I've Never/I Would Never...

1. I've never cheated on a test -- not in elementary school, junior high, high school or college. Never.

2. I've never cheated on a significant other.

3. I've never been to the west coast. (The only states I have been in are: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, and Florida, and I flew to Florida so I was never actually in the states in between here and there.) I've never been out of the country either.

4. I've never shaved my entire head. (the bottom half and sides, yes.)

5. I've never gotten drunk on whiskey or scotch. I think I have been drunk on every other type of alcoholic beverage at one time or another though. I really dislike whiskey, and while I thoroughly enjoy the smell of scotch, the taste is a whole different story. Yikes.

6. I've never been in a play. I always wanted to, but I couldn't get past the stage fright during or the anxiety prior to the audition process.

7. I've never been ice skating.

8. I've never been a cheerleader. (But I've always wanted to be one, even in high school while I pretended to think they were so uncool.)

9. I've never been involved in a serious car accident involving a vehicle being totaled, have never been present during a natural disaster, and I've never had a near death experience. (knock on wood)

10. I've never broken a bone.

11. I've never spanked my children (or anyone else's for that matter.) I did swat at Mini's hand once when she was pretty little because I kept telling her "no" and "hot" when she was reaching over and over and over and over again toward the hot stove, and I removed her from the kitchen but she kept coming back, and finally she reached and was going to get severely burned so I slapped her hand sort of instinctively to keep her from getting burned. I cried. (She didn't.) I felt like a monster. I feel guilty about it to this day. I'm really sorry I did that. I don't believe in hitting children.

12. I've never liked history. That is, until I started taking art history classes at school. Suddenly history became a lot more interesting. My husband was a history major. That's funny to me.

13. I've never gotten jewelry/flowers/candy from a significant other as a Valentine's Day or anniversary gift.

14. I've never seen male strippers. (I don't really think I would want to either.) Female strippers seem to really like me though.

15. I've never been excited about our country's leader until Barack Obama became our president.

16. I would never have an abortion. Not even if I were raped. I think abortion is exactly the same as murder, it's just called something else and done in a medical facility under the grossly misleading title of medicine.

17. I've never been good at small talk. I will go to elaborate lengths to avoid someone I don't know very well whom I see in passing (like at Target for example) so that I don't have to make small talk. It makes me hyperventilate slightly and sweat profusely and stutter inexplicably.

18. I've never thought of myself as (or wanted to be) a career woman. That's not to say that I necessarily wanted to be barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen wearing house dresses for all of my adult life either. I'm an artist at heart, and all I ever really wanted to do was take pictures and make art. I guess I always understood that I could do that from home while making babies and baking cookies. Even though the career path is not for me, I do envy the women who go that direction because of their strength and independence and bank accounts they are solely in charge of (and a number of other things too.) Feminism is about choice. I love being a woman and being with women, especially multi-generational gatherings of women. For the record, I love men too, but that wasn't what this was about.

19. I've never been good at making new friends. (See #17.) I think I am seen as aloof or bitchy or something because of it. I really am really friendly, but I get so scared at first, so it takes me a little bit to start being friendly. I am extremely self-conscious. Alcohol helps.

20. I've never thought I was good enough at anything. If I get an 'A' on a paper, I think my professor didn't read it thoroughly, or if I get an 'A' on an art project, I assume it's some sort of a fluke and make a mental list of all the ways it's inferior to other people's pieces. If I get an 'A-' on a test, I will berate myself for days over the one(s) I got wrong. If I get lower than an 'A-', well then I might as well drop the class, drop out of school, crawl in a hole, and die because clearly I am a failure at everything. This has to do with a drawing I made of an elephant when I was about 7 years old, and then a poem I wrote based on a wolf in sheep's clothing when I was 10. I won't get into it now, but these two incidents have shaped me significantly. I always think my successes are undeserved and that at any given point I will be exposed for the fraud that I am. I am reading a lot of self-help books now to remedy this.

21. I've never eaten sushi. It's not that I won't eat it, it's just that I wouldn't know where to get good sushi or what to order/buy if I went to said place. I need someone who knows about sushi to introduce me to its greatness. I very much like the idea of sushi. I want to love sushi.

22. I've never had blue hair. I have, however, had brown, black, blond, orange, burgundy, green, purple, pink, and several shades of red hair.

23. I've never been as happy as I am now. I don't know if it's because I'm in my thirties now and I'm coming into myself more, or if it's because of my husband or my kids or what, but it's great to really be content with my place in the world.

24. I've never been to a Phish concert. I did see Phil Lesh, but on the way in I had my paraphernalia confiscated, and that soured me to the rest of the experience. I was also doing the Atkins thing at that time, and I really hated it since I'm not the biggest of carnivores to begin with, and I was so sugar-deprived that I nearly passed out if it hadn't been for a fence that held me up. The whole thing was really sort of a dud for me.

25. I've never been very good at staying focused on an activity for very long except for art projects. I get very involved with them and tend to stick with it for hours and hours and hours. But other things are hard for me to stay focused on. Like cooking. I love to do it, but I have such bad ADD sometimes, and I get easily distracted. I nearly burned down my kitchen last fall while I was cooking and I forgot something on the stove. A fire started in the pan which eventually burned out when the food in the pan turned to ashes. Luckily for me, that's as far as the fire went especially since the curtains are right next the the pan that was burning. My entire kitchen (walls and cupboards included) is currently covered in sticky black smoke residue, and it doesn't come clean. I will have to repaint in the spring. I also ruined an entire set of sauce pans from similar episodes of forgetfulness over the course of the last 2 years. Oh, and speaking of starting kitchens on fire, I started my kitchen on fire when I was three or four too. We had a gas stove, and I wanted to make my parents breakfast in bed. I turned on the stove and tried to cook breakfast using my kitchen play set pots and pans. They melted and started on fire and I nearly burned down the whole place.

