That damned rabbit.

I've got a sister. She's in her thirties. She and I share the same dad, but her mom was married to him before mine was. I idolized her when I was young. She was tiny and beautiful and dark. Physical opposite of me. [everyone always said, amazed, eyebrows up 'you're SISTERS?!'] When she was in her early teens, her stepdad went to jail for molesting her and one of her friends. While I don't actively, literally remember any of this, I do know that from about that point in my childhood on, I was terrified of my dad. Didn't want t be in the same room as him. Couldn't talk to him. Wouldn't look at him. I had to go on a trip with him to this shit-town in Ohio for a model airplane convention [a lovely way to bond with your seven-year-old daughter] and I cried and cried the whole time. I remember him calling my mom from the hotel because he didn't know what to do. I sat in the corner and cried and he watched a movie where some girl got killed in an above-ground motel swimming pool.

I'm starting to realize that I have about four real memories of my dad, and two of them involve some shit he was watching on television. Maybe we'll discuss the other two when I know you a little better.

This week: Sick, exhausted, broke. News that one of my best friends is moving away, I'm slipping with school, housework, cooking. I'm so stressed out that even when I close my eyes and breathe deep and sit back on the couch and hold perfectly still, I can still feel the shaking. Somewhere. In my hands. Except I can't see it, which is a little infuriating.

So. What do I do to relax? I read this book. Because I am an idiot. 'Gee' I must've thought to myself, 'I know what will make me feel better. A bio of a woman with 98 personalities resulting from terrible incestuous sexual trauma that started when she was two! Ohyeah. This is going to be awesome.'

Think I'm slipping a little. I spend all day at work imagining the exact words they're going to use to fire me and then getting lost in thought, wondering where the homeless shelters are, whether or not I'm going to wind up with head lice. Last night my fish, Chewy II: The Revenge, died. He was a brains-on-the-outside goldfish. His outside brain fell off. You could see his little fishy skull. He hung on for about an hour and then floated peacefully to the top of the tank. Tony flushed him, and I spent a sleepless night staring at the alarm clock, panicked, trying to decide whether or not it is possible for me to contract a deadly, flesh eating virus from a goldfish. This morning, in the light of day, I still can't force myself to come within five feet of that diseased fishtank.

Maybe shoes will heal my wounds. Or a nap. Or valium. I'm not sure.

Dear Robert D. Friedman,

I have your $0.21 red spiral notebook. The one that's got your application essay to Berkeley in it. Here's a tip: Next time, try to avoid things like '...try crossing your legs with an erection. Go ahead.' But. What do I know? Maybe they like that kind of stuff in California. I've only been there once. I really kind of like your notebook. My husband works at the used bookstore where people like you accidentally sell their journals all the time. Most are shit. Some are racy and almost interesting...like the fuzzy cookie monster diary we found once that detailed a lurid extra-marital affair some woman was having with her mechanic. Or neighbor. Or maybe he was both, it's really not important. Anyways. If I were you, I'd want this notebook back. It contains. Decency. Worthwhile thoughts. Drunken scratches about breasts and thirsty deaths in the Sahara. Girls' addresses. OHWELL. Hope you get into Berkeley.

Muchlove,
K.

The King of Food.

Today was a thirteen hour work day, so I stopped for chinese on the way home. Figured that given the choice between deep-fried tofu and whatever-the-fuck-is-unwrapped-in-the-pantry-possibly-then-covered-in-vanilla-yogurt-and-Hershey's-chocolate-syrup, the tofu was the better choice. Albeit the more expensive one.

I always go to the same place, I've gone there for years. At one point, my relationship with my local Chinese restauranteurs was such that I didn't even have to order. I would walk in, sit down and watch the Discovery Channel documentary they would always have playing while the nice old man who looks an awful lot like a duck would start to make my food. There was no point in asking me. He knew what I wanted.

A year and a half spent in Canada put a bit of a damper on my relationship with Duck. He doesn't remember me. At least, not as the old me. I've been stopping in there now about once a week after I've closed at the lab. Usually, they're starting to close but I go ahead and order anyway, but tonight I was a little self-conscious, for some reason. I asked him if they were still open and Duck said, 'FOR YOU ANYTHING. YOU WANT BEAN CURD SZECHUAN STYLE?'.

So I ordered, and sat down to watch the documentary they had playing tonight. A couple of things: The TV sits on top of the buffet they use for the lunch crowd. Tonight, they seemed to be watching [now, this is a guess...there was no sound] a show about maggots. Completely grossed out by simultaneously watching those greasy little things wiggle around on moldy tree bark and smelling my food cooking, I was hypnotized. A little to the left of the TV there were terribly bright, dusty-looking fake plants everywhere. Second best moment of my Food King experience: I noticed that from between the fake plants, a picture frame peeked out. It was a glass frame and there are two smiling people hugging. The man was kissing the woman's cheek. Her shoulder was right above the bar code because the picture came with the fucking frame.

My food was done. Duck winked at me to let me know. As I walked up to the counter to pay, Duck shouted [because he shouts EVERYTHING] 'I'M SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG'. I told him it was okay. Three, maybe four times. Then. Duck stops, looks me straight in the eye and says 'YOU SURE IT'S OKAY? BECAUSE IF YOU SAY NO I KILL MYSELF'

True story.
I love the Food King.

