Monday, October 31, 2005

Halloween decisions

I'm definitely going to be a kitty for Halloween tomorrow, but not an inappropriate kitty. I got a purple wig with kitty ears from wal-mart and an actually purple pet collar from the pet store. I'll wear that with a black sweater and a pair of knit pants and a black maribou boa for a tail and some goofy makeup for my kitty face. I hope I don't freak any of the clients out.... I seriously doubt I will, though.

So anyways, I know what I'm going to be for Halloween. But now I have this gorgeous pumpkin in my living room and no idea what to carve in it's flesh.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

halloween

I don't know what to be for halloween. I can always be a hippy because i have the clothes for it readily available. I thought of wearing some of my ruffly cotton things, and sticking a flower in my hair and being "a spanish girl", but how much does that really count as "being something"? There's a purple kitty wig at wal-mart that I love, but I would be too tempted to be majoraly sexy as a kitty and the only place i'd be wearing this is at work, which is not the place to look like a half-dressed slut. I could also get some more ribbon and go as a medieval lady in waiting like I did last year. I don't wanna do the same costume two years in a row, but it was definitely pretty and work appropriate. I could also be a disco chick, but the shirt for that is also not work appropriate and I would probably freeze to death in it given that it's not getting above 47 these days. I have always wanted to be a samurai since I have a replic kitana, but the costume for that was like $60 (at least i could find one this year; last year I could only find pants and they were like $60 alone). So anyways, I'm out of ideas. You guys got any?

Thursday, October 27, 2005

quick update

I've been posting lately, but mostly about my ever so engaging philosophies on life. So I thgouth I would actually post about what's going on.

I love my job, and I had my review today in which my supervisor basically said that I seriously rocked and that he'd already applied for me to have a raise. Actually he said something about leadership or something because I helped train the new employee a while back. It was odd to hear someone say that I had taken on a role of "leadership". I still don't think of myself as a "leader" even after he pointed out the things I do that could be considered leadership. The boss also encouraged me to come to him for questions or concerns about my clients OR myself (a burnt out social worker is worthless). I mention this because I recall so many times being told not to ask so many questions by previous employers.

Also on the work front, during a staff meeting we were throwing around ideas for different things and I said "I know how to dance, and I had kind of maybe thought about teaching a dance class for the clients" and everyone immediately said "What a fabulous idea, that would be so good for our clients" and started talking about the logistics of how we could do it. So, I might start a dance class for the people we work with. This is such a fabulous idea for the clients and for me. The clients could benefit from movement because it's therapeutic and physically healthy and helps open up parts of you that you never knew existed. I could benefit because I haven't been able to take a class regularly, I love teaching, and I go fucking bonkers if I don't have an outlet for choreography.

Which leads me into the next thing. I have been a moody whore and it all boils down to things that relate to lack of regular excercise and dance. In birmingham, I had 2 dance classes and a pilates class that I tried to make it to on a regular basis. I usually made it to at least ONE during the week despite my crazy ass job. When I didn't go out and exercise, I would play DDR at home. I now cannot establish a regular routine due to lack of availability and difficulty scheduling. Sometimes, I will schedule everything right and someone will have an emergency or go to the gym only to find the door locked unless you have a key card (which I don't). This frustrates me to no end, and generally I get so mad about missing things that I then don't play DDR or walk or anything else; either that or I fuck around until it's too late to play loud music and jump around.
Aside from making me mentally tired, lack of exercise also does not do anything to help my weight, which has unfortunatley been going up lately. Which in turn makes me bitchier... Not a good cycle.

Other than working and lack of exercise, I have a few other things planned for the near future. In a couple of weeks on veteran's day, our craft group from work is going to go to a bazaar, and the group leader was nice enough to allow me to display a few things along with the clients'. The day after that is my birthday! The next weekend I go to another craft fair on my own and then in about a month, we're taking a vacation to disney.

The tortoise Wins the race.

