I Survived January (Barely).

I highly dislike January. Januarys have always been bad for me. Long, terrible weather, lots of stress, my birthday. This year was not much better.
A short list of things I survived, but have not fully recovered from: record snowfall and changes in temperature, 3 evictions, my 28th birthday, and losing the first bout of the season.

1st, my birthday. Unfortunately, my birthday enjoyment peaked at age 21 when I had the extraordinary experience of spending the entire month in Cuba. During that month, me and 2 other girls celebrated our birthdays with a killer birthday party at a fantastic resort in the town of Trinidad & Tobago, and then later at a party in Havana. For the 1st party, all the students on the trip pooled part of our per diem - half the class bought rum ($2 - $7 per bottle US) and the other half bought mixers - regular or orange soda - to mix with the rum. I don't remember much but my first case of the room spins.

The 2nd party in Havana was upstairs in a building on a main avenue - overlooking the Malecon. There was an obscene amount of food and dancing and fabulous Cuban music and a cake made specially for us birthday girls.

Understandably, compared with that, every birthday since is a bit of a let down.

There was the year I turned 26 - I had to beg people to go out on a Wed night, 3 people showed up, some guy tried to beat up my husband, and 2 foreign guys followed me to the bathroom in the bar and I thought they were going to lock me in the room and rape me. The year after that, 27, my birthday was the day after the derby league holiday party, which was the day after my husband's birthday. My husband's birthday is 2 days before mine, and it makes celebrating a bit of a challenge. Do we go out for both our birthdays? Go out on the day between our birthdays? Resign all independence and throw 1 party for both of us? No compromise seems to make either of us happy.

This year the holiday party delimma repeated itself- husband's birthday, holiday party, my birthday, and all 1 week before our season opener bout. I was too stressed to go to the holiday party, but that didn't stop me from frantically running around the mall at 8:30 pm that night, convinced that after working late I was going to find something nice to wear, run home, get ready, and get downtown to the party feeling relaxed and looking fantastic all in 20 degree below zero weather. Needless to say, this did not happen.

Instead, I made some friends take me out to a greasy chain restaurant the next night, drank a few margaritas, and then went bar hopping with said friends which ended up being a bust so we watched Ghost Busters while I passed out on my living room floor. When I compare that birthday with Cuba, I want to hang myself. How the hell did I get here?

I'll tell you the short versions: evictions. I had to evict 3 people last month. 1 for non-payment of rent, 2 for allowing people not on the lease to live in their apartment - both drug dealers. Taking someone to court is a long involved process, months in the making. In these cases, at least 7 months in the making.
Before you can go to trial in this county, they force the tenant and landlord to go into mediation - they want you to agree upon a move-out date without going to trial. As if I hadn't tried that already. No one wants to go to court unless it's a last resort. It's extremely costly and time consuming, and generally just not a lot of fun.

1 of the tenants agreed on a move-out date and the other 2 wanted to go to trial. This happened after a good hour of yelling, swearing, and generally making a large scene in which I was apparently playing the role of "evil landlord". After being yelled at, threatened, and called a bitch several times (all with the "mediator" in the room) I finally had had enough and asked the mediator "what kind of mediation is this?" She then added herself to the list of people who feel I am an evil bastard and left the room. Thankfully the trial dates were set for the next day, and I spent the rest of the afternoon at home and in my office with a box of kleenex because I couldn't stop crying for more than 10 minutes.

I got to focus the rest of the afternoon on getting all the paperwork and people I needed for trial together, (subpoenas, etc) which ended up being for the best because anytime without a task to do equaled massive amounts of crying. The trials themselves were nerve-wracking but went fairly smoothly, I guess (I've never been to trial before). I had to testify several time and thankfully we won them both. The next day began the actual eviction process: having the Sheriff serve writs, then come back within 14 days or they're no good & you have to start all over, getting a moving company to meet the Sheriff there, move the stuff out and put it in storage for 30 days (all of which the landlord gets to pay for), and the comedy of errors of me getting the wrong A-1 Movers. Who knew there was more than one A-1 Movers!? But guess what, you have to call the right one, or the eviction doesn't count, the Sheriff is an ass to you & leaves, and you have to change the locks back to the original ones you just took out. Thankfully, I got lucky for once and both evicted tenants turned in their keys so I didn't have to pay the Sheriff to come back again.

To top it off, I was at derby practice almost 100% of the time last month, because derby is the 1 thing that keeps me sane. It can be a lot of work, but it's the one place I can't think about anything else. And never underestimate the therapeutic benefits of working out until you can't move.

