Measi's Musings

Archive for the ‘Venting’ Category

Still mulling over a lot, so this will be a short entry and probably somewhat ragged…

Basically, the bottom fell out of a growing dam that’s been building for several months this week. Stuff between friends. Part of it’s a simple case of familiarity breeds resentment. (the opposite of absense making the heart grow fonder). Part of it is letting things that seemed trivial group together into a big mass of frustration. And then words were said this week on top of it that pretty much sealed my position on things for a while. Words later brushed aside by who said them as being misinterpreted out of context– but they were too direct to be misinterpreted.

It’s hard to misinterpret “tell Mel and Erich to tread very carefully. I’m tired of hearing complaints from the two of them. Their letter to me better be along the lines of a Middle East peace envoy.”

Threat? Yeah. Hard to take out of context, there. And a completely inappropriate connection to the middle east, considering what’s going on in the world right now.

I’ve lost two friends this week– mostly because of words that have been said. Threats, side comments, etc. I don’t work well with threats. I’ve been belittled by my dad with these kinds of casual threats for years. The timing on these threats this week were just at the worst possible time– because now that I’ve written and sent that letter to my father, I’m not afraid to fight back against anyone who threatens me. In this case– before I’ve said a single word to the person who threatened.

It has to make me wonder– was I ever really a friend to them? Or was it just that since I was willing to do the driving to go to their place all the time to hang out, I became the friend because I tolerated the one-sideness of the effort to hang out. We went *there*. Unless Erich and I paid for things, we went *there*. With very few exceptions.

It breeds some resentment, lemme tell ya.

Will I miss them? Yeah. But with everything swirling right now, and the comments that have been made, I can’t justify being around them. If I’m held accountable for things I say that might hurt one or both of them, the same should be reciprocated.

*shrug*

~ Mel.

It was a beautiful day of 70 degrees outside.

LGM is sick as a dog with a 103 temp.

Erich came home feeling similar– no fever, but he feels queasy.

I’m feeling rough, too.

Beh.

We didn’t even get to have a beer tonight.

=P

Hellish, hellish workday, filled with emails that if I weren’t at work, I’d probably be within the middle of an email flame war. I’m truly feeling like it’s me against the art buyers these days, and I’m getting fucking sick of it.

Most of this comes down to two art buyers– one who is one of those flakey, weird people who makes your skin crawl under the category of “I don’t know what it is, but something is NOT RIGHT WITH THIS WOMAN!” The other is “rebel against the system, regardless of what it is” woman.

When the two of them are coming at me at once, it gets unbearable.

Not Right is taking cues from Rebel in the sense that she’s decided– without informing the admin (*cough* me)– to change the system of getting signatures for invoices. Apparently she’s telling her illustrators to send all of the paperwork back to her on illustration contracts, rather than to me (who has a log of when I send and receive things so we can track where everything is at), and then she gives it to me piecemeal as things are finished.

This throws off my cheery little world because illustrators, wondering why they haven’t been paid, start calling me asking about invoices. But of course, since Not Right has them on her desk, I have no records of receiving it. Making me sound like a clueless idiot when I tell them that I never had received signed copies from them, so there’s no way it could have gone on to accounts payable.

Not Right got herself into a pickle today when one of our illustrators called about an invoice that’s been outstanding since February. These, of course, are illustrators who are paid per piece and get 1099 forms, not steady paychecks. So of course, they’re freaking out about every piece of art that’s hanging in the balance. For some reason, I have the contracts for this $1,400 invoice, but not the invoice. Don’t understand what the heck happened. The vendor asks me about another one that I’ve never heard of, and I suggest that he call the art buyer (Not Right) to see if she ever gave me the spec sheets for the contract– because I’m up to date on all of my contracts, and do not have anything recently sent to him.

He calls her, and it turns out that the $1,400 was on her damn desk, held there while she’s chewing ME out for not having gotten a response from Accounts Payable about these invoices.

*sigh* And then they wonder why this process is so slow. It really doesn’t help when I have to constantly ask art buyers where stuff is since they decide to change the policy on how things are processed, without bothering to inform me (who has to process everything).

