wanting and needing

My job is in jeopardy. Not really. I mean yes, really, it is, but it's not as bad as I make it out to be sometimes. This is life at a start-up, especially in a fickle industry like consulting and software. Life is dependent upon the opinions our customers hold of us, and lately opinions have taken a nose-dive. We released a new product too early, we got a little ahead of ourselves, and our reputation is suffering. I woke up to another email from a company wanting a refund-- we get probably 2 a week, which isn't that bad, but it points to a much larger problem lying just under the surface. I freaked out at first, but then I got a really nice email from a customer raving about something we added to the software that made her life easier, and about how open we are to suggestions and how wonderful that is, and I was perked right back up. Why doesn't everyone see it that way? It would make my life easier.

I was thinking on the way to work that I should start putting away, like a squirrel, half my paycheck every month and that we should start to live on beanies and weenies for a while. We've already got 6 months of expenses saved up as an emergency fund, and continue to put a little more in it every month, but it would be nice if it was more like 12 months with the way the economy is right now. I really don't want to go back to an $8 an hour job, but I suppose that would be better than sitting on my butt at home feeling completely sorry for myself.

I don't even want to think about it. That whole scenario is my worst nightmare. I hate being unemployed, unused, unloved.

But why suffer now just because of a small possibility my company will go under in the next several months? We've somehow made it so far, made it through far worse situations than this. Plus shopping makes me forget.

Target has ads out now showing dresses and purses and home accessories in prints from Liberty of London. Liberty was one of my favorite places when we lived there-- the fabric section alone could entertain me for hours, even though I don't sew. And the furniture? Heaven. My mom is coming to town this weekend, and I've already talked her into making the hour trek with me on Saturday morning to the nearest Target. Even though the Liberty stuff isn't out until the 14th. I can go back again on the 17th with Emily. Yes...

It's supposed to be a beautiful weekend, 60 and sunny, and there's just something about this weather that makes me want to shop, that reminds me that nothing I had last year I liked, and encourages me to restock my wardrobe with bright, happy colors. So despite the fact that I may actually need to be saving, all I want to do is spend spend spend.

At least Target is cheap, right?

possibly the last week of winter

This is, quite possibly, the last week of winter for us. I took a gander at the extended forecast this morning, and the high of 40 today goes up by about twenty degrees by the end of a week and a half. Of course that doesn't mean we won't have a random cold day again, but it looks like the continual cold is over. Last night when I left the office it was still light outside, making me recall the long days of summer from my childhood, when we'd stay out and play until dusk, when the street lights and fireflies finally came on.

Spring, summer, and fall agree with me. Winter does not. The cold dries out my skin, making me feel more like an alligator than a human, stands my hair on end with static, clogs and bloodies my nose, and zaps my eyes of moisture. I hate the cold, I hate dry heat inside, and I hate having to layer, to even think about layering, before going out for the simplest thing, like getting the mail. In about a month, I'll be able to walk down my driveway in nothing more than a skirt, t-shirt, and sandals, feeling the warm sun on my finally-soft skin, Bub running between my legs rather than huddling at the door looking at me like I'm crazy for even thinking of going out there.

We don't really have much of a spring or fall here-- a couple good weeks of 60s and 70s, then we're up to 90 pretty quick. It's ok though; I'm completely used to it. I love that feeling of getting in your car after it's been in the sun, and it's so hot you can't breathe. I like to sweat. Everyone here sweats. It's not a gross bodily function, it's just a sign of living in the deep delta South. I love fans and cool air conditioning and iced drinks served on a front porch in the shade. Come on, May.

But today, I've stolen the space heater from Emily, who is out of town, to try to keep my tootsies warm under my desk. I switch how I cross my legs, back and forth, putting one foot in front of the screen, and then the other, heating them up and then switching just before they sting. Cold toes are the worst.

Thursday... still grateful

Even if I am cold, even if we are down to one car, even if I slept like a nocturnal animal last night, even if I'm annoyed about having to fire someone else at work, I'm still grateful. Grateful for being here, for my red overcoat, for the available money and perspective to be able to laugh at a broken starter and a tow truck in our driveway, for caffeine, and for the personality I somehow earned that allows me to keep business separate from emotions.

