Um, Hello?!?

When did I become Mariska Hargitay?

Why, hello there.

Two of my closest friends recently lost people in their lives in the past week. I was happily avoiding my own feelings of loss when I was with them.

Can we just hit rewind about 4 months when all the animals we loved were still alive? That would be great.

Speaking of, I have never been so monumentally not over something in my entire life. I'm about to tell you something. Please, don't think less of me. Please, don't check me into the funny farm. I know it isn't true, but it's weird. I think Grubb is haunting me. Now you want to know what makes me think that cause you picked up the phone and are searching for the nearest institution. Sometimes, when I'm alone, I smell a fart. I'm positive it didn't come from me, and yet I smell fart plain as day. It's funny, and kinda sad that I'm overcome with sadness when I smell a fart. Where I get in the weeds is when I'm upset by something else, hard day, etc. all I want is to get a little Grubb time in. It always comforted me. The the downward spiral of thinking begins.

I guess the appropriate thing to do is to find something constructive that would take my mind of things. I'm open for suggestions.

Today's the day

I've hit my limit. My bullshit limit. My "No thank you, I will not get shit on any more" limit.

Two weeks from now I won't have a job.

Not really sure what I'm going to do.

First, I'm going to focus on not being so god damned sad all the time. We shall see after that.

Here is the other thing about my job...

The customers.

I actually have feelings in my cold, cold heart. Some of them good feelings towards these people that come and talk to me all the time. For instance, one of my regulars is a black man that used to be a diesel mechanic. He is the friendliest nicest man. He only has three fingers due to an accident in said profession. He will have constant pain in his hand for the rest of his life. And still he has the capacity to be really kind. He will talk to me about whatever. I will actually miss him. One of my other regulars that I will miss is a substance abuse councilor. He likes to come in and encourage me about my future, and tell me everything will be alright.

Friday, first customer of the day, a grown man, crying. Sobbing, is the more accurate word. He needed twenty dollars to get his woman out of jail. They had a fight because he didn't wake up before noon and she hit him. There was a pretty good scratch on his face. He also had what I refer to as the "bum tan" (incase you aren't hip to it, it is a tan-like coloration, but it could be from the sun, it could be from dirt). At 10 o'clock in the morning he did smell a little like alcohol, though he didn't necessarily seem drunk. Maybe he was just sweating it out. He had crystal clear blue eyes that are a tad unnerving with his dark skin and hair. Also a tad unnerving when they are red and swollen from the sobbing. Some people may not think that would keep you at your job,but that encounter was the most genuine thing I had experienced in a long time. I'm not sure he was telling me the truth. I have no idea if he was acting, but even acting can be genuine. It was a good performance. He found something in himself that made him cry. It was a strange experience.

I met a woman yesterday who used to own a thrift store in New York. Then she went to graduate school, got her masters in linguistics and got her dream job- working with refugees. Then she got laid off. She told me some short little stories about these people's lives in Africa and how grateful they were to be here and not get raped on the way to school. She told me how hard she finds life and how jobs wear you down. How she wishes she had the money back from college and she should have used it to buy a house and get a job at Home Depot so she had health insurance. It is nice to have someone tell you all the things you think everyday. It made my day. Then I promptly made her's by discounting the hell out of her guitar. It was a nice exchange and she left really happy.

There are really good things about my job or I would have quit a long time ago.

Here's the thing about my job. I'm the low person on the totem pole. Why? Because instead of saying no (or other very choice words) I just quietly do whatever I'm told. So when the girl I work with, who thinks she has more seniority than me, but we have the same job title, stops mid transaction with a customer, puts the money on the counter, says, "Hey, finish this up" and walks out of the store to buy some pain pills in the parking lot, I look at the money lying on the counter and can't bring myself to leave it there cause I don't want to deal with the rain of shit that will come from the manager's mouth and the yelling that will ensue if we are short. For some reason the people at this store think it is okay to stop mid transaction with a customer and somebody else to finish. It happens all the time. Not just her.

Then I get written up for my sales for July. First off, I wasn't even at that store for all of July. Second, that is no way to get me to sell more. Third, have these people ever even heard of morale. Fourth, this happened at the end of AUGUST. Prompt. I'm pretty sure I didn't meet my goals for August either. So, I guess about December I'll get written up for that. No coaching. No helping me. Just putting on paper that I didn't meet my goals, and I'm expected too. They make it sound as if I do nothing. I wrote more loans than everyone in the store. I wrote almost double the loans of another person, but did they get written up? No. The manager is so concerned about her loan balance. News flash I'm the only person that is writing that many loans. Do you want your loan balance up or not? We have a ranking system that depends on what you sell, how many loans you write. I'm number 2- always. Not number 4. There are two people under me that should be written up, in my opinion. And if you have to write up 3 of your four employees for productivity, why bother. Why don't they just make us sign something every day after work that says we did a shitty job?

Meanwhile the manager yells at us. For no reason at all. There is at least one point in every day where she is yelling. It is the least effective managing strategy I have ever seen. I watch everybody do nothing until she starts yelling about it. Nobody's happy after that.

Did I mention the 9 hours I'm about to work without so much as a 15 minute break. No way I'm getting to eat anything.

Happy times. Happy times.

I went to the cactus and succulent show on Sunday. I bought a lot of new stuff. I bought six raffle tickets for five dollars and won twice. I got six plants for five dollars.

I had a consultation with a therapist. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I don't exactly feel all butterflies and rainbows afterwards. I don't want my day off poo poo ed by that.

This Sunday I am going to buy some native ferns.

I can't get into a routine. I feel overly busy all the time. I can't even figure it out. I'm either busy or bored.

Oh, hell

Maybe this makes me a terrible person, or narcissistic, and shallow, and conceited or whatever, but I make a conscience effort to not be myself at work. I don't think the people I work with deserve to be around my effervescence. Sometimes, it comes out and I make people laugh. Accidents. Mostly, I say very little. I make faces, shrug my shoulders, and make noises of approval or disapproval. If I do make words they are usually, I don't know. Consequently, I can't turn it on it and off very good. So Lauren emerges from the deep only on my days off it feels like. It's not fun. I wish I could not care. I don't like to be myself at work. It isn't appropriate. I feel gross, or like I went naked.

I really hope my luck changes. I need a lot of changes.

I can't recover from one day, before the next one starts.