zeptember

Let’s preface today with last night.

Last night I couldn’t sleep because I was too anxious about a job interview today.
When I did get ready for bed, I was in the bathroom bending over to look in the trash because I’d forgotten if I’d thrown out the last of my toothpaste. Seeing the spent tube in the trash, I swung back around to open the drawer where I’d find a new tube of toothpaste and WHACK! I smacked my head on the corner of the protruding wall that separates the sink from the tub.

So there I was, with ice pack on head minutes later, brushing teeth, and now too shaken up to sleep again.

When I did finally get to bed, the anxiety turned into a low grade panic attack, complete with flutter in the back of the throat, thoughts racing in head, and pounding heart. I tried to convince myself to breathe regular deep breaths and to breathe out long on the exhale and shorter on the inhale.
Of course, the racing throughts kept me from focusing on my breathing.

Oh and I’m PMSing so I was freezing cold. I had THREE blankets on me and I was *still* cold. Stupid hormonal whack.

I finally did get to sleep, and I woke up on time this morning. And I got out the door on time.

The traffic however, was unexpected.

Knowing that this would be a trip to the South Bay, I knew to budget an hour and a half driving time.

I didn’t expect over TWO HOURS to ensue for a one-way 35 mile trip.

I do not have a cell phone. If somebody would kindly pay my cell phone bill for me, I would own another cell phone. As it is, I’ve had financial hardship for a few years now, and haven’t owned a cell phone since 2004. My last dotcom employment was spent catching up from being unemployed through most of 2004. After that dotcom job ended in January of this year, I maxed out my credit card again.

So, not having a cell phone meant I couldn’t call the job I was to interview for, and tell them why I was running late. Because I was traveling 880 South, this meant that all the big rigs were also on the road, and I was sandwiched in between them for over ten miles of 15 MPH (24KPH) average speed.
When I finally cut in front of a big rig and exited the freeway, I found myself in a business park flanked by hotels. Not a pay phone in sight. I asked a hotel if I could use the phone - denied.

So I got back in my car, got back on the freeway, and finished the ride to the interview. I got there a half an hour late and to my wonder, they still let me in the door.

This place is a temp agency that specialises in placing high tech workers. I was shown upstairs, where I was expected to fill out some paperwork.

I thought that since this was a temp agency, I wouldn’t have to fill out paperwork asking for my high school credentials or rehash my resume and references in handwritten form. Nor did I expect that I’d have to state that I am not a criminal and grant consent to a drug test.

This humiliating process is supposed to be for the average temp agency, which places people out to low-end jobs like factories and retail chains. Why the fuck did *I* have to fill this shit out when I applied for a tech support job?!?!?

But I did. I filled out the goddamned paperwork and had the little informal interview, and Nice Lady told me she’d put my paperwork in with the hiring manager of the company they’re contracted out to, and I should hopefully hear something today.

That was it. A half hour for two hours drive time. On my way home, traffic was STILL fucked on the southbound freeway. I made it home in about an hour on the northbound side, but don’t be fooled, I know that at evening rush hour, it takes an hour and a half to two hours northbound, too.

But what else do I have? I can work for the dotcom industry again, in which all the good jobs are located along this horrible commute, or I can hold out for a better job near where I live. But my batting average has thus far been abysmal, what with the scanning job and the optometrist.

So I got home and had some vodka and cranberry to drink with lunch. I chilled out. I did laundry. I chatted with friends.

Then I went back out again. See, that’s my whole mistake for today…driving.

I forgot my wallet.

I was driving to the recycle center to drop off bags of cans and bottles when I realised I forgot my wallet. Whatever, keep driving.
However, the recycle center was closed.

So I headed over to the other recycle center, but traffic came to a dead stop before I could even think of leaving the island, most likely because the bridge was up.

So I turned around and went to the thrift store to drop off a box of clothes I can no longer wear because I’ve lost 30 lbs (17kg) in the last five months.
And I STILL don’t have enough money to go out and buy new clothing! So everything I wear, I’m swimming in, but not as much as the load of clothes I dropped off today.

So at least I got to my interview, and at least I successfully dropped off a box of clothes today. I don’t want to go out anymore today, but sadly I have to, because I promised B that I’d drop him off at the Raiders game, and I also have grocery shopping to do.

I came home and made a Mai Tai. It’s my second time drinking during the middle of the day today to quell stress.
Go me!

Finally got the time today to go through all the pictures I took when I went camping with some friends for the Labor Day holiday weekend.

The pix are here.

