sticks and stones

oh, they may break my bones but words...

...words make me want to stand up and defend myself. i was at work this evening and i heard my name. my ears perked up, as all of ours do when we hear the most magic word - our own name. since i am the only one of my name at my workplace, i popped up out of my cubicle to see who wanted something.

only they did not want anything from me. rather, they wanted feedback/gossip/laughter/an eye roll/ and a sympathetic pat from whomever they were chatting with.

which was not me.

it is funny how many things we do not grow out of when we grow up: missing our parents when we are away, getting excited for christmas as soon as halloween is over (and then feeling guilty for skipping thanksgiving), talking to our pets in special voices, and feeling a twinge of hurt when we find someone talking about us.

behind our backs but accidentally in front of our faces.

i am home from work but still back there in that tiny cube, wondering what warranted the comment. i immediatley resolved to change in order to prevent another comment like that being uttered.

but then stopped. should our desire for self-progress and improvement stem from the snide remarks made from others too small to say them to our faces?

i am still quite bitter, to be sure. and a tiny bit hurt. and still wondering if those sticks and stones can break me.

p.s. to my family who might read this, i really am fine. but still, feel free to barrage me with a slew of sympathetic and pity filled emails.

"You Uncultured Swine"

"It" really is as bad as they say. The temperature. The aches. The nausea. The pure delusion which stems from being in so much discomfort.

"It" is the H1N1 - or, as my brother says, H1NoFun. Perhaps I am using this as an excuse not to write for over a month. I wish I could erase the months of October and November 2009 away completely. Except for maybe the ten pounds that I lost from being so sick.

That was a nice side benefit. (It's true R. Sniff sniff). Another nice benefit: quality time with my parents, or rather, my mother. She barricaded me in my bedroom and when my dad lingered outside the door to see if I was still alive, she shooed him out.

Me: Aren't you afraid of getting it?
Mom: No. I'm immune to the flu.
Me: I guess ten children will do that to you.
Mom: Yup.
Me: And taking inordinate amounts of aspirin daily, eh?

I also have to thank my sister, R, for being "on call" for that entire month. Whenever there was a medicine I wasn't sure I could take, I called her. She'd flip open her prescription bible and let me know the side effects. I did appreciate her constant disclosure of "You know, I'm STILL in nursing school. You CAN call a doctor. You know. With a degree."

Meh.

But all is better now - it was the worst of times. Now I'm gearing up for the best of times. Which includes "enjoying" my older sister, E's, children. Yesterday, her young son ran around the house with a Barbie umbrella for the better part of an hour. I happened to glance over and he was on the floor, laying on top of the open umbrella, gazing up at the ceiling.

I was wondering if he was waiting for it to rain.

prepare. prevent. plan.

i was at work the other day and i had a break coming up. i wasn't really hungry then but i knew i would be hungry later. so i did some preventative eating, as i told my work buddy "n".

"n": why are you eating now? i thought you weren't hungry.

me: but i'll be hungry later. so i'll eat now, be too full for a while but then be comfortably full later.

"n": that makes perfect sense.

so i thought of other things that i do in advance because they will be in short supply or lacking later. like how if it is really cold outside, i will walk around with heavy sweaters on, working up a little body temperature increase. that way, when i do venture out into the chilly air, my elevated body heat acts as a defense.

or if i know i will be working late/babysitting for my sister's children/anything that causes fatigue, i will force myself to take a nap. i'm not really tired now.

also can apply to:

getting gas when my tank isn't even half full

changing lanes three miles ahead

reading a book in the morning so i can waste the entire night watching the latest season of 24

i'm not really "this" now. but i will be later.

To Whom It May Concern

this is an open letter to all those who have or who may in the future dial a 1-800 number. to you, i write this letter from the other side of that phone call.

dear caller,

hello and thank you for reading this email. my name is (insert proper name here). yes, i am here to help you with your zappos order/credit card information/college transcript information/and whatever else you may deem so important as to dial us in the first place. before i continue on, let me put down my half eaten muffin from safeway and my new, crisp copy of this week's people. did you know that you can get safeway muffins for seventy-nine cents? and that the drama of jon & kate is still going on?

are you surprised that i know this? why would it be surprising to realize that the individual on the other end of the line is a real person - one is sitting next to the woman who is pulling ten hour days to help her husband get heart surgery. the one who colors in between phone calls as a stress reliever and who puts tape over the clock on her computer. the one who endures your criticisms and tirades so she can pay for graduate school. the one who has a favorite color (green), a favorite drink (diet coke), and a favorite time of day (the minute after she is off the job).

this individual does not enjoy this phone call anymore than you. in fact, as your heart beats in anger at the first sound of an innocent, fake yet polite hello, her own heart is beating in fear at the first deep breath and the first all familiar phrase:

"why do you (insert favorite expletive here) people..."

so as you berate and argue and as your blood pressure gains dangerous ground, her face is buried in her hands and her finger is hitting the mute button in order to respond "no, this guy is screaming at me" when a co-worker asks if she is okay.

and when you finally request to speak to a manager, did you know you both pray with thanks when that transfer occurs?

phone representatives are not out to get to you. they are not out to stonewall you with poor customer service and long hold times. and most importantly, they are not computers with no feelings. they cry when you yell, laugh when you call in drunk, vent to their friends about your ranting, and are happy when you figure things out all by yourself.

so, let us try and make this a pleasant experience for everyone. mostly so you can get off the phone faster and she can get back to her muffin and magazine.

thank you for reading and have a good night,

customer service rep

A Different Type of Prairie

for all of those of you out there who currently work/who have worked/who know someday the economic climate will force them to work in a call center, i have a couple things to say.

first: i feel your pain. the interminable length of time between each tick of the time clock on the lower right hand of your run down, slow as molasses computer

second: i also feel your denial: it is not forever. one day, we will stand up, throw off the chains (or long plastic black cords) which bind us and march out of the fluorescent abyss forever.

...

until then, i am sure you have had or will have an experience like this. the clock read somewhere between nine or ten p.m. the center was pretty much silent, only punctuated by the occasional "sir, please do not interrupt me" or the more occasional "what the #$S#!".

then the crash came. in the silence, it was loud. it was terrifying. it was exciting. but more importantly, it was something to look at. heads of various shapes and sizes and colors popped out of the cubicles like prairie dogs on the nebraska landscape.

"what was that?"

"is someone hurt?"

"do we get to go home?"

turns out the crash was just a large whiteboard that decided it was on its last leg (literally). my friend "k" and i looked at each other with a mixture of disappointment and dread. disappointment because it really was nothing to look at. dread because we had to then lower ourselves back into our cubicles, our dark and lonely holes of forced solitude.

happy tuesday. i love being employed.

Useless Knowledge

my mother was flipping through the channels tonight following the evening news. as a wheel of fortune advertisement skipped by, we had the following conversation:

me: ooh, look. vanna doesn't have to flip the letters anymore. remember when she did that?

mom: yes. you know, i think she got a divorce.

me: really? did she marry pat sajak?

mom: no.

me: that's his name, right?

mom: right.

me: what about the jeopardy guy?

mom: alex trebek.

me: why do you know this?

mom: *pause* um....

me: what is the name of tom cruise's daughter?

mom: suri

me: who is angelina jolie living with?

mom: brad pitt.

me: the name of their first kid?

mom: shiloh

me: what about the twins

mom: vivienne and....um....it has an x.

why do we know all these things? i am not sure why but i had to go to wikipedia to look up the name of that other twin.

knox. like the fort.

Typing

i was in a seventh grade typing class and by typing class, i really mean a chance for a group of twelve year old kids to mess around with the computers. however, this was the mid-1990's and of course back then, the computers consisted of a twelve inch screen throwing off the harsh glare of green black.

even to this day: why green and black?

we would prop up the assignment of the day: all the main keys for the left hand. the right hand. the bottom row, BOTH HANDS.

do not even get me to the anxiety which arose when we moved onto numbers. and punctuation. pressing that shift button at the same time as another key? new found panic.

but once the assignment was done, we would proudly strut up to the board and write our numbers per minute next to our name.

76. highest in the class. the teacher was sure i was just slamming down on random keys but no. nearly one hundred percent accuracy. i modestly credited the swiftness of my fingers to my many years of piano playing.

inside, i knew the real reason. i just wanted to play brickles. remember that game? a tiny ball bouncing up and down, knocking out two-dimensional bricks. the tiny beep-beep-beep was so reassuring, a tiny bridge which formed between all the students

just do not drop the ball.

the reasons why

the number of blogs littering cyberspace are so excessive, it took me four tries to find a blog name i could use. even more frustrating, the blog names already in use were last updated....wait for it....at least three years ago.

apparently they have not had any thoughts since then. such is the ten second attention span of the internet and its users.

this introductory rant begs the question: why create another rambling introspective dialogue, shove it out into the technological world, and then wait for people to read it? i had vowed never to have one of these online journals (what ever happened to the purple fuzzy diary with the tiny heart shaped key lock?).

but i noticed an interesting trend. can anyone really have a life created from one joyful blog post after another? i sure did not have one. thus, i felt compelled to write about a life that is not being in the best of times. or even the worst of times. or in any sort of time at all.

but do not be mistaken. this blog is not an attack on those out there who express their joy and love and every other happy, sugar coated emotion. however, if you feel an emotional toothache after reading about the surreal life everyone else seems to be living , here is a tonic to all that saccharin.

i hope this is reality. and that is why this sounds familiar.