Hell would be cold Part deux

Yes, I'm issuing my usual refrain, and it's going to take on a particularly screechy note today. I'm stuck (oh and the other day I used mired, my I am feeling crazy today!) in the 'I no longer want to be here/doing this/living this/being me' feeling. And in no small part due to the weather. Something interesting I've learned: snow, particularly snow that limits my mobility by car or walking, and that I have to shovel in increasingly alarming large increments, makes me HATE THE WORLD.

Yep, I'm afraid it has to be that emphatic. I joke-threatened the other day that if it snows any more, there is going to be a real toss-up as to whether I shovel it, or behead someone with my shovel. (note: shovel is plastic).

So, with the darkening days and piles of snow surrounding me, the insidious crazy is creeping ever closer. Bright light ahead? Christmas in Costa Rica (again, oh spoiled me!) and a MOVE!~ Yes, yours truly has a chance to escape and is taking it.

But, in the meantime, I feel like I'm stuck in a snow globe of dismal days and I have this self defeating mindset that keeps ricocheting in my brain. It's fucking freezing, I feel vaguely psychotic and you know? I don't want to go to work. I don't want to feed myself. I don't want to workout. I don't want to write. I don't want to drive. I don't want to work on school. I don't want to clean.

Yeah, Susan is done. Done. Done. Done.

People work for money. Want loyalty? Hire a dog.

I'm currently mired in another class for school, and it's about organizational culture. It's sort of interesting, in a horribly academic and dry way, but when I or others can relate it to our lives, it becomes FAR more interesting.

This quote amused me, because honestly, how many of us have worked for places that subtly required employee loyalty? Yes, and the inferences can be very insidiuous, from wearing 'flair' buttons to having full-out employer required dress codes. My professor was insistent that companies are only as stringent as the market will bear and employees will take, and otherwise they go bankrupt. But, in my experience, this subjugation of employees happens all the time, and no, those places don't go bankrupt all the time...

Case in point, I was employed at a terrible toxic workplace. There was some sort of assumed loyalty, and the employer was indeed a dog of some sort...well, the bitch variety anyways. The extreme turnover and rumor-mongering should have been my first clue--duh, but it wasn't. I learned that an employee left in a screaming match, and that was the first time they had to change the locks. Another employee was fired for 'sexual harassment' and subsequently threatened to come back and wreak havoc--2nd time the locks were changed, in a year!

Another employee quit, the employee that was originally hired in my position before I was offered the job lasted ONE day, then quit, another employee quit, and then myself and one last employee quit.

Yeah, stellar eh? Well, now the place has some loyal, dog-lovely employees who settle the boss's scum-sucking ways, and apparently can live up to the corporate culture of being put-down and subjugated to the employer's whims day to day.

Anytime I hear the words 'corporate' or corporate policies, I shudder. Never has this been a good thing, and all they really seem to achieve are zombie workers, mindless of all other than 'corporate' needs/gains. Ugh.

Yep, I'm pro-being public servants. Hey, it works for a lot of us!

We've confused 'you can do anything' with 'you have to do everything'

Yep, third-waver here.

And I happen to think this is true, in my instance anyways. So guess what? I'm taking a step back. I'm stopping one of my writing gigs (no, not this one. one that actually pays!) and focusing on a different freelance gig. More free time for me? Debatable...

Oh, and this might not be a Yukon rant blog any longer. Yes that's right Susan is moving to the big city of the south. When? Oh, soon, soon.

Not this month, and not in December. But you'll know. Also in that vein, I was thinking about checking out this new vegetarian restaurant that opened up next to Antoinette's, I think it is called Ruby's. (Almost wrote Ribby's. ha...)

Except I got scared away by the price. $25 for each dinner option? For VEGETARIAN meals>?? WTF. I would pay that for a good lobster, or steak. Or hell, lobster/steak surf'n'turf style. NOT for a veggie meal. Huh, that is just ridiculous.

