I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

I've always liked Emily Dickenson. She's on my list of favorite poets (which also includes Sylvia Plath, William Carlos Williams, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Mark Strand). She writes with such an innocent, childlike tone, but her topics and themes are so deep and serious.

The above is one of my favorites. The persona in this poem is someone who revels in melting into the background. Yet she seems to feel a certain excitement when she finds someone else lurking back there with her. But she doesn't want to be outed (so to speak). She and her companion seem to be content existing in anonymity.

I was taught that Dickenson was never published within her life time because she was a recluse who bucked the trend of what was considered to be acceptable in the world of poetry at that time - strict meter and rhyme scheme. But maybe she was happy in her anonymity. Maybe she was content with writing for herself, and no one else mattered. Perhaps she found validation in simply seeing her own words in her own hand on paper and didn't need the validation of critics or scholars.

Dickenson is always painted as being somewhat depressed and, well, a bit of an odd duck. Some scholars believed she was insecure and suffered with a low self esteem. But maybe, just maybe, the opposite was true. Maybe she was so secure that she didn't need the approval of anyone else. Maybe she was able to write about death and isolation with a lighthearted tone because she was happy and didn't despair in those things. Maybe she was happy just the way she was.

Or maybe I'm really bored at work again and needed a way to stay awake. But it's something to think about.

Look At My Artistic Talent!

I really need to go home or something. You know it's bad when you spend your time at work drawing purple sheep. But hey, at least it killed a half hour.

A quiz to alleviate the boredom

My angst tastes like...

Black Licorice Unique and difficult to place, your angst finds its source in something you keep hidden. You have something serious and possibly traumatic, but you try to hide it from everyone and just tell them to ignore you when you seem troubled, that everything's really OK. You might think that you have good reasons for not telling people, and some of them may in fact be true, but most likely a lifetime of keeping your secrets has led to a resolution fortified by rationalization that nobody else can shake simply because you never give them a chance. Ask yourself if it would really be that horrible to open up to others; nobody says you have to do it all at once, even. But you should at least try getting out of your shell a little. It's not healthy to internalize everything and conceal it. Anyway, if people really care for you, and they probably do, then they'll be loving and supportive regardless of any reason to the contrary.

Find your angst's flavor

Hmm...I hate licorice, but this actually fits me. Scary, isn't it?

It's Amazing What Boredom Can Do

It can even lead to me blogging two days in a row.

I have nothing to do. Again. I hate that. Next week is going to be pure hell, with my boss on vacation (she's taking another 2 hour lunch today it seems - I've been back for an hour and a half and she hasn't been here in all that time).

Last night I stayed up until 2 a.m. working on our stupid box for the stupid scavenger hunt. Then I got up at 5:30 and worked on it until 9. I felt guilty because I wasn't able to help the team much since everyone I know lives 1200 miles away (well, except for the CCC folks, and that's a whole 'nother story). Sure, someone I know might have a glass Tab bottle, but I'm not driving to Pittsburgh to pick it up. A friend in Pittsburgh did send me the Partridge Family Album, but it didn't arrive in time, and no everyone is ticked off with me and I feel bad. Although I shouldn't. The prize for the winning team is lunch in the Admin. Conference room. It's not like it's money or something. But nonetheless, I'll blame myself if we lose.

In a way, it's like being in high school all over again. There was this girl, who I called a friend but was really a friend of a friend. J wasn't overly popular or anything like that, but she was the leader of our little group. I was so desperate to fit in and have friends that I did everything she told me to. I joined the clubs she wanted me to, wore the clothes she liked, you name it I did it. I know now that she was using me. I realized that my freshman year of college when she barely acknowledged me, despite the fact that I wrote to her on a regular basis. Since we were at different schools, it no longer served her purpose to have her own personal charity case. Her rejection really hurt.

To this day, I have no idea why her approval was so important to me, but it was.

Did I ever tell you about my sheep theory? No? Well, you know how the one who doesn't fit in with the family or the crowd is always called the black sheep? That doesn't make any sense to me. Black is still a perfectly normal color as far as sheep go. Just a little genetic twist here or there and bam! You've got a black sheep.

Now, if say, a purple sheep suddenly turned up, well, then we have an abnormality. A sheep that doesn't fit in with the herd, and in fact stands out from it. That's why I think we should call the rebels, the ne'er-do-wells, the obvious oddballs purple sheep.

However, what about the person who blends in with the background? The person who doesn't fit in with the herd, but doesn't stand out either. The person who's geometry teacher fails to notice she is in class despite the fact that she sits right in front of her desk, so the teacher turns in cut slips every day for a week before the vice-principal yells at her? That person is a green sheep. Indistinguishable from the pasture, but distinct from the herd.

Guess which one I am.

I'll write more in a bit. I'm going to go feign work now.

Are They Crazy?

I just went and looked at the on-line store for my alma mater. My Gannon Stuff disappeared a long time ago, and I thought that I needed something to show my Knightly pride.

Well, they are selling diploma frames for $115 dollars. For real. I got the frame my diploma is in at Target for about $10. It's a perfectly nice wood frame. It may not be cherry wood with a fancy maroon mat with Gannon University written on it in gold script letters, but it does the job.

I (and my parents, the taxpayers and the kind benefactors that support Gannon's scholarship funds) spent around $75,000 on my college education, not counting the interest on my loan. Why would I spend $115 more to display a piece of paper that really, no one cares about but me?

Sheesh.

The Obligatory (and ONLY) Political Post

OK. I have to get this out of my system, since election day is less than a week away.

The sad fact of the matter is that that I can't in good conscience support either one of the major party candidates. I'm annoyed that John Kerry has made such a big deal about being Catholic, yet openly and enthusiasically supports positions that are contrary to Catholic teaching. Now, that doesn't mean that I think he's wrong; it just means that I think you can't have it both ways. You want to support abortion rights? Fine. Just leave your religion out of your campaign. And this is coming from someone who isn't so enamored with the Catholic church right now. I would say the same thing about a Jewish, Baptist, or Muslim candidate. If you are going to make a big deal about your religion, then you best be a good representative.

