Burlap Soul

Thank you to everyone that sent me kind emails and comments regarding my last entry. It's a little better now, but it's still just the beginning of dealing with all the things to come. Today I'm going to go try and find the cemetary where my friend is buried and I've consoled Pasty (my breakup friend) as much as I can and I'm thinking she's going to be okay. It may be for five minutes, but at least it's something. I'm glad I came home for the weekend, but I'm very ready to go back. Everyone else seems to be dealing with everything else relatively well, so I've decided to take those weights off my shoulders, send nice cards and just hope for the best for them. It's all I can do at this point. I've been waiting for the weather to turn cooler for so long and now that it's happening, I've gotten lost in all the drama and forgotten why.

So it's time to refocus and remember that not everything around me is bad. The reason I've been waiting for fall? It means that we're closer to our wedding. We are meeting with both our cake lady and our photographer next week. Once those two things are settled, it will be mostly just fun stuff and details. Honestly, I cannot wait until after the first of the year. I want the holidays and I want some winter magic, but I know that after the first of the year, it will become serious crunch time for the wedding and I honestly cannot wait for that. I know that some of you may be wondering why in the hell I would be so excited to be in the middle of wedding planning insanity. Yes, it may frustrate me and leave me exhausted, but at least it would mean that something is happening. There would be no more waiting around for things to start. No more postponements and waiting on the vendors to take an interest in us because we're just an "'07 wedding." No more "initial appointments" and laying down deposits. It would be on. It would be close. It would be our time. Finally. I can't wait.

I took off from work today. It seems that I have Scratchy Throat with Swollen Glands Disease. Wonderful. However, in order to quell the overriding guilt from not being at work (thank you, years of crappy retail jobs, thank you) I decided to log in and work from home. Let me tell how much fun that wasn't. Next time, I say fuck it and go back to sleep.

I did get some things done though. For instance, we not only did our cake tasting and deposit today (raspberry filling for me and double chocolate fudge for him in case you're curious), but then I even went through all 700 of our vacation photos and now have 200 of them selected, resized and ready to post on the photoblog. As soon as my wrist recovers, I'll get started on that one for you. ;-)

Is it Friday yet? Please? I could really use some rest.

I've added some vacation pictures over at Flickr. It's certainly not all of them and there will be a photolog entry to come, but I just haven't had the time to get them all published over there yet. So if you feel like it, have a peek at the Flickr account (must be a "friend" to see them) and let me know what you think. If not, just be patient. An entry is coming, I promise.

I forgot to mention that if you have a blogspot blog, address, url - whatever - you won't be able to leave a comment on my site unless you just spell it differently. (atblogspotdotcom or similar). I'll still know how to find you, you just won't be able to leave it as a link.

I'm horribly sorry, but at this point in the game, the fucking spammers have won. Until I update my blog software and get a better spam filter, it's just going to have to be this way. I really am sorry. I'm just tired of getting carpal tunnel every night from deleting hundreds of spams. I hope you understand.

I absolutely cannot express to you how tired I am. Severe insomnia combined with a new somewhat stressful job is making regular life very hard right now. Lately, I'm starting to feel like I did before I was diagnosed. Yeah, I should be worried and yeah, I should see the doctor and yeah, I should be re-tested... but really, I'm just too damned tired.

Please tell me that Friday is coming and that I can sleep for a week after that. Please?

About a month ago, my mom finally got to take off her back brace after three months. It could still take nearly a year for her to recover from the Lumbar Spinal Fusion she had in May. On Wednesday she had to go in to a knee surgeon and have fluid removed from a recurring Baker's Cyst on the back of her knee. Two different surgeons informed her yesterday that her knee was one of the worst they have ever seen. There is absolutely no cartilage left in her knee and she is basically rubbing bone on bone with every step she takes. She also has arthritis in all of her joints and currently spends 20 hours a week in physical therapy. My mom is 48 years old and has three screws in her ankle, four steel plates and six screws in her spine, decreased bone density, is peri-menopausal and has now been informed that some time next year she will be having a complete knee replacement. All of this within a space of six months.

Of course she also has seven tattoos, scars from various motorcycle accidents, wear and tear from a million different types of manual labor, a fractured nose from an ex-husband, five piercings, a pain tolerance I can only dream about, and life experience that would make Keith Richards blush. We joke that at some point she is going to be completely bionic and won't ever be allowed on a plane for all the metal detectors. We are all too aware of the fact that she is paying for the life that she has lived and the hard-nosed denial she has placed upon her body.

