http://www.artful-i.com/blog/ Blogging my way back to a three-dimensional life en-US Copyright 2010 Mon, 05 Apr 2010 01:58:05 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification
That Saturday night after working for about twelve hours I suddenly decided I didn't feel quite so obligated anymore, so I sent him a short message. Sort of a happy belated birthday, I didn't forget but I've been insanely busy lately (which is completely true). And I got one back. It was nice, but it said just enough for me to think yeah, this was a bad idea.

All he had to tell me was that he'd had a great birthday, "probably the best one in years." A vague reference to having visited a beach a few weeks back didn't help things either.

Now I don't know what "the best one in years" means exactly and I don't want to, particularly since I had some involvement in seven of the last nine. I also don't want to know who he went to the beach with, if anyone. Knowing him, the possibilities are endless, and he rarely makes trips for pleasure alone. But it was enough to bring back those not-so-old feelings of not being enough "fun," feelings I'd had for eight years where he was concerned. Feelings that he never could do what he really wanted to do with me, and that somehow it was always my fault for needing something different out of life. You don't get over eight years of inadequacy in fifteen months. Apparently. "Life is spectacular now!" he thinks to himself. "I'm finally getting all that I'm entitled to, you know, all that stuff I couldn't have with YOU..."

All this from a couple of vague references to having a life in an otherwise innocuous email. This is why I don't talk to him. The only pattern that could ever contain us was chaotic and destructive. At least to me. Even on its better days it was severely off-balance. I was defective and somehow that was supposed to make him the better person for having chosen me anyway. But then "defective" often seemed to be what he needed to step on to make himself feel taller. So glad I could help.

It was about 2 am Sunday morning. I sat in a very dark state of weird, staring at my computer screen for quite some time before I looked at the clock and decided twelve hours of work was enough for one day. I could do two more the next day and be completely caught up. Yes, surely I could handle two hours of work on a Sunday evening.

And then it occurred to me just how small two hours actually was, especially compared to what I had just done. I had an almost completely free day ahead. Outside of picking up a prescription, going to the bank and doing the laundry, the day was mine. The world was my oyster. With a little careful planning, dammit I might be able to go to the beach. So the next day I took care of my errands, went to the bookstore and bought two paperbacks, and took my new books and my folding chair to Half Moon Bay for the afternoon.

You have to walk about a mile down a dirt road to get from the small parking area to the edge of the cliffs. And then you have to walk down a very long flight of steps to get from the top of the cliff down to the beach. I had my camera backpack and my portable cloth table and chair bundled up and thrown over my shoulder, but the hike wasn't too bad. I've done it before. I made it down, found a spot about dead center between the beach's rocky bookends to the north and south, and sat down to face the ocean.

I had actually been dreaming of this moment for months, ever since I figured out that I only lived about twenty miles from the beach. How nice it would be, I thought to myself, to just spend an afternoon there, reading a book and listening to the waves. Almost meditative. And here I was, finally doing it. Except there's something about the sound the ocean makes that no one ever told me. It doesn't drown out the voices in your head. Somehow it actually draws them out, makes them louder. Perhaps because it drowns out everything else.

There were other people on the beach but I couldn't hear them. My own voices though, I could hear those just fine. So much work left to do, so many billable hours needed to make ends meet, the estimated taxes that are due in a couple of weeks (would I remember to pay them in time?), the ex-boyfriend who reminded me without actually saying so that women mourn and men replace. There is no sound loud enough to drown that out. Never has been.

I tried focusing on just the sound of the ocean. I noticed the sea made two very distinct noises, the most noticeable being the crashing of the waves on the beach over and over again, each culminating in a fizzy dissipation of foam across sand. The surf was relatively rough, which I attributed to a storm that would be moving in from the west over the next couple of days. But underneath that was a roar, a deep and unrelenting growl, which had no percussion of its own and only quieted slightly in the brief moments when the surf settled enough to reveal a distant fishing boat on the flat horizon. It occurred to me that watching the far ocean change can be very much like watching the hands of a clock, where movement isn't actually visible except as a measured difference between then and now. One minute you can see the horizon and the next, only the swell that hides it. And you have no recollection of the actual hiding process. It makes you wonder if it really is possible to sleep with your eyes open.

As I began reading the book about the artist with the heroin-addict brother and mother with Alzheimer's, I looked up occasionally to see if I could still find the fishing boat. And every time I looked up, I found it a little further north, and found myself a little less convinced that this was actually my life. I was reading a book on the edge of the ocean and I could still be home in time for dinner. As someone who grew up in the south and midwest, "ocean" was one of those words that had always held that place in my vocabulary reserved for fantasy and envy. Now, "ocean" is what's on the other side of the hill. That hill. That one right there.

I closed the book after about four chapters and looked around me. Life is hard right now. I'm working way too much, I'm stressing over money, noisy neighbors and all the things I should be doing--want to be doing--but don't have time to do. And at the same time, life is probably better right now than it's ever been. I finally have the career I want. I finally live somewhere where I'm not sneezing or sick ten months out of the year. I live somewhere where I actually want to go outside. I've reconnected with friends I haven't seen in eight years. I've released myself from a tremendous amount of emotional oppression just by moving from Texas to California. I looked toward the lowering sun and said thank you to God. Thank you for bringing me here, for a really cool job, for the desire and ability to go outside, for an actual beach within twenty miles of home and a rare day off to enjoy it. Thank you for this life.

At that moment, the sea swelled and excited the surf, as it had been doing off and on all afternoon. Large waves crashed against the sand. The idea occurred to me as if someone else put it in my head, He's saying, You're welcome. And I nearly dismissed it as a coincidence except that for the first time that entire afternoon, the wind carried the spray from the waves all the way back to where I was sitting, where it touched my lips like tiny sparkles and then as soon as I acknowledged it, evaporated. I looked to the south and saw a haze hovering low in front of the rocks, as I had all afternoon, and wondered why that was the first time I had felt the mist myself. And then I wondered if it was egotistical for me to think I knew the answer. Except that I did know. Because God knows what gets my attention. It's how I got here in the first place. He talked me here. And I'm here now because I listened and I trusted what I heard.

But that's another entry altogether.
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2010/04/when-god-says-youre-welcome.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2010/04/when-god-says-youre-welcome.html Life in general California Mon, 05 Apr 2010 01:58:05 -0800
I've never, ever liked this particular weekend of the year. Never. Although this year there is a bright spot to the time change that I've never had before. Now it will be light enough when I leave work that I can go home in relative daylight. That means I can start riding my bike to work and maybe actually see what's in front of me when I go home.

I want to start tomorrow but there are two problems with this. One is that I don't have a backpack big enough to carry all my bike gear (mainly extra lights and a tire repair kit) and a change of clothes with me. It's a ten mile ride. I've done it before but it was on a weekend when I didn't actually have to see anyone who was close enough to smell me. It's still cool enough in the morning that I won't be sweating that much when I get there, but I'll be wearing something suitable for riding and not working so I'll need to take better clothes with me. As the weather gets warmer, I'll probably bring some extra stuff so I can take a shower at the gym before work, so I want to plan for that too. The second problem, and probably the biggest, is that no matter what enthusiasm I have for this idea right now, it's going right out the window when my alarm clock goes off. Poof! Gone. I know me pretty well. I'll be going back to sleep right after I feed the cat.

To do this ride I have to get up an hour earlier than normal. Now that the time has changed, that's two hours earlier. I can't even go to bed on time because as far as my body clock is concerned, it's an hour too early. Put that together with my usual Sunday morning sleep in that I definitely enjoyed today and I'm screwed. Tomorrow morning is going to suck. So I'm thinking one hour early is enough to start with. Get used to that and then we'll talk one more hour for the ride.

It's going to happen though. I'm going to do this. Tomorrow night on my way home from work I'm going to stop at REI and see if I can find the backpack I want. And once I adjust to the time change I'm going to get up an hour early and do this. I've been wanting to do this for months now. It will be nice to have something to look forward to when I get up in the morning, for however long it lasts anyway. When I thought I was going to start tomorrow, I was actually excited about getting up in the morning. Then I thought about how miserable I'm going to be and how working 15 hours this weekend kept me from getting to REI to find that backpack. Oh well, one more day. I hope.

That's right, I said 15 hours. Now that I've done my taxes, it's become clear to me that I can only keep 55% of every dollar I make on the second job. Roughly 20% federal tax, 10% California tax, 15.3% self employment tax. Yep, that's pretty much it. Ridiculous and painful. Very painful.

The real problem here is that my hourly rate is way too low for being self employed, and even lower for being self employed in California. I got this job partly because the person who brought me in lowballed it, expecting we would make our real money on maintenance fees after the site was up. Well that's great except we can't seem to get there from here. They have very little time to test it, we keep adding stuff to it, I have a 50-hour-a-week day job that sucks up all my time, and so it never goes up. We never get to the phase where I get paid a flat fee every month to maintain the site and then renegotiate my hourly rate for new features. I don't do well with things that never end. Not well at all. If I don't see an end in sight I lose my motivation. That started happening to me about a week ago and it was getting really bad really fast. I had to do whatever I could to get off the treadmill.

So realizing earlier this week that I don't do well without a goal, I set a goal. I want to get the site finished (at least as it was originally agreed upon) before I start doing overtime on the day job. At least anything after that will be gravy and maybe I won't be coming home late at night with the weight of knowing I haven't fulfilled the original obligation yet. As it is now, I've put in the new requests as I've gotten them and have yet to reach the end of the original plan. That was mainly out of necessity, as every little thing in the site affects every other little thing and some things just need to be done before others if it's going to work correctly. A lot of new features needed to be done before we went forward with some of the original ones they affected. I need to reach the end of the original plan before I can relax, and I really need to relax. REALLY.

Except under the best of circumstances I can only relax so much. $30 an hour was great in Texas when the taxes were half and I could put in 40 hours a week. That was enough, even though it was far, far less than the low end of the going rate (which is about $75 to $80 an hour). I wasn't in it to get rich. I had what I needed. Out here, I need to make $900 to put toward my rent every month. That means I have to work 60 hours a month to be able to keep $900. 60 hours a month is very hard to do on top of about 220 for the day job. Given how limited my weeknights are, that's a lot of weekend time disappearing. But it's not really the fact that I have a second job that bothers me, or even the hourly rate. It's the fact that there's a quota, that I need to hit a certain number of hours every month to stay afloat. That I need a second job at all or else I don't make the rent. It's the pressure of needing something, of not being able to live comfortably without it. I didn't actually realize this until today when I got on Craigslist and started looking for a new place to live, and I saw things that were cheaper than my apartment. I could actually imagine not needing the second job... and then suddenly I wanted to get to work on it. Because for a fleeting moment, it wasn't rent. It was gravy. It was fun again.

Now granted I didn't find much that was cheaper without going down to an outhouse. But I did find basically two things that would get me out from under the Riverdance family without having to put even more stuff in storage. One, the townhouse. Roughly the same price for the same space but with side neighbors instead of above and below neighbors. Two, the house. In some cases a little more for the same space, in others a little less, and some with less space altogether. There's a lot more work to be done there. But it gave me hope. The question is, am I going to end up cheaper or the same? I guess it depends on what's available in August when my lease is up. Cheaper would be stress free. Smaller would be next to impossible, so cheaper is not likely. But I'm holding out hope.

