Posts Tagged ‘family’

Ho. Lee. Cow.

{ January 9, 2009 @ 10:39 pm } · { jobs, life in general, parenting }
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I am SORE. Not fun sore. SORE sore.

Tonight was my first night working a section by myself (third day, no shadowing, I RAWK!) and it was insanely busy. Normally we have a menu, plus a daily special, that residents can order from. Tonight, however, was “Theme Night”. Set menu. Only two choices in main dishes, starches, veggies and desserts. Truth be told, it was swank.

The meal started with smoked salmon with a dill cream sauce, then they got a shrimp bisque that was to die for, followed by a salad our manager (from here on out known as JD) got from Bon Apetit  (the December issue if you’re a curious little foodie). Entrees were either rack of lamb or sea bass. Starches were mashed yukon gold potatoes with leeks and garlic or Hassleback potatoes (which looked better than they do in this blog’s pic but that’s the best I could do). Vegetables were roasted root vegetables (onions, carrots, parsnips, etc) or wilted spinach with almonds. For dessert they had white chocolate tiramisu or cappuccino creme brulee. The residents started the night with wine and cheese outside the dining room, and then migrated in.

Told you it was swank.

On a normal night we can put in our orders via computer and tell the chefs when we want them. Not tonight. Tonight, as soon as it went in, it came up. The chefs were not playing.

The sections are usually just four tables, my section was four tables at the farthest end of the dining room. This meant a lot of dodging other waitstaff and residents. And because everything was served in a specific order, it also meant a lot of running back and forth.

I messed up the order for the first table (I wasn’t sure what to put certain items in as). They all wanted the root vegetables and ended up with spinach. JD, bless his big Greek heart, helped me a lot with that one. He ran back into the kitchen and got their vegetables for me. After that, though I was pretty well on a roll.

At one point we ran out of salads, then at the same time salad dressing. Then we were out of soup cups. This set me back with my last table so they ended up not getting their meal until late. Oops.

The great thing is that most of these residents are really cool people. They’re really involved in the day-to-day functions of the facility (it’s independent care, which means they can take care of themselves but need a little help now and then) and as soon as they found out I was new they cut me some serious slack.

Unfortunately today I finally discovered the downside of my new job: it’s taking the time I normally spend with The Kid.

I work from 4pm-8pm. The Kid gets out of school at 3:20. This means as soon as I pick her up, I drop her off and split; and as soon as I get home, it’s her bedtime. The Man sent me a text message this morning telling me that she cried last night because she missed me.

She’s used to having me around during the evenings. Even when I worked at the shawarma shack I was home by 5:30 and the rest of the night was spent together.  Now the job takes away that time. I decided to talk to her teacher about spending a few days in the classroom as a volunteer. This way I’ll be spending some extra time with her and she’ll feel special because her mom is in the room.

BTW, my kid will be student of the week in her classroom next week. Rawk on. 🙂

The First Week of The Job + Sometimes life really sucks

{ August 27, 2008 @ 7:49 pm } · { Detroit, jobs, life in general, shawarma }
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So I started my new job on the 18th. Because my boss is amazingly cheap, training days are unpaid (yes, that’s legal). I had worked there before, I only really needed a refresher on the cash register. Monday and Wednesday were my official “training days” not that I needed training on Wednesday, but like I said my boss is a cheap bastard (the man knows how much each individual napkin costs, he’s that cheap) and nothing is cheaper than free labor.

Noe before I get into anything, let me give you the cast of characters:

There’s S1. A cute little 16 year old girl who acts like a cute little 16 year old girl, which makes me ever so happy that she normally works the second shift because I’d have to strangle her happy peppy ass one day.

S2 is her sister. S2 is older than S1 by a year, however she seemed to have missed the happy peppy train that S1 caught. She’s also not quite as cute.

Cook. He’s the cook. He’s also a pretty good singer. Or at least he can carry a tune while singing in Arabic. I have no clue what any of what he’s singing translates to. It could well be some Arabic version of Baa Baa Black Sheep and you have to really suck to fuck that song up.

