And people who think their shat don't stink and look upon you with disdain even though they really just fear weakness. My weakness is my pain which, despite my greatest efforts, sometimes shows. Her weakness is fear of showing weakness.
And drivers that speed up so that you can't merge even though your lane is ending and you have no choice but to stop or hit them while attempting to move over. Next time, asshat, recognize my blinker and the traffic pattern or I will hit you. I have road rage 30 seconds prior to sitting behind the wheel and I don't care if I ruin the paint job on your BMW. You know who you are.
And the "What do you want for dinner?" "I don't know. What do you want?" conversation every evening. Seriously, if I don't answer with a craving right away, I don't care what we eat, just that we do. (I think it's time to make a hat with dinner options to pull out of game.)
And the "She saved him right back ..." last line of Pretty Woman. It almost ruins the whole movie for me. Almost.
And Jack Black.
I think I've vented enough. Thank you for tolerating my complete bi-polar change of mood from yesterday. I will try better tomorrow.
8:04 p.m. - 2011-10-26
I�m not usually an overly optimistic person. I�m closer to a realist except I spend entirely too much time thinking about karma, so I�m not sure how that affects my stereotype. You tell me.
Anyway, I woke up in a decent mood, and after a month out of work due to health issues, I was feeling ready to get back and join humanity � if you want to use that word to describe my cubicle.
Last night, I was feeling some serious trepidation. My job is fast-paced, stressful, and a seriously heavy workload. I�ve been dreading my return. Our projects, once assigned, belong to us alone. So if someone goes on vacation for two weeks, they come back to two weeks� worth of work (emails, phone calls � everything) and it takes about twice as long to catch up. (Ha ha � we never catch up in our department). Anyway, a month out is worthy of an emotional break-down. I didn�t know what to expect, but I woke determined to be positive in attitude. No matter what. Determined!
To my surprise, I found that many of my projects had been worked and a lot of lingering problems I was dealing with had been completed. When reviewing with my supervisor, I�m sure the shock on my face was palpable. This is unheard of in our department. We are the epitome of lean. I seriously owe my team in a big way. I haven�t been this caught up since my second day on the job over 6 years ago.
Unfortunately, no matter how determined my attitude, the day was definitely working against me every step of the way. But screw that crap! I found the positive in (almost) everything �
*Hot water heater needed �resetting� = cold shower. (Positive twist: I don�t know about the smell factor, but my hair, even with bedhead, looked phenomenal! AND that never happens with my curls. Never.)
*Ran over two nails as I was pulling into parking garage at work. (Positive twist: I was quickly reminded that I have compassionate and generous coworkers. One offered assistance immediately and fixed me up before I had to leave early for physical therapy.)
*Daughter used my debit card this morning and forgot to give it back to me + no cash on hand = no money for breakfast or lunch. (Positive twist: Daughter used my card to fill my gas tank because I was tired and in pain.)
*I received the crappiest quarterly review ever. (Positive twist: I didn�t cry this time. Yes, really. I was MORTIFIED after my last review. This time I smiled like the lunatic I am and agreed that my performance has been slipping lately. Mostly agreed anyway.)
*Physical therapist said my torn rotator cuff is worse, not better. I�m now in a sling and I was advised that working at my computer for eight hours a day AND coming home to write for a couple of hours a night cannot happen for a while. Maybe a long while. (Positive twist: I don�t actually have one for this. Really, there is nothing good about taking my writing away from me when I�ve just again started. I�m on a roll with my new book idea, some personal essays, and I�ve started here again. I�ve not written more than a chapter here on one thing and a chapter there on another, wash, rinse, repeat, for the last six years. Screw that. I can�t stop now that I�ve just started again.)
*Spent 45 minutes waiting on prescriptions to be filled with sling in one hand and daughter lecturing me about why she should be able to dye her hair. (Positive twist: Spent 45 uninterrupted minutes talking with my daughter. Even if she was attempting to torture me.)
*Forgot it was my night to cook dinner which basically ruined my heavy-handed insistence that I should take over cooking at least twice a week. (Positive twist: He laughed at me and not in the condescending �I know you�d forget� way that I normally would�ve expected. It was a nice moment. And he went to the store to pick up the dinner I was cooking.)
*Had to repeatedly request that songs on daughter�s playlist be skipped due to severe annoyance that I was quite certain was going to lead to an aneurism. (Positive twist: Skipping resulted in Adele. She does seem to have some taste even if that �taste� comes from liking an artist due to extreme popularity right now.)
So I�m ending my day as I started it: Determined to find the positive. Tomorrow, I�ll go back to my usual pissy self.
