One ray of light...

From a Cracked.com article:

The point is that a person is driven to suicide by a whole bunch of different things, which build a wall around them, piece by piece, until the last piece falls into place and the wall is sealed so that there's no way out. Sometimes we look at all the problems that build up someone's wall of hopelessness and think there's no way any of the insignificant things we could do would be able to take it all down. But to break the illusion of there being no way out, you don't need to take down the whole wall, you just need to make one crack in it. One puppy lick, one phone call from Laila Ali, one corny song, one Internet stranger, one old Australian guy asking if you want to come in for a cup of tea.

I'm not depressed. Well, that's not true. I'm not depressed to the point of contemplating ending things. Which, honestly, wasn't too far back of a time for me. Just a few months ago I was right there on that edge.

I worry, a lot, about my mental issues and health. I'm not a happy person. I try to be a happy person - I struggle daily to make a smile come to my face, and to look on the bright side. But the honest to goodness truth is, I'm faking it. Almost every moment of it. Every time I'm smiling, there's a voice screaming in the back of my head that I have nothing to smile about, nothing to be happy about. Every setback that seems a small bump to others is monumental to me - struggling to find a job, trying to deal with unexpected statements from others, all of it overwhelms me.

It sends me into this place where I'm locked in the dark in my own head, unable to hear anything but the unkind thoughts I have about myself. They're shouted down at me from everywhere. And when it gets yelled loud enough, well, it's easy to believe that every word is true.

The thing is, I'm doing okay, comparatively speaking. I'm not suicidal right now. I'm managing to get through and keep pretending all is well. There are people who can't even do that. So what right do I have to complain?

I don't know why I'm writing this... just to get it out, I suppose. Because I know, later tonight, I'll be curled up, wishing I were asleep, crying silent tears because all I can think is what a horrible person I am. But the worst part? If someone asks, I'll lie and say I'm fine, because I'm so used to hurting and going without help that I don't know how to let it go.

Small Things

Small things today. The past few days. The past few weeks, honestly. It's all the small things - little and not so little - that keep slinking around in my head, grabbing my attention and then turning away when I try to study them.

I sleep well with A, for the most part. Better than I typically do. I think it's because of the routine we have when we go to bed. We read until tired, the lights go out, he turns over and snuggles me for a while. Usually by the time he's done snuggling me, I'm already asleep, or so close to it that I don't notice him turning to his other side. And when I wake up in the morning, he's got his arms around me again. I know the routine, though, because he's told me this is what he does. And I know if I start whimpering or having a nightmare, he'll touch me, soothe me.

Maybe it's the physical contact. Maybe? Pft. I know it's at least partially the physical contact. But I also feel mentally safer there than I have in a lot of other places. It's a good if somewhat odd feeling. But the contact does play into it...

I realized I like to touch. Not like to. Almost have a compulsion. I touch people on the arm, the shoulder. The person I'm with, I always end up stroking their back, their hand, what have you. I'm not sure why it's so important to me except that growing up, we didn't really hug much, we didn't cuddle all that much. It was waves and the like, not much more. I'm making up for that, most likely. But it doesn't work as well when you meet someone who's not as tactile-needy as I am. still trying to work that through.

Also, I recently learned I've got six smiles. A catalogued them for me - he thinks it's funny, and it makes him laugh. I don't remember what all they are - I told him he'd have to make me a list. But the ones I remember...

#2 - It's the nervous but excited smile I apparently get when trying to fit in with a group. Probably one of the closest things to a fake smile I have.

#6 - It's my sleepy smile. He says he sees it most mornings, when my eyes aren't quite open and my lips just curve.

#? - One of them is my sardonic smile, where a corner of my mouth lifts, and that's about it.

#?? - Another one is my "I'm really happy" smile.

He saw the really happy smile in person on Monday night. We went to his mother's for a 4th of July celebration, and when we were driving back in, we were guided by fireworks the whole time. A big one had just gone up in the air as we went under an overpass, and I was convinced we were going to miss seeing it explode. I kept my head up, and right as we got out from the overpass, and the moonroof was framing it, the firework went off.

