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2007 8 August :: 7.25pm
:: Mood: bouncy
:: Music: Pretty Baby - Vanessa Carlton
It's amazing how some make up, music, and clothes can put me in a good mood. I was rummaging through my closet looking for 'lost clothes' - clothes that i haven't worn in a long time, but still like. I couldn't find any, so i decided pull out my luggage that's been in there since i got back from college this spring...and i found it full of clothes that i forgot about! And it's all cute stuff, too, and, i tried on some pants that didn't fit in april, but fit now! (even though I'm bloated to the gills). I didn't really gain any weight when I went to college, but i've lost about ten pounds this summer, so all my stuff fits a lot better! AND I put on make up and covered up my zit that comes every month from hormones and trimmed and shaped my eye brows and curled my hair a little while listening to some up beat music and I FEEL HAPPY!
I know, girly stuff. Ew.
In other news, I painted my old night stand/ small bookshelf silver and wrote quotations about books on the sides and top of it in black permanent marker. It looks really awesome, and the great part is that the words cover up the horrible paint job. I realized that 1. I'm bad with spray paint and 2. I didn't get enough. Oh well, it's done now, and it's not john deere yellow anymore, thank god.
I talked to a Brother from the frat last night and got a little anxious and guilty about an upcoming project, but I feel better now that I realize that I didn't do anything bad, and now, after thinking on it a bit, I realize that it's not so terrible, or difficult, or terribly diffcult, or rather, not as much as i supposed it to be earlier.
I'm excited for the next couple weeks. Transitions! I'm leaving my Meijer, moving into my first REAL apartment, and starting up at a new Meijer with new people and new drama and new everything. I'm really happy with the classes that i'm signed up for, and really excited about band again. AHHH!
Michelle
[edit] This happy entry brought to you curtesy of off-brand midol.
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2007 6 August :: 1.32pm
:: Mood: cold
Back to the simplest terms: listing
Things I hate:
Wasting ten minutes of my life arguing with a moronic, toothless old woman about the price of cheese she thought was on sale, but wasn't.
People who do a rolling stop at stop signs.
People who go before me when it's my turn at a four way stop.
People who pass me when I'm going the speed limit.
People who do the last three things within two minutes.
Feeling restless and uncertain.
Hot weather.
Going to work for a four hour shift.
I think that's it, for now.
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2007 30 July :: 9.50am
:: Mood: awake
My last day at the Rockford Meijer is two weeks away. I'm happy to get out of there. Everyone that's cool is leaving for college, too, anyway.
I'm finishing up on packing; I've been accumulating boxes. I'm excited, yet nervous. My first four days in my apartment are going to be alone because I have to move in early for work.
I keep on having dreams about it, the apartment, that is. Odd, odd dreams.
I'm going to the library today to donate some books. I'm trying to file my life down to a couple boxes that I can store at my parent's house until I'm thirty. Everything else will just be stuff that I need to live: clothes, make up, bedding, etc.; basically stuff I can fit in my car.
But my precious books. I'm leaving them. Donating most, saving the rest. They were my friends during those summer months when there was no school. Their stories helped me to reason, to analyze, to imagine. I know, I know, it all sounds so corny, but I guess that's only because there is truth in my statement.
But then there was critical analysis. It open up worlds of understanding for me, but it ruined me forever. Rueben is right. I can no longer read a book simply for a good story. I am constantly and incessantly analyzing whatever I can get my hands on: setting, characters, mood, tone, the list goes on...
And it's ruined for me. Simply ruined.
I traded the magic of a story for reason and analysis. I've discovered so many things through it, but that doesn't make it better.
Sometimes the best things in life are better left unexplained.
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2007 26 July :: 4.38pm
Oh, and today is my three year anniversary with Meijer.
I think I should get a couple of gallons of booze and celebrate.
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2007 26 July :: 4.24pm
:: Mood: contemplative
I finally have it all figured out. Well, for now, at least.
I got ahold of the Mt. Pleasant Meijer, and my first day there will be August 19th. I called my apartment place and arranged for early move in on the 17th (four days early, and an extra $68, but at least I'll have a job, now).
