I'm almost too tired to breathe. I feel like I've been cruising on speed this week--in order to keep my head above water at work I've had to be super organized and together and professional, which means by the time I get home about all I have the energy for is lying on the couch or in front of the computer. And yet, I've been rather social this week. Monday evening I did errands by myself, but Tuesday my buddy BG came over and we watched Bring It On, which was fabulous. Not quite on the same level of feel-good cuteness as Clueless, but damn close. Then yesterday I went to my church group after work and drank a lot of iced tea, so that kept me up later than strictly necessary. The upshot of all this is that I'm running on high all day at work, then I expend energy after work, stay up late, and don't get sufficient sleep. I'm crashing hard even as I write.
The Hubster is out of town, and I miss him. I get to sleep in the middle of the bed--diagonally, even, should I choose--but I'm also kind of bored. Nobody wants to hear about my day...
Laura JV did agree to beta my dS story, but I haven't heard back from her yet. This is making me nervous, to say the least. I've hit the point where I'm feeling unable to determine the quality of my own work, even based upon my own standards, so I really want somebody else with standards to apply them for me. Is the story good? Is it weird and gross? Would anybody be remotely interested in reading it? I seek externally applied values. Hurry, Laura, hurry.
After the Cordless Phone Incident of last week, the Hubster and I finally bit the bullet and ordered cell phones. They came in today--cute little Motorola Talkabouts. Mine is blue. It is so cool.
I've ingested so much sugar today that by all rights I should be dead. Coke this morning, big chocolate chip cookies and cake with gooey frosting at the dorky ribbon-cutting ceremony at the north clinic this afternoon, and a chocolate shake from Sonic this evening. I'm totally crashing as I write this--I was planning to finish up the eval report from yesterday, but I don't know if I'll be coherent enough to do it now.
Have been attempting to create an archive of my old posts without success. I even broke down and asked the Hubster, an engineer with extensive computer background, for help. He was also unsuccessful, which makes us think that the instructions posted in the blogger FAQ are outdated. Yo, blogger people, are you listening? Either fix your FAQ or respond to my posts in the discussion forum. A bunch of us are asking the same question about setting up archives, and just referring us to the FAQ isn't helping.
The current work situation...how do you say...sucks dead donkey dick. (Sorry. I've been dying to use that in a sentence). Ex-supervisor L found another job, so her last day was yesterday. Because the rest of the staff were polite enough not to contradict her to her face, she managed to spin her story so that it sounded like she took this other job because it was a great opportunity that happened to come along, and not because she was, you know, fired from our establishment. Of course, she claims that the new place is also paying her 10K more per year, and it's probably true. You get shafted all the time when working for a non-profit organization; you have to spend every day serving incredibly needy people, doing more with less funding, fewer materials, and less support than for-profit organizations, all for the benefit of about two-thirds of the average salary of your professional peers. Oh, and your ideals. I almost forgot about the ideals.
I sound incredibly bitter today. I'm not actually all that pissed at L, since I'm mostly just glad she's made a decision and moved on it instead of leaving us in limbo. I really do like that I work for a non-profit agency. I'm just extremely unhappy that as of today, I'm now carrying both mine and L's caseloads, which means the number of speech therapy clients I have has approximately doubled overnight. I've had to cut many, many people down to once-a-week therapy sessions just so I can squeeze everybody in, and parents are not happy about it. And when I break the news to them, I have to be sympathetic and apologetic and understanding, when my gut reaction is to grab them by the throats and snarl, "You're not happy? You think I like seeing fifteen kids a day? You think it's fun staying here till all hours of the night doing paperwork because I no longer have room for it in my daily schedule? For an hourly wage!? Huh? Do you?"
My boss claims we are "interviewing," but as far as I know there are no immediate plans to hire another speech therapist. But what am I going to do? Quit? I'd lose three months of work toward the internship required for my certification. And...I'd miss my kids. Bleh.
Good God. Enough of that.
So I finished my due South story on Sunday. I don't really know how I feel about it now that the initial burst of euphoria is over. Let's put it this way: it isn't the story that anybody's dying to read. Probably the most descriptive term one could use would be "odd," or perhaps "distant." That's if we're assuming the story succeeds in what I want it to do; if not, the most descriptive term is probably "self-indulgent." I mean, do people really want to read about Ray's sinuses? I have no idea. I'm hoping a beta reader will tell me. I emailed Laura JV to ask her if she'd look it over, but as of yet she hasn't gotten back to me. I hope she'll do it; I like her style.
Okay, I gotta write up the evaluation I did this morning. I should have stayed at work to do it so I could charge for the time, but by the end of today I couldn't stand to be there one more second. So now I've got homework.
