turn a new leaf

turn over a new leaf: to start to act or behave in a better or more responsible way; comes from turning a page in a book, reading something new

Today I accepted a job offer for a full-time benefited position at Boise State University. Officially, my position title is Graduation and Transcript Evaluator, Sr. I am excited to be working for an organization whose goals and values closely match my own. I am equally excited to be in a position that will allow me to further cultivate my information management and policy interpretation skills. This job will be instrumental in my professional and personal development.

With the acceptance of this new job, I feel like I have really made stride towards being a functioning adult. Lol. I have turned a new leaf in the book that is my life. I have even created a few super basic goals to focus on within my new position.

fleur

fleur: french for flower

I got a new job...again. Lol.

But this one is different than the others.  After a big change in my master program, my professional goals have shifted.  I now work at Rose and More Inc, a wholesale floral company.  My day consists of  ordering, purchasing, shipping, billing, and delivering flowers, plants, and floral hardgoods to the intermountain west. I'm constantly learning about local and global flower growers and growing DIY design/arrangement skills. We sell to florists, nurseries, caterers, event planners, net-10s, school, churches, grocery store, and non-profits. And! I can bring the doggies to work. I like this industry a lot, it ties into some of my favorite past work experiences, like helping at Aunt Karen's shop, or creating wreaths at Safeway Grocery, or watering trees at the Home Depot Garden Center, or touring the orchid and rose farms in Ecuador. Hooray for liking your job :)

Some of my creations...

a-go-go

a-go-go: of, relating to, or being a disco; being in whirl of motion; being up-to-date — often used post-positively

a-go-go

Do you ever feel like you're sitting, when in fact, you're standing

I bought five books today

I do not feel okay

Zig-zags in my ears

Sounds all around

Too bad about your dad

Furious fad

Why do you think we rationalize

National ayes

Natural  eyes

I bought mauve mascara today

I seriously do not feel okay

Why don't we celebrate?

To myself, instead, I 'm inclined to berate

Pity party

Perpetually tardy

p.s. got a job at Whole foods, found out that public/community libraries are super competitive to get hired by. Apparently everyone and their mother has an MLIS. Shrug. Shrug. Shrugity, shrug shrug shrug.

mercurial

mercurial: characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood; of, relating to, containing, or caused by mercury

I once vowed never to blog about my love life. Ha. Ha. Ha ha ha ha. Well, that ship has sailed! Now...

You all know that I've had flowers sent to me, breakfast made, but it's never really seemed as genuine as the past few weeks. Then BAM! Out of nowhere, we hit one speed bump and nothing, nada, zero, zilch.

Oh these mercurial signals, this hot and then cold behavior, they are hard for me to understand. I am, for the first time, angry at such a situation because no mater how much I think about it and about his reasoning and his situation, know matter how many times I've been through this before, I just get frustrated. Wish I could just snap my fucking fingers and fix everything, but the more I push, the more they pull, when pushing to me is just a small nudge of encouragement, it probably comes off as a giant shove.  Damn, I'm tired of walking on eggshells and being the one who has to be patient. 

Ha! I was over at Gill's house this weekend talking about all these sorted affairs and he echoed the rules that Nick made for me some four years ago...

1. If you see a man in uniform, run the other fucking way*
2. If that man says he isn't interested in punk rock, run even faster

that's not saying that military men are bad people, they've just been bad for me in the past.  Apparently, I make them feel things they're not prepared to feel, that's the best way I can describe it.  Woah, that makes me sound bat-shit-crazy. Shrug.

Anyway, funny thing, yesterday I was talking to Amy at work. Just chit-chatting away, when she started talking about this guy she was seeing. She said that they had been casually dating for about three weeks in August and that things were going great...they had a marvelous time together, grant it he seemed a little clingy (sent flowers, made her picture the backdrop on his phone, introduced her to his fam and friends, called her "his girl" all in the first two weeks), but she gave him the benefit of the doubt and plugged right along.  When out of the blue, he stopped talking to her completely! Just plain old gave up. Lol. I chuckled and asked if perhaps we were dating the same guy. We weren't, but it's nice to know that other people are passengers in the same shitty boat. Misery loves company.



