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 Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2012 5:42 pm
Wow. Tu t'es entré dans un concours, et t'as gagné un prix surprise. Je t'envoie un trade, pis tu l'annul sans même me dire «merci»? :s Pas mal impoli, ça. Si tu voulais pas les items, tu aurais dû me dire. Jsuis pas fâché, simplement confus. De les rejeter comme ça, ça pas de bon sang. confused
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Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 12:17 pm
♩ ♪ ♫ ♬Movin' on up, to the East Side North End, to a De-luxe Apartment in the sky-yy-yy nicer apartment with a yarrrrd...
As much as I like living in the Uptown area of my city (been here for almost 5 years now), I am not sad to be leaving. Some parts of Uptown are really cool, with beautiful brick and stone buildings and quirky shops and cafes. But the residential area I live in is a dump. The buildings all seem to belong to slumlords who don't keep them up, and the streets (which are more pothole than actual asphalt) are lined with garbage. Our building isn't too bad; we have a great landlord, and they've been in the process of fixing up the building the entire time we've lived here. It's close to Josh's school (just down the street), and it's relatively safe, but even the weather is bad. We get all the fog right off the water, not to mention the wind.
So I found a place in a quiet building in Millidgeville (which is actually further North than the "North End", which has a worse reputation than where I live currently), and we've already moved some stuff in. It's further away from my work and from Josh's school, but it's still easy to get there by bus. It's a lot closer to the hospital, so it'll make it a lot easier to get to our appointments. Plus, it's clean and quiet, and it isn't even more expensive to live here. If Josh ends up going to UNB SJ next year, we're close to the school, too.
I can't wait. biggrin
In other news, I'm looking for a new job. I really like my current job, but the management is making everyone miserable. The environment at work is really hostile right now, and a lot of us have had enough. So...I've already applied to a few places. There was one really interesting position, but their training class started too soon; I wouldn't be able to give my two weeks notice. As much as I would love to give my operations manager a big "******** you" by quitting all of a sudden, I don't want to burn any bridges, and I don't want to screw over my coworkers.
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Posted: Thu Dec 13, 2012 7:58 pm
So, I just found out that I'll be alone this Christmas. Josh is going to his family's place, and because of work, I can't go visit mine. confused I also don't have any plans for my birthday this coming Sunday. Yay.
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Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 11:39 am
This past weekend turned out to be one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. whee I had so much ******** fun, and I had a great birthday.
On Friday, my coworkers were planning on having drinks at someone's house, then going out to a bar called O'Leary's. I planned on going over after work and having a drink or two, and then heading home. O'Leary's isn't really my scene, and it's usually incredibly crowded on Friday nights.
I got to the house and, over the course of an hour and a half, polished off my bottle of wine. The atmosphere was great; almost everyone was drinking, a lot of people were passing a joint around, and everyone was just generally in a great mood. No one was maudlin or aggressive, no one was sloppy or messy, and there were no awkward lulls in the conversation. The music was a good mix of different rock tunes. One girl brought her enormous Great Dane, Bud, with her, and he was a great addition to the party.
My coworker (who we'll call J) showed up. He and I are part of the same group of friends (mostly straight guys), and he and I have been, uh, secretly fooling around since October. He's not out, which doesn't bother me. We aren't a couple, and we aren't dating. I try not to think about it much, because of the situation we're in, but I absolutely adore this guy. Physically and in terms of personal attire, he's exactly what I like. Personality-wise, we have great chemistry, we have a lot of fun together, and he's an all-around cool guy.
Anyway, by the time everyone decided to make their way to the bar, I was having such a good time that I chose to go along, too.
The building was crammed full of people. I always find the layout confusing (and being tipsy probably didn't help), because it's three or four different levels, all connected at what seem to be weird angles, with stairs going every which way. I think the building was originally much smaller, and additions were added on bit by bit over the years. It's more of a pub than a dance bar, but there is a very dark dance area on the bottom level.
Although we arrived as a large group, everyone ran into other people that they knew, so I spent most of the night being pulled from one group to another.
Shortly after last call, most of us met up again outside, and came to the unanimous decision that food was in order. The Hot Dog Guy's cart did not really appeal, so we ventured to Subway, which was nearly as crowded as the bar. Instead of eating inside, we took our deliciously overloaded sandwiches back to the park, and had a very cold picnic.
By the time we were done eating, it was well into the wee hours of the morning, and everyone was ready to stumble home. Rather than take a cab, J and I decided to hoof it. The bar and park are located in the uptown area, and we both live wayyy up in Millidgeville, which is further North than the North End. The walk home took more than an hour, and may or may not have involved singing Christmas carols.
I slept through most of the daytime hours on Saturday, but awoke to a text from my friends inviting me out for a second evening. It was a smaller group (just the guys, for the most part), but I had just as much fun. smile
Yesterday, Sunday, was my birthday. I went out for brunch to a diner with Josh, and spent most of the day relaxing and watching movies. So yeah. Easily the best weekend I've had for a long time.
