A Cyclic Poem

Every morning starts the same now that school is back in session.  My radio goes off at about 6:20 and about five minutes later Hope crawls in bed with me.  Usually I'll hit snooze and we'll both go back to sleep for another ten minutes or so before it goes off again and we know to get up. 

I have Bronchitis.  Again.  So I didn't sleep well last night.  Again.

This morning when my alarm went off I'd been on again off again awake all night anyway, so I just let the radio stay on.  I listened to my normal Top 40 radio guys going on about something mildly amusing and waited for Hope to show up.  She crawled into bed with me and I just left the radio on.  We lay there all snuggly for a bit.

(Out of the blue, like) She asks, "Is that Delilah?"

Um...

I didn't say anything because sometimes she'll say weird things like that in morning when she's really not awake but just sort of talking in her sleep.  But after listening a little while longer she asked (a little more insistently), "Is that Delilah??"

Okay, so that was weird.  The only Delilah I've ever heard of is the lock shearing one from the bible and even most of that knowledge came from a two part episode of  Xena, the Warrior Princess which Hope's (probably) never seen.

I said no, I didn't think so.  Then of course I was like, "Who is Delilah??" 

She says "It's that lady who gives people advice.  You know, people who've been through a divorce or had someone in their family die or get a horrible disease.  Or sometimes if they're in love she'll talk to them too, and she likes to talk to people who are having birthdays."

I was completely lost by this time because I know every TV show she watches, I know every book she reads, I know every single thing in her life that might add influences (accept on the EE front and he's SO damn conservative, he about stroked out when I took her to see Goblet of Fire when she was six, PG-13, you know.)

She got up and I got up.  I was bleary and coughing and LATE.  But when she came up later I asked her, where the hell do you know this Delilah person from?  I didn't put that in quotes you see, because I didn't actually say, "Who the hell.do you know this Delilah person from?"  She would have been VERY offended by that sort of language and I would have gotten a fifteen minute lecture on how the language I use reflects on how I've been raised and my level of intelligence because people with any education and half a brain can think of far better ways to communicate effectively than through foul language...not to mention the fact that I ended that sentence with a preposition!

Lord, aren't you guys glad you don't have to have an actual conversation with me?  I can't even tell a story straight through. 

She finally tells me, "It's the lady on the radio.  The lady you always have me listen to in my room when I go to sleep." 

Ohmagod.  Delilah is the REQUEST LINE lady on our local easy listening channel!!  You know the type, you call in and request a song to be played for your mother/boyfriend/dog because it EXACTLY says word for word what you've always wanted your mother/boyfriend/dog to know.  I had NO idea the show was on, every time I go in there it's playing Wind Beneath My Wings or Let's Get Physical or something by Journey.

I should have known no radio station would play Journey songs back to back to back like that if someone weren't requesting them!!

*****

An Elf, Margaret??  Et tu??

*****

I went to a great deal of trouble, did all the paperwork, paid the money, got myself readmitted to GSU.  It was all great.  Five more classes to go.  Tax, Auditing, Business Law, Speech and the Business cap course.  All done.  Fully degreed and ready to take the accounting industry by storm by this time next year.  Conservatively, by this time next year.  Maybe even just two semesters if I quit work and went back full time (which really isn't an option because *see upcoming post on my VAST ebay inflated credit card bills that will take me six months to pay off*).

But GUESS WHAT, my loving and wonderfully supportive friends who have been with me these last three years urging me to get my ass in gear and get those classes done?  Guess the hell what?  (Yes, Hope...I know I could choose to use different words but sometimes the situation calls for a hearty curse word.)

After.  Five. Years.  All.  Major.  Classes.  Must.  Be.  Retaken.

I took eight, count them, EIGHT accounting classes at Georgia State...while I was pregnant.  While I was pregnant!!  Hope is seven.  I may not have that much vaunted degree, but even I can do that math.  None of those classes count anymore.  I have to retake them all. 

