When I was fourteen, my stepdad sold the house we'd lived in since before my brother was born and moved us across the valley--to a place that only went the way of the dodo (for our family) when he remarried, which was many many years after I left. I loved the old house, it was two floors plus an unfinished basement, with a solarium from which we could watch the storms come in across the valley (until they started aggressively developing the neighborhood) and a huge back yard. If we'd stayed there, I'd have gone to high school with the man who's now my best friend. As it was, we didn't meet until after we'd both graduated.
The place we moved to wasn't a bad house--probably the nicest on our circle, though it looked like the smallest, since only the first floor was above ground; the basement was furnished, and in addition to his bedroom, that's where most of the family activity happened. The living room upstairs was a place to keep the sectional and to play host to the Christmas tree...sometimes. My room was the only one on the front of the house, and since it was ground level, I think my stepdad gave me ingenuity points that I didn't have, because there always seemed to be a lot of concern about whether I was sneaking out of the house and how. I never did.
Anyway, the walkway that lead up to the front door of this new house (which we almost never used) was surrounded on both sides by this weird ivy-like groundcover that didn't require a lot of light to grow--for the best, because there was not a lot of light the way the place was situated. It's so hard to explain in text with no pictures, but the carport was on the left, then there was a roof-to-ground fence, a small strip of this ivy ground cover, a sidewalk leading to the front door, then more of the ivy ground cover between the sidewalk and the house.
It didn't take very long after we moved in for me to realize that walking *anywhere* on the concrete, whether to the sidewalk leading to the front door, or from the basketball hoop in the driveway to the back door, was *not* a good thing to be doing after dark.
You see, after dark, the snails came out.
And it's not that the snails squicked me, because they didn't--I was one of those kids, even at fifteen and sixteen, I was picking them up and messing around with them.
No, the problem wasn't the snails themselves, but the sheer *volume* of snails that would come out at night. In the morning, the concrete was *covered* in that weird silvery goo they left behind, countless snail tracks, criss-crossing the sidewalk. It was absolutely impossible to walk to either door of the house without seeing at least two or three, sometimes more than that.
I lost count of the number of times I stepped on them. After the first couple that I stepped on barefoot, I learned not to go outside without shoes. After the next few, ones I stepped on even though I was trying hard to avoid them, I gave up and stopped trying to avoid them. Amusingly, after that, I didn't step on as many. I got so frustrated by it, though, that I wrote a poem about it for one of my English classes. My teacher was Not Amused.
They always made such a distinctive noise, though, that *pop - squelch* sound that always had me rolling my eyes. "Ew, gross. Stupid snails."
So, what brought this to mind today?
That would be the snail creeping across the asphalt in the parking lot at work...the snail that I very nearly stepped on, but somehow managed to avoid.
Probably just as well. As over-active as my imagination is, especially after something like the Lobster Incident, I'd hate to think what I'd be dreaming about tonight if I'd stepped on the thing. :)
Over the weekend, I went up for a long overdue visit with a new friend, who mentioned that all the people about whom he really wants to read never post anymore.
It goes in cycles for me--sometimes, I just don't feel like writing. I don't have anything to say, and it's happened to me before. Back in September 2002, I said the following:
I think I've figured out, in part, why I don't feel like writing anymore. The easy answer is that I've started to feel somewhat self-conscious: who cares what kind of bland shit happens in my life every day? I wake up, I go to work, I come home, I MUSH, I go to sleep. That's really about it, that's all there is to my life. I don't have kids, I don't have anything that sets me apart from any other unmarried, childless corporate drone out there, who slaves away for 8 hours a day to make a paycheck, then goes home and tries to forget about it. (And spends money.)
Several of my kick-ass friends replied to that post, and...well, they just reminded me that I have some really kick-ass friends.
The same thing happened this weekend, when I gave a similar reason about why I don't post--who wants to read about my boring life, anyway?
As before, I was humbled by the answer, and reminded that I still have kick-ass friends. And a kick-ass *new* friend, with whom I share a surprising number of interests (and by the way, since I figure you'll be reading, want to borrow the latest Dean Koontz book? I just got it back from someone else I lent it out to, and hey, Matt has a couple of my other ones), and with whom I am *certain* I will get up to a lot of mischief and fun with. I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens next.
But still, new friends aside, there's a big disconnect between my head and my fingers lately.
Part of it is the wacky work schedule and the general issues that I have with work, not to mention the fact that between stupid work schedule making me get up at 3:45am and class, I am simply exhausted and fuzz-brained.
