My job has completely ruined the holiday season for me.
I can't bring myself to do any of the things I have done for the last three years that I've been off on my own. Little things to keep a small sliver of merriment in my life during this time of year, which is the most stressful time of year in retail.
I have been under such a crushing blanket of stress and foul attitudes from coworkers and customers alike.. I feel like Christmas has officially been broken for me. Everytime I stop and realize what time of year it actually is, I falter. My mind has breezed past Christmasas a defense mechanism, as its just a time where I feel nothing but crushing guilt. Guilt that every penny that I have has gone to bills. Guilt that I can't do anything at Christmas other than just show up. And even that, I can't afford.
This has been by far the most gut-wrenchingly horrible year that I have ever had. I've cried more this year than I have in many years. I've gone to bed angry, upset and so so sad more often than I'd wish on anyone. I've spent more time than I should sleeping, because sleeping is free and I don't have to feel guilty. And I don't have to think about the job I could lose at any time. And how that job makes me realize that the one thing I used to be good at, working really really hard, I'm not so good at in the eyes of my superiors anymore. Nothing is ever good enough.
I'm just so tired of disappointment, and disappointing everyone.
I just want one thing to be good. One thing I don't have to feel guilty about. Just one.
I used to really really love Christmas.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Purge
I have started so many posts in the last few weeks, but haven't been able to squeak out a complete one. In order to purge myself of this cursed backlog of unposted posts, I resort to bullet points listing the highlights of all of these posts, which, while thematic, will NOT weave into a cohesive piece.
There, that's much better.
- There is a storm brewing.. literally, outside. The air is hot, sweet and feels prickly on my skin. I love nights like this. One of the things I savor about the weather here is the tendency for hot, stifling summer days, where you feel like you have to race the sun to the nearest shady spot before it sets your skin ablaze, followed by roiling, hectic thunderstorms as soon as the sun goes down.
Tomorrow morning I will go to the Y and swim laps until my limbs ache. I think I'm actually become an 'active' person - it's odd to think of myself that way. I've always been the artistic type, the introvert, the quiet homebody. But to think that the idea of being able to swim laps is enough to make me leap out of bed in the morning is such an odd thought. I feel like the more active I become, the more my mind starts to clear as well. I'm able to think more productively, set goals, accomplish things. Experience things, savor an emotion, wipe the slate clean and move on. No more dwelling (or not NEARLY as much as before) no more moody days - I'll have a moody afternoon, at best.
Thankfully I've moved past the point in my life where I feel like I have to be a living advertisement for myself all the time, which is a line that I think many people don't ever have the opportunity to cross in their lives. Sure I can look neat and clean when I'm out and about and professional at work (as professional as one can look in work gloves and an apron), but I am also willing to sweat non-stop for an hour until my face is red and my clothes are soaked without worrying about what others may see when they look at me. I will throw on a bathing suit and jump in the pool and swim laps, next to competitive swimmers who can make four laps in the time I complete one of mine, and I won't even notice they are there because I'm too busy listening to my muscles sing and feeling my body move in the water.
I've never really been the athletic type, I don't think I ever will be, but I can enjoy this facet of myself as something new and different. I've always been the artistic type, the loner type, the homebody type.. I think I can deal with a new type thrown into the mix.
- You know that sound, when you've just walked out of a concert, or a loud movie theatre? That ringing sound? If muscles could make that sound, mine would be doing so right now. So many muscles in my body are singing out loud, making themselves known to me through little jolts of tightness, soreness that makes my movements more slow, more liquid.
- Going to bed now. But I'll be leaving the window open to invite the storm that's brewing to wake me up when it arrives. I know it's coming.. I can see it on the radar. I can feel it blowing in, in the way the wind whistles in the alleys between houses. I could feel it in the air, in that electricity that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
I won't be upset if it wakes me up. Promise.
There, that's much better.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
A long, directionless bike ride into work to fill out some paperwork this morning gave me exactly what I needed: quiet, reflective time to ruminate.
My new nephew was born yesterday, at 2:06. I was at work, on the phone with a customer when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I had gotten special permission to carry my phone with me, because I had gotten a text message from my brother earlier that morning, saying "Today is going to be the day!" Periodic updates throughout the morning let me know all the details, how she was progressing, how my brother was holding up, most of these from my mother as my brother was with my sister in law while she went through labor.