The upside of this was I was doing well, our whole team was doing well, and everyone expected us to win, or at least have a very close, bout. All that hype and pressure meant my entire team had a massive attack of performance anxiety and we broke down bout night. When things started to not go our way, we freaked out, lost control, and lost the bout. 8 out of 15 of us skating were 2nd year skaters, which means we've improved a lot since last year and are now expected to be, well, good. And in practice, we are. But we weren't prepared mentally for the change from last year, when no one cared whether we won or lost because we were the "bad" team and so many of us were 1st year skaters. TO add insult to injury, I've been reading an excellent sports psychology book trying to prepare myself for that very thing. And, 3 days before the bout I skated into the wall at practice, messed up my knee, and messed it up even more at the bout. What was I supposed to do, not skate? It's oddly puffy and only sore when I touch certain spots, but I can put all my weight on it and I'm tired of going to the doctor after derby injuries only to have them tell me "it's fine, stay off it" and then shake their heads. So fuck it.

Right now my body is falling apart, and I blame the stress. I'm not sure what happens to other people under extreme stress, but I fall apart. My skin breaks out, I gain weight, I get canker sores and stys and generally look like a leper.

Oh, I also took over the derby PR committee, which means I don't pay dues but spend a lot of time doing derby work (work I actually enjoy) and am now faced with the huge task of working to get 10,000 people here for the WFTDA Eastern Regionals Tournament in Oct.

And FINALLY I grew a pair and told my ED I hate my job and want a different one working 20 - 30 hours a week. If you talked to me in the last 7 months you know I have been trying to quit this job forever because I don't like it, it's stressful, and it is delaying me figuring out what I really want to do. I should have another job with the same org. by the end of Feb or March. Knowing how slow they move, probably the end of March. If that day rolls around and I still have this job - fuck it right in the ear. But Ive been saying that for awhile now.

Top 5 Worst Dance Movies Ever. And by "Worst", I Mean "Best" (80s Version)

5. Fame.
Wait, I'm supposed to feel empathy for a bunch of rich spoiled kids at an elite high school in NYC? I think I liked this movie better when it was rated R & called "Boogie Nights".

4. Flashdance.
Jennifer Beals - not believable as a welder, a stripper, OR (in later years in "The L Word") a lesbian.

3. Footloose
Yeah, yeah, I know it was the beginning of the phenom known as Kevin Bacon, but the plot is awful and they put Sammy Hagar on the soundtrack. Hagar!? Please.

2. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
SJP, Helen Hunt, Shannon Doherty, and dreamy "Jeff". Also, best 80's dance movie theme song (extra points for having the same title as the movie).

1. Dirty Dancing.
THE dance movie of the 80s. Who doesn't love it, despite the statutory rape overtones? Small point deduction for Senor Swayze's crooning on the soundtrack. Really, we don't need to see you dance with your shirt off AND hear you sing. But what ever happened to Jennifer Grey?

Can't I just leave town already?

We have nothing on the husband of the old property manager, which means we can't deny him. She doesn't know that, yet.

One of the tenants I am taking to court on the 3rd is being a pain in the ass. I expected it from her, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it. I even moved our weekly meeting to our main office because I knew if we had it in my office on the property she would waste an hour of our time with a song and dance number.

Yesterday someone pulled the fire alarm in the building next to the office, which means the fire dept. shows up and we have to re-set the alarm. The electrical box for the building and the alarm is in the office building, and when she went down there the maintenance lady noticed that due to all the snow and ice on the roofs, the building is leaking. People's light fixtures are leaking, water is coming down their window frames, and water is dripping onto the electrical box. This means no fire alarm. A company has to come move / re-wire the electrical box, and we had to go buy smoke detectors for each apartment (the old ones all work on the fire alarm system, which is shorted out). So I just charged $130 worth of smoke alarm on my credit card at Home Depot. Also, we had to get people to come shovel off the roofs.

The maintenance lady had to catch a flight for CA at 4 pm, so she fixed what she could before she left, and today the resident services coordinator is throwing a "Holiday Party" for the kids. His girlfriend made cookies and he is doing crafts with the kids. I want no part of this, but I'm sure I'll be sucked into it somehow... and here he is, ready to party. Got to run...

Many, many years of therapy

Hello.
I haven't written anything in 2 months because the job has been so crazy and stressful that although I felt it may be therapeutic to write about it, I couldn't bring myself to think about work outside of work long enough to write it down. It's stressful enough dealing with this crap 40 hours a week, I don't need to spend my spare time writing about it.

Especially when my spare time is being eaten up by my real career - roller derby.
In the last 2 months, I've played an inter-league bout against Colorado, a "Ho Bout" (Holiday themed bout) and we've drafted 4 new girls onto our team. The draft is a process that begins with try-outs in May and ends in October when the 4 teams sit down to draft their newbies. The new girls play in their real first derby bout Jan 2008.

That's a lot of work - watching new girls, taking notes on them, getting to know them... then once we draft them we have to make them uniforms, take new team & individual photos, write bios, train them and our team... But we got the best 4 of the crop so it's all worth it.

