zeptember

Well I didn’t have the crying sobbing messy meltdown that I thought I might. But by the end of last night, I did literally reach overload and ran screaming from the computer room.
I then had an angry outburst at my man over my state of finances and the financials related to wedding planning. I begged for elopement once again.

We patched things up immediately like we always do, and talked about both of our states of minds right now. I eventually relaxed and chilled the hell out.

This morning, I applied to a daycare in town, and called the daycare agency I’ve been trying to get employment through for the last couple of months - they STILL don’t know the status of my fingerprinting and said they’d check again and call me back (they never call me back). Bastards.
I updated my resume on the state job board to reflect ONLY childcare work, as I’ve made up my mind to never work in the field of computers ever again.

And now I’m back to wedding stuff again. And I’m dreading it.

I told my man last night that I have no doubts or fears or cold feet whatsoever about marrying him. It’s just, couldn’t we do it for a fraction of the cost we’re going about it right now? We’re currently organising a $13K wedding and a $6K honeymoon on $6K available, with the rest being pledged by his father, my father, and any of our guests willing to donate towards the honeymoon.
Technically, the pledges would give us up to $12K on top of the $6K we have now, leaving us only $1K short.

… brb … alameda hospital calling…

I woke up to get ready to work out this morning and had to stand in the hallway for a couple of minutes to guage whether or not I felt well enough to leave the house. I’m not bleeding yet - it’s the pre-menstrual pain and discomfort. I had slight nausea, too. When I have that, usually it means I’m about to bleed profusely.

I stood there long enough that my cat woke up and jumped down off the couch and came up to me as if to ask how I was doing.

I decided that since I’d not heard from my friend the night before about gym plans, that there was no sense in potentially awakening her this morning just to say I’m not going to the gym. I went back to bed.

I awoke again 3 hours later of a nightmare wherein I was trying to get to work and kept running into women blocking the road in one way or another. The second woman had a big truck parked on the railroad tracks I was trying to drive on??!?

The tracks were on a bed of gravel perpendicular to the road for cars. I had words with the woman. She was bitchy back at me, saying her car was broken down and she needed help. I treated her like a homeless begging vagrant and turned around to try another pathway to work. Suddenly I was without a car myself and found myself running on train tracks embedded in a cement road, off to the right from where I left the woman standing.

I then heard a train’s horn. I turned around as I ran and saw the train barreling down the tracks towards me. I started to run to get out of the way, running towards a ditch, and my thought was, “I don’t think I’ll make it in time, trains go faster than we think they do.”

And then I woke up.

To analyse the dream, I go to my handy dandy dream dictionary:

“To see an obstruction on railroad tracks, suggests you have done something you’re sorry about.”

“To dream about people getting killed by a train, or of being in a train wreck, suggests that progress towards your goals is not going according to plans. This may be because you lack the self-confidence to pursue them whole-heartedly.”

I’m still slightly nauseated, still no bleeding, still low uterine pain and now moderate low back pain, and I feel like I want to cry all day.

And the dream is spot on, by the way.

I feel highly pressured to get back to work and this paralyses me with fear. There’s nobody close to me pressuring me - it’s all in my head - fear of being forced by the state to go back to work before I’m ready. The side of my fear is that I don’t want to go through the abuse again of an employer constantly telling me every week that they’ll fire me if I don’t come to work every single day.

I really hope the settlement comes soon. I can’t go back to work. My anxiety is such that I’ll have a full on breakdown over it. I’m scarred mentally from what I’ve been through with that last employer.

With all this fear and paralysis, it makes it hard to continue working on my web business, because I feel I’m no good at it. I feel like I’ll never be successful, like I’m wasting my time, like what I’m doing is totally unreasonable, like I’m being a slacker and a sponge on my man, draining him of his finances.

Today is fired.

At least my cats know this. Kiki has his head on my right leg, and Zenaide is draped over my left arm as I sit on the couch using the laptop. They’ve come to comfort me.

Woke up this morning and the first thought that hit my head was:

*looks around bedroom*

*sigh*

“I think I’m ready to go back to work, now.”

All day today, I’ve felt like I’m on the vacation that’s gone on for far too long.

Despite the fact that up until Friday, I’ve not felt like I’ve been on vacation. As a matter of fact, I’ve been working very hard the past four months to get my astrology site to a state where it looks desireable for customers to want to buy a chart and bring their friends and family in.

