Monday, January 25, 2016

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Allow me to rant for a second.  I'm sorry, I realize that the last thing you probably want on a Monday is to hear someone complain, but may I just reiterate how much I HATE IT when people ignore questions I have asked?  Not just tell me they can't answer me, but literally just not acknowledge I've asked anything?!  I just...I don't even understand why this is even a thing that happens!  It's so fucking rude.  Pardon my language, but it is.  It is bad mannered, rude, insulting and hurtful.  Basically, it's the same thing as someone telling me that I matter so little in the scheme of things that they don't even have to respond to me. It's bad enough in a personal conversation.  Actually, it's worse in a personal conversation because friends shouldn't do that to you, but it's infuriating in a work situation. If you work with people who think so little of you that they will ignore the things you say, then you should probably start looking for another place to work because they aren't even affording you the most basic respect you deserve.

If I were asking personal questions, or if I were out of line asking something, it would be one thing. I'd get that. If I'm going to ask what I think is a personal question, I always preface it with an option not to answer.  But FFS, just don't do that!  If you can't answer, or even if you prefer not to answer, say that much.  I'm literally having nightmares about this lately.  I used to have nightmares about people not listening to me when I had important things to tell them, but now the nightmares consist of me asking questions and people not answering me.  They just talk round and round and I have woken up in tears. I hate that SO MUCH.

Now, some of you are thinking that I'm overreacting, and maybe you don't care if people ignore you.  Give you a cookie. I don't know, maybe it is silly, but I do care and it is like a slap in the face. If there is something so wrong with me that I don't deserve to be acknowledged, I beg of you, please tell me.  I'm being 100% serious about that. TELL ME.  If I understand why this keeps happening, I can deal with it.  But it's like I'm invisible. I'm so tired of being invisible.

 Sorry.  I needed to get that off my chest. People suck.

2) Our power went off at work this morning!  It was fun, except that I was alone, and the church is big and it makes scary sounds when there are no other sounds to cover it up!  Luckily, I had brought the portable spotlight (or bright-ass flashlight) that Mr. Lee gave me for Christmas to replace the sad dollar store one we've had for a while. That kept the monsters away!  If it hadn't, it would have made a spectacular blunt object.

The only problem is that it seems to have fried our membership program, which is something we need to keep up with records.  I've been trying to fix it all morning, but the program is old and on the verge of no longer being supported. The only option of getting the program updated is subscribing to the new software which is on a cloud server, and that might not fly because they keep the membership stuff on a computer that isn't allowed to be connected to the internet.  I'm going to have to explain why this should be OK.  I don't look forward to it. I'm the only one who works here that seems to understand that software needs to be replaced occasionally.

3) We got snowed in on Saturday!  We were supposed to go on a road trip to Atlanta, but we had to cancel it. We actually had to go to buy something we needed for some kind of home project Steve is working on (and after the cluster frak that we had ordering parts online we decided to go to the actual store, the closest of which is in Atlanta.) After years and years of asking, I had FINALLY gotten Steve to agree to go to the Aquarium while we were there and then we had to cancel.  Boo. 

It was boring being stuck in the house, but it wasn't terrible.  Like I told a friend, at least I was warm and didn't have to wear pants most of the day! Silver lining!  Atlanta will still be there whenever we decide to go again.  Whether or not I can get Steve to the Aquarium will be another story! 

Shut up. I like looking at fishes. I was a mermaid in a former life.

Thursday, January 14, 2016

It isn't that I don't want to jump. It's just that I am having trouble finding the edge.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) The University of Alabama won another college national championship game!  Good for them.  We didn't watch the whole thing, but we checked in on the score periodically!  We did watch the last part of the game, and if that was any indication, then I'm glad I didn't watch it all.  Football makes me tense!

My coworker, who I'm sure I've told you is a HUGE Alabama fan (maybe even more so than my father was, and he was the most die-hard fan I'd ever known) was thrilled, of course.  He came in with a big grin and an Alabama sweatshirt on.  He and the pastor stood and talked about the game for a while, but I managed to tune most of it out.  He's in there right now watching replays.  I hope this doesn't last the rest of the week.

2) Kind of related, but not really... There is a chance I've mentioned this before, but I'm not sure. I'm almost hesitant to mention it now because it's a bit crass, but I noticed this and now I can't unsee it. I blame the classes I had to take in art history for my perception of it and I apologize in advance if you immediately think I'm gross for it.  The college National Championship logo bothers me.  I know it's a stylized football. I KNOW THIS.  However, the more I look at it, the more it looks distractingly female.  More specifically, it looks like a yoni.  There are a lot of depictions of those in ancient art, and once I made the connection, I can't see it any other way. It's simultaneously funny and embarrassing.

