them when they return.

Staff freak. Computers gone, information gone, hard work gone -- stolen. Personal information on hundreds of people. Some cry, everyone scared. OMG -- is the robber still in the building? Are they hiding somewhere? They start looking for point of entry, and go to the basement, where they find computer equipment on basement floor. They know -- something is up.

Big Boss comes in and blasts everyone -- this is a lesson about security. You obviously don't care about security of our clients. You left the door unlocked. But, they say, it's broken and we've been reporting it to your minion for months and he won't fix it. Not true, says Big Boss. Tells them in the morning there's going to be a meeting.

Nobody sleeps. Everyone calls me at home.

Next day: Big Boss arrives two hours after scheduled time. Everyone is a mess. Scared shitless. He yells at us. He tells us that if we don't lock the door, we won't be working here. A few people call him on the stunt. He shouldn't have done it, it was unprofessional and disrespectful. It threatened our security. You made us carry computers out of the basement and up flights of stairs, potentially causing harm to us or our equipment. One asks for an apology. He yells back that we won't be getting an apology. He tells the most vocal that he'll speak to her later.

When it's over, I go to my office. He follows me, and sits across from me. He smirks. I burst into tears. I know it's over.

He assures me that it's not my fault. WTF?? Damn right it's not my fault. You can't come in hear and treat people like that! But I can't speak. I'm too upset, I'm crying.

Upper management gets wind of it. They call me, contrite. Vow to make it better. Vow to investigate and find a way to fix it and move on. Vow to make sure staff know they are appreciated and that they feel safe.

I call Grievance Guy. What do I do, as a bumbling, inept, managewhore, to protect my staff at this point? He's appalled, never heard of a CFO behaving this way. Don't file a grievance yet, he says, let Upper Management deal with it internally and if not satisfied, then we file grievance.

Upper Management hires external consultant. Consultant interviews people. Spends 40 minutes with me and each of my staff. Spends time with Upper Management. Spends time with other managers. Starts off by interviewing the Big Boss and getting his take on people. By the time Consultant gets to us, his opinion of us is formed. This is clear by types of questions asked.

The report of this consultant will be out in a few weeks, they tell us. This is going to be really positive. CFO will likely lose HR privileges. We think he should be fired, but they say that in the real world, you can't fire someone important like the CFO.

June: Report comes out. It says that the dysfunctional nature of my office led to the "incident." It got so bad in my office, that the CFO lashed out. The underlying cause of the incident is not the CFO, but us. Me. My staff. That previous manager, who left that huge mess that I'm still wading through, caused a huge backlog of work. My job is almost impossible to perform while going through all the backlog AND counselling the staff that she damaged. The report is very critical of the management of the office (me) and goes on to explain how the office should be properly managed. It says the manager is "frequently absent." WTF?? I work friggin weekends for fvcks sake! Totally unfounded. Thanks for letting me know I svck and for educating me on Management 101. Now tell me how I'm supposed to do all this while working through the backlog of a manager whose ineptitude they ignored for years and years. You think I didn't already know how the place was supposed to work? Of course I did. I just didn't have time. The report goes on to explain how the weak manager in my office has led to the dysfunction. No names are mentioned, but when you turn to Appendix Frickin' A, there's a list of relevant people. There's my name, right next to the offending Manager's position.

This scathing report, which amounted to an unconventional performance evaluation, which I clearly failed, was not presented to me personally. I received it by email. CORRECTION: I received it by email AT THE SAME TIME AS THE REST OF THE ORGANIZATION RECEIVED IT BY EMAIL. That's right, this report, referring to the inept, bumbling managewhore, and then naming that person in the appendix, was sent to all my colleagues, friends, coworkers, upper management. Everyone.

This was yesterday. Took today off. Have received a number of supportive emails from my staff, who are completly winded after also taking a good kick in the teeth. We've all been publicly lynched.

Meanwhile, Big Boss sits at his desk, smirking and tenting his fingers a la Montgomery Burns.

Yeah, I regret it. People warned me a year ago that I would probably regret going back there. Why are you doing this, they asked? You finally broke free and now you're going back?! It's a good career move, says I. It will take a lot of time to clean the joint up, but once I do, I'll be a frickin hero!

Chewed up. Spit out.

I need a new job. I need to get out of there. My reputation is shot. Wrote to the Grievance Guy and forwarded the report to him, telling him that this was the result of the internal "investigation" and that obviously I'm not pleased with the outcome. But surely I will have no credibility with him once he sees this report. This public lynching.

OMG I regret it. Yes I do.

Why?

2007-06-15T00:44:00.001-04:00

When you were here before,
Couldn't look you in the eye
You're just like an angel,
Your skin makes me cry

You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
I wish I was special
You're so fuckin' special

But I'm a creep,
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here

I don't care if it hurts,
I wanna have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul

I want you to notice
when I'm not around
You're so fuckin' special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here.

FAWK!!

2007-05-23T23:42:00.000-04:00

I can't count the number of times in a day I say it.

FAWWWWK!!

I had to googlefy when I signed into my blog. MY blog!! I'm told that my current blog isn't good enough, so I have to go through all these changes. Fine.

Enter the email address, name, etc., get to the stupid "type this word" thingie, and FAWWWK!! It didn't work. Do it again, get a new pretend word, hit enter and FAWWWK!! I forgot to accept the terms of the agreement.

And now, I forget why I came here.

So, I pondered over my messages from my last post, visions of bubblebars dancing in my head, and then checked out some of my old stuff.

Geez, I thought, what a whiney bitch.

So, I thought I should post something happy, but I had such a bad experience just trying to get into the damn blogger, that the only thing I'm thinking right now is FAWWWK!!

Sometimes you've just got to say it.

They should name a bath bomb "FAWK." They could pretend it means "For All Woman Kind" or something stupid like that, and only us cool kids would be in the know. Kind of like that FCUK perfume.

Instead of whispering my troubles into a little hole, I could just strip down and then scream out across the rooftops "FAWWWK!!" and then pitch the bomb in the tub and watch it fizzle away.

Ne Worry Pas

2007-03-29T01:29:00.000-04:00

The invisible people who know me know that I'm a Lushie.

So, you can imagine my excitement today when the Lush store opened in my city. I visited, and it was indeed a religious experience.

Lately, I've been feeling really crappy. So weak, so tired, anemic, depressed, stressed. I'm sleeping all the time, as much as possible. I've been off work this week, because I can't get my arse out of bed. I am on my second UTI in three weeks, and my doc upped my antibiotic to Cipro, because I've been feeling so much like Anna Nicole lately that I may as well take the same drugs, too.

Which brings me to Ne Worry Pas, which is the name of a bath bomb that I bought today. It's powdery-white with a lavender scent, and it's very simple-looking with the exception of one oddity: it has a hole in it, a "grotto" which is a turquoise blue hole dug into the side of the bomb. When you look in the hole, it seems to go on forever.

Legend has it that you whisper your worries into the grotto, and then toss the bomb in the bathwater and watch your worries fizz away.

So I got in there, covered up as much as I can in my little tub with hot water. I just felt so weak and tired, and I pretty much just sank in and was content to stay there all day. I picked up my Ne Worry Pas, looked in the hole, and whispered thusly:

"I'm scared about my health. Maybe I have bladder cancer or something. Maybe my kidneys are shutting down. What if I'm dying, and I'm so tired because the life is slowly slipping from my body? Then there's the money. I'll always have room for you, my darling Lush, but I'm at that point again where I'm going to get nailed on income tax and I have to pay down my line of credit and I have to get a new roof on the house, and it's only a matter of time before the furnace has to be replaced. And don't even get me started about work! OMG the mess that I've inherited is so embarrassing and so fucking maddening...to be stuck with all that because they turned a blind eye to that useless twit. And the payoff just isn't there, for the amount of time and effort that I put into it. I don't think I've ever complained about being "underpaid" for the work I do. But now I feel that I should be getting danger pay for all the BS I have to put up with, and then there's the politics...oh god, don't get me started! Then there's girl kittens social insurance number and stuff that she needs to get a job this summer and I keep forgetting to get it because I'm so forgetful these days. And OMG the parking tickets! I'm afraid to go renew my license."

I paused, thinking, wondering if there's anything else I needed to add. Then I decided that I'd whispered just about everything for now, and *plopped* the bomb into the water.

It fizzled and bounced and bubbled, and the water turned a milky white and the glorious scent of lavender and essential oil goodness filled the room. I closed my eyes and sank back into the tub, imagining my worries dissolving like that little ball of wonder...and then I realized...

Um, so now I'm, like, immersed in my worries.

*sigh*

My Indulgence

2006-05-08T22:27:00.000-04:00

Something feels very wrong about spending $350 on bath products.

Especially when you come from a poor family, and no more than five years ago, you had your heat turned off in April because you were behind on your bill, and you had to boil water for baths and heat the house with the stove.

