Ka-BOOM!

A few years ago, I was taking medication for depression. I was on it for about six months. Then I quit. The explanation I gave was only part of the reason and since I can't sleep, due to thinking about it, I figured that two years off the meds was enough time to really be honest about it.

I've describes myself as fluctuating between a 2 and 6 on the "how you feelin'" scale. I figure I should better describe that scale:
1 -- Your brain is in total shut down. It's trapped in this dark loop that's no thoughts, just horrible, horrible feelings. You can't do anything that requires a little thought. You don't walk. You don't eat. You can't sleep. And you don't care if you piss yourself.
2 -- Your brain is trapped in a loop of darkness, but there's enough extra there so you can function on autopilot. You can use the toilet. You can eat. You can do your mindless bits at work. Hell, you can even drive. You can't, however, do anything that requires even a little critical thinking. Even something relatively simple, but that you don't do all the time, is impossible. Speaking with people is also very hard to do.
3 -- Now there's room in your brain for thinking along with all the darkness. You can pass yourself off as being in just a "bad mood," so people don't worry about you. You can lie to others, but not to yourself about what's going on in your head. The horrible things in your head seem possible to do.
4 -- A lot like 3, but you can see the stupidity in some of the things you thought about/are thinking about.
5 -- You don't give a shit either way, but there's still a weight on you shoulders or chest pushing you down.
6 -- The weight is gone, but you don't feel light. You have trouble empathizing with those who feel good, but it's easy to fall in with those who aren't.
7 -- You start to feel light. You feel the emotions of others and you start to want to share the way you feel with the world.
8 -- The world is rosy. Sure, you might see some problems and you can empathize with the guy whose dad just died, but it's not going to ruin your mood.
9 -- You feel pretty great and you can think critically about everything around you. You can learn. You can talk. You are probably the best version of you that you can be.
10 -- You feel really damn good. You function mostly on autopilot going around doing the things you normally do and knowing everything is right.

(I'm pretty sure there's a stage where you're so blissed out that you can't even function, but I doubt people can reach it without the help of some pretty heavy drugs.)

(Also, I realize that this system isn't the same for everyone. These are my numbers. I'm sorry about how short the higher numbers are, but it's been a long time since I've soared to any of those heights.)

When I was on my medication and it started to even me out, I stayed near a three or four. Those are the most dangerous numbers because you feel bad, but you can think and, during that time, you think you're thinking clearly about things.

To be more specific (and yet vague): The day I decided I had to get off that medication was the day I was going to buy a garden hose. I had it my arms and was carrying it to the cashier when I stopped and realized that maybe going for a drive out into the woods where it would be just me, my car, a full-ish tank of gas, and a garden hose wasn't such a smart idea for my family and friends.

When you are at a 2 for short or long periods of time, you think about garden hoses, among other things, but it's beyond your capacity to do anything about it. Garden hoses aren't something that you've used everyday, or even once a week, for years and years so while the thought might be there, you don't have the ability to use a garden hose, assuming that you have one.

Short forays into 3 and 4 also lead to thoughts about garden hoses, but you're not in that state of mind long enough to do anything with a garden hose. When you're evened out and spend ten, fifteen, thirty days at that level, garden hoses are all you think about and it seems like a good idea to buy one. Garden hoses seem like the best idea not just for you, but for everyone. And you convince yourself that everyone'll understand because you've been trapped in a dark place for a very long time. If they end up having a problem with it... well, fuck 'em.

And as tired as I was, "fuck 'em" just didn't seem like the correct answer.

So, I talked to my GP and the psychiatrist, at the time, and they bounced me back and forth for a couple of weeks, neither one wanting to put me on something different. I got tired of being what that med made me and convinced my GP to ween me off of it. I went back to being what I am without it and I started getting days back where the weight was lighter and my mind was more grayish than black.

la laa laaa

I am still around.
This morning there was
snow upon the ground.

Last week I saw Thor.
It was a bit of
fun, but not much more.

Just to have a look
I re-failed at life
and rejoined Facebook.

My five "friends" are
family, and for now
that's where I set the bar.

A Bit More About Glee

There's one more thing I wanted to mention about Glee that I forgot, and that's the role of music on the show.

One of the earliest complaints I remember reading about the music is that they didn't use original songs. DUH! Show choirs and glee clubs rarely, if ever, do original music. They take existing music and spin it into their own bit of incredible (or mediocrity). And now that Glee has done original songs I need to know how much people enjoyed them? Personally, with the exception of "Trouty Mouth," which was hilarious, and "My Headband," which was also just a joke, the songs didn't impress me.

The show tends to stick to arrangements of songs we've already heard. Sometimes that's disappointing, the Rocky Horror episode sticks out in my mind, but sometimes it's amazing, like when they did "She's Not There." And, of course, a lot of the mash-ups are great, I posted a link to my favorite, so far, in that other post which is the mash-up of "Don't Stand So Close to Me" and "Young Girl."

Now if Glee were really about a glee club training for shows, we would probably only hear a couple dozen songs rehearsed to death. Fortunately, this is TV and the songs are there to represent how music can underscore our emotions. It's probably safe to assume that nearly everyone has heard a song at just the right time that it seemed to be written about them. Here's a post with several songs that hit me that way and I know I've written about more songs, just don't want to look them up. They're the songs that you used to rewind on the cassette or lifting the arm of the record player for. Today we can just press the reverse button and listen over and over.

My favorite example of using a song to reflect the emotions of a character is "Landslide" from a few episodes ago. Watch Santana's face as she sings all the hurt and confusion and love and a little bit of anger. These are the moments that really make Glee worth watching and this is exactly how music should be used in a show about singing high school students.

Two Down

Watched Scream 4 a couple of weeks ago.

And it was so much fun to watch.

The third movie left a bad taste in my mouth. It was like ending the original cast movies with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, just a mediocre movie. The fourth is much better ending.

Although, I'm sure if there's a fifth I'll be in the theater. I'm a sucker.

A Bit About Glee

I don't really like the show Glee, but I watch it.

During the first half of the first season, I was a champion of the show. (Not of the blog, so much, but when asked about it in real life. For a while it was my favorite show on TV.) It was about this group of kids trying to find a place to fit and even the place where they best fit wasn't comfortable for them. It was about the formation of a team coming together to work toward a difficult goal. And surrounding this theme were interesting characters, backstabbing, a cute and earnest OCD teacher, a psycho with a fake pregnancy, The Pink Dagger, and the always utterly fantastic Jane Lynch. Oh and lots of great songs. (These span the whole of the first season. Dammit.)

When the second half of the first season came around, something seemed to change. The music was still great, but the characters weren't right. They all seemed so much more over the top. And while that worked for Sue Sylvester, it didn't work so when for Artie or Tina or Brittany or Will. Stories also became about the topic of the week, not the characters. I kept watching, though, because of the songs. It's like horrible train wreck, death and destruction, gorgeous sunset, train wreck, death, amazing painting, train wreck.

After moving, I didn't watch much TV until my brother pointed me to the D&D episode of Community. That's when I went back to my unhealthy hate/love relationship with Glee. It still has all the same problems (although I've been pretty impressed with the Santana arc in the past few episodes), but I can ignore them more. Now I just watch it episode to episode and don't expect anything to really carry over from one episode to the next. I just enjoy what's there. It's become a lot easier to watch.

And that's why I keep watching, even though I'm pretty sure I hate most of the show.

It's Not Doing What You Love...

I dreamed again of a baby. This one involved me and it in a car, an old sedan I think, where the drive had jumped out shortly before I started dreaming. The baby never cried, they never do, but its breathing got deep and it made worry noises. (I don't know how I knew it, but it's my dream and I knew.) The car was going down a steep, curvy road. For a long time, I didn't move. Not because I was scared but because I knew that if I hopped into the driver's seat and took control then I'd be stuck. At first we were going slow enough and the road was banked well enough that the car stayed on the road. After several curves I grabbed onto the steering wheel. The car kept going faster though. I screamed at the road, "No, goddammit! I won't fucking drive!" After a very steep corner, I moved over, but I straddled the two seats. I was just far enough over to reach the break pedal. (Never noticed a parking break.) The whole time I was breaking and steer I yelled at the world, "Fuck you, you rock fucking whore! This isn't my fucking car!" I only slowed the car enough to make it around the turns, but some were close calls because at least one tire wasn't touching the ground a couple of times. When I finally woke, we were still barreling down the endless road swing from right to left to right trying not to go over the edge on one side or into the hill on the other, but there was no fucking way I was going to stop the car.