I did see a lease-to-own three bedroom house for $1399 a month in San Mateo. That's insanely cheap out here. That's a price that would make the second job gravy. There MUST be something wrong with it. There has to be. Probably black mold or a car-sized hole in the roof or something. But hey, it gave me hope. And the motivation to keep working through my weekends, because now I need to pay for another move. At least this one should only be across town. And hopefully it will be the last for a very long time.

It's after 2am now. Morning is going to suck. I'll say hi to the bike on the way to the car.
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2010/03/get-away-from-my-clock-you-com.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2010/03/get-away-from-my-clock-you-com.html Life in general Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:19:36 -0800
Not really. That's why it's going to be a series. But I have learned a lot over the last five months and now I'm ready to share.

Welcome to California. We're Searching Your Car.

When I was getting ready to move to California I heard a lot of rumors about how much trouble I could get into if I brought any plants with me. I have a philodendron that I've had since 1991 (my mom sent it to me when I wrecked my car in college) and seeing as how it's the only thing besides my cat I've been able to keep alive for more than a week, I wasn't going to give it up easily. I asked around and got pretty much the same story--foreign plants equal heavy fines and confiscation, because they'll do anything to avoid another fruit fly crisis like that one back in the early '80s that was caused by that environmentalist governor who wouldn't spray in time but we won't mention any names. And then I came to Redwood City to look for a place to live, and the guy who showed us around said, "No plants? I've never heard that before."

So I risked it. I put the plants in a box in the back of my car next to the cat carrier and set off on my journey, wondering how much longer Rapunzel and I would be together and what she might cost me.

We entered California on the second day of the trip. We crossed the state line, plants, cat and all. I thought, Well that was stupid. How is anyone even going to know what I'm bringing in here anyway... what's that up ahead, a tollbooth?

It was an inspection station. And no one was getting through without an interrogation and search. There was not a lane that went around it. There was not a U-turn to allow you to go back. You were going through this thing and that was it.

I was asked three questions. "Where are you coming from?" Then, "Are you carrying any fruit or vegetable products?" This is where I turned a little cold. "I have a philodendron, you're welcome to it if it's a problem!" She asked if it was outdoor or indoor, and I gave the right answer: Indoor. So she dug through the leaves a little bit and asked me what kind of animal I was carrying and sent me on my way.

It all seemed a bit dramatic. I wondered if I should write my congressman. And then I remembered who that was. Nevermind.

Keep Our Ditches Safe (Drive Off the Cliff Instead)

California has a real aversion to guardrails, and few places I've driven in my life need them so desperately. You know all those Hollywood scenes where people are run off the road and right down the side of a cliff? There's a reason for that. The reason is that the guardrail is on the other side of the highway, protecting you from that ditch between the road and the mountain you're climbing. But along the edge of the cliff? Forget it. I really don't know what the thinking is here. Does a guardrail obstruct that lovely view of the valley? You know, the one with all the dead people and burned cars at the bottom? Or is a ditch guardrail cheaper than a cliff guardrail because it never needs to be replaced? I have no idea. But I'm gaining some serious upper body strength hanging onto that steering wheel.

Am I Really Supposed to Turn HERE?

I have never seen such a convoluted system of roads as I have since I moved to the Bay Area. I used to live in Austin. There's some long and windy stuff down there, but by God you know a highway entrance ramp when you see one. Here, not so much. My stepmother and I drove around for an hour looking for the entrance ramp to 101 after leaving the Ikea in East Palo Alto, which is on 101. I'm not kidding. You can drive right past the only entrance for miles if you don't know what you're looking for. For instance, if you're looking for a sign that tells you a highway entrance is near, that's your first problem. Don't expect a sign, at least not in time to get into the correct lane. If you see a sign that gives you any warning at all, profusely thank whatever god you worship and then take a picture. Because usually what you'll get is FREEWAY ENTRANCE right where you're supposed to turn and you'd better be in the correct lane when you see it. And you'd better take that ramp, because the next bend in the road will either take you into someone's driveway or get you stuck between the loading dock of a Best Buy and a concrete wall.

Access roads. I miss access roads. Roads that get you to the highway here are just regular roads. If such a road happens to parallel the highway, do not assume that it is an access road. Because I've seen more than one road parallel a highway and NEVER give you access to the actual highway. But if your road does give you access and you drive past the highway because you were supposed to turn left instead of right (if you're perpendicular to the highway, the direction of traffic on said highway has no relationship to which way you turn to get there), you're not likely to find it again today. If you don't happen to miss the on ramp you might still have a wreck trying to figure out if you're really supposed to turn HERE because frankly, it looks like a trap. The entrance to the highway near the Ikea (when we finally found it) required a left turn from the middle of the street. No stop signs, no traffic lights, and of course, no left turn lane. But yes, you are supposed to turn left here, and you'd better hope whoever is behind you stops while you wait for oncoming traffic to clear.

On my way to the DMV in San Mateo I drove through an intersection that scared the crap out of me. I was on a one-way street with two lanes. To my right was a median next to two more lanes coming off the highway, going in the same direction as me. I had a set of stoplights, and THEY had a set of stoplights. The two stoplights operated separately. When my light was green, theirs was red, but I didn't know that because the field of view was so small that only THEY were supposed to know what color their lights were. That did not help me when it came time to turn right in front of two lanes of seemingly stopped cars. I did not trust this. I did not even remotely believe this. What if someone's light malfunctioned? What if the power went out? What if someone got in a hurry and darted across the intersection? What if their light was actually green and they were just slow getting started? I'm making a right turn in front of two stopped lanes of traffic and it is not only legal but designed that way ON PURPOSE. I put all my faith in God that those lanes would stay stopped and I made the turn. Needless to say I lived through it, but I didn't like it. Not one bit.

The DMV: Got Your Checkbook? Take a Number.

It really is a well-oiled machine, but plan on spending a good two days there. My first day at the DMV lasted four hours. First, the driver's license. Get in line to show your birth certificate and get a number. Then when your number is called, get in line to turn in your form and your new voter registration. If you want to be able to vote in a primary, register with a party. Otherwise, no need. Personally I didn't want to make that kind of commitment. Then get in another line to get your thumb printed, sign your name and get your picture taken. Then they hand you a written test. Take the test (you can miss six out of 36 questions). Then get in another line to have your test graded and get your temp permit. Total cost: $28.

Studying for that test will teach you some very important things. Like which way to turn your wheels if you're parking on a hill. Or the fact that it's illegal to talk on your cell phone while driving unless you have a hands-free device. Or that's it's also illegal to smoke with a minor in the car. Really.

Next, vehicle registration, a task that must be completed within ten days of moving to California. No kidding, ten days. So get in the first line again for another number. Fill out forms, then sit in a line in your car waiting for a guy to come look at it. I liked the guy I got, he was from San Antonio so he could tell me the difference between the Texas and California inspections. He looked under the hood and said, "You drove from Texas, didn't you," and then proceeded to identify the various colors of dirt on the engine by state. You don't finish this on the first day because you have to get a smog certification before you can complete the process and get your plates. Smog certification is California's version of a state inspection, except you do it every two years and you can't even register your car without it. And oh yeah, it costs $80. The registration itself cost me $219, and that's for a paid off 2005 Toyota Matrix. If you're driving around in a Hummer, you're screwed.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen one Hummer since I've been here. One of many things that makes the Bay Area better than Plano.

And don't let the lady who gives you your number tell you to get the smog certification first, because the smog guy wanted to see my vehicle registration forms before he would do it. They send that info electronically to the DMV, so you have to have at least started the process. She doesn't know what she's talking about.

It's also a good idea to know where you're going to get your certification done ahead of time. The first place I went to, the guy was on vacation. The second place didn't have time in their schedule until the next Monday. The third place was the charm, but his smog machine quit in mid-inspection so I had to go home and come back when it was running again, which was about an hour later. It's not like going to the local inspection station in Texas on a whim and getting out in 20 minutes. Plan ahead. Start early.

When it's all said and done, you don't have stickers anywhere on your windshield but you do have them on your plates. If you passed the test, you also have a paper license making you a legal California citizen. But you have no money, which makes you one in spirit too.

The Truck Speed Limit: Don't Count on It (Unless You're Late)

I don't care what anyone says, people drive really slowly up here. At least compared to I-75 in Dallas. Sure, you have the occasional crazy person whiz by you in the left lane, but you can easily be going 45 in the right lane (in a 65 zone) and no one will appear to care in the least. I am not used to this. If it says 65, dammit I want to go 65. Because it says I can and I want to get there. Today.

Apparently in this part of California, it's all about the journey. In LA, it's all about the destination. Dallas seems to be closer to LA in that regard.

I often find myself going 55 on the highway because of a truck further ahead. Trucks are supposed to go 55 when everyone else can go 65. Do they actually do it? Never, unless they're in front of you and you're running late.

The Motorcycle: If It Was a Snake, It Would Have Bit You

Here's something that freaked me out the first time it happened and continues to freak me out and will always freak me out as long as I live here: Lane splitting. This is when you're sitting at a stop light or driving on the highway and a motorcycle appears next to you out of nowhere, because he's riding the white line between you and the next guy and nearly taking off your side mirror in the process. This is the most idiotic thing I've ever seen and it's a perfectly legal way for them to get through traffic.

Maybe this explains the lack of guardrails. Natural selection.

TGIBF!

When I first started working here, it was the end of the summer and the DreamWorks cafeteria was still having "barbecue Fridays" where they would grill on the patio and employees would bring their families and eat outside. The first Friday I was here they served ribs. They weren't very good. The second Friday featured some form of lemon chicken with wild rice and parsnips. Parsnips? I don't think so. It was on that day that I realized barbecue in California merely means, "We cooked it outside."

There's a restaurant near my apartment called Armadillo Willy's. The sign boasts "Real Texas Barbecue." Yeah. We'll see about that.

California Really Is Falling Into the Ocean

Throughout most of my childhood in Oklahoma and Texas I heard that California was eventually going to have a big earthquake and fall into the ocean. Well I'm here to tell you that it doesn't need an earthquake to fall into the ocean because it's doing that all by itself. There are various places along the coast that have nothing but building foundations left. They built for the view. The ocean ate the cliff. The cliff fell down. The house went boom.

There's an apartment building in Pacifica that is experiencing this phenomenon right now. They've been shoring up the cliff with giant rocks for weeks as it continues to fall away, bringing the edge of the cliff right up to--and now underneath--the apartment building. I'm not convinced this is actually going to work. At least they evacuated first.

And as for earthquakes, if you don't know anything about them when you get here, your local insurance agent will immediately fill you in. I was happy to see that when I moved here, my car insurance went down slightly and my renter's insurance was cut in half. But I didn't rejoice for too long because that doesn't cover earthquakes. For that, you need to purchase insurance from the California Earthquake Authority, which brings your cost right back up to where it was when you lived in Texas. That is if you get the basic coverage, which pays just $5000 on the contents of your apartment. Well between you and me, that will just cover the cost of my computer, but it does pay $15,000 toward living accommodations while your apartment might be uninhabitable. Since I have no family out here to stay with and few friends as of yet, I figured that was a good thing to have.

