Buh Bye

So I haven't been blogging lately. Have you noticed?

The last time I decided to shut this site down, I got inspired again and wrote a few posts. And then... nothing.

This started as a way to keep in touch with people while I was in grad school. For a time, it was about the bedbugs. For a great majority, it was about dating.

Life looks a little different now. The past year has been one of the most challenging and difficult times in my life. With that said, I've also been (and continue to be) enormously in love, and incredibly grounded and present in my world. And there have not been words to document the disparity in these two experiences.

There may be words later, in a different place, and from a different voice. For now, I am content to just be.

In Case You're Wondering

Lately, I've been questioning why it was a good idea to become a Social Worker.

Or maybe just the smaller question of why it was a good idea to accept my current promotion.

Half Marathon Summary (One Word Answers Only, Please)

Long.
Windy.
Raining.
Long.
Cold.
Painful.
Fun.
Raining.
Cold.
Long.
Long.
Long.
Triumphant.

I Went To Graduate School For This

I've spent a supremely fulfilling morning sorting laundry, organizing closets, and writing wedding to-do lists.

Now I'm waiting for the exterminator to come check out the mystery bugs in our kitchen cabinets. (As long as the bugs aren't near the bed, it's ok with me. I mean, I don't welcome the kitchen bugs. But they're not as bad as, say, some other pests.)

The alternative to the housework is to venture outside in the heat *or* to venture outside and then back inside, just not in the apartment. Unfortunately, most of those plans involve spending money, which is scarce. Also, I'd have to interact with The Public, and I'm just not that into The Public right now.

I stick close to the home base, turning small errands into large ones, and finding new and interesting ways to obsess over things that really shouldn't be obsessed over.

And then pouncing on B and forcing him to entertain me as soon as he walks in the door.

Aim High - Dare To Dream

While I'm ending my current job, I've devised a goal that really keeps my feet on the ground while I'm reaching for the stars* - and it's pretty simple.

I am trying to violate the dress code each and every one of the remaining days that I am here. This can be achieved simply by keeping my flip flops on for the entire day.

Today, I had to make an unexpected visit to the (evil) executive suite, and thus had to put on my real shoes.

You win this round, hospital.

A Bad Case of the Mondays

My short morning run was sluggish and draggy and uninspiring, made worse by the rememberance that I ran 13.1 miles at this time last year.

Then, some fucking clown decided to close his wet umbrella directly above my head on his way into the subway station.

And I'm tired. The exhausted kind, brought on by waking up at 3:27 am for absolutely no reason.

So, I've decided that this day is good for little else than eating soup (tomato - delicious).

A Long Time Ago We Used To Be Friends, But I Haven't Thought of You Lately At All

The good news is that there is some movement on the legal stuff to get my money back from my ex.

The bad news is that (I think) my favorite burrito place served me up a portion of food poisoning last night.

It's Love, Part 2

Today, after my 5th trip to the bathroom within 2 hours, paired with uncomfortable abdominal cramps, it became clear that B has passed last week's stomach malady along to me.

(Issuing a preemptive apology to our bathroom. The carnage continues.)

Hiatus

Dear EMDR Training::

You are kicking my ass far, far worse than I had expected. Suspending regular life activities until you are done with me. Including blogging.

xoxoxo,
ridiculous

Simple

When life is swirling around you, a reminder to indulge in basic self-care can be helpful.

Especially when B's mom asks you at the Thanksgiving table what you're thankful for, and you have trouble thinking of a single thing to say...which sucks because of course there's plenty of good stuff...but you still end up blank.

Breathe. Breathe.

Trick or Treat

Costume: circles/bags under eyes, no makeup, loose clothing, plastic bag containing tampons, tears for no apparent reason, yelling for no apparent reason.

Yup, you guessed it. I'm PMS Girl!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, JERKS.

Stay of Execution

For those of you playing along at home, work's been a little, um, challenging lately. In short: we're still working out of a building that has been sold - without heat, cleaning services, garbage collection, or security. We've been told for months that we're moving to a new location, so all of our stuff has been packed away for, well, months. With each passing day, queries about our workspace (and, by extension, the future of our program) have been met with vague answers (or no answers at all).

Last week, one of the hospital engineers stopped by the building with the news that he was told to have all of his tools (heh heh, I said 'tools') out of the building by October 31st for closing. Questions about this deadline were met with (you guessed it) silence.

