who knew?

ok so some of you have commented that my last post wasn't exactly the feel-good-post-of-the-year. i appreciate your kind words and support, so i thought i'd post something a little more uplifting.

sunday i joined peak fitness. (when you stop laughing i'll continue)...

waiting...

...ahem

anyway, i got up this morning at went to the gym at 5am. crazy i know! but i enjoyed it. besides a little tightening in my calves, i'm feeling pretty good. because celeste inspires me with her pictures i thought i'd share this one.

its a real book too. i'm not really moving anywhere, but its for the visual effect.

karma, is that you?

more times than i care to recount, i've been on the receiving end of the "let's just be friends conversation". its probably one of my least favorite things in the whole world. but now, there is something even further down on the list--being the one to have to say it. it sucks. i can't be sure that all of the boys that have handed me the 'just friends' card in years past have gone through the emotional torment that i have, being the dealer this time. but having to tell someone that is a genuinely nice person, that despite their wonderful qualities, that you just dont see a dating relationship in the future is... its... ugh, it just makes me so sad. i feel like such a jerk. i hate confrontation in general. just ask tlmc. we avoided conflict until it was painful. so im wondering if me being sad is bad karma? or if its just because im over sensitive?

on top of all that, last night i replied to my grandmother's 8th email of the day (the family regrets teaching her how to use a computer) warning me of the "life is beautiful virus [via powerpoint]", which followed the email asking me to put my name on the list and copy and paste the email and send it to all my friends for a 'kid's project for school', which came just an hour after the 'beware of lipstick that contain lead' email. i felt compelled to tell her that none of that stuff was true, i sent her a link to snopes.com and told her that we appreciated that she cared about us, our hard drives and the kid's school project so much, but that 99% of what she sends us just isn't true.

so now i feel like heather stewart--dream crusher. i deserve to be stoned to death. now i know why so many people lie, its much less painful.

cinders and ashes

so i’ve been catching a lot of flack for being such a slack poster. project optimism has even cleverly been renamed ‘project neverposting’ be tee. what can i say, i’m bland and boring. i do have a new favorite website. what did we do before we couldn’t know everything whenever we wanted? i am pretty excited about the new kicks though. cute and comfy (well as cute as can be expected on a hall where everyone else but me wears scrubs everyday).

i continue to enjoy my new job. eventually you don’t even notice the screams from young children down the hall getting their early childhood immunizations. i don’t suppose you never get used to hearing gossip about how the owner of the local italian restaurant is getting treated for tuberculosis. no one here eats there anymore.

sunday afternoon while i was demonstrating my keen procrastinating skills, i stopped on tnt to watch die hard with a vengeance. samuel l. jackson and bruce willis are so badass. my favorite part was definitely enjoying the creative ways they (whoever ‘they’ are) had dubbed over the movie’s ‘too obscene for network tv’ lingo. my favorite being the several times that samuel refered to bruce as a “white racist melon farmer”. melon farmer! ha! still makes me laugh. what a nicer place the world would be if people would use words like that. hats off to thomas the tank engine for providing me with my second favorite set of by-words, ‘cinders and ashes’. next time you want to express your extreme dissatisfaction with a person or situation, try one of those on for size.

things that make you go hmmm...?

so the first full week at the new job was great. i really heart it there. and i got word on friday that they are going to paint my purple cave sometime next week. i do miss having a window and i'll definitely be investing in some comfortable and practical shoes soon. working in the communicable disease clinic part of the health department has resulted in some very interesting conversations. i imagine that most people dont get to hear what i hear on a daily basis. let me share a few examples.

scene one: front desk, in broken english/spanish
nurse: "and your social security number ma'am?"
patient: [something in spanish]
nurse: "oh you dont have one, no problem"

scene two: std pre-test counseling session
me: "do you have a primary or main partner"
patient: "yeah i'm married"
me: "how many partners have you had in the last 6 months?"
patient: "um, like at least 4 maybe"
me: "are your partners male, female or both?"
patient: "umm... both"
me: "do you use protection?"
patient: "uhh if i did, would i be here?"

i think my favorite part of my job is definitely going to be working at stonewall jackson youth development center. i'll be there about 10 hours a week, doing hiv/std prevention programming, tutoring and mentoring. they remind me a lot of my stepbrother (rip). very different from the kids at north meck, or you fancy science and math school kids. they may have sorted pasts, but they just want some positive attention. i think its cool.

i should also mention that tuesday is single people's oppression day. celebrate by wearing all black, drink yourself silly with your other single friends and of course, make snide comments to your annoyingly in love friends.

thats all i can muster for now. the crappy winter weather is sucking the will to create right out of me.

