Victory is

Nothing shuts a person up faster than getting what they want. I complained and complained and complained about my damn job and now it is gone. HUZZAH! Five months out and I still shiver at the thought of it. It was a Bad Place and now I am in a Good Place. Excellent.

Of course the good place isn’t a perfect place, so there is lots of work to do: attending classes, doing homework, keeping house, etc. but that’s fine. Less familiar will soon be doing major car repairs at home because I can’t afford my mechanic’s crazy 1K estimate to redo my car’s upper and lower ball joints. Thank God I have a husband who knows how to do these things! I plan to fetch and carry, hold the flashlight and be encouraging.

I often feel uncertain about the future, but I’ve got to just keep taking one step forward at a time. It is remarkable to me how we need to feel secure in our lives, how everything needs to be tied down or we freak out. We even know that this security is an illusion, but we plan for it anyway, as if having a plan will better prepare us for whatever happens. Seriously? When Whatever comes to town, he's going to stagger in with an uzi swinging from one hand and a half-empty bottle of Rumple Minze in the other and you'll be having that dream about sitting naked on the toilet in the middle of town. I think that's what happened to Elvis, actually.

So, I shall continue to work very hard, love very hard and wear dry socks. My money's on me.

Getting Laid . . . Off

You know what it's like to get laid off? No? Always wondered? Well, I'll tell you:

Imagine yourself standing in the backyard on a humid, rancid-hot, summer day, while amid audible wheezes of laughter at the sight of your white legs, the mosquitoes are biting you with an aim to eventually suck enough blood out of you that they get to eat your liver. You stand perfectly still, arms open like the Christ figure that looks down over Rio de Janeiro, listening. You know what's coming, and soon, there it is: the pitter-pat of heavy, uncontrolled, relentless summer rain. Mosquito drowning rain. Rain directly from the Big Guy in the Sky Himself. You smile, and don't even swat the 'skeeto that just landed on your nose. After all, it's going to die. You're not, because Justice is on your side.

Then the rain. Heavy, definitive, underpants-soaking rain. As thunder slaps overhead you think of Noah, and about how you're glad you're not wearing socks, and about what that dumb bug that was on your nose must be thinking now. Something like 'glub, glub,' no doubt.

Okay, so it's not quite like that, but sort of. They say something like "Boo! You're laid off!" Followed by "Here's a pile of money, leave quietly, and here, take a cardboard box of your very own. You've got 15 minutes. GO!" So you pack your colleague's favorite red stapler and leave.

In my own case, my organization requires that I mull over this change for 30 DAYS. I'd understand the process better if I had to also go to Cathoic Mass over it, but whatever. I still get the pile of money and, oh, you guessed it, MY LIFE BACK!!!!

Never take a job just for the money. Any hooker will tell you that, but would I listen?

[There was an awesome clip of a segment from Shark VS Eagle that explained the Justice reference, but the righteous dudes who put it up on YouTube took it down. I sense NZ copywrite wallahs being mean. Boooo! Still, watch the movie, it's good.]

Sarah Palin Embarasses Me

Somebody please give her an improving book to read, or take her on a nice trip through Europe. She needs to get more correct information in her brain so that she does not say things that make me want to grab her nose and twist it right off.

It's not even about having a debate. There is no debating her notion of Death Committees. Has she ever even met a health care professional? How about a death squad thug? They are very different types of people, Sarah, I promise.

Time-Motion Study

Okay, so this is really more like a two day comparison but here's the poop:

Day 1: Get up early and take 45 minute walk. Go into office and spend, oh, a total of two hours sitting. Rest of time run off doing other things. End of day: feel tired, but not exhausted, am content having completed so many tasks over the course of the day, drew a portrait of husband and may have actually done good work, slept pretty well.

Day 2: Get up early and log into computer to present myself as "at work." Have been sitting here for three hours now, munching on almonds and drinking coffee. My brain has been valiantly trying to stay awake on a feast of random fact-finding and surfing but the inevitable, grinding halt has begun. In about 30 minutes I will not be able to think at all.

If I step away from the computer and the IM client that is my lifeline, my boss will be unhappy. If I don't, I will be unhappy, maybe even dead, who knows?

Moving is essential to keeping the brain going. Yet no computing workplace is designed to promote motion, and teleworking is no better. Yes, I can set my IM client to show that I'm always there (like my boss does, even when I know he's at the beach), but that doesn't help with knowing I won't be able to respond if someone pings me. Yes, I could set my phone to take the message but then the leash just drags along behind me, twisting and stretching but never letting go.

Don't Clean up my Crap

I walked into my office manager’s office the other day and told him I’d come to collect my crap, to which he replied that "crap" was such a harsh word, how about saying “stuff?”

I’d specifically chosen that word to denigrate the items he had graciously carried in from the parking lot for me because they were unpleasant, personal items, like well-used hiking boots and workout clothing. I was trying to make his act seem even more heroic than the mere toting of stuff.

“Who the BLEEP are you to tell me when I can say crap?” Is what I wanted to say in return. Instead, I thanked him for carrying my stuff in for me and left it at that.

Some people just can’t unearth a compliment from rough language, poor bastards.

Sick bird

One of the things I've been saying over and over again is that this job is killing me this job is killing me. Well, the doctor confirms that I have been right all along. I enjoy being right just as much as the next bird, but I could have handled being wrong about this one. Too bad for me.

In a 14 year career in IT my health has progressed thusly:

First year on job: weight 138, excellent health

Third year on job: weight 145, internal, hurt you like a son-of-a-gun hemorrhoids directly related to being seated all day programming. Doctor's recommendation: stand up every 15 minutes. A funny man, that doctor.

Fifth year on job: weight 148, high cholesterol. Doctor's recommendation: watch fat intake.

Seventh year on job: weight 148, high LDL and no HDL, none. Doctor's recommendation: Lipotor, stat.

Tenth year on job: weight 155, depression, exhaustion, low HDL. Doctor's recommendation: do things that make you happy, get fit, lose some weight.

Thirteenth year on job: weight 165, blood pressure borderline high, confirmed pre diabetes. Doctor's recommendation: lose as much weight as possible, as quickly as possible.

Anyone who insists that my job is a good job is out of their peahen mind.

Snoring in the sun

When I told him that I keep falling asleep at work, in meetings, and just about anywhere associated with my job, my doctor suggested I might have sleep apnea. He talked about softening of the tissues and icky things like that and I responded by saying I'd go on a diet. That usually makes him happy. But then he started talking about neck circumference and how a diet wouldn't work for me because I wasn't that fat and how I should do a sleep study. He finally got the hint when I put my fingers in my ears and went "lalalala." I'm not going to pay anyone to watch me sleep. I don't snore!

Like most offices, ours is kept at USDA approved temperatures for storing raw meat. I'd forgotten my down vest at home, so at about three p.m. I gave up shivering to keep warm and went outside. There is a nice low wall that's great for sitting and talking on the phone, and it was wonderfully warm after being under the sun all day. I stretched out on that sweet slab o' cement and closed my eyes, letting all the heat seep up through my frozen fat.

Half an hour later I was rudely awakened by an unexpected sound: snoring. Mine! I wonder if my boss walked by while I lay there, not working, soft tissues flapping their dulcet song . . . .

I'm still not going to pay anyone to watch me sleep.