This was it, we thought. We're done. We're gonna get laid off. I wallowed for a bit and then started planning alternate ridiculous careers (dog walking, perhaps?), panicking about money, and feeling like the world's biggest loser. And along the way, came into a little bit of acceptance about leaving (well, being forced to leave, really) and my time there and what I had accomplished despite the obstacles, and blah, blah, blah social workiness. (For the record, even though it is vastly illogical, I still feel like a huge loser.)

Today, a short email from our new supervisor, stating that the closing date has been delayed. No further information.

And thus I climb back on the rollercoaster.

Ugh

I'm not saying things are bad at work, but I just found a giant dead cockroach in my office and my first thought wasn't how to get rid of it but about the best way to properly document this as proof for my union about the working conditions here.

Joy & Pain, Sunshine & Rain

Had another brilliant night with The Comedian, only to reach work today and be stymied by my health care claims (still unresolved, and I finally just broke down and cried to the Quality Assurance Representative, or whatever she's called) and my job (the building where my office is located has been sold, no plans for our relocation).

Tryin' to keep it positive...chocolate might help.

UPDATE: (Job.) Several buildings are being considered as our new office space. The top pick is currently inhabited by pigeons and the homeless. During our team meeting, I jokingly suggested getting ABC/Ty Pennington/Extreme Makeover involved with the renovations, because, hey, I'm as good at making people cry as the next girl - and I'm starting to think it's not such a crazy idea after all.

Sicko

My health insurance battles continue.

I *have* received a check partially reimbursing me for my January medical expenses. However, December is 'somewhere in the claims department' and I'm just starting to reluctantly pursue all of the other months.

To add to the fun, they refuse to cover my prescription for Zyrtec which prevents my allergic reaction to cats. When I spoke with them this morning, they stated they do not cover any antihistamines, even with an authorization letter from my doctor. The good news is, I had no problem getting my inhaler, so at least when the allergic reaction happens, I won't have to go to the hospital.

Fabulous.

Drawing upon the lessons about advocacy learned in both graduate school and in, you know, life - my plan is to present myself personally at their offices on Wednesday morning to resolve my claims. I have a bad head cold which might help my cause: if it continues as it has today, I'll be sneezing and snotting and blowing my nose all over the lucky claims agent who gets to help me.

Things To Do When You Find Yourself Awake At 2:38 AM For No Good Reason

1. Catalogue mosquito bites on your legs from a few days ago, notice a few new bites, and start to think you have bedbugs again.
2. Tear apart your bed (mattress, sheets, pillowcases, comforter, the whole deal) looking for phantom bedbugs.
3. Track the stuff you will get rid of *this* time around if you do have to battle the bedbugs again.
4. See a rogue mosquito during one of your searches, remember that you have a window open, and thus try to mentally walk away from the bedbug scare.
5. Close your window and turn on the air conditioner.
6. Try to sleep. It is now 3:12 AM.
7. New mosquito bites start itching, turn on the lights, locate bendryl cream, apply.
8. Bites still itch - wail on mattress in frustration. It is now 3:41 AM.
9. Think about life a little bit. Specifically, your life.
10. Get freaked out about not taking care of yourself, physically or emotionally.
11. Talk yourself down the ladder again.
12. Still wide awake, empty the clean dishes from the dishwasher.
13. It is now 4:07AM.
14. Force yourself to think calming thoughts. Realize it's not working.
15. Wonder if drinking warm soymilk (the only kind of milk in the house) will have the same somnolent effects as warm regular milk.
16. Nope.
17. Get up to use the bathroom. You drank a lot of soymilk.
18. Since it is now 4:38 AM and you are wide awake, pack for your weekend trip to DC.
19. Assess clothing choices, repack for trip.
20. For lack of anything better to do, tweeze eyebrows.
21. Look up estimated time of sunrise on the internet. Think about taking a walk to see the sunrise. Dismiss idea.
22. Water the plants.
23. Get back into bed, and drift off to sleep at 5:17 am - 45 minutes before your alarm clock is scheduled to go off.

Not Me

I'm so pissed off at the shit that's been going down at my job lately. Not the work, or the clients, or the kids on the school project.

No, I'm talking about my co-workers.

Yesterday morning, I was the sole employee in the office, covering the hotline while two people were at all day conferences, another was on vacation, and another was taking comp time. (This is not the first time in the past few weeks that this has happened.) Towards 1pm, in addition to everything else that I was trying to finish, I got a call to consult on a case that was in the hospital, which is a 10 minute walk from my office. With relief, I noted that one of my colleagues was due to arrive at work shortly. I figured she could at least cover the phones while I went to see the patient. However, while I was on the phone, she came into the office, and then, without checking in with me, promptly signed herself out to lunch for an hour.

WHAT THE FUCK?

