Fuck

There are ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR registered sex offenders in San Juan County.

Can you believe that shit?

I think I like this better

You know what? Work politics suck. At my last job, I was so miserable I was openly complaining about everything with my co-workers. I was totally in the know, tuned into and in some cases starting all the bitchy gossip.

At this new job, not so much. In retrospect I felt guilty and sick about my big-ass mouth even though it didn't really cost me anything in the end. Well, I may be a wiser more compassionate and mature employee but I sure as hell don't know when the shit is coming down.

Yet ANOTHER co-worker has been fired. I say it in caps because I've only been here since February and half the staff has left or been fired, and I'm always the last to know.

The latest fire-ee apparantly had a bad attitude and complained about everybody, including me, which, in my newfound non-bitchy, non-gossipy role, did not even realize.

Whatever, though. Really, who gives a fuck. He's gone.

...

June, Dara and Starr in Honolulu. Starr's getting married soon. I miss my friends...

Coffee coffee coffee place

There's a new coffee shop in Shiprock, NM on the Navajo Reservation. It's the only locally-owned business for miles along that particular strip of road and the place is practically buried by all the huge KFC, Burger King and Taco Bell signs all around it.

It's called Aohweeh Gohweeh (geez, I hope I spelled that correct I'm relying on memory here) Coffee Place and the propetier, Gloria has a sly sense of humor. The name is a play on the subtle variations of the Navajo language and literally translated into English it reads "Coffee coffee". Thus we English speakers would call the place "Coffee coffee coffee place." Ha ha.

The irony is that coffee is really a secondary thing to Gloria who opened the place to support local artists. She's hoping the revenue generated by coffee sales will help her continue to keep open a place that will sell local arts and crafts. Pretty cool, I think.

Anyway, one of the things she's selling are these little wooden plates that look like coasters but have the names of various Navajo tribes (and English translations) engraved on them. There's even a tribal wheel thingy to help younger Navajo who may not know what tribe their mother's family is from.

As a joke, I told Gloria, "Hey, what about me? I don't have a tribe."

"Oh, there's a plate for people who don't have tribes." She pulled one out of the stack and showed it to me. Under the long Navajo word, presumably for "person without tribe" or the like, were the words "white person."

I don't know why, but this cracks me up.

"But I'm not a white person either," I told her.

"Well, I'll just give you a tribe," she replied and pulled out a random plate. It read "Two Goats Tribe" or something.

Interesting because I am a Capricorn. I wondered if she sensed something about me that caused her to pick that tribe but she said it was just a random choosing.

Talking story with Gloria and the local artists who happened to be mulling around the place made my day.

Oh yeah

I was so bothered by the last sentence in the last post I was tempted to delete it. But that would be dishonest, because it's how I felt the very moment I wrote it.

Still, I felt bad. So I read a few pages of the "Tao of Pooh," took a shower and washed my hair, and this is what came to me:

Valerie Gritton was one of the first, and certainly the friendliest, to greet me in Farmington. She gave me a great big hug and said, "I'm so glad you're here. We're really understaffed."

Well, she left last week. She and her husband moved to Kentucky where they're going to start a family.

Valerie had a helluva time moving to Farmington from New York. She thought she would hate it but ended up meeting her future husband. Curtis is a sweetie and even came up with a cute way to propose. He was going to take her to the place they went on dates, a place with a good view of the mesa during the day and a secluded make-out place by night. He was going to take her there on the ruse of star gazing and place the ring at the end of the telescope for her to discover.

Well it just so happens Valerie already knew he had the ring and was pissed he hadn't proposed yet so when he suggested star-gazing she was pissy. It's stupid, she said, we can't see any stars anyway, it's all overcast.

So Curtis finally gave up on that idea and just gave her the ring and proposed in the more typical manner.

That, said Valerie, summed up her relationship with Curtis. He tries to do something sweet, she gets all bitchy.

And that, my friends, seems to sum up my relationship with life. I'll hold out hope for a happy ending.

Bleh

Today, while on the way to an assignment I turned to the photographer and said something like, "My friends would be aghast if they came to Farmington. They would be like, 'Why the fuck are you living here?'"

We were driving along a windy road with the mesa looming before us, the sunset making it glow a pretty pink.

"Look at this," the photographer said, motioning to the view. "It's not all bad. You have to be more optimistic."

"I know, I know, it's really pretty," I agreed. "It's not all bad. I like some things about being here."

But they were hollow words. I'm sure anyone who comes across the past three months of posts about New Mexico and how I hate New Mexico, would draw the conclusion that New Mexico is not the problem, that my attitude is the problem.

