Someone else's shoes

I’m sure you’ve already picked this up from my blog if you’ve read it before, but I have trouble sleeping. I have a disease that mostly manifests itself in the form of the pain of ice picks being shoved into my pelvis, and although I do have pills that calm the situation it is a definite crapshoot as to which days the prescriptions will work at all.

This has helped to lead me to a dangerous addiction; one which I am quite certain would have developed regardless of my affliction, but because of it the effects have been magnified.

I am addicted to reality television.

Thankfully none of it involves rock band buses, bachelor/ette(s), or amateur singing competitions, but my craving has taken the form of seedier and darker ‘entertainment’.

“Jon and Kate + 8”, “Intervention”, “Medical Mystery”, “The Biggest Loser”, and “A Baby Story”. These are my crack. I tell myself that I can quit at anytime, but the minute I lie down and feel the familiar cramping I set out to soothe myself with the tragedies, mysteries, monsters, addicts and lunatics that make their home on multi-national television.

The boy can’t wrap his brain around my fascination, but I suspect it has quite a bit to do with the fact that I studied psychology in college. I specifically focused on adolescent eating disorder therapy, but have always been utterly enchanted by the question of why people are the way they are.

The fact that Kate bosses Jon around to within an inch of my (and his, I hope) tolerance level is not the interesting part. What is intriguing is why she feels the need to mommy him. Was her own youth tumultuous? Was she lacking “love and companionship” a la the “Octomom” and so she seeks to create a permanent family dynamic within her home and relationship? Why does he put up with it? Does he come from a broken home? Does he suffer from extremely low self-esteem and codependency issues?

Why do people on “A Baby Story” continually bring infants into this world that they routinely cannot emotionally, physically, or financially provide for? These decisions and the factors that the subjects used to come to said decisions are the things that keep me from switching the television off and staring at my ceiling instead.

Even in my own life I run into people and find myself staring blankly at them (or my cell phone, or my email) as they explain to me decisions that they have made that are completely illogical. This is not to say that I think I am the be-all, end-all of all decision making in the world, but if you can’t pay your rent you shouldn’t have a child. If you can’t stand your boyfriend you shouldn’t get married, and if you routinely snort cocaine off of urinals in county rest stops you cannot control your addiction.

One of the most common responses that I hear to the criticism of illogical decisions is that God will provide. I hate this excuse more than any other, not because I am an atheist or because I believe that God doesn’t care; it is quite the opposite actually.

Not only do I believe in a fair, loving, and caring God, I am also quite certain the He provides in more ways than I recognize on a daily basis. However, I have yet to receive a check signed by J.C. himself with “provisions” written in the ‘note’ line.

When people say, as they are collecting welfare checks, or asking family members for money, that God is providing, I agree. He provided you with two arms and two legs and a brain. He provided you with the opportunity to grow up in a country that allows you freedom of religion, and the right to vote, and the right to work. He provided you with intelligence (sometimes) and the ability to understand that if you can’t pay your electric bill the company will shut off your power. He also provided you with the ability to know that when your power has been shut off, and you can’t afford food and rent for yourselves, you should not be bringing new life into this world.

I have been asked since my last post why I feel it necessary to have a large savings account before we start to have children. I have been chided and reminded that children don’t need onesies from Neiman Marcus to be well taken care of, as if I am waiting to plan my pregnancy around the spring ’10 baby collection release.

On the contrary, we choose to have a financial plan in place before having children so that we can plan for the unexpected. A totaled car, another health problem, a deployment, a special needs child...etc. I know that we cannot anticipate everything that could possibly happen in the future, but I believe a parent’s responsibility is to provide for his/her/their children to the best of their ability. If the best of your ability is to cash a state check and then spend the money at the bar while your children sit home with the babysitter that charges the lowest amount on Craigslist, I don’t think you should be a parent.

Lucky for you I don’t have a say in it. But, I will lie in bed at two in the morning and judge you for selling your story to TLC so you can visit the nail salon twice a week.

****************
On an unrelated side-note, last weekend my old friend from high school, Chris, took some pics of Corey and me to prepare for photographing our upcoming nuptials. He really is amazingly talented and I can’t wait to see what he takes at the wedding in LESS THAN SIX WEEKS!!! Argh!

