Failing Miserably

Yeah.  The whole getting-back-into-blogging thing?  Not so much.

But I have figured out why!  And no, it's not because of NaNoWriMo.

It's because I've got too much going on in my head.  There's a lot going on in there, actually, and it's all immensely personal, and I really need to work through it.  Problem is, I usually work through my issues by writing.  I'm afraid that, if I try to blog too much, I'll end up spilling my emotional guts here, and I'm not sure that I'm ready to do that.  I'm also not sure if anyone out there is really interested in it.

So until I either work this stuff out, or decide that I'm ready to spill it all to the whole internet, it's hard for me to blog.

What I'm going to try to do is plan for controlled release - I'll probably share little bits and pieces of my issues, and I'll probably also include several bits of short fiction.

Also, with some of the work-related pressure I've had lately, I've turned into a bit of a bitch, so I may have some scathing things to say about some of the books I've read... But I'll try not to be too evil.  I'll keep my comments generalized - I've been reading a lot of self-published crap lately, and I've made some notes.  But I've also read some good self-pubbed stuff, and I promise I'll tell you about that, too.

Um... yeah, this was a big, rambling post, but the gist of it is, I'm going to be blogging again, but I'm not holding myself to a schedule until I get into a better mental place.  Wish me luck!

Mixed emotions

I almost cried at work today, and it only took a few seconds for me to figure out why.  Here's the deal: back in March or April, I applied to instruct a workshop.  In May, I got an email telling me that I was accepted not only to co-instruct one session, but that I would be able to co-instruct all five workshop sessions at this conference.  Hooray, right?  I was pretty psyched.

Yesterday, the boss-lady gave me the program for the conference so I could decide if there were any sessions I wanted to attend.  I got crazy busy and didn't get a chance to look at it yesterday, but today I started flipping through it just before lunch.  I found a bunch of cool sessions, and then decided to check out the other workshop sessions.  I flipped through to the workshops, and there was my name.  Right there, in the program, I'm listed as one of the instructors.

Of course, it made me giggle with glee!  And then I had to show a couple of my work-friends, most of whom were not quite so excited as I was.  Then I went back to my desk and felt like crying.  Why?  Why would something that I want to do make me want to cry?

Because I realized that it's still what I want to do.  I want to be teaching again.  I have never been so happy or satisfied in a job as when I was teaching.  And I can't do that now.  If I wanted to get back into it, I'd have to go back to school and get at least a Master's, if not a PhD.

Don't get me wrong, I love writing.  (And for anyone interested, I'm past the 4k mark on my latest WIP.)  But I'm not going to fool myself into thinking I can make a living off of writing.  I don't think my novel-length works are quite ready for publication, and even if they were, I don't think I can write fast enough to make a living at it.

I'm feeling a weird mix of emotions right now, but I'm working with it, and trying to figure out what else I can do to keep myself happy.  I know that I should put all of my happy-eggs in one basket - I'm going to make sure that I'm doing lots of stuff with the theatre, and doing lots of knitting and crochet and cross-stitch, and cuddling my puppy, and spending time watching bad movies with friends.  All of these things make me happy.

And I'm not saying that I'm miserable in my job now, because I'm not.  I just don't love it the way I loved teaching.

Hrm.  This post was a bit of a downer.  But it don't let that fool you!  I'm not down, I'm just trying to figure myself out.

Ah, Mondays.

There's just something about the start of the week that sucks.

I feel like I accomplished nothing at work today.  I mean, I did stuff, but I was filling in for someone else, so the stuff I did was her work, not mine.  I know that I have at least five boxes of charts waiting for me tomorrow morning, which equals fifty or more charts, depending on how tightly they're packed.  So there goes my morning.  And by the time I'm through dealing with them, it's time for my doctor's appointment.  Whee.

However, I am heading out tomorrow night to a writerly thing with a fellow writerly-type person, which should be fun.  Or at least enlightening.  I really want to see what the local writing scene is like outside of NaNoWriMo (which, while awesome, is not necessarily a professional endeavor).

