“You are on an amazing journey of growth and healing,” says the speaker of the how to heal a broken heart online course, “you are doing THE WORK” I signed up for this class because I was desperate for relief from the physical symptoms of the breakup and it was cheaper than going back to my very unhelpful therapy sessions.

I was down and out, on the couch, crying, vomiting and an overall miserable sad sack of a human for at least 10 days. I was amazed at how miserable I felt. I had to work a bit, which would help ease my mind for a few minutes at a time but I was shakey from not eating and just the general malaise of depression that had taken over my body and the withdrawal from the relationship had left me with a profound sense of hopelessness that my life would always be shit. I could only remember the shitty times. And I missed him and kept replaying in my mind everything that I had said about my needs in the relationship not being met. I kept replaying it because I was like, fuck, why did my needs even matter? I went about it all wrong. I should have presented it another way. I should have had more compassion for him. I “should have” shit all over myself. There’s nothing I could have done better. There’s no indication that what I did was terrible. I was trying to talk to him and he shut down, I didn’t yell, I was calm, I had tears. I remember his eyes shifting back and forth and not having anything to say which was making me more frustrated. All I wanted him to say was, “it’s going to be ok. We’ll work it out. I will pay more attention to the plans we make.” That’s all I wanted. Just reassurance. And he couldn’t do it. Or wouldn’t do it. I know I was genuine. And when he said, “I don’t dislike you.” I knew it was going to be a hell of road for him to love me. To treat me at least as well as he treats his friends, which isn’t that great. To appreciate and respect my time. I didn’t want to move in with him. I didn’t want to have a marriage proposal, I just wanted to feel emotionally safe and that I fucking mattered to him. And so with these ungodly demands, he said, lets just be friends.

In this course, I am supposed to write a Eulogy for the relationship and have a funeral. She suggests that I bury or burn the items that he had given me. He didn’t ever give me anything. He never came to my house except to pick me up once or twice. Part of the reason I was upset is that he never tried to integrate into my life in the valley. He had completely ignored my birthday. Yes, he was raised Jehovah’s Witness but he has been living in the real world for 30 years and he knows how birthdays work. I’ve seen him buy gifts for other people. OK, wait he did buy me flowers but I left them on his kitchen table. They weren’t for my birthday. They were because I had a bladder infection and was super sick. See above, why I was beating myself up. I think he tried to get me flowers because he could tell that I was slipping away. I was lying awake at night counting red flags for nearly a week before the conversation that ended our relationship.

The course also wants me to write an angry letter to him. And a letter to myself. There are worksheets. Maybe I should walk up to the libray and print them out. I know by writing by hand is more connected to brainwaves. And the only thing I fucking want is for this pain and suffereing to go away. I said the most heartfelt prayer that I have said in a very long time, “I don’t even want him back, I just want this pain to go away. Help me get out of this pain” And I didn’t want him back but now I do.

I read somewhere, that these shorter, not really defined relationship breakups hit harder and what I have been experiencing is perfectly normal. I’ve been reading the heartbreak sub on Reddit and it does seem fairly typical. All of these poor souls like me out floundering about in the river of heartbreak. I’ve started seeing it as an energy field that has sucked me in like a swift-pulling river and I am not the only one in it, we are all going to get thrown in eventually at one point or another, some of us several times. I’m not a failure for being in it. I’m getting closer to the bank of where I can get myself out of it but I’m still flailing and trying to catch my breath and relax. Reaccess and come out stronger and see the warning signs before I end up in there again.

I did send him a letter through the post. It was kind. It said I still cared about him but that he probably couldn’t ever give me what I need in a dating relationship and maybe down the road we could figure out how to be friends. He hasn’t unfriended me on social media. I’m not looking at his stuff- he rarely posts but I have him hidden. I’ve posted a little. In all honesty, I wanted to keep the door open. I’m not comfortable with the door open. I’m not comfortable with the door closed either. I wish he didn’t live where I can see his house from my job. Winter has started and while skiing is my favorite thing in the world, I’m sad and not ready yet.

I’m going to go shower and maybe do some grief yoga. All of this lying around is handicapping my ski body. Most definately not helping my mental…

This new relationship is stressing me out and I hope I can sort through some shit by writing. Last week or so I wrote for 5 hours on a post that I didn’t publish. I didn’t delete it. I’m just feeling reserved about it because it talked a lot about sex and what I have been going through as I approach perimenopause.

