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Saturday - 11/12/2000 - Lincoln's Birthday - 11:50 P.M.

Lauren called this morning. Wanted to come over. I said sure, as long as it was okay with her mother. Then Heather got on the phone and told me Lauren had been pulling one of those, "I'll go live with Nanna and PapPap and they'll be nice to me" type behaviors. We decided it would still be good if Lauren came over-- give Heather a break and besides I wanted to spend some time playing. Marilyn invited us down for brunch-- Quiche Lorraine and salad. It was quite spectacular. We walked up to the barn with a bag of carrots. One of the mares foaled two weeks ago and we wanted to see the baby. The mare in the stall beside them had a sign saying she was due February 10. Marilyn noticed it and said it'll be any day now. Then we realized there was this little tiny horse already laying in the hay. She must have been born last night. Pretty neat.

We were invited to dinner at my friend Annie's house tonight. She and her son, Jonah have moved with her parents, Ted and Mary, to a newer house on Woodside Drive, out in South Strabane Township. So bizarre visiting them there when they used to practically own Grant Street. W&J College is building again.... big time, all around the old Trapuzzano house. Putting in some new technology or history center or something like that. Can't tear Annie's parent's old house down 'cause her cousin lives in the other half of the duplex and he won't sell. Annie cooked some wonderful Trapuzzano-type thing, baked ziti with ricotta and mozzarella cheese although she swore it was from a recipe she got off the internet, not from a family cookbook. I hope that Joe Man isn't getting any ideas after all these wonderful eating occassions lately. Everybody gives me great recipes. I just hate to cook.

I get this email every week from U.S. Airways-- E-Saver flight notices. They've got some great bargains... a roundtrip to Richmond, VA for $89. I'm thinking one of these weekends this spring, I'm going to fly there. I can rent a car and drive to Va Beach. It'd be great to see PW and JW and still have time to come home & freak out in time to go to work Monday. I'm not allowed any vacation days until after I've been working 6 months. They do let you take personal days, even before you've accrued them. Took a few hours personal time a couple of weeks ago to go see my shrink. Have a dentist appointment coming up later this month. Told my boss I'd do that again-- write it down as personal time. But he said I had been working overtime ever since he started so I could just take comp time instead. Really nice... just when I was starting to think he hated me, he turns around and does something sweet like that.

I took my pills before I came up here tonight. I'm so tired I keep forgetting how to spell and type and what it is I'm trying to say. Guess it's time to go to bed. Take it easy. Maybe write more tomorrow.

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Friday - 2/11/00 - 9:33PM

"She knows she more than just a little misunderstood."
She has trouble acting normal when she's nervous

I knew when I woke up this morning, it was going to be one of those days. I was having a dream. I was making love to three men at once. The dream was pretty good to tell you the truth. But then I had to wake up and deal with my Catholic upbringing slapping me in the face.... you're not supposed to dream about sex at all, let alone having sex with three guys at once, and you enjoyed it? Well, honey, you're nothing but a slut.

"She says it's only in my head
Shhh, I know, I know it's only in my head"

Had a maniac following me on the interstate on my way home from work. I was in the passing lane, following a line of cars, all doing 75. Me too. But this guy decided he wanted me to let him pass. Where he thought he was going to go, I haven't a clue, cause like I said, there were cars in front of me as far as the eye could see. Anyway, he started flashing his high beams. I don't see very well at night to drive. You hit me with bright lights, I'm 99% blind. I ignored him but he did it again, and again. So I tapped my brakes just the teeniest, tiniest bit. (Back off, jerk.) Then he got mad. Flipped his high beams on for good and moved closer, maybe 18 inches away from my bumper. I was trying really hard not to lose it. I just wanted to come home and have a beer and forget who I was, that kind of stuff. I let him follow me for a bit then thought, what the heck. I pulled over into the right lane. (Go ahead, pass me, get outta here. No really, get outta here.) But instead he pulls over into the right lane behind me. He moves closer-- 12 inches behind me by this time. Yeah, I was getting a little bit freaked. Okay, you've got my attention. You're one big bad s.o.b. and I better not fool with you. I have the kind of outside mirrors you can move from inside so I adjusted them so they were pointing up at the sky and I flipped my rear view mirror up so it was only reflecting the top of the car. Essentially, I couldn't see anything behind me. I lit another cigarette and turned up the stereo. Tried singing louder. Tried to breathe. Tried to not lose it. But he kept inching closer and closer (the only way I could tell was the interior of my car was starting to look like the Bijou Theater... all lit up from his stupid headlights flooding in my back window.) It was not a cool way to end a day or a week. But it'll be okay. Just remember you're not the only one who's nuts. Everyone is nuts.

