Belated

Why write now when I haven't blogged in almost two months? A Boy, of course. I'll get there in a moment...

I never wrote about Thanksgiving, how much we had to be thankful this year. My cousin adopted a child. My other cousins are pregnant. Amber stopped by and she's all kinds of pregnant, too. I've created an actual business that's started to make actual money that I enjoy and works extremely well with the chronic migraines and depression that I need to accept as part of myself that's not going anywhere any time soon. And my mom had the fastest, easiest experience with breast cancer humanly possible. I don't think we've ever cried so much as we went around the table and did our "I'm thankful for..."s.
My babycousin (the adoptee) is almost one and friggin adorable. My parents still have this plastic horse on wheels that was my favorite 1st birthday present. I found it in their basement, Lysoled the hell out of it, and brought it up to see if Babycousin wanted to try it out. She loved it and I love that she loved it. Maternal instincts creeping in, biology and all that...raising the next generation with my own experience...someone please start singing "Circle of Life."

I never wrote about my business taking off over the holiday season, money coming in for the first time in a substantial way, paying down the credit card I pretend doesn't exist from a few years back, seeing 800 shop views in an hour, front page, treasury after treasury, hard work paying off.

I never wrote about The Ritalin Experiment. As happens every year, fall showed up and so did a general feeling of gloom and constant exhaustion. My psychiatrist thought I'd do well on a "stimulant" meaning Ritalin. It was a good thought. Unfortunately, I had a paradoxical reaction and it took me two weeks to realize my total lack of desire to do anything and deep dark depression were a result of the drugs and not just a part of me I deserved (isn't depression fun?)

I never wrote about my mom's surgery. Breast cancer reconstruction stuff. The last of it. She was getting back to her negative fussy ways, but then about 24 hours before going under, she saw her therapist and POOF! back to positive thinking. Amazing.

I never wrote about the ovarian cyst I got the day before my mom's surgery. I ended up driving myself to the ER in agony, getting probed by nice people with creepy machines and dumb people with nice drugs and then missing the entire  time my mom was in the hospital. Not ok. Ok with my mom (who was wonderful about it) but not with me. I felt guilty, like somehow I'd made myself sick so this would be about me instead of her. They got a nice clear view of the cyst in the sonogram, so if I did somehow give myself the damn thing, I've gotten good at materializing my psychosomatic symptoms.

But I never wrote about the boy, either.
At first I thought he was gay. I misinterpreted something as him flirting with another guy, and I must have thought he said something else early on, too, because I filed him away as "gay" very quickly in a way I don't normally do. So he was my fun new friend I didn't see that much. He was there for Halloween, we hung out for a good chunk of the night as I got consistently more and more wasted. He was gone by the time I was almost ready to follow home the snarky stranger.
I think Halloween was when I first thought, "Wait, why exactly did I think he was gay?" Went from "Too bad he's gay" to "I don't think he's gay..."

Apparently I'm extremely dense. Aural Girl is amazed at my obliviousness, and Possible Boy knew exactly who I was talking about because "it's just that obvious that he likes you."
Still, I wasn't sure until he was talking about Neighbor Guy basically trying to rape him no matter how many times he said "I'm. Not. Gay." (Glad to hear Neighbor Guy is sticking to his M.O., falling for straight boys and  then not taking "no" for an answer.)

I had to reevaluate The Boy. Because now he could actually be a Boy. What? Further investigation was in order, but I saw him at most once a week at the bar. We didn't actually hang out until right before he left for the east coast for a month-long winter break vacation.
But.
The day we hung out, we were together from 11 AM to 11 PM and had a really fantastic time. Driving around in freezing rain and an estate sale and making music and cooking and more music and being awkward and then just a little bit of smooch on my way out the door. He followed me out to my car in his t-shirt, oblivious to the cold in our mutual dazed bewilderment. The freezing rain slush had turned to snow. After our final bits of giddy and apprehensive, I managed a cool "See you in a month," and drove home.

And then he flew away. To a Carolina. For a month. He won't be back until mid-January.

I wished for an excuse to write love letters, but at this point it would be for the storyline and the love of myself.
But it turns out, he tends to be awake at stupid hours of the night creating things. Whether it's a bad habit or just my natural clock, I've been  indulging my nocturnal tendencies and spending hours and hours (like, a good 5 hours a night) "talking" to him on Facebook chat.

I'm not quite sure he's real. I suppose there's enough about him that is just completely his that he can't be purely a narcissistic projection of myself, and there's so much I still don't know. But so much of what I'm finding out seems to fit very well. I'm not getting completely lost and stupid because, via instant messages, he seems more like a concept than a real  person. We'll see when he gets back. As long as he keeps making me feel better about myself instead of worse, he's an improvement on most of my past emotionally-involved Boys and I"ll gladly live in fluttery-but-cautiously-optimistic limbo for a few more weeks.

[No code name yet because I haven't decided on one.]

Decisions, Stress

I leave for Santa Barbara tomorrow morning.
There are things I wanted to do before I left.
I cannot do all of them.
I absolutely have to go to the DMV and renew my drivers license, which apparently expired on my birthday.
I absolutely have to pack.
I absolutely have to shower.

