Thursday, April 17, 2008

Upon witnessing me spill orange water from the lid of the pasta sauce pot all over the stove

TM: Oh spilly AH, you spill everything. Wherever there is liquid to be spilled, you will spill it; wherever something can be overturned, you will be the one to turn it; whenever -

AH: How about blood? I could spill some blood.

TM: I'll go now.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Enjoying the Ride

I'm sitting here looking at this dashboard screen, and I don't even really know where to start.

Okay, okay, I know. Have you all seen Working Girl? (Not to be confused with Working Girls.) You know, the quintessential Harrison Ford/ Melanie Griffith movie where the unnoticed, underpaid, underappreciated office assistant gets herself into some risky business, and for a while it looks like she might just end up unemployed on Staten Island, but it all turns out okay in the end because she’s sleeping with Harrison Ford, and as everyone knows, that’s magic.

Wow, I just censored myself so bad right there.

Anyway, you know that scene at the end? Where she realizes that the office with the door that closes and the incredible view out over the city is hers, and she puts her feet up and picks up her phone to call Joan Cusack, and then that totally inspirational Carly Simon song (click the button beside the title to preview) starts playing and you get this almost irresistible urge to deck yourself out in shoulder pads and pumps? That one?

Well, you may not believe this, but I HAVE THAT OFFICE.

No jokes. With the door and everything. It has a view that looks out over mountains and water and Canada Place Vancouver. There are hooks on the walls where I need to hang things. Like maybe diplomas. Except I won’t be hanging diplomas – I’ll be hanging a mirror so that I can check that I don’t have anything hanging out of my nose before I go to meetings. That will be much more useful.

I also have the job to match the office, an almost giddy sense of elevated responsibility, control of all communications activities in a fairly high profile provincial organization, and the eminently relieving feeling that I’ve got everything back on track. I do not have shoulder pads.

Most of you know that I spent the last year or so in a job that was increasingly doing me no favours. I left it on the 13th of March. Before I left I was worried I was making the wrong decision. I’m not naturally a risk taker. As soon as I left I knew it was the right thing to do.

Today I sat down next to TM and explained my current good mood. I can’t really remember the last time that I felt like this. I have been really happy in Vancouver. But I have to admit that those periods of happiness were never sustained. My good moods were tainted by the knowledge that something would eventually happen to spoil them. And I promise that’s not self-determinism.

This mood isn’t. This mood is free and insouciant. I feel like everything is moving forward and this mood can and will be sustained. Everything I’m doing, and I’m doing so much, seems to me to be carried along by its own momentum. It feels effortless. I’m sad to say I’d forgotten what that was like. I’m glad to say it’s back.

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Auto-Im-Mutiny

Yesterday I declared myself to be ill. I wrapped a scarf around my neck, pulled a blanket over myself on the couch and allowed TM to take over all dinner prep, and pampering etc. (Not that I DON'T let him tend to me when I'm not ill, but lately, as he's been spending almost every free moment studying for four GIANT exams that are coming up in the middle of April, and since I have an inordinate amount of free moments and have no such demands, I have been taking responsibility for most of the domestic goings-on around here, which I feel is only fair.)

Back to my being ill. Because I'm not ill per se. I have actually been going through a fairly stressful week for one who is unemployed. Simply because for the past week I have been in discussions to become EMployed, and my own obsessive nature causes this to be the subject that occupies my mind in every waking hour (and some unwaking).

Still though, this stress isn't the direct reason for my "illness," but it is the indirect cause. You see, when I get stressed out, my body attacks itself, and I get ulcers. Not stomach ulcers, thank god (although with the amount of ibuprofen I'm taking at the moment for pain management it's not an impossibility), but canker sores. Lots and lots of canker sores. So many that I can't eat solid food any more. So many that the glands in my neck have swollen. So many that I haven't slept more than 4 hours together in the last three days. So many that when I get up in the morning, it hurts to speak.

Yesterday, I finally steeled myself, picked up the flashlight, and investigated the inside of my mouth. Not only do I have one on the inside of each cheek, right above where my wisdom teeth can make painful contact with them every time I close my mouth, I also have three (THREE!) on one side of my tongue, in a neat little line, where I vaguely remember accidentally biting myself on the weekend.

I have NEVER had canker sores this bad. They are completely incapacitating my ability for activity or rational thought. And so yesterday I decided to just act like I'm sick with a cold. I will be spending today drinking fluids, including copious amounts of lemon, ginger and honey, trying to rest, and trying above all to destress my system.

Thankfully, a call should come in this morning which will at least put an end to any doubt I'm in about my employment status. I have a feeling that might go a long way towards clearing these things up.