The post standing between me and writing anymore.

This post is probably going to end up being whiny and depressing, but it’s chock full of crud I need to expunge before I can continue writing, so bear with me. Or skip it, whatever.

First, I’m currently unemployed. I actually have been since March. The post about working 13 shifts in 12 days? Yeah, that had some bad effects. Like the fact that I was taking medication that made me irrational and uninhibited when my sleep cycle got disrupted. Yeah, that went over real well. 

I’d rather not dwell on the whole thing. In short it started as something in which I was in the right, but I handled it badly and things got out of hand. And I no longer work at a job that I was really, intensely starting to hate. 

Nevertheless, hate the job or no, this is the second time I’ve been fired for what boils down to one reason: the medication I was taking. Yes, I said “was.” I have spent the last 2 months weaning myself off the stuff. It helped me in a lot of ways for a long time, but it also had a lot of bad effects, and the bad effects have been interfering with my life. For those wondering, the medication I was taking was Elavil, and Iwas taking it for anxiety and depression. 

Which has made the last two months a fun, fun time, let me tell you. I’m just glad that I was able to actually take the time to do this without having to worry about dealing with working. Because, oh, yeah, I bought myself some time. I cashed out my retirement fund. 

Oh yeah, I’ve lost my mind. I’ve cashed out my retirement fund and gone off my meds. Yep, I’m gone. Outta here. Bang.

Because, of course, my retirement fund was in such BETTER hands before, I tell you what. I’m not even going to get started on the futility of ranting about being required to invest in a system I don’t believe in and then watching that system crumble before my eyes because the sorts of people running it don’t have the brains God gave a hamster, because, as I mentioned, I’m off my meds and so I’m really trying to avoid the whole spirally-toxic-bad-mood-causing thinking these days. Hang on.

OK, I don’t know about you, but I feel better now.

Joking aside, I actually do. Yesterday was the first time in months that I woke up feeling GOOD. Like I’m GETTING somewhere. I even went out and did some clothes shopping, not because I like spending money indiscriminately when I’m unemployed, but because I’m going to start hitting the job market next week and desperately need something professional to wear. Desperately. Today’s task is to go get the ink cartridge for my printer refilled. 

And I haven’t been completely idle on my time off. I opened an Etsy store, that was fun. It’ll be even more fun if I sell anything. I actually have further plans to start a jewelry blog and engage in some social networking interactions that way, but those plans are being put on hold until I actually get some money coming in. In the meantime, I’ve been making lots of new pieces. It’s been helping me stay sane.

I’m in tears

I just woke up, had a cup of coffee, and read in the news that Vermont has, again, legalized gay marriage. I’m so proud of my chosen home state I could just burst right now. 

I don’t have any more words. But that’s OK, because the Burlington Free Press has some nice ones.

Pass along: Why Women Lie

Passing along a fascinating podcast: 

Susan Shapiro Barash on her book “Why Women Lie.”

Speaking as someone who blogs under an assumed name in order to feel she can tell the truth about her life, I found this revealing, to say the least. I’ll admit it, I’m a champion liar. Until I’m not. And yes, like many of the women talked about in the interview, I feel like I’ve been pushed into situations where I have to lie to protect myself.  And, like many of the women in the interview, I’ve arranged my life to accommodate my need to lie about things (how else can you explain over a decade in hospitality?)

For me, the biggest trap is lying about needing help. And I get fucked up about it. If my mind had its way, the list of things I would rather do before admitting that I needed help would include lying, stealing, cheating, running away and permanently severing personal relationships. (Please note, murder’s not on the list mostly because of my inherent laziness, not because  I actually have enough moral fiber to draw the line there.)

This is another stage that feminism has to go through. We have to admit our faults, and we have to deal with them. Honestly, though, my initial reaction on hearing this interview was, “You mean it’s not just me?” Give it a listen.

13

It’s Friday the 13th. 

But that’s not the 13 I’m talking about.

Because honestly, Friday the 13th doesn’t really do much for me. No, because I’m JUST THAT FRIKKEN WEIRD, I have problems with Thursday the 12th. Don’t try to parse it out. And it’s not a third shift thing, ’cause it started back in elementary school.

No, the 13 I’m talking about today is the 13 shifts I have to work in 12 days. Two of them doubles. And the killer is, my job is doing me a favor and I’m grateful for it.

