Pretty In Your New Lace Sleeves

I called Paula back on Monday but she had already left for the day. I called her again yesterday while I was at lunch and she asked me to come in to fill out paperwork. I said I’d be there sometime after 6pm to fill it all out. After work I went home real quick to grab my passport to prove I can work in the US and then went to the store. It didn’t take very long to get to the store from my house, which is good news.

I got there and was told to go on up to her office, which was cool. I’ve never been “behind the scenes” in any store before so it was just neat to see the employee break room during my initial interview and then the “command center” last night. I didn’t look, but I think her office has windows that overlook the whole store, which would have been really cool to see if I had been paying proper attention.

I filled out a bunch of paperwork, let her copy my passport, etc and she asked me to come in on Sunday. The work week is Sunday through Saturday, so that’s why I assume she asked me to come in Sunday. I also suspect that Sundays are less busy so easier to train me, but we’ll see how that goes really. She asked me to come in “around noon” which is totally easy, but I thought the vagueness was a little odd. In any case, I’m glad because then I’ll have one last Saturday (which happens to be my book club meeting) to myself. Should be good.

She wants to start me as a cashier. The pay will only be $7.02/hr, but it’s all extra money so that’s good. I won’t be amassing a fortune working there, but it will make it a lot easier to make ends meet with some saving room and less anxiety which I am looking forward to.

Speaking of anxiety, I had another freaking anxiety dream last night and it’s starting to make me worry about my mental health. As I was coming home from filling out the paperwork I was thinking about how I probably make more money at my day job than some of the people at Michaels who have that as their full time job. I was thinking about how thankful I was and how I wouldn’t know what I would do if I didn’t have my day job here at DRS and I think that planted the seed for this morning’s anxiety-filled dream.

I got in to work early, before most other people. The layout of the office and the furniture and all was different than it is in real life, but this did not throw up a red flag to my conscious in any way because it felt incredibly realistic. I was sitting there at my desk and the boss’s wife (not my real life boss or his real life wife) came over to me and started chatting, with a very menacing tone. She had a couple pencils in her hand which she kept splintering and breaking to prove her point, which was that she knew I’d been sleeping with her husband and that there was no way I could fly under her radar anymore. I never said anything affirmative or in denial regarding her accusations, but I felt the humiliation and embarrassment of the whole conversation plainly enough to know that she was right. After she felt she got through to me, she got up and went to her husband’s office to wait for him. He wasn’t in yet. I don’t know what her intention was exactly, but the head of HR/Security spoke with her before he got in and convinced her that I should be fired. So he came over with his bald head and nicely pressed khakis and said, “We have to let you go. Please pack up your things.” I was mortified. The boss’s wife was in the background, looking a little smug, but also a little remorseful as I don’t think it was her intention to get me fired.

No one was in the office yet, so I was just going to pack up my stuff and go, but Baldy told me I had to talk to Brad, the IT guy to make sure any data from my computers that was mine was taken off and the computers would be ready for a new employee. (Brad is our real IT guy at work – and he looked the same.) So I went to grab Brad, who happened to be at work early because he was running the technical stuff for some sort of press conference we were supposed to have that morning. (Clearly my job and employer in my dream are not the same as they are in real life either.) I was able to pull him away but I was unable to hold myself together enough to tell him that I was fired but he understood what was going on. He comforted me and then set to work on my computer. I cleared out my desk and cubicle area and put things in a box as he did so. In the midst of all that, Jessica (also matching up to real life) came in and freaked out about me being fired and kept asking why. I didn’t tell her anything and all I told Brad when he asked was that I had made a mistake and should have seen this coming. Eventually, all my stuff was packed and ready to go and I started heading out just as everyone else was coming in to start their day. Brad sort of protected me on the way out, but not a lot of people really questioned me or asked what was going on so I suspected they already knew.

I was a complete wreck in the dream and woke up trying to remember if I had already applied for a new job and if I needed to tweak my resume. It really creeped me out. I’m not sure if I can handle more anxiety dreams like this. It was the first anxiety dream I’d had in a few weeks, so I guess that’s better than before when it seemed like it was every damn night. Why can’t I just have boring nonsensical dreams that I don’t remember? The anxiety passed, for the most part, but I was still feeling a little trepidation when I got to work, wondering if I really belonged there or not. Maybe that’s what the dream was about more than anything? Possibly. I don’t know. There’s a lot to dissect in that dream, and I’m sure it wasn’t just initiated by my gratitude for my day job and wondering what I’d do if I didn’t have it.

I would have much preferred to dream about sleeves instead, which I was thinking about as I was going to sleep last night because I managed to sew up the sleeves for my practice-blouse last night. They’re not actually lace, but whatever. They came out pretty good, actually, for my first go-round. They might get totally fucked up when I sew them to the torso piece, but for now, they’re pretty cute. Also, sewing in pieces and not feeling like I have to finish a project in one sitting is nice. I was going to make another pincushion but after I finished the sleeves I was pretty tired so I just went to bed.

Kristen gave me all the fabric placemat things she had at her wedding under all the table centerpieces this morning, so I’ve got a ton of little pieces of bright pink and bright orange fabric to play with. I’m excited and intend to make a couple pincushions and lots of cloth napkins from them. Eventually, I’d like to switch to cloth napkins exclusively, so this will be a good start. I use way too many paper towels as it is. I’m thinking of making cloth napkin sets for people for Christmas. By set I don’t mean 6 or 8 like you’d see at a special dinner. I mean like 40 or 50 so people can use them all week without having to rely on paper napkins or paper towels at all and then just throw them in the wash as they go. We’ll see how that pans out, though.

Only 3 weeks until Canada! Less than actually, for when my flight leaves here. I still have to figure out if I will just leave my car at the airport or if I will implore someone to drop me off and pick me up. The expense for parking it at the airport won’t be too much and I’ll get a AAA discount anyway. I should probably just park at the airport so I can just go straight to the airport from work and then won’t have to wait to get picked up or anything either. Also, there probably won’t be enough time to hang out at the airport before my flight which would be the big reason I’d want someone to drop me off. I suppose I should figure that out pretty soon. Because, less than 3 weeks!