Category: Personal Journal

May 17, 2013

The 5:30 Blues

First, look at how adorable this is:

They fell asleep like this with the light on.

The dog is actually awake in that picture, but they were both totally asleep before I tried to document the adorbs.

Anyway, this is going up on Friday, which will be the end of the very first week of my freelancing life, and there are some things I have discovered about myself. I miss my co-workers so much more than I thought I would, and will probably start either having the radio on more, or going to acceptable public places like Starbucks and the library to work, because I start to feel kind of lonely. Also, every day around 5:30, which is when I decided my work day would end, but that has really not been the case so far (hello from 11:30 p.m.), I get pretty down in the dumps and need to be reminded of the good things I’m accomplishing and not just all the stuff I didn’t get to.

I have this very false expectation that I’m supposed to be elated all the time now, and it’s not good for my health because when I start to feel disappointed at the disparity between my reality and my goals, I get upset about my lack of joy on top of already being disappointed by my lack of accomplishment. It’s like a suck lasagna in my head.

Anyway, first week down, every week for the rest of my life to go. One way or another.

May 16, 2013

What About Day Three?

On his album Final Engagement, Marc Maron has a joke about “day three.” And you’ll have to go find it yourself because I could not produce that piece of audio/video to save my miserable life right now. The man seems like such a mess all the time, but he’s got his copyright shit on point. Anyway, the gist of the joke is basically how every hair-brained scheme eventually has a day three, which is where the inevitable press of reality finally catches up with declining adrenaline and you realize you’re stick on Mount Rainier, dressed in a bearskin rug, holding a pairing knife and half a week before you had nothing but the very best intentions for yourself.

I feel a little bit like that, except that the bearskin is really warm and it turns out I’m pretty handy with a tiny little knife. Like, I’m totally freaking out over here, but kind of still think I’m going to land on my feet, although I wasn’t feeling that for all of today. I called a couple of my friends, and my old roommate reminded me of the time I decided to live in my car because I didn’t want to quit school and I wasn’t in a position to pay for college and rent at the same time. I had done test runs, moved all my stuff into the car, made a really amazingly comfortable bed, checked the local laws, and had safe overnight parking before I even spent one night in it. Turns out Ben took pity on me and let me fuck him and sleep in his bed until we officially moved in together, so I only actually slept in my car on three separate occasions. I tend to think of myself as an up by the boot-straps lady, and that’s partially true. But I’m also very well cared for when the shit really hits the fan because honestly, it rarely does. I am a super-prepared person and I will work my ass off by default.

So, basically, I’m too tired to write any sort of real post because I am freaking out about the possibility and the reality of being able to be my own boss. It’s nice to know where the buck stops, I just didn’t realize how stressful it would be for it to stop here.

May 14, 2013

Day 1: Success

So this morning I was having an absolute heart attack because I drew up our new budget and realized that in order to keep the lights on and the rent paid, I’d have to bring in at least $300 a week from freelancing. That probably doesn’t seem like much to someone who’s already a freelancer, but since I probably only made that much in the last 7 months, it’s a pretty terrifying concept. Especially since that was the absolute bare bones: no health insurance, no extra money or entertainment budget except our weekly grocery allowance plus $20 each. The only luxury we’ve kept is $15 for streaming Hulu and Netflix because we would go completely insane without them.

When I broke it down to a per day rate ($60) it didn’t seem so bad, although I already felt terrible because there was no way that I would be able to make that goal on the first day. And then I did. On day one, I made one day’s portion of the money I need to keep the electricity on. Isn’t that all anybody wants? That and scheduling a planning meeting that happens in a camp chair on the veranda (read apartment walk-way) in the cool ocean breeze. Because that also happened. I know, my life is a ball of contradictions.

I credit how very serious I actually am taking this whole thing. I put on make-up this morning. Lipstick even.

I look sweaty because I was sweaty. It was kind of a hot day and we have no AC and only two shitty fans.

I used to be annoyed at how red lips highlighted my Mexican lady-stache, but I I like it now. It’s very Frida Kahlo.

OMG, twinzies.

Out of respect to past work-a-day me. I did refuse to wear a real bra. Due to my considerable natural talents, I had to wear a sports bra or it would have gotten uncomfortable, but I did go the whole day without under-wires, which has always been a dream of mine. Well, not like I didn’t live that dream for the entire last semester of my senior year at college, but I don’t like to think about that part of my life. I was a very dark, unflattering-boob shapey time.

Anyway, Ben and I finished the fourth season of Parks and Recreation and I miss it already. No joke, I’m really considering starting over at the beginning of the second season and watching it all again. Whoever told us to skip the first season is an angel because that show is so amazingly good with the glaring exception of the first season.

