Sorry about the title – as Craig Ferguson says – “I made myself laugh and that’s half the battle”. I really do enjoy bad puns – they’re stupid and low brow and show a distinct lack of imagination, I like to think of them as my homage to our President.
But I digress …
It’s official – Sunday and Monday have become one long continuous day. It appears I’ll be stuck working both days every weekend for awhile and I need to adjust to that. I’m a bit pissed about this development; Sunday mornings are my favorite part of the week. Now I open my eyes and almost immediately feel my back still aches, my feet hurt and I have to get to the store. I’m going to need to decide what to do about Everyday Kindness Sunday wrap-up. So typical of me, it’s only an official thing for me but I still feel the
need to negotiate with myself about how to re-schedule it, and let me tell ya – I am a bitch negotiator. There are positives to working Saturday and Sunday; it leaves me more time for my real job during the week when clients expect to find me and I’ve always preferred doing errands and stuff in the middle of the day on a weekday – less crowds, less screaming kids, less traffic. So there – I’ll focus on that.
I saw “walking woman” Saturday night – I caught a glimpse of her going into “creepy guy walking dogs” house as I drove by. She was dressed up – a Saturday night date perhaps!? I hope so and I really hope I run into her soon so I can get the full story.
Mia is doing OK – the sneezing has started back up a bit and her eyes seem more sensitive again so we’ll be going back to the vet this week. BUT – she’s eating and last night she had a full hour play session with my son. She actually ran and fetched toys and jumped on higher places and just plain looked so happy. Siren is super pissed about this. How dare anyone have fun without him. I was planning to go to phase 2 of the introductions – Mia in the giant kennel and Siren out and about where he can approach her, discover her so to speak, without hurting her. I’m putting that on hold til the vet visit. So for now they communicate through the screen door – Mia hisses and growls and attempts to punch Siren’s lights out while he stares at her with laser beams of death eyes. Eventually she goes back to sleep and he comes out to punish me.
I am working on the slide show – I’m just a wee bit tired these days.
I also have a bunch of things partially written; a scathing rant about the ‘art of distraction’ regarding the media’s attention to Obama’s minister and his supposed racist sermons, an expose of how workers are treated in large retail establishments, a little ditty about what it’s like to work long hours from home and a winding ramble about blogging and message boards – the virtual water cooler I call it. Due to lack of time or brain cells each of these pieces started to lose focus and I found myself veering off the path into places I wasn’t prepared to go so …
I’m feeling a bit forked up.
There’s a very specific reason I named the blog ‘Forks Off The Moment’ – my therapist told me too. Now that’s not really true but sometimes it feels as if it is. I always loved to write – as a child I composed these elaborate fairy tales that revolved around being anywhere but where I was. In my early teens I kept very poetic, uber serious journals about politics, Viet Nam, rock music, drugs, sex and being anywhere but where I was. One of my proudest academic moments was the reaction to a paper I wrote in High School discussing the symbolism and emotional appeal of the song ‘American Pie’ – good grades always came easy to me but this grade was like winning an Oscar. People got what I wrote, they found it important and interesting and were entertained by it – I was somewhere other than where I was. Typical of what was to become my thirty-something years of self-destructive, self-sabotaging brilliance I ditched going to college to study journalism and got pregnant by an alcoholic loser twice my age. Talk about a huge fork off the moment!
Back to why it’s all the therapist’s fault.
I’ve been to therapy a few times over the years; first with my son after his Dad disappeared and it seemed that anger would consume him, then again when my sister killed herself (ain’t we a cheery lot!?) and it seemed that anger and grief would consume us all and finally (I think) this past fall – right before I started the blog – because I simply decided that being in my 50s was going to be better than the previous 4 decades. That brave decision was immediately followed by panic and depression the likes of which stunned me. The therapist thinks I need to practice living in the moment until I can learn to manage the dark places my mind takes me. Regardless of how many times I have survived something, fixed something, rescued something I always feel, always imagine, that the next time will be the end of me. When my business was struggling I stayed awake all night making plans on how to be homeless; would I go to a shelter? – would I live under a bridge? (I have troll fantasies) – what about Siren!? – how would I care for him under a bridge? – could I manage his carrier in my shopping cart? From zero to sixty! I fork off the moment.
Maybe that’s why I’m having trouble finishing anything real. The Obama piece was taking me into my own personal experiences with racism which leads to intense negative feelings about my son’s in-laws. The piece about part-time retail workers made me so angry about this President (as if I needed one more reason) and his economic follies. The ditty about working from home got me to worrying about this current dry spell and trying to describe message boards put me in a bad mood over people who are rude and judgmental, not to mention ignorant and boring.
I’m so grateful to Raven for Wordzzle and to REH for the PFC challenge. These trips into writing fiction are enjoyable and (I hope/I think) are making me a better writer. Plus they create a perfect opportunity to discover new blogs. Which reminds me, I have to update my bookmarks and my sidebar and …
More later - when the traffic jam in my head eases up.