---

On a possibly related note, I've been reading everyone's blogs, but I haven't felt up to commenting. Haven't felt like commenting on comments either. (Hi there y'all!) At least I've been reading them. Except for yesterday, to remind myself that sometimes I write good (hur hur), I haven't visited that forum I've been known to frequent. When I did check it out yesterday I didn't read anything except for stuff to try to make myself feel better about myself. Not sure if it worked, but I don't want to get involved at the moment. 'Course that sets me behind and in a position where I have to catch up.

I've been contemplating joining Facebook. It sickens me to even think about it. Still, at least I could pretend that I'm part of the lives of people.

And now it's time for me to turn off the light, huddle under the covers, and hope that there are no more babies in my dreams.

'Night.

BAH!

So, my week was shitty.

How about yours?

Dreaming Little Dreams

In the last week, I have dreamed that I have dreamed of having a baby four times. None of them are my baby, and I'm not giving birth.

In three of the dreams, I have a baby with me. I know it's not mine. I think one of these babies may have been from a cousin. All of them had a huge scar, one on a leg, one an arm, and the third on its back. In all of these dreams, I already had the baby. I fed and bathed and changed them.

The dream I had last night was different. See, I was helping some friends with packing. When I went back the next day and all that was left was a baby in a car seat. When I tried to call my friends all I got was voice mail that said the kid was mine.

So, what does having a baby force on me mean?

Maybe it's better not to think about it.

During The Commercials

I am writing a blog post during the commercials of shows I am watching on Hulu. This isn't the first commercial, though. During the first commercials I just dicked around

That commercial break ended. Thirty seconds isn't much time to really write in. Hey! Maybe I should join Twitter! I'll twat during the commercials of Couger Town. (Yeah, that's what I was watching. It's

We are now onto Modern Family. Don't know how many show's I get in before I get too hungry. Maybe one more. Maybe, but there's no way to know. Hey, this commercial break is a minute! Wow! This would never make it as a twat. Maybe I shoul

Hulu is my brother's fault. He sent me a link to an episode of Community where they play Dungeons and Dragons. I already loved Community and then they played that game. Yeah, searches s

Okay, so this not letting myself complete thoughts when the show comes back on is annoying. I try to

The funny thing about the ABC shows, I think they're from the Sacramento station. There's the "News 10" logo in the lower left

Oh, Community why is your insanity so delightful. When did I know you were one of my favorite sit-coms on TV? Was it "Troy and Abed in the Morning"? Or Señor Chang the frog? Maybe it was "Heeeeere's brownies!" No it's "He was hor

I've been reading about introversion recently. It makes me wonder about my reactions to social situatio

This is the last commercial break before the end of the show. Then I will go and eat. This one is now hungry. 'Night.

Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith

From DorkTower

I posted this over on What's Distracting Us? yesterday. Then went to watch the last disc of The Sarah Jane Adventures Series 2. The first story on that disc is "The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith." I don't want give much away, but it ends with a people choosing to sacrifice themselves to save the world. I'm a sucker for those moments, especially when the characters actually die. My eyes got misty and my throat got lumpy.

I'm really glad that there's 3 stories for the fifth series. It's too bad there won't be more.

I think I'll put off watching Series 3 for a week or so.

The Book of Mormon, the Musical

First, I'm going to scream my head off, again, because I don't live in, or near, New York.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Okay, now that that's out of my system there's an interview with Parker and Stone done by John Stewart on the front page of The Book of Mormon website.

Once again, I must curse the world and how far it put New York City away from California. Son of a bitch.

More Adventures in My Boss is an Asshole

Let’s start from where we left off, shall we?

To remind you, on Thursday I had e-mailed my boss to let him know that a change he made in the schedule would create a permanent hole on Saturday mornings and we’d probably have to use involuntary overtime to fill the hole nearly every week. I tried to be forceful, but with tact.

Friday morning I get to work and find this in my in-box: “I am very aware of this. This would last for three weeks.”

So, he actively knew he was fucking up the Saturday schedule. He knew. And he it didn’t bother him.

After reading his e-mail, I let out a serious string of fucking expletives, but moved on. We were doing some testing which required me to be away from my desk, and from the asshole, for several hours. I put the shit behind me and moved on with my day. Saturday morning, however, I realized that he didn’t include the new supervisor who’s in charge of staffing in this decision. First thing I did Monday morning was forward his e-mails to her, making sure that she’ll be involved in decisions involving the staff from now on.

Shortly after I forwarded the e-mail, the asshole walked into my office and I brought up the change he made to the schedule the week before. “We’ll just change her RDOs,” he said. (RDO means “regular day off,” FYI.) “She’s being assigned a new post,” I said “I don’t have the authority to change post orders. Do you?” He frowned and rubbed his hand all over his face and through his hair and scrunched his eyes and then said, “Well, you know, that, well, ah, see we’d need to meet and confer with the union steward. And, well, uh, well it’s, we’ll just leave her days off and deal with Saturdays as it comes up.”



I knew that he’d give the wrong answer. The correct answer would have been that the nurse needed to stay in her current post due to institutional need. Of course he hates to acknowledge when he’s made mistakes, so I didn’t expect him to fix the error.



Next I immediately brought up a nurse who’s been out sick a lot recently. I expected this nurse back on Monday based on information the asshole had given me last week. The nurse wasn’t here, though. I asked my boss about it. He reminded me that the nurse’s RDOs are Tuesday and Wednesday. I reminded him that last week he told me the nurse would be back this week and the week starts on Monday. But his RDOs, the asshole told me. Monday, I told him. He then turned to the supervisors, who I share an office with, and their dagger-like glares. He backed out the door and half heartedly apologized to me for not giving me the full scoop. I should expect the missing nurse on Thursday, unless we hear differently.



It wasn’t even eight in the morning and I’d already ruined his day. [sarcasm]Yippee.[/sarcasm]



But did it end there? Of course not. After his little visit, I explained to the two supervisors what both conversations with him were about. They got a bit riled. After going out and finishing phase 2 of the testing, the asshole found me in my office again and one of the supervisors said, “I hear we’ve got this hole every Saturday now.” He tried to slide around and back pedal and seemed to want to blame someone, but couldn’t. That conversation ended with the supervisor saying, “So, we have a hole in the schedule every Saturday, then?” He left after that.



Through the rest of the day, I worked to rile up the other supervisors who don’t share my office by sharing the news about Saturdays. I’m conflicted because I really wish I didn’t feel so good about trying to destroy what little confidence the supervisors might have left in him.



Which brings us to this morning.



One of the supervisors wasn’t here like she should have been when I came in. I was told that she headed home because she couldn’t find her keys. Her only hope was that she left the on the kitchen counter.



The asshole galumphs into my office around 7:45 and asks me if the supervisor ran out of here this morning. I didn’t like the half grin on his face. I told him that she wasn’t here when I came in, that she ran home. He asked if she was looking for her keys. I said yup. “Get her on the phone,” he commanded. “I have her keys.” I called and told her that he was with me and that he said he had her keys. She wanted to speak with him. I handed over the phone and heard him say that her keys were found yesterday afternoon in the bathroom.

He hung up the phone then told me, “A nurse found her keys in the bathroom last night. I told [another supervisor] that if [missing key supervisor] called to let her know I had them. Did [missing key supervisor] call last night?” I wanted to say FUCK NO, but shook my head instead. He nodded then said, “I’m heading to [the other yard], have [missing key supervisor] sit in my office and wait when she gets here.” He strolled out with an asshole’s grin on his face.

