Plain-Jane

Sunday

2009-07-12T15:03:00.005-05:00

Lesson being learned currently: never leave a playdate open-ended, as in, "Okay, I'll just bring Mary home later when they're done playing." Because little girls have less decision-aking skill than my husband.

"Mommy, how long has Mary been here?"

"I don't know..three hours?"

"Okay."

"Why, are you ready for her to go home?"

"NO!"

"Mary, are you ready to go home?"

"I don't care."

"O....kay."

I don't know what that means. Does Mary want to leave, but doesn't want to say so in front of Holly, who clearly DOESN'T want her to go? Does Mary really want to stay, but doesn't know if I want her to go? God! I need to set times. Bah.

This has been the weekend of annoying playdates. Friday night Holly was invited to a sleepover and OF COURSE at 9:00 p.m. Holly's friend Annie's mother called and said in a harrassed voice that Holly wanted to come home. I asked her to put Holly on the phone and proceeded to be nice and supportive.

"Missy, COME ON. You said you were sleeping over! What is your problem? YOU NEED TO STAY THERE," and she started crying and shit and I was like, "FINE, PUT ANNIE'S MOTHER ON."

Annie's mom got on the phone and said, "Listen, can Annie come over there and spend the night? Because she's throwing a real fit," and I started stuttering because, what? I wasn't planning on a sleepover for fuck's sake, I just had a cocktail and I'm in my pajamas and then Annie's mom said, "Wait, Holly wants to talk to you again."

"Mom? I don't WANT Annie to sleep over!"

"JESUS, Missy! They're standing right there AUGH. Let me talk to Annie's mom!"

At which point I insisted that Annie come over, no really, of COURSE Holly wants her to come over, ha, ha, she's just...being...she...has issues.

It turned out okay, I guess. Holly was weird about it and kept obsessing about what time they should go to bed, but eventually they went to sleep (they slept together in a twin bed, which I wouldn't think would be comfortable in the least, but I guess they're little.)

I get frustrated by Holly's exceptionally obsessive compulsive behavior about bedtime and sleeping in general. Her father has no problem with it, of course, being obsessive compulsive himself. He's all, "She just likes her routine..what's wrong with that?" What's wrong with that is that she can't figure out what time to go to bed unless we tell her and at some point, she needs to learn the life skill of connecting "Tired" with "Go to Bed." And don't tell me she'll get there eventually. I thought she'd eventually figure out she needed to quit sucking her thumb too. And we just paid a bunch of money to take care of that misconception.

Oh good, Mary's mother just called to make sure Mary hadn't "worn out her welcome," and I protested merrily, but then said, "I'll bring her home in about half an hour, how's that?" Mary's mother has more sense than I do.

Things I Hate

2009-07-09T12:21:00.001-05:00

1) The phrase "knocked up." No, I don't think it's disrespectful. What I think is that it quit the "retro" premises about 10 years ago and is now simply dated and boring. If you use it to sound hip, you're failing.

2) People who get on a high horse about their favorite books being "ruined" when made into television shows. Why, exactly, are you watching the television show if it is "ruined?" Note: special notice to a popular blogger who bitched about True Blood because the Sookie Stackhouse character is being downplayed in favor of the male vampires and this is CLEARLY a case of television misogyny. And all I have to say is if more Eric and less Sookie is antifeminist, then take away my right to vote.

3) The smell of eggs cooking.

4) Fuckers.

I started this on July 4

2009-07-05T08:34:00.006-05:00

Do you ever walk around with a faint, nagging feeling you've done something wrong, but you can't figure out what? I feel like that this morning, but damned if I know what I did. My coffee tastes like shit, maybe that's it. No...it's more a guilty feeling. I don't feel guilty about my coffee sucking. I feel pissy, for sure, because how many years am I going to live before I figure out how to make coffee? I mean, for god's sake. How hard is it? If I get it right, why don't I REMEMBER what I did that time and repeat the behavior? HUH?

Did I insult someone? It's only 8:36 a.m., who can I have insulted at this hour? Paco and Holly have left the house to go get donuts and I didn't insult either of them yet. I have not seen Elliot yet. I assume he is in his room not sleeping. Remember, I have the world's only teenager who awakens before noon.

Maybe I'm just nuts.

I was sort of a jackass to Paco last night (that's not it, but maybe if I talk about it, I'll shift the nagging feeling to that and quit stewing over whatever it is I'm stewing about). We went to our city's annual Fourth of July ClusterFest like we always do. The jamboree consists of a mini carnival with inflatables and a series of food booths with overpriced turkey legs and funnel cakes and they conveniently block off the streets for like 5 square miles and provide buses from nearby businesses to get in and out. Every year we have taken steps to figure out the best way to get in and out, because when you have 5,000 people watching a fireworks display that ends on the dot of 10:15 and all 5,000 head for the buses at the same time, well...it's the worst mess ever. The first year we went, we waited for the buses for like an hour. The next year we waited for the buses for like a half-hour and finally wised up and said, "Fuck this, we can walk can't we?" and trudged the mile to our car and still beat the buses. This year Paco spent a great deal of time thinking the whole thing over and decreed we were going to drop a car off early at the closest parking area and just PLAN to walk.

Meanwhile, I started bitching early on, because this event reminds me very much of a New Year's Eve party, inasmuch as you get there at 5:00 p.m. all fired up and ready for fun and by 6:15 you're watching the clock like you're waiting for a pardon from the governor and moaning, "Please god NO! Tell me that clock is wrong! There can't be another THREE AND A HALF HOURS before the fireworks!!"

I finally got Paco to agree to have his parents over for dinner so a) I wouldn't ruin my diet by having corn dogs and funnel cakes for dinner and b) we could delay getting there a little bit.

Anyway, we went to all the trouble of placing the car in the closest lot to the walking route, and then Paco INSISTED on taking a weird turn on a trail and we ended up in the wrong place and I just finished writing this and it's days later and the whole story just lost its punch, if it had any to begin with.

So today is three days later and the big headline is that Elliot passed his driver's ed class this morning. BTW, apparently you don't have to parallel park anymore to pass driver's ed. This is bullshit! I am a FANTASTIC parallel parker and I wanted to pass this talent on! God Damn It!

Of course I didn't learn to parallel park in driver's ed; I learned from living in this weird apartment in Lawrence that only had street parking out front and I had to do that shit in the dark, in a hurry, on the sauce, while smoking, while eating, etc.

Anyway, Elliot isn't 16 until the end of the month, so he's just going to have to sit around knowing he can drive. That kind of sucks.

The Hunger

2009-07-04T12:52:00.002-05:00

Those of you who are familiar with dieting: wtf is up with eating lunch and having your stomach growl two minutes later? Suck!

Mrs. Silverman, who is DESPERATELY jealous of my 10 pound weight loss, emailed me and was all, "Okay, how did you lose weight? Are you hungry all the time? What gives?" and I'm like, "Hell yes I'm hungry all the time! What do you think?" Then I told her to start eating half of what she ate before and I guaranteed weight loss. I believe she told me to go fuck myself. It's fine, honey. I understand: you just don't want it enough.

I also text her my weight unexpectedly just to make her mad. I'm going to do it right now. hee

If you think I'm being mean, it's because I'm sitting in my living room writing this as my daughter makes up a dance to "Boom Boom Pow." Pity me. Please? No? How about this? My daughter greeted me this morning with these words: "Mommy, it's only 7:30 and I'm already bored."

Thank you.

My cilantro mystery continues. I had fish tacos last night and I'm relatively sure they had cilantro and the only thing I didn't like about them was they weren't the fish tacos from that one bar, Erin, where you took me in San Diego. It's horrifying that in one week I've suddenly started liking cilantro and Matthew McConaughey.

Now look, the thing with Matthew McConaughey--I watched an episode of Family Guy once and Stewie kind of hit the nail on the head. He was sitting at a bar with Matthew McConaughey and he was saying, "Man, you are a terrible actor..." and McConaughey was all like, "I feel ya man, but they just keep offering me movies. But I've watched Tropic Thunder a million times in the last few weeks because it's cycling on one of the movie channels, and I'm sorry. He's funnier than shit in that movie. If he can keep up with all the funny people in that cast, then he must have something more going on than nice abs.

God. It's 1:45 pm and I'm already bored.

Whaaat?

2009-07-01T14:45:00.001-05:00

I enjoy my job. I've been much more ambitious in this job than ever in my life. Too bad it is taking me until I am pushing 50 (WHAAATT?) to get my shit together. I hope my son, who is just like me, gets a clue earlier. Like pushing 40.

I actually have GOALS. I am taking a certification test in November which is annoying called "Certified Professional Secretary." It costs almost $200 to take the test and $99 to take the review course I need, so this isn't just an impulse thing. Oh, you don't think I need a review course? Haven't I been a "professional secretary" for 20 years, you ask? Yeah, you'd think, only I took the 3 part practice test online and flat-out fuh-lunked two parts and only got a 70 percent on the third. Talk about humiliating. Granted, some of the questions were just asinine, like this one:

"When transferring an image from a color transparency to the monitor, the scanner tool most appropriate to be used is a/an A) video capture board; B) image scanner; C) flatbed scanner; or D) handheld scanner."

The answer is B). First off, what the hell is an "image scanner?" Aren't all scanners "image scanners?" Secondly, if someone hands me a "color transparency" I'm going to stare at them like they're holding a fucking piece of carbon paper, because seriously? A transparency? I don't even know if we HAVE an overhead projector, so where'd that piece of dinosaur shit come from? And don't even get me started on the part about transferring it to "the monitor." You mean a computer monitor? Wouldn't you actually be transferring a scanned file to the hard drive of a computer where you can open it and view it on your monitor? You can't transfer something to a monitor! Am I not understanding something here?

But most of the other questions are valid, and I just flat out don't know the answers. There are questions about ergonomics, for example, like how you're supposed to configure a work station for maximum comfort and how to reduce eyestrain and how should I know? I just sit where they tell me and if I get a stiff neck and red eyes, I bitch. Also, I know NOTHING about filing. NOTHING. Apparently there are actual rules about filing and systems with names and shit. I just shove crap in folders and label them and hope to god I remember where I put them when my boss asks.

