zaichikarky

I am still having some problems motivating myself to start writing a trip report, so for now, you get this thing where I summarize some memorable things every month for 2015

January

Main thing I remember about this month was I had my first major altercation with Tom. It was the only one I felt very guilty about and apologized for. I realized that I hurt his feelings a lot and he didn't really do anything in particular. Fridays were just very bad days for me there. Tom's behavior generally didn't help. For some reason almost every Friday he acts like he's either very manic or on some pretty decent Adderall. Those of you familiar with that can understand what I mean. Just very frantic and super hyper. I can't really be around someone like that very well. I get high anxiety from it. On top of that, generally on Fridays he likes to basically not get any work done. I relied on him most of all in my own work, so all of that added up to a fairly impressive explosion that amused the crap out of everyone there except for Tom who was very hurt. I think in January or maybe early February we had a second altercation. When that happened, he accused me of being controlling and then told me a depressing story about his ex wife. Loyd said in all the years he'd known him, he'd NEVER opened up before about something that personal. I think there was some sort of point to the story, but maybe I missed it. My best guess is that my behavior reminded him of his ex wife and he didn't like that. I took that to heart and improved. I realized at some point that Tom is old and he will never change. One of my best qualities is adapting, though, so I just adapted and learned to deal with his antics.

February

I found out late February that I would be moving back to California to work on my current project (that's starting to wrap up). I took that dramatic trip to Disney Land too for Alexis's birthday. Long story short, our mutual friend Matt who has a lot of money from his Liberal propaganda website Addicting Info demanded that I go to Disney Land for Alexis's 30th bday. He refused to take no for an answer, and offered to pay for my plane ticket, so I eventually agreed to go. Matt is an alcoholic and caused a lot of drama. There was constant drama he created between him and his boyfriend at the time, who was a really sweet guy who I felt bad for. Alexis is a very sensitive sort and got upset at all the drama and was crying and IMO being very dramatic herself. I don't think the trip was really that bad for me, though. For one, Matt paid for a first class plane ticket (my first time in first class!), and two, I was able to break away from the group a lot and go off on my own when I didn't feel like dealing with Matt's drunken antics.

Another memorable thing was that I had my last altercation with Tom. It was because Loyd promised that I could go on a call for the first time, but Tom refused to take me. I still don't know why. He made up a lot of bullshit about it and that part especially upset me because I didn't want to hear the bullshit. It was actually the only time Tom managed to hurt my feelings. I think I managed to hurt his feelings many times, but again, he's sensitive and I take pride in the fact that I'm not a very sensitive person. I decided to let it go because I was only gunna stick around for another couple weeks, and I didn't want to spend that entire time being pissed off at Tom. Tom is actually sensitive to my moods and he never liked me to be sad or grumpy, so had I felt like carrying a grudge against him for the rest of the time I was there, I know it would have created nonstop drama.

March

The first few weeks of this month weren't too great. Loyd and Sophia gave me a TON of shit about leaving . I thought I would be nice and provide them with three weeks (maybe even a little more) notice so they could find a replacement. They tried their hardest to talk me out of it. I don't think that either of them really knew I had a Master's, so maybe they didn't understand. They actually thought I was making a horrid mistake about moving back to CA. I know I made the right decision, but I still think Sophia thinks that I made the wrong decision.

My last couple days were pretty good. I made cupcakes for the last auction I had there. Tom doesn't like sweets and he decided to be nice and eat a cupcake anyway. Then for the rest of the day he told me how much the cupcake sucked and how much he didn't like it XD. I didn't take that personally, although at some point he stopped because he said my feelings were gunna be hurt. Anyway, there is a particular customer there called Dirty Dave. The guy is kind of a ... problem. He's basically a homeless person who lives out of his van filled with stuff that he tries to sell at the flea market. He likes to bid on a lot of stuff from EAC and then never pay for it. Also I'm pretty sure we provide him with his one and only meal during the auction (normally we provided the customers pizza and soda). Sometimes he put the slices of pizza in his pocket.