Now? I am having twenty dollar baths.

Obviously, things are looking up financially. I'm in debt, but it's what I like to call "manageable debt."

So, yes, I can go to the Lush store and drop $350 on bath products. It's not like I can go all the time, because the closest store is three hours away. Plus, the products are all natural, fresh, and handmade. They look lovely, they smell lovely, and they make me feel good. If only until the water gets cold.

Last night, I drenched my dry hair with "The Strokes," a hair mask. I sat with that on my head for two hours. Then, I put a fresh mask call "Love Lettuce" on my face. Straight out of the fridge, it's really cold, and it stinks, but it feels heavenly.

After a half hour, I showered, washing The Strokes out of my hair. Oh, it was so silky smooth, and then I washed it with Cynthia Sylvia Stout Shampoo and American Cream conditioner. I washed with Olive Branch shower gel, and washed the Love Lettuce off my face.

Then, I put the plug over the drain. It was time to get serious.

After filling the tub with hot water, I tossed in a Ceridwen, which is a bath melt wrapped in cheesecloth. The bath water turned milky white and the herby scent just made me sink down to the deepest depths of my shallow little bathtub. Once I was completely melted like buttah, I tossed in the bath bomb.

This time, I used All That Jasmine. I've used this one before, so I already knew that I loved it. What I forgot about All That Jasmine is that once I'm soaking in it, I can't get out of the tub until the water is cold and my skin has absorbed all the wonderful wonderfulness of the scent.

And hour and a half and a trashy magazine later, I crawled out of the tub, limp and sleepy. You could almost see the "stink lines" coming off my body from all the smelly smelliness I'd been soaking in all night.

I rubbed Lemony Flutter on my cuticles and Smitten on my hands. I washed my face with Fresh Farmacy, toned with Breath of Fresh Air, and moisturized with Afterlife.

A quick blowdry and I hit the sheets. Smooth, silky, shiny hair...warm, beautiful-smelling skin...fresh clean face...I drifted off to sleep without the aid of wine.

$350 is a small price to pay to avoid liver damage. And I'm worth it.

Saving the World

2006-05-07T01:15:00.000-04:00

Oh, the burden upon my furry shoulders.

Okay, so it's not, like, the whole world. It's just a dinky little medical school in Canada. Just a dinky little medical school in Canada, you say? Isn't that kind of like guarding a tiny little litter box in, say, Windsor Castle? The freakin' Vatican?

Well, sort of. It's pretty little. One of the littlest in Canada.

That's why it's so endearing to me, I guess.

That's why I'm so friggin' pissed off that they let that last bumbling, inept managewhore bulldoze it into the ground. It's like that abusive spouse that you left. It's like that unhealthy pack-a-day habit you nixed. It's like that cold bottle of beer screaming at you from the fridge on a Monday night, when you know better.

You just can't say no. You can't turn your back on it.

As much as I hate it, as much as it drains me, as unfair as it is that I'm making $15K less per year working ten times harder than she did while she did NOTHING, just to clean up her mess, as much as it tires me out so bad that I can't cook dinner, as much as it burns me out by the end of the day, as much as I want to run to the top of that beautiful 19th century double-brick mansion that houses the School of Medicine and shout "I quit!" from the ornate Victorian balcony up there in the turret...as much as I hate it...I love it.

*sigh*

I am such a sucker.

Okay, medical school. I'll save ya. I'll pay all your damn outstanding bills and I'll get you through the friggin bird flu just like I saw you through SARS. I'll try to rally up a discouraged and battle-worn group of dedicated staff and try to pick up the pieces left by that fvcktard who treated work like it's a goddamn seven-days-of-the-week-Friday-afternoon-social-club and got away with it. I'll do it.

An extra $150 bucks a month. That's it. Probably not even that, after taxes.

So, why?

Well, I guess I'm hoping that some day, I'll see that girl in third year walking to the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, waving to her family. Maybe that dude in second year who doesn't say much in person but who writes really enthusiastic emails will find a cure for cancer. Maybe that chick who just slid through from the waiting list to get into first year will save my kitten's life someday.

Oh, I'm such a fucking pushover.

How did I get this fat?

2006-04-28T00:03:00.000-04:00

Every now and then, this happens to me, so it probably happens to you every now and then, too.
You go to someone's house, and you're standing there, in their kitchen or whatever, talking to the person, and suddenly, you see something move in the corner of your eye.

You look, and OMG, you double over laughing. It's a cat, and it's HUGE! You point and laugh, and say stuff like "what do you feed that thing?" etc, and the cat stops and looks at you as if to say "oh, just go fuck yourself, human."

Today, the outgoing inept, bumbling manager got the pictures back from her retirement party. There was this group shot of all of us, and I was there, front and just off-center.

I? Am that cat. :(

I had no idea. OMG, I was about ten times bigger than everyone else. I was huge. Mind you, I knew I'd gained, and when I look down at the keyboard, I can feel some extra flesh in the chin area, but I had no idea that it was THAT bad!

I was horrified. Suddenly, stuff started to make sense.

Like when the outgoing manager was telling me that some people had seen me at a meeting and didn't realize it was me. She told me that they didn't think it was the same person, and she said that my hair is dark now, whereas before it was lighter and had a lot of blonde hightlights. And I was...yeah, the hair was lighter.

Now I know why she paused. :(

And when I came home and I said to DH that I should start exercising and I need to lose weight, he didn't say "You're perfect the way you are" like he has said so many times over the past eleven years. He just didn't really say anything.

So, that's it, folks. I'm fat. I'm the fat cat that walks across your friends kitchen to shrieks of laughter.

What the fuck are you looking at, humans? Never seen a fat cat before? Huh? HUH?

*sigh*

So now what am I going to do? Lose weight? OMG that just sucks so bad. I HATE diets. I LOATHE exercise.

*naps*

How did this happen? All the fast food joints? The wine? The beer? Eating out because it's quicker and easier? Too much TV? Not enough exercise? Winter? Spring? WHY can't it go away as fast as it arrives?

And you know what really sucks? They're going to blow up the friggin picture and hang it at work. So, for years to come, there I will be, staring out from the wall, with a look on my face that says "what the fuck are you looking at, human?"

(Actually, the look on my face is one of complete naivete. I had no idea I was looking so well-fed.)

*waddles away*

A Rebuttal - for friends

2006-04-24T01:51:00.000-04:00

Note: the following post was edited during Monday morning cleansing. I was really pissed off when I typed it out, but now I'm sobererer and would like to sound like it. So now, on with the show...

>Love is being decent and honest and kind and honorable. Love is being respectful and
trustworthy.

This definition of "love" should go in the biggest, most expensive mother-effin dictionary in print.

Honestly, I totally believe it.

It? Was written by an anonymous person in response to my last blog post.

To that person, who identified themselves as "disgusted," I would like to address your questions.

How would I feel if it were my husband? Well, I would be pissed. I would be hurt, pissed, disgusted. It would totally destroy my entire world (well, if I realy loved the guy).

Would I want to save our relationship? Hell, no.

There's nothing to save, disgusted.

If he's in love with someone else, he's gone. He's gone.

What's to save? A loveless relationship? In your words:

>Love is being decent and honest and kind and honorable. Love is being respectful and trustworthy.

Let's look at this statement.

Decent: no, it is not decent to cheat on your spouse. No, it is not decent to live with another woman/man while claiming to love the person on the outside of the relationship. Is it decent to love another? Yes. Love = Decent. Love isn't planned. It just happens. If you've ever been really in love, you'd know this already.

Honest: Honesty is leaving when you're in love with someone else. Honesty does not mean that you should stay with someone who does not make you happy. You have to be honest with yourself before you can even think of being honest with the rest of the friggin world.

Kind: The kindest thing that dingus can do in this case is to set his wife free to find the person who was truly meant to be her lover.

"honourable, respectful, trustworthy" brak brak brak. Grow up. When you grow up and get a brain, you'll learn. I'd be wasting my time and energy tapping out a response. Life is so much more complicated than this Sunday school shit.

The point of my previous post was that you cannot help who you fall in love with. No, I didn't mean that when you feel attracted to someone that you should screw them. People who have looked into another's eyes and felt that *zap* of recognition, and know immediately that this person is going to play a huge role in your life before you even hear them speak, those are the folks who are supporting this relationship.

It may surprise you to learn that I support the wife, too. She should be free to find that spark that she doesn't get with him. If she were my daughter/sister/friend, no way would I sentence her to a lifelong loveless marriage just to protect the sanctity of MARRIAGE. That makes no sense, disgusted. How is that a caring parent? "Save your marriage." What are you saving when there's no love? A facade? A public image of a happy, perfect union? A false sense of security and suppressed pain? Woohoo. Good times.

Go congregate with all the other people in your little world who follow G-d's law and who live the perfect life while aching inside and wanting it to end.