I don’t know how many of you have noticed, but there’s apparently a sudden shortage of rich people in the country. Weird how that happened. Not that I personally miss them, mind you, but I do make a bit of a career out of being, as Londo on Babylon 5 put it, a remora. So far the lack of rich people has lead to a 3% pay cut and the loss of a shift per week. The shift is the really dangerous thing, because that should technically dump me into part-time status, and I would then loose my newly regained health insurance. Which, since I’m over 30 and own a uterus, would be really, really bad.

So yeah, so there’s been a lot of goofy and ill-considered flailing attempts at controlling costs, a lack of logic and basic math skills at a fundamental level that stuns me when I forget what I’m doing and actually think about it, but hey, HOTEL, you know?

So I’m basically writing off the end of March at this point. I’ll try to poke in and be sociable, but things are just ARGH around here right now.  So while I’m gone, go read The Lies of Locke Lamora. Or The Blade Itself. Or possibly The Gone Away World. And reflect on the sudden upsurge in masculist fantasy fiction, and what it’s contributing to the dialogue between the many genders. Or just enjoy them.

Apparently unclear on the concept…

Yes, I’m talking about me. Yes, I keep forgetting to blog. It’s not my fault this time! It’s THE INTERNET’s fault!

So, we finally got ourselves some SCREAMIN’ DSL at the house. (Side note, now I can test out new themes. None of them seem any better than this one, so this is it for now.) So, there’ve been all these spiffy games and videos to check out on the computer, that sitting here typing out my own therapy just seemed a little… boring. You understand, I’m sure.

But time for a public service announcement:

America, I’m here to let you know, that when you drink too much, you are not funny. You are not fun. You are not interesting. You are not engaging company. And depending on the severity, you are quite possibly not deserving of the oxygen you are wasting.

You are, in point of fact, disgusting.

I understand if you want to have a few drinks, relax, mellow out, laugh at stuff that people with an IQ over 12 roll their eyes at. If you do this occasionally, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s best if you do it at home, away from other people who maybe want to have conversations with people who aren’t intent on killing their own braincells, but I understand that there are, against my advice, places where groups of people can gather and kill their braincells together in public.

What I don’t understand is why Americans feel the need to kill a bunch of their braincells, and then leave the place where braincell killing is appropriate, and wander around pretending that other people are now, in some fashion, responsible for their well-being. If you are currently stupid, and your stupidity is your own fault, and your stupidity causes you to be rude and annoying, and you happen to be standing in front of me, I do not, in point of fact, have any responsibility for you. You do not, in point of fact, deserve my attention. If you are a patron of the establishment I work for, you have the right to expect a high level of service. This does not mean that I am actually acting in loco parentis, nor does it mean I am paid enough to deal with you when you are in the middle of an alcoholic black out. It does, however, mean I might give you bad directions, senseless orders, and intentionally garbled phone numbers. Over and over again. Keep it in mind.

But again, going with the stated theme of being unclear on the concept, and again, talking about myself, knowing how I feel about people who drink and then foist themselves on an indifferent public, I choose to work third shift in a hotel located in a college town. Sometimes I really have to wonder about me.

Yeah, so this was one of those weeks.

Also, guys, close your ears, wouldn’t want you to hear something shocking, but I’m having my period, and quite frankly, I was feeling grouchy even before the gut wrenching cramps kicked in. Like the man says, “What’s he BUILDING in there?”

See? Embedded video! I’m tellin’ ya, I got the SCREAMIN’ in the DSL over here.

Stranger she may be…

But when I came home after a complete shit of a night, she burbled at me until I picked her up, and then purred and head-butted me until I felt better (read: less sorry for myself).

Pixie, Marmel, this is why she gets the extra Yum-Yums. I’m just sayin’.

Whole Bunches of Stuff

Well, the cats are in hiding, the neighbors are awake, the vacuum has done the vacuumy equilvalent of passing a kidney stone, but the bi-annual *cough* Yule tree* is down. It’s later than I usually like to take it down, but then I’ve always been kind of an “OK, that’s done, what’s next?” kind of person.

