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Thursday, 19 November 2009

Currently
The Resistance
By Muse
see related
a rant...

i'm kind of a negative, anti-social person.

sometimes i hate stupid people. sometimes i hate "smart" people. sometimes i hate all people.

sometimes, i just hate certain people.

so here's the story about how i became extremely pissed yesterday. it began when i started working at this job. i used to sit across from this lady called susan. susan is an okay person, in general. she's usually nice, cheerful, friendly, etc. this is kind of necessary for her job.

susan is very talkative. when i sat across from susan, i had to listen to 989 conversations a day that she had with her friend, her sister, her mother, her husband, her mother-in-law, her other sister, her kids, you name it. if she worked 8 hours, i think she spent 6 hours on the phone. i don't know if she worked while she talked, but she talked a lot.

and because susan has many friends, people would come over and chat with her on a fairly regular basis. sometimes for a minute or two, sometimes for ten minutes or so. i had to overhear (unwillingly) some 8 trillion conversations. this is one of the top reasons i bought an ipod. the other reason was to keep myself awake when i was doing something boring.

so yesterday i stopped to talk to margaret, who sits next to susan. we got kind of involved in our discussion, so i suppose i was talking to her for five or ten minutes. to be honest, i'm not sure how long it was. i usually stop to say hello to margaret at least once a day, and we talk for a few minutes, and then we go back to work. on thursdays, margaret and i go to yoga together in the evening after work, so we've become friends and we get along fairly well.

anyway, i went back to work, and after that matt came back from his lunch and said that he wanted to go over some things with me, because we (the department) had finished some projects and were going to start some new projects and he was probably going to need my help with some of them. so we went into the empty office that used to be peter's and we discussed the projects and came up with a Plan of Action. at the end of it he mentioned that he had received a couple of complaints about me spending too much time talking to people in the next aisle (where susan and margaret sit). he said not to take it seriously because he didn't think that i wasn't doing my job, but that i should be aware of it. he's kind of uber-sensitive about things like this, because, as a department, we tend to get blamed for a lot of stuff that's not our fault. and we kind of get yelled at for every little thing. so he said be careful and i said okay.

when we got back to our desks, susan was chatting with nancy. matt said something to me about the pot calling the kettle black and relating to the person talking to nancy. i saw it was susan and boy did my blood boil. she's always complaining about how she can't get her work done and she has so much to do and her boss is always yelling and she's always on the phone so that's why. and she's always talking to people, i know because i used to sit near her. so what right does she have to complain about me to my boss?

a few months ago, when i was in the process of moving from my old seat near susan to my new seat near matt, denise (who has since left the office) came in early. horace (who had the seat next to the one that became mine) was busy packing up his desk so he could move. dee, who sat next to him, asked him what was going on and where he was moving to and who was moving to his place. they didn't know denise was there, because she was on the other side of the wall. but denise heard dee say, when horace told her that i was moving over there, "oh god, can we put a muzzle on her? she never shuts up."

this is another case of hypocrisy. dee spends nearly as much time on the phone as susan (though most of her phone time is for work). she also spends at least a half hour to an hour every day talking to nancy or suzanne or someone else nearby about something that's completely unrelated to work. shortly after denise told me this, dee came down the aisle to talk to susan about something having to do with work. they got onto some other conversation or something, and dee said something friendly to me. denise came over after she had passed and said "oh, so it's okay to talk, as long as you're talking to her?"

apparently this is the same thing. i wouldn't be surprised if dee had also said something to matt, which is why he took the second complaint more seriously than the first. susan is a flaky person and matt thinks that she's an idiot, so he wouldn't be interested in her opinion anyway, but dee is slightly more respectable.

so i went to yoga tonight and beforehand margaret and i were talking about susan and dee and i told her this story and she agreed with me about susan. she said that every time susan complains that she has so much work to do she wants to say "well, maybe if you weren't on the phone so much."

it just bothers me, i said, that she would go to my boss and say something. i mean, what does she care? i don't work for her. i don't work with her. i'm sure that i'm not bothering her talking to margaret for five minutes. and she does it too. she used to annoy the crap out of me all the time when i sat there, but i wouldn't go to mitch and complain, i said.