The summary of the trip is:

Friday - set up camp, went into town and ate Chinese Buffet. Too greasy, ugh. Got back to camp, wound down for the night. Second part of group showed up late and set up camp in the dark. We did meet and greet and booze, and went to bed.

Saturday - early-morning (before 10am) to early afternoon spent boating and drinking. Came back for lunch and a siesta and wait for my boyfriend to show up, but it was uncomfortable because the temperature was over 100F (38C).
Boyfriend got repeatedly lost, showed up in foul mood. We all got back on the boat and enjoyed more booze and scenery and swimming. Boyfriend relaxed and had fun.
The other half of our group, who had their own boat, accomplished water skiing and tubing.
Came back to camp at dusk, had a hearty dinner with white wine, went to bed with a buzz. This was our longest day - it seemed to go on forever, but in a good way!

Sunday - Most of us spent the morning into the afternoon recovering from hangovers and lazing about on the boat and/or swimming. Came back to shore for lunch and caffination and headed back out for more boating, drinking and swimming. Most people from both groups did some more water skiing. I never did get up on water skis.

I tried it once when I was a kid, and my feet came out of the skis! But I was so afraid, that I wouldn’t let go of the rope! So I flew and flew, screaming and hollering, until I believed my dad when he said to let go of the rope, and I did a face plant into the water.
So uhh…that one still sticks with me. No water skiing for me.

Sunday night we had another hearty meal, and two of the group went home.
I didn’t sleep very well that night for some reason, and had to keep getting up to urinate. I guess I was anxious to head back home, too.

Monday morning I packed up my tent before anyone else was up, and waited for everyone to rise. Had some breakfast and took off while everyone else went down to have one more water ski run before they too went home and acknowledged that the holiday weekend was over.

This morning I microwaved a freezer quiche. The crust has wheat flour in it.

I decided that since I’ve nothing pressing to do today, I might as well do a threshhold test, so I ate about two good bites of the crust along with the quiche, and just dug the egg out of the rest of the crust.

The two mouthfuls was all it took to give me a reaction.

The reaction occurred about two hours after ingestion, which is the normal reaction time with me and wheat.

The reaction is fuzzy-headedness / low-grade headache with plugged ears and hypoglycemia.
My gut did not react - that happens with yeast.

So, now I take it down another notch and only try one mouthful of wheat flour. Too bad I only had one quiche to test with. I’ll have to either buy another or find some more wheat flour in one of B’s foods to do another test with tomorrow afternoon.

To combat the current hypoglycemic attack, I’m eating a turkey/chicken/portabella burger (also a pre-packaged freezer food I recently bought and don’t recommend buying again cuz it tastes kinda gross). The burger is smothered in mozarella cheese. I chose these two foods because I believe it will spike my protein levels, and the yeast is minute in the mushrooms and the cheese - it doesn’t give me a gut reaction. Oh, and I’m chugging lots of water, too.

5:26pm Edit: My blood sugar stabilised within an hour and a half of eating the hamburger patty and chugging water. Wheee.

Today was day two back at work since the Labor Day holiday weekend, and already the co-worker was a fucking cuntslit to me.

The last time I ranted about work was on 08.20.2006, and I referred to this co-worker as the Receptionist/Optician, or R/O for short.

She got pregnant at the end of August, and started acting like a cat does. For those of you who have never been around a pregnant cat, they get super lovey-dovey affectionate. She was calling the patients “dear” and letting stuff roll right off her back the way a mature civilised person would be doing on the job in the public all day. It was a very nice week of relief, let me tell you.

But over the Labor Day weekend, her boyfriend of 2 years informed her that he’s changed his mind - he doesn’t want to have a baby right now, so she’s got to get an abortion.

She’s been a megabitch ever since returning to work yesterday.
Today, the shit was flying so fast from her, that I started to take notes.

Here’s some of her shit from today:

I needed to get some pricing info for lenses, and informed her that I’m not comfortable giving out numbers to patients, since I have had very little training on merchandise and lens stuff.

She got all huffy at me, as though I’ve just laid a pile of work in her lap, and spat, “sooner or later you’re going to have to know this stuff”.

I replied, “sooner rather than later, I won’t be here.”

She wrote out the prices for me.

Later on, I noticed that I’d made a scheduling error, so I notified her about it, and asked for more specific training on scheduling patients so I do not make this mistake again.

The conversation went like this:

R/O: I ain’t gonna work through my lunch…
Me: I didn’t say you had to stay through your lunch.
R/O: Ain’t gonna be workin me like no slave. I’m always gettin up and sittin down - as soon as one patient’s done, another one ready, then one walks in the door…
Me: that’s the nature of work, silly.
R/O: uh uh, no it ain’t… (patient walks in the door as the R/O turns to glare at me).

