Hooplah.Org

The weather here in Phoenix is finally in an official upswing, with the forecast promising that for the next week and a ½ the temperature should climb up to 80 degrees or more. I am so ready for the warm weather to get here; I’m tired of wearing coats and worrying about how my long legs make my jeans to look like high-waters when I wear sneakers. It’s this time of year that makes me feel as though I’m on a vacation every day, as ever since 2002 Phoenix was the place that I went to get away from rural Virginia until I finally left for good in 2006. The only time I find myself missing Virginia is in the winter, since it actually gets pretty cold here despite what the over-exaggerating natives will say. I remember Matt telling me that it would be 70 degrees on Christmas, but for the two that I’ve spent here it’s been a bitter 40-50 degrees each time. When I first moved to Phoenix and mentioned that I recently moved here from Virginia, it was inevitable that I would be asked the question: “Have you been here for a summer yet?” Yes, I have actually – the dry heat is nice – but have you been to the south for a summer? Because if you haven’t, pack some flippers, cause with that much humidity you’ll get where you’re going faster if you swim through the air instead of walk on the ground.

But as much as I’m loving the weather right now, I have a feeling that in 9 days I’m going to be cursing how friggin hot it is outside. On April 26th, my boyfriend and I are going to be moving into a new house. He has already reserved a UHAUL truck and (thankfully) hired some moving help with the hopes that almost everything we own will be in the new house by the 27th – so, going by his master plan, almost everything needs to be packed and ready to move by the 25th (which is the day we should be getting the keys.)

I’m going to start doing the necessary packing on Saturday, but thankfully I don’t have that much stuff lying around the house. I had known from the beginning of our relationship that he was looking to buy a house so I had kept the majority of my things in the same boxes that I used last November to move out of my old apartment. He, on the other hand, has been living in the house we currently rent for 2 years and has shit everywhere, so I’m guessing that most of my time will be spent packing his stuff. I just hope we can be “on the ball” about it and get the majority of it done this weekend rather than scrambling on Wednesday and Thursday to get everything ready. In a perfect world I’d like to move over some of the small stuff on Friday, things like clothes and DvDs and other non-necessary items, so that we can take full advantage of the hired help and more the big shit on Saturday.

I can’t say I’m that excited about the idea of moving again. For someone who lived in the same house from 18 months until 23 years old, it’s a little surreal to think that I’ve changed my address 4 times since 2006. It makes me feel a bit like a nomad, which is the complete opposite of my nature – I am eternally opposed to change and always prefer the dependable and uneventful alternatives. I like the idea that the plan is to own this house for a few years before we try to sell it.

Although I have not officially asked “permission” to do so, the one thing I am looking forward to is the opportunity to do some decorating around the new house. Part of me feels old as fuck to be excited about that, as if hitting my mid-twenties has somehow caused me to suffer from some sort of Martha Stewart syndrome, but I’ve always wanted to live in a nicely decorated home. I tried to do some decorating in my old apartment with Matt but it was an endlessly infuriating experience; he didn’t like anything I showed him and then couldn’t give me a clear idea of what he did like. I loved going to IKEA and getting cool ideas for what to put in our apartment, but ultimately we would end up being “that” couple who was having an argument in the bowels of the store about how ugly the lamp this is, or how unnecessary those cabinets are. I’ll admit that I’m a little bit worried of having the same arguments over the things I’d like to put in the new house, but who I’m with now is different – he might just let me do what I want as long as it’s not freakishly stupid, especially if I use my own money to do it. And though do I tend to have freakishly stupid décor tastes I’m sure I can find some compromise along the way that satisfies me and allows him to bring over friends without telling them “my girlfriend picked out this lamp while she was high on crack.”

I just wrote an entirely too long spiel about what happened in the months of January, February, and March. I had a burning desire to document it but now I can’t post it in it’s current format; it contains too many details about things I shouldn’t have been specific about. So, here is the cliff notes version:

In mid January I felt I was unfairly targeted and scrutinized at work by some of my coworkers who apparently did not want me to be employed there any longer. I could waste my time trying to speculate their motives but ultimately I will never really know why it happened or what I did to provoke it. I never thought I would find myself in that position, as if being unjustly held back was something that only happened in movies where the story is supposed to make you feel empowered when the main character beats the odds, but there I was: feeling as though my resignation was being strongly encouraged because I suppose firing me would mean they’d have to pay me unemployment. I felt blindsided, betrayed, and helpless.

