Move over, mouse, there's a cat in the house.

Because my best friend is slightly bad at life, the Dear (Allergic) Boy and I are now proud owners of one orange cat. He actually used to belong to me years ago so he's not entirely new. His name is Petey and he's two-thirds love and sweetness and one-third claws and teeth(ness).



He's been living mostly in my room (Oh. Yeah, the Dear Boy and I each have a room in our house. Cuz who can fit two wardrobes into one room?! We sleep in his room every night, NOT that it's any of yo' business.) and ventures out to the living room every once in a while to purr and rub on things.

DB's allergies have been testing him but I think he is toughing it out and being a very brave little toaster.

Let's Get Silly

I read some things today, exciting things, tiresome things, and it occurred to me that I am a big fan of the internet. Man, when I was starting out I remember the internet being a local network for my town's university and if you wanted to chat with someone you "fingered" them. I've forgotten how I used to learn new things before the internet. Oh! Right. Talking to my peers. Or asking an adult. Well! That's me now, suckers! That's me!

Before the internet was graphical (I know!), before you could just pop onto the computer for a nice little email check, there were things called MUDs. You created a character and you operated this character in a geek-made world of hours and hours and hours of reading text. Now, I was probably (definitely) too young for these shenanigans and it probably (definitely) was the seed that sprouted my anti-social tendencies (oh, you didn't realize? You thought maybe I just didn't like you? No, I like you VERY much) today but who cares? What good comes of successfully sustained social interaction? Money? Fame? Yes. And everyone knows money and fame corrupt your soul and make you ugly on the inside.

I am also a big fan of books. My parents are very literary. Both advanced readers and writers and respected by all. There was really no way I would have turned out to be anything else besides this. There was only one answer to "Mom, I'm bored" and that was "read a book." My grandmother (Nana, to you) had one of those big sets of green encyclopedias that smelled of ink in her living room. During the two years my mom, sisters, and I lived with her when I was a kid, I sat for long periods of time when no one was home turning each page of a volume, one by one, skimming every useful bit I could find. Rocking horses, sea cucumbers, snowflakes.

I still do like reading books but the frequency of doing so really dropped off when that scratchy modem-connecting sound started giving me a thrill.

Man, I still love that sound. Reeeeeeee-oooooooo-chhhhhhhhhhh! To me, it said, "your friends are waiting and they are not worried at all about how cool you are. Only that you spend a lot of time reading the same things they have been reading."

Gosh. Sigh.

I heard something nice and now here it is paraphrased:

Prayer is not something you decide to do, it is a force like a heavy wind and it is loud enough for god's ears to hear.

I don't claim membership of any church or religion, although I admire qualities of most, like any good, thinking person should, but I am continuously drawn to words that describe complex feelings. And that is why I thought it was nice.

Like when you're out in the country and the silence hurts your ears. [;)]

Emma and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

Inching Along

Every little bird and every little bee
In the sky and in the sea.
Their black, bright eyes and hard, sharp beaks
Today they were made just for me.


