I'm Not Josie Grossy Anymore!

Last year I was really poor. Food stamp poor. Literally. Having friends mail you tampons poor. Literally. I have now been working for more than half a year. I've built up a small savings. I've taken a couple of people out finally, people who've held me up financially and emotionally.

While I was poor, I did a very good job of it. That thing where you write down every single thing you spend money on to see where your money goes? I didn't have to, because I knew, down to the penny. I spent nothing unless it was an absolute need. Even then, I went without several needs.

Now that I can fulfill all my needs and even some of my wants, turns out I still think like I'm poor. Can't seem to stop. While I was poor, I remember wondering how it was changing me, and if once I got a job I'd snap out of it, or if it was a permanent thing. Maybe this is like losing weight after having a baby? Where it takes as long as you were out of work, to get comfortable spending the money you now earn at work?

So I have this ugly, heavy black bag. It's so ugly that it's barely even appropriate to be bringing into a law firm every day. But I use it because it's what I have. For the last I don't even know how long, I've been looking for something nicer. Not hundreds of dollars nice, just like, nice-yet-inexpensive-since-it's-now-at-Marshalls nice. I love nothing more than finding a good bargain. Yet I couldn't pull the trigger. I couldn't bring myself to spend $80 (or even $40) on a bag. Even when my mother tried to buy me one last month, I couldn't commit.

Too much time was spent convincing myself I didn't need things when I couldn't afford them, that I didn't need to buy anything that struck my fancy because "the world won't stop creating awesome stuff" that I couldn't move away from that thinking. $50 is NOT AT ALL a lot of money to spend on a bag, especially a black one that would get used every day. I'm not one of those people who has 30 bags. I have fewer than half a dozen.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking with Golden Boy, and this came up. He said something to the effect of this not being a life-long commitment. That it's just a bag, and if I wind up hating it, I can get another one at some point. He didn't actually say anything I didn't know. Sometimes you just need to hear things out loud. Today I found a bag. The leather feels soft, not plastic-y. It was 60% off, at a discount shoe store. There are pockets, it's black, and I spent less than $35. Pretty sure I won't wind up hating this.

Turkey is ... well, an odd duck. I mean, no. He's a narcissistic asshole who shows hints of being a sociopath (an honest to goodness, fitting the definition one). It's not like you can't classify that. It's just so unusual, and so different to spend so much time with someone who's terrible traits affect so much of our interactions, that it strikes me as odd. But for a sociopath, he's totally normal. It's just not normal to run across many sociopaths. When you're not a shrink, or in prison, I mean. Anyway, he likes to call from outside the office and when I answer the phone, say, "Guess who!" I am tempted to answer with, "My worst nightmare?" or at least just respond, "John?" when we all know his name is Turkey.

Anyway, he likes to always ask how I am, or how my weekend was. I just say fine or good, because I don't want him knowing any details of my life. It doesn't matter though, since he doesn't actually care about me, or my life. He only asks because the proper response is to ask me. He always gives a pathetically dramatic sigh before telling me how hard things are, how tired he is, how he worked so much. Last week he tried to get sympathy from me by claiming he works 12-14 hours a day sometimes. If you know anything about lawyers you know a 12 hour day is completely average. If you know anything about owning your own business, you know working 12-14 hours in a day is totally reasonable.

On Friday, Turkey was walking across the office, heading out for the weekend when he stopped in front of my desk and said, "This has been the worst week." I kept my eyes on my computer screen and continued typing. Turkey pressed on for attention. "Seriously, this has been the absolute worst week of my entire life!"

ORLY?!?!?! Even worse than the week a couple of months ago when you were the last family member to talk to your mother before she KILLED HERSELF? Nobody died this week. Surely that'd make this a better week than the week your mother committed suicide. Oh wait, that'd only be true if you were psychologically healthy. But you're not.

Turkey is barely capable of having a conversation without offending someone, fishing for compliments (if not flat-out complimenting himself), or fishing for sympathy. Office Manager, WASP and I refuse to give the compliments or sympathy and it really throws Turkey. He does this shocked blink thing that you'd expect to see when someone got verbally slapped across the face.

After a decade of working with Turkey, Office Manager has given her notice. WASP and I are devastated (though happy for OM). Turkey initially was going to do a lunch for OM's ten-year anniversary of working at the firm, but he didn't. He does lunches for employee birthdays, but didn't do one for her. After both WASP and I went to him asking where we were taking Office Manager for her goodbye lunch, he sent her an e-mail (which of course she promptly shared with us) asking her to pick a place. Except he worded it in a way that was offensive, by telling her to pick a restaurant she's always wanted to go to but hasn't been able to afford.

My favorite is when Turkey says offensive things in front of clients. Like the time he had four clients in the conference room, and when I went to give him copies of a document he'd asked for, without looking at me, he held a water pitcher out to me over his shoulder telling me, "This needs re-filling." Turkey didn't even notice his clients' jaws dropping.

Most Mondays we have a staff meeting in the conference room. I'm sure you understand why I sometimes go in there early and lower the chair at the head of the table, and then raise the heights of all the other chairs.

Spinach Tortellini - Good as Eating Spinach

If you'd guessed what I'd turn out like as an adult based on how I was as a kid, you'd have never in a million years come up with Type A. Every single thing has a place, and every single thing has a well-thought out reason for that place. As a kid my room was a total and complete wreck. My idea of cleaning my room was to squish the clothes on the floor into a smaller pile and then throw an unfolded shirt over the whole thing. Wow, kids are so stupid. (What? Just me? Oh, okay.)

I was forever being sent to go clean up my room. At one point in fifth grade, my mother decided I was allergic to jelly and forced me to take plain peanut butter sandwiches on rye bread to school for lunch. I may or may not have thrown a few of those into the depths of my closet. I may or may not worn gloves and run screaming through the house to the garbage pails in the garage to throw out those sandwiches when my parents found and demanded I dispose of them.

My parents tried everything to get me to clean my room. Every time they sent me though, I just sat around reading my books or writing. They tried telling me firmly. They tried yelling. Threatening. Fining. Oh yes, my mother would charge me $2 or whatever every time she walked by my room and saw it messy. I argued this (and to this day, maintain that I had an excellent argument) but my mother would just randomly fine me. I claimed this was completely unfair as my bedroom was at the end of a hallway. It was physically impossible to stand on either side of my doorway, let alone walk PAST the door to ascertain whether my room was clean or dirty. Solid logic, right?

One day, when I was ... some older age but not yet moved out, I was cooking pasta while my mother was reading in the kitchen. She asked me to not pour boiling water over the wooden spoon used to stir, when I was pouring the pasta into the strainer. She claimed it wasn't good for the spoon. I nodded, and said I'd try to remember. I did try, and forgot sometimes, but remembered more than I forgot.

Tonight I was cooking pasta, and watched the boiling water flow into the strainer as I held the pot in my left hand, spoon in my right. Can't help but wonder if my room would have gotten cleaned if my mother had just come up with an equally logically reason for why I should do it.

Probably not...