Namaste, Bitches

Blogging does do one useful thing. I went reading back through my entries last night and discovered that,  back in 2011, Rob & I had the exact same conversation about my emotional depth. According to my journal, his reaction/response then was the same as it was a few days ago. I also had the accepting/changing discussion with myself. I can also see the upticks & downturns in my own depression. Rob said he thought a lot of my recent depression was because of my hysterectomy, but from my blog I could see that it was building up before my surgery, and that my surgery took place right around the time I was feeling like a failure for returning to the Excalibur.

I really need to find a new identity for myself that isn't so strongly linked to what I do for a living. Either that or I need to find a job that is closer to the identity I want to have.

I'm having some trouble adjusting to the estrogen (I think). Or it may be the result of running out of Elavil. Or stress over losing my health insurance. Or holiday/gettin' older blues. Or or or.

Actually, I don't know what it is exactly. I'm in a funk. Not the good kind of Parliament-raise-the-roof-funk, either. Just a don't-want-to-do-anything-surly-black-cloud kind of funk.

I don't want to get any older. I've somehow turned into a gerascophobe. Usually I'm pretty good at dealing with things I cannot avoid. I push through them, I don't worry about them, and I move on. Yes, I will die. No problem. Death may be painful. No problem. Yes, I will have to work until I die. No problem - not the greatest way to spend my life, but I have to do it if I want to maintain my current level of electricity-and-indoor-plumbing/hot-water-availability dependence. Yes, the world is going to hell in a hand basket. No problem. But the closer to 40 I get the less I want to go past it.

I work (and I'm stuck all night) in an office full of old women right now, and that's a good portion of why I want to step down from auditing & go back to being a desk clerk. I can't take the old women conversations any more. Every thing they talk about exacerbates the feelings I have about getting old. Old age doesn't seem like a comfortable place to be. You lose your independence, your body betrays you in new & interesting (not to mention disgusting) ways, you become fearful and paranoid of everyday occurrences, you start to worry about the weirdest stuff - or worrying about weird stuff becomes magnified and overly important (like dryer lint - the mother-in-law calls us to remind us to clean the dryer lint trap at least once a week, because of dryer fires... and those other old women call their kids about it, too), your mind finishes going wherever it started to go when it started to go, and now, thanks to better nutrition and medical care, you end up being old for a really long time compared to the time you had when you were young. I miss the days when the average human lifespan was like, 50 - and if you lived to 50 you were fucking ancient.

It seems so ridiculous to worry about something like getting old. It happens to everyone, everyone probably shares the same concerns as I do, but it's inevitable. Whenever I see people on t.v., and one person is telling another person about how they're worried about getting older, the other person (especially if they are older) always responds with something like, "Don't be ridiculous, oh my God you're so shallow, oh, grow some balls, get over it, cry me a river, etc. etc." No one ever gets any sympathy for it. Fear and phobias aren't something that get much sympathy to begin with. Everyone seems to view a person who is phobic of something mundane is just looking for attention or being ridiculous in some form (unless it's snakes. For some reason, it's ok to be afraid of snakes. Except to herpetologists & snake fanciers, in which case, well, you're being ridiculous. Here, hold this python. See, he's not slimy, he's not biting you, he's not trying to tempt you with an apple... Hey, where are you going?! Come back! Look, he really just wants to give you a hug!!!)

I'm not a sympathetic person, I don't know why I'd expect some sympathy or understanding for me not wanting to get old. I feel like I can't even talk to anyone about it because I anticipate hearing the same platitudes as I hear on t.v. shows. I brought it up to the therapists I went to see, and they didn't even seem to acknowledge it or want to address it, and I felt like every time I'd try to bring it up, they'd want to move on from it. I felt like I was being dismissed. "Oh, we can't fix that because it's not a problem, you're just being ridiculous. Here, let's talk about why you're fat instead..." I know the Wellbutrin hasn't helped. If anything, by removing the constant desire to commit suicide, it's given my brain more space to think about getting old. And of course, the only way to prevent aging is to die. Hah hah, Wellbutrin, take that!

