The Gallbladder Saga

Yes, folks....the story of my gallbladder and its recent demise is an epic tale...definitely worthy of the title "saga". Let me thrill you with stories of various narcotic substances, angry nurses, a whole lot of lame daytime television, and of course...no saga could be complete without copious amounts of pus in unexpected places.

The beginning.
I have never had decent digestion. Just a fact of life. If I eat a fatty meal I will have gas pains that resemble a heart attack. On May 18th (yes, this has been happening for more than a month) I had a wonderful (and yet highly fatty meal) with a friend. The next day I was to go to a council on foreign relations meeting in which I would face my abusive ex-boss. My stomach was a wreck and I was convinced that I had had food poisoning and a panic attack at the same time. It took several days of a semi-liquid diet for my system to calm down and I would be able to eat normally. This happened several times over the course of the month. After roller derby on Sunday June 13th, I had had a regrettably high fat meal.....and from there on I was in agony. Except this time the pain could be localized to just under my right breast. I had been thinking that that was were my stomach was, but after looking it up on the internet I realized that the pain was somewhere behind my liver.

I was to go into the doctors on Monday morning for a blood test for something which I had thought was unrelated...and I managed to get ahold of the doctor before I went in to have her look at me and make sure that the blood tests taken would also look at my liver and pancreatic function. My bilirubin tested very high (which measures the amount of bile stuck in your system). She recommended that I have an unltrasound (scheduled for the next morning) and prescribed Loratab. The Loratab worked, a little, but I mainly had a Loratab hangover in addition to the gallbladder pains on Tuesday. Went back into the doctor on Wednesday as the ultrasound was positive for gallstones. I was advised that I needed a CT Scan (Thursday) and to schedule a consult with a surgeon to remove my gallbladder (scheduled for 2 weeks from now). The only problem with this system, is that I knew that I would not be able to survive the pain for that long. I felt pretty ignored by my doctor at this point.....but then again, she doesn't know me personally....she doesn't know that I only go to the doctor when I have a serious serious problem. And it was only when I got to the point of hysterics and threatened to just go the emergency room instead did I feel that they took me seriously. Well....sort of seriously...as they told me to be patient and prescribed stronger pain meds for me.

Dependence
If you know me, you know that I am stubbornly independent. And even though I had lots of friends and well wishers who were willing to help me out, I couldn't let myself really ask for help. When I managed to get home on Wednesday, I realized that I needed help. I shouldn't have been driving....and I haven't since then. I also didn't want people to see me.....because when I wasn't at the doctor's I was bedridden with the pain. My parents drove up on Thursday, and Jimmy and his friends took me to get my CT scan. Friday I couldn't take it anymore and went to the emergency room. Pretty much since then I have been dependent on my family or a variety of nurses to help me with the most menial of tasks. It has been incredibly humbling....but I am also very grateful that these amazing people in my life were willing to help me when I needed it.

Narcotics
When I got into the emergency room they gave me morphine. Now I am not sure how a normal person would want to take these drugs recreationally just because when they gave me morphine I felt normal for the first time in two weeks. That's how much pain I was in....morphine made me feel like my average everyday self. I'm currently on Percocet now that I am back from the hospital....so I have a low level of strung out-ness going on. But morphine was my drug of choice over the weekend. I am not sure if I want to know how he knows, but my brother told me the street value of some of the narcotics I currently have in my medicine cabinet. It is a little tempting.....but I will probably flush the leftovers.

Dirty, Dirty, Dirty
Before they managed to find a bed for me on Friday night in the hospital, I had to take a variety of blood and urine tests. My urine was the color of maple syrup....or as the ER nurse said when she thought that I was out of hearing range "dirty, dirty, dirty". For some reason the third "dirty" really irks me. Two "dirty"s I can understand, but three? Geez. The only good thing that has come from my strangely colored urine is that fact that I was finally taken seriously as to being sick. While I was in the hospital they gave me antibiotics through my IV, and this morning I took my last pill of it. Of course, antibiotics just ravage your system and I think that I have a full body case of thrush....so that has required another set of pills.

Reverse Potty Training
The nurses had to measure my pee. They had this thing they called "the hat" which was like a measuring cup that covered up half of the toilet bowl. Everytime I peed I had to leave it there until a nurse could note it in my chart and dump it. After my procedures all of my bodily functions became of importance....a nurse would say hello and then ask if I had farted yet this morning. After a while you revert back to being 3 and proudly come out of the bathroom announcing that you peed in the potty like a good girl. I was probably a bit too excited about my first bowel movement in over a week.

Nothing Happens on a Holiday Weekend
I talked with surgeons and nurses and doctors over the weekend, but they just kept me doped up and scheduled procedures for Monday and Tuesday. On Monday I had an ERCP, which stands for Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. Basically what they had to do was stick a tube down my throat into my stomach and then into my small intestine. From there they go through the pancreas to the common bile duct between the gall bladder and the liver. Then this little basket thing comes out and they grab out all of the gallstones that are impacted. The doctor was expecting to find one stone, instead he found many....and alot of pus. You could tell that he was really worried about not only the amount of stones but the infection that they were trapping inside....guess whose antibiotics got doubled after that?

General Anesthesia- Double Take
After finding the pus in my bile duct, there was no question about having my gallbladder removed, which happened Tuesday morning. The surgical nurse came in just before 7am and told me that they were going to come and get me for surgery at 10am. Which meant that I had time for a short visit from Libby and a shower, right? Nope. For once they came early and I was rushed to the OR by 8am. The surgery was a success but I would never ever recommend that someone go under general anesthesia twice within a 24-hour period. As the nurses are trying to wake you up they are yelling in your ear, telling you to breathe deeper, etc....and then they seem to forget that you are there and start talking about their personal lives. The hospital folks kept telling me that gallbladder surgery was an outpatient deal.....they must be fucking crazy. I could not have done that on an out-patient basis. Granted I was more than ready to go home on Wednesday, but pain-wise I could have been in the hospital easily for another day.

The Giving of the Name
Jokingly before I found out how sick I really was, I decided to name my gallbladder and associated stones after my ex-boss and his minions. This was mainly due to the fact that I would like to say that he was thrown away in the hazardous materials wastebasket. The more I learned about this though, the naming seemed to have more meaning. One of the doctors told me that I should have been systematically sicker than the symptoms I was showing. He thought that I was really resilient...and just as that whole situation at the MEC folded out....I showed great resiliency in dealing with something that was making me emotionally and physically ill as well.

Scars
I look like I've been beaten up. My arms are all red and spotty from the eight gazillion times they had to take my blood pressure. I have a beautiful bruise that looks like a Rorschach diagram on my arm from where we accidentally tugged on the IV. And of course the healing scars from the laproscopic surgery. I have four holes in my abdomen. I've taken the dressing off of one, but the three on my waist are still there. I'm a little scared about the one on my belly button.....it freaks me out that they put a camera through there. The other issue with recovery is that I had no idea how much I use my abdominal muscles on a regular basis. I can get in and out of chairs fairly decently due to the huge increase of leg muscle that I have acquired since running.....leaning back or down is enough to paralyze me in pain.

Each day I am getting a little better. I would like to start up my normal routine on Monday, but I am not sure if I will be able to do that. The hardest part of this process is to find the patience in myself to allow me to heal.

Aisle of the Embarassing Medical Items

We've all had to do it. We've all had to buy something embarrassing at the grocery store. The tampons for the girlfriend..... condoms and a pregnancy test....and don't get me started on the horror of having to buy yeast infection medication.

The problem of having to buy the embarrassing things is that we have to do it when we are having an emergency of sorts, so we aren't able to hide the embarrassing things with the rest of the groceries. But we still try to hide the items by adding in other things to cover it up. I once knew someone who bought a yeast infection kit and those pills for when you get a bladder infection...and tried to mask the purchase with a bag of oranges.

Of course, there is a stealth operation that we go through in order to purchase these things. And to be honest, the self-serve checkouts at the store are only worth going through when you have the embarrassing items. Today I needed something to help aliviate the horrific gas pains that I have been having after almost every single meal for two weeks now. (I am still recovering from the food poisoning incident and hope that one day things will return to normal) For some reason, I find the search for anti-gas meds to be slightly embarrassing....but this might also be because I won't just grab something off the shelf, I have to read the labels of things and then hem-and-haw over if I should pay 20 cents more or not for something. As I went to the aisle today, a man had gone down just before me and was looking at the same general area. He had the embarrassed shopper look to him, so I pretended to look for something else in another aisle and then came back a few seconds later. As he passed me going out of the aisle I saw him desperately trying to shield with this arm the double pack box of enemas that he was purchasing.

What do you buy to mask the double pack box of enemas? Toilet paper? Juice? Chewing gum?
I have no idea. I masked my gas-x purchase with a box of Excedrin and....wait for it......toothpaste. But what is this guy going to do?

