Paging Strela

Dude, am I caught in your spam filter? Please send me your snail mail addy so I can send you a save-the-date for the dog and pony show (aka wedding).

I did dress up for Halloween after all.

When I decided I couldn't be Death, I wasn't sure what to do, but I had inspiration in the party store last night. One $14 leopard-print dress and a plastic bone later, I went as Pebbles Flintstone. People loved it. I've done a lot of interesting costumes over the year, but I think this is the first time I've been a pop icon since I was about eight. It amused the hell out of me.

A number of folks were quite disappointed when they asked where Bam Bam was and I told them Phoenix. And that I thought he was probably dressing up as Eddie tonight.

This made me laugh.

The Internet really is for porn. Just in case you didn't know it.

I think I'm unemployable.

After keeping me on a string for two weeks, the fire department I interviewed with went from "you're our top candidate" to "we've decided to re-write the job description to include more hardware and you don't have the experience, thanks, but fuck off." I have plenty of hardware experience, so I assume they've decided they want a goddamn CCNA. And thank you for wasting my time, too, fuckers.

A recruiter refused to put my name in for a $15/hour screwdriver jockey position because I'm over-qualified. I'm willing to humble myself and take a pay cut to get out of where I am, and no one will oblige me.

If you read this right, you'll see that nobody wants me. I might not feel this way if I had any other irons in the fire, but I don't. I have some other applications out there, but if any of them actually call me back, I'll be very surprised.

And if I have to stay where I am till May, I don't know what'll be left of my soul.

On the practice of fear.

"Last night, as I lay sleeping here
Some What-Ifs crawled into my ear
And danced and partied all night long
And sang their same old "what-if" song."

--Shel Silverstein

That's what it's like. That repetitive internal monologue of self-doubt. What if I'm not good enough to get hired anywhere else? What if I get fired and have to go make $9/hour on a phone and I can't pay my bills? What if everyone is secretly looking at me like I'm evil because I dared to tell an unlovely truth? It's all about fear.

Then, when the anxiety attacks started, not only was it rational fears, or irrational fears having some basis in reality, but I started to be afraid that I'd never get rid of the panic attacks. And of course, that would send me into one. The fear of being out of control. The fear of fear itself, as it were.

I choose not to live in fear, but it's hard. The same way I choose to go to work day after day, in an environment that's not intolerable only because I tell myself I will keep tolerating it as long as I have to. There's a moment in Batman Begins where Bruce Wayne lets the bats fly all around him and stands there, in the middle of fear. I find it's easier to face that kind of external fear. But ultimately, all fear is internal. There may be external triggers, but fear is the process in the brain, the chemicals released by the adrenals, and the body's urge to fight or flee.

When denied, I'm told that last is what results in panic attacks. All that adrenaline and no place to go. Because upper management is not a tiger or a landslide that one can out-fight or outrun.

I used to live in fear. I was very good at it. My father encouraged me, because he knew all about the evils of the world. I'm one of three people I know who instantly knew what the Bene Gesserit litany against fear was, and one of two who have it memorized.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will allow it to pass over and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain." --from Frank Herbert's Dune series

It's not the kind of thing that's easy to memorize. Only, sometimes, necessary. I choose not to live in fear. Only, at the moment, it's proving damnably difficult to emigrate.

Quote of the Week

"It is not that I especially enjoy being a bastard. Okay, I actually do enjoy it, but I do not like being forced into being a bastard."

--Rogue Historian

On the practice of gifting.

During the course of learning about weddings, I've discovered the practice of gifting. Everybody gets gifts. The bride and groom give each other gifts. They give their parents gifts. You give your bridesmaids and groomsmen gifts. Even the flower girls get gifts. (Those ones are easy, actually).

On the one hand, I'd like to give something either useful or sentimental--or better yet, both. On the other, there's a definite wedding merchandising push at work here. I can't really see bridesmaids wanting cheap-looking jewelry to wear with their dresses (especially when those dresses all have different necklines) or dainty pink leather-covered flasks. Likewise, I have never met a man who uses a money clip, much less a personalized one, and the idea of giving cufflinks just seems ridiculous to me.