I know me stepping down from audit is a hassle to management. Having to train a replacement is a hassle. But I feel like I can't even talk to the management about why I want to step down. I can't even talk to Rob about it because he thinks I'm being ridiculous, too. I basically lied to them all, said I don't like the level of support we get from IT anymore, the general unavailability of management, lack of experience or knowledge of OPERA, wanting to have a different schedule so I could go to a concert or spend time w/people who may come to Vegas on an actual calendar weekend... If I was able to work in the manager's office, away from the old ladies, I'd stay night auditor because, eh, even though they are real issues, I don't really give a rat's ass about any of the other things. I just don't want to hear about being old anymore. But I can't exactly complain about the PBX crew, because they aren't doing anything wrong, they're not interfering w/my job, and I'm the one who has the problem.

I've even thought about hooking up w/people who are about 15 years younger than myself in an effort to 'get my groove back'. Then I talk to them a little bit, and feel even older. I don't think I'll be taking up residence in Cougartown any time soon.

I just realized that I know more about serial killers than I do my own parents.

I first heard about the Son of Sam when I was 5... my dogs could talk to me, too, but they never asked me to kill anyone.

I really need a vacation. If I don't get one soon, I may make my real parents (Berkowitz, Bundy, the Menendez bros, Richard Ramirez... those guys) so proud of me.

Why am I still at the Excalibur?
1) I need the money
2) I need the insurance

What can I do to get the fuck out of the Excalibur?
1) Pay off about $5000 in credit card debt
2) Find another job that nets at least $1000 a month (preferably with decent insurance benefits)
3) Get my hysterectomy & get my teeth fixed to eliminate two things that make me need insurance

I'm worried about the hotel system upgrade we're going to be doing over the next two months or so. The Excalibur has always resented having to have two night auditors - they've done their best to make it more like 1 1/2 auditors by changing things to a 5-day/2-day shift instead of 4 10-hour shifts (not that I mind, I like my 8-hour work days a helluva lot better than 10 hours). There have been rumors floating in the ether that the OPERA system may enable audit to be completely automated, thereby eliminating my position completely. I don't know if that means I'll drop to the last full-time hotel shift or if I'll get stuck in the middle of the extra board. Since the conversion is supposed to land sometime in late June, early July I'd probably get steady work for the first three months or so as a steady-extra, but they lay off in late September/early October. Which means I will probably lose my insurance any way. So I need to start planning for that hysterectomy. I wanted to lose some weight first, but it looks like that's not going to happen. I'll have to call my ob/gyn next week - getting the hysterectomy probably means another $5k in debt, but medical bills are interest free.

If I get the hysterectomy, and I can get into another job, making at least $1000 a month, I can cover a doctor visit every three months or so to get blood pressure meds for me & Rob. All our pills are generic now (fucking finally) so they're not that expensive any more. I've been afraid to lose my insurance mainly because of the PCOS - that yearly PAP smear/pelvic exam/ultrasound is expensive.

When I went to see the urologist about my x-ray results & having more kidney stones, she had me schedule a CT scan (no big deal). She then had me schedule what I thought was going to be a routine follow-up/pre-surgery appointment. Instead, I got this letter in the mail w/instructions on something called a cystoscopy. Considering that I don't have any bladder/urethral symptoms this is a nasty surprise. A cystoscopy is an endoscopic examination of the bladder through the urethra. It doesn't seem medically necessary to me, and in fact, seems torturous. In the letter, there's a lot of emphasis on being given medications to prevent a bladder infection, which sounds to me like, "yes, we're going to do this thing to you that will almost certainly guarantee you'll get a bladder infection". I've never had one and I know that I don't need to add a bladder infection to my life experiences.

I called the doctor's office to cancel the cystoscopy & schedule a more routine follow-up. Three different nurses tried to persuade me to keep the cystoscopy procedure & I told three different nurses the exact same thing: "No! No means no! No touchy my urethra, no medically induced bladder infections, no way, ain't gonna happen!" If it turns out that my doctor feels a cystoscopy is necessary to proceed with a kidney stone surgery this time, well, I'm keeping my rocks, thanks.

