Soft People Have To Shimmer

Boss Lady has been nice. Too nice. Be a bitch or don’t. I don’t trust people who yell and then are so very nice like nothing ever happened.

Yesterday I used my seven years of college to clean three sets of dirty basement stairs at Caroline’s. With a wet (no soap rag). The point was to free all the little particles in the 40-year-old carpet and sweep them down to the bottom of the stairs where a 20-year-old dust buster would suck them up. Then I was to take a bent broom and sweep all the dust bunnies and detritus on the floor of the basement filled with over 250,00 thousand pieces of china.

At first, I cared. Then I was like. Fuck this dumb-ass way of cleaning. I hate cleaning—but that make no sense. So I took advantage of Boss Lady’s gimpy-ness and ran the rag over the stairs and then with my gloved hands picked up any visible bit and pieces on the floor. I could give that duster buster a lesson or two. It has no sucking power.

I did this same kind of work when I was 17—before the seven years of college. Before my college education and teaching experience however, I only made seven dollars an hour.

So the question is which situation is better: dealing with common core and bully principals where the work does not end at five o’clock OR picking up broken glass and lint off a basement floor where the work ends at five o’clock?

The latter I think.

Teaching burned me out. Took me down. Teaching made me physically and mentally ill. Teaching kids mattered—picking lint off a basement floor doesn’t matter at all. The stakes aren’t even close.

I would like to tell Boss Lady to go to hell. I am committing myself, with the goal of gaining employed at Burning Bed, to a 60 hour intense physical and sexual violence course. Friday 5-9 p.m.; Saturday 9-5 p.m.; and Sunday 1-5 p.m.  Fuck me. That is a lot of time.

In my experience, those courses where it’s all thrown out at once don’t work as well as courses stretched over more time. Especially when you are dealing with intense subjects. Shit. I already have my Domestic Abuse Certification thanks to Asshole, T., and my bad choices.

What if I can’t handle it? I had an episode last night—several hours oflow-levell shaking. I shook when I woke up this morning from anxiety dreams. What if I can’t do this real world thing at all? Maybe “I never was hard or self-sufficient enough.”

Yesterday, after my fake-cleaning was done I was charged with handing sun catchers from thumbtacks on a display case. Some of them were really beautiful: butterflies, dragonflies, hummingbirds, and flowers. Of all those beautiful things I broke an ugly-ass orange flower. It was an unavoidable accident. The edge of a petal just snapped as it dropped. I quickly jammed the incriminating evidence into my pocket and I just paid for it outright. No discount, no telling Boss Lady. I didn’t even want to find out how mad she’d be. So I’m right back where I was. Hiding the evidence, afraid to get in trouble, hiding my mistakes. How did that happen?

I was supposed to be taking down all the spring/summer sun catchers to make room for the fall-colored ones. Did you know that purple is a fall color? Well, it is. ‘Cause I took down all the purple sun catchers and then was told that I was supposed to only take down the pink, blue, and bright colored ones. Actually Boss Lady changed her mind of couple of times on that one. I did it wrong. She didn’t get mad—just a little dose of passive aggressive guilt.

When I was 17 and did this kind of work—it was an impetus for me to go to college so I wouldn’t have to do this kind of work or put up with crazy bosses. Funny how that worked out. So I worked an hour yesterday for a broken ornament.

Mom said working this job will give me empathy toward minimum wage workers on whom I used to look down. (Still a dangling preposition.) I said that over the years I acted superior—in private—toward those types of people that because first, they often waxed on what an easy part-time, over-paid job teaching was and second, I felt like a failure. So I tried to make myself feel better by acting superior. Now I have just accepted that I’m a failure. I’m not any better that any of the other nuts in the nut house. ALTHOUGH I DON’T DRINK LISTERINE. Fuck. Yes, I am better. I never tried to kill my family. I have never abused drugs or alcohol. I never faked a disability.

My whole life style right now is affordable because of my grandfather. I am paying all the bills on my house and car—but he feeds me and pays for the utilities here. Mom and Dad must be so proud.

So I broke the ugly-ass sun catcher. The petal can probably be glued back on and I bet that in the right window it would catch the light beautifully, broken or not.

“I never was hard or self sufficient enough. When people are soft-soft people have got to shimmer and glow-they’ve got to put on soft colors, the colors of butterfly wings, and put a paper lantern over the light. It isn’t enough to be soft. You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I-I am fading now! I don’t know how much long I can turn the trick.”  Blanche DuBois Streetcar Named Desire

Smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em. God Bless

In the name of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Mother Mary, Saint Brigid; Saint Jude; Saint Therese Lisieux; Archangel Michael, and my Guardian Angel.

PS: God bless the man who bought his wife the 300 dollar plus Swarovski crystal jewelry for his wife. Boss Lady screwed up with her addition with you, huh? She kept getting it wrong in her head until finally used a calculator. Huh. I had it all added up in less that a minute—I just wasn’t sure where the discount went. And I wrote the receipt up wrong anyway. But, thanks for taking the torn credit card receipt and not telling Boss Lady I screwed up there too. Sorry Boss Lady had to redo my “too big bow” and the one gift wasn’t wrapped with brighter ribbon.

PPS: I am alone for 48 hours. A rare occurrence these days. It’s kind of nice. I can walk around naked, leave the bathroom door open, “overload” the washing machine, put the dishwasher on half full, maybe even smoke a cigarette or two in the house! Live it up baby! Get dangerous!

PPPS: How fucking weird is it that me and Bugsy, Aunt Faerie's husband, are going out together for pizza. You're talking an atheist and a Catholic--an Independent and a Republican. When I got my tattoo he pointed out that real dragonflies down have antenae. Who the fuck knows that? We are going out for dinner together--Bugsy, Mr. No Guns and Me, Assault Weapon for Everyone! If we can have dinner together peacefully (personal cursing has occured in the past) then maybe Hillary and Trump can be on one ticket.