i've got nothing, 
also, and this is nothing against the site itself, because it's a great blog with rad design and entertaining content, BUT: why the hell has madpony made
i have found a new hobby this week. KOI. and goldfish. i need a name for my new guy. any suggestions? i promise i will not regale you any further with my koi exploits, but i'm kinda excited right now. about koi. anyway...
happy thanksgiving! i'm just glad to have a day off. work blows. working blows. someone should pay me to sit around my house and blog all day ("and if i had a nickel for every blogger who's ever posted THAT idea...").
there's a guy at work (who i'll refer to as 'the tool') and he's been wearing the same pair of pants for 15 days now. we have a fairly casual dress code around here, but not as casual as these freakin' pants.
they're black coarse cotton. the furthest they reach is a solid two inches above the tops of his shoes when he's STANDING. they are not trendy straight- or wide-legged cargos. they are 80s pegged-leg cargos. he pairs them with a nasty pair of broken-down running shoes and a stone-washed denim jacket.
they, and his smokey-and-the-bandit mustache, creep me out. it's been 15 days in a row now.
i'll keep you posted.
i like "office space". i feel like office space today. and it's freezing in here.
posts are up at the hard line, though i doubt you'll be able to see them. i've been having trouble viewing all of hard's sites all morning. which is too bad, since now everyone will miss out on agreeing with me. KIDDING.
i won a little feeder goldfish at the orange county fair two years ago. his name, appropriately, is OC. he started out a little guy, and now he's a good four inches long. i thought maybe he was lonely, so yesterday me and mike picked out a friend for him.
i really should've brought a life-size picture of OC along, because once i was standing in front of all those tanks full of all those different kinds of fish, OC started seeming about the same size as them.
mike chose his favorite red cap oranda from a tank full of orandas, and we were on our way to introduce OC to his new friend, seymour. seymour, by the way, is probably about an inch long...maybe an inch and a half including the fancy fins.
needless to say, they didn't get along. it would seem like they were fine for a while. then i'd look over to see OC tormenting poor little seymour. so now seymour is living in a large vase on top of my refrigerator (cats) until we get a tank for him.
last night, mike said, "you know, if we keep this up we'll have like 10 tanks lining the apartment. and when people ask, we can point to one and say, 'well, this guy didn't get along with this guy, so we had to get this tank. and then over here these two were fighting, so we put this fish in that tank over there...'"
it really wouldn't suprise me if something like this ends up happening.
happy monday!
there's nothing like filing some final divorce documents and talking to your ex on the phone to bring on a bout of melancholial nostalgia.
we'd been dating for two years. living together for one. i wasn't happy, exactly, but neither was i exactly miserable. it was a very confusing time for me, in regards to simple emotions like happy and sad.
transfer season was upon us, and since he was due to transfer soon, he wrote up his list of top picks on his dream sheet and waited for the results. we didn't discuss the choices on his list. i don't either one of us felt it was necessary or appropriate, seeing as how we were dating and not married. the problem was that i wasn't due to transfer for another two years. my enlistment was coming up, yes. the easiest thing (for him) would be for me to no reenlist and tag along with him to his next station.
which was fine with me. as far as he could tell. and as far as i could tell on the surface, as well. i hated where i was at. hated the people and the politics. and i thought there were no other options, if we were to stay together.
one of my seapappies from my last unit happened to pull into our port. well, his new ship did, anyway. he had scored a brand new ship and the word 'captain' as a nickname. he was a rad crusty old bird. seeing as how i probably wouldn't see him again, i went over to his ship for a visit. (there is nothing like being a 3rd class petty officer from another unit and requesting to see the captain in his stateroom.)
he asked me to sit down, after asking me to close the door. he lit an unfiltered pall mall and offered one to me. how could i refuse? the memories that maroon pack invoked were worth the nastiness. besides, smoking on a government vessel? this was the one and only time i was going to be able to break that particular military commandment.
he asked me how i was. how i liked my unit. why i hadn't advanced yet. (these seapappies, they're like fathers, i swear to god.) he asked if i was still with ______, and wasn't he due to transfer soon. i told him how i figured i had to get out, follow him to his next destination.
"are you bullshitting me? YOU? you can't get out. i've SEEN you. this shit's in your blood, for good or for bad." he scowled and exhaled.
i exhaled, too. "well, what the fuck else? i've got two more years here otherwise."
"ech. baloney. you want to stay in? and you want to stay together? say the word. you don't get your own ship and have 33 years of service behind you without earning a little weight to throw around. one phone call. you wanna stay active and go with him, or you want him to transfer here?"
"christ, you'd do that?"
"of course. should i call right now?"
"well...no. the problem is more than that. it's geography. his dream sheet is all 11th [california] and 13th [hawaii] districts."
"it's up to you. but don't be a stranger. and definitely let me know if you want me to make that call. detailer owes me one, anyway."