9:56 p.m. - 2011-10-25
Hi there! Just me. Another blogger. Journal keeper. As long I'm writing, and I can't hear you, I don't care how you label me. Well, for now ... cuz we just met. I reserve the right to care later.
The first entries are the hardest, aren't they? The words say a lot about the person, but the person just wants to get through it already so that they can say something more in the second entry.
Personally, I hate introductions. At my best, I've been told I'm "socially awkward", and I'm pretty certain they were trying to be kind. So coming up with something witty to say to every person I meet, especially in large groups, is extremely taxing. Hell, finding something even slightly interesting to talk about just about kills me. Years and years of my career have made it easier for me to do banal small talk, but let's face it; I'm being paid to endure it.
Since we are not meeting face-to-face (thankfully, and with no insult intended), I will just give you some random (but mostly unidentifiable) facts about moi:
1. I have an odd name. Not odd as in people are always trying to figure out my name later. "Was it Fontana or Fantinia? Stripper you think?" No, lucky me, no one EVER forgets my name. I have people I went to preschool with approaching me out of nowhere. I spent most of my life resenting my mother for the name, but in the past few years I've come to understand that it fits me. I've even come to realize that I like it.
2. Another thing that I've spent most of my life resenting is my stupid curly hair. Like my name, I've come to understand it suits the person I am. Once I embraced it, my life became a lot less complicated. Yes, just like that.
3. Unfortunately, the curls don't help with the recognition problem. I spend too much of my life avoiding eye contact and turning corners as fast as I can. Why? Because I can't remember names to save my life. Were we best friends in the first grade? Well, then I apologize ahead of time. How bad is it, you ask? Well, I have my daughter and boyfriend both trained to introduce themselves if I don't immediately do it upon being approached by someone new. They give their name and stick out their hands with a laugh and joke about how rude I am. In turn, the unknown subject laughs like they remember that about me and then give their name in return. Then my brain processes quickly and I go AHA! They've saved me more times than I can count.
4. I mentioned them above, but I have a teenage daughter and a boyfriend of almost 7 years. She is the best thing to ever happen to me and allows me to believe that I've done well so far as a parent. We are still early in the teenage years though so we'll see just how well my parenting skills do turn out. My boyfriend of 7 years will become my bf of eternal # of years unless the worst happens. That, of course, has double meaning. Unless ... we don't make it as a couple or, even worse, we get married. We have our fair share of problems, but we feel confident and comfortable with our agreement that our relationship shall forever remain unmarried. We've both been there already and neither of us cared for it much and for more reasons than our exes didn't work out for us.
Side Note: I will soon have better fake names for my daughter and my boyfriend for the sole reason that I can't stand to call him my boyfriend over and over. We are entirely too old to be doing the boyfriend/girlfriend bullshit, BUT it doesn't bother me so much that we'll marry. Yes, Mom. I wrote that for you just in case I decide to let you know how to find me.
5. We also have two dogs that are as much of our family as we are. (No, I don't mean that I dress them - people that do that should know that it's kinda creepy - or baby them and allow them to eat at the dinner table with us. They don't help us pay the bills and we don't ask them to give their input in important decision making matters. What I mean is that I would most likely put us in a shithole of broked-ness to save one of them should anything happen. We love them. They love us a thousand times more than we are worth.) Vic is a ten yr. old Jack Russell. He's mellowed out with age, but our other dog keeps him young and horny. Mads is our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. She does believe she is the princess that her breed name suggests. She sometimes acts a little too human-ish. And, at times, she thinks she's a cat. She's really odd and so, of course, she's mine. Or I'm her human. However you want to look at it. We chose each other.
6. Full disclosure: I've written here before under the name Make-It-Stop. I stopped while going through a very complicated and draining divorce. Writing about it might've made the transition easier for me because it was quite hell-ish, but writing about it meant he could and would have read my personal thoughts. While that might have been fun if I wanted it to be, I just couldn't add to the fire. I only wanted to get through it and be done. I have no excuse for not picking it back up after except that I was finally living. It's been forever, but I'm back now.
That seems to be enough about me for now. I'm hoping my introduction is enough that I can slide into my second entry with a lot more ease and much less unnecessary defensiveness.
It's nice to meet you ... and you ... and you. (I anticipate this time to go much the same as the last with three loyal readers. With any luck anyway.)
7:19 p.m. - 2011-10-24
Recent entries:
I hate having my arm stuck in a sling ... - 2011-10-26
Positively Crap Day - 2011-10-25
Introductions Are In Order - First Time Entry (Again) - 2011-10-24
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