Useless Ambien

It’s funny the things one thinks about during the long bouts of insomnia between two and four a.m. Of course lately it has been minute and ridiculous wedding details such as napkin rings and program ribbons (one of which woke me up in a cold sweat Saturday night) but other forms of randomness also work their way into my foggy barely-consciousness:

- Do we have bedbugs? I don’t think we have bedbugs, but something like 90% of people who DO have bedbugs don’t know it. This invariably leads to me grabbing my cell phone to use as a covert lighting source and searching under the blankets for tiny creatures while my love snores peacefully next to me.
- Is that the ghetto-bird I hear overhead? I really want to move, however moving sucks and is very expensive. I also really want a baby, but those suckers are even more expensive.
- If we ever had twins would being twice as happy outweigh being twice as tired? Is it better to be exhausted all at once, or over two different children’s infant stages?
- Why don’t Catholics believe in eternal marriage? If the boy and I make it to heaven I still want to be his wife.
- How do the sparkles in my lip gloss end up all over Corey’s face just from a quick hello kiss? He always looks like he skipped lunch to collect samples of stripper dust.
- How much damask is too much damask when it comes to wedding décor?
- Does Bobbi Brown seriously think that laid off corporate drones can afford to spend $42 on eyeliner?
- Why, when the entire world has joined the healthy eating/green living/animal rights movements, is it still so damn impossible for me to find a vegetarian Lean Cuisine in the frozen foods section of Safeway?

I’ve also taken to creating running lists in my head of all the wedding-related tasks I must accomplish in the next 47 days. Eleventy gagillion tissue paper pomanders must be made. A parasol, an aisle runner, and a tablecloth must be painted with our monogram. Five Manzanita centerpieces must be fitted into bases, adorned with crystals, and shellacked within an inch of their little branchy lives. I must find ties for the Best Man, my Dad, and my brother that match the shade of burgundy I have so carefully tinted in my mind. I cannot afford to import the gorgeous hand-dyed silk ties that I found online from India for $10,000,000 Rupees even though I have no real idea how much that is.

The boy and I have finally come to an agreement on how large our emergency fund must be before we start trying to conceive our first little bundle of joy, and the figure astounds me. How did it come to pass that in two generations what could purchase a house outright is now what one must save just for a rainy day? No matter how many coupons I cut, if I want a baby before I start to deal with the crippling pain of arthritis I’m going to have to find another job. Oh, and the guilt of being laid off has surprised me. I find myself apologizing for it repeatedly although I know that #1- It isn’t my fault, and #2 - Corey would never hold it against me even if it was my fault. This guilt was compounded when the boy decided last week to trade in his elephant sized 4x4 for something that gets more than 2 miles to the gallon and doesn’t take half a month’s salary to insure. This was his last tie to bachelorhood and his one true love before me and watching the boy say goodbye to his beloved truck broke my heart. I cling to the idea that when we both get to heaven I will be sitting shotgun (with an English Bulldog in my lap) in a two ton pickup that I needed a ladder to get into while the radio blasts Hank Williams and my husband runs over all the girly cars in his way. Good thing we’re not Catholic.

Love survey

I don’t normally use my blog for things like this, but what the heck?

♥ What are your middle names? Marie and Michael (we will have the same initials)

♥ How long have you been together? Married? 2 years together – married in 49 days!

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating? We had been introduced several months earlier, but didn’t really have a conversation beyond, “Hey, how’s it going?” until our first date.

♥ Who asked who out? A mutual friend of ours suggested I come over and hang out. I didn’t know it was a double date until later.

♥ How old are each of you? I’m 27 (ugh) and he’s 29.

♥ Whose siblings do/ did you see the most? Definitely mine. My brother lives across town and his siblings live across the country.

♥ Do you have any children together? Not yet, but we’re definitely looking forward to being parents!

♥ What about pets? We don’t really have the right setup for a puppy right now, but sooner or later the urge to get an English Bulldog will win out.

♥ Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple? My health problems.

♥ Did you go to the same school? Nope. U of Arizona and U of Tennessee.

♥ Are you from the same home town? Negative. Although they were both small and everybody was in your business so I’d say they were similar.

♥ Who is the smartest? Depends on the subject.

♥ Who is the most sensitive? Me. I cry. I cry a lot.

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple? I’m guessing our most frequent stop is Subway, but if we’re talking about a real live restaurant I’d say Coup des Tartes.

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? Tennessee is the furthest we’ve gone so far.

♥ Who has the craziest exes? I’ve got one nutjob of an ex that’s unbeatable!

♥ Who has the worst temper? Neither of us have too much of a temper, but he’s definitely more laid back than I am.

