I'm a superstitious lady

so I'll probably jinx myself by talking about my boyfriend but hell, that's what I want to do.

I read through some of these old posts and first off, I'm an asshole. I know I tend to write on here when I'm feeling dark and it has to spill out somewhere so I give myself a pass on that. But sometimes I'm just an asshole. Plain and simple.

Anyways, reading through these old posts I wrote a lot about Ryan. Specifically about not feeling empty. I want to clarify, I was not being dramatic in any way, shape, or form about how I felt. It was this all-consuming emptiness that I tried desperately to fill. And sometimes I could appease it, albeit temporarily. Lost was consuming, drunken nights had their part, and mostly the men in my life were constantly revolving. It was like I was trying to figure something out.

I don't think I knew who I was. I think I knew who I wanted to be, I just couldn't figure out how to get there. I just kept sabotaging myself as if I didn't think I deserved to get what I wanted. Maybe Ryan saw that in me even back then. I'm sure he did and I'm sure that would've been really frustrating for him. I know he cared about me, perhaps not as much as I cared about him but he clearly had his own issues to deal with and that's fine too.

I'm writing about this right now because 2012 is coming to a close and it was a year ago, almost to the day, when that emptiness finally subsided and I started down the path that led me to this sunshine, singing Janey that no one knows what to do with. My boyfriend this time last year was terrible. I don't think I've ever allowed anyone to speak to me in the way that I let him do for months, in fact, I know I've never let anyone do that. It goes back to what I was saying earlier, that I was sabotaging myself because I didn't think I deserved to get what I wanted. That's what Sam was. That's what I thought I deserved. 

The revolving downward spiral of men in my life is astounding. Every one was worse than the other, and each guy I date I didn't think could get much worse. But then I outdo myself again. And Sam was the worse of the worse. Even worse than the nameless, faceless guy. I knew that guy was skeezy. Sam spent time acting as if he wasn't, but the longer I was with him, the worse he got. If he had pulled anything he had done in our last week together when we first started dating, I honestly think I would've put my foot down. But he conditioned me to think these terrible things of myself. He had this amazing way of turning every thing around so I felt guilty, even when it had nothing to do with me.

Sam was rock bottom for me. I finally knew that enough was enough and I decided that I was actually worth something. It was liberating. Looking back now, I feel like the girl from last year is an entirely different person, not only could that girl not be me, we wouldn't even be related.

Now enter Bryan, my new beau. I love him. Not in an all-consuming, reckless, fevered way, like how I was with Ryan. In a full and enduring way. I like how I feel when I'm around him. I'm not embarrassed of who I am or what I look like. I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be and I know exactly where I should be going. Like I'm a person with a purpose. Like I'm a lady. Like I'm special. Like I'm important.

Sometimes I wonder how I would react if we broke up (because guys, it's still me and I still am a pretty dark little lady). I'd like to think I would be all right. I mean I would be devastated but I think I've figured things out enough to know that I'll be okay. Eventually I would be okay.

Now I know this long winded post seems like it's about boys. Like I'm a girl who can't function without a boyfriend. I want to stress that this has never been nor will ever be me. I am typically a creature of solitude and have been since I was a child. I love my friends and I love hanging out with them but I have always been able to function quite well on my own. So no, I'm not a person who is defined by a boyfriend. 

No, I just had the tendency to date random guys (never seriously, mind you!) that treated me exactly the way I thought I deserved to be treated. I dated the guys who viewed me the way I viewed myself, so the worse I felt the worse the guys I dated became. It was another form of punishment for myself, having someone else reiterate the dark things that lurked into the back of my mind. How terrible had it been that Ryan had taken all my insecurities and thrown them back in my face as the reason why he couldn't love me? That's why I couldn't love me. I had been a glutton for punishment.

