zeptember

Yesterday I found out the hard way that the only washer in our new home is broken. There’s one washer and one dryer to service six units in this old Victorian house.
So that means one of the five other tenants neglected to inform the rest of us that the fucking washing machine is broken.

The dryer is already on the blink, because it takes two cycles on High heat to dry any amount of clothing in it.

So I called the landlady and also left a note on the washer and dryer for the other tenants. I’d like to smack the tenant or tenants who did not post the note before I lost money to the machine as well.

I grumbled and loaded up a few bags of laundry onto my luggage cart. As I was doing so, the bungee cord snapped away from me and tried to skewer the web between my right index and middle fingers. The pain throbbed through my entire right hand for minutes on end. I ended up with only a tiny stab mark, but the pain refused to stop. I contemplated whether or not I should actually walk to the laundrymat, figuring I’d probably be hit by the #63 bus as I crossed the street, given my current bad luck streak.

I’d like to also note at this point that planet Mercury went Direct on July 29th, but apparently it’s not finished with its plans to make me miserable. I won’t expect any relief until after August 12th, when Mercury returns to its stationary position in the sky.

After a time, I decided I really needed to get my laundry done, so I finished loading up the luggage cart, got some snacks and 2 small books to read, and wheeled my baggage out of the house and up the street towards the laundrymat.

As I approached the laundrymat, memories poured back into my skull that I’d pushed out for years. My mom used to drag us to the laundrymat whenever our washer and dryer broke, which seemed to be often.
We used to use old nylon stockings as lint traps from the washing machine into the laundry tub, but midway through a cycle, the nylon stocking would often break or stretch out so much that it would clog the drain, and the tub would fill up and water would gush out all over the floor.

We were poor. We wore thrift store clothing and cheap Montgomery Wards shoes that we’d worn holes into. We looked the part of poverty and we knew it, thanks to watching mom’s body language and humiliation everywhere we went.

So here I was in the laundrymat last night with these flashbacks, and the book I had in tow was “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”.

Talk about depressing.

I mean…REALLY depressing.

When I got back home a few hours later, the phone was ringing. It was my friend who’d just had surgery for her endometriosis. So, thanks to her, she was able to override the major depressive moment setting in, because I had tons of questions for her about her surgery, since I’ll be getting surgery for endometriosis, too.

Speaking of surgery.

I was slated to go on the operating table on September 21st. However, last Thursday, the billing person from the gynecologist’s office called to tell me that my boyfriend’s insurance (Blue Shield PPO) is giving them a ton of grief over why they feel the need to do surgery on me, and they want to know if this is a pre-existing condition, for which no coverage will be given, because I fall within the “no treatment for pre-existing conditions within the first six months of coverage” clause that I didn’t know existed, becuase my boyfriend hasn’t told me anything about the plan he’s on (I wager he doesn’t even know or care much about the plan details himself).

Well, after telling my boyfriend about this, he was mad, and so he’ll be bringing the benefits book home for full review.
I hate that guys always do everything backwards. It falls under the whole “guys never read the assembly instructions” pet peeve, too.

So anyway, I have to call and reschedule surgery for sometime in January, now.

So much for my birthday present to myself. More pain and suffering each month for a few more months.
I can do it. I’ve done it for 20 years already.

*sigh*

Anyway, in closing, I’d just like to say that I’ve had a lot of flashbacks to my childhood this year so far, be it from digging through my childhood journals or working in shitty neighborhoods or taking public transit or going to the laundrymat - it’s all come up THIS YEAR. I’m learning to reprogram myself and work through my prejudices and fears. That’s what I’m supposed to be doing with all this coming back up in my life - learning and reprogramming.

But it’s been emotionally rough, let me tell you.

Twice in the past month, 2 companies have made me feel that what I experience and believe is not relevant or important. This in turn embitters me further towards continued employment.

The first company was a dotcom I interviewed for last month. They noted a lack of employment for the past six months, and, eyeing me suspiciously, asked me what I’d been doing since January.
So I told the truth - I told them I’d *just* gotten hired at a non-profit, scanning out-of-print books to preserve them in digital format before they go into deep storage.
I guess I sounded too happy about this newfound job, which is actually doing something MEANINGFUL and with PURPOSE, because I didn’t hear back from the place.
A week later, I emailed an inquiry as to my status, and got an emailed reply:
“I’m sorry for not getting back to you sooner. I really enjoyed meeting with you. Unfortunately, the concensus was that this is not an ideal match for our open position. I wish you the best of luck.”

My resume lists tech writing and documentation for the past three jobs in a row. This was an entry level, junior tech writer position.

So my thought was, “Screw them and the horse they rode in on - they didn’t like that I sounded cheerful about the other job.”

The second company was the above-mentioned non-profit that I waxed so cheerful about. I started with them on June 20th, and right off the bat let them know that I was in the process of moving, and had a long-weekend vacation scheduled, and would need days off if they wanted me to start right away. They said fine, no problem, and granted the requested days off.

Well, I was late on my fifth day to work. I called ahead of time to let them know this. I also told them it was related to moving. They said it was okay.

On my seventh day of work, I got george and was out for two days. I called well ahead of my shift on those days, too.

I wasn’t late again until my sixteenth day. I was late because I had a lot of cleaning up to do at the old apartment for final inspection. I didn’t HAVE to do this to myself, but I was mad at my boyfriend, who didn’t clean as hard as I had been doing, and I was hurting to get as much of the deposit back as possible (they still took $235 from us in the end).

On my twenty-third day of work (Hail Eris), my car died only a few hours before I had to be to work, and I couldn’t find a ride on that short of notice, and I’d never taken local public transit from start to end point in my life - I’ve never learned both the bus and the train system. I panicked at the mere thought of trying to figure it out on the spot, so I called in and explained about my car, and took the night off.

For the next couple of days, I DID figure out public transit and I DID get my ass to and from both jobs. This is a major phobia attacked on such short notice, but I did it.

On Wednesday, I called the night job and told them I was supposed to get my car back, but that by noon I hadn’t heard back yet, so I may be late again depending on the mechanic, whom I’d been constantly pestering.
I asked the day shift boss, who does the hiring and firing, if this would be acceptable.