The Amazing Beulah, or TAB for short. She’s a dishwasher. I gave her that name because she looks like she could well have been some middle eastern female wrestler at some point in her life. She’s bulky (not fat, but very square) and she scares the hell out of me. Plus I don’t think she likes me too much.

Boss. This should be pretty obvious. He’s the boss. He’s also the owner of the restaurant and a tight fisted penny pincher. I defy his miserliness with no problem because I need my damn tips. Screw his overhead, I got bills.

Mo. A waiter/cook/manager. He’s a bit younger than me. S1 has a crush on him and flirts with him as often as possible. He happily flirts back. Apparently no one has made clear to him just year that here in the US, a 26 year old guy can go to jail for messing with a 16 year old girl. I wonder if I should tell him….NAH!

Mel. A waitress. I’ve met her once. She mostly works night shift on days that I don’t work at all. She probably won’t get much mention.

Ok, I should also state that besides me, S1, S2, and Mel, everyone there is Arab and speaks Arabic as their native language.  This means most days it’s just me and a gang of Arabs, and when they don’t want me to know something, they start chatting away in Arabic. I’m not yet convinced that they’re talking about me, but then again you never know. My conversational Arabic is limited to a few…impolite words.

Anyway, back to my story.

S1 “trained” me my first day, though I figured out more by myself the second day (working with Mo) than I did with her. Day one’s tips were ok. S1 and I split the tables so I would have made more if we hadn’t. Day two’s tips…meh. Again, table splitting with Mo.

Thursday and Friday I had off. My legs and feet were thankful. By the end of Wedsnesday I felt like my legs had been beaten and not in the fun way. Adidas are definitely NOT waitressing shoes.

Saturday was the worst fucking day of waitressing I’ve ever had. Ever. And I’ve done a lot of waitressing. In the course of 7 hours, I made $4. From take out orders. We had not one sit down order. I worked with S2 that day. Four hours after opening, Boss came in bitching at us because we were sitting around (what did he expect us to do). I came pretty close to telling him to kiss my ass, but held back. S2 had to leave early, which she discussed with Mo, but Mo failed to discuss this with Boss. Mo also failed to call me or leave me a note saying that I was supposed to be training S2. Apparently S2 didn’t know this either. I didn’t find out until after S2 had left for the day. Fucking yay.

Sunday, day off. Yep. I only work three days a week for now. I’ll probably pick up more days after The Kid starts school.

Monday, it was just me. Well, me and the health inspector that showed up two weeks early. I called Boss to let him know, and he got there quick (why he doesn’t get his ass in that fast any other time is beyond me). She pointed out some stuff that I had a feeling she was going to point out, large containers of hummus and baba ganoush were dumped for being 5º to warm, cooked chicken had heat turned up under it for being 5º too cold. But beyond all that it was a pretty good day. Pulled a little under $40 in tips and was one damn happy camper (my tank and wallet were both on E thanks to Saturday’s bullshit). I treated myself to an Epsom salt bath soak. All was right with the world.

Tuesday I woke up with a phone call from my sister. She didn’t really want anything.  Just to chat. I hung up with her to go potty, if I had waited for her to decide to hang up first I’d have wet the damn bed. That woman doesn’t stop talking.

I got up, did my usual morning routine of coffee and some half assed breakfast along with checking email and RSS feeds.  Around noon my sister called, but my phone had been in the basement with me which meant I was roaming (an extra $2 if you’re with sprint). I took the phone upstairs and left it. She hadn’t left a message so it must not have been very important. I was quite mistaken.

I called her back 15 minutes later to hear her say “Aunt N*** died.”

I did a mental double take, “Wait…what?”

“Aunt N*** died.” she sniffled.

I still wasn’t really comprehending what she was telling me, “What? When? What happened?”