"he knows!" margaret said. "he knows what she's like."

susan is always complaining about mitch yelling at her. i know, i said. i used to think he was mean, but now i think he is too nice. and i wouldn't be mad if it's a legitimate complaint from someone who works hard, but when it comes from someone who is a thousand times more talkative than i am, it's just stupid.

it's the blatant hypocrisy that pisses me off.

so margaret thinks it is because susan is jealous. and i don't know what i have to be jealous of. i used to get that explanation when i was a kid. other kids would tease me and my mother or some adult would say "they're just jealous" and i never understood. what are they jealous of? i am not prettier, i am not happier, i am not in a better position. susan is married with two kids. if she hasn't gotten farther with her career, well she's not farther than i am. she complains about her husband but she has one and i do not. so i don't know what she's jealous of, unless she doesn't want me to be friends with nancy. but this seems silly.

so i debated telling nancy all of this, and decided not to. she and susan are getting to be good friends, and their sons are good friends, and i don't want to put her in the middle, and i don't want to make a big deal over it. i just want to punch her in the face. today nancy asked me to go to lunch with her and her husband, who is working in the office again, and i said yes because i hadn't realized that she was inviting susan. so we all ate lunch and i made nice and i squelched my desire to be violent. and then i went back to my desk and i listened to dee and suzanne babble about the traffic and i squeezed the living crap out of my stress balls.

but i feel better for having talked to margaret. and for having ranted here. i thought, at first, oh i should look for a new job and get the hell out as soon as possible, but then i realized that it will probably be the same everywhere. no matter where you go there will be people who are like that. so i suppose i will go on being the "good" person while getting the finger pointed at me for things i haven't done by people who have done them.

Friday, 13 November 2009

Currently
Meteora
By Linkin Park
breaking the habit
see related
i'm breaking the habit tonight

so work has been extremely busy lately and such i have not been able to talk at all to that guy. you know who i'm talking about because i've only written several entries lately about him. on monday he texted me to say hi and to ask if i could come see him when i had a second because he wanted to ask me something. somehow i never actually made it downstairs. i texted him at the end of the day to say sorry and he seemed okay with it. wednesday i didn't even see him at all. he wasn't there when i came in. in fact, when i came in the next day, he and the other dude both commented that they hadn't seen me. i said i'd been there, but i hadn't been coming outside with nancy on her smoke breaks, so i hadn't seen him. somehow, the week flew by with that right there being our only conversation.

so i felt bad. today he texted me to say that he had my movie to return to me and i again never made it downstairs to get it. i felt bad, so tonight i texted to say i was sorry and i wasn't avoiding him on purpose but i'd been really busy. matt's been involved in this project, so i've been alternating between helping him do that, helping him do his usual work (which i do a lot of anyway) and doing my own stuff. i'm trying hard to give an impression of someone who is kind of dedicated and motivated. i think i've mostly succeeded at that. he mentioned in the last performance evaluation that i had a good work ethic and i'm trying to keep at that.

so today i somehow got like 15 emails (no exaggeration) from several people who would ordinary email him to ask him questions and instead were asking me. since he was in the middle of this project, he and frank hid themselves in peter's empty office with their laptops to avoid distractions and thus gave the impression that they weren't there. so i got all these emails and i also got a few stopovers from people asking other questions of me that they would ordinarily ask matt. i think i handled most of it fairly well. none of the questions were really hard, though some of them were time consuming. it sort of made me a bit nervous to think that all this responsibility is suddenly upon me, without having matt as a kind of buffer. which i'm okay with, but at the same time nervous about.

related to this, i thought how odd it's been the way that this big project (which is part one of about 17 that some executive guys want) has been getting done. i guess i need to explain here the way the department is organized. first is bob, who is the vice prez of something, and then there used to be peter but he got fired so now there's really no one there. then there's the four manager guys, which are matt, frank, horace, and other bob. and then beneath them there are four of us girls, me, nancy, vichelle, and suzanne. nancy works for frank, vichelle works for horace, and suzanne works for other bob.

i could get into a long spiel about office politics here, but i'll just sum up by saying that, during this project (and in fact, during the entirety of my employment, which is about a year and a half now), frank and matt have been the most hard working, dedicated, and motivated people. horace makes a show of it, and bob does his work, but without getting involved in the big projects. horace makes such a good show of it that until recently i thought that he was quite busy at his job. these big projects, however, keep falling on matt and frank. and, since i work for matt, i end up getting involved. for several reasons, some of which i know and some of which i don't, nancy doesn't really help frank with these projects as much as i help matt. and sometimes suzanne helps out as well, even though bob mostly stays out of it.