It was beautiful. I forgot how much I loved fireworks until that night, and that one in specific. I know I must've looked like a dork, I know my hands were clasped in front of me and my mouth and eyes alike were wide, but I was SO HAPPY to see that firework go off, framed like it was. It was to me an almost perfect moment. A laughed, I remember that ... and immediately blushing and ducking to hide my stupidness. But he said it was sweet, and cute. I guess I'll have to take his word for it.

Going to be starting a new job here in just over a week. Looking forward to it as a way to earn money, but I already know the work's not going to challenge me, and I'll soon be looking for something else. Is that terrible of me to say? It's the truth. A's starting a job at the same place, same time. I'm hesitant on that, too - we spend most evenings together as it is. If we're around each other all the time, it'll be so easy for him to get sick of me. And I really don't want that to happen.

Think I'll keep in touch with the staffing agency, really push them on finding something for me so I have some better options than this position. I really don't want it, but I'll take it if I have to.

Not much else to say right now. This wasn't truly a coherent post, more the scattered bits of my brain.

Fall

Not quite sure how to explain where my mind has been, where my life has been, where I've been lately. I pull myself through the hard times, more out of sheer stubborn will than anything else. I'm so used to fighting for every moment that I have that I can't imagine giving up, simply because I'll be letting someone be proven right about how weak I am. And if there's nothing else to be said about me, you can say that I don't like letting others have the last say on me.

I made the hard decision of leaving everything I knew in Arizona, and moving to a newold state. I'd lived here before, and I'm back now. The scariest part is I'm back, and I've found this guy who is ... almost stupidly amazing. I met him when I was here in May, and we just kept talking. It seems like he likes me. He wants to date me.

So what's the harm? The harm is I know that, at some point, I'm going to be too much. And the thing is - I can't remember feeling this way, this intent, this heavily into someone and yet so equally safe and protected, ever. I have those I love, those I'll always love. But no one else has made me feel so much ... me. And I know at some point, it's going to wear thin for him, and he'll be done.

And likely if anyone were reading this, they'd think I'm a fool, moving from one man to another. But J & I were done a long time before I ever considered moving. There was nothing left to us, nothing at all, and I wasn't about to pass up a chance with someone so magnificent as A. He's heartbreakingly sweet, and he makes me feel small in the best way possible - the way that makes me realize that he can protect me. I'm trying so hard to keep my neuroses in check.

But the smallest things set me off. Simple quotes, a song, a look ... I want to cry, because I'm emotional right now. Emotional for so many reasons, so much stress in me and my life and my heart and my head. And really, there's nothing much else I can say. So I keep trying to hide the sad, and the melancholy that hits me. And I can't keep doing it. But I don't want to be a mess to him, either.

I've fallen. I've fallen hard and fast and there's nothing I can do. And even if this fall kills me, I think it's worth it.

A song

I went out tonight. Haven't really been out in a while. Doing less than wonderful, spending most of my time wrapped in my own head and thoughts. A dark place, but one I'm used to being in.

The thing is, I was almost feeling good when I was out. I'd had a few drinks, enough to lubricate myself and start to slip away from that spot I always get into at times like these. I was smiling, I was talking, I was socializing. A bit more time outside smoking than I normally would take, but that's okay. We're not always spot on, we're not always playing well with others. And I was making an effort. I felt proud of myself.

While I hadn't let go of those things in my head, or the feelings, I was masking them okay, hiding them underneath everything and thinking I was doing great. Then someone got up to sing karaoke. Or rather, the next person in line for karaoke got up, and did their song.

I fell apart. I cried. I don't think anyone I was with noticed - they were too busy socializing, and talking with each other. But I cried. Luckily, having my hair up had driven me nuts earlier in the night, so it was down. And with long hair, when you lean forward, your face is easily shielded.

As soon as I heard the opening notes, I knew what the song was. My stomach churned, my mind went blank, and any light I had found in the evening dimmed out. It was "Hate Me", by Blue October. I knew it. There was a period of time, two months, where it was the only song I listened to. It was its own playlist, and whenever I controlled the music, it was the song that was playing.