I've also been doing a lot of work for the derby public relations committee lately, and I decided I am going to toss my name into the hat for the manager position of the committee. I don't think anyone else is tossing their name in, so if I don't get picked I will be mildly offended. This is an unpaid position - our whole league is volunteer - though I will be exempt from paying dues, about $300 a year. And it will be a lot of work. I will have to go to derby board meetings (which I do already as the note taker- don't ever hold that position, you get all of the pain and none of the voting privileges), PR committee meetings, and do a bunch of coordination work and hopefully some writing. In October of 2008, Madison is hosting the Eastern Regionals Conference, so I will be doing a lot of work for that, too.

Despite my grim demeanor (I am not excited about much of anything these days) I would much rather do that job than my actual job. It combines 2 things I love - derby and writing - and doesn't require me to make moral choices like "do I tow that person's car even though I know they live here because they refused to get a parking sticker?" Or work with social workers. God, I hate social workers.

It will also be like having another part time job, which brings me to my current dilemma- I do not have enough time to play derby, work full time, manage the PR committee, and be married (in a good marriage. I could have a shitty marriage, but what's the point of that?) I am in a state of impasse. Do I quit my current job which I hate but pays well, reduce the hours in my current job to 30 a week instead of 40 (not sure if this is an option yet) - return to my old job working for an evil corporate bookstore / coffee shop that I quit when I could no longer go to work without crying, or try to find another part-time job that pays somewhat decently?

While I'm doing that, I also have to bust my ass to get better at derby (I made significant improvements this summer and I'll be damned if I let that backslide) and have simmering on the back burner, "figure out what the hell I want to do with my life". This includes reading lots of career books like "What Color is Your Parachute", doing research in the career library to figure out what career I want so I can figure out what field to get my Masters Degree in, and take the GRE and apply to grad schools.

All of this stuff in my brain at one time means my brain is on overload, hits the "off" switch, and I sit in a state of complete panic and indecision, crippled by fear, and am unable to make tiny decisions, let alone big ones. This causes me to revert to an infantile state of maturity and have outbursts like "I don't know what we should have for dinner! I don't know what the hell to do about my job, why do I have to think about dinner, too!?!!"

My husband, in case you are wondering, has been declared Venerable, approved for beautification, and by the time I have finished grad school will be a full-fledged saint. Provided I figure out what field to go into, pass the GRE, and get accepted by a grad school, that is.

So, if you know of a great 20 - 30 hour a week job that pays well, send it my way. Stripping is not an option.

Oh, and while I'm whining, all I want for Christmas is a puppy but due to time, money, and location restraints I can't have one. Tbphhhhhhh. At least I think about that stuff first instead of just going ahead and getting one, unlike you stupid people with your children.

Things That Have Been Happening

The carrot that was keeping me going for awhile in this job was the promise of September - come September I had put in my 6 months as a full-time employee and could finally use my vacation time.

I had planned to drag my husband back to his hometown to celebrate the Defeat of Jesse James Days, watch a rodeo, drink a lot of beer, and generally forget my life and get away from my job for some much needed stress relief.

As life would have it, that same weekend his grandfather got ill, had to be hospitalized, and passed away. So my planned vacation of debauchery and forgetfulness turned into trip to visit the family, feel depressed, and attend to the required and un-fun family business like funeral planning.

A week after that, we had to go back to his hometown for the actual funeral, also not fun or stress-free.

So now I am back to the ghetto, having missed a significant amount of work but not any more relaxed, feeling any better about my life, or with any more of a plan of what to do with it other than "Oh shit, now I have even more work to do because I missed week and I am even less motivated."

Before any of this happened, I had 3 new people move in (1 Hispanic family, 1 single woman with 2 kids, and 1 single woman). This week I have another Hispanic family moving in, a relative of the first Spanish-speakers I moved in when I started the job. I love them. They are quiet. They pay their rent on time and in full. I have every reason to believe their relatives will do the same.

The single lady with 2 kids is already a shitty tenant (literally - she let one of her kids shit outside on the steps of her building and didn't clean it up). She also has someone not on the lease living with her, and she has been here 2 weeks. I hope I can get her out before her Section 8 payments start.

The single girl is 20 years old, has a full time job, and I was hesitant to rent an apartment to her only because she is a prime target for the drug-dealing vultures in the neighborhood. They like nothing more than to set up shop in the apartment of an employed single woman who is going to pay the rent, let them store drugs and/or guns in the apartment, and protect them from police searches, etc. The dealer might also live there illegally, but has about 4 or 5 other places they hang out, which usually include the apartment or house of a mother or other older female relative, and several girlfriends' apartments.

I am still up to my ears in my own work plus the work for the Section 8 program, but at least we finally started interviewing people for the on-site social work position. I am very excited about that, mostly because I have been going to meetings that person should be attending, and I hate meetings. Especially meetings with clueless social workers who sit and whine uninterrupted for 2 hours in a conversation I can boil down to 1 sentence, "Someone should do something about all the problems!" I am beginning to seriously despise social workers.