Have I mentioned that we bought a house?

what's up chicken butts? 

This shit is harder than I remember and I think that's pretty obvious based on what I resorted to for an opening sentence for my first post since March.  My apologies.  I haven't written much more than work related emails and drippy Facebook posts for several months.

I'll cut to the chase and dive right into a numbered list of things that are up my chicken butt:

1.  We bought a house. 

It's your standard Texas-style stone and brick, brown suburban house.  Some might call it cookie-cutter, and I might tell them to go fuck themselves because I've been living out of goddamn boxes for the past 3 years and that's a tiring way to live after awhile.

The house is entirely bigger than anything we'd ever need.  We feel a bit silly since it's just the two of us and a cat, but we chose this particular model with my mother in law in mind, because there are 2 master suites on the first floor, so she could come stay with us for extended visits and never have to climb any stairs.  I love my mother in law.

2.  The woman who sold us this house is a leathery piece of shit and I hope that I never have to communicate with her again after we close or as long as I live, whichever comes first.

She looks about 800 years old, smokes electric cigarettes in the model home where her office is, and seems to think nobody will notice the smell.  She has a tall, teased out Ladybird Johnson style hairdo and wears neon colored suits and turquoise jewelry.  These things are all fine.  In fact when I first met her I thought she was a hoot.  Get a load of this old broad!

You go 800 year old lady!  Go ahead and smoke your electric cigs in public.  Go ahead, be leathery and have cotton candy on your head and call it hair.  What do I care? 

Good for you for somehow figuring out how to embalm yourself while still alive by using a combination of Aquanet, nicotine and Hawaiian Tropic spf 8.  Way to go Leatherybird Johnson.

But don't lie to me through your dentures and get my hopes all up about what the builder can and can't do for us, you sack of shit.  And that is all I have to say about that.

3.  I'm still working from home and haven't lost my fucking mind completely. 

Not completely, although it is quite maddening from time to time. 

The longer I do it the more clear it has become that although the policies at my company are very open to work from home situations and remote employees like myself, the policies and technology used by the IT department (which is also my department btw) to support us... is ummm not designed to support us at all. 

My laptop died recently and it took 1 full week for them to figure out what to do about it.  I had to ship it to them.  Bullshit.  Then I had to wait another full week after I shipped it for them to ship it back to me.  Also bullshit.  They wouldn't ship it directly to my home, because the policy says it has to be shipped a corporate recognized branch office.  Bullshit.  Bullshit.  Bullshit.

So I ended up going half the month not being able to accomplish much of anything.  I could work remotely using (a remote system of logging in that rhymes with) Bitfrix from my home computer, but the connections are so slow and sketchy that the best outcome of this story is that I didn't slit my wrists when it took me an over hour and half to send out an email with an attachment. 

I didn't kill myself, but I cried a lot.  Like, a LOT.  As in, it's been several weeks and my face is still a bit blotchy.

It's also a bummer as a remote employee to constantly get sent group invitations to lunch meetings, potlucks and having to respond to meeting invitations by asking for a call-in number.

4.  Did I mention that we bought a house?  We finally bought a fucking house!!!  Motherfuckin' A, man!!  I don't have to feel terrible for hating my upstairs neighbors and their goddamn barking dogs and anvil footed children who seemingly do nothing but run back and forth across my ceiling all night and wake up screaming bloody murder every morning and carry on all day running around and screaming and tossing toys and shit off the balcony.  Oh dear Llyod in heaven how I loathe them.

5.  I'm stressed out because we bought a house.  We're moving again for the 6th time in 11 years.  We still have that horrid house in Michigan that is still under water.  We had a tenant, but had to evict him because he was regularly 4 months behind on the rent.  Now the property management company has told us that no one will lease it out because the kitchen needs remodeled.  So we're in the process of remodeling a kitchen long distance. IT'S ALL TOO MUCH TO TAKE!!!!!

6.  I'm a bit consumed with the new house.

Anyhoo... that's it.  This is all I can manage for now.

I'm out of practice wrapping up blog posts into tidy packages with bows and ribbons like I used to do.  Besides, where the fuck is my scotch tape?  I can't find anything around here so I sure as hell can't find any ribbon.  Get out out of here.  This post is over.

(I love you.)

Deep Dark Depression, Excessive Misery

Gloom, despair and agony on me.

I didn't get the job.

Not only that, but I was informed of it via automated robo-email sent to my gmail account. We appreciate your interest... careful consideration... decided on another candidate. Blah. Blah. Blah.

I see these people every day and have known them for almost a year and they couldn't even be bothered to send me a real email? Motherfuck. It was so impersonal. I cried when I read it. I might cry again thinking about reading it. Bastards.

So I remain a temp. (An angry temp.)

All I can think of is Bag O'Mice, my monumentally stupid old man past retirement age co-worker. How has someone like him remained gainfully employed for so long? We're talking over 30 years. He is a very stupid man.

Do you know I walked into the break room the other day and found him leaning down, with his face almost pressed against the window of the microwave staring at his lunch spinning round and round? He was riveted.