Cautiously Optimistic

Huh. Not even a song title or a lyric or anything...

Well, the manager of the department I work in (the one I'm afraid of) called as I was leaving to pick up my paycheck and asked what my conversion fee was (the fee to convert me from a temp to an employee of the company). That's a good thing. An even better thing is that the business manager at the agency said that she doesn't think there is one since I have been here so long.

I'm not getting my hopes up, but maybe, just maybe...

Stuff, Stuff, Everywhere Stuff

Apologies to whoever wrote and/or sang "Signs."

Well, first of all, I'm honestly, sincerely not well. I have this cyst thing that popped up on my back, and is now approximately the size of a plum. I've also had a fever and chills for the past three days. Fun. Especially since I have no health insurance, no paid time off, and no money. An office visit to my doctor would cost the same as my electric bill, and the metering company won't accept late payments or make payment arrangements. My friend Amy (thanks Amy!) offered to pay my electric bill, but I just can't accept that (Sorry). Call it pride, call it whatever you want, but I've always been a fairly self-reliant person, mostly because I've had to be. Yeah, that's probably my fault, but it is who I am and I don't think I can change.

I don't like the fact that I can't seem to accept help from people. I guess I've just been rebuffed so much when I have asked for help that I've somehow taught myself to turn down help even when it is offered. It is my major weakness, I suppose, but I don't know how to fix it.

Well, if I still don't feel good tomorrow, I guess I'll go to the emergency room. Web MD said that's what I should do anyhow when I checked my symptoms. They are obliged to treat everyone, even without insurance. I just hate the idea of horribly expensive ER bills for what is probably an in-office procedure. The way things are going right now, it'll take me forever to pay them off.



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Things at work are...weird. I think I'll share the whole story with you.

L, one of the women I work with (she is...or was...the manager of telephone nurse consultants), decided to have breast augmentation surgery. Now I know, from her very loud phone call, that she was already a D cup. I'm not accustomed to looking at other women't chests, but she seemed pretty...ample... to me. But she decided she wanted to go larger and have 750 cc implants put in. Her previous implants (did I mention that this was her second enlargement?) were 375 cc's, so these were twice as big. Yeah. She had a week of vacation time, so she took that to have the surgery.

Well, she had complications. The surgeon had to stretch her skin so tight to accomodate the implant that she had trouble closing the incision. One of her incisions keeps opening. She's been out additional days on bedrest twice, and is most likely going out again starting today.

Well G, the big boss isn't happy about that at all. She wasn't happy she took time off to have the surgery, and she isn't happy about all this time she's had to take subsequently. L is out of PTO, and since this was a cosmetic procedure, it isn't covered under short term disability, even though these are complications.

Well (I seem to have a thing for starting sentences like that tonight - forgive me. It's hard to be creative when you are shaking), G called L into her office on Tuesday. She stripped her of her title, and L now reports to one of the people she previously managed. L asked me that day if G had said anything to me about hiring me as a regular employee. I told her know, then she went and talked with K, my immediate supervisor (sorta) in whispers for a while. I didn't know about the whole title thing then, so I started to get paranoid.

L is really upset, and thinks that if she has to go on bed rest again, she won't have a job to come back to, which is probably true. I feel really bad for her, but it's really hard for me to have sympathy when, to an extent, she brought this on herself and I'm sitting there shivering and hurting. I'm trying, though.

This whole thing has made me really paranoid, though. If that can happen to her, I'm actually afraid to miss work since I'm just a temp. It's what kept me from going to the ER last night when my temp hit 103 and I couldn't stop shaking.

I'll write more about that manager another time, and the rest of the stuff I wanted to write about. I need to lay down now. My temp is back up to 101.

The Letter

Before I get to the subject of this post, I have to offer a thank you to Chevy Rose for the advice the other day when I was particularly down. Well, my bathroom only has a shower, so a bath is out; I'm out of tea, but even if I wasn't, I'm trying to cut back on caffeine (trying is the key word - I sometimes need it to stay awake at work...spreadsheets are boring!); and I have horrible writer's block. But I took a nap and then I felt better...or at least less tired.

The good news is that the year old, expired antibiotic ear drops are working, and I don't seem to be dying (though I did have a fever today). I can touch the side of my face without screaming in agony - I count that as a victory. If the nurses I work with knew what I was doing I would probably never hear the end of it. Of course, if the DEM (who is a nurse) would just hire me, pay me more than $9 an hour, and let me have benefits, it would be a moot point.

Not going to go there today.

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If you've been reading my blog regularly, you know that a while back (too lazy to search and link) I said that I was going to send a letter to teh director of pastoral ministries at the church I worked for so that I could finally find closure. Well, I never sent it, and in fact thought I lost it until today. I was looking for a floppy today to save a couple writing samples to (for a job I'm applying for) and I came across the floppy I saved the letter on. I've decided to post it here, and let all of you tell me if I should send it or not. No names are included here, but they are in the letter.

Dear C,

I’ve been struggling with whether or not I should write this letter for some time now. I couldn’t decide if it would give me the freedom to move on or if it would be picking at wounds that are starting to scab over. If you are reading this, you know what decision I made.

I haven’t been able to leave behind my experiences there because I was really hurt by a lot that happened in my 18 months there. I have been hurt by things that have happened since I left. I expressed some of what I felt to Fr. B back in January, but I find that I have been holding a lot of anger toward and frustration with you, and I don’t think I can let it go without expressing it.

First let me say that the reason it has taken me so long to get to this point is because I am so conflicted over my feelings toward you. You have to know that at one point in time I respected you like I have respected few other women in the Catholic Church. I viewed you as intelligent, compassionate, and spirit-filled. I thought you were passionate about your work, and was impressed by your ability to achieve balance between work and home. I thought you were everything a professional lay minister in the 21st century Catholic Church should be.

As time went on, however, I saw another side of you. I saw someone who needed to be in control of everything you were even remotely involved in. I saw that even though you professed to care more about a person’s gifts and their, “piece of the wisdom,” you were far more impressed with a person if they had money, power, or influence. And I discovered that, because the adults I worked with had all three, I matted far less to you than they did.

I don’t even know if you are aware of your need to be in control and to have everything done your way. But I became aware of a pattern in my conversations with you. I would come to you with a problem, or an idea, or a suggestion, and you would subtly manipulate the conversation so that I ended up agreeing with whatever it was you wanted, whether I thought it was a good thing or not. How did that happen? Because I knew of your reputation and I respected it. That’s what makes me think you are not even consciously aware of what you are doing. I’ve seen it happen in staff meetings as well, and I am not the only person to make this observation. What makes it even worse is that your opinion (and occasionally MB’s or K’s) is the only one Fr. B pays any attention to.

Now, I want you to know that I think your longevity has earned you the right to have more weight placed on your opinions and ideas than on those of someone with less seniority. But C, you have to know that sometimes other people have good or even great ideas that differ from your own. Listen to them. Don’t dismiss what they have to say out of hand. Be aware of manipulating them to your ideas, and avoid doing it.

I really want to believe you are also unaware of the value you place on money, power, and influence. I want to believe that it’s just coincidence that you seem to pay attention primarily to people who give a lot of money to the parish, or who hold or have held powerful or influential positions in the parish or community. I want to think that it’s just because there are so many people in the parish who fit that description. But I have seen you dismiss people who don’t have as much money, or who don’t have powerful jobs, or who are unwilling to play the parish politics game. I myself have been victim of that.

Now, I don’t blame you solely for that. There is a prevailing attitude within the parish that unless you have money or, preferably, come from money, you have no value as a human being. You can argue against that all you want, and hold up the parish’s supposed charitable endeavors all you want, but the fact of the matter is that it is a very real problem.

Do you want some proof that money, power, and influence are all that matters? I came to you several times because of the problems I was having with PC last year. I told you about the fact that she bypassed my authority on several occasions, and that we just seemed to have a personality conflict that I couldn’t seem to get around. I was looking for advice since she managed to involve herself in every ministry that fell under me, and I felt like I couldn’t work with her effectively. I never got any real advice from you; the closest you came to making a suggestion was essentially telling me to grin and bear it because of the amount of influence she had. Now I see in the bulletin that she is coordinator for high school PSR. This woman, who once told me that I pray wrong, who told me that I was an inferior person because I was an “I” and a “P”, who tried to rally other adults against me, and who regularly humiliated me in front of not only other adults but young people as well is coordinating high school religious education. I have to tell you that I take that as a personal affront.

What I wrote about above was not just an isolated incident. I can’t tell you the number of times I was made to feel inferior, by both parishioners and staff. I may not have grown up with all the advantages all of you did. We never had money for vacations, or dances, or sororities, or whatever. Heck, there were times when things were so tight that we were on public assistance. But the fact of the matter is that it didn’t stop my parents from raising me well. They may not have been able to afford to send me on trips or to special programs, or to pay for sorority dues, or whatever, but they went out of their way to expose me to museums, and libraries, and other cultural experiences. They knew I had been blessed with intelligence and a gift for writing (I’m not bragging, just stating a fact), and they sacrificed to nurture it. Yet there were times when you (both you singularly and you collectively, as a parish and/or staff) made me feel like I didn’t posses the intelligence God gave gnats. I may not have the best organization skills in the world, and I may not have a type-A personality, but I know I have gifts and skills that I was never given the opportunity to use.