Meanwhile, Rebel is up to her normal tricks that began early last year. Rebel bitches about anything that is related to systems in the corporation. She complains about the contracts, saying they’re worthless and that we “really need xxxxx instead, and if we’d only done this in the beginning, we wouldn’t have so many problems…” when in actuality, Rebel doesn’t even bother to learn the contracts we have. She screwed them up, which is why I’m doing them in the first place. She constantly comes over to scream about the injustices in the contract system (has been since Jan. 2001, although it doesn’t seem to get through to her that her yelling isn’t going to change), trying to take up my time with something that she’s not going to sway me on, because I know she’s incompetent when it comes to legalese. Last week I flat out told her that before she tries to improve the system, she had to learn the one in place, and frankly I didn’t see her even bothering to try, since she began bitching about the contracts AT the original training session for them, rather than bother to learn them.

At the same time, a new Art Buyer is coming in this week, and Rebel has decided to nominate herself a manager in charge of her hiring, not bothering to even ASK what the system is again. She just decided– without bothering to even ask Linda (our department manager)– that New Person would start on XXX date. Told New Person XXX date, and XXX person SHOWED UP today. We don’t have anything ready, and I made it clear to Rebel that she’s not even on payroll yet. Of course, that starts a new barage of crap.

So I’ve sealed myself off (literally– duct tape is beautiful) in my cubicle. Hopefully the “Go AWAY” sign will help, although even while typing this, two people have ignored it.

*sigh*

I want to go home. Badly.

–Mel.

My fears about getting sick from everything that happened have come to pass. I woke up this morning with a sinus infection and a very pillowed head. Not that it feels congested, but just really obnoxiously heavy and hollow.

That’s what two nights of poor sleep, emotional wigging-out, plus two weeks of shitty working conditions’ll do to ya.

And Bigger Boss (Peter) will be in my office tomorrow, just to top things off.

oh, joy.

I really need a vacation. Badly.

I guess what pisses me most off is that because of complete fatigue and this creeping illness, I still can’t get this apartment done. I’m SO exhausted and unmotivated to do anything. I’m just looking around at my apartment, miserable that it’s not done, but at the same time just too tired to care.

The game went late last night– until around 12:30 or so, and I was fighting just to stay awake for the better part of the last hour. Once we got packed up and in the car, it was nearly 1. Got back to the city around 1:45 and dropped the Brighton contingent off (Avatar, Wildcard, and Teresa). Then made it back to my place by about 2:15, and poor [erich] probably didn’t get home until around 3. And he wasn’t looking too good in the health department, either.

Don’t get me wrong– I don’t mind a long game once in a while. It’s just that the lack of sleep the night before just killed me. I spent the night at Erich’s so I could have the car on Saturday to do my (hopefully) final storage run and a couple errands. But a double bed is just two small for two adults. Particularly the two of us who toss and turn. King-sized bed is most definitely in our future, me thinks. That or our two beds (the double and my queen) are going to be side-by-side in our apartment’s bedroom.

Part of the reason is just things striking against me– our trash dumpsters out back are completely overflowing again, and things are sitting on the alley blacktop. I really don’t feel like contributing more trash bags to the disaster out there until the truck comes by tomorrow. There are rats in the city, there are wild cats (and raccoons, believe it or not), and they’ll smell the food scraps in the trash and tear into the bags. And it’s so horrendously windy out there, that it’ll just blow around and make a mess. I can take the trash out tomorrow.

I did go out and try to hunt down quarters for laundry, but the only laundromat that has a change machine was out. And since it’s Sunday, no banks are open. Guess I’ll have to go tomorrow. And I did bag most of my laundry up that needs to be done. I can at least get a load done tomorrow morning before work.

It’s just energy. I can work through this sinus infection/cold thingy. It’s not at the point where I’m completely miserable yet. But I’m just so exhausted and haven’t caught up, and I just can’t find the energy to push myself.

I hate feeling this way.

I guess I’ll just make it an obnoxiously early night tonight– watch X-Files and the Star Wars ep II trailer premiere, and head to bed shortly after 10. Maybe get up and see if I can attack a couple things early in the morning.

Bleh.

I did my taxes tonight. Due to my bonus last year, I was scootched up into the next tax bracket… by $1.50.

Both state and federal.

Goddamnit.

I owe $120.00 in taxes this year.

*snort* So much for that $300 boosting the economy from ol’ Dubya. Nearly half of it’s going right back to him and his war effort.

Guess I’ll wait until April 13th to submit my taxes this year.

–Mel.