I’m tinkering with databases this year. I got my feet wet making up a small one to help with picking movies for the boyfriend and I to watch. With money tight and all, most of our entertainment is coming out of the public library, which has an exceptional selection. It’s really one of the blessings of living in this area. The problem there is that their excellent selection is spread out across all the libraries in the local system. So I find it much easier to figure out what I want to watch (usually using Amazon) first, and then order it online at the library, to pick up at my convenience.

 Well, the boyfriend doesn’t like this method. The boyfriend likes to browse, to look at the pictures on the covers, and to read the blurbs. Sadly, browsing like that at the library doesn’t work that well, since most libraries still seem to find the whole multi-media lending thing a bit shameful, so tend not to display videos as effectively as your average video rental store.** As a result, we’ve been watching a lot of movies that, well, I picked out, with varying degrees of success. (I’m not saying that “valkyrie movies” should be a separate genre, but I’m not saying I’d be against the idea if IMDb wanted to go for it.***)

So, after several arguments revolving around these central themes, I set out to create a database of the movies I’m interested in seeing (there’s a BUNCH), that would give him the information he likes to look at when browsing. The result wasn’t half bad. So now I’m poking around with the vast pile of books I’ve rated on Amazon, trying to work out a reasonable way to set up an organized database of books I like. Because it sounds like fun. Oh, yeah, I AM the geek. I’m not really sure what I’m going to end up with. Honestly, what I really want is for the folks at Fantastic Fiction to start using multiple genre classifications & allow ratings like IMDb does. And then allow you to put together your own personal list of movies you like. Again, with the geeking, I know. But I need a project. And this feels like a good way to springboard myself into book blogging more.

And speaking of projects, I do have some finished jewelry. I’ve been in a mood for multiple strand choker length necklaces. I’ve actually got three more in a similar vein, but pics are going to have to wait until I can locate the boyfriend’s tripod. I’ve been working on the photography as well as the beading. Some experiments just really don’t need to be inflicted on the unwary.

Detail of same:

This one’s my breakout from the aforementioned choker period, and I think it’s, quite frankly, one of the best pieces I’ve done.

And earrings to go with:

And a picture of Stranger. Because she IS the cute.

Oh, and I have to remember to  start charting the phases of the moon again. Because the full moon this weekend caught me COMPLETELY by surprise. I met some truly unpleasant people over the past couple of days. Fortunately, Sunday night was, as usual, a nice remedy for Saturday. 

The winner for the weekend, and I use the term UNBELIEVABLY loosely, was the young lady, let’s call her Lucy, trying to get into the room that she and her friend, who we’ll call Annette, were sharing. Unfortunately, the room was in Annette’s name, and Annette hadn’t let us know that it was OK to give Lucy a key.****

Now, ordinarily, this isn’t that much of a problem. There are things that we can do to “work around” this sort of issue. However, my willingness to work around a security issue has a direct relationship to the guest’s behavior. Case in point: Lucy.

First, Lucy was very drunk. Very very. I think she was actually trying to talk to the night auditor standing just to my right,  who looked EXACTLY like me. Lucy asked me for a key to room 505. I told Lucy I, and my twin, would be glad to make her a key, I just needed to check her ID. Lucy explained, to the best of her ability, that the room was in Annette’s name. I asked her if she knew where Annette was. She told me Annette was still “at the bar” (not the hotel bar, which was closed) and that she had, in point of fact, left Annette at the bar because Annette was, not to put too fine a point on it, a complete bitch, and Lucy absolutely hated her.

I would like to point out that this relates directly to my earlier statement about behavior affecting attitudes toward security. In point of fact, loudly, publicly badmouthing a person is really not the way to convince the nice people working at the desk that it’s OK, just this once, to overlook the fact that their name isn’t on that person’s room record. However, hotels frown on employees actually telling people they are behaving badly, even when they are behaving badly, so in Lucy’s case I decided it best to a) use as few long words as possible and b) stick to the letter of the law. I told her that I was not able to give her a key because the front desk had not been given permission to.

Lucy did not take this well. She was apparently actually familiar with some of the work arounds, so started telling me that I should “ask her the questions.” I told her that since she had already told me that she was not Annette, and that Annette was somewhere else, I wasn’t going to be able to come up with any questions that the correct answers to which would convince me she was Annette. Finally, she drifted away.

