Delor.es.Defacto

You see I've got this soul it's all fired up




When I think of things that make me a suitable match for domestic partnership with a guy, I try to think of the positive, female qualities that I possess: kindness, honesty, loyalty, intelligence, sense of humor, education, etc. Cooking, however, is not on this list. I managed to successfully start an actual fire in my microwave last night by keeping a fillet of frozen fish in on high power for just a bit too long. As I was getting out the dishes, I thought I smelled something, okay I'll say it, fishy and when the timer went off I opened up the little microwave door and a huge cloud of yellow smoke billowed out. I have a small apartment so the smoke filled the entire place. The smoke detector went off (this is why I took down the ones that are attached to the sprinkler system) and I immediately had to turn on every fan and vent on in every room, open the patio door and try to get that nauseating smoke out. I sprayed every possible air freshener imaginable but today I am still getting a whiff of that nauseating smell every once in a while. My guess is the icky smell has gotten into every soft surface I own and I can only keep cleaning and spraying and airing things out until it finally goes away. Disgusting.

Needless to say, I am never cooking frozen fish in the microwave again. My positive attributes paid off and I'm smart enough to learn that some things really do require a stove.



This was the conclusion of a nice day where I randomly wrote a nice, concise five page story that just came out of the blue. I love when that happens. I thought of the opening sentence, sat on my patio with my pink legal pad and throughout the day, let the bits and pieces come together. Now, if every day could be like that, minus the fire in the kitchen, I would be the most content person on the planet.



In the same subject area, my professor wrote me last night saying he would call me to follow up on my manuscript today. I emailed him back this morning and told him to call any time but now I've realized that from 8-10 I'll be busy. It's Thursday, you know, and Lost is on. Supposedly after the Sun and Jin episode we'll learn who all of the "Oceanic Six" are so I'm excited to see if my predictions were right. (I'm predicting that Jin dies.) I'll have to write at least a small follow up entry tomorrow after I've watched the last two episodes tonight and get caught up with the Desmond episode.



Today I had a phone interview with an investment company. The ad at Career Builder said it was an office job in one of the towns nearby (still a 30 minute drive for me) but I had to call the company's 1-800 to set up the interview, which I found odd. Then I had to print out, fill out and fax back a 12 page application. Today during the phone interview I was made aware that the job only offers a salary of $25k tops to start and that's low for even an entry level job around here. Not that any job wouldn't be great but even the jobs at the university (for which I have another interview in a couple of weeks) starts at $28k and they're only asking you to have a high school diploma and run a desk. In a large investment cooperation you would think they would want a more competitive salary if they're hell bent on recruitment, you know? I'll just keep my prayers on the university job (if it's a good one for me) and not worry about the one I am waiting to hear back from after this phone interview.

Phone interviews are pretty stupid too, by the way. They ask all sorts of hackneyed questions, type up your answers and then put them in your file. Why not just add these questions to the application and let me type them out myself? The purpose is to screen potential employees and I can understand that, but if they want to see if they want you to come in for a face to face interview, why not eliminate the second part of the process and get down to the face to face interview at the local office in the first place?



Let's see...oh yeah...my school hasn't given me any word on my current loan application and I still haven't paid for my current class. I don't know how long they'll let me keep taking classes with an overdue bill but I'm still set up for everything through November. All I can do is hope that they let the bill add up and when the loan comes through later on, I can pay it off then. I'm excited about my last three classes because they are literature oriented. I contacted the English department chair and she said that my theme class would be on Utopian literature. How cool!



IBar has the Wednesday night 80's Ladies Nite again. Very nice for the preparation for summer, I must say.



Oh yeah, and Sunday afternoon I went with Fran and the girls to see The Other Boleyn Girl, which lifted my spirits a lot. The movie did have obvious elaborations and rumors intertwined with the historical accuracy (I've never read the books so I wasn't expecting anything) but I liked it a lot more than the critics did. It's not The Tudors by any stretch though. I don't think anyone is going to be a better Henry VIII than Jonathan Rhys Meyers, no matter what kind of drinking binges and rehab he has to go through after each season. His Henry is much more sympathetic, interesting, realistic and engaging. The movie didn't give Eric Bana a chance to compete with his performance (even though I love him). I think J. R. Meyers is always going to be Henry VIII from now on. No contest.