This was when I was with my ex, M. He and I had a contentious relationship. By which I mean, he liked to beat the hell out of me and tear me down to nothing, making me feel small and worthless. And I let him, because that was the place I was in when it started. The sad thing is, I'm in the same mental state now as I was then. I just don't have to worry about anyone hitting me.

But I listened, and I cried, and I hated myself for it. I excused myself from the group as soon as I could, and went outside, to take some deep breaths and try to feel like something better.

It didn't work. It was over two hours ago, and my head is still in the same dark place it was, back in those days. All I feel is useless and worthless and pointless. To me, right now, there's no hope. The burden of friends caring is too much, far too much. It makes me feel like the only thing I am is a cause of concern for them, which I hate.

It's hard to explain. When you're at a dark point, and feel so down, knowing that people care should cheer you up and remind you there is something good. All it does for me is push me lower, because I don't share this stuff with people. All they see is the surface. And knowing they worry at that point is bad enough. Thinking of telling them what's actually happening, what's going through my head, what is below and beneath and pretty much completely surrounding me, terrifies me because I know how heavy it is to bear.

I've carried this cross for years, I've had it slung upon me for a long time, and it's always been a part of me. Something I can almost deal with but never quite manage to. To think of putting it onto someone else, asking them to see for themselves this point that I'm at, dragging them down with me into this grave I'm living in, is too much. Knowing they care is too much because if they care, they'll push to help. And to help they'll see what it's like. I can't take that.

Like I said, I've been here before. I essentially live here, it's just a matter of sometimes I'm able to look up and see a bit of light from my point. But I'm not right now. And I wasn't when I was with M, and when I was listening to Hate Me. The last time I listened to the song ... the last time I heard it at all ... was when it was playing on a loop as I took a bottle of painkillers and washed it down with bourbon, and laid down to die.

The apartment maintenance people were supposed to be coming by to fix a leaking faucet. I didn't know the request had been called in, or that they were coming. The guy came in to a girl passed out on the bed, barely breathing, a sad song on loop, an empty pill bottle and a half empty bottle of alcohol. He was smart. Either he was smart or he saw the note I'd left M, which just said that I was done, and sick of being broken. He called 911.

They took me to the hospital, in a screaming ambulance. I wavered in and out of consciousness. I died once in the ambulance, and they brought me back. I don't know how. All I know is I was screaming, or trying to, telling them to let me go and just let me stop. The hospital pumped my stomach and filled me full of fluids. I hadn't been eating for a few days prior to this. Then I fell asleep. I remember thinking as I fell asleep that maybe they were too late, and I would die.

I didn't. When I woke up at 5 am, they told me they were admitting me to a psychiatric hospital for a minimum of 72 hours because of my suicide attempt. I was still alive. I wouldn't be killing myself for a while, at least. I had responsibilities. I begged them to let me go to my work, and tell my work that I wouldn't be around for a while.

I don't know how I convinced them, but they did end up letting me. I drove to my employed, waited for the HR lady, broke down in tears. I was done, completely broken. I told her things had come up, I needed an absence for mental health reasons. I walked out and got back in the car, went to the psych hospital.

They didn't fix me there. They tried. But it just couldn't be done. I've lived my entire life in this pit, a few days wasn't going to change me. Besides, I've always been bright. I knew what they wanted to hear, wanted to see, so I gave it to them. The incident ended up getting written off as the result of a long argument with my boyfriend and my drinking. They let me out after 72 hours.

And I never heard that song. Never, not in the five years between then and now. But I heard it tonight, and all I could think, all I could feel, all that existed was that same lack of hope I had. And then it dawned on me - I had never gotten rid of that lack of hope. It's always been part of me, always. There's nothing I feel I can do about it. Sometimes I can cover it over and pretend it doesn't exist, sometimes I can almost ignore it. But it's always there.

That time with the song wasn't the first time, or the last, that I tried to end it. But it was the closest I ever came to escaping. I actually got free, I had a chance. I could have finally known peace. But it wasn't there.