A few minutes later, Annette stopped at the desk, because she had lost her key as well (seriously, reprogramable fingerprint locks cannot come too soon for me.) As I was talking to Annette, I checked the lobby area for signs of Lucy, but didn’t see her, so didn’t mention her to Annette. Annette went on up to her room. For the record, she didn’t seem terribly bitchy to me, but then I don’t know her the way Lucy does.

A few minutes after Annette left the desk, Lucy drifted back, and in even worse shape than before. This time she told me that she needed the key to 1404. I told her that that wasn’t possible, since the hotel only has 7 floors. She nodded wisely, and told me that I must be right, she’d gotten confused. Her room was 1505!

At this point I called security to come to the desk. I tried to get an actual room number out of Lucy, but she was convinced she was staying on the 15th floor of a hotel with 7 stories. Then I tried to get her to give me the name of the guest she was staying with.

Understand, I wasn’t simply fucking with her at this point, truly. Yes, I was fairly certain that she wanted Annette’s room, but 2:30 in the morning is a rude time to wake someone up at on an assumption alone. Especially for the sake of another someone who has been speaking about the first someone in less than loving terms.

Lucy got impatient with me trying to get her to come up with either the right room number or Annette’s actual name without prompting. She informed me that this was all stupid, all she had done was leave the room to go to the bathroom, and I should just give her the key to 1505 right NOW!

I hoped, I desperately hoped that that last statement was simply Lucy using another “work around,” badly. Because she certainly was in a state to have left a guest room, in which a bathroom is located, in order to  relieve herself in a hallway. Again, I asked her for the name of the friend she was staying with. Finally, finally, she got Annette’s name right.

I suggested we call Annette’s room, and ask Annette if it was OK for her to come up to the room. Lucy felt this was a bad idea, but I stuck to my guns, and made the call. Annette answered, and said it was fine. Fortunately, security had shown up by this time, so I was able to hand Lucy off to them, as I don’t think her navigational skills were truly at their best. At least, I certainly hope they weren’t.

*I say Yule tree because, well, I’m not a Christian, so having a Christmas tree is, well, awkward. But I’ve always liked the story about how Christmas trees came from an old pre-Christian tradition of finding the biggest tree you could haul, bringing it home and burning it on the longest night of the year, with the hope that it would burn through the whole night. If it did, you got good luck for the year. If it didn’t, you’d get eaten by a bear and your buddies would sing really embarrassing songs about it every time they got drunk. Or something like that. And it’s bi-annual because I somehow seem to acquire a new cat every other year, and so when the cat is new, we forgo the tree since, well, cat, tree, brain-damage, you get the picture.

**Yes, I am fully aware that there are serious SPACE issues at work here as well. However, I’ve SEEN the look on some of the older librarians faces when they see how many videos I borrow at a time.

***Simply put, a valkyrie movie has at least five genres, hopefully including at least one of the speculative genres, and at least a 7.0 rating on IMDb. The boyfriend’s catch-all description of “Freakin’ Wackadoo” movies does not, in point of fact, completely encompass my definition of “good” in movies.

****Please note, if you are staying in a hotel with another person, it is a good idea to LET THE FRONT DESK KNOW who is allowed to have keys to the room. The industry standard for hotel keys is now the electronic “credit card” style keys. I cannot begin to list the number of reasons why I think this is an idiotic move, but the worst problem with them is that they can be demagnetized so very easily.  If you put the keys near either your cellphone, or your credit cards, they will lose their charge. This means that if you put them anywhere where it is convenient for you to keep them and remember where they are, they will become useless. And that’s a SAFETY feature. Now, because hotels are always looking to streamline the check-in procedure, and because hotels don’t like guests to feel like the front desk is interrogating them at check-in, and because hotels don’t want to actually come out and say, “You can get as many keys as you like right now, but eventually you’ll have to come back and get them remade if you so much as think too hard near them,” the front desk isn’t going to ask you a lot of questions about who’s going to be in your room. So it is a good idea for you, as a guest, to let the front desk know who is allowed to have keys to your room.

Today

…is a good day.

I work myself up sometimes, I really do. I know I’m crotchety. I’m impatient with people. My sense of humor is warped, and a lot of people JUST DON’T GET ME. It’s not that I’m misunderstood, it’s that I’m a bitch. OK, so I’m also misunderstood.

So, I get on myself about it. I analyze EVERY DAMN THING I say to people. I’m constantly double guessing, trying to figure out how people are taking me.