Of course, when I started getting frustrated at work today, all I had to do was let my mind wander back to this past weekend.  I spent some time with friends who made me feel like life was a movie, and I was playing the role of sidekick (but in a good way!).  I got to watch some awesome moments that felt as if they should have been in a movie or a book, and I loved every second of it.

You know, maybe today wasn't as bad as I originally thought it was.

Also, I'm watching a terribly cheesy movie as I'm writing this, which always makes me feel better!

How was your Monday?

I don't do mornings

And yet, here I am, again. Huh?

This morning-posting thing has really caused all sorts of confusion for my poor brain! First of all, the poor brain isn't entirely functional before 8 or 9 a.m. at the best of times, and definitely not without at least a little bit of caffeine. Second, because my poor brain isn't entirely functional, I have a hard time remembering each night whether or not I actually posted that morning, so I have to come back and check.

So why am I doing it?

Because I'm not a morning person at all, and if I let myself crawl back into bed after letting the dog out, I'll go back to sleep and I'll miss my ride to work. And that would be a bad thing.

But I still want to go back to sleep.

Not the bad ass!

Today is brought to you by the number nine. Have I mentioned that work sucks?

We had a costume talk. Someone had a bad ass. It was not me!

I was going to tell Canada stories, but I realized that (aside from the car story), this trip didn't have a lot of stories to tell... It was just a really good visit with my family and some of my friends. I hung out a lot, I relaxed, I managed to go several days without a headache... it was just good. But if you want to see pictures, go here.

The headache returned, btw, on the way to work this morning. Guess we know what's keeping me stressed out, eh?

Brain... argh...

Today's post is brought to you by the number six.

My brain hurts.  But in a good way.  I've been reconfiguring user screens for the electronic health record system that our office will be using as of July 1, and I've had to do a lot of thinking and problem solving.  But it's awesome!  I actually feel like I'm accomplishing something!  And it doesn't hurt that everyone is impressed with what I've come up with - compliments are really nice.

So the day was good.

The evening... that's always another story.  I hurt.  Ow.  And I get THE most flattering move in the show!  Luckily, three other ladies are doing it with me, so there's a 75% chance the audience will be staring at someone elses' ass...

Stealth posting

Heehee!  I got internet at the theatre tonight, so I'm using the inordinately long time between cues to post to my blog - whee!

The show is going swimmingly.  I actually don't know what swimmingly means, so let's Google it...

From Merriam-Webster online:

swim·ming·ly 

Pronunciation: \ˈswi-miŋ-lē\

Function:

adverb

Date:

1622

: very well : splendidly swimmingly>

Hey, that totally works!  The show really is going swimmingly!  Hooray for a vocabulary lesson!  Now, honestly, I had a pretty good idea of the meaning of the word, otherwise I wouldn't have attempted to use it, but I didn't know the exact definition.  I looked up another one today, at work.  Takayasu's disease is an inflammatory disease of the arteries characterized by decreased blood flow to the upper extremities, brain, and eyes. 

See?  You really do learn something new every day!  And today I learned two new things, so I don't have to learn anything tomorrow if I don't want to.  :)

Yawn, stretch, blargh

I wanted to do more with my day.  I had great intentions.  

Instead, I watched TV with some friends, then spent the evening trying to study for tomorrow's COA exam.  It's really hard to study for something that doesn't really interest you at all.  But the office pays for it, and I should (theoretically) get a raise once I'm certified.  So I did a whole book of practice tests, and I scored between 69 and 91%, without actually studying... so tomorrow morning, before the test, I'm going to review instrument maintenance, Schiotz tonometry, and how to examine kids... and I should be okay.

I think.

We'll see.

At least the main floor of my apartment is clean!

Rant ahead (with profanity)

It is absolutely ridiculous that I should be made to suffer because the doctor that I work for cannot be bothered to get his ass to the office before 9:30!  He has appointments scheduled for 8:00, usually 2 or 3, and so even the very first people to be examined are 1 1/2 hours late.  It only gets worse as the day goes on.  Today, the last two patients of the morning cancelled their appointments after finding out that he was three hours behind.  THREE HOURS!  And it's not as if he had an emergency surgery, or a case to take care of at the hospital.  He simply dicked around and didn't give a rat's ass about anyone else.