I can't figure out if my changes to the template took or not; there seems to be some delay with the publish feature. I didn't do anything major, but I'm curious.
I'm back to "What the fuck is wrong with me?" mode again today. Apparently I'm under stress, as I am reacting to every little thing that happens as though it were a life-altering catastrophe, yet I can't pinpoint anything in particular that I should be freaking about. There is job stress, yes, but L's leaving the facility is finally out in the open (it came up in staff meeting yesterday), so I no longer feel as though I'm hiding some huge secret, and L's pissy behavior now makes sense to the rest of the staff. They understand, whether or not they are particularly interested. I had a fairly easy week with my kids, and not enough cancellations to be bored. I made some good professional contacts. The five-year-old brother of one of my younger clients hugged me as they were leaving yesterday.
There is no particular marital stress at this time. I mean, there are the ever-present middle-of-the-night shoving matches, as the Hubster and I fight for control of the middle section of our ridiculously small bed, and recently there have been an increasing number of snoring incidents on his part, but those are par for the course. Yet this afternoon while we were halfway through cleaning the kitchen, I got so mad when he indicated that he had finished his part and was going outside to work on the boat that I had to lean against the counter to stay upright, I was shaking so hard. I mean, I totally freaked. The worst part about that sort of reaction is that at the time, I am always conscious of two things: one, that I need to calm the fuck down immediately so I can explain the problem and resolve it like a rational adult ("Hubster, I feel like I've spent most of the last three weekends doing chores by myself and I'm really sick of it; I need you to stay in here for five more minutes and help me finish so I don't go nuts,"), and two, that I am completely unable to do so. By the time I get that upset, my tension level has typically skyrocketed way higher than a little deep breathing can handle. So I end up shaking and monosyllabic and unable to make eye contact, none of which symptoms are conducive to mature problem-solving. It sucks.
So anyway, my body thinks I'm stressed, but I'm not sure why. I haven't even mentioned Thursday evening, wherein a string of minor (non-Hubster-related) annoyances mounted up and up and up and up, until my frustration finally boiled over and I put the cordless phone through the wall. I mean, dear God. When was the last time I even got that mad? High school? You see why this stuff is bothering me? I've been wondering if it's post-wedding depression, or marriage-adjustment blues, or, for that matter, full-time-job-adjustment blues, but you'd think something wrong ought to be standing out if it were. I mean, I'd like to think I'd know.
Ooof. Enough with the angst. I think we might be gearing up to go out; see a movie or something. I'm starving; perhaps we will eat out too.
Bleargh. Mucho stress today. Turns out the rumors about L leaving were not actually rumors at all. She is being canned. It was kind of funny--P, the division boss, pulled me into her office on Monday to let me know that she was "going to inform L that we'll be advertising for a full-time speech therapist position." Snerk. The problem being that L apparently didn't think she was required to be there full-time, although she was salaried as such. Anyway, that probably means my caseload is increasing (worrisome), and I need to get through a mound of paperwork to make all the business related to my future certification legal and above board (headache-provoking). Plus I am scared to talk to L. I spent most of yesterday and today studiously avoiding eye contact with her.
My job makes me tired.
Ever wish that other people's words could have the same relevance in the context of your life as they do in theirs? I was overcome with the need to reread "Beyond Embarassment" again last night, despite the fact that the first time I read it portions of the story hit my vicarious embarassment squick so hard I had to force myself to continue. It was a real "screw your face up and feel your scalp crawl while reading" experience. But but but...once you get past that..."Benton Fraser. You. Are Dead To Me." Aaaaarrrrrrr. Mmmmmm.
If I'm really, really good this year, will Fraser come and live in my closet?
I want to work on my due South story, but I'm scared. What if I pull up my notes and realize that's all I've got in me? I like this story; I don't want it to die.
Fucking weird mood swings recently. I woke up this morning about 8:30 feeling just fabulous. I have no idea what brought this on, unless it's a rebound from earlier in the week when I was in such the terrible mood. If I didn't feel it was disrespectful to the people I know who are diagnosed with and live with bi-polar disorder, instead of just being big old navel-gazing hypochondriacs like me, I would saw I needed some lithium, stat. But it was just so strange--I was in the car heading out to do errands, and I was crazy. My heart was racing, my mood was sky-high, my stomach was leaping around with joy--and people, nothing was happening. On any other day, the exact sequence of events I followed this morning--get up, decide I am too lazy to run, lie in front of the computer for an hour and a half instead, shower, dress, have leftover pizza and coke for breakfast, clean the kitchen--would be the catalyst for a weekend-long bout of depression. Yet today, I was flying down the interstate toward the homebrew shop howling along with the Clash. I felt great. I'm currently torn between, "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, you crazy bitch," and "What is the matter with me?!"