Just shy of absolutely, I have to photograph as many items as possible and upload them to my computer. Every time I go to take photos of something, I want to scream. Even the things I thought would be super-quick shots need to be cleaned or don't sit straight or something else killing the super-easy. And now that I know how to find all  kinds of  information on any given item, I feel much more obligated to keep digging until I have at least the manufacturer and time period. So no more instant gratification, and I've spent the last two weeks pushing pushing pushing without taking a breath, stoking my anxiety fire.

Not absolutely but I really wanted to, I was going to go to a movie with Possible Boy this afternoon. I haven't hung out with him or Aural Girl in ages and his school year is over now so he's a bundle of free time. Last night, "everyone" was at the bar watching the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup, but HDS was cooking really fabulous dinner and she's still far from ready to plunge into the bar, no matter how tame it is. By the time dinner was over, so was the game and I was back to stressing.
But somewhere in the "watching the game at the bar" was an invitation to today's movie watching, and in my last night thinking, going to a movie today would be an excellent break from the crazy, a reunion with the last time I blinked and a person I'd like to see.

Now it's already after 2 PM and my body is begging to lay down again. I don't want to cancel movie time. I don't want  to feel like I've let someone down or messed up his plans for the day. I already blew off Neighbor Guy who called with boy troubles and really wanted to hang out and talk, my mother when she called with one of her non-reasons, and my dog by cutting his morning walk to bad-weather length. I know I have to call Possible Boy and say no movie. I know writing this instead of using these minutes on one of the  time-requesting entities is extremely narcissistic, but I have to consider this a case of  putting on my own oxygen mask first before assisting others.

See? Starting to breathe better already.

Food for Thought

I'm trying to concentrate. I want to get my cards up on my website. Lots and lots of cards. Keep listing on the site so I rise to the top of the searches, again and again. I've been working. I've also been playing random stupid computer games in short but obsessive spurts. I want to do too many things at the same time right now but I want to do them all by magic explosion while I eat pumpkin bread and frosting and fill my bones with hot apple cider until they radiate heat.

How long did I just sit here trying to write this? Was it two minutes or twenty? At least I'm not in pain today. I cheated on a number of foods yesterday, so I'll take demi-stupor over pain. It's just frustrating that those are frequently my choices.

It Makes the World Go Around

Credit card statement. Contained my dog's health insurance for the year (almost $400) and two auctions. I need to cram my finances into their nice separate accounts where they belong so I don't get double-punched in the stomach after the cash I got for what I managed to sell never makes it into my checking account. Granted, right now I have cash that should go into my checking account, but it's been lounging about my house and purse for almost two weeks now, slowly dwindling as I go for a night out here and an estate sale there. If I actually get my butt out to sell the lamps I bought with some of the cash I made on a purchase sitting on my credit card, and then get more cash for those lamps, I will put it in the bank. I have to. Otherwise, the antiques I sell will have to be made out of drugs.

Half Measures and Slow Sinking

The sum of today's productivity:

• Cleaned my kitchen (bleach spray makes me feel like I'm doing something)
  Took photos of cards that may need to be retaken, but I didn't actually bothered editing the photos (yet) so I'm not even ready to say if I need to retake them or not
• Went to therapy
• Wrote the beginning of something that I realize ties in with my old creator/creation Frankenstein/Golem/Genesis/writer thing that may or may not some day solidify into an actual work of something whole. Golem musical is still the closest I come to a mazzoh ball in that idea soup.
• Talked briefly to Birdie to determine that my weirdness about another work-related thing is now entirely moot (was probably moot to begin with, but I'm weird, thus weirdness) so I should go ahead and write an email and get something going whereby I decorate a person's life in exchange for vegetables. Have I sent the email yet? No, of course not. Today is a day for half-measures.
• I gathered some newspapers off the floor of my office and moved a few things around and took out the dirty dishes. It would be a stretch to say I actually cleaned my office, but these things are at least a step in the right direction.
• Took my pills on time
• Told my mother I wasn't going to take my parents' opera tickets this weekend because I'm trying my hardest to go to my brother's NCAA Division III Soccer game in Iowa on Saturday

Some people teach, others build shelters for the homeless, others cure disease. I'm doing little to justify my use of oxygen and since I'm annoyed with myself, I'm curling up and doing less. I thought about going to the bar for human contact, but somewhere along the line I decided I didn't deserve to go out. Maybe not my best move, since now I'm going to spend more time at home smelling like bleach and fake-tidying my office while watching random tv episodes on Hulu. I should eat something, too. I've gotten away from the regularly scheduled meals thing again, even though I know better. The self-punishing torture misery thing is really satisfying and cleansing when done right for just a day or two, but I have to be careful not to get sucked in. It has to be a low point I bounce off of, not a sticky mud puddle.

If I don't go to at least one lighting store tomorrow to sell my shmancy lamp, please bitch-slap me.

updating

The Comcast people never came or called. I should have called them, but I am lazy and my computer is picking up some new random free signal, so at the moment I am internetted, though it could go at any minute.

So much to update...

