Thursday, November 30, 2006

P.S. Get a load of that guy's package!

Is that a baseball in your pocket, or are you just flattered someone took your photo??

A Letter to My Friend Eric



They're baaack!

You thought mullets were gone for good, well, I believe they're making a comeback! In fact, I'm so convinced of this that I am launching a campaign, maybe even a pledge drive, to persuade you to grow out your Camaro Mullet! I am sure you’ve toyed with the idea already, maybe even made a couple half-assed attempts by “putting off” your next haircut, only to have finally succumbed to the familial pressure to “Get a haircut! Jesus…” I’m here to tell you that the time is RIPE to revive the “party in the back!” Don’t let anyone convince you that at your age you need to start looking more professional! Don’t sell out! Realize that this coiffure will actually be good for your auto shop’s business because GEARHEADS LOVE THE MULLET! And once it’s fully grown, you can incorporate the image of your silhouetted profile with its flowing rear-locks into your shop’s logo. Whattaya say…? Do it for the chicks!

Your Friend,
Cristini P

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Ha!! You'll Never Guess!

Woo Yeah! I got a job! As of December 11, I will be a professional in the financial sector of a major metropolitan city. How fucking cool is that?! I'm going to be a grown-up. With a grown-up job. And a grown-up salary. What's even better is that I won't be a freakin' secretary, I actually scored a position with some growth potential.

I am required to get some licensure as well, so my first couple months will be spent studying my ass off and getting paid for it. Guess what happens after I pass my exams... I get a raise. Guess what happens six months later...I get another raise. I never wanted to be a drone in a hive, but the mega-corporation that hired me seems to really have their shit together as far as total compensation is concerned, so I think I can live with it.

I think I'll work as far up as I can go and then venture out and work for myself or a smaller firm when i'm like 40. In the mean time, I'll buy myself some nice suits, pay down some of my student loans, start a retirement plan, have a couple babies, maybe even save up for a down payment on a house. Right ON!

Hubby's really feeling the heat now--the pressure's on for him to hurry up and get a better job. Ten an hour working retail loss prevention is not a hot job. I think his parents are like, "Uh, buddy? You gonna let your wife be the head of household? You better figure it out--and fast!"

Thursday, November 16, 2006

On the Up-Side...

I have another job interview. Unfortunately I'm only lukewarm about working in a call center answering questions about securities... *Sigh* Well, at least the pay is good and there are benefits.

Oh, p.s. I didn't get the editing job. Sad.

WARNING: May be Unsuitable for Some Readers!

I have had THE most ridiculous week of my life and I am GLAD it is almost over!

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 8: I went to the dentist for my first cleaning and exam in like 15 years (I’ve been to the dentist more recently for a broken tooth, but was turned away because they wouldn’t touch me until my wisdoms were out and I had no insurance). I learned that I have about 8 cavities—not bad, considering. But what pissed me off was all the “tsk-tsk”-ing even though I went to a dentist who was advertised as specializing in working with “underserved communities,” i.e. poor people—me. I was quickly shuffled out of the exam area back to the front desk and was told by the receptionist that I couldn’t schedule any appointments for my fillings! Are you kidding me? “She thinks you should see a sedation dentist because she felt you were too anxious,” –even though this same receptionist assured me when I called to make the appointment that the dentist was patient and gentle with nervous people. My insurance will only cover one exam every six months! I called back a couple days later and told them the situation and asked if I could just make the appointments with them, and she said NO, and that they would not be accepting appointments from me in the future—ever! I’ve been fucking blackballed for clenching my fists and yelping in pain as a reaction to a sharp instrument being jabbed into my exposed root! Now I have to pay another $61 out-of-pocket because no dentist office will accept me without an exam!

My gynecologist put me on the pill last month after determining that I was not ovulating, which is what was causing my sporadically occurring and traumatically heavy and painful periods. After taking the three week course of hormone pills, I started the “blanks” to have my period, which began picking up momentum on Thursday, which brings me to….

FRIDAY, NOV. 10: About 7:30 in the morning I’m getting ready for work and I start having BLINDing cramps so I decided to just have a sit on the throne for a few minutes. I felt something weird, so I looked down, and I have never seen anything so horrifying as what I saw in the bowl that morning! I had to grab Hubby to witness it because I thought no one would ever believe me. I passed a clot the size of a golf ball! It flopped open and revealed itself to be this flat mass the size of the palm of my hand! AND THIS WAS JUST THE BEGINNING! I spent the whole weekend on the couch crying and panting like a woman giving birth, I was out of my mind with pain! I wasn’t so much bleeding as I was passing solid matter continuously for four days straight.