As for children, many of them come from broken homes where mommy and daddy are still together. What's a broken home to you? Two happy parents living separately? To me, it's miserable people stuck in miserable marriages. Kids know. They pick up on it. You're staying together because of me. I'm the cause of your unhappiness. What's so honourable and respectful about that?

Get out from under mommy and daddy's roof and learn. Get some life experience so you'll be able to offer intelligent, insightful advice instead of this textbook crap you're reciting. If you're already out, and you're living with a husband or wife, then I think we know what you're life is like. No wonder you're bitter.

Love is...

2006-04-20T02:05:00.000-04:00

It has come to my attention that a new definition of love is needed.

Two kittens, a white picket fence, a friggin' DOG??! Fuck that.

It's all about electicity, foks. Chemistry. That's right, when you look in someone's eyes, and that fusebox down there comes alive and tells you to just throw all that you thought that was right in the world to the wind, abandon everything and everyone, and just go to that happy place. That's what it's all about. If we all just did it, this world would be a better place.

You know that feeling. You look in those two eyes, and there it is. It's the reason you broke up with your last wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend. It's the reason you left the last job for this one. It's the reason you decided to shop at this grocery store rather than the one closer to home. It's the reason you decided to stop for gas at this place in time. It's the reason you came together. It had to happen. It was meant to be. What is happening now is happening for a reason.

Even looking back, and you probably are thinking to yourself, how the fuck did I get myself into this situation? And you're probably thinking that it's a bad thing. But why? Why is it a bad thing? How can something so good be so bad?

Because of society.

Well, fuck society.

Let's cut to the chase: this biggest concern right now is the children. Some idiot is always gonna be screaming "what about the children??!"

A broken home is one where mommy and daddy don't really love each other and don't even like each other very much, but stay together because it's the best thing to do.

A good home is one where the grown-up(s) provide a good home for the babies. I don't care how many grown-ups there are, or if they are the same gender, or if they are legally married. Who gives? If they kittens are fed, have clean litterboxes and regular *tonguebaths*, you're doing a good job. Bonus points if you show respect to everyone in the house.

The worst thing you can do to a kitten is to live a lie. To pretend that you love their mommy or daddy. Don't do that. Kittens need to feel that their mommy and daddy are happy with their own lives. Don't lie to your kittens. They will know, and they will resent it.

Selfish? Yeah, you've heard that. How can you give up all that is "right" for love, for electricity, for chemistry? How dare you?

I guess you have to understand what I've come to learn: people around you, the people who care about you, need to accept what makes you happy. Those who love you, who really care, will stick around. Those who don't, weren't friends. It's that simple. It hurts, yes, but in the long run, when you look back, it will all seem very logical to you. You'll know that you did the right thing. If you do it for love, it's the right thing. It's the simplest lesson to learn and yet it's the hardest.

And above all, it is worth it. What you're going through now...it's just a blip in time. When you're eighty, and you look back, these few years will be just a little hiccup. I promise.

I love you guys. Both of you. I'm rooting for you.

*headbutt*

Hey, Boss!

2006-04-13T23:49:00.000-04:00

I hate you, you fucking fuck. I came back here, after a fifteen-month hiaitus, to save your sinking ship, you dorkwad. The only thing that made me hesitate was the thought of working for you again. That dimwit manager that you protected for so long is finally leaving, and yes, the opportunity to rescue a program that I love was enticing, but I seriously doubted the fact that I could work with such a condescending patronizing fuckstick as yourself. The extra hundred-and-ninety bucks a month isn't really worth putting up with you, but I'm doing it because I have this unreasonable attachment to the workplace you are so insistent upon destroying with your hairbrained ideas and your penchant for spending money we don't fucking have.

You are an asshole. The way you belittled me in that meeting tonight made me want to stand up, spit on your extra-clean glasses and muss up your perfectly-groomed hair and tear that starched suit to shreds (well, maybe just the jacket, because...ew). The only reason I didn't was because I figure when you have a bad day you probably go home and beat your wife. Yes, I held back, but I did it for her, even though we've never met, and never will, because we are women and are pieces of shite and don't deserve to be introduced to anyone let alone to each other.

I want to walk into your office on Monday and tell you how insulted I was with what you said and how you had to say it in front of everyone. I want to let you know that you were able to walk all over people for two years because that lazy bitch let you do it and she joined in whenever she could.

But I don't think I'll do that.

Know why?

Because I think your days are numbered. You are going to get the shaft soon, you moron, and I want to be there to watch your face when you find out that your shitty people skills have shortened your term. I want to be there to see your face when the very same people you call idiots tell you that you aren't needed anymore. I want to be there to see you cry.

Don't you use me to help you pose in front of people. Don't use the staff to do it, either. It's only been a week and a half, and already I want to kick you to the curb. People are begging me to help, because you are such a patronizing shithead and you treat them like children. There's only one way to help, though, and that's to go to your boss. But, I have other things I have to worry about right now, like the mess left by the incompetence that you encouraged. You, my friend, are doing just fine screwing yourself over. You don't need my help.

I just keep thinking...good things come to those who wait. Keep your cool, Frisky, keep your cool.

My unrequited love

2006-04-04T23:55:00.000-04:00

I saw you last night.

It's been twenty years. It disturbs me how much you, or the idea of you, still affects my life.

When I saw you, I barely recognized you, because you didn't look like you've looked in my dreams, in my thoughts, in my fantasies.

You looked like me. A person who's lived for the past twenty years. Had bad relationships, great sex, some kids, gained things, lost things...

But you still looked so fine.

And I -- I looked my worst. I had just finished my first day at my new job, and I felt like I'd been through the spin cycle. I had been shopping with my kids for two hours, for new shoes and coats and stuff. I had been waiting for the waitress to bring our meals for about a half hour, and I was getting so tired and I just wanted to go home and soak in the bath.

And then I saw you, a dark, shadowy figure in a long suit coat, walking by the window next to where I sat, and then I saw you walk past me, not seeing me, looking at your parents, who I had watched walk past me a few minutes before.

And like twenty years ago, I watched. I didn't move. I didn't breath and didn't speak. I just watched. The vision in my mind, that vision of you, changed. It updated, to the person you now are, the man you've become, so that you could catch up with me, the 40-year-old woman I've become. Tired, changed by life experiences, cynical about how your most treasured dreams never came true.

You didn't see me, and it was just as well, because I didn't look my best. It had been a bad day.

It was also the 11th anniversary of my father's death.

So me, ever the romantic, I got to thinking: is this a gift from my father? Is this a sign from him that you are okay, that you're doing well, that you're still alive? Because for all I've known, you could have been dead for the past 19 years.

I mean, it's funny, after 20 years, that we were on our way to MacDonalds when DH said "why don't we try that" and pointed to the restaurant, and I said "okay" when I knew I probably shouldn't spend so much money, and it was late dinner-wise, but I said "okay" anyway, just in time for him to turn the car into the parking lot. If I'd thought about it any longer, I would never have seen you. I would not be writing this.

When I got home, I took the bath and went to bed, and dreamed of being alone. I was lonely. I was living in my hometown, where we met, and I was alone, worried about how life was passing me by, so I decided to move to where I live now, but I still felt so alone. So empty.

For the past 24 hours, my world has been a dark, rainy night, and everybody in it a dark, shadowy figure in a long suit coat, shielding themselves from the rain.

And then I look at my DH, who has loved me for all these years, and my beautiful kids, and I think that maybe my dad was sending me a gift after all.

Maybe, in spite of how I have felt all these years, things turned out the way they were meant to be.

I think too much

2005-07-26T12:09:00.000-04:00

My nervousness over this morning's impending space shuttle launch feels silly.

It's not like I'm there. I have no loved ones involved. I'm not connected to the US space program in any way. I have no vested interests in this.

I did, however, have a horrible scary dream about it.

This is pretty much how I go through life. I'm guided by my dreams. I'm deeply affected by everything that happens in my dreams. It's not like I go searching for meaning; it's just that I wake up with the feeling that I'm supposed to find meaning. There's something telling me that there's a message in there somewhere and I'm supposed to find it. Often, during the day, my dreams come back to me, out of the blue, elbowing me, egging me on. Figure me out.

What the hell is a doomsday explosion of the space shuttle supposed to mean?

Loneliness

2005-06-21T23:32:00.000-04:00

I am the worst person for feeling lonely in a room full of people.

I've been feeling very Charlie Brownish these days. I'm the funny-looking kid that nobody understands. I wonder what people see when they look at me. What they hear when I speak. Do they hear me? Are they even listening?

I wish I were a movie director sometimes, because I could SO illustrate this feeling visually. An opulent room, full of opulent stuff, like a big crystal chandelier and fancy wall sconces and plushy curtains and fabrics, and people milling about, and there's me in the middle. The people are all talking, some are dancing, they're having a great time. But there's not a sound.

