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?
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Monday, February 22, 2010
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.”
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.”
Thursday, February 18, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
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.
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."
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, February 5, 2010
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?
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?
Monday, February 1, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
over it, and grieving
After work, my coworker, Emily, and I went and got a margarita and bitched for an hour. Funny how tequila and whining put everything in perspective. Actually, what really helped was the email I sent later that night (after I'd sobered up) to my boss, explaining why I was so frustrated that day and listing the things I think we are doing wrong. He wrote back and said I was "100% right" and thanked me for the feedback. We're supposed to talk about it later today. That's one thing I will say for him-- he's always open to feedback, even if it's negative. He knows that I have the best interests of the company, and him too, at heart, and I feel a bit renewed today.
Today is also my maternal grandmother's birthday. She is 79 years old. Mom is supposed to call me from her room at the dementia ward later today so I can wish her a happy birthday. She only has some time left where she'll remember my name over the phone. I'm going to see her in two weeks, going to take her to eat catfish.
My maternal grandfather's birthday would have been tomorrow, and he would have been 80. She was one day less than a year younger than him.
In honor of my grandfather, and also because the last paragraph of this post is pretty much how I was feeling yesterday, like every little thing was a splinter in my hand, I'm reposting today "grieving" from January 13 of last year.
"I grieve more than most people, I think. I'm still grieving my grandfather who passed two and a half years ago. There are days it catches me so off guard-- I'll be doing something as simple as washing my face, and a random thought or memory sweeps over the top of my brain and I feel this ache, a deep, gnawing ache, trapped behind my rib cage above my stomach, like a scream I swallowed a long time ago that's now begging to be released. It hurts so completely I double over and being to sob. I miss him so much sometimes. I'd give anything just to hear his voice again.
Today is also my maternal grandmother's birthday. She is 79 years old. Mom is supposed to call me from her room at the dementia ward later today so I can wish her a happy birthday. She only has some time left where she'll remember my name over the phone. I'm going to see her in two weeks, going to take her to eat catfish.
My maternal grandfather's birthday would have been tomorrow, and he would have been 80. She was one day less than a year younger than him.
In honor of my grandfather, and also because the last paragraph of this post is pretty much how I was feeling yesterday, like every little thing was a splinter in my hand, I'm reposting today "grieving" from January 13 of last year.
"I grieve more than most people, I think. I'm still grieving my grandfather who passed two and a half years ago. There are days it catches me so off guard-- I'll be doing something as simple as washing my face, and a random thought or memory sweeps over the top of my brain and I feel this ache, a deep, gnawing ache, trapped behind my rib cage above my stomach, like a scream I swallowed a long time ago that's now begging to be released. It hurts so completely I double over and being to sob. I miss him so much sometimes. I'd give anything just to hear his voice again.
Does everyone do this? Two and a half years later? It doesn't happen often, maybe once every couple of months. Right after his death it was once every couple hours, then every couple days, so I guess it is fading.
Part of me doesn't want it to fade. Maybe that's what's wrong-- I think if I stop grieving, all that I have remaining of him will be gone.
I wasn't done with him yet, I wasn't done learning from him and loving him and being in his presence. When my great-grandmother died at 98, it was hard. She was a very important person in my life and influenced who I am greatly. But she was so old and I felt so blessed to have had her that long. She was ready to go. Maybe that makes the difference. Granddad fought the dying of the light to his last breath, fought the cancer with everything he had. I don't have anyone else in my life that was like him-- so strong and masculine and yet caring and joyful and loving.
I just realized that describes my husband perfectly as well. Huh. And I've taken parts of my grandfather and internalized them; I do things that he would appreciate, like digging in the dirt with my bare hands, using a hammer and screwdriver with confidence, telling people the whole honest truth. So obviously if I stopped grieving him I wouldn't lose him completely. It just feels that way.
I guess this is just a part of my personality. I grieve dead animals on the side of the road, I grieve days lost to migraines, I grieve every soldier and civilian killed in the mid-east, I grieve every argument and harsh word I've had and spoken. I'm not a sad person. I'm actually very happy in my life. Content. I just feel things so deeply, and I don't think other people understand this. I know they don't. Because I don't either, at least not completely."
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
the smell of paint fumes in the morning
I never wanted a job like this. I never wanted stress or to have to be in charge of anyone or to worry about the company for which I work going under. I don't want to be looking for work again.
To try and calm myself down and put this in perspective: I have a job, which is more than a lot of people can say right now, and I have a job that pays pretty well too. We're ok financially if I were to lose my job. I just checked our savings last night, and we have six months worth of expenses saved up. I like the people with whom I work, for the most part, which again is more than a lot of people can say.