Well, I guess the conversation with LGM didn’t go quite as badly as it could have. I don’t think he accepts any of the responsibility for how he acts, though. He kept telling me that it’s all a problem of how I perceive things, and since I’m the only one who sees it a certain way, therefore I must be the one wrong. That all of my problems are completely overreactions to things, and that if I changed my attitude, there wouldn’t be problems.

I’ve been the only one to perceive things and been right, too. Sometimes I’m the only one who perceives something a certain way because I’m the only one he treats in a certain obnoxious way. His delivery and tone do make an impact.

He accuses me of wanting to be “special” in his circle of friends, but I honestly don’t. I just want to feel like I’m on par with everyone else. And while maybe some of his friends can handle jokes that are completely deadpan, by nature I don’t get them… especially from him, who is NOT joking about half the time. He always throws in my face that I should know him by now and accept the way he is, but when will he start accepting me? I have to deal with his shortcomings, but he won’t deal with mine. It’s all about me changing the way I act. It’s all about invalidating my feelings so he doesn’t have to accept that maybe he is wrong from time to time. Because unless the rest of the Boston crew is lying to me, a lot of people have just given up with LGM’s attitude that he’s always right and that it’s everyone else’s problem and are lying to him because they know telling him the truth is a waste of breath. Maybe that’s just something I need to start accepting, too.

Let’s get this straight now–LGM is NOT someone I want to date. When he’s in a relationship, he’s not honest with himself, with the girl he’s dating, and most certainly not with his friends around him. I was in a hellish three-month ordeal with him five years ago. He has a lot of issues he needs to get through, but keeps avoiding them by going from girl to girl to girl. I was just one of the convenient side projects he had for a while as far as dating went.

*sigh* I realize I have problems with my interactions with people. I’m terrified of dealing with people in groups of more than, well, two. I get sick to my stomach, and have to do everything in my power to stay in the groups instead of running away to get a breath of fresh air and calm the shaking that often keeps me hiding my hands so no one can see. I am downright afraid of people. I know that unless some miracle comes around, I will be alone my entire life. Sure, I get the “you have such a pretty face” comment and the “you’re so good to me” comments from everyone. I’ve had four guys say “if I wasn’t involved with XXX, I’d do you.” Gee. Thanks. I’m fuckable. Gosh, that makes me feel so good about myself.

But at the same time, I seem to have the stigma as Not Relationship Material.

I’ll make the call this evening to our company counselor crisis service. I guess it’s the only way at this point, because I don’t think I’m that bad. Maybe I am and just need help.

Fuck.

So it’s just about 3:20, and I’ve been so inefficient today that I’m kicking myself. I just can’t get into gear.

LGM called me… an hour ago, maybe? To tell me about his childhood friends in Florida. One he’s lost track of, the other he hasn’t talked to by choice. The latter I was fairly disgusted with from the first time I met him, since the guy was just an asshole the first time I met him.

I asked LGM if he received my email from earlier today about calling me tonight (fucking AT&T). He said he hadn’t, but his email’s been all screwed up today. So I told him that I feel that in light of the events this weekend and our conversation yesterday on the phone, he and I needed to have a little talk. And what does he ask about… the damn game. “are you playing this weekend?” Nothing as far as the friendship between him and I, but concern over the fucking game. Is a Dungeons and Dragons character all I am to him anymore? If it is, I’m honestly not surprised. With very few exceptions, the only time I see him at length is when we’re at gaming sessions. Perhaps that’s all he sees in me anymore… a character replacing who I am, and since my characters are figments of the imagination, able to be hurt and abused without repercussions, I am now, too. He says he cares, and every once in a while, I see a glimmer of the friend who genuinely does show it. But most of the time, he’s pulling one of his deadpan “jokes” which in reality feel so mean-spirited and are so difficult to read his true intentions that they automatically put me on the defensive. I hate it, and with all of the times he says “well, Melissa, you should know me well enough by now to know…” Well… I DON’T, because he keeps changing the fucking rules on me, and so as always, I never know where I stand with him, and when the shoe’s going to drop again, and I’m constantly afraid of him. And since our talks in February to patch this friendship up and sweep a lot of the shit clean, I’ve seen a lot of inspiration to improve things, but no attempts to make those inspirations a reality. Lots of talk, no walk, in other words.

Honestly? I feel like he still wants to control every part of our friendship, and because of my fear and my weaknesses, I’m letting him. And I hate that about both of us.

