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Thursday, December 18, 2003
Severe-assed rant a-comin'.
Two bosses. Yeah, we know that bit, Maimy.
They've both been in crisis mode for some time now. And the other admin? Who has one boss, and is never at her desk to cover that one boss's line (I know this because she arranged to have her boss's line ring on my phone too, so I could cover that in addition to my own and my two bosses' and also the rollovers, which she is never around to answer and nobody else deigns to attend)? Gives me *attitude* when I ask her to just LET ME KNOW IF SHE HAPPENS TO SEE A LOUSY _FAX_ FIRST for fuck's own holy mackerel's sake. I mean, fuck you Wanda. A bad fuck. With a cheap condom. UNLUBRICATED. And lots of stink. Fuck you so fucking hard, girl, for DARING to have the fucking common-ass CRUELTY to be CONDESCENDING TO ME ABOUT "*IGNORING*" YOUR FUCKING *CHAT* that there is, for maud's fucking sake, a PACKAGE over on your side for one of my multiple bosses, when I have two and a half full time jobs, and I already know that the contents of the package is, damn my stupid eyes, full of such urgencies as the lastest PHONE LIST for the our sister company's side, and FILING, you fucking bitch. No: FUCK you. Fuck you hard ... and rather dry. Fuck you, with your "I won't participate in parties or sign the stupid-assed CARDS some twit insists on buying every time there's a BREEZE outside, but I will damned well eat every cake that comes through here and then COMMENT ON THE QUALITY of it" and your kids who haven't any better clue how to use a phone with any kind of good manners than you do, and your unbelievable difficulty and complaining about typing ONE SINGLE DOCUMENT out of the eight I have been transcribing for literally the past MONTH NOW. FUCK YOU, you bitch - FUCK OFF and don't you DARE to enjoy it.
*Pant, pant*
The office holiday party/happy hour/team drink is today after work. I don't like all the people here, but hey - festive is festive, and I planned this 'do, and there aren't many parties for me this year. So.
>>Hair currently in hairstick chignon, will probably be down and wavy for party
>>Little garnet earrings; have beautiful silver/garnet waterfall earrings Trip gave me in bag in case I decide to wear them to the party
>>Beautiful silver/garnet antique-style necklace, matching
>>Beautiful silver/garnet bracelet, also matching
>>Deep red silk satin wraparound blouse
>>Deep red manicure, nails allowed to grow long recently
>>Long black A-line skirt
>>The Shoes (brought Carlos Santana cute little strappy numbers for later)
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Um.
And The Night.
***
When BEx was living down here, at a time when things were strained, K broke up messily with a bad boyfriend, and I told her to come over and I'd get her nice and drunk.
Naturally, I shared the state to a pretty fair degree.
And there was crying and flirting and lolling around on each other on the couch.
Then he got home, so there wasn't anything "bigger".
But I got into the tub and both of them hung around with me while I took a bath. And BEx had his only gig ever in Richmond that night, so he left again and K and I eventually followed to go see him sing. And he didn't know what to make of the thing, since things were so weird with us anyway. And K and I don't talk about it much, but it was an interesting day and night.
And so there you go. Not sure Saturday was *closure*, quite, but - hey - I got to wear my Samantha Stevens Hosts a Party dress, and it sure was a hit yep.
***
Anyway. So. The Night.
Yeah.
So the weekend. I'll try to keep this short.
There was QLT.
***
Trip and I got together with K the First and her husband, G. They came over to the house to share a bottle of wine and some Christmas lights, compliments for the og-dog, the introduction of my Significant Daemon, and a little cheer. We went onward to go see Mo DeBree, but they weren't playing (sadly, the local paper's calendar, as reported by V, failed by one night yet again), so we saw Pfifer ... somethingorother ... instead. And O was the guest bassist, heh - always there when we see him with a greeting from the Long Haired Guys' Backslapping Club for Trip and a scrupulously polite hug for me, so as to demonstrate no ill intent (heh).
