MFA Mama

today BROUGHT IT!

*   I may have a freelance gig doing something I am only marginally qualified to do for someone terrifyingly rich and important at PseudoCorp. When they asked me to meet with them I thought it was regarding PseudoCorp business, but instead they want my help with a personal project that is kind of neat but OH MY GOD DID I MENTION HOW BIG AND IMPORTANT AND RICH AND TERRIFYING THEY ARE? YES? WELL THIS IS ME DOING IT AGAIN BECAUSE GAHHHHH!

*   Okay. Deep breaths. I'm actually more qualified than I thought to do this, in fact it may be something I could start doing as a consultant on the regular if I can get over the overwhelming urge to puke on The Client's shoes and run screaming and waving my hands in the air, heedless to the enormity of my pit-stains (what, you don't sweat profusely when you're nervous? LUCKY YOU). I just...well. I have kind of a complex when it comes to rich people stemming back to my childhood when the only rich people I knew were banging The Narcissist and lavishing her with gifts, which I think my dad kind of accepted as his penance for transgressions of his own in prior marriages, but the whole thing kind of cheesed me off because it tended to throw fuel on the fires of her "I was meant for better than this" complex, with "this" meaning "me." WHOA. AWKWARD. I don't talk about The Narcissist on here (or anywhere else) much for a reason. ANYWAY. Rich people. TERRIFYING. Shit.

*   I have a strict "no turning down work" policy, however. I will put on my big girl panties and Do Lunch with the rich people next week and see where it leads. If I do a good job this might be a foot in the doorway to Better Things. So: YAY!

*   Then I came home and TORE UP the garden, and didn't even find and have to kill any venomous snakes in the process, so, you know, that was good.

*   And then...well. The boys had dinner visitation with their father tonight and I won't stoop ALL the way to juvenile lockerroom bragging, but...a bar has been raised in this house, and that's all I will say.

*   Hotter is feeling much better, obviously. 

*   I am starting to feel less panicky about Big Child's pending birthday. I Have A Plan. He has an Innernet Fairy Godmother who stepped in and is helping me out with the whole Red Robin thing (which is fabulous, because he will be thrilled but also because with his Asperger's if you do something ONCE you have set a PRECEDENT and if you don't do it again the next time the world will fly off its axis and crash into the sun and we will all DIIIIIIIIE...okay, not really. It's not QUITE that bad. But no matter how carefully I tried to explain it he would most likely internalize it as "Red Robin is where one goes for birthdays and we are not going this year because I HAVE DONE SOMETHING TERRIBLY WRONG" and start washing his hands raw again and making us repeat everything we say until we hit the magic number of repetitions, so: yeah), and the only thing Big Child has mentioned really wanting lately (my kids don't ask for much...they know we're poor and don't ask unless they're really, REALLY jonesing for something special) is a Hunger Games t-shirt that one of his friends has that he is convinced is ONLY sold at the very mall where the local Red Robin is located. So if I tell Big Child we have to wait until a non-schoolnight then I will have gotten paid and will be able to get him the t-shirt while we're there for dinner next Friday night. It'll kill me a little bit to buy it in person without a coupon or any cash back from eBates, but it'll make him happy so I will deal :)

*   And now I am off to bed...how are all of YOU?

good day

   I don't want to blow my own horn, y'all, but...actually screw that YEAH I DO!

   Today's work-meeting thingy went as well (from my standpoint) as it possibly could have. I had to "sell" a group of people on the importance of proper document formatting in relation to end-user absorption of written technical material, which is a nit-picky thing that not everyone can appreciate, and to make this extra-hard I was addressing a group of people who are about as far removed from the language arts discipline as you can get. I came up with an analogy, though, that I think helped it "click" for them (it also helped that I was addressing a group of super-smart people; I don't mean to sound superior by implying it was a challenge to convey the information--I'd be equally unlikely to intuitively grasp concepts from their area of expertise) and saw real excitement over the concepts whose importance I was trying to call to everyone's attention in a couple of faces. It was really neat to see that, and also means good things for my work-project, so I'm feeling pretty satisfied about the whole thing. That's kind of a new experience for me, taking pride in my professional performance in a capacity relating to my years and years of higher education (I always take pride in my work, whether it's constructing a well-made sandwich, watering an acre of seedlings, or being the fastest female worker on the job-site with a ratchet tool--it's just EXTRA-neat to feel like my studies contributed to my success in a work environment...teaching, while something I was qualified to do and sometimes did very well, isn't exactly what I studied so that wasn't quite the same).

