I've been watching too much YouTube and it led me to decide that when they make a Wicked movie, based on the play, not the book, Anne Hathaway should play Elphaba. She can act. She can sing. And she'll probably look really nice green.
Still not sure about Galinda/Glinda, though. The idea of Heather Morris as Glinda amuses me, but I don't think she has the voice for it. (Of course, whose voice could compare to Kristen Chenoweth? No one.)
At least I have the main character cast. (I even have a back-up actress in Jenna Leigh Green. She'd be good, too. Although I don't think she's "bankable" enough to be cast.)
Friday, February 24, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
(Nearly) Last Minute Decision
I am going to Image Expo on Saturday! Hoping that there will be a new Phonogram series announced.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Screw It
Here's a few more:
(Couldn't find a live version pre-1983 so I thought we should go with the original recording.)
I guess I'm just in a mood tonight.
(Couldn't find a live version pre-1983 so I thought we should go with the original recording.)
I guess I'm just in a mood tonight.
Not even close...
...to the song I wanted to post, but these are two that I never skip.
I grew up in an era without variety shows. I think I missed out on something.
I grew up in an era without variety shows. I think I missed out on something.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Another Fucking Presidential Election
Okay, well... I wondered how it would be to work with someone who actually cared about... I mean... It couldn't always have been the way it is now. It must have been different in my grandfather's time. You were there. You had Kennedy. I didn't. I've never heard a president say "destiny" and "sacrifice" without thinking, "bullshit." Okay, maybe it was bullshit with Kennedy, too, but... but people believed it. And I guess, that's what I want. I want to believe it.That's from the movie version of Primary Colors.
Yeah, I watched that movie again. I like it. But that bit up above really stuck with me this time.
Do you remember the US presidential election of 2008? Do you remember all the people hoping for hope? I think the character of Henry, from the movie up above, would have like that election. He would have been out there with the "Hope We Can Believe In" signs like so many others were.
And even though I wasn't one of those people. Even though I called it all bullshit early on, I'm a little bit sad that no one's going to believe, really BELIEVE in a candidate this year.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Julia Nunes Videos
This was the first thing of hers that I saw:
It's an excellent video, I think, especially since it all seems to be done with a web cam. I like the song a lot, too.
This is her newest video from her soon to be released album:
Much more slick, but still wonderful.
It's an excellent video, I think, especially since it all seems to be done with a web cam. I like the song a lot, too.
This is her newest video from her soon to be released album:
Much more slick, but still wonderful.
Useless Labels:
music
Friday, January 27, 2012
A Mild Case of Turmoil
Today some people in the department where I work were notified that they will be laid-off as of Wednesday.
I wasn't there when they were told, that would have been inappropriate, but I was told that some people were taken into the head supervisor's office and were in a closed door meeting. (There aren't many closed door meetings, so this was unusual.)
Then, on my way out, there were many tears and hugs and red eyes among the women.
I just walked through, signed out, and left for the day. It was awkward. At least for me, I really wasn't noticed during the eye wiping.
The thing I started wondering, as I drove away, was how am I supposed to feel about all of this? The losing co-workers, I mean. I've been with this group of people for three-and-a-half months now. Mostly I sit at my desk in the little office tucked behind the inmate bathroom (There's a vent, I hear the pissing, pooping, and singing. There's a surprising amount of singing in that bathroom.) with the two women who are the same classification as I am. I don't really deal with anyone else. And, being me, I don't go out of my way, ever, to try to get to know them. Yes, I brought corn biscuits (outstanding) and honey butter (too much vanilla) to the potluck, but I just slipped in for a plate then back to my desk. I barely know these people by name. (Although the cute one, who I thought was cute when I first saw her last year, I learned her name pretty quick.) I recognize all their faces now, and I smile and greet them in the mornings, but that's it.
So, how am I supposed to feel about the lay-offs?
Yes, I'm angry and sad that people are losing their jobs when The State has no fucking clue how this "re-alignment" is actually going to shake out. (I have predictions, but now's not the time.) But I'm not sad or angry about the individuals who are leaving. In fact, one of my first thoughts was maybe I can be moved to the desk in the clinic so I'm not trapped in the hole behind the toilet. Of course that mean's I'd be in the clinic and I'd actually have to deal with all these co-workers and a regular basis. That's a plus and a minus.
And then I thought that wasn't how I was supposed to react. Which led me to the question I keep asking.
How am I supposed to feel about the people who are losing their jobs?
I wasn't there when they were told, that would have been inappropriate, but I was told that some people were taken into the head supervisor's office and were in a closed door meeting. (There aren't many closed door meetings, so this was unusual.)
Then, on my way out, there were many tears and hugs and red eyes among the women.
I just walked through, signed out, and left for the day. It was awkward. At least for me, I really wasn't noticed during the eye wiping.
