Good grief, after a mostly drama-laden weekend, I find myself happy to be at work.  I don't think that there was anything of import that went down this weekend.  I attempted to push myself and have a good time, but outside of Tulip Fest, there wasn't much interesting to report.  Being sick will do that to you...  at least on the other end it will.

Mother's Day was uneventful, though I did enjoy taking my mom out.  FyreSpawn spent the day with his father, only calling me after prompted by my mother and stopping briefly to deliver (very sweet) gifts to me.

Huge raging blow out with a good friend kicked off the weekend(I am not talking to him, petty though that may be, I need time to stew) and this is the second time it's happened in virtually the same way.  I'm at the point of trying to decide if we stick with the three-strike rule and let it potentially happen again or if I'm just fed up enough to write him off after 6 years of strong friendship.  Until I feel less petty and am finished stewing, this is not a decision to make, just one to think on.

I did learn, however, how to hang up on someone face-to-face.  It is rather gratifying I find.

Baby Mama drama continues.  It makes me tired to think about it.  I don't think that I could even begin to type that story from now and there is no way in hell I'm telling the whole thing.  It never ever ends and it's the child of Chaos who suffers.

Random comments shouted by strangers shouldn't affect me, but sometimes they do, especially when I'm already in a funky state of mind.  Called it an early night and walked home in the rain.  At least it was a warm rain.

Sunday, the disappointing Mother's Day, I found out about the death of someone I had fond memories of.  Not my family, but that of someone close to me and I'm grieving a little inside.  I'm also trying to be supportive and to assist (as possible) with the travel arrangements for the Dragonmaker.  Granted, I have my own selfish motives in this (namely that if I'm going to have this contest and put whatever plan I wind up with into effect it's got to be now or WEEKS - horrible, pining weeks - from now), but it's my belief that everyone has selfish motives no matter what they do.

Even though I'll be at work late tonight, I've been productive this week (all two days of it) and all I really have to do is babysit the process as others learn the ropes.  I don't really mind being at work this week, though.  I feel much better after hitting the point of actually burning out and think that I've staved it off for at least a week, if not longer.

Promises, promises, but next week may be the week I regain my life.

They always call me brave for stupid things.  Things people are too self-conscious to do that I do without thinking.  Even Liz called me brave the other day for something I did without thinking.  Now, I know that I'm brave, really I do...  how many people would chase the GMB around the house trying to get a decent picture?  How many people feel comfortable enough to speak their mind to people who have the power to fire them?  How many people ask the ghetto rats to ask politely for a cigarette and then jump out with "DUDE, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?" when they cross the line?  I know I'm brave, but more often I'm either stupid or unthinking.

But, you know, the bravery wanes often.  Even when I do brave things, things that I consider brave either as or after I'm doing them, there's a good measure of fear involved and there are certain rules I set for myself to prevent my heart from breaking or my ego from bruising.

My pride is not my be all end all as I know it is for some people, but my ego is a lot more fragile than I let on to pretty much anyone.  I pretend to be so full of self-confidence that it's intimidating, but the reality is that I do it to keep my own doubt at bay.  I have a hard enough time with the doubt of others, but when the self-doubt comes into play, it's all over.

I can't handle rejection.  I can't even handle perceived rejection.  I have a hard time even taking criticism, though I often crave it and am trying, at this point, to warn people that I won't take it well, but I will take it in, think on it and appreciate it at some later date after licking my perceived wounds.

This is why I have such a hard time asking for things, whether it's a date (romantic or otherwise), a favor or even assistance.  I just can't take it when people say no.  I'm a pretty persuasive person and can usually talk people into almost anything, but part of that, I believe, comes from the fact that I simply cannot take it when people reject me, even if it's just as "No."

Little by little those rejections break tiny pieces of my heart.  They usually grow back, but when it comes in a rush, those little pieces add up and I find myself retreating into a shell of fear, waiting for regrowth before I am, once again, brave enough to put myself on the line again.  It just hurts too much for me to deal with it, but I would never let that pain show.

Emotionally cold is what they often think of me.  The reason that's the perception, though, is because I am too cowardly to let anyone know the pain that I feel over the little things that wound me deep.

I hurt today, but I will never tell him why...  or even that.  However, I will retreat, and even if he notices, he will probably never know it was he who hurt me.  As pathetic as this may seem, I wouldn't want to hurt him by letting him know that he hurt me.

Brave?  Not really.  Just stupid and a little too sensitive sometimes.

~FG };^>

When I was little I loved Garfield.  I had all of the however many books that were written until the point at around 10 (when I really discovered real books) when I decided it was lame and repetitive.  But for a long time, Garfield was the bomb.  I remember reading over and over again about how much he hated Mondays and, as time went on, I learned that this is a common feeling.

