Have great holidays.  I’m always on Facebook if you want to catch up or say hi.  :)

And somewhere a young illustrated boy named Nelson Muntz crows, “HA HAA!”

But now it’s my turn, only I seem to have suffered a cervical/thoracic sprain. I work out frequently, most of the time with weights, but they’re light enough where it would almost be a joke to sprain my back while doing so. And I’m certain I would have noticed if it had happened. But no, that wasn’t it. My new doctor informed me yesterday during my physical that I have a curve in my back. I had to touch my toes like we did in the locker rooms in middle school gym class and she noticed something. Fortunately, she said, it’s not the bone. (Thank you Jeebus.) It’s the muscle and something is pushing something to one side and apparently this is why my back hurts (really?), I have headaches, neck pain and why I have been feeling like my lower left arm is filled with static and white noise instead of blood. I’d like to note that I find it somewhat sad that I sailed through and loved Anatomy & Physiology, but I don’t remember the muscles involved in the Jurgologie Back Sprain Invitational, nor do I feel like looking it up.

Point is, my muscles are fighting with each other and one is kicking some serious ass, for when she told me to stand and face her, she confirmed that one shoulder is higher than the other shoulder. Happily, it is not as obvious as this (image not to scale):

and fortunately is not really noticeable to someone if they’re not specifically looking for it. But I now have to go to physical therapy for at least a month, and I start today.

Whee?

I’ve never been to physical therapy before and the only time I’ve ever known someone to have to go was when they hurt themselves while actually doing something. Me? I apparently really have made tension into a sport, because according to Dr. Doctor, that is most likely the culprit. Put me on blocks in the front yard, for I am broken down and rusting quickly.

I’m not going to laugh at Boyfriend anymore, and next time Nelson Muntz squawks, “HA HAA,” I will punch him in the back of the head because now he’s laughing at me, too.

^{PS: I now can blame my massive handwriting slant on my massive slanted monster shoulders. RAWR, sideways.}

But then I come back. I always come back; the calm always dissipates, and I am kicked square in the ass back to my sack of smashed assholes and dung. I haven’t written much, largely because I’m not sure I have anything to say. I’m embarrassed to write. There is always something wrong. I’ve lost the funny, the lightness. So I’m not sure why anyone would read, not when there are puppies and hope and happy just a few clicks away. Am I fishing? No. I’m in an odd place right now, one in which I’ve never been. I alternate between numbness and incredible sadness. And that pisses me off.

It just struck me right now that I think of depression as a location, not a state of being. Is that optimism? If it’s a location, I can hold onto hope that I’ll return and be able to sigh with relief that I am home, and what a dismal and degrading trip I had. And I will shudder, I will smile and I will forget.

Boyfriend tells me to keep fighting, to keep going, that I’ve come so far and things will right themselves eventually. I’ll find a job. I’ll regain awareness of my surroundings and will eventually sigh contentedly.

But right now I find myself staring off into space. I suppose it could be the addition of a new medication, but I don’t know what difference it makes to know the cause. It’s odd. I haven’t gone crazy, but I feel disconnected. I get up in the mornings and go through my routine mechanically. I come home. Walk Jurg. Do my hour of exercise. Eat. Sleep, or try to. Sleep is elusive without chemical intervention. I look and respond like I’m normal, but inside I feel an aching hollowness. The medicine has me calm, but there’s a part of me inside that is frantic, that is “what if”-ing everything, that is helpless and certain of doom and everything crumbling. Certain to the point where there’s a genuine terror that Boyfriend and Dog will be taken from me.

I hate this fucking victim shit.

I have no idea how to communicate right now. Did I ever? I can’t remember. I forgot a very important day because I have no concept of what day or date it is. I am reduced to communication via Facebook – simple, direct, short, usually superficial. I am locked into my head, which, right now, is not a good thing. Canned though it may seem, I am on the outside looking in. I communicate and do things because I have to. I keep going because to give up would just create a larger heap of shit to clean up later. I have somewhat convinced myself that I must be cursed, Mercury must be in retrograde, there’s a black cloud following me wherever I go. Surely there must be some explanation for why things go to shit as soon as I start to get comfortable, as soon as I start to hope. Hope is like being blindfolded on a rollercoaster – the buildup is intense, slow, wonderful. The drop is steep and sudden.

I am really, really afraid. But things will right themselves, right? I will get a job. I will not lose Boyfriend, Dog, my mind. I will be okay again. I will only vaguely remember depression. I will remember the puppies. And I will shudder, I will smile and I will forget.

And here I was, in my small office made smaller by boxes and littered paper, wearing my Scruffy McGrump sweater – a thick, baggy wool J. Crew that I found at the Salvation Army – and it wasn’t even mid-morning. I could not, would not, last the entire day without immediate action to remedy this slowly escalating situation. It’s probably not even noticeable to anyone else, but to me it’s a violent odor that kicks one between the eyes should one dare come close.

