Muddled

I'm all muddled up. Lots of crap crowding my brain. It's been a weird week. Finding out not one, but two former classmates passed away recently, feeling extremely homesick already, yet still [trying to be] excited about the adventures to come.

I keep feeling like I want to be "home," back with my friends, family and my familiar routines. I want to buy orecchiette pasta at the Fruit Basket in Sonoma, because I doubt I'll ever find it here. "Orechetwhat?"

I want to go to a restaurant and have a choice of tequila other than [gag] Patron and [puke] Cuervo. I want to go out to dinner and not spend almost a hundred dollars on the stupidest thing ever invented - tapas, the greatest restaurant swindle of all time - and expensive wine that tastes only OK.

I want pretentiousness to be exterminated like the virus it is. I want the checker at Save On to be a little less frantic about chucking my groceries into bags like her hands are on fire and my food is made of gasoline. I want to wrap myself in a fleece cocoon and stay there for the next six months.

Everything is a little raw right now, but as Alan likes to remind me, this too, shall pass. On a more positive note, I finally started a personal project and made great progress on it. I'm excited about where that might lead. So, it's not all shit. Tomorrow should be better.

Stupid Thursday

Whoever designed the flusterbuck that is the 80/880/580 exchange should have to sit in that parking lot for all eternity.

What a brilliant design of endless merging across 8 lanes that backs up traffic for miles at any time of day, every day of the week. Obviously designed by an engineer who's never driven a car and loves sitting for hours on end.

I'm in a terrible mood because I effed up a job today and now I have to reshoot it. I can't seem to get my shit straight lately. It's like part of my brain falls asleep from time to time. I don't know it's switched off, so I don't realize anything is wrong until I've made the mistake.

And it's little things, and things you wouldn't expect to screw up. It's maddening. And I don't know what to do to fix it.

It's Not *All* Shitty

I realized the other day, there are a few things that aren't completely shitty.

I love working downtown - it's a great environment for someone with a mild case of ADD - there's just about anything I could need within a few close blocks.

There's great shopping, food and walking all over this area. Though it's more colorful the closer you get to the klassy Market Street theaters. Kla-ssssey.

So, there's that.

In the It's Very Shitty But Not Too Bad department, some asshole got a hold of my bank card number and tried to charge $1,400 on some French computer/multimedia site this past weekend. Thankfully my bank put the kybosh on it & the charge didn't go through, but now the account has been closed & I'll have to get a new card/account, etc.

They didn't get to my money, but now I'm out a bank card & will have to update several billing accounts - most of which I can't remember offhand. Then there was the fun conversation with customer service when I learned I wouldn't get a new card for 7-10 business days.

It's physically impossible to procure such a card from an actual bank branch - it must come from the magical vat of plastic cards located somewhere overseas, I'm guessing. I was hoping to be on the road by Thursday, so I harangued the guy until he found a way to express it to me. He totally didn't have to - I was so unpleasant he should have hung up on me - but I'm glad he helped me out.

Now I just need the new card to get here.

Reset

Maybe it was the Patron last night or the bacon at Sears. Today was weird. I kinda had a breakdown, to borrow the eloquent headline from this week's Onion.

It was all Jeff's fault. He asked me "are you OK?" and sure, I still have my hair and my lungs are working, but my eyes keep leaking.

I rinsed off my mascara with the natural cleansing power of tears and later on went for a nice walk. Had some sorbet. Got some sun. And now I'm planning a vacation. A real vacation. We'll find someone to fill in for me while I'm out so I don't come back to an avalanche of shit.

It's funny when you lose your shit at work. People treat you differently... they talk a little quieter and enunciate very clearly. They refrain from making any large, sudden movements, because at any moment, maybe I'll just start crapping my pants or peeing all over the furniture.

Maybe this is how insanity starts. One day you seem a bit more stressed than usual, laughing & crying simultaneously... and before too long, you're writing your manifesto in your own feces.

Flycatchers

I'm not happy about having a fly or two in the house, but I am enjoying the sound of four little feet landing back on earth after a giant leap into the air to snag a fly.

I love that the little one can't help the urge to hunt the buzzing prey, repeatedly rising from her lounging spot to run them down.

Coming home is the best part of every day. Especially after frustrating emails and being nearly attacked in a meeting for not being a mind reader. Had the person taken five minutes to have a conversation with me early on, all would have been handled in a calm, mutually-agreeable fashion.

Instead, I got to hear how what I provided wasn't at all what was expected, and how she was frustrated at having been over this four times already. Not with me, unfortunately, because if she'd spoken with me, it may have prevented her panties from being sucked up into her colon along with her head.

She seems to be forgetting that this project in particular has the entire company in brand new territory, and because it's not been well planned or thoroughly researched, we all have to work together to move forward, because no one has the script.

Thanks for the support. Thanks for thinking I hold the mystical key and am the one person who has all the answers. It's flattering, but you're really fricking off base.

Just a few minutes into the meeting, all I could think about was How can I get the hell out of here, NOW? It's so goddamn unpleasant.

All we do all day is fight. Fire fight, fight for the right thing, fight for someone to please make a decision, fight for time. Nothing is ever easy.

Today I tried to channel Charlie Sheen's character in Ferris Bueller - to not focus on what's happening or the people around me, but instead on myself & my own attitude. I tried. I really tried. By lunchtime the frustration took over. It's so overwhelming, it becomes impossible to put it out of your mind.

As a wise person said today, Tomorrow is another day.