The Slice

Hey, stupid self;
Don't look stuff up on moles on the internet because the mole you've had as long as you can remember hurts and your dad said you should get it checked out. It'll just make you think you have cancer and freak out, and you don't have a regular doctor to go to, remember?
Thanks for nothing, hypochondria.
Best (and quit being dumb or go get a doctor);
Fiona

[Error: unknown template qotd]Honestly, I didn't have many plans at the start of the year beyond "make it through session." Well, that and don't break any more body parts, but that's a given considering how much my foot still hurts and reminds me when storms are coming.

It's been a big year. It was the start of my first cycle as supervisor handling eight proofreaders during the legislative session, and it wasn't all that easy. I think I did a fairly good job for having replaced my boss, who did the job for ten years plus and saw a lot of changes to her job in that time. I'm not sure if it would have been possible for her to convey to me just how many facets there are to supervising. Some I picked up from watching her, but a lot of it has been a steep learning curve, especially when it comes to relations between my people. I mean, I knew handling relationships between people would be part of the job, but I had no idea how big of a percentage and how unprepared I'd be for some of the scenarios I've run across.

Suffice it to say I'm still learning and will probably never fully figure it out.

It's been stressful and hard on Mike as well, considering he only got to experience session stress from a few states away last time, and I know it can't have been easy to deal with my freaking out about hours and deadlines and everything else that goes along with trying to keep up with the legislature, not to mention our various health problems and just general adjustments that go along with newer marriages and life. So far, he's helped me immensely, and I don't remember how I got through it without him the last two times. He's such a sweetheart, and thought he has his own work issues, I'm pretty sure he's helped me out far more than I've helped him. I'm very lucky he sticks around sometimes.

It's been difficult to see my body deteriorate, though. I've recently become more and more aware of how weak my physique is compared to before I broke my foot. At that point, I was just starting to see the effects of less exercise due to being a newly wed and lazier specimen in general, but now I'm definitely feeling like I'm not where I want to be physically. I'm trying to start my old exercise routine before work again, but it is challenging to get up earlier in the morning not to mention we'll be going back on overtime soon to do codification and I'll have much less time to figure it out then. Sigh.

Work/life balance has become rougher to figure out. I wouldn't trade my life with Mike for anything I had before, but it is hard to see what's coming and plan for the future. Certain days I feel like I have all the time in the world to do what we want to do, and other times I feel my biological clock ticking. I don't know when I'll be ready. I don't know if there's a right time to do anything, really. I do know we'd make anything work, but there are many more unknowns that I can't seem to square with myself right now. I suppose there's no harm in leaving it alone until things settle into whatever they're going to settle into. If there is, I won't know until later anyway.

Most of my life can be summed up in this sentence anyway: "I needn't have worried." This seems to become more true the more I repeat it to myself after particularly stressful events that turned out to not be so bad, so... Why worry about it now? I needn't have worried. It'll work out and be okay.

Midterm elections. UGH! So depressing.

It seems to be one of those weird, selfish facts of my life recently that I won't remember much of the new words I learn unless I can directly connect them to my life. This isn't on purpose, but my memory seems to escape me more than it used to. Case in point, I read about hypnagogic jerks (or hypnic jerks) on a list of rarely used terms for everyday experiences. It means a small involuntary motion that happens when you're just about to fall asleep. I thought it was very interesting (and appropriately goofy sounding), but I promptly forgot about it right after reading until a few days ago.

Now that these jerks produce a pretty painful shock almost every time I'm falling asleep right now, I'm having trouble getting the term off my mind.

I've been thinking a lot about time lately.

I hope I don't reach the end of my life and wish I had more time, especially considering all the hours I've spent waiting for work to be over.

Ah, haha, ho.

What... what the hell is this new homepage, livejournal? I don't know even where to begin.

Yeah, I have other stuff going on, but that's all I have to say at the moment. Bleh.

I go through these periods during session where I work really, really long days and use every second of free time I have to take care of essential chores. I get so exhausted that all I want to do is have a day off to rest, and dreaming of that day is sometimes all that keeps me going.