That’s really what has hurt most about this whole experience. Do you know that at one point during the time since I left there, I felt so worthless that…well…some pretty dark thoughts crossed my mind? No, of course you don’t, but I’ll write about that later. If it weren’t for my friends reminding me that I am a fantastic writer (this letter not withstanding – I’m too emotionally keyed up to pay attention to conventions of standard written English), a terrific teacher, and a person who has intrinsic value as a child of God, I don’t know where I would be. Those thoughts still cross my mind sometimes. This letter is one of the ways of exorcising those figurative demons.

I have to tell you that I am bothered about the way I was dismissed. I felt like a common criminal. Neither you nor MB even looked me in the eye that day, and NW stood over my shoulder watching everything I did like I was going to try to walk away with the computer system in my back pocket. I resent the fact that I was not allowed to return the following day to collect the things that belonged to me. Of the stuff you people dumped on my doorstep that day, only one small box actually belonged to me, and it did not include about six pairs of good scissors, several books, and a DVD and several CD’s that did. If I had been allowed to return to get my things the following day, when I was more composed, that would not have happened, and you would not have had the extra work.

I also have to tell you how hurt I am that no one from that place has ever called to see how I am doing, except for T. You know I have no family and a weak support system, the entirety of which is 1200 miles away. Did it not occur to you, then the DPM and now the pastoral associate, that I just needed someone to acknowledge me? Did you know I spent all of February sick? I had a staph infection that it turns out I was probably suffering from since the middle of November. I was on five different antibiotics simultaneously which left me constantly exhausted and nauseated and barely able to get out of bed. But of course you didn’t know that – or you didn’t care.

Here are some of the things I wrote in my journal when I hit the nadir of my depression:

The only thing this whole mess has succeeded in doing is making me realize just how incompetant and worthless I really am.

I never should have left Pittsburgh. I'd give anything to go back, but I can't. I don't have anyone there. I don't have anyone here. I'm all alone and I hate it and I can't do anything about it. It's just not fair.

I have no doubt that God exists. I have no doubt that He's up there (or whatever) listening. I just have trouble believing right now that He offers any guidance. That he speaks to us. He just lets us fumble our way along down here and we suffer for it.

I don't know.

I'm just so freaking sad.

I hate having to pretend to be happy and content when I'm not. And I hate having to pretend that I think the Catholic church is the be all and end all of churches everywhere. It may claim apostolic succession, but it is anything but the church the apostles founded.

I Hate Myself
I really do. I can't seem to be happy. I have an interview in Houston on Monday, but probably won't take the job because I can't afford to move. A friend offered me a way to get back to Pittsburgh, complete with a job, and I can't take it. I'm sad when people don't care about me, I'm sad when they do. I thought I had a good chance at an awesome job in Connecticut, but the guy hasn't gotten back to me since he asked me for my resume, references, and transcripts, so I probably put him off, too. Then, people profess to give a damn about me, but desert me when I need someone. There must be something wrong with me that makes people humiliate me, hate me, abandon me. I would fix it if I knew what it was.

God, I sound like a damn cliche.



I didn’t share these things with you to garner your sympathy. But you need to know how utterly alone I felt. Unlike you, and everyone else there, I have no family to lean on for support, which you know. All it would have taken to make me feel less like a waste of skin was a simple phone call. I may not have spoken for long, or at all, but sometimes it’s the sentiment that matters more than the action. After all, I am still a parishioner (at least in name). Isn’t it part of your job (or Fr. B’s job) to reach out to people who are hurting?

Thanks to a few good friends and some total strangers I have regained some of the confidence I lost at the hands of that place. I got the job I mentioned above, the one in Connecticut (I got the one in Houston too, but had to turn it down). I had to turn it down because the director had to withdraw his offer of housing and I couldn’t afford to move, but he went out of his way to find a way to get me up there to interview and he told me that I was far and away the best candidate he interviewed, and that he wants me to keep in contact because he may be opening another school next year and he wants me on staff if he does. I submitted a short story / first chapterof a novel (I enclosed it for your reading pleasure) to an online writer’s workshop, and it was rated to be of publishable quality by professional writers and editors. I am recovering despite you (singularly and collectively) and despite that place.

I want you to know that I’m not sure I still consider myself to be Catholic. It took me a long time to find my way back to a mass (at other churches – not there), and the ones I have attended have left me feeling tense, angry, and disaffected. Oh, I haven’t lost my faith in God, or my appreciation for ritual and sacrament, or my baptismal call. But I have been on the inside of the institutional church now. I have seen and experienced hypocracy, disregard for the inherent value of human beings, and selfishness. At the moment, I can’t separate my love of the Church from my dislike of the church (capitalization is intentional). I can’t bring myself to be a part of a church that at best ignores these things when they happen and at worst advocates them with its policy and structures.

Maybe someday that will happen. Maybe someday those scabs will scar over and I’ll be able to return to the Church I was baptized in, the Church I grew up in, the Church I once loved despite its flaws. But for now, I’m just seeking and searching, like so many others who have found the Catholic Church wanting in some regard.

Now, having said all this, I want to make sure that you know that I accept that most of the blame for my lack of success there lies with me in one way or another. If I were less laid back, or more assertive, or more refined, or more organized, or less quiet, etc, etc., I might still be there. But the fact of the matter is that you (and this time I do mean you singular) set everything on the wrong path by telling me to defer to R and the other adults when I first got there. I was never able to work with the leadership to establish a vision for youth ministry from the get-go. I couldn’t implement some of the programs I wanted to implement, and I couldn’t set myself up as a leader as a result. I see that it looks like you aren’t making that same error with S. On one level, I’m glad for his sake. He will have a hard enough time separating himself from the students as it is due to his age. But on the other hand, I resent that I wasn’t given the same chance, and I wonder if it is because I was an outsider – not from the parish, not from Baton Rouge, not from a natinally known college, not from money.

I want to close by saying that I didn’t write this letter to hurt you, although I may have succeeded in doing just that. In fact, if I get up the nerve to actually send it, I will probably regret it later. But I think I need to say these things and have someone there read them in order to gain a sense of closure on that phase of my life.

I don’t expect a response to this letter. If you want to, fine, if not, that’s fine, too. It really doesn’t matter to me. I’m writing it as a catharsis, and I’m only sending it because the significance wouldn’t be as great if I just let it sit on my hard drive.

Despite everything I have said here, I want you to know that bygones are now bygones. I will harbor no ill will toward you in the future. Holding a grudge isn’t worth the energy it requires. Now that I have said what needs to be said I can let it go.

C, I truly wish you all the best in your changing position. I hope that you can provide the kind of compassionate, competent leadership I saw in you when I first arrived. I hope you have learned from the mistakes that were made during my tenure there and that you are able to mentor S more effectively than you did me. And I hope that you find a sense of peace within yourself.

I will be praying for you.


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So, there you have it. Of course, I'd have to change the end part and tell her about the Lutheran Church I've been going to and why, but that's minor.

Should I send it, or should I settle for a private catharsis?

Saw this on a message board I post to regularly. Apparently, I'm a Clumber Spaniel. I'd never heard of that breed before, but here is a picture:




Cute, no?

I Have Become...

...uncomfortably numb.

With apologies to Pink Floyd for the paraphrase (I think - I know songs but never who sings them).

I realized this week that I have hit the point where I really don't care about anything in terms of my career or lack there of. As I sat at my computer working on spreadsheets all blooming week, to the point that my wrist is actually bruised from mouse overusage, that I don't care if this company hires me, I don't car if I find another job, I don't care if I ever find career fulfillment. That scares me.

That's why I haven't posted anything of any significance of late. I just couldn't bring myself to care. I thought about posting a lot, but never quite got around to it. Why? Usually when I post I'm feeling something worth writing about. But I haven't felt anything at all this week. I haven't been happy or sad, frustrated, angry, elated, or anything else. I've just been tired. Really, amazingly tired.

I don't know what that means, if it means anything. I do know that tomorrow marks 11 months that I have been temping in the same place. I do know that they would never be able to get all the work that needs to be done done without me. I do know that they don't seem to have any inclination toward hiring me, despite the fact that they talk about it all the time. I do know that I, in all likelyhood have an ear infection, but since I don't have any insurance or money I am treating it with year old antibiotic drops and praying I don't die.

And I don't care if I do or don't.

Hmm...

Single People of the World Unite!

Saw this on Gillian's LiveJournal (she's Australian, FYI). Had to link it because I was just saying this very thing today as everyone in the office left early (again) to deal with family obligations, and there I was, sitting alone at my desk yet again. Well, I left early too, and I don't feel guilty about it now. I had family obiligations, too - I was tired.

So there.

I Fear for the Future

Saw this in Rob's blog. And people wonder what's wrong with this country.

A Good Day, A Bad Day, A Blah Day

A Good Day

I had lunch with someone I worked with at the St. Al's CCC. T was the only person there who kept in contact with me since we parted ways. She was also one of the people who I "came out" to (for those of you who have not been following my saga, this has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with religion. Read some of my earlier posts if you're interested). When she didn't call me after I sent her the letter admitting that I've been going to a Protestant Church, I thought the worst. But she called me out of the blue last week and suggested that we have lunch.

