forgot to mention something else major in the last post... i am now almost bald. i cut off 41 inches of hair and donated it to Locks of Love, the place that makes wigs for kids with cancer. maybe one day i'll post pics. not now, dont ask - CORY AND SEAN.
Yeah, I’m looking and I see my last post here was in February. Guess things have finally caught up to me and its time to make a post. So much has changed in the last few months; I don’t know where to begin.
I guess the most important thing (to me) right now is that last night the news reported information on the plane crash that killed my dad and four others almost a year ago. It’ll be a year on Tuesday. I can’t believe he's been gone that long and it still rips me up every single day that he isn’t here. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get past that, and this news was a devastating blow to me. I can’t imagine how the others feel... my friend Kelly called me last night while I was on my way home from a work trip out of town and my grandmas (I hadn’t been to my house yet and had stopped at the cave to hang out awhile). Kelly was watching the local/Albuquerque news last night and they reported that the plane crash was essentially the pilot's fault. They said that the national transportation safety bureau (NTSB) had found that Ricky had taken an antihistamine that day and it MAY have made him drowsy, thus causing the crash. full story is located here. id like everyone to know that in my heart Ricky was NEVER at fault and never will be, as far as me and MY family are concerned. We don’t even believe the crash was an accident, and instead believe that it was an act of divine intervention. Obviously, my dad, Deanna, Ricky, and the smith family were needed more somewhere else, instead of here, with us. And when I say MY family, I refer to my mom, my sister - stink, my grandma - the bat, and myself. There are others who don’t see it the way we do, of that I am quite sure. They are NOT my family, and I could give a shit what they think. My dad, Deanna, and Ricky died trying to save a child’s life; they died doing good, and that’s good enough for me.
Recently, my sister and I decided that in honor of our dad, we'll be making regular food donations to the local Humane Society and Animal Control. Dad didn't just save humans, he saved pets too. We thought "what better way to honor Dad than to start a 'legacy'" of sorts. If we had the money, we'd be doing more, but this is what we can do now, and it makes us feel good knowing that we're making a difference too. We've lost four pets since we lost Dad and we know in our hearts that Dad's taking care of them, wherever they are.
And in other news, I have quit my last job and now have another. I am now the proud owner of the title "New Mexico Department of Health Long Term Services/Developmental Disabilities Supports Division Southeast Regional Office Training Coordinator". Quite a mouthful, right? Thankfully, it can be shortened to "SERO Trainer", lol. I started there on June 30th. I consider myself very lucky. Both my bosses (one in our office and one in Las Cruces) are absolutely awesome to work for. All my co-workers and the others from the statewide training unit are great. It’s nice to work for a place that feels like family and know you have the support of everyone you work with. So far, I'm loving this job. Mostly, it's been paperwork and getting a feel for all my job responsibilities, because I'm not certified to train all the courses yet. Essentially, I'll be training people to do the jobs I used to do - the case management and services coordinator type stuff, and eventually some of the direct care stuff as well.
LAST, BUT NOT LEAST!! I'll *finally* be having my hysterectomy on Tuesday, to get rid of all the cancer and stuff. The chemo was pretty much a failure and things got a lot worse than I expected. I finished my last treatment the day after I came home from the MVP thing in Seattle. I was told that we'd set up a 4-6 MONTH timeline for the surgery at my one month chemo follow-up appointment (which was scheduled for early June). At the June appointment, I was told things didn't look so good and that it was being changed from 4-6 months to 4-6 WEEKS. The first surgery was scheduled for July15th, but I'd just started a new job so it got put off until August 5th. The one year anniversary of my dad's passing. At first, I was a little uncomfortable with it, but then thought to myself "What better way to do this, than to do it now and say 'Hey, Dad! Look! I'm finally getting it taken care of!'" I'll probably be making a place on the forums for Gimpi to keep people updated on how things are going. I'll be in the hospital 3-4 days and on bed rest for two weeks, at the least.
Anyway, I think that's enough catch-up for now. Hopefully, I'll find the time to keep things updated here instead of posting twice a year. :)
*poof*
goodbye!
im sure many people are spending last night and now today reflecting on the year just past and their hopes for the year to come. this very minute, bloggers all over the world are filling their cyberhomes with posts about the past present and future... hopes and dreams, tragedies and woes. wishing for things that might have been and might well be... so like 'everyone else' i'll do the same. 2007 was not a good year for me. i dont have many of those anyway. yeah, i know, im young. i have my whole life ahead of me, but unlike most people my age, my lifespan wont be nearly as long as theirs. cancer, illness, bad luck... have all followed me for quite awhile. and will continue to do so in the future. so, without further adieu, i'll share my story.
i turned 25 in 2007. i had an 'ok' job working at a 'trendy' jewelry store. i didnt really care for my coworkers, though i grew to be rather close with a couple of them. through that job, i met my friend erika, who has become one of the most awesome people ive ever had the pleasure of calling my friend. id consider her my best friend (and yes, its ok to have more than one 'best' friend... i have several.) i got a promotion in that job. and while it had shit for pay there were really good benefits. i also met mara from carlsbad, though over time we grew apart. i thought once that i could trust her. now im pretty sure i was wrong. its quite possible (later in 2007) that mara had something to do with me losing that job. today i sit here and say "im glad i did". not many people get happy about being fired, but this loss opened up a much better employment opportunity to me.
i met new people, forgot most of them. could really give a crap. i nearly lost a good friend due to my brutal honesty. and his inability to be my friend when i needed him the most. im glad cory doesnt hate me anymore. (and yeah, G, admit it, you DID hate me for awhile.) and i am so glad you and gnimsh came down for spring break. that was a blast and we should do it again sometime.
our sibling-site 247fixes and our very own therock247uk received the microsoft mvp award for windows security. we have plans to fly out for the big hoopla in april. hold on to your hats guys, therock is comin to america! (and we're all scared.)
i got closer with my sister and my mom. unfortunately, that also changed. i havent seen my sister in over a week now. appears shes too good to hang out with her family. and she cant be bothered to answer our calls. that makes me sad. mom and i have become better friends. i can attribute that mostly to the loss of my dad. we needed someone to lean on, and we both found each other.
and as i mentioned above, i lost my dad this year. he was a flight nurse who died in the line of duty. i honestly cannot relate how much that hurts. how i wish things had been different and i know i cant go back and change them. if i had it to do all over again, i would... but it still wouldnt have prepared me for the heartache and misery i feel every day. theres nothing like waking up every morning feeling lost and dealing with the emotional upheaval every time someone mentions his name. or driving into the parking lot of work every morning and staring at the place my dad was working when the plane went down (my new office building is almost right next door to the roswell southwest medevac base.) i look over at their plane (a new one) nearly every day. and when i see it take off, i say a prayer that my friends there will make it back home safely. im pretty close with a couple of people that still work there. who knew and loved my dad probably as much as i did.
and then i got sick again. found that out two days before the crash. never got a chance to tell dad. still trying not to admit that its back and feels a bit worse than it did before. maybe some slight part of that is because of the emotional issues surrounding his death. the day my doctor released me to go back to work from bereavement leave, they fired me. whoop-ti-fucking-do. two days later i already had another job (which i absolutely love). a couple months later i found out my liver was failing. spent a week on my deathbed before they figured out that it was tylenol poisoning from the pain medication i was taking for the cancer stuff. (it was a pill with 10mg of hydrocodone to 650mg of acetaminophen - i was taking six pills a day minimum... when you stop to think about it, taking 5000mg of tylenol a day is not healthy for ANYBODY. this went on for nearly 3.5 years before we figured this out.) because of the long term poisoning, i will probably never recover full use of my liver. "at best" i have 50-70% normal liver function now. lovely thought, isnt it?
so the year in review was bad and good. im thankful for my family and for my 'real life' friends like erika, monica, kelly and jody, eli, chris, priscilla... a few others. and for my closet friends (you guys know how much i love yall, but im not gonna sit here and list all thirty-seven thousand of you).
and now my hopes for 2008...
i hope nobody dies. :) that's all.
(ok, there's one person id like to see dead, but its not nice to name names. :P)
i got a text message from one of my coworkers, a 'forward', which i normally hate, but i thought this would be a good one. for me, it came at one of those 'right time right place' situations. it was something that made me feel better, something i needed to hear. it was worth passing on:
Never say you’re happy when you’re sad.
Never say you’re ok when you’re not.
Never say you’re alone while I’m alive.
i wonder what people are thinking when they decide they're going to disappear off the face of the earth for awhile and then change their minds and try to waltz back into someone else's life... i've never understood that, and i probably never will. you cant just leave, vanish even, and then all of a sudden show back up expecting everything to be the same. it isn't, especially if you did something to hurt someone else, intentional or not. if anyone knows a 'good' explanation for this phenomenon, i'd be happy to hear it.
Thanksgiving Day.
So, uh, I probably have a lot to be thankful for, but to be honest… I really don’t care. I don’t get the fact that we have to have a national holiday set aside to be “thankful”. Shouldn’t we ALWAYS be thankful? Honestly again, none of us (in general) actually stop every day and thank |insert random deity here| for everything good in their lives. I don’t know anyone who does that. Maybe that’s why we have to make it a national holiday? Pretty sad. So…
I guess I could write a list of what I’m thankful for. I’m glad I have a family to share the holidays with, even if they drive me crazy. I’m thankful that I have good friends to come save me from my family. I have enough – food clothes and shelter. I even have a lot of “nice” things. I have a good/decent job. So many people don’t have what I have and I feel sorry for them. For some, its for reasons beyond their control. For others its simply because they don’t work for it. Nothing in life comes free. Everything has its price. So, now, I ask you. What are YOU willing to pay?
what the fuck was i thinking?! i'll tell you what i was thinking. i was thinking that you were my friend. i was wrong. i hate admitting that i'm wrong, but i'll do it if i am. so here i go: I WAS WRONG. YOU are an ASSHOLE. not only do *i* think you're an asshole, so does my shrink. so what does that make you? it makes you a fucking prick AND an asshole. i hope you're happy.
Happy Birthday, Mom!
I love you, and I'm glad I have you. I don't know where I'd be if it wasn't for you.
Thanks for everything!
just dropping a line to say that im 'ok', whatever 'ok' means. hope everyone else is doing better than 'ok'.... i'm around, but i'm just not *here*... you know how to find me.
to clarify my new position, as several people have been asking me about it, i offer the following... originally sent in an email to a few friends, i paste here, for all to see:
Background on the new job:
Back in March 2000, I went to work for a company that provides services to people with developmental disabilities- such as mental retardation (now you know why I hate the word ‘retard’), schizophrenia, behavioral issues, psychological issues, physical limitations (such as cerebral palsy or epilepsy)… among other things. I worked in the client’s homes, essentially doing the work of a ‘mother’. I would cook, clean, assist with medication, transport, assist with dressing and hygiene, advocacy, things of that sort… the technical title for the position is ‘residential support staff’.
Anyway, I worked as RSS for a year and a half, while I was going to college. My goal at the time was to become an advocate, a social worker type person. We call that ‘case management’. For the longest time, I knew that I belonged working with people who were disabled, mostly because I grew up ‘disabled’. I know what it’s like in their shoes. I wear the same ones.
A couple of years ago, that goal to become a case manager came true. I spent 11 months doing it until the company I worked for closed down. As for case management, we handled budgets, master files, home visits, services coordination (for therapies, home services, job searching, ‘day hab’ which is like schooling/training), working with therapists, the department of health, lawsuits (Jackson vs. state of New Mexico – it was the lawsuit that closed the mental institutions in New Mexico), planning services for the coming 6-12 months, investigating abuse, things of the sort... After the company decided not to renew their contract with the state, we were all subsequently tossed out on our asses, with less than three weeks’ notice. I was too hurt by the industry to stay in it at the time, and decided I needed to try a different career path.
And now onto my new job… I’ll be working for a service provider (who offer residential housing similar to ‘group homes’ except they’re all integrated into the community and there can be no more than four clients per home). They also provide ‘day hab’, the training in order to succeed independently in life, or at least try to. They have job coordinators/job coaches. They have a nursing department… and many, many other things. Some of the clients we provide services to are either behaviorally or medically fragile. Anyone who falls into either or both of those categories has to have one on one staffing, as directed by the state, for health and safety issues – for both the client and others around him/her.
The one on one staff (regardless of what area ‘dayhab or residential’) will report directly to me. I’ll be in charge of all the paperwork supporting the special staffing, and making sure that the paperwork is correct and submitted to both the case manager and to the state in a timely manner. I will also be in charge of all the house supervisors. They report to me, and I take care of problems. I’ll be reporting to the residential program director (RPD) and he will take care of anything that I cannot resolve on my own. The breakdown (top to bottom) will be Marvin (the RPD, who I've worked with before), me (residential team coordinator), the house supervisors, the senior staff from each house, and then the support staff. I will also be doing home visits, and services audits to make sure the client is being provided services appropriately, and calling meetings to implement services, new and old.
Maybe this makes better sense now…
For quite awhile now, I’ve thought that I didn’t belong where I was. I find this is more and more true with each passing day. I still don’t belong, but sometimes things work out for the best and a person ‘belongs’ more in some places than in others.
For the last ten and a half months, I’ve worked in a retail store. More than half of that time I was the assistant manager. Like me, most others who knew where I was working didn’t think that I should have been the assistant. I –should– have been the store manager. Anyway, that’s not my problem anymore, nor is it theirs. While I was on bereavement/funeral leave after my dad’s untimely passing, the place I worked for fired me. What kind of bullshit is that? The letter of termination reads that I supposedly left the store unattended (which they can’t prove I did, but I can’t prove that I didn’t). It also says that I cashed out my own employee purchase (which *is* true, except I’m the one who reported it to my district manager.) The letter states that I “admitted” to my wrongdoing. I don’t see how I ‘admitted’ to anything, considering the fact that I REPORTED it on my own to my supervisor, so I –wouldn’t- get in trouble. Anyway, they fired me the day I came back from funeral leave. How’s that for a big FUCK YOU…
But, alas, timing is everything. My friend Monica (I believe I've mentioned her before) and I were emailing each other and I told her about getting fired. I was joking and said, "so, you know anyone looking for my skills?" and she writes back, "as a matter of fact, I do." So then I go to her office to hang out for awhile. She calls up some friends of ours that own a company that provides a full range of services to people in our area with developmental disabilities. They needed someone who's got a bachelor's degree, with experience in the field, preferably trained. Guess who fits all those qualifications? ME ME ME!
So then Friday, I went to say hi. Turns out they've been looking for me for months and didn't know where to look. I just happen to fall into their laps at the right place and right time. So I have my "interview" on Monday morning. I don't see how I couldn't get this job. Not with them saying things like "you get to have all your old clients back!" and "so, you'll be here on Monday, RIGHT?!" and "its so good to have you back!"... how else could I take it?
And so I am incredibly excited. Another benefit of this job besides me getting to do what I've wanted to do for quite awhile, is that these people all knew my dad. They know the loss I've taken and are sympathetic to my needs. (I'll be going to a see a grief counselor starting next week - on Monday). They know about it already and are of the mindset that "girl, you go and do what you need to do." and that's a direct quote.
So, all that being said, sometimes good things -do- happen to good people.
in regrettable sadness, i realise that the last post i made was on april 30. yeah, we all go on hiatus but this is even a bit long for me. at least i think it is, mostly because so much has happened in the last 40+ days. i dont even know where to begin. most of you who read this blog talk to me nearly everyday anyway so the majority of it will be about things youve already heard.