Now, maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s because I’ve been sharing an office with the supervisor for 4 months now. Maybe my glasses have suddenly developed a rosy hue. If I were in charge and of this particular woman, I would recognize how hard she works and how much she takes everything to heart. I’d think about how hard she’s probably been on herself since she discovered her keys were missing. I’d know that she’d be really nasty to herself on her hour and a half drive home to look for the keys and how much she’d beat herself up as she drove another 90 minutes back to work. I think about all this and when I saw her, I’d sit her down and tell her that she made a mistake and ask her not to make it again. And that would be the end of it. (Actually, I would have ended it yesterday by calling her on her cell phone and letting her know that I had her keys and she didn’t need to worry when she came in morning.)

Yes, that’s what I would do. Of course the shit fucker I have for a boss isn’t that kind of a person. He’s going to lay it on thick to a woman who’s here five days a week doing her best to keep things running smoothly for the institution and the nurses.

What do I know, though? It’s only 9:15 in the morning and she’s not back, yet. Christ, I hope she doesn’t quit over this.

THE AFTERMATH!

Well, it didn't happen at all like I feared. [Missing key supervisor] went directly to him and even though he tried to make her feel guilty and horrible, she wouldn't let him. She told him how rude and unprofessional it was that he didn't tell her right away that he had her keys. She told him that he needs to stop meddling in the supervisors' programs and always include them in any decision making. Essentially she called him a fuck-up in a whole lot more words.

As for my scheduling problem, well, the new supervisor in charge of the schedule had a talk with him today. She ended their conversation by telling him that he was wrong not including her in a meeting about changing the schedule. She told him that we can't change the schedule unless we go through the proper procedure. And she told him that if he knew he was going to create a hole in the schedule then he's more retarded that the most retarded retard in the retarded world. (She didn't use those words, of course. She'd never say "retarded." She may have thrown the f-bomb around though. She does that on occasion.)

I guess that means everything turned out well-ish today. Of course the fucktard asshole is there until 5 tonight. I'm sure he can fuck something up between now and then.

One down, several to go.

Went and saw Your Highness this weekend.

It was an awful movie, but it kept me laughing, which was the whole point.

Basically the movie was Pineapple Express or Knocked Up or I Love You Man set in a Dungeons and Dragons type fantasy world.

(In fact, you can sort of look at it as a D&D game. One of the characters is a guy who takes great joy in playing the game. One is there just to hang out and bullshit with his friends. One is a newbie with a crappy pre-gen character. And one is a munchkin. (For more information read this.)

All this is an interest way to look at the movie, but I'm not going to do it.)

The movie's full of juvenile humor, but I knew what I was going in for and it makes me laugh. Occasionally the movie veered into the homophobe zone, but that's a staple of this genre and still funny, to me.

The effect, for the most part, were great. The villain was creepy and fun. The girls were gorgeous. And it made me laugh. It meet ever expectation I had.

I look forward to watching it on basic cable in the future and seeing how TV will cut around a lot of the jokes.

Movies I Must See This Year...

...even if they suck.

• Your Highness (Looks delightfully silly.)
• Scream 4 (I like 'em. Sue me.)
• Thor (The plastic-y costumes are disappointing, but Thor gets tasered!)
• Super 8 (I have faith in the non Star Trek power of JJ.)
• Green Lantern (Again, the costume sucks, but so much potential.)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (Here's to hoping they leave off the bullshit epilogue from the book.)
• Captain America: The First Avenger (Crappy title. Why not just Captain America?)
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes (I'm a sucker. I know it.)
• Red State (Hey, I paid to see Jersey Girl in the theater. Judge away.)
• Puss in Boots (See, sucker.)
• The Muppets (Fuckin' NEW MUPPET MOVIE! HOORAY! (No trailer, yet. Still Sam singing a Guess Who song... wonderful! (Also Dracula!)))
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher I place this in your hands and hope you succeed. (That the trailer for the great Swedish movie.))
• The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (Speilberg, don't fuck this up like you helped fucked up Transformers.)

I'm sad because I missed Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Roderick Rules before it left. Still, there's always the 'flix.

Anything that you must see or just want to see this year?

Another Post in the Ongoing Saga of My Boss is an Asshole

A few weeks ago, my boss decided to fuck with the schedule with out asking the person who looks at the schedule for nearly 40 hours a week what it would do. What it did was take away the wiggle room we had on 2nd watch on Sundays. Before, if someone called in sick we didn't necessarily have to bring someone else in. Now, we have to bring in another person or work short.

Today, without talking to the person who looks at the schedule for nearly 40 hours a week, my boss decided to move one of the nurses off her current shift (which is Tuesday through Saturday) and onto an open(ish) shift (which is Monday through Friday). Guess what this does... It leaves us one person short, every week, 2nd watch on Saturdays. This classification of nurses is not know for volunteering for overtime. We have no Permanent Intermittent Employees of this class. And the only registry nurse of this class we have isn't allowed to actually do the work of this class (because my boss is an asshole).

Odds are, we will be forcing overtime on one of two nurses ever week for at least a month. At least they'll be able to switch off weeks, right?

A Modern Old Sit-Com

For her birthday, Thursday, my mother got the complete Dick Van Dyke Show. One of the the things included on the first disk is the original pilot, Head of the Family, which starred Carl Reiner as Rob Petrie (which was pronounced "pete-ry," like the dish). According to the book that came with the set people, producers I think, didn't like Reiner in the lead role. After watching it, I'm not so sure.

The whole episode had a more cynical tone than what the show changed into. Laura was more sarcastic (and if you've watched the show you know that makes her a lot more sarcastic). Buddy's really neurotic, although his coffee order is the same. Sally's more abrasive. Ritchie's a whiny little shit and hides in cupboards and closets. And Rob's more self-centered and needy. All of this adds up to a family comedy show that's darker than the other sit-coms of 1960. However, it sounded and looked very modern, except for the black-and-white. Like if they cut the laugh track and re-filmed it today it could sit along side 30 Rock.

Still, I'm really happy with Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore. Who wouldn't be?

It's Snowing

The snow isn't the normal Sierra cement, though. It's light and fluffy and drifts slowly down to the ground rather than falling like a rock. There's very thin layer on the porch and the snow creaked when I walked on it. This is the kind of snow I imagine they get back East: light and dry(ish).

Also, it keeps the pollen down nicely. No itchy eyes today.

Two Meals Today

Breakfast: Grilled Cheese

Dinner: Biscuits and Gravy

It's my day, dammit.

In The End

There’s a big blue box. It’s bigger on the inside than the outside. It can go anywhere in space and time, sometimes where it is supposed to go. Something will go wrong, and there’s some bloke called The Doctor who’ll make it all right because he’s awesome. Now sit down, shut up, and watch "Blink."

--Neil Gaiman

I got to WonderCon at 9:30AM yesterday. I wanted to make sure that I could get into the Dr. Who panel that started at 11:30. I thought two hours would be plenty of time. When I got there, there were at least 500 people already lined up. Let me tell you, there's not much out there like sitting in a room of 3500 people who really enjoy what they're seeing. Too bad there was only 45 minutes, I think the panel could have gone on for hours.

One thing that I got out of my time, this weekend, is how much I miss buying comics. I could order them online or have some shop mail comics to me, but I miss going into the shop. I miss picking up new books and flipping through the pages, admiring the art and skimming the story, to see if I want to buy it. The nearest shop is about an hour away and with gas prices what they are I'm not going there anytime soon. Still, I miss it.

Adventures in Anxiety

--or--
Do I function in real life?

So, tomorrow is David Willis's birthday and he's at WonderCon. Since I've been enjoying his work for the past seven years and it's his first time at this convention and it's his birthday, I bought him a birthday card. (It's a Batman: The Brave and the Bold card that plays the theme song when you push the button in the corner. I almost got one that had pictures of hamsters because it looked like he could have drawn the card, but there was no way to turn off the annoying song when the card is opened, and like I said I like the guy's work.)

I get the card. I take the card with me to the con. I sign the card and shove a few bucks in it (one for each year I've been reading his online stuff). I panic and decide I not to give it to him. I wander up and down the aisles and there's his table.

Then I reach into my backpack and pull out the card. I stop and start my way to through the crowd. I stand in front of his table and take a deep breath. I stammer and stutter out something about enjoying his work (I hope that's what I said), hand him the card, and say happy birthday. He thanks me for the card and I say your welcome. He asks me if I want a sketch.

My brain screams, "YES! YES! YES! Amber and Arthur, from The Tick awkwardly posing for a photo!" My stomach screams, "I'm going to barf! GET OUT OF HERE!" My mouth stutters, "N-no, thanks, b-but I really appreciate it." And I hurried away.

Now, for my own sanity, I have to assume that he's met weird fans before. Probably mostly people (let's face it, guys) who just hang around the table and want to talk and talk and talk. Transformers, the Walkyverse, whatever, but they don't go away and think that he's their friend and must be their friend because they're read his online comics. So, I can't be the only weird fan who's ever visited him, right? But how many panic and run?

Days like this make me surprised that I can get out of the house and function in the world.

Sitting in the Iron Throne

It wasn't as pokey as I thought it would be.

This was the first thing I did at WonderCon. I saw the booth and was drawn to it. They also had costumes from the show. Robert Baratheon's crown is shaped from antlers, which is spectacular because House Baratheon's sign is a crowned stag.

First thing I did, but second favorite part of WonderCon so far.

Favorite Moment

Just finished watching Amélie, again. Great movie.

My favorite part is so small I don't think most people would notice it:

After having her dream crushed by a cat, Amélie's doorbell buzzes. She goes to answer the door. When she hears Nino Quincampoix say her name, she slows down and walks as silently as possible.

That's my favorite part of the movie.

Je pense, donc je suis? Vraiment?

A while ago, I read a piece of a story (yeah, it was fan fiction and it has a lot of parts, but they feel too short to be called chapters) where a character, who has isolated herself because she's been teased a bullied for years, loses something that is important to her. After she spends the day searching for it, ditching all her classes, which makes her more depressed and anxious, she climbs several flights of stairs into a room where she knows she can be alone. She enters the room, walks over to a window, pushes the window open, steps up, and steps out. She falls, of course. She survives because she's the kind of character who isn't really allowed to accomplish what she sets out to do. (Also, she's not a main character. She's used to push the main character into a new situation and build that character more.)

That's where that part of the story ends. With her on the ground.

The story didn't bother me. In fact, I found it very honest. What bothered me was a lot of the discussion that came after it was posted.

The character was hated by nearly everyone who has been reading the story as it's been serialized. She was passive. She let things happen to her. She didn't take stands or push back. Her response was to run away and hide if she could. If she couldn't hide, she took what was thrown at her then moved on knowing it, or something similar, was going to happen to her again.

So, when she tried to kill herself, many of the people wrote comments saying good riddance. They didn't like her. They didn't want her around. They thought she took time away from the main characters.

One person tried to defend the character I've been writing about. This person wrote very passionately about people being bullied and how it destroys self-esteem and what it's like to live in constant fear.

Of course the defense was brushed aside. She would have been a better character if she'd stood up for herself. Bullies back off when confronted. She was a drag on the story. She didn't do anything to help the plot. And so on.

The defender continued to try to write about what led the character to step out the window. The defender wrote that this character just got tired of being noticed and wanted to end it and went the only way she could.

To that, one of the other people who hated the character wrote that if she hadn't wanted to be noticed that she wouldn't have tried to kill herself in such a spectacular and public way and that if she hadn't wanted to be noticed, she should have stood up for herself so she'd be left alone.

The defender quit trying to defend here. There was no point in the defender continuing on. The others didn't want to understand. So the conversation stopped online, but not in my head.

(For the record, I am not the one who was defending the character. All of this was written between the time I moved from North Bay to Cowtown and I started getting online regularly. It took a long time for me to catch up on the reading that I wanted to do. I can't say I would have gotten involved. I'm not so good at being part of a "community," even if it is a virtual one.)

What bothered me was the person saying that she tried to kill herself in a spectacular and public way and the implication that there's a way for a person to kill him/herself that wouldn't be spectacular or public.

In this world where (nearly) everyone believes that their life is precious, one taking his/her own life will always seem spectacular, once it's discovered. People are always shocked, whether it's someone quietly hanging him/herself in the garage or if he/she puts a pistol to his/her head in a crowded mall and pulls a trigger. One is reacted to more strongly than the other, but it all comes down to the average person asking why a person would kill him/herself. Because they can't fathom that someone wouldn't want to live. And once the death is discovered, even the quiet, private one, it becomes spectacular and public.

So, how do you explain to the average person that someone may not value his/her life like most people do? Can the average person understand the feelings of self-hatred, or worthlessness, or simple exhaustion others may have? Or will it just bounce off them because they simply believe that humans are simply animals and the first thing all animals try to do is survive?

Are humans simply animals? Do we simply want to survive as a species, if not as an individual? Are those who don't want to survive then wrong? Is it part of "je pense, donc je suis"?

Passed Probation

And my feelings are mixed.

I was asked the other day if I really hate my job, or is it just my boss that I hate. It's my job. I'm sick of feeling like I can't actually finish anything. I'm sick of feeling like I can't take time off because I'll get blamed for the problems that happen when I'm not there. I'm sick of not blogging because every time I've logged into blogger in the past six months it's all I've wanted to blog about.

I hate all of that.

Applications start going out this weekend. Here's to hoping.

What did you do at work today?

Oh, I thought about wedding vows:

When I was a kid, I knew it would happen; it was all that I expected.

In high school, I didn't know if I wanted it; hearts broke and mended and broke again.

As an adult, I figured it wasn't for me; my life was mine and there was no reason to share.

I walked through life not looking for love and not expecting it. My world was small and I liked that.

When we met, friendship was all I hoped for. Going to a movie or browsing through a bookstore with you brought me exquisite joy. With you, my world grew. I never expected that and never imagined more.

Then, one day, sitting across from you, talking, I looked into your eyes and I saw myself reflected back. Not me as I see myself in the mirror or me as I see myself from the inside, but me as you see me. I saw that person in there and I knew who I wanted to be. I wanted to be the person you saw.

The more I'm with you, the more I feel myself becoming who you see. The better I'm becoming.

Fuck

Well, she's got the job. Oh, sure, the offer wasn't made today, but she's got the job.

Son of a bitch.

Maybe I should start looking into Cowcity. Lots of stuff there and I only mildly hate the area.

More Hatred About Work

Today, she said to me, "I knew after you being here about three weeks that you wanted to leave. So I went to her and I said, 'Go to him and, you know, sort of hint that it's not just him who's having problems. I mean, I don't want to get walked off and lose my benefits for walking in and wrapping my hands around his fat fucking throat and strangling him.'"

I guess that means she recognized early on that I was trying to do a good job. I guess it's a compliment. I guess.

She's leaving, though. Her last day is in two weeks. One of the reasons I can occasionally enjoy going to work is leaving in 14 days.

Another person who helps make the day bearable had an interview last week. It went really well. She knows it went really well because she has a good friend who is on the hiring committee, although that friend wasn't in on her interview. I think she'll get hired and leave two weeks later. She'll possibly leave by the end of the month.

Work just got real fucked.

I hope I fail probation. (I won't, though. I'm not the kind of person who can willfully sabotage his job.) If I fail, I'll just end up back in the North Bay at the other job I didn't particularly care for.

I care for this job even less, though.

Is it wrong that I keep hoping that something will go dreadfully wrong and my boss will one day be found in dumpster after having been missing all weekend?

Hourly Comic Day '11

Today is Hourly Comic Day. I forgot all about it until about three minutes ago. I suck.

Have a couple of videos:




Yeah.

Good Day

Yesterday was the best day I've ever had at work. And by "yesterday" I do mean "Saturday."

"Why was it the best day you had at work?" one who reads this blog on a semi-regular basis might ask. And I will tell the ones who wonder:

My job is like fighting in a war with a new battle every day. In these battles I am never allowed to advance, only hold the line. On the best days, when I come in, everyone on the schedule has shown up for work. They get there on time and they do their jobs. The line is strong and we will not lose any ground. Also, no one calls in sick the for the next day so I don't have to rush around asking nurses if they want overtime or making phone calls asking those at home if they want overtime or hoping that one of the registry nurses will come in. On the best days that doesn't happen.

On normal days, we've taken casualties in the battle and we've called in some reinforcements to help us hold the line. Then the sick calls come in and I rush around medical and make calls so that I can get the reinforcements lined up for the next day to make sure the line in held. During normal days there are several time when it looks like the line might be pushed back, but it isn't. We hold, just barely.

There are too many days, though, where by the time I get to work we've been forced to retreat and regroup. Someone called in sick during the late afternoon or the night and we couldn't fill that hole. We had to spread our line a little thin in that area to make sure it's getting covered by someone or else we fall back so we can, for the day, eliminate that position entirely. It's not an elegant solution, it's not a good solution, but it's a solution that has to happen quite often. These are also the day when I have to deliver the news to nurses that they're going to have some involuntary overtime, either they're going to stay a second shift or be forced to come in early the next morning. I don't force them to stay, I just warn them that they may be forced. I'm sure one can imagine how happy that makes everyone feel.

Real shitty days are the days the line's been bombarded and we lose massive amounts of our people. We call in all the reinforcements we can, but there are still holes. Several nurses get forced into mandatory overtime, but there are still holes. And in the end I am asked what went wrong, why did things go so bad? And all I can blame is the flu or nothing at all.

So, there you have it. Each day I go to work and I fight a battle that I'm not actually allowed to win. Too many extra people wouldn't be cost-effective on the days everyone because those extra people would just stand around and do nothing. So I have to wait until we lose position before any reinforcements can be called in and I have to hope that there'll be enough so that if we have to retreat, we won't have to retreat very far.

"Dear Deer"

No, I think she deserves to have a little more crush.

Obsessive Song: "Walking In Los Angeles"

"I shot a man in Reno."

I don't social media. (Yeah, I blog, but like 10 people read this thing and maybe three semi-regularly comment and one is my brother. Really, this blog is about as social as I am in real life.) Nearly three years ago, I killed my Facebook and MySpace accounts, among others. I didn't get the point and found myself feeling obligated for keeping the things updated because they were supposedly about keeping in touch with people. I never like the places, but I had joined anyway because that's what we're supposed to do, right?

Since my sister-in-law and brother had their daughter I seen my mother use her Facebook nearly every day. At first she mostly checked for new baby pictures because the two "grown-ups" in the growing family were pretty crappy about e-mailing pictures of the baby, but it seemed like a new photo of her appeared on Facebook each day. Now my mom uses Facebook to play games mostly.

In November, Heels basically announced that she's not going to blog anymore. Nothing to post, she said. Didn't like worrying about having content to post, she said. And I get that. In the past three and a half month I've posted like a dozen times. (I did way better when I had to e-mail posts in from work because I couldn't get to Blogger.) The difference between me and her, though, is that she still posts stuff to Facebook, probably to Twitter, too, but that's blocked to outsiders. (Okay, her Facebook is blocked, too, but my mom is a friend of Heels and every now and then my mom fills me in on what Heels has posted there. Creepy.)

The thing is, she makes announcements there. The last one that I read was that the Heels/Logic family has found a place to live up in Portland. That couldn't have been a blog post?

I don't mean to pick on Heels. She's my friend and has been for a long time and hopefully will for a long, long time. It's just knowing that there are these bits of information that I can't get to, but could. I could if only I re-joined Facebook or got a Twitter account. It's just that easy. I know it is. And I don't have to do anything, really, except friend the people I want to friend and anger/disappoint the people I don't friend. Hell, I wouldn't have to twit. I wouldn't have to put up a picture of myself and I could ignore the kittens that are thrown at my wall. And I'd still get to see what my friends have to say.

The problem is they never say enough. Not for me, at least. I want to know more than just the 140 (or whatever) characters. I don't like the bullshit of the "liking" of the posts. (Seriously, someone writes that his 15-year old cat died and 37 people "like" it? What the fuck?) The discourse under a post seems to be people saying the exact same thing in different ways. That's not communication. I don't know what it is, but it's not really communicating with each other. It's like people are shortening their thinking into bumper sticker length thought and then setting out to find other people to agree with them. (And help then grow people in Farmville or doing "jobs" in Mafia Wars or whacking things in Bush Whacker.) What is that, really? Is it something that I want?

No. I don't think I do. I don't want to think in snippets. It's bad enough that I think I think in paragraphs rather than essays, I don't want that shortened to thinking in only sentences.

I'm not going to rejoin Facebook. I'm not going to join Twitter. I'm going to continue to miss what little people are saying and I really do miss it. But social media just isn't for me. Not at this point. Maybe if I ever start my own business. Yeah, probably then.

Apologies About Me

Part of me feels like I should apologize for that last sentence of the last post I wrote. I should apologize because I really do want the peoples out there who happen to read this to have a happy new year. I hope they did. Doesn't change how I feel about my job or where my life is at the moment or the whole new year thing in general, but I do know that the new year stuff isn't really about me. (Although I'm sort of in the mood where I sometimes think it should be only about me.)

So, I hope yours was nice. I hope that if you're up before six in the morning it's because you never went to sleep last night.

" Marley was dead, to begin with."

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

----A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

I bring that up only because I like it so much.

---

With great certainty I can write, "There hasn't be a single work day since Thanksgiving (US style) that I haven't thought I'd have been better off staying at my old job and just being. Odds are also pretty damned good that I've had the same thought on the weekends, too. With the possible exception of Christmas Day." and mean every single word.

My job exhausts me. I used to think that it was just my boss, but he's just a major part of it. How do I know this? Well, he's been gone all week.

With the jackass at work, I feel like I'm being constantly monitored for any little mistake. I misspell a name and I'm going to be called into his office and have to sign a letter of expectations. I'm in the bathroom when he needs me I'll get a talking to. I go to a staff meeting not ready to take the minutes when I haven't been told that I am the one who needs to take the minutes and he'll decide that they don't need me and I can go back to my old job.

With the jackass gone he's not there to distract me from my job. My job depends on people keeping their word. It depends on them showing up for their shifts. It depends on them being willing to cover holes in the staffing when someone calls in sick. It depends on the fucking generous nature of the shit-eating assholes. (To be fair, there are several really great nurses there who do come in for their shifts and work hard and well and fill behind others during the same shift, but the vast majority of the time they are unwilling to volunteer any extra time when the fuckheads call in sick on a motherfucking holiday because they're fucking assholes. (You'll have to pardon me.)) And that's been my experience this week.

When something goes wrong I'm not blamed, but I'm the first person that's turned to to solve the problem. "What's happened?" I'm asked. "What's your plan?" I'm asked. "Do you think we'll have to mandate someone to hold over?" I'm asked. "What are you going to do about it?" I'm asked. Oh, did I mention they ask these questions right after they get off the phone with the sick person and turn to me and say that the person just called in sick? No? Well, they expect me to have everything ready before the person calls in sick. To have someone waiting in the wings to be ushered on stage just in case the star isn't there. I'm sorry, though, this isn't the theater and the only understudies we have are at home and need plenty of notice because, guess what, when they're not on stage they make plans of their own to be elsewhere.

And so, when I go through days like this, I'm exhausted. Not physically, but mentally. I'm odd, I know that. For some dumb-ass reason I have this faith that most people are generally good and want to help out and make things easier for the people they work with day in day out. I don't know where this faith comes from. Everywhere I look when I'm around people I see the asshole-ish nature of the majority of them. I see how selfish and greed they are, but I keep fucking believing that they want to help, maybe not some faceless stranger, but that they want to help the fucking assholes they see every fucking day.

Shit. I'm sorry. I'm tired. I'm upset. I'm sick of the bullshit. I'm sick of not feeling secure. I'm sick of living in my parents' house because I want out of this job so much I'm willing to move again.

I'm just... I don't know, but I am.

Have a happy fucking new year.

http://sadtrombone.com/

http://sadtrombone.com/

Obligatory "It's been a while..." Post

Like more than a month.

Well, my excuse is only that my job tends to wear me out. My brain, at least. It drains me of my desire to do much of anything. Even sleep is hard to get. And it's not the work, not at all. The work is interesting and keeps my brain moving every day. It's my god damned boss. One day that man's going to wake up to find that he has no nurse supervisors and no office staff to help him and he's going to be miserable.

(My boss are also the reasons I haven't spent much of any time with anyone up here since I got back. I'm just not in a mood to be able to deal with people who haven't really experienced me on the lower end of my mood spectrum. Sorry about that.)

To rectify my situation I've prepared all the stuff needed to apply for a job with the local community college district.

That, however, creates a new problem. I really, really need to get out of my parents' house. I need to get into the solitude that I had before. I need a space of my own. (My dad insists that the room I'm using is my space, but it's also where he keeps his CD collection, and all their video cassettes and DVDs are, and where their old (like by ten years) computer is, and art books, and on and on. It's not really my space, just a bed and half-bath I'm borrowing for a while.) But the job I'm applying for is in Moo-ville, which is about 75 minutes away, if traffic is good. I'm not commuting like that. So, what's the point of entering into a lease of any kind? If things go really well, and I hope they go really well, there's a possibility of me moving in a couple of months.

Once again, I failed at NaNoWriMo. I wrote. Got maybe 10,000 words total. Not horrible considering how much work has pissed me off and I was pretty damned sick for a week and we spent nine days away from here to visit my brother, his wife, and their new baby in Oregon. Didn't actually finish anything, but that's how my cookie crumbles.

I'm sure there's plenty more to write, but not now. Not tonight. It's time to go and help with dinner, now.

Be well, peoples.

More Thorough Explanation

Don't feel so good about doing this, but I promised and explanation.

I don't like my boss. Part of me feels like he's picking on me, but the more logical part figures that since I'm the new one it's easy for him to ask how I'm doing and get an answer. Still, he jumps the gun on things.

Example 1:
Guys were moving my desk out of our office. I was told not to help, so I sat. One guy made a joke about lazy people when they came back and saw that the new desk wasn't moved in yet. I made a joke about me being very lazy.

Got that?

A couple of hours later, the supervisor for the guy who made the joke came to me and told me that I really offended the guy and I had to apologize. The next time I saw the guy, I apologized and everything seemed cool.

The next week my boss called me to his office and told me that he heard I had a problem with those guys. I told him I didn't. He told me that he heard there was a problem. I asked him what the problem was. He said he didn't know then told me that this was a warning.

Example 2:
I made a copy of a page I need to work on a report. There were some very confusing and sort of contradictory entries on the paper. To remind myself to ask about it on the next work day I drew an arrow to the problem area and wrote "WTF?" nearby.

I asked and was answered the next workday, but the woman I asked wanted to make a copy of my copy to show one of the supervisors. She did. I did my work and shredded my copy. The woman I asked ended up showing it to my boss. He called me into a meeting they were having, with the supervisor, and proceeded to tell me, in front of them, how inappropriate it was that I wrote that. I tuned out the rest and left, cowed.

A few days later he was meeting with the woman I asked and he called me in. Once I got in there he proceeded to hand me a letter stating what I did wrong by writing "WTF?" and mildly berated me. I signed the damned letter and listened to another lecture about why it was inappropriate. (Although I personally think those three letters are as inappropriate as saying "darn" or "shoot." Adults know what those words really mean.) He made a copy of the signed letter, told me the original would be in my personnel file and I left, angry this time.

Example 3:
A week or so after that, he was in my office talking to one of the women I share it with when he asked her to leave. He turned to me and said, "I hear you have a problem with [one of the supervisors]." I wanted to say WTF, but didn't. Instead I asked him what I did. He said he didn't know. (WTF!) He told me that when we speak around women we can't talk to them like we talk around other guys. (WTF MFer!) Then he asked if I noticed how he spoke to the women I share my office with. I told him that I didn't notice him speaking any differently to me that he did with any women. He looked taken aback by that. When he recovered he said I needed to go to the supervisor, apologize, and find out what I did. This was my final warning, he told me, next time he learns I've disrespected or offended someone I'm going to be punished.

What did I do? Well, the day before I gave that supervisor something that I was working on that was in a layout I designed. I was looking for criticism and advice. Near the end of the day, she brought it back to me and said it was okay. I said thanks and that I wanted to get my boss's opinion on the layout, too.

After I left for the day, she was speaking with my boss. He asked about me. She told him what I said, but, according to her, she said it in a here-something-odd-he-said-to-me way. She insisted that she wasn't offended or disrespected and that I didn't owe her an apology.

Ever since then I can feel my boss keeping a close watch on me.

And that's part of the reason for the stomach aches. It's like it was way back before I had a blog and was working at 'Bucks. (My manager was sort of trying to push me out or down or something. He'd constantly schedule me to open one morning (in at 4:30AM) and then close the next (There until at least 11:30PM) then I'd either get a day off or a short mid-day shift and the day after would be open then close again. And when I'd trade he'd get really pissed at me. It really sucked. Which is why I quit that one time then started to blog.) It really hurts me, mentally. Especially since I'm trying to hard to do a good job.

By the good graces of the god of shoe laces I'll get my letters of recommendation soon and have a job at the junior college by Christmas or New Year's.

Aching

I leave for work in 25 minutes. I already have a stomach ache. Three furlough days in a row did not make this place, my boss, better.

I'll try to explain more thoroughly this evening.

Be well, everyone.

A Song I Enjoy

One of Many

When your stomach starts to ache as you drive to work, aches all day long, and stops aching when you drive off grounds, it's time to find a different job.

So...

I am an uncle:

Her name is Sophie.

The world welcomes her.

This Little Bugger

It's me, writing from work. I don't, however, remember the e-mail address to my blog, so this is going to be (has been?) e-mailed to my regular Gmail and then posted. What a convoluted way to do things.

Anyway, I'm really not a fan of my job.

I was talking to my uncle yesterday, one of the two who work here as officers, and told him that the thing that made working her depressing wasn't the inmates, but the staff that I work with. He told me that as long as he's worked as an officer the joke has always been that it's the staff that's crazy because we choose to come to prison. Doesn't matter that we get to leave after eight, or so, hours and have weekends off. We choose to be here.

Which isn't to say that all the people I work with are horrible, some aren't. At least one is pretty great. Many want too much from me because they don't want to deal with their supervisors, but I keep pointing them in that direction anyway.

The toughest part of my job, so far, is that I have to depend on people to do what they say they're going to do. I call them and set up for them to fill a shift. They tell me yes or no. If it's yes then I put them on the schedule and they are supposed to come in for that shift or call, in a timely manner, and say they can't make it. If they don't show I'm not quite blamed for it, but I hear about it and there are, often, subtle hint in voices that it's partially my fault. As if I should have known whether these people are dependable. I'll be finished with my fourth week on Friday, how can I know if these people are dependable or not?

The most annoying part of my job is the equipment. I have a chair that won't always stay up when I sit on it, but it stays up enough to give me hope so I keep raising it and it keeps sinking. I don't have a stapler or tape dispenser or drawers. The widescreen monitor I've been supplied with takes up nearly half the width of desk space and feels too close to my eyes.

And then there's my boss, which I really shouldn't get into. It makes me upset just dancing around the subject in my brain.

Well, that it from me at 1:30. Maybe more when I get to a computer at my parents' house and finally post the bugger.

A Letter

Dear Ira Glass,

For years, I have heard your voice during pledge breaks asking people like me, people who haven't sent money into their local NPR stations, to please, pleeeeeeease, pick up the phone and offer support. I've heard you call and embarrass people who had listened to NPR for years, but had never pledged. And I've heard you interview people who listened to their NPR stations for years and how they felt when they weren't pledging (like enough people must pledge because the station goes on no matter what) and then how they felt when they finally did pledge (good, like they were part of something important). I've heard all of it and still scoffed and figured that if you were ever unlucky enough to call me I'd tell you the truth: I'm a selfish person. I'd like to see you put that on the radio!

Then came a change to my life. I left my old job that wasn't good but was comfortable for a new job that's in many way's worse than the old one, and I'm getting paid the same. I'm living with my parents, again. It's not horrible and it's temporary, but it's not at all where I want to be. I'm supposed to be an adult, right. Things are just... unsettled. I figured that I deserved to feel good about something... anything.

So, on Friday, after donating some money to NaNoWriMo, I went to my current NPR station's website and pledged some money. (About 12% of my current paycheck. I did it monthly to make it easier on my wallet. That's 1% of my money each month. (For the record, I did that math on the drive back from work this afternoon, during a pledge break.)) I'm not paying rent and I quit buying comics, so I had money to give. I filled out the information they wanted, address and such. I choose not to get any of the gifts; I'm not a fan of jazz. I hit the send button, or whatever they labeled the button, and waited.

I didn't feel any better.

I didn't feel like I was part of something bigger than myself or part of something good.

I just felt like I'd felt before I pledged.

Where was my moment of elation? Where?

Maybe, I thought, the good feelings took a while to settle in. Maybe on Saturday or Sunday.

Nope. Nothing.

I'm not angry or bitter or upset or anything like that. I had a little extra money and I spent it on something good, something very valuable. I'm just disappointed.

Thought you'd like to know, Mr. Glass.

Your pal,

ticknart

NaNoWriMo!

Feel like a tool for not really blogging and never posting comments on other peoples' blogs and then I go and do something like this:

NaNoWriMo starts in about 16 days, depending on where you are in the world. I'm going to attempt it once again!

Will I finish 50000 words this year? If the growth in word count over the last, uh, four attempts is any sign, then yes!

Even if I don't accomplish it, though, I did send them a donation and would like to solicit any of you, who still pop by once in a while, to send them some bucks.

You can donate money. (Which is what I did and have done for the past three attempts.) Or you can buy stuff.

I'm sure the question is something along the lines of "Why should I pay money to a website that encourages failures who think they can write a novel in a month when they've never done it during the other 335 days in the year?" That's not the reason, though.

The reason to donate is the Young Writers Program. It helps to create a curriculum for teachers to set of a classroom version of NaNoWriMo and I think that's a good goal. Why? Well, here's a bit from the A Letter to Families section:

Some of the skills novel-writing builds:

• Fluency: Writing so much in so little time boosts students’ proficiency in grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and will help them approach future writing assignments with ease and confidence.
• Confidence: When creating so much text in such a short period of time, students realize just how much they can accomplish when they put their minds to it. NaNoWriMo leaves young writers asking themselves, “What’s next?”
• Creativity: Creating characters, situations, dialogue, and even whole planets from scratch helps kids think, but it also teaches them how to apply their fanciful ideas to a full project.
• Time Management: Our curriculum teaches students how to tackle a huge project by breaking it down into manageable bites!

Even though it's not mentioned, I bet that at least a few students out of every class that's part of the Young Writers Program will become readers, too. It seems to me that the USA, and the world, needs more people who read things, other than forums, on a regular basis. I wish the Young Writers Program had been around when I was a kid.

Cheers!

That Lunch

My brother requested knowledge about that last (and technically first) lunch I had with my co-workers in the North Bay. Here goes:

My normal lunch back then was at 11:30, but the ladies didn't think they could get out of the office until noon, so I had to wait and explain to the other employees, without actually explaining anything, why I hadn't left for lunch. Me and three others was all I wanted. When asked, I dodged the issue and vaguely suggested that I had to do something but it couldn't be done before noon. Got some looks, but no one asked me anything else.

Noon finally rolled around and I watched the pair of court reporters head out. I waited a little before getting up myself, didn't want to make it look like I was heading out with them to keep some of the others from joining in on their own. The PJ's secretary, who invited me to the small lunch, joined me and we walked out together. One staff member watched us. I'm pretty sure she knew what was up. I didn't care for her anyway and the other people I was going out with either liked her less than I did or pretty much outright hated her. (At lunch, on in particular seem happy that the not-so-great woman knew she wasn't invited.)

As we stepped out the front door of the office I was informed that three more people had been invited to lunch, the three other clerk guys, and asked if it was okay with me. A large part of me wanted to bolt, but I said it was okay.

At lunch, he guys had some beer and sandwiches. The ladies had wine and two had a salad and one had a sandwich. I had iced tea and a sandwich and these spectacular homemade potato chips the brewery makes, really the only reason to eat there if you're not getting beer. The chat was idle and mostly about work and what a pain in the ass it was. Some bitching was made about the woman no one likes. (I made a comment that got that woman in some trouble the next day, which was my last day there.)

When the check came, I pulled out my wallet just like everyone else and made sure to be told that my lunch was on them. Then I admitted I only pulled my wallet out to make sure that they insisted I didn't have to pay. I didn't want to seem like I just expected a free lunch from them.

Back at work, no one made a comment about lunch and how we all came back in as a group.

In general, the lunch was painless. I didn't say much, mostly listened. The chips were wonderful, the sandwich just okay. The guys liked their beers, where were very pale, and that gals like their wine, whites with a rosy hue.

Questions?

You Are Now Entering Week Two

The sky was beautiful when I got to work this morning. It was a dark, dark blue with huge, dark clouds cutting swaths through it and a sliver of moon barely highlighting a dark hole in the sky. Off to the east, above the first building, the sky lit up as lightening streaked down.

The rest of my day, not so great.

See, I've been at my new job a week, now, but I haven't been trained to do much of anything.

Yes, I've been taught how to sort of fill out one report, but that's it. Still, lots of people seem to think I know how to do the whole job I've been hired to do. Even the two women I share an office with and who both know that they were gone most of the week and didn't do any real training!

*deep breath*

The problem is that people keep asking (actually telling in too many cases) me to do things for them that will be part of my duties when I learn how to do them. This would be okay if it were only two or three people coming to me, but it's more like twelve to fifteen and I have to explain each and every time that I don't know, yet. Who should I ask? they ask. Your supervisor, I say. She's not here, they say. Well too fucking bad you shit, I want to say, but don't.

Word spread fast that the person who was going to be handling the schedule from now on was there. Now they're all trying to convince me to let them get around the "chain of command" in the nursing unit. Fuckers. I didn't get the job because I'm an idiot. Do it the right way, god damnit. And while you're at it leave me alone for at least a week so I can actually learn what I'm going to do.

(Also, lucky me, one of the women who I share my office with likes it to be a "safe" environment. She wants everyone to feel like they can come in and chat (i.e. vent) with her. I think she just likes being in on all the drama. And there's a whole lot of drama goin' on there. All of it bullshit, of course, and I have no choice but to be in the center of it.)

On the plus side, they got me a computer logon. Still no e-mail, though. For some dumb-ass reason they want to import the data from my old e-mail into this new one. I'd rather they killed the old one dead and started me a fresh one. I'll get enough shit clogging it up from this job, why would I want the old stuff, too.

Somewhere near the end of my day I made a comment to my other cell -- You'll have to pardon me, jokes like that aren't supposed to be funny while actually working at a prison. -- mate, the one who doesn't encourage drama, about transferring to a different unit. She said, "Already?" I said, "Well, since there's no room for advancement for me here." She gave me this odd, surprised look and said, "You already figured that out?" "Yeah," I said, thinking that I got the scheduling position because of a glowing letter from my last supervisor saying that I'm a smart guy, of course I figured it out.

Oh, I just remembered something:
I saw the drama queen, who's the "lead" because she's a bump above me although she's not my supervisor, putting together a table in Excel this morning. Across the top she put her name and the names of the eight OTs (that's my classification). On the left, she listed the reports that people turn in, let's say there were fifteen to twenty. She put exes in the boxes of the people who completed the reports. I keep hoping it was my over active imagination, but I'm pretty sure that I had exes in half the boxes under my name. Everyone else seemed to have two or three.

Fucking great.

One more thing before I really get depressed:
My job will have me doing a lot of calling on the phone and waiting for people to call me back. I don't have a phone, though, and it seems unlikely that I'll be getting my own phone.

Smart, right?

Hope the rest of you well.

schtooputidy

So, two days at the new job now. Both days: stupid!

The people who have, in the recent past, done the job that I've been hired to do: out on vacation with the first not returning until next Thursday.

The back-up people who could teach me to do my job: out sick.

The forms to get a user logon and e-mail: unavailable, due to stupidity.

Chits to get a key to unlock my office door: have to wait for those.

Facility: untoured.

I spent yesterday being "orientated" along with a new nurse. Most of the talk was about stuff for the new nurse because for me to really learn anything about how to do my job I need to be able to log on to my computer.

We didn't take a tour because it was hot out. Well, duh! It's central California in September. It's always hot out!

Today I sat with a woman and watched her do her job. Sure, she showed me some places in the building and I saw what it's like to rush to finish your reports, but the odds of me ever doing what she does are pretty much nil. I was bored for probably 7 out of the 8 hours today.

(Oh, a good thing about this job, I don't have to take a lunch and I can come in early. That means I can come in at six, eat at my desk, and leave at two. Awesome.)

Tomorrow's not looking to be any better, either. If I'm lucky one certain person will be here tomorrow and I'll be able to get my security training and my keys and my logon and maybe actually start to learn my job.

Oh, well. At least I'm getting paid.

sdraC

A blue folder is being passed around the office. It has a card in it. I think it's safe, although self-centered, to assume that the card is for me.

*sigh*

Last week there was a surprise baby-shower thing for an expectant dad. (The due date is this Saturday, so dad-hood can begin any moment.) That was when it occurred to me that there was a heavy possibility that the people I work with would do that sort of thing to me. (To the best of my memory every other time there was a party for a person leaving the person leaving knew all about it.) Later that afternoon I went to one of the ladies who's always involved with the planning of parties, if not the one who starts them, and kindly asked her not to have a party for me.

"I don't want a party like that," I said. "I don't think I could handle it well."

"Well," she said, "we only just started talking about it. I think I'll be able to put a stop to it. Nothing's really been planned."

I took her word for it. "Thanks," I said.

"I know that it can be uncomfortable being put on the spot," she said.

"Yeah."

"It's not really fun." She paused and sort of looked around at nothing. "How about a lunch out with just a few people?"

"That'd be okay."

"Then we can control who comes."

"It's not so much the who," I said, "but the how many." It was the best I could come up with to explain my phobia/anxiety/panic problem without really explaining anything at all.

And that, to the best of my knowledge, was that. Until I saw the blue folder and how it bypassed my desk. My desk happens to be situated pretty much in the rear center of things, so I think I see, and hear, a lot more than most people think I see, and hear. When it was placed on the desk next to mine I could see that the name crossed out on the staff list was three up from the bottom. Enough of these folders have been passed to me that I know where my name on the list is.

Guess where.

Go on, guess.

Yeah. My name's three up from the bottom.

A card. Okay, cool, I can handle a card. I don't really want a card, but I can handle it.

The thing is, when this office give out a card, it's rarely just a card. It's usually some sort of gift, too.

I hope it's not a gift.

I really don't want a gift.

I know that the card and possible gift are ways to thank me and say I'll be missed. I know this. However, the card and possible gift won't make me feel like my day-in day-out work has been appreciated.

You know what has made me feel like that? It was the times after my move was announced that the judges pulled me aside as I was dropping off my mail or heading back from the drinking fountain and telling me that they noticed how hard I worked and that they were glad that they had someone like me around to keep the paper flowing so they could more easily do their jobs.

Imagine that, people telling me something made me feel appreciated and useful. I especially like that it happened on an individual basis because that meant they wanted to say something, not that they felt/what they thought like they had to because others were saying it or that's the sort of thing one says at farewell parties.

Lunch is supposed to happen in ten minutes.

Me and three others.

Here we go.

Saulutations

Greetings internarts and bhlajers from the work e-mail.

This post, which is planned to be brief but may take a turn for the lengthy, is to let all you all, who care, know that most of my shit was moved up to Cowtown by my parents and myself on Saturday. It now resides in a storage unit off the highway near where my parent’s live. At all of this, I am relived, tired, and a bit annoyed.

FYI: If you believe yourself to be a nerd or a geek with nerd tendencies and the opportunity arises, go and see w00tstock. It’s totally worth the money. You will laugh and laugh and then cry because they just won’t stop and you’re getting tired and then you’ll laugh some more because it’s all so very funny.

Some goals in the coming month:

·       Visit a bank or two and see if I can get pre-approved for a home loan and if so for how much and if for that much what kind of impossible, for me, down payment will I need?

·       Scour the internet to price rentals, in case the loan thing really does turn out to be an impossible dream.

·       Check out that mining town because it’s closer-ish to new work, even if it will make being hermit easier.

·       Occasionally pimp my brother’s webcomic. Come on, people, it’s a silent strip about a robot trying to live the American dream. What’s not to like? (Other than the fact that he only updates once a week. Really, it should be two days a week. Amiright?)

·       Get and activate a cell phone so I have fairly permanent phone number.

·       Seriously look into getting a personal domain and move this blurg over.

·       Other stuff that I don’t want to mention here.

Something I realized while packing my shit was that when the end time comes and ekeltristy goes away, most of my shit will be totally useless.

Regularish blurging will hopefully commence next week.

A Post on Nothing and Stuff

For ten glorious minutes the part of the server that controls WebSense was down and I could open up sites that I haven't been able to open for a while, including Blogger.

The question, now, though, is will blogger be able to post this? Will it work after WebSense has come back up? I don't know, but I'm willing to try.

For the most part, I spent those ten minutes clearing my e-mail out. Why -- oh why! -- do Amazon and Barnes and Noble insist on sending me notifications on things that are new or that I might enjoy? I always, ALWAYS, try to opt out of getting notifications, and yet there was my e-mail full up with stuff I didn't care about. So much was there that I didn't get to finish reading actual e-mails, there were four or so left to read, let alone reply to any of them.

For the record, from my e-mail:
My brother's webcomic is Made in USA. The first strip is here. As his biggest fan I would be remiss not to point everyone toward it. Also, marvel at the picture he uses to as for donations. HI-larious.
I am very sorry that the international cuisine night didn't work out. In a few week's I'll always be available for such a thing.
I can no longer see the comments people write. The browser just times out like it does when I try to get into the back door at Gmail.
Blogger was visited to check out the new thing and to clear the spam comments out of old(er) posts.
Dark Skies is going to be released on DVD in January. No, please don't fight over who's going to get it for me for my birthday. I'll have bought it long before then. Sorry to disappoint each and every one of you.
There are new lights in the parents' house. The place is starting to look downright fancy.

Just to let you all know, not being able to blog, for me, was like losing one of my baby toes. Sure, it's annoying, but I got used to it soon enough. I mean, it's not like I really use that tiny little bugger for walking.

Not being able to get to my personal e-mail is like losing all ten of my toes. Yeah, I'll learn to walk pretty well, but I'm never going to be comfortable doing it.

(A total aside, but... The world that the Guardians of the Galaxy live on, where the Green Lantern Corps comes from, is called Oa, which is pronounced "oh-ah"; my questions is: since the Guardians are from Oa they are Oan, how is that word pronounced? Are they "oh-ah-en"? "Oh-an"? "Own"? I'm just not sure.)

I've missed blogging, though. It was a way of doing something. I don't know what, exactly, but it was a way. There have been many days where I wanted to post about the bullshit here at work or the impending move or the... other... stuff in my life. And then there are the posts I want to write about the weirdness that is fan fiction; I really want to get into the structures of crossovers, that I see.

Oh, did I mention that furloughs are back? They are. I got one full paycheck, so far this year, for July, then they decided to fire everyone three days a week again. At least this time I knew what to expect and I don't feel like I have to cut anything back since that one month with a full paycheck wasn't enough time to lead me back to my pre-furlough life of luxury and excess. (Plus, Websense blocks Amazon, so I couldn't blow too much money on DVDs and CDs and books and such.) Let me tell you, it's really fun being a scapegoat. I hope the economy of California never quite recovers and I'm a scapegoat for the rest of my life because I like knowing that people don't want to think critically and realize that maybe, just maybe, there are some spending/taxing issues the state's fucked up that has nothing to do with its employees and maybe fixing those would help solve some problems. You know, maybe.

Well, that's it for now. Other than the PS I wrote first, this'll be the last thing you read, if it posts, fingers crossed, knock wood, belch the alphabet.

Be well, peoples.

PS You all went and saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, right? If not then you have no right to complain about next summers crappy bunch of movies. You could have and should have supported something wonderful and unique and fun and joyous so that more of its ilk would be made, but you didn't and they won't. For shame.