And now, now I have the song echoing in my head. I can feel the music, hear it everywhere, see the patterns it makes. And I can taste the burn of the bourbon, and the soreness in my throat from too many pills. I can feel the pain of the stomach pump and at the same time, the disconnectedness from it all. I even taste the salt of the tears I cried.

And I'm sitting in the dark, and I'm looking at this grave I'm in, and all I can do is listen to the song.

Endings

You eventually hit this point where you realize, you can't do what you're doing anymore. you hurt too much, you hurt too bad, and there's nothing else left to you. You are this broken shell that has nothing left inside and nothing left outside. Nothing but little pieces that are gone, forever.

And you think that there are only two ways to go. You can make yourself get better, create a new you to put into that broken shell, become something again. Or you can say that you're done, and leave it all.

The scary part is when you think about leaving it all, and you honestly can't see a downside. There is nothing left to hold you. There is no one to protect you or hear you. You are locked into this tiny room where you know no one is ever coming back, and no one is listening, and there is no hope. And if you are faced with a choice ... if you see that blade there.

You take it and you cut and you rush the blood because an ending you know, you control, is better than perpetual uncertainty. You know it's not a good choice, but it's a choice. And if it's all there is, it's what you take, otherwise you fear you might lose your mind altogether.

Of course, there's always the option of screaming for help. It never works, but it's there. It might make you feel better for a brief period of time.

But if you're smart, if you see that blade, you take it right away. Damn the consequences, you won't be there to share them or care for them. You remember why you're here, locked in this tiny room. And you choose to make it end before it hurts any more.

Discoveries

It's a strange and winding road tonight for my thoughts, a little scattered but still too persistent to put aside. I've been out today, a bit more active than I typically am, going nonstop for the past twelve hours or so. I've had the chance to do some truly fun things, but it brought home to me a point.

Here in Arizona, there is a lovely "wet cave" system called Kartchner Caverns, which was first discovered back in 1974 by a man who loved exploring caves and finding new places. I got to go on a guided tour today, with my Hippy and my little sister, and it was beautiful. But it also made me just the tiniest bit sad. Because I realized, today's world is so full of amazing discoveries it makes me feel as if there is nothing left for me to find.

I used to live in constant wonder, as a child, always besotted with the things around me. From figuring out how to make a potato power a clock to sentence structure and proper diagramming, nothing was beyond my grasp but the world always seemed to hold a little bit more from me, urging me to learn more and more.

As an adult, I've lost that sense of wonder and amazement. I am jaded about things, and take the view that there is nothing left to the world, simply information that other people have found. I feel like there is nothing that is begging for me and my attention, no insignificant but breathtaking little bit of information that only I can find out. And it makes me sad. I feel like, in this sense, I've lost something, and no longer have a real purpose. It's disappointing, to say the least.

I wonder if anyone else feels like they're missing something with this sort of thing, or whether I'm the only one. A few centuries ago, the world was amazed at the broad swathes of knowledge mankind possessed. You could study for years to become a doctor. Now you can study for decades to specialize in one tiny branch of medicine. More information, more discoveries, more learning all the time...

But it's become so optimized, so fractional and tiny, that it seems to have lost its luster, and now only holds appeal to those who wish to dedicate their entire lives. I think a dilettante such as Franklin would be hard pressed to survive in today's world, for so little is general now. There is no room for the hobbyist, for the weekend enjoyment, for the lighthearted pursuit. Now we are focused and driven, as if by obsession, to constantly seek.

It's left me just a little less childlike, in one of the worst ways...

Whimsical Fuckery

Wherein we learn...

• HR Ladies are not to be trusted
• Oracle has its head up its butt
• Men with questionable fashion sense, social awkwardness, and a tendency to clutch their laptop case as if it is a shield are not always honest
• Never to mock the man in a "Lady Liberty" costume for a tax place, lest a worst fate befall ye
• And finally, a White Russian with lunch makes everything better...

Last Thursday, John was asked whether or not he would be attending an Oracle course taking place all week this week. John, having heard nothing of this before, said to Kathy, the HR Lady, "Send me an e-mail with the details, and I'll look it over and get in touch with Chris and Jerry."

