Not Your Average Jane

Have you ever felt like you just want to get in your car and drive and drive til you can’t drive anymore?
Welcome to my world.
But no matter if you drive and drive til you can’t drive anymore… Wherever you are you’d still be there.
You can’t escape whatever’s bothering you. You can’t run from your problems. No matter how much you’d like to. Take it from one whose learned that the hard way. You can’t escape your issues by running away, with drugs or alcohol or by escaping into books or movies. Its all a fantasy life. Not your life. Just the life you wish you had. Escapism is nice to a point sure but to let something become your whole world in order to get away from something in your life, es no bueno (its not good – for all the non Spanish speakers).
But all that has little if anything to do with this post. That just struck me as very interesting and worthy of sharing with whoever happens to read this.
So what the heck is this all about anyway?
My day at work yesterday.
So things are cruising along just fine and dandy and its an okay day at work. Lunch comes and goes and I’m scarred for life by watching Rob and Big with a coworker. The episode where Big goes to LaBare Hollywood and dances for one night… Wow. My sides hurt from laughing so hard. So after lunch I go back to work and theres not a lot left to do and I’m wondering if leaving early would be possible but around 330 I got called into the HR lady’s office. Only to find one of my coworkers and my supervisor and the HR lady sitting in chairs with one empty chair, meant for me. I knew this couldn’t be good if they were going to use unintentional intimidation (not realizing I’m almost impossible to intimidate – you’d have to meet my family to understand why).
So I sit down and they start out telling me how awesome I am. How much they love me. What a great presence I am. How I’m honest, bright, upbeat, and dependable and how those are all important qualities to any company. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Why call this meeting and then butter me up like that without having another agenda in mind (God I’m so jaded sometimes). And sure enough they hit me with a one two combo. We don’t think your gifts are a good fit for this job. We really need someone whose perfect, and a bit more proactive, and if you could read minds that would help (they actually said that). But that they were more sorry than they could say that there wasn’t another opening at the church (the director of the department had asked). I kept trying not to cry but wasn’t very successful, tears kept leaking out and I couldn’t stop sniffling… And I HATE crying in general and I DESPISE doing it in front of people. My head was kinda buzzing and I think I tuned out for a bit just trying to get over the shock…. I know they were talking because I saw their lips move but what they said after that really couldn’t have been more important than what they had already said.
So anyway my ex co workers left (after praying with me/for me – it is a church after all)and the HR lady and I are left in there talking about what I had (pay day was yesterday and I have 2 weeks severance pay plus they paid out my 2 days of vacation and I have health insurance through the end of the month so that’s all good.) and she made sure to tell me when one door closes another somewhere else opens. Besides she tells me I know this wasn’t the end all be all job for you (shes part of a group I lunched with and knew about my plans to teach elementary school one day). And how she thought I’d grown since I started working there (and I think I have as well.) and how everyone loved my sunny disposition and that I knew everyone and was so uber friendly. (uber would be my addition there.)
Then she asks if I think I can go back to work for the rest of the day(there were only about 20 minutes left in the day) and I swear my jaw dropped. I just told her that it probably wasn’t not possible in my current frame of mind. So she followed me upstairs to get my keys and help me clean out my desk. I felt a bit like a criminal, like she was there to make sure I didn’t steal anything. So I finished up there and got my stuff out of the kitchen and left in a daze…
I got home and I’m on the phone for almost 2 hours after that… Telling various friends about what had happened. Getting advice, and made to feel better. And in one memorable instance offered a quickie and given some help with an email. I began making plans about what to do. So far I’m updating my resume this weekend and getting back on CareerBuilder and Monster, and back in touch with the tmep agencies I was using before I found this job.
Then I still went out last night. Because as a couple of people pointed out, what was the use in staying home and overanalyzing the whole thing and being depressed when I could be out having a good time, doing something I’d been planning to do for a while. I have some really good friends. They get me out of my own head when I could drive myself nuts thinking things through. And its true I would have done nothing but think about the whole thing all night, drowning in my own self pity. And that ain’t right.
So anyway I finally get to the Firehouse about 9 ish, and run into J’s girlfriend and end up hanging out with her and a friend of hers all night. But until I walked into the FH last night I didn’t realize how many people I know. Not just the FH bartenders, door guy and one or 2 of the security guys, but the cook and a couple of the busboys too. And people kept saying hello to me (and greeting me by name so I know I knew them somehow) all over the place… On the way to the bar… Run into a bunch of people I know… Getting a drink… More of the same. Going to the front of the stage, yet more people I know. And later going to the bathroom and even right before I left MORE people I know and hadn’t seen in awhile. Then there were a couple of people I know that I didn’t get to talk to that were there too… It was insane.
Anywho, Brandon went on right at 9 ish and was simply amazing, as usual. That man could sing me the phone book and I would listen happily. He didn’t sing Baby Boy but otherwise the show was perfect. And no one cried… :0) Then Stoney came on about 11 ish. And some folks almost died because they tried to get in front of. (Pointer to everyone – don’t ever try to get in front of an uber fan whose been in the same front row spot all night long – they won’t like you and may purposely on accident jab you with an elbow or a butt or step on your toes… ) I was pleasantly surprised to see Jeremy Watkins back with the band. I hadn’t seen him in a couple of years and the last time was at the River Road Icehouse… Back when it was just him and Stoney. When I first heard of Stoney and learned what going to church was all about… He looked really good. Still the same tall, skinny talented dude… If I really had a list of my fave fiddlers he, Brady Black (whose amazing and plays with Randy Rogers), and Noah (with Jason Boland) would top it. Though I think Brady could come in first because he’s just amazing. He really gets into it. But that’s all beside the point. So Stoney does one my fave songs (One Chord Song) first and then he just plays and plays I’m in heaven… And he even did Oklahoma Breakdown and Steel Heart… If I’d have heard Texas Cookin’ before I left around 1 the night would have been perfect. I heard after I left he closed with a long ass version of Devil Went Down to Georgia… If he’d have done The Weight, he’d have needed Bleu Edmondson to make it perfect… That’s the only time I think I love hearing the Weight covered…. But then again, Stoney’s another one who could sing me the phone book and I wouldn’t care. So yeah I got home sometime after one… And after a bowl of cereal and walking the dog I crashed. And then she woke me up again about 9 this morning… At least she let me sleep in. Usually she wants to go out at 7… And she seems to have quit with the staring and breathing heavy on me first thing in the morning. Whoo hoo!
So yeah I’ve joined the ranks of the unemployed again. Hopefully not for long. And my friends are awesome. And they were right. Going out last night really helped me feel better about everything. Though I haven’t been very productive today… Went to McD’s for lunch, walked the dog, and gone to Mom’s… I have to go to PetsMart to get some food for the dog at some point and I think I’ll dye my hair back to blond again later too… But I still don’t know if I want to go out tonight or not… We’ll see how that works out.

Yeah that’s all I got right now. As if all that wasn’t enough right?
Laters.

posted by Ali @ 3:03 PM