Caterwauling

Happiness.

At long last, happiness. I’ve still got so much work ahead of me — the apartment, the job, the psyche — but I know that if I can just stay alive on these Washington streets, I will be okay.

Had a good time last night with DC Boy, the one I met in April. I probably talked too much, but that’s hardly a first for me. Am hoping for a second date. He’s sweet and mild and articulate and brilliant. Although … he has had bad experiences with Geminis (he’s a Capricorn … understandably!), but alas, he unknowingly had the quintissential Gemini sitting right in front of him … moi! We had a nice little meal in Dupont Circle, and that was that … he had moved a friend all day, so we were both kinda wiped out from moving adventures.

Too early to tell where, if anywhere, this is going. That’s okay. I’m in no rush. I just think it’s cute how we’ve kept in touch for the past two months, and we got to see each other during my first weekend here. If this does go anywhere, well, we live almost an hour and a half apart (damn Beltway). I understand that people down here don’t date people on the other side of DC because of the traffic. LOL. I just need to become a much more confident (and aggressive!) driver so that I can not only survive in this city, but also maybe see DC Boy if and when opportunity should arise.

Saw 42 Boy on the day before the movers came. I am unquestionably sexually attracted to him, yet I just can’t shake the feeling that he might be married. Even Mom, who had never met him until he helped me grab some stuff from her place on the day before the move, casually mentioned to me that she wondered if he were married (and this was without me even saying anything to her). He talked about his little boy, but says that he and the mom are on good terms and he can see the child whenever he wants. I don’t know … maybe it’s my own paranoia from being scorched a few times, and from also seeing my friends get into these situations as well, perahps it is best that there is no emotional attachment.

SE is coming to DC this weekend and wants to see me. I do miss him and am looking forward to the visit. He has kind of backed off, which I appreciate. I was talking a bit to DC Boy about my past (although I did not let on how recently the past events have occurred), and I hit my own moment of clarity in describing the Bermuda Love Triangle … SE reminds me of YKW, not physically or emotionally but rather the fact that the three of us were always together, always a team, and in letting go of YKW, I can’t jump into something with SE because the wounds are still sort of fresh. Once in awhile, I find myself thinking of YKW, and how on his last day of work was the day I decided to take the job in Alexandria. What if I hadn’t told him that I’d accepted the offer that day?

Well, enough of the “what if” game … he was the one who chose to distance himself from me and from the friends he’d made. Frankly, it would be just as easy for me to date someone in Pittsburgh as in Maryland, because once I get past the fucking Beltway, I don’t mind the additional driving. But I digress. I’ve made enough life decisions recently, and I really liked being with DC Boy and the lack of pressure for anything more than an evening outside of my cardboard-filled apartment. Here’s to hoping for more evenings like that.

I also see an email from CMU Boy in my inbox. How exciting! Looking forward to meeting at the Melissa Etheridge concert in the ‘Burgh next month.

F/OM emailed me … that was pleasant, to see such a quick response to the email I sent yesterday. Oh, how I wish I could’ve taken him with me as I ran screaming from Two Strikes. I wish all the best for F/OM, I really do. It would have been nice to keep working with him, but it got to a point where working with him was one of my few reasons to stay at The Wasteland. I’ve mentioned that we should go into business with a few of our associates like Emily and Lori, and he loved the idea. Well, at any rate, Lab Rat and I (and maybe 420 Boy) will get our own business up and running, and F/OM would be the first person I called for accounting assistance. So many dreams I have … and it may take forever, but I’d love to see them all come true.

I have so many wonderful people in my life, and I am grateful for every one of them. I just wish I could hold them all close to me forever.

“I wish for a place

Where the earth doesn’t shake

And if the world can’t be still

Then I will

Can you tell me if I’m near

To anywhere but here.”

— Lisa Loeb, “I Wish” (from the “Anywhere But Here” soundtrack) —

Mania.

Maddie seems to be adjusting quite well to the move. She has extracted herself from Lab Rat’s hamper and is happily getting in the way of me carrying really heavy things around the house, so she’s back to normal. Once in awhile, I catch her looking at Lab Rat like, “Who the hell are you? And why are you running after me with this freaking comb?” LOL

As for me, I hurt all over and I cannot even make a fist because my hands are all bruised and swelled. Spen the a.m. putting together my new computer desk and CD rack, the latter of which promptly toppled and spilled my CDs twice (all 500 of them). Luckily, Lab Rat was around to save the CDs during the second implosion. Whew!!!