Some of the Converse @ Target stuff was on clearance so I snagged the dress I wanted. I rationalized that I need it for my upcoming interview and Easter mass, which is ridiculously soon.



All in all, I'm on an upswing, which is very nice. I'm hoping whatever little tricks have been working stay with me each day until I can get back into working again and have something other than myself to worry about twenty-four hours a day. I think reading short stories and then getting the fervent belief that I can write just as well, if not better (as my ego-centric alter ego believes) is really keeping me abreast of my main goals. With that in check, everything else falls in a sub category and the lack of job and lack of boyfriend doesn't prevail as much. It's a very comforting feeling. Too bad it doesn't always stick around when I need it (which seems ironic, doesn't it? As if a man is something to replace that feeling of comfort. Hhmm...)



Photo credit: losermike



http://www.deloresdefacto.com/?p=71

So small I'm almost standing outside.




I'm filling out an application for a community college. It's one I've filled out a million times before for no real reason. This school's human resources department doesn't keep applications online for whatever reason and, instead, you have to fax or mail a paper application for every job for which you apply. Some stroke of luck made them email me today with attachments of the two part paper application in Word document form. Now I am filling them out online and can at least keep the stupid thing on file so whenever I apply for another job with them (to go along with the 20 other jobs I've already submitted my profile to) I can print this up.

Now all I need to do is figure out how this new all-in-one fax machine, printer, copier, scanner thing works as far as actual faxing goes.



So I messed with EntreCard and I think I got it working but I still have no idea how to get AdSense to work at all. Nothing displays. I've tried the AdSense Manager and just the code given to me by Google but, it's worthless. I don't understand channels and nothing I investigate on what channels are will give me a simple explanation. It's always, "A channel is used for and you create one this way and you optimize them this way..." Way too much bother for one thing. I don't even understand what it does so I can't even want to learn about it. It's not a link exchange obviously and disabling my pop-up blocker and spam software is totally not worth it to me, just to show a 180 pixel sized box on my site somewhere. Sigh...



The applications have been filled out and apparently I can send a Word document via the FAX machine in "print mode" or I can, as I had to with my most recent application, scan twelve individual pages and then send them via FAX. Oh well, at least it's done.



The blog entry title is something random I picked up from my Tilt CD that's sitting on my desk. The lyrics are appropriate seeing as I'm driving myself crazy with being in the house ALL. THE. TIME. "Pismal little pad. So small I'm almost standing outside."



Maybe I'm having that single girl crisis where she stops and realizes that all of her friends have a relationship but her. It's unfortunate, but since as long as I can remember, in my days of being "the tall girl with the glass" (I wear contacts and only stand at 5'7" now, by the way) my girl friends told me over and over that I had to do something to land a boy. Our whole world revolved around hair styles and clothes and parties and being attractive to boys. I was always the one in that weird in-between place. I wasn't the nerdy girl that the preppy girls made fun of (even though the nerdy girl, Amy, was, honestly, just as pretty as the preppy girls) and I wasn't the preppy girl like my best friend and our clique. I was the funny one. The entertainment portion of the day. That's the only way I ever knew how to be. That never works with guys. The smart, nerdy guys that I liked, were pining for the preppy girls. The dirty, hot, bad boys of the group were the ones the preppy girls ran after to no avail. The bad boys hated me and I hated them.

Now it still works the same way. I hate the alcoholic scum bag guys that I find in mass amounts at the club. The nerdy ones are still after the sexy, pin-up girls that they never could get in elementary school and I'm just stuck in between. I'm like median girl; not bitchy or nice, sarcastic but polite, angry but not hateful, opinionated but not rude, cute but not beautiful, not fat or thin, funny but annoying, smart but weird, creative but insecure. There is no section for me to fall into so I can finally feel comfortable. So the boys run out of availability and the friends move into their position as they snatch up the desire to have a comfortable, "normal", life. Where do I fit in?

