Beauty and the Beast...Not Completely Sure Which Beast

Thankfully I received a bunch of painkillers after my surgery on my leg. And the Doctor used the same scar to cut into me. I thought that was pretty thoughtful. My body is already riddled with the scars of my personal history. Sometimes making me proud, sometimes making me embarrassed...just depends. The past few weeks have been a ride. Oh hell yeah. I have enjoyed the clarity that the pills have offered me. The need and the time for them is almost over. But, I can understand why people get hooked. Yep, I can see that....with the special clarity that I currently have. So, despite the pain in my leg and healing they have helped me with, they did offer a slight vacation. Oh sweet legal drugs....and their blessed, convenient, euphoric powers.

The vacation wasn't without costs though. My car smells...it smells bad. I currently have junk stacked inside of it that competes with any trashfield. The sweaters, the food tins, the notes, the coffee mugs...you name it. And I haven't done my laundry either. I've been using sprays made for the couch and drapes to fight of the B.O. and washed underwear out in the bathroom sink or in the shower (if I've taken one), and put them in the dryer with the spayed outfit. I fear that it's really starting to show. I haven't worn make-up and I have had some pretty creative hairstyles, and stopped wearing anything open-toed. I have a pack rat nature anyway, but bad health and good painkillers do help to magnify this attribute. Maybe this weekend, I think this weekend, I'll start on the mountain of shit that is me. I'm going to need more smokes and way more coffee, but I think I can make it happen. Like I said the pills are just about out, and I might want to save them for another occasion of real need. My real need is just about over. Oh, the sadness.

I'm not sure that I have taken a breath in the last couple of months. I went and did a charity golf tournament. The likes of which the women are scantily clad, the men drunk and stupid, and the charity that's picked is usually politically motivated. I met a man before the tournament. I still needed players, and stupid goodie bag items. I asked him if he would play. There was amazingly no hesitation. There would be marketing benefits for him. He told me the story of his daughter that died of cancer, early in life. They had a charity. I made him no promises. I was a peon, but he was so nice. And I know that I couldn't do that kind of work if my child died. I would just die, too. I would. It would be slow, but I would die.

I suggested his charity. Not so much response at first. I told him if the committee selected him, he would probably get a tiny amount. We most of the committee did select him. One of the committee members had lost a child, as well. Do you call that luck, fate...what's the word?

The golf tournament came. The BBQ afterwards came. I hated all of it. The man in charge, when I pointed out my charity man, told me that the charities hadn't been formally announced.

I spoke to the committee member who had lost his own child. He told me, fuck that. He teared up, and publicly announced my charity guy and his story. There was NO WAY to politically back out now. I smiled, a real smile, maybe for the first time in weeks.

Not only did they select my charity guy, but, they gave him an unprecedented amount of money for the tournament. I saw the check and the letter. Everyone's name was listed on this, but mine. Sure, at first I was angry...then I realized the opportunity. Doing something well, it should look like you've done nothing at all. The little secrets that sometimes I can keep to myself, I found one. And most of you don't know me, so the secret is still safe. And, the man was so thankful. I stopped him. I explained to him, how I did the stupid golf tournament every fucking year. I did it, and never got anything out of it, other than it helped the corporation that I worked for be seen. But, not this year. This year, he and more importantly his daughter had tied me to the work that I was doing. It gave this work meaning. Meaning that was meaningful. I had really needed that. So, did he understand the gift that he gave me?, I asked. Do you understand that? Your work gave me purpose. That's not something he needed to thank me for, I was truly the honored one. We smiled, that's what we did. We just smiled.

Then, the company I work for was bought out. The craziness has ensued. All the training, all the conflicting personalities. All the pay changes. Just so you know, I made and 86% on the test regarding Sexual Harassment. How did I even pass with my pottie mouth. Really, only God and the Fates know that. They guided my fingers to the answers, because it certainly was my fucking idea to pass that dirty-brown butthole of a fucking your sister test.

