Enough is enough. I'm just going to get worse and harder to live with if I don't change something. I've decided to look into taking the CNA classes, which are available locally. I don't particularly want to be a CNA, but I would settle for being a phlebotomist or a lab technician or something or possibly an R.N., and you have to start somewhere. I mean, ideally I would have a steady source of income coming in and could just go to college for a few years and concentrate on schooling, but that's just not going to happen. Ideally, I could have been a doctor, but there's no sense in sitting around bemoaning what could have been once upon a time. I'll work at it from the bottom up....if I can qualify for financial aid for these classes.

Also, I think I'm going to go back and visit my family this spring or summer. I need my roots, I feel marooned out here, and although I wish I could go and live back there, that isn't likely unless I could talk my ex into moving with me, so I'm stuck where I am for another decade or two. My grandmothers aren't going to last much longer, and they pretty much raised me in my early years. I need to go and see everyone and to refill my soul.

Lastly (completely unrelated to the above two topics) I'm planning on making a vegetable garden this year. It's about time to start the tomato seedlings in pots. This Friday when I get paid, I can get potting soil, soil amendments, haul some manure after I visit the goats, etc etc. Gardening is good exercise.

Sometimes, I really do hate people. Yesterday at work, I had some legitimate gripes. And I know that noone cares, but dammit, I care, and one of these days, there is going to be a serious problem if people keep ignoring these issues. I can't get anyone to listen. Example:

Deboning chicken for chicken salad: all the bones need to be removed, ALL of them! You simply cannot trust that you'll find them when you chop the meat up! (egads) If a customer injured themselves or died due to one small piece of bone left in the food, we would get sued, and we would all probably lose our jobs. I liek where I work, I like my job, and I don't want anyone to get hurt or to die from a single chicken bone. It's well worth it to me, to take a few extra minutes to insure that ALL of the chicken bones are out of the meat BEFORE I start chopping it up. Additionally, I think that if all the employees who work on this particular task aren't willign to be ultra-careful about the bones, we shoudl discontinue offerign this product, and simply throw the baked chickens out. The few dollars saved is nothing compared to the potential loss of life, hundreds of thousands of dollars (lawsuit) and the repuation of the workplace. Either do it right, or throw the damned things away. Or, let me do them (all of them) and don't bitch at me for being careful. I have a system, and I don't take any longer than I have to. It's gotten to where I know all the bones by heart....

That's only one example. I don't want to get fired, so I'll shut up while I'm ahead. But see, this isn't just a little thing to me. When you serve people food, there's this immense and unspoken element of trust involved. You have to uphold that trust and live up to it. You can't let them down due to laziness or tiredness or monetary losses- they have got to have safe, edible, and ideally, palatable food.
::sigh:: maybe I take it too seriously.

Anyway, so they griped at me about this, and since they both had more seniority than I do, there's nothing I can do about it. But, like I said, I was hating them for it inwardly, despising their stupidity and shortsightedness. I've come conclusion that a lot of the peopel here are, to put it bluntly, stupid. The lucky ones probably top out with an I.Q. of 100. At least one of my coworkers must be more like an 80. No, I'm not exaggerating or being mean. You would just have to be here to understand it.
They can't spell, they can't do math (even on paper, simple math, like 6x3, or 64 divided by 20) and the logic skills aren't much better. The worst of it is, it isn't really their fault. They don't know that they're dumb...I'm just annoying to them. And even when I'm right, I still have to bow before their seniority, unless there is a serious breach of health codes or protocol or fairness, bad enough that I'll brave taking it to the boss (last resort), who does happen to be endowed with intelligence (the bosses aren't local).

It's only that dealing with it every day, day in and day out, makes me want to *scream* or bite someone. There has got to be a better job for me somewhere. I don't mind this job, but I don't feel like there's much I can do to progress things as they stand.

Early morning, half awake mutterings:

Soft contact lenses feel kind of slimy. I guess that they sort of have to, to be comfortable sitting on an eyeball all day long.

It really would make more sense to put the body lotion on before I get dressed, rather than reaching down into my shirt right with it right before I bolt out the door. Duh!

Colds: I think I've caught more colds this winter than the last 2 0r 5 winters put together. Fact of the matter is, I'm not even sure they're seperate colds. Maybe it's just the same damned bug morphing, receding, hanging out until I'm weak or depressed or tired or whatever before attacking me again, trying to make me lose time off work. And I really can't do that, call in sick, I mean. They don't tolerate it very well there, unless an arm or a leg falls off or something like that.