"right on, mr. ______. i'll let you know. thanks for the smoke."
i left that boat feeling like i had someone in my corner. which should've raised some red flags, since there was a certain boyfriend who should've already elicited such feelings in me.
a few weeks later, i happened to find out ____'s destination. hilo, hawaii. his ship was underway, and i was constantly checking the online boards where they post such information. i was stunned. i knew he had put it on the list, but he had also put san diego and san francisco on the list. i just assumed it would be california--much more palatable--and ignored the two hawaii units he had listed.
so off i went. thousands of miles away from anyone i knew. no job. pending marriage.
the pending marriage part was solved within a few weeks of being in hawaii. i certainly know that these things are much more important that EASE, but that's what pushed me to do it. it would just make things easier. i was already out there. i might as well stick it out for a while. and, i was in love. i was in the process of falling out of it at the very moment i signed the marriage certificate, but it hadn't completely gone from my system yet. i felt old, and unaccomplished. i felt like it was TIME. time to do it. time to settle down. time to stop all the nonsense.
so i did it.
i regretted it immediately afterwards, when my new husband didn't want to celebrate with me. he was tired. he wanted to go to bed. drinks? celebrate? are you kidding? it's just past sunset and we just got done driving for two hours. and i worked today [because it didn't occur to me to tell my boss i was getting married that evening, could i have a couple hours off?].
i was somebody's wife. i was in hilo, hawaii. i was lost and lonely and more depressed than i'd ever been [i made a long reacquaintence with depression upon moving to california, but that's for another time]. he was gone for work a lot. i knew no one. the day after the movers came--we had finally found a decent place to live--he shipped out for two months. dry dock on another island. six-day workweeks.
he wasn't always the best company when he was around, but two solid months of rock-bottom loneliness can drive a girl mad. i would wake up on a wednesday not knowing what day it was. they were all the same. i would realize after a while that it was, in fact, wednesday, and then an invisible hand would punch me in the gut while it occured to me that i hadn't had a conversation with another human being in three days. i would think about unpacking some more boxes. i would thank god for cable and coors light.
i know, i know. bootstraps. pick up. and i did, eventually. but i learned something new about myself. i'm shy and insecure. to know me, you would pshaw the whole notion, but it's true. i had never had to deal with it before, never had to know it about myself. i always either had the security of school or the blanket of forced comraderie around me. this was my first official time in the real world, and i had no idea what to do with myself.
finally, after about a month, an opportunity to visit came up. he had the whole weekend off, and had arranged to get a hotel room to himself. i had my plane ticket and was foaming at the mouth in anticipation of being around PEOPLE again. we hung out with some of his crew that night. hit the town in honolulu. the trouble hit later that night.
i can't remember how we finally started talking about it, because we were always very nonconfrontational. but we started discussing my state of mind. it went something like this:
me: well, i'm doing alright. but i'm lonely.
him: yeah, it sucks being away from home for me, too.
me: yeah. at least you've got the guys. you've got work to keep you busy.
him: but the work blows...
me: yeah...
me: so, listen. i'm not doing good. i don't know how much longer i can sit in that house and wait for you to come home.
him: it's not much longer.
me: it's another MONTH. if the stuff even gets done as scheduled, which...
him: ...will never happen. i know. but how bad can it be?
me: honestly? i'm miserable. i've never felt so depressed in my life. it doesn't seem fair. we JUST GOT HERE. how can someone expect you to pack up and leave for two months while i stay here and sort out the homelife? i know you've got to work, and i know we can't help the timing, but FUCK. i swear. i'm not gonna make it, ____. i'm not. you gotta come home. at least for a week.
him: calm DOWN. there's nothing to do. just wait it out, honey.
me: don't you think the XO would understand? can't you just ask?
him: what the FUCK. you think i can FUCKING DO THAT? what, just GO TO THE XO, and tell him that my wife is fucking miserable? tell him that you're SAD?
me: couldn't you? you've got vacation time... you just transferred here. you JUST got married. he'd understand.
him: YOU want ME to fucking go to the FUCKING XO and tell him that i need a week OFF? that my WIFE really needs me and i feel i should fucking go HOME to help her out for a while? what do you want from me? i CAN'T ask that. is that what you fucking want?
yes. that's what i wanted. just for him to ask. i know his boss would've okayed it, but that's not the point. he wouldn't even ask. he yelled at me instead of asking. he thought the pride he might lose in asking was worth me feeling suicidally depressed for two months. he knew me better than anyone. he knew how hard it was for me to even express that i might need a little help. it may have actually been the first time i ever asked for his help in anything. asked him to stand by me. to be by my side.
that was the first big let down. that's when i knew for sure i had married the wrong man. it took me three and a half more years to finally make a move on that revelation.
plus, i missed the leonids this year. AGAIN.
i just saw a special on the animal planet about the giant japanese salamander. they grow to about 5 feet long and weigh upwards of 50 pounds. they're virtually blind, but are incredibly sensitive to the movement of prey. i swear its open mouth is as big as a man's head. they're pretty rad.
the leonids are going off tonight.
goddammit. the shit's going down at 2:28am, and i have to work tomorrow. AND i live in one of the most light-polluted areas in the country. 
so even if i got excited enough to get up at 2-fucking-30 in the morning, there wouldn't be much to see beyond the glow of the taco bell sign across the access road.
eh. maybe i'll get up anyway. drive east until i can see SOMEthing. then turn around and go to work.
this also reminds me that last year when the leonids hit, big changes were afoot in my life. i was miserable, but hopeful. there was a lot to detach myself from. but here i am now. a little less miserable. even more hopeful. cue the sappy chickflick music.
but i'm STILL gonna miss the fuckin' starshow. just like last year. grrrrrrrrrrr.
this is what the baby name survey book had to say about me:
on wednesday, as reported by fat free milk, a storm system hit the greater los angeles area.
... Our cameras even caught this poor woman, running to her car, nothing protecting her but a newspaper clasped over her head. Which clearly indicates that you have to make news sometimes...
remember
today, i had to process a NCOA (we in the industry call this "noca-ing"). national change of address. there are these firms, or something, that maintain data on all the changes of all the addresses of all the people in the united states. every so often, it is prudent to submit an address list to these people and get the addresses updated.