This is when she said, “Well, actually, your attendance is an issue.”

I told her that nobody had ever mentioned this before, and that I’d always called in when there was an issue at hand. She replied that there would be staff reviews this week and next, and that they’d go over how everyone’s working out.

I knew then what that meant.

I wasn’t working out.

I did get my car back that day, and I did make it to work on time. When I got in, the boss was walking out and I could see from her body language that she’d glanced at me and turned away quickly with a twisted, sour face. She returned as I was setting up my station, and she called out loudly in a sarcastic tone to me, “Glad to see you made it in!”

I said, “Yeah! I got my car back from the shop!” and smiled at her as I walked past her to get to my station.

She left for the day without another word to me.

Then george arrived. My heart sank. I knew I’d have to be absent from work again.

On my break that night, I cornered the night boss, who is much nicer. I told him point blank that I just started my period, and that this is a known health issue with the day shift boss. I asked for his complete honesty - would this be the last straw for the day boss if I am absent again tomorrow?

He hemmed and hawed and beat around the bush, and admitted that my attendance had been crappy. I defended my position, saying that I’d always called in well before my shift. I also told him that they knew at the outset that I’d had moving stuff to deal with, and then the car - well that was out of my control.

He said that HE knew my reasons for being late or not showing up to work, but that the day boss didn’t care about reasons or excuses. All she wants to see are the numbers, and so all she’s been seeing is that I’m late here, I’m a no-show there, with increasing frequency.

He then asked me if I knew that I had been hired on a trial basis? He told me that the day boss told him about my health issues (george - which was admitted on my seventh day on the job), and told him that I’d be a trial employee, to see if this job would work out for me with my limitations.
I told him I’d never been told that I was on trial.
He then told me that this is how it went down with two previous employees, too. They’d had health issues such as back pain or other things going on, and the day boss put them on trial and within a couple of months, they either quit or were let go.

This guy then said something that I WISH I could have captured on tape. He said he wanted to find a way to just hire able-bodied people - and weed out or turn down those with such health issues.

I told him that’s illegal. He shut up at that point, and we resumed talking about the immediate situation - would I be fired if I call in sick tomorrow?

Again, he hemmed and hawed, and then told me that there’d been a massive hiring spree this week, and that actually, he’s pretty sure my replacement had been hired.

So I quit right there, and told him I didn’t deserve to be treated like this for my health issues and a car on the blink, both of which were out of my control.

He nodded grimly and said it sucks, because they go through so many people, and no one answering the ad realises that this will be such a physical job, and a production line to boot.
He told me there’s been a lot of changes in a very short time, and that the morning shift, who have been there the longest (some over a year now), are starting to revolt. He let slip that the hiring spree will apply to a massive overhaul of the morning crew. I felt bad for them, too. At least I got out without before being branded with a big red scarlet letter.

I broke the news to my friend at dinner break. She was hired in a couple weeks after I was. I sent her the ad for the place. *sigh*

At least I still have the day job for now.

Last night, after pondering how shitty it’s been for me having to work two jobs to make ends meet, and pondering how much worse off my mom was to work three jobs with two children, I began to read Nickel and Dimed: On (not) Getting By in America.

I’d been resistant to read the book up til this point, because it brought up sticky memories of childhood. I just told everyone I’d already lived it from the perspective of a child of a low wage parent, why should I read the damned book?

Now, reading the book, parts of it have opened my eyes. My mom cleaned houses for a living. I didn’t know just how low class that is in the eyes of even other lower class people until I read that book. I’ve always helped out the cleaning crews at the dotcom jobs I’ve worked. I’ve always left tips for maid service in the hotel industry when I’ve stayed longer than a couple of nights - precisely because my mother had been one of them. I always leave a generous tip for wait staff when I dine out - precisely because my mother had been one of them. And I always tip no less than a dollar to bartenders for each drink, because my mother had been one of them.

Other parts of the book - I know all too well from personal experience or through watching my mom’s suffering. Half of the time, I want to tell the author of the book to quit whining, because she’ll never truly know what it was like. Then I remember that she declared at the outset that she wasn’t trying to write from the perspective of what it’s REALLY like. And then too, I chill out because I myself do not have it anywhere near as bad as the people this author writes about.

So yeah, it sucked that I hit negative balance this past month (almost twice but I got a 2nd loan from my boyfriend in time before it happened again). Yeah, I had to take two jobs to make ends meet. Yeah, I was treated like shit at the one job. Yeah, I quit that job only a mere week after taking on the second job. I thought I would have lasted a bit longer, but I found out that all this time I’d been on a shitlist and was about to be fired, so I quit rather than be wrongly humiliated.

The wrongly humiliated part though - that’s a daily part of life with low wage jobs. I’ve had several flashbacks to shithole jobs I worked as a teen. I don’t deserve that. I’m college educated now, goddammit.

And herein is where my own prejudices lie.

NOBODY deserves to be treated like shit - teenager or illiterate or college educated or foreign born or non-white or whatever. Nobody.

I had to take the bus to the train station twice this week.

The second time I took the bus, I had to take two of ‘em to make the connection to and from the train. I stared at the floor in what I later realised was humiliation.

I grew up in and around Detroit, Michigan, where there is no known public transit system. Everyone has a car because the Big Three auto companies were there (Ford, General Motors and Chrysler). If you HAD to take public transit, there were only busses, and that was for the poorest of the poor, which in Detroit is mostly the black population, so that’s where the majority of the continual bus system runs.

During the 70’s, the SEMTA bus would come to our door to pick us up for church or other things mom wanted to take us to, because mom didn’t have a car for most of our childhood, she was so poor. But mom taught us that taking the SEMTA bus, or a cab, or even relying on food stamps meant that we were the lowest of the low, and that we should be shamed and embarrassed for acknowledging publicly that we were so poor.
I know now that it’s because of how she was raised, but it influenced me for life.

As I sat there on the bus coming home from the day job to pick up my car on Wednesday, the thought that ran through my head was, “Look at me, feeling all embarrassed, like I’m down here amongst the commoners or something.”
I looked around the bus. I saw an old black man dressed in a hat and suit. I saw young Latina women with infants. I saw young and middle-aged white people in professional business attire.