Now I just have to get the electric turned on and buy a shower curtain. Oh joy.
I've begun packing today. We're all moving on, and, fittingly, I'm listening to 100 years by Five for Fighting.
Charlie moved out today. He's gone. I'll be leaving in three weeks. I'll be gone. My parents are moving to their new house in October.
When I come back next summer, everything will be different. My parents are ignoring the fact that I might be coming back. Every time I talk about my bedroom in the new house, they correct me, saying that it's the "guest bedroom."
How horrible is that? I'll be a guest in my parent's house. I'm in limbo. I don't have a 'home'. There is my parent's house, and then the place(s) that Rueben and I will be renting for the next three or four years.
Unfortunatly, I get very attatched to places. I've lived in this house, in the same room, for my whole life. Going off to college helped a lot to break that attatchment, but still.....everything is changing...
It's just all so......scary.
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2007 22 July :: 11.06pm
:: Mood: pissed off
Today was definately a bad day. I worked from 10:45-7:15pm and there were tons of mean people. I was about on the verge of crying the whole day because one customer after another treated me like shit. There was an old man that came up to the counter and said "You charged me wrong," and marked off three items on his receipt that he didn't think rang up correctly. Of course, I thouroughly investigated it, and called the grocery department. He was wrong on all of them, he got the wrong kind, the wrong size, and looked a wrong sign. When i explained to him why each of his items was correct, he looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the entire world and then grabbed his receipt out of my hands and tromped away.
Then there was the Michigan Scanning Award lady. She got this doll that had a clearance sticker on it for 5.50. It said "originally 7.99, now 5.50," the only problem was, the item was originally 9.99, and rang up accordingly at 30% off to 6.20. I was sure that she must have switched the sticker, because that usually doesn't happen, so I said, and as follows:
"Hi, can I help you?"
"Yeah, this rang up wrong."
"Okay, let me see. Oh, this is the wrong sticker, were there more back there like this?"
"Yeah, there was another one right next to it" (she said this annoyed)
"Oh, Okay, well, let me call back there real quick and see what's going on."
And I processed the transaction while I was on the phone trying to get the guy back there to look for more so we could fix it and see if she was lying, but he couldn't find them.
"Did you want that back on your credit card?"
"Yeah, and you owe me five bucks"
"I know, you received the Michigan Scanning Award, so there is going to be extra money. Did you want that in cash or on your card?"
"On my card"
"Do you have it with you so I can put it back on there?" (we need the account number to put it back on)
I hung up with the guy from Toys.
"There you go, you're all set, six whatever has been credited back to your card"
"You owe me more money."
"Umm, actually, the difference was x amount, and here is the five dollars for the award" (I point it out on the receipt)
"You didn't give it to me"
"Yes, I did, it's right here" (I point again).
At this point I'm getting pretty pissed, so I walk away before I say anything else, plus I had to get on the computer to look up the item to see if we had any left.
So...at seven, fifteen minutes before I had to leave, I got called into the manager's office.
Manager- "I had a complaint about you, what can you tell me about a lady with a price adjustment"
Me- "Oh, that lady, yeah, she was really mean, and kept telling me I owed her more money, and I gave it to her, but she was mean to me"
"Well, I've called you in here because she said you were rude and that's not the first complaint I've gotten about you. That's actually the third where they said you were rude and snotty. Yeah, they all said you were snotty."
And he presents the following paper that I have to sign that goes into my permanant Meijer file:
Michelle, on 7-22-07, we received a complaint from a customer you waited on at the Service Desk. This customer said that you were very rude and snotty when confronted with a problem she had with an overcharge. Please realize that customer service is our top priority, and that it is your job to handle these delicate situations with tact. Additional incidents of this nature will result in further discipline up to and including termination"
So i signed the damn piece of paper (and I got to keep a copy for fond memories) and left the office, went into the bathroom and balled my eyes out. I was still crying when I left, and until about ten.
I'm just so frustrated. I did absolutely nothing wrong (I have a co-worker that was there when I was "rudely" helping the lady that backs me up saying that I was nothing but professional), and I get in trouble. This might even affect my transfer to the Mt. Pleasant Meijer that I'm relying on.
