I’ve had it. I can’t deal with my co-workers any longer. New Job search is commencing. Found a good one that is ideal for me but it’s in D.C. Will still check into it though.

I had a dream last night that was semi-apocalyptic. There was a war simulation program that you could participate in and essentially play soldier or prisoner of war. It was all very life-like, which is why people liked running through the program. I decided to take my sister and cousin with me so they could see what it’s like. It turns out the “simulation program” was a guise for some sort of nuclear base of a mixture of Russians and Germans and some sort of world domination thing.

During our “visit,” they were beginning to unravel their plans, and they actually had to kidnap my sister for exposing some machine that she wasn’t supposed to. I, in my blind rage, went after them. I remember crawling through dirt and there were skulls all around, but I remember finding her, and a rifle, and I went to town. The soldiers were playing poker outside her cell so they didn’t expect anything. When we ran outside, more soldiers came after us, and I jumped into this flying contraption that no only spewed semi-automatic bullets at them, but could throw infectious diseases and plagues at them too *boggle*.

During the chaos that was me, somehow a nuclear explosion went off, and the world was destroyed to a state of Waterworld. I gathered up my sister and family and a few of our techs from work and we floated around temporarily on some glaciers, and then I woke up.

And yes, I do remember eating spicey food yesterday.

So I’m experiencing a very blatant double standard at work. The dress code states plainly as follows:

Men:
Business suits, sport jackets/blazers with coordinating slacks, collared dress shirts, dress shoes and socks are required at all times. Clothing should be clean and neat. Good personal hygiene and grooming is essential at all times. Hair must be professional, conservative and must be maintained at hte shirt collar and trimmed around the ears. (NO earrings or any type of visible body piercing is acceptable for the work place). Facial hair such as beards/goatees are not permitted. Mustaches are permissible if maintained in a conservative style. Tails, ponytails, earrings or otherwise are not permitted for men during business ours or when representing the company.

Women:
Suits, pant suits (with a coordinating blouse or sweater). Conservative length dress, skirt, or skort with a matching blazer. NO SHORTS. Skirts and dresses must extend to or beyond mid-thigh (3-4″ above the knee). Dress shoes are required with hosiery between Labor Day and Memorial Day. Between Memorial Day and Labor Day (summer months), hosiery is an option. (Earrings may be worn in the earlobes ONLY and any type of visible body piercing is unacceptable for the workplace).

All employees must maintain a conservative and professional appearance at all times. Anything in excess or extreme is not acceptable.

Essentially what this means for me, no eyebrow ring, and any tattooes I have must stay covered.

However, my boss allows one of our employees to be the exception and grow a full beard, which is completely against company policy because it negates any security of gas masks that we’re required to be able to wear. So not only is it a security issue, but it pisses me the fuck off because I’m constantly harassed about my eyebrow ring and threatened to be written up.

She knowingly allows this person to get away with it because we had our regional manager give a surprise visit today and she had to make sure this guy didn’t come to the office today or we’d get into trouble.

Very frustrating, not quite sure what I want to do about it yet.

I didn’t really relax as much as I had planned. I dug out the post-hole digger and decided to do partial termite treatment to my house since I had the supplies. I’ll have to do the other half next weekend. It was nice being able to play in the dirt with bare hands and feet though.

I put up an updated temporary layout on my MUD website where I’ve been having some of the worm infestation problems. It’s a little more cleaner, but I still have a lot of work to do to it and the site in general.

I have to clean and put fresh bandages on my fathers leg again for a while. The ulcers are smaller but still rather grotesque and persistent. I’ll spare all the details. It seems we’ve reached a plateau with his leg healing. I’d like for them to be healed completely by summer so he can live a bit more normal and we can focus our attention more on his diet and exercise.

My cat has been sneaking out the doggie door lately. She’s an indoor cat, because I don’t really want to have her exposed to FIV or FVRCP or anything like that. But when it’s warm out, we’ll remove the cover of the doggie door for My Son, and she sneaks out. Today she happened to bring a live house sparrow in and play with it on my bed. Luckily I was able to catch the damned thing and let it go. Though I don’t know how much damage she might have done, it did fly a little crooked.

