[ endless dream ]

[ Saturday, June 28, 2003 ]

A few times a year, sometimes at the beginning of the summer, my parents go away on vacation and leave the house to me. They left yesterday, and my sister is spending the night at her boyfriend's, so the house is well and truly mine. I'm writing here before I go outside to spend some time on the deck. Hopefully it won't rain when I decide to step outside. It feels pretty good to be alone in this moderately-sized house, taking care of the dog, taking care of myself. I can listen to my music as loud as I want, can sing as loud as I want. It's almost like I have my own place, and the experience this time around kind of has me thinking about the time when I will have somewhere, some tiny apartment to come home to after work.

I'm working on that. Slowly, but I'm working on it.

For now, though, I'm going to enjoy the rest of this long weekend that I have to myself, and I just might do some writing. I have stories calling for my attention; I have a play that wants to get written. If I don't pay attention to these things, I might just lose my train of thought, and the ideas I'd envisioned will flitter away. Then again, I've held these ideas in might head for months, so I don't think they'll be going anywhere anytime soon. My brain is a cage for such thoughts.

I think it's time for me to finish relaxing in the sun now. I think it's time to finish doing absolutely nothing.

It's been a good day so far.

[ Maleficia 3:26 PM [+] ]
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Messing with the new interface... nothing to see here. Damnit.

[ Maleficia 1:40 AM [+] ]
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It's hot.

Rediculously so.

I've only been awake for about an hour now, and my blinds are still shut against the blazing sun outside, but the heat and the humidity have still managed to seep into my room -- my room that happens to be right above the garage; the most vulnerable spot to heat on the planet -- and it's still almost unbearable. Things can only get hotter as the day goes on, so it's a good thing the office has air conditioning. The bus ride to the office, however, will rob me of my will to live. Damn the Ottawa public transit system for not investing in air conditioning! Don't they realize people need to get to work without a giant line of sweat soaking through the backs of their shirts? I don't feel like bringing a change of clothes with me to work. Maybe a towel or something to wipe the sweat away periodically. Anyway...

"Reading and doing crossword puzzles reduces the risks of Alzheimer's."

I heard that on the radio the other day, so naturally, I've started taking more of an interest in crossword puzzles than I already had. I like the feeling of accomplishment I get when I finish one of those things, like my brain hasn't completely atrophied after all. Wagner, Sibelius, Beethoven, and Mozart are helping to keep me thinking, and this journal, in a way, is preventing my writing from collapsing into some kind of fetid oblivion of bad grammar and poor sentence structure. Trivia shows also help keep my mind active, make me think. It feels good to have my brain back.

And now, I'm going to take a cool shower before my brain begins to melt and flow through my ears.

It's hot.

[ Maleficia 12:28 PM [+] ]
...

I left most of my bad mood in the woods this afternoon when I went for the first of two walks today. I walked down the newly-paved path that leads through the forest, stopping now and again to take off my sunglasses when a faint drizzle started, since I really don't like getting my sunglasses wet. I followed the path all the way to the end, pausing long enough to watch a few cars go by before the rain really started to come down before I turned around and started back the way I'd come, seeking refuge under the canopy of trees. But only a minute after the rain had begun, when I was safe under the leaves and branches, everything was calm again, and I took my time coming home. I glanced at my pocket watch, noticing just how long I'd been walking, and I smiled, not really worrying about being late for dinner by the time I got home. I was enjoying my stroll through the woods, and a little silk worm dropped down on my shirt, so I took a moment to return it to a leaf, looking back over my shoulder at it when I carried on down the path. It was a nice, long walk, and it felt very refreshing after a week of crap. I'm not sure if I left that crap at the end of the pathway for the passing cars to run over, or if I dropped it off somewhere else, but I'm glad to be rid of most of it, and I'll be going back tomorrow to wash away what little is left.

The second walk was later in the evening at sunset, and I watched the sky alternate between shades of pink, orange, purple, and blue. The last rays of sunlight were reflected in the windows of the nearby apartment building, glimmering liquid gold in cool evening air. I think that little bit of natural beauty also helped banish some of my mood, and I stood outside on my driveway by my sister's car, watching a few more minutes of lavender sky before coming inside to have a bath and do a little reading. So all in all, it's been a pretty good day.