This is going to be a rambling post. Even after a coke this morning (a REAL one, not a zero or diet or anything else) my brain still feels like a fat man sat on it and left it flattened and squished out my ears and useless. I'm heavy, heavy arms, heavy eyelids, heavy fingernails pushing down on these keys too hard.

My friend, the one who was doing in vitro, is pregnant. One baby, due in October. They're very happy. Would have been happier with twins, I think, just so they didn't ever have to go through this again. Not that they have to, but I imagine they'll want more than one. I texted her and asked her if she wanted to go get a drink and celebrate before I remembered pregnant people can't drink. And life changes again.

I'm wearing an orange sweater today, orange like that Publish Post button down there, pumpkin orange, with a white and orange gauzy scarf tied loosely around my neck. The sleeve are just one tiny bit too short though, and it bothers me. I keep pulling them down. I'm one of those weird people that likes my sleeves to touch my thumbs if at all possible though.

I submitted the first story, Last to Leave. I think there's a tendency in "serious" literature to avoid the happy endings, the sweet stories, which is unfortunate, but which led me away from submitting the second. Too bad I couldn't send both; they're very different. Thank you to everyone who voted or commented, I really appreciate it. I'll let you know if anything becomes of it.

I told my husband I was submitting it, and he was happy for me. Not that I expected anything different, but considering I don't really consider myself a writer, that I do this blog thing just to entertain myself and to get these rambling random thoughts out of my head, and that I only write stories so that my failing memory is forced to remember and, again, for entertainment, I half-way think people will just giggle and pat me on the head, like "aww, look at the cute little thing who thinks she can 'write.'" It just seems false to me to call myself an author because I can't make up stories from scratch, I can't write about things I don't know. I was never a barista, but the feeling of that story, the characters, were real in my life, and that's the only way I can write them. I can't make up a character. When I've tried they've felt fake to me, like wisps of other people, ghosts, lacking real motives or inspiration or even faces. Like poorly acted B movies.

I am so asleep this morning. My boss just came in and asked me something, and I looked up at him wide-eyed, like he had three heads, completely not understanding a word. Is it 5 yet?

two stories: your choice

It so happens that the same day Janna at Something She Wrote encouraged me to submit some of my writing to magazines or online sites, I happened across a short story contest. I took it as a sign and decided to enter. The rules are basically that it must be less than 600 words-- the purpose is to convey a story or character study in a very limited amount of time.

I actually have written two things that fit this requirement, one from a long time ago, about the same time I wrote the story I posted a couple weeks ago, and another just recently inspired by my trip home and my last post. I can't decide which to send. Because I have some of the best writers I know as readers of my blog, I thought I would take a vote. You can leave me a comment with your choice, or there's a poll to the right if you'd rather be anonymous-- either "Last to Leave" or "They were Us." I really appreciate honest opinions.

Here we go...


Last to Leave

The barista (a trumped-up name for coffee servant, she smirked) slid around the edge of her counter and over to the abandoned table in the window. In one swoop she folded the open newspaper and placed it on the counter where she’d remember to throw it away later.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright, she recanted in her head as, out of reflex more than caring, she grabbed the blue-handled broom and began to sweep up the dust of the day. It was dark out now, and the clock on the wall ticked one second closer (to what?) as she glanced up at the silver face. Her English 301 test was at 8 a.m., only one night left to study.

The door opened again, and the pile she had gathered blew under a table nearby. Without looking up, she said, “we’re closed,” and, crouching, Curse, bless me now... she reached out and brought back the stray debris.

“Just me,” he snapped and grabbed the newspaper from the counter, plopping himself down on the red velvet couch in the window. He immediately slid the sports section out and threw the rest on the cushion next to him, a pile of misfolded newsprint.

“I’ll be done in a minute.” She tossed the dustpan’s contents outside where the strong south wind caught them.

“Well, hurry up. I’ve got places to be.”

After locking the door she walked back to the counter to count the cash drawer. Slowly thumbing the ones, her mind drifted. After four years, she had hoped they would still be in love. Something had happened to him, something had changed him, made him full of self-hate and anger, and borderline-abusive. Can you be such a thing? Seems like either you are or you aren’t.

She lost count and started over.