I slipped the phone out of my pocket and saw the text message from my mother. "Touchdown," she wrote. I laughed, and could not wipe the grin off my face. I felt a simple joy. I spoke to my mother, who cried when recalling the sound of my brother's voice when he called her from the delivery room to say his son was born.
Then about 20 minutes later my phone vibrated again, and my brother had sent me a picture of his son, my second nephew Finnegan. I cried. I showed everyone within shouting distance. I didn't care that they had never met my brother, or his wife, or their delightful five year old Braeden.
And then, an hour or so later, in the true spirit of my life and the natural progression of things that happen to me, I got my yearly performance review delivered to me. Prior to that, the review process had been silent, tracked only by additions to a complex and awkwardly laid out Excel spreadsheet. I wrote the first half of my review, my manager wrote the other half.
My first year as a manager in my company was last year, a year of economic turmoil, a long but ultimately victorious election, and unease in the general population. It feels silly to say this, but even if you are not involved in the financial sector at all, you can feel the state of the economy in a retail store. Especially in a management position. The pithy complaints get filtered out by cashiers and floor associates. Management, by design, is the sounding board for the righteously indignant population.
"You mean YOU haven't tried this either?," one customer said, waving a package of glue that cost less than $3 at me. "You are the THIRD person I've talked to here, and NONE of you have tried it! Don't you know anything about your products? I want to know if it WORKS before I waste my money on it!"
"You blue-collar people just don't understand how to treat someone like me," said a woman, who was at different times, in different conversations with members of the management staff, both a doctor and a lawyer. It became an in-joke among us. "Oh the profit and loss statement? I don't understand all those funny numbers, I'm just blue collar," for example.
Regular customers, who we know by sight but not necessarily by name, became suddenly self-righteous. Wanting to be escorted around the store, to be shown all of their options for a particular project. Wondering why X item is X dollars less expensive on a web site. Criticizing our selection compared to X or Y company's (almost always an online venture), and then ultimately leaving, empty handed. Deciding they want to shop online. The one retail format that is by its nature cold and solitary, where no one is there to hold your hand through the shopping process. No one has personal experience with the activity you are trying to do. There isn't anyone who even has a familiarity with their entire selection, if for no other reason than handling the packages on a daily basis. After 45 minutes of having their hand held by a hapless employee, who was just on the way to the bathroom, they go home to sit in front of a computer, alone*.
(* You will, however, never hear me complain when a customer says "I'm going to Y store instead" when Y store is an independent company, or small local business. Despite my desire for my company to succeed in an uncertain economic climate, I often can say nothing more after being told this than "Have a nice day!" because I applaud them for supporting small business owners.)
This very tendency of customers to want their hand held was the very reason for our move of freight breaking shifts to an overnight time slot. We tried early mornings, but my team was held up by a train of customer after customer, and called to ring on registers for hours at a time. We started at six AM, then five when the holidays got closer. Still entire carts full of merchandise sat untouched from one shift to the next. Four o'clock was the next, rational decision when we realized that out of an eight hour shift, only three of those were undisturbed. Finally it was our district manager who told us, in no uncertain terms, that the overnight shifts that I had tentatively suggested (always met with outright refusal) were exactly how we were going to work freight, no two ways about it. But in my first year as the manager of the freight team, which I began in February, this decision, and the rolicking success we experienced in meeting goals, came the following January.
To say that my first year was a failure is a bit of an understatement. Repeated visits from the district manager showed the same, 10-12 ft. stacks of merchandise in the back room, as the holidays got closer. She asked for a plan. I warily repeated the process I go through, the setting of goals, the fact that really, we're trying as hard as we can.
So when the review process began, and our entire district was told, plainly, in an email, not to score ourselves too highly, due to the lack of leadership she saw in her stores. We joked, amongst ourselves. "Guess there's no raise coming this year," and "Good thing I've got the credit card mostly paid down" and then in the coming weeks, it became clear that that was exactly the case. No raise, for the first time in my going on ten years in retail. When I started out with my first company, it was a 10 cent raise every year. I moved up, and through companies where it was about 30 cents an hour, which was my last raise. It goes without saying that I was not expecting much, just maybe a "Thanks for playing," a little bone thrown in my direction.