Moral of this sorted affair, "I'll bring home the bacon if you bring home the turkey." Please be patient with me, and I will reciprocate, trust me when I say I need consistency and will never be anything short of real with you, even if you end up running in the other direction, hands failing in the air, and I'll trust that you might return to my life. I guess I'd rather love with everything I have, be scary vulnerable, than tuck my tail between my legs and hide behind a cold shoulder and "picky-ness."

cabin fever

cabin fever: irritability, listlessness, and similar symptoms resulting from long confinement or isolation indoors during the winter

I was bored at work so Will (our IT guy, ex Marine) and I scrambled our names. I came up with "no ham, get quail" from my name. I seriously couldn't think of a "qu" word other than quail.  Will's was "moon rain swill n.i.b." I asked him if I could start calling him "Moon" for short. He didn't resist. Jealous.

I also wrote some poems and listened to a fuck ton of Wye Oak. Winter songs!

Sadist

I wish I had a sheet big enough to block out the sun
Fucking quit calling me hun*
Same song seven times
Buried beneath piercing blue chimes

Boiling belly
Sugar sugar sugar sweet
Withhold your judgment

Cracked golden popcorn
Contaminated toxin
Handful of candy

Colors patch the clouds
Neon green and acid orange
Blood red rain rains drown

Blood red rain runs down

Hey, wait, deepest dark
Let us complain together
Light blinded bright eyes

Pick apart the pieces that persistently permeate
Forever
Final request, fatal foe
Don’t blow through many hoes
Filthy figment of my imagination

Please, stop
Stop, please

Word Games

fuzzy butter flys by
pass me the dish
full of winter star
rowe a boat and we'll begin again


this content is from Merge Records, perhaps one of the greatest record labels to ever exist on this sweet earth.

*post to come about this

abdicate

abdicate: (of a monarch) renounce one's throne; release responsibility or duty

I quite my job today! Two weeks notice submitted, new job at the Idaho State Archives as a Research Assistant and Territorial Project Archivist secured.  I wouldn't exactly call my old position a monarch, nor did I have a thrown (sad huh?), but I am indeed abdicating my duties as Technical Records Specialist.  Never again will I do a job that requires 10 hours of sitting at a desk, staring at a computer screen.  As happy as I am to make this change in my life, I do want to thank my coworkers and boss, I learned a lot from that position and from them.  It's simply that that job was tearing me down, eating at my soul.  Not sure how someone could do ten years there!  Well, at least I managed to squeeze in some fun. Like the time our HR lady said that my small picture of Betty Grable (a super mild pin-up from the 40's) was offensive and against office policy, so I printed out ten or so stickers of her and stuck them under all the cabinets, filing drawers, desks, and conference tables. Sneaky me.  Or like the time our network and internet went down and no one could do any work for nearly half a day, so I played with my camera phone...

the HR lady's office is right behind mine :)

let's just say...

let's just say, I go a new job, fancy new job, jobitty job job job!

I gave my two weeks notice and will start at the Idaho State Archives, $17/hr, in January as the Territorial Archivist for the State of Idaho. I win, I am winning, win win win. It takes a certain amount of crazy to work there, and I've got it!

cop out

cop out: an idiom which means to avoid taking responsibility for an action, fulfilling a duty or meeting expectations

I'd write something terribly witty and insightful, but yeah, I have no excuse. I'm just lazy, or maybe tired, seeing as the time on my clock reads 3:47am. So I'm going to take the path more traveled and just blog my current life in pictures. I'm sorry for the cop out.

Essentially, I moved to Boise and got a job...and then another job...

I learned, once again, that some people are just crummy and will always be crummy, end of story. This seems to be a reoccurring lesson in my life, but it never soaks-in. Maybe I just have an overly sentimental heart. Anyway, I'm letting go, accepting that it's just been too much for too long. It's not my fight to fight anymore. I'm not sure I can muster the energy anymore. Oh resilience, why do you cling to me? I want to be happy, I sware (although at another time in my life this answer would have been different, no more wallowing) and with just one more push I'll be too apathetic not to be happy. what do they say ignorance is bliss, well apathy breeds happiness :/


anyway, as promised, I cut my hair on the very day that I didn't think or freight about the aforementioned heartbreak for the first time in what seems like the longest time...


and now I skate roller derby a super duper lot, and wash wheels instead of dishes, and buy tank tops that read "silly boys, trucks are for girls" (trust me, if you play roller derby this is hilarious).


and I walk to work or ride my bike most days, along the way I sometimes see something that makes me chuckle, like this bumper sticker...