But you wouldn't know it for all the laugh lines on her face.

I'm so exhausted, overwhelmed and drained lately that I can't sleep. When I do sleep it is plagued with irritating, anxious and downright horrific nightmares. I won't say that it's my job, but rather a combination of everything. My job is "eh." It's stressful, but not incredibly difficult. It's just a corporate job that demands too much of me while no one understands exactly what it is that I do - so they assume that I'm doing nothing just because I'm one of the "assistants." It's a job that I could easily handle, if only every damn thing that they want me to do wasn't dependent on someone else pulling their thumb out of their asses in order to let me do my job. Yet if that job doesn't get done, guess who's ass gets all the blame? Yep, me. I don't want to get all fired up about my work tonight. The people are great, the job isn't horrible. I know I'm very lucky.. but..
I wasn't meant to sit behind a desk all day in an artificially lit closet room. I wasn't meant to stifle my gift of blunt honesty in favor of constantly sidestepping the major issues and being perfectly diplomatic 24/7. I wasn't meant to quell the artist within me in order to be constantly stepped on when someone else wants all the credit for a freaking word document because, again, I'm "just an assistant." I don't hate my job. Really, I don't. I just wish I didn't have to do it every damn day. But whatever. I want a wedding. So I'll keep the fucking job, so that we can have a fucking life and then buy a fucking house. Then I'm fucking done.

In other news, we looked at a house tonight. I really liked it. It's old and needs new wiring, new furnace and other simple cosmetic things. But I still like it. I wish it were a little bigger, but I know it's a good place for us to start and we could make some serious investment with anything we do. We could maybe buy it and move in - but that would be it. I'm not even sure we could buy furniture or any new fun stuff to go along with it until after the wedding. But we would be able to come home every night, not just park in our designated spots. Gypsy would finally, finally, finally have a yard - fenced and everything. The cats would have so many damn windows and sunbeams, it's unreal. We would have a place to call our own. God, I can't tell you how much I want that. It makes me cry I want it so bad.

But dammit, I wanted to be married in August too. I'm angry that my family griped so much about us wanting to be married on Mackinac. I'm angry that I couldn't get a single well paying job offer for nearly a year after graduation. I'm angry that my health just went south for three straight months and left me with staggering medical bills. I'm angry that when I did get a job, it was a crappy photography job that caused a permanent knee injury that ruined everything. I'm angry that our original date of August 19th felt unbelievably special and right and our new date of June 22nd just feels like any other damn day. I'm angry, I'm angry, I'm angry. For as hard as we've worked, for as far as we've come, for as much as we have gained, I'm still thoroughly confounded by how the timing is always fucking off with us. Always.

Our plan was to be married in June, then start house hunting in time to be in a place by the end of next summer. Now we have an opportunity for a house that has all the necessary bones for a great beginning and all the things we really want, but we're still planning this damn wedding so it's all still fucking off. If we were married in August, if my knee hadn't screwed up, if I had been able to find a job sooner, if if if... this variable, that variable, all out of whack, all affecting everything affecting everything else. If this, if that, then everything would be perfect. But now it's 11:30pm and I have to go to bed because I have to get up and go back to my stressful job in order to support the wedding dream that we want so that we can have the house and the home and the life that we want for us and our animals - and I can no longer stay up late and write and release and think and feel and work through my thoughts because my thoughts are a jumble of insomnia and lists and anxiety and I know that everyone will say "quit your job" or "just breathe" or "it will be okay" and I know that, but all I really want to say is "do you know just how fucking tired I am?" or "do you realize how impossible that is when you can't even get the normal rest that you need?"

But I wouldn't say that because I'm so tired that I'm not even sure what I'm saying or if I said anything at all. Would it matter? Would anyone care? Would anything change? Would I somehow be less tired? Hell, I'm so exhausted, do I really even care?

I think I might have the flu - or at least be in the process of fighting it. Thank you, co-workers in an incredibly tight office. Thank you.

I have so much more that I want to write, but tonight it's very, very late and I'm thinking that maybe I'll work on a photolog entry tomorrow just to get the recent under-ass fires going. I'm not kidding when I tell you that I'm so exhausted I can't even think straight anymore. Last night I tried Benadryl. It's still not happening. Add to that aches, pains and flu symptoms and there you have it - fitful sleep.