I'm not allergic to criticism, and the general failure of my team to produce results was evident even to me. So it's really not unfair that this was the outcome. I came to terms with it quickly, glad that the process would be over soon, and I could move onto another year, this one something to show off, to be proud of.
So when I had my performance review delivered to me, face to face, by my current manager and my former manager, and there was only one significant criticism to be discussed, which I agreed with, it was a bit shocking. Sure I had seen the review written by my former manager, which we hadn't discussed up until that point. I wanted all of my failures to be laid out, I wanted a flogging, so to speak. The style in which I wrote my self-review was profoundly self-critical, my manager even mentioning offhandedly that I was awfully hard on myself. So to hear that I was doing ok and even excelled in some areas was not what I was prepared for. I wanted to feel like I DESERVED to not get a raise. But instead I walked out feeling.. confused.
I met Ben after work to run an errand and for some stupid reason, in reaction to something insignificant he said, burst into tears. He thought he had offended me. He thought I was upset about where we were going, then he just got upset. I couldn't tell him why I was crying, I had just experienced too many conflicting emotions in one day. A burst of ecstatic joy, happy tears, mild anxiety and anticipation during the review and then an uncerimonious, anticlimactic denouement. I was exhausted, and just couldn't process any further emotional input until I let it all out in a howling, gasping, blubbering explosion.
I felt better afterwards. I feel amazing now, after coming home and wandering listlessly around the house, an empty husk, having one of the best nights of sleep I've had in a long time, and then giving my body a pounding in the form of a long and mostly directionless two hour roundtrip bike ride.
Now I'm going to pick up some photos that I ordered, of our newly expanded family, of my cats, of my boyfriend. I don't know where I'm going to put them, or why I want them really other than the fact that they represent things that cause joy in my life, and for which I am grateful. Because in five years, I'm not going to remember bursting into tears on the ride home from work, but I'm sure I will remember bursting into tears at the sight of my new nephew, his eyes open for the first time to the love of his family around him. I think that's something worth remembering.
My new nephew was born yesterday, at 2:06. I was at work, on the phone with a customer when my phone vibrated in my pocket. I had gotten special permission to carry my phone with me, because I had gotten a text message from my brother earlier that morning, saying "Today is going to be the day!" Periodic updates throughout the morning let me know all the details, how she was progressing, how my brother was holding up, most of these from my mother as my brother was with my sister in law while she went through labor.
I slipped the phone out of my pocket and saw the text message from my mother. "Touchdown," she wrote. I laughed, and could not wipe the grin off my face. I felt a simple joy. I spoke to my mother, who cried when recalling the sound of my brother's voice when he called her from the delivery room to say his son was born.
Then about 20 minutes later my phone vibrated again, and my brother had sent me a picture of his son, my second nephew Finnegan. I cried. I showed everyone within shouting distance. I didn't care that they had never met my brother, or his wife, or their delightful five year old Braeden.
And then, an hour or so later, in the true spirit of my life and the natural progression of things that happen to me, I got my yearly performance review delivered to me. Prior to that, the review process had been silent, tracked only by additions to a complex and awkwardly laid out Excel spreadsheet. I wrote the first half of my review, my manager wrote the other half.
My first year as a manager in my company was last year, a year of economic turmoil, a long but ultimately victorious election, and unease in the general population. It feels silly to say this, but even if you are not involved in the financial sector at all, you can feel the state of the economy in a retail store. Especially in a management position. The pithy complaints get filtered out by cashiers and floor associates. Management, by design, is the sounding board for the righteously indignant population.
"You mean YOU haven't tried this either?," one customer said, waving a package of glue that cost less than $3 at me. "You are the THIRD person I've talked to here, and NONE of you have tried it! Don't you know anything about your products? I want to know if it WORKS before I waste my money on it!"
"You blue-collar people just don't understand how to treat someone like me," said a woman, who was at different times, in different conversations with members of the management staff, both a doctor and a lawyer. It became an in-joke among us. "Oh the profit and loss statement? I don't understand all those funny numbers, I'm just blue collar," for example.