There's me in the middle of the room. Silent, and all these people around me with their mouths moving without making a sound and their glasses clinking together without really clinking. Just me. Can they see me?

What if, in my movie, I start to scream? Will they hear me? Will it ruin this whole demonstration of loneliness?

Yeah, I think it will. So, there won't be a scream. Just silence.

That's much better. THAT is how I feel sometimes, just like that. No scream, but I feel like I want to scream. Just to break the silence, and to make myself heard. To make myself known. To make people notice me, or to make them understand me better.

"I'm not a blockhead, dammit!"

That's better. I don't know if they heard me, but I do feel better.

A Mother's Day

2005-05-06T23:37:00.000-04:00

I took my cat to the vet, and luckily it isn't serious. He lost a fang, and I was worried that he'd have to have dental surgery.

The vet thinks that Thunder was biting something and the tooth broke off. It looked infected, so he gave me an antibiotic to give the cat.

Much to my delight, it wasn't a pill! Yay! He gave me an antibiotic in the form of a liquid and a dropper. So easy, I thought. Much, much better than having to wrap a cat around a pill.

Visit + antibiotic = $104.00.

Hm. Well, there goes the paint for the kitchen. Oh, well, I don't mind putting off the redecorating for a bit, so I guess that's okay.

So it's day three of the antibiotic drops. My arms are covered with scratches. I have a puncture wound, inflicted by the one remaining fang, in my thumb. DH's winter coat and big puffy mittens sit on a kitchen chair, waiting for the next time we have to give him the medicine. It's no easier than pills, folks. Syrup is no fvcking better. He freaks out and wiggles and fights and scratches and the whole time I'm thinking "A hundred and four bucks, you little bastard."

But then, he's done, and he skulks away somewhere for an hour or so to mope.

As I'm nursing my wounds and picking the cat hair off my clothes, suddenly I get that familiar sensation on my ankle.

*headbutt*

I know my kids love me. They don't have to say it. Even when they're mad at me, I know they love me because of the unconditional love between parents and children. That's why Mother's Day is kind of funny to me. Every day is Mother's Day because when you're a mom, you know you're someone's most important person.

This love transcends bloodlines and species, though. I just did something that terrified my cat and probably made his little mouth hurt more than it already did. I took his control over his universe away for a few minutes, which no doubt hurt his pride.

And yet, he forgives me. He loves me in spite of what I did to him. Oh, you say his brain is the size of a walnut and he's already forgotten about the medication. Not so. He remembers, because he tries to scatter when he sees me coming with the little bottle.

Funny how that little *headbutt* just made it all worthwhile. That's what parenting is all about, folks. You spend all your money, put off doing the things you enjoy, and they're still pissed off. Yet, at the end of the day, you know you are their favourite most important person. :)

Coming Home, or...I Once Was Lost But Now I'm Found

2005-04-06T00:26:00.000-04:00

Today I went back to my hometown for my aunt's funeral. It's only about 25 minutes away, but I haven't been there in years. I spent the first 22 years of my life there in that little town of 5,000.

Oh, how things change, and how they somehow stay the same.

A plant torn down here, a new one built there. A new row of townhouses over there. The river is clearer here, but cloudier-looking there. The streets look a little cleaner. The bars I used to go to have either been torn down or burned down.

I saw people I used to know. My family, who really never changed in my eyes, but who seem so distant now that I only see them at weddings and funerals. We're strangers, really, but we have that deep connection that only cousins who see each other every ten years can have. You know that someday, as more and more people die off, your cousins will someday be one of your few livings genetic links to your past -- living proof that you really did live there and do that and exist back then.

I also saw former friends. Two of them. They weren't really friends, though. They were part of my "group" during some painful years. My drinking years. The years when I did many, many, many things that I'm not proud of. I did stupid things. They didn't like me, but they liked my friends. We had mutual friends, and so they tolerated me. A lot of people had that kind of relationship with me back then. I think that if I were them, I would have not liked me very much either. I was a lost soul, so desperate and so pathetic.

Of course, now, I am very different. I am an adult with children and with responsibilities and a mortgage and a career and a university degree. I am so removed from that lost soul. Yet, sometimes...actually, quite often, I find myself yearning for those years. I miss my hometown. I miss those really good friends who partied with me. I miss the guys I crushed on and wish I had another chance because I'd do everything differently. I get nostalgic about those years. I hear '80's tunes and I feel so old and sad, and I long for one more day or hour in that time of youth and not-so-innocent innocence.

Today, though, those two friends-by-association ignored me. They pretended they didn't recognize me. So I pretty much threw myself on top of them to force them to acknowledge me, just because I'm rebellious like that.

"Wow, I didn't even recognize you!" and then "Wow, you haven't changed a bit!" It was all very phony and yet still snarky enough to let me know they still loathed the person they knew. "You live there? I have no desire to go there!" and "Isn't it nice how we've all matured!" and other snarky little comments.

So, I'm looking at these two, and they're still sporting the same haircuts and they're still working in the same factories and they're still sitting at the bar drinking and smoking. And I had an epiphany.

All these years, I've been yearning to go back. To dance once more to a black Michael Jackson who I thought was into chicks. To drink a Molson Light served by my favourite hot bartender in my favourite smokey bar. I've always felt like I left something back there. A part of me has been left behind, and I've always been missing it.

But now, I know I haven't left anything behind. I've just moved on. I grew as a person. I became somebody's mother, twice. I busted my ass to get my degree and make something of myself. I grew up.

I did go back in time today, even if just for a few hours. I realize now that I would never want to go back to things the way they actually were then. I haven't been yearning for the past after all. I was wanting to go back and change things I'd done. I was yearning for the ideal past. Where people liked me, where I always got the guy, where I didn't make so many mistakes.

Coming home today, I drove up the highway like it was the Daytona 500. I couldn't wait to get home. My home, where I now live, is my hometown. I've always been torn about this, but now I know. This is my hometown. My home, my life, my world, and it is not as bad as I thought. Why would I want to leave here to go back to that? I don't know what I was thinking.

So what did I leave behind all those years ago? What did I leave behind today? The lost soul, I suppose. That person who didn't know herself, who was always frustrated with people who didn't take the time to get to know her, who didn't know how to relate to people, who had not yet lived. That person who had some painful years and had always wanted to make it right.

My two acquaintances are never going to change the way they feel about me. In their minds, I am someone else. For real, though, I am not that person. I think that's what has bothered me all these years. That there are people out there who's last memories of me are not, well, very favourable. I can't change that. I can't go back and make it right. I can only thank the heavens that it's over, I'm here, I'm happy, I'm content, I have friends and people who love me. I'm not lost anymore.

Love thyself...with caution

2005-03-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

I'm all about the self-love and self-respect and self-confidence. I learned it all the hard way, but I realize how important it is to remember what it is that makes you good.

Now that I'm in a new job and working in a new environment with totally new people, I find I'm evaluating myself again. This is not new to me. I'm very introspective and I'm always conscious of how others see me.

I think the more familiar you become with people, the more you kind of let yourself go.

Being around new people kind of wakes you up to the bad things about you. I think we all need that. I've realized the past couple of weeks that I'm impatient with people who are slower than me, and I can be a little arrogant at times with my ideas.

I guess I've always assumed that the people who have always known me know that deep down I'm a good person but I have these quirks. I never really thought about how these negative things impact other people until I started spending my days with strangers and worrying about whether or not they'll like me.

I listen to myself more when I talk. Sometimes, I don't like the things I say. Sometimes I find myself interrupting someone and I feel bad, and I think -- do I do that a lot?

Oh, I overanalyze, I know that. But can't we get so caught up in the new Oprah age of self-love that we get to a point where we are beyond reproach in our own eyes? When you get to that point, how can you possibly grow as a person? If you think you've reached perfection, where else is there to go?

So, yes, I admit it. I am impatient, I am sometimes arrogant and too damn smart for my own good. I'm not the best listener. Today I had a big zit on my chin and a run in my pantyhose. On the other hand, I am a good teacher, so if I take a deep breath and just relax I could help those people who are slower to learn. I am a good speaker, so I can communicate my ideas rationally if I really concentrate on what people want/need to hear. I have good teeth. :D

Have I mentioned lately how wonderful it is to be back on the learning curve?

Snug as a Bug in a Rug?

2005-03-15T16:31:00.001-05:00

It scares me that I'm so content.

I know I've said it before, but I'm going to say it again. Every time I consciously acknowledge that I am happy and things are going great, everything sort of falls apart. My car breaks or a kitten gets sick or I find out there's another litter on the way or something.