This is one of the reasons I spend so much time alone. And it’s why I do better with critters than with people. It’s part of the reason why I start a blog and then NEVER POST ANY DAMN THING in it.

But see, last night, when I came in to work, one of the new deskclerks was working. And she told me she was glad I was coming in, because she had a question about how to do something, and she knew that I would, A) be able to help her figure out how to do it, and B) not make her feel bad for not knowing how to do it.

And since my job is, essentially, figuring out what the desk clerks have screwed up or don’t know how to do, and helping them do those things correctly in the future, that made me feel pretty damn good. All my hard work is paying off. I’m starting to make my place here.

So yeah, it’s a good day.

Not quite a reminder

…because I’m sure we all know to vote tomorrow. More a discussion on why.

It is important to vote. I want you to go out and vote. I want you to grab your neighbors and make them go vote.

I want you to do this even if you happen to be interested in voting differently than me. I mean this. It’s important anyway.

I know it’s popular to view elections as contests, and to perceive the results as producing both a winner and a loser, and to a degree this is an accurate assessment. But, because we are Americans, we of course take it beyond that point and further, casting the respective political parties as teams and concluding that because one team has “won,” the other team has “lost,” and will go home crying.

This is not, in point of fact, the case. Not even a little bit. Last week, I worked with the troglodyte who manages the security force at my hotel, and he annoyed me by stating that he didn’t know who Isaac Asimov was, that whoever he was he couldn’t be a very good writer because of the vast quantities that he wrote, and that the stuff he wrote about was unimportant because science has no impact on “real life.” Tomorrow, I will go vote for my candidate, and he will vote for his candidate (I’m fairly secure in my supposition that these are two different people.) Soon after that, one of these will be declared the “winner.” And soon after that, we will both go to work together again.

“Winning” isn’t really the point. Voicing our opinions is the point. We have the ability, the right, and the responsibility to voice our opinions in this country. Sometimes there’s enough consensus to make things go your way. Sometimes there isn’t. But the point of the exercise is to show our leaders, how many people are on each side.

Because those people on the other side of you aren’t going to go away on Wednesday. They really aren’t. You’ll still have to learn to live with them. And it’s a good idea for you to understand just how many of them there really are out there.

(edited to add: Yes, this Americentric post is specifically directed at the Americentric Americans. ‘Cause we’re like that. Sorry if it makes you Canknuckleheads feel slighted to have an American refer to the American election without calling attention to the Americaness of the election in the first paragraph. I love you all anyway. And it’s not like the point of the post can’t be translated into Canknuckle-talk. Just add eh at the end of the sentences.)

Just so you know…

I didn’t really start this whole blogging thing back up with the intention of dropping it again. This has just been a rough couple of weeks. I’ve started training on the “accounting assistant” part of my job which is a) during the daytime, b) a confusing mix of things I know by heart and things I’ve never actually had to deal with before and c) being conducted by an Egyptian who mumbles in a Russian accent. I swear to you. It’s fun, but I’ve been spending way too much time either at work or completely exhausted.

Also, least reassuring sentence ever uttered to me while training:

“Come on, you have to get this, so I can quit without feeling guilty.”

Granted, this did come up after he had mentioned how much he would like to work at one of the local accounting firms, and I had joked about not minding taking his job. But, like, six MONTHS from now, you know? Yeesh. ‘Cause we all KNOW how well I deal with, like PRESSURE.

But I’m feeling victorious, even right now, when I’m mostly feeling tired. I’m dealing with the sleep schedule flopping just fine. I’m handling night audit during the hotel’s busiest season without a hitch. I’m mostly getting the new stuff, and the stuff that’s floating past me I’m mashing into my head by rote. (It’s crude, but with math it works until you get the chance to work your mind around all the angles. It’s one of the beauties of math.) I’m dealing with stress without nicotene, and mostly not missing it. Mostly. I’m recognising the insane thoughts as being “insane thoughts,” even when I’m not quite in a state to remember why they’re insane. I’m coping. I’m succeeding.

But enough bragging. It’s Tuesday, and thus a cat picture is in order. Or at least as much of a picture as a five foot tall woman can take of a cat atop a six foot high wardrobe. Say “hi” to Marmel guys. She is the cuteness.