"I want to be the last thing that you hear when you're falling asleep
I want to be the knife that cuts into my hand
And I want to be scattered from here in this catapult
What a big baby, won't somebody take me please
I can't find nobody home"

Talked a bit on the phone tonight... PW in Virginia Beach, Merle in Meadow Lands, Patty on Lockhart Street. Needed to talk to someone. Needed to talk to everyone. Needed to talk to anyone who I didn't have to pretend around. So sick of being the pretender, the stupid secretary, with the stupid smile plastered across my face, and having to hear how it's okay if I make mistakes 'cause I'm still new to the job. But it's like I'm making one gazillion mistakes... one after another after another. And I know one of these times, it's not going to be "okay", it's going to be, "you screwed up way too bad-- and now they finally know you're a complete idiot who likes sex way too much and has to smoke her brains out and drink like a fish and take prescription drugs by the handful just to get through the day." Yep, that about sums it up and tell you what.... I'm not apologizing. Life is too hard. Whatever it takes to get you through, it's okay. I've come too close to not getting through so it's cool. They say, "You better stop-- it'll kill you." Hey pal, as Jim Morrison sang, no one here gets out alive.

But hey, I'm not a little self-centered, am I? PW is having a rotten time of it, not feeling up to par. I wish I could do something. I would do anything to be able to help. She says she'd like some old Marphone tapes. I don't know about that. I only have a truckload. Why can't I do something to really help?

Merle was giddy and made me laugh. Usually does. Last night we were remembering a song she wrote when we were kids, "We hate you Mrs. Engle... We think you're pretty mean. Na Na Na. We hate you." Merle and her friend Judy wrote that. Then they called up Mrs. Engle and sang it to her. She was not amused. Mrs. Engle was mean by the way. She hated Wasser, our dog, just because he peed all over her freshly laundered sheets hanging out in the wind to dry. So? Merle and I talked about when we were little the world was divided into two kinds of people... those we liked and those we hated. And anyone who dared say something nasty about Wasser, well, they definitely were in the latter category. The guy over across from Reardon's who came down to our house with vet bills after Wasser (a big dalmation/greyhound) tore his little teeny dog to shreds. Hey, he should have kept that little dog in the house. What did he expect? Wasser could do no wrong in our eyes. He was the king. If we had a rickshaw, we would have carried him around the neighborhood, running along on either side. Wasser would have sat up in that big padded king size seat, smoking a big cigar, and smiled. He was the only dog I ever knew who could smile.

"So you want to be a rock & roll star
Well listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar and take some time
And learn how to play, just learn how to play"

Patty called because someone sent her an unflattering snapshot of herself. Who would do such a thing? No one I know, not even someone who received a snapshot of herself where she looked like an escaped mental patient. Pat is getting ready to go to California. Her daughter, Jen, is expecting and due any day now. Too neat. Pat's a little freaked. She's booked herself a seat on the flight, number 13. What kind of an airline has a number 13 seat? Didn't they ever hear of 10, 11, 12, 14... like in hotels??

I told Pat she didn't have to worry about crashing. There are worse ways to go. Lots worse. She agreed.

I'm starting to learn... the times you really have to be careful, very, very, very careful are the times when you think you're sure of yourself, of the situation, times when you're feeling just a little bit too brave.... that's when someone is going to come up behind you and blind you with their headlights. That's when someone is going to whisper in your ear, "[You were] the worst mistake I ever made." As long as you remember, life sucks and there's no figuring it out, and as long as you accept you're no more important than an ant on the sidewalk... then you'll be all right. I'm starting to learn. This is good.

