For my partner-in-work…

My one co-worker lost her job. This is a co-worker I have grown especially close to, insofar as to ask her to be a bridesmaid at my wedding. I count her as one of my close friends, and I know it sounds odd, but the loss of her on the team is devastating.

When I first started at my job, the place was a fucking dream come true. This was in the good old days of….April, when OL wasn’t OL, he was Boss-man. I mean Boss-man in a good way. My contribution to the team was encouraged, fostered, appreciated. I would come home happy as a pig in shit. About 2-3 weeks after I started, a new group of people started, and I was even charged with training them. Among this group was a person who would become the awesome Co-captain (or CC), referred to in my previous post about work.

She said she’d make me a Transformers cake for my birthday, as that was the same day that Transformers 2 came out. I asked if it was going to transform into a giant margarita.

So over time she became my right-hand chick as far as our roles went. I welcomed the relief, having some semblance of my life back, whereas before I was working non-stop, even from home. I had her back and I knew she had mine.

We developed a system which operated almost flawlessly, and I honestly don’t think that anyone outside the team of two we had would have been able to understand how things flowed so efficiently between the two of us. I knew which ones she’d grab, she knew which ones I’d grab, and if there was any confusion, we’d compare notes.

But aside from all of that, we developed a friendship.

Today she calls me, upset, tells me she’s been fired. Then comes an email from HR. This shakes me, and fills me with dread. Not so much fear for my own job, because I’m pretty apathetic about it, but just dread that my workload is now doubled, that without CC I am being set up to fail. I am also filled with disgust, shock, and sadness. I cannot work as much as I did before she came, the company has just grown too much, and CC is, first and foremost, a good friend to me, and I hate seeing my friends upset.

The official reason is budget cuts, and another co-worker who I trust completely confirmed that the company is in dire straits money wise.

I also found out it’s completely normal for friends of a co-worker who loses their job to feel a sense of loss. And I do.

CC, I never really said, or had to say it, but dude, you were my fucking other half at work, man. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you there. I know I’ll see you outside of work, but it still sucks. There’s no I in team, and I can’t do all the shit we did together, alone.

I am not looking forward to Monday.

Unrequited…

Just something I wrote…long ago and far away…

something about you
renders me speechless right now
all I can do is look in your eyes
and hope that mine speak for me

if you could only speak the unspoken
and if you could see how I feel
it would be so beautiful to see
far more beautiful than this

just a glance to convey everything
and that’s all I can really do
losing track of the time
just staring in your eyes

if you could just see how hard
it is for me to break my gaze
to take my eyes away from yours
my dear, I just can’t look away

silently my heart begs you to know
what my mouth just refuses to say
quelled by the promise of maybe
that I see when you look at me

The Post that could get me Dooced…

As if anyone at work knows about this blog. Well, one person does, but I doubt he reads my blog. And I trust him, anyways.

So where I work, I’ll call it Suite 409 because I have that damn “Giddyup 409″ cleaner commercial song stuck in my head. Yes, I know it was The Beach Boys who sang it. I am aware of this. 409 cleaner bastardized it.

Anyways, I work in Suite 409. Let’s call my ‘supervisor’ OverLord. Or OL, if I feel particularly lazy. So OverLord…is just that. An overlord of epic proportions. There are way too many rules…rules that apply to all the wrong things. I am not going to go into these rules, but there are many.

Did I mention OL does not follow these rules?

Double standards run amok at my job. Certain people can do this, certain people can’t. Certain people can tell other certain people about their weekend, certain people can’t.

It drives me nuts and pisses me off. I’m sorry, OL, I could do your job better than you. And my workers would be happier. Do you even realize how freaking miserable we are? No talking? No joking, no excessive laughing? Unless you talk and crack a joke, expecting everyone to laugh their asses off?

There is a full cast of characters at my job (in Suite 409), and I have nicknames for almost all of them.

Let’s see…there’s O-G. I call him O-G for reasons that will be obvious in a moment. This kid…he speaks a different language when talking on the phone. Not different as in French, or Spanish, or whatever. No, this cat speaks ghetto.

Let me explain something. I don’t care how you talk with your friends. God knows every other word that exits my mouth between me and a friend is probably ‘fuck’, some variation on that word thereof, or some other swear word. On the phone, I am professional, I enunciate, and I articulate the bastardized version of the Queen’s English that we Americans think passes for English.

Not O-G, man. That dawg is too cool to floss that verbage. He says shit on the phone like “Yeah, we getchoo hooked up.” or “Uwn-kay, uhwn-kai, yeeuh, yuh, huwn (which is apparently supposed to mean Huh?), and various other combinations of syllables and consonants that just sound silly and stupid.

Moving on…

There’s Curly. I love her, she’s great. We have great times joking about O-G and OL with Co-Captain, (Or CC.) I love Curly and CC.

The others, I really don’t know well enough to give nicknames. Not yet.

I might write tales and spin yarns here about the shenanigans at Suite 409, but I don’t know. We’ll see.

