Shout Not

My cousin has her own blog (which actually inspired me to start this one- more on THAT later) and a recent post was very poignant. My cousin split up with the man she thought she was going to marry, two years ago. She blames herself, but I blame a certain lack of understanding and the inability for men and women to ever really be on the same timeline/wavelength/agree on anything more important than pizza toppings.

But that's really just an excuse, and I have spent my whole life making excuses. I don't have a tragic love story, not really, because I have never committed enough to a guy to have my heart broken. In short, I am a big chicken. I can't complain about not having a boyfriend; I complain about any guy I date even once long before I can allow him to reach a status more serious than 'disastrous first date'. So while my cousin is sad, and continues to miss him and stumble through a life that inevitably throws salt on her wound, I can safely offer advice devoid of experience and true understanding.

In some ways, my life has been similar to my cousins. We have a lot of things in common, and I have followed her steps in some ways (ie. blog you now read). But I have avoided many of her scarier choices, because I have seen some of the tough times she has had. That may be good in some ways, but in other ways I think that I have less to show for my life than she does. I am happy, so I'm ok with that right now, but she has, and always will have, better stories and more experiences. And one day, she will have what she deserves: a deeper love than I can ever hope to imagine. Unless I learn to take the plunge.

Ah- I'll work on it when I come back from vacation.

Party Down Party People

Oooh I get to go on vacation today!

I have spent years, ever since I started working at 15, avoiding vacation, thinking it was more important that I work. It's a pity youth is wasted on the young. I have decided to abandon that viewpoint, though it is helped by my new job which does give paid vacation. Unfortunatly I have now used all of my first year's vacation a month after starting my job but... I say I'm due.

So tonight I leave for New York city. Get to party with some friends from HS and my brothers. Then it's off to Toronto where I get to party with my cousins, who are more fun than most of my friends. Then it's northern Canada for four days of relaxing, after which I'll be ready to chew my arm off (I'm not a great 'relaxer'). Then more partying, this time with my aunt and uncle back in Toronto area. Then I get to fly home and move into my new apartment at 11 hours later.

Weeeee.

Busy weekend

First off, continuing with my rash of car troubles, I got to my car after work last Thursday and found that it refused to start. Wouldn't even think about trying to click, sputter etc. I gave up, got a resuce and went to dinner. Happily, unlike my last troubles, this one was simply solved with the discovery that the battery wasn't properly connected following my brothers installation of a new stereo. Dude! Sweet! I'm a little paranoid about bad things happening in three's though, so I'm concerned about the next car problem...

This weekend I moved out of the apartment I have lived in for two and a half years. Was nowhere near as sad as I expected to be (I tend to take things over-seriously), and though it was a hot day and took longer than I wanted to move all my worldly possessions into the truck, it went smoothly. I did catch myself in the fear that the truck would spontaneously combust with all my stuff in it (told you I was paranoid) but as far as I know, that has not happened yet.

So I'm off for three weeks of homelessness. Let's call this an adventure. Sleeping on people's couches, bumming their excellent cable service, etc. And next week- vacation!

Jesus, Murphy!

My brother is staying with me. I love my brother, however he is a 16 year old boy who has recently gotten a license which is always somewhat alarming. Apparently you don't have to be a mom to use the "air brake" from the passenger seat.
So I have been trying to give him tips. My Honda is like a race car compared to the truck he normally uses, so I have allowed the opportunity to drive it. And we all know- no good deed goes unpunished. I made a point of telling my brother that you "cannot lock your keys in my car because you have to lock the driver side door with a key", my auto lock does not work from the driver side. Apparently this comment is enough for Murphy's law to burn my ass.
During a trip to Chapel Hill to buy a coffee table, I locked my keys in my car. This is a deceptively simple problem. It was complicated by the fact that my spare key was at home, in my bedside table, 30+ minutes away, by the fact that my purse, and hence my wallet, cell phone and important numbers were all locked in the car, and that I was sitting in a parking lot with a large coffee table.
The people I purchased the coffee table from were very nice and extremely helpful. Unfortunately, AAA was not. I called them, trying to get a locksmith through my mom's AAA account. Since my mother was not with me, however, they informed me that there was nothing they could do to help. Unless of course I wanted to become a AAA member? Then they could send someone! I believe this is know as extortion. I agreed to join but apparently stumped the AAA operators since I could not pay for my account by credit card as the card was locked in the car.
Eventually they agreed to send someone if, when they arrived, they would wait with me while I called AAA and paid. Unfortunately she forgot to tell dispatch to send someone. Fourth-five minutes later I called back, re-explained the situation to an operator and was put on hold. After ten minutes on hold, I was suddenly transferred to a number which rang for 2 minutes before I hung up and called again. After re-re explaining, this operator was slightly more helpful, and agreed to send someone "within 45 minutes". Fifty minutes later, I called again.
At this point, the free phone in the grocery store down the street was about to go away because the store was closing. The grocery store was far more patient than I had any right to expect. I spent 30+ minutes on a phone which requests you limit your time to three minutes, all the while wearing a name badge for the local university's arch rival school. Woops. Anyway, AAA said that the people were 'running late' and should be there in ten more minutes. Twenty minutes later and three hours after I arrived, a man unlocked my car. Then he drove away.

I guess the service is free, right?

Work, work, work

I love my job but there are many days when I want to bang my head against a wall for the sheer idiocy of it all. I would like to assume it has something to do with having a state job, and maybe that's part of it, but from what I hear in the wide world, most offices largely fall prey to these things.
I'd give you a 'top ten' list but sadly, it's then end of a day and my mind, having been distorted by the requirements of my day, can no longer put this together. My high points, however, involve:

- Need for more resources/space/money/help. Requests for these things usually get turned into a meeting in which new things are added to your "to Do" list.
- The frequency with which managers find massively important, large scale things that HAVE to be done at the last second. Never mind that no one ever concieved of this before or wants to deal with it now. Never mind that the need for it means you won't have time to work on the other long-term, more important projects you've been assigned. Someone, somewhere will get joy out of this, right?
- People who are not your boss giving you unwanted feedback or telling you what to do. I'm particularilly bothered by this right now. I am on probation at my job (not because I did anything wrong, stop being so nosy) so a wrong step means trouble. Thus one must make an effort to make everyone happy, no matter who they are or what they have to do with you. That means biting your tounge when some random guy walks by and makes a comment about that shade of blue your using... bite me dude! Don't you have your own job to do? Wait, I KNOW you do, and the fact that you're not doing it means I'll probably have something else to do now.
- As a "designer" (and I have a hard tme calling myself that, but ok, let's go with it) it sucks to do a bunch designs and have people pick the UGLIEST one of all. It is so hard to continue to work with a design when you know there's a better one out there. And it's terribly irritating to design for people who "don't want to be entertained" (literally, that's what this person says when considereing designs). You hate to claim the work when you're done because you know you could really do better.

Let me end this post by reiterating, I really love my job. Even after shitty days I still want to go to work the next day. I know how rare and wonderful this is, so really, work-rants should be few and far between on this blog.

Welcome!

Dude! Sweet!

I know what you're thinking... this is just what Jen needs. A place for her to have the oppurtunity to expound upon her considerable number of ridiculous thoughts. You're right. It's absurd. Hopefully no one will read this but me, and hopefully when I read it I won't be embarresed at how retarded I am.

Is there a spell-checker on here?