*we hired a new girl. charaty started may 1. today she was finally 'approved' to work the store by herself. praise god for this because its about fucking time i got a day off! veronica no longer works for us. she looks like she'll pop any day now, even though shes not due until august. im pretty sure shes a lot further along than she thinks she is. *shrug*
*once again i feel like ive been stabbed in the back. time and time again im told that if judith fucks up one more time 'shes gone'. ive been told that repeatedly since december and ive about had it with being lied to. i wonder daily why i work as hard as i do. i bust my ass for that store and the company but im getting no help and no support in return. i have a bachelors degree IN MANAGEMENT! judith is my immediate supervisor, the store manager, and she was a high school dropout who barely got her GED. does this seem fair? fuck no. what makes it even worse is that she makes twice what i do and does half the work. dont give me any shit about 'thats how it is in management'... because its not. this isnt the real world, this is the world i live in... every day. how hard is it to vacuum the floor at night? she cant even do that. today was a great example... she closed last night. the registers were both short --- AND the deposit. the bank called me and had me go in to fix it. which subsequently made me late opening the store. not only is she too incompetent to vacuum, she cant even fill out a deposit slip correctly. she never thinks things through, she never plans ahead, and when she is actually -doing- something, she does it half-assed. im sure you guys are sick of me bitching about her.
*to top all this off, the district manager came a couple weeks ago. she chewed my ass out for three and a half hours about how the new girl isnt trained properly, shes not in dress code, she doesnt know company policy, the store looks like shit, nothing is right and everything is wrong. i was working a double that day (13 hours) and i was NOT in the mood. especially because id spent the day before (12 hours) in the car and sitting in a doctor's office waiting room in lubbock, with my grandmother. it gets better.... the next day the DM stopped into the store to see judith before heading back to el paso... and told her to fix a few things. then she left. no yelling, no hatefulness, nothing. not a word about the new girl's training or about the missing/incorrect paperwork, or how bad the store looked. 'fix this, bye.' was pretty much all it consisted of. im angry.
*on a lighter note... i feel semi-accomplished today. i spent nine hours reversing the order of all the stuff on the back wall at the store. (this was one of the things the DM was bitching about) its a fairly large wall with a lot of shit on it, making it not an easy nor a fun task to do. but its done and im grateful. i can look at my store and point out several large sections and say "I DID THAT!" and feel somewhat proud of it. gimpi and gnimsh have seen a store quite similar to mine so they can understand what an onerous task this is and how difficult it was to accomplish.
*i went to dinner with my friend monica last week. the one i worked with at desert state (the social work agency). im really sad and scared for her. she was recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. i guess she got really really sick really really fast. in december she'd mentioned to me that one of her legs was feeling kind of numb, that maybe she'd pulled a muscle. at my birthday dinner in january, she said that she couldnt feel either of her legs and thought that she had a slipped disc and asked about my chiropractor. i hadnt heard from her since then. i got an email from her one day and we decided to go to dinner. over dinner, she told me the rest of the story. apparently, sometime in march, her friend lisa came to live with her (no explanation of why, but i figured it out for myself. lisa was worried about her and moved from fort worth to come be with her.) by the beginning of april, monica could barely walk. it got so bad that monica's parents and lisa packed her into the car and drove in the middle of the night to the texas tech university medical center in lubbock. she was in critical care for two weeks and then was diagnosed with MS. monica was afraid to tell me... it hurts me that she couldnt find the words to tell me that something was wrong, but i understand why she didnt. friends do that to each other all the time. we gloss over things or conveniently leave them out so as not to upset or scare the other person. i hope that in the future, no matter how bad things get, that she knows she can call me, she can always count on me, any time. i hope that she isnt afraid to say something that she thinks will hurt, even if it will hurt. it hurts more not to know.
* moving on... the bat said something to me today that kind of made me sad but it was nice. my mom called while i was gone. i called her back. she asked where i was. i was at the cave. i asked where she was. she was having dinner with stink. it made me sad that they hadnt invited me. mom calls later from home. her cat is missing. i call back later to see if she found the cat. shes out having coffee with stink's friend/roommate cara. again, i wasnt invited. im never invited. i said something to the bat along the lines of 'im sure glad my mom would rather hang out with my sister's friends than with me. it must be nice to be somebody's favorite...' the bat says 'you may not believe this, but you ARE my favorite.' which i countered with 'we both know thats not true but thanks for trying to make me feel better.' she says, 'no, really. you come over here when you dont have to. you spend time with me. you do things for me and i dont need to ask you to do them. you offer. you take me places without complaining. ever. im glad i have you. if it werent for you, id be a lonely old woman.' that made me really sad. when i was leaving i said, as im walking out the door, 'thanks for letting me hang out with you.' she says 'im glad you want to hang out with me. ill see you tomorrow.' hows that for feeling special?
*enough. this is too long already. id be surprised if you didnt stop reading before now.
*oh yeah, and something else that makes me feel 'accomplished' today, is that i paid ALL of my bills yesterday, including some that weren't due yet. i also did all my laundry and hung everything up and put it away. I EVEN IRONED!! tomorrow i intend to clean the house and go get my nails done (omg, im really becoming a girly-girl! monica, youd be damn proud!)
i have received a report of a broken blog. this is a test to make sure it's working. the error message reported was:
If you can see this page, then the people who manage this server have installed cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM) which use the Apache Web server software and the Apache Interface to OpenSSL (mod_ssl) successfully. They now have to add content to this directory and replace this placeholder page, or else point the server at their real content.
anyone else having this problem or have seen it in relation to this page? let me know, thanks!
apparently we hired someone today. i cant say im necessarily excited about it, but i am glad that we finally found a somewhat decent person. she starts tomorrow, and will be training with me and judith for the next couple of weeks. itll be good to finally have four people working the store again. unfortunately... maybe fortunately, im not sure, when i talked with veronica this evening she told me she was glad that we hired somebody because she's about to put in her 2 weeks' notice. she's almost 7 months pregnant, so this hardly comes as a surprise. i look forward to working with this new one, charaty, i hope she works out.
ok, after dinner tonight i decided to go to the post office before i went home. i walked inside and there was this guy, about 30 or so, a little shorter than me, dressed nice, hispanic... he was checking his mail and sorting it at the trash bin and as i walked past, he said to me, "you look nice today." i turned around and looked at him. then he said 'perhaps i should explain myself, so you dont think im some creep.' i looked at him more intently and said 'go on...' and then he told me 'for new years i made a resolution for myself to give a sincere compliment to a random stranger at least once a day. until today i hadnt broken it. i was feeling sick this morning so i called in to work, but then decided to come out and at least check my mail... which is when you came in. i knew it was perfect. you DO look nice today, you also looked a little down so i figured you could use a compliment. bad day?' i answered, 'thats a pretty neat resolution, congrats on being able to stick with it. and yes, it was a sucky day.' then he says 'well, i hope your week gets better. have a good night.' and then he walked out the door.
ok, so im going for the gold in number of blog posts for one day. (i still have one more after this).
earlier today, about 420p i leave the house to go to the chiropractor, my appointment was pushed back from 245 because the chiropractor food poisoned himself and they were trying to fit in patients who'd missed their appointments earlier in the week because of it. so anyway, when i leave the house, with the three dogs happily sleeping inside, i only expected to be gone for about 15 minutes so i didnt lock the front door. MISTAKE! after leaving chris's office i realized that i was out of some of my medications so i decided to stop by the pharmacy, another 15 minute stop. when i got home today there were two cops and my next door neighbor standing in my front yard. (the wife of the guy i hate because hes always screaming and yelling and cussing at their nephew who lives with them, and likes to mow his lawn at the crack of dawn - literally - every goddamned weekend). well... apparently while i was gone, the wind blew the big door open because it doesnt have a proper latch. the dogs somehow managed to get the screen door open as well and they got loose. mind you, in this, id left my keys sitting on the coffee table right next to the front door. i get home and pat comes running up to me crying saying 'thank god youre ok!' im like, wtf?! and then she starts explaining. when she got home from work, about 445, she and matthew (the nephew) noticed my dogs were out, so they were nice and decided to round them up and bring them back to me... where they discovered both the front doors to my house wide open, my keys laying in the middle of the floor, a spilled sonic coke and half the lights in the house on... worried sick that something bad had happened to me - such as being kidnapped - they got the dogs inside and went back to their house to call the police. i got there a few minutes after they did. needless to say, it freaked me out and seriously embarrassed me that this happened. i was mortified. it is, however, nice to know that my neighbors care enough about me to be worried when something is out of whack with my normal routines. so anyway, im surprised PD responded that quickly, because it seems that they usually show up way after they're needed. they must have been in the neighborhood when the call came in, otherwise im sure they wouldnt have made it at all. *shrug*
note: must remember to lock at least one door when leaving the house, even if only for a few minutes.
last week i read an... 'interesting' story on yahoo news and i was talking about it to gimpi. this sparked an idea for a new area on the naughtycloset.com forums. please welcome the 'what do you think about ...' section. the intent of this forum is to create a thought-provoking topic area where members can post questions, comments, and news stories that makes one go 'hmmm'. discussion is open, and we'd love to see what other people think. you can find the 'what do you think about...' posts here. we've already had several posts and many with feedback from our members.
also, if you'd like to become a member of our forums, you can go here to register. we'd love to have you.
so, about a month ago we had a really bad hail storm - it was the week after gimpi and gnimsh came to visit. the hail damage was quite extensive for my poor little honda. i didnt realize just how bad it was until after the second hail storm we had a week after the first one. there's a nearly 8 inch crack in the passenger side (top) of my windshield, and the hood and roof look like swiss cheese (without the holes). the insurance adjuster said it looked like id parked my car in the middle of the driving range and left it for a week - then he asked if i lived anywhere near the golf course. i told him 'yeah, sure, about 6 miles away' (being a smartass). he thought it was funny... but anyway, unlike most people in my area, my car cant just go to one of the dent removal places, its going to have to go to a body shop and be practically rebuilt. damages:
*windshield - new
*hood - new
*take out interior headliner to pop out all the dents in the roof
*repaint the whole car
*take out headlights and replace
*new guards for the windows (because theyre dented all to hell too)
so anyway, my deductible was only $250 (which is good because my mom's was $1000)
and they cut me a check for $3300 (after the deductible)
lets just hope that it actually covers the costs for the repairs. i have to take it in monday to have the body shop look at it. :( the worst part is that the car will be paid off in june, and until the storms, it was in 95% as good of condition as the day i bought it - new. *sniffle*
*a lot of stuff happened in march. mostly the first week was a load of crap. same shit, every day. work work work.
**the next week, was beginning march 12, when gimpi and gnimsh and danielle came out to roswell for their spring break. danielle flew from syracuse to minneapolis to hook up with gnimsh. then they flew to tucson to pick up gimpi. from there, on march 12, they drove from tucson to roswell. they got lost, despite the stellar directions i had given them more than a month in advance, and confirmed more than once along the way. i still havent quite figured out how they got lost IN roswell... its not like this place is very big or anything. i can forgive the fact that the day they came in was the day after time change, and that it was storming and dark. they didnt show up until after 9pm, though we'd been expecting them around 7-730. (/me flips the bird at alamogordo, everyone gets lost there...)
**we ate dinner when they finally arrived on monday night, though i did have to go hunt them down, because gimpi gave gnimsh the wrong directions - telling him to turn on the truck bypass thinking it was main street - and main street was a good four miles or so further east than they turned off. they were exhausted. on tuesday we went to carlsbad caverns, and it was fun. i think we all had a good time. we went to a bar/grill hole in the wall for dinner on the way home. wednesday brought forth downtown roswell and the shitty UFO museum. we had a great lunch and a 'pub' called farleys with stink and her friend cara. that night, we went and saw 300 in the theater, and we were late, which sucked because we couldnt all sit together. then they got to check out our alien walmart. unfortunately, they had to go home thursday morning and were gone before i even woke up. the best part of the 'roswell incident' was that we all got together at my house wednesday night and bullshitted for a couple of hours and split a bottle of wine. gnimsh even left me a reminder of the visit by changing all my fridge magnet alphabet to file extensions. (normally we have witty/rude comments spelled out on the side of the fridge. they got to play with my wang and we've got pictures. thats a whole other story in itself.
**the part that sucked the most out of the whole trip - other than the fact that justin drove like, 1200 miles in four days - as well as having flown across the country, was that none of us thought to get any planned group pictures, not until it was too late at least. so now we're planning another meeting in the future so we can actually do what we had intended to do this first time. i guess you could say we were all caught up in the moment, and then it was too late. thats partially my fault since i absolutely despise having my picture taken for any reason. it was really hard to say goodbye, so (from my perspective) we essentially ignored it and let it go. the minute they were gone i wished they hadnt left.
***a week after the two G's and a girl left, we found out that my sister's current roommate and her werent getting along so she decided to take my dad up on his offer for her and her friend cara to move into his vacant house. so, thursday the 22, justin, me, cara, stink, dad, his wife, and our step-sister kiska all converged on the apartment and got her shit out of there. it wasnt a pretty sight.
****most recently - this past week has been spring break. it has been nothing but 'disasters'. first disaster was judith and i got into a heated argument on monday night because she was deciding to take some time off this week in addition to the days she was already taking off. she didnt think i needed to know about it. i found out anyway, through erika. i called judith on it. it didnt get pretty. i called sherri, the district manager, that night to let her know what was going on in the store, because of all the petty bullshit thats going on and to tell her basically that im sick of it. i got my ass chewed on tuesday. enough for me to call my friend that works in our carlsbad store and cry (YES CRY) on the phone to her for almost an hour. on wednesday afternoon, erika drops the bombshell on me - she gave me her two weeks' notice. she found another job that pays better and will guarantee her more hours. i cant say i blame her but my heart is broken. now i really dont want to stay working where im at. i had thursday and friday off, but then soon realised why ive been sick all week and had so much trouble with my asthma lately. ive been going over to stink's house while she was painting and not realising that she was using latex based paint. anyone who knows me also knows i have a severe allergy to latex. she knows about the allergy, but didnt think it consisted of fumes - only skin contact. i didnt think about it until i had a severe reaction at her house and had to come home immediately for my asthma and anti-allergy medications. its saturday night and i still cant breathe. and i think im getting sick.