The world would be a more bearable place if more people followed this statement.
I eat a lot of cereal too... in the big bowl.

and listen to the music Nick gives me...

and sometimes, I even hang with my sister and brother-in-law and we go to Hastings, poke around, only to rent and watch a really sad movie about love called Blue Valentine from the red box (it's right up there with "I Am Sam" and "The Land Before Time." I was depressed for like a fucking week after each of these movies, no joke).

oh and, my sister often orders for me at restaurants. She says, " 'scuse me, sir, is this gluten free?" She says this because I was recently diagnosed with a wheat/gluten allergy. More on that to come later. Promise.

oh and, this is going to make me seem like a bad aunt for not posting news of this sooner...but my sister Jessica had her third, a boy named Dean Derex Lee, two middle names. Who doesn't love a man with two middle names?! Weird. I have a nephew. We don't have a lot of men in our family, so this is new.

on my mind...

big girl job-like things.

Today, on my first day as a Technical Records Specialist 1 for the Idaho Real Estate Commission, I learned that although they seem synonymous, "standard" and "basic" are actually quite different in meaning.

I also learned that I basically get paid a competitive wage plus benefits to listen to music all day. Ha! No, there is more to my job than that. Lots of little things to learn for now, but I am a fast learner and am catching on quickly.

Oooooh. AAAAnd. Gill agreed to decorate my lunch box for me! For those of you who are unaware, Gill ='s tattoo artist, friend, fellow NOFX connoisseur. I asked for a character of Fat Mike, but we'll see what I get.


My supervisor and office mates gave me a large bag of chocolate...I think I"m going to like this job :)

grown-up

grown-up: an adult (esp. in a child's world)

I feel like a grown up, with a job job (as a Technical REcords specialist). I bought a lunch box and fancy boss-lady pants. But before I get into my search for markers of maturity...let's talk about my job interview…s So many of them. One at Hastings, one as head cashier at Home Depot (but I don’t want to drive all the way out to Eagle at 5 am anymore), one at Albertson’s for my old job. I ended up taking my old job at Albertson’s back. Got to see Joe (or lotto guy as I referred to him in an earlier post), he’s one of my favorite people. I really enjoy customer service. Oddly, I’m not being sarcastic. It’s like getting a small window into other peoples’ lives.

Update 6/22/11: Anyway, despite losing my keys and being late (thank you sister for being willing to come and pick me up, even though I found my keys as soon as you got to my house), my second interview with the Idaho Real Estate Commission was excellent and they offered me a job as a Technical Records Specialist 1. It’s a job job, with a fancy title and business cards, and paid holidays and weekends off, possibly 4/10’s, health benefits, and not to mention my rent in one week’s pay. I feel giddy, like a little kid about to start school for the first time. I seriously did buy a lunch box! One of these. But I have my eye out for something like this or this. I’ll keep you posted about training and all that jazz. So far, I’m excited because this position will be a good combination of customer service and records management, which will totally groove with my MLIS program. Sweet deal, if you ask me.

surefire

surefire: certain to work or be so; originated as a military idiom

NOOOoooooooo! I-hop is supposed to be open 24-hours a day, EVERYDAY! Why isn't it open? It's 4:35am and I want pancakes. Well, what I really want is sleep, but I'm too tired to take my contacts out, so pancakes are the next best thing. But, noOOo. No pancakes for me. I-hop just had to be closed on the very day that I am scheduled to work inventory at Macy's from 6:45pm to 2:15am, but then inventory doesn't get done in time, so the managers lock us in and we don't finish till 4 in the morning. Locked us in...WITHOUT PANCAKES! Stupid I-hop.

empathy

empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of another

Sometimes, when we are most bored, a burst of surprise blasts off right in front of our faces.  This happened to me, but the burst was more of the smooth jazz variety.  You could call it a "random act of kindness."

