EUREKA!

I think it finally happened! My depressed streak is over! I've been happy and not bitchy for 5 days in a row!

It could just be Christmas, it could be Mom's ghost looking after me, and it could be that posting about it opened my eyes and finally broke the weird spell that was over me. I don't really care, I'm just thankful and happy and and and... YAY!


Also, I'm finally in the Christmas spirit.

Have I forgotten?

Do you see the beauty in the little things? I think I may have forgotten to take joy out of my own existence. I'm going through life on metaphorical cruise control. I'm trying not to let anything affect me, but I forgot that it means not stopping to smell the roses, as it were.
I just read a blog post from a friend of mine. She seemed so happy to record a little recipe. At this late hour, things seem more significant to me, so it jolted me into a small window of clarity. 'Twer it me, I would have seen that act as a chore. I say I enjoy cooking, but the past few months I admit I have not been myself. Even though that act would potentially make multiple people happy, I only pretend to enjoy it on the surface.

Have I lost the ability to be truly happy, or just lost the will?

I am irritated more often than not. Or hopeless. Or holding back fury. Or, most of all, jaded and cynical and stony-eyed. Being with loved ones only makes me act happy because it is the customary, ingrained response. A joke will make me laugh, but it isn't a true expression of joy. Just a reflex.

What do I have to do to wake up? To see the stunning grace and innocence in life again?  To be pleased?

I think perhaps a deep conversation will help. But Dad is just as bad as me and I don't think he's come to the same realization as me. My husband doesn't go beyond the shallow, surface talks much anymore, if at all. My sister, perhaps, if she weren't in school full time AND working part time. Plus for all her triumphs, she is still so young, and doesn't understand my situation, I think.

For now I will try to surround myself with things that used to make me happy. Additionally, I will try to snap myself out of my day-to-day veil of apathy and really see what is in front of me.

Oh! And Merry Christmas.

Student Loans, Novels, and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

Student Loans

   I owe about 25,000 to the government for my 1 and 1/2 years of college education. I stopped going because it was much too expensive. Every time I signed a student loan agreement I felt like I was signing away my soul. I just got it all sorted out and deferred for six more months. Couldn't ignore it anymore. Stupid private colleges. Stupid love of animals forcing me to want to have a career working with them. Speaking of careers, I need more money. I might have to take a second job, especially if I'm moving out soon.

 

Novels

   I was talking with my Mommy today, like I do when I'm alone. She doesn't actually answer me, but it makes me feel better to imagine her in the room listening to my woes, then giving myself advice that I imagine she'd give. I was basically asking what to do about my situation, and I heard myself-as-Mom reminding me that I had God-given talents and I should use them. Writing. Anyone can self-publish an e-book nowadays. I have the story in my head, I should just type it up.

   Why not? I have plenty of free time in the evenings, I can type what ever I feel like, then sort it all out in chronological order. Plus! Figure my book sells for 7.99 online. Three of that would go to the selling company, and since I don't have any printing costs or publishing company fees, I'd make a profit of about $2 per book minus taxes and other fees. Well, then let's sell 10,000 books online. Not a best-seller, but respectable. That's 20,000 in my pocket. Not bad extra money.

 

The Partridge

   My dear, sweet father in law is kicking us out. He's selling the house in spring, and if we don't find a HOUSE to live in, we're screwed. Even just a studio apartment with no bedroom is $500 a month around these parts. Together, Kibbin and I are making roughly $1200 per month. Bills as of now are about $400, and gas and other expenses add up pretty quickly. We need to find a house. I hope our credit is good enough, but I wouldn't count on it. A mortgage on a decent 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home would be around 700-900 per month depending on interest rates and all that jazz. Add my father and sister paying rent of $500 per month for use of 2 of the bedrooms, and we're down to 200-400 per month. Cheaper than an apartment. We'll be able to manage household bills with the extra money. Plus, if we have a good enough basement, we can add in another roomate for less, like $200. Then it would just fall on us to pay the property tax and whatnot, and we can finally begin saving up for a dream house AND paying off some student loans. I just need my credit to go through for financing. 

Living on a Prayer!

Oh boy.. winter... yay...

Fuckin' Snow

 

 

Oh, the weather outside is frightful,

But corporate is being spiteful,

And since there's a foot of snow,

Let me go, let me go, LET ME GO!

