Monthly Archives: January 2009

When you are already unsettled it really doesn’t take a whole lot to push you over the edge into completely unnerved. Of course it sometimes doesn’t take much to unnerve me in the first place but… I digress. I was having one of those days where I wasn’t in the most stable of happy place… my power animal was not guiding me into my cave and it certainly wasn’t telling me to glide. Might I just add an aside here… (thank you) I do not glide, ever. In fact it has been pointed out that if my life depended on it I could not sneak out and this is disturbing. I try to be light on my feet but no. It is not in me to glide about all fleet footed. I am envious of those models that look as though they are just getting from point a to point b without leaving the slightest footprint, whereas I walk steadily, heavily, not always sure footedly and I cannot… glide. pisser. But again, I digress. It started out kinda like a normal day, except the temperature had dropped about 20 degrees (I don’t recall giving permission for this). My schedule was a bit off, plans near the office after work, so I worked later. Ahhh. Plans. To plan. I am a planner. to a degree. I am not that girl that wants to know what I’m having for dinner each day for the next two weeks and has my shopping list arranged according to isle of the grocery store (don’t kid yourself.. I know these people and thus cannot be one of their kind). But I like to know if something is going to disrupt my already out of whack, nutty life. So know I have plans that are near my office, shortly after I am off work is good. It means I can just stay a bit later and save myself walking alone to and fro. in the dark. alone. Well, I did end up walking alone and not having the plans I thought I did. And being that I was already unsettled this didn’t sit well with me. See this, on top of the homeless-living-out-of-my-car-for-the-most-part thing, plus not really getting any good sleep, due to plumber and other assorted interruptions, over the weekend and a little sadness still from losing friends all added up to a big pile of well……. girl!!!! and frustrated, sadness. (tears, yes… I hate that my frickin tear ducts are connected somewhere I can’t unconnect and have no damn control over… I will find it someday and make a remote!!!)

So I actually did a good thing, I went to the gym. This is good right? You go take out your frustrations by exercising. Something like that. It started like that and I was feeling better. I was “running” on the crazy, suspended-in-mid-air no-impact gazelle looking contraption actually hurting my lungs with my new bluetooth headphones on (thank you very much bro) feeling like I might be killing some cells (hopefully the connecting ones) when some older dude kinda slowed down as he walked to the weight equipment to check out my legs. Okay, not so unusual… I was wearing short pants and have the better part of the left leg covered in crazy tattoo. (oh you thought I was thinkin I was hot… tsk!) whatever. I stopped and stretched and told myself I was not going to die and my lungs were not going to explode. (how the hell do people run??? really??? that fucking sucks. even without the jarring bone crunching impact of my feet striking the ground… my lungs felt like they were going to seriously explode) Then I got to my new favorite thing the rowwing maching. I love it! I am 10 minutes in when mr staring man is back, staring… again. This time waiting… waiting… looking at me trying to get me to pay attention to him. Okay now people… Did I mention the headphones? (thank you very much bro) Yes I did. These are not earbuds stuck in my canal. No, they are full size over the ear, could cover my head and people can totally hear what I am listening to (thank you very much bro ;-). You’d think this would indicate I am bsy, concentrating on the task at hand (5000 meters). Uh no. Apparently not. He’s mouthing something I don’t hear due to said loud music (Tool & Rise Against that day). It turned out to be

“can I ask you a question”?
“Sure”.
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh….
“um, did that hurt”?

Are you kidding?!? I was interrupted for this?? Why does everyone insist on asking if it hurt?!? Jeezis! Someone is taking a tube of needles soldiered together and poking them repeatedly into your skin, while moving across said skin and depositing ink at the same time… in essence, cutting open the top layers of derma and depositing the ink underneath. hhhhhmmmm what do you think kids? of course it fucking hurts. To some degree or another it hurts. Maybe not as bad here as another place, and sometimes not at all, but overall… yes it fucking hurts. I’m sure I summarized all this in a 2 second look. So I replied…

“if it didn’t it wouldn’t have been any fun, and I wouldn’t have gotten it”.

Then I replaced my headphones and thought about what I was going to do next to rid myself of the frustration that reformed… damnit.

It got better. I slept on it and talked it out with amazing man. But unsettled is bad. Those damn ducts are still connected. Thankfully, however, I am getting daily closer to settled. I will move in to my own pad soon and my car will no longer be my closet… which is good because my heel slook better on me.

There is really nothing to complain about. Work is good. No one sucks and no one has their panties in a bunch (totally). My boss is chill and the horror stories I heard I have yet to see (which doesn’t mean they don’t exist, I just haven’t seen them) I really have nothing to say yet. Well, except maybe just one thing… if my last name was nutter, I’d totally change it. I’m just sayin. That’s just bad. so, so bad. (hard to keep a straight face – you laughed too… admit it!)