(This is not a song about love
This is a song about addiction...)

"She's entwined in me
Crazy as can be
But she's alright with me"

Gonna smoke a few more cigs. And listen to a few more tunes. And finish my beer and take my pills. Go away to dream land again. Sorry I've been venting. I was a little freaked. At least I wasn't a lot freaked. I feel better now that I've let a little bit of it out. Good thing I never let a lot out... I'd blow my mind (and yours too.) Thanks for reading. Have a good one.

"Oh Lord, I'm not ready for this sort of thing"

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Sunday - February 6, 2000 - 6:51 AM

My friend Rita once talked about the day when civilization, as we know it, will end. I fear that day is very near. They put up signs in Wendy's. "Coming Soon - A Smoke-Fee Environment For Your Dining Enjoyment." What a travesty. What a slap in the face. What a bummer. Where will I and all my compadres turn for sitting and smoking during the long days of winter??? Ah, as the Bible (& George Harrison) once said, "All Things Must Pass".

Lauren spent the night here last night. She and Joe are still sleeping at this early hour of the morn. You'd think I'd be sleeping also. All week long I long for the weekend when I can sleep in. But I also miss, so much, being able to write in here. What kind of a job did I get myself into-- never even have time to play on the internet? Anyway, I decided writing in here, to you all, is more important than sleeping. For me, that's saying a lot.

Peter McWilliams is going to trial soon for using marijuana to treat his symptoms associated with AIDS. If you don't know him, he's an author who's written some really neat books, including You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought. That and a couple of his other books got me through some really bad times when my dad was sick. Anyway, I've been on McWilliams' mailing list for awhile and this week I received a letter asking for help. He wants me to write a letter to the federal judge who will be hearing his case. I'm not usually into writing letters like that and I don't know if they do any good but in this case, I think I'll take the time to write. I can't understand why people aren't allowed to use marijuana anyway. And it makes me really angry in a case like this where it can alleviate some suffering. If you're at all interested, here's an online version of his request: [Peter McWilliams Trial].

This guy I work with came in this week with a new haircut. I had to tell him it looked nice even though I thought it made him look short and fat. It was so weird, made him look so different that the first time I saw him, I didn't know it was him. Made me laugh everytime I ran into him. Then it finally dawned on me who it looked like.... Dilbert, in the comic strip. Not like I have any room to talk... me with the ink all over my blouse.

I'm butting heads with another guy at work. He supports our databases. I haven't met him in person yet, only talked to him on the phone and through email a few times but I already almost despise him. He's very arrogant and acts as if he owns the data. I've been told he's very young, mid-twenties, and insecure. Has reason to be... he's an idiot. That wasn't a very nice thing to say, must have been Jani Black talking. Anyway, this is what it's all about, right? Learning how to get along with all the idiots in our lives. And learning how idiotic we all are ourselves.

"You wanna live in this lousy world
Play it cool
I want to get even--
Get cool
I want to bust--
Bust cool
I want to go--
Go cool."

(as sung by Ice & other assorted Jets)

I'm out of coffee. Better get off and go downstairs (might have to listen to West Side Story.) Hope you're all okay and happy and everything in your lives is wonderful. Thanks for reading.

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Monday night - January 31,2000 - 9:09 PM

I never have time to write in here and it's starting to piss me off. So hope everyone out there is all right and the snow monkeys aren't keeping you homebound. We've been very lucky so far.... there's been snow on the ground for weeks but nothing too awful ('course that's easy for me to say because the Joe man does most of the driving.) I have to drive myself in to Oakland this Wednesday. Joe's taking the day off to accompany Lauren to school. It's grandparent's day. If you think I'm not ready to cry 'cause I can't go, you don't know me very well. But it will be nice for her to have him at school for a change.

