You might try saving yourself.

This month is going to turn out to be a struggle.

I have my extensive $$ problems and those of my aunt. I won't delve into the reasons for this because they're a tad personal, but the situation feels a lot worse than it really is. It's only money, right? Just paper currency that measures only how much stuff you can get. As long as this job pans out, I'll have plenty in the weeks to come. I won't be rolling in it, but I'll be back to comfortable.

I'm building up the positive feelings for returning to Anthem school. I'll be learning a rediculous amount of insurance related information, but I rather enjoy the idea. There's a little sadistic part of me that loves a class that pushes me nearly over the edge. It may be because I don't challenge myself, so it's a forceful push that I crave. It may be because of that wonderful feeling that I get at the completion of it, knowing that I did what had felt impossible.

I feel like I should be a helluva lot more excited than I am. I got the job I would have salivated over months ago. In fact, all of the Katie's from the past would be screaming with joy over it. I will be making 12.50 an hour, a salary more than hefty in comparison to what Manchester has ever offered me... full time with nearly the best benefits... the building has a gym I will now have access to... a full service cafeteria (pricey but convenient)... a gorgeous lake I love sitting at during the good weather... and it's the telephone CSR I've yearned for since working for Abacus.

It has to do with the fear that I'll screw it up. For god sakes, I should have SCREW UP listed somewhere on my birth certificate. I'm my father's daughter, and I've always felt like I'm the Midas that turns all good opportunities to dung. Every day is a battle with my actions and reactions. I have learned from all of my errors, but at this point I think I've learned a little too much.

To end this on some kind of positive note, I've got nowhere else to go but up, up, up.

I thought I saw the world shine.....

The cat came back, we thought she was a goner, but she just couldn't stay away.

As I have prophecized, Anthem offered me a position.

I'm scared to death.

What is there to be scared of? Several things. First of all, I have to make sure that my official application will pass inspection. It's an obvious hump to get over because of what happened with Oxford. If the same thing happens to me, I may be taking a dive off the Merrimack bridge. I have no excuse, I was able to fill it out at home and with references. The next and most important nail biting problem is more of a general one.

I made it in the door without Kelly Services or any other temp agency. Congrats to me, la-te-da and all of that. But am I going to make it? I haven't worked in general Customer Service, so I don't know the atmosphere. I've heard that the class is difficult but the work isn't bad. I know I have to act more professional than what is natural to me. I have to kiss ass a little bit, and talk less about my life and opinions... maybe go ahead and buy the book "How to win friends and influence people". Gah.

It's going to be really awkward to work just below Medicare. It's going to be worse seing those bastards around, especially Mai. Especially everyone that has talked behind my back. I really don't want to speak to any of them. I hate the idea that I'll be another topic of conversation for them, particularly the question of how long I'm going to last.

So far, my goal has been to prove them wrong. I'm going to do it. I may have started this poker game with nothing but bad hands, but I see high cards in my future. Goddamnit.

Hey, you've got to hide your love away.

I've been babysitting for a single father for extra money and it has been exhausting. The child is Fenster, a 4 year old with the mind of a kid half his age. You do the math, I know you're capable.

Every statement or question is "Daddy does it this way" or "Did Daddy say that was okay?". It'd be fine if this sentence variation came out once in awhile, but not every other sentence. I've babysat alot of children in my time, but I've never seen one so dependant on a parent. He can't do anything unless it's done for him, including *gag* wiping himself.

He'll watch Dora the Explorer, and have no answers for the simplest questions. Where's the damn monkey?! It's in the middle of the screen and he can't tell me. It's like he's waiting for someone *his dad* to tell him, even though he knows the answer.


It took him until Friday to speak my name, claiming in a helpless way that he couldn't remember. Yet occassionally my name would slip out of his mouth on accident, but a second later it was again lost.


For the entire week my title was "Scuze me?".

I believe Fenster's father has unintentionally turned him into a needy, whiny and anxious kid. How so, you ask?

You see, Whalin' is a 50 something year old man who had a prior wife that had raised his prior children into adulthood without him. If it weren't for the little boy in his life, he'd be a man in the midst of easily retiring to a big house in a rich community, with the means to do whatever he pleased. It was a comfortable future, but a lonely one.


He'd met a somewhat young and irrisponsible girl, fell madly in love with her, and she left him months later. Apparently she'd had a bun in the oven, and she didn't want him to know about it. She gave the baby up for adoption illegally.