I had been dreading it since we made the appointment. I almost considered making an excuse and cancelling today. I'm so glad I didn't.

T validated everything I was feeling, and told me that she probably would have made the same decisions if she were in my shoes. She told me that if she were treated the way I was, she probably would have walked away from the Catholic Church as well. She also told me that if I've found a church where I can be happy, have community, and find God, that was all that mattered.

Talking with T really released me from some of the guilt and trepidation I was feeling. It paved the way a little bit for me to move on if i decide to. T was a real gift for me today.

She's planning to take training to become a spiritual director. I think she'll be wonderful in that capacity.

A Bad Day.

I really hate my job. The new manager either ignores me or is condescending. I hate doing nothing by spreadsheets all day long. I hate the fact that get paid next to nothing and have no benefits.

I'm still sending out resumes, for all the good it's doing.

A Blah Day

It hasn't stopped raining all day. It's absolutely miserable. I have to do laundry but I don't feel like walking across the complex in the rain to go to the laundry room.

Blah.

Freedom of Expression Unimportant?

This makes me sad.

I'm not little miss flag waver by any stretch of the imagination. I have no problem with saying that the US has problems. Big problems. I don't feel like listing them now because I don't want this blog to turn into some big political debate.

But the fact of the matter is that one of the things that makes me glad I live in the US is the fact that our newspapers are not censored by the government, we are free to express ourselves by whatever means we feel, and we are free to practice the religion we choose. Those freedoms provide another check in our system of checks and balances.

Now, that doesn't mean I think that news agencies should just report every lead that crosses their desks willy-nilly. I think CBS learned that lesson. The journalistic profession needs to police itself though, and enforce a code of ethics within its ranks. That isn't up to the government.

And while I may think that some forms of "self-expression" in "art" are icky and inappropriate, not everyone holds that opinion. The artist didn't, for one. If we censor the arts, well, that's the first step to a marxist society.

And while I think flag-burning is a pointless means of protest, I would defend anyone's right to do it. It is just a piece of fabric, after all.

Finally, freedom of religion keeps us from turning into a theocracy run by fundamentalists who have some pretty scary ideas of what society should be like. I like being able to choose the manner in which I practice (or don't practice) my religion without government interference.

I worry about the next generation. I really do.

I'm Sad, Kinda

I just saw in the bulletin from my church in Pittsburgh that Fr. Massung died.

Fr. Massung was probably the kindest person I have ever known. He truly lived his priesthood as a vocation, and he loved what he did. He always had time for his parishioners, and he made everyone feel valued, no matter who they were or what they did for a living, or how much money they had. He was a man of God in the truest sense of the world.

I could tell any number of stories about Fr. Massung, but the most important one to me is the way he treated my family. It was important to my dad that I go to a Catholic school, but there was no way we could afford it on a cab driver's salary. So Fr. Massung worked with my parents. My mom worked at the school for a couple hours a day and therefore got an "employee's discount" on tuition, and my dad did various odd jobs around the parish on weekends to work off a little bit more. I never knew about any of this until I was older, of course, and neither did anyone else. We were treated with dignity and respect, as were so many other families he made deals with. Of course that is probably the reason why that parish is still in debt today, but oh well. He acted out of love, treating people as Christ would have, not as customers in a business.

Fr. Massung also paid for my uniforms when the school switched to them when I was in 7th grade. He did the same for several other families. He didn't want to see anyone have to switch school over that.

The children of the parish flocked to Fr. Massung everywhere he went. I think that we could just sense his inherent goodness and gentleness. We felt safe with him, and he love being with us. We loved it when he'd come into our classrooms. After our well-rehearsed, "Good Morning, Fr. Massung," we all clambered for the chance to show him our work (at least until Sister put us in our places). The wee little ones (including me at that age) presented him with pictures they colored or drew during Mass, and he taped every one of them up in either the sacristy or his office. It was like some cacophonous wallpaper, an interior decorator's nightmare, but somehow fitting for this humble man.

Fr. Massung will be sorely missed. His 92 years on the earth were a gift to so many people, including me. Seeing the other end of the priestly spectrum as I did in my recent job nightmare have made me appreciate his giftedness all the more. I stated at the beginning that I was only kinda sad. I'm sad he's gone from this world, but happy that he will be forever in the presence of God now. He deserves the rest.

Today's My Mum's Birthday

She would have been 70.

When I realized that little piece of information it really surprised me. That meant that she was 60 when she died. It seemed to me like she was older at the time. I wonder why that is? Maybe it's because she was so sick and weak. Maybe it's because I wasn't ready for that parent/child role reversal at the age of 24. Maybe it's something else.

Mum and I had an odd relationship. In some ways, we had so much in common. We were both born to older parents, I was an only child and she might as well have been (her closest brother was 12 years older), we had a bunch of the same interests, and I knew I could go to her with anything and she would be supportive.

But there was a certain distance in her that made it difficult to get really close. Oh, I never doubted that she loved me, and she never hesitated to show it. But it always felt like she was holding a part of herself separate from everyone else, and that that part held the key to really knowing her. I guess it was a defense mechanism in part - her father was an abusive alcoholic who left my grandmother when Mum was five, and, as horrible as it is to say it, my grandmother just didn't have time for the touchy-feely stuff when my mum was growing up. It was tough to be a single mother in the 1940's and 50's.

But that piece she held back, when she allowed a glimpse of it, was deep and beautiful and terrifying. It gave testament to how much more there was to her than what people saw, and how much pain she carried around with her without burdening other people.

I guess that's where I get that tendency from. I learned a great many positive things from Mum, but I guess I picked up her unfortunate traits as well.

I regret that Mum and I weren't able to stay as close as I grew older. Oh, on the surface you probably couldn't see it, but we were drifting. I guess that as I got older, that piece I hold back and that piece she held back continued to grow as well. Those pieces were enough to start to form a wall, I suppose. Fortunately that wall wasn't complete.

But I guess the fact that I couldn't face dealing with another parent's declining health had something to do with it, too. There was only two years between my parents' deaths. That isn't much time at any age, but it's a blink of the eye in your early 20's. If I'm going to be completely honest, I didn't deal well after my dad died, and as a result I wasn't there as much as I wanted to be for my mum. Add to that neighbors who questioned the decisions Mum and I made together about finishing my education, and extended it to question my worth as a human being, and well, I was pretty closed off at that time. I just couldn't face the fact that my mum wasn't the same person who carried my to the bathroom when I had pneumonia in first grade, or was the team mother for my softball team, or helped me move into my dorm room my freshman year of college. It hurt.

I remember when a home health care nurse was trying to get me to change the packing in an incision my mother had where she had a cyst removed on her back. I couldn't do it. I'm not squeamish, but I couldn't stand a) the fact that my mother needed such things, and b) the idea of causing her any pain. My had literally shook so much that the nurse gave up on trying to teach me, and I ended up vomiting.

I guess I wasn't the daughter I should have been.

Despite the hedgewall of our own creation, I loved my mum perhaps more than I can even wrap my brain around to write about. I hate that I only had 24 years to learn from her, to share with her, and to love her. She wasn't perfect, but she was a precious gift in my life. I thank God that he gave me the privledge of being her daughter.

Who Stole My Mouse?

...to paraphrase that popular self-help book of a few years ago (Who Stole My Cheese? - I'd link, but it's too hard without a mouse).

I came into work this morning and my mouse was gone. I'm out of the office for one day (at a training session that was pretty much pointless) and my mouse disappears. I can work without it using keyboard shortcuts, but it's hard. I'm waiting for IS to bring me a new one. I could have gone to Office Depot and bought one myself by now.



I'll write more later, but now I'm going to go back to relearning keyboard shortcuts. Is this week over yet?

Random Question of the Day

Yesterday at lunch with the young adult group, the question arose: When do you stop being a young adult? Here were some of the suggestions:

• When you have children
• When you aren't thrilled that the pastor pays for lunch once a month
• When you can go a whole year without worrying about meeting your rent once
• When your student loas are paid off (if that's the definition, I'll still be a young adult when I'm 60!)
• When you purposely turn your car radio to light and airy favorites

So I put the question to anyone who wanders over here - When do you stop being a young adult and become just an adult?

I'm a Little Freaked Out

OK. This is going to sound totally weird, but apparently someone broke into my car...and cleaned it.

Yeah.

All I know is that when I left work today, after having been at my desk all day, the bag of trash I had in my front seat was gone, as well as the drink containers that were in the cup holder an the random bits of trash on the floor of the passenger side.

Nothing was taken, nothing was broken. The only other thing was that the parking break was on.

I'm I going crazy? Am I having disassociative episodes and cleaning my car during them? Or do I have a really weird stalker?

All I know is that I am really weirded out.

Just Another Wacky Wednesday

...with apologies to Katrina and the Waves (didn't they do Manic Monday...or was that the Bangles...or someone else? So much 80's pop just blends together).

Work is still miserable. Sent out two more resumes today, both for teaching positions in private schools. I don't know why I sent them. I don't want to teach in a regular school/classroom environment. I guess I'm just desperate right now.

