I Heart Tetanus Shots!

I hate it when people compare their lives to a whirlwind. I hate it even more when people mistakenly call it a “worldwind.” But these days I’m too tired to be a complete English snob, so I’m going to go ahead and say it: My life has been a whirlwind lately. Writing that hurt me so much more than I can ever reveal, but it’s the best I can come up with right now. And besides, it’s true: If there were ever a true whirlwind scenario, I’m living it right now. The only thing that has really changed is my job, but it has been such a major change that I feel like I’m living a different life.

I used to work in the book department of a giant entertainment superstore; you may remember past blogs in which I bitch and moan about the idiocy of the general public. Now I work as a meter reader for the gas company. Basically, I walk all over town, through people’s backyards, past their dogs, around their overgrown bushes and into the mud, just to read the gas meter and put the numbers into a little computer thingy. The job is pretty simple; all I have to do is read the meter. A lot of meters. There are so many things I really like about this job, the main thing being a lack of interaction with the public. I speak to very few people during my day, though I do speak to a lot of dogs, cats, and the occasional duck. I’m making more money (I even get a monthly check to fill my gas tank), I have awesome benefits, I get plenty of exercise (you should see my butt and legs… Yowza!), and I have a real sense of autonomy, working without a boss (or customers) hanging over my shoulder all the time.

The new job does have a break-in period which I think I’m still experiencing; the bruises and blisters on feet are only now starting to fade, and I still feel half dead by the end of the day. I haven’t been able to go out even half as often as I used to, though I’m hoping that will change once I become accustomed to this forty hour week business. I bought myself a pair of hiking boots AND snow boots, which is a big deal because I do not normally endorse expensive, non-cute, functional footwear. I also feel myself slowly transforming into a dude in many ways; I don’t wear makeup (what’s the point?) and I pull my hair back into a bun, and by the time I’m done with my route, I look like hell. I probably don’t smell very good, either, but hey, that’s what showers are for.

I thought this job would be mostly uneventful, maybe even a little boring, but it seems like something weird happens every day… One day, I was about to go into a backyard when a teenager pulled into the driveway. My computer thingy (officially called an Itron) said there was a dog in this backyard, so I asked the kid if there was a vicious, face-eating dog waiting for me back there. The kid said, “No, there’s no dog. But I can come over there and bite you if you want.” I just looked at him like he was crazy and said, “No, I’m good, thanks.” It was especially weird because it had been raining that entire day; I was drenched, looking like a mop in a jacket, shivering and making squishy sounds in my shoes every time I took a step. I wanted to add a note to the Itron to warn the other meter readers about the horny teenager at this address, but I decided against it, thinking the other guys wouldn’t likely have this same problem. Just the other day, I was reading a meter in the alley, and a guy pulled up next to me in a minivan. He rolled down his window, stuck his head out and said, “I’m telling Mama that you’re playing in the alley!” Then he got very serious and said, “Alley is no place for a woman.” I thought I was going to end up stuffed in a trunk in the back of his minivan, but the guy just drove away.

Today I had my first dog bite. My boss told me that it was inevitable, that every single meter reader gets bitten at some point, but I honestly thought I would be the first to beat that statistic. I’m always very careful with dogs, and I will not go into a yard until I know it is safe. I have found that most dogs are friendly, even those “troublesome” breeds that might normally scare the crap out of you. Well, today I was supposed to go into a yard with two unfriendly dogs, a Blue Heeler and an English Bulldog. There were two houses on this lot; I did not know which house the dogs belonged to, and I did not want to go in there with them. I walked around and got one read from the safe side of the fence, the dogs following me, barking and snarling and trying to get to me the entire time. When I walked back around the front, the dogs were gone. I figured the owner had let them in, and I knew there wasn’t a doggy door, so I stood at the gate and made a ton of noise, trying to see if the dogs were still around. There was no sign of them, and since they were so intent on yapping at me before, I assumed it was safe. I went into the yard and found the meter, which happened to be right next to the sliding glass door, which happened to be wide freaking open. The dogs saw me and came running out, and at some point, the Heeler bit my leg. It was awesome. Ok, no, it really wasn’t awesome. The dog broke the skin, so I had to go to a clinic and see a doctor and get a tetanus shot and a prescription for antibiotics, and I lost a good two hours of the day and wasn’t able to get my route done. But the best part of the entire incident was the owner’s reaction. After a good ten minutes of me standing around waiting for my boss, the owner comes out and says, “Uh, is something going on?” Yeah, like he didn’t just hear me screaming at his dogs… I told him that his dog bit me and he said, “Oh, my dog has never bitten anyone before… Are you sure?” Then he let both of the dogs outside, into the front yard, no leashes, no fence. The Heeler was apologetic and almost sweet, but the English Bulldog still wanted to kick my ass. I had to yell at the guy to get his freaking dogs in the house, which he didn’t do until my boss showed up. The whole situation was just lame, and I hope I don’t have to go through that ever again. I’m thinking about getting a suit of armor, see if that helps at all.

