Squeaky Wheel Seeks Grease

Email me with your address (squeaky . wheel . seeks . grease @ gmail . com) if you want a wedding announcement. I’m going to talk to a friend this week about printing them up for me within the next few months, since I think etiquette states that they’re mailed out no earlier than 6 months before (and no later than 3 months before) the wedding.

If you realistically think you can attend a wedding on December 19, 2009 (it’s a Saturday afternoon, probably around 2pm, in Memphis), also let me know, so that I can start figuring out the guest lists when I make up the invitations (which I’m totally not going to mail out according to ettiquette…that whole “this envelope goes this way” crap chaps my hide a bit…who cares?  seriously?), and start trying to figure out which venue would be the best.

I’m all by myself in the very back of the office, in a large room crammed with files.  I have a computer desk, and another desk that’s used to pile up the files I have to work on.  I have plenty of work space, I like where I am in relation to everything else in the office, and everyone, as far as I can tell, is pretty cool.  Boss-lady is just unpredictable, and until I suss her out and figure out what I can and can’t say to her, I will be avoiding long conversations with her and just watch how others interact with her (which might not work, either, because as far as I can tell, they don’t really talk to her all that much, either).

I just didn’t want to look like I’d already found something to latch onto on my first day of work as far as hating something goes.  And it’ll be even easier to just do my job and ignore everything else when I get used to it, because there’s no shortage of work - boss-man has 270 cases open.  Heh.

Started work yesterday.  Gained so much weight over the holiday that my dress pants don’t fit (the size that I had to buy yesterday?  are the largest size I’ve ever bought).  So I wore jeans, because I’d been told by boss-lady that I could wear jeans once or twice a week (I asked during the interview).  I chose yesterday, and figured I’d buy some pants and be good for the rest of the week.  I got yelled at for wearing jeans, and then was told “It’s time to grow up…” when I said that it’d been so long since I’d worked in an office that demanded that I dress up that my wardrobe was sadly outdated. Um, really?  Seriously?

THEN one of my co-workers (whom I also go to school with…well, hopefully, if I can get the money to go to school this semester…it’s a real possibility that $2K will keep me from being able to continue) also got yelled at for wearing jeans.  He’s worked there for a loooooong time, so I have no idea what that was about.

Anyway, after a pretty good day yesterday (this job?  is all about knowing what details to pay attention to, and what ones to just toss aside for later…great for OCD, as long as I have a direction), I was told to go home early because of the weather (el oh el).  I asked my boss-lady what the dress code was for tomorrow, and she said, “There’s nothing on the calendar…you can wear jeans.”

So we’ll see how that goes this morning…heh.

I get to go to court tomorrow and watch boss-man totally rip someone apart for lying.  That’ll be fun.  Eventually I’m going to be running the evidence projection equipment.  I’m actually a paralegal, y’all, which is really freakin’ weird.  I told boss-lady that as long as they wanted me there, I’d stay, since I’ll probably be in Memphis for at least another 2 years, anyway.  She looked a little horrified.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Also, I’m going to try to not include any details about the workplace or anything because I could get fired…but boss-lady’s eyes scare me to death.  The whites of her eyes are that sickly greenish-yellow that you usually only see in people who are overdue for dialysis or something.  I know she drinks, and her eyes fade over the course of the day…I think her liver’s done.  There’s a very real possibility of her dying in her sleep of blood poisoning or something like that.  I mean, that freaks me the fuck out.

Oh…when I mentioned why I couldn’t wear my older pants, she said, “Oh, I know what you mean…my body shape has changed, and now the clothes I was wearing a while back just hang off of me!  It’s sickening!”  So she’s one of THOSE women.  Which means that from this point on, I’m only going to talk to her when I have to…which should be easy, because boss-man has the final say, anyway.

And that concludes my morning posting.

Thanks to everyone who left their well-wishes in the comments of the last post, and on my Facebook wall!  I’m really excited and nervous, but you know what always makes me feel more in control?  That’s right:  lists.

JB and I have freakin’ spreadsheets already devoted to the bridal party, possible locations (one of his family’s friends has offered the use of her house, which is seriously awesome, since we want a small ceremony), suits for him, dresses for me and my attendants (who’ve all already been invited and said yes, woo hoo!), colors for the wedding, types of flowers, who can take care of what in terms of everything listed above, music, musicians, etc.  Yeah, that’s pretty much how we spent our day yesterday.  Because we’re out in the middle of nowhere, and even though we have satellite TV, there’s still nothing on.