Well – it’s Everyday Kindness Sunday on Monday. Work and storms and power outages took time away from me, not to mention losing an hour of sleep. But hell – “time is only linear for referees and engineers” says Craig Ferguson. If you want a great read get his book – “Between the Bridge and the River”.
So:
Mia is doing so much better. The meds are working; her sneezing turned to a little wheezing and now I can actually hear her purr, and her eyes are getting clearer every day. She met Siren twice, through a screen door, and it was mostly staring and being a big bully on his part and lots of hissing and growling on her part – whichever cat is hissing is the one who is feeling vulnerable so that’s going to need some work. And she is eating!! Woo-Hoo! Fatter and stronger = the better to deal with Siren.
Remember “walking woman” and “creepy guy walking his dogs”? She’s the lovely lady who is struggling to get healthier by walking around the neighborhood each evening and he’s the gentleman who really isn’t so creepy once you stop and talk to him/his dogs. He used to make “walking woman” nervous and she avoided him, then she decided to say Hi and befriend the dogs.
Well! – Last night I stopped at the diner on my way home from giant-ass retail store job and … as I waited for my tuna melt to go … what do I see? …
“Walking woman” and “creepy guy” at a booth, having coffee and pie, and laughing up a storm! I know! Budding romance perhaps? Certainly a lovely friendship. She looked positively radiant and he looked 10 years younger. I hid behind the cake display (fitting) – I really didn’t want to interrupt what looked like a delicious moment.
Bobbie turned me on to this interesting and worthwhile site. Please take a moment to check it out.
Every Human Has Rights
Originally this next saga was going to be Monday’s post. It was to be titled “I Think I Did it for Myself”. I would love to know what everyone/anyone thinks.
I started back to work at my sometimes second job – I’m a sales associate for a pretty good quality albeit snooty brand in a very large retail store. I originally took the job thinking I could work enough hours to make a bit of extra money and qualify for health insurance – my self-employed insurance premiums have reached $800 a month for not so good coverage. In November, on Black Friday (poetic ain’t it), I ended up in the ER being told stuff like “cat scratch fever”, “blood clot that goes to your heart and kills you” and my favorite – “didn’t this look dangerous to you!”
Siren had bitten me, as he has a million times before, a few days earlier. I cleaned the bite site and went about my merry way. How this turned into my leg becoming purple and swelling to elephant like proportions no one can explain to me. I think I may be allergic to the filthy, unnatural fibers of the store’s carpeting. I was treated for a severe systemic infection and took some medical leave from the store. The infection kept coming back, the leg kept swelling back up and I was catapulted into a miserable cycle of doctors and tests. To keep my wits sharp the insurance ass-hats (homage to REH and his union guy) put me through daily phone calls and tons of chain letters all designed to make me want to die as soon as I pay the next premium. It seems I don’t get it – I’m supposed to pay for health insurance but I am not supposed to use health insurance.
I have Scoliosis
– I almost wrote suffer from scoliosis but that’s a momentary feeling. All through my childhood and early teens I took the curve of my back, the one hip higher than the other and the frequent pain as just one more sign that I was different – freakishly different. Children can be incredibly cruel and I heard all the hunchback jokes their lovely little minds could invent.
When I was 17 I discovered that my problem could have easily been corrected had my parents been parents and not the insane wolves I had come to accept. At 17 the surgery would be daunting and most likely not successful. I found a physical therapist who taught me exercises that helped strengthen and lengthen and I coped. Coping has always been my thing. I cope real good until I don’t. Then I am a spectacular pile of old issues, unclaimed baggage – fueled by rage and grief and trauma. Yes – I have a therapist.
Fast forward to last Monday at the big-ass retail store. I’m cleaning up the clearance shoe aisle when I hear – “Oh and that one is back, what was wrong with her?” – I recognize the voice as the troll who works the register at the adjoining department. I can’t see her, she can’t see me and I have no idea who she’s talking to. I tell myself not to be paranoid. “… and she’s working limited shifts, nice!” – “wish I could get special treatment” – “have you seen that hump on her back, and the way she walks” – “by the end of the day she looks like hell” – “if you’re that disabled don’t get a job like this” – “just expects special treatment” – and on and on and on.
I stopped hearing at some point. My face became hot (and it wasn’t a hot flash), my head was spinning and all I could hear was static noise. Thankfully a customer spoke to me and I re-entered current space and time. Hearing my voice made the troll shut up.
I spent the rest of that day going back and forth – capable, calm adult to heartbroken, confused child. The most disconcerting emotion was the rage just waiting to boil over. Vivid images of picking up the troll (she’s about 4’9”) and launching her ugly gray haired head through the plate glass door danced in my mind.
In the break room I apparently looked so miserable that a co-worker asked what had happened. I told her and was immediately sorry I had. “We’re going to HR right now” – “OK, then we’ll tell ** (my manager)” – “she’s a horrible person and someone needs to get rid of her”.