Kathy, in her last appearance in this entry, forwarded the e-mail to John, and then apparently divided herself by zero, creating a black hole which sucked her in, forever leaving her fate unknown to the likes of mortal men.

John took one look at said e-mail and started laughing. The training, no joke, was entitled, "Oracle DBA 1: Preparing Yourself For the Oracle Experience". It was, in essence, an introduction to Oracle. John, with his many years of DBA experience, called Chris, his nominal boss, and advised him, "I took this course - over eight years ago. I don't need it."

Chris, the ever insightful boss, stated, "They're coming out with a new version of Oracle - 11! (That's ridiculous. It's not even funny.) You must take this course, it will teach you about all the new features."

John: "But I already know most of what this course is teaching. Surely they have a shorter course, explaining the differences between versions 11 and 9, the last version we purchased and are currently running."

Chris: "No. I must insist you take the course. Here's the link to download the e-kit you'll need to prepare for it. Enjoy the next week in training, sucker!" (Okay, perhaps not said, but definitely implied.)

So, John sends an e-mail to Kathy alerting her that he will, sadly, be attending this five-day training course, at a pittance of cost to the company - merely $3,000 a day paid to Oracle. Despite Chris's assurance that he has all the details, John receives nothing until Friday, mid-day.

The e-mail he finally receives gives him a download link, but no information on location or time for the course, nor does it have an event number - a rather minor detail which will become important the next week. John attempts to use the download link, but it fails - magnificently so, some might say. A support call is lodged with Oracle regarding this.

And here, we must take ourselves off on a tangent. John has worked mostly with Informix, including actually working for said company at one point in time. Informix had a policy that a minimum of 90% of technical support calls (including calls for their training classes, and questions) be answered in less than one minute. Compare that to John now waiting on hold for over 30 minutes, merely to reach an operator, who logs the issue and will see that it is followed up on. With no exact date for follow up, of course.

John and Shiny pass the weekend in merry gatherings, playing games, having some drinks, cleaning, writing, and watching movies. As Sunday evening looms closer and closer, John realizes he still has heard nothing back from Oracle - and his "training" is supposed to begin Monday morning, perhaps at 9 am. Or maybe it was 8 am. Or maybe 8:30 am. Some time in the morning. Somewhere. Possibly on Camelback Road. Or maybe Scottsdale Road. Or, it might have been an e-course. Surely Oracle will respond soon, and alert us.

An uneasy night is passed in pseudo-sleep, filled with the droning of the floor fans of the house. One of John's co-workers, Parvez the Good-Intentioned but MisInformed (henceforth to be called Parvez, because this is his only appearance in this story) calls John at oh dark thirty (also known as five in the fricking am, who the hell wakes up this early, why are you calling me, I swear to dog if you don't answer I'll crawl through this phone and strangle you with my bare hands) to inform him that he believes the training class is to take place in a building previously used by Oracle, at 32nd Street and Camelback. John grumbles back at him, almost hangs up, and then thinks better.

John: "So, it didn't say in the e-mail you got, either, huh?"

Parvez: "None of us are going to the course, John. Just you..."

John: "They're taking their senior DBA out of the office for a week for the likes of a refresher course, and a shitty one at that?"

Parvez: "Yeah, but it's not one week. It's two. Anyways, I'm going to bed. Night."

...

John and Shiny eventually fall back asleep, but are soon roused by various and sundry things, including a kitten named Squirrel crawling onto the pillow between their heads, yowling until they both wake up, and then proudly coughing up a hairball approximately the size of Tokyo. While John showers, Shiny marvels at the cat's many disgusting abilities, and starts a new load of laundry, since let's face it, no one wants to sleep on the hairball pillow.

At eight am, holding to the theory that he'll be shaved bald before he starts work prior to 8:30 am unless required to via a gun held to his head, John and Shiny load into the GhettoMobile and set out into downtown Phoenix to find this place of training. The drive there seems interminable - it is usually a five minute trip to drop John off at work, for Shiny. Now, she is suddenly in a car with him for 35 minutes, and has to be an interesting conversationalist early in the morning, with only the hairball pillow to discuss.