The thing I started wondering, as I drove away, was how am I supposed to feel about all of this? The losing co-workers, I mean. I've been with this group of people for three-and-a-half months now. Mostly I sit at my desk in the little office tucked behind the inmate bathroom (There's a vent, I hear the pissing, pooping, and singing. There's a surprising amount of singing in that bathroom.) with the two women who are the same classification as I am. I don't really deal with anyone else. And, being me, I don't go out of my way, ever, to try to get to know them. Yes, I brought corn biscuits (outstanding) and honey butter (too much vanilla) to the potluck, but I just slipped in for a plate then back to my desk. I barely know these people by name. (Although the cute one, who I thought was cute when I first saw her last year, I learned her name pretty quick.) I recognize all their faces now, and I smile and greet them in the mornings, but that's it.
So, how am I supposed to feel about the lay-offs?
Yes, I'm angry and sad that people are losing their jobs when The State has no fucking clue how this "re-alignment" is actually going to shake out. (I have predictions, but now's not the time.) But I'm not sad or angry about the individuals who are leaving. In fact, one of my first thoughts was maybe I can be moved to the desk in the clinic so I'm not trapped in the hole behind the toilet. Of course that mean's I'd be in the clinic and I'd actually have to deal with all these co-workers and a regular basis. That's a plus and a minus.
And then I thought that wasn't how I was supposed to react. Which led me to the question I keep asking.
How am I supposed to feel about the people who are losing their jobs?
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Three Down... Seven To Go
Two-ish weeks before Thanksgiving, my grandpa was sent to the hospital and had a toe amputated. It was massively infected. A few days later they decided that it was too infected and took another toe and some bone and splayed the foot open to hook it up to a wound vac. After picking up my brother, sister-in-law, and niece from the train station the Sunday before the holiday we stopped by and visited, that's the day they first hooked him up to the vac.
Eventually, the vac did it's job and cleaned the infection from his toe, but as it pumped, other stuff happened.
My grandma was left alone. She's starting to lose her marbles, to put it indelicately. She doesn't remember people. She doesn't remember much of anything. She doesn't feed herself because she doesn't. She may think she ate so she insists that she isn't hungry. So, people started having to stay with her. Mostly my asshole uncle who's been unemployed for the last fifteen years and fleecing his parents for rent money. (He was a contractor and said he couldn't find a job during the housing boom. He's a fucktard.) He manipulates people with half-truths and full lies. I've never trusted him my whole life. In the first two weeks he stayed with my grandma he conned her out of more that $4000.
My parents have been working to keep he from pulling his shit and keeping his lies away from my grandma. The problem is that they work while he doesn't. He's there and they're not. They can't be. When they get to him on the weekends she's more confused and angry than she should be. She's gotten better in the last two weeks because my parents have been out of school and been with her. They've spent most of the last week with her. They went down Tuesday and got back today only for my dad to go back down this evening.
The asshole's going to be with her tomorrow night through Wednesday. My mother has taken six or eight weeks off. Leave of absences. She'll be spending most of that with my grandmother.
Back to before Christmas:
While my grandpa was in a rehab place with his foot hooked up to a vacuum, my other grandma, not his wife, went in for hip surgery. It went great, but she was at the surgery center for three days, during which time her husband was having stomach aches so severe he wasn't eating food or drinking beer, and he's a guy who usually has four beers in a day. Oh, and he had blood in his stool. Oh, and he had chest pains. This all came out after my grandma got home, about a week after her surgery. My uncles basically abducted him and forced him to the VA in Palo Alto where the doctor found a blip, as my uncle called it, in his colon and the doctor diagnosed his pain, on a scale of 1 to 10, as a 7.5 to 8. They gave his some anti-acid meds to calm his tummy and he's eating again and apparently he's not bleeding when he craps anymore. He hasn't been back to the doctor to have a camera jammed down his throat to check for ulcers and he hasn't had a camera crammed up his ass to snip the polyp. Hopefully soon.
My other grandpa, meanwhile, had his foot cleaned of infection so to finally, after a month, seal his foot they had to take another toe. He only has the first two now. All though this ordeal he's wanted to get home. Every time someone has seen him in the hospital or spoken to him on the phone he says he wants to come home. He's never had strong legs. He's always sat most of the day. He fell out of his chair -- cutting open his head and breaking his nose -- because walking from the rehab thing to his room wore him out so he fell asleep. The walk is maybe 150 feet. The guy can't piss standing up anymore; he could barely do it while he had all his toes. He can't pull his pants up. And he wants to go home.