This weekend I will be traveling to Pennsylvania via LaGuardia airport to see three of my bestest friends from College Attempt #1. They are all on the east coast and two were randomly going to converge on the third's house (and more importantly, swimming pool), and Birdy said half joking that I should fly out, and I laughed, but then I realized I had no specific obligations this weekend and how amazing would it be to join them? So I am joining them. My dog will be staying with my parents for the first time ever without me. I'm sure it will be fine, since he is used to them and their house and all they have to do is make sure he has food and water and open the door to their yard every so often when he decides he needs to go out, but my mom isn't thrilled at the prospect.

My One Night Stand of several weeks ago is now my Facebook buddy and we message one another with some frequency. I'm entertained but apathetic about the whole thing. Very much a que sera sera.

I am done with summer school (Bs in both of my classes, which is fine by me) and fall semester doesn't start until September. I have a big long TO DO list for the next month and a half, but I haven't been this free and non-stressed...ever? I have the random promo jobs and things to do, but I don't have to actively seek work and I don't have big fat due dates and deadlines. It's amazing. I couldn't go on like this forever (I'll probably start getting restless in another week or so), but for the time being, it's wonderful.

E and Sunny both had birthdays and I never gave them shout-outs, so here is their official shout-out. HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!

Taste of Chicago was right by my school so I spent a lot of time and calories there. I even ate the humus that gave people salmonella, but I was fine. Maybe I have enough other stomach problems that they canceled out the food poisoning.

A few weeks ago, I went to lunch with three classmates (Mr. and Mrs. Toothpick and King Overshare), and King Overshare earned his name by telling us stories about sucking his cousin's toes while his cousin slept and his devastation upon purchasing a "sex machine" that turned out to be too small. Since that lunch, it has been The Toothpicks' and my goal to get King Overshare drunk. He was out of town for the debauchery of my drunken hook-up night, but after the last day of class we all went to a bar and all I can say is holy shit. King Overshare is gay and out of the closet only in recent years, but he managed to make absolutely everyone uncomfortable. At one point he was trying to do a strip show for the lot of us, then later he stretched out across three of our laps and proceeded to lick our faces while we tried to squirm away. He got into a long debate with the token class homophobe over whether or not every person on earth wants his or her asshole licked and God's intentions in creating so many nerve endings in the butt. Apparently, after most people left, something happened with my classmate's male roommate that no one will talk about except to say if the roommate ever sees King Overshare again, he is going to kick his ass.

Saturday night I saw Ratatouille with my parents. Cute and entertaining, though certainly no Finding Nemo.

Sunday was the day of people I knew in grade school. First, I went to my elementary school BFF's engagement party, then another person from back then hosted this movie night and discussion thing, and then we met up with another girl who started at our school in 5th grade and I hadn't seen in at least seven years. The whole thing was much fun.

Monday night Mr. and Mrs. Toothpick from my Fiction II class called to say they were going to see a Thin Lizzy cover band, so I joined them and much drinking followed.

The last few days I have been riding the el in my PJs handing out fliers for the Pajama Men's show. It's easy and $10/hour, so I can't complain.

I'm sure I am leaving out major chunks of life, but this will do for now.

The Sads, The Happenings, The Dogs, and The Food

Depression is very strange. It's like having allergies, only triggers tend to be situational instead of tangible and cause persistent sadness instead of persistent rash. It might be funnier if the two ailments switched effects. Like if ragweed, cats, and peanuts made people tearful and removed while unrequited love and frustration with life caused swelling and congestion.

Also interesting to note: when I get like this, all I want to write about is being like this. You'd never know that I was still having a regular life outside of the sulking. Like tonight was the close of the show at my work and my boss's last night before she goes to her new better job. There was a party, with lots of fried food (including the best twice baked potato skin thingies I've ever had) and an open bar that I didn't have to work so I got to actually be a part of the party. One of the bar regulars who's on crew is a notorious flirt and, while I like him, I'm never sure how sincere he is about anything. But he also seemed to notice my fake smile and localized rain clouds and, while I pretended nothing was wrong, he made a concerted effort to cheer me up and provided numerous non-flirty (and therefore acceptable and reassuringly sincere) hugs. It was nice.

Tina quit yesterday. I wasn't surprised, since she's said for ages she only stayed on because of our boss. Still, really sad. She's fabulous. We (Tina, my now ex-boss and I) have tentative plans to go shopping in the next few weeks. But it's the end of an era. Yes, 5 months can be an era. That may be a big piece of The Funk.
Another big piece of The Funk is my frustration with my own terrible study skills. I'm reading all my class material, but I missed two classes last week for stupid reasons and the assignment that was due last Thursday still isn't done. I'm making excuses. I need to just fucking do it. There is no good reason it isn't done. And yet, it isn't done and I'm sitting here mad at myself for not doing it and continuing to not do it. Another assignment has been carried around in my bag for a week. It's not a big deal that it isn't in, and there is a fairly logical reason why, but its presence in my folder keeps hissing at me "You're a terrible student/person." And the pile of shit that is my apartment has grown overwhelming again. As for that, I think I'm just going to call the cleaning service and have them come on Tuesday whether or not I've done any cleaning myself first. Fuck embarrassment. It needs to happen. Perhaps I'll schedule weekly cleanings on my first call (as I was supposed to do when I was given the service as a present last May) until I find some sort of rhythm to the organizing and removal of garbage myself. Because that's something I haven't managed yet in the year and a half I've lived here.