The test is in November but I have to have my application materials together by August 15. Horror of horrors, I have to get a paper signed by someone at my old job because you're supposed to have 4 years of continuous employment somewhere to qualify to take the test. I don't even want to walk in the building. blech

BOL ME OVER

2009-06-30T12:18:00.002-05:00

The other night I went to Elephant Bar with a friend and had two Caipiranhas which are some strong-ass drinks. My friend had to leave and I didn't feel like I should drive so I called Paco and asked him and Holly to come have dinner with me (Mother-FAIL; Mothers Against Drunk Driving-WIN!). I ordered some shrimp and crab cakes with some sort of citrus-y/onion-y sauce and I grilled the waiter about the cilantro status.

"NO cilantro on these, ma'am!"

"Are you sure? Because I hate it and I will send it back!"

"I'm positive!"

Of course they were covered in cilantro, because people just don't get it.

I was a trusting soul, though, because he promised! I said to myself, "Self, it's parsley! I'm sure it's parsley!"

So I ate them and since they didn't taste like dead rotting ass, I figured I was right. When I was about halfway through, Paco tasted the dish, and looked smug.

"WHAT!? It's not cilantro, you fucker!"

"It IS cilantro!"

"No it is NOT."

"Whatever, it is and you're eating it."

"Go to hell, cilantro fiend!"

Anyway, Paco and I decided that it must have been a) the presence of curry and onions that masked the cilantro or b) the presence of the Caipiranhas which masked my usually astute senses.

A few nights later Paco and I went out to dinner with Jenny and her hub and we ordered an appetizer that had cilantro on it and I ate it. And it tasted fine. WHAT IS THIS FRESH HELL? I wondered? Where has my longstanding hatred of Satan's Herb gone? I don't even know myself anymore!

Yesterday sealed it. I drove Elliot home after his first volunteer shift and he asked to stop at Chipotle. I do not eat at Chipotle because their rice and salsa and guac and everything else is absolutely INFESTED with cilantro. Elliot insisted I try a burrito bol, given the change in cilantro status, so I ordered it up. They threw the usual elephant's portion of nasty green rice in there. I dropped Elliot at home and came back to the office. I stood with great trepidation in our break room and took a bite....and it was fine. I mean, this time I had a few moments where I got a whiff of the soapiness, but not enough to gross me out.

Now I'm convinced I have a brain tumor or early-onset Alzheimer's or something is terribly wrong and cilantro is at the bottom of it. Which would still make it Satan's Herb since it is a portender of doom. What do you guys think? What has happened to me?

Bleh

2009-06-27T07:19:00.005-05:00

Writing lesson: If you fuss and dick around with words until your head hurts and you feel like you're working a puzzle, cut it down and say what you want to say.

I take this medicine, Trileptal, for my supposed bipolar II. I don't know a fucking thing about it, except it's supposed to be a mood-elevator. When I read about it on the internet, no one has much good to say about its efficacy, but I promised Paco and my doctor that I would take the medicine prescribed to me because any time I've tried to self-medicate, it's not turned out well.

If I skip taking this particular drug, one which I take in a relatively high dosage, I fall apart and I don't like it. I can't sleep, I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my own skin and I get cold sweats. I DON'T LIKE THAT.

It's not that I ever forget to take it--scratch that. I run out of it. I can run out of all my other pills and live with it until the next day when I can go to Target. If I run out of this one, I can't sleep and lie awake most of the night and then feel like I've drunk a pint of tequila the next morning and I'm wobbly.

I accidentally ran out of it last night. I had been to the pharmacy on Monday and they didn't have enough in stock to fill the prescription so they gave me enough for three days and then I promptly forgot about it until I looked into my pill container last night at 10:45 pm and said, "Fuck."

I got up this morning and called the pharmacy at 6:45 a.m. to see when they opened so I could go in and get these stupid fucking pills and take them immediately because I feel horrible. They don't open until 10 and the thing is, I feel like a drug addict.

I want to quit taking this medicine. I am going to talk to the doctor about it Friday. I take so damn much of it it'll probably take me 2 months to wean off of it, but I'm just sick of this. I have SEVEN prescriptions to fill each month, all at different times, and I go to Target every other fucking day it seems like. Also, everyone just waves away any concerns I have about all these different drugs and their interactions. Oh, YOU'RE FINE, they say, even though I'm taking mood stabilizers, tranquilizers, diuretics, statins, and Wellbutrin, whatever it does. Plus fiber. Plus the occasional glass of alkihol.

Oh well, enough of that.

Here, this is amusing, given the Michael Jackson hoopla:

For whatever reason The Jacksons opened their "Victory Tour" in Kansas City, Missouri . Maybe they thought if they failed spectacularly the sound of the shame wouldn't echo all the way to either coast and ruin their reputations. Hahahahah, like the complete and utter craziness of that family wasn't known on alien planets in other galaxies or something.

(edited to add: I forgot to say that this is a scan of my actual ticket...my mother saved it for 25 years and dug it out upon learning of Michael Jackson's demise. What, doesn't YOUR mother save things like that?)

We had to write away for tickets..some sort of lottery deal as I remember it. Again, Jackson craziness because I didn't know anybody who wrote for tickets and didn't get them. Our seats were so far away it was ridiculous. Arrowhead is a gigantic football stadium, duh, and we were in the upper deck above a goal line. It was the first concert I remember that I watched completely on the Jumbotron. I forget what time the show was to start, but it didn't start until something like three hours late, and then they only played for 55 minutes. The crowd was pissed. Twenty-eight dollars was a lot to pay for a 55-minute concert back in 1984. It was a clusterfuck, mainly.

I was never a huge Michael Jackson fan, but I will admit the music defined an era. I danced at bars in college to Off The Wall songs. I think, though, people Paco's age have a more romanticized viewpoint of Jackson. Paco spent a summer learning to moonwalk for god's sake and I know several girls his age that memorized the dances from Thriller and Beat It. I mostly enjoyed his music, but Jackson himself lost me FOR GOOD during that child molestation fiasco. That's a bizarre, twisted son of a bitch right there and it was unbelievable to me how much slack people cut him because he "lost his childhood" and "never had a chance to be normal." It goes without saying that plenty of people have fucked up childhoods and don't use it as an excuse to be mind-blowingly nuts in ways that hurt children.

All I know is I bet that cheating governor from South Carolina sent a big bouquet of flowers to Michael Jackson's doctor for getting him off the front pages.

Fine, no more time-increment titles

2009-06-25T11:52:00.006-05:00

But I do have 20 minutes. Just FYI.

My new meds for my imminent heart attack mess with my digestive system and I don't like it. Another FYI.

Wait a damn minute! This is gymnastics night! Why am I updating on my lunch half-hour (20 minutes)?

Oh well, anyway.

I am leaving early tomorrow to go see Holly's theater camp performance. Eight months on the job, and I finally feel like I can ask to leave early. Who says I don't adjust to change well!?

Holly has really taken to musical theater. She made up a dance the other night to a Taylor Swift song and wrote it out, complete with things like "ball change" and "disco move 2X" and I sat on the couch and watched and thought, "Damn ! She should take dance lessons!" and then hit myself over the head. Yeah, that's what we need. More LESSONS.

Do you ever feel, though, that if you miss a window of opportunity, you might not get your kid into the ONE ACTIVITY at which she was destined to be prodigious? Ridiculous, of course. If a kid has a precocious talent for something, they will naturally gravitate toward it and practice it and love it no matter what the parents do. Right? I'm right, aren't I? NO DANCE LESSONS FOR GOD'S SAKE!

Elliot is going to start volunteering at my workplace on Monday and I haven't really given this any thought. I wonder if it's going to be awkward. I know he doesn't want to do it, but that's tough shit. He keeps trying to make me feel dishonorable for signing him up for it without asking him first and I refuse to feel any shame. If I didn't sign him up for something, he would have sat on his ass for six weeks. At least now he can actually have a quasi-"job" on his record when he goes out to get a paying one. Besides, Elliot has no capacity to be a douche once he's into something. For example, he bitched and bitched about having to go to Holly's 8th birthday party at this Chuck E. Cheese-ish place, but once he got there he ran around like a maniac and actually went missing for while, necessitating the activation of his lojack which helpfully let us know he was somewhere in the Great Mall of the Great Plains which spans approximately 8 square miles. We finally found him in a darkened corner of the arcade playing a Star Wars game, all "What??" I was mad as hell. I'm supervising a bunch of 2nd graders and I lost the teenager.

Raise your hand if you figured out I didn't finish this during my lunch half-hour and I'm now at gymnastics. Smarties, all of you.

God I hate this place. If it weren't 105, I'd just go the fuck outside. Bleachers + pretentious moms+ bratty kids = killing rage with inflammation.

Paco booked us a three-day cruise for our 10th anniversary in November. Isn't that nice? All on his own and shit! He is already talking about it incessantly and IM-ing me fun facts about the Bahamas all day long and all I can say is I'm glad he bought trip insurance in case we get divorced before then.

15 minutes

2009-06-19T12:45:00.002-05:00

I know! But I only have 15 minutes! I'm on my lunch half hour!

I was thinking this morning that what is needed here on this here forgotten blog that no one reads anymore are pictures! Tomorrow after I get rid of my heinous gray roots , I'm going to take pictures of a whole buncha stuff and post them so nobody can see them! Ah, it's freeing, the neglect of a blog.

You know what sucks? When you lurk around your son's Twitter but he's not aware you do, and so you can't comment on things that alarm you. Like his latest one: OMG PUKE THE KID PUKED OMG OMG.

Okay, whaaatt? I assume he was babysitting-he has been doing some of that this summer for a four-year-old who lives down the street from his dad. (aside: when I told Paco Elliot was babysitting someone a few Fridays ago and thus would not be coming in to our house until Saturday, he said with what sounded like real alarm, "That kid is in DANGER!" Heh.) I would like to call Elliot and get the whole story and perhaps offer some motherly advice on what to do when a kid throws up on his watch. I'm not referring to his timepiece, of course. Though there is advice to be given on that score as well, like don't submerge it in water to get the vomit off or put it in the dishwasher.