   Today, despite my catching my stiletto-heel in an elevator-door gap and torquing my bad ankle unpleasantly, was a good day. My stockings even stayed in one piece!

   And how are all of YOU?

the one where I'm not dead or anything

   I don't know why I'm so blog-blocked. I say this tongue-in-cheek, but IS Mercury in retrograde or some such? It certainly feels that way. Nothing major has happened (no news from Medicare/Social Security on the "extra help" yet; glad I took the "one week" guideline with an entire mineral-enriched salt lick...), it's just the tragicomical death-by-a-thousand-cuts of life. Since that post I've had my weekend at Weekend Warrior Job canceled due to the company filing for bankruptcy (!!!--allegedly this "will not affect operations and was a strategic choice to help with debt restructuring" but...yeah), picked up a shift through Temp Agency #2 for a holiday party that I worked last night, and developed a new shoulder pain that's truly sickening. I've never felt anything like it; if it was on the left I'd swear I was having a heart attack but it's not. It's not the same "feels like I just had a flu shot" ache I had before, it's not exascerbated or relieved by any movement or poking, it doesn't feel musculoskeletal and isn't the searing burn of nerve pain, it's just...well, as I said, it's sickening. If one could feel nausea in one's shoulder I'd call it that. It's weird, and extremely unpleasant, but naproxen seems to help it so there's that.

   Let's see, what else?

   I decided to read the Twilight saga and see what's so special about it. I'm deeply unimpressed so far with the quality of the writing, but pressing on in hopes that it'll captivate me at some point and I won't have to deal with the fury of someone who I feel is inferior to me at the craft being a bazillionaire. I'm going to walk to the store shortly (the MFA Minivan is running, yes, and even passed inspection, but I'd rather save the pricey fossil fuel and get the exercise). Money sucks. My diet is going swimmingly and I've lost seven pounds (I'm even putting up a BMI ticker at the lower right sidebar in solidarity with May). Salt scrub is still for sale until midnight if you want any (I'm making it tonight and mailing it out tomorrow). I didn't get to run yesterday, which may be why I'm so blahhh.

   I'm not taking a blog break or anything, I just don't have much to say right now. 

today was one of those days

   Where everything is a comedy of errors, and you can either laugh or cry.

   Where you forget your debit card, and don't pack your lunch, and go for a run on your lunchbreak with a couple of Two Degrees bars from Klout in your hoodie pocket, and come back to find your building evacuating.

   Where you make conversation with high-powered executives awash in a sea of underboob-sweat in a grungy sweatshirt, your nice sweater and cool beverage and (for all intents and purposes) self-esteem in a bag under your desk inside, waiting for the firefighters to give the all-clear.

   Possibly even where you find yourself in the surreal position of directing a uniformed crew to remove the excrement of waterfowl tracked back into the building by the throng of employees who cut across the lawn (because riverfront locations have their price, in lots of ways).

   Because tonight is a Festive Occasion.

   The kind of day where you need to get home on-time to pick up your family, but realize you've locked your keys in your vehicle.

   Again.

   Where you win the respect and suspicion of one of the maintenance guys by standing by as he gallantly attempts to jimmy the lock on your vehicle for you (instead of just handing you the coat hanger you'd asked for), and then taking the hanger and his switchblade from him and showing him how it's done, and are only fifteen minutes late.

   And maybe it all culminates in you, and your family, disembarking from a newly-restored trolley, chartered by the company to take everyone around viewing the holiday lights, with your second husband complaining that the lighting ceremony wasn't all that and the oldest kid perseverating on the meaning of every word out of the tourguide's mouth at the top of his lungs, and all of you running into a guy you had a crush on as an undergrad. And you look up at him and say "John Smith? Seriously?" and he goes "Never. Never seriously," and you introduce yourself, but he already remembers, and you realize that you'd been right when you concluded a couple of years too late that he'd fancied you back, and is as sincere as you are insincere in saying "you look great."

   Your self of fifteen years ago will swell up with pride. Your family won't give a shit.