So, vicious dogs and creepy dudes aside, I’m really enjoying the job. Honestly, I’m surprised by how much I like it. I thought I would be totally worn down by now, and though I am tired, I’m mostly okay. It’s not glamorous at all, but it’s working for me right now. Though I will be pissed if I end up getting Rabies…

Thoughts, Schmoughts.

You know what gets old after a while? Introspection. For the past four months I have been absolutely entrenched in my own thoughts. Actually, let’s be honest: I have been entrenched in the same four or five thoughts, which I think to death, over and over and over until I feel like I’m going crazy and want to punch myself in the brain. I’m so sick of thinking and feeling and talking about what I’m thinking and feeling, and thinking about what I‘m thinking and feeling… I have been in limbo, absolutely stuck in one spot, unable to go up or down for fear of upsetting the delicate universe and making people cry. I can’t take it anymore! So what to do, what to do? Well, I say it’s time to stop all the platitudes and to just freaking do something already. I mean, how hard can it be?

Change is imminent. I *probably* have a different job, though I’m still waiting for my background check to go through (which could take two weeks or more, ugh) so I’m reluctant to start celebrating quite yet. This job would be so much cooler than my present employment in so many ways… For one thing, I’ll be making about three times more money than I am now, which isn’t really saying much if you consider how little I make right now, but hey, it’s something. It’s full-time, Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm, with an hour lunch every single day (awesome) and a full benefits package. But the best part? I wouldn’t have to work with the public. EVER. I considered keeping my part-time job even if I get this other job, but after working a four hour shift on the register, I decided there’s no way in hell I can continue to subject myself to the dumbassedness I encounter there, not even for one day a week. So I’m just sitting here waiting, hoping my checkered past doesn’t show up on the background check (I’m kidding, there’s nothing there because I hid the bodies very well…) so that I can say goodbye to asshole central and get on with my life.

In other news of change, Nick got himself a truck. This is a big deal, because his other car is a tiny Fiat X1/9, and it’s only slightly bigger than a bread box, so he can’t put the kids in there. This new(er) truck has a full backseat, which means that he’ll be able to pick the kids up from daycare when (if) I start working my new job. This will also give me some freedom as far as weekend trips are concerned, meaning I can actually take a weekend trip and not worry about leaving him stranded with the kids, without transportation. This will also give me some freedom if there will be a separation, which, at this point, seems to be a logical step to me. He totally disagrees, of course, but I think I would definitely benefit from some time on my own.

Oh, yeah, I guess I haven’t mentioned this before… I’ve made some vague references here and there, but I haven’t come out and said anything concrete about my personal situation out of respect for my husband. Well, he gave me permission to be candid, so candid I will be. We are currently in marital limbo. It is hell, I think we’d both say as much. Let me be clear on a few things, though. Our kids will be fine, no matter what the outcome of all this may be. We both have their best interests at heart; they always come first. We are not constantly fighting and screaming at each other. This is not how we are. There is a lot of pain, though, and a lot of very large problems, some of which, if we can be honest about it, cannot be fixed. We’ve seen a marital counselor, we took a week-long trip to Florida without the kids, we have been talking and talking and talking, but at the very core of the matter everything has stayed the same, and by “everything,” I mean me. I haven’t changed my mind, and my feelings are the same. The distance between us seems to be widening, and I know it’s because I’m holding back, but let’s face it: I am exhausted. I don’t know how much longer I can stay in this state of limbo. I can’t eat; I’ve lost a lot of weight, and have been struggling to get back into healthier patterns. I can’t sleep and now have a twitch in my eyelid because of it. I have headaches all the time, which isn’t something I’ve ever had to deal with before. I’ve lost friends and am having a very difficult time wrapping my mind around that. I have never been more stressed out in my life, and I feel like I have got to do something before I completely lose myself.

