Much more going on than tube mangling!

The boy and I went to the opera this week. We saw Falstaff for cheap with our student ID’s. I read a synopsis of the opera beforehand like the Lyric’s site tells you to do. It helps to know what is going on so you don’t have to stare at the surtitles the entire time. This was my first opera so I was impressed by everything, the costumes, the set, the cast were all beautiful. The last scene was pretty amazing and I was really surprised when people started bailing early. Some people walked out before the scene finished, some jumped up as soon as the curtain went down. Stay and clap, bitches! You just spent 3 hours at an opera and now it’s so important to jump in your car? You wouldn’t have to wait so long for valet if you just parked a couple blocks away in the garage, lazy.

I just got an email confirming that I am going to start on my big back tattoo when the boy and I go out of town. I’ve been emailing back and forth with the artist and he says the Julia set I picked out is do-able but he is booked up for months. He’s going to be super nice and squeeze me in and do the outline now and then I will return for the fill in. He would like to do it in multiple sessions even if he had time now so it works out nicely. This tattoo is really detailed so its going to be big. I’m nervous about having a big piece but I really like this artist, I think he will do a good job.

And the last thing that’s been going on this week-my brief proposal got rejected :( It’s my first proposal so I guess this is a learning experience or something. I’m still upset because I think that the topic was really good,substance abuse treatment for people with developmental disabilities. My boss still wants the next proposal to be about substance abuse but dual diagnosis MI and substance abuse just isn’t as much fun!

I went to see my girly doctor last week and for the first time ever the doctor didn’t argue! I went in prepared for a fight. I rehearsed what I would say in my mind while I waited next to pregnant bellies and women smiling at ultrasound pictures. I went into the exam room and started to lose my voice as the nurse asked routine questions. Nervous or just awkward around cute dykes? Not sure.

I told the doctor I wanted to know about sterilization and he started explaining the procedure. Didn’t ask if I was married, how old I was, if I had any kids.  He had the nurse take some blood at the end of the visit to make sure I can handle the anesthetic.

I was really expecting more of a fight or even having to switch to yet another doctor. This doctor seemed very nice and non-judging. I almost interrupted him to tell him how I’ve been asking for this for 10 years and have been rejected by multiple doctors. But I didn’t need to tell him.

For all your haters out there, let me remind you that pregnancy would surely upset the robot buried in my chest and we do not want that!

A couple people suggested a tube tying party. I’m down with an excuse to have a party. Would Sweet Mandy B’s draw a uterus on my cake?

Hey, guess what? I’m still allergic to thin peel fruits. You would think I wouldn’t forget which foods are poison to me but I got some pears from the store last week. About halfway in, my lips started to swell, throat got itchy, stomach started to hurt. I already knew this happens with apples but I guess everything with a peel is out to get me! I can eat things that are apple flavored with no problem. I had an apple breakfasty food today. Which I guess goes to show how processed the foods I consume are.

I’m going cross eyed looking at pictures of fractals, Julia and Mandelbrot sets, trying to determine if they are too complex to be inked onto my body. I know people will ask why a fractal since I am horrible with numbers. My official reason is “because science is beautiful.” Which in a way also says “take that, Jesus!”

Have you been keeping up on the latest MySpace security breach? 17gb of private pictures leaked. Goons are already sorting through the pictures and posting the interesting pics. I think I’m too old and too clothed for my pics to be posted.

Lots of music related stuff going on.

-Boy played a 2nd show at a lovely dive bar and he has a 3rd show scheduled for a less divey bar.

-I’m going to the opera next week! I feel very fancy.  I’m not sure how I feel about Falstaff being 3 hours long but I have a flask ;)

- I’m going to see Chuck Berry next month. The boy really wants to see him and the guy is in his 80’s so he is not going to keep playing for long. I may use this opportunity to get a tattoo I’ve been wanting since an artist I like is in the same city as Mr. Berry.

-Marilyn Manson, back with Twiggy Ramirez, is playing a show soon. I feel kind of lame for wanting to go but I saw Manson before and he is really good live. And OMG an old band member?

I think that’s all the music stuff.

I’m feeling more focused at work. We chose a grant to pursue and I’m starting my lit search for it. My boss reminded me that I don’t have to focus on only one thing at a time. I guess I am still working in deadline mode like I was the first few months of my job. So I try to work on a few things a day so I don’t get frustrated with one problem. And I started acupuncture again which should help me sleep better and reduce anxiety. I fix me!

I try to stay away from celeb gossip but Britney shows up on Google news at least once a week. So Britney’s family supposedly planned an intervention with Dr. Phil and Britney bailed on it. And then Dr. Phil told some show or tabloid that Britney be a crazy bitch. Whatever. I’ve looked up Dr. Phil’s credentials before and sadly, some college did give him a PhD. It was 20 years ago, he probably wasn’t such an opinionated tool back then. Being a “doctor” and all, shouldn’t he be bound by confidentiality laws? HIPAA? Ethical obligations of some sort?
This chick at NY Times says no because he is no longer licensed. Well, what the hell Dr. Phil? Get all famous and you let your licenses slip or you purposely give up your license so you can jabber about Britney’s ugly boyfriend with the press? Either way. Dr. Tool gives psychology a bad name because while he does have a degree in psychology, he is just practicing the art of getting really fucking rich, not anything remotely professional.

Also on the paying too much attention to Britney front, I’ve noticed her last couple songs sound a lot more distorted and electronic. Assuming she has some input in what she sings, I thought her distorted voice was a way of separating herself from this lifestyle that she obviously cannot handle. Almost disassociating herself from her music. Then I realized that her voice probably sounds like hell because of all the drugs she seems to be eating and the producers needed to throw some distortion on her vocals to cover up her overwhelming suck.