   Your minor triumph of time-travel notwithstanding, the seven-year-old will have an epic kicking, screaming, over-sugared tantrum on the way back to the parking deck. Halfway home you'll resolve to never take anyone anywhere EVER AGAIN, and mean it. You'll alternately pity yourself, laugh into your sleeve, and marvel at the series of near-misses, and dead ends, and stumbles that got you behind the wheel of a minivan, fer fuck's sake, and it'll all be that much more tragic, and therefore that much funnier. Later, over pizza, your husband will explain to the ten-year-old that all humor is based in human suffering.

   At the end of the day you won't care as much about the boob-sweat.

better

   I think all the exercise is really helping me feel better. Endorphins rock.

   Also I ran out of Vitamin D3 oil caps for a little bit there. I swear my mood declines when I'm not taking that stuff! But I've been back on it for three days now. I started taking Fish Oil supplements again too; the omegas are supposed to naturally improve your mental health or something, and while I have no way of knowing how much (or little) that's helping (since I'm also doing a ton of other things to try and feel better, including exercising for forty minutes of my lunch hour, outside in the afternoon sunshine weather permitting), SOMEthing is definitely working.

   Which? YAY. I even survived today, wherein nothing truly traumatic happened but I LEFT THE PRECIOUS AT HOME AND DIDN'T HAVE HER ALL DAY. As I said to k via g-chat, forget sad I was SUICIDE-WATCH PANDA, OMG CALL THE WAHHHMBULANCE FOR MY FIRST-WORLD EMERGENCY!!1!eleven!

   Other than leaving The Precious at home, the worst thing that happened today was that I was really cold. They keep it a cozy fifty-five degrees or so in the ginormous high-ceilinged lobby at work; Management has announced that they're not paying the heating cost to make it comfortable since it's only one or two receptionists plus a security guard who spend the day there, and I guess it's plenty warm in their offices. Whatever PseudoCorp, I'll just freeze my ass off in my fingerless gloves for typing purposes. I'm totally getting one of these. I sent k the link and she was like "THAT RIGHT THERE IS SOME SPACE-AGE SHIT!" and then pointed out that between that and the fingerless gloves I will soon resemble a fancy space hobo at work, and then I said I wanted to start a grunge band and name it that.

   FANCY SPACE HOBO, Y'ALL.

Video One: They're no Fancy Space Hobo, but these guys are alright.

the one with the concert

*   Work today...oy. The One Who Dislikes Me is really getting to me. She almost makes me miss Scarface. Nothing dramatic happened at PseudoCorp or anything, but the humorlessness is really getting to me. 

*   I did, however, find out that I'm not alone in being put off by The One Who Dislikes Me's unfriendliness. A security guard slunk up to the desk while she was at lunch and asked me if it was weird working with her. "She like, has no personality," they whispered, "or if she does it's not a very nice one!" I said I'd thought that maybe she just didn't like me or something. "No, she just...my first day working with her? I was trying to make conversation? So I asked if she wanted to see a cute picture of my [loved one] and when I showed it to her she said 'eh, s/he's not THAT cute,' and then she told me she doesn't like talking to people and she's said maybe three words to me since then!" WHO DOES THAT?

*   After work I had to stop at the feed store and Goodwill (the same two and a half outfits were getting VERY TIRED) and the pharmacy and the bank, and then I got home and barely had time to eat a sammich before Hotter and I needed to leave for the concert. But it's all good. The concert was really cool. Meeting the band was a neat experience (although they were very huggy; I was not expecting huggy) and the music was excellent. I'm glad we went.

*   That said, I think Hotter and I are officially Too Old For This Shit. My knee is huge despite my pre-gaming with a double-dose of naproxen, I'm going to be a walking zombie tomorrow at work, and we left before the show was over because we were both getting tired and Hotter was worried about being able to get out in the crowd with his vision (I don't talk about it a ton but he's pretty blind; I almost lost him at one point tonight before I grabbed his hand and refused to let go even if he DOES hate holding hands in public).

*   How are all of YOU?

oh, the suspense!

   I was happy not to get a call yesterday; it bugged me and bugged me and shortly after publishing that post where I mentioned it I just ovaried up and called the head dude over at the Temp Agency #1 office, because he's cool. Unfortunately, he didn't know anything about half the temps being cut and was just as upset as I was. He promised to call me when he knew something and then I finally fell asleep and he didn't call and I went to work and nobody appeared to have been fired, even the most useless of the mouthbreathers on the site. Which, to be quite honest, we are talking blue-collar labor at a Soulless Corporate Megalith store in a very rural area of the American South; if someone manages to truly stand out in their incompetence and overall mediocrity then it's not even a question of whether management knows they suck at life. Management will be the first to tell you if you are looking for said mouthbreathers that they are "probably walking in circles around the store, if they're not in the bathroom."

