2nd Star to the Right :: Neverland. I think I want to live there.

Update: Evidently, the hate/discrimination thing is a no-no, but swearing is ok.

Bitch.
Shit.
Fuck.
Asshole.

Those, apparently, are acceptable.

8:57 AM | allison | # |

Big brother is at hand. Late last night, everyone at the Company I work for received this email:

To All District Sales Office and Service Center Employees:

Your Company is completing the implementation of web site filtering on its corporate Internet connections on Friday, 08/ 29//2003. Web site filtering is simply a way to warn employees before they access web sites that contain content that is potentially inappropriate for the workplace or that conflicts with company policies and guidelines dealing with issues such as hostile work environment, information privacy, information security and use of company facilities (see the Employee Handbook for information on Your Company policies and guidelines.) Web site filtering will help protect employees from inadvertent violation of these company policies and guidelines as well as unintended exposure to offensive or embarrassing content when using the Internet. By providing a warning before allowing access to questionable web sites, employees will be able to use their judgment in determining whether accessing the site is appropriate.

So you know what I did? I deleted it. I couldn't think of any sites that I visit on a regular basis would fall into this "inappropriate content" category.

But you know what? I was wrong. Dead wrong. I got this message when I tried to visit some of my regularly scheduled reads:

You may not wish to access the following Web address:
http://XXXXXXXXX.com

Your Company has posted this warning because this Web address is categorized as : Hate/Discrimination by Your Company's Web address filtering service. This warning is to notify you that accessing material on this Web site could be a violation of Human Resource and other Your Company policies. Access to this Web address is currently being monitored and logged.
If you feel that this Web site has been categorized incorrectly, click here to request that it be removed from filtering. Requests will typically be processed within the next, half business day.

Since I can't access the site, I'm not really sure what the "hate/discrimination" thing is all about, but I would bet a wad of cash that it isn't as bad as the filter thinks. It's just a blog I'm trying to read, not a white supremacist or anti- race/religion/creed website.

Sheesh.

8:39 AM | allison | # |

One of my favorite things about visiting my family is the drive home. And the drive is best just after dusk, when the sun has set and is exploding its lingering colors all over the sky. That time of day makes everything more vibrant and real.

I live relatively close to the city now and it takes me about an hour to make the commute out to the small town I grew up in. The first half of the drive seems endless to me, dodging gas-guzzling SUVs, psuedo-drag racing newly licensed drivers and mostly trying not to go insane.

Once you reach that half-way point in the journey, things begin to get better. There are fewer cars on the road and less stoplights to wait at. I like to turn off the radio and roll all the windows down. If I keep the radio on, I feel like I'm disturbing the sanctity of the surroundings. Robbing it of the magic somehow.

You can see the swarms of gnats and flies hovering above the cows and horses out in the pastures. If you look at the straight rows of sweet corn and soy beans long enough, it will make you dizzy. The roads wind and curve through these fields, probably over the same paths that famers made long ago. The same families have farmed that land for generations. It's in their blood to work the land and feed the world. They don't know anything else and can't imagine doing any other job.

One of the best parts of the drive are the smells. The sweet corn and soybeans have their own distinct smell - sweet and fragrant and earthy and clean. It contrasts with the pugent odor of hogs and cows, and has it's own place in my memory of the drive home.

Last night, I made that drive. I was born and raised in that small farming community. At the time I left, there were about 5,500 residents. Now, seven years later, the population is hovering around the 7,500 mark. The small town has changed, but not much. There are more houses and schools. There is a new fire department and the hospital has a new wing.

But the drive hasn't changed. Some of the roads have been repaved and some of the farming families have moved away but the drive remains the same. I still wind through the corn and soybean fields. I still smell the scents and feel the wind whipping against my face. And when I'm away for long periods of time, I miss this drive. It's exciting and comforting because it means I'm on my way home.

9:26 AM | allison | # |

D was a woman I met when I began waiting tables. She's the same age as my parents, but looks at least fifteen years older. D was skinny as a rail and had dark sunken eyes that had seen days I'm sure she wished to forget. She was bony and had a long, ugly scar across her throat where she had had her thyroid gland removed years and years ago. D wore high heels and blue jeans and spoke like she never spent a full day in any classroom.

She was the head server in the restaurant I worked at, a title she took very seriously and felt that all our work reflected on her. In some ways, I'm sure it did. When we messed up orders or offended a customer, it meant that she trained us poorly. Looking back now, I don't think we were trained poorly, we just didn't give a damn. Almost everyone who worked there was in school or had multiple part-time jobs.

But that was her job. Her career. She had waited tables, worked on the cook line and acted as hostess in more restaurants than I could count on two hands. A lifer in the food service industry.

I often felt like she picked on me, that she worked me harder than the other servers and cooks. I would grumble at her under my breath and do the work anyway. I hated it. I would go home exhausted and smelling like grease and bleach. She scheduled me to close most weeknights and open on weekends. I hated it.

And as unlikely as it seemed, we became friends. We spent time together outside of work; she helped me move into my own place. Hell, I even took her home with me one weekend to meet my family.

I respected her in ways I've never respected anyone else I've ever worked for. She worked hard at her job, as low on the chain as it was. It wasn't handed to her because she knew someone or the next logical step up the coroporate ladder. It was the only thing she knew how to do.

When I finished school, I kept working at the restaurant, hoping for something better to come along, but not really caring if it did. By then, I was a night shift manager and making almost as much as D did. I wanted to just drift for awhile and let everything I'd learned in classrooms over the past four years sink in.