Late Friday night, I was working in the linens department of Macy's --grrrr seasonal jobs-- killing time by sneaking Frangos out of the display box and into random packages of sheets and, well, trying to be a decent help to the customers who deserved it.  One gentleman took delight in my congenial personality and overall helpfulness.  I rung up his purchase and thought no more of it. Five minutes, ten tops, he returned with a Polar bear shaped cookie and a gift certificate to Starbucks. It was a small gesture, but I was tired and it was a long shift, and it seemed like a gigantic burst of surprise. That cookie was exactly what I needed to cure my aching feet. He said that it was his New Years resolution to try and act on more small, compassionate gestures regularly.

What's that saying? Love is a chain...chain of love...something like that. Well, I decided to continue this chain.  One of my co-workers at Macy's is from Chile.  She married a U.S. Marine and moved to the States.  She is thee sweetest person I have ever met.  Some shifts she would tell me about her bouts of homesickness. So, one afternoon I made empanadas and brought them into work for her. Surprise! My empanadas pale in comparison to anything made by a real Chilean, but she loved the gesture anyway.

Here's hoping you experience, better yet inspire, a burst of your own.

claustrophobia

claustrophobia: fear of having no escape or being closed into a small space

six hours in a tiny room, bug-eyed in front of a cheezy job-training tutorial has taught me one very important piece of information- in 1941, President FDR moved the date of Thanksgiving to earlier in November, extending the holiday shopping season and allowing for more economic gain. God bless America in all it's materialistic glory! No seriously, if it weren't for this, Macy's probably wouldn't need as many seasonal workers during the winter, and I probably wouldn't have a job over break. So huzzah.

I start picking up shifts at the end of this week. And if this job is anywhere near as exciting as the training videos were, I'm going to have a blast selling people jewelry and blenders and department store trinkets. Look at this guy from part of my training on general safety,

he can walk over the top of government documents in cyberspace...like magic. Ooooh, ahhh. Experiencing this alone was worth the two hour drive between Portland and Olympia that I have made over five times in the last month.

My job training ended around 8:30pm and then I made (or attempted to make) my step-dad a birthday cake.  It was supposed to be German Chocolate, but looked more like Dilapidated Chocolate. Dad said it was delicious just the same.  Isn't he obligated to say that though, as a parent I mean? My ability to make savory and flavorful cakes that can't stand upright is a truly mystery.

happiness is a smooth side walk

"happiness in a smooth sidewalk" –sally peanuts

I'm quitting school to play roller derby...ha! I wish.

Nevertheless, Sally Peanuts is correct; nothing's better than smooth concrete and 8 wheels. Come to think of it, Sally Peanuts is usually correct. Take for example:



Sasha and I watched The Great Pumpkin a few weeks ago while I was nannying. When I saw this clip, an uncannily similar feeling stirred deep in the pit of my conscious. Ideally, I will never again be cheated out of tricks-or-treats, but let's be honest now.

Anyway, this weekend was busy (well, mostly just Saturday).  I drove up early in the morning to Olympia and had an interview with Macy's...and then got a job with Macy's! Hooray for not having to job hunt anymore.  That process is quite possibly one of the most tedious and tiresome. Mom and Dave bought me lunch at Subway. Then I drive straight back to Portland to NSO for two Rose City Roller Derby Bouts. The gals killed it during both games.

Look at the sweet new shirt I got...

 

Also, not that I ever play this game because it's totally degrading to (digital representations) of women, but Adult Swim came out with a new version of Pole Dance Hero to distract you from any homework or productivity. I beat it in a half hour and then had nothing else to do, so begrudgingly, I worked on my thesis. blah.

Remember how a couple of posts ago I put up a picture of a scooter outside a strip club (see "Let's Just Say" 11/20/2010)? Curious about this, I asked some of the girls at derby and have since learned a Fun Fact: Portland is the nation's mecca for strip clubs (more per capita -or some fancy term like that- than Las Vegas even)! no joke.

let's just say...

let's just say, today I licensed a man named Atticus Finch for reality work (read To Kill a Mocking Bird much?) and almost quit my job because of my moral opposition to the audit I am running. Bleh.

tennising

tennising: the act of playing tennis (verb)

I nanny for one of the Reference Librarians at my university, Kate.  Kate has a five year old daughter, Sasha, who is a hoot.  My afternoons with her are delightful.  We microwave marshmallows until they are giant, expanding blobs of sugar.  We put stickers on things.  We make bubbles (and a soapy mess across the deck) using wire hangers. We terrorize Malia, the cat.  Sometimes, we even make mean-faces and use my cellphone to take pictures of our mean-faces. And my personal favorite, we explain words to one another.  Today, we went and watched a few tennis players practice in the dome.  Sasha was engrossed in the action. When I asked her if she liked tennis she responded, "I don't know, I've never been tennising before."  I chuckled a little and then asked her what tennising meant.  She looked at me pretentiously and said, "it's when you play tennis, silly."

industrious

industrious: diligent and hard-working.

