government-approved

I am now officially "QUALIFIED" to become a state child welfare caseworker.

How did I get here? How did this become my life?

things to write about when i am not so tired

• holiday work momentum, angst, resulting job search
  
• gift drive
• hypoglycemic rage
  
• "rude to strangers", the documentary
• christmas sweater lady and business goth
  
• consumer desire
• new music and books

don't ever eat sushi on kappaya on division

I had food poisoning yesterday and was sicker than I had ever been. I had to go to the emergency room (after calling and crying to friends between barf attacks-- thank you, little light, for rushing me to the hospital and being so patient with me through the whole ordeal, I owe you dinner) and felt ridiculous in the waiting room looking disheveled and miserable, wearing SHORTS, and carrying around a gigantic barf bucket while talking to a freshman dormie who I haven't seen since freshman year and I guess is now an EMT. They stuck me with an IV after a few times trying to find my dissapearing veins and gave me some anti-nausea medicine that burned and made me fall instantly asleep. I liked the ER doctor, who wrote me a prescription and told me if I wasn't feeling so nauseous that I wouldn't be very happy to use the suppository, then I probably didn't need the medicine. When he found out what I do for a living asked me if I heard of the case from a few years ago where a large snake almost ate a baby. I was duly entertained.

I am still feeling kinda weak, but much much better. I tried my first non-bread solid food and it didn't go well, so I am back in bed, very glad that I have an entire season of "Buffy" to watch.

That is my three-day Veteran's Day weekend. Boo.

more dislikes (and one like)

I don't like being broke. Self-explanitory. Payday is next Thursday, whew.

I don't like the morning commute to Washington County. I'm already late, I'm already upset that I have to go to work, why rub salt in the wound by driving like a total moron?

I don't like coming home from a long week at work only to be witness to my neighbor's domestic disturbance.

I really don't like having to call child welfare on a Friday night. I'm not working, I don't want to.

...

However, I do like schadenfraude. It's my favorite feeling.

things i don't like

I don't like being cold all day.

I don't like having to work in an office populated by menopausal women and having to deal with the fact that they will always control the thermostat and their preferred temperature is always going to be "fingertip-freezing cold". All year. Should I complain, I recieve the passive-aggressive smile of death and a "funny" comment of my youth. The seed of hate towards fifty-something year old women that was planted from my short stint working at The Fabric Store is starting to grow tiny roots and sprout. I hate you, menopausal women, for making me cold all the time. Go away, fifty-somethings! Unless you're my mom, of course. Mom doesn't turn the heat down to sixty. She turns the heat up to eighty (sometimes a problem). Who are these other women and why aren't they cool like my mom?

I don't like living in a drafty-ass apartment. It is never the right temperature for long enough. Also, why are the heating vents up on the ceiling? Don't you know that no one wants heat on the ceiling? Why is the gas bill so high and yet the apartment so small? Why, oh why, does it feel slightly colder when the heat is blowing? Please, apartment, WTF. I clean you. I stuff your windows with sheets to insulate. I know the thermostat is way down because there is not much money to spend on you. But still. Colder? When the heat is on? No. That is not heat. That is air conditioning. I don't want air conditioning in November.

some weekend grumpiness

f you've been paying attention (you haven't, I'm sure) I've been dinking around with this site for the last few months trying to make it look somewhat presentable, professional, interesting to the eye. I keep coming back to this-- plain dark text on a white background, and I can't seem to stop. Maybe my blog doesn't look so good right now because it has no content? Perish the thought.

This whole weekend can be described as "boredom punctuated by consumerism". The boredom is pretty much all my fault, I've been cranky and pouty (thank you PMS) and in a mood where if I am not constantly entertained I feel extra-bored. It's not like I don't have anything to do. I have plenty-- there is the endless task of picking up after myself, half-started craft projects, job applications, rent to pay, etc., etc., but I refuse to do any of that shit this weekend. That would be something like work, and it's the weekend, I do not feel like working. Instead, I moped around, sleeping in and feeling lonely. Of course, it didn't occur to me to call anyone or make any plans, but whatever. That's the way being grumpy goes, there's an easy way out but you're too busy being grumpy to do anything about it.