And there it was – I was the top item on someone else’s agenda. Again. Still. It was never about me, it was always how I could fix it for someone else. The eldest child who spent her entire childhood trying to be worthy and to care for her brothers and sister came back. She collided full on with the angry teen who almost killed the abusive father and I could barely breathe.
Isn’t therapy designed to get rid of this crap? Yes – I know - there is work to be done.
This insanity spilled into the next shift. Co-worker one, in her all about her concern, told two people and they told two people … When I arrived at my department the troll looked like she wanted to disappear into the carpet. “Hostile workplace” – “harassment” – “fair treatment of the disabled” intermingled with “we’ll finally get that bitch” – “my daughter wants her job” – “I’ve always hated her”.
HR gets wind of the hoopla. Funny – when you actually go to HR and openly, clearly ask for something they never react. Apparently the pathetic rumor mill is the way to get things done. They ask me what happened. They tell me they’re there for me. I sit in the office and overhear “corporate will love this” – “…hire someone at half the rate” – “one less senior”.
Look at how important I am in the larger scheme of things! Oh My – the power I posses.
I tap on the door and ask them why I’m still here. Nothing happened, I don’t know what the hell is going on and I have no issues – no agenda – put the forms away, set the hot line phone down. The confused, disappointed looks on their faces gave me my first good laugh in days.
The troll was in my direct line of vision all the long walk back to my department. As I got closer the fear on her face was so clear it was sad. All the wind out of her sails, all the concern about losing the job she’s had for 20 years was etched there and almost made the cruel bitch human. My intention was to just pass her by. The store’s collective attention span is that of a gnat and this would all soon be replaced by which department manager is screwing which girl in receiving.
“I guess you feel good now that I’m getting fired”.
Calm, kind adult and rage crazed teen join hands. “No, you’re not getting fired. I didn’t say a god damned thing to them, they care less about me than you do”. “But …, What …, Oh …” sputters the troll. “Wow you’re finally speechless” says combination me. “Maybe you’ll think twice next time, you’re a very hurtful person, you’re a fucking bitch”. “I didn’t mean anything, I just get to talking and …” - “I suppose you’ll use this against me forever now” – the troll looked so small and old.
“No”, says calm kind adult “it’s done, you have your own shit to live with”.
Rage filled teen did need the last word and this I’ll have to work on. “Fuck with me again and I’ll break you in two and stuff you in the compactor” says rage filled teen, in all her spectacular inability to heal.
A friend who really knows me thinks I did the right thing. My co-workers think I’m nuts.
I think they’re all right.
Be Kind Out There.
The endless subject of control came up today at the therapist. Usually I try to change the subject but since we'd been discussing "Regret for the Past and Terror of the Future" control seemed benign. Given my past (we'll go there eventually) I always feel I need to control every moment of every situation so that nothing bad happens. Not to me - to everyone around me! Guess I'm nuts with a social conscience. My sweet little 95' Jetta got plowed into last week. Victim of an idiot in a pick-up, skidding on snow while talking on the phone, fondling his girlfriend and making an illegal U-turn. Good news - I was buying milk at the moment, Bad News - little Jetta is in intensive care. More good news - I am insured to the same degree as Kathy Bates in "Fried Green Tomatoes".Rental car arrives and it's a 2007 Murano. My Jetta fits in the freakin' front seat. I'm a very good driver - my Father told me so in the driveway - and after years of living in Brooklyn and commuting to Manhattan I am brave and nimble and assertive but this baby is huge and new. She responds to a touch at the wheel, a tap at the brake - Jetta had more of a Fred Flintstone car vibe going for it. Plus I've never been fond of reverse and now I can't even find the back of the car.And all the old crazies come home to roost. I'll lose control, it'll tip over, and most of all - I will back out of the Stop N' Shop parking lot and mow down a ton of toddlers on their way back from seeing how produce is marketed. I can see their little bodies beneath my back wheels - holding hands with their mittens pinned to their coats. But I need coffee filters!I wind my way through the jug-handles of NJ and park my beast at the far end of the lot - near the dumpsters, upsetting a flock of rabid seagulls. Good plan I assure myself - what could I hurt in no-man's land. Filters in hand (along with $200 worth of other crap I didn't know I needed) I emerge from Stop N' Shop to discover my car surrounded by Verizon trucks. It's lunch time and IHOP is right next door and apparently they too suffer from reverse-itis. The panic that came over me was stunning and comical. I could barely steer the shopping cart - how would I ever get the Titanic out of a thimble? I considered waiting for them to finish lunch but that seemed absurd - even to me. So I summoned my inner well voice and tackled the situation. I will be in the moment, there are no loose toddlers - inch by inch, breath by breath the Murano was freed from her tiny crevice!So the therapist was right (bitch) - I can't plan for everything, I can't control everything, I'm not to blame for everything and bad things won't always happen.I lived in the moment and I'm planning on living there again. With a few forks off the moment.