Regular customers, who we know by sight but not necessarily by name, became suddenly self-righteous. Wanting to be escorted around the store, to be shown all of their options for a particular project. Wondering why X item is X dollars less expensive on a web site. Criticizing our selection compared to X or Y company's (almost always an online venture), and then ultimately leaving, empty handed. Deciding they want to shop online. The one retail format that is by its nature cold and solitary, where no one is there to hold your hand through the shopping process. No one has personal experience with the activity you are trying to do. There isn't anyone who even has a familiarity with their entire selection, if for no other reason than handling the packages on a daily basis. After 45 minutes of having their hand held by a hapless employee, who was just on the way to the bathroom, they go home to sit in front of a computer, alone*.
(* You will, however, never hear me complain when a customer says "I'm going to Y store instead" when Y store is an independent company, or small local business. Despite my desire for my company to succeed in an uncertain economic climate, I often can say nothing more after being told this than "Have a nice day!" because I applaud them for supporting small business owners.)
This very tendency of customers to want their hand held was the very reason for our move of freight breaking shifts to an overnight time slot. We tried early mornings, but my team was held up by a train of customer after customer, and called to ring on registers for hours at a time. We started at six AM, then five when the holidays got closer. Still entire carts full of merchandise sat untouched from one shift to the next. Four o'clock was the next, rational decision when we realized that out of an eight hour shift, only three of those were undisturbed. Finally it was our district manager who told us, in no uncertain terms, that the overnight shifts that I had tentatively suggested (always met with outright refusal) were exactly how we were going to work freight, no two ways about it. But in my first year as the manager of the freight team, which I began in February, this decision, and the rolicking success we experienced in meeting goals, came the following January.
To say that my first year was a failure is a bit of an understatement. Repeated visits from the district manager showed the same, 10-12 ft. stacks of merchandise in the back room, as the holidays got closer. She asked for a plan. I warily repeated the process I go through, the setting of goals, the fact that really, we're trying as hard as we can.
So when the review process began, and our entire district was told, plainly, in an email, not to score ourselves too highly, due to the lack of leadership she saw in her stores. We joked, amongst ourselves. "Guess there's no raise coming this year," and "Good thing I've got the credit card mostly paid down" and then in the coming weeks, it became clear that that was exactly the case. No raise, for the first time in my going on ten years in retail. When I started out with my first company, it was a 10 cent raise every year. I moved up, and through companies where it was about 30 cents an hour, which was my last raise. It goes without saying that I was not expecting much, just maybe a "Thanks for playing," a little bone thrown in my direction.
I'm not allergic to criticism, and the general failure of my team to produce results was evident even to me. So it's really not unfair that this was the outcome. I came to terms with it quickly, glad that the process would be over soon, and I could move onto another year, this one something to show off, to be proud of.
So when I had my performance review delivered to me, face to face, by my current manager and my former manager, and there was only one significant criticism to be discussed, which I agreed with, it was a bit shocking. Sure I had seen the review written by my former manager, which we hadn't discussed up until that point. I wanted all of my failures to be laid out, I wanted a flogging, so to speak. The style in which I wrote my self-review was profoundly self-critical, my manager even mentioning offhandedly that I was awfully hard on myself. So to hear that I was doing ok and even excelled in some areas was not what I was prepared for. I wanted to feel like I DESERVED to not get a raise. But instead I walked out feeling.. confused.
I met Ben after work to run an errand and for some stupid reason, in reaction to something insignificant he said, burst into tears. He thought he had offended me. He thought I was upset about where we were going, then he just got upset. I couldn't tell him why I was crying, I had just experienced too many conflicting emotions in one day. A burst of ecstatic joy, happy tears, mild anxiety and anticipation during the review and then an uncerimonious, anticlimactic denouement. I was exhausted, and just couldn't process any further emotional input until I let it all out in a howling, gasping, blubbering explosion.
I felt better afterwards. I feel amazing now, after coming home and wandering listlessly around the house, an empty husk, having one of the best nights of sleep I've had in a long time, and then giving my body a pounding in the form of a long and mostly directionless two hour roundtrip bike ride.
Now I'm going to pick up some photos that I ordered, of our newly expanded family, of my cats, of my boyfriend. I don't know where I'm going to put them, or why I want them really other than the fact that they represent things that cause joy in my life, and for which I am grateful. Because in five years, I'm not going to remember bursting into tears on the ride home from work, but I'm sure I will remember bursting into tears at the sight of my new nephew, his eyes open for the first time to the love of his family around him. I think that's something worth remembering.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
An enlightening way to categorize worries:
Will this issue matter to me in five years?
