I am the person who plans an outfit and then wears something completely different, the woman who will still change shirts one more time even if she’s running five minutes late, the girl with a brush, two barettes, a headband and three scrunchies (in various colors) in her desk at work, because options are essential.

If I could afford to redecorate my house once a quarter, I’d probably do it, but I can’t so I redecorate my blog instead.

It’s not just change for the sake of change, really. It’s a combination of many things – coming home last night to find my aunt’s recently published first book, The Earth Knows My Name, as well as a blog-friend’s first book, Bitter is the New Black, waiting for me at my doorstep, smug in their little brown wrappers, made me realize that I’ve not written anything worth anything since I started this corporate job-thing, and while I like the job, I don’t like that I’ve let it kill all my creativity.

Scritture was the word I claimed when I felt like I really was a writer. Just now, I don’t feel like one. I guess I’m kind of in limbo, trying to find the right inspiration, the right mood, but then I woke at four this morning, and the thought came that I needed to get back to basics, lose the cool Italian subtitle, and just explore MissMeliss again.

And so I’ve done.
In the process, I’ve reverted to Movable Type as my publishing interface, and while I re-learn it things may change more often than even I really like, but I’m sort of excited and curious about this new start, and NO, though the timing may suggest it, this isn’t an April Fool’s thing.

It’s just…change is good. You know?

My aunt's book is now listed at Amazon.com. It's a little more scholarly than perhaps it should be, but really interesting nevertheless – and I know this because I read the drafts.

The launch will be, or so I'm told, at Ellis Island.

I don't usually do politics in my blog, because there are enough political bloggers out there, and because my politics are my business, and no one else's. The people who know me know where I stand on the important things – and, more importantly – I know where I stand. I've always believed that being at peace with oneself is more important than defending one's view for the world.

Today, I'm getting political. If you've been following the story at all, you know that Mike Rounds, Governor of the state of South Dakota, signed into law a bill that bans all abortions in that state, except in the case where the mother's life is threatened. There are no provisions for rape, or for incest. None.

What you may NOT know is Cecilia Fire Thunder, who is President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. which reservation lies geographically in Dakota, has promised to establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on Indian land.

But she needs help.

The following is the text of a livejournal post by KathrynT, which I found while reading the livejournal of the very cool author Martha Wells. Go buy her books, but not until after you help Ms. Fire Thunder.

Ms. Fire Thunder and the Oglala Sioux Planned Parenthood
I called the Office of the President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of Pine Ridge, and spoke with Ms. Fire Thunder herself. (In case you haven't seen it, this is in reference to http://www.indianz.com/News/2006/013061.asp)

If you want to mail donations to the reservation, you may do so at:

Oglala Sioux Tribe
ATTN: President Fire Thunder
P. O. Box 2070
Pine Ridge, SD 57770

OR: and this may be preferred, due to mail volume:

ATTN: PRESIDENT FIRE THUNDER
PO BOX 990
Martin, SD 57751

Enclose a letter voicing your support and explaining the purpose of the donation. Bear in mind, the Pine Ridge Res is not exactly dripping with disposeable income, so do consider donating funds directly to the tribe as well as specifically for this effort.

ETA: Make checks out to OST Planned Parenthood Cecelia Fire Thunder. This will ensure that the funds get routed properly.

For email contact, you can contact the president at:

firethunder_president AT NOSPAM yahoo DOT com
cc:vbush AT NOSPAM oglala DOT org

That is Ms. Fire Thunder's personal email address; I have received permission to post it here. For the sake of record keeping, do cc: the listed address on all correspondence; that's her official secretary.

She was frankly kind of surprised that a white girl from Seattle was calling to express support, and even more surprised that the news had spread so far so fast. She's likely to get deluged with screaming hate mail soon, so get your support in fast. Send email with good thoughts if you can't send money.

ETA: Yes, please, dear God, link it anywhere and everywhere!

This post is NOT to be construed as an invitation to debate abortion or reproductive rights. My views are not going to change. If you're not pro-choice, nothing I say is going to alter that. If you disagree with any of this, have the graciousness to just move along to a different entry, please.

Happy birthday, . May it be a day filled with happy surprises and sincere smiles, and may it mark the beginning of a phenomenal year.

Message:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAINBOWBINKY.

My good blog-friend Laura, who is an American living and cooking in France, turned me on to a fun activity called Is My Blog Burning, that made me think of several of the folks I read here.

The current challenge is French peasant food, which is why I'm making Cassoulet for eight people in a week and a half. I'm cheating a little, and using chicken instead of duck, goose, or partridge, but other than that, I think it'll be fine.

Anyone reading this is invited to participate.

