One day, Cat, Mom, trio_plus_one and I were driving in Northern Virginia, very near Potomac Mills. We passed by a what looked like a very neo-conservative, born again, Bible thumping kind of church with a billboard in front of it. All four of us started howling with laughter in the same moment.

The billboard said "If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you."

I will forever more be disappointed by church billboards.

Happy Birthday, Cat.

I miss you so much every day.

The weirdness started before I even got to the bookstore.

I was first in line to make a left turn to the exit to the road that my store is on when I heard someone leaning on the horn behind me. That was my first warning that I was about to face one of the most amazingly bad drivers I have ever encountered. Said driver appeared right in front of me, as if she wanted to cut me off instead of wait on line to turn. I felt somewhat better when she waved at me to go ahead of her when there was a break in traffic. I'm sure the folks behind me were irritated when she pulled out before them, but I was fairly sure she was no longer my problem.

Ha!

When we pulled onto the main road, she passed me, then pulled in front of me just as we got to the big intersection tight next to the shopping center. Then she looked up and realized that the traffic light was yellow and stopped. Right in the middle of the intersection. Finding herself in that difficult predicament, she chose the one thing she could do to make the situation worse. She put her car in reverse. That is the second time I have seen the vehicle ahead of me go into reverse on that road, and the last time my car was totaled. She then heard what was at least the second car horn of her drive that afternoon, and this time I was the one honking at her.

To my great relief, she stopped before hitting me, and she was out of the intersection enough to avoid blocking traffic. To my great apprehension, she had an employee parking sticker for the shopping center. It turns out she works for another store, so I avoided a face-to-face confrontation.

The store was crazy when I got there, making me briefly wonder if I had managed to sleep through Thanksgiving. It was reassuring when things quieted down as soon as it got dark outside. Dark and cold and rain is a combination that tends to keep people home. After that, we had to deal with the endless phone calls from people wondering if we were closed Thanksgiving Day. When I told one person we were going to be closed, she asked me "All day?!" That would be yes. All day. Feel free to come and bang on the door if it makes you happier, but rest assured that the place will be deserted.

The customers of the day were a couple in their fifties. They wanted to know the phone number for WINA. It is not often that people will come into the store for a radio station's phone number, but OK. What got me was the reasoning. Their power had gone out and Dominion Power wouldn't tell them how long their house would be dark and they thought the employees of WINA would be able to tell them how long of a wait it would be. Huh?

I survived many repetitions of "Have a good Thanksgiving" with only a few tears. Hopefully tomorrow will be as easily dealt with. It's hard to believe I have now lived without my sister for a full year. It still doesn't feel real to me.

All of you reading, have a blessed Thanksgiving. For those of you who will spend the day remembering Cat, know that you will not be alone.

I can already feel the withdrawal symptoms fading.

I got a new router today - Netgear makes shiny routers - and managed to get it hooked up. I learned the hard way that installation goes faster when I don't bump the CPU against the switch on the power strip halfway through the process of attaching wires according to the exacting instructions of the setup program.

Getting everything working made me happy enough to dance.

Then Adelphia's internet fizzled out for an hour and a half. Pppppbbbbbttttt.

Great news today! The OJ Simpson book/TV deal is now off! I don't have to sell that steaming pile of pigshit of a book! I'm sure I will still have to deal with people asking about it, but I won't have to deal with seeing displays of it, and I won't have to face customers telling me how happy they are to be able to get it. The news improved my rather dark mood in a big hurry. From the coverage of the whole mess on CNN, it seems that the Fox project was publicly denounced even Fox "News" Channel. I never thought I would agree with the folks there.

I had another surprise visitor at work the other day. His name is Lane, and he is the man who first hired me at B&N, and I have missed him ever since he left. He hadn't heard about Cat (he hired her, too) and was very sympathetic, but I still find it hard to tell people what happened. But it was so good to see Lane. He really is a sweetheart. Unfortunately, he is not (yet) moving back into town. Instead, he is leaving southern California and going back to New York.

The sucky customer of the week was one I thankfully avoided dealing with. She was a phone customer, and E (the newly-named children's lead) was the one who had to spend twenty minutes on the phone with her, as she asked about two books. Other than the books, the conversation wandered into foot problems, pet health, Chinese (language, I think), family disputes, and E couldn't even remember the rest. I was standing next to her for the last part of it, and even tried to page E for a fake phone call (E has got to learn to take advantage of openings like that) and watched the tortured expressions on E's face as she tried to end the call. Finally, after promising to pray for the woman, E was able to hang up and try to recover.