Have plans tonight. Yay, me!!! I was only here two hours yesterday and got a call. Woo Hoo!!!

Saw Charolette, EWB and CTL on Thursday for one last ghetto lunch special. It was great fun. Got to hear about all the bullshit that has ensued since my departure. Twit apparently tossed out all of my files. Dumb bitch. Haven’t heard from F/OM … I hope he isn’t afraid that because I still talk to Charolette and CTL, that I’d actually share any personal info of his, because it’s not like I have ever told him anything personal about them. I know F/OM was really close with a girl who worked there before me, Lisa, and I know they didn’t keep in touch. I don’t want that to happen with us. I know he’s super-busy, so I’ll forgive him for now. But I hope to see him again. Maybe I’ll send a friendly little email when I’m done with the blog.

I hear through the grapevine that Two Strikes has assigned Republican Woman to take over grantwriting, even though her hands are more than full with case aides and the adoption department. LOL. It would take at least two people to do my job effectively (not saying that I could handle it all on my own … if I could’ve cloned myself, I might have met HRP’s expectations … maybe!). It’s rather vindicating that grantwriting did not go back to the Twit, where it was supposed to be all along, because she’s a fucking idiot who can’t even speak like she was reared in America.

Boxes are still everywhere. I’ve accumulated beaucoup shit in my 10 years on my own. I’ve pitched so much, including furniture, and I still don’t know where I’m going to put everything.

I received a random email from someone who stumbled upon my site … it was quite a compliment, actually. I will respond soon, but I just want to tell my new friend that I am grateful for the words of support.

Song of the moment (because it’s playing on my CD player and it’s actually quite appropriate): “Everything Around Me is Changing,” by Sinead Lohan, from the “Anywhere But Here” soundtrack. Some lyrics (that I am certain I’ve butchered) that are stirring up a pot of bittersweetness:

“This high and mighty morning

Won’t save you anymore

You can scrape me from the floor

Everything around me is changing

…

And isn’t this always what I wanted

isn’t it just what I always wanted

this is only what I want

everything around me to be changing

and you can send

your letter

to the same address

…

and didn’t I say it in my own letter

I will always make it better

pull yourself over to me

everything except me is changing.”

Exhaustion.

I.am.so.fucking.TIRED!

Packing is a disaster … my belongings are regenerating themselves, I swear!!!

Went to the block party today … F/OM and I really bonded, more than ever. We had so many great moments together, just laughing and joking and being the buddies I always knew we could be, without the specter of work overshadowing us. He hugged me so tightly … we hugged a bunch of times. We even kissed goodbye! LOL … I have officially kissed all the men in the operations department except Network Boy!!! 😉

F/OM really says he wants us to keep in touch, and he said now he can be even more real with me, now that he’s not my supervisor anymore. He looked so sad when I left. My heart is feeling so full right now … I spent the day with Mom and with lots of people who mean the world to me. So many people were telling Mom so many wonderful, touching things about me. Mom and Shirley worked the kiddie table and dished about HRP.

Speaking of HRP, she did a fake goodbye with me. Of course, she had to slip in a shitty comment that she knew I was getting tired of working in development and working at the pace at which I was required to work. Bitch.

Gotta wrap up an IM convo with 42 Boy so that I can get back to packing!!!

Freedom.

The song by M People, “Movin’ on Up,” is playing in my head. Just finished my exit interview. Yay!!!

As a director, I used to receive copies of HR’s form. It was always bland and boring, to read why people left. Everyone always said shit that basically amounted to, “It’s not you, it’s me.” The legal equivalent of a breakup.

If only I could be a fly on the wall when MY form circulates the second floor of 204. WB, having been supervised by F/OM for three years, has inherited his style of writing all over a page, in corners, upside down, with arrows, etc., to fit everything onto the front and back of my exit form. I let it all out, but I was cautious and vague when mentioning HRP’s biting comments. I did, however, state that people on Leadership actually fear going there, not knowing whose turn it will be to be ripped apart during that particular month.

