little update/work work work

I love my new job. I did paid orientation on Friday & had my first full day last night/this morning (overnight hours), and it just couldn't be a better fit. So glad & grateful. I'll be able to hang out online at work after a couple of weeks. Between now and then, I'll be mostly AWOL from Twitter (again, sorry :P), because I'll either be

1) at my old job

2) at my new job, or

3) asleep.

I'll check in here & there, like when I wake up & have coffee. I'm announcing this as if it'll make all that much difference - it won't really; I've hardly been my old prolific, quasi-entertaining self on Twitter lately anyway. I'm actually hoping to make a full come-back after a couple of weeks, even doing short daily (or nearly daily) postings here on the ol' blog.

Anyhoo, hope you guys are all well, and I'll see you soon.

:)

One Job Two Job, Red Job Blue Job

I threw copies of my resume around Seattle like confetti. I got offered a job last week and I took it. It was seasonal, ending on September 18, just in time for my trip to Mexico to see @tmcassani. It paid what I wanted, but I'd have to go through the whole rigamarole of getting fingerprinted, getting a TWIC card, renewing my Washington State Guard Licence & doing a drug test. No problem, but I'd be a lot happier not having to pay for all that. Some companies subsidize these things, some don't; this one doesn't. But hey, JOB. A very needed new job. I spent the next days wishing I felt more genuinely excited.

That bird in hand, I went down the list of other interview appointments, looked 'em over, and cancelled 'em all - except one, whose interview was today. So I went, and I got a couple of big fat surprises. :)

A Glowing Titanium All-Weather Magical Timepiece

For the first time in my life, I know exactly what I'm doing for the next eight months. I'm terrible at that usually, and I might get terrible at it again, but right now I have a map, compass, flashlight and a glowing titanium all-weather magical timepiece. I mean a calendar, sorry. It just feels like something special now that I'm actually using one, filling it out with an actual pen. It may or may not be glitter ink in the pen.

As of April 7, 2012, I've been back home in Seattle for three years. I needed the reprieve & I've done/figured out a lot of stuff. I was necessary & it was good, and as itchy as I've been to get going, it was the right length of time.

But now it's time to take off again. I'll come back home eventually. Then I'll take off again. *Next time will be Hawaii. Then I'll die and they'll burn & scatter me here at home, over Elliott Bay, so I get that Frasier view of my skyline).

Image Credit: Stern Grossman

Whys, what-fors and the schedule of events after the break:

Trippin'

I like that week between Christmas and New Year's Eve. It feels like a break from regular space-time, a black wintery bridge between two sparkly parties. It's a cozy lull before you're tossed headlong into a fresh calendar. I often fill it with whatever work I've got, a little post-holiday shopping if I can, reliving Christmas Day memories to seal them in & other cheery stuff to combat the early darkness.

This year, it will be done mostly SMACK in the middle of the United States of America. Two of my favorite friends, Thelma (@NWMargaret) and Louise (our mutual friend & co-worker SharonLee) will hang with me while I trip the road from sea to shining sea at the end of the year. Thelma & Louise will be flying home to Seattle. I will not. :D

Two other excursions prior to then:

1) My lovely sister Trinity Rose and I will be visiting my kid (@tmcassani) in Mexico from September 25 through October 9, then:

2) On some random, non-holiday three-day stretch between then & Christmas, I will go visit my heart in San Francisco.

SF had originally been the end of the first leg of the cross-country trip; I really miss my hometown away from hometown. But it cost too much time, as I'm

A) determined to make it to NYC by the afternoon of New Year's Eve and

B) I wanted fewer driving hours per day in order to maximize fun & minimize hurry - especially when my friends are with me.

More on how I'm now able to make this happen & what the whole deal is here, coming in the next post.

 

 

 

simmah down now

An update to the tantrum below, in the form of my reply to the great and magnificent Dark Side Lawyer's comment therein. Er, thereunder? Anyway, it works perfectly as a wee follow-up.

DSL:

"Sorry to hear you are having a tough go. Hang in there. If you want my unqualified advice, fuck meds and smoke pot. ;)"

CC:

"I felt better after spitting all that out, and this particular session in the angry chair has led to some thinking I'm tempted to characterize as revelatory. Do you know how much of my reality has actually been made up of a truckload of bogus assumptions and pre-fab notions? [Still!! Jesus!]

Anyway, I'm now immersed in the happy activity of tearing a bunch of total crap down and setting fire to it. I'm shaking things loose instead of cursing them and asking futile questions. And it did necessarily take me this long to get to this point. And I'm turning back toward myself instead of (metaphorically) avoiding (or throwing rocks at) mirrors. It's gonna take a minute, here, but better times are ahead for sure."

 

Thank you so much, my twitter peeps and other readers, for your kind well wishes. They count for probably more than you know. So very grateful.

This post is dedicated with love to @jasummerell.

Calling Dr. Bullshit

No. Listen. I'm not down for a long, drawn-out, baby-steps process ANYMORE. After giving variations on that path MORE than their fair shot, I am done. I am so fucking done. I am so tired of expanding my patience beyond its natural limit. I have gone ahead and asked for help, and with all due respect, if not maybe a few credits more, for how I've been answered, and with infinite reams of gratitude for the earnest efforts, I am not better. And in fact there are a couple key ways in which I've worsened.

II don't know exactly what else to say right now.

 

I I'm not spending months and months in this whole depression-meds game. Fuck this. Agreeing to try them at all was a mistake made in desperation. Still desperate, mind you, but done with that phase of it. What I was fucking thinking? I was not being true to myself or my principles or even my (vast, VAST) knowledge and understanding of how my depression 'works' when I agreed to try this.

I am having more trouble than ever remembering and keeping track of what is truly important in this life and my life than ever before. It's as if every day has been a further drift away. If I can't stop this, my life, with all that I am lucky enough to be capable of, will be seriously, sinfully and permanently wasted.

There is so much that I am NOT capable of, enough confusion, a dark enough murder of crows against my sky, that certainly getting to my right, healthy self all alone is probably impossible. It's not help itself that I'm suddenly refusing (though I hardly seem a charming or gracious enough character in this angry snit to attract any volunteers :P).

I don't know exactly what else to say right now.

 

If you are good at feeding an animal that might snap at you for your trouble, please send a kind thought to me, today. Somewhere in there, it will be deeply appreciated.

 

Puddy Tat, Part I

On September 30th at about 11:00pm, I got off my bus from work one stop early. No real thought to that, just did it. I nearly bumped into a girl as I stepped down, so I gamely said 'oops' to her and her doggie, a small Shepherd. I looked at the girl with warmth while saying hi to her dog, extending my hand under its nose.

I thought this girl was special. Just a feeling. Strong on the inside, delightful and gracious and sweet through and through. She had geek glasses and curly curls, her youthful manner seasoned with having been through some serious shit. I would learn her difficult story and witness her unsinkable spirit on our way to my apartment building's entrance. But back to the bus stop, where we're still chatting about the nice autumn temperature, her dog, my job, the price of coffee.

She: "Um, would you like a free cat?"

Me: ... ?

She reaches into a satchel I hadn't even really seen in the dark night, and draws out a little animal. It is so jet black and so small I have to focus to make it out. But there were the big golden eyes, clearly a bit nervous, but not spooked. The girl handed the kitten to me. I took a look at those eyes, the sprightly little ears, her sleek fur. I stroked the little neck. The kitten nuzzled her face into the crook of the sleeve of my black work jacket, and all four of us started our walk to 9th and Madison.

 

I'll continue tomorrow.