I did some meditating tonight, I felt an urge for it, and decided to dress up my altar a bit for spring. Mostly greens and ambers, with stones such as malachite, herkimer diamond, crystal quartz, turquoise to represent my native heritige, a piece of hawkseye my sister gave me, a motherstone that an old Kali priestess gave me years ago, jade, emerald calcite, rose quartz in honor of the new love in my life, and a malachite/chrysocolla mixture.

On a separate site, not this one, I’ve been having some problems with worms getting into my files. I don’t have this problem on my journal and I use wordpress, and I checked all my permissions on the files and have all the folders CHMOD to 755 and all the files CHMOD to 644. I don’t know why I’m still having problems with worms though.

Has anyone else experienced this?

This may bide up most of my time today, blar.

We had our Ostara/Spring Equinox ritual at the Grove yesterday, done in a slightly different fashion. We decided to do a Sumerian style ritual, honoring Inanna and the return of her husband Dumuzi. We also mixed in our own flare for ritual, using 7 colored flags to represent the 7 gateways into her sisters realm. A small theatrical reinactment with Caryn as Inanna to help share the lore of the ritual.

During several portions of ritual, we rang bells and chimes to chase away the “outsiders” or “evil spirits.” During the main portion of ringing bells, as members circled around the sanctuary and started ringing their bells, a local church began to ring theirs in the distance, pretty much at the exact same time. When we stopped, so did they. It was amusing.

Besides the frigid cold, the ritual was a good one. My hands are still sore from drumming in the cold, but I think the heartbeat of a drum helps to keep the ritual breathing. To me, it seems to keep people in sync with the ritual.

I talked with Caryn a bit after ritual, and she mentioned to me that doing different cultural styles of ritual, give her a challenge as the chief liturgist. She can spout off a Celtic ritual no problem, but when presented with a whole new culture, it gives her something to really research.

I mentioned doing a Native American style ceremony, which she seemed really interested in. So I may get an opportunity (perhaps during the harvest) to help with a Native style ritual.

I also talked to her about my experiences with my recent experiences with the hawk totem, and found out that the hawk is actually one of her totems as well. And that she used to do some work with a Chippewa tribe some years ago, and that’s how she met her ex-husband.

After revels, and much consumption of candied dates and chocolate covered strawberries, I pulled out the guitar and did my usual after ritual “concert.” We had a coven visiting from Harford County, and they really seemed to enjoy it.

Once everyone left, I stayed and drank a bottle of mead with Squire Joe and Fuego to do some catch up and grounding. It was good to see Joe again, since I don’t get to very often. He’s going to be starting up a coffee shop soon down near DC and wants me to play there. I, of course, obliged.

Today is my relax day. I plan to just do some computer work and relax.

My sister called me last night crying. She said she was in the shower and she was thinking about Grandmom and Mick and that it upset her. In reality, I think she’s too young to remember too much about either of them. However, I think she remembers enough, and all the chaos in the family at that time, that I believe it would upset her.

So I calmed her down a bit, told her I would show her pictures of them and tell her stories the next time she came over. She seemed content with that and went to bed. I can’t help but wonder if this whole custody thing is really starting to do some damage to her mental state. It scares me, and I’m not exactly sure how to fix it. I’m pretty happy with the way I turned out, considering I went through the same thing. Perhaps I will try to have her come over next weekend and take her to the Ostara ritual up at Highland Farms.

Today I’ll be working till around lunchtime and then heading to the Grove for their equinox ritual. My friend Joe will be staying the night there, so we plan to do some catch-up and drink lots of alcohol after ritual.

I did my first update to the main page portion of the ADF website with the help of Anthony. I think he’s a glutton for punishment.

Alex has yet to come over and finish signing our divorce papers. I’m starting to get highly pissed off because court papers change frequently, so if we submit these and they are missing something, then we’re shit out of luck and he can pay for the entire thing next time. He claims he’s busy all the time, but all he does is work, drink, and go to this stupid car club that’s really just rednecks with really run-down vehicles that get together and drink or have field parties. If I even seem like I’m pushing the issue, he gets pouty and childish, just like when we were married. I guess I better stop ranting…I could go on for days.

My friend Ray showed me this from a book of Irish wit and wisdom. Appropriate for today me thinks:

Here’s to Lying, Stealing and Cheating.

May you lie to save a friend, May you steal the heart of the one you love, and may you cheat death.