They give you all sorts of literature on what is covered, how to prepare and what to do when it happens. Not if, but when, and how bad. They make that very clear. You don't stand in doorways anymore, you get under furniture. You don't go outside. You cable bolt your bookcase to the wall. You put the heavy stuff on the bottom. You use museum putty to stick your knick-knacks down to the mantle.

The insurance doesn't cover glassware or crystal, and it doesn't cover your car. Which perturbs me a bit since everyone in California parks under their building.

Today I experienced my first earthquake. It was a 4.1 at about 10am this morning. I was at the office, sitting at my desk, and the building jolted sideways. Someone said, "Whoa." I sat there for a minute trying to figure out who could have slammed a door so hard that the whole building moved. And then I figured it out. Duh. My cubemate David returned shortly after and said, "Did you have fun?" And I said, "Was that what I thought it was?" And he said he was at another cube at the time and heard the ceiling tiles crackle for a few seconds. To me, it was just a loud boom and a sideways jolt, but yeah, it was fun.

The museum putty worked like a charm. But I'm moving the ceramic cats away from the tile and closer to the carpet.

Seagulls: Big-Ass Chickens that Float

Do you know how big a seagull can get? I didn't until I saw the ones at Fishermen's Wharf. Pretty damn big. About the size of my 17-pound cat big. Really. Big.

Sea chickens. Freakin' huge.

We Told You So.

There's this law that was passed in 1986 called Proposition 65, which says that a business entity of a certain size must warn you of the potential dangers of patronizing that business. For example, if you're at the store and they sell wine (and they all do), I guarantee you there's a sign at the register that says, "WARNING: Drinking Distilled Spirits, Beer, Coolers, Wine and Other Alcoholic Beverages May Increase Cancer Risk, and, During Pregnancy, Can Cause Birth Defects." And at every other building in the state there is a sign that says, "WARNING: This Area Contains Chemicals Known To The State Of California To Cause Cancer And Birth Defects Or Other Reproductive Harm." You know what that means? It means, "We painted the building. Don't lick the walls."

I saw one of these next to a drinking fountain at an apartment I looked at right before I moved here. I kept looking.

And Your Bagger This Evening is Jose Cuervo

I visited a couple of grocery stores before I noticed it: Alcohol. Not just beer and wine alcohol, but Wild Turkey, tequila, Jim Beam, vodka, you name it. No wonder liquor stores are scarce out here. You don't need them. Just grab your pineapple juice from the canned fruit aisle and your Malibu Rum on the way out. And don't forget the Pepto.

The first time I noticed that bottle of Stoli across the aisle from the pickles... yeah, that's when I knew I was home. Of course I'll be getting cancer now.
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2010/01/california-for-dummies.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2010/01/california-for-dummies.html California for dummies California Fri, 08 Jan 2010 01:15:38 -0800
Well here's what actually happened. I spent more money on contacts that make a nice glowy cloud on anything with a light on it, I can't ever remember if I've been wearing the current pair for one week or two, and you know what happens when you add MORE air to already dry eyes? Yeah. You probably do.

I finally have a vision plan. Perhaps I should find a new optometrist a little early this year. I'll see if I can find one that's not getting kickbacks from Acuvue. I've cleared a lot of weeds out of my life over the past year that were clouding my vision--bad career choices, bad relationships. Can't I at least get a decent pair of contacts? I'm tired of only being able to see metaphorically.

(Fed up. Takes out contacts, rolls them into a ball, flicks them across airport. They're two weeks old anyway. Or three? Now think... when did I go to Napa...)

Ahhh glasses. Sometimes you have to forego good looks for clearer vision. That seems to be a theme with me lately as I start to define where I stand on a lot of things, mainly political. I can't care anymore about what other people think, I can't care about my image. I can't care if I get approval from the popular kids. I have to strive for the clearest vision at whatever cost. I have to strive for what's right, not what's pretty or acceptable. And some of my values are neither right now. And I'm finally tired of caring.

They've been bothering me, the attacks from the "popular" kids. They really have. But I'm letting go of that. Because the only people who have attacked me for what I believe are the ones who have yet to even ask me what I believe about anything. I made one comment one day and I was immediately stereotyped and personally insulted. I'm very sensitive to that kind of thing and I've been hanging onto it longer than I should. But it recently occurred to me that it wasn't the lack of approval that bothered me, it was the lack of interest. The way they acted like I wasn't even worth the effort to get to know at all, but I was definitely worth kicking around for an easy punch line. Being used like that is what really burns.

If they took the time, they would find out we have much more in common than they think. But they don't want to take the time. And that's their loss, not mine, and I have to remember that.

The point is, I'm not buying their cloudy, expensive contacts, or even their rose-colored glasses, and I'm more than ready for them to know it. I don't want to see the world the way they do, where they criticize and attack what they don't even want to understand because it gets points with their hateful friends. When you think about it, who wouldn't rather see clearly what's right in front of them than hide their eyes out of peer pressure? Unfortunately, not enough of us. So no matter how their rejection makes me feel at any given moment, I have to follow my conscience and I have to stay true to my own voice, because an artist cannot lie and still be an artist. That would make her a parrot at best, a passionless reflection of someone else's ideals. And what I want for myself in 2010 is to find out exactly what kind of artist I am and what it is I really want to say and just say it. Whatever it is, it has to be honest and it has to be brave, or else no one will listen at all. Least of all myself.

Actually I know what I want to say. I just have to figure out how to say it in a way that's not so likely to be dismissed. Because I'm really SICK of being dismissed. I can't make them stop though. I just have to be smarter, louder, and harder to ignore. One down...

]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/12/in-search-of-a-better-optometr.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/12/in-search-of-a-better-optometr.html Life in general Sun, 27 Dec 2009 19:40:50 -0800
We were supposed to start on a new sequence last week. Layout doesn't have their work done yet so we have barely anything to set up. Set up is my job. I can't do my job. So my boss bought us another week and you know what's changed? Not much. Still can't do my job.

Last night a cold front started to move in. The wind picked up dramatically. I sneezed for 2 hours. So I took a Claritin before bed and then woke up feeling like I'd taken an entire bottle of Sudafed. Totally dried out, feverish but with no actual fever. I hadn't taken Sudafed; I save that for when I'm desperate. I'm not desperate. I've sneezed a few times today and this morning I didn't think I was going to make it to lunch without falling over dead. I'm better now but not great, and bored, so I'm writing a blog entry in my favorite text editor. It's 5pm on Friday. If I were really sick I would go home but I've had too many cokes to convince anyone I feel bad at all.

I keep bouncing back to the Web today. I try not to but I'm very ADD when I'm on a computer with nothing urgent to do. I keep going back to Fox News and CNN and seeing what's going on. Apparently today is the 40th anniversary of when the Indians took over Alcatraz for 19 months, resulting (directly or otherwise) in Nixon's halt of U.S. tribal assimilation policies. Did you know the Indians took over Alcatraz in 1969? I didn't. Probably because I wasn't alive yet, although I was alive by the time they took the last 15 off the island. I think they said something about it on the tour boat but there was a group of Russians sitting behind us singing songs at the top of their lungs. We didn't hear much coming over the speakers.

I have to wonder why CNN reported on this but not Fox News. Of course I ask the same questions about a lot of political stories that Fox reports on but not CNN. You can't rely on just one network. They don't share their personal priorities.

One thing I did read on Fox today really annoys me. There's a rep in Missouri who is trying to get a resolution passed to make next Wednesday "a day without complaining." That's right, a day where complaining about anything is not allowed. And he's a Democrat. I find that very ironic.

For one thing, I complain about Obama, Harry Reid and most especially, Nancy Pelosi. It's true. When I post my complaints on Facebook however, it's always in response to a Democrat complaining about conservatives. I feel justified in my complaints because these people are my leaders and I voted against them. It didn't work, they still won. I get to be ticked about that. I also understand complaining on the other side because this country was left in a mess by the Republicans. But I understood that complaining a lot better back when the Republicans were still in charge. They're not in office now. And yet the Democrats are still whining about it. So here comes a Democrat trying to pass a no-complaining day resolution. You think there's a loophole that says, "No complaining EXCEPT for the following topics: Sarah Palin, Bush, conservatives in general, Fox News.... because they're all WRONG and they deserve it." I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.

You guys have the power to change things now. Quit complaining about those who disagree with your ideology and get to work before that power is taken away from you again. I wouldn't mind the complaining so much if you were out there doing something about it. But many of the loudest complaints come from those who are doing nothing but surfing Facebook.

And that brings me to why this resolution REALLY annoys the crap out of me. They say the resolution itself is not even meant to be political (although how can it not be), it's about "improving human relations." There are some who believe complaining hurts relationships, kills careers, and makes for an overall bad quality of life. Well, it does occasionally ruin my Facebook experience, but it has very little control over my actual life. As with any of life's tools for coping, it's all in how you use it.

Complaining has a place in life. It allows you to let off steam. It allows you to work through your emotions about something so that you can get to a place where you can more clearly see a solution to your problems. It gets you from being the victim of a bad situation to a place where you can overcome the bad situation. The more you complain, the madder you get and the greater your resolve to change things. There's a natural pattern to life. First, bad thing happens. Then, person whom bad thing happened to reacts by complaining. Person whom bad thing happened to works through their anger and frustration at the situation, again by complaining. Then, suddenly, person whom bad thing happened to starts to see how to fix it, and they do, powered by said anger and frustration which is now fuel for the cause. Simple. All better.

The only complaining that needs to be squelched is that which feeds off itself and never leads to action. However, you can't always do something about your situation and there are some serious situations in this country right now and in people's lives. People are getting laid off, they're losing their homes, they're losing their fortunes, they're unable to pay their medical bills and stay alive. In many cases there is no course of action to take, they're already doing all they can but circumstances are out of their control. They're going through hell. And now they're not even supposed to talk about it?

The American Indians, in the 60s, were seeing their reservations closed and were being moved into urban areas. What would have happened to them if they hadn't gone to Alcatraz to draw attention to their complaints? Our country's Native American heritage would be completely lost, that's what would have happened.

Basically what this rep is telling his constituents is, "I know you're having problems, many of which my colleagues and I created. You have every right to be angry. But I don't want to hear about it. You're bothering me."

It is self-righteous and cruel to take the power of complaint away from those who are angry just to make the rest of the world a little more comfortable. When did we become a society that should never hear an unkind word, should never have to deal with real problems, should never be inconvenienced, should never lose a competition, and should never have to hear about the problems of others? How do people get help if they don't ever talk about what's wrong in their lives? Especially when they don't feel they have the power to change things alone. I complain about all the complaining being done by Democrats right now, but I wouldn't try to pass a resolution to stop it. They probably would try to pass a resolution to stop mine though. Oh wait, they are. Or at least one is.

