None of the Above

[ family mental work ] 2004-12-12

Life is good: and it feels sort of strange to say it. I got a new job, though it doesn't pay well. I even had a boyfriend there for a couple of months, but lo and behold we're not dating anymore but we still hang out and are good friends. Also, I am moving next week, into a bigger apartment in a much better neighborhood, very close to where my daughter lives.

But the biggest thing is that mentally I've been doing very well for oh, about six months I'd say. I managed to weather being unemployed rather well, I have to say. It's so easy to get lulled into a false sense of complacency - I feel more or less "normal" and can almost fool myself into thinking that the crippling depression and occasional mania were just an aberration, not the main story of my emotional life. But the truth is that *this* is the aberration, this good feeling.

Don't get me wrong, things still aren't perfect or anything. My apartment is a filthy horrid mess, for one thing. Hopefully tomorrow I will get off my ass for a few hours and actually do some cleaning.

Anyway, I've been at my job for three months, and my health insurance kicks in January first. Yippee!! I've actually, cross my fingers, been rather healthy the past couple years that I've gone without insurance. Total luck, I know.

My job is going well. I kind of like it. It's a bit like drudgery, but it feels nice to have something stable. I get along well with the people at work, and I like them. I did very well on my first interim performance evaluation (they do these on new people every two months for the first year).

Oh. My job. Well, I work for the Texas Department of Public Safety in the Driver's License Bureau's Microfilm department. Basically I retrieve driver's license applications and other documents from microfilm. It's not glamorous, but it's a living. As long as this legacy stuff exists, I will have a job (barring major cutbacks or something).

Our department is in the process of transitioning to computer scanning of documents. The state of Texas is divided into six regions, and we are now scanning paperwork from three of them, and slated to phase in the others in a few months. But things are not all rosy on the scanning side of the room...

You see, the people in charge have this idea that someone doing "verifying" of scanned batches should be able to process 80 batches per day. Apparently, this is a wild number they pulled out of their asses, because even the best person they have can do no more than 75, and that's on a good day. I couldn't even make eye contact with my boss and her boss in the meeting where they explained to us that these numbers are "doable".

Eventually, I will be shifted over to the scanning / verifying realm, and when they pressure me to produce 80 verified batches a day, I know what I'm going to tell them. They think 80 is a feasible number? I have two words for them: "Show me."

That's right, I wanna see my boss and her boss sit down and bust their asses, and, *without making any errors*, do 80 batches in a day. Because if it's "doable", then it must be doable by *them*, right? And perhaps my lack of speed is only due to ignorance of superior verification techniques. Or something.

I'm going to have to watch out and not get too snarky when that day comes, because I could easily say something that would get my ass fired.

Seriously, these people are fucking *nuts*. In a job like that, where you are indexing thousands upon thousands of documents, you do *not* want to do anything like rush people, because rushed people make mistakes. Mistakes mean documents that are lost *forever*. And we can't have that, nosir no way.

Who knows, maybe they will be forced to see reason before it ever becomes an issue for me. They like having me where I am, doing "pulls", as they call it, because I am efficient and do a good job. I've already been given added responsibility, producing daily status reports on pulls and a type of data entry of photo requests that I do that is called M204 stuff.

It's a crazy, crazy world. I'm gonna keep applying for jobs outside my department that have a higher salary, or the potential to move to a higher salary. Unfortunately, where I am, I am not going to make any more money unless I get promoted to be a "tech", but that would likely take *years*.

Enough about that. Um, let's see. Elena is doing well.... We recently went to San Diego for the week of Thanksgiving, and had a great time with my mom, my brother and his family, and my sister and her family. 5 grandkids in all, two baby boys and three little girls all running around with glee. We saw the pandas at the zoo, it was great. I made a little 15-minute movie and I'm almost done burning the dvds to send off. We had a lot of fun at the beach. It was quite lovely.

I voted for Kerry, but fat lot of good it did. I voted on a machine with no paper trail, natch. At least I have the consolation that I live in a blue county. That should count for something. Shouldn't it? Please?

I thought up a great bumper sticker slogan. Seriously, I should open a Cafepress store and sell them. They would say: "I hate America because of people like you". Ahahhahaha. I think I'd call my store the "bumperstickers that will get you shot on the roadway" store. I'm sure I can come up with some other ones. Like "GOD IS JUST PRETEND".

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't put these on *my* car. I'd just sell them to people braver than I. With a big disclaimer about how they take their lives into their own hands of course.

My cat is doing well. She can be kinda in my face too much (why do cats put their *rear end* in your face?), and is very needy and clingy. She was all over me when I got back from San Diego. Strangely, she had the poofed-out bottlebrush tail thing going on during that post-vacation kitty love session. It was the weirdest thing. Purring like crazy, big poofy tail. Odd.