 Well I think I've summed up everything I wanted to say, more or less.  I know I said I was going to talk about my boyfriend and I guess I didn't really- I talked about me. I can be very self involved, obviously I'm writing a blog to no one as if someone really cares about the big mental breakthrough I had a year ago. Ha!

Stay fresh ta death, yo

epiphany

So the most amazing thing has happened to me and I want to shout it off the rooftops:

"I'M HAPPY DAMMIT!"

The most bizarre thing has happened to me- I am changing my life to one I want to live.

Even when I'm bored or tired, I think to myself "I'm pretty fucking happy."

I took inventory of the things in my life that brought my stress and grief and I fixed them.

My job? Got a new one. My apartment? Moved out. My boyfriend? Dumped him.

(Not my current boyfriend, I love him. He rocks! I mean my crappy boyfriend from last year)


I don't know, maybe this is all just fleeting. Maybe this too shall pass. Maybe I'm in for a crap ton of heartbreak. But I like to think that this is the scales evening out. All those years of being saddened and alone and now I've stepped out into the light. And if this is fleeting, at least I know that I'm enjoying it.

This may also be another sign of the apocalpse, in case anyone is keeping track.

Stay fresh!

p.s. I have a kitten and he's uhh-door-uhh-bull!

a non-important update

Hello nobody who reads this! I just thought I would check back here and update the invisible masses who read this silly thing about the unimportant updates of my life.

First off, I finally read The Late Shift, the book about the Letterman/Leno feud that I said I wanted to read like 5 years ago and also, as a follow up I read the author's other book about the Conan/Leno feud that just happened a few years ago. That one was more interesting to me, but I think that's just because I had become invested in that whole ordeal. To me, it was like a metaphor of my life. And yes I was that self involved at the time. I felt like poor CoCo, who had been promised everything he had ever wanted and had it all taken away "because it wasn't working" but before he was actually given a chance to make it work. Change CoCo to Jane and the following pronouns and that's exactly how I felt with Ryan. So his final speech he gave on his tonight show, it spoke to me in ways that I still don't understand. That whole thing was silly and sad, and sadder how much it all meant to me at the time. Nonetheless, the book was a really good read.

Secondly, I got a new job! I don't know why I didn't state this first, this seems like bigger news but it's too late! I can't edit this, this is written in STONE. Annnnyways, I now work for a company, you may have heard of, called Amazon.com? I am a customer service representative who works from home, which conveniently solved the "I have no car, how will I get to work?" problem. Crisis averted! So far I really, really like it. Besides getting to work in my pajamas, I also have a set schedule which makes seeing that handsome man of mine a little easier, despite the fact that it's made harder because I don't have a car. Now we can see each other every 2 weeks at least since I have every Wednesday off and he has every other Wednesday off. And the job for the most part is just plain old fashion FUN!

Thirdly, CATS! Keith and I are going to get a little kitten. Name possibilities: LLCoolJ (no explanation needed, really), Abed (but only if Keith will let me get a) a cardigan for the kitten and b) another kitten named Troy), Bro (Bro, get off the table! Bro, don't poop on the couch!), or possibly Ronald Weasley (a ginger kitty). Other names have been thrown around, we'll see what his name is when we meet him. OTHER CATS! I have started posting pictures of cats every time someone posts something political on facebook. It's pretty funny.

Lastly, I started smoking again. Sorry mom! World's saddest panda.....


So from my shitty apartment to yours, stay fresh!

where in the world is....

jane who wears lots of scarves?

I hope in your head you were singing the theme song to the 90's game show/computer game with the same name, "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?" because that's what was in my head.

Anyways, where in the world am I? Why, I am in my new apartment! That's right folks, I finally moved back out! And what else? I have a boyfriend too and we've been dating for almost seven months now.... I know what you're thinking. Who is this girl and what has she done with our Janey? Well it's me, my darlings and if you want further proof, here you go...