My boss was crowing over the fact that "we" have all the market analyses done for proposed new start-ups and branches caught up. She said, "It makes me look good to the higher-ups...I mean it makes us look good." Yeah. Right. None of the higher ups know I exist, yet I did every one of those analyses (over 30 of them) myself from start to finish. But her name is on them, so she gets all the credit.

I'm just so frustrated with that. I mean, I know part of my function as a peon is to make my bosses look good. But it's hard to care about that when I get no credit, little respect, and I make less than half of everyone else in the department. Am I being petty? Maybe. But after 10 months, I think I've earned a little pettiness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I rented Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind last weekend. I was looking forward to it with all the good reviews it has gotten. I have to say I didn't like it. Jim Carrey's performance was good, but not great. Kate Winslet was not really all that great. The storyline was actually kind of cliche, and the way the camera jumped around was annoying. I don't know what movie all the critics who gave it such good reviews were watching, but I don't think it was the same one I saw. I actually fell asleep during it and had to go back and watch the end of it again. If you are thinking about renting it, my advice is...don't.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I had to use my laundry money to buy gas today, thanks to the stupid cashier at Albertson's. I sometimes rely on them to get me through between paychecks because I know I can write a check there on Wednesday and it won't clear my account until after I deposit my paycheck on Friday. I've been writing checks for more than my purchase total there for months on end now. Well today, the cashier declares to me that it has always been store policy not to allow checks for more than the purchase price if the check number is under 500. I asked her why I was able to do so two weeks ago, and she got really snippy with me and said, "Well, you must have been seeing part time cashiers. I know better, and I'm not going to let you try to put that over on me." Well, I was livid. I actually wrote a letter of complaint to the store. I wasn't complaining about the policy, per se; they have the right to set whatever policies they choose to. I was complaining that the policy wasn't posted, that it wasn't consistently enforced, and that the cashier was rude.

I'm getting assertive in my old age.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Finally, two links.

First, Samantha Bennett's column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She's writing about Biloxi, but it could just as easily be anywhere in the deep south.

My friend Amy sent me this article from the New York Times in an e-mail today (her brother lives in New York and sent it to her). I was just reflecting today that the one thing that draws everyone together in Pittsburgh, crossing racial, economic, educational, and geographic barriers is the Steelers. Generally speaking, you would never see a random white guy and a random black guy speaking together at a bus stop in Pittsburgh (yes, racism is alive and well there, it's just more subtle there than here), but bring the Steelers into the equation, and all bets are off. Now if only they played year round.

Well, I'm off. I had oatmeal cookies for dinner tonight. Is that healthy? They have whole grains (oatmeal), fruit (raisins), and protein (nuts). Sounds like a meal to me.

2005 Part Deux

Hey, I live in Louisiana, might as well get as much milage as I can out of my few words of French (I think I'm up to 10, now, though I can't spell any of them).

I've been meaning to pop in here for a while now, but just haven't. No big reason, but lots of little ones.

Let's see...the injury report, first, I think. Well, last Friday I was supposed to go to a wedding (never made it, but I'll get to that later). I had trouble getting my door to close when I left, but didn't think too much about itat the time, because my door sticks all the time (they've been suppose to fix it for a couple years now, but if they can't fix the hole in my wall, I guess the door is even lower on the priority list). When I got home from missing the wedding, it was raining (good omen for John and Cat) - a lot. I got in my apartment and went to close the door, but it stuck again, and as my hands were wet and the door handle was wet, my had slipped of the handle and I cut open my wrist on a sharp edge on the handle. It isn't too bad, but it bruised pretty good and it is going to scar.

Well, on Sunday I was coming home from church and opened the door, and couldn't get it to close again. At all. And in my efforts, I split the middle finger nail on my right hand. It hurts.

Oh, I finally got the door to close by spraying WD-40 along the track and under the door where it runs on the track. Worked like a charm. No wonder my dad swore by it.

Oh, and I have an ingrown toenail. No injury there, but, well, it fit here best.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Is it possible to get stupider if you do mind numbing work for weeks on end? I find myself misspelling simple words, drawing stupid conclusions, and just generally not thinking lately.

Last week, for example, I was driving home from work when I had the sudden fear that I left my keys on my desk and wouldn't be able to get them to get into my apartment because the office is restricted to card-key access after 5:30 p.m. Note that I was driving. Note also that all my keys are on the same key ring. Duh.

Today as I was reformatting data, I actually discovered that I whole chunk of time passed without me having any conscious thought. I mean none. It was actually kind of scary for me, who has nothing going for her except for intellect.

As of Friday, I will have been temping at this company for 10 months. Supposedly this new manager plans to hire me, with added responsibility, but who knows. I just think that people don't realize all that I do because my boss' name is the name that's on everything that goes out. Every project she gets I end up doing the lion's share of the work and she gets all the credit. I'm kind of tired of it, but I have no recourse.

I've sent out a few more resumes this week. We'll see what happens.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I watched Luther again a couple weekends ago. I know it was a Hollywood-ized version of what was really the beginning of the Reformation, but it was still a compelling movie.

The pastor of the church I've been going to gave me a book to read that gives a basic outline of Luther's theology. It's pretty interesting so far. I'd provide a link to it, or at least give you the author, but I'm too lazy to get up and get it right now. Besides, my toe hurts.

I wrote a letter to one of my Catholic friends outlining the journey I've been on. She hasn't gotten back in touch with me, and I know she must have received it by now. Oh well. I kind of had a feeling that all this might lead to the loss of Catholic friends. I just didn't think it would be her.

This Sunday is young adult Sunday at the church. I'm looking forward to it.

~~~~~~~~~~

One good thing this week so far: I found a disk that had a bit of a short story on it that I thought I had lost. I'm not going to continue that particular piece, but there were a couple scenes that I really liked. After I clean them up, I'll post them.

~~~~~~~~~~

Well, that's all I have for tonight. I'm going to go make mac and cheese for dinner now, even though my toe hurts. Yeah, I'm whining about it. Oh well.

2005

...is almost here. Hmm.

I only actually remember one New Years. It was 1980. My parent, seizing the opportunity to pursue their newest hobby of turning everything possible into a math exercise for me (annoying but necessary - I was always close to failing math in elementary school and actually did in 4th grade...but that's a story for another time), challenged me to figure out how old I would be in the year 2000. After many calculations and way too much effort, I finally figured out that I would turn 29 in 2000. To my eight year old self in 1980, not only did 2000 seem impossibly far away, 29 sounded like the oldest a human being could possibly be (even though my mom and dad were 44 and 53 respectively).

In 2005 I will be turning 34, five years older than that impossible 29. I find myself troubled by that. Oh, not because I am getting older - I can deal with that. It's more because I haven't accomplished anything I thought I would have by this point in time. By now I was supposed to be married with children (to a baseball player, according to my inner time line), a published author, and generally well-known and respected.

Instead, I am toiling away in anonymity in a job I really don't like and don't have much aptitude for (except for the research and application end of it). My one potentially publishable work remains stuck at just over 10000 words. And I don't remember my last date, it's been so long (and no, he wasn't a baseball player - he was an accountant).

As I reflect on that, I feel more than a little inadequate. I'm still fundamentally the same person who was predicted to go so far by just about every teacher I had (except for my math teachers, but they were minions of Satan anyway, so...). Yet I have accomplished nothing. Why?

I'd like to blame it on everything else: the fact that we were rather financially bad off when I was growing up, the fact that my parents died while I was relatively young, the fact that I couldn't leave Pittsburgh after graduation because I was taking care of Mum, global warming, etc. But I can't. Oh, those and other bad things played a part, but they aren solely responsible for me not living up to my potential.

I am.

I've made my share of bad choices in life. Sometimes I was forced into making a bad choice by circumstances, but more often I simply made a poor decsion. I chose to be an ed. major even though even then I liked writing more than I liked teaching writing. I chose to take the crappy financial aid job instead of subbing after graduation. I chose not to move to North Carolina when my friend found me a job in her school the summer after Mum died. Heck, I even chose to pass notes in Algebra II instead of actually paying attention. Change any one of those things, or the thousand other things that hindsight tells me were bad ideas, and who knows what my life would be like now.

So, as 2005 creeps ever closer, I pray for just one thing for myself in the coming year: Clarity. I ask God to help me to see the path He has laid out before me, and to help me walk it to the best of my ability. I know that many other choices loom in front of me in the coming year, and I ask that God grant me the wisdom to make the right decisions.

I just hope that I am listening.

What Are You Doing New Year's

New Year's Eve?

My answer is...laundry. Does life get more exciting than that?

Really, though, I'm hoping to get some writing in. I just wish I had a more comfortable place to write than I do. But alas, I don't. Still, I haven't gotten any quality writing done in weeks. If I'm going to commit myself to the writing thing, it helps to actually put words on paper. Makes it much easier to shop to agents and then publishers.

