My Very Own Blogetary (Blog: Web Log; etary or ary: engaged in or pertaining to)

And now, me as I read one of my poems. One that was published a year ago in the June 2008 issue of Aoife’s Kiss. It is called Learning Alchemy.

Hope you enjoy! Otherwise, have a glass of wine like I do.

Okay, last night when I posted about the free press, I had totally forgotten to post about some other news as well.

For one, I have another children’s short short story coming out in July in Beyond Centauri. When it is out officially, I’ll let you know and post a copy of the cover.

For another, a story I thought had basically died in production is back to life once again. Working on it this weekend, among other things. When the ball is officially rolling again, I’ll give you dates and where to find it, etc.

Should have another copy of Chocolate Zoom coming out in July as well.

A new skillset I’ve picked up recently is how to contribute to Wikipedia. Kind of a cool thing to learn.

So, that is news of me.

I got some press! It feels kinda good! Thank you Valcine Brown for tracking down proofreaders and copy editors in Los Angeles and giving us an opportunity to offer our services to people who might need them.

The last six months or more since the economy has noticeably tanked, businesses going down in flames, people losing jobs, losing health care, losing homes, banks getting bailouts while small businesses have nowhere to go for the extra helping hand they need, has placed people on careful footing. It’s been a financial earthquake.

Before an earthquake, you trust that gravity works and that there is nothing so safe and solid as the ground beneath your feet. After an earthquake, you’re not nearly so sure. In either case, what you have and what you have lost are thrown into sharp relief, and you are no longer able to take anything for granted. At least, for the most part. But the difference between a physical earthquake and a financial earthquake, I think, is that in a physical earthquake, when a person needs help, they’re stuck in a building or they’ve lost their family or can’t find their pet, or don’t know where to go, they ask for help. They have no problem with asking for help after a physical disaster. But for some reason, people seem to have a much more difficult time asking for help during and after a financial disaster.

In our society, there is a stigma attached to anyone who asks for help when they need it, especially financially. And there is a stigma attached to accepting help that’s given for free or for low cost.  I was talking to someone the other day who said she gives free weight management classes and no one shows up. But when she charges for something, everyone shows up. When I talk to someone about my doctor and the kind of care I receive and they ask about my insurance, as soon as I tell them I am still using a free clinic in my area their face closes up. I am stamped with the stigma of “free assistance.” It hurts to see that when it happens, yet, something I’ve been learning over and over this last year and a half is that it never hurts to ask. In fact, it could hurt you more if you don’t ask.

There are programs and agencies and people out there just waiting to help people with their needs. They want to help people with their needs. In fact, they feel a calling to help people with their needs. And sometimes it’s okay to admit you are one of those people who needs help. And it’s okay to let those people help you. Why? 1) You obviously need the help, 2) it’s probably good for you to be in the position of being the requester for help and their may be some very good lesson you need to learn here, 3) you are helping the person with the helping vocation fulfill their calling.

Most sacred texts in the world do not find any fault with the person who humbly asks for help. These same texts, however, do find “pride” and “arrogance” a fault and a sin that needs to be gotten rid of when it gets in the way of a person’s development. Therefore, not asking for help, worrying what other people will think when they find you are asking for and receiving that help, is simply pride getting in the way of your own development. In the end, you are the only one in charge of your life. You are the only one who knows all the circumstances involved in making difficult decisions. So, it doesn’t do you any good to worry about what other people think.

Believe me. I’ve been there. I’ve worried about what people thought when I saw them putting me or someone else I knew into that “box,” whatever that box was (let’s call it the box of stigma). You can try to explain or brush things under the rug until you’re blue in the face, and it won’t matter. They may or may not choose to keep you or someone else in that box of stigma. The point is, it doesn’t do any good to worry about what they think. In fact, it’s simply pride on your part. On their part, it’s something else. But as Aslan would say, their story is their story. The only story you need worry about is your own.

