fatigue

I have been writing every day for what seems like weeks.  I need to shut off for a day or two.

I just submitted a cv and my portfolio for a professional blogger position.  I have nothing to lose at this point, so why not try?  I have 8 articles published online so far, with two in editing.  I loved every minute of the fashion week, and the last day was a nice finale.  I met many interesting people that day.  I think it cemented my will to pursue my dream job.

I put together a CV and cover letter this afternoon.  I had a resume already established, but it was geared toward selling my engineering background.  I wrote the CV with the concentration on selling my journalism and writing skills.  I wrote it relatively quickly, but then again I have been tossing all of the information around my brain over the past days.  It was just a question of dumping it out and sorting it.  I like the power that words have.

I have loathed my present job for quite some time, and wished I had some other opportunities.  The manufacturing sector worldwide, except for China, is in the shitter.  I stay home four days and go to work three, and there is not much signs of life on the horizon. I need to get moving on somehow, and I know I want to do something completely different.  Although, the fashion industry does have some parallels to the automotive industry, as with the incremented introduction of new lines and models.  Haute couture thankfully does not involve mass production, but I imagine RTW is probably somewhat similar.

Rest.  That is what I need to let myself enjoy.  I am still high from the experiences of recent times and feel a fire pushing me forward, but I must rest.  Tomorrow will be here soon enough.

belt broke

Im on the flight to Detroit for my 2008 holiday trip. I will be arriving in detroit at 2pm. I have made it through six hours so far, and it wasn’t too bad. There is always some people that insist on leaving the window shade up even though the light coming in is often blinding, and there isn’t really anything to see anyway. I tried to sleep for a bit, but I couldn’t due to the cries of screaming babes and the blinding light. Plus my seat wont recline more than a couple of degrees. Sucky. At least everything went quickly and easily once I arrived at the airport. Getting there was a bit of a problem. Helmi picked me up a couple of minutes later than planned because of heavy traffic, which was good for me because I am always late anyway. We got about two-thirds of the way to the airport on the autobahn and then helmi’s car started to sputter and almost stall. Luckily there was a rest area in another 500 meters. We stopped and he then checked under the hood and found that the two week old fan belt had disintegrated. We were going nowhere fast. He rattled off a number of a mobile phone information service that I called for the number of a taxi service. Stupid me, I didn’t realize that we were past Langen, and I asked for a taxi from Darmstadt. In the end the taxi picked me up within ten minutes and dropped me at the airport within another ten minutes, and it cost 50 euro. Shit.

I got to the terminal to check my baggage with an hour and twenty minutes till takeoff. I checked in online yesterday and therefore was hoping that the airlines had finally set up a separate baggage drop off for those who have been checked in online. I was just complaining to Helmi before we broke down that they didn’t have such a counter in Ffm. They actually had a counter for the baggage drop off and all I had to do is switch my makeup bag from my carry-on to my suitcase and drop the suitcase on the belt. It was so quick and easy that I was a bit dazed and wondering if I was dreaming. It was reality alright, which was really nice for a change. The line was really long to do the normal check-in and I would have been cutting it very close had I had to wait in that line. I then proceeded to roll a couple of smokes and then went outside to smoke and call helmi to tell him everything was going to be ok.

At Fraport in the past they have had double layered security, which was an incredible pain in the ass, having to remove shoes and belts not once, but twice. In Amsterdam Schiphol they had three checkpoints. That really sucked. But today it was very easy, no security after the customs, and only then once at the gate. I stopped at the swarosky crystal store on the way to the gate to pick up a little something for Allison, since she always puts me up at her place and I feel bad because I usually don’t get her anything to show my appreciation. This time I did. I got her a nice purple crystal butterfly with sparkling stones pendant. I got the cherry earrings and necklace for myself. I couldn’t resist.

