Turkish Delight

Waxing poeticially about the moon...and diarrhea

2012-01-20T22:07:00.003-07:00

What a week. Seriously. While I had great intentions of writing about my United Nations Association of Utah meeting on Tuesday, and my Salt Lake Council on Foreign Relations meeting on Wednesday, all of my insights went away when I hit my head yesterday morning. I was rushing to get ready for work (I was running late to a meeting) when one of my dining room chairs made a deliberate attempt on my life. I saw stars but as I was late and not bleeding, I still went to work. This is how we know that one day I will die at work....I'll do something stupid and instead of stopping like any other normal human...I'll just continue on until I drop.

Today however, common sense prevailed and I took a sick day. And while I felt much better, there was still a level of strange silliness that governed all that I did. I tried to put together my new desk and if my brother hadn't come over to help me....I still might be trying to put it together.... because, yes, my dexterity was that badly affected by my concussing myself. But the desk is put together and I am currently enjoying a desk situation that makes me want to write....even if it is pure drivel. Also, my desk is now angled in such a way where I can still spy on my neighbors across in the tenement and they really can't see much of me. The new desk also means that my backup hard drive can actually be plugged in and next to my computer for once. So for nostalgia's sake, Jimmy and I looked at the old files and I came across some golden nuggets of writings from me in a file called "Thoughts". They are a collection of short pieces that I wrote in 2002.....just before and shortly after I started blogging. Just like any illicit and vocal reading of a diary....it required a dramatic reading. The results? I come across as a whiny, impatient, privileged bitch. It. was. awesome. And probably, not much about me has changed....except now I have a better knowledge of myself and I know proper semi-colon usage.

For your reading pleasure, I am going to share two pieces with you. Feel free to laugh at my weirdness, because it had Jimmy and I rolling. This first one was written a couple of months before I started this blog:

April 10, 2002

So I meant to write the other day, but well, I acted like I normally do. On Monday I went to the Laundromat to do my smelly travel laundry. So after I had stuck my first load of clothes in the dryer, I was sitting down reading TIME magazine. When I heard that all too familiar and all too traumatizing sound: the crunch of a car accident. Oh damn, I hate this—I start to write and then the words go too fast in my head and all of the cool things that I had to say about the accident—you know, the deep reflections on how the airbag will smoke after it deflates, and the blood on the young guy who hit the elderly couple’s car forehead, drip drip dripping down. And how I wanted to go and take a rag to his forehead—because I felt that I could have been useful, but decided against it. He had a cell phone, he could call for help, and he did. There was one cool guy who had pulled over to the side of the road and started to direct traffic. He didn’t have too, but he did even until after the police and the fire department had arrived.

Today I am allergy sick—I sound awful, I feel just as bad. I have a ton of crap to do too. It sucks. But I like making list, because I like the satisfaction of being able to cross this off on them.

Oh, my love for humanity truly shines through there doesn't it? Meh. The guy did have a cell phone to call for help.

The second one I am going to share with you, I wrote on a day where I actually did a blog posting. Read the first one and then question why I didn't post this one instead....it's definitely more fun...

June 26, 2002

Today our representative told us that his name is “tombul” when he tried to explain what it meant, he said “like Debbie”. It means “plump”.

I like that word, I like the sound of it, how it just rolls off of your tongue and then bounces. Like a grape on a diving board. Plump.

I got my luggage today from Diyarbakir. The moon was so beautiful. It was low on the horizon but bright and soaked in a deep orange. It seemed to hover, not like it was a fixture in the sky, but more of a stand-in, hoping that people wouldn’t notice that the real one was missing.

I am afraid that I might have diarrhea. That would suck.

And there you go.... if you know anyone else who can wax poeticially about the moon and then in two hits of the return button on the keyboard type about their bowel problems, I want to meet them. They could be my soul mate.

2012 Schemey-Type Thingamajigs

2012-01-16T21:50:00.004-07:00

To start off....let's just pretend that I have been blogging the whole time and haven't been on hiatus for almost 3 months. However, if you are feeling hurt, let me know and I will connect you with this guy who I talked to on the phone once....then left for a business trip for a week....and when I contacted him apologizing for being non-communicative for a week accused me of a multitude of things including "leaving him on the porch and expecting to him to wait for me"; of "going along and having my fun"; and of finding someone else while I was gone, using them up, deciding that I didn't like them, and coming back to him as the fall back guy. Yeah....it's as crazy as it sounds. But if you are truly angry at me for not writing, I believe that this guy will be willing to hold the presidency of the "I suck" club.

Now on to other matters.....
It's the new year and of course this means a whole new round of yearly goals and harebrained schemes. I reviewed last year's resolutions, and I performed dismally. Out of the five resolutions I had: I completed one, had three that were unmeasurable, and sadly did not figure out a way to say "mea culpa" to someone in a snarky and sarcastic tone and have that person understand what I mean. Dismal indeed.

So what to do with this year? Quite the conundrum that. Let's start with the measurable:

Yearly Goal One: Pay off my private student loan. Last year's plan to lose some financial weight worked really well as I managed to secure a completely awesome student loan payment plan in which if I work full time for a non-profit for 10 years they write off my balance. So now that my gargantuan student loan debt is now relegated to almost utility payment regularity, I should get rid of my much smaller private loan that could not be put into the awesome payment plan.

Yearly Goal Two: To be kissed romantically. I signed up for a dating site, which hasn't been very successful---as the story above relates.... but I decided that I might as well try to date. I just have to figure out a way to date in which I can have a successful long-term relationship. And while this may be a weird place to put it....for those of you who are curious, baby plans are put off until I figure out a way to pay for day care. And for those who think that I am looking for someone to help pay for the day care with me....please note that my goal is only to be kissed at the moment.

Yearly Goal Three: Work on finishing all of those books that I have started. The pile around my bed keeps threatening to fall on me in the night, trapping me indefinitely.

Yearly Goal Four: If I am not going to celebrate on a paid holiday, at least spend some time learning about the holiday. Case in point, today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and I went shopping at the mall. I am such a horrible, cliche American sometimes! So to purge a little I watched a documentary on MLK today....and learned something....but I should learn more. So I am going to go a little deeper and research some more topics related to Black History Month.

Yearly Goal Five: Master freetime at home. I have a fairly active social life, but that is only due to some amazing scheduling skills that I have developed. But when it comes to unplanned time at home, I have a tendency to pace my house feeling like I should be working. So I must learn to live the axiom "the time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time". Hopefully this will mean more blogging, some crafty-type things that I would like to do, and possibly....just possibly....me doing something that is completely frivolous like painting my toenails.

I think that is all I got. However this year's harebrained scheme has yet to be decided upon. Normally those have to do with something physical.....and I won't finish with last year's scheme (becoming a yoga teacher) until June. Although I am toying with fencing. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Look! It's My Little Brother on the TV!

2011-10-15T19:55:00.000-06:00

Sorry, couldn't find an embed link to just post the video here, just click the link below to go to the KSL website.

Zombie Makeup Lesson | ksl.com

I am ill not sick

2011-10-15T04:36:00.001-06:00

One of the weird carryovers I have from my time in Turkey is that we are supposed to say that we are "ill" when we aren't feeling well rather than "sick". Why? Because the word "sick" in English sounds exactly like the word "fuck" in Turkish. Which also makes using the phrase "sick fuck" entirely redundant, but I digress...

In any case, whether you call it sick or ill, that's what I've been the past two to three days. It started with a cough late Tuesday night and started to morph from there on. I had tickets to the opera on Wednesday evening and was exceedingly glad that they had coughdrops at the concession stand.

I actually stayed home from work Thursday and Friday, which was annoying, but if I have saved my co-workers from this fate, the boredom that comes from being sick might be worth it. I am not sure if this is a change of season cold or a version of the weird haunted house flu given to me by Jimmy. In any case, the symptoms keep changing as it progresses. At first it was an upset stomach with my ears hurting, then it moved to a cough and sore throat, then it moved into head congestion, swollen glands, and the ever unpredictable post-nasal drip. The body is amazing though. I could actually feel it churning away trying to beat this. About an hour ago my fever broke. I wasn't really aware that I had a fever- but my body felt that it was necessary to wake me up to celebrate this momentous occasion. So I woke up feeling much better and drenched in sweat... But now I'm awake and can't seem to get back to sleep which is why I'm blogging on my iPhone at four in the morning.

Of course feeling better doesn't mean that I am fully well. My sinuses and glands still ache but aren't swollen anymore and I have a productive cough now. Actually I think my body woke me up after the fever broke so that I could take some more cold medicine for this post-fever hangover I've got. I will say this though- I do feel well enough to leave the house today- hopefully I'll still feel the same way after I get some more sleep this morning.

Here's to hoping.

The Post in Which I Claim Big Sister Bragging Rights

2011-10-12T10:37:00.004-06:00

Those that know me well, know that one of my favorite things to do is to brag about how talented my little brother is, but it isn't something that I do very often or at all on this here blog of mine. So for the benefit of the extended family who read this blog....here is what Jimmy is up to.

First of all, it is October, which means that unless you are at a haunted house you are unlikely to see him the entire month. It also means that he never really sleeps during this month and takes awful care of himself.....but he loves the work that he does so much that he figures that once haunt season is over he will have plenty of time to recuperate.

"Haunt kids" are a strange bunch. The Halloween fever starts in mid-July, strange characters and voices start to appear from them in August, September is prep for opening, October for performance, and then everyone crashes in November just managing to feel like a normal human again by Thanksgiving.

For the 5th year in a row, Jimmy is working at Nightmare on 13th. This year he is working security, makeup, and fostering his other great talent- that of being an artist. He's done two of the backdrops for the 3 photo booths, updated several of their rooms and even figured out how to paint realistic looking rust.

Each year the various news agencies send out morning remotes to the haunted house. Last week channel 2 was there but all you saw was the annoying anchor-dude. This morning Jimmy was on channel 4 and was featured in at least two of the segments that I saw. If video is posted online, I'll track it down and post it here. Here is a photo of the anchor and Jimmy.

He's was very good in front of the camera. I am very impressed. On Friday, he will be on Channel 13's morning show as one of the Haunt's spokesmen.

Here are a couple more shots of his makeup handiwork. And another...

Jimmy also turned 23 this week. Which just astounds me... he has turned into such a wonderful young man: fun, silly, driven, caring....and oh so many other things.

But most of all, he's my little baby brother who I love so so dearly.

Jimmy opening up his birthday card from Mom and Dad....the distance is hard to take sometimes.

Greetings from the middle of nowhere

2011-10-01T18:09:00.001-06:00

Thanks to finally finding the wireless passcode and my pretty new iPhone- I'm now able to blog. Which I would rather do that the suggested "journalling".

So where am I? I'm at a yoga retreat that is five miles outside of a small town that you've never heard of, that is twenty-five miles outside of another town that you've probably never heard of, that is a hundred plus miles from my home base. This retreat is part of my yoga teacher training. While I was expecting it to kick my ass physically- I was not expecting the emotional ass kicking that I also received. The emotional stuff was more than "let's discuss and cry about how much we love everyone" (which there is plenty happening of- believe me)...it was more of a case of not knowing why you are crying and desperately trying to stop crying... But instead you just end up crying so hard you're snorting on the group hike you took after the power yoga class you just had in which you just curled into child's pose and cried throughout. Yeah... It has been a very weird couple of days.

I have discovered that there is a difference between feeling sore and resistance in your body and feeling pain. I've also discovered that you can get very creative in poses if you are trying to avoid re-injuring yourself.

Here are some other things that I have learned-
1. I'm an overly aggressive ping pong player.
2. The world is still pretty small as I met two (count them two) other people here who went to the same elementary, middle, and high school with.
3. I thought that I was the only non-Mormon here but I'm not. There were a bunch of people who were hiding and trying to seem like they were so they could fit in.
4. While we had a co-ed wing of the lodge- I'm the only girl who is actually in a co-ed room. And it's lovely. No strange girly lotion smells and thankfully no glitter toenail painting parties.
5. Partner yoga is a reward in itself and you learn more about your interactions with others and how you approach relationships because of it.

I'm sure that I'll have more insights after I get home tomorrow. I definitely will have more to offer in the discussion at work about what the word "retreat" really entails. Corena- the owner of the studio- said that "vacations were for falling asleep and retreats are for waking up." it's so very true.

Oh! And bunk beds suck no matter what you're age.

The Truth of Fortune Cookies?

2011-09-02T15:28:00.002-06:00

I think that I created a perfect storm of overwhelmed tiredness in my life.
A couple of weeks ago I decided that I needed to revisit some of my goals and evaluate how my life is currently going. Oddly enough, all of the goals I looked at had something to do with trying to lessen by 80+ hour work week, increase my quality of life, and make a bit more money. I made little action plan steps and mini-goals for myself...it was quite proactive of me really.

I felt empowered for about 5 days.

And then the realization of how full of stuff my schedule is hit me. How much I make or don't make hit me. How much I love the work that I do and how the work isn't working as hard for me as I am for it hit me.

The result of this is that I am desperately tired. I can't focus because I am tired all the time. I probably have depression denial. And while I know that if I admit that I have depression denial it sort of negates the term, I would prefer to still pretend to be in denial.

Of course through this tiredness haze I have managed to accomplish some very notable things, namely working through a block of anxiety and applying for two executive director positions. At least I've been trying to work on my goals even though acknowledging them triggered this depression that I am still in denial about.

However.......I had two fortunes from fortune cookies that I ate today that I hope are as fortuitous as they claim:

"No obstacles will stand in the way of your success this month."
"Your friends will truly be helpful in your next month's endeavor."

So fingers crossed for good things ahead!
.....And hopefully a nap which results in me finally feeling rested. MMMMmmmm.....nap....

Laid Back? Seriously? Dude.

2011-08-15T21:11:00.003-06:00

I haven't seen much of my house the past three weeks. Which I am sure that my house will get over its abandonment issues....its pretty level headed that way, but I think that my turtles are still a little hurt. They were super excited that I came home, but each time I walk into the room they keep projecting the "you aren't going to leave me again are you?" vibe.

Where have I been? First it was off to Portland for a conference in which I got annoyed with everyone's insistence at labeling themselves, burnt my backside to a crisp, and fired the city planner of Portland. Well.....I didn't actually fire them, but I got lost and turned around so much that if I ever do meet them I will do my best Donald Trump impersonation and fire them for making a city entirely too complicated to navigate. However, I did manage to find Powell's Books and enjoyed a nice little birthday with my hot self.

Then I was home for two days in which I still did not clean my house or the dishes in the sink. Although I did try to pour hot scalding water over them so that they wouldn't grow new spores, mold, and fungi.

Next it was off to Larkspur Colorado for a week-long Masonic workshop. Oddly enough, I ended up with more books from that trip then I did going to Powell's. I had some amazing conversations that went into the wee hours of the night, was raised to the 3rd degree, and became much much closer to my brothers.....all while traveling on dirt roads and trying not to have a clandestine encounter with a bear. I think that the most striking thing to come out of this workshop is the idea that everyone seems to think that I am laid back. I don't see this at all. For someone who is the control freak that I am, who rigidly schedules her life out....I can't see this as equating to being laid back. Now, I'll consider myself low maintenance, but laid back? Nope, still can't see it.....it must really reflect upon the side of me that I choose to show to the world.

Oh, I also burnt the front part of me to a crisp, so now my top half looks all nice and tan but my legs still have their own form of thermoluminescence that allows me to no longer need a night-light when I am in my house and not wearing pants. Which can be handy but I am sure scares the crap out of the neighbors that look into my windows (but that's a post for another day).

Perhaps the best thing to come out of the copious amount of travel lately is that Ginger the Red-Headed Stepchild (my beautiful new car) has been properly run in for road trips. She handles great but I am sure that---like me---she'll be pretty content to just stay in town for a little while.

Travel anyone?

2011-07-25T21:44:00.003-06:00

As if I didn't already have plenty of reasons to want to travel to Turkey again...... this is so cute! Of course it could explain why everyone claps whenever the plane lands successfully on Turkish airlines....

Taking Up Space

2011-06-30T20:03:00.002-06:00

I have been challenging how I think of space, personal space, and the amount of space that I take up. I know that I've written previously about a situation on a plane where a thinner girl in the plane seat in front of me had her chair reclined and refused to pull up her chair when the dinner tray arrived. I had to have the stewardess make her pull the seat up because there was no way that I could eat dinner with the tray resting on my breasts. I mean, I probably could have pulled it off....but it might have had a messy ending. This girl was really mad that the stewardess made her move....this girl also sighed heavily and rolled her eyes when I first sat down anyway.....I could just say that the girl was a bitch...but it was more of a case that she was disgusted with my size. This incident just fuels my theory that thinner people think of space in different ways and that oftentimes when faced with having a fat person in the vicinity they feel entitled to take up as much space as possible. I like to compare it to a little kid throwing their body over their toys saying "these are MINE" whenever a new kid comes to the sandbox....because well, we all know that fat people have this conspiracy going in order to take up all the space possible in the world.

I wish that we could say that we are that organized.

I am very conscious of the amount of space that I take up at any time. And while this sounds odd.....I try to take up as little amount of space as possible. So on a plane, I never use the armrests, rather I hug my arms around me the whole flight. I arrive early to meetings so that I can grab a seat where I am as out of the way as possible.....same with restaurants. When I was in school I would choose seats on the outside aisle so that I could get in and out of the seats without having to move past anyone. I also hate to have my back to any door. Part of this is so that no one can sneak up on me....but there is also a little bit of it so that I can see anyone coming and move out of their was as quickly as possible. I apologize when I have to move past people's chairs...even if they don't have to move. And if I get put in a seat where there is a situation where moving would cause issues.....I stay there for the long haul.....no matter how full my bladder is. And don't get me started on crowds.

The thing is, is that in my head I take up alot more space than I do in reality. Libby and I stood face to face the other day and our shoulders are the same width apart. I really don't take up that much more space than the average person. So I've been trying to challenge myself in how I take up that space.

My first real foray into this was taking part of a suspend and bend yoga class. Basically it is yoga done in a hammock. Its looked fun in the video but I was apprehensive. My first question to the studio owners was if there was a weight limit. By their reactions to my question it was obviously something that they had not thought of. I explained to them that since there was a 15 person limit in the class and that I weighed as much as two people I was concerned that their ceiling might not hold. I know that this sounds ridiculous....but if you are a fat person these are valid concerns. The owners of this studio were cool about it when they realized that I was actually asking a good question. They reinforced the bracings in the ceiling and found out how much weight the swings could take. Its 1000 pounds per swing by the way.

I took a half hour intro course which was mainly focused on learning to trust the equipment. This was -and still is- the hardest part. I mentally could not let myself put my full weight in the swing. I kept trying to keep a foot on the ground. I freaked out a little when I was doing downward dog and the swing was holding the majority of my weight....the pose was way too easy. When I stopped worrying about the swing collapsing out from under me I had alot of fun. The class made me really really uncomfortable though.....so uncomfortable that I decided to take that as a challenge and went and bought a five-class pass. I haven't been back yet because of my schedule, but I am going to do this. I need the challenge.

This is just one step out of many that I have been taking in rethinking how I take up space. Tearing down those barriers has been very freeing. I've been fully extending my arms (and legs) in yoga even if the class has a bunch of people in it. I've been buying clothing because I think that the clothes are cute and not because I've gone through an extensive worrying process on whether or not I think that it will be flattering on me or not. I'm cute, the dress is cute, it will all match up in the end.

The other way I've been challenging this idea of space is by talking to other people about space. I hope that it helps open other people..... I still have a way to go with one of my co-workers who has a mini-seizure everything I say the word "fat". You know that scene in Lion King where the hyena shutters when the other one says the name "Mufasa".....it was just like that when I told her that I was a "big fat fattie and was proud to say that I was fat, and that I gladly rub my own buddha-like belly for luck". I wish that I could have had video of it....it was classic. I want other people to think of size differently as well. I know that I challenge it everytime I am in a yoga class with others. In fact the instructor of that intro class (who had at other times snubbed me a bit) started talking to me where previously she would actively try not to see me. I don't chalk that up to her realizing that I am a fabulous person...I think that it has more to do with me shattering her view of what a fat person is or is not capable of.

I am not sure what the next big space experiment will be besides taking another one of these suspend and bend classes. Although Libby thinks that it should be horseback riding.....which could be fun. I haven't been on a horse since my teens and I'm sure that I could rock riding boots...

Getting It

2011-06-29T20:46:00.002-06:00

In an odd turn of events, the past couple of weeks I have felt fully competent at my job. I've felt confident in all of the financial stuff.....that's not the issue. Where I wasn't feeling confident was in the area of training. Coming from a very very different background than the majority of my co-workers I kinda felt that I really didn't have much to offer.....but something clicked recently. Maybe it is the fact that I realized that I have the skills to teach.....which means more sometimes then having all of the knowledge base in the world. After all, knowing alot about a subject means nothing if you can't connect with someone to teach them about it. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I've been a information sponge at work and it is sticking. Or maybe it is because when I finally got to the point where I realized that there was more that I didn't know about in this world that I was able to be open enough for all of that information to filter in.

In this process of "getting it" I've noticed a change in my vocabulary. Or maybe I could just say that I've been using big girl terms without feeling pretentious. In a legitimate conversation today I actually said "that is the essence of white privilege" in reference to some actions of my past. Normally when someone uses "privilege" in a conversation---which happens more than you would think at my place of employment---I would have to suppress an eye roll. In my defense though, I've heard people claim quite often that someone was exercising their "privilege" when they were just being an asshole to someone else. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for trying to understand the reasonings behind a person's actions....but sometimes you also have to call a spade a spade and call an asshole an asshole. I also talked alot today about fat acceptance and referred to myself as a "person of size".....ok.....that kinda makes me giggle a bit, but I was totally serious early...totally.

I think that the interesting thing about "getting it" is that I've managed to re-tap into that activist side of myself that I love and miss. The downside of this rejuvenation is that I've been pulling alot of very late nights and early mornings trying to make headway on the eight-gazillion different projects that I've been working on. Progress is being made but the price is alot of sleep loss. By the time I get to bed at night I'm too tired to read. Which is sad because the books are piling up around me...... if I'm never heard from again its because all of the books that I need to read finally fell on top of me. I wonder if you can learn by osmosis better if you are trapped under what you want to learn from?

Bigger Than A Box of Brillo Pads

2011-06-02T22:07:00.002-06:00

Don't stop me if you've heard this story before....just nod your head and pretend that it is the first time, ok?

There are defining moments in your life when you realize that you are incredibly grown up. My first major moment of this kind occurred about 3-4 months after I had moved into my first apartment. I was washing dishes and had a particularly gross pan and I needed a Brillo pad in order to scrub it completely clean. Now when I lived at home, I knew where the Brillo pads were....but in my own home, I didn't have any. As I was in the checkout line with my $1.69 box of Brillo Pads as the only object in my shopping cart, it hit me.....I was a grown up.

And it scared me.

I've had other moments similar to this....mostly times when I took on a new financial responsibility: paying for my own car insurance and gas, making my first payments on my student loans.... Oddly enough, I never really felt like getting married made me adult, but paying for the cheap-as-free wedding did.

This week I had another grown-up milestone....I bought a car.
My old car was starting to die a slow death. I was 16 when my Dad bought it and had been driving it for 15 years and close to 150,000 miles. And apparently in having the car for as long as I did, and for all of the memories that I made in that car, I can only find a photo of the back of the car as Jimmy was barbecuing for the 4th of July.

I had been researching for several months. I had saved up for a decent down payment. I had even asked my Dad to come along for moral support in buying a car while my parents were visiting Jimmy and I last week.

I was more stressed out that I needed to be. There were some financial history issues that brought emotional stuff up, but my credit was much better than what I thought it would be. I was very lucky to have gone through a great dealership....although I couldn't appreciate it at the time. The finance guy was trying to cheer me up but it wasn't working. My mom described my emotional state as "a wet rag twisted up so tight that it couldn't twist anymore"....and that would be an accurate description of how I felt. In the end, I bought a nice car that I can afford. Her name is "Ginger- the Red-Headed Step-child". She is a 2009 Subaru Impreza whose color is called "Paprika".

Things that are awesome about a new car:
1. Working right-hand turn signals!
2. A driver's side window that rolls down!
3. A CD player that actually plays the CDs loaded into it!
4. Being able to drive for more than 10 minutes on the freeway without the engine warning light coming on!
5. Feeling like a grown-up and feeling like I'm transitioning into a new era of my life.

2011's Harebrained Scheme- Yoga Instructor!

2011-05-17T21:14:00.002-06:00

Tonight I went to the hardest yoga class that I have ever been too......and it was awesome! I loved every fricking shaking-muscle-burning moment!

So I've been sitting on this decision since March, but now seems to be a good time to announce my greatest and latest harebrained scheme! (I think that I need to make it a yearly thing to have an official harebrained scheme.) I am going to get my certification to be a yoga instructor! I start in July and it will take me a year to complete....so baby plans will definitely be postponed for another year.

Yippee! I am really excited about it! This also means that I will be posting and writing more about yoga and fat acceptance. Whee!