If I had to make a motto that described Sandpoint, Idaho it would be "slow, thorough and really fucking good." Everything here takes a little longer, but is always worth the wait. We don't have a lot of fast food, but the restaurants here are some of the best I've ever been to. I definitely prefer our little "cafe's" to McDonald's any day and I seriously prefer our mom and pop diners over even the fancier chains, like cheesecake factory. I always have to wait a couple minutes more for my coffee at the local shop than I would at Starbucks, but it's perfect every time, and where else could you get a decaf mocha, decaf tea, organic coffee or the best cinnamon rolls in the world all while sitting in a comfy chair and staring up at the ceiling covered with coffee bags from around the world? Shopping may take a while because I can't go to the super mega strip mall complex with 10 department stores in it, but the products are quality, the shop owners know me by sight, and if it's not raining, walking downtown is fun.

An area where this attitude particularly benefits me is my job. Throughout my life, I have always been the last one finished, but usually also the one with a lot more polish than anyone else. I am a social worker, and most social work jobs are geared toward high case loads and fast service. In my job, I am supposed to help people the best way I know how, and I have the time to do it. We're allotted anywhere from 2-14 hours a week (the average on my caseload is probably 9) to spend with each client. Any time I have a question or need to run something by someone, I can slow down and do it. There is no more of this "you're spending way too much time with these people who you are helping to keep sane and helping to make decisions that could affect the rest of their lives and you're wasting waaaayy too much time on asking questions that you should already know the answer to." If I have an idea, they say "sure, we can slow down to figure out how to do this." I feel so important and so at home now, it's crazy. All my life I thought I just couldn't do well or maybe I couldn't find the right job, but it turns out, I was just in the wrong place.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Friday, October 21, 2005

cunt whore bitch goddamn

Goddamnit you stupid cunt why can't you rememeber your password!? and goddamn you you ass how dare you ask me what I want for dinner. And goddamn you stupid whorish cunt how could you stay up late again or be so stupid as to think you'll ever be healthy or lose weight. Go eat some doughtnuts you fat bitch. fat ugly stupid bitch. You are the worst goddamn social worker on the face of the planet and it's a fucking wonder all your clients haven't either raped you or died.

*sigh*
That's how I've been feeling all day today. Hopefully typing it will help get it out of my system.
As you can imagine, I'm not a very pleasant person to deal with when I'm in that mindset. I always try to be reasonable and hold back reactions, but it only works so well when I've been working all damn day with people who take alot of patience. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day, but I'm honestly not optimistic because I'm already worn out from the week.

So anyways, I owe some people some apologies, especially my husband. I love you even if i act like a cunt.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

no one can know...

here's a poem of sorts that I wrote. Comments, serious and otherwise, are welcome.


No one can know
where my heart really is;
who I really am;
what I really want.

No one can know what you want either.
Your desires are all secret:
Kept away next to your heart,
hidden under a rock
in a parallel universe
somewhere in eternity.

We must all keep ourselves hidden,
for speaking spreads temptation and ignorance.

Beauty does not even reach our skin;
It does not touch the surface of our being.
Beauty has to be buried and encrypted and secreted.

When I tried to show the world the things underneath my rock,
it simply pushed the rock back down effortlessly
without so much as a peek.

The world wants none of me, but I want all of it.
How can I have all of the world--all of life
without what's hidden away?

How can anyone know beauty without what's hidden away?

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Rituals

When I was little, if I had a problem, I would ask god to fix it. I would pray when I needed help, when I was happy, when I wanted world peace, when someone died and even when I wanted a VCR. When I got older, I started to feel more that a father figure would never allow the horrible things to happen with no intervention, and would never indiscriminately dislike certain groups of people because of the way they were born. I also came to realize that I could not love myself and god at the same time--it simply didn't work. I eventually concluded that the idea of an all knowing father figure didn't make sense. But I can't shake the comfort I get from singing hymns and even praying.

Every Christmas eve I am a little forlorn because I no longer get to go to church to sing. The Christmas eve service at the church I grew up in was always involved a ton of singing and candles. Every year when we get close to Christmas, I can't help shake the feeling that it's time to go to church--even though I haven't been in 7 years. Sure, I could go and sing even though I don't believe in the things I'm singing about, but 1. Churches always find a new way to annoy me every time I go in 2. My husband will not set foot in a church for any reason and 3. If I went with my mother or mother-in-law, they might get the idea that I want to, or at least should, go to church on a regular basis.