Just before lunch, I’d taken a fax out of the filing box and put it with the boss’ important papers. R/O couldn’t find the file for that paper so she just left it in the “to be filed” box by itself. I thought it would be more effective to hand it to the boss. The boss picked it up out of her important papers box and nodded “ahh yes, I’ve been waiting for this fax”, and took the paper with her back to her desk.
At this point, the R/O got pissy with me and started snapping at me about the fax. She went back to the boss’ desk and came back to me and snapped that the boss had already in that short of time lost the fax in her sea of mess of a desk, and now we can’t find the patient’s file OR the fax to match to the file.
The R/O talked down to me with gritted teeth about why she leaves papers and files in certain places, rather than let the boss have them. I acknowledged my fault in the situation and apologised - she knows the boss best. But it didn’t matter. She continued to talk down to me like I was retarded.

My face turned red with rage as the lunch hour began. I wasn’t hungry but knew I had to eat, and knew I had to let the anger go.

Later on after lunch, I returned from the break room bathroom. R/O asked me why I didn’t use the other bathroom anymore. I told her that awhile ago, she’d asked why I didn’t use the break room bathroom, and I’d told her that I was afraid of it because of the big sign stating that the toilet easily overflows. I told her that I decided to get over the silly fear of toilet overflow and so I’ve started using that bathroom.

She began muttering under her breath about how she just got used to nobody else using that bathroom but herself. I tell her, “it’s just me”, and she squeaked out that she’s just a fuddy duddy about the bathroom.

So now basically, I have to start using the other bathroom again so I don’t garner even more daggers from this bitch. I’m already tired of the bi-polar fight with this woman.

The other bathroom incidentally is the one that has the back door to the office in it, with no curtain on the window of the door. The window has a grated security fence over it, and the door is alarmed, deadbolted, slide-locked, and barricaded because it was broken into and the whole office ransacked within the past 24 months.

So I’m not happy to have to go back to using that bathroom, and yet it beats catching passive aggressive bullshit from an immature pregnant hormonal bipolar racial issues slit.

Still later on, R/O caught me listening to the outgoing phone messages and asked what I was doing. I told her I was documenting the text of the outgoing messages and typing up a how-to guide for the phone for our boss.

The R/O scoffed and said, “you really don’t have nothin to do, do you.”

I gave her a sideways look and shot back, “no, doc doesn’t know how to set her own phone.”
I then explained that over the weekend, doc set the phone to the lunch hour away message, instead of the ‘office is closed’ message, so people called in and were told we were at lunch all day and all night from Friday through Monday.
I told her that our boss does not even know how to use her own office equipment, and so I am teaching her how to be self sufficient, because there will come a day when the R/O and I am not there to help her out.

The R/O paused at this enlightenment.

Yeah - she could be free from this job, too - she doesn’t have to always be there every day for the boss. The world would go on for her if she wasn’t at work for one day, but the world would end catastrophically for the boss if the R/O didn’t show up. This made the R/O feel suddenly important and loved again, and so of course she was nice to me for the rest of the day.

The boss is very smart when it comes to her profession, but has NO CLUE whatsoever on how to operate a business. She’d be much, much better off working for someone who already runs a business, rather than trying to do it herself, but I guess she doesn’t play nice with others.

And so it goes, I have to work with these two crazies. I nearly cried on my lunch break but stuffed it back inside.

I came home numb and reached for the wine bottle yet again, but in my defence, I’d like to state that I had dinner, first, this time. :p

Regarding eating and my diet in general, my atopic dermatitis (which I lovingly call my leprosy) has returned to my left thumb and right pinky finger. I should really try to photograph it for you. The fact that the dermatitis is back with a vengeance could be due to a number of things.

• This past weekend, I bathed in sunblock for up to 12 hours at a time.
• I swam in murky lake water for two days.
• I’ve been eating sugar and caffeine like a fiend for the past week.
• I’ve been cheating on the yeast by eating Cheetos and other chips, which contain yeast extract, also known as MSG.

The dermatitis is itchy and painful, and my thumb in particular keeps splitting open. How fun. My allergist gave me some steroidal ointment that I put on it at night, and some cream that I use continuously throughout the day. So far it’s not worked much at all.

The food thing leads to the weight thing. I’ve plateaued at 156 lbs (71kg), probably because I’d reintroduced sugar into my diet what, a month ago? I forget. So now I’m going to cut sugar out again, but not before george arrives. He’s due next week and the cravings are out of control. No sense in putting myself through more pain than is necessary, so I’ll wait til after george.