One might wonder why, if this is a recurring issue, I wouldn’t have an emergency deodorant on hand. Aha! I do, and I sprung to the appropriate packed box of personal items and applied it with a sigh of relief. But every time this happens, or even when it doesn’t happen and I just apply it anyway, it reminds me that it is The Worst Deodorant In The World (Suave 24 Hour Protection). Unbelievably, it seems to amplify the situation. And unbelievably, even though I end up throwing it across the office in anger, my mind will not register that the outcome will never be different. It turns my armpits into damp, stubby fetid craters of hell and damnation. The deodorant creates a situation in which a small “maybe” odor turns into that small “maybe” odor on methamphetimenes, an odor made more apparent because the smell of the deodorant itself is one no one would choose.  It’s too faux, too synthetic, too “trying way too hard.” It’s the odor of obviousness, the odor of, “Something is off and I’m not quite sure what it is, but sweet mother of pearl, why did that person power wash her armpits with faux-shower-baby powder?!”

And so I went home. Armed with my purse and determination, I left the office so I could go home, quickly wash and shave my armpits, snorfle with Jurgen a bit and return to work. It is 18 miles from driveway to driveway – not close, but not far, either. It was an hour trip that was essential, due to my sleepy disorientation this morning.

I arrived, hurried to unlock the door, heard Jurgen on the other side snorfling. I dug in my purse for my keys. I had stopped on the way to my car to wonder if I brought my house keys, but when I shook my purse and heard the tiny clinks, I knew I was set. But I dug and dug and dropped to the ground to dump my purse on our porch.

Turns out those tiny clinks I heard weren’t the clinking of keys, but the clinking one would hear when Granddad walks by with a pocketful of change. I had made the trip for nothing.  I didn’t have my keys.

Now my pits were really suffering. I couldn’t let the problem get worse. I couldn’t just go back and rely on The Worst Deodorant In The World.

So I did what any sane, offensive smelling person would do: headed straight toward the drugstore for deodorant and razors and washed and shaved in a bathroom stall at work.  Classy, I am.

I forgot to shave, forgot my keys, lost my mind and sort of stunk for a bit this morning. It is not that great a day.

I woke up Saturday morning and said to Boyfriend out loud: “I can’t take the job.” It’s hard to describe how I feel, but salary is oftentimes more than numbers or budgets. To me, it’s an indicator of how far I’ve come. It’s a weird situation because I hate working in the field that I do and am clawing the walls to get out of it. I’m working on that (start classes in January!), though. I don’t know how appropriate it is to go into numbers, but I’ve doubled my salary in just under four years in this field I despise. I feel like it’s earned compensation for hard work and for putting my time in and doing what I need to do until I can get out of it. I don’t know if it makes sense or not, but what keeps running through my head is that I’m not about to put myself on a “clearance rack,” so to speak. And maybe this decision will bite me in the ass, I don’t know. But given how I am, how I go through times of opaque black depression, how I doubt myself and sell myself short…knowing that I know better and can actually control this choice (where in times of depression I don’t believe I can), how can I not try to fight back and defend myself? I’m definitely of the mindset that if you don’t like something but do nothing to try to change it (weight, work, salary, etc.), you lose all rights to bitch about it and feel badly for yourself because you had the chance. If you know better, you do better.

So, I feel like I owe it to myself to take a gamble. I don’t know how the situation will play out - they’ve called and I’m due to speak to them at some point today - but at the very, very least, I’m happy to have had that little shot of self-worth to know that I’ll be okay either way.

Following is the email I wrote to the guy who offered me the job. It could be written better, I suppose, but I just needed to do it and get it sent so I could stop stressing about it. And it’s genuine - I really mean all the things I say about the people there.

So. That’s where it stands now, after Round One. We’ll see what Round Two brings…

Hi __________,

I hope you had a good weekend, and I want to thank you again for taking the time to talk to me on Friday. I don’t think I have ever had a more pleasant interview!

I appreciate your kind words and the offer and I can honestly say that I would love working with you and your group. Having had the opportunity to meet with your team, it is clear that you are a fantastic manager and you’ve created an environment in which respect, kindness and a shared vision is woven throughout.

I thought all weekend about your offer and did the math, but I can’t accept the offer as it stands. To say I have great regret over the decision is an understatement. Your business model, your team, your leadership…all of it is a perfect fit for me. It is the compensation over which I am struggling.