We’re still futzing around with the date, only because we really want to get married next winter, and there are fun things like school exam schedules, work, and the holidays to try to plan around.  When we get married, we’re taking a week to go off somewhere and be stupid tourists in East Tennessee, because that’s how we roll.  However, the weekend after final exams happens to be the weekend before Christmas.  Then the following week is the New Year.  Then we have like, one week left before school begins again.  So we’re still trying to work that out.

HOWEVER, the thing I CAN tell you is that because we’re having a really small ceremony (immediate family and close friends only - less than 20 guests each), but we still want to share the day and the event with everyone, we’re having a huge party afterward.  And guess what the theme is?  That’s right:  pirates.  Everyone will be encouraged to dress like a pirate, wench, captain, etc.  There will be booze, there will be munchies, and there will be favors.  We’re not sure on the location yet, but we don’t even know where we’re holding the wedding, so yeah…heh.  Obviously this is not a total priority yet.

A friend of mine has a wedding wiki, and I think I’m going to be spending a LOT of time there just to find out what all I actually have to do and how to do it.  And obviously I have help from my family.  But yeah.  This is going to be interesting. 

I have a bit of a confession to make, y’all.

JB and I have been a little more serious than we’ve let on.  Okay, a lot more serious.

We haven’t been talking to anyone about our relationship, because we have a lot of mutual friends, and some of them have expressed their displeasure in various ways.  We figured that the more private we made our relationship, the more we could spend time getting to know each other without outside interference.  Negative feelings aren’t a great way to foster a relationship, ya know?  So we kept it from everyone until after Thanksgiving, when we started to kind of “come out” to folks.  Even our parents haven’t known for that long.

So anyway, it worked.  And today we have an announcement:

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My fingers are cold, and I’m finding myself less and less willing to write anything longer than a few lines, so this is going to be difficult.  I’ll try not to give up…heh.

School:

I totally made an F in one of my classes because I missed the final presentation BECAUSE I was out of town dealing with family drama and emergency crap.  This class happens to be #2 in a series of 3, so I don’t know if I’m going to be able to take that third class this upcoming semester, or what.  I have proof of the emergency, so I can make up some of the stuff, I guess.  If I get a C, I’ll be fine.  But yeah.  First F of college, and I’m actually more annoyed than anything else.  The fun part is that I still have a 3.33 overall GPA, because I’m just awesome like that.

Also, I may have found a way to pay tuition, but I was using my loans for living expenses, and working part time at the law firm isn’t going to cut it.  So that’s fun.  I’m thinking, and hopefully a plan has just sporadically formed itself because someone else has had the misfortune of losing their home (read:  they’re staying here, and could continue to do so for some time if they want to contribute to household expenses), so I should be okay, but that’s a little stressful, particularly because I only have one more year left after this semester, and having to quit, however temporarily, because of the stupid artificial depression we’re forcing ourselves into would really piss me off.

ALSO, I’m totally putting off grad school.  I have several reasons.  I can’t take this shit any longer…that’s the main one.  Hah.

Personal stuff:

I can’t remember all of the funny and awesome things that have happened over the last few months, which is why I never write about them…by the time I get somewhere where I can tell someone, I’m over it and on to the next thing.  You’ve noticed there’s a serious lack of the photos I keep promising.  That’s because I’m not home a lot, and thus am not glued to a computer.  This is the first couple of days I’ve been able to just sit and catch up with emails and fart around on AIM.  This means I’ve done gone and got myself a life, dagnabbit.  Even when I am home, I’m not wanting to be online that much.  I don’t check blogs, I don’t read the news, I barely update on here, and emails and facebook are pretty much it as far as my net surfing goes.  I haven’t read livejournal in months.  And I just don’t care, which feels really weird.

I’m getting my stuff done, and while there’s a lot of cleaning left to do because I’ve been out of my own house for nearly a week straight, I went to pay my car insurance bill today and found that *gasp* I’d already done it.  Apparently, sometime over the past few months of being completely stressed out, I made some sort of transition into being a somewhat responsible adult (if slightly less eloquent…jeez, these paragraphs are funky).