I have a really good time when I am with him. When I get home, I collapse into a spiral of stomachache and ruminating conversations in my head with him where I feel absolutely incapacitated. We’ve been “dating” for two months. We have spent three to four nights a week together since this all started. He lives up the canyon so it’s a commitment to hang out and this past weekend I didn’t come home for four nights. I work at the restaurant at the resort close to his house, so it was convenient and with gas prices right now it helped to not be driving back and forth.

I got to his house Monday night after a 12-hour shift at the restaurant and it was dark. He hadn’t returned my texts and I was like, ok, I will just go in and grab my stuff and head home. It had been a long weekend and I worked a shit ton of hours and I really just wanted to go home to my house and leave the resort and the canyon. I found him on his bed listening to music because his internet wasn’t working well, and he couldn’t stream the tv or do much else. I figured since he hadn’t left lights on for me that was a hint to go home. I had worn out my welcome. (See my brain is crazy) What probably happened is that it just got dark, and he had been listening to music and cruising his iPad and didn’t think about it. That’s the problem, he didn’t think about it. So, I try to be cheerful. I’m anxious because while I really want to quit smoking, I can’t force myself to right now, and I feel a lot of shame being a smoker around him. I severely limit the smokes I have around him and use nicotine replacement packets, but I don’t think those are helping, I think they are making my addiction for nicotine worse. I shower to get the smell off of me and get into bed with him.

We’re chatting about the restaurant and the people and stuff. I felt guilty for leaving my mom for the holiday weekend by herself and I asked him if he wants to meet her. He says, “he’s not ready” and so I probe a little further, he mentions mother-in-law and I don’t know, I’m spinning. Why are you afraid to meet my mom? My mom is the nicest lady in the world and all of my friends love her. I just thought it would be nice for her to know who I am spending all of this time with but clearly, we are looking at this from two completely different perspectives and then the conversation starts around our relationship. He asks me if I have a timeline for how it should proceed. I’m like you mean if you haven’t told me you love me within six months am I going to leave? I don’t know, probably. I guess I should have asked him about his timeline, I think I did, don’t remember what he said. Then his dog comes into the conversation, he says he needs to be with someone who cares about her. I’m kinda floored and take it the wrong way. I feed her when he forgets, I play with her, and she comes faster when I call her because I am a little sterner for her to follow directions. She’s a Boston terrier and I am used to bigger dogs and being the alpha with them. He says I push her off the bed and he doesn’t like that and I’m like I can’t help what I do in my sleep. He says no, I’ve done it awake. Well, shit I don’t like your dog on the bed but I didn’t say that… I did say that it’s a sore spot because my ex-fiance only spent the night at my house once the whole time we were together. He wouldn’t leave his dog. Then questions about why didn’t I let the dog stay at my house and I was like because Cowboy was too territorial and it would have been a ruckus and just easier if I went to his house. Cowboy, my black German Shephard took it for the team to be alone at night when I was at the other dude’s house which I feel guilty about but shit, does he have a right to have an opinion about my previous relationship.

Now, I’m uncomfortable. Now, I am getting dressed. Now, I am going home. I had already mentioned that I wanted to head home. He wasn’t spooning with me because the dog was in the way and I said I had showered for that very reason. He slides over, I think he moved the dog, maybe, I can’t be sure. I’m feeling really insecure and just want to be home. So I leave. He says to text him when I get home and I don’t. I’m irritated.

I spend way too much time in my head thinking about this relationship. I’m just not so sure what I am going to do. In one way, I feel like I was better off being single and doing my own thing. Now, I really like him and I can see a future with him. Except I have this generalized anxiety because I feel like I am being watched. Tested. Subconsciously trying to figure out what mold I should fit in for him. What about me is acceptable and what isn’t so I keep many parts of myself hidden. THIS not being able to communicate is making me sick. I’m supposed to see him this afternoon. I was fortunate enough to drop it in a zoom group chat and I feel lighter and supported. Glad I spoke up about what is going on in my world.

I think it boils down that if I tell him my truths and history he is going to leave and I don’t have another heartbreak in me. I’m also tampering down my thoughts and feelings to go with the flow.

It’s been over a year since I have made a post. Not because I haven’t thought about it… I’ve just been somewhere else and couldn’t find the willingness to sit down with a keyboard. I check in a few times a week and see that some of you are still hanging around, posting occasionally and I am thankful for those even if I don’t take the time to comment.