I'm listening to Richard Morris play Schubert Impromptu Op.90 #3, G-flat Maj on [MP3.com], a neat site that has lots of free music. Pretty cool. Now he's playing Chopin Prelude #13. I don't know who Richard Morris is but I like the selections he's playing.

Having a heck of a time getting my email lately. First of all I never get a chance to get online here. I can pick it up through my work email but I'd never have a chance to read it there. Finally tonight I made time to come up here and log on and guess what? Outlook is acting up. Oh well, anyway, if I have been lax in responding to anyone, this is why.

It's the last day of January!!!!! Man, is time speeding up faster each day or what? It was actually still light out when we got home this evening. I'm hoping by the time daylight savings time rolls around, I'll be able to stay up until it gets dark. Usually I'm in bed by now (9:31) but tonight I really wanted to get on this web site. Aw, he's really doing it now, playing one of my all time favorites... Claire de Lune (Debussy). I'm going to have to listen to these again. The moon this winter has been so beautiful. Not sure why I think it's prettier when it's cold, maybe because the sky is so much clearer now than during the summer? If I were a coyote, I'd be howling, it's been so awesome.

Had a couple of friends over Saturday night... Annabelle and Merle. First time we've done anything like that in I can't remember how long. Really nice. We ate pizza and listened to music and drank wine. Stayed awake until 10:00!! Oh boy, what party animals we've become.

Don't have any good stories about my lunch pals. Today they all looked much better than I. Unbeknownst to me, while working this morning, I leaned up against a pen on my desk. Wrote all over the front of my shirt. Looked like hieroglyphics (sp?) and of course, this was one of the few days I didn't have a blazer to cover up. Ran around all afternoon with an interoffice mail envelope in front of me, trying to pretend I wasn't the biggest klutz in the world.

Well, it's getting perty late so I'm signing off. Thanks for reading. See ya in the funny pages.

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Friday night - January 21,2000 - almost midnight

And I should be in bed because I've been up since 4:15 AM and it's Friggin Friday but I'm a bit jazzed. Listened to a "cybercast" concert tonight-- bet you'll never guess who the group was. Pretty cool. It was broadcast from [House of Blues]. Adam was, as always, spectacular. When the intro to "Mercury" started, he said,

"This is not a song about love. This is a song about addiction.
This is not a song about love. This is a song about addiction.

THIS IS NOT A SONG ABOUT LOVE.
THIS IS A SONG ABOUT ADDICTION."

And to that, may I add, "Yes he did, yes he did... Been there, done that and it's no fun at all." Later, in the middle of another song, he sang,

"I been dreamin but it's over now... GO AWAY.

To which I can only say, "Amen."

So now that we've gotten that out of the way, I can tell you about my week. I'm still working and it's starting to get to the point where I still don't know much about anything but I know enough to do quite a bit of damage if I'm not very, very careful. Good thing there's xanax or I'd be Don Knotts, quivering and shaking worse than a paper kite caught in the limb of a tree during an 80 mile an hour wind.

The PR woman at our place had asked one of my assistants, Karen, to do a mass mailing a week or so ago. Karen didn't seem to have any problem with that and as far as I knew everything was progressing righty tighty. Anyway yesterday, around 4:20 (ten minutes before quitting time), PR lady came to me and asked when Karen would be done with said mass mailing. (I thought she was done but couldn't say that so I said she get it done the next day (today.) This morning I found out there were still 1400 envelopes to stuff. Tallk about being dumbstruck. Had no idea... I was thinking the whole mailing was 500, tops. Turned out, all told it was 2400. Anyway we (Karen, PR lady and myself) spent 4 hours this morning working trying to finish but we ran out of letterhead. Are these people nuts or what?? Who sends out 2400 pieces of junk mail other than Publisher's Clearing House???

Joe had a birthday Wednesday... 49 and lookin' fine. Heather and Lauren came over for cake and ice cream and Joe and Lauren played with his new train (not a birthday present but a Christmas present.) I bought the train because about a million years ago, we had Joe's old train from when he was a kid. Then one day someone stole it. He was devastated. For years I've been meaning to get him another one. The one I ended up getting wasn't anywhere near as nice as the old one (which had about a gazillion miles of track and tunnels and bridges and cars.) This is just a "starter" set. Of course it didn't work right on Christmas. We could only get it to run on the tiniest circle of track. Anytime we added straight pieces, it kept shorting out. But we finally got it fixed this week so "Wooo Woooo!!!"