One thing that made WB grin uncontrollably, whether she will admit it or not, was when I said that they pay Incoherent Twit way too much for a job she can’t even do. She promptly recorded that statement verbatim, and she told me that she was writing it. I told her, that’s why I said it. I said that with me, per the Drucker article that appeared in a recent Harvard Business Review that we read at Leadership (appropriately), moving me from first-rate to excellent performance happened. But having to move Twit from her mediocre status to excellence just couldn’t happen … you just can’t move people “to the next level” if they don’t want to be there. I said that Twit will never realize the importance of her position (rather, how important it should be), and likewise, I don’t think I always appreciated how my own words and actions were truly scrutinized. But related to the last note, I said that not having an office made me want to implode, because I never had the privacy to blow off steam or to conduct myself in a professional manner on the phone, when callers would think the circus was performing 10 feet from me, with all the noise.

I said that we should give classes on manners and etiquette to a good number of staff members, before we bother teaching foster kids about it. I said that people can be so damn rude, like talking at you when you’re on the phone and just plain acting like they have no class. I bitched that the receptionists are always on personal calls, whether you hear their conversations clearly or whether they are hunched over, whispering into the phone — you know they’re a waste of the agency’s money. I said those of us who work hard, really work hard, and then there’s no group in the middle but we have the other side of the spectrum, which is a lot of dead weight. I said that the departments have strong leaders and then these deadbeats mixed in, so the pressure is on us not only to perform, but to make those assholes do something other than sit around and look stupid. I said that the move to the next level should mean moving them out the door, and while we say that’s what we should do, we aren’t doing it and it’s costing us more than money.

Overall, though, I said it’s been a positive experience. I said I learned so much and did so many things I’ve never done before, which is a good and a bad thing, because it took me a lot of time to learn those new things at the expense of not doing other things for which I was hired. However, all I ever heard was that I wasn’t accomplishing enough, when on average it takes 80 hours to write a good 10-page proposal, and sitting out in the open upped that to probably 120 hours, and mix in Twit and her incoherence, and that 80 hours per proposal suddenly jumps to probably 320 hours spent on that single piece of literature. She took all that info down; I apologized for giving her a crash course in development, but that I realize that nobody really knows what goes into my job because, well, it’s my job. And while I was at it, I said we need to go for operational support before we go creating all these brilliant new programs. While I am pleased to have learned, and become good at, program development, the fact of the matter is that no matter how much we need these new programs, the existing ones must be stabilized. Further, with new programs, you are required to provide a cash match when you get funded, whether 10 or 20 or 30 or even 50 percent. But with operations support, that’s money you get to spend wherever you need it, to free up money for other things. I mentioned that everything’s a priority, and that I never knew what to do first or next because it was always a guessing game.

My first comment was that I am leaving because of burnout, plain and simple. I love to work hard and I can’t imagine not working hard, but I can’t continue at the warp speed at which I’m working. In fact, I said that I did, in fact, show up on the job immediately, CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF!!! WB laughed and said she wouldn’t write down that comment. I told her she should. I said the generic things, that program people are put on a pedestal and that operations people kinda slide in the back door and just quietly do our jobs … that we need to front-load operations folks with trainings, especially trainings that would make us understand/appreciate program jobs more. I said that I felt like I was not included at the beginning, that I had to seek out too much info on my own that could have simply been handed to me from the get-go.

WB wasn’t able to comment on anything, but she was certainly happy to write whatever it was that I had to say. I even offered, if there were anything she wanted them to know, I’d be happy to say it myself so that she could feel free to write it! LOL.

Just talked with F/OM. I know he’s curious about what I said. I had left a joking VM for him that I told WB what a crappy supervisor he was, but I did say I was kidding and that I almost cried when I said how much I was going to miss him. He just did kind of a final check-in with me today. (Strangely, I have a major lump in my throat; I really will miss him.)

I told WB that I am sad that this didn’t work out. Mainly, I said Twit was the reason, and that I recognize my own failings as a supervisor as well, and that maybe it is possible to make Twit into a productive employee, but I guess I’m not the right person to make that happen, and I’m tired of trying.

At any rate, it’s a bittersweet moment. I don’t regret the time I’ve spent, but it’s been hard. There are just a few more things I need to wrap up (and I didn’t finish TECD’s stupid proposal, that’s due to be mailed today. HAH! Like AssTwit said, it’s not like anybody ever appreciated a single thing I did for them, so they’ll speak just as badly about me if I DON’T finish a project, particularly one that was given to me at the last minute).

On a final note, Incoherent Twit called off work today. Oh, well! Nobody bought me lunch, and I never did get out to get anything to eat. But it was a pleasant day without her! Woo Hoo!!!!!!