*****on a lighter note: on monday i will be receiving a brand new refridgerator. this rocks. its a whirlpool stainless steel satina fridge. ill take pictures of it when it gets installed on monday morning after i take bobo back to the vet for his checkup. im giving stink my old fridge and am getting a new one. im so excited!! kitchen remodel, here i come!!
so, im sure by now several people have taken notice of my extended absence from irc/chat/etc. im still alive (you were hoping i was gone for good, weren't you? i just know it. dont lie.)
the last few months have been real... whats the word im looking for... 'taxing', maybe? i dont know. it mostly started with some problems at work. verna quit the day before thanksgiving, and i didnt get any days off for about three weeks. it sucked. we had hired someone else right before verna quit, veronica. well, veronica is a lousy coworker, to say the least. one week she's whining about needing to go home early because shes having 'really bad cramps', among other things. then the very next week, im talking five days later, shes suddenly pregnant. verna and i both told judith not to hire her. we knew the kind of person she was. i mean really... tattooed on eyebrows? fat girl, my size but shorter, wearing skimpy shirts and way too tight pants. a chola chick if there ever was one. we werent impressed.
so judith immediately becomes buddybuddy with veronica. verna quits because she sees what's coming. we hire michaela the same day. judith and veronica practically ran her off. and she could have been a good employee. i guess we'll never really know, considering she quit two weeks later. veronica was threatening her to the point that she was literally scared to come to work. im not kidding.
so then we hired erika, who i might add is extremely cool. she's one of the most awesome people i've ever met, and we get along quite well. in fact, we've become pretty good friends. and then my appendix decides to let me know i dont need it anymore. the day before im supposed to start training her. im out of work for three weeks. during this time, they (judith and veronica) have essentially trained her in what kind of worker NOT to be. its a damn good thing that erika has a decent head on her shoulders, or else id be totally fucked at work. ive spent a lot of time undoing the things they did. she learns fast. shes also learned that she cant trust them. i had little to do with that. she found out the hard way.
the store literally 'went to shit' the three weeks i was gone. not kidding. even sherri and mara noticed. sherri came back at new year (while i was still out) from maternity leave. while i was gone, sales dropped, backroom turned into a disaster, paperwork wasnt completed appropriately, among other things. to name a few.
about a week and a half after i came back to work i had a very bad experience during one of my day shifts. im not going to go into detail about it, but suffice it to say that it fucked me up for a good three weeks or so. someone i absolutely cannot be around, at all, came into the store. it went downhill rapidly from there.
that's what prompted my disappearance from the internet. i know it sounds weird but if you knew the entire story it would make more sense. we'll suffice it to say that this person used to stalk me, and did some very bad things to me. things i have never been able to get over. it was that bad.
i simply couldnt talk to anyone. it was extremely hard for me to be at work, especially working by myself. i shut down completely and basically went into hiding. couldnt go anywhere, do anything, talk to anyone on the phone, much less in person. i almost couldnt function. at all.
and then we had inventory. that was a fucking blast. (im lying.) mara, from the carlsbad store, came up to run the inventory shift. she got here at about 230. i was working 9-6 that saturday, coming back at 845 to do the inventory shit. judith was supposed to be in at 130... she didnt show up until almost 5pm. mara was not a happy camper. topping that off was the fact that judith lied to her and to sherri (our district manager), telling them both that there was no overstock in the back room, nothing in the bathroom, nothing in storage, everything was out on the walls. that was a big fucking lie too, considering there were THREE cartons of unpacked hair accessories (barrettes, headbands, etc) in the bathroom. THREE cartons of 'build-a-bags' (school supplies-type kits). every fucking bin (about 30) on the wall in the back room was full to overflowing. there were FIVE boxes of markdowns stacked in the back room. not to forget all the overstock in body jewelry, sterling silver earrings, and other shit out front. you'd be pissed too, im sure. mara told me that in a WELL ORGANIZED store, it takes four hours to run a complete inventory count. do the math: we started at 9pm... and finished at 5am. thats how bad it was.
but it gets better! judith and veronica had 'hired' a bunch of their friends to come help. we split into "teams" of two, though i chose to work alone, because i know i would work better/faster, without someone else getting in my way. mara was showing every 'team' how to use the inventory guns. she and i both happened to overhear the following statement: (veronica's friend to veronica) - why cant we just start already? (veronica responding) because that BITCH hasnt shown us what to do.
and that was about the last straw. during our 'break', sherri called to check our progress. she got to hear about all that, and more. so now, veronica and judith are both on sherri's last nerve. they're jumping on it. their days are numbered. ive been assured of this not only by mara, but also by sherri.
for the last couple of weeks ive been working both stores. ours in roswell, and the one in carlsbad. mara's store lost a couple of people during this time. both were shit employees anyway, but she didnt have anyone else to work, to hire, to train. so ive been driving down there a few days a week for two weeks now, on my 'off days' from the roswell store. its a 75 mile commute, one way, from my house to their mall. its starting to get really old, really fast. but i must say i do like working there. if it wasnt so far to drive, i wouldnt mind putting in a permanent transfer to work down there. their store is four times bigger than the roswell one. everything works like a well-oiled and finely-tuned machine. last week, they re-hired a former employee, brianna. she was good to work with. hopefully they're hiring someone else, but i still have to go down two more times next week.
im missing my store, but mostly because its my 'home' store, more so, i miss working with erika. ive been calling her every day that im gone to check and see how she is, to tell her i miss her, and that ill be 'home' soon. i can tell she's been pretty lonely without me, because she calls too.
and the calls... sherri's been calling the carlsbad store every day that ive worked there, to see how things are, to make sure im doing ok, to just... talk. she says that even though im not 'at home', im still her eyes and ears. she asks me things, i tell her what i know. i have nothing to hide, im doing what im supposed to do. we've talked several times over the past two weeks about the status of my store, what the problems are, what can be done to fix them. mara tells me that sherri intends to do some 'housecleaning' during her monthly visit. i can only hope that she shows up soon, because we need it in the worst way.
last friday, when i worked at the roswell store, we had a major disaster with the registers. our main crashed due to faulty wiring in the display and we couldnt get it to come back online. i called mara to see what we could do. we did all the maintenance and took all the pre-calling steps that we could do before actually calling the register technicians.
erika and i ended up prying open the register with a screwdriver to get the cash drawer out, at the direction of the technician who said he would have parts fed-ex'd in saturday morning and wold be there at 10am to 'fix it'. our registers, according to him, are so old, they quit making the parts 15 years ago. he was 'lucky' to find a spare. 10.5 hours of disaster friday led to 4 hours of cleanup on saturday morning/afternoon. there was no way in hell i was going to dump all that shit on erika and leave. saturday was to be my day off, but i ended up being there four hours while the guy dismantled our computers, cash registers, and did his magic. i knew damn well that veronica wouldnt know what to do when she opened saturday, because there was no way to shut down the registers friday night. we ended up shutting down the store in the middle of the day to do friday night closing and saturday opening. it was a fucking mess. but i took care of it though. i knew that judith would be completely worthless in attempting to clean up the mess when she 'felt like' coming in to close that night. i guess i went 'above and beyond the call of duty', because something relatively unexpected happened from it.
note that i mentioned before that id talked to sherri several times in the last couple of weeks. in more than one of these conversations, we discussed promotions to certain available and currently unavailable positions. in no uncertain terms did sherri tell me that judith was on her way out, and that she wanted me to be the manager. her exact words were "well... i cant make you the manager without promoting you to assistant first." that was last week. she did, however, give me a bit of a surprise yesterday.
she called carlsbad, knowing that i was working that day. she started asking me a bunch of 'personal' questions like: whats my social security number, whats my pay rate, whats my employee id number, what was my hire date, etc. and then she says... 'ok, now that thats all done, ill go hand this to the postman. i asked what she was talking about. she told me that she'd just filled out my change of status form. i am now officially the assistant manager at my store. i was a bit in shock about this. i mean, i guess i knew it was coming, but it was still somewhat unexpected. not knowing when, why, how...in previous conversations we had discussed erika becoming the assistant. which is where the "well... i cant make you the manager without promoting you to assistant first." line came from. sherri assured me that once i was promoted to store manager, erika would DEFINITELY be the assistant, hands down. no questions asked.
but still i cried when sherri told me she promoted me. she asked me why i was crying. i told her it was because i was very sad for erika, because she deserves it just as much as i do. she's worked so hard in that store, at times, even harder than me. shes pulling more than her fair share of the workload, just like ive been. hell, for a month, she pulled MY workload. the three weeks i was out on medical leave... the week id just come back and was on light duty. we worked together. i couldnt really fulfill all of the requirements of my job when i was still on light duty, so she picked up my slack. sherri asked me if we should wait to tell her next week when she comes down. if it would be better coming from her. i immediately responded with a definite, strong, NO. i told sherri that it would be best coming from me. and that i would rather tell her sooner than later. i wanted to tell her, and i wanted to do it in person. i am not a coward. i did tell her though, that when she came down, i really would prefer for the three of us to sit down and talk privately about it, and about other things going on in the store. i want erika to know that sherri and i both have her back, that we want her to hang in there. that she isnt being tossed to the side.
and i cried almost all the way home from carlsbad. i cried last night
i feel like i owe her. she is my friend. my ally. and even though we've only known each other for a couple of months, we have become very close. we are very much alike in many ways, but we are unique persons in a world where people are all the same. where what changes only gets worse. where everyone wants to be just like everyone else... we are different. when we're together, people stare at us. seriously. two similar-looking, pasty white goth-girls. dressing alike, talking alike, thinking alike. sadly, our friendship reminds me a lot of those silly little middle/highschool teenage girl antics. you know the ones.. 'hey susie! lets wear the same outfit tomorrow! ok!??' 'sure jane, lets do our hair the same too, why dont you bring your stuff and spend the night and we can plan everything out and help each other get ready in the morning' 'awesome susie, thats great! see you in awhile!!'
except we arent really like that. it DOES look like it though. we wear very similar outfits to work, dress in practically the exact same style of clothing when we do go out outside of work. same skin tone, similar eye color. black hair (though hers is obviously dyed, since her eyebrows are a very light shade of brown) hehe. we like the same games, avoid the same foods, listen to a lot of the same bands. and through all this... erika has emerged as one of the best friends ive ever had. she is easy to talk to, non-judgmental, caring, kind, and compassionate.
today i broke my best friend's heart. i couldnt wait any longer to tell her about the promotion. i had to tell her in person. it couldnt wait. i couldnt in good conscience sit there and keep it to myself for a week. so i went up to the store today, when i knew that judith would be gone or getting ready to leave. while erika was working, before veronica came in.
and i dropped the bomb. when i came in i said hello to judith. then i stepped aside with erika and told her that i needed to share something with her. that judith needed to hear it, but to not take it so hard because i would talk privately after judith left. and so i open with this:
sherri called me yesterday when i was working at 6816 (carlsbad store). she promoted me to assistant manager. she told me that she did this because our store should NEVER have been running without an assistant for as long as it has. we havent had an assistant since october. oct 9, my start date. the date our manager quit. judith was the 'assistant' so she ended up as the manager, but only because she had 5 weeks seniority over me, and id just started that day. she didnt really get moved up officially until mid-november. but regardless, we didnt have an assistant manager for all this time. judith seemed to be in a complete state of shock. i think she started freaking out because i KNEW that she had been promising erika the assistant manager position for several weeks now... even back when i was out on medical leave for the appendix. what judith didnt know is that erika and i had already been discussing this. she basically went white as a sheet and said 'ok, well, im leaving for the day. see you guys later.' and i tell her, see you at 530 tomorrow, but i might be in early. you come in at 130. see ya then.
and then erika and i talked privately. she burst into tears and i immediately felt even more shitty than i did before. she says to me, 'im crying because im happy for you, but im also crying because im sad for me. please dont take this the wrong way. thank you for telling me. for being honest. for not hiding it.'
and i still feel like ive stabbed her in the back.
Today, I saw on the BBC a place where they gather other people's opinions. The question was "Should the US send more troops to Iraq?" i HAD to respond.
this is what i wrote:
God no. The United States, and other countries, need to pull their troops from both Iraq and Afghanistan. While I fully support the troops, I do not support my government. I feel the best way for the Iraqi people to recover is to let them be on their own and settle disputes between themselves. There is no need for us to have a military presence there, especially not now. The conflicts we are seeing are between two groups of people (mainly) the Shiites and the Sunnis, just like the US Civil War, the Union versus the Confederates. The Iraqis cannot fix their problems with everyone else involved.
there was a 600 character limit, so that was all i could post. What do you guys think (about my comment as well as your own views)....
on monday night, i wasnt feeling so great (i was working)... my sister was nice and brought me a burger and some cheese tots from sonic. i ate the tots and then about 1/3 of the burger. within an hour i started feeling really really sick. the tots were greasy and i dont eat greasy foods very often so i figured that maybe that was the problem. i went home after work, nearly doubled over from cramps and stomach pains. i told gimpi and maxnmike that i felt like i was going to die. i took a bath and then went to bed. i didnt stay there long. between 1130 monday night and 700 tuesday morning, i got up to barf more than 20 times.... that averages every 20 minutes or so. (not that you really wanted to know this). i couldnt sleep, i could barely move. i was crying... or trying to at least. by this time i was thinking that i either had food poisoning or the flu. i was very wrong. i called my dad, then my stepmom, and got an appointment to see the doctor she works for. justin drove me up there. the doctor asks a bunch of questions. looks like the flu, sounds like the flu. probably its the flu. then he started feeling around on my belly. big mistake. he got clocked in the groin (and no, it wasnt intentional, it was a reflex.) he sent me for lab tests. they came back with bad results. he then decided i had appendicitis and sent me across the street for a surgical consult. by this time, im trying to cry, but i cant because im too dehydrated. the surgeon asks, 'do you want to do a CAT scan to see? or shall i just open you up?' i told him to skip the CAT scan, because it costs as much as the surgery and it wastes time. i then got shuffled next door and admitted to the hospital. turns out my appendix was a 'ticking time bomb' as he called it. if we'd waited much longer, it probably would have burst. i had to spend the night in the hospital. that sucked because either my IV or my neighbor's IV machine was going off all night. she snored. people would come in our room and leave the light on. it was noisy and bright. two things that prevent me from sleeping. i got released yesterday and have been sleeping ever since. i think making this blog post has been the longest ive been awake since i got home. i didnt get to finish my christmas shopping. in fact, i didnt even really get a chance to start it. :(
tuesday was my day off, justin called judith and told her i was having emergency surgery. then, after my surgery he goes to call her from my cell to tell her i was out and finds that she'd called a few times. we still dont know why. i didnt go to work wednesday (duh) and i called her just now and she was asking if i was feeling well enough to come back to work. christ. i told her that my discharge instructions say i cant go back to work until at least after then 29th of december, and technically i cant even drive until then either. she said she'd call naomi (our district manager) to see what needed to be done. (i think maybe she wants to get rid of me? *shrug*) but i called naomi and left her a voice mail telling her about the surgery, the hospital stay, and the doctor's orders about not going back to work. i cant wait to see what happens next. im sure judith is pissed because its the weekend before christmas, and its only her and veronica, and the girl she just hired. i guess she'll just have to get over it. id rather be working than doing what im doing now.
so anyway, i feel like crap, and im going back to bed.
ive had some interesting customers at work. some of them have been really nice, others have not. and still others just stuck out in my head.
for instance, the two women that showed me their boobs.
one night, when i had no other customers, i had a woman come in looking for body jewelry. i asked her if she was looking for tongue, nose, eyebrow, labret jewelry. she replied 'other.' not the answer i was expecting.
she asks me, so, what gauge do they use for nipple rings?
hell if i know. i called my sister. she called our friend who does piercings. he said that standard is 14 gauge, some are 16's.
i tell the woman this.
she pulls up her shirt, flops out her boob, and asks 'is this a 14 or a 16?'
aghast, i tell her that its a 14, and then point her to where she needs to be looking.
then, theres another woman, who came in a couple weeks ago, again - when the store was dead. she says she wants to get a second piercing in her earlobes. i joke with her, ask if she's going to pass out or barf on me. she says no, that she has several tattoos. then proceeds to open her shirt and show me. it wasnt a pretty sight. to tell you the truth, i wanted to vomit.
and then the nice family, daniel, emily, and their mom lauri. they were awesome. one sunday night they came into the store, emily was looking for a necklace. they ended up talking to me for almost an hour. emily didnt find what she
was looking for, but her brother daniel and i had a really nice conversation. we had a lot in common, though i suspect that he is a couple/few years younger than me. they were a great family, and if im still working here, i hope they come back soon. i really enjoyed 'hanging out' with them.
and then there's the guy, jason C, who came in to get his right ear cartilage pierced. twice. this guy was a weirdo. he had a dermal punch in his left cartilage (similar to a hole punch, only for skin) that was about 1/4 inch. he had 3/4 and 1" gauge earrings in his earlobes (one in each, different sizes). and he had his tongue split down the middle. this guy gave me the impression of a stalker... im serious. he even had the nerve to ask me out, and when i would be working next so he could 'come visit'... it creeped me out.
why people shouldnt shop the day after thanksgiving. nor should they be forced to work. i should have made this post a couple of weeks ago, but ive been so busy with work that i havent had a chance to do it.
for years, i have always been against working in retail. now i know why. the 'latest' job ive been working, had me opening the store the day after thanksgiving, also known as black friday. i work at a store in the mall. not only is this store tiny in comparison to the other stores in the mall, but we also have more product on the shelves than anyone else. the store was packed. i had to go early to open... on my way to work i noted that target's parking lot was so full that there were cars -in line- to get into the parking lot, and that some people had actually parked on main street. i, for one, am not that desperate to be crowded into a store with hundreds of other people. (also, home depot's parking lot was full... i thought this was rather amusing.) anyway... i worked almost the entire day, and i was very worn out. we brought in more that shift than we had all week and the week before put together. unfortunately people were rather rude. its not like we didnt have any sales that day that we didnt have any other day. people were shoving each other around in the store. it was a circus. i cant imagine what would be so important in our store that people couldnt buy on any other day of the year... much less anything worth shoving other customers over.
i can honestly say i have never been one of -those- shoppers.
why im NOT emo.
