Wear Clean Draws  (because there’s 5 million ways to kill a ceo)

%*@)%#!$

i’m trying to change the position of the shelves in the kitchen. easy peasy, right? you just remove the shelf, move the shelf supports — usually metal right? — and valhalla!* — the shelf has magically been repositioned.

But with modern cabinets, they are making them with these plastic shelf clips that, on the bottom, are like the old metal clips. But there is now a top to the clips and it rests on the tops side of the shelf. I suppose this gives it more stability, yah?

Well, my question is: how the FUCK do you remove those suckers. A search on google yields lots of plastic shelf clips in catalogs and shit. but a search on how to remove said clips yields ….. de nada! zip! Zero! zilch! in terms of useful information!

Update: aha! here’s the trick. At the same time I found the answer online, R happened to have gotten up and figured it out. Because he’s handy like that. Because he carries around tools in his pocket constantly which means right in his pocket was the equivalent of a flathead screwdriver also know as a leatherman. fuck me. I want one of those tool belts to wear around. If I stick thing in the pocket of my shorts, I look like a pack mule.

Speaking of which, this guy at the parking garage where I lock up my bike was getting a gander at me strapping on my helmet yesterday as I left for home. He asked how far I ride, 1.7 miles or so. He said something about my thighs. Oh yeah, I said, solid as rocks man. And then I thought last night,as I climbed the stairs in this high ceilinged town home: and my freakin ass is harder too. It was already hard enough — my mother used to smack my butt playfully and comment about its unusual solidness. Well, now with the biking and climbing, Ima gonna turn into a freakin’ wrestler or something.

Also, how do you care for those glass, flat top stoves? I finally have one and I’m discovering, like granite counter tops, they are sometimes more work than you realize. Like with a conventional countertop, you can wipe up with a cloth that isn’t in the best condition. Not so with granite! Granite shows every little freakin’ streak. And if you use any kind of cleaner on it, fuhghedaboudit! Streaky and maybe even a little sticky or something, like there’s residue. This place? No granite, just faux granite which is a great solution, frankly. The busy pattern hides a lot of lazy assness on my part.

So, if you have tips on cleaning glass stove tops and removing those fucking plastic clips, I am forever in your debt.

speaking of: thank god i have none — debt that is. Although slightly boo hoo event recently. Household income is likely to take a dip in two months. Thank god we have two months of grace period to hit the job market.

I hem and hawed about moving to this place, wishing we could just move to a nice one bedroom with an office and big living room and spend less in monthly rent. So, I compromised b/c R wanted a garage and, true, I don’t mind one because I have some furniture refinishing projects I’d like to do. But truth also be told? I could have lived had I sent that unfinished furniture down the road, let someone else play with it, and saved 300-400 a month. But no, we ended up signing a contract to plunk down $225 more a month than we had been.

And, because the gods I don’t believe in hate me, R lost the gig with that lefty publishing outfit that has allowed him to afford half the bills. Of course, I’ve been nagging him about getting a real job since forever. He’s dragged his feet when times were good and dragged ‘em even more when they’ve sucked. it drives me batshit because, well, I’m a bitch. And I’m a go getter, and I could never, ever sit around and not have full time work. I would be forever terrified that, without saving money, even a lousy $50/month, that I would end up eating catfood living under a brdige.

But R has been able to afford this because he has a monthly retainer from a career in the navy. It’s not much, but between that and a 10 hr a week gig working from home, he can pay half the bills and have some left over for beer and buying shit that we don’t need to work on projects in the garage that will never get done because … he’s drinking beer in his spare time!

fuck me.

so meanwhile, what to do? we can live. I just won’t be able to save as much money which terrifies me because, as it stands, i do not have nearly the savings people i work with have. people younger than me too! grrrrr. and i don’t have that because, well, you know the rave. and i wonder: how will I live when I get old? will i be bagging groceries or greeting people at walmart? i’d do it, of course.

bah.

it just irks me that R will not see the situation as one in which he’s got to work full time to find a job. yes, i know lefty friends, i’m a cunt who should know about the structural factors that make it a fruitless endeavor. And you know what? I say bullshit on that. there are jobs out there and if you want one, in the economy, you bust your ass to get it. that means that you apply for every job that seems like a reasonable option. you sit at your computer, every day, and apply apply apply. you write cover letters. you compile a list of companies you could work for within a 1 mile radius, a 5 miles radius — and you inquire, in writing, about jobs. You hustle. You go to user group meetings. You put together a list of all your contacts and pick up the phone or email them to see if they know of any jobs.

this is how I landed this job. I’m no idiot: I know it’s depressing. I remember spending my entire day, from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. sometimes later, filling out nothing but one job app after another, creating one tailored resume after another, crafting one cover letter after another. I spent Christmas Even of 2006, applying for jobs. IN fact, I got a call on one of those apps where the in house recruiter noticed that I’d applied Christmas Eve. Whatever.

So, you can imagine with my history of experiencing job loss, studying it, and being forever terrified of having no income. oh my god. do you know what it used to be like? when the bills would come and i would be terrified of this stack of paper? R would have this habit of standing there with the mail, reading it off. I felt like I was in line for the guillotine. And we’re not talking anything but the bills: the rent, the electric, the water/sewer/trash, the cable, the phone. No credit card debt. No car debt. Just car insurance. Not even a fucking cell phone bill! I would get this terrified, panicky feeling. I had to tell him to stop doing that.