Will it matter in ten years?
Is it something I can just deal with now? If so, will I feel better tomorrow if I just deal with the issue now?
And the ever-recurring mantra: The contents of my wallet do not define me as a person.
Now Breathe.
Will this issue matter to me in five years?
Will it matter in ten years?
Is it something I can just deal with now? If so, will I feel better tomorrow if I just deal with the issue now?
And the ever-recurring mantra: The contents of my wallet do not define me as a person.
Now Breathe.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Weird day today.
(This post will probably not be a novel, and will more than likely only mention the cats in passing. If at all.)
Trying to re-order my days, both in terms of how much I can get done and in what order / priority I tackle things Also the weather is beautiful so I'm torn on how much I can stand to stay in and "spring clean" when I want to go for a walk to the park, you know? I guess there's something to be said for spring cleaning of the mind as well..
I feel like once I start to get some big thoughts out in words I'll be able to write shorter entries.. but I really want to chronicle the changes we are making in our lives, mostly because we have let so much spiral out of control in the last few months, I need to grasp at something, even if it is just an exhaustive reporting of every little thought. It's a little bit of control. Documentation. Analysis. I'm finding I have longer pockets of time to fill, which is an incredible feeling. My days are actually lengthening, if for no other reason than I'm not in an exhausted stupor all of the time. (This is starting to sound kind of weird.. no, I haven't started using cocaine or crystal meth. oddly enough, my body responds incredibly to the right blend of vitamins and supplements, which I've recently started taking again. I know I'm slightly anemic, and suspect other vitamin deficiencies. I'm tweaking my diet as an experiment.)
I'm almost finished the first book I took from the library, The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. I'm relieved to almost be done with it, because it's such a heavy book.. Well, physically and intellectually, now that I think about it. His other two works that I've read have been the same way.. She's Come Undone and I Know This Much is True. Its odd that I'm finding this book so taxing, usually I revel in books that are heavy and morose, if for no other reason than the soul searching these types of works inspire. I think it's the springtime, among other things. I'll sink back into the thicky, heady gravitas of my usual reading genres as soon as the leaves turn.. but there's a lot of time between then and now!
I really don't know what I'm going to read next, I suppose when I head to bed I will audition the next one. Most of the rest of my thoughts are feeling very jumbly.. I think I will retire now and let them remain jumbly.
(This post will probably not be a novel, and will more than likely only mention the cats in passing. If at all.)
Trying to re-order my days, both in terms of how much I can get done and in what order / priority I tackle things Also the weather is beautiful so I'm torn on how much I can stand to stay in and "spring clean" when I want to go for a walk to the park, you know? I guess there's something to be said for spring cleaning of the mind as well..
I feel like once I start to get some big thoughts out in words I'll be able to write shorter entries.. but I really want to chronicle the changes we are making in our lives, mostly because we have let so much spiral out of control in the last few months, I need to grasp at something, even if it is just an exhaustive reporting of every little thought. It's a little bit of control. Documentation. Analysis. I'm finding I have longer pockets of time to fill, which is an incredible feeling. My days are actually lengthening, if for no other reason than I'm not in an exhausted stupor all of the time. (This is starting to sound kind of weird.. no, I haven't started using cocaine or crystal meth. oddly enough, my body responds incredibly to the right blend of vitamins and supplements, which I've recently started taking again. I know I'm slightly anemic, and suspect other vitamin deficiencies. I'm tweaking my diet as an experiment.)
I'm almost finished the first book I took from the library, The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. I'm relieved to almost be done with it, because it's such a heavy book.. Well, physically and intellectually, now that I think about it. His other two works that I've read have been the same way.. She's Come Undone and I Know This Much is True. Its odd that I'm finding this book so taxing, usually I revel in books that are heavy and morose, if for no other reason than the soul searching these types of works inspire. I think it's the springtime, among other things. I'll sink back into the thicky, heady gravitas of my usual reading genres as soon as the leaves turn.. but there's a lot of time between then and now!