3) I've been working hard on the wedding invitations that I talked about, and I've got several drafts so far! Yay!  I'd like to make a couple more, though, just to be safe.  I know that sounds crazy, but I'm always afraid that I'm going to hand over a bunch of drafts and they will not like ANYTHING.  I even flat out copied the one she sent me as an example (with minor changes, of course) so that she can't be completely dissatisfied with everything.  As silly as it probably sounds, doing any kind of creative work is nerve wracking. When you pull pictures or words out of your head for someone else to judge, it's a very vulnerable feeling.  It's like pulling out your liver (you know, to show someone who likes livers) and hoping that they don't say "Oh, that's a sub-par liver."  I mean, it's the only liver you have!  It's even worse when you can't get the stuff out of your head and translated onto a page.  Don't get me wrong, I love doing this sort of thing. When it all works out, it's a fantastic feeling, but when it doesn't, you can't help but feel like you will never be able to do anything creative again. 

Oh, such a tortured existence for an artist. :) Ha!

4)  We have a couple from our church getting married in the fall and they're so cute.  They are an older couple that have been dating for several years and finally decided to make it official!  There is something so sweet about older people deciding to get married.  I know that sounds a bit condescending, but I really don't mean it that way.  I mean, it's wonderful (and getting more rare) when people can get married young and stay married for a million years.  However,  I always think it's special when people who think that kind of thing is over and done with for themselves find someone else to love.  It's nice.  Hooray for love!*

*Yes, as jaded and cynical on that subject as I've been, you know I have to mean it to say it! :)   

Thursday, January 07, 2016

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) You'll be either glad or disappointed to know that I never had to take another one of my anti-pain pills.*  I probably could have done, but I was always afraid I'd need to drive somewhere and I wouldn't have been in any state to do so.  I never actually found out what was wrong with me, but I guess it was good I went to the doctor just in case. I'm going to keep telling myself that, because otherwise I'm going to bring myself to the point of actually dying before I go back again.

*I originally called them "Pain Pills" but then realized that the name sort of implied that the pills caused pain instead of stopping it, so I changed it. Also, getting rid of unusued pain medication is complicated.  You can't just flush it away, apparently.  There are rules and stuff.  Oh, well.

2) Speaking of being on medication, I had to take Benadryl last night and it's almost noon and I haven't shaken off the floopiness yet. I wonder if I took too much?  The box wasn't in there with the medicine, so I wasn't sure.  I only took two, though.  That's normal, right? Two is usually normal. I'm still so logy and fuzzy headed, and also weirdly emotional for some reason.  No joke, I was checking my email to see if a friend had responded to something I sent, and there wasn't anything there, and I almost cried.  I don't know why.  I literally had to sternly remind myself that people have other stuff to do. Still, though, if anyone spoke sharply to me right now, I'd probably collapse in a puddle of tears. It's completely irrational.  I originally had to take the Benadryl because I broke out in a weird rash after eating some chocolate I got for Christmas. That has never happened before and I've had that particular kind of chocolate before as well.

I swear to God if I have become allergic to chocolate, I'll have to seriously consider whether life is still worth living.

3) Christmas was great, by the way.  We spent it with family and also had some quiet time and we watched the Doctor Who Christmas special.  We spent a very quiet New Years eve at home, but we had cookies and grape juice and things that made sounds.  We had champagne, but Steve has been sick and we didn't think it would be smart for him to mix alcohol with his meds.  I didn't think it would be smart to have a whole bottle of champagne to myself, seeing that I'd probably wind up topless on my neighbor's roof, so I stuck with grape juice, too.  I wish we'd been able to go someplace like we did last year, but we made it work.  My new year resolutions? Meet new things and try new people.

While I was making the cookies, I accidentally took the mixer out of the batter before the whirlygigs stopped spinning, and cookie goo went EVERYWHERE.  I had to change clothes. I also keep finding bits of cookie dough shrapnel in weird places.  My hand mixer must have a V8 in it.  The resulting cookies were delicious, though, so maybe I'm on to something!

4) I feel so bad!  One of my work responsibilities is to pay everyone.  I have spreadsheets that I copy over every year so that taxes and stuff are automatically deducted. I've never had a problem with them, but as we were closing out the books for the end of 2015, we noticed that the pastor's pay was way too much.  We couldn't figure out why, so when we went back and looked, we realized that for some reason his spreadsheet had a broken formula, and I hadn't been deducting his retirement at all last year.  I was still paying his retirement, but it wasn't coming from his salary like it should have been.  It never occurred to me to check the dang spreadsheet, because usually if a formula goes bad, there is some kind of error message.  Now he has to pay back the money I overpaid.  Well, the church wasn't going to require it, but he's honest and didn't feel right keeping it.  I feel terrible. :( 

I also had to do the taxes for the church employees, and while it's really not a terribly complicated thing, I'm always so scared I'm going to screw it up.  I started on them on Monday, and by the time I got home I was so stressed that I went to bed and pulled the covers over my head for a while like a 4 year old.  I wish I wasn't so useless!

5) I've got another freelance project that I'm getting ready to start on this month! I'm doing wedding invitations for the daughter of someone in Steve's band.  The wedding is in April, so I hope I haven't waited too late to start on them. Some people want everything well before they need to be sent, and I don't want the bride to freak out.  I'm kind of nervous about doing any design work since I couldn't even get an idea for the last thing I was asked to do, but I can probably handle this.  Hopefully!  Fingers crossed.