Also in the works: the meeting of NBF and my dogs. NBF's dog is friendly and loves other dogs. My dog tends to freak out at other dogs. My dog will be muzzled. I've been working on getting him used to wearing the muzzle in comfortable situations (for an hour or two around the house, on a walk, etc.), and then perhaps they can meet in my car, where my dog tends to be happiest and least territorial. I would love for my dog to be able to have a doggie friend. I feel terrible that he doesn't. He has me. He sort-of has my parents. That's it. Everyone else he hates and/or is terrified of. It's a sad little doggie existence.

I can't tell if I'm hungry or not. I think I am. I went grocery shopping today and stocked up on Lean Cuisines (they were on sale, so my freezer is completely packed yet again). My favorite soup (Campbell's Chunky Turkey Pot Pie) was not on sale, so I only got a few, but I may eat one now because I feel like comfort food.

If you just read all that, you deserve a cookie. It probably should have gone in my paper journal instead of on the blog, and I'd delete it, but eh.

Brain too boogery to think up title

Sick sick sick. I'd almost defeated The Cold, but yesterday was The Gala at work and 13 hours of stress and smiling did me in. Now I'm dying again and I absolutely can NOT miss class tomorrow and have more I have to do tonight but I feel like total crap. I need to move into a bubble. Why am I such a pathetic sickly person? It makes it that much harder for me to be a good student.

My dog is trying to lick all the germs off of my face. He is very sweet and snuggly, though earlier today he made the worst noise ever when his paws froze up outside and I started to pick him up and he flopped down in an icy puddle. Now I need to walk him to empty him out for the night but he just wants to be a warm little ball of snuggles and is showing no interest in going anywhere.

One of my creative nonfiction classmates is trying to steal my phone sex story. She emailed me asking if she could interview me for a "day in the life" article for her feature writing class. I asked my teacher if I was out of line in saying no, that I was already working on the story myself, and he (my teacher) declared that what she (my classmate) was doing was total bullshit and he'd talk to her about it if I wanted him to. I said I could handle it, and I think I did, but it was good having validation that she was just ripping off my idea and I wasn't being a jerkface in refusing to give her an interview.

Sneeze sneeze snort hack cough sniffle snort.

Children of Motion Sickness

Good day in improv class - I was "on" for once, instead of my usual mediocrity. Spent all day with people from class and went to a movie with Mr. Aluminum and another classmate I haven't really talked about before. He's a physical therapist from Miami with a "hey baby"/smooth operator/wheeler-dealer personality. The three of us saw Children of Men. I think I liked it, but there was a lot of slightly shaky camera work and a whole scene on a boat, so I was extremely motion sick through the second half of the movie and had to run to the bathroom to puke when it was over. Yes, I am extremely lame and should have been picked off by wolves years ago. I'm still moderately nauseous and will now crawl into bed and try to sleep it off before I have to be at work tomorrow by 8 AM. Bite me, 8 AM.

Lots of words without saying anything

I feel like whining. My body still hurts from yesterday's fall. The bruising on my knees is surprisingly minimal, but I seem to have pulled something in my back and my right arm and hand are distractingly sore.

Today I went laptop bag shopping with my mom and sister. I actually got them to come out to me, since I thought we'd have more luck at one of the many cute stores in my general area than we would out in the 'burbs. We went to over a dozen different places and saw many fabulous bags, but my stupid computer is too big. I was running around with a measuring tape and a sinking heart. I love my computer. That is why I want to bring her with me to school and around in general to do my writing. But with the wide screen, there is nothing that will accommodate her. In the end, I thought I found something that would be big enough, and it certainly was long enough, but I wasn't even thinking about the width. I'm going to try to return it tomorrow (assuming I get up before I have to leave for my improv class) and actually bring my computer with me this time and shove it in bags to see. Maybe I should just go online, but I like to try bags on because I am a small person and sometimes they look silly on me. My sister suggested I use the school's computers and just carry around a flash drive, but I tend to like to write in my own random found spaces and I write significantly faster (and frequently better) on a computer than I do by hand. It's kind of like my musical instrument or piece of sports equipment. Yes! It is my tennis racket and it needs a case. I am not going to leave my racket at home and use the ones at the club.

I'm making headway on my alcoholism. I've been keeping my fridge stocked with quality beer and drinking about one a night at home alone. Right now I'm enjoying The Poet oatmeal stout. If I am lucky, the alcohol content will be enough to counteract my deep dark nap I took around 7 PM. Not the smartest move on my part. Sunday I have to be at work by 8 AM. Giant piece of poop. I can't be on this weird schedule of half-sleeping through the night then crashing late evening. And then school on Monday. What are the odds I actually make it to all of my classes this time? I've been very good with my improv classes, so I'm hoping that will carry over. No more hiding in my room and refusing to shower or leave. That is not one of the seven habits of highly effective people; it is one of the habits of useless depressed people. I want to be effective, not useless.

I Georged one of the steaks from my freezer tonight. It sucked. I need to figure out the practicalities of snacking and shopping for Healthy Annabell, now that I am trying to be healthy. You know, aside from that whole alcoholism thing.