Incidentally, as I was looking for photos of a double pack enema box I learned that you can purchase travel enemas......hee hee hee....just imagine the conversation with the airport security screeners....we might have to watch out.....we had the underwear bomber, next it will be the Quick Flush Travel Enema bomber. Hee hee hee

Ok, I'm gonna go away now and giggle with my bad ass 15-year-old-boy juvenile self....hee hee....
Oh! I said ass! Hee ha ha ha heee heee.....ouch the gas pains make it hee hee hee hard to laugh hee hee hee.....oww....

Crap, I Need an Intervention!

I just saw a video of myself walking from a couple weeks ago when I was in Chile. And I could make the excuse of the fact that I was tired.....but....

I was doing the fat person waddle.

Yes, it was a total waddle. I even had the posture that my belly was leading me...like some strange fleshy version of a dowsing stick.

This
Is
Bad.

If you see me doing the waddle anymore, I invite you to punch me in the arm. Ugh....waddle, waddle, waddle....that is going to haunt me.

Ok, I am going to suck in my stomach when I sit, when I walk. I am going to be hyper vigilant about this. Doing the waddle means that I have given up, and I HAVE NOT GIVEN UP!!

Goddamn it.....
Stupid, fucking waddle...

Return of the Turtles and Free Coffee

Scooter made it through the surgery and has been quite peppy.....but not peppy in the way that he was in trying to constantly mount Zippy. He is oddly calmer...which makes me wonder if he also had a lobotomy. He's eating and drinking well. He pooed at the vet's office but not yet at home. I think that he is probably waiting for his bath tomorrow to do that. The poo has to go past the stitches so he bled a little....but that has been it. No anger what-so-ever from him.

Zippy on the other hand is pissed at me. But that is because she had to endure being awake for her beak trim and nail clippings at the vet, while Scooter was knocked out from the surgery when they did his. She's been hiding her face all week. I sort of miss the underbite/overgrown beak she had. It made her look like she had pouty lip. Without it she does look much younger though. Too bad dropping ten years isn't that quick, easy, and cheap for humans.

This week marked another return.... Libby and I went to Two Creeks this evening, and the same guy who bought me a coffee last Fall, bought our coffees this evening as well. I expect that he probably does this sort of thing often and has probably forgotten that he has bought me coffee before. I am not sure that Libby thinks the same though.

But I was gracious and went up to him to thank him. He seemed shocked that I remembered his name and he said that I wasn't supposed to know who bought the coffee. Really? He was the only other person in the place when we were there and he had just ordered his coffee right before. I don't know if he is interested in me or not, but he did make an awkward glance at my ring finger and its current nakedness. We'll see how that goes....

This has been a crazy week (I've been sick with some god-awful stomach thing) and I have alot to blog about....which I hope to be able to get around to this weekend. Topics will hopefully include information about a grandparent scam and of the victorious facing of my abusive ex-boss.

Losing the Turtle 'Man Bits'

Occasionally everyone's pets will do strange and unexplained things.

One thing that both of my turtles will do -maybe once a year- is they will arch up and some internal organ will come out of their tail. In an odd way it looks like stretching and the organ will always go back inside. Of course, the first time I saw this happen I thought that my turtle was dying....now 15 years later, you just realize that it is something that happens.

Yesterday morning when I got to get the turtles for their bath, Scooter had an organ protruding out of his tail. It was dirty and covered with litter from the tank. He didn't seem stressed, but then again, I wasn't sure how long they had been out. I got him in the bath quickly. I expected him to do this tail swishy thing to clean it off in the water and for it to go back in.

But it didn't.

After they had soaked up as much water as they could in the bath. I took Scooter out to look closer at what was going on. I managed to gently pull off some of the poo and litter that was still stuck. I quickly ran a fresh bath for him again. At this point, I was starting to lose it.

I called the vet and trying not to sound too hysterical explained that I had a turtle with a prolapsed organ. They told me to bring him down immediately. So I prepared a box, let the two turtles say a quick goodbye, got a little head snuggle from Scooter, put some KY jelly on the organ to keep it moist, called my brother in hysterics, and we were off in the car.

Now, both the turtles are old. Average box turtle lifespan is 20 years: Zippy is roughly between 25-30 years old, Scooter is 20-25. Jimmy and I have both thought that the first one of the two to pass would be Scooter and we both have predicted that it might be within this year. Of course, I also envisioned him passing in his sleep, not with an organ stuck outside of his body making him ill.

When we finally got to the vet we learned that the organ stuck outside of Scooter's body was his phallus. I have no pictures, but you need to image something the size of a shelled walnut protruding out of the tail of a 3 inch turtle. Poor guy was really stressed from the car ride, and of me crying, that when the vet was examining him he threw-up the water he had drunk from the bath. I must say that it was impressive....as projectile vomiting always is. It was like someone had turned on a water fountain....the stream went two feet.

The vet is going to have to amputate his "man bits". Which was supposed to have been done yesterday but they haven't called me to tell me that everything is ok. I've already made arrangements to pick him up on Monday. And took the opportunity to make an appointment for Zippy to get his nails and beak trimmed. It needs to be done and I think that it would help the both of them to travel back from the vet together. All of my spare funds are marked aside for Jimmy's tuition, but luckily, Jimmy was willing to take one less class this semester so I could afford to pay for Scooter's surgery

Zippy was more distressed yesterday than Scooter. After a bath, I normally let the turtles run around the house....and Zippy didn't want to come out of his shell yesterday. I expected him to react like that though. Years and years ago when Scooter managed to slip under the backyard fence and was missing for a day and a half, this was how Zip reacted. This morning, I've been watching him search the house for Scoot. Its heartbreaking to watch. He was in the bathroom for a while investigating....and then he has walked all over the house, visiting Scooter's favorite places to hide to check for him. They communicate by using a series of soft clicking noises and head bobs. When they do it, you can see their neck bellowing out. And Zippy will walk for a few feet, stop, and then call out for a while....and then start the process again. He's even gone over to an area that he avoids but Scooter loves (he always catches himself on the rug there and needs to be rescued each time) to find him.

So now I am just waiting to hear word. I've left a message at the vet's office...but until then it is just me working around the house and dealing with accusatory looks from Zippy. Damn I wish I spoke turtle, that would make this easier.

Things that I Have Learned While in Chile

1. When asking for bill at a restaurant, resist the urge to say "la quinta"....cause that is a hotel chain and not the "la quanta" you want.
2. Salida means exit. This is important to note as I was confused when I thought the metro station's name was Salida, and then it was the name on the wall at the next station, and then the station after that, and then on the station after that, and then....I finally figured it out.
3. That even though I should expect it by now - I am still surprised by how quickly a web server can be crushed by bloggers at a blogging conference. It has been very frustrating trying to get online....but then again, there are these strange and wonderful moments when the hotel internet works- like now. Everyone must be out drinking and not blogging at the moment.
4. I unfortunately have learned the majority of my spanish from goofy spanglish fast food chain ads from the US (probably Taco Bell). That being said, I was still ecstatic when I figured out that I could order a grilled cheese sandwich...queso caliende
5. Apparently, even when not using it, international roaming sucks all the juice out of your phone.
6. I'm not as bad at remembering names as I thought that I was.....however, I am definitely still as bad at flirting as I remember.
7. I sat next to a women on the plane to Atlanta who had been to Santiago. She said that it looked like Salt Lake.....I would like to know what she was smoking so that I can avoid it.
8. The problem of me continually losing my GV stickers can be fixed by immediately putting them onto my laptop.
9. Chileans are infinitely more patient with foreigners who can't speak Spanish than Americans are of anyone who can't speak English. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to everyone that I have smiled and pantomimed with....with an extra special shout out to the shop owner who tried to teach me how to count.
10. The original "old school" blogging still happens! I know this because in order to preserve battery power on my computer I originally wrote this post on paper.....how's that for kicking it old skool style?!

The I Totally Didn't Forget to Post About This Edition

Hi Folks! I have kept meaning to write about running the 5K in the SLC Marathon for a while now....but I really have no excuse for the delay.

The most important thing is that I finished it. In one hour and one minute. I had to walk for almost two miles before I felt like my muscles would let me run. And when I did run it was for a block at a time, if that. I was hoping to be able to make the full final stretch running, but about 20 feet from the finish line I discovered that I couldn't breathe anymore. Scared the shit out of me. I've been out of breath before, but this was different....I couldn't get any air at all. I was told that I over did it....which could be true.

So now, the training continues---albeit disrupted by the trip to Chile. Next 5K is scheduled for June 5th at Pride.

I'm that big that I'm invisible

It would be ridiculous to say that at my weight that I have never experienced sizism before. In fact it happens alot, and in the majority of instances I brush it off or avoid situations where I know that I will face it. This is one reason why I don't like to go to gyms. I had a membership to 24 hour fitness years ago. When I would go in, I would get these horrible, appalled looks from people. Sorta like I had just vomited all over them...and I would get these looks just from walking into the place....forget even getting to the point where I was sweating. It seriously felt like I was in a middle school locker room. So I would come in later and later to work out in order to avoid looks from people. Oddly enough, I wasn't the only large person working out at 11pm there....but seriously....who wants to work out at 11pm? I got rid of my membership. I honestly think that there is this idea in thinner people's heads that a fat person must lose a certain amount of weight in order to frequent a gym. Really, people? I swear...the logic.