...

OMG THAT KID IS IN DANGER.

30 minutes!

2009-06-18T18:30:00.004-05:00

Tonight I have 30 minutes because I spent a half hour figuring out how to get my little wireless card (Mi Fi from Sprint, srsly the greatest thing ever invented, except I don't know how to work it) to give me the god damned internet. Someday I will figure everything out about this fuckin HP Mini. And then I'll throw it away.

Someone asked in the comments if I like the Mini --I do, but don't expect a laptop. The hard drive is teeny and the standard battery is 2 hours. We upgraded to a bigger battery and Paco did some other computery stuff - removed a virtual ton of unneeded programs, wizards, and whatnot - to speed it up. There is no Word or Excel and if you did install it, you'd probably fill up the hard drive and memory to crippling levels. It takes a good long time to boot up, like THREE WHOLE MINUTES or something (long enough for me to want to die from impatience). The good parts are that once it gets going it's just as fast as any other laptop doing normal things, and the keyboard is almost full size, so my delicate hands are comfortable typing on it. Oh and it literally fits in my purse. My big purse. And it is relatively cheap-I think the rock bottom version with the original battery and no upgrades of any sort is $200. Right?? That's cheaper than my phone! Anyway, that's the story. If you get one and hate it don't blame me. If you get one and love it, I am happy to take credit. Please do not make me uncomfortable in any way, kthx.

Speaking of which, can I take a moment to say that bleachers are the most uncomfortable sort of seating next to a porcupine lounger? Jesus, I'm dying here. Thank goodness I've lost 9 pounds or my pants would be digging into my waist on top of my ass going to sleep! LOOK HOW I WORKED THAT IN!! I weighed in at 126.9 this morning! My goal is 125 and then...I don't know what you do to stop losing weight or maintain or whatever. Eat more? Add a cookie to my starvation diet? Because make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, I am not eating much. You don't lose 10 pounds in a month any other way. Eh, who cares. I'm sure I'll just gain it all back, but before I do, I'm going to Banana Republic's dressing room with an 8 and I'm going to call the salesperson and sniff, "Would you mind going to get me a SIX because this is entirely TOO BIG."

Holly got her anti-thumb-sucking device, the official name of which is a "Palate Extender," put in yesterday and actually slept last night. I felt sort of nostalgic worrying about my baby going to sleep and staying asleep. Not nostalgic enough to ever want to do that shit again, but you know. A little. The device is just medieval looking. I thought they'd made advancements in orthodontia, but she looks like she has the innards of a transistor radio in her mouth. She can't talk very well, and especially has trouble saying words like "extender" which is highly unfortunate since she prefers to call it that when people ask rather than "this thing that will help me stop sucking my thumb."

Okay, I have five minutes.

I love True Blood like nothing else. I love it so much that when I couldn't find episodes 8-12 at Blockbuster, I shelled out $32 for the entire season and I am not ashamed. Deep Discount DVD, fuckers. Okay, gotta go bye xoxo

53 Minutes

2009-06-11T18:07:00.008-05:00

I have 53 minutes to write a blog post on this little mini computer. It would have been 60 had it not been for pernicious messages popping up like "You must enable cookies and active Java scripting to use Blogger" to which I replied, "Oh fuck off, " But Blogger is not intimidated by me, so I actually had to, you know, screw around with Internet Explorer settings for 7 minutes, WITHOUT calling Paco. He's mowing the lawn for the 100th time today.

You know it is really interesting how people look at your screen when you're typing out in public.

Hey, that worked! Of course, now my name is Em You Dee with a certain gymnastic mom, but what do I care. Compared to ice skating moms, she doesn't even know..

I don't know if I ever explained why Holly is taking gymnastics. I also don't know if anyone cares, but you guys will take what you can get and you'll like it. Holly had been bitching about taking gymnastics for a long time and we were all, shit man you already skate and how much effort are we going to have to put into this parenting thing to keep you out of therapy? Anyway, one of her friend's moms called a couple of months ago and said her daughter was taking a class and wanted a friend to do it with her AND offered to share driving so we said ok. Holly is pretty good at gymnastics, I guess, except for an incomprehensible fear of doing anything even slightly daring, like a back bend for god's sake. I don't understand what the deal is..she falls on her ass all the time and lands on ice and doesn't care, but she's afraid of hitting a cushy little mat?

One of my big reasons for supporting gymnastics was thinking that, "Hey! She can practice gymnastics fairly cheaply! We don't have to pay for ice or a coach! She can practice cartwheels in the living room!"

Yeah...about that. 'GODDAMNIT SIS QUIT DOING CARTWHEELS IN THE LIVING ROOM!"

Also, it makes me feel like white trash when I have to tack on, "BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO HIT THE PLASMA T.V.!"

All in all, I think Holly is almost doing too much exercise this summer. She has swimming every day at her camp. She does skating on Wednesdays, and gymnastics on Thursday. Last Thursday she swam and did some other physical activity at camp, then came home and ate, then did gymnastics and then went home, got a migraine and barfed. I felt bad about that. Today Paco gave her a light dinner and I made her drink a bunch of water before we came here. If she doesn't feel well tonight, I'm going to rethink this.

What else..hey, my blood pressure medicine is fuckin awesome--I lost almost 8 pounds accidentally! I know that's annoying, but honestly, it must have something to do with it because literally I started taking the meds on a Thursday and on Monday I had dropped 5 pounds, and god knows it wasn't from eating less. Well, I don't think it was from eating less. Maybe I unconsciously started eating less since I was told I was a walking heart attack. That has an effect on you. Or maybe it's the Zocor. Hell, all I know is my tight jeans aren't tight anymore and my new fancy pants from Banana Republic are now too big and that's not cool. When I made a big stink about my weight loss to Paco, he was all, "A gallon of water weighs approximately 8 pounds (who knows shit like that?? Freak.) and your BP pills are diuretics." I'm like, "Well maybe YOU should look into diuretics," and he was all, "Oh NO you didn't woman I exercise all the time," and I'm like "Whatever Fatty, mowing the lawn doesn't count," and went out and bought two new swimsuits with his money.

Then I went to the pool in my new swimsuit thinking I looked fabulous and my daughter said, "MOM! You have all these red dots down...there!" and I sighed and put on a cover up so that I looked precisely the same as when I weighed 8 pounds more. Fuckin swimsuits. And of course this gave Paco yet ANOTHER opportunity to suggest, helpfully, a Brazilian wax. And on that note, I'm out.

Dead Rabbits and Premature Publishing

2009-05-31T08:04:00.006-05:00

Paco has been out of town the last two weekends helping his dad tile his pool and I have been a victim of What Do I Do NOW-itis. So I went and bought the first four seasons of Family Guy for my eight-year-old to watch with me. Those mommybloggers who defiantly drink wine at playdates? Total amateurs.

Right now we're watching the episode where Peter wins a trip to tour a Willy Wonka-like brewery and Holly is sucking her thumb and holding her cat Freckles like a bay-bee. I say "her cat" because Freckles hates everybody except Holly. I swear I've never seen a little kid who was better with cats than my daughter. The felines love her and always have, even when she was a toddler. She never pulled their tails or tried to eat their ears. Perhaps she has a genetic marker for Robynandersonism. Actually it's more likely she inherited crazy cat genes from my mother's side of the family. The DNA clearly skipped me because these fuckers can suck it. Greeley is going bald on his head for some unknown reason so there are gross clumps of hair all over and Freckles just last night learned the ways of the hunter and brought in her first dead rabbit half. Nothing like starting the day disposing of bloody furry things. Uh. EW that sounds gross.

By the way, I published the first two paragraphs of this shit accidentally because I am so out of practice. I was trying to save. Oh well. Wait, I just went back..what? April 18 was my last entry? That can't be right. Rambling! Sorry! I thought I published one before that! GAH.

Well WHATEVER, man, it's been a long time since I published a blog post. Okay, so since we last spoke/read/communicated weirdly like strangers through the internet:

Both kids finished up school for the year. Holly won the year-end spelling for her grade and her teacher kept her final book report so she could use it as an example next year. Elliot ... wait, let me start a new number so it doesn't appear that I am comparing them.
Elliot got 4 Cs, a B, and an A. His GPA for the year is 2.7. I...don't know. He seems happy. He's a good boy. He has not caused us one bit of disciplinary trouble. He has lots of friends and participates in orchestra and helped build sets for the school play. He is doing summer theater in June and volunteering at my hospital in July. I did an obsessive compulsive analysis of his second semester grades, using the g.d. online grade program (except for his English grade because that teacher doesn't use it and don't get me started --- why isn't it a requirement? Why does the administration let her get away with it? SURELY USING A COMPUTER IS EASIER THAN LABORIOUSLY PENCILING SHIT INTO A 19TH CENTURY "GRADEBOOK" BITCH!! Why look! I started! And ended!) where was I? Oh yeah, so I did an "analysis" of his grades and without exception he could have gotten full letter grades higher in each class had he a) turned in all his work and b) studied for tests. But whatever. There's not a lot I can do. Maybe he'll do better next year.
I developed hypertension and astronomical cholesterol. God knows what that's all about. I had my blood pressure taken at a work thing and it was 160/102 and since I am surrounded at all times during my work day by nurses and generalized medical personnel, everyone had a shitfit. I shrugged it off as an anomaly since I was at a stressful event when I had it taken, but then nurses started showing up at my desk twice a day to take my blood pressure and it never went down and so after a lot of nagging, I went to the doctor and he handed me blood pressure medicine right then and there. While he was at it he did bloodwork and like always, nothing interesting came back like abnormal thyroid or high blood sugar; NAY, I got a frantic call the next day saying, "YOUR CHOLESTEROL IS HIGHER THAN A LARD-EATING 60-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO WEIGHS 500 POUNDS AND CAN'T GET OUT OF HIS BED WITHOUT THE HELP OF PULLEYS AND HYDRAULICS!!! COME IN NOW!! YOU'RE A WALKING HEART ATTACK!!" So now I take Zocor and worry every time my left arm hurts. And every time the cardiac nurses see me they look concerned and ask me how I'm feeeeeeeling. But at least I don't have skin "cancer." Oh wait, I do. The kind that doesn't kill you.
Holly went to the dentist for a cleaning and the dentist diagnosed an "open bite" which is what happens when your parents let you continue to suck your thumb until you're 8 years old. Google it. Then condemn me. Then kiss my ass because it comforted her and kept her from being one of those kids who got up at night and cried well past a point that made sense. Accept it: when it comes to parenting, you can't win. There's always a price to be paid: something you do breathtakingly wrong and you have to fix. For us, it was the wrong-headed belief that she would stop sucking her thumb on her own. So now we have to fix it via installation of an expensive orthodontic device called, hysterically, a "crib" which reshapes her palate so she can't suck her thumb. We leave it in for around 6 months and supposedly at that point she'll have broken the habit (yeah RIGHT. Like how after 9 years I still have dreams where I'm smoking. And loving it.) So now she's going to get up at night and cry and at an age where she will cry a WHOLE lot louder than she would have as a baby and toddler. Yay. Oh, and save the advice. It's not that I don't appreciate it, it's that you're wrong and I'm right (yeah, I know you've missed me and my rudeness). I'm not putting cayenne pepper on my child's thumb so she can burn her mouth and accidentally get it in her eye. I'm also not going to waste my time setting up some reinforcement system involving paying her not to suck her thumb. She might go for it at first, but take my word: at night when she's tired? She'd pay ME every bit of money in her bank account (YES SHE HAS A BANK ACCOUNT-IF YOUR KIDS DON'T YOU DON'T LISTEN TO SUZE ORMAN) to suck her thumb. Also, I can't take away quarters in the middle of the night when she shoves her thumb in her mouth in her sleep.

I'm sure other shit has happened but I've been sitting here for an hour while Holly patiently reads some damn book she bought yesterday and looks up occasionally to pretend to understand dirty jokes on Family Guy. She's almost finished and the minute she is, she will suffer a relapse of "What Do I Do NOOOOOW??" Maybe I'll give her some cigarettes.

Jesus cards

2009-04-18T07:26:00.008-05:00

Not to get all Dooce on your asses ("I like children's books because if you had a child who was OBSESSED WITH READING LIKE MINE...have I mentioned my kid can read? Read read read? Leta reads?? Books? She can read? I'm not bragging or anything. How can I throw this in again..SHE CAN READ Y'ALL. i'm pregnant kay bye."), but Holly cracks me up. She got up this morning and approached me where I sat blearily on the couch contemplating something (more on that later) and said, "I had a bad dream last night."

"Oh yeah?" I said, leaning forward sympathetically like you're supposed to do as a caring mother where's my coffee. "What was it about? Monsters?"

"I dreamed I was being blackmailed."

WTF? She watches too much t.v. methinks.

By the way, did I mention Holly reads? READS READS READS?

So the thing I was contemplating. I love my new job and everything and I'm still soooo glad I took it, but every weekday morning since Day One, despite my best efforts to Stay! Positive! I wake up at 6:30 a.m.-ish and am slammed by crushing tiredness (Oh my grammar. Or syntax. Or whatever it's called, my shitty writing-I'm out of practice). At first it was crushing tiredness and regret that I ever took a job that required me to arrive and be dressed professionally at 7:50 a.m. (I don't actually have to be there until 8:00 but for some reason I think showing up at 7:50 makes me look like an achiever). But now that I've semi-mastered the job and I've been there for ...what the hell??? Six months? it's just tiredness. SO tired. I feel like I could sleep in until 10 o'clock. I get up and actually stumble into the shower, even though I go to bed at a reasonable, downright middle-aged hour.

But on Saturdays and Sundays? Good morning! Let's get up! I got up at 6:30 this morning for the love of god. I have a wonderful husband who doesn't make me feel guilty for shit and he would have taken care of Holly etc. and I could have slept in until 9 or whatever, but noooo. And it wasn't like I couldn't sleep. I could have. I was just, eh. Let's get the day started. (The cat is sick and there were issues we needed to address. More on that later. What's with me and the "more on that later." I told you I was rusty.)

I asked Paco what the fuck was wrong with me and as usual he hit the nail on the head.

"You don't mind getting up because you don't have to go to work. Duh. As a kid I got up at 6:00 a.m. every day of my life except Sundays, when I was so tired could have slept until noon." Paco doesn't like church. Duh.

Speaking of church, did I mention I'm getting business cards at work? Business cards with a big, fat CROSS on them? I offered to send one to someone funny the other day (I'm ridiculously proud of my ability to obtain business cards...seriously, I'm going to be the only secretary to have business cards..dig me) and she said, "I'd love one of your Jesus cards." HEH. Yes, god has decided to screw with me. I'm finally achieving at work at a place where there is prayer before every meeting, nuns run the place, and my business cards have a cross on them. Praise the Lord!

Greeley is sick. Again. He ate a dove, whole, the other day and soon afterward started barfing on the hood of Paco's truck. Don't ask me why. You know cats have to make a damn statement about everything. They can't just barf; they have to barf somewhere embarrassing and inconvenient. They can't just pee in the house; they have to pee somewhere either hidden so as to drive you bananas trying to find it or somewhere that sends a message, like in your boyfriend's shoe or your open suitcase. Bastards. Then he started breathing funny and couldn't meow and Paco and I reluctantly opened a line of credit and took the shithead to the vet, who is very much like a cat in that his diagnoses can't ever be "bone in throat" or "cancer" but "possible esophageal inflammation caused by eating wild game whole" or "possible gastric reflux brought on by previously undiagnosed stricture of the duodenum" OR SOME SHIT. The recommended treatment is a combination of Pepcid and prednisone and some weird drug that is supposed to line the digestive tract and keep it from rejecting all the food. OR SOME SHIT. They didn't have any of the weird drug in their office, so get this: we had to go to Target and ask my beloved pharmacist Patrick to fill a fucking prescription for A CAT. Of course given how many crazy meds that man knows I take, he probably knew it was only a matter of time. He played it up big, though, putting Greeley Mylastname on the bottle and asking me with mock-seriousness what color I wanted Greeley's identifier ring to be. Oy.

Elliot is fine. Getting A+s or Fs and nothing in between. That old chestnut. He got all talkative the other day after I took him to get his toenail removed (nothing sparks mother-son bonding like holding hands while you get painful shots in your digits) and he asked me all sorts of embarrassing questions like, "Where did Paco propose to you?" and "Do you love Paco?" and "Have you ever smoked pot?"

I was all, "Uh..I don't really remember." and "YES! For god's sake, why else would we be married for almost 10 years??" and "Why you gotta ask me shit like that? Why?"

He took my evasive answer on the pot question as a "Yes" and I was all like, "Look, all your parents and stepparents were young once (and your stepfather still is--HEY-OH!) but we aren't any more and I know you're too smart and perceptive to try to sell me a stupid conclusion like 'My mom and dad smoked pot when they were my age and they turned out all right, so it's okay if I do it,' because it's not okay and I will send you to military school if you so much as THINK about smoking pot."

He replied, "Oh, I know. I'd never get away with it. You and Dad would find out about 2 minutes after I did anything. Plus you have me lojacked"

"You're damn right."

Ah, false bravado--please carry me just two more years! Then I can admit there are a million and two ways to get away with anything when you're a teen.

I love Sprint Locator. Elliot was off school yesterday and M. Friendly was at work, and I must have called Elliot about five times.

"Why are you downtown?"

"Why are you in Patriot Park?"

"Why are you at the grocery store?"

The kid's pretty tolerant, actually.

For Heather

2009-04-14T11:04:00.001-05:00

Nora: 0 Holly: 8

2009-04-11T09:21:00.006-05:00

Thursday was Holly's birthday and today we are having the "official" Birthday Party With Holly's Friends and BREAKING NEWS: I'm not stressing out over it.

I know, right? Every year until now: the hysteria! The "Where should I have it?" The "OMG we have to invite every kid in the class because that's what all these rich folk do!" The "Mean old Paco won't let me spend $500 on a fancy party at a place with inflatables but I must because I can't let Holly be the 'poor' kid with the crappy bargain basement party at Charles Edward Cheese!"

God bless the economic downturn. Seriously. We have suffered not at all (knock wood, poo poo poo, from my mouth to god's ears, etc.) but still, it's totally The Thing to scale everything back so...woohoo!

We told Holly to pick 4 girls from her class to take to one of those indoor amusement park/arcade type of places and that was that. $83.70 including cake. They'll all fit in our two vehicles so we're picking them up around 2:15. Paco went out to Wal-Mart one night last week to buy party favors and brought home one Littlest Pet Shop, a pack of gum and a Hershey Bar per each. Holly made beaded bracelets for each girl with their names on them and I hung them on pink bags annnd done.

I spoke of the economic downturn up there like, Hey! No big deal! and I want to amend that. It is a big deal. We haven't been affected by it, but we could be. Paco worked on a team of 10 people and a couple of weeks ago, bam! They laid off 5. He wasn't one of them, but who knows what will happen? On Holly's birthday I was feeling sorry for myself because she asked if I was coming to school to hand out the birthday cookies I'd sent with her and I just said, "No, I'm not. I'm sorry. Next year I probably can but this year I have a new job and I just can't take off like I used to." She was disappointed when I dropped her off and as I was driving to work I tried to slip into my "oh woe is me why do I have to work for a living we don't need the money I should just stay home" blues riff, but then I flat-out stopped and thought, "I do need the money and I do need to work and staying home isn't an option AT ALL so suck it up." That was that. Times are scary. I probably won't lose my job because I have the mighty power of the Catholic Church behind my employer plus I'm in health care, but Paco's job is never secure, ever, and though we could not live our current lifestyle on my salary alone, we could eat. And I have health insurance.