May I please go to sleep now?

frustration

Yesterday was kind of rough. I got to work at 11 because I was scheduled at 11. At 11:45 I was about ready to open the bar but the building still seemed suspiciously empty so I asked the box office people and they said the lobby wasn't open until 2 and they had no idea why we were there so early. I called BL to wake her up find out if she knew something no one else did. Turns out the schedule was probably just a typo and the new guy and I were there two hours early with nothing to do. I was unhappy. That's two hours of morning I could have been asleep in bed. Not cool.

There's this one man on the front-of-house (ushers and stuff) staff who's in his 40s or 50s and is very nice but kind of creepy. Something seems off with him, but it's hard to place. They had him run the satellite bar yesterday, and he apparently hates it and had only done it once before. I put on my teacher hat and helped him through the set-up. Another person helped him run it and break it down. Then I showed him how to do the paperwork. I think he must be LD or just this side of retarded, because it took 45 minutes of me sitting there with him and going through step-by-step in a way that reminded me of helping the first graders with their homework. He couldn't count by 20s and instead went through his money saying "10 20...30 40...50 60" It was sad and frustrating and after he was done and out of the bar I went in the back room and closed the door and screamed.

NBF wasn't feeling well so when we were on our way out and dropping my car off by my apartment for lack of parking in Wrigleyville we stopped in my apartment. I'm living in my own filth these days. He's seen it before, but it's as bad as it's ever been (those of you who know my living space tendencies know quite how awful that must be) and it makes me very mad at myself. Add to that my dog completely freaking out and barking and shaking and panting for a solid hour while NBF lay quietly on my bed and the shame and frustration was too much. I love my dog just. so. much and I don't know what to do when he gets like that besides never have people in my apartment ever but it goes back to my whole Fortress of Solitude tendency and I'm going to die alone and they'll find me days later behind a pile of empty frozen dinner boxes. I hate myself for it.

Please Pass the Barbiturates

Couldn't sleep last night until 5 AM, took 4 hours to do two loads of laundry this morning because some bitch took my we clothes out of the washer and proceeded to take up both dryers for three hours straight so I ended up two hours late for my improv class's final rehearsal before tomorrow's show. An hour and a half to try and find presents (or at least silly stand-in presents until I come up with something more quality) for my family, who will be doing Hannukah tomorrow night, walk the dog, and change for work. Not surprisingly, I was late to work as a result. Bah. But BL switched with me so that I worked the bar while she worked the concessions stand thing upstairs, partly because she'd been there all day and wanted to go home earlier, and partly as a thank-you to me for last week when I was the only person in town. Tonight was the opening of previews for the new main stage show, so the front of house manager bought her entire staff a round of drinks and the production head people bought the crew a round of drinks and the actors bought themselves many, many rounds of drinks and I didn't get out of there until 2 AM but I made $122 in tips. Thank you, BL!

Now I have to be at the improv performance space at 11 AM and I'm hungry and exhausted but still wired from bartending and caffeine and the impending show. And I need a break as I'm lousy at handling stress like this but I don't have a free night until December 26, so hopefully I'll make it until then.

lazing

I messed up and told Birdy something that I'd forgotten NBF wasn't planning on telling people. I'm usually such a good secret-keeper, too. I just forgot to tag it in my brain as a secret.

I am the most lazy, useless, procrastinatalicious person ever. I'm finding myself very annoying right now, but not in an inspirational get up and actually do shit sort of way. I'm blaming the cold. I'm getting much less exercise as a result of it, since the dog and I seem to be able to stand about 5 minutes outside before one or both of us insist on going in. Assuming I do actually start school next month (I had to resend my transcripts since they only hold onto them for a month without a completed application...very annoying) I need to start going to their gym. Get buff and studly. Maybe stick my dog on a treadmill, too. They'd love that.

It is Friday but it feels like a normal person's Monday since I'm about to start a bunch of crazy-busy days in a row after having a few relaxing ones. Think I can sneak in a quick nap before work? I'm certainly going to try.

s-t-r-e-s-s

Note: identifying details in this story have been changed to maintain the thinly veiled identity of the author so she can't get fired again for blogging.

Last night, the Brazillians finished the run of their show at my theater of employment. This meant an open bar sponsored by company management. That meant a lot of very drunk Brazillians. Apparently, these guys are big stars back in Brazil. Here, not so much. Two of them in particular were hitting on everything with a vagina. One is very large and kept groping the girls who work as ushers and in the box office, then kissed BL and my hands and told us we were beautiful when we wouldn't give him another drink 30 minutes past last call. We had to physically force him out of the bar and lock the door. There's something very satisfying about having power over a large, attractive, famousish Brazillian.