Oh. My. Jesus, I just learned that Hulu has season five: full episodes starting at one. Leslie Knope is my spirit animal. No spoilers, but that part in the last episode of season four where she starts laughing at the least appropriate time, and Ben is all “Why are you laughing?” and she answers “Because my dream is dead.” I HAVE DONE THAT. THAT’S A THING I DO.

Okay, so I maybe am not as high-strung as her, I certainly am not as positive or as knowledgeable, but I swear Leslie Knope and I have the same personality type or something.

I couldn’t find the appropriate gif, so here’s this one. Just as good.

Oh, and Ben’s already asleep, so I’ll make this quick, but we just stared watching House of Cards and I want to say two things:

1. I love it. I’m usually not one for intrigue (too few explosions), but I enjoy it a lot.

2. This is one of the few dramatic shows I’ve seen where the cast actually look like distinctly separate people. In other shows there’s usually 23 blond ones, and a scattering of brunettes who all look exactly the same. And you can’t tell any of them apart except for the black guy who’s only safe until there’s another black guy in the room and then all bets are off because they’re both 6’2″ with mocha skin, hazel eyes and tasteful fades as if there’s not other shapes or shades of ethnic people in the world. All of the actors on House of Cards catch my eye. I want to look at them because they have interesting and different features. They look like humans instead of dolls. In other words, I approve.

May 13, 2013

New Job

I know, it was really fast, but I’ve already found my new job and I start today. It’s Puzzle and Dragons.

All joking aside, if you’re not playing this game right now, you’re not living any kind of life. If Pokemon and Bejeweled had a baby, it would be this game’s fat friend. Nothing else matters.

Puzzle and Dragons forever.

Back in reality, I still have no actual means of income. So that’s nice. But my last day of the old job was only just on Friday. I mean, I have a good hustle, but very few people are actually that good. Especially coming off five years in captivity. I got fat, okay*.

Anyway, I’m taking this shit seriously and making income generation my new full time job. However that happens. I’m not in a position to ask a lot of questions, if you catch my drift. So if you happen to need a favor, let’s just say I’m really good at multi-tasking.

I’ll keep it off the blog, but only for a price.

Honestly, though, I kind of feel like I’m playing house over here. But the stakes are so much higher. I mean, I’m taking it seriously too. I even set up an all staff meeting first thing Monday. I’d invite the dog and the cat, but their email skills are abysmal. Also, they lack the entrepreneurial spirit.

I’m really trying hard not to look like a desperate wreck, and I promise you, I am way more competent than my jokes would suggest, but everything’s kind of terrifying and I’m more than a little concerned that this is the time-frame people will point to when other future people ask them what went wrong with me.

*Actually, technically, I lost weight at that job, but let’s not split hairs.

May 10, 2013

Two Corns Passing in the Night

If you weren’t aware, (how could you not be) the amazing and wonderful Hyperbole and a Half has come back to us with two consecutive posts on two consecutive days and you need to go read yesterday’s (today for me) post right now, because if you don’t what I’m about to say won’t make much sense, also spoilers.

I have had that corn moment. It’s like the random symmetry of the universe brings together a woman and a piece of corn at the exact same place in their respective human/grain lives and all of a sudden you find yourself staring directly into the soul of an inanimate object which you are somehow more able to relate to than any human being you’ve ever known. And the resulting biofeedback loop is fucking hilarious. Because aren’t we all just piles of matter decaying under the fridge of our collective fate? I can’t remember what my piece of corn was, but it was amazing and no one got it. Actually I think it may have been a bug. Maybe a dead bug. Maybe I’m making this up.

Anyway, I had to go to work today, and I have to go back tomorrow. As I told my co-worker, this is strangely like that time in 6th grade when I accidentally got an incredibly attractive and fashionable haircut. Suddenly I am visible to the rest of the inmates, and I’m not sure I don’t prefer my previous anonymity. I was all excited to start this new life where ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN OMG and then I just went through an entire day of people stopping at my desk to look sad at me, and people stopping in the halls to look sad at me. I mean, I’m sad too, I will miss all those people and I agree that we did some really great work together, work I’ll be proud of maybe for the rest of my life. But it’s just bringing me down.

And when I tell people I’m trying to see if I can support myself freelancing, nobody seems really interested in the idea. They think it’s an unwise move, or that I’m adorable.

Granted, I am really precious. But this is serious. I’ve had to hustle work for myself for basically my entire life. When I got this job, I thought I was going to be able to relax and let somebody else find the work. My long struggle was over, I was now on the company dime.

But the truth is that I couldn’t turn it off. I just pushed and pushed for projects and work, and did all this extra stuff for no extra money until I was half crazy. I mean, I learned a lot and accomplished a lot and I’d never take it back. But then, despite all my hard work, I got brushed off into a corner to correct grammar mistakes for a year while I tried in vain to convince myself that my contribution still mattered. Or alternately, that my contribution mattering or not mattering was just a function of my ego and therefore irrelevant. Also, I planned and attempted my escape.