So, if you need help, don’t be afraid to look around and ask. Seek out the discounts. Look for the free services. Look for the free educational materials that may help you to deal with a health problem. It never hurts to ask.

BFB - (and I resisted for a while, and even ignore my profile when I first got it), I used to actually surf the internet. Remember that? Remember the days when, instead of camping ourselves on Twitter or Facebook or even MySpace or any other social network, we’d actually EXPLORE the internet? Follow a link to another link to another link and so on? Remember those days? We learned new things. We found odd articles. We got together over coffee face-to-face (shock) to talk about it, or emailed it to friends. Sometimes we got together on forums and discussed what we found.

AFB - Now we have services that find all those things. Services that have a link to Facebook or MySpace and *click* you not only can have all the odd news stories sent to your email box, but you can share them with your entire FB community!

BFB - If what you thought when you woke up was, “I need a cup of coffee!” then you got up and got yourself a cup of coffee.

AFB - Now, when you think that, you reach for your phone or stumble to your computer and type out “i need coffee. lol! ”  or something like that.

BFB - You visited blogs, reading and commenting on ideas and thoughts. Sometimes a few times a week, sometimes once a day. Sometimes you actually read the paper and magazines, too.

AFB - You play Pirates of the Caribbean, comment on everyone’s status, play Mafia Wars, comment on everyone’s status, play Street Racing, chat on FB, comment on everyone’s status, send a few smiles and/or drinks, check statuses again and then realize, “Oh shit! I need to get to work!” Check the online news and magazines and zoom on.

BFB - You exchanged phone numbers and emails.

AFB - You exchange Facebook profiles.

BFB - You feel sluggish and don’t feel like going to work out. So, you feel sluggish. You might tell a friend, a co-worker, or just your cat.

AFB - You share your sluggishness with the entire FB community and get a mix of thumbs up and “stay home, dude!” and “keep at it”.

BFB - You wrote your passing thoughts in a journal to look over them and think about them. You had an internal life.

AFB - Most of those thoughts get splurted out on the FB screen, commented on, “liked” or ignored. And you’re internal life, or what’s left of it, is nothing but a lot of blurbs and bytes from yourself and your friends.

BFB - You looked forward to sending out pretty invitations, sending cards, sending regular snail mail. Looked for pretty stationary and thank you notes.

AFB - You go on FB and type “Hey Dudes!  Having a party Friday night! Come by and see me!” Followed the Saturday after by, “Great to see everyone!” And a few private messages to the people who actually showed up.

I guess that’s progress? Of a sort? Exchange of a possibly deep private life for an active, social online life? What do you think? Let me know on Facebook.

I had said I would do it. I had threatened even. So here it is. I didn’t plan my script out too well, though. But, oh well. And I couldn’t get the kippers to look pretty. I should have bought three tins so I could lay out the toast ahead of time and make it look pretty. But now you know. Kippers on toast, with tea, and a cat.

It’s been a tough month. A good month, but tough. I have been getting lots of orders, and actually have one I need to fix because I really messed up on it. Working on that this week. The work has been constant and on going every day after work and on weekends. And then there were some social obligations in there, too, that I enjoyed, but they took away giant chunks of time that I could have used. On top of that, I just joined Curves, which has been good. I need to get exercise into my life and this has been perfect for me, but it’s an added new thing and that is kind of stressful. Then, at work, it’s been nothing but phone calls. Calls for this, that and other.

Every time I’m in the market for a new job, I try to get a job that keeps me away from phones. I’ve had phone heavy jobs. and next to retail jobs they are the worst when it comes to emotional expenditure of energy. And then every job I have they decide, “oh, but you have such a nice voice and a good phone manner,” or they just plain don’t have time to do whatever it is and so I get make the phone calls and I hate it. I HATE PHONES!!!! As far as I’m concerned, phones are evil. Like retail, phone work makes you expend emotional energy on strangers you don’t care about. Yes, you get paid for it. But by the time you’re done, you don’t have any energy left over for the people you do care about, or for yourself. This is why I like email. In an email I can be accurate and relay all the information and there is a written record of what transpired between me and the other person.

