There’ve been more D&D sessions, always on Thursdays. My hengeyokai ranger is still posing as human, not having any particular need to shapeshift into her hybrid or feline form. I think I may change that up next time, I’m not sure yet. She stored her bow and whipped out her two short swords at one point and went nuts on a vine that had caught our kender rogue, getting it down to one health point. The kender, who was freed on her next dice roll, took it down when she attacked.

Oh yeah, the kender acquired two basilisk eyes, which tend to turn everything that looks at it to stone. I always badly roll my wisdom, which has my character looking in the kender’s direction when she says, “Don’t look!”. My character: “What? Why?” I haven’t yet changed because of it, but next session I’m going to have a conversation with that kender and see if I can’t talk to her about them, ie the GM allows me and anyone else on this conversation to be as forewarned and get a bonus to a roll, if she continues that nonsense. :P

Aside from that weekly adventure, I’ve done very little gaming at all. The dreamer, whose online business is going to take off in a couple of weeks, suddenly came up with an idea in which I’d make my own sister website, and start selling what he’s selling. While he’s had almost 3 years to plan for his websites and confer with professionals, I have approximately two weeks to slap something together. As usual I’m using Wordpress as my CMS because I am lazy and know well how to slap it into submission. Until the dreamer can fling me the information about what I’m selling, I can’t really get the final product pages done, but I can futz around with plugins and the general layout in the meantime. I’m mostly just twiddling thumbs on that now.

I’ve gotten out of the house a bit this week–I was woken up rather rudely by the ex who abruptly showed up to fling about 20 boxes of my belongings at me, which necessitated me setting aside time from my website-making in order to shuffle things in my room enough to accomodate them. It took 10 hours of hard labor and I’m only half done, but the two tall bookshelves are in the right area and ready to receive the books I have scattered in so many boxes. I have an urgent need for a LOT more hangers, as I found out, which is why half of my clean clothes are on the floor. Trying to figure out a solution to that, perhaps hanging shelves I can shove shoes, underthings, and pants/shorts into, but still more hangers needed with two of us here now, me and the druid.

The gamer houseguest has needed time outside the house and so we’ve taken little walking trips. The other day he got news that his mom was in the hospital again so I suggested a tromp down to the place that makes only pitas. It didn’t take much arm twisting to motivate him on that one. On another occasion, I suggested I wanted to walk downtown and buy another Honkin’ Huge Burrito from the food cart in Pioneer Square, at which time the gamer could fling resumes about on our way there and back. He bleh’ed at the idea at the time but propositioned me with it today. I was happy to have an excuse to get out of the house and we made our way there, at which point we found the cart locked up and closed, so he suggested the buffet sushi place again and I assented. Much nomming was had. I actually stuffed myself, which is to say that I ate until my tummy actually said it was full, not something I do often. I blorped my way home and promptly faceplanted into bed, to the gamer’s amusement.

The cat’s been obnoxiously lovey lately, which means I wake up early with a cat nomming on toes or pouncing upon my head. He wants out of this room and I wish I could oblige him but the gamer’s housecat is too aggressive, and mine has no claws, so he’s cooped up. We can let him out for short stints but the two don’t play well together and after a while, we must herd mine back into my room before letting the other out of the secondary bathroom.

The upstairs neighbors have been very anal lately, yelling at us in the middle of the day for various pins dropping and other noises you tend to hear in a communal living building. And yet at 3am they can be heard galloping about, fighting, vacuuming, and rearranging furniture. Love the double standard there. We shall begin informing them of Portland’s noise ordinance both as they pester us about noise, and as we pester them.

I planted a seed in the gamer’s brain that he should make a videoblog, now that he has a camera (formerly mine) and a tripod (also formerly mine) to play with. Today he decided to play with that. I’m not sure what results he will have but I’m included in today’s thing. I’ll be sure to spam you with it as he uploads it/them. He’s amused by the project.

