a little bit of nothing and a whole lot of other stuff

Who lost all knowledge of how to juggle a life and work? This girl. I was basically off the grid last week. This work thing is much more time consuming than I remembered. With nine or so hour days and a commute that is over an hour both ways...I am spent when I get home. I look at the clock and cry a little on the inside knowing that I have only about three hours to do shit before I need to go to bed if I want to sleep for 8 hours. And who has slept for 8 hours every night this week? Not this girl. I've been rockin' like 6 or 6.5. Totally unlike me and the cause of my marathon sleep session on Saturday.

I have good news to report though. I am totally digging my job. I know it is temporary and I know that I have only been there a week and a day, but I like it. I tried to enter this work experience with a different attitude and approach than I have ever really taken before...and it is working. I do think I have always been a relatively good employee (see: awesome), but I think this new approach I am taking is making me happier and an even better employee and coworker. So yeah. I like what I am doing. The program is totally awesome and I just know it will make some monumental changes in the lives of others. I'm sad that it is temporary and sort of a band-aid fix for the clients we are working with...but, change doesn't happen overnight and it is often about small victories.

Anyway, in my last post I went on and on about how I didn't do much during work sabbatical. (Yes, I realized it wasn't a sabbatical. It just sounds so much nicer than unemployment.) I feel the need to share the things that I did get to do with my time off that I may not have shared with you...

• Got a library card
• Hung curtains in my room
• Watched the 5th season of Weeds
• Returned to being a brunette after spending four months as a blonde
• Rearranged the furniture in my apartment 3 times
• Finished a photo album I've been working on for at least 3 years
• Learned to fold origami cranes
• Hung pictures on my walls
• Used my sewing machine
• Got a second tattoo
• Sat in the audience for a taping of Oprah
• Watched seasons 1-3 of 30 Rock
• Began painting one nail off
• Went on some bad dates
• Read A Million Little Pieces (and loved it)
• Took a yoga class
• Downloaded a shit ton of music
• Drank a lot of wine
• Visited my dad for over a week...which I haven't done since perhaps middle school
• Ended a friendship
• Went on long walks in the city
• Memorized my library card number
• Hung out with my high school best friend
• Went to a candy convention
• Made almost all my Christmas presents by hand
• Threw up in a cab (it was New Year's Eve...give me that)
• Installed my window air conditioner all by myself
• Met one of my new favorite bloggers for drinks and Mexican food
• Rode on the back of a scooter for the first time
• Realized I don't hate all salad dressings
• Went to Wisconsin
• Helped my mom do flowers for a wedding
• Met Craig Ferguson
• Talked on the phone for hours to my best friend
• Learned who my real friends are
• Bought a plant for my apartment, so I was not the only living thing here
• Ordered spray paint online
• Went to a St. Louis Cardinals game
• Saw Michal Jackson's childhood home
• Got taken care of by my mom
• Made coffee at home
• Started this blog

So, I did a whole bunch of nothing...but, I also did a whole lot of stuff too. I'm not going to lie and say that I wouldn't be happy if I didn't have to set my alarm in the morning, but I am glad to be where I am right now. I don't think I can ask for much more.

P.S. I have an AMAZING CTA story for you, but you will have to wait a few days. A girl can only write so much when she is trying to get adequate sleep.

10 months and four days...

That's right, 10 months and four days ago today I worked my last day at my former job. It was the day that I was laid off and quasi dumped via a Facebook message (I say "quasi dumped" because we weren't even dating and he was way over dramatic).

When I started writing this blog I had grand ideas that it would be some Adventures in Unemployment (a la Adventures in Babysitting); however, unemployment wasn't all I dreamed it would be. I'm not going to lie and say that it wasn't totally bitchin' to never have to wake up or go to sleep at a set time. I won't say that never having to say, "I don't want to go to work tomorrow," wasn't awesome. Visiting my family for over a week, did it. Had friends come in town, check. Okay, it unemployment sort of did rock. However, it sucked too. I lived on hardly anything. I got stuck on an insane sleep schedule. I lost all idea of purpose. I would go days without leaving my apartment. And, I missed almost a whole year. If it were a drink...unemployment would have been half empty with only a little bit of goodness at the bottom. So, the blog didn't really chronicle my adventures in unemployment. I apologize.

But wait, you caught on to the fact that I speak of unemployment in the past tense? That's right bitches...I started a new job today. It fell in my lap and I did little to no work to get it. Before anyone who is unemployed stops following me or gets all pissy because I did very little to break the unemployment trend...take satisfaction in knowing that it is temporary. It is a four month program that I was asked to help start up. It is somewhat impossible to sum up my first day. I was busy, but didn't even have an assigned desk and didn't even know what my actual title was until about noonish. So, we will see.

The good news for you is that I will have some fucking awesome CTA stories to share. I basically travel the length of the red line to get to work. On the way home, while waiting for the train, I was approached by a man who looked about my age. He said, "you got a man at home?" I said, "Yes," which is a lie but who wants to tell a stranger on the train platform, "nope...I'm single. I've been that way for a little while now." I will answer that...no one. Anyway, he then said, "well, it won't hurt if we are friends." I, for some unknown reason, entertained this and said, "no, it won't hurt." He responded, "well, it might a little." I put my iPod ear buds in at that point.

Later bitches. I have to get to be because I have to be at work tomorrow. Weird.

i'm no meteorologist

I once kissed this guy and lost all track of time.

At some point he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He opened them again and slowly turned to face me, looking me right in the eye he said, "wow, when it rains it pours." He shook his head slightly as he said this and gave me a little smile out of one side of his mouth. Then, we both pretended as if he had never said it.

That kiss launched what would be a year and a half relationship. It was a relationship filled with wonderfully good times and some I'd rather forget.

I really liked him and a small part of me might even admit that I loved him. I chose to ignore what he really meant that night in July when he talked to me about raining and pouring. It took a year and a half, but the reality of what he said on that first night was the final nail in the coffin we built for ourselves.

In the end, he was right though. When it rains...it definitely does pour. I thought about him tonight. I thought about what he said because it is pouring in my world right now. But, I am welcoming it.

While can I hear the rain and thunder outside my apartment right now...I'm not talking about the weather and neither was he. We just speak of very different rain.