The drinks for the ladies were extremely weak, but the guys' seemed to be well-poured, and so when we went to Mack's I asked for even MORE rum after he poured one for me, which was likely my first mistake (after drinking that *arid* wine on an empty belly ...). Mmm, rum and wine after 20 hours fasting. Hm.
K kept looking over at Trip and doing her most charming crinkle-smile at me, saying "He's pretty!", which is a surprise to an extent, given that reason number One on the Top Ten of Why We Are Such Good Friends is "we don't like the same boys" (it may have been several other of the top ten reasons as well) and a certain resemblance to Matty, a guy I dated (and some other stuff) for a good while after Beloved Ex and I split up. And she *hated* Matty, mainly because my 30th birthday celebration was spent with many of his friends and one of them - "no she doesn't like me, I promise you, we're just old friends!" - sort of monopolized his attention. Heh. Hey, K's powerfully defensive of her own friends, no denying. Nothing wrong with that.
She and I got increasingly blotto as the boys talked a little shop - or shop openings, anyway ... G's got a line for Trip on a 3 or 4 month consultant job which would be terribly sweet for Trip right now. (*Fingers crossed*)
We went up to the bar to order again (more the fools we, babies), and while up there K brought up ... the night ...
Um, which we'll talk about later.
And then there was a "I didn't even get to kiss her!" and my response, which was to kiss her.
Trip saw from our table and said it looked like we were kissing. G said "this is what happens when we don't go out for a long time". A little more smooching and a little bit of dancing later, we ended up with our own partners and woozily agreed on breakfast.
G bought at the 4th Street Cafe, and thank goodness he did so. I can't imagine the hangover, if I hadn't had that much first. Gah.
Sunday was, not surprisingly, quite quiet.
Just got off the phone with my mom a few minutes ago. She was crying.
Widowhood ... takes a long time.
Tonight is supposed to be the Christmas girls night out with me and V and possibly K2, and it's very possible I'll cancel it in order to take care of my mama. I miss seeing my girl(s), to be sure. But my mama's my mama.
Little known facts I learned this weekend: Trip's ex is two years older than he is. We were talking about reference points and embarrassing fashion, and he asked me about the 70s and I had no response, being about thirteen when they ended. He laughed that, at that age, a couple of years make all the difference.
I didn't tell him about the shellacked wing-do.
Or the salmon colored sparkle top.
Heh.
"If we can't persuade nations of comparable values of the rightness of our cause, then we'd better reexamine our reasoning."
Of all people in the world to have said this?
Robert McNamara.
Amazing.
This is what I mean when I say it's a bit hard to cast anyone as a perfect black-hat-wearer ...
My job ... is hurting my head. The extra boss I gained in July more than doubled a workload from someone who rarely communicates with me, and their both recently coming into a shitstorm of activity has left us all frazzled. And I get twice the frazzling-trickledown, because ... well, two bosses. It is sucking, and it's hard. I don't like one of my jobs at all, and can't just choose *one* of them. I still get paid only for the one position, too, which wasn't such a hot salary to begin with (repeat the words, kids, we know you've heard 'em before) - "I took a nine thousand dollar pay cut just to work at all". And none of the leads I've had since this August has come to anything much. One interview, all this time. How ridiculous. And the worst part is, because my posting-out efforts began slightly before my full-time-employment anniversary date, I had to tell BOTH current bosses that I am trying to post out of their assistanceships.
So the likelihood of any kind of a raise is "not".
Yes, yes, yes, I have broached the subject. It's just not one to which bosses who know their employee wants to be a short-timer appear to be (shockingly) open. Wowzers.
Suck suck suck suck. I hate having to work, man.
Monday, December 15, 2003
A rare post in a political discussion at Ed's World:
The assumption by anyone that they're on any sort of moral high ground is exactly the problem. The stance that "The Enemy has beat up on me; I have to FIGHT BACK" is exactly what keeps me pretty silent in fora such as this one. Even assuming republican = antagonist is hard for me.