“What are you doing?” he grumbled without looking up from the paper, snapping the middle fold back into place.

She held on to the edge of the sugar-strewn counter, steadying herself, and tapped her fingernails on the formica, exhaling slowly, quietly. It was time to go.

Pencilling in the final tally in the book, she slid the register drawer closed and locked it, placing the key back in the pencil cup. Do not go gentile.... She grabbed her purple scarf off the coat rack and wrapped it tightly around her neck, flipped off the lights, unlocked the door, and held it open for him.

“Ok.”

Tossing the open newspaper onto the coffee table, he breezed past her out the door, turning left towards his car. She hesitated for a moment, holding her breath in her throat and leaning her head on the open door, staring blankly at the paper piled on the couch and table. Poetry rumbled in her head; she let it win. She shut and locked the door and turned towards him.

“Car’s here,” he said, pointing with his keys down the block to the left, but she turned to the right, into the wind. Rage, rage.




They were Us

“I took that picture when we were visiting New York, remember, at Christmas, and it was so cold. We went to that bagel place after the Empire State building to get out of the wind. I thought the reflection on the glass and that red table was interesting.”

Dad turned the page in the photo album, passing naked mannequins in ice encrusted windows, me and my brother smiling in front of a giant stuffed giraffe at FAO Swartz, and snowy branches rustling in Central Park. His “interesting” pictures always left our family vacations looking like a artist’s portfolio as much as snapshots of memories. He picked up a new album and quickly began flipping pages.

“Wait, go back,” I said and put my hand on a page of ancient-looking black and white prints.

My mother stared back at me from the page, but it wasn’t the mother I recognized, not the woman sitting in the red recliner across the room with the crossword puzzle book in her lap, purple cat-eyed reading glasses resting on the tip of her nose. This young woman, her long jet black hair just tickling her narrow shoulders, stared into the camera lens, coyly and yet blatantly flirting with the man behind the shutter.

“Oh, yes, this is a series I did with your mom behind a fan,” he said proudly, sitting up taller. “See here, I was trying to get the reflection off the old metal fan blades to blur the edges...."

“Mmhmm...” I murmured, caught up in that face, so much like my own and yet so completely hers, and those thin fingers, not yet marked by age. I reached out with my own young hand and ran my fingertip down the edge of the plastic divider. This was my mother before she was my mother, looking more herself in the photo than she looked now, full of life and confidence, before children could reap her youth.

My mother, the mother I knew, stirred in her chair and sat up. “I remember that,” she said dreamily.

“You’d make me pose in the weirdest of places doing the dumbest things. Sit there and look blank. Look over your shoulder and smile. I’m glad you’ve found new models, like those mannequins.” As she laughed, her glasses slipped off, and she threw my father a look that, for just a second, recalled the face from the photo.

Later, laying in bed with Michael, I told him about my discovery.

“She was so beautiful. No kids, no real responsibilities other than to each other, free and in love and really living.”

“Yeah. They had to have been young once, you know,” he yawned.

“But to actually see it, see those feelings right there on her face... so intimate. And it’s not just that they were young, but that they were... us.”

A soft noise, a giggle in a familiar voice, came from the next room. Concentrating, I could hear my parents talking but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Michael rolled over and looked at me in the dark. “Will you still love me in thirty years?”

“Thirty years more than I do already.”

Grateful Thursday: photos of my mother

I went home this past weekend to see my grandmother and visit with my parents at their house for a change, as they always come here. My father, an attorney by day, should have been a professional photographer or writer or something artistic, but his father would never have paid for a college tuition that didn't lead to a "real job." That's probably one of the few tragedies of his life (we all have them, you know). Luckily he found an outlet in art photography as a hobby, and over the years he's amassed over 3000 black and white negatives and who-knows-how-many color.

He got excited a couple weeks ago when I told him we were coming home because he's recently started trying to get all his photos saved online and on an external hard drive. For a man who only knows how to email, play in Ebay, and shop L.L. Bean online, he was having some trouble with Flickr and the hard drive. Previously, his very precious to me plethora of negatives had only been stored on actual flimsy negative rolls (those murky brown strips with the hole punches along the side we used to get back with prints... remember those?). One fire or burglar and they would have all been gone, over 30 years of memories and work. 

