Don't Let Him Steal Your Heart Away

Today has been the Blessed Day of Weeping on the local soft rock station. The main speaker in the office is directly above my desk, so I've been spending the entire day transporting back and forth from the present to 1980, 1982, 1986-1989, etc. It's been draining to say the least.

You see, I used to be an emotional person. (Not like I am now, basically dead inside). I have developed quite an ability to time-travel back to the exact emotion I was feeling when certain songs were playing. I think that officially makes me a weirdo, but I'm still awaiting a ruling from the judges on that.

Top of the list today was a raft of tunes by Phil Collins, highlighting the tumultuous years while his first marriage was falling apart, when it fell apart and most of the time he spent picking up the pieces. Pain, dude. Capital P. And I was with him the entire way. I would, in the manner of millions of teenage girls, play his songs over and over and over (and over), crying tears for myself and for anyone who ever had to put up with another person who did not respect them or value their worth as a person to the fullest. So many of the lyrics spoke to me, almost as if they had been written around the time I needed to hear them and connect with them. I was mush personified.

I remember the day all that changed, and I don't have a song for that. Honestly, I don't think anyone could write a song conveying the import of the situation. It would seem trite to me, or somewhat less than it should, just a collection of notes and words, certainly nothing that would have the power to reach down into my core to soothe the pain of the one hundred thousand hot pokers residing there.

So now, I just idly play the 'year game' in the Jeep with the playlists. I can usually come within a year or two, but that's with stuff from 20-odd years ago. Funny, I was better at making the connection to songs when things were actually happening to me. Possibly that will happen again; one can always hope.

Hope didn't work out really well for Pandora though, did it?

Ha.Ha.Ha.

As many times in a day as I bemoan my current state of affairs, I should match one-to-one the people in my life who work hard to keep me smiling. They ask after me and take great pleasure in conveying tales of their lives, stories that interest me, that educate me, that tickle my funny bone. (Something that is never ticklish, ironically).

Being a Pisces, I have a tendency to wallow. Being ME, I have a tendency to blame my tendency to wallow on being Pisces. Ultimately, wallowing occurs. Serious pity party stuff, which anyone who has read even three of my entries in a row will know by now. And honestly? It's really pissing me off. I would enjoy the pain and the misery and the poverty et. al. if I could twist it around to make it funny, but all I hear is whine, whine, whine. And if I can't bear to listen to myself, why the hell would anyone outside of my sad, shriveled brain want to subject themselves to it?

So I'm going to make a deal with myself: I'm going to force myself to recall a happy story or memory everytime I feel the Shade of Depression coming down on my head. If I am unable to do that, I will seek out a friend online and attempt to make something that passes for funny conversation. I want to take the time out to appreciate everyone who makes my day a little brighter.

Maybe I've been down so long my humour muscles have atrophied?

Will Work for Food

TGIF. Good Lord, I mean it.

And I've only worked two days this week, so how does that compute? No, correction, I've worked one day and am gearing up to start the second. The last thing I want to do it lie to you all, good people. I've had it up to here with this place, and last Friday I said that with an absolute certainty. It was weird, there was this sort of ping! sound, then my brain said that if I never come back here to work again, it will still be alright. A wave of peace washed over me and for one glorious moment I was truly happy with a decision. 'Tis a shame these moments are few and far between.

My boss forgot to pay me. Again. She doesn't make use of my skills, she shoves me on the counter and people, customer service is not one of my strengths, especially when dealing with snotty-nosed punks. She reduced my hours to 25 per week and my pay went right along with it. So I made a decision: I will search for new work like I've never searched before.

Before, I used to browse the websites like monster.ca and workopolis.com with an eye to something that would advance my career. Bwah! What career? My resume reads like a Mennonite quilt. I've resigned myself to accepting that I will act in the capacity of someone's buttmonkey and probably will have to go back to wearing hose. That was the one good thing about working at the college: being able to dress like a student. Comfort above all else. Hell, there were times during mass releasing of loans that I wore my tearaways to work.

