Well, I thought I had a job. And I did, for all of 5 days.

One week ago today, I got a call out of the blue from a local rep for Kelly Services. She asked if I'd be willing to take an assignment with a company in Dawsonville. Shipping and receiving. The Kelly rep thought it sounded much like what I'd done in the postal service. This was at 11 AM. I was in the Kelly office at 1 PM. I was told to go take a drug screening test then report to the job. Hours were 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM, Mon-Fri. Okay, fine. I did so, and off I went.

The job was physically demanding, but other than my feet feeling like hell from the brand new steel-toed boots (could hardly walk after 2 PM every day they hurt so much), I felt I could learn the job given a week or two. And by today (Friday) at the end of work I felt like I was getting the hang of it. It wasn't so bad. My immediate boss was something of a hard-ass, but not nearly so bad as the PM in Cornelia. I stayed out of her way. I'd been told at one point that if there was nothing to do, to sweep the floors, dust the shelves in the inventory, etc. The which I did, when I wasn't filling orders, packing them up, and preparing them for shipment.

So I was on my way home tonight when I got a call from a Kelly rep from Athens, subbing for the rep from Gainesville who is apparently sick at the moment, telling me that the company "doesn't need your services anymore".

When I took the job last week, the rep mentioned the last girl who worked for these people stayed there 2 years. The job was "indefinite" but I was under the impression that it was going to be long term.

Thank the Force I haven't ended the unemployment yet.

Anyway, I'll have to talk to the Kelly rep on Monday. If she can't find me a job in less than 2 weeks I'll have to end that and stay on the unemployment, because that at least is stable. At least for the next 3 months or so.

I'd like an explanation too but that's probably going to amount to "sorry, I was sure it was going to last, but you know how these things go" (with a nonchalant shrug of disclaimer thrown in).

Well, I can't rely on "sure things" that turn out not to be.


I'm vaguely angry. When I talk to the Kelly rep on Monday I'm going to ask if she knows the MBTI (she ought, since it's such a big part of career counseling and placement) and tell her to find me an INFJ job or a boss who can work with INFJ. Because I'm tired of getting bludgeoned by the whole damned world.

Anyway. Mom said to take it easy this weekend.

And honestly, I've missed reading fanfic on my phone in the middle of the night.

It is Saturday.

I have no new Shiny Shiny.

It was supposed to be here yesterday.

Dell and FedEx both screwed up.

Let me show you it.



You will note -- it states "incorrect address, recipient moved". That I may be able to grant given the nearly empty state of the Bug-Eyed Bungalow. But! "Delivery refused"?!

I called FedEx Tuesday night when there was no notice to come pick it up on the door or in the mailbox. I made arrangements with the guy at FedEx to have it delivered on Friday morning. He said he made a note to this effect on the file for the package. Yet yesterday morning at 10 AM I was getting a little worried that it hadn't yet shown up and checked the tracking. It was at that time being returned to Nashville. I had asked it to be delivered in the morning because of a doctor's appt. at 1:30. Even if it was on a truck coming from Nashville it would take 5 hrs. at best to get here... and the truck left at 8:20 AM.

So I called FedEx, asked WTF is going on here, they said the shipper (Dell) had requested it be returned. So I called Dell and got passed up to a supervisor. This was when I find out there was no note on the package file, no record of my call Tuesday night. And I made certain to emphasize I had not refused delivery, I do in fact live here, the address was correct and I verified it with my apparently non-existant call Tuesday night. The supervisor was obviously silently freaking over all this, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. He got the FedEx manager from Athens on the call who passed the buck saying there was nothing she could do as it was on a truck bound for Nashville.

The Dell supervisor ended up promising to send me a "replacement", and it had better be exactly what I ordered. But he won't know when he'll be able to send it, and I now have no order page on the Dell website to check on the status.

So yeah, I'm a little pissed. To put it lightly.

And I asked them to change the address on the delivery for this one, to deliver it to me at work. If they can't find the Gainesville main Post Office -- which they deliver to at least twice a week -- then I'm fragging canceling the order and getting a Hewlett-Packard at Best Buy. I am fragging tired of this.

Note Twitter posts to the right -->

Otherwise, it's Christmas Eve. I have a cold. I have received my 60 day notice, and thus things must start happening soon re the lay-offs/transfers.

The situation is thus:

The house must be packed up and cleaned up as much as is practicable and possible.

I must contact HomeVestors and sell said house. Before doing so, I will probably have to get at least the plumbing fixed. I have been able to live with the small but annoying things (partially broken shower head, non-functioning hot water in bathroom sink, very slow drain in kitchen) but I will probably stand a better chance of getting enough to pay the mortgage off if I fix what I can and clean up what I can. Points in my favor: 7 yr. old water heater, garage door, CH/A only a few years old, railing on stairs out front. Points not in my favor: practically everything else.

