Campfyre Stories

I’m really getting sick and tired of hearing "It’s not your fault."  I KNOW that it’s not my fault, but it doesn’t change the fact that things are going very, very badly wrong.  "You’re doing everything right."  Yes, I am, and yet, STILL things are going wrong…  things that I have to deal with and attempt to manage.

I’m not going to be unemployed, but I’m still losing my current job.  The fact that we didn’t get the contract is what sucks about this situation and the fact that people (in a position to influence the decision) are saying how amazing and fabulous I am at the job I am losing does not actually change the suck factor of my losing my job and having to learn to do something new.

I want to be angry, but there’s no one to be angry at.  I feel upset, but there doesn’t feel like a reason to actually be upset, since I’m not actually going to be negatively impacted by this.  In fact, the timing of when I stop doing what I’m doing and start doing something else really couldn’t be better.

But, for fuck’s sake…  I finally got to a point where I not only like what I do, I know all the people I need to know and have made an impact and polished my reputation.  Now I have to start all over again, doing something else entirely.

It’s all okay, though, because it’s nothing about me.  It’s not my fault and I haven’t done anything wrong.  I guess that’s supposed to make me feel better?

See?  This is why I don’t wear white if I can avoid it.

So I went to dinner with Slockin on Saturday night.  Dinner and beer was the plan for the evening.  Spawn decided to stay home, play God of War and order pizza.  Now many, but by no means all of my friends have at least one story of me doing something incredibly dumb.  Sure, I mean, they’ve all heard about the time I fell in a hole, or when I locked myself out of the house with no shoes on in the middle of the night, in the dead of winter, or when I fell off a train, or any number of stories that make people laugh when they hear about just how stupid I can be.

Yeah, so dinner.  And beer.

It would make me feel so much better if I could blame the beer.  Being drunk doesn’t make me clumsy, nor does it actually make me stupid.  It certainly impairs my judgment, but sometimes I don’t even need alcohol for that.  We ordered, we got a beer a piece, we chatted, dinner came.  The ketchup on the table was in glass bottles, and I don’t have a whole lot of patience.  I know about the trick where you smack the 57 with your hand or the handle of a knife or whatever, but I find what works best is just to shake up the contents before pouring and it comes right out.

And that works really well.  When the cap is actually secure on the bottle.

Which, of course, it wasn’t, because really, what the hell kind of story would "Had dinner, nothing eventful happened" make?  A rather lame one, I think.  Although, getting covered in ketchup and not realizing it right away is not particularly an experience I would seek out.

So, yeah, all down my arm, all down my neck, all down the front of my shirt…  thank goodness the waitress had brought us a stack of extra napkins when she brought our food and that I had ordered a glass of water.  Also, that I hadn’t shot ketchup all over the people at the next table nor gotten it in my hair, which really wouldn’t have been tragic, but it would have been pretty gross and hard to deal with.

I dipped the napkins in the water and wiped off as much as possible.  Took off my necklace and watch and did the best I possibly could without having a clean shirt with me.  Slockin is just about the best person to do something this stupid in front of, since he didn’t point and laugh and, in fact, helped to clean off the jewelry that I had thrown on the table in disgust.  Once I was out of danger of dripping ketchup, I went to the bathroom and did what I could.  He totally lied to me when I came back and said "Hey, you clean up pretty good."  Which is true in the sense of dressing up, but not so much in trying to clean ketchup off a t-shirt.  It was appreciated nonetheless.

The longer I am friends with anyone, the greater the chances that they will witness, firsthand, something that has been labeled a "[Fyre] move".  I think that half my friends only keep me around for the entertainment value and the stories they can tell on me.  Probably that’s a good thing, because if they weren’t at least amused by my bonehead antics, no one would ever go anywhere with me.

My world is currently divided into people who are my friends and people I hate.  There is no middle ground and there are no shades of gray.

That is all.

This is proving to be a very difficult week.  I mean, ok, Tuesday I smashed my thumb with the hammer.  That sucks, but I’m pretty accident prone, so it’s not really surprising.  Then my "fixed" bed woke me up by crashing to the ground on Wednesday morning.  I wound up working late because my projects were exploding.  Yesterday more projects exploded and it was all so bad that it gave me a raging headache that started around 1 and didn’t end until probably 8pm.  I also wound up working late again. 

I was in a foul mood when I got home and had a raging headache.  Spawn, being very understanding (and knowing not to poke the bear) made dinner, so I ate, took a hot bath and went to bed early.  And just as I started to fall asleep, the phone rang.  Girl said "Oh, honey, I’m sorry, go back to sleep" and despite my best efforts, I laid awake for a good 4 hours or so before that was even possible…  woke up late and rushed enough to not have time to pack a lunch or eat breakfast.

