Islay Girl

I'm back!

At least a little bit. last week was the Week of Horrible Meetings and then the beginning of this week was the Dread of My Five Minutes Before the Board of Directors, but it's all over now and, man, am I tired.

I am also at home wearing shorts and a tank top after gratefully shedding my Board Wear, which consisted of (label whores take note): a pair of four-inch Kate Spade khaki patent-leather heels(pre-Liz Claiborne buyout. Keep UP, people), a Max Mara silk and linen embroidered skirt and a navy/black Richard Rodriguez cotton and linen jacket with a sweetheart neck and belt at the waist.

Conservatively $1,200 worth of clothes, but since I got them at The Chance (or at that awesome MaxMara end of season sale), I paid $150 for the whole thing. Ha! Ha! I will speak gibberish in front of the board, but I WILL OUTSHOP YOU ALL.

Anyway. It's over now and I couldn't get anything done at work because it was feeling like the last flight from Saigon in the office today, so i am now enjoying the delights of working with my laptop actually on my lap while surrounded by scottie dogs. One of whom seems to have flatulence issues, but his digestive problems are nothing compared to one of my co-worker's.

(Eww. Sorry.)

I had something to say.

But it's in Drafts right now, and every ounce of creativity has been subsumed by the work stuff of last week, so here we are.

I was reading this in the Times today, and wondering if there's a dating site for overeducated women stuck in the back of beyond.

The thing is, by average middle-class standards, I'm ~not~ overeducated. I would venture that in most places I'd like to be, people like me are a dime a dozen. But here? Here in the great state of Arizona, where the Legislature actually argues in support of the rights of teachers to carry weapons in public schools? Here where we pay our teachers almost as little as Mississippi? ~Here~ there is no one for me.

I've talked about this before, that the only men to date are lawyers and engineers, and the lawyers just want to argue me out of whatever I want to order, and the engineers want me to be so impressed that they're engineers that they get out of taking a shower in preparation for the date. (Uh, no. My dad is an engineer. Get over yourself.)

I think I'm realizing how unsatisfying work can be (as I said to one of my friends in the office the other day, "What's that sound? Oh, it's my soul being sucked out of my body"). And summer's coming, which is always daunting.

And today would have been my ninth wedding anniversary. Not that i still want to be with the HH, but you know.

OK. Pity party over. Back to our regularly scheduled programming of snark.

*whew*

Meetings over.

Notebook full.

Brain mush.

Cosmopolitan in hand. Ahhhhhhh.

i'll be back!

Sorry, dear readers reader, this has been a crazy work week.

Despite the delightful absence of Bad Boss, who is on vacation, I am deep in the mire of Meetings Over Which I Feel Compelled To Agonize, and it's taking up every scrap of my mental energy.

These are meetings which required (I shit you not) multiple pre-meetings, and (really!) a couple of pre-pre-meeting meetings. And I'm trying not to be anxious because I totally mostly know what I'm doing, but being me, I stress.

So anyway. I have a couple posts brewing, I'll be back this weekend.

Like a snow day.

All day long I've been NOT thinking about work. I'd think about what's coming up this week, then immediately push it out of my head. And I've been successful, kind of. It's like the difference between dieting and struggling all day not to eat junk and a day when you just eat healthily without worrying about it.

Part of why I'm thinking about work is that this week I have approximately 400 meetings, all of which i have to lead or participate in or definitely pay attention. So, tonight after the Wee One fell asleep I checked my work calendar to see which meeting I would have to be awake for tomorrow morning, and LO AND BEHOLD, tomorrow is clear. Clear, I tell you!

It's like finding out you're not overdrawn when by all rights you should be, or a snow day when you're supposed to have a midterm. Whoo-hoo!!!

Hello, dolly.

I've been sitting on the sofa with my jaw dropped for the past 30 minutes. I've been watching this.

More than creepy, really.

Mechanical difficulties

I'm having friends over today, which means cleaning. I don't clean much. I grew up with my mother's belief that there are ~always~ better things to do than clean.

I in no way mean to imply that she takes it to the lengths I do (for the record, her house is very clean. She has an issue with keeping her blinds from falling down with the weight of the dust on them, but when your house is essentially encased in plantation shutters, that can happen).

