Campfyre Stories

But not so much in everything else.  What can I say, if I haven’t been busy (which…  eh…), I’ve at least been occupied.

This is an insanely boring post…  feel free to not read it.

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I hate being rescued.  So much so that I will postpone calling someone to rescue me until pretty much frostbite is imminent (or something approximate to that).  Um, yeah, I’m just like that.  So it was good that my company called Ed, who called me and then came to retrieve me yesterday morning.  He was totally my knight in shining armor in that moment.

Well, the other end of this was that he dropped me off at the bus stop, but there was a State of Emergency declared and the busses weren’t running.  (It took me over a half hour to find this out!)  When he dropped me, he explicitly told me that if there was no bus service I had to call him.  Which I really didn’t want to do, having already been rescued once.

Honestly, my inclination was to hitchhike home.  I tend to have pretty good karma with such things and, frankly, being a white woman, professionally(ish) dressed, I think I stand a pretty good change of some good samaritan picking me up and getting me home, but I was under strict instructions, so I called.  (Also, I knew that if I did hitchhike home, it would turn into a huge thing and people would yell at me for doing something that stupid and dangerous - meh - and I don’t like it when people yell at me.)

"Help!  Help!  I’m trapped in a tower and I’ve cut off all my hair."  I figure I’m best off chuckling through the most difficult, stressful, traumatic, frustrating situations.  If I can disarm myself or the others around me, I’m less apt to dwell on the negative.  And, dammit, if I’m going to wind up acting the part of a female in a fairy tale, then I’m going to run with the reference.

I make a bad damsel, though.  Distress is not really my thing and I wind up pissy and ressentful at having to put myself into the debt of others (whether they see it that way or not).  I also loathe the possibility of being thought of as less-capable than I am in reality.

It’s not like I even did anything stupid to get myself into those situations - this time.  I suppose the worst thing that I did was go to work that morning (and, considering I was, literally, the ONLY person in my building, maybe it was a little stupid).  There’s no actual blame here, which is obnoxious.  I can’t blame myself, really, nor can I blame any other person.  It’s all the fault of the snow.

So I got rescued and made it home safe and adventured.  The day was quite memorable, further cementing that, yes, I already do know what "Be careful what you wish for" means, and I didn’t ask for it, I was merely making mention.  Maybe I should just *always* knock on wood, just in case.

And what I got was 2′ of snow…  and 2 hours of standing in it, waiting for a(n apparently imaginary) cab to show up.  Thank goodness there was an available knight in shining armor to rescue me from the ravages of the blizzard.  I was red like sunburn when I finally got out of the storm and yes, I was appropriately dressed for the weather.  I think I very nearly got frostbite through my gloves and boots and extra socks and all.

I am not at all bothered by the fact that my plans for tonight (rather expectedly) fell through.  I am quite looking forward to wrapping up in a blanket and warm slippers and not going anywhere.  Screw this whole Winter Wonderland shit.

Here’s a story for you:  Yesterday I was on the bus home and there were two of the most disgusting women I have EVER encountered sitting directly behind me.  Through the sounds of the discman, I could still hear them snapping their gum and talking smack about the other people on the road.  Let me just say, if you’re *riding* on public transportation, I don’t care who you are, whether or not you drive, whether or not you own a car and choose not to use it, where do you get off criticizing the other drivers on the road?  Especially the ones who aren’t being fucktards about their driving?

They were also talking shit about all the people on the bus, at a rather loud volume.  Now, I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than whispering about the people behind you, but it’s pretty bad, nonetheless.  If all that weren’t bad enough, they were also (and I’m still not sure how this is possible) slurping potato chips.  It was some really disgusting noises coming from *directly behind me*.

But wait, there’s more.

You’d think maybe there was little else they could do…  except that they proceeded to SMOKE.  On the bus. 

Now, I’m a smoker even, and it bothered me.  An enclosed space like that is not an appropriate place to smoke, beyond it being against the law.  As they smoked, they talked about how they might get thrown off the bus (ya think???) and how completely wrong and inappropriate that would be to the situation (!!!).  In the hopes of *not* getting caught by the bus driver, they proceeded to spray copious amounts of offensive perfume to disguise the smell of the smoke.

Wow.  Just wow.