George Bush...I just can't find respect for the man. Sure, he's surrounded himself with highly qualified advisors, but the fact of the matter is he isn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier. I watched him in the debates, especially the last one, and I had to wonder if any of his synapses were firing correctly. Then there is the whole Iraq thing. I could support the invasion of Afganistan - that was just, according to just war theory. But Iraq just reeks of retaliation, of him wanting to finish what his father started in Desert Storm. I can't support that, and I can't support the continued presence of US troops and personnel in Iraq.

And then there is the misrepresentation and misuse of statistics on the part of both candidates. Now as a writer, I've been taught the fine art of persuasion. I know how to manipulate statistics and quotes to support my opinion. But the amount of that, and of outright lying, that has been occurring in this campaign is just a travesty.

So what am I going to do next Tuesday? I still don't know. For the first time in my life, however, I am considering skipping a general election. That's really sad.

TBC

No reason the title is TBC. Just had to fill in that space with something.

I'm here at work with nothing to do - again. It's feast or famine around here. My supervisor isn't in yet - she supposedly wasn't feeling well last night and said she'd be in later today. Don't know if I buy it, though. She seems to take an awful lot of time off for personal things. But hey, if she can get away with it, more power to her, I guess.

I finished all her work last night. I'm honestly not sure what she does with her days while I do the market plans, research, and spreadsheets she should be doing. But I'm not going to complain about it. If I do, I could end up without a job - even one that only pays $9/hr with no benefits. So I'm perfectly content to let her put her name on my work for as long as she wants to. Still, it would be nice to make a living wage.

There's something wrong with my car. I replaced both headlights in June, but noticed a couple weeks ago that the passenger side headlight was out again. So when I got the oil changed on Sunday (which took almost THREE HOURS at Wal-Mart) I asked them to replace the headlight. Well, the guy said he took it out and tested it and it was fine, so he put it back in. And it was fine on Sunday. But then when I turned my lights on on the way home last night, I saw that it was out again. So at lunch time I'm goint to go see if the mechanics down the street can look at it. I really don't need an electrical system problem right now.

Actually, I don't need any problems right now. Now that I have insurance again, I was planning on getting the car inspected this week and praying that it will pass despite the not-so-great brakes and nick in the windshield. But it won't pass if the headlight is bad, either. It's always something.

And now for the big news. I've been trying to find a way to keep myself sane while working at a job I'm overqualified for. So I've decided to write a novel. In a month.

Sane, you ask? Don't you mean insane? Really, isn't all relative? Is it possible to write a paragraph with nothing but questions? Should I find out?

But really, I need a little help and support in breaking the 10,000 word plateau. I know I can write, but I need something like this to actually motivate me to do so. So, that story that was partially posted here way back when will finally be continued and developed.

In honor of that effort, I've started a new blog just for that novel. (I can't believe I actually wrote that word!) There is nothing much there now, but starting on Nov. 1 there will be.

Well, its 11:45 now. No sign of the boss and I've accomplished nothing. Just another Tuesday here in Red Stick.

So Where Was I?

Yeah, I've been away for a while. I wish I could say that it was because I had some interesting things going on, but alas, it would be a lie.

But before I go any further, I just want to say hello to my one regular reader. I don't have a clue who you are, or where you are, or why you are; all I know is your ISP. But it's nice to know that someone is finding some entertainment in reading about my boring, boring life.

My efforts to fix myself have...well...not been successful. That eating three times a day thing is kind of not working out for me. And I've tried taking a multi-vitamin, but it made me vomit the three times I've taken it. So either my body is rejecting needed nutrients, or something else isn't right I suppose. But without health insurance, we may never know until I drop dead on the floor somewhere. Gee, when that happens, I have no next of kin to notify. Isn't that a cheery thought.

OK. I think I've spent too much time researching causes of death in the southeastern states. The company that has yet to tender me a job offer is expanding into hospice care and I've been working on market plans for Florida and Louisiana. You'll be glad to know that one person over the age of 65 in Florida died from a prenatal condition in 2002. If you make it 65+ years, doesn't the condition cease to be prenatal?

Anyhow, I had a job interview last week with a consulting firm about to start a major project for the state government. It's a job I'm way overqualified for, but it pays over $12,000 a year more than I'm currently making. On the off chance that I get it (they said I'd know one way or another today, but I didn't hear anything), I don't know if I want to take it. I think it will make me miserable, but I won't have to scrape together money for rent every month, either.

Speaking of money, the cable company and I severed relations a couple weeks ago. It's sad that everything I watch now has squiggles in it. But I'm saving half of $50 a month. It's only half because I joined Netflix instead. The video stores around here leave a lot to be desired, except for Blockbuster, and I won't do business with them any more. That's a long story I don't care to go into now.

Oh, and the student loan people are getting rabid again. They don't quite get that I would dearly love to pay them back for the fine education I received at Gannon U. However that fine education has yet to yield a job where my compensation allows me to pay the $350 a month they want me to pay. And stupid me, I consolidated my loans way back when I first graduated, when interest rates were 10% so now that rate is locked in. There is something horribly unjust about that. Especially since I didn't understand what consolidation meant at that point. The way the loan people made it sound back then was that I would have to make multiple payments every month unless I consolidated. I didn't understand that it was essentially a refinancing thing.

So what else? In the church bulletin from St. Al's CCC, the new ADYM wrote that a particular event was taking place in "da gym." Now, maybe I'm being picky for no reason, but that annoyed me. I mean, I know the kid wants to be cool, but is it necessary to sacrifice proper English to achieve coolness? I know, it's the English teacher in me coming out, but if you've read student writing lately, you know that they need all the role models they can get. Also, I got chewed out over smaller things than that. Why does he get away with it?

No, I haven't moved on. I still am angry and hurt and I just can't put it out of my mind. Yeah, I'm obsessing. I wish I could break that pattern.

What else? Manager driving me crazy. She started to do the market plan for north Florida hospice, but she downloaded the hospital information and appended it to the master table incorrectly. I caught her mistake at 5 p.m. on Friday and stayed past 7 to finish it. In her defense though, she has been stressed about being called for jury duty. They have a weird system here (like everything else in this state), and they have been stringing her along for two weeks. She's worried she's going to have to miss a cruise she is scheduled to go on at the end of the month. Still, I hated having to fix all that. I didn't say anything though - why burden her further?

I have more I want to say, but alas, it will have to wait. (Notice how I used alas at the very beginning and the very end. Clever, no?) So until next time (and I promise it will be less than 16 days), happy trails to you.