And I'm happy.

I'm going to make tomorrow a good day, better than today was, and I'm going to take the time to make myself some decent food, take a walk, do some writing, have a long nap, a bath, read a little. It's going to be nice.

It's going to be very nice.

[ Maleficia 1:29 AM [+] ]
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I need to find a little cottage on a mountain that overlooks a body of water where I can go when I need to be alone with my thoughts. I think this idea was brought to light by an episode of Frasier I saw this afternoon where he drives up to a secluded cabin in the woods, and elements of his subconscious become manifest so he can deal with each of them. Sometimes I wish I could do that, just find someplace quiet where I can just sit and think. There are a few places I know of where I can do that, but none of them are altogether very secluded, and it often happens that someone walks past me in the middle of my thoughts, interupting them all. I need to find someplace that nobody else knows about, where I can be truly and utterly alone. I think I'll take a walk tomorrow at some point and see what I can find; there might be something along the path that runs through the woods.

There are things I don't want to have to think about anymore. I don't want to worry about money, and whether or not I'm working the next day. I don't want to have to think about how I might emerge as the biggest failure in the Big Scary Place called the real world, because I never finished college, because I don't have that piece of paper that says I'm good at something and spent four years becoming good at it. I don't want to think about not being able to find an employer who could give me a job offer so I can gain a work visa, or about not being able to land a work visa altogether because of, once again, not having any kind of degree telling me how good I am. I can't even consider going back to school to get that degree, because I don't have the money to pay for it, and I like the freedom that working allows me. I like what I've become, even if my parents might not. And that's something else I don't want to have to think about anymore: trying to live up to their impossible standards. Nothing I do will ever please them, as far as I'm able to tell. I can't talk to either of them without them criticizing my decisions, my job, my plays, how I spend my money, or any number of other things they apparently don't approve of. So eventually, I just try to not to let their older-generation way of thinking affect me that much, but things they say can still sting. Very badly.

This has been a bad week. My horoscope said Thursday would be the last of it, so why is it still sucking now?

Maybe it's just the weariness and the downtime that sometimes comes with this hour, or maybe I really do have a defeatist attitude. Something else for me to think about.

[ Maleficia 1:37 AM [+] ]
...

"Wow, you must have it pretty easy at your job!"

No, I really don't have it all that easy. I have to deal with difficult employees who can't take criticism very well and threaten to quit when I inform them of what they need to improve, and if that doesn't improve, we'll have to take the appropriate next step, which will unfortunately be their dismissal. I have to deal with people who dodge the issue at hand and refuse to sign a formal reprimand because they can't grasp the concept of the policies every employee needs to adhere to in order to remain employed by our company. I have to talk to people who don't understand that I'm not responsible to handing out raises, and that an increase in pay is governed by what's covered in the employee policy handbook that's given to them on their first day of training. And each section of that handbook is covered in excruciating detail during the first hour of the training session. In short, I have to put up with people who just don't get it.

"All you do is sit there and listen to people."

I'm one of a few people responsible for quality control, and if something doesn't follow our guidelines, I have to take the necessary steps to ensure that the problem does not persist. We have to follow the instructions given to us by our clients, and if it was one of them listening to the phone call and not me, someone who doesn't follow those instructions would get fired, and I would get shit. I don't think people comprehend the level of crap I deal with on a daily basis. I earn the money I make, and I don't coast through the evening like some people think I do.

Yes, I can listen to music in my office and edit my blog; yes I can take a paid break when I feel like it. I have guaranteed hours and paid stat holidays, but I damn well deserve what I'm given. I'm a supervisor, and I earned my promotion through years of dedication to a job I didn't really like in the first place. I came in every goddamn night whether I wanted to or not, and I was finally promoted in January.

I earned this.