There was a lot of movement, but ultimately things didn’t really go my way.

And now I feel very sad and not at all motivated to work towards my dream of never again being in a position where other people get to decide what I do, when I do it, or even if I am employed or not at the end of the day.

I’m not sure which of the Kübler-Ross stages of grief I’m in. Maybe depression, although I don’t recall anger or bargaining. Yesterday was definitely denial. “I feel really blessed.” Yeah, well, eat a dick past me. Things just went from bad to worse and you’re over there in yesterday, daisy chaining with hope and faith. Fuck that.

It has occurred to me that I may be in anger now. That means depression is ahead of me?

May 9, 2013

Laid Off

I knew this was coming, I made all the plans and preparations a person in that situation can possibly make before they really know for sure. But I still cried my eyes out. My last day is on Friday, and they’re throwing me a goodbye lunch Thursday (today for you, tomorrow for me.) It’s the best possible version of getting laid off that I could have hoped for. The last few months especially have been very obvious to me that I was superfluous. There’s no other way to say it and it’s no one’s fault, it’s just how the cards fell.

So many people have reached out to me on social media and in meatspace and I feel really blessed. There’s no other word for it. It really made my day.

And get this, I already have my first client.

As usual, I am exhausted, but I have a feeling I’ll be sleeping a real sleep tonight, and that’s something I haven’t had in awhile.

UPDATE: I must have been in some kind of exhaustive delirium when I wrote all that mess up there. It’s currently 2:30 a.m. and I am freaked the fuck out. Yeah, I did actually fall asleep when I got in bed but I’m awake as hell now and I can’t seem to do anything but blink. I have no job, you guys. What the actual fuck? I need to calm down.

May 8, 2013

Headaches from All Directions

I’ve had a killer headache since lunch. So I’ll be quick.

You might be wondering if I’ve gotten laid off. I’m wondering too. Still no word amongst mounting tensions.

The night before last I accidentally stabbed myself in the palm with a fork so hard that I started bleeding. Then I checked my phone, saw that one of my very favorite coworkers got her notice, went to dramatically sink to the couch but hit my head instead and spent the next ten minutes ugly crying while Ben petted me and Pepper licked my hand.

I’m really, extraordinarily high strung. My contingency plans have contingency plans. I’m so tired and I’m a complete mess. Something’s to give.

May 7, 2013

To the Man I Shushed

Dear Sir,

You were sweeping up paper bits in front of the elevators at approximately 9:40 Monday morning at 2001 Wilshire in Santa Monica when I came blustering out into the lobby, talking loudly on my phone about how to get to my doctor’s office, which seemed to have disappeared. The completely different facade, parking, elevators and hallways should have been a clue that I was in the wrong building, which you so politely pointed out. In fact, you even knew what building I should have been in. Apparently this happens a lot.

I’m sorry I shushed you, that was rude. Please know that I’m not normally like that, it’s just that driving in Santa Monica really freaks me out, I’m afraid I may get laid off this week, and they told me not to eat after midnight so I can get my blood tested. They said I could have coffee, but only if it was black, and what on earth would be the point of that? Why don’t I just punch myself in the stomach with a molten lava hulk fist?

Anyway, I wanted to say that you were right, the receptionist at my doctor’s office was just as confused as I was, and it was really cunty of me to keep making the “I’m on the phone” sign and shushing you when you were a) just trying to help and b) the only person who actually knew what was going on. I have been on the other side of that kind of bullshit and all I can say is I understand how awful that was.

Hopefully some day I will have need of the services of the insurance broker whose building I was in, and we can meet again on better terms wherein you can discover that I am actually really delightful most of the time.

In unity,

Marina

May 3, 2013

Lists of Plans

Remember that bit of icon work I showed you guys on Wednesday? Well, here’s what it turned into:

I’m bothered by the hair and the lack of eyebrow, although lack of eyebrow is really an illusion caused by the hair. So I guess I’m only bothered by the hair. I would have given it more time, but I had an urgent need to get that done today because I feel very strongly that I may not have a job at end of day today. Technically the word is supposed to come down on Monday, but I’m taking a personal day to go for my annual check-up on Monday, so they may just do it now so I don’t have to drive all the way back on Tuesday.

Either way I might come by Monday anyway just to see who’s in the bar on the ground floor.

I called our Employee Assistance Program (kindly provided to help with this transition) and the nice lady on the other end of the line told me I should make a list of things I’ll finally have time to do if I get laid off.

