First Day Blues

I quit my job.

Ok, well, I offically quit my job about two weeks ago (had to put my notice in), but you get the idea. My poor manager. He's probably still recovering.

I think I'm still slightly shaken up over it. I've spent almost three years in that store. I know it better than I know my own home. I helped make it what it is. And I was of the last three people there who held that store together.

I kind of feel like I'm copping out, y'know? Like I should have stayed there - tried to fix it somehow. My new job is basically the same as my old one, just with a title and better pay. And a whole bunch of strangers that I don't know.


I'm both excited and terrified. I know it's not a professional job, and if you had told me back when I was in college that I'd be where I'm at now, I'd have muttered some creative obscenities in your direction.

And now? Now I accept it.


I started said new job today. The day started bright and early, and I was given my first set of new shirts to wear. Much to my delight, they are of a tee-shirt fabric (rather than the burlap sacks I used to wear). Much to my disappointment (and chagrin), the shirts? Made me look like a cheap two-cent hooker. Woohoo.

I had been told that the shirts were a men's medium. I don't know if they're going by european sizes, or what the hell type of men they're using for sizing purposes, but the shirts? Are far too small in all the wrong places. It should be illegal. False advertising! Seeing as how my chest area is far from tiny (38C if you really want to know), I look like I should start dancing burlesque at any moment. Oy.

Free lap dances to people who adopt!

Also? The A/C was far from working well. So, there I am, in the middle of a brand new store, sweating like a pig with a skin-tight shirt on.

Let me tell you. It was hawt.

I feel like a fumbling fool. miss being able to joke around, and know what I'm doing. I miss being the one people go to for help. And I miss my customers. But, perhaps most of all, I miss my team.

I know most of that will come in time. After all, today was my first day, right? Eventually I'll get to that point where I'm familiar with people. I hope.

But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly terrified. Guess I'll just see how it plays out.

Cupcake Mania

Cupcakes.


I don't get it. Everywhere I turn, it's like the local bakeries just up and quit and decided to be...


Cupcakeries? Ugh.


I don't have anything against cupcakes - hell, I've even been known to make a few every now and again. But this...this is insanity.


My sister is a fan. She thinks nothing of going out and spending 3 or 4 dollars per cupcake. Me? I think that hey, for 3 or 4 dollars I can make 24 cupcakes out of a boxed mix and slap some frosting on them.


Voila. Or something.


Maybe it's that they're cute. And individually portioned. Or maybe it's that people don't feel so guilty eating them. Maybe they bring back cherished childhood memories.

Personally, I miss the old style bakeries. Places that made things like this:

That, dear friends, is a tart I made the other day. And yes, it was delicious, thanks for asking. But I dunno, maybe it's just me or the area I live in, but I can't find things like that in a bakery anymore. I can't find things like Baba au Rhum, or Beignet, or even just a few standard breads.

Instead, they've been replaced by cupcakes, regular cakes, and maybe a scant assortment of cookies.

I'm in mourning for the traditional American bakery. It's ok, at least they aren't doing any themed -

Oh God. Why.

Tolerance.

Tolerance. I think that's the word for tonight.

Sometimes, I think a relationship is more about tolerance than murmured declarations and whispered sweet nothings.

Everyone has that one thing that just absolutely pisses them off so completely and utterly that they get beyond the ability to think.

And if you don't have that thing then you just haven't found it yet. Don't worry, I'm sure it'll assert itself before long.

Tonight Pookie pushed my thing's button.

Run stupid boy, run.

I could blame the hormones. Right now, I'm a bleeding, raging bitch the likes of which Stalin would run from. I could blame that.

I could blame myself. I'm crazy on the best of days, downright depressing and stubborn on the worst.

Or, I could do what my gut is telling me, and blame Pookie.

But, honestly, what's the point? What's the point in blindly pointing fingers? What's the point in getting angry?

There is no point. And that's where that tolerance thing comes along.

I love Pookie enough to tolerate him when he does something so insanely stupid that even I, obtuse as I am at times, can tell he's in the wrong. And I love him enough to realize that fighting in the heat of the moment is only going to result in hurt feelings.

And so I wait. And I think.

And I realize that I love him enough to tolerate it when he pisses me off, and I love him enough to feel free to fight with him and be secure in knowing that we can work it out, provided that he's willing to work it out with me too.

And that's what a relationship is, isn't it? It's work. It's fucking hard work sometimes.

There's no other option for me. Because when you stop trying, and stop working, I kind of feel like that moment is when you fall out of love.

