Taking Control

Justin has posited that it is actually my mood that is causing all of this rain. It hasn’t been sunny for days. I kind of like the rain, though. Curling up in a chair with a book, while the rain rhythmically falls, Nickel Creek in the background, and a cup of cocoa nearby sounds like quite the soul soother.

My soul is in need of a little soothing.

Work has been just crushing my soul. Wareham is just a spirit killer. It’s not surprising that it has gotten to me; it’s just surprising that it has been this quick.

Here’s the thing about me and work. I have all this fantastic operational knowledge–not perfect, mind you, but good. I know exactly how a shift is supposed to run, and all the little technical details that are supposed to improve efficiency and productivity, and ultimately lead to a well-run shift.

Most of the problems in the restaurant are of the top-down variety. If the head guy sucks at his job and allows things to go all willy-nilly, there really is precious little we subordiates can do, especially with the people whose bad behaviors are reinforced by said head guy. 

I don’t get bad results because I am a bad manager. Sometimes I make poor decisions which lead to poor results, and that is undoubtedly my responsibility. I get bad results because I work in a bad store and I am not good enough or strong enough to fix it. 

And it’s not my job to fix it, at least not on my own. I am a very capable member of the team. I have a lot to contribute. I can be part of a go get ‘em, let’s fix things team, but only if that is the prevailing attitude of the whole team. 

To steal a turn of phrase, I’ve been whispering a prayer in the fury of the storm. And the prayer can have a positive effect, when I have enough faith that it can, but lately my lamp is completely devoid of oil, and I feel more like I am throwing desperate pleas to a compassionless master. 

It’s time to turn off the poisonous tapes. I don’t suck at life, or my job. I do have a job that sucks the life out of me, though, and it is time to change that. 

I deserve better.

That’s It

The decision is final. I’m just not very good at my job. I can’t continue to have days like this and be okay with it.

I just can’t. So much for development.

I am sooooo angry, I can’t even write about how I had to physically get in the middle of a fight, in the middle of my busy f’n lunch time, and how the police came and how I had so few people to run the floor with that I actually had to lock the dining room.

Anger.

And screw my homework, too. I don’t care about the stupid degree, that even if I get, I’ll never use.

Anger.

Anger.

Anger.

Battered Housewife

I know everybody hates their license picture, much like most cringe at the sound of their own voices, but mine takes the cake. 

Anyone who sees it draws back in abject horror and simply says, “Crystal!” 

I look like a battered housewife. Like he had to tell me twice. Both of my eyes look black and swollen. What do you want after a year and half of 3-4 hours of sleep a night. I was tired. 

Kind of like I am now. The only difference is I have now slept 8 hour nights for two nights in a row and my eye hurts. 

Once again, I look like a battered wife, but the why is a mystery. While I was already meeting with my doctor, I asked her about it, and apparently, it exhibits all the symptoms of a sty, but no sty is to be found. So, just meaningless pain and ugliness. Awesome!

It has been the theme of the week, actually. I spent Wednesday night puking my guts out (ugly and meaninglessly), in complete, raw throat pain, praying for relief.

Thursday was spent in bed, weak and tired and cranky and heavy, just not moving. I thought maybe strep throat.

Went to the doctor today and the sum total of all of my ailments is a higher dose of my current meds, something to help with the anxiety, maybe I have crazy allergies, and maybe a sty will appear over the weekend.

All this pain amounts to a big nothing. There is nothing really wrong with me, but I am going to stay in bed, just in case.

I don’t want him to have to tell me twice.

The Pickup Window

I rocked the 2.5 hour sleepy time, sandwiched between lots and lots of work. Not only was I exhausted, but I was also pleasant, positive, productive, as well as punch drunk.

I like me that way. And apparently, so does everybody else. I got hit on by three separate cars full of guys. Attractive guys, nonetheless.

The last carful was the most entertaining. Three guys from Mass Maritime. They asked me when I was getting out of work. 