I’ve been spending more time out in the living room during the evening, using my laptop to work on my biz website, while the gamer does his thing. He likes the company and I like the different scenery as I work. Oh yeah, because Microsoft is killing the Windows 7 beta I’ve been using on all our machines, I need to take a day to reformat and reinstall an older supported OS. But I’m procrastinating on that one. I’m hoping I can afford a new hard drive for both the desktop and the laptop before I go to the trouble of installing another OS. But I’ve really liked Windows 7. I hope I can someday afford that too.

Umm, yeah, not much else going on, though I have been busy. There are boxes still to unpack, a game to play, a website to make, and more food to be et (I love murdering English). I get out and walk at least three times a week, not insignificant distances either. The druid and I are still disgustingly in love. There are a few things in the queue I’m waiting to drag him to, a couple foody places, getting his ID, and forcing him to enjoy a museum.

Oh yeah, the car’s been in the care of our mechanic friend, who’s had little time to work on the thing, which is fine because we’ve been low on funds anyway. We’ve scraped by with hemmoraging money for bus and taxis thus far, I suppose we can bleed profusely for a bit longer. Bleh.

And lately, I miss my gallbladder a bit. After meals, I have to sit near a restroom, as I’ve had explosive stuff arrive abruptly just afterwards. I have a really bleh digestive system and for some reason, my liver is having alzheimer’s regarding when to produce bile and when not to, lately.

Aside from that disgusting admission, I spend my putter-time on Facebook, which for some reason I’m using fairly frequently after avoiding for years and years. It’s amusing, and disturbing, to admit that. *grins* I successfully weaned myself off of Farmville, but I level in Dream World and Castle Age daily, heh.

–

Oh yeah, someone who’s been on my mind for the past week is Eva Markvoort, a neat young woman who happens to have cystic fibrosis, a genetic thing in which the lungs and digestive system produce a thick sticky mucus, which makes it hard to digest food, and, more importantly, breathe. The only chance to survive much beyond one’s teens is to have a double lung transplant. Eva had one two years ago. She’s enjoyed breathing clearly, and doing physically challenging things like snowboarding, and flying across the continent to take in the sights of NYC.

Since November 2009, however, her body’s been obnoxiously rejecting said transplanted lungs despite the heavy medications she’s on. Last week, in fact, she posted a video to say her goodbyes, to her friends, and fans, as she currently has a documentary about her floating about the world, trying to raise awareness about her condition. It’s been a week and a half, and she’s still kicking. It’s not that she’s hanging onto life with white knuckles, she’s quite matter-of-fact about it and as ready as anyone facing death can be, but she’s always thankful to open her eyes each morning and realize she’s made it another night, gets to have more time with friends, family, and boyfriend.

This is something she won’t recover from but she’s thankful for every further minute she gets. It’s torturous to breathe and she has to hang onto someone to make it through the worst moments, but in as much pain as she is in, she is thankful for every breath, because it means she still gets to be here. Definitely can’t blame her there, if you have a lot to live for and a lot of love around you, things left you want to do and hope for that elusive cure that would make this whole thing unnecessary, welllllll… *nods*

I’m happy she gets more minutes, hours, days, even weeks with her family. I hope she can pull through and stick around for a little longer, even as she will not recover from this, it’d be nice to be able to focus on things more facetious than getting enough oxygen with every breath. I’m amused as she blogs each day, to the thunderous applause of her fans and readers. I cried more, the first day she posted after a multi-day pause, than I think I would have if one of her family had let us know that she was no longer with us. She’s still here. It’s become a project for her, to see if she’s still here enough to share her thoughts and her life once more.

Her fight has me thinking about life, and what comes after. Like I said, she’s been on my mind a lot. I send her quiet thoughts several times a day. I wish for her nothing more than the ease of pain and suffering, a few more hours with her parents and boyfriend, enough sentience to appreciate each moment she’s given for as long as she can, with as much peace and love as can be had on this planet. I wish there was more I can do for her specifically, but of course there are things that medical science cannot fix at this time, and unfortunately that means that vibrant people like Eva must go at a time that seems unfair and unfinished.