Everyone always talks about how horrible Mondays are, the start of the work week, the start of the school week, the last remnants of the weekend until the alarm clock rings and you go back to your mundane life.  I never really had that problem.

I kind of like Mondays.  I'm still rested from the weekend, flying high from whatever exploits I experienced.  The day flies right by, by noon I'm shocked that it's already lunchtime and I find myself to be pretty damn productive in the beginning of the week.

Tuesdays are similar to Mondays.  Still rested, the day still goes by relatively quick.  Even though it's my first late night of the week, I still have decent energy and get things done.  Lighthearted, happy-go-lucky me, I find that I'm still holding on to all of those things.

Thursday is planning day.  Setting up the plans for the weekend, starting to wrap up whatever is going to be left over for the week.  It's my second late night of the week, but I usually have a nice car ride whether with a friend or in a cab and I'm counting down the hours to when I can leave work on Friday.

Friday is the TGI day.  The first night of the weekend, one of the two going out nights.  Payday.  No matter what happens, you can usually take heart in the fact that it's almost over and you get a whole two days to yourself.

Wednesday, though, is a completely different matter.

Middle of the week.  Too far from last weekend to still be recovered; too far from the coming weekend to really start looking forward to it.  It's the longest day of the week and it seems like most people are just going through in a daze.  They call it Hump Day, but I can't remember the last time I humped on a Wednesday :-P

A friend of mine told me that he and a few others had conducted an unofficial study on Help Desk tickets placed throughout the week.  Wednesday was the day that most people called to complain and the day when they had the least patience for whatever fix needed to be implemented.

Even the spelling of the day is fucked up.

I firmly believe that everyone hates Wednesdays, they just don't realize it.  It's socially acceptable to dislike Mondays, but I repeatedly have to explain my utter loathing for Wednesday.  Once I explain, though, they generally understand what I'm talking about.  Regardless of what day it is, I find that the really horrible days get referred to as Wednesdays (though usually they also occur on Wednesdays, it's not unusual for me to say on, say, a Tuesday "Oh, man, I had a Wednesday").

People are listening.  They GET IT.  I've had friends call me to say "I had the worst day.  Fyre, I had a WEDNESDAY!" and recently I heard a co-worker having a horrible day (Thursday, though it was) shout out "Goddamnit!  What day is it?  Is it Wednesday???"  I'm affecting people.  They DO understand.

As far as I'm concerned, there's really only one redeeming feature of Wednesdays.

Lost.  8pm, ABC

The true irony of it all will be if the day I die just happens to be a Wednesday.  How much you wanna bet...?

~FG };^>

"I gotta go" was all I really could say as the room swam, my stomach turned and I shivered uncontrollably.  I don't know that I've ever quite worked myself to that point before, but there's nothing else I can think of to explain it.

I think that part of the problem is simply how intent I am on getting the job done, regardless of what it costs me, but the toll that's being exacting seems like it's going to be a harsh one.  Don't get me wrong, I love the work that I do.  I never would have made the career change 5 years ago if I didn't ADORE working in IT, but this project just keeps taxing me.

Something's gotta give and the promises that it will are not so much filled with hope as causing me to doubt that it will happen, making more stress for me.  I've had two miracle nights in a row where the job ran so smoothly that it was almost frightening (did I skip a step?  did I screw it up?  how many voice mails will I come into tomorrow?), but I'm trying to take it in stride.

My whole body hurts.  I'm freezing and I think I might be running a fever.  I want to sleep for DAYS. 

And there are enough people who would take all of that and take a few days off.  Not me, though.  I'm either just that dedicated or just that stupid that tomorrow at 6am I'll be up and getting ready for work.  I'll stay until anywhere between 7pm and 10pm (depending on the problems), come home, pass out (no dinner) and wake up on Friday to start the grind all over again.

I need to finish this project so that I can move forward and start working on something else.  The tedium of the details and the repeated process over and over and over again...  they're all factors in this ridiculous thing.  Other people are seeing it; shit, other people are SAYING things about it.  I'm so tired these days and trying to preoccupy my own thoughts with distractions like crushes and weekend plans are not working at all.

I guess I'm running on autopilot now.  The main concern is whether or not I'm going to run out of gas.

~FG };^>

I'm rapidly getting to the point of burnout.  I've been doing this job for six months and am now out of patience.  I have no patience for users, no patience for the scripts, no patience for my own ridiculous mistakes.

One friend of mine keeps referring to me as a raging bitch :(

I don't think it's quite that bad, but going from the exceptionally nice and sweet person that I am to this no patience "I don't have to take your shit" person that is becoming more and more often the outward projection, I can see where she's coming from.  Thankfully, the boys don't necessarily agree.  It was even said "Uh, no, we don't take that sort of shit".