I was so excited.  I was so proud.  I was finally ready to take that last step toward success.  And then...this.   I felt like I'd been hit over the head with a mallet.  Not only is it three times as much TIME, it's also three times as much money.  Now my mom wants me to get all my GSU credits and all my Georgia Tech credits transfered to Kennesaw State and finish out my accounting degree there.  Which is all fine and dandy.

In theory.

I can't seem to get up the energy to do all that.  I used up all my motivation just getting readmitted to GSU.  I'm completely paralyzed again.  I suppose it will another seven years before I decide to get my ass in gear.   

I'm really afraid.  I'll be doing this forever, answering phones, being the office bitch.  Not worth anything to anyone, living off my mother.  I feel pathetic.  I'm almost 40 but I barely have the emotional maturity of my own child! 

She IS awfully mature for her age, everyone says so!!

In a perhaps misguided attempt to keep myself too busy to smoke today, I'm going to try and give my site a whole new look.  But first I'll post here and then visit a few old friends.  My serious lack of commentors is giving me a complex!

Hope was sick on Thursday.  She complained of a bad  stomachache and then when my mom saw her a few minutes later (one of the many good things about having my mom work at her school) she was white as a sheet.  Mommy went ahead and brought her home, where she slept for about an hour, then woke up and puked her guts up all over my mom, herself and the bathroom.  She felt a little better after that but was puny for the rest of the night.  Of course, I panicked throughout, railed at my mom for not taking her to the doctor as soon as Hope complained of a stomachache and then got all angry and defensive when my mother dared voice the opinion that every little tummy ache didn't require a doctor's visit, especially one that wasn't accompanied by a fever or any other major symptoms.  It took a phone call to my friend Kelly ( a mother of three) in which she told me the EXACT SAME THING to convince me my mother was right.  Poor mommy, she never gets believed, but I'm such a paranoid mommy.  Hope is just everything to me!!

My job is going great.  I've met a "kindred spirit" there.  We're close to the same age, although she is much prettier, perkier and more modish than I am.  But whatever, she accepts me for who I am and we've even gone out drinking a few times with some people from work.  I just don't drink anything and she tells me I don't have to, I'm more fun without it than most people she knows are with it.  On Friday I  sort of explained why I don't drink.  I didn't use the "alcoholic" word, because (as with my last job) I didn't want to be branded with that label for the rest of my time there.  But I did tell her that soon after Hope was born, I got involved with a very bad person and then stayed away from home and drunk for five weeks.  That every time I sobered up, the shame and horror of what I was doing was enough to make me want to keep drinking to make it go away.  So (as I told her) I just decided that after that I chose to refrain from drinking at all.  That since I have a history of alcoholism in my family, I'd made a decision to not let that sort of thing happen again.   She was totally cool with that and had few stories of her own to tell that made me realize (once again) that I'm not the only one in the world with skeletons in my closet.

I like this job very much.  My mom told me last night, with tears in her eyes, that she hasn't seen me this happy in years.  Even with the trying to quit smoking and the stress of a new job, I seem happier and more at ease than almost ever before.  I agree, and I'm not sure why...but the people at my new job are nice, seem to like me and seem to appreciate the job I do.  There will be times, as there are at every job, when we all won't be getting along and when I screw things up and when I'll be unhappy or even miserable, but at least for now, I think the good will outweigh the bad.  I hope to not be a Receptionist/Admin. Assistant forever and in fact, this job includes very few phone calls. I do time-sheets, take sales calls, schedule all our sales leads and write out all our maintenance and sales proposals.  And that's just for a start.  I have a gut feeling that I'll soon be doing more and be moving up in the office hierarchy. There's not much room to move up, since there's only about 10 of us office folk, but I think I can make more of my job the more I learn. I'm happy, there's room to grow...and I'm making EXACTLY what I was making at my old job where I was miserable and stuck in a dead-end position.

Hope hasn't been doing so well in school.  We have been concerned for a long time, her reading isn't progressing like I want, her handwriting is abysmal and she can't spell the most basic words.  So my mom sort of snuck around the system a little and got the school psychologist to give her this different test.  Like an IQ test, the first part tests verbal skills and the second part tests non-verbal or matrices.

