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  1. I miss you Bertha!

    June 2, 2009 by shishnit

    I said long ago that when the ride was over I would cry.  I had no earthly idea how hard it was going to be.  My workpal Chad was fired (let go…due to not meeting standards that are impossible to meet for anyone…honestly not because he deserved it) and that was over a month ago. I haven’t yet had the fucking heart to even blog about it.  It didn’t hit me for a few weeks either.  And now it’s been nearly a month and I feel as though I am mourning someone’s death.  I go to work and I miss him.  A lot!!  I really miss him more than seems normal but it’s as if I’m working a job that’s no longer the same because his presence is gone.  I do keep in touch with him and I have talked to him at least twice a week since he left, but this was someone I talked to every dang day before…for up to 9 hours a day!!!  I miss him because not too many people get my sense of humour and he actually perpetuates it and brings out the best in my funny bone.  I miss that. I miss someone to laugh so hard with that my side hurts and I fear peeing my pants. 

    I miss him so freaking much it’s making me insane.  He once said he would miss BS’in with me when the ride was over…..  I knew then it would be hard when it came to some natural end…but damn I had no idea how much it would hurt.

    I’ve worked with dozens of people in my adult life…and rarely do you have so much fun with another human being.  He and I laughed so much we were humour partners in crime. I am walking in graduation on Saturday and Chad won’t be there.  He feels odd coming to an event so utterly surrounded by what are for him ..former co-workers.  I understand it and don’t expect him to arrive but I really always envisioned my graduation with a few dozen whoopie cushions going off when they said my name…whoopie cushions courtesty of Chad’s doing.  That won’t happen now…and I am more than sad about it.

    Chad was there the entire time I worked through my undergrad and made jokes to keep me motivated and going every time I complained or said I wanted to quit.  He was there from week 1 at my job.  And now he’s not at work and he won’t be at my graduation.  I asked him to send a big gift to make up for his absence and he laughed and said “Yah right Chef, I’m unemployed…Daddy can’t send no big gift!”  I got a birthday card from my co-workers and Chad’s name wasn’t on it….it seriously made me go in the bathroom and cry.

    My friend Chad…at some work event a few years ago….

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    Tonight I sent him this email.  It’s rare for me to tell someone how I really feel….but I had to.

    ……

    Its like being in your favorite bar without any drinking buddies in sight.

    Like having a brand new pack of condoms and nobody to fuck.

    It’s like finding a chocolate cake (after two weeks of straight dieting) in your fridge but then realizing it’s got mold growing on the side of it.

    Like buying a new book and reading to page 100 only to realize at 2 a.m. when you get to the good part that page 101 thru 200 are missing and 1-100 are repeated.

    It’s like buying a new car and it breaks down on your first ride home.

    It’s like feeling like you’re the only one that gets it and no one else around you does.

    It’s like going to church and having no one to laugh with at the funny pants on the old woman sitting in front of you.

    Like winning $1,000 and then losing the ticket on the way to cash it in.

    Like wearing a new pair of pants and the first time you sit down they split down the seam. (not that THAT has ever happened to me…..!!!)

      
    I am going crazy being in here without you. 

    I see things and there’s no one to laugh with.

    Feee-uck it’s hard to explain.

    It’s like being in the big house but Bertha got out before you. 

    I miss you Bertha.

    p.s. I didn’t eat the cake either!!
     

    Category career, friends | Tags: | No Comments

  2. rejection….

    May 28, 2009 by shishnit

    A few weekends ago I went to Target to waste time..check things out….and of course drop my normal $60 on something I didn’t need before I went in there.  Upon arriving I decided to get a soda and a pretzel for a quick snack, since their snack bar is uber cheap.

    *As an aside to this normally scheduled blog post.  Does anyone else remember the snack bar that used to be at Hills, K-mart or some such store. (Hill’s stores are in the North..) where they had the tall chrome snack bar stools and food was served via a lunch tray?  I remember fondly going into some such store as a child and loving that snack bar.