That's the update!

Death and being an American Muslim

2011-05-04T14:53:00.003-06:00

On Sunday night I was very conflicted about hearing the news of the death of Osama Bin Laden. Conflicted because his death in many ways was the only option.....he wouldn't have been taken alive....and he wouldn't have survived very long anyway if he was ever brought back for trial. I was also conflicted because I have mixed feelings on capital punishment, let alone state-sponsored assassination....but that is due to my background in human rights advocacy.

What I am most conflicted on is what does his death really symbolize/mean?

I don't feel that his death is that much of a blow to al-Qaeda as his end-goal of martyrdom would be fulfilled. And even with our very subjective justice system, Americans still like the idea of a clear enemy and that that person would be brought to a swift and decisive justice.

For a brief, very brief moment I thought that there might be a chance that Muslims could be openly accepted in the US again.

Let's travel back to a beautiful sunny morning on June 22, 2001. It was around 6am, I was jet-lagged and alone in a hotel room in Istanbul, Turkey. The morning call to prayer was ringing out across the city and the moment felt right to do something that I had been considering for months.... I took the Shahadah, the oath that marks your conversion to Islam. I instantly felt this overwhelming sense of peace and I knew that I had made the right decision for myself. I proudly told others that I was Muslim and explained to everyone that I could that I was a Sufi student waiting for a teacher. Then September 11th happened. I had Middle Eastern friends who were threatened (one of them by a man wielding a machete near Dupont Circle in DC). People would look at me in pity when I told them about my faith (I even wrote a poem about that which was published in a MEC Outreach Newsletter). All of my work concerning the Middle East was looked upon with a touch of suspicion. Of course, I would joke a bit, lamenting that the chadors (the all-black ninja-like outfits that some Muslim women wear which shows only their eyes) I had bought for Halloween costumes were no longer acceptable to wear for fun on a holiday.

Like most in my field, I switched from telling others about the culture of the Middle East to affirming that not all Middle Easterners are terrorists. There is a big difference between sharing a culture and convincing someone that a person isn't your enemy....or that by being Muslim myself that I was not an enemy...that first and foremost I was a white American woman who had exercised my right of freedom of religion.

Time progresses, and I spent alot of it NOT telling people about my religious beliefs. In fact, I never told my Grandfather about my conversion because I know that he would have been disappointed in me that I had allied myself with a group of people that he saw as akin to the Japanese during World War II. He probably suspected though. Over the past few years I've felt that the pressure on American Muslims had lightened a bit and I've been more open about it. Even just last week I was talking to people about how I was about to celebrate my ten year anniversary of being Muslim. Ten years is a long time for anything.....and it is even a longer time to feel like you need to hide something about yourself.

So when they announced Bin Laden's death, I thought that it might be possible that American Muslims could hope to NOT be equated with terrorists anymore.

Nope.

Doesn't really look like it yet.

How do I come to this decision? In items such as a news story that I read today about how a Texas middle school teacher was suspended because he told a 9th grade Muslim student that he had "heard about your uncle, I bet that you're grieving". And by the fact that I received a joke text from a family friend stating the following: "News Flash! All 7/11's and mini-marts will be closed today, there was a death in the family".

Not only are these unnecessarily mean and racist jokes, but there is not a good time for them to be told. This isn't a case where the joke is "too soon" after the event- it is a case where it is just wrong.

I'm done with it. I replied back to that text, and had a phone conversation with the person who sent it. And I'm writing about this here because people need to SERIOUSLY get a grip. Osama Bin Laden was an evil misguided man that I am VERY glad is no longer around to spew his own personal brand of hate.

One man does not get to make an entire group of people guilty by religious association.
One man does not make it acceptable to be racist or classist or any other sort of -ist out there.
One man shouldn't make me feel that I have to hide what I am or how I feel.

And the death of one man doesn't make all the problems of the world go away.

Resisting the Maxim "If you aren't working, you're sleeping"

2011-04-24T20:29:00.003-06:00

Lately the only time that I have felt grounded and present has been when I'm on my yoga mat. And as I have only been able to get around to that once a week for the past month it means that I am not spending nearly enough of my time in a present state of mind.

It isn't that I am thinking about the past or that my mind is wandering.....I've just been so mentally busy with work that there hasn't been much past that. I've forgotten how to deal with myself when I have time that is unscheduled. This is a problem with being a workaholic. All of your time is scheduled out and when you aren't working, you're sleeping..... Back in my archaeologist days my dig director, in an attempt to raise morale that tragically backfired, announced at dinner one night that "if we weren't working, we should be sleeping". I was appalled at that comment. So now, 9 years later I ask myself....what the hell changed? Cause that is sorta where I live at the moment.
It's quite sad really.

I've been tempted to ruthlessly schedule out free time activities for myself.....but that is just about as sad as not knowing how to deal with free time in the first place.
I've also decided that I hate it when you get advice such as "oh, you can take 15 minutes out of your day to do (insert activity here)". Yeah, I could take 15 minutes out of my day.....but there are WAY too many things that I would want to take 15 minutes a day doing....so many that I can't figure out what I want to do first.

Anyway.....Earlier this week I met a woman that I've had many people tell me that I should meet. She lives locally and she's Turkish. Most of the time when I am around Turkish speakers I don't let on that I can speak....but that is mostly because the Turkish speakers I come across are male. She and I hit it off and we are going to meet for coffee and gossip in Turkish. I've been trying to review some, I am very very rusty. I also bought a new Turkish album this weekend. One of the songs just transported me back to hot summers on the rooftop of that dreary little motel in Bismil. I loved that rooftop. I loved how new things felt and I even love how naive I was. It took me back to a time where blogging was still taboo and I wrote poetry everyday.
Sounds like I need to go back to basics, doesn't it?

A Tragic End to MEC Outreach Awesomeness

2011-04-20T13:27:00.002-06:00

It been over a year now since I left the Middle East Center and it still amazes me at how events that happen there still affect me.....albeit in a very distant way. For the most part whenever something bad happens, such as the director being caught for plagiarism and being put on paid administrative leave, I am filled with a sense of karmic justice. But today...news that that I had heard discretely earlier in the week became public. The latest victim of the decline of the MEC is the Outreach program.

The years I worked at the MEC and more specifically the Outreach Program itself will always be treasured. I had wanted my career to be in Middle East Outreach and it was only due to the Director that I had to make a major job change. There will always be some bitterness when I think of how the administration handled the Outreach program and the directorship of it when I was still employed there. And I was very upset when the woman who replaced me as assistant was made Outreach Director after less than a year there and being less qualified than I. But fate, the universe, and whatnot work in mysterious ways and while I retain a smidgen of angst over how I was forced to leave the MEC, I know that I am in an infinitely better place now- work-wise, career-wise, and mental health-wise.

Having said that, I am truly sorry to see the MEC Outreach Program dissolved. Not only was it a needed program but it was an effective one as well. Complaining about how things are being run is one thing, but actually seeing the loss is something altogether different. This truly is a tragedy.

I've Apparently Misplaced the Entire Month of March

2011-04-03T22:16:00.002-06:00

And I'll be damned if I can find where I put it.

No exciting stories....unless you consider the death of a vacuum an exciting story. The death of a vaccuum used to be a horrific event because it would mean that there was some big to-do to be had in trying to find a way to pay for a new one. This would normally involve a desperate scramble with calling all of my credit cards to see if I had any credit on them.....which normally wasn't the case....and then I would have to go buy an overpriced one at RCWilley cause I had store credit there. And it also seemed that I would have one of those overpriced vacuums die on me every year about 2 days after the warranty was up. Paying for a new one this time wasn't nearly as dramatic. I paid for a small one....with cash! The only real hassle in the entire endeavor was the horrible service I got at the Bountiful Kmart where I bought the thing. There was only one register open and the checker (whose nametag announced that she was the lead supervisor) seemed to be dead. It was only the occasional eyeblink that let you know that she was alive. Clearly, she hated her job. Oddly enough, I was forced to answer a customer service question on the debit machine before she could ring me up. The question was "how much would you recommend this Kmart based on your shopping experience?". I chose the "I would never recommend this store" option on the pinpad. If the checker knew my response, it sure had no effect on the speed in which she was checking anyone out.

Did you know that it has been exactly four years since my bankruptcy was discharged? It seems like forever and then it seems like it only happened yesterday. Unfortunately my free credit reports don't tell me what my credit score is, but I am hoping that it is improving with the three and a half years of steady student loan payments I have been making. Now if only I could manage to get the student loan interest rate lower, it would actually look like I'm making progress on those payments instead of only a fifth of my payment going to the principle balance.
One battle at a time I guess.
And I won this one with the vacuum. :)

Who pays for the date? And how it reflects on my bad dating life

2011-02-25T11:48:00.002-07:00

I was having a conversation with someone the other day and we were talking about the social implications of who pays on a date. She contended that if a man pays for the meal that it means he is interested and is expecting something further from the date/relationship/whatnot. If a woman pays for the meal or goes dutch it means that she just wants to be friends.

Apparently, I date like a man.

If I pay for the meal/date, I am not doing it to just "be friends".....that's what going dutch is for. If I pay, I'm expecting something more.

This apparently is a problem.....cause I might be the only one who dates this way. It also must be a sign of my lack of success in the dating department.

Am I giving the wrong impression? And if so, how the heck do I fix it?

In other totally random dating thingamajigs that I've been thinking of....
Remember in middle school/high school/college/today when you had a crush on someone and every night you lay awake, listening to some song over and over that reminds you of that person, and trying to figure out how to make that person notice you? (I know that you've done it....don't deny it.) I've decided that I really want someone to be doing that and thinking of me.

Its sort of a nice thought, to be thinking that someone lies awake thinking of you....but in a nice way....not in the creepy stalker sort of way.

Finding a Vice to Give Up

2011-02-13T21:11:00.002-07:00

So for reasons I am not going to fully explain here, I am supposed to find a vice to give up. The vice doesn't necessarily have to be an addiction to give up, but it can be something that I don't feel like I am doing well or enough according to my own moral code. This is gonna be a tough one. I don't really have any addictions....at least I don't think that I do. I do have things that I should do differently. I have a couple of ideas, and I might just try to do all of them.

My first idea is that I need to follow some of the precepts of my faith more. I haven't fasted during Ramadan in years, let alone attempting the fast for a day or two each month. I also need to make sure that I read the Quran every year. This is something that I should try to do irregardless of having to find a vice to give up. I should use my language skills more....I should eat ice cream less...especially as I hurts my stomach.... There are alot of little ideas that might make a difference, but I think that I need something that will make a large impact in my life.

My other idea is much much harder....however, recent events have come to light showing me that the need to do this is becoming greater and greater. Basically, I need to stop taking care of my brother. I mother him, I humor him, and I take care of him to the point where I am doing him more harm than good.

Here's the background to this.....
At the moment I am paying for my little brother's schooling. I gave him a scholarship that has very specific rules that I have disregarded or bent to cut him some slack. The primary requirement of the scholarship is that you have to have a 3.0 gpa. His first semester he came close....and I agreed to continue paying because there is a huge adjustment to college lifestyle...blah blah blah. The next semester he did great and made the 3.0. This last semester however he didn't do so well. In fact he withdrew from a class a week before finals....and still didn't get the 3.0. He also waited for over 3 weeks to finally tell me what his grades were and what he did. I feel like he waited for so long in the hopes that I wouldn't be angry with him. At the time, I told him that I wouldn't pay for him to retake the class and that was that. But it still kinda sits there....taunting me. The other requirement in the scholarship is that you have to pay for the next semester, get a 3.0, and I would start paying again. Well he didn't have the money when tuition was due this semester (even though he told me that he would have), and I loaned him the money for school. He still owes me money for helping him with vet costs, and his half of my parents Christmas gift, and now this. Its over $400 now, and he hasn't paid me back a cent. When I've been asked why I am helping him with school....I mainly tell people that since I knew he wouldn't listen to me about his future plans, I hoped that he would at least listen to a professor. There are more reasons however. I have a HUGE student debt load. I had a huge credit card debt load at one point as well. I want to spare him that. Instead, I have made myself his source of credit. There is also a part of me that wants to help him and make sure that he doesn't have any debt because of what my ex-husband did to Jimmy's credit rating. I shouldn't hold that guilt, but I do. And I think that it is depriving my brother of a valuable lesson.

My brother does, for lack of a better term, street art. I've encouraged him in any outlet for his creativity. I look at all of his drawings. I listen to his dreams and ideas. Whenever he has talked about going out "painting" I've always said that if he got caught I would not bail him out. Saying it and acting as to what you have said are different matters. So about two weeks ago, he got caught. I got a phone call about 11pm on a Thursday. When you get a call from a jail they tell you the jail name and then they leave a pause for the prisoner to say their name. When I heard a low male voice say "c'mon Debbie, you know who this is". I originally didn't. I originally had thought that my ex-husband had been arrested and only accepted the call because I wanted to gloat that he had gotten caught. I know that makes me sound like a horrible person. When I accepted the call I discovered that it was Jimmy, and thus began a really REALLY awful 24 hours. I had to notify my parents what happened. I had to contact Jimmy's friends to let them know that he was ok. And I snapped.....I was up at 2 in the morning trying to find out how bailbonds worked on wikipedia. I was contacting the jail. I was trying to get a bond for him once his bail was set......I was at a hysteria point. I was worried he was going to be hurt. I was worried that he might not be released soon and lose his job. I even asked my boss if she would co-sign a bond for me because I was told by a bondsman that I needed to have a house to back it. I had even managed to find $1200 to pay for the 10% bond....I just needed to wait until the banks opened in the morning. (Oh, by the way, if you are going to graffiti, don't mark up a telephone box. It becomes a felony offense as it is a public utility.) In the end he was released without bail as this was his first offense. He was home safe.

The aftermath of this has been frustrating. I've had to listen and argue with him about what he perceives as "unfairness" in the law. I've had to listen to him complain about how he is being forced into this painful artistic box. I've had to be told repeatedly by him that I cannot possibly understand this because I am not an artist. He has this sense of entitlement that is just unreal. I feel like he isn't appreciating how lucky he is not to have lost his job or his freedom....or school....or the fact that his sister was trying to move mountains because he did something completely and totally stupid.

So I need to stop. I need to stop enabling him. I need to stop mothering him and treat him like the 22 year old man that he is. He already has two parents, he doesn't need a third. I don't need to buy him dinner if we go out. He's got a job. I don't need to buy him food. He can feed himself. I don't need to pay for his school when he obviously doesn't find it necessary to do well in it. He needs to shoulder the responsibility of his own adulthood.

And this is where it gets tricky. If the events of the last month have taught me anything, its that while I may say one thing, I may act differently. If this is the vice I am to give up, it will be the hardest of them all.

Bluebeard-And other fairytales that scare the crap of me

2011-01-23T10:25:00.004-07:00

I watched this French movie called Bluebeard last night. It is based off of a historical fairytale of the same name....which just freaks me out. I think that this is one of those times when in being an American I am at a disadvantage with fairy tales. The tales that I grew up with always have a clear moral, a happy ending, and the scary bits? all within the realm of the imaginary. They have always been safe allegories removed from really happening in everyday life. This has probably been one of the reasons why I have been so slow to really get into Grimm's fairytales. I feel dissatisfied with them. They always end horribly and the moral is too subjective for me to get. Oddly enough, I haven't felt this way about 1,001 Arabian Nights, but the stories have more clear and logical endings for me.

Back to the story of Bluebeard. It follows that there was a powerful and rich lord, however for all of his wealth he wasn't regarded as handsome but disgustingly ugly as he had a beard that was blue. He was married many times but no one knew what became of the wives as they would disappear after about a year. A local woman with two daughters is recently widowed leaving her and her children completely destitute. Hearing this the rich lord Bluebeard invites the family to stay with him at one of his country houses for a week with the hope of enticing one of the girls to be his next bride. The youngest one accepts him and they wed.

In the movie, the youngest girl is prepubescent and there was a part of me that was horrified that I might have stumbled upon a movie that is going to have child rape in it. But there wasn't....so that was good. The girl was definitely older in maturity than in her years and sees something of value in Bluebeard when she accepts him as her groom. You start to really feel that he is just a poor misunderstood man, one that just needs one woman to genuinely love him. She doesn't ask questions about his past or the other wives, she just tries to get to know him and loves him unconditionally. And for those that know me and my past, you'll understand how I deeply identify with that.....and this probably won't be the first time that I say that in this post.

Bluebeard then has to leave for a while on business. Depending on which version you read, he's left her once before giving her all the keys of the house and telling her that she is welcome to see and look through everything. In any case, it doesn't really matter how many times he has left her alone with all the keys to the house.....it is the last time that is important. As he sets out to leave, he gives her the keys as before and then gives her one extra little golden key. He tells his wife that this key is to a small door in the basement and under no circumstances is she to open the door and look inside. Of course, she goes and opens the door at the first opportunity. Inside the floor is covered with blood and on the walls are hung the tortured bodies of his former wives. She is so upset by this she drops the key and it becomes covered in the blood. Bluebeard unexpectedly returns home saying that he received news that his business had been concluded while he was on the road. He asks for the keys to the house back. She returns all but the small golden key which she hasn't been able to get all the blood off of yet. In the end she returns it to him and he sees the blood. Knowing that she had gone into the forbidden room, he tells her that she must reenter it as well and die like the other women that he could not trust. Again there is some variation on the ending of this story, but the girl manages to stall, get help and have her husband killed. She then inherits everything and life ends well.

In the movie version and in the written versions that I researched last night after watching the film, the story focuses much more on the keys and the discovery of the bloody chamber than in how she escapes. In one version of the story the author noted the moral is that women should learn to guard their curiosity and completely and totally obey their husbands. My response to this is "Paa--leeze, what f-ing planet are you on?" There was another moral to the tale that I am just going to quote here directly:

Moral: Curiosity, in spite of its appeal, often leads to deep regret. To the displeasure of many a maiden, its enjoyment is short lived. Once satisfied, it ceases to exist, and always costs dearly.
Another moral: Apply logic to this grim story, and you will ascertain that it took place many years ago. No husband of our age would be so terrible as to demand the impossible of his wife, nor would he be such a jealous malcontent. For, whatever the color of her husband's beard, the wife of today will let him know who the master is.

These morals also cause a bit of eye-rolling on my part. I think that there are plenty of modern references to similar stories. Let's look beyond the carnage of the past wives in the story. What do they represent? His string of victims, the women in his past that he has kept secret, his history of lies. Bluebeard has used his riches, his knowledge, his worldliness, his eccentricities to draw women to him. He then asks the impossible of them....he clearly sets them up to fail. To the outward observer the "rules" that he has set up in this game of his only make sense to him. Clearly, we are looking at the classic representation of a sociopath.

There is nothing wrong with curiosity. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know the truth about the person that you marry. For a local example of this story, look to the Lori Hacking case. Her husband lied to her about his past and what he was currently doing, when she learned the truth he killed her. This case happened shortly before the whole drama with my ex, and it is a story that I identify with deeply. I feel very very lucky that my version of the Bluebeard story did not turn out the same....and yet the fairytale still remains. Sinister and frightening. Used historically by men as a justification for violence against women; retold by women as a cautionary tale of what the worst could be. Makes sense to me why I was weirded out all last night and couldn't sleep very well.

In any case, it has started me re-looking at some of these more "non-kid-appropriate" fairytales. I have a co-worker who has an affinity for the Red Riding Hood tale as it is an example of a tale warning women of going off alone in the woods for what could happen to them. There is a South American tale warning women off of going off in the woods alone because they will be impregnated by an ogre. How is this any different then telling women that they will avoid being raped if they don't go out at night, or don't wear that short skirt? I recently reread a telling of the creation myth of Medusa. Did you know that she was raped by Poseidon in the temple of Athena....and Athena cursed her with the whole snake get-up as a punishment? Why are the women being punished in these stories? When I do awareness work on rape culture and victim blaming it is so easy to say that we don't really believe that the victim is at fault....and then again....look at all the stories that we have grown up with. It really feels like an impossible climb...and definitely something that cannot be conquered in one little blog post here. As I continue researching, I'll let you know what I learn.

In the meantime, beware of men with blue beards and cross-dressing wolves.

I'm An Ancient Fertility Goddess!

2011-01-19T12:18:00.004-07:00

Last year, Libby and I walked (because I did little running that day) in the Pride Festival 5K. We came in last, dead last. You can see the results online - which I looked up today. You can also see pictures of us walking in. And while I am not normally a photogenic person....this one is pretty bad. And yes, I am about to make fun of myself....it isn't because I have low self-esteem, it is because I have a good sense of humor.
Here is a photo of me looking HUGE:

Know what it looks like?

This.

The Venus of Willendorf, baby. I see this as even further proof that you should all worship me. Worship Me!!!

Psst....can I make a small request?

2011-01-12T17:09:00.002-07:00

Just as a short plea to all of those who I have talked about my baby plans with.... please, please, PLEASE stop suggesting that I have some random hook-up with a stranger (or suggest that I proposition a co-worker to sleep with me) in order to get pregnant.

I know that you are all excited about my decision. I am too.
But, if I am going to do this, I need to do it in a rational and well-thought-out way.

I know that there are much cheaper ways of getting pregnant than going to a fertility clinic. But I really don't want a "baby daddy" situation. I want a father who is either completely and totally a part of this decision, a part of my life and in the life of my future child, or a father who is not there at all.

So I ask you all to just be patient. August is still the goal. I want to have the money for the procedure and my maternity leave saved up before I conceive. The time will go by faster then you think.

And if you are really adamant about me having a child in a more "traditional" manner....then set me up on a date with someone who is seeking a serious relationship rather than a random "hookup".

So there, that's my rant.
We're still cool right?

Resolution Time!

2011-01-03T21:09:00.002-07:00

I've been trying to think of some resolutions for the new year because I'm lame and wish to follow the herd as much as possible. I had three resolutions last year, two of them I met. Those were to get a new job (check) and to progress to the intermediate level of piano (check, check). The only one not completed was to get some sort of gaming system. However, I got one for my parents for Christmas and after playing with their Wii, I really really want one of my own. So let's consider that resolution half finished....and one that I will hope to finish within the year.

Resolution One: Rather than the stereotypical "lose weight and exercise more" resolution that is so popular, I propose a twist on it. I wish to lose some financial weight, meaning that I resolve to pay off some bills this year. My medical bills are first on the list and I would like to tackle one of my student loans. In addition I would like to make some major headway on some of my financial goals such as creating an emergency fund and the saving that I have planned for a baby.

Resolution Two: To learn at least one new word a week, hopefully more than one a week, but at least one a week. I hope that most of these will come from resolution three. The word for this week is "simony" which is "the crime of paying for sacraments and consequently for holy offices or positions in the hierarchy of a church, it also extends to other forms of trafficking for money in "spiritual things". Oddly enough I was joking with someone about the buying of indulgences a couple of weeks ago, so it was interesting to learn about simony as well.

Resolution Three: To read the books that I have always meant to but did not find the time for. I've always been an over researcher. Whenever I hear a new theory, historical nugget, interesting story I always want to read it for myself. So when I watched a history channel documentary on the seven deadly sins, I wanted to read the references they gave in the show. Its my historian side going all sorts of primary document crazy. So with the bookstore gift card I got for Christmas I bought Dante's Inferno and the Apocrypha...among other things. So I will read them. I've already started on the Inferno. Hopefully I don't get too overwhelmed with all that I want to read.

Resolution Four: To say "mea culpa" to someone in a snarky and sarcastic tone and have that person understand what I mean. Saw it in a movie....and I definitely want to try it.

Resolution Five: To learn to do all that I need to do without making myself freak out at the prospect. I have some cool ideas for stuff I want to do at work. I want to do more with GV and other writing related projects. This is more of an ongoing project. Little bit by little bit I've been managing to get more done with less stress, and this is something that I want to work on more.

And that's m' list. Not as easily measurable as last years resolutions and most are a continuation of other work that I have undertaken in the last year or so of my life.... however I see the prognosis as good in completing these things.

If anything, I am sure that I will have a good story to blog on the "mea culpa" resolution.

A Sign That Your Work Is Creeping Into Your Personal Life

2010-12-20T21:44:00.002-07:00

This last weekend little bro had a Halloween for Christmas party.
I prepared for this party by walking to his house so that I could drink as much as I wanted and still get home in the evening. As normal, I turn into a responsible adult at a party and try to take care of those more smashed than I. One of these folks was my brother's roommate....who turned 21 this weekend.

And as we all know, turning 21 means that you spend that entire weekend completely inebriated.

She had a friend/boyfriend/potential boyfriend/I'mnotexactlysure there. Nice boy, quite cute. She was throwing herself on him, telling him that they should go off to her room, etc., etc. I know that at least one other guy there would have taken her up on the offer (which was creepy), but not her guy. He kept telling her no, kept saying that she was too drunk. Which she was. And after a while of watching him turn her down and still taking care of her in her drunkenness, I walked over to him to thank him.

I thanked him for recognizing that she was too drunk to consent. I thanked him for not taking advantage of her. I thanked him for being a good guy.