Once upon a time, in a time so long ago that 14,400 was considered a fast modem speed, a young woman named took her first steps on the internet, or at least, her first steps that weren't limited to a specific interface and a few email messages. At the time, she used the name “Zenobia” because she liked the way it sounded, and because it was the name of a character in a favorited childhood story that had been illustrated by Edward Gorey. Also, she'd been told single women shouldn't use their real names on the 'net.

Years past, and she clung to the id in a fashion that really was a bit ridiculous, but then, she's always been a bit of a collector (witness her shelf full of hat boxes some time), so perhaps this is not surprising.

Finally, one morning,more than ten years after she received that 14,400 modem – and (thankfully), on much-improved technology, after she'd had a restless night following a pretty productive day, she woke up and decided that it was time to let the last remnant of “Zenobia” go. Ironically, the last remnant wasn't even a direct remnant, as much as a distant relative, since it was spelled with an X, and all. (Someone had the nerve to have “her” name when she joined LJ, you see.)

But, as a child of the 1970's, this woman had been given a name that was extremely popular for girls just a little younger than her – girls who had been born during the early days of a tv show called “Little House on the Prairie,” which had featured TWO Melissa's among its cast. (But the heroine of our story was born before that, and is proud to say that she wasn't named after any television performer, but after an ingredient in shampoo.)

And so, after more than 10 years of being known as “Zenobia” (or one of its derivatives), she is finally closing the door on that identity.

Translation: “Xenobia” has been changed to “MissMelysse” (since both “Melissa” and “MissMeliss” are already taken, and I've flirted with spelling my name with a 'y' since I was seven).

Further information: As LivePress doesn't work in the current incarnation of WordPress, my actual blog can be found at . I hope you'll read it, but do understand if you don't.

I have three minutes before I have to leave for work, and wanted to dash this out. I'm wearing jeans today. I've never really been a fan of jeans, having found that they're not particularly comfortable especially if you fidget a lot, and they're totally gross if you get wet from rain or snow…but with the return to corporate America “casual Friday” has become a miniholiday, and since we're allowed to wear jeans, I've been doing so.

And finding that I quite like them. Today, for example, I'm wearing them with my favorite black boots and a charcoal sweater designed to look like there's a white blouse underneath. It's comfortable, and just dressy enough for casual friday at BigFinancialCompany.

This week has seemed a month long, partly because I was stuck in a training class, and partly because attending the class has skewed our schedule just enough earlier to be uncomfortable. I'm eager to return to my cushy 10-7 shift on Tuesday.

May everyone have a blissfully happy Friday, and a wonderful weekend.

Originally written at 7:41 AM.

So, if you're not on my Christmas list, you might not know that the company where I've been working since 12/12/05 is CitiFinancial Mortgage, which is the subprime division of CitiGroup's mortgage branch. I spent the first 10 days without computer access, because even though I work for the largest financial institution in all creation…the umbrella company so iconic that their logo IS an umbrella (yeah, okay, they stole that from Traveller's, but, hey…), the fact that I was hired during the holiday season, and in the middle of a stage by stage move (all the Dallas ops divisions are moving from scattered campuses to one big campus in Irving) meant that they couldn't manage to create a login for me.

So I spent a lot of time stacking files, and bringing files to underwriting, closing, audit, or escrow, which, if nothing else, forced me to meet everyone. And I mean EVERYONE. They may have taken ten days to give me computer access, but they're all so amazingly friendly…it's very cool. The people I didn't meet by wandering around being helpful came to my desk and said, “You're the newest processor on S's team, right? Welcome!”

Finally, the day after Christmas, I had access, and they threw me into processing. I think I scared our supervisor a little when my first four files came back with no underwriting stips (conditions). But, you know, in a good way. By the 7th of January, I had 10 submissions, two closings, and two declines (I'd never have sent them TO underwriting if I'd had the option not to, on those). And somewhere along the line the two male underwriters started calling me “Famous.” Well, first it was, “So, you're the famous Melissa,” and then it was shortened to just, “Hi, Famous.”

On January 11th, I was pulled away from the team and my pipeline to attend a month-long training class. If you've never done any processing before, or only a little, it's a good class. The trainers are upbeat, bright, funny, and generally nice people. It's not their fault they have nothing to teach that I don't already know. Really. But it's a requirement, and they welcome input, so I've been trying to balance being helpful with not showing off. Thankfully, they understand the need to be occupied, so they provided each of us with a bunch of pipecleaners, koosh balls, plastic slinky-like things, and small tubs of play-dough (the substance, but not the brand).