Stuff, Stuff and More Stuff

So, I've decided I need to fix my metabolism, which is really, really, screwed up. See, I got into the habit of eating only once a day when I worked at St Al's CCC. I never got up in time for breakfast, I usually skipped lunch, and I often got home after 9 p.m. and ate dinner then. Or, if I ate lunch that day, I'd skip dinner all together. Then I'd snack on junk during the day (sometimes). Actually, I was in the habit of skipping breakfast and lunch for a lot longer than that.

But regardless of when that started, the fact of the matter is that it really messed up my metabolism. A friend of mine who is a doctor thinks that that is why I've been feeling icky for so long. So this week, I ate three meals a day all week long (well, except for the day I had to skip lunch to fold the damn brochures). I had yogurt for breakfast (just discovered that if I buy the mild kind, it isn't that horrible), various things for lunch (a couple days that was just yogurt and an orange, too) and something for dinner (noodles, mostly, but it was food). I even tried to have snacks (fruit) a couple times a day.

As of right now, I don't feel better. Actually, I feel kind of crappy, in a different way than before. But it's probably just because my body isn't used to dealing with food. We'll see how I feel at the end of this week.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I wrote to a friend of mine about the whole spiritual crisis thing. She's kind of been advising me all along. I trust her because she was my house director in college and I came to respect her as a woman of faith. Plus I know she won't deride me, no matter what choices I end up making (well, providing I don't suddenly decide to become a neo-pagan or something weird like that...of course, I hope she's slap me upside the head if I ever ended going in that direction), unlike some other people I know.

So anyhow, when I told her I was wondering what I should do, and she wrote this:

"Ultimately (and I know this is a very Protestant thing to say, but bear with me--I yam what I yam, in the immortal words, or paraphrase, of Popeye), I believe that it's more important that you are trying to follow/walk with/commune with God through Jesus Christ than that you tow the (forgive me) human-and-thus-fallible dictums of The Church."

That got me thinking today, about the difference in how Protestants view faithful living and how Catholics view it. Actually, I've been thinking about it more than today - needless to say - but that transition sounded better.

Anyway, what I came up with was this. For Catholics, being faithful is following the rules. If you believe this doctrine, or this dogma, or this bit of moral teaching, you are faithful. Now, officially, we are obliged to follow our consciences. That's in the Catechism (the other CCC). But when you actually do that, and someone finds out about it, they accuse you of not being a good Catholic. Politicians run into this in the public eye, but trust me it happens outside the spotlight, too.

Also, for Catholics, there is a perception that you have to do things in the "right" way for them to be valid. I'll give you an example. Remember how I wrote about the witch with a capital B at St Al's CCC who accused me of praying wrong? Well, here's the story.

We were meeting with a small group of young people and talking about prayer. This wasn't a formal teaching time, just a discussion. A couple of the adults said how they believed that praying the rosary was just so important and that everyone should try to do so every day. Now, I had to jump in there. When I was younger, I was told that over and over, but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't find any meaning in repeating the same prayers over and over, or meditating on the mysteries, and no one told me that was OK, that everyone has their own prayer style. I didn't hear that message until I was in college. So I said something along the lines of, "Yes, the rosary is important, but you know, it never much worked for me. I personally prefer more informal prayer, like, 'God, I'm still here. Thanks for getting me through the day,' or, 'Big Guy, I could really use some help here. I'm frustrated and I don't know what to do.' It's a matter of finding what works for you."

I got some dirty looks from some of the adults on that, but I could deal. Then the subject of adoration came up. The witch (I'll call her P) went on and on about how wonderful it was to pray in the presence of Jesus, and how Abbeyfest had the best adoration ever, and blah, blah, blah. The other adults were all nodding and stuff, because no one ever dared to challenge her. Well, I opened my mouth again and said, "Yes, if adoration is done well, it can be a good and very moving experience. But personally, I've usually found it kind of limiting. I can appreciate the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist, but I've found that, personally, adoration can sometimes be limiting in that regard. I need to experience God in the Scriptures and in the assembly as well, and sometimes adoration doesn't allow for that. There are other forms of meditative prayer I can appreciate, like Taize prayer."

Well, P jumped on me immediately. She basically said that because I didn't engage in these traditional prayers of the church, I wasn't praying right. I told her that there was nothing in any of the church documents that said that faithful Catholics have to pray the rosary or go to adoration. She still insisted that I was teaching these kids the wrong information. Well, I didn't want to get into a pissing contest with her in front of the young people, so I told her that I would be happy to discuss it with her later on in another forum. From that point on, though, she contradicted everything I said. I could have said the pope was Polish, and she would have told me I was wrong.

So my point. I think that sometimes following doctrines and dogmas, and all that stuff can actually be an impediment to belief. This isn't a new thought for me, but it's one that is stepping into prominance in my mind in light of my recent struggles.

I have more to say on this subject, but it's almost midnight, and as part of my "fix my body" plan, I've vowed to be in bed by midnight every night, come heck or high water. So far, I think I've succeeded one night out of six.

I'm Calmer Now

See, no giant letters, no exclamation points. Nice and calm.

But seriously, that woman has been driving me crazy this week. It honestly didn't dawn on her until Tuesday that we had another expo next Wednesday, and that we would need to ship materials. Then she went into panic mode. She dragged me to Sam's so she could buy candy for the pill bottles. She didn't need to take me to do that. While she was gone, I could have been putting lables on the bottles we had, then we wouldn't have had to rush to finish them yesterday.

Then yesterday we all of a sudden had to get these brochures done. I think they are stupid anyhow (despite the brilliance of their design), and I thought that they had decided not to use them for the future expos because no one was picking them up. But no, we had to rush to get them copied yesterday, and when the copier started jamming she was getting worried that we wouldn't get them done and I was just plain frustrated (I actually used the f word under my breath).