In any case, he said that he’d “try to find the time after he gets home from the gym tonight” to call me, and then gets uppidy about me not having long-distance service. (this after I paid a thirty five dollar charge from the inital two-hour patch-up conversation he and I had in early February. I think he, who makes significantly more money than me and doesn’t pay rent, can pay for this call, which should last no more than a half-hour).

You’d think that we were still dating with all of this crap, wouldn’t you? *sigh*

Sometimes I wonder if I should just say fuck it and end all communication with him. Except that I know I’m too fucking weak to.

Damn I hate myself sometimes.

After the cats’ antics over the past couple days, I slept for about 10 hours last night. I kept waking up, though, and as soon as I was even a bit awake, my mind started to race. I don’t even remember anything that I was thinking of. Perhaps it was the equivalent of less-than-perfect cassette recorders–when you press stop (or even play), sometimes the sound on them goes into high speed for just a second. Maybe it was my dreams going in high-speed.

Needless to say, I still feel wiped out. But then again, I’ve just finished my first Diet Coke for the day, and considering I haven’t had any coffee today at all, it’s a miracle I’m even awake!

Colley was thankfully back to normal this morning. Came up, plopped down on his back, and insisted on chin and tummy rubs. If I stopped scratching for a moment to change the TV with the remote, he meowed to remind me that my attention had gone away from where it was “required.” At least I’m not paying the price for bringing in another cat!

To switch gears, I’m going to have to have a long talk with LGM about some stuff tonight. We had a bit of an argument yesterday after some things were revealed on Sunday which annoyed Avatar, Wildcard, and I. Yet again, it involves… you guessed it, Grace. Wow, what a surprise, eh? The actual event that set this off was more of a final straw sort of thing (irritated that Grace was allowed to re-roll a new character because she wasn’t in the mood to play the one that she had). LGM told us later that he felt he pressured her into playing the character (which of course, he NEVER does to anyone else… but then again, if someone wants to not play a character, he gives them a hard time, too). By itself, it’s petty and immaterial and really pointless, but as I told LGM yesterday, “if this were just about the characters, do you really think there would be this much of a fuss?” He admitted I had a good point.

He’d emailed Wildcard, Avatar, and me yesterday morning after apparently all three of us had voiced concerns about what went down with Grace. And explained his reasoning, which still sounded a bit vague and skirting issues. Then at the end, he asked for comments or concerns if we felt he was still blatantly showing favoritism so that we could reach a compromise. I emailed him with my feelings, which don’t skirt issues because I want him to know exactly how uncomfortable I feel having to deal with this extremely frustrating situation that she’s the very needy and melodramatic girlfriend of the DM, and how unenjoyable games become when I have to deal with her at the end of adventures when JT plays. I also explained how this game situation is just another symptom of the larger picture, which is the way he treats all of his friends because he’s currently dating Grace. And how everyone is sick of his constant defense of her, when we all know that the same thing would not be offered to us.

Well, within five minutes of sending that email to him, he’s ripping on me over the phone (and I’m trying to keep my temper and tone down since I sit in the middle of Cubicle Land at work, where voices carry). After a few minutes of the tongue lashing, which he continued to berate me with, I told him that if he was going to rip me a new one after inviting comments, then this conversation was ended, and I was done dealing with him for quite a while. I’m not walking into his self-righteous traps anymore.

That calmed him a bit, but he still continued to be condescending, and disagreed with everything that I was saying about what he does to other people, and instead of accepting that yeah, he does these things, he starts laying crap on me to deflect the blame. After about 15 minutes of this conversation that was going nowhere, I told him that I have learned that in the future, when he’s opening the floor for comments and concerns, I will not give them, because obviously he doesn’t want them. And then I got off the phone. Haven’t heard from him since.

I emailed him this morning telling him that I had some stuff to discuss with him this evening, and I needed him to call me (since AT&T keeps fucking with my long distance). Looks like we’re going to have a little talk tonight. Because if we’re going to go through the rounds of him being all-talk and no-action, I really am not in the mood to deal with him anymore. It’s bad enough being required to put up with Grace in order to be in his presence. I’m not going to take this shit in order to be his friend, because frankly, his friendship as it currently stands is not worth the grief. He keeps demanding things of me, but doesn’t seem to want to change himself at all in return.

And I just don’t want to deal with that anymore.

-Mel.