Let's move forward to last night. Libby and I went to go pick up our numbers for the 5k this Saturday....and I am so excited!!! I'm 20611 in case you are wondering. After we picked up our stuff we walked around some of the vendor booths that they had. We stopped at one that had athletic support tape, its pretty cool stuff called Kineso...most people will recognize it as the strange tape designs seen on Olympic athletes. Anyway, as I have been grappling with how to support my running injury I was interested in this stuff. Now, it was me that picked up the box and me that was asking questions about it. The salesman however wouldn't look at me, he just looked at Libby while he talked. At first, I thought that it was just that he liked Libby--which I wouldn't blame him for---but when I was paying for $20 worth of tape, he still would not look at me. Total perception filter moment for those Doctor Who fans out there. Even when we walked in, the Cricket mobile people offered Libby a free bag which she turned down....I would have taken it, but I wasn't offered. On the way out of there, a gentleman was passing out race guides for Utah which listed all the sporting events in the state. He was shoving them in everybody's face except me. I actually had to ask for one, and he was surprised that I wanted one.

It was a very crazy situation, and I hadn't experienced that much sizism at one time before. I really felt that people were trying to actively avoid looking or speaking with me. This is going to sound vain, but I am not bad to look at. I would even say that I am pretty. And if this avoidance was some sort of way to avoid the issue that I am fat, like a misguided way of trying not to point it out, it had the exact opposite effect. I once was on a third date with someone, and it was shortly after Mr.3 left and I wasn't exactly ready to date and was taking it way way slow. On the date we talked for hours about my friend's art (even after this experience I will gladly call him my friend still). He was showing me this art book with dancers and explaining to me how he admired the musculature. When I pointed out the differences in how the wrist movement we were talking about would differ in view between my arm and his....he noted it, but then made this really strange circuitous conversation in which he tried to talk about fat, but avoided actually saying the word "fat". It was at that moment that I realized that even though we had been talking about his art for two hours, he had just realized that he was in the room with a fat person. Ooohh... scary. Frightening even. (wow, I wish that there was a sarcasm font right now) I think that this is just the same situation that I experienced last night.

Sorry folks if my fat bothers you. You are going to have to deal with it.
I entered the race. And while I may not run the whole thing, I am still in it. You are going to have to share the road with me.
I am going to support myself in this endeavor and others who are trying to accomplish the same task in this event. You should be able to support me....and my fat....as well.

The Sexiness of Legwarmers

The SLC Marathon 5K that I signed up for is this weekend. And while I have been consistantly training for weeks.....I haven't been able to get past running for more than 2 minutes a time. So I've basically gone from a total of 3 minutes of running per session to something like 10 minutes on a good day.

That's the key phrase here....on a good day.

The strain of trying to compel my mass of 270 pounds to move has taken a toll on my leg muscles. Resulting in some serious cramping/burning thing on the outside of my leg near the ankle. I guess that it is some type of shin split. In any case it has put a major hold on training progress. Yesterday it was so bad that we had to stop walking/running so I could massage my legs....it was paralyzing pain. Today I actually went home early from work because my grumpiness at still being in pain was nearing a point where I was going to earn the label of "office bitch".

Of course, today it dawns on me...that no matter how much I am hydrated or ice or heat or how much I stretch before and after, I am still not treating this injury right. Normally when I fall I have a treatment protocol for my ankles, etc. I guess that since I haven't fallen I haven't totally registered that I need to fricking wrap my ankles to stabilize them. Oh! It feels so wonderful! I've also been trying to keep the leg muscles that have been cramping warm beyond the heating pad. Which means that I have whipped out the legwarmers.

I sorta look like I am doing a bird big costume here...but it feels good. Hopefully with a couple more days of ankle stabilization I will be able to run more than walk at the 5K this weekend.

Decompressing 40 Hours of Training

My head is starting to come back a bit into shape after coming home from a weeklong 40-hour training for work. For the record, I am now a state certified sexual assault victim advocate....as to whether or not I decide to volunteer time to get some field experience is another matter.

The training was great, and I am really really really trying hard not to vomit up everything I learned on everyone I talk to...I really am....but it is soo hard. I think that most people would feel the same way after 40 hours of rape content. I sorta feel like I am a walking statistic dispenser.

For instance, women spend a huge amount of time thinking and taking precautions in order not to be attacked and raped by a stranger. But stranger rape is only 8% or so of all rapes committed, the other 92% is conducted by someone the victim knows. Basically people fear the scary man jumping out at you from behind a bush, but no one really worries about "creepy uncle bob". I was really happy to see a recent security system commercial where the man breaking into a woman's house was her ex-boyfriend and not some random opportunistic stranger.

Alot of the training focused on rape culture and how media/tv/advertisements exploit women and show a false reality of what masculinity is. There was also sessions on deconstructing various rape myths, diversity, LGBTQ communities, elderly victims, and the disabled (as a side note---and coming from someone who has recently developed a killer crush on a colleague who is in a wheelchair--have you been watching the storyline on Private Practice? Kudos to bringing up the subject of sexuality and people with disabilities!)

And of course, this training was conducted in small town Richfield Utah. It was really hard not to be too negative with the locals. I did make hairspray jokes on my Twitter account....and if I see one more of those bump hair things...ugh! I don't really want to attribute this to a small town mentality...but people were constantly answering their phones and talking on them while in the class. They couldn't be polite and take the call outside.....oh no, we all had to hear about so-and-so's kid being sick....or writing down someone's fax number. It wasn't just once, but several times a day that this happened.

The best part of the small-town-ness was in the last hour of training when the coordinator for the rape advocates in the area was handing out the intake forms for victims. In the forms you have to label exactly what type of sexual activity took place....which I don't mind.....what I do mind is when the trainer who has been working for years with victims let slip that she wasn't exactly sure what "fellatio" on the form referred to. Thankfully, someone else told her. Then someone else in the classroom announced that fellatio is not something you learn about in a small town.

Really?

Please, tell me another one!

3 Minutes!!!

Had my first night of training tonight. Got to break in the super fast running shoes. And guess what?

I RAN FOR A TOTAL OF THREE MINUTES!!!!

And to make matters even better, I did it WITHOUT PUKING!!!!!

Of course, after the excessive use of capital letters, I will very somberly tell you some things that I have learned with this evening's exercise.

Item 1: They recommend that people my size walk rather than run as it cuts down on joint pain and the effects of gravity. Good running shoes = no joint pain. Hooray for me.
Item 2: As we were running I felt like I was getting a stitch in my side....except it wasn't in my side but towards my lower back. It was only after the third 1-minute run that I realized what the pain really was. It was the force of gravity of my butt check dropping down with each step. First of all, I had no idea that my butt check moved that much, and secondly.....I've always seen my butt as one immovable object- not two distinct halves where one side might be heavier than the other. I wonder if this means I have a lopsided butt. This might involve several hours in front of the mirror to verify.
Item 3: I need alot more training sessions before I would be able to run the required amount to be a Dr. Who companion. They seem to be running away from alot of things....I'd be a goner.
Item 4: After my body recovered....and I was positive that I wasn't going to hurl (I was worried for a few moments).... the endorphins kicked in. Oh yeah.....those were nice. I can see why people do this. Of course it must be an aftereffect thing, cause I didn't feel very good while running.
Item 5: I apparently am under the impression that if you are skinny you can run at least a mile. The more I tell people about what I am trying to do, the more I hear of thinner people saying that they can't. I get angry at people who think that fat people are automatically out of shape all the time, I never thought that I had any sort of fitness/thinness bias....but I guess I do.

Tomorrow will tell the full effects of tonight's endeavors. However, I wasn't in as bad of shape as I thought as I managed to be able to run and talk with Libby at the same time.....and most importantly.......

I RAN FOR THREE FRICKING MINUTES!!!!!
WHOOHOOO!!!!!!

Phew! Now......to bed!

My Latest Harebrained Scheme

Not that I have many harebrained schemes....but I should. Besides, saying that I have schemes that are on the reckless and silly level high enough to be classified as "harebrained" sounds cool...like I'm some wacky comic character that people read about and shake their heads in wonder trying to guess what that 'crazy, wacky girl' is up too....yuck, yuck, yuck...

Anyway, the scheme. Yes...focus, focus ....

I have two lifelong fitness goals. Lifelong because it will take me forever to get to that point, and because I would prefer to say that one day I will get them done but not be tied down to an actual completion date. These two goals are to run a mile and to do a pull-up. For a girl my size, I would say that these are quite realistic and reasonable goals. Cause let's face it...I'm never going to lost 150 pounds, and I have never pretended that it would ever happen anyway.