   Last night at work the on-site representative of the boss-man at Temp Agency #1 (who is also working as a temp, as are his spouse and adult-ish child) clarified that the boss-man hadn't gotten this list in time to call everyone, so there was a mass reprieve. TOMORROW, he now says (by which I mean today, but I haven't slept yet, so), the axe will fall (although he did add that I shouldn't worry, I was a good worker and didn't walk laps around the store or play with the automatic sinks in the bathroom). And now I can't sleep, but I don't want to be that freak who pesters the boss-man at Temp Agency #1, so mehhh.

   Probably I have nothing to worry about, but this company being what it is I'm a little worried I'll get cut for being a woman.

   Hopefully the manager who openly admires my arse will have some say in the decision?*

 

*   Yes, it IS a minor miracle that I haven't at some point shrieked "I HAVE A MASTER'S DEGREE AND ALMOST WENT FOR A DOCTORATE IN WOMEN'S STUDIES, YOU ASSHOLE" and gone after him with the business end of a claw-hammer. *facepalm*

not quite dead yet!

*   On Wednesday night I told my boss at Soulless Corporate Megalith that I might not be in on Thursday and when he asked why I was honest with him and said I wasn't sure if I could get gas money sorted. He said well that is ridiculous, and loaned me $20 until payday so that I could come in. People are so nice sometimes!

*   Thursday was my Hell Day when I worked a lunch banquet at Enormous Downtown Venue through Temp Agency #2 and also had Soulless Corporate Megalith that night. I survived, and also? GOOD FOOD, OMG. It's kind of funny; when you work banquet service you're usually poor as hell and subsisting on ramen and then you go to work and eat like this:

Figure One: Banquet in the break room! SO good!

*   Friday I slept all day. Like seriously, I got home from Soulless Corporate Megalith around 10:00 a.m., crashed, got up at 5:30 p.m., had dinner with my family, passed back out at 7 p.m., woke up for a few minutes around midnight when Hotter came to bed, and then went BACK to sleep until my alarm went off at six this morning. It felt like a total effing waste of my day off. Today was the first time in a long time that I wasn't dead on my feet though, so that was good.

*   Today I put in ten hours at Weekend Warrior Job, where they changed my name:

Figure Two: This? Is not my name. "We couldn't find yours," management informed me, "but it's not like anyone cares what your name is anyway!" Thanks, boss! If you're wondering why they had my nametag, it's because we're not allowed to bring them home. We're not allowed to take uniform shirts off the premises either, so you have to show up, change into a hopefully-not-too-smelly-because-they-aren't-laundered-daily uniform shirt, work, and then take off your sweaty shirt and give it to management, who may or may not give it The Sniff Test right in front of you to decide whether some other poor sap has to wear the thing the next day. Um...yeah. If I had this job any more often I'd probably be irate, but honestly I find it kind of hilarious, because what else can you do with THAT?

*   I got home, ate ham and bean soup with the family, and...you guessed it. Passed out. And woke up an hour ago; the entire house is sleeping and since I have Soulless Corporate Megalith again tomorrow night (tonight, technically, as it's after midnight) I'm not sure if I should try and stay up so I can sleep during the day and be freshly rested or go back to sleep or what (yes, I could TOTALLY go back to sleep). 

*   My back is...not good. As in, I wake up first thing in the morning and have a little bit of trouble even walking while the NSAIDs kick in. No, I'm NOT supposed to take NSAIDs because of the bleeding thingy I have, and currently I'm afraid to so much as pluck a stray eyebrow hair or I'll bleed like a stuck pig, but it's "take NSAIDs, be able to walk and work, and be cautious around sharp objects" or "don't take the NSAIDs, not be able to walk or work, starve AND be in horrible pain while doing so" so I have therefore made the conscious decision to disregard medical advice on the matter. If worst comes to worst, every time I've had my H&H checked since recovering from my hysterectomy it's been stellar, a little on the HIGH side even, and so therefore I'm pretty confident that I can withstand a major bleed if I'm injured or something without it necessitating a transfusion.

*   And um...yeah. On THAT cheerful note I think I'll sign off. How are all of YOU?

 

P.S. The eggs did not hatch. Again. DAMN it. So next year we're definitely getting a bantam to be our broody hen.