At least I'm blessed (and cursed, honestly) to have that desire to be left alone most of the time. But it does create huge disconnects with the rest of the world. I'm not able to be around people for long periods of time because it exhausts me and wears me thin. I have to take days to recuperate from a lot of social activity. You can't fit in when you're always running for cover.

So that's a big thing I'm trying to deal with right now. It's all a manifestation of being by myself so much, without any resemblance of companionship in site. I'm just plain bored with no one to sit and talk to once in a while. I'm plain annoyed because I don't have anyone's attention. That's what drives me mad. I can't be entertaining to anyone if I don't have an audience. No one to talk to about books and movies and television and music and computers. No work, no club, no money, no boyfriend. Just me in my little apartment that I actually started cleaning this week because I needed something to preoccupy myself.

My bathroom has never looked better. Unfortunately it took a lot of money to buy bathroom decor at Target but now I have a new black and white theme going on in there along with the new black sheets I found on clearance, not to mention all the Converse stuff that I limited in my purchases... I want all of it! It makes me want to cut my hair in an asymetrical bob and hang out downtown on a weeknight. Sigh...



I got a flyer on my door this morning saying that when I renew my lease for April, I'll get that first month's rent free. Here's hoping I get some school loans and one of these office jobs soon enough so I can reap the rewards without worrying constantly. At least that's a big hunk of cash off of my mind. I also got my FPL deposit back so I didn't have to pay for my electricity this month. But I still don't understand my damn phone bill. I changed service so I wasn't paying as much money for long distance that I didn't need and now, this month, my bill is only $4 less than it was before. WTH?



And I didn't watch Lost last night. Oh well.



Photo credit: deloresdefacto



http://www.deloresdefacto.com/?p=70

Light up. As if you had a choice.



While I have a chance to update on the wonderful world of Disney central...






Nuke plant shutdown causes Fla. outages

As many as 3 million persons are without power, the state says

Tornado watch issued for Central Florida


So this morning it was preparation for storm that started in Georgia and slowly moved down into St. Augustine and Orlando. Now, by 3 o'clock, it's massive power outages that will help to make things even more hesitant and chaotic. Thanks be to God that I have my A/C still working. I took my shower while I could and turned the refrigerator temperature up a bit, just in case. (Of course I finally went to the store on Sunday and stocked up so I have plenty of food in there that could spoil if not kept cold. I should have stayed home and watched the Oscars instead.) I am pleased with myself though, that I decided to spend the ten bucks on the LED nightlight slash flashlight slash emergency light when I was at the pharmacy last week.


Not that I keep up with the blog all that much, not as much as I usually do, or should. But, if I'm not back updating Twitter or Pownce after a while, you'll know that we had major electrical problems around here. Sigh...and it's not even hurricane season. At least it's not in the dead heat of summer when these problems usually arise. Ugh.



Photo credit: Yahoo! News



http://www.deloresdefacto.com/?p=69

You're not hopeless or helpless



Well it's about time I updated around here. There's a new version of Wordpress that I have yet to install (even though the numbers "3.3" are very intriguing.)

I just haven't felt like posting in here for a while. It seems these posts are getting done weekly but I've overstepped that mark. I was going to post something for Valentine's Day but the weekend showed up with some things to do, making me totally wiped out, so on our President's Day, I'm able to feel like it's sort of a weekday and sort of a good day to list my personal info as of late.







On Valentine's Day, I went to dinner with my parents (which isn't so tragic seeing as that chick from Heroes did the same thing and didn't go on a date with that hot guy from the Fergie video instead.) I went shopping for something to wear for the next day (an interview) and picked up a $5 skirt, a $15 sweater and a $12 pair of shoes. Not bad. I washed a bunch of my black clothes as well, just in case I wasn't happy with my first choice in outfits (which is generally the case.) I watched Lost by myself because Fran was at choir practice. I had predicted that Sayid was one of the "Oceanic Six" and won that bet last Thursday. Now we'll see if my prediction that Jin will be the one to die this season, leaving the "Six" to be: Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Saywer and Locke.