So before I left work I set up the coffee pot.  Our regular guy who gets in early and makes the coffee is on vacation and I guess I’m next in line for doing it.  Since we’re not supposed to use the tap water, it takes a while to fill the pot with water from the cooler, so I went ahead and did that.  I figure, this will make the whole thing easier in the morning.

Yeah…  it would have, except that some people (and I know who they are), at some point after 5, when I left, decided to make 2 pots of coffee and then leave half of each pot sitting out.  They also left all their cups in the sink and grounds, creamer and sugar ALL over the counter.  So I wash out the coffee pots.  I fill the one with water.  I go into the drawer to get the filter and the coffee and there are dry coffee grounds ALL.  OVER.  THE.  DRAWER.

If I came home to a mess like this, Spawn would hear about it at a very high volume.  If it wasn’t Spawn’s doing, I would probably chase the cats around.  Coming into a mess like this at work, there’s very little I can do.  I’m pretty sure I know who it was, but I can’t prove it, and the emails from high up have gone around about not leaving messes like this for other people to clean up, but it makes no difference.  It’s also not a pleasant way to start the day…  come into work to no coffee and someone else’s mess, which you have to (at least partly) clean up in order to have coffee at all? 

And it seems petty, I’m sure, but it’s just one more craptastic piece to these 4 days and counting.

So I was trying to fix my bed for real when I smashed the middle of my thumb with the hammer.  Stupid little cat came in and distracted me.  It hurts and it’s in a most inconvenient spot.  At least it’s not obviously visible and the only people who will probably notice will be the ones I show, saying, "Wanna see something gross?"  (It’s not all that gross, though.)

And then, this morning, I woke up to my bed crashing down.  Apparently my "fixing" made it worse than it was when it was just cobbed together.  Figures.

I keep talking to (and reading the blogs of) people who bitch about how they gain weight whenever they’re in relationships.  Don’t really want to hear about it, to be honest.  I’m the opposite.  I lose weight when I’m in a relationship (it’s the sex or lack thereof).  Lucky me, you might be thinking, to be fit and happy at the same time…  not so much, though, because the other side of that is fat and lonely, and because it’s hormonal and my doctor doesn’t believe me, there’s not much I can do about it.

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I make really good coffee.  I know this because countless people have told me that I do.  There are people I know who never drink coffee unless I make it.  This is fine.

That said, I don’t make coffee on workdays.  I simply do not have the time in my get-out-of-bed-throw-on-some-clothes-and-book-out-the-door morning schedule.  Even with the timer on the coffee pot, I’m pretty sure I would be hard-pressed to so much as pour a cup of coffee while passing through the kitchen.  So I snooze on the bus ride in and I get my coffee in the office.

And at 7:30am, I like my coffee already made.  I’m not a morning person and as long as someone has already made the coffee, I am a happy camper.  If, by some chance, the man who makes the 7am coffee is on vacation and *I* have to make the coffee, I am surly and grumpy and not very dexterous. 

After that first cup, I like my coffee the way C. makes it.  He uses a pouch and a half and the coffee is nice and strong and yum.  If he hasn’t made that coffee I will either be disappointed in the weak coffee available or I’ll happily make it myself.

Then, around 2:30 or 3 when the fatigue and sleepiness sets in, once again, I like my coffee already made.  Usually I have to make that particular pot because I think pretty much everyone wants their coffee already made at that time of day.

At any other time, I like my coffee free.  Generally this means I will make it myself, and I do make a damn good pot of coffee.  If I’m going to pay for it, I like my coffee pretentious.  Give me a cappuccino, but don’t be an idiot and give me a latte.

But despite all of that, the bottom line for me is, if I have to get up at 6am, I like my coffee already made.  Everything else is just gravy.

I have this overwhelming feeling of being late, most of the time, all of a sudden.

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 4am, took one look at the clock and convinced myself that the clock was wrong and I was late for the bus.  I cross-referenced my phone and freaked out because, in my head, the clock on my phone was wrong, too.  And so was the clock on the coffee maker, and the clock on the VCR was more wrong than usual.

I was up and most of the way ready for work when I realized that, no, all the clocks were not, actually, wrong…  it was really 4am and I could go back to sleep for another hour-plus.  Which I did.

