Labels and nameplates and tags...Oh My!!

My current project at work is to take a look at all of the labels, tags and nameplates we use on our products...and make sure we're using the new "Kristen Approved" logo...and fonts...along with making sure all of our patent information is accurate. I also need to make sure our SF6 containing products have a space on the nameplate for the pounds/pressure of SF6 to be displayed...so we can make the EPA happy. And...I have to update all safety language and labeling to the new ANSI Z535 standard.

Mah life is soooo glamourous!

The blueprints for some of the labeling I'm working on are so unreadable...I want to scream. They were originally designed full-size...to print on D-Sized paper...which to those who don't have to read blueprints for a living is 24X36. The best I can do is an 11X17 printout...and right now I'm going BLIND trying to decipher diagrams that were drawn in the 70's while I was still enjoying Mr. Rodgers on channel 11.

So right now I'm trying to find a better way of rephrasing "take up the play in the output shaft" so that it will translate better. In the world of mechanics...play is a synonym for "freedom of movement." Most English to "Insert Foreign Language Here" dictionaries will list the first use of "play" as either games or performing an instrument. Or a theatrical production. Somewhere down in meaning number 13 or 14 you'll find the mechanical definition...if at all.

But interesting enough...it's an English word...play. Sounds now like it did to the Old English speakers...but then it meant dancing at a party...rather than "formal" dancing.

Maybe esperanto? Or eubonics?

Time to make the donuts...

So...right now I've been attacked by the PMS monster. My leg hurts...my back hurts...I feel bloated...and I'm glad my desk chair has adjustible arm rests because my ASS FEELS LIKE IT'S EXPANDING AS I TYPE.

*sigh*

So...despite my best wants to the contrary...I ate a gigantenormous number of mini-donuts last night. If you're from Chicago...Butternut mini "gems" as they used to be called are a classic. In their yellow happy paper bag full of powdery or chocolately goodness. Thing is...whenever the mini donut craving hits I want powdered AND chocolate covered and it's all I can do to not sit down and eat both bags.

Well...lucky for me I have a dog.

I left my bag of powdered mini-donuts momentarily unattended...and the next thing I know Rerun is running around the living room with a donut bag on his head bumping into things like a deranged pinball.

My yell of..."AAAAAAAHHHH....my donuts!" brought Tim out of the dining room to fish the bag off of Rerun's head and give him a good..."No...no...baddoggie!"

Rerun slunk around on the floor...as is his usual response...and then submissively rolled over to show his belly.

He had powdered sugar all around his nose. Are there doggie coke addicts?

Anyway...I just couldn't be mad at him. He saved me from 1300 calories of mini donuts...and made me smile.

Oh I hate to get up in the Mooorning!

Why can't I get to work on time?

I'm sure my boss would love to know the answer to that question too. Hell...I'd like to know the answer to that question.

This morning...I woke up with the dog laying on my back. I don't usually sleep face down...but I must have rolled over and eventually Rerun must have thought..."Hey...Mom is warm...I think I'll sleep on her."

But I didn't wake up for it. Sometimes I don't wake up for my alarm. Sometimes I sit in bed in a semi-conscious state for almost an hour because my brain was aroused at a time when the wonders of Effexor made it incredibly flush with seretonin. I sit in my half-coma as Tim hands me my coffee and glasses.

So I wait. Wait for whatever magic is in the coffee to kick in. Wait for that time when I can think in a coherent sentence. Sometimes I read a magazine...and after I feel I can actually FOLLOW along with what I'm reading...I start moving for the day. Sometimes I load or unload the dishwasher...those are GOOD days when I can actually attempt a physical task.

Where did the morning sleepy paranoia come from? It came from the sleety morning when there was an accident on 290 so I decided to take Ridgeland/Nagle to work. I was somewhere around Fullerton when a car hydroplaned in front of me...and in my half-asleep state I overcompensated....popped the curb...splashed latte ALL OVER MY FUCKING CAR...and "woke up" with my car on the sidewalk. Right next to a bus shelter.

Three feet...and I would have swerved into a bus shelter full of people.