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Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2012 12:16 pm
Happy belated Birthday! Sounds like you really enjoyed yourself, glad to hear it. c:
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Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2012 5:13 pm
It's all snowy, windy, blizzard-ness here. Work seemed to drag forever.
One of my coworkers returned from leave, today. He's an odd duck, and I didn't realize just how much he annoys the everliving s**t out of me until he came back.
He's only worked with me for 4 months. He's quite open about personal things that most people would keep secret. For example, he talks openly about apparently being bipolar, about suicide attempts, about his time spent in the psych ward, about cutting himself, and about how he was bullied in high-school. I feel like I know more about his life story than I do about some of my close friends.
He's been frustrating to work with from the start, since he is hyper-sensitive to criticism. So when you try to tell him the correct way of doing something, or the actual procedure for various situations, he gets annoyed, acknowledges that he's doing it wrong, and then continues to do it incorrectly. I wouldn't care except that it often falls to me to sort out the mess he makes of problems that would have required simple solutions.
In any case, despite this, I've tried to be friendly with him. He would talk to me (and everyone else who would listen) about his problems with his girlfriend, and his money problems.
Then, about 2 weeks ago, he came into work, and told us that the night before he had swallowed all of his medications, blacked out, then punched and threatened to rape his girlfriend. Needless to say, we were all pretty horrified, not to mention concerned for his well-being.
Things got even weirder when, not 5 minutes later, he cheerfully tried to start a conversation with me about video games.
It was jarring, and I told him so. I asked how he could tell us something so serious one moment, and then happily switch to a different subject. He got angry at me, and went over to his desk, apparently to sulk. Throughout the day, he had similar encounters with the others, who reacted just the way you'd expect.
We worriedly talked about it amongst ourselves. We were worried for his health, and we were really worried about his girlfriend. Someone mentioned that we should go to HR, but we were also concerned that he'd lose his job, which would make things worse. It was finally decided that it would be better to be safe than sorry, so a couple of people went to report the whole thing.
The next day, he was taken to talk to human resources (repeatedly), and soon afterwards, he started badgering us to know who had "told on him". He asked each of us, over and over, if we hated him.
By the day after that, he (or maybe HR) decided that he needed to take a leave of absence. I had never really thought that I didn't like the guy, but I can't say that I missed him, either.
But today was his first day back, and I came to the realization that I actually really don't like him. xp Oh well. I hope that he got some help during his time off work. He may be annoying, but I don't want anything bad to happen to him.
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Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2013 6:25 pm
Ahhh! So excited! Memory of Light, the final book in the Wheel of Time series, is being released on the 8th. Coincidentally, that's also my 9th Gaiaversary. Anyway, I've already preordered it from Indigo, so I'll have it soon. emotion_dowant Just a matter of...well, more than days, less than a few weeks.
I can't wait to find out what happens, but at the same time, I'll be sad to see the end of the books. I've been reading them since high school (although some people have been reading them since I was in pre-school), and I've gotten quite attached to the characters. It was my first fantasy series, and now it's ending.
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 8:19 pm
I just realized that my 9th Gaiaversary was 2 days ago. eek Nine years...
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Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 6:58 pm
So, tomorrow I might lose a friend. My friend Ray and I are going for coffee with another friend. We need to talk to her about the situation she's been in recently, and we may end up giving her an ultimatum.
To clarify...
I'm good friends with one of my coworkers, Chelsea. This past summer, we were at work, when all of a sudden, her jaw dropped.
Apparently her ex-boyfriend had gotten hired at the same call centre where we work, and she'd seen him walking around with a new training class. She told me it was a shock to see him, partly because she hadn't seen him in about 6 years, and partly because things between them had ended very badly. At the time, he had called her fat and ugly, said he didn't want to be seen in public with her, and then went off to date one of her friends. I remarked that he was a douchebag, and she agreed. We didn't even discuss him further, and we didn't see him around work.
A few months later, Chelsea told me that this guy had messaged her out of the blue on Facebook. He told her that he had seen her at our work (although he had since gotten fired), and he felt compelled to reach out to her and apologize for his behaviour. He begged her forgiveness, and asked if they could meet.
Initially she seemed appalled, and said she had no interest in seeing him ever again. But...she changed her mind, and they met up.
By the end of November, they had become friends again. He told her what he'd been up to for the past six years: after using speed, E, and then loads of coke, he had become addicted to dilaudid, and was currently undergoing methadone treatment. He had almost no friends left, because he'd lied, stolen, and generally betrayed everyone that knew him.
The situation quickly devolved. She slept with him. Apparently, there had always been excellent sexual chemistry between the two of them. Although she was adamant that she had no interest in a relationship, he started telling her that he loved her. He would show up outside of our work, send her long, rambling, obscene emails telling her that he would MAKE her love him. She ended up having to call the police one night because he threatened to kill himself if she didn't agree to be with him.
I still cannot even begin to understand why things didn't end there. She later explained to me that their relationship had involved an element of BDSM, but I still thought that was a poor excuse. (I have other friends and acquaintances who participate in various aspects it, and there's a HUGE difference between their healthy relationships and the emotionally abusive shitshow in which Chelsea has been involved.)