I write a blog for a lot of reasons. The first reason is to track my progress on the path toward doing what I've always wanted to do in life. It expanded to a journal on improving my life in general, living my life for me instead of for everyone else, demanding better for myself. That second part has a lot of growing pains, and growing pains come with a lot of complaining. I have no intention of stopping. Not today, not next Wednesday, not because some idiot representative would rather draft useless resolutions than solve the economic crisis, and certainly not because someone might be uncomfortable. I will complain about what makes me unhappy until I feel better and until I see a way to fix it. That's just how I deal with things, and there's not a resolution in the world that will change my mind.

I've had two boyfriends now who can't--or just don't think they should have to--deal with anything negative. The first one was so afraid of negative emotions (particularly in women) that he would joke and change the subject every time I tried to talk seriously about anything. Because of that, my voice was never heard, nothing ever changed and we never went anywhere. Later in life when we tried to be friends, he was still so afraid of what his wife would think about us talking that he would rather not talk to me at all than tell her what he was doing. I demanded that he tell her because it was the right thing to do. He wouldn't. We are no longer talking.

The second boyfriend constantly told me how negative I was during the first few years we were together. I wouldn't even see it coming, just out of the blue when I felt perfectly content with myself and my surroundings, he would tell me I was being negative. I am not a cheerleader and never have been, but if I do not have a smile on my face or a laugh in my heart it does not mean I am not, at the very least, content. I had to ask myself though, how I would ever prove to someone I was not a negative person if he basically kept telling me how much he hated being with me. Just like the time he actually set his watch to see how long it took for me to say something "positive," he was setting me up to fail so he could appear successful by comparison. Anyone who can actually be visibly positive in an abusive situation like that deserves a medal.

And by the way, I WAS positive. I was positive he was an asshole. But I digress.

So after all that, I have a right to complain. I took action, I moved on, but there are times it still makes me mad that I ever put up with it. And every time I complain, I get a little more understanding from myself and from the people who care about me and I am able to go on. So I find a resolution against complaining very self-serving, to the point of being a complaint in itself. A hypocritical complaint about complaining. "Mommy, they won't stop complaining all the time. They're BOTHERING me. Make them stop!"

Sometimes people complain because they just want someone to understand, someone to relate to them. And when they feel like someone relates to them, they move on. There's nothing wrong with that either. I have someone in my life who does understand and that is why while I still complain about some things, I'm not the same person I was when I moved here. I'm not even the same person I was last week. And I will forever be grateful to him for that.

I have a lot to be happy about and I am. I also have a lot to be angry about and I am. You can't draft a resolution that says you don't have to take the good with the bad. You might as well draft a resolution that says, "Life forever after is hereby declared fair." As a new country, we declared the right to pursue happiness as one of our inalienable rights as human beings. We did not declare our inalienable right to receive it. That, you have to do on your own.

]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/11/the-pursuit-of-happiness.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/11/the-pursuit-of-happiness.html Life in general Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:52:03 -0800
I've been posting and deleting a lot lately. I'm not sure right now where I want this blog to go. Actually I know where I would like it to go but my head is not aligned with that goal lately, and neither is my free time. I'd like it to be about my job and living in California and in-progress artwork. That last one is a challenge because I'm not going to have time for that for a while. I have ideas though, and when I get them in some visible form, they'll show up here.

I had a very frustrating and stressful weekend. There was too much noise in my apartment for me to relax or concentrate. That resulted in having no recovery time from the past week. I'm hoping this coming weekend and Thanksgiving will be different. I have a lot to get done to ever meet that free-time goal and be an artist again. It's been a very long time since I've been able to do any work for myself and I'm dying to get started on some.

I've spent a lot of time and energy worrying about things I have no control over right now and stressing over regrets I probably don't need to have. I've decided this is the result of many things, but two things in particular. One is that I'm just not at home anymore. I don't miss Texas, but I miss feeling like I'm home. That comes with time, a lot of time. And it comes when you're comfortable where you live. It's hard to be comfortable in a place where you can rarely relax. And it's not just because of the noise, it's because I haven't had time to finish unpacking the apartment. There's a lot of clutter here, it's been here for three months and there's only so long I can put up with clutter. I passed that limit a long time ago, but it would take too much time away from the second job to finish it right now. I'm hoping for some time over Thanksgiving to take care of it. Until then I'm going to remain claustrophobic. Squeezed.

The second problem is work, constant work. Constant pressure to finish something that started almost a year ago, something that has a lot of holes to fill before going public. The pressure was great this past weekend because I couldn't concentrate with little Chariots of Fire running across my ceiling every five minutes. I expect a kid to run once in a while, but not for 48 hours straight. I had a parent at work today tell me yeah, sometimes it's really hard to get your kid to not run in the house. Well duh, of course it's hard. Parenthood is hard. What's your point? If it's hard you don't have to do it? It's hard to get a kid to stop doing anything you don't tell him to stop doing.

Anyway, since I can't change my circumstances right now, and since it's not like I really *have* to make a decision about where my life is going, I'm going to quit focusing on the ambiguity of my future. I'm going to sit still. I'm going to stop worrying about repeating bad decisions by not making any decisions at all, decisions that I'm obviously not ready to make. After all, I don't have to make any. I think that didn't occur to me until today. I've made it to where I wanted to go. I can stop and rest for a while. I've been trying to push myself in some direction because I've never sat still in my life. I've always been moving, working toward some goal. I've finally met a big one and I've been very anxious living with a new question that I have yet to answer: "Now what?" But maybe I don't need to answer it now, maybe it will answer itself. I have no direction. Maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe I can even enjoy being directionless for a while.

I've based my entire life on the belief that if something's real, it won't end no matter what happens. I guess with everything in my life that's come to a premature end, I've needed to believe that. And I've been feeling very lost lately because a lot of recent events have called that belief into question. But I found out today I was right after all. There really are real things in the world, real things in my own life. Even if they stay at a distance forever I can at least say that part of my world is right side up again.
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/11/directionless.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/11/directionless.html Life in general Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:17:49 -0800
I'm really beat. I've given up on dinner this week and replaced it with cookies. I can't get in the shower at night before 1am. The apartment stinks from five-day-old dishes. If I had wanted to do nothing with my life but work, I would have gone into advertising.

I remember working hard in grad school. 12 to 16 hour days seven days a week. We at least got Christmas, and summer, somewhat... this Christmas will still be about the web site. I haven't had a vacation in three years. Grad school was easier somehow. I had stress, that's for sure, but I don't remember it ever making me nauseous for days at a time. But back then, all that was riding on my work was a grade. This time, it's an entire business. This affects far more than just me.

I'm too old for this. The day job is great but it's tiring, and too hard for me to be this stressed out after I leave at night. It's a 100mph job and it's the easiest thing I have in my life right now. It's quickly becoming the only break I get. In fact, we had a halloween-type party tonight at the bar on the other end of the floor--I think we had about 30 people crammed into that one cube (and yes there is a bar in the cube, complete with bar stools, grass skirts, inflatable palm trees, and a toilet with a hand coming out of it to welcome you at the door). There was punch that tasted like a giant pink margarita with dry ice to make it all smokey. People were throwing a roll of tp at each other. It trailed down the hallway between the cubes. Some of it landed on me so I wore it as a scarf, which came in really handy when they ordered pizza. Ross brought in a big bowl of halloween candy and we had dessert too.

I had one glass of punch and lost my ability to type. I had sobered up by the time I went home though, which was pretty much the same time I always go home. I would love to have stayed longer but I had work to do. And I wasn't happy about it since I'm already missing halloween, but if I had stayed I would have just worried myself sick about what I wasn't getting done and probably would have had to cancel Sunday, which is still a possibility. Because I know I'm not getting up early on Saturday to work. I just don't have it in me.

A lot of people will be dressing up to go to work tomorrow. I would go as the goth chick on NCIS that's always drinking slurpees, that is if I had time to put a costume together. So instead I'll wear my favorite orange shirt and leave it at that. Oh well, maybe next year.
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/10/night-of-the-living-dead.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/10/night-of-the-living-dead.html Life in general Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:04:03 -0800
They do something kinda cool at DreamWorks on your birthday. You get two balloons, one blue and one white. You get a box of cookies and a card signed by Jeffrey Katzenberg. I found these at my desk when I came back from a class today. I gave away about half the cookies and brought the rest home.

I've been thinking all day, I'd almost rather be 40 than 39. There's something very final about having a 9 in your age, but a 0 makes it feel like you're starting over. I hope I remember that next year. My supervisor, Annmarie, said today that she's deeply scarred from having turned 40. She doesn't look her age either. Must be the light from the computer screen we stare at ten hours a day, freezes the aging process. It's not like any of us spend much time in the sun. Or even artificial light.

You're not imagining that the last four entries have disappeared. It's a new year. Let's just leave it at that.
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/10/birthday.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/10/birthday.html Life in general Dreamworks Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:48:42 -0800
How about the fact that I've had a very long and stressful day and that I don't need to come home and listen to someone else's racket all night. This does not help me unwind. He probably wouldn't care. They usually don't.

He stomped across the apartment and back but never came down. And with that I decided my passive-aggressive reaction wasn't worth the anxiety it caused. I don't remember a time when I walked from room to room, through the living room, back to one bedroom and then across to the other with both hands running through my hair as if I would pull it out with all my fingers at once. I finally stopped in the middle of the living room and decided to sit down again, maybe write about it and see if I unraveled.

You would think a glass of wine would remedy this but as I get older, such things only keep me awake at night with a severe case of restless legs. I don't keep it in the house and I'm not up for going out. Probably couldn't get any this late anyway, even though the local grocery store carries Wild Turkey and vodka. But that's another blog entry altogether.

It's not like I've never heard this guy before. Usually it's not this bad and usually I'm not this bad. I can take a lot when I'm relaxed but that seems to have ended this week as if I'm living on nothing but Sudafed and caffeine. Work finally has work to do but they're still throwing me into so many classes I can't get anywhere. And then when I do, I go to another class that shows me that I just did everything wrong. I get five different instructions from five different people and 30 minutes later I'm back in class not even knowing where I left off. And my supervisor wants me to get to a certain point by tomorrow and I don't even know what point that is anymore.

My lead lighter is on vacation. My regular TD is on vacation too. I have a substitute who's showing me a lot but neither of us really have the time to sit down and just work on it. There are a lot of missing pieces that are the responsibility of people I've never met. They kicked off another sequence yesterday, which means I have two to set up now and I've barely started the one they gave me on Monday. I'm tense. Every muscle in my body is contracted. I spend ten hours a day at work and with all the classes I still get nothing done. And my supervisor's schedule is even worse than mine so she hasn't been able to help me at all.

One more day. There's just one more day in this week. That should be a relief but all I can think about is trying to get 20 hours of freelance work in over the weekend and still have time to do the laundry, pay bills and ride the bike. And get a new bike seat so I can ride past the bridge without coming back with a bruised butt.

The holidays are going to be weird this year. We get the week off between Christmas and New Years. I don't even remember the last time I had a paid holiday (ok, before Labor Day), let alone a week off. They're telling us to take vacation, sick days or no pay but whatever we do, don't come in that week. I don't have vacation yet so I'm thinking sick days, that is if I don't get sick first and use them up. And let me tell you I'm a prime candidate right now. I only have to save up four days because the holidays themselves are paid automatically, but people are starting to drop like flies around there. I stood next to two guys in the elevator today who have been out sick until today. I didn't breathe.