Bipolar.

Typically I don’t begin the daily blog with an adjective, but I just couldn’t find the right noun to sum up today’s journey through this roller-coaster ride we call life.

Had a wonderful luncheon with F/OM today. Luckily, it ended up being the two of us. I know Twit has been bugging him that we should all go out together, but she dragged her kid to work today for the third day in a row, and when I mentioned that to him, he said the kid couldn’t go but the decision was mine whether to take Twit. I told him I absolutely did not want Twit to come along … she’s spent a year being a perfect snot to me, and suddenly she’s been nice during the past four weeks, and well, I see right through her. Further, I think she just wanted F/OM to pay for lunch, even though she’s been saying that she and I should have lunch together.

Diplomatically, I approached her to say that I’d love to have lunch with her tomorrow. She said that she was under the impression that F/OM was only free today. I said that, in fact, he was, but because we wouldn’t be able to take her bratty kid along (although the kid is usually good around me, but I am not feeling particularly charitable these days), it would make more sense for me to go out with F/OM today and then with her (and if necessary, the kid) tomorrow. She became even moodier than she already was, and Charlotte told me she sulked all day. I knew she was livid, but guess what? I don’t give a shit what she thinks because she has been nothing but a rude, insensitive little slob since the day we met, and frankly, it was my day. Back when Brat’s last day rolled around, and he invited the entire Operations team out to his lunch, I decided right then and there that I wanted my lunch to be with F/OM only. F/OM is a fabulous guy, and he doesn’t let his guard down with just anyone. I thought it would be really special to have a few hours alone with him, to have real conversation, to have the bonding time that I knew we needed and to have a few minutes of talking about ourselves and really, finally, getting to know each other.

That’s what I got, and I wasn’t disappointed.

Of course we talked about work, but it was solely about how it affects both of us. We had light, easy conversation, and even though no secrets of the world were revealed, I think we both walked away with a good feeling that, although this one-on-one time was long overdue, it was well-needed and maybe even a bit therapeutic as well as enlightening. I love it when he’s real with me. I know he’s caught up in working day and night, and I know he really can’t, and doesn’t want to, become very close with anyone at work because, well, it’s simply easier to keep one’s distance. (This is the same guy who advised me to not become too good of friends with Brat and CTL because other directors didn’t really think that was a good idea because I didn’t fraternize with them.) I know he plays his cards right, and I know I could have played my hand a bit better, but which one of us is happier right now? 😉

Anyway, I am satisfied. I really hope to keep contact with him. I will remember our talk for a long time to come, because I walked away feeling really good about myself, about him, and about a lot of things. I gave him my honest-to-goodness assessment of Twit and HRP, and I did it quite maturely. I said Twit resents me because I’m not much older and because I’m white, and I said I made a mistake by thinking she wouldn’t survive in Fiscal, when, in fact, she thrived and actually enjoyed it. I advised him to take her out of development, and he told me a funny story about a piece of garbage she gave him to read and that he thinks she probably just gave it to HRP to approve because he refused to read more than the first page and a half of it. 😀

So, the first half of my day totally rocked.

Came home, chilled out, and packed four boxes (only 50 more to go! lol). Checked my VM, which I tend to neglect for days at a time. Got an interesting message from Kristin, my dear friend with whom I haven’t had much contact in the past year or three. She helped me through my miserable ordeal last summer at this time, but our communication really plummeted afterward. I always felt that despite herself, she disapproved of my decision and resulting action, and I expected that she purposely distanced herself from me because my decision really went against her sense of morality. And if that were the case, I certainly didn’t blame her … but I missed her greatly.

Anywho, she left me a VM before last Friday’s happy hour to say she couldn’t make it because she had a dinner to attend instead, but that she wanted to get together anyway. I’ve gotten several messages like that from other friends, and well, the thing is that I’m so super-busy that I don’t have time to meet (that’s why I planned the happy hour … so that I could see as many people as possible in one shot). Hell, I don’t even have time to return the phone calls (yet I still find the time to Blog, although the argument can be made that I Blog either late at night or during the workday). At any rate, it wasn’t a slight that I didn’t return the call, and she did call and leave VMs a few more times, but again, I haven’t checked my messages since last Thursday. Her final message was curt and direct … that I’ve obviously demonstrated that I do not care to talk to her, and that she’s been busy and she’s sorry she’s been out of touch, but if I’m holding that against her, well, that’s on me. Said she knows I won’t call back, because I haven’t bothered to do so, up until now.