One thing: I don't believe I am better just because I think I am right; that'd be more unbelievably arrogant than even I am capable of being. Second thing: I REEEEALLY don't think liberals are the milquetoasts - or bleeding-hearts, if you prefer - people on *both* sides seem to enjoy believing we are. It's odd to me when dems/liberals actually embrace the meek thing - because it's not entirely accurate. The idea that all republicans are heartless, corporate, religious-right drones is just as laughable as the image of democrats as wimpy little hippies. (And, for the record, hippies and other bleeding-hearts have done some death-defying, dangerous and occasionaly wildly stupid/asinine/selfish/borderline shit in their day, in the name of being heard and in the name of change. Liberals can be deeply obnoxious, and not only to republicans.)
All this said, the current American president scares me. His vice president scares and OFFENDS me. They both appear to be very happy advancing themselves and their friends, putting little thought into the world outside their perspectives, and constantly positioning themselves for greater rewards and greater polling approvals. Bush Mach II's lack of education bugs me not only because the nepotism and money which made it possible for him to bypass its implications, but also because that nepotism and money seem to shape and reflect what seems to be the entirety of his worldview ... which is shockingly limited. And shortsighted. That shortsightedness scares me by far more deeply than the selfish and embarrassingly self-righteous frame of reference from which Pres. and Vice Pres. both make decisions affecting the entire world, which currently have cast his whole nation as (yet again) a gang of mouth-breathing idiots. And their attitudes have informed an entire administration - typical enough, to be sure, but frightening in its implication of exponential response to limited stimuli.
I felt the same embarrassment and defeatism when a governor sailed into office in Virginia with the three foolish words, "no car tax" (and when he, stunningly, later backslid on it - *gasp*). Now that the stakes are so much higher and a simple photo op affects approval ratings by several points in the space of an hour ... terrifying, the implications.
I feel this way when anybody makes me feel like I - or we all - look stupid by association. Like southerners who actually go on Jerry Springer. Like women putting on lip gloss while driving.
I resent the reduction in worth this president has imparted on his country by not thinking things through with any apparent care.
I resent that he has won the influence and power to do all this merely by being born of privilege.
>>Braid
>>Little gold hoops
>>Light moss-green turtleneck
>>Sprig of parsley dipped in gold (not kidding!)
>>"Gold" watch
>>Gold and large garnet ring
>>Very red nails
>>The navy blue pants I thought were black (they're still "passing")
>>Black hose
>>The Shoes
Friday, December 12, 2003
If there is a chance you might not want to read a post which begins with a caveat - indicating that there could be a significant enough portion of the population who would be offended, shocked, or disgusted by, well, anything I might type to *warrant* a caveat about the upcoming content - please consider the option of NOT READING THE FOLLOWING POST. Thank you.
Aherem.
In the past, the word "unspeakable" has been used as an oblique bookmark to my own mind to refer to a lot of sexual detail nobody needs or wants to know but me and Trip. Most often, it's a not-so-very-sophisticatedly veiled reference to sodomy. There ya go.
It's very hip, it's very trendy, it still grosses enough people out that those who Do get to snigger about themselves and about those who Do Not - and I'm among the if-you-believe-Dan-Savage-anyway growing number of those who Do. So. It's not a fashion with me, though - it's the result of finding a relationship in which the intensity of everything physical is so important, so sublime, that a good hearty buttfucking has become the most delightful - intimate - thing in the world.
I spent a good amount of time building up to it, with Trip. Because of the distance, we had a lot of diryt phone talk and a lot of I-can't-even-believe-right-now-that-we-emailed-that-stuff-at-work exchanges laden with promises, needs, coinciding interests, and rather special openness. Because of the distance, we had a LOT of opportunity to hash out the clinical aspects, and even more time to get "into" the idea. Really into it. "I'm going to give you something you won't believe" into it. It was diryt. It was hot. And it was all about sexiness.