I was teaching skiing full time when the shutdown came in March. I walked to my car with my supervisor that afternoon, worried about the corona virus spreading but also looking forward to the next two days off, I had skied 10 days in a row (2 days in Colorado) and I was tired. He said, my supervisor, “See ya Tuesday!” and I am sure I said, “ski ya later!” as we got in our cars and drove down the canyon on a clear, warmish evening. Later that night on Facebook, it was announced that the all of the resorts would be closing, effective that evening. I found out on Facebook that I no longer had a job and we had 6 weeks left of the season. Crazy times. What ensued after that, well, everyone knows… we are still in it. I wish I would have filed for unemployment but I didn’t. I am lucky to not have a lot of bills to pay and I had savings. Somewhere I believed I didn’t deserve it but I put it under the guise of dealing with the government was a pain in the ass.

Salt Lake had a big earthquake and thousands of aftershocks the following Monday morning. And so started the endless days of all day living with my mom. We binged the Tiger King, Homeland and Breaking Bad at first because we were so bored and unsure/scared and didn’t leave the house. It’s been seven months, going on eight and I have finished a few sewing projects, there is one still on the dining room table. I have read two books, watched nearly every single episode of the 90 Day Fiancé franchise, plus too much Real Housewives and home improvement shows, went camping once for a night, been on a few hikes and drives, went up to Idaho to visit my brother who lives in the middle of nowhere for the first time since he moved there 15 years ago, had a sewing job where I actually left the house each day for about two months but that ended weird a few weeks ago and now, I sit with my TO DO list.

The week before George Floyd was killed I had signed up for a journal writing class via zoom with my old writing co-op in Nashville but I only went to one meeting. I couldn’t do it. I was so overwhelmed by what was happening in the U.S. I deactivated Facebook for two weeks. I bawled my eyes out watching the funeral, I walked my dog and tried to eat. I couldn’t take in the noise of what was going on and I felt that I shouldn’t add to it either. I minored in African-American Studies at the University of Utah and I knew too much. It was what I have been waiting for since 1996 but when it got here, I had to sit down and just not. Not be mean to my mom, not watch the President on the television, not read any white person’s opinion on social media about what was happening. I did listen to the Black Lives Matter voices, I did have some alcohol, I did spray everything that my brother touched when he came over with Lysol after he left.

Dopey. I found Dopey while I had my sewing job and listened to podcasts all day. If you don’t know what I am talking about, do yourself a favor and give it a go. Actually, listen to This American Life episode 667. (I am not smart enough to add a link.) I am going to join the Patreon and stop all of the other people I pay to talk to me about sobriety. I am not saying anymore about that today. SSDN and FTFC.

Where I am at with my sobriety is better than it was, not as good as it was before but still trying. I haven’t spent the day barfing since probably July, perhaps early August. I may have thrown up a couple of times. I only went to the sewing job hungover once and every minute of it felt like an hour so I didn’t do that again. I called out which sucks. I was on the verge of a drinking brown out when I met the lady who hired me and later I slept out on my friend’s trampoline that night because I didn’t want to drive and didn’t want to sleep in the house because of the virus. I haven’t had any alcohol for 5 days as of now, right this minute. I nearly completed 30 days September/October but the eating disorder took over and I couldn’t deal. I cried in the car after the therapist and vowed not to see her again, but I did, now I don’t see her until election day. I also did another thing, called Change Your Story but I am still working on my opinion about it so I don’t want to say too much there either.

I did get super sick and went for two Covid tests because the first one was taking too long for results. I had a severe summer cold/flu and was sick with worry. I binged Nurse Jackie, all seven seasons. Both tests were negative.

They say the ski resort will be open on November 20th. It’s rained 3 times this summer and not any clouds on the horizon. I am delaying turning in my season schedule because I am unsure of what I want to commit to this season. It’s going to be weird. Are cases going to surge? Everything is going to take place outside and on some days in January, that sucks. It’s cold. No locker room, no breakfast in the lodge.

I bought a new car. The twitch in my eye lasted for two weeks. I guess it was a good idea, I drove my last one for 27 years. It was time.

One of the books I have read (My Fair Junkie being the other) is Chanel Miller, Know My Name. Brock Turner’s survivor. We do say survivor and not victim these days, right? She is a lushes writer, she holds your attention and keeps it moving with succulent descriptions. I am a ME TOO-er and I have noticed something intangible popping up in me. An awareness of how I have been trained to think about myself as a female.