Writing about her has made me thoughtful again. I don’t burst into tears at the mere thought of her, now, but my eyes are wet again. There are two causes I feel strongly about now, pancreatic cancer (which took my sister’s best friend) and cystic fibrosis (which is taking my friend Eva).

Been slackin’ here again… is a post from: zannim.com

Before I go into what a session looks like, there are a few factors to consider. One, not every gaming session will look like what I describe. There are many different editions to the “base” Dungeons & Dragons game, v1, v2, v3, v3.5, v4, and a few others that I am not familiar with. In addition, there are supplimental books to any and all of the gaming editions, modules that tweak the game a certain way, introduces new classes, other races, more skills, spells, monsters, and all the rest of the stuff that makes up a Dungeons & Dragons game.

Two, depending on the GM (GameMaster), you may or may not play with a game board, miniature figures, custom content that the GM has taken the time to write up and use. The GM I game with currently uses dice and the printed books of v3, with a custom world map and her own restrictions on races depending on which continent/area she decides your character is to originate in. Each of us has their own set of dice, and we use a character sheet containing every bit of information about our character: name, age, physical description, history, what they’re wearing, using, carrying, and six stats upon which all skills and abilities are based upon, strength, constitution, intelligence, and a couple others.

Three, game sessions can occur daily, weekly, bi-monthly, or at irregular intervals, depending on the group’s needs. For two people with schedules that change weekly, our group tries to meet weekly, coordinating schedules as soon as each gets their schedule for the next week.

Four, there can be as few as two people (one GM and one player, though obviously that doesn’t bode well for social interaction), and as many as the GM can handle. Our group has six, not counting the GM. Imagine us all crowded around a folding card table with our character sheets, dice, drinks, snacks, and everything else cluttering it, talking and joking loudly, vacating chairs and tripping over others trying to get outside for smoke breaks, bathroom breaks, and so on. It’s a bit mad but fun.

Okay, enough babbling. Now, there are two parts to any new, freshly started gaming campaign–the session where you create your character, and the rest of the sessions where you drag your character through whatever the GM’s whim takes him/her/them. I greatly enjoyed the two times I made a new character. GM mileage may vary, but mine allowed all of us to choose whatever race and class we wanted. That was the first thing I chose.

The next step involved rolling our stats. Our GM allowed us two different ways of rolling: using 4d6 (4 six-sided dice) and discarding the lowest die, adding the three remaining dice together and choosing which stat we wanted to put the single or double digit number, repeating this six times; or using 5d6, discarding the lowest two dice, adding the three remaining dice together, and requiring us to place each single or double digit number in each sequential stat, which might mean that you’d have to choose your class after seeing where the highest stats landed. The 4d6 method would allow you to put the best/highest number in the stat(s) your chosen class needs most, the 5d6 method ensured higher stats across the board but limited your class choice. I chose the 4d6 method, as I really wanted to play a certain class.

Once that was done, we were instructed to choose a race (human, elf, dwarf, etc), a class (ranger, fighter, druid, etc), and give our character its physical features. Our GM told each of us that our character originated in an area that she arbitrarily chose, and then gave us a list of applicable races to choose from. We were allowed our own class choice. There are resources online that describe basic and exotic race and class choices. Our GM also allowed us to choose to play a “gestalt” character, a character of any race who has TWO classes, such as a sorcerer/druid or whathaveyou. The caveat to that was that your character would hold all the benefits AND penalties of each class. Fighters might have a penalty to INT, for example.

With all the really basic stuff done, we’d move onto skills. The GM would tell us how many skill points we had, based on our stats and a dice roll for a random total. From there, we’d choose the few skills in a long list of possible skills we could have, and how many skill points we’d have in that particular skill.

And then, it was time to go shopping! ^^ We had to choose armor, weapons, and crap we’d want to lug around with us. We were given a budget and a total weight burden and told to go to town.

