Disappointment is a strange beast

Disappointment is a strange beast.  It means that you have expectations of people and they didn't come through or act in the way that you thought they would.  And having expectations of people is a dangerous, dangerous game.  But I guess in the game of friendship, expectation is kind of on the table.

I expected people to support me more than they have.  I expected people to come and celebrate me and all of my hard work.  I expected people to stop by and bring me coffees and hang out with me at the shop.  I expected people to willingly and thoughtfully spend their dollars at MY store, like they said they would.  I expected people to take two minutes out of their life to ask me how I am doing, how's it all going.  I expected people to come shop more than once, or even once.  I fully expected the support of the group that I have been a part of for the last 6 years.

I opened a second-hand clothing store 3 months ago.  The first two months were great, and exciting, and I got to be shiny and new to everyone that came in the door.  And I've met some great people, and shared some great conversation with strangers, and even made friends.  But this week I cannot shake the realization that I am just fucking disappointed in my peer group and my 372 "friends" on facebook.  But that's MY problem, not theirs.  I've been fighting this expectation beast my whole life, and it always wins.

anonymity is hard to maintain

Used to be I could turn to twitter to get all my venting out of the way. Now I know too many people who are involved in my real life on there and they all know exactly who I am talking about when I publish something. But it's a catch-22 or something. My account, my heart, my right to state my feelings. So there's a fight going on right now, and it involves me and someone "close" to me, someone with whom I spend a ton of free time with and basically do a ton of volunteer work for, and the fight is that I questioned them about something and they FLIPPED OUT and called me names and, in a nutshell, told me to go fuck myself. And then they expected me to just forget that it happened. I waited a couple of days, decided I was not going to swallow this one, and sent them a letter telling them that I wanted an apology from them and that in no way, shape or form, would I consciously choose to spend thousands of my hours and dollars somewhere that treated me like that. They told me they were too busy for me. Literally. Not too busy to publish 100's of pictures on facebook over the last 3 days and update their status every 10 minutes, but too busy to take 10 minutes of their precious time to type "I'm sorry". And I'm floored. And I'm especially floored to hear that they now want an apology too! For reals! I almost feel like I'm crazy, but I know in my heart that I'm not, and if I lose my connection to this group then so be it, because I cannot let this be ok. You do not treat people like that. Bottom line.

When DJ's are bad, they are terrible

Last night was our annual fancy dress-up staff christmas party for work. The one where we all dress up and pay $7 for drinks, eat pretty decent food, and make small talk with people we don't really know. And then the "dancing" starts, and I get hives.

There is something about DJ services that makes me miserable. It's the concept of lowest common denominator, and it drives me BANANAS. Take a room full of people. Any room full of people. Who decided that a Grease medley is what we all want and need to hear? Followed by Boot-Scootin' Boogie, Raise a Little Hell, and for fuck's sake, Ra-Ra-Rasputin? I HATE Ra-Ra-Rasputin. It invokes some kind of Nazi sentiments for me. Seriously. And then, for one song, the DJ will play something that actually gets more than 4 people on the dance floor, so what do they do? They immediately change genres to something completely different and the dance floor clears. IF YOUR DANCE FLOOR IS FULLER THAN IT'S BEEN ALL NIGHT KEEP PLAYING THE SAME GENRE. At least for a few songs. It's not rocket science.

Anyways, there are times, like last night, that I can't let that shit go, and all I can focus on is how terrible the music is, and how fucking cheesy the scene is, and how I'm supposed to act like Thunderstruck is the best fucking song ever and rock out to it, and I can't let it go. Last night I kept thinking "it is what you make it, it is what you make it", but try as I might I could not make Pour Some Sugar on Me into anything not resembling disgust. Good times. So we had a few more $7 drinks and made some more small talk all in the name of trying to have fun and then waited for a cab forever to get home, and this morning I am broke and tired and regretting the money spent on the pursuit of happiness.

Lots of shit going on otherwise. We've settled into the new place, our '63 Mayfair bungalow with the awesome back yard. Had a little bit of a nice fall getting to enjoy it, but I sure can't wait for summer next year and growing a garden with Alejandro. He's all about the real food and eating well and I know I haven't had a garden in years but am looking forward to tending one with him.

And I'm waiting for surgery. Yep. I'm saying it like it's no big deal but those are serious words. In the last year I've started getting wicked awful menstrual cramps and finally went to a doctor then a radiologist then a gynecologist and am now waiting for laparoscopy to take out the giant cysts that are taking over my lady bits. I have never been in so much pain. I'm losing 2 days a month to this right now, and am long past my allowed sick days at work, so am having to also deal with not getting paid 2 days a month. Side note - you can't use short-term disability for something like this as you have to be off work for 4 days minimum... so I guess I need to stay home for 4 days instead of 2 every month? Makes no sense. My helpful HR contact said "may I suggest bringing a heating pad to work to deal with the discomfort?". "Oh sure, I'll be sure to use it in between bouts of VOMITING FROM PAIN". Fuck.

So I'm waiting for that and I'm also supposed to be getting my wisdom teeth pulled which is pretty much one of my biggest fears but I've "lost" the phone number to the dental surgeon from when they called and left a message cuz my other health issue is a bit more urgent right now. I've started falling apart I guess. My grey hair and whisker quotient has also dramatically increased. This getting older business is bullshit. But maybe I'll learn to love AC/DC at parties now.

it wasn't me!