Everyday it's a new political ego mess that I have had to sooth, navigate, stop in it's tracks. We never leave the playground. We never stop not sharing or dominate that need to over-dominate, or that need to extra kill, make sure things are extra dead. I'm not sure there are prayers that can answer this. Look around, it's on a bigger scale. As if there are just fucking huge waves of selfishness, giant waves, to and fro, back and forth. Can't you feel it? If you said no, I don't believe you. Only tiny incidents of goodness or happiness, seemingly unrecognizable because we all run out of breath and time. And not those fake ones they show on any of the news channels between the murders, the economy and the wars...not those, those don't count...they're only there to make sure you stay awake and stay tuned to their chatter. If we count those then we're in bigger trouble than any of us can imagine.

At the office, I had to make sure that a phone list didn't go out. Everyone was mislabeled. Oh the feelings that would have been hurt. And frankly, this one woman should just stop using the spreadsheet program for anything. Too many squares and too many colors a blatant misuse, and not was this program was designed for...they have classes online, they're free...stop the killing of my eyes, my smarts, and the egos of the wrongly labeled people...fucking stop that. It's a program that's supposed to help up, not hurt us. How can anyone know that many ways to jack something up? Please, please, please stop sending stuff out. She's my counter-part in the buyout. During the Non-Agenda'd Staff Meeting, she's repeatedly offered me lessons on Memos and usage of Letterhead. The first time I couldn't reply, I just didn't have it in me to find a response that wouldn't hurt her feelings and probably get me fired. I just announced that I had to go to the bathroom, right then, and would she be so kind to tell me where it was. Currently being a gimp, well, the "got to go to the bathroom right now" excuse has super powers. NO ONE wants to help clean up that mess. I am going to miss that.

Now, I just tell her sure, sure, when things get settled.

Next, we all had to ride together in vans to a lunch meeting halfway between all of our offices. A get to know you meeting. I couldn't smoke. Everyone complained...We arrived. Everyone was sitting by their best friends forever. I don't have those at work. Are you kidding me?!? I was a meeting co-leader. We made everyone move, until they we're sitting by someone they didn't know. I smiled a secret smile. Sometimes being a little mean, passive aggressive, just sits right in my soul.

I had organized a White Elephant gift exchange. White Elephant always being crap around your house, the stuff you mean to get rid of, but just can't seem to. We hang onto so much shit. White Elephant always brings out the best and the worst in people. Another smile. It did. Oh, how it did. Some people really get mad that they get the shittiest of the shit. The shittiest of the shit. How can you get mad about that. The super fat guy, and I mean super fat, got the great abs in ten minutes video. Boy was he mad. People laughed. Well, you're fat, and not to worry it didn't work for the person who brought it either. No worries. I stole the lottery tickets, they got stolen from me. I'm not super mean, the guy who stole them from me, wrote me a check for half, and I wrote a check for half of that to the guy that I stole them from. That was nice...we didn't win enough to be shitasses about it. I ended up with a Cowboy Boot Flower Arrangement. It had a Texas Flag and a Mexican Flag in it. Later, I paid the mailclerk at my office to put it in the men's bathroom. A couple of days later, someone stole it. We asked the janitor, he didn't take it. He thought it was funny, he had left it there. We thought it was funnier that someone stole it. It probably had fecal spray on it....we've all seen the news programs with the black lights...yep, probably had shit on it. Shit on shit, stolen.

Back to the lunch, what I did notice though, when I sat down to eat...was that even though we had all switched places, people ended up sitting exactly by their personality counterparts between the companies, between the same offices. What?!!? I blinked. Crap, it's hard to get one over on human nature...it's very complicated, and even my super powers of passive aggressive goodness was no match.

And, who did I sit by? Oh, let me tell you. I sat by the drunk, name dropping, boobie twins. You know these girls, they can't be saved. They've been ridden hard and put away wet. Big hair, tight shirts, big gold Kal-Mart jewelry, all the important work they did. One of them was my office arch-enemy. Well, she thought she was. Always trying to get one over me. Sometimes she would get to me....then, I had to realize how many light years ahead of her that I actually am. Then I had to put on my I feel sorry for you suit...that usually put her in a quiet spot. Yet, these women always get free stuff. Free stuff from men and women a like. I'm fat, and smart and have glasses, right now. My stint in free stuff land may come back, but I didn't like it there....way too sticky. But, maybe there are times when I could use a little free stuff, not enough to trade places, but sometimes my desire to be a free, pornstar, maybe that gets to me....sometimes.