I know. This too shall pass. I’ll get through this season where it seems I’m tired all the time. But for now, I’m just really tired. I appreciate the work I am getting and everything, but I would like one week all to myself where I’m not traveling, spending time with people, or working on stuff. One whole week where I can, for once, have time to clean my own home and get to bed on time and have 8 hours of sleep and play with the cat and watch my one Netflix movie and catch up with my bookkeeping and, and, and…oh, and let’s not forget my own writing.

I know. It will come. There have been long dry spells where I wish I was this busy and there will be again.

Right now, though, I’m just tired. And I need to get back to work.

Really, I should. But I can’t. I have to say something. I’m sure I’ll get into trouble for saying this, but SOMEBODY needs to tell the emperors of America and the world that they’re wrong and evil and we won’t take it anymore.

About a month ago, I was hanging out with a friend and she mentioned to me that she’d just gotten a notification from her bank that they’d just raised the interest rate on her credit card. They’d raised the interest rates on all cards.  I know because I have (or maybe soon HAD) a credit card through the same bank - that is the now defunct Washington Mutual and then bought out from under them Chase Bank.  I have been trying to pay off this card for years and so tried to never use it. And it seemed like for every $50 payment I sent in, I was charged another $35. It was virtually impossible to pay off unless I could send them large chunks of cash, which I didn’t have. I think in the years I had this card I may have purchased $2000 worth of goods and paid at least 2 1/2 times that back. If not more. They made a lot of money off of me.To be fair, I was slow to pay it back. Still, it felt like one of those long nightmares where the more you run, the longer the road gets. It was awful.

Well, the miracle happened and I was able to come up with those large chunks of money to pay of that debt. And I finally sent in what I thought was the final *gasp* payment in one large hunk. I checked the balance. I checked that my check would be in by the due date. And guess what. Somewhere along the line they decided I still owed another $16-17 more dollars of crap charges even though I made the payment on time by the due date.

I swore under my breath and just paid it as soon as possible. And checked “done” on that credit card. It was frustrating but it still felt so good!

Until today.

I got a statement in my email. Now, some places email statements even when you owe nothing, but I thought I would check anyway. I’ve never liked Chase. I’d forgotten why and now I remembered.

They’d charged me a $1.

That’s right, a frikkin’ $1.

Apparently, even though I’d made that “last” $17 payment on time (and my balance had said zero when I checked it), it wasn’t before some random reason for a finance charge.  Sometime in the few hours between when I checked that balance and they received my payment, I’d accrued a teensy weensy finance charge. Tiny. Eeeny weeny. The minimum was a buck, so they charged me a buck.

GAUGH!

Oh, and finally. What really set me off to write this blog and pissed me off so I couldn’t think straight? I checked my percentage (APR) at the bottom of the PDF statement (the same statement that said I owed $1). It was 31.74% or .32 on every dollar. The effective APR? It was 57.06% or .57 for every $1.

Okay, so I’m not the best person in the world when it comes to credit. But I’ve been working on that, and these banks aren’t making it easy to get out of debt while constantly trying to tell you you need to get out of debt. When the big banks of the United States pull this kind of crap on the consumer on a regular basis it’s no wonder we’re all broke. What’s a wonder is that THEY’RE broke. And they aren’t really. They’re selfish bastards that need to be regulated!  Why is there even a question about this?!?!? Why do we even slow down in regulating them and putting caps on their salaries!?!? If there’s ANY industry out there that needs regulation and caps on salaries and bonuses it’s the banks in this country.

(Hint: Click on picture to see the YouTube video…).

Next up: Kippers on Buttery Toast with Hot Milky Sweet Tea!

