Imelda.

It's been two years since you left.

I never thought it would be like this. You should have seen me graduate college, but you were too sick to make it up. You should have been able to see me walk down the aisle to marry the man of my dreams--I know how much you wanted that for me.

As mad as I was with the one who took you, I am now so mad at myself for not being who I should have been.

I should have made time to drive down and visit you when you were sick. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't see you lying there--delirious, cold and in pain. I couldn't go visit you for my own selfish reasons--because I couldn't bear to see you like that. But what about you?

I could always count on you to listen to me, to solve my problems, to talk to my father when he was being unreasonable. I knew I could call you at two in the morning and you would pick up and be happy to hear from me.

You always sent me these little trinkets through the mail that really sucked but I know you thought I would absolutely love them and you paid much more than they were worth just to ship them to New Hampshire.

And I couldn't go see you when you were dying because it would be too much for me.

Maybe I thought in the back of my mind that you would snap out of it--you always did before. You were sick with that horrible for so long and you managed to travel and enjoy life. You just HAD to get better.

But you never got better.

You died on a Wednesday.

I finally came down to see you in your casket. I drove down to New Jersey by myself because Mom and Dad were already there to be with you when you left.

I remember cursing God the entire way down. I remember stopping at that little diner in Connecticut and ordering food and once it came I just couldn't eat it.

And yet, it wasn't real to me until I saw you lying there. They made you look beautiful. You didn't look dead.

I never cried at your wake or your funeral Mass. I never cried when they came back up here to bury your body in the freezing cold.

And yet, tonight--I heard that song you loved on the radio. "Send in the Clowns." I always used to joke with you about how I hated clowns and therefore hated that song. But when I heard it, more than two years after your death, I finally cried for real. Big tears--the tears that steal life from your heart and soul.

I can barely even stand to be near your grave, because it still doesn't seem true. I am selfish to this day; it hurts too much. I vowed to get ink on my body to replicate the cross on your tombstone and I will. I just can't manage to take the photo to have the damn artist draw it. I will though. Soon. I swear.

I am sorry for not being who you needed me to be. I am sorry that I wasn't there for you as you were there for me.

I only hope that you are with the Angels and that there, you will forgive me.

Love you, Gamma.

Crest Whitestrips and whitening mouthwash

I just want to take a moment to say how much I appreciate the company who came up with Crest Whitestrips and Crest whitening mouthwash.

They truly are wonderful products, as I have noticed that while using them, my teeth are considerably brighter, which in turn makes me look slightly more tan.

Yes, I actually look more tan with whiter teeth. This is a big deal for me, considering I may be one of the whitest people on Earth.

That is all.

Why the elderly should take more driver's tests.

So, I was on my way to the doctor’s office for a physical on Thursday morning. I’m a couple of miles from the office at a stoplight with two cars in front of me and none in back of me. As the light turns green and I’m waiting for the other cars to take off, I notice a white Ford Escort barreling down the lane to my left.

Except for the fact that she is in both her lane AND MINE.

So, I can see it coming. “Oh shit.” I calmly say out loud.

And a split second later, the Escort hits the driver’s side of my car, scraping the doors and eliminating the side view mirror.

Apparently, this driver does not particularly care for Mercury Sables.

Not that I blame her.

I digress.

The driver, seemingly unaware that she had damaged my vehicle at all, keeps driving.

This is when I instantly became insane. Well, much more insane than usual.

I follow her for a mile or two, beeping wildly and motioning for her to pull over. She finally realizes that she needs to pull over, and does so on a side street.

I exit my car to assess the damage. Believe it or not, despite my feeling the car scraping against mine, there is no apparent damage to the doors. Only the mirror is destroyed.

This is still more than enough to considerably piss me off at 8:45 a.m., one of my grumpier times of the day.

I glance over at the driver and her car. I see a cane pop out and she ever-so-slowly exits her vehicle. She is quite elderly, to say the least. Several minutes later, she finally makes it over to my car to look at it.

I ask in that calm-yet-extremely-agitated-and-about-to-lose-it tone of voice, “Ma’am, do you realize what you have done?”

“I didn’t think I hit you THAT hard!” was her reply.

“Was there a reason you didn’t stop for a good mile or two?” I ask.

“Well, like I said,” she responds. “I didn’t think I hit you THAT hard.”

Apparently, hitting someone’s car “not that hard” means you don’t have to stop or anything. Humph. Silly me.

