Chronicles of a Corporate Intern

I'm pretty okay with myself. Anyone close to me can tell you that. Anyone who's read this thing can probably tell you that.

But when it comes to one thing I am a total self-doubting wreck: my love life.

I've been through some crap, we all have, but I don't really think that my history is what has me so messed up.

My parents are divorced, my uncle got divorced, my aunt has been divorced - twice now.

That's the entire generation on that side of the family. Relationships don't work out.

Then there's the media - boys are liars and cheaters and will abuse you. Relationships don't work out.

Then there's my father - boys are liars and emotionally manipulating and will abuse you. They're bad people. Stay away. Relationships don't work out.

Now, the boy I'm with is the most honest, supportive guy I could hope for. Yeah, sure, he makes me feel like a dumb-ass sometimes and he's a bit of an asshole, but I am a dumb-ass sometimes and I'm a bit of a bitch. So it's all good.

What I'm getting at though, is that despite my egotism when it comes to the rest of my world, my life has set me up for failure in this category. I'm so insecure when it comes to guys that I can't help but freak out about every little thing; especially when it comes to history.

I've been trying, really really hard, especially when we were doing the distance thing, to get over all my insecurities and jealousies and such; but it just keeps getting worse. The longer I'm with him the more scared I am of losing him and the worse I get about things.

It's too good to be true - and nothing that's too good to be true ever is, is it? This is supposed to be, I don't see how it couldn't be. I know him well, I've known him for years, I've seen him in his past relationships, I know his family; why can't I just be happy with what I've got? Why do I have to worry so much?

And, for that matter, am I really worried about losing him or am I just being jealous about something else?

I am one of the most jealous people alive; as a general rule. It detriments a lot of things in life and I'm trying to get better about it - I was making progress before I started getting sick.

It's almost amazing how much sickness can throw off your life. It's like a whole new load of emotional crap I have to work through again. The fact that I do feel good about myself now is a huge step in the right direction - there was a long time there where I just felt disgusting and broken and whiny, and it was horrible.

Back to square one. I pray to whatever higher power may be out there to hear me that his patience remains as steadfast as it has been and that I can improve and earn that patience. Argh, some things are so frusterating.

Also, it was decided last night in a late night conversation via myspace messages that my insomnia is named Nigel and has cruel parents (who named him Nigel) and thick glasses and very few friends.

Labels: Boys, Family, I'm Female, Ramblings, Sick

Sometimes I feel like I've spent the past few months withering away into nothingness. But this weekend was different - this weekend made me feel alive again.

I've found that Dan will do pretty much anything with me, if I come up with the idea and make the plans.

A while ago we agreed that I would take Fridays off (he works 4 10s and has them off too) and we would go hiking every Friday. I started that this weekend with a trip up to Goat Lake. Not that we made it all the way to the lake, him having worked at a pizza parlor and played video games and drank beer for the past 8 months and me having been sick for so long. But we still drove out to the middle of fricken no where (and I mean middle of nowhere - it's outside of the town, past the little town, past the random grocer that doesn't seem to belong anywhere, 30 miles down the scenic NFS highway, onto the dirt road, and then onto the even-more-dirt-road-with-rocks-and-such.), we wandered around for about 3 hours up and down hills and I took lots and lots of pictures (of him, he got annoyed).

Then, yesterday, I randomly decided to take a trip out to Ocean Shores (as stated below) and we spent the day wandering the beach and skim boarding.

And then, today, I went out and looked at more stables because I'm going to start riding again later this week.

Hah! In your face angry vindictive higher power that keeps tearing my body to pieces!

Labels: Boys, Ramblings, Sick

I've heard many times that people feel small next to the ocean.

I went to the ocean today, and after a few spills off the skim board I waded out waste-deep and let the waves crash by me for a few minutes, and I have to say - small isn't how I would describe it.

Forests make me feel small; standing next to a 100 foot tall, 150 year-old tree; that makes me feel small. The ocean, though, is a different feeling altogether.