That’s when it all hit me: I’m in California, where it is chic to take the bus and the train, especially on that day, which was delcared a Spare The Air day. Californians are more prone towards conservation and environmental protection, which is why California has a major public transit system available for daily use. Compare that to Detroit, which is run by the Big Three, where there is no public transit outside of the busses in Detroit. The train system perished in the 1950’s.

It’s a different mindset. I need to get over what I was raised on. I need to reprogram myself. I need to wake the fuck up.

I need to stop being a goddamned white princess who got used to dotcom money and conveniently forgot about growing up in poverty and in shithole neighborhoods. I need to realise that I’ve been in California for the past nine years, and I need to start adopting Californian practices, such as using public transit on a daily basis.

I don’t want to go back to poverty. I don’t want to go back to shithole neighborhoods. I don’t have to at all, but it doesn’t mean I can do what my father did and sneer down at the people still stuck in all of that.
My father was raised by parents who had barely survived the Great Depression. My dad spent his early years wearing clothes his mother MADE for him. He did well on his own as a hippie and then had to remake himself after the divorce by climbing the ranks at Ford Motor Company as a corporate drone. As he climbed the corporate and social and financial ladder, he developed a condescending attitude towards people who had not made it out of poverty. That attitude lasts to this day.

I can rise above poverty without stepping on others and sneering down at them. I will not become my father, nor will I resign myself like my mother, who still lives in abject poverty and squalor.

I can do this.

The short of it is that twice in the past month, 2 companies have made me feel that what I experience and believe is not relevant or important. This in turn embitters me further towards continued employment.

But first, I’m mad enough that I wish to first bring up my ancient history.
I grew up in poverty. My mom held down THREE jobs after my dad divorced her when I was four. She got to keep the kids, the house and the car. Dad had to move back in with his mom. Dad had to give up his Harley mechanic and hippie life and get a job at Ford Motor company, where his dad had worked. Dad rose quickly through the ranks and squirreled away his money. Within ten years, he had a condo.

Not so for my mom.

She worked at Big Boy restaurant during the day, and on weekends she did hair in the basement (during the marriage, her job was professional hairdresser, so she had the hairwashing sink and the professional chair dryers and everything, all in the basement). Later on, she did housekeeping during the day and worked at a bar at night, and still did hair on weekends.

My mom ran $30K into debt by the time we reached high school age. As the oldest, I was made to go out and start working at age 15 to pay for my own school supplies and clothes and other teenaged necessities because mom couldn’t afford it.
I graduated high school and worked full time at a drugstore while going to college full time on state money that I qualified for, because we were so poor.
Later, I worked full time at a daycare, which lasted through most of college until graduation. I moved out of my mom’s house within the first year and a half of college, and cut her off financially after having helped pay off one of her credit cards. I needed to start my own life.

Instead of becoming responsible, she pressured my teenaged brother to go get work and help her out now that I left home. He didn’t forgive me for at least a decade.

In Junior year of college, my housemates skipped out on their lease and left me holding the bag, only I was not on the lease. So I reported where one of them fled to and was told I would not be held responsible for their actions. I moved in with dad.

Upon graduating college with a Bachelor of Arts in Social Science, I found that there was… NOTHING out there for me with that kind of degree.
My dad tried to get me a job through his friend who owned a group home, and it fit with my degree credentials.
That job lasted a month before I discovered client abuse and reported it, then quit after having death threats against me from the person I reported.

Rude awakening - welcome to the real working world.

After that, all I could get was work at a bindery factory through the week, and I worked at a nightclub on weekends.

Ten months after graduating college, my dad declared me an utter failure and kicked me out of his house. A month later, I showed him by getting a job with a real live corporation. Then my car was totaled a couple of days before I was to start that job.
I moved in with my boyfriend and walked to work from his place until I could save up enough money to get another car.

I worked at that corporation for a year. I was finally on my way to escaping poverty!

My boyfriend got a job offer in California. He took it and invited me along. I moved with him and got a new start in the booming computer industry.
Two months after starting my first ever computer job, the department was sacked and operations moved to Dallas, Texas. I took it very hard and was told by the HR dragon lady that I’d better grow a thick skin and quick, or I’d never make it in this field.

I showed her by getting another job in the same field.

That lasted seven months before it was swallowed up by a bigger fish and our department was sacked.

And so it went like this for EIGHT YEARS. Employed, unemployed. Employed, unemployed. Yo-yo.

But at least I was making no less than $20/hr for each of these dotcom jobs.

After the last job ended in January of this year, I vowed not to go back to the dotcom industry.

That’s why the job I found in June ended up paying $11/hr.

The 2nd job I found in July pays $15/hr.

They’re not dotcom jobs.

I found that I couldn’t make it on $11/hr like I thought I could. Why not?
I’d made it okay on unemployment, which was around what… $8/hr? I realised then that unemployment takes out MUCH less in the way of taxes than a J.O.B. takes out.

And yet millions of Californians are somehow forced to survive on MUCH less than my $11 OR my $15/hr. The state minimum wage is $6.75/hr in California’s expensive economy, which is set by those hateful dotcoms (unless you work in San Francisco proper, where they get $8.50/hr… ooo big dollars huh).

How the hell do people do it?

I thought I let go of enough of my material wants. I thought I had pared down my bills. I even got a $10/mo reduction on my DSL line. I haven’t had a cell phone in over two years.

But apparently I’m still spending above my means. I am tempted by the materialistic lifestyle of my boyfriend, who still makes dotcom money. It’s not his fault of course. I have the problem. It’s tough to exist in a relationship when one has so much money to do so much with, and the other has barely anything. It’s unbalanced. The person with more money starts feeling like they have a dependent, because if they want to go do stuff that costs money, they have to pay for the one who doesn’t have money, or else not invite their love along.

This has created issues in the past month for the relationship.

I need to grab hold of the situation and have a long talk with my man about what I can and will do, and what I cannot and will not do financially any longer, and this time I need to hold true to that.

I know, this still hasn’t given any details about why I quit my night job. I have a lot of shit to work through, first.

Part II coming soon.

Just got home from the night job.

I quit tonight rather than wait to be fired by end of week.

More details when I’ve got the time and energy to spew.

Oh, and george showed up this evening, too.