Since there were five of us at the time all creating our characters, this took an entire five hour session to complete. The following week, we had our first gaming session, wherein we had separate adventures, the GM leading us from the recent past, to the “present”, where we happened to conveniently gather in the same town, and the same inn, wherein we began interacting and roleplaying with each other. I’d chosen a boring, generic character and by the end of this session, just wasn’t feeling her. The GM made a special trip the following week to get me set up with a second character, along with someone else we’d invited to game with us.

Tomorrow night, I get to play my second character, for the first time. I’ve spent the time between its creation and tomorrow night reading up on the exotic race I chose and got the GM’s permission to play, and all about the class I chose, the ranger. I’ve found a few photos that exemplify what my character looks like in her human form, her cat form, and her hybrid cat-woman (lol) form. I’m excited. It promises to be a fun time. I’m modeling my character after the character Neytiri from the movie Avatar as far as being a hunter, but a little more aloof, very helpful as a chaotic good archer but very self-motivated and independent. She’s not a girly girl by any means, though she would clean up nice if she ever bothered. She’ll be in her human form and go off by herself to hunt, change, and hide her not-humanness from the others in her party until necessary to reveal, or caught off-guard.

This’ll be fun. :)

What D&D Looks Like to a Newbie is a post from: zannim.com

The DM told me that elves were not available in the area I was starting in, and so it was unlikely there’d be any half-elf hybrids in the area. Well, okay. She gave me a list of races I could choose from, and my ears were tweaked when she mentioned the hengeyokai. “Shapeshifters,” she explained, continuing her long list.

I interrupted her. “Can you tell me more about the.. shapeshifters?”

She shifted through her books and found the section on them. The D&D equivalent derives from Japanese legends regarding supernatural beings of all sorts and shapes. The hengeyokai were a type of being who could morph from human to animal, and chose more often than not to carry on life as an animal, a very intelligent animal. In D&D, they have three forms: human, some sort of common animal, and a wierd hybrid of the two that is described as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle type.

I was so intrigued by the section I was given to read, that I decided right then and there I’d be that race. I could choose the animal my character would morph into, and out of the list of mostly undesirables such as rats, alligators, and wolves, I chose the cat, and then asked the DM to clarify whether we were talking a big cat or a little cat. “Housecat,” I was told. Well then.

So, my new character, and the one I’m keeping no matter how the game goes (assuming the DM lets my character live for very long), is a female hengeyokai ranger who can shapeshift from a completely believable human, to a fluffy white Persian, the hybrid looking rather like Toodles Galore. The human sports very white, pink skin, and shockingly white hair, the cat will be your garden variety long-haired, smooshed-face Persian, and the hybrid will be covered in fine white fur.

Her name is Delia, as that was the name I’d decided on my hypothetical half-elf ranger. The name originates from the Greek island of Delos, the birthplace of Artemis and Apollo, among others. Artemis is a Greek goddess of the hunt, the forest, fertility, and mildly, abstinence, and is often depicted with a bow and arrow. The name still fits. The animal has no fighting skill, but the hybrid will be able to use a cat’s senses, and still be able to communicate with both other cats and other humans. It will make her an even more effective hunter and tracker.

I decided to play a chaotic good character this time, a female model of Robin Hood. It should be rather fun. The DM gave her a random, epic-level item as well to start out with, an armor with +4 defense, along with other niceties that then banned me from getting another uber item–everyone else, save the barbarian elf, was given two uber items, the elf getting a similar epic armor thingie.

I’m looking forward to the first time I can play her. Last week was a no-go with everyone’s schedules running amok. This week isn’t looking much better, but we’ll probably try to put something together. The druid might not be able to play every session with us with his wonky schedule, but ah well.

Free to a Good Home: One Slightly Used Cleric is a post from: zannim.com

Mostly because I cannot stand stupid shit silly concepts like this:

A mandate on how you hug because somehow your fully clothed and not-in-use genitalia is facing someone else’s and that somehow constitutes a lustful and sexual overtone? Really? Makes you reconsider that full frontal you give your parents.