As calmly as I can, I explain to her that indeed, a driver has a responsibility to stop for every car that he/she hits, as there is at least the potential for damage. She nods a little and says she’s sorry. Honestly, the woman seems a bit tripped up on something. Or senile. Maybe both.

I then ask her for her information: license, proof of insurance, all that jazz.

I check out her license and discover she was born in 1915.

Jesus Christ. She’s 92 years old!

I write it all down and head to my appointment. The nurse takes my blood pressure and asks me if there’s a reason I can think of as to why it would be so high. I let her know that a very elderly woman decided she didn’t much care for my mirror.

I get home and call up my insurance company to make the claim. Immediately after I hang up, the phone rings. Its little Mrs. McF, asking if she can pay out-of-pocket for the damage. I tell her calmly that I have already reported the accident and she should do the same. She huffs and hangs up.

I had some initial problems with her insurance company, but fortunately, I took care of that. No big deal.

And this is why elderly drivers should be getting driver’s tests at least once per year. It scares me that this woman is still driving around in her little Ford Escort, completely oblivious to the fact that next time, she could hit a child walking down the sidewalk.

Fuck you, cubicle!

I am going to KILL myself pretty damn soon if I do not find another job. I know that just a month or two ago I was excited to have a steady paycheck, and I am, don’t get me wrong. But this just plain sucks.

Let me spell out my worklife so far. This has incorporated almost two and a half years of full-time, post-college employment.

I accepted a job at my company (a leading military service contractor) in October of 2004. The company was located in a beautiful building. As they brought me to my very first office, I simply could not believe it. This was not possible. They had given me my OWN office, which was huge and fancily decorated. I had a huge panoramic window view. Top-of-the-line office equipment. Nice leather chair and sofas.

Score.

I worked there for only a couple of months before my manager told me they thought they had a better place for me. I inquired as to whether I had done anything wrong performance-wise and he insisted I hadn’t. I don’t think he lied, because my review was outstanding. He wouldn’t have kept me on with the company had I not been doing a satisfactory job.

However, they would put me in a position actually working on the local Air Force Base. I would be doing less technical writing (which I did fairly well, but it obviously didn’t thrill me) and more “creative” writing—human interest stories and the like.

Sounded okay to me, so I told my boss that I’d definitely be up for it (I didn’t have much of a choice, though). When I moved, they put me in an almost-as-good office that was huge with nice furniture and equipment and had a decent level of privacy. The job was about at the same level of before—not very thrilling, but eh, that’s okay. I can deal.

But sweet, sweet privacy! How I miss thee!

So, through no fault of our own yet through the fault of an extremely mentally incompetent general, fast forward two years to January of this year. We have now moved to one of, if not THE most crowded building on Base. We have combined with the other public affairs office, many of whom don’t exactly care for our presence, so it’s slightly awkward, to say the least.

And we’re in fucking cubicles.

Holy shit.

CUBICLES.

I now am a full-fledged character in the movie, “Office Space.”

Privacy has officially flown out the proverbial window. There is zero of it. There are dozens of us in one big room with half-walls surrounding us.

I feel violated.

I feel like someone's always looking over my shoulder.

I feel like a fucking chimpanzee in a cage.

Human beings are NOT supposed to work in conditions like these. It’s not RIGHT. We’re supposed to have privacy. Writers especially are supposed to have silence, if they so desire, while producing their work.

Instead we hear about Mary’s weekend screwing two guys at once, or Tom’s drunken spree the night before. We hear ludicrous phone conversations about Suzie’s daughter’s diarrhea, or how Bambi got “like, the best deal EVER on those awesome pink Manolo Blahnik shoes we saw like, last weekend in like, the Neiman Marcus store window!”

Wow, like, isn’t that like, fucking awesome?

Somebody needs to shoot Bambi.

I hate it here. And I’m bitching because I can’t call up my girlfriends and bitch because everyone will hear me and hate me because I hate most of them right now and their STUPID FUCKING CONVERSATIONS.

How hard is it to make even itty-bitty closet-esque offices with full walls!?!? C’mon. It can’t be THAT difficult. Hell—if someone gives me the materials, I’ll construct the closet-office myself.

Bob Propst invented the cubicle in 1964 while he was working for the Herman Miller Company. I hate him so much. I didn’t b other to look up whether or not he was dead, but if he IS dead, good. If he’s not, as much as I’d LIKE to kill him, I’m not capable of doing so, so I’m simple going to loathe him and voodoo-doll his sorry ass.