Here is where we get to the harebrained part.....I am going to train to run a mile. And I hope to be able to run that mile (without side stitches or hurling) at the SLC marathon on April 17th. And no, I am not doing the marathon, but I AM going to sign up for the 5k. I figure if all else fails I'll run the mile and then crawl the rest of the way, on the sidewalk, so no one trips over me.

So I've got a training schedule, a training buddy....and as of about two hours ago, some decent running shoes.

I have to do this now, so that I can justify the price I paid for the shoes. Oh course, I didn't buy the shoes because of the price. I was a good girl and got a foot-test-thingy done and was fitted with for the right size and only chose the shoes after I found some that felt right. It was only at the register did I ask how much they were. My dad has a saying "if you have to ask how much it is, you can't afford it".....which has been some of the best financial advice I've ever had. It was nice to know that I didn't need to ask....thank you new job.

Anyway, I now have some spanky-new-shoes that are green and yellow with built in gel inserts. So even if I am outrun by a granny in a walker...at least I'll look fast.

The Doorjam or "Geez Karma, I get it alright!"

This post begins with a victory dance. It ends with one as well.....like a rollercoaster it ends where it began.

So, the good news is that the recent grant that I assumed dictatorship over is completed, submitted online and at the post office. A week and a half ago we had a meeting about this grant, and when I said that it would be finished the day before it was due...the group laughed. But they did like the idea that we could have a day to have those "oh shit! did we remember" moments. Apparently- at least with this grant- having someone take over (so to speak) was a plus because it allowed everyone to talk about how much they support the grant and not really have much to do with actually completing it. And while I was annoyed at the lack of help, I do get to keep the glory of submitting it on time/early to myself.

After leaving the post office today I decided to award myself with lunch....and to make matters even more impressive....with my only fast food lunch in at least a month. Feeling good, I head to Arby's, get a great parking spot, and shut the door to.... to....well nowhere. The car door wouldn't shut. This has happened once before while visiting the Comcast office and luckily Ryan was nearby to save me as I didn't have anything decent enough to MacGyver myself out of the problem with. Since I knew what the problem was, I wasn't too upset....however, between my hands and my keys, I wasn't strong enough to get the thing to shift. When it happened the first time, I told myself that I would get some tools for the car....which of course, I never did.

I really hate feeling like a helpless girl and I also miss having someone else to handle the "guy" sorts of things that need to be done in my life.

This situation called for action!

So I drove four blocks to the auto supply store desperately trying to hold my driver's side door closed.

Just so you know, centrifugal force wants your door to fly open whenever you take a turn. That also goes for when you have to swerve quickly to avoid the giant SUV that attempts to run you over as it forces its way out of a driveway. If I had the use of both my hands I would have honked, but keeping the door closed was more of a priority.

Thank you to the guy at Checker auto parts who fixed the door for me, showed me where the screwdrivers were in the store, and who helped me find which turn signal replacement lights that I needed to buy. The light thing is yet another car related item that I have been putting off for a while....and figuring out how to get the bulb out in my car will be another great adventure to look forward to.

After that I went back to Arby's, got some lunch, and returned to the office for a victory dance.

My Dead Sexy Song List

Alright, so this is totally random and frivolous bit of blogging (of course, there are some who would believe that all blogging fits into that category). I recently went on a Pink Floyd kick and have found that there are a couple songs that I can only describe as dead sexy. So I decided to compile my top ten list of songs that I would classify under this category.

I should probably offer an explanation of what would qualify. These are not seduction songs, nor are they songs that you listen to obsess over someone that you are infatuated with. There must be the right balance of bass/drums and or guitar. For a song to qualify it must relax the body and make you feel sensual....not sensual in the "let's get in on" way but like when a breeze brushes gently across your skin and all of your nerves become electrified. Also these songs are taken separately from the album that they are taken from. I will admit that there are albums that would fit into this category: the Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, just about any Massive Attack album, the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Fever to Tell, and even though I have issues with the book and movie, the soundtrack to Twilight totally fits this category.

So, now I present to you my top-ten list:

10. Pretty When You Cry by VAST- Although I just watched the video for this one, and it wins points for total creepy factor.
9. Painted on my Heart by The Cult
8. Angel by Gavin Friday
7. Follow You Down by Alejandro Escovedo (sorry, couldn't find a link)
6. Guarded By Monkeys by Cracker
5. It's Late by Queen
4. Gulumse Kaderine by Tarkan---but it has to be the Murat Matthew Erdem Remix
3. Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
2. Win by David Bowie

and the number one is....

1. Keskin Bicak by Sezan Aksu

Sezen Aksu - Keskin Bicak


Wanna share your list?

Bill of Rights

I have a book that I write down all of the inspirational things that I have read/come across in my life. I haven't cracked it open for a while, but I did today. This is what I wrote in it:

BILL OF RIGHTS
I have the right to be me.
I have the right to put myself first.
I have the right to be safe.
I have the right to love and be loved.
I have the right to be treated with respect.
I have the right to be human - NOT PERFECT.
I have the right to be angry and protest if I am treated unfairly or abusively by anyone.
I have the right to my own privacy.
I have the right to my own opinions, to express them, and to be taken seriously.
I have the right to earn and control my own money.
I have the right to ask questions about anything that affects my life.
I have the right to make decisions that affect me.
I have the right to grow and change (and that includes changing my mind).
I have the right to say NO.
I have the right to make mistakes.
I have the right NOT to be responsible for other adults’ problems.
I have the right not to be liked by everyone.
I HAVE THE RIGHT TO CONTROL MY OWN LIFE AND TO CHANGE IT IF I AM NOT HAPPY WITH IT AS IT IS.

And while this doesn't nessacarily pertain to the bill of rights, I do have the right to post a photo of my new haircut on the blog.

Showing you the wheels

In my last post I mentioned the "Power and Control Wheel" and the "Equality Wheel", I'm posting them here so you can see more of what I was talking about.

This is the situation(s) you DO NOT WANT in a relationship:


And this is what an IDEAL relationship should be like:

The Empowering Work Epiphany that I was NOT expecting

I've been at the new job for a month now and I still love it. Not sure what I am doing half the time, but I feel useful and I am learning new things everyday.

We did a tabling event at the state capital today. I'm used to doing tables when I worked at the center, and I love the interaction with people....but before I was much more knowledgeable about the subject matter than I am now at the new job. I held my own, but there was one question that I had no clue what to answer. Some guy wanted to know if there were any other criminal activites that were precursors to someone sexually assaulting another person.....sorta like how killing small animals is a precursor to killing people. I had no clue...but if you are interested, I found out. Its burglary.

Anyway, part of today was bonding with co-workers who I don't see in the office very often. Somehow or other we got on the topic of my ex-husband aka Mike aka Scott aka Mr.3. I ended up telling her the extended version of the saga. I always find it hard to find the right words to describe what happened. I try not to call him a con man because I have always felt that it really diminishes the effect that it had on me. I've called the relationship psychologically abusive before, but always felt not quite right in calling it that either.... most the time I just try to remind people that I am not stupid, I'm really not. You just had to be living the whole experience to truly understand. My co-worker's reaction was not something that I expected. I expected her to roll her eyes at times...to question my motives, my reason, like so many other people have had in the past. Instead she handed me this worksheet that is used with domestic and sexual violence victims called the power and control wheel. The object is to read the descriptions of abusive acts and circle the items that have happened to you. It is supposed to give a visual of your abuse. The wheel has eight spokes with topics like using intimidation, using emotional abuse, using isolation, using economic abuse, etc. On the other side of page is the equality wheel, that is supposed to mark the signs of a healthy relationship. Not only is there not one item in the healthy relationship wheel that I can attribute to my former marriage, but I have a lot of items that can be circled in at least 7 of the 8 spokes.

After looking at that the realization hit.
I am not some poor smuck who got taken by some con man. I was abused by my husband.
I've always been able to identify with being a survivor. I mean...I did managed to survive the relationship. But I never really wanted to call myself a victim, because that is kinda lame....but I need to accept that I am.

I am a victim of domestic violence.

Writing that sentence just make me break out into tears. Needless to say I wasn't expecting to have this sort of emotional whirlwind on Thursday.

But this isn't a sad story about me crying about my life....it is more of an empowering one. I am really grateful to this co-worker, more than I will probably be able to express to her. She was understanding....she was the first person who I have told the story too (who had not known and lived the saga with me when it was happening) to accept it, and not question my actions. In past dates when I have talked about my ex-husband I've gotten the "well why didn't you see that coming?" line.....which has generally marked the end of dating with that person. According to my co-worker, that is called "victim-blaming". She also said that it was wonderful that I had started working where I had and that I was learning what had happened to me because now when I talk to people about it, it can be a teaching experience instead. I'm good with teaching.