And I Don’t Know Why…

Cause it’s you and me and all of the people
With nothing to do, nothing to prove
And it’s you and me and all of the people and
I don’t why I can’t keep my eyes off you

I heard this song, for the first time in a long time today. It makes me think of someone.

I can’t explain it, nor would I ever dare to try. But it’s just one of those things when you want something and you know you’ll never have it, so you settle. You settle and make yourself be happy with what you have, even though what you want holds a special place in your heart, and you’re just not quite ready to let go of it.

I had a dream last night about this. And I didn’t want to wake up. Because in my dream, what I wanted wanted me too, and it was so wonderful to have that returned to me.

Forgive my cryptic way of speaking about this. I gave this blog link to people I trust, but I just don’t want to be too specific. I fear the questions, though I know the answer to each one. I just don’t want to vocalize it, but I kind of need/want to get it off my chest.

I can’t explain what’s going on in terms of why I feel the way I do. But I do, and I can’t help it. I also know that it should go away in time…hopefully.

But seriously….

I really have no clue why I can’t keep my eyes off of you…and I if I could, I don’t know that I’d want to.

This will be read by everyone…

…except the person who it’s addressing.

Dear *****,

Time has graciously melted away the memory of your face, but there are a few things I need to get off my chest.

I loved you. Or at least, cared enough about you that it might have qualified as love at some point. The ***** I was nuts about was kind, loving, funny, smart, and knew how to make me laugh.

In your last letter to me, you stated that you felt some kind of resentment towards you emanating off of me. Ya think? You got locked up two weeks after I found out I was pregnant. I gave birth to her completely alone save for my angel of a midwife and the doctors and nurses who were helping my baby come out.

Do you know what it feels like to give birth alone? No, you don’t, because you were so selfish and stupid that you only thought about yourself. I cried the whole time. Tears of fright, tears of anger, and then, when my screaming daughter was laid on my stomach, tears of joy. And then, when I was waiting for the epidural to wear off and be reunited with my baby, tears of bitterness. I cried so much that I could have made the deserts bring life forth. I had never been so scared in my life.

You remained in jail until MY daughter was 5 months old. At 7 months, she was in the hospital, fighting for her life. At that point, I had left you, told you we were done, and not to contact me until you got your shit together.

And there I was again, alone. No one came to see me or her while she was struggling for every breath. You called the hospital, demanded to talk to me.

“Please,” I begged you, crying. “If I ever needed you to be a man, now would be it. I gave birth alone, and I’m here alone, and they don’t think she’s going to make it…please…” You got very serious, and assured me you would come and be with us.

You never showed up. I found out later you had borrowed money from your roommate to come down to the hospital, but you didn’t stay on that train, did you? No. Because if you had, things might have been so much different. But no. You got off the train at the usual drug spot you went to, and you got high. Drugs meant more to you than a beautiful 7 month old baby girl and her mother who was scared shitless because her daughter’s outlook was so very very dismal.

But miraculously, she got better. And I made one last attempt to make things work with you. Everything was fine. I left to spend Christmas with my family. I left my cell at my house, like I told you I was going to. I came back to a million and one frantic messages from your mother.

You’d been arrested, and the crime they said you committed was so heinous that it made the news, carries such a horrible stigma that I can’t even mention it here. I fear constantly, that something YOU did, should it get out, would reflect horribly on me, and my daughter. I read the articles in the paper, I bit the back of my hand in shock while watching the news.

How could you?!?! I have no doubt in my heart that you did what they say you did. Everything you had ever projected yourself to be to me was a lie. In that second, everything I knew was shattered. You are a horrible, horrible person, to metaphorically look your kid in the face and say “Sorry, I can’t be your daddy because I’d rather get high and I rather fancy other people’s shit.”

I found out so much about you. How you cheated on me, how you were never ever clean. You selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed asshole. You never intended to do anything right. And your daughter suffered for it. You’re damn right there was some resentment coming off of me. There was a whole lot of resentment there, buddy.

But, I rose above the hell you cast me into. I am engaged now, to a man who loves my daughter as his own, who is the father of another little girl who we all adore.

I cannot pray for you. I cannot hope that you reform. I know you will sit in jail for the rest of your life and it still does not ease the hatred in my heart, because I know you have learned NOTHING. I know you probably sit in your cell and swear up and down that you are innocent, that it was your buddy who you had met only moments before, your buddy who mysteriously vanished without a trace. Considering all evidence pointed to you, you need to not be so damn delusional. You did it, and now you’re serving your time. I hope the memory of what havoc you wrecked haunts you. I hope you see your sweet little sister in your dreams, and I hope knowing that you left her with your monster of a mother torments you. I hope you reflect upon the sweet face of my daughter, and I hope it fucking hurts. I can forgive you, but I do not think I will ever think of you in a good light.

And most of all, I hope you rot in jail until the day you die. In prison, where you belong, and where you cannot destroy the happiness I deserve, that I have worked so very very hard to achieve.

Mind-Numbing Boredom…

I am sitting at work, bored as hell. I cannot listen to music. I shouldn’t even be typing this, but I have to do something to keep me awake.