::OK, I have to get dressed for a minute, I have only about 20 minutes before leaving for work::

Maybe if I ate regular meals, I wouldn't get sick. Maybe if I ate more veggies and fruits, I wouldn't get sick. Fact is, I've been trying not to eat at all, because my weight is up past where I'd like it to be. Yeah, yeah, don't tell me about exercise. After running around in that deli all day long, picking up kids from daycare, and then cleaning the house, I don't have a lot of energy left for exercise. Maybe in the summer I can shed it by working in the garden and yard. Also, I can't run the way I used to, or bounce and jump around a whole lot, because of the hips. Be nice if they could come up with a good reason why my hips hurt in the first place. A good part of my ego was tied up with being physically fit and strong for my size, and now I feel like a feeble wimp. At least I still have my brains. I think that if I suffered brain damage, I would have to just off myself..... Deteriorating by degrees is just depressing. I don't think I want to grow old, not unless I have something worthwhile to do, or a companion or mate or at least a really good friend of some kind.

Oh. I splurged on some prismacolor penicls. Megan uses those. I wonder where she is...her blog is gone and I don't th ink she's even online anymore. I miss her. I can't find my set of watercolor pencils - can only conclude that someone stole them at work, since they were in my lockless locker. The watercolor pencils are too expensive for me to replace right now.

OK, I really have to go now.

So, there's this plumber I like. I don't know why I refer to him as "the plumber"....except that the title imposes a certain amount of distance, whereas using someone's name makes it personal and hence a bit scarier. I don't even know why I like the man; there's just something about him.

Anyway, I've been watching this guy for about a year. :-P It's a game we all play in the grocery store, pointing out guys that we like to one another, mentally sorting through the humdreds of men who walk past us on a daily basis. It's been instructive. One of the things I've learned is that I'm pretty picky. 99.9% of these guys just don't appeal to me, period. But this guy, this plumber, I remember the first time I really noticed him. It was like I'd seen him somewhere before. He looked so *familiar*. I almost stopped to talk to him right then. My mouth must have dropped open as if to speak. I stopped in my tracks and looked at him. I started to walk again, stopped, looked at him again....and went into the store. I mentally knew that I didn't know him, but there was this haunting sense that I *should* know him. It's sort of bizarre. So ever since then, I've had my eye on him, silently. I didn't say anything to the other girls. I just watched and admired.

And then, one day they were making fun of my taste in men (essentially saying I had none), so I said, "That's not true! I do like good looking men. The next one I see, I'll show you." Within minutes, this same guy walked by. I pointed him out. The deli girls took one look at this guy, and then they ran right up to him and his fellow plumbers and found out whether he was married or had a girlfriend (no) and his name. Here I'd watched him for months, and then within minutes, my cover was blown (be careful what you tell other women). Well, almost. He didn't know who in the deli likes him, and he still might not...but I think that by now he's got it all figured out.

But see, I'm so shy that I can't talk to him. I get all nervous and my hands shake and I can't even look at him. He's either shy, too, or else he doesn't like me and is hoping that one of the married chicks likes him. It's depressing. If I could just bring myself to smile or wave or talk, maybe I'd find out...maybe he's mean and I can just forget the whole thing (but actually, he doesn't seem mean...he seems like a decent person). Arrrgh! It's tormenting me. I feel absolutely ridiculous and pathetic.

**************************************************************

Anyway, I kind of hate Valentines day. All it is is a day to stand on the sidelines and observe how loved everyone else is. I'd like to think that someday, it could happen to me, that maybe it could work out someday. I'd wait til I was 90 just to spend a few years with the right person....but what if there isn't one? What if the best I can do is to have an amicable friendship with guys that I like as a person, and feeling guilty that I can't put any passion into that kind of relationship, feeling like they're being cheated and like I'm using them, and then feeling guiltier yet when I end the mess? Maybe I should just try and keep people happy, and to hell with what I want or would like. I don't even know this plumber. I don't even know his last name or if he's a drunk or a wifebeater or whatever. What am I thinking?!

Well, I've been fighting off a cold for the past two weeks, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before it caught up with me. I made the mistake of showing up for work yesterday when I knew I was pretty sick. They made me stay even though I was so sick that I could hardly function. And, it may have been the cold, but my hips still hurt. I could hardly walk yesterday. I think that the White's boots help somewhat, but not entirely. I don't know if it's the hard concrete floor there or what. So today I called in sick. I could hardly crawl out of bed this morning anyway. /pityparty

I am getting seriously disillusioned with work again. I don't think they really care all that much about whether or not we're productive, hard working, problem solving, or any of the other things that have to do with work ethic and making money for your company. No, I think that basically, what matters is that you paste a happy face on and have a good attitude. Other than that, you can show up for work or not, work hard or not, cause serious financial losses to the business...as long as you don't rock the boat or seem unhappy at all, anything else is more or less fine. And with this being the case, it seems simple enough, you'd think I'd be able to pull it off, but no. The inefficiency and certain other things that I see drive me absolutely crazy, and I'm [b]not[/b] good at putting a phony mask on. The whole hopelessness of it all makes me depressed. There has got to be a job for someone who is intelligent, honest with or without supervision, resourceful, more or less says what they think, and who is constantly seeking for ways to improve matters either in terms of efficiency or the actual product. You would think that there would be a better place for me, but honestly, all folks seem to care about is whether you're a nice butt-kisser.