[ Maleficia 7:45 PM [+] ]
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I lay awake in bed last night, listening to the wind raging outside my bedroom window, waiting for the thunderstorm that never came between the time I curled up under my blankets and the moment I fell asleep. The wind was vicious, making that whisling noise when it managed to invade the small crack in the window I'd left open, moaning under the small space between the floor and the bedroom door. Had I left the window open fully, the wind would have ripped the different fabrics from my walls, leaving them as bare and boring as they were until I few months ago when the room was redecorated.

But all is well now; I closed the window before I left home this afternoon.

I once again slept in this morning, probably due to my inability to actually fall asleep at a decent hour last night. So my day officially started once I got out of the shower around 12:30, and in my laziness, I opted for a simple lunch of a can of pasta.I didn't feel like making something more complicated, so that was perfectly fine. I may take the time to make an egg salad sandwich tomorrow afternoon, though; the new recipe I've discovered is just to good to pass up. Or I could warm up some of the leftover jambalaya I made over the weekend, which would be equally as good.

It finally rained when I was on the bus coming to work, though it didn't last very long, only a few moments of pattering droplets against the glass I leaned my head on, trying to nap. I didn't nap much at all, as the driver seemed to be in quite the hurry to get where he was going, jostling the bus and slamming the breaks. I chose to remain awake, watching the scenery pass until I finally arrived downtown about ten minutes later than I would have liked.

So now I'm at work, and I just finished eating a ham and swiss sandwich that one of the other supervisors was nice enough to pick up for me. Dad made some chicken soup, and that will be waiting for me when I get home tonight. It seems like we'll be here later than I'd anticipated yesterday, which is good for my paycheck, but also means I have to spend more time at the office than I'd really like to. I should just look at it in terms of the money I'll be making, rather that how late I'll be getting home after the shift. That part sucks for a few reasons, but I'll live.

At least it's money.

I'll be happy about that in August.

[ Maleficia 6:32 PM [+] ]
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I slept in again today, a habit I really should try to break. I feel like I end up missing a good deal of the day by staying in bed until noon, or whenever it is I decide to get up, though I haven't been sleeping in as much as I used to. I'd wake up close to 1:00 in the afternoon, but I've cut that down to somewhere around 10:30 or 11:00 lately. I'd still like to be able to wake up at a reasonable hour and get more of the day to myself. Then again, the weekends are supposed to be about having time off and relaxing, so I'll keep the sleeping in for then. Of course, it would be nice to get up early and have more weekend time, too. Decisions, decisions.

Either way, I go back to work tomorrow, and we'll actually have a project to work on, which means I'll have something to do. Not that I'm complaining about the laid-back shifts I had last week, but it would be nice to have something else to do besides data entry. It's our bi-weekly project, and since we've been working on that thing since the beginning of the year, I already know our shifts will be short. Well, shorter than they would usually be if we were running a full shift, so it isn't all that bad; only about an hour less than we'd normally do. I need the money!

Money will buy me bleach and hair dye.

And a new teeshirt.

And possibly a Sandman trade paperback.

But most importantly, money will buy me a plane ticket for August, and a handful of birthday presents to give when I get there. So this is why I want to put in as many hours as I can, save as much money as possible. But I also need to pay half my credit card bill on my next paycheck, as well as my phone bill.

I need the money.

But for now, I'm going for a walk; it's a nice, sunny day, and I feel like stepping outside.

[ Maleficia 3:53 PM [+] ]
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So. My previous online journal has been going through rough times with the system it was hosted on, which explains why I've begun experimenting here. After a long time fiddling with html, I think I've managed to come up with a something that pleases me. It may not be perfect, but it'll do nicely until I can scrounge up some money in order to resurrect my old website. I doubt that'll happen anytime in the near future, so I'll be writing here for now. I still need to find some images and whatnot that might make the layout look a little bit nicer, but for the time being, I think I'll go for a walk; I've been playing with html and css too much.

My eyes are starting to hurt.

[ Maleficia 7:30 PM [+] ]
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I've been testing this thing for about an hour and a half now. I'm tired.


[ Maleficia 6:20 PM [+] ]
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