By MONDAY, NOV. 13: I was exhausted and dehydrated, but I went to work anyway because the cramps had eased up. That is, until after lunch. Then they got so bad again, I was sitting in the restroom crying, and just said, “fuck this.” I told the office manager I had to go home, I called Hubby and asked him to pick me up, and I called the clinic and asked if they could take me that afternoon. Hubby and I were on our way to my appointment when my gynecologist told me to go to the ER where they would do blood tests, and an ultrasound to find out the problem. But of course not: after waiting like three hours for a doctor, this guy came in and said they were going to hook me up to an IV and do a pelvic. To which I said, “Oh no you’re not.” The room was filthy (hair in the sink, biohazard container reading “full,” garbage full, and a URINE SAMPLE sitting out on top of the goddam paper towel dispenser!), and the doctors and nurses were all men with no people skills. As I may have mentioned, I am poor, which is to say that I am not going to pay 800 times more for the exact services I was scheduled for at the clinic appointment that day—which, by this time, I had missed—and have said services performed in an unsanitary facility by uncaring pricks! I called my clinic but my gynecologist was gone, and the woman I spoke to wouldn’t reschedule me because she thought it important for me to stay there and submit to their tests. Uh, no. I haggled with the doctors over the ultrasound, but they wouldn’t budge because I wasn’t pregnant and my life was not in danger. So I told them to shove it. Finally some other doctor guy came in and agreed with me that this was not the best use of their services and my time, and referred me to a different clinic and sent me on my way. The next morning I got a call from my gynecologist and she was pissed at me until I filled in the details, and agreed to have me come in. I finally have a referral for the ultrasound to see if I have any damn fibroids of cysts. And the reason I need the ultrasound? “Unable to assess [uterus]: BMI 47.” In other words, because I am a fat ass!

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Buttheads and Dickwads and Assholes, Oh My

What the fuck is the deal with people? Why are people so personally invested in what they do for money? I have reached my limit for being treated like I am a lower species in this fucking office. Just because I am a TEMP and answer the phone and shuffle some papers doesn’t mean that that is ALL I AM CAPABLE OF. And if you tell me something in person, YOU DO NOT NEED TO SEND ME AN EMAIL RESTATING EVERYTHING YOU JUST SAID. I am trembling mad right now.

I got just as pissed yesterday. Someone brought me three estimates that had gotten lost in the print room from the middle of last week. There were so many requests I could hardly keep up, most of them needed to be revised in some way, and I didn’t even realize that a couple of them did not make it back to me. Of course the first thing I did was hand them out so that the account exec could sign it, get approval and get it back to me to send out ASAP. A very short time later this angry exec came marching up to my desk with steam coming out of her ears—we’ll call her Ms. Muffet because I’m sure she would hate that. “Did you realize these were supposed to go out last week?”

“Yes, I didn’t realize they didn’t. The accountant just brought them out to me from the print room.”
“Well, these need to go out the same day!”
“I understand these need to go out the same day, and they usually do. I apologize for losing track of these and it won’t happen again.”

She seemed satisfied enough to turn away and start back toward her office, but after about five paces, she turned back around and started in again! Let it go Ms. Muffet, I left my time machine at home this morning so I can’t help you.

This made me a little cranky, if only partly because I made such a stupid mistake and proved their assumptions of me correct. I wasn’t done being cranky yet when I had a run–in with Twiggy so I actually snapped at her. Some random guy came in looking for one of the creatives so I paged him. One second later my phone rang and I saw it was Twiggy. “Oh hi, D__. I was trying to get S__.” She totally jumped down my throat with, “Why are you paging ME to find S__? HOW am I supposed to know where he is?!!” So I was totally snarky back, and I’m surprised I didn’t hear about it this morning, “I DIDN’T page you, D__, I paged S__. WHY would I page you looking for him?”

But I suppose that is why she’s being so fucking patronizing today with this email she sent me right after we spoke about not letting employees’ guests take themselves to their host’s office. I posted before about her freaking out about that dude just waltzing in, but today it was some guy’s wife and she’s here like twice a week! So not only did I have to hear that same spiel about potential thievery, but she also had to put it in writing for me because I am obviously an idiot.