So that is my work epiphany. I could write more, but to say that this has been a long and hard day is an understatement. And for my friends who feel that I don't write anything positive on my blog anymore......I will write soon about some light-hearted things....like how I cut my hair super super short and how I am going to be a non-skating official for roller derby (I get a derby name and everything!!! Granny Panties in the house!), so you can all look forward to more of that sort of frivolity in my life.

And now....to bed!

Changing from the "we" to "them"

Saturday I volunteered for an event being held by my old job. Prior to that day I was having a hard time in not referring to myself like I still worked at the center. I used "we" alot, not "they" or "them"....and I think that after my experiences on Saturday it will be alot easier to use the right pronoun.

For instance, I originally had planned on picking up the speaker and taking them out to dinner on Friday night. The weekend before, I was sent an email and told that it wasn't necessary for me to pick up the speaker from the airport. Which was fine, saved me time. But I still wanted to meet her for dinner. And there began the back and forth between me and the center staff member assigned to work the event. I could detail it all, but let's say that I was invited to dinner (and when I offered to pay for myself, and was turned down because a volunteer should "be treated" according to this said-former-coworker) on one day and then I was the next day uninvited to dinner. There was some valid reasonings behind this...and to make light of the situation I had mentioned that "at least I would get lunch free during the event"....at which point this said-former-coworker notified me that that was all I deserved anyway. After she said that, I did not renew my previous offer to pay for my dinner. Please keep in mind that said-former-coworker in the past has demanded when she has volunteered that she be wined and dined, and has never had any problems in pointing out when she has not gotten what she has felt to be her "due". Anyway... I could detail way too many instances of her hyprocracy and selfishness to count, so in moving on....

Saturday morning said-former-coworker was also supposed to announce that I was no longer working for the center and that I was volunteering my services on that day. This is what she actually said "I have an announcement, Debbie Dilley is now at the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault. If you would like to apply for her job, you can contact the University of Utah's Human Resources Department."

I was mortified.
It was entirely inappropriate.
But in her defense this was not the first nor will it be the last time that she has said something inappropriate.

When said-former-coworker left my old position and was on a volunteer basis, my old boss raved about her when she made the announcement that she was leaving. But that was the difference between the two...my old boss knew how to treat people and annoucements. And even through all of said-former-coworkers attempts to emulate by old boss, she has fallen totally flat on her face.

I felt ill-treated to say the least.

The rest of the day I hung out with my band of troublemakers in the back....there was lots of joking about me being "just a volunteer". So when arrangements went bad- and there was a major hiccup with the catering- I --for once-- could not be blamed, I was "just a volunteer".

I came to another realization about this particular person....I would be perfectly alright if I never had to see her again. In the past people have criticized me for being too harsh on her, and how I react to the various things that she has done. I credit her with deliberately trying to get me into hot water at my old job. What she did spurred on the attempt by my former director to write me up. I've been told that feeling this way with only circumstantial evidence of her actions is "unprofessional"....but after listening to her on Saturday tell me about how she tried to get other coworkers into trouble because she felt that they weren't doing their jobs correctly...or how she is actively trying to get the job of another coworker.....I can't but help to feel that my assumptions about said-former-coworker to be absolutely and totally correct.

I know that all of the "said-former-worker" stuff is a little annoying....but I don't need to name this person. What I do need to say to her is the following:

Thank you.
If you hadn't been yourself and tried to make yourself look better at my expense, I wouldn't have gotten the drive to really leave the center. Your actions coupled with the actions of my former director made me realize that there is no loyalty to a workplace that is as toxic as my old one was.

And thank you for your entirely inappropriate way of saying that I had left. You made me realize that my former workplace, has no respect for me or for what I did there. You have firmly planted your legs in support of the new regime and you have shown me that there was never any way that we could be respectful to the other outside of the workplace or inside of it. You have made it all that much easier to finally say goodbye.

Video Dispelling Myths on Weight Stigmas

Here is an interesting (and extremely well done) video from the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.


As a "big girl" myself, the type of bullying that is portrayed in this video was something I luckily only experienced between moving to Utah in fourth grade through my seventh grade year in middle school. I had to develop a thick skin and an ability to make better jokes at my own expense then those teasing me to make the abuse stop. If I hadn't been able to do that....I might not have made it to today.

I've never really written about the bullying I experienced when I moved here. It was bad. I called "lard butt" when I was 9 years old. I had no idea what lard was, but I knew it was bad. In 7th grade there were these kids who called me "shamu" and "beluga whale" in my 7th period math class....and they would taunt me literally all through my walk home. The only reprieve that I would have would be the last half block on the street where I lived. If it was a good day I was able to stop crying and calm down enough so that my mom wouldn't notice when I walked in. These names hurt, but I got over it.

I never really turned the name calling on the people who hurt me....and I should have. After all, they were 8th graders in the same math class as a 7th grader. And they also were not in my 8th grade math class....they had to repeat it, again. Ahh, karma.

Turning Left

soo..... I've been at the new job for a week now and I am sure that you are all desperate for an update. Here are the differences between what happens to me on a daily basis versus what I left at the center:

1. In the morning I turn left instead of right onto 3rd avenue. Every time I do, I think of that line in Dr. Who that says "turn left and change the world".
2. Where I would have to take into account that it is a 5-10 minute walk into my office AFTER the five minute drive to the U, now from my door to the office door is 6 minutes.
3. Along the parking lines....leaving the worksite in the middle of the day isn't a horrible logistical nightmare. I left to pick up a catering order the other day: 30 seconds to get to the car and pull out of the driveway, 3 minutes to restaurant, 4 minutes to pick up order and pay, 3 minutes back to the office.....11 minutes total. At the University, I would just be getting to my car and pulling out in 11 minutes....and I would have no hope of getting the same parking place when I got back to campus.
4. New workplace has a sink in the breakroom area....no more washing dishes in the bathroom! Plus as the awful and overpriced Union food isn't an option I have been forced to bring my lunch to work with me everyday....my nutrition level has definitely risen.
5. I work under a skylight.....real light folks!!! No more cave office with dingy florescent lighting and bad air.
6. Even though I am in an all female office...the dating prospects are much better. Gone are the days of the only eligible bachelors being grad-students who are anxious to leave Utah the second they finish their degree....hello to that super hunky officer who was at a meeting at our offices yesterday. Oh so dreamy......
7. Now onto the job.... I have a director who is honest and caring, one who actively backs her employees and one who is fully respected by her peers. Let's say that at the center it was the exact opposite situation.
8. At the moment I am actively trying to take as many tasks as I can eek out of my director, versus being given an impossible workload....no more being overworked and underpaid!
9. One thing that is similar is that I am a good assistant, and I know what a good assistant should be doing. My new director isn't used to having someone to help her, and sadly has been doing way too much on her own. Every time she apologizes for giving me work to do, I have to remind her that I am her assistant and that is what I am there for.
10. Another similarity is that I find the subject matter that I am dealing with to be absolutely fascinating. I've spent alot of time this week reading to get myself up to speed on the subject of sexual violence....I am at the point where I start rattling off rape statistics to random people.

Overall I am so happy that I got this job and left the center. The weight off of my shoulders has been immense....in fact ---and this might be a bit too personal for some--- I am actually having a period this week. I haven't had a decent period in months because I have been too stressed out with the on-goings at the center. And if anything, I think that is a definite sign of good things to come.

Closing the door

Today was my last day at the Center. It was very strange. For once I completed all of my to-do list. For once, there is nothing left to do, nothing to lose sleep over.

I thought that I was ok until I was closing the door of my office for the last time. I didn't expect to tear up, but I did. I've been at the center for almost 6 years of employment....so many of my major life changes happened there....so much baggage.

And now, no more.
Strange.
Really strange.

So..... I'm not crying....its just raining on my face.

One Resolution Down!

This has been one crazy and awesomely cool week.

As you can tell my the title, one of my resolutions from my last post has been accomplished. Which one? Not the piano one sadly....although I did practice for so long today that my forearms are burning. And there is no new wii in my living room. So that leaves....yes....I got a new job. And not one, but two.

Yes folks.....I got offered TWO jobs this week.

Two!

Holy shit.

I did a second interview with the YWCA the last week of the year, and have been on tenderhooks with the job offer as I knew that on the 31st (Thursday) that my references were being called. My contact person at the Y even called me to get another reference number because she couldn't reach anyone at the University. And of course....I spent all of New Year's waiting (it was a depressive New Year's for me for that reason) and was still waiting to hear something on Monday. Tuesday I had decided that I would email my contact to see what was happening. She called me before I wrote to her. She needed another reference. She also said that it was just a formality that she had to speak to three professional references before she could make an offer....and then she promised me that she would call me on Wednesday. At about 2pm on Wednesday, she calls and offers me the job.....which I of course accept. Before I left the MEC at 3pm that day I had given my notice.

But this is not the end of the story.

Friday afternoon about 2pm I get a call from Linda telling me that she just finished talking with the folks over at UCASA....which I had interviewed with the day before my first interview with the YWCA.... and that they were going to offer me the job. Then I sent a message to Libby telling her how odd this was. She then replied that she was currently on the phone with them. Between the two jobs I had wanted UCASA more....not for the money but the job duties itself. I told Libby to send me a message when she was off the phone with them.