After my job security was initially threatened, I dealt with my frustration the best that I could, and I spent the next month trying to do everything they said they needed from me in order to “prove” that I wanted to be there. Along the way I saw an opportunity to transfer to another department for an entry-level position in database maintenance, which is a career I’m really longing to break into, so I jumped at the chance and officially applied for the job at the beginning of February. After about a week of unproductive e-mail tag I was informed that not only was my transfer request denied but that my supervisor felt that she saw no improvement in my work performance despite the effort I had made for the past month.

I was at a loss of what to do; nothing I did seemed to be good enough and I could feel the stress of the situation reaching a point where I started become concerned about my IBS. Despite how erratic the past year has been I have somehow managed to keep my health under control and the last thing I could afford was for my body to give out on me while I was thisclose to losing my job. After talking about it with my boyfriend, we came to the mutual decision that I should quit. In fact, he insisted upon me doing it; he assured he could afford to support us both while I looked for another job, and while I was uneasy putting this responsibility on him, he was ultimately right: if my current job was putting me in a hopeless position then there was no reason for me to stay. He was offering me the opportunity to find a job that I liked rather than just one I needed and it was impossible to say no.

So, on February 12th, I put in my resignation and chose February 15th to be my last day. I felt a little bit shady for not giving a full 2 weeks notice, but my parents were arriving on February 16th and I already had approved PTO for the following Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to spend with them. I wasn’t about to work while they were here or prolong my time at the company in order to fit some standard of respect that I didn’t feel my supervisor and certain coworkers deserved. Respect is a two way street and I think I did my part in returning what I had received for the past few months.

The weeks of unemployment that followed were difficult for me in a saddening familiar way. I probably picked the worst possible time to resign, as each day there seemed to be a news article about a major company in Phoenix laying off X amount of employees. I was applying to 1-5 jobs a day but I only ever received one call back, and that one call resulted in one interview for a position that I ultimately was not chosen for. I was starting to feel pretty sorry for myself, much like I did back in 2003 and 2005, and my thoughts lingered on dark subjects. It was like my father was living in my head, only it was my own voice instead, berating me constantly for worthless I was. I saw my remaining funds dwindling away and I was dreading the day I’d have to turn to my boyfriend and ask for money so I could pay my bills.

Then, on March 14th, I got an e-mail about a job from someone that managed to find my resume on monster.com. I looked up the business location and it was only 5 minutes away from home without needing to get on a single freeway – something that is almost unheard of here in Phoenix. It turned out to be in a business park I had passed thousands of times before but had never given that much thought to, probably because it is only too depressing to see that many businesses just sitting there, so close to home, yet feeling as though I’d never have the opportunity to work anywhere else than an hour commute away in central Phoenix.

I guess I was wrong.

I contacted them around 10AM and had an interview scheduled for 2PM. By 3PM it was over and I was home, and by 4:30PM I was hired and starting Monday. I called my boyfriend and my parents while I jumped around the house like an friggin idiot, hardly able to contain the burst of energy I was high on. I was ecstatic to finally be employed again at what seemed like a forward-thinking company, within my salary goals, and in a great location. AND I CAN WEAR JEANS TO WORK! There are no words to describe how good it feels to know that, at least for the foreseeable future, there is no reason why polyester should be rubbing between my thighs.

My first day was March 17th and so far it’s been great. However, this is a completely new field and I feel a bit underwater on the learning curve. I’ve tried to use my mad google skills to see if there are any online resources I can tap into to help me be not such a noob, but what I’ve found and what keep hearing is that this is one of the most undocumented industries out there. Isn’t that just peachy? For what my job is I’ve managed to catch on pretty quick, but I know I would be doing better if I knew WHY I was doing something and not just the HOW. Overall there are slumps and rushes in my work load, and it is due to these slumps that I’ve found time to not only write more but also work on a new layout.