Fucking Mercury retrograde.
Mercury went retrograde on July 4th and will continue to fuck up life until July 29th. After that, expect residual fucking to continue until approximately August 12th.

With that in mind, here’s the latest news:

Last Monday evening, I was at work when the panic about the new day job set in. All that I’d been told on Friday about the ‘hood, and how this lady was going to fire some guy for continually lying about his skills and the work he did for her…and then an hour later I would show up to replace him… it all got me a bit spooked.

I thought of the time that I worked with a lady from the ‘hood back in Michigan. I had to report her for abusing the group home clients. She found out I reported her and so she called my home and threatened death upon me for over a week. She was not fired, I found out later. She was reassigned to a new group home.
I quit that industry after a month.
I went to college and earned a Social Science degree, which enables me to work in social service type jobs such as group homes. But you know what? Fuck that noise - I’m not working for an industry that condones abuse of other humans. This, I was to learn, meant that I nullified my own schooling, because daycare, group homes, social services - all of that enables abusers to infiltrate and work the system to their advantage. It’s a fucking food chain and the people at the top don’t care, so long as they profit.

GAH. Sorry ’bout the flashback.

So anyway, last Monday I began to panic. I got home from work and left a message for the new boss to call me first thing Tuesday morning. She didn’t call, so I called my masseuse, who used to work for this optometrist office. She told me she’d personally trained the guy that my new boss was about to fire, and that he was a sweet little man and he would not retaliate. She said the neighborhood is being reclaimed by its own citizens, as well as being gentrified, so it’s not MY definition of the ‘hood (my definition being memories of a man being shot in my backyard by police when I was nine, and the constant high speed police chases through my hood, and the gangs tagging the street in front of our house and shooting up the inside of our house with pellet guns, and the contract taken out on my brother’s life for selling cut drugs, which he somehow evaded, and the man being shot dead on the corner of the street the first weekend I moved into a new house with a boyfriend…etc).

My masseuse then called up my new boss, who called me and apologised for using the word ‘hood so casually. She convinced me to come in for a look at the job and location, so I did.

Taking surface streets to get to this optometrist is definitely through the ‘hood. The optometrist office itself is located in an area still populated with people from the ‘hood, as well as visited by more affluent people who live in the nearby hills.
That street itself is okay during the daytime, but I was told by my coworker not to park more than two blocks away in any direction if I like my car. She is the girl mentioned by my boss as one who lives in the ‘hood.
I found out she doesn’t live in the Oakland ‘hood though. She lives in Richmond, and takes the same exit I take for my night job. Only, at the end of the exit ramp, she turns right, while I turn left. Turning right takes her into a residential area, whereas turning left takes me into the industrial area. She lives right where all the shootings are making the news more frequently, and says the shootings are daily there for many many years.

So this is two jobs now that have had my boyfriend and I very concerned for my well-being.

But yet, I returned to the optometrist in Oakland on Wednesday. I found out that the guy who was fired nearly cried and asked the boss if there’s anything else he could do to stay employed. She politely told him no, sorry. Well, that’s better than what I thought might happen. I was expecting defiance and threats, but was reassured that this guy was not like that, and so he wasn’t.

That neighborhood is okay during the day - I just don’t wanna be there at night.
The night job in Richmond is okay, too, because I don’t have to drive through any neighborhoods, and there’s security on the old military-base-turned-University-of-Berkeley-field-station-base.
So both, although in or near the ‘hood, are okay for commuting to and from, it seems, for now.

Last Wednesday, I weighed myself:   159.9lbs (72.5kg).

On Thursday, I finally got my blood test results back from the allergist.

I do not have Celiac disease.

I do not have an allergy, which means I have to stop eating all wheat and yeast foods immediately, or they could eventually cause death.

What I do have is an intolerance or insensitivity. This bodes much better, says the allergist, because all I have to do is stick to the diet elimination a little longer, and then start adding in ONE ingredient a week, starting off with 1 serving per day, and noting any reactions, and then determining my threshold.

I told her that I’d tried introducing yeast back into my diet a few weeks ago. I had a flour tortilla with my dinner.
For three days afterwards, I was in excruciating intestinal and anal pain.
So basically, I should try a flour tortilla again, but this time only do half or a third of a serving, instead of an entire tortilla…to determine my threshold.

IF this does not work and I still have reactions to even 1 serving of the food in question, THEN I have to go back to the allergist and schedule a colonoscopy, so they can rule out any other issues that might be going on.

On Thursday, my car died AGAIN. I had just gotten back into town from my allergist appointment, when my air conditioner went out and then my thermostat spiked and the warning bell went off.
I was stopped at a light at the time, and as soon as the light changed, I turned the corner and pulled into the local drugstore parking lot, where I called for a tow. At least I was already in town this time. Thankfully, my auto insurance allows for 1 free tow (within a 5-mile radius) for each breakdown. It was a hot day so the tow trucks were busy. I waited over an hour to be towed about a mile, but I wasn’t willing to chance driving there myself, not knowing what was wrong with my car.
My boyfriend’s car just did the same thing a few weeks earlier, and it turns out the head gasket blew at the moment the thermostat went out cuz it also seized the water pump.
Now, I just had my car worked on back in May for broken timing belt/seized water pump. So this thermostat issue may not be related - it may be something as simple as a short in the wiring, causing stuff to go haywire, cuz well, the dashboard has been shorting out on me anyway.

My car went in on Thursday and I still dunno if it’s been worked on. They were supposed to get to it on Saturday, but I never got a call from them. I just called them today and the mechanic is out of the shop at the moment, plz call back in half an hour. Arrgh!
Give me back my car already!

Anyway, so Thursday, I still had to get to work at the night job somehow. I walked from the auto shop to a friend’s house - he works from home, the lucky bastard. Well, he could take me to the night job right then, but I wasn’t changed into my night job work clothes and I had no food prepared for lunch or dinner. I asked if he could wait a couple of hours til I was ready. Nope, he works from home and can’t take time off like that.
Crap.
He dropped me off at home, where I called one of my coworkers, who is also a friend of about 8 years. Well, She’d been out sick for the past couple of days.
So I didn’t go to work on Thursday.