But I brought this “vacation” mindset upon myself last week when I was cleaning the house and preparing myself for a long weekend with george.

George didn’t show up and I’ve gotten tired of waiting around for him to show up.

The problem with my thoughts this morning of being ready to go back to work is that I didn’t mean, back to work on the astrology business.

I meant, back to work in the traditional sense - working FOR someone FOR a steady paycheck.

However strong my urge was to look for work today, I realise that we’re still in a Mercury retrograde, and for me, that’s bad news when looking for, obtaining or having trouble on a job.

Mercury retrograde doesn’t stop until tomorrow, but Mercury doesn’t end up going forward in the sky until March 10th. Hell if I’m gonna get a traditional job willfully before that date.
Moving forward. That’s what I’d like to do in life.

I just gotta stay patient and remember that george hasn’t hit yet, and I’m still depressed, and to just take it easy on myself. I’m still in downtime. It’s a bad one with a week of emotional hell leading up to george. But I can get through this.

P.S. I’m freezing.

Haven’t worked again today.

The depression really slammed me yesterday. Just suddenly I was FUCKING DEPRESSED.

Is it the codeine pill I took Tuesday night? Is it just PMS? Is it due to the forbidden foods I’ve been reintroducing in order to get the stupid blood test for my allergist? Is it because I’m panicked again over my ability as a professional astrologer? Is it all of the above?

I also started getting george pain pretty strongly at 12:02pm yesterday but he never did show up. The depression worsened throughout the day as the pain stayed constant yet just enough to be annoying. On a whim, I bought tickets to see Siouxsie live at the Fillmore, even though I don’t have the money for such things. This of course made the depression worse.
At the last minute, I got off my ass, threw on a dress, did my hair and makeup, and went out the door.
On the way across the Bay Bridge, I had to fight the very strong urge to pull over, get out of my car and dive off the bridge. My brain was SO broken that when I argued against such plans, my brain came back soothingly with, “Oh it won’t hurt, do you ever hear of people killing themselves by jumping off this bridge? NO. It’s always the Golden Gate bridge. You’ll be fine. You can just go for a swim. It’ll be nice.”

Of course I didn’t listen, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. :p

But the urge was compelling. Very strong. WTF.

I didn’t get to San Francisco in time to meet my friends for dinner, so I went without. No big deal, I’ve not been hungry lately, anyway - just craving chocolate and sugar mainly. My friends met me outside of the parking structure and we walked to the Fillmore. When we got there, Rasputina was playing. I’d never seen them before. I had instant cello lust. I played cello in 4th and 5th grade. The only reason I stopped was because we had to move to a new school for 6th grade, and they didn’t have a strings department, only a band department. Thus ended my career as a cellist - my mother was too poor to *buy* me a cello of my own, let alone pay for lessons.

Siouxsie was great. I enjoyed seeing her and yowza, does she still got it. Catcalls galore, all night, from every inch of the gender spectrum, for our beloved Auntie Siouxsie.

When the show got out, my friends and I parted ways. I was in such pain from standing and craning my neck and dancing that I needed to take an Ibuprofen600 on the way home. I felt better emotionally and physically when I got home.
Woke up this morning from the dream I posted about in the last entry and well, spent the rest of the day today in a depressed funk all over again.

I will say though that I did spend a lot of time outside today. I sat in the backyard and took pictures. I even took my cat out there on her harness but all she did was meow and howl because she was afraid. Her tail was all bushed out, too.
My friend came over later and we talked out in the backyard in the sun.

Here’s some pix I took of the backyard today:

“The sun is up, the sky is blue, it’s beautiful, and so are you…”

This is right outside our front door.

After my friend took off for work, I went and retrieved my car - it was parked a couple of blocks away - and I went and got a mini pizza to further test the reintroduction of foods. I SWEAR TO {INSERT DEITY HERE} I DIDN’T EXPERIENCE ANY DOOM.

I’m absolutely fecking baffled by this. I swear, I have been severely ill in the past from eating pizza dough or a dinner roll or anything with wheat and yeast in it, especially the yeast. So I have no idea what the deal is. I’ve probably been consuming yeast in some form or another and got my gut reacclimated to it, I guess. Would sugars do that alone? I wonder.