But that was yesterday and today is a new day.  I’m the only one here at not-Denny’s (heh), at least on this floor, but I can’t imagine there are many others in the building even and I have really, very little to do.

Hey, at least I’m not (still) standing on the street in the blizzard.

This week, it’s all about hearts and flowers.  It’s about pink and red and chocolates, but other than the generalized annoyance of the holiday-based inundation of advertising, I’ve been relatively unaffected.

I keep seeing other blog entries about memorable Valentine’s Days and I participate in conversations about plans or the lack thereof, but still, I’m neither in a frenzy nor a funk about it.

There are many holidays that I enjoy thoroughly and actively look forward to (or dread, depending).  Thanksgiving, Hallowe’en, Christmas, Independence Day, but Valentine’s Day is not on my list at all.  I’d even go so far as to say, it’s not really on my radar other than the aforementioned inundations.  In fact, for my part, I think that New Year’s Eve is the most romantic holiday of all of them.  I’ve had some memoriably romantic NYE’s.

It’s not that I actively dislike Valentine’s Day, I’m merely apathetic.  It’s not that I’m not a romantic, either, far from it, but upon reflection, I can’t think of a single memorable Valentine’s Day that I’ve had.  Ever.

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I have a smart teenager, too smart sometimes.  I have a lazy teenager (more than the inherent teen laziness, he grew from a lazy child).  I have an entitled teenager, formerly an entitled child.  I have a fully secretive teenager.

Who skipped school on Friday.

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I was having this conversation with Girl the other day, about how some of the more amusing stories never actually end. However, they also get successively less amusing as time goes on. This was in relation to a story that I’m not allowed to put on the internet. One that I thought ended almost a month ago, but no… I mean, But wait! There’s more!

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So as of yesterday I am no longer pretending to be an accountant. I have moved on and am back on my career path, though still contracting at the same company.

Good thing, too, because had I not already had all this set up I would have quit when my last company decided to simply not pay me because I put the wrong date on my timesheet. They didn’t bother to let me know there was a problem, they simply up and didn’t pay me. “Too bad for you,” they said. Thank gods my rent check didn’t bounce (woo! credit unions FTW), but I did go into overdraft and nearly a week later it’s still not resolved. So glad to be NOT working for them anymore.

So yesterday I started my new position. Alas, I had to come in at 10 because that’s when my boss gets in. However, they hadn’t set up my computer or phone.

The first hour was spent with my manager talking me through the (almost entirely) computer-based job. At 11 he said, “Well, I have a conference call. Why don’t you go… uh… draw? You know, like at Denny’s? I can try to find you some crayons.”

I kid you not, this is what he said. But, not being a very good draw-er, I chose instead to send text messages and email from Daisy. Daisy rawks so much

Ed invited me to lunch about halfway+ to my house, so I asked my manager what the plan should be. He said to call him when I was done with lunch and find out if I was going to have a computer before the end of the day. I did, no computer, went home and played FFXII. That was my first day.

Today I came in late (for me) to still no computer. My theory is that since the system for the company I work for defaults to a location of Cinncinnatti and, since it’s an über-secure facilty and you have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get a computer there AND, since my manager has been jumping through those hoops…

Probably there is a lonely, empty cubicle in Ohio with a shiny, new computer waiting for me. Heh.

But there is certainly no computer for me here. Nor are there crayons. It’s really not like Denny’s at all.

Those infernal Nextel walkie-talkie phones and the people who use them.

Apparently, cell phone etiquette (for all it’s followed) doesn’t apply to walkie-talkies.  People get BLEEPED and *everyone* in earshot gets to listen in.  So not only are we (societally) subjected to the one-sided screaming conversations, now we’re subjected to both screaming sides and the incredibly obnoxious BLEEP that comes through all the freakin’ time.

See, here’s my thing.  I don’t care if you’re going to use your phone in public IF you’re going to have a conversation no louder than you would if the other person were sitting next to you.  In fact, you can have a quieter conversation, but I do understand that some people can’t seem to grasp that no matter how tiny your phone is, you still don’t have to shout.  The other piece is that you have to realize that people ARE listening to your conversation because either 1) they have nothing better to do, 2) you’re the most interesting thing going on or 3) you have made it so you cannot possibly be ignored.

These Nextel things firmly plant pretty much everyone into the third category.