And ever since then driving to work in the morning has been an anxious...nerve wracking and disappointing experience. Disappointing because I want to be on time...but panic and nervousness that only comes from having that near-near-death-experience happen just gets in the way. The doctor has me waking up at 6am. I have this list of crap I'm supposed to do that I never get done but try. Sometimes I forget to shower. Sometimes I lose my keys or socks or whatever. And some days...the dog sleeps on me and I'm just too warm and calm and comfortable to get out of bed and face the day.

Da Blog...

I guess I'm too used to my daily LiveJournal to be a good open blogger. When you're used to shooting the proverbial shit about anything and then you go back to a forum where you realize you could be spied upon by your supervisor...the creative juices take a bit of a wrong turn down the pipe.

I was down in the shop yesterday taking some photos for a instruction sheet I'm doing. This is my fourth iteration of the same instruction sheet...because we keep sending the inspection instructions out to our customers in the field and they keep coming back with questions...or situations that my SME (that means Subject Matter Expert in the technical writing world) didn't think about. Or that much to my embarassment I didn't think about.

But...we made a new tool to inspect the target on the end of a pressurized piece of equipment. I go down to the shop...take the shipping guard off of a piece of this equipment...and proceed to photograph myself doing the procedure. Lucky for me...I have big beefy man hands and can't grow fingernails worth anything...so I can be my own hand model.

I'm in the middle of moving the camera when the shop Foreman comes running up behind me...nearly scaring the complete bejesus out of me. "Nonononono...you can't remove the shipping guard! Nobody is allowed to work around this equipment after its been pressurized without a guard!"

After my heart started back up again...I thought about it. There are two end caps on the end of this equipment. One covers the pressure indicator...and was the one I was trying to do an inspection instruction for. The other...covers a safety relief rupture disc. It's designed to keep the equipment from turning into a schrapnel throwing bomb in case there's a fire inside or outside the equipment. If there's an overpressure...a "cutter" which is a large razor disc will pierce the disc and vent the gas so that the surrounding porcelain insulator won't explode into a million pieces being propelled at over 110 PSI of pressure.

I knew that...that one cap covered the target and the other the relief valve. I kept to the side away from the relief valve. But I was told by my supervisor...and subsequently the designer for the project to work with the guard off...(cause otherwise...there was no way to actually TAKE THE PICTURES)...to write instructions for the customer in the field...who ALSO will be working without a guard.

Anyway...long story short...cause I ramble...I was being asked to tell the customer to do something that technically I wasn't allowed to do in the controlled environment of our own shop. If our Foreman was nearly crapping his pants watching me take photos of the end of the equipment...why were we asking the customer to do it?

I dunno. There are days where I completely hate my job. And there are days where I'm glad that I DO MY JOB and not somebody who doesn't give a crap. I told my supervisor about my shop scare...and he told our engineering designer...and all of a sudden a nice safety shield is being reworked to go with our inspection kit.

All it would take is for one person to get hurt doing something that I wrote the instructions for...and it would really be over for me. Not life...but any joy in doing what I do. Sure...engineers are supposed to review my stuff. The corporate lawyer. A technical editor. But still...I'll take the emotional hit. And I wonder sometimes if that makes me MORE or LESS professional.

Because when it comes down to it...I could care less about the company's liability...I care about my own personal liability. Because being able to sleep at night is much more important to me than whether or not my company gets sued. I do it for me.

Your delusion...use it or lose it?

In a lot of ways…I miss the life I had right before things fell apart. Back before I admitted a lot of the problems in my marriage to myself…to Tim. Back before I realized that I had a thang for my friend Rob…and we were just really good buddies. Before my Cousin Hank came knocking on my front door telling me my Aunt Darlene was dying. Back before life fell into crap.

Because I had a pretty rich life back then…with my blinders on. Ah my beloved blinders! Friends…activities…a spiritual path. A great dog. A husband who I loved whose flaws I unconsciously avoided thinking about. I had Weight Watchers to keep me from feeling like a fat blob all the time…and a lot of pride and satisfaction in my weight loss. I was building a wardrobe to be proud of. I had more close friends than I’ve ever had before in my life. Guitar and music lessons. Liked going out to places…it was like having a bit of a golden age.

