Background Noise

this week has to be better

Aggravating work stuff going on lately. Nothing I can’t handle, just ego stuff. Why is it that in competition with men, women need to be overqualified to be seen as equal when up against a man who is merely qualified? You don't have to answer that, but...is it because of sports? It shouldn’t be a liability that a person doesn’t get a hard-on over baseball statistics.

My shoulder hurts and I had to put myself in a time out from my Wii. I have a killer tennis serve, but if I play much more I won’t be able to do anything useful with my right arm like drive or transfect cells. This might be a sign that I need more exercise.

I need a vacation because I’m beginning to get sour. Twice last week people at work asked me what was wrong because I was sitting around frowning. I didn’t realize I was even doing it. But then Saturday morning one of Eli’s buddies drove by me while I was pumping gas at the gas station and he told Eli that I looked furious. When a passing driver can detect my rage, it means I am wearing my thoughts on my face again and I have to stop it. Because I’m not really angry or unhappy, I’m just tired. I need a break from the endless routine of working and paying bills and working some more and paying more bills and oh look, should’ve paid more attention because we’re out of oil again, but that’s okay because I AM MADE OF MONEY SO I’LL JUST WRITE THIS EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLAR CHECK on a random Tuesday night because at this point who gives a shit anymore. I could go to the gas station tomorrow and see that the price went up $8 a gallon overnight and I’d sigh and fill up because I’M ALREADY BENT OVER, HELP YOURSELF! I feel like I'm 80 years-old complaining about inflation, but there is no reason on earth that the weekly grocery bill for my family of three is beginning to resemble a car payment.

We’re planning a vacation. It will all be okay.

vampire

I read the news at work every day on msnbc.com, usually starting with the Entertainment section and ending in Health. The entertainment news is my favorite because celebrities are always up to crazy shit and the stuff they get caught doing never fails to amuse me. I’m not a jerk who gets off on the misery of others, it’s just that sometimes I get a little bored at work. I work for a pharmaceutical company. The most exciting thing to happen at my work in the last six months was the product recall on the buffers we use to standardize our pH meters.

The best week I’ve had at work in a long time was when Britney was going through her public breakdown. Every day was a present, from the paparazzi photos of Brit waving home pregnancy tests around in the air through a drug store window, to the videos of the poor girl being loaded into the back of an ambulance on her way to the psychiatric hospital (to have her fucking head examined because what kind of person in their right mind doesn’t understand that in order to kidnap your own children and get away with it, your hideout destination needs to be a little more clever than A BEDROOM IN YOUR OWN FUCKING HOUSE). 

And health. I force myself to read this stuff because how else am I going to find things to fret over? The medication I’m on gives me horrible nightmares and if I don’t feed my subconscious now and then with truly frightening things, then I will continue to have nightmares about losing my child and accidentally killing my husband and the new one where I’m traveling to New York, except I get on the wrong flight and end up in outer space completely unprepared. I’d much rather dream about real-life scary things like pharmaceuticals in my tap water.

And the other reason I’m a little obsessed with health news is because I am trying to keep an eye on the blood. Specifically any medical news that implicates blood transfusions in the spread of any new diseases. I don’t think it’s normal to be this concerned over something that shouldn’t really be too risky, but I’m a pessimist at heart and I bet all the people who received transfusions of HIV positive blood in the 80s were told the same things about risk that I was told in 2002. I have a sick feeling that at some point it will be discovered that certain cancers can be spread through blood or there will be a new virus with a brilliant incubation period like HIV that hasn’t broken out yet, and I just want to know right away.

Sitting here healthy and alive, I can boldly admit hating the fact that I’ve had a blood transfusion. Which is pretty stupid because when I’m honest, and force myself to remember how I felt lying in that bed in the hospital, suffering through what felt like the worst hangover of my life, and how much better I felt after only a few minutes into the transfusion, well, that is when I make a vow of vampire…ism…cy…?

What I mean is that if it ever came to that again, and I knew I’d feel better if only I could get a little more blood into my body, lock down the blood bank and guard your veins because it’s ON.

Dylan McKay

I have a perfectly good reason for not updating my journal for so long. The Soap channel airs two hours of 90210 reruns every night.

Eli and Joey just went out to Lowes, and I’m up here in my office trying to find ways to put off what I should be doing right now. I should be looking for a job, but I’m still in denial that it could come to this. I love my job. I know love is a strong word, but I really like what I do most of the time. Sure I have days when it takes everything I have to not choke my coworkers, but I guess that’s why they call it work.

