Dispatch from Shitsville

[oselle]

It's been a rather shitty week. To sum up:

On Monday, I had a a very bizarre encounter with a co-worker. We've worked together for seven years and are friends outside of work as well. We've always gotten along very well but then on Monday out of the blue she went psycho on me. She was doing a layout for me and I had written her a note asking her to change the color of some headline type, suggesting "maybe use a contrasting color like one from the logo below" (the logo was bright oranges and reds). She only changed it from one shade of pale blue to another, almost identical. Because she only works part-time I had left her another note last Friday night asking, "Can we try another color, plz?" (Note that this was the fifth version of this layout and I still wasn't getting what I asked for). On Monday morning she came into my office literally bellowing and slamming the damn thing on my desk, yelling at me "You said maybe! Maybe try another color!" and calling me all kinds of horrible shit that all boiled down to "Who the fuck do you think you are?" I sat there speechless under this barrage of abuse and then she stormed out of my office. We've barely spoken to each other since.

I know her well enough to be really concerned about this. She has a weird little mean streak that occasionally puts her on the warpath against certain people. I've seen her try to "take down" other people at work, usually under the guise of being some sort of "truth teller" who's trying to expose what she views as their incompetence. I don't think she's going to be able to do that with me -- my eight-year record there speaks for itself -- but I have no desire to spend my scant energy on fending off the onslaught of jibes, goads, insinuations and closed-door meetings that are part of her arsenal. I don't know if she's going to go this route with me but at the very least she owes me an apology. I've known her for seven fucking years She's one of the few people I've ever invited to my house. I've read Frog and Toad to her daughter. So I don't know what the fuck happened to her, if she needs help or what, but it was an unsettling experience and one that makes my already dreadful work situation that much worse.

And yes, work is dreadful. On Tuesday I got a first-thing-in-the-morning phone call from my publisher who was about to go into a meeting in Mississippi and wanted to know where the Powerpoint presentation was. Now, I had asked him THREE TIMES, more than a month ago, if he needed the presentation deck I'd prepared in a Powerpoint format. He said "no" each time. Half an hour before the big meeting he's looking for the non-existent Powerpoint. Am I supposed to be a fucking mind-reader? "No" means "yes?" I've seldom come so close to blowing a blood vessel in my head. I could feel it pulsing.

And yes, I still regret turning down that job in May. I regret it every minute of the day and quite a few of the night. This was a colossal fuckup on my part and there's no amount of rationalization that will make it go away. They're laying people off and cutting back on our health insurance and I could have been out of there. I've had it with myself. Honestly. It's amazing I can dress myself, I'm so stupid.

Speaking of stupid, I'll confess that I'm a little surprised by the apparent lack of interest in Lazarus Came Forth. I mean, I know it's no masterpiece but it's not that bad, is it? Golly. Should I just stick to posting filtered J2 porn or what?

I've also been battling a horrendous infection whose details are too grisly to divulge. It looks like that's finally coming under control, but only after spending several hundred bucks on assorted doctor's appointments and prescriptions. And don't even get me started on my appalling and out-of-nowhere chronic acne problem, on which I have also spent several hundred dollars, to no avail. There's nothing quite as much fun as having pus on your face all the time, is there?

What else? Well, my sister got kicked out of her apartment because the house was sold and she's moving into a different and much shabbier apartment tomorrow and needs me to send her some of my anti-anxiety meds because she's too stressed out and depressed to sleep. I think my parents' building, where they've lived for almost fifty years, has been bought out by a slumlord and my dad wants to move but my demented mother doesn't and where the hell would they go, anyway? Oh, and no less a journalistic authority than The Wall Street Journal is suggesting that Barack Obama may just be too darn thin to be president. Gee, Rupert Murdoch buying that paper sure didn't change its editorial slant, huh?

I just missed the first half hour of the Doctor Who season finale. Is this show getting nuttier or am I just getting too dumb to follow it?

*scratches head*

In other news, I have a strange desire to see this new movie Death Race. Anything with Joan Allen playing a badass is fine with me and I'm happy to see any middle-aged actress getting to play something other than someone's mother or a district attorney. And if "Welcome to the Jungle" is actually on the soundtrack like in the commercial? Even better.

Saw the first billboard for HBO's True Blood the show Raelle Tucker left Supernatural for. I'm just so sick of vampires, but I'm relieved to find out that the True Blood beverage ads that are pasted up all over the city were just part of a viral marketing campaign and not some sort of blood-red beer for weirdos.

I don't think Daleks are all that scary. And you know...Billie Piper can sometimes look spectacularly ugly. I do love Donna Noble, however.

Comments

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

Jesus, what makes people go nuts like that? I've had it happen when I worked, and couldn't believe it either. It's like they turn into aliens, or they're possessed or something, isn't it?

Damn, I'm sorry about the work thing. It's awful when you hate the place where you spend most of your time.

The infection sound horrendous too. Hope that is under control.

I like Joan Allen too. Death Race is a new title to me. Haven't seen it advertised around here that I know of.

As for the television, I don't watch much anymore besides SPN, The Closer, and Saving Grace. And BSG when it comes back. I like SYTYCD because it's entertaining, and I admire dancers so much. Other than that, I've been watching the X-Files from the very beginning, and it's still better than most anything else on television.