I took Elliot to the podiatrist yesterday to have his toe fixed. He had ingrown toenails on both side of his right big toe and the thing was a mess. This has been going on since last July. We've taken him to two doctors, neither of them specialists, and it didn't get better and when we were on our cruise he refused to wear sandals because the thing was so hideous and I took a look at it and was like, JESUS H. CHRIST and I ordered M. Friendly to call a foot doctor. We should have done it a long time ago. She was awesome. The last time I took him to an urgent care at our fancy children's hospital and the pediatrician cut the toenail out and it hurt Elliot like crazy. They gave him some b.s. about not being able to numb an inflamed toe very well because of swelling blocking the nerve or some shit and yesterday Elliot fearfully repeated that information to the podiatrist, who said, "That's just not true. You're not going to feel a thing." And he didn't. He still held my hands the whole time, just in case. HIS IDEA, NOT MINE. MOM OF TEENAGER WIN! And the podiatrist gave him the ingrown parts of the nails in a little baggie so he could show his friends. GROSS OUT WIN! The damn things combined are bigger than my thumbnail which is all kinds of screwed up. Bleh

Okay, guilt mongers, there's your entry. Am I up to once a week yet? Incremental improvement!

I did not see David Caruso in Miami

2009-03-28T07:51:00.005-05:00

What a rip off. The reason I thought of this was I finally came over and read my comments this morning and lower case kris made me laugh with all her bitching and good cop/bad cop stuff and I remembered that the reason I started calling her lower case kris was because she left the funniest comment ever about David Caruso, viz: "i love david caruso so fuck anyone who doesn't" No punctuation. No capitalization. Just raw love for The Orange.

So yes, I'm on Facebook but I'm pretty boring on there. It's not like I write anything very often. I wrote a manifesto about my white teeth, but for the most part I'm lucky if I feed my Superpoke pet often enough to keep if from becoming infested with flies and sleeping in its own feces. I think the internet is too realistic sometimes. No wonder we're all crazy and have to take The Meds. Even our fake virtual lives are filled with guilt.

Speaking of, I'm NOT going to write some kind of big farewell message and close up shop. I'm going to let this thing sit until I feel like updating it. That's the way it is. I'm just changing the way I do things right now, that's all. I might return to regular updating at some point; I just can't do it from work and that was how I pulled it off before. I've explained before that updating from home makes me frustrated and I want to keep frustration out of my life. I've made a choice to keep on an even keel. For example, this morning, I set out to write here and Holly almost immediately came in and sat down and started talking. And talking. And TALKING. She's at that age (I vaguely remember this from friends who have had 7-10 year old girls) where she babbles incessantly. I supposed I should treasure these moments because I know (from personal experience) that in a few years she will not talk to me at all, but I'm not so much treasuring it. I can't do two things at once. This has been a theme in my life. Part of the reason I got divorced from M. Friendly (I'm going to started abbreviating Mr. as M. because he's turning all European these days) was that I really couldn't figure out how to be a mother and a wife. Clearly I can't figure out how to be a good worker and a journal writer. And if we just get down to basics, I can't type and talk either. So I told her, "SHH. I'm trying to write something here," to which she replied, "Okay, sorry!" and then embarked on the age-old passive-aggressive, "Mommy, I will turn this computer down so it doesn't bother you!" and "I have to tell you something but I don't want to bother you...." and "Hey Mommy OH SORRY I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO MAKE NOISE." Ah, my daughter! I have taught you well. You'll make a shrewish wife someday. I've never been so proud.

The new cat is fine, though spooky as hell. She still hides for about 8 hours when Elliot shows up on weekends, like she's never seen him before. When we went on our Spring Break cruise last week, my parents came over daily to feed the cats. My dad reported that it wasn't until day 7 that Freckles finally crept suspiciously down the stairs and peered into the kitchen and THAT was only because my dear mother fed those cats a metric ton of wet cat food every day we were gone and Freckles ain't no dummy. The cat's on a diet now and my mother doesn't even care! I called her all "J'accuse! These cats are FAT!" and my mom was all, "I don't care! I wanted them to know that when I showed up, it was a PARTY!!" I think Robyn Anderson and I were switched at birth.

My teef are the whitest ever. It was totally worth the outrageous sum I paid. Of course, the rest of my face is still the same, but at least my teeth aren't gray.

We went to Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, and St. Maarten for Spring Break and Holly got the norovirus, Elliot got unbelievably motion sick and I got so bombed on St. Thomas that I am forever humiliated and I had to throw away a shirt in a potted plant at the port, but incredibly, it was a lovely vacation. I didn't care much for St. Maarten but I can't really articulate why. It was just kind of...tacky and aggressive and boring. I loved Puerto Rico even if that song from West Side Story did go through my head for days. bleh

Now I have to catch up on all my shows and drink some coffee (which I will carefully rinse off so I don't ruin my teeth).

kris are you happy now? xoxo

A Cat and Mah Teefs

2009-01-24T09:46:00.005-06:00

The problem with updating this blog after letting it sit so long, haters, is that there is so much history, so many current events missed, that one becomes overwhelmed with the telling and says, eh, fuck it, it's easier to twitter something banal or write a note on Facebook and move on.

So what's new. Well, let's see...

OH NO I DI'INT! Oh yes, I did. Paco forced me to get a new cat. Seriously. I did not want a new cat. But he and Holly kept talking about getting a kitten and finally one weekend he was lying around sick and rather pathetically asked if I would go out and get a kitten and I was like, oh please, do you also want some soup and a foot rub and he said, no, seriously. I WANT A KITTEN.

Paco doesn't ask for stuff very often, so I begrudgingly went out and got him a damn kitten. Well, sort of a kitten. There aren't very many baby kittens to be had in my town this time of year. There appear to be a multitude of kittens in Alabama, if Robyn is to be believed, but around here? I think I found a total of three available kittens in the Kansas City area when I went looking. One of them was male and we wanted female and two of them were long-haired and...well, no. Holly and I drove all over hell and I was at the end of my rope with the animal shelters and Holly made me look at the dogs at one of them and I had to leave in tears because one of the terriers LOVED ME AND WANTED TO BE MY DOGGIE augh so I went back to the first place we went back and adopted a 6-month-old brown tabby freak that *I* named Freckles. Other suggestions included "Sparkle" since she was Born on the Fourth of July, which a) she is anything but a "Sparkle," more like a "Fizzle..." hey! That's a good cat name! and b) if she's born on the Fourth of July her name oughta be Yankee Doodle Dandy or Ron Kovic which are male cat names if I've ever heard them. Her original name at the pet shelter was "Jonsie" pronounced "Jonesie" which is just a dumb name, AND spelled wrong and I'm not going to have a cat equivalent of Caytlynnne or Mikeilah or Aishleigh in my house. Holly also lobbied for Gracie but Mr. Friendly had a dog named Gracie who died a few months ago and I'm also against people names for animals, especially since I have sisters-in-law who might have babies in the future and it would suck if they wanted to name one of their kids Grace and I had a cat with that name. So it's Freckles.

I got her from a place in the mall which I like to think is similar to the place where Robyn volunteers. I think this because it was full of crazy cat ladies and also they are fanatical about what kind of people they allow to adopt their cats. I was "preapproved" because I answered all their questions correctly, thanks to coming from a looooong line of crazy cat women.

"Have you ever owned a cat who was declawed?"

"Absolutely not, I don't believe in that! It's cruel!"

(True answer: yes, I did declaw a cat once because that fucker tore up my carpet all the way down through the plywood into the cement slab and it was his claws or his ASS).

"Do you let your cats go outside?"

"Absolutely not, I don't believe in that. They live longer if you keep them indoors and also they catch fleas and might get hurt by cars or other animals!"

(The truth: Hell yes, I let my cat go outside because he poops out there and not IN MY HOUSE in a little box that I then have to clean twice a year. HAHAHAH.)

Actually, though, I would never declaw a cat ever again, because it was cruel and that cat did walk funny after I did it and I felt bad for the rest of his days. And I'm not going to let Freckles go outside because Greeley has been a pain in the ass with his hunting.

Freckles spent the first 48 hours here hiding inside the box springs of our bed like smart cats do. I was worried I'd adopted a weird under-the-bed cat but then one night I coaxed her out and she was hiding under a blanket on my lap in the living room. Greeley came in from his outside activities and announced himself by yowling and Freckles stuck her head out of the blanket, all "THANK GOD!" and jumped down and walked right up to him and rolled around and he boxed her ears and since then she's been okay. She follows Greeley around and he tolerates her. Occasionally he licks her head to show her who's boss and unfortunately he brought in a bird the other day for the first time since LB died. He must be showing off.

Anyway, new cat. I just took her to the vet because a crazy cat lady called and said her cage mates had ear mites and I spent 45 dollars to find out she didn't have ear mites. AHHH, the joys of having cats.

My other thing that is dominating my thoughts is my purely vain, completely shallow teeth whitening. I got an email from my dentist a few months ago saying they had this new whitening process that works on tetracycline stains and at first I was like, pshaw, fuck that, I'm not spending that kind of money, blah blah blah, but then Paco and I took a Christmas photo and his teeth looked like snow and mine looked like slush and I thought, you know what? I'm sick of having gray teeth. So I asked about it when I went to the dentist last week. In the past when I've asked about whitening I've been discouraged from doing it. I was always told I would be dissatisfied and if my money-grubbing dentist passes up a chance to take $300 from me, I KNOW he must be 100% convinced of imminent failure.

But this time the cheery whitening specialist all but guaranteed I would be thrilled beyond measure and showed me pictures and explained how it all worked, and told me how damn long it would take and I thought, okay, I'll try it. I texted Paco, "I'm going to whiten teeth it's $XXXX dollars okay?" And to his credit, he texted back, "Ok use Amex."