First of all, thanking someone at a party for not being a rapist is weird. But this has become my new reality. He was really sweet...and blushed, mumbling something about how he wouldn't want her to be with him like that anyway, and how it wouldn't be any fun.... but let's be honest, what else could he say? I made an already awkward situation a rape prevention moment. Oh well, maybe if we thanked people for not taking advantage of someone, they might step in for someone else later when they see it happening. A bystander education moment? Maybe. Several people at that party learned alot about consent that night from this conversation. So that should be considered a good thing.....or a sign that I live and breathe my work too much. What do you think?

I've been a bit busy, how about you?

2010-12-20T21:31:00.003-07:00

Wow....absolutely no blogging this month so far. That's really sad. In my defense I have had a super busy month so far.

I was battling a sickness, while taking care of a family friend who was sicker than me. I don't recommend this at all.

In something that I haven't really talked about on here at all, I was preparing for, took, and passed my examination to the second degree in co-masonry.

Plus, I had a party to go to for Job 3 and a party that I held at my house for UCASA. Lesson learned from this is that no matter how long I take to clear off the table, leaving gravy out for any extended period of time is not a good idea. One of these days I will pay more attention to dishes rather than trying to convince myself that not washing them is part of a grand scientific experiment.

Oh, and I decided....this morning actually.... that I am not going to take my birth control pills anymore. I keep forgetting to get the prescription filled anyway. I was planning on getting at least a month's filled for emergencies....and then I realized that that was super silly because I want to get pregnant, so why would I need the pills? Mindsets are really hard to change sometimes. I've been so used to being hyper-vigilant about unintended pregnancy that being ok with that situation is sort of a mind bender.

That's about it, I think. Although I am considering doing a bunch of top ten list for the end of the 2010 (top ten moments in my life, top ten biggest bonehead moves, that sort of thing). If you have any ideas for topics, please let me know. I'm going to do a top ten most influential sexual violence stories for work, which I will definitely link to here, but I haven't decided if I will cross post it here or not.

5 Days of Hermitage

2010-11-28T15:51:00.003-07:00

I have not left my house in 5 days, and it has been wonderful.
What won't be wonderful is having to clear off all of the snow from car tomorrow morning, but I guess that is a sacrifice that I will have to make since I've been able to be nice and warm in my house for so long.
I didn't intend to spend 5 days in my house, it just sorta happened. I had all of my grocery shopping done on Tuesday before the non-existant blizzard occurred. (As a quick aside, it was really unusual for everyone to preemptively freak out about a storm, but they did, and then nothing happened) I worked from home on Wednesday, which was an oddly productive day for me. Jimmy and I spent over 5 hours slaving over our Thanksgiving dinner. I refused to leave the house for any reason on Black Friday. I don't like to play into the over-consumerism of the season. And yeah....I was supposed to meet some friends for brunch today but we canceled because we all didn't want to go out into the snow.
I'm always saying to myself that if I only had some time at home doing nothing I would feel recharged. The problem in that last sentence is the "doing nothing" part. I think that is impossible for me to do. What I did manage was to get the Christmas decorations up, super clean the house, soap the hardwood floors in the living room, dining room, and the kitchen, completely revamp and sync my work email so I can access it from home easier and do a crapload of sudoku puzzles. I still need to do some odd little work tasks, finish the last couple Thanksgiving dinner dishes, and clean the bathroom....but that is no big deal. And with doing all of that.....I feel recharged.
Weird.
Now! On to one more Sudoku puzzle before I tackle the next item on my list!

How Flat Can A Tire Be?

2010-11-16T22:32:00.005-07:00

It seems that for the past few years the colder months has brought with it a season of me never being able to keep air in my tires. One will go low, I'll fill it up, it will go low again, I'll fill it up, etc, etc, etc. Usually when it gets to a visit to the gas station once a day its a sign that I have to replace the tire.

Monday night was a bit different....but no less funny then the regular visits to the gas stations that offer free air hookups.....I probably know all of the stations in the downtown area that offer it for free actually. My car was having a hard time speeding up, and by the time I got to my driveway it was bouncing up and down so bad that you would have thought I had installed hydraulic shocks.

I parked. Went to look at the tires....which I hadn't been noticing a problem with air pressure-wise...and discovered that my front passenger side tire was flat. There was still some air left in the tire but it was definitely squishy to the touch.

So in a flash I jump back into my car and begin the drive to Big O tires on South Temple. Now while the drive was only a few short blocks, it was an eventful few blocks. So imagine me driving down a busy street in heavy rush hour traffic unable to go more than 20 miles an hour. The cars around me are honking trying to tell me that my tire is flat or honking and trying to swerve around me as I am causing a major disruption to traffic. It was the longest three minute drive ever. The car was shaking with each thwap thwap thwap as the flat tire rotated....just like in the cartoons. When I finally got to the tire store the tire was on the rim. I've seen flat tires before but the tire was so flat I was surprised the rubber was still on it. I also wouldn't have been surprised if there might have been a little sparking from the tire while I was driving.

Unfortunately they couldn't put a patch on the tire and I had to buy a new one. The rim wasn't damaged though, phew! They offered me a three-year protection plan on the tire which turned out to be half the cost of the tire. I passed....cause seriously....since I know that I will probably have to replace another tire next year I might as well save myself the cost now to apply to another tire later. Hopefully it will be only one tire this season. But if you see me riding down the street at a snail's pace with my car bouncing up and down, you'll know where I'm headed.

Giving Voice

2010-11-14T21:31:00.002-07:00

In a comment left last night on an older post where I referenced some feelings that I had towards my ex-husband, it was stated from an anonymous poster:

“Having read a few other of your postings (older ones), I find myself wondering what the other side of the story is/was. It would seem from the lack of comment by him that his most serious sin is that of cowardliness. What would you do if he came forward I wonder?”

My response to this anonymous poster was the following:

“Well it has to be understood that the very basic nature of a blog means that there is going to be one side of the story. And there is really nothing I can do about that. Mr.3 is more than welcome to come forward, in fact he has commented on this blog numerous times, but never under his own name. He has other sins besides the cowardice you note in my post, Anonymous. He's emotionally hurt many people, and financially many more.”

10 minutes after the comment on the I Hate You post appeared, a second comment was published on another post of mine which was clearly from my ex-husband.

“This is quite an epiphany, I must say. Especially since the abuse at times went both ways...but we can't share that now can we, D? That would strip you of the right to play the victim. And you are and always were high maintenance. As for Anonymous's post, ask her why, if her 'Scott' was such an abuser, she didn't come forward to testify when 'he' was in jail in Florida? Ask her why she refused to be involved. Same was true with the ex-wife. It is too bad really - such a pity, as you always could have been and done so much more.”

Due to the short difference in time to these comment postings, the syntax, and the general context of the comment, it is my opinion that I believe the author of both comments to be the same individual.

My response to the comment on the post The Empowering Work Epiphany that I was NOT expecting was the following:

“Well, hi Mike. It's been a while since you have directly commented.

You have stated that the abuse went both ways. Why can't you bring it up? So far the only thing that you have accused me of is being "high maintenance". I don't believe that I am. Others who really care about me, unlike you who left, don't believe that I am. In fact, you know full well that being labeled "high maintenance" and a "victim" are terms that will emotionally hurt me. And they don't now when coming from you. So please, try to strip away the victim guise I supposedly wear so well.
As for your questions for the other Anonymous commenter on my blog....I am actually not sure which one of your past ladies she is, as there are many that have been hurt by you. Maybe those are questions you should ask her yourself.”

Much to my surprise, I did receive a response back.

Anonymous said...

D:

Perhaps in the past I would have been afraid to put my own name on a post, much like some of the other Anons here, but not anymore. For the better part of three years of knowing you, I was badgered, belittled, and held back by your sheer lack of motivation. How many classes did you fail on the way to a Masters? How seriously did you take your insulin-resistance diagnosis? If I ever took an authoritarian stance with you, it was to help you, not hurt you. But those details never come up, and that's too bad.

What also surprises me is that you don't mention to anyone here how much we fought, and how often I begged you to open your eyes and come with me to DC. You don't tell people about the conversations where I told you I couldn't stay with you in Salt Lake anymore because of your lack of drive and SLC's lack of opportunities. You only tell them what you want them to know so you can be the victim. Honestly it's really sad and I feel really sorry for you.

I would ask for your forgiveness for the things I did do wrong in the end, but lets face it, you won't ever give it because it would disallow your ability to feel victimized. As for me, I've moved on - past the cheating ex-wife who like to screw the UPS guy and then try to pass his kid off as mine, past Courtney who is Anon (get over it, won't you please?), past Kathy, the drunk, and past insane nicole-crystal-bella-whoeverthehellsheis and the kid who looks an awful lot like the guy she ran off to the desert with while I was left to work in Orange County. And most of all, past you, who four years later is still moaning and blaming me for all your woes.

Also, you might want to make sure you can back up every single comment you say on here. I am not above hiring an attorney to slap you with a libel suit should you keep this up. So you might want to find someone else to blame for everything in your life; something to think about. Oh, and by the way, my name is Scott.

Why am I re-posting these comments in a separate blog post? I take accusations against my character very seriously, and I have been accused of not telling all sides of the story. Unfortunately, the only side that I know fully is my own. By reposting my ex-husband’s comments, I am highlighting the voice he wishes to give.

I also wish to give a response to this latest comment, and I want it to be the last conversation about my ex-husband that happens on this blog. Too much time has been devoted to him and how he has made me feel.

Dear Ex-husband,

This is the first time that you have directly communicated with me since Christmas Day 2007. On that morning, you called me and told me that you had been released from the VA Mental Health Division and that you were returning home. You had said that you were taking the bus to the house and would call me when you got to our home. At the time, I was in Arizona visiting my parents. I waited for your call and it never came. That was the last time that you deigned to speak to me.

You have said that you felt “badgered, belittled, and held back by [my] sheer lack of motivation”. I accept that this is how you feel. I accept that this is how you view what happened. That is not how I remember things.

You asked “How many classes did you fail on the way to a Masters?” The answer is 2. And I didn’t quite fail them, I got a C in my Syntax class and I believe a D in a class on curriculum design. However, as the grades were low they could not be counted towards my masters and I had to retake them. My Syntax C happened at a time when you were in jail in Florida. I was emotionally upset by your incarceration. I will not deny that. I let my emotions interfere with my ability to do well in the class. I take all responsibility for that C. And when I retook the class, I received an A. The second class that I “failed” as you put it, was the following semester. You had come home for three weeks, gone to DC for some “job training” and then told me that you had lost the job and checked into the VA for evaluation. I was not allowed to see you. I was emotionally upset at the situation, at not understanding what was going on. Once again, I let my emotions interfere with my ability to do well in class. I recognized that I needed to take a year off from my studies so that I could get to the point where my emotions did not interfere with my academic work. I retook the class. I passed the class. I finished my Masters degree. The fact that I finished my degree I feel shows that I do have motivation to finish something. Also, my Masters degree and the journey that it took me on is not your responsibility. You were not there to hold my hand. You were not there at my graduation. My Masters degree has nothing to do with how our relationship ended.

You have also asked “How seriously did you take your insulin-resistance diagnosis?” Just briefly I would like to state that my medical diagnosis has nothing to do with how our relationship ended. I took the diagnosis very seriously. I changed my eating habits, lowered my cholesterol, lost weight, seek regular medical care in which I am told that I am in excellent health, ran a 5K…. I’ve even enrolled myself in a medical study to help doctors understand more about the body. You publicly accusing me of having a medical issue and finishing my Masters degree are merely tools that you are using to deflect my earlier question to you about what abusive acts I committed.

You have also stated that you are surprised that I never mentioned how we fought or how you begged me to go to DC. I never mentioned them, because we never had those conversations. We very very rarely fought….in fact I can’t remember having a verbal fight. I know that on a couple of occasions, I tried. But your response was that you refused to fight with me because people end up saying things that they don’t mean. So nothing was said. It just festered in the silence between us. I was more than willing to go to DC with you. More than willing to support you. In fact I financially supported you in that. I bought the bus ticket for you to go to DC. It cost half the rent money and because no job materialized and you took that opportunity to leave me then, I had to be the one to figure out a way of begging our landlord to not evict us. In a way, I wish that we had fought because it would have been some sort of communication between us. On this note, it can only be further said that it is your word against mine.

We can feel sorry for each other. I don’t see myself as a victim. I see myself as a survivor. This blog is more of a collection of my rants rather than a true representation of my daily life and daily thought process. I don't blame you for every little thing that goes wrong in my life. You honestly don't have that much control. There are many many things in my life that I don’t write about. One of those things is that I forgave you long ago. I don’t have the strength or the ability to waste the mental energy to still be mad at you. You have your own morality, beliefs, and ways of doing things and I have mine. I don’t want to spend time trying to figure out how you think or what your next move is. That’s seems like a game to me. And I am not going to play. I forgave you when I looked back at my life and realized that even though I have felt that I have been through hell and back, that I would not change a thing. The person that I am now, is so much stronger and self aware then I was before we met. I like the person I am now so much better. And if I had to get there through all of the heartache, then all I can do is thank you.

While it does feels a little bit like a threat to me…..you have reminded me that I need to be careful as to what I say here about you, what I can prove and not prove. I would ask you to do the same. I can prove your infidelity. I can prove your abandonment of me as grounds for the divorce. I can prove the fraudulent financial acts that you committed in my little brother’s name. I can prove many other things. I am not sure why you feel that it is necessary to lay out the “dirt” -so to speak- about the other women in your life on my blog. It sounds like you are still very angry with them. It is clear that you have physically moved on from these relationships. It is also clear that you have a history of relationships that can be categorized as “negative”. You’ve had a run of bad luck, and so have these other women.

I have heard (so its definitely heresay) that you are looking to reclaim your original name and your life. I suspect part of that journey is why you contacted me. If that is the truth then I wish you the best of luck. I believe that everyone should live their life honestly. You will have a lot to go through to regain your name and put it in good standing. You will have to admit to a lot of wrong and atone….. and probably rack up some nasty legal bills in the process to correct everything. If you truly have the strength of mind and character to do what needs to be done, then all I can do is to wish you well. If you can truly do this, then you will have proven me wrong.

Man With Van for Hire

2010-11-10T21:46:00.002-07:00

I've probably been working on too many policies at work or been reading too many crimes novels lately, but yesterday when I was driving behind a white van that had a "Man with Van for Hire" sign on the back I kept trying to imagine what the service contract between the van driver and a serial killer would look like.

I'm guessing that there would definitely be a cleaning clause included. Such as "the signee agrees to place a tarp along the floor of the van to prevent damage to the vehicle. If in the case of any damage, the signee agrees to pay all cleaning costs". Of course, there would probably have to be a confidentiality clause of some sort....cause if I was a serial killer and hired a van, I would ask for that. It would read something like this:

It is understood and agreed to that the below identified discloser of confidential information may provide certain information that is and must be kept confidential. To ensure the protection of such information, and to preserve any confidentiality necessary under criminal and/or civil laws, it is agreed that

1. The Confidential Information to be disclosed can be described as and includes:

Victim identification, logistical information pertaining to location of body disposal and/or stalking grounds, weapons, methods of weapon use, lethality of all activities, the disposal of all miscellaneous evidence, any financial gain resulting from murderous activities, and current or future maiming plans and models, regardless of whether such information is designated as “Confidential Information” at the time of its disclosure or witnessing.

2. The Recipient agrees not to disclose the confidential information obtained from the discloser to anyone under threat of being labeled as an accomplice to the crime.

3. This Agreement states the entire agreement between the parties concerning the disclosure of Confidential Information. Any addition or modification to this Agreement must be made in writing and signed by the parties in their own blood.

4. If any of the provisions of this Agreement are found to be unenforceable, the remainder shall be enforced as fully as possible and the unenforceable provision(s) shall be deemed modified to the limited extent required to permit enforcement of the Agreement as a whole.

WHEREFORE, the parties acknowledge that they have read and understand this Agreement and voluntarily accept the duties and obligations set forth herein.

Hummmm..... I wonder if anyone has ever done that and used it in court. Might have to research that one a bit.

And now that you all think that I am a total psycho, I bid you a good night. :)

Salvage

2010-10-27T09:27:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I had a panic attack and mini-breakdown at work. Actually it was a series of panic attacks.....which lasted about an hour and a half.

What caused this you might say?
In a word......

TAXES

We recently switched from using an accountant to handle our accounts to doing it all in-house. Now if I mess up on some of the bookkeeping, it can be fixed. If I mess up on our taxes there are much heavier penalties. I was under the impression that our accountant would still be doing them....she was under the impression that I am perfectly capable of handling it. I am glad that someone had more confidence in me than I had.....but, I wasn't able to overcome my fears of messing up.

And so I cracked at work.

I have a wonderfully understanding boss, but this could have been avoided. I should have been able to say sooner that I was overloaded and not capable of doing it. I'm so stubborn though that I kept trying to do it myself until I imploded in my boss's office.

I'm a little embarrassed. Breaking down into tears makes me feel awful, horrifically weak, and incredibly unprofessional. I think that it is the professionalism aspect that is getting to me most. Ugh....I cried...in the office....I frickin' cried. How more negatively female could I have been in an office setting? Even though I am now in an environment where it is a bit more acceptable to be emotional, and even encouraged in a therapeutic sense, the old carry-overs of being dominated in my old office and being accused of not being mature enough to be competent because I let my emotions take over still linger. There is bitterness there (and for once it is not about the last MEC director there but other professors in my past who used it to their advantage).

What to do? How do I salvage what happened yesterday?
I can only hope that my co-workers don't feel like they need to tip-toe around me today. That will make the embarrassment much worse. For me, I think that the only other thing I can do is to work that much harder, get done what I need to do, and get my productivity levels back up. Let the automatron take over.

Adventure, Ample Breasts and WHAM! Amazing Gunfights!

2010-10-12T21:20:00.003-06:00

Each week on my Nook, Barnes and Nobles offers a free book download. Whoever wrote this week's book must also write for those silly Saturday night Syfy channel zero star movies that you end up watching because there is absolutely nothing else on TV. This book has been hilarious. I'm only 80 pages in and the main character has been in no less than 5 gunfights. He's also been in New York, Florida, Mexico City and Guatemala in less than three days.

Here's the basic storyline (you'll have to imagine the added sound effects and arm movements that would be added if you were listening to me tell this story in person):

Ruggedly handsome and overly wealthy man is stuffed into a tux for yet another "society fundraiser". A strikingly beautiful woman (with "ample breasts") spots him from across the room and begins to walk towards him. But before she can get there WHAM! the waiters at the event aren't real waiters but professional killers who beat up Mister Ruggedly Handsome and kidnap the beautiful woman. She left behind a flag and an empty whiskey bottle. Mister Ruggedly Handsome, with his unlimited funds, decides to track down the source of the bottle (in the hopes of also rescuing the girl). His search takes him to Florida, but on his way to the airport..... WHAM! He is ambushed by an armored car with the same professional killer waiters from the night before. He manages to evade them.....causing minimal traffic congestion by the way.... and get to the airport to fly his own personal plane down to Florida.

He spent most of the flight in the back of his airplane with it flying on autopilot. Little troublesome there.

He arrives in Florida and of course the only way to get to this civil war battlefield (the source of the flag) is by airboat. And as they are skimming their way through the swamp WHAM! A second airboat accompanied with two jetskis start to chase him and shoot up the boat. After a game of chicken where the other airboat flips, allowing him to travel to the battlefield museum in question. While there he is confronted again by one of the men in the overturned boat. He escaped by BAYONETING the man with an exhibit from the museum.

The next leg of the journey takes him to a museum in Mexico City where he meets the extraordinarily hot curator. As they are flirting in a highbrow and academic sort of way.....WHAM! they are ambushed yet again by several gunmen. I don't remember exactly how they escaped....but that was because the gun fight was pretty similar to the one some Dan Brown novel I read and I had started to skim. Anyway, they escape and Mister Ruggedly Handsome accompanies Miss Hot Curator to a black tie function at the museum benefactor's house.

And....you'll never believe this one....the benefactor is none other than the man who has been hiring these henchmen to kill Mister Ruggedly Handsome in the first place. I know! I was just as surprised (*tap* *tap* is the sarcasm font still working?)!

Mister Ruggedly Handsome and Miss Hot Curator try to leave the party but then WHAM! they are pursued by four----count them---FOUR motorcyclists shooting at them. She surves and ones of them falls off the road. Mister Ruggedly Handsome finds a can of gasoline, tears off a bit of his shirt to make a wick, lights it, and creates a fireball that covers the road and takes out two more motorcyclists. One more motorcyclists rides through the wall of fire (I swear I've seen this somewhere before) but he is taken out by a bullet to his front wheel.

The pair then get a hotel room where Miss Hot Curator takes a shower and walks around holding her towel around her very very loosely. Eventually the towel comes off. I just wish that the author was as forthcoming with the sex scene details as he is with the gun fights.

Last I left the book they were driving through Guatemala being pursued by the local lawless bandits. I believe that the book might eventually have some sort of archaeology component and deal with some mystery surrounding the myth of the fountain of youth. Oh, did I mention that Mister Ruggedly Handsome was an archaeologist? I know....that was a bit of a surprise for me as well. (*Ugh, it hurts to type that with a straight face*) It will be interesting to see how many more gunfights they can fit in within the next 90 pages or so.

I Knew It!

2010-10-07T09:31:00.002-06:00

As I was waiting for the Comcast repairman---yet again--- this morning, I came to the realization that I have been reading other people's blogs a hell of a lot more than I have been writing in my own. And while it is a good thing that I am patronizing other people's blogs, I really need to be writing here....its my outlet. It is just strange that I have noticed this today, especially as Libby has been dropping hints about needing to spend my free time writing. Sometimes I am surprised at how well she knows me....and when those times that I need someone else to remind me to do what I like and what makes me happy.

This past week I have been trying to work Job 1 at home for a few hours a week. I am supposed to be writing the newsletter but when I am at the office, I am so focused on dealing whatever the immediate crisis is that I can't seem to focus on the writing that I need to do. Mostly the crises have been focuses on getting the accounting handled here....which has been going well. And after I discovered that setting up a tv tray next to the computer (which gives me more space to spread out my materials to work on) I really like writing on my home computer. It feels less transitory. I guess that has been some of the issues I've been facing with trying to have the most minimalist computer setup ever conceived.

So what have I been reading about? Mostly about Fat Acceptance. One thing that I am continually surprised at working at UCASA is that for things or ways of thinking that I have, there are actual terms for. For the most part, when someone is basically acting like a total jerk, they are exercising their "privilege". Even though I've been told that recognizing you have privilege is a good thing, we never seem to praise people for that....just condemn them when they act on their privilege in a way that negatively affects us. There might be a term for that....I just don't know what that is yet. When it comes to Fat Acceptance....all of that "I just want to feel healthy" and "I am happy with my size and I've come to terms with how I look and I still love myself" stuff that I have been spouting for years apparently has its own political movement. Who knew? I've got alot of reading to catch up on.

Getting back to this morning. I've been having some major issues with Comcast. The cable feed digitizes alot and the internet connectivity has been awful. For Job 3 I need to have constant internet connectivity and when the internet modem keeps going down every 20 minutes and then takes 20 minutes to come back....dear debbie here can not work. The problem has been only for the past 4 months or so....but it is really annoying. A couple of months ago I had a tech come out. He clearly didn't want to be working and was convinced that nothing was wrong. For this they charged me $30. I had to call for two months to get it taken off of my bill. Last month I just paid the $30 and then this month they finally got it off of my bill. This morning the tech seemed more disposed to talk to me. It could have been that I was giving him some very specific and targeted information.

Guess what he found? That someone had tampered with the cable line to split it and it was causing the interference. He didn't want to out right say that the guy upstairs was trying to steal my cable, but he did say that it was a pretty obvious case of tampering and interference. He also said that the lady upstairs should be having problems too.....which I clarified with her this morning. She's been calling Comcast to.....and they keep trying to tell her that it is a problem with her computer. All I can say about this is.....

I knew it!!!

It only took four months and god know how many calls.
I hope that this fixes the problem.
Please, please, please.

It's Sorta Like Mixing Vodka and Gatorade

2010-09-28T22:30:00.002-06:00

That is the only way I can describe my life at the moment..... vodka and gatorade.....which is a horrible combination. You get the feeling of being drunk coupled with being completely hydrated....which could be a good thing but your body just instinctively knows that something is wrong.

I feel super run-down, a bit high strung and yet....surprisingly healthy. Could it be the magic vitamins? I'm not sure. Could it be that the placement of the planet says that it is fall and yet it still is summer temperatures thus making everybody's natural biorhythms out of whack? Possibly. Or could it just be that I am badly badly in need of a vacation?

This is probably the most likely cause.

However, arranging for some time off is not going to be the easiest thing at this point as it would call for some major schedule pre-planning and pre-worked hours. And honestly.....working myself to death so that I can have a couple of vacation days in which I would totally crash isn't the wisest of decisions to make.