I hope more folks will find their way to reading Lazarus Came Forth. Maybe over the weekend. I love it.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I've had a lot of strange workplace experiences but this one tops the list. This woman's kind of flaky to begin with and she's been going through some stressful personal stuff but nevertheless -- the stuff she said to me hinted at a lot more than a momentary lapse of reason brought on by stress. If anything like this happens again we are both going in to our supervisor to hash it out. I'm not dealing with this on my own.

I have no one but myself to blame for being at that place. I had the chance to get out and I didn't. I just have to suck it up.

The low readership on Lazarus is kinda funny in a Gong Show sort of way. Knew I should have stuck with the disabled comments. Oh well, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

[ghyste.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear you've had such a shitty week.

Re Lazarus: As with many other things, I won't be allowing myself to read it until the dissertation's in the post later in the month!

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I guess it partly because I'm not really part of the SPN fandom. I've never seen stories accumulate comments like they do in SPN but most of those are well-known writers I guess. Beats me. It's not really that bad.

[ghyste.livejournal.com]

If it's anything like your usual standard, then I'm sure it'll be great. Maybe you could try posting it to one of the communities or sending a link to the newsletter?

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Newsletter? There's a newsletter?

[ghyste.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not nearly as exciting as the Newsletter in Hell, but yeah.

PS: May I endorse your Donna Noble love. I can't stand Katherine Tate's sketch shows, but she was awesome in Dr Who.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Okay, so stupid question: how do you submit a fic for the newsletter? I read the comm info and didn't see any instructions.

*is officially too stupid for fandom*

Being American, I've never been exposed to anything Catherine Tatey except her turn as Donna Noble. I'll really miss her and boy, did she get short shrift as a character. Phooey, Russell T. Davies. Phooey.

[ghyste.livejournal.com]

When I pimped a quiz over there I just left a comment to the last edition with a link. I think you need to leave some other details for Fic like pairing (or absence thereof) and rating.

There's a bit of weirdness about timing, in that you can't leave links to things posted since the last edition went live but that was more of an issue for me than you as the quiz is sudden death - fortunately at that time I had so few SPN fans on my FL that there were still loads of questions unanswered by the next day!

I'm not sure if they track individual fics once they've been listed. They certainly track the main fic journals.

PS: Love the icon!

[golden-berry.livejournal.com]

On Doctor Who: Alan and I were also very surprised to tune in last night and find we'd missed the first half hour. I swear there was nothing about this hour-and-a-half finale in last week's previews. And the TV section of the newspaper listed the show as starting at 8 pm as usual. But we Tivo'd the 10 pm repeat.

Hee hee, gotta agree about Billie Piper sometimes looking like--well, a Neanderthal or something. That jutting jaw! OMG! It really hurt me, how Donna Noble ended up. *sob* I'm just glad the Doctor didn't regenerate into someone other than David Tennant, as I feared would happen. :D

Very sorry to read about the crazed co-worker friend, housing insecurity in your family, and adult acne. I can't help with the first two, but my own skin problems have improved since I started using Paula's Choice products. Barb Matthews (Elevensies) told me about them. Very reasonably priced and she explains the actual science behind them at her website. Google either Cosmetics Cop or Paula Begoun if interested.

I haven't read Lazarus because the only time I find to be on LJ is times like this: Saturday am early, and just for a quick look. My employer has blocked about a million of my favorite sites including LJ.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Donna Noble's fate was really cruel -- seeing her reduced back to a neurotic nobody to save her life just doesn't seem fair. Better to go out in a blaze of glory, I think, than just wander through life as a frustrated temp who lives with her mother. Honestly, the whole "companion" situation on Doctor Who strikes me as awfully strange sometimes, the way he "saves" these women from their drab lives and drags them all over the galaxy exposing them to horrible danger and then sort of dumps them. Are we supposed to believe that Donna is going to be happy now? She wasn't happy when she met the Doctor she was miserable. But now she'll just be a cheerful flibbertigibbet? What?

Thanks for the rec on the skincare. I'm sticking with one system right now and it seems to be helping but I'll definitely look into Paula's Choice if it acts up again. How is Barb, by the way? I need to drop her a line.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Christ. I hope it's just a momentary freak-out on her part, but that's scary that somebody would suddenly go off like that and not apologize soon after and feel embarassed. That's all you need. That was one shitty week.

Have just seen that Chapter 3 is posted with comments open--*goes to comment*

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I was expecting a, "Shit, sorry about that" or a "Don't know what got into me," but NOTHING and it is pretty scary. I hardly even want to finish this project with her and I have no idea now I'm going to work with her in the future. We don't have anything like an HR department to file a complaint with but I'm sure as hell bringing this up with my boss if it happens again. Yoiks!!

[oxer12.livejournal.com]

I'm having similar work issues right now, so I feel your pain! Ugh.

I haven't had a chance to read Lazarus yet, but it's on my list, for sure. I just haven't been on LJ much at all lately. But rest assured, if you wrote it, I'm reading it!

[oselle.livejournal.com]

There are no issues as shitty as work issues. I don't understand why work always has to SUCK.

[baylorsr.livejournal.com]

Dear Lord, you had a crappy week. May this week be better. I came over here to e-mail myself the next chapter of Lazarus so that I may read it tomorrow at work and send you crazy e-mails about it, but by all means, if you're writing J2 porn, I think you need to share it.

[baylorsr.livejournal.com]

PS - DUDE, new icon. That man is inhumanely beautiful.

[baylorsr.livejournal.com]

DEAR GOD, YOU DID WRITE J2 PORN!

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes I did.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes he is.