I was lucky enough to get on the flight on time and also to sit near a nice young woman. I was a bit worried as I was walking to my seat because there are usually lots of male soldiers flying home and I was hoping not to have to sit with one. Not because they are soldiers, but because I don’t think that many men would be very sympathetic towards me, not as many as women anyway. My legs are starting to feel a bit sore and I think I might get up to go pee in a few minutes. Two hours to go.

I have been on the fence lately about purchasing a new laptop. I am not so happy with the portability of the thinkpad R61i that I bought last year around this time. It is way too heavy and bulky and I actually wanted something that I can throw in my handbag and take with me very easily. I have also been thinking more about having the hair transplants performed in Nuremberg to fix my hairline. I would recoup some of my money if I sell my current thinkpad on ebay or something. But I tend not to bring my laptop anywhere unless I absolutely need it, because it is so unwieldy. I need to wait a couple of days to see how much money I will be getting from work this month before I decide what to do. I am supposed to be getting reimbursed for this flight and also for my tax preparation fees. The flight is taxable as income, but the tax preparation fees are not. I also need to think about possibly moving soon and whether I will have to pay for the transport of my storage from michigan to massachusetts, and also general moving expenses. There are some uncertainties about the next few months. I am concentrating on looking for a job again, and am planning on beginning a more aggressive search after the new year.

I had an interview in Luebeck in the north of germany last week. It went extremely well I felt, and the man that I interviewed with seemed enthusiastic about meeting with me for the next round in Amsterdam. The company designs dredges and the ships that operate them. They have an office in Luebeck and in Amsterdam. The interviewer promised that he would contact me this week to set up another interview, as we had discussed possibly meeting again on the fifth of January in Amsterdam because I will be there anyway. It seems as though it would be an interesting job, depending on what they would have me doing of course. He told me that they have an excess of work and not enough people. So we will see.

In the days before going on the interview I planned on finishing making the wool trench coat that I had started when I was in the hospital for my SRS. I finally finished it on Saturday night just before the tranny meeting in Neu Isenburg. I wore it with a new black satin high waisted pencil skirt that I had made before I went in the hospital. I had a plan for what exactly I wanted to wear to the interview, and it was just a question of producing the pieces. The burgundy red pumps and the black waist belt I had already. I just needed to make the matching pencil skirt and blouse. I started working on the pencil skirt on sunday morning and I finished it on monday in the morning. Then I started immediately on the blouse. The blouse has flounces on either side of the collar and front band, and also a tie collar. I will post a couple of photos taken by helmi of me on the evening after the interview. I finished the blouse in time to get on the train in the afternoon on the day before the interview. I had to only sew the buttons on the sleeve cuffs and the front band, which I was able to complete on the train between Frankfurt and Hamburg.

I was very proud of myself that I was able to achieve my goals for my presentation at the interview. As a result, I felt very confident, relaxed, and powerful. I both felt and looked good. I was expressing myself as I had always dreamed I could. I know it more or less comes down to clothing, but clothing and fashion is a very big part of who I am as a person. I am very visually driven, and for me it is really in the details. I kinda looked like a seventies secretary, but with an up to date and perhaps also a fashion-forward look. I ended up making it back home in time to meet with helmi for a few minutes before I went to the company Christmas party at a restaurant similar to Mongolian barbecue. I felt like a star at the dinner, even though I noticed some strangers clocking me and whispering and really obviously turning to look at me. I stared right at the girl that had to clue in her male friends at the table with her of my presence. I don’t care if people clock me, I am not hiding anything, but please don’t act like a child, and as if I wouldn’t notice such blatancy. Woteva, I know I looked better than she did, and she has been a girl probably all her life.