Consumerism. Last night I bought my ticket to Iowa for Christmas. That cost around five-hundred dollars I don't have and I spent some time looking for a paper bag to breathe into afterwards. I hit up Goodwill on Saturday (not a particularly wise choice the Saturday before Halloween), wandered aimlessly and looked for furniture for my extra room. Instead, I found the teacups that go with my china set. Six of them. Perfect. I was very excited. It was all I could do today not to go back to Goodwill and hunt down the saucers, though now I feel like I should have. The teacups:


Friends, I am not just like my mother, I am my mother. I am getting excited just typing about the teacups and kicking myself for not finding the saucers. Which I will probably look for tomorrow after work. So I bought those and a springform cake pan that I have no idea how to use. Then off to Fred Meyer to buy boring stuff like shampoo and toilet paper etc. I am still trying to calm myself down from buying the teacups, I am not lying. Another thing I got excited about this weekend: using coupons at the grocery store. Jesus, I need a life.

Today I woke up all mad at myself for sleeping in and then was told by my computer that daylight savings ended while I was asleep. Thank you computer, because without you I would have never known. An hour earned! Maybe my body will forget tomorrow morning too and I can show up on time for work for once. That would be nice. There was a dish-washing marathon today and minor grocery shopping. The samples at New Seasons today were disappointing (Tortilla chips? Come on, guys.), and I went hungry on purpose. Now I procrastinate other writing projects and rent-paying for just about anything else. Perhaps I will take the train to work tomorrow, since I will be driving hither and yon all over Washington County for the rest of the week, and I could save the wear and tear on the car. Hm, I do love sitting motionless on trains half-awake and staring off into mid-space avoiding eye contact. Actually it doesn't sound like that bad of an idea. We'll see how early I get up tomorrow morning.

Running out of steam. Maybe I will get up and fill out the rent check.

in which i devolve to checklists

1. Re-start blog.
   
2. Be less broke.
   
3. Get new job.
   
4. End headache. (ASAP, please.)
   
5. Grocery shopping: carrots, cabbage, tofu.
   
6. Go to the gym.
   
7. Clean kitchen.
   
8. Furnishings: chairs, desk, bookshelves, mirror.
   
9. Wall hangings.
   
10. Pay off credit cards.
    
11. Have more fun.
    
12. Clothes: wool socks, tall black boots, dresses.
    
13. Dishes. Do them.

a partial history of my stupidity

Traffic was heavy coming off the bridge
and I took the road to the right, the wrong one,
and got stuck in the car for hours.

Most nights I rushed out into the evening
without paying attention to the trees,
whose names I didn't know,
or the birds, which flew heedlessly on.

I couldn't relinquish my desires
or accept them, and so I strolled along
like a tiger that wanted to spring,
but was still afraid of the wildness within.

The iron bars seemed invisible to others,
but I carried a cage around inside me.

I cared too much what other people thought
and made remarks I shouldn't have made.
I was slient when I should have spoken.

Forgive me, philosophers,
I read the Stoics but never understood them.

I felt that I was living the wrong life,
spiritually speaking,
while halfway around the world
thousands of people were being slaughtered,
some of them by my countrymen.

So I walked on--distracted, lost in thought--
and forgot to attend to those who suffered
far away, nearby.

Forgive me, faith, for never having any.

I did not believe in God,
who eluded me.

-- Edward Hirsch

birthday humiliation!

The invitation to my birthday party, held awhile before my actual date of birth:

Celebrate the anniversary of my birth with dinner, drinks, and a little public
humiliation! Bring an old angsty diary, old poetry, funny old letters,
etc. to share with the crowd. It's like karaoke but with more embarassment
and less singing.

So on my real birthday, I give you a horrible taste from one of my real diaries... as promised to nonlineagirl...