♥ Who does the cooking? Me, of course. Sometimes I can get him to flip things or chop them though.

♥ Who is more social? Separate we’re each fairly social, but together we end up like cave-dwelling hermit people. I guess we just like each other’s company.

♥ Who is the neat-freak? While we both aspire to be neat-freaks, the clutter in our house has triumphed over us recently.

♥ Who is the more stubborn? Me. We’ve had contests.

♥ Who hogs the bed? He does. But to be fair, I sleep for about 2 hours each night so it doesn’t bother me too much.

♥ Who wakes up earlier? We wake up at the same time, but I dawdle in bed for a bit longer than he does.

♥ Where was your first date? Buca di Beppo and a terrible movie.

♥ Who has the bigger family? He’s got a ginormous family!.

♥ Do you get flowers often? Often enough that I feel spoiled, but not so often that it’s no longer special.

♥ How do you spend the holidays? We generally spend holidays with my family since they are closer, but we try to split things up when we can.

♥ Who is more jealous? I am, by a mile.

♥ How long did it take to get serious? Ten minutes. Or, more accurately 245 cell phone hours while in different places. Thank you US Air Force.

♥ Who eats more? Corey can eat his weight in pizza. But, if it’s a veggie eating contest I think I could take him.

♥ Who does/ did the laundry? We’re pretty equal with housework. Whoever has more time at home does it.

♥ Who’s better with the computer? I am, since I sit in front of it ten hours a day.

♥ Who drives when you are together? Usually him, which is nerve-wracking since directions befuddle the boy. I will admit that the GPS has helped the situation.

Changes in Attitude

The boy won. It doesn't happen very often, therefore I will ask for a moment of silence so you all can appreciate the levity of the situation.


...


Okay, that's good enough - he didn't win the lottery or anything.

What he did win was the argument that had been ongoing in our house since I found out my job has been extinguished. I wanted to scrap the wedding plans, cut our losses, and take off to Vegas with my parents while Corey wanted to go on with everything as planned. I argued that if we saved the money we planned to spend on the wedding, our lives wouldn't have to change at all in the interim between my old job and finding a new one. We could still eat at amazing restaurants, plan an abundant honeymoon, and shoe shop with abandon (okay, that's maybe not so much of a "we" thing, but you get the picture).

He argued that if we didn't have the wedding we'd been planning for months, I would regret it. And, as hard as it is to say, he is right.

So, we are now powering on. With two months left until our wedding there are pomanders to be made, aisle runners to be monogrammed, and pocketsquares to be sewn. I have a crisis with the centerpieces, and frustrations with envelope liners, but I will persist.

From this point on I am delving back into my wedding plans with reckless abandon and embracing the stress that comes with being a bride a mere 65 days away from her dream wedding.

It's true that when we write all of our checks and add everything up we won't have as much in our savings accounts as we would have had we run off and eloped, but I guess that's what you save for in the first place: to spend it.

Besides, all that brie and caviar was making it next to impossible to lose that ten pounds that every bride must effort to lose before her white gown is zipped up for the last time. Now that I think of it, this layoff may be a blessing in disguise.

I need a stimulus

I wrote this entry last week, but postponed posting it on the off chance that my job quandary was resolved and I was by now happily working away in a new(old) position. Unfortunately, I have the same amount of information, stability and happiness today regarding my employment as I did last Thursday so here is my update on the situation.


I have never interviewed for a job I didn’t get. But, there’s a first for everything, right?

Yesterday I sat awkwardly in a conference room with two people I trained (one of whom would be my boss – ugh), an HR representative, and a person that I clearly couldn’t stand when I was there and who judging by their facial expressions shows the same disdain for me.

“Tell us about a time you had a professional problem and how you overcame it,” they ask.

I want to stand on my chair and shout, “I could do this job in my sleep and pretty much did for a year which is why I was promoted, so let’s just use this time to get me up to speed on things and you can send the other interviewees home.”

Instead I say something I vaguely remember reading about in a pamphlet from high school FBLA mock interviews about patience, and preparedness, and determination. We move on.

This awkwardness goes on for another 20 minutes with the tension now clinging to the walls and the ceiling like smoke from burning bacon and I’m glancing continuously at my blackberry not only because it keeps going off and I can’t understand why I’m in such high demand if they don’t need my position anymore, but also because the clock is there and I’m counting the seconds of silence while they all take notes on me.