I'm not sure what that means, but she scored (overall) with a 137 IQ. There is a 10-15 point variance in there, but the test let us know she's not stupid.  So her scholastic issues are being caused by something else.  She simply doesn't care.  She doesn't pay attention, she doesn't listen, she fidgets and chews on her fingers and nails...but then again, sometimes she exhibits none of those behaviors at all!  My mom and the school psychiatrist are leaning toward ADD, but I told my mother (although we will have all the tests done now, because to wait would cost upwards of $900) that for this year at least, I refuse to have her medicated.  I'm such a weirdo.  I have no problems with medications that can help, I take 400 mg of a medication every night and will do so forever if it helps me keep my alcohol demon at bay, but for some reason I have an intense abhorrence to medicating Hope.  But even that doesn't make any sense.  I give her Singular every single night to control her asthma and get angry with EE when he makes an issue about "medicating my child."  No sense at all.

I'm off to tweak this sucker.  We'll see what it ends up looking like!!

Things are the same. Same old same old.  I see him in the halls occasionally, ran practically smack into him once.  We nodded uncomfortably and went on our way.  I never or rarely go anywhere in the building without an escort.  I park on the bottom floor with a clear view of the security desk and basically try to pretend it never happened.  The thing I find the most disturbing and the most disgusting is that apparently nothing was ever done to him or anything done about it.  I didn't really want him fired.  I figured an unemployed Stalker Boy (with lots of free time on his hands) was more dangerous than an employed one, but I don't like the fact that I get dirty looks from everyone in the IT department...again, as if I'm the one who did something wrong.

But enough about that.

I'm taking another two days, yesterday and today, and I've already discovered I've done something else wrong  at work (and no, I could resist calling in to find out.)  Our file clerk who was about five months along, lost her baby on Thursday (and not to minimize her pain, but in my defense, I barely knew her) and our Team Lead being on vacation and another one was gone too. It was me and two others and frankly, it was all I could do to get my regular work done, much less get every single lose end tied up.  I figure if that's the only mistake I made, I should be okay to get back to work tomorrow.

The new department is a vast improvement over the last, but I still wonder and worry if I didn't make the wrong decision by staying with the company, especially in  light of what's happened since then.  We have a new VP and he's concentrating on getting our department up to snuff, and that includes getting  rid of "dead weight" staff.  I still don't think I'm all that safe.  Make a few more mistakes, and BOOM they have a "legal" excuse for getting me out of there.  I'm a liability at the moment.  I guess Stalker Boy is not.

Hope's learning a lot in first grade.  Her handwriting is abysmal, her reading is slow and pretty much crappy.  She's capable, but just like with every other thing she's ever had to practice and work at, she just seems to not care.  She won't concentrate or work hard.  She's in close to the bottom reading level in her class and I'm sick and damn tired of hearing the teacher tell me, "She's right where she needs to be, don't worry about it."

On a high note, her logic and reasoning skills as well as her "reading" comprehension" is well above normal.  I use italics, obviously because  she's not precisely reading herself, but she gets more out of a story or any verbal teaching methods than most of the other kids.  If she doesn't improve soon in these other areas though, she'll be out of the loop on more advances classes for the following years.  As far as I'm concerned, it's urgent that she get in those advanced classes.  I want her in with other kids who care about their studies more than they care about getting drunk at the weekly "my parent's are out of town" keg party.  I want to save her from all that, but none of us can get her to care enough to TRY.

She was born in the year 2000, you know.  So I was asking her, "How old will you be in 2020." 
"20,  she says."  "How old will you be in February 2041?"  Trying to trick her, because she was born in March, but she got that one right too.  I asked her, "How old will you be in 2092?" She said, simply and with absolutely no humor in her voice, "DEAD."

Ohmagod, I rolled (quite literally) on the floor and laughed until I cried.  She didn't even realize what she'd said was funny, in fact she got a little irritated with me for laughing at what was obviously a correct answer.  What a funny girl!!!