He claims that he can take care of himself and my grandma like he was before. Back then he had my aunt coming over every Saturday, though. She'd take them shopping. She'd clean. She'd bath my grandma. She did as much as she could on that one day to set them up for the whole week to come. My parents visited them about every third Sunday. My aunt has taking this horrible situation with the toes and decided that once my grandpa gets home she's going to cut them off. No visits. Not even a phone call. My dad keeps saying that my grandpa can't go home. The thing is my grandpa's mind is totally sound. My dad isn't willing to cancel his appointments with students. My mom has taken time away from work to be there when my grandpa gets home. She's mostly there to make sure that when he falls she can call someone and, hopefully, then convince him that he can't do everything alone anymore.
He'll need someone to help him with my grandma. He'll need someone to help him help himself. That means they probably won't be living in their 3 bedroom ranch home and into a tiny 2 bedroom really expensive apartment in a nursing home.
Happy New Year.
Eventually, the vac did it's job and cleaned the infection from his toe, but as it pumped, other stuff happened.
My grandma was left alone. She's starting to lose her marbles, to put it indelicately. She doesn't remember people. She doesn't remember much of anything. She doesn't feed herself because she doesn't. She may think she ate so she insists that she isn't hungry. So, people started having to stay with her. Mostly my asshole uncle who's been unemployed for the last fifteen years and fleecing his parents for rent money. (He was a contractor and said he couldn't find a job during the housing boom. He's a fucktard.) He manipulates people with half-truths and full lies. I've never trusted him my whole life. In the first two weeks he stayed with my grandma he conned her out of more that $4000.
My parents have been working to keep he from pulling his shit and keeping his lies away from my grandma. The problem is that they work while he doesn't. He's there and they're not. They can't be. When they get to him on the weekends she's more confused and angry than she should be. She's gotten better in the last two weeks because my parents have been out of school and been with her. They've spent most of the last week with her. They went down Tuesday and got back today only for my dad to go back down this evening.
The asshole's going to be with her tomorrow night through Wednesday. My mother has taken six or eight weeks off. Leave of absences. She'll be spending most of that with my grandmother.
Back to before Christmas:
While my grandpa was in a rehab place with his foot hooked up to a vacuum, my other grandma, not his wife, went in for hip surgery. It went great, but she was at the surgery center for three days, during which time her husband was having stomach aches so severe he wasn't eating food or drinking beer, and he's a guy who usually has four beers in a day. Oh, and he had blood in his stool. Oh, and he had chest pains. This all came out after my grandma got home, about a week after her surgery. My uncles basically abducted him and forced him to the VA in Palo Alto where the doctor found a blip, as my uncle called it, in his colon and the doctor diagnosed his pain, on a scale of 1 to 10, as a 7.5 to 8. They gave his some anti-acid meds to calm his tummy and he's eating again and apparently he's not bleeding when he craps anymore. He hasn't been back to the doctor to have a camera jammed down his throat to check for ulcers and he hasn't had a camera crammed up his ass to snip the polyp. Hopefully soon.
My other grandpa, meanwhile, had his foot cleaned of infection so to finally, after a month, seal his foot they had to take another toe. He only has the first two now. All though this ordeal he's wanted to get home. Every time someone has seen him in the hospital or spoken to him on the phone he says he wants to come home. He's never had strong legs. He's always sat most of the day. He fell out of his chair -- cutting open his head and breaking his nose -- because walking from the rehab thing to his room wore him out so he fell asleep. The walk is maybe 150 feet. The guy can't piss standing up anymore; he could barely do it while he had all his toes. He can't pull his pants up. And he wants to go home.
He claims that he can take care of himself and my grandma like he was before. Back then he had my aunt coming over every Saturday, though. She'd take them shopping. She'd clean. She'd bath my grandma. She did as much as she could on that one day to set them up for the whole week to come. My parents visited them about every third Sunday. My aunt has taking this horrible situation with the toes and decided that once my grandpa gets home she's going to cut them off. No visits. Not even a phone call. My dad keeps saying that my grandpa can't go home. The thing is my grandpa's mind is totally sound. My dad isn't willing to cancel his appointments with students. My mom has taken time away from work to be there when my grandpa gets home. She's mostly there to make sure that when he falls she can call someone and, hopefully, then convince him that he can't do everything alone anymore.
He'll need someone to help him with my grandma. He'll need someone to help him help himself. That means they probably won't be living in their 3 bedroom ranch home and into a tiny 2 bedroom really expensive apartment in a nursing home.
Happy New Year.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
It's the End of the Year as We Know It
In April, I made a list of movies I wanted to see this year.
As of 6:30 PM this evening I have seen twelve of the thirteen.
Kevin Smith was an asshole in how he release Red State so people like me didn't get to see it in the theater. And that's disappointing.
Here's to hoping next year will be just as "successful."
As of 6:30 PM this evening I have seen twelve of the thirteen.