Splashed up on the shores were hundreds of dead crabs. I was stepping on them as I waded out to sea. It was more than a little eerie.

And I realized, standing there, feeling the current push me and pull me at it's own will, that that is really what the ocean is about. Life and death - in and out, like the waves, like the tide.

And that's how the ocean made me feel: mortal. In any moment a wave could come crashing down on me or a current could sweep me out and I would be just like those crabs. Nothing more than bones for a wandering foot to crush, nothing more than a thought and a memory crushed into the sand.

The ocean may make some feel small - but the ocean isn't powerful just because of its size. And saying it makes you feel small disregards that power. The ocean is mollifying in many ways - as it should be - as we should all see it to be.

Labels: Profound, Ramblings

Life's like a rollercoaster ride. How cliche is that? It's one of those things everybody says all the time.

Well I beg to differ. I don't know about the rest of the world but my life feels absolutely nothing like I'm sitting on some amusement ride watching all this stuff go on around me, terrified out of my wits. Okay, maybe I'm terrified out of my wits, but then life could be like a horrible car-accident or a near-death experience too, if that's all we're basing it on. Fallacies, fallacies, fallacies.

My life is more proactive than a rollercoaster ride, though maybe I live my life more assertively than most, I can't tell, seeing as I'm not most and I have no access to the minds, thought patterns, or lives of most.

My life, though, feels a little more like a stereotypical, movie-style, military training camp. Not the realistic ones, but the fun ones; the ones where you feel like you're friends with all the soldiers.

You know, you wake up every morning and spend all day running around, overcoming obstacles, being taught to conform and being given orders and instructions. Then, every once in a while, you get to go out with all soldiers buddies and get drunk. There are always sarcastic remarks, bad puns, and ironic moments - but it's always work, it's always hard, and every once in a while you have to break loose or else you'll go psychotic. (Though I'm missing a lovable fat kid who works really hard and just barely graduates.)

I don't drink a lot, and I don't have to climb walls or anything, but you catch my drift.

I think maybe this has a lot do with the fact that life is hard. And maybe that surprises me, but maybe not. I think I keep expecting to wake up one day and all my health and money issues will be fixed and I can just move on. But the fact of the matter is, if it's not one thing it's another. Probably on that day I will get in a horrific fight with Dan, horribly offend my parents, and my cat will die.

Life is not a matter of overcoming hardships to be happy, but a matter of learning to be happy with hardships. And I am, happy that is. Sure, I may have just compared my life to a military bootcamp from a bad movie, but I'm really okay with that, because it means I'm trying, I'm working. And you know what, I still love every second of it.

Labels: Profound, Ramblings

I enabled comment notification.

So now I will notice when people say things to me.

Yeah, I know, it was one of my more intelligent oversights.

Now, if you don't mind, left over wedding cake and bed are calling me. Screaming for me, really.

Labels: Ramblings

Yes, that is the word I have chosen: Epic.

Today was epic.

Not necessarily the good kind of epic, but epic, none-the-less.

Let me walk you through this, step by step.

I headed home from Renton last night and fought my way through stop and go traffic. Why? Oh yeah, because 405 North is under construction and I ALWAYS forget.

So I get home at around 12:30 (I left around 11:00). Awesome, yeah? An hour goofing around and dragging my feet, an hour tossing and turning in bed, asleep by 2:30. No big deal, I can sleep in a little because I haven't got much work... But my battered, broken body has other plans.

I wake up 2 hours later, at 4:30, with pain and pressure in my ear. Now, I'm no stranger to pain, and usually if I ignore it long enough it goes away. So, I lay there for an hour, waiting for it to go away, but no. Send a text to Dan, and lay back down, waiting for it to go away, but no. So I lay there for another 2 hours, and finally start drifting back to sleep around 7:30. And there I lay, dozing, never fully asleep, but not really awake either, until 9:30.

At this point I decide this is probably bad, so I give my doctor's office a call and tell them I want their earliest appointment available. It's with the PA, but that's okay, because an RN treated my ulcerative colitis when no one else could. So into the doctor's office I go.

