it's amazing what eating crappy food will do to my brain, and i can't help but wonder if that is why i've had such crazy dreams my whole life. they seem to have stopped when i started eating well, but came back with a vengeance the last few nights when i've eaten a lot of sugar and other junky foods.
last night i dreamed about this set of triplets i used to go to school with. i'm friends with one of them on facebook so it's not a huge stretch that i'd dream about him. something about a treasure hunt that resulted in finding a huge jewel in the middle of a circular cement structure underground that was filled with water. i think there was danger involved but the dream is fading from memory. unfortunately the other one isn't. i dreamed about a guy i used to have a huge crush on named john. in one part of the dream i was doing a psycho drive-by, hanging out in front of his house with a friend but hoping like hell john couldn't see me through the huge plate glass window in his living room. in the other part of the dream we were making out and he had a hard on. great, except he wanted to turn around so i could give him a rim job. he was still fully clothed, but expected me to somehow penetrate his butt with my mouth/tongue through denim. i just remember blowing hot air through the jeans and groping to see if he still had a hard on.
yeah. i could live without dreams like that one. really.
it's such an unimportant, tiny particle of my day - and yet, i'm focusing on it. troubling it. working on letting it go, mostly.
this morning the vp advised me that i need to not send out emails like the ones i've been sending out about vacation days/holidays because they're being misunderstood and misconstrued in other offices (i use a distribution list for our office that inexplicably has the ceo, cfo, cio and director of human resources on there). on the friday before president's day weekend, i sent out an email reminding people that hey, monday is a holiday and friday is the company party, and isn't that great, a short week followed up with a celebration? seemed innocent enough. but apparently it was interpreted as me being anti-work and encouraging other people to be the same, because employees who are loyal and love the company apparently don't get happy or excited or even display the least bit of joy at the thought of a three day weekend. apparently, it was wrong to encourage people to be happy about not working, because if they want to work we should encourage them to work. or something.
this came after i got a talking to for reminding people about a different upcoming holiday, and reminding them too of the benefit we have wherein if you opt to work on a given holiday, you can take the holiday another time. i was told not to advertise that because we don't want people to take advantage of that opportunity too much.
ooooookay. so, i can't remind people they can work on a holiday, and i can't encourage people to appreciate having a day off. got it.
i felt kind of bad for the bearer of the criticism, because today was probably the worst day he could have picked. on top of feeling underappreciated and underutilized, i was super emotional and delicate today. so i cried. hard. to his face. that was the second time i cried, because he forwarded me the email and then came to talk to me about it and reassure me not to take it personally. the first time i cried was when he flippantly mentioned it as he was leaving to run an errand. "by the way, i've been meaning to tell you... i'll send you one of the emails when i get back but don't worry about it okay?"
yeah, sure. i just hate to think that there's someone out there, someone high up, who is reading these completely well-intentioned emails from me and getting pissed about them. it's ridiculous, and it makes me think. hard. about a lot of things. apparently the rest of the company - a company we merged with last year - is nothing like the office i work in. we're laid back, forward-thinking, open-minded and all sorts of other things.there's no way people in my particular office would misinterpret my intentions.
i guess i just hate that i'm being broken down. i appreciate working in an environment where personality is allowed, and i guess this isn't it. i guess i need to bear that in mind and act accordingly for as long as i work there.
i guess today can kiss my ass (or someone else's), and i look forward to tomorrow being different.
today was busy at work. i appreciate that. tonight was good in that i had two sets of plans and both were fun. however, i had to realize a few things. one, strip clubs are only good experienced when drunk. two, that particular bar smelled like a grehound bus and would be better served with a different odor. third, i need to establish some contact.
also, i bought a ticket to london today. i'll be there the last week of april and i cannot wait.
as i was lying in bed last night waiting for sleep to come, i had to acknowledge just how happy my bed makes me. seriously. it's borderline ridiculous. when i'm leaving for work in the morning, sometimes i pat the bed and reassure it that i'll be home soon and can't wait to climb back in. i realize this paints me as more than a little crazy, but i really just love my bed.
it was given to me by an ex-boyfriend 7 or 8 years ago. he was a wonderful human, and i miss him. i'm grateful to have this reminder, the gift given with love and shared with such a sweet heart. i've loved in that bed. done naughty things there, too. i've passed out, laid awake, tossed and turned, and i've cried. a lot has happened. that bed has, uh, seen a lot of action. and not just that kind, but i suppose some of that kind, too.
anyway. it makes me unreasonably happy, that bed. i just hope i get to share it with someone again someday.
for some reason, it seems like a good idea to observe lent this year. uh, i'm not catholic. i'm not even really christian, although i was baptized episcopalian. i am, however, going to attend a service at the stunning episcopalian church in nw. but i'm not going to start my lenten observance until next wednesday. i wasn't prepared, damn it. jesus will forgive me. hopefully.
