Progress

I'm too tired to write much now, but looking at the headlines it looks like we did it.  We got 219 votes.  Now let's see this health bill in action.  I have a feeling a lot of people who were scared of it will really appreciate it once they see what it can do. Major victory for all Americans tonight.

Goals

Last year was a long, depressing bastard of a year overall.  Not that it was all bad at all, and in fact I think a lot of the foundations I tried to build career wise will end up helping me avoid another such year.  This year  is so far shaping up to be better (knock on wood. A lot of wood).  I'm trying to keep my goals simple though, so as to not set myself up for disapointment.  SO. Only three months late here are my goals for 2010:

1. Work more then last year. 

2. Make more money working then last year. Not quite the same thing as 1.

3.  Try to sort out my personal life so it isn't so up and down.

4. Be neater and cleaner - I'm too old for my apartment to look like a freshman dorm.

5. Don't let my family's craziness get to me.  Seriously.  

6. Learn to listen better and not assume mid-sentence that I know what someone is about to say and interrupt to agree or disagree. A really bad habit of mine.  I've been trying, but this one is hard to break.

7. Visit Italy before my family there forgets what I look like.  My grandfather is also in his 90s now, but I don't even want to think that I might not see him again.  

8. Save some money.

9. Make some new friends and become better about keeping the old. 

Those are my goals, but we'll see...I think they're realistic so I hope by the end of the year I'll be able to say I've made progress on all of them.

Mish Mash

Lots to report and not much at all.  I'm loving my new job, and just hoping it keeps going well - which is all I'm going to say about it because I also read Dooce. My brother is in the hospital and has been for the past four days for a bone infection that both my father and myself told him was probably just growing pains. Go us. And his friends told him he was being wimpy for complaining about, before we knew what it was.  He should be fine however and will probably be discharged in a day or two, finally, so I'm glad he finally got the help he needed and it wasn't worse.   And he can hopefully milk this for all he's worth with his friends and teachers. He has earned it.

Then there's the fact that I'm quite annoyed with my sister for something very petty and yet I can't help being annoyed.  I've been asking her to visit me in NY for a year and a half, but she keeps playing the busy and broke card. Well, guess who went on vacation to Philadelphia.  Obviously she can go wherever she wants, but I can also be pissed about it if I want.  If she doesn't understand why being considered less important to visit then (probably, I'm guessing) a boy she barely knows, then she needs to turn her brain back on.

But anyway, I've gone this past year from not working but wanting to, working in my field but barely getting paid, working and getting paid but in a job outside my field that I was severely overqualified for, to finally working in my field in a job that I'm thrilled about.  Things with my bf are going well, though he is going through his own drama, and my family is relatively ok, bone infections aside.  So right now, life is looking pretty positive.

National Security

Generally I tend to think airline security goes a little overboard, rather then the other way around. Like, seriously, you're confiscating my tequila*?  Or, why is the little plastic razor I'm bringing with me to shave my legs considered a hazard? I really doubt anyone would be particularly intimidated by me if I attempted to wield it.

However, they really dropped the ball on my last flight. Not because something happened. It didn't. I just happened to realize, as I was making my way through the airport ON MY WAY BACK that I had pepper spray in the pocket of my coat. I always do. I bought it and it ended up there and there it sits, in the unlikely event that I ever need it. What this means is that the coat I wore through the airport both to Florida (for business, aren't I just so grown up and professional) and returning from Florida, the coat that both times went through the scanner on the conveyer belt, had pepper spray just sitting in the pocket.  

Now, had I remembered it was there I obviously wouldn't have brought it with me to the airport. I don't need that kind of trouble.  I certainly would not have expected to make it through security with it TWICE.  

Seriously.  They need to be glad I'm not a terrorist because pepper spray is totally more of a potential weapon then a shampoo bottle or nail scissors. Those, those they confiscate.

*Bought in the Mexico City duty free arriving there before leaving to go to Germany to see the World Cup a couple years ago. I made it through security (with the open bottle) and through a flight once with it, but since I don't drink that fast I still had some on my way back and they took it then.  I should drink more. What a waste.  Oh, and I don't actually think it's that ridiculous they took it. Just sad. Very sad.