So now I've reached one of those points where I'm just....so pleased! My new job is going so well and I'm learning so much and the people are just unbelievably nice. To top it all off, the old crappy place where I used to work continues to fall apart. That is the justice I was looking for.
So now I have this wonderfully fulfilling job. The money is a little better but it will improve greatly once the raises come through in July. I have to pay income tax, but DH's refund and my childcare reimbursement from work cancel me back down to zero. :)

Kittens are healthy, although baby kitten has started to relapse into the coughing, probably due to the onset of spring, but he has an appointment coming up to check it out.

My bank lady is offering to once again consolidate all my credit cards so that I can rack up the charges again. :D

TAR is on and Survivor is on.

It's like, Christmas every day at the Frisky house!

So, how do I enjoy this when I have become so cynical that I insist that something bad is just around the corner? Has life been so nasty to me that I have to have this expectation? Yeah, I suppose it has, but I don't have to LET myself be affected by the nastiness, do I? I'm only cynical if I want to be, right?

So, let's see. It's taken me 39 years to get this way. How long does it take you to become un-cynicalized?

He loves me, he loves me not.

2005-02-14T15:56:00.000-05:00

If you could read my mind love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
’bout a ghost from a wishin’ well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
You know that ghost is me
And I will never be set free
As long as I’m a ghost that you can’t see

If I could read your mind love
What a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel
The kind that drugstores sell
When you reach the part where the heartaches come
The hero would be me
But heroes often fail
And you won’t read that book again
Because the ending’s just too hard to take

I’d walk away like a movie star
Who gets burned in a three way script
Enter number two
A movie queen to play the scene
Of bringing all the good things out in me
But for now love, let’s be real
I never thought I could act this way
And I’ve got to say that I just don’t get it
I don’t know where we went wrong
But the feelin’s gone
And I just can’t get it back

If you could read my mind love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
’bout a ghost from a wishin’ well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
But stories always end
And if you read between the lines
You’ll know that I’m just tryin’ to understand
The feelin’s that you lack
I never thought I could feel this way
And I’ve got to say that I just don't get it
I don’t know where we went wrong
But the feelin’s gone
And I just can’t get it back

Is cat blood thicker than people blood?

2005-02-11T23:40:00.000-05:00

I remember once when DH "accidently" stepped on one of my cats. Not the tail, the whole cat. And he didn't see him at all (so he says), so he came down hard. While wearing steel-toed boots. Needless to say, the cat, my Crash, let out a blood-curdling scream like no scream I've ever heard. What happened next was compelling. My other cat, Thunder, who is Crash's littermate, came running. By now, Crash had run under the coffee table. Thunder came sniffing along, watching Crash with quiet uncertainty, tiptoeing along until he reached his shocked and wounded brethren. He sniffed his brother a couple of times, and then, after ascertaining that everything seemed to be okay, Thunder backed away, took a few steps, stopped, sat down facing Crash, and watched over his brother for awhile from a comfortable distance. Every now and then, he went back and sniffed and made sure everything was okay. By now, of course, Crash's almond-sized brain had forgotten the incident, and he looked atThunder with a "WTF you lookin at?" look on his face.

I sometimes wonder why some human brothers and sisters can't feel the pain of our siblings the way that I think Thunder felt Crash's pain. My DH's sister is having the worst time of her life. Her husband left her for another woman, and she has been stripped of her identity. Anyone from OT who is reading this probably knows the whole story, and I don't suppose that any non-OTers have tripped upon my blog, so I won't bother repeating the blood and guts. SIL is in a bad way. She talks about wanting to die and killing herself and not wanting to be here and not feeling pain and not being worthy of skin. So, you can imagine why I'm worried.

I personally diagnosed SIL with clinical depression two months ago. She was dragged kicking and screaming to a doctor last month, who confirmed my diagnosis. She has an appointment with a psychiatrist tomorrow.

To add insult to injury, my ex-BIL is being a jerk. I won't give him anymore space in my beloved blog than to just say that. Unfortunately, though, he is not the only one who is being a jerk.

SIL's family (DH's family) are not helping the situation. SIL can't tell her parents that she's taking anti-depressants or that she has depression, because they don't understand the disease. She cries her heart out to everyone, and they're "getting sick of it." They want her to get a hold of herself. They want her to lighten up, to pick herself up and dust herself off, you lost a lier and a cheater, consider yourself lucky, etc. Well, folks, she can't. Depression takes that ability away from you. Depression makes you feel nothing. No joy. No laughter. No love. No purpose. No worthiness. I can coach her, but I can't coach them. Because of their tunnel vision, I haven't admitted my own shame of having depression to them. DH knows, and all he cares about is that I take my medication and get better. He does not try to understand the disease, he just puts all his hopes in my doc that I will get better -- which I have. So, because they don't know what I know, and I know what they don't know but can't tell them, I have to listen to them complain about whiney SIL crying herself to sleep in her mud puddle. To make them understand, I would have to put a human face to depression --my own. And, sadly and perhaps selfleshly, I'm not willing to do that just yet.

Granted, it is very hard to listen to SIL. She's being very negative and angry. She doesn't take some advice well. She gets angry at the advice-giver if they suggest getting on with her life. She's lashing out. You can spend two hours on the phone with her, listening, comforting, talking, trying to convince her of her worthiness, and you hang up thinking you've made some headway, and then you turn around and do the exact same thing the next night.

It gets tiring. Frankly, you do get sick of it. You would think that for all the work you're putting into it, you would see some results.

But sometimes, you don't get results. At least not right away. Some of the most important research and impactful books and movies were long labours of love. You just work and work and work, and you don't get anything back for a long, long time. And you start wondering why you even started in the first place. But because it's something you love and something you believe in, you just keep going.

Thunder was sleeping when Crash got squashed underfoot. All curled up on my bed, all warm and cozy, probably having sweet kitty dreams of catnip and dancing mice. But when he heard that yelp, he snapped out of it, and spent the next several minutes (which is HOURS for a cat) nursing his brother and making sure he was okay.

I'm trying to understand the family that just gives up on someone they love. No, you don't start ignoring her emails and call it "tough love." No, you don't tell her it's all in her mind. You don't tell her how she should feel about her ex. In fact, you don't need to say anything at all!

Just go to her. Give her a *sniff* and a *nuzzle*. Then kind of hover nearby, giving her space but letting her know that you are there to take care of her if she needs you. Check on her now and again, just to remind her you are on her side. Eventually, she will tell you in her own way that she's gotten over it and is well enough to get by on her own. That's when you get to go back to your catnip and dancing mice.

See? People can learn a lot from the cat.

You're So Vain

2005-01-03T23:37:00.000-05:00

I always get nervous when things are going well. Got the new job, got a sewing machine from Santa and I've found out I am an awesome seamstress, kittens are doing well...

It seems whenever I acknowledge that things are going well, they all fall apart.

So, I've decided to sabatoge myself.

I'm going on a diet. What else can wreak havoc on the life of a lover of comfort food? I'm an overeater. I ate so much lasagne last night that I felt sick afterwards. That is just bad. And tonight, I'm not at all hungry, but the leftover lasagne is calling to me from the fridge.

I hurt my back last fall and my doc told me to take it as a warning. Get in shape. Get those abdominal muscles working. Six-pack? Hah! I'd be lucky to pare it down to a 2 litre (that's Canadian for...something). It's gonna be rough, folks. But I'm going to try.

Now that takes me back to my convocation from university a year and a half ago. Our principal said that for us, the grads, "there is no try. Do." or somethingorother. He stole it from Star Wars, I believe.

That's how I got my degree. I planned the whole four years before I even signed up for my first course. Yep, four years. I worked full-time, was a mother, got pregnant and had another litter, had several catastrophes along the way, but after four years, I did it. 15 full university credits. A degree.

So doc says, why can't you approach your health the way you tackled your degree?

I can't answer that. I can't think of any reason why I couldn't do that. Except that I love food. And I hate exercise. And I love sleep, and laying around, and reading, and doing nothing.

There is one motivator that I can think of: vanity.

I am vain. I am very worried about what people think when they look at me. I know it's what's inside that counts, but I have gone through life trying to see myself the way others see me. I do full hair and makeup before going to work. I want to look HOT, baby. I want men to look at me. Women, too.

Now? I don't look so hot. For someone who is vain, that is not good.

So, I'll do what doc says. I'll tackle my health the way I nailed my degree to the wall. I'll join WW online, because WW is something that I can plan and count and do stats and obsess over. I'll do it. I have to. I already proved to the world and to myself that there is no try.

10 years off

2004-12-23T00:11:00.000-05:00

I just took 10 years off my face.

It didn't cost a thing. I didn't have to have any incisions and I didn't have any of those stupid trendy laser airbrush treatments.

My secret? I got a new job. :)

Yep, that's all it took. Well, that, and kitten is pretty much cured of his cough thanks to the drugs.

So now, I'm wandering around work gloating. I don't mean to gloat, it's just that I have this silly grin plastered on my face. I know that I only have 3 more weeks in that hellhole, and then I'm on to better things.