A couple of months after graduation, I got tired of coming home smelling like grease and bleach and of my dad hounding me about sending out my resume and applications. By November, I secured a job that would require me to pack up everything I owned and drag it down to Houston. I'd be working in a field that I had my degree in and would have to come home smelly and sweaty.

When I gave notice at the restaurant, D cried. And then she got angry. I understood the tears, but I didn't understand the anger. I wanted her to be happy for me. I was moving on to something bigger and better, a job where I could utilize some of the knowledge that I spent four long years acquiring.

After I moved, I wrote her frequently and never got any response. When I visited town a few months after I moved, I stopped to see her. She told me she wrote all the time. Perhaps I had given her the wrong address.

When I was in town again earlier this year, I stopped by the restaurant again. I sat in the car with my friend and rationalized all the reasons why I shouldn't go in. I didn't see her car. She probably doesn't work there anymore. D might not even remember me.

I didn't go in. I wanted to be angry with her for being angry with me when I moved away.

I regret now that I didn't at least try to see her that last time I was in town. I wanted to tell her how much I missed her and to thank her for working me so hard during my tenure at the restaurant.

I truly believe that she is one of those people in the world that others are meant to learn from. She is one of the people who I only knew for a short period of time, but she's touched my life forever.

9:38 AM | allison | # |

I've long been a believer in fate, in the alignment of the stars and that everything happens for a reason. I don't always get what I want but for the most part things have usually worked out for the best.

It's hard sometimes, to keep believing that everything will work out. I recently read a friend's post along the same lines and someone left a comment and it made me think; Remember to have faith. Believe with all your heart. Expect the unexpected. Love will find you. I promise you this.

Believe with all your heart. And I think what you believe in isn't as important as not believing in anything at all. Something. Christianity. Islam. Elvis. Baseball. Anything.

That's really what it's all about. If you don't believe or don't try to believe, what is the bloody point?

9:19 AM | allison | # |

This morning I was thinking about the family vacations we used to take when I was younger. My family used to pile into the car, load up the canoe and make the two-day drive up to northern Minnesota, where we would spend a week or so in a cabin by a lake, fishing, camping out and enjoying our time in the great outdoors.

Today, when I stepped outside, I was hit with the closeness of the morning air. It's unusually hot and humid for this time of year in Chicago, and it took me back instantly to those summers by the lake. One of our last trips there, I can remember waking up before anyone else and going outside to watch the sun rise up over the lake. Most of the time, it was cool in the morning and evening and hot enough to enjoy jumping in the lake to cool off.

But that summer, it was hot and humid and we used the lake to cool off many times during the day. That morning that I got up, it was already hot and humid; the air felt thick and heavy. I could see it hanging in front of me and out over the lake. I sat out on the big rock in front of our cabin and watched the sun come up over the tops of the huge trees. It was quiet and warm and I remember feeling small and insignificant, but it didn't make me feel sad or unimportant. It was quite a reality check for me.

Days like today, when friends have moved or are feeling down, or when small things annoy you or jobs suck or family fights, it's hard to look at the world in a grander scheme of things sort of way. No matter what happens today, the sun will still come up tomorrow.

9:07 AM | allison | # |

My toe has progressed to a pretty pink color. It's still a little swollen and almost matches the pink polish on my toenails. Almost.

I did run last night, even after a margarita incident at a local eatery with some co-workers. I'm in the home stretch now, running nearly the entire training distance.

It went better than I had predicted, considering my toe and the margarita.

9:29 AM | allison | # |

!@#$%& and bugger!! I'm this close to finishing my training. This close! And what happens? I had a run-in with the bathroom door this morning.

And I lost. Big time.

My little toe is so swollen it's nearly the size of my big toe. And while I love the color purple, the ugly bruise doesn't really go with the rest of my outfit today.

9:45 AM | allison | # |

Every so often I wish I had the courage to quit my job and not work until I found something more fulfilling to do with my life. I wish I could just give it up and go back to waiting tables part-time and not worry about insurance and rent and my car.

I've become very accustomed to the lifestyle my job has afforded me, but I wonder if it's all worth it. I like my cable, my cell phone, my in-unit washer and dryer. I like that my apartment complex has a pool and an on-site health facility. But more and more I'm questiong these things - is it all worth the dreading of my alarm going off every morning, only so I can wake up to a job I've come to almost hate? Have I become too attached to my material things? I'm afraid I've become the ungrateful yuppie larva I scorned when I was younger.

I know I've got some heavy thinking to do and I need to do it soon. I'm tired and lonely and spending the majority of my time in a cold building doing a job that requires practically none of the skills I possess.

I've already started putting out feelers for other job opportunities and I'm working on updating my resume. I'm creative and eager and willing to do just about anything at this point. Except make copies. My copy finger is pretty much all worn out.

9:47 AM | allison | # |

So, The Hobbit is over. I'm a little sad because it's always sad to see a show come to an end. But I'm also a little happy that I'll be back to a somewhat normal schedule.

Well, for a few days at least. Rehearsals for the melodramas begin on Wednesday.

11:10 AM | allison | # |

Oh yeah.

8:05 AM | allison | # |

Tonight we open The Hobbit. We're totally going to rock the casbah.

11:31 AM | allison | # |

I can't stop frowning and it's totally giving me a headache. And the more my head hurts the more I frown.

It's a vicious circle.

I want to go home.

Well, sorta.

Really, I just want a hug from my mom.

1:02 PM | allison | # |