I told Officer J about the call, and he then asked for the store's phone number and took out his cell phone. I was quickly starting to recall why J had been known as a source of mischief and amusement when he worked for the store full-time. Well, he called for E and started asking for several books, including at least one that was a figment of his imagination - as I recall it was a book that was in Spanish, had a duck on the cover, and was by someone named Schnell or something like that. We get questions like that all the time and they are a source of great frustration when we can't find the book. When J walked back to the children's department and E realized what was going on, she nearly killed him.

The Christmas season may turn out to be a bigger challenge this year than anyone at the store expected. We are now short by two head cashiers and a general manager. Only one of the new hires has shown any real promise as a full-timer, and she won't quit her other job. There are also a couple of new hires who are already driving the rest of us up the freaking wall. I honestly don't know who I would choose to promote if I had to make the call.

Thanks to the computer issues I've had the past several days, I am now officially a failure at NaBloPoMo. Ah, well. One day missed isn't horrible, and I still plan on posting every day for the rest of the month.

Work sucked. It was really busy in the store, but no one was asking questions. This left those of us at the customer service desk with very little to do. Very odd.

And I was in a foul mood. I had overslept, so I was late this morning. And I felt horrible. I have a cold that will not go away and I had not been able to sleep until very late the night before.

So I rushed to work, clocked in, put my stuff away, walked out to the information desk, and suddenly started sobbing.

I don't know what set me off. It's partly because of the anniversary coming up, but the rest of it? I really don't know. I was a complete mess for my entire freaking shift, either with tears running down my cheeks or feeling very drained and out of it.

Two hours before the end of my shift, I decided I had been through enough. I was not needed and my head was pounding. The manager on duty let me go early.

At least I get to sleep in tomorrow. We have the holiday meeting after the store closes so I will be going in an hour later than I usually would for a Sunday closing shift. I do have a little bit of preparation I have to do before the meeting; I need to choose some books that I think will be hot sellers this season and I have to have at least a rough idea of what to tell my coworkers as I give everyone (yes, everyone) a tour of my section. Even more difficult is the fact that I have to come up with something appropriate to wear for a Hawaii-themed meeting. I wish I could call in sick for this thing.

I do hope that my book picks do better this year than last year. I chose two books from my old section last year that were new titles by really popular writers. I thought they were sure bets. Both were fifty percent off before Christmas. Ouch.

I am also rather hoping that I don't start crying during one of my tours.

I miss you, Cat.

Well, it had been a while, but I crashed again at work today (now technically yesterday).

I went into work feeling a weight on my chest and it just got worse as the shift went on. I finally broke while I was getting lunch, prompting the nice guy at Quizno's to ask me if I was all right. Embarrassing, although he was understanding when I explained.

I miss Cat. I miss her so much I can't even begin to describe the scope of it.

I can live with it some days, but it never quite goes away.

I guess it had been building for a long time, but I really didn't expect to fall apart so completely. I was sobbing. I couldn't breath I was crying so hard.

M saw what I was going through, and sat with me for a little while before he left for the day. The whole time he was talking to me, he was holding a brontosaurus temporary tattoo against the side of his neck. He never questioned why I was still hurting so much. He never suggested I should be over it by now. He made me laugh when the head of the tattoo design failed to stick.

I finally went to BL (boss lady) to ask her if I could go home early. When she saw my face she hugged me, and agreed when I said "I guess there will be days like this."

I wasn't in the daily schedule today for computer reasons (I still don't get the details) so they had already planned the day without me. I think BL would have let me go home regardless.

It was Rowan who finally managed to distract me. It took me a while to figure out why she was running around the way she was.

Note to self

You watched, of all the things on television, Larry King, because, silly girl, Anderson Cooper was on.

Anderson Cooper is very good looking and is a very interesting speaker.

And he spends a great deal of time talking about the loss of his brother.

You spend the entire day feeling out-of-sorts and more than a little depressed and so you watch the one thing on television most likely to make you more unhappy. You stare at the screen, unable to turn away, as he talks about his numbness in the days that followed his brother's suicide. You inevitably think back to the past holiday season and the loss that still hurts so much when you think about it.

And why were you so silly?

Oh yeah, your numbskulled little obsession with anything that makes you think of your own pain.

Time to break some habits.