I was not rude. I may not have acted like her best fucking friend, but I was not rude. I might have been short with her because she was insulting my intelligence. Hmm. There's a thought.
Whatever. I almost wanted to go back and tell my manager to go fuck himself and quit, but unfortunatly, I need my job because I need the money for rent. I am so fed up with people.
Friday a guy threw his change at me because I had to call return checks to make sure it was okay to cash his payroll check (because the company was on a do not cash list). I made him wait like seven minutes because I was on hold. HE THREW HIS CHANGE AT ME!!!!
I do not deserve to be treated like a piece of shit, and then get blamed for being rude when I wasn't. Especially for a job that screws me over at every turn. I lost all my seniority because I went on educational leave to go to school. I kept my seniority to get my benefits, but I can't get those because I don't work enough because I don't have enough seniority to get enough HOURS!!! I've worked there for three fucking years and I make fucking minimum wage, the same amount that any person getting hired in gets....
I'm just so fed up with people fucking me over every fucking day.
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2007 19 July :: 12.33pm
:: Mood: contemplative
I saw Marty (Metzger) yesterday at Meijer. I didn't even realize it was him until I carded him (he was buying a tobacco product). He looked so worn down. Not out, just down. Then I realized, we had never met.
And it's so ironic that we went to the same high school and I knew of him, but not him, because everyone at Cedar knows of everyone else, but not as much as others. But I knew him, well, a little. I've read his woohu, and I've read Jessa's journals, and I've kept tabs on Clem's "journal" and watched her grow from a newborn into a curious toddler.
I know things in about his life that I shouldn't, because we've never actually met. It was the oddest realization in the world. The internet does strange things to our perceptions. I wanted to ask him how he was doing, and how Clem was, and then I realized, he doesn't know me, but I know him. He probably would have thought I was crazy. He might have recognized me as Charlie's little sister, but I bet he had no idea how much I knew. It was just one of those moments in life when you realize you know more than your suppose to, intimate details, really, and you're nothing but a stranger off the streets who shouldn't have such precious information.
I guess I could go on and on, but I think my point has been made. It just makes me wonder who reads MY journal that I don't know, but they know me. Have I ever run into them, not suspecting they know a touch of the interworkings of my brain? Have they wanted to ask me an intimate question about my life, but realized, seconds before the words were going to spill out, that they didn't have the right, or rather, the social allowance, to do such a thing? Did they realize they knew me, but have never met me? A wonder of the internet, I guess.
I had a creative burst last night, when all I wanted to do was sleep, of course. Here is a bit of it, and of course, all that stuff about copyrighting applies.
My mind is full
Overflowing
To the point of
Nearly Breaking.
The days to come
Have worried me
I have fretted, thought,
Become senselessly
Engtangled.
In situations
Times and places
That will never
Come to Be
Yet, here they are
In my mind.
Alternate Reality.
Cannot sleep
Mind overflowing
This and that
Tomorrows coming
And unprepared
Am I for
Tomorrow and after
And Forever After.
This planning,
incessant planning
Never.
Ceases.
I plan and fret
Plan and fret
A plan for every
Imaginable
Possibility
And then the rest.
I need to sleep
Stop planning Stop
racing Stop-
JUST STOP.
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2007 12 July :: 11.54pm
:: Mood: busy
I often circulate between two modes of myself. The first is carefree, living for the moment, passing by, still in the game, but on the bench for a while. The second is careful. As in full-of-care. The root of the word. Caring to the point of being downtrodden and worried by the state of the world and the direction of the human race. I'm in the second mode, and let me tell you why I'm weary tonight.
Since I've been working mostly nights lately, I've had the opportunity to watch a lot of C-Span and C-Span2. If you don't know, they are both television stations that broadcast, usually live, the goings on of both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Today, both bodies were discussing the Iraq war in different aspects-legislation to withdraw, veteran's affairs, and other such amendments. I was stuck to the television for almost three and a half hours flipping between the two channels (interspersed with the occasional local weather update from the weather channel). I also watched most of the President's speech today.