For the next few minutes I fretted about what to do if I was offered the job as I had already accepted the position at the Y. Both Linda and Libby were telling me that I needed to take this second job. As soon as Libby was typing the message "Done. Get ready for the phone to ring." The phone was ringing and I was offered the second job in three days.

There was no choice really. I had to accept the second job and called the YWCA and turn down their offer of employment. I felt bad by disappointing the Y....but I really have no loyalty to them yet.

On Wednesday I was elated because I was leaving the MEC, albeit for a job that was going to be less responsibility and the same pay. On Friday I was leaving the MEC with a job that is a considerable pay raise and job status raid. So, if you are wondering, the new administrative assistant for the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault officially starts on Wednesday January 20th.

Crazy, crazy couple of days.

Bye Bye Dear Esther, Hello New Year!

I've been sitting on a piece of momentous news for a week now, that I need to share with you all.
After over a year and a half of hard emotional work, I have finished therapy with Esther.
It
feels
good.

I feel like I have graduated.
Its awesome....and not like "surfer dude" awesome, but the actual dictionary definition of awesome- inspiring awe which is a emotion mixed with reverence, dread, and wonder.

So, I have some semblance of having got it together.....now I can look forward to the new year because I can see where I've been. I'm sure that I will have a series of whiny posts coming that attempt to wax philosophical at the accomplishments of the past year....which haven't really been too much. Judging by my blog, I've bitched alot about a job that I haven't quit yet but hope to soon, blubbered about the trauma of actually finishing my masters degree, and named my dental crown after my ex-husband.

I'm working on a list of resolutions/goals for the next year....here is what they are currently:
1. Get a new job so that I can tell my old one of where to stick it.
2. Progress from beginner level to intermediate level in piano.
3. Get a Wii or some sort of gaming system so that I can play rock band at home, and maybe figure out why the male gender finds video games so much fun. I mean, I like beer, bbq, and football....I need to work on understanding video games next in order to fully progress in my "guy-friendly" girl thing that I have going on.
4. Uhhhh......ok, so maybe I don't have too many other goals at the moment. Maybe I should do just progressive resolutions so that once I finish one I can work and make another one..... yeah, that might work better....then I can do less thinking.

The Things That I Haven't Blogged About....

are slowly mounting up higher and higher.
I will get back to them soon....when it is "safe" to write about them: I've got lots of work drama...you have NO idea.

In the meantime, I would like to tell you about a project that I have recently become a subject in. You may or may not have heard of the "We Feel Fine" project. Basically this group of guys created a script that would search English language blogs and note everytime that the words "I feel" were used. They have recently turned this web project into a book.

You can see the whole page that I am on here. It has a self portrait of me, an excerpt from a former blog post, and a little blurb about me. Here is a small screenshot of just my stuff.


To place there my words come from, they were written just before Christmas 2007. Jimmy and I had gone to Arizona and Mr.3 was supposedly still in the VA hospital. On that Christmas morning he called me to tell me that he had been released and was coming home. He had said that he would call me a little later when he got to the house. It was the last time that I ever heard from him. It was an inexplicably cruel act. But it was that moment, just before all of that pain was unleashed, that this books captures of me. Its an emotional snapshot.

It seems odd that I would comment on how being in a book that chronicles people's emotions makes me feel....but I am going to do it anyway. When they sent me the original request to include my images and words, I immediately said yes.....partly because I didn't think much would come of it and I thought that it was a unique idea. But now that I have received my copy of the book in the mail, it feels so much more real. There is so much truth in the book, and seeing just a small reproduction of some of the sadness in my life is indescribable really. It is alien and then closely intimate at the same time. I know that it is me, and I feel distant from it....but when I show the page to other people I start to tear up. Its almost like I'm trying to show people proof that I was in pain...that it all really happened and wasn't some made up story.

In any case, besides my sad sob-story that is listed in there, this is an amazing book. I hope that people buy it, and I should probably buy a copy or two to give to family and such. But that might have to wait until after Christmas.

The Unexpected Coffee

So I am at Two Creeks with Libby this evening ordering the largest conceivable raspberry mocha available on their menu. The cost was $4.30 (for once I had cash in my pocket) and as I was handing the five dollar bill to the cashier a man from behind me says "oh, just put that on my tab."

My response "oh, that's ok, I can get it" but at this point the cash is back in my hand and the guy is waving off my comment saying that it is fine. And in normal-Debbie-awkward-style I say "but I don't even know who you are."

Again he waves me off and reassures me that it is his treat.

So in true fashion of not accepting gifts from strangers (ah, my parents would be proud) I stick out my hand to shake his, introduce myself, and thank him profusely. His name is Peter if you are curious.

I take my obnoxiously large raspberry mocha and sit at a table with Libby... who of course notes that I am blushing. Whenever someone notices that, it always makes you blush more....which happened several more times this evening.

I am not sure what to think about this really. First of all, those who know me know that I have issues with others buying things for me (I will let the occasional a person do it, if I know them well, and if I feel like I have resisted sufficiently against the kindness). Second, I worry about people's motives all the time. The reality is that this guy was just practicing a random act of kindness on a Friday night, rather than trying to initiate some conversation with me because he is either in love with me or secretly stalking me.

And if the goal for a person in doing a random act of kindness is to make a stranger feel oddly appreciated, valued, and that there is something about that person which is worthy of praise (even if that praise comes in the guise of a free coffee)...then this guy's gesture fully hit the mark.

So thank you again random-act-of-kindness-coffee-guy.....I needed that more than I needed the mocha.

Incidentally, he is a doctor of some sort and drives a motorcycle.....and is a regular at the coffee shop. Libby said that a sugar-daddy could do me some good, but I am still unsure if I should try to hang out at the coffee shop in an effort to meet him again....cause that could just be setting myself up for disaster.

When the hell did it become November?

Seriously. When did that happen?

Anything new on my front? Not too much, not really.

The daily schedule is that I get up and work, then I go to the other work, then I come home and work some more, then I go work a bit more, and hopefully if I have time I either practice piano or do some of my volunteer work before I go to bed.

Routine or rut?
And does it even matter if that question is answered?

Things have been going surprisingly well at the center. In fact, I feel like a cloud has been lifted, and the new director has given me some very cool projects to be in charge of. I haven't felt enthusiastic about work for a while....and it is so refreshing to be excited about what I am doing there. I've even stopped looking for other jobs. Although I am still considering actually going into the classroom....but to apply for that program I have to wait until March. Until then, I will have to console myself with various projects at the center which have varying levels of coolness....such as this coming Monday I will be going to teach five separate six grade classes about the social life of ancient Egyptians.

While I am probably one of a handful of people who would be excited about this presentation....maybe I can perk up your interest by sharing the following picture with you.



Know what this is? Well.....this is what happens if you argue with the tax collector in ancient Egypt. You just know that the IRS wishes that they could do this.

And yes.....I am so totally showing this to sixth graders.

The View From the Pyramids

"I would like to welcome you all to our workshop 'The View from the Pyramids-A Glorious Past and a Challenging Future'. I said that right, right? Heh heh, yes, so... Thank you all for braving the parking from the football game. But I must say in my defense, when I planned this workshop, a game was not scheduled.

There are several people that I would like to thank. First of all we have a crew of dedicated volunteers from the education community that I could not do without. Unfortunately, none of them are in the room to hear me thank them, but you should know that I thank them. I would also like to thank the education department at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. And......They also are not in the room at the moment.....but there are alot of people working diligently behind the scenes to bring this workshop to you today.

A couple of announcements: first of all don't forget to buy your lunch tickets today if you haven't already. And secondly we have stopped sending out our newsletter and event flyers in the mail, and we have moved to an electronic system rather than through the mail. So, yeah, if you haven't signed up for event emails there are sign-up sheets on our registration tables. Don't worry, we won't flood your inbox with silly emails....only ones of interest. Oh by the way, I'm Debbie. I'm the one who sends you the emails.

Now I have a few introductions that need to be made...."

That is only the beginning of my total manic and scatterbrained intro that I gave at our October workshop yesterday. The rest of my time on stage got a little better than the initial intro.....thank god. The workshop went well....or at least it seemed to. Even though I am done with the workshop, I still feel a little unsure of how it went. It was quite a blur....still is a blur.

But eyewitness accounts are all positive.

Breaking the Laws of Domestic Physics

I understand that the purpose of the newly revised household chore list was to get the items on it done.

I also understand that the purpose of this new list is to clean those odd things that you forget until they become really horrible....like sweeping the baseboards or removing the strange and possibly toxic dust buildup on the blades of the ceiling fan.

I thought that I would be relatively safe with tonight's task of cleaning and disinfecting the garbage cans....until this.

Know what this is?

No, it isn't something molding.

