Needle Beetle

Feel like getting all zen and chill with your Qi? Read on! I mentioned my new job, and it's inserted weirdness on my lifestyle. No perfume, no hairspray, no deodorant, no laundry smells etc. Basically bush people sort of living. I can dig it., but you bet your ass the first thing I find in my clutches on Friday evening is my smell goods. The more obnoxious the better. Being a smoker, or an almost former one (more on that in a minute) I smell damn near nothing that doesn't walk up and slap me in the face on a personal level. I love perfume, am fascinated with lotions and one-hundred percent in love with a scented bubble bath.

Did you know formaldehyde is in hairspray? I can't say that bothered me to learn such, preserve my hair? Awesome! But no, not so awesome to those who are taking this shit seriously. My level of being entertained by facts often doesn't illicit the fear it's supposed to at this place of employment. "Right on!" is not the proper answer to toxic products.

I've become a lot more open to the voodoo magic being offered to me, for free in lieu of formal benefits but I cannot say I am on board completely. I wouldn't be a DM if I just went into shit full charge without some sort of reasoning that filtered through my version of being rational. If anything really can anyway. What I do know, is patients leave feeling hopeful, and it is ..... humbling. Lends to me stopping myself from being an impatient asshole, it's not so bad that your only wish of the day is to not hurt or somehow feel pampered and acknowledged on a very personal level. No one in my office is ever a number or just a name on the list.

Alas I am well suited for this job. I talk tea with the patients who wait, and ask if it sucks, because I drink only green tea so have no reference to what is good. My Jasmine and Detox blend is proving popular. I haven't tasted it, trusting it's ok based on lack of coughing and gagging. People who are into tea will readily tell you anything you ask about it, or direct me to the giant laughable book that sits in front of my station all day. "The History of Tea." It's seriously two inches thick. I could sum it up in a page - plant grows, it dries, it's plucked, and if soaked in water .... boom.... heaven. Gimme my book check! Tea lovers frown at such simplicity.

So. My smoking is not rolling there no matter my attempts to hide it. I concede. Pissed as pissed, pissy and pisserific as it gets but... I had to make a choice or wait another 1.5 years to find a place who likes me. The job is fine, and going on a month now there, I am seriously good at it, much to the disdain of the other girls who back up the front desk. I'm not disliked, I suspect they are simply not used to someone who can roll in and not need hand holding, without being rude of course. It's fair to toot my horn, I worked for a very demanding boss for th last 7 years, saying I am great at what I do is fair. But I'm fine to admit when I am not so great. Then blame a dog, traffic or the unsuspecting mailman. The day of the three stooges whoop whoop at my station are over. DM has officially moved in a giraffe, we mean to stay, and we mean to streamline the silly dysfunction. Alas Bosslady, I did learn much from your hard handed demands and fuck me if I don't STILL see large paperclips and shun them instantly. I pick them aside like a nasty vegetable.

Getting to my point. I allowed one of the doctors, we have two - one scares, intimidates? me, and the other is so short, small and lovely I can't not adore her. I went to short and small, asking for help with the smoking as it's been clearly put that smelling of smoke will not ensure a job for long. Two of us there smoke. Short and Small was eager to help and needled me right up. I have five .... thingies (I'm ever so technical) in each ear bone. If I get pissy I am supposed to fuck with them. I did and I made my ears bleed. So, I am to fuck with them but not so fervently. Who knew.

Here I am with my treatment:


I diagrammed for you! They sit in there until they fall out, are picked out or eaten by coyotes. Usually about a week. I don't know exactly what each does or if they are a tribe and make it a group effort. #2 is for stress. Those are VERY sore today. #5 is for the cravings. I am to tug on them when I want to smoke. I look much like Tabitha Stevens from Bewitched when she was too little to wiggle her nose and make magic. That, or I look suspicious and weird. Third possibility is that I'm giving the pitcher cryptic instructions at a ball game.