On Friday morning I went on an interview for a little office assistant's job. (I decided on my Sketcher's instead of the new shoes. I just can't do heels anymore unless absolutely necessary.) The interview was for the library computer databases for the public school, housed at the university. Something I could totally do but Lord knows if this will pan out. They called and left a message before I got home about one of my references (so maybe that's a good thing). I left a message back, explaining that she was my assistant principal at my old school and left the number. Now, we'll see what she has to say I guess. If they call me either way, I'll ask about it. I'm dying of curiosity. I would just love to know if that Gossip Girl theme is still running rampant over there or if they've finally gotten sick of picking on me like I'm a 14 year old band geek. Sigh... I wonder how long that past will plague me.

After my interview I went to Barnes & Noble finally and spent a long time decided what to get with my Valentine's cash (since I'm on a diet now, this is what I asked for over chocolate.) After picking up and putting back, I finally settled on $40 worth of books and a Vogue magazine. (It has Kate Bosworth on the cover. I bought it to encourage my calorie counting and desire to be pretty enough to score Orlando Bloom. Just something to fret myself over until I have other things to thing about. Right now, that's all I have, which is annoying, because now I'm getting more in the mindset of, "average girls like me shouldn't even bother trying to be pretty...it'll never turn out this well." Sigh...)

After my book shopping trip, I decided to stop at Target to look, specifically, for notebooks. I've resolved my obsession to a specific element: one subject, wide ruled. They're simple and cheap and I can mess them up all I want without feeling some guilt for ruining those pretty $30 leather bound journals that I kept trying to use. Yes, I'm sure this is some weird personality defect but it works for me so I go with it. Now I have a single objective in every stationary section of each store. But of course, my being hyper-focus got shattered when this man my father's age decided to chat with me about his notebook preference. Now, being raised to be courteous and empathetic and to take into account that he probably just wanted someone to talk to and, I, like my mother, in that round-faced, friendly demeanor, got pick out to be the one this guy decided to talk to. So there I was, trying to be polite, in my new $5 English tweed skirt and black sweater, looking at the Pirates of the Caribbean notebooks, this guy told me all about how he likes to use the plain notebooks with the perforated edges so he can write out all of his bill payments, rip the page out, put it in his pocket, and then go to the bank. After a while, I tried to not making direct eye contact routine and utter the "uh-huh"s every so often so he'd get the idea that this was his time to get what he needed, stop talking to me and, more importantly, get out of my way because he was standing there in front of the notebooks with his cart. He did not get the idea. (Why is it that when you try to ignore someone, it gives them a sign to keep bugging you instead of getting the picture that being cordial and being interested are two separate entities. Ah Morrissey, you were so right; "The more you ignore me, the closer I get, you're wasting your time.") After a few minutes of his prattling on, a woman, his wife apparently, disabled with an electronic scooter and oxygen mask, comes in the aisle and starts bitching at him for wanting to buy something silly like a notebook when she had plenty at home that he could use. And for at least ten minutes they went on and on, back and forth, yelling at each other with, "You don't need that, put it back." "But it's just a dollar." "No, put it back." "I can't have something that's for a dollar?" "No, put it back!" WTF? And this whole time, I'm standing there as the guy is looking at me for some reaction while I try to look around the guy. Most people would have finally said, "For the love of God, get the hell out of my way!" But I waited it out. If they had been cute and old, and the argument had lasted for a second, it would have been amusing. But this was just ridiculous and this wimpy guy who picked any nice looking female to talk to, had to finally throw his $1 purchase back on the shelf when his wife threatened him with, "Fine, then don't talk to me for the rest of the day!" If there are reasons to not get married, that's one right there. I refuse to end up some annoying couple who brings attention to themselves in any way possible in any public place because they're so in to fighting with each other as they do at home. Sheesh.