Clean the living room.
Sit next to the beach.
Avoid traffic.
Deal with the fact that my grandmother’s getting older and will probably need a higher level of care in this, the last stage of her life (fun!)
Watch all the last seasons of the Netflix shows I have abandoned.
Drum up freelance work. Or any work, really.
Be extremely careful with my health as I will no longer have insurance.
Consider selling everything we own, shipping the things we really can’t part with, and moving up to the Oregon Coast where life will surely be better, or at least no worse than it is here in L.A.
Where I will contract Seasonal Affective Disorder and sink into a depression.
Or maybe I can take advantage of the (much) lower cost of living to finally make my money how I’ve always wanted to: as an independent contractor.
And once I make enough money, I can get some other people in on this thing and have a business.
Where I’ll be wildly successful, and start my own empire from the Oregon coast.
And Ben and I can raise amazing children to be conscientious citizens and not the totally spoiled and shitty brats they would have turned into down here.
Even if they might be a little bit racist from having never seen a person of color in their lives,
they’ll still vote Democrat, and that’s what matters.
Or I could turn to food,
become even more morbidly obese
and
Die alone

See? The world is full of possibilities.

Anyway, please remind me on Monday day to ask the doctor for a year’s worth of birth control and allergy meds because without those two things I will be a completely useless ball of snot and pain.

May 2, 2013

The Falsehood of Strength

This is the post I’ve been trying, and failing to write for the last few days. Due to some upcoming lay-offs at work, I’ve been even more stressed out than usual. At first I wasn’t sleeping at all, then when I did manage to sleep I had nightmares. I feel pretty stupid about it. I mean, my life has taken some really shitty turns and I’m afraid of an idiot little issue like being unemployed? It’s all a bit melodramatic, even for me.

I used to have terrible nightmares as a kid. Then when I was about 9 I realized that everything bad that would probably ever happen to me had already happened. I’d already been beaten, neglected, and my mom’s boyfriend tried to straight up murder me. What could the monsters in my dreams possibly do that my own parents hadn’t already made a reality? So I stopped having nightmares. As an adult I know how much worse it could have been, but the childish assumption that my bad luck had peeked in the third grade kept me nightmare free until college.

I managed to get though my mom’s relapse, grandma’s bypass surgery, her cancer, homelessness, and the stress of freshman orientation until I started having dreams about the security guards dragging me off campus shouting insults at me while everyone stood and stared.

I was so afraid to be found out for the imposter I really was. I had lived through the shit, but a private university in Orange County broke me in the first month. I had never been anywhere as nice as that campus. The groundskeepers pulled every single flowering plant and replaced them with new ones at a rate of once a week so that everything was constantly in bloom. The level of decadence in that place fucking terrified me.

So I had nightmares that I didn’t belong, and nightmares that I couldn’t perform, and nightmares that I would be caught and called out for trying to fit in somewhere I clearly was not meant to be. I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that the nightmares I’m having about this lay off are pretty much the same. Straight down to being dragged away by security.

For the last year there have been things about this company that I just don’t understand, and it has been a struggle to try and fit in with the new order. One more time, it feels like everybody’s speaking a language I never learned, and to a certain extent they are. The atmosphere has changed, and not in my favor. I’ve tried to go along to get along, but that’s never been a good look on me and it’s wearing me out. I used to wake up excited to do my job. That sounds stupid, but I loved it. Even when it was hard, I knew we were doing good stuff and all I wanted was to be a part of it. Now, I stick out like a sore thumb. I come home exhausted, but I feel like I haven’t made anything worthwhile so I don’t sleep. Instead I just wait in my house until it’s time to go back. All the energy I manage to scrape together in those restless hours gets poured, not into creation, but into maintenance and modification. Not of work, but of myself. It takes a lot of effort to keep my head down when all it wants to do is pop up and help.

I’m miserable. I’ve been miserable, but I just told myself that it was an adjustment period after an historic event, and we’d be back again. But we won’t and I won’t. I feel almost heartbroken. I loved this job. I had a really good time, but things have changed and I’ve been trying to get out in different ways for a couple of months. Then all of a sudden (actually not so sudden for anybody who can math), lay offs start next Monday. I’m terrified to be on the list and I’m terrified to be not on the list. Getting asked to leave, however unrelated to my personal abilities or performance, is never anybody’s idea of a good exit.

Which brings me back to my nightmares. I may know in my mind that everything will work out, I may have this experience of feeling like something is an end when really it’s necessary for growth. But here in the real world, I haven’t been unemployed since I was 14. Violence, poverty, hunger, all those things I’ve dealt with. Shit most people are afraid of doesn’t scare me. Because I’ve walked through that fire. But this normal world of employment, unemployment, performance, and evaluation is completely foreign to me. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger in the face of that which failed to kill you. That’s a skill you have to develop in multiple circumstances throughout your life before it becomes useful.