I really don't know what I'm going to read next, I suppose when I head to bed I will audition the next one. Most of the rest of my thoughts are feeling very jumbly.. I think I will retire now and let them remain jumbly.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Another cat post. (Birthday edition)
My coffee pot with the evening's brew shut itself off, the coffee unfinished. The leftovers from dinner, too, sat on the stove and got cold. My phone rang, and went unanswered. My foot fell asleep. The gorgeous, seventy degree weather turned as the sun went down, and cold air drafts pushed through the house. I shivered, I went on as long as I could before I just got too cold. My arm fell asleep. Painful pins and needles started in my fingers, my hand had been asleep so long.
Why?
My neurotic little guy, Sam, had been ZONKED on my lap for an hour and a half.
Turn away now, if you don't want to hear MORE about my cats.
An hour and a half is a LONG time for me to sit still without moving at all. I have to get up and stretch at the very least, but I can usually find about a million other things to do in other rooms of the house that prevent me from camping out for too long. Movie theatres are awful to me for this reason.
Anyway, Sam hopped up on my lap after I finished my last bite of dinner. Usually he just headbutts my hand and arm until I scratch the scruff of his neck and rub his cheeks. As soon as I fulfill my quota on that, he hops up and runs off, either to his bed just outside our bedroom door, the couch in front of the big big window, or his pillow on the floor of my bedroom. He will sleep there alone, until little brother comes to wake him up. He doesn't usually linger.
Tonight, he hopped up on my lap, contorted his body into a comfortable position, his head tucked into the crook of my elbow, and BOOM. Knocked out. The kids playing in the street didn't wake him up. The phone ringing, Max running by the door, the bell on his collar jingling violently, chasing some invisible prey. Car horns. Doors slamming. Birds outside the window. All of the usual auditory triggers that make him hop up and run for the shelter of the nearest hiding spot had no effect.
I shifted. I squirmed. I even picked him up so I could cross the other leg, which usually makes him tense all of his muscles and turns him into the Incredible Wooden Kitty who does not want to fold himself into your arms in any way at all.
He continued snoring, softly. I got impatient, rubbed his belly. This usually turns him into Incredible Bucking Kitty, to keep my hand away from his belly. All in an attempt to make HIM decide that he didn't want to be in my lap anymore. Scratched the scruff of his neck. Rubbed his cheeks. Nothing.
I didn't want to be mean, but I needed to get up to.. wait.. what did I need to do? Well, I didn't need that third cup of coffee. And I was planning on just wrapping up the leftovers anyway. And I'm sure the phone ringing was just Ben, calling to say he's on his way home. I decided to be OK with being his Lap, and he decided to be OK with being my Lap Cat.
It's these small things that make me grateful that we got these two little guys. All of the middle-of-the-night spontaneous wrestling matches, right outside the door, collar bells jingling furiously and little furry bodies THUMPing into the floor, the walls, the door. Max's careful, studied hunting of our feet under the blankets. Sam's plaintive yowling when you walk up the stairs. Or into the kitchen. Not too loud to make you concerned, more like a hello. The mad dashes down the stairs (also in the middle of the night) that make you wonder where the elephants came from, because surely two cats who each weigh less than ten pounds could not make that wild thumping chorus all the way down the stairs. Being able to do nothing more than just laugh out loud when the skid across the wood floor trying to catch the stuffed mouse and knock into a chair. Or the kitchen cabinets. Or each other. And when Sam chases the laser pointer light around and around and around in a circle and then tumbles in a dizzy tangle of wiggly kitty legs to the floor.
Cats are nothing like dogs, and I grew up with dogs in the house almost throughout my entire childhood. Cats don't always need you. I thought that having cats would be like having another two tiny tenants in the house, who came out when the food was ready and disappeared as soon as it was gone, not to be seen again until the cycle repeats.
But I guess it is sometimes the case that they do need you. When the bed, the pillow, the blanket, and the couch just aren't.. right. When there's an itch you can't reach. When you just want a warm lap to take a nap in, or a sleeping human to drape yourself over.
I've learned to be patient. I've learned to sit still. I've learned that there is almost always something silly that will just make you laugh out loud just around the corner. I've learned that no matter how awful my day was, the cats still don't care and will continue to headbutt the palm of your outstretched hand, no matter how much you want to just take a nap in peace. And that somehow, they get it, and will just curl up next to you, or on top of you, or draped across you, when the only thing you need is a little warm furry body. Being still. Being quiet.