And yeah, I’ll go ahead and admit that JB is much more than a friend, and has been for quite some time.  He started out as a friend, grew into a best friend, and things have just steadily progressed from there.  Blame him for my “life” - he lives out in the middle of nowhere, and when I go out there, internet and cell phone reception are slim to none, and the only things to do are hang around and watch TV or shoot at things.  I love it.  In fact, his parents got us a joint Christmas present:  a .22 plinker target.  They set it up on the 26th, and that night (yes, night), we set up a spotlight on it, set up a sawhorse as a stand, and had a shooting competition.  It was so much fun.

Aside from family gathering stuff, and meeting other families (dun dun dun), that’s about it.

Yeah, I’m going to put the only photo I currently have of the two of us on here…under a cut.

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Yesterday, JB and I were driving back from his place (waaaaay out in the boonies, as you may recall), and at the exit for my house, I saw from a distance a person holding a cardboard sign.

“Oh, god…a panhandler”, I said.  These guys are everywhere, looking bored and holding their signs at every major intersection in Memphis.  I hate to be callous about it, I really do, but when you see the same ones over and over again, you kind of stop feeling sorry for them and start wondering why they’re not dead yet.  Is that bad?  Or is it just me?

As we approached the intersection, I saw that it was a woman, and that she was crying.  She held her hand up and slowly waved at us, and said, “Help me.”  I saw her mouth those words, and I looked at her eyes.  Folks, I’ve seen that face before.  It’s the face you make when you’ve just about lost hope that anything could ever be right for you again.  It’s the face that faith makes as it exits your soul.  It’s the face that pride leaves behind when you give it up.

We drove on, because we, naturally, had things to do.

We parked at Kroger, where I was supposed to go in to get raw veggies for my family’s get-together, and I lost it.  I started crying for that woman, and thinking about all the times I’ve seen that face on myself and the ones I love.  And the worst part, the thing that I was crying for the most, was that I couldn’t help her.  I could give her the few dollars I had, but it would never be enough.  I could bring her clothes, but they would only last for so long.  And scoff if you want at my attitude, because yeah, there are some con artists out there, but the thing I wanted most to do was take her to my house so she could shower, give her some clothes, and take her to my dad’s for dinner, then drive her to the nearest shelter with some cash.

In the end, I did what so many other people did last night - I bought my vegetables, I packed a small overnight bag, I threw the presents in the back of the car, and I headed to my dad’s house to sit with my relatives, eat like a pig, and open packages filled with things I don’t need that will just take up more space in my already-overloaded house.

I talked with JB, and later my dad, about it, and realized that THAT, right there, was the problem I have with 99% of the churches I’ve ever heard of or personally experienced.

The Baptist church around the corner from my dad’s house just built a new congregation hall with stadium seating…padded, of course, so that they can listen to the pastor talk about helping their fellow man without their asses going numb.

JB’s church is arguing with each other about a stained-glass-window fund.  Because obviously, the only way to worship is with a multi-colored cubist rendition of Jesus raining prismed light on your face.

The tithing basket is a way for the churches to get the money they need to remain open.  I get that.  Pay your rent, etc.  But the extra money?  Guess what that’s supposed to be for?  That’s right - helping your fellow man.  The place where communism and socialism have the most place is the most totalitarian, capitalist-pig situation I can imagine right now.  And that?  Is really sad.

I’m not saying that organized religion is bad.  Bad things come of it, because people, at their core (and I include myself in this) like to be a part of something.  They want to feel like they’re part of something larger than themselves, and church will often give them an outlet for that desire.  The problem comes when you get a bunch of folks who happen to be weak-minded, and a person (or smaller group of people) who are willing to step up and “lead the flock”.  In general, those people desire to be in power because they desire some sort of control, and that doesn’t always lead to good things.  More often than not, that power becomes corrupted.  Look at Joel Osteen - he’s fucking insane, and he preaches to a football stadium.  How is that Christian?  How is making millions of dollars writing books about your opinion of Christianity in any way moral?  Particularly when that interpretation leaves out essential things like, “love your neighbor as you love yourself”, among other things.