In the probable event that I will not obtain enough from the sale of the house to pay off the mortgage, attempt to add whatever is left to my car loan or get another loan to cover it from the credit union. I have not yet gone to talk to the nice ladies at the CFECU to ascertain if this will be possible. I'd call it 50/50 right now. I've never had any problems with doing so in the past, but the economy is vastly different now and it is now exponentially more difficult to obtain loans than it was.

Find out where I'm going. Search for and obtain an apartment or rental house in the new location. If needed, obtain loan from TSP account to cover initial rent, etc. At present, I am able to obtain approximately $2,000 in this manner. This could also be covered by the loan from the CFECU to avoid drawing on the TSP account. Therefore, the TSP loan is strictly a last-resort option.

Pack up computers and irreplaceable books and Fuzz into car and go wherever I'm going. Move in. Get Internet service, utilities, cellphone, etc.

Take a day or two to get settled, get my bearings, convince Fuzz to come out of the cat carrier, freak the hell out of my mind, sleep, eat, freak out some more.

Go back to work.


I'm tired just looking at it all.

It would really be nice to know where I'm going.

Y'know, you'd figure if there was a chance that your power would be shut off North GA Electric would send you the disconnection notice bill and not a regular bill with a regular due date. Wouldn't you?

So I am writing to you here from a table at Panera, where there is free wi-fi, because without power at Radio Free Ross-a-Noodle there is no DSL and no Meraki. And no heat, no light, and no stove with whistling tea kettle providing endless gallons of Irish Breakfast Tea goodness. The home fizzifying machine, however, works just fine. No power needed since it works on the gas pressure of the CO2. Yet another reason to love it madly. (Go to www.sodaclubusa.com now. Because your life is not complete until you have your own home fizzifying machine. Seriously.)

So after punting the diet YET AGAIN with a bagel with tomato basil cream cheese stuff AFTER my dinner of a roast beast sandwich at home (thinking the power had gone out over the whole street and that I needed to eat the roast beast before it went bad), I sat down to watch part of Iron Man on Copernicus to wait for the power to come back on. After 2 hours or so I called the NGEMC to ask when they estimated the power would be back on. That's when I learned that it was just me, that they'd disconnected me for a past due amount but for some reason had NOT sent me the Disconnection Eminent, Death Star Approaching bill but only a normal bill. So I figure this is a revenue grab, since they now get to charge me the reconnection fee that's almost $100. Which is kind of moot since the bill itself was nearly $400, with current and past due amounts. Did I mention they hadn't mentioned "DISCONNECTION" anywhere in that bill? No? Let me show you it.

So not happy right now. So not happy.

So I've paid up the bill, they should have the power turned back on TONIGHT. It had better be on by the time I get home. Or somebody dies.

I so want more Tony Stark snarking at unhelpful robots while being dangerously good looking with soldering iron, tank top and muscles. Because MIT geeks with muscles? Rank up there with black-haired elves. In the "mate with it NOW" category.

And this at the height (or is it depth?) of the monthly void into which my hormone levels fall. Although this is followed 2 to 3 days later by the dizzyingly abrupt resurgence of said hormones, which put the libido into overdrive for about half a day. Why? Because ovaries make testosterone, but it's not what they do best. So I value my testosterone, such as it is. Because I like getting the hots for geeks with muscles and black-haired elves, even if it only lasts for a few hours.

When I think about the fog of constant arousal I walked around in as a kid, I could just cry.

Got the new bed today. Took me about 3 hours to get the platform bedframe assembled, and for the most part I was able to get it done right. Except, of course, for the obligatory last piece of trim that inexplicably doesn't fit... oh well. The functional bits fit and are solid and won't be collapsing underneath me.

The new mattress is loverly. But I need new sheets since the ones I have aren't meant for a 9 inch thick mattress. So if I can drag myself to KMart tonight that will get done. I put one of the old ones on as a temporary measure and put the blankets on, etc., and lay there sinking into the mattress with Fuzz. Fuzz didn't know what to think of the old bed propped up against the wall, but he seemed happy enough on the new bed. He was licking his tummy and yawning in between casting worried looks at the old bed up against the wall. I am currently in the process of looking for somebody to come haul the old one and the old futon away.

As an aside, aren't the UPS guys supposed to have handtrucks and dollys and such to deal with heavy packages? The UPS guy had to hand carry both my packages -- both over a hundred pounds each -- up my driveway and the stairs. Since apparently the gravel in my driveway is unpassable to a handtruck. And for some reason he couldn't back the truck up into the driveway. Either he can't drive to save his life or he's a glutton for punishment. He can explain to the workman's comp lawyers why he didn't do it, not me.