Job situation still pretty much stinks. I stayed up until 1 a.m. fixing a spreadsheet last night, and sent it to my boss. She didn't look at it before sending it to her boss. There were errors. They were minor, but they were there. Kicking myself over that, even though no one knows it was me who did the spreadsheet - they think it was her. I feel bad though. Really, the blame lies with my boss's boss's boss. She didn't mention that she wanted that part of the market share report done this week. She said she wanted the market share report by the 15th of January. Then she calls yesterday looking for this part. And the beauty of it is that it looks like the numbers in it aren't even accurate (not our fault - blame the provider).

Nevertheless, let this be a lesson, kiddies. Proofread, proofread, proofread. And if you aren't confident, get someone else to proofread.

My boss's new boss comes back to work Monday. Don't know how that's going to go. She's worried about changes that might happen. And I'm worried about...well, everything. According to my boss, this person says that she wants to hire me soon, but needs to work out a job description. I want to be optimistic, but I've heard this song and dance before. The fact of the matter is I've been temping there for nine and a half months now. I'm really, really tired of it. Have I mentioned that?

The tsunami. Wow. The scope of that disaster is almost too much for me to comprehend. They said on the news tonight that the death count is at 125,000 right now. I think I saw on MSN that something like 30,000 of those were in Sri Lanka. That's a small city.

It's good to see that so many people are stepping forward to help, though. It kind of restores your faith in humanity a little bit.

Guess I'm going to go now. Yeah, it's a weak conclusion, but oh well. Cest la vie. (look at me speaking French. Woo hoo.)

Two links

Go. Read. Giggle.

Giggle at this, too, if you're sports minded. Meant to post it Sunday, but I forgot.

Had Lots to Say...

...but can't remember any of it.

Cried at work again today. Almost got in trouble with the agency I work for. They didn't tell us we got holiday hours for last Friday (and I assume this Friday) and my supervisor let me fudge my hours as long as I make them up this week. Well, the agency called and asked if I did in fact work Friday, because I get holiday hours for that day. Well, I got flustered because I wasn't expecting that, and I stuttered through an answer (damn my introversion), and I got the impression that I could end up in trouble with them after that phone call. Fortunately my supervisor at the company overheard, I told her the situation, and she called them and set everything to right. She's a good person, even if she drives me crazy sometimes.

I just hate temping. It's so hard sometimes because you are neither here nor there, especially with long term assignments. I've been at this same company for nine and a half months now, but I don't feel a part of it. I never know what I can do and what I can't, and I just hate it.

The problem is that the job market here in South Louisiana really stinks at the moment, unless you know someone (this is easily the most political state in the union). I know people, unfortuantely they are all members of the CCC. So even though I know congresspeople, lawyers, physicians, Nick Saban (wait - that's not such a good thing right now), and other movers and shakers, they can't (or won't) help me since I've been ostracized. It's like I'm Amish and have been shunned. In short, it stinks.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Watched Spiderman 2 twice this weekend. Loved it! I've always liked Spiderman, from the first time I saw him on The Electric Company. I read the comics, I've seen every episode of every cartoon series (except the one currently on MTV, since I gave up cable), and seen both movies. I've even read a couple of the novels.

I think I like Spiderman so much because he isn't the typical superhero. There's always something larger than life about superheros: Batman/Bruce Wayne is a millionaire playboy, Superman/Clark Kent is an alien, etc. But Spiderman is just a typical guy searching for his place in the world. He has a tremendous gift thrust upon him through no action or desire of his own, and he as to decide what to do with it, and how to function with it/despite it. It really is kind of profound.

This movie had some pretty deep themes stuck in there amongst all the action. Perhaps the most profound is the idea of masks. Peter Parker wears the mask as Spiderman and essentially becomes a different person. But he isn't sure he likes who that person is. Yet that person is a part of him, just as much as the sweet little science geek is. He struggles with his powers in this movie, and even rejects them for a time. But circumstances compel him to use them again. And the viewer knows instantly when he realizes that Spiderman is as much a part of who he is as the science geek, Aunt Mae's nephew, and the guy with a huge, unrequited crush on Mary Jane Watson. He removes his mask, and he's just Peter.

If that movie doesn't receive Oscar nominatins at least for cinematography and screenplay, then it is a travesty of justice.

Just my $0.02.

So This is Christmas

Woo Hoo.

It's funny. The keep putting radar images in the corner of the TV screen because apparently it's snowing in the bayous. They actually closed I-10 between Prairieville and New Orleans for a little bit of snow and freezing rain. I drove from Erie to Buffalo in a blizzard that layed down a foot and a half of snow and they never considered closing 90. Wimps

I enjoyed services last night. The church was decorated simply but beautifully. The service wasn't complicated or dynamic or full of bells and whistles (well, whistles, anyway - there were handbells) but it was...peaceful. I think that was part of what was starting to get to me about Catholic worship - for all the bells and whistles and rules and just...stuff, I was losing site of why I was there. Lutheran worship is a scaled back version of Catholic worship, and I find I like it's simplicty and peacefulness.

I also found the sermon very significant. On the way to church, God and I were having a little conversation that went something like this:

"Big Guy, to be blunt, this year sucked."

"I know. Sorry about that."

"Not your fault. But I need 2004 to be better. I need You to help me make it better. You lead, I'll follow, but I need to know what to do."

"Listen."

So I listened. And the pastor preached last night about how we focus so much on celebrating Jesus' birth that we forget the other part of the equation - the gift he gave us with His life and death. He said that Christmas, we need to remember that Love has in fact come, and has left us His grace. He said we need to remember to live in the moment, and trust that the path that God has laid out for us, difficult as it sometimes is, is filled with graced moments and to revel in that Gift Jesus gave us.

Yeah. God and I are communicating again. Contrast above to what I wrote on July 4th (again, I'd link but I'm feeling too lazy. Just go to the July archive page).

I also made the decsion last night to write to two of my Catholic friends and tell them what's going on. I've been going to this church since August, but I'm scared to death to tell my Catholic friends. I'm scared of one of two things happening. The easiest to explain is rejection, especially from those down here in Louisiana. Catholic-Protestant relations here are kind of...non-existant. I'm not used to that at all. In Pittsburgh, the Catholic bishop and the Lutheran bishop issue at least on joint statement of faith every year. In fact, the leaders of all the mainline Christian denominations meet on a regular basis to pray and talk. Here, Catholics seem to be threatened by Protestants. So I'm afraid that if I admit to the fact that I'm thinking of becoming one of the, they'll just shove me completely out of their lives.

The second fear, and if a way, the worse fear for me, is that they'll be persistant in trying to "bring me back home." A lot of Catholics view anyone who leaves the church for whatever reason as a lost sheep who needs to be shephered back to the flock. They are persistent in wanting to drag you back, whether you want to go or not. I don't know if I could face that. It was not a snap decision that led me to St. Paul's. It was months of agonizing and praying and contemplating and studying before I even considered it, then it took three weeks of driving there, sitting in the parking lot until services began, and leaving before I finally got up the guts to go inside. I just don't know how I'd react if I was accused of experimenting or making a snap, spontaneous decision. I'm a rational, intelligent person, even when it comes to religion (I intentionally didn't say faith - faith isn't reasonable in and of itself, but it can't exist without reason as far as I am concerned.). I knew what I was doing when I made the choices I did, I don't regret them, and at this point in time I don't want to go back to the Catholic Church. I can't say that that will be a permanent thing, but for now, I like the community where I am worshipping. I like what I have read about Lutheran theology and spirituality. I can hear God again. It's a good thing.

So I'm writing two letters. I don't know what will happen, but I know I have to do it.

Oh. I made pancakes on my new griddle today. It was exciting. I also made bacon in a frying pan and filled my apartment with smoke. I find it funny that turning on the heat for the first time in winter can make my smoke alarm go off, but an apartment full of bacon smoke doesn't. Not a comforting thought.

Response

I posted this as a response to a comment on my last entry, but I feel the need to post it on the main page as well. Take it how you will.

Well, you know I appreciate you comments. And even though I don't write about it every day, the fact of the matter is that I do know how fortunate I am. I thank God every day that:

• I had both of my parents around for the 22 and 24 years that I did have them, and that they loved me enough to make incredible sacrifices for my happiness.
• I have a roof over my head and a warm place to sleep tonight, unlike the people they showed at the St. Vincent DePaul shelter on the news last night, as BR had it's first hard freeze of the season.
• I had an opportunity for a good education as a child despite growing up in the inner city, unlike so many children out there.
• I have a job - even if it pays a pittance - unlike so many who have lost their jobs in the past month.
• My job requires me to do the extremely boring task of manipulating data all day long, unlike the men and women serving in the military who wak up in the morning not knowing if they will see the night.
• That the student loan people allowed me to attend and complete college, even if I can't find a job that will allow me to pay them back.
• That I have been able to find a faith community in a different denominationthat has shown me kindness when my own did not.
• For all the little things God has blessed me with in my life, and there have been a lot of them.
• For the fact that God allowed Himself to become incarnate in Jesus and allowed Himself to be sacrificed as payment for my sins.
• That God loves me despite my faults and imperfections.