(placeholder for when I blog tonight after work.)
today i went to go get my eyebrows waxed. (i know, gross isnt it...) i noticed my eyebrows were getting rather unshapely this morning so i called the salon i usually get them done at and asked if my stylist, micki, was working. she was. so i went up there to get my eyebrows waxed. well... she had never waxed someone with eyebrow piercings, and id never taken them out before, so this was quite the experience for both of us. after pondering what to do, we finally made the (very bad) decision to go ahead and try to wax without removing the hardware. this was stupid. we got wax all wadded up around them and then couldnt get it off, so, like idiots we're trying to use cotton balls soaked in alcohol and the cotton sticks to the wax. so i have this big huge green ball of wax and cotton stuck to my face. i might add that this was not very attractive, at all. and people are starting to stare. finally we get the gunk off the piercings and decide to take them out. that went all well and good, but then i had trouble getting them back in once she was done waxing. read that as: its a really bad idea to attempt screwing little metal cone-shaped ends onto tiny tiny pieces of barbell when you have fake nails on. i dropped one of the ends and it took forever to find it. these little guys are about 1/16 of an inch or so. long story shortened: next time ill take them out before we wax and ill try my damnedest to NOT have fake nails on when i do it. zort zort.
Note: it usually only takes 5-10 minutes for the wax... today it took 45 minutes. :\
so... i was sitting in a bar friday night with some old highschool friends. we were talking about how things 'used to be'. one friend happened to say 'you know, ten years ago if we had seen ourselves today, i think we would have shot ourselves.' i had to agree. ten years ago we were 'those' kids. the ones that people didnt really want to associate themselves with. we kept to ourselves. it was a lot like the caste system... the untouchables. dressed in holey jeans, black shirts, unkempt hair, and doc martens, we wandered the halls of our schools avoiding the 'popular' crowd at all costs. so here we are today, wearing business clothes and crap from abercrombie and fitch, driving cars that are practical, as opposed to ones that are 'cool'. ten years ago i would never have been caught dead shopping, much less working, in the store i work now. in our hearts we have changed, but in our minds we havent. and its amazing that two little words can end up meaning so much. im sorry. it goes a whole lot farther now than it used to.
note: i still wear doc martens and a whole lot of black, though my clothes have gotten much more expensive over the years. i think all of ours have. something about the feel of a good fabric as opposed to cheap t-shirts with bands and/or stupid little sayings plastered all over them. *shrug*
*ive been working in retail for two weeks now (yesterday was 2 weeks). this is my first job working in a place that sells things. im actually pretty good at it, which comes as a great surprise to me. anyway, this 'life change' has brought on some more life changes and some 'firsts'. so, for the first time, im working in retail. for the first time, i care about my 'appearance'. (we have to wear nice clothes, but that pretty much means anything that isnt strapless, jeans, or tennis shoes). i got my nails done the other day. though it wasnt the first time, it WAS the second. i have a nice french manicure. isnt that sweet. the other day, for the first time, i actually purchased a blow dryer and curling iron. im going to make the attempt to do something with both of those items later today, when im getting ready for work. depending on how it turns out, i may take some pictures.
*also, in the news: i now have eight piercings in each ear. i think i can stop after one more. i dont think i have room for any more than that. however! i also did another first -- i got my eyebrows pierced (left on friday, right on saturday night). i really like them.ive wanted to pierce my eyebrows since i was 16, ill be 25 in january. i guess i waited long enough. anyway, i think they look good, and ive gotten several compliments on them. mom thought they were 'fine.' and 'its your face, not mine. do what you want, im not going to stop you.' the bat was a bit pissed off at first. friday, after id gotten the left one done, when i got home, she told me that it made me look ugly. i didnt say anything else, and then left later on. saturday night after i got the right one done, i went home and she told me that i 'looked better with just the one.' well, today is tuesday and she's still staring at my face. i think she thinks they rock, but she doesnt want to tell me. it wouldnt be the first time. i think they almost fascinate her. she was asking if it hurt or not. it didnt. i didnt even feel it. now the ears, that was another story. i got my two middle-outer cartilage piercings on friday night right before i got the left eyebrow. those hurt like hell. they swelled up and theyre still a little red, but it takes me longer to heal than most people. in a few days im sure they'll be fine. at least ive been keeping things clean. *shrug*
*so, i should have some pictures later. was too tired to do them this weekend. i was off yesterday so i took that as a veg day. being as the bottoms of my feet are bruised and ive managed to sprain my right knee. i only work four hours today but im off tomorrow. pics should be posted sometime tonight or tomorrow. depending on how i look/feel later. *poof*
ok, so most of you know about my new job. ive told pretty much everyone i talk to online about it, but i was doing my best to keep it a secret from the people i know here in town. dont as me why. (perhaps im embarassed? though i dont know why i would be, since im enjoying my new job...) anyway, i had only told the bat, stink, my mom, and my dad (and he told his wife and my stepsister). but i hadnt told any of my friends. at all. well, the secret's out. felicia (one of my supervisors from DSLM) came in yesterday, with carolee (former DSLM coworker) and felicia's daughter. they seemed really surprised to see me there. felicia gave me a nice hug and then asked how i was doing. i told her i was fine, and that i got bored of sitting at home on my ass all day, so i came to work for ------------- while i waited on the SDW to be approved and go into effect. she thought that was cool. she seemed happy to see me. i also finally broke down and emailed trish (the SDW lady who's son used to be one of my clients) and i emailed monica (friend/former supervisor at DSLM) and told them where i worked. i havent gotten a response yet from either so i think they may have gone into shock.
*anyway, work doesnt seem so bad. here's whats gone on in the last week: i started working monday - our manager quit right after i got off shift (lucky us - she didnt do any of the orders for merchandise OR for supplies). i ended up taking in some toilet paper and trash bags from home yesterday. i got called into work on friday and worked from 1p-1040p. i was on my feet the whole time. im still paying for it. then i worked on saturday and sunday. i think ive finally got a schedule. i pierced a 3 year old's ears saturday afternoon - and waited until i was done to tell the mother that it was my first time piercing.. :x i pierced a NMMI cadet's ears yesterday. anyway, thats about all the excitement there is for right now...
i forgot to mention in my last post... i got an email from trish (the one who's been trying to get the self directed waiver up and running)... she sent me an update. looks like things are better than they appeared a few weeks ago. im not getting my hopes up yet. what happened was that the state was all set up and ready to go, so they thought. the sent the guidlines and everything up to the feds. (it has to go through this really long process.) the feds denied it and send everything back saying '*bzzzzt!* try again.' so now the state has answered all the questions the feds sent back on the denial. its made it through the first stage of the fed approval. now we're waiting on a final answer. HOPEFULLY itll be up and running November 1. HOPEFULLY.... im not holding my breath. more on this later, if theres something worth reporting.
see related entries
disappointment
my way (self directed waiver)
i guess its time for me to catch everything up. i havent really made a good entry in awhile.
*at the end of september, i went to san antonio to be with a friend who was in the hospital and bring him home. (he's doing quite well now, and im glad). i really liked san antonio, but it was a very long drive. took 9.5 hours to get there, but only 7.5 to get home... its 530 miles or so. traffic sucked because i got there right at rush hour, and there was a wreck on the I10 and one of the I410... right where i was needing to go. then i came home.
*then i got a job... in retail. its totally not me. im not sure ill like it but ill try it out for awhile. i can always quit. my first day was monday. i dont work again until sunday, and then after that i work wednesday... there's only four of us that work at this store. what im probably going to hate most about it is having to deal with teenagers. i particularly cannot stand teenage girls.
*i house-sat for the schwan's lady, karen, last week. from thursday until sunday night. she has a great bathtub and pays me well. otherwise i wouldnt go. there's no cable, no computer, no internet, and no telephone at her house. oh, and also its out in the middle of nowhere. and i mean _nowhere_... its a fifteen minute drive from my house, if im speeding.
*saturday i went to my aunt's wedding in lubbock. i also got to meet her new husband's brother. it was kind of nice to have someone at the party who was 'like me'. that doesnt happen to me ever. there's so much id like to talk about this, but id rather not put it here, it would be much too longwinded. i did have a great time though. probably because i spent most of it with someone 'like me'. goth people need to stick together. there arent nearly enough of us around. maybe thats why we scare people? *shrug*... also, while i was in lubbock, i bought some new clothes. i did really well. i actually found dress pants that are long enough (im 5'11"). i can never find pants long enough.
*last night i went to see my sister at work. i was wearing my normal clothes - black. (along with black nails, jewelry, etc) and this couple at the counter in front of me turned around and stared. then the man had enough nerve to say to me 'i like your COSTUME.' i just stared at him. then stink pipes up, 'costume? thats not a costume. she's looked like that since i can remember. at least for the last 12 years or so. halloween is every day for her.' bastards. THANKS STINK FOR STICKING UP FOR ME! i hate people like that. costume, my ass. i wanted to say 'costume? this isnt a costume. but i like the idiot redneck look youve got going on, how long did it take you to pull it off so well?'
*i went out to the school today. i like those kids, even if some of them bug the hell out of me. its like im a special prize and they all want to jump and climb all over me and crowd around me in a circle. this is one of the main reasons why i dont have offspring, aside from medical reasons. i am one of the childless chosen, and i prefer to remain that way. anyway, the kids were going on and on about my black clothes, my black hair, my jewelry, my paleness... im thinking they dont 'get it'. im a bit on the goth side, but i was born this way. its a part of me, its who i am.
i did something within the last 24 hours that goes against everything i stand for. immoral. unethical. wrong. will anyone be hurt by it? no. but it still wasnt the right thing to do. do i feel bad? hell yes. would i do it again? its possible, but id think really hard about it before doing it again. thing is, probably everyone has done it or thought about doing it. sometimes people get hurt. sometimes they dont. what i did wont hurt anyone but that doesnt make me feel any better about it. i feel crappy. sad that doing something morally wrong has benefitted several people. is it still wrong if its for the greater good? everyone involved benefits. and anyone who asks what i did isnt going to get an answer. i just felt like i needed to get it out.
yesterday, i was out 'in the community' and happened upon a 'trendy' jewelry store unintentionally. i guess you would call me a 'regular customer'. thats usually where i buy my earrings, and sometimes little things like necklaces and stuff. this is a place where i really wanted to work as a teenager. they dont hire people under 18 because they do piercings. i was in the store when i happened to overhear the two managers discussing how their 'one likely candidate for hire didnt show up for her interview'. when i got to the register to pay, i asked if they were hiring. they said they were, that they were short staffed, and that all their applicants have either been too young or not reliable. i told them a bit about myself and mentioned that they could hire me. they seemed rather interested. enter the person who was supposed to be interviewed and was two hours late. she came in dressed in ratty jeans with her tits hanging out and three kids in tow, two of which were screaming. 'im here for my interview.' they told her they'd already filled the position. lucky me. i had a job even before i applied. she left and they forked over the application. it took three minutes to fill it out. i gave it back. the district manager said 'be right back. dont leave.' she came out with the interview packet and asked if i was ready. 'sure.' so she interviewed me. we talked a lot. apparently she was impressed or something. they gave me a paper for a questionnaire to fill out online and told me to call the store when i was finished. i went home. i called them after i was done. they called back 15 minutes later and offered me the job.
itll be interesting working retail. its something ive never done before. if i like it, thats great, maybe i can move up in the company. if i hate it, my feelings wont be hurt, but at least ill have tried something new. problem is, this is a trendy store and i am anything but trendy. hello kitty is totally NOT my image. though they do have quite a nice line of gothy type stuff. this should be... quite the learning experience.
so, i went to bed at 3am last night. not bad. about normal. got up at ten or so, watched last nights news, read email. then i took a shower and started to get dressed. i went to put my clear contacts in and soon found out quite painfully that the left one was severely ripped right through the middle. it wasnt ripped the last time i wore it. how does a contact rip while inside the case, assuming its sitting happily right in the middle of the container and solution that its supposed to be? i went frantically searching for an unopened left contact lens. lucky me. i dont have any, but ive got a right one (clear). then there are the brown ones, of which there is a new set currently in the case and three right ones... and ONE left. normally the contacts thing wouldnt be an issue except while i was in san antonio last week, my glasses broke. the frames cannot be repaired. i ordered a new set of the same frames on friday night. have the bastards shipped them yet? hell no. im paying $28 for OVERNIGHT shipping, and its tuesday and they still havent processed the order yet. though the *did* charge my bank card. im about ready to kill someone. and now i look like a fucking freak, because im wearing one clear lens and one brown lens. for some reason the right side brown lenses dont feel right. i look like an idiot.
tomorrow im going to san antonio to pick up a friend from the hospital. long drive. anyway, i was cleaning out my SUV, which entails a shitload of vacuuming because my siberian husky cannot seem to stop shedding. it took me ~1.5 hours to vacuum it out because of 1: the doghair and 2: all the mud and dust and dirt from when we had storms a while back. sometimes living in the desert really sucks. so, while i was finishing up the vacuuming, i saw my dad. he was driving by on his harley and saw me and decided to stop and chat for a bit. talking with my dad was nice. id like to do it more often. seems we've always been too busy to just stop and hang out for awhile. so, after almost half an hour of talking with dad, i told him i had to go get the oil changed and fuel up for the trip tomorrow, he was on his way to the harley shop to talk to his friend jimmy (who owns it). i walk back inside and realize that i now have a raging sunburn, thanks to standing out in the sun. mostly i was in the shade and had the benefit of some cloud cover, but unfortunately, i can be in the sun for as little as five minutes and still end up looking roasted, toasted, and burnt to a crisp. never a fun thing... and still people wonder why i never go outside.
i dont know which is better, sleeping all day or not being able to sleep at all. i swear i felt better when i -wasnt- sleeping. normally, i cant sleep any time before 2am. im awake and asleep, awake, asleep, all night long. but lately, that hasnt been the case. i guess im finally crashing out sometime between 230 and 4am. and then i sleep like the dead. ive been getting up somewhere around 10 and noon. this isnt good. especially when i wake up and feel like i went on an all night bender. i swear i quit drinking almost a year ago. doesnt feel like it when i wake up. something is wrong and i cant put my finger on it. id almost give back the sleep ive gotten lately and gladly trade it for only sleeping a few hours a night, if that. at least i didnt feel like shit when i got up in the morning. *mumbles*
sad. and i dont know why. i feel like i just lost my best friend. which is weird, because im pretty sure i still have all my friends, unless theres something i dont know yet. :\
*saturday, sunday, and monday were all pretty good days. i was feeling great. my migraine had finally kind of gone away for the most part, but was still lingering on. i hate that. but those were good days otherwise. as noted in a previous post, i even went to the movies. i was real proud of myself for 'going out', so to speak. tuesday was a living hell. i spent most of the day doubled over and/or curled up in bed. it was about a 30 on a 1-10 pain scale. i still dont know what was wrong. wednesday was much the same, though not quite as bad. today held slight improvement.