Sitting here in a chair in the upper room of the man’s place (not the man, but the man) I’m in my head about many things.

*The fact that we’ve had a new Prez for less than a week and already I’m feeling like there is a better chance that our future won’t be a flaming bag of shit than I did before he took office. I am not convinced that he will undo all that has been done by the amazing retard that has been sitting in his chair playing decider for the last eight years, but I do at least feel a sense of hope I haven’t had. I know that so many are pinning their hope that Obama will be the messiah, but reality is, it’s gonna take more than one man, more than one or two terms to undo all that dubya did. (see my podcast killed the radio star if you need to have a list of reasons, or have had your head burried up your ass) Our economy is in the shitter… not just on a national, but all the way down to the home level (makes sense doesn’t it?) yet we continue to bury our heads in the sand about reality. None of us are really safe from job loss. But do we save? No, we buy and play the it won’t be me game. It will be you. It will suck, because as awesome as I may think he’s gonna be, it always has to get a little worse before it gets better. Miricle boy or not, Obama can’t charge in on his white horse and sweep away the mess the decider has left behind. It is going to take digging and some hip waders.

**In a complete departure from politics is my old familiar feeling of loss. I’ve been on this wave of goodness and not looking to see if it was gonna crash onto the shore anytime soon. In fact I’ve just been drinking from the glass of friendship, enjoying the woodland friends… or so I thought. My car encyclopedia and his bride have been (okay, not a woodland name, but whatever, I mix metaphors… get me a t-shirt) constant. He’s been true to his word about keeping me and not giving a shit that the hare is an idiot, even when I am not coming to him (them). Friendship is give and take, right? okay, it’s supposed to be. You go places and see things and do stuff. You call each other, return calls, check in and care about each other’s level of comfort in situations. People, I mean friends… I can’t go to the meadow anymore. I do not belong in the fucking meadow. (not comfortable) On occasion, my woodland friends must make the effort to join me in my world of not so meadow-like environment. Jump in my little cable car (it’s the only free taxi you’ll ever be offered) and enjoy the ride. This, however is not the reality. Reality is I am not convenient. I no longer stroll into the meadow, bearing gifts and goodies, providing shuttle service to and fro… I should be hurt and angry but instead I’m sad. I feel like all the things I’ve had to admit just keep compounding and to have the goodness, I am still having to give up more. I am not giving up the encyclopedia. I put my foot down. And I’m keeping the wife too. I may some day need to know about a ’63 Porsche sitting in a garage in a town near by. And without him I will not have answers… or musings about worlds ending, beer and bi-ped-mechanized-traveling devices. (The seasonal ale is still anxiously awaited). Enough wallowing. I’m choppin down the mighty oak and leaving the 100 acre wood. Time for shop class to start.

*** I am still finding more cool shit on the internet. I have been laughing and after that last little rant and stuff, I should let you too.

www.toothpastefordinner.com

there are a couple more but my connection is running slow right now. Maybe this geek-land thing is not as cool as I thought. You would think it would mean everything is fast and cool, but really it means they always have something taking up all the speed of your connection when all you wanted to do was write a little and post a little video or two…next time. there are good things to see in cyberland (oh and some reallly bad stuff too!! :)

I think I’ve had my frickin head buried in the potato field. I’d heard of The Onion newspaper. I had a graphics department once (back in long ago, far away land) and one of the guys loved it and shared. However, it wasn’t until I entered geek-ville or maybe it’s just the land of the politically aware and technically savvy (with more than just cars) that I had my opened to the world of ONN. Yes friends I have become a fan of not just this but all sorts of things like RSS feeds and Reddit and blogs of all sorts. I have also stepped away from spyspace (still haven’t deleted it) and have dropped off the face of facebook quite noticeably. While checkin outvideos on the newly favored ONN I was shown what is a favorite of ’09 already… Okay there are a few more but I have to start out slowly or my brain will explode.

Attractive Girls Union Refuses To Enter Into Talks With Mike Greenman

I’m sure you can see why this could be my favorite. It has everything; shameless normal human bashing, over-stereotyping and a blond trying not to be blond… but still coming across as blond (a’ la Paris). And of course my very favorite part of all… the”uggs over jeans” group. Need I even say more??? I think not. Onion News Network… get it, love it, watch it and then share it with your friends. You know I will. Probably already did (Check your inbox).

Actually visit the blog page… I updated the header and might even change my picture (maybe). There are important things to be learned on a blog’s main page. At least once. Then you can return to the comfort of getting it via home delivery.