Answer me this, how do you wrap your arm around someone with that awkward side hug? Do you, the hugger, drape your arm along the huggee’s shoulder, wherein your hand is dangerously close to someone’s chest area? Do you wrap it casually around someone else’s waist, denoting dominance over that person’s hip region?

Why allow physical contact at all? Even air kisses are wrought with sex. Even words can bring on lustful thoughts, so why allow speaking or hearing? Batting your eyelashes at someone can be construed as flirtatious and therefore sinful, so I suppose looking at someone is out too. I say that even thoughts should be carefully controlled, by not allowing someone to think at all, lest they lust where the thought police cannot reach. Don’t even get me started on smell and taste. You ever hear of food being orgasmically good?

Sorry, my snark is showing. I’m not one to criticize a religion, least of all the one I grew up in, but what is with this poo? Am I really to understand that all the times I hugged the elderly congregation during the “greeting” portion of the service throughout my childhood, I was really advertising unwittingly that what I was doing had anything to do with sex? Really?

It’s a frikkin’ hug. Even Jesus is said to have done it on occasion. Huh huh, done it…

Zan on Religion is a post from: zannim.com

It was always a surprise, and I always looked for it. Sometimes the bubbles were only just noticable as froth foaming on the surface of the agitated water. Sometimes the bubbles were so numerous that they spilled over the sides of the fountains, onto the pavement, into the street.

One early morning, the busload of people were amused by the sight of bubbles having streamed entirely down the street, for about four city blocks. There was so many large bubbles that the lower half of the fountain was obscured in the stuff.

Bubbling Fountain is a post from: zannim.com

I had picked the gamer’s brain regarding various D&D things, I’ve played a few MMOs and knew the right questions to ask regarding different classes, my gaming style and how I can adapt that to a D&D game, different races, and so on. I chose to play a human cleric of 15 years of age, a little Asian kid who is not worldly nor very imaginative, who is aligned Lawful Good, as I have found myself to glean that result no matter how many times I take the D&D alignment quizzes available online. The lot of us were to start out at level 3, with the exception of the geek who started at lvl 2 due to her choice of race and pecularities of the diety her cleric chose.

The DM has some areas, races, dieties, and other components that are original to “her” world. Based on the races we chose, she decided our originating area. The DM’s friend asked for and was granted the requested race of Kender. As my character’s race was human, and the DM had chosen that humans and kender live relatively close in region, the kender and I would hail from the same region. My cleric could learn one language besides the Common. I chose that of the Kender, which amused her no end. The druid chose a druid, of course, of a monkey race I do not recall just now. The gamer chose a barbarian elf, and the geek chose a cleric of a race I do not recall.

Anyway, we chose all that stuff and got stats and stuff the previous week. My beginning stats were (at lvl 3): STR 10 (+0), DEX 9 (-1), CON 15 (+2), INT 13 (+1), WIS 18 (+4), and CHA 15 (+2). I was given 2800 gold to distribute however I chose, in choice of armor (heavy), goods (hooks, rope, rations) and other niceties (cart & pony). I actually have enough gold left for a bag of holding. Mwaha.

Tonight’s first session was chaotic, with the GM talking with each player individually, guiding everyone through seven simulated weeks of encounters and other such things, eventually steering us to the same city, where she encouraged us to meet in the same tavern. While she was gaming with us individually, the other players were wandering around, smoking, making caustic and silly comments about the session in progress, talking about off-topic things and trying to draw the players-in-progress into conversation. It was confusing and I couldn’t hear a lot of what my character was supposed to be doing. As I’d never gamed before in a tabletop game like this, I’m not sure I have all the information I was supposed to get, but ah well, I’ll learn as I go, playing my character as naïvely as I am.

The kender character and my cleric teenager of doom journeyed together for a time, me on a mission to deliver a package, and the kender trying and at one point succeeding in viewing the package.