That hurt. Really, really stung.

I didn’t call back.

It’s not that I don’t intend to call her. But right now, all I can offer are excuses as to why I haven’t called (not checking VM, packing my life into boxes in a rush, scrambling to be done with work, worries about the car and why the brakes are shot after only six months, worries about family’s health and well-being, combination of excitement and panic and depression over uprooting my life, etc. etc.), and I hate giving excuses.

She gave me a list of all the things that have been keeping her away for so long. And I have always knownj that life has been difficult and crazy and even depressing for her, and I already knew all the reasons why. I’ve had my moments of “Whatever” when it comes to her and why I never heard from her for months on end. But there was never any animosity … I always hoped that she were simply okay, if not wonderful. I am always here for her if she needs me, but I know I can’t force myself down her throat when she isn’t reaching out to me. I’ve worried about her more than she will ever know and more than I will ever care to admit. Steve and 420 Boy know how much I think about her, and they both know that because of the load of problems and worries she carries, she is impenetrable sometimes. She doesn’t want sympathy or pity or even understanding … she seems to want distance. And I grant her that, because I am the queen of wanting to distance myself from people when the going becomes too rough for me to bear.

I guess her message left me sad. My heart is heavy right now, but instead of picking up the phone at 11 p.m., I’m blogging. And that probably makes me a terrible friend. She sounded calm and strong, but her voice wavered a bit. I know she feels as alone in this world as I do, and I know we can help each other. But I must guiltily admit that 420 Boy’s recent musing, that maybe sometimes the friendship/relationship was wonderful but we have to accept the fact that it might not always be forever, entered my mind. Not that I would ever, ever want to lose her … quite the contrary, actually. But I guess I can’t make her understand how frantic my life is when I don’t even take the time to give her a call to let her know that I appreciate hearing her voice, even if I’m not hearing it in real time.

The only thing I can even say in my defense is that I emailed my current cell phone # and future address to my whole mailing list today. Yeah, I know, it’s not personal contact, but when you’re seeing 35 other names on the list, you know it isn’t just you being neglected. Further, I gave out the cell # for a reason … it’s the only way to really reach me. Another excuse? Perhaps. But I’ve always been honest with everyone that I am pretty much accessible only by email, and now the cell is the second best way.

It goes back to yesterday’s entry … how I pretty much lost touch with everyone since this job started. But will I be in contact when I move 250 miles away, when I couldn’t even pick up a phone while I was in the city? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now, other than the fact that I am really upset and wish I could make things better.

Crap.

Trivia.

Going to lunch with F/OM tomorrow. Here’s to hoping that Incoherent Twit is not included. She had emailed him that the three of us should go out. Gaaah. He didn’t mention her when he asked if I’m free for tomorrow. Keep yer fingers crossed for me!

Two days @ Two Strikes. Yeah!

Social life is picking up again. Hallelujah! Financial life is in ruins, though. This move is killing me! And kiss the disposable income goodbye, after this. Blah. Can’t even afford to pick up my dry cleaning … I dropped off 22 items, six weeks ago. The cleaner is PISSED!

Oh well. But where my wallet is empty, my soul is filling up again. Two Strikes bruised the spirit but the soul is still intact and untouched.

Survivor game: I give CTL two months, max. Charolette has 10 months, Republican Woman has nine months, Soon to be Married will be there forever, and EWB has maybe two years. Those are my initial picks for Island exiles. But the next one will be AssTwit, the hands-down loser of this round. She’s ready to run, not walk, for the nearest exit. And who would even blame her? When your supervisor tells you every day, “I don’t want to talk to you. Go away,” or, “Don’t speak to me when I first arrive at the office,” or, “You need to not bother me,” I’d be a tad bit upset, too.

I just wonder what HRP said to F/OM at last night’s board meeting. He’s been hauling ass, and I understand that HRP had a few unkind words. Again, surprise. But you can’t treat your top people like that and keep expecting them to lube up their asses a little bit more so they can keep taking it! Do you know how many bottles of KY I’ve used since I started there? lol … I know, TMI!!!!

Insight.