Kevin Smith was an asshole in how he release Red State so people like me didn't get to see it in the theater. And that's disappointing.
Here's to hoping next year will be just as "successful."
Monday, December 12, 2011
I've written it before...
And I may as well again:
It really sucks when the world reinforces the bad things you believe about yourself.
It really sucks when the world reinforces the bad things you believe about yourself.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Happy American Thanksgiving
As usual, I start this thing with no purpose in mind, just that I want to write something.
Upstairs, my brothers and their wives chat with my brothers' friend. I'm down in my room, in the dark, listening to music and hearing their din. Across the way, the dryer is spinning, zippers http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifbanging against the drum.
A few years ago, Thanksgiving, I flew with my parents up to Oregon to visit with my brother and his (then) girlfriend. We went with her parents out to a beach so people could look for agate. I climbed up on rocks and watched the waves roll in, shatter against the rocks, then slide back out. Someone caught a picture of me out there, looking and I was asked what I was thinking. I thought of nothing, just the ocean. Later that week, I overheard my brother, while he was looking at the photos, say that that picture was exactly how he thought of me.
I still don't know what to think about that.
I'm sort of officially my niece's godfather, without all the god stuff. Not sure if I have to sign anything or just agree to it. I'll probably see her once a year, twice if I'm lucky. There's no way to know for sure, though. I don't know what my role really is other than really hoping that nothing horrible happens to her parents. To be fair, even before this I hoped that nothing horrible would happen to my brother and his wife, so that hasn't changed.
'Night, all.
Upstairs, my brothers and their wives chat with my brothers' friend. I'm down in my room, in the dark, listening to music and hearing their din. Across the way, the dryer is spinning, zippers http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifbanging against the drum.
A few years ago, Thanksgiving, I flew with my parents up to Oregon to visit with my brother and his (then) girlfriend. We went with her parents out to a beach so people could look for agate. I climbed up on rocks and watched the waves roll in, shatter against the rocks, then slide back out. Someone caught a picture of me out there, looking and I was asked what I was thinking. I thought of nothing, just the ocean. Later that week, I overheard my brother, while he was looking at the photos, say that that picture was exactly how he thought of me.
I still don't know what to think about that.
I'm sort of officially my niece's godfather, without all the god stuff. Not sure if I have to sign anything or just agree to it. I'll probably see her once a year, twice if I'm lucky. There's no way to know for sure, though. I don't know what my role really is other than really hoping that nothing horrible happens to her parents. To be fair, even before this I hoped that nothing horrible would happen to my brother and his wife, so that hasn't changed.
'Night, all.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
Of Work and House
The second week of October I started a new job, sort of. I have the same title. The same pay. The same lack of respect. I'm not scheduling nurses anymore, though. I'm scheduling inmates for dental appointments. Inmates can't come to me and bitch about why they're scheduled when. They can't make bizarre demands. (No, I can't just schedule you for four days this week. You have to check with your supervisor.)
The problem (and I always have a problem since I, apparently don't know how to be happy) is that I don't use my brain much. Scheduling the nurses, I was constantly solving minor and, too often, major problems. I was always creating alternate plans. When I presented a supervisor of the director of nursing with an idea I had to think though what I was saying to try to convince them that I was right. My job now is just me inputting information into the computer, scheduling guys to see my doctor, and double checking what I just did. It's boring and thoughtless.
It is less stressful, though.
Of course, I'm not really happy and I'm stuck in a small room that has no windows with a lady who's tired of all the bullshit she's had to put up with for the last four year but tries to put a positive spin on things and a lady who just hates her job and her life and is willing to share loudly and in detail. Our boss sticks her nose into everything, and she's nice and all, but she doesn't really know what she's talking about because she doesn't do the work on a daily basis. Sure, she had the basic training and looks at the program every day, but since she doesn't do the work she doesn't know or understand all the details. (I don't either, since I've only been there for four weeks, but I'm learning quickly because I spend most of my eight hour days doing the work.) I ran into this problem when I worked entering data up in North Bay. I don't expect the boss to know I the details of the work I'm doing, but I like it a lot better when the boss trusts his or her subordinates.
Oh, and to top all this off I'm still fucking living with my parents. In a room where the shelf space is taken up with other peoples' crap. And it's been over a year. [sarcasm]Joy![/sarcasm]
Why am I still living with my parents if I don't like it? Well, it all started about eleven-or-twelve-or-thirteen months ago when I decided that I hated the job I was in and had to get out ASAP. That's when my plan fell apart. My original plan was to stay with my parent no longer than the new year. But when I started looking for a new job I thought it logical to not get stuck with a lease when it was possible I'd be working somewhere an hour or more away. (I don't like to drive thirty minutes, why would I drive an hour?) I figured that I'd throw out applications, get a few interviews, and be moved along no later than June. Come June, no fucking interviews. I was still sending out applications, though, to jobs that would be a promotion and jobs at my current level, so by October, for sure!