*anyway, today i went out to the school, as has become a habit of the past few thursdays. i really enjoy going out there and hanging out with the kids. i think they like me. in fact, some of them hugged me while i was there. and clung to me. which was a bit excessive, but i cant say i didnt enjoy it. it felt good to be hugged, even if it was tiny little kids doing it. im happy when im there, i guess im just glad i dont -have- to go out to the school. i go because i want to. and, in a small way, it kind of makes me feel good about myself. today i started reading them a book by Bill Wallace called "a dog called kitty". it was one of my favorites when i was their age. they seemed to enjoy it too.
*also, there was a new student. a red-haired boy with bright blue eyes. neat haircut. he was clean, and well-dressed. about as 'well dressed' as school uniforms can get. (background story: mom swears this kid is, for lack of a better explaination, 'dumber than a box of rocks', but those arent her exact words. she says hes really behind, and is at an incredibly low reading level.) while mom was out of the room, he turned to me and asked me if he could come talk to me, to ask me a question. he sounds like a really bright young man, for a nine year old (or perhaps eight). i told him 'sure, come here.' so he did, he brings his paper and his pencil, stares up into my eyes and tells me, quietly, that he doesnt understand the assignment. not that i blame him, because im three times his age and it was confusing as hell to me too. i hate the way textbooks 'teach' things these days. anyway, i helped him with the first one, it was an english assignment, i even drew arrows on how he was supposed do it. something clicked, and he quickly lit up, you could see the happiness and excitement in his eyes. he "got it" and was really amazed, because it made sense now... with the help of a couple of arrows. he thanked me, then went back to his desk and finished up the paper and went to turn it in. when he passed me, he whispered in my ear, 'thanks, that really helped. all i needed was a push.' turns out that that's all it took. i wanted to cry, i was so happy for him. im going to take bets and say that hes probably a visual learner, and probably (which im almost sure of) hes a slow reader and maybe he needs glasses or is dyslexic.
*later, he asked me if i could take him to the school library, because he was new and had never been. we walked down to the library and talked to the librarian. he wasnt in the computer system yet, so he was kind of sad, but then lit up like a christmas tree when she told him that he could check out books anyway and she'd just write them down and enter them later when she set his account up. he beamed, seriously. it turns out that though hes in the third grade, he reads at a first grade level, and he reads quite slowly at that, but he says he loves reading. im glad that he tries. some kids dont. i see so much potential in him, its sitting right on the surface. i know he needs help, but he cant get it, because the school district hasnt tested him to see if he needs special education classes yet. to me, it would seem obvious that he does, especially with reading. i hope, that with some extra help, isaac can get to where he needs to be. or at least closer than he is now. hes such a sweet little guy. there IS a spark there, it just needs a little bit more kindling to turn into a fire.
*and on that note id like to throw my two cents in on what i think about president bush's No Child Left Behind. its a crock of shit. NCLB leaves EVERY child behind. the ones that need help arent getting it, and the ones that dont are being dragged down by the ones that do.
[21:17]
[21:18]
so i went to see the black dahlia this evening with a couple of other people (who are bigger than me). it was an awesome movie. quite wicked. interesting storyline. good characters, unique. the movie would have been absolutely perfect, definitely my type of movie, except we got to the theater just as the movie was starting. friday was opening night. most all of the good seats were taken, and of course, i got to sit in the middle. two hours spent in incredibly uncomfortable positions:
*with my arms wrapped around myself and my legs squished together and bunched up underneath my chin
*or leaning forward with my elbows on my thighs and my head resting on my hands.
ive ridden in airplanes more comfortable than that, sadly enough. being incredibly tall does have its drawbacks. anyway, the movie was great and i enjoyed it immensely. there was even a scene in there where a guy fell from several stories up and landed in a not a very good place (i wont go into details because that would ruin it) but while the other moviegoers collectively gasped, i exclaimed 'oh my god!' in a very surprised voice. it was like youre standing on a street corner and see a family walking across the street and a semi comes out of nowhere and hits them, that quick fleeting thought of "HOLY SHIT I CANT BELIEVE I JUST SAW THAT HAPPEN!" pops out, without a second thought.
so yeah, im proud of myself. this is the first time in the six weeks ive not been working where ive actually left the house with the intent of going out to have a good time and/or meet up with others (with the exception of the baby shower in early august). i called monica and three of us went to the theater, then we went out to eat at a moderately nice restaurant, and then went home. it was a good night, with the exception of being incredibly uncomfortable in the theater. must remember next time to show up 15 minutes or so before the movie starts. not that i get out much anyway, but ive been wanting to see this one for awhile. im thinking next weekend, i might go see flyboys. i like 'war' movies. also thinking of going to see man of the year, when it comes to theater.
reminiscent thought for the day:
* i still wear clothes i wore more than five years ago... some of them for almost ten.
** i still have the same shoes i wore when i was twelve. and i still wear them. im almost twenty-five.
today i went out to my mom's classroom. because its thursday. i live for thursdays. anyway... i said before, my mom's a teacher. i go out on thursday's to her school to volunteer with the kids. normally i hate kids, especially small ones, but these, i cant help but love. i think they like me. they seem to be responding to me.
i went with mom out onto the playground, where we watched the kids have recess before lunch (this is weird, ive never heard of recess -before- lunch). and one of the girls, aaliyah (who is the daughter of a longtime friend of mine - i talked about her last week i think) was walking to some other girls. this bigger boy was running after a ball and knocked her down -hard-. he didnt mean it. he didnt even see her. so, she was kind of banged up. this girl is so tiny. i swear she probably weighs ~40lbs., if that. he took her out completely, but not intentionally. she was bawling, i wanted to pick her up and carry her inside. sadly though, no one is allowed to touch the students unless the student initiates it. i guess this is mostly for sexual harassment prevention. she clung to me. we went inside to the restroom and got her cleaned up. i still wanted to carry her though, some crappy ass maternal instinct kicked in when i saw she was hurt. i hate those feelings.
after lunch, i hung out in the room some more. i taught the english and the social studies lessons for today. its kind of nice. i almost miss teaching, but not enough to become an actual teacher. besides, i already said, i dont like little kids. but they like me, and this is ... scary. theres this little boy, adrian. he sits and does nothing, plays with stuff to avoid doing work. you could say hes the class troublemaker. every class has one. i feel bad for adrian. i think he is too smart for his own good. he is the one that gets to sit right at the front of the room, right next to where mom teaches from, presumably for her to keep an eye on him. he needs a lot of redirection. anyway, he was playing with his eraser instead of doing his work, so i leaned over and asked him what was wrong. he said it was boring, that they already knew what nouns are, why do they have to keep relearning it? i told him that i understood completely. i know exactly how he feels. he says 'ive had detention every day since august.' and i asked him why, to which he replied 'because i hate doing my work, its boring. so i dont do it. then i have to go to detention. i have to miss recess.' i just looked at him. and then i told him that he was probably too smart for his own good, and thats why he was bored. he then told me that science is his favorite subject. he said if he could do only science, he would get all his work done. this kid totally has a passion for science. he reminds me of me, angry and passionate. we talked for a little bit more, and i was telling him how everything else, all the other subjects like english and math, could be tied into science, how they all fit together and you couldnt have one without the other. it seemed like he understood. whatever it is that i did, for the next hour that i was there, he worked earnestly, even when no adults were near him. i told mom that perhaps he'd get better as time went on. maybe if i work with him a little more... maybe, just maybe, he wouldnt be so bored. adrian thought it was awesome when i told him that i used to belong to a science club, he said he wanted to join one too. i told him to hold out for middle school, and then join science olympiad. mom invited me to teach the science classes next week, im seriously thinking about it (she hates science, i love it).
went to go see my sister tonight while she was working. mom and i were taking her dinner because she's closing up the cafe tonight. when we walked in, there were two girls sitting on the couch, probably about 14-15 years old. they were dressed like preppy little skanks. one of them was wearing a paris hilton style skirt, you know the kind, where the girl's ass is hanging out the back of it. it was gross. anyway, we waited and waited. the girls got up and one went outside. the skirt decided she was going too - right along with the two cd's she hadn't paid for. i was livid. good thing the alarm went off on her, or she probably would have kept going. so, then they went to sit back down. half an hour later, they decided they wanted to order something. the skirt orders. she wants a frozen drink. frozen drinks take forever. i was standing behind them because i wanted an italian soda. she gets it. makes a rude comment. stink rings it up. the skirt says 'oh, you didnt ring up the cd's. duh!' so stink rings them up too. the skirt complains about the price and whines to her friend a bit. then the other one decides SHE wants to order - the same beverage. she couldnt be bothered to tell stink when the first one ordered. that would have made stink's job too easy. the skirt turns to her equally whorish friend and says 'ya know, if that girl wasnt so fat, she would probably work a lot faster.' this was in addition to several other snotty little comments about the service my sister was giving them. so i leaned forward between them and said something along the lines of 'listen up you anorexic little bitch, she's doing a good job and youre the idiot. if you dont like the service you get when youre rude to the person serving you, dont come back. you can also stop making your snide little comments or i will dropkick your fucking little ass right here, right now.' they turned around and looked at me in awe. i towered over them by a good 8 inches, and outweighed them by more than a few pounds. they started to mouth off and i said, 'that is my sister, AND my best friend. youd better watch what you say, especially when you dont know who's listening.' afterwards, they quickly left. stink wanted to know what i said to them, i told her. she thought it was funny. she was about to kick them out of the store.
my dad has called twice in the last week. most of you know how strange that is for me. my dad never calls. he even came over yesterday because he was worried about me. ive been sick a lot lately. today he called again. we talked for almost half an hour. he wants to buy a new laptop. we went over specs and stuff. maybe he'll get something decent. :P
also, the lawnmower fairy came today. someone, probably my cousins, come by every now and then and mow my yard. this is good because i dont have a lawnmower.
my mom teaches 3rd grade at one of the local elementary schools. the kids are 8-9 years old. today i went to go 'volunteer' in her classroom. i wanted to go read to them. she had to go test some of her students so she'd gotten a substitute teacher. i stayed anyway and ended up teaching the social studies lesson and a couple of word worksheets (long/short vowel sounds and syllables). the sub sucked. she just stood there. didnt even say anything to the kids. she didnt even tell them OR me her name. anway... while i was talking with the kids after their work was done, one of them asked me how old i am. i told her that i was 'three times her age'. she said, 'oh, youre 24. my mom is 24.' then i had a heart attack. even sadder, i went to school from 7th-12th with her mom.
lets clear up something real quick. the 'orange' attitude jokes (gimpi!) are funny. i also, however, want to stipulate that i didnt really want that job at hastings. there are only three reasons why i applied in the first place.
1- so i would have something to do. i hate not working. i also hate waiting around for someone to say 'ok, we got our shit together. we're ready to do this new waiver now. come be our consultant.'
2- so i could spend some more time with my sister (how lame is that.)
3- because the discounts kick ass. (also a lousy excuse because i could just have stink buy the stuff i want and then pay her back. 50% discount = awesome.)
so it really wasnt a hurricane, but it was. hurricane john hit mexico, mostly baja... but the storm reached here (roswell). and also flooded some of our neighboring communities. was crazy, the last half of july and the first half of august was pretty much straight rain for 6 weeks. i finally got my lawn mowed thursday and it starts raining... it rained from friday evening until late monday night. we got a lot of rainfall. it was awesome. in fact it was so bleak and dreary, it was almost like being in seattle. i wore long sleeved shirts the whole time (granted i was sick too, but still). im not used to the high being 65F in september. almost drug out my turtlenecks. probably i should do that anyway, winter is coming, and from the weather ive seen lately, looks like this is gonna be a cold one. also, i need to get the lawn mowed again... already.
**i wasnt aware that one could -fail- a personality test. apparently one can. and if anyone can, that person would be me. when i applied for a job at hastings (the music/movies/books/coffee shop my sister works at) they make you take a personality test as part of the application process. it was ~100-150 questions. i did this a couple weeks ago. i never heard back. stink tells me that the head manager got fired. i figured that they were waiting on a replacement before hiring new people. i was wrong. today mom and i went to take stink some food. she was telling us that tonight is the first night they've had a full crew in a couple of weeks. mom says 'well, they could hire your sister.' stink looks over at me and says 'no. no they cant.' we just look at her. she tells me that they cant hire me because i failed the personality test. they have red, yellow, and green. they only hire green people. im somewhere hovering around orange. this was funny. then she tells me two more people get fired. one who i know. i couldnt help but laugh that they would hire someone like her, but not even give me an interview. she used to work at DSLM where i worked. she quit after 5 weeks claiming that it was 'just too hard to deal with'. turns out she got fired from hastings for stealing. funny that her husband is a corrections officer, even funnier that she left DSLM to go work for CYFD (children, youth and families division)... how lame.
**anyway, i cant believe i failed the personality test. its sad, but funny at the same time. my baby sister is -just like me- though we both hate to admit it. she -really really- takes after me. im glad she has a job and im glad she likes what she does. i cant fault her for that. mom wonders why they would hire her but not me. i tell her what i know from my HR/Mgmt courses (that ive got a bachelors/4 year degree in) that the reason they would hire her over me is because she is still young and doesnt have a lot of work experience, compared to me. they want people who will conform to their ways and the things they want done. they want someone pliable. stink is a good worker, but im sorry, if i was hiring people, i would hire reliable over pliable. mostly hastings hires teenagers and young adults (she's almost 19). most 'kids' arent reliable. then again, in these days, who is? mom and i are driving out of the parking lot on our way back to the cave.. she still cant believe they wouldnt even interview me. i look at her and tell her 'ya know, the sad thing is... i faked most of my answers. i could have been a whole lot more opinionated than i was. if i'd answered truthfully, i wouldnt be yellow, i wouldnt be red, id be a hot white flame...'
this is the much shortened version of the blog entry i was making when firefox decided to crash and close all on its own:
**i have a lump on my neck. its been there for six months. two weeks ago i went to the doctor. he thought it was an abcessed hair follicle (ingrown hair) or a blocked sebaceous gland (hair oil stuff) but it turns out it wasnt. he numbed it and put some iodine. stuck a needle in it, tried to drain it. he was unsuccessful. my stepmom was in there with me, because she works for him and made the appointment for me and i invited her to come in just so people wouldnt think i was making this up... when i went to the doctor, it was the size of a quarter, shaped like a large bean, and was about 1/2" thick. it was painful. my neck was stiff and it hurt to move it. anyway. he said he couldnt get anything out of it. she asked what it was, he said it was probably something wrong with one of my lymph nodes. he put me on an antibiotic called "sulfa". turns out im allergic to it. finding out the hard way was almost as bad as the lump itself. this was thursday. i started taking the antibiotic and by saturday evening my whole body had broken out in a rash, my entire neck was covered in hives. this was bad. about as bad as finding out that im allergic to latex the hard way... but on with the story. i called my dad and he told me to take some benadryl and pepcid until the rashes went away. on monday the doctors office called in a new prescription. it hasnt done me a bit of good. thanks to the sulfa, the lump went down to the size of a pea... it hasnt gotten any smaller since i changed meds.