They do itch and I forget they are there so some have been plucked out from accident. I like them in there without knowing why. No one has asked what's doing with my ear bones, but I'm anxiously hoping for it as I have an arsenal of lies just laying in wait. Bees, rabid vermin .. that sort of fun story telling.

I also like just arbitrarily stating "I'm on the needle again." It suggests such a wide variety of possibilities, which none are easily replied to. Most excellent. Except in my office because the listener just says "yeah, me too." and gives the silent nod handshake of brotherhood understanding.

Is it helping me not smoke? Well, if I think it is then yes. Has a pressure point fairy fallen from the sky and made me scowl at Camel Lights? Not recently. All I can say is that the effort is interesting, and having a ten pack of needles in my ears at all times kinda makes me giggle.

I appreciate anyone who is passionate about helping people, this was not pushed on me (pun?) but smelling of smoke is not an option and it feels nice to not worry and just do my job. I've been fixing their crooked ass shit forms at home on my time because they bother me (thanks again for making me anal, Bosslady or in her terms lol persnickity) and because I'm getting free treatments. I earn my keep and look like a hero because they've had a printer for over a year not hooked up or functional. No one knew "how."

I plugged it in.

Stop by, I'll sell you something or offer you some potentially good tea?

- DM

Ho Ho Holy Shit

Small update, more this weekend when I'm nice and warm, giggling on wine that wasn't from a box and feeling all .... sharey.

We close on our house in less than ten days and I look around this pile of, basically "us" I am floundering to think a move will really ever happen. Without casualties anyway.

Keep checking on me, I am alive, well and up to unconventional things. For now:



- DM

My Job

Many of you email and ask how my job is, what's it like, how I'm doing and if I've embarrassed myself or pissed anyone off yet. I shall answer, and I timed it, this entry is a 7 minute investment, don't photo cruise, totally rude. I work until 7pm some days of the week and this took me over an hour to type, so suck your seven selfish minutes and read up.

______________________

So, I get to work HERE!:

DM lives behind the window above the bench. This house is un-fucking-credible. It was built in 1863 and built by a guy who housed something like 20 Chinese workers in what is now our linens room, I have no idea why. Good thing those Chinese are little fellows and pack light, it's not that big of a room.

It's also supposedly haunted, but I've not been spooked yet, too busy smiling in hopes of planting my roots.

The carpeting throughout is scarlet. The furniture is Victorian, and scarlet. Even the spiral staircase..... scarlet, with a scarlet wall lining the way up. It's amazing.

View from my station:

I'm the front kid, so I sit where all the merchandise and patient sign in things are. The holistic Chinese medicine candy store if you will. All day long while I'm chewing hatefully on nicorette I'm stared at by those books. "Fast your way to Freedom!" "The Truth About Tea" "Find Your Inner Strength" "Detox Now!" Ya know, all the sort of shit that makes someone with my habits feel like a filthy representative of a proper human. The ... molding? (Top) is about 1.5 feet long, the photo doesn't show it right and frankly I was sneaking the photos between patients as it's kinda creepy to be caught snapping away and having to explain that I planned to slam them up on the net. Oh, and that's my Christmas Cactus. I inherited it.

Another view if I peer around my station: Stuff to have! Things to get!


The staircase: (I walk VERY slow). It spirals up a good deal, and sharply there at the top.


My waiting room. Shit fuck photo, I'll get a better one during a shift when the sun isn't so crabby. In the back there... the love-seat, is actually a bay window type thing (I don't know these words) but sofa sized! I was told on interview to take seat and I bee lined straight for that sofa. I was found sitting in the best seat in the house, petting the upholstery. The room is twice as big as that. To the right we have a tea fountain, and a large bowl full of bells floating in water that ching ching lightly.

After interview, I realized I didn't like an answer to one of the questions I gave, so emailed to correct it, and ended it with "I hope I didn't get too much dust on that lovely sofa."