During the summer I had one interview. It was hundreds of miles to the South and near-ish to the coast. It was a long interview. A good interview. I knew when I left, though, that I wasn't going to get it. They knew that I wanted to promote and this was a job at my current classification level in a city hundreds of miles from my family and the friends they assumed I had. In the end I didn't get it.
A month later, I interviewed, at my current level, for a secretary position for an AW where I work. About six weeks after that, I interviewed for another position at my current level where I work. Eventually, after another week I get offered the first position, I was their second choice, but would rather have the second one I interviewed for. I talked it over with some people and decided the second one was a better choice for me and made sure I was still in the running before declining the first. (I hope this is clear.) When I was finally, officially, offered the second position, I started pulling listings and looking for a clean, well lighted place of my own.
Then, the week before I started, I was asked to an interview up in Cowcity for a promotion. (Last week, which was 3 weeks after the interview, the guy said they still hadn't decided. I'm afraid that he's just a coward and won't tell me that I'm forever trapped where I am.) With the chance of a promotion to a city 100ish miles away, as the car drives, I really shouldn't be thinking of getting myself trapped into a lease. Two weeks after that interview I interviewed up at a prison in Far North Coast. Also for a promotion. (I didn't get that job, but they said that I was would be really good at doing it and should apply for the position again, somewhere else. Of course, there are only 35 positions like that in the whole fucking state and too many of them are in places that I ain't gonna move to.) This week I went and took a test in Cowcity for a different classification. It would be a little less money, but it would get in away from lay-offs and into a place where they do good work and I could show that I work hard and well and they should FUCKING promote me to a higher level.
Hence, I'm stuck in a room where there's a 10-year old computer my pop still uses to load his iPod with. (He won't sync it with his newer computer for some dumb-ass paranoid reason.) A room that has two giant, probably broken, speaker sitting on a half file cabinet. A room with piles of empty boxes because you just never know. A room where I have books and movies in boxes on the floor because the shelves are all taken up. A room that I am continuously told is "my room," but I can't use most of it.
And yet I haven't looked at any kind of place to move, locally, because there's some bullshit optimism in me that keeps telling me that I'll be out of here soon and on to somewhere different, maybe even better.
And so I wallow in myself and I don't do anything. I'm just so very tired, you know? Tired of trying. Tired of hoping. Tired of working. Tired of thinking. Tired. And not in that funny Madeline Kahn way, either.
The problem (and I always have a problem since I, apparently don't know how to be happy) is that I don't use my brain much. Scheduling the nurses, I was constantly solving minor and, too often, major problems. I was always creating alternate plans. When I presented a supervisor of the director of nursing with an idea I had to think though what I was saying to try to convince them that I was right. My job now is just me inputting information into the computer, scheduling guys to see my doctor, and double checking what I just did. It's boring and thoughtless.
It is less stressful, though.
Of course, I'm not really happy and I'm stuck in a small room that has no windows with a lady who's tired of all the bullshit she's had to put up with for the last four year but tries to put a positive spin on things and a lady who just hates her job and her life and is willing to share loudly and in detail. Our boss sticks her nose into everything, and she's nice and all, but she doesn't really know what she's talking about because she doesn't do the work on a daily basis. Sure, she had the basic training and looks at the program every day, but since she doesn't do the work she doesn't know or understand all the details. (I don't either, since I've only been there for four weeks, but I'm learning quickly because I spend most of my eight hour days doing the work.) I ran into this problem when I worked entering data up in North Bay. I don't expect the boss to know I the details of the work I'm doing, but I like it a lot better when the boss trusts his or her subordinates.
Oh, and to top all this off I'm still fucking living with my parents. In a room where the shelf space is taken up with other peoples' crap. And it's been over a year. [sarcasm]Joy![/sarcasm]
Why am I still living with my parents if I don't like it? Well, it all started about eleven-or-twelve-or-thirteen months ago when I decided that I hated the job I was in and had to get out ASAP. That's when my plan fell apart. My original plan was to stay with my parent no longer than the new year. But when I started looking for a new job I thought it logical to not get stuck with a lease when it was possible I'd be working somewhere an hour or more away. (I don't like to drive thirty minutes, why would I drive an hour?) I figured that I'd throw out applications, get a few interviews, and be moved along no later than June. Come June, no fucking interviews. I was still sending out applications, though, to jobs that would be a promotion and jobs at my current level, so by October, for sure!
During the summer I had one interview. It was hundreds of miles to the South and near-ish to the coast. It was a long interview. A good interview. I knew when I left, though, that I wasn't going to get it. They knew that I wanted to promote and this was a job at my current classification level in a city hundreds of miles from my family and the friends they assumed I had. In the end I didn't get it.