Otherwise, work sucked. I had to be there by 11 AM so I could be out of the lobby before the downstairs show opened even though the studio lobby didn't open until 1:30 and the show wasn't until 3. That's a lot of time standing around doing nothing. I got things for Tina and set things up for BL and made coffee. Facinating. Business was decent for a Sunday afternoon and people were very nice, so that part wasn't too bad. I put my stuff away and brought it downstairs and was talking to BL and one of the house managers when the house manager commented on how crazy it was to have a four show day. We knew about the two shows for the main stage, but a second show in the studio? Swell. So now instead of being 30 minutes from going home, I was 30 minutes from having to re-set-up everything and start all over again. This made me very, very cranky. To make matters worse, because we didn't know in advance, I had to drag my carts through the crowd assembled for the downstairs show and then one of the big head theatre honchos saw me and I'm sure at least BL will get in trouble for this, because it's bad planning or whatever. Oh so cranky. I seriously considered doing a shot of something, but was afraid I'd just fall asleep in my ice bucket. So fine. La-dee-da, second shift, getting food, working the bar, 13 hour day that hit overtime for the week even after I had to take Thursday off on account of my puking.

My improv class is doing a show on Sunday, December 17 at noon. Let me know if you want to attend. Saturday we found out who will be in which things for it. I'm doing the taxi cab character game thing (nothing too thrilling) and the alphabet game. I like the alphabet game. It's a two person scene in which every line has to start with the next letter of the alphabet. Very cerebral. The guy I'm doing it with is very good, too. Now I just have to spend the week reading the dictionary, or at least the X section. Maybe I'll try to have all my conversations in alphabet game format. See if anyone notices. That could be funny, but mostly funny for me in my head. I guess that's 95% of my funny, anyway.

Tomorrow I'm going to my parents' to finish cleaning out my old room so it can be painted Wednesday. I wasn't supposed to work tomorrow night, but Tina's got her root canal follow-up appointment or something, so now I'm a terrible daughter again because I'll have to leave by 3:30 and my mom won't be there until 1:30 so we won't get to spend that much time together.

Just remember, you can't spell MstrOessM without s-t-r-e-s-s.

Like Sands Through the Hourglass...

Blech. So I'm vertical and still feeling off in the stomach but I have my mind back and that is reassuring.

Saturday I saw The Pirate Queen with my family. Same guys who wrote Les Mis go after another revolution of sorts with the Grace O'Malley story. The idea was fabulous: it's a great story with pirates and an excuse to use Irish music and dancing. But while the music never stops, it was neither catchy nor brilliant, and unlike Les Mis, they had a very hard time fitting in what they wanted to without it feeling like the story was crammed and rushed and lacked build-up. In fact, the second act seemed more of a let-down than a culmination or arc. BUT... the production value was incredible. The scenery and the dancing and the voices and the most talented ensemble I've seen possibly ever. My mom kept complaining about things like the staginess of the dancing and other aspects that are inherent in a musical, so I said, "Yeah, and that sonnet was too formulaic." I thought I was ever so clever with that one.

Sunday I only had to work the first show and, despite the "final dress rehearsal" being a stop-and-go mess to which I brought E, everyone said the show was wonderful. I had plans to hang out with NBF after work, but this was my only chance to see it as I'd be working (or at my improv class) every other performance until the run ended. NBF said he'd want to see it if with me if I could get comp tickets, so I told him I'd call him to let him know. I got the tickets and left him a voice mail saying as much. BL forgot that I was going to see the show and roped me in to help her at the bar when it was crazy-crowded with people from the upcoming mainstage production and I'd texted NBF with the message "Call me re:food" because I hadn't had time to eat anything and the show was starting very soon and I'd hoped he would pick something up on his way. When he did call me back I was up to my eyeballs in drink orders so I called him back like 2o minutes later and asked how close he was to showing up. "Um...not" was his response. He apparently never got my voice message and when he saw the text thought we were just going to get food when I was done working. But I had actual physical tickets for us and they get very mad if you don't use your comp tickets and I wanted to see the show so I told him to get to the theater as fast as he could ("I'll pay for a cab! Just get here!") and I escaped the bar as they made the first call for seating and ran to get food and scarfed down said food while waiting for NBF to show up and we missed the first 15-20 minutes but he arrived and the show was wonderful and he was being wonderful and I went from homicidal to happy by the time I got home.

Monday I ran errands and slept and watched TV. A too short but necessary break.

Tuesday I worked a double shift. It was a very long day, though not a bad one as I had my first ever shift by myself in the bar (which didn't go so well but I like it quite a bit better) and then BL and I ran errands for work on the clock and got lunch at SUC's sushi restaurant and BL drove me home at the end of the night. About five minutes before the end of the late show's intermission one of the moms from the school that fired me came up to buy water. She was my favorite mom, always really warm and a great parent, and she adored me, too, constantly telling me as much. Apparently, she never knew I'd been fired. She thought I'd just decided not to come back. I managed to get through the story without crying, but as I told her that people that never met me organized a campaign to email and call in for my removal, she said she wished she'd known because she'd have called in my favor. That got the tears flowing. And of course the more she told me I was wonderful and that they were stupid for getting rid of me the more I cried. She got my phone number to babysit if I'm ever not working (I really liked her kid, too).

The fact that I got so emotional made me realize that there's a big difference between getting past something and getting over it. Just a thought.

Then yesterday I had my second double shift in a row because Tina had a root canal Tuesday and was still dead. I'd set everything up for myself the night before and the morning went fine, though I didn't get a chance to eat anything beyond a nutragrain bar and a bag of Sun Chips until almost 5 PM. My stomach was cranky but there's only junk food within quick break distance of the theater so I ended up eating chicken selects while running around making coffee and setting up the bar for BL whose bus passed her by coming from the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum. My body started falling apart during the pre-show sales, and you know the rest (or you could know it by reading my last entry).