The five of us were guided through “recent past” events, ending up in a present situation in which all five of us happened upon a tavern in the middle of an average, large human town. The barbarian elf was wondering what a child was doing with a mug of beer, while the kender was overly amused by the barbarian’s facial tattoos. The simian druid was trying to get the barmaid to make mead with the four pounds of honey he’d found on his journeys, the slutty cleric was eating daintily in her finery watching the barbarian’s companion gnome babble about stories, and I was quietly perched upon the bar (as it was higher than the bar stool and the entire tavern was captivated by the gnome’s storytelling), quietly watching and watching bemusedly as the kender situated herself upon the barbarian’s lap to see better, quietly braiding his hair while he was watching the gnome, not aware of the kender’s actions. Oh yeah, the kender decorated my simple cart with chalk drawings.

That was as far as we got, but whee, what a ride.

Gaming Session #1: Five Strangers Meet in a Tavern… is a post from: zannim.com

From 2pm to around 7pm, I’m calling and writing people asking if I may apply for a job they’ve offered. It usually ends up being a scam, require me to pay something, or say the position’s already been filled.

From 7pm to midnight, I’m doing stuff around the house, cooking, cleaning, perhaps a nap or flinging the cat around.

After midnight, I dink around on Facebook, hug the druid, or crash the heck out.

And I do it all over again the following day.

My family needs a car so desperately and there are two people with full-time jobs, and another two who are applying everywhere to also be employed. With a car, I could find a job much faster, as there are jobs at the airport, delivery positions, and other such things I can’t do without my own transportation, as either the job requires it, or the busses don’t run in the middle of the night when I require them. I’d like rather strongly to get a job in realty, in product delivery, as a leasing agent, as a bank teller, or an employee in a small mom&pop store I particularly like. They all require transportation.

I’ve emailed or contacted over 417 people over the past month, asking if I may purchase their car with payments over time. I keep records of all of this. I have emailed or contacted over 286 people who have advertised openings and job opportunities in their organizations. I keep records of all that, too.

It’s not for lack of trying that I have neither a car nor a job. It gets very disheartening that I need one to have the other, and both are being denied to me. I spend a lot of time crying these days. I want to be a productive member of society and I want to ensure that the druid’s employment is secure. Life seems determined to keep me from that. I face each day with the naïve hope that someone might give me a chance, give me a try, give me a hand. Each night I have only sore fingers, a sore voice, and a phone with no charge.

I’m not sure what else I can do, at this point. I’ve started volunteering at an animal shelter, the hospital, and I just signed up to volunteer at a suicide crisis center. I’ll begin paperwork to volunteer at a computer repair place next Monday.

I understand that times are hard, but do they have to be this hard?

No Writey is a post from: zannim.com

The driver visited very early this morning, made use of our shower, and broke his fast with scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee, before driving the druid to work. The driver, who had been living with his parents while he went to school, had been abruptly thrown out, and now lives in his car. The druid didn’t tell me until just last night what’s been going on in this gentleman’s life.

Of course I was happy to allow him use of the shower. Even if he didn’t go to church as he tends to do, I know how important it is to feel clean, even if for a short time. And the food, well, we have more of that, and have enough to share. A bit later in the morning I even volunteered to help him with his phone, as it’s a cheap plan and it’s probably one of the only ways he can get enough money, through taxi-ing and such, to keep his car running, keep himself fed, and so on.

To me, it’s just a dirty towel on the floor, another dirty plate in the sink. To the driver, it’s a small token of dignity, a simple moment to not worry about the next meal, the next time he can bathe, and so on. Without the driver, we would be in true danger of being unable to take care of ourselves, as the druid depends heavily upon this man to get him from work in the middle of the night.

Heck, I wish we had yet another empty room or a corner to stash him. But for now, it’s enough to give him use of the shower, the kitchen, and whatever else he needs. He even made off with a belt too tight for the druid’s not insignificant belly.

Just a Dirty Towel is a post from: zannim.com

DANG IT! is a post from: zannim.com

My first job was as a babysitter. I cut my teeth on the children in the daycare room at church on Sundays, an unpaid gig that got me out of having to worship something I didn’t believe in and could not get out of. My mother “encouraged” me to get into the babysitting biz, by putting ads in the paper with my name on it. Thanks, mom.