7.18.03
Another day and I am stuck with the hard decision of whether to do
what I
want to do, or to shower and maintain my excellent hygiene. It feels
like there
is just so much to do in such a short amount of time (clean,
write, prepare,
etc) that I decide I don't want to do anything but sit still
for a few minutes.
Is that so wrong? Yes, apparently. We have another child
with Asperger's
Syndrome. His name is D, and he is polite and considerate
beyond words. I am
wondering if the other shoe will drop soon. In other
news, today is R's
birthday. This leaves me vaugely annoyed and I don't know
why. I suspect it is
because I'm jealous of all the attention. The plus side
is 1) it is also Zach
the Wonderful's (a student) birthday; 2) there will be
cake. So, this is good.
I'm trying my hardest to maintain my resolutions to
be helpful and optimistic
and to drink at least a litre of water every day.
It's proving to be a bit more
difficult than I expected.

... From my time at nerd camp.

actual conversations in my home

Me: My tummy hurts.

Jake: Oh. Pizza?

Me: No, my uterus is trying to escape from my body.

Jake: Yikes. Mega.

resolutions and resolve

Thank you to those who showed up for my pre-birthday party. That was fun. I always pull myself into knots of anxiety over any size of gathering of my friends (Which one of you flakes will show up? Will you end up killing each other or staring awkwardly at the table?) and I'm glad that those fears are rarely justified. Or that I was drinking too much to notice. Either way is fine with me.

So, in honor of my early birthday, I make resolutions:

• Stop being so lazy I don't wash my face before bed.
• Write 200 words a day. 200 words that aren't blogging or work. Okay, sometimes blogging can count.
• Do not clean the kitchen today. It is Jake's turn.
• Become a generally more perfect human being. If that's possible.

I have been running out of creative-type projects recently, which has left me with excess energy for things like worrying, obsessing, and buying things I don't need. Lately I've been cringing over every thing I do and say. Even now. Even now. Or obsessing over work and how to make everything more efficient. Not healthy. I seem to have lost some interest in knitting, it may be time for a small break from that to... do what?

The three of you that read this: What do you think? Any good creative projects for me?

more signage

From the past two weeks...

STEREOTYPING IS A LAZY WAY TO THINK ABOUT PEOPLE.

Why, yes. You're right, veterinary hospital. Why are we having this conversation? And the next week...

2 CATS CLEANING EACH OTHER, AFFECTION OR A TRIAL RUN FOR THE JUGULAR?

I have no way to respond to this. Maybe both?

veternary hospital sign and update

A DOG TEACHES A YOUNG BOY LOYALTY AND TO TURN AROUND 3 TIMES BEFORE HE GOES TO SLEEP

I really need a digital camera to start putting pictures up.

I've had a massively busy week, I've been taking on a big organizational project at work and I haven't been home at any reasonable hour this week. Lots of kids and events to think about over the weekend. This next week looks even more hectic. Whew.

veternary hospital

Yet another sign on Cornell Road on the way to DHS:

DO OTHER DOGS THINK POODLES BELONG TO A WEIRD CULT?

If this continues, these signs may become a regular feature of my blog.

two life-summarizing poems, not by me

Delinquent Missive

Before David Ricardo stabbed his daddy
sixteen times with a fork -- Once
for every year of my fuckwad life -- he'd long
showed signs of being bent.
In school, he got no valentine nor birthday
cake embellished with his name.
On Halloween, a towel tied around his neck
was all he had to be a hero with.
He spat in the punchbowl and smelled like a foot.
His forehead was a ledge
he leered beneath. When I was sent to tutor him
in geometry, so he might leave
(at last) ninth grade, he sat running pencil lead
beneath his nails.
If radiance shone from those mudhole eyes,
I missed it. Thanks, David
for your fine slang. You called my postulates
post holes; your mom endured
ferocious of the liver. Plus you ignored--
when I saw you wave at lunch --
my flinch. Maybe by now you're ectoplasm,
or the zillionth winner of the Texas
death penalty sweepstakes. Or you occupy
a locked room with a small
round window held fast by rivets, through which
you are watched. But I hope
some organism drew your care -- orchid
or cockroach even, some inmate
in a wheelchair whose steak you had to cut
since he lacked hands.
In this way, the unbudgeable stone
that plugged the tomb hole
in your chest could roll back, and in your sad
slit eyes could blaze
that star adored by its maker.