I have become a big fan of Yellow Tail shiraz, a great $6 wine that my grocery store carries. I even found it at a gas station shoppette once. Ha! But I tend to drink the whole bottle when I open one, and I'm technically not supposed to drink on my medication.... but the larger point is I'm refraining from alcohol for awhile, at least until Albert comes back after New Year's and we'll share a bottle of cheap champagne.

Albert is the boyfriend I alluded to earlier. Things got started from an ad I posted to craigslist, and we were happy for about two months (mostly).... then he woke me up at 3am and told me I was a slob. I was like, "wtf? I'm going home", so home I went. I don't need to be treated like that. Once we weren't dating anymore it was like this huge relief. I could relax and be myself and not worry anymore. Now we're great friends. It's almost bizarre. We hug and stuff, but that's all. Everyone needs some gentle positive touching in their lives.

Albert is smart, he's got a couple-few degrees and used to be a Spanish linguist for the Army. He's just now finishing up some college work in a teaching program - he wants to teach high school math. He's done some subbing already, so he kind of knows which area schools to avoid.

Sometimes, though, the way he talks, I can't help it, it makes me twitch. I got over the whole correcting him thing, and I don't do it anymore, but damn. The man never uses a past participle. How many times have I said to him "You had GONE, not you had WENT". Guh! It makes him sound so much stupider than he is. He says he speaks a "Kansan dialect" or something. All I know is that it sounds wrong, terribly terribly wrong. But I can't make him stop. C'est la vie.

Albert has a 1982 VW Westfalia camper van, which is great. We've gone camping twice in it, and it was fun. Er, except for the part where we camped in a spot that was not allowed and we totally got busted by like four park service cops. Luckily, they did not notice that Albert had been cutting down trees. Whew. (Cedars == bad, bad introduced icky species that takes over everything here unless eradicated through much work, effort, and expense). He was just trying to give the native flora a chance, really. But I don't think the park service guys would have been persuaded by that sort of argument.

So anyway, I very much insist on only camping in *allowed* areas from now on. Getting busted was hella stressful, and I don't need that again. Albert was banned from the park for 60 days. Strangely, the guys never even asked my name. I could have been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list and they wouldn't have noticed. Heh. Go figure.

I'm excited about my new apartment. I get the keys and sign the lease on Wednesday. W00t. It's on the ground floor, and in Hyde Park, which is just the coolest neighborhood ever. I'll be on Avenue A, at the corner of 46th. Elena lives on Speedway, which is otherwise known as Avenue E, and is about 4 houses north of 46th. So about four short blocks. Not bad at all. And I will also be near Albert (he lives at the Bee Hive on Avenue B, near 43rd).

What's great is there's a Walgreen's just down the street - on the same block, even. Right now I have a 7-11 at the edge of my parking lot, which is spiffy, although sometimes I have been known to give into the temptation to buy a twelvepack of beer, and lived to regret it. Ugh. Thankfully, Walgreen's does not offer that sort of temptation, so I will be better off overall.

Oh, also, I will be caddy-corner to my bank. Not that I go there much, with direct deposit and whatnot, but hey, I'm close if I need to go there.

My rent will be $150 greater, but I won't face the kind of summer electric bills I've been having here - $170 was my highest. Ugh. The neighborhood is much, much better. Plus I will have about a 5-minute commute! I could ride my bike, theoretically, but well, I don't think there's any place to park my bike at work. Plus it would suck if torrential rains develop when it's time to ride home.

Moving can be stressful - my place is a total mess, a real disaster area, and I plan to emerge from this process much cleaner. That is the plan, anyway. I have serious "stuff" issues and must work on purging, purging, purging. On Friday at lunch I went to Half Price Books and sold a few boxes that had been languishing in my trunk for many weeks. Finally! It feels good to be rid of them. I have a ton of crap to eBay and whatnot, plus stuff still at Chris's house. It's a nightmare, basically. But if I bust my ass, it will get better.

Like the pachinko machine. I was nuts when I bought that damn thing. It's HOOGE. And heavy. Elena says she wants to play with it once before I sell it, but I know what's going to happen. She'll want me to keep it. And it will be some horrible psychodrama. So I don't know how exactly I will handle the situation. We'll see.

Suddenly I am very tired and it occurs to me that I should already be in bed. Tonight is the only night of the week I get to sleep in, so I'm going to enjoy it. Highlight of my week, even. (Don't tell Elena I said that.)

Okay, okay. *One* of the highlights of my week.

G'night.