Then Rome burned. Because that sort of thing never lasts…

I still blame 90% of it on myself. OK…I blame 99.9% of it. Because I realize the type of person I am sometimes…I’m a bit of a whirlwind of energy and emotion and trying new things when I’m having a high spot. Or…when I’m desperately trying to avoid something.

Like my Mother says…”You can always tell when Eilene is trying to avoid doing something…she starts cleaning the house.”

So…was all of that going out and going to parties and spending times with friends and the zendo…was that my way of distracting myself from the fact that I was really…really out of touch with my intimate life at home? That I was angry and resentful of my husband?

And if it’s a pattern so old that even my mother new something had to be up when my toys were all sorted and put away by color…what am I doing now? Can I ever get out of the trap? I mean…I spend too much money on household stuff for organizing my desk…yet my underwear is so full of holes…I wonder if I have moths in my ass sometimes…

What is my delusion now?

Fuck that shit...

It's a line from a comic that someone forwarded to me...about holding on to your dreams in the face of cubiclemonkeyness...and it kind of sums up what I'm about right now.

Yesterday...and most of today were anxiety days. I haven't had a good old fashioned anxiety day for God only knows how long. Even Nicole getting all pissed off at me didn't cause much anxiety...just a kind of sad feeling. The feeling that you get when you know you've hurt someone else's feelings but at the same time...know you've done it defending yourself.

Anxiety lately. That's been me. Just me. I'm fat. I'm fat and I care that I'm fat. My knees hurt. My back hurts. Stuff hangs and flaps and itches and I have a closet full of size 14 clothing that doesn't fit...

And a friend of mine is getting married next summer and wants me to stand up in her wedding. Initially...when it was "casual" wedding...I was thinking..."OK...casual. I can do casual." Then it was dresses that show the shoulder....and I was thinking..."I hate my arms with a burning passion...but I can always stand up in the sundress thing and then put something over my arms afterwards..."

But now we're doing the whole schmoo...David's Bridal...formals...I just...I don't know. I can't. I did the purple dinosaur dress for Aimee's wedding...and I just can't do that again. I shall pay no more good money for some monstrosity of a dress that shall sit in the back of my closet rotting...because for one...I hate dresses...and for two...I hate sleeveless anything...and for three...purple satin equals a big "NOT" in my mind when I think of things I want to put on my body. So I just have to come out and say it...

I don't wanna. I diggith in my heels. The anxiety is building up in that giant snowball type thing that will eventually hit some sort of wall and explode like a thousand ejaculating snowmen all over the landscape...

But how do you tell someone that? Well...I gave it my best shot. I don't have the world's greatest body image, I'm on Weight Watchers for the third time....and right now I only own three pairs of pants that fit...and can't see spending $100 to $300 standing up in a wedding when I'm not willing to buy "fat clothes" for my antidepressant bloated ass. On top of it...I hate dresses with a passion...and am NO FUN in the dress shopping department...because about the only thing that would really make me happy would be a suit. I can do suits. Suits are powerful...dresses...

Dresses are for girls. *sigh*

Patchwork

This morning...I woke up a burrito. You know...when you wrap the blankets around you and roll to the left...roll to the right...twist and shout...and then the dog can lick you on the face as much as he wants to because your arms are unceremoniously clamped to your side...

One of those mornings...

But some of it is my new quilt. My birthday quilt that my Mommy made for me and finished six months 'better late than never' late.

It's great. My quilt. Because my Mommy made it...and it's purple...and it's the perfect weight for a summer blanket...

Mom has been wanting to quilt forever. But work has pretty much prevented her from putting her time into it. She seems to have just about enough focus to do one sort of "project" thing at a time...and work was taking up all of her energy. So now...quilts. She made me a weird sort of lap quilt covered in sailboats and fish...and now my purple quilt. And later this month...she's taking a class in T-shirt quilts...and called me with the long list of all the Snoopy T-shirts of mine that she's had saved....since I was like in the eighth grade.

Scary...what your Mommy will save of yours....

But I wonder what she must have thought every time she moved the 40 or so T-shirts she'd been saving for that rainy day where I magically wanted them again. Wanted something that she'd done for me. It has to suck...being a parent. For so many years you're the center of another human being's world...and then...you're like yesterday's newspaper.