3 weeks 2 days - Babies are hard.

We were getting along swimmingly, and then I think she gave my nipples the thrush.  Suddenly my right nipple felt like it was being pierced when she ate - I've cried a lot in the last few days.  And then her latch got lazy - she only wants the top half, thank you very much, you can keep that bottom part.  Except that's excruciating.  So we're relearning our nursing manners.  I've cried a lot in the last few days. 

It's overwhelming that I'm the only one who can feed her.  I feel like I'm with her every second of every day and that I never get a break.  I remind myself that a baby is what I wanted, and that this is part of what it means to have a baby.  I look into her sweet face and count my blessings again - but I'm so tired.  Two of the last three nights have been really rough (have I mentioned how much I've cried?).  Thankfully, she seems to know right when I've hit my limit, and she magically goes to sleep - for 3 or 4 hours.  So she's working me.  I get that now.  She's training me.  It's rough training, man.

Jimi tries to help, but I understand why he says he feels helpless, useless - there's just not a lot he can do.  I think he's sick of fetching me water and snacks, and I feel guilty every time I ask for another favor, but I'm stuck where I am, you know?  I try to get him to change as many diapers as possible, not to pass off the task, but so he can get some face time in with his daughter - of course, she hates having her diaper changed, so in his mind she's starting to associate him with horrible things, like a cold hooha.  And some nights nothing will console her but a nipple, and his don't fit the bill - and I get jealous as hell watching him over on the couch, able to get up and move around all nimbly pimbly whenever he likes.  I squash down my feelings of resentment - it's not his fault he can't feed her. 


I wonder how we'll ever get on enough of a schedule for me to go back to work in 4 weeks.  I wonder how I'll ever manage to leave her in the care of someone else for 9 hours a day.  This mom shit is serious bidness, yo. 

Bouncing up and fucking down.

It's like a weight has been lifted.

Sometimes you just need a good cometoJesus to release your soul, all the pent up sad and crazy and worry.  I thought I was saying the right words before, but maybe I wasn't.  "If we didn't have this talk tonight, if I didn't say these things to you, if you didn't propose within the next year, I would leave."  I said it.  That evil thing that was building in the back of my mind, that poison that was tainting my utopia.  I said the words - the ones that needed to be said, "This is what I have to have to be happy.  This is what I need.  We have needs and wants in relationships, and this is what I need."

We came together, we drifted, we wandered far apart, but in the end, we met in the middle, with love and understanding, and we're back in the place we've always been.  We're good.  We're safe. All is right with the world.

I cried myself to sleep last night, sick in my heart with fear and sad.  Tonight, I'm light like a feather, knowing we're good, having confirmation of that fact I knew in my heart but needed to know with my ears.

Tomorrow I'll spend several hours in the car with my boss.  I'm feeling mighty brave and strong tonight, Friends.  I have my power outfit planned and ready, down to the comfy no-line panties and the bright pink argyle socks.  (Those are just for my particular comfort, for the record.  I'm not planning to show our customers my panties or my socks.  But you never know.  My boss hired me because I showed him my socks during my interview...)

I need a raise.  I've been stewing about it for months, and the time has come where I've just got to ask or I'm going to build up so much resentment that I'll grow to hate my job and I don't want to hate my job because as crazy as it is, I fucking love it there.  I do.  I get pissed off all the time and frustrated as hell, but I love it, and I don't want to go anywhere else.  But I need to be compensated for the work I'm doing, and that's never going to happen if I don't make my needs known.  See, in relationships, all relationships, we have needs, and we have wants.  The fact is, for me to continue my happy relationship with my employer, I need to make more money.  They want to make as much money as possible, I need to make enough money to play well when I'm not there making money for them.

Does any of this even make sense?  I don't really care if it does.  I'm pretty sure I'll understand it when I read it again tomorrow.  A weight has been lifted.  I'm feeling pretty fucking invincible.  I'm going to make an ass out of myself tomorrow and I'll come back here tomorrow night crying about how I thought I had this but I really didn't.

No I won't.