And as I end this post, I will leave you with this:

They tell you if you’re assaulted, there’s a kingdom, a country house, high up on a mountain where justice can be found. Most victims are turned away at the base of the mountain, told they don’t have enough evidence to make the journey. Some victims sacrifice everything to make the climb, but are slain along the way, the burden of proof impossibly high. I set off, accompanied by a strong team, who helped carry the weight, until I made it, the summit, the place few victims reached, the promised land. We’d gotten an arrest, a guilty verdict, the small percentage that gets convictions. It was time to see what justice looked like. We threw open the doors, and there was nothing. It took the breath out of me. Even worse was looking back down to the bottom of the mountain, where I imagined expectant victims looking up, waving, cheering, expectantly. What do you see? What does it feel like? What happens when you arrive? What could I tell them? A system does not exist for you. The pain of this process couldn’t be worth it. These crimes are not crimes but inconveniences. You can fight and fight and for what? When you are assaulted, run and never look back. This was not one bad sentence. This was the best we could hope for. “

Chanel Miller, Know My Name

I know, what a bummer. Sorry. I will bring some hope next time.

I had heart palpitations during the last withdrawal. It was an odd sensation, like a kitten doing a somersault in my chest. I was at work on Wednesday and I was feeling ok. Sitting at my desk and all of a sudden it felt like someone tipped the boat over, I grabbed the desk and didn’t know what happened. I was a little stunned, I was sitting down. Took some deep breaths and tried to ignore it. Y’all are the only people I have told. Even though it wasn’t a two day hangover, looking back now, I am fairly certain that my body was still trying to rid itself of the damage I had done on Monday night. I’ve heard people talk about palpitations during hangovers and withdrawal but hadn’t ever really had them myself. Not like that anyway. Scary. Plus the particular brand of eating disorder I have wrecks your heart… silent panic with a huge wave denial. I turn 46 on Sunday and I could be a candidate.

I also finally quit my job that day. At least, I told them. The end is near… just another week or two.

Nashville called and I am going to go work my old corporate Christmas decorating job for a month in November and then by the time I get back, the ski season will have already started and I will be full time at the resort. So long, soul sucking office job!

Things are good. I feel pretty good physically, (haven’t had anymore heart stuff) which helps the mentally… and I am glad I signed up for the school. Even with my minimal engagement with the school’s online community it is helping.

I feel like I am doing something different about a problem that I haven’t been able to fix. Granted I have had longer boughts of sobriety and I am more nervous about down the road than I am about this weekend. I can handle staying sober this week. I can construct my weekend to be in the sober zone. The motivation is that the thought of drinking or being buzzed/drunk disgusts me at the moment. I can tell that my sense of smell is better already and the thought of having to smell alcohol in order to drink it sounds like a terrible idea. Blech!

I also had to apologize to my therapist. God, I was pissed at her. I told her so through a few emails. It was about my drinking and how she didn’t act like it was a big deal. She’d take my money whether I was sober or not. I am a believer that in order to evolve or progress or fix/change things with someone like me who drinks too often, uses alcohol as their main coping mechanism for the shit (and good times) won’t be able to heal. Or the healing process will take a much, much longer time and I will continue to circle the drain. Tired of the drain.

Last thing before I sign off, I am having to take a drug test for “Making Christmas Great Again” in Nashville. I am out of weed. I didn’t smoke that much but it was daily for about a year. I had a large stash that finally ran out last night. I am relieved it’s gone but also a bit trepidacious… I never got super stoned just a few puffs here and there nightly in order to tolerate the mundane of my evenings. Hopeful the lack of weed doesn’t send me to the liquor store.

Have I told you about my idea for an emergency button that you could push if you do find yourself inside a liquor store? You don’t really want it but you don’t know what else to do. So, just before you get to the counter (or even after) you can push this emergency button and someone comes out and gives you a hug and a cup of tea and listens to your woes until the urge to drink passes. I have thought about this button at least the last 30 times I have stopped at the liquor store and wished for one. I think the Mormons would go for it.. alcohol is so regulated here… ha. Naw, actually I am sure it would piss people off if the Mormons interceded. I just wonder how many others feel the way I do, standing in that line. Some of them look really rough.

Not funny? I am still blaming the Mormons a bit.

