Tag Archives: work

are you SERIOUS

July 25, 2012 By in Me Tags: , , , , , 19 Comments

So, it’s just one of those days I guess. Or weeks. Or years. Like, you finally think things are looking up. You pay off all your credit card debt, you get a new company car, your job doesn’t suck . . . sure, your entire department was eliminated from that website you used to write for, so there’s a couple extra hundred bucks a paycheck you don’t have anymore. But hey! You don’t have credit card payments anymore, and sure you don’t actually own a car, but obvious plus side! You don’t have to make car payments on a car you don’t own!  Like I said, things are looking up. And yeah, not having a roommate anymore is going to be a little more expensive, but remember the plus side? No car payments! No credit card debt!

And then, AND THEN.

Okay, I’m being dramatic, but seriously, SERIOUSLY. The universe is being a complete asshole to me this week. First I had to have this thing carved off my leg and biopsied (it’s probably nothing . . . probably) and now I have stitches in my leg and it hurts a lot and I’m being a huge baby about it. So I’ve got this new financial situation going on that I haven’t quite figured out, and I’m moving this weekend, and I’m gravely wounded . . . and then today happened. Again, it’s not that bad so don’t freak out or anything, but it FEELS that bad. Maybe that makes me an asshole, because so many people in this country and not in this country have it so much worse off than I do, and if so, THEN I AM AN ASSHOLE. But I actually felt like writing this out, which meant I felt like writing*, which meant I actually had something to say, which would be an improvement over the last month and a half of my life. So I’m going with it.

*Not feeling like writing is a side effect of something that has happened to me, but I’m not entirely sure which thing that was.

So I was all excited because I was picking up the keys to my new apartment today, but when I actually got there, the situation, as they say, deteriorated.** Due to a lot of boring but anxiety-causing details that I’m not going to go into, I basically have to double pay August’s rent on my new apartment, which was something I very much wanted to avoid. On top of that, once I got into the actual apartment, it smelled like smoke, and the configuration of the bathroom means that I am either going to have to put the litter-box on my bathroom counter, or in an extra closet in my bedroom. Either option is not going to be pleasant. So I was distracted, and aggravated, and I forgot to take a gate key with me on my way out. There was a large rock propping up the gate, and I went out of my way to kick the rock and close the gate. Approximately one second after I committed these actions, I realized that I was now effectively locked out of my apartment. That last part is my favorite part of this story, by the way.

**I may or may not have picked this phrase up into my vocabulary due to re-watching five seasons of Stargate SG-1*** in less than a week and a half. I never said I made good decisions all the time.

***Remember what I said above about not feeling like writing? What I meant was that I don’t feel like writing anything that isn’t Stargate SG-1 fanfiction, which is all my brain wants to do now. I say to that: Brain, you do what makes you happy, but the consequence of this is that I spent eight hours last Saturday writing something that I will show nobody and that will not help me further my writing career IN THE SLIGHTEST.

This is the state of mind I was in when I backed my two week old car into a pole and it went CRUNCH.

Now, I acknowledge this was 99% my fault, but I would also like to lodge a complaint with the universe and whatever fuckwit decided it was a good idea to put a tiny little pole in my blind spot. I mean, who puts a pole near the passenger side back door? It should be in the middle or up front so people can see it. This is how things would be in a logical universe. And did I mention before about how it’s not even technically my car? And about how my boss’s face went white when I told him what happened, and how I honest to God thought he was going to have a stress-induced aneurysm while standing in front of me because I, his idiot employee, sideswiped her brand new car INTO A MOTHERFUCKING POLE? DID I MENTION THAT PART YET.

To sum up: 1) I have stitches in my leg and it’s going to escalate and I’m probably going to die tomorrow from who knows what, maybe some flesh eating bacteria or gangrene; 2) I am moving this week, which means dishing out lots of money, and packing; 3) I HAVE TO PACK UP ALL MY THINGS AND MOVE THEM AND THEN UNPACK THEM AGAIN; 4) I am locked out of my new apartment; 5) Smoke and litter box in the closet; 6) I smashed up my two week old car that isn’t even mine and now I have to pay even more things and I hate everybody.

It’s like that wise philosopher Rachel Karen Green once said of life, the universe, whatever: ”I mean, isn’t that just kick-you-in-the-crotch spit on your neck fantastic?”

Yes, Rachel, YES IT IS.

He showed me the whole of time and space. I thought it would never end.

November 11, 2011 By in blogging, Me Tags: , , , , , , , , , 27 Comments

Posting to this blog has been spotty, at best, as you may have noticed. I used to talk with most of you every day on GReader or Twitter, but now that GReader is dead, and Google+ is incredibly not fun (it feels less culty?), I’m feeling the need to post actual content on this here blog of mine. I feel like I’ve lived an entire lifetime in the six months since I essentially abandoned the internet.