I got fitted for these crazily tight molds I wear at night and I had to have a super extreme blast whitening session to kick things off and that was a miserable experience and I can't drink coffee for SIX WEEKS and I might die, but it's been 8 days and you wouldn't believe how much whiter my teeth are. It's the damnedest thing I've ever seen. I was despairing a little this morning because it didn't seem like it was working and Paco pulled up the pictures we've been taking every few days and showed me Day 1 compared to Day 8 and I gasped and was like, "Oh my god! My teeth look like normal people's teeth!" Now I just have to change my habit of smiling with my mouth closed.

This method of whitening is called Kor Deep Bleaching. I'm not done with it so I can't highly recommend yet, but my teefs are whiter in one week than I ever thought possible. One thing I will say-they talk about reduced sensitivity with their system and um..I've never had regular teeth bleaching so I can't compare, but this shit does cause sensitivity. My teeth hurt, I'm not gonna lie. But I have sensitive teeth to begin with. And beauty before comfort, dontcha know.

Okay, Paco has started vacuuming around me and I can't think. Not that this entry was a bag of brains or anything. Friend me on Facebook! Love ya! Kay bye!

Throwing the bone

2009-01-01T08:42:00.000-06:00

Only the avoidance of taking down Christmas decorations could get me in here to write a blog entry, considering my daughter is about to begin lurking at the office door and there are gigantic, 560-calorie (I KNOW...that isn't right! At all!) cinnamon rolls about to be presented to me.

I'm experimenting with sending blog posts as e-mails. I used to try this, but something didn't work (NO! A Blogger publishing fuck up? You don't say!).

So..I have gotten tons of emails from you nice people, carefully telling me how much you love me, but um, hey. Could I update my journal? Then some of you veeeeery carefully probe to see if something has happened or if I'm dying of a terminal disease (that's redundant isn't it? I'VE LOST MY TOUCH HERE CUT ME SOME SLACK) or if I'm sorely depressed or whatever, but the truth is I have only a few reasons for not updating my journal, and here they are and they are boh-ring!

1. I have this new job, see, and I made a vow to succeed wildly because it has come to my attention that I am an underachiever and I sabotage my own success. So no journal updating at work. No internet reading. No letting my eyes glaze over while I flip through forums. None of that. I work. And I am doing well. I love my job. I haven't loved my job in such a long time. Sure, I had a kind of bad job before and I worked for a crazy bitch, whom I devoutly hope gets her ass handed to her soon, BUT. I didn't try like I could have. Somehow I got up off my ass and gave myself another chance and I'm not going to screw it up.

2. Because of #1, I am tired in the evenings. It takes a lot of energy to do a good job. Who knew. Therefore, I am not about to sit down after dinner and spend two hours writing a journal entry. (That's how long it takes! This shit isn't easy!) And as I may have mentioned (whined) my hours are extended from what I was used to and Paco is picking up the slack with re: to child care and household duties and I just can't check out in the evenings. Wouldn't be right.

3. Sure, weekends exist, but I have two problems with weekend journal writing: a) see #2. I am tired and want to do nothing on weekends and b) this may sound petty, but NO ONE in this house will leave me alone to write a journal entry. My daughter..I love her, I do, but GOD DAMN. If I try to sit down at the computer for any reason, a rousing game of Bubbletown, an internet search for Christmas presents, a Facebook update, a Twitter, her radar goes off and she quits what she's doing and comes in and stands and stares at me. And telling her to go away makes me feel bad. And if it isn't her, it's Paco wanting me to drop everything and come look at this hilarious commercial. Or wanting to talk about a home improvement project. I love them both, but this kind of thing just leads me to abandon the computer. I feel like, again, I am not home as much and ignoring my family isn't right. So I ignore you guys. Sorry.

But I am not depressed. I am fine. All in my household are fine.

Ha. I just overheard my Paco say, "Mommy's working on something on the computer so don't go in there. Have you played with every single thing you got for Christmas?" Is this shit happening in your house? I mean, good god! It's been one week and already with the "I'm bored! I don't know what to doooo!"

Oh HAI!

2008-11-27T09:23:00.000-06:00

So, I sat down just now in our "home office." Paco gave Holly the chore of organizing the everpresent pile of bills that sits in a precariously-leaning, Dr. Seuss-house-style pile on top of our K-mart bookcase and since a bunch of people are coming over tonight, he figured it might be cool if our overflow room didn't look like a crazy professor's office. Holly, being 7 years old, sometimes needs assistance discerning what pile the Merrill Lynch statements (which we don't even look at since the kids' college 529 plans are losing money and we might as well have put the money in a mattress BUT I DIGRESS) go in, so I thought, "Hey! I'll sit in there with her to provide advisement and I'll also maybe kinda sort try to remember what it's like to write a journal entry."

Paco stood in the doorway talking to me while I put off writing and I sighed and said, "Jesus, it's hot in here and it's been so long that I don't even know what to write. I gotta be honest, dear. There are only two people I feel bad about not writing for. Guess."

"Your dad?"

"Yeah, and Dankie. She's been so kind to me. She's never bugged me to update, but she texts me and stuff all the time and it has really helped keep me feeling normal..."

THEN I BURST INTO TEARS. Then I laughed my head off. You'd think Paco would look at me like a crazy person, but we've been married 9 years (last week!) and he just smiled and said, "Write about that."

So I did. And thanks to all of you who have sent me unanswered emails and good wishes. You are great. The thing is--I'm just trying to change my life and I can't figure out how to integrate this into it. I may get there and I may not. I'll do my best. What's my motto? AIM LOW.

(U.B.--you understand.)

My new job is going well. I like The Guy and I'm really busy which, to quote a cliche, is always better than being bored.

It's such are revelation to me, this new job. I suddenly see all the things that were wrong with the old one: the reasons I had completely checked out. The dysfunction. The crushing lack of motivation. I could have been a better employee there, but then again, I absolutely could have had a better boss. Anyway, that's the past and I'm working on the future.

Still, I wake up every work day and feel sad and anxious and overly fatigued about going to a different place with different people to do different tasks that are often scary and difficult. I don't know how long it takes for that to pass, but I'm still keeping my iron resolve in place. I will not go negative. I will not get irrational. I will look at the positive and be grateful for more money and less bullshit.

I helped a patient's family a few days ago by exerting some of my influence as the head guy's assistant and the son of the patient came back in my office later with tears in his eyes and thanked me. I was so happy I took my job and not for the money.

Moving on. One thing that's made it easier to keep on an even keel with my new job, oddly, is that we've been having so much trouble with Elliot's academics. Socially, he seems fine. He's happy and has friends of whom I approve and he goes to school and comes home and follows the rules, but academically he's all over the map. He gets As and Fs and nothing in the middle. He lies and makes excuses about schoolwork and in classes he "likes" he gets As and an occasional A+. He's first chair in Orchestra. He gets As on projects in "Film Media." But stuff that takes effort? TANK. The thing that pushed me over the edge into proposing a complete 180 change in how we deal with him was a Chemistry progress report that had five parts: four sections of a workbook and a total workbook grade. He got A, F, D, A+, and F. I took one look at that and went halfway crazy. How? What? DON'T GET?

Paco poked around on the Internet one day a while ago and came up with this book called "Bright Minds, Poor Grades." I know, I know, I'm always blathering about books that affect me, but god damn. It hits every nail on the head. If you have a child like mine who is charming and wonderful but turns into a sullen asshole when you say, "What do you mean, you forgot?" or "If it's done why didn't you turn it in?" or "How did you think you were going to get a research paper written in 3 hours?" or "How long have you known about this?" Read. This. Book. Or just read the preview on Amazon. It'll kill you. I've been reading it at lunchtime at my new job and it's quite embarrassing because I'll be hunched over my leftover pizza with tears dripping on the pages because of the two truths I hate facing: I feel I've handled Elliot all wrong and it may be too late to handle it right and whaddya know--I'm a huge underachiever and that's my problem with never feeling good about jobs and challenges and life in general.

Moving on from boring shit, here's what else has been going on:

Holly had a skating competition and got a gold (in a category where she was the lone competitor) and a silver (in a category where a girl she always beats decided to step up and hey, Holly, look at what happens when someone practices more than you do!). She's completed all the little kid categories now and her coach is starting the next stage, which is testing for US Figure Skating levels and I am really struggling with whether we need to continue with this shit. Holly doesn't care about skating at all, except for the performance aspect of it. She's all about that. She's not nervous and she loves the applause and the praise, but as far as practicing and achieving just for achievement's sake--nope. It's time to buy new skates so I always waffle because those bastards are expensive.

I'm hosting Thanksgiving dinner today and hoping my sister-in-law has her baby so that I can lower my standards and blame it on her.

To all the Americans: stuff yourselves silly and have a nap. To everyone else: stuff yourselves silly and have a nap. Why not?

xo

At last

2008-11-02T08:39:00.004-06:00

This has no relation to today's entry but Holly and Paco went to the sand dunes a couple weeks ago

Okay, so...long break there, eh? I appreciate all the concern, but I hope I made myself relatively clear in the interim that nothing is wrong.

I don't handle change well, in case anyone's noticed. Some of you out there may be able to start a new job with vigor and alter your day-to-day routine with good cheer and adapt to all sorts of zings from left field with good humor and enthusiasm and.....then there's me. I sink into a depression five minutes after the Survivor finale. I got hysterical when our trash day changed to Wednesday. WHAT WILL WE DO ABOUT YARD WASTE GENERATED ON SUNDAY? I ASK YOU??

Those of you who read this crap and get frustrated with me when I change medication willy-nilly or despair about things that I've covered time and time and time and TIME AGAIN, should be proud of me because I actually planned ahead for my inevitable mood tank due to my job change.

I axed everything that might cause me stress. I asked Paco to take over all of Holly's various rides and lessons last week (new job=longer work day). I picked out all my clothes for the week in advance (new job=changed dress code). I didn't worry about getting dinner on the table and gave myself permission to eat out every night. I made sure I got enough sleep. I didn't answer emails. And I didn't worry about this journal.