It costs about $400 to fly to OKC. I asked my dad what he wanted to do. He said, "We'll see when we get closer." How much closer? When the ticket costs $500? $600? When my only choice is to land at 4am? My mom is ready to fly me to Denver for either holiday, she just wants to know what I want to do. Holidays have always been hard for me to think only of myself. My whole life has been spent trying to make everyone happy, to see everyone in my family, to not leave anyone out. I spent Christmas at Mom's last year so it was Dad's turn this year. I'm also going to be 39 in three weeks. Why am I still playing visitation rights? I moved to California. I'm not about making everyone else happy anymore.

So I've decided: I'm skipping Thanksgiving. I need some time off. I need to not travel. I need to finish putting my apartment together and ride my bike and work on the web site without feeling like I'm cramming everything into two short days. I need the German guy to go visit some family somewhere that's not here. Germany would be good. And then I'm going to Denver for Christmas and spending the week before New Years alone. I'm about tired of being alone lately but at the same time, I know I need it to get my environment under control.

If I can get the site done by Christmas it can go up the week I'm off, which is also the week they're off, which is why they want it to go up at Christmas. I'm hoping that won't be a hard thing. Maybe I can paint something in between bug fixes. If my initials didn't spell ART I wouldn't even remember the word at all, and I have things to work out. Feelings and frustrations and grave injustices and stuff I can't control. I even have a painting in mind--something that I think would be really cool one minute and then just piss me off the next. Sounds like art to me.

I guess the movie's over upstairs. Maybe I can go to bed now. This Thursday has felt like a Monday, tomorrow damn well better feel like a Friday. I need a Friday. A real one.
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/10/thursday-night-at-the-movies.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/10/thursday-night-at-the-movies.html Life in general Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:37:14 -0800
I've been at DreamWorks for a little over three weeks now, and let's face it, while it's nowhere near as bad as most, it is a corporation. That means you have your little corporate sheep moments here and there. You have your "Kickoff" meetings. You have your "Touch Bases." You have your Microsoft Outlook with your meetings and your calendar and your email and your to-dos all wrapped in that Dilbert inspired wrist-slitting, soul-smothering, oh-God-I-really-do-work-in-a-cubicle-please-euthanize-me user interface. Imagine my inner programmer's unbridled joy when I found out I would be working on a Linux box, probably one of the most stable, un-bloated operating systems in existence. And then imagine my utter dismay when I found out that someone had actually written a Microsoft emulator for Linux so that we could all run Outlook and therefore, "communicate effectively as a team." Let me tell you, it was a long, hard fall with a big rainbow-colored splat at the end.

A common activity between classes (since I have no homework) is to watch my Outlook calendar change before my eyes. The training department is in total control of my class schedule, and apparently in control of very little else, so they'll schedule me for two or three classes a day a week in advance and then randomly shift things around until it makes sense. If I look at my calendar at just the right time of day, I can see the little blue-outlined boxes move up, down, from this day to that, all without any interaction from me. It's like Microsoft TV. I can witness the near future of my life unfolding before my eyes like Windows releases--"OK, this is what we'll do. Oh wait, that's broken, let's do this. No, that's too annoying, let's go back. Wait, no one's coming to that class because it negates everything they learned in the last class--let's just take the last class and make it prettier and bigger and slower." And so on.

One day during my first week here, a class just disappeared from my schedule. Poof! Gone. I wondered if it had moved to another day, so I started searching. Next week? No. The next? Nope, not there either. The next? AHA!--but it was in conflict with a meeting I didn't know I had, enticingly titled "Touch Base (& Cookies!)." What the hell is a "Touch Base (& Cookies!)?" I asked myself. And why am I being bribed with cookies to attend? I envisioned some doe-eyed HR representative with five minutes experience standing at the head of a conference table with a big plate of cookies, wringing her hands with giddy anticipation as her drooling invitees filed in one by one and took their seats. No one knows the topic of the meeting; no one cares. There's cookies! And what's with the training department? Didn't they see that I already had a "Touch Base (& Cookies!)" scheduled? Excuse me BUT THERE'S COOKIES! Have they no shame?

Turns out the training department made a boo boo. When they called to inquire as to why I wasn't present in a class that apparently had not been rescheduled at all, they corrected their mistake and restored my calendar. Relief! My "Touch Base (& Cookies!)" could once again take it's rightful place on the afternoon of September 16 without having to share space with a how-to on production management software.

But the damage to my psyche had been done. As the weeks wore on and my calendar filled up farther and farther into the future, I kept going back to September 16 just to make sure everything was OK. Yep, "Touch Base (& Cookies!)" was still intact. As a matter of fact, while all my classes and kickoffs and cookieless touch bases swarmed my calendar like flies, "Touch Base (& Cookies!)" seemed to be the most stable meeting on my schedule.

The shameless bribe certainly served its purpose--apparently you can sell any product or idea just by giving away cookies. It wasn't long before I no longer needed Outlook to remind me of the "Touch Base (& Cookies!)." "Touch Base (& Cookies!)" was imprinted on my brain like phosphor burn on a thirty-year-old Pac Man screen--September 16, 4pm to 5pm.

I find myself in awe of this deceptively simple crowd-pleasing technique. Just imagine how many of life's little irritations could be made palatable if only cookies were a part of the package:

"ObamaCare (& Cookies!)"

"Saddam Has Weapons of Mass Destruction (& Cookies!)"

"April 15th (& Cookies!)"

"Your Vehicle Warranty is About to Expire (& Cookies!)"

"You Have One Month to Live (& Cookies!)"

"Your Father is Transitioning to a Woman (& Cookies!)"

"BEYONCE HAS THE BEST MUSIC VIDEO OF ALL TIME (& Cookies!)"

The trick is, the cookies have to be REALLY good. And they were. Just don't ask me what the meeting was about because I don't remember.

]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/09/another-blog-entry-cookies.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/09/another-blog-entry-cookies.html Life with CG Dreamworks Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:04:56 -0800
I'm starting my fourth week at DreamWorks and I'm still in training. This is not a surprise, as they told me I would have four weeks of training when they hired me. I sort of envisioned this full-day-of-classes-type schedule where I would be sitting in front of a computer while someone at the white board told me what to do and why I was doing it, and then gave me homework to fill the remainder of the day. Well... that's close. What's actually happening is that I'm spending anywhere from two to four hours a day in front of a computer while someone at the white board tells me how to use tools that I don't yet know why I'm using because I don't really know what my job is. And most of these classes have no homework, so it's mainly a laundry list of "here's what it does" and then "thanks for coming, bye." No practical application as of yet. I'm holding out hope though.

Ten hour days are mandatory here, so you get ten hours a week of guaranteed time-and-a-half overtime, which you need because they've used that to justify their very low hourly rate for TAs (technical assistants). So that leaves anywhere from six to eight hours of complete and utter boredom per day. I've written emails, I've stalked old boyfriends on Facebook (one of which is about sick of it I'm sure), I've watched training videos, I've even taken one shell scripting tutorial and tried to rewrite it in Python. But I stopped short of completing it because I haven't made it far enough in my Python classes yet to figure out how to finish it off. Maybe tomorrow after Studio Python I. Or maybe Thursday after II. Who knows.

The good news is, this is the week they start the film-specific training. That means I get to learn exactly the what and how of the tools we'll be using for the movie I'm going to be working on. I'm in the lighting department which is at the end of the pipeline, meaning we have the most responsibility and the power to render nearly-finished frames. As a department, we set the mood of the film. That's an awesome job. One that scares the crap out of me.

I still don't really know what a Lighting TA does around here. If I did, the classes I've been taking would make a hell of a lot more sense.

So while my inner overachiever is completely under-stimulated, I've been enjoying the amenities to their fullest potential. Well, except for the free breakfast. I've tried, really I have, but I just don't do mornings. And most days the breakfast isn't anything to write home about--donuts, bagels, fruit--I can get that after a night at the local Comfort Inn. But Wednesdays are IHOP days around here. That's when they cook eggs, waffles, bacon, etc. I live for Wednesdays. And yet I've only made it to one Wednesday breakfast before they shut down the entree line.

It was good too.

Most of the time I'll come in a little after 9, and there might be a bagel or a cake donut left. But usually I'll head over to the toaster and toss in an English muffin or some raisin bread, butter it Paula Deen style, grab a Coke and take it up to my desk. So I actually have been eating breakfast. This is a new thing for me. And here's the weird thing: I'm dropping the pounds like mad. For years now, drinking Coke has been a rare treat. Most of the time I just lived on Evian because I was avoiding caffeine. Then while I was still in Texas I discovered Mexican Coke (mmmm real sugar) so I started drinking them a little more but not much. Then I got here and found free Coke everywhere. There's a fountain in the cafeteria and a fountain in every break room on every floor. I caved.

Apparently the caffeine is killing my appetite to the point that I just don't eat as much as I used to. And I don't really snack between meals either. Plus, I get home so late at night I don't really want to cook so I just nibble on whatever I can find and then go work on the web site. I haven't actually cooked dinner in about three weeks. They warned me when I got here about the "DreamWorks 15" because of the free breakfast and lunch. It seems to be working in reverse for me.

My weight loss actually started when I moved, the result of sheer panic. I dropped two pounds the day the movers told me what day they were showing up. I leveled off for a few weeks after that but then about a month ago, about the time I got here and started going outside, it started dropping again. My jeans are falling off. I'm not really complaining because I've been wanting to see 135 again for about five years... the problem is, I don't have smaller jeans to replace them with, and no time to go get them. Not yet anyway. However, I just went downstairs to the Bake Off and sampled everything up for a vote. That should buy me another couple of days before I run into the Old Navy wearing the last thing that still stays on, which would be my underwear.

And that's another thing. They do stuff here. They're having a bake off downstairs in the cafeteria as I write this. I sampled caramel corn with bacon (that was so out of context I have yet to form a complete opinion on it), toffee with chocolate and saltine crackers (not so good), a nice chocolate cupcake, much better toffee with chocolate and yes, another Coke. They're also having a talent show here on October 1. I have no talent that can be exhibited on stage; however, I suggested to my cube-mate David that maybe next year we should get three people together, dress as Muppets and do "Manah-manah." He laughed, but deep down I think he only shares my sense of humor to the point that he'd like to see someone else do it.

About a week ago, someone transferred to the Glendale office. We gave them a nice champagne send-off in the middle of the afternoon. Then last Friday night, someone brought me a Mike's Hard Lemonade out of the blue. Do I like it here? Yeah, I do. I like it here.

We work in a building that shares property with a bunch of other companys' buildings. And in the center of it all is a gym. A free gym. A very nice gym with a large pool. I went to sign up a few weeks ago and they said I'd get an email--I haven't yet. I need to go over there. But it may be a moot point because I'm getting a bike next week and I'd almost rather go out on the trail around the bay than spend yet another hour at work (or near it) at the gym. I'm already here so much, the bike will be a treat, whereas the gym will be more like, "Damn, can't I go home yet?" Yeah, I think that's how that will turn out. It's nice to have the option though. Some of their ellipticals have TVs attached where you can set your own channel. As long as those are working, this will always be an option for me. Perhaps on a rainy day.