I've been busy, putting my left foot in and shaking it industriously all about. Two jobs is tough stuff.  But so far I'm managing. It's the small things that get me trough.

There's a regular that comes into Albertson's, he usually buys a loto ticket on Wednesdays. I'm kicking myself for forgetting his name.  We started off on the wrong foot.  I was tired and he cracked a joke that I found offensive.  Who knew he'd become my favorite customer.  He works at Micron and likes to give me practical life advise.  It's people like him that make me think the world is worth wading through.  One morning we were chatting it up when I pushed the intercom button on accident and a good five minutes of our conversation was broadcast to all the store.  Eventually we noticed and I started cracking up when my supervisor tried to talk to me about "the incident".  I didn't get in trouble or anything, just told to be careful. What a good day!

There's another guy that comes in regularly.  He an older African American man with orange hair, seriously it's orange.  Think Dennis Rodman but 50 years older.  He oddly smells like waffles and maple syrup.  One day he came through my line to buy a bottle of face wash.  He asked me if I could read the instructions to him.  So I turned the bottle over and started reading, "lather face with two..."  He interrupted me and said it's better if I just explain it in my own words.  So then I walked him trough step by step how to wash his face. Just so he remembers he proceeded to recite the steps back to me, acting out the motions even.  He put his hands to his face and moved them round and round in tiny circles saying, "first I wet my face, right? Then I get a wet cloth...no scratch the wet cloth, I don't need that.  So I get my face wet then I later on the soap and I rinse!"  We did this three or four times until he was satisfied that he could remember the steps.  Best part is, after I rung him up and said "have a good day" he came back twenty minutes later and we did the whole thing over again!  This time I got creative and drew out a diagram on a note card for him.  He put it in his pocket and looked at me a bit sideways and confessed, "I'll probably miss place it."  I reassured him, "well, I'll be here if you do." 

I've got a confession of my own, when I'm bored I draw little punk rock cartoons in my notebook or on the back of recite paper...I'll scan those in for you later!

As for my internship, I get quite a bit done here and really feel productive.  But when there's a lull in work I like to write my initials in the dust on the tops of the archive shelves.  So far I'm up to about 63 shelves I still have about 110 to go.

let's just say...

let's just say...it was a bad idea to go into Wal-Mart wearing my Albertson's Uniform (it too is blue). I got asked three times where to find something yesterday while I was waiting for my prescription. can't i just buy my drugs in peace people? worse part is when I got up to the check-out the cashier said, "oh hey you! you just get off?" as if he knew me. ha!

intern

intern: practicum worker, volunteer, apprentice, free labor, mentee, protege, trainee...whatever you call me i'm getting buckets of invaluable experience (not to mention a gold star for my Grad school application); possibly one of the most infamous interns would be Monica Lewinsky (ironically an alumnus of my college, but no worries I will not be following in her footsteps, no sir)

yesterday I started my internship at the Idaho State Historical Society's Research Library and Archives. So far, I'm awestruck with the whole experience. I get to wear white gloves like Mickey Mouse, process old legislative bills, humidify things using an ultra "high-tech" trashcan and distilled water, eat chocolate covered raisins, move boxes around (and damn you think you've seen a lot of boxes before? think again my friend, think again, I'm talking a vast sea of boxes you could swim in for decades), categorize materials, then categorize more materials, break paper weights filled with shot, and maybe eventually get a name badge! So in a nutshell, I love it!!! (and yes that deserves three exclamation marks).

working stiff

working stiff: slang term for a member of the working class

I'm beyond grateful to have a job again. Although 4 and a half months doesn't seem like that long to be unemployed, it felt like an eternity to me...an eternity of twiddling my thumbs. So now I work at Albertson's Grocery as a Cashier and Customer Service Clerk. I'll also start an internship at the Idaho State Historical Society's Research Library and Archives come June 15th! All in all, I know one thing's for sure, I will always be a working stiff.