It is good I keep so much soup in the house.

drunk with sickness

I feel drunk. Yesterday at work I was fine and then I very quickly disintegrated into a mess of nausea and flashing lights. I camped out in the bathroom but didn't puke, managed to run intermission with a smile (though the whole thing was kind of a blur) and then made it into and out of my cousin-in-law's car. I barely managed to not puke until she stopped to let me off at my apartment, then barfed all over the dead grass by the stop sign at the corner. The night was miserable, with me trying to eat a few rice chex so I'd have something in my stomach and then rapidly puking them back up. Very bad pain in my stomach and all of the muscles in my body ached and throbbed. I finally kept down a little soup this afternoon and in the last few hours got the chex to actually stick (though my body isn't thrilled with them, still), but all I can do is sleep and dream crazy dreams and when I'm awake I feel dizzy and drunk. Like there are a number of things on TV that I just can't decide between to watch and it's all just too much so I'll probably go back to sleep. Everything seems like too much for my mind to handle right now. I can concentrate on very singular specific tasks, but an easy sudoku puzzle proved too difficult. Anything that requires thinking and not just doing. I would fail a sobriety test right now, I think. Is it the migraine? or is the migraine a result of some virus or whatever it is that has me throwing rocks at death's door? I wish I had ginger ale or Smart Water or something more liquid and caloric. Fuck this. I'm going back to bed. There are things from the past several days I need to write about, but clearly it's not going to happen when I'm still this broken.

I'll put in links and pictures later. It's too confusing now (I keep starting and forgetting what I'm doing...creepy...)

Pig, Dog, Sloth

Apparently I am the "messiest bartender ever." I always have a penchant for pigginess, but I think my spilling and my using the surfaces designated for clean glasses as my "work space" have more to do with my height than my porcine inclinations. You see, we are supposed to pour all drinks on the bar. For normal-sized people, this is no big deal as the bar hits them somewhere lower- to mid-torso. For me, the bar is chest-high. This means I am pouring drinks with my elbows raised up to my ears. It is much less comfortable and much harder to do than were I a few inches taller. Thus, my propensity for spills. The surface at a more natural height for my drink preparations is meant only for clean glasses and the vat of ice. More than once BL has stopped me from trying to prep drinks over the ice vat. Spilling here could be catastrophic (or at least a pain in the ass), and when there is sticky residue around the "clean" glasses, no one is happy. But it's just so much easier. I never used to think of my size as a handicap, but in this job, it seems to be. Aside from the bar height, I have to push these big stupid carts back and forth all the time and they are bigger and heavier than I am and people laugh at me as I struggle past them. The first few times it was funny (little girl, big cart) but now it's just rude and frustrating. If my shoes don't have good treads, my feet slip on the carpeting and the cart goes nowhere. When the carts have to go upstairs, I additionally have to lift them over the rut in the elevator. This frequently results in failure and me getting stuck with the elevator yelling at me and/or crap spilling out on both sides of the closing elevator doors. I hate it. I also seem to sell far less alcohol than the other bartenders. I always suggest alcoholic alternatives to people's drinks, but I'm beginning to wonder if they just don't order booze because I look too young to sell it.

Saturday night was the show closing party with open bar for all theatre employees. BL mostly left me to my own devices, cleaning up in back while staying available for my "What goes into a ____?" and "What glass do I put ____ in?" questions. I learned how to make all things martini-related and got decent at estimating liquid quantities quite early on. I also got to invent random drinks for people, which is very fun, though I didn't get so much as a sip myself for fear I'd pass out the second alcohol touched my tongue. We didn't get out of there until 2:30 AM and had to split cabs because the buses no longer ran by the theatre, but I made $50 in tips behind the bar plus $16 in tips from earlier plus 7 1/2 hours of work (a few of which should put me at overtime), so the money was finally worthwhile.

But huzzah! I am on day 2 of my three days off! Yesterday my dog woke me up around 10 to go for a walk, so we went out briefly and I went back to bed. I woke up again around 3. Clearly, I needed the sleep. I took a long hot shower and shaved and moisturized and did all the other beauty regimen things I've been neglecting. E and I went for dinner and drinks and gab to a bar in Lincoln Square and it was lovely except I crashed before 9. Apparently 11 hours of sleep wasn't enough. I was back in my bed and asleep by 10, straight through until this morning.

Today has been dedicated to getting my to-do list to-done. My fridge is restocked with milk and OJ and my freezer is completely packed with frozen dinners for the weeks to come. If I get up early enough tomorrow I'm getting my car's oil changed and all checked out and happy for winter, and no matter what I have to get some laundry done before my double-shift at work on Wednesday. Tonight I fully intend to watch television, which is something I haven't done in weeks. When leisure time is so limited, it's hard to figure out how much to allocate to getting shit done and how much to rest. I need a chart.

benefits

I just discovered the main benefit of working at a bar: if you are not working until close and still have an ounce of energy at the end of the night, you are at a bar and you can drink whatever you want for free. I made a few concoctions that were very tasty and girly and suddenly the world isn't such a terrible place. Also I got to talk with some of the boys I normally just make eyes at from behind the bar. I do not understand the strange power held by Cute Boys, but it is undeniable.

