Domestic Geek

Wow, things are really weird here at work. It's like everybody knows something that they're not talking about. Nobody seems to be doing any real job-associated work. The art director worked on his resume again yesterday (yes, I'm nosy). He and one of the owners has been talking in cryptic sentences around me. Art files are being put on CDs for customers to come get. A couple of other employees are working on starting their own business. It's like everybody is getting affairs in order. It's kind of creepy. I personally have been surfing job boards and playing with Wordpress all morning. If I ever get the nerve to start my own design business, I need to know more than just MT and EE.

I'm back. I had planned to return in a couple of weeks, but cut my hiatus short because I just had to share this little bit of news:

I got the following in my inbox early Tuesday morning and didn't think much of it. The art director was working on his resume on Monday and I chuckled to myself that maybe he was planning on leaving and I was going to get a promotion.



Well, guess what happened at work yesterday? I was given my two weeks notice that my job at the screenprinter is being eliminated. Sales are THAT BAD. When the art director broke the news, he informed me that he was looking for other work as well. I wonder if the company is finally going under. Anyway, as of November 1st, I am again underemployed. So much for leaving on my terms, eh? Oh, well. At least I got some art production experience under my belt. Like the horoscope said, I'll probably be better off because of it. We'll see.

Even though I was expecting something like this eventually, the shock didn't hit me until I was standing in the aisle at King Soopers. I suddenly went numb and would've started bawling had I not been in public. I had to fight the urge to buy every comfort food within the place. I had to remind myself that I had I finally fit into my smaller pants last week. I've been bike riding with Marcus every weekend since my birthday and I'm finally firming up. Did I really want to sabotage that? No. So, everything went back on the shelves except one bag of M&Ms. Yay, me! Besides, if I don't find other work soon, money will be really tight and I would have felt really shitty about blowing money on junk.

In other news, my poor old dog has had explosive diarrhea for the last three days. Even though I had planned on milking the screenprinter out of every dollar possible the next two weeks, I took today off to tend to him (and me since he's kept me up the last two nights). I'm not sure if the Immodium I gave him is working or not as I don't want to follow him outside in the rain to see if his poo is runny. The poor guy is exhausted, though. I feel so bad for him. I also hate cleaning up poop out of the carpet. How do you moms do it? I don't think I could deal with so much poop on a daily basis. You women are saints.

Well, other than that, my life has been the same the last few weeks. I've still been slowly going through my junk and throwing stuff out. Why do I own so much freakin' junk?

I was playing with the Google Maps API last week at work. I had planned on implementing it into the company website before I got the news I was canned. That thing is really cool. It's too bad there's no reason to put that on any of my personal sites, but it's still a cool thing to know. I wish my javascript skills were better. I'm sure I'd pick the scripting of it up a lot quicker if they were.

I'm also trying out a new font manager. I haven't had one since my free trial of Suitcase and Font Reserve ran out a looooong time ago. I found a post about it over at Mezzoblue. It's put out by the folks over at Linotype and it's called Font Explorer X. Supposedly a Windows version is in the works, as well. It's very iTunes-ish. I haven't had much time to mess with it, but I like what I see so far. I hate Suitcase with a passion and swore never to waste my money on it. Speaking of fonts, I wish foundries would lower the price for their fonts. Offer fonts for $.99 like the Apple store does music and see how many people would actually buy legal copies of fonts instead of pirating them. I bet the foundries would make more money. I know I would have less of a problem buying a font for a couple of bucks as opposed to $25 or more. It's working for iStockPhoto. Just a thought.

Speaking of iStockPhoto, I'm seriously considering getting myself on there as a contributor. I can do vector illustration just as well as anybody on there. It would never make me rich, but hey, everybody could use a little residual income here and there, eh?

Well, guess that's about it. I'm sure I'll have a lot of posts coming in the next two weeks because the screenprinter probably won't get a lot of work out of me. My motivation is totally shot. That's why I'm all for severence packages and being let go on the spot. Let's hope the next company that hires me can actually afford to provide the benefits that I was promised after 3 months.