Time to turn off the TV and go to bed. And buy something funny to read while at work tomorrow.

At least M comes back from his vacation tomorrow. He should be a nice distraction for your painfully emo little heart.

I have decided to add Mother's Day to the list of holidays I hate. I was really not in the mood to see the store full of happyish families with kids whining about not getting what they want when I kept thinking about how Cat and I would have so much fun finding something for Mom....

On a far lighter note, today was Weird Phone Call Day.

The first one started off normally enough. A woman called to ask me if we had something in the store. She was perfectly nice and very Southern in the way that so many of my customers are - calling me "dear" and "sweetie". I know that it's a pet peeve of many in customer service, but I have never really been bothered by the pet names. I've heard them way too often to worry about them.

Anyway, we have the book in stock, and I offer to hold a copy for her. She says yes, I put a hold slip on it, and I take it to the front desk. This is pretty much the simplest kind of phone call we are likely to get at the store and we get dozens of them a day.

She called back a little while later and asked the bookseller who picked up if she could speak with me. I handed off my customer to my coworker and picked up the call. And got the most amazing speech I have gotten in quite a long time.

She wanted me to know that I had been perfectly nice, that she had grown up in the South, and that she always tried to be a nice person. I was expecting some sort of complaint at the end of this. I was wrong.

"Now I know that I use a lot of Southernisms when I talk and I just wanted you to know that when I say things like 'sweetie' or 'dearie' or 'baby' I am just trying to be nice. I don't mean anything by them. I know I say them a lot and I'm trying to stop. I didn't mean that I was hitting on you or anything I mean it's not like I'm a lesbian or anything like that. I just don't want you to think badly on me or anything."

I stammered something straight from the school of "Get This Strange Person Off the Phone Now" and let her know that no offence was taken. Looking back I kind of wish I had said something about how I really didn't care if she was a lesbian or if she had been hitting on me. Or I could have told her that my sister had been a bisexual. I was too startled/disturbed/amused by the whole conversation to say anything terribly coherent. It makes me sad that she felt that she had to make that second call, but I am still quite amused by the sheer oddity of the situation.

That was at the beginning of my shift.

This other series came from the end of my shift.

A woman walked up to the desk and started babbling something in a very heavily accented language that was partly English. After about ten minutes of listening to this and occasionally getting a word or two in, I think I sort of understand what she way be trying to say. It sounded as if she had pre-ordered a book and wanted to know if it had arrived yet. I checked the computer nad tell her that no, the book had not arrived at the store. Then I told her that yes, she would get the promised phone call when it came in. Then I told her that she could call the store to check up on the order since her cell phone wasn't working and she might not get the message. I think I may have agreed to something else as well, but I have no idea what.

She eventually headed off to the front door and left.

Then a coworker approaches the desk, and asked of a crazy lady with a Russian accent had spoken with me. Taking a guess that the accent I had heard earlier may have been partly Russian, I said yes. When asked of she had left, I said yes.

She had left her phone at the front desk when she babbled at them.

A little while later, a man calls the store and I am the one who answers. He says that his wife has left her phone in the store and asked me if I would check on it.

I ask him what kind it is.

He yells at someone else in the house. "Hey! What color is it? No! Not what kind. What color??"

He tells me she thinks it's silver and asks me if it would be helpful to know what kind.

Finally armed with the information I need, I walk up to the front desk (where we have to lost and found cabinet), only to find another coworker holding the only phone of that brand in the lost and found, and she tells me she is on the phone with the crazy Russian lady.

Mass confusion reigns as I try to figure out if we were indeed talking to the same couple. Not understanding what I am asking, the man hangs up and dials the cell phone.

On the cell phone, he asks me if I will accept charges for a collect obscene phone call. I roll my eyes and tell him that yes, the phone I was one could take the charges. He laughs, and then tells me that his wife is also on the phone with us. Thank you for finally revealing that.

Because the cell signal was lousy, I end the conversation with the husband and leave my coworker to get the name of the CRL.

It takes another minute or two to just get the name. How my coworker kept a straight face while the rest of us giggled I will never understand.

I am trying to figure out if either transaction with this woman could have been more complicated.

As the subject implies, it was nuts at work today. Lots of people needing help, kids screaming bloody murder, desperate last-minute shoppers trying to buy something that won't lead to a guilt trip. And gods help anyone looking for a Mother's Day card today. Our selection has severely dwindled.