So anyone have any suggestions for mini-vacation ideas? Something hopefully that would take anywhere from 1 hour to 5 hours and make me feel like I had a vacation. There are only so many at-home face-masks and bubble baths a person can do....and I've hit my limit. Oh, and if you would like to join me on these excursions/activities....I love company.

Maybe if I can find a way to clear out my head my wit will return. *sniff sniff* I miss it so....why did it have to leave me? *sniff sniff sigh*

The 100 Things

2010-09-14T11:18:00.002-06:00

I keep falling out of the blogging loop....but there is stuff happening. Unfortunately thinking that I should blog about something doesn't make it magically appear on the site.

A few weeks ago, Libby sent me an article about a couple in Portland who pared their life down to just 100 things in their apartment. Now, I know that I can't do that.....however I am following the lead of Libby and her husband of a goal of getting rid of 100 things instead.

So I've started a list of things that I want to get rid of. Some of these items I plan on donating, some of them I plan to sell, like my wedding dress. I have already had some success on getting rid of things. My old computer desk I donated to work. And I sold back some books.....alot of books. Getting rid of 100 books is easy, so books only count as one item on the list. But I did make Mr.3's old Arabic books a separate category. I pulled over 200 books off my shelves to get rid off (my shelves still look like a bomb went off in them). Sam Weller's took over half of what I brought (including Mr.3's Arabic books) and gave me enough money for them to buy an e-reader. Cause let's face it.....I may be trying to lessen the amount of stuff that I have, but I am always going to have a weakness for books. I got a nook from Barnes and Nobles. It arrived in the mail yesterday and I was up way way way too late playing with it. I like it alot more then I thought that I would....in fact....I could be in love.

So Obviously Not....

2010-08-29T17:44:00.002-06:00

As an update to the PGJ situation, I have to report that there is no news. Nothing at all.
I emailed him a few days after our coffee, and I've heard nothing back.

So....he's obviously not into me.

And this pisses me off, but for probably not the reasons you are thinking. First of all, my actions on the night of the party.... I am completely ok with everything that happened. I wanted physical contact, I knew what I was doing, and I got what I wanted. The second part of all of this however, is the coffee. I gave him an "out" of the coffee date totally... and if he had said "no" to the coffee, I would have been disappointed, but I would have understood.

But we did go to coffee. And I'm pretty sure that now-after the fact- that my "really liking him" freak out session was my intuition telling me that this was a hopeless pursuit. He admitted that he was really "shit-faced" that evening, but then also made this big deal about how he didn't want to be seen as a "fuck them and chuck them" type of guy. I took this as a sign that he didn't want this to be just a one-night stand. I should have focused more on the "I was shit-faced that night" remark.

As a short aside on the "fuck them and chuck them" remark.... his terminology by the way... I had never heard the term before. This statement implies that I was actively pursued with the intent that sleeping with me and then never speaking to me again afterwards was the goal. This makes me a passive player in this situation.....and I definitely was not a passive partner in this. How dare he assume that he is the one with the power in the situation? How does he not know that that was not my intent? It wasn't....but....well....I hope that you get my point.

So I'm a bit ticked off at PGJ. I've at least in the past had the courtesy to let a one-night stand know afterwards that I didn't want to see him. Here....it's a situation that I ended up helping to ease his own feelings about being the "fuck n' chuck" type.....and then he went ahead and treated me in that manner anyhow.

Also, I'm having major troubles reconciling the fact that I feel that he's a nice guy and a hypocrite at the same time.

C'est la vie

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

2010-08-18T21:37:00.002-06:00

Today was a good day. An exhausting long day. But a very good day. Car is fixed and it only cost $137....and I think that I have found a mechanic for life.

So in order to celebrate, watch this.....it's so fricking cute it makes me want to scream.

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

The Wonderful Things that can Happen in a Pretty Bad Day

2010-08-17T21:22:00.002-06:00

In an effort of trying to find the silver lining in every cloud, I am going to write about all the good things that happened in my very very bad day.

As my car was threatening to overheat on the ride home from piano yesterday I went to Jiffy Lube first thing this morning. They put coolant in the car and replaced the radiator cap that wasn't seeming to hold any pressure.

Bad Thing #1: As I was driving to the accountant's house, my car started to overheat and by the time I pulled into her driveway steam was billowing out of the front. I called Jiffy Lube and they said to come back and they would re-look at it. Good Thing #1: While at the accountant's house I learned how to use the accounting software and I was the one who processed payroll and ran all of the checks! It was very exciting in an awfully nerdy way. Good Thing #2: People will get paid today because of work that I did.

Good Thing #3: My car survived the ride back to town......but Bad Thing #2: the car started to overheat within sight of the Jiffy Lube. When I pulled up steam was coming out from under the hood and starting to fill into the car itself. My eyes were watering on top of all of the sweating from having the heater on to cool the engine in a car with one working window on a 98 degree day. Bad Thing #3: the guy at Jiffy Lube telling me that I either have a very cheap repair or a very expensive repair for my car that needs to have done at a mechanic's. Good Thing #4: My boss had the name of a mechanic that she trusts. Good Thing #5: My boss also talking me down from hysterics over my car and coming to pick me up. Good Thing #6: My boss taking me to lunch on the way back to the office. Good Thing #7: My car insurance completely paid for my car to be towed from Jiffy Lube to the mechanic's. Good Thing #8: My boss was willing to drive me back to Jiffy Lube to meet the tow truck. Bad Thing #4: The sight of my poor little car on the tow truck leaking out all of the coolant that Jiffy Lube had put into it. I sorta felt like PeeWee Herman when he has that dream in PeeWee's Big Adventure when his bike is totaled....and then they are wheeling it into the operating room....and then the doctor looks at the bike, shakes his head, then pulls off his mask only to show that he is a clown and .... well watch it yourself....

Good Thing #9: My boss drove me to my medical study workout session, and took the opportunity herself to go for an afternoon swim. Bad Thing #5: Being already hot and sweaty from dealing with the car and then getting even more hot and sweaty with working out is just nasty. Good Thing #10: Boss even picked me up from the workout session and drove me home. Good Thing #11: Shower. Bad Thing #6: Angry workout knees. Bad Thing #7: Some very hot and melty turtles when I got home. Good Thing #12: A cool bath perked them both right up and Zippy stopped sneezing (allergies again).

Let's tally up shall we? I've got 12 good things pitted against the 7 very bad things that happened today. I haven't heard from the mechanic yet, so that doesn't figure on our score sheet. And I am going to wait to see how the knees are in the morning before I decide to try and ride my bike to work tomorrow. Hopefully I have built up enough leg muscle to handle the trip.

See? I'm not all doom and gloom...big meany-faces in all their doubting...

Deconstructing my latest....well...thing

2010-08-16T21:50:00.003-06:00

A friend of mine decided to set me up with a friend of his. I figured 'why the hell not' and met the guy at a party at his house two weeks ago. We talked some but a party isn't really a place to have deep conversations, however it IS the place to drink lots of alcohol and end up spending the night.
So needless to say, the physical chemistry is there.

The day after the party I sent PGJ a text message telling him that I hope that his hangover got better. We texted a bit back and forth about the evils of too much alcohol the next day. Tuesday morning, I sent him a text suggesting that if he wanted to take a break from the booze, how did he feel about coffee? And then asked him to join me for coffee later in the week. I didn't hear from him for almost 2 days. In that day or so of waiting, I went spiraling down some awful overly-dramatic middle-school-girl freakout train as to whether or not he liked me. I'm embarrassed to say that it even happened. I ended the emotional situation by texting him that I was a person who was not good with uncertainty and asked him to reply to the coffee message even if the answer was no. The answer was yes, that he had gotten busy at work and hadn't gotten a chance to reply. So everything was well.....but the ghost of the freakout lingered.....

Friday at 6pm, I met PGJ for coffee. While I was hopeful that I might be able to drag out the coffee to a longer evening, it turned out to be just coffee.
About halfway through coffee and conversation, I realized that I really really liked PGJ. When I had that realization everything became harder.....I felt like my flirting was forced. By the end of the evening I could feel the pressure of my wanting to let him know that I liked him, and felt like I completely blew the whole thing by only giving a hug. I did have to initiate the hug though.

So here is the issue. Liking PGJ makes me feel incredibly vulnerable. Anytime I feel that someone else might know my true feelings, I feel vulnerable. Me and vulnerable is a horrible combination. It leads to the overuse of watching sappy movies in order to have an excuse to cry and release all these emotions. It also leads to me pulling away and becoming an ice queen. I know that all this is due to my constant need to be in control.....because as long as I am in control I get hurt less. I hate that I have this sort of baggage. Before Mr.3 I could be as naive and trusting as anything....now I am so worried that someone is trying to hurt me. I worry that someone is trying to hurt me when I don't hear from them.....which is absolutely INSANE. Then again....I was controlled by Mr.3's silence for a long time.

Where does this leave me? It leaves me trying to constantly tell myself to take a chill pill. I met a wonderful man that I would like to get to know better. I met a man who I feel safe with....even in sleeping. I have never been able to sleep soundly while sharing a bed, and I did with him. I met a man that I have alot in common with......at least on the family and geek front....I've yet had the opportunity to question him on his Scifi likes.....hopefully I will get that chance soon.

I want him to be the one to ask me out next. I want the opportunity to go on a date with someone that might resemble normal. And I dearly dearly want to be able to date him without having any more of these emotional freakout lapses!

I'll let you know how it goes. If it does.

The Baby Decision and Other Momentous News

2010-08-04T22:17:00.003-06:00

Stuff.
That is what going on, stuff.
Decisions, thoughts, and the occasional call to my mom that leaves her speechless.
That is what has been going on.....lots and lots of stuff.

I'll start with the news first. Prop 8 being ruled unconstitutional gives me much hope for my brother's future happiness. He's had more on an idea of what he wants for a wedding than I have ever had. One day, he will get that day under landscape arch.

Second on the news front. I haven't written very much on this blog of the horror what was the last 6-7 months of my employment at the MEC. Partly this is due to finding out that my former boss had printed out a page from my blog and supposedly was telling people that I was running a counterfeit id business.....and the fact that he was looking for strange and impossible means of firing me.... and he referred to me, my job, and the program it was under as an "abnormality that shouldn't have been allowed to survive". Well, for all of his changes, the new directions, and new programs that he was trying to implement, it apparently wasn't what the Department of Education wanted because he lost the grant that had funded the MEC for 50 years. I also find it funny that he apparently announced to the faculty (read the article comments) that the MEC had received the grant over a full week before the news that he didn't receive the money became public. Am I surprised? Not a bit. I feel bad for the staff and students at the center who have futures in jeopardy......do I feel bad for my old boss? Not in the slightest....in fact this has reaffirmed my belief in karmic payback.

Now on to the big news.....
It has become apparent that I need to re-evaluate some of my life plans. Oftentimes when I talk about having children I normally follow it with "its in the five year plan". The thing is, it has been in the five year plan for several years now.....and I keep pushing it back. It is sorta like the contractor in the movie "the Money Pit" saying that the work will be completed in two weeks and it takes like 10 times longer than that. I keep telling myself that I need to pay off all of my student loan debt before I have a child. To pay it all off will take me 8 years. 8 years! I'll be 39! When you add that to the fact that I am almost reduced to tears whenever I am around a small child the issue because much much worse. So instead of all this addition, I am doing some subtraction.

I plan to have a child within the next two years.

Research has started and the absolute earliest conception date would be November.....gotta start prenatal vitamins, you know. And well....there is alot of things that I am going to have to figure out. Money, daycare, sperm donation, there is alot....as I said it is in the research stage.

Here is what I do know.
*I have the space- if the worst happens and my parents need to move in with me, I'll share a room with the baby, if the best happens the baby will have a room all to his own.
*Unlike my brother, I never really knew what I wanted to do for my wedding, but I've had a birth plan decided on for ages. I even have names picked out: Evelyn if it is a girl, Owen if it is a boy. In fact, as I have had dreams for years that I have given birth to twins, I even have back up names: Eleanor and Eric (thanks Jimmy for the help on the last one).
*I've always loved kids, and have always wanted to be a mother. Not having this part of my life completed has caused me much heartache.
*There are still times when I can tell my Mom something that will leave her absolutely speechless.
* And while I may not be doing this in any traditional manner...I don't need to worry about having the support system of a spouse. I have family and friends who will be there willing to hold my hand. If I had any doubts, my little brother's reaction when I told him today was enough to wash those all away.

So, at the moment, it is only a decision. A happy one. One that have given me new focus. And it is a decision that can altered or changed along with life. But it is an important decision to have made.

I Hate You

2010-08-01T00:58:00.002-06:00

This has been a crazy week and a half of crazy weeks and a half.
I turned 31 yesterday and the week leading up to this event has been filled anxiety, anger, and depression. It isn't the getting a year older thing that is causing the problem, but more of a convergence of random other things happening. Alot of it has been focused around Mr.3 and the specter of him. And while I tell people that there will always be a small little part of me that loved him....the part that hates him gets much stronger everyday. Here's why....

I hate the fact that words like "sociopath", "abuser", and "wanted felon" have become normal words in my vocabulary.

I hate the fact that people like you are around other people in my life.

I hate the fact that I am reminded of you when I talk to other people about the people who are like you in their lives.

I hate the fact that even though I would like to be in a partnered and stable relationship with someone right now, I'm not because I don't want to start the dating process and run the risk of meeting another person like you.

I hate the fact that I don't have children yet, however, I am very grateful that I never gave birth to a child that shared your DNA.

I hate the fact that friends we had together have a hard time talking to me, because it is now awkward with the knowledge of all the bad that you did and how betrayed it made them feel.

I hate the fact that I have to work three jobs to pay my bills because I am an honorable person who wants to pay off my debt....as opposed to the weakling that you are.

I hate the fact that you continue to take advantage of people, even after they think that they finally have gotten rid of you.

I hate the fact that you are a bully.

I hate the fact that my little brother can no longer have any sort of financial right of passage because your ugly, lazy, and degenerate ass has been there before him.

I hate the fact that you are incapable of having your own life and therefore must steal the identity of others....like my brother, or your two nephews, or your brother....and the list goes on..

I hate the fact that out of all the sad birthday stories that I share with people, that I can't share the story about the birthday you ruined because it is the only one I can't find a joke to tell about it.

I hate the fact that their aren't adequate words in the English language to describe what true scum you are.

I hate the fact that even though I try to put you behind me and move on....you somehow still manage to resurface in some way and remind me that I really truly do hate you.

A Case of Mistaken Identity?

2010-07-12T22:19:00.002-06:00

It kinda annoys me that you can send a message to someone on Facebook if they aren't your friend. Today I got a message from someone that I have never heard from or seen before. This is what the message said:

It is quite a nice pleasure meeting you,i looked at your picture and i was caught by beauty of your eyes,that really told me the calmness of your heart which i consider as the real beauty in a woman,that is the beauty of the heart.i would wish to know more about you and may be we get more closer,my name is xxxxx.I live in Jacksonville,Florida.Have a lovely day as i hope to hear from you.

Oh....what a lovely message. He was caught by the beauty of my eyes and the calmness of my heart.
There are several reasons why I think that his gentleman might be confused. One, I have never been to Jacksonville Florida. Two, I do look at grammar and punctuation in people that I choose to date or flirt online with. And three, and perhaps the best reasoning for his message to be a case of mistaken identity.... this has been my profile picture for over a month now.
I think that it screams calmness and beauty, don't you?

Lessons Learned and Thank You's

2010-07-11T21:32:00.002-06:00

Tomorrow I have my follow-up post-op with the surgeon about how I'm healing after gallbladder surgery. My belly button incision site still hasn't healed up, I've also managed to get a heat rash around my belly button at the same time.....but I think that the healing process has gone quite well. I was able to roll over without pain on Thursday, my stamina has increased, and I think that I will be able to return to running within the next week or so. I thought that this would also be as good as a time as any to go over some of the things that I have learned since being sick.

1. I am fairly confident in saying that my gallbladder hasn't been working properly for at least a year before the surgery. Eating without pain can never be underestimated....and if that means I need to take digestive pills with every meal for a while (or even for the rest of my life) it is totally worth it in order to be able to have a meal and feel fulfilled.

2. I miss pants. As the incision sites are on my waistline I haven't been able to wear pants for a couple of weeks now. Normally I am fine with skirts...but I also normally wear shorts underneath. As I can't deal with shorts at the moment, I have had to deal with sweaty thighs, and the worry of a sudden wind gust showing the world my undies. I wore a skirt the other day that sat on my waist...the combination of the sensitivity of the site and the hotness of the day created the current rash issue.

3. I've always known that I had an excellent support system, but seeing it in action is awe inspiring. Knowing that people care is one thing....having them prove it to you in a time of need is quite another. I have some oddly worded thank you's that I need to give.
To the GV fairies: Coming home from the hospital to see the flowers you sent reduced me to tears, thank you.
Linda: You have done so much for me over the years and I don't know if I will ever be able to truly tell you how much it has meant to me.
Ewa: Thank you for showing me that laughter is truly the best healer.
Agustina: Thank you for gelatto and dealing with my narcotic forgetfulness.
Jimmy: Thank you for keeping me company, getting me candy in my time of need, and holding my hand in the car during the aggressive driving session.
Dad: Thank you for braving hospital waiting rooms and the boredom that they provide in ample amounts.
Libby: Thank you for nagging me into making a doctor's appointment in the first place.
Karen and Kelly: Thank you for flowers and chocolate and for being EXTREMELY understanding for when I became horribly nauseous at lunch.
Alana: Thank you for making sure that even when bed ridden that someone was taking care of me, and for making me lay down at work when I needed to but wouldn't admit it.
And most importantly, thank you Mom for helping potty train me a second time, for yelling at the nurses when they needed it, for taking care of my every need for two and a half weeks, and for giggling with me in the multiple hospital rooms we visited.

4. Being this sick and out of commission for so long has been incredibly hard. Having to allow someone to take care of me, having to admit that I needed help, was so very deeply humbling. If the universe is trying to tell me anything, it is trying to tell me that I need to have patience with myself. Which is a difficult lesson for someone who is their own worst critic. I haven't had patience in giving myself the time and means to heal. Even though I have made strides in taking time for myself, I've also been shown that I haven't given myself enough time....there is so much more to do.

5. I am not really sure that I have a point five....but ending a list on 4. doesn't feel right for some reason. I guess I can say that I might have gotten over the need to hide the "embarassing" items in the shopping cart. We should all be proud that we are being proactive enough to take care of our own health....even if it means learning to buy yeast infection treatments, enemas, anti-gas pills, and laxative suppositories without shame.

For Those of You Who Were Brave Enough to Read My Last Post

2010-07-01T15:37:00.002-06:00

I would like to announce that the crisis has been handled.

I used the suppository this morning, which worked, but I might be permanently traumatized by the whole experience. The size and girth...oh dear. But happily my boss is also at home to potty discussions, and that has helped me immensely.

And I just managed a small BM at work that didn't kill me or anything. Whoohoo!

When the Dr Says to Take Stool Softeners, Take the Damn Softeners

2010-06-30T21:14:00.003-06:00

I am just going to warn you up front, this might be a "Too Much Information" post for many people....but for those that talk to me everyday, you already know WWAAAYYY too well that I have no issues at all discussing my bowel movements, or lack of them.

After the surgery I was prescribed stool softeners because apparently the gross amount of narcotics that I have been taking have a tendency to constipate you. I took it the first day home, had a bowel movement and figured that since the thought of taking "stool softeners" made me feel like an octogenarian, I quit taking them.

I was oh, so very very wrong.

So I've become "constipated". Last night I tried a couple of times and only was able to produce small pellets. And it isn't that I don't need to go.....oh I do! It's all backing up....it is just....well....stuck. Literally.
Went back for day two at work and had Indian food for lunch. Predictably had to use the bathroom after and was in there for a half hour, because things were stuck---half-in, half-out. My boss even came into the bathroom to check on me thinking that I had fallen/collapsed/or something. From there I went home, and for the next hour and a half was in various bouts of agony as my system really really really wanted to go...and I was completely unable too.

I even went to the grocery store to purchase an...ahem...enema kit. Unlike the guy I teased about buying it a couple of weeks ago, I made no attempt at trying to mask my purchase. Got home, discovered that I am unable to get into the "preferred application postures" because of my stitches. When I finally was able to attempt something similar to the preferred application, my system wasn't able to take even a quarter of the liquid. There followed another agonizing half hour with little progress.

Got online and started researching other solutions, went back to the grocery store and purchased suppositories....yes, you read that right. When I got home however my system decided it was going to try again regardless of my exhaustion. Progress was made, but I think that what happened felt very close to what child birth must be like. And of course, it got stuck....and I had to (warning- highly gross!) had to take toilet paper and well.....pull. I wasn't able to get it all out, and I haven't tried the suppositories yet because I am so exhausted I can hardly stand...or sit. I am hoping to be back to normal soon, but I seriously fear the pain that might be ahead of me in this process.

So folks...the lesson for today is, when the doctor says to take the stool softeners, take the damn stool softeners!!

And yes, I have been taking the stool softeners religiously for the past few days.

In other news, I have new health insurance, and I am not sure how it will cope with the medical bills that are coming. I know that I have a $500 deductible that I will be paying soon....but I have my fingers crossed that the rest of the $27,000 gallbladder fun will be covered.

And my Mom left for Arizona today. She's been nursing me for two weeks now, and while I am glad that no one else had to witness today's "labor pains" I miss her terribly and have broken down into tears several times. Thanks Mom!!!

The Gallbladder Saga

2010-06-26T09:17:00.002-06:00

Yes, folks....the story of my gallbladder and its recent demise is an epic tale...definitely worthy of the title "saga". Let me thrill you with stories of various narcotic substances, angry nurses, a whole lot of lame daytime television, and of course...no saga could be complete without copious amounts of pus in unexpected places.

The beginning.
I have never had decent digestion. Just a fact of life. If I eat a fatty meal I will have gas pains that resemble a heart attack. On May 18th (yes, this has been happening for more than a month) I had a wonderful (and yet highly fatty meal) with a friend. The next day I was to go to a council on foreign relations meeting in which I would face my abusive ex-boss. My stomach was a wreck and I was convinced that I had had food poisoning and a panic attack at the same time. It took several days of a semi-liquid diet for my system to calm down and I would be able to eat normally. This happened several times over the course of the month. After roller derby on Sunday June 13th, I had had a regrettably high fat meal.....and from there on I was in agony. Except this time the pain could be localized to just under my right breast. I had been thinking that that was were my stomach was, but after looking it up on the internet I realized that the pain was somewhere behind my liver.

I was to go into the doctors on Monday morning for a blood test for something which I had thought was unrelated...and I managed to get ahold of the doctor before I went in to have her look at me and make sure that the blood tests taken would also look at my liver and pancreatic function. My bilirubin tested very high (which measures the amount of bile stuck in your system). She recommended that I have an unltrasound (scheduled for the next morning) and prescribed Loratab. The Loratab worked, a little, but I mainly had a Loratab hangover in addition to the gallbladder pains on Tuesday. Went back into the doctor on Wednesday as the ultrasound was positive for gallstones. I was advised that I needed a CT Scan (Thursday) and to schedule a consult with a surgeon to remove my gallbladder (scheduled for 2 weeks from now). The only problem with this system, is that I knew that I would not be able to survive the pain for that long. I felt pretty ignored by my doctor at this point.....but then again, she doesn't know me personally....she doesn't know that I only go to the doctor when I have a serious serious problem. And it was only when I got to the point of hysterics and threatened to just go the emergency room instead did I feel that they took me seriously. Well....sort of seriously...as they told me to be patient and prescribed stronger pain meds for me.

Dependence
If you know me, you know that I am stubbornly independent. And even though I had lots of friends and well wishers who were willing to help me out, I couldn't let myself really ask for help. When I managed to get home on Wednesday, I realized that I needed help. I shouldn't have been driving....and I haven't since then. I also didn't want people to see me.....because when I wasn't at the doctor's I was bedridden with the pain. My parents drove up on Thursday, and Jimmy and his friends took me to get my CT scan. Friday I couldn't take it anymore and went to the emergency room. Pretty much since then I have been dependent on my family or a variety of nurses to help me with the most menial of tasks. It has been incredibly humbling....but I am also very grateful that these amazing people in my life were willing to help me when I needed it.

Narcotics
When I got into the emergency room they gave me morphine. Now I am not sure how a normal person would want to take these drugs recreationally just because when they gave me morphine I felt normal for the first time in two weeks. That's how much pain I was in....morphine made me feel like my average everyday self. I'm currently on Percocet now that I am back from the hospital....so I have a low level of strung out-ness going on. But morphine was my drug of choice over the weekend. I am not sure if I want to know how he knows, but my brother told me the street value of some of the narcotics I currently have in my medicine cabinet. It is a little tempting.....but I will probably flush the leftovers.