These two talked and talked and talked. They talked about all the drinking they do, the men they meet, where they meet them. All trendyshit bag places, and all they want to date are rednecks and cowboys. At some point, one of them took notice that my eyes have glazed over, really glazed over. One can only stir the mashed potatoes so many times on the resturant plate without being noticed. She asked me if I liked drinking and cowboys. I replied dryly, nope.

I thought about stopping there, but I didn't. Maybe I didn't stop because, I was really that bored, maybe because I didn't win all the lottory ticket money and I could quit, maybe I just super didn't want to talk to them, and was super sore that since I was a meeting co-leader, I had to sit down last, and all the kindof' good spots were taken. I'm not a fucking saint.

Anyway, I told them that once I dated a peanut farmer named Charley. You should never settle for a cowboy....go for the rancher or the farmer, who have cowboys that work for them. Charley was rich. He was good to sleep with. Not good to stay with. Dumb as a sack of diapers and sometimes mean. Luckily, he was stupid enough not to really recognize how inexperienced I really was, with everything. Also, he had a friend named Todd, who was even stupider and meaner. Me and a friend lied to our parents, and took off with these two to the coast for a weekend getaway. We drank a lot and fucked a lot, all by the ocean. The ocean that had better things to do then pay any attention to the likes of us. It's where I learned the gimmick of microwaving a piece of ordinary soap. It melts from the inside out. When you put it in the soap dish and someone uses it, the soap just crumbles in their hands. It's pretty funny. That's what I got out of Charley and Todd. Well, that and free, occasionally roasted peanuts.

I had already been there, and decided that I wanted more for myself. I had decided I deserved better. And I only drank with dear friends, or bigwigs. Not just random getting fucked up. I just had too much to do.

Their faces weren't used to being told the truth, maybe about anything. They quit talking to me. Ok, good stuff, good stuff. Back to the potatoes. I pretended to nap on the way back. You know, the leg injury...somethings, all the hard work that I do, just takes it out of me, so thank you for driving, as my eyes closed and my mind wandered.

The funny thing, the quandary is that I have beautiful friends who are so smart. They do not use their beauty for evil. They really do have the same problems that I have. They are treated like idiots because of their beauty, and not recognized for their absolute massive brain power. Later in the week, after another brilliant meeting, without an agenda, a guy asked me about one of my such friends. I patted his arm, and gently explained to him that it would only be for masturbation, the introduction. He just wasn't smart enough to keep up. He thought I was jealous for a minute, and he was angry. I patted his arm again, and told him lovingly as possible, that just wasn't it. Some of us just don't get all the prizes, we just don't. I want a million dollars, I'll never see that. And the closest that he would ever get to her, was his imagination and his hand of preference. And, yes, her giant beautiful breasts weren't real, she had bought them, and they were perfect and as awesome as he could ever imagine, so that was another thing. He just didn't make enough money to cover the fact that he wasn't smart. There was no temptation for her, even if she slipped in a lonely moment of weakness, towards him at all. Sorry buddy. The God's honest truth.

I have to say that I did puff up a little... just in case. Do I know that she could take care of herself? Yeah, I know that. But, there's a little redneck in me. too. Mess with a friend of mine, mess with me, crap. I puffed up, just in case, I needed to make my point clearer to this man. Going this route always ends up that I'm a big fat lesbo but on occasion the point hits the target. Well, either way, if it goes to the next level the target gets some point. We girls have to stick together. Stop what you're thinking, I didn't mean that kind of stuck together. Pervert. See just what I mean?

I suppose watching these two twosomes of boobies yak it up at the luncheon, made me angry for my beautiful friends, not just me. Their actions make it harder on the rest of us that are here now, and the rest of the babies, the children, the teenagers, the unborn. It would be pointless to explain. They were really past any form of education on the matter, I just wanted them away from me, and understanding that it was best for them to stay there, in the far away spot. I'm not without sadness for them though. They were past erasing it all. I'm so thankful that I have never reached that point. Some people just will never have the capabilities to change. And it is a burden. I think it's okay to let people know that sometimes, even though they can't change, and they'll probably still get taken care of, it still really is a burden for them just to be there.