But her boss's AA is just as bad. She insisted that she could get them folded, but then she had a ton of stuff dumped on her. Did she say something this morning? No, she waited until 1 p.m. My boss did about 100 of them, then she said she had to go buy "supplies." Like I didn't hear her say on the phone to her daughter that she was going to Michael's and Hobby Lobby to look for artificial flowers for the bouquets. Meanwhile, the folder, which will only take one sheet at a time, jammed really, really badly. I followed the directions for unjamming it, but they didn't work. So I had to take the thing apart. It took me an hour to figure out how to get the paper out of it. While I was fighting with it, one of the other managers told me that payroll has a folder that will do a whole ream automatically. When my boss came back from her shopping expidition, I mentioned that to her and she said that it was better to do it this way. Yeah. She's not the one who's ending up with repetitive motion injuries. My right arm is killing me right now.

But the story gets better. In the middle of doing this, she slaps a request for hospital info down on my desk. Now, typically we download the information, stick it in a spreadsheet, and e-mail it. Since she didn't tell me who it went to, I pulled it, saved the spreadsheet, and e-mailed it to her to forward it. When she came back downstairs, she asked me if I printed it. I looked at her like she was from another planet, and asked her what she meant. She said that the requestor wanted it faxed - didn't I see the phone number on the note she gave me? Now, without her telling me, how am I supposed to know that that means it needs to be faxed? For that matter, how am I supposed to know who to fax it to if she didn't tell me?

And then, just as I think I'm finally done with the damn brochures, she dumps another 200 on me. That was just the capper to a crappy, crappy day.

Now I will grant you, I've been in a pissy mood. I would swear I had PMS, if it weren't the wrong time of the month for that. But I still don't think I'm being unreasonable.

Then again, maybe I am a little bit. It just gets to me that I am a well-educated, experienced woman, and I'm doing work that a second grader with a good attention span could do easily.

I. Hate. That.

What is wrong with me that I can't seem to find a decent job that challenges me, allows me to be creative, and lets me use my skills? It just makes me more and more depressed.

I give up.

AARRGGHH!!!!!!

I hate office machines. I hate using them, I hate fixing them, I hate them, hate them...

HATE THEM!!!!

Ahem.

Between today and yesterday, I have been covered in toner, lubricant (and not the fun kind...not that I've ever been near the fun kind), dust, and dirt. I have photocopied over 2000 fliers and fed them one by one through a letter folder. I have taken said copier apart about 25 times when it jammed, and said folder apart more times than I can count when it jammed. I have labeled and filled over 300 bottles with candy. And why, you may ask, have I done all this?

I have no freaking idea.

Remember when I wrote that I was bored? I could have been doing some of this stuff then. I could have been making copies or filling and labeling bottles all along. But no, my supervisor said she didn't have anything that needed doing so I had to invent busy work for myself. Then, all of a sudden, she realizes that hey, we have another expo less than a week away and we have to ship the materials. So now it's a mad rush to get everything done. And of course, when you rush, things are done incorrrectly or they break down. And then you have to panic even more because you are running late.

I'm a procrastinator by nature. I admit it. But if I know I have seven expos for over 3000 employees and I have to prepare materials for all of them, I'm going to pace myself. That way, there's no crisis when a piece of equipment breaks, or when you run out of something, or whatever.

And where is she in all of this? Laughing, smiling, making jokes about everything being at the last minute. And as I'm feeding the damn fliers through the damn machine, she's out shopping for her daughter's wedding under the guise of getting "supplies" for the expo. Did I get to take a lunch? Did I get to leave my desk? No.

Grr!!! I know Gannon was a liberal arts school, and that it was supposed to provide me with a well-rounded education. But I'm sorry. I did not spend $75,000 of my, my parents', the taxpayers' and the generous benefactors who support the scholarship funds' money to take apart and fix office equipment. I am not an engineer!

I wanna go home!!!

Well, I Did It.

After two weeks of sitting in my car in the parking lot, I actually made it inside the Lutheran church. The sky didn't fall, no one laughed at me, no one saw my invisible, "I'm Catholic!" sign, and no one chased me out of the church.

Quite the opposite, in fact. I was greeted warmly by what had to be half the congregation before I even made it into the nave. I sat in almost the very back (and remembered not to genuflect). It was a small congregation, probably around 100 people at the service, and they seemed to really be a community. People were talking with each other before the service began (something that threw me a little at first - I'm used to the quiet before mass...though conversation is good). And people got out of the pews and walked around the church during the sign of peace.

The pastor, like most Lutheran pastors I have known (all four of them) was not a flamboyant or dynamic preacher, but he spoke with a gentle sincerity that gave what he said a certain authority. After the service, he recognized immediately that I was visiting and he went out of his way to greet and welcome me, even though I tried to escape without being noticed.

So why was I crying in my car after the service (the reason I tried to leave without being noticed)? I liked it there. I don't know a soul, but I liked it there. And the implication of that terrify me.

I felt more connected in that church than I have in the Catholic church in a long time, even before January. And I'm trying to figure out why that is. I mean, the service is basically the same structure as a mass, just without the creed and without some of the transitions (actually, it's very much like daily mass). The sermon was longer and was well-preached, but you can find that anywhere. The congregation was small, but most non-Catholic, non-Baptist congregations in the south are. The music was traditional, and vaguely familiar (must be some kind of buried memories of attending services with my mom). But all of this shouldn't be enough to make me feel more...in tune.

So what was it? And what does it mean? And why do I feel guilty?

Ironically enough, my mom was the one who kept me in the Catholic church when I was in high school. She was my confidant in all things spiritual. My dad and I may have been the same religion, but she understood the emotional aspects of faith better. I confided in her all those times the assistant pastor of my church made me cry (which was often - I realize now that his treatment of me verged on emotional abuse), or when the old ladies told me that I didn't have the right to attend mass without my father on the days when he had to work. I told her how fed up I was about feeling that way, and that I planned to leave when I was in college. My mom begged me not to.

See, my dad and I had a close, but fragile relationship. It was obvious that he loved me, and I loved him, but we really had nothing in common beyond a love of baseball and our religion. I mean nothing. If one of those things were taken away, especially the most important one, I don't know what would have happened to our relationship.

And I realized when I was in college that his greatest fear was that I would drift away from the Catholic church. He nearly lost it when I decided to live in a house owned by a Presbyterian church, attend a conference sponsored by a Protestant campus ministry organization, or used words like, "fellowship." Heck, he could barely handle it when I asked him to buy me a Bible so I could better prepare to read at mass. He never forbid me to do any of those things, but, it made him nervous. I know it would have broken his heart if I ever left.