Fuck you, Bob Propst. And fuck your shitty invention—the cubicle.

Heartwarming.

My friend Kerri, who I never see anymore unfortunately, sends me some very cute e-mails. Because I haven't felt like writing much lately, and this tickled my fancy, I thought I'd share:

This will warm your heart, especially if you have lost faith in human kindness.
This letter was sent to the principal's office after an elementary school had sponsored a luncheon for the elderly. An old lady had received a new radio at the lunch as a door prize, and was writing to say thank you. This story is a credit to all humankind.

Dear Faculty and Students,

God bless you for the beautiful radio I won at your recent senior citizens' luncheon. I am 84 years old and live at an Assisted Home for the Aged. All of my family has passed away. I am all alone now and it's nice to know someone is thinking of me. God bless you for your kindness to an old forgotten lady. My roommate is 95 and always had her own radio. Before I received this one, she would never let me listen to hers, even when she was napping. The other day, her radio fell off the night stand and broke into a lot of little pieces.

It was awful and she was in tears.

She asked if she could listen to mine, and I said fuck you.
Thank you for that opportunity.

Sincerely,
Agnes


Perhaps later, when I am done packing my office's crap for the move to a different building on Base, I will write.

Mornings suck.

It was really, really hard getting up at 5:45 a.m. and going into work this morning. You see, for the past week and a half, I either haven't gone into work or have been the only one in the office, with no real set time schedule. As a result, I had been showing up for work at times ranging from 9 a.m. to noon.

I would have thought that after two and a half years of being in the "real world," I would have gotten used to waking up so goddamned early in the morning to go to work. But I'm still not accustomed to it. I am not a morning person and I am now convinced that I never will be.

And it's not even about being lazy. If I could get up at 8 even, to be at work for 9:30 or so, I'd be fine with working later into the evening. I'd probably be less bitchy and tired and more productive, too. Unfortunately, when working for the military, this is not an option. It's 7:30-8 a.m. or people bitch at you.

I've tried to adjust my routine, but I am unable to fall asleep before 10:30 unless I am very ill.

So, yeah--mornings suck.

If you're wondering while I'm still asleep at noon on Sunday when you call, now you know.

It's because I CAN.

Doing my best.

So, I'm doing my best to get out of the funk I've been in for months, and it ain't working.

I was feeling quite under the weather last night, New Year's Eve, and after spending much of the day/evening with my friend, Joe, I just decided that if I was going to barf, I should do it at home instead of at his place. Not very classy, you know--barfing all over someone's newly cleaned bathroom.

If you're wondering, I did not have a drop to drink--just some lunch that I'm guessing simply didn't agree with me.

So anyway, I'm in my lazy boy at around midnight, flipping through the television channels, when I catch the last few seconds of the Dick Clark New Year's Eve countdown. I'm downing Tums like you read about and sitting in my dim, candlelit bedroom, when all of a sudden, I notice a few tears streaming down my face. I don't know where the hell they came from, but I did notice that I had this feeling of emptiness inside of me.

No, I hadn't just yacked. I mean, I had that feeling of fear and loathing for the upcoming year instead of what most people feel--hopefulness. I don't know why. I am usually happy and cheerful on New Year's Eve, but last night, cheeriness just wasn't an option.

And, for the life of me, I don't know why. Really. If someone could honestly sit down with me and explain it to me, at least I would know. But I haven't the foggiest.

My life is so much better than most, and I know that. That's why I am so ashamed at feeling how I feel. I know there are people dealing with critical illnesses, recent deaths of close loved ones, divorces--pain and suffering I am priveleged to have not yet known.

And I am ashamed that they seem to be dealing with life better than I am now.

I have attempted to fill my life with volunteer work, socialization, faith--positive things. Yet, I still come up with a restless, void feeling. A feeling like I will never be able to compete with the challenges of this world; a feeling like I will never be able to accept my ever-so-many shortfalls and failures; a feeling like this rut of mine will last forever and I will eventually shut out so many awesome people and things from my life.

People tell me to focus on the positive, and I'm doing my best. Really. I'm trying to laugh more and be less negative. I'm trying not to let the stupid shit get to me. I'm trying to stop and smell the roses, so to speak. But I still come up short, and I am clueless as to how to prevent that. I am clueless as to how to feel more hopeful, more positive, and less...well, hollow.

So, for those wondering where I've been and why we dont hang as much as we used to, keep in mind that I'm working on it. I'm working on becoming a better Karen. I'm doing my best.