In other news, the hotel's PBX department now shares our office space. There is a lot of strife and in-fighting among the PBX operators (to the point where all their calls are being recorded now). Notes have been posted about respecting one another and profanity has been banned. A guest services agent has already been suspended because the PBX operators reported her for racism (she said a certain area of town was 'ghetto' - yes, we do have ghetto areas in Vegas - I've lived in them and continue to live in one. I guess 'ghetto' is now one of those words only black people can say without it being construed as being racist, which means when I describe my neighborhood, I should correct myself & say 'I live in the fucking barrio' instead of 'I live in the fucking ghetto', although in reality it's a mix between barrio & ghetto... a gherrio?).

Anyway, I am certainly doomed to be the full-time auditor in the next coupla months, and I don't know if I can stand working with the PBX operators for 40 hours a week. One set of graveyard operators does nothing but complain all night long, and the other graveyard PBX operator just talks all night long. From the minute she arrives to the minute I leave, she talks. Continuously. Without taking a breath. I know her entire life story - her love life, her kids, her health, her pets, her clothes, nails, hair & shoes. Her daily schedule. Where she shops. It'd be different if it was an actual 'conversation', with input from other people in the room - but it's not. It's an 8-hour monologue.

It's not just me, either - I've had about four other people who've been exposed to her ask me, "Does she talk like that all night?" I left my headphones at home the past two days and that's a mistake I will not repeat. I may get a back-up pair so I always have one in my purse.

I've still been working with The Fool, haven't forgotten about him. He's still sitting there on my bedroom dresser, a key to meditation and thought-processes.

Last night before I went to bed, I was trying to just send some calming waves to Rob. He's been getting the feeling that we're going to be robbed again, soon. Last night, some guy knocked on the door around 10pm, asking if we knew anyone who drove a Nissan Altima. We have neighbors on either side of us who have like, a billion cars, most of them parked overlapping our driveway - and most of our other neighbors are in the same multi-vehicular club, so the guy could have been looking for one of any of the about 20 people on our street. It upset Rob.

I was laying there, trying to center myself, breathing, but I couldn't get to it. All I could see behind my eyes were patterns of hatch-marks in bright crazy colors. I was trying to work up some protective energy to throw around Rob, but nope, nothing worked. I even tried using the net-like pattern as a net to cast over him, but it wasn't letting me throw it. Just wanted to stick there behind my closed eyes. Finally, I gave up, fuck it, it's not working, Rob's just gonna have to suffer & be all twitchy.

Then I saw the Fool, against the bright golden sky of some foreign clime, silhouetted on the precipice with his little white dog. He looked down, on the other side of the cliff, and began meandering down a rocky path to a distant city.

Obviously it's time for me to move on. I don't know if I've learned anything from the Fool this time around. I've gotten some new insights - the bindle and the courier's bag, for instance. There seems to be this huge gap between the Fool and the Magician. I mean, how exactly did the Fool get to be the Magician, how did he go from a greenhorn to a master? How long did it take, what kind of things did he encounter in between? I've always considered it to be the same guy, yanno? Maybe it's not - maybe the Magician is someone the Fool encounters, maybe the Fool is the Magician's apprentice at some point. Maybe it's who the Fool wants to grow up to be.

I've also had past problems with the Magician. I was a ceremonialist for a few years, and I resonated strongly to the power of ceremonial magic(k). Summoning and controlling spirits is a serious stroke to the ego. You truly get that feeling of being a God among men. Whenever I work with the energies behind the Magician, I turn into Crowleyanna.

Maybe I need a dose of that particularly strong medicine right now, because I am very out-of-control at work. The office that I called home for 5 1/2 years has been torn apart. They're moving PBX into it so they decided to sound-buffer the walls & replace the carpeting, and in the process they tore up all the desks & cubes, and it's been like this for almost a month now. We've been working out of the manager's office for the past two weeks, so I'm living in someone else's space, having to deal with all the clutter and chaos... and there's a shift-bid coming up in which I do get my 8-hour shift that I've been wanting, but it's not in the way I'd hoped it would be, which is typical for me.

I was talking to the graveyard supervisor about Who Moved My Cheese? and how it relates to the dismay caused by shift bids. Who Moved My Cheese? is one of those newspeak books that came out during a corporate empowerment movement, when everyone wanted to think outside boxes and change paradigms. From a managerial standpoint, it's a useful parable for dealing with employees who have a hard time handling changes. Go ahead, move their cheese - and tell them you're changing their paradigms to challenge them to think outside the box! From an employee's standpoint, it means that you just have to expect to be rendered absolutely powerless in the workplace from time to time, and you should just suck it up and deal with it. That's what office moves & shift bids are - managers fucking with your cheese, with very little warning.