He started first by, slide by slide, putting them on CDs, but I talked him into the external hard drive and an online website in addition, and my little brother told him about Flickr. We want them in as many places as possible.

While he was playing around in Flickr, putting captions on pictures of my Granny and her garden from the late 1970s, I was flipping through the same set of photos in one of his photo albums. Around the same time he did a series of my mother sitting behind a fan and another few of her around a campfire with my grandmother and grandfather.

She was the age in those photos that I am now, and it was both beautiful and eerie to see her so frank and coy with my father, so alluring and fresh, with long hair and skinny limbs, smooth face staring into the camera lens with dark eyes, or glancing away, thin fingers resting on her chin. It was like peeking into my own life in a way, or at least a bit of the life that I am leading now as a young newly-married, pre-kids, playing with my husband the way she was playing with my father. She looked like the same woman but a different woman all at once. I was struck by how much she looked like me and my brothers but also fully herself, maybe more herself then than she looks now, more alive and confident, before children could reap her youth.

Today I'm grateful that my father took those photos of her and all the photos that he took in his life-- even the weird ones from the grocery store of the bunches of bananas, and even though he used to make me pose until I was bored to tears. Looking back at them now I understand how much of my history has been documented because of his little obsession, and I'm so thankful for it.

I'm also grateful for my mother, for the loving way in which she raised me, for letting me and my brothers take from her her youth so that we could grow up happy and fully cared for and complete. I'm so thankful to still have her as a powerful presence in my life, and I'm glad to call her my friend. I know even after she's gone I'll think of her everyday, and I'll look back at these pictures and pictures that we're taking even now and be able to remember her as a whole person, from the shy, pretty young woman to the mature, thoughtful mother, and everything in between.

Grateful Thursday

I've been undisciplined lately about doing these grateful posts, missing one completely and then last week only remembering on Friday afternoon. These last couple weeks have been hard on me, and it's times like these that I should cling to these posts rather than brush them aside.

I'm trying to come to terms with my professional life, trying to figure out if this is really what I want to "do," and if it's not, what that means. Does it mean I quit? Hold out here while I look? Accept the fact that if I work hard enough here I'll make a lot of money and then eventually will be able to do exactly what I want to do without a lot of the start-up problems?

I'm beginning to lean toward the last because:
A) These are my friends here and I can't leave them high and dry
B) If I were to quit, there's no one hiring right now, and any job that I could get that is less stressful would be boring, and then I'd be continually bored to death. Been there, done that, not fun.
C) I'm ok biding my time for a while, and most days I like my work.

This week, I'm particularly grateful for:

1) I'm getting my haircut tomorrow morning. My bangs have grown out all funky and they're poking me in the eyes.
2) A trip to see my grandmother this weekend. We're going out for catfish with her, and I'm happy to still be able to take small trips with her. In the next couple years she's not going to be able to leave the dementia ward anymore-- it will be too dangerous.
3) Dog safety seats. I'm buying a booster seat for Bub on Saturday. It's so cool-- it's like a bed, but it's high enough that he can see out the window, and it straps in with the seat belt like a child seat, with a leash to hold him in the bed. He hates kennels because he can't see out of the window, but it's so dangerous to have him loose in the car. I really hope this works.
4) Sweet corn and crab chowder with tortilla chips for lunch today. I'm excited. Hopefully it tastes as good as it sounds.
5) Scrabble on the iPhone. I've been playing against my brother-in-law all week. Who knew some of these words we're coming up with actually existed?

Even if I'm grateful for just small things lately, even if that's all I can muster, it's ok because the small things point to the big things-- soup means I have food, I can afford good food, and a lot of people don't and can't. Haircuts mean I have the luxury of worrying about small things like my appearance. And eating catfish with my grandmother leads me to remember how lucky I am to have had, and still have, such loving family members and friends in my life. It puts everything else in perspective, leaving my work troubles looking so very small.

beginnings, again

I was reading through some posts from last February, trying to find out when we got our fence. We had an ice storm last week, and a pine tree fell in our backyard, significantly bending one section. I had to call the fence guy, and I wanted to make sure I could remember when exactly the fence was put in.