On the other hand, I made a concerted effort to be positive. I know, right? A novel concept, to be sure! Whenever I felt myself get tearful or negative (I'll NEVER be able to take Holly to skating. I'll ALWAYS have to work late. I HATE parking this far away. I'll NEVER get any time off. EVERYONE else I know will have the day after Thanksgiving off.) I cut it off. Locked it up. Literally yelled, "NO!" in my head and stopped that shit in its tracks because that is useless, destructive thinking and I can control my behavior. I'm a grown-ass woman. I can't control my brain chemistry, but I can control the depression spiral.

Every night when I lay down to sleep, I would deliberately steer my thoughts to the upcoming Twilight movie (squeeeeee!) or High School Musical 3 (going to see it today and I am ashamed at how much I'm looking forward to it...wait, NO I'M NOT ASHAMED FUCK YOU GUYS) and I would go to sleep. Every morning when I woke up to the alarm beeping considerably earlier than usual, I headed off the stab of disappointment and grouped my morning routine into chunks. Get in shower. Do hair. Put on pre-approved clothes. Do makeup. Drink coffee. Head out. Positive thought: I still work only five minutes from home. Positive thought: I don't have to go deal with a crazy person. Positive thought: I have a brightly lit area in which to sit. Positive thought: Today I'm going to make more money than I did last week.

And Paco. Oh, you all need a Paco. He quietly took care of the mornings. Herded Holly into clothes. Set up my coffee on a timer so it was ready when I got out of the shower. I suspect he talked with Holly about helping Mom with her first week, because she was such a good girl in the mornings.

And my mother-in-law who came by and took Holly and her best friend Mary out one evening for Holly's "half-birthday" (I made sure to CLEARLY explain to Holly that it was a Grandma Thing and we don't celebrate that shit. For the love of all things holy, isn't it bad enough that her friends get 20 bucks from the tooth fairy, now we have "half-birthdays?").

And Dankie, with her cheery little texts "Why do I BOTHER doing my hair in this weather?" and "What did you pay for lunch today?" (Positive thought: 15% employee discount on hospital cafeteria!) and "Sprint Picture Mail-Phallic Gourd."

I just tried to focus on everything that stayed the same instead of everything that changed and I managed to make it through the week without feeling I'd made a huge mistake, without mourning, without hysterics, and it was good.

Now I have to keep vigilant for next week. I will try to Twitter, if that makes you guys happy, and I will try to start answering email a little better. I do appreciate you guys. All the good wishes help. I get them on my phone, sitting at my new desk, and it makes me feel normal, and I thank you guys SO MUCH. xoxo

Popular belief

2008-10-21T10:09:00.002-05:00

Contrary to popular belief, I have not started my new job yet. I am in my last week of my old job. My boss is out of town and will be for the duration, so I am basically sifting through lunch invitations from people I never even knew liked me and playing Bubbletown on Facebook.

Oh, I suppose I am doing some things to finish up, so my boss won't be left completely high and dry, not that I care if she is. She made her bed three months ago when she had one of her minion bitches snoop through email to check on staff loyalty. What's the expression? Eavesdroppers rarely hear anything nice about themselves?

Yesterday I went to my new place of employment for a protracted pre-employment-fest. I'm going to work at a hospital and who knew all the hoop-jumping required to do so. Christ, I received more vaccinations than someone visiting Uganda and a physical and a drug test and a chest x-ray (I reacted to a TB test in 1980 NO I DON'T HAVE TB I have antibodies to TB which means I was exposed to it at some point) and I had to demonstrate that I could lift 25 pounds (surprisingly heavy) and they took a blood draw to test my immunity to measles, rubella AND rubeola (I didn't know there was a difference) and criminy! It took me almost three hours and I had to take my bra off in front of someone I might sit by in the cafeteria. SHEEZ. I hope I like this job! Shit, I hope I get to even start this job--I had to make a list of all my medicines and give it to the nurse doing my physical. Evidently my anxiety medication sets off all sorts of drug test alarms so I need to stop by sometime today to provide a copy of the prescription. And I know I shouldn't be embarrassed but I am. I know I preach that depression and anxiety are just diseases like anything else, but...ack. No one wants their boss to know they're something of a mental trainwreck. Only I'm not. Unless I don't take my medication. Ack ack. Anyway.

I'm in a normal state of worry about starting a new job. I'm not crazy. Everyone suffers stress in this situation. It sucks to start over. I have to figure out with whom to make friends, where to eat, where to park, what my time parameters are, who's going to get my sense of humor, who's going to be intimidated by me and think I don't like them (fucking insecure people make me crazy). But every time I feel overwhelmed and doubt my decision, I ask myself, "Do you want to stay here and start planning for that suck ass meeting coming up? Do you want to get even one more snippy e-mail? Do you want to sit in this dark cube in this chaotic messy area one more minute?" and I answer, "HELL NO," and accept the trade-off as a Win. Right?

Cephalopod

2008-10-14T13:34:00.002-05:00

I've been e-mailing Elliot's teachers weekly to see how he's doing. His school, one of the larger high schools in Kansas (2000 students), cannot seem to figure out how to share grades online with parents, which...for the love of all things holy, I'm sure only about 15 kabillion educational software programs exist that enable grade sharing, homework posting, and attendance tracking. Shit man, there are probably programs that implant a chip in your teen's ass so you can tell if he's late for class, texting in the hall, and popping his zits! But NOT AT LAWRENCE HIGH. They're too busy raising money for a new parking lot and football stadium to mess with giving parents access to the tools they need to help with their kid's education!

So far I've gotten encouraging emails from his Film Media teacher and his English teacher. He's getting an A in English, so moving him down from the Advanced class was clearly the right move. His teacher calls me ma'am in all his emails. I love being called ma'am. I call the teacher "Mr." Teacher, too, even though Elliot says he's 24 years old.

I never know what to do when addressing teachers. I mean, if I met one in a bar, he'd be "Joe" (and he'd be sipping some single malt scotch and puttin' it on my tab! Remember that when you're writing in your grade book, JOE!), but somehow when my kid calls someone "Mister" I feel like I should follow suit.

Interesting fact about Holly's second grade teacher: she's the only teacher at the school who is a "Ms." All the others are Mrs. and Miss. Power fist, MS. Smith.

I haven't heard back from Elliot's math and chemistry teachers but I'm cautiously optimistic Mr. Friendly and I have been doing our part to get Elliot back on track, by doing some things that are rather "DUH" like, oh, checking his homework and requiring him to bring his bookbag home and whatnot, and I've got some concerns about the child's uh...learning habits? Concentration? Focus? Study skills? I don't know what I'm trying to say, but here's an example:

He sat down this weekend to do an four-page Algebra II worksheet. When he declared he was done, I demanded to see it. Now, it's tricky for me to check math homework. I haven't taken math since college, and I also never went beyond Algebra I. I am not talented quantitatively (Ha! If I were a guy that would sound like a dirty metaphor!) and I can't help Elliot solve equations. However, I can look at things and find inconsistencies. Question #1 had four parts and he'd only answered the first part. Question #3 said "Show your work" and he hadn't. Question #5 said, "Label your graph," and he didn't. Etcetera. If he had handed in that paper without me checking it, he would have missed points for no good reason and probably gotten a C. Instead, I handed it back to him and said, "Uh...number 1 isn't finished. Number 3 isn't right." I don't know, is it laziness? Or does he have a bona fide learning deficiency? And when do you quit labeling flakiness as a brain chemistry malfunction and start labeling it just plain "does not pay attention to detail?" All I know is I'm not going to be able to check his papers in college. Mr. Friendly thinks Elliot could benefit from some study skills tutoring, but I say it doesn't take a tutor to figure out you should read the directions before you answer a homework question and you should go back and check your paper before you turn it in.

Meanwhile, Holly is doing well in school. She has homework every night now and sits down and does it at her afterschool program or immediately upon arriving home. It's all spelling homework of course, about which I have made my feelings known repeatedly, I believe. Holly gets advanced spelling words and I would like to reiterate that it is completely dumb to make a kid have "cephalopod" as a spelling word. She doesn't even know what a cephalopod is. *I* don't know what a cephalopod is. I don't even know if I'm spelling it right and you know what? It doesn't fricking matter, because I'm going to click the little ABC checkmark up there in a minute and the goddamned SPELL CHECKER is going to tell me it doesn't know how to spell cephalopod either so I'll have to go to the Wiki and realize I ate a cephalopod the other night. WASTE OF TIME. GAH.

(Cephalopods are a class of mollusks including squid, octopi and cuttlefish. Just to head off you smarmy commenters.)

Fall is here and it's time to draw up Holly's Clothing Contract. This morning I forgot to refresh the weather page on my phone and announced it was going to be 80 degrees and Holly duly appeared dressed for school in hot pants and a bra and Paco raised an eyebrow and said, "Uh...it's only going to be 61 today?"

So Holly left for school in tears because I made her change into jeans! The HORROR. For chrissakes, I still let her wear a tank top and sandals! I only made her cover her damn legs! God help me my daughter is going to be that teenage girl in the grocery store in December, wearing two tank tops, gym shorts and flip flops. WHY? What did I do to deserve this? I wear all kinds of clothes! I layer! Granted, I do wear flip flops year round, but damn it!

Ask for the job

2008-10-10T11:00:00.004-05:00

Paco IM'd me a few minutes ago, gently observing, "YOUR READERS ARE GOING TO STRIKE!!" To which I replied, "Fuck them, I've got shit to do."

See how I love you guys not at all?

Okay, here's the poop. Since last we talked, I had another interview and several highly-charged salary negotiations and as of yesterday, I have resigned my current position and taken the new job with The Guy.

Oh, I KNOW, I wasn't going to do it. I KNOW, now that I've finally figured out what I'm good at I should follow my bliss. Etc. But in my last long, overly sentimental little reflection on the interview and The Guy and all that, I left out one itty bitty thing that's a game-changer when I consider any employment: money. As recently as two days ago I had decided no way was I taking this job. Then the recruiter called me and said, "Why don't you come back in and talk to The Guy again. I told him you were hesitant and he wants to convince you."

