Ridiculous Thoughts

I feel relieved. I just finished posting in my NaNo blog a concession that I won’t be making it to 50,000 words. I wish I could have but frankly, it felt like homework. By that I mean that the pressure to hit a quota everyday felt like I was back in high school with a huge book report hanging over my head. I didn’t like the feeling then, and I apparently don’t like it much now either. How can I tell a good story if I’m just writing to fill a quota?

Excuses, I know. Justification to make myself feel better for failing at this venture. Meh. It was completely voluntary anyway. I like the idea of it and I understand the purpose of NaNoWriMo to be sure and I think it’s great. But it’s not for me. But it did force me to think up a story I might actually be able to stretch into a book and I intend on continuing with it – but at my own pace.

So I feel relief now.

Today I spent a guilt-free day with my kidlet watching the original Star Wars trilogy back to back. Was nice 🙂 I hadn’t seen those in a while. It was cold and gloomy out today anyway so it was a perfect day to spend all cozy inside.

Yesterday my Grampa turned 80. Blimey. 80. And he still looks marvelous 🙂 We got him a moosh pillow and CD walkman. The other day he was telling me he couldn’t seem to find the time to listen to their CDs of Bill Clinton’s book because my Gran was always in the room with the CD player working on her jigsaws and he’d been thinking of getting a walkman (or as he called it ‘a cd player that you carry around with earphone.’ Hehehe.) And the moosh pillow he loves because it fits round his neck in his easy chair and he can relax without his head bobbing all over the place.

Moosh pillows rock btw. We got a couple for ourselves because they feel so good just to squish in your hands. I recommend everyone get one.

Anyway it’s getting late-ish and I’m so sleepy. Think I’ll head for bedfordshire. Gnight.

It’s coming up. I heard about it a couple of years ago from some fanficcers I knew and thought it was a good idea. At the time though I didn’t think I could manage it. Now Blogger seems to be making it easier and I’m actually thinking about doing it. Hmmm… need to think a bit more. I have til November 1st to decide if I can write a book in a month. I’ve got stories upon stories in my head but they’re all half-formed and vague. Maybe this would help give me clarity.

I’ve also got my next column to write 🙂 wheeee! It’s not due for a week or so and I’m 3/4ths of the way through it. Still totally digging it of course and I’m surrounded by such inspirational people at work (and at home. My kidlet’s pretty damn inspirational.) Ahhhh love my job.

Except tomorrow I have to go to the evil Remax realtors. Blech. Everytime I walk in that place to do my freakin’ job, the snooty lady there rolls her eyes as if I’ve just farted in her car or something. I’m there a grand total of four minutes (I timed it) to upload their pitiful listings (they’re a very teeny agency.) So I don’t know why she and her dorky husband think it’s some great issue whenever I show up. Ugh it makes the whole thing unpleasant.

I have to drive around to five agencies during the day to do their uploads and the other four couldn’t be nicer. They chitchat, occasionally offer me coffee. Not Remax. Ah well.. Apart from them I enjoy doing the uploads because I get to get into the ofice around 9:30 after I do three agencies, and leave around 4pm to finish the other two, one of which is right across the street from my home. It’s perfect 🙂 It gets me out of the office for a while which is sort of nice – only because I have to say my chair there is not so good and sitting on it for 8 hours a day is killing my back. Otherwise I like being there because the work and the people are a lot of fun.

Enough of that. What else is happening… The kidlet began volunteering at the hospital. She wanted to do it of her own accord, with no prodding from me or anyone else which I just think is so admirable of her. She’s not quite old enough to be a full-time volunteer so they let her help out in Skilled Care where she reads to the older folk there recovering and just generally visits with them. I think she likes it so far. She just rocks so much 🙂

Well I could go on, but my bed looks very appealing right now. I think I’ll go flop on it.

I think. Today my first-ever column has been published in the paper 🙂 I’m so freaking excited I could just spit. I’m already planning to buy a scrapbook and extra copies to send to friends and relatives. How sad is that? Hehehe.

I know it’s just a small city newspaper and I know the column is buried in the bowels of the Sunday paper in the ‘Stay Tuned’ TV listings section but damnit, that’s my name in glorious Times New Roman black ink that rubs off on your fingers. Those are my words in print that 50,000 people in and around my city might read.