anyway, the point of my thought is that, even though i'm not doing the serious work on this project (i'm mostly picking up the "regular" stuff while matt does the "special" stuff, though i've been doing some of the background/prep things), i kind of know what the end result is and i have a vague idea of how they're getting through it. i have resisted asking for the serious nuts and bolts, because i don't want to be given huge parts of it that would make it hard for me to get my usual stuff done, but matt's good about explaining things to me and keeping me involved. i mentioned that to him at one point in the past, that i wanted to know what was going on, and usually he explains things, if not right away, then at least eventually. so i know what they're doing. i'm vaguely curious about what they're doing. horace doesn't seem to really care at all. i'd like to think that nancy has some of the same mindset that i do: she's interested, but doesn't want to get involved for fear of being overwhelmed and unable to do her own stuff. and at the same time, i think she's so focused on the moving part (she's been looking for a way to move to another job within the company, even though she's only been at this job for barely a year) that she's not paying much attention to what's going on in the department. that might be one of the reasons frank hasn't involved her that much.

so i was thinking that it's funny that i know more than horace does. and bob the second. which sort of thrills me and scares me at the same time. and with all the stuff i was doing today i am afraid that i'll screw up crazily and i'm getting in over my head.

and the same thing with this guy. he texted me back to say okay good i thought you didn't like me and i said no i like you i've just been so busy. good, he said, cuz i like you. and i didn't know how to answer that. i mean, i know he likes me. and i think he's okay. but in all honesty i don't know much about him, and i don't know what i feel.

my last relationship, my ex liked me more than i liked her. and i think i sort of let myself be led into a relationship even though i didn't want one, because i didn't want to be alone, and i was afraid of hurting her. or myself. or something. and then eventually, somewhere, i think i ended up being in love. and then it ended.

so i wonder, is that what's happening here? am i just being led into something because it's there? because i don't want to say no, because i can't think of a real reason to say no? am i distancing myself from feelings i might have because i've turned them off again (and they're so very hard to turn back on)? or do i just not feel anything yet because i don't really know much yet. it's only been three dates. to the movies. that's all.

so i wonder am i getting in over my head in both ways? i don't know. i hope i know how to swim.

title taken from "breaking the habit" by linkin park

Saturday, 07 November 2009

Currently
Black Holes and Revelations
By Muse
see related
don't waste your time or time will waste you

i love all the djs on my favorite radio station. one guy mentioned a ben folds song that i love. starts with "i met this girl she looked like axle rose." he mentioned how one song he heard reminded him of that song and he wanted to play it but kept forgetting to bring it in. i yelled at the radio. "play ben folds! yes!"

the moon is only half-full, but it's beautiful and sort of golden colored. i drove back from mom's tonight. Knights of Cydonia played on the radio (from which i have taken the title). i always forget how good a band Muse is.

Mom had an itunes gift card lying around that my dad gave her for christmas two years ago and she never has used and probably never will use. she said "do you want this?" and i said okay. it reminded me that i wanted to buy the latest Muse cd and i haven't because i've been being smart with my money.

in japanese this morning i was sneezing like crazy. the other two students were asking me if i was okay. "are you allergic to cats? i have a cat." no, i said, i'm allergic to the universe. i drove home afterward, ate lunch, took a benadryl, and fell asleep on the couch. i only woke up because the phone rang. it was the lady from the japanese society telling me that i have to give them more money if i want to keep taking the class.

i have stopped sneezing, but i feel like going to sleep. i haven't yet, though.

it's cold out. winter is coming. time is moving on and i am not getting to do half the things i need to do, or want to do, or should do. this is life.

my boss finally got a work laptop, after having been promised one for the last few years. he would have been more happy about that if it didn't mean he had to work all weekend from home. he and frank spent most of the week working on a project, only to find that it was all wrong because some of the data they'd been given was wrong. i helped him with it most of thursday and friday (frank was off, in atlantic city with his wife) but it still wasn't finished and so he was going to be working all weekend.

i haven't gotten a lot of my ordinary work done because of this thing. life is insane. any day now, he's going to have a heart attack.