----- Mary Karr

You Want a Social Life, With Friends

You want a social life, with friends.
A passionate love life as well.
To work hard every day. What's true
Is of these three you may have two
And two can pay you dividends
But never may have three.

There isn't time enough, my friends--
Though dawn begins, yet midnight ends--
To find the time to have love, work, and friends.
Michelangelo had feeling
For Vittoria and the Ceiling
But did he go to parties at day's end?

Homer nightly went to banquets
Wrote all day but had no lockets
Bright with pictures of his Girl.
I know one who loves and parties
And has done so since his thirties
But hardly writes anything at all.

----- Kenneth Koch

foster rant

One day I will go visit a foster home that isn't weird or creepy in any way. That will be the day when I don't have any second thoughts about the placement. I won't think about whether or not the parents force the kids to go to church. I won't feel grossed out at their room-sized teevee/babysitter, the "more than just little kids" smell of their home, or the strangeness of the kid's life situation. I won't feel like I've just seen the home of a cat lady, but with kids instead of cats. I won't feel weird that the house is too clean. I won't feel weird that the house is too dirty. I won't have to cover for myself accidentally batting an eye at their huge Jesus memorabilia of all sorts-- or any other weird collection those people might own. I won't get any weird (no matter how harmless) vibes. I won't second guess the parent's truthfulness, I won't have to weigh one bad situation against another bad situation, I won't feel afraid for the kids when I don't poke the weird vibe (again, no matter how harmless-- and I'm pretty forgiving) to it's fullest extent. That day will be one of the best days of my life.

Or at least it will be a day where I will sigh a sigh of pure relief instead of a sigh of worry that I trick myself into believing is relief.

I know I shouldn't be so judgmental, and I know that a certain level of weird is the nature of the work-- you have to be at least a little bit nuts to take care of a stranger's child as your own, perhaps for a day, perhaps forever-- but is that really what it takes to do something that good? To be kind of crazy? To be a collector... of things? To be driven to extreme devotion? Now I'm referring to the good foster homes, forget about the ones that are like 24-hour daycares, where children with special needs are left to fend more or less for themselves, or are ignored, or are strangely compartmentalized from the rest of the family. I don't know. Where are the people like me? I have the feeling that they're not there. I don't know how I feel about that. Weird.

washington county is weird

As I was driving to the Department of Human Services yesterday, I saw this on the veternary hospital's paste-up board:

IF YOU CAN'T BE A GOOD EXAMPLE, BE A HORRIBLE WARNING

Again, not sure if I should laugh or if another small piece of my soul just died.

50 hours a week

I am sick of talking about my work. However, when I find myself determined not to talk about it, I have nothing else to talk about. I can't tell whether it's because I'm kind of boring or if it's because I have no life because work take up so much time and brainspace.

So what do I do? I realize I haven't put a description of my job up on my blog and only the people I see in person ever hear about it. This entry will probably be the first and last I'll say on the internet about some of the details of my work and what I do since most of it is a) confidential and b) depressing. Besides, I intend someday to have something else to do and talk about. Someday.

I am a legal assistant at the local Public Defender and the part of law I guess I "specialize" in is juvenile law. I spend a lot of time organizing paperwork of some sort, trying to wrangle information out of or hammering certain messages into various bureaucrats and service workers over the phone, making sure shit's in it's proper place, doing various gopher assignments from the two lawyers I work with specifically, sitting through arduous and dramatic family-law type meetings, visiting foster homes to make sure kid clients are getting treated properly, sometimes to rarely visiting parent clients (yes, we represent grownups and child molesters too...) in jail to check up on them. I produce a lot of text that summarizes my impressions of people and their interactions, and I think I need to harp on myself from letting it deteriorate from long descriptions to "Person A=Horrible. Person B=Awesome." Yeah. I do a lot. It is damn interesting and fun for an office job. I'm pretty lucky in that respect. I also spend at least ten hours a week commuting from the city to the suburbs, and a lot of time in my car traveling around the suburbs trying to visit various kid clients or go to whatever Department of Human Services building I need to go to for whatever gut-wrenching meeting I need to go to that day. That is a lot of time to be spending with one's car in awful Portland-style traffic. I am pretty unlucky there. Yup. I guess the important thing to know is that my job is busy and stressful and sometimes a little draining. It is also deeply engaging and gives me the chance to feel like I'm contributing something positive to the world. I like to be busy. I like my job quite a bit, but I think I need to go visit the dentist soon because I am beginning to grind my teeth. You tell me what that means.