I left annoyed by the incident and the fact that my comfortable shopping trip was interrupted. I went to my parents', talked to Mom for a bit and then went back home to take another nap.

So Saturday morning I had to get up early again to take the car for it's first and last transmission fluid flush. Now, may I remind you that it is 9AM on a Saturday morning and this procedure, without interruption, would take at least 3 hours, making the estimated call back time to be noon. By noon I was asleep again (I just could not get myself awake for two days) and there was a message simply saying for me to call them back. No, "you can pick up your car now." No "there was a problem and the full service couldn't be given." Nothing other than, "call back." So by the time I called back at one o'clock, the main office said the service center was closed. What? I asked how, on a three day weekend, am I suppose to pick up my car when they're closed. The main office said, "Well, if it's done, you can come and get it." No idea if it was done or not but I drove over there, annoyed and ready to raise hell (being a woman in a hormonal rage is really something to marvel at; men just can never understand) and reported to the first person I saw sitting at a desk that I needed my car. So, some nice old salesman takes me to the service department, says that my bill is only for half of what I anticipated (which is good but it means something was wrong and they didn't do what they intended) and I was given back my key. But I had to leave it there because I had my mother's car and instead of Dad taking her to meet me there, I had to drive all the way across town, pick Mom up, drive back to the dealership, pick up the car, arrange all of my CDs (yes, I put them in my bag for that whole day, just in case I needed all of them) and headed back home, back across town. I hate taking the car to get worked on. It's one of the most annoying tasks on the planet. I've also vowed to never take something for an appointment on a Saturday because everything closes early. Last time I tried this was when the cat had an appointment to get his shots at 12:15 and they closed at one. By the time I got there, like 15 minutes late, they reported that they were ready to close and I would have to make another appointment. After those two days, I stayed in bed for the remainder of Saturday night, watching old, Southern, chick flicks (Steel Magnolias and Fried Green Tomatoes, specifically; personal, favorite classics that I've seen a million times since I was in high school. Speaking of which, Gone with the Wind is on again tonight; my favorite of all time!)

Sunday, yesterday, was less than eventful. I was tired and groggy all day and didn't go anywhere until later in the day when I went to my parents' for dinner. I could have gone to the store because I need more low calorie snacks (because I've eaten all of what I originally had all ready.) But that will have to wait until late tonight or tomorrow. I did, however, update my Flickr page and put up some more Florida, urban, random pictures in my album.

This morning, I got up at nine something and then watched Sunset Blvd. in its entirety for the first time. I decided that in order to make a good story, it has to be a tragic telling of the main character after their death. For example: American Beauty, The End of the Affair and Atonement to name a few.

Now I'm sitting here, trying to update this blog, trying to decide which of the many around the apartment tasks I want to get to first and trying to get started going on the books I have to read for my class. I've talked to my professor and he said it's fine for me to want to try my hand at the simplistic prose so he gave me some book suggestions. One of the things I have to do is go to the library and pick up the six books I have waiting for me that I put on hold last week. I thought the library would be closed today but I guess the President's Day isn't as sacred anymore. Hhmm.

And finally, I'm still not over this recent picture from The Raconteurs' blog. Apparently I'm not the only The Raconteurs profile dark haired girl who would love to take a turn with that boy. Damn. He's so freaking cute. Too bad there are only a privileged few who can be a supermodel in the platinum ring. One day I'm going to write an essay entitled "Karen Elson, Why Can't I Be You?" :-/

I think I need to go back to my feminist novels. I'm starting to perpetuate the self loathing that the entertainment industry wants girls to have. Freaking sucks. Oh well, at least the ones who sit at a desk, working alone can have some consolation that they're more needed for their mind than their looks. (Or whatever the hell it is that we tell ourselves these days.)





"An example of what?"