A month later, I interviewed, at my current level, for a secretary position for an AW where I work. About six weeks after that, I interviewed for another position at my current level where I work. Eventually, after another week I get offered the first position, I was their second choice, but would rather have the second one I interviewed for. I talked it over with some people and decided the second one was a better choice for me and made sure I was still in the running before declining the first. (I hope this is clear.) When I was finally, officially, offered the second position, I started pulling listings and looking for a clean, well lighted place of my own.
Then, the week before I started, I was asked to an interview up in Cowcity for a promotion. (Last week, which was 3 weeks after the interview, the guy said they still hadn't decided. I'm afraid that he's just a coward and won't tell me that I'm forever trapped where I am.) With the chance of a promotion to a city 100ish miles away, as the car drives, I really shouldn't be thinking of getting myself trapped into a lease. Two weeks after that interview I interviewed up at a prison in Far North Coast. Also for a promotion. (I didn't get that job, but they said that I was would be really good at doing it and should apply for the position again, somewhere else. Of course, there are only 35 positions like that in the whole fucking state and too many of them are in places that I ain't gonna move to.) This week I went and took a test in Cowcity for a different classification. It would be a little less money, but it would get in away from lay-offs and into a place where they do good work and I could show that I work hard and well and they should FUCKING promote me to a higher level.
Hence, I'm stuck in a room where there's a 10-year old computer my pop still uses to load his iPod with. (He won't sync it with his newer computer for some dumb-ass paranoid reason.) A room that has two giant, probably broken, speaker sitting on a half file cabinet. A room with piles of empty boxes because you just never know. A room where I have books and movies in boxes on the floor because the shelves are all taken up. A room that I am continuously told is "my room," but I can't use most of it.
And yet I haven't looked at any kind of place to move, locally, because there's some bullshit optimism in me that keeps telling me that I'll be out of here soon and on to somewhere different, maybe even better.
And so I wallow in myself and I don't do anything. I'm just so very tired, you know? Tired of trying. Tired of hoping. Tired of working. Tired of thinking. Tired. And not in that funny Madeline Kahn way, either.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Childish Things
Taking a job with the state more than six years ago was probably a mistake. At the time it was a good idea because I needed to get away from 'Bucks. I needed to do something that helped me feel like a grown-up rather than the pathetic man-child I've always been.
I suppose, for a while, it worked. I woke up at the same time every morning. I wore shirts with buttons all the way down the front. I had weekends and holidays off. I made more money than I'd ever made before. Debt was paid. I was working in the grown-up world. No more scheduled by the week coming in at 4:30 AM one day and then working until 11:30 PM the next day.
I never really enjoyed myself though.
When I was a kid, I dreamed the usual dreams of the future. I imagined myself a firefighter single-handedly battling a blazing forest fire. I sat in the Oval Office bossing the army to sweep through the world bringing peace. I drove thousands of head of cattle across the country. I circled the globe over and over with in a boat/plane/submarine/tank hybrid with a martini in my hand. I flew to Mars and placed the first boot print in the ruddy soil. Like every kid, I didn't ever imagine myself working in a regular office pushing paper around. Of course, like so many people in the great ole You Ess of Ay that's where I ended up. (To be fair, my dreams changed as I got older to things that were more possible.)
And as that went on the dreams that could have been possible went away. Not totally away, but they seemed so unrealistic, so unsafe.
Working the normal grind is safe. You go in, do the shit you're told to do, you get paid. You get paid a consistent amount with each check. You know what's coming and you can plan where it's going. Safety is all a paper-pushing job offers, not satisfaction.
Here I sit, still not satisfied. Six years, six long fucking years, stuck in the same classification. Three years since I hit the top of the pay grade. Four-and-a-half years since I had an interview that could lead to a promotion.
Then I start thinking about the kinds of places that I'm likely to be promoted to: analyst, accountant, personnel specialist, paralegal, etc. Do I really want to be any of these things? They are all so far from the sort of things I imagined for myself.
Again, here I sit. I sit thinking about how much I hate where I am in my life. That's certainly something that I never dreamed about.
I suppose, for a while, it worked. I woke up at the same time every morning. I wore shirts with buttons all the way down the front. I had weekends and holidays off. I made more money than I'd ever made before. Debt was paid. I was working in the grown-up world. No more scheduled by the week coming in at 4:30 AM one day and then working until 11:30 PM the next day.
I never really enjoyed myself though.
