I slept solid yesterday, with the help of Zzzquil. Good stuff, that. I'm not too sure that you're supposed to take it every day, but it sure is tempting. My mood has improved a great deal, although I'm still pretty sure I'm having a relapse of depression, which sucks. I have a lot of unresolved stuff going on, and some of it is going to take an intestinal fortitude that I just don't have. Some of it is due to the necessity for long-range planning. I want the change, I need the change, but it is going to take some time to implement the change. Patience is not exactly the greatest of my virtues.
I already have changed my eating and exercise habits. 27 pounds down. Ooooo, I should look up my BMI now. (http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm is a promising site) Still not in the healthy range, I'm sure, but I should see how much closer I am. Yup, still not in the healthy range. Closer, though. Now I only have to lose 93 pounds. Not sure that much is healthy for me.
It's still a struggle to not eat crap, but overall I do okay. The people who tell you to keep a food log are right. It helps a ton. I hate it when "they" are right, dammit.
Discovered the joy of water aerobics. Joy might be exaggerating, but I do like it a lot. That helped me lose a lot of the weight, too. Cut my Starbucks down to a grande 98% of the time. Still have days when only a venti will do. And sometimes that's not big enough, either. I'm still working on sugar. Added sugar is just about everywhere. The worst is yogurt. Think you're doing something healthy until you read the sugar content. Damn. I detest plain yogurt, so I switched to cottage cheese.
With the holidays and colder weather on the horizon, it probably will get harder before it gets easier. Not sure if this helped or just bummed me out a little more....

So, had another opportunity to spill my guts and profess my undying love, I didn't take it. I could have even whispered it in the middle of the night. Just when it was on the tip of my tongue, I couldn