Funnily, it has turned out to be one of the most astonishingly beautiful and personal things we share. Still massively *nasty* ... but also unavoidably, powerfully, romantically naked - in the sense of personal 'there-ness' ... in a sense well beyond fucking.
More, it didn't take long to get past all the ick-factors people have the worst time with. We're blessed with a delightfully low santorum quotient (and read Savage Love if you're this far into the post and don't know what THAT reference means), for one. Rock on. And the ouch of the ... stretching ... was minimal in the first place and very quick to fade in the second. And, after months enjoying it, I spent a long time still astonished at the concept that I really liked this - thinking, out of The Moment, that it must be just exciting and I was working past a physical reaction. Like the way my mom told me you forget the pain of childbirth, maybe I was forgetting the negatives thanks to a nice payoff. I couldn't believe it was "really" that Good.
And now, I am past even that part of it.
We commit sodomy, and it makes me come like a freight train. Every time. It certainly seems a bit fun for Trip, to be sure.
No. It was not my first time.
Oh, but it's the absolute first time the attempt was born of real, ongoing desire. It's the first time I've found myself literally, physically MOLDED to someone - and, yes, I mean that in the grossest possible interpretation. Trip has taken this part of me and made it his own in just the raunchiest, most lovely way. Hoo-wah. It is so cool.
We have marveled about it over and over. Driving through Maryland sunshine to go run errands, we have talked about how incredible it is. Texting him from a late walk with the doggy, I've weakened in the knees at the word "grind" passing through my mind. The depth of feeling about it has shaken us both. He can't believe sometimes that I am so ... willing ... with him.
Shit. So EAGER. I'm ravenous for this with him.
***
In the clinical exchanges, the very first time the subject came up, we decided 'yeah, it's of interest, but of course it won't happen often'.
Hah.
I am a sodomite, and would be every day of the week if it weren't for long distance. Heck, several times in a day.
Mnh.
***
Why blog about this?
Enh, I'm tired of the euphemism. Tired of the fact that this thing is 'nasty' (*gasp!*) when the fact of sex in general is okay with people. Stupid. Arbitrary. No time. "Next!"
Anyway, it's not as if I'm particularly secretive about much else - and the euphemisims in place up to this point aren't exactly heavy cover. So why bother? So I won't bother.
And it's a part of my life now. Not that I go around every day thinking 'I am a sodomite'. But it's there, it's a fact, it's not something I think really calls for concealing - and it is not a big DEAL to me, though it's s a given. Trip and I laughed for twenty minutes last weekend about the amusing pubescence of the term "ass sex". Somehow, we started talking like The Impressive Clergyman from The Princess Bride, and that line, "wuv - TWOO wuuv," became 'wectal wogewing', and it was donwhill with the giggles from there on. We just had a ball being dorks. But, when I said I wanted to blog how funny it was, what fun I had over the weekend, he had to ask "but how can you do that?"
And this is how. I'm outing myself.
Well, and Trip too, but identifying info on him is minimal, so he's likely to stay anonymous. Heh.
Thursday, December 11, 2003
My. That was a winding post.
In July, I was given another boss without the slightest advance warning or consultation of any kind. This more than doubled my workload, but considering that Boss #1 rarely spoke to me and I had to create my own job to a fairly large degree, this was not an immediate problem.
It has become a problem.
Over the past month, since a week and a half before Thanksgiving, I've not only held two full time jobs, but I also seem to be the only person who covers our rollover lines at all. I am in by eight, and am generally here as long as the other admin who does not come in until nine. Just for fun, I also cover HER boss's lines when she doesn't. Which is frequent. My lunches are never an hour. My time is electronically monitored - and I can actually get questioned for WORKING TOO MUCH.
Not a single penny's increase has come to me with this load of shit.
Not a single thank you.