She's starting chess club this year.  She wanted to do it.  But she's wanted to do everything else we've put her in.  Until after the first lesson, then she totally loses interest because she doesn't like to work. It's frustrating as hell!!!

She's doing softball again.  And again she doesn't seem to care all that much. Next year she'll move up to the eight and under and those girls don't PLAY, if you get my meaning.  There's a draft and certain expectations from the girls on the team.  She's in for a rude awakening when she moves up and suddenly she's held accountable for her mistakes.

But maybe it's my fault.  I don't get out there and work with her but I don't know anything about softball.  I could do what M did and read every book on the subject, go to training classes and by vast amounts of coaching dvd's.  But that's just not me.  So maybe Hope got her laziness completely from me!!!

I never finished telling all about my "vacation" with Hope.  I'm going to finish that further below, on the days it actually happened.

Scared Witless

I've been thinking about it for months, mulling it over for weeks and after a conversation with a very close family friend, I finally checked out the GSU website to get a phone number to call to get started on getting back to college. They were closed when I called last night (which is why I called) and I conveniently forgot to bring the number with me to work...but then I realized, if I don't do something NOW while it's fresh and I've got some momentum, I'll be right here in a year (which was the last time I made it this far, got too scared and stopped) again, and no closer to my degree.

So I looked it up on the internet (after all, that's how I'd found the number in the first place) found an open Enclave (we don't have offices, only conference rooms rather ostentatiously called enclaves) and called the number. The first lady answered right away and pulled up my info. She said the hold on my registration had something to do with the Registrars office, and not hers, so she gave me their number.

I called that number and was put into one of those interminable recordings of a man's voice saying, "All our staff are currently helping other students. Your call is very important to us and will be answered in the order in which it was received." Luckily, I had my bluetooth ear-bud and was able to come out of the enclave and look ridiculous and ostentatious for the (quite literally) fifteen minutes it took for someone to come on the line, and at least get some work done.

I RAN back into the enclave (remember, I'm on the clock this whole time, but the way they've been working me they can bite my ass) and was thankful that, more importantly, all my bosses were at lunch. This guy says it's not the Registrars hold but an Admissions hold, and that he would transfer me.

So I go back out of the enclave with the ear-bud and work for another fifteen minutes or so before the final lady came on the line. She told me where to go on the website. I don't have to exactly reapply, like fill out a whole application or anything, but I have to basically just reenter the system. So that was that.

I got home and immediately pulled up the application ($25) and all electronic accept for any documentation they might need (and they don't need transcripts or anything because all that's still in their system. I'm doing fine, filling out my name, new address, phone number...then I get to the question:

Have you ever been convicted of a crime (other than a minor traffic violation)? If yes, please provide a certified copy of the conviction.

So, I pretty much stopped right there. A DUI isn't a minor traffic violation but it also isn't anything THAT unusual, and I REALIZE they're aren't going to keep me out of school because of it, it does mean I'll have to find paperwork and get a notary and I have no idea where any of that stuff is and I never want to see any of it again anyway and just thinking about having to get it all together terrifies me. And plus, if I go in the Fall and take Tax that will be a whole Semester, right through the holidays and close-out and year end and I'll never see Hope because I'll be working and FAILING Tax yet again, and once I do I can't ever get my degree there anyways, so what's the point in the whole stupid thing and before it's all over I ASSURE you'll I'll be back drunk, jobless and losing everything, especially Hope and I won't let myself ever lose Hope.

It will suck for Hope. She'll never see me during Tax because I'll always either be at work, at school or in my office studying. She'll never see me during Auditing because it's a group project and will most likely be done (the bulk of it anyway) on campus. We'll grow apart, she'll be bitter and angry and I'll be stressed, irritable and VERY VERY hard to get along with. Plus there's that whole self-sabotage thing I've got going on. I'll want to self medicate. I'll want to get out of either succeeding or failing by taking the choice away from myself by getting drunk. This will be my fourth start at GSU (although the other three were just skipped semesters due to pregnancy, not skipped YEARS due to drinking. Well, okay, one of the skipped semesters was because of drinking.)

