My Weekly Schedule

Monday-Wednesday:

6:00, 6:15, 6:30, 6:45, 7:00: Wake up, hit snooze, contemplate suicide, fall back asleep.
7:15 or so: Wake up, take shower.
8:00: Arrive at work, check email. Delete thousands of Monster.com emails offering jobs in DFW. Brew pot of coffee, which will most likely be exclusively drunk by me.
8:15: Check myspace. Respond, read blogs.
8:30-9:15: Work.
9:30: Go downstairs to smoke. Discuss new occupational annoyances with Smoking Buddy Beth.
9:45-12: Work.
Noon: Lunch. Smoke, dont eat. Much healthier.
1-5: Phone it in. Feel swell of nervous happiness at the fact that I am moving to Seattle soon.
5:30-11:00: Hang out with roomies, watch tv, miss Victoria terribly. If she should happen to call, light up like Christmas tree of some sort.
11:15: Wish I was in a show, so that I could drink all the time with good reason. Fall asleep remembering that I should have called a bunch of people back.

Thursday-Friday:

8-5: Work. Phone it in as much as possible, but with the week ending, work comes easier. Be happy and excited about weekend. If possible, work an orientation to get out of the office. Drink insane amounts of coffee.
5-11: Thank God its the end of the week. Hang out with roomies. Be excited about coming weekend plans with Victoria.
11:15: Fall asleep to soothing sounds of own thoughts.

Saturday:

11-noon or so: Wake up. Shower. Think about possible plans for the day that most likely wont be done.
Noon-Indeterminate: Watch tv, play video games, generally relax.
Indeterminate-Indeterminate: Go hang out with Victoria. Feel happier than ever. Be barked at by 1 or 2 dogs. Occasionally get kisses from big dog in strange and uncomfortable places.
Late: Realize I took wrong turn on way home, and am now in Nebraska. Get home, fall asleep.

Sunday:

1-2: Wake up. Maybe shower, maybe not. Feel sad about moving Seattle. Reevaluate life.
2-3: Wonder when I grew up. Feel disappointed.
3:15: Wonder if I should quit smoking.
3:20: Smoke.
3:30-11: Emotions even out. Happy that I have the day off to recuperate. Watch tv. Watch roommates packing. Realize I have about 5% of the stuff I had last year, so packing enough to get a box going would involve taking off whatever I was wearing. Watch Venture Brothers. Feel happy to be alive with such great friends.
11:15: Have sudden spurt of fear at the fact that I have what amounts to about three outfits. Plan clothes for Monday in my head, and read/play video games til I fall asleep.

Intermittently throughout the week:

*Hang out with friends apart from the roomies and Victoria.
*Phone parents in an effort to try to make an effort at our relationship. Feel guilt.
*Have a beer or two. Wish I could afford more. Worry that I may be get kicked out of the Irish because I dont drink as much as I normally want to.
*Ramble longwindedly in blog. Write very emotional things that matter little to anyone.
*Try to play new song on guitar, only to give up and play same shit.

The Tao of Moving Away

So, since Ive made a couple of "world" posts, Im going to tell you about me for a bit.

Nowadays, whether you can tell it or not, I go back and forth between two extremes.

One day, I feel such strong, forceful love. For my roommates, for my friends, for my girl, for my family. I feel so lucky to be surrounded by people that care, that take care of me, but dont let me get away with too much bullshit. I love my people for themselves, and for how they treat me. They make me feel like I am about to embark on a journey. An adventure. And I will make them proud.

The next day, I will be filled with a terror that creeps around the back of my mind like a tiger in the back of a circus cage. Every now and then, itll sneak forward, whispering "You're going to have to come back in a month". "Youll fail, and have nowhere to go". "They will forget why they thought you could do this."

On the days I get the love back, it seems to salve every heartache. But the way the fear creeps around.....it doesnt work well in reverse.

I am ok. I am firmly into believing at this point that this is what happens when you make a dramatic change to your life. Not a new job, or a new house. A whole new life.

The whole world feels like its drawing close around me, in a way. My circle of.....awareness is, anyway. I have talked to my Mom less and less lately. And a few of my friends. I really only talk to about three people as much as possible, lately. Its not because I will miss them anymore than you. Its because....I think Im scared to see everyone before I go. I think, deep down, I dont want to miss anybody. I want to make it as unnatural a change as possible, to make it so much easier to make a new life. I want to make a clean break, of sorts.

But of course thats impossible. You cant grow up someplace, literally and figuratively, and not be forever marked by it. You cant live the first quarter of your life making friends that will just disappear at the 25 mark. And trust me, no one I love will disappear, to me. I still think of you guys now, and all the good times we had. I guess all I ask is that you give me some time. When I leave, trust me, I will not be gone forever. No matter what happens, Texas is my birthplace, and I mean that in every figurative way I possibly can.

But here I am, saying goodbye already. Ive still got almost a month. Thats the hardest thing, I think. Its not a sudden goodby that we can all get over as quick as possible. Everytime I see one of you, I wonder how many times we have left. Before the big ol move. But I guess thats how I shouldve been looking at things all along. You never know when someone just wont be around anymore. In that way, I guess Im lucky. But Im lucky in lots of ways. Did I tell you I had a great girl, wonderful friends, and a tremendously happy life?

I do indeed.