Yesterday, our training class ended at 3:15. The trainers can't release us from the building before 4:30, so we were sent to our managers, who, for the most part, said, “Enjoy the ability to bail while you can.” I pointed out that I was meeting Fuzzy at six, so had time available if there was anything to be done. (They know how bored I've been in this training. Not that the trainers aren't wonderful, marvellous people, but…out of the twenty people in my class, 5 are wholesale, 2 are ALP, and the other 13 are consumer direct. The five of us who are wholesale processors have oodles of mortgage experience. The ALP women use completely different forms and software than we do (ALP = Alternative Lending, they're the people who get our loans when even we can't do them), and the consumer direct people are all green, green, green.

So, for the first week of class, as we did things like spending an entire day learning how to read an appraisal (no, I didn't actually murder anyone. Really.) And on Monday and Tuesday they paid us – and I'm not making this up – to play Hangman to fill the last half hour of the day. ANd the whole time I've been politely telling anyone who asked “How's training going?” that the class is very good, if you don't already have oodles of experience.

Anyway, back to yesterday. I mentioned I had time to kill, they said, “Really??? Well A's alone on your team right now. Can you get two files done by the time you need to leave?” And I said, “Of course.” So I was given two files to process, and was done with one and 90% done with the other when we had to go. I came in early this morning to print the last few pages, and carry it to underwriting, and on the way back my manager stopped me and said, “So, about your training?” And I said, “Yes?”

“You're done as of tomorrow,” she told me.

“Oh?” I asked, trying not to jump up and down with glee.

“We need you on the floor, and you know what you're doing, and the underwriters say you don't make mistakes.”

“I try not to,” I said. “I don't like stips. It's like a game – how few stips can I get?”

She laughed, and said, “Exactly. Clearly you have a lot of knowledge, and it's being wasted. And I know you'd rather earn bonuses than play with clay.”

“Um, well, it was magenta clay, at least,” I said.

“So, you're finishing MAGIC (customer service stuff – it's FUN – it's ROLEPLAY!) tomorrow, and then you're back on the team on Monday, while everyone else does two weeks of software training.”

“THANK YOU!” I said.

So, yeah, I'm kicked out of training for knowing too much. Although, I'm going to ONE day of software training so I can learn the broker-engine in a training environment without my phone ringing, and have the opportunity to ask questions about some of the fields I'm not sure of in the main processing software. Still, two days is WAY better than two weeks.

Which brings us to this evening. I went to my desk to find out about my two files, and they were both approved. “Do you mind sending out the approvals before you go?” my manager asked. And of course I didn't. As I was working on them, my favorite underwriter, the one who gave me the name “Famous” walked by and asked how training was. I gave my spiel about the trainers doing their best to keep it interesting, and he said, “No. I mean, really, how is it for you?” So I told him, and he said, “Yep, thought so.”

I thanked him for the lack of stips on my file. He grabbed the folder and threatened to add some, “just cuz I've been too easy on you.” And we talked for a while about Citi's underwriting philosophy, and how they tend to be conservative with income but generous about credit burps.

“I want your job in a year,” I told him.

He said, “Totally possible. Talk to our manager A. She'll make sure it happens.”

I'm TIRED, but I'm really really happy about this decision to work for Citi. Really happy.

The sky outside my office window is delicate this morning, like pale blue silk swirled with cream. Even though the sun is up, it isn't fully daylight, and a wash of pink shrouds the world the way a bridal veil hides one's face. For a moment, all is still, the space between breaths, and then the quiet morning is blown away, quite literally, buy the wind that comes whistling through the trees sounding like a steam engine's stuttering whistle as it pushes past the cracked-open windows of my house.

The wind seems to be a prairie wind just now, of the sort that both Willa Cather and Laura Ingalls Wilder both wrote – ceaseless, constant, almost a being in its own right, alternately a howling monster and a whispering stranger, a brutal enemy or a caressing lover. Last night, tucked into bed with small dogs pressed against me, the wind was a comforting sound, easing me down into the waves of sleep.

This morning, though, the bluster is sort of hollow. In another life, one as recent as two months ago, I'd be staying home, making tea, writing in bursts like gusts of wind. Instead, I'm dashing out this blog entry, and heading to Starbucks for a triple venti latte and (because my mood calls for it) a butter croissant, on the way to work.

At work, with doors that encourage you to step through them in digitally devised pseudo-female voices heavily laced with the gentle tone one uses when addressing the criminally insane, and windows that allow us to see the world from behind their hermetically sealed panes of tinted glass, the wind is left outside. There is no breeze, no taste of outside, just stale office air, recycled, re-used, reduced to something LIKE actual air, but not quite IT.

And the wind is left outside.