I'm hoping that the Great Stomach Rebellion of 2010 is not related to the unexpected office move. I would like to think that I am somewhat more resilient than that.

Weather-wise, it's 50ºF outside, and 68º inside. I'm freezing my titties off!

Rob's got a bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice - aside from working as a security guard for construction sites, he's never used it for anything, and it's never done him any good. I've got friends with degrees up the wazoo (along with student loan debts) and they all have 'jobs'. Not careers, but jobs. Not a one of them are using any of their education to do anything. It's pretty disappointing to spend all that time, money and energy on obtaining a piece of paper only to find out that it isn't good for anything beyond decorating an empty spot on the wall.

Everything kind of stopped for me after I quit my job at the County, and it stopped even more once I graduated. I went into school with a bindle full of preconceived notions of what my life would be after I got my degree. It's a practical degree, in computer information and technology. The information I gained during the five years I spent on it is useful to a certain extent. I know what a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) actually is, I understand random errors... I can use Linux. I went into employment thinking I would receive tons of practical experience that would lead me into bigger and better things - like an internship with Google or something. I was a fool in the sense that I had no grasp of the reality I was about to encounter. I was star-gazing, not paying attention to the pitfalls in front of me. I also had some exaggerated ideas of my own skills and abilities. They had never been put to a real test. Just because I had more knowledge of computer operations than say, the mother-in-law or some of my coworkers at the casino did not mean I was ready for a job in a specialized IT department. I would have been better off going into a broad-spectrum IT department like the centralized County IT instead of at the District Attorney's office.

At any rate, I came out of the experience with a new outlook and some practical wisdom, and I won't be likely to make the same mistakes again. I'm The Fool on the other side of the card. I fell down, I got back up & brushed myself off. Somehow though I can't seem to get started again. I'm in that neutral zone between cards.

I did my best to notice
When the call came down the line
Up to the platform of surrender
I was brought but I was kind
And sometimes I get nervous
When I see an open door
Close your eyes
Clear your heart...
Cut the cord

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human?
Or are we dancer?

Pay my respects to grace and virtue
Send my condolences to good
Give my regards to soul and romance,
They always did the best they could
And so long to devotion
You taught me everything I know
Wave goodbye
Wish me well..
You've gotta let me go

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human?
Or are we dancer?

Will your system be alright
When you dream of home tonight?
There is no message we're receiving
Let me know is your heart still beating

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer

You've gotta let me know

Are we human?
Or are we dancer?
My sign is vital
My hands are cold
And I'm on my knees
Looking for the answer
Are we human
Or are we dancer?
- Human by The Killers

Why do I go to interviews for jobs I don't really want?

And why am I then disappointed when I don't get them?

I opened up the back door tonight to hear cicadas. It's kind of a relief, considering last year the cicadas started in late May. El Nino has come back to us, bringing the seasons back into balance. It's starting to get blisteringly hot, right when it should be. It hit 120º in some parts of town yesterday, and it's humid on top of it, just like it should be. I bask in it leaving work - Rob parks in a metered lot a block away from the building when he's picking me up, so I get a short walk to the car. Today the air conditioner at work was audibly laboring to keep the place cool - we've got all the computer equipment, so normally we freeze, and it's nice to walk out of the cool dark basement into the scorching heat of July. Last year, though, I was walking into the scorching heat of July by mid-May. Not a good thing, especially since it didn't cool down til late October.

Boss comes back to work on Monday... hopefully I'll get a verdict on my future employment with the County soon. If her vacation was a test, I failed miserably because I spent two weeks on facebook screwing around with my coworkers. We received an updated Policy & Procedures notification that specifically mentioned 'facebook and other social networking sites' as being in direct violation of the P&P... but did that stop the intrepid FarmTowners of the IT Department? Noooooo. Ah well. I don't like this job. I've decided that I do not have a future in the exciting world of IT. I will probably be a pencil-pusher for the rest of my life, which I can accept. I am a very good pencil-pusher.