Anyway, so even though Tom hated my cupcakes, he decided he wanted control over who got to eat them. He came up to me and announced Dirty Dave had arrived so I better put the cupcakes away. I told him that all of us (coworkers) had a cupcake, so the rest were for the customers and it was ok if Dave took some. Tom scowled but went somewhere. So Dave take one cupcake... eats it, Tom is watching him closely. Tom walks up to me and tells me I should REALLY put the cupcakes away. There were about 3 left, so I said I didn't want to take any home and if Dave wanted to eat the rest, that's fine. So right before the auction, Dave ate all the rest of the cupcakes. Tom got more and more agitated and by the last cupcake he was wildly gesticulating behind Dave about how I definitely needed to put the cupcakes away OMGRIGHTNOWIMMEDIATELY. It was the most amusing thing. The next day, Tom went back to teasing me about how Dirty Dave was my boyfriend because I like making cupcakes for him.

So most of my male coworkers at EAC had their favorite boyfriends for me. Gerry's favorite boyfriend for me was Tom, as was Mike's. Mike would especially get bad with the teasing about me and tom wanting to supposedly fuck/elope/something else. I laughed it off while Tom just got very silent and very agitated. Loyd's favorite boyfriend was "Cereal" this Russian kid who was the assistant to one of our regular customers. Cereal's real name is Kiril, but Loyd couldn't pronounce it, so he became "Cereal". Loyd figured out that I thought he was cute because I guess I was checking him out and Loyd noticed. When he called me out on it, I got BEET red and kind of gave myself away. Cereal is about 25, already has a wife, and is as skinny as a bean pole. Sofia was very surprised I found him so cute because of how skinny he is. "He looks like a worm, how can you find him cute?!" He also can't speak English very well and that kind of frustrates Joy. I dunno I guess he kind of reminded me a lot of super young David Bowie.

Tom's favorite boyfriends for me alternated between Dirty Dave and Mark Gluckman, this super weird customer who actually used to work for EAC but got fired because he exploded at Sofia so badly. He has a massive temper problem. For the first couple months I worked there, most of my work involved cataloging his mass collection of crap from his father who had recently passed away. Almost all of it was broken and/or pissed on. Along with being "antiquers", his family also breeds Pomeranians for a living. Gluckman is gay, though, and actually Tom invited him over one day to check out some crap at his house. I think he regrets telling me that story because from that time on I teased him about being a more suitable match for Gluckman since you know, he likes to invite the guy over XD.

ANYWAY, the end of March involved the fun road trip Justin and I took to get me back to California. He drove most of the time because I don't like driving and he does. We passed through the Southern States and it was much more interesting than the trip I took to get to Maryland. I got to go to New Orleans for the first time and am itching to get back (Justin didn't like New Orleans much). We also stopped by San Antonio and checked out the Alamo and Riverwalk. We both really enjoyed San Antonio. We also got to meet up a bit with my good friend Jeremy, who I was very excited to see. Also we got to see Kami and I got to meet her husband (then fiancee) for the first time.

April

I started my project working on the Mineta (San Jose politician who became Secretary of Transportation during Bush Administration) Papers. The job was all together much better than EAC except that it was boring and I am never comfortable in my office because it's kept too cold.

May

Nothing of interest really happened this month

June

Dad and I went on that huge kyacking trip down the Russian River. It was about a 9 mile trip and I don't quite know how I made it, but we did! Surprisingly, my arms hurt a lot less at the end than the kyacking trip I took with Justin. We saw a lot of wildlife including a family of River Otters!

Justin came over to visit this month. I won tickets on the radio for a trip to Great America. It was an awesome deal. We got fast passes and food coupons too : ). We also went to Santa Cruz to see Eddie Money (it was my third time!) and stopped by Natural Bridges beach. Justin got very angry at me because I wanted to scale this cliff thing there and I did. He said I did it just to upset him. Otherwise it was a fun trip.