To top it off, I've been told that now we're going to a modified schedule, so he won't have any appointments before 8:30.  However, he'll start seeing patients again at 1 pm.  Given that he insists on finishing his morning at 12:30 (unlike EVERY other doctor in the office, who finish at 12 or earlier), this means that those of us working with him will have 1/2 hour lunches, instead of the 1 1/2 hours available to everyone else.  That's just awesome.

I hate this fucking job.

I love daytime TV!

Daytime TV is great fun!  I went home sick from work today, and spent the day in bed, drifting in and out of sleep.  I had the TV on to drown out to noise of the neighbours (which wasn't too bad).  

I got to hear Martha Stewart educating people about the various types of lettuce out there (I may have dreamt it, but I think she included dandelions in that lesson!).  I got to hear "The Doctors" talking about the dangers of OTC medications.  And I got to hear Dr. Phil talking about that woman who had octuplets.

Most of what he had to say (that I was semi-awake for) was the same sort of thing I've heard everyone saying - basically, WTF?  You're on federal assistance (but denying it), you've already had 6 kids from IVF, and now you have 8 more?  And you have no job, and you live in your parents' 3-bedroom house?  Yeesh!

I really wanted to hear what Kate had to say (from TLC's "Jon & Kate Plus Eight"), but I must have fallen asleep, because I don't remember seeing her.  Because really, if the octuplet mama is going to listen to someone and take the advice seriously, the sextuplet mama is the one to listen to!  Or maybe that "19 and Counting" mama.

In any case, I dozed through tons of daytime TV today, and it was awesome.

An Alexander Day

When I was a kid, one of my favourite stories was "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."  I don't think my family actually owned a copy of the book -  I think it was one of those books recommended by Reading Rainbow that we checked out of the library (I remember writing down every book at the end of every show!).  In any case, I loved the story.  A few years ago, I special-ordered a copy of it, and now I have it for myself, and it's still awesome.  Every once in a while, when I'm having a bad day, I sit down and read it, because Alexander knows how I feel.  

Today was mostly an Alexander day.  This morning actually was not too bad.  I got to work almost on time (2 minutes earlier than usual, but still technically a minute late).  I got out for lunch on time.  I had a nice lunch with a friend.  After lunch, it all went downhill.  A word of advice to those of you out there who are getting older (aka everyone who is not dead yet): when you are 91 years old, and your eyes feel tired and weak, it's probably because YOU ARE 91 YEARS OLD!  Trust me, there's nothing that the ophthalmologist can do to make you NOT 91.  Also, if you suddenly lose vision in one of your eyes, GET YOUR ASS TO THE DOCTOR NOW!  Don't wait two hours, or three days, because "it might pass."  If you can't see, it's NOT A GOOD THING!  The longer you wait, the less your chances of ever getting your vision back!  Did I mention I had to work late today?  Also, my dog puked in my bed at four a.m.  And tonight was the first time that we actually ran through the full second act of the show that opens NEXT FRIDAY!  Oh.  And my internet has taken almost an hour to get a connection stable enough for me to copy and paste this post.  Lovin' it.

Ahem.  My stress levels are a little on the high side tonight.  I'm going to go and have a drink of chocolate chip cookie liqueur, then go to bed.  If you need me before noon tomorrow, tough shit.

Rant ahead

If someone asks you a question with two possible answers, will you respond with one of the choices, or with something else entirely?  (Boy, I can only imagine the comments that's going to generate!)

If you don't already know, I work for eye doctors.  I spend my day checking people's vision and eye pressure and generally doing all the stuff that the doctor wants done before he goes into see them.  As part of that, I give that eye exam where you get asked, "Which is better, one or two?"

What I don't understand is why people can't manage to have this exam without breaking me.  If I ask you which one is better, one or two, I really do want you to tell me which of those two options looks better!  I don't want you to say, "That's blurry."  I realize it's blurry.  I told you that it was going to be blurry.  I want to know which one is better.  And if I ask you which is better, three or four, please don't tell me that two was better!  Two is not one of your options!