“Late, very late,” I answered with a wry grin.

“You should come hang out with us,” the one with the cute smile urged.

“I don’t make it a habit to associate with guys I meet in the drive thru. Never ends well.” I continue to grin as his buddies all laugh.

“Ohh, c’mon.”

“Look me up on Facebook,” I tease. “Or better yet, Craiglist, under missed connections.”

That does it. The laughter goes up a notch and I smile the smile I only smile when I feel completely at ease and in total control of a situation. 

“Enjoy your food, guys,” I say, my hand pushing the window closed, and they drive away. 

Missed connection, indeed.

Courtesy of Mat Kearney

My girl America is just a youth is this world
Her smile is more precious than the sparkle of pearls
And though her age reads she’s just a young girl
The age behind her eyes show the pain that she’s swirled
Through the hand that’s been dealt though it’s quiet as kept
The weight was all felt last night when she slept
And as she crept into the dreams of the things of her past
Seems to have grown so fast, way beyond her own class
Though they’re right there with her, her brothers and her sisters
A natural born leader even when her peers dis her
My girl, she’s at a crossroads, people praying for her
Some are preying on her magazine ads, sex, drama
Smoking marijuana, longing for a father to call her, ‘daughter’
She’s part of a generation longing for reconciliation
And this future that they’re facing and this poison that they’re tasting
My girl, I know this love that your chasing

My girl America’s crying when she’s lying on her bed at night
I can see that she’s screaming when she’s dreaming for her freedom
My girl America’s dying while she’s trying just to stop this fight
Don’t stop believing, my girl America

Boys with hungry eyes have been beating her door
Telling her that’s what she’s for, trying to rob at her core
Then leave calling her a whore, but still she knows there’s more
I know she knows there’s more because there is a voice she can’t ignore
‘Cause it was founded in the foundations, from the day of her creation
In God we trust engraved on the treasures of her nation
And the void that the boys can’t fill
With the tipping of the bottle or the popping of the pill
But still most of her friends don’t care as they glare
Ready to drown down the funnel as they frown down the tunnel
They stumble and the tumble breaking down into rubble
My girl America, stop can’t you see
It’s not the circumstances that determine who you’re gonna be
But how you deal with these problems and pains that come your way

It’s for you that I pray with hope for a brighter day
And so I say, your deliverance is coming

Faith like a child from your first birth
You left it in the dirt on your worst hurt
And I see each tear and every scar
The hands that have held you where you are
And I can see we’ve strayed so far
A king born under that morning star
As a crown of thorns was placed to erase
Each tear that’s touched your face
And his palms and sides where pierced with spears
He hung in love just to draw you near
My girl, out of this whole world
Can’t you see this is where we started

My Blog Betrays Me

I won’t delete the last entry, in the interest of transparency, but I can’t leave it at the top of the page.  I’m not a girl of constant sorrows, as much as my blog seems to portray me as such. 

Most moments, I am quietly happy. I am very easily pleased. That my Dad called today, just to ask if I was feeling better, and if I’d like to come over for lunch this week, made me irrepressibly happy. The fact that he sounded leaps and bounds better than a few weeks ago made me even more joyous. Maybe it isn’t too late for daughterhood. 

That I played Rockband, singing for hours, spending quality time with Kora, and occasional appearences by the kiddos, to share my soda and microphone, made me actually smile. I know. Shocking. 

The pasta I made for dinner (equal parts butter and Vodka sauce) made me happily content, and the lack of friedness made my stomach rejoice. The limeade currently on my nightstand is keeping me deliciously unthirsty. 

Now, if only I didn’t have to cap the day with a chapter on neurotransmitters and various secretions. Ah, a girl can dream…

Average Looking Witty Girl

One of my favorite bloggers wrote in the past few days about being swept away. The timing is almost uncanny, as K and I were talking about that very thing last night.