Anyway, I picked up some wine bottles at the homebrew shop, so now the Hubster and I can bottle the pyment (half wine, half mead) we made months ago. It's been sitting in the 5-gallon carboy for way too long; we really ought to have bottled it before the wedding, but it wasn't exactly foremost in our minds at the time. I don't think anything bad will come of the delay, but the longer we wait, the less likely it becomes that we'll actually get around to doing it. The homebrew shop is tucked away in an older, somewhat scruffy neighborhood towards the east side of town, and to get there you have to drive through a weird little street with a handful of off-beat, seedy little clubs and boutiques. Anyway, I was cruising along, the Clash were yelling, I was feeling seriously manic, and as I turned onto this street I started thinking that if my memory served, there was a tattoo and body piercing shop in that strip. And if there was, it was going to be a huge blinking neon sign that I should get my cartilage re-pierced. Because it was just that kind of day. Turns out there was a shop, but they only did tattoos. However, the guy directed me to Atomic Tattoo and Body Piercing a couple of blocks away, so once I got the bottles I drove down there, and after chickening out once and having to pull a U-turn to get back to the parking lot, I stopped and went in. Once I was out of the car, I felt like a total goober--I'm extremely clean cut in appearance as it is, and today I was wearing ultra-dull Target shorts and v-neck and boring but functional sandals, meaning I looked almost too bland to live. Stepping into the shop made me feel even more like a poser, but I figured, hell, my money spends just like Joe Punk Rocker's, so what was I so ashamed of. Once inside, the process was quick and businesslike. This tattooed ex-Marine with a surprisingly sweet face checked my licence to make sure I was over 18, made me fill out a little form, and took me back to the piercing room. He was the actual piercer on staff, and he made it quick and minimally painful. In contrast to last time, when I had it done by some schmuck at Claire's Boutique in the mall, he used an honest-to-goodness needle instead of a gun, so the actual piercing hurt more, but there was significantly less residual pain. The first time, my ear got all hot and ached for several hours; this time the pain faded in a matter of minutes. I imagine the area is still plenty sore, but I've been studiously avoiding touching or wiggling it since I got home, because ex-Marine said not to. I'm supposed to clean it with antibacterial soap and water twice a day and soke it in water with sea salt daily to speed up healing, and that's it. I'm hoping this will stem the urge to do something drastic and probably unattractive to my hair in the name of boredom. With luck, the Hubster will think it's cool.
Other than get new holes put in my body, I actually did most of the stuff I was planning to do today: laundry, groceries, leftover pizza, due South. Beer. Mailed a thank-you note. Called LG to see if she wants to hang out tomorrow. Went to the bank and put all my receipts into Quicken. Am thinking about writing email.
I feel like so much less of a schmuck when I actually get stuff accomplished.
I think I've managed to climb out of the big old black hole I was in when I last wrote in the blog. Wow, did I feel like crap. I'd been feeling a bit under the weather since sometime last week, culminating on last Friday when I felt so peculiar during our mid-day staff meeting that I cut out of work to go home, leaving my supervisor, L, to deal with my afternoon clients. I went home and slept for roughly four hours in the middle of the day, something I never do. Still don't know if I was really sick or just too tired to handle being awake. My most coherent memory of that afternoon is standing over my desk, saying outloud to myself, "I don't know what to do with my next kid," and realizing that I was on the verge of tears. Anyway, felt like crap that Friday. Spent much of Saturday lying around, and felt decent, if not all that great. Felt okay Sunday at Six Flags, although I was having some trouble staying focused. I know, what is there to focus on at Six Flags besides roller coasters? But I couldn't keep myself in the moment--my mind was racing: thinking about work on Monday, planning for my clients, paperwork, the tension with my supervisor, office dynamics...basically everything except having a good time at the amusement park with C and S and the Hubster. They were the sort of irrational, repetitive thought patterns I experience when under stress, and a mild form of what I imagine people with obsessive-compulsive disorder have to deal with on a daily basis. It made me simultaneously impatient and cotton-headed-zoned-out, and sapped much of my enjoyment from the roller coaster experience. Then Monday...I don't remember Monday. Tuesday I wrote about already, but the part I didn't write about is how after work we were supposed to go out with some people, I had been looking forward to going out, and then it was time to go and I just. Couldn't. Take it. I tried to break out of the fatigue that had settled over me, tried to mentally skip over the hassle where I got up and got changed and drove downtown with the Hubster and parked and walked to the bar, tried to picture myself hanging out at the bar with a beer in front of me, having a good time. But you know what? I could picture it, but it wasn't any fun. In fact, it felt awful. So I said fuck it and told the Hubster to go without me, and read fanfic all evening instead. Wednesday, the Fourth of July, I woke up in a funk. A total bitchy, whiny, irrational, crying for no reason, cloud-of-doom funk that I was unable to shake throughout the day. Had a bit of a spat with the Hubster over my backing out of going to the Fourth of July party at his work friend's house that afternoon, and felt even worse. Luckily, he had the no-pity presence of mind to suggest that I come to the party later, which I ended up doing. Was somewhat chagrinned to find that, of course, I felt ten times better once I was out of the house. I didn't exactly have a blast at the party, as I was still really tired and kind of down, but I did feel less melodramatic and self-centered and all around significantly better for attending. Plus there was the added bonus of watching a bunch of tipsy engineers set off really big fireworks. The Hubster almost got impaled on a bottle rocket.
