Chances and Stakes

This world is the Las Vegas Strip and life is a gamble. And i am in one massive losing streak. Nothing seems to go my way lately. I am left without any choice, but to make do with the cards that fate has dealt me. I'm wondering, hoping, praying that the dealer would soon give me winning cards.

Maybe it's a misdeal, this game of life i'm playing. I have no idea.

I long for the days when everything was so much simpler. When complications are close to non-existent and problems are not really problems because they go away so easily. But we grow up and things change. I know i did. I've grown. Changed. I now cannot escape the hassles that come along with being an almost-25 year old girl trying to figure out what life has in store for her.

I want to close my eyes even for just a few seconds and imagine that i live in this fairytale-based world where sugars melt and lemons drop and where it rains Coca-Cola. Where the sky is within reach and the clouds are Oreo-flavored. But even if i did close my eyes, the blackness will immediately produce these visions of horror: maxed-out credit cards, crazy interest rates, almost negative chequing account balance, overdue library books, the $40 i owe my sister, the outstanding $110 ticket i got for failure to make a left turn to avoid collision...and so on and so forth. It's like a nightmare i can't wake up from.

Like i said, life is a card-dealer in a casino joint, sucking in all my resources (emotional, physical, financial, moral and spiritual) because i don't know how to play the cards i've been dealt with.

Whatever happened to my supposed to be fantastic life?

Shrug

i hate...

• that joe didn't take care of that thing he told me he's going to take care of...what a f*ck*ng a**hole.
• that the opportunity to make big bucks has passed me by because of some nincompoop's absolute incompetence.
• that nobody seems to be doing their jobs at that place i'm working at because they're too busy kissing each other's behinds...
• that with their apologies, they're adamant about making the mistake of not double-checking my name on the list but they're not doing anything to rectify that...
• that they told me they were going to hire me and that my name was supposed to be on that stupid list...
• that someone promised they'd do something about it, making me hold on to false hopes, expecting that i'd be getting what i deserve in the first place
• the former temps i work with, with stupid smiles on their idiotic faces, gloating - but i'm not at all that bad. there is one temp that i'm happy for. i'm going to hide him under the name philip. he deserves to be hired. sure, his english is not at all that good and talking to him requires one to say, "pardon me", "what's that again?" and "excuse me" hundreds of times but he's been there a long time and he's a much better worker than me so he escapes my character-bashing-name-calling-personality-defaming-sour-graping.

it's kind of funny that i'm still working at that place...my pride has been urging me to just not show up at work one day...but my practicality wins in this situation. i need the money. if my boyfriend and i want to buy a house this year or early next year, i'm going to have to swallow a whole lotta pride to stay in that place and earn.

as much as i try to mask my frustration with nonchalance, i can't. i want to break things...in this case, supervisors' bones would be a much appropriate word.

Enslaved

I've been doing some thinking and have come to a conclusion that perhaps destiny is not a friend. It is not an entity to forge a relationship with because it ends up bitch-slapping me every single time i try my darn hardest to do the things i feel i need to do in order to be where i think i ought to be...

My efforts end up being heaps of garbages in a bin labeled futility. Yup, yup...destiny is just not my ally.

I'm working in this company through an employment agency. I have to make more than 350 hours with the agency before the company considers to hire me and I've been working for half a year now (sounds so much longer than 6 months, don't you think?)

Anyways, the company, we were told, would be hiring a bunch of people and logically, I assumed I would be one of them as I've been working there for quite some time now. My Team Leader, who looks like arrogance personified but turned out to be actually nice, told me to go see the supervisor with receding hairline and whose waistline is clearly the product of years and years of beer-guzzling. The "almost" bald supervisor told us temporary workers to go to the lunchroom to see this other person that I'm going to hide under the name Danny V. (discretion is very important as someone from the company might come across what i've written) who looks like he has spent one too many hours under the tanning bed. So i went to the lunchroom with all the other temporary workers, sat and waited for our names to be called....one by one, he called the name out.

I joked to the person beside me, who i'm going to hide under the name Danielle, that i'm going to burn the place down if my name doesn't get called because Danny V. has called out a lot of names but mine. And she said that maybe the list was alphabetical and that made sense because her name got called after a guy named Dallas (again, the name has been changed for my security). So i waited...wait wait wait wait wait....and then this Chinese guy got called and i was just dumbfounded because his name starts with am "X"...what the heck happened to "R"?...

