...okay fine. it's too exciting to keep to myself. a dear, dear friend is moving back to indianapolis quite abruptly and we've decided to move in together. thursday morning we had breakfast at a café downtown and went together to look at an apartment that caught my eye. it was beautiful. absolutely beautiful. the guilt of giving in to early morning peer pressure and ordering an omelette as big as my head melted away as soon as janet, our leasing agent, opened the door to #805. the first thing i see is built-in bookcases and huge french windows that overlook downtown. a place to put my books and a view of the only worthwhile part of this city? sign me up. we walked through every inch of all 1300 square feet with janet leading the way, suggesting decorating ideas or uses for space. some aspects of the apartment we adored - "this is the original chandelier from 1929?!" - and others we were not so happy about - "i have BAKING PANS bigger than this oven!"
regardless, once we scoured every closet shelf and pane of glass, we looked at each other and knew we were in love. we were in love with the potential for our life in this space. janet spun around on her heels in the living room and said "alright girls, just say the word!" we looked at each other and grinned, not really knowing what to say.
"you know, if you need a minute alone, i understand. walk through again together, talk it over. i'll be in the lobby downstairs."
"thanks janet. we'll be down in a minute."
we walked through again and talked. we took pictures. i have a beautiful picture of her sitting in between the dining room and living room, crunching numbers. the numbers fit. we promised each other we would be objective, smart women about this and look at other places to compare. yeah, we never really got around to that.
i turned in our lease application today. we should know by the end of the week. if it happens, i'll be leaving my house the first week of july. i can't tell you how elated i will be to leave this place and all it's bad energy behind me. my favorite part will be painting. i love painting.
oh, and then there's work. ah yes, work. our situation appears dire - losing 2 members of management within a month, people on vacation, a ruthless, unfeeling faraway boss. however, as a team we've not been this happy in many, many months. some of us would say at least a year. we are doing just fine (fantastically, actually) in terms of our business result. everyone is constantly learning and growing together, operations are getting back under control and pieces have been put into place to ensure our team only gets stronger and more harmonious in the coming weeks. i am still working ungodly hours and i am still nervous and anxious about the conference calls and the reporting and the ordering (especially the ordering), but today i got a phone call that wiped all that away and yet, at the same time, it made me throw my bar about 10 feet higher up than where it had been. today at work, the phone rang. someone else answered. there was a long pause. it was for me. i took it in the office. it was her. the examiner. the taxidermist. she who systematically removes your insides, replaces it with fluff and puts you back together in such a way that you look collected and natural, though you are rigid and empty. i have been rigid and empty for a while now.
"hi ****!"
"caaat! how ARE you?"
"i'm good, good. thanks. what's up?"
"well, i wanted to touch base with you about the e-mail you sent me last week. how did it go afterwards?"
"(insert my reply here that contains names and lots of sensitive information pertinent to my team)"
"okay good. i think that's the best way to handle it. i support that. is there anything you need from me this week?
"oh, i think we're okay, but thank you. um, how's the search for a new team leader going?"
"...well, it's taking us a little while longer. in some ways it's going well, in other ways it's not. here's what i can tell you: you will be the interim team leader through the month of june. i hope to have someone for you by july, but we really don't know yet. we thought we had someone but..."
"oh gosh, you know what? don't even worry about it. take your time. we're doing just fine down here. really, we're okay."
"oh sure! it'll be fine. we'll get it taken care of soon. so listen, i've got to get to the airport but there's one other thing.."
"mmm?"
"i want you to know how proud i am of you. you and your team are working really, really hard - especially you - and i know that. i want to thank you for what you're doing and let you know i really appreciate it. you're doing a wonderful job leading that store right now."
"wow ****, thank you. really. thank you. we're trying."
"i know you are. that's why i wanted to tell you that i'm just..i'm doing a little something for you. i'm going to tack on a bonus to your last check for this month as a way of saying thank you for everything you're working on."
"oh thank you but you don't have to - i mean, i love my job and - "
" -i know i don't have to. listen, i've got to run. i'll talk to you on the conference call, okay? bye chica!"
THAT HAPPENED. that happened between two people who bristled at the mere sight of one another nary a month ago. every awful and false and venomous thing that was ever said to her about me, she is now discovering to be completely untrue. she sees how much i love that store, how much i want to invest in that team. my team are like my kids, which is hilarious considering i'm the youngest one in the store. it's been heartbreaking to be in my position there for the last year and it's not that i am being vindicated now, it's just the joy of people knowing the truth. we just have to keep doing what we're doing, and they just have to keep trusting me to do right by them. we'll be just fine.
i don't even want to talk about what's happening in my life dude-wise right now. it's a clusterfuck. a clusterfuck that i get approximately ZILCH out of. well, zilch if you factor out all of the vagueness and facepalming (1200 miles, cat? really?) and sexual frustration, which yes i prefer to factor out. i am uncertain about many things concerning this and that alone makes my head want to explode because i loathe uncertainty. with a description like that you'd think i was at least seeing someone. but you know what? i'm not seeing anyone. not one single person. and yet, those factors are persistent in my nonexistent love life. something of that calibre of absurdity could only happen to yours truly. i give it 6 more weeks until i follow up my treatise on monogamy with my treatise on depressing masturbation. good god.
i think that's all i can muster for this evening. i will be awake again in 5 hours, whisking around downtown before heading up to the northside for another day of retail prostitution. i'll update again once we hear back about the apartment. hopefully a definite color for the kitchen will come to me in a dream shortly. i don't care what rob says about appetite-inducing colors, i think a deep red would be fabulous.