I won't write again for days because I'll be all embarrassed and then I'll write about something totally dumb because I'll want to pretend I never wrote this entry.

And if I'm not engaged this time next year, I'll come back and delete this shit, too.

I read something the other day that said that in ten years we won't need resumes, we'll just use our online profiles when applying for jobs.

Fuck me, I hope I don't have to ever change jobs again. 

Worst. Day. Evar.

Warning:  I use the word "fuck" a lot in the following post.  If you're offended by the word "fuck", or the excessive use thereof, you're probably in the wrong place anyhow.  I'm sorry in advance for being such a classless whore.

Today has been the suckiest, hardest, worst day evar.  I told Kim, "Today is the day of FUCK.  Not  the good fuck, either, the bad FUCK.  Today is the FUCKiest day of them all."

And you know what the bitch of it is?  It was so much worse for other people.  At least one.

One of my employees (S) was arrested last night.  S got an equipment citation back in December.  The fine wasn't paid and the court date wasn't observed, and a bench warrant was issued.  At some point after midnight last night, the sheriff's office attempted to serve that warrant - at S's parents' house.  You see, the permanent address S uses, the one listed on his commercial driver's license, belongs to his parents.  When told S wasn't there, the sheriffs searched the premises.  Can you fucking imagine?  (Should I mention now that the citation was for a grand total of $192?)  Eventually convinced S wasn't there, the sheriffs left and headed to the correct address, where they woke S and his wife and their children at the ungodly hour of 1 a.m.   To serve a bench warrant for a commercial equipment violation.  For a total of $192 in fines.

I can't even explain the clusterfuck that ensued.  I was confused.  And scared.  Yes, I had a copy of the inspection, but no citation!  I pay citations immediately!  I give the drivers a copy back, for their personal records!  There was a lot of nearly vomit-inducing fear that maybe I'd lost the citation.  Oh fuck, can I even begin to explain what that feels like?  Like I told Kim, as I sobbed into my paperwork, "It's one thing if I fuck up and someone doesn't get their fucking order.  It's another thing entirely if I fuck up and someone's entire fucking life is ripped upside down.  A man is in jail!!!  Oh my god, what if I've done this?!"

I got in contact with a very nice lady in the county clerk's office where the citation was issued.  She put me on hold for a long time, but was kind enough to come back halfway through to ask me to bare with her, that she was working with a new system and taking longer than it should and she was sorry.  I love calling people in small towns - they're always so nice.  She told me that yes, he was being detained for the $192 citation, and yes, we'd be able to bail him out today.  Yes, she was happy to fax me a copy of the citation.

I've never seen it before today.  I swear to you, oh lords of the internet, today was the first day I've laid eyes on that ticket.  I didn't throw it away erroneously, I didn't lose it.  I've never seen it before - it never came to me.  I can't take full responsibility for the complete and total FUCK that this is/was.  As a manager, of course, I still carry responsibility.  There was an associated inspection report that listed a citation number - obviously, I never noticed it or paid it any mind, because I wasn't immediately on S's ass to get me the documentation so I could get the ticket paid.  But still.

I had to tell my boss.  My boss is a pretty fucking awesome.  (I'm using "Fuck" a lot already, what's a few more, right?  And I might be a little drunk.  That makes it easier to say fuck.)  Anyhow.  So I had to tell him.  I sent an email.  "I need to you to call me, please.  Call me on my cell when you have a moment."  I sat there, with a rock in my stomach, jumping every time I got a fucking email because my fucking blackberry is set up to vibrate every time i get an email AND/OR a phone call.  He called on the office line.  I started pacing immediately.  I do that when I'm on the phone - I pace.  I can't help it. He was having lunch at Arby's.  He didn't believe the one $192 citation could be the only reason S had been arrested.  "There has to be something more to the story, I've been doing this a long time, and I've never heard anything like this."  "I talked to the clerks in both counties," I reminded him. "They both say it's only this ticket.  I can't help but feel like I've fucked this up somehow."  "Did you ignore a citation and not pay it, Natalie?"  "No!  Of course not!  I'm certain I never even saw it!"  "Exactly,"  he said, always the voice of reason. That's why they pay him the big bucks, I guess.