Dirty, Dirty, Dirty
Before they managed to find a bed for me on Friday night in the hospital, I had to take a variety of blood and urine tests. My urine was the color of maple syrup....or as the ER nurse said when she thought that I was out of hearing range "dirty, dirty, dirty". For some reason the third "dirty" really irks me. Two "dirty"s I can understand, but three? Geez. The only good thing that has come from my strangely colored urine is that fact that I was finally taken seriously as to being sick. While I was in the hospital they gave me antibiotics through my IV, and this morning I took my last pill of it. Of course, antibiotics just ravage your system and I think that I have a full body case of thrush....so that has required another set of pills.

Reverse Potty Training
The nurses had to measure my pee. They had this thing they called "the hat" which was like a measuring cup that covered up half of the toilet bowl. Everytime I peed I had to leave it there until a nurse could note it in my chart and dump it. After my procedures all of my bodily functions became of importance....a nurse would say hello and then ask if I had farted yet this morning. After a while you revert back to being 3 and proudly come out of the bathroom announcing that you peed in the potty like a good girl. I was probably a bit too excited about my first bowel movement in over a week.

Nothing Happens on a Holiday Weekend
I talked with surgeons and nurses and doctors over the weekend, but they just kept me doped up and scheduled procedures for Monday and Tuesday. On Monday I had an ERCP, which stands for Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. Basically what they had to do was stick a tube down my throat into my stomach and then into my small intestine. From there they go through the pancreas to the common bile duct between the gall bladder and the liver. Then this little basket thing comes out and they grab out all of the gallstones that are impacted. The doctor was expecting to find one stone, instead he found many....and alot of pus. You could tell that he was really worried about not only the amount of stones but the infection that they were trapping inside....guess whose antibiotics got doubled after that?

General Anesthesia- Double Take
After finding the pus in my bile duct, there was no question about having my gallbladder removed, which happened Tuesday morning. The surgical nurse came in just before 7am and told me that they were going to come and get me for surgery at 10am. Which meant that I had time for a short visit from Libby and a shower, right? Nope. For once they came early and I was rushed to the OR by 8am. The surgery was a success but I would never ever recommend that someone go under general anesthesia twice within a 24-hour period. As the nurses are trying to wake you up they are yelling in your ear, telling you to breathe deeper, etc....and then they seem to forget that you are there and start talking about their personal lives. The hospital folks kept telling me that gallbladder surgery was an outpatient deal.....they must be fucking crazy. I could not have done that on an out-patient basis. Granted I was more than ready to go home on Wednesday, but pain-wise I could have been in the hospital easily for another day.

The Giving of the Name
Jokingly before I found out how sick I really was, I decided to name my gallbladder and associated stones after my ex-boss and his minions. This was mainly due to the fact that I would like to say that he was thrown away in the hazardous materials wastebasket. The more I learned about this though, the naming seemed to have more meaning. One of the doctors told me that I should have been systematically sicker than the symptoms I was showing. He thought that I was really resilient...and just as that whole situation at the MEC folded out....I showed great resiliency in dealing with something that was making me emotionally and physically ill as well.

Scars
I look like I've been beaten up. My arms are all red and spotty from the eight gazillion times they had to take my blood pressure. I have a beautiful bruise that looks like a Rorschach diagram on my arm from where we accidentally tugged on the IV. And of course the healing scars from the laproscopic surgery. I have four holes in my abdomen. I've taken the dressing off of one, but the three on my waist are still there. I'm a little scared about the one on my belly button.....it freaks me out that they put a camera through there. The other issue with recovery is that I had no idea how much I use my abdominal muscles on a regular basis. I can get in and out of chairs fairly decently due to the huge increase of leg muscle that I have acquired since running.....leaning back or down is enough to paralyze me in pain.

Each day I am getting a little better. I would like to start up my normal routine on Monday, but I am not sure if I will be able to do that. The hardest part of this process is to find the patience in myself to allow me to heal.

Aisle of the Embarassing Medical Items

2010-05-30T15:40:00.003-06:00

We've all had to do it. We've all had to buy something embarrassing at the grocery store. The tampons for the girlfriend..... condoms and a pregnancy test....and don't get me started on the horror of having to buy yeast infection medication.

The problem of having to buy the embarrassing things is that we have to do it when we are having an emergency of sorts, so we aren't able to hide the embarrassing things with the rest of the groceries. But we still try to hide the items by adding in other things to cover it up. I once knew someone who bought a yeast infection kit and those pills for when you get a bladder infection...and tried to mask the purchase with a bag of oranges.

Of course, there is a stealth operation that we go through in order to purchase these things. And to be honest, the self-serve checkouts at the store are only worth going through when you have the embarrassing items. Today I needed something to help aliviate the horrific gas pains that I have been having after almost every single meal for two weeks now. (I am still recovering from the food poisoning incident and hope that one day things will return to normal) For some reason, I find the search for anti-gas meds to be slightly embarrassing....but this might also be because I won't just grab something off the shelf, I have to read the labels of things and then hem-and-haw over if I should pay 20 cents more or not for something. As I went to the aisle today, a man had gone down just before me and was looking at the same general area. He had the embarrassed shopper look to him, so I pretended to look for something else in another aisle and then came back a few seconds later. As he passed me going out of the aisle I saw him desperately trying to shield with this arm the double pack box of enemas that he was purchasing.

What do you buy to mask the double pack box of enemas? Toilet paper? Juice? Chewing gum?
I have no idea. I masked my gas-x purchase with a box of Excedrin and....wait for it......toothpaste. But what is this guy going to do?

Incidentally, as I was looking for photos of a double pack enema box I learned that you can purchase travel enemas......hee hee hee....just imagine the conversation with the airport security screeners....we might have to watch out.....we had the underwear bomber, next it will be the Quick Flush Travel Enema bomber. Hee hee hee

Ok, I'm gonna go away now and giggle with my bad ass 15-year-old-boy juvenile self....hee hee....
Oh! I said ass! Hee ha ha ha heee heee.....ouch the gas pains make it hee hee hee hard to laugh hee hee hee.....oww....

Crap, I Need an Intervention!

2010-05-28T12:15:00.003-06:00

I just saw a video of myself walking from a couple weeks ago when I was in Chile. And I could make the excuse of the fact that I was tired.....but....

I was doing the fat person waddle.

Yes, it was a total waddle. I even had the posture that my belly was leading me...like some strange fleshy version of a dowsing stick.

This
Is
Bad.

If you see me doing the waddle anymore, I invite you to punch me in the arm. Ugh....waddle, waddle, waddle....that is going to haunt me.

Ok, I am going to suck in my stomach when I sit, when I walk. I am going to be hyper vigilant about this. Doing the waddle means that I have given up, and I HAVE NOT GIVEN UP!!

Goddamn it.....
Stupid, fucking waddle...

Return of the Turtles and Free Coffee

2010-05-21T21:57:00.002-06:00

Scooter made it through the surgery and has been quite peppy.....but not peppy in the way that he was in trying to constantly mount Zippy. He is oddly calmer...which makes me wonder if he also had a lobotomy. He's eating and drinking well. He pooed at the vet's office but not yet at home. I think that he is probably waiting for his bath tomorrow to do that. The poo has to go past the stitches so he bled a little....but that has been it. No anger what-so-ever from him.

Zippy on the other hand is pissed at me. But that is because she had to endure being awake for her beak trim and nail clippings at the vet, while Scooter was knocked out from the surgery when they did his. She's been hiding her face all week. I sort of miss the underbite/overgrown beak she had. It made her look like she had pouty lip. Without it she does look much younger though. Too bad dropping ten years isn't that quick, easy, and cheap for humans.

This week marked another return.... Libby and I went to Two Creeks this evening, and the same guy who bought me a coffee last Fall, bought our coffees this evening as well. I expect that he probably does this sort of thing often and has probably forgotten that he has bought me coffee before. I am not sure that Libby thinks the same though.

But I was gracious and went up to him to thank him. He seemed shocked that I remembered his name and he said that I wasn't supposed to know who bought the coffee. Really? He was the only other person in the place when we were there and he had just ordered his coffee right before. I don't know if he is interested in me or not, but he did make an awkward glance at my ring finger and its current nakedness. We'll see how that goes....

This has been a crazy week (I've been sick with some god-awful stomach thing) and I have alot to blog about....which I hope to be able to get around to this weekend. Topics will hopefully include information about a grandparent scam and of the victorious facing of my abusive ex-boss.

Losing the Turtle 'Man Bits'

2010-05-16T13:29:00.002-06:00

Occasionally everyone's pets will do strange and unexplained things.

One thing that both of my turtles will do -maybe once a year- is they will arch up and some internal organ will come out of their tail. In an odd way it looks like stretching and the organ will always go back inside. Of course, the first time I saw this happen I thought that my turtle was dying....now 15 years later, you just realize that it is something that happens.

Yesterday morning when I got to get the turtles for their bath, Scooter had an organ protruding out of his tail. It was dirty and covered with litter from the tank. He didn't seem stressed, but then again, I wasn't sure how long they had been out. I got him in the bath quickly. I expected him to do this tail swishy thing to clean it off in the water and for it to go back in.

But it didn't.

After they had soaked up as much water as they could in the bath. I took Scooter out to look closer at what was going on. I managed to gently pull off some of the poo and litter that was still stuck. I quickly ran a fresh bath for him again. At this point, I was starting to lose it.

I called the vet and trying not to sound too hysterical explained that I had a turtle with a prolapsed organ. They told me to bring him down immediately. So I prepared a box, let the two turtles say a quick goodbye, got a little head snuggle from Scooter, put some KY jelly on the organ to keep it moist, called my brother in hysterics, and we were off in the car.

Now, both the turtles are old. Average box turtle lifespan is 20 years: Zippy is roughly between 25-30 years old, Scooter is 20-25. Jimmy and I have both thought that the first one of the two to pass would be Scooter and we both have predicted that it might be within this year. Of course, I also envisioned him passing in his sleep, not with an organ stuck outside of his body making him ill.

When we finally got to the vet we learned that the organ stuck outside of Scooter's body was his phallus. I have no pictures, but you need to image something the size of a shelled walnut protruding out of the tail of a 3 inch turtle. Poor guy was really stressed from the car ride, and of me crying, that when the vet was examining him he threw-up the water he had drunk from the bath. I must say that it was impressive....as projectile vomiting always is. It was like someone had turned on a water fountain....the stream went two feet.

The vet is going to have to amputate his "man bits". Which was supposed to have been done yesterday but they haven't called me to tell me that everything is ok. I've already made arrangements to pick him up on Monday. And took the opportunity to make an appointment for Zippy to get his nails and beak trimmed. It needs to be done and I think that it would help the both of them to travel back from the vet together. All of my spare funds are marked aside for Jimmy's tuition, but luckily, Jimmy was willing to take one less class this semester so I could afford to pay for Scooter's surgery

Zippy was more distressed yesterday than Scooter. After a bath, I normally let the turtles run around the house....and Zippy didn't want to come out of his shell yesterday. I expected him to react like that though. Years and years ago when Scooter managed to slip under the backyard fence and was missing for a day and a half, this was how Zip reacted. This morning, I've been watching him search the house for Scoot. Its heartbreaking to watch. He was in the bathroom for a while investigating....and then he has walked all over the house, visiting Scooter's favorite places to hide to check for him. They communicate by using a series of soft clicking noises and head bobs. When they do it, you can see their neck bellowing out. And Zippy will walk for a few feet, stop, and then call out for a while....and then start the process again. He's even gone over to an area that he avoids but Scooter loves (he always catches himself on the rug there and needs to be rescued each time) to find him.

So now I am just waiting to hear word. I've left a message at the vet's office...but until then it is just me working around the house and dealing with accusatory looks from Zippy. Damn I wish I spoke turtle, that would make this easier.

Things that I Have Learned While in Chile

2010-05-07T21:25:00.002-06:00

1. When asking for bill at a restaurant, resist the urge to say "la quinta"....cause that is a hotel chain and not the "la quanta" you want.
2. Salida means exit. This is important to note as I was confused when I thought the metro station's name was Salida, and then it was the name on the wall at the next station, and then the station after that, and then on the station after that, and then....I finally figured it out.
3. That even though I should expect it by now - I am still surprised by how quickly a web server can be crushed by bloggers at a blogging conference. It has been very frustrating trying to get online....but then again, there are these strange and wonderful moments when the hotel internet works- like now. Everyone must be out drinking and not blogging at the moment.
4. I unfortunately have learned the majority of my spanish from goofy spanglish fast food chain ads from the US (probably Taco Bell). That being said, I was still ecstatic when I figured out that I could order a grilled cheese sandwich...queso caliende
5. Apparently, even when not using it, international roaming sucks all the juice out of your phone.
6. I'm not as bad at remembering names as I thought that I was.....however, I am definitely still as bad at flirting as I remember.
7. I sat next to a women on the plane to Atlanta who had been to Santiago. She said that it looked like Salt Lake.....I would like to know what she was smoking so that I can avoid it.
8. The problem of me continually losing my GV stickers can be fixed by immediately putting them onto my laptop.
9. Chileans are infinitely more patient with foreigners who can't speak Spanish than Americans are of anyone who can't speak English. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to everyone that I have smiled and pantomimed with....with an extra special shout out to the shop owner who tried to teach me how to count.
10. The original "old school" blogging still happens! I know this because in order to preserve battery power on my computer I originally wrote this post on paper.....how's that for kicking it old skool style?!

The I Totally Didn't Forget to Post About This Edition

2010-04-24T12:41:00.003-06:00

Hi Folks! I have kept meaning to write about running the 5K in the SLC Marathon for a while now....but I really have no excuse for the delay.

The most important thing is that I finished it. In one hour and one minute. I had to walk for almost two miles before I felt like my muscles would let me run. And when I did run it was for a block at a time, if that. I was hoping to be able to make the full final stretch running, but about 20 feet from the finish line I discovered that I couldn't breathe anymore. Scared the shit out of me. I've been out of breath before, but this was different....I couldn't get any air at all. I was told that I over did it....which could be true.

So now, the training continues---albeit disrupted by the trip to Chile. Next 5K is scheduled for June 5th at Pride.

I'm that big that I'm invisible

2010-04-16T10:38:00.002-06:00

It would be ridiculous to say that at my weight that I have never experienced sizism before. In fact it happens alot, and in the majority of instances I brush it off or avoid situations where I know that I will face it. This is one reason why I don't like to go to gyms. I had a membership to 24 hour fitness years ago. When I would go in, I would get these horrible, appalled looks from people. Sorta like I had just vomited all over them...and I would get these looks just from walking into the place....forget even getting to the point where I was sweating. It seriously felt like I was in a middle school locker room. So I would come in later and later to work out in order to avoid looks from people. Oddly enough, I wasn't the only large person working out at 11pm there....but seriously....who wants to work out at 11pm? I got rid of my membership. I honestly think that there is this idea in thinner people's heads that a fat person must lose a certain amount of weight in order to frequent a gym. Really, people? I swear...the logic.

Let's move forward to last night. Libby and I went to go pick up our numbers for the 5k this Saturday....and I am so excited!!! I'm 20611 in case you are wondering. After we picked up our stuff we walked around some of the vendor booths that they had. We stopped at one that had athletic support tape, its pretty cool stuff called Kineso...most people will recognize it as the strange tape designs seen on Olympic athletes. Anyway, as I have been grappling with how to support my running injury I was interested in this stuff. Now, it was me that picked up the box and me that was asking questions about it. The salesman however wouldn't look at me, he just looked at Libby while he talked. At first, I thought that it was just that he liked Libby--which I wouldn't blame him for---but when I was paying for $20 worth of tape, he still would not look at me. Total perception filter moment for those Doctor Who fans out there. Even when we walked in, the Cricket mobile people offered Libby a free bag which she turned down....I would have taken it, but I wasn't offered. On the way out of there, a gentleman was passing out race guides for Utah which listed all the sporting events in the state. He was shoving them in everybody's face except me. I actually had to ask for one, and he was surprised that I wanted one.

It was a very crazy situation, and I hadn't experienced that much sizism at one time before. I really felt that people were trying to actively avoid looking or speaking with me. This is going to sound vain, but I am not bad to look at. I would even say that I am pretty. And if this avoidance was some sort of way to avoid the issue that I am fat, like a misguided way of trying not to point it out, it had the exact opposite effect. I once was on a third date with someone, and it was shortly after Mr.3 left and I wasn't exactly ready to date and was taking it way way slow. On the date we talked for hours about my friend's art (even after this experience I will gladly call him my friend still). He was showing me this art book with dancers and explaining to me how he admired the musculature. When I pointed out the differences in how the wrist movement we were talking about would differ in view between my arm and his....he noted it, but then made this really strange circuitous conversation in which he tried to talk about fat, but avoided actually saying the word "fat". It was at that moment that I realized that even though we had been talking about his art for two hours, he had just realized that he was in the room with a fat person. Ooohh... scary. Frightening even. (wow, I wish that there was a sarcasm font right now) I think that this is just the same situation that I experienced last night.

Sorry folks if my fat bothers you. You are going to have to deal with it.
I entered the race. And while I may not run the whole thing, I am still in it. You are going to have to share the road with me.
I am going to support myself in this endeavor and others who are trying to accomplish the same task in this event. You should be able to support me....and my fat....as well.

The Sexiness of Legwarmers

2010-04-14T18:26:00.005-06:00

The SLC Marathon 5K that I signed up for is this weekend. And while I have been consistantly training for weeks.....I haven't been able to get past running for more than 2 minutes a time. So I've basically gone from a total of 3 minutes of running per session to something like 10 minutes on a good day.

That's the key phrase here....on a good day.

The strain of trying to compel my mass of 270 pounds to move has taken a toll on my leg muscles. Resulting in some serious cramping/burning thing on the outside of my leg near the ankle. I guess that it is some type of shin split. In any case it has put a major hold on training progress. Yesterday it was so bad that we had to stop walking/running so I could massage my legs....it was paralyzing pain. Today I actually went home early from work because my grumpiness at still being in pain was nearing a point where I was going to earn the label of "office bitch".

Of course, today it dawns on me...that no matter how much I am hydrated or ice or heat or how much I stretch before and after, I am still not treating this injury right. Normally when I fall I have a treatment protocol for my ankles, etc. I guess that since I haven't fallen I haven't totally registered that I need to fricking wrap my ankles to stabilize them. Oh! It feels so wonderful! I've also been trying to keep the leg muscles that have been cramping warm beyond the heating pad. Which means that I have whipped out the legwarmers.

I sorta look like I am doing a bird big costume here...but it feels good. Hopefully with a couple more days of ankle stabilization I will be able to run more than walk at the 5K this weekend.

Decompressing 40 Hours of Training

2010-03-28T18:28:00.003-06:00

My head is starting to come back a bit into shape after coming home from a weeklong 40-hour training for work. For the record, I am now a state certified sexual assault victim advocate....as to whether or not I decide to volunteer time to get some field experience is another matter.

The training was great, and I am really really really trying hard not to vomit up everything I learned on everyone I talk to...I really am....but it is soo hard. I think that most people would feel the same way after 40 hours of rape content. I sorta feel like I am a walking statistic dispenser.

For instance, women spend a huge amount of time thinking and taking precautions in order not to be attacked and raped by a stranger. But stranger rape is only 8% or so of all rapes committed, the other 92% is conducted by someone the victim knows. Basically people fear the scary man jumping out at you from behind a bush, but no one really worries about "creepy uncle bob". I was really happy to see a recent security system commercial where the man breaking into a woman's house was her ex-boyfriend and not some random opportunistic stranger.

Alot of the training focused on rape culture and how media/tv/advertisements exploit women and show a false reality of what masculinity is. There was also sessions on deconstructing various rape myths, diversity, LGBTQ communities, elderly victims, and the disabled (as a side note---and coming from someone who has recently developed a killer crush on a colleague who is in a wheelchair--have you been watching the storyline on Private Practice? Kudos to bringing up the subject of sexuality and people with disabilities!)

And of course, this training was conducted in small town Richfield Utah. It was really hard not to be too negative with the locals. I did make hairspray jokes on my Twitter account....and if I see one more of those bump hair things...ugh! I don't really want to attribute this to a small town mentality...but people were constantly answering their phones and talking on them while in the class. They couldn't be polite and take the call outside.....oh no, we all had to hear about so-and-so's kid being sick....or writing down someone's fax number. It wasn't just once, but several times a day that this happened.

The best part of the small-town-ness was in the last hour of training when the coordinator for the rape advocates in the area was handing out the intake forms for victims. In the forms you have to label exactly what type of sexual activity took place....which I don't mind.....what I do mind is when the trainer who has been working for years with victims let slip that she wasn't exactly sure what "fellatio" on the form referred to. Thankfully, someone else told her. Then someone else in the classroom announced that fellatio is not something you learn about in a small town.

Really?

Please, tell me another one!

3 Minutes!!!

2010-03-11T21:43:00.003-07:00

Had my first night of training tonight. Got to break in the super fast running shoes. And guess what?

I RAN FOR A TOTAL OF THREE MINUTES!!!!

And to make matters even better, I did it WITHOUT PUKING!!!!!

Of course, after the excessive use of capital letters, I will very somberly tell you some things that I have learned with this evening's exercise.

Item 1: They recommend that people my size walk rather than run as it cuts down on joint pain and the effects of gravity. Good running shoes = no joint pain. Hooray for me.
Item 2: As we were running I felt like I was getting a stitch in my side....except it wasn't in my side but towards my lower back. It was only after the third 1-minute run that I realized what the pain really was. It was the force of gravity of my butt check dropping down with each step. First of all, I had no idea that my butt check moved that much, and secondly.....I've always seen my butt as one immovable object- not two distinct halves where one side might be heavier than the other. I wonder if this means I have a lopsided butt. This might involve several hours in front of the mirror to verify.
Item 3: I need alot more training sessions before I would be able to run the required amount to be a Dr. Who companion. They seem to be running away from alot of things....I'd be a goner.
Item 4: After my body recovered....and I was positive that I wasn't going to hurl (I was worried for a few moments).... the endorphins kicked in. Oh yeah.....those were nice. I can see why people do this. Of course it must be an aftereffect thing, cause I didn't feel very good while running.
Item 5: I apparently am under the impression that if you are skinny you can run at least a mile. The more I tell people about what I am trying to do, the more I hear of thinner people saying that they can't. I get angry at people who think that fat people are automatically out of shape all the time, I never thought that I had any sort of fitness/thinness bias....but I guess I do.

Tomorrow will tell the full effects of tonight's endeavors. However, I wasn't in as bad of shape as I thought as I managed to be able to run and talk with Libby at the same time.....and most importantly.......

I RAN FOR THREE FRICKING MINUTES!!!!!
WHOOHOOO!!!!!!

Phew! Now......to bed!

My Latest Harebrained Scheme

2010-03-10T21:34:00.002-07:00

Not that I have many harebrained schemes....but I should. Besides, saying that I have schemes that are on the reckless and silly level high enough to be classified as "harebrained" sounds cool...like I'm some wacky comic character that people read about and shake their heads in wonder trying to guess what that 'crazy, wacky girl' is up too....yuck, yuck, yuck...

Anyway, the scheme. Yes...focus, focus ....

I have two lifelong fitness goals. Lifelong because it will take me forever to get to that point, and because I would prefer to say that one day I will get them done but not be tied down to an actual completion date. These two goals are to run a mile and to do a pull-up. For a girl my size, I would say that these are quite realistic and reasonable goals. Cause let's face it...I'm never going to lost 150 pounds, and I have never pretended that it would ever happen anyway.

Here is where we get to the harebrained part.....I am going to train to run a mile. And I hope to be able to run that mile (without side stitches or hurling) at the SLC marathon on April 17th. And no, I am not doing the marathon, but I AM going to sign up for the 5k. I figure if all else fails I'll run the mile and then crawl the rest of the way, on the sidewalk, so no one trips over me.

So I've got a training schedule, a training buddy....and as of about two hours ago, some decent running shoes.

I have to do this now, so that I can justify the price I paid for the shoes. Oh course, I didn't buy the shoes because of the price. I was a good girl and got a foot-test-thingy done and was fitted with for the right size and only chose the shoes after I found some that felt right. It was only at the register did I ask how much they were. My dad has a saying "if you have to ask how much it is, you can't afford it".....which has been some of the best financial advice I've ever had. It was nice to know that I didn't need to ask....thank you new job.

Anyway, I now have some spanky-new-shoes that are green and yellow with built in gel inserts. So even if I am outrun by a granny in a walker...at least I'll look fast.

The Doorjam or "Geez Karma, I get it alright!"

2010-03-09T13:56:00.002-07:00

This post begins with a victory dance. It ends with one as well.....like a rollercoaster it ends where it began.

So, the good news is that the recent grant that I assumed dictatorship over is completed, submitted online and at the post office. A week and a half ago we had a meeting about this grant, and when I said that it would be finished the day before it was due...the group laughed. But they did like the idea that we could have a day to have those "oh shit! did we remember" moments. Apparently- at least with this grant- having someone take over (so to speak) was a plus because it allowed everyone to talk about how much they support the grant and not really have much to do with actually completing it. And while I was annoyed at the lack of help, I do get to keep the glory of submitting it on time/early to myself.