not that it matters. but it's as good a reason as any to lay back off the sweets. and try to cut out bread/pasta for a while. get back to eating whole foods, natural foods, instead of overly processed refined flour foods.
i'll still be drinking, of course. and that's worse than a lot of those things, but i'll cut the wine out again which means only drinking when i go out with friends/to bars. that's not often.
anyway. that's the plan.
i also spoke with an enrollment counselor tonight, and am shooting for a may 1st enrollment/start date for school. which means i should get some traveling in before that. london, anyone?
i feel trapped today. it's not really the worst thing i've had to sit with, but it's enough to make me squirm a little. and it's nothing i haven't lamented before so i'll spare the 1's and 0's, but suffice to say, today can kiss my ass.
i finally submitted the initial request to wgu for information on their bs in business management program. i need a degree. i need to be taking steps toward it. need to fill up my time being productive and moving forward, so that i don't continue to feel stuck every day. we'll see what happens. hell, i know what happens. i speak with an enrollment counselor, i enroll, i take classes, and a long time from now i graduate. but it's the same amount of time that it would be if i went full time and didn't work, so at least there's that. and who knows? i may exceed expectations and finish sooner.
in other news, i opted out of church and the museum today, and instead stayed in bed until i couldn't stand it anymore. 11am, to be exact. i seem to have slept off friday and its resulting junk from yesterday, so that helps. watched a few movies today, did laundry, cooked a whole lot of food... it was a good day. and tomorrow i can look forward to making it through the day and determining whether or not i made a good/bad/indifferent impression on friday at the party. i have a feeling i'm going to have to stave off some attention from one of my co-workers; he's genuine and sweet and appears to have a hefty interest in me. i didn't do a very good job of discouraging it on friday, i'm sure. but i don't shit where i eat, and that's all there is to it.
so if i don't shit where i eat, then i need to find somewhere else to shit. and by shit, i mean date. it's an unfortunate comparison but one that's not always far from the truth.
happily, the company party is over for another year. i can stop stressing until summer picnic time. it's so important to me that people have fun, so when/if they don't i take it personally. and of course, that's my problem.
another problem is my mild concern regarding how much i drank last night. not as a solitary occurrence, but in conjunction with how much i drank last weekend in sf. i've got a pretty solid tolerance, and i don't drink that often. but the last few times i've gone out, i've gone ALL out. it's like i don't know how to moderate, or i just choose not to. but it's almost a conscious decision, and then it's also like i'm giving it no thought or concern whatever, and i just keep drinking. then, of course, i have to spend most of the day today recovering, mentally and physically, and the distress lends itself to my existing fits of depression. i felt... bewildered today. out of step, and like the silence and solitude were just a little too much to bear.
i've also fallen off the diet/eating regiment i'd started at the first of the year. buying food instead of cooking. i ate chocolate and cookies this week. drank wine along with all the booze i had last weekend and last night. i'm eating junkier, and i want to get back to good. so tomorrow brings with it the promise of a new start, once again. i'll go to church, then to the museum, and back here for laundry and cooking the day away. i look forward to it, and to getting my head on right again.
i went to back fence pdx tonight. it's a local storytelling event that goes on every other month, and each time there are a handful or two of local people who are given a theme ahead of time and tell their stories to the audience. they get 8-10 minutes, and it's not allowed to be a story they've told or performed in public before. it was a lot of fun, thought-provoking and enjoyable, and i am really glad i went.
right now i'm having a piece of buttered toast.
anyway. i love telling stories, and i have a relatively decent arsenal of tidbits and anecdotes. but i realized tonight - in particular after listening to someone whose story took place in austria and sri lanka, among other places and involved marrying a sri lankan man twice her age so he could stay in the country - that i haven't been accumulating many stories lately. granted, most of mine involve crazy ex-boyfriends, and i have no interest in collecting any more of those. but there are a lot of other ways to live a life worth telling.
that's what i want.
it was an interesting weekend. for the first time i felt as though i overstayed my welcome, or that i just don't fit there anymore. i know that i will always have friends in sf - that's a given - but our lives no longer fall into place. my closest friend there has found a new crowd and has her preferences on how she spends her time. it does not necessarily jive with mine. by the time i left i could tell she was ready for me to go, and while that saddens me a bit, i also have to admit that i was ready too.
i missed my home. yes, i enjoy nearly destroying myself with revelry. and yes, it feels good to spend time with people for whom i have a great affection. but i am working on putting down roots here. all of them. and this year is going to be different than the last. this year will be better than the last. i spent too much time in california last year and never quite let go. i need to focus on the here and now. i can find debauchery in the bars of portland if i'm so inclined. but more than that, i know that i want more and different. it's why i came here.
so i'm a bit sad today. i know it's due at least in part to exhaustion. it always is. but more than that, it's just a bittersweet revelation that i am moving on and that i may have to leave people, places and things behind. all in the name of progress.