While, yes, I have moved out and got myself a man (a MAN!), but I also totaled my car a couple weeks ago (my fault) and I currently am laying in the living room of my new apartment, dying of heat stroke (we live above a laundromat), and suffering from pink eye. I look like a freaking pirate.

I still work at the same crappy job I did last time I posted.

But I feel different. And who knows, this may change, but instead of thinking the world owes me for the crap I'm continually being dealt, I'm going to try to make the best of it. For example, I totaled my car and I had liability only on it so there's no way of getting a new car except with the money out of my literal pockets. And there's not much money in there. So that sucks, but instead of thinking this is bullshit the universe hates me, oh woe is me, I just need to think, this is bullshit but it happened, so what am I going to do next to fix this? My mom (bless her loving and beautiful soul) is having hip replacement surgery soon and she said I can borrow her car while she is on the mend. After that, I'm going to look at my expenses and my so very little and sad paycheck and figure out how much I can afford to pay on a car payment, and buy a car. And this time have full coverage instead of liability only.

So that's my plan.

I'll be honest, probably the worst part of not having a car is the fact that it is so difficult to see my boyfriend now. He lives two hours away so now to visit him (so he's not driving here every week) I have to take a greyhound bus, which is pretty inconvenient simply because he lives an hour away from the grey hound station, so he still has to drive. But he's fantastic and awesome and drives that hour to pick me up anyways. I don't know how I lucked out to find such a wonderful guy but I'm going to try my best not to muck this one up. We'll see if that happens.

So that's it I believe, those are my wondrous and illustrious updates.
Stay fresh.

welcome to the longest week in jane's life...

My week started off with lay offs at work. Our store manager called in each manager one by one and let them go. I spent 7 hours at work crying and wondering, Hey am I next? Am I unemployed? I am employed. They eliminated layers of management and condensed three managers positions into one and instead of offering it to one of the three managers whose positions were essentially eliminated, it was offered to me. I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing. But I do know I hate my job.

And I feel guilty. Guilty that three people lost their jobs so I could keep one and even more guilty that I have this job and I hate it and I'm going to quit the first opportunity I get. It sucks. It sucks because I don't want this position and I'm going to leave and yet someone lost their job. I feel ungrateful and foolish. But I absolutely 100% hate the job I was signed up to do.

And on a related note, Ron Johnson the CEO of jcpenney is an asshole. This multimillionaire "job creator" just cost an undisclosed number of people their jobs. Dear Ron Johnson, you want to cut 900 million dollars in 2 years? How about you and your apple buddies taking a fucking pay cut?

While I agree that there was too many levels of management and probably needed to be trimmed down, Mr. Johnson got a little scissor happy. And what's worse is all the management has an absurd level of responsibility yet the company didn't think it warranted a merit increase. Heads up Mr. Johnson, if you expect managers (I'm sorry, Service Lead Experts, yes take away any fictional authority we had in our names, thanks) to work themselves to the bone, you should probably compensate them for it. Especially when everything is thrown at us with sometimes only a couple hours warning. Retail shouldn't be a war zone Mr. Johnson, so why do I feel like I'm in combat every day.

Did you think about the effects of your actions by this, what I'm assuming is an insanely large number since it's been a week and it is being refused to be disclosed, massive exodus? Did you think about the associates who felt blindsided and now know that their "Service Lead Experts" are mere puppets in your own little Extreme Makeover: Retail edition? That they are now forced to have people that have no idea what they are doing over them just so you can cut money. Did you think about the customers, the few that we have, that have become accustomed to having associates help them or at least be at the register to ring them out? I can't even start to train in my position because my entire shift is consumed by associates needing help in their quads ringing out because they are short staffed and covering breaks because we are running on the very bare minimum of associates. So that means all the slack falls back on the Service Lead bullshit to carry it all, yet again, not being compensated for it.