And what is a rant about work without the same thing that breaks my brain every day?  2 is not a letter!!!  8 is not a letter!!  Go and watch Sesame Street for pete's sake!  Even Elisabeth, my friend's 3-year-old, can tell me that 2 is a number, not a letter!!

I hate my job sometimes.

Joke of the day

I work in a medical office, and we get lots of dirty old men coming in and telling jokes. Here's today's "cute" joke:

There was this dog lying on the train tracks, sleeping, when a train came by and ran over its tail and lopped off a bit of it. The dog whirled around to see what was going on, and the train lopped its head off. The moral of the story? Don't lose your head over a piece of tail.

Wasn't that awful?

My favourite letter is 2.

According to dictionary.com, a letter is "a symbol or character that is conventionally used in writing and printing to represent a speech sound and that is part of an alphabet."  Again, according to dictionary.com, a number is "a word or symbol, or a combination of words or symbols, using in counting or in noting a total."  Given these definitions, the symbol "2" is a number and the symbol "B" is a letter.

Letters and numbers should not be a difficult concept.  I learned my letters and my numbers before I started kindergarten.  Most people learned their letters around that same time in their lives, and I am quite sure that schools, while severely degrading in quality as time goes on, still teach letters and numbers.  

All that being said, IT DRIVES ME CRAZY when people insist on naming NUMBERS on their eye exams when I repeatedly ask them to read the LETTERS on the screen.  Letters, people!  "2" is not a letter!  "8" is not a letter! "1" is not a letter!  I get that you can't quite see the symbols on the screen because you're old or blind, or whatever, but when I ask you to read the LETTERS, at least use letters in your guesses!

/rant.

Trying to be creative today

Unfortunately, by wanting to be creative, I may have ended up finding another hobby for myself.  D'oh.

I'm currently searching the interweb on the techniques of making webcomics.  I'm hoping that it seems like a terribly difficult undertaking, so I get discouraged and decide not to pursue it.  At the very least, I would have to hook the big computer up to the internet again, because it's got my PaintShop on it.  Hmm... this feels like it's going to be more trouble than I want to go to.  Yay!

In other news, I got turned on to a new website today!  I spent my day working on data analysis, trying to come up with an easy-to-read graphical representation of the visual acuities of patients who were four months status post cataract extraction with ReStor intraocular lens implantation.  Sounds important, doesn't it?  In any case, I was making pretty pie charts and bar graphs.  I talked to a friend about this at lunch, and he suggested that, given how excited I was about these graphs (and yes, I really was excited), I should visit Graph Jam.  I did.  I love it!  Too lazy to click on the link?  Check out a sample of the fun you can find:

Drama Llama

I was in the OR this morning, as I am almost every Thursday morning, and I heard that term for the first time. See, when you're a scrub tech in the OR, you end up having a lot of time to just wait for the doctor (well, if you work for my doctor, you do!). Unfortunately, while you're waiting, you're sterile. That means you can't touch anything that's not sterile, which includes your own body from the waist down and the sides back - you can't rest your hands on your knees, or cross your arms, or do anything but stand or sit there with your hands partly in the air. Anyways. Back to the drama llama.

While we're waiting, we chat. Today, there were three of us in OR1, waiting for the doctor. Sometimes, chatting turns to gossip. It turns out that one of the OR team has earned the nickname of 'drama llama' because everything around her turns into some huge melodrama - a paper cut bleeds for a week, that sort of thing.

I started thinking about it, and I can identify at least two other drama llamas at the office, and occasionnally, I show the same tendencies (at least I realize it! And sometimes try to control it...).

I also love the name - drama llama. It's cute, and I like llamas. Plus, llamas are less regal than queens, so it implies that your drama is not important enough to make you a drama queen. Or you're too straight to be a queen...

Do you have any drama llama stories to share?

Creativity has its limits...

I have no creative juice left today.

I worked on my apron all night, which was fun, but exhausting... my dining room table is a tall one, so I actually have to stand up to use my sewing machine. I really need to get a sturdier craft table to put it on, so I can sit. I also had a puppy running around, which made it a bit more challenging.

