is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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How to clutch your own chest.
Have you seen the commercial where a bunch of guys are sitting around having a jam session and singing way too enthusiastically about how they don�t want to stray and can�t wait to go home to their wives, because they found Viagra? Well, I haven�t seen the movie Wild Hogs, but I�m guessing the feeling of horror, sickness, confusion, and disdain that I get whenever I see that commercial is akin to what I might feel were I ever to see Wild Hogs.
Sure, Viagra must be a great thing, given how important sex is, and how depressing and destructive sexual dysfunction can be. I'm not even joking about that. It�s not the Viagra that I disdain (though I do have pronounced views on how Viagra gets covered by health care programs that don�t cover contraception pills, etc.), but the way the commercial is framed, filmed, sung, and acted. Ouch, it HURTS me to look at it.
That is how I feel this week, totally full of ugh. Not because of Viagra commercials, but because things are a bit off. I have that terrible visceral feeling that isn�t quite a stomach feeling, more like a clutched chest feeling, and a vague terrible weight. Some of it is for dire reasons, but most of it isn�t. I do have one friend who is in very very serious condition, as in he might not make it, in a hospital, and I�m worried about him. But I�ve also had a bunch of serious conversations on the telephone with people who have been out of my life for awhile and now are back in in some way. That�s not something bad, but it can be stressful if some of the topic tends toward a lack of shared ideas about things. It's a kind of communication that usually produces good things, even when it is hard in the present moment.
And none of that is diary-material, so I�ll concentrate on this terrible stress-inducing annoyance, in the hopes that describing it will exorcise it (even though describing it will do nothing to defray the desperation-feeling behind it). So�. as you know, I moved on June 1 to Brooklyn, New York. That means that on June 1 I paid over $3000 to the bosses of some muscle-bound men to move my stuff up and down stairs through the hot hot heat of the east coast. I did this with the understanding that I would be reimbursed for $3000 because that was my moving budget that I negotiated for in my new job contract. I started trying to figure out how to get reimbursed right away. It took a good long time for anyone to answer my question, because it was summer at a college, nay, a college that is run by a city bureaucracy. That stressed me out because of my money woes, but I dealt with it, because what can you do, you know? Apparently I needed some forms, and those forms had to be sent to me. At some point when I reminded someone that I had been waiting for forms for a fairly long time, it turned out that my request had been FORGOTTEN, no forms were mailed, and that I didn�t actually need forms anyway, because the procedures were changing. So I handed in my receipts according to renewed instructions on July 14. Late last week I was told that the receipts were hand-walked over on that very day to the bureau where they would be reimbursed. (Um, why did that take three weeks? Ah, let it go.) But then today I get a message saying that my receipts were returned because they don�t prove I paid anything. I feel that one too many straws has been place on my back! And the beauty of bureaucracy is that it is no one�s fault at all. (Hannah Arendt called bureaucracy �the tyranny of no one.�)
Ah, my ugh. It's all so terribly boring.
I paid with a debit card, which is like cash, right? I got a receipt, but that receipt apparently doesn�t show anything. I can�t get a cancelled check because it wasn�t a check. And when I call the company, they insist that the receipt they sent me is the receipt for my payment. What is a girl to do? In the meantime, as you well know, I�m out $3000 and I haven�t been paid for anything since June, and won�t be paid again for job-stuff until mid-September. In sum, THIS ALL SUCKS A LOT.
Money is a terrible thing.
Plus, I have such a shitload of work to do that my head might fall off. And it�s now starting to seem real that I�ll be starting a new job, with all the accompanying strangeness and newness and not-knowingness that comes with it. Much of that will be good, of course (I trust, I hope), but much of it will be tiring even when it�s good, because not knowing how things work is inherently exhausting.
Not everything is bad, however. There are some very good things about my life. I have not forgotten that. And now I go back to work.
7:20 p.m. - August 14, 2007
John - 2007-08-14 21:41:37
So, a receipt that proves to the company billing you that you've paid doesn't count for the folks reimbursing you? Oi vey! I can't imagine a bigger headache. Reimbursements that don't come through? Those are the WORST. I've had a couple of big ones disappear into bureaucracy, so I feel your pain, sister. One was for moving (to Houston), actually. I'd repressed the memory. Now I feel like I have to yak at such remembrance. The worst. BIG sympathies from M to the A.
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Raven72D - 2007-08-16 16:54:18
I hope you'll tell us more about why the Viagra commercial was so annoying...
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Lisa - 2007-08-16 18:21:56
The payment from your debit card should show up on your bank statement. Is that official enough for them? Argh, bureaucracy! Best of luck.
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