 

 

My boss was pretty mad today. She lives a good hour away from work and she wanted a bit of daylight left so she could drive home. We were both praying that a call would come in from the district manager, saying we could close the store early and go home. No such luck. We had a total of five customers in the store. You'd have to be a lunatic to want to shop on a day like today. My boss was tramping around the empty store all afternoon, yelling at some points and laughing at others. She was SO mad at Turkey. Turkey lives 5 minutes away from work, and as a good decent person should have offered to close the store for my boss when she came in. Hell, even I offered to close up by myself so she could get home.

 

On another note, I want to take a bubble bath. All warm and cozy, suspended in fragrant bubbles. It must be reminiscent of the womb.

 

Luna is a snow cat. Last year we couldn't keep her in the house. Every time the door opened she'd bolt out to frolic in the powdery snow. It's pretty cute, but annoying. One time we didn't notice she'd escaped, and five minutes later she was yowling because her little paws got too cold. I spent maybe fifteen minutes holding a lukewarm cloth to each of her feet to make sure she didn't get frostbitten.

 

 

Photo courtesy of Kari Mathias

For Once, No Bad News

I Hope.

 

 

So I guess it's the holday season again. Joy, rapture, peace on earth, people trampling each other for a five dollar set of lotion. You know, Christmas.

 

I don't have anything to complain about right now. I feel like I should be wallowing in self-pity like a water buffalo in three feet of swamp mud. I mean, this is my first Christmas without Mommy.

 

She always made it special, you know?

 

 

 

Turkey Tales

Tale of the Terrible Turkey

 

 



I have the fortune to work at a sister store of LargeButt, hence to be known as Faterine's clothing store. I honestly like my work - customers are usually polite and happy, my Angel of a boss says I remind her of herself when she was my age, and my other coworkers are professional and friendly.

Well, I wouldn't be writing if all was peachy. They say beauty is on the inside, but this one coworker of mine is ugly inside and out. Imagine, if you will, a 50-something lady with bleach blonde hair piled on top of her head, boobs the size of basketballs down below her elbows. A hooked nose, huge double chin and long yellow teeth - along with skinny legs - gives the overall impression of a giant chicken. I wouldn't care about any of this if she were a decent person. She has a piss-poor attitude. She is lazy, inconsiderate, and thinks everyone is out to get her. Not to mention backstabbing and bossy. Yet she hasn't done anything majorly screwed up enough to get fired yet. We'll call her Turkey, what with the holidays looming.

Anyway, I had a true night from hell last week, and it was only a 4 hour shift!

It started out very busy. I walked in the door and there was a line. This is unusual, as the one person on register can normally process a purchase fairly quickly and we don't normally have more than 5-10 customers in the store at once. I didn't even have time to put my jacket in back, and just tossed it on the back counter while I punched in early. Turkey was stuck on a return and having trouble processing it. She was hired on as a shift lead a year ago (same day I was hired), and as such should know how to do a simple return. I was on my last week of training before becoming an SL myself, so I helped her out and we took care of the line.

Not five minutes after I arrive, Turkey says "I'm going on break!" and happy walks in the back room.

We still have 11 customers in the store, so taking a break should be last on your mind. Company policy says that you get a 15 minute paid break if you work more than 5 hours, and if there is nothing urgent that needs to be done. I shrugged it off to her usual laziness and cleaned up. We were given a list of things to do that night, and we were supposed to split them 50-50. I figured she wouldn't do her part, so I left one single thing for her to do. I cleared the fitting rooms, straightened the tables, helped customers, waxed the fixtures, and wiped down the counters.

A whole HOUR goes by with her in back. I call her out to help ring up customers and she gives me a dirty look. I was in the middle of dusting and watching a potential shoplifter. She stomps up the register, rings up the customer, and heads back to the break room.

Turkey: "I'll be out in 10 minutes."

Me: "Whoa, your break ended like, 45 minutes ago. I got most of the list done, I just have to finish dusting, then you can vacuum."

Turkey: "Excuse me?! I would have thought you'd be done by now!"

I just rolled my eyes and smiled.

Later that same night, we were both on register. Our clothes have magnetic alarm sensors to prevent shoplifting. They have a small, needle-like component and a large oblong piece that attaches on either side of the cloth. When we take them off, the two pieces come apart and are tossed in to seperate bins to avoid accidental injury. Well, Turkey was throwing both parts into the bin for the safe oblong pieces. I didn't notice and when I went to grab a handful, I was stabbed pretty badly in my palm. To this day I don't know why Turkey was in such a horrid mood. She was bitchy for no good reason that I can see.