This morning, the same thing, woke up at 4, but I knew that all the clocks in the house weren’t mysteriously wrong, so I went back to sleep.  However, once I got to the bus stop (on time), I again convinced myself that I was late.  Rather, the bus was late…  It wasn’t really late, but in my head it was.  Not only late, but not even coming, or maybe I WAS late and I had missed it.  The other bus that stops at my bus stop came first, so, of course, my bus isn’t coming, I’m going to be late for work.

I wasn’t late for work, despite my conviction that the bus was running later and later and that there was no possible way that I could be on time.

All my meetings have me frantic that I’m going to be late.  I haven’t been, but I have been exactly on time for pretty much all of them…  and when I don’t have a meeting, I still have this nagging feeling that I should be hurrying and that I’m (not just going to be, but already) late for something.

This is very difficult for me, since I am a notoriously EARLY person.  I’m the one who shows up on conference calls 5 minutes early; who shows up to meet up with friends 10-15 minutes early and waits patiently; who couldn’t get a letter of reference stating that I was always on time, so instead got one written to convey that I am never late.  But this isn’t a situation where I’m fretting that "OMG, OMG, I’m going to be ON TIME", I am convinced that I am not only going to be, but am already late for things that don’t even necessarily exist.

I am trying to be less of a hypocrite.

Not that I have serious tendencies toward hypocrisy, but I think that everyone is a hypocrite sometimes about some things.  I am trying to do that less and to be aware of it when I do.

For example, people often say "Someone ought to…", but rarely do they follow that up with either "…and that someone is me!" or even direct action.  I am trying to not use that phrase and/or to be the follow up to the sentiment.

I’m also trying to identify the mirrors that I hate.  You know, the things that I hate in other people, but do or think myself sometimes?  I firmly believe that the things we hate most in other people are the things we really hate about ourselves, and those traits are intensified in others when we look at them.

Selfishness is one of those things, at least to some extent.  Let me start here by saying that I believe that selfishness is much more necessary to being a whole and healthy person than most people are willing to believe.  You simply cannot take care of other people if you are not taking care of yourself first and foremost.  I think that the word selfish has become much more negative than it really needs to be, but I digress.

There’s a difference between being selfish to take care of your emotional (etc.) need and being selfish to the detriment of others and in ways that do not serve you (or anyone else).

I am trying to be happy for a friend who got one thing that he had been hoping and asking for.  I am failing in that attempt.  Instead I am feeling selfish and petulant about the ways in which I will be negatively affected by this.  I am trying to be happy for a friend who is in the process of getting something she’s been wanting and needing for a very long time.  I am failing in that attempt.  Instead, I am feeling jealous of her happiness and success, as the situation is the very one I, too, have been wanting and needing for a very long time.  I am trying to be excited for a friend who is embarking on a wonderful new portion of her life.  I am failing in that attempt.  Instead, I am annoyed that she expects me to ignore my own problems and doesn’t have time to listen to what’s going on in my life.  I find myself avoiding her calls and making excuses because I am so wrapped up in the negativity I’m going through right now that I just don’t have the energy to be excited for her or, honestly, for anyone right now. 

I am trying to keep my perspective.  I am trying not to whine about these things.  If I can’t rid myself of the feelings, at least I can keep myself aware of what they are, why they are and that I don’t like them.

I am trying to be less of a hypocrite.

So Thursday a friend of mine said some things that made me think horrible thoughts about myself and, ultimately, shattered my confidence and self-esteem.  Not that the words were all that bad, but the implications were what led me down a dark path.  I’m trying not to blame his idle conversation for my reading into things, but it doesn’t change the fact.

Friday, after three Wednesdays in a row, I was already in a difficult mood (especially after the shattering thoughts), so when my new (and only) waterproof boots SPLIT and the heel all but fell off, I nearly cried.  However, it was raining, so the sky cried for me, and my feet got wet.  That night I got a phone call with someone close to me making a request.  I’m not allowed to put it on the internet, but the bottom line is that I was asked, very nicely, to do something rather illegal and when I said no, I was made to feel like a heel about it.

The weekend was fine.  Sunday was great.

But Daylight Saving kicks my ass.  Monday I overslept.  I woke up exactly one hour late.  My internal clock knows what time it is, too bad that’s not what time it *actually* is.  I took a cab to work, which cost me $40.  This is something I can deal with from time to time, but I certainly cannot make a habit of it.  Ok, fine, a slight stumble, but I made it in on time and with no real worries.  Then, I got a phone call from one of Spawn’s teachers.  If he doesn’t stay after class on either Tuesday or Friday, he will finish the quarter with a 16, yes, that’s SIXTEEN.  (And, yes, that’s out of 100).  This, of course, leads to a terrible night between the two of us with him falling into a (familiar) combination of guilt, shame and despair and me feeling bad for having sent him into that spiral.  It comes out later that he was having a *really* bad day prior to this, so it didn’t take much to push him over the edge.