So then, yesterday was uneventful, but today...the rumor is, my supervisor might be getting canned. She didn't show up for work today, again, and apparently the Higher Ups are pissed. I'm hearing all of this through the grapevine, though, so I don't really know how much is true and how much is wild speculation or just frustration being aired. I just heard people muttering at the staff meeting, and then later when CMJ, the new social worker, came in to talk to me about a referral we had gotten she said something about it. But she also stressed that she's heard our division boss singing that song before--the perils of having an office right across from the head honcho--and nothing had happened. But CMJ mentioned overhearing the boss talking about finding a PRN speech therapist to come in and supervise me, which makes me think that they're seriously considering firing L. I mean, looking for another supervisor means that somebody's in touch with the reality of the situation, and L being gone is not just the division boss's pipe dream. You know, it would be a big change, but frankly I don't know that I'd be all that sad to see her leave. She's got a lot of experience and a lot of knowledge, but...I'm not sure she's all that good. I don't know. Have I finally gotten over my job insecurity enough to become cocky? Am I being too sure of myself here? I'm not thinking I could take on any client to walk through the door, I'm just thinking maybe I could do with a more intellectually-oriented supervisor.
Wow, that sounds pretentious. But it's true. I miss BR, my supervisor from my off-campus birth to three practicum. She had the knowledge; she had data to back up whatever she was doing. Compared to her, L's kind of vague.
Anyway. We'll see what happens with that on Monday. This weekend the Hubster is going sailing, so my plan is to hang around the house, do laundry, catch up on my email, and watch some due South episodes with Ray Vecchio. Possibly hang out with LG. Possibly see Moulin Rouge, as I've heard some good things about it. Eat leftover pizza. Run. Not be depressed. The usual.
I am so tired. Today was the start of what will from now on be Sara's Tuesday Morning Rapid Fire Speech Therapy Show: I got a new client, so now I have four wild little kids back-to-back on Tuesday a.m., starting at 8:15. I got to work this morning at 7:42 to find my first client already waiting in the lobby; dad had misjudged the amount of time it would take them to get to the center. I didn't want to set a precendent so I made them wait until their scheduled time to start, and then spent the next 45 minutes trying to keep up with BM, who is 3;1 and has the attention span of your average housefly. His lack of attention span was made more dramatic by the fact that my next kid, TK, was also just 3, but he is miles ahead of BM in terms of level of function, meaning he's actually operating as a 3-year-old instead of in the 18 to 24 month range. I am hoping that BM makes some dramatic leaps in maturity sometime soon, before I have to start saying things like "cognitive skills" and "developmental delay" and "potential academic difficulty" to his parents. Although it's really much to soon to start making those kind of judgements about the kid; it's just that I'm concerned because his language is really quite delayed.
Anyway, I ran around a lot with TK, since he's little and can't sit for too long. My 9:45 kid was mercifully late, giving me enough time to collapse for 3 or 4 minutes and rejuvenate before they showed up and I had to run like crazy to keep up with him. My last morning kid was less high energy, but on top of the three prior she still wore me out. And then I had to do errands and speed up to the north clinic in time for my afternoon clients. Oy. Fatigue.
Have been wondering recently if I have enough interests outside of work and fan fiction. This train of thought was provoked by our trip to Six Flags, which turned out to be relatively fun. The roller coasters, as I remembered, lacked appropriate head and neck padding and were generally just barely cool enough to justify the amount of pain involved from getting my ears and jaw smacked repeatedly into the restraints. However, it rained early in the day and the crowds were really thin, so we didn't hardly have to wait in any lines.
You know what? Fuck it. Am too tired to finish that paragraph. More later.