And now that I’ve actually admitted I’m using my spare time for writing, effectively jinxing myself, I wonder how long it’ll be until I post again

The progress I’ve made on my 2008 New Years resolution so far can be summed up in two words: “epic fail.” I wish that were different, but I’d be wasting my time to keep making promises about how “I’ll try harder”, and “this time I’ll really put forth an effort” – it’s been what it’s been, and most of the time, it was nothing at all. It’s hard to believe that it’s already April 1st, 4 months since I attempted to start my journaling crusade, but I’m glad to be the hell out of March and coming into the warming weather. Considering how this project has been going it’s actually pretty ironic that I choose to finally make a post on April Fool’s day I just wish I felt more like the prankster than the fool. With each day that passes I don’t know why I make something as simple as writing more elusive than it needs to be.

If I ever do want to get back to writing on a regular basis (which, IMO, would be kind of awesome), I should probably start off with being a little more honest: my intention for journaling again isn’t because I want to document my life, restore my peace of mind, indulge my hibernating creativity, or any of the other earthy excuses people have for further polluting the internet with egotistical steams of consciousness. In fact I’m not sure if I was ever in that state of mind, and if I were, it was likely brief and the odds are good that I was high as a kite in Michelle’s dorm room. Despite my true motivations, I still reaped the benefits as though it were for the sake of my creative flow; the older I get the more I appreciate having these archives to look back on that I otherwise wouldn’t have if I had only a pen and a for-my-eyes-only paper journal to do the job. I doubt my entries would have had near the detail and enthusiasm if I knew that I was the only one who would read it.

When I was 17 and 18, a large part of me felt like I was a pioneer of the internet onslaught – I was helping push the world wide envelope of internet publication, however small of a contribution it was, and somewhere along the way I got to find out who I was and figure who I wanted to be. In short, it was this period of my life that I saw myself as A Pretty Big Deal, shamelessly self absorbed, and reasonably difficult to deal with if I was ever some other emotion than “calm.” It was this period of my life that I became comfortable with not having many friends, and of those that I did have, I adapted the habit of keeping them at a distance that made whatever role they played in my life optional. I never would have admitted this at the time, and even now it’s not something I’m proud of, but my writing enabled me to become my own best friend in a very unhealthy way. It gave me a way to glorify myself and sadly it was probably the most content I have ever been with who I am. If I take a step back and really compare what was pushing me back then to what is tugging at me now, it’s essentially the same man behind the curtain it was just so much easier to pay no attention to all the ugliness when I was younger.

It was after the Summer of 2002, during the years that followed where I spent my days with only a computer to keep me company, that I misplaced whoever it was that I knew myself to be as a teenager. Well, “misplaced” is probably a poor choice of words: aborted is more fitting, as I was struggling to become a better person at the time and somehow I was able to not only gain the perspective to see what needed to be different but also the courage to change it. It’s only at moments like this that I miss that person, that girl who wore red boots every day and lived for Alanis Morrissette, and it makes me wonder if I did the right thing to her.

So, to finally get to the point: I want to continue to use this space as a tool to prove that I’m smart and more interesting and that somewhere, deep down, there a tiny bit left of that Pretty Big Deal. However, this time I’m not trying to prove this to myself I want this so that the important people in my life can see that this side of me exists. It’s something I feel I need to accomplish but I also need to find a way to do it differently; I want it to be something I can do casually, without it consuming me and changing my perspective, but it seems as though I can’t find the passion for it without the self absorbed agenda. Where once this was so easy it is now a constant source of worry and struggle; can I no longer even bullshit how interesting I am? Does it really take that much time out of my day to sit and write down what I think? Does it matter if he can read what I write as I’m typing when he’s the one I want the most to read it after it’s published?

I sit here, again and again, struggling and straining to put the simplest ideas into words. So much effort and so far there is nothing to show for it. I wonder what is wrong with me when I already know the problem(s), and I wonder why I waste my time when I already know why I do. Then I kick my own ass for the shortcomings I’ve long sense accepted and persist to keep trying even though I know the odds are good that I’ll fail. In short, I’m torturing myself and I know I’ll continue to do so until I get it right. I just don’t think that I ever will be able to again.