The ironic thing is that I was never more in touch with and more...enamored with my Catholicsm than I was during that period in my life. In time before and time since, though I had my doubts. Still, I stuck with it.

But the question is why I stuck with it. Was it out of conviction, or was it out of obligation? I don't know the answer to that.

The thing is, I don't know if I have any second chances left. I gave the church a second chance when that associate pastor put me through hell in elementary school. I gave them a second chance when the old ladies told me I wasn't worthy to worship in their presence. I did it again when no one would visit my dad and bring him communion when I couldn't make it home to take him to church during college. I did it when the priest in our church wouldn't administer anointing to my dad in the days before he died because "he hadn't been active in the parish in recent months." (Yeah, probably because even with me at home he was too weak to leave bed long enough to go to mass.) And again when they abandoned me when my mom died. And now the St Al's CCC debacle.

Isn't that patience enough? Isn't that enough to endure?

I just don't know.

I think I may call the church tomorrow and see if I can speak with the pastor. Maybe an objective voice is what I need right now.

Nothing's ever easy, is it?

Bored, Bored, and More Bored

Sitting here at work. Absolutely nothing to do. Making busy work. Writing in fragments. Going insane.



While it isn't my favorite thing to do, I can deal with doing office work when it is actually something productive. But right now, all I am doing is downloading statistical information on hospitals in areas where we don't have authorization to operate in states where we do. What is the purpose behind that? Just something to do.

Today is a bad day. I seem to have good ones and bad ones. It could be the financial stress I'm under right now (HUGE!!), or the boredom, or something else. But right now, I feel like I have absolutely no purpose in being alive - (or staying that way).

But alas, don't worry about me. Cowardliness always wins out over depression.

In other news, I think I might have an ulcer. I have a pain in my stomach right below my breastbone, acid reflux to beat the band, and a general "I feel crappy" feeling. I've been eating antacids like they are candy for the past week and a half, with only minimal effect. And I have a family history, if that matters. I suppose I should do something about it, but I don't have insurance and I make too much to go to the charity hospital (apparently, $18,000 a year should be more than enough to cover living expenses and pay medical bills). I guess I'll live, unless I don't.

OK. This is getting ridiculous. I'm going to go now. Be on the lookout for a little piece of fiction I'll post later today or tomorrow - I think. It's...interesting, in a slightly morbid way.

Sweetiepie, Ivan, Richard III, Conway Twitty, and Me, Sheryl

If you get the book the title of this entry is referring to, then five points to you (yeah, too much Harry Potter). If you don't, then you must immediately get yourself to your local library and read everything you can get your hands on by E. L. Konigsburg. She rocks.

Let's take each of the things in my title one by one, shall we?

SWEETIEPIE

Sweetiepie is the alias I've decided to use for the pastoral associate at the church where I was formally employed. As I engaged in a bit of metacognition, I realized that part of the reason I haven't been able to move on is that I haven't reached resolution with everyone at St Al's CCC. So last night I wrote her a letter. I was up until after 3 a.m. doing it, but it was worth it. Now I just have to get up the nerve to send it. Oh, I suppose that just writing it should be good enough, but I can't help but feel like I will never be able to reach resolution unless she knows how I feel.

Why did I pick her to write to first? Well, I think that my feelings were most conflicted about her. When I began at the CCC, I had more respect for her than for almost any other lay person in the Church. I thought she was the very modle of what a 21st century lay minister should be. But as time went on, I realized that she was controlling, manipulative, and easily influenced by money and power. When she had me in her office, she'd say things to make me feel like she was supportive of me, but her actions didn't bear that out. In short, she was two-faced. And to be honest, she has been in that entrenched in that parish for so long, and has the respect of so many people in the parish and in the diocese, that I don't think she even realizes it.

So, I wrote her a letter, which I may post sometime, and I think I will mail it. The only thing holding me back is that I'm afraid of burning bridges. I have a tendency to do that, and I'm not sure I can ever cross back if I do. We'll see.

IVAN

Also known around Baton Rouge as the hurricane that wasn't - at least not here. Everybody was all worked up about how bad it was going to hit us here, and we didn't even get a drop of rain. Weather alarmists. Nice to know they are everywhere.

I feel horrible for the people in Alabama and the Florida panhandle, though. The destruction it wrought there was something to behold. And there's going to be incredible flooding all up and down the east coast.

I have two friends who live in Pensacola. I hope they are OK.

RICHARD III

I just stuck that here because in the title of Konigsburg's book, that space is taken by MacBeth. I guess I was in an "I feel inferior so I'm going to overcompensate by becoming a tyrant" mood.

But while I'm in jolly old England - figuratively speaking - I'm watching the UK version of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy right now. I'm a little insulted when they put subtitles up when they guys speak; none of them have a strong cockney or other accent - subtitles aren't necessary. I'm also offended when they put "translations" up on the screen. British English and American English aren't all that different, and I'm not stupid. Don't insult my intelligence like that.

Scholastic finally got the point. The last Harry Potter book had far fewer differences between the British and American versions than the previous four. Bravo could take a lesson.

CONWAY TWITTY

I heard on the car radio that Conway Twitty had been nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Had I been consuming a beverage, I would have done a spit take. Conway Twitty? Rock and roll? Huh??

I went to one of the lyrics sites on the net, just to make sure I was thinking of the right person, and I was. "Hello Darlin" was his big hit. Although, looking at the lyrics for "You've Never Been This Far Before," I have to say that he was enough of a pervert to fit with some of the metal guys in the rock genre.

OK. Here's my Conway Twitty story (you knew there had to be one). One night during my senior year of high school, my friend Monn invited me over to her house. Her parents had guests who she didn't know and she was horribly bored. So anyway, we were in her room, being bored and goofy and listening to an old record of Grover (of Sesame Street fame) singing songs and talking about the body in way that was really total innocent but could be interpreted as slightly naughty by two teenaged girls who were really bored and hopped up on caffiene and chocolate.