Thanks to my dear friend Gerry B. for sharing this poem with me during a particularly rough time I experienced last year. Written by Veronica A. Shoffstall, the poem appeared in a “Dear Abby” column. While cleaning out my storage closet tonight (yes, the packing process begins!), I found it again and realized that the other strong women in my life may benefit from the words as much as I do.

“After a While”

After a while you learn

the subtle difference between

holding a hand

and chaining a soul

and you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning

and company doesn’t always mean security.

And you begin to learn

that kisses aren’t contracts and

presents aren’t promises

and you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and your eyes ahead

with the grace of a woman

not the grief of a child

and you learn

to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow’s ground is

too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.

After a while you learn

that even sunshine burns

if you get too much

so plant your own garden

and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting

for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn

that you really can endure

that you really are strong

and you really do have worth

and you learn

and you learn

with every goodbye you learn.”

Acceptance.

I blogged heartily this morning, but crashed with a Type 2 error just as I hit “post & publish.” Blah.

But I’m a lot calmer than I was at 7 a.m. I was slightly furious yesterday, due to our Happy Homewood Hell (but it WAS my last Leadership Retreat! Woo Hoo!!!). HRP managed to be wonderfully nice to everyone except, oh, yours truly (not a surprise, by any standards … the bitch definitely seized her final opportunity to slam me publicly). We will put aside the fact that, due to my efforts, $90K rolled in last week. We will even overlook the fact that, during a tantalizing lunch of Soul Food (my last meal from Soul Food Connection! Yeah!), we were officially notified that we are receiving $25K from the County for our YW program (the brilliant proposal that I whipped together in two … count them, TWO … days) in March. No, my name never came up, nor the fact that I have been of some use to the agency, Oh, no. What did happen was that HRP ranted that I didn’t bother showing up for the first six months of employment; that if I’d cranked out the work that I’ve done in the final six months of my employment, she would have been impressed. She told me that she wishes me all the luck in the world with my new venture, but that she certainly hopes that I show up a lot sooner than I bothered to do at Two Strikes.

I can’t believe she was able to look me in the eyes as she said that. And I can’t believe that I didn’t lunge for the jugular. My mom raised me with much more class and poise than that wench will ever possess, which is why I didn’t even attempt to argue with my superior in public. However, Mom said that she would have been even more proud of me if I’d just beaten the shit out of the cunt, right in front of everyone. 🙂 Go, Mom!!!

Poor 420 Boy has had to hear me in hysterics for the second time. I talked to him after the retreat, and I was livid and torn and downtrodden. And poor Charolette stood by, patiently listening and telling me how much worse off the place will be, when I am gone. I couldn’t help going loony tunes … My 50-plus hours per week (sometimes, many, many more hours than that) are only now starting to pay off. HRP gives me this staff of Incoherent Twit, a post-retirement lady who essentially shows up once in awhile to collect a paycheck, Large Smelly Woman as my secretary, and for a brief while, Lab Rat. The deck was definitely stacked against me, from the beginning. Furthermore, I pulled the setup of this department out of my ass … there WAS a development department, in a crude incarnation, months before I arrived, but I came in and kicked out all the old crap and started my own department from scratch. It took time to lay the foundation, time to get Incoherent Twit to at least respect me as her supervisor, and time to write/send out proposals. It is only now that the money is starting to roll in … it is only now that we at least have research and “stock proposals” that we can modify as new funding opportunities arise … it is only now that I just do the work that I feel needs to be done instead of trying to figure out what the fuck that bitch wants. And it is only in the past month that I have been truly happy.

Saw friends last night. Saying goodbye to Dawn in particular was the hardest thing I have had to do in a long, long time. Cried for 45 minutes after we parted ways, although we only agreed that we were saying, “See you later” rather than goodbye. I guess it finally hit me that I am about to move away from the people and the city I love. Dawn’s been a treasure, and she will always be.

She was concerned about losing touch, but then clarity struck: I lost touch with so many friends and loved ones already because of Two Strikes. This place has made me stop caring about the very things that made me who I am. When was the last time I wrote a poem, read a book, returned an email, cleaned my apartment? A year ago, on most counts. I’ve left the workplace so sad and depressed, and I’ve always been too tired to do anything but order a pizza and veg on the couch till I crashed. Hell, I’ve been too tired to even pack, and my big move is on Monday!!!