I am becoming a fiend for pumps. Ever since I have found that I can fit into Clarks shoes in a size 8, I have been buying them all up. I now am the happy owner of five pairs. I have learned a lot about buying and wearing pumps over the past several months. I am actually able to walk easier and more naturally with an 8cm (3.5 inch) heel than with a shorter 5cm (2 inch) heel. It is strange, but I tested it a couple of times and it seems to hold true. Also the pumps seem to fit differently at different times of the month. I assume it has something to do with my hormone cycle and more specifically with the water retention. I am so happy that I have taught myself how to walk naturally in heels. It was a goal that I thought I could never achieve, but after some practice at home in the evenings, I have it down now. I want to get some stilletto heels eventually to wear with the little black dress too. I am becoming super femme, or maybe at least high femme and I like it. I look at it this way, if I am going to be stared at, I may as well give them really something to stare at. I must admit it does somewhat clash with my feminist values.

softcore westerns

I am running my life like a crazy person lately. For just about the last year I have going through cycles of where I work myself half to death and then take a too short vacation. The demands that work has put on my time and nerves is becoming too much. Sometimes I feel so low that it seems all I have is my work. That is the sad truth however. When I sit here and think about the performance on the job that I am expected to deliver, it boggles my mind. Doesn’t anyone realize how overwhelmed I am most of the time? The VW project has had five people alone from mechanical engineering working on it. I have been trying to put out the fires so that the rest can get the manufacturing documentation completed. I am never able to finish anything before I must stomp out the next flaming bag of shit.

In the end I am just a victim of poor planning. The last project that I got shit on with wasted a year and a half of time leaving me six months to complete what would normally take eight. So much was riding on that project and it was so terribly mismanaged. That has become unfortunately a common occurrence. Internal projects don’t hurt so much, whereas customer projects like Audi and VW are too important to fuck up. It bothers me that all the things on my plate don’t get fully eaten. It seems as though everyone that I work with has become so accustomed to doing more with less that we have lost sight of what a normal work environment operates like. We desperately need to hire people, both to replace those who are leaving or have left, and all the people that were laid off.

I have been trying to keep the customer happy by showing them results. The customer lost three months in their ordering process, but they refused to change their schedule to accommodate the loss of time. I was already three months behind the eight ball before the project even started. It might be slightly easier to handle if I was given a raise at my last review.

I want more time to enjoy my life. I am very frustrated. I will be going to work a bit later, after I have finished washing my clothes. It has done nothing but rain for the past several weeks, and it figures today is a nice sunny day. It is almost 20 degrees warmer than it has been within the last couple of days. I guess I will have to look out my window if I want to enjoy it at all.

There are sewing projects that I want to work on but have no energy left over to even begin them. It’s not fair that my company puts extraordinary demands on me that leave me depressed, stressed and tired most of the time. The pattern has been repeated two times so far. The first time was leading up to Xmas where I felt like a zombie ending up in Kyoto for a week long design review. The next time was when Rach came to visit in march. Both times I got sick upon stopping to go on vacation.

I wonder if the reason that I found the blonde redhead and sonic youth gigs not so good was because I was depressed. I know that depression a factor, but it leads me to see it as my losing the parts of my life that I am supposed to be able to enjoy. Most of it but not all is due to my job. The other things are frustration with my slow moving treatment and feelings of loneliness.

On a high note, I have been invited to go to a’dam for gay pride on the first weekend in August. You rock G! I am really excited about the trip. A’dam has turned into an oasis of sorts for me. I go there more or at least about as often as I go back to the states. Four hours on a train is much easier than eight hours on a plane after all. I naturally find the city so enjoyable because I am just there to hang out. The last trip was rather utopian in nature, and it opened up new worlds for me. The amount and diversity of things to do and see there are simply overwhelming. And the mindset of the people there is for the most part refreshingly open. The subculture there is thriving. That’s where I like to spend my time, underwater as it may be. I am so excited, but a little nervous too. I am curious what this coming trip has up it’s sleeve. The pride weekend in a’dam is famed for its boat parade, but most of all for the parties that ensue. I hope to be able to relax for some time while I am there too, but I’m not sure that is going to happen. I could probably take a couple of days after and stay on the coast. I could wave to my sisters on the beach on the other side of the atlantic. But that would blow my cover, and massive guilt trips would follow.