And I got to close.

I can't complain. I had requested either off or closing shift but, as I was the last of about thirty people making requests for the same day, I was scheduled for midshift. But manager S called me last night and asked if I was willing to close. I was, ahem, ready to make the sacrifice.

Then, one of the closers called on sick. Considering the fact that the manager on duty had required her to go to the hospital after hurting her arm at work yesterday, that should have been a surprise to no one (it's not the broken bone they had been afraid of BTW).

But my heart soared when I was that the closing managers were M and S.

Cue the insanity. It was the usual day-before-holiday nonsense. How could we not have that specific book when it was so highly rated? Are you sure it isn't in fiction instead of mystery? Let me see the screen because I know better than the bookseller who has been in the store for more than a decade. What do I get for a woman who has read everything? Are you sure you don't have it in back?

One guy wanted to know if we carried billiard magazines. We don't, but he named a couple of titles that were must-carries. Our magazine lead will give it all due attention, I'm sure. In other news, there are at least two magazines about billiards. I had no idea.

Another woman wanted help, but parked her twin-carrying stroller in the doorway of the desk. First she blocked me out, which makes it rather challenging to look something up on the computers, then she blocked me in, so I couldn't get to the section. At least her kids didn't start screaming until I was done with the family.

We had another woman who asked to use our phone. It seems that her family abandoned her in the store when they left - simply because they forgot her. She is at least eight months pregnant. At least it was the day before Mother's Day and not the day of.

At about 10:00 I got a phone call from someone who wanted directions from 85 North. I have never heard of 85 North, so I asked her to clarify. She told me that she was just outside of South Hill and wanted to get to our store before we closed at 11:00. I have never heard of South Hill. I asked her for more information. "Well, I'm just crossing the state line now, and we'll be there soon."

Um. OK. If you're flying, maybe.

I informed her that I was standing in a store in Charlottesville, Virginia.

It seems she had called 411 to see if there were any B&N stores in South Hill, Virginia, and the operator heard "Charlottesville" instead. I hope she gets a refund.

She was nice about it, and laughingly agreed that she would not beat closing time.

I did check, and there are no stores anywhere near South Hill, wherever the hell that is. All I know is that it is on the border with North Carolina, and I got that from the caller.

I got a real surprise this evening. I have mentioned Officer R several times. This is because he has been working security at our store six days a week because he couldn't find anyone to take the weekend shifts.

Well he found someone, and the new guy started tonight.

When I saw that it wasn't R at the registers, I was disappointed because he is so much fun to work with and he helps the closing crew out any way he can.

Then I took a second look at the officer at the front and almost fell over. "Is that who I think it is?" I asked M.

Officer J used to be our magazine lead, and I had been really unhappy when he left. And now he's back. That made my night.

I wanted to close tonight because there was a major local craft fair going on. If you aren't local, you Have probably never heard of the Crozet Arts and Crafts Fair. It's a great show.

There was one woman there who has been an acquaintance of mine forever (I can't remember any more how I met her). She is also a good friend of my stepmom, so she had heard about Cat. She told me her brother had died a very short time before Cat did and she had not been able to face going to Cat's memorial. We talked for a little while.

In the end, all I bought at the fair was food. Great tacos. A huge bag of kettle corn (the real stuff, not the microwavable crap).

I was almost able to forget, for a little while, that Cat had usually gone with us to the fair. Almost.

And now, I should really get to bed.

The retail gods always know when you get a week off, and they have their ways of dealing with you.

My day started with a guy who was clearly high on something and creepy as hell. He set off all my alarms from the moment I saw him and made it worse by insisting that he see the computer screen as I try to do my job. Now this means that I either turn the monitor so he can see it and not be able to read the screen and risk unplugging it, or let him into the desk to lean over my shoulder. The latter was NOT going to happen. I can't stand having someone lean over me, and a guy who's already making my skin crawl has no chance of my allowing that, so I end up printing everything for him. He stood at the desk for a while, very slowly going through the lists I had printed and making me stand there awkwardly waiting for him. And then he asked me if I had a sister.

Not knowing what to say, I blurted out "She died in November."

He muttered an apology, and finally wandered off. Not the way I necessarily wanted to get rid of him, but I'll take it.