When I was a kid, I dreamed the usual dreams of the future. I imagined myself a firefighter single-handedly battling a blazing forest fire. I sat in the Oval Office bossing the army to sweep through the world bringing peace. I drove thousands of head of cattle across the country. I circled the globe over and over with in a boat/plane/submarine/tank hybrid with a martini in my hand. I flew to Mars and placed the first boot print in the ruddy soil. Like every kid, I didn't ever imagine myself working in a regular office pushing paper around. Of course, like so many people in the great ole You Ess of Ay that's where I ended up. (To be fair, my dreams changed as I got older to things that were more possible.)
And as that went on the dreams that could have been possible went away. Not totally away, but they seemed so unrealistic, so unsafe.
Working the normal grind is safe. You go in, do the shit you're told to do, you get paid. You get paid a consistent amount with each check. You know what's coming and you can plan where it's going. Safety is all a paper-pushing job offers, not satisfaction.
Here I sit, still not satisfied. Six years, six long fucking years, stuck in the same classification. Three years since I hit the top of the pay grade. Four-and-a-half years since I had an interview that could lead to a promotion.
Then I start thinking about the kinds of places that I'm likely to be promoted to: analyst, accountant, personnel specialist, paralegal, etc. Do I really want to be any of these things? They are all so far from the sort of things I imagined for myself.
Again, here I sit. I sit thinking about how much I hate where I am in my life. That's certainly something that I never dreamed about.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Where are the woods?
I suppose we should talk, Universe (or whatever).
On Friday, you made me, well, not quite happy because I haven't really been happy in a while, but you made me feel good. You gave me a job interview on Tuesday. Not just another interview at the same level, but an interview for a job that would be a promotion. I haven't had an interview like that for four or five years. I guess I was excited.
And that excitement led to a decent weekend of nothing. I watched the first season of Louis. I caught up on e-mail and my feed reader. I was generally lazy, but felt okay about it.
Sure, there were things that happened, things I was told, things that I thought that weren't so great, but I had an interview for a promotion on Tuesday.
Sunday night I couldn't get to sleep. My mind raced with thoughts that I'd rather not repeat. I didn't get to sleep until about four-and-a-half hours before I had to wake up for work on Monday. I had an interview on Tuesday for a promotion, though.
At work this morning I was told, without actually being told, that a nurse is being asked to resign and she will resign, leaving us another nurse short. Then I found out that half our clerical staff are out, but should have been told hours before I did find out. And then, forty minutes before, I got volunteered to take minutes at a meeting I've never been to before and don't know what they are looking for. (Let me put it this way, Universe (or whatever), at a staff meeting you just write down the crap people say. At this meeting they were actually expecting specific things to be taken down because they are important and could come up at a lawsuit.) And I was unhappy, but I kept thinking about that interview for a promotion.
But then, Universe (or whatever), I got an e-mail. And what did that e-mail say? It said that the interviews tomorrow were cancelled. My presence, Universe (or whatever), was neither required nor requested in Cow City.
And I still had the fucking meeting to go to so that I could take minutes.
Fuck you, Universe (or whatever). Fuck you.
Maybe we need some time apart.
On Friday, you made me, well, not quite happy because I haven't really been happy in a while, but you made me feel good. You gave me a job interview on Tuesday. Not just another interview at the same level, but an interview for a job that would be a promotion. I haven't had an interview like that for four or five years. I guess I was excited.
And that excitement led to a decent weekend of nothing. I watched the first season of Louis. I caught up on e-mail and my feed reader. I was generally lazy, but felt okay about it.
Sure, there were things that happened, things I was told, things that I thought that weren't so great, but I had an interview for a promotion on Tuesday.
Sunday night I couldn't get to sleep. My mind raced with thoughts that I'd rather not repeat. I didn't get to sleep until about four-and-a-half hours before I had to wake up for work on Monday. I had an interview on Tuesday for a promotion, though.
At work this morning I was told, without actually being told, that a nurse is being asked to resign and she will resign, leaving us another nurse short. Then I found out that half our clerical staff are out, but should have been told hours before I did find out. And then, forty minutes before, I got volunteered to take minutes at a meeting I've never been to before and don't know what they are looking for. (Let me put it this way, Universe (or whatever), at a staff meeting you just write down the crap people say. At this meeting they were actually expecting specific things to be taken down because they are important and could come up at a lawsuit.) And I was unhappy, but I kept thinking about that interview for a promotion.
But then, Universe (or whatever), I got an e-mail. And what did that e-mail say? It said that the interviews tomorrow were cancelled. My presence, Universe (or whatever), was neither required nor requested in Cow City.
And I still had the fucking meeting to go to so that I could take minutes.
Fuck you, Universe (or whatever). Fuck you.
Maybe we need some time apart.
Thursday, September 01, 2011
Once more unto...
Had an interview today. It was at the place I currently work for a job with the same title and pay as I have now. However I would be learning new things and one of the interviewers, the one in charge of all the clerical staff, said that if the right person were to be found on her staff she'd be aiming to train that person toward an analyst position she's hoping to have created soon.
