I have officially spent 163 minutes – five phone calls combined – speaking with various Dell agents. Included in those minutes were 7 different transfers. And more than half of those minutes ate into my allotted monthly cell minutes.

I was treated to every variation of Southwest Asian accent and every model of complete incompetence as no one was able to tell me where in the hell my laptop was. The fact that I had to service it and get it repaired less than a month after purchasing it should have been a huge red flag.

I realize the necessity for major corporations to outsource. They are clearly so destitute for money and so in need of cheap labor that they would rather marginally train people overseas to handle all customer service issues. Right. However, here are some loops holes:

1) The American culture and mentality is in and of itself unlike anything else on the planet. We have enough problems trying to deal with American consumer rage and impatience. Inflicting that anger on some poor Indian man or woman trying to make meager ends meet is painful.

2) Americans get on the defensive when presented with someone who has an accent. Now, I am pretty good at understanding anybody. I am multilingual and was raised in another country. However, when even I can’t understand what in the hell you are saying then there is a major problem.

3) If your agents can’t speak English…why in the hell have you hired them?

4) The training must be so Pavlovian because I have memorized several of their key responses. They are not actually offering service and solutions, but merely reading from a pre-prepared script. This does not help when troubleshooting technical issues. Either hired people with the proper training or TRAIN them to do more than read from a company bible.

5) American agents are clearly accessible as I was finally transferred to one after running the gauntlet of accents and confusion. Stop being a lazy cheapskate corporation and realize you are losing customers or lowering your public image by forcing people to deal with outsourced employees.

I have zero tolerance for this business practice. ZERO. It’s annoying and aggravating. And while I understand it creates much needed jobs for poverty-stricken countries, how’s about you focus on your OWN unemployed citizens. Cheap labor is not a foreign concept to American soil.

Now…when can I get my laptop back?

You know, there is a reason I hate alcohol and have a VERY low tolerance for people who drink and for being around people or situations that involve drinking. However, I have been known to sip drinks (and no, that is not hypocritical) and every time I do it just reaffirms why I hate alcohol (among the many other reasons). Something about the taste of it sends me into nasty shocks; my friends love to torture me by offering sips JUST so they can see the faces I make. In any case, about a month ago I was at Sara’s house and she had me try this hot chocolate mixture with Kahlua and Irish Cream…not a problem….had no reaction and could barely taste it. Move to today. Sara is in Orlando with her friend Sue at an 80s rock concert starring Poison and I ask if I can hang at her house and play her Xbox. She says OK and I enjoy a leisurely day there. Why, oh why, I got the bug to make that same hot chocolate drink I will never understand. You see, I may know about the different kinds of alcohol (to a degree), but I know SHIT about measuring. I think I put way too much of something in there because by the time I was done drinking it I was having a head rush and my stomach was in pains. Consider it a psycho-physiological response and not an allergy. I conditioned myself to hate it mentally so much so that my body got duped. How can you be so sure you ask? Well allow me to share an embarrassing story:

Picture it: Valentine’s Day. 1998

Two of my girl-friends surprise me by showing up at my apartment and drag me to dinner at Carraba’s (this after they both decide to play a game of flash-the-camel). So I give in and go and we have a really good time. We get back to my place late and they have a bottle of champagne. Naturally, I turn it down, but after much bitching, whining, and complaining I offer to have a SIP just to appease them. And when I mean sip, I mean less than a millimeter. Everything is fine. A couple more hours of laughing and such and they go home. I go to sleep excited because they are showing a remastered Gone With The Wind on TV the next day and it has been a long time since I have seen it. Oh, but you see…I would never get to see the damn thing. I wake up the next morning feeling like death and slipping in and out of consciousness the ENTIRE day. I can’t get up and walk around, I can’t even stand to pee because I am so dizzy. No barfing, no cold symptoms, no sweating. Just the feeling of death. I finally blackout and wake up the next morning just fine. Sure, it could have been the food or something else. But I don’t think so.

The lesson: NO MORE SIPPING OR MAKING DRINKS!!!!