*spit*

Man oh man. I’m going to work tomorrow with a huge grin plastered all over my face. I know no one there will think it’s a big deal. I’m sure everyone there at one time or another has been published in the paper. I’m not quite sure why this feels like such a huge deal to me, but it does and I like the feeling.

And now I’d better get cracking on my next one 🙂

So my daughter is the coolest kid ever. Sometimes I take for granted the fact that she loves me and I love her and go on about our daily life. And then one day I go into the kitchen and find a scribbled note on the greaseboard that just makes me want to hug her and never let go.

The past few days I’ve had a bit of an achy problem with my teeth. To be honest, I don’t think it’s actually my teeth that hurt more than my cheekbone as that seems to be where the pain is emanating from. Anyway it’s been annoying and I suppose I’ve been a little whiny about it in front of the kidlet, who will inevitably tell me I should go to the dentist.

If you know me, I have an inordinate fear of the dentist. It’s more than your typical fear really, more of a phobia for me. I fully blame this phobia on terrifying, painful memories of my five years in braces back in junior high and high school. I had a problem with my front tooth in that there were some weird tooth ‘buds’ they called them preventing my adult tooth from dropping down. In fact my right front tooth was positioned up in my gums sideways and far above my left front tooth.

So I had to have surgery to remove the ‘buds’ and have a brace bracket glued onto the weirdly positioned tooth, a chain attached to it and left to dangle out of the gaping hole where my baby front tooth had previously been. Sounds gross right? Well imagine being in your awkward stage in a junior high filled with the sort of mean girls who make Lindsey Lohan’s mean girls look like angels of mercy. Now imagine having no front tooth, gross-looking stitches on your gums and a little gold chain dangling in from your gums as well. Add thick glasses and a mother with a skewed idea of what constituted fashion at that time and you can begin to see what I had to deal with.

Anyway, once I healed from surgery I had to have braces put on the rest of my upper teeth and the chain was anchored to the wire running through them. Once a month I had to walk to the dentist’s office and have him tighten that damn chain. This mean him removing a link and anchoring the next link to the wire and twisting so hard I thought I would pass out from the pressure on my skull. It was awful. I began to hate the smell of the dentis’s office. I began to dread the walk to the office. I couldn’t eat solid food for three days after each visit because any pressure on my teeth was agony.

And I did this for five years. It might not have even been so long if the dentist I’d been seeing hadn’t been ripping off my family by not really doing much beyond the twisting of the chain to aid my tooth in coming down and instead just letting me come every month while my parents forked over $200 each visit. After we moved and I started a new dentist in California, he scraped aside a bit of gum membrane and within a month my tooth dropped all the way down as it was supposed to.

So forgive me if I’m not exactly fond of the dentist. When my daughter said to me I should go, I admit I got a little annoyed. She knew my fears. But she said it anyway. I told her that even if I could get over it and go, at the moment I have no insurance because of my job switch. My new plan won’t kick in for another couple of months, after the obligatory probationary period and I couldn’t afford to pay full price for coverage with my old job while I transitioned. And no way can I afford to pay out of pocket for any nasty work the dentist would probably want to do.

So I decided to quit being whingy about it in hopes she’d let the matter drop. Later that day I went into the kitchen to get some hot tea when I saw her note on the greaseboard: “I don’t want a lecture, but health is more important than money and I don’t like to see you hurting.” Then she drew a little smiley and my heart just about melted.

I gave her the biggest hug, told her I loved her and I understood her message. I told her it made me feel better just reading it. I didn’t lecture her but I did gently say that I just can’t go because I can’t afford it. I told her that when the insurance kicks back in and I’m still feeling it, I will go to the dentist if it kills me. Which it probably will. But I’ll do it because I love my daughter.

I haven’t blogged in ages. But let’s just take it as a given that I feel guilty about it and that in my defense I’ve been busier than I usually am and leave it at that.

Moving on, the job is really starting to become something I’m excited about. Admittedly I was a little… dejected I think, after I first started.My first day didn’t go very well, and it was a weird sort of come-down to lose my office and my nice Windows machine with up-to-date software in exchange for an open plan environment and a crappy Apple with out-of-date software. I think that was more of a big deal than I thought it would be in the beginning because I’d have moments of wishing it were the weekend and the Sunday night dread of having to go back to work.

