Words I Am Excited Never to Use Again After I Quit My Job and Go to Grad School

I know, never say never, but it'll be a brief reprieve at the very least.

And what am I reprieving myself from? Well, I'm glad you asked. Here are he words and phrases I'm exciting to ban from my vocabulary and why I hate them.

• Branding Opportunity: It means (and I quote) to, "put our company shit on shit" and it's pointless.
• ROI (Return on Investment): This is how we tell if what we're doing is making money. Which we can't do because we don't track anything. Which doesn't matter because we're not making money. SUCCESS!
• Company Culture: FUCK the words "company culture." If you ever apply to a place that brags about its "company culture" be prepared to be faced with a lot of miserable employees that have been beaten to death with buzzwords.
• "Marketing Should Drive the Ship": Okay, but how do we-
• "Marketing Should Be Sales Support": But I thought you just said-
• "Marketing Should Take Control": We're trying, but you keep-
• "Why Isn't Marketing Getting Anything Done?": BECAUSE OF BULLSHIT LIKE THIS!!!
• "Why is Grace daydreaming about tearing down all the posters and running through the halls screaming Alan Ginsberg's 'Howl'?": Just kidding, they don't say this . . . but they should . . . and they will . . .

In other news, work has actually been okay recently. Things are calming down. I just thought it would be funny to write this post. And it is! At least, I think it is. And that's what really matters.

Love you and miss you all. <3 

Anti-Anxiety Medication

I'm going to try to keep this post short, because I feel like I have a whole novel's worth of feelings inside of me.

Things have been good in a lot of ways recently, but in others they have been not as good. The good= family, friends, boyfriend, personal life.

The bad=work and anxiety. Lots of anxiety.

It all came to a head when I went in for a recent's doctor appointment (trying to get everything done while I'm under my parent's health insurance for another month) and ended up crying hysterically.

Fortunately, the doctor is a family friend and is nice, He said he could prescribe me anti-anxiety medication. I've been resistant to this option thus far because every time I go into therapy, everything seems to get better and I feel like maybe it's gone. Maybe I don't have anxiety anymore.

But the other day I was looking at timehop (which I have since uninstalled from my phone) and realized just how many happy looking pictures I see of myself where I recall feeling miserable.

Weddings and birthdays and baby showers and holidays. Why do I remember escaping to the bathroom to cry or freaking out about how many calories where in that piece of cake?

Because anxiety.

And, of course, the worst part is that once you decided to get help it is a PAIN IN THE ASS to figure out insurance shit and where I'm covered, blah blah blah.

So, anyway, today I am making the call to my doctor to get anti-anxiety medication. (After I check with some insurance stuff with my parents.)

I have been thinking the most awful things about myself the last couple of weeks.That I'm selfish and weak and that everybody hates me. I don't want to think those things anymore.

So wish me luck. It's supposed to be pretty low impact, but I don't know what to expect. I'm going to try and get into therapy soon though that might take another couple of weeks.

Also, I should probably quit my job because it daily drains me of all my self esteem. But that's proving harder than I thought.

One step at a time.

So I bought a house

… and other updates

I made an offer on a house and it was accepted and now I guess I'm buying a house.  AHHH.  We did all of the inspections and found knob and tube wiring in the house.  What is knob and tube wiring, you ask?  The devil's wiring from a century ago.  NBD.  Except that a lot of insurance companies don't like covering the devil's wiring.  On account of the minor fire hazard when it's in the open air and has random splices throughout the wiring.  And it's not like that's all over the attic and basement.  Oh, wait. It is.

So I asked for the $4500 quoted to remove the knob and tube wiring.  The seller flat out refused.  And proceeded to ignore the other couple of fixes we requested.

But I really want the house right?  So I went back and asked only for the plumbing fix.  And now this asshole want to give me a credit for fixing the pipes instead of getting a plumber out there to fix the damn thing himself.

Argh.  I knew buying a house would be a long process, but this is a lot longer and more involved than I  thought.

On a happier note, the house is adorable.  It's a brick bungalow, 2 bedroom, 1 bath and has a 1 car detached garage.  The floor is all hardwood, and the kitchen is updated with new stainless steel appliances.  And it's got a nice big deck.

Y'all are welcome to come anytime after I close on Feb. 19!!


In other news, I met a guy from OkC that isn't a total psycho.  We've gone on 3 dates now. (First, dinner and walking around the mall.  Second, dinner and a movie.  Third, he made lasagna at his place and we watched Minority Report and 2 episodes of Arrow.)  And after the last one, I realized I don't really like him.

It's unfortunate.  He's nice and opens doors for me and pays for dinner and stuff.  But even on the first date, I didn't think he was all that attractive.  But he's a little geeky and likes a lot of the same shows and I thought I'd give him a little time to grow on me.  But he didn't.