As I was still reeling from that, and the book on the wonders of sisterhood that had sat on the counter for hours being ignored until I lost patience with my coworkers and put the damn thing away myself (I shouldn't have done that - I couldn't resist looking at some of it) I got the freakiest phone call of my tenure at the bookstore. I picked up the phone and gave my opening spiel (the one I have been known to answer my home phone with) and heard a man and a woman yelling at each other.

I say "hello" rather loudly into the phone, but it is clear that they don't hear me. That they don't even realize that the cell phone is on. So I listen for a moment.

The women shouts something about "This is what you always do when you hit me," and my jaw just about hits the counter. I put the call on hold, say something about taking care of the call to the patient man waiting at the desk, and go to the cashwrap to tell officer R what I had heard. He picked up the call, and started listening in and trying to get their attention, and I go back to the information desk to help the people waiting there. I keep an eye on the phone line. R was on that call for another ten minutes at least. I got up to the cashwrap again a couple of times and R is still trying to talk to the couple, and he and manager S are laughing about the situation a little bit. Apparently, the woman was doing the vast majority of the yelling.

Much to my disappointment, R never did tell me how it was resolved.

After that, and about a million customers in the store, and a massive thunderstorm that threatened to shut off our power, I was even more ready for a week off than I had been before my shift, and that is saying a lot.

Happy New Year everyone. I am grateful that 2005 is over, if for no other reason than 2006 can't possibly be as bad (yes I know that is begging for trouble).

So far, so good. I am awake. I have new beads, including some ancient Roman beads I found on ebay (that took so long to get here - silly impatient me) and two new tree beads by Bruce St. John Maher (if you've never seen these, you really should). Mom and I took on Tyson's corner yesterday and I managed not to cry even once. We even had some fun. Now if only I could get to the point where I don't constantly think about how much Cat would like things. There are always too many things I know would amuse or amaze her and it doesn't seem right not to have her around to tell her.

On the way up there, we stopped at the post office so I could get that ebay shipment, which had to be signed for. I had a long and interesting conversation with the lady behind the counter about her life in Haight Street during the sixties and all the beaded stuff she made back in the day. There are the most fascinating people living in this town.

I am so tired. I don't want to move. I don't want to do anything. The past few days at work have really taken it out of me and I didn't have that much to give in the first place. Every year I know that the after Christmas weeks are crazy-busy and every year I am still unprepared for it. I guess I just hear so much about Christmas itself that it seems like that should be some sort of ending. It doesn't really end anything. The crowds still come, the people continue to be mean, and I still leave work feeling like the walking dead.

Well one thing does end: my patience.

This year, I had little patience, which is a change from years past. Now I have absolutely nothing left. I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying something that will get me in trouble at work. I want to yell at my coworkers. I want to scream at the customers. I want to yell "I quit" at the top of my lungs and walk out the door forever. I know how much of a mistake leaving would be, but it would feel so good for a little while.

Tomorrow, I am going shopping. It's the first time since I lost Cat that I have gone bead shopping. I don't really look forward to it, but I guess it's time to try to get back some of what I used to enjoy in life. I've got to try. At the very least, I won't have to talk to customers all day. Not only that, but I will do absolutely nothing constructive. I will do nothing I ought to be doing.

Mom's OK, but she gave all of us a bit of a scare this afternoon. While the whole lot of us ate an early dinner at Dad's house, Mom had some sort of fainting spell. My step-sibs saw her lean back in her chair and stare at the ceiling, twitching her head. Phyllis called 911, and an ambulance was sent. Mom felt better after lying down for a little while, but the EMT's and I persuaded her to go to the hospital. Several hours and a few doctor consultations later, she was given a relatively clean bill of health and appointments to see a neurologist for a followup. They never did figure out exactly what happened. It took about six hours to get out of there, with about thirty minutes of that time taken up by a search for her chart.

All of this followed a painfully awkward meal that I was rather desperate to leave behind (not that desperate, of course). Between Dad's friends who are just acquaintances to me and strangers to Mom, Dad's slightly senile mother-in-law asking too many questions about work, and my grief threatening another crying fit at any moment, it's a wonder I didn't completely fall apart even before the sudden end to the "festivities". Next time, I'm following my instincts and not going through with such a bizarre plan. It's not even quite over. We still have to exchange gifts, a ritual I have been dreading because it will remind me too much of Cat and her loss. My rather meek suggestion that we just take each other's gifts home was immediately vetoed. So I guess we have to go through that charade later. But Mom's going to be all right. As painful as all of that was, it could have been so much worse.

I hope everyone else had a far better day.

