THE (ANTI-) CLIMAX
It's over.

I got through Hell Day, aka my yearly review.

The night before I took my regular dose of doxepin, followed 90 minutes later by 3.75 mgs of Remeron. I slept like a rock. Then I got up & did 0.5 mgs of Xanax XR before I left for work. It didn't help. By 9:30am I couldn't sit still & I felt like I was going to throw up. At 10:30am I took 0.5 mgs of klonopin & walked to my boss' office.

And now it's over. And yes, my boss faulted me for some major things that weren't really my fault. But I'm not going to complain. Why?

Because I finally got my goddamn raise. 9 fucking months after I originally asked for it, they finally gave it to me.

This will make it harder to leave, because it will be more challenging to find a similar position that pays as well. But what this raise also tells me is that all the negative bullshit that my boss put in my review doesn't really mean anything, because if I sucked that badly they wouldn't have given me the raise, now would they?

So fuck my boss. By this time next year, there's a good chance she won't be my boss. And the person who hopefully will be my boss has a hell of a lot more backbone than she does.

I should be happy. I should be dancing on the walls. After a long hard battle where I went through hell I finally got what I want. But I just feel empty inside. Empty & hollow.

I wanted to call the Guitar God and tell him. But of course I didn't.

I often imagine myself having conversations with him. And in one such imaginary conversation he asks me how I feel about being cut off from my family. And this is the insight I've gained from imagining what my answer would be. (See, an active imagination isn't such a bad thing! And it's cheaper than therapy.)

What's hard isn't leaving behind the people to whom I was born. When it first happened I thought that I would move to a new place, meet some new people, make some friends, & I would be able to form my own homemade community that I could call family, even if we didn't share any DNA. But ten years later, that hasn't happened. What's hard is not having ANYONE.

I honestly thought that by now I'd have people solidly in my life. But I still spend every fucking holiday alone. I gave a presentation at a conference last week and I kicked ass. I was so pumped. Then I came home and realized I had no one to share my good news with. I want to scream "I GOT A RAISE!" But there's no one to hear. Or care.

In a little more than a year I will be celebrating a significant birthday. And I am already making plans to fly to a foreign country for that birthday. I figure no matter what I do I'll be spending that birthday alone. But it would be better to be alone because I had the means and the courage to fly to a foreign country than to be alone in my apartment because I had no one in my life to mark the occasion.
- posted by Pat @ 11:15 PM | 0 comments

 
CRACKIN' UP
I've spent the past 2 days sobbing like a baby & right now I'm edgy as hell despite the fact that I took my doxepin 1/2 an hour ago. I'm thinking it's hormones, which would be really crappy because I have my yearly performance review this week & I don't want to be dealing with hormonal shit on top of it.

I hate reviews. I would rather undergo a hysterectomy without anesthesia than go through a review. But they're required at my place of employment, so it's either that or look for another job.

I've been trying to look, but I'm not seeing much I like. Either that, or I see something I like that a) I'm not quite qualified for, or b) doesn't pay adequately. BTW, in case I didn't mention it, Almighty Performing Arts College informed me that my salary requirements were way out of line for the position I'd applied for. Ah well...fuck 'em.

I think I've done a damn good job this year. I've opened the semester without the help of my ultra-efficient colleague who left a few months ago. I've taken on several new responsibilities and done them well, despite negative circumstances.

Of course, my boss isn't going to see it that way. She's going to find lots of things to criticize. Not because she wants to criticize me, but without going into boring detail, our annual percentage raises are based on the ratings we receive in our reviews. We all know how well the economy is doing. So if my boss gives me a glowing review, it will translate into a big percentage raise. And we can't have that, can we?

Which is to say nothing of the salary inequity I pointed out to her back in January and about which she hasn't said a damn thing since March. I'm not even going to bring it up. I'm just going to watch her and see what she says. She probably thinks that if she keeps her mouth shut I'll forget about it too.

Speaking of my ultra-efficient colleague, she stopped by for a visit a few weeks ago. The only reason I know this is because another staff member had mentioned it in passing. I busted my ass for that bitch and she doesn't even stop by to say hello to me? Just goes to prove, you can spend hours at the gym and thousands on designer clothes, but it doesn't mean you have any class.

In other news, Guitar God has a gig coming up in December. I found out about it Friday, and decided I was going to try & get myself in shape. So I promptly went to the grocery store and bought two half-gallons of ice cream (hey, it was on sale! and at least it was LIGHT ice cream!), then I baked cookies this afternoon.

But at least I worked out. Not much, just my arms. Arms are all I can do in my clutter-filled apartment. I can't lie down on the floor and watch my workout tape at the same time.

I've got other computer stuff to do, so I'm going to shut up now.
- posted by Pat @ 8:03 PM | 0 comments