So, I'm cleaning. In my infinite wisdom, I tried to do a little bit every day this week, because so much needed to be done. Monday, kitchen floor. Tuesday, Wee One's bath. Wednesday, general clutter. (translation: sit on sofa and eat chips directly out of the bag while playing Scrabulous). Thursday, my bathroom. Friday, general clutter (for real this time). Today was the yard and vacuuming. Easy.

So, I'm vacuuming. The Wee One comes up and tugs on my shirt and points to the hallway to my bedroom where Archie the Helter-Skelter Scottie has marked. All the way down the hallway. I ~knew~ one of them would do this today. So. After resisting the urge to send this rescue dog right back to the streets from whence he came, I lug out the trusty carpet cleaner steamer thing, with its complicated system of clean water receptacle and cleaner applicator, and clean away. Only to discover that while it's applying cleaner all right, the equally complicated system of Sucking The Water Out of My Carpet is NOT working.

Argh.

But OK, onward. Application of Absorbent Materials (translation: dance around on beach towels laid over carpet).

I go back to vacuuming, only to smell Odd Burning Odor. Sigh. Stop vacuum, discover something is wrong with Suction Head. Spend 30 minutes cleaning detritus out of it, plug it back in. Still not working.

It's a sign, really, that I just shouldn't clean. Although I have been coveting the Dyson purple for pets.

Good day.

You know, all the whining I do ... well, today, no whining.

I had a really, really nice day. Today was a Corporate Work Thing and while I'm not a big fan of the Corporate ANYthing, today was a lot of recognition for a lot of hard work, and it was so nice. I know nice is such a bland, overused word, but it was. I was flattered and pleased and vaguely embarrassed and just a wee bit proud of myself.

I won the award I knew about, and then my department won another award (which I didn't know about in advance) and it was a love fest. And did I mention that both of these came with substantial cash awards? I know I'll go back to feeling stressed out and worried and overwhelmed later, but today, today was nice.

Freefall

I think freefall is probably overstating it. I'm just trying to go along with everything, and not worry too much, but just BE.

One of my blogging friends likens this effort to being a plant in the ocean (pardon me if I'm getting this wrong, Meowsie -- you say it better). You're rooted, but you float and bend with the current.

Things have been happening so quickly, and no one of them is really that exciting, but all together it's like i don't know where I'm at.

1. Get raise. (good!)

2. Discover no development made in new position. (argh!)

3. Find out bonus numbers. Had forgotten size of bonus. Relieved. (good!)

4. Discover I'm being pushed out of my old position. New position still not ready. Know (believe) move is step toward new official position, but it's disconcerting. (*whimper*)

5. Find out I'm getting a corporate award for work done last year. Please note this work was not part of my (former) job description. (*blush* but, good!)

Perhaps this is a lesson in reminding me I have no control, and that planning is a good way to make God laugh.

HAD it.

The HH is driving me mad with his ... his ... HHness.

E-mail sent tonight to him, with identifying info removed:

I'm not exactly sure why you won't attend school events.

It's one thing when you're working and obviously unable to attend, but occasions like THIS ONE and the THIS ONE were really tough on her because you didn't show, especially when she had the example of people flying in from all over to see the kids, and you didn't want to drive 2 miles.

If you're uncomfortable being around me, that's fine, but as I said, it's not like we would need to sit together. But since you can manage to be next to me for 30 minutes during THIS WEEKLY THING WE BOTH GO TO it seems you could suck it up for things that really matter to her.

What's funny about all this is that we didn't have trouble attending things together before this. He has never gone to school things, and I think he uses La Divorce as an excuse. As with so many other things with him. Excuses.

And honestly, I'm just pissed off about a lot of other things unrelated to the HH and he's just so convenient. The HH had a reputation, during his early career, for taking out on cab drivers any buried anger he was carrying around. He traveled a lot for one job, so there were lots of anonymous cabbies. And, you will be unsurprised to learn, that he had more than enough anger for each one of them. And I was amazingly restrained during our marriage, so a little random anger at this point, in the name of benefiting the Wee One?

Yeah, excuses. I don't care. I'll feel bad about it some other time.