It's their first birthday tomorrow. Thanks for the laughs, little guys.
Why?
My neurotic little guy, Sam, had been ZONKED on my lap for an hour and a half.
Turn away now, if you don't want to hear MORE about my cats.
An hour and a half is a LONG time for me to sit still without moving at all. I have to get up and stretch at the very least, but I can usually find about a million other things to do in other rooms of the house that prevent me from camping out for too long. Movie theatres are awful to me for this reason.
Anyway, Sam hopped up on my lap after I finished my last bite of dinner. Usually he just headbutts my hand and arm until I scratch the scruff of his neck and rub his cheeks. As soon as I fulfill my quota on that, he hops up and runs off, either to his bed just outside our bedroom door, the couch in front of the big big window, or his pillow on the floor of my bedroom. He will sleep there alone, until little brother comes to wake him up. He doesn't usually linger.
Tonight, he hopped up on my lap, contorted his body into a comfortable position, his head tucked into the crook of my elbow, and BOOM. Knocked out. The kids playing in the street didn't wake him up. The phone ringing, Max running by the door, the bell on his collar jingling violently, chasing some invisible prey. Car horns. Doors slamming. Birds outside the window. All of the usual auditory triggers that make him hop up and run for the shelter of the nearest hiding spot had no effect.
I shifted. I squirmed. I even picked him up so I could cross the other leg, which usually makes him tense all of his muscles and turns him into the Incredible Wooden Kitty who does not want to fold himself into your arms in any way at all.
He continued snoring, softly. I got impatient, rubbed his belly. This usually turns him into Incredible Bucking Kitty, to keep my hand away from his belly. All in an attempt to make HIM decide that he didn't want to be in my lap anymore. Scratched the scruff of his neck. Rubbed his cheeks. Nothing.
I didn't want to be mean, but I needed to get up to.. wait.. what did I need to do? Well, I didn't need that third cup of coffee. And I was planning on just wrapping up the leftovers anyway. And I'm sure the phone ringing was just Ben, calling to say he's on his way home. I decided to be OK with being his Lap, and he decided to be OK with being my Lap Cat.
It's these small things that make me grateful that we got these two little guys. All of the middle-of-the-night spontaneous wrestling matches, right outside the door, collar bells jingling furiously and little furry bodies THUMPing into the floor, the walls, the door. Max's careful, studied hunting of our feet under the blankets. Sam's plaintive yowling when you walk up the stairs. Or into the kitchen. Not too loud to make you concerned, more like a hello. The mad dashes down the stairs (also in the middle of the night) that make you wonder where the elephants came from, because surely two cats who each weigh less than ten pounds could not make that wild thumping chorus all the way down the stairs. Being able to do nothing more than just laugh out loud when the skid across the wood floor trying to catch the stuffed mouse and knock into a chair. Or the kitchen cabinets. Or each other. And when Sam chases the laser pointer light around and around and around in a circle and then tumbles in a dizzy tangle of wiggly kitty legs to the floor.
Cats are nothing like dogs, and I grew up with dogs in the house almost throughout my entire childhood. Cats don't always need you. I thought that having cats would be like having another two tiny tenants in the house, who came out when the food was ready and disappeared as soon as it was gone, not to be seen again until the cycle repeats.
But I guess it is sometimes the case that they do need you. When the bed, the pillow, the blanket, and the couch just aren't.. right. When there's an itch you can't reach. When you just want a warm lap to take a nap in, or a sleeping human to drape yourself over.
I've learned to be patient. I've learned to sit still. I've learned that there is almost always something silly that will just make you laugh out loud just around the corner. I've learned that no matter how awful my day was, the cats still don't care and will continue to headbutt the palm of your outstretched hand, no matter how much you want to just take a nap in peace. And that somehow, they get it, and will just curl up next to you, or on top of you, or draped across you, when the only thing you need is a little warm furry body. Being still. Being quiet.
It's their first birthday tomorrow. Thanks for the laughs, little guys.
Monday, May 4, 2009
5am.
Dear blogger universe..
Leaving for work in 20 minutes or so. Need to go fetch second jug of coffee, so as to not let the sweet nectar go to waste.
(pause) Ok, that's done.