We both have a tendency to be swept away very easily, and then very easily be hurt. We talked about it in terms of relationships–namely relationships that never last very long for the both of us. I tend to have interesting, passionate relationships that all have one thing in common–their brevity.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not an unwitting victim in all of this. Most of my relationships are ended by me. I very much want to be paired off and happy, but I need not be paired off to be happy, so I am unwilling to settle. I don’t wish to waste his time any more than I wish to waste my own.

The despair comes in the notion that it will always be a waste of time–that no one will be willing to make that investment who is actually worth the investment. I’ve watched every worthy candidate choose perfectly and permanently a different match.

On a meta level, I know all about schools of fish in the sea and an almost infinite possibilty of pairings off. On a much more basic girl level, all I really know is that the other half that not so much completes me, but wholly complements me, just isn’t there. And the search is wearying.

The tapes we listen to, especially the soundtrack given by those we have adored, can influence us in ways that impact our futures in dangerous ways. I wonder if J knows that when he so glibbly told me that no one wants the average looking witty girl, I believed it.

There was a time when I thought understated beauty was enough. That plainness and prettiness were not mutually exclusive.

Oh, but now, they undoubtedly are. When I look in the mirror, I know that my intelect, my personality, my intense desire to be a soft place to fall, will never be enough. I am not beautiful. I can’t even pull off cute. Who wants to shop for a partner off the discount rack?

So, this is the part where the unyielding optimism is supposed to break through and change the tone of the post, but deus ex machina is only effective in the Potterverse.

Scary Thoughts

You know, there are times when I can be a phenomenal idiot.

At work, Barb always tells me that I don’t need anyone to criticize me, because I am horrible enough to myself, but there are times when I should rake myself over the coals a bit, because somebody should!

One of those times is now. Justin did a good job of reading me the riot act, but at the time, I just brushed it off. A few days later, I am coming around to the wisdom of his words.

See, I am three weeks late for a doctor’s appointment. And that would be fine, if I didn’t need to go, so that my prescription could be renewed. There’s something wrong with the chemicals in my brain, and without the medication, I get all depressed and start having panic attacks, and it’s just ugly.

But oh so preventable.

And yet, I was too damn lazy to go to the doctors.

I was lying in bed last night, drifting off to sleep, and I had this mental image of doing physical harm to myself. With the big huge knife I bought to butcher turnips. I bolted upright and just sat there for a good five minutes, mouth mentally agape.

You have to understand that I would never actually do myself harm. I have no desire to die and 100% desire to live. Fully. One can have these kinds of scary thoughts without being actually suicidal. But the shock it was to my system was a bit much.

Needless to say, I am making it to the doctor tomorrow.

Neediness

It’s funny how a need just pops up insistently sometimes, and just tortures you until it is met. It’s so needy that way.

Although I have co-dependent/dependent qualities, and I strive for interdependence, I have always thought of myself as a pretty independent girl. I don’t like the connotation of woman. Woman always sounds matronly to my girlish ears. So, screw being an independent woman. I’ll stick with girl.

Anyway, I’ve always kind of taken care of (or not taken care of) myself. Emotionally, physically, financially. It’s been me. And there’s been a degree of pride to it.

But the thing is… I don’t want to be independent and always in control, at least on some metaphysical level.

I mean, I still want that control in the sense of the neediness. I want to be the one to demand that my need be met, because it is so demanding to me. It distracts me from everything else. Whether I am studying, working, or just trying to relax, the need pops up and says, “Hey, remember me, your incessant need. Get me filled!”

And I can’t. At least not on my own. It’s a need I can’t fill by myself, and it kills me. And yet, it sustains me.

Here is this one thing I do not control; that I don’t get to decide if my need gets filled. And yet, it’s a need. It’s an incredibly awesome mindfuck.

But don’t get me wrong, as awesome as it is, I still want the need met, damn it.

(I think this is where the footstomp goes.)

Two-Timing

Sorry, but today’s post is actually over here.

Thanks for stopping by, though.