crash

so clearly i scandalized the blogging community, or at least the 3 of you, when i mentioned said "cute boy" in my last post. lest anyone be deceived that a nice, decent, guy actually be interested in me, said "cute boy" will hereby be referred to as "mean boy 562986" in that the day following his chivalrousness, he sent an email professing his undying disinterest. fear not, i will return to being the same boring, old spinster that you know and heart.

im still trying to pick myself up. as you could imagine. friday was quite a high for me. and somewhere around 6:30pm yesterday i crashed, hard. against the advisement of tlmc and at the astonishment of celeste, i was able to pull myself together and compose a brief and rather genial email, thanking mean boy 562986 for his time and his honesty and wishing him well. it did go through several drafts, which celeste pointed out where the real healing is. tlmc thought that i should go with anger, a much healthier emotion in her opinion, but its just not one im really able to tap into. and then she said the sweetest thing, "if a person is going to have a flaw, being nice is probably the best one to have". and tlmc probably knows me better than anyone, so that meant a lot.

im determined to get my taxes done today, with the help of turbo tax, figure out how to take back what is mine. i will allow myself one frivolous purchase, and the rest goes in savings. i'm thinking this might have to be a new dvd player, seeing as i dont think i get as much out of my new workout video when i have to stop 5 times to reset it.

on with the day.

currently listening: fiona apple, extraordinary machine

a good day to live

of course, everyone wants to know about my first day at the new job. it was great! :) the nice nurses in the cd (communicable disease) department made me a cake. it said "welcome heather" on it in green gel icing. my lilac office was decorated with homemade welcome signs, construction paper figurines and a basket of condoms and candy, of course (its an std clinic, what do you expect?). the occasional stranger from across the building would come over and say "oh you must be the new girl, i heard there was cake". the biggest surprise was finding that one of my christmas cards (the cute ones with murray on them) was taped to the front of my door with a speech bubble sign saying "hope you like the color purple". i sent becky, cd nurse/case manager, whom i know from my old job, a christmas card, and she put it on my door to make me feel at home. aww.

this morning i dutifully made a lunch to take with me, but found out i had to attend a 'health initiatives team' meeting and they had it catered with yummy salads from o'charleys. over lunch i realized that one of the women in the meeting looked strangely familiar. we had gone to daycare together probably 15-20 years ago. once i confirmed her identity, she said "oh my gosh we used to have sleepovers at your house". man, what a small world.

the other highlight of my day was getting a tb test. not everyone gets a shot on their first day at a new job. i hope i pass, we should know on monday.

after my fun filled first day, i was delighted at my 17 minute commute home (better than the hour from my previous job). and the fun didnt end there. in the midst of recounting my fun day to several buddies on im, i got a phone call from a cute boy standing at my door to surprise me with flowers. he took me to dinner.

it was a good day. :)

sugar and spice

i've recently learned that my readership is much larger than my precious commenters. a shout out to my fans who haven't yet graced us with their comments. kristin friend in the windy city, or should i say "big gastonia", lauren hill proudly in blue heaven, heath cartee who protects the city of pleasant living, and there's ian, lane and whoever else is out there.

sunday i visited my grandfolk in clover, sc. i found out something a little disturbing. my great grandmother got married when she was 14 and great uncle lacy came only a year later. eek! my grandmother got married at 16, and of course my mom got married at 18. i am severely under-performing. to this, i say- oh well.

last night was eventful. i actually went out. i know, and on a week night? *gasp* thats ok, i'm sure my social life is about to come to a screeching halt once the new jobs starts, friday. :)
so peyton, from my old job, invited me to go to cabo fish taco for dinner and then to see her roommate play at the evening muse. i feel bad because peyton asks me to go out with her like every week and i always say no, its usually places not really my style. so being a big fan of cabo and the muse, i agreed to go. she aslo said "bring whoever" (trying to pack the house so her roommate can pay rent, no doubt). i invited kristina and tripp. kristina sadly couldn't make it, she's a teacher, they have a lot of shit to do. tee nat whined because he was afraid he was going to be the only boy there and not know anyone. i assured him that the only person i knew was peyton and told him not to be afraid of strangers. well, scott (from the band) joined us for dinner but had to peace out early. somewhere around the third el cheapo margarita (no really, thats what its called) tee nat realized that he was sitting with 5 cute females. it most definitely looked like a meeting of the tee nat fan club, to which he commented "i wish everyone i knew would walk in right now". the conversation was lively, from ultrasound machines and gyno's to insulin pumps and choo choo trains (one of the girls, amy, she's a train conductor, but she was a little scary). by the end of the night leigh and peyton were practically begging tee nat to go a cruise with them in may. he's such a pimp.

so today is the first day of february. crazy huh? i think im going to do my taxes today, you know, make myself feel important. oh and if anyone has a graphing calculator lying around, can i borrow it? i need one for class. i haven't seen mine in years, but i'd rather not spend $100 on one. ok, and brrr, its cold outside. i think its time for my morning nap.

ciao!