Now - the only reason I have this doctor is because of a viral infection in my lungs that caused a respratory infection that prevented me from breathing. This happened in the past month or two. Un-cool. And now I'm back again. Woohoo!

The PA, a very nice lady if I may say so, informed me that I have an ear infection that has created a hole in my ear-drum. Awesome. So she prescribed me some super-strong antibiotics and told me to come back in a couple weeks for a hearing test and let her know it didn't work. And next time don't ignore chronic ear-pain for a year. (Apparently it's a dumb thing to do, who knew?)

So - back home I go, contemplating the fact that I have had 3 infections in the past 2 months. So what do I do? Ring up my gastroenterologist - "Uhhh, is there a link between colitis and the immune system?". Of course, I have to play phone tag for a couple hours before I finally get the question to someone who can get the question to someone who can answer it (It had to go through two other people first).

While waiting for the person who can get the question to someone who can answer to get the question to someone who can answer it I decided to head down and pick up my prescription. So I mozy into my Safeway pharmacy, where I get my Asacol refills - a place I've used enough times that I wasn't too concerened about it.

They grab my prescription and ring me up - $20. Sweet, that's okay, 'cause I have $300 in my bank account and a check! Yeah, except not. My debit card gets denied. So, slightly confused, I run it as credit; denied.

Now, at this point I'm freaking out. I think I had the right to do so, apologizing to the pharmacist and telling him I had to call the bank I step off to the side and pull out my handy little PDA-style super-fantastic overly-pimped-out phone and head to my online banking.

Available Balance: $289.90 - Correct
Pending Balance: $-91.90 - Not So Correct

What the fuck?

Freaking out even more I booked it home (a short drive luckily, because I was having trouble keeping myself composed), and spend about 3 minutes panicking. I phone the bank and get put on hold, and then get put on hold again, and then get put on hold again, and for good measure, get put on hold a fourth time. (It was okay though, their hold music was instrumentalized gussied up Backstreet Boys songs - and oh yes, I was totally singing along, out of tune.) Explaining my situation yet again, I was informed that the transaction already went through, and they talked to my branch and they won't have any more information until tomorrow.
What the fuck?

I HAVE BLOODY FRAUD ALERT. That, of course, didn't occur to me at the moment. At the moment is more of a "Uhhh... What?", so I thanked the lady, hung up the phone, and sat in stunned silence for a few minutes.

And then I did what any composed, grown up young lady would do. I cried and called my daddy and my boyfriend.

My dad came home and lent me $10 to go get my prescriptions (I had $15 in cash in my wallet from bowling the other night). So I took a shower and headed out to get my prescriptions - which were still on the counter waiting for me - by which point it was 4:00. I left immediatly after that to make it to Renton by 5:00.

My evening faired well, luckily. (I even remembered to take I-5 home instead of 405, and I had leftover wedding cake, and I get to yell at bank people tomorrow for not calling me despite the fraud alert tag I know is on my bank account, since I do pay LifeLock $10 a month to make sure it's on my bank account. Idiot bankers.)

One thing though: Do you see work in there anywhere?
No, me niether.
My boss going to be unimpressed.

Labels: Boys, Ramblings, Sick, Work

But I'm not. Instead I'm browsing Blog Catalog entertaining myself and leaving comments and trying to get people to amble pointlessly over to my pointless site to read my pointless babble. Because we all waste time. Especially those of us who don't have it to waste.

I found this:
http://www.offendedblogger.com/

Yeah, no offense, but your blog annoys me. Such things make me shudder and want to hide in a corner and stop writing in case my words are as obnoxious as those. I know my writing style, while perhaps not the best or most connected or such, can't be that annoying. Can it?

Someone tell me now if so, so I can try to stop torturing you all more than need be. (As in, I'll keep writing this, and you get to rant at me so you feel better.)

There are more promising finds for the night though.
http://www.triloquist.blogspot.com/

Entertaining and I can read it without wanting to commit suicide! Yay!