Me: "Um, hey Turkey, would you mind aiming about 3 inches to your left when you throw the sensors?"

Turkey: "I REALLY don't think that's important, LUNA."

So I showed her my bleeding hand, and said "Well, it's important to me. I just got stabbed. So... please?"

Turkey: "Well I guess if it's really all that important to you, I GUESS I can make the effort."

Gee thanks, your bloody Highness... I'm so glad you can get over the inconvenience of turning your wrist slightly when you toss sensors away. How can I ever repay that selfless kindness?

Her poor attitude continued. Every chance she got to make my job harder, she took. We had no major incident until 10 minutes to closing. The store had settled down with only the occasional customer. The vacuuming still hasn't been done, so I bring it up and ask if she'll do it. She complains that her back is sore and asks me. I'm almost at my breaking point by then, but I smile and agree.

I'm up front vacuuming. The last customer is being rung up with a decent sized purchase. Suddenly I hear "LUUUUUNAAAAA, I NEED YOU UP HERE!"

So I turn off the vacuum and walk all the way from the front of the store to the back, where the register is.

Me: "What do you need?"

Turkey: "Oh, can you bag these clothes for me? I'm busy ringing her up."

Bear in mind, bagging a customer's items is part of the fucking job. It consists of shaking out a bag, picking up an item, and dropping said item into the damn bag. She called me all the way back here to stuff some jeans into a platic bag? Something she has done thousands of times with no trouble?

I swallow my building rage. I can play her game.

Me: "I really think you can handle that yourself. I was busy doing your single task for the evening, so IF you don't mind.."

I turned and walked back to the vacuum. Sadly, this was not the end of my night. I was in for a terrible, smelly surprise.


I left off at store closing. I had finished vacuuming, locked the door and approached the register. Associates are supposed to watch the shift leads count down the registers, otherwise I wouldn't have gone anywhere near Turkey. Cue shitstorm!

Turkey: "What the fuck were you doing?!"

Me: "Excuse me?"

Turkey: "Why did it take you so long to do your chores tonight? What, are you stupid or something?"

You could hear my patience snap. Since we were alone and almost done for the evening, my cheery and professional demeanor vanished. I had had enough.

 

 

Me: "Well maybe if you hadn't been sitting on your ASS all night and helped me a little, we would have gotten done faster!"

Turkey purses her lips to look like an anus - a sure sign she's angry with me.

Turkey: "That's a DAMN LIE! DO YOU KNOW WHAT GOD DOES TO LITTLE LYING BITCHES LIKE YOU?!"

She had used this line on a Jewish coworker who is very supersticious. She made the poor girl cry the week before after telling her she'd go to hell for lying. I responded that her trick might have scared me if I believed in God. She sputtered a little and then went off on a tyrade on how I was a bad person and was going to hell. Swearing, face going red, the whole thing. I let her do this for about 5 minutes before asking her politely to start counting down the drawer so we can punch out and go home. Turkey ignores me and continues her bitchfit. I see that we're late. I'm tired and frustrated, and totally done with her. So I slam my hand on the counter and shock her into momentary silence.

Me: "TURKEY! Shut up and do your FUCKING job. If you want to discuss your behavior tonight we can do it outside."

She's quiet for 15 seconds while she's counting down the drawer. Then she pipes up again, calls me a bitch some more, and says she'll talk to the boss because I swore at her.

Me: "You really think Angel will buy your story after I tell her what you did tonight?"

Turkey: "Oh... well..."

Blessed silence, until we're punching out.

Turkey: "You know I wouldn't fight with you like this if I didn't like you, right? I can tease you because you're my friend. We don't have to tell Angel, it was just friends teasing each other."

 

 

Me: "What?" I'm completely thrown off.

Turkey: "Yeah girl, we're friends! Haha, we should go out drinking some night. Get our dance on."

Me: "Um, no thanks."

Turkey: "Oh come on, I bet we'd get tons of guys. Besides, I get a little frisky when I'm drunk. Who knows, maybe we'd go home with the same guy! Hahaha!"

I just stare at her until we leave. Then the worst possible thing that could ever happen, happens. My Kibbin and two of his friends came to pick me up and witnessed this.

Turkey: "Haha, you know I love you, Luna!"