After leaving the post office today I decided to award myself with lunch....and to make matters even more impressive....with my only fast food lunch in at least a month. Feeling good, I head to Arby's, get a great parking spot, and shut the door to.... to....well nowhere. The car door wouldn't shut. This has happened once before while visiting the Comcast office and luckily Ryan was nearby to save me as I didn't have anything decent enough to MacGyver myself out of the problem with. Since I knew what the problem was, I wasn't too upset....however, between my hands and my keys, I wasn't strong enough to get the thing to shift. When it happened the first time, I told myself that I would get some tools for the car....which of course, I never did.

I really hate feeling like a helpless girl and I also miss having someone else to handle the "guy" sorts of things that need to be done in my life.

This situation called for action!

So I drove four blocks to the auto supply store desperately trying to hold my driver's side door closed.

Just so you know, centrifugal force wants your door to fly open whenever you take a turn. That also goes for when you have to swerve quickly to avoid the giant SUV that attempts to run you over as it forces its way out of a driveway. If I had the use of both my hands I would have honked, but keeping the door closed was more of a priority.

Thank you to the guy at Checker auto parts who fixed the door for me, showed me where the screwdrivers were in the store, and who helped me find which turn signal replacement lights that I needed to buy. The light thing is yet another car related item that I have been putting off for a while....and figuring out how to get the bulb out in my car will be another great adventure to look forward to.

After that I went back to Arby's, got some lunch, and returned to the office for a victory dance.

My Dead Sexy Song List

2010-03-05T10:07:00.002-07:00

Alright, so this is totally random and frivolous bit of blogging (of course, there are some who would believe that all blogging fits into that category). I recently went on a Pink Floyd kick and have found that there are a couple songs that I can only describe as dead sexy. So I decided to compile my top ten list of songs that I would classify under this category.

I should probably offer an explanation of what would qualify. These are not seduction songs, nor are they songs that you listen to obsess over someone that you are infatuated with. There must be the right balance of bass/drums and or guitar. For a song to qualify it must relax the body and make you feel sensual....not sensual in the "let's get in on" way but like when a breeze brushes gently across your skin and all of your nerves become electrified. Also these songs are taken separately from the album that they are taken from. I will admit that there are albums that would fit into this category: the Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, just about any Massive Attack album, the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Fever to Tell, and even though I have issues with the book and movie, the soundtrack to Twilight totally fits this category.

So, now I present to you my top-ten list:

10. Pretty When You Cry by VAST- Although I just watched the video for this one, and it wins points for total creepy factor.
9. Painted on my Heart by The Cult
8. Angel by Gavin Friday
7. Follow You Down by Alejandro Escovedo (sorry, couldn't find a link)
6. Guarded By Monkeys by Cracker
5. It's Late by Queen
4. Gulumse Kaderine by Tarkan---but it has to be the Murat Matthew Erdem Remix
3. Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
2. Win by David Bowie

and the number one is....

1. Keskin Bicak by Sezan Aksu

Sezen Aksu - Keskin Bicak

Wanna share your list?

Bill of Rights

2010-03-01T20:20:00.003-07:00

I have a book that I write down all of the inspirational things that I have read/come across in my life. I haven't cracked it open for a while, but I did today. This is what I wrote in it:

BILL OF RIGHTS
I have the right to be me.
I have the right to put myself first.
I have the right to be safe.
I have the right to love and be loved.
I have the right to be treated with respect.
I have the right to be human - NOT PERFECT.
I have the right to be angry and protest if I am treated unfairly or abusively by anyone.
I have the right to my own privacy.
I have the right to my own opinions, to express them, and to be taken seriously.
I have the right to earn and control my own money.
I have the right to ask questions about anything that affects my life.
I have the right to make decisions that affect me.
I have the right to grow and change (and that includes changing my mind).
I have the right to say NO.
I have the right to make mistakes.
I have the right NOT to be responsible for other adults’ problems.
I have the right not to be liked by everyone.
I HAVE THE RIGHT TO CONTROL MY OWN LIFE AND TO CHANGE IT IF I AM NOT HAPPY WITH IT AS IT IS.

And while this doesn't nessacarily pertain to the bill of rights, I do have the right to post a photo of my new haircut on the blog.

Showing you the wheels

2010-02-27T16:33:00.005-07:00

In my last post I mentioned the "Power and Control Wheel" and the "Equality Wheel", I'm posting them here so you can see more of what I was talking about.

This is the situation(s) you DO NOT WANT in a relationship:

And this is what an IDEAL relationship should be like:

The Empowering Work Epiphany that I was NOT expecting

2010-02-25T22:38:00.002-07:00

I've been at the new job for a month now and I still love it. Not sure what I am doing half the time, but I feel useful and I am learning new things everyday.

We did a tabling event at the state capital today. I'm used to doing tables when I worked at the center, and I love the interaction with people....but before I was much more knowledgeable about the subject matter than I am now at the new job. I held my own, but there was one question that I had no clue what to answer. Some guy wanted to know if there were any other criminal activites that were precursors to someone sexually assaulting another person.....sorta like how killing small animals is a precursor to killing people. I had no clue...but if you are interested, I found out. Its burglary.

Anyway, part of today was bonding with co-workers who I don't see in the office very often. Somehow or other we got on the topic of my ex-husband aka Mike aka Scott aka Mr.3. I ended up telling her the extended version of the saga. I always find it hard to find the right words to describe what happened. I try not to call him a con man because I have always felt that it really diminishes the effect that it had on me. I've called the relationship psychologically abusive before, but always felt not quite right in calling it that either.... most the time I just try to remind people that I am not stupid, I'm really not. You just had to be living the whole experience to truly understand. My co-worker's reaction was not something that I expected. I expected her to roll her eyes at times...to question my motives, my reason, like so many other people have had in the past. Instead she handed me this worksheet that is used with domestic and sexual violence victims called the power and control wheel. The object is to read the descriptions of abusive acts and circle the items that have happened to you. It is supposed to give a visual of your abuse. The wheel has eight spokes with topics like using intimidation, using emotional abuse, using isolation, using economic abuse, etc. On the other side of page is the equality wheel, that is supposed to mark the signs of a healthy relationship. Not only is there not one item in the healthy relationship wheel that I can attribute to my former marriage, but I have a lot of items that can be circled in at least 7 of the 8 spokes.

After looking at that the realization hit.
I am not some poor smuck who got taken by some con man. I was abused by my husband.
I've always been able to identify with being a survivor. I mean...I did managed to survive the relationship. But I never really wanted to call myself a victim, because that is kinda lame....but I need to accept that I am.

I am a victim of domestic violence.

Writing that sentence just make me break out into tears. Needless to say I wasn't expecting to have this sort of emotional whirlwind on Thursday.

But this isn't a sad story about me crying about my life....it is more of an empowering one. I am really grateful to this co-worker, more than I will probably be able to express to her. She was understanding....she was the first person who I have told the story too (who had not known and lived the saga with me when it was happening) to accept it, and not question my actions. In past dates when I have talked about my ex-husband I've gotten the "well why didn't you see that coming?" line.....which has generally marked the end of dating with that person. According to my co-worker, that is called "victim-blaming". She also said that it was wonderful that I had started working where I had and that I was learning what had happened to me because now when I talk to people about it, it can be a teaching experience instead. I'm good with teaching.

So that is my work epiphany. I could write more, but to say that this has been a long and hard day is an understatement. And for my friends who feel that I don't write anything positive on my blog anymore......I will write soon about some light-hearted things....like how I cut my hair super super short and how I am going to be a non-skating official for roller derby (I get a derby name and everything!!! Granny Panties in the house!), so you can all look forward to more of that sort of frivolity in my life.

And now....to bed!

Changing from the "we" to "them"

2010-02-08T14:39:00.002-07:00

Saturday I volunteered for an event being held by my old job. Prior to that day I was having a hard time in not referring to myself like I still worked at the center. I used "we" alot, not "they" or "them"....and I think that after my experiences on Saturday it will be alot easier to use the right pronoun.

For instance, I originally had planned on picking up the speaker and taking them out to dinner on Friday night. The weekend before, I was sent an email and told that it wasn't necessary for me to pick up the speaker from the airport. Which was fine, saved me time. But I still wanted to meet her for dinner. And there began the back and forth between me and the center staff member assigned to work the event. I could detail it all, but let's say that I was invited to dinner (and when I offered to pay for myself, and was turned down because a volunteer should "be treated" according to this said-former-coworker) on one day and then I was the next day uninvited to dinner. There was some valid reasonings behind this...and to make light of the situation I had mentioned that "at least I would get lunch free during the event"....at which point this said-former-coworker notified me that that was all I deserved anyway. After she said that, I did not renew my previous offer to pay for my dinner. Please keep in mind that said-former-coworker in the past has demanded when she has volunteered that she be wined and dined, and has never had any problems in pointing out when she has not gotten what she has felt to be her "due". Anyway... I could detail way too many instances of her hyprocracy and selfishness to count, so in moving on....

Saturday morning said-former-coworker was also supposed to announce that I was no longer working for the center and that I was volunteering my services on that day. This is what she actually said "I have an announcement, Debbie Dilley is now at the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault. If you would like to apply for her job, you can contact the University of Utah's Human Resources Department."

I was mortified.
It was entirely inappropriate.
But in her defense this was not the first nor will it be the last time that she has said something inappropriate.

When said-former-coworker left my old position and was on a volunteer basis, my old boss raved about her when she made the announcement that she was leaving. But that was the difference between the two...my old boss knew how to treat people and annoucements. And even through all of said-former-coworkers attempts to emulate by old boss, she has fallen totally flat on her face.

I felt ill-treated to say the least.

The rest of the day I hung out with my band of troublemakers in the back....there was lots of joking about me being "just a volunteer". So when arrangements went bad- and there was a major hiccup with the catering- I --for once-- could not be blamed, I was "just a volunteer".

I came to another realization about this particular person....I would be perfectly alright if I never had to see her again. In the past people have criticized me for being too harsh on her, and how I react to the various things that she has done. I credit her with deliberately trying to get me into hot water at my old job. What she did spurred on the attempt by my former director to write me up. I've been told that feeling this way with only circumstantial evidence of her actions is "unprofessional"....but after listening to her on Saturday tell me about how she tried to get other coworkers into trouble because she felt that they weren't doing their jobs correctly...or how she is actively trying to get the job of another coworker.....I can't but help to feel that my assumptions about said-former-coworker to be absolutely and totally correct.

I know that all of the "said-former-worker" stuff is a little annoying....but I don't need to name this person. What I do need to say to her is the following:

Thank you.
If you hadn't been yourself and tried to make yourself look better at my expense, I wouldn't have gotten the drive to really leave the center. Your actions coupled with the actions of my former director made me realize that there is no loyalty to a workplace that is as toxic as my old one was.

And thank you for your entirely inappropriate way of saying that I had left. You made me realize that my former workplace, has no respect for me or for what I did there. You have firmly planted your legs in support of the new regime and you have shown me that there was never any way that we could be respectful to the other outside of the workplace or inside of it. You have made it all that much easier to finally say goodbye.

Video Dispelling Myths on Weight Stigmas

2010-02-04T12:10:00.003-07:00

Here is an interesting (and extremely well done) video from the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

As a "big girl" myself, the type of bullying that is portrayed in this video was something I luckily only experienced between moving to Utah in fourth grade through my seventh grade year in middle school. I had to develop a thick skin and an ability to make better jokes at my own expense then those teasing me to make the abuse stop. If I hadn't been able to do that....I might not have made it to today.

I've never really written about the bullying I experienced when I moved here. It was bad. I called "lard butt" when I was 9 years old. I had no idea what lard was, but I knew it was bad. In 7th grade there were these kids who called me "shamu" and "beluga whale" in my 7th period math class....and they would taunt me literally all through my walk home. The only reprieve that I would have would be the last half block on the street where I lived. If it was a good day I was able to stop crying and calm down enough so that my mom wouldn't notice when I walked in. These names hurt, but I got over it.

I never really turned the name calling on the people who hurt me....and I should have. After all, they were 8th graders in the same math class as a 7th grader. And they also were not in my 8th grade math class....they had to repeat it, again. Ahh, karma.

Turning Left

2010-01-28T21:35:00.003-07:00

soo..... I've been at the new job for a week now and I am sure that you are all desperate for an update. Here are the differences between what happens to me on a daily basis versus what I left at the center:

1. In the morning I turn left instead of right onto 3rd avenue. Every time I do, I think of that line in Dr. Who that says "turn left and change the world".
2. Where I would have to take into account that it is a 5-10 minute walk into my office AFTER the five minute drive to the U, now from my door to the office door is 6 minutes.
3. Along the parking lines....leaving the worksite in the middle of the day isn't a horrible logistical nightmare. I left to pick up a catering order the other day: 30 seconds to get to the car and pull out of the driveway, 3 minutes to restaurant, 4 minutes to pick up order and pay, 3 minutes back to the office.....11 minutes total. At the University, I would just be getting to my car and pulling out in 11 minutes....and I would have no hope of getting the same parking place when I got back to campus.
4. New workplace has a sink in the breakroom area....no more washing dishes in the bathroom! Plus as the awful and overpriced Union food isn't an option I have been forced to bring my lunch to work with me everyday....my nutrition level has definitely risen.
5. I work under a skylight.....real light folks!!! No more cave office with dingy florescent lighting and bad air.
6. Even though I am in an all female office...the dating prospects are much better. Gone are the days of the only eligible bachelors being grad-students who are anxious to leave Utah the second they finish their degree....hello to that super hunky officer who was at a meeting at our offices yesterday. Oh so dreamy......
7. Now onto the job.... I have a director who is honest and caring, one who actively backs her employees and one who is fully respected by her peers. Let's say that at the center it was the exact opposite situation.
8. At the moment I am actively trying to take as many tasks as I can eek out of my director, versus being given an impossible workload....no more being overworked and underpaid!
9. One thing that is similar is that I am a good assistant, and I know what a good assistant should be doing. My new director isn't used to having someone to help her, and sadly has been doing way too much on her own. Every time she apologizes for giving me work to do, I have to remind her that I am her assistant and that is what I am there for.
10. Another similarity is that I find the subject matter that I am dealing with to be absolutely fascinating. I've spent alot of time this week reading to get myself up to speed on the subject of sexual violence....I am at the point where I start rattling off rape statistics to random people.

Overall I am so happy that I got this job and left the center. The weight off of my shoulders has been immense....in fact ---and this might be a bit too personal for some--- I am actually having a period this week. I haven't had a decent period in months because I have been too stressed out with the on-goings at the center. And if anything, I think that is a definite sign of good things to come.

Closing the door

2010-01-19T19:35:00.002-07:00

Today was my last day at the Center. It was very strange. For once I completed all of my to-do list. For once, there is nothing left to do, nothing to lose sleep over.

I thought that I was ok until I was closing the door of my office for the last time. I didn't expect to tear up, but I did. I've been at the center for almost 6 years of employment....so many of my major life changes happened there....so much baggage.

And now, no more.
Strange.
Really strange.

So..... I'm not crying....its just raining on my face.

One Resolution Down!

2010-01-10T18:51:00.002-07:00

This has been one crazy and awesomely cool week.

As you can tell my the title, one of my resolutions from my last post has been accomplished. Which one? Not the piano one sadly....although I did practice for so long today that my forearms are burning. And there is no new wii in my living room. So that leaves....yes....I got a new job. And not one, but two.

Yes folks.....I got offered TWO jobs this week.

Two!

Holy shit.

I did a second interview with the YWCA the last week of the year, and have been on tenderhooks with the job offer as I knew that on the 31st (Thursday) that my references were being called. My contact person at the Y even called me to get another reference number because she couldn't reach anyone at the University. And of course....I spent all of New Year's waiting (it was a depressive New Year's for me for that reason) and was still waiting to hear something on Monday. Tuesday I had decided that I would email my contact to see what was happening. She called me before I wrote to her. She needed another reference. She also said that it was just a formality that she had to speak to three professional references before she could make an offer....and then she promised me that she would call me on Wednesday. At about 2pm on Wednesday, she calls and offers me the job.....which I of course accept. Before I left the MEC at 3pm that day I had given my notice.

But this is not the end of the story.

Friday afternoon about 2pm I get a call from Linda telling me that she just finished talking with the folks over at UCASA....which I had interviewed with the day before my first interview with the YWCA.... and that they were going to offer me the job. Then I sent a message to Libby telling her how odd this was. She then replied that she was currently on the phone with them. Between the two jobs I had wanted UCASA more....not for the money but the job duties itself. I told Libby to send me a message when she was off the phone with them.

For the next few minutes I fretted about what to do if I was offered the job as I had already accepted the position at the Y. Both Linda and Libby were telling me that I needed to take this second job. As soon as Libby was typing the message "Done. Get ready for the phone to ring." The phone was ringing and I was offered the second job in three days.

There was no choice really. I had to accept the second job and called the YWCA and turn down their offer of employment. I felt bad by disappointing the Y....but I really have no loyalty to them yet.

On Wednesday I was elated because I was leaving the MEC, albeit for a job that was going to be less responsibility and the same pay. On Friday I was leaving the MEC with a job that is a considerable pay raise and job status raid. So, if you are wondering, the new administrative assistant for the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault officially starts on Wednesday January 20th.

Crazy, crazy couple of days.

Bye Bye Dear Esther, Hello New Year!

2009-12-29T22:53:00.002-07:00

I've been sitting on a piece of momentous news for a week now, that I need to share with you all.
After over a year and a half of hard emotional work, I have finished therapy with Esther.
It
feels
good.

I feel like I have graduated.
Its awesome....and not like "surfer dude" awesome, but the actual dictionary definition of awesome- inspiring awe which is a emotion mixed with reverence, dread, and wonder.

So, I have some semblance of having got it together.....now I can look forward to the new year because I can see where I've been. I'm sure that I will have a series of whiny posts coming that attempt to wax philosophical at the accomplishments of the past year....which haven't really been too much. Judging by my blog, I've bitched alot about a job that I haven't quit yet but hope to soon, blubbered about the trauma of actually finishing my masters degree, and named my dental crown after my ex-husband.

I'm working on a list of resolutions/goals for the next year....here is what they are currently:
1. Get a new job so that I can tell my old one of where to stick it.
2. Progress from beginner level to intermediate level in piano.
3. Get a Wii or some sort of gaming system so that I can play rock band at home, and maybe figure out why the male gender finds video games so much fun. I mean, I like beer, bbq, and football....I need to work on understanding video games next in order to fully progress in my "guy-friendly" girl thing that I have going on.
4. Uhhhh......ok, so maybe I don't have too many other goals at the moment. Maybe I should do just progressive resolutions so that once I finish one I can work and make another one..... yeah, that might work better....then I can do less thinking.

The Things That I Haven't Blogged About....

2009-12-13T20:50:00.003-07:00

are slowly mounting up higher and higher.
I will get back to them soon....when it is "safe" to write about them: I've got lots of work drama...you have NO idea.

In the meantime, I would like to tell you about a project that I have recently become a subject in. You may or may not have heard of the "We Feel Fine" project. Basically this group of guys created a script that would search English language blogs and note everytime that the words "I feel" were used. They have recently turned this web project into a book.

You can see the whole page that I am on here. It has a self portrait of me, an excerpt from a former blog post, and a little blurb about me. Here is a small screenshot of just my stuff.

To place there my words come from, they were written just before Christmas 2007. Jimmy and I had gone to Arizona and Mr.3 was supposedly still in the VA hospital. On that Christmas morning he called me to tell me that he had been released and was coming home. He had said that he would call me a little later when he got to the house. It was the last time that I ever heard from him. It was an inexplicably cruel act. But it was that moment, just before all of that pain was unleashed, that this books captures of me. Its an emotional snapshot.

It seems odd that I would comment on how being in a book that chronicles people's emotions makes me feel....but I am going to do it anyway. When they sent me the original request to include my images and words, I immediately said yes.....partly because I didn't think much would come of it and I thought that it was a unique idea. But now that I have received my copy of the book in the mail, it feels so much more real. There is so much truth in the book, and seeing just a small reproduction of some of the sadness in my life is indescribable really. It is alien and then closely intimate at the same time. I know that it is me, and I feel distant from it....but when I show the page to other people I start to tear up. Its almost like I'm trying to show people proof that I was in pain...that it all really happened and wasn't some made up story.

In any case, besides my sad sob-story that is listed in there, this is an amazing book. I hope that people buy it, and I should probably buy a copy or two to give to family and such. But that might have to wait until after Christmas.

The Unexpected Coffee

2009-11-20T19:21:00.003-07:00

So I am at Two Creeks with Libby this evening ordering the largest conceivable raspberry mocha available on their menu. The cost was $4.30 (for once I had cash in my pocket) and as I was handing the five dollar bill to the cashier a man from behind me says "oh, just put that on my tab."

My response "oh, that's ok, I can get it" but at this point the cash is back in my hand and the guy is waving off my comment saying that it is fine. And in normal-Debbie-awkward-style I say "but I don't even know who you are."

Again he waves me off and reassures me that it is his treat.

So in true fashion of not accepting gifts from strangers (ah, my parents would be proud) I stick out my hand to shake his, introduce myself, and thank him profusely. His name is Peter if you are curious.

I take my obnoxiously large raspberry mocha and sit at a table with Libby... who of course notes that I am blushing. Whenever someone notices that, it always makes you blush more....which happened several more times this evening.

I am not sure what to think about this really. First of all, those who know me know that I have issues with others buying things for me (I will let the occasional a person do it, if I know them well, and if I feel like I have resisted sufficiently against the kindness). Second, I worry about people's motives all the time. The reality is that this guy was just practicing a random act of kindness on a Friday night, rather than trying to initiate some conversation with me because he is either in love with me or secretly stalking me.

And if the goal for a person in doing a random act of kindness is to make a stranger feel oddly appreciated, valued, and that there is something about that person which is worthy of praise (even if that praise comes in the guise of a free coffee)...then this guy's gesture fully hit the mark.

So thank you again random-act-of-kindness-coffee-guy.....I needed that more than I needed the mocha.

Incidentally, he is a doctor of some sort and drives a motorcycle.....and is a regular at the coffee shop. Libby said that a sugar-daddy could do me some good, but I am still unsure if I should try to hang out at the coffee shop in an effort to meet him again....cause that could just be setting myself up for disaster.

When the hell did it become November?

2009-11-12T23:06:00.003-07:00

Seriously. When did that happen?

Anything new on my front? Not too much, not really.

The daily schedule is that I get up and work, then I go to the other work, then I come home and work some more, then I go work a bit more, and hopefully if I have time I either practice piano or do some of my volunteer work before I go to bed.

Routine or rut?
And does it even matter if that question is answered?

Things have been going surprisingly well at the center. In fact, I feel like a cloud has been lifted, and the new director has given me some very cool projects to be in charge of. I haven't felt enthusiastic about work for a while....and it is so refreshing to be excited about what I am doing there. I've even stopped looking for other jobs. Although I am still considering actually going into the classroom....but to apply for that program I have to wait until March. Until then, I will have to console myself with various projects at the center which have varying levels of coolness....such as this coming Monday I will be going to teach five separate six grade classes about the social life of ancient Egyptians.

While I am probably one of a handful of people who would be excited about this presentation....maybe I can perk up your interest by sharing the following picture with you.

Know what this is? Well.....this is what happens if you argue with the tax collector in ancient Egypt. You just know that the IRS wishes that they could do this.

And yes.....I am so totally showing this to sixth graders.

The View From the Pyramids

2009-10-25T21:20:00.002-06:00

"I would like to welcome you all to our workshop 'The View from the Pyramids-A Glorious Past and a Challenging Future'. I said that right, right? Heh heh, yes, so... Thank you all for braving the parking from the football game. But I must say in my defense, when I planned this workshop, a game was not scheduled.

There are several people that I would like to thank. First of all we have a crew of dedicated volunteers from the education community that I could not do without. Unfortunately, none of them are in the room to hear me thank them, but you should know that I thank them. I would also like to thank the education department at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. And......They also are not in the room at the moment.....but there are alot of people working diligently behind the scenes to bring this workshop to you today.

A couple of announcements: first of all don't forget to buy your lunch tickets today if you haven't already. And secondly we have stopped sending out our newsletter and event flyers in the mail, and we have moved to an electronic system rather than through the mail. So, yeah, if you haven't signed up for event emails there are sign-up sheets on our registration tables. Don't worry, we won't flood your inbox with silly emails....only ones of interest. Oh by the way, I'm Debbie. I'm the one who sends you the emails.

Now I have a few introductions that need to be made...."

That is only the beginning of my total manic and scatterbrained intro that I gave at our October workshop yesterday. The rest of my time on stage got a little better than the initial intro.....thank god. The workshop went well....or at least it seemed to. Even though I am done with the workshop, I still feel a little unsure of how it went. It was quite a blur....still is a blur.

But eyewitness accounts are all positive.

Breaking the Laws of Domestic Physics

2009-10-21T22:02:00.004-06:00

I understand that the purpose of the newly revised household chore list was to get the items on it done.