Because I had to get both bosses' approval during August when I wanted to post for a really great position which ended up EVAPORATING, both bosses know that I am posting to get out of here. Though I did ask, during either September or October, for some financial consideration for the massive increase in workload, nothing has been done for me.
And I can't really go straight to HR, because HR is the place I need to go to get OUT OF HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE, and - rules or no rules - a "problem child" is not what I wish to seem.
I'd like to do better financially by doing better professionally.
And let's just take this moment to remember that this rinky dink job represents a massive plummet on the resume, as well as a nine thousand dollar pay cut.
And that pay cut thing I mentioned ...
***
Aherem.
Yesterday, figuring out a bit ahead, I found that I should have about $150 to hold me through mid-January if I pay my mortgage (which I have waited to do this month, because it was numerically impossible on the 1st) and buy no Christmas presents. This doesn't count the $90 returned check to my mom. It doesn't include the $85 lane change ticket I got last week - which, to my relief, I can pay after 01-15. It doesn't include credit card bills, so the card's off limits.
And then.
I got a flat.
This morning - the news: I have to buy a new tire. If I am extraordinarily fortunate, this will cost a MERE seventy bucks. And then we have the twenty dollars worth of gas I had 'em put in.
And the worst part is that Trip and I ... we're so far apart. I used to feel alone - being single and having to drag though. I used to feel so frustrated, fending for myself in the worse times.
But now.
I feel halved.
Because I'm NOT alone, not now.
And yet we can't help each other. We can't do anything.
My car's falling apart, and I'm not sure I can afford the oil I need to change this weekend.
My love's 150 miles away, and I am very sure I can't afford gas to go see him now.
And he's going to have to sell the new car his dad got him just before the layoff, because - seriously now. Really.
And his kids are so far away.
***
G-d ... My G-d ...
I am past Being Good About This, heaven. I've slumped into complaints - and despair is never far from that.
What do you want from me? I have given and worked and striven and kept trying. There's got to be more than this return. I have lived in tenuousness ever since leaving mom and dad's. It is tiring to continue. There are times it seems pointless ...
Because, really, what IS the point of this?
***
I know it, I know. Prove yourself. Be good enough. Give, don't focus on taking.
Agh, but what is left to GIVE? I can't cover my mortgage.
***
That is the wrong way to think of this. It is worse than banality.
Still.
I feel forced to banality. Forced into commonness.
That is what you've wrought for me. Never letting me fight out. That's the worshipful return - that I have no time to remember G-d because I have only work and sleep.
***
I have taken so little time to remember G-d, though, since Trip and me.
'Spose that's the lesson.
All right, I hear you.
But I won't stop trying to fight this out, either.
Damn.
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Because Spatch has updated Cat Town yet again ...
*Memories* The only cheer I ever knew/performed in my life:
FIREcracker, FIREcracker
Boom, boom, BOOM!
The BOYS got the MUScles,
The TEAcher's got the BRAINS,
But WE got the SEXY legs,
So WE won the GAAAAAAME!!!!
I was about four when I learned this. It is the only thing in my life I ever remember mom actually asking me to "perform" in front of people. Mom did not treat me like a "cute" kid (i.e., she didn't let her kids on on the idea that she thought we were such), so this is an exceptionally odd tidbit.
That is all.
I put up my tree last night. Partially naked for a while there, actually; my sweater was way warm to be trudging up and down staris to get the (900 pount) tree from the basement and the sixteen trillion boxes of ornaments from the overheated guest room upstairs - so I shed it and fluffed faux pine branches all topless. I'm so classy. P'raps it'd be better if I left out the fact that my festive accompaniment to this was watching Paris Hilton and Nichole Richie hang out in Arkansas ...
I'm used to doing this alone, so that's no thang, but it was still a strangely *neutral* experience. Not unhappy or anything; just sterile and "okay - I'm done". That is weird. I mean, Christmas lights generally get me actually a bit frisky. Even the fact that this year's array aren't very bright doesn't account for a lack of that aspect ...