Anyway, I ran across this post that I wrote about first meeting my husband and thought I'd repost it. So here it is...

beginnings


"Where's your costume?" I ask as I open the front door, anticipating a typical answer.

"This is my costume."

Yep, typical.

"All black does not a costume make, especially not when you wear it every day of your life," I reply, now back in the bathroom, stroking silver eyeshadow above and below my eyes, trying not to let him see my disappointment. Although it wouldn't be the first time he saw it, especially not lately.

"Whatever. I have a cape and hood."

Great, it's like dating Batman. 

I slide the door to the bathroom closed and adjust my fishnets. That straight line up the back of my leg doesn't want to stay straight. Joe and Amy should be here any minute, with Michael, the oldest son of my favorite professor, my academic advisor, Dr. Mendell. Being in Dr. Mendell's class is like being in heaven-- all I have to do is sit and absorb the information, observe the slides of historical places and beautiful works of art as they grace the screen, and let him render unto me the knowledge he has spent his entire life collecting. 

Michael is good-looking, like a young Dr. Mendell would have been, before gray hair crept in and the glasses that rest on the tip of his nose were needed. I've seen his picture in his dad's office, though it was from about 9th grade.

"Hey, when the hell are they getting here?" he yells from the kitchen, his mouth half full of food which I'm sure he's spitting out onto my floor and will never clean.

"Should be any minute. You know, we're eating out before we go to the party."

If you paid attention when I spoke, you'd know that, I think, and then I stop myself, resting my hands on the edge of the counter and staring down into the now-glittered sink. Lately all I've been feeling is annoyance and disdain when he's around. After four and a half years I'd hoped we'd still be in love, but that word hasn't been appropriate in, oh, at least nine months. I just can't shake him. 

Looking at myself in the toothpaste-stained mirror, refusing to go out just yet even though my make-up is sufficiently shiny and my hair is stiffly spiked, I don't see myself. It's not the costume, either. I feel lost, like my body left me somewhere back down the road, like a hermit crab shed its shell, only the shell kept moving too, and he's been filling it, me, up with hate, self-pity, and sadness. 

He used to be fun. He used to make me laugh, hard. I don't know what happened, I just know something did. I look down in the drawer at my old locket and wonder when was the last time I wore it. It doesn't match anything I wear anymore. I'm done trying to fix him or make him happy. Obviously, I can't. 

"Hey, get the door!" he yells.

You get it. I slam the drawer. When I finally hear voices in the living room, I open the bathroom door and step out.

"Oh, dear, you look fabulous!" Amy coos, and she pounds over to me in her five inch platform boots to poke at my hair. "How is it staying like that? Oh, here, this is Michael," and she steps aside.

A knot forms in my stomach and rises up through my diaphragm and into my lungs, forcing me to exhale and step backwards, a little off balance. I feel my face flush. It's been so long.

"Hi," is all I can manage.

"Hi."

Sugar Doll

I have a new follower, and already she's passed on a sweet award to me! The Sugar Doll award requires the recipient to list ten things about themselves (like you, kateyleigh, I want more instructions!) and then pass it on. I've decided to take the "ten things" in a different direction and list my ten most favorite foods, the places where I ate them, and when. This is harder than it sounds! So here we go.

10. Hot fudge milkshake with extra hot fudge (you might as well be drinking hot fudge) at Sonic here in town on any given Sunday afternoon
9. Grilled catfish with rotel cheese fries and salad with vidalia onion dressing from Taylor Grocery in Taylor, MS, as often as I can get there
8. Moist, thick brownies topped with marshmallow cream and chocolate icing, my house, superbowl Sunday
7. Ruprict, a.k.a. nachos with queso, black beans, salsa, quacamole, and sour cream, from Moe's in Memphis whenever we happen to drive that way (and I make a point of driving that way)
6. Fresh goat's cheese, scooped from the bottom of a jar of honey and spread on fresh baked French bread. Our first wedding anniversary, at the Conservatory in London.
5. Chocolate cake floating in a chocolate-chili pepper soup, some vegetarian restaurant in New York City, when my husband and I visited in March '05
4. A golden pyramid roll-- smoked salmon, avacado, cucumber, and cream cheese rolled in seaweed and rice, tempura battered and fried, smothered in volcano sauce, and then dipped into soy sauce with a hint of wasabi. The best sushi restaurant in town, again as often as I can.
3. Indian food of any kind, especially when we were in London, especially vegetable korma, naan with raitha, samosas, and aloo palak. We get it here in town almost every Sunday night. Good, but not as good as London.
2. A veggie plate from my favorite restaurant here in town-- homemade mac and cheese, sweet potato casserole, broccoli and rice casserole, creamed spinach, and jalepeno cornbread. With a Blue Moon. Often.
1. Fish stew-- a perfectly cooked piece of amberjack perched on top of a tomato-based stew including mussels, shrimp, crab, bell peppers, and onions, full of spices and herbs, followed by a chocolate hazelnut tartufo (a ball of hazelnut ice cream surrounded by a layer of chocolate gelato and drizzled with chocolate and raspberry sauces). Our 2nd wedding anniversary at an excellent Italian restaurant we used to have here but is unfortunately now closed.

