Month: February 2015

Don’t Rain on MY Parade!

Posted on by tanyadiva

It’s nice to be appreciated, isn’t it? I am not one who seeks the spotlight, sometimes, it seeks me. I am always ready to put my best foot forward if need be, though. Not to make anyone else look bad, but to make EVERYONE look good. Know what I mean?

The Oscars were Sunday night, and some people don’t care, and felt like posting to Facebook things like, “This is me, not caring about the Oscars!” with a picture of Julie Andrews twirling in The Sound of Music, though maybe now they should make it Lady Giggles AND IF THEY WATCHED THE DAMNED SHOW THEY’D KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

Seriously, if you don’t dig it, that’s fine. I hate organized sports with a passion with the exception of figure skating (shut up) or the Braves when they’re winning (no seriously, shut up). But I don’t feel like shitting on someone else’s Super Bowl Shuffle, know what I’m saying?

Anyway, it was a perfectly boring show with hardly any surprises unless you count Patty Arquette’s cuckoo for cocoa puffs speech which LOVE, and fyi, I once had the addresses of the entire Arquette clan and don’t ask me how, I’ll never tell but you know what I used to do for a living, and sometimes you aren’t looking for celebs but they pop up anyway, well hello there John C. Reilly, I know where you live, too!

And of course J.K. Simmons said to call your mom, but I did and she was “reading the Bible with her new boyfriend,” I mean, how often do you hear THAT from a 75 year-old, and I can’t even go there right now or I’ll need more therapy.

But you know me, and you know Wes Anderson’s little pic winning all those awards made my heart grow two sizes, but it is still miniature and can be used as a model in his next set design.

SO, if you don’t care, don’t care, but you know, there are lots of people who work in the industry doing things like set design or editing or sound mixing or short films, and don’t they deserve some recognition for hard work? Costume and set designers are my personal heroes, so go fuck yourself if you don’t care. Oops, I did it again.

Let’s look at some pretty clothes, shall we?

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ZOMG, Keira Knightly in Valentino – no lie I have this entire collection pinned to my Pinterest pages. Inspired by Marc Chagall, I find this lovely, ethereal, and I wish I looked like this but I don’t and that’s just that but also, the headband, I mean COME ON, people, this is RENN FAIR REALNESS!!

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Solange in Christian Siriano. Oh Chicken (because I call you Chicken, liebling), who knew you’d be the only Project Runway alum with staying power? I guess everyone, but I love Solange, I am team Solange all the way on the elevator, and this is some Studo 54 INSPIRIGANZA, darling, which is a new word I just made up combining INSPIRED and EXTRAVAGANZA, and why am I not writing for RuPaul’s Drag Race, where is my call from the producers?

 

No one else did it for me, although I did love what Chris Kyle’s widow was wearing and I feel kind of creepy even saying that, but still. Green strapless, lovely.

 

So, that’s my little rundown on the big show, and I do it because I do it every year, and if only five people are reading this, well aren’t you all such a lucky five?

In other news, the co-worker from hell is back, and it’s been…..tough. I got nominated for an award for helping out in her absence, and I didn’t ask for the recognition but you know, it’s NICE when you consider the shit I’ve been through these past eight years. And I deserved it. I don’t try and do a good job so I can make you look bad, or because I want your job or want to throw you under the bus.

I do it because that’s my way of helping YOU when you were gone for six weeks smoking cigarettes and looking at the wall, you know? My beloved pet, who is the only child I will ever have, is dying in front of my eyes and I dragged my ass in everyday for extra long shifts not because I’m gunning for your job, but because I don’t want you to worry about this place while you’re gone, I want you to have peace of mind.

Do I want a full time job? Fuck YEAH. But not yours. Another one! Why can’t women appreciate help from other women and not think someone else is trying to replace them? I don’t get it, but maybe that’s because I think a lot like a man?

Anyway, she’s been withholding work from me and this is a person who bitched ad naseum before she was gone about how I wasn’t helping her enough, I was doing too much for the digital team (which I’d been assigned to). Now that they don’t want me on digital anymore, you’d think she’d be delighted I’m ready and willing to chip in. Again, this is the person who kept insisting I was hired JUST FOR HER, when I was told otherwise. My, how the story changes…

Bottom line, I spoke up today, I had to. And nothing will change, because she’s denying it, but I’ve let the higher ups know, and they even said she was a very insecure person who they know feels threatened.

Sigh. I don’t want this. Why can’t I just…..do my fucking job, and do my fucking job? That’s all I want, really.

I have decided that based on all the stupid articles I read and inspirational quotes I see on Pinterest, I can start a new life here at the dawn of my midlife crisis. So I have decided I am going to fashion school or learning to code. Or both.

Now who has $10K for coding school?!

 

Touch and Go

Posted on by tanyadiva

How does one start what I have to say? I guess you just begin at the beginning…

For the past five weeks, I have been working full time. Or rather, 39 hours per week. Because that extra hour would just KILL a budget, laws.