Then he texted me about going out next Saturday for Valentine's Day…. I don't want to lead him on.  I don't want to be a jackass.  I've never had a date on Valentine's Day.  But I'll admit I was tempted to tell him I would be out of town next week.

Any advice, lovelies?

A Final Chapter

For OFFMO 2014


The sun beats down mercilessly here.  And my tanned skin bordering on deep red, soaks up each ray. My eyes are closed behind black sunglasses.  The drink in my hand sweats.  A droplet slides down to my pointer.

I take a deep breath.  They come easier now. Easier than they ever did in New York.  And it's not just the lack of smog and yesterday's garbage on the curb.

It is nine years, almost to the day, that I last breathed in the intoxicating and toxic fumes of the island of Manhattan.  The day I pulled my last job. 

My lip curls.

It was flawless. I pulled the big one.  The one you retire after.  Of course, after pulling the largest windfall from the mob in history, you have to retire.  Or they'll hit you with their own compensation package.

I went with the fake-your-own-death plan, as opposed to their usual get-whacked-when-you-just-try-to-change-your-identity-and-get-out-of-dodge policy.

The two bikini-clad twenty-somethings burst out in giggles.  It was going well.

Island life suited him.  The slow pace.  The constant crash of waves instead of ambulance sirens and honking horns.  The laze of an afternoon where the most important decision would be what drink to have next and not which member of your crew would get laid into while you make your escape.  

Almost a decade.  And his screams still haunt.

I down the remainder of my rum.  The blonde beckons me to join their antics in the pool.  I jump in and oblige.

____

The next day, I am woken by banging.  A pause.  More banging.  I roll over to stare at the ceiling, wondering why Magdalena hasn't answered it yet.

One of the girls coos beside me.  Dammit, she's visiting family this weekend.

The banging gets louder, if that's possible.  "Get this door open," orders a gruff voice.

"Sounds like he means business," I mutter to the brunette.  She replies in a breathy giggle.  "Unfortunately, I'm a little preoccupied." I work her mouth with my own.

The banging now sounds less like knocking and more like breaking in.

Ah.  The realization clicks in my hungover brain.  This is it.

Island life has made me sloppy. The intruders are inside by the time my hand feels the reassuring coolness of my 9mm.  The girls are whimpering.  The door bursts open.  I am taking aim.

"Scalisi."  He says.  A name I haven't been called for nearly a decade.  Said by a face I hoped to never see again.  In a voice I still hadn't stopped hearing ricochet in my mind.  

But he wasn't screaming this time.  Johnathan Parker with nine years of lines etched into his face and a much more crooked nose than I remember.

The girls have fled the bed.  My gun is lowering.  The weight suddenly heavy.

I recognize the other men.  Carro's enforcers.  Some are wearing stupid grins.  Pleased to see the retribution for the theft of the family's income.

My eyes glide over his now outstretched arm with the pistol, and meet Parker's own.

It's quieter than I expect with the silencer.

Then it's dark.  And I don't have to hear the screams.

FlaFiOcto?

Hello lovies, yes.  I do want to do OctoFlaFicMo. Or did we call it FlaFiOcto?  I found an old tag with that… Anyway, I do not have a wonderfully ambitious goal like Anya.  I just made a goal to finish something.  It's the shortest piece I have cooking right now, but it's done!

Work has been incredibly busy, and now increasingly stressful.  It's our busy season, and with the staffing reduction, my immediate work group has two BIG clients that are now handled by 3 people instead of 4.  Oh, and I'm still working on a really tiny client (1 very wee package a month) that requires me to be doing something for it, each week… which would be fine, except I'm also working on an old client of mine who was pretty much taken care of for the year.  Until I just learned on Thursday, they want to do extra mailings and change creative.

Have a headache yet?  I haven't even gotten to the good part.  One of the BIG clients, the one I've been working on since March, is going absolutely crazy.  The account director is on maternity leave.  Which would be fine, if she actually trained the new chick they hired a few months ago who's supposed to be driving the train.  The new one is clueless. And the client had a meeting with our CEO and some bigwig there to talk about 'pricing transparency'.  This client is the only one, I think, that has a completely fixed margin that is way less than any of the other 5 clients I've worked on.

And why is that so frustrating, you ask?  Because I've been busting my ass trying to get mail out and TV spots on air on schedule, and all they see is "how expensive" we are compared to working directly with production vendors.  Um.  Yeah, of course we're more expensive.  We're providing strategy, direction, proofing, coordination and taking care of all the other issues that come up.  And then, when they decide to change their logo (a major brand change! without giving us clear brand guidelines!) one day before art is due to go to the vendor, we're slapped on the hand for saying making the logo change could delay your mail date.