So, to hell with feeling bad all the time. Three more days at Two Strikes! In fact, 21 hours to go. And counting. And hoping to just make it through with no more run-ins from HRP, because the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was placed upon it at the Leadership fiasco. But this camel has just enough energy to pick herself up one more time and kick somebody in the ass, if occasion should arise. Remember, I do not let opportunities pass me by … give me 10 minutes with HRP, and I would open up a big ole’ can of whoop-ass! (oh, I’ve always wanted to use that phrase! LOL … I’ve spent too long at Two Strikes! hah!)

Charolette, hang in there … you’ve got friends who care about you, even when you can’t come out and play! We love you!

Fury.

Just got rear-ended. Spent yesterday in Virginia (at least I didn’t get hit at 85 mph by all the nutcases on wheels out there. (do those people believe in turn signals? or not trying to clip off your front bumper? don’t they realize my car is made of plastic?) But they say all accidents happen within two miles of your home. I was stopping at the stop sign (imagine that!) at the intersection of Virginia and Wyoming. He, however, had other plans for me. After he bumped me through the stop sign, I threw it in park and nearly killed him. I haven’t been home since 9 a.m. yesterday, and here it is 11 p.m., and if I had the energy, I would have knocked him to the ground. I told him as much.

No visible damage, but I got the info anyway. Didn’t have his insurance info with him (that’s fishy). Said he’s with Progressive. I took his driver’s license info and what not. He was driving a 1987 Grand Am, so of course plowing right into my 2002 Sunfire is gonna hurt me a LOT more than it’s gonna hurt him. Dumbfuck.

I need to take Samantha Jones to the dealer because my brakes are shot anyway. Now I have a whole ‘nother reason to haul her in. Great. Just fucking great. I haven’t even made a car payment in over six weeks (damn move is killing me, between movers and new apartment). Not regretting the decision, just questioning it, at this point, for various reasons.

I have got to go. Just pissed. Just very, very pissed right now. And have to spend tomorrow in Homewood. Wonder if I can blow this retreat off if I take my car to the dealer? LOL … HRP would toast F/OM for letting me miss two consecutive beat-up meetings, I am certain! That, and I didn’t mail two proposals that were due on Friday. Oh, well!!! Cry me a fucking river. I don’t care anymore. I just can’t. No reason to.

Ire.

So Charolette just called me from the sanctity of F/OM’s vacant office. She asked if I’d heard the news … that our mental health clinic was just funded by a major foundation. Apparently, HRP was dancing in the hallway. Had I heard the news? What, did she expect HRP to actually let me know something related to my department? Did she actually think that we communicate like normal colleagues around here? That my superior would let me know about a major funding coup because I might have had something to do with it?!?!

I know EXACTLY who funded us, because I WROTE THE FUCKING PROPOSAL!!!!! I lost close to two weeks of my life (including four nights of sleep) to get that motherfucker in the phenomenal shape that it was in. I’d had a huge argument with HRP about that very proposal, because I’d killed myself to have the writing 99 percent finished within one week (which was good ’cause I thought I had longer because HRP told me I had longer and I did my research and found out I only had two weeks). Anyway, during our famous argument, she said I should’ve worked at a slower pace and not driven myself and my department crazy, and I said that I believed my information was correct about the fast-approaching deadline, and thus, I was glad to have gotten the bulk of the work done as quickly as I had. So HRP snarls, “Whatever gets you to sleep at night.”

Hah.

At any rate, the foundation funded $90K of my $200K request. Do you know how I know? Because Programme Directeur just came to talk to me (about something unrelated) and congratulated me on getting the funding. Said I’d better put it on my resume. LOL. At least somebody cared enough to tell me, but it wasn’t exactly as soon as the call came in, you can bank on it. And at least I found out today, not tomorrow or next week.

And I am SO GLAD that this proposal was funded, particularly because at the leadership retreat I missed, HRP went off on a tangent about how the department didn’t earn its salary. Now, between this and another large grant, I was responsible for $350K coming in to the agency. So I didn’t earn my salary? Fuck that shit … I earned my salary more than eight times over, between two grants. Just imagine when/if my other proposals become funded … I am worth more to that agency than any of them are willing to admit. And it’s a damn shame that they let people like me walk away because they don’t give two shits about keeping us. No, they keep the useless ones and make the rest of us feel like shit when we struggle to carry the dead weight. Well, my load has been lifted … I am no longer responsible for the financial future of a place that kicks you when you’re down and beats the shit out of you when you’re not as down as you usually are!!!