This is the crystallized mass of dryer lint and odd bits of laundry soap that were in the bottom of the garbage can in the laundry room. It came off in one large piece.


Here is a view of the topside of it, a mountain of dryer lint.

I think that it was beginning to fossilize.

I am positive that this is not only unnatural, but breaks some sort of natural law.

Yellow Legwarmers Make Me Feel Better

So the times where I don't blog are typically times of great busyness or great reflection. In this case, my absense is both.

On the busy front I had the following: parent's visiting, running a UEA booth for two days, bachlorette party, wedding rehearsal, Libby's wedding, fending off Jimmy's sickness, surviving running my first Outreach Advisory Council meeting, Jimmy's 21st birthday, succumbing to Jimmy's illness, and trying not to go crazy in the build-up to the October workshop.

After being sick, besides reveling in the ability that you can wear the craziest things when you are ill (yes--neon yellow legwarmers were involved), I've decided that I need to get my little brother a t-shirt that says "I am a human petri dish".

As to the period of great reflection, it has been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. It started with the realization after my Grandmother's death that I could survive without therapy. So I brought this to my therapy session with the idea of working towards transitioning out of treatment. And in many ways, my therapist earns her money, because she pointed out that we haven't discussed the elephant in the room, which is how I treat relationships in general.

A friend of mine recently was introduced to my blog and pointed out that I admit more on the blog about my feelings than I do to people face to face. If you just know me by my blog, you would probably have a very different view of me than if you knew me in person. It is easier revealing more of my emotional state in writing than it is in person. Here I can write about my weaknesses, my failings, but I don't have to deal with people seeing that pain in my face. To my friend who pointed this out....I can only tell you that there are plenty of members of my family who would gladly commiserate with you.

I've been avoiding talking about how I view the varieties of relationships that I have in my life with my therapist. I started out trying to date, trying to start anew....and I just can't do it. I feel judged by new people when I talk about my past. So in order to not have to talk about the real me I talk about my days in Turkey, or I ask them about themselves and foster that conversation. The result of this is that I know alot of people better than they know me. And in talking about relationships with Esther, I've hit my comfort threshold. I've probably revealed more of my layers to her than to any other person. Which is sad....and to me, frightening to the point of paralysis.

So I will admit that I have some serious relationship "issues". I fear being hurt, so I don't trust anyone with any information about myself. I want someone to take the time to get past my defenses, but I am not going to ask someone to try. I feel lonely, but don't want to do much about it....but I think part of that melancholy can be blamed on the fact that I just listened to Johnny Cash's Ballad of Ira Hayes.....which might be the most depressing song that I have ever heard in my entire life. So depressing that I totally lost any desire to practice piano tonight.....but not depressing enough to discourage me from wanting to take a nice hot bath. Which is where I am going now.

Hey, if you're lucky, I might take a picture of the yellow legwarmers and post them....cause they...were totally sexy.

Goodbye Grandma Ellie

Early last Wednesday morning my grandmother was found, she had passed away in her sleep sometime during the night. Her death wasn't unexpected. She was ill and had been for a long time...and even though you are expecting a death, it still feels unexpected when it actually happens.

I think that I have cried more for her passing than my grandfather and my uncle put together. But these haven't been tears of regret, but more tears of relief. I think that I am finally able to mourn them all.

When Uncle Don died it was the end of the semester, Mr.3 was just starting to get squirrely with the fateful forged loan check, my grandpa was shutting down and all I wanted to do was fix things for my family.

When my Grandfather died (five months later) my father was out of a job, Jimmy had been moved up to my house to finish out school, Mr. 3 was in jail, and my mom was valiantly trying to hold herself together after a grueling month of taking care of my grandfather before he died. All I wanted to do was fix things for my family.

But there is only so much that I could fix. I lived in a constant state of anxiety, feeling obligated to hold up my entire family (and Mr.3)....all the while I was crumbling inside. Realistically I never had time to mourn either of them. And it was heartbreaking watching my grandmother mourn someone that she couldn't fully remember anymore.

I didn't go to the funeral although I wanted to. My parents kept saying that it was "too much" citing that my car wouldn't make the trip. And while I think that was a really lame excuse for making me feel like I shouldn't come. Instead of letting it fester, I did confront my mom with it. There was no satisfying answer, but the mere fact that I even addressed it with her was huge. At least to me it is. There has been so many little injustices that I have felt in my life that I have just kept quiet about, just let fester and burn.....speaking out was huge for me. And when it comes down to it, it was "too much for me to handle"....not for my car, but for me. I've been a wreck since I found out on Thursday afternoon (please note, she was found Wednesday morning and my step-aunt didn't bother to get around to telling us until late Thursday afternoon). I've been exhausted and emotionally frayed. And for once.....I really wasn't physically able to make the long haul emotional drive in the middle of the night for someone who wasn't there. I did that once trying to find Mr.3 in Denver...and it was awful. Trying to do the same thing for someone who I have felt that I have lost years ago would have been lunacy.

I have never really had any strong inclinations about the afterlife. For the most part I figure that I'll find out when I get there....and as long as I have been a good and decent person in this life, things can't really be that bad in the next, if there is one.

Since my Uncle passed away in 2006, my life has gone through alot of turmoil. And each of the terrible things that I have experienced cannot be dealt with individually but as a whole.....and so it would make sense that I would be experiencing all this grief now. When you look at the stages of grief they go in cycles, and cycle out until the pain is gone. First, there is denial...and well, there is alot about the whole Mr.3 saga that fits under that category. Second, anger (uh, yeah!), the third is bargaining.....there has been alot of that. The fourth level has been depression....another checkbox there. And the fifth level is acceptance. I read an article that separated out the fifth step into three parts: the upward turn, reconstruction and working through, and acceptance and hope. And I think that my feet are planted firmly within stage five. In fact, when I saw Esther today, I realized that I could move on without her. I actually got up to leave almost 15 minutes before the end of my session. When she asked me why, I told her that I didn't really have anything else to say. I'm sad and that's ok. I don't want to talk about my grief but just cry to get that emotion out of my system. I don't wish for my grandmother (or even my grandfather and uncle for that matter) back. I am sorry that she is gone, but I don't feel abandoned. And even though the old drama between my aunt and my mom threatens to resurface again with the finalization of the trust...I don't even care about it. Because I can't fix it, and I shouldn't have to. I've offered what I can emotionally and physically and said where I have to draw the line. This is big. So big that every word that I could look up in the thesaurus for big wouldn't be able to describe the enormity of it.

I realize that very little of this post has been about my grandmother....but honestly....when we grieve are we grieving for the person or ourselves? Similar to the case of my grandfather, I wasn't able to have any mementos of my grandmother, and I am now on the lookout for a stainglass hummingbird decal for my window. When I was little, Grandma had just cleaned the stained glass window (leaving the screen door back) and had told me that the kids next door were waiting in the backyard to play with me. She told me that I could go out and play but not to run in the house. Being the little kid that I was, and seeing what looked like an open door, I only heard "backyard" "play" and "run". The result of which was me shattering the glass door and a permanent scar on my head. From then on, Grandma had hummingbird decals on the windows so that I would realize that the door was in fact- closed. Finding something similar would be a fitting memento of her.

As to memories of her, I like to think of her when I visited last just after my uncle's death. My grandfather was inconsolable, and Grandma and I had banded together to goof off and have a bit of fun to relax away from my brooding grandfather. We had gone for a walk in her neighborhood, did lots of giggling....and when we came back my Grandpa was in the living room talking seriously with my mom. Grandma had sat on the arm of the sofa...I can still remember how her feet looked in her slippers. As we were sitting there, she kept slipping backwards onto the sofa...finally she just let go of the arm and slided onto the couch with a little "wheee!". It was so unexpected. Grandma and I were trying to hold in the giggles because of the tenseness of Grandpa...and then....he let out this belly laugh. A laugh that I hadn't heard since I was a little kid. It was a moment of levity and closeness in the face of immense sadness...and that is how I wish to remember her...


wheeeee!

Goodbye Grandma Ellie, I love you.

Getting Rid of the Rest of the Books

Can you tell what these are?
These stacks of 60 odd books, 67 to be exact, are all books of Mr. 3's that I am going to be getting rid of.

I originally kept them because they represented a sizable amount of money that I spent buying them for him, and I also had some wild and crazy idea about writing a book on terrorism for parents and teachers. Honestly, I know that these are books that I will never read. I also don't want to try to sell them...that takes time and energy that I do not have. I don't need to have any more negativity from these books hanging around in my house.

So over the next day or so I am going to put them in the hallway by the MEC with a sign that says "Free, Please Take".