She told him again and again that she had no interest in being his girlfriend, that he was too unstable, and that if he started using again, she would cut off all ties. He called her bluff, though.
Less than a month later, she announced that they were a couple. They bought each other extravagant Christmas presents, even though every other day, the scumbag would go off the deep end and have some kind of massive tantrum. He wanted to know where she was and what she was doing, every second of every day, and he would call her terrible names for absolutely no reason. If she responded in kind, he would act completely baffled, and demand to know why she was being mean, since he "would never, ever talk to" her that way. :/
As an example:
She told him that she would meet him outside our work on her lunch-break, at 1:15. The appointed time arrived, but she decided to go to the washroom before leaving, and then ran into our supervisor, who had to ask her a few questions about a recent project. In only 2 minutes, she started receiving texts from him.
"What are you doing? It's time for your lunch."
"Where the ******** are you?"
"GET YOUR ******** a** OUT HERE AND STOP WASTING MY TIME."
"LISTEN TO ME, YOU STUPID LYING c**t, YOU SAID YOU WOULD BE HERE AND YOU'RE NOT WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU."
She was 10 minutes late. 10 minutes, and that was his reaction. They have these kind of interactions every other day.
Every boundary she tried to set, he broke through. It went from, "I'll just be his friend" to "We'll just be ********" to "I'll only stay his girlfriend if he uses"...
Well, he's shot up twice since then that she knows about, yet here we are.
I found out on Friday that he talked her into shooting up, because he "needs her to understand" what he's going through. In a matter of months, I've watched my friend go from being a funny, spontaneous, happy, independent young woman to a miserable, perpetually-anxious wreck who is constantly subjected to verbal and emotional abuse from her boyfriend.
I just don't get it. When any of us confront her about his behaviour, she agrees with us. She doesn't make excuses for him, and she doesn't try to defend or rationalize any of the things he does.
So tomorrow...
What we had planned on doing was essentially this:
-First and foremost, express concern for her and reassure her that we care about her.
-Give her a chance to talk. We want to understand why she's stayed with him, or why she won't leave. Or at least make sure she feels like she's not being interrogated or accused.
-Tell her that we can't continue to sit by and do nothing while things deteriorate. If that means telling her family that we're concerned and that we think they should step in, we will do that. We would rather she do it herself, though.
But...I'm not sure that this is the right approach. If we tell her family, we'll have broken her trust. I don't want to isolate her further. But what else can we do?? I know that nothing will change unless she wants it to change, but I feel like I need to at least try...
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Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:11 pm
Same Love - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis feat. Mary LambertI don't generally listen to hip-hop, but some of my coworkers got Thriftshop stuck in my head, and I decided to give some of the other songs a listen. The video was published months ago, so I know it's old news, but I wanted to share anyway. It's sweet, and I think it's an awesome change from the typical content you hear in a lot of mainstream music.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 9:16 pm
I saw that video I thought it was rather sweet. But I'm curious is your friend doing better now?
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Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2013 5:27 pm
I'm not sure, to be honest.
*sigh* She texted me the next morning, and asked if we could meet for supper instead at our favourite pub. I agreed, and we met up, and although we did manage to communicate that we were really concerned, it was not a good environment for a serious conversation. The place was quite busy, and we were seated right next to the servers' station. So I don't think we really managed to get across quite exactly what we intended. There definitely was no mention of our ultimatum.
She seemed to appreciate that we were concerned, but also seemed baffled that we were so serious about it. She assured us that everything was fine, and told us that she had actually confided in her aunt and told her everything. That, at least, was reassuring. Her mother is a loonbag, but her aunt seems like a good person for her to talk to, and apparently the aunt told her the same thing as everyone else has: get the ******** away from this guy.
So that's it. :s We've pretty much left it at that.
After that, for all of ...maybe a day or two, they were supposedly broken up, but as usual, he just ignored the boundaries she set, and things are back to normal.
The downside is that we are pretty sure she doesn't trust us any more; there are times when she seems upset, and I suspect that the scumbag is the cause, but she keeps it to herself. Supposedly he's been behaving better, but I find that hard to believe; why would he suddenly start acting differently?
At least we're still friends, I guess, but I still worry about her.
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Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 12:12 pm
Amanda Palmer: The art of asking"Don't make people pay for music, says Amanda Palmer: Let them. In a passionate talk that begins in her days as a street performer (drop a dollar in the hat for the Eight-Foot Bride!), she examines the new relationship between artist and fan. Alt-rock icon Amanda ******** Palmer believes we shouldn't fight the fact that digital content is freely shareable -- and suggests that artists can and should be directly supported by fans." I've been a fan of the Dresden Dolls for a long while (a Gaian actually introduced me to the band), and listening to Amanda talk about her experiences performing on the street, couch-surfing, travelling, and talking to people was really interesting.
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Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2013 3:06 pm
That sucks what's happening to your friend. Both she and her boyfriend need counseling (preferably separate) and see a psychiatrist or something. Glad she has supportive friends such as yourself.
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