I replied, with irritation, "Look...I know everything I need to know to make my decision except how much this job pays. I don't care how this sounds: it matters. I'm looking at giving up a lot of very nice benefits that make my work/life balance very enjoyable. This job would need to compensate for that. WHAT DOES IT PAY?"

A few seconds later, I was like, "I can be over there to meet him in 5 minutes!"

We all want a fulfilling and enjoyable job. But anyone who turns down a raise like I'm getting needs his head examined. So fuck bliss, I'm jumping ship and making a commitment to be the best god damned assistant The Guy has ever had. And after the second interview with him, where we spoke more directly because I had nothing to lose, I started thinking I was going to like him. A lot.

I'm afraid. My confidence has been rocked these last few months by some unfortunate occurrences at my current job. I think, though, that I realized something while stewing over this decision: I have not liked this job much since Day One. I took it because I was coming off being a stay-at-home mom and I was scared that I would, I don't know, die or something if I didn't have flexible scheduling and tons of time off. And I did appreciate those things. But you know what? I get a week off between Christmas and New Year's but I also had to go to San Diego and be away from my family for 7 days straight. Every January and June I have to work two four-day weekends full of twelve-hour days and hotel food. I won't have to do that anymore!

And mostly: I won't have to work for my boss. When I told her the news, I was brisk about it, despite the fact that she'd had another thing go very wrong earlier in the day.

"I'm really sorry to make your day worse, but I need to let you know that I've found another position and I'm resigning."

She put her head down on her table briefly and then recovered and said, "I knew this was coming but I hoped it wouldn't."

I feel a little sorry for her. If she lives to be a thousand years old, she will never find an assistant who suits her. I've been in this line of work for over 20 years and I've never encountered anyone who was so...impossible. Not even Mrs. Ed, whom I worked with five years ago. She was such a pain she caused three other admins to quit before I took her. And I handled her.

I will have to figure some things out like how to get Holly to skating and how to keep my mood from tanking in response to change. Paco and Russian skating coach are working on the former and by god, I'm just not going to let the latter happen. I made this choice and I'm going to succeed.

I have to go. My updating may be sporadic at best in the coming weeks. I have to wrap things up here and then I have made the vow not to do this journal from work any more. I've said this before, but the feeling that I should update affects my motivation to work. I don't know why and I don't need to analyze it. It just is.

One last thing: seriously? You don't ask for the job? Here's what "asking for the job" means to me: at the end of the interview when they say, "Do you have any other questions?" I usually respond, "No, I think I'm good. I just want to say that I enjoyed our talk and if you hire me you'll be glad you did." Or I say, "I just want to let you know that I think I'd be great at this job and I'll be eager to hear back." Or whatever, but I make sure the person interviewing me hears, "I WANT THIS JOB. HIRE ME." A politician wouldn't come to your door, talk about the issues, and then leave without asking for your vote--it's the same with job interviews. Ask for the job.

The Guy

2008-10-04T12:33:00.004-05:00

As I Twittered (twittered? Seems like it should be capitalized, no?Yes? Who cares? Not I!), I got a third (and final) interview for The Job, notwithstanding my underachievement w/r/t the Excel test. In fact, as I sat down with The Guy, he said, "Looks like you did very well at these tests here," and I actually snorted. He gave me a quizzical look and I hastily added, "Well...I..thanks." He continued to look at me with a question in his eyes and I finally said, "Oh, well, I didn't actually do too well on that Excel test...but it was over a version of Excel I haven't used and it seemed pretty advanced for an executive assistant..type...person...not that I'm making excuses, um. Anyway."

Did I say I give great interview once? Because I take it back.

The Guy was a dynamic, intelligent, high-level executive and he thoroughly unnerved me. I do believe I went in there a little cocky, all "I don't need this job. I don't even think I want this job. I'm a great interviewer ho hum, examine nails, yawn." But when The Guy fixed me with an intense stare and plunged right in with, "Why did you apply for this job? Can you tell me what particular part of the job description appealed to you?" I stuttered and went blank because I couldn't tell him the real reason.

"Oh, yes, Steve, of course. You see, about a month ago I got into an embarrassing, infuriating situation at work which made me want to quit in a huff, but I can't do that without another job in place, so applied for this one, since I'm perfect for it."

Eeeeyeah. I don't think that response come out of the mouth of someone with "great interview skills."

The Guy scared me. The Job scared me. Don't get me wrong, I can do The Job. If I had ambition, I could be a superstar with this Job.

The interview got better as it went along, of course. I got more comfortable and The Guy was perceptive, which led me to believe I'd be happy working with him. He seemed to like me, and he would occasionally pin me to the wall with questions that made me suspect he could read my mind.

"Why do you want to work here? You seem to work for a great place with good benefits for a nice boss and you do your job well?'

"You say you're very direct and I can see you're professional and businesslike. What do you do to keep people from thinking you're unfriendly and aloof?"

"I see you stayed at KU for five years. When you started there, what did you want to do that didn't work out?"

After that question, I was thoroughly unnerved. How did he know that?

"I wanted to be a nurse, actually. And I found out the hard way that you have to be good at science so I had to change paths when I demonstrated a marked lack of skill in that arena. I still kind of want to be a nurse."

Why did I say that? SHEESH.

I was scheduled for a half-hour and we talked for an hour. About halfway through I started thinking, "I don't want this job. I don't have the energy to do this job. And I'm sitting here telling him why he should pick me to do it, when I don't really want to do it. Argh." But I kept answering and asking questions and one side of my brain was thinking, "Hell yes, I could do this."

When I left I was upset. I can't describe it very well. I felt out of sorts and upset and ashamed and weird. I went back to my little dysfunctional workplace and wondered why I didn't think, "Hell yeah, I can do a great job today!" I basically have the same job I was interviewed for. I could work hard where I am. I could be a superstar WHERE I AM. But..

I just want to start over. I've made mistakes and I've let myself get lazy and I've found myself in conflict and I feel overwhelmed and in my childish way I think I can wipe the slate clean and start over somewhere else and not let that happen This Time.

I haven't been contacted about money yet, and I suppose some big bump in salary could change this whole conflict, and oh yeah, no one's offered me the job OR ANYTHING. I wonder if this perceptive guy will figure out I'm not a good bet. I wonder if he noticed I didn't ask for the job, something I've never failed to do in an interview in my life (tip from a formerly good interviewer: always ask for the job).

When I went back to work, I sat down with my boss to go over some things and after we finished she asked if there was anything else and I hesitated.

"Yes, actually. I um...just wondered. How do you think it's going?"

"What?"

"You know..between us."

"Oh! I think we're fine! I mean, I'm fine, are you fine?"

"Well...yes, I think so."

And I went back to my dark, tiny cubicle and thought about all of you folks telling me a lateral move is a waste of time and thought how Paco says I'm running away from something instead of running to something and I thought about how it took me three years to make friends and have someone to eat lunch with and how my boss once said to me, before we got into conflict, "I know everyone here is mad at me and doesn't trust me and I can handle that but I don't know what I'd do if you quit, Jane." I always have the ability within myself to make things better and it would sure be easier to do it somewhere that gives snow days and lets me off at 4:00 to take Holly to ice skating.

I hope I don't get the job. That Guy deserves better. And so do I.

Avoidance

2008-10-02T10:11:00.004-05:00

I'm sorry about the lack of entries, you guys. I've had way to much work to do since returning from San Diego and things have been weighing heavily on my mind. Like:

What should I do if I'm offered the job I've been interviewing for?
Should I try to do more to help Elliot in school or just throw up my hands and let him figure it out on his own?
Am I neglecting Holly because she doesn't have an acute situation going on and pays more attention to her homework at 7 then Elliot does at 15?
Will my husband EVER quit obsessing about his four-wheeler, his four-wheeler trailer, and his upcoming trip to ride four-wheelers?
And speaking of obsessive, why am I reading Breaking Dawn again rather than starting the new book I ordered a month ago?

I don't know what to do about this potential job. I haven't been offered the position, mind you. I interview very well and I am hoping this will mitigate the horrible score I got on the Excel Skills Test I took pre-interview. But if that score counts to the person hiring, I can cross worrying about taking or not taking a new job right off my list. God.

When I arrived for the interview, I was ushered into this tiny room with a computer and instructed to take a typing test (really? in this day and age?), a Microsoft Word test, and a Microsoft Excel test, in that order. I type so fast that I finished the whole page of text before the five minutes were up. Over 100 wpm. I am fine with Microsoft Word, although I inexplicably struggled with a question where I had to insert clip art. In the end I just blew it off because there is no excuse for clip art anyway. Then I moved on to Excel. Now, I am weak at Excel. I admit it. I don't use it for anything more than just basic stuff. But three years ago when I did all my testing to get the job I have, I scored reasonably well on Excel tests. In fact, a couple of times I got a better score at Excel than I did at Word and laughed merrily. So I started the test, feeling secure if not overly confident.

The first question on the test was "Open a new file using a template called 'Office_Procedures.' The template is located on the C: drive of the computer you are using."

I went to File, Open and immediately heard a "BLAAAT" and a box popped up reading, "X-INCORRECT!" I was like, Oh, I must have fumbled the mouse. I reclicked, carefully. File, Open. "BLAAAT" "X-INCORRECT!" I sat there with my mouth open thinking...ok. If I am BLAAATING the first damn question this is going to be a looooong test.

I skipped the question and moved on and it was just a bloodbath from there. Autofilter? Huh, what? Lists? The version of Excel I use doesn't even have Lists. It was a sad, sad performance. I ended up scoring 50%. An "F," if you will.

So we'll just see about that job. It looked like a decent place to work. It's near my house and I wouldn't be sitting in a dark, tiny cube surrounded by people yakking all the time. But I also wouldn't have all the ridiculous benefits. But I also wouldn't have to feel the way I feel which I won't go into because it's not a good idea to talk about work. But I also wouldn't be doing anything related to my recent ephinany about being in the wrong line of work.

I hope I don't get the job. Avoidance is so comfortable.