I also understand that the purpose of this new list is to clean those odd things that you forget until they become really horrible....like sweeping the baseboards or removing the strange and possibly toxic dust buildup on the blades of the ceiling fan.

I thought that I would be relatively safe with tonight's task of cleaning and disinfecting the garbage cans....until this.

Know what this is?

No, it isn't something molding.

This is the crystallized mass of dryer lint and odd bits of laundry soap that were in the bottom of the garbage can in the laundry room. It came off in one large piece.

Here is a view of the topside of it, a mountain of dryer lint.

I think that it was beginning to fossilize.

I am positive that this is not only unnatural, but breaks some sort of natural law.

Yellow Legwarmers Make Me Feel Better

2009-10-15T20:46:00.003-06:00

So the times where I don't blog are typically times of great busyness or great reflection. In this case, my absense is both.

On the busy front I had the following: parent's visiting, running a UEA booth for two days, bachlorette party, wedding rehearsal, Libby's wedding, fending off Jimmy's sickness, surviving running my first Outreach Advisory Council meeting, Jimmy's 21st birthday, succumbing to Jimmy's illness, and trying not to go crazy in the build-up to the October workshop.

After being sick, besides reveling in the ability that you can wear the craziest things when you are ill (yes--neon yellow legwarmers were involved), I've decided that I need to get my little brother a t-shirt that says "I am a human petri dish".

As to the period of great reflection, it has been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. It started with the realization after my Grandmother's death that I could survive without therapy. So I brought this to my therapy session with the idea of working towards transitioning out of treatment. And in many ways, my therapist earns her money, because she pointed out that we haven't discussed the elephant in the room, which is how I treat relationships in general.

A friend of mine recently was introduced to my blog and pointed out that I admit more on the blog about my feelings than I do to people face to face. If you just know me by my blog, you would probably have a very different view of me than if you knew me in person. It is easier revealing more of my emotional state in writing than it is in person. Here I can write about my weaknesses, my failings, but I don't have to deal with people seeing that pain in my face. To my friend who pointed this out....I can only tell you that there are plenty of members of my family who would gladly commiserate with you.

I've been avoiding talking about how I view the varieties of relationships that I have in my life with my therapist. I started out trying to date, trying to start anew....and I just can't do it. I feel judged by new people when I talk about my past. So in order to not have to talk about the real me I talk about my days in Turkey, or I ask them about themselves and foster that conversation. The result of this is that I know alot of people better than they know me. And in talking about relationships with Esther, I've hit my comfort threshold. I've probably revealed more of my layers to her than to any other person. Which is sad....and to me, frightening to the point of paralysis.

So I will admit that I have some serious relationship "issues". I fear being hurt, so I don't trust anyone with any information about myself. I want someone to take the time to get past my defenses, but I am not going to ask someone to try. I feel lonely, but don't want to do much about it....but I think part of that melancholy can be blamed on the fact that I just listened to Johnny Cash's Ballad of Ira Hayes.....which might be the most depressing song that I have ever heard in my entire life. So depressing that I totally lost any desire to practice piano tonight.....but not depressing enough to discourage me from wanting to take a nice hot bath. Which is where I am going now.

Hey, if you're lucky, I might take a picture of the yellow legwarmers and post them....cause they...were totally sexy.

Goodbye Grandma Ellie

2009-09-22T20:29:00.003-06:00

Early last Wednesday morning my grandmother was found, she had passed away in her sleep sometime during the night. Her death wasn't unexpected. She was ill and had been for a long time...and even though you are expecting a death, it still feels unexpected when it actually happens.

I think that I have cried more for her passing than my grandfather and my uncle put together. But these haven't been tears of regret, but more tears of relief. I think that I am finally able to mourn them all.

When Uncle Don died it was the end of the semester, Mr.3 was just starting to get squirrely with the fateful forged loan check, my grandpa was shutting down and all I wanted to do was fix things for my family.

When my Grandfather died (five months later) my father was out of a job, Jimmy had been moved up to my house to finish out school, Mr. 3 was in jail, and my mom was valiantly trying to hold herself together after a grueling month of taking care of my grandfather before he died. All I wanted to do was fix things for my family.

But there is only so much that I could fix. I lived in a constant state of anxiety, feeling obligated to hold up my entire family (and Mr.3)....all the while I was crumbling inside. Realistically I never had time to mourn either of them. And it was heartbreaking watching my grandmother mourn someone that she couldn't fully remember anymore.

I didn't go to the funeral although I wanted to. My parents kept saying that it was "too much" citing that my car wouldn't make the trip. And while I think that was a really lame excuse for making me feel like I shouldn't come. Instead of letting it fester, I did confront my mom with it. There was no satisfying answer, but the mere fact that I even addressed it with her was huge. At least to me it is. There has been so many little injustices that I have felt in my life that I have just kept quiet about, just let fester and burn.....speaking out was huge for me. And when it comes down to it, it was "too much for me to handle"....not for my car, but for me. I've been a wreck since I found out on Thursday afternoon (please note, she was found Wednesday morning and my step-aunt didn't bother to get around to telling us until late Thursday afternoon). I've been exhausted and emotionally frayed. And for once.....I really wasn't physically able to make the long haul emotional drive in the middle of the night for someone who wasn't there. I did that once trying to find Mr.3 in Denver...and it was awful. Trying to do the same thing for someone who I have felt that I have lost years ago would have been lunacy.

I have never really had any strong inclinations about the afterlife. For the most part I figure that I'll find out when I get there....and as long as I have been a good and decent person in this life, things can't really be that bad in the next, if there is one.

Since my Uncle passed away in 2006, my life has gone through alot of turmoil. And each of the terrible things that I have experienced cannot be dealt with individually but as a whole.....and so it would make sense that I would be experiencing all this grief now. When you look at the stages of grief they go in cycles, and cycle out until the pain is gone. First, there is denial...and well, there is alot about the whole Mr.3 saga that fits under that category. Second, anger (uh, yeah!), the third is bargaining.....there has been alot of that. The fourth level has been depression....another checkbox there. And the fifth level is acceptance. I read an article that separated out the fifth step into three parts: the upward turn, reconstruction and working through, and acceptance and hope. And I think that my feet are planted firmly within stage five. In fact, when I saw Esther today, I realized that I could move on without her. I actually got up to leave almost 15 minutes before the end of my session. When she asked me why, I told her that I didn't really have anything else to say. I'm sad and that's ok. I don't want to talk about my grief but just cry to get that emotion out of my system. I don't wish for my grandmother (or even my grandfather and uncle for that matter) back. I am sorry that she is gone, but I don't feel abandoned. And even though the old drama between my aunt and my mom threatens to resurface again with the finalization of the trust...I don't even care about it. Because I can't fix it, and I shouldn't have to. I've offered what I can emotionally and physically and said where I have to draw the line. This is big. So big that every word that I could look up in the thesaurus for big wouldn't be able to describe the enormity of it.

I realize that very little of this post has been about my grandmother....but honestly....when we grieve are we grieving for the person or ourselves? Similar to the case of my grandfather, I wasn't able to have any mementos of my grandmother, and I am now on the lookout for a stainglass hummingbird decal for my window. When I was little, Grandma had just cleaned the stained glass window (leaving the screen door back) and had told me that the kids next door were waiting in the backyard to play with me. She told me that I could go out and play but not to run in the house. Being the little kid that I was, and seeing what looked like an open door, I only heard "backyard" "play" and "run". The result of which was me shattering the glass door and a permanent scar on my head. From then on, Grandma had hummingbird decals on the windows so that I would realize that the door was in fact- closed. Finding something similar would be a fitting memento of her.

As to memories of her, I like to think of her when I visited last just after my uncle's death. My grandfather was inconsolable, and Grandma and I had banded together to goof off and have a bit of fun to relax away from my brooding grandfather. We had gone for a walk in her neighborhood, did lots of giggling....and when we came back my Grandpa was in the living room talking seriously with my mom. Grandma had sat on the arm of the sofa...I can still remember how her feet looked in her slippers. As we were sitting there, she kept slipping backwards onto the sofa...finally she just let go of the arm and slided onto the couch with a little "wheee!". It was so unexpected. Grandma and I were trying to hold in the giggles because of the tenseness of Grandpa...and then....he let out this belly laugh. A laugh that I hadn't heard since I was a little kid. It was a moment of levity and closeness in the face of immense sadness...and that is how I wish to remember her...

wheeeee!

Goodbye Grandma Ellie, I love you.

Getting Rid of the Rest of the Books

2009-09-15T20:32:00.003-06:00

Can you tell what these are?
These stacks of 60 odd books, 67 to be exact, are all books of Mr. 3's that I am going to be getting rid of.

I originally kept them because they represented a sizable amount of money that I spent buying them for him, and I also had some wild and crazy idea about writing a book on terrorism for parents and teachers. Honestly, I know that these are books that I will never read. I also don't want to try to sell them...that takes time and energy that I do not have. I don't need to have any more negativity from these books hanging around in my house.

So over the next day or so I am going to put them in the hallway by the MEC with a sign that says "Free, Please Take".

In honor of this latest cleansing, here are the titles of what I am giving away: Mirage- Power, Politics, and the Hidden History of Arabian Oil; Twilight in the Desert; Infiltration; The Eve of Destruction; Islam and Terrorism; Politics in the Middle East; Nation and Religion in the Middle East; Desecularism of the World; Religion and State; The Political Language of Islam; Through Our Enemies Eyes; Troubled Waters; The West at War; Disinformation; The Two Faces of Islam; Hamas; No God but God; An Anatomy of Terror; New Glory; The Osama Bin Laden I Know; Uncharted Journey; Over a Barrel; The West's Last Chance; The Palestinian Right to Return; Atomic Iran; A History of Islamic Societies; The War for Palestine; The Sword of the Prophet; The Shahids; Unholy War; God's Rule; The Story of Political Philosophies; Profiles in Terror; The Military Balance in the Middle East; Countdown to Crisis; Holiest Wars; The Muqaddinah; Why I am Not a Muslim; The Future of Political Islam; Airbourne Carpet; American Political Thought; Islam and Revolution in the Middle East; Seven Theories of Religion; European Union; Guadalcanal; Battle of the Reichswald; Rouge States and Nuclear Powers; Runaway World; Voices of Terror; the History of Jihad; War and Destiny; An Autumn of War; Unholy Alliance; Warrant of Terror; Modern Tyrants; Peace is Possible; The Road to Martyr's Square; the Myth of Islamic Tolerance; Information Assurance; Ideas and Foreign Policy; The Emerging European Union; The Government and Politics of the European Union; The Formative Period of Islamic Thought; Bringing Religion into International Relations; Journey of the Jihadist; Islam; Islamic Imperialism; and Between War and Peace.....phew! It is a long list! And probably represents close to $1000 in books.

So come one and come all....help yourself to a pile of books in the basement of OSH!

Brilliant! IKEA Heights

2009-09-10T21:31:00.002-06:00

So I try to share the wealth with the various gems I find in the course of working Job 3, today's gem is a site called IKEA Heights. It is a melodrama that they are filming in an IKEA store, without the store's knowledge...it's just awesome.

IKEA Heights from DaveAOK on Vimeo.

The Staycation

2009-09-05T10:54:00.002-06:00

Well I am now at the halfway point in the five day holiday weekend that I am taking. Part of the focus of this weekend is to reflect on what I want and how I want to proceed with the current employment situation.

A couple of odd things have happened since my last post. One, it was dictated to me that I must change my working hours from 7:30-1:30 to 9:00-3:00. This totally throws my work schedule out of whack, but more importantly it has just infuriated me. Yeah, I could adapt....but I am not willing to bend. The second thing that happened was that I approached the new Director with some concerns. Originally I had intended the conversation to be just about dispelling some rumors about the hiring of the new Outreach Director ("That's a personnel issue!"), but it ended up turning out to be about alot of my job frustrations...the triple workload, the new hours decree (he doesn't care that I have other obligations that might interfere). I think that if it had been anyone else, I might have come away from the conversation with a ray of hope. He was after all willing to consider other work-hour arrangements for me.....but then again he just wants me to be at his beck-and-call for as much time as humanly possible between 8 and 5 Monday thru Friday and not go over my 30 hours. He was willing to listen to my concerns, but kept reminding me that the Outreach program and how the system was set up was an "abnormality that shouldn't have been allowed to survive".....which unfortunately kept making me feel that the Outreach program was some runt kitten that he was trying to get rid of. Like in the Disney version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame when the judge first sees the infant Quasimodo, cries that it is an abomination, and is about to drown the baby when the priest stops him....it was sorta like that. But as I said, if it had been any other person I might have been able to believe the best of what he said. I might have been able to "just adapt" as he told me to do. Upon reflection, I can't. I cannot trust him. I have no respect for him. And I don't believe that anything he could do could make me change my mind.....well, at least, I can't think of anything at the moment that he could do that would make me feel better about him...not even something like saving my life, because I would be worried that he would hold it over my head for something else later.

My realization this morning was that no matter how much I might be able to look forward to some of the fun Outreach events that are coming up....the last thing that I want to do is return to work on Tuesday morning. If I could survive on the two jobs (I'd be about $400 short a month) I would give my notice immediately.

The very thought of returning to work at the Center makes my stomach lurch.

I applied for four jobs this morning. I have one other on my list that I want to apply to but I need to have a version of my resume that is appropriate to an advising job. And seeing that I know that another job of that nature will be coming up soon in my friend's department, I really should have a version for this as well.

In the meantime, this lowly events coordinator (as the term Outreach Assistant is not an actual job title--another 'abnormality") is going to get some hours in for her other job. The one she likes....

Sometimes the Silver Linings in the Cloud Doesn't Make A Difference

2009-09-01T15:53:00.004-06:00

Call it jinxing myself.
Call it wishful thinking.
Call it counting your chickens before they were hatched.

Whatever its name, it comes down to the fact that I didn't get the job. Which really shouldn't be that big of a deal, but I pinned my hopes on that little paper star called "a new job". It was my chance for an escape of a work situation that I emotionally cannot handle. It was my chance to help myself and my family. And it has fallen off the wall, landed in a puddle, and that little paper star has disintegrated away.

Bye, bye little star, I shouldn't have made you in the first place.

I don't blame the UMFA for not hiring me. They hired the best person for the job. I do blame myself for believing that the job was mine. I blame myself for figuring out what the pay raise would be and then counting on the money being there. I blame myself for preemptively planning on how I wanted to write a blog post detailing the first interview, and the second interview- knowing that the job was between me and one other person- and for having it all planned out that I would drop the good news in the last line of the post.

Cause now I left with the double edged sword of being sad that I didn't get the job and feeling stupid because I let my hopes get up.

Have you ever noticed that bad news never has good timing, but that good news always does? Poor little bad news messenger..... the only time people are ever really happy to see him is when that person is glad that someone has come to great harm.

And of course, today's news didn't come at a good time. I was so overloaded and emotional about the current state of work, that I didn't have time to process the news....and having to process bad news at therapy isn't very constructive. It just results in me crying so hard that I can't speak but snort. It also results in my therapist going on about how my emotional reaction might have more to do with my inability to handle uncertainty in my life and how it relates to my abusive relationship with Mr.3. It results in her going on and on about how I was hurt my Mr.3, the constant state of pain and burden that I was in, etc. etc. etc. And I couldn't stop crying/snorting long enough to make her stop. Because my emotions are not focused on the past with Mr.3, but on the fact that I am not sure how I am going to handle Wednesday.

It will only be a matter of time before she starts to equate this with why I am not dating. I know that I can not handle uncertainty. I need to know where I am at all times. The uncertainty in dating is too much.....although I also can just say that it is a hassle -so why bother. I can't deal with my own issues, why add others to the mix? And while it is a hassle, it also helps me NOT focus on my deep rooted fear that I am woefully inadequate and not worth being loved by someone who is not already someone I consider family.

I am tired of feeling like damaged goods, and I'm tired of feeling bullied, and I'm tired of feeling overworked. I'm so tired of it all that I lack the strength to fight back. And I know that it is what I need to do.

So boys and girls, what is the moral for today's story? I think that it should be "playing with paper stars can be fun, but beware of papercuts", but I am willing to take alternative suggestions.

What to Wear?

2009-08-23T21:01:00.003-06:00

Alright folks....tomorrow morning, I have a job interview.

I read online somewhere that only 2% of job applicants actually get to the interview stage. And while I kept trying to tell myself that I wasn't nervous about it....I totally lied.

I've been in a constant state of anxiety since I put in the application. I was doing the stupid jaw clenching thing....then once I managed to get that to stop all the stress just transferred to my stomach. Which has left me in alot of pain and feeling like I have been continually hit in the stomach. This afternoon, I tried to do some breathing and I thought that I had everything under control, until I went to look in the mirror. I've totally broken out in a matter of two hours.....it almost looks like hives! So while I am typing, I've got a face mask on hoping that it will suck all of the impurities out of my face.

I think that I am nervous because I have so much riding on this. I just want out of the MEC and this seems like the first major chance that I have gotten. I understand the enormity of the job....it would be a major pay raise and quite the learning curve. I know my potential boss and he was the one who asked me to apply for the job. Everything is looking really positive for this job.....but I think that I keep expecting something to ruin it all.

And I have no idea of what to wear tomorrow! Do I go for slacks and a blouse? A dress? Do I even want to address the idea of heels? I did some superficial google searches on what to wear...colors and such. Alot of them tell you just to wear something that would fit in with the work place and the job.....but honestly, what do you wear for an interview for an accountant's position at an art museum? I think that red and white might be a good color combo but that still doesn't narrow down the possibilities. Ugh!

I'm gonna go wash off this face mask and tear apart my closet.
Wish me luck!

Backups of various types

2009-08-16T18:18:00.002-06:00

Wow...can I just tell you how glad that I am that I blog? Work on the Mr.3 memoir is in full swing (being that I try to write every day on it) and I refer back to the blog--A LOT. It is a good backup to have.

Speaking of backups, when I got the new computer I also bought an new disk drive in the hopes of getting files off of the terminally ill laptop. So far so good. It has only done one major data dump crash once so far..... but as I am a little over an hour into a major file transfer I am expecting it to die at any moment. I keep getting up every couple of minutes to check on it. I think I have it in my head that if I am constantly paying attention to it that it won't crash.....totally silly (and a bit of a time waster actually). Fingers crossed that this process doesn't drive me totally nuts!

The iMac Version of Rear Window

2009-08-14T20:04:00.002-06:00

I got me a new computer.

I like it alot.

It is pretty.

Pretty like a princess.

Finally getting a new computer is a huge deal for me. I've been putting it off for months cause the money I was saving for it always seemed to need to go to other things like taxes or car repairs.... you know, the frivolous stuff. I've been operating on a netbook since my other laptop contracted a fatal virus. Now the netbook is devoted solely to job 3, so if it dies, it is no big deal. This computer is for me to play on...which really means that I am using it to write. I am starting to make myself sit and write for at least a half hour each day.....most of it is...well awful. But I can't expect to have pure poetry come out of my fingertips everytime they touch a keyboard, this blog is a prime example of that.

Rather than getting another laptop, I opted to get a desktop, which I now have in a corner of the dining room by the bay windows. It is a minimalist setup on an old bedside table of my uncles'. And as it is currently surrounded my my mom's plants it looks fairly unobtrusive. The only problem, well it isn't really that much of a problem, is that with it being by the window I tend to get easily distracted by my neighbors in the tenement next door. Usually you don't have anyone to look at, but the newest batch of neighbors are....well sorta fun to watch.

There is the guy on the third floor, who from where I sit looks pretty cute. He could be a troll up close for all I know, but for now 'the mystery of the neighbor across the way' is enough for me. Hot Troll Neighbor plays on his computer a lot, but every once in a while he paces his apartment, drinking a beer, and periodically stops to do this head-banging robot dance.

The Loud Techno Girl lives on the basement/first level. Her music isn't nearly as annoying as it used to be before I finally succumbed to the heat and closed the windows to put the air conditioner on. She has this friend who would be striking alone for his size, but when you add the foot tall spiked mohawk that he sports on Friday evenings....it becomes fascinating. First of all, I can't figure out what he uses to get it to do that...but secondly, I can't help but wonder how often he hits his hair in doorways or if he gets a crick in his neck when in the car.

On the second floor, and directly eye level with my apartment, are the latin drag queens. Every night they dress up and prance around their apartment. Their balcony has been turned into an impromptu hair salon. Jimmy was looking at them and actually recognized them. Apparently there are two main factions of drag queens that perform at Club Sound and these girls belong to Nova (one of the drag queen bees).

Jimmy has joked that I should move the couch into the dining room, but at least now that I can be seen typing at the computer the neighbors won't totally think that I am watching them completely. It amazes me how voyeuristic I am. I don't think that they are watching me though....I'm pretty boring, unless you find it fascinating that I cleaned my house at 9pm on a Sunday night.

Removing Assistant From My Job Title

2009-08-07T08:40:00.002-06:00

If anything could be learned by my turning 30, it is the following:
I desperately need to work in a more professional environment.

With the latest round of drama at work, I've been really struggling to find some concrete terms to voice my dissatisfaction....besides the fact that everything keeps making me cry. What I have come up with is that there is a lack of professionalism and respect. I understand that respect is one of those terms that really depends on other factors. So, here we go.....

-An environment where administration makes promises as to pay raises/job advancement and then does nothing is not a professional one.
-An administration who says that they value employee input, but blows off the employee completely when they notify them of a very serious problem in the workplace, is not a professional one.
-A work environment that is continually unprofessional cannot be one that inspires respect and teamwork.

I've been applying for jobs for a while now. When I have asked about the Outreach position being posted, I've been told that they will let me know but that it is easily a month away from being open. So I check for positions every few days and apply. In the meantime, I am being actively recruited for a position on campus in another department.....don't want to jinx it so no details until I get the position- or not....so on Monday I checked the University job postings to see if it was listed. And while I was there discovered that the Friday prior they posted the Outreach job.

I was furious because I was not even told that they were officially going to post the job.
I was furious because I had to be looking for another job in order to find out.
I was so furious that I stormed into the AA's office and asked if the Director had someone already in mind for the position.

She told me that she wasn't aware of anything. I don't trust anything that she says, but I needed to let her know that I was upset.

I applied for the position, but I will not get it. I would be surprised if I even got an interview. For one thing, our AA, in her ever-present lack of professionalism, told another employee here that I would NEVER get the Outreach job because they had different plans for me. This upsets me on many, many levels. One, I am being denied even the consideration of advancement into a position that I am more than qualified for. Two, how dare they even assume that they have the right to determine my career? I understand that I am a great assistant. I know that I have desirable skills....but I am also not a slave, and sure as hell, not their slave. The very idea that they would not even consider me for anything else because they can't bare to have me not picking up after them..... ugh. When you couple this with the recent blow-off by administration on an employee issue....well, I've completely checked out of here.

I'm making plans that I will not be here past the end of the month. Of course, that assumption is also that I would have another job to go to at the end of the month, but it is also helpful in piecing together what I would need to get done before I leave in order to feel good about it. I have loved my job at Outreach, and I feel connected and obligated to the community that I have served there. From this point until I leave, the work I do is for them and not the Center.

So....here's to the determination to remove the term "Assistant" from any job title that I have.

Taking the Bad in with the Good

2009-07-23T09:29:00.002-06:00

I haven't heard anything from the student loan company that Mr. 3 fraudulently co-signed me on his loans on for a long time. The last communication was from Wachovia telling me that they were processing my claims.

But today....at my office at the MEC (and we know how I feel on collection calls to begin with, but at work- ugh)....I get a phone call from a collection agency.

Here's the thing though....they were only trying to collect on 1 of the 3 loans he signed me onto. The other 2 have been removed from my record. Removed! Oh, I hope that they guy I talked to was telling me correctly on those 2 loans. If this information is correct, then it is logical to deduce that they meant to remove all the loans and that this one just didn't make it though the whole process.

So I need to fax in yet another fraud claim packet to this company. I've had to fax in that police report to so many places you would think that I would have left a copy of that here in a file somewhere. But I haven't. With all of the personal information I have in my office, that police report is a special brand of shame. I'll make sure to send in the fax tomorrow.

I think that this is an overall good sign...or at least I am trying to delude myself into thinking that. In any case, I think that this also shows (cough cough...are you paying attention Jimmy?) that even though handling these fraud claims is a giant pain-in-the-ass, that it can be done.

Hey Mike! Your catalog arrived!

2009-07-15T16:12:00.003-06:00

Hi Mike (aka Mr.3)! Your catalog arrived in the mail today....you know the one. The one that you can purchase equipment to make your own fake IDs with. Well it came. I know that you must have been waiting for it. You can pick it up anytime.

Putz.

Time?

2009-07-13T21:12:00.002-06:00

If you asked me what time it was, I would probably pull my cell phone out of my bra and tell you.

If you asked my Dad what time it was he would tell you "the same time it was 24 hours ago".

If you asked an astrophysicist what time it is you would get a debate on the theory of relativity.

If you asked the wicked witch of the west she would tell you "time's up my pretty".