Nevertheless, the office building on Camelback and 32nd is reached, and John and Shiny create a plan. While Shiny waits outside in the car, John will check and ensure this is the proper location for the training course. She will wait ten minutes for him, before leaving, as if it is the wrong place, there will be much gnashing of teeth, and useless driving.

John enters the building, holding his laptop bag freely, and soon disappears within its tiny cubicled walls. Shiny, meanwhile, sits in the turned-off car, smoking and listening to her radio. The GhettoMobile's radio, as a side note, will turn off exactly ten minutes after the car is turned off, or when the driver's door opens, whichever comes first. Shiny is soon distracted by the latest bit of mail that was left in the car - another 25k in hospital bills she has no hopes of ever paying. She spends a few minutes reading the mail and snickering.

Shiny: "Take me to court? What are they going to garnish? I can't work because I can't get medical care! Ahahahaha, suckers. This bill will be perfect for firestarting at war."

Soon, however, Shiny realizes John has not reappeared, and the radio has gone off. It has been more than ten minutes. She sits dubious, not for the least reason because she is still wearing her pajama pants and doesn't want to be seen by normal society. Just when she thinks there is no hope for it, a proto-John appears. He bears all the markings of a DBA - unkempt hair, very questionable fashion sense, somewhat oblivious to his surroundings, and hugging his laptop bag as if he carries the Crown Jewels within it. We shall call him the Uninformed, for this is what he is...

Perhaps Shiny is perverse. Perhaps something about the hairball awakening has tweaked her mood to the awful. For she accosts this poor man, leaning half out her GhettoMobile window.

Shiny: "Excuse me! Excuse me, sir!"

Uninformed: *jumping slightly, and then staring agog at the female talking to him* "Um, y-y-yeeeees?"

Shiny: *with a sweet smile, for she can tell this man is on edge. even contemplates flashing him briefly to make his day brighter, but decides against it.* "Can you tell me, is this where the Oracle DBA 1 course is being done?"

Uninformed: "Um, y-y-yes, I think it is. That's where I'm going. Now. I'm going there now. To the course."

With that, the man scuttles off. Despite his odd nature, however, Shiny believes him - a big mistake on her part. Having seen no sign of John, and with this supposedly reliable confirmation that this is the location in question, Shiny says, "Alright, then, I'm heading home."

She starts up the car, and pulls away ...

While Shiny has been waiting, John has been wandering around like the brighter sort of lost puppy, looking for any sign that might lead him where he ought to be. Finding none, he approaches the receptionist's desk, where stands a sign which promises there will be a receptionist on duty from 8 am until 5 pm Monday through Friday. Much like the cake, the sign is a lie. There is no receptionist.

John must exit the building, and return to Shiny and the GhettoMobile. Alas, he steps out the door just as the tail-end of the GhettoMobile disappears into traffic.

John: "Curse that woman!" (He denies saying this later, but Shiny does not believe him)

Shiny, meanwhile, begins to wonder. The man, while he answered, didn't seem too sure of his answer. Lacking a cell phone to directly call John, she drives to a gas station and digs up fifty cents in change to make a phone call using a pay phone, only to discover, when she reaches the phone, that these phones take 65 cents to make a call, exact change only, quarters only.

We shall all pause for a WTF moment here.

Moving on.

Shiny shrugs, and determines that her hippy will be fine, and if nothing else, he can leave a message on the home phone for her, which she shall retrieve upon her intrepid return to their abode. Thirty minutes of driving pass, only for Shiny to enter the home and see, oh no, a message light blinking...

John: *on the machine, we're not cool enough to manage to call each other right when we're walking through doors, or magically appear in front of someone* "Hi, honey. I thought you were going to wait. You need to come get me. This is the wrong place."