At some point, we decided to write the script for a porn movie that involved the people in our class at school. Really, all that made it a porn movie is that one guy (the least likely guy in the world) spent the entire movie hopping between two beds and, well, enjoying the company of the young ladies occupying them. He was actually only on the screen for like, thirty seconds at a time between scene changes, and they were completely under the covers the whole time (yeah, we were rather innocent). Oh, and there was a metal band named, "Tacky A** and F***" in the movie as well. The lead singer (a head banger to end all head bangers - minus the scary mullet) wore Spiderman Underoos everywhere and got his name when he went to see a dentist (a girl with the biggest hair in the yearbook - smart, but really, really blonde - with all that entails), and she missed is mouth and hit his back side with the novacaine. He then lost all feeling in his butt, for the rest of eternity. That's how he got the name Tacky A**. The rest of the band got there name, well, just because it seemed to go with Tacky A** somehow.

Anyway - Conway Twitty. Monn's parents had - eclectic - taste in music, and we were laughing over the fact that they had several Conway Twitty albums in their collection. So of course that had to find it's way into the story. It seems that TAF became known for their metal covers of Conway Twitty songs, and that the bed hopper guy liked to ...perform... to their music.

That was probably more than you ever wanted to know about the terrifying workings of my mind. In a minor defense of myself, I was never quite that...off... without having a partner in crime - usually Monn. Someday I'll have to write about He-Dave, and you'll see what I mean.

AND ME, SHERYL

Not much new here in Sheryl Land. Forgot to turn my time card in, so I didn't get paid this week (stupid, stupid, stupid). Fortunately I have enough food to get me through the week, and I have a few dollars in my checking acct. so I can buy gas if I need it.

Put together a bunch of brochures at work this week, for this expo human resources is doing for all their employees. It's supposed to be a fun thing. I, of course, don't get to go since I am only a temp. I've been temping there for six months now. I wish they would just put me on full time already. It's a good company. Even though I don't like what I am currently doing, I could learn to live with it because of their continued expansion and the way they encourage employees in their advancement efforts.

Didn't make it to the Lutheran church last weekend. I was running late, and I got to the church about five minutes before the services began. I pulled into the parking lot, which appeared fairly full (just proof that I wasn't in Catholic land any more), and proceeded to have a minor panic attack. I couldn't bring myself to go inside the church. I felt so guilty. I just had visions of upsetting my dad, and, oddly, my boss. She thinks for some reason that I am the paragon of Catholicism just because I worked for the church, and no matter how much I try to disabuse her of the notion, she expects me to toe the company line, as it were.

And then there was the fact that I imagined that I was wearing some sign visible to everyone that said, "Hey! I'm Catholic! I don't belong here!" and that people in the church would look at me funny. Nothing is further from the truth, most likely, but there you go.

Still, this week I'm going to try again. I'll get up earlier and get there earlier, and maybe I can just blend in with the crowd.

So now that I have bored you enough, I guess I'm going to go. It's Friday night, and I...well...I have absolutely nothing to do.

Spiritual stuff

Well, I'm going to services at a Lutheran church tomorrow. I'm really nervous about it. I haven't been to services at a non-Catholic church since 1997. I'm not worried about fitting in, or the worship service itself, but I'm worried that since I'm going by myself, I will immediately stand out as an interloper. I mean, most non-Catholic, non-Baptist churches here are very, very small, considering Catholics and Baptists make up about 80% of the population of South Louisiana. I know nothing about the culture of this church, and I'm afraid I'll stick out.

I also have a sense of unease because I feel like I am betraying my father. He agreed with my mother exposing me to her tradition, but I don't think he ever anticipated that I would ever consider exploring it myself. When I went to services at a Presbyterian church with a friend in Pittsburgh during my last hiatus from the Catholic church, I didn't have that sense of guilt because it was a completely different tradition, and because my issues then were really more issues with God than with the Catholic church per say. I can't really say that now. I'm over any conflict I might have been having with God, and my difficulty lies solely with the Catholic church. I think I'm getting better in that regard, in that I've dealth with the fact that not every parish is like St. Al's CCC, but in the times that I've gone to mass, I haven't been able to feel a connection to what is going on around me. I don't know if it is the music, or the sermons, or the congregation, or my own mental block, but I just can't sit in the pew and pretend everything is hunky dorey when it isn't.

You know what it's like? It's like watching a cooking contest on the Food Network (yeah, that's what I have on now). It's mindless viewing for late at night, and you have no vested interest in what you are seeing. That's the way I've felt at mass lately. And sensing that feeling in myself makes me tense and angry. I don't like worship making me feel tense and angry.

Of course, it shouldn't make me feel guilty either. Maybe I should consider an Episcopal church. No one I know is Episcopalian. No betrayal there. But no connection, either. And I don't know that I could handle some other tradition for a long-term basis. I like the ritual and sacrament present in those traditions that claim apostolic succession. Plus, these churches have a similar interpretation of scripture as the Catholic church (even if they are missing the deuterocanonical books - althought the only one I would miss out of the bunch is Sirach). You don't necessarily find that in other Protestant churches.

What I really need is a spiritual director. But all the certified ones in Baton Rouge have some connection to St. Al's CCC, or come from the very conservative viewpoint (the ones who don't believe that the calendar has moved beyond 1965). I know intellectually that spiritual directors are bound by the same confidentiality as any counselor (or since we are talking about spiritual matters, confessor), but emotionally I don't think I could handle the thought that anything I said could get back to them there, even if it wasn't intentional on the part of the director. Or worse, that the director would somehow try to convince me that what I am feeling isn't valid because St. Al's CCC has this reputation of being the paragon of progressive Catholic churches in this diocese. Yeah, it's paranoia. But with everything that I experienced at St. Al's, I can't help it.

Oh, well. I'll write about my experiences tomorrow. Right now, if I want to get up tomorrow, I need to go to bed.

Yeah...

I skipped the fifth thought. I can't count. So what? Wanna make something of it?

Almost forgot

Almost forgot - I wanted to link to a few things in my last post.

Tom Beaudoin's book Virtual Faith.

The cleaning stuff I used in the kitchen and bathroom.

And I just saw this in another blog and had to add it.



You are a RAVENCLAW!

As a Ravenclaw and as an NFP, you are imaginative,
idea-oriented, and value intelligence. You may
be a non-conformist, and are probably good at
seeing new ways of doing things. You are
insightful and perceptive, as an empathic
person who highly values harmony, you usually
try to avoid conflict. Of course, you may
enjoy participating in heated debates - but
only as long as they remain on an intellectual
level and not a personal level. In general,
you are open-minded and curious, and set high
standards for yourself.