Just the sound of the BLEEP makes me tense up.  The fact that no one seems to use these things to *call* the person with whom they are conversing (though they are also cell phones) blows my mind.  After receiving (and making) numerous BLEEPS, I heard one woman say "I never make ANY phone calls".  WTF?  Make a damn phone call and be (more) polite than you are being with that ridiculous noise pollution.

You know, I can see the business reasons for this phone, but that’s not who I see using it.  It’s people who are using it instead of texting.  Frankly, despite Nextel’s claims, it doesn’t make the conversations last a shorter period of time and it is amazingly INconvenient for all the rest of us.  People seem to finally be getting the cell phone etiquette and taking their phones away from the tables in restaurants when they possibly can…  I see people talking on their cell phones near the pay phones or taking it outside so they don’t have to scream.  This whole Nextel thing is just causing a lot of people to have to start over and those who are subjected to it are having to work up all new courage to say something when it is truly out of control…  which it is…  almost all the time.

I’ve always believed that people changing is the root of the demise of most relationships - romantic or otherwise.  We evolve, we change, we become different people than who our partner fell in love with.  But recently I’ve been thinking that maybe this isn’t entirely as true as I thought it was.

I had an opportunity this weekend to (briefly) reconnect with someone I’ve known for about 20 years, though I hadn’t seen him in about 7.  He looks 30-something, but other than that, he looks exactly the same.  The conversation moved, at one point to my stepfather’s grade school reunion (!!) and how when he renewed his association with these people they hadn’t changed a bit.

It got me thinking.  I’m not all that different than I was when I was a teenager, but I have been.  I have gone through long periods of time where I was not who I am now.  Sometimes I was trying things on, sometimes there have been situations that have caused me to adopt entirely different behaviors and integrate them into myself, if only temporarily.  The thing is, I have changed, but I’ve always come back to the same place that was apparently defined when I was much younger.

I never really believed that, though.  This idea that we’re locked into a certain personality or set of behaviors at a young age goes against much of what I believe in.  What of our experiences as we get older?  Do those count less toward our core of ourselves than the experiences and exposures of our early childhood?  The more I think about who I am now compared with who I was 20-ish years ago, the more I start to believe it. 

It’s almost depressing.  I, and I believe others, would like to think that I’ve changed for the better in the past 20 years or so, but I suppose the other side of that is that I haven’t changed for the worse.  I have the same interests and, largely, the same hobbies.  I still hold on to the majority of my core beliefs, ethics and morals that haven’t changed.  Even most of my behaviors today are the same as they were when I was a teen.  To be sure, this wasn’t the case ten years ago, but I’ve come back to it. 

I assume that everyone has had that moment where they reconnect with someone from the past and it’s as if no time at all has passed.  You immediately fall back into your familiar conversational patterns and "hot topics".  You’ve changed in some ways, of course you have, you’re older, you’re maybe wiser, you’ve had new experiences, but the inner you is still there.

This friend of mine, the more we talked (which wasn’t NEARLY enough), the more I saw pieces of him in the friends I surround myself with today.  I found myself thinking, "Wow, so-and-so would really hit it off with him because [xxx]…" and so on.  There was this kind of realization of this person from my past being the same *type* of person that I surround myself with in the present.

I do think, however, that there are those people who never really "found" themselves early on.  These are, I assume, people who need to "find themselves" later through some soul-searching or spiritual quest.  These people will be the ones who say "…and it turned out that we didn’t have anything in common anymore."  But I think the reality is that they never had anything in common before, except superficially - you know the people I’m talking about…  (I believe there is another type of person who goes through this same soul-search, those who lose themselves at some point, often in someone else…)

I don’t know…  it just gave me pause and I’ve been thinking about it for the past three days.  The real relationships, the good ones, I’ve had that have ended usually had their end in a behavior that could no longer be tolerated, but it wasn’t because I no longer felt compatible with that person.  In fact, even my marriage, which was a result of growing up and growing apart, didn’t change the things we have in common.  We’re doubling some of our efforts in teaching Spawn to…  well, let’s face it, to be a nerd (science fiction, comic books, fun with math and numbers…).  Heh.

I suppose it’s going to take more thought to come to a solid conclusion, or at least to explore the *whys* and revisit (in my head) the answers I thought I had to the nature vs. nurture debate.  In the meantime, it’s always really nice to reconnect with people who have been lost to me.