Labels: Ramblings

(Written Thursday, June 26th, 7:30 am)

This morning I braved the hell that is the Seattle public transportation system. Bravely I boarded the bus for the first time ever, over paid my fair (while everyone else had swipey cards, I want a swipey card) and was deposited downtown.

Luckily I know the area around Westlake Center and Pacific Place well, and once I made it out of the bus tunnel onto 5th and Pine I could quickly navigate to the old building on 4th Street that is the Hotel Andra.

I looked stressed enough that some nice guy said "hi" and gave me a smile, just 'cause I looked so down. The valets here are cool too. Perhaps the morning is not a total loss.

I still dislike going places without my little green Jeep, I feel incomplete.

From my phone in the lobby of the magnificent Hotel Andra, this is Shelley saying "screw you Seattle".

(Sadly, the "Publish Post" button doesn't work on my phone for some reason.)

Labels: Ramblings, Work

But I owe this thing a few posts, so I'm going to put them up. I have about 3.

Labels: Ramblings

Not that I have normal ones.

But I was definitely at camp with John and J.J., and J.J. and I ended up going out and stuck in the middle of nowhere. For some reason I was in a wedding dress, and there was a very high chance I was going to end up in a coma because of it. (We were trying to cross a bridge and it was falling apart and we got across just in time which meant we had to go back over the mountain and I was going to get in the head by a boulder because I was in a wedding dress so there was nothing to protect my head, but for some reason his head was safe...)

At another point a bunch of us were camping (Amanda I remember clearly being there) and we ended up at the same spot as a bunch of people from highschool - I think something was chasing us. And I think that's how we all ended up at camp anyway, something evil was taking over civilization and so we ran to camp for safety.

And then John was talking about all the food he was going to pack on his ride. I don't remember what it all was. But it was really random, and there were like two things for the entire week. And for some reason right before that I had been at his high school with him and he was talking to one of his teachers about grades.

I don't know...

Labels: Ramblings

I guess it's kind of one of those things.

It could be worse. It could be a lot worse.

But oh, how it could be better, how it used to be better.

To be healthy again... What I wouldn't give...

This new development is at least temporary. That is a relief beyond anything I know, I was honestly frightened I had asthma. I can barely handle one chronic and one non-chronic condition in a matter of 3 or 4 months, two that I'm stuck with permanently? I don't know what I would have done.

I want to overcome and get better, but no one's sure if I ever will. And that scares me.

Not to say that I don't function how I am. It's just a painful functioning, a more difficult and careful one than I would like.

I want to see the world, but I can't eat the world's food. I can't even drink water.

Do you know how annoying it is to not be able to drink water? Or soda? Or coffee?
It's one of the most aweful things I've experienced, as sad and shallow as that may sound.
Some days I just want a glass of water.

I'm not addicted to caffiene anymore though.

There's no simple way about it, it's tough, no matter how severe the disease or condition. I know people who have it much worse off than me and that really doesn't make it any easier. I still feel like I'm pushing through some thick bushes to come out on the other side - except I don't know how far they go - I don't know if there is another side.

It scares me. Every day.

My life is frightening me in so many ways right now.

Labels: Ramblings, Sick

I write.

It's theraputic, cathartic. It helps.

What I write depends on my level of depression or anger:

If I'm slightly depressed or angry I'll pull out the fiction prose. I work on my novel.
If I'm pretty depressed or angry it's the non-fiction prose. I write what I feel.
If I'm really depressed or angry the poetry comes out. That's what you see below.

I hadn't noticed the scale before last night, but it's totally true.

Labels: Ramblings

One night left of this endless dream
No one to thank - or so it seems
In the morning I'll have to scream

Dried up tears refusing to fall
Remeber them - those late night calls
Leaving a broken china doll

What once was great falling apart
My tired soul - stabbed by those darts
All that's left of a once-strong heart

I used to think myself so strong
As if elite - above those throngs
After you I couldn't last long

A simple pattern to follow
A poison waits - a deathly swallow
Leaving you grave and hollow

Labels: Ramblings