Finally, they ask if I have any questions for them (I do not) and thank me for coming in, like I just answered their ad from the classifieds. Unfortunately, I still had business to do in the building, and with one of the people in the interview, so I had to wait downstairs for them to finish talking about me and my ‘skill set’. Twenty minutes later they emerged and the only one that would make eye contact with me is the one I needed to meet with regarding a marketing matter.

I’m going to throw up.

Then, using my amateur sleuthing skills I find out that there are at least three other internal applicants, one who happens to have been with the company for a substantially longer duration than I, and again I feel nauseous.

When the situation was fist presented to me my old position was tied up in a pretty package with a cute little bow and put on my desk like a consolation prize. “We don’t want to lose you so we’ve figured out a solution,” they said.

Then the explanation that even though they had this position for me I would basically have to ‘mock interview’ for it because of HR laws of equal rights. That eventually made its way to the position actually being posted to other applicants and suddenly I was going to have to prove to employees that I literally TRAINED this spring that I could do my old job.

Seriously?

So…anyone need a private chef?

The End of Eden

I’d consider the last week or so somewhat of a holding pattern. I’d been busying myself with everything wedding-related for quite a while now, but due to the (un)employment situation I’ve been forced to put those things on hold, if for no other reason than to preserve some sense of emotional control.

The truth is that it would be a ridiculously stupid move to continue with the plan of spending five figures on a single day with the economy in such peril and the chance of me finding a job that paid as well as my last slim to say the least. The other side of that vicious coin is that at this point my wedding day is like a movie I’ve seen a million previews for and can’t wait for opening day of. I see the details in my head: the flowers, the decorations, the ridiculously expensive but highly coveted candy buffet at the reception. I can almost hear the Swarovski toasting flutes clinking together and I’m starving for this wedding.

So, the solution is one that I’m not completely excited about but have essentially come to peace with: I have to interview for my previous job back. While I am grateful that my old boss (same corporation, but individual company rather than corporate as I am now) immediately broached this when she heard of the imminent demise of my job, (and has even agreed to make it a lateral move salary-wise) I am still not warm and fuzzy about the proposition of having my old job again. To be fair I think that 99.9% of this apprehension exists solely due to a past supervisor who is no longer with the company, and everyone I have spoken to has assured me that it is much different there and that my return would be celebrated, but there is still a part of me that feels very defeated and angry. I won’t elaborate on the work situation and persons involved in the dissolution of my job as this is a public blog and all I need is the wrong person to stumble upon it, but I will say that corporate politics are not for the faint of heart.

So, heads – I get the job, I pack up my office here and transfer to a desk a mile down the road, and our wedding is on as planned. Tails – one of the other ten million people interviewing for jobs right now takes the position, I pack up my office sometime soon (I’ve been given no final date), and our wedding takes place in a bowling alley in Glendale.

Cross your fingers for me – I hear the coin toss is taking place sometime next week.

There I was, minding my own business...

Life is funny. One day you're stressing about pomanders and monograms and cake tier flavors and the next you get hit by a bus on its way to the unemployment office.

Unfortunately, this morning I was invited to join the ranks of the other 7.5% of our dear countrymen who earned the privilege of being "let go" from their beloved employers. "Let go" in itself is quite the awkward phrase as it infers that you beseechingly begged permission to be separated from your paycheck and they, being ever so willing to grant your every wish, allowed you to do so.

Of course, the timing could be much better as I'm just about an inch away from a complete nervous breakdown as far as wedding planning and expenditures go, but I'm doing my best to hang in there at least until the boy gets back from his ill-timed work trip to Texas tomorrow morning. Tomorrow I can stress and cry and blubber "why me?" into my pillow. Tonight, I'm resilient.

My darling old friend Curly was so cute to say in a comment on this blog that I should be a writer, but I'm disappointed to find no monster.com listing for "random story-telling cynical blog author". Eh. I doubt it would have a corporate credit card anyway.

In any case, I just thought I would practice some "Secret"-type theory and put it out there into the universe that I would like to find a job that I can do from home and that involves baking cakes, sewing, cooking dinner for the boy, and giving appropriate attention to studying the "Lost" island and discovering all its secrets.

What's that? Oh, it's my mom calling. She says that the job does exist, but it's called a homemaker and it pays...well...nothing. Square one, I'm back.

To the Great Recession: I know I've been skeptical of your existence in the recent past but you've converted me into a believer. You can now rest assured that your goal of creating mass havoc on the working class has been accomplished. Please feel free to go bother Dubai at this point and leave America alone.