*sigh* I never thought I'd be one of those people that required a sleeping pill. But then again, I never thought I'd be a lot of things and a lot of those things I wanted to be weren't good for me anyway. But still, one night of truly restful sleep? That, I thought was in the bag. Apparently not.

Wow. The Mackinac Island photoblog entry is going to be a doozy. Are you sure you want to read the whole thing? ;-)

Yes, yes. I'm working on it. Promise.

Doctors, doctors everywhere
No one can fix my exhausted blank stare
Get more sleep, they say, like it's so easy
Life stops now, time to go sleepy!

What the hell do you think I do this for?
Some twisted Choose Your Own Adventure?
I'm not sleeping because you ask so much of me
But then you say that I'm losing productivity

Never mind that my life now revolves around work
Never mind that my wrists now always hurt
Sorry about that, but have you finished that task?
When will that be ready, if I might ask?

And can you go to Cleveland next Tuesday?
Surely you didn't have anything planned anyway
And oh yeah, when's your wedding and stuff?
How's that going, are you guys both ready enough?

Wedding, wedding... I think that sounds familiar
Could you remind when again? And where?

Seven hundred pictures of our life changer
Now reduced to an office screensaver
How am I supposed to remember the living
When I spend all my time closed in with the dying?

Tall buildings with corporate offices and sculptures
Sleek architecture, endless pieces of office furniture
Four hundred windows that look out on busy ants
None of them opening, all darkened useless glass

Everyone has a story about their perfect kids
My only escape being a weekend that never is
How does that twisted American ratio work out?
Five days on, two days off, what's that about?

Life is for living, not sitting behind a desk all day
Money is for spending, not slaving for minimal pay
I think this world is seriously hungry and screwy
When we put our jobs before playing with our puppy

I'm so exhausted I've forgotten what I miss most
It's on a spreadsheet somewhere with columns and rows
First job out of college and I'm somehow too powerful
How did this happen? And where is my shithole?

I never asked for this overworked corporate life
I swear I just wanted some boredom and strife
A job where I would be under-utilized and forgotten
Work six months, add to the resume, move on

Yet somehow I ended up a in great a big fat pond
Corporate fish, blue fish, swimming and networking on
People that send emails at 2am and never stop
Working themselves to death long after I've dropped

Why does trying to laugh during the day make you weak?
Why does it mean that I am being silly if I smile when I speak?
I just choose not to hunch over my desk as though it is an altar
I choose to leave for lunch, say screw you, and breathe fresh air

I know you think that means that I am not trying, not a team player
But what you don't realize is that I am working today, not forever
You can take my 401K and do whatever the hell you wish with it
For my life is not measured in what rolled over or what didn't

Rather I am composed of independence, smiles and laughter
You hired me for my quick mind, but my heart is even stronger
It's a shame you'll never get to see it, for all your constant work
While I am biking in the wind, living life and using all that I have learned

Meme stolen from the wonderful Jess. Must answer in only two words.

1. When was the last time you shaved?
Last Sunday

2. Explain what ended your last relationship.
Restraining Order

3. What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m
Getting dressed

4. What were you doing 15 minutes ago?
Not breathing

5. Are you any good at math?
Ha Ha

6. Your prom night?
Anti Climactic

7. Do you have any famous ancestors?
King Macbeth

8. Have you had to take a loan out for school?
You're kidding

9. Do you know the words to the song on your myspace profile?
Fuck Myspace

10. Last thing received in the mail?
Netflix movie

11. How many different beverages have you had today?
Only two

12. Do you ever leave messages on people's answering machine?
Quite often

13. Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to?
Tori Amos

14. Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach?
Who doesn't?

15. What's the most painful dental procedure you've had?
We'll see

16. What is out your back door?
Non-existent

17. Any plans for Friday night?
Nighty Night

18. Do you like what the ocean does to your hair?
What the..?

19. Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns?
God yes.

20. Have you ever been to a planetarium?
Long ago

21. Do you re-use towels after you shower?
No way

22. Some things you are excited about?
Time off

23. What is your favorite flavor of JELLO?
Eww gross

24. Describe your keychain(s)?
Very crowded

25. Where do you keep your change?
Graduation box

26. When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group of people?
Yesterday probably

27. What kind of winter coat do you own?
Blue Columbia

28. What was the weather like on your graduation day?
Absolutely perfect

29. Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed??
Slightly cracked