Part of it is, strangely, MUSH related--I hate having conflicts with friends over stuff. I hate being made to feel second class and second best, even if it's accidental on their part (and believe me, accident or no, something that happened a few days ago really did make me feel like complete and utter shit--I'm still stinging over it). I hate that I feel like I have to limit my enjoyment of my character and roleplay with people that I enjoy roleplaying with because of things. (How's that for vague?)
Part of it is just feeling blah in general...but I'm sure that feeds back into the two comments above.
Sometimes, that disconnect is overwhelming, and I don't know how to deal with it. I should be happy. I *am* happy. I have a ton of reasons to be happy, and yet sometimes, it's hard to stay that way.
Disconnect.
Something.
But I'm still here. I'll even try to post more often, but it might not be anything more than a lot of music and book posts. No sports, damn the NHL and NHLPA anyway, damn them straight to hell! :)
Maybe it shouldn't be disconnect. Maybe it should be the goal, the *re*connect.
You know, I get that accounts receivable people are basically out to get their money and nothing else--I get that, I do. But gah, they're such pushy bastards.
Dell is saying that I'm past due on the payment for my laptop--which is news to me, given that my bank has already cleared the check, and the image that I can see sure looks like it's got Dell's information across the back of it.
I was going to wait until I had a hard copy of the check before I called them, but foolishly decided against that course of action today.
The AR person I spoke to told me that he couldn't transfer me to the person that I'd asked for--who had told me to ask for her when I called back. He said that there were too many people there for him to transfer me to anyone. I wonder why I'm supposed to ask for a specific monkey, then, when any poo-flinger will do.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that they have no record of receiving my payment, it's my responsibility to put a stop pay on the check (which...hello, McFly, you're not listening--I can't put a stop pay on a check that has ALREADY CLEARED), and it's also my responsibility to pay them for both the past due amount, and gee, while I'm on the phone, why don't I just go ahead and pay next month's, too--oh, and guess what, there's a $10 service charge for paying via phone. No, you can't pay online, you can only send in payment via the mail.
Because, yeah, that's been oh so effective.
When all was said and done, I still had to pay the amount they say is past due, I'll have to pay the $10 service charge for giving him my bank's routing number and my account number over the phone, and gah, I am pissed off. His pissy attitude sparked mine, so I was a real bitch about the whole thing, but after explaining that I'd already paid the damn bill and they'd cashed my fucking check really annoyed me.
I think I may use some of the money that's left from my bonus to pay the damn thing off so I don't have to deal with this stupid shit anymore.
And I'll never finance anything through Dell again. Which caused the AR guy a fit ("Ma'am, this is just a misunderstanding, this is not our fault..." Actually, buddy, this IS your fault, thanks, now piss off), but screw it. This is the second time something stupid like this has happened with them. Not dealing with it anymore, do not need these ass-hatted monkey chickens destroying what positive work I've managed to do with my credit record.
Incompetent, poo-flinging, spastic monkeys, I swear to god.
- So tired. Trip was good, but I am glad to be home, and I am still really tired.
- Not going to have a good day today. One chronically ill co-worker called in sick, another's already scheduled the day off, two are on maternity leave... yeah. Not fun.
- Looking forward to real vacation in May. Woo, honeymoon.
- Probably moving around that time, too. The place is not running at a full occupancy rate, but they still want to raise our rent. We can rent a townhouse or even a real house for cheaper than that.
- Clients who call every hour on the hour for a status update drive me nuts.
- I love my XM radio.
- I am really pissed at the NHL/NHLPA. Have started writing entries several times about just *how* pissed, but realized that there's no point because they wouldn't listen to me anyway--I'm just a fan.
Who, you know, PAYS THEIR SALARY.
- I have too many ideas and not enough energy to put them all into practice.
- Got an A on the test I thought I'd completely bombed. Now looking forward to bombing my next test. Sad that I can only get a B in the class, because I was gone last week.
- I am hoping the soreness in my shoulder will go away. Do not want to have to deal with rotator cuff problems.
- The federal government is greedy. Also, the penalty for early withdrawl of 401k sucks.
- I got two packages from Donors Choose while I was gone. One of them, a kindergarten class, made a book for me to say thanks for funding the teacher's proposal for a water table. The kids had to finish the sentence 'a water table is ______.' One of them informed me that a water table is wet, and another relayed that a water table is a table.
I would die from cuteness, if I could.
- It should be time for sleeping now. I'd really like that. A lot.