Right on.

But I'm still burning out.  Rapidly.  I felt like I just wanted to scream or smash something or maybe just start crying last night.  Thank gods that it worked well and ended reasonably early.  The sun was still out when I left, for the second time I was not the last one in the office to leave, I actually got to have dinner and went out with the boys for bowling.  It was nice.

I've also been promised some measure of my life back, starting next week.  This is cool, but I worry it won't come to pass.  My boss says that it really will, he will see to it, and I think a lot of that is coming from the fact that you can see on my face and in my body language that I'm not going to last much longer if things keep up the way they are now.

Counting down now.  Three days to the weekend.

Oh crap.  It's Wednesday.

~FG };^>

... like I've been tied, to the whipping post, tied to the whipping post, tied to the whipping post.

Oh lord, I feel like I'm dying.

******

That's a little melodramatic, I guess, but it comes fairly close.  I feel like screaming.  I feel like crying.  I feel like maybe something inside of me is dying a little bit.

Today is a bad day.

Lack of sleep certainly doesn't help.  The dreary chill of the rain doesn't help and I feel like the slightest anything could cause my heart to break.  I'm pissy and weepy and fucking tired.  I don't want to stay late, I don't want to train people and I certainly don't want to be yelled at ANY MORE.

But I think everyone is kind of pissy today.  It seems like it's just a bad day for pretty much everyone I know...  and everyone I've spoken to...  and almost everyone I've ever heard of.

But damn, I just want to go home and get some real sleep.

~FG };^>

I hate when I can't sleep.  I hate it more when my sleep is broken by disturbing dreams that affect my reality the next day.  Though I should have gotten a full 8, I think it was really only 5, certainly not in one shot, though.

The biggest problem was the dreams.  You know those nights where you have dreams that seem so real that you wake up the next morning still affected by them?  That's the sort of night I had.  I'm trying not to be angry with certain people who "wronged me" in my sleep.  I'm also trying to remember why, exactly, I feel angry with them.

These were pretty unpleasant dreams.

I can find subconscious reasons for some of it.  There's one person I've been angry with for a while and holding back, lying in wait for the right time.  Amusingly enough, I'm RL angry at him, and while he did wrong me in dreams, I'm no more angry than I was before.

Others, though, have not only done *nothing* wrong, I can't imagine why they would.  The dream scenarios I experienced are pretty far from anything one would expect to happen in the real world.  And yet, I cannot shake this feeling that I have valid reasons to be angry with them.

This is not something I want to explain to people I dreamt about.  I fear that avoidance of those specific people could easily prompt them to demand an explanation, but spending time with them could cause me to act bitter and strained only because, as ridiculous as I know it is, I am still angry.

*shakes head*

This is really ridiculous.  I hate the way my mind works sometimes.  I'm really not angry at anyone, just at their behaviors that came from somewhere deep inside my twisted, sleeping mind.

~FG };^>

So last Wednesday I got home from work as usual, the only unusual thing was that I had not had a Wednesday (explanation coming soon).  I didn't feel like cooking so I decided to take a bath and then order out for me and the kid.

Much to my surprise, when I went into the bathroom, there was kitten harassing what I believed at the time to be the biggest spider I had ever seen that was not someone's pet.  I looked a little closer and I saw that it was not actually a spider, it was a bug.  Now I thought it was a beetle.

It wasn't until the kid came by that we realized it was a bee...  a giant bee, one of which I have never seen the like.  I tell you, the bee was the size of my thumb.  The whole thumb, not just the first joint.

So, being the adventurous, insane person that I am, instead of catching the bee right then, I decided to stalk it and try to get a picture.  None of them are very good, but here we go:

This is the first picture, the bee on the wall in the hallway.  Perspective is a little off, but yes, that is the smoke detector behind the bee, giving you some idea of the fact that I am not exaggerating.


Next up, we have the reason (at this point) that the GMB was angry:


And finally, where I finally caught the bee, desperately trying to escape the clutches of the cat, smart enough to try the window:

The girls are tired of hearing those words now.  Of this I am sure, considering they are repeatedly subjected to this phrase coming out of my mouth.

The problem is that it is SO TRUE.  I crush him deeply and increasingly.  It's getting bad.  I work very hard to not build things up in my mind (this time), but the reality is that he's so close to my ideal (at least from what I've seen so far) that it literally frightens me.

I swear to you, he is the yin to my yang.  An ego at least as big as mine, but with that laid-back "Yes, I am just that good (and I have the facts to back it up)" kind of feel to it.  It's a rarity with arrogance and egotism, in my experience, more so with guys.  Not afraid to call bullshit when I'm bullshitting and, as far as I can tell, not afraid to hear it either.