I have a diverse work background and I’ve done my share of undesirable things for money, so it makes me appreciate how good I have it where I am. Mostly I appreciate the culture of personal respect. I’ve worked in places where the code of ethics is just a magical fairy tale you can read about in the HR manual but that no one really takes seriously. Of course it is difficult sometimes for me to function in an environment where I can’t tell someone they’re an asshole to their face without receiving disciplinary action, but there also is a distinct lack of tantrum throwing from others and I like that.

But my company is having problems, and I could be out of work soon. I knew it was bad in the meetings about layoffs when they told us that they’d be looking for volunteers. I knew it was horrible when my teammate offered himself up and his resignation was accepted. For some reason I thought my department would be spared. I’m sure the same way everyone thinks that their job is most important.

Anyway, pharma as an industry is going through a rough time right now so I'm going to expand my search to also include some less obvious career paths. I recently discovered that the FBI employs not only secret agents, but scientists too. And I suppose it wouldn't kill me to tutor kids or analyze soil or do any of the other weird jobs a person with my skill set is qualified to do.Though if I could just figure out a way to isolate and manufacture something useful to humans from squirrel blood or carcasses, I could set up my own lab right here at home and I wouldn't feel bad about killing off the squirrel community for violating my fucking birdfeeders every moment of the day, because it wouldn't be about the rage any more. It would be for science and the good of humanity.

So I have to look for something else, and I can’t believe I’m on Bostonworks again. I thought we were done for good this time.

KEEP OFF

One day a few weeks ago my dad took Joey to look at trains and he took this picture so I could see how much fun they had breaking the law.

Eli is a great mom

I’d always wondered about what kind of mother I’d be. It was one of the scariest parts about being pregnant, right up there with giving birth. And it turns out, just as I’d suspected, I’m not the greatest mother in the world.

Because I commute and Eli works a mile from our house, he drops Joey off and picks him up from school. And because Eli’s job is a little more flexible than mine, he is usually the one to go pick Joey up when he is sick at school or stay home with him when he has a fever. He has taken Joey for shots and blood draws and x-rays. He knows the kids in Joey’s class by name, and some of the parents too. He signs us up to bring things to school parties and even knows when the parties are going to happen. He knows who the biters are.

Meanwhile, I am constantly surprised by how much I don’t know. Like when we’re in a store or at the park and some adult or kid I’ve never met before comes up and asks me if I am Joey’s mom, and starts talking to my son because they know him. Or when I pack his lunch in the morning and am scolded by Eli for including goldfish crackers because those are for “snack” only. One time when Eli had an early meeting I had to do the whole morning routine by myself, and I dressed Joey for school in his blue tee shirt with the alligator on the front. When we got to school another little boy had the same tee shirt on and when I told Eli about it later he said, “Yeah, I know. Zachary always wears that shirt which is why I never put Joey in that one for school.” I also had to ask Joey where to put his lunch bag once we got to school, but I whispered it so as not to advertise my ignorance.

I forget to pack a swim diaper on Wet and Wild Wednesday’s in the summer, I send whole grapes and apples in Joey’s lunch and get notes back from his teachers reminding me to cut them up. He had to wear socks on his hands one day during recess when I forgot to send his mittens to school. I go places without bringing juice boxes and extra diapers and changes of clothes and only think of it when Joey throws up all over himself or suddenly begins dying of thirst. Once I was scheduled to go into work late so I kept Joey home with me in the morning as a treat and when I dropped him off at ten I was spoken to by the director about how dropping children off late is disruptive to the morning classroom routine.

I set bad examples like tossing pieces of broccoli at Eli during dinner, or filling my mouth with as much corn off the cob as I can hold and then pretend-sneezing it across the table. I teach Joey to recognize music by bands like Weezer, Foo Fighters and The Chili Peppers and then am surprised when he sings along to lyrics that are completely inappropriate for a toddler’s mouth in the car in front of my parents. I pray that he will never learn to spell because then I won’t be able to communicate with Eli or other adults. I haven’t found a different way to speak, I’ve simply begun spelling the inappropriate words.

I feel stupid whenever I try to help out with the things that Eli usually does for Joey or when I fuck up and forget to do laundry when he has peed through all of his pants and he has to go to school in the light blue girly sweatpants that are strictly last resort clothing, and never to be worn in public. I occasionally have days of self loathing when I judge myself and decide that I suck as a mother and I feel guilty that I am not actively trying to find ways to stay home with Joey anymore because I love my job. But I figure that as long as one of us is a good mom, Joey will be fine. So what if his good mom is his dad?