Save "Mad Men" from the Ad Men!

Save "Mad Men" from the Ad Men!

Because you KNOW you want to see if Don and Megan work it out.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Now cut the PDA-crap out. Don't make me throw chocolate at you.

On easy weekends

So it’s official: The Steelers kick ass and take names. Steelers-Packers, February 6^th. This year’s Super Bowl ought to be EPIC.

I obviously spent Sunday afternoon watching football, but the rest of the weekend is worth commenting on as well. 

On re-reading, redux

But if I never re-read, I'll never stumble across forgotten moments. Moments that made me laugh, smile, and feel genuinely happy. Those moments deserve more space in my journals and blogs, to temper the ridiculous numbers of deeply unhappy memories, memories full of hurt and disappointment.

I haven't led a Kodak life, nor have I led a Dickensian one. No, my life has been full of both the bitter and the sweet - the way a life should be led. So maybe, after this year's Project of Writing Everything, I'll find that re-reading isn't such a painful experience after all.

On re-reading

I may need to stop re-reading my old blogs. Some pain is just better left forgotten.

On being resolute... again

On January 1, 2011 I vowed to start writing again. This vow was a part of my overall New Year’s Resolution – to seek personal enrichment. I want a rich life – a life rich with positive experiences, happiness, and personal satisfaction.

Writing more frequently will play an important part in seeing personal enrichment, I think. I used to love writing, but after I graduated from college I fell out of the habit, to the point where I’ve lost both my touch and my words. The vocabulary will come back, but will the voice?

I’ll start small. I’ve got my personal journal for personal reflections, I’ve got my anonymous blogs for private yet public musings, and I’ve got this blog for charting my every-day affairs. I think I’ll aim for weekly posts, for two reasons: I need to establish a regular routine and I need to remember everything that happens.

“Everything” might be a bit broad, but the fact of the matter is that I’m slipping. My memory used to be quite excellent, but these days it’s become a bit faulty. Jessica and I went over our 2010 calendars last night, and there were events written down that I just plain could not remember. And I didn’t write down any of the particulars in my journal, either. This simply won’t do.

So that’s a starting place – describing my weekly adventures, or lack thereof. And who knows what will unfold with the new year?

On feeling wild, restless, insecure, and a whole host of other unpleasant things

When I was in the seventh grade, a bird flew into my science class. We were all screaming like idiots, because the bird kept on flying dangerously close to our heads. Eventually the bird found its way out of the room (I vaguely recall someone shooing the bird out after it had landed on a chair), but not after it had hurled itself bodily at all the windows.

My heart feels a little like that bird, trapped in a room and throwing myself futilely at the windows. The problem here, however, is that I am both the bird and the room. I'm trying so hard to be free of myself, to the point of inflicting pain upon my person, but I can't just fly out. There are no open windows, no open doors, no twelve year old showing me the way out. I'm raging inside myself and it's breaking my heart.

I can't fully express what it is that I want, either. I can't free myself from myself, because so much of what has made me is inescapable – and I wouldn't want to escape it. I want to face it head on, and let myself heal. I want to know where I've been, but I don't want to be here anymore.

I'm restless, I'm dying to be free of this strange incongruity between myself and me. I don't know how to connect who I am with what I want to be.

And I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. I can't find the words to express what I'm feeling, what I want, what I fear. I feel wild inside, and not in the "girls gone wild" sense, but in the "wild and wounded animal" sense. Wild, wounded, and searching frantically for a place free of hurt and pain. While trapped. Inside myself.

My mind is a helluva place to be at this moment.

On June

And so hell begins.

At dinner with Steph and Jess on Saturday, Steph and I agreed that we ought to be paid overtime for our work-related nightmares. It's either that, or worker's comp, and it's only fair, damnit.

I get the sense that I'll be having a number of such nightmares this month, as the Foundation approaches fiscal year-end. We're understaffed and underpaid, and we're all majorly over-worked. Relief comes in the form of a new coworker on June 7, but she won't be able to do much until we've got her trained – and THAT won't happen until July at the earliest. And then, it'll still take her at least 6 months to get up to speed, and then another 6 months after that to be good. And of course, she'll have very little support, other than what we can provide her, until then.

This place is such a bitch.

At least personal dramas are at a minimum, for the moment. I don't have any pressing issues of my own, but I've been playing therapist and Shoulder to Cry On for a number of others for a little while now. That load is lightening, I guess you could say, but that's not necessarily a good thing. I feel oddly as though I've lost F.'s trust for the moment; I think she'll come back, but for the time being, she's keeping me at arm's length. Like I said, that lifts a bit of weight off my shoulders, but it adds on weight of a different sort. I think I'd prefer having the former.

But I suppose I shouldn't complain. I'm looking at the bright side of life, right? I have my health. I have a job. I have good friends. I have fun. I'm not entirely happy, but I'm fairly content. I have beer in the fridge and Jack in the cabinet. Really, I've got nothing all that bad to gripe about.

I should go buy some Coke.