When I finished graduate school, we debated, upon leaving London, to where we should move. New York? Chicago? Atlanta? Nashville? We kept creeping closer and closer to home with the darts thrown at our map. The problem with big cities is that I'd be expected to get a big-city job, like at a fancy auction house or cold, imposing museum. I'd be expected to climb that corporate ladder, pushing past others, leaving them in my dust, or else suffer as a pee-on on the lower rungs of the ladder for the rest of my life.
I suppose I could have made myself happy there, on those low rungs. See, I've never been interested in being a VP or any kind of middle management. I just want to be left alone, and those people are never left alone. I need to run my own life. But I also don't have the drive to try and open my own gallery in a big city. The problem there is, again, you have to strive to be better than you are, cut throat, grow or die. In a small town, there isn't that problem because there is so little competition. A new gallery in this town would be welcome and appreciated.
I'm admitting it now because I feel like I've been lying to myself. But maybe this isn't the complete truth, maybe this is just me freaking out this morning. I don't care about my job. I mean I care about keeping it, I care about my coworkers, and I care about my position in HR and the affect I have on others here and on their professional lives. But I don't care about the industry we're in. It bores me. And the way this office is managed is so frustrating because I have no control over it. I see things that can be fixed but have no way of fixing them. Helpless.
I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated because:
-People (the bosses) don't think about things before they do them
-We moved into our new office before the toilets were even set up and went Thursday last week through yesterday peeing at the gas station next door. We still don't have running water in the sinks.
-No one thought about the fact that open ceilings on these offices mean we might as well not even have walls or doors. I can hardly hear myself think. The trainers have set up in the conference room because it's the only quiet place. I want to find them earphones of some sort but it wouldn't matter because we can't afford them right now. We can't even afford to buy our new employees email addresses from our webserver or new computers to work on. Why do we have new employees?? Because we are all so overwhelmed we can't get the work done, but now that we have new employees we can't get them set up so they can take the load off of us.
-We launched this software without even having our server farm set up correctly, and the boss signed a contract that said every so-many minutes we're down we owe thousands to our franchise client. So this morning when it was down for 10 minutes, who knows how many of our clients saw that weird error page and got frustrated too, and who knows how much we owe now.
-The boss tries to charge people for their software without consulting the sales team to find out what kind of deal is made, so he told our controller yesterday to charge someone even though sales had agreed with them not to charge til Feb. 1, and even though the controller was told that, he's either too spineless to say no or too dumb to remember. All because we need the money.
-It's freaking cold in here, and it smells like paint.
So what do I want to do? I want to own my own antique store/art gallery. I was so close about a year and a half ago, I had a lady wanting to sell hers to me, but she backed out at the last minute. Talk about heartbreak. I had worked at her store for over a year in hopes of buying it from her. I was practically running it-- all I wasn't doing was signing the checks. So I know what it takes. To be able to make my own decisions, to know when I say something, that's what's going to happen, not that a boss will toss my words to the side. I know what I'm doing, what I decide is right, at least in comparison to him, because I see the way I run my household and the way I ran that antique store, the way I increased her profits and solved issues. I'm not perfect, no way, but I don't have grand ambitions like he does, gambling with the professional lives of 20 people. I would only be gambling with my own, at least until I was stable enough to bring other people on. Stability. I need stability, and order, and solidity.
I care about art. I don't care about construction. I care about this community and improving it, about helping local people, but all our clients are elsewhere and so many of my coworkers are from somewhere else. I'm scared to leave though, and too busy to leave too-- I'm here 9 to 6 or 7 most days. Plus I do like the people and would leave them in a huge lurch if I left. I've always said I don't care about what I do as long as I like the people and the work, and I suppose that's true, but the work is taking its toll on me-- long days, poor conditions, stress.
Most things I worry about never happen anyway. Most of the time I remember this. Most of the time I'm content even with a tornado swirling around me because I know three things:
If I lose my job, I will be ok financially.
If I lose my job, I will find something else.
If I lose my job, even though it will be tough and I will mourn for a while, I will find my way through it and will be better off in the end.
Something about this morning is keeping me from remembering those things. Something is making me want to run away screaming. I suppose it's fear of seeing everything I've worked for this past year crumble in front of my eyes. But in reality, I have nothing to lose. This job is not me, I am so much more than this.