Friday morning, I got a ride to the day job from my boyfriend. My works-from-home friend gave me a ride from the day job to the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) train station. My night job boss picked me up from the train station and deposited me at work, where I was picked up at the end of my shift by my boyfriend.

Friday night was also when the george cramps set in again. I’ve been having moderate george pains on and off for the past two weeks, but the pain reached the point where I wanted to cry as I worked the foot pedal on the night job on Friday, scanning books. I called my boyfriend for an early ride home, but the voicemail didn’t reach his phone for an hour. Fucking Mercury retrograde!
So I basically worked all of my shift that night, which is good, financially speaking, but bad, pain-wise. I could have tried calling my boyfriend a second time, but I resigned to self abuse.

Saturday I worked at the day job (their work week is Tuesday through Saturday). Saturday was also the hotest day of the year so far. Our town experienced 88F (31C), when it is known for more milder weather in the 70’s (20’s C). The hotest area was Vacaville, which reached 112F (44C). Glad I don’t live there (for more than one reason - that’s the ‘hood, too).

After I got out of work, my boyfriend proposed that we spend the rest of the day in the movie theatre to keep cool. But first, we needed lunch, so he took me to sushi. I forgot to bring my wheat-free soy sauce, though.
After lunch, we went back home to sweltering heat and prepared to find 2-3 movies to view for the rest of the day.
However, I had a food reaction to the soy sauce, which gave me a total GI reaction, and wore me out. I laid on the couch waiting out the intestional spasming.
Then, when we finally were on our way out the door to the movies, I remembered that we’d committed to be at the local coffee house for a sending off (one of the employees is joining the Peace Corps) and a birthday (the coffee house owner).
So we went there first and it was even hotter inside the coffee house. I began to feel sick again, so we only stayed for about a half an hour, then took off for the movie theatre.

We couldn’t find parking on the street, so my boyfriend found the closest parking garage. We paid, parked, and walked over to the theatre. I was feeling craptastic but he was so looking forward to going, and I always let him down with regards to seeing movies, that I resigned and did this for him.

We saw Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man’s Chest. It was darker than the first movie in the series. I mostly dug it. What I did NOT like was all the fucking commercials before the movie. It didn’t used to be this way. There used to only be movie previews before a movie was shown in a theatre. Now, if you want to arrive early to find a good seat, you are held captive by thee worst teevee commericals on the planet. Bombarded by consumerist ads. It put me in a right foul mood and I vowed to my boyfriend that this would be the last movie theatre experience for me. He’ll just have to find other people to go to the movies with.

When the movie ended, we walked back to the parking garage….and found it had closed at midnight. It was now 1am.

To avoid my boyfriend going apeshit and hitting things, I accepted half the responsibility for failing to note the hours of the garage, and with that, I accepted half the financial responsibility for getting us home via cab, because the BART station had already closed for the night, too.

Although in my defense, I was completely craptastic due to george pain and food reaction hell. How the hell would I be expected to pay attention to parking garage hours? Whatever. Mass destruction was avoided. That’s all that matters.

The next day, my boyfriend got a ride from a friend to the parking garage that held his car captive overnight for $1.50/hr (assholes!). His car was fine and he got home safely.

Fucking Mercury retrograde!!!

On a nicer note, today I weighed myself and I checked in at exactly 158lbs (72kg). Go me! At least there’s one good thing going on with this food intolerance crap I guess. :/

Oh - getting back to the jobness for a moment…remember when I said “So both, although in or near the ‘hood, are okay for commuting to and from, it seems, for now“?
Well, that theory is shot now that my car is taken out of the equation, because I do NOT feel comfortable bicycling from the train station to and from either of these locations. Not only that, but george was due yesterday and I’ve been having pains. I’m in no condition to pedal as it is.

I really really need my car back now, plz.

…just called the shop back. Apparently there was something wrong with the thermostat, the coolant temperature sensor and the fan module, which was affecting the computer. The parts are expected in today and he should have it finished today. That would RULE.

That’s all the news that fits. Stay tuned.

Well. I just got a second job.

My masseuse called me up on Friday and asked if I was still looking for work. I told her yes, because I wasn’t sure how this new night job is going to continue working out for me.

She said her friend she’d told me about a few months ago is serious about finding a new person again for her office, and asked if she could give her friend my number.

Number given, her friend rang me up and talked with me for a moment. We set up an interview for Monday 11am. She asked where a good place would be to hold a casual interview, since she didn’t want to do this at her office, since I’ll be replacing someone she’s firing soon.

I chose the local non-chain tea garden/coffee house.

11am today, we met at the coffee house, chatted about our current life situations and needs and wants, and then she said, “great, can you come in tomorrow then?” and laughed.

Hmm I thought, ok sure and said yes.

The job is at an optometrist office that she runs.
I’d be processing billing and insurance stuff, and with that some data entry.

It pays $4 more per hour than the night job is paying.

So now the next thing to do is talk with the night job and see if they’ll allow me to scale back my hours so that I can have at least 6 hours on a day shift for the optometrist office.

But I won’t chat with the night job until tomorrow night, because I want to see if I like the optometrist office tomorrow, first.

The optometrist office is in Oakland near highway 580, so we’ll see how I like the neighborhood. I say that because the woman who interviewed me today kept making reference to “the ‘hood” and that the other girl working in her office is “definitely of the ‘hood”, and that their clientele is made up of all kinds of people but representative of “the ‘hood”.

So we’ll see. Being right off 580 is convenient, cuz that’s the highway that I drive to get to the night job.

There’s a lesson somewhere for me that I’ve obtained not one but two jobs now in “the ‘hood” in an on-the-spot, “great, you’re hired” sort of fashion. I’ll keep my eyes and ears and mind open as to what this lesson will be.
I am of the belief that every place I’ve ever lived in has taught me a lesson of some sort, extending out to my social life and my job during the time I’ve lived in a particular home. So I’ve just moved into a new home and now there are new lessons being taught already. I got the scanning job after I’d already given notice to our old apartment that we were moving out, so that job is also tied to the life lesson(s) that will be taught to me in the new home. I just need to be Aware and pay attention and Learn.

All lessons, however pleasant or painful, are positive if I Learn something from them.

Last weekend, we moved to our new home! Thanks to the people who were available to help that day. Seriously, we’re still discovering stuff that was packed for us last minute, and it was done really well. I just have to say that our friends rawk.