I approached Danny V. and asked if my name was somewhere on the list and he said no. There's no point in me staying there when clearly, I'm not going to get a contract and get hired full-time. So i went back inside where i came across my Team Leader who I'm going to hide under the name Ryan. I told him what happened and he said there was no way my name cannot be on the list because he distinctly remembers writing it down. On a piece of toilet paper or a gumwrapper, I don't know. He didn't say. We went to see Danny V. who just repeated what he told me - that my name was nowhere to be found on his list and that we should go see Mr. Bald-Beer-Belly (i'm going to hide him under the name Jeff so i wouldn't have to demean his character over and over) if we had any questions.

So we went to see Jeff who told us to go see Joe, the other supervisor...who told me there was a huge mistake and that it was a misunderstanding and that they meant to hire me - just that they overlooked that one tiny detail because they automatically assumed my name was going to be on that list so they didn't even bother double-checking.

Joe said he was going to take care of it...and he didn't. It was stupid of me to believe him. I should've known he wasn't going to admit to his superiors that they made an "uh-oh", hiring people that have been there not even 3 months and not someone who has been there 6 months. He's not going to add another hassle on his already strenuous job. He's not going to waste his time lobbying for little old temporary employee me. He just said that to make me feel as if he's actually sorry for somebody's incompetence and negligence and that he's going to do something...anything...to rectify the monumental injustice that has been committed against me (makes it sound more serious).

Then yesterday, he told me that the chances of me getting hired are pretty slim because the General Manager approved of hiring only 16 people and they've already got those 16 idiots and to add another one is just near impossible. I guess being fair and reasonable doesn't amount to anything with these people. It's a bunch of crap they're feeding me at the moment and i am so frustrated and disappointed about that.

But I've been talking to other people. One of the human resources people said that she was going to take it upstairs...and someone told me i shouldn't have listened and believed joe when he told me he was going to take care of it because he just won't. That's true.

So now i'm keeping my fingers crossed.

2 Years and 8 Months

Congratulate me and marvel at my boyfriend's astonishing capacity to put up with someone like me for this long.

Sure, our relationship didn't start at the best of circumstances - he was engaged to the psycho x for almost 5 years - but i believe we're going to be okay. He is kindness and patience to the TRUEST sense. I never thought there exists such a creature that is just honest and patient and kind. He is the exact opposite of selfish.

Sure, he punches everything in sight when he's mad and he is terribly suspicious of everything. But the intensity of his craziness pales in comparison to the frequency of mine so i think that evens things out quite well. There are times when i deem our relationship unfathomable because there exist moments when i feel as if our foundation is resting on a three-legged table of distrust, shaking uncontrollably, unable to maintain balance. But i guess you can't call a relationship real if it didn't come with all the hassles and complications.

I know I'm superduper lucky to have a superduper terrific guy...I feel so blessed. I am tremendously grateful to have him.

He knows me so well. He is my match in every possible way and i am his. He sees all of me, devoid of hypocrisy and pretentions, yet he still welcomes me with open arms. I find solace in his embrace. He endures all my crazy talks and pretends to listen when i completely make no sense. He remembers how i want my eggs and coffee done.

He lets me take charge of the remote control, sacrificing his sports so i could watch my cartoons. He allows me to take out the Tupac cd in his car so i can put in my Ally McBeal soundtrack. If we didn't have the same taste in movies, it would be absolute torture for him to sit beside, watching black & white classic movies while i try to stifle sobs on the part where Sam plays As Time Goes By for Rick and Ilsa.

He carried me to his car when i was too drunk to walk. He would say with utmost tact that he doesn't think i'm fat but i HAVE eaten enough chocolates and chips and would remind me of my resolution to exercise...He's the one who knocks sense into me and give me gentle kicks when i'm bordering on being such a witch.

The one who makes me see the things i was shielded from, the one who doesn't delight on my mistakes and doesn't make me feel guilty. The one who makes me see the goodness out of everything and everyone, including myself. The one who can make me smile even if i'm really, really sad or angry and holds the power to turn that smile into laughter. He's the one whose kisses chase all the boo-boos away and make everything better.

He makes my life so much more livable.

He is my bestfriend.

It's impossible to see the future in my mind without him in it.

I thank God everyday for him.