Even weirder is that I thought I remembered having huge numbers of ornaments which "mean something" to me, relics of the past or what have you. Last night, it didn't feel that way. In fact, I'd very much like to cull the herd and just keep a very few of the crappy things hanging on my tree, give away the rest, and hit the decoration sales after Christmas day ...
I do have a few ornaments which are meaningful, but old enough or deteriorated enough that I can't hang them anymore. They have a happy box where they stay safe between my annual peekings-at-them, undisturbed and not quite broken, but too delicate for a number of reasons to actually "use".
This year showed me, though, a veritable buttload of inexplicable Small Wooden Sleds and that sort of thing - many not even "hangable" ornaments - some of which I can't even recall ever seeing before. Things I just don't WANT. Not in the least. Old-fashioned straight clothespins made into drummer boys and reindeer and that sort of thing; utterly without "meaning", not even nice looking particularly. Then there's the unbelievably scary/dour santa stake, a long slender piece of pointed wood painted with the awfullest santa clause ever. All these things. Just there, because mom gave 'em to me or something. And others which are nice enough, but simply not to my taste and not associated with ... anything in particular ...
So I want to rip them down tonight, actually. Box them up, let them go. Even some of the hallowed ancient glass globes, which were thick enough not to break instantly upon contact and therefore are probably collector's items. Many of them are faded in color, or even a bit cracked/bubbly on their finishes.
I don't have time or space or inclination to save EVERY one of these things just because I saw them on another tree thirty years ago.
Garumph.
***
My mood is probably a mess because I am sick of having a workload which is increasing daily, two bosses for the (already low low) salary of one, a holiday season without the slightest inclination toward "celebratory", and a complete impotence in the face of Trip's financial doom. It's been an entire autumn since he was laid off, and we're still 150 miles apart and he's still got nothing bubbling promisingly ... and he's still thousands of miles from his children ...
He has had his father visiting, and they had a big fight the other day. It was resolved between them by last night - but the emotional goo left after my fears for what it meant still had me worried into yesterday. Like a big, self-involved twit, I haven't been able to resolve it in my OWN head completely, because the initial lack of detail led me to some pretty horrendous conclusions about what could happen - some financial fears mostly, based on what's already in place really and a certain ignorance of how much his dad might help ...
Blaaaagh. That stuff *is* evacuating. But it ain't in a hurry.
***
"Odd," said Mabel. "Very odd ..."
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Whoa. We just had an earthquake! I gather it was a 4.5.
Then again, the day the Towers were bombed, I gathered the Defense department had been as well, so I ain't buyin' the numbers quite yet ...
Everything's fine, including my building. Weird, though. Kinda eerie.
***
Funny thing is, our trading floor is so fuckin' loud, I didn't actually *feel* the rumble. Just heard it - like, 'hey, that's a low-flying plane, idnit?'
Loud frickin' traders. Drown out actual earthquakes.
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Sites I visit often:
The Brunching Shuttlecocks:
Lore Fitzgerald Sjoberg is my hero.
Donnie Green:
Get your eyeballs smacked!
Mr. Cranky:
Provides his inimitable, aptly named movie reviews.
The Straight Dope:
Get it here first, last and in the middle too.
Take Our Word For It:
A weekly etymological magazine for people who're as linguistically geeked-out as I am.
Ronald Everett Design:
Buy clothes which are beautiful, and get great service too.
Or peep him on ebay:
Ronald Everett auctions
My friends:
DykeLove's poems
AthenaDreaming
Girly Gurlglitter
Erica
Zuba
Now you've gone and done it:
My online photo album. Go. Look. Love me.
Best viewed:
1024x768 with IE 5.x
Tested in:
Netscape 4.7 & 6, and
IE 5.x & 4.x
If you can't hang with that,
talk to the designer.
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