Maybe there's something at the University?

A subconscious romp

Last night I dreamed I had a new job. Not a job I'll ever really have, mind you, but one I guess I want deep down. I was the Admin. Assistant for John Cusack and Jeremy Piven. They had a company together that centered around the creation of innovative marketing booths for large corporations to take to trade shows.

John did the paperwork and the conceptualization and Jerome (his nickname) was the guy who brought the ideas to life. I assisted in all sorts of capacities, up to and including photographing the finished products for our portfolio. It was a kick ass job for a night.

Nothing naughty conspired between John and I but let me assure you, if I had any sort of control over my subconscious there would have been.

Witholding money but not corn dogs

I'm pissed off today.

This is starting to become a disturbing theme, non?

This time, I think I'm justified: I'm on so many drugs at the moment I'm all over the map emotionally. The last shot yesterday (HcG) hurts like hell to shoot and the needle is huge. The college decided in their wisdom not to pay me this week which means I'll have to wait another two weeks to get a month's wages. Thank heavens I have enough money to cover bills until then. Still, they call and I jump to their AID and as thanks, they don't do the appropriate paperwork. Nice.

So, I'm going to drown my sorrows in mustard. Underneath the mustard, you will see if you look carefully, a corn dog. Not a P@g@, one of those nasty things you get in boxes in the grocery store. A real corn dog, dipped in front of your eyes by a vendor at the fair I'm going to this morning with my Mom, sister and niece. A little country fair near my hometown, I've been attending this event since 1972 when we moved to our house in the little village, population 500. The town one over had the fair and when I was small I used to enjoy it more because it wasn't as dauntingly loud and busy as the The Western Fair.

With any luck, I'll miss the parade and catch the shuttle right to the front door. I'll find my Mom who's working the church table in the main arena and we'll be off to wander and eat! Food soothes everything, I should have that tattooed on my forehead. (My fat, bulging forehead).

I hope your weekend is as enjoyable as 10 piping hot corn dogs!

October 3, 2004 4:41 p.m.
Edited to add the freakin' fair didn't have corn dogs. They had overpriced onion rings and dried out hamburgers. And rain. And a driving wind that snuck right inside your coat. So I thought today might be better, since I was going to the largest wood show in North America. But nooooo. Back bacon on a bun as far as the eye can see and more overpriced onion rings, but no corn dogs. I'm beginning to wonder if I've done something horribly wrong somewhere down the line and forgot.

Apparently, the Karma Gods have not.

Anything for the cause

Last night I dreamt I was staying in a seriously swank hotel with my First Love. It was during the holiday season and we were having the best time ever. We enjoyed long walks on their trails, fabulous candlelit dinners in their private dining room, canoodling *everywhere* and long, serious talks while sprawled on the king size bed in our cavernous room.

I think I could say I felt pure happiness during the few seconds that dream probably lasted. It was like a drug.

Then, as quickly as the high was presented to me, fate decided I was a naughty girl and should be punished. A fire began in the hotel, sweeping through the building at an alarming rate. I lost S. but glimpsed my camera on my bedside table. Then it hit me: I would have to take as many pictures of the hotel as I could for posterity.

I proceeded to run through every room I could get access to, snapping away through the smoke. I felt like I had a purpose, even as I knew I had lost the most important thing in my life outside of myself.

Then, click! The alarms sounded and the firetrucks arrived and the grounds were littered with the yellow dots of firemen and squiggly lines of hoses as they fought the great beast. These brave men and women were able to put the fire out and as I sifted through the remains of our belongings in the room, S. silently appeared in the doorway. He was covered in soot and appeared to have injured his right arm, but he was standing in front of me just as surely as you are reading this now.

I was almost faint with relief. As I took my first step toward him, I heard a sickening crack! then he was gone. A hole in the floor was all that remained.

Walking up to the edge and looking down, all I could see was a blackness that spanned floor after floor, down to forever. Or the basement. Gone.

Then I woke up.
In a pissy mood.
I HATE my subconscious.