 

 

Then she hugs me. She pulled me into a fucking hug. I almost gagged at the smell. She stinks like an infected, unwashed crotch bathed in Paris Hilton perfume. Then she notices the car with the boys in it. Before I can shove her away she kisses me. Kisses me. On the cheek. I'm too stunned to react.

Turkey: "Oh-ho! I hope the boys don't think we're having an office romance! Tee-hee!"

Me: "I..."

I sprinted for the car, otherwise I would have thrown up AND punched her in the face. I got the car and my Kibbin's friends immediately start laughing.

Guy: "What was THAT?"

Me: "When we get home remind me to bleach this side of my face."

And that was that. I reparted it to management, but she hasn't been fired yet. I am waiting for her to dig her own grave. With me as shift lead, her hours will get cut and maybe Angel will see what a horrible, horrible person Turkey is.



Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down.

Is there anybody... out there?

 

 

Let's continue on my line of ever deepening internal turmoil. Shall we? It's been 8 months now since my mother passed. Pippin, dear heart, passed away on the 13th of January.

 

I got my sister a kitten in August. She named him Nigel. He's a cute orange and white marshmallow fluff of a kitten. He cost 200 dollars but since she's still exclaiming her happiness to the world, it was well worth it.

 

Instead of bettering myself, focusing on school, work, my relationships, family, friends, or any other productive activity, I've been dealing with my grief by burying it and playing video games to numb my mind. If Kibbin weren't so vehemently against drugs and alcohol I would be using all of them, I'm sure.

 

I've also been having issues with body image, more so than usual. I work at a plus-sized clothing shop for women. I'm on the small side of that scale. 1-2x. When I started working there I was easily a 2, but in the last few months I've dropped from a 26 to a 22 in pants, and a 22 to an 18 in tops. I should be happy, but I'm at the point where it's not enough.

 

 

Some days I look at myself and I'm surprised how good I look. Then later in the day I'll catch myself in a mirror and almost cry at the horribly fat and ugly monster I see reflected at me. I try to reassure myself: "At least you're not a 5x!" "You're losing weight, just keep it up."

 

But it never works. I go home and stress. Then when no one is looking I eat something that makes me feel better and worse at the same time. I'm on the Sensa diet now, but I don't think it's working. The idea behind it is the crystals you sprinkle on your food enhance the flavors you eat. It tricks your body into thinking that you ate more than you did, so you feel satisfied quicker. This is a wonderful premise and if I were in my normal state of mind it would work. But now I'm eating just for the comfort of having food pass my lips and the satisfying feeling of chewing and swallowing. I do it even when I'm not hungry, even when I'm full. So that diet plan fails. It's a struggle to eat right when the only thing the food shelf gives you is carbs and boxed dinners that don't expire until who knows when.

 

I owe 25,000 dollars to the government for my student loans. Even with deferment I will still owe them in a year. Then what? Income-based payments? Well I am not making enough to pay my bills at the moment, much less any extra money. Wage garnishments if I just refuse to pay? Well then I'll never get my own place.

 

I'm so done. I'm on the edge of giving up every day. Every day it's another bill, another notice of repayment. I miss my Mom every single fucking day. If she were here and healthy she would know what to do.

 

Dad is no help anymore. I think he just gave up, too. He's dating this redneck bitch that is drunk every day and is a horrible influence on him. My sister hates her too. How could my father, the man I saw as part hero, part scare story, fall this low? Is he that desperate for female companionship that he would take a woman that lost her children, didn't ever want to be a mother, is selfish, dumb, uneducated, and has no will to better herself? It blows my mind.

 

 

Well, on the plus side, my boss offered me a small promotion.

 

I just give up. Today. Tomorrow will be a brand new chance

For unexpected pleasures and bitter disappointments.

C'est la vie.



I'm a horrible person

So did it ever occur to you that winter is a season of death? My mother died. January 2nd.

In 2007, Kibbin's mother died on December 3rd. In 2009, his grandfather died December 9th. Great poets and writers all across the world have seen winter as the death of the world. I'd like to know if actual human casualties rise in winter months.

I put away my deep sensitive soul. It's not gone, it's just in a box in a dusty corner of my heart. Like your favorite piece of jewelry you have to stop wearing once you stop clubbing and dancing and bar-hopping and have to start working in a cubicle and attend business meetings.

Is this how all humans die? Are there only a few live people out there? Or am I utterly alone with this madness that is slowly washing over me, like a tide at midnight.