Well, as it is I am very tired myself now after all this brouhaha. I'll save the breaking down of giant cardboard boxes for tomorrow night. Oy.

Post couscous dinner crash coming on, must move before I fall asleep and drool into my computer.

In the latest ep of "I Should Be Writing", Mur was interviewing Jared Axelrod. In the course of the interview they talked about feedback to podcasts and confirmed that it's not just AAP that goes over like a lead balloon with regards to feedback. I believe the ratio was something like 1 in 1000, or possibly 1 in 400. So that helps. I simply must be content with the slowly rising numbers of my audience, and learn to expect no other feedback. It's like you can hear the crickets chirping, being a podcaster. Yes, I really am just talking to myself.

Still, it does nothing for one's level of motivation. Lack of fan mail is still lack of fan mail, whether one refers to fanfic or origfic.

So despite spending several weeks now trying to come up with some kind of outline and the gumption to write on the next Z5 story, I'm stuck again. It's DOA at the moment. And I have nothing to podcast again. But since I have no feedback or indeed any reaction, it gives the appearance that no one cares. Oh well.

For lack of anything better to do, I started piddling around with Danger getting a new body, or rather getting a used body since they can't afford to get him a new one. I barely have any motivation to work on that and will probably abandon it.


You'd think being on St. Johns Wort, B Vitamin supplements and an herbal anti-anxiety mixture, I wouldn't be feeling this empty and depressed. All it seems to do is make my mind clear enough to be fully immersed in the misery. Should I give up and try yet again to go to a shrink? Even though a myriad of experiences have shown me even shrinks don't understand and cannot help me? What can they really do to change my life? Not a damned thing. They sit and nod like bobbleheads, then give you a prescription for anti-depressants to turn you into a zombie, and instead of helping they screw you up even more. Most of them freak out like you're cutting their throats if you tell them you're on St. Johns Wort and quite happy with it, thanks ever so much. Afraid of losing their kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies, most like. Or they try to convince you St. Johns Wort is toxic or something.

Which would be my cue to leave, since I've been taking the stuff for years and it's worked better than 80mgs of Paxil ever did.


For the most part my mood is stable. I can tell the St.john's Wort, et. al., is working. But yet I still exhibit symptoms of clinical depression. Withdrawal. Feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness. Losing interest in things I was formerly interested in. Loneliness. Anger and resentment. I've been getting increasingly isolated over these last couple of years, not that I was a social butterfly before but it's getting profound now. Partly that's everyone I knew getting their own lives. But mostly it's me, I guess. Every time I open my mouth in front of anybody these days I end up embarassing myself or alienating myself or insulting somebody. And in a few cases it's turned into downright hatred on my part. I refuse categorically to take part in any relationship that I view as unhealthy to my mental well-being. I had ten years of that and whatever progress I've made emotionally and spiritually is due to learning when somebody is screwing with my head. So everyone else has gotten married or gotten involved, and I'm the last one standing. Eleven years on my way to a lifetime of celibacy, chunking down that track toward "bitter and weird old woman in the shack on the hill."

That's my mom's gig. I don't want to be that.

But there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid it. What am I gonna do, kidnap somebody and keep them locked up until they like me, like Stephen King's "Misery"? That's undue influence on the choices of another sentient being, and as a Jedi I don't do that. You can't force (or Force) somebody to like you.

I remember back in my pagan days I used to cast the Tarot for myself a lot and every time -- I am not kidding, literally every reading I did -- had the Hanged Man in it. Every single reading. The Hanged Man. I got to where I HATED that card. With a passion. I still hate it, because it's turned into my life.

I don't want to spend my entire life marking time. What is the point of living a life in suspension? There is no point to it if you're not making progress. If you're not producing works that will live beyond you, or at least learning something. It's a waste of energy, mass and time to live otherwise. I'll end up warehoused in a nursing home somewhere, drooling and senile, with the staff sticking me in a corner to rot while they burn through my retirement accounts. I'll have lived for nothing.


In other news, I'm considering moving this blog to WordPress. More news as events warrant.

Well, I think I've reached final form for "Tantalus".

I can't exactly tell since I have no "first readers" to tell me if something is glaringly obvious, nor do I have a critique group willing to read through the whole thing.

Over the last couple of years I've lost literally all my friends to one reason or another, and while the ISBW forum is okay no one really goes into depth there. So I've edited it as much as I know how, but I'm not a professional editor. It's kind of hard to get any perspective and distance on it when you're basically talking to yourself.


