the update

I'm sure most of you have stopped clicking on my link because it's been so damn long since I posted. For which I apologize, but yes, Matt, you were right, things have been busy.

So, first the update on the busyness, then the tag (thanks Susie!).

Things at work:

Last week the executive director of the Center for the Homeless (a very outgoing, rather scattered man in his early thirties) approached me and said, "So you've been here for about six months, and I wanted to check on you and see how things are going...and to ask if there was anything else at the Center you'd be interested in doing."

Thinking he was after me to get more involved in extra-work activities, I said, "Can I ask what you had in mind?"

To which he replied, "Administrative coordinator."

And I sort of reeled for half a second (oh wow, he meant what other JOB?) and said, "Okay. What's involved with that?"

So pretty much I'd be his personal assistant, lots of secretarial work (phone calls, filing, organizing his schedule, reminding him of all his tasks) and some extra organizing activities, plus a role as the guy's right-hand gal able to advise him on ideas. Frankly, running to get a guy's coffee (which I doubt I'd have to do) doesn't knock my socks off, but on the other hand I would get to meet EVERYONE (because this guy knows EVERYONE in South Bend), so it would be a huge networking opportunity, and a launching pad toward any career in the community that I would want. There's also a ten to twenty percent pay raise involved (v. good), and I would get to wear nice clothes again, interact with adults, learn all there is to know about the inner workings of the Center (satisfying my life drive to know everything), and help make decisions.

I've been getting stressed and burned out on the children front -- the kids I most love are turning three and leaving the program soon, and really when it comes down to it what I love about my current position is the administrative and development aspect, not so much the day to day grind of wiping snotty noses, cleaning dirty asses, and maintaining a ridiculously patient persona. So this looks like a perfect opportunity.

And naturally I've been losing sleep over it, because Boss Meg is burning out too and this is a heavy blow to her. We're an amazing partnership, think along the same lines, complement each other's strengths, have the same sense of humor, and it's going to be extremely hard to let that go. Also to yield up some of my professional independence.

But I think it's the next right thing.

And I'm going to have to satisfy the tag in a later post; the parental units are visiting this weekend (which is wonderful and also another reason I've been insanely busy, up late every night cleaning) and I want to spend time with them.

Oo, Linds, since you asked -- I had taken a nearly year-long hiatus on writing (sad) -- the last thing I'd really written was that half-baked poem I posted in July -- but the other weekend I sat down and wrote a new fragment for my Clytemnestra project. And it felt wonderful. When I talked to Dr. Price at homecoming he remembered the project and asked after it, and said, "You really need to write that. It has legs." Which pretty neatly bolstered my confidence. Anyway, it's once again a work in progress.

Anything new to send me?

but it pours

This week was something sort of hellish. On no night could I get a decent amount of rest for the life of me, though I went to bed at ten o'clock with the regularity of a healthy octogenarian's bowels. So I was unprepared for most of the normal upsets and wears and tears of my job, and stressed, and easily frustrated.

Not to mention a nice little fender bender on Tuesday night, the result of the most insane act of idiocy I've witnessed on the road to date. A woman who'd turned the WRONG WAY onto a one-way street swung around into the middle lane at an intersection, then, as I came up behind her on the left, turned left FROM THE MIDDLE LANE into the intersection, right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and lay on the horn for a good five seconds, to no effect. My poor Earl smacked his right front bumper into her left rear door. Plastic headlight and turn signal covers shattered all over the asphalt. My radiator slowly leaking fluid. Me so silently outraged and irate that my passenger (a coworker whom I was driving home) told me later she feared I would throttle the offending driver right there in the street.

I wish I could draw a diagram for you. The blatant stupidity jacked my blood pressure sky-high, even more than if I had been remotely at fault. A quick phone call to 911 (first 911 call I've ever made) brought a police car to the scene in about ten seconds, and since no one was injured and the damage minimal, the officer just did an official exchange of information, gave us some advice, and left. I could barely look the Stupid Woman Who Drove in Front of Me in the face, but I didn't kill her, attempted to be pacified by her frantic overtalkative woe-is-me-what-a-bad-week attempts to appease me, and left. Now I'm just waiting for her insurance company to call me and send somebody to look over my poor baby to assess the cost. At least I don't have to pay for any of the damage.

This weekend is a Note Dame home game, and I have happily holed myself up hermit- or grizzly bear-like in my apartment for the weekend, knowing that if I wanted to leave it would take me hours to get anywhere, and everything would be twice as expensive. (Oh yes. God help you if you want to fill your gas tank on a home game weekend: The prices are ten to twenty cents higher per gallon.)

Boss Meg and Jess (the coworker whom I drove home) have noticed that my Inner Bitch is snarling and rattling the bars of my ribcage -- not in how I treat people, but in my general attitude. She had a lot of free reign in college (though she didn't fool the people who knew me), and even when I worked retail; but now that I'm in social work, and with small children at that, I've stuffed her into a tight drum of controlled kindness. She's in a rage. Sometimes I've found myself longing to really have it out with Slightly Psycho Kevin, the only really hateable person I know, just to blow off steam. (But I haven't because that isn't my place and would open up a suppurating and unpleasant can of long-living worms.)

A good thing I've started working out every day after work with Meg. Without that physical outlet for pent-up aggression, I don't really know what I'd do besides slowly disintegrate.

Which is largely why I'm a.) healthy as a horse and getting steadily stronger, and b.) blowing most of my extra money on really nice-smelling Yankee Candles. Aromatherapy, my friends. It's vital.

dearly beloveds

Homecoming was perfect. I got to see nearly everyone I had hoped to see, and it was rejuvenating and healing to spend time with people whom I love ridiculously. Also good to be seen by those who have known me for some time. There's a lovely, warm comfort to being with old friends who know you well.

A wonderful weekend. Thanks all!

(And Kellie Donnelly, you left your lotion and hand cleanser in my purse. Just so you know.)