Whew, now I'm hungry... good thing I still have some leftover brownies.

And now to pass this on. The rules say ten people, but I think I'll just pick two.
Heather at ...and now I'm a grownup because I think she's sweet as sugar, but also because I want her to post more often!
Dan at Vacant Mind because it would be funny to see "Sugar Doll" on his blog, and he'll appreciate the irony.

Ok, that's it from me today.

Grateful Friday... better late than never

How do you learn?

It's something we've been discussing at work fairly often lately. Me, I'm a hands-on, drop me in the fire kind of learner. I can't listen to a lecture, I won't pick up a bit of it. I can't watch a presentation, my mind will wander far, far away. Explain something to me once, maybe twice if it's complicated, and then let me go. I'll make mistakes the first couple times, but then I'm fine, because I learn from my mistakes and from figuring out the steps on my own. I think part of this tendency is because I feel like my version of doing things, my steps down the road to completion, are better than anyone else's, and I don't want to get stuck doing something exactly the way someone else told me to do it just because they told me to. There's always a more efficient way-- my way.

There are people out there who need lectures though, who need to hear something over and over to know how to do it, who are afraid of making mistakes and so want to be hand held through the process the first few times. We've got a new staff member like that right now, and he's tiring. I try not to get frustrated, but the questions.... oh, the questions. He usually has the right answer, he's just so afraid he's wrong that he holds it back. He has no confidence. On the other hand, a different new staff member just asked to be "let go" so we let her go, and she's flying solo and doing just fine.

Can you tell I'm biased here? Again, my way.

I'm a thoughtful, processed person. I like steps, I like marking things off a checklist, I like regularity and expectations laid out in black and white. I think it makes people comfortable and gives them freedom to even exceed the expectations, or at least it does for me, so I try to provide that for other people here at work, and at home too. I have no problems at home-- my husband is a very thorough and thoughtful person as well. At work, though, sometimes I feel like the black sheep.

I was discussing with Emily how different environments can make you a slightly different person, or at least make you react in a different way from how you normally would. I'm rather bossy here at the office without really meaning to be. But things don't get done unless I lay them out in black and white and insist on them. Otherwise everyone seems to run around willy-nilly, busy, but busy doing things that would be better done in other ways by other people. We're having an executive team meeting tomorrow morning to try to set out some organizational clarity, to try to set some goals and assign them so that people are accountable, but I'm getting resistance already.

I assigned homework. I suppose that word alone is enough to make this bunch run for the hills, but the point of it was to save valuable Saturday time by everyone coming prepared. I expect 4 of the 7 to come ready. 2 of the remaining 3 are possibilities. The last one, the boss-- it will be a cold day in hell before I see completed homework from him. The only thing that gives me hope is that Emily is living in his upstairs bedroom right now (waiting on her new place to get painted) so maybe, just maybe she'll encourage him to get it done. But if I hear those three little words, those words that get under my skin when people use them as an excuse for something like this, something as important as our internal organization and setting goals for our company... "I was busy...," I think I'll freak. Too busy to care about the future of the company and how we can best reach our goals? Too busy to answer a couple questions about how this group can improve communication and our organizational health? Bullshit.

My mother is out there somewhere right now thinking, Language, young lady.

It's been a short week, somehow. The weekend will be even shorter.