So the application (which is only two pages) is half done and I don't want to look at it again. In fact, I'm quite sure I'll wait another year or so before I even dare take glance at the GSU website. I don't even want to think about it. I'll think about it next year sometime. After, I'm still (sort of) young, and there's nothing wrong with being a cog in a wheel.

Round and round I go.

*****

Of course, there is the TINIEST of possiblities, that if I do look at the form again, finish filling it out, send the money and the required paperwork, they'll take the hold off my registration, I'll sign up for Tax in the Fall, Auditing in the Spring, take Business Law and Speech together during a mini-mester over next summer and finish up with the Cap Course by early 2008.

Bachelor's of Accounting
Class of 2008

Currently listening to You're Beautiful from the album "Back to Bedlam (Bonus Video Version)" by James Blunt

Last night was amazing.

You know I never ask for money and I'm not starting now, but here's Hope's webpage for Jump Rope for Heart.

https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=123215&lis=0&kntae123215=9B86E23B40A7454CBDBF8630EF59AF3B

Check it out if you want. She's not a very good jump-roper, but it's the effort that counts!!

*****

Last night was amazing. I went over to SigOth's house (we finally talked and decided we could be "friends with benefits") but just before I left to go to his house, and old friend called. Jimmy, who I've known since college (so that puts it at 20 years) and haven't seen in over a year (because I tend to avoid any and all friends when I get sober, because every time I start seeing them again, I seem to drink) called to let me know ANOTHER old friend was in town, just for the night. That would be Frank, a guy I went to HIGH SCHOOL with and haven't seen in probably fifteen years or more.

I'd already told SigOth I was coming over, but I really didn't want to miss seeing Jimmy and Frank. So SigOth went with me! (He truly is a nice guy. Back and forth I go, back and forth.) Which was nice because first of all, Frank was staying at the Ritz and I would have been too intimidated to go alone, even if I could have found the place, and secondly, I was nervous. I mean, I haven't seen these guys in a long time...and they have both made such incredible lives for themselves, Jimmy with his Ph.D and his high profile job in Aerospace Engineering, and (although I couldn't remember exactly what it was) Frank with his success in his field.

Turns out Frank is a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. Yes, that's right. Owns three practices and does research for drug companies (hence his all expense paid, first class flying, Ritz suite staying trip to a conference in Atlanta.) So, it was a terribly surreal thing seeing him. He looked totally different, Asian, but instead of the down to earth yet incredibly brilliant athletic type I'd know in high school, he was a spiky haired, dressed all in (I'm sure) high dollar designer black, and was a much thinner PLAYER type. He sort of oozed schmooze, if that makes any sense. He was still nice and sweet to me, friendly and really (for the amount of money he must make) unpretentious. He told me I was lovely as ever...blah de blah, but he was certainly nice.

I wasn't intimidated at all. Money never does intimidate me, it's attitude that can do that. He did a bit of name dropping, but only because I pressed him. Come on, how often do you get a chance to talk to someone who regularly sees Meg Ryan at his blockbuster? He talked about hanging out with Quentin Tarantino and how he sees Tom Cruise tooling around the neighborhood sometimes. Basically he was saying he is a mild acquaintance of some of them, but he was talking like they were all best buds or anything. And of course, he didn't specify any of his more high profile clients. (Although he did mention doing lyposuction on an ex Miss America who he said, had a six pack already but still felt FAT!!) Again, I didn't feel starstruck or anything. After all, this was FRANK...I put makeup on him for an eighth grade production of "A Christmas Carol", and he carved me an elephant out of sponge during our senior year in high school. It was just strange.

He proves, I guess, that money can't buy happiness. He talked a little about his relationship, lack of a "true love" and his desire to have children before he's too much older. But he works six days a week, and keeps long hours so doesn't have much time to pursue a romantic life.