So . . . I'm looking for ideas. What would you consider Cool Shit to get as a bridesmaid or a groomsman? I would love to go beyond cigars and personalized photo frames. We do have a budget--I really can't afford to purchase full days at a spa for my girls. But I know we can get reasonable gifts on our budget--if we can just come up with some that aren't simply clutter that sits around gathering dust, too personal to be thrown away and too stupid to be used.

Ow ow ow ow!

I think I need the Grammar Spork. So of course, I had to share the pain with you.

(In case you haven't encountered the Grammar Spork before, you can blame Aerie of Queen of Wands. Or thank her, as the case may be).

Quote of the Week

"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage . . . "

--from "To Althea from Prison," by Richard Lovelace

Let's see. Where were we?

There's a two-fold reason for the long silence. One, I was out of town for about five days last week. RH had a history conference in Minnesota and I was able to get the time off to go with him. I have some family in the Twin Cities area, so we were able to get together with one of my cousins and his family one night and one of my uncles and his family another. Good heavens, my youngest first cousin must've been drinking miracle gro or something--he's now taller than his older brother and shows no signs of stopping.

Vacation was good. Seeing the Science Museum of Minnesota was a lot of fun. Just spending time with RH was the best thing, and not having to rush around. Hell, the hotel had a little game room in it--we went down and just shot pool and played air hockey for awhile, just to kill time.

The other reason for the silence is that I've begun having work-related panic attacks. By panic attack, I mean that I can't breathe, I feel my heart racing, all the blood starts flowing out of my head, etc. By work-related, I mean that I feel better about 24 hours after I get off work and start having problems again about 12 hours before I go back. You'll note that this makes for an awfully short functional period on the weekends. So, funny thing, the last thing I wanted to do after I got off work every day was sit in front of a computer. The good news is, I started seeing a councelor last week to try and get this under control, and the situation's somewhat improved. No panic attacks at all on Thursday or Friday, though my adrenaline level is still much too high, and I'm actually sleeping again.

I had a promising interview last week, and on Friday, the HR person at the agency let me know that they're hanging onto my name, but they're going to advertise the position for another week and see if they get any more qualified applicants. Because they've discarded everyone else and they'd like to have two or three choices to choose among. It's government, so I'm not offended that they don't want to just hire me on the spot. I do lack some of the experience for this position, but let's face it, if I knew it like the back of my hand, I probably wouldn't find it interesting enough to apply for.

In wedding news, we more or less have a caterer, I'm just ironing out the details. The venue finally got back to us with enough details that we can start planning more of the reception. RH and I made some decisions about music. I let the relatives I saw last week know that my policy on children in weddings is that any little cousins who are going to be there and want to be part of a wedding, I will find a place for. I have yet to let the other two families with little cousins know, but since I have it on reliable authority that little boys would rather be strung up by their toenails than wear a suit, I mostly wanted to get the information to the one family that has girls.

My foot is healing, slowly but surely. I pretty much hobble around the house without a crutch, now, and I could almost do so at work, except if I did, I'd probably overdo it and make myself worse again. Soon, though. I see the podiatrist again on Wednesday; he can probably tell me at that time whether this is a normal rate of progress and whether I should drop the crutch entirely or drop the wrap on the foot, first. I really hope to be able to wear shoes other than my stiff-soled sandals sometime in the next few weeks. This is the desert, but by November, I'd really be happier to be in closed-toe shoes.

My weight shot up again, what with not being able to exercise and the stress at work. I'm slowly working it back down. I was measured for a wedding dress when I was about ten pounds lighter and I want to be able to try it on when it arrives. You'd think this would be more motivating; somehow, it's just depressing. But that could just be spill-over chemicals from everything else in the endocrine cocktail right now.

I wonder if I can get the alcohol people to obtain half a case of Magpie's mead for the reception.

I have another application in that I feel hopeful about--also government--that I've received an acknowledgment for, but nothing more, yet. But since it's government, things just take awhile. The last two weeks have been pretty dismal where job openings are concerned; I'm hoping for better in tomorrow's ads.

RH and I have tickets to see Avenue Q next weekend. I am so very jazzed.