who’s report is that? its not mine
I normally don’t write about work here because, well, work is work and this is a personal site meant to clear my head, have a little fun, and grow a cult of followers, like you, my tens of readers.
However, I’m going to part with that rule for today because of something incredibly, ahem, blonde, I’ve done.
Several weeks ago, the reports were printed for my sales numbers for the month of January and they were dismal, embarrassing and worthy of scorn. Then last week, while I was in the office, I noticed a stack of reports on my manager’s desk that included all account activities for my sales code for the past five (5) years. The sight of this sent me into complete panic mode and propelled my mood into this strange alter universe where life was a dark place indeed. I feared that management was researching my work over my tenure and was about to make the decision to cut their losses and replace me.
This afternoon, I briefly stopped into the office to pick up some paperwork and was caught up in the middle of a conversation between the Big Boss and the Inside Sales person discussing this very report. She was asking the Big Boss if the report was his since my manager didn’t request it and was wondering why it was on his desk.
It was at this moment, that a light bulb of floodlight proportions, bright enough to light the inky depths of the cold dark Atlantic snapped on in my head when I realized that this was a report that I, myself had requested, only it wasn’t the report I had requested because I asked for a summary styled report and not a full detailed activity report.
A week of anxiety relieved and a weight off my shoulders.
I can go back to work now.
February 27, 2006
I would vote for him…
GAY ADOPTION. State Senator Robert Hagan (D-Ohio) says he will introduce legislation to ban Republican couples from adopting children. According to Hagan, “credible research” shows that adopted children raised in GOP households are more at risk for developing “emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities.” Hagan agrees there is no scientific evidence backing his claims about Republican parents — just, as Hagan notes, there is none backing State Representative Ron Hood’s (R) bill banning gay parents from adopting. Hood claims children purportedly suffer from emotional “harm” when they are adopted by gay couples. Hagen admits he created his proposal to mock Hood’s proposed ban on gay adoption in a way that people would see the “blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive” nature of the bill. The GOP House leadership does not support Hood’s proposal.
Brought to you by Politics1.com
February 25, 2006
Sunday Saturday in the park with Stella
The screaming hangover and the desert-like parched-ness of my mouth told me I had a great time out last night.
It started at Yoshi’s for a few martinis and went downhill from there. (Downhill was a good thing)
But this hangover…
I thought the bright sunshine flooding thru the windows of my bedroom meant that spring was finally here and I could take Stella to the dog park in the country to let her run. This place is amazing for a city dog. Close to 7 acres of open space, hills, ponds, and trees for the pooches to romp in. Halfway thru the park, my phone rang and after a brief conversation, I looked around for Stella and didn’t see her. She had gone around a corner and was out of sight.
As I rounded the corner, there stood Stella, belly deep in mud lapping at the dirty water. This is unusual for Stella, since she’s a very dainty girl. She will walk around a puddle on the sidewalk, refuse to go outside in the rain, and pout for hours after a bath, so for her to be waist deep meant that she was having fun and feeling free.
I realized that this dog park is like taking the two happiest places on earth and combining them into one, only for dogs.
So now its time for her bath…
February 22, 2006
damn these realizations
It’s been about a month now since I stopped taking my anti-depressant medication and I feel alive again. I had forgotten what it felt like to honestly feel and have healthy thought processes. I can understand things better without the blanket of drugs covering everything with a downy soft insulation dulling my senses.
I decided to stop partly because I have always hated prescription drugs not taken for recreational purposes, and partly because of my ever growing paranoia that our big brother government is in cahoots with big business and the pharmaceutical companies to control our brains and make us very pliant sheep to their evil ways.
Ok, well maybe I don’t actually believe that, but it would be scandalous if that was what was going on wouldn’t it…
I stopped, partly because of that recreational use of prescription drugs mentioned above, and partly because I couldn’t feel anything anymore. I was living in an emotional void. I didn’t care if I ate or felt the love of a wet nose pressed against my leg wanting affection. I was, for all intensive purposes, in an emotional coma. As the drugs slowly exit my system, I realize that I started them, again for the 3rd time, because I was unhappy with my position in my life. I’m struggling in a job I don’t 100% love, I’m alone and I’m unhappy. So instead of looking at the core of those problems and taking steps to change things for a different life, I chose the pharmaceutical way out and took 2 pills a day to numb whatever feelings I was experiencing. I can’t hide behind a haze of drugs to avoid that which isn’t pleasant.
I’m not saying my life is hell or that I need sympathy or even that I’m asking for you to send me cash (though I wouldn’t turn down the offer). I’m saying that I haven’t been happy with my life for many years and that instead of hiding; I need to change things, to work towards making my life how I want it to be.