Tina's granddaughter came to work tonight. She's eight and fabulous and helped us out all night. Tina sent her up to the studio theatre floor because the "princesses" run through the lobby fairly regularly during the show and she wanted to see the "princesses." We went back stage and found one of the lead girls and I told her Tina's granddaughter wanted to meet the princesses so she took us into the dressing room and they were all dolled up and friendly (it's a very nice cast) and Tina's granddaughter was completely thrilled. It was really sweet. I like kids. Those of you who've known me for a long time are probably snickering, but shut up. I've grown up and now I like children.

Really bad drag is mostly just sad.

Frozen dinners vary considerably in quality. I've become a big fan of Stouffer's rigatoni pasta with white meat chicken and am also impressed with the Lean Cuisine Baked Chicken. But then the Stouffer's Monterey Chicken and Michelina's Lean Gourmet creamy parmesan chicken are airline food at best. When I come home after midnight and just want something quick, easy, and delicious, how's a girl like me supposed to know the good from the bad before trying them all? Such a complicated existence I lead.

Maybe if you just shoot me in the head a little bit

12 hour shift yesterday. 12 hour shift today. No day off until Sunday. I like the people. I keep telling myself that. The people are good. Quality time with my cousin-in-law. Went out to lunch with BL at this fantastic soup place. Chicken dumpling in a bread bowl. Best shit ever. Between that and the El I spent all my tips for the day, but it was worth it, and BL gave me a ride home at the end of the night. Did I mention I like the people? And a lot of them (actors, crew, ushers, etc.) all congregate at the bar at the end of the night, so I'm not just meeting and liking people from my own department, which is good since "my department" consists of myself, BL, Tina, and another woman who works part time I see maybe once a week.

I need to shower. I need to shave. I need to get dressed and get the hell out of here and face another day.

It's OK to be unhappy

I know I can attribute a goodly portion of my depressions past to the feeling that if I'm not happy, I'm doing something wrong or there is something wrong with me. But unhappiness is a perfectly normal part of life, and it stops being so terrible once you learn to accept that it's ok. Like right now, I'm unhappy, but it's ok. My feelings are valid and rational and the thing that's making me so unhappy is likely to not go away for a few more months and so I may be miserable for a few more months. Crying and complaining are healthy reactions.

It's official: I hate my job. I was trying very hard not to declare this prematurely, but it has me cranky and miserable. I'm just so tired all the time but without ever feeling like I've done something. There's no sense of accomplishment ever but I go home sore and unhappy, and I feel like I'm stuck, so that makes it even worse. I still like my boss and my crazy co-worker and seeing my cousin, but I'm completely burnt out and it's only been three weeks and I'm counting down the days until January. I feel like I'm always having to do 12 things at once and if I stop to take a breath I won't be ready for whatever thing I have to do next and it gets treated like the end of the world when it's just not that important. I'm selling theatre-goers food and drinks. Big friggin' deal. But from the moment I get there to the moment I leave it's RUN RUN RUN RUSH RUSH RUSH and customers are rude and annoyed and return my plastered-on smile with scowls and a sense of entitlement and leave a mess in their wake and don't tip. And now I'm getting all these promo invitations for things that pay $14, $17, and $25 an hour that I can't do because I'm scheduled to work for $8 an hour and we're already understaffed and I don't want to screw over my co-workers because they, too, are overworked and underpaid and they're the ones I like. And now that I backed out of the promo from last weekend and have to turn down all these offers I'm less likely to get work from them in the future. It just seems ridiculous that I'm stuck working 40 hours a week doing something I hate when I could work like 16 hours doing something I enjoy and get the same money. I know the promo work is inconsistent and can't be counted on, but at least I wasn't crying on the El ride home and unable to do the things I actually care about, like writing. Like I'm almost glad I haven't heard back from the Playboy people because I wouldn't have time to do anything for the article right now. I haven't touched any of it since I started the bartending job. I spent most of today asleep and it wasn't enough. And this whole thing is just so frustrating because I was unemployed for so long and it's good and important that I am making money again but the promo stuff was just starting to make me money, too, and it didn't make me hate my life. And even if the promo stuff made me double the money, my mom is much happier with me having a consistent job. I am not much happier, but when the things that she thinks should make me happy don't, she has a very hard time comprehending the situation. I talked to her on the phone tonight and she started commenting on how I just like complaining because I didn't like being unemployed but I now I'm complaining about my job. I fell apart. But when she tried her standard "Look on the bright side/these are the reasons you shouldn't be glum/I will invalidate your feelings now" thing, I stopped her and said "Can you please just say 'that sucks' and let it be ok that it sucks?" At first she tried to fight me on it, but I reminded her of our conversation the other day about how sometimes things will suck and you'll have to do them and live through them, anyway, and that's OK. You don't have to pretend they're "not so bad" or try to ignore the sucky parts. They are entitled to suck and you are entitled to be unhappy. I don't know if she understood or internalized any of it, but at least she shut up.

I so don't want to have to be at work in 11 hours. Shoot me.