An Even Newer Update on Babysitting

Jessi just called me at 1pm, and I didn't answer because I was having lunch and I didn't want to be disturbed. She left me a message though. Keep in mind that I sent her a text yesterday morning, and I also left her a voice mail this morning. Here's what her voice mail message said:

"Hi SongBird. It's Jessi. Ummmm... I was just wondering if you were going to be around today. I realized that I have not paid you! So... sorry I missed your call yesterday... Ummm... I'm assuming that's (insert small laugh here) what that was about. Um, just let me know how much I owe you and then just when you're going to be home so I can run it to you or what ever you need to do. Alright? Thanks. Bye."

That message is quoted verbatim. I listened to the message about 10 times to make sure I typed it accurately.

I am exasperated. Can't she listen to her message I left her? I think I need a drink. Oh wait, since I am not babysitting anymore, I don't have extra money for things like a bottle of wine here and there. Crap. No wine for me.

Update on Babysitting Lay-off

I called Jessi this morning at 9:50AM. :-0 I was so nervous. I didn't talk to her about the future because who knows what's going to happen from this point on, but I needed to ask her about my money. It's Thursday now, and I was supposed to be paid on Monday. I think I have been patient.

Well, let me fill you in on what happened last week first. So last week I was supposed to have Rose on Tuesday and Wednesday. As I already told you, on Tuesday she didn't show up, and I tried to call but couldn't get through because she was out of minutes. Then I got a text from her at 11:30 saying she wasn't coming. I asked about the rest of the week, she replied saying I would have her tomorrow (last Wednesday) and she wasn't sure about the rest of the week since she wasn't working at her job anymore. Then I waited for Rose on Wednesday, and she never showed up. I tried calling, but again didn't get through, and then I sent Jessi a text at about 12:15, and didn't get a reply at all that day.

Then Thursday Jessi sent a text around 11am asking if Rose could come at 12:30pm. I replied "sure" and she texted, "thank you so much." Her boyfriend Mogie dropped Rose off at 12:00pm. When Jessi picked Rose up at 5:00pm, I tried to talk to her a little bit about what was going on, but the conversation didn't go very well. I could tell she was uncomfortable, and I didn't want to put her on the spot in front of Mini and Rib. I asked her what was going to happen with Rose, and she said she didn't know. She said she had "orientation" at Universal Health, but I interpreted that to mean she was already hired and orientation was some sort of come-in-and-get-familiar-with-the-place and fill out paperwork sort of a thing, and when I asked her about a starting date, she said they would let her know by the end of next week (now this week.) So she said she isn't hired yet at all, and that orientation was actually just a series of typing and computer efficiency tests. So it sounds to me like "orientation" is actually a precursor to an interview as a means to eliminate people who aren't even good enough to make the interview cut, therefore it's more of an application process than anything, and that there's no guarantee at all as far as a job goes. She tried to make it sound to me that it was more than that. Anyway, I asked her what that meant for me, and I explained to her that while I have grown attached to Rose, this is still a job for me, and this is my income, and as my income is concerned, I needed to know what to do from here. She said, "I don't know what to tell you." I explained that I turned down two other offers since I started babysitting Rose because I had already made a commitment to them, and that I have been talking to another gal I used to work with and I was trying to figure out what to do. I asked her if I should be actively looking for other babysitting work. She kept repeating, "I don't know what to tell you." She said if I wanted, I could have Rose the following day (last Friday) and I said that was fine, and then I wished her good luck with the job and asked her to let me know as soon as she heard anything about the job. She said she would call me to let me know about babysitting this week, and as of today, Thursday, I never got a call regarding this week at all. Of course I assumed that meant I wasn't babysitting, but with Jessi, you never really know.

I texted her yesterday since that seems to be her preferred method of contact, and I said, "If Rose isn't coming at all this week, can you mail me a check or something? have you heard about the new job yet? Good luck."

I sent that at 10:31 yesterday morning. She never texted back or called or anything to acknowledge that she got it, so I got worried. I thought either she was avoiding me on purpose or that she didn't get the text.

I called her this morning at 9:50am, and I got her voice mail, so I left a message. I said I wasn't sure if she got my text or not because I didn't get a reply, so I thought I better call. I told her good luck on the job again, and that I know a few people who work at Universal Health who like it, and then told her that since Rose isn't coming and it's Thursday now and I usually get paid on Monday, I would like it if she mailed me a check so she doesn't have to go out of her way to come out here. I told her I watched Rose 4 days over the last two weeks but that since Jessi also told me she was coming on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, and I never heard otherwise from her, I also feel that I deserve to be paid for those two days as well, for a total of 6 days, and a total of $180. I said I was sorry to be asking her for that right now while she isn't working, but that I think that's fair because I waited for her all day and she never showed up. (I did not mention the fact that the reason she isn't working is her own fault since she just quit out of the blue with no back up plan at all and no notice to me at all.) Then I wished her good luck on the job again, and told her to have a good day.

I was nervous, but I sucked it up and tried to sound firm without coming off as a huge bitch. I think I did it. I am starting to think she is blowing me off and that she isn't going to pay me at all, or that she is going to wait and wait...

I can't wait. This is my Easter basket money for Rib and the kids. I think she is purposely avoiding me and I am starting to get worried. Grrrr...