I definitely want to buy fabrics at the cyup(sp) markt this time. I should probably bring my large suitcase half full so I have a place for the booty to take home. They have fabrics all the time that are here only seasonal. They had a much larger selection and at much better prices than anyplace around germany. It’s all good.

I’m going to wash now and then drag my sorry ass to work. I am getting dangerously close to the two year mark of my blogging madness.

getting to the next XXX...

Before I get into the latest A’dam debauchery (it will be lengthy one), I want to write a little bit about my designing and sewing.

In the weeks leading up to the trip I was a sewing maniac. I managed to make a new wardrobe for the trip. I made:
Black hip hugger cropped jeans with red topstitching and a red felt ‘chick’ C on the ass pocket (see previous post for pic)
Black hip hugger tube jeans with a black leather chick C on the ass pocket
Blue hip hugger boot-cut jeans with a blue chick C on the ass pocket
Olive green hip hugger boot cut corduroys
Converted a black Pillhuhn T-shirt into a slim T
Brown and white polka dot viscose jersey 40’s neckline top
Black and white polka dot viscose jersey V neck top
Black/red/beige/white floral print viscose jersey ¾ sleeve top
Black/white/red floral print viscose jersey mini-dress (see previous post for pic)
Started a black and red sporty mini-dress with mandarin collar of polyester

I also managed to make a pair of corduroy trousers to wear with the blazer that I tailored last fall. I wore the ensemble to visit VW for a meeting in Kassel. I am so glad that I had the ambition to make things because it makes me feel good to be able to wear things that I myself made. I have a perfect little production line set up. I use my newer Pfaff for normal seam sewing, the old Singer for topstitching, and the Pfaff coverlock for serging the seam allowances. I have them all set up so that I don’t skip a beat when putting together a pair of jeans. I used all stretch denims, which I think I will probably have to machine dry every other washing because they tend to stretch out and stay that way. I want to make some more tops and also some skirts for summer too.

Yay! Tickets are purchased for Sonic Youth on the 16th in Wiesbaden, Blonde Redhead in Heidelberg on the 23rd, and I might go to see The Sea and Cake at the Brotfabrik in Ffm on the 26th. I am so happy that I am finally going to see BR in concert, live even. Toll!

this strange effect

I feel rather good today. I’m not sure why. I should be wiped out after working the last eight days in a row. Maybe I am happy because Rach is coming to visit me this week, and because I finish my work in my old group Wednesday. I haven’t felt this good in a while.

I had a dream last night that I was having sex with a man, in a somewhat public place. I don’t remember the circumstances that precluded the sexual encounter, nor do I remember who it was with. I remember not being particularly enthused by it, I don’t remember being excited at all. It just sort of happened. I have been wondering if the next time I have sex it will be with a man. I hope not. I am beginning to wonder how long I can go without a partner and without sex. I miss companionship more than sex.

I enjoyed the L word second season that I bought in A’dam. I realize it is only a tv show, but it gave me a little more insight into sappho lifestyle. The sex scenes were nice. I have sex on the brain today. Watching the dvd’s was sort of a test to see if I would get aroused in a previously normal fashion. What I experienced was rather interesting. Nothing was going on between my legs, but I felt tingly all over instead. That felt really good. It taught me that sexual arousal has taken on a whole new meaning to me now.

Did I mention that I donated all of my men’s clothing last week? Well I did it finally. It took so long mostly out of laziness. I filled about ten garbage bags. Conveniently there is a goodwill box behind my building. I cleaned up my sewing area two weekends ago. It took me all day. I found scraps from stuff I made a year ago.

If I can avoid working like a nutta, I could maybe manage to make some jeans or something. I have been working on a page boy hat and a vest for several weeks now.

I finally got an email from brand A telling me that my resume was forwarded to the appropriate department for review. I found out from a friend that works there that they are planning on hiring two additional engineers in the office in Lampertheim. The office is planned to be moved in July to Bensheim, which has very good train service from DA. Mal schauen.

I need sleep.