By: Justin Richel, via.

~~~

I took some little pictures just now of desky stuff here at work. It ate about 12 minutes. Good enough for me.


Here are the two stacks of invoices on my desk at the mo'. Sorting and filing these takes about two days out of every week of mine. Yes, there are easier ways of doing this sort of thing. No, my boss won't allow it.


I pick up this thing about 24,395 times a day.


Every morning I cross off the day before it and rue that it is not Friday yet (unless it is Friday yet). You can see there my little countdown for how many weeks left 'til vacation-week. I used to have a little airplane-shaped paperclip attached to this calendar but I loaned it to a friend and I haven't seen it come back yet.


Every time Wicked Lady, next to me, talks to me, I have to press ye mute button on my keyboard so's I can hear her prattle on. Gets a bit irritating if I do say so myself.

AND THERE IT IS. THERE YOU ARE.

Don't you hate it when someone you don't like and don't respect identifies you as one of them?

If only feeling superior actually was the same as being superior.

They say (something along the lines of) life is what you make of it, right? Today has been heavy with fighting my outlook. It's precarious.

Physically, I feel pretty good. A couple ails are righting themselves. Yesterday was the big turn-around on a head/chest cold and on Saturday I bit the side of my tongue pretty hard so I was uncomfortable most of the day.

The cold had me at home Wednesday through Friday so returning to work this morning was anxious and dread-filled. Dreadful? I was full of dread. There are no real concrete reasons for this, though, besides the horrible co-worker and getting out of bed before I want to, so I am battling to change my outlook.

It's not a bowl of cherries but it's not so bad either, right? Well, hell.

It's a cold and it's a broken "hallelujah."

Right now, at work, I have leggings on under my jeans, a long sleeve shirt, a sweater, a fleece, and my coat over my legs. I wonder if I should gain some weight to insulate me. I'm cold every day. All day long. I think it might be why I've been getting sick so often this year but I couldn't find any information online supporting this theory. Go figure. I'll eat like it's Thanksgiving for every meal. I don't suppose that will be very good for my heart though. Ho hum.

Speaking of getting sick all the time, my lungs feel a bit funny. Tell-tale signs, you know. So I'm dosing up on these immunity support vitamins. And some nice Emergen-C. Fuck it. We'll see.

This is a bit much so let's muse upon some nice things:

My first week off this year is in seven weeks. Not too bad. See how easy it goes: seven, six, five, four, three, two...easy as pie! I don't think I'll make it out of town on any crazy trips but I will have a very nice time sleeping in and getting some writing done and cooking meals. And by then the weather will be perfect for hiking. Great glorious nature, I've got my eye on you.

What else?

It is sunny out there right now. Don't mean much to me from in here but it is nice to see out the windows if I turn around.

I miss listening to Paul Simon's latin musical, The Capeman.

Grumble Grumble Complain Complain

Getting up in the morning to get to work on time is increasingly horrible and difficult. It's so dark out. I've been trying to think of ways to fix this. Our bedroom window faces east, so you'd think the sun would be there to welcome me into my life, but the big house next door blocks out its face. Hmmph.

In other news, I wonder if it will make me feel better to get this off my chest:

The person that I work under is horrid to be around. Lazy, selfish, and stupid. This office is made up of two bosses, some engineers, some project managers, above-mentioned "HR Lead" and me. She is that certain brand of lazy that has no problem sticking other people with her responsibilities. She's the first one here in the mornings and if the dishwasher is full with a clean load (from me starting it before leaving the previous day), she'll restart it so she doesn't have to put it away. If heavy boxes need to be moved, she'll stand at the doorway of wherever they're going while I carry them to and fro. She can't even seem to print her own address labels or make her own copies. Only person in the office incapable of doing these things on their own.

She has below-average intelligence and very bad social skills. She's not awkward, just loud and clueless. She is ten years older than me and watches the new 90210 and Gossip Girl. She tells me lies about her son, making up things he says and does so he seems smarter and her life seems more interesting. She wears those Skechers shoes that have the rounded sole and are supposed to help you lose weight just by walking.

She has no organizational skills and will never take responsibility for incomplete tasks. She talks shit constantly about our bosses and everyone we work with. In fact, when a new project manager is hired, she'll repeatedly pull them into a conference room to have private conversations with them, telling them the company is doomed and that nothing will ever improve, until they quit. She persuaded two people to quit last year and tried to convince me to quit earlier this year. As the HR person, this is pretty crazy behavior.

She has it out for the owners of the company so she tries her hardest to make the office as chaotic and non-operational as possible. She doesn't want any of us to succeed because she is a small-minded, weak person.

Now you're wondering why she hasn't been fired. Well, I'll tell you. Two weeks after she started here (her employment was recommended by an employee at the time who worked with her at another office), she got married. A little while later, she got pregnant. Four months into her pregnancy, her husband put a fatal bullet into his own head.

So...

This was over two years ago and I can see her free-ride running out as more time passes, but it ain't over yet. Who wants to fire someone who endured such a horrific event in their lives? Not my bosses, that's who. Oh, she also had to "get [her] cervix cut off," in her words, a few months back, so there's that as well.

Lord, please help me. Deliver me from this fool. I do feel a mite bit better, though, actually.

What I've Learned Part IV

I've realized I didn't learn any new tricks or strategies for living life, I just removed the ways and means of self-destruction. I started taking things much, much more slowly. I learned that it's easier to accept the hard work and seek the hard truths now than it is to let things slowly slide their own way later. Thank you, and you, and you, for teaching me:

Always look out for yourself.
Someone is always the wiser.
If it hurts too much, let it go.
The future is easier if you make good decisions now.
Love is alive and well.

Happy four years to me!

I am still alive and I still love you. This time of year is crazy at work and I don't get on the internet much at home unless the Dear Boy is working.

:D

Like a Sore Thumb

You know all those neighbors were like, "Oh, what are those weirdos doing to our neighborhood now?!" Oh well, suck it, it's a neat house. Designed by Atsushi and Mayumi Kawamoto, via.

Dentist

Get another molar pulled today. Full of loathing. Hate it. I don't know why, because I don't have any needle-fear, but the novocaine is the worst part for me. It makes me sweat and raises my heart rate. Strange. Ugh. Ugha bugha.

Sounds good to me. Via.

Tom loved a few small things very much. Pennies from his birth year, alphabetizing, and when all of his socks came out of the dryer in pairs with none missing. He liked to rinse his hands twice after washing them and always put his left arm in his coat first.

Via.

Via.

Via.

Hole

When I was getting clean, I think it was probably around day 9 or 10, I dug a deep hole in the ground. A cat was dying of aging, quietly in a closet, and her owner asked me if I could do the honors. I didn't wear work-gloves and I started in the early morning before breakfast or tea.

It took hours. I probably dug it much deeper than I needed to (ain't that the way of my life). I remember how the earth was in ribbons, dry dirt to mud to clay, the deeper I got.

A few days later, when we checked on the cat and found that she was no longer breathing, I wrapped her in her blanket and tucked her into her grave. It was up among some small pines, shady and calm.

It was the first physically demanding thing I had been able to do after detoxing. Sweating and breathing heavy felt like the initial small accomplishments in a huge project I was gingerly taking on. Becoming a normal person.

Most people have the good sense never to derail their lives in the way that I did. I used to believe in throwing away regret but that was before I ever did anything really regretful. Regret is fine. It keeps you from making the same mistakes twice. Forgive yourself, correct the wrongs, and never do it again.

I still don't know what to do for other people that are in the place that I was. I don't know what made me decide that enough was enough and it was time to get clean. It's true what they say about how an addict can't be persuaded by anyone but themselves to get better.

I am worried, at times deeply and to distraction, about someone I can't remove from my life. In the past, if I've been lied to and had my heart broken, I give that person up. But family is different, isn't it? Family should always forgive. I want to so badly. But I can't, not until it is over.

My heart regards her seldom, because it's easier that way, and my mourning is quiet and lonely. I wish that someday she can leave it behind, shoulder that regret, find a good place, and dig a hole.