Yay for middle-class normalcy.

I got annoyed with myself last night because I haven't taken full advantage of my time off from work. By that, I mean that I've adhered to virtually the same sleep schedule as when I'm working - only about an hour different. I should be staying up half the night and sleeping away half the morning!

So, I decided I'd try and stay up late last night watching a movie if I could find one - be decadent, right? I looked through my many movie channels (not the pay ones like HBO or Showtime - just the free ones that come with my satellite package. Who am I - Rockefeller?), and the only thing I could find that sounded reasonably interesting was "Sid and Nancy." I've never seen it, and it was going to be on from 12:00 to 2:00, so it sounded perfect.

For those of you who don't know, "Sid and Nancy" is about the relationship of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. Sid Vicious was the lead singer of the Sex Pistols. Seeing as I was never a fan of punk music when that was "the thing," I don't really know any Sex Pistols music. And I know very little about Sid and Nancy except that they did drugs and I think they're both dead now. But I thought it could be interesting.

It wasn't so much interesting as it was disturbing. Not the relationship between them so much as their entire lifestyle. I tried to remember that they were young and rebellious and I was too at one time, but no matter how I tried, I just couldn't relate to these people and their world. And I found myself really grateful that I couldn't.

I've never wanted to stick a needle in my arm and puke violently, then do it again. I've never wanted to live in filth and sleep on the floor and smoke like a chimney and be unwashed. There were bar scenes where the band performed, and it was just violent and angry with beer flying everywhere, and I tried to think about my younger self, and I wondered if I ever wanted to be the drunk, angry mob at their shows, and I just never did. Not that I wasn't drunk my share of times, but I just never wanted to be angry, violent, dirty and ugly. I felt repulsed by everything about their lives. And I was just so grateful that it wasn't my life, and I never wanted it to be.

I gave up after an hour. I just couldn't watch it anymore. It made me feel bad. Just bad. So, I went to bed, finished a book I was reading and crashed. Tonight, I'll just go to bed my paltry hour later, start a book, and sleep in my clean bed in my suburban house, and wake up to my middle-class life, and you know what? That's just fine.

How do they know?

Can someone explain to me how home fire alarms know what time it is? And why they prefer to share with you the news that their batteries are running low in the middle of the night - effectively scaring the bejesus out of you when you're in your deepest part of REM sleep?

I've owned my house for 4.5 years now, and I have yet for one of the damn things to bark out their little warning at say 6:00 p.m., or 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday. It's always in the middle of the friggin' night.

Last night, I was sleeping soundly - no nightmares of Paulas or painful encounters with exes, when suddenly at 3:30 a.m. *BLEAT* - like a freakin' blast horn right next to my ear, the smoke alarm goes off. Only for a second. Just once. So, I know there's no actual smoke. But of course, this realization takes several seconds, because at first, I have to peel myself off the ceiling, then I have to figure out what time it is and what just happened, and am I sure that wasn't my burglar alarm? Has the house been breached? So, then I turn on the light, and by the time my eyes adjust, I realize it wasn't the burglar alarm, so I go to the bathroom - you know...because I'm up.

While sitting on the toilet cursing the alarm is when I realized my hands were shaking and the adrenaline has not yet cleared my system. And I had that fluttery almost pained feeling in my chest from the living crap just being scared out of me. I finished up in the bathroom, decided there was no need to check the house - just go back to bed and pray the damn thing would shut up until this morning when I could drag a ladder out and change the battery. Not that changing one does you any good - you may as well change them all out in all the alarms throughout the house. Big fun.

It did bleat one more time - about 4:00. But I hadn't quite drifted back off yet, so it didn't bother me. I cussed it a little, but was able to drop off shortly after. In the interest of fairness I should admit that it's been worse in the past. Not only has the alarm gone off at an ungodly hour, but it chained across the house - somehow setting off all the other alarms in the house in bursts of three bleats each. That was super fun. I actually had to change them all out right then and there, not waiting until the morning. After I'd revived myself from my heartattack.

