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Saturday, May. 07, 2005 / 3:57 p.m. ~A Long Update to Catch Up - I'm So Literal, Eh?~ I suppose I should update my little diary, and hey, this is the first update since I got my new monitor, so it looks a little funny, this update window. I no longer need to increase the text size on my Firefox browser every time I want to update, but I may need to decrease instead. This thing is nice, really nice, flat screen, beautiful color, very bright and perfect, but it's imperfect in that there is a curve in the image that I cannot seem to make go away. I think I may be getting used to it (especially after spending nearly two whole days tinkering with the settings, which finally made me dizzy and nauseous, or maybe that was the not eating thing, which has since been rectified - you know how it can be when you're "involved", you don't want to stop, for any reason). True, I am now unemployed, and true I didn't have money to buy this monitor, but I bought it used, and it sort of came to me, I didn't go searching, and we know how long I've wanted a new one, how rather desperate I felt at times, not being able to see photos, having to download them and lighten them first (I couldn't lighten the on screen image), and having to lean way in to see, even with my glasses on, yes, it was a challenge. Seven years with that challenge, and it was very old when I got it. Silly little old monitor with the 11.5 inch image size (though it came free with my first PC, the one my brother gave me in '98). It still works, with some recent flickering, so I'll try to stuff it in a closet, for a rainy day, as in when this one breaks down. I paid a whopping $25 for the new and curvy fancy monitor, with the supposed flat screen, the one with the image so fantastic and beautiful I tend to use spectacular Webshots images (well, I've been doing that since I got online, almost) as my desktop backgrounds, and minimize all windows just so I can stare, say, at Hawaii, or some mountain range or other, or a field of sunflowers, just for examples. $25 for the monitor, $30 for the PC, and the keyboard and mouse were free (thanks, Mark and Sonya), and I've never really spent too much on my computer equipment, have I? Not too shabby. Ah, well, must I catch you up? Faithful readers who look for updates every day? Have I failed you? Do you really want to know how it's going, how I am? We had a lot of free food our final week at work - the last two managers wanted to use up the petty cash, and they did a fine job. We were at first warned to placate the 'customer' (by not talking or making personal calls, or doing anything other than WORKING REALLY HARD our last week), who was ever-present, omnipresent, and omnipotent until her power was stripped from her, and I exploded in an angry rage in that last meeting, which prompted the site manager to go to said 'customer' and tell her what to do with her omnipotence, and then all was well, for him, but I was emotionally drained, and had a hard time recovering. Still, our final day saw me excited, a bit manic perhaps, so ready for it to be over, until we left at mid day and I felt lost so suddenly, without my compatriots, all of whom I'd hugged quite sincerely on our way out the door, and one with whom I'd never gotten along, though I'd once tried, was the only one with tears and tissue. It felt great to be gone, it felt weird, what now, what now, what now? Oh, I fell back into Gladys research, as her incision was quite infected at that time, and came home and got online, and we kept up with her antibiotics until they ran out, and things were normal. I even did some cleaning the next day, which is always nice, in preparation for my good friend Leigh's visit, and after too much incision talk, and necrotic tissue talk, we went out for a fabulous dinner at my favorite bistro, including an entire bottle of wine, and a viewing of the film "Kung Fu Hustle", which was way overly violent, despite the comic nature, but fun and outrageously creative and amazing in the special effects department, nonetheless. Since that Saturday, one week ago, I've alternated between getting some things done, and doing a whole lot of nothing, working on justifying the nothing part, by telling myself this is vacation time, just this one week, before I apply for unemployment and try in earnest to find a new job. I did take Gladys to see a holistic veterinarian, which was interesting, mostly in that it was absurdly expensive, the entire visit, and that the exam room had a little padded seat bench in it, and a nice floor lamp and area rug, and they turn off the fluorescent overhead unless an exam is indeed in session, meaning it's cozy, it's supposed to be just like being at home. And there was a visiting holistic vet from another state, so she stood in on the appointment/exam/session, and the vet tech was a four year student, so I had so much expertise consulting and looking at my girl that it felt like we were getting the very best (and this was before I knew how much Gladys would be charging to her credit card - must put cap on her spending, stat!). By this time, the incision was looking much better, the antibiotics had run their course, yet we still walked out with a fancy blue bottle of incision topical to put on it, something with calendula and echinacea and other goodies, which I did put on it, and now it is miraculously healed, but would it have been anyway, and what do I do with the rest of this whole bottle that cost an absurd amount of money? Does anyone have an incision that needs healing? We got a tincture too, for G's kidney disease, but I've yet to try to force that on her. I'm supposed to put a set amount in something yummy, and get her to gobble it up, but it's purported to be a challenge, not good tasting at all, and as I've been relaxing all week, I've tried to let G relax too. The vet said she was brave, my Gladys, and 'wonderful', and so good. And she is, she is amazing. And if you didn't know what happened to her in the past couple of months, or is it less?, you'd never know. Except her hair is not completely grown back out yet. Such a trooper, so good, no complaining at all except on the long