All the Christmas parties are going on, and people are telling me how great I look. I'm glowing. My whole face has changed. Is it my hair? Because I straightened it? Is it new makeup? What is it?

"I got a new job." :)

Even when I look in the mirror, I can see the difference. I've noticed those downward sloping lines around my nose and mouth the past year or so, weighing my face down, making my eyes droop downward, the corners of my mouth sagging, and the dark circles that just kept rejecting the concealer.

Now, I am a fvcking goddess! :)

Funny how the staff, my co-workers, know what has happened to me. They understand. We have been comrades-in-arms over the years, even the ones I don't really like. They see the change, and they know exactly why it's happened. And for one fleeting moment, they wish they could do it, too. They wish that their confidence and self-esteem hadn't been battered down and stepped on and ground into the floor so many times that they can't believe in themselves long enough to respond to a job posting. They see my glow, and they want to do more than just bask in it. They want to jump in.

As for the bosses, upper management, the fat cats...well, they think it's all about money. "Sure, I understand, there comes a time when you have to move on up the ladder and better financial opportunities present themselves and you can't turn your back on that." Okay, you stupid fvck. You just keep on believing that while the manager you totally believe in continues to batter her staff and spend money inappropriately and lie about overtime and do absolutely nothing but walk around with her coffee cup and gossip about the horrible clothes that certain people are wearing. You just keep on believing that. It's all about the money.

Can my glorious new look be attributed to an extra hundred bucks a month? I'm not sure money can do that. Oh, I've seen Extreme Makeover, but can money do that without surgery or laser treatments? Can someone's face go from downcast and dark and sad to bright and sparkly and glowy because of extra money? Perhaps, but that's not what has done it for me.

For me, it comes back to one of my favourite words -- freedom. My face has been set free. My soul, my brain, my heart have all been set free. Now, I can go somewhere where people are interested in seeing what I can do for them. They aren't interested in playing with my mind or insulting my hair or gossiping with me about my friends. They want me to show them my skills. My ideas.

I do look 10 years younger. My 10-year sentence has ended, and I am now free. 10 years worth of lines and shadows and sullenness. Gone. I glow. I shine. It's amazing. :)

Creative Financing

2004-12-09T01:11:00.000-05:00

Well, I did it again this year. I am in awe of my creative financing abilities. :)

I accessed an extra several hundred dollars from a finance company. Yep, ridiculous interest rates, stoopid insurance plans worked into the total borrowed (read the fine print!) -- and for what? So that I know that we will have a decent Christmas and still have groceries and still have a birthday for my youngest. It's worth it, really.

Debt has never really bothered me. I don't understand why the bank guy gets so upset when he looks at all my debt. I sit there like there's nothing wrong, and he's scrolling down the screen of credit cards and finance companies and banks, and I'm like so what, dude? I can pay the monthly payments. I have what is called manageable debt. :)

Doesn't everyone have debt? So what if so-and-so has a brand new car? They're in debt! I borrow money, yes, but I pay it back, too. In full. And then every few years, I clean house and consolidate. Big whoop.

So the lady across the desk from me today is trying to talk me into wiping out my credit cards and stuff. Why? All I want is a few hundred bucks this month. It'll be paid off in a half a year. Yes, I know I didn't plan very well for Christmas. No, I don't want to start a savings plan for next Christmas. It's how I work. I have a decent roof over my head, I have a damn nice lawn and garden, not a bad little car, we eat well. I have life insurance that will cover my debts plus leave a nice little nest egg for my kittens if anything should happen to me.

Every month, I get paid, I pay my various debts, and live on the remainder along with DH's pay for the month.

I wonder what it would be like to pay off all my debts. To have no bills, except for utilities, groceries, etc. Wouldn't that be like having no purpose? Who would make the bank guy pull his hair out? People like him wouldn't have jobs if it weren't for people like me! Hmm...that's good. I'm going to use that line next time I call him to consolidate. :)

So when can I start parenting?

2004-11-29T00:38:00.000-05:00

Since the birth of my youngest kitten, my male, I have not had a moment's peace. Oh, I'm not talking about the usual sibling fights and the rambunctiousness of a toddler and the worries about safety. I'm talking about illnesses.

My son is very ill with a mystery disease. He's been sick for several months. Cough, cough, cough. That's what he sounds like all the time. He can't get through a sentence without coughing. Yes, there are times when he'll get through an entire morning without coughing. Most of the time, though, he is coughing.

A month, ago, or so -- I'm not sure because I'm losing track of time and dates -- he was diagnosed with what the doctor thought was pneumonia. We were suspicious, because the cough has gone on for months, but we took the antibiotic and ran with it.

After a week of no improvement, we went back and got a new antibiotic.

After two weeks, he improved for one day and then we ran out of that antibiotic, and he started up coughing again.

We were then given a steroid puffer. After a week and a half, no improvement.

Today, he was coughing so hard he was gagging, so we caved in to extreme fatigue and chronic worry and took him to the ER.

Doc there says he thinks kitten has pertussis. That's right, pertussis. Whooping freaking cough! Turns out the immunization only works on about 80% of kids. However, doc is concerned because my son has been sick for a longer period of time. Also, he now has an ear infection in both ears. Off we go with more antibiotics and a referral to a paediatric respirologist.

So let's see where we are now:

We have two chest x-rays, one in August and one in November. Both are normal.

We have one head x-ray to check the adenoids and tonsils. Normal.

The internet tells me chronic cough could be cystic fibrosis, tuberculosis, or pneumonia. (I know, you may *spank* me for internetting).

We know he doesn't have pneumonia. Cystic fibrosis, I just found out tonight, has been present on DH's side of the family. No known cases on my side, though. Plus, kitten doesn't seem to have any gastro problems that are typical with CF.

So that leaves two unknowns: tuberculosis and now pertussis, both communicable diseases. So how could kitten get one of these rare infections?

Enter my cousin. She lives in a little town outside of Atlanta. She is in her mid-thirties, and has six children with six different BF's. She's lost all of her children due to negligence and a nasty bout with drug addiction. She's been in and out of jail. Currently, as far as I know, she is back in jail.

Because my cousin lives down south and I live in Canada, I haven't seen her in many years. But her mother, my aunt, lives here in my city, in the same apartment as my mother. In fact, their apartments are side by side.

So the last time my cousin went to jail, she lost custody of her one remaining child, the baby, who I'll call Jake. Jake is two. My aunt high-tailed it down to Georgia to beg some judge for temporary custody of Jake. She won, with the promise that she would not let Jake near his mother. Well, since the mother cannot keep herself out of jail, this should not be a problem.

(I should mention here that, in spite of the many problems my aunt has had over the years with my cousin, I do have a small place in my heart for sympathy for the poor girl, who was sexually abused by my uncle for many years. It's no wonder she's so fvcked up.)

So little Jake came to Canada. It was nice for my son, who has a weekly sleepover at Gramma's to have a little playmate on Saturday nights. They got along famously!

Then my son came down with a terrible cold. Coughing, hacking, sputtering, snotting...it went on for about a week. My mother came over and as kitten started hacking and coughing, she said she hopes that he didn't catch Jake's terrible cough. "He's been coughing for weeks and he can't seem to get rid of it!" I'm like WTF? Thanks a lot, Gramma, for letting my kid play with this coughing-for-weeks kid! Holy fvck! What were you thinking? I found out later that DH's inner voice was shouting the exact same thing at the exact minute.

So my mother went on to explain that no cough syrups or cold medications were helping this poor boy. A doctor? "Oh, no! She can't afford to take him to the doctor. He's an American citizen, so he isn't covered by OHIP, and she's unemployed, so she can't afford to take him."

I have two issues here: what judge in their right mind would let this toddler go to another country without proper assurance that the child would receive proper health care? The second issue is immunization. Are children immunized for free in the states? Because if they are, my aunt doesn't know about it. When asked if the child is up-t0-date on his immunizations, the answer is "I don't know."

I told my mother that I wasn't happy about my kitten being around this chronically ill child. She then backtracks and says that kitten's cough is "different" than Jake's. Yeah, right. Can you tell I have some issues with my mother?

Well, so began many long months of coughing, doctor's appointments, ER visits, sleepless nights, frantic googling, and nervous breakdowns.

Now, I've heard kitten may have pertussis. No doubt, if he has it, he caught it from Jake, the poor child who has not had the good fortune of visiting a doctor about his condition. (I hear he is better, but I don't know that firsthand. We haven't seen the child in months.)

I'm so mad I'm just spitting nails. Not only has my own doctor been merely treating a symptom instead of trying to find the root cause, but I, as a parent, have done everything possible -- everything that is expected of me -- to keep my child well. I've kept his vaccinations updated, I've taken him to doctors and ER's, I've begged for follow-up, and he's still ill and I still don't know what's wrong with him.