I have no desire to go to church on a regular basis or be pressured to go on a regular basis. Every time I go to a church, I find a new reason to be uncomfortable there. Of course, lately the only reason I've been going to churches is for funerals, and those are naturally a little uncomfortable. However, I've been to a few funeral services where they took a naturally uncomfortable situation and turned it into the kind of uncomfortable you only feel when doctors stick their fingers in special places. At both my grandmother's and great grandmother's funeral they prayed the prayer of acceptance, which basically says "you all suck and will go to hell if you don't become God's submissive right now!" Okay, so it doesn't directly say that, but they do go on and on about how the deceased has nothing to worry about because they had god in their hearts and then they ask you to ask God into your heart. As someone who does not believe in God, I automatically hear "Since Grandma had God in her heart, she went to heaven, but since you refuse to, Hillary, you're kind of fucked regardless of the fact that you are an angry human being who constantly feels like a worthless piece of crap if you believe in God and the bible."

Even with all this hostility toward the church and hatred for funeral services, I still pray my little heart out every time someone dies. A couple of years ago, I used to say that it was because "Even if I don't believe in God, *if* there is a heaven, grandma deserves to go there, and praying could help the process." I think this is part of my reasoning for praying at funerals or when someone is in the hospital. Mostly, however, I think it comforts me. I think that I pray because when I was 6 and didn't know what to do, I would pray and it helped me feel better. It still helps now even though I know that a prayer is just a bunch of thoughts in my head that no magic person in the sky is going to hear and take care of. Even though I know nothing is going to happen, I feel comfort in just hearing and repeating the words in my head, and, yes, I know this is ridiculous. However, if thinking a few pretty setences in my head or singing a few words about a baby in a manger can help calm me down in times of stress, I could think of worse things I could be doing.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

embarassment

why is that I see someone I know right as I am picking lacy thongs up form the rack in target? Furthermore, why is it that i turn six shades of purple whne they say "hi" and I realise that I have lacy panties in my hands. Precisely what is wrong with a grown woman owning lacy panties? Truthfully, nothing. But for some reason, I'm ashamed. I'm not sure if it's out of the part of me that knows that society wants us to think that sexy things are evil, or the part of me that struggles with idea that my 212 pound body can be sexy or the part of me that thinks the rest of the world doesn't want to know that I am sexy, but whatever it is, my face always turns 8 shades of purple. It's quite a shame, too, if you ask me. The people who said "hi" now got the message that's it's not okay to buy pretty things for yourself or think of yourself as sexy as did anyone else who was in the area. This is not the idea I want to transmit to everyone. Everyone is goregeous and has a right to the laciest, stringiest thongs if they want them, and they should never be ashamed to buy them.

Sunday, October 9, 2005

fishing.... or something

"Feed a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." Cool, right? What's really cool is when he starts teaching others to fish.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is why I do my job...



Remind me of this the next time I get called a 3 am.

Wednesday, October 5, 2005

serenity quiz

You scored as Simon Tam. The Doctor. You have a gift for healing that goes beyond education. You took an oath to do no harm, even when your patients have tried to kill you. You are out of place where you are, being used to refined society. However, if you take that stick out of your arse you should be fine.

Simon Tam

69%

Shepherd Derrial Book

63%

Capt. Mal Reynolds

56%

The Operative

56%

Zoe Alleyne Washburne

56%

Inara Serra

44%

Hoban 'Wash' Washburne

44%

Kaylee Frye

38%

River Tam

38%

Jayne Cobb

19%

Which Serenity character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

Perfectionism

While my earlier post on perfection was somewhat done jokingly, I really do feel like that some days. It really feels like I'm being consumed by guilt and self-hatred for not having done the smallest of things correctly.

I always struggle with perfectionism, and I feel like I have done well in my job up until now. I am still mostly doing okay, but some day I a m going to burst into tears, walk into the office, and tell them "I fucking quit because I am a worthless social worker" over the fact that I didn't have time to take a client to wal-mart when they really wanted to go. This example is only slightly exaggerated.