Dream a little dream.

Dreams suck. Not the kind where you "have a dream" - as in "I have a dream of someday fitting back into that skirt that lives in the back of my closet." I'm talking about the dreams that are little movies of your hopes and fears that play in your head when you're asleep and unable to hit the stop and eject buttons.

I hear that some people don't dream. More accurately, they probably just don't remember their dreams. I think if you don't dream, you go crazy or Freddie Krueger comes or something. We all dream.

But some people are blessed not to have vivid enough dreams that the dreams wake them in the night in a shaking sweat or they wake up in the morning with the emotions tied to a nightmare still coursing through their consciousness. I am not one of these blessed people.

I have very real dreams. They're in color with sound and real people, and I experience them as if they are really happening. That's fine if it's something good, but I have the unfortunate tendency of having nightmares. This often leads to me waking up in the night or in the morning feeling like I'd feel if the nightmare had been real.

I once dreamed that I had suddenly become aware that I'd killed a homeless man when I was 18 - I'd suppressed the memory and then suddenly, in my 30s, the truth had come out, and I remembered what I had done, and now I was faced not only with the psychological trauma of what I'd done, but I faced going to prison for it. I woke in an absolute terror, and it literally took me about 20 minutes to figure out if I HAD killed someone when I was 18 and had repressed it. It was awful.

More often than not, the dreams aren't about truly tragic things like that, though. They're more about things you're afraid of happening or they're some weird representation of stress or fear. You dream that you miss a flight you have the next day, or you realize you're still in college and haven't gone to a particular class for 2 months and now the final is today, or the ever-popular boyfriend is cheating or you see your ex-boyfriend somewhere and he's not only with some new woman but he's really mean to you. Those are fun.

If you are one of those people who doesn't remember their dreams, count yourself lucky. For us creative types, it's a double-edged sword. It's great to have the one where everyone likes you, but the ones where someone in your family is gravely injured or killed are so not worth the popularity ones. And Ex-Boyfriend, please don't be mean to me when I next talk to you. Your new girlfriend in my dream last night was named Paula. I've never liked that name.

How much to take on?

I've got an interesting dilemma. When I quit my previous job, I let friends and fam know I was looking. I had planned on the job hunt taking a long time - several months at least, and when a couple of friends asked if I'd be interested in some part-time editing work while I looked, I said "Sure!"

I imagined myself waking up, stretching, puttering, then heading out to a coffee shop and working for a couple of hours on the part-time stuff and doing my job-hunt stuff. It was going to be a leisurely and pleasant life for a while before I jumped back into the full-time fray, rested and ready to go with the throttle pushed back up.

Well, as you know by now, it didn't happen that way. Within a week of my last day at my previous job, I had landed a new job. I will be throttling back up in approximately one week. Not much in the way of leisurely coffee shop days, I'm afraid. Lost in the frenzy of interviews and offers was the part-time editing thing.

You see, I filled out the paperwork to do that job but then had trouble getting the email to return the paperwork to go through. It still hasn't, though the employer is still interested in me getting it to her. So, here's the question. Do I take the unexplained computer problem as a sign that I should let that go - tell the lady I've gotten something full time and let her search for someone else just looking for part-time work? Or should I send it in, let them make me an offer, and see if the part-time stuff might be doable in addition to my new full-time job?

I've had a part-time job for forever, but I've been weaning myself off of it for the last couple of years. I wanted more social time with my friends and was tired of working so much. As my salary got to a decent level, the money wasn't as much of an issue. On the other hand, this editing thing doesn't have set hours, so as long as the workload was low, I could do it at my convenience and still make extra money.

And while money is less of an issue, it isn't a NON-issue. What with being single, the entire burden of preparing for my future and retirement rests on my small shoulders, so every bit can help. Social Security won't exist for my generation (big thanks to the Baby Boomers who haven't bothered to prepare for their own retirement and will be sucking the meat from my paychecks in the next 30 years). And the government picks away the retirement savings I do set aside (I read something this morning about how the government tax structure means that almost all of the employer match on my 401k will be stolen away by the government in taxes). So, perhaps, a little part-time work on my own schedule wouldn't be bad to keep on tap.

I don't know, though. If it's too much, I don't want to do it. As I said before, I don't want to spend all of my waking life working. I want a life. So, what do you think I should do?

It doesn't do much for my hair, either.

We're starting to get a bit soggy now here in Central Texas. Actually, we're not starting to - we are. We're soggy. The rain can back off. It's cool.

We've been in a drought for several years, and we're thrilled to have had a rainy spring, no question. Our lakes are full for the first time in recent memory. My yard looks great. I haven't heard the status of the aquifers, but I have to assume they're looking better. It's been supah!

But now we're having flooding everytime it rains, and the rain is coming in big doses - like 6 and 8 inches at a time. Several people have died this week, and it's supposed to rain like crazy all weekend long, which means more people will likely die in flash floods. I think most people's Memorial Weekend will consist of sitting inside watching TV.

So, rain, thanks for stopping by, and can we get you a doggy bag for your trip elsewhere?

Just when I was enjoying it...

Well, Day Three of unemployment featured some yard work, some house work, and a job offer! Yes, that's right - my brand new unemployment already has an expiration date on it. And I must have gotten it on sale, because the expiration date is coming up soon. I start June 4. It's a great offer, and I'm glad to have it (I accepted it, for the record), but honestly...truth be told...I was kind of hoping this whole process might take a little longer. I was really kind of looking for a couple of months off.

It's entirely possible that after the first few weeks I would've been itching for some place to go and something to do. After you get your house clean and all those pent-up projects done, it's got to be pretty boring sitting around by yourself. But still. I've been stuck in an office 40 hours a week for the last 16 years. A couple of months of freedom from the grind would've been nice.

But like I said - I've got the kind of problem one shouldn't complain about. I'll be starting a job in a week and a half that's a step up from my old one, with a nice title and a bigger salary and good benefits. It's not government work, which means fewer holidays, but hey, you can't have everything. My last job was careening into Nazi Germany of the 1930s territory, so a few extra days off were not going to be worth staying.

So, I'll have to do my best to enjoy the next week and a half of freedom. It's all the time off I'll get for the next six months, since I can't take any vacation time for the first six months of my new job. Did I mention that I'm not complaining?

This is more like it.

Okay, Day #2 of unemployment is more like I had dreamed it would be. I slept until I woke up (which, surprisingly, was not much later than when I was working...what up with that?), puttered around the back yard filling the bird feeder and deciding what yard work to do this afternoon, then I showered and headed out to run errands. I'm now at a Seattle's Best, enjoying java and coffee cake and availing myself of their wi-fi. THIS is what I'm talkin' about, Willis.

The second interview went well yesterday as far as I can tell, so now it's a waiting game. If they make an offer, supah. If not, I'll get back on the job hunting trail. I've got that machine gassed up and ready to go if need be, so no worries. I'll keep you apprised if word comes. So for now, let's talk about something else!

How about...TV???!!! Last night was the season finale for Heroes. I've definitely been hooked, if annoyed at the many "breaks" the show kept taking during the season. I very much enjoy watching the storyline, as well as all the beautiful people. I think to be a Hero, you have to be exceptionally good-looking. Except for Ted. He wasn't so much. In fact, I'm pretty sure that actor plays one of the cavemen in those Geico commercials. And he doesn't need as much makeup as you might expect.

Anyway, the coolest thing about last night's show was that Richard Roundtree, aka Shaft, was on there! I'm not kidding! See what you non-Heroes watchers are missing? That man just personifies cool. He really does. And his scene was with my favorite cutie hero, Peter Petrelli. I've decided I will not believe that Peter blew up last night. I'm okay with it if Nathan did. He was always kind of slimy, but once I found out that the actor who plays Nathan is married to Dixie Chick Natalie Maines...well, I can hardly look at him now.

Sorry if you think the Dixie Chicks are the voice of reason and strength. We shall have to disagree on that. Let's instead focus on the concept that sometimes knowing too much about an actor's real life and real opinions, etc. can hinder your ability to watch them on screen. Whether or not it SHOULD be that way is irrelevant. While I may guess that Kevin Spacey is gay, I prefer not to *know* it for the simple reason that if I *know* it, I'll have more trouble buying him in a role where he's straight. I love Kevin Spacey, and I think he's an amazing actor, and he really brings his characters to life for me. I want to keep it that way. If I begin to know him too much, I'll see him instead of the characters he's playing when he's on screen.

I mean ask yourself - if you saw Sean Penn in a role where he's playing President Bush, could you buy it? Honestly? And could you really believe he's giving the character an honest representation? Despite everything know you know about Sean Penn and his beliefs and his personal activities in recent years? Or would you see Sean Penn playing Bush, and wondering where his personal biases are coming through? How about Charlton Heston if he were playing Jimmy Carter? Could you lose yourself in the suspended reality and really see Carter when you look at Heston? Penn and Heston are both fantastic, accomplished actors. But you know too much, don't you?

So, that's all I'm sayin'. Bring my Peter back, but it's okay if Nathan is space dust now. Oh, and Ang wants Hiro and Ando to stop being innocent and subtitled. So, Heroes writers, see what you can do for us next season. Thaaaaaanks.

A suit AND heels. Stop the madness.

My first day of unemployment, and I'm not laying around on the couch eating nachos for breakfast. What kind of world is this???

I actually had an interview this morning for a job I'm 99% I don't want, and I have a second interview at Noon for a job I think I do want. So, I'm in a suit.

At this morning's interview, the staff get big points for telling me the truth about what it would be like to work there. I actually liked the people I talked to, but I can tell you with no hesitation that I would not like being yelled at by the big boss once every 4-6 months just because he's in a bad mood. In fact, I'd prefer not be yelled at ever. It's one of Suzanne's "Rules of the Office." Don't yell at me. Don't forget to pay me. Don't put up cheesecake calendars.

Couple that tidbit of information with a warning I'd gotten from a friend of mine yesterday that my friend knew someone who had worked there and she was miserable, and we can pretty much cross the place off my list. The goal of changing jobs is to be happy.

So, of the three jobs I've interviewed for in the last week, two are already off the table. We'll see how the third one goes this afternoon. This was actually the first of the three I interviewed for, and I had a good feeling about it. If the second interview goes as well as the first, we could be in business. But it's okay if we're not. If I don't get a new job right away, I get to pretend I'm a woman of leisure for a while, and I'm very okay with that.

Assuming I won't spend every day in a suit. Women of leisure aren't supposed to have to wear suits.

Run, Forrest, Run!

Well, after a 3-week hiatus, I'm back! I didn't intentionally go AWOL, but after getting back from Chicago, I made a big decision. I decided to leave my job and look for new opportunities. It so happened, that the day before I turned in my notice, so did my boss! In fact, we're the 4th and 5th of 8 people in my section to leave since January. That should give you some idea what it's been like the last few months.

Anyway, as you can imagine, the last few weeks have been pretty crazy - a whirlwind of preparing my co-workers for the big transition of my departure as well as my boss's, and beginning a new and energized job search (I've been looking for several months, but a kicked in into high gear after turning in my notice at work). It might seem crazy to quit your job before you have something new lined up, but it was just time, and I had prepared for this possibility, so I was ready. And I have the utmost faith that God will lead me to the right "next step."

In fact, things are already moving quickly. I've had two interviews this week and have two more set up for next week, so you can imagine I haven't had much time to post! I'll keep you apprised of how the job hunt goes, and hopefully I'll have an announcement to make in the not-too-distant future. Honestly, I think it'll happen before I even really want it to! I was kind of looking forward to having a couple of months off before I jumped back into the daily office grind, but it looks like things are going to happen pretty quickly!

That's a good problem to have, and I won't complain, but how do you think it might go over if I tell a new employer that I'd like an August start date????