Career angst

Fuck. I'm stuck doing a job at which I'm not good, with people who piss me off a whole lot pretty frequently, with a schedule that sucks donkey balls. I'm on call for everything I want to do. I can't go to Columbus, OH on a weekend night to see OTEP because I'm fucking on call. Vacations around holidays are NEVER an option. Hell, by the time I even know when I will be allowed to take my vacation (I'll know maybe next month if I'm lucky), I've stopped even giving a fuck whether I take it or not. What's the fucking point? I just have to go back to that shit.

There was hope. I tried for another position. I just found out today that I did not get it. The person who did has specific experience that I couldn't get without doing a job like it. Fuck. That old vicious circle. My manager did try to convey to me how well thought of and valued I am, and I appreciate that, but all my mind hears is "You're not good enough." Terrible? Yeah. I hope you don't think like I do, because it hurts. I feel like just a fucking grunt most of the time. Well, I don't have to worry now, so I might as well do some weird shit to my hair.

Now there's another vicious circle involved, one that I hadn't yet encountered. I didn't "sell myself" very effectively in the interview. Uh, that's not part of my personality. I'm not like that! I'm not gonna go in there and brag about myself, because then I'd think I sounded like a pompous-ass douchebag. I suppose I'll have to act my ass off next time. I can do that, but I thought I was supposed to be myself. Confidence is not natural to me. When I start to feel confident, bad shit happens that destroys all confidence. If I start to feel confident, the acronym "BOHICA" comes to mind. (BOHICA = Bend Over Here It Comes Again, for those who don't know.)

GAH. Fuck this shit, I'm going to therapy. For one thing, I need to learn how to keep assholes from getting to me. That's one problem. Assholes have convinced me I'm not that good at what I do, because I'm not as good as they are at the work, and it gets to me even though I know they're just assholes being assholes and asserting their need for superiority.

That may address part of the problem. Maybe I'll learn how to fake confidence too. Actually having confidence? Eh, I'm once bitten twice shy. Confidence, to me, equals BOHICA.

None of that will help me handle another summer, and another winter, and probably more summers and winters. It won't help me endure the parts of the work that I hate. It won't help me until there's another open position. Who knows when the fuck that will happen?

I would try for another position that pays less, but the hell of it is, I can't take a pay cut any time soon. I have student loans, truck loan, mortgage. I'm enslaved to the corporate machine! I'm independent but it's got a hell of a price. Independence is awesome, but is it worth it? Maybe I could figure out a way to pay off most of the shit I owe so I COULD take a pay cut for a while. Money or sanity?

I've been thinking a lot lately about art. To quote Otep, art saves. Sometimes music is the only thing forming that elusive link between sanity and me. Now, I can't make music. I'm not a visual artist. My medium, if I had one, would be words. (Maybe I should look more into acting for fun, because I'd like to play the role of a total fire-breathing bitch right now...it'd be SO cathartic. Maybe then I could learn to act like a person who has confidence and apply my own skills and knowledge to that character during an interview. Whatever works, right?)

I need to start writing more, I think. If I don't do something, this work that I do is going to finish the job of killing my soul. Melodramatic? Maybe. You try doing stuff you don't feel like you're good at and most of which you don't like in the first place, and driving several hours a day all over the place sharing the road with a bunch of fucking rude idiots. Tell me if, after a few years of it, you don't start feeling like a soulless fucking grunt with marionette strings controlling her every move...tell me if you don't then shout along with the first line of Slipknot's "Psychosocial" - "I did my time and I want out..."

Some people are satisfied with this kind of work, but those aren't the kind of people who feel compelled to write. Those aren't the kind of people who feel compelled to carry a camera everywhere they go. Those aren't the kind of people who can't stand to listen to much besides their iPods and NPR. They're not the kind of people who would love to be able to dress normally and NOT have disgusting steel-toed boot feet. (That's saying a lot for a hardcore feminist chick who likes weird hair colors and has tattoos and stretched ear piercings...)

I don't hate a lot of this work because I'm a woman, or even because I'm a minority liberal in the field. I hate a lot of this work because it just doesn't interest me. It doesn't appeal to me. Books appeal to me. Music, mostly metal, appeals to me. Independent films and plays appeal to me. Cult horror films appeal to me. Cartoons appeal to me. Comedy appeals to me. Are you seeing a pattern here?

I'm different than most of the people I work with. I don't work on cars or anything else like that. I do tend to work on computers. I'll do plumbing work, but not electrical.

I'd rather do something artistic. The extent of that in my world now is writing, but I'd rather do a little hack stuff than nothing at all.

I reiterate, I need to write more. Who cares if it's good? It may never be good. Regardless, it serves a purpose. It channels my feelings through something besides tear ducts and fists.

In which I rant about customers...

Now I do not work retail, or even customer service in any capacity. I used to work fast food once upon a time, so I know how unbearably shitty some customers are.

This rant is particularly about retail/superstore/grocery customers.

1.) What. The. Flying. Fuck. is wrong with people that they can't be bothered to pick up things they drop and/or knock over?! Or things that their free range kids have dropped and/or knocked over?

If it's the people themselves, they should be required to learn some fucking respect before they're even allowed to attempt functioning in society. I'm not a particularly etiquette-conscious person, but for fuck's sake, if I drop something or knock it over, I'll pick it up. It's just...personal responsibility, common courtesy (which is going the way of common sense), accountability...respect. Those are things that most breeders are not even attempting to teach their kids.

Now there are parents who are teaching their kids how to act; I've seen these people correct bad behavior/mistakes and that's awesome.