“They found her this morning. Grandma B**** talked to her last night before going to bed, this morning they found her dead.”

I was stunned. Completely blown back. This was my grandfather’s sister.

My greatgrandparents had 11 kids. My grandfather is oldest of them all. The youngest is younger than my 50 year old father. My greatgrandma (Grandma B****) just turned 88 this year, so yeah she was pretty young when she started (but that was about WW II, so it was pretty common). The aunt that died was one of the younger children. About mid-50s.

After I got my head together I drove to my sister’s house where I was greeted with hugs and kisses from The Kid (who is staying there until school starts, or until after xmas -which we don’t celebrate- if she has anything to say about it…she doesn’t). I instantly felt better. My sister and I watch novelas, munched on home made cookies and chatted while we waited for my mom to finish up her vet appointment so we could all go to visit my greatgrandma together (GGM and Aunt N lived next door to each other).

When we pulled up, we heard the most miraculous thing coming from the house: laughter. A few of my other aunts and uncles were there helping to get things set out (clothes for Aunt N, pictures so the mortuary would know how she looked). GGM was on the porch with some family friends (and family) chatting. It took me a bit to realise that she was the reason there was laughter and some lightness.

GGM is from Mississippi, she grew up during Jim Crow, and God only knows what she was subjected to as a black woman of the deep south. She’s nothing if not stoic. When I was 11, she watched her husband wither away to near nothing as pancreatic cancer slowly took his life. No doubt she cried, and cried hard. But she never asked for pity, or sympathy. She never used her husband’s disease or her widowhood to get something. She accepted his disease and death as being God’s will. And what struggles she had with God and that will privately, I don’t think we’ll ever know.

While at her house I watched her. She laughed and smiled and chatted like it was a normal day. But it wasn’t denial. It was acceptance. She told someone over the phone “Ain’t no use getting upset and beatin yourself up over it. God takes what’s His. Ain’t a thang we can do bout it.” Thus the family matriarch sets the tone for the next week until my Aunt’s funeral. And if my greatgrandfather’s funeral was any example, there will be no loss of dignity, no melodramatic moaning and wailing, no flinging of ones self over the body, no hollaring or carrying on. There will be mourning, dignified and quiet, but nothing to cause embarrassment. GGM will be the rule by which we measure ourselves that day.

After leaving there we went to an italian restaurant and indulged in desserts that are most fitting for three women in a state of mourning: rich, sweet and chocolate.

I eventually went to bed around 1am. How I managed to actually sleep is beyond me, but I did.

Today I refused to call off. I was going to go to work and stay there come hell or high water. Unfortunately it went down hill pretty fast. After the second cash paying customer I was completely out of 1s, 5s and 10s and Boss was nowhere to be found. Add to that the fact that I had four tables, all of whom would want to pay eventually, and the stress began to build. Then the credit card machine gave off an error message. Still no Boss. Still no change. More stress. Then I had a table that wanted a carrot juice. I’ve never made carrot juice. I had no idea how to hook up the juicer, neither did Cook. Once we got it together, there was no where that I could plug it up AND use it. After fighting with it, failing and having two people walk out unserved, I cracked. I went to the table and apologised profusely. Trying really hard not to cry. I did though. I had to explain to her that it wasn’t just the juice, but the juice on top of other problems plus the death of an aunt and I was sort of having a plainly crappy day.

Yes I looked like a flake, but at that moment I really didn’t care. I hurried back into the kitchen and composed myself (after crying a little more). Cook knew what was going on with me and called Mo to come in early to take over for me. Mo didn’t come in early (I kinda didn’t want to), but after that cry I felt a lot better. Carrot juice table paid and I gave them change out of my own wallet (oh, don’t worry I got my damn money back). I took care of my remaining tables (who had, fortunately, come in post-breakdown). I then snatch $40 from the till (all we had were 20s), ran to another pita joint down the street (which was doing more business than we were at the moment…and they were hiring…hmmmmm), got change and came back in time to find one table seated and a to go order that Cook had already started prepairing (God bless that man) I just had to ring it up.

After that, smooth sailing. I pulled in about $32 in tips. Eventually Boss showed up. He was mad about something having to do with the inspection. What exactly I don’t know. He was busy yelling at Cook at TAB in Arabic. After a while he cooled off a bit.

You know…now that I’m employed I can’t use the tag Unemployment Blues. I need a new one. But I can’t think of one. Dammit.

I’m growing resentful of my disease.

{ April 9, 2008 @ 8:17 pm } · { health, life in general, parenting, relationships }
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My mind is clearer now…at last, all to well, I can see where we all soon will be…

I’ve been on anti-deps since August, and with my meds and time there has come a lot of clarity and discovery. The one thing that I have recently begun to understand fully is that my depression has had an affect, not just on me, but on my whole family.

Four years. I lost four years of my life to my depression. Oh, I’ve lost more than just that on the whole, but those four years were the most important. Four years of a new marriage. Four years of new motherhood. Four years that I spent living in a fog, detached from the world around me while I drowned in this disease of mine. My husband, the sweet darling he is, stood by me patiently and helped me through those four years, rough as they were. In the mean time he sacrificed so much personally for me to get to where I am now.

My daughter suffered also she saw some of my worst behavior when I was in the depth of my depression. Imagine the earliest memories your child has of you is you screaming, crying and flying into irrational rages. I saw her face one day when one of these episodes happened and she looked at me as though I were a total stranger. And I was. I couldn’t even recognise myself when I was raging. That look was what convinced me to get on meds. I was slowly destroying my relationship with H and my daughter.

Now I look back and see what damage my depression has done. Some of it is totally irrepairable. There is damage to my marriage, damage to my relationship with my daughter, damage to friendships.

I hate that I have been given this disease. I hate that I allowed it to control me like that. I feel weak when I think about it. Like some stupid puppet; out of control of myself and my actions. I hate that I’m going to be on medication for the rest of my life. But I know it’s for the best. There is no cure for depression. You don’t grow out of it or get over it. You either handle it or let it consume you.

This is my life. The only one I get. I won’t live it ruled by this disease. I won’t let it decide how I feel everyday. I won’t let it destroy me, or my family any further. My goal is to repair and rebuild. My foundation will be the knowledge that I am not my disease. I am not the person it made me be on my worst days. I am better than that.

a vacation….of sorts

{ April 6, 2008 @ 4:00 pm } · { Detroit, life in general, parenting, Second Life }
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I’ll be at my sister’s house this week. The Kid has the week off of school and rather than having her sitting around our house bugging me, she gets to sit around my sister’s house and bug BW, which she does with amazing skill.

So I may not be blogging much this week. No second life for me either (*cries*). but it’ll be nice to spend some time around my parents and sister.

I think…

Protected: After many deep and profound brain things in my head…

{ March 28, 2008 @ 5:57 pm } · { Detroit, Kwame, life in general, music, news, parenting, random, relationships, sex, videos }
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Yesterday

{ March 26, 2008 @ 11:19 am } · { life in general, parenting, random }
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It was The Kid’s “special day” at school, which meant that it was my day to sit in with the class. So I got to spend the day surrounded by four and five year olds. Then on the way back home there was a little girl in my complex, standing outside her door crying and calling for her mom. It seems mom wasn’t home, so I had her check her neighbor’s house (not home). I called her mom (Parents take note: your kid should know their phone number!) and left a message letting her know where she was (her mom was at traffic court about 45-60 minutes away) and brought her home with me (though I advised her to not go places with strangers on a regular basis).

THEN I had to walk up to the library to print something out, left the library just in time to see three squad cars, ambulances, and two fire trucks pull up to a high-rise that mostly houses senior citizens (which is funny because you can walk from the high rise to the station that all of them came from).