Hogwarts Sorting Hat: Based on Myers-Briggs Personality Typing
brought to you by Quizilla

First time I did it I was a Gryffindor. I think I make a better Ravenclaw though, truth be told (oh - I am an INFP, if anyone cares).

Thoughts - Many and Varied

Thought the First

I was just watching Trading Spouses on Fox (guilty pleasure, I admit it). That show intrigues me. I love watching people who have money (or vice versa) getting to see how the other half lives. People truly can't conceive that for some people, $200 for a dishwasher is an extravagence they can't afford. And people who are poor - but happy - can't understand the fast pace lifestyle and obsession with things that people who have mone have.

Needless to say - considering I am driving a car with no insurance and bad brakes - I fall into that latter category. We were talking about weddings at work the other day (my supervisor's daughter is getting married - for the very reasonable price of $6500), and I mentioned that I just don't understand how people can spend upwards of $15000 on a wedding. If I ever get married, I want a morning wedding with a luch reception in the church hall and a cake from Albertson's and that's it. I don't want a fancy dress, or a DJ, or videotaping, or any of that junk. What's really important - the party or the marriage?

On the show tonight, a Georgia country father switched places with a New York City attorney. The attorney's son was preparing for his bar mitzvah, and the mother mentioned wanting to spend the $50,000 they were awarded for participating on the party. She even commented that it should cost about the same as a typical wedding (and I can guarantee she wasn't thinking of the $6500 variety) She was absolutley livid that the country guy - who got to determine how their money was spent - chose to spend the money on things designed to bring the family closer together and slow down the pace of their lives.

I couldn't have been happier with his choice. Is a bar mitzvah - or any religious ceremony for that matter - really about impressing people with an extravagant party? Isn't there another reason we do these things?

Yet another part of my current spiritual crisis.

Thought the Second

I'm thinking about going to services at the Lutheran Church down the street this Sunday. I went to mass this weekend (I really am trying), but I am feeling a really significant disconnect. I can't seem to find a place where I fit and feel like I am being nourished. I don't think going to mass is supposed to make you tense and angry, but that's how I felt this weekend.

So, if the faith of my father's isn't currently working, I may as well try the faith of my mother's. I may even try the Episcopal church. There's a little one not too far away that looks inviting.

I've picked up Tom Beaudoin's book Virtual Faith again. It looks at the spirituality of Gen-X. It's interesting reading. I never got around to finishing it (got busy with stuff at St. Al's CCC), but I came across it on my cleaning frenzy last night and I'm looking forward to finishing. When I do, I'll write more.

Thought the Third

My cleaning frenzy. Last night, for some unknown reason, I got the urge to clean. I cleaned out the drawers in my bedroom, the entire kitchen, and everything in the living room I didn't have to move to clean. Where did the urge come from? Who knows. But the cleaning stuff smells really good and works really well for an environmentally safe product. This weekend, I'm going to do the bathroom (that stuff smells even better).

Thought the Fourth

I was going to write this this weekend but I got distracted.

I was thinking about jealousy this weekend. If you were like me, you learned in seventh grade that jealousy (well, envy) is one of the seven deadly (or - in the kinder, gentler Catholic Church - capital) sins. (As an aside, up until 7th grade, our religion classes consisted of, "God loves you." and not much else. In 7th grade, they became, "God loves you, but you're going to burn in love anyway."). But I was thinking this weekend, is there such a thing as righteous jealousy?

What brought this on, you ask? A phone call from the student loan people. They can't seem to get it through their heads that not only do I not have any money to give them, I don't have any family I can ask for money to give them. They seem to think that I like being poor, and that I'm faking it. Yeah. I like barely being able to scrape my rent together, playing shut-off notice roulette, and driving an uninsured car with bad brakes. I like living on ramen noodles, mashed potatoes, and, as a treat, tuna. This is how I always envisioned my life would be at 33.

Anyway, I found myself feeling really jealous of people who can ask their parents or siblings for a loan to get them over a tight spot. I have never had that as an adult. I've had to make, or not make, my way on my own. I suppose in some ways that's good, but in many other ways it just plain sucks (pardon my crudeness).

Is it wrong to be jealous of their families? I mean, I would never begrudge them what they have, or hurt them because of it, but I would like to have that, too. I really miss my parents. I wish they were still here. And not for financial reasons. I just miss their advice, and their laughter, and their calming presence in my life. I miss them encouraging me, and kicking my butt when need be. I really just want some family in my life. I used to think that maybe I could find that in a church community, but not any more.

Thought the Sixth (I think)

Even thought I just complained about it, I really like having mashed potatoes for dinner. They are yummy, and you don't have to think to eat them. Not that eating other things requires a lot of mental effort, but there you go.

Thought the Seventh

They just said something about the elections on TV. I don't want to vote for Kerry or Bush, and Nader isn't on the ticket in Louisiana. I'm thinking about writing in a vote for someone totally off the wall, like David Letterman or Jon Stewart or William Forman (my US History teacher in high school). Yeah, it would be a wasted vote, but at least it would be a vote. I wish the democrats would put forward a candidate I can respect.

Thought the Eighth

You know you are getting old when you are irritated by college students just acting like college students. It really gets under my skin when the kids in my complex get all loud and goofy after 10 at night on weekdays. And football season is starting Saturday. It's only going to get worse.

Thought the Ninth

It amuses me to drive along the route of a Mardi Gras parade and see beads still hanging from trees months after the fact.

Thought the Tenth

Why so many random things tonight? I've made a committment to myself to spend at least an hour a day on my writing, and this was the only way I could do that today. Tomorrow I plan to write about my mom.

So...The Decision

Well, I guess I've put off writing about this long enough.

Why, you may be asking (or not) did I not accept my dream job to continue scraping by on an office job I hate? And why am I not running off to throw myself off the Mississippi River Bridge right now?

Well, there is a simple answer and a complicated answer. The simple answer is that it just wasn't financially feasible for me to move to Connecticut right now, and there just wasn't time to get organized to go. The director of the school had to withdraw his offer of housing for a few months because his father is ill and needs the spare room in his house. Typical Connecticut apartments the size of mine (450 square feet) rent for about $900 a month, plus security deposit, plus last month's rent, plus utilities. Just to move into a place would cost me between $2,000 and $3,000. When you factor in the repairs I'd have to do to my car to get there safely, I just couldn't manage, despite the fact that the director offered to front me my first two month's salary so I could get settled, with the freedom to pay it back over the next two years.