A rainy day is something you don't see here in the summer, or so I've been told. We actually had one yesterday. It was nice. But today the sun is back out, it's 70-something degrees, windy, and I took what has become a ritual walk to the water on my lunch hour. We're right on the bay here, and the paved paths that run through the property are also public access. So every day I spend about 15 minutes eating and another 15 walking down to the water, staring at it for a bit, and then walking back. I've been landlocked my entire life. I don't get tired of the water. Unfortunately for the last four days I've had 1pm classes that made it impossible to take my walk, but today I decided dammit I'm going down to the water if I have to run down there and run back. I walked fast, stood there for a minute and then walked fast back. It was worth it.

My need to go outside comes from years of living in Texas with mosquitoes, fire ants and heat, but it's heightened by the fact that I now work in almost total darkness. The lighting department is very dependent on color calibrated monitors and a lack of glare; therefore, the overhead lights are never on, the windows are covered and you get one desk lamp to aim at your respective cube wall. On my first day I got my desk lamp. Ironically, I needed a flashlight to see where to plug it in. Now I'm sort of used to it; I don't feel like I can see a computer screen anymore with the lights on. With my eyes already causing me some age-related problems lately, that's a bad sign.

And by the way, there are not only NO fire ants here, there are NO mosquitoes, NO waterbugs and very few spiders. I've seen three silverfish in my apartment and one brown spider in the month I've lived there. That's about as bad as it gets.

I like that work doesn't start until 9 here. Of course that means I don't leave before 7:30 every night, but the commute by then is about 15 minutes back to the apartment. Even in the morning it doesn't take me more than 20 minutes to get here. What I'm fighting with is the same thing I've fought my entire life, and that is actually going to bed at night. Night is when I wake up. And now that I'm working when I get home, I'm that much more awake when I should be going to bed. Saturday night I worked until 3am, which meant I slept until 1pm on Sunday. That was the end of any illusion I may have had of a normal schedule. I went to bed again last night at 3, probably didn't actually sleep until 4 and then the alarm went off at 8. That was physically painful. Hence the breakfast issue on Wednesdays. Painful.

Some things never change.

Well, back to work (or lack thereof). Stay tuned for an entry I've been planning for some time entitled, "California for Dummies."
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/09/hows-it-going.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/09/hows-it-going.html Life with CG Dreamworks Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:25:27 -0800
Ludlow, California, has a Dairy Queen. Actually, I think Ludlow IS a Dairy Queen. It's a good sized Dairy Queen surrounded by parking lot, with additional truck parking across the road, all of which is surrounded by dirt. And every bit of it was packed with cars. People, kids, pets were all going back and forth between the cars and the store. Groups of guys were hanging out near their pickup trucks, probably waiting for their women to come back from the bathroom. There were so many people milling around you could hardly get through the parking lot, which was packed full. I drove through it and parked in a relatively empty area on the dirt next to a truck pulling a boat. Within five minutes the entire dirt area was full too.

I stopped the car but didn't turn it off so I could keep the A/C on for the cat. It was 108. I told Deanna to go ahead and go in, use the bathroom and pick me up a Reese's Blizzard (Dad was paying) and then she could stay with the cat while I went. So she left. After a while Dad came to my window and told me that if I needed to use the bathroom, the line for that was longer than the food line and was almost out the door. But there was a row of port-a-potties right next to our dirt parking area. I needed to go, but not that bad. Never that bad.

Bali Ree came out about ten minutes later, Deanna soon after. Deanna said that after she finally saw the bathroom, she didn't trust the food so we were all skipping the Blizzards and going on to Barstow. And so we were off again. It was late afternoon and it was still a long way to Bakersfield, but once we got back on the highway we knew the worst was over. The traffic was still horrible, people were still racing each other, but I was beginning to understand why. It was a nightmarish place, hot, dry, barren, no exits off the highway (except this one) and seemingly, no end. No one wanted to be there. They were all trying to get the hell out of there as fast as they could.

Barstow was completely uninteresting but we did get gas and changed highways, getting off of I-40--for the first time--and onto 58. It was a weird transition--all of a sudden it was like we were driving past graffiti-covered crack houses. There were yucca plants everywhere and had been since Arizona. I wanted to see a giant cactus but I had already given up on that. I've only seen them once in my life and that was in 1998 just outside of El Paso. We weren't nearly that far south. Once we ran out of crack houses we found ourselves driving through Boron, complete with a 20 Mule Team Road. And then boring dirt again. We passed Edwards AFB, which was impressive, and then made it into the hills where the temperature started to drop. The sun had just gone behind the hills when we noticed the windmills.

LOTS of windmills. More windmills than you can possibly imagine. Windmills to the left, windmills to the right, windmills on every ridge, on every hill, as far as the eye could see. Windmills everywhere! No wonder it was cooling off, there were fans blowing on us from every direction. And with the sun going down it was truly surreal--Deanna got out her camera and started shooting pictures.

"To the left!" I would yell, and she would stick the camera in front of my face to get a shot out my window. "To the right! Behind! No, look in front!" I think she took about 80 pictures before we got away from them.

80 pictures I'm still waiting for her to send me. But I digress.

The sun was almost completely down as we came out of the hills. The temperature started to rise again. It went from the 70s back into the 90s. It felt like home. I wasn't happy about that.

We found our motel in Bakersfield around 9, a Sleep Inn. It took pets. I had called from Gallup to make sure. We were all tired and Dad and Bali Ree were not getting along too well. Dad thought she had driven like a bat out of hell all day and he was sick of it. Then they got to their room, started unloading and then changed rooms because something smelled. So they had to take all the boxes Dad had already unloaded and move them to the other room, which coincidentally adjoined ours. Our room, however, was lovely. We brought in the cat after stuffing pillows in all the holes she could hide in and just like last time, she went straight underneath the bed skirt and stayed put.

We unloaded the cars for what seemed like an eternity. Bali Ree was tired and decided to take a shower and go to bed. Dad had said that he wanted to eat and he wasn't going to bed without eating. So Deanna and I were looking forward to food. We went outside to help Dad with the last of the boxes and Deanna asked him who was going to drive.

"Dinner... is that all you can think about right now?" he asked her.

We looked at each other. "We're just going on the last thing we heard," I said.

He softened. "I know."

We helped him carry in the last of the boxes and then he went to his room and shut the door. Deanna and I sat on our respective beds and wondered aloud if this dinner thing was going to happen. Because we were starving, and we could go by ourselves, but if Dad wanted to go we didn't want to just leave, and the way things were going we didn't want to go knock on his door. So we sat there and looked at a flyer for Rusty's Pizza while the cat found her courage and started exploring the tops of various pieces of furniture.

We sat, and we sat. And we wondered, and our stomachs growled and we tried not to fall asleep. I discussed the possibility of updating my blog because we finally had an internet connection. Deanna wanted to do something on her laptop as well. Maybe after dinner, we thought. And then Dad knocked on our door.

We were all too tired to be creative about where to eat. Rusty's was open late, so that's where we went. And I have to say that was some damn good pizza, and I even got to play a couple of games of Galaga while we waited for it.

After dinner we came back to the room and opened the door. No cat, no surprise. I looked under the bed skirt. No cat. I looked under another bed skirt. No cat. I felt around all the bed skirts, looked in the closet, under the desk, behind the TV--Deanna looked behind our bedside table, in the bathroom and under the air conditioner. NO CAT. We thought back to when we left the room. No, she couldn't have come out then without our knowing about it. Did someone come in while we were gone and she ran out? Where could she be by now if that happened? AND WHO THE HELL CAME INTO OUR ROOM? I was about to panic when Deanna finally pulled back the curtain and there she sat on the windowsill. That poor cat hadn't looked out a window for over a week. So there she sat, facing the back of a building and a stumpy palm tree, looking over her shoulder at us like we had just interrupted her favorite TV show. We closed the curtain and let her stay put.

I took a shower while Deanna worked on her laptop. Then she was to take a shower after me. When I got out she was face down on her computer, sound asleep. So I got in bed and wrote Part 1. Man that was a long time ago.

The next day was to be easy. It was roughly half a day to the Bay Area so for once, we didn't have to rush. We got out at about 9am and since the apartment office didn't close until 7, we knew we would get there in plenty of time to get the keys. So we took our time through orchard country and a lot of farm land. You ever wonder where they grow stuff? North of Bakersfield on 99. You know what they grow there? Everything. Nuts, flowers, grapes, tomatoes, onions, you name it. It was a rather slow drive through the orchards, slow enough I guess that the cat got brave enough to walk out of her carrier. Deanna was thrilled, she was coming to sit in her lap. Oh wait, no she wasn't. She climbed into her lap, then out of her lap, onto the floor under Deanna's feet and then flattened herself out like a pancake and squeezed in right underneath the seat. I could barely even get my hand under there when I lost a french fry. We were never getting her out now.

We got on the radio and told Dad what had happened. Then we pulled over at a gas station and opened up Deanna's door. Dad got down on the ground and looked under the seat and talked to her for a bit. She didn't budge. He felt around where she was. Actually she was pretty smart--there was a dip in the car floor underneath the seat and she was curled up in it like some kind of cat-shaped nest. Dad decided it was probably a pretty safe place for her to be, so we left her there and went on our way.

We traveled through farmland for what seemed like forever. We saw barren patches next to lush orchards. The barren patches had signs that said "Congress created dust bowl." Not sure what that was about. Deanna took some pictures. We also saw multiple tomato trucks and onion trucks on the highway. They were like rock haulers full of vegetables. By the time we stopped for lunch I was craving something with marinara sauce. What we got were hamburgers, but that worked about as well.

As I was setting up shade in the car for the cat, who probably wasn't going to come out from under the seat anyway, my cell phone rang. It was my driver from the moving company.

"Just wanted to confirm tomorrow at 8am in Foster City."

"I'll be there!"

"Great. Now I need to ask you something. I'm looking at the bill here, and I know this is supposed to be split out somehow between you and DreamWorks, and I don't know exactly how... but what it looks like is that your move went about $3000 over the estimate."

"What??? How could it possibly go over that much? Was it weight?" I was about to throw up.

"No, actually the weight came in under the estimate. It could be packing though."

"How? Certainly not $3000 worth of boxes." Seriously. Don't even.

"Well... yeah, it could be packing. But like I said, I'm not sure what they're doing here, so you may want to call your CSR and double check with them."