I don't know how Whalin' found out about Fenster and the adoption, but he fought it and went into debt doing so. He now owes his lawyer tens of thousands of dollars; so much for the walk down easy street. To him, it was worth the monetary value because he obviously didn't want to live the rest of his life alone. He has a companion for the next 18 or so years, for better or worse.


The result is a massive amount of guilt on Whalin's part and overwhelming devotion to this boy because of it. Fenster is the two children he never got to raise. Fenster is the kid without a mother to love him. Fenster is his second chance, his only chance.

The most difficult part of being around the boy is that I feel with some time, not just a couple of weeks, I could help him. I've already broken him of some of his habits, but not without his stunned resistance. He has become so accustomed to his father running to his every whim, allowing him to do anything he wants as long as he whimpers for it enough. I've been stern in a soft way, focusing on his puppy dog act. Once he figured out that I wasn't reacting to it, he actually began to ask without whining.

He is only four years old, and he is absoloutely not a bad kid. His father is not a bad father for overcompensating, spoiling and giving in.


But it's a path, isn't it? It's starts at this point, where the habits are established and become a part of his character. It's difficult to be inside it, see it, and know there's very little you can do to curb it.

Ode To Breakfast.

Now, this is definitely for you.

The applicable use of live duck hurling.

I found this photo by searching "live duck hurling".
Jesus, you can find anything in Google these days.
Go, duck, GO!

Ah, the fond memories that warm my soul.

This is for you, my dear Sourpatch lady.

This is for you.

I haven't been writing in any blogs because I've been a little down on myself. I had placed all of my chips on a job that didn't pan out, and likely was never meant to. In working for one insurance company, invariably there will be speak of others. I'd heard many negatives about Oxford, but the pay was suitable and it was a job. When they gave me the go ahead, I didn't know that the hardest part was not over.

You see, I had applied to Oxford and after passing the test and making it through a mentally exhausting interview, I was exstatic to find out that I'd landed it. I gave my temporary agency two weeks notice and turned down all of the calls I recieved for interviews.

I'd even passed the test for Public Service of New Hampshire, so I had a backup job AND a possibility of the JACKPOT job. It seemed like there was nothing left to do but wait for everything to fall into place.

Oxford began calling me every day for a week scrutinizing my application. I had been given it immediately after a difficult test and hadn't had anything to reference, so I filled it out on nerves and memory alone. I've had about eight jobs in the past two years, and anyone with my background would have a difficult time filling out that kind of paperwork without something to back it up. I wrote in one job that I'd been there starting February 2006 through January 2006. I mean, c'mon, that's not even chronologically possible.

They told me the following Monday that I would be eligible to reapply in 6 months. Jesus, I hope by then I won't need to.

I was out on my ass with Oxford, and my assignment with Kelly ended with nothing lined up afterwards. I have been out of work going on two weeks now, and it's more than depressing... it's excrutiating. I interviewed with PSNH and am sitting on that like someone who went 'all in' on a pair of 2's.

I have hit up every Temp agency in the greater Hillsborough County and it seems that they're drooling all over me. After I complete my interview, it's like they just hit a jackpot and I was somehow it. The problem is that I don't want to be a temp anymore. The money is good, but the job security is as heavy as the label.

Today, I received an e-mail to give me an online evaluation for, of ALL places, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield. I applied for the general Customer Service position over a month ago and haven't heard a word until today. As anyone in my position would think, I figured that it would be my final sad attempt at a permanent position in that building.

I could end up with an interview, who knows, a job... but my feelings are mixed. I can't hate Anthem because in a year and a half of work, it changed my resume from toilet paper to gold-plated toilet paper. A couple of years in the CSR position and I could be more marketable that I'd ever imagined.

The truth is, I want the job for the damned grill with the damned Anthem emblem on it. I want to sit in the auditorium during the New Employee Orientation and listen to them talk about my benefits. I want to walk into the cafeteria with pride, knowing that despite the fact that I couldn't "fit in" with this person or that person, I could make it work in a place that didn't seem to want me. I know too much about the way Anthem insurance works to let it all go down the drain, when it makes more sense for me to learn more about it and use it.

The situation is very much like the one a man I babysit for has gone through. He worked under the table for an entire year and never got paid. I asked him,

"Galen, why do you go in every single day, even if you know you probably won't get anything?"

"Because everyday that passes could be the day I do get paid. I can't walk away from that."