I spent my lunch hour working on Stuart's superfun surprise, but still didn't finish it. *sigh* So he's going to get it in the mail, because there's NO way it'll be done on time to give it to him by 6am tomorrow!

In any case, I think I used up all of today's creativity between those two things and daydreaming at work. I spent a lot of time daydreaming today, actually. It was Tuesday, and Tuesday is LASIK day. Usually, I have to concentrate a bit more, but today I was training, and Angela (the trainee) is a bright gal, and she picked it up really quickly, so I had very little to do. So I stood there in the dark and daydreamed. It was kind of fun, and I definitely got some more story possibilities out of it... I just don't feel like writing them down today.

Tomorrow, though, will be a writing day (I hope!).

Today's post sucks

Today's post is going to suck, and I know this in advance, so I'm warning you now. If you want quality in a blog post, turn around and go find another blog for today - but please come back tomorrow!

Yesterday, I got a shot. I hate vaccines, but they're required for where I work. It makes sense, given that I work in a medical facility. Still, I hate getting them. Yesterday's shot was part two of the Hep B series. Today, I feel ick. I knew I would, but I didn't really have a choice about when to get it. No, that's not true. I could have remembered on my own, and scheduled the appointment for a week or two ago, and been on time or early, rather than a week late. *sigh* That's what I get for being forgetful. In any case, my arm hurts and I'm exhausted. Apparently making antibodies is hard work.

Of dreams and old ladies

Today, I had a double-take-WTF moment at work. I work for an eye doctor, and sometimes, when I call a patient into the room, they'll have a book or magazine that they've been reading. Occasionally, they leave said item open on their laps while I'm doing the vision testing. On these occasions, I get bored (because eye exams are boring), and nosy (because I'm a writer and want to know everything), and I look down at what the person is reading. Today, the patient in question was a 70-something-year old lady. I looked down at what she was reading (a book), and in a sidebar style box on the left hand page was the title, "So you've decided to suck your own dick." I bet you read that again, didn't you? I had to! But that's what it said! I barely managed not to choke.

Last night (or possibly the night before), I had a crazy dream. I was in this river-y thing, and the water was all murky and nasty, and at the end of the river-y thing was this nasty creature that I was battling. I could only hurt it by throwing dead puppy fetuses at it. The river was full of puppy fetuses and kitty fetuses, but they weren't all dead, so I had to be careful about which ones I picked up, because I was trying to kill the nasty creature to save the live puppies and kitties. I think it's probably a good thing that I don't have a psychiatrist. I can't begin to imagine what that dream might mean...

The Look

Ever have one of those days? Actually, that can be taken so many ways... Last night, I had a dream starring a coworker. Today, I ran into said coworker in the hallway and saw the exact same expression that I saw in the dream, and it was kinda creepy in a cool way.

I loved that look, and I totally thought that I had made it up! I never actually expected to see it... it was a smile, with some intensity and a little bit of brooding, and a little bit of something that I can't really put my finger on. Actually, now that I think for more than a few seconds, I've seen that look before - Angel, from BtVS, had a similar look, although his often had a 'kicked puppy' component. Take out the 'kicked puppy,' and that's kind of the look.

I think the weird part was that I had dreamt it the night before, really. I get all sorts of interesting looks at work, mostly because I tend to watch people's faces as they come around the corner towards me. There's nothing more entertaining than almost getting run down by the crazy doctor and catching the wide-eyed panicked look that is there for a fleeting second before he regains his composure and looks like a jerk again. Of course, there's one doctor in the office who always has the exact same expression except for his eyebrows. They jump up and down a lot, but the rest of his face stays the same. It's a bit odd... same smile, same everything, jumpy eyebrows.

Speaking of looks (and Colby will appreciate this one!), I met an infant the other day whose expression was totally vacant. It was as if there was absolutely nothing going on inside it's head. You'd think this child was raised on a steady diet of soap operas, it was that vacant. It was creepy. I don't know if this kid will become a mind reader - there's nothing to read other minds with.

Oh, and the green light on the webcam is still on. Someone's been getting a thrilling look at my office carpet.