But the fact remains that I'm frustrated that I've been dealt a pretty lousy hand the past several of years including:

• Unjustly losing my job in January because the church I worked for wanted to hire the son of a founding (and very wealthy) parishioner for political reasons.
• Being treated no better than the gum on the bottom of the shoes of the people in the parish I worked for for 18 months before that because I committed the unforgivable sin of growing up in a working class family in the north.
• Being offered two good jobs this past summer, one of which I really wanted, but being unable to take them because I couldn't afford to move.
• Temping at the same company for nine months, been told that I'm a real asset, and then having the department fail to put hiring me in the budget. Meanwhile, it would probably cost them less to hire me than what they are paying the temp agency every week.
• Worrying every time I get a sniffle that it is something more and panicking over what I will do if it comes down to that, considering my PCP charges $80 for an office visit if you don't have insurance and that that is almost 1/3 of my weekly pay, and knowing that I can't receive primary care at the charity hospital because my pay comes to $18700 a year, and to qualify for primary care you can't make over $18000 as a single person.
• Panicking every time my car makes a funny noise because I don't have any spare money to fix it and public transportation in BR sucks, to be blunt. If I don't have a car, I can't work.
• Losing both of my parents within two years of each other before I turned 25, and having my remaining relatives reject me utterly after the died for reasons known only to them.
• Spending most holidays alone, and feeling like an interloper when I'm invited to spend them with someone else.
  

Yes, I do have internet access, and a DVD player (bought for $30 when I had a job that paid almost twice what my current one does. My ISP fees and my Netflix membership constitute my entire entertainment budget for the month. I don't ever eat out. I don't ever go to the movies. I don't buy CD's or DVD's or books. I don't buy new clothing. I get my haircut at the local beauty school for cheap.

I do give money to my church and to charity. I do do volunteer work through the company I temp for and on my own. I do buy fast food gift certificates to give to the folks panhandling by the interstate.

The fact of the matter is that I whine in my blog so that I don't whine in real life. If I can put my frustrations down in writing for myself and whatever anonymous people wander in here to see, I can get through the day without sniping at my co-workers, whose continual talks about the frivoulous way they spend money drives me crazy. I can get through the day without crying because my job is so incredibly boring and doesn't allow me to use the skills I have. I can put on a happy face for all the world to seedespite the fact that I'm in pain on the inside, and no one is the wiser.

Oh, and I couldn't care less about the commercialism of Christmas. My best Christmas ever was the year when money was really tight for my family and all I got was a sweater, a package of Snack Pack pudding, and a deck of cards. What made it wonderful was the fact that it was just me and my parents and it was incredibly peaceful and just...right.

I know I'm not the only one suffering this holiday season. There are a lot of other people out there who are lonely, or sick, or otherwise unhappy. And I grieve for them just as much as I grieve for myself. I hate injustice in all it's forms. I may gripe about not having health insurance myself and not being able to seek medical care, but I know that there are millions of other people out there in the same boat. I know that I am not the only person in America who is underemployed; with the economy the way it is, there are millions. And I know that despite the fact that I've been dealt a pretty lousy hand, there are a whole lot of people a whole lot worse off than I am.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh. But the fact of the matter is that it is impossible to know someone from meager words on a page or on a computer screen. I don't think that it's fair that you seemed to have judged me on just a few blog entries. I wouldn't presume to do the same to you.

Misery

Well, it's Christmas Eve, and it looks like I may be spending at least part of the day in the emergency room at the charity hospital. I think I'm officially sick, and without insurance, I don't have much of a choice. I've had a low-grade fever all week, and I had cyst-type things on my side and my chin this week, just like I did in February when I had a staph infection. Those two are pretty well healed and show no signs of spread, but what I thought on Wednesday was a zit on my nostril (sorry - I know it's gross, but I haven't slept all night. I have the right to be indelicate) has gotten progressively larger and now my whole upper lip area is swollen, and I think my cheek and jaw may be as well. It hurts so bad that I haven't slept at all tonight. I don't want to go to Earl K Long, because the waits there are notorious, but I don't have much of a choice. Plus, I think they give you any medicine that is prescribed there, so you don't have to get the prescription filled.

The worst think about my current situation is the lack of benefits. I hate not having insurance. Yeah, the insurance I had at the CCC was ridiculously expensive ($70 a month for the basic plan) with horrible co-pays ($25 PCP, $40 specialist, $50 urgent care) but at least it was there.

Oh, and something is wrong with my car.



Will it get better? I sometimes wonder.

I wish my parents were still around. I want my mommy!

The Little Things

You know, it really is a wonder how small things can either ruin or improve you mood by great measures.

My friend Amy read my blog on the 16th, the "All I Want for Christmas" entry (sorry - I'm too lazy to link. Besides, the link is still right over there <===). Last night, at 9 p.m., the UPS guy knocked on my door. He had a box from Amazon that he said was for me. Since I haven't ordered anything from them in a year (unless you count the pre-order for Harry Potter 6 I placed a few days ago - can't wait for July 16th!), I questioned him, but it was for me. Amy got me the Spiderman 2 DVD. I couldn't believe it, and couldn't believe how touched I was that she thought of me. I'm still upset that the company I've been working at didn't budget to hire me (although my supervisor doesn't believe it), and I still hate the fuss over Christmas, but that small gesture was enough to bring a little bit of brightness into the darkness in my mood.

I'm off to get my paycheck and to try to bring some brightness to someone else in turn.

It's a Wonder...

...that there aren't even more suicides than there are this time of year.



I'm a little depressed, can you tell? I hate Christmas. I try really hard every year to not hate it, but I never succeed. I know I'm supposed to feel happy, but when you have no family, your friends don't even bother to send cards, and the only gifts you get are pity gifts from your bosses(some awful smelling Mary Kay crap, a cheap wreath, and a votive candle) and an electric griddle from the company you work for to thank you for your nine months of indentured servitude, it's hard to feel jolly.

Oh, and then of course you hear that despite your nine months of temping, and knowing that the amount of work your department has to get done couldn't get done without you, your department head didn't put it in the budget for this year for you to be hired. Nevertheless, they value you and your skills and want you to stay for crappy pay and no benefits.

I've cried the past two days at work. I never cry at work. I don't know that I have ever felt quite as hopeless as I do right now.

All I Want for Christmas

Saw this meme in someone's blog and decided to put it in mine.

Assuming reality and money are no object, all I want for Christmas is:

• Peace on Earth
• An end to poverty
• An end to disease
• Respect and tolerance for all people
• A really, really good haircut
• An alarm clock that works consistently
• Spiderman 2 DVD
• A Chia Pet turtle.

Profound, no?

Water in the Desert

I had an interesting experience at church this weekend. I've been meaning to write about it since, but never quite got around to it.

First, there was a baptism this weekend. I don't know if the rite they used is the "official" Lutheran rite (is there an official Lutheran rite? I would think so since they consider baptism a sacrament), but it was really beautiful. I loved the prayers that were used, and at the end, the pastor took the baby and literally presented him to the whole congregation. I mean, he walked around the whole church with him. I thought that was the coolest thing I have ever seen.

The second thing was that I had a revelation about desert imagery in Scripture. The pastor mentioned in his sermon that the desert wasteland was frequently used in the Old Testament, and even by modern writers, to symbolize separation from God. As I thought about that, I realized that in the New Testament, as well as in the very early church (the desert fathers, for example), the desert was where people went to find God. I thought about why the difference, and I realized that the difference was Jesus. Jesus bridged that separation between God and humanity by becoming incarnate. He is the water in the desert that enables a seeker to endure the sometimes long and difficult search for God.

I feel like I should have known that all along, but it was an "ah ha" moment, nonetheless.

The final thing is that I didn't leave the church like I was a conflict fleeing captivity this week. I didn't linger, either, but I wasn't on the verge of a panic attack.

Progress, I suppose. I don't know what it all means, but there you go.

Please Save Me!

I need music that isn't Christmas music. Or at least Christmas music that isn't sung by a choir that sounds like they are being tortured into singing the least upbeat rendition possible of these songs. If I have to listen to this junk for the next three weeks I am going to completely lose my mind. I think we should pass a law that Christmas music can't be played prior to December 18th. I can deal with one week, but over a month? No way.

The Long Awaited "More to Come"

Yeah, I have time now since I can't do any real work because our files are being moved to a different server. Just a few notes, though, as I'm choosing to keep some other things close to the vest until I process them all together. Yeah, I know no one (except that one person who pops up in my stats a couple times a week - Hi!) actually reads this, but still, I am an introvert.

I had lunch on Tuesday with the pastor of the church I've going to. It was a real step out of my comfort zone, as I sorta kinda initiated the contact (sorta kinda because I responded to an e-mail he sent me, even though I was scared to do so). He was really very nice, not condemnation of my Catholicism or anything (as a side note - while I'm in parenthetical mode - I have no idea where or when I developed the attitude that Protestants are so unwelcoming of Catholics. I don't think I ever had it before I moved down here). In fact, he was very affirming of how slowly I've been moving, and of the fact that I've been trying to separate my feelings of hurt caused by the St. Al's CCC with my...misgivings? about the larger Catholic Church. He told me that he'd get some things together for me to read and for us to talk about, and he said that regardless of how active or how much on the periphery I chose to be, St. Paul's would always welcome me.

That was cool. I feel a little bit better about everything now, though I still think I need closure with the CCC...maybe this weekend I'll finally write that letter I've been meaning to write.