Now for two stupid things I saw on my way home:

1.A billboard for clam juice with a lady holding a bottle looking WAY too happy about a bottle of clam juice.

2.A couple rolling a grocery cart full of food into their house and looking quite suspicious about it.

I need to get a digital camera and start taking pictures of this stuff.

Well, I have had a busy morning. I finally got some sleep after 3 days of very LITTLE sleep, simply because I could not fall asleep. I woke early and finished a painting project I began. It has been about five years since I put paint to canvas. Just felt uninspired and had no reason to. I found inspiration a couple of days ago and went to town. It was odd getting back to it, but I chuckled when I was done and realized I was covered in paint and felt an extreme sense of relief. I also did a little housekeeping this morning after a week of not being able to clean up anything because I have barely been home due to the show I was working. Let me just say that it was a BAD idea to leave a bag of trash sitting outside for three days. Not only did it leak, but there were weird things crawling out of it and feeding off of it. I never wanted to retch so much in my life.

So I’ve been busy, which is an understatement. Most of this weekend is a blur to me mostly because I did so much and stayed up so late every night that my recollection is weak due to exhaustion. So where to begin….

The first, and most important, was a declaration of friendship. I battled with this for several days. I know it seems quite odd that friendships require mulling over and decision making in their creation. But I have spent my life making and losing friends and to me, my friends are my life. I live and breath through and with my friends and, to be quite honest, they are my family and always have been. I am thankful for all the friends I have made in my life, but the process of slowly losing touch with most of them due to time and space has been rough on me.

Sara made an interesting point today when I was raving about how happy I was that I never have to worry about matters of the heart or dating bullshit. Frienships are just like any other relationships and to me, in absence of “those” relationships, I have my friendships. Both are exactly the same except for the element of sex (despite the friends with benefits thing). She brought up some examples of my friendships and compared them to lovers and by God she was right. They are precisely the same. I go through the same ups and downs, the same heartbreaks and joys, and the same enjoyment of having close connections with people. And since sex is complete worthless and pointless for me, it works out grand. Of course, this substitution also explains why I occasionally had problems with some of my friends which lead to “break ups,” for lack of a better word.

Anyway, over the years I have become very guarded about the people I let into my life and to whom I lower my defenses. It saves me a lot of heartache and allows me to focus on my close friends. I have surface acquaintance friends galore (for God’s sake, I have 110 people on my buddy list) and I enjoy them just as much as my close friends. The difference is my emotional connection and the degree to which I love them (and again, I use love not in the norm).
But I digress. After four years, I finally let my guard down and let someone in again, and to be quite honest, the experience is not only exhilarating and satisfying, but fulfilling. I make it sound like some Buddhist experience, I know. But to find someone with whom I can so closely connect on all levels, with whom I can both bullshit and talk on an intellectual level, and with whom I can make laugh over and over again to no end is amazing to me.

As for this weekend… I spent Friday at rehearsal, then a birthday party, then I crashed at a friends house where I talked to a fellow immigrant until five in the morning. I got up at 9:30, went to pick up the elf (who made the most amazing breakfast I have had in a long time), and went to rehearsal until 4. Then off to a pot luck dinner until about 9:30, then socialized for a little, then came home and got on the phone until 4 a.m. A phone conversation that degraded into pure nonsense…I still cannot recollect much of the last half other than a few snippets about the movie Snatch and a discussion about the animal planet network which involved animal noises (wombat wombat wombat).

I….am…exhausted.

I woke up this morning thinking it was going to be a slow day, but oh no. I had to redesign a site, had to think of a new design for mine, consoled and advised 8, I say 8, people online all at once and fielded two conversations with friends who were in tears. Tonight was the night for EVERYONE to have problems.

On a good note, I had a great dinner that Sara’s out-of-town friend Carlton made and then I came home where I now sit typing this and conversing with my fucking friend . Needless to say it has been a busy and fulfilling weekend full of surprises.