Fuck this place. I wish they’d hurry up and fucking hire themselves a goddam receptionist, preferably one who IS an idiot so they’ll know a non-idiot when they see one. Not that it matters, most (thankfully not all) of these people are dicks, they have to have the last word and get all their digs in. I am really surprised no one has ended a conversation with me by saying, “Oh yeah, you’re fat, too!”

Friday, November 03, 2006

Someone Gimme Some Damn Candy

Well, folks, it looks like I’m bombing out again. It is 2:25 in the p.m. with less than three hours until the end of the day and still no call from the woman who has the power to dramatically change my life.

I am beginning to lose hope that I will be offered the job I interviewed for last week, inside connections or not. I bet it’s because I forgot to send a thank-you card. Shit, shit. I’m pretty sure that if I was the first pick for the job, I would have gotten a call yesterday or first thing this the morning. Somewhere in town someone else probably got that call. There is some lucky person making giddy phone calls and gleefully planning their celebration dinner. Fuck.

The interviewer has probably been procrastinating on making all the “thank-you-for-your-interest-but-we-found-someone-for-the-position” calls. No one likes to make an assload of those calls, so she’ll probably put it off until Monday. Or worse yet, I bet she offered someone the job who is like, “Hmmm, maybe, let me get back to you after I receive this other job offer I’m waiting on.” Some days I wonder why I even bother.

Know what would cheer me up? A job. Know what else? Cheesecake. Or pumpkin pie, I’m not picky. I’m a big time emotional eater, and I’ve been doing so well for the past two weeks I don’t want to bum out and go on some pizza-ice cream-cheezy poof binge. The little Cartman inside of me is shrieking “Beefcake!” and “Respect my author-a-tie!”

Thursday, November 02, 2006

I Can Draw!

Dudes! I am hooked on this website where you draw and post pictures. I have submitted five drawings—and subsequently signed away all rights to them. Even so, it’s a hoot, and people are actually voting for my drawings! They are on www.youdraw.com, numbers 421093, 421098, 421104, 421188, and 421196. If I wasn’t so broke that I have to return some shoes I’ve been wearing for two weeks to make the rent, I’d buy their posters for sale. They’re publishing a book! Think I’ll be in it?? OMG. I am as excited right now as I was when the manager of Jimmy John’s in Uptown said he was sending all the drawings I sent him from my fax orders to the HEAD JIMMY of Jimmy John’s! There was some funny shit in there….

I love to draw. If I could get paid for it, that would be a dream come true but I have no professional training or materials. I was accepted to a tech school that teaches design, but because I already have a bachelor’s I don’t qualify for loans or grants. Did I mention I HAVE NO MONEY? G’aw! …sucks… Stupid dumb crappy.

I’m so broke that I had a whole bag of baby carrots and half a burnt 10” frozen pizza for dinner last night. Tonight will be better, though, because Hubby had the wherewithal to take some damn chicken out of the freezer. The man can’t cook for shit (how do you burn a damn frozen pizza?!), and left to his own devices he’ll plan meals comprised of spaghetti sauce with noodles and a side of maple baked beans. No sense whatsoever of how to make food taste good, but at least he knows that if he wants me to cook up some meat, it has to be taken out of the freezer. When I come home I poke around in the fridge to see what he thawed and try to pull something together with what’s in the cupboard. Good thing he’s easy to please.

There’s a saying about how the best things in life are free, but I gotta say that Hubby and I are running out of things to do for entertainment. You can only chase each other around the apartment trying to poke each other in the butthole for so long before it’s not funny anymore. It will probably be stale by this weekend, and it’ll be a few more weeks before it will be cold and dry enough to skid around the place and electrocute each other with static, so what to do until then? Hmm.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

A Watched Pot Never Boils

Waiting to hear back about this job is the PITS. I feel like I am never going to get a real “career” job. Government jobs are SO competitive, and I can't believe I even interviewed, and now I am doubting myself. I've convinced myself I bombed out in some major aspect of the interview because the interviewer asked me if I WANTED to continue on to the writing test, which, retrospectively sounds like “if you want to you can, but it won't improve your chances.” But the interview without the writing test was nearly two hours-if I failed half way through, wouldn't she have sent me on my way? Ugh I hate waiting! Guess I'll send out a few more resumes in the meantime.