For example, some stuff that has happened to me since last May:

  • Graduated from college for the second time, this time with a Master’s degree in English Literature or something. This is apparently a big deal, but I have yet to write about the lengthy and ridiculous process of my exams, which several of you have been requesting since March. Sorry about that, and I’ll get to it eventually? Hopefully? Meanwhile, even the thought of reliving that experience in any form makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out. EYE JELLY.
  • Got a job working for an insurance agency as a receptionist. Somehow this evolved into getting licensed to sell insurance, something that I never asked for, and which ended up causing me even more stress. I’ve been in school for 80% of my life (80%!!), and I liked it – and you know what? Not being in school SUCKS.
  • Hated my new job more than I’ve ever hated anything, and it basically ruined my life for five months. By the end, I was having trouble sleeping and eating, and every morning before work I’d be so nauseous I’d think I was going to barf. (You know it’s bad when I can’t eat.) I had two nervous breakdowns. I’m not going to go into details, mostly because I feel like it would be inappropriate, but also because I’ve put the whole situation behind me and don’t really want to think about it anymore.
  • Was fired from that job in the middle of October. Again, not going into it any further than to say: it sucked (both the job, and being fired).
  • A mix-up in the way my credits were handled almost meant that I didn’t officially get my degree. My very smart way of handling this situation was to ignore my school email-account for three months, like it was going to go away on its own, and when I finally worked up the nuts to read it, I panicked so hardcore. Luckily, things worked out, no thanks to me, IDIOT.
  • Lost all the weight I put on in grad school (ten pounds), because of stress, and because I was subsisting pretty much on iced tea, beans, and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.
  • Got another job working for the same company but for a different agent, and it’s been like night and day. I don’t see myself at this job long-term, but it’s a nice enough way to spend the day, and most importantly, the working environment is incredibly pleasant (as opposed to the toxic work environment I’d been in for five months previously).
  • My roommate of five years left me to move in with her boyfriend. This was incredibly traumatic. I miss you, Strawberry :(
  • Moved into a new apartment with a friend from Barnes & Noble. Moving expenses gutted my bank account.
  • I was homeless for a period of three days.
  • Moving expenses, among other changes, helped me to dig myself into an impressively deep financial hole that I am only now finding my way out of.
  • I literally borrowed money from everyone I’ve ever met.
  • Defaulted on one of my credit cards in early September. This made me feel awful, but I couldn’t afford to pay it. I’ve been dodging calls from creditors ever since. One day, I will have NO MORE DEBT. ONE DAY!
  • It hasn’t been all bad. I was offered a writing position with Film.com in September, and it’s kind of a dream come true. I feel like I should write more about this later, but I’ve been writing about TV for four years now, just for shits and giggles, and now I’m getting PAID to do it. Not to be obnoxious or anything, but it’s totally awesome.
  • My cats broke my DVD player. (Don’t ask.)
  • On a related note, I finally bought a Blu-Ray Player! (But then I had to return it.)
  • I watched the entire revived Doctor Who, and it was so good, you guys. It was like the only good thing in my life for like months and months. BTW, I still owe you a post about Doctors Ten & Eleven. (Here’s my post about Nine, just in case you missed it.)
  • All of this, the leaving of the safe bosom of mother education, the having to work all day every day, the constant paying of the bills, even the cool new gig . . . it has all lead me to one conclusion. I have no freaking idea what I want to do with the rest of my life.
  • None of the previous bullet points are hyperbole, and you guys know how much I like using hyperbole. Why am I not dead right now?

To sum all of this up: QUARTER LIFE CRISIS. IT IS HERE. I WILL NOW PROCEED TO TYPE THIS IN ROBOT VOICE. BECAUSE I CAN.

this actually happened

June 11, 2010 By in Me Tags: , , 4 Comments

Sometimes things happen in real life in the strangest ways. These are the kind of things that you tell stories about when you’re out having a beer with friends, the kind of things that make you laugh so hard that you spray that beer over everyone’s faces.

See there’s this guy. He’s a regular customer in the Barnes & Noble that I work for. His name is Brooke, and he’s polite, friendly, and a little dim. He’s also missing an arm. I’m not exactly sure what happened to it. As far as I know, no one has gotten up the courage to ask him, although I could be wrong about that. He lives in a halfway house near the store and comes in at least once a day for a tall coffee, never forgetting to loudly call out “OKAY BYE THANK YOU” on his way out the door. He also gets a kick out of telling all the women when they “look very nice today.”

There’s also a girl, another regular. She doesn’t speak very much and mostly comes in with her father, who is also quite laconic, but not unpleasant. Think Oz, but with longish gray hair. She is always accompanied by someone, at least, because she can’t drive. She uses crutches. I’m not really sure what kind of medical condition she has. That’s not really something you ask someone when they’re buying coffee and cookies. She also has a particularly strong case of B.O. which normally I hold against people, but honestly, how much of an asshole would I be for making fun of a girl who uses crutches? A big one, that’s what.

Okay, so now you have context, allow me to set the scene. The girl with the crutches, whose name I don’t know, comes up to the counter alone. Normally she doesn’t do this. She orders a cookie and begins fiddling in her pockets and purse for money. It’s pretty clear that she’s determined to do so without help. Meanwhile, Brooke is standing behind her, eyes kind of glazy. When he notices her crutches he kind of starts standing on his tippy toes to see what’s going on, and then decides to approach her. He sidles up kinda nonchalant beside her, asking her in his dippy-polite, slow way, “Do you need some help?” It’s clear that he’s very concerned for her. She tells him no, and then goes about her business, tortuously extracting bill after bill, coin after coin, all whilst balancing on her crutches. But he keeps staring at her intently. There is a pause before he speaks again, quite a long pause, but just short enough so that everything is still fresh. And yes, here it comes. The solidarity that he feels for her cannot be ignored.

“I only have one arm,” he says, and leaves it at that.

Now, I wasn’t lucky enough to be there, mind you. I had to hear this story second hand (which I now third-handedly give to you). But that didn’t stop me from laughing for five minutes straight when I heard it, that great kind of laughter that you can’t control and which makes you look like a raving psychopath. I mean, I just love that story. You know? It was just like this moment, where this poor, one-armed guy was just making a statement, like some sort of peace offering: we are the same.

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