Got this snapshot in the mail today. It was taken at Marilyn's birthday party & had Marilyn, my cousin Pat, and me all hanging on to each other. Marilyn and Pat looked like models... gorgeous smiles on their faces. I looked like a moron. My eyes were rolled up in my head and I swear there was a drop of drool hanging out of the side of my mouth. I called Pat to complain and she said there were two taken that evening. In one, I looked bad but in the other Marilyn looked bad. She said she had sent Marilyn the other one. Then after we hung up, she called me back and said she'd made a mistake. That I looked worse in the one she sent Marilyn. Worse??? What, did I have 17 chins instead of 10? Was I foaming at the mouth? The next time I see her with her camera, I'm grabbing it and smashing it to smithereens on the floor.

I'm a gonna go to bed. Thanks for reading. Say goodnight, Jani. Goodnight Jani.

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Saturday morning - January 15, 2000

Is this bizarre or what.... the month is half over already. I wish I could drag my feet over the edge of this merry-go-round and make it slow down a bit, know what I mean?

You'd think I'd have all this stuff to write--- it's been so long since I've written in here or even in my real journal. But nothing stands out. Just one day leading into another, not bad, not good, just time passing by.

Did overhear another great (albeit one-sided) conversation at lunch the other day. This woman's voice was coming from behind me. She said this:

"Yeah, he said he didn't want to see me anymore."
"Yeah, he said, 'Get out of my face.'"
"Yeah, he said he's seeing her now. He said he loves her."
"Yeah, he said he was gonna marry her."
"So I said, 'Go ahead then-- if you don't want me.'"

"Yeah, he said he didn't want to see me anymore."
"Yeah, he said, 'Get out of my face.'"

Work is. Yesterday I was putting together a proposal my boss and I had been working on all week. It took six hours to get finished. I had printed it out on bond paper, and made a front and back cover. We have one of those binding machines which I thought I'd never be able to use but I managed. It looked good, very nice, professional. An hour or so after I gave the books to my boss, a counselor came in wanting something else. While she was showing me what she wanted, I realized two of the counselors' biographies had been inadvertently omitted in the proposal. It was 2 o'clock and I hadn't had lunch. I walked over to Wendy's, my head in a fog and two Jani's fighting back and forth in my head... do I pretend I don't know about this mistake or do I go back and start all over again? It was making me sick to my stomach, especially thinking of the way Rick's face would look when I told him what I had done. I was pretty certain he was going to say, "Get out of my face." I went back to the office and confided in one of my assistants. She volunteered to help and when Rick left for a meeting, we went in and disassembled everything. I inserted the two missing counselors and my other assistant rebound the books. It was all done and back in my boss's office before he got back from his meeting. If I didn't have those two assistants, I'd be up shit creek... I owe them-- big time.

It snowed here this week, not much, just dusted the ground. I never really saw it in the light of day (it's dark when we go to work in the morning and dark again by the time we get home.) But when we were walking up to the garage one morning, the floodlight in the backyard was on. The light reflected off each snow crystal making the ground looked like it was covered with a gazillion tiny sparkling diamonds. It was too pretty. I thought I might have to stand there forever looking at those jewels. We got in the car and drove to the interstate. The sky was incredible too... navy blue with long finger-shaped clouds lying low near the horizon and Venus shining just above them, in the east, looking like the beacon from a lighthouse. Good thing Joe does most of the driving. I would have had to pull over and sit there just staring, in awe.

Thanks for reading. Have a good one and drop me a line sometime....

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Friday night - 1/7/2000

I'm all keyed up and trying to unwind. Drinking the saint and listened to my favorite cd's for a bit. Thought I'd come up here and see if anything comes to mind.