Dunderheads: Defined usually by “dunce, blockhead, bonehead” or stupid (see the thesaurus section for the more colorful definitions). IMHO, it has the added twist of meaning someone who is willingly being stupid, someone who refuses to look beyond themselves. They are the ones who give you a blank look when you ask them to think. They’re lazy and would rather play dumb than move their ass (literally or figuratively) to help anyone other than themselves. But especially, for me, a dunderhead is someone who simply refuses to look beyond themselves.

*Note added 06/04/09 - I think it should be noted that I am referring to obtuse dunderheads. An important difference.)

I hadn’t realized it, but the last year and a half or so, since leaving a certain company which shall remain nameless, I have been on a Dunderhead-free diet! Now, you would think, after being free of dunderheads for 18 months or so that I would be able to tolerate the few I run into more easily. Today I realized: Nope. Not the case. In fact, now that I’ve been dunderhead-free (mostly) for so long, my tolerance when being exposed to it is even less than it was before.

Before I HAD to live with it and deal with it. It was something I couldn’t avoid and ran into on a regular basis at work and in other areas of my life.  So, I learned to put up with it. My shoulders hunched. My blood pressure went up. I ground my teeth. And I just learned to put up with it. Now, after 18 months of cleaning that crap out of my system (mostly - there are the occasional flybys on the internet and elsewhere you know), I realized I don’t have to put up with it. I can choose to not put up with dunderheads.

I came to that realization today at work. One of my coworkers asked another if she had an ibuprofen and I wasn’t the one in charge of being “Office Mommy.” I’ve noticed this before in this office where I work.  But it just really hit me today. For the first time in several years I was not the one who was supposed to be in charge of the band aids/Tylenol/ibuprofen, etc. At my former place of employment we never had an official first aid kit. Or if we ever did, it had long since been lost, expired and all employees were left to their own devices to find comfort when they needed. I got to the point where I just bought my own stuff and kept it in my desk drawer and shared it out to people as needed. No, it wasn’t fair. It was, however, typical of that office. Employees were left to just figure things out on their own. Many was the time I asked a question about a policy or procedure and would get a blank look, a shrug, and a whatever. I had to figure out how to deal with it myself. The only time this wasn’t true was when things got so bad that it was a crisis. And then someone would step in. But the crisis had to be really bad. Otherwise, it was a blank look and “I’m leaving for lunch” and I was left to deal with it myself.

So, I was used to dealing with dunderheads. Because I was putting up with them at work I ended up putting up with them in my private life as well. I should have said (calmly), “No, I’m sorry, that’s not acceptable. You cannot treat me that way. I am worthy of better respect than that. If you do not quit, I will go away.”  Instead, I just dealt with it until it was too much and ended up screaming at everyone because I could not deal with this type of behavior anymore. This ended not only my employment, but also several friendships, both private and at work.

So, back to today, one of my coworkers asked another for an ibuprofen or Tylenol. And it wasn’t me. And there have been times when the people I worked with (where I am now) offered up, freely, volunteering it, small things that would make me feel better - Vitamin C, tea, a remark about a new shirt. And I’m not left to myself when I do my job. I am, in fact, encouraged to ask questions. Much checking in with each other happens. In fact, since my tendency is to just deal with things because I assume I’ll just get a shrug and that my employer won’t care about what I do or how I do it, just that I’ll do it, I fall into the occasional misunderstanding. I’m working in a team of people who are not self-absorbed asses. Somewhere along the line I unlearned how to work as a teammate and, for survival’s sake, learned to just do things on my own. I love being independent. Don’t get me wrong, but it is so freeing to be in a team of people who really care how you do something. The people I spend time with care about how I do something. They think. They see the outcome. They have an opinion and express it articulately. They are not lazy. They do not pass the buck. There may be days when they don’t feel like talking to someone, but they take the calls and don’t ask me to lie for them or just deal with it.