But anyway, now I’m getting back into that stupid introspection again, so I think it’s time to pull the plug on this blog. It’s late anyway, time to go to bed and not sleep so I can get up with the kids in a few hours and not eat breakfast… Oye, it’s going to be a long week…

If you're happy and you know it, what's your secret?

My life has gotten a little crazy in the last couple of months, and not the good kind of crazy. I’d like to blog about it, but I can’t do that. See, while I am one of those open-book kind of people with unlimited boundaries and a loud mouth, there are other people closely involved in my most recent crap who are a bit more quiet and choose not to advertise the nature of their problems in blog form. So, out of respect for said people and their aforementioned quietness, I have opted not to blab about my personal crap. It has been difficult to do something so contrary to my natural tendencies; as you may have noticed (or maybe not) I have not blogged in over a month. I just haven’t had the energy or the mindset to come up a neutral topic that has nothing to do with what I’m going through, and honestly, I still don’t have the energy or the mindset, but I’m going to try anyway.

There are some people who know what’s going on. Some know more than others, but only a select few know everything. I can’t go through this without talking about it at all, right? I’ve had hours-long conversations about this, and one thing that keeps coming up is happiness. I’m being encouraged to do whatever makes me happy, I’m told that life won’t be okay until I’m happy, that my kids can’t and won’t be happy unless I’m happy, and that my happiness matters, and happy, happy, happy, happy. Usually I’m inclined to agree with this idea of happiness trumping all, but lately I’m beginning to wonder what that really means. “Happiness” is such a vague term, something that isn’t so easily defined. When I’m told to do what makes me happy, what exactly am I being told to do? I suppose I could search my heart (another vague idea, that) and pull out some kind of action plan, but the truth is, people (myself included) are generally very bad at predicting what will make them happy. I also wonder how worthy my happiness is if it causes a great deal of pain and unhappiness for others. At what point do you set your own ambitions aside for the sake of someone else? There has to be some kind of boundary, even when you’re talking happiness, right?

This is where the idea of happiness starts to bleed into the idea of selfishness. I’m told that my happiness is important, but honestly, what I’m seeking for my own happiness is pretty selfish. Sure, there are times when it is okay to be selfish, but normally only after a prolonged period of selflessness, and even then only when the selfish act involves little more than a bubble bath or an extra piece of chocolate. To do something truly selfish, to act without concern for the impact it may have on others, is not so easily accepted, even if it is being done on the road to that elusive happiness everyone keeps talking about. I have been incredibly selfish the past few months. I am not apologizing. I’m just figuring out that, whether it’s my happiness at stake or not, I have to do what’s right for me. It’s all I can do. So I’m not focusing so much on happiness or selfishness anymore, but trying to look at what’s right for me, and trying to get to that point without hurting too many people on the way. I don’t know if I will ultimately be happier or not, but I suppose there’s no way of knowing that for sure. I gave up the security of certainty a long time ago, anyway.

I know I will likely lose some friends by the end of all of this. All I can hope for is that people will be understanding, but I can’t demand it of anyone. I’m too exhausted to explain myself and I have nothing to apologize for, so I’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Wish me luck. And happiness.

Thirty

I woke up one day and I was thirty. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Twenty nine was harsh; I tried to feel good about it, but I could not shake the feeling that I was approaching a very important deadline that I was unprepared to meet. When I turned twenty, I had an idea of what I wanted my life to look like by the time I turned thirty. Do the ideal and the reality line up? Not at all. I have the family I always wanted, though I’m not very good at managing it, and often feel like the world’s finest screw-up in the areas of “wife” and “mother.” I have the cute little house and the nice car and the freedom to indulge in a few extravagances like impractical shoes and hardcover books, but I didn’t earn any of these things myself and I often feel like a freeloader, and still ask permission for every little dollar I spend. I have a job, but it’s not the job I had in mind after I went through all kinds of crap to earn my degree. I’m physically healthier than I was so many years ago when I was battling anorexia, but I find that new stresses have made me start to revert to old habits, and I’m struggling to keep myself from sliding so far downhill so fast that I won’t be able to get a hold on myself. Some days I feel old, some days I feel like a child, some days I don’t know who the hell I am and I just want to stay in bed and sleep.

So there it is: I’m not happy with the way my life has turned out so far. But there is a positive side here. I woke up one day and I was thirty, and it feels good to be thirty. Well, it feels more good than not good to be thirty. Part of me is lamenting the way I’ve wasted years doing not much of anything (though I did have a couple of babies, which is no small thing), but part of me is happy that I have the insight to do something more with my next ten years. I have the desire, now I just need to work on the logistics. It seems that I have quite a mess here, and I don’t know what to do with it. I’ve been doing all I know how to do, which is to start small, to start with one thing and go from there. Right now I’m focusing on my writing, since it seems to be the easiest thing for me these days. There are other facets of my life that need retooling, but anytime I attempt to make those changes, fear makes me back off. So I’ll start with something I feel I can handle, and maybe, at some point, I can begin to approach those larger, scarier aspects of my unhappiness.

I have to admit, though I am allowing myself to feel excited for the future, I’m more terrified than anything. I think about all the possibilities and I feel overwhelmed. That’s the problem with complacency; it becomes comfortable and safe and the temptation to stay in that state is so strong that you can begin to tell yourself things that aren’t true and don’t make any sense. You mutter things like, I’ll never be able to do this. I’m just going to make things worse for everybody. There is no reason I can’t just continue living life this way; it’s not like it’s killing me or anything. You push your feelings away and convince yourself that everything is just fine and the next thing you know, you wake up and you’re thirty. Or forty, or fifty. As tempting as complacency is, I know I can’t stay there. I know that’s not who I am, not who I was ever meant to be. So as much as it hurts, as much as it terrifies me, I have to do something. One thing I know for certain is that, no matter what happens, I will ultimately be okay. I’ve been through some real hell in my life, but somehow I have always, always, gotten back to okay. I’m going to have to just trust that certainty, shut my eyes, and jump in, and hope to hell I find my way back out again.

Don't let me get me...

I think I have finally gotten sick of myself. Considering how much time I spend with myself (thirty years straight without even a thirty second break), it’s amazing this hasn’t happened sooner. I don’t want to be misunderstood: I like myself just fine, I’m just feeling like certain parts of my self are starting to wear me out. For example, the time as I write this is 12:34am (side note: this is my favorite time of day, am or pm). I’m exhausted, but I will probably stay awake for another hour or so, even though I know that my daughter will come wake me up at 6:30am. I would go to bed, but I already know I won’t sleep; I have been a raging insomniac since I was a kid, and though it has improved over the years, I still have erratic cycles in my sleep patterns. So, yeah, I could do without the night-owl side of my personality.

Another one of my irritating facets: This non-stop mind of mine. Yes, I am a talker, but it just so happens that I’m a thinker, too. Sometimes it’s deep, but much of the time it’s just stupid and repetitive, nothing worth voicing. I make a lot of plans in my head, but they don’t often go anywhere, and I love to beat ideas to death until they don’t have an ounce of coherence about them. To understand how this works, say the word “book” over and over and over again until it becomes nothing more than a strange sound coming out of your mouth. That’s how it is inside my head. I’m also great at filling in the blanks with half-baked assumptions that nearly always come back to bite me in the ass, and of course, replaying past events not the way they happened, but how I wish they had happened.

I think I’m also getting tired of the sound of my own voice. I’ve become so rooted in this part of myself that it has become somewhat of a trademark of mine: I’m the girl who talks. A lot. My husband dreads going certain places with me because there’s always a good possibility I will run into someone I know and start a conversation. I understand his frustration; there is nothing more difficult than pulling me away from a good conversation. I have tried to be quiet and observant, but when I do that, people assume something is wrong, and then I have to explain with great insistence that I am fine, I’m just not feeling very talkative at that moment. A shocking concept, I know, but there are times when I just don’t feel like saying much. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

So what to do about these problems? Honestly, I don’t think I’ll do anything, simply because it isn’t my style. Not to say that I’m lazy, but I think these little tics of mine are permanent, and not bothersome enough to worry about. I could have worse glitches, like unforgivable body odor or a violent temper or a proclivity for improper word usage. I’m not happy about any of this stuff right now (the fact that it is now nearly 2:00am does not help), but I know that I’ll soon be distracted enough to let them slide and pretend that I’m just fine and dandy until the next time I’m bored in the middle of the night and decide to pick on myself. But it’s okay because of one little thing I failed to mention: I am very good at distracting myself. Thank God for computer solitaire and iPods…

Life as a Gimp

Life in a cast sucks. I’m not very good at being uncomfortable; this is the reason I don’t go camping often, why I don’t hang around people who bother me, and why I will not be having any more babies. I still feel bad for my husband, who spent a collective eighteen months with pregnant me; there was non-stop whining, high drama, and quite a few shrill notes for him. Of course, life in a cast is not nearly as difficult as life lived for two, but it is definitely not anything I’m going to miss. Everything seems to take three times longer than it used to, I have to shower with a plastic bag on my arm, I can’t type worth crap, and all my best dance moves are significantly dorkier with this bright purple hook. Bathroom trips are lots of fun; if I’m not back in ten minutes, don’t send a search party, I’m probably just fighting with the button on my jeans. I have to explain my injury and the strange angle of my cast at least fifty times a day and assure people that yes, it was put on right, that I didn’t put it on myself. You should see me try to open cans, jars, and even Ziplock bags. (Little confession here: I really can’t open Ziplock bags. At all. If my husband isn’t around to help, I just tear the crap out of them. With my teeth.) Diaper changes are the best, especially since my son always tries to get away, and nearly always succeeds in his escape. By the time I adjust to all of this, it will be time to take the cast off.

Though I am a shameless whiner, I’m also oddly optimistic and positive about this whole thing. There are a few good things about the cast. For one, it is a nice shade of purple. I was going to go with black, but I decided to let my daughter choose the color instead. She loves it so much that she wants it when I’m done with it. I’m saving money, since I can’t really use my gym membership right now (though I do miss those stress-relieving workouts). I probably could hit the treadmill, but I’m afraid of the sweating and itching, and the possible unpleasant, possibly permanent, smell that could result from that. I’m forced to slow down, since I am physically incapable of doing anything quickly, so I’m getting a lot less done in a lot more time. This is good, I think. Everyone’s always telling me I need to slow down, so there must be something to be gained from this. Maybe I’m more connected with myself and the present moment or something like that. Having an obvious injury does garner some sympathy from strangers, so work has been much easier to deal with, aside from the one grown man who stuck his lip out at me and said in a baby voice, “Looks like somebody has an owie!” Give me credit: I didn’t beat the man with my cast. The best thing about this cast? Well, even I have to admit that it is pretty funny. My friends make cruel jokes and mock me, but I can’t help but laugh because I know they are right: this is funny, on so many levels. I’m sure I’ll be laughing about it for years.

I really can’t complain too much; this thing comes off in just a little over two weeks, one week earlier than it was supposed to come off. I am a little worried about a few things, though. I’m not excited to see my wrist after six weeks of injury and atrophy. I saw it after just one week in a cast, and it looked smushy and white and just weird. I wonder if there will be any permanent affects, like clicking sounds in my wrist, or an ability to predict the weather with my wrist pain. What if I cant type as well or hoochie dance quite the same ever again? Well, whatever the pitfalls may be, I’ll be happy to get rid of this cast. I plan on celebrating. With cake. Lots of cake. And I’m going to eat it with my left hand.

A Week of Firsts or Hoochie Dancing is More Dangerous Than You'd Ever Believe

So I recently took my first kid-free flight for my first visit to New Mexico to be in a dear friend's wedding. While in New Mexico, I was treated to my first massage ever, an 80 -minute affair involving hot stones and oil and a strange sensation that my friend assured me was the normal feeling of relaxation one has during a massage. I also experienced my first mani-pedi combo, my first real sushi platter (yum), and my first hot-air balloon ride, which was amazing and surprisingly gentle at the end. The wedding was beautiful and the bride was breathtaking and the wine was really, really good, and the reception was a ton of fun, even after the DJ gave me a tambourine and a mic (two very gutsy moves on his part). Yes, it was an incredible trip, so much more than I ever could have planned on my own, even though I had another big-deal first on this vacation: my first broken bone.

Man, I wish I had a good story for my first broken bone! I wish I could say that a grizzly bear crashed the reception and started giving a really lame, drunken toast, and I broke my wrist wrestling the mic out of its paw. But no, the truth is, I shattered my wrist hoochie dancing. That's right: Hoochie dancing. I did a high kick, forgetting that my gown did not have a slit up the leg or any give in the hem, and I basically pulled my foot out from under myself, landing on my wrist. Everyone heard a bang and assumed I had hit my head on the cement; what they heard was the sound of my left wrist shattering. The rest of the evening is a jumble of memories: At some point the best man jokingly asked if I was having a seizure; I remember being told that I probably just bruised it; I saw an odd bump on my wrist and got so grossed-out that I passed-out, and then passed-out again when I tried to stand up... My husband carried me to our suite where I spent the rest of the night adjusting an ice pack and not sleeping. It wasn't until the next day, after breakfast (homemade blueberry-pine nut waffles), that I finally dragged my ass into convenience care to learn that my wrist was "pretty much shattered."

I would write more, but these short paragraphs have taken me over an hour to write already. Yeah, this is another first: My first one-handed blog post. Honestly, I thought it would be better. Oh, well. My next one-handed blog will be awesome, I promise. But for now, I'm just letting it go, and I'm giving-in to the Vicodin my lovely doctor prescribed to me.

If it slaps me in the face, I hope I'll recognize it...

I'm not going to blog about how much I dislike my job. Sure, it's fun, but I can't complain all the time, right? Besides, I haven't had to work much in the last few weeks, thanks to a demanding filming schedule, so I don't have any new horror stories anyway. Wait... Did I say "filming schedule?" Yes, I did. I make films. My dear friend Eric and I have logged many hours writing screenplays and making said screenplays into adorable little movies for the whole world to enjoy. We are currently scrambling to finish a short comedy about evil Michael Bolton-loving clones. This fall we plan on filming a short horror film we wrote almost two years ago, and there will also be more comedies to come. It is not currently a money-making endeavor, though we have confidence in our brilliance and our ability to make money with it someday. Here's a little taste of what we do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvBrWVys6hA&feature=channel_page

Yes, I love what I do. I've said this a few times about a few things in my life, but never about a paying job. See, when it comes to careers and things of that ilk, I'm a bit of a, well, I guess you'd say I'm a bit of a failure. I've struggled with this aspect of my life since the day I graduated from college. Part of the problem has been my own laziness, some of it has to do with my location and my degree (an English degree in my little town doesn't amount to much unless you want to be a teacher, which I don't), and there's also the fact that I share my life with three other people, so I can't just do whatever I want whenever I want to do it without regard for the consequences. Sometimes I wish I had concentrated on my career a little more before stepping into married life and motherhood. These things cannot be changed now, though, so I've decided to stop punishing myself for all the bad decisions I have made and to start making better decisions now. The difficult part of this is knowing which decisions are better decisions. Whenever I start thinking about careers and jobs and such, I feel like such a child. I don't know what the heck I'm doing, and it's embarrassing. All I do know is that I want to write, and that I want to get paid for it. I also know that I'm very good at solving my own problems, so I have faith in myself and my ability to get whatever it is I'm looking for. I guess the first step is to start looking, right?

I think there's something in the air...

I work in an enormous entertainment superstore. My job isn't so bad; the work is fairly easy, the pay isn't zero dollars an hour, and I get a decent discount on DVDs and books. When I think about it, the only thing I dislike about my job is the customers. Yes, I realize what a conundrum this is: I hate the very thing that keeps me in a job. If it weren't for the customers, I'd be working somewhere else. I'm sure there's a downside to that somewhere...

Anyway, I've worked this kind of job before, and while I've dealt with many unreasonable, rude, infuriating, ridiculous people, I've never dealt with it as much, and to such dizzying degrees, as I currently do. I think there must be a reason for this. I think it's because my workplace, this giant entertainment superstore, is an unnatural environment. People are not meant to have places like this. It's not like Wal-Mart, which holds its own strange aura of bitchiness; Wal-Mart may be huge, but you can buy some semi-important things there. You can buy groceries there, and life-saving Bayer aspirin. You can go to Wal-Mart with a good reason. That's not how it is where I work. When you walk through the doors here, you are assaulted with billions upon billions of items you do not need, but that you want more than you will ever want life-saving aspirin or groceries. I think the combination of variety and uselessness of the things we sell causes a chemical reaction in the brain, making people feel disoriented and grumpy.

I know my theory may seem a bit extreme, but it's the only way I can explain what goes on in there. I had a woman get very upset with me because there were no signs declaring which DVDs were the new releases, and when I pointed to the Texas-sized signs posted every three feet with "New Releases" in huge block letters, she screamed that I should have shown her those before, when she was walking through the door. I'll admit that I got frustrated with her and wanted to smack her around a little, but I should have offered her some water, directed her to a bench where she could sit down and adjust to the atmosphere. Another time, a woman asked for help finding a book, but instead of letting me track down the book she wanted, she just stood there and gave me all the icky details of her last love affair. Turns out her boyfriend of the last nine months had another girlfriend, a "real" girlfriend who apparently keeps this guy's heart (She didn't say heart. Use your imagination.) in the bottom of a purse. That conversation ended with this woman opening her jacket like a New York City flasher and demanding to know if she looked like she needed to steal someone's man. I told her she looked like she had sufficient amounts of whatever it was she was trying to show me to find her own man, and after a good three minutes of awkward silence, I told her to have a good day and walked away. It may seem rude of me, but honestly, offering free therapy to strangers is not in my job description. If it were, I would have quit months ago.

I know I'm sounding like a complete downer, but hey, there are some good customers out there. I've dealt with people who say "please" and "thank you," who throw their garbage in the garbage cans, who don't stand in line just to ask where the bathroom is and then get mad that they stood in line. These kind of people are bright spots in my workday, and I'm grateful for them, I really am. Maybe I can find a way to get those people to stand in front of the other people, like some kind of a jerk-shield to protect me from the jerkiness of strangers... That would be as nice as it is improbable...

There is no fairy section.

Well. I don't really feel like blogging right now. I've had plenty of sleep, but it's overcast outside, so I feel tired anyway. I'm also feeling guilty about the fact that I am not currently at the gym. Still, I need to get this blog thing started, so I'm just going to do it. If it sucks, well, you'll know why. I'm not ashamed to admit that I phoned it in. I just hope first impressions aren't nearly as important as my parents always said they were.

So I think I'll start with an explanation for the title of this blog, since it will make sense only to those who have had the pleasure of hearing me bitch about my job. I have a total crap job working in retail, sitting at the very bottom of the social hierarchy. Some may think that garbage men and janitors have it worse, but that's not so. Those people don't have to deal with the public, so I say they have a much better deal than I do. I love people, I really do, but honestly, people are pretty stupid much of the time. Don't get insulted; you should know that when I say people I really mean the vague, nameless face of Joe Public, the people we've all heard about but have never been (right?). I'm not talking about you, even if you're guilty of any of the things I talk about. When people do these things, it's infuriating and annoying. When you do it, it's totally different and completely justifiable. Like when you talk on your cell phone while driving or when you leave your empty coffee container on some random shelf because you don't want to bother anyone and find out where the garbage cans are. It's okay if you do it, it's even reasonable. When people do it, well, there's no excuse. Got me? Good. Moving on now...

So the other day I was working my crap job doing some menial task, when a woman approaches me for help. She has her five or six-year-old granddaugther tell me what they are looking for. See, the young girl has a bit of a lisp and she's speaking very quickly, so the only words I actually understand are "fairy" and "book." She's looking for a book with a fairy in it, and possibly some stickers. Does she know the title of the book? Does she know the author? What the cover looks like? Anything? No, she does not, but the grandmother repeats the fact that there is a fairy in the book, so that should make it easier to find. I let her know that there are approximatey three billion books with a fairy in them, so I can't possibly track it down based on that simple fact. The grandmother looks at me like I'm stupid, rolls her eyes and says, "Fine. Just direct us to the fairy section, and we'll find it ourselves." I explained to her that there is no fairy section, that all books with fairies in them are going to be mixed in with all the other books with stuff in them. She stood there blinking at me, unsatisfied with my response and upset with my lack of a fairy section, and says, "No fairy section? There is no fairy section?" For a moment I thought she might cry. I tried to make her feel a little better by showing her a few fairy books I knew of, but I don't think she ever fully recovered from the knowledge that there is no fairy section.

So now I can say that I know how my parents felt when they told me about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, who doesn't even have her own section in the book department. There's something sad, almost tragic about disillusioning someone, but also something deviously satisfying, I must say. And that's what this blog is going to be: sad, tragic, and yet, deviously satisfying. There is no fairy section, people. There never was, there never will be. But it's okay. We will get through this together. Or you will get through it all alone and I will laugh at you. Either way, it's going to be fun.