Walked home, called the girl’s mom again (twice actually), went back to her apartment just to make sure she wasn’t answering because she didn’t recognise the number. Came back home, grabbed something to eat (my last actual meal had been at 1045am and it was about 430pm), made the girls some PBJs and JUST as they were sitting down to eat, the doorbell rings. It’s the girl’s mom.

After a lot of both of them begging for the girl to spend the night (she has school and The Kid has parent teacher conferences), we decided that the girl can come around now and then to play.

So, after ALLLLLLL that, I had to wash what few dishes were in the sink, and start dinner.

*passes out*

Protected: Teaching this old dog a new trick…and some other stuff too

{ March 19, 2008 @ 12:21 am } · { life in general, parenting, random, relationships, Second Life }
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Unemployment blues part 2: Applications

{ March 14, 2008 @ 9:48 pm } · { life in general, Unemployment Blues }
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I have about thirty minutes before I have to make a dash for the bus so I decided to jot down some thoughts about job hunting real quick; specifically about my biggest pet peeve with the whole system: job applications.

The whole process of filling out applications (whether paper or online) is so. frickin. tedious. There should be one application that you can just copy and hand in. It’s not like most applications change format from employer to employer anyway. They’re all basically set up the same way.

The first page is always basic information: Name, address, phone number etc etc. After that it’s education, with a small section for any awards, honors, or positions held during your educational career. After that is employment history, usually about four or five sections are alloted for this with “Attach Resume If Desired” written along the top.

Now let’s pause here and talk about this. If I have taken out the time to write, re-write, edit and update a resume, the employment history section should be optional. Everyone knows how hard it is to condense years of work experience into a few blurbs, so why should we go through all that trouble only to have to write it out again on an application. And while we’re on the topic of employment history, “Professional References”. Who the hell keeps in touch with former co-workers that well that they can be used as references? I don’t. I barely keep in touch with co-workers while I’m working with them. Plus, most of my co-workers were high school and college students like I was when I was working, that means what phone numbers I might have had for them, probably are no longer the right ones. And provided I could remember their last names (I’m lucky to remember their first), trying to figure out what their new contact information is would be like trying picking a needle from a haystack…and even more difficult if they moved out of the state. All the googling in the world won’t help if you can’t even remember their name.

Back to the application process.

After Employment history is the ubiquitous, and frustratingly vague, “Tell us something about yourself” section. I always want to answer this with “Well, what do you want to know?” Of course I could write a heavily abridged version of my life story, or I could simply say “I’m broke, up to my elbows in debt from college, and in desperate need of employment. Therefore, I’d like to humbly implore you to hire me so I don’t have to start looking for a bankruptcy lawyer before I turn thirty. Please and thank you.” Part of me wants to write “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.” But I can’t see that as being a way to win many friends in the HR department.

Following along there they ask you what hours you would like to work, usually by giving you a list of days with check boxes marked “Morning”, “Afternoon”,”Evening”, and “Nights”. These are also rather vague. As a stay at home mom my morning usually starts around 9am (or at least that’s the time when I most resemble a human being), so I doubt they really mean that. Afternoon is fairly self-explanatory, and doesn’t require much clarification. However “evening” does. How do you judge the beginnings and ends of the evening? If afternoon shifts start around noon, then an evening shift couldn’t possibly start until at least 6 or 7pm, otherwise you’ll be changing shifts after only a few hours. And let’s be perfectly honest, no matter what the season or time of year, 8pm is considered night time. So you have an evening shift that starts at 6 and gets off at 8. Not very sensible. I much prefer it when they have boxes where you can fill in your available times. That’s much more helpful, especially when you have a family and need to be home at a certain time.

Next up comes the “Have you ever been convicted of a crime, not counting minor traffic violations or non-violent misdemeanors?” Which is followed by the parenthetical statement “Felony convictions will not result in an immediate rejection of your application.” or something equally false. Let’s be honest. If convicted felons could find actual jobs once they got out, the recidivism rate wouldn’t be half of what it is. Most find getting gainful employment impossible; in fact, if you have a drug felony on your sheet, you can’t even get a federal student loan to go back to school. So much for rehabilitation in an effort to prevent repeat offenders huh? They always put this question as far to the end of the application as they possibly can, as though it weren’t relevant in their application process. But, you know, it must be, because they went through the trouble of putting it on the application at all.

