Sooooooo Tired!

Hi! I miss you guys. I'm soooooo sleepy these days. No energy for blogging. This new job/schedule is kicking my butt. I've gone from sleeping until 9am to get to work at 10 to getting up at 6am to leave the house by 7 to get to work by 8:30. I still get home at almost 7...and that's on the days I leave on time.

When I'm on site, like now (in Utah), every day is about 12 hours. Yawwwwnnnn!!! I'm enjoying it, I just pass out before 10pm. Strange territory for a night owl.

I'm trying so hard to stay awake through the Idol Finale. I'm supposed to go have drinks to schmooze with my team in an hour or so. Did I mention Yawwwwwnnnnn!!!!?

Comfy bed is calling me.

Leeeeeexxxxiiii.

Hear it?

Blogging from the Library Sucks

I'm still laptopless. I'm trying to catch up on all of your blogs from the library in the evenings. It's not going too well. I should be getting a laptop to use for work, so that should make web access during travels much easier, but I still need my own deal-e-o so I can get back to downloading music to my Zune...and blogging...and compulsively checking my email. You know, the three things personal computers were designed for. Oh, and let's not forget the daily newspaper crossword puzzles. OK, my secret's out. I'm a dork. This is how I spend my free time. I should be doing laundry and the dishes from this weekend, but no, I need my fix.

None of this would have been a problem at my old job. I seemed to find limitless time in my schedule to catch up on things I didn't get done the previous night (during the 6 hours I was online from home). But now I've got all this work to do. What's up with that?!?!? Just kidding. I'm no slacker. I like the new job, even despite the Murphy's Law day I had today.

I've only driven to the office three times: interview, first day (one week ago) and today. I took the same route the first 2 times and had way more time than I needed. Commute took about 45 minutes, including finding parking (another post, but wait for that one!). This morning I took a new route. It was supposed to be shorter. It took 1 hour and 10 minutes after I found parking. So, I got to work about 10 minutes late (@ 8:40). As I went upstairs to my cubicle I noticed there was a meeting going on downstairs, but I paid it no attention. I got to my desk, tried to see if my new login was set up while I was on travel, put my lunch in the fridge, noticed that no one else was upstairs, checked my email and saw a meeting invitation from the PRESIDENT of the company for an all staff meeting (um, yeah--the one I walked right by and ignored) that he sent out on WEDNESDAY. I walked into the meeting at 8:53, just in time to hear the #2 boss remind the staff that work hours are from 8:30-5:30!! Yeah! Of all days to be the new kid who didn't know how to check email remotely (and didn't consider that I'd actually have emails after 1 day on the job). I was in Idaho all last week. I had no clue there was a meeting today. Even if I had, I didn't expect the "short cut" to 25 minutes longer than the regular route. I'm taking the train tomorrow.

I need to run so that I can read a few of your blogs before they start flashing the lights in the library.

Toodles!

I Have Issues...

So, I'm in Idaho. That's where my lovely new job has sent me on my first assignment. Everyone has made jokes about potatoes. I have given everyone who's mentioned them the confused puppy look. My thoughts went instantly to white supremacists, skinheads and underground nuclear warheads. That would have been a fun game of word association.

Well, with hate crimes on the brain, I sit next to an Arab gentleman on the airplane. He is reading the Koran. My first thoughts, honestly...ashamedly: "Oh f*cking-sh*t! For the love of God!" (I know those 2 sentiments don't exactly go together, but it's that kind of day.) I have never claimed to have lived 34 years in this racist society and gotten by unscathed. As embarrassed as I was, I was also scared beyond belief. Then, he kept staring at me. I was watching him in my peripheral vision. He would snap his head forward every time I would turn to see what the hell he wanted. This didn't make me any more at ease. I'd also start plotting the perfect position to curl into so that I'd feel the least amount of pain when we crashed to my death each time we hit pockets of unbelievable turbulence. My pessimism is on full blast today.

While I was waiting for the hotel shuttle at the airport, I thought about all of the horrible things I could be falsely accused of out here and how no one would believe me and then I'd have to call the Boise police, which was certain not to go well for the black girl, so I'd just keep quite and succumb to whatever injustice befell me just to avoid making waves. It doesn't help that all day I've been reading Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon which revisits life in America for blacks in the 1st half of the 20th century. Sigh.

From the plane I send the following text message: "Oh man! I'm the only person with bigot of color up on this plane. I feel like I'm going to a Klan Rally. Pray for me!" Freudian slip: bigot was supposed to be a bit. Who's the bigot, right?

It has been a very sobering day. Fear is powerful. Today I have experienced how easily it becomes a lens that distorts. I see how difficult it can be to convince someone looking through that lens that they aren't seeing what they think they are seeing. The truth is that everyone in Idaho has been as friendly as anyone anywhere else. (And much more friendly than what I encountered in Minnesota.)

I've only met one person from Idaho in my life. I was teamed up with him in a small group and I made the same assumption about him that I made about everyone else in this state, that he'd hate me. He was such a nice guy. We hung out that weekend I spent in Seattle a year and a half ago. We actually had a chance to talk about the assumptions we made about each other and how glad we were (and embarrassed) to find out that our assumptions were wrong. I realized that my assumption that he'd hate me only served to justify my prejudice towards him. I wish I'd remembered that earlier today. It would have been a much better flight.

OK, there you have it. I suck sometimes too. Prejudice is funky, from anybody. Even me.

Peace.

Moving On...

Today is my last day at my current job which means it's also my last day with a laptop until I buy my own. So, I may be gone for a week or two until I can get my own, or at least get my PC up and running.

Any suggestions on a new laptop purchase???

Have fun out there in cyberspace without me. I may have to camp out at the library.