I am an Agnostic because of this crap.  I don’t think it’s anyone’s place to tell me how to interpret morality when I feel like I’m doing a pretty good job with it on my own.  I accept the consequences, good or bad, and do my best to work with them.  I try to be nice to others, and you guys know that if I can do something extra for someone, I will.  I realize that not everyone is like me, and I accept that.

What I can’t accept is that a place where people are supposed to be worshipping Christ, a man who adamantly preached humility and brotherhood, would have to be so fucking pretentious.  And there are people like that woman all over the place who have no where to go on Christmas, the time of year where those same pretentious folks hang out in their giant palaces and listen to someone talk about how God loves everyone while they watch their kids lope across the stage in robes and crowns, reciting the lines they’ve heard so many times…lines that they probably can’t even interpret properly.

I think that money and time would be better spent practicing what they preach.  Walk the talk.  Stop being a good Baptist or Methodist or Catholic or whatever you are, and start being a good PERSON.

I realize we can’t help everyone.  I realize that organizing this sort of thing too much is what causes the sorts of retarded-ass problems that the government is causing.

I also realize that random acts of kindness have literally saved my ass (and my life, to be frank), and that those can be done by anyone, at any time, without anyone telling you to do so, or regulating it to make sure a quota is met.

So today, or any day, if you see someone that needs help, and you’re able to do so, please go for it.  If you’ve got enough pull somewhere, please encourage others to do the same.  It’s as simple as talking to someone for a little bit when you’re sitting next to them in a waiting room - you never know how much it could mean to someone that you took that bit of time to be a fellow human being.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Could we please leave the “I told you so” and “good libertarians don’t trust the government” talk out of whatever comments and emails you guys leave here or send me?  I wrote about a legitimate issue that began a freakin’ year before I even started blogging or giving a shit about politics - I was explaining the situation and letting you guys know that if there was anyone in this area who wanted any photos taken, I’d do it, because I would like to make some more money to help compensate for the error, wherever it came from.  Working to make money…who’d've thunk it?

When you tell me that I should know better than to trust teh gub’mint instead of oh, I dunno, keeping your mouth shut if you have nothing constructive to say, you’re insulting me, whether you believe as much or not.  You’re insulting my intelligence (which, thanks, I have enough of that on a daily basis from kids 8 years younger than I am), and you’re demeaning my right to CHOOSE what the hell I’m going to do in order to get the education that I want.  I know I’m fucked financially now.  You don’t need to point that out to me.  I know how I got fucked.  I know the process, and I know that life’s going to be a bit more sucktastic from this point out until I graduate and find a good enough job to begin paying off those loans.

As it is, I’m sorry I already bought my plane ticket to Boomershoot, because I can think of a million things that money can go for, but I’m going, because the whole deal is non-transferable, and everything else is already set up.

You want me to whine about it?  Because I could.  I could fill up your screens with so much blathering, blubbering suck-i-tude that you’ll want to turn off your computer and self-medicate with some ‘ludes or something just to get the keening out of your head.  But guess what?  I’m an adult.  And I’ll deal with it.  I was just asking if someone wanted to pay for a good or service.  You know, like a capitalist pig.

If you’d like to comment on this, you’ll have to go through the trouble of emailing me.  I’m closing comments.  I’m sure you understand.

As per my previous post, here are the basic details:

Sallie Mae decided to discontinue their Tuition Answer loan.  Rather than giving their clients the courtesy of a letter or something stating that it was discontinued back in October…well, I had to find out over the phone a couple of hours ago.  We’ll just leave it at that.

I should be able to cover my tuition for next semester, unless my poor performance this semester (long story, but it’s related to the drama from this weekend) affects my scholarships.

However, because part of my loans were for living expenses (hence why I picked that loan), I’m now worried about how I’m going to pay my bills for this house, among other things, during the year.  I’m exploring other options aside from the part-time job at the firm.

So.  If anyone in the Memphis area would like portraits taken, please let me know.  My rates are very reasonable, I have a high turnover, and can work in any environment.  Please email me for details at squeakyphotos@gmail.com.

And you know, sometimes I wonder why I went back to school at all.  Because obviously I’ve either made some seriously bad choices, or the universe is conspiring for me to just get a full-time job and give up on my degree.

I can’t say any more without getting really, really upset, and I have to present a public face to folks in a bit, so that won’t do.

To those thinking about going back to school in the face of the financial crisis:  good luck with that.  You’ll need it.