Finally, well almost, comes the question that irks me the most: “Can we check your credit score along with your criminal record?” What the hell does my credit have to do with whether or not I am capable of doing the bloody job I’m applying for? You want to know what my credit looks like, ask me! I print out a copy of my credit report every year in hopes that that year will be the year that I get it all handled and taken care of. I’ll be glad to supply you with a copy all your own. Then you can see, for yourself, that my credit is crap and I need a job to take care of these debts.

After this you just sign on the dotted line “swearing” that everything you’ve said is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And that any misrepresentation can lead to a rejection of your application and/or the loss of employment if you have been hired. Personally I’d like to think that if I was smart enough to con a HR person into believing that I really am all about team work and working as a cohesive group with my workmates then I not only deserve my job, I deserve a promotion, because I couldn’t tell that lie straight faced if I wanted to.

All that said…I’m off to pound some pavement, and pick up a few applications.

Unemployment blues

{ March 14, 2008 @ 12:26 am } · { jobs, life in general, Unemployment Blues }
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Can I tell you how much I hate being unemployed? I don’t like being unemployed. I don’t like being fiscally dependent on someone else. I feel like a drain on our finances because every other day I’m asking for money for something else. I should me making my own money. I shouldn’t have to go to H like some hapless teenager asking for an advance on her allowance. He doesn’t make it seem that way, but that’s the way I feel.

I started working about a month before my 16th birthday, and kept working until I got married back in 2002. I held the same job at the same company from the time I was 15 to the time I was 21 (albeit there were intermittent times when I wasn’t working there, like when I left for college, but I’d work over holidays and breaks as an contingent employee). I never got written up. Rarely had problems with my bosses (though I had the occasional tiff with my co-workers). Other employees in my building knew me and liked me just fine. I was polite and courteous. 90% of the time, if they called me in to fill in for someone, I came. Even when it was the morning shift and I had to be there at 630am but had gone to bed late the previous evening.

But, for whatever reason, none of this matters because I’ve been unemployed (taking care of my daughter) for a little over four years. I ran a business for about two years (and I don’t mean some door-to-door avon type stuff [no offense to avon sellers, but that ain’t for me], I mean I started and ran my own business), by myself. No employees. No assistants. Just me. I bought the supplies, I made the product, I advertised the product, I shipped it. Ok, H helped too in the advertising aspect. His friends and coworkers still bug him for cookies. (Yes I had a business making and selling cookies, largely over the internet) But this doesn’t seem to matter either. All they see is a college drop out (I was in college for three years with no clue as to what I wanted to do with myself…so rather than racking up even more debt with student loans and wasting my time, I quit to take some time to figure myself out) who has been unemployed for nearly five years.

The economy in Michigan isn’t helping either. We’re number one on the list of worst places for employment. How depressing is that? Growing up in Detroit, it was all but written on your birth certificate that so long as you had a high school diploma, you were going to have a good, well paying job –with benefits– with the Big 3. If you had a family member working for one of them (and you always had at least one), you were in. Guaranteed. You’d start at about $15/hour and go up from there. You were unionized, you got health and dental insurance and you got employee discounts on cars. You were set. But this isn’t the case anymore. Factories aren’t hiring. At least they aren’t in the Western Hemisphere. Because the auto industry is such an integral part of our state’s economy (what was that saying about putting all your eggs in one basket?) when the Big 3 take a hit, many other businesses do to. Everyone from parts suppliers to restaurateurs to convenience stores. The Big 3 go down, they’re sinking with them.