Which brings us to today…  when I overslept by an hour, again.  This time I woke up with a bloody nose (???  WTF???) and blisters on my heels that no shoes are really going to work with.  That two-mile hike from the bus stop sure isn’t going to make matters any better.  The bus came and was completely PACKED so I had to stand and get shoved and jostled by all the assholes who are ALSO late for work and taking it out on everyone around them.  Thankfully, I was able to get a hold of a friend on his way into work, so I didn’t have to make the two mile walk, but having got in an hour late, I’m going to have to stay an hour later than usual and since it’s Movie Night, I’m going to be rushed and stressy and BLAH.  Also, my personal information got posted to a very public website, resulting in my having to try to get this asshole banned, or at least his post removed and to freak out even more and try to figure out how to shield this information from trolls who, because of mental instability that a *very* thin skin may try to use it to harass me offline.

And I really just want this to end.  I keep trying to start the day with positive thoughts, but I feel thwarted by circumstances.  One friend told me that this is probably a transitional period and I need to just ride the wave of changes and come out the other side.  Frankly, the other side had better be better than where I started from because this is rapidly getting to the point of unbearable.

It makes me wonder what the almost-butterfly (or moth) feels like just before bursting through the chrysalis.  Do you think it’s completely stifling and unbearable and there’s no other choice than to muster all its strength in order to turn into something more mobile, prettier, greater than it was before?  It’s a stupid metaphor, I think, but it’s the only one that has occurred to me so far.

The one good thing that I can say right now, though, is that I have some really good and loyal friends.  I don’t find it easy to ask for help, and I doubt I ever will, but knowing that when I DO need help, and ask for it, that these people will step up and stand by me makes it less painful to have to do it.

Monday was fine except that I was wiped out.  Had Spawn had any more time with me than what he already had, it would have been a fight.

Tuesday I was reminded exactly why I don’t tend to like people until they pass the age of 25 and go through the whole self-identity crisis.  Let me just say, anecdotal evidence is not a valid debate point, and frankly, I wasn’t talking to you when you determined that, whether or not children are losing their childhood at an earlier age, that’s not a bad thing, since you had it harder than anyone else in the rest of the world, and you turned out fine.

Yeah, ok, whatever gets you through the day.  Also?  Taking up an entire row of seats between two people just makes you self-absorbed.  Also?  I don’t care who you are, applauding and laughing at a rape scene makes you a bad person.  Fuck you all (except the one person whose company I seek out, you know who you are) and I want those two hours of my life back.

Wednesday had hardly even started when it went down the toilet.  A portion of the main road had flooded, so the bus decided to turn around, retrace the route for over a mile, take weird back roads that I’m not familiar with and lose 15 minutes in order to get about a block and a half around the closed portion of the MAIN FUCKING DRAG.  Which would have been more than enough to make this particular Wednesday a Wednesday, but no.  The bus also had to smell like funky garlic and the good bus driver in on vacation, so we’re stuck with this complete ASSHOLE who insists upon making us walk even further than the quarter mile we already have to walk.  So we hit the last stop (which we call the last stop because in order to get into my work site, you need to have an official badge) and there are 4 of us on the bus, 2 of whom I recognize (one of whom is me, who I do not need to recognize).

We get to the gate, and the security guy comes on and the 4th person is this old lady who doesn’t work there and, therefore, doesn’t have a badge.  So the bus driver starts flipping out and YELLING at her about how she should know better!  Wait…  No…  It’s the BUS DRIVER’S job to make sure his passengers know what’s going on with the route, not some old lady who is in town after having been gone for 15 years.

At this point, the bus driver, who is yelling at the little old lady (with all her luggage!) tells her that she needs to get off the bus and walk in the rain the mile or more back to the bus stop.  Now it seems to me that the non-asshole thing to do would be to have her get off the bus, stay there at the gate and offer to pick her back up when you left…  maybe it’s just because I’m not an asshole, but why make the little old lady (with luggage!) WALK over a mile when she doesn’t even really know where the hell she is?  It was the security guard who told the asshole bus driver to stop yelling at the lady and just make sure she didn’t get off the bus on site.

That got me into work a half hour late, which is fine, since I don’t actually have any plans today, at least not ones that are dependent on time, but it means staying late and still walking in the rain, only probably colder rain, and blah blah blah blah…  I really don’t need this many Wednesdays in a week.