What what what?  Account team, what are you doing??  Control these crazies!

Oh, and I have to work today (Sunday) on 2 of the 7 art collects that are due next week.  For those of you who might be unfamiliar, that's 7 completely different mail packages that I create the instructions on how to set up the art for production. Thankfully, 4 are already in queue for prepress (the graphic designer) to work on.  I was going to work on the 2 art collects on Friday, but the client decided to freak out about the mail plan, have a meeting, change wording that affects 4 packages, and give me heart palpitations (ok - just a raging headache).  So yeah.  Couldn't get to that.

Did we just become best friends?

 As I’m sure you know, I’ve had a bit of a problem of late. And that would be the lack of friends I have in the general vicinity of where I live.  The people I’m closest too are flung across the country (and world).  When the closest friend I had made after college moved from my Midwest locale to the eastern seaboard, I was left generally alone. 

It wasn’t too bad for a while.  I had a shit-ton of work to keep me busy for the first couple months, and then I was making and selling lots of jewelry, and then it was the holidays.  After that, spending time with family and going to YR events kept me occupied.  But it wasn’t the same.  I didn’t really have anyone that I would go see movies with or go shopping or drinking. 

I mean, other than my mom.  We saw Guardians of the Galaxy last weekend, and that was lovely.  But you know what I mean. 

Last night I went to a YR happy hour expecting it to be the usual outing.  Meet up with like-minded people.  Hope new, reasonable attractive guys wander in.  Act like I have some semblance of a social life. But last night was more like the happy hours I went to when my friend J lived here.  A happy hour that rolls into a nine-hour jaunt at three different bars.

I met two girls, actually my age, and after grabbing dinner at the initial HH location, we went to another bar in Soulard.  A couple strawberry ciders later, and I think it’s a grand idea for us to go to Ballpark Village downtown.  So the three of us cab it there and party it up. 

C generously offered B and I accommodations for the night at her apartment.  Which is lucky, because I didn’t need to drive the 45 minutes home after the festivities.

And I couldn’t help it.  As I settled on to her couch to catch 6 hours of sleep, I thought finally.  I’ve made some new friends.

I mean dancing it up until 3 am, watching C ride a mechanical bull, meeting a soccer player from Scotland, and making eyes at every cute guy on the dance floor, makes you friends, right?

Giving Up

Yesterday, I read an article that said that you chart the trajectory for your entire life in your twenties. Fuck. No one told me there was going to be such a rigid time limit!

One of the most sobering things about getting older is realizing you can't do everything. If I could live a million lifetimes I would become a rock star, be a visual artist, and go into computer science because holy shit do they make money.

About a month ago, I realized I hadn't written any new fiction in, well, mostly forever and half. This is coming over the worst dry spell of my entire life. A six month period where I wrote pretty much nothing. No new stories for the blog, no fiction, only ad copy for work.

I chose writing for my career not because it's the thing I'm best at, not because it was my "Marketable Skill", but because it was the thing I couldn't stand to give up.

But now it feels like that noise in my head which has driven me to create since I could first put a story together has become quieter, dulled by the 40 hour work week.

Also (and I am not complaining about this AT ALL), being in love takes work. Our six month anniversary is coming up and things are great between us, but he fills up nights that would otherwise be spent in coffee shops.

This summer is wrapping up with me realizing there are five things I want to do right now.They are:

1. Keep in touch with friends & family
2. Be in love with boyfriend
3. Stay in shape
4. Write like a demon
5. Work

I can't do them all. At least if I want to sleep. (And I do want to sleep.)

So what to give up? Can't be friends and family (obviously). Can't not make money. Need to work out. Want to be in love. So what remains?

A hard choice. Maybe one I can go back on, but for now I am letting go. It's a part of growing up. Time to put an end to a childish fantasy I've been entertaining for far too long. No tears now. Be brave.

I gave up working. At least, full-time.

Yup, as though you ever needed further proof that I am a capricious, obnoxious child unable to do things that every responsible adult everywhere does all the time, I'm giving up work. (Do you hate me yet?)

But, fuck it. I've got no kids, minimal debt(ish), and only one live to live so starting next week I'll be working just under 29 hours and making enough to at least ensure I don't end up homeless. I'll be doing some freelancing to fill in the gaps and throwing myself back into fiction writing with tremendous verve.

Let's face it, if I want to get published someday, I need to stop fucking around with this day job bullshit. Also, I don't give a flying fuck about folders. I said it, I SAID IT!

To (mis)quote a wise, somewhat fictional man, "There may come a day where I give up on writing. This is not that day."

I will be a writer until there is no blood left in my body. And yes, I'm sure I'll have my nose back at the grindstone before long.

Until then, I'm going to be young goddamnit.