Believe me, I've pondered this and it bothers me because blaming New Mexico is easier than changing my attitude. The implications of this being an attitude problem are daunting. It means that I may not be happy anywhere.

But I swear, I looked at the mesa, and its desert beauty did not resonate within me. I knew I should think it was pretty, that other people drive by and see its beauty, but I didn't actually think it was. When I'm around people who genuinely like living here I feel like the outcast high school student who just mumbles empty words of agreement to fit in with whoever has the most sway in the immediate social situation.

This blog was started as a humorous commentary on every day life. But it's not humorous any more because I'm not laughing. To tell you the truth I'm not doing much extracurricular writing, writing just for myself, in general anymore. And I've always had my writing, through everything else. How funny, I thought that by moving I'd grow as a writer. Perhaps I'm growing as a person, but I feel the writer in me withering.

I don't think I'll be updating for awhile.

Just let it go, Ryan

I have this co-worker. He's cool enough. No actually he's a big nerd, but he's not meanspirited. He's just a bit of an annoying know-it-all. Which should be OK, since he makes it his business to always be right so it's not like he's talking out of his ass. He just is one at times.

One of our other co-workers asked for directions to get to a certain cafe. I started to give her the directions, Ryan interrupted to basically give the same directions except he said the cafe was located before the theatre building. I said I was pretty sure it was past the theatre.

But whatever. We both agreed there was a big sign in front of the cafe and our co-worker, who is presumably literate if she works with us, would find the place.

And she did.

"Yup, found it with no problem," she said, after getting back from lunch.

Good. Let's leave well enough alone, shall we?

Oh no. Not Ryan. He can't be wrong and he can't shut up.

"So," he said. "Was it before or after the theatre?"

"It was after," she replied.

"Oh," said a genuinely stunned sounding Ryan. "I guess I was wrong. I could have sworn it was before."

Let me introduce you to...

Chance. Chris' pound hound. Saved him from the animal shelter about three weeks ago. We thought he was about a year or two old, but the vet said he's nine months. Isn't he cuuuuute?

Untitled

I've always wanted to be one of those people who can saunter into a restaurant, order a meal and eat it alone. Ooh, to have that kind of self-confidence, to not notice or care or assume that everyone else in the restaurant would stare in secret jealousy, wishing they were that self-confident as well.

My ex-boyfriend Anson was aghast when I told him this. He never wanted to eat alone in public. He felt sorry for people who had to because he assumed they had no friends and were terribly lonely and went to restaurants for meager social interaction.

It's funny, how divergent our points of view were.

Anson had good taste in music though. I remember riding with him around Honolulu listening to Champagne by 311 or something by Jack Johnson, always mellow tunes like that. In fact, when I listen to Champagne, I think about sunny days driving around Honolulu with him. It calls up memories of past conversations. Like the time he said he couldn't wait for his little brother to get older and start talking. Anson said he'd tell his brother the sky was blue because it was reflecting the color from the ocean.

"What if he asks why the ocean is blue?" I replied.

"Because it's reflecting the color of the sky."

Stuff like that.

Some songs, like "Step by Step" by the New Kids on the Block, bring back waves of nostalgia, images of the Jordan Knight poster on my best friend Shari's bedroom wall. Of the fake concert we put on with our NKOTB dolls in her bathroom.

Other songs, like "Come and Get Your Love" by the Real McCoy remind me of this guy named Collin, who I had a crush on in high school. He never liked me, in fact made fun of me, but I remember watching him dance to that song. He danced well, especially for someone who was practically a goth by senior year. I thought I'd be sad every time I heard this song, but it passed and I still like it. The last time I saw Collin, he was behind the wheel of some car in Hilo, and he was fat.

It's perfect for me

I'll be writing for the lifestyle section instead of covering crime.

I am neither lively, nor am I very stylish anymore. But I am passionate about not wanting to cover crime.

That nose

The new news editor started today. She's stylish and opinonated, a "liberal, New York, vegeterian newspaperwoman," as the editor-in-chief said. She talks fast, with a slight lisp, is full of energy and made it clear she doesn't like Patrick Swayze.

I rather like her.

Yet I can't get past her nose. The nostrils are crooked.

NBC's "Starting Over" is starting to rub off I do believe

Gosh I haven't been a good writer lately. I haven't been much of a writer at all for that matter.

I think it's all the homesick negativity, I just didn't want to indulge myself in that anymore. Not in public. Blogging can become an unhealthy addiction in that way I noticed.

Farmington has become my ultimate excuse. Something goes wrong, I blame it on crappy old Farmington. But the truth is, if I stayed home I would have been just as miserable there, wondering if I'd ever have the courage to try something new, live somewhere else. One of these days I'll learn to take responsibility for myself instead of hawking it off on other things.