Brownie points for sure, but I meant it. Aesthetically it is the most awesome place to spend a day and call it work.

Right, So what we do. We are.. and when I say we I mean they, and me as a secret sinning sidekick, an acupuncture and healing arts practice. Name it, we can do it. And if not, the yoga/exotic dance/Youiganquo studio can. Heh, yes I totally made up that last one because I can barely say it let alone spell it, but it looks tricky and does exist.

Needles, and herbs and music and everything to bring calm into your life, and they hired ME! I don't know when I have ever looked remotely calm or not coming off the crack pipe. I like the job. It's not even really work, it's repetition and making people feel warm and fuzzy and attended to, instead of the typical bored, put-out expression you get when in a normal place to seek medical attention.

Now I'm not saying this alternative medicine route is Word, but it's in the water and these people are drinking it up eagerly. There is probably a lot of truth to it, the Chinese live forever after all, so placebo effect or not, it's making fuckers happy as a dog who got away with getting a free meal from the garbage without being caught. This, while I sit feeling like a guilty sneak for enjoying salt. They have a thing that spins water into a tornado to remove electrons or something. I just watch it curiously.

One of my doctor bosses asked me if I wanted help. "With what?" I asked, half offended wondering if my fly was down. "I can put seeds in your ears, for the smoking."

/hm. I told her I wasn't ready. She doesn't know, so let's just not delve into my level of resistance to everything. She looked at my with a peculiar expression. I'm not ready to show off my ugly hands, and confess that I eat things that I shouldn't - which is everything, etc. etc. We'll get to that once I've endeared myself a bit more. Nothing like flopping your fucked up soul onto the table like a slab of sorry week old meat in your first week right? Not ready, if ever.

I'm slinging herbs, treatments and my dose of DM humor all day long. And getting paid! Those are the upsides. Oddly, in one week the patients know my name. It startles me, I've done nothing so spectacular to be too memorable yet, other than beg their forgiveness for taking so long to help them as I'm learning the most archaic computer program ever created by some sack who cut every last corner to make the piece of shit be user friendly in a decent increment of time. Some of these folks are at my desk with needles in their face like Pinhead (Hellraiser)while I'm farting around blaming the computer.

My co-workers for the most part are ok. Those who aren't, I'm SO over fussing with so don't give a shit and am playing nice because when shit hits the fan I don't want it to be said it was my steaming pile. The most difficult part of the job is not smelling too much of smoke, and yes I can be found bundled in a robe and a retarded shower cap at night, and bathing so much my skin may fall off. We also are discouraged from visible sweets, strong smells - perfumes hairspray etc, pretty much anything and everything that can be found within my reach right now.

I am making some mistakes, but I am making the same ones consistently, so...... is that good to be consistent or lame to not get the picture after five times? I ran a credit card (swipe type, not hand entry like my last job) and in my mindless haste I entered a $72.00 charge and hit ENTER before my brain told my hand in slow motion "nooooooooooooo stoooooop!!!" as I'd actually entered $7,200.00. You will never see a person rip a phone cord out of a machine faster than i did. I stopped it from going through by seconds.

The only other semi-disaster was someone mad at me for not getting a receipt when they had said ten minutes earlier they didn't want one. I'm not going to try and argue with someone who has more balls than me to be digesting this routine of happy frappy living via carefully placed stabbings. She yelled at me, then went to someone else to yell about me. Fairly amusing, and not a big deal, I am simply a bit slow right now.

That is the gist of it. I could get more detailed but people get fired for writing things on the net and I did sign a confidentiality agreement, which I do surprisingly take seriously. Plus, mama gots a mortgage to pay!

Hoping things stay on the ups, if not I'm enjoying my time there even if a new environment and new people are intimidating. In closing per my title paragraph, have I embarrassed myself? Of course. Pissed anyone off? Almost instantly without trying.

- DM