Long story short, C and I spent our afternoon at the courthouse paying the bond.  S was released some time around 7 tonight.  Poor fucking guy.

But wait.  It's not over yet.

S was scheduled to deliver a critical load tomorrow morning.  His wife put the smackdown on him running the load.  I've spent three hours tonight trying to find an alternative, because I get it.  If I were her, I wouldn't want my man leaving me in the wee hours of Good Friday a.m either.  And I wouldn't stand for him leaving out only a handful of hours after being arrested, needlessly, for a $192 citation incurred while operating under the employ of the company now asking me to give up a large chunk of my weekend.

Fuck.  I didn't have any options, though.  I called a dozen carriers; no one can help me.  I called S.  "If I offer an extra $100, can you make the trip?"  I'm not above bribery when in a desperate situation.  I don't want to get the man beat by his woman, but he's all I've got - he's got the hours available to make the trip.  Any other driver would have to spend the entire weekend three states away - on Easter weekend.

S agreed to take the load.  He'll still be home for Easter Sunday, and I've agreed to give him a short run on Monday.  And to leave an extra $100 in his box tomorrow night.  And I think I'm going to send his wife flowers tomorrow.  Bless her heart.

Work is so fucking dumb sometimes.  I'm grateful for my job, I am.  Days like this are few and far between, but holy FUCK they're hard.

And seriously.  We're in a fucking budget crises, and our county is expending - what? - $1500 to serve a warrant for a $192 DOT citation?!  When the entire issue could've been solved and paid and all said and done with a simple $0.44 letter saying "YO! Bitches!  Pay your fucking fine!!"  I would've put that shit in the mail the same day, I fucking promise you.

Ugh.  It makes me sick.  I only recently stopped feeling like I was going to vomit in response to this entire fucking situation, which has managed to drag on for 14 hours now.

S spent something like 18 hours in jail, so I'm going to shut the fuck up and stop bitching and drink the rest of my beer.

Sweet dreams, friends.  I sure hope your day was better than mine.  And S's.

I'm not a crybaby, I'm passionate.

How often do you cry at work? 

I'm a crier; I cry at weddings, at funerals, at baby showers, during sappy movies, during a sappy scene in a bloody movie, in response to a particularly warm jewelry commercial, when a baby is born on TLC's A Baby Story.  I cry when I laugh really hard, I cry when I'm super happy.  I cry sometimes because I'm bored, literally, to tears. 

But at work?  You're not supposed to cry at work.  It's like baseball.

I cry at work all the time.  It's gotten better - we're down to maybe 3 times a month; when I was promoted to this position in May of 2008, I cried daily for the first 6 months.  Not because anyone was mean to me (well, not EVERY time at least), or because anyone called me names or because someone yelled at me - this isn't that sort of environment or that sort of place.  I cry because I'm frustrated.  I cry because no one seems to take things as seriously as I do.  I cry because it feels, a lot of the time, like I'm banging my head against the wall.  That's my excuse, at least.  That's my reasoning. 

The truth is, I'm emotional and I have a hard time holding those tears back, even though crying at work is the absolute last thing I want to do.  I'll feel them coming on and I'll will them to stay back, but they ignore my wants and spill over anyhow.  I'll be trying so hard to look and act the part I've been picked to play, but my eyes will start leaking and betray me.  My boss is used to it - I don't even feel embarrassed or awkward when I trickle all over myself in front of him anymore.  I try to keep it hidden from my non-office co-workers; they're not the sort that cry at work or the sort to understand and tolerate well when they've got a crybaby in their midst. 

The Boss keeps reminding me that I need to "pause when agitated", "take a deep breath", "don't react with your emotions".  He's right.  Oh, but it's SO hard!  I tell him this, and he says "Try harder".  Okay, boss.  I'll try harder to not care so much, to not be so passionate about my work.  I'll try harder.  :)