If I was still at the CCC, I'd be in Pittsburgh at a conference right now. I miss home. Even though we came close to our first freeze here the other day, highs have been in the 60's, and this weekend it's supposed to hit 70. That just isn't December.

I'll write more tonight, but it's almost time to leave - finally!

TS Eliot. Youre the man!


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Yeah. Cool. Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock rocks!


I'm so bored!

Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose. You are a
mystery novel dealing with theology, especially
with catholic vs liberal issues. You search
wisdom and knowledge endlessly, feeling that
learning is essential in life.


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You know, I've started this book about 20 times and I still haven't finished it? Hmm...maybe I should hit the library after work...

Oh By Gosh, By Golly

I'm sick of Christmas music's folly (just needed something to rhyme).

In my new building, there are two offices and three cubes in our little area. I'm in a cube, as is my boss, along with one of the telemedicine nurses. She has been playing Christmas music non-stop since Monday. I don't like Christmas music to begin with, and I'm certainly not ready for it yet. Anybody want to get me the new U2 CD and save me from this insanity? I've heard it's good, but I don't have the money to get it right now.

I really do have other stuff I want to write about, especially my lunch yesterday, but I just don't have time. Maybe tonight.

I've Discovered...

That there actually are a lot of songs about rainbows. Who knew?

More to follow later...

Memories...

Like the corner of my mind. I don't think my mind has a corner. I've seen a human brain outside of a skull before, and there are no corners in one. Although, I found out that if you remove a brain and don't put it into a bag to keep it's shape before it is put in preservative, then it just becomes a pile of mush. Hope no one is eating.

Anyhow, in my boredom (things are slow again), I went and reread my friend Amy's columns in her archives. This article in particular caught my mind today, and started me down the path to reminiscence.

My four years in the KH overlapped Amy's in three of them (she was there a year before I moved in, and I was there a year after she left). Those four years in the house were probably the most interesting, challenging, and wonderful ones of my life.

My first year in the house was kind of blah for me personally. There was a lot of tension in the house, though, over things that had happened in the past. As I was the only new resident that year, I was the only one not directly involved in the situations, though I knew about them. The tension was sometimes difficult to take, as both "sides" tried to get me to support them, though given the nature of the problems, there was really only one choice I could make in that regard.

That year I supported my roommate as she became Catholic, broke my foot walking down the men's wing stairs after going up to look at some quasi-pornographic pictures left by one of my housemates on a chalkboard after Thanksgiving break, learned that it is possible to hang a softball glove from a hanger in the closet, discovered that I'm horrible at golf, and found that it is in fact possible to spend literally an entire weekend sitting on the couch and watching TV.

My second year in the house was probably the worst year for me (well, except for the last year, but that's another story). I just never found a niche that year. There were a lot of "cool" people in the house that year - the artsy type, but not in a good way (read: elitist). They had alcohol in the house, which broke one of the cardinal rules (I don't know if Amy knew that or not, so if you read this, it may be a surprise), and they broke other rules left and right. Now, I'm not little miss law and order (though that is a good TV show), but having respect for your housemates when you live in community is important.

That was also the year my dad got sick, and I decided to keep it from everyone but Amy and Ty (and Renee, but she didn't live in the house). In retrospect, that was probably a big mistake. I probably would have been a lot more sane if people knew what I was struggling with. But I hated people feeling sorry for me, and I hated when people were kind out of sypathy more than out of genuine feeling. Plus, I've had too many experiences in my life where I've been told, explicitly or implicitly, that people don't want to be burdened with my problems. It was easier to keep it inside.

That year, I met Joe (who I will write about next year) - which was an experience in and of itself - and became a fairly liberal apologist for the Catholic Church (to balance out Jim and Stefan's Mother Angelica like opinions - they are both priests now {shudder}). I learned that one should never take three lit classes in one semester while also taking Spanish comp. and doing a practicum. I found out (the hard way) how important it is to check the oil in your car before going on a trip and not to ignore the oil light on the dashboard. I discovered that working retail is not for me.

I cooked a meal for 60 people all by myself on College Student Sunday at the church because my cook group mates decided to go see Wayne's World instead of doing any prep work the night before. Do you have any idea how much cheese you need to shred to make pizza for 60 people?

My roommate got pregnant that spring. I vomited the morning after she told me with sympathy morning sickness (and as a bonus, it delayed a Shakespeare test I wasn't prepared for by one day - didn't help much).

My first senior year was probably the best year in the house. It wasn't without tension - the presidential election of 1992 saw to that. But we really came together as a community right from the start.

That year, I overcame one of my most major fears and jumped off a cliff on our opening retreat (I was attached to a zip line, of course), despite the fact that I was still recovering from when I ran myself over with a van at camp (have I written about that? If not, I must sometime.). I never could have done that if I hadn't been comfortable with those people.

Despite the arguments over dishes left laying (or lying) in the kitchen, we really did help each other with chores and the like. We were a diverse group, but it worked.

That year, we pulled a classic practical joke on my roommate, B. B was a really lovely person, but she was tremendously gullible and naive. She believed just about everything anyone told her, a fact that we were all sensitive to when it mattered. She was also the worst driver known to man. It took her 10 minutes to park her car when all she had to do was pull into a parking space. Picturing her parallel parking still makes me cringe.

Anyway, one afternoon, Todd and I were watching TV in the living room. There was really nothing interesting on, so we mostly stared out the picture window instead. We saw B coming home from student teaching, and watched her try to parallel park in front of a building across the street. It literally took her 20 minutes (yes, we timed her). As she was crossing the street, Todd asked me, "Want to have some fun?" and when I agreed, he said to follow his lead. When B came in the house, he gave her an incredulous look and said, "B! I can't believe you did that!"

She looked confused (not an uncommon sight), and asked, "Did what?"

"Parked there! It's illegal!"

"No it's not. There's no yellow line."

"Yeah, it is. Tell her, Sheryl."

Thinking fast, I said, "Don't you know that it's illegal to park in front of law firms?"

"What?" was her reply.

"Yeah," I said. "It's illegal to park in front of law firms in case the police have to bring accused criminals to meet with their attorneys." Now first of all, the firm across the street handled civil law cases. Secondly, anyone with an ounce of common sense would never belive that crock of...well. But this was B we're talking about, and I could see on her face she was starting to believe me.

We went back and forth for a couple more minutes, telling her she had to go out and move her car, when Joe came in. Thinking quickly, Todd said, "Joe, tell B that it's illegal to park in front of a law firm."

Joe, always one to pick up on teasing and practical jokes immediately agreed and insisted that Brenda go out and move her car for her own sake.

Well, that must have been enough to sway her doubts, because she started to head out the door. I, of course, softie that I am, let her off the hook before she actually moved the car. Still, it was good for a laugh.

That was also the year my dad died. He passed away in April, four days after Easter. I don't know how I would have survived without my housemates. The supported me when I had no one else to do so (other than my mom, of course). They offered to type my senior thesis so I could get in turned in on time since I was missing time for the funeral (they couldn't because I was editing as I typed, but it was a generous offer). They took care of all my house and chapel obligations that weekend. When I came back, the distracted me when I needed it, left me alone when I wanted to be left alone, and were just generally there for me. That's what community was all about.

My last year in the house was a nightmare to put it lightly. We got a new female director that year, M, who rubbed me the wrong way right from the start. She said some hurtful things to Ty about me on our retreat the first day of the year. She didn't know I heard. I don't feel like going into detail about that right now, though I will at some point. Suffice it to say, that year, the motto of the KH was "dysfuctions R us."

I really became who I am today during my Gannon years, and I can thank the Kirk House for a big part of that. God was truly good in leading me to that place at that point in time.

I Was Wondering...

Can anyone think of any songs about rainbows other than Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Rainbow Connection? Why am I asking such an inane question?

Well, I began an e-mail to a friend with the question, "So why are there so many songs about rainbows, anyway?" Then I realized that I couldn't think of any songs about rainbows except for those two. Which meant that Kermit was given to wild hyperbole. That would be a shame if it's true. I'd hate to see a childhood icon reduced to the status of a drama queen.

So, now back to real life.

Well, I had Thanksgiving dinner with the couple from the church who was orginally from Pittsburgh. It was a little awkward because I didn't know any of their family, and I'm shy (plus all their kids and grandson were talking about was Halo 2, and I know nothing about video games. Another product of my deprived childhood. ;)). But despite that, it was...familiar. There was no weird food like there was the one time I went to someone's house down here, they turkey tasted bland and slightly dry like it's supposed to, and the stuffing was plain old bread stuffing. It was kind of nice.

I don't remember (and don't feel like looking to see) if I mentioned it, but the pastor from that church e-mailed me. It was nice that he acknowledged me. I e-mailed him back asking him if I could meet with him sometime and talk about everything I have been thinking and reflecting, and praying about. He hasn't gotten back yet, but that's OK.

Talking to someone doesn't mean I'm making a committment, does it? I just think I have taken my contemplations as far as God and I alone can. I need another person to help me to guide my...quest.