This kitten has been plagued by developmental problems, too. He's fine now, but still very shy. He was a late walker, a late talker and a late trainer. I wasn't worried because I was all of the above when I was a kid, and I turned out just peachy.

But doctors started tossing words about. Austism. Fragile-X. It was terrifying. And to make matters worse, it went on for years.

You could say that I feel cheated out of my son's kittenhood. I really haven't had a moments peace of just putting my arms around him and feeling 100% love as opposed to 100% love and 200% anxiety. Hopefully, in the coming days after he sees yet another physician, this will change for the better. I just can't help but worry that it will change for the worse.

All that keeps me going really are the false diagnoses of autism and fragile-x. I wish I could go back and tell myself that nothing was going to come of all that. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, I'll look back and wish I could come back to this time and place, and give myself a big *hug* and tell myself it's all going to be okay.

Work is hell

2004-11-26T22:44:00.000-05:00

My parents always taught me that when you go to work, you give it your all. Work your ass off, don't question the boss, and get the job done.

So it just felt so unnatural three weeks ago when I went to Human Resources for what I called "guidance."

I remember sitting there with the nice HR lady, my eyes down, my hands shaking as I described the oppression taking place in the office. You see (I'm telling you just as I told her), I'm all about justice. Misappropriation of funds is okay if it involves my own bank account, but not when it involves public money and the borrowed money of people who will not be able to afford to pay it back for years.

Not to mention the injustice of me, at $45K, guiding the hand of her, at $70K. Dictating her emails, standing over her shoulder dicating policy, advising her on how to deal with staffing issues, and pretty much cleaning up her messes. After ten years and an anti-depressant prescription, I was done. I wanted out.

So I told the nice lady that I wasn't expecting HR to step in. I can't save the office, I told her. I've tried to save it for too long, and I can't. It's spiralling out of control, and I refuse to go down with the ship.

So she tells me to tell the boss of my boss. There is injustice, she pointed out, hitting me in that nerve, in my leaving and changing the course of my life because of someone else's incompetence.

I looked over on the other shoulder, and there are my parents, telling me to just put up and shut up. Don't rock the boat. Get another job.

I thanked her for her advice, and left, planning to regularly check job postings each week.

Then, another big event happened. Big events in my office have become commonplace. Almost every fifteen minutes, my boss screws something up and blames whoever happens to be standing closest to the fire. Sometimes, it isn't something she's currently doing, but something she has neglected to do in the past creeping up and haunting us. This time, I was standing close enough to the fire to get burned.

I walked into the office of the boss of the boss, and told him that I have been feeling frustrated lately. We can't seem to do anything right, I told him. It's embarrassing. Can we start working on fixing mistakes before they occur instead of scrambling to sweep the ashes under the rug after the fire? My speech, of course, was much more eloquent and intelligent, or so I thought, but his eyes glazed over. He looked away from me, averting my eyes, taking himself away to some far off happy place where he wouldn't have to deal with this huge problem that would just turn the organization on its heels if he started to do something about it. Inaction is safer, I suppose.

The nice lady at HR told me that if I kind of worked my way into it like I did, that I would get clues as to whether he is open to hearing the information that I had. He clearly wasn't.

Just as I realized the futility of my appeal, he cut me off and told me the screw-up was my fault and I should have known better. :( I had my answer. As much as a small piece of me believed in the goodness and justice of the world, it wasn't here for me. Not in this office.

The next week, I applied for another job. Not a promotion, but a new beginning. I also called the HR lady to give her the update. I am not the knight-in-shining-armour after all. I failed in my mission. Or did the boss of the boss? It doesn't matter, because as in all injustices, there are victims, and none of us can (or will) help them, and so we all have failed. She doesn't know yet, because I had to leave a message.

Meanwhile, in the bosses office, she's on the internet booking her next vacation and writing up more fake overtime.

Three of us went to HR in as many weeks, each with our own concerns. Why won't they do something, they ask? Well, HR works for management, no matter how corrupt they are. My next job application went out on Thursday, and finally the HR lady returned my call, but I wasn't at my desk.

I tried calling her back, but her line was busy.

Then my friend called me today, and told me that the big boss, the boss of all bosses, has a mystery appointment with the HR lady next week.

So, of course, my mind starts racing. Along with my heart, and my imagination. The news spreads, and people fall into *gigglefits* thinking the boss is finally going to get canned.

But that's not the way this world works, I tell them. It isn't about justice anymore. It's about sweeping the ashes under the carpet before people see the soot around their feet.

Times are definitely changing for me. By this time next week, I could be going in a different direction. I could be leaving it all behind, moving onward and upward and rising above the smoke and fire that is my current workplace.

If there is any justice left in this work, I will have a new job by the end of next week. Pray for me. And if you are my boss reading this, you fvcking thief of time and money, you worthless sack of useless untalented unprofessional back-stabbing shit, have fun cleaning up your own slop.

Everything has its place

2004-11-15T22:53:00.000-05:00

You should see my desk at work. What a mess. My house? Omigawd. Please call first before you visit.

My kitchen is a whole different story.

My cupboards are a mess, I'll give you that. But it is an organized mess. I know where everything is, or at least where it should be....

Mr. Frisky just cannot understand that everything in the kitchen must have it's own home. The frying pan goes in the drawer in the stove. The dutch oven goes under the sink. The measuring spoons go in the silverware drawer, in front of the silverware holder thingie.

WHY is this so difficult to understand?

Things are so much easier to find when they are in their place.

Take tonight, for example. Each night, I make my daughter two roll-ups for lunch the following day. I have to grate cheese. In order to grate cheese, one needs a cheese grater. Which begs the question...

Where the fvck is the fvcking cheese grater?!!

I've searched through the whole kitchen. Mr. Frisky is upstairs sleeping soundly. Only he knows where he put it. Of course, I can make do with a sharp knife (on the cheese, of course). But that's not the point. The point is that I have assigned a home to everything in the kitchen, and he just insists on putting things away in the wrong place.

Is he trying to drive me crazy? Then again, why am I letting something like a cheese grater drive me crazy? Am I so psycho that I'm going crazy over a cheese grater? How can I be so insensitive, knowing that all over the whole, people are dying, children are starving, and here I am sitting on my kitchen floor angrily tearing my cupboards apart looking for something that I really don't need.

Is something else out of place in my life and I'm taking everything out on poor sleeping Mr. Frisky and the cheese grater? Are there other....deeper issues? Should I call Dr. Phil?

This is where I go with everything. I take every little event and turn it into self-analyzation. Why do I do this? I'll have to think about that, too.

In the meantime, I still haven't made lunch.

Hitting the Wall

2004-11-11T23:18:00.000-05:00

Today I hit the wall at work. I've been trying to save my workplace. I care about it, I care about my co-workers and I care about my job. My boss is incompetent and is sinking the whole ship. Today, I made one last-ditch effort to change the course, but I failed.

I emailed my best friend and told her what happened, then signed onto monster.ca to learn about cover letters. My friend phoned and said the words that have been going through my mind all day -- "Time to move on."

Yes, the time has come. In the past few weeks, I've been thinking that I have to leave, but I've carried some guilt around. What kind of responsible person am I if I know where the problem lies, but I don't help my organization by trying to fix the problem? How would I feel if I moved on to another job without saying anything? Would I be asking myself what if?

So, today, after my boss pinned yet another of her major screw-ups on me, I tested the waters to see if there was any way to save the place. There isn't. It's doomed. That makes me very sad, but in a way, I'm relieved, because now I know I can totally separate myself from it. I can leave and never look back and not feel guilty because I didn't try.

Isn't that what "hitting the wall" is like with a good workout? You get to that excruciatingly difficult point where you are in pain and you don't think you can go on, and then all of a sudden you get the exhilaration and the clarity and the rush of adrenalin that pushes you forward.

Today was a terrible day at work, but it's all downhill from here. I'm ready to go. :)

When is later?

2004-11-01T11:14:00.000-05:00

I'm such a procrastinator. I'm at work, but I'm procrastinating. I'm not doing my work because I got all worried about procrastinating my blogging. So here I am.

I procrastinated my blog-work so badly that I forgot my username and my password. So I had to go grovelling to the blog gods for my secret info.

Don't get me wrong -- I had lots to write about over the last few days. Sometimes I just procrastinate for the sake of procrastinating. I think it's because it's part of my psyche. I think I am a procrastinator, I tell people I'm just the WORST procrastinator; therefore, I must strive to be the best procrastinator ever!!

You see, not only am I the world's best/worst procrastinator, but I'm also a people-pleaser. Since the people who know and love me know that I am a procrastinator, they have come to expect that behaviour from me. Therefore, by not procrastinating, I'm disappointing my loved ones. And THAT is unacceptable!

The time change is getting to me, too. Yeah, that's a good excuse.

Maybe the cure for procrastination lies within the behaviour itself. Hmmm...