I was not fond of providing childcare, but when my mom’s friends had things to do and needed a slave to chase rug rats around, I was volunteered. I didn’t do that well in school, but somehow I was expected to do homework in a strange person’s home while chasing after little brats who could not entertain themselves. I got away with only having to change a diaper a small number of times, because I never changed them while the parents were out. I detested this work, they knew it, and employed me anyway. I rarely got repeat customers. So yeah, not my best.

At 14, my mom decided I needed a job, and got me employment at a local motel doing linen and cleaning service. As I hated doing my own bed, I wasn’t sure what my mother was thinking, but I was told to suck it up for a day and see how it went. A wirey latina lady was assigned to show me the ropes, which were few–if the sheets are tousled, throw them into the industrial sized hamper, grab new sheets, fold them a certain way and tuck them in, don’t worry about the pillows, nobody ever thinks those are dirty anyway, rinse the tub if you see stuff, otherwise just leave it, don’t worry about the floor, and don’t forget to empty the garbage. My gosh, I saw so many hypodermic needles… No gloves, just told to clean in a lackluster manner and move on to the next room. Ew. Yeah, that lasted all of a day, a very long day in which the lady swore at me in Spanish because I was going so slow. They called me later and told me not to go back. I was very happy to heed my advice. So yeah, not my best there either.

Then there was the paper route. I was the substitute for the girl who lived on the next block, who had 4H and Girl Scouts and sports and about 20 other things she did. She showed me the route once, and expected me to remember which had subscriptions, and which did not. The route was four miles long. do you know how many houses there are in a suburb four miles big? I was given no map, no other indication of paper vs. no except by memory. Riiiiiight. I received a lot of complaints over my attempts. And people started and stopped subscriptions all the time, and I was never told which had been changed to what, so yeah, that was a losing battle. I lasted six months there. If I’d been given proper guidance, I might have been a lot more amicable about it. Definitely not my best.

Again pushed by my mother to do something, my next job was working at a fast food place, after I graduated. I did okay there, I lasted about a year, though the management kept scheduling me for hours I could not work–after 5pm, the last bus went by and I would be stranded in a city 70 miles away from home. That would not fly with me. One of my last straws was when one of the squirrely-eyed assistant managers was running around with glasses of water, splashing everyone and thinking it uproariously funny. I did not enjoy getting soaked, because I was 70 miles away from home and could not change, and so had to wear my wet clothes until they were dry. Yeah, no. I was eventually asked if I were mentally deficient. “Are you retarded?” Mr. Splashy asked me caustically one day, because he loved picking on me. That job started well but ended abruptly.

My next term of employment lasted two years, at the bakery/deli in my hometown. I was hired as a cake decorator, though they eventually stuck me at dishes in the bakery section, then shifting me over to the deli, as apparently my cake decorating skills were less than stellar. The deli was a disaster, I was expected to memorize everything after hearing it once. Again, no manuals, no written instructions, just one of the other girls going, “Here, do this,” and doing something too quickly for me to follow, and then being called upon to have picked it up immediately and be able to contribute equally. I became a store closer, cleaning and prepping the kitchen for the next day’s work, counting the till, getting the pastries defrosted, cakes reorganized and rotated, fryer emptied, scrubbed, and freshly oiled, rotating defrosted chickens in buckets filled with water in the cooler behind. I actually enjoyed that gig, but it ended abruptly when they needed to save money and downsize. They picked up a new manager who didn’t believe in cleaning, prepping, or customer satisfaction, who started yelling at me whenever I washed my hands after handling raw chicken and the like, and let me go. I was also asked there if I were mentally deficient, and by then, I was beginning to wonder. *shrugs*

My next bit of employment came through an internship at the college. We learned programming, networking, all the major computery stuff of the day. My internship? A five-minute thing in which I made backups of files at a paper mill by typing in one command, made sure the printer wasn’t jammed, and left. Good use of my talents, there. My friends all bragged how they were being called upon to program, and network, and set up computers, and tutor people, and they were offered employment where they were interning. I was doing something that they could have hired any one of the three other secretaries to do. It was a joke. I let go of that when I moved away and got married. SOOO not my best.