So Christmas Eve is gone for another year, and the store is all set up for the After Christmas sale and I am so glad it's over with. We still have the bargain seekers to deal with and the store will gradually become more sane over the next couple of weeks, but it actually feels good to have reached this point. Even with the long lines and the rude and impatient cuss-tomers, I had the best day I have had for too long. I didn't hide even once in the managers office. I wasn't even really tempted to.

I did almost lose it a couple of times tonight at home. Mom decided to get Christmas over with and so we opened gifts earlier. In the past, we had woken up at some ridiculous hour (usually around four in the morning) and opened gifts, ate Entenman's raspberry danish, and gone back to bed. But that was with Cat. We have to come up with new traditions now. It seemed so wrong to not have her here tonight.

Tomorrow, both Mom and I are going to Dad's house for an early dinner and gift exchange. There will be a couple of Dad's friends there too, which will be a little weird, but I guess that's OK. I still have to wrap what I got for Dad and Phyllis. Tomorrow. OK, so it's technically later today, but still...

All of you, have a wonderful day however you spend it.

It was good to see you, lunakitsch, poopik, and forgive me I can't remember your name (I feel awful about that). I wish we could have spoken longer. It is awkward seeing people I know at work sometimes, especially when it is busy.

It was harder seeing a former teacher. She knew, thank heavens, so I didn't have to play the game of tell or don't tell. When I was in high school I spent a lot of time talking to her. It's a bit strange seeing her now, and not having a clue what to say. My ability to hold a coherent conversation seems to go away whenever I see someone I know and don't work with these days. I think most of it comes under the heading of "nobody knows what to say".

The subject line actually is not sarcastic. I love my job because of ny coworkers. Last night, I lost it right at the end of the shift, when the closing shift was getting ready to walk out the door. I managed not to really start sobbing until I started walking out to my car, which was parked further away than anyone else's car because I hadn't wanted to fight the other vultures in the lot we usually use. As I was sitting in my car, crying my heart out, I saw another car approaching. It was my favorite manager, with another coworker he was giving a ride. MFM decided that he needed to stop at the grocery store. Right then. To look for a can of pickled beets. Fifteen minutes of truly inspired silliness later, I was able to drive home with only a few stray tears to wipe away. I may be falling in love with this man.

I knew things would go downhill when the denial started wearing off. I'm not quite as low as I was last night when I wrote that rant, but it isn't easy. I am glad that the powers that be have declared that I am not to be on register until things have settled down a little bit, because I would have gone nuts today if I had spent the day up front. I know that the head cashier was not happy that I was taken of the roster, but he can deal with it. I spent about a third of my shift in tears and there is no way I'm helping cuss-tomers while crying, and you can't hide when you're chained to a register and there is a line that never ends. A line of irritated people who will NOT forgive you if you leave without a replacement.

I still haven't quite figured out what exactly happened to my schedule today. I had been taken off register, then put back on, and an hour earlier than the weekly schedule had me clocking in. So I got the dreaded "um, you were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago" call. Then, for the first time in years, got the "oops, we messed up" call. Maybe someday they'll figure out what happened.

Right now I feel tired and cold and numb. It beats sobbing, but it doesn't feel good.

Have a wonderful solstice, everyone. I'm not just saying that. I appreciate your support more than I can say, and I know this would be a lot harder without knowing that you are out there.

I just saw Narnia. I wasn't that emotional during the movie (surprisingly) but it's starting to catch up with me now. I would just as soon skip the waterworks entirely. I am so fucking tired of crying right now. I'm tired of having sore eyes and sore throat and having to always carry tissues. Most of all, I am tired of the feeling that I can never shed all of the tears inside me.

The book that I got talks about the anger stage. Can I move on to that now? This weepy shit is too damn old.

Can I someday be able to laugh without feeling like I'm cheating somehow? Can I be able to do my job again without screwing everything up?

Can I have my sister back? Because there is nothing more unfair than the fact that her life is over. She took too much joy in life for it to be done with. Couldn't this fucked-up life have been stolen instead? I mean come on, I practically invented trainwreck as a lifestyle.

Fuck this. I'm going to have a really stiff drink or two or three and then I am going to go to bed so I can get to the store on time to pretend to work tomorrow.

You know your job sucks when you can walk into the breakroom and say "I hate people" and everyone agrees with you. Even the perpetually cheerful woman who works back in children's. Even the born-again manager. Everyone.

