Enough already

Okay. So. I'll be brief.

I don't want to turn this into one of these "woe is me" blogs, and also I'm writing this laying on the floor. So here are the Cliffs Notes.

1. I'm on the floor because I tweaked my back yesterday morning getting my kid out of the car. Sitting, leaning, and now walking are extremely painful.

2. Last Thursday, I spent the night in ER because my gall bladder tried to kill me. (Interesting side note: it took 6 hours in emerg to get seen and diagnosed. Twitter diagnosed me of this errant gall bladder in under an hour, and OVER A YEAR AGO. Conclusion: fuck the ER, we need to work on getting Twitter the ability to prescribe meds.)

3. The extensive bloodwork the gyno did came back with very high levels of thyroid antibodies, which usually indicates an autoimmune disease like Graves or Hashimoto's. My mother has Hashimito's, and yet this doctor is the first person to test for it.

TL;DR version: Apparently I have "best before age 37" stamped somewhere.

ANYWAY. Fuck you, whoever is sticking pins in my voodoo doll, because I still have an adorable kid, Alfred, friends who would help me move a body AND hang out in the ER with me til 3am, a kickass job, family, and pie.

Also, a prescription for morphine that they gave me at the ER.

(Take THAT.)

 I'll be back soon with something cheerier, or at the very least weirder.

Of snakes and their tails.

Not getting the job that I really wanted this week was disappointing, but I was okay with it because I felt like a) I’d put my best foot forward and b) it at least reassured me that there are jobs out there for me.  Today, however, I got some intel on the person who actually DID get the job, and it knocked me for a tailspin.

The person who got the job is ridiculously, mind-blowingly, pretty fucking amazingly qualified.  Like, what-the-hell-do-you-need-this-little-job-for kind of qualified.  And rather than think, “Well, at least I know I can compete in the big leagues,” or even “Well, at least I was defeated by a worthy opponent”, I immediately made a huge leap of flawed logic to a place of despair: “I’m screwed.  I will never get a worthwhile job when that is what the competition is like.”

I realize that this situation, this depression, is a circular thing.  I am unhappy at my job, I am stressed out.  My stress has caused me health problems, amongst them hormonal imbalances, which make me anxious, tired, and…stressed out.  That stress causes tension in my relationships, and destroys my creativity, which, in turn, makes me MORE worried and…stressed out.  I’m not in a strong position to be presenting myself to employers; I’m not even a good candidate for deciding what to make for breakfast.

I’m a snake eating its own tail. 

I have been hammering my head against this particular wall for over a year, and I have made no discernible progress.   I am more ground down than ever; my skin is so thin now, that the tears leak out against my will.

Every time I feel like a failure, every time I beat myself up about my lack of progress, is another bite of my tail.  I am getting close to the end; a few more, and I will be consumed. 

Or I could

just

let

go.

It seems simple, but it’s not; it seems simple, and it is.  My serpentine jaw has been grimly clenched on this goal for so long that it is locked – how do you just stop working at what is so obviously the crux of all your problems?  But I will have a glass of wine, do a few muscle stretches, have a cathartic cry, and step back. 

I’m not giving up.  I’m just letting go.

The virus masquerading as anti-virus software is about as meta as a blog post about how my life without the internet sucks: Random Tuesday Thoughts

Happy Frozen Tuesday.  Seriously, it's effing cold here.

So after a successful 20 years of computing history without encountering any major virus, my laptop has been laid waste.  While innocently perusing porn a blog post, urgent messages suddenly popped up informing me that my computer was infected! with viruses! and trojan horses! and possibly syphilis! DOOOOM AND DESPAIIIIRR!  And all I had to do to make them go away was enter my credit card number to upgrade my "System Tool".

When I (metaphorically) flipped off the actual Tool that infected my computer instead of handing over my banking information, it took over the wallpaper and continued to warn me in obnoxious purple and pink lettering that viruses could BREAK MY LIFE.

Yes.  Well, the virus is an asshole and my laptop is in the gentle care of the Geek Squad, but the "breaking my life" thing might be accurate.  I have never felt this...disconnected.

That whole "face time" and "talking to people" thing is TOTALLY fucking overrated.  I want my Matrix back, dammit.

As luck would have it, our desktop computer has also been crippled by a broken monitor.  So I'm pecking this out on our "backup" computer, which is the one Alfred owned when we got together.  It's tucked in a corner of the basement, doesn't have any browsers other than IE and still has Limewire installed on it.

My life, it is painful sometimes.

On the other hand, it's pretty hard to open multiple tabs and get distracted, so I'm staying on task for once.

I'm also not sharing any fun links this week, because OMIGOD you may as well ask me to offer you my own eyeballs after removing them with barbed wire rather than try to STUMBLE something.

This basement smells funny. 