    After ordering my pretzel and drink I walked over to the self serve soda fountain and was filling up my cup.  Some woman that was sitting down commented to me about my hairstyle.  She said she loved it and that it was cut perfectly and the color was spot on.  I get this comment a lot. I cannot take credit for this commentary because it all goes to my hairdresser Becca.  I love Becca in a non physical way.  I have tried several times to take a photo of my hairstyle and it’s damn near impossible to do myself.  Perhaps one day I’ll ask Rick to take a picture of my hair.  Suffice it say it is not at all the reverse mullet that Kate Gosselin sports.

    So…this woman compliments the hair, she has lovely hair too, we speak for awhile while I stand up 2 feet away from her at the soda machine and then I ended up sitting next to this woman who complimented my hair.  I then somehow ended up sitting there for 2+ hours chatting and bullshitting with this woman as though I knew her all my life.  She too had the “struggle with weight issues” and we specifically spoke about this to some length.  However, she had a high self esteem like me, and we chatted cheerfully about how other people perceive us, etc.  2+ hours I talked to this woman and for the life of me now I cannot recall her name, Laverne, Lorraine…it was a pretty L name of some type.  Towards the end of our delightfully unexpected connection she asked for my email address. I gave this woman my email address and my cellphone number.

    It has been weeks and she has not called.

    I want to know how she is.  Whatever happened with that man she was interested in.  If he accepted her date proposal. I want to know how she is.  Where she is??  You know you reach a certain age…your kids are grown and have their own friends and then outside of coworkers and long existing friendships..it’s darn near impossible to meet new friends unless you join some friend finder organization (ha! Do those exist?)  I rather liked this woman, we got along and laughed a lot.  So I want to know…..what’s going on in her world now. 

    And more importantly I really want to know…

    Why didn’t she call me?  Why didn’t she email…I mean emailing is non-threatening. What’s wrong with me?  

    Category friends, life, shit happens! | Tags: | 2 Comments

  3. add copywriter to my long list of hobbies

    May 15, 2009 by shishnit

    From an email I got today from my longtime friend TonyMacaroni.

    He’s starting his own business in the line of education (something I know lots about) and something that has the potential to take off.  I think it’s a great business idea and plan myself.  His email ….

    I’ll need a ghostwriter. I know you are awesome with writing and blogging, so you are actually the PERFECT person to do this for me. For now, I am trying to write articles myself. I think I need to since I’m not all that busy yet, and it’s just part of running my own business as an entrepreneur. But, if you would wanna write a couple of articles that I could post on my Blog maybe, for now, as a favor, that would be awesome. I would credit you fully as a colleague and your name and email, but also as associated with my website too.

    Copywriting here I come.

    Good thing he doesn’t realize just how lazy I am with updating my own blog..hahahaha….

    Category career, friends, writing | Tags: | No Comments

  4. my b.f.f.

    January 20, 2009 by shishnit

    I joke a lot with Rick about his B.F.F.’s.  But I shouldn’t because my best friend forever is Canadian.  We have been friends since 1984.  Neither of us is really that old either.  Today we were discussing politics.  This is nothing new.  We discuss everything.  She’s a person I speak to often but speak about barely.  She’s like my extra invisible or phantom arm, always there, but no one can see it, yet I feel it constantly in my life.

    When she and I began our friendship it was because of a Tiger Beat magazine.  Someone in my American Jr. High school submitted an ad in the magazine seeking pen pals.  Carla replied to my classmate.  The girl who wrote the ad got way too many responses and brought them into school and the English teacher decided to use them as a project.  That English project became my life long friend and eventual maid of honor in 2005 when I married Rick. 

    Carla is much like me in that I believe I matter to her a great deal too, however neither of us gush to each other about our feelings.  On occasion I let something slip and it is received quite silently; however I have no doubt that she is just like me.  She, like myself, has few in person girlfriends and yet our friendship is consistent, strong and a life thread.  I love her.  A lot.

    We started out writing massively long letters to each other. I used to write in a plain old notebook for weeks and then I would receive a letter from her, spend two days answering it and then mail my book sized letter back to her.  It was quite archaic by today’s Internet standards.

    One night while feeding Keith (when he was a baby) in the wee hours I heard about a fire in her hometown of St Johns, Newfoundland on the television (CNN I believe) and I called her house (at 5 a.m. her time) in a panic wanting to make sure she was indeed ok.  I recall that her father thought it was quite sweet that I would call all the way from the states to ask about her safety.  At that point we had been friends for 8 years.