I wish them well, but they've got me scared away and off to much cheap-ass sushi (comparatively, not really that cheap here either, but still).

Small Sins

Yesterday was Rememberance Day, and I spent it doing homework, baking scones (more so than homework) and in a nod to the day, looking up a fellow colleague's project The Guinea Pig Club, a documentary about WWII veterans horribly burned & in a very exclusive club, one of burgeoning plastic surgery.

I'm also still reconciling my trip to India, my insane jet-lag, my general malaise with writing, busyness with work and loneliness.

It's a lot to think about (sidenote: wandering minds can wander to depression, according to a Globe & Mail article this morning. hm...).

The jet lag? Well it pretty much ended Sunday, when I had been back for 1 week total. I felt bad though, because my dear partner ended up the victim of most of my crazy outbursts, emotional meltdowns and general snarliness.

Case in point: First full day back, I went to work--generally ill advised. Came home, went to a friend's birthday party, came home to sleep. Husband was telling me about how I was snoring the night before (LIES!) and I started laughing. Except I wasn't laughing, I was crying. It was still funny, but for some reason my brain couldn't make the 'laugh' signal work, just the cry one. It was so strange.

The next day we watched a movie (sort-of horror, Left Bank, pretty good) really early, so I could be in bed by 8pm. Husband went to bed with me, read for a bit then went to watch TV in the living room. I got up at some point to use the washroom, and saw him on the couch watching TV. I stood there and just stared at him. He thought I was sleepwalking. I thought he was a ghost.
All I could think about was, if here's here, then WHO is in the bed???

Yeah...nobody.

I was also quite terribly behaved, snapping at the slightest provocation, forgetting sentences/words, being generally rather surly. Ugh.

And now he's gone, and I'm all alone. Sigh. Well, not totally alone. I have work, friends, school committments (I couldn't read that first week, at all!) and my fuzzy bunny, for companionship.

But that strange 'twinning' feeling, of being in two places at once, like part of me was left in India, is slowly leaving, and all I'm left with is a vague idea that I lost a month somewhere in an eternal summer.

Republic of Bacon part deux

Yes here it is folks...drumroll please...

Bacon soda?

Those crazy kooks at Jones Soda, makers of the delicious Fu-Fu Berry or Blue Rasperry, and the strange Thanksgiving sodas (Gravy or Mashed Potato soda anyone?) are at it again!

They are looking into creating the Frankenstein of all Bacon products, yes I think this tops Bakon vodka too...Bacon soda.

Would you try it? Hell, I'm not sure if I would.

Our Halcyion Days

I'm back from India, day 2 of some serious jet lag.

How would I describe India? Insanity, visceral, crazy, dangerous, hot, exotic, sweat, pollution, (now this is just the Ahmedabad side of it). The Goa part is jungle, steam, pollution, beach, hawkers, hassels, cows.

India is not a time for a relaxing holiday--well, the Goan part maybe, but even that has the propensity to smack you in the face with Indian-ness. Ahmedabad (Gudjarat region) food is not that great...certainly edible but I wouldn't seek it out. Goan food, oh hell yes, the food is excellent. Huge prawns, cheap cheap cheap! I didn't get sick, nothing horrible happened, life goes on.

My hotels were fine, the Ahmedabad one was clean and nice, good air conditioning but you can't sit out in the city, no swimming pools, so loud with endless honks and smothering pollution. The Goan hotel, Goa Riviera, was slimy with subservience. I got 500 Rs stolen from my room, feared I gained a potential stalker.

The toilets are what you would expect for a burgeoning Industrialized nation. Kind of hell-hole ish, we judged restaurants on the conditions of the washrooms.

Things were tense with our group situation, in no small part caused by our teacher behaving in an interesting fashion. Let's just say some lines were crossed that we all saw.

Back to reality (but it feels like those days were reality, I'm just waiting to wake up from a Malarone dream in a hot country, leaving cold days behind)...

Back to work, the daily grind. Did I leave a part of me in India? Would I return?