To try and calm myself down and put this in perspective: I have a job, which is more than a lot of people can say right now, and I have a job that pays pretty well too. We're ok financially if I were to lose my job. I just checked our savings last night, and we have six months worth of expenses saved up. I like the people with whom I work, for the most part, which again is more than a lot of people can say.
When I finished graduate school, we debated, upon leaving London, to where we should move. New York? Chicago? Atlanta? Nashville? We kept creeping closer and closer to home with the darts thrown at our map. The problem with big cities is that I'd be expected to get a big-city job, like at a fancy auction house or cold, imposing museum. I'd be expected to climb that corporate ladder, pushing past others, leaving them in my dust, or else suffer as a pee-on on the lower rungs of the ladder for the rest of my life.
I suppose I could have made myself happy there, on those low rungs. See, I've never been interested in being a VP or any kind of middle management. I just want to be left alone, and those people are never left alone. I need to run my own life. But I also don't have the drive to try and open my own gallery in a big city. The problem there is, again, you have to strive to be better than you are, cut throat, grow or die. In a small town, there isn't that problem because there is so little competition. A new gallery in this town would be welcome and appreciated.
I'm admitting it now because I feel like I've been lying to myself. But maybe this isn't the complete truth, maybe this is just me freaking out this morning. I don't care about my job. I mean I care about keeping it, I care about my coworkers, and I care about my position in HR and the affect I have on others here and on their professional lives. But I don't care about the industry we're in. It bores me. And the way this office is managed is so frustrating because I have no control over it. I see things that can be fixed but have no way of fixing them. Helpless.
I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated because:
-People (the bosses) don't think about things before they do them
-We moved into our new office before the toilets were even set up and went Thursday last week through yesterday peeing at the gas station next door. We still don't have running water in the sinks.
-No one thought about the fact that open ceilings on these offices mean we might as well not even have walls or doors. I can hardly hear myself think. The trainers have set up in the conference room because it's the only quiet place. I want to find them earphones of some sort but it wouldn't matter because we can't afford them right now. We can't even afford to buy our new employees email addresses from our webserver or new computers to work on. Why do we have new employees?? Because we are all so overwhelmed we can't get the work done, but now that we have new employees we can't get them set up so they can take the load off of us.
-We launched this software without even having our server farm set up correctly, and the boss signed a contract that said every so-many minutes we're down we owe thousands to our franchise client. So this morning when it was down for 10 minutes, who knows how many of our clients saw that weird error page and got frustrated too, and who knows how much we owe now.
-The boss tries to charge people for their software without consulting the sales team to find out what kind of deal is made, so he told our controller yesterday to charge someone even though sales had agreed with them not to charge til Feb. 1, and even though the controller was told that, he's either too spineless to say no or too dumb to remember. All because we need the money.
-It's freaking cold in here, and it smells like paint.
So what do I want to do? I want to own my own antique store/art gallery. I was so close about a year and a half ago, I had a lady wanting to sell hers to me, but she backed out at the last minute. Talk about heartbreak. I had worked at her store for over a year in hopes of buying it from her. I was practically running it-- all I wasn't doing was signing the checks. So I know what it takes. To be able to make my own decisions, to know when I say something, that's what's going to happen, not that a boss will toss my words to the side. I know what I'm doing, what I decide is right, at least in comparison to him, because I see the way I run my household and the way I ran that antique store, the way I increased her profits and solved issues. I'm not perfect, no way, but I don't have grand ambitions like he does, gambling with the professional lives of 20 people. I would only be gambling with my own, at least until I was stable enough to bring other people on. Stability. I need stability, and order, and solidity.
I care about art. I don't care about construction. I care about this community and improving it, about helping local people, but all our clients are elsewhere and so many of my coworkers are from somewhere else. I'm scared to leave though, and too busy to leave too-- I'm here 9 to 6 or 7 most days. Plus I do like the people and would leave them in a huge lurch if I left. I've always said I don't care about what I do as long as I like the people and the work, and I suppose that's true, but the work is taking its toll on me-- long days, poor conditions, stress.
Most things I worry about never happen anyway. Most of the time I remember this. Most of the time I'm content even with a tornado swirling around me because I know three things:
If I lose my job, I will be ok financially.
If I lose my job, I will find something else.
If I lose my job, even though it will be tough and I will mourn for a while, I will find my way through it and will be better off in the end.
Something about this morning is keeping me from remembering those things. Something is making me want to run away screaming. I suppose it's fear of seeing everything I've worked for this past year crumble in front of my eyes. But in reality, I have nothing to lose. This job is not me, I am so much more than this.
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