I was at the new work place yesterday. I've worked hard. Everyone was gathered for free cake for someones random birthday that most everyone didn't know. One of those terribly personal office moments. I didn't want the cake. I had already stolen a day old chocolate doughnut from the office kitchen table, and used someone good coffee to make myself a nice cup of coffee to go with my stolen, stale doughnut. I didn't even have to take it to the bathroom, grab a stall and enjoy. I made it, unseen back to the cube. AWESOME. So, I had enough. No need to be greedy.

Out of the blue, someone that I hadn't seen in months, yelled my name though the crowd. I waved. She, out of the blue, announced that she had been keeping up with me, that my name and influence was everywhere in the industry....the pictures, the newsletters...I was famous. I turned red....I'm more of a behind the scenes person. I looked around. There where some people smiling for me...some people where angry and jealous. Maybe because of my life, I took it all too heart. And maybe that's why I'm a behind the scenes person. I was frankly too damn tired to take in the range of egos that flowed over me...and at someone else's birthday cake thingy. I politely told her thank you, and really it wasn't me, if I just didn't like everyone, and the work I saw all these people doing, it wouldn't make me want to be involved. Oh, Sweet Jesus, or Whoever, help that lie work, please, today, just help that lie work.

In my work life, I am mostly selfish. I am mostly conceited, mostly grabby...for the scraps of money for myself, for my family, for my friends, for other random people. I am ultimately no different than any of the people in the crowd, maybe I'm just a better grabber. It's complicated. And I do not deserve recognition for that, it's nothing special. No, that is nothing fucking special....but, one can hardly say a truth like that, now can we? Jesus or Whoever, just help that lie work, and get me safely back to my cubicle...the safety of the grey foam walls lined with papers on tacks, and ergonomically placed plastic. Get me there. I needed to sit down. I needed to ease my breath, and take in the tops of the fake flower arrangement that tops the woman next to me's cubicle. Get me to that sweet quiet place.

At work, my father called. We're not close. He decided to buy my son, who he's never met, and wanted me to abort, an expensive toy. He called to ask me what my married name is. I'm not married dad. We never did that. I tried to protect him from the flatness of my tone. My name is still the same, even after all these years. Oh, okay, then the embarrassed laugh. I didn't say much, no point really. It's just there. Yep, Dad, remember, you gave me a way a long time ago, but it was never at my wedding....never, then. I might have called, maybe I would have called about that. Hard to say. Thanks for the gift. We always talk in money and expensive things. Maybe that's were I got my sense of fairness, and my love for free things, of special moments not tied to any coins or paper. I can say thank you for that. You wouldn't understand it, but maybe I could say it, in my head, and it would transfer through the phone. Yeah, maybe, maybe it would. I wanted it to as I hung up the phone.

At closing time that day, I didn't waste time, I didn't say long goodbyes. I logged off, and ran as fast as my currently with cane ass could get me out of that building. I lit my cigarette even before I locked in my seat belt. Oh, people saw me. I waved goodbye. No worries, the windows of my car were shut and the car was already turned on. A clear signal of no talking. I put my car in reverse, and with the cigarette in my mouth because I just didn't want to miss a single breath of it, I turned my head, and moved fast out of the parking lot. I immeadiately went out and spent money that I didn't have to buy my favorite bums, on my corner, a huge dinner and some supplies, smokes, booze, a blanket, etc. Just to pay penitence. This form is better than flogging in the long run, and certainly less messy. I was feeling a little better standing in the liquor store line with the cheap stuff. But, it wasn't enough. I hurried home, turned on the T.V. and took a couple of my sweet pills on my almost empty stomach, save the stolen doughnut...and waited for the floaty goodness that would wipe away the day, the weeks, the T.V., all of it. It's not really depression, so don't think that. I just get overloaded and need the break from the super highway we live on. I HAVE to pull over and stop.

Everyday...it would be way cooler if I had a sword to slay some of the beasts with. Can you imagine? Oh, I can. For now, I've got pills, and the excuse to use those are just about gone.

Then, I'm just back to the daily grind.