In honor of this latest cleansing, here are the titles of what I am giving away: Mirage- Power, Politics, and the Hidden History of Arabian Oil; Twilight in the Desert; Infiltration; The Eve of Destruction; Islam and Terrorism; Politics in the Middle East; Nation and Religion in the Middle East; Desecularism of the World; Religion and State; The Political Language of Islam; Through Our Enemies Eyes; Troubled Waters; The West at War; Disinformation; The Two Faces of Islam; Hamas; No God but God; An Anatomy of Terror; New Glory; The Osama Bin Laden I Know; Uncharted Journey; Over a Barrel; The West's Last Chance; The Palestinian Right to Return; Atomic Iran; A History of Islamic Societies; The War for Palestine; The Sword of the Prophet; The Shahids; Unholy War; God's Rule; The Story of Political Philosophies; Profiles in Terror; The Military Balance in the Middle East; Countdown to Crisis; Holiest Wars; The Muqaddinah; Why I am Not a Muslim; The Future of Political Islam; Airbourne Carpet; American Political Thought; Islam and Revolution in the Middle East; Seven Theories of Religion; European Union; Guadalcanal; Battle of the Reichswald; Rouge States and Nuclear Powers; Runaway World; Voices of Terror; the History of Jihad; War and Destiny; An Autumn of War; Unholy Alliance; Warrant of Terror; Modern Tyrants; Peace is Possible; The Road to Martyr's Square; the Myth of Islamic Tolerance; Information Assurance; Ideas and Foreign Policy; The Emerging European Union; The Government and Politics of the European Union; The Formative Period of Islamic Thought; Bringing Religion into International Relations; Journey of the Jihadist; Islam; Islamic Imperialism; and Between War and Peace.....phew! It is a long list! And probably represents close to $1000 in books.

So come one and come all....help yourself to a pile of books in the basement of OSH!

Brilliant! IKEA Heights

So I try to share the wealth with the various gems I find in the course of working Job 3, today's gem is a site called IKEA Heights. It is a melodrama that they are filming in an IKEA store, without the store's knowledge...it's just awesome.

IKEA Heights from DaveAOK on Vimeo.

The Staycation

Well I am now at the halfway point in the five day holiday weekend that I am taking. Part of the focus of this weekend is to reflect on what I want and how I want to proceed with the current employment situation.

A couple of odd things have happened since my last post. One, it was dictated to me that I must change my working hours from 7:30-1:30 to 9:00-3:00. This totally throws my work schedule out of whack, but more importantly it has just infuriated me. Yeah, I could adapt....but I am not willing to bend. The second thing that happened was that I approached the new Director with some concerns. Originally I had intended the conversation to be just about dispelling some rumors about the hiring of the new Outreach Director ("That's a personnel issue!"), but it ended up turning out to be about alot of my job frustrations...the triple workload, the new hours decree (he doesn't care that I have other obligations that might interfere). I think that if it had been anyone else, I might have come away from the conversation with a ray of hope. He was after all willing to consider other work-hour arrangements for me.....but then again he just wants me to be at his beck-and-call for as much time as humanly possible between 8 and 5 Monday thru Friday and not go over my 30 hours. He was willing to listen to my concerns, but kept reminding me that the Outreach program and how the system was set up was an "abnormality that shouldn't have been allowed to survive".....which unfortunately kept making me feel that the Outreach program was some runt kitten that he was trying to get rid of. Like in the Disney version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame when the judge first sees the infant Quasimodo, cries that it is an abomination, and is about to drown the baby when the priest stops him....it was sorta like that. But as I said, if it had been any other person I might have been able to believe the best of what he said. I might have been able to "just adapt" as he told me to do. Upon reflection, I can't. I cannot trust him. I have no respect for him. And I don't believe that anything he could do could make me change my mind.....well, at least, I can't think of anything at the moment that he could do that would make me feel better about him...not even something like saving my life, because I would be worried that he would hold it over my head for something else later.

My realization this morning was that no matter how much I might be able to look forward to some of the fun Outreach events that are coming up....the last thing that I want to do is return to work on Tuesday morning. If I could survive on the two jobs (I'd be about $400 short a month) I would give my notice immediately.

The very thought of returning to work at the Center makes my stomach lurch.

I applied for four jobs this morning. I have one other on my list that I want to apply to but I need to have a version of my resume that is appropriate to an advising job. And seeing that I know that another job of that nature will be coming up soon in my friend's department, I really should have a version for this as well.

In the meantime, this lowly events coordinator (as the term Outreach Assistant is not an actual job title--another 'abnormality") is going to get some hours in for her other job. The one she likes....

Sometimes the Silver Linings in the Cloud Doesn't Make A Difference

Call it jinxing myself.
Call it wishful thinking.
Call it counting your chickens before they were hatched.

Whatever its name, it comes down to the fact that I didn't get the job. Which really shouldn't be that big of a deal, but I pinned my hopes on that little paper star called "a new job". It was my chance for an escape of a work situation that I emotionally cannot handle. It was my chance to help myself and my family. And it has fallen off the wall, landed in a puddle, and that little paper star has disintegrated away.

Bye, bye little star, I shouldn't have made you in the first place.

I don't blame the UMFA for not hiring me. They hired the best person for the job. I do blame myself for believing that the job was mine. I blame myself for figuring out what the pay raise would be and then counting on the money being there. I blame myself for preemptively planning on how I wanted to write a blog post detailing the first interview, and the second interview- knowing that the job was between me and one other person- and for having it all planned out that I would drop the good news in the last line of the post.

Cause now I left with the double edged sword of being sad that I didn't get the job and feeling stupid because I let my hopes get up.

Have you ever noticed that bad news never has good timing, but that good news always does? Poor little bad news messenger..... the only time people are ever really happy to see him is when that person is glad that someone has come to great harm.

And of course, today's news didn't come at a good time. I was so overloaded and emotional about the current state of work, that I didn't have time to process the news....and having to process bad news at therapy isn't very constructive. It just results in me crying so hard that I can't speak but snort. It also results in my therapist going on about how my emotional reaction might have more to do with my inability to handle uncertainty in my life and how it relates to my abusive relationship with Mr.3. It results in her going on and on about how I was hurt my Mr.3, the constant state of pain and burden that I was in, etc. etc. etc. And I couldn't stop crying/snorting long enough to make her stop. Because my emotions are not focused on the past with Mr.3, but on the fact that I am not sure how I am going to handle Wednesday.

It will only be a matter of time before she starts to equate this with why I am not dating. I know that I can not handle uncertainty. I need to know where I am at all times. The uncertainty in dating is too much.....although I also can just say that it is a hassle -so why bother. I can't deal with my own issues, why add others to the mix? And while it is a hassle, it also helps me NOT focus on my deep rooted fear that I am woefully inadequate and not worth being loved by someone who is not already someone I consider family.

I am tired of feeling like damaged goods, and I'm tired of feeling bullied, and I'm tired of feeling overworked. I'm so tired of it all that I lack the strength to fight back. And I know that it is what I need to do.

So boys and girls, what is the moral for today's story? I think that it should be "playing with paper stars can be fun, but beware of papercuts", but I am willing to take alternative suggestions.

What to Wear?

Alright folks....tomorrow morning, I have a job interview.

I read online somewhere that only 2% of job applicants actually get to the interview stage. And while I kept trying to tell myself that I wasn't nervous about it....I totally lied.

I've been in a constant state of anxiety since I put in the application. I was doing the stupid jaw clenching thing....then once I managed to get that to stop all the stress just transferred to my stomach. Which has left me in alot of pain and feeling like I have been continually hit in the stomach. This afternoon, I tried to do some breathing and I thought that I had everything under control, until I went to look in the mirror. I've totally broken out in a matter of two hours.....it almost looks like hives! So while I am typing, I've got a face mask on hoping that it will suck all of the impurities out of my face.

I think that I am nervous because I have so much riding on this. I just want out of the MEC and this seems like the first major chance that I have gotten. I understand the enormity of the job....it would be a major pay raise and quite the learning curve. I know my potential boss and he was the one who asked me to apply for the job. Everything is looking really positive for this job.....but I think that I keep expecting something to ruin it all.

And I have no idea of what to wear tomorrow! Do I go for slacks and a blouse? A dress? Do I even want to address the idea of heels? I did some superficial google searches on what to wear...colors and such. Alot of them tell you just to wear something that would fit in with the work place and the job.....but honestly, what do you wear for an interview for an accountant's position at an art museum? I think that red and white might be a good color combo but that still doesn't narrow down the possibilities. Ugh!

I'm gonna go wash off this face mask and tear apart my closet.
Wish me luck!

Backups of various types

Wow...can I just tell you how glad that I am that I blog? Work on the Mr.3 memoir is in full swing (being that I try to write every day on it) and I refer back to the blog--A LOT. It is a good backup to have.

Speaking of backups, when I got the new computer I also bought an new disk drive in the hopes of getting files off of the terminally ill laptop. So far so good. It has only done one major data dump crash once so far..... but as I am a little over an hour into a major file transfer I am expecting it to die at any moment. I keep getting up every couple of minutes to check on it. I think I have it in my head that if I am constantly paying attention to it that it won't crash.....totally silly (and a bit of a time waster actually). Fingers crossed that this process doesn't drive me totally nuts!