I know, it’s been 18 months. It shouldn’t be a big deal anymore, but even as I’ve gradually been able to work back into the world of real, articulate, intelligent people, I have not been around the inarticulate, dumb dunderhead. And then today I had a brush with one and it all just came rushing back. I used the contact us feature on a website to seek out specific information from a company. I was doing research to find who had the best deals and the best methods of hauling away garbage. How much did they cost and were they willing to trudge up and down two flights of stairs for it. Websites have costs and pricing on them, most of the time, but they rarely have the particular stuff, the specific questions that a company can answer in such a way as to showcase their customer service. That is usually why there is the “contact us” feature on any particular business website.

So, I used the “contact us” feature on this company website and asked about the two flights of stairs, and by the way how much would it be and got the “please refer to our website for prices and information.”  It wasn’t even one of those well worded emails that kind of answers but not quite answers your question while pointing you back to the FAQ page. No, it was a personal email and referred me back to the website for more information. No further energy was expended on me. And as small as it was, it was such a lazy, dunderheadish thing to do, it just set me off. I’m a customer. Chances are if I hire this company I will be paying them at least $150 to haul my crap away. That’s a lot of money for me. The least they can do is thank me for the email, briefly answer my question and THEN refer me to the website. This is good customer service and brings in business.

(I often wish magazine editors had more of the customer service gene when dealing with their writers, but somewhere along the line they lose it and you’re lucky if you can get any grunting response at all. Which is why I quit trying to network with editors and just nod and smile and submit stories. They may be in charge of putting together great magazines, but editors have their own variety of dunderheadedness and it’s better to just leave them to their own bad moods.)

Well, I replied back in this email, explaining that I needed a yes or no before I got a quote and explaining why. I have had people complain before about those two flights of stairs even after I advised them of the stairs.

I kept checking my email and checking my email and didn’t see a response, so thought they’d respond the next day. Then I checked my business email and they’d forwarded my request to a boss who’d decided to respond to my business email. Now, this may seem to a be a small thing, but to me it’s another symptom of laziness and dunderheadedness. I am writing about a personal venture in my home. I am writing using my personal email. Not my business email. Sometimes people mix those two up, but I try not to for a reason.

All I needed from that representative of that company was a polite yes or no and proof that they were paying attention to my needs as a customer. Instead, he forwarded my response to his boss and his boss, instead of paying attention to the forwarded email and replying to the email address I had in the forward, clicked on my business website (was it closer? He thought it was easier than just copying and pasting the email that was right there?) and through some convoluted way, sent an email to my business address.

It was politely worded, for the most part. Answered my question, finally, and then told me (not ask, but tell - the people in this company really need to learn how to write persuasively) to order their services through the website. I pretty much decided then and there that I wasn’t going to use that company. But I wanted to be polite. Make a point, but be polite. So I forwarded the email to my personal email address and sent them a polite thank you from there. And said I was doing further research, but if I chose their company, I would order through their website.

Now, considering how neither person seemed to pay attention to my requests or cared how they responded — considering their laziness — I don’t think they’ll notice I went to all that trouble. But it mattered to me that I did that. It mattered to me that in some small way I fought back against lazy dunderheadedness.

And then I saw their company was based in San Francisco (they have a division in LA) and realized I had better reason for not using them - keeping my hard-earned money in my community. Yes, the nation is broke and the state is broker, but my City of Angels is way more broke than that. My money needs to stay here as much as possible and help the economy here. And again, that gave me a more positive reason for not using them.

And that’s why it’s important to try to live your life dunderhead-free when at all possible. Yes, you need to fight against them. Lazy Dunderheads will get the best of you if you let them. I learned that the hard way. But you also need to be aware how quickly you can fall into their negative, piggish, selfish, scrunched up worldview.  The better way to fight back is by stepping back and being more expansive. Seeing the whole picture. Your response to them might be the same (mine was), but it will be for a better reason. And while they will be too small-minded and self-absorbed to understand or see the difference, YOU will see the difference. It is important to YOUR happiness and that makes it all the better.

Still, I wouldn’t mind hanging this around their neck: