Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Work and guitar lesson update

After such a wretched Friday yelling at work, I had a lovely weekend in which I recorded music with my little brother-the-genius, did laundry and watched TV with my lovely Matt. I saw "There Will Be Blood" and um yeah. Fucking ruled. I know a movie's good when I keep thinking about it the next day or want to talk about it with whoever's willing to listen. "No Country..." can suck my balls. Blood should've won best picture.

Anyway, what you really want to hear about is how my guitar lessons are going, right?

I had my third guitar lesson today. I practiced my two songs he assigned me all this weekend, and for the first time I had FUN at my lesson.

There was no worry of judgment over my gig bag smelling like weed, and I was finally comfortable playing in front of him. I felt comfortable being myself around him. And by "myself," I mean saying "shit" and "damn" when I messed up at the guitar. His instruction was professional, but also friendly, to which I responded positively, with "cool" and "yeah, that's a good idea."

I think the first two lessons were a trial period in which we were just figuring each other out. He's actually just a nice guy who has a nine-month-old baby and likes guitar. And I think I actually learned some things from him today. Like what a D9 chord is. Didn't know that before. Thanks, guitar dude.

Still thinking about that Mexico vacation. I may just take a pre-vacation weekend vacation to the hometown -- where the food is good and the people are nice.

Friday, April 04, 2008

It's time for a vacay

I yelled at my co-worker today. And it felt good.

Who am I?

For the record, the bitch deserved it. And I should really go about my Friday. But I still feel...dirty.

I hate confrontation. But dammit, stress levels were high and I couldn't take the accusations anymore. "Why aren't you doing this? Why didn't you do that? Why don't you care?" I'd had enough. So I defended myself. I mean, when someone accuses you of not caring about your job, you have to fucking say something.

So I did. And it felt good. I already said that.

In other news, I started taking guitar lessons. I've taken many a photo with my beloved guitar, but never have I taken a lesson. Until a few weeks ago.

So far I think my teacher is kind of a wrong match for me. I wanted a gruff old man who'd whip my ass into rock star shape, but instead I got a 31-year-old dude who wears ties and likes "Stairway to Heaven." He winced when I made a face and said my brother's gig bag that I borrowed smells like weed.

Yeah. I don't know about this one. If a guitar dude makes faces at weed, then he's not a real guitarist.

I don't smoke weed. I don't like the way it makes me feel. I'm not against it, but if it's around, I just say no. It might make me sound like a dweeb, but that's just how I feel about it. I don't judge those who do it. In fact, I wish I liked weed. It looks like people really enjoy it. But my body makeup just doesn't agree with it. I get paranoid, feel out of control, feel stupid, slow. I'll stick to booze, thank you very much. At least I know what I'm getting out of that.

In other news, my good friend Liberty just had her first baby. Very good news as this is a new little being who is born to some fine people with high IQs and much talent. She and her husband are some of the most loving and genuine people I've ever known and I am happy that they put that together and produced a "mini them."

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It just occured to me that I need a vacation. I was off for 11 days during Christmas break, but I need a true, "fuck-you-boss-I'm-taking-a-vacation-no-I-don't-care-what's-going-on" vacation. One that is not mandated by religion or wintry mixes. I've given up on the fact that one of my Mexican cousins is having a summer wedding this year, so I'll have to make this vacation totally my own.

If I so choose to take this break from life as I know it, I'd choose Puebla and Cordoba, Mexico -- places that make me happy -- and stay with my family two days. I'd spend the rest of the time in a four-star hotel with my lovely Matt, and rent a car, and do it right.

Not that I haven't done it right in the past. But every time I've gone to Mexico, I've gone with my mom, and have done everything her way. And if not her way, then my aunt's way, or my uncle's way...any way but my own. I work dammit, and in recent years when I've gone, it seems like such a struggle to do things my way, even though I'm paying for it the whole time. Plus, in our eight years together, Matt and I have never taken a real vacation together.

Sure, we've traveled. We've gone to Virginia to visit his parents -- couldn't sleep together because his parents are Nazis, I mean Catholics -- , to San Marcos when we were checking out the school (which we ultimately went to and from which we graduated), to New York (recently, and just for the weekend...which was freaking awesome, by the way)... But never have we taken that VACATION. You know, the one that couples take when they have two weeks accrued at work, and they go to some silly place like Jamaica, or Italy, or a cruise to Cozumel and come back with even sillier pictures of themselves with strained, nervous faces as a stranger takes their picture or of themselves taking the cliché, off-focus, one-armed MySpace pic. I kind of want that supercilious, totally unnecessary vacation. With my man. And no moms, aunts or uncles telling us what to do.

Work bitch is far away now. She's gone. There's no Monday.

Fancy that. If only a day dream about a vacation could take your problems away like that...

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

The Intern

When I first started my job, my department hired a slew of lazy boy interns. They were useless at first and all they seemed to do was pretend to be excited about the menial jobs they were given, but deep down I was just waiting for them to discard the excited face and just be themselves.

They eventually shedded the new-hire happy face and became themselves -- fun-loving, immature pricks! Which I loved. And they proved to be pretty handy around the office. They didn't need much direction and were great for heavy lifting. We get a lot of shipments.

Now they're gone and we have these two new girls working for us. They're best friends, but they're never in the office at the same time. The one I want to talk about I will call "Stinky," because she is truly one stinky little girl.

She's 19. She's from Utah. She's Mormon (not that there's anything wrong with it!). She wears the same pants every day: you know the kind...tight khaki pants and NO THONG! I see panty lines all day with this one.

But what makes her stinky is her dang shoes. She wears these sandals and has this charming habit of coming into my office and sliding her shoes on and off, creating this thick aura of cheesy stench. It's revolting. So she is "stinky girl."

I suppose my disdain for her comes from a deeper place than just her offensive smell. She's slow. She's lazy. She doesn't do heavy lifting. Rather, I feel bad making her lift things when I can do it myself. And I can see her dang panty line the whole time. Like, what do you have against thongs?

Today she came into the office sporting a new piece of jewelry. An engagement ring. And it's beautful. It's what I would want now, at 19 and tomorrow.

My disdain for her grows. I miss the boy interns.