I think everything should actually wait til after george AND after my birthday, which is on the 17th.

For my birthday, I want to win a mega millions jackpot lottery all to myself.

My Macintosh hit zero drive space last week and started deleting essential files like oh… my iCal, iPhoto, and browser bookmarks.
But yet when I viewed the hard drive (HD) for info, it said I had over a gig of space available. WTF?

Tonight, I deleted a bunch of stuff and checked the HD space again, and low, it showed 200MB available.
Again, WTF?

Ever since I bought this G3 on the cheap from B and loaded OSX on it, it’s been sloggin’ along at a snail’s pace anyway, but you’d think it’d tell me truthfully how much HD space I had instead of saying “Oh, no you’re good - over a gig of space!” and then after much prodding and quadruple refreshing and checking, saying, “Oh, wait…. no… nnnoooo, you’re fucked, I’m only at 200MB so I had to delete stuff, sorry!”

And then yesterday, some bastards from China tried accessing my router (a.k.a. my Debian linux box, which I use solely as my firewall these days), so I logged in and found the offending IP address and blocked the bitches.

Tonight I searched both drives and backup CDs and finally found a recent reliable bookmarks file to add back into the Firefox browser so I don’t have to create the last eight years from scratch (whew! I was really getting pissed off!).

And then, I stepped away from my computer for all of ten minutes to fix a late evening snack.

I came back and my DSL modem was going CRAZY.

I sighed loudly and logged into the linux box. I found out that some dickhead from New York was using Dunkirk & Fredonia Telephone Company to try to log into my machine at a wild pace, so I captured the IP and added it to my DENY list and Presto! the attack stopped.

Fucking little bitch.

In the meantime, I applied to two tech support jobs tonight. Wish me luck.

Also, as of now, I’m on my second glass of Two Buck Chuck, and so I feel comfortable to let you know that I’ve also been thoroughly squicked by the news of Steve Irwin’s death.

I even looked up stingray barbs (halfway down that page) and got even MORE squicked out, cuz I read that the barb that got Steve was not only 8 inches long, but that he pulled the goddamned thing OUT of his chest.

*deep wincing breath*

Ok so.. now I’m full on in mourning. I really liked the guy, even if he did sometimes egg on the animals, and even if he did put his life in danger despite having a wife and two young children that he knew would outlive him.

So I’ve raided my iTunes (which for some thankful reason has been spared by my evil comput0r) for all Australian bands I’ve ever imported, so I can drunkenly chant Monty Python style, “Australia Australia Australia We Love Ya Aaaa-men!” as I listen to the likes of Midnight Oil, Nick Cave and INXS.

Sorry, Elsewhere. I hope you can forgive me for being stereotypical in my moment of drunken sorrow.

I’ve been away from news and Internet for much of the past week.

My online friend Elsewhere visited the U.S. and I gleefully showed her some of the Bay Area. This was Elsewhere’s memorial visit for her brother, who was my friend, who died three years ago. I had heard about her through her brother, and then I got to know her personally online after she discovered my online eulogy to her brother and began writing to me. I felt comfy around Elsewhere from the moment I picked her up at the train station, and we talked our heads off at each other during the two days that we hung out. Wow, only two days? It felt like we hung out longer than that…

I was also working all week, and B threw his back out on the day that Elsewhere had to fly home, so I had to take care of him when he got home from work.
Two days of drugs and heating pad and him taking it easy (but still having to go to work, poor guy), B was feeling better. My recovery time for a pulled back is usually a week.

On Friday, September 1st, I did a quick pack and zoomed off with some friends to go camping for the Labor Day holiday weekend.

I spent the past three days at New Hogan Lake near Valley Springs, CA, which averages over 100F (38C) in the summer. It was 99F at 5pm when we rolled into the little town a few miles from the camp site on Friday. We spent much of the weekend in the water on my friends’ boat and their friends’ boat. I only got mild sunburn, which is AMAZING considering there’s barely any shade in the Central Valley. I normally would have become a lobster by the end of Day 1, but everyone applied sunblock multiple times throughout each day, thus reminding each other to apply, apply, apply.

I did manage to get a reddish/purple bruise about 6 inches by 4 inches (about 15cm by 20cm) on my upper back right leg because I fell off the side of the boat while trying to hop onto it (the boat was docked right up against the shore).

I want to write much more detail than this, but I’m SO tired. I napped for a couple of hours today but shit, it’s time for BED.

Hopefully I’ll remember to post more stuff later…