I kinda feel deceived. With the auto companies taking major hits every fiscal quarter, life here becomes more uncertain. There are more people on food stamps now (1.21 million I believe is the number they’re throwing around now) than there ever have been in this state. Our unemployment rate continues to rise (though it fell seven points in January, it’s still higher than it was at the same time last year). And the problem with unemployment statistics is that it only counts the people who are actively looking for work. That means those of us who have become frustrated by the sheer lack of opportunities (for whatever reason) and have given up our search go uncounted. Foreclosures are skyrocketing in the Metro Detroit area. 1 out of every 4 fires (in this state) involving homes and cars are arsons because people are taking desperate measures to hold off foreclosures and repossessions. Honestly, I’m sort of surprised that riots haven’t broken out.

The state government is trying, though the Republican lead state Senate seems to want nothing to do with helping those who are in low or lower middle class income bracket. A few years back the Governor passed a bill that allows laid off workers to get re-training or education in a different sector. Which is great. People who have been doing the same job for many years and suddenly find that their particular skill set is no longer viable deserve some sort of assistance in getting a new trade or skill. But with our (continuing) budget shortfall, I can’t see this lasting.

And I won’t mention the massive brain-drain going on. Students coming in for college and then leaving as soon as they graduate.

Tomorrow I’m hopping the bus to try, once again, to find a job. Wish me luck.

I’m feeling a bit peevish today

{ March 9, 2008 @ 12:17 pm } · { life in general, relationships }
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Last night, around midnight, I got a text from H. “We need to have a meeting.”

Now take note, “meeting” can mean a few things between us.  On one hand there can be something major that’s about to come up and we need to discuss it. It could mean a change in our usual course of things. It could mean something is bothering him. It could also mean sex. So I replied, “What’s the meeting about?”

H: Everything.

Me: Well, that’s kind of vague. What about everything.

H: Just get your rest. We’ll talk tomorrow

Me: I don’t like these “meetings” where you say we need to talk but don’t tell me what about.

H: Ok, so let’s have the meeting now. Meet me in the kitchen. (this was a sarcastic reply, he was at work)

Me: That’s not what I’m saying. I just want to know what brought this on. Is it so damn bad that I want to know what’s on your mind?

H: Everything means anything that comes to mind BTW. Feel free to bring any questions or concerns to the table.

Now that was what I wanted to know. See, I’m horrible at talking (he knows this), so these surprise “meetings” feel like an ambush if I don’t know what he wants to talk about. I can’t just get my thoughts together in a timely manner like that. It sucks because I can do it in writing any time I want. My text and instant messages are full of thoughtful and insightful things. I can be poetic, philosophical, witty…but you sit me down face to face and I become mute. A friend once told me “We have great conversations on text message, but in person you never talk.” That sums it up pretty well.

My friend Ihsan found a wiki article that described me really well. Initially he found it for himself, but reading over it I kept thinking “That’s me.” It was nice to know that there was a name for how I felt, as opposed to feeling like a freak for being the anti-social one in a very social family

So now I’m waiting on H to wake up (he worked from 4pm to 8am) so we can have this “meeting”. Personally I don’t really have much to talk about that he doesn’t already know about. Well, there are one or two things, but I need to research them further before actually going into them with him.

The main points I think I’m going to bring up are 1) saving up some cash so I can get my bike fixed for the summer; 2) joining this health club that opened up nearby (that’s a lot cheaper than powerhouse/golds/bally’s/etc.); 3) possibly taking a week or so by myself and going somewhere during the summer, that’s something I really need to do. I’d probably go to the west side of the state and hang out in Holland by the beach; 4) my eternal struggle with getting a bloody job. Apparently being unemployed for four years, not having a college degree and being a mom are negative points in the business world. Not to mention all my “professional” references are people I knew back in college or while working in high school, so they’ve moved around quite a bit and even if I could remember their last names (which I can’t), finding their phone numbers would be nothing short of impossible.

I’m still sick too, btw. I can’t shake this cold for the life of me. I really hope it doesn’t get any worse.

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