"You bet I will! Thanks for the heads up." And I hung up. Then I got really, really pissed. I decided I would go in and get some food, eat really quickly and then go back out to the car and make a phone call or two. But while I was in line and just about to order, they called me. I asked if they could call back in five minutes--their number came in as "Unknown"--she said sure, no problem. So five minutes passes and no call. I decided to wait outside where it's more quiet, especially since we didn't have the food yet. Ten minutes, no call. Fifteen. I went back inside and sat down with the family, who were already eating. I inhaled what I could but it wasn't much since I had lost my appetite. Then I went back outside. I was going to talk to them before I got on the road again. So I dug out my laptop from behind Deanna's seat. This required removing a backpack from the floor, which I did with great difficulty since the seat was folded down for boxes. But once I got the backpack out, what do you think I saw? Cat. Just lying there on her side, her feet straight out in front of her like the car floor was some sort of chaise lounge. She was perfectly within reach from the back of the seat. I filed that little piece of information away for later and dug the computer out of my bag so I could get my CSR's phone number out of my email.

I called. Heidi was on the phone so they put me on hold. Then they said she would call me back. When she finally did she was just calling to see if everything was a go for tomorrow.

"Well, Rick called and said that the move ended up costing like $8000. What happened?"

"Who's Rick?"

Ok, right, they don't necessarily know who the driver is. "He's the driver. He says he's looking at the bill and the total was over $8000."

"Oh no, that's not right. What he's seeing is the total before the DreamWorks discount. Actually we only underestimated by about $188."

Now THAT was impressive. I thanked her, took a big sigh of relief and got my appetite back. But we had to get on the road again. Oh well.

We continued on 99 until we got to 152 and then cut over to San Jose. We went through a lot of brown hills. It was scary. The road was steep and winding, and there was a guy in a camper pulling a boat on a trailer and he could not keep it steady in the wind. He kept passing us and then slowing down, and passing and slowing down. I kept thinking we were going to get hit by that fishtailing boat and get knocked into the reservoir. Bali Ree was way ahead again on some kind of personal driving challenge while I was hanging on for dear life, trying to keep the car on the road and a boat off my ass. Dad called us on the radio and Deanna had to respond. I wasn't taking one finger off that steering wheel.

"Well, hang in there," he said. "We'll see you at the bottom."

Yeah, hopefully not the fast way. Because you know what? California is weird about guardrails. They don't know where to put them. You'll be looking 200 feet straight down and there won't be a guardrail in sight. Then on the next stretch of road you might roll off into a shallow ditch and they have barriers everywhere. There's no logic to it.

Needless to say, we survived. After that it was a winding road among fresh fruit stands and then San Jose, where we would get on 101 and go to our final destination. Finally, I was about to no longer be homeless.

We arrived at the apartment office around 3pm, got out of the car and stretched. It was sunny and 80 degrees with a cool, refreshing breeze from the west. I faced the sun, closed my eyes and let the wind blow through my hair. My first words? "Bite me, Texas."
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/09/california-and-bust-part-4.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/09/california-and-bust-part-4.html California or bust California Dreamworks Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:56:28 -0800
So Dad got his waffle and I ate the last Star Crunch out of a cooler of melted ice before we headed out that Sunday morning. This was to be our last long day of driving and we were going through Arizona. This excited me. I'd never been to Arizona in my life. Bali Ree drove Dad's car with him in the passenger seat navigating (no doubt), and I drove my car with Deanna. We opened Dipper's cage again to give her a sense of freedom but she stayed in her carrier, often curled up in the very back. The car was packed so tight, Deanna was practically sitting on her laptop with the open cage door at her elbow, but she managed to fall asleep more than once on that drive despite it all.

We could almost see Arizona from Gallup. When Bali Ree and I came in the night before, we were sure we were seeing Arizona from there... in the sky. There was the strangest layer of red-orange over the horizon and it was wavy like sand dunes. Bali Ree at first thought it was smog from somewhere but I knew it was dust. And as we drove into Arizona we started to see it form again in the distance as a big red cloud. I guess only after the daytime heating does it lift high enough into the atmosphere to compress into wavy layers. I was ready to see this happen again.

Deanna's eyes were wide open for any sign of a tourist attraction. There were all kinds of opportunities--very kitchy stuff like "World's longest map of Route 66." It was painted on a wall outside a gift shop. Everything was in bright colors, fully anticipated by rows and rows of billboards on both sides of I-40. Deanna wanted to stop everywhere, and called Dad on my radio more than once to get an OK. Dad wanted to stop nowhere except for the Petrified Forest.

So we stopped at the entrance to the Petrified Forest but didn't take the $10 drive-through tour. Not enough time. So we got out at the Painted Desert Visitor's Center and looked through the gift shops. I bought a shirt and some postcards, and mailed one to my mom right there from their mailbox.

It wasn't until we were walking back to the cars that I noticed the wall of the visitor's center and the lettering on it. Back in the '70s my dad's parents had taken my cousin Steve to the Grand Canyon, and they took his picture underneath the lettering on that wall. It hadn't changed at all. So Deanna suggested we get our picture taken under the sign and send it to Steve. We did, and we were off again, this time to Flagstaff.

Most people would probably find a drive like this through flat red dirt pretty uninteresting, but I thought it was great. I was driving and Deanna was sleeping so I took no pictures (unfortunately), but it was desert and I've always been fascinated with desert. It was red and dusty and after driving for some time we came upon the exact area where the dust storm was brewing. It was a bit like a red fog, although the visibility wasn't bad at all. And then suddenly it was over. The sky was blue. We had driven through it. I wondered who might be driving through Gallup later that night looking at the wavy red lines in the sky, wondering where it came from. I knew where it came from. Haha.

As we approached Flagstaff the whole landscape changed. I started thinking I was in Arkansas. It was green and hilly and covered with pine trees. We stopped for lunch at McDonald's and cracked the windows for the cat. I ate quickly and then went back to turn the A/C on. It wasn't that hot up there but it was hot enough that you wouldn't want to leave a kid or a cat in the car too long. Then we started off again, down the hills and back into the desert. We continued to talk on the radio with Dad in the other car, contemplating what kind of animal their highway signs were telling us to look out for. Bali Ree and I had had the same problem in New Mexico the day before. We saw plenty of deer crossing signs, but then suddenly we started seeing signs for what looked like a fat cow with antlers. We figured it was probably elk, but fat antler cows sounded much more interesting. This time the fat antler cows were less fat and turned at an angle so you didn't know if the silhouette was coming toward you or running away from you. But either way, you were supposed to watch out for them. Whatever they were. We never saw one.

We came back down from the hills into a much blander part of the desert. It was a pretty straight shot to California after that. We crossed a river and soon after, we were there. And we were being stopped.

I thought I had crossed the border or something. There was a big inspection station, almost like a toll plaza, and every vehicle was being stopped and inspected. Every one. I didn't know whether to panic or write my congressman. I remembered some rumors I had heard about fines for bringing plants into California, and there were three philodendrons in a box behind my seat. I had also been told it only applied to agricultural plants. I was about to find out for sure.

"Where are you coming from?" said the nice inspector lady.

"Oklahoma City." There I was with Texas plates, a Texas inspection sticker on the window, having lived in Texas for the last 20+ years and having spent only one week in Oklahoma. And I said Oklahoma City. Go figure.

She didn't flinch. "Do you have any fruit or vegetable products with you?"

"No, but I have a philodendron behind my seat, you're welcome to it!" I had forgotten about the cantaloupe in the cooler until much later, but I don't think that's what she meant anyway.

"Indoor or outdoor?"

"Strictly indoor."

"Do you mind if I take a look?" She opened the door and dug through the box. "Usually if they're indoor they're fine, we just have to make sure they don't have any bugs that are going to RUIN CALIFORNIA or anything..." Then she put the vines back in the box and closed the door. "What kind of animal do you have?"

"Cat."

"Have a nice day!"

And that was my introduction to California. I got on the radio to Dad and said, "That was WEIRD."

"Why?"

"If I'd known I'd be going through customs I would have renewed my passport!"

After that, things changed immediately and drastically. The highway became a cruel and violent place. There were trucks, there were cars, and they were all fighting for control. There was a climbing lane on the right and most of the trucks were in it. I was in the middle, the race cars were on the left, some going as fast as 100 mph. Then suddenly one of those trucks on the right would cut in front of me and go 40 to pass another truck in the climbing lane. I did not handle this well. And I couldn't pass him because I couldn't ramp up from 40 to 100 fast enough to not die in the left lane. So I stuck it out until he moved.

It happened again and again and again. Dad finally got on the radio and asked where I was (Bali Ree, by this time, was much more about the destination than the journey and was way ahead). I told him I kept getting cut off by these trucks. He told me to hang in there and explained that even though there's a solid white line to my right, the trucks can legally cross it to pass each other. Well thanks for finally telling me that. At least now I could expect to be cut off.

The scenery by this time was just bizarre. There were practically no exits off this highway. You could climb for miles and miles and then see this huge expanse of unpopulated brown desert stretched out in front of you, mountainous on both sides. But the weirdest part was the ground itself--it was like everything was built on a huge slant. It messed with your sense of equilibrium. I was convinced we were going to slide off into Mexico.

And then suddenly it all came to a halt. We were stopped dead. I looked at the thermometer and it said 108. We moved a few inches and stopped again. 109. A few more inches. 108. This went on for an hour, and watching the temperature change was truly our only entertainment. We finally approached a bridge that was down to one narrow lane and then once we passed it, the race started again. But now we were contenders. Bali Ree was taking medication that required her to constantly drink water and she needed a bathroom bad. There were still no exits. I think it was another 30 minutes before we finally found the only stop in 100 miles (or at least it felt like it). It was a Dairy Queen. And EVERYONE IN CALIFORNIA was there.

Time for bed. Stay tuned!
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/08/california-and-bust-part-3.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/08/california-and-bust-part-3.html California or bust California Sun, 30 Aug 2009 03:44:54 -0800
We got to my dad's in OKC at about 10:30 that night, Monday, 8/3. The cat only said one word to me on the whole drive up there, which was, "Me?" I took that to mean, "We're not going to the vet this time, are we?" That was about the time her tranquilizers should have worn off so I thought she would start talking up a storm like she does on our drives to the vet. She never said another word. Not for a very, very long time.

We brought her into a house that belonged to another cat, one that does not get along nicely with other cats and barely with people. The plan was this: Lock Sugar (Dad's cat) in one bedroom while we snuck Dipper (my cat) into my bedroom and shut the door, where she would stay for the week while Sugar spent most of her days outside and her nights roaming freely about her house. Easy enough. We brought in the litter box, her food and a couple of toys. We set the carrier down on the floor and opened the door. She peeked out, sniffed a bit, and went right under the bed, where she stayed for just about the next week. She didn't use her litter box for another 24 hours. She didn't eat. She didn't even wake me up in the morning for her wet food. She smelled that other cat but they never saw each other, and she heard strange noises in a strange house where the only safe place was under the bed next to the wall. I couldn't get her to drink either, so I had Dad drain the water out of a tuna can for her. I put it under the bed and she lapped it up. But I still worried about her until the next day when she finally peed again. I never thought I'd be so happy to see a cat pee. I had to ask myself what my life was coming to. I also decided that I wasn't going to give her tranquilizers again and we would just see how the drive to CA went without them.