Tomorrow my department (all two of us) is moving to the other building. Don't know how I feel about that. I really wish they would just hire me, already. I'm tired of not having benefits (especially since I skipped my period for the past two months - no fear of pregnancy, but who knows what else?), and a few more dollars an hour would be nice. Heck, even a dollar more an hour would be nice (Access people should make more than what I am. They only asked for Excel when they contacted the agency. It was a bonus that I knew Access.).

My NaNo novel kind of hit stagnation. But I'm ok with that. I surpassed 10000 and 20 pages single spaced. I won't be ignoring it now.

I watched Pollyanna on Masterpiece Theatre tonight. My mom wouldn't let me read that when I was a kid. I never really knew why, and I still don't. I mean, she even let me read Judy Blume at an age when I was a little too young for it (in terms of subject matter, not reading level). She let me read pretty much anything I wanted, in fact, as long as she read it too and we talked about it. But I wasn't allowed to read Pollyanna. Hmm.

I'm going to go have English muffins now. Are they the same as crumpets? If so, I think I'm going to start saying that instead. Just because it's a fun word.

Crumpets.

Hospitality

Well, yesterday I said that the pastor at the church I've been going to was going to introduce me to a couple who was originally from Pittsburgh next weekend. He went one better. I called home this morning to check my messages and there was one from the wife inviting me to Thansgiving dinner.

Can I just tell you how blown away that leaves me? I've never met these people, they have never met me, and they are inviting me into their home on a day that is traditionally all about family. I don't know how to respond to that, on a lot of levels.

I'm excited and scared and confused and...I need to get home to do laundry.

Stepping Out of the Closet (so to speak)

OK. Get your minds out of the gutter, perverts among you. This has nothing to do with sex.

However, I was reflecting this week that being a Catholic by baptism and exploring a Protestant church is very much like being a gay person and being in the closet, at least here in Louisiana. And that is made even worse when you have worked for the Catholic church in a previous life. I'm afraid of the Catholic people I know rejecting me if they found out I've been going to a Lutheran Church and liking it. I think my manager would just about have a heart attack.

What I really need, what would make all of this easier, would be validation from someone I know who is Catholic. But that isn't forthcoming, I guess.

But this afternoon, I took a big chance and did something out of character for me. I went to lunch with the young adult group at the church I've been going to. The pastor (who remembered my name despite the fact that I have only ever told it to him once) handed me an invitation as I was leaving. I was tempted to ignore it because I was scared, but I don't know anyone close to my age around here and decided to step out of my comfort zone. There were about 10 people there, including the pastor (who is not a young adult, but a good guy). The interesting thing is that no one there was originally from Louisiana. Everyone was from the midwest. I didn't talk much because I didn't know anyone (yeah, I'm an introvert) but I was really comfortable. Culturally, it was a good fit for me. The pastor said he would introduce me to a couple at the church who was originally from Pittsburgh next week.

I have to say, I really, really like it there. People are never welcomed like that in the Catholic Church. I'm just really scared to go any further with this exploration. Maybe I'll take a chance and sit down and talk with the pastor sometime. Maybe Advent - they are doing weekly Wednesday night services then. Maybe the new liturgical year can be a new start.

I'm Still Alive

I just haven't been able to get here to write very much. Still working on NaNo - finally broke 10,000, which was my personal goal. Anything else Imanage to produce is gravy now as far as I'm concerned. What I have completed is 21 single spaced pages. Other than my senior thesis in college, I have never written that much on one thing. Two more pages and I will surpass that, too. I'm really excited and kind of proud of myself.

Work has been a little less awful. I don't much enjoy what I am doing, but at least I'm doing something productive. There is a position open here that I really want to apply for, but I'm not allowed as I am a temp. If the company gave me permission I could, though, but I can't figure out who to ask.

I wanted to share this little piece with y'all (Hi again to my regular reader! Surprised you're still with me given the paucity of updates.). This was in the order of worship for the church I've been going to. They were finishing up their stewardship campaign this past weekend. It started with a story that I chose not to include here because the message is still relevant without it and I don't feel like typing it.


Good stewards care for all that God has entrusted to them, including themselves, and their own faith lives. We've encouraged you over the last few weeks to seriously examine your own stewardship and to consider what more you can give. We have called your attention to several important questions God asks of us: Where are you? What have you done? Where is your brother/sister/neighbor? Who do you say that I am? In those questions is the element of accountability. God does ask certain things of us. God does want to hear us say "Yes!" Surrounding those questions, too, however, are the gifts of grace and forgiveness from a "Yes-saying" God, a God who loves and cares for us, a God who knows we cannot continually give without also receiving. When we feel empty, our lives cannot speak Jesus. In those moments when we feel like we wander through the wilderness, we can come to worship. Here we will know that God is always saying "Yes" to us.


This little piece just really spoke to me. It was a reminder that despite dark days, frustrations, and everything else, God loves me enough to say "Yes" to my creation and my continued existence. And that is a pretty cool thing.

Unrequited Love

No, I haven't been thinking of Charlie Brown and the little red haired girl.

My main character in my NaNoWriMo story (which has a title now: Wall of Windows - go me!) has met up with her secret high school crush (he's a priest now, so at the moment no romance there - though in the rewrite he might become an Episcopal priest...possibilities...) and it made me start to think about my own unrequited high school love.

His name was Mike. He was a CAS student, too, so we had quite a few classes together. He was a quiet guy, even if he was a headbanger. Wasn't the best looking guy, but he wasn't painful to look at either. And he had a wicked sense of humor.

I met him my freshman year, but I didn't really get to know him until one of my best friends started to get interested in one of his best friends (turns out they only dated because they were both tall - gotta love high school reasoning). But the fact of the matter was that I had a crush on him from the beginning. He was a little bit dangerous (to this Catholic school girl who had never even seen a PG rated movie up to this point) and that was cool. Plus, he was a writer, which I loved, since most guys had no interest in that.

Even if he had shown any interest in me whatsoever, I couldn't do anything about it because I wasn't allowed to date until my senior year. But, starting in junior year, there was a little something between us - a connection if you will. I'm sure it was completely platonic on his part, but it gave me a little thrill nonetheless.

Senior year we became closer friends. One of my best memories from that year was having lunch at Pizza Hut with Mike, Chris, Monn and Dave (he of He-Dave fame, though he doesn't know that) after taking the SATs. We all had so much fun that day, and Mike and I really clicked. I just loved his sense of humor. It was biting, and sarcastic, and dark. Just like mine.

A couple weeks after that, he was giving an oral report on the Illiad in English. Our teacher, Mr. McB. kept delaying and talking, and he was just standing in the front of the room waiting to start his report. He was getting impatient, and he gave me a look, which I returned with a grin. Monn noticed and from that day on, any time he walked by or was anywhere near Monn nudged me and said, "Ooh. Electricity, Sheryl. I see sparks!" or various other comments along those lines.

The problem with all this is that he was dating someone by that time. All we knew for sure about her was that she was out of school and didn't go to Langley. Rumor had it that she was 23 and in a metal band. Geeky ol' me couldn't compete with that.

I never really met up with Mike after high school, though I saw him from afar downtown a few times. I think someone told me that he became an accountant or something like that, but I don't know for sure. If he did, that makes me sad. I could see him collaborating with someone on an underground comic or something like that. Preparing tax reports and financial statements just doesn't compare.

Mike H., Langley High School class of 1989, if you happen across this site someday, drop me a line. You are one of the few people from our class I miss.

Alas, my love remains unrequited.

Brk Brk!

I'm sick and tired of labeling and filling pill bottles with candy, which I've been doing for the past two and half days. I'm also feeling decidedly uninspired to write. So instead...

You are the the Swedish Chef.
You are a talented individual, nobody understands
you. Perhaps it's because you talk funny.

FAVORITE EXPRESSION:
"Brk! Brk! Brk!"
HOBBIES:
Kokin' der yummee-yummers

FAVORITE MOVIE:
"Wild Strawberries...and Creme"

LAST BOOK READ:
"Der Swedish Chef Kokin' Bokin'"

QUOTE:
"Vergoofin der flicke stoobin mit der brk-brk
yubetcha!"


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Just Checking In

Well, I did end up voting last night. I won't say who I voted for (the wonders of the secret ballot), but I will say I wasn't happy about it. I didn't like either of the major party candidates, and I wouldn't have been happy either way.

Someone once asked me who I could vote for with a clear conscience. Two names came to mind: John McCain and Joe Lieberman. They are both moderate, and I think they are both honorable and ethical. I could deal with seeing either of them in the White House.

_____________

Well, I spent the whole day at work today filling pill bottles with candy and packing them in boxes. Yeah. $75,000 for that BA to be a shipping clerk. Is it any wonder I get down sometimes?

_____________

My NaNoWriMo story is going pretty well. I got hung up on transitions yesterday, though, so I'm a little bit behind. But honestly, I'm not stressing about word counts. I'm just hoping to break 10,000. I'm over 2,000 so I may actually do it.

Gee. That's pretty much all I have to say. Hmm. Hi again to my regular reader, whomever you may be. It makes me happy to see your ISP pop up in my stats a few times a week. Drop me a line or leave me a comment and introduce yourself, if you like. Or stay anonymous - I do that a lot. Either way, hope you're having a good week.