I told him a couple of weeks ago, that he was doing it again. he came in from the mailbox at our new place and started reading off the mail. I looked up from my desk and said, “You know what? I’m not terrified! I’m not panicking. I’m not sitting here wanting to flee. I’m not having thoughts of suicide and how sonshine would be better off with the social security money he’d get from my death.”

I was amazed.

So, I will probably just get another job. I’m thinking of waitressing. Or maybe something at the mall over Christmas. Anything, really.

and in the meantime, I’m not sure what to do. Should I nag? I know what it’s like. He’s been moping around all depressed. I know the desire to sit and feel sorry for yourself, feel overwhelmed. But I can never just sit there and I have no tolerance for someone who does.

anyway, i guess these are better problems than feeling terrified and panicked when the bills come, eh?

so, i don’t know what to do. I see what R’s problem is. He’s overwhelmed. He doesn’t know how to manage all the things he wants to do. he doesn’t like to plan. He says that, when he sits down to do stuff, he starts thinking about how he’d like to scuba dive again, build shelves, paint the el camino himself, fire up the lathe, weld this piece to that part and make some whammy dine this or that, learn Java and C+, and master four different javascript libraries, learn how to cook, and go pan for silver and gems in some river in Idaho and then make homemade wedding bands, AND get a good job making beaucoup bucks doing what he likes to do. And then he thinks about his lack of college degree, his feeling that he lacks official, real experience, yadda.

and then he realizes he will never get half of that list done before he dies. and the depression sets in and, end of story, he either sits in front of the computer all day reading email debate lists, maybe hammering out a job app or two, flipping through a book on programming languages and drinking beer. which of course does not help.

whatever. I’d go to the gym, come home eat, and read a book. Sometimes, I’d just get pissed and yell awhile. He knows now to just sit there, listen, and it will all go awhile. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

I went to a therapist for awhile — not a real one, someone with a social work background because i’m a tightwad. she yammered on about co-dependency and how I attract men who treat me like shit beause I have no self-esteem. So I like having men around who are shits so I can feel superior to them. Of course, she never once asked me about the tenor of past relationships. Were they all like this? She never asked.

so, she’s yammering about how I’m a co-dependent and I should go to Al-anon, and I said, YOu know, I know all about the co-dependency literature. And sure, I see some of that controlling thing in me. But here’s something else. I’m a sociologist. I have friend who was abused by her church deacon when she was a kid. She grew up, had bad relationships, went to therapy and got told that it was because she had some inner problem that meant she attracted people who were bad for her. We apparently send out signals to bad partners: they throw themselves at us like moths to a flame. Then, one day, taking sociology classes, she had an epiphany. She said, “You know what? Maybe it’s because society produces some shitty men! Maybe it’s not just *me* but about the social production of shitheads!”

LOL

So i told this woman that and said, sure I’d take some responsibility for the situation. But you have to wonder: why wasn’t the first husband that way, huh? The ex-beau — not that way. The only other person who was abusive, my first girlfriend, before I was married. I didn’t go out with any alcholics in high school, nor did I date any between the wasband and the ex-beau — men or women. If I did date anyone who turned out to be that way, I dumped them.

So, WTF?

anyway, just ranting about something I’d forgotten about. Maybe I’ll also rant about the sexism and religious bullshit at the Al Anon meetings I went to because I figured I needed something and secular alternatives .. fuck. So, I thought; maybe I’ll at least meet some other women. Oh. My. Dog. AA? It’s ridiculous. The sexism in the Big Book. Holeee Fuckliotta!

so, if i’m a controlling bithc and that is why I’ve attracted an alcoholic then it would be bad form to actually expect that some effort — as in treat it like a full time job — be put into finding a job. yepper. that’s what they’d tell me. they’d tell me that what he does shouldn’t affect me. that i should set boundaries and shit. get a job by X date or else move out. right. So, then I get to find a new roomate. Fun! And shove my life through some more upheavals. If he wants to drink all day and not look for work, whatever. i shouldn’t respond to the behavior. Just ignore. I have my own life and do my own thing. Do not ever step in and try to help the guy find a job, don’t offer advice, don’t proofread the resume. He’s a grownup. You’re not his mom.

Right. But in the meantime, as I told this counelor last year, if I get controlling, it’s not because I need someone to feel superior too. it’s not because I think I’m so selfless and giving and kind. It’s because I’m selfish: I want my life to be a little more predictable, with a steady second income coming into the house because I’d like to get back to saving whatever I can for retirement. So, maybe I am a controlling bitch and, therefore, ripe for co-dependency. But it sure is shit is not about my selflessness. it’s because I’m freaking selfish!

Yeah. So about those clips and the freakin glass topped stove cleaning tips…. ?

* it’s valhalla! because a conservative dude on a general political discussion list had a terrible case of ….what’s the word for it when you use the wrong words all the time and sound like a doofus. like, you say “mute point” instead of “moot point”? Anyway, instead of voila! he’d write valhalla! HA