The Grand List of Social Failure
as of February 20, 2008

Friend who I went to high school with who has known me over twenty years -- lost her job at the bookstore in the mall, I don't have her phone number any longer as it was on my cellphone that was stolen, and I have no idea where she is. She, however, has my phone number and never calls me. Count that one as
"lost contact".

Friend who moved to Atlanta and got married. New hubby doesn't like me. Haven't spoken or heard from her in about 2 1/2 years.

Scout Who Walks in Concrete Moccassins got married, but we weren't speaking anyway since I really don't appreciate being the one you only call when you're drunk, bored, and you know I'm the only one awake at that time of night. No loss there.

Comedy Friend left the place where we work and got another job, and now I don't hear from him but once in a blue moon. But to be honest I guess I'm not much on the friendly side there either. I don't jump into bed with people unless I want to, not because they're desperate. I'm not a kid anymore. I drove off that bridge a couple times already and I don't like being thought of as a slut.

Other person who used to be fairly important to me, but now has a new girlfriend and avoids me.

The CGAW, the Cute Guy at Work left the Post Awful quite some time ago, so no more eye candy. Alas.

Boo disappeared.

And that's about it.

I have several acquaintences at work who by sheer dint of us working together all these years I guess you might consider friends, but it's not like I'm at their houses or having lunch with them. Most of them I have a hard time remembering their names. I don't really know them at all.

So I guess I could spend $600 and send "Tantalus" to Christopher Vogler's story consulting operation, but that seems kind of extreme for a 36 page story.

Or just say the heck with it, it's as done as I can make it, and go ahead and podcast it. Just accept it's not as good as it could be, swallow my damned pride and just do it. Despite my determination to not release material that isn't in the best shape it can be in.

*sigh*

Well, I have Newton back with a new CD/DVD drive and have restored the Xandros system. Amazingly, was able to get all my bookmarks, e-mail etc. back. Having a little trouble trying to find a desktop theme that works properly, but I will NEVER ever EVER again hit any button that says "Enable 3D Effects". Never.

$159 poorer, but hey, I didn't waste the $80 I spent on Xandros.

The List of Very Bad Things

• The water line that supplies my kitchen sink has developed a bad leak. I can't call a plumber because I only get one day off a week now and today I was supposed to stay home waiting to do a phone therapy session which didn't happen because PayPal didn't clear the payment in time.
• Six day schedule at work.
• My new therapist apparently works better over the phone rather than e-mail, but I wonder if that's not a function of the cost involved -- a 1 hr. session is approx. twice an e-mail session. Which I'm paying out of my own pocket.
• Pursuant to that, we can't schedule it for next Monday because it's Memorial Day. Other times cannot be done due to scheduling conlicts, i.e., work, and incompatible time zones.
• Have you ever washed dishes in your bathtub? You should. Your back will never recover.
• I wonder if the whole new car thing is really worth it or would I be better off using the $5k for other things. Like fixing the house.
• My 'net computer Newton has a faulty CD/DVD drive and is currently in the shop to get it replaced, which will cost around $150-200.
• The other night while playing with Xandros on Newton, I happened to hit "Enable 3d effects." After watching Newton barf spectacularly I tried to reboot to disable it, and thus began a nightmare of trying to restore the system with a faulty CD/DVD drive, see above. I finally got it to make it all the way to the desktop this morning -- only to find all my e-mails, URLS, etc., wiped. So with the click of one button I destroyed my OS.
• Oh, did I mention that I probably lost the $85 I paid to do the phone therapy session because I rescheduled less than 24 hrs. from the session? I may be an overpaid postal worker but I'm not made of money. So all told I've already spent about $120 to be told I'm obsessive about writing. I can almost hear Shatner saying "Get a life."

Okay, so now maybe I can go to bed early for a change.

Well, my cousin Dave is now safely married.

I went to the wedding despite being sick, but I've been mainlining zinc gluconate lozenges and sinus tablets and even went to the doctor Friday morning for preemptive antibiotics to prevent it from becoming either strep throat or a sinus infection. So far it's still just a cold but it's annoying as hell -- I haven't been able to sleep more than five or six hours a night because I wake up in the middle of the night with a sore throat that won't quit no matter what I do. Last night I was standing naked in my kitchen at 4 AM, microwaving half a cup of water with salt in it for gargling. That seemed to help, since I was able to get a couple more hours sleep afterward. Otherwise with the 24 hr. Sudafed I'm getting the attacks of the crackhead itchies every two or three hours from the pseudoephedrine. That should be fun tomorrow at work.

Did a podcast on POD the other day, the longest podcast I've ever done at about 1 hr 20 mins. In addition to the week's chapter of MO.

Other than all that, I've just been sick and trying to get better these last few days. Oy.