i went to the heart doctor on wednesday. they did an ekg and took my blood pressure and pulse and all that and he said that it's probably nothing but he wants me to do more tests (which are scheduled for next week) and get blood work. i was supposed to go on date number three after that but i didn't have time because the appointment ran late. so i texted him and said i didn't think i'd make it. he said that was okay we could do it the next day.

thursday is usually yoga day. so i told margaret that i wasn't going to yoga because i was going to the movies. "oh," she said, "with friends?" with...someone, i said, and she said "ahhh."

so i was outside with nancy and the nurse lady walked by who is usually at the yoga with us and she asked if i was coming and i said no i can't i have something to do. and so nancy wanted to know what i was doing and i said i was going to the movies because i was supposed to go the day before and she said with who and i told her. "oh, really?" she said and i said yes and mentioned that this was date number three. "i didn't know that!" she said. "why didn't you tell me??"

i don't know why i didn't. i guess i just didn't. i don't know. i only told shereza because i wanted clothing advice. and so now everyone asks (and by everyone, i mean shereza, margaret, and nancy) how is it going? do you like him? what have you done? and i say "i don't know."

what do you mean you don't know? they ask and i just shrug and say i don't know. i don't really feel anything. or maybe i do and i am in denial. sometimes it takes a while for me to get in touch with my emotions and sometimes i am blocking them without really thinking about blocking them.

i think that the "i don't know" part is why i didn't tell anyone about it. because i knew they would ask that question and i don't know how to answer it. they would say "do you like him?" and i don't know how to answer it because i just don't know.

and then i think maybe i am just blocking the part of my brain that can get close to people because i really don't want to get hurt again.

i came to a revelation the other day. until i was in college, i never really knew anyone that died. my grandparents and aunts and uncles were all alive until i was in college. then my uncle died, and then my other uncle and then other people and now i've known quite a few. and i knew people (my ex in particular) who had lost people, who had lost parents and i thought that i was somehow being sheltered from this loss, that i should have experienced it before. this added to my whole belief in not complaining about my life, because there is always someone who has it much worse. this was proof. i hadn't lost anyone. i was much better off than anyone else. i felt guilty complaining to my ex about little problems because, hey, at least my mother and father were (and are) still alive! what right did i have to complain about not getting along with my mother? at least i had a mother.

(i would like to add here, for the record, that this feeling was of my own creation. we never had any arguments that went in that direction, and when i once voiced that feeling, my ex told me that it was unfair (to myself) of me to think that, because it wasn't true).

it's only recently that i came to the revelation that even though no one i knew had passed from the mortal plane, i had in fact lost people. i had lost friends who moved away or randomly (to my mind, anyway) abandoned me. and in a way those losses are more painful than death. death (unless it's suicide) is not a choice. death is something that comes between two people and separates them. but when a friendship ends for some other reason, it ends because someone has made a conscious choice not to keep in contact with the other person. that is far more hurtful. it's one thing to know that you will never see someone ever again because they are dead, and another thing to know that someone is still alive but has no interest in seeing you or interacting with you ever again.

so i did lose people. i've lost a lot of people. and so maybe i'm blocking the part of my emotions that feel things about other people because if i get close to them they will leave.

well. on that depressing note, i think i'm going to bed.

Friday, 30 October 2009

a (man) who leads a life of danger...

i came home a half-hour ago to find something going on on the football field nearby. there is a band (which is now playing "Secret Agent Man," from which i have borrowed this title). There were fireworks a short while ago (which shocked the crap out of me because i was not expecting them!). I have no idea what the point of this is or why it is happening. but there it is.

it has been a busy week. tuesday i had a doctor's appointment. i am not dying. except, maybe, i am. apparently the blood-taking people were not crazy, and i actually do have an irregular heartbeat. so the first doctor wants me to go to the second doctor.

wednesday, i went on date number two. it was just about the same as date number one. we watched a movie which was not terrific but not awful, laughed at it for a good portion of the movie, and then went home. so far, no plans to have a third date, but i would not be surprised. i am not really feeling anything, but it's fun and it's kind of nice knowing that someone actually wants to date me. that's never really happened.

the band is now playing that song that i know but i don't know the name of or who does it and i don't understand the words of so i can't type them into a search engine.

wednesday i called the hair lady so now i have an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow. i probably will not do anything drastic, just have a trim. the last time i had my hair cut was in august, when i was on vacation, so i suppose i am due.

thursday i called the second doctor to get an appointment, which will be next wednesday. i also went to yoga. nancy asked me "what are you doing on december 19th?" and i said i had no idea. so she asked me to babysit so she can go to a wedding. i think i might have panicked for a half-second but i said yes. i hope i do not regret this. i am already wondering. i never actually babysat anyone before.

today was her husband's last day working for the temp agency for the same company as us. now he is back to job-hunting, only this time without working at the same time. they are moving to a new apartment a few blocks away but in the same complex because their new neighbors are jerks.

now the band is playing "werewolves of london." i think the original artist is named warren zevon.

my boss and nancy's boss are both applying for the job of their former boss (who was fired). they are spending a lot of time in meetings with important people and doing special projects for important people. matt was freaking out like crazy for a while and i thought he was going to have a heart attack, but now he seems to be doing better. we all expect that frank will get the job but we won't know for a while.

i haven't had dinner yet. i don't particularly feel like cooking, and i don't have anything quick to make. i need to go food shopping again. except i am broke until next pay day.

that is all.

Monday, 19 October 2009

Questions!! (again)

Because I don't feel like writing anything at the moment, here is a random survey. you're not supposed to lie!

Did i? ::shrug::

1. What was the last thing you put in your mouth?
Straw.

2. Where was your profile picture taken?
my parents' backyard.

3. Can you play Guitar Hero?
Yep. I only have once, though.

4. Name someone who made you laugh today.
The DJ on the radio.

5. What time did you go to bed and why?
ten thirty-ish. because that's my bedtime. i had to get up this morning.

6. If you could move somewhere else, would you?
Sure.

7. Ever been kissed under fireworks?
Not that I can recall. I don't think so, because I think we were watching the fireworks.

8. Which of your friends lives closest to you?
Nancy. She's only two towns away.

9. Do you believe exes can be friends?
I guess. I'm friends with mine on facebook, if that counts.

10. How do you feel about Dr Pepper?
I don't drink soda. But I hate Dr. Pepper. I have to deal with it for work, and let me tell you it is a headache and a half. I could explain, but you would fall asleep.

11. When was the last time you cried really hard?
When I broke up with my ex, i think.

12. Who took your profile picture?
Me

13. Who was the last person you took a picture of?
myself, i think. I don't often take pictures of people.

14. Was yesterday better than today?
Oh, hell yeah. Yesterday was sunday.

15. Can you live a day without TV?
Yes, as long as I have one or more of the following: internet, books, paper & pencil (or pen), or something else to do.

16. Are you upset about anything?
Grr. My job sucks. ::shrug:: Nah, not feeling it.

17. Do you think relationships are ever really worth it?
Depends.

18. Are you a bad influence?
I don't think so.

19. Night out or night in?
Depends on what I'm doing in or out. Sometimes in is better.

20. What items could you not go without during the day?
Well, if I had to go to work, i need my Ipod or else i'm forced to listen to mindless conversation. and i need the computer or else i can't do work.

21. Who was the last person you visited in the hospital?
I never have! This astonishes me.

22. What does the last text message in your inbox say?
It's a status update from one of my facebook friends about how she lives at the car dealership.

23. How do you feel about your life right now?
I am plunging headfirst into the future.

24. Do you hate anyone?
No, I'm too lazy.

25. If we were to look in your Facebook inbox, what would we find?
A message.

26. Say you were given a drug test right now, would you pass?
Yes. Unless caffeine counts.

27. Has anyone ever called you perfect before?
Only when they were mad at me.

28. What song is stuck in your head?
"Perfect Mistake," by Sheryl Crow, because it was on the car radio.

29. Someone knocks on your window at 2:00 a.m., who do you want it to be?
Um.... I pretty much would like it if this didn't happen, but if it did, i would hope it was someone who really needed my help.

30. Wanna have grandkids before you’re 50?
Grandkids? Jeez. That's probably not gonna happen, since I'm already 28 and I don't have any kids. If i get pregnant tomorrow, my kid will be 18 when I'm 47. If she (he) gets (someone) pregnant before they're 21, then I will. But I'm fairly certain that I won't be pregnant in the next three years. And 50 is kinda young (in my opinion) to be a grandma.

31. Name something you have to do tomorrow.
Go to work. Also, make a doctor's appointment.