For the past five weeks, I’ve dealt with the fact that this guy is terminally ill with a lung tumor that I don’t have $5,000 to remove. Even if I do work 39 hours a week.

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I just took a break to give him big hugs, kisses and scratchies. I’m back! No, even with extra hours and a nice tax return, I need to put $1,000 into my six-year-old Kia, which needs a new alternator, battery and timing belt.

But I’m lucky it needs those at all. You see, my Kia almost didn’t make it, and neither did I on Tuesday night.

I drive I-95 to work and back everyday. Maybe you’ve heard of it? Every day I drive it feels like the day I might die. Tuesday night, after a grueling 10-hour shift with no break, I drove home on wet, slick and rainy I-95. Midway home, a car drifted into my lane and I had to swerve out or get hit. I wound up hydroplaning and doing a 180 degree turn INTO THE ONCOMING TRAFFIC.

I actually found that You Tube clip when I came home. So you can kind of see what happened.

I thought I was dead. All I could thing was, “My face. My face will be destroyed.” Now, seriously, Tanya, who died and made you Angelina Jolie? I had three stress zits that day, too. And that was my first thought?

But it was. I have been in car accidents before, but never anything like this. All I can think is I was on the fourth of my nine lives (three other car accidents and one heart attack) or God and all his angels were looking out for me. I’ll take either one. I still haven’t processed the whole ordeal. Somehow, the other cars slowed down and didn’t hit me, even going over 60 miles per hour. I didn’t hydroplane anymore and was able to stop. What did the oncoming drivers think? What did they see? Abject terror in my eyes? One of those “Faces of Death!” scenarios?

I’ll never know and I don’t want to think about it anymore. I was able to get onto the shoulder and drive to the nearest exit and gas station, where I panic dialed my husband and put my George Harrison “All Things Must Pass” CD from the library on track 1. My Sweet Lord, indeed!

So. that’s that. Meanwhile, Ringo (the other Beatle in my life) has been doing okay. I really didn’t think he would be here five weeks in. He has a cough, and it’s not getting any better, but he’s still eating, pooping, and playing our favorite game, “My pimp hand is strong,” which is weird and I’ll describe it another time, but you can sing “My pimp hand’s strong!” to the tune of Alt-J’s “Left Hand Free,” and you’ll get the gist, plus it’s a song about my left hand, or feeding hand to the cat. Okay, I’ve said too much. But here, this might help.

Why have I been working such long and insane hours? Because my co-worker, the one who was such a bitter pill I went back to therapy to deal with her (!) had a family emergency. Her not-quite ex-husband committed suicide. The same one she bitched, moaned and complained about all the time.I guess it IS A thin line between love and hate?

We could all see her taking a week off. Shoot, two weeks wasn’t out of the question. But she’s gone into some sort of a tailspin so they advised her to take family medical leave.

Rumor has it she’ll be returning Monday, but we’ve heard that rumor literally EVERY.WEEK. She’ll e-mail the powers that be and say, “I’m coming back!” And then, nothing. Nada.

Do I seem cold? Heartless? I’m not. The first two weeks, I put my shoulder to the grindstone and pushed it all out, because I wanted her to not worry about work.

But during these past several weeks, she’s texted several people, but not me. No thank you, no nothing. It’s not that I expected it, but she’s made such a big deal about how I was hired to help her, even though…..that’s not really the case. And she loves to bark orders at me, even though….she’s not my boss.

And frankly, we’ve all had tragedy in our lives. I have two uncles who committed suicided (one was shocking, the other not) and my father died on Christmas Eve with no will or burial arrangements. Which we had to make on….Christmas Eve. So I’m not going to say “Cry me a river,” but at the same time, as another co-worker said, “Does she think sitting at home and smoking will make it better?”

Bottom line: She is a miserable, unhappy, complaining person who throws EVERYONE under the bus. She has dug her own grave, metaphorically speaking, by telling me she was intimidated by me when I was hired, yet exhibiting this kind of behavior. Because I can get her job done in less time, without help and mistakes. Person after person has come up to me and said, “we’re rooting for you.” To get full time. But I know that probably won’t happen, she’s protected, she’ll come back and drone on and on about how we couldn’t do it without her.

But I’m not going to dance to her tune anymore. If I’ve gotten one thing, it may not be a full time job, but it’s my confidence back. It had been gone a long, long time.

She has arbitrarily changed my hours since I started in September. Not my supervisor, HER. And I changed them back this week. Because I won’t drive at night, and at rush hour if I don’t have to. I’ll help her as much as I can when she returns, but I will not be dragged into her dark web of drama.

Working women in the workplace can be like this

but for me, it’s been a bunch of drama queens and passive aggressors for too long to count.

In honor of me walking away from full frontal accident, here’s what I’ve been watching on repeat. Some sweet, sweet 1980 goodness.