"An example of writing. An example of how someone of your station and your generation and your origins writes. An instance."

"An instance? Am I allowed a word of protest? After all the effort I put into not writing like anyone else?"


Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee



Photo credit: deloresdefacto



http://www.deloresdefacto.com/?p=68

I will replace the noise with silence instead




Let me get back to the basics here and finally update.


I started a post last week, then the Heath Ledger thing happened and the next few days were just weird. I wasn't in the mood to post and I wasn't in the mood to try to find something interesting to write about. Hence, no post.


I was going to talk about how my Ex's brother started hitting on me on AIM that same day and how I was appalled that someone could get that delusional that they would go as far as to even think of trying to get me to go out with them when I'd known them for 15 years and use to be in a relationship with his older brother, hence making my Ex's little brother, my pseudo little brother at the time. Weird as hell and not that important in the long run but it was the only material in my life worth writing about. Then I lost interest and never finished the post about it. Oh well. The whole gist of the thing has now been explained and I can move on.



I have this week to finish my current grad class. That means two critiques and my final, rough draft to post by Friday and at some point I am to speak to my professor on the phone about my work. I have no idea what this conversation will entail or how I should think to prepare for it (As I told the girls, what am I going to do, explain to my professor that my story ideas are based on my obsession with men on television because I have no real one in my life right now? I don't even want to go there.)


Then next week I start my first Thesis class, have no money to pay for it, haven't applied for financial aid for this school year (even though my university said they can't give me any more money anyway; for whatever reason) because I haven't gotten my W-2 in the mail yet. It's probably sitting at my old school and no one is going to bother to send it to me because they're nice and courteous like that. Sigh...



So in all Bridget Jones fashion, I've made a list of what would be nice to have if I could have it:





Job: preferably something in the writing field, working for a magazine or newspaper, freelance is nice but I'd like to have somewhere to report to each day. A column would be nice, an office, a purpose, a decent salary, some travel, some social networking and something I could be proud of.


Friends: would be nice if I had something to do once in a while that didn't make me sigh at the idea. The club makes me sigh. I'm just over it but it seems there's nothing else to do and no where else to go.


Weight: 30 lbs. needs to go and soon. I'm looking like Tyra Banks these days, without the extra modelesque inches of height. Too bad my chubbiness does not make me look as cute as it does on Renée Zellweger whom I would not mind looking like for obvious reasons (life is so unfair.)


Relationship: preferably someone I could be best friends with to begin with as well as a girlfriend to. Not constantly together but that comfortable understanding that neither of us are going anywhere. I've never had that because no one has ever wanted me to factor me into their life in any real way.


Boredom: needs to not be as present, hopefully social life, job and boyfriend will remedy some of this epidemic.


Independence: must hold fast to as tightly as possible.


Money: not a lot needed, just some to pay for rent, bills, clear up credit (which is not fairing well with each monthly missed payment), food and tuition.


Writing: here's the thing; I was writing in about six different things at a time, then I became zapped and lost all interest. Now I'm trying to get back into the desire to do it fervently but it's either the blog isn't interesting, or the story's deadline isn't until the end of the week, or the essay idea is dumb, or the journal isn't fun at the moment. I know ADHD is one thing, but my handwriting analysis said I have the disposition to start a bunch of projects, get really into them, and then abandon them when they don't seem as exciting as they did at first. I'm still saying it is a weird perfectionist thing. When it doesn't turn out the way I envisioned it, then I fail to continue on a seemingly flawed path. But, whatever, it's the thing I do and I do it. Hopefully the difference between how I see it and how I project it are good enough for whatever audience I may have.


Future: the white picket fence, the husband, the room of one's own, the writing, the travel, the contentment; all will be mine some day, hopefully.


Self Esteem: see all of the above for points in this favor.






Oh yeah, and Lost starts up again on Thursday. Apparently they're showing an enhanced version of the Through the Looking Glass episode on Wednesday night at 9PM. Cool.



Photo credit: LOC



http://www.deloresdefacto.com/?p=65