Well, I lay my head on the railroad track, waitin' on the Double-E...

Well.  I am (still) typing and talking to ‘Pants.  She needed help with maff-stuffs, so of course she phoned me, maffs-goddess that I am.  

No, really.  Even though I am a girl, with boobs and stuff, I know a few things.

Butsoanyway.

I need to name ‘Pants something else.  We’ve actually become…friends, I guess.  In a weird way; once she moved on to Greener Pastures U, it seems that I am the only one of our group she’s kept in touch with, and she phones/emails/IMs enough for non-necessary communications that I am interpreting that as friendship, and I found out the socially-uncomfortable way (oops) that the last several times she’s swung back into town that I was the only one she phoned or met with from our little pack.  So let’s call her Karen.  I think what’s happened is that it finally sunk in with her that I am not playing games, with her, or anyone else.  I get the feeling ‘Pants…errr…Karen is expecting people to be less as-advertised.  Or something.  Perhaps that is why she can be so terribly rude.  Well, combined with the frustration I *know* she was feeling; I know that she felt it because I feel it, too.  It’s why she left.

This brings me to my issues of enormous jealousy, envy, and all that, which are emotions I really hate seeing in myself, but I am honest, so I am ‘fessing up to them; Karen’s really found her niche elsewhere.  I would like to believe that if I were to uproot and leave I would be equally well-received, appreciated, compensated…all of that, but the fact is that I don’t know.  She has her OWN OFFICE.  HERS.  She technically has two of them, but the second one she shares with another person and is on the other side of campus, ‘cos Karen has a joint-appointment-type thing, but all this is immaterial.  She has an office.  It has a door and everything.  And her impresario-type person (let’s just call them Persons) praises her, is not psychotic, and is all supportive, where mine…has not behaved similarly in the past.  Let’s just leave it there.  

I not only do not have *my* own office, but we are changing buildings soon, and in the new building, I will *continue* to not have my own office.  Grr.  And Karen’s Person accompanies her to conferences, introduces her around, and all that.  My Person not only has always made me go to every one by myself so far (as well as the prepping which even with my huge background in presenting, had me in *tears* the first time), but the one we have coming up that my Person will for sure be at (‘cos Person wants to vacation with friends nearby before/during/after), I already know what is going to happen, because it happened to Karen a couple years ago:  I will show up dutifully every fricking day at seven a.m., conference bag over my shoulder, pen and pad in one hot little hand and a cup of coffee in the other hot little hand, ready to go keep up in my field and become enlightened, and Person will be nowhere to be found.  Especially if it is before about 2-3 pm; my Person doesn’t ‘do’ mornings.  

Now, in fairness, because I was so thoroughly drowning this semester, my Person did cannibalise some things I’d written previously and revamp it into a 2k word thingy for one submission recently so that I didn’t have to.  My Person doesn’t *totally* suck.  I just wish I were being more…I don’t know; mentored, directed…whatever.  I kvetched about this endlessly last year with Octopus.  I need to shut up and sit down, or get the fuck out at this point.  Whining is useless.  Well, except for the funness of it.

Butsoanyway.

Ok, in fairness also, my Person is supposed to completely make me quit Eviljob, too.  Or something.  I am not supposed to be employed outside of school/program.  But Karen’s got a portable second profession (think like a freelance nail tech that makes house-calls), and she hasn’t mentioned that to her Person, either.  And I know a bunch of other people who are doing it, too; we’d all be farking destitute without it for the most part, until we get employed for real (which happens later), and I am just fortunate enough that I am making WAY more than the others who are doing it, like by several standard deviations.  So it’s like, no harm, no foul; the only thing I (and Karen, Scooter, Doogie, and others) am depriving myself of is free time and sleep, so…whatever.  But on the other hand, Karen’s Person is making sure Karen’s better taken care of financially than my Person does—for either me or Karen when she was here.  That is just what I am so…whatever about.  

I could go on about it, but I am off the phone and need to get back to work; I have about 48 hours to fix everything in the world.  Pfft.  

As usual.

I am feeling that same old ‘I’m never going to make it, I am so screwed’ feeling, and it really sucks.  And I am sure no one wants to hear it.  I stopped to see MMM today to see if possibly a brick had fallen on his head and he’d decided to grant some amnesty, but…no luck.  He is, besides looking pretty damn cute today (I don’t need my head examined; I think it’s just stress…no, rilly), Evil and Demanding.  :-)  But then again, so am I, I guess.  In other people’s eyes, I mean.  I hope MMM never wears that shirt again (today was a casual day, I gathered); it just makes him look too damn cute.  

Okay… back to work.  

.