This to me is a prime example of everything that is wrong with our country. Rich white men use their corporations (who are people) as a game of RISK. They gamble with people's livelihood, 401ks, and entire world and if they drop the ball, nothing happens to them. They sit at their million dollar mansion in Silicon Valley and contemplate their next venture. Meanwhile, the collateral damage, aka Middle America, is left seeping through the wreckage trying to understand how it came to this and where to go next. And that's the beauty of capitalism, right?!

I hope with all of my heart that Mr. Johnson's endeavor is in fact successful, that he re energizes the way we view retail and completely warps the retail store and becomes the front runner of all that great and awesome. Yeah. And it will be awesome to stick around and be apart of that if it does happen. But what if it doesn't? What if the American people never take to Mr. Johnson's idea of the retail store and it fails? Well I'm not willing to take that chance with my life. Some people may say you have to take a chance or you'll never really live. I get that, I do. I will put myself out there and tell someone I love them even if I don't know what they will say in response, I will take travel the world with no plans and only a bag on my back and see what happens. But when it comes to my career, my life, I'm not willing to see if some dude hundreds of miles away was right. It's a gamble, and part of gambling is losing. I'm not willing to lose this.

I'm sure that if someone from work reads this or even Mr. Johnson himself, I will be out of a job. (No one likes a naysayer.) My hopes is by the time someone sees this I will already be out of that job. I will gamble my job with the expression of my first amendment right of free speech. Because I'm an American lower middle class woman and that is what I'm entitled to do.

new year, new proverbial leaf...

So I see my posts from 2011 have been, er, lacking. As in they don't really exist. But what a year 2011 was! It was a tumultuous year, a year of losing then finding of myself. I'm being vague, let me expand.

I started last year on the right foot, I had a better attitude and decided that this year was all about me. Me! The only person I hadn't been thinking about and should have been all this time. And so while there were the occasional low moments of weakness and slipping into old ways, the beginning of 2011 was for the most part a success. That is...

Until I met the completely forgettable, faceless guy. The guy who could be in Anywhere, USA and has the common name like John or Frank. (His name was neither for the record.) His commonplace and everydayness about him tricked me and had me under an illusion that he was in fact a good person. It should be known that he is not. And I could post his real name and say what he did but because of general manners and class, I will not. Though in reality I probably should just in case I help some foolish, naive girl from making the same mistakes as me...

This nameless man derailed me in a way that no other man could ever come close to. Even Ryan (Gasp!). He took away any form of self confidence I had built up over the past year since Ryan's dumping. He took away the joy of my promotion. He took away everything that I had worked so hard for. His shadow lingered long after he left and left unmistakable fingerprints of the "nobody" guy.

But! After a night of drinking, I stumbled out of my friend's car and almost literally ran into the guy that lived downstairs and for the first time in a while, I felt like I did actually have control of my life. So I believed.

Things went slowly with the downstairs neighbor, which was a nice change of pace. Instead of jumping into things with someone, I organized my thoughts and finally I asked him to either be with me or just be my neighbor. After several days deliberation, he decided that I was worth being with, except not enough to tell most people that he was actually with someone. Or enough to meet his friends. But enough to tell me that I shouldn't hang out with my friends.

So after a couple months of drunken fighting and crying, I was delivered with an ultimatum. My friends or him. Not even a choice. That's when I discovered something extraordinary, men don't have to leave. I could be the one that leaves this time.

And that's what I did. Although he's still my neighbor so I see him, um, everyday. It's awkward to say the least. But since our break up I've been cleaning house, as the saying goes, and organizing and just trying to be more awesome than usual.

So in accordance of being more awesome, here are my goals that I want to accomplish by the end of 2012...

1) move out into my own apartment
2) have at least $2,000 in my savings
3) at least 3 DIY crafts
4) lose 15 pounds
5) stay organized
6) plan a big trip
7) cook a new meal once a week


I also would like to note that I quit smoking in 2011, cold turkey, because I am the greatest. Not to toot my own horn but.... toot toot!

Stay fresh, yo!