I was able to curb my moodiness (I faked it, but I never maked it) for about forty minutes of interview. They laughed at the joke I made even before the interview and they set me at ease. I felt good about this one.
'Course my track record about feeling good about interviews has been quite poor.
I was able to curb my moodiness (I faked it, but I never maked it) for about forty minutes of interview. They laughed at the joke I made even before the interview and they set me at ease. I felt good about this one.
'Course my track record about feeling good about interviews has been quite poor.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Thank you, Internet.
Thanks for helping to reinforce some of the most negative things that I believe about myself.
It's nice to know I'm right.
*hugs*
ticknart
It's nice to know I'm right.
*hugs*
ticknart
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Work is what I do to convince myself that I'm not a useless human being.
I just did the math, we really only have 20 slots for RNs where I work. That means the five missing nurses leaves us with only three-quarters our maximum staff. Still, if The Director would let the one guy move to first watch and the extra nurse on third watch was willing to cover one of the relief posts we would only really need one more RN to fill out the schedule.
Unfortunately, The Director seemed to tell me that she isn't willing to let the one nurse go to first watch. Not without meeting with the supervisors at least. That meeting probably won't happen for two, maybe three, weeks. The third watch nurse will have to volunteer after notice is posted about the open positions. Even if she volunteers we have to give everyone fifteen days to bid for the post as well.
In hindsight I shouldn't have been, but I was constantly surprised by the shock supervisors expressed when I told them that with the two RNs promoting we would have five open RN positions. Every one of them was amazed. The insist that they didn't know we were so short. Except several of them were involved with encouraging two nurses to "resign" in the past three months. Two "resigning" and two promoting is four add the other who transferred to a position in Cow City and we get five. Funny how that happens.
The worst thing, and I know it shouldn't be the worst thing, is having all these people telling me to be happy or to smile or blah fucking blah. I hear this all the time. They know I don't smile and I'm not happy because I have a job that I fucking hate, but it doesn't matter to them, and usually I'll make a joke. Today, though I didn't. When told to be happy or to smile I told them no, thanks, I'd rather not. I never stuck around long enough to learn of their reaction to my comment.
I know what my problem is. I can't seem to let go of my fucking job. EVER! If I could I wouldn't have had to write that post last night at 10:30 because I kept dwelling on the bullshit going on there. Even after writing it I stayed in bed staring at the ceiling for at least twenty more minutes. Oh, yeah. Sucks.
And now all I want to do is call in sick. Call in sick tomorrow and for the rest of my life. Or at least for the 350ish hours I have saved up. Fuck them all.
I miss being able to read and actually focus on what I'm reading. I miss being able to write bits of stories to clear thoughts out of my head. I miss hearing a joke from a person or the TV and having the good feeling that comes from laughing linger for a while; now the feeling is gone before I finish smiling.
Unfortunately, The Director seemed to tell me that she isn't willing to let the one nurse go to first watch. Not without meeting with the supervisors at least. That meeting probably won't happen for two, maybe three, weeks. The third watch nurse will have to volunteer after notice is posted about the open positions. Even if she volunteers we have to give everyone fifteen days to bid for the post as well.
In hindsight I shouldn't have been, but I was constantly surprised by the shock supervisors expressed when I told them that with the two RNs promoting we would have five open RN positions. Every one of them was amazed. The insist that they didn't know we were so short. Except several of them were involved with encouraging two nurses to "resign" in the past three months. Two "resigning" and two promoting is four add the other who transferred to a position in Cow City and we get five. Funny how that happens.
The worst thing, and I know it shouldn't be the worst thing, is having all these people telling me to be happy or to smile or blah fucking blah. I hear this all the time. They know I don't smile and I'm not happy because I have a job that I fucking hate, but it doesn't matter to them, and usually I'll make a joke. Today, though I didn't. When told to be happy or to smile I told them no, thanks, I'd rather not. I never stuck around long enough to learn of their reaction to my comment.
I know what my problem is. I can't seem to let go of my fucking job. EVER! If I could I wouldn't have had to write that post last night at 10:30 because I kept dwelling on the bullshit going on there. Even after writing it I stayed in bed staring at the ceiling for at least twenty more minutes. Oh, yeah. Sucks.
And now all I want to do is call in sick. Call in sick tomorrow and for the rest of my life. Or at least for the 350ish hours I have saved up. Fuck them all.
I miss being able to read and actually focus on what I'm reading. I miss being able to write bits of stories to clear thoughts out of my head. I miss hearing a joke from a person or the TV and having the good feeling that comes from laughing linger for a while; now the feeling is gone before I finish smiling.
Nobler?
The shit went down exactly like I thought it would. I left early because I just can't focus on anything right now except thinking about Shakespeare's "undiscovered country."
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