Another Woeful Outcry

I wont lie and deny that one of my biggest dreams is being financially comfortable. If given the choice, I would be rich enough to be able to send all my kids to college, to have a nice house, to be able to get a new car every once in awhile. But one of the bigger wishes that people sometimes overlook is being successful enough, important enough, and knowledgeable enough to make a difference.

A friend and I were complaining to each other today that our respective offices were sometimes run shabbily. Its not necessarily anyone's fault; it's more like we have ideas that could make the place run smoother, more efficiently, just overall better.

For instance, I got a request today to resend a couple of applications to the library sciences department that I sent over 6 months ago. Now, I dont mind doing it, and it doesnt take a whole lot of time out of my already not-busy work schedule. All I do is go into the imaging system, print out what I did, and send it on through intercampus mail. But, if the department learned how to use the imaging system that everyone has access to, but only we (student records) use, they could just print out these graduate applications packets. What COULD take 5 minutes instead takes two days.

Now, the people I work with are not stupid people. (Well, not all of them.) They probably have realized that these little problems, and a few ginormous ones, could be solved with a little bit of planning, and perhaps some policy changes. But they have been convinced that this is how things are, for better or worse.

It seems often that a lot of the wrong things are paid attention to, here. The head of my department, for one, chooses to try and make things better by instituting more and more rules to try and make us more professional. I guess her opinion is that if we are professional, things will just fall into place. (One of this person's major points at a recent department-wide meeting was dress code. I understand the point, but dont we have bigger problems? If you've read my blog before, you probably know my argument AGAINST being more and more professional, anyways.)

Now, just to drive in the point, here are a few problems that my office has, from my eyes.

*Lack of attendance- Today, for instance, two people are out, one person left at noon, and one person got here at 10:30. This is very normal.
*Lack of responsibility- I had a complaint today, that a bunch of files were ready to be worked, but COULDNT be worked, because important parts of the file were not scanned. I had persnally been waiting with these files in my inbox for about a month. When my boss went down to the scanning supervisor to let her know the problem, the supervisor maintained that she thought they HAD been scanned, and that something was wrong with the system. My only problem with this is that I know the lady in charge of scanning has been here about 18% of the time lately, and her supervisor is notorious for blaming everything but her own people for mistakes. "If you couldnt find the file in the system, instead of complaining about how we scanned it, why didnt you come down here and do it yourself?" I hate to sound petty, but its not my job to be Inspector Fuckin Clouseau and spend the majority of my day trying to get someone else's job done.
*Lack of Campus-wide education- There is a HUGE occurrence here of every department getting transferred calls that don't apply to whatever they do. WE get calls for Academic Advising, Academic Advising gets calls for the Registrar, the Registrar gets calls for Housing. What's everyone's answer to this? "Yeah, I hate that."

You know what, that's my major complaint about the entire thing. Why is it that when everyone sees a problem, they kind of grin and bear it? These things can be solved! Its very simple to say "Hey, you know how you did this, you should do this instead, and it would save everyone time and frustration." Everytime something gets done wrong, it seems like we want to assign blame quickly, and get it off of our respective desks, rather than try to avoid it again. And you know who suffers? The students. Us. Everyone involved.

Now, I really absolutely am not absolving myself from any of these thigns. As Ive said before, Im not a quality worker. A lot of my excuse is that Im just doing what seems to be protocol, but its working harder than that that makes a person great.

This has turned into a big TWU complaint, but I think my original point is still here. Can you imagine going into work at someplace where the everyday peon can make a suggestion that is listened to wholeheartedly? Where, even though a policy is set, someone can feel comfortable suggesting a new one?

Author's Note: I find, more and more, that my writing is sort of idealist. We deserve to wish for the best, though, dont we? I think so. I havent yet given up on shouting at the world: "Shake things up! We can make this place great!"

A Letter To A Love

Dear Joan Cusack,

I regret to inform you that you have been replaced as one of my top five people I will marry one day. Its an amicable split, and I wish you well in all your future endeavours.
You should definitely be proud; the list of the people I graduated high school planning to marry is a pretty short one. Jeaneane Garafaolo is still holding her spot, even though the last couple times Ive seen her, she has been playing a drug addict of some sort, and not looking as nice as she usually does. Debbie Gibson still holds her spot as well. As long as she can sing "Lost In Your Eyes", I will love her. Pretty much the same for Tiffany ("If shes got no last name, by god I can give her mine.")

Understand, I dont want you to assume that this is because of any aging you may have done since I graduated. In my eyes, you always have been and always will be the cute, plucky but anxious girl in the neck brace from Sixteen Candles. (Not to say that I always envision you with a neck brace, but surely, after all these years, you can "pick up what Im laying down.")
The question is more one of availability. Ive waited and waited for some sort of sign, in my heart or in the world around me, that we were one step closer to married bliss. I feel that, with your marriage to another, and the motherhood that stems from it, we are instead drifting apart. Plus, I havent seen you in anything since, like, School of Rock. Are you out there? Thinking of me? Probably not.

I cannot stress enough that there are no hard feelings. I still admire you as an actress and a general personality. I further would never want to queer the deal between my friend Victoria, and your equally talented brother John. That's a match made in heaven, and I would hate to think it may be weird at their wedding or the holidays thereafter. Would I want to spend Thanksgiving sitting across the turkey from someone who thought I disliked them? Certainly not.

So, to make a long letter short, I bid you farewell, and hope that you realize all you have meant to me.

Cheers!

PS: Please remit the ring I have given you, as Sarah Silverman will be wanting it posthaste, Im sure.