My Saturday night was filled with adventuresome dining at a Chinese buffet, which should be condemned and the building razed. Then, I ventured to play Laser Tag which I have not done in a VERY long time. Needless to say, I sucked at it because I kept inadvertently shooting my own damn pack. This is just another shining example of why I would be worthless in the army. I got so frustrated that I just shot my own pack to get myself out.

After all that fun, I proceeded to what has to be the largest most interestingly decorated (read: ceramic, cow, stuffed fighting fowl, full armor suit, animal prints, and more more more) “mansion” I have ever been inside. If that is what it is like to live in the lap of luxury then sign me up. And that is not about the materialism, but the comfort of it all. I was also subjected to the further tinking of the Elf; however, I was happily relieved of it for a while while the elf pursued other baking goods: nutty tarts (j/k FFJ). The evening ended with a Mission Impossible-esque search party for a missing friend which lasted until 2 in the morning when we finally found him and I attempted to get his attention by throwing mulch chips at the window because there were no rocks around.  Espionage…not my field either. However, it was worth it to also have me hang my head out the window screaming, “Lance! Treat, treat Lance!” and having the getaway car speeding at a whopping 45.

And then there was yesterday. I was happily allowed to partake in a test-making party for a thespian induction ceremony, which turned into a “let’s go get ice cream and then visit a run-down house off of railroad tracks so we can pilfer odd items from the shed.” Yeah, we’re talking a mix of Goonies and Stand By Me. Ah…my Fe-Fe kids done do me proud .

The most interesting part of the day was researching my journals and finding INTERESTING entries which spoke of recent events (I swear I am like Nostradamus sometimes). In my further denial of what is obviously some kind of truth and reality, the little Elf decided on the the question with a friggin’ happy meal toy from McDonald’s. An 8-ball-esque Jackie Chan in a kicking position with a slotted stand that reveals answers when rotated. EVERY SINGLE one of the answers were in the “right” direction and not the ones I “wanted” them to be. I realize I am being ambiguous, but it keeps me safe. Besides, those parties whom this involves know what I am talking about and yet again will find great satisfaction in my relenting to the tinking away of both the chisel and fate/life/coincidence/whatever. So I concede….let the friendship begin/continue/grow and let it go where it is supposed to. Palm lines, veined letters, line letters, Jackie Chan, grandmothers, journals, and on and on and on. I will revel in the joy that it brings and in the amazement I constantly find in the little similarities in life that I thought were relegated to myself. So put in the tray of cookies and bake away!

Ok, so I had the most amazing dream last night, which depressed me when I woke up and realized where I was. So I am at a dance competition (which is odd in itself) and my turn comes up. The odd thing is that I am in one of those hotel rooms used during conferences. Even odder is that I am dancing on a tilting platform. But the weirdest, but best part, is that Gwen Verdon is one of the judges. I thought I was going to die. I do this jazz/tap routine with a cane. I am doing things I never thought I could: machine gun riffs, flipping off of walls, split switch leaps. I get done and the entire room erupts in applause and I jump off the platform out of breath and Gwen Verdon gets up, with another judge I could not recognize, and they escort me to the back of the room where they close a curtain around us (like in hospitals–those privacy curtains). They start talking to me but I am so out of breath and focused on breathing that I can’t understand what they are saying. The room clears and more people come in and I am asked if I am ready to do my performance again, which leaves me confused, I thought it was a competition. I say, “I don’t think I can do it that good again.” And I finally hear Verdon say, “Yes you can. And you’re going to be great. You always will be.” I look at her, she smiles, and I wake up.

If I was ever more determined to leave Florida, it is now. All I need is that flippin green card in my hand for my freedom. Even with all the recent problems in NY, I still want to go there. I have been obsessed with living there ever since my first family vacationed there. I remember everything so vividly and I want to be engulfed by that city.

I said goodbye to one of my comp classes today. It was somewhat bittersweet because they are without a doubt the best class I have ever taught in my three years at USF. They were 24 of the best students I could ever ask for. Inquisitve. Curious. Unafraid. Vocal. Talented. I don’t think I will ever have a class like that again. They are a rarity. I will truly miss some of those crazy kids. But I am glad to know they are all progressing in their lives and college careers. It makes me feel good to know that there are people like this going out into the real world. It gives me hope that this society will turn around.