This all came up when I was looking up medical information, really.

It’s getting close to that stupid holiday with the hearts and the loving and the teddy bears with magnets in their nose so they kiss. You never got me those bears, ex boyfriend from years ago, I have not forgot. It’s ok, I don’t want them anymore because I figured out that you can’t make the girl bears kiss because their magnets repel each other and I think that Hallmark is trying to say something with that. Stop brainwashing middle aged women, Hallmark. Lesbian love is beautiful.

So I was in Dominick’s and I saw Sweethearts candy hearts. I fucking love these stupid crunchy candy hearts. I wish they made these in different shapes for different holidays instead of evil goddamn Peeps. Marshmallow candy feel like I’m eating a half developed chicken fetus omelet.

So I realized I probably never explained the image at the top of my blog. When I started my blog, I had much nobler purposes for it that I sometimes go back to and sometimes I write crap like this.

I was at work one day, this was before my glorious social work days, and I got a bag of Sweetheart candies for my sugar loving heifer coworkers. As we were binging on sugar with blood covered hands, I took a pencil and wrote a very secret message on the back of some heart candies. I took the candies in my hand, shook them up and gave them to a coworker. I told her it was a Valentine’s puzzle she had to figure out.  She flipped over the hearts and began working on her puzzle. “I..hate..your…face…”

Not very Valentine’s at all, I know. I still thought it was hilarious and so did she. She took a picture of the hearts. The very picture you see now! She did not eat the hearts because pencil tastes bad. I don’t know what she did with them, probably fed them to a dog.

And all was well until Easter when bitches put Peeps in my jacket pocket.

My mood improved over the weekend. Friday at work wasn’t too bad, maybe my boss recognized that I was all sorts of moody and went easy on me. I booked an acupuncture appointment at a new place for next week and I will start going back to the gym and maybe give yoga another try.

I’ve been emailing social workers that advertise running LCSW supervision groups but haven’t found any that are actually active. The social workers all offer individual supervision but I can get that at work for free!

I’ve been fucking emotional the past couple days and anxious for a few days before that. I want to blame hormones for the mood swings but Yaz is supposed to minimize PMS symptoms and it’s a full week until my little white pills.

Anxiety is just my normal annoying hypervigilance at night mixed with a couple scary dreams.

Work isn’t helping either. Things are starting to get back to normal after the sleepy holiday season. The agency pretty much did nothing for a month, first preparing for the big audit/survey and then everyone going on vacation during the holidays. Now, for some reason, they are surprised that there is a money shortage. I went to a meeting that’s purpose was to blame clinical staff for the money shortage. Staff were told they could not use the audit or holidays as an excuse. So they blamed their funders. They haven’t been reimbursed for services by outside agencies quick enough. Sure, passing the buck sounds good to me!

Then there were small annoyances today with an Admin Assistant doing duplicate work as me and everyone coming to me about her mistakes. I don’t think that should have bothered me as much as it did.

The big thing that bothered me today was during my grant hunting process. My boss keeps telling me to look for these grants for new researchers. I find a conference for new researchers and grant. I don’t qualify for the grant because it’s for people with doctorates. I tell my boss I don’t qualify and in passing mention that she does. Even though she has been with the agency a long time, she got her doctorate recently. She looks at me like I’m dumb and says “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you to look for. Grants for me.”

What? She’s the new researcher? I guess I never thought of her as the new researcher because she’s so established at the agency. I thought of myself as the new researcher. So I pretend to know that she meant I should be looking up stuff for her and go print out info on this new researcher grant for her. The grant can only be hers, no co-investigators. And if she gets it, she can’t be on any other grants of the same type until the deadline for this grant (in the fall.) Great, so I will be working on a grant that my name can’t even be on and it will be holding up applications to other grants we can co-PI on.

The whole thing took me down a notch because I really saw this job as a way for me to start my own research, or at least co-investigate. Oh, and my boss’ insistence that I learn SPSS? That’s to work on her stats because she doesn’t want to relearn the program. So I get to do data analysis which is pretty much the same thing I was doing in undergrad and is something an intern should be doing. But we don’t have any new interns because we are so slow replying to them that they find other placements!

This agency needs to get it the fuck together.

I’m pretty sure I kicked December’s ass. 07 as a whole might have won but December is totally my bitch. I made it through with minimal family, relationship, emotional and financial drama. Work was tough the first couple weeks of December but it’s been so quiet the last 2 weeks, I can’t complain. And I remained upright on New Year’s Eve. Neither clumsiness or alcohol got me. I wiggle my thumbs at you, December.

My lovely and I had dinner at Blackbird on New Year’s Eve. We dined on baby animals, fishes and bacon ice cream. Bacon! The waiter suggested wine for me without making me feel dumb and I didn’t have to ask for his help. He just swooped in and suggested a Francois Pinon Vouvray. I showed my grace and elegance by eating a spoonful of salt (who knew it was just to hold the oyster in place on the plate!) and not stabbing the gentleman next to me with a fork when he referred to a redheaded,bearded waiter as Chuck Norris for the 10th time.

We then went on to a friend’s party that was elegant as well, quiet and candlelit. Then the power came back on and we wore bad party hats and cheered along with the TV when it was midnight.

And backing up to Xmas-I got a robot, Grinderman, zombies, a custom paddle and chocolates. Those are pretty much my favorite things.