drive to the holistic vet. Oh, she screamed, she did not meow, no meowing heard, but SCREAMING, and then on the way back we sang, or I did, and I'd like to think G sang along. Must get stereo in car fixed. One day, really. The monitor, the new vet (and it felt such a betrayal to ask Dr. Handsome's receptionist to FAX over G's records to the holistic place), lots of online time, TV time (still trying to catch up on two weeks' worth of "Guiding Light"s, which, oh my god, they've killed off another character! - Tony is dead, gone, dead, he can't come back!, and I'm still trying to accept that Phillip is actually dead - how can they do this?!), and sleeping on the sofa. I need to make it back to my bed at some point (Stacy Horn, in her book Waiting For My Cats to Die, which I finally allowed myself to finish last Saturday, so I could lend it to Leigh - LOVED that book - also writes about the sleeping on the sofa thing, though I don't think she felt as weird about it as I do, she is more accepting of her neuroses than I am of mine). And today, now that it's Saturday, I woke up with a bang and started cleaning and washing dishes, and tidying up, and I went out and deposited my final paycheck in the bank and mailed off my cable bill payment (must keep up with the cable bill!), and took out the trash, and even sorted my recycling to take to the recycling center, and poured out old condiments and washed the containers, for recycling, natch. I feel so productive. And, I realized I have a horrible tendency to accumulate condiments, buying them, tasting them once or twice, then letting them sit in the fridge until they're too old to eat, and thinking I must one day pour them out to recycle the jars. Today is that day. The final paycheck, mentioned a few sentences ago? That was a trauma all on its own. I was set to pick it up, at 'work', on Thursday, but I called the department manager to find 'they', at the corporation headquarters, were going to 'try' to Next Day Air it to me. So I waited yesterday, and waited, and panicked, and called the only other of my former coworkers who also got 'live' checks, who also does not believe in 'direct deposit', to see if she got hers, before finally going to the mailbox and finding it there, sent via U.S. Mail. Called the former coworker back to find she did not get hers. Yikes. I cannot absorb her panic. I have enough of my own, thanks. But, and this is a huge BUT, it was taxed all to hell. They put the final week, the final vacation hours, and the retention, or severance, whichever you prefer, all together, though the latter is taxed some insane 40%, just as our bonus checks always were, which always pissed us all off to no end. So, my total check was shy some $1,500.00, which sent me reeling!! I called the department manager, but her cell phone service sucks and just as she was trying to explain things, making sure to patronize me by saying, "As I told you before, I wasn't sure if you'd get two separate checks or if you'd get it all on one, and you remember our bonus checks were always taxed at 40%..." (uh, no, I'd tried to forget, frankly), I lost her, but she, most appropriately, faded out first, and I said, "I can't hear you, I don't know if you can hear me, but I just wanted you to know they taxed me at 33% total, and my check is really short!", and that was that. So, I broke down and got past my disgust, realized yes, sure, it's still a lot of money, though if I don't compartmentalize and put it all in its proper mathematical order, it looks like I got totally screwed out of my last week of work, and my vacation - no, no, must realize the retention was severly penalized, so fuck that shit. Fine. Done, over, finito, the end, and I didn't have to go back to 'work' anyway. Which is for the best, one last goodbye was all I needed, not two. Now? Unemployment office on Monday, more cleaning, recycling to recycling center, laundry (hello!), job hunting, in earnest this time, sincere letter to woman at Turner Classic Movies ("Please, hire me?, no, really, PLEASE?!"), and less moping around. Oh, it didn't help that this has been my major portion of the PMS week, so a simple layoff and subsequent unemployment (did I write 'simple'?!) was not depressing enough, I had to add screwy hormones to the mix and freak out a couple of times, and lie around as if I was dying of fatigue. But right now all feels good, and as I was driving around earlier, on this, yet another spectacular early spring day, I realized I feel better doing nothing because it's now Saturday, and many people are relaxing, or getting in a few chores, then relaxing, and this is normal. Lying around watching soap operas on tape, or reading journals on LiveJournal all day during the week just seems so WRONG. The Monday through Friday, 8:00-5:00, work week is already fully ingrained in me, though it wasn't long ago I was a 9:00-6:00er. And, if I had won the lottery and KNEW, KNEW I didn't HAVE to work to bring in money to pay all my rents (no, that's not a typo) and bills, I wouldn't feel a thing, surely, after a while of getting past the feeling I need to get up and out by 7:45. My horoscope is all about money this week, today, this month, I'm supposed to find a great new job that pays really well. Hah! I remembered that I used to want to be a photojournalist. I do still. And a movie star. And a hippie. And a Playboy Playmate. I was a weird kid. I think that's about it. I'm making a list of foods to buy if I ever go grocery shopping, and I'm working on all the little projects I've been 'meaning' to do, and the weather is beautiful, really, and this monitor is nice, despite the curve that won't go away, it's only at the bottom after all. And, if all goes well, I meet a fellow Diarylander, finally, on Friday the 13th. I look forward, really, it seems I've 'known' her forever, through reading her writing online. And I fully admit to being slack lately - LiveJournal stole me away, but I still maintain this, this little diary that has been sorely neglected as of late. If I think of anything else, I'll be sure to add it tomorrow. I don't mean to be away so long again. Cost of the War in Iraq
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