He had been drinking and reeked of beer. Jimmy drank a little too, before we go there. It was Chinese New Year so he had been out with his family beforehand. I was so glad SigOth was there, he drove us all from the hotel to a Starbuck's where we sat and caught up until they threw us out at midnight. No, the fact that they'd been drinking didn't bother me, but again...Frank was the goody goodiest of guys in High School. It was just weird.

What did bother me was what a failure I am. Really, I'm not just the underachiever in my group of childhood friends, I'm the equivalent to living in a cardboard box under a bridge type person in my group of childhood friends. Not only am I not rich, famous or powerful...I don't even have a freakin' degree! And although being rich, famous or powerful would be GREAT and I wouldn't turn it down, I'd still kind of like to get that degree.

Total weirdness, all of it. With my twenty year reunion coming up this year, I'm not sure I even want to go. Sure...I'll be thinner than most of the women (smile), but still pretty much a failure. This sounds like I'm depressed, I'm really not. Just sort of resigned. Being depressed about it is really kind of stupid, it's not like I don't have control over my educational progress. Being depressed about something I can change is stupid. I guess I'm just annoyed with myself for being unwilling to take the risk. What if I can't do it? What if I fail? What if I succeed and I'm expected to know something at a job and then I DON'T? That's what terrifies me. I know I've said these same words so many times here, but they're still true.

I'm so afraid of failure that it makes me afraid of success. Blah.

I took a giant leap forward today and got on the Georgia State University website to check my enrollment status.  It's been four years since I was there and I just assumed I'd have to re-enroll.  I assumed (because I can't remember the circumstances) that my abrupt departure last time around resulted in the irreversible plummet of my grade point average.  I assumed they wouldn't let me back in anyway.  The last few months have been spent doing what I do best:  avoiding the situation and hoping it will go away.   Also, if I don't know FOR SURE I can't get back in, then there's always the possibility I could be wrong.  Once I know for sure, well, my hopes and dreams are dashed forever and I might as well kill myself now because I'm not ever getting that degree.

SigOth started the ball rolling yesterday by getting on the website while I was in his office.  I refused to look or tell him anything that might aid in his quest to help me.  But TODAY I got on there all by my lonesome (where there was no one to have to tell if the news was bad) and discovered...not only am I still enrolled but my Academic Status is "Good Standing", I'm a senior, I only got one "F" out of the classes I dropped (the others are "W") AND I'm eligible for registration for Fall semester.

I have to take Corporate Tax, Auditing, Speech (or Business Communication, as they call it) and the cap course.  I think those are the only four I have left.  But the biggie, Tax, is the only one that scares me. 

I've taken it twice, dropped it twice and without taking (and passing it) at GSU I can't get my Accounting degree from their Business school.  It is my Achilles heal, my stumbling block, my biggest challenge and my greatest fear.  I only get one more shot at it.  Three strikes at taking a course and you're out.  No more attempts for five years.  I could take it somewhere else and get my degree somewhere else.  But I want that piece of paper from GSU. 

I'm going to take it first, by itself, Fall Semester.  If I don't pass it I'll have to go to a different school to finish my Accounting degree or stay there and pick another major.  So we will see.

I am a wreck.  What a huge decision and what a terrifying prospect for me.  I seriously don't want to leave this room.  Making the drive downtown once a week is going to be terrible.  Meeting new people, talking to them, having teachers and grades and tests...(I'm talking myself out of this.)

I'm going to do it.  All I can do is fail, right?

*****

I'm SO SORRY for my lack of commenting this week.  I've been (believe it or not) busy, going to the pool to watch Hope swim when I get home from work, and then the hair situation takes me six hours to rectify and by the time I jot something down here there's no time left.  But I'm reading and I will comment this weekend.  I hope you all have a marvelous 4th of July.

Also, another heartfelt thank you to all of you who have and still do support me.  I don't think I could make a decision like I did today without all the hand holding and hugs I've gotten here over the last year.  Whatever good things happen for me, you are all partially responsible.

Sheesh.  I'm getting all teary.