 

weekend brain-dump

*   If I ever say anything about working sixteen hours straight in hospitality again, someone please gently remind me that there will be an awards banquet and that will be seventeen-and-a-half hours straight if you're lucky and management remembers you came in early, and then if I say "but...teh AWESOME MONIES?!" go upside the back of my head (open-handed, I'm a bleeder)? Thank you in advance.

*   I work with a really fun group of people at job #1. I <3 them.

*   Decorating for weddings is EXHAUSTING.

*   We got a very cheap incubator and put some of Paul and Baldy's eggs in it (we're continuing to collect them until we've got half a dozen).

*   One of the events I worked this weekend had vendors giving out plastic toy hardhats, and the MFA Children are having a lot of fun with those. Love it!

*   Hotter and Paul had...an altercation. Hotter didn't herd the chickens into their coop (the hens will put themSELVES to bed) because he was busy with the boys, then after the boys were in bed went out to shut the door, but in counting lumps on the roost found that we were missing a rooster. Then he heard a weird cluck above his head and Paul was in a tree! Hotter was able to reach him and thought he'd gently put him in the coop but halfway through the procedure Paul apparently had second thoughts about the whole thing. Hotter describes it was "a vicious attack!" It didn't break the skin, so I am factoring his personal bias into my mental reconstruction of events. Whatever may have happened between them, both of them are peevish and extra-vocal this morning.

*   I find it grimly amusing that I have broken nearly thirty bones in my life (including my back), and nothing really REALLY hurts except the stupid ankle I sprained last year. So. Effing. Lame.

*   I am off today and just have Freelance-y Gig tomorrow: WHOO!

*   I am cooking at Local Teaching Hospital on Tuesday: BOO!

*   How are all of YOU? I've gotten some awesome comments lately and have some new blogs to check out this weekend...right after I take a nap. 

it's a...

...question mark. In Hotter's belly. Here's what our day was like:

* 8:00 a.m. get up, MFA Mama too achy to move right away but can't take anything until Synthroid kicks in because NSAIDs require food and Synthroid requires an empty stomach, Hotter furiously resentful.

* 8:39 a.m. Hotter wakes MFA Mama again to deal with Durable Medical Equipment issue (totally reasonable).

* 8:44 a.m. MFA Children out the door. Hotter bemoans his unshowered state given that MFA Mama is to drop him at Local Teaching Hospital (on the way to her 10:30 appointment at God's Tree) for a day of appointments and testing. MFA Mama suggests five-minute shower, and stresses that she literally means five minutes.

* 9:56 a.m. Hotter steps out of the shower.

* 10:01 a.m. Hotter attempts to pick a vicious fight wherein he compares going to have one's abdomen palpated without a shower to going to the "vagina doctor" without same. MFA Mama declines to discuss OBGYN + no shower vs. vigorous belly-rub with "adequate" shower, citing that Hotter's reasoning is inherently fallacious (faulty analogy). Hotter insists on an answer to the question of whether MFA Mama would go for a pelvic exam unshowered and proceeds to perseverate.

10:06 MFA Mama turns the radio on, begins car-singing with FEELING.

10:15 Hotter turns the radio off. MFA Mama continues acapella.

10:16 Hotter informs MFA Mama that she is an asshole, turns radio back on.

10:26 MFA Mama drops Hotter at Local Teaching Hospital, nobody says goodbye.

10:36 MFA Mama arrives at God's Tree, uponwhich the client has an emergency and calls from inside the building to ask to reschedule.

10:45 MFA Mama goes and moans on the shoulder of Hippie Food Coop-lady about the state of the universe, horrifies innocent Mennonite boys by saying the word "vagina."

11:45-12:45 p.m. MFA Mama back at God's Tree.

1:15 MFA Mama back to Hippie Food Coop while Hotter is in Radiology for a CT-scan.

3:10 Hotter out of CT.

3:45 Frantic text to neighbor results in impromptu playdate for the MFA Children

4:30 Home.

   Also, while we are still awaiting CT results and bloodtests, Transplant does not believe that any of the current hernias are the cause of Hotter's woes given his symptoms and now feels that his malaise is Infectious Disease-related. While the virus they are thinking is to blame is Certainly Very Manageable, Certain Very Manageable viruses I do not want to make Google-able can have sinister implications in transplant recipients, and we are all really hoping that this isn't that. Fuck.

   How are all of YOU?