Listening: PJ HArvey, To Bring you My Love
I'd rather be: sleeping

I'm damned tired. This is annoying for several reasons, most having to do with the fact that at five hours, last night was the most sleep I've had in a while. But until today, now really, I haven't been nodding-off, painfully tired. Mostly I haven't meant to stay up late and while insomnia keeps me awake for hours, until today I wasn't sleepy at work.

Work is more of the same. I feel intimidated by people and I'm starting to feel like I should just drop this stuff. When people in other situations have decided to pull their weight by way of isolating me in a debate I've just stepped back and let them have their power trip. It's never meant much to me if they wanted to unify their friends against me or suspend me from the Cam. But this directly affects my livelihood and professional career. As much as I want to, dropping it is not an option.

One way it was phrased to me is my issue came down to ignoring common sense.

"Common sense." Good Lord, how I hate this phrase. To me it works in much the same way that people throw around God's approval. "We are right because have God/common sense on our side. The other side is lacking and when it sees the light, it will embrace our position. If it does not, it will be cast down!"

Fuck common sense.

It only makes sense to the person speaking at the time. And doesn't even have the structure that a religion has so that it can be inspected for inconsistencies and bias.

And then there is respect.


I've had it. F-uck-ing had it with the lack of respect. I should no longer have to prove whether or not I'm worthy of the bosses' respect. They waste no time explaining what a valuable asset I am to the company, since I've been here for half of its existence. But then make it clear that they don't need to respect the lowlies. In the case of my (former) manager, he has actually been with the Co some three months longer than I. In the case of my director: he was hired a little over a year ago. I should not have to re-earn my respect and reprove my worth just because of a changing of the guard. The issues that management has against me are BRAND FUCKING NEW, eventhough they point at behavior that is in NO WAY a new development for me.

I've never been afraid to speak up when something truly needs to be said. And until two weeks ago that was Not a problem here. Now they're saying this pattern of behavior (and they point to about seven month's worth) is unacceptible and unprofessional. I didn't even know they were paying attention until two weeks ago.


So this is what has been brewing in my head for a while, I just haven't taken the time to address fully here. I still won't lay out all the gory details but those are the salient points.




Let's see, other stuff... One major reason I haven't updated much is that my dad has been very ill. I need to call home for an update, but it's been kinda...touchy. My dad has occasional flare ups of gout and arthrits (I don't know which kind) and they are extremely painful and consign him to as little movement as possible. His feet get so swollen he can't wear shoes and can barely hold anything in his hands.

It's not really all that uncommon, especially in the winter. But the scary thing is his ease that he sometimes gives in to the disease eventhough he fights the proscribed treatment. He's supposed to avoid red meat and salty foods, which are of course his favorites. It's not a meal without meat and he dislikes chicken and fish. So my mom gets to care, hand and foot, for a testy 78 year old child.

Of course the bad thing is that my dad has been working steadily to become at peace with his mortality. It's been a project for him for many years and this has included trying to ensure his place in heaven. He's been known to wish out loud for his death so as to escape the trial of his life. That used to make me mad, mostly because it came out of his frustration with the people around him. Now it scares the crap out of me because I don't see him trying to fight his own body's chaos. My mom has picked up on this and is very scared by it.

He gets more effusive sometimes, when he's very ill. We don't know why, but it's a little creepy. The last time he and I spoke on the phone he said "I love you, Sweetheart." when we were about to hang up. My family doesn't, rather hasn't done the whole "I love you" thing regularly and it's weird to hear it in the course of a normal conversation. And my dad has never called me "sweetheart."

I guess it's good, but it also makes me fearful for what might be going on in his head.





There are other odds and ends to go over, I just don't really feel like getting too much into them. The holidays were nice. Molasses went to Virginia for a week and they spent a few days at a resort on the theory that they would ski. The weather wasn't very compliant and no one wanted to get on the man-made snow.

Present-wise I know I gave better than so far have recieved and this makes me feel good. Or at least I take pleasure in knowing folks liked my gifts and I don't feel let down by my gifts (or even lack of same!). In many cases it gave me an opportunity just to chat with people I haven't heard from in a while and that's worth the price of admission alone. But I am gratified at the amount of gifts I got from my siblings. They're clearly liking being employed and happy to share the wealth. My middle brother has had a little bit of a greedy streak in his past so I didn't think about a gift from his as even a potential. It didn't even cross my mind that he would get me something so I was fairly blown away by the fact that he got me a Tom Clancy book. I've never read any Tom Clancy and I don't think I indicated I wanted to, but he knows I try to stay up on politics and he thought The Teeth of the Tiger would be right up my alley. I'm just very... surprised. and heartened. Very heartened.

Of course the niece stole the show. Goodness, I wish I could dress that nicely! And her dress was... she wore a lovely long red dress and a full length matching frock coat! Ok, ok. If you know me, it doesn't take much to dress more nicely than I already do. But when I want to dress up my tastes run...pricey. And not a little bit hard to find. Well with all my sister's friends, the girl is going to be a bit of a clotheshorse for a while. Though my sister apparently draws the line at Tommy Hilfiger. She's says they're racists and stuff and doesn't want the kid to get going on name brand stuff. Erm, this from the fashion maven of the family.

The neice definately got the most presents, which doesn't really surprise me. I kinda think it's a little unfortunate, but that has more to do with "youth is wasted on the young" than anything. But i think her toy load doubled in one day.


Work was quiet, despite my own rumbling and paranoia. When the office is down to half capacity I barely even notice that it's "work." Which is good cause it was dead boring.


The boy returned on the 30th and we slept in and had quiet New Years. Dinner at Palermo's with Marrienne and the Coyote and then he gave me my last Christmas present - Neverwhere on DVD! He had never seen it so we snuggled up with some Martinelli's and watched the magic. At midnight we smooched and kept going. Wee. }:> Dave McKean is a frickin genius.


New YEars Day we trundled off to my parent's house to watch the Rose Bowl game. Wow the kids in the band look like... well, like kids. Why is that? The cheerleaders and the football players don't look so young. *shrug*

Well SC won handily and my perfect New Year's was concluded.


Most of the friends are back in town by now and theoretically I'm going to hang out with the Squire tonight. We may even go climbing which would be great.




and finally. I think for the new year I'm going to try on a few different things with my journal(s) and see how I like them. I think I'm going to be rearranging entries into Groups and going from there. This may or may not force me to divide entries by topic, but the point is I'm going to try and leave only thematic philosophicalish entries out in the public view and try to move the goofier update things and spur of moment thoughts to priveledge groups.

So ya. If you want in drop me a line in the comments. We'll see what I can do.