This would explain the weight gain over the past 2 years. Time to cut everything out again - this time for the purpose of weight management!

…

And now I feel better that I’ve emptied my head. My man is on his way home from work, so that helps, too. Tomorrow is a new day. I will do what I can tomorrow, knowing that this is downtime, be it emotional (depression, stress, anxiety, PMS, etc) or physical (the endometriosis), it does not matter. I’m in downtime. And I need to take care of myself. And the work will have to wait, and I will just have to TRUST myself that everything will happen as it should, in its time.

*sigh*

It’s just convincing my man that this is all good. That’s going to be the problem as we approach May of this year, when the state financial assistance runs out.

*sigh again*

But right now…. RIGHT NOW… I take care of myself in my downtime.

This morning I finally got a call from the Labor Board - the company that fired me finally responded to their charges of “denied accomodation”, and they’re fighting it! OMG, WTF.

Can’t say I didn’t expect this, though. The Labor Board guy asked me a bunch of questions surrounding my absenses, and said he’ll continue to review all the chat logs, doctor’s notes and emails I sent proving my case that I informed them of day one that I have a stage III incurable illness which does keep me from work between 1-3 days each month and therefore violates their stupid-ass attendance policy.

Good. You go right ahead and fight. Have fun with that. But I’m going to win.

Well I guess it’s still happening, and will continue to happen each time I have to go through the job interview process….

This morning I dreamt that I was returning back to work in a corporate environment, and when I got to work and sat down at my desk, people were looking at me funny. I had the sense in my dream that I’d just come back from another round of Endometriosis pain, coupled with the flu.

The workplace was a large open floor filled with desks with no cubicle walls to separate people and teams from one another. Just one large open room filled with corporate drones. Many were in suits or business casual wear. As soon as I sat down at my desk and powered up the computer to start working, the Human Resources (HR) person came over to talk to me. My heart dropped when I saw her and immediately I was on edge. She told me she really needed to speak to me, now. I copped an attitude immediately and told her that I have a medically documented condition and she can’t fire me for it. She told me to get up and come with her.
I stood up and talked loudly, telling her within earshot of everyone around me that I do a great job there, and that the medical condition I have is thoroughly documented, that she has letters from my doctors, that I’ve done nothing wrong, and that I can sue if they fire me for being absent when I had called in and followed procedure.

I was escorted by HR and a couple managers “calmly and without incident” as they say, but I was upset. As we walked towards the HR office, I just didn’t want to hear the rejection. I just didn’t want to deal with rejections anymore. I’m a good person. I care about my work. I do a great job. Why can’t you fuckers just allow me to take the 2-3 days off that I need every month because I really am bedridden from the pain of an incurable illness?
WHY?

So I ran. I ran away from them. Suddenly the corporate office turned into a warehouse and I was on the ground level, running towards a back entrance out of one of the big loading dock garage type doors. It was light outside but sort of hazy, like you get in the mornings in the winter.
They ran after me and kept calling for me to stop. At some point I did stop and just stood against a wall, waiting for them to catch up to me. By this time, there were more managers and clearly I’d caused a commotion. I had a circle of people huddled around me and I was backed against the wall.
The HR person read to me why I was being fired and yes, it was because of my monthly absenses related to my health condition, but they felt they were completely in the right for what they were doing. I felt like I was having my Miranda Rights read to me, I swear.
My belongings from my desk were handed to me and I walked out of the building, into the hazy morning light.

When I woke up, I had the daycare agency on my mind. I was really pissed off all over again at having been rejected. And I’m pissed off that the company that fired me back in October has caused these recurring nightmares every time I have to talk to another company about potential employment. If this isn’t a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), I don’t know what is!

When I got out of bed and went over to the computer, I saw that I’m not the only one who’s still thinking about what the daycare agency did to me - I got a note from Mel on my journal entry about the agency rejection, and replied to her before taking my car into the shop (more on that in another post). Thanks again Mel for your caring thoughts!

Two days after the agency rejection, I got a letter from the Labor Board about the other job that fired me, letting me know my case has been assigned. I thought it was ALREADY assigned but no, it was just HANDED OFF until now. Now it’s assigned, and I was asked to send more evidence if I have it. I’ve just been in a depressed funk and barely able to do much - the depression worsening now that I think about it when the fecking daycare agency rejected me five days ago.