Today is the first day of Internet access from the new place. If I were still a real geek, I’d have come over the night before moving day and set up my computer and the DSL modem on the floor.

I’m losing my geekiness. I’m actually not too broken up about that, though.

I got into computers accidentally, by way of new friends, right out of college. For years, I was super competitive about learning all I could, so I could be as geeky as my new friends. I succeeded in becoming quite a bit more geeky than my longtime established friends, but never anywhere near as geeky as the friends who introduced me to the world of Linux and the Internet and HTML.

Anyway, I had my time in the geek ring. It was fun and it was soul sapping at the same time. I’m glad to be moving away from tech work, and I’m okay with losing some of my technical skills as a result.

Let’s see, what else….

About a week before the move, we got a piece of mail delivered to us that belonged to our neighbor in the next building. He had the same apartment number, except for his number ended with ‘B’ and ours ended with ‘A’, to denote the different buildings.

I walked the letter over to the neighbor and tried to pronounce his name so I could speak to him when he opened the door. I knocked on the door but no one answered, so I slid the mail under his front door.

Two days before our move, I was in the laundry room and a woman came in to post a sign for a moving sale. I said, “Oh, you too, eh?” and she asked me to clarify what I meant, because she didn’t speak English very well. I said, “You’re moving as well? So are we. Lots of people seem to be leaving this apartment complex lately.” She nodded but I could tell she didn’t fully understand. She began to tell me of all the stuff she had for sale, and that the prices were flexible. I told her I might stop by if time permitted.

I looked at the sign after she left the laundry room and realised it was the same apartment I’d delivered mail to earlier that week. And she had shelves and storage boxes for sale, which I felt we might need for the new place, so I told my boyfriend about it and we went over to have a look that evening.

We showed up and the lady let us in and began to hastily take us through the house, saying EVERYTHING has to be sold. She opened up cupboards and said even the food and dishes - everything. Even the pictures on the wall… must go. She seemed a bit frantic.

I started to feel uneasy.

Then she pulled down a shoebox from a cupboard. The box contained essential oils and tinctures. She began to ask what they were for and said she cannot use them, but if I can use them, tell her what I will pay for the items.

I stepped back and said, “…oh…someone died here.”

She stopped abruptly and looked away, and then said, “Yes, my brother.”

I told her I was sorry for her loss. I inspected the oils and looked about the apartment with new eyes. Based upon the wall-to-wall shelving, the poems and art from her brother lining the walls, the essential oils and tinctures, the tapestries…I dunno. I hate to stereotype but… I realised that her brother had died of AIDS and that she might not know it.

I just felt so sad. I’m empathic to begin with, but for some reason, this hit me hard. I felt a sense of isolation and loneliness and desperation throughout the apartment. My boyfriend started to panic that we wouldnt’ have enough time to start moving fragile items to our new home if we lingered around this woman’s brother’s apartment, and besides, I think he was genuinely creeped out as soon as I noted and had it confirmed that someone had died.

I told my boyfriend he should go home, and that I’d be there shortly to help him out.
After talking with the woman a bit more, I learned that she’d be leaving in a few days to go back to Argentina, and that she didn’t know what the going price was for all of her brother’s stuff, and that she’d been scouring the stores to see what her brother had paid so that she could get half of the money back in selling the items. She told me she’d had a table in Berkeley and tried to sell his Buddhist and religious items, but people told her she wanted too much, so she didn’t make much money that day.

I ended up buying some picture frames and small plastic storage boxes from the woman. I paid her what I thought would be half for the items, which were mostly or completely new. I told her I might be back tomorrow if I had time, but told her we’d be moving that day. She gave me her number and I left.

The night before moving day is typically a restless one but for me it was made even more complicated by the fact that this woman’s brother would not leave my mind.

I was awakened at 5:30am by a sudden panic that I had to confront this woman immediately and try to convince her that she shouldn’t be trying to make money off of her brother’s items…that she should be giving to charity in her brother’s name during these last few days she had in the U.S. with a houseful of items still to let go of.

I paced the house for a bit, then went back to bed for an hour, then got up again. The nagging panic returned, and I felt as though her brother himself was the driving force. I quietly told her brother’s spirit that I had to move our own home that day - that I could not help his sister, and to please rest in peace and let me go back to my own stress of moving.

But no.

Around 8am, I couldn’t take it anymore and so I called the woman and woke her up. I arranged to meet with her later, after we went and got the moving truck.

Moving truck acquired, I went to see the woman, and I asked her if she could tell me what her brother died of, because I felt I could help her offload some of his items in his memory to charity. The woman was agitated with me and refused to tell me what her brother died of, and asked me to explain why I felt I could help her. Since that day was moving day, I didn’t have much time, so I said, “Listen, I suspect your brother died of AIDS, and so I wanted to help you give his stuff in his name to organisations affiliated with helping people with AIDS. I feel that he would have wanted this.

She asked me why I thought her brother died of AIDS. I described the oils and tinctures, the poetry and art, the layout and decor of the house. She began to cry, and said she thinks he died of AIDS, too. She told me that her brother would not tell her what was wrong with him, and he refused to tell his doctor, too. She told me that his doctor tried to make him sign a form for treatment, but that her brother had refused. Because of this, the doctor could only treat her brother for what his immediate complaints were at each visit, rather than treat the entire disease. As a result, she told me, the doctor gave the wrong treatments, and her brother got even more sick and weak, and then he died.
She told me that she had come to the U.S. to help her brother pack up his house so he could move back to Argentina to be with his family. She told me he had only been in the U.S. for eight months, and that he didn’t have any friends or community, because he refused to tell anyone what was wrong with him.

When I told the woman that I suspected it was because he was ashamed and did not want to bring shame upon his family name, she cried even harder, and agreed. I told her that he had probably moved to the San Francisco Bay Area so he could come out of the closet, because this is the best place to be accepted for who he was. But then he found out he was sick, and he closed himself off. I told the woman again how sorry I was for his loss, and that she needed to start focusing on giving his items to charity instead of selling the items, since she only had a couple days left in the U.S., and the sheer amount of items in the apartment would only be thrown away by management if she didn’t give it to charity in her brother’s name.

We exchanged phone numbers and email addresses, and I told her I would find some numbers of AIDS charities for her as soon as I could. I told her I was moving out that day, and I knew that she had to leave the country in the next 48 hours. I told her I would do what I can given the limited time.

We moved to our new place on Saturday, July 8th. I called and left messages at two organisations on Sunday. When I did not get a call back, I called people again on Monday, and got a bunch of referral numbers and organisations. I called the woman with this info, but she kept saying it was too late, and she sounded frustrated with me, now. I wonder if she felt I let her down. I don’t know. So I called the apartment management and gave them the charity numbers. I was informed that the woman had called a church to come pick up her brother’s belongings. I was also told that the apartment management was authorised by the woman to give away his belongings to their own friends and family, so I didn’t need to worry. I thanked them for their time and hung up.

And that’s that.

Crazy weekend. I feel like I helped a woman to understand, but I also feel like I caused her more grief than she needed in her last few days in the U.S.
I wanted to help her, that’s all. I didn’t feel like I had a choice. I’m empathic and slightly mediumistic and I felt absolutely driven by force to say something and to try to explain and help. I’m sorry if I made it worse.

I have some of her brother’s belongings, which I will cleanse and purify to further release his energy. I hope she took his spirit back home with her in some of the Buddhist artifacts that he left behind. Even though she is Christian, I hope she took some of his Buddhist stuff to remember him by.

After moving day, my boyfriend and I had to work all week. We took shifts in unpacking the house; I unpacked during the day, and he unpacked at night, and we also worked a full day of work each day at our jobs. Talk about exhausting!

Yesterday was our 6-year anniversary, so I took the night off of work, and we went to a very nice dinner at Bella Vista. I will spare you the details of the rest of the night and into the today’s celebratory events.

If that’s not enough excitement, tonight my boyfriend has a show with the band he’s in, and then first thing tomorrow, we are walking 6 miles for the annual AIDS Walk charity.

I plan to be a complete lazy ass after the walk tomorrow, and all day on Monday before I have to leave for work.

In honour of Independence Day, I’ve consulted with my friend Alithinos, and I’ve linked to several political blogs for your reading enjoyment. You may find them on the left (hee) side of my journal site, under the header “Political/Outside”.

I got about seven deep in my research and linking, and had to swill some two buck chuck to dull the pain. I now have a nice buzz going.

Mind you, I don’t usually swill two buck chuck. It’s actually good stuff. I prefer the Cabernet Sauvignon.

Cheers.

Today I weighed in at 162.8lbs, so technically I’m still holding steady around the 163 mark.

I reintroduced cheese into my diet on Saturday and Sunday. I tried a flour tortilla with mozzarella cheese on Saturday and it hated me. I was bloated and feeling way too full and uncomfortable. The next day, I tried a corn tortilla with mozzarella cheese and was fine. So once again - gluten is in flour. Gluten bad.

Also, george is taking his time leaving the premises - he should’ve been gone by now. But at least the pain is gone.

Back to packing - the big moving day is this coming weekend! We get the keys on Friday, so we’ll be taking fragile stuff over there Friday night - I took that night off work.

Speaking of days off work, tomorrow is a national holiday - Independence Day.
I used to celebrate Independence Day. I used to love fireworks. Then I got into college and for the first time in my life, I learned things they don’t teach you in high school, and what my Christian Fundamentalist family never taught me. I learned the real personality and the real story behind Christopher Columbus. I learned the real story as to what happened to Native Americans. I learned the real story of how this nation cried for independence while being a slave-holding nation. I learned how the U.S. developed after the Revolutionary War with regards to taking over territories, as well as forcing out Native Americans and Mexicans, as well as the Southern opposition to liberate slaves. This is the real picture of the United States.

People in the U.S. love to paint a selective picture of the founding of and fighting for this country. We love to block out the bad points while pointing our fingers at other bad guys around the globe. This has defined this country from the beginning, and is a true hallmark of Christians - the very puritanical/fundamentalist types who landed on the shores of what is now the United States, to escape persecution for their whacked beliefs in Europe. They escaped persectution only to start a new country persecuting others. The earliest evidence of this behaviour is showcased by The Salem Witch Trial of 1692.

So, tomorrow night, millions of people in the U.S. will be celebrating their freedom. They will sing the song of the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, which brought this country its freedom. At the same time, U.S. soldiers overseas will be firing rockets and dropping bombs on brown people in a false war to curtail “terr’r” - a war that is really being fought to claim oil for greedy businessmen in the U.S. government, in turn to feed the greedy consumers of oil throughout the U.S. (I myself am included, as I drive a gasoline powered automobile).

Tomorrow I will be in my apartment, packing for the move this weekend. I will spend the evening given off of work with my boyfriend. We will drink wine to dull the noise of amateur fireworks displays outside on the beach and in the school field behind our complex. We will watch a movie or crank up the music. We will not be celebrating the eroded freedom that this country now blindly enjoys in its waning state of collective dementia and declining years.

I’d rather have been at Yosemite, where people are prohibited from shooting off fireworks, getting stupidly drunk and shouty on hard alcohol and cheap beer and causing auto accidents and mayhem. But even had we taken our trip to Yosemite this weekend, we would have had to come back ON July 4th to face the asshats, because my friends have to be at work on the morning of the 5th. We would have had to go through sobriety checkpoints on the road. We would have been stuck in massive waves of traffic because everyone would be heading in the same direction we would be heading - towards Oakland and San Francisco - to see the fireworks, while all we would want to do is go home.

Either way, Independence Day is a royal pain in the ass, because it’s a neverending wave of blind flag-waving idiots with selective education on the founding of this country.

I am glad for some freedoms…for example I’m glad that women in the U.S. are not subjected to Islamic Sharia law.
But if you go to the Deep South, how different are the customs and ways women are treated when you get down to the nitty gritty?

I am glad that gays can hold hands in public in San Francisco, California. But, and this is only a list from the past eight years, Matthew Shepherd was killed for being gay in Wyoming. Gwen Araujo was killed for being transgendered in Newark, just 35 miles south of San Francisco, California.

And

there

are

other stories, too.