I feel like after three months I'm finally beginning to adjust sort of enough to start having free time again and to start having a life outside of the work-vegetate-work-vegetate cycle. I need more subjects of conversation, in any case.

So now you know. Whew.

i win at the cooking derby

Every few months or so, when the stars align just right, I go into an insane cooking spree in which I make way too much food to eat and make a huge mess out of my kitchen. Sometimes during those cooking sprees I make something really good, though no fault of my own. The most recent cooking streak (last weekendwas an insane marathon of Korean food and soups) has culminated in this fantastic dish, which I become more proud of the more I think of it:

Cold Killer Carrot Soup

• Approx. 1 lb of carrots, chopped into small-ish pieces
• 1/2 of an onion, diced
• 2-4 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 cans of chicken or vegetable broth (3 or 4 cups? I'm guessing?)
• 3 cloves of garlic (or to taste)
• 2 teaspoons of fresh ginger (sliced, mashed, whatever-- it'll all get blended together)
• 1 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon (or more, to taste) of hot red pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped tarragon
• juice of 1 orange (some pulp too, if you want)
• 2 tablespoons of bourbon (I used Maker's Mark)

Saute the onions and carrots over high heat in the oil until the onions are clear. When onions are cooked, add broth to the pot until it just covers the carrots. Add garlic, curry, ginger and red pepper flakes. Cover the pot and stir over high heat until soup is at a boil. Uncover and let simmer over medium-low heat until the carrots are cooked, stirring occaisionally. When carrots are soft, transfer soup to blender and blend until smooth. Return soup to pot over low heat. Stir in tarragon, orange juice and bourbon and let cook for 1-2 minutes to let flavors blend.

Eat topped with plain yogurt or sour cream.

Consider that it is kind of like a hot toddy, but soup. Yum.

i hate you, washington county

Fuck you, Washington County. You take a ridiculous amount of time to drive to, everything in you is decorated with Jesus stickers, you smoke way too much meth, you beat your kids, and you ding my fucking car with your gigantic SUVs and toss it out of alignment!!!

Not cool, Washington County. Not. Cool.



Also, though this site isn't really interesting enough to merit a sidebar link, I can't stop watching these kids.

some sort of new content. whatever.

I'm finding that the longer it takes for me to put a new post up in this damn thing, the harder it gets to write. Each new draft becomes more and more unreadable. Every new idea is dumb and un-showable to others, which in itself is a pretty idiotic concept since I'm pretty sure that very few read this blog anymore. I give up on interesting readablity right.... now.

Some events from the last two months:

• Adjustment to The New Job is pretty much traumatic. By the time holidays roll around, I feel more on an even keel.
• Thanksgiving (yum).
• I become addicted to watching scifi-TV-shows-that-shall-remain-nameless-for-now, episode after episode, on my roommate's computer, scaring him completely.
• My mother goes to Korea, returns, sends hilarious packages.
• I spend Christmas in a gigantic, satisfying, sulk. I am stuck in Portland for the holidays.
• My parents tell me my younger sister has shaved her head as a proclamation of her "Freshman at a Liberal Arts College" status. "It's so cute!" my mom says, "Her head looks just like a little chestnut!" I am very sorry I do not witness this.
• I realize I should never live alone because every sound after midnight is completely terrifying.
• New Year's is fun but not scary-fun, which is excellent even if it is a boring non-story.
• Various knitting projects are started, progressed upon, completed. Pictures in the near future.
• I discover hate commuting. I hate commuting with the very fiber of my soul.
• I go to Iowa over the MLK weekend. Did you know Des Moines was once a mafia hideout-stop-kind of place? Neither did I.
• I score some cool stuff from my parents. Like pickles and designer dresses.

I guess that brings us up to date, mostly. Next time: a real entry.