I did it. I just spent money on doing the hip sobriety school. Sorry, the Temper or whatever it is called. Y’all know Holly? I have been following all sorts of people for years… but I always liked Holly the best. I like Belle too but I have done that… and Belle would say to try something different. So, the email came through about the last chance to sign up and I was in just the right hangover space and time to do it. I asked my mom and she encouraged it. It’s no secret to her that I want to be done with drinking. She sees me doing it. She sees the ramifications it causes to my body and general happiness.

Hopefully this will work. Something has got to give. I am stuck in a four year long asshole cycle. I quit, I moderate, I quit, I moderate and then I overdo it and want to die. Then, I drink again. I listen to sober podcasts in the morning and stop and buy alcohol on the way home from work. I still hate my job. I have to quit. I should’ve quit yesterday. Didn’t go today because I couldn’t bare it. Now, I have the anxiety of not going because I drank last night. So, to fix it I signed up for this course because I need help.

Have a feeling you will be hearing more from me in this autumn season. In the meantime, wish me well.

“The goal is the same every year- to not hurt myself” Bode Miller

While my trip to Chile was in fact fantastic there were things that I am still working out. My coaches gave me the Bode Miller award for our group. Everyone got an award… on a keychain. It was sweet. Mine was weird. Bode had been on the World Cup team with one of my coaches and while he is an Olympic medal winner and an accomplished skier he did his own thing. Had a reputation for it. Maybe I was tired but it kinda hurt my feelings. I didn’t hear everything she said because I was spacing out and I know she meant well, when I asked a guy in our group what he thought of Mr Miller, he said, “he was the rebel, the party guy. Kind of a drunk, but he won” And with that I went to bed while the rest of my group went and danced on tables together until 3 am to end the week. We were flying out the next afternoon and I wanted to ski in the morning. I was a little grumpy and tired and I felt like an outcast. It’s like they had all finally bonded and I missed it.

“The days where you crash, you… get your drink, get your clothes, cruise the lodge, take your boots off, have some food, go home, take a nice shower, hang out with your buddies, read your book.” Bode Miller

Y’all would have been proud of me for my control around the alcohol. Ok. Maybe not, I did drink but I was also so keenly aware of how much I was taking in as to not ruin the next day. One lady in our group missed an entire day of skiing because she was too hungover to get out of bed.

The dining room was the most difficult part for me. So much commotion and giant portions of food, some of it strange, it was hard. We ate there 3 times a day as a group. The table manners of my cohorts were little to be desired. If I could have taken a sandwich off to a corner of the quiet part of the hotel, I would have been better off. I probably would have gotten more substanence. The first few times we entered the dining room, I felt dizzy. Like I was on an amusement park ride. It was the eating disorder- that old tired hag just won’t quit. I would excuse myself before dessert to go smoke and recollect myself. I did the best I could with the food and they made money off of me for sure and next time, I might do something else to accommodate my needs. Big group meals 3 times a day for 7 days in a row is not easy for a person who almost died from anorexia.

I was also the only smoker, well, except for some of the staff and a few Brazilians. I didn’t smoke my normal amount because of the elevation and I tried to hide it but I didn’t quit. Maybe Bode smoked?

We arrived on a Saturday afternoon and by Monday I pretty much knew everyone in the hotel. Ok, not everyone but I had chatted and made friends with the staff, the Utahns, the Chileans, the Brazilians, the New Yorkers, a giant group of partiers from DreamWorks. I’d be with my group and they would come say hi or wave and call my name, and I would get questions on how I knew them. I am just not a shy person when I travel. I’ll talk to anyone, maybe it’s all the damn Grateful Dead shows or the Camino. I just turn social and I learned a long time ago that people will tell you anything if they think you are listening. Plus the venue of this ski vacation was conducive for just this sort of thing, making friends. Also, the wine helped.

“Sometimes it’s all about the win, sometimes all about the skiing” Bode Miller

As I conclude this post, I have decided that Bode Miller is a bad ass and I should feel honored. It was an incredible experience and I need to find a way to do it again. It’s not for people without any money and I am going to be one of those people soon if I don’t start envisioning a new job.

“It doesn’t matter that it’s the Olympics. I just did it my way. I am not a martyr, and I am not a do-gooder. I just want to go out and rock. And man, I rocked here.” Bode Miller

I slept 14 hours last night and I feel pretty comfortable in my body this morning. Perhaps I can write about my time last week. I am on my phone so perhaps not.