Rick, my boss, started this week. He seems nice-- good looking. He and his family are staying in an apartment in Shadyside. He sold his house in CT. but is waiting for the final house inspection to close. And hasn't even started looking for a new house here yet. I haven't spent more than 10 minutes alone with him-- we're both so new and have so much to learn. They didn't bother to tell him, before he took the job, that I was new. Think he could have spit but oh well.

He's given me access to his calendar (MS Outlook) and bestowed upon me the wonderful honor of keeping track of his time. I don't know how it will be later but right now that's incredibly ridiculous. He's having me set up meetings with every CEO and VP in the infrastructure-- about 30 people. Then at the same time he invited all of the staff to make appointments to talk to him, each for about an hour. I'm blown away by trying to shuffle people around. Ten or so of the real BIGSHOTS are meeting with him and his boss so that's three secretaries trying to settle on suitable dates and times. I must have had 50 emails in the last 2 days trying to arrange and rearrange this. I haven't even started on the next twenty. Meanwhile, he's off making dates of his own so I check his calendar and tell so-and-so he's available next Thursday at 3:30 but then I check it again and he's blocked off the whole afternoon for a presentation in Somerset, PA.

The other part of the job that's been giving me fits is all these contracts and extensions to contracts and proposals for contracts... They're all coming in at once. I can't begin to keep straight who are our accounts and who are our affiliates and who we have "fee-for-service" agreements with and ... it just goes on and on. Everyday I feel like I'm getting more and more lost in this foreign country, where everyone is speaking a different language and doing different and strange customs. I'm just this drooling idiot standing on the corner with a sign-- "Will Work for Cigarettes".

My lunch companions are becoming very intriguing. Overheard this conversation the other day between two guys at the table behind me.

The one says, "Where're you livin, Charlie?"
And Charlie says, "I got me a place of my own."
So the first one says, "A place of your own? You mean it's not supervised?"
And Charlie answers, "Nope, it's all my own."
"Doesn't anybody else live there?" asks the first one.
"Not in my place, they don't but in the other places, yeah." says Charlie.
So the first one says, "Who lives in them other places?"
And Charlie says, "Y'know-- other patients, like us."

Like the first guy, I'm in awe of Charlie. He's got his own place. More than I've ever had. Way cool... something to strive for. Maybe some day I'll grow up to be an outpatient and have a place of my own.

But anyway, I've lasted three weeks. Another couple and I'll be setting a new record for longest time in a new job in the past two years that I haven't announced I'm quitting. Marilyn and Heather and Joe are having to deal with a lot of my insecurities and fits of terror. Couldn't do it without them.

Horrendous thing happened to Heather's ex-sister-in-law this week. Her boyfriend beat her to a pulp, broke every bone in her face, then he buried her alive. Needless to say, Heather was a little freaked out. This all happened down in Myrtle Beach, where the sister-in-law's been living for the past couple years. Heather was calling the hospital down there, trying to get info and not having much luck. She finally got through to her ex-mother-in-law last night but things didn't sound as if they were improving. Tracy is still on life support. Heather found out about all this from one of the after-school daycare people that takes care of Lauren. That same day, when she got home from work, her final divorce decree was in the mail. She felt guilty before-- now she's a basket case.

I'm praying for Tracy and her mother, Sandy, and Tracy's daughter, Melissa. Missy and Tracy were both in Heather's wedding. Missy was the junior bridesmaid. I guess she's getting counseling but I don't know how you could explain this to a 13 year old girl, how this could happen to her mother. I don't know how you could explain it to a 45 year old woman, how this could happen to her daughter. Sorry to go on and on about it but it's really unreal.

Saw my shrink yesterday. I went there straight from work and was pretty freaked out. Had a rotten day. Told him I started a new job but was sure I was going to fail. He said, "It won't be all your fault if you fail. They hired you." (Was that supposed to make me feel better?) I should know better by now. He's the medicine man, not the counselor.

Lauren's spending the night with us tomorrow night. Good, I need a night with her to feel human again. Thanks for reading.

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Saturday - January 1, 2000 - 12:44PM EST