Tuesday, January 29, 2008

A Happy Coincidence

When I was in 5th grade, I met a girl named Misty who became my BFF, as they say now. We were inseparable and spent every waking minute we could together. In my past experience, I had friends who liked me better than I liked them, or more frequently, I liked better than they liked me. Misty and I felt the same way about each other and we knew that we thought about things the same way and we both had the same sense of humor. Transvestites and small, furry animals seemed to make us laugh hardest. Fifth graders are easily amused, but small, furry animals will still make me howl with delight, even at age 42.

My mom worked for her dad at his insurance agency and she was also friends with Misty's mom. I liked Misty's sister Robin too. The whole family always made me feel so welcome when I visited for sleepovers. I was devastated when Misty's parents decided to move back to their hometown of Lubbock right after 6th grade ended. I had other female friends in school after that, but nobody as close to me as Misty was. She was the female equivalent of my husband (whom I consider to be my soulmate), without the "fringe benefits", of course.

Misty and I kept in touch until after high school graduation. She had found her fella and had married earlier than I. We got back in touch right before my mom died, then again, we lost track of each other. She had kids and I had health problems; it's too easy to let go of people you should keep close to your heart.

Last week during my visit to the shrink, the subject of having female friends came up again. I had mentioned that I really didn't have close friends here in town; just a few who still lived in Dallas. Then there was one.......I hadn't heard from her in a while, but she had kids, etc. The shrink told me that I really should try to contact her, because I need some support now that my husband cannot provide. Women friends have that special connection...

This morning, there was an email: "Is this still L.S.? Why did we lost track of each other? Email me!" I did and also sent her my phone number. I just got off the phone with Misty and she told me that she had a dream about me, and the last thing I said in the dream was "please call me!". After all these years, we still inhabit the same mental wavelength and I'm not going to let her go this time.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

I Used to Like Winter

I used to look forward to this time of year, when the weather got colder and the stifling, unrelenting heat would finally go away for a few months. The heat never bothered me when I was a kid, sitting on a tractor on a 100 degree summer day, baling hay for my grandfather or doing other kinds of farm work. Milking cows was best, because I was inside a concrete block dairy, completely wet from head to toe. Of course, I was also covered in cow shit, but I wasn't hot, so I didn't split hairs.

Nowadays, the colder weather wreaks havoc with the fibromyalgia, making my joints and muscles ache, and my fatigue becomes 10 times worse. I'm supposed to get Trigger Point injections on Feb. 11th. The pain specialist thinks that they'll help me better than the spinal epidural injections I received last year. The difference is, instead of getting a needle in only my neck and lower back, this time I'll get them in all 11 trigger points. They're supposed to knock me out. They'd better.....

My shrink, who professed at our first meeting that she wasn't wild about medicating depression, told me at our last meeting that she feels that I need to go back on antidepressants. I've felt this way too for some time; however, the newer ones my GP wanted to try with me were very expensive (even with insurance), so I held off, probably for longer than I should have. She and I talked about my going back on Prozac, which worked longest for me and with the fewest side effects. Since it's been around now for 15 years or so, maybe it wouldn't be as expensive as Lexapro. I'll call my GP and ask her about it tomorrow. I also need to get a letter from her stating that I have a chronic health condition and shouldn't be required to work more than 40 hours a week. The asshats are rumbling about more work coming up, and I don't want any trouble from them. Get another job, you say? That's what I've been desperately trying to do for the last 6 months now, with no success. The mortgage business has forever tainted me for anything but retail, I guess.......

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

More Asshattery at Work

Will it never end?

Today we had the obligatory Sexual Harassment / Dress Code meeting. Since it actually had something to do with my job, I had no problem attending it. Of course, they had to make it silly and tell us there would be a quiz afterwards. Let me count the ways of silliness:

1. Although most of my co-workers are related to each other (mother-son, husband-wife, etc), which wouldn't be tolerated at most other companies, we are not to "touch or hug" each other, even when doing so would not offend the other person involved. So my supervisor cannot hug her son when he comes in to visit her. That's sexual harassment, according to them. OK, that's reasonably understandable, although a bit strident in the mother-son case. "We're not a mom-and-pop shop anymore, we're corporate and we have to act like it". Well, then the prayers before every meeting probably won't work anymore. The EEOC tends to frown on that sort of thing.
2. The women's dress code excludes "showing cleavage to any extent, spaghetti straps or too-tight clothes since it inspires LUSTFUL THOUGHTS in male co-workers". Uhh.....is this 2008 or 1955? Should we wear burqas?
They actually made the men go to another office for their meeting. A co-worker of mine who grew up in Indonesia (a Muslim country) said that her first reaction to the email saying that the sexes would be separated for the meeting was "are we a Muslim company now? I thought this was supposed to be a Christian company?" Never mind that we could actually wear burqas and men would STILL have lustful thoughts about us; that's how men are programmed. That's why the human race didn't die out years ago. It's a little thing called testosterone, folks, look it up. Women have that too, by the way......oh no wait! Women don't LIKE sex. At least, they're not supposed to.
3. If our nipples show through our clothes for any reason, we should wear a padded bra or for more stubborn cases, there are "band-aids" in the medicine cabinet to put over them. People, I'm not putting anything like that on my nipples. When it's cold outside, I can cut glass with them. Apparently, neither men nor women are supposed to have any sort of physiological reaction during working hours. Period. And no hard-ons, either!
4. We are not to use "sarcasm or cynicism" when speaking to co-workers about company policies or each other. What's next, verbs? Litotes? Sarcasm is my raison d'etre and I'm a practicing Cynic. I smell a little bit of fear here on the CEO's part and that kinda turns me on. Trying to legislate how people speak is the first step in megalomania and I've blogged before about his Messiah complex. This bit underlines that in my mind.
5. If we witness or hear anything offensive, we are to run straight to HR, do not pass GO, do not collect $200. Be a whiny bitch and don't take care of the situation yourself at all, because you're a weak little woman and you'd probably just turn him on anyway with your spaghetti straps and your rigid nipples, you whore.

After the meeting was over, our comments were solicited and yeppers, you can bet your by golly wow I had some. First I sent a joke email to the head of HR about the general content of the meeting (the aforementioned quiz): "oh the usual stuff: sexual harassment, dress codes, bra straps, nipples and llamas". Then I drew out the big guns and used my powers of persuasion, telling her that I found it rather offensive and ignorant that they felt that women invited male "lustful thoughts" by their workplace dress, rather than men initiating those thoughts themselves. Also, I sent her proper definitions of sarcasm and cynicism, and that these were necessary and helpful parts of speech. I told her that I was 42 years old and as long as I wasn't gossiping or swearing like a longshoreman, I would determine how I should speak and what words I would use to do it.
The reply I received back from HR was thus: "Thank you for your comments. We stand by the content of the meeting".

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Ghosts

I had hoped that 2008 would be a great year for me, but it's not starting out that way. A ghost from a very bad period in my life has made an unwelcome reappearance today. And that ghost has been acknowledged, even though I had hoped it wouldn't be. I knew deep down it would be, but I had hoped that it was all over with.

I guess it's starting all over again. I don't know if I want to deal with all of that again.