I've been here, alone for the past 5 hours. Don't you think I'd like to take a break? Get something to eat? Because of this fucked up scheduling, my afternoon of comp time turned into me running out the door 1/2 hour before I would have left anyway. (So much for my glorious plans of clean laundry.)

There's no sense of teamwork here. This has been apparent from the very first day I came to work, but lately it's grown more and more obvious. Everyone looks out for themselves, their own schedule, their own activities. And despite my best efforts (group supervision, monthly team meetings) nothing changes.

The problem is that I'd like to do the same things. I'd like to schedule my time out of the office without thought to the impact on our clients or my colleagues. I'd like to tell everyone to fuck right off.

But I don't want to be that person.

Yikes

I am so tired today that my emotions are bordering on the irrational. Which happens even when I'm not tired, but it seems especially apparent today that I am ready to burst into hysterical tears/laughter at any given time.

I've been at work since 7:00 am, teaching three classes in a row to seriously bored 8th grade students about 'Relational Styles: Aggressive, Passive, Passive-Aggressive and Assertive', followed by a school staff meeting, 2 counseling sessions with clients and a conference call. And blah, blah, blah...cry me a river, because this is the job that I signed up for, but I'm also trying to cover our hotline because we have 3 staff members out of the office, along with returning the gazillion phone calls and emails that built up over the weekend.

Adding to the stress, we got word today that our temporary supervisor (who's been 'temporary' and a 'supervisor' since January) is quitting in less than a month. I wonder how much longer I will have a job here.

I suspect that heading to the gym and running will clear out my head a bit...but I'm equally convinced of the worth of going home and planting my ass on the couch with a pint of ice cream and a silly movie.

Disaster. Di-Sas-Ter.

I went to G&E's wedding last night with one simple, attainable goal in mind (formulated with DJ on Friday while she was on the train to Maryland): find a cute boy to kiss. Not to date, and certainly not to marry. Just someone to kiss.

When I couldn't find a place card with my table assignment, I should have taken that as a sign to turn around and go home.

I think I was the only single person there. I certainly felt like the only single person there.

There was an extra place setting at my table, so at least I was able to 'joke' with other guests about my invisible date. By the end of the night, my invisible date had a whole storyline assigned to him. You know, how he didn't have much to say, but I really thought there was a lot of potential...how we met at our local produce stand while wrangling over the last of the papayas...etc.

The conversation about my invisible date got old fast...not on my end, because I can indulge in that sort of ridiculous all night, but it looked like my table-mates were getting a little uncomfortable.

I excused myself to call L&D, who pointed out that me making a 40 minute phone call to them didn't exactly indicate that I was having a good time, and urged me to pack it in for the night.

I returned to the wedding to find Bon Jovi playing, and I rocked out to that a little bit. (My invisible boyfriend likes them too, so we danced together. He's fun like that.)

And then returned to my table and sat next to Buzzkill, who asked if I was dating anyone, which led into a discussion about my bad luck, and then a recounting of my 'bad luck' when it seemed that she didn't really believe that I had had bad luck, which devolved into a conversation about JP and what his intentions are for their future.

I finally wised up and said my goodbyes when the song that would have been my wedding song was played, and even the chocolate fondant couldn't compensate for how shitty I was feeling.

No kissing, no cute boy. But on the bright side, there was also no inapppropriate drunkneness, crying, or comfort eating.

The Case of the Disappearing J.

So, to turn our attention briefly away from the whole running thing...

I have not heard from J. in 12 days, and I'm thinking that's a pretty good indicator that we're not going to continue dating. (I know. I'm quick like that.) The last communication that I did receive from him was a text message that he was on his way out of town, and that he would call me when he got back. I'm still waiting.

Last Friday, I sent a short email asking what was happening, explaining that I really liked him, and that I wanted the chance to continue to get to know him. No response. And I knew on Sunday, when he failed even to send the barest acknowledgement regarding the race, that we were done.

I just don't understand why.

I'm not so much sad as I am frustrated. I felt myself getting closer and closer to him. I felt like I wanted to stop dating other people. And if you're not on the same page as I am, fine. But the utter lack of communication regarding the end infuriates me. Sure, breaking things off with someone is uncomfortable, but it's part of being an adult. You've seen me naked! Which by my rules means that you at least owe me this last conversation.

This is such a familiar pattern for me. Since I've lived in NYC, I've reached this point with every guy that I've dated - that space between casual dating and exclusivity - only to see the relationship abruptly terminate. Is it me? Or is this city over-populated with a particular brand of committment-phobic manchild?

All I know is that this kind of behavior got old in the 5th grade.