Then, had I accepted, I would have had 8 days to get organized and move before the first inservice this morning. I would have had to have lesson plans ready for 6 classes by next Tuesday. It just wasn't going to happen.

Now for the complicated answer. Despite some forays into other areas, I've assumed since I was five years old that I was going to teach English. I've assumed it, my parents assumed it, my teachers, friends, and pretty much everyone I ever met assumed it. When I changed my major from biology/pre-med to English/sec. ed. after my freshman year, one of my friends actually said, "what took you so long?"

Now I do like teaching. And I am good at it. But it isn't something I can be passionate about. I can be passionate about the need for quality education for all children, not just those whose parents can afford it (in one way or another). I can be passionate about quality literature. I can be passionate about the decline in young people's writing skills and the need to improve writing instruction at all levels. But classroom teaching? Not so much.

I never liked the paperwork involved in teaching that took me away from reading and writing. I never liked taking time away from instruction to enforce silly rules about how high students' socks were and whether or not they were wearing make-up. I never like the way that I felt I had to relax my standards because students weren't taught well on lower levels. I didn't like grading tests (or giving them for that matter), and I didn't like faculty meetings. And I most definitely didn't like dealing with whiny parents or overbearing administrators.

So what did I like? I liked the interaction with the kids. I liked the rare opportunities that allowed me to be creative. I liked encourgaging the kids to unleash their creativity (although I hated it when other teachers squashed that). I liked it when monotony got put to the side, even if only for a little while, and variety and independence reigned. I liked my desk chair until the back fell off.

Even though the job in Connecticut would have been more of what I liked and less of what I didn't, I still would have had to lesson plans and paper work, and go to meetings. I still would have had to remediate the failings of teachers on lower levels. And I still would have had to deal with the monotony, which is like death for me.

So bottom line, I didn't take the dream job because maybe it isn't such a dream any more. I think I've spent enough time doing what other people have envisioned for me, and trying to live the dream of a five year old. It's time for me now to live out my own dreams, to find my own place in the world.

Whatever that is...any ideas?

The plan was...

...to go to bed an hour ago. Oh well.

I turned down the dream job. But I'm surprisingly sanguine about that. I'll write more about that later...maybe tomorrow.

I've spent this weekend thinking about my dad. No special reason - no birthday, anniversary, holiday, or special occassion. He was just on my mind a lot. And looking over the Jackson Pollock painting that is my life, I realized something. My dad always assumed that, one way or another, I would be a writer.

I remember writing a "book" when I was seven or eight called "First Poems of Life." I got the directions for making a book from my Girl Scout handbook, and I wrote some horrible poems about stupid things. Here are two of the ones I remember off by heart:


Spiders are ugly,
A lot of chuggly.
They are creepy
And make me weepy.

Ah yes - can you stand to be in the brilliance my sheer talent gives off? I had just learned about nonsence words from reading "Jabberwocky," also in my Girl Scout handbook (those Girl Scouts - renaissance women every one). If you are stunned by that work of genius, hold on to your hat for this one:

I'd like to live at the zoo.
There would be lots to do.
I could see the view.

Can you stand it?

Anyhow, I wrote about seven or eight poems along these same lines in my book, and even illustrated it with drawings that radiated even more putresence than the poetry. Do you know that my dad was so proud of that book, that he took it to work with him and told anyone who would listen that his daughter was going to be a writer? He even kept it with his important papers all throughout his life.

Then, when I wrote a poem in fifth grade about snow (which was also not that great), he bragged about it to anyone who would listen, even showing it to his passengers, who included some of the most powerful business people in Pittsburgh.

In seventh grade, I wrote a short story at Banksville called,"The Magic Pencil." Basically, the story was about two seventh grade girls who find a talking pencil when walking home from basketball practice. The pencil helps them with their math homework and leads them on exciting mysteries, the first of which was the search for jewel theives who were hiding out in a trailer in the woods. The find them because they painted the jewels with glow in the dark paint and then set them out in a path from the trailer to the main road. Yeah. Can you stand the excitement? Believe it or not, that story won an award among creative writing IEP students. My dad again carried it around with him, showed it to everyone, and told people to remember my name because I was going to be a famous novelist someday.

In high school, I won a scholarship to a workshop for young writers at Pitt. The workshop lasted all summer, and at the end of it various works were chosen to be published in an anthology. I had two short stories and a poem selected. We got copies of the anthology at a publication party. My mom usually went to those kind of events with me, but it was on a Sunday and she had to work. My dad would normally work Sundays too, but he took off that day to go with me. This time, he was so proud that he made copies of the works I had published and handed them out to everyone. I mean everyone. There are a few professional baseball players who are now proud owners of the stories, "His Father" and "The Back Porch," and the poem, "A Dream Inferred." I'm sure they found their way into the trash at Three Rivers Stadium about a minute after they got out of his cab, but nonetheless.

At that point in my life, I had given up on the idea of being a writer or an English teacher and I was going to be either a physician or a researcher (HA HA HA!!!). Despite that, my dad had decided that after I graduated from college and medical school or graduate school, I would help him to write his memoirs as a cab driver. He was convinced that I was going to write and that I was going to be brilliant.

Well, I never got to ghostwrite those memoirs. And I regret that. My dad (and my mom - in her way) was the one person who never told me I couldn't. It didn't matter what we were talking about - he believed I could do anything. But he knew - somehow, someway - that I was destined to write.

I wonder now if I am where I am now as an opportunity. I wonder if this is God's - or the universe's, or destiny's - way of telling me that now is the time. I find it interesting that I am perfectly calm about having to turn down a job I dreamed of having, and that I have a general sense of peace right now. Is it coincidence that these (and other) memories of my father came flooding back to me this week? I don't think so.

I don't know if I will ever have a book published. I don't know if I really have the talent for it, even though completely objective people and total strangers seem to think I do (well, except for some folks at St. Al's CCC - but we won't go there). But if you do ever go to your friendly neighborhood Barnes and Noble and see my name on a dust jacket, open up to the dedication page and you will see something like this:

To my daddy, who always said I would.