For the next fourteen years, I wasn’t employed at all. My husband wouldn’t let me outside the house without his supervision, and any calls for me regarding employment were met with him grabbing the phone, yelling very loudly into it that I already had a job as his wife, and hanging up, then berating me for even trying. In his mind, if I had employment, then I could eventually save up enough money to leave, as by that time he was becoming not only psychologically but physically abusive.

Even with that, I got occasional gigs doing website design for friends who wanted such. I liked that, I didn’t have to leave the house, I could dork around on the computer doing what I usually did anyway, and get paid for it. Cool! I didn’t get too carried away with that, though, as I had taught myself everything, and there were some things I could not do because of my morals–I will not download software illegally, and since Macromedia Flash and such cost hundreds of dollars each, I let those opportunities to learn pass me by.

During those fourteen years, I started and maintained a dogsitting and housesitting business, registering a business name, paying taxes, the whole thing. I even kept doing that when I moved back to my homestate, at the height of the ex’s insanity. I had to let that go when I moved to Portland, of course, as such a business requires clients, and this area seems very sufficiently tapped for that. That was fun, though wrought with angst concerning my ex’s abuse.

I worked for a year at a 24-hour drug store doing an overnight shift of fourteen hours at a time, 5-6 days a week. It was a brutal schedule but very fun. I didn’t get overwhelmed with customers in the middle of the night, and enjoyed being trusted with freight, stock, and other duties. The gun hold-up, and watching two testosteronally wonky men duke it out by the pharmacy were interesting tidbits.

I was working there the night that I got a phonecall in which I was told that my sister had passed away from cancer. Like an idiot, I told my supervisor, who began telling all the other employees, one of whom made a daily habit of invading my space for a clingy hug, in which she spoke of how happy my sister must be, kneeling at the throne of Our Lord, and how thankful I must be that my sister had passed away so young. I had to work after these awful hugs, holding back so many tears and just wishing to go home so that I could cry myself to sleep. The next night, she would bring up her Christian God and make me highly uncomfortable all over again. Ugh.

I wanted to yell at her that the reason it was so painful was because my mom wouldn’t tell me how she was doing, didn’t tell me she’d passed until after the funeral so that I could not attend, and then to this day refuses to tell me where my sibling is buried so that I can see her grave and pay my respects.

Sorry, didn’t mean to get carried away in that rant. Anyway, as for that job, they abruptly scheduled me for hours I could not work, as the busses stopped running for the night about two hours before my shift ended. I spent many a cold winter night at the bus station (I lived 20 miles away, I could not walk home), being repeatedly approached by the homeless, the tweakers, and a few gentlemen who wished me bodily harm. I didn’t feel safe there, natch, and started going home when the last bus came, ignoring my posted hours. I was told one night not to return the following day if I could not complete my shift as scheduled. I left when the last bus came. I was called just a few hours later, and told not to bother coming in again. Okie then.

My friend the dreamer has been putting together his grand business idea, requiring a website and a bunch of other internet-y things I’ve been asked to do, to which he compensates me whenever he can. There hasn’t been anything to do lately, but I enjoy the projects when they come.

Out of all of these, I particularly enjoy the website design gigs I’ve had. I wish I could find full-time (or even part-time) long term employment doing such. The dogsitting/housesitting business was fun, too. I liked very much being my own boss. There were very few complaints from my clients.

Though if I could, I’d do podcasting for a living. I neglected to mention the live radio show I had for about 8 months. That was quite enjoyable. I was still living with the ex at the time, though, and had to contend with him barging into the room while I was live, to yell at me about yet another offense I’d done, such as not having all the canned good labels facing the same way and such.

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Best Job is a post from: zannim.com