There was a post on postsecret last week that just said "FUCK YOU STEPHEN!". It wasn't me! But I wondered if you read, wondered if you thought it maybe was.

So long time no blog. I had to actually hunt around for the address of it.. ha ha. I am SOOO close to selling my house and moving to a sweet 1963 bungalow in Mayfair, it should all be finalized on monday. I got less than I wanted for this place but the truth of the matter is that I haven't done a thing to it in the 6 years that I've been living here, and it kind of shows. I just want out. So when they asked for a price deduction based on the home inspection report I just said "sure". Cuz there are hundreds of houses for sale in Saskatoon right now and I don't want to start from scratch when the next inspection would just find the same things. It's kind of a good time to be buying a house actually, what with all the rain we've been having. You can see exactly how much water is seeping into the basements. The new place has a sump pump, and according to that inspection, it's an even better style of sump pump that any new house has. I guess the new ones just pump the water from under your house and dump it back into your yard.. great system indeed. This one takes the water from under the house and dumps it straight into the the sewer system.

So the new place has 4 bedrooms and a finished basement with rumpus room, 2 bathrooms, fantastic kitchen, all new flooring, low flush toilets, air conditioning, built in dishwasher, yada yada yada. And a wonderful yard. And it's NOT on a corner!!! No more hours of shoveling in the winter!! Oh I'm so excited about that. It's gonna be a a bit of a jump in payments but alejandro is moving in so with 2 people it'll work out to be about the same. I'll have a dressing room and a sewing room and a computer room... right now all of those things are one room. This house has been really great for me but 6 years later it is time to move onwards and upwards. And because it's Saskatoon of course I know people that know people who are buying this place. And they're a lot like me 6 years ago. First house, cool girls, friends with the lesbians who live 2 doors down. It's all good.

09-09-09

Hey there. Hi there. Ho there. How's it hangin'? I left work with cramps and now have sweatpants firmly ensconced on ass, making out with my couch. Fuck you uterus.

Answer me this ~ if I've met someone that is: kind & smart & funny & hardworking & thoughtful & supportive & sweet & has good style, but I am not 100% attracted to them, what do I do? I know that attraction can grow (although he can't, at 36 and 5'8 and a bit) but I'm still confused by this one. I'm not signing any contracts yet. Oh and he lives in a different city, that's a factor too.

I'm feeling a bit stuck in my west-side house rut and want to get out and make changes but damn you finances. how is anyone expected to support themselves with a 1% raise this year? My dream of a 2 bedroom downtown condo with a view isn't going to happen I guess. I'll be stuck alone here in this house till I die. No wonder all my old lady neighbours are 80.

I totally LOL'd

(Today's email chain with a co-worker discussing the possibility of ordering food.)

Hey, are you doing anything for lunch? I'm hungry. Already!

I'm Hungary too. But I'm not sure what I'm doing for lunch yet.

Kay if you think of anything I'm fINnish.

Ok, I'll keep you in mind when I make my decision. I hope they fix the heat in here....it's friggin Chile!

Oh I hear ya. Let's try to order something healthy-ish though cuz I don't need to be Bulgaria outta my pants.

Nicola wants to eat healthy for lunch. Czech.

It's only 9:30am though, so don't feel like I'm Russian you.

Jamaica'n me crazy with your constant pushing!

Oh keep it down with your crying and Wales-ing.

Syria'sly now?

Oh man I'm laughing so hard Iran to the bathroom!

How much you want Tibet that Marc will want in on lunch?

Marc wanting in on lunch? Norway.

Well if we don't include him, Denmark will be upset.

Yeah we don't want that Japan-ing.

I blame it on mercury in retrograde

So hey, I feel like an absolute bitch today. Why not post for the 1st time in many moons. I think at one point this used to be an outlet, and I think it used to be good. Let's try it again, shall we?

4 weeks not smoking. 4 weeks on the patch. I've had a few here and there, but it's the day to day habit that's the hardest to break. I'm still weak when drinking. But all I know is that I'm not inhaling 1/2 pack of toxins a day, and that's got to be a good thing. It's gotten to the point that I just cannot pretend any more that it's not killing me. Not that anything "happened", no, I just can't ignore that consistently inhaling toxic chemicals isn't going to hurt me in the long run. That plus I went to the dentist for the 1st time in 5 years. Yeah. Not good. My paranoia (literally) + smoking for 23 years has not been so kind to the gums. So two cavities down, two more to go plus a crown for a tooth that broke a couple of months ago. Thank god for benefits. Those first two cavities were $400 already. Yeesh.

Had a shit week at work, got a strip torn off of me and thrown to the dogs. Seems like someone needed to establish who the boss was and we all know it's not me. I don't think I've ever been screamed at like that, at least not for a long long time. It ended with me just staring down at the table muttering "fine... fine... yes... fine..". Yes you broke me. Happy now?

And hey it's mothers day! I feel like an insult to my gender. I'm 35, so very very single, and not really sure what my fucking problem is. The last guy I was interested in wove a very elaborate story about his wallet being stolen and me being "kind" (read: sucker) ended up giving him some money (not much) and never heard from him again. Good one. Glad my fucking radar is on point like that.

In short: feeling pretty rank. There are not enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done. Yes my yard needs attention. Don't fucking judge me.