Of course, back at my home front I was in a battle with the pressure washers. I was awakened by the noise and ran to get my plants out of the way. 15 minutes later, he shows up and goes to town on the breezeway and walls. Of course, I am spying because I think it is cool. I am standing behind the door and neglect to notice that he begins cleaning the door. You would think the door would be airtight, but nooooooooooooo. So there I was…sprayed through the crack with steamy grimy water, which got over the carpet and stoop floor. I proceeded to get some paper towels to mop up the puddle and JUST as I am finishing, here he comes again. By now, my glasses are speckled and my white shirt is turning gray. I get some more paper towels, get it dry and AS I am throwing the wads away….there he is again.

Well, after falling asleep at 3:30 and waking up at 8 (both a.m.) I was looking forward to coming home from school and taking a nap. But no. I started writing in the new journal while one of my classes wrote an in-class essay. It was amazing how much just came pouring out. I had to eventually stop because everyone was done and they were just starting at me. I came home and went through all my memory storage boxes and was consumed for four hours looking at everything I have collected (I am a BAD pack rat) and reading all the notes I ever got in high school (except for a small selection which I believe is stored SOMEWHERE, althoughI have no clue). What an acid trip down memory lane. I had forgotten a lot of my high school days. I laughed at things I could remember and strained to remind myself of the situations the notes were about. I found notes from my ex-girlfriend, my ex-best friend, my first year in America, and so much more. I expected the notes to throw me back into a state of hating my life, but I feel so relieved after reading those notes, but saddened because I miss those people. As turbulent as those times were I had the best friends in the world and I loved them dearly. I still do. I wish I could go back and relive all those times. I hope I run into those people one day and although I know things will not be the same, I just want one more chance to smile and give them a big hug.

I have felt like a bi-polar schizophrenic all day long. I have been in a state of binary oppositions since I woke up: sleep vs. wake up, eat vs. don’t eat, work vs. watch TV, go see a movie vs. veg at home, write vs. read. It’s one of those days where I hate my life and feel totally unfulfilled about everything.

I finally left the house to hang out with Sara for a bit. Still felt like crap despite the efforts made to keep me involved. I did, however, buy a new journal. My old one is not even half filled, but it has been about two years since I wrote an entry and I need to start anew. It may sound weird, and Sara agreed, that sometimes a journal has so much negative energy and thoughts that you can’t go back to it and you have to start fresh, and I truly believe that. I find it hard enough to read the old journals let alone keep writing in them. So I got a plain black ringed journal with white pages…no line…no confinement….no rules. Just me and my thoughts. This could either be extremely cathartic for me, or extremely painful….which I guess would fulfill the first.

I don’t know how I could have possibly forgotten to mention this last night since it was extremely devastaing to me. I wear a purple bracelet (one of those 80s ones) on my left wrist that I have had on since I was in 4th grade (16 years). My childhood best friend and I traded them and promised we would never take them off, and until yesterday that was true for me. After my resignation speech I went to sit down in the auditorium to look at some pictures from the festival. I got up when I was done and look at my hand and it was gone. My heart dropped and I thought I was going to have a panic attack until I found it on the ground. It had totally split in half. Mind you, I have had to repair it two other times with a threaed and needle, but both times it stayed on my wrist. This was the first time it had ever been off. I freaked out and was on the verge of a breakdown. I know it sounds really silly to be obssessing over something like that, but it is what it represents and what it means to me. I am very into symbols and signs, so believe me I had a field day analyzing that one. I tried tucking it away so I could save it somewhere, but I could not bear not having it on, so I got some some needle and thread and repaired it again. Again, I know it sounds silly but that bracelet represents so much to me about the first half of my life and the people I knew and the person I was, and although I have a second one on my hand that means just as much, I couldn’t let the other one go.