As long as she felt safe under that bed, I felt pretty free to roam the house myself. I did some work on the web site, I saw some family I hardly ever get to see, I got new tires. For the first couple of days I would go in every once in a while and lie down next to the bed and talk to her as if everything was normal. She would wag her tail and roll over on her side, and if I could reach her, she would let me pet her. She would eat a little if I put it under the bed but no way was she coming out... that is, until about the third night. She figured out that things got really quiet at night and that there might be something outside that bedroom door that needed her attention. So she started wanting to follow me out of the room late at night when I had to go to the bathroom. If she had ever seen Sugar she probably would have changed her mind but luckily for everyone involved, that never happened. By the time we left she was pretty comfortable in her room, she had gotten used to a lot of the noises of the house and she was starting to eat a little more regularly, except she still wasn't waking me up in the morning. I had to set my alarm to keep her on a schedule. She was even starting to spend more time on the bed than under it. And then we disrupted her life again and took her to California.

But while all this was going on, the humans in the house were dealing with their own complications. Over the course of that week Dad studied his road atlas and planned a route. I had to have my lease and first month's rent there on 8/10. The movers wouldn't be there until the morning of 8/11. However, since the movers would be there long before the apartment office opened, we still had to get there in enough time on 8/10 to do the walk-through and get the keys. We even FedExed the lease and rent just in case we were delayed on the trip. It all sounded reasonable except for one thing: Dad insisted that my sister come with us. The problem was, Deanna had a leadership retreat she was required to attend (college stuff) and it didn't end until 4:30 on Saturday. So somehow we had to figure out how to start in OKC at about 6 on Saturday (when Deanna finally got home and got her stuff together) and get to the Bay Area early enough on Monday to take care of business. We were looking at probably 30 total hours of driving and driving most of the night on Saturday to start with. I had only one thing to say to that. HELL NO.

HELL NO was I risking my life driving all night so she could come with us. Sure, I would LOVE for her to come with us. But was it worth risking our safety on the road? No. And after the last two months of my life and as exhausted as I was, I knew I physically wouldn't be able to do that. No way was I driving all night. No freakin' way. No way.

So Dad's plan became this: I start out with my stepmom Saturday morning and we drive to Gallup, NM. Dad waits for Deanna to get home and then they start out, probably arriving at 2 or 3 in the morning. I knew I could do that but I wasn't sure they could. But Dad thought he could take naps during the day and then be able to drive. He had certainly lived worse schedules in his firefighting days. So I decided that while I thought it was STUPID to take a risk like that, who was I to tell someone else what their limitations were. If he really thought he could do it, let him do it. He wouldn't risk Deanna's life anyway if he thought he couldn't make it. So that was the plan, and that's what we did. But as usual, all estimates were wrong. When we were just getting into Albuquerque, he was texting us telling us that they were finally leaving OKC. That was about 7pm their time. Bali Ree (my stepmom) said they probably wouldn't get to Gallup until 6am. I thought about 3 or 4. Still, I was glad it wasn't me.

Bali Ree and I started out at about 9am on Saturday. We stopped in Amarillo to see my great aunt and uncle who are both 93 years old and who I rarely get to see. We spent about 30 minutes with them with the cat in the carrier just inside the front door. They thought we were tackling a lot going all the way to Gallup that day but we did fine -- it took 12 hours before it was all over but we started early enough that it wasn't that big a deal. It was actually a very enjoyable drive, and I found out that I like my stepmom a lot more when she's not around my dad. Dipper got used to hearing her voice in the car and by the time we got to the motel that night, she would actually come up and sniff her hand. Believe me, as skiddish as this cat has become in the last year or so, that was big.

I didn't give Dipper any drugs this time and she did fine. She never said a word. We even opened the door to her carrier so she would feel a little less confined, even though she didn't step out. She also didn't eat or use her box, but I knew she was stressed so I didn't worry too much. At least there were no drugs in her system to shut things down again. The only real problem we had was when we got to the motel in Gallup, which we chose specifically because it said pets were allowed. We walked in at 9pm ready to check in, only to find signs throughout the lobby saying, "No pets allowed." We didn't say anything. We just got our keys (we each had a room, I would share mine with Deanna) and went around to the back of the motel. Luckily the doors were on the outside of the building so it was relatively easy to sneak her in. But we also had to unload everything out of my car. I had boxes, cat litter, a feeder, A CAT, luggage, my laptop... we moved fast and hid the carrier under a blanket until we got her into my room. When we let her out, she headed for underneath the bed and found she couldn't get there because it was on a platform (thank God, or we would have never gotten her back out). We had also stuffed extra pillows in any holes she could squeeze through to get between the bed and the wall. So she would hide between the platform and the bed skirt and form a little lump along the edge of the bed. Well, as long as she was happy.

I, however, was PISSED. I had told Dad, just make reservations at the La Quinta. They always allow pets and they don't charge extra for them. But no, we had to go to a Choice motel (Comfort Inn, Sleep Inn, Quality Inn, etc). You know why? Waffles. Their free continental breakfast includes waffles you can make yourself. So here we were, sneaking in a cat under a blanket so my dad could make his own waffle. Just shoot me. Better yet... never mind. I told Bali Ree about the La Quinta. She said that if she had known I had had that conversation with him, she would have insisted we go there instead. Yeah, I mentioned it to him at least three times... lesson learned. Next time, tell someone who can actually get through to the guy. I suspect she has her ways. Waffles. Good grief.

After we unloaded the car into the room we went next door to Applebee's. Bali Ree ordered a margarita (which I've never seen anyone on that side of the family do, ever) and we finally ate at about 10pm. Gallup was extremely dry, as in no humidity whatsoever. My lips were chapped as soon as we got there and they didn't heal for two weeks. I mean it was DRY. So when I took a shower, I left the bathroom door open to get some steam into the room. And then the cat did something she's never done before. She got up on her front paws on the edge of the tub behind me and howled at me as if to say, "You've been in here long enough and I don't know where I am so COME OUT AND KEEP ME COMPANY!" That was the only thing she said to me on the whole trip.

I went to bed at about 1am and woke up at 4:30 to some noise outside. I figured Dad and Deanna had finally arrived and were unloading the car into Bali Ree's room. I went back to sleep.

At 6:30 my cell phone alarm went off. It was time to feed the cat. Ten minutes later my phone rang. Bali Ree says, "Are you awake?"

"Uh, yeah, just fed the cat, although she's not all that interested."

"They're just pulling in."

"NOW???"

They got there at 6:45. Dad was going to get his waffle and then we were going to get on the road again. And I know Bali Ree was thinking exactly the same thing I was, that two people who had been driving all night were not going to drive anymore today. So we had another 12 hours ahead of us to Bakersfield, CA, and we had to do it ourselves.

Stay tuned for Part 3, coming tomorrow.
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/08/california-and-bust-part-2.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/08/california-and-bust-part-2.html California or bust California Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:44:01 -0800
The real rush started right after I got back from apartment hunting in California. As soon as I got back I had to plan a yard sale and get rid of everything that wouldn't go in the apartment. All my yard stuff was sold by about 9:30am -- two lawnmowers, a leaf blower, a weed eater, two garden hoses and an outdoor storage locker, not to mention other various gardening tools. The rest went more slowly but I was able to sell most of the big things I couldn't take with me and give away the small ones. I had to sell my refrigerator, washer and dryer, and the day I posted the ad on Craigslist I decided to do my laundry in case it might be the last time. So I posted the ad, got to the third load and the washer QUIT. After 12 years it was suddenly useless -- the basin stopped spinning although it kept making a horrible noise -- I decided $50 or more to fix it wouldn't be worth the $25 I'd probably get for it so I gave it to the Salvation Army along with my dryer. The thing about the dryer though was that it still worked. My mom bought it around 1982 but it still worked. God's little sense of humor I guess. No one was going to buy a 1982 dryer without at least a washer to go with it, that's for sure. So that was that.

You know how once something breaks you think that's probably as bad as it will get? Don't ever think that. The day the Salvation Army was to come over I had to disconnect the washer so they could take it out of the house. I got the cold water hose off just fine but the hot water valve wouldn't turn off. It was in the off position but hot water kept coming out. I had to leave the hose connected or else hot water was going to spew all over the kitchen. So I tried to find a way to turn off the hot water at the heater so they could at least get the washer out of the house. But as it turned out, my lazy landlord who did all the work on the house himself didn't put a valve at the top of the hot water heater so I couldn't turn it off. Which means he didn't install it to code (he also painted the windows shut so it's not like I was surprised). So long story short, the Salvation Army had to come twice: once for everything but the washer, and then back to get the washer after my landlord fixed the valve. And to top things off he couldn't find another hot water valve so he got a cold water one, took my Sharpie and wrote on the wall above them "Hot" and "Cold." Whatever works I guess. Not my problem.

I made over $400 from the sale. At least that turned out the way it should have.

So after that was over I found myself talking to movers and utility companies in between trying to work on the site and earn a living. It was a lot harder than I expected. I needed to get multiple estimates, which meant having at least two different surveyors in my house to tally up all my stuff and guess its weight. One guy was so busy I almost gave up on him until he offered to come at 6am. I said go ahead. So I actually had a surveyor walk through my house at 6am to do an estimate. In the end I didn't even go with that company. I ended up with an affiliate of Atlas, which after this experience I would highly recommend. I've never seen a couch wrapped in blankets, then wrapped in plastic and set on its end in a truck, knowing the whole time that this is better than I will probably ever treat the couch myself, and I not only bought it but paid to have it recovered. But I digress.

The movers told me on a Wednesday that to have me in Foster City the week of 8/10, they needed to have me packed and loaded on Monday 8/3. That Wednesday it became real for the first time. I panicked. I lost two pounds. And over the course of the next week while I got ready I lost two more. I drove to Austin one day to get my hair cut and see some friends for the last time, and then drove back the same night. I spent the weekend before the movers showed up at Lake Bridgeport with 16 of my sorority sisters, which is something we had been planning for six months. And while all this was going on, I was packing and organizing and working and connecting utilities and freaking out. The cat started acting out and hiding my earrings. She got her point across too because I have yet to find one of them.

But the stress only continued to build. The more I dealt with the moving company, the more I learned about what they would NOT take and what they would NOT be responsible for, so the "car" pile of boxes got bigger and bigger. I already knew there would be two cars on the trip but this was getting ridiculous. I was still packing my part the night before the movers showed up (they were to do the real packing) and I didn't even finish before I collapsed and had to go to bed. So while they were packing me the next day and my dad was helping take apart furniture, I was still growing the pile. And growing my stress along with it. Luckily the driver told us that no matter what the forms said, it was really his decision what to take and what not to, and he would go ahead and take most of my art supplies and some other things that the forms clearly stated they would not transport. So the car pile shrunk to an almost manageable size, the movers left, and at the end of the day we finally loaded up our boxes and a tranquilized cat who had spent her entire day hiding in the corner of the bathroom behind the claw foot tub and drove to Oklahoma City, where I was to spend the next week at my dad's while the movers filled the rest of their 53-foot truck with other people's furniture.

And thus begins a whole other journey, which will be continued when I'm conscious again. So stay tuned.
]]> http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/08/california-and-bust-part-1.html http://www.artful-i.com/blog/2009/08/california-and-bust-part-1.html California or bust California Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:08:13 -0800