When I have a moment I bring up Mommy Wants Vodka and laugh my ass off. Her funny and irreverent look at motherhood and domesticities is hilarious, and after my own heart, and brings back fond memories….

I remember being told that when children are infants (as in less than 3 mos old), they really don’t understand the words coming from your mouth….just your tone. This was wonderful therapy for me, as I would rock my oldest (who had horrid horrid colic) in my arms and sweetly croon to her "Please stop crying, it’s really upsetting mommy" or "Oh my god I love you so much but you’re really annoying the crap outta me!"

I am not one of those mothers who meets every little annoying thing my children do with a smile and a soft voice. I am the mother who delights in her children’s accomplishments. I am not the mother who lets my children run wild for fear of cramping their spirit. I nurture their creativity and correct their mistakes.

I can count on one hand the number of times I have had to smack my children, and still have two fingers left over. But…when my eldest yanked her hand free of mine and ran out into the street, my 8-month-pregnant-wedge-heeled-boots-wearing ass ran out right behind her, scooped her over my shoulder, and carried her, kicking and screaming, into the house, where I gave her a smack on the bottom (she was wearing a diaper. I don’t think it had much effect.), and put her on time-out.

I know what’s right and wrong. If my kid is doing something that can get them killed or maimed, I leave no chance that they’ll do it again. That warrants a smack. If it’s something else, well then, I can deal with saying ‘No’ a lot.

I will admit, when my eldest was in the Terrible Twos…she’d have a major meltdown, and I’d pretend to shuffle through a stack of papers.

"Mommy, what you doon’ ?" She’d ask.

"I’m looking for your receipt…I know there’s a return policy, there has to be!" I’d reply. She’d call me silly and it would break the meltdown. I never ever said I was taking her back to the hospital, and she wasn’t old enough to comprehend what the words ‘return policy’ meant. And the comic relief was awesome, for both of us. She saw Mommy laughing and it soothed her tantrum.

I am not Michelle Duggar. I would pay money to see that woman flip shit and scream at her 18 kids "Shut the fuck up!!! ALL OF YOU!!! NOW!!!". I really would. Or to at least see JimBob walk out of the house muttering "Fucking kids…I need a beer."

One of those stupid survey things…

1. What’s the sweetest way anyone’s described you?
That I had eyes like the ocean and hair like golden silk…he told me he could have looked in my eyes for the rest of his life…

2. Name a friend’s best memory of you.
Ashli’s mother shared with me something Ashli wrote shortly before she died… “I do have happy memories…A few years ago, Tabs and I went to karaoke night with Dom, Sacha, Ryan, and Cora…After a few, Dom bet Tabs she was too chicken to get up and sing. She could never turn down a bet (smiley face drawn here)…and she sang ‘Spark’ Tory (sic) Amos. Guess she had to sing a song in her range to sound good, but I guess this was, because she sounded so beautiful. I miss her.” Miss you too, Smash…

3. When you look back on your life thus far, do you have a particular song that comes to mind?
My life has many songs, but I think the one that would sum it up would be ‘Hide and Seek’ By Imogen Heap… especially the one part….

4. How do strangers perceive you?
I fit many shoes. To some, I am the steadfast friend. To others, I’m one of the many sources of laughter in their life. Depending on my mood, a stranger might see me as a bouncing ball of life, or as someone struggling under the burden of guilt from the various mistakes I have made in life. I really have to admit, other than family and the few besties I have, only a few people have encountered me, met me, and got to know me right away. Despite my friendliness, it takes a lot for me to open up. There haven’t been many that I’ve found it easy to open up to, and when I do, I often don’t even know why. But usually those people end up becoming some of my closest friends, so I guess it works out.

5. Pretend I’m a reporter trying to get the straight scoop. Want to straighten anything out?
What kind of fucking retarded question is that…pretend you’re a reporter? No. But…Listen, people. I understand that this aspect of me may be a little difficult to understand…but I’m going to try and explain. My best self-defense is silence. Sometimes when I am silent, it is because I’m working through some shit. But sometimes, I am just silent because I have nothing of value to say. It’s hard to tell the difference. I don’t expect everyone to know the difference. I sometimes don’t. So don’t worry about it. I get pensive and I lapse into brooding. I appreciate some mental solitude once in awhile.

6. Miss anyone?
I miss a lot of people, some much more than others. Some of the loved ones I have lost, I think “Oh, it’d be really great to speak with *insert name here*.” Some people I have lost, the pain still hasn’t even halfway gone away. And I try not to think about them, but I think about them anyways, and a small part of me refuses to believe fully that they are gone and holds on to some stupid futile hope that I’ll see them again and show off my children to them.

7. Favorite memory from the first 20 years of your life?
Well, since this doesn’t cover the births of my children. I was sitting on the dam at Speedwell Forge, staring out over the water, and the moon was shining, breaking on the water like scattered diamonds. It was beautiful, peaceful, and soothing. The memory of that drove me to the lake whenever I needed to ease my soul.

9. Worst Memory from the first 20 years?
I have a few. They are all traumatic and extremely painful.

10. Any parting words?
No. That was a stupid question.