I had to work cash register yesterday and it was almost as bad as I thought it would be. I only say almost because I made it until lunch before reaching meltdown. I had just started my shift when I had to deal with a couple and a check. She wrote the check. He insisted on showing his ID. She was already reaching for her ID and I stammered something about how I had to see the ID of the person writing the check. He wrestled his wife's drovers license out of her hand, as she argued about how "the girl is just doing her job" then he tore the check out of my hands and signed his own name over his wife's. She got her license back and gave it back to me just as he slapped the check back down on hte counter. I calmly wrote the information I needed to on the check as he started tearing into me about my being rude. I asked if he wanted to speak with a manager. I always wonder if the cuss-tomer knows that this is a great way to get rid of them. He did, in fact, wish to talk to a manager so I was finally done with him.

Silly me, I was a little worried that I had somehow done something wrong. The manager I called told me later that the guy thought I was discriminating against him because I asked for her ID instead of his (he apparently has impaired vision). Said manager was even more confused about the whole thing when I told him that she had written the check, and that she had even written her license number on the check and had even started getting her license out before I had a chance to ask for it.

After that I only had to deal with the usual type of obnoxiousness and the line that never went away. And a lump in my throat that was so bad I could barely speak. They took me off register after I spent my entire lunch break sobbing. I told another manager about Check Guy and she started howling with laughter. It didn't ever occur to me until then that the whole debacle was funny. I felt somewhat more alive after a session of trading horror stories snd wondering what the fuck is wrong with people in general. I never did eat more than a couple of bites of my sandwich, however.

They gave me another job to do after that. We have to pull all of the after-holiday clearance stuff before Christmas and so there are a lot of books to pull. We have yet to learn the value of making sure these items are not on the shelf at the time when they are most likely to sell at full price, but then we are not the ones who work in the corporate offices. We are just the ones fighting the crowds to pull the stuff when we could be helping at the information desk or ringing on cash registers. I did manage to pull just about everything in the crafts section, which no one else wanted to touch.

I left after my third crying fit. Then ate dinner. Then slept for more than twelve hours. Wish me luck on making it through my whole shift today.

I should have known better than to go to Cat's place for the first time when both my Dad and stepmother would be there. I have finally been able to talk to Dad without wanting to run away screaming, but that seems to no longer be the case. And I like my stepmom, but I have never enjoyed spending time with her. I would have completely lost it if Tirani hadn't been there.

It was too weird to be there, seeing how much has already been taken out. The fact that it looked so different from the way it looked when I had visited Cat there probably kept it from feeling so much like she was about to walk into the room. It just felt hollow and empty. Talking to Dad (or rather, him talking to me) about whether I wanted some of her stuff struck me as kind of ghoulish. I know that all of it has to go somewhere but I felt almost like it was some bizarre yard sale. Like I was being offered something I had no right to take. He kept asking me if I would find something or other useful. Useful??? I just don't think I can be practical about any of this right now.

At least I didn't have to stay there for very long.

A side note - someone has approached Tirani about the silver moon coin that Cat had gotten at Renfaire. The design on the back is a Celtic knot, I think it was called a triskellion (sp?) or something like that. It's a three sided, intricate knot done with a thin line. When I got my silver moon coin pressed, I chose the same design for the back as she had, not knowing what her choice had been. If I haven't made it clear enough what design it is, let me know.

Cat's memorial service was beautiful and I am glad I got to meet so many of her friends but I am still reeling. I have done a lot of crying since learning the horrible news but I am not sure that I have cried harder than I did during the service and since then. I left work about halfway through my shift yesterday because I felt so lost. I talked to my favorite manager for a little while, trying to find a way to calm down. He suggested I leave for a little while. Someone else said I should go shopping and make fun of the other busy sales clerks, but I couldn't handle all the the holiday cheer that all of the stores tried to shove down my throat. I gave up and went home and back to bed.

I don't even know what to say about the service itself. All of Cat's friends were wonderful and I really am glad I got to meet so many of them. I wish I could have met all of you. I also wish I could have escaped from all of the people who told me they never knew Cat but felt as if they had after what everyone said. I still don't have the foggiest idea how to respond to that, especially when I'm completely overwhelmed. I hope I didn't offend anyone by leaving the parlor so quickly. Or maybe I don't really care about that. I think all of Cat's dearest friends were outside the room, anyway.

I'll write more later, when I can be a little bit more coherent.