So many, and not just about gays. Not just about women. There’s the issue of ongoing racial issues around the country, with the last noted as recently as 2001. There’s Brian Deneke, who was murdered because he wasn’t a mainstream normal looking guy. And oh the stories I could share from myself and friends who have been beaten up in high school for being different from the mainstream….

This country was founded at its core by intolerant assholes who were persecuted for their beliefs, who left their homeland and founded this one, to start their intolerance all over again.

No, I don’t feel like celebrating on the 4th of July.

I went into work last night, despite feeling crappy. The bleeding and cramps had subsided by around 2pm, so I threw myself together, popped 600mg Ibuprofen, and drove to work.
Everyone seemed to keep their distance from me - I think perhaps they were under the impression that I’d been out with the flu or something contagious. No matter - they’re all guys, anyway. Telling them about george would likely spook them off.

Later, on break, one guy did ask me what happened and was I ok. I shrugged, told him I’m drugged still, and that it’s “girl stuff.” He paused and said, “…oh..”, looked at me kinda funny, like he’s never encountered someone with girl stuff so bad before, and then walked off. Heee… he’s only 19 years old, anyway. He could use a good mind bending, I’m sure.

About 2 hours into my shift - around 6:30pm - I started experiencing really bad ass pain. This is the “someone is shoving a sharpened broomstick up my ass” feeling, which always accompanies george for the past ten or so years. I know that I alarmed the person working next to me - who is genderbenderific like me - because every time I jumped from the pain and stopped my book scanning work for a second, I could see out of my peripheral vision that he’d look up from his work and give me a look for a second, then cautiously return to working. Yet, he’s not good on making small talk or conversation, cuz when I was on dinner break later, and he came out for a break, I tried to say hi and engage him in some chat to no avail.
Still, he seems to dig me, and seems concerned for me.
He had pulled down books on genealogy for me and sat them on my chair for me to see when I returned from my dinner break. So I’m sure we’ll be friends before long. He’s just painfully, painfully shy.
He knows I’m into genealogy stuff, because on Tuesday, when our nightshift boss ordered pizza and told us to go eat, I’d politely declined, and was teased for being some kind of health food nut. So I told the boss about my wheat allergy and how per my doctor I have to be on a gluten-free diet.
Well, the place is so small - there’s only 8 to 10 of us on a given night - that everyone listened in and started asking questions about Celiac. One guy rattled off symptoms, which I nodded to. He then asked if I’m Irish, and declared that his whole family is sensitive to wheat, and that he is convinced that all Irish people have some degree of wheat intolerance. I told him I’m more Appalachian, but that Appalachia is made up of Scotch-Irish descendants, and I told him that his theory was interesting, and that I’d love to really dig in and research that.
Well, the Appalachia comment spurred even more commentary and questions, and that’s how I got to meet most of my co-workers, finally - through this conversation! That’s how they found out about my love of family preservation work (genealogy), and why I came to interview for this archival job - because preservation in general is dear to my heart.

So anyway, Genderbenderific Boy paid attention, cuz now every time he sees books on ancestry and genealogy, he leaves one on my chair for me to look over.

On gender stuff in general…
Because my job is a sort of factory type environment, and because I work with all guys, and because of the extra testosterone boost that often accompanies george, I’ve been feeling more butch lately. I watch my shadow in the setting sun when I walk to the bathroom (which is in a different building - it’s better than what they had before - they used to only have a port-a-john!), and since I tend to wear a ponytail to work (cuz it’s been hot weather), I notice how guy-like my shadow is again. I notice the weight I’m losing. I notice my walk is more butch, because I’m walking alone in evenings and at night to the bathroom and back, which automagically kicks in my Detroit Walk™. There’s nothing bad or wrong with any of this. I am after all gendertastic. Just noting for the record, since it’s been awhile since I’ve discussed my gender issues. Hm, going back over that old site, I realise I’d dropped the ball in porting stuff over. Gonna have to find time to remedy that.

Back to the pain issue….
The broomsticky ass pain went in waves and lasted from around 6:30pm til after 9pm. By 9pm, I was so exhausted from fighting and steeling against the pain (I’d taken 400mg more of Ibuprophen, too), that now I was dizzy and very drowsy.
On top of that, our boss tried to cool down the room by sticking a fan on the floor and blowing it down the aisle we were all sitting in. Well, this is a small room built up industrial style - and it’s full of carts of old books, dating to the late 19th century. There’s a lot of dust. The fan was turned on high, right next to me, and stirred up a ton of dust. This inflamed my eyes and nose immediately. My eyes got sore and itchy and puffy, and my nose got instantly clogged.
I began to wonder again if this job would do me more harm than good, health-wise, and I started to worry that I wouldn’t hear back from the other job I interviewed for on Monday.
Genderbenderific Boy and I complained about the dust, and the fan was removed.

But as I said, the pain was so long-lasting that it wore me the hell out.
So there was the ass pain, the dust issue, and then… I started repeatedly sugar-crashing! Yes, no sugar has been present in my diet, and I’ve been eating protein and vegetables and LARABAR fruit protein bars, but because george is here, I have experienced hypoglycemic attacks every day this week. However, last night, I had one attack after another - I couldn’t stop it - I didn’t know how.
Those alone will make one want to sleep for a week after an attack, but combined with the ass pain and dust allergy…. OMG I just wanted to go lay down on the railroad tracks outside and wait for the next train to put me out of my misery.

I asked if I could leave an hour early, and was granted permission. But the last hour on the job was grueling. My scanning average was sucktastic for the evening as well, and I told this to my boss, who chuckled and told me to just go home and get some rest.
I’d expected to be paid last night, but forgot to ask about it when no check was handed out. Perhaps they pulled my check cuz I’d missed two days, and now they have to recalculate. Oh well, I did get my last unemployment check, though, which is good.

I came home and went right to bed last night.

Today, I woke up and immediately started to sugar-crash again. I ate 2 scrambled eggs and 2 gluten-free waffles with gluten-free butter. I’m still fuzzy-headed from the morning attack.

I’d like all of this to stop now, please. I’d like george to vacate the premises and let me go back to feeling reasonably healthy now, k thx.

…apparently this request is being denied, as I’m feeling the bleeding and slight bent of cramps creeping back up again. Go me.