... Aw, shit. Shiny sets back out. While she drives the thirty minutes BACK TO WHERE SHE WAS, John gets on the phone with Chris, who knows nothing about nothing. He then calls Kathy the HR lady, who is not answering (remember, she divided herself by zero and was sucked into a black hole. They have notoriously poor cell reception). Finally, he calls Jerry, his old boss and still sort of boss. Jerry says, "We'll solve the problem. Let's call Oracle right now while you wait!" And so Jerry, being the good boss he is, manages a conference call while poor John waits outside a strange office building for his wayward girlfriend to return.

Now, remember the part where the e-mail was lacking an event number? Yeah, that's important here. You see, without the event number, the lady they get on the phone at Oracle can tell them nothing. Absolutely nothing. In fact, less than nothing. By the end of their ten-minute phone conversation, she no longer claims to be associated with Oracle in the faintest fashion, and disavows all knowledge of the witchery box that has strange male voices coming out of it. Jerry promises to get John answers, and tells John to head home in the meantime.

About the time this farce of a phone call ends, Shiny and the GhettoMobile return. John enters, while Shiny hangs her head in shame. For she has failed... failed to wait. Shame, Shiny, shame.

Shiny and John embark on yet another thirty minute trip in the car, having spent (for Shiny at least) the last two hours almost exclusively within said vehicle. John waits, the entire time, for Jerry to call back, and inform him where this course is truly supposed to be. In the home stretch, a half mile from home, there is a man on the side of the road, waving a sign for a tax place, and wearing a Lady Liberty costume, including a styrofoam torch he seems insistent upon hefting.

In a stunning moment of hubris, John and Shiny mock this man, albeit gently, pointing out that while he is paid to stand on the side of the road in women's clothing (essentially, a transvestite hooker minus the sex), John gets a day off from work. Sweet!

As John & Shiny pull into the driveway, John's phone rings. In his haste to answer (fool man), he drops it and drops the call. John & Shiny enter the house, and Shiny decides that the phrase of the day is "Whimsical Fuckery". Once again, an astounding display of hubris. Oh, pride ... thou goeth before ... Well, you all know how it goes.

Just as Shiny posts this, the phone rings again. It is Jerry, with good news. He has determined the location of the course, and wants John there, ASAP! It is three blocks from the previous location.

Whimsical ... Fuckery.

So, once more, John and Shiny load into the vehicle. By the time they approach the intersection where the building hosting said training course should be, it is eleven fifteen. It is time for lunch! So, John and Shiny say to hell with the course, being that it (according to the schedule Jerry has forwarded to John's phone) will be breaking in ten minutes for an hour long lunch, and go to George and Dragon on Central for some delightful om nom noms.

Sitting at the table, glad to finally be out of a vehicle, John and Shiny debate the merits of a slightly alcoholic lunch. After reviewing their options, they determine a White Russian a piece, to accompany their meal, is in high demand. And, after all, since it is made with milk, it's almost like not drinking. So John and Shiny lift a glass to one another, toast, and proceed to sip their way through lunch.

Finally, it is time to return (introduce?) John to the training course that has started this mess. During the ten minute drive to the particular intersection, John clues Shiny in on how much Oracle makes - contracts for $100,000+ PER INSTANCE, plus 20% of total contract fee as an ongoing maintenance fee. Add that to the $3,000 per day per person for training courses, and it is clear that Oracle itself is engaging in a bit of whimsical fuckery.

Shiny and John find the appropriate address, pull in ... and sit confused. For these are not office buildings before them, but restaurants. The Good Egg, various coffee houses, a pizza joint, a Mexican restaurant. Are we sure we have the right address? John and Shiny circle in the GhettoMobile, and finally find the correct suite number. With a heaving sigh of disappointment, for he has sincerely hoped the address does not exist and he can bunk off work for the rest of the day, John disembarks the GhettoMobile with a kiss to Shiny's cheek. As he prepares to enter the suite, Shiny rolls down the window and shouts, "Remember, the phrase of the day is whimsical fuckery!"

And with that, Shiny returns home, having made no less than three roundtrips between her domicile and downtown Phoenix in about as many hours, and chooses to share the tale of woe with all her faithful and erstwhile Companions.

Because, after all, if the phrase of the day is Whimsical Fuckery, everyone should get to engage in a bit of it.

And lord, how Shiny wishes this story weren't true...