At the young tender age of 36, I think I have finally realized that this life that I’m living is mine. It’s not my family’s, it’s not my boss’ and it’s not the closed-minded, two-faced hateful people that I’ve been avoiding with such gusto.
Ok, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest. I guess I should make some changes to re-direct my life into a more positive direction. That took too much out of me to just realize that. I think I’ll go shopping and start those life changing sessions tomorrow.
February 21, 2006
today’s post brought to you by a guest
I was walking out to the mailbox when the large, gold, 10-year-old Delta 88 pulled up in the road beside me. The tinted window came down and I looked at the white haired lady in the driver’s seat. She had on pale eye shadow and lipstick and wore a rose printed blouse and one thin gold chain around her neck. I smelled lilacs from her perfume. For a minute, she reminded of my mother’s Avon lady, who would come to our house every other Wednesday during *The Price Is Right* and sit at the dining room table with my mother having
coffee and delivering her sales pitch. But the memory faded quickly and I came back to today. “I want you to know something,” the pleasant old woman said.
I smiled the way a polite boy knows he’s supposed to smile when approached by an elder. “What’s that?” I asked.
“I want you to know that my name’s not Rita and I am *not* a whore.”
I looked at her for a minute, which felt like ten. Blink, blink, blink.
“Well, my name’s not Rita, either.”
And then she drove away, probably off to the next unsuspecting stranger in the street, where she could make yet another attempt to restore her virtue.
Good luck, Rita. I believe you.
xoxoxoxox and then some,
February 20, 2006
Was someone trying to tell me something when this landed in my inbox this morning?
February 17, 2006
Can you really go home again?
After landing in Oakland 3 hours late last night/early this morning and whisking thru the rain slicked streets and across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, I made it to my dentist appointment with a few hours sleep under my belt. My favorite dental hygienist scrapped, poked and polished my teeth to a brilliance I haven’t seen in close to a year, sternly reminding me that I shouldn’t wait an entire year between cleanings.
Afterwards, I motored down the Peninsula in the Republican’s fabulous Mercedes Benz to visit my old colleagues from jobs of yore. The first stop was the company that moved me to the furthest reaches of Siberia (AKA Chicago). I talked briefly with the man that was kind enough to give me the opportunity to sample the 4 seasons of the Midwest, and he was nice enough to remind me of how I longed for those seasons when I lived here in the Bay Area. After him, I visited with the others I worked with day in and day out. It was good to see all of them and catch up all their lives.
Next, I took a chance and visited the location of my first ever job. Japan Airlines Cargo. It was the nicest, warmest welcome I’ve had in years. They seemed genuinely happy, albeit surprised, to see me. It has been close to 4 years since I made an effort to stop in and say hello to the people that truly helped shape the adult I would become and it was so nice to revisit my past with them and see them all once again. At the time I worked with these people, I dreaded them, being the age of their children, I was often treated as such and never given much respect for my abilities or my knowledge. Today, they saw a different me. A happier, healthier grown up me that every one of them commented on. I’m still all fuzzy thinking about it. So I need a drink.
February 15, 2006
Nano nation
I did something less than economically frugal last week when I purchased a shiny new 1G black iPod Nano. I didn’t truly need it, but i needed it. I have a 3rd generation iPod, the one with the 4 little buttons and a black and white screen, but its been having battery problems lately. About a year ago, I was having major battery problems and took it into the Apple store for service and they just handed me a new one and sent me on my way. Apparently, the same battery issues are plaguing the replacement iPod and it isn’t holding a charge like it once did.
So, i talked myself into getting a new Nano. I waited until the prices dropped by getting the 1G, but after formatting it last night until 2:00am, i realized I should have probably paid the extra $50 for the 2G because my individually chosen song list of favorite, upbeat, empowering songs would not fit in its entirety onto this smaller Nano. I had to cut such uplifting and perky songs as Purple Rain, Hell Wit ya’, Chains of Love, I woke up in Love this Morning, and others including songs by such famous crooners as Anything Box, Sinead O’Connor and Romeovoid.
Alas, to fit even a few of my favorite photos of friends, loved ones and large penises, I had to remove even more of my personalized song list. Goodbye Lisa Stansfield, The Cure, Franz Ferdinand, and Beth Hart, you’ll be missed in the compacted version of my music library.
But its cute and it still has 15 hours worth of music stuffed into its lithe little frame. More than enough for a flight to San Francisco and back.
Oh yeah, I’m going to California tomorrow night. I’m trying out a new pet-sitter. I sure hope Stella doesn’t take to him more than me.
This iPod Nano is so shiny…