I'm usually a hardlined Democrat, but I haven't been quite sure of what to make of Iraq until today. As I watched the President talk of "his war," the war of "ideologies," I realized exactly why. I have been getting the story two different ways from two different places. I admit, I don't think we should have been there in the first place. No matter how many times you try to say it, Iraq had nothing to do with September 11. But, that is no longer the issue. We're there, and we can't change history.
As I was watching Mr. Bush, I realized his side of the arguement. He was explaining to the press that was eagerly pelting him with all kinds of questions, that Alqueda was in Iraq. He suggested that the Iraq government was failing because of the violence perpetrated by them. His reasoning was, get rid of Alqueda in Iraq (though, there isn't much evidence they are there, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt), and the country should be a fertile womb, ready to grow a cute little democracy just like the big kids over in America.
Then I flipped the channel to the Senate. One Senator from New York was demanding withdrawl stating that the US should not be caught up in a civil war amongst people that do not want peace. He insisted that a democracy will never work because they don't want it to, and thus our mission is hopeless.
Now, I understand how I feel about this, finally.
It's not as simple as either side would wish you to believe. Iraq is both a haven for terrorists trying to damage America in anyway possible, and it is in the midst of a civil war. The solution is not staying the course, nor is withdrawl. But, then, what is the answer?
I believe we should withdraw from Iraq (except for a few forces that would be left to train more Iraqi military and police, and keeps some locations secure). Those troops should then be stationed in Afghanistan (where we are ALSO having a "conflict"). By refocusing attention to Afghanistan, the home of Alquada and other terrorists, it will force them to return to fight for their homeland, leaving Iraq free to sort out it's own civil war (which may never happen).
It may not be perfect, but it's a different option rather than pull out or stay the course.
The other thing that struck me during Mr. Bush's speech was his complete lack of humility. He knows he's the top dog, and no one can take him down. He said that he would listen to the opinions of congress, but flat out said it didn't matter, because he was the Commander-In-Chief, and he would do what he wanted. I believe he's done more harm to this country than good, and I don't know if the next President is going to be able to fix that or not, Democrat, or Republican.
O, Mr. President, why don't you listen to your own people? You are not a king on your royal throne. You are servant to your people. We are not your servants, rather, you are our's. You say this is your war, well, it is our's too. Don't be so selfish as to think you are the only one that loses sleep over this at night, if you do at all. You were right, this war is about ideologies, but it's as much about you forcing American ideology on the country of Iraq, as it is about AlQueda trying to prove their ideologies by hurting us. You are playing a dangerous game, and your time will come to an end.
As Barbara Kingsolver wrote, "Where in the Bill of Rights is it written that the entitlement to bear arms-and use them-trumps any aspiration to peaceful solutions? I search my soul and find I cannot rejoice over killing, but that does not make me any less a citizen. When I look at the flag, why must I see it backlit with the rockets' red glare?"
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2007 4 July :: 12.47am
It hurts me when my friends are hurting. I understand. I do. I'm here, but that's all I can do, really.
It's raining outside for the first time in a long time. When I was driving home from work tonight, there were flashes all around me. At first I thought it was fireworks, but then straight ahead, I caught a glimpse of a spectacular lightening bolt. It was amazing.
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2007 30 June :: 2.50pm
I can't help but laugh...
If you'd like the WHOLE story, go to Gillette's post about Jesus Camp. Get in on the debate if you'd like. For now, an excerpt that is, well, awesome.
"i'm happy how i am. living my life day to day trying to be the best person i can be and let me tell you when i die i will go to wherever i wish to. if it is my own paradise then so be it. perhaps i'll go to disney world. i don't fucking know. i'm not dead yet.
btw how do you know all these things are real. has a dead person come to your hosue and knocked on the door and said i died and went to heaven i also went on a fieldtrip to hell. no i don't fucking think so. it's only what people tell you. read a history book or ask a fucking history fucking teacher.
the bible was written by men. men lie. they are all liars. but aren't we all? we all must repent. if we want to live eternal life in the joys of jesus with golden roads and lollipops."
-Jessie Gillette
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