If you ask David Bowie he would tell you that time is waiting in the wings and that it speaks of senseless things. "His script is you and me boys"

So, what time is it?

Well at least I applied for something, right?

2009-07-10T10:53:00.002-06:00

The whither to work or not debate continues in my head. Tentatively I have plans to quit on September 30th, unless something different happens.
I applied for a job that I was perfect for at the local children's museum. The posting was online Tuesday, worked on the resume all day Wednesday and happily sent it off yesterday (Thursday). I felt on top of the world about doing the resume, looking forward to an interview, a possible new job. I felt new energy at work in order to get major projects finished before I leave. I even speculated on how much money I would make.... Yeah, I know, I really built my hopes too high on it.

So this morning, I'm still excited and impatient just to get acknowledgment of my application. And on a whim, I check the organization website....and the posting is no longer there.

I'm totally crushed.

I went from feeling like the world is full of opportunities to feeling utterly trapped.

And I know, it is stupid. It was stupid to pin my hopes on some phantom job. It is stupid just to think that since the posting isn't up any longer that my resume will not be considered. And it is stupid to feel trapped when I am not. Trust me, my forehead keeps getting flatter for each time I smack myself. But I still feel that way. I mean, I haven't felt this depressed in a while.

And the last thing that I want right now is to be at work.
I want to be away somewhere where I don't have to think about this stuff anymore and that everything is taken care of for me.

To Quit or Not to Quit Job 1

2009-06-30T19:52:00.003-06:00

I've been really unhappy at the MEC for a while now. I loved my job, I really did.....but the last time that I really felt any joy at work was just before our conference on the 16th when I was prepping puppets for my art project breakout session. It was the first time in a very long time that I was having fun at work.

I thought that part of my fornlorness had to do with my boss retiring. And to some degree it was.... but now that she has been out of the office for a couple of weeks, I know that wasn't entirely it. I dread going to work everyday. I hate the fact that I need to get approval on things that I am working on, and that I can't get anyone in the "adminsistration" to give me the time of day for that approval.

First of all, I have zero tolerance for BS in the workplace. I have my job to do, and I work to get it done. I expect others to get their work done, and not impede me in doing mine. I admit that I do indulge in the odd bit of office gossip.... but I shy away from participating or even creating office drama. And I have no respect for those who lie. The personification of BS in my office is our program manager. Instead of telling people that she doesn't know the answer to something, she says that it is either "illegal" or that "it cannot be done" as if it is written in stone. Normally when these situations happen, it is only a task that she can do. So you end up going back to your office and fume, or go back and start calling anyone you can think of so that you can find a way to get the task done. By the time you've figured out how to do the task, the program manager comes back pretending that she has just discovered some miracle cure to your problem. She thinks that this makes her look like a hero..... but when she has been doing it for almost everything you come to her for.... it backfires horribly. Sometimes, she doesn't even bother to look for the answer and you have to go back into her office with university policy. When it gets to this point she can't escape from having to do the task, but she will also do everything in her power to stop you from making her do it. For instance, she didn't like it pointed out to her that she needed to fill out a requisition form to pay the Homestead for our conference next year Even though we had approval to sign the contract by the interim director and the new incoming director...she had a fit and made the incoming director put a stop to it. The contract wasn't signed......it was months of work and a negotiated discount of over 4000 dollars, all down the drain- for the sake of her pride.

She's also on this major power trip.... or rather she is on this trip to make it look like she has all of this power and authority over the staff. While I was trying to meet with our new director on the Homestead contract, she refused to let me make an appointment with him. She acts as if his schedule is super secret and only her and the office assistant has clearance to know what he is up to. I can understand wanting to control access to him, it protects her....at the cost of alienating the rest of the staff that make her look good.

Compound this situation, with a director who insists that you email him with requests.....that he never fricking answers. When he does answer your email it is just to tell you to do something- that he would realize was already done if he had actually read the email to begin with, or that you did something wrong that is unrelated to the email subject. I feel like I am being treated horribly.... that's not a complaint I can voice to them however. I guess that I can say that administration has laid the weight of three positions on me without extra compensation. Administration has promised support but denies it in reality. Administration has made promises as to a pay raise and increase in job status, and has fallen through. Administration has made me feel marginalized, overworked, belittled, and worthless.

I can hear Esther in the back of my head telling me to calm down and be patient.

I have been dealing with an unstable work environment for over a year now. I've put up with it because I was working towards the goal of being Outreach Director.. something that I have talent at and something that I want to make my career. But is it really worth going through all of this? I am not even sure if there is going to even be another Outreach Director... and no one will even answer my questions about it.

I kept getting to work earlier and earlier each morning. The goal of this is so that I can work and not deal with people, and that I get to leave the office earlier in the day. I'm getting in so early, that my 6 hours are up by lunchtime. I also just sit and bitch about work to anyone that will listen. It has hit a crescendo this week. Monday I started looking for job openings, and this morning I wanted to quit after reading an email from the new director. I'll never really wanted to quit a job before.....never wanted to give notice and walk out the door. Libby suggested today that I do just that. At first I just said that no, it wouldn't work....until I started to run the numbers. I normally don't count on GV money, just treat it like a happy surprise check in the mail..... but if I start counting on that money, and up my hours at job 3 from 30 hours a week to 40 hours. I could quit the MEC--- still keep my apartment, cable, therapy appointments, and piano lessons. So I have some options, which is quite empowering:

Option1: Give notice at the MEC immediately and have my 30th birthday (july 30th) be my last day at work. I can apply for other jobs if I like (and there is one at the children's museum that I am going to apply for anyway) but if I don't get extra employment along the way, I'm fine. Still could afford Christmas, but I might take a temporary Christmas retail job in order to pad up my non-existent savings.

Option 2: Give notice at the MEC and have the last day in September be my final day. Still all of the perks of option 1 except I can purchase a new computer for myself. That way, the netbook can be used for Job 3 and I could use the other computer to work on without the fear of it getting some horrible virus and dying. This would actually allow me to set things aside so that I could write, or work more on GV, or a myriad of other things that I have always wanted to do. I guess the perk of having three jobs and being used to working 70 hours a week is that when you arrange to have your schedule go down to 40 hours you have a ton of more free time.

Option 3: Get another job, and quit whenever.

Option 4: Stay at the MEC, but only under certain conditions. This is the one that I really need to think about. I am not sure if I want to stay at all anymore....even if I did get everything that I wanted. Even if I got the title and responsibility that I wanted, the pay that I deserve, etc. I would still have to deal with the administration and their absolute determination to make things 8 million times more difficult than it needs to be. Do I really want that stress?

So it comes down to, really, what do I want to do with my life? Is the fight to the position I want really worth it in the long run? Is that position what I want or need in my life right now anyway?

Option 2 is in the forefront, option 1 is being held in reserve for that instance where I totally lose it and quit. I need something to change, and soon. Heck, I am so dissatisfied that loosing my health benefits pale in comparison to continue dealing with this stress. I don't care anymore that a major component of the Center is in my hands....because even if that reality is true, the new administration live in their own little world, oblivious. They remind me that I am worthless to this program anyway, I might as well relieve them of their burden. I can be replaced and I am not responsible for the health and longevity of the MEC.

What do you think I should do?

MY CAR PASSED INSPECTION!!!

2009-06-26T13:01:00.002-06:00

And in celebration, here are the lyrics to the song that I've had in my head for a week.... between this one and the umbrella mending song, I sense some new ringtones in my future.

What are we going to do with Uncle Arthur?
A blinking stallion, is Uncle Arthur.
When he goes a-strolling in the park,
Watch your step, girls, especially after dark.
Any old skirt's a flirt to Uncle Arthur,
He's over eighty, but how he can run!
'Give us a kiss, my dear,' he'd say,
And tickle you up the boom-di-ay,
And say it was just an 'armless bit of fun.

What are we going to do with Uncle Arthur?
Have him doctored like a tom-cat?
You'd have thought by now he'd has his fill,
But my aunt can't bloody well keep him still,
Saturday night'll find him at the boozer,
A couple of pints there, then off he will pop,
Straighten his hat and up the street,
As light as a feather on his feet,
A dirty old man who don't know when to stop.

What are we going to do with Uncle Arthur?
A public nuisance, is Uncle Arthur.
Though he's bald, deaf, dirty and decayed,
He's the uncrowned king of the esplanade.
Nothing on Earth can seem to damp his ardour,
He's trying harder, the older he grows.
One of these days he'll have to die,
What will he get up to in the sky?
Well Heaven and Uncle Arthur only,
You can be sure he won't be lonely,
Heaven and Uncle Arthur only knows.

Derby, Pride, and an Injured Turtle

2009-06-07T21:13:00.007-06:00

Wow, busy weekend. Saturday Jimmy went with me to the roller derby double header game, and for once I remembered to bring my camera with me. Got a fantastic picture of Steph and of Jimmy's GIGANTIC nostrils!

It was also the Pride Festival this weekend and I went out to support Jimmy as he walked in the Pride parade. It was pouring rain, but that didn't stop the festivities. I have a bunch of photos on my Flickr account, but this one of the rain was my favorite. I offered my umbrella on several occasions to some poor freezing wet gay men who were trying to find their friends.

I was totally dead after Pride today....totally wiped. The walking that I did today wasn't too bad, but you add in the rain and it adds up to some aches and pains. When I got home I started to work Job 3. Zippy was sorta anxious today and kept trying to get out so I let him and Scooter run around the house. Zippy's under carapiece has always been bad. The previous owner didn't take good care of him and kept him in too wet of conditions. The result of this is that the shell has been lost and there is bare bone on the bottom. Like your skin, the under carapiece has several layers, so the top layer is gone (and unable to grow back) and in some spots he has lost secondary layers. There are several pieces of the secondary level that are threathening to come off. As Zippy was walking around today he kept getting caught on the carpet. I am not sure if this hurts him, but it sounds like it does.... and today I decided that I had to do something for him. So I covered the bottom shell with gauze and strapped him up with medical tape.

I know that he looks silly (and kinda sad) but it seems to be helping. Zippy didn't fuss around too much when I was trying to strap him up and he seemed embarassed for a little while....until he started to walk around and discovered that he didn't get caught on stuff anymore. Since then he has been happily running around the house like he was 10 years younger. I think that I am going to have to make this a permanent dressing for him. I might get some of that athletic tape. It will be less sticky and bulky than the current gauze and medical tape situation.

And now, it is time for bed....but I have to find the turtles first. Zippy was happily asleep under the houseplants last I saw.....but I haven't seen Scooter for a while. I suspect that he's made it to my bedroom and is hiding under the bed.

New Car?

2009-06-05T21:45:00.003-06:00

So I had this moment where I had myself convinced that I would buy a new car, but I think that I'm over it now.

I love my little car, and it runs decently..... although I worry that it won't pass inspection this month. It probably will though. Here's the thing... the little cosmetic things that have broken down on it are really starting to get to me. For instance, the driver's side window has been broken for 2 years now. I really miss the window when it is hot. And of course there is something weird thing going on with the fans in my car and only the high and highest settings work. Which is manageable, except my car threatens to stall out if it is warm and I have the air conditioner on for too long at a high level. I could handle not using the air conditioner.... but no air conditioning and only one window that will roll down and it isn't the one nearest to you? Its unbearable! So I either pass out from the heat, or have my car pass out from the air conditioning.

Then there is the issue of the locks. I have automatic locks, which are lovely. But the lock button on the drivers side hasn't worked for over a year now.... and it was manageable by just manually locking it or using the keyless entry. But the batteries in the keyless entry don't want to work now----plus my brother took the batteries out and hasn't brought me new ones and I have no idea what to get. Using the key works, but the lock seems to be getting harder and harder to turn--and I haven't been able to use the key to unlock the trunk in ages!

And the stereo.... I haven't been able to listen to CDs in the car since I worked at the Bookstore, so somewhere in 2003 it stopped working. I make due with the radio or occasionally listen to my iPod with my headphones....but (whine, whine, foot stomp) I miss blaring the radio with the windows down on a road trip.

Ahh.... to take a road trip! My car could probably take a road trip....but it does have over 137,000 miles on it. A road trip with the current cosmetic issues in the car....no way, not happening, not no how.

Can I afford a new car? Probably. My health insurance is supposed to pick up my therapy sessions in July so that will save me $200 a month right there, and of course if I get that planned raise then I will definitely be able to include a couple hundred more to the list of what I can afford.

Should I bother with adding to my current monthly bills? That's the real question. I already pay $600 a month in student loan payments, and I would like to increase what I pay on them.... and I would like to pay off my loans in 5 years, but that won't happen if I get a new car. So I am trying to tell myself that it would be better just to deal with the issues that my current car has. The estimate to fix the window was some ridiculous figure of $500, the stereo something like $300, and easily another $300 for whatever is wrong with the fan.

Oh well..... it will take a while to save up for that too... Here's to hoping for finding a cheaper and reliable mechanic.

Perhaps the Saddest Site I Have Ever Seen

2009-06-03T15:27:00.002-06:00

I see alot of websites in the course of working Job 3. According to a recent job review, I rated over 68,000 websites last year.....and I'm figuring that probably over 7,000 were porn of some sort.

Out of all of those, there have been several memorable ones...and I've blogged about them here. But this site, might be the saddest site that I have ever seen. It is a site started to raise money for this little boy who was paralyzed after a car accident. This is part of the last update:

It is with great sadness we have to share the terrible news about Neil, Kazumi and Sam. Sam died from meningitis on Friday and it seems that Neil and Kazumi took their own lives shortly after that.

We are all very shocked at this terrible news and thinking of everyone who cared for Sam or were close to Neil and Kazumi who are dealing with this tragic situation.

We are all better for knowing them and Sam could not have wished for better parents.

Truly heartbreaking.

Bittersweet Insomnia

2009-05-28T08:38:00.002-06:00

I've been averaging at least one night a week of insomnia over the past few months, and the most frustrating thing about insomnia is that all of a sudden you have all of the time that you need in order to get what you need done.....but you have no motivation whatsoever to do a damn thing.
For example, this morning I was up a little bit before 4am and decided to read in the hopes that it would tire me out enough to sleep.
Finished my book and wasn't tired.
What to do, what to do?
I could do dishes....they are threatening to to take over the kitchen.... nah, I can do them later.
Practice the piano? I think that my neighbor would be angry at the piano at 5 in the morning.
Work on the millions of other volunteer projects that I need to get done? Well....I tried, but got bored after about five minutes.
I ended up taking a shower and slowly walking to work. I didn't walk the whole way, just until the bus came on the street...I just walked from stop to stop to stop. At least it was a wonderful morning....let's just hope that it stays that way.

Zombie Graduate and the New Adult Sofa

2009-05-17T16:03:00.006-06:00

Hello from my the comfort of my brand new sofa!
Graduation is over.... and boy am I glad. The family was all there (Thank you Mom, Dad, Jimmy, and Libby!) and we had a nice low-key celebration. Went to just convocation, a late lunch at Su Casa, and then we went to an art show where Jimmy and his boyfriend were photography subjects. My graduation proofs arrived in the mail the same day that my diploma came. While the photo shows off my totally fabulous hairdo, it also makes me look zombie like--- or like someone how hasn't slept properly in a very long time.
I could write about what this graduation means to me....but I think that I'll spare all the hokiness for the moment. Let's just say that finishing helps me put away alot of the emotional baggage that I acquired during this process. I have all but three thank you cards already sent out: Aunt Linnie, Libby, and my parents remain...I guess you can say that I saved the hardest cards to write until last. I really wanted presents....and surprisingly I got lots of presents. I am not used to getting what I want...and having selfish wants and getting them met is really really strange. The best present by far was the gift that my parents gave me.... a new sofa. Buying a new one has been something that I've been planning on for a while, but it has easily been put on the back burner many times.
This is the completely and totally awesome picture of my new sofa. Up close it looks like a carpet bag, it also looks gorgeous with my hardwood floors. Little bit by little bit all of the hand me down furnature is being replaced by legitimate (and more adult) pieces of furnature. Jimmy inherited my old sofa. The primary condition of this was that he had to find a way to get it upstairs to his apartment by the time the new one arrived. Of course, he didn't manage to get it up to his apartment until almost two days AFTER the new one arrived. He tried to get me to help him, and I refused. He kept saying that it would be no trouble....but even with the help of his friend Jamelle, it still looks like he was having some difficulty, don't you think?
The stairwell is horrible, and even though I was giggling and taking pictures, I had to help a bit as they navigated its twists and turns.

But I think that it was all worth it..... he seems very happy with being able to fall asleep on the sofa again.

Piano!

2009-04-30T20:49:00.002-06:00

Since my parents moved from Price I've had the family piano in the front room of my apartment. It is an absolutely beautiful piece of furniture that pretty much just collects dust because I can't play the thing worth as damn.

But.....

I finally got my act together and called a teacher. I hope to begin lessons on May 11th (after payday--how sad is that, that I have to wait for a payday for a $20 piano lesson).

Here's to learning how to play piano with two hands at the same time! Whoo! Only took me like 17 years to get back to taking lessons....may I have more patience this time with it.

Waxing Philosophical on the Subject of Soulmates

2009-04-26T21:15:00.002-06:00

Here's another philosophical post for you to groan over. Ever since I've finished my comps that "fog" (I mentioned earlier) is continuing to lift and lift and lift and even though the fog should have stopped it seems to keep lifting. I guess that I am lifting through many levels of clarity at the moment. Which makes since....the whole Masters thing was tainted with the whole Mr.3 thing and in completing one I had to deal with certain parts of the other.

When I had that palm reading thing-a-majig in December, the lady doing the reading had mentioned that people had many soulmates that they came across in their lives. Now, it is truth acknowledged between my best friend Libby and I that we are soulmates. At one point, I felt the same way about Mr.3 and after he hurt me so badly I changed my thinking on this......until I read the following definition of soulmate in the book "Eat, Pray, Love":

"People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that's holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. ........ [Mr.3]'s purpose was to shake you up, drive you out of that marriage that you needed to leave, tear apart you ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master and beat it. That was his job, and he did great, but now it's over."

If you go by that definition of soul mate, Mr.3 was one of the ones that I have met in my life..... the same still stands for Libby. In any case, it is just another example of why it isn't crazy at all that I don't regret the whole Mr.3 saga happening.

"I've Been Told That I'm Emotionally Needy, Do You Want to Go Out With Me?"

2009-04-24T20:59:00.003-06:00

I'm copyrighting that and I am going to turn it into a t-shirt.

A few weeks ago I went to a conflict management training and we had to do this exercise where we train ourselves to not be triggered emotionally by being called names. You had to think of the three people who drive you most nuts in the world and write down all the adjectives that describe them. Then with a partner you have them call you that name. Once you're called the name you have to say "sometimes I can be ______, but right now I need to move beyond that so I can handle the issue at hand."

I did this with my co-worker Shari. I called her "dishonest" and all the color drained from her face and then she looked like she had eaten something really tart...then it was my turn.
"Debbie, you are always playing the victim".

My jaw dropped and I resembled something that looks like a fish out of water.

The first inclination is that you want to ask why, then you want to refute the comment and then you just want to win the conversation by proving somehow that you are something completely other than what you were just called. And this is how arguments and conflicts happen and all progress just stops.

We've turned this exercise into an office game....throwing around accusations such as "controlling", "dishonest", and the latest and greatest "emotionally needy". Where did that one come from? .....ah...our favorite ex-husband, Mr.3. There hasn't been an update on Mr.3 for a while and that has been by design. In January, we almost caught him. 10 hours behind sort of deal....and there is another woman to add to the "ex-Mr.3 sorority". She's wonderful and amazing.....and even though Mr.3 is a horrible man he has managed to find some pretty damn cool ladies. I'm not sure if I am going to go into this new chapter on the blog just yet.... but I would like to announce that I've started writing the book. The other day however Mr.3 sent her a painful heartfelt email that is filled with empty promises and also trashes every other woman he has been with. I haven't seen the full email but I've been given the cliff notes in which I'm accused of being emotionally needy and basking in the glow of Mr.3's accomplishments at the MEC.

I admit that I had the' fish on dry-land moment', then I wanted to find all the email proof from him that refuted what he said, and then..... I stopped.

I stopped completely.....
and I began to laugh.

Cause it is just like the conflict management class.....he aimed every word to hurt me, to drag me down into a pit of despair, to question myself, to completely throw me off track.

Its failed... and I'm gonna make the t-shirt to prove it.

No More New Face of Sexy

2009-04-13T07:52:00.002-06:00

Why? You may ask.

Cause the damn thing is made of fricking latex!

This is not on the packaging or instructions anywhere.

Yesterday I just thought that my teeth were hurting because I was eating a bunch of sugary candy and I haven't had much candy in a while. But last night, as I had the guard on (which I was starting to like) it kept sticking strangely to my gums and my month was producing a HUGE amount of saliva.....and then the burning set in and I removed it. My suspicions have been confirmed this morning as my mouth is dry and sore only where the guard came into direct contact with my mouth.

What to do? Not sure really. Now in times past when latex has come into contacts with the girlie parts there wasn't much I could do except try to heal naturally. But I think that I am going to try some salt water rinses and hope that my mouth will heal faster than the parts down below that couldn't exactly have anything put on them.

I'm really annoyed that the box is not marked at all that it contains latex. I am going to call the company this afternoon and complain.

Review of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

2009-04-12T20:38:00.003-06:00

What happens when someone combines violent zombie mayhem with Jane Austen? It becomes something that I spend money on and buy!

There is alot of Jane Austen fan fiction out there, something that I found out on a date in January where we slowly walked through the shelves of the local Barnes and Nobles: lots of books continuing the various stories (I've only read one book of that sort) and there is a whole Jane Austen detective series.

Back to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies..... basically it is a retelling of the story (word for word in the majority of cases) with some Zombie action thrown in. Although there are some plot tweaks and changes. One of them being the relationship between Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins. While they still marry, you no longer have to pity Ms. Lucas for her choice in husband as she gets bitten by a zombie and eventually she becomes one. Mr. Collins is so heartbroken that he commits suicide. Lydia still runs away with Mr. Wickham, but in the final settlement where they are forced to marry, a condition is that Mr. Darcy gets to beat him senseless and lame in the name of honor. Wickham is so crippled that he continually soils himself, and selfish Lydia has to constantly change the diapers of her "brave" husband. And of course, in the final confrontation between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth over the rumors of Mr. Darcy proposing to her....there is a physical fight. Lady Catherine is very well respected for her fighting skills (she has a guard of personal ninjas you know) and it was because Elizabeth didn't behead Lady Catherine and let her live that Mr. Darcy renewed his affections.

The book was silly to be sure. The blending of Asian martial arts and 1800 England was...well...interesting. It was worth the read for the novelty alone; and the reading guide and artwork with the inaccurate period costumes, highly amusing. Out of all of Jane Austen's novels, I think that this would be definitely the only one that could be adapted to include a zombie menace.....possibly Emma.... but Pride and Prejudice is the only one with characters that lend themselves to really pride themselves on their social standing AND fighting skills. Also, Pride and Prejudice is probably the most recognizable storyline of Jane Austen. I don't think that it is her best book, but it is a good introduction to her writings. Everyone who is a hopeless romantic can appreciate the love/hate and then love relationship between Elizabeth and Darcy. I'm sure that all of us wish that we had her ready wit....cause she never seems to falter in an agruement. She isn't very deep though, then again, her character is only 20 years old...and how deep are we at that age anyway? I perfer Persuasion with its heroine, Anne Elliot. She's a klutz and make mistakes....and develops maturity with time. She's leaned on by so many people, and often unrecognized for what she does. She's older, 29, and has much more depth to her character. I recognize more of myself in her than in Elizabeth Bennett. So while Darcy would be nice, give me Captain Wentworth anyday.

The New Face of Sexy

2009-04-11T17:20:00.003-06:00

So I finally caved in (after waking myself up in pain last night from grinding my teeth) and bought a night time mouth guard. Apparently if I sleep with my mouth closed I clench my teeth and jaws....which causes me much pain and muscle spasming. Now if I don't sleep with my mouth closed I don't clench....but then I just drool all over myself. And honestly....who likes to wake up with dried drool all over their face?

The goal is to sleep with my mouth closed and not have my current level of face pain. Hopefully I can teach myself to stop doing this....but until then, this is the new face of "thexy" (sexy with a lisp).

I have a feeling that this is definitely going to increase my dating prospects.

The Pity Pass

2009-04-08T15:54:00.002-06:00

No one knows better then me that I haven't been the best graduate student....I've joked about it plenty of times. I know that my passing of my comps was due more to politics than performance. It already feels pretty hollow. And since I know this, I really don't want to be reminded about it. So the thanks-for-nuttin' award goes to my chair who sent me the following email today:

I am writing this email as Chair of your supervisory committee. This email is to let you know that you have passed the take home portion of your exam. Congratulations!

After considerable discussion and debate, your committee has agreed to also pass you on your lab exam; however, they have asked that I let you know that this was an exceptionally poor exam, and they are very disappointed in your performance.

Translation: Congratulations you have a masters degree, but you still suck.