**already i have a compromised immune system, because of some of my medications and cancer and treatments. ive never had a good immune system. somehow in all of this, ive managed to get myself sick. last friday i started feeling awful. i just spent the last few days practically bedridden with a temp that got up to 102F (39C). i finally started feeling like a human again earlier this afternoon.
i was talking with adam earlier and he told me that he had seen that roswell made the news today. he posted the following link about aliens being arrested here in roswell. The Register is an online news *spoof/sarcastic* site much like the US's National Enquirer. what surprises me is how accurate they were this time. about everything in the article is correct -to my knowledge- with the exception of all the area 51 crap. roswell is NOT in area 51.
then i was in #lockergnome and Vulcan pasted this link which is an article issued by the US government. it essentially confirms The Register's story.
funny how roswell pretty much never makes the news for anything good... or anything besides all the aliens and ufo shit.
i saw a quote from al sharpton (who i normally dont give a crap about) today in this article that i really liked.
"The key to leadership is having the individual initiative to change the status quo..."
what do you guys think about this?
it seems like its been raining for days. probably because it has. off and on for about 3-4 weeks now. its been humid as hell. anyway, i was out on the back porch with my dogs earlier this afternoon when lightning struck the house, tree, and transformer in the back yard. the dogs ran for cover. i stood there like an idiot. obviously i got knocked offline and didnt have electricity for a couple hours. it was crazy. it flooded here also. i took some great pictures of my street and the surrounding neighborhood and major streets in the vicinity. it doesnt rain here like that very often. i was talking to the neighbor across the street. she says she's lived there for almost 40 years and she's never seen it flood this bad. especially not on our street. the water was about 1/3 up my driveway. glad ive got an SUV (a small one, but certainly better than the civic). ill try to post pictures of the flood tomorrow. it really sucked though when the transformer blew... i was in the middle of talking online and all of a sudden BANG!! there it went. and i couldnt get back on to say what had happened. anyway, that was the 'fun' of the day.
**my interview is tomorrow. im sitting here at the pc tonight feeling nervous and having a bit of anxiety over it. im not even sure i -want- this job. when i called the interviewer this afternoon, she sounded like she was leaning more and more towards me being in an actual office. are they in for a surprise tomorrow... i already told two people that i wanted to work from home and that was a condition of my employment. today, the lady kept talking about me only having 3-4 other people in the office with me. perhaps she's forgetting that its ~160 miles/day JUST to go to work, not counting going out to see clients. if they -really- want me, then theyre going to have to either cave and let me work at home, or pay me really really well.
**i dont even know what i want to do anymore. im confused. i hate being confused. i want so many things, and yet dont even know where to start. i want to go back to school and get my masters. i want to do case managment. i want to be with my clients. i want to go back to teaching (except in college)...
**today i spent most of the day in a training ill probably never use. it was a training for my current job, which is about to disappear. seemed like a waste of time to me, but who knows, maybe i'll get a job somewhere where i can use it. *shrug*
**i dont even know for sure what's making me feel sick. it could be a lot of things. i know im nervous as hell though, but i dont know why...
Dimension E510
Pentium® D Processor 940 with Dual Core Technology (3.2GHz, 800FSB), Genuine Windows® XP
Catalog Number: 23 R4611A1
Module Description Show Details
*Dell Dimension E510 Series Pentium® D Processor 940 with Dual Core Technology (3.2GHz, 800FSB)
*Operating System Genuine Windows® XP Professional
*Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x512M)
*Keyboard Dell USB Keyboard
*Monitor No Monitor
*Video Card 256MB PCI Express™ x16 (DVI/VGA/TV-out) ATI Radeon X600 SE HyperMemory
*Hard Drive 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/ 8MB cache
*Floppy Drive and Media Reader No Floppy Drive Included
*Mouse Dell® 2-button USB mouse
*Network Card Integrated Intel® PRO 10/100 Ethernet
*Modem 56K PCI Data Fax Modem
*Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
*CD ROM/DVD ROM Single Drive: 48x CD-RW / DVD-ROM Combo Drive
*Sound Integrated Sound Blaster®Audigy™ HD Software Edition
*Speakers Dell A525 30 Watt 2.1 Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer
*Office Software (not included in Windows XP) Microsoft Office Basic - Includes Word, Excel and Outlook email
*Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) No Security Subscription
*Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr At-Home Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support
*Future Operating Systems Windows Vista™ Capable
*Operating System Re-Installation CD Genuine Windows® XP Professional re-installation CD
*Dell Digital Entertainment Starter Entertainment Pack -Basic digital Music, Photo, and Casual Gaming
sin-- on thursday, on my way to artesia, i got pulled over
sin-- i was doing 84 in a 65.
sin-- the sheriff wanted to know why i was going so fast, so i explained my job (jobless) situation to him
sin-- he felt real bad for me and let me off.
sin-- so today....
sin-- i got pulled over by a different sheriff, except it was just outside carlsbad
sin-- (artesia and carlsbad are in the same county)
sin-- actually, this time it was a state trooper, not a sheriff.
sin-- anyway, the guy today told me 'we've been told to keep a lookout for you, and not to cite you unless youre doing over 80mph'
sin-- and i asked why
therock247uk-- !
sin-- and he told me that word got around about what my company was doing to me, apparently theres a lot of cops with people who are served by the providers i work with (ie, carc in carlsbad and the door in artesia)
sin-- and he said that they all felt sorry for me.
sin-- and since im a 'distinctive' looking person, and there arent that many white ford escapes that travel that highway, and that none of them even have a similar looking license plate, they know its me.
porta_gimp-- hehe
porta_gimp-- for once, i know the story before everyone else!
sin-- LOL
therock247uk-- lol
sin-- only because i dont have anyone elses phone numbers
porta_gimp-- and, tell them the good news
therock247uk-- that was nice of them
sin-- and yours was one of the first on the list
sin-- which good news?
porta_gimp-- sick leave
sin-- OH! yeah... :P
porta_gimp-- :-p
sin-- probably for the next 6 weeks ill be taking at least one day off each week
sin-- because they wont pay out my sickleave
sin-- but they will pay my annual leave (vacation)
sin-- so, by fucking god, im gonna use that sickleave up.
sin-- bastards.
therock247uk-- LOL
porta_gimp-- how did that pill help you sleep last night?
sin-- omfg
sin-- youll love this G
sin-- becky gave me these pills to help me sleep
[19:31] sin-- theyre 150mg
[19:32] sin-- you can break them into two 25mg's and two 50mg's
[19:32] sin-- or into two 75's
[19:32] sin-- or take the whole 150
[19:32] sin-- she suggested that i take a 50 or 75 first
[19:32] sin-- and then go from there
[19:32] sin-- so of course, i didnt listen
[19:32] porta_gimp-- of course
[19:32] sin-- i took the whole 150 all at once
[19:32] porta_gimp-- heh.
[19:32] sin-- when i was in the bath
[19:33] sin-- that was about 1045 or so
[19:33] sin-- i get out at 11
[19:33] sin-- at 1115 i was in bed, drowsy
[19:33] sin-- by 1130, i was twitching and hearing voices
[19:33] porta_gimp-- oh god
[19:33] sin-- i had to get up and make sure there wasnt people in my house
[19:33] therock247uk-- wow...
[19:33] sin-- im all sitting there freaking out
[19:34] sin-- it was great
[19:34] SubWolf-- !
[19:34] porta_gimp-- ha
[19:34] therock247uk-- !
[19:34] sin-- but i swear, it sounded like there were people fucking in my living room
[19:34] therock247uk-- o_O
[19:34] therock247uk-- ghosts?
[19:34] sin-- and then i was twitching like i was having a seizure
[19:35] therock247uk-- your house is haunted :O
[19:35] therock247uk-- LOL
[19:35] sin-- it was one of the neatest 'trips' ive had in a long time... since i took that herbal extacy 5 years ago.
[19:35] porta_gimp-- heh
[19:36] therock247uk-- did you actually sleep in the end then? or was you up all nite?
[19:36] sin-- i slept from 1130 until almost 10 this morning
[19:36] porta_gimp-- nice.
[19:36] therock247uk-- good
[19:36] porta_gimp-- and a good trip.
[19:36] porta_gimp-- get more pills!
[19:36] sin-- ok, more like 1145
[19:36] * porta_gimp coughs
[19:36] sin-- i have more pills
[19:36] porta_gimp-- heh.
[19:36] sin-- i have three more
[19:37] porta_gimp-- cut 'em this time
[19:37] sin-- and she said shed give me more if i needed them.
[19:37] porta_gimp-- you sure the pills were what she said they were?
[19:44] sin-- yes
[19:44] sin-- they were labeled
[19:44] sin-- and i saw the bottle they came in
[19:45] sin-- and ive seen them before.
[19:45] porta_gimp-- k
Nic... this is (the person who interviewed me) from (the company thats taking away all my clients). i just wanted to call and let you know that we've already filled the positions with other applicants. thanks. bye.
that was left on my answering machine at 230 today when she knew damn well that i wouldnt be home. also, i specifically asked her to call my cell phone. i see she took the chickenshit way out. she couldnt even tell me to my face, or talk to me directly. leaving a message is so lame. a little birdie told me that they didnt hire me because i have a 'bad reputation'. so to speak. apparently they were told that im really great at advocating for the clients (duh! thats my job!) but that im a 'bulldozer". whatever the fuck that means. i guess getting shit done is frowned upon in this industry.
they didnt hire monica either. because of her step-dad. apparently he used to work for that company and they had a falling out. but monica got a job today anyway, with another one of the providers.
it gets better... that company that i didnt get hired at, hired one of my coworkers... one who has only 5 months experience and doesnt even have all her trainings yet. i have a year of experience, all my trainings, and ive worked for the providers. i have a great working relationship with a lot of the agencies ive worked with over the past year. it pisses me the hell off that this company didnt even bother to check my references. they're not hiring me based on rumors and other menial bullshit i guess.
they'll be sorry. its expensive to train all those people they hired instead of hiring me. they'll get what they asked for. i dont think they know whats coming to them. heh. i cant wait for this to flop.
**i had an interview with the new agency today, the one that will be taking over all of the clients my company serves. i really like a couple of people who work there. i dont mind working for them, but thats really not what i want to do. ive been told that if im hired, i can keep most of my caseload. thats a good sign at least. unfortunately, my caseload is so high, im in violation of state regulations. we're not supposed to have more than 30 clients. i have 32, and have since march. five of them are jackson's (lawsuit members, from when the state institutions were shut down due to abuse, and worse things). im only supposed to have 3. anyway, mostly the interview consisted of talking about my clients. not really about me. i told the interviewer that i wanted a second, more formal, interview. what the hell, i dont even think they're going to hire me anyway, but at least i tried. right now im feeling kind of hopeless, despite the fact that ive been offered jobs at several agencies ive come in contact with over the last 10.5 months. ill do what i have to, to get whats best for my clients and maintain the most consistency i possibly can. theres only so much i can do, and it just doesnt feel like its enough. it never feels like its enough, it never will.
**on a slightly lighter note, i talked to one of my friends who works in the field in the north part of the state. he's going to see what he can do to get another provider to come down here so the clients at least have a choice. all they would have to do is revise their state contract. any new agency, expidited, would take at least 3 months to go through the application process in order to be approved, and thats only if everything goes smoothly. *sigh*
i have an interview with the ONE remaining case management agency tomorrow at 2. DOH arranged it for me, they're sitting in on the interviews so there wont be any 'shady' deals made. do i want to work for them? not particularly, but it means i get to keep my clients (the ones that want to keep me, anyway).
btw, bozodog, i hope youre fucking happy now, im posting to my blog. now you can quit bitching that im so inactive.
**so, as i said in my post a few minutes ago, my sister graduated this evening. i hope she enjoyed it. i have to admit, i had an awful time. first, i had a rather crappy day. i worked, it sucked. i got home, changed clothes, tried to look nice. my hair wouldnt cooperate. i was pissed. called my mom, who said for me to meet them at the cave and we'd all go together. i get there, and mom's already gone, and the bat insists on taking her own car because she's only going to the dinner. so i get mad because mom didnt follow the plan and grandma is being a jerk. i yelled at her something along the lines of 'grampa was on his deathbed and still went to my fucking graduation, what's YOUR problem?' i admit that was wrong of me, and incredibly rude, but i was already having a bad day. so im driving up there, and my dad calls wanting to know where everyone's at. i told him that i didnt know where the fuck shelby and mom were but that grandma was on her way, in her own car. so we get to the restaurant. order. i asked stink where her boyfriend was, she said he didnt want to come and that he wouldnt be going to the ceremony either. (after i had to make sure he was included in the reservation count.) so by this time ive really had it and i blew up. i said 'well apparently he REALLY cares about you, since he doesnt give a shit about anything YOU do.' and some other things that werent really nice. i hate the guy, he's scum. i could say worse things but i hate him so much i cant even put it into words. btw, if youre reading this jonathan, you're the lousiest piece of shit there ever was. i think even my mom's ex husband randy is better than you. so... after dinner we're getting ready to go to the commencement, and mom asks if i can get her some water from sonic. yeah, sure. so i go do that and when i get to the football field, they didnt even save me a place to sit. i stood for 1.5 hours, outiside the fence to the track until mr. d. saw me (see previous post) and made me go sit down on the cement next to the track with him. he's argued on my behalf to the security guards that he knew me and that i was a handicapped person who had every right to be down there with him because i couldnt climb the steps up into the stands. 20 minutes later, graduation is over.
i called stink afterwards, and it turns out she was on her way to the same restaurant (with the ratfaced boyfriend) that we had eaten dinner at. i guess he thinks hes too good for our family. as far as im concerned, he can rot in hell. i also want to say that because of this guy, i never see stink. i really do miss my sister.
**and thats how -my- evening went. :\
**ok... so tonight i watched my baby sister, stink, graduate from highschool this evening. it brought back a lot of memories, though i cant say they were good ones. im happy for her and i wish her the best in all she does, though she would disagree and say that whenever i try to give her advice, i am only 'ruining her life' and that her 'family hates her'...