I completely understand that you are operating within the confines of a corporate structure, but taking a $20,000 per year hit on my salary is much too significant a cost to bear. It wouldn’t be responsible of me in terms of my personal budget; also, I have worked incredibly hard throughout my career to earn the salary I do and to continue that upward trajectory. I’m worth it, and cutting $20,000/year would not only set me back several years of hard work and fortitude, it would mean that I minimized some of that. In fairness to myself, I don’t think I can do that, even though everything else seems to be so perfect.

Again, I understand that the offer is what it is and I am truly honored that you think I would be a good fit. You have obviously worked very hard to build the group you have and it shows. I don’t know if there is any flexibility with the offer, but if there is, I would be delighted to discuss. If the compensation offer is solid, I would be willing to make up for some of that $20,000 in other creative ways, such as a 4-day workweek to pursue my artistic interests, sign-on bonus or any number of other benefits.

Again, I thank you so much for your time. It cheers me tremendously that such a great working environment exists, and I cannot emphasize that enough.

Regards,
Stacy

Time Machine, by Sweatshop Union (Genre: Hip Hop)

About Sweatshop Union

From CBC Radio 3:

In a time when hip hop music remains soulless and simplistic in the eyes of the mainstream, Sweatshop Union remain driven to deliver a deeper, more meaningful sound into the conscience of the masses.

Last FM says:

“Sweatshop Union” are a Canadian Hip hop collective formed in 2000 when four politically-minded rap acts Dirty Circus, Creative Minds , Innocent Bystanders, and solo artist Kyprios came together “to create a powerful, distinctive voice”, and to produce their first album, which was published in 2001.

Known for an inventive and socially-conscious sound, Sweatshop Union’s music focuses on being “honest”, commenting on material ranging from the War in Iraq, the plight of the poor and working-class, to the negativity and misogyny of mainstream hip-hop. Speaking for the group, Mos Eisley put it as:

‘To me, politics aren’t a choice you make; they’re just a way of life. […] In that sense, I am trying to be more positive than political, because I’m already political to begin with…

I think that, at the same time as there’s a lot of money being put into hip hop that could be deemed negative or misogynistic or self-destructive, by the same token there’s a lot of guys who are coming up trying to be positive and rebel against that, putting their careers on the line.’

What thing(s) would need to happen for you to accept a position for 20k less than your current salary?  (e.g., benefits, environment, perks)  Say you are in the process of losing your job in the worst job market you’ve ever experienced (ever?) and while you presently have no other interviews scheduled, your resume is good and you’ve applied to, say, 10 jobs.  (None have called.  Again, the job market.)

What would you need in order to accept the position?  What, specifically or generally, would “make up” or be important enough where you’d accept?

When I graduated high school, I thought my group of friends would be FRIENDS 4-EVER! and A.S.S. and always, always live by the K.I.S.S. principle. We meant it when we wrote LYLAS! and that mattered, I thought.

It did matter, but then it didn’t.

We kept in touch for less than a year. I was the only one of us who went away to school and, together all the time, they sealed in the gap in which I used to fit. It was fun at first to come back home and go to parties together, but once we were sitting at the 24-hour diner at 3 a.m., it just got awkward. We no longer had common ground. Correction: I no longer had common ground. I didn’t get the jokes anymore. We drifted apart.

I’m not sure when it was that I turned bitter about high school, but when it hit it nearly knocked me over. I wasn’t unpopular. I wasn’t popular. If I had enemies, they were kind enough not to inform me of the fact. I was the chub, the girl who was only noticed because she learned to have a comeback for everything. And I’m not sorry about that, nor do I waste any time thinking thoughts of being ripped off because I wasn’t one of the popular girls. (Okay, maybe I used to think things like that, but I don’t anymore.) I got by, I did well enough socially. I had my group of friends and I talked to pretty much everyone, but I wasn’t chased by boys or invited to the cool parties. I didn’t understand back then, but the fact that I did talk to everyone is a source of pride as an adult. I didn’t know then that high school meant nothing after high school.

I spent a lot of time in bitterness. I swore that I would never attend a reunion, should there ever be one planned. I swore that I didn’t give a shit because no one ever gave a shit about me. Even my real friends didn’t bother visiting me at school or try to keep in touch. They just went on as though I had never existed, which seemed to trigger thoughts that maybe I never existed to them or anyone. So fuck them, I thought. And so began scoffing and eye rolling and endless sarcasm about the subject.

I’m thinking about this and trying to trace my feelings because I’ve been reuniting with people from my high school since late last week. It seems like it has been a million years, but the popular girls are Facebook “friending” those of us who weren’t unpopular and vice versa. I’m friending people, looking at photos of their families, weddings, lives, hoping that this is a dawn of a new era. I guess it technically is a new era, but you know what I mean. I’m hoping for a restart of sorts, where we can know each other without rankings. And there’s the paradox: if there really are no rankings, why should it matter?

And I guess it doesn’t matter. But it does, and I’m afraid of that.