So right now I’ll go send off the additional evidence (emails and chat logs) to the dude my case is assigned to at the Labor Board, and I’ll mention what the daycare agency did as well.

And after that, I’ll need a shower and a clearing/grounding ritual to clear away the anger and bitterness. Today I’m meeting with a friend so we can discuss our “Unemployable and Unreasonable” goals to keep each other motivated towards our respective self-employment paths.

After all that work, today I was rejected for the friggin daycare job of all things.

I just went back through my journal and realised I never gave detail as to this ChildCare job.
So here we go…

Back in December, a ChildCare agency called me and said they’d found my resume on the unemployment office job board online. They wanted to interview me. I went in on December 11th and to my surprise, they accepted my college transcripts! I haven’t had a daycare do that for me in all the years I’ve lived in California - they always tell me I need California schooling to be a teacher of any sort. So I was excited that if in fact I do have to go back to working FOR someone, I’d much rather go back into my field of study rather than back to the dotcom industry or any office job for that matter.

It took the rest of the month to get seen by my local doctor and get paperwork filled out to prove that I’ve had a physical, a TB test and am in overall good health.
The caveat I ranted about a few days ago was the $125 the agency wanted me to spend on fingerprinting myself and sending the data to the department of social services. They say they don’t do that for me cuz they’re an agency.

I relented and went in armed with my paperwork and checkbook - the followup appointment for the agency was today.

There’s a new recruiter now, and the office manager was there, too. They took one look at my paperwork, and were instantly dissatisfied. I explained that one doctor’s report was from my surgeon and educated them about endometriosis. They said they’d ask their division manager to approve this restriction. They then asked me about why I can’t lift up to 60lbs. I explained the other doctor’s report, which shows a limit of lifting less than 60lbs, is because of a back injury from a car accident, but the restriction is quite flexible. I explained that I’m not working in a warehouse or factory, and that working with children is quite different, and will not be a problem.
Nope! Sorry! Not having it. The new recruiter sat there and lectured me, repeating the restriction to me FOUR TIMES. I told her it’s nothing, I can remove the restriction or have my doctor write up a new report. She declined this offer on my part, and told me the doctor has spoken and they will abide by this and that because the restriction is in direct conflict with the base requirement of the job, that is, being able to lift up to a 60lb child, they may likely not be able to accomodate me.
The woman invited that if I have any friends who might be interested, to have them apply. I asked her to tell me if she was disqualifying me outright, or if I should wait til she hears back from her division manager. She told me to wait til she hears back, but then shook my hand and thanked me for my time.

My time! What a waste of it! And what unbelieveable bastards! Turned down for CHILD CARE because of something so petty!!!

My first reaction was to call the labor board on these assholes, too. But y’know, it’s not worth it for me. It’s just not. This is a blessing. Things happen for a reason. I’m not supposed to go back to daycare work. I have to keep moving forward with my astrology business and not kowtow to fear of having my government check ripped away from me. Courage, mom.

The thing that kinda sucks is that I was SO sure I had this daycare job, that yesterday I told the company my friend works for that I am no longer interested in that job. This is the office job and I don’t want to go back to office work. I was warned in my own astrology forecast about being too stubborn or egotistical or proud to accept work. The warning said that I will have financial hardship. But y’know, I have Saturn in the 2nd House, which denotes a lifetime of financial hardship. What’s new?

So I’m rapidly approaching unemployable, it seems. And that’s okay. I knew since October that it could be April 2008 before I’m employed again full time - thanks to Susan Miller, who I’m a fan of. In the meantime, I’ve been going to The Business of Metaphysics meetings at the local tea house once a month, and the instructors there teach us how to be Unreasonable - that is - to accept nothing less than what we want to do with our lives, and not to bow to our fears of the ‘rational’ 9-5 office job. They tell us to declare boldly that we are Unemployable and Unreasonable! We are unreasonable because we refuse to give in to the fact that everyone must work themselves to death with the 9-5 office job or the labor job, working for other people, when we can be in business for ourselves, and help people with the metaphysical gifts that we have. The group is ever-changing and always supportive. People keep in touch and give encouragement of the others in the group. I’ve met physical therapists, mediums, numerologists, authors and dream walkers through this business group.

You have to fight for what you want. I am fighting against the monopolistic capitalist / globalisation work ethic to succeed at the work that *I* want to provide to the world.