    So…sometimes, like today, when we discuss politics and she includes links to things happening in Toronto, where she lives now, I am still in awe of how immediate our friendship can now be because of technology.  We can instantaneously connect and that’s a wonderful thing when I can remember being a 14 year old girl ripping envelopes to hear how my friend was.  I still sometimes pinch myself at the fate, the sheer luck, the magnitude of our friendship.  This year we will have been friends for 25 years.  Little else in my life has lasted that long, in fact outside of my relationship with my Aunt DeDe and my Grandmother…nothing has.

    She emailed me this morning to talk about the inauguration….even though she’s Canadian. 

    Through all my moves in life…I still have her first letter.  Through everything I have been through and all that I have lost, I’m increasingly grateful over the years, that I found her.

    Here she is with her longtime live-in boyfriend Tim.  I love her.

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    Category friends | Tags: | 1 Comment

  5. reaching the finish line

    October 21, 2008 by shishnit

    I’m so close to finishing my undergrad degree and I have many options at this point. I’m rather bored with my current job, not because I am unhappy or because it is somehow bad, but because I am ready for challenges, changes, etc. I have worked the job for over 4 years I love the people and I love feeling like I’m working at home because I’m that familiar with everything. However, after 4 years of taking classes and being in the final few, I am ready for something BIG.

    However, I could continue on and gain my Masters degree for free. Yes that word FREE haunts me because one day I might look back and wish I had done it. Wish I had gone for it and just lasted out another year with boring work duties, etc. However, the bigger part of me yearns to spread my wings and fly and not just fly but earn more money and do more things with my time. I’m also equally tired of the work schedule I’m currently working. I don’t loathe it or hate it and I actually like certain things about it, however it’s not the schedule..its my strong desire to move on to new things. I need new things in my life.

    One thing that my ex taught me due to our constantly moving and moving from state to state too, is that change is good. I used to hate it, and now I’m craving it.

    This morning a friend of mine, who works for a company that I long to work for, contacted me about a job opening at her company. I would like to work there because it’s a government job, because it’s close to my home, because it has great beneftis and because the hours are phenominally good) sent me a job listing that the company announced within the company. I have sat here at my desk contemplating submitting my resume. My hands started to shake. It’s as if I’ve been on this path for so long it’s almost hard to believe I can apply and that I am now qualified. Not to mention the huge numbers for what the salary is, what it would be after a year and what it potentially can be after one takes certain tests. It’s good stuff. Very good stuff. I’m not a money chaser and when I do earn nearly 3 times what I earn now I don’t intend to become greedy and spend like an insane person. I see those digits and I think “security”, “safety”, “options”.

    When I started to blog I wasn’t in college, I was in a bad bad place in my first marriage and I wanted so much more for myself and yet I thought I had to make that marriage work to obtain what I needed. I had no idea what I needed, I only knew then that I was confused and on a crazy train going nowhere. I think now back to those times and I feel strangely removed from that girl. I recall her, I know how she felt, but I no longer know her at all.

    So much has changed, so much for the better. This morning the sun was pouring into the living room, bouncing off of our glass coffee table and I thought, “Wow it’s just so damn pretty”. Not the light…not the room, but this feeling, this feeling of being one with yourself. I’m there. My shaky hands are merely an indication that no matter how much time goes by, I am so grateful it’s hard to contain. I shake because I’m reaching my goals and living my dreams and I no longer feel trapped emotionally, mentally, or career wise.

    Now, to tweak my resume for the next few hours to polish it up and update it…with my outstanding g.p.a. and think about the possibilities. With that job I could continue on and gain my MBA, and sure I might have to pay for it, but I could pay cash and not bat an eye. Free…it was outstanding and I will forever love the company I now work for for all they’ve helped me to achieve.

    But right now this girl wants to unfold the wing’s she’s meticulously grown over the last 4 years and fly. But what’s amazing is that we have such a good life already, it’s like flying off into the big blue yonder…knowing all is well either way.

    Category career, college, friends, life | Tags: | 2 Comments

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