Portillo was as good as the Camino del Santiago as far as my life adventures have gone. Just as intense, just as informative, just as life changing, just way more condensed. A week instead of six of hard body work, letting things happen as they should and seeing new horizons. Stretching the eyeballs and my spirit to new places I couldn’t have imagined had I not been there myself.

Where to begin?

I absolutely love skiing. Our group of skiers were all well advanced. Our trainers blew my mind. My skiing changed. Our whole group got better. It was fucking fantastic. I can’t wait for snow to go again and practice what I learned. Praying I don’t forget I keep going over in my mind how it felt, the pressure in my ski boots, keeping my arms forward and being aggressive and strong in pushing down the hill, feeling the bend in the ski and the corner of my boot and the control of flying. The physics of skiing that I learned in Portillo was life changing. I really, really want to go back next year.

Portillo is a resort that likened to my mind of Dirty Dancing, you know that place in the Pokonos, instead of dancing we were skiing and nobody keeps Baby in the corner.

So, after the last post about horrible stomach bile anxiety, I went for a hike on Thursday with my friend, who is saved in my phone as FBI Rob.This is the top of it, Lake Catherine. (2 miles, straight uphill) and that shit I wrote the other day was gone out of my body in about 20 minutes of my heart beating and my ass muscles waking up- they hadn’t had that kind of blood flow that I have been aware of for a long, long time. It felt good, because I know how to breathe in…I used to not be able to know how to breathe. I still don’t, I smoke cigarettes. I can pretend I have good lungs…. or at least they are still responding and I know how not to hold my breath when my legs extend. My corner 7-11, have two packs sitting on the counter for me before I walk in, I ♥️my guys at sev. They are East India immigrants that have master degrees in engineering, fairly certain that 7-11 is treating them better than whatever one can get a job in the land of the Mormon as a “non-native.” They own it, they charge more… Whatevs, its sevs in the affluent neighborhood Cottonwood. But, this ain’t no country club – wait, what?Can you or can you not see the skull with roses in the cloud reflection in the water?I know every name of all of these flowers because of my grandma, Edith. They are all so familiar I wonder if I am telling a falsehood to FBI Rob from Baltimore who has never spent a summer in the Wasatch – who hasn’t ever seen these flowers before? Sego Lily, Indian paintbrush… 🤣🤣😁🙄 blue bell cockle shellsAnyway, you got to this point.

After I found some snow and made a picture, is it uphill or downhill?

This post is half written… but I am publishing it anyway. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense but the pictures are nice.

I am sitting here at my desk on my phone with a horrible case of anxiety sitting in my stomach while it churns what feels like a gallon of acid. I need to quit my job. I am trying to work up the nerve to tell them. Why is this so difficult for me? I hate this job. The pay is shit. I’ve given it over a year and every morning if I allow myself to think about it, I dread it.

If I could, I would just gather up my belongings and head out the door. My sense of responsibility to this place is keeping me in my chair.

In some ways, it’s an ideal job. Don’t have to dress up, I work with just two other people. One from skiing who is easy, the other one, not so much.

I called out yesterday because I couldn’t take it anymore. At least not yesterday morning. The guilt of that shit makes me crazes. Can’t say I enjoyed my day off… but got some shit done. Took my skis to get tuned, which isn’t easy in the summer months and I hope I get them back in time to board my flight next Friday. And caught up on 90 day fiance… so not productive and my head was spinning. My mom came in my room in the middle of the night because she thought I was barfing. No, just restless sleep of agony.

So why all this urgency to quit? I only see a dead end. No room for growth. I asked for a raise and didn’t get much of one… just a slight one, not what I asked for and at first they tried to justify the automatic 12 cents was good enough for this year. They told me I had to earn it. It took me weeks to get up the nerve to even ask and it wasn’t until I was really pissed because another thing had been dropped on my desk that they could have done themselves. I have a feeling, if I were a man, they would have given me what I asked for, which is a competitive wage for what I am doing in the job market. I researched it. I am just the office girl who does all the shit you don’t want to do and I want out. Now. Done. Misogyny is thick in the sand and gravel industry.

I’ve been working at a country club too, serving drinks by the pool and I make twice the money in 1/2 the time and don’t have to use my brain at all. Well, just the part that keeps me from calling people assholes.

It’s been two hours and I am still sitting here sick. Gawd, I hate myself sometimes.