I'm grateful to have an understanding of myself, of how I am, how I best learn, how I handle situations, so that when an unusual situation arises I can step back and analyze my reaction to it, and I have the tools to understand why I had that reaction and modify it for the future if need be. I'm grateful that I'm a thinker, that I edit my words and actions before I put them out into the world, even if it does mean a slower reaction time than sometimes I would like.

I'm also grateful for the rain today, for slowing everything down, and for my new contacts and the ability to see this screen without leaning forward and hurting my back.

Lastly, I'm grateful for being where I am and who I am right now. Despite my complaining and my second-thoughts, there's really no where else I'd rather be right now. I work with my friends, with people I can call out on their bullshit, for a company that has a real future if we can get over these speed bumps. And I live with the man of my dreams-- my best friend-- in a town I love. What else could I need?

out of it

I just now realized that I missed my Grateful Thursday post last week. Is it Monday? It feels like Tuesday already. I guess that's just the kind of day I'm having. The weekend went by entirely too quickly, and I can't believe it's February already. One down, eleven to go. And they'll go quicker than I will be able to keep up.

There are 6 to 10 things I could talk about right now, but they all relate to work. And I'm sick of work-- sick of being here, of thinking about it, of talking about it. Not that I dislike it, it's just that we've been so busy lately. I need a break, and weekends are way too short. But I want them out of my head so here they are, quickly:
1) It's (still) freaking cold in here. I've begun a quiet coup every time I walk past the thermostat by turning up and/or checking to make sure it's still up.
2) We're participating in a career fair on a college campus tomorrow. Should be fun.
3) I'm sick of customers. Customers suck-- whiny, dumb, and lazy. You know who you are. I'm one of these when it's not my company.
4) Some guy who makes office signs dropped off his card, and his name is Coolidge Ball. His mother was a terribly mean-spirited woman to do that to him.
5) It doesn't smell like paint anymore. But it's still loud.
6) My boss told me Saturday night that he's ok with employees fearing me. He doesn't want to be feared-- he wants to "lead by inspiration," but it's ok if I'm feared. The reign of terror begins. Just kidding. Maybe.
7) I can't stand people running around here like chickens with their heads cut off, like something somewhere is on fire. It's going to be ok. Chill. Take a deep breath and think through it. One employee is constantly muttering "shit" and "damnit" under his breath as his fingers make a tip-tapping blur over his keyboard. We call him Eeyore for a reason.

That's enough for now.

Personal life? This weekend we did nothing Friday night-- tv, couch, and a quilt, that's it. Saturday we ate out, mostly because I didn't feel like cooking, and grabbed a quick drink with some old friends who happened to be out as well. She was just "implanted" on Monday, meaning she's going through another round of in-vetro fertilization, and was just released from bed rest. She won't know until the 8th whether or not they're sticking around for the long haul. For her sake, I hope they do, although I know for a fact I'd never go through that much expense and worry and pain for something my body was telling me didn't need to happen. That's just me though-- to each their own. I'm probably not the best case scenario as I don't care that much about having kids in the first place.

We're hosting the super bowl party this weekend, so that should be a hoot. I sent a mass email earlier to all my friends and have thus far only gotten one response. People are so bad about RSVPing. But I'm anal. We're making shrimp gumbo and asking them to bring appetizers and desserts. One friend is making a Super Bowl Squares board, $1 a square, with a winner drawn at the end of every quarter. I'm terrible at that. I put way too much thought into it, figuring out the mathematical probability of each particular numeral and how frequently they occur, based on typical football scores of 7 and 3 points with 6 and 2 points being less likely. For instance, a score of 2 to 7 is very, very, unlikely, but a score of 2 to 2 is nearly impossible. Best to stick to multiples of 3 and 7 and combinations thereof. Don't take my advice though-- I've never won.

We'll just call last week a wash with Grateful Thursday. I'll do a doubly-good post this Thursday, promise. I absolutely have things for which to be grateful, like that the heat, mercifully, just kicked on, or that I had leftover Indian for lunch, but days like today leave me ultimately wanting not much more than a sunset, especially a sun setting on a Friday, excusing me into 48 hours of relative freedom. Just four more days to go. I'm going to make it a point to find something positive in each day, just so I don't feel so bad about wishing my life away.