I've come to the conclusion (in light of recent events, and yes I'm still talking about that) that the apocalypse probably won't come in zombie form.  This is disappointing in a way, since I've honed my decapitation skills for nothing, and also because shambling corpses would probably be easier to fight than what will actually occur - the sudden removal of our internet umbilical.  We're all going to go out in a spectacular showing of ethernet DTs and twitching eyeballs.

Well, okay, one link, since you're all so nice and we're talking about living our lives online anyway: The Facebook Breakup Notifier App.  Because sitting around waiting for someone to get dumped is a HUGE attraction factor in a mate.

You're welcome.  You didn't even have to watch me gouge my eyes out for that one.  Though it kind of makes me feel like doing it anyway.

You know what else does?  All the Random Tuesday posts that I won't be able to visit this week because the Virus Gods hate me!  You should still write one, anyway, though.  I'm sure many of the other super-nice, generous and supportive participants (who are kind to animals) will visit.

Random up!

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Hell probably ONLY gives you the previews: Random Tuesday Thoughts

Well hi there!  Come here often?  What’s your star sign…now?

Know what to do?  Great!  Don’t know what to do?  Um, don’t ask me, I just work here.

7 loads of laundry + 6 loads of dishes + 4 boxes of kleenex + 1 box of Neo-Citran + 48 hours of sleep = my weekend.  Woo fucking hoo.

When I gather my minions and take over the world, I WILL have this octopus chair.

Next week I’m going to Blissdom.  Have I mentioned this?  I feel like I probably should have, once or twice. 

Anyway, I’m going to Blissdom.  Anybody else?

Also, my villainous lair will have this rug.

I’m not sure why I’m all keen on my plan for world domination all of a sudden (hint: it involves woodpeckers)…it’s probably all this Phoenix Jones stuff cropping up.  I’ll have a lot more to say about that later.

(I would have had a lot more to say about it earlier this week, but I was felled by the Head Cold From Hell.)

(Although it’s likely that Hell has more devious ploys to make you miserable, but I can’t think of what they would be right now because THERE’S TOO MUCH PHLEGM).

I’ll probably have a lot more to say about Blissdom later, too.

In fact, let’s just go ahead and call this the “previews” post, shall we?

What’s going on in YOUR head?  Grab a button and give us a preview!

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I may just end up spending the money we save on medication

Despite my best intentions to "never blog about work", it's no secret that I loathe the job I'm currently at. It's hostile, it's boring, and I'm sure it's at least partly responsible for my early onset of menopause. Some days I imagine leaving that job would be like a physical weight being lifted from me. My life would suddenly be rainbows and puppies, I'd instantly drop 30lbs, and angels would sing constantly.

And I'm trying very hard to make that happen. Unfortunately, I do need some job, and they're hard to come by. I seem to be in the grey zone for employability - overeducated for a regular joe job, but not the right KIND of education for anything higher up. Stupid Fine Arts degree.

Hubby, bless his heart, occasionally pitches me an idea for re-arranging our lives so that I don't have to spend as much time at work. As it is, though, I can only stand to be there 4 days a week (and I'm lucky that my job is that flexible, as my boss keeps reminding me), so money is...a little pinchy. Nevertheless, the other day hubby offered, "If I give you another $100 each paycheck could you drop down to 3 days a week?"

I've no idea where he was planning to find this unicorn money (I'm not sure I want to know), but the answer was actually "no". That wouldn't make up for the lost income. Anyway, I don't think my boss is THAT flexible with my hours - he complains about the missing day each week already.

"What if I cleaned the house on Wednesdays and we got rid of the cleaners?" he added.

Got rid of the...my...my cleaners? My beloved cleaners? Gah. Actually...yes...that would just about do it. Though I still don't think the boss is going to agree to only 3 days a week.

"Oh. Well, I could still do the cleaning thing and free up some money," hubby offered.

Yes...but...my cleaners.

I am not a person who likes to clean. I do love a clean house, however, when my son was born I realized I'd rather spend that valuable time playing with him. Or blogging, or reading, or staring at the wall, or sticking bamboo shoots under my fingernails. Pretty much anything but cleaning. If you add together the time I spent cleaning and the time I spent arguing with hubby about which one of us was supposed to be cleaning, it was quite a lot.

And that vague sense of satisfaction you get after you've cleaned the house? In my case, it actually increases when I'm clever enough to pay someone ELSE to do it. I swore that even if I was living in a cardboard box, I'd still find the cash to pay someone to clean it twice a month.

But...the cleaners haven't been doing the best job lately. And we could really use that money.

I quizzed hubby fiercely: Is this something you're really going to do? Every Wednesday? You're not going to make excuses? Is this something I'M going to end up stuck with?

He stuck with his story. So, reluctantly, I fired the cleaners as gently and as lovingly as possible. (Via email. Is that rude? Will they be hurt that I didn't tell them in person? I obsessed over that for hours. What if I want them back and they're too mad?)

And then I went and cried in a corner.

(Still there, actually. Send wine. And laptop batteries.)