My to do list for this week is getting rather lengthy, and I think I'm alright with that. Ben and I made a pact of sorts between the two of us in regards to the next couple weeks. We're both trying to recover from a very (emotionally, financially, sanity-wise) challenging winter / start of the year. Hell, the last two and a half years of our life together.. which is simultaneously the FIRST two and a half years of our life together.. have been quite tumultuous. Like all things, I am sure it will mellow out in time, but in the meantime we are agreed that a major spring overhaul of our lives is in order. I feel OK about this.
Similarly, a discussion between he and I made it quite evident to me that my complete childlike refusal to do anything other than observe art (i.e. not make, interact with, explore) is, well, childlike. I'm considering making my return to art as public as possible, since I have been so silly for so many years about it. What happened in college is OVER. I am a FREE woman now. No one is looking over my shoulder anymore, constantly critiquing, criticizing. So I think I will invite the world to do just that. Strengthen my armor. It's been awhile since I've done that. It's getting kind of rusty.
After a prolonged period of whining about the schedule I'm on at work I've come to a few conclusions. 1) Yes, it does still KIND of suck 2) I have a newfound ability to sleep in short bursts, instead of requiring a full night to function. 3) I have a lot of time to listen to new music, which I'm usually rarely able to do. 4) I come home two nights a week at 5am. Which for the record, is a mere two hours before my FAVORITE time of day, which is 7am. (whoo, math!) I should be happy about this! When I was working 4am shifts I would always always miss this most beautiful and inspiring time of day. Although I guess it's more 6am-7am because of daylight savings time.. or maybe it isn't.. I don't know! But I could have those two hours to myself, since Ben is already asleep and the cats are usually off on their first laps around the house and don't need my lap/feet/chest to sleep on.
In short, what the hell is my problem?
In other news my family is waiting on baited breath for the newest addition to our family, my nephew Finnegan to be born. It's a very exciting time for my brother and his wife and their son, Braeden, and I can't wait. And if I know my family, we will overwhelm all of them with so much love and such a huge support network, that I hope the welcoming of #4 to their family will be as easy and comforting of a transition as possible.
Off to work now.
Leaving for work in 20 minutes or so. Need to go fetch second jug of coffee, so as to not let the sweet nectar go to waste.
(pause) Ok, that's done.
My to do list for this week is getting rather lengthy, and I think I'm alright with that. Ben and I made a pact of sorts between the two of us in regards to the next couple weeks. We're both trying to recover from a very (emotionally, financially, sanity-wise) challenging winter / start of the year. Hell, the last two and a half years of our life together.. which is simultaneously the FIRST two and a half years of our life together.. have been quite tumultuous. Like all things, I am sure it will mellow out in time, but in the meantime we are agreed that a major spring overhaul of our lives is in order. I feel OK about this.
Similarly, a discussion between he and I made it quite evident to me that my complete childlike refusal to do anything other than observe art (i.e. not make, interact with, explore) is, well, childlike. I'm considering making my return to art as public as possible, since I have been so silly for so many years about it. What happened in college is OVER. I am a FREE woman now. No one is looking over my shoulder anymore, constantly critiquing, criticizing. So I think I will invite the world to do just that. Strengthen my armor. It's been awhile since I've done that. It's getting kind of rusty.
After a prolonged period of whining about the schedule I'm on at work I've come to a few conclusions. 1) Yes, it does still KIND of suck 2) I have a newfound ability to sleep in short bursts, instead of requiring a full night to function. 3) I have a lot of time to listen to new music, which I'm usually rarely able to do. 4) I come home two nights a week at 5am. Which for the record, is a mere two hours before my FAVORITE time of day, which is 7am. (whoo, math!) I should be happy about this! When I was working 4am shifts I would always always miss this most beautiful and inspiring time of day. Although I guess it's more 6am-7am because of daylight savings time.. or maybe it isn't.. I don't know! But I could have those two hours to myself, since Ben is already asleep and the cats are usually off on their first laps around the house and don't need my lap/feet/chest to sleep on.
In short, what the hell is my problem?
In other news my family is waiting on baited breath for the newest addition to our family, my nephew Finnegan to be born. It's a very exciting time for my brother and his wife and their son, Braeden, and I can't wait. And if I know my family, we will overwhelm all of them with so much love and such a huge support network, that I hope the welcoming of #4 to their family will be as easy and comforting of a transition as possible.
Off to work now.
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