On cold weather

I want fall weather. Badly. The hint of fall we had these past couple of days only make me want more of it. Hence the new colors of my blog; I'm trying to encourage fall to come by sooner rather than later by using autumnal colors.

Summer, I love you, but I don't want you to linger for all of eternity.

On anti-social behavior and family

I'm not sorry that I've been feeling anti-social as of late. It is my firm belief that people are entitled to alone-time and personal space, and right now, that is exactly what I need. I am sorry, however, that some of my friends seem to be taking this personally, as if my aim in isolating myself for these past who knows how many weeks was to injure their feelings. I love you, but no. Do not think that this is me being petty, or me being flaky. This is me needing some goddamn time to myself, and it has nothing to do with you.

Please take that as a compliment. I'm not trying to avoid you. I'm trying to avoid EVERYONE. You may not agree with my methods - in fact, I know that some of you don't - but this is what I need to do for me. And if you can't understand that, when I'm feeling down and out I like to spend some time alone and sort things through, then you aren't the people I thought you were.

On another note, I'll be home most weekends, starting from this past weekend to at least the end of this month. I plan on being here every other weekend in October, since that is my birth month, and I'd like to celebrate with friends (I'm thinking game night!). The reason for this is that my mom recently had an accident and underwent surgery; she is currently in the recovery process, and her surgeons have ordered her to do as little as possible, lest she suffer a setback (like she did this past weekend). In order to make life as easy as possible for my mom, whose business demands likewise that she be on her feet nearly all the time, I will be going home to chauffeur her around, as well as to cook and clean and all that jazz. Please understand that my mom comes first, and right now, she's not doing very well. If my going home on the weekends to care for her bothers you, then again - you aren't the people I thought you were.

You, however, being the people I thought you were, will hopefully understand that I am sorting through my life as best I can, while also offering unconditional support to my mother. You will understand that I mean no harm, and that while I may be avoiding social interactions, this in no way means that I don't still love you, that I don't miss you. I do - I just need to take care of me, and I need to take care of my mom.

I love you all!

On reclusive behavior

No, I'm not dead. I'm just being reclusive again, that's all. There are some big changes in my life that I'm doing my best to deal with, and at the moment, it involves being anti-social.

Life's a bitch, you know? And we all have our ways of coping; hiding from society a la Criminy and his stacks of books is mine.

I'll see you when this all blows over. :D

On having really, really bad vision

This, my friends, is how poor my eyesight truly is.

Below is a screenshot on a normal day. Obviously, it's been shrunk down to size, but use your imagination. My computer screen is pretty effing big:





Now today, I happened to wear my glasses; wearing them for too long, however, makes me a little headache-y and they start to feel like they're about 20 pounds of steel trying to crush my nose. So I took off my glasses and zoomed in on the site - and this is how far I needed to zoom in in order to read what was on the screen:





540%! And even then, I still had to squint a bit.

The moral of the story? I have really fucking bad vision.

Edit: Unfortunately, IE only lets me zoom out to 1000% - and it was still fuzzy around the edges.

On Sunday afternoons

Twice in one day? That’s right, lucky readers (whoever you are)! You get not one, but TWO updates from me in the span of one day – mostly because this post didn’t really relate to my work post.

Yesterday, I spent the day with my dear friend Jessica M. We watched a movie (He's Just Not That Into You, which reawakened my inner Bitchy Single Woman), bought some cake (the damn confectioner’s club or whatever was having its annual cake parade at the LJ Village Square shopping center) and Chipotle, and took ourselves to Mission Bay.

I forgot how amazingly restful that place it. Jessica took me to Paradise Point, a little resort hidden off of the bay, which had this big man-made pond covered with ducks – the friendliest, most tame ducks I’ve ever met. One cheeky little fellow kept waddling around our gazebo, pecking at the ground and staring longingly at my burrito. I kept scolding him, since I’d stuffed his maw full of bread only a few moments earlier (and you should have seen them flock to us!), but the bird wouldn’t leave us alone until we turned our backs and resolutely ignored his cuteness.

After we’d finished our lunch (late lunch, really, since this was around 4pm or so), we crumbled up some bread for the ducks in that part of the area before leaving for another spot. I also left a little trail of crumbs on the gazebo, leading toward some rice that had fallen out of my burrito.

They’re hard to eat, okay?

At the new location, the ducks literally clambered out of the pond and onto our feet – Jessica got stomped on by an overeager male, and I was splashed on more than one occasion. It was adorable, though; Jessica got one of her little friends to do tricks for his bread, while I catered to an especially patient mallard who was a little too shy to climb out of the water like the rest of his friends.

After we’d run out of bread, Jessica and I wandered down to the dock, where we chilled – literally. It was damn cold. From the dock, we could see a park that lingered on the edge of the bay; since there wasn’t much to see at the dock, we decided to leave and explore the park.

We got ourselves a bench right on the water’s edge, and sat out there for probably close to an hour. We met a retired stewardess with her little male Bischon who was actively exploring the sand. We saw boatfuls of half-naked men paddling out on the bay. We watched people cruise by on their little schooners.

And we saw an otter! Who knew that otters liked to hang out in the bay? He was adorable; he would dive under water, then surface a few feet later, and dive again – clearly on a mission, but to where? Was he visiting his friends at Sea World? Was he going for a meal at the dockside restaurant (which had pondfuls of ugly fish)? Was he striking out for freedom?

Who knows? He sort of made our day, though, just because he was so darn cute.

Oh! And at one point, while we were still on our gazebo, we saw two ducks humping. I couldn’t tell if the female was pleased or not; she seemed like she was trying to swim away. Little dude was into it, though, pecking at her head feathers and everything.

Probably more than the BSW in me needed to see.

On the benefits of work

To briefly explain my work set-up:

1. O. and I are on the support/matching team, with three other guys - R1, R2, and V.
2. This team answers to three account managers - C., J., and R3.
3. There is a fourth account manager – sort of the head account manager, or senior account manager - O.
4. There are two higher ups (executive and... super manager? Who is not so super as the executive?) who the account managers answer to - S. and M.(hahahahahahahaha), respectively.

Now onto the story: O. and I had lunch with the rest of our team on Friday – a sort-of “Welcome to the club!” lunch – and we picked up some interesting information. All of us are temp employees, but V. has been here for TWO YEARS and the other two, R1 and R2, have been here for 8 months.

When AppleOne said “long-term” temp, they really meant it. No wonder they didn’t give me a time-frame.

Well, this is good and bad. Good, in that I have a very stable job, will likely leave only when I feel like leaving (which at this point will be VERY SOON), and I'm making money. Bad, in that I won’t ever get my full pay, which should be around $20/hr (according to my job recruiter friend), nor will I get benefits. Luckily, I’m still under my parents’ health insurance plan, so isn’t a huge deal; I’d still like to be independent of my parents, however, and sooner rather than later. Right now, all they’re paying for is my health insurance and my cell phone plan. I’ll probably take my phone plan at the end of this contract, but the health insurance may have to wait.

Damn. I was hoping for complete independence this year, but I’m not about to give up my current insurance plan for AppleOne’s shitty benefits.

Well. Maybe next year.

On eating with company

I like eating with my coworker for several different reasons:

1. She eats very healthily and, even though I know she won’t judge me if I don’t eat as carefully as she does, I’m much more careful about what I eat when I’m around her. She’s actually really considerate about not going on and on about calories and fat, but I still watch what I eat when I’m around her. This is a good thing, since I did make a resolution to eat healthier foods this year.
2. She and I do the same work, so we gripe to each other about it at lunch. I mean, she’ s really the only other person who gets what I’m doing and vice versa, so it’s nice that we have each other to complain to.
3. If I’d been the only new person, I wouldn’t have anyone to eat with. Just having company at lunch is nice; much as I don’t mind eating by myself, I would prefer to be with someone else.
4. We have a similar sense of humor, and I think our personalities are alike as well, so we get along really easily. If she brings up something funny that happened at work, chances are that I noticed and found it hilarious too.

But I also dislike eating with her:

1. Goddamnit, I like unhealthy food. Sure, eating healthily is literally good for me, but every now and then I want the whole damn donut, not a measly half.
2. It also drives me insane when people talk about their significant others endlessly and needlessly. She will find any and every reason in our conversations to bring up her boyfriend, from our manager’s really bad teaching style to the diet that she’s on.

The good greatly outweighs the bad, however, and I really do enjoy her company. I wasn't sure if I would make friends at this place, so I'm glad that we have each other.

Isn't it ironic?

Taylor and I were chatting about deal-breakers during dinner earlier tonight, and we discovered that we have plenty in common.

Later in the evening, I remembered another one: social ineptitude.

I was reminded of this when I could come up with no good reason for a text message I'd received earlier in the day; Taylor kindly reminded me that guys have a tendency to be stupid. While I agreed, I didn't think that it was the reasoning behind this message.

I was at my friends' house, watching "Grey's Anatomy" and discussing relationships (which inevitably happens while watching "Grey's"), when I mentioned the text. My friend turned and looked at me and said, "He's a social idiot! There's nothing you can do about that."

Lightbulb.

I can't take social idiocy, nor do I have the patience to try and fix it - if they're even willing to consider their ineptitude an issue. Most won't.

So there it is - I knew something had to be wrong with him. He's interested in me, after all, and I seem to attract social idiots by the swarms.

I'll still talk to him, I'll still hang out with him, but as far as I'm concerned, there is no dating potential there whatsoever.

Probably a good thing I'd still rather be single.