Long overdue

I'm crawling out from under the mound of work I've been doing to type a quick update post.  Things are good! Things are busy! It is good that things are busy! I've been working full out with almost no sleep for the past thousand years (it feels like).  I'm working my night time diner job at night, and working on film work during the day.  Rest is secondary. This means however that I feel stretched to the limit on every front, so I'm glad the period of hectic activity is coming to an end. I don't think it was sustainable.  I'm also glad the film I've been working on since last year is down to just one more day to shoot. We should have finished this week but it was just too cold to shoot outside.  I'm looking forward to finishing.

On another note, I find myself totally losing patience with my cats. They climb on EVERYTHING. They go everywhere they don't belong. I feel like I'm constantly screaming at them and pushing them off things and that it's not effective. If this is practice parenting I'm failing. Are there some tricks to training cats to do what you want? Or are they just alternatively sweet purring angels and annoying hell-beasts and I just need to learn to deal?

Sick

I'm about to head out to the airport, and I'm hoping this stomach bug I've been fighting decides to cooperate. I have visions of airport security swooping in to kick me off the flight (they can do that if you're sick, I think). This might be an unrealistic fear, but it's my fear. I'm owning it :-).

At first I thought I had finally given myself food poisoning and the thought was like bitter, bitter ashes in my mouth. I pride myself, and brag unduly, about my stomach being able to handle everything.  Well, yesterday I feared that everything didn't include Thursday's pasta, as I slowly progressed from nausea to dry heaving to throwing up. At work. In a restaurant.  No, they didn't send me home.  It would in fact be totally deserved if I did get food poisoning, if only due to the amount of boasting I do about not ever getting it.

I ended up calling out sick today, since I still felt crappy. I'm hoping this doesn't get me in trouble, since I'm so new, but who wants a pukey waitress? Seriously? And it's not like my last few tables of the night got good service anyway. I had the energy of a slug. One covered in salt.  It's hard to be perky and upbeat when you're trying not to throw up on the customers.  However, they all knew I had a flight today so I hope they don't think I'm exaggerating my illness due to my flight.  I guess we'll see. I think they like me, and I really was sick, so I'm going to try to be optimistic.

Memories

I've always been someone who gets attached to objects, sometimes overly so.  I've carted boxes of books, trinkets and furniture across the country in a minivan, packed so tights that my cats were stacked in their carriers in between the front seats.  I hold onto things I no longer need because I can still remember the moment when those things were new - it's hard for me to view it as junk.

One of the things I dragged with me on my move from Florida was a delicate little glass vase, filled with smooth white stones and a small posy of fake lavender. Sometimes the lavender gets replaced with a real flower, but even when I don't have fresh flowers in the house that dainty little vase brightens it up.

It's probably not really anything special to look at for anyone but me, but I love that vase. I got it in Germany during my graduation trip with my dad to the World Cup.  It was a once in a lifetime trip and I was excited and pretty pleased with myself for being there. I had just gotten my first job, right out of school, in a company I had been interning for and I was feeling optimistic and happy about my future and my present.  Walking along sightseeing I saw it displayed in the glass front of a store, along with other colorful housewares and glass jewelry.  It looked so sweet and fresh that I went in and bought it, stones, fake flowers and all.  I wanted it immediately, even though packing a delicate glass vase into a suitcase already crammed full isn't either easy or practical. It's made it across an ocean and later across a country.  I wanted to be the kind of person that had those kind of things; to be just as sweet and fresh and clean as that vase looked to me.

This morning I was rocketed out of bed by the sound of breaking glass. One of my cats, who loves to touch everything with her paws and takes advantage of night time to go where she shouldn't, had knocked it off the shelf it was resting on.  The vase was shattered and the pretty river rocks were scattered across my floor.

It was just a vase.  But still, looking at those pieces of glass, which reminded me of the shiny bright store in Germany when my future looked at that moment just as shiny and bright, I couldn't help but cry.  It was just a vase but I loved that vase and the hope I was feeling when I bought it.

I think that hope will come again. I'm not meant to be a waitress for life; I know that.  And I am doing other things now, things that will hopefully build a scaffolding to future paid work.  I've got a college degree and have always been praised for being "a smart girl." And not just from my mother, though she led the chorus.  There is more waiting for me out there once I get past the rough patch right now - in fact things are already getting busier and I think (!!) that they might be better soon. But still, right now in this moment I don't feel like I did when I was right out of school, a job under my belt, traveling in Europe.  And looking at the pieces of that vase made me feel for that moment the chasm separating when I felt then and how I feel now.