D.A.R.E.

No post in a while......

I've been trying not to post until I get over my recent run in with stress, but I think perhaps writing about it will instead be a better method of combating the emotions.

So be warned... Here comes the anger....

Time stops when you take drugs.

I've never taken them myself. But I am unfortunately related to distant people who would rather be living in their parents basement, high and unsociable, than sober/clean and successful.

Perhaps this is a fortunate thing that I am related to such people.... for I have a constant shadow following me, reminding me to keep on the narrow straight pathway.

I don't think I'm a judgmental person in general... but I am extremely prejudiced against people who do drugs. It is an awful trait to have.... but I cannot see any other angle of the argument. Drugs kill people, and I refuse to see it any other way. I don't care if its a 90 year old dude who's smoking marijuana for 'its health benefits' or not.

I try very hard to not have any deadweight like anger inside. But it was absolutely infuriating when people I have seen in recent years ask me the same questions they asked me when they weren't taking the drugs.

Time stopped for them... and all they remember is their last few moments and the surroundings that no longer exist for them before they became high 24-7.

I was very ill for a long period of time, and my family was kept posted about my condition on a regular basis.

I've been well now for, thankyou God, almost 5 years.

The high people, however, still think I'm not well..... and for the past 5 years, they give me the same shocked "OMG" look as I retell the story of how I recovered. The same story I've told them over... and over... and over again.

They may not be physically dead, but their time has stopped. And when you stop moving... you no longer have a purpose...

And you die.

I don't know why I keep running into these people that I try so hard to stay away from.

Maybe its because I need to be reminded why I should fight to never become them.

Maybe its because I need to keep telling them the same thing over and over again...

Or maybe its because it was going to make me angry enough to rant about it here, so that someone out there living this kind of deteriorating wasteful life can see that no matter how much fun you think you're having, others like me have already written you out of their lives and labeled you as living 6 feet under.

Quit the junk. Start moving forward again. Its not impossible to change. It *is* impossible, however, to expect others to change your life for you. That change has to come from within.

So do it already.

Where's John Quinones when you need him??

I have one tiny frustration to vent today.

A friend & I went to a birthday party last night at a bar/restaurant that's kind of got a family environment to it. There was some idiot at the bar portion obviously drunk... and he was holding his extremely young child.

Then... he dropped the kid, smack on the floor.

And the bartender served him another drink as he picked up the crying baby off the floor.

The friends in my group went over next to him to snoop and order a drink while really being nosey. They overheard the guy telling the kid who is was obviously too small to understand, "You shouldn't have been moving around so much"

WHAT THE HECK?!?!?!? How about, "Hey your drunken poor excuse of a parent shouldn't be drinking alcohol while holding a child! Let me go give you a motivational smack to teach you a lesson"

Stupid people.... seriously.

no days off

I haven't worked 7 days a week in umm.. three years? It was strange.

They say you can find out a lot about someone by going through their trash.

Turns out, you can find out a lot about your fellow coworkers by doing their job for two days.

The internet is a great invention. It's essentially this massive speakers corner, and whenever you want, you get to take center stage and tell everyone that's listening [and in my case, not a whole lot, hahaha] what makes your buttons tick, why you're upset with the now, and do your dark poetry slam screaming until you feel better.

When it comes to my work, I'm all about organization, planning, efficiency, and having a map in place that shows me the path to getting the work done. If there wasn't a guidebook written when I got hired, I write one as I learn, and continually add on to it when I learn something new. I like having points of reference and a go-to checklist or manual so that way I don't need to waste my brainpower on something that a pen and paper can remember for me.

Plus, I haven't figured out how to utilize the part of my brain that still remembers that 19, 65, 9, 17 and 4, 2, 1, 6, and 1, 9, 9, 2, 1, 1, 2, 4 are codes that go to a videogame that I played when I was 8. That part of my brain is awesome, and I wish I could harness that memorability and make use of it for things that I could REALLY use.

The weekend was okay, but it was extremely frustrating that my job was organization... and the people I was cleaning up after had no sense of it whatsoever.

Anyhow, I'm sitting here at the end of the day and thinking that when its all said and done... it was a colossal disappointment that no one else showed up to help with the extra duties that needed to get done. So I did the one thing that I thought was the best investment of my time.

I LABELED stuff.

Its amazing how much faster I got things done once there was a simple improvised organization system. Not everything got done, but at least I was able to leave some kind of stepping stool for the person who is to fill that job tomorrow.

Thankyou internet for helping me survive by myself at the office. Had I not had the endless blue ocean of www to vent my frustrations to, I think I may have gone crazy.

Well... I mean *more* crazy.

Fortune time:

DISAPPOINTMENT IS THE NURSE OF WISDOM

The Clock is fighting with me again...

I think Lauren is right.... no tea for me after 4pm. I had some right at 4 I think.... and ta-dah, the clock won't shut up.

But I don't think its just the tea. The week has been icky all around, I tell ya. Stress filled weekend, stupid Office-Space type work scenario at the job, crazy landlord breathing down my neck at home, negotiations at trying to get a place to live, and overall the week so far has been full of life related BLAH.

And in the midst of it all, Grandpa's clock has stopped ticking, and it is no longer possible to fight. It is unclear whether or not we would have won anyway... and the sun would still rise and fall the same way it has been for the past two years since that day...

Rising and falling... without him.

Things are too overloaded right now to focus on that. Tomorrow I get to focus on the art of saying NO.

I like to think I'm a team player. If a fellow coworker needs my help, I'm all for helping if I can make it fit into my schedule.

But not this week. Picked the wrong week to delegate your workload onto someone else. Tomorrow, if it happens again [should I even ask that -- of course its going to happen], I shall play the 'I don't speak english card.'

Wakaranai

Yo No Se

Ich weiss nicht

Okay not really, I'll say NO. But that would have been funny...

So what is the polite way to say 'I'm not your personal secretary, and I refuse to take orders from you.'

Suggestions?

I don't think I have a fortune that covers this one...

WHEN IN DOUBT... GO TO SLEEP