Then I get to that day, and I'm completely and utterly bored to death by it.

Maybe it's a combination of the heat, restlessness, still being exhausted, my long walk earlier, only doing a few productive things today (instead of jamming everything I could possibly need to do into one day), not wanting to do anything, Mike being away most of the day (for his brother's reception I wanted to go to but couldn't see spending $750 on plane tickets for at this point), remembering how boring tv can be, and just trying to power down from going a hundred miles an hour all the time to a more reasonable pace. It's weird, and it'll probably take some getting used to again.

Uh, anyway. Never satisfied, I guess.

*Warning: Candid talk about animal bodily functions. Potentially gross.*

Weekend before last, I needed to buy cat food. I decided at the pet store to buy my two semi-sweet kitties some new, better food-- weight management and hairball formula because one cat has a weight problem (Olive) and the other has a puking problem (Kiki). Well, I got it home and was kind of excited at the prospect of maybe cutting down the semi-ridiculous amount of time I clean up after my cats, especially after work when I'm tired.

Oh, the pet food gods just looked down and laughed at me.

Almost immediately after I poured out the new food, Olive started puking it up all over the place. With Kiki, I had no problems at all. (I even wondered if she was eating. Her litter box cleared that inquiry up.) But with Olive, I woke up to multiple piles of puke in the morning. I came home to multiple piles of puke at night. Still, Olive really wanted to eat it and kept trying, temporarily storing away more ammo for later.

Frustrated, I searched online for an explanation and figured it out; apparently cats can be sensitive to dietary changes. What was the solution? Mix the old food in with the new to give the cat's system time to adjust. Okay. The only problem was I couldn't do that because I'd already mixed the food together and didn't have enough of the old food to make a difference.

So puking it was! I bought the food to get rid of puking, and it only multiplied the problem in a different way. After almost two weeks of this, I almost lost it. Then a few days ago, I noticed the puking had slowed to once a day, and yesterday, there was none! I was cautious but went to bed pleased.

Then this morning happened. I got up and searched for puke but found none. I congratulated Olive and went downstairs to find Kiki digging in her litter box and a giant pile of shit on my rug. Awesome. I cleaned it up angrily and went to work. When I got back home, to add insult to injury, I looked around for more piles of shit, and finding none, I congratulated Kiki and went upstairs to find that she'd puked on my down comforter.

So glad I bought that miracle cat food. This is why we can't have nice things.

1. How it happens every time:
"Cat A puked on the couch again. Cat A is always getting into trouble, though! I never have problems with Cat B."

The next day, Cat B violently pukes in multiple places while I look on in horror.

Ugh, oh well.

2. I had a dream a few nights ago that a man was playing basketball on a cruise ship. He was doing really well until he slammed the ball through the hoop, which split the ship in half and sent it to the bottom of the ocean.

Another passer-by turned to me and said, "Duncan didn't know he couldn't dunk."

3. It's amazing how adding two hours to a regular shift every day makes me HOMG that much more tired. Blah. It's only one hour in the morning (for which I have to get up at 6:00 instead of my usual 6:30 or 7:00) and a half an hour at night (because we make up the other half hour by cutting it out of our lunch breaks), but good lord, I'm not used to it yet. I will get used to it, of course. You get inured to that sort of thing after a while, even if you are zombied-out most of the time. Still, so not working well this week.

4. Mike is coming tomorrow and staying for the weekend. Then after that, it's not long until we go to Ireland, something like two or two and a half weeks. Have I talked about that trip yet, about how Mike won a sales contest at his work and the prize was a trip for two and he asked me to go with him? It was really iffy if I was going to be able to go, but it worked out somehow even though there are work deadlines and such. Also the still being together thing even though distance and other issues and whatever. Hearts. I can't remember. It'll be cool, though.

5. Lastly, no, I haven't heard anything. I'm doing my best not to read anything into that, but I'm not sure if it's working or not. So it goes.

And I should really go to bed now. Too bad I still need to do nighttime chores. D'oh! After that! Yes, yes.

EDIT: Or more like after I hang out on the internet until past my bedtime again. Double boo.

How did you end up here?