Ice Cream Memories

You know that it's officially summer around these parts when the Jack & Jill ice cream truck's melody taunts you. In my neighborhood, one never really actually sees the truck since he just does a once around down the main strip. As a child I always attributed it towards laziness - now I know better.

He just hated children. An interesting paradox - one that I'm not even going to try to psychoanalyze.

Anyways, all of us kids would run towards the end of our block as soon as we heard the melody blaring out of a dinged and dirty speaker atop his truck. We would desperately race to the corner, hoping that we could beat him there - because if he moved faster than us, we could say goodbye to the popsicles that we had begged our mothers for money for.

He was interesting. A man of indeterminable origin, he had skin the color of a latte and I'm not entirely sure I've ever heard him speak - other than to shout at us in an unintelligible grunt for money.

We would grin up at him - his face hidden by a scraggly beard - and rip the plastic coverings off our goodies. I loved the feel of the plastic. Weird, I know, but I delight in the small things. The way the plastic crunched in my hands, the way the popsicle would melt in the summer heat - I loved it all.

He'd roll his eyes, move to the front of his truck, and squeal out of there as if the devil were after him, while all of us neighborhood kids ran down to our mothers to show them what prizes we had acquired.

I kind of miss those days, as I sit here with my low-fat sugar-free taste-free popsicle. Life was simple then. I only hope that one day life might be that simple for my kids.

Y'know. If I ever get around to having any poop machines minions children.

Support

When I started this blogging "thing" I thought of it as a release. It was just a way to get my head out on paper, so to speak, so that all the little voices in my head would leave me the heck alone.

You know the ones I'm talking about. The sadistic bastards always jabber to me about my credit card payment, or my car loan, or my less-than-steller job status and accomplishments. They comment to me about other people, about interesting observations. And they NEVER SHUT UP. So I put them here.

Some of you are, no doubt, freaked out by this point (probably it's the "some of you" that know me in real life). Don't worry. I don't actually hear voices. It's more of a metaphor for my collective consciousness. I hope.

I never imagined what the world of "blogging" would open up for me. I mean, here I am, some dipshit from nowhereville, whining on the internet about my problems in some sort of display of ego-induced media whorism.

Whorism. Is that a word? If it's not, I think it should be. I'm making it a word. Please excuse my butchery of the english language.

I never realized that one could actually kind of "meet" other bloggers on the internet - and that those bloggers would be *real* people. People with problems. People who aren't perfect, people who are just like you and me.

Well, to be fair, I did realize that one could meet people on the internet. But my exposure to that concept was limited by the whole "social recluse/internet gamer phenomenon, and at the other extreme end of the spectrum there was the classic internet stalker/pedophile thing too.

I didn't realize there was a middle ground. Naive and regrettably narrow-minded of me, I know, but that had been my experience.

This last year (year!? Ok, to be fair, it's more like 9 months since I just took a little three month break) has let me in to see an inside look at some of the most amazing people's brains.

Thankyou.

Thankyou to the bloggers of the world. Thankyou to the internet geeks. Thankyou to everyone who has ever had the courage and spirit to not only write interesting material, but to offer up your inner thoughts and workings on a silver platter for criticism and degradation.

And, most importantly, thank you for caring.

Bugger.

The last time I posted on here was on April 28th. I blogged about hamster races, of all things. A few things have happened since then.

I turned twenty-five. That's right, I'm now a quarter-century old. I had my little temper tantrum about it - refused to talk about it, refused to acknowledge that it was even happening. I didn't want anything to do with it. And yet...it happened, and it wasn't the end of the world. I guess I just figured I'd be farther along than I am when I reached this age. I figured that I'd have my own place, I'd have some big job that would be emotionally satisfying and, more importantly, that would matter.

Instead, I fell into the majority group of americans who are just trying to make ends meet with a job that they're overqualified for.

In the same vein, I got a job offer from another pet store. I took it - I start at the end of this month as a manager. It's not much, but it's a step up from where I'm at now and it pays more. Much more. I'd be a fool not to take it, so I will. I'm hoping it will beef up my resume - I'm told that management positions always look good.

Pookie and I fought. We waged a Cold War on one another, never outrightly fighting but rather passive-aggressively attacking each other until our nerves were frayed like the ends of two opposing wires. After three weeks of snapping at each other, we both broke down. We're working on getting back to where we were - but it's going to take work. And I'm going to have to open up, emotionally speaking.

I don't do well with talking about feelings. I never have. It's like some sort of block happens in my throat, and I just can't get the words out. Instead I usually wind up sputtering some sort of choked garbling sound. I'd rather not talk about the things that haunt my mind - it's so much easier if I don't.

Easier, that is, until I have a complete and utter break-down. It's not pretty.

So that's where I'm at.