I have an extremely difficult time with the idea that I actually know my stuff and am a good social worker. I have a very difficult time with the fact that I am not going to fulfill everyone's needs, make all the impulsive clients see the error of their ways, make it to meetings on time and get all my notes in on time with every single I dotted and t crossed. It doesn't fucking happen. No one can do this. Yet, I want to go absolutely ballistic if even one of these things is wrong. Why? Who the hell knows?

The best answer I can come up with is "because I'm imperfect." It's funny to think that perfectionism in and of itself makes someone imperfect, but I think it's true. I absolutely believe that perfectionism is a problem to be overcome and not an ideal lifestyle. How funny is that that perfectionism by it's very nature makes you imperfect?
Isn't it ironic... Don't you think?

On funerals and religion

Going to funerals generally makes me wonder where the hell our beliefs came from. Where the hell did we get the idea that there's some magical person in the sky who can make everything better? Why is it not okay for us to be the ones who can make things better? I know my way is lonely because I have no magical person to turn to when I am overburdened and no real people will talk to me. However, my way leaves me in charge of my own happiness and direction in life. No one magically guides me through that, and it feels awfully good to know that. I want to know that I am worth something and that the things I do are good. The only way for me to do this is to know that I am independent and can make my own decisions. For me, there is no magical person in the sky who wants me to live a certain way; I do what I do because I know within myself that it is the right thing. My independence is probably one of my most prized possessions, and I never feel right being independent when I think there's someone looking over my shoulder disapproving if I don't do things their way.

Why do most people have to have someone to approve or disapprove their work? Don't we know that what we do is good because it helps ourselves and others? Why can't we accept the gift of free will and the warmth that we feel from doing the right thing without the approval or disapproval of a proverbial omniscient parent?

Furthermore, Why does this whole idea of a god work so well for others and not at all for me? Most people who "pray on" everything and try to "let go and let god" are happy that way and don't feel in any way dependent or put under the microscope. However, somehow, after the age of 20, I couldn't wrap my head around the idea of going to church and not feeling inadequate or guilty or dependent. I remember feeling guilty for having and wanting Christmas presents when I was in high school. For most people, things like this are not a conflict, but for me, I can't be in a religion that advocates giving away all of your possessions AND enjoy having a computer and beads and Christmas presents and cake. Even though I have no desire to get back into organized religion, I'd like to think that maybe one day I'll at least be able to understand how my mom lives with herself when she buys nail polish.

DAMN YOU

damn you damn you damnyoudamnyoudamnyoudamnyou DAMN YOU!
Damn you for making me write a "final note" on you that says you committed suicide. DAMN YOU GODDAMNIT.

Saturday, October 1, 2005

Revelation

After re-reading my previous post and reflecting on some other things my mother told me, I have come to a revelation.
The reason my mother is suddenly "decorative" and "frilly" is that for 50someodd years of her life, my mother never felt pretty. It's sad to think that such a wonderful woman thought for all of her life that she was not an attractive woman. For fifty years, my mother looked at her pictures, new and old, and did not see someone particularly worth looking at. She said she always wondered why I was so pretty in high school because she was so ugly. One night, she had to do some work for a nutrition class where they talked about their body image and self esteem. She said that lesson was very hard, but during it, she chose to look at her high school pictures again. She said that some of them were dorky because of her clothing or glasses but when she looked this time, she did not see an ugly girl.

I'm afraid I did not help in my mother's journey throughout her life. I remember telling her she was fat several times when I was little (she probably weighed less than I do now) and I never really saw her as a pretty lady, nor treated her as such. This is such a shame because it prevented her from learning a lesson I learned when I was 25 until she was 50: Everyone is pretty and sexy in their own way. I remember when a friend of mine told me this when I was about 22 and I told him he was crazy and that I would never be sexy. I came to realize that he was right and that everyone has something attractive about themselves. I think it's sad that my mother never realized this until now.

As a social worker, I work with people of all ages, shapes, sizes, genders, races, etc. and pretty much every one I can remember a moment, where I said to myself "WOW... how beautiful". There's beauty in everyone and I'm glad my mother finally found hers.