Man, I had just typed up this long, insightful post and went to another site in another tab to get a link I wanted to post that I found this morning and the damned site locked up my browser. Buh bye loooong, insightful post. I so don't feel like writing all of that again right now. Maybe when I get home. *hrmph*

I just about jacked my keyboard at work when I knocked over my water bottle. Fortunately, the water spilled in front of it and I only got a few drops on the spacebar. Whew. Not that I'm doing any work today anyway. I have to beat the art director about the head to give me work to do and I'm tired of it. I've gotten such a bad attitude here. That's what my post was about. Maybe it's a good thing that the browser crashed. Maybe all I really needed to do was get my anger and frustration out and I did and there is no record of it. Hmmmm.

Anyway, I've been doing The Artist's Way for the last week. I started doing it a while back and never made of habit of it. I think I gave up after a week. This time I'm determined to see the process through. I've got a major creative block and some self-confidence issues. I do some serious mental self-sabotaging and I need to get to the root causes and fix it. One of the main excercises in the program is a thing called morning pages. Every morning you write three whole stream-of-consciousness pages of all the crap floating around in your head, no matter what it is. That's probably why I haven't had much to say here. Once it's on paper, why bother typing it again?

I can't remember how I got there, but I was reading this site called The Lazy Way to Success and I read this quote: Man, how true that is. I don't care if I ever become rich, but I'm tired of being an employee. I hate it. I'm tired of my income being dictated by the work ethics of other people.

I. AM. SO. BLOODY. F*CKING. BORED!

Seriously, I have absolutely nothing to do. The production crew is just standing around downstairs. There are no pending jobs of mine whatsoever. I can't even work on the company's web site because the hosting bill wasn't paid and we're not even online anymore. I need to get out of here now before it is forced on me and I have nowhere to go.

I was just working on my Monster.com resume and I'll work on my paper resume here in a bit. I feel really guilty doing all of this on their dime, but I'm broke right now and already had a hysterical crying fit last night because I couldn't pay all of my bills. Having to buy plates for the car last month KILLED ME. Then there is the out-of-control gas prices. I doubt I'll be able to stretch this non-work out for a whole 8-hour shift, though. Ugh, it's only 10:30. I'm hungry, I forgot to pack my lunch this morning and I can't afford to go out. Plus, I did this Friday and I was so freakin' mentally exhausted by it when I got home. I'd rather do 8 hours of hard labor than 8 hours of BOREDOM!

Well, if I leave early today, I guess I'll go home and post stuff on eBay. I need to get some things before I can start my own business and that's not going to happen when I'm not even covering the bills. Grrrr.

I keep trying to be positive. At least I've still got my home and my jobs and I'm not a hurricane refugee. I have a man that loves me dearly (he must or he'd be gone by now, right?). I have a lot more than most, but I have goals I want to achieve and I just feel like I'm treading water right now. I should expect these feelings right now. I always get like this around my birthday. They're reminders that I've wasted another year and am no closer to my goals than I was the year before.

All right, time to quit bitching. Back to the resumes.

I took the site down yesterday and was going to do some major revisions, but I changed my mind. The revisions here are going to have to wait as I have other pressing things that need to get done. Some things have happened recently that have really made me want to start my own business. I am so sick of working for other people. I can't survive right away on any freelance work I do, so I am going to have to find another job, though. I need to quit working at the pizza place sooner rather than later. It really is taking a toll on my physically. The work at the screen printer is also drying up and some employee's paychecks bounced week before last, so I'm on the prowl for new employment. Anybody need a web designer or a production artist? Know anybody that does? My only stipulation is that it pays more than $10/hour. Let me know ASAP!

OK, I'm going to go and work on stuff for my design business and update my resume since there is nothing on the desk for me to do today. If I could afford to, I'd just go home for the day and get the work done there. Sadly, I need to milk the clock here. *sigh*