Also I'm very proud of my little article I posted on buzzfeed ^_^ http://www.buzzfeed.com/lisaz458071856/top-10-zaniest-80s-music-videos-125r1?fb_ref=click_share . It's about bad/zany 80s music videos.

July

I got a new betta. Sadly he died a couple weeks after I got him because he jumped out of his tank : (. The tank's filter was being more noisy so I hastily checked out out in the morning and may not have closed the lid of his tank. I was very sad and didn't get another betta. I may get a new one when I get to Florida.

I got to see Blue Oyster Cult!! Show was awesome, although they didn't do "Godzilla" in the set I watched. Same free concert series that goes on every week of summer at the Santa Cruz Board Walk. I was surprised to find out that Jeffrey is a fan of Blue Oyster Cult. I could have gotten him to come along with me. I went by myself.

August

I finally got the guts to call Tom. He was happy to hear from me and told me to keep in touch. I was encouraged by this and I do continue to keep in touch.

At the very end of this month, Chaos and I met up to go to PAX. It was the third time we went there. It was a great trip this time due to the fact that her extremely dramatic ex roommate did not go. Last time we went to PAX, he had a hissy fit about something or other, hung around the top story of the parking garage we were parked at, then threatened to throw himself off.

Justin found out that I'd continued smoking because I kind of sort of took it up when Chaos provided me with as many cigarettes as I wanted to smoke (normally when we see each other, I just smoke one or two, but that time I smoked a LOT). He threatened to break up with me so I stopped ... for a while, then took it up again, then stopped again.

Also I believe it was this month that mom and I got to see Heart. AMAZING performance!! Ann still sings like she's in her heyday, and it's amazing because she's in her mid 60s now.

September

I was depressed about turning 30 this year. I didn't want to celebrate much. I requested Russian food for lunch and mom made me some savory blintzes (blintzes with ground meat), Russian potato salad, borsh, and maybe something else. Alexis made me a delicious dinner that night and Matt was there for a surprise! It was great seeing him. He did not get obnoxiously drunk that night, so I was happy.

October

On Oct 10, I went down to So Cal to attend my good friend Kami's wedding. It was great to see a fun smallish wedding done on a budget.

Went to Florida to do my interview at Nova. It was scheduled on Tom's bday. I did the interview, stopped by a 7-11 to pick up Tom's bday present (a bag of dorritos), and hung out with the gang. I also got to see Natacha separately (she was finally able to get out of there). Tom was actually busy that day and Joy wasn't there, so I decided to stop by the next day too. It was great catching up with Tom. Justin thought that Tom liked me due to "the way he carried himself around you". Still not quite sure what that means. It was nice that the gang got to meet Justin. I didn't get to see Loyd unfortunately due to... kind of annoying Loydness, but maybe I'll get to see him if/when I move back down there in April.

I stayed for a week there. Didn't do a whole lot... Justin's car is a piece of crap and can't really travel far from town. We got to see his mom and kinda just went down to our favorite eateries there.

November

Nothing of interest really happened this month. I found out I was rejected from Nova and I was very sad and disappointed. It took me a couple weeks to get over the disappointment, but I did : ).

Actually, I believe this was the month that dad and I went to that local charity concert for the Norcal wildfire. There were a lot of great cover bands (all the cover bands featured at least one member from the group). I enjoyed the Doors concert the most, followed by the Jefferson Starship band, and I also liked a couple of the Chicago hits (25 or 6 to 4!!). Norman Greenbaum also played in this concert. I guess he was ok, dad still makes fun of "that dirty hippie that sings about Jesus".

December

My huge family trip to Vietnam and Cambodia!! I usually am too lazy to do trip reports properly, but I promise I will this time. I would also like to make a scrap book for this trip. I have always wanted to do that with all my trips, but the only trip I did that with was my 2009 trip to Australia. Maybe tomorrow I will start working on that.

I'm excited to see what 2016 has in store for me ^_^. SUPPOSEDLY Justin and I will get married. Right now it's looking like I don't really wanna do a wedding, but want to do a honeymoon to Japan (his choice, not mine...) Hope everyone has a great year!