Not that I didn’t have that working at the hospital mind you. It just didn’t seem as intense. Another thing that has been bothering me (and I promise this is the last thing, because it really does get better) is my inherent shyness that I just can’t seem to break free from. It never fails. I’ll never be one of those people who can just become ensconced in new surroundings and make instant friends no matter how much I want to. I’ll always be one of those people that just take a while to loosen up. It’s because I’m easily intimidated I think. The other New media producer is a really cool ‘rock chick’ who’s into the latest tunes and concerts and has a great sense of style. She’s been there a long time, knows everyone, everyone enjoys her sense of humour and occasional moments of wackiness. Essentially, she’s where I was when I left the hospital. I’d been there a long time, everyone knew my sense of humour and my own moments of wackiness. Now I’m the new one on the totem pole. The Web editor guy is far too cute to be a geek. Even my daughter thinks he’s hawt and it can be disconcerting to speak to him even though he’s as nice as can be; I still have to avert my eyes sometimes.

My boss is also really nice, and she’s either the same age as or maybe even a little younger than myself. Married, couple of kids, funny, easygoing.

But anyway, everyone I’ve met has been welcoming and friendly. I LOVE listening to the reporters as they scurry about going after stories and interviewing people. I love watching the whole newspaper process come together day by day. I love that this company’s corporate offices are excited and gung ho about online services and journalism and I’m excited that I get to be a part of driving print media in a new direction. I love how my daughter gets to tell her friends her mom works for the newspaper. I love that I was asked casually if I’d be interested in writing something once a month about the new TV season by one of the reporters. I love that I can take initiative and jump into projects without waiting for the go-ahead from some committee or boardof directors…

It’s just getting better and better and I finally feel like I’m loosening up and getting to know my new coworkers.

My last day as Webmaster for Saint Francis. *sniffle* I’m really going to miss this place and the people in it. As part of the leaving process I have to complete a written Exit Interview. Well, I don’t have to, but I’d like to. I have nothing but nice things to say about this place. I may have whinged in the past about certain aspects… the salary most likely, but the job on the whole has been a dream job for me and I’m glad for it.

Ok so I’ve just done the Exit Interview. The hardest question to answer was ‘What did you like least about working for Saint Francis?’ and I drew a blank. I guess, and this probably makes me come off as superficial, but I guessed that the thing I liked least was the low pay for my job since that’s the main reason I’m leaving. I hated to say that, but well, it’s true. It’s been a struggle living paycheck to paycheck knowing that if I were in a larger market I could be earning three times my current salary yet not having the ability to move to that larger market. I’m a single parent raising a teenager. Teenagers are expensive 🙂

Anyway, I’ve got four and a half hours to go til I say g’bye to everyone. Then I think I will go rent some movies and have a girly night with the kid tonight.

Soooooo…

I got the job 🙂 It’s been a while since I’ve written here and if I would have been on the ball I would have posted the instant I heard the good news. But things have been fairly hectic once the ball began rolling on ending my job at Saint Francis and preparing for my new job.

The day after my previous entry is when she called to offer me the job and I have to say that I was in some kind of numb shock. It’s only now beginning to sink in to me that this is really happening. It’s all been so surreal. The strangest thing of all is that a month ago I wasn’t even contemplating any of this. Isn’t it funny how life throws those cureveballs at you when you aren’t quite ready for them? When I began taking my mom’s pictures down in my office and packing up my things, that’s when it began to hit me. I’m really leaving. Everytime I run into my boss he pretends to have a bit of a breakdown and we laugh. It makes me feel really good to learn that I’ll actually be missed here. I know I will miss the fantastic people I’ve worked with for the last five years. This hospital has been very good to me and I’ll never forget it.

Tomorrow night I’m going out to dinner with a couple coworkers and then apparently my department set up a bit of a going-away reception for me on Friday. I’m a little nervous about that because I’m not used to being in the spotlight like that. But it does make me feel incredible that they’d go to so much trouble. This place has been great 🙂

But I’m not really leaving for good. I offered to remain on a sort of part-time status called ‘pool’ and they agreed, so I’ll still be running the sites until someone can be hired, which means that much more extra money. And even after that I’ll need to train whomever steps into this position. And then I’ll remain on to work on large projects for other departments, so that will be cool.

Anyway, just an update. I start my new job as ‘New Media Producer’ on Tuesday the 17th. I will hopefully be getting a new computer there whenever their new budget year starts and I was given the option of getting a laptop so wheeeee 🙂

I can’t wait.