Someone pass the ketchup or is that katsup? I don’t know. Either way I’m terribly behind on the writing front. So much so that I have no idea where to start or how to make it cohesive. Maybe snippits are the way to go. I’m not sure. We’ll roll the dice and see what we get, a rant, a rave, a laugh, a cry maybe, who knows.

It’s a new year and that time where people make all these resolutions to do things differently and end up still doing the same stuff anyway. Example… Why must I see Oprah on CNN for a half an hour whining about how she’s back up to 200+ pounds when… funny she has lost this weight how many times before?? you know how. Get off your ass and do the work. I don’t stay at the weight I’m at by eating Doritos and sitting on the couch watching afternoon talk shows. Funny, I do the work, no resolution required. Okay, maybe this sounds a bit harsh, but there I was at the gym, sweating it out on the elliptical then rowing machine while seeing her on CNN with the headline “Oprah Struggles With Weight Gain” – really??. I don’t have a full time chef or trainer (or full time surgeon on retainer that puts the little band on, who’s to say), I just get up and go. Maybe I go a bit to hard on the celebs, but jeezis… give me a break. They’re in your face and you can’t escape them. But, this little blog is not about celebs is it.

This is about the new year, new starts, new things to rant about (hopefully, because frankly the uggs are grating on me), new places and new peeps. It’s about me (focus jeff-fa-fa). Last year wasn’t the hardest year I’ve faced but it was up there. Let me learn ya something (picked that up from a movie this weekend, bonus if you know which one)… That old saying that the grass is always greener is a truckbed full of shit- er manure. In the beginning I was stressed and in the vortex of grump everyday, but the grass was not greener in the land of quiet, peopleless, boredom. I will take doped-up, drunk people, phone ringin off the hook, paperwork up the ass, crotchety old timers who “didn’t do it”, grumpy-ass coworker and crazy people who want their license yesterday- over three phone calls a week, staple pulling then collating, psycho people with invisibugs, fake shiny-happy politically correct until you want to scream obscene and offensive things, bored off my ass any day. It took a couple months to realize what was happening but when the realization hit… it hit hard. The spiral downward was a ride I was unprepared for. So the other stuff wasn’t handled with my usual sense of humor and look-at-the-big-picture approach. It took the better part of the year to learn that sometimes the grass in your comfy little pasture isn’t grass at all. It’s more like a field of thistle or milk weed (maybe I did get something out my time with the farm geeks :). The relationship you worked so hard to keep wasn’t yours in the first place. In order to keep yourself, to be able to feel the sun, you had to let it go. Way, way easier to say… but it can be done. And you can keep all your favorite woodland friends while removing the weedy parts- no heavy herbicides are necessary. Sometimes you even get lucky enough to find there is still some grass hiding out. You can still enjoy a walk without your shoes now and again (but wear some flip-flops). I know, I can get all crazy with the metaphors. I’ve gotten more than one “is that about me?” phone call. The reality is that the names get changed and the not so innocent get buried in the mire or is that roasted on the pyre? For all intents and purposes I write for my sanity. I just happen to let you peek in. That can be painful when I realize the one that hurt me will read it on purpose to see what I said.

I lost much this past year, maybe not physically, but mentally the toll was palpable. In the end I gained far more. I lost a position at a job I loved, at a place I believed in. It was stressful and at times I hated the stress. More than once (or twice) I got frustrated with grumpy, old, set in their ways, government employees with “not my job” mentality. I took the first thing offered and that’s not always the best idea. I was bored out of my gourd and well… you know. The lessons were big and hard earned. Boredom is far more taxing on the spirit than stress. I moved in and out of the psycho landlady’s house in the span of 25 days. I’m not even gonna attempt to give a reader’s digest condensed version of this… read all of April 08. But make sure to align your chi and fung your shui first. I wouldn’t want you to hurt anything. Realizing that a relationship you put so much time and effort into is going to fail, is all the things you read about and hear about on tv. It’s heart breaking and gut-wrenching. But I was lucky. I lost a lover and though it took some time to sort out, gained a friend. This doesn’t happen often, almost never. I still have moments of doubt but they are moments. Moments are fleeting. In the end all was not lost, letting go meant being open to something old being new. Sharing a relationship with someone who knew my lifetime of roller-coaster rides holding the hand of someone who wasn’t holding my heart. He’s holding my heart. Applying the salve to so many layers of wounds and scars. So here I am, with a new job- throwing up numbers at rapid fire speeds, a new place- no shui or fung required and entertaining a necessity, new peeps- extraordinary man, amazing friends (well, they aren’t so much new as a reminder that all should be treated as such) and a new attitude. Okay the attitude isn’t so much new as it is changing toward the better. And so it begins…