Yes! That's it! I will procrastinate with my procrastination. "I think I'll just do this work now and procrastinate later." Hallejula! I'm cured!!

I'll let you know how my treatment pans out....sometime.

Bad Moon Rising

2004-10-28T22:24:00.000-04:00

Well, I should have known. Since I posted my jovial "This is ME!!" idiocy a couple of days ago, every thing that could go wrong has gone wrong. Keep positive? Fvck off. (And I mean that in the nicest way, of course).

Male kitten's pneumonia hasn't improved after his week of treatment with an antibiotic. He's been given another antibiotic and he's having an x-ray tomorrow. He's allergic to penicillin. No school or daycare all week. He missed his school pictures and the Halloween parties. Poor kitten. :(

My boss continues to be a fvcking imbecile, but that's not out of the ordinary.

My thumb isn't healing. Probably because I'm banging it against a keyboard 20 hours a day. It hurts like hell. It keeps opening up and bleeding.

I stepped on a "man" from the game "Sorry." It was sitting on the living room floor and I just came down on it hard. Didn't even see it. I screamed, so of course female kitten had to get out of bed for the fifteenth time. Then I spilled my rye and coke.

My headache and neckache and shoulder ache live on.

But then one of my brilliant OT friends suggested that there is actually a REASON for all this whining and complaining and bitching. The moon! Full moon + eclipse = two full moons = double the bad mood and disconnected feeling. My OT friends are brilliant indeed!

Of course, I didn't research any of this, because it was such a neat explanation and I didn't want to risk ruining it. It may be true, but if it's not, I don't want to know about it.

This week has been hell. No more lunar eclipses until 2007? Excellent! Good riddance.

Frisky, this is your life!

2004-10-27T00:17:00.000-04:00

Well, I spent my entire workday working on my resume. I don't feel the least bit guilty. It was an incredible experience. Even if you are not job-hunting, I implore you to refresh your resume!

My resume has worked wonders for me over the past twenty years. I've gotten an interview for every job I've ever applied for. However, now that I've been responsible for hiring in my current job, I've noticed this new breed of resume. So I went to Monster.ca to see if I should consider revamping what has always been a good, reliable resume format.

Wow! Did I ever revamp! :)

Working on your resume is a journey into your past. It forces you to reflect upon your accomplishments and it gets you thinking about where you want to be. That's why it is such a valuable exercise. It boosts the self-esteem tremendously! I am Frisky, and I am a successful professional administrator! :D

I realize now that I've been working as management for the past five years and getting paid at a middle-management level. My colleagues in other divisions of my organization make a lot more money than I do. This is because my manager gives me all her fvcking work while she goes to the beauty parlour. Well, guess what? I'm not going to take it anymore!

My shoulders hurt. My back and neck muscles are constantly tense. I have a perma-headache. I feel sick to my stomach when I'm getting ready for work in the morning.

It's just a job, for crying out loud.

Tonight, though, I know that I have value and I have lots to offer. I'm ready. Bring on those job postings!! :)

Burnout

2004-10-26T04:25:00.000-04:00

I've been feeling lonely all day.

I sold my computer desk, so now there's a big empty spot in the corner of my living room.

I went back to work today after a one-week holiday. The headache returned. The pain in my shoulders and the back of my neck came back. I realize now that 100% of the stress in my life is caused by my workplace. Well, maybe 95% workplace, 5% finances.

My male kitten has pneumonia.

So, yeah, I'm kind of depressed. Feeling a little down. And I'm cold. My feet are really cold, like right down to the bone. :(

I'm so overwhelmed by all the problems at my workplace. Note that I'm talking about my workplace -- not my job. My job is okay, if not a little boring. I'm definitely ready for new challenges, but that will have to wait until something at a higher level is posted. I should definitely work on my resume.

My workplace is in shambles. It's a house of cards just waiting for a breath of wind. The manager is a complete idiot. She's alienated everyone and they're all crying on my shoulder. So I have my own stress, and I'm trying to manage everyone else's stress. Oh, please, let there be a job posted this week!

I figure I shouldn't feel lonely because I'm so surrounded by people. My family, my co-workers, my friends....why do I feel lonely this first week back on the job? Maybe it's not loneliness as much as a sense of loss. Or vacancy. Something's missing...I don't know what. It's definitely time for me to move on. I just feel....drained.

I just remembered...

2004-10-25T00:33:00.000-04:00

I promised to write about my epiphany. I know you've been hitting the "refresh" button over and over for the past couple of hours. My sincerest apologies.

I got thinking this morning (actually, it was early afternoon, but morning to me) about laziness. I'm a lazy person. Don't get me wrong, I get things done. I cook, I clean, and I'm very productive at work. But I have to really put forth an effort in order to accomplish things. I have to REALLY talk myself into doing stuff. So, yeah, walking from the couch to the fridge is a major undertaking for me, but the ends justify the means, right?

I love to sleep in. I know I'm going to hear those ladies at work tomorrow boasting about "sleeping in" until 10:00. 10:00?? Ha! I'm a nooner, through and through. Hell, today I hit the 1:00 p.m. mark! The kittens were at grandma's overnight, I was up until 4:00 a.m., and I was tired. So there. If I slept that long, it's because I needed it.

Now here's where my epiphany comes in. Mr. Frisky woke me up at 1:00 to go get the kittens at grandma's. He didn't care. He woke up about 11:00, showered, watched TV, drank coffee, then woke me up when it was time to go. So what if I was sleeping all day. No skin off his nose.

So as I was buffing BM's on my face, I got thinking about how lucky I am to have this DH who doesn't care about my laziness. He takes my excuse -- "I'm so anemic" -- at face value, and doesn't ask questions. Why? Because he's lazy, too! We enable each other's laziness. We're...what's that called?...co-dependent? But co-dependent with our laziness.

That's when it hit me, as I poked a puff of glee into my cheeks, that my first marriage didn't work out because of a laziness imbalance. I was lazy, ex-DH was not. He'd get up with the roosters and it was work work work all freakin' day! Then he'd get together every Sunday with his family and they'd all talk about how hard they worked all week. They'd try to out-do each other. Nobody worked as hard as them. Then they'd turn to me and scoff at me and roll their eyes in disgust.

One morning he woke me up (and it was morning) and said "Wake up, you lazy slvt" and that's when I said forget it. This is not the life for me.

So my advice to the lovelorn is that you must have lazy-compatibility with your mate. I mean it...it's a must. Lazies and non-lazies do not mix.

P.S. I make the bed before I get in it at night. Hmm....sounds like a good OT thread.

It's the same 20 minutes, isn't it???!

2004-10-24T23:01:00.000-04:00

One thing I've learned over the past 24 hours is that I have to write in the morning. I had an epiphany this morning -- well, more towards this afternoon -- and I thought YES, this is definitely blog-worthy.

But life stepped in. I had to go pick up the kittens at grandma's house. Then we had to go visit DH's parents. Then groceries, then home, then back out for some gardening crap, then back home. Then I cooked supper, ate, cleaned up and cut my right thumb all to hell on the food processor blade.

Now, it's 10:00 p.m. and male kitten is asleep. Girl kitten has been downstairs about four times since I told her to go to bed, and at this moment she's coming downstairs to interrupt my thoughts once again.

So, where was I? Oh, yeah. Life. I have a headache banging on in the back of my neck and the back of my head, and I'm banging my injured thumb on this friggin keyboard while the modem is dialing and hanging up. It's busy, so everytime it hangs up I LOSE Notepad. Now my cat is wiping his wet nose on my arm. Yes, mornings are definitely better for me.

Which just totally conflicts with my epiphany.

How do I love thee?

2004-10-24T01:30:00.000-04:00

"Let me count the ways." "I shall love thee more after death." It's my favourite poem, and I only know part of two lines -- the beginning and the end. Maybe it's because that's all that is important -- the beginning and the end. How we get away from something and how we get to something is not really important, is it? The rambling lines in between the beginning and the end is just Elizabeth going on and on and on and these lines aren't really important, are they? The point is, Robert, I love you, and I will love you always. That's all she's saying!

So why can't I say something, I love you, and become a legend, like Elizabeth? Why can't I put words together --- fill in the blanks between the beginning and the end --- and make so much money I'll never have to work again? Why can't I find that voice that I had in high school, that voice that my teachers heard, telling them that I was going to be a literary star? Where is it? I can't even find the beginning of that voice, let alone the end and then have the ability and the imagination required to stuff a bunch of words in the middle.

See, I'm writing as I'm thinking. And I'm thinking...of nothing. Except finding a beginning which will lead me to an end --- preferably an end in which I am rolling in money.

I think my problem is that I haven't really written since high school, since I wrote those brilliant papers that earned me some praise. A few times, I've been mad enough at my spouse to pound out about three pages worth of swear words, but nothing more.

So, this weblog, this public record of my thoughts, will be my sketchpad. Hopefully, here, I'll find my beginning.