I guess the word is simpatico and believe me, it is quite appealing.  He danced with me.  Not a "shall we dance" kind of thing, but just grabbing me and dancing me around the room.  This is exactly the sort of thing I firmly believe there should be more of.  A complete gentleman with no pretensions about it, holding doors (as appropriate), offering his coat, walking me home, but sadly (*sigh*) never crossing the line.

Much to my dismay.

Wow, long and busy weekend I'm coming out of.  I've been really feeling lately like I need to find new ways to regain the fun in my life, and considering the local friends I have (or at least the ones I used to spend my time with) that fun has been more and more elusive.

Too many people are feeling old or are overbooked or, quite frankly, are getting old in mindset if not in age.  I have very little patience for this kind of thinking.  But it doesn't necessarily take peers for me to have a good time.  Brave as I am (heh), I will often go out solo, but if I've got the kid, we'll aim for more family-oriented fun, instead of the grownup kind of fun that leads to remembering why we don't get a sitter on weekends we have the kid.

So the weekend kicked off with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  We brought our towels, to the delight of the Spectrum staff and to the mixed dismay, confusion and envy of our fellow movie-seers.  The guy behind the ticket counter hopes we started a trend, as do I.  Thankfully, the kid agrees that it was worth it, don't forget your towel.

A brief pause here to mention I loved this movie!  Truly, it was fantastic.  Sure, it wasn't entirely true to the novels, and the purists who expect it to stick to the radio program or novel will be disappointed, but purists of anything almost always are.  Those who adored that crap of a BBC series, they may also be disappointed, but they can kiss my ass for thinking of that as the be all end all instead of the garbage that it was.  Disappointed primarily in the non-Adams 15%, encompassing the Trillian/Arthur romance, but I must say the dolphin song and dance at the beginning (written by Burt Bacharach and prompting me immediately, upon arriving home, to purchase the soundtrack) made up for any and all transgressions.

Let's see what opinions further viewings may bring.  I would really like to see it again.

Saturday was a quiet day.  Mostly just hung around the house, watched DVDs and didn't do too much.  Mom picked up the kid and this was where we started to learn why we don't get a sitter on weekends we have the kid.  The original intent of the babysitter was going with a buddy to see Sin City a second time.

Pause to talk about viewing #2.  Still a very good movie, still the most comic book comic book movie I have EVER seen before, but this time I didn't enjoy it quite so much.

A friend of mine from work had told me the reasons he didn't like the movie, which I found valid at the time of hearing it.  The problem was that this time I noticed it with those words in mind.  The 40's-era style of dialog was more prominent and less enjoyable having heard that as a reason he hadn't received the movie quite so well.  The second viewing, the suspense was gone.  I already knew what was going to happen and how.  The graphic violence was, though still graphic, not jarring and didn't affect me with the same horror it did the first time.

All told, still a good movie, but I doubt now that I'll actually buy it on DVD.  Worth seeing, ok to see more than once, but overall, more of a one-time excellence than something that lasts through repeated viewings.

So the movie ended shortly before midnight, but I'm the type of person who insists on maximizing the freedom of the rare babysitter, so I applied the very small amount of peer pressure necessary to keep Mike off the list of "Friends who are lame and suck for it."  He acquiesced and we headed down to the bar.

I suppose that I shouldn't list off my exploits as "What happens in the Bleeker, stays in the Bleeker", so I'll just say this:  One, I should know better than to drink on an empty stomach.  I do not like being a lightweight.  Two, seeing double is fun ;).  ((Two of you, and two of you, and two of YOU...  just take my glasses, please.))  Three, the free internet condom is a wonderful conversation piece, especially when the boys go through your purse.  Four, arrogance (a very large ego), exhibitionism and alcohol is a dangerous combination, but a whole hell of a lot of fun!  Five, the last time I tangoed was years ago, in pixels.  It's WAY more fun in real life.

I adore dancing.  Especially with a competent (and cute *sigh*  *crush*) partner...

We closed the bar, so that's another virginity to cross off the metaphorical list.  Home at 5ish, bed around 7:30 (apparently I am the bad influence, though I beg to differ *pointed look*  Yeah, you know who you are), kid home at 11.

This is why we don't get a sitter.  This is also why it's GOOD to be one of the lucky ones who avoids hangovers without taking any steps.  It is, however, a BAD thing to be on so little sleep and have to at least attempt to be a competent mother.

Yeah, this is why we don't get a sitter.  But, hey, next weekend is a kid-free weekend, Tulip Fest and the contest.  Good grief, I think I found the fun, now I'm just waiting to see what kind of price is going to be exacted from it.