If it's the kids who are making messes in the stores, that's what our President would call a teachable moment. Parents should be paying attention to what their kids are doing in the store; if they can't handle that, they should have someone watch the kids or have another adult accompany them to the store.

And in the clothing section - if people unfold a garment that was folded up on a shelf, I understand that it can be hard to fold it up properly and make it look as neat as the employees had it. But TRY. For fuck's sake, at least try to fold it back up and put it back where it was! This is not rocket science, nor is it hard work.
If you can take it out, goddamn it, you can fucking put it back.

The store employees are responsible for cleaning up messes, sure. But these minimum-wage employees shouldn't have to virtually rearrange every single aisle, display and rack in the fucking place just because people are too fucking stupid shitass lazy to respect others.

2. The CARTS. Holy fucking cart corrals! If you managed to push the motherfucker around the store loaded over the top with disposable diapers, Cheetos, Twinkies, Lunchables and Mountain fucking Dew and what the fuck ever else you fucktards buy...guess what. Your lazy ass can walk from the minivan to the cart corral with it when it's empty. If the kids are the problem, another adult would help a whole lot. Maybe the other person would return the cart!

People probably should plan the big store trips a bit better.

3. The TRASH. Holy mother of ass, there are trash cans around the stores, in the parking lots, etc...you get the picture. Lazy. Trashy. No fucking pride in their community.

When I go to the store, some people probably think I'm one of those assholes just by looking at me. Today my attire consisted of an old White Zombie shirt (back says "I went to hell and all I got was this t-shirt"), capris, flip flops and ponytail. I don't look like a pillar of society, but I'm telling you, compared to these fucktards, I am one. I may be a misanthrope, but I care about the fucking community in which I live.

Yes, I live and shop in an area of town in which many people would not want to do either. But it's affordable, and there are some other decent blue-collar people around here. I hate the trashy lazy assholes, but again. It's affordable. I refuse to go back to having a long commute with one main highway into the city; I also refuse to pay exorbitant real estate prices.

I wish these trashy fuckers would realize that there is a reason people don't want to open more businesses out here.

What I really wish they'd realize...is that their behavior is no small part of that reason.

When people talk bad about this part of town, it's because of assholes like that. They think everyone in the fucking world owes them something if they even think about it at all.

The assholes are just confirming the stereotype about this end of town and the people who live here. In fact, they're perpetuating it and making it worse!

Do I even need to tell you they're feeding my misanthropy?

Tubal FTW!!

OK. So I reported to the hospital's outpatient facility before 7 a.m. today. After some prep, drugs, a little surgery and some recovery time, we left for home a bit after noon.

I haven't experienced much pain aside from slight tenderness; the painkillers are working really well. It doesn't even hurt to laugh. I'd kinda thought it might. Glad it doesn't. One thing I certainly won't be doing for a few days: allowing my dear kitties to lie on my stomach.

They told me the doctor had a really easy time finding the tubes. I said that was because they wanted to be tied. One might have said they were fit to be tied. Har har.

No one gave me any static, AT ALL, about having a tubal and not having kids. OR about needing to lose weight.

I was fortunate enough to have a bunch of nice professional people caring for me. I'm actually fortunate in a lot of ways here.

In all, my experience today was quite positive. Now, to get this thing healing properly...

Free at last from the tyranny of fertility and the endless stress of birth control. That, my friends, is the shit!

Fetus cultist on Broadway

Today, I was at a red light waiting to cross Broadway.

I was watching the light and I noticed a car with a huge text-plastered cardboard cross in the backseat.

So, you know me, I was all "WTF?"

I kept looking as the car was moving down Broadway and I noticed that there were words, like printed out on paper and taped probably from the inside, across the back window.

The only two I could make out were "Pro Life." Not that this surprised me, I kinda thought that might be what was up when I saw the cross in the back seat.

So, again, you know me. I was all "WTF?!?!"

The best part?

The car still bore a paper dealer tag. Too new to have a proper tag, but not new enough that it was too early to cover it with anti-choice propaganda.

WTF?

OK, a bit of digging on my part uncovered some kind of fucking "peace vigil" held at Dr. Tiller's clinic by the anti-choicers this evening.

So was this homegrown nut taking that to our clinic? Or was this some kind of bitter wannabe dad pissed off about abortion because it's almost Father's Day and he hasn't succeeded in forcing some poor woman to birth his fundiespawn?

Unfortunately, to find out about that vigil, I had clicked onto Operation Rescue's website. Now I feel dirty and not in a good way. I need brain bleach, like some LOLcats or something.

Turns out the anti-choicers are getting death threats. Awwwwwwww.

Pity party's over. Now they know how the fuck pro-choicers feel.

I don't feel sorry for them for a nanosecond. Their rhetoric has inspired "people" who have intimidated many doctors into either giving up performing abortions or even learning how to do so. And who knows how many women it's scared half to death!

But will they stop even though they're reaping what they're sowing? Fuuuuck, no.

Because it's a fucking holy war to them.

GAH.

Cue the Marilyn Manson. Goddamn your righteous hand, indeed.

Hammer Pants flash mob

AWESOME!!

Betty Bowers Explains Biblical Marriage

Suzie

She's gone. She had feline leukemia - she developed a respiratory infection and just couldn't fight it off. Treatment did not help and the suffering was too great. We had to euthanize her.

She was a very cool, very unique cat with a special talent for knowing when her people felt bad and comforting them. We, I especially, already miss her terribly. But I know we were lucky to have the time with her that we had.

(Just a note - the two other kittehs are FeLV negative. They will be retested when they get their shots.)

Fuck you, feline leukemia.