I got a...royal flush?

I started work this morning bright and early with a belly-full of Nyquil and carrot cake. I've been endlessly amused at work recently. The doctors are involved in a superexciting doctor war, concerning a smelly, horrendously stained old couch that one doctor insists he needs in order to perform his optometric duties. We moved our office a couple of weeks ago - we now have half the space and no storage, so every last unused square foot is fucking precious. Desperate for a place to lay down, take his shoes off and alternately watch Dr. Phil/ play his handheld Yahtzee! game, he carried the filthy couch in question into the store Friday morning by himself - bowed under the weight of the large communities of raccoon babies and cockroach families that must be residing within that thing. Seeing as how this particular doctor and I don't really care for each other [the other day he cut me off mid-sentence with a loud, nasal 'YOU'RE ANNOYING' for absolutely no reason], I have taken this as an excellent time to point out his flaws [read: tattle] to the doctor who owns the practice.

I can't wipe the smile off my face.

The first refill is always free.

I’m in love with tragedy. Homeless ladies wearing five coats in August, the man who spends all day in blue and red sweats, boombox on shoulder, dancing in front of the unemployment office. The boy at Chik-Fil-A with the Jerry Curl and the coke bottle glasses. He’s never once made eye contact with me. Today, handing me my change, his hand grazed my palm and I saw him outwardly, obviously, cringe.

I know that nothing separates me from these people – Nothing more significant than my measly – albeit regular – paycheck. My family. These are things I don’t take for granted because I know they can be torn from me any second. And, how can I be sure that I won’t wind up standing in the hot sun on the corner of 14th and Central wearing every coat I’ve ever owned? I can’t be.

I secretly see myself as a romantic figure. A dirty rock waiting to be polished and transformed into something beautiful and shiny and important - something a rich, bored, mysteriously wrinkle-free housewife wouldn’t flinch at dropping a couple thousand of her un-earned dollars on. Meaning. I want to be recognized for something. I want to believe that I will be able to accomplish this somehow working 60 hours a week in a mall and spending the remaining three hours of free time I have left alternately taking correspondence courses and playing the Playboy game on my Playstation. I want to believe that someday someone will recognize in me the potential for something other than what I’ve spent the last six years of my life doing.
So much in my life right now seems incredibly unfulfilling. I’m exhausted and restless, and I can’t decide which path to pursue. I want to do everything, but at the same time I can’t even start because I’m desperately afraid of failing. I don’t want to have to admit to myself that what I have now is all I’m ever going to have.

NUMBER FUCKING THREE.

I would like to state for the record that I have not been as inactive as this blog indicates. I have written twice, but both posts were devoured by the Bloggerbeast. I blame Biz. Shutthehellup, Biz.

We've been moving the office this week, which is heavy. Also, I haven't had a day off yet - I got called in earlier this week when my coworker had to take her boyfriend to the courthouse. Seems he had a warrant out for robbery, which is a lot of things. But. Seeing as how my mother taught me to never write anything I wouldn't want to find on the front page of the newspaper the next day [after finding assorted violent, curse-infested hate letters that my friend and I had written to two boys in our sixth-grade class], I will spare you the details. As much as that pains me.

It's kind of like seeing a coworker on COPS. I mean, it would be totally awesome to make fun of them endlessly, but. Then you'd have to admit you were watching COPS.

So. Off to work for the 89,736 day in a ROW.

Maybe I'll get hit by a car crossing the parking lot. The hospital will let me rest.

O, sweet embrace of death.

We moved our office this week. Even though the new office was two doors down the hallway, the complex had some stupid ordinance stating we couldn't move anything down the front hallways during business hours. Also: They gave us two days to pack, move, unpack, organize, calibrate the equipment. On the first day, the construction guys were helping us move our files [we have Jeter medical file cabinets - twelve rows high, maybe seven feet. Hundreds and hundreds and. Hundreds. Of. Files. Per. Jeter]. They dumped one and broke another, thus leaving the rest of the seventeen-ton-workload to two doctors and myself.

The good news is that the slightly-too-tight-pants I bought a week ago are now beginning to slide down my hips when I walk. The bad news: I have been dragging boxes of files, equipment, boxes of contacts, solution, office supplies, mechanical tables around without reprieve for the last twenty four hours. I'd move for twelve hours straight, all the while consuming caffeinated beverages by the two-liter and by the time I made it home I'd be so jacked up on caffeine and so stressed about the move I couldn't sleep. I'm so panicky about all of this I'm starting to shut down. I can't answer the phone and - all of the sudden - the only things I can manage to eat are cinnamon bagels and applesauce. Everything else just seems so wrong. Also: I cannot function in messy environments. We've moved into an office that's at least half the size of our old one. There isn't room for anything. It just doesn't fit. I spent all of yesterday [our first day open in the new space] fighting back tears and yelling things like, 'I DON'T CARE I DON'T CARE OHMYGODJUSTCLEANIT BEFORE I HANG MYSELF IN OUR NEW TINY BATHROOM.'

The bathrooms, however, are neat and tidy.