**so, that being said, onto the 'nostalgia'--
i remember what hell school was for me. three and a half years of torment, hate, and 'im better than you are' syndrome. i remember being an outcast because i didnt conform to the way society (or my classmates for that matter) thought i should be. i wore black clothes, had black hair, and was incredibly pale (none of that has changed). needless to say, i didnt have that many friends in highschool, and still dont. i prefer keeping to myself. anyway, i remember all the teachers that hated me because i wasnt one of those students who could be taught anything. i already knew what they were trying to 'teach' me. i was so bored in class that i was miserable. if it wasnt for three faculty members in that school, i can promise without a doubt, that i wouldnt be here today. kay was my 'gifted' teacher. she was the one teacher who accepted me for who i was and worked so hard to get the other teachers to see me for me. instead, all they saw was a 'smart assed, know it all' kid. i got kicked out of a lot of classes because the teachers didnt like me. i had a tendency to correct them, and most of the time i was right, that made them mad. i spent the better part of three and a half years in kay's classroom. mr. k was our assistant principal at the time, he kept me out of trouble and gave me a place to go to when there was nowhere else to go (kay's classroom). he made it possible for me to never attend my registered class, but still get all my work so i could do it in kay's room. mr. d. was my guidance counselor. he helped me get into senior level classes as a freshman in highschool, into college as a sophomore, and helped me get all the classes i needed by the end of the first semester of my senior year. i graduated in december, but didnt walk until may. i only had one class my 'senior' year. AP english 12, for 1.5 hours a day, for one semester. block scheduling was great. i turned 18 in january, and had a full time job a little less than 2 months later. i moved out of my mom's house the day i got my first paycheck. one could say i grew up way too fast...
**on graduation:
i remember skipping baccalaureate... not because i didnt want to go (which i didnt) but because i didnt have a choice, i was working. i remember having to switch shifts with my friend/coworker/mentor teresa so i could go to graduation. i remember walking down the football field at the wool bowl and sitting in those godawful chairs for what seemed like forever. i dont remember our keynote speaker, our salutatorian, or our valedictorian. i dont care to remember. im sure they were people i didnt give a shit about in the first place anyway. i remember that it was too damn hot and very uncomfortable. i also remember going back to work right afterwards. so much for the whole highschool is over i cant believe i graduated party... the one thing that stands out in my mind the most is that my freshman class had 540 people in it... we graduated 112. isnt that sad? heh.
i went over to my friend monica's house this afternoon. we hung out and made some cookies. we were talking about the fact that me, my mother, and my grandmother's house all seem to have at least one mouse trying to move in and live here. BLEH!! i love little mouses and guinea pigs and stuff, but i do not want a non-pet rodent living in my house! so i was telling her about it and said something along the lines of "i really need a cat." right then, her mom called. monica's mom, stepdad (ron) and brother (nathan, who's an old friend of mine) have an office just below ours in the same building. apparently her mom and ron found a little kitten, about 4-6 months old, curled up in a corner of the corridor leading into our building. it was cold and hungry, shivering. they thought it was dead. so monica and i took some food and a cardboard box with a trashbag over it and some litter up to the office. the kitty and i bonded. monica couldnt take her because she's already got 2 dogs and five cats and is about to get another dog (maybe)... monica's mom and ron couldnt take her because they already have some large cats that would eat her alive. nathan couldnt take her because his landlord doesnt allow pets. so nathan and i went to walmart and got a carrier and some other supplies. we'll see how she bonds with the dogs. kittie has already warmed to her, but she's still scared. pickles and bobo... im not too sure about yet.
I would like to thank a couple of people:
* Geek -- for hosting me at sin.geekblog.net and for helping me get it set up and for him maintaining it for over a year. You we're helpful and patient with me, Thanks G.
* Pierce -- for hosting naughtycloset.com and allowing me to put just about anything i can think of on here. If you weren't so generous with space, im sure i'd be paying a boatload of money for it. One day, when i can, I'll pay you.
* Subwolf -- for setting up the new blog for me because im a n00b and for helping me switch it over.
Those not named here, thanks for making #naughtycloset and naughtycloset.com a great place to be. without you, the site and chatroom wouldnt really be here... or it'd be hella boring. Thanks!!
Nic
setty mings *cockpunch* lalalalala
**I GOT A JOB!!!
**so heres to you, the motherfuckers who gave me a bad reference. in your face! they liked me no matter what you had to say.
**i start on September 1st at 8am, so you guys wont see quite as much of me after then. at least we'll have the weekends and evenings.
**ok, so i had my second interview today. it went rather well, if you ask me. they asked me some follow up questions to clarify what i told them in my first interview. they seemed to be pleased with the answers i gave them. (i could get rather wordy and long winded if i went into detail, so ill leave the rest of that part out). then before i left, they asked me if i had anything id like to share with them.
**so i opened up and let it flow. i told them everything i could possibly think of that anyone may have said that could be used against me. they seemed happy with those answers as well. i didnt lie, i have no reason to. i told them about problems i had had working for a service agency and then the problems i had with the workstudies out at the college. i may have been rather vague, but after i worked for the last 6+ years in jobs that require confidentiality, i had to be. i almost cried, remembering some of the things that happened at those other jobs. all in all, i wanted to let them know i had nothing to hide. i even told them about a situation that happened at the service agency and explained to them why it still brought tears to my eyes remembering it. it still upsets me that much. i was told that that's one of the qualities they look for in a case manager, someone who cares about their clientele. so i replied that i do sometimes get emotional. if it didnt upset me, it would mean that i didnt care. i -do- care, or else it wouldnt bother me so much after all this time.
**so. im in a rather good mood, i even left smiling... i should know something next week.
that its been about 110F here lately?
that i havent had an airconditioner at my house in several days?
that the insurance adjuster was a dickhead to me when i called to tell him the air conditioner was leaking and its been dripping through the drywall in the ceiling?
that we've been staying at my grandmas because the house is just about unbearable?
that rob moved in almost a month ago?
that i still dont have a job?
that i never even got a callback about that lousy interview? (see "lousy" posting)
that its too hot for anyone or anything to live here and i think its time for me to move?
its almost the fourth of july here in roswell. one of the main things our city/town is known for is a UFO crash that (supposedly) happened here back in 1947. every year during the summer, and most especially during the week of the fourth of july we have the UFO Festival. people swarm from all over the world to check out our city and the UFO Museum. we block off most of main street for about a week for this shit. i hate tourists. this is the worst time of year here in roswell. i remember as a teenager that we would go to my uncle's cabin in the mountains to get away from the freak crowds. back in 1997 when we had the 50 year anniversary, my friends and i would pile into cars and drive up main street and scream at the tourists to go home, that there was nothing to see, and to get the fuck out of the street and stop taking pictures of the museum because they were blocking traffic. we even had stuff thrown at us... we got to the point that we would start throwing shit back... im a bad, bad girl.
if you've read the last three entries, im sure you know what's going on with my teeth. anyway, they're not really any better since i was at the jerk dentist's office the other day. the teeth dont grind together as bad, but the jaw and throat muscles and gums hurt like hell. im getting yet -another- prescription for pain meds later today. on a good note though, they've also moved my appointment for tuesday up to monday morning. this is good. i dont know how much longer i can handle this. ive thought of pulling the damn thing myself.
another update... i took my third chemo shot yesterday. i may not need to take anymore. we'll discuss it at the next doctor's visit, on july 19th. they put me on another pill, premarin, to help with the hotflashes/moodswings/sleeplessness/night sweats. i hope it helps. i took the first one last night and they said i should see some results in the next few days. yay... i think.
**i was checking out my awstats in cpanel today... and im kinda excited, because i saw that search engine bots love naughtycloset.com!! check these out:
Googlebot 126 visits
Inktomi 34 visits
MSNBot 8 visits
AskJeeves 2 visits
Unknown robot 1 visit
**which is kinda cool, because then maybe we'll get some visitors to the channel. maybe. i think its neat, anyway. since nc.com has only been up for like, three weeks now.
**ok, some of you will be surprised and some of you wont. anyone who's read this blog or talked to me on irc during the last 7 months knows how much trouble ive had with my business law instructor. im proud to say that after taking my third section exam tonight and receiving my grade for it... i will NOT be taking the optional final on thursday night! the reason: ive got an A! thats an A in the class without taking the final, ill be damned if im going to screw that up, lol... a 90.3 is an A by god. im half inclined to take a screenshot im so proud of it. to my knowledge, no one at our university has gotten an A from him. i could be wrong, but if im not, im damn proud to be the first (or one of them).
**now for the rest of my grades. i still have two more classes to go with him... one im worried about and the other im sure ill be fine. as for the rest of my classes, ive got those in the bag. :)
im finally getting somewhere with the insurance/pharmacy/doctor's office. i should be receiving the chemo tomorrow by fedex, and ill be getting the injection on friday. unfortunately, that means im going to be feeling like crap, and ive got a presentation in portales for class on saturday. at least something is happening now. and even better, instead of paying $800 for each treatment, its only a $38 copay. not as "good" as last time i had to do this (which was free) but certainly better than $800.
naughtycloset.com is coming together, its trying to, at least. so far, the index has a link to this blog, a link to the gallery, and an email link... im so proud of myself, i actually set up email accounts for my "staff" today. *grin* and the gallery... which wasnt too bad.
Yesterday, I registered naughtycloset.com with godaddy. One of my kind friends from my irc channel will be hosting the site for me. So far, several of us have concocted what will be going on the site. A picture gallery, forums, and maybe my blog will be there. I'm kind of excited, and being very impatient about it going up. Several of us have been checking to see if it's resolved yet, which it hasn't. So far, special thanks go out to Pierce (for hosting), Jeff (for ideas), Gimpi (for making the sign to go on the index and giving me the code for it), and SomeUser, therock247uk, and dil for their input and advice. It has been a great help!
**its been a week since the surgery. sadly enough, im not feeling much better, but the recovery is expected to be rather slow, considering. i feel better than i did before the surgery. the pain is there, but its a different kind of pain. someone told me its caused by severed nerve endings trying to reattach themselves. i dont know if thats true, but i hope its over soon. i cant wait to feel "normal" again.
**time seems to sit still, but it moves on. i cannot wait for the semester to be over. i dont want to do projects anymore and i am sick of writing papers, that's for sure. 43 more days (counting non-school days, and weekends). that's a nice thought. its all downhill from here.
**i got an 87 on my 10.5 page paper that i write just before my surgery, and have to revise the other, but it isnt so bad. my classmates are funny, they've bribed me into proofreading their papers for them. apparently im the only one who isnt having to revise my 10 page paper... out of 13 other students. crazy. at least i didnt get accused of plagiarizing this time! *grin*
**so, im home now. i got here yesterday evening and have been online a couple times since, but i havent talked very much. according to my family, the surgery went well, though it was worse than they (and the doctor) expected. there were endometrial cells covering my right ovary and my left ureter, a "layer" of it on my abdominal wall, among other places, and scar tissue. the family says the doctor feels he got it all, as well as the scar tissue. at least i wasnt out of my mind and the pain wasnt unfounded. they took a lot of biopsies.
**i go back for a checkup on april 5. we'll see what the doctor has to say then, so for now... i just "recover".
**Today is Tuesday. The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow at 730am, New Mexico time. Just wanted to let you guys know. I won't be active online past this afternoon, (unless by freak accident, I can get computer access tonight in Albuquerque). I will leave MSN and IRC on, but I'll be in lurk mode, so I won't be "online" until further notice. If anyone wants to email me, you can send it to: stress_junkie(at)hotmail.com or you can pm me on irc (at any of the networks I park on) and I will try to check in when I'm up to it. More than likely, I may be back online sometime Thursday afternoon/evening or on Friday. That is NOT a promise though.
**I called about my summons to appear in court for speeding in Texas (see last blog post)... all I have to do for now is send them a letter explaining why I won't be able to appear, for now, and they will take it from there.
**Thanks everyone who has been so supportive of me, especially the last couple of months, and more so the past couple of weeks and days. I know I've been a nutcase and I've been moody, but thanks for sticking by my side. It really means a lot to me.
so things are better. im still in my "emotional" state. but things are better. i am happier, and today my ankle is not hurting so much. also my other pains seem to have slightly subsided. i think that crying half the afternoon helped me feel better. sometimes its good to cry. and sometimes it helps to talk to people, especially that "one" person who seems to always make everything alright again. and those friends who never seem to let you down, the ones always there, willing to listen. and oftentimes those friends who give good advice, particularly if youre smart enough to pay heed to it.
**ok, so im sure you noticed that ive been playing with the stylesheet for the blog. if it looks the same (with that ugly blue it used to have) hit refresh. thanks go out to Aine for telling me where to go so i could change the colors! ive never messed with css before so it was a chore... kinda. css is great, now if i could just learn how to do it instead of just making changes to one already built. :\
**i also got the links back up for Rob and Aine... if you want me to link you you can email me, pm me on irc, or post a response here and ill make sure to add it. with the troubles over the last couple of weeks with this silly thing, i lost everyone that id linked to. sorry guys!
apparently the last couple of pm's in irc that i got regarding my blog being broken was due to the fact that i needed to post! whoops.
whats new lately, lets see... on monday, i borked my ankle. its a pretty mixture of green/black/purple. eww. im in a walking cast for the next week or so, hopefully not longer. im going to denver again in a couple of weeks (YAY!!) so i hope i dont have that stupid thing on my leg, as it would be hell with the damn security checkpoints. also, on monday, i got sick. ive had a cold. it sucks. almost over it now, woot! other than that, nothing much is going on.. except my mom is going to london for spring break and im fucking jealous. good for her though. sucks to be me!
**another day, another class. went to macroeconomics this morning. realized i had the wrong book. was ok, because after class my friend who works at the bookstore called my cell and said "dude! come return your book, we got a used one in!" so i did, got $23 and some change back. YAY!
**called my friend kelly, we went out to lunch. everything was fine and dandy. except then we heard about a mutual former friend of ours in jail. for some really bad shit. lets just say theres a good reason my friend "W" divorced him and got herself and her kid far far away from him. i THOUGHT "G" was a good guy, turns out hes not and i hope he burns in hell.
**anyway, after lunch i was feeling horrid (beginning to be the norm) so i went and took a nap. slept almost two hours and woke up feeling just as bad.
**watched the apprentice (KICKASS!) i wont talk about it any further because i know my buddy arvind hasnt seen it yet and i dont want to ruin it for him. glad its back on the air. thats the one "hour" of television i make time for during the week. back to school, im better off hitting the books instead, but the apprentice is a "business" related show and i can attribute some of the things i see in it to what im learning in class.
**lonely again tonight. *sigh* perhaps ill get used to it. though i hate that thought.
**today i had to get up early, bah! early means before noon. i got up at 740. not TOO early, but still about 4 hours earlier than ive gotten myself used to. i hate not being able to sleep at night.
**so, this morning i got up, showered, dressed, made myself look semi-decent, and went to macroeconomics. at first i wasnt too happy about it. i had this instructor last semester and dropped the first day. i didnt like her "YOU WILL CALL ME MA'AM" bullshit. today she didnt do that. shes a lot more relaxed than she was last semester. i told her after class about how im sick, she was very kind and understanding and said she would accomodate me in any way she could, provided i bring some "proof". considering all instructors have to have proof to make medical accomodations, i dont mind. i have plenty of proof.
**then... i went and made a payment on my tuition for one of the universities (the local one). there went $50 of birthday money. it was worse when i walked into the bookstore and found that there were only "new" books being sold for my econ class. that was another $94 of birthday money. i had six dollars left for lunch. yay. *grumble*
**i went home. i ordered my global business textbook, it was $72. not so bad. better than econ. all my other books i either already had or they were given to me. it should be here tomorrow. then, i got a call. my new glasses came in!! but i think i look like a dork/nerd. wanna see? click here. or here.
**this evening i went to business law two. not so bad. i miss my old buddies from last semester though. the thirteen of us were really cool together, most of the time. now theres only six and four of the people are new. betty and i scared the hell out of everyone telling them TRUE war stories about the instructor.
**all in all it was a good day but i was in a lot of pain. it took everything i had to get to and actually stay in class. enjoyed some face to face interaction with "friends" from last semester. but i hurt so bad. even with the pills, i still hurt. its definitely not fun. and i get kind of sad. everyone else has a life they can go to. mine has no escape.
**i get lonely. i understand that people have to work. i wonder if they know im here, on the other side of the screen, waiting for them to come home from their outside life. a life i dont currently have. a life i am jealous of. i remember being happy and not in constant pain and going and doing things and having fun at work. i miss it. i was talking to someone about this earlier. thanks for being here for me. its appreciated more than you probably know. you're very dear to me and i love you. the same goes to everyone else who has supported me through this. you guys are great and i enjoy your friendship and i care for each and every one of you. it means a lot.
**ok. so today was my birthday. big whoop. spent most of the day feeling crappy, tired, sick, bleh. chatted in IRC with my buddies (thanks everyone for making my day not so bad). got a birthday card in the mail saturday (that i didnt check until today-- po box and all that). i got some flowers and some gifts and a nice dinner from my family. i also got some money that will help me pay for the other two books i need for college and some of my tuition. every little bit helps when you dont get financial aid.
**my dad called. dad rarely calls and im surprised he remembered. i bet my sister called him to tell him it was my birthday. anyhow, lucky me i get to go eat dinner with him and his wife later this week. i love my dad, but i have to be civil to his wife, and my relationship with her has never been good.
**school starts up again for me tomorrow. i have macroeconomics on tuesday and thursday mornings from 930-1045 (bleh!). and then i have business law two on tuesday and thursday nights from 530-645 and employment discrimination law on wednesday nights from 530-645. the rest of my courses are online, thankfully. more on this later.
Thanks KJ! I appreciate the work you did to get this fixed. Now... what to do what to do? Start over from scratch or try to figure out how the hell to get the old posts back... *grumble*
Got the blog back up. Now if I can just figure out how the fuck to get my old entries on here. *sigh*
**I know today is the 5th. I don't care. I thought about making an entry on the first.... thought about it for all of 6 seconds and decided it could wait. School starts in a couple of weeks. On the 18th. I'm not that excited. Here's my schedule:
Tuesday:
Microeconomics (R)- 930-1045am
Business Law 2 (P)- 530-645pm
Wednesday:
Employment Discrimination Law- 530-645pm
Thursday:
Microeconomics (R)- 930-1045am
Business Law 2 (P)- 530-645pm
Online:
Theater Appreciation (R)
Employment Discrimination Law (other half) (P)
Compensation Management (P)
Global Business (P)
**Oh yes, and its almost my birthday. I'm figuring my family will probably forget. They generally do, unless I say something. I don't care that much anymore. I'm sick and get to go to the doctor tomorrow to see if I have to change my medications or go back on chemo. As Astraeus and Mort would say "Buttock Crunchies". I think I'm losing my mind. I need a vacation. I know, I know. I had one last month, but it felt SO good to get away from all the bullshit in my "offline" life.
**as many of you know from reading my last entry, i have a surprise... but a few things first:
1- id like to throw a party for kelly because he beat that stupid bitch (jen) out and won the apprentice season 2
2- im so glad im done with my fucking final exams
3- im getting up at 345am so i can finish packing and get ready to
4- go on vacation...
5- and be in albuquerque by 8am and
6- be at the airport by 9am because im flying
**TO DENVER!!!
**my flight leaves albuquerque at 1030am friday morning, landing in denver at 1144. im very excited but i am also very scared. i havent flown in over 16 years. ive never been to the denver airport. *wimp!!* anyway, i hope to see everyone over the weekend but i cant guarantee how much time ill be spending online. *hugs* hope i make it and dont get lost and cry in DIA.
**This week is going to be rather interesting... and incredibly busy.
**Tomorrow (Tuesday) I'm taking my Civic to get serviced. I also get to work on the second half of my Accounting Final (I got a 98% on the first half!!). Then I get to pack, because my mom and I are going to Lubbock for my aunt's divorce. I still have to study for my Management Final (at 5pm on Wednesday night). Lubbock is three hours from here, and I bet I get to drive. Mom hates driving.
**On Wednesday at 8am we go to the court, hopefully it will be done by noon. On the way home, I get to study some more for my Management Final and then go take it. After that, there's studying for Marketing. I hate Marketing.
**Thursday morning at 11am, I get to take my Marketing Final. After leaving there I have to study for my Business Law Final so I can get at least a 90% on it. If I don't, because of the bullshit plagiarism, I won't get a "B" in the course. Thankfully, after BusLaw, I'm finished and get to go watch the three hour finale of The Apprentice!! And then, I get to go home and go straight to bed.
In addition to all that (Tue-Thur), I still have to find time to hang ornaments on my Christmas Tree, wrap presents, and pack for Friday...
On Friday, I get up at 4am and leave Roswell by 5am because I have to be in Albuquerque by 8am because I'm going to my aunt's house for something I'll mention in a later post. Surprises, Surprises! Its vacation time!
**as many of you know, final exams for most college (and other) students is next week. this year, i decided to reward myself. not only am i rewarding myself, its also an early christmas present... to me. *yippie!* im going on a trip. granted, its got some motive behind it... but its still a vacation nonetheless. its about time i took one. with the exception of last spring break when i went to see my friend christin for three days, i cannot remember the last time i had a vacation. *yay for me!* more later.
**I guess its about time I wrote an entry for December. Looks kinda sad when ya go to look at the page and its nothing but a blank spot with a bunch of links on the side... So, the year will be coming to an end here in a couple of weeks, whoopie. For some of us, final exams are next week and semesters are coming to an end. To this, I give thanks. I hate marketing with a passion. I could probably enjoy it a whole lot more if I had a decent instructor. 8 days... thats all 8 more days. (Which boils down to one more class and a final) *three cheers!!!* Perhaps later I'll think of something more interesting to write about. I'm in a rather bum mood this morning.
**well, you remember that RIAA paper I wrote a month ago? it was finally returned to me today. the instructor pointed out several things wrong with it, and I have to redo it. before saturday. I'm pissed because it's stupid shit like he counts 1 error for each time I didn't capitalize "internet". I have NEVER written internet like this: Internet. according to APA (which it was supposed to be written in), there -should- be double space through the entire paper except block quotes. he says there should not be double spaces between paragraph headings and the following paragraphs. all I know is that he graded it (in my view) incorrectly. and that I've got a $60 book that says he's wrong on the formatting. so I'll fix it to the way he wants it... and he'll probably still bitch about it.
**on top of redoing a 15 page paper I have:
another exam tomorrow (dec. 1) night in org. behavior
three quizzes tomorrow for accounting
a quiz on thursday (dec. 2) in marketing
an accounting assignment due friday (dec. 3) and another and three quizzes next thursday (dec. 9)
a panel forum saturday on Lobbying for bus. law (dec. 4)
an assignment/exam due for algebra on dec. 9
studying for finals next week (dec 6-9)
and then on the 15th and 16th are my final exams-for all 5 classes.
**I'm exhausted. and its damn cold outside. special thanks goes out to the snow in colorado and the wind that's bringing the chill to me.
**Jeff (my cyberson) asked me earlier if I still cared about him. it made me sad. I've consciously known I've been ignoring a lot of people lately, but there's really nothing I can do about it. I tried to explain to him that I get this way the last month of every semester. that right now I have a lot of things going on in my "real" life that I'm having to deal with and it's not so easy to do so. I'm sorry kiddo, I'll try to be better about listening to you when you need me. I haven't been real good at it the last week or so.
**on a lighter note, I kicked ass on tonight's exam in bus. law... well, perhaps I didn't really kick ass, but I got less questions wrong than my studybuddy david did. this makes me feel good. I rubbed it in. (oh how spiteful of me!) and I dumped a lot of what's on my mind on him after we'd reviewed our exam this evening. he was surprised at a few of the things I had to say, and not so surprised about others. enough about david and onto other things... a couple of other people in my life have been very good at assisting me in maintaining some sense of sanity. Thanks Rob, Mike, and KJ... you guys have been good to me and I love you all. I owe you all far more than I'll ever be able to repay you.
**Ok, so... just by reading the title of this entry, you probably think I got in a fight. That's not a surprising thing to think, considering if you're reading this, you know how I can get... It's not what you think. I promise.
**Anyway, I went to go take a shower. Got out and wrapped my hair in a towel and put on my robe. Seems simple enough. By now I'm sure I've got you wondering. So, I'm all wrapped up and I decide I'm gonna go flop on my bed, and I do, face down. (Here comes the good part...) My right sleeve got caught under me, so what do I do? I yank my arm up really hard and end up clocking myself in the eye.
You should have heard me cussing! It hurts like hell, and I'm going to have to wear a lot of makeup to cover it because if I don't, anyone who sees me this week will think I got in a family feud over the Thanksgiving break. (Surprisingly, there was no family war over the vacation. This is a first.) Anyway, this is very uncool because I have a major meeting with a debate panel on Lobbying on Saturday. It's 6 days away, I know, but this damn black eye had better be gone by then and not that nasty greenish-yellow hue. That would make for some good conversation during the debate, I'm sure.
**Anyhow. This is my Sunday afternoon. Must get on with some Marketing papers before they cause me to flunk the course. Bah! Marketing!
**as many of you know, i have a "real life" friend named david. he and i spend a lot of time together. (work, school, studying, hanging out, drinking, etc...) in fact, apparently its -too much- time. we have known each other for about two years or so, have worked on the campus together this entire time. this semester, we took all our evening classes together. david doesnt drive. anyway, every tuesday through thursday we show up to class together and we leave class together. i take him home after class. we even sit next to each other during class... tonight the ITV facilitators (Mary and Tina) scared the shit out of me by asking how long we'd been married. i nearly died... and then nearly died from laughing so hard. talk about mortified! we were both rather embarassed, seeing as how we arent even seeing each other...
**today i worked on updating a few things on my website. if you've never seen it, here it is. i added a page for shit i've written over the years. writings are located here. beware, they're a little hateful/scary/morbid. what can i say, i can't control what my mind thinks.
**i also added a new page of pictures. some are scanned in from my highschool yearbooks. one is my mother's wedding picture. i shaved my head in protest of her wedding a few years ago. fortunately, she was smart enough to get rid of the bastard. there's other pics there. enjoy... or make fun of if you prefer (there's some with glasses!)
**btw, please don't look at my code, you'll die of a heartattack. ive already had a few offers to help revamp the site. ill probably work on it over christmas break. since im off for an entire month and all...
**I was thinking this evening, after I've been up for three days on 6-7 hours of sleep... (I was writing a crappy ass research paper that you can find here) and MS Word kept crashing the damn thing. Anyway, back to my original point, I was thinking this evening that I can relate to a lot of Alanis Morissette's music. She's bummed, she's sarcastic, she's bitter. That sounds a lot like me, particularly when I feel like hell and am sitting in a puddle of self-pity. Yes, I know I had three months to do that damn paper. When did I start it? Four days before it was due. Of course! I am teh procrastinator! So, anyway, I like Alanis. I like her music. She has good songs... though most people don't agree (mom!). Its 1230am and I need sleep. I think I'm getting sick again (which can be highly attributed to not sleeping) so I think I'm going to bed.
**Someone the other day asked me who I am. After giving it some thought, this is what I came up with:
**im a 22 year old female. i have pale skin and black hair. i wear either contacts or glasses. im tall. i dont like wearing business suits. im educated, educating others while continuing to educate myself. i come from a broken family. my parents divorced when i was 12.
**i have a small family. on my moms side, from her parents down are:
gramma- the one person in my family i spend most of my time with
grampa- deceased, but he was a big part of my life when i was growing up.
**mom, sister, and foster brother.
**i have four aunts, four uncles, and two cousins.
**on my dad's side, his parents are deceased and he has no siblings. all i have is him... and he choses not to be a big part of my life, as his step-daughter is more important to him.
**i live modestly. im middle class. im a registered independent voter. i hate politics. i like to argue. im fairly good at pissing people off and/or offending them, regardless of whether i intended to or not.
**i like to drive. im a distance driver, and can do 13 or so hours a day if necessary. ive never spent more than 24 hours outside the United States. ive only been on a plane once, and that was 16 years ago. ive been to 13 US states and one Canadian province. its sad that most of the people in the US dont realize that New Mexico IS part of the US... and that we DO speak English.
**i have food and skin allergies. this prevents me from eating a lot of stuff that looks and smells really really good, and from using lotions and perfumes and soaps that i like the smell of.
**i like music and art. ill listen to just about any type of music (except glass-shattering opera). i like artists like van gogh, monet, and renoir. id like to have a garden some day, but im really bad about killing stuff. living in the desert, its hard to grow a garden anyway... it rarely rains and i always forget to water it.
**i like to cook. especially on the grill. the grill belongs outside, in the backyard though, not in the kitchen. i like big kitchens that you can move around in. they need lots of counter and cabinet space. stainless steel appliances are the best. i like oak furniture. i also like antiques. living rooms and hallways should have pictures in them. bathrooms should be the most colorful rooms in the house. livingrooms and dining rooms should be comfortable and friendly. walk-in closets kick ass.
**enough about me for now, but im sure ill think of more things to add.
**most of you know ive been sick for the past month or so. and that ive had pneumonia and other shit for the past 2.5 weeks. just an update, i still feel like hell. more on this later, my next post is more important.
**in case you didnt know, nic.zerosrealm.com doesnt exist anymore. we have moved to http://nic.bella-designs.ca ... Moonspell has offered to set up forums and whatnot (the host was also his doing -- thanks moon!) for me. forums would be great, but uhh.... what kind of forums? thats the problem i keep running into. if anyone has ideas, let me know, you know where to find me.
**if anyone can think of a topic i can write a ten page paper on for my business law class, please let me know!
**on another note, i dropped the stupid econ class!
**so today is my first day of tuesday/thursday classes. the courses themselves arent so bad, neither are the instructors. ive mentioned before (just not in this blog) how much i hate showing up to class... why waste your time and mine on a lecture i will get absolutely nothing out of? GIVE ME ONLINE CLASSES! let me do the work on my own! dont bore me to death for hours on end with endless bullshitza that im just gonna have to read about in the damn textbook anyway! over my college career, i have repeatedly proven that i do much better in courses i dont have to sit in a lecture for. i teach myself, i hate listening to lectures, i dont like watching instructors read poorly made powerpoint slides word for word, and i can certainly read a textbook on my own (especially since ive been reading since i was four).
**how the hell do people sit and watch tv all day?!
**i also forgot to mention im pretty sure im dropping that stupid economics class and will take it this spring, in addition to moving my 1230 class to wednesday night... this would probably be better for my sanity in the long run. :P
**Hear me out on this one... (from closet logs)
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**I want to die.
**ok, so a few days ago, i woke up with this bright idea that the closet needed a blog. so i talked to zero… he was great and set one up for us to use for general bullshitza and whatnot. unfortunately, everything else on the site had to be taken down. i really would rather have had the main site be back up as the main page, and have the blog as a link. anyway, zero set up the blog... it was great but i missed having the main site. geek was kind enough to offer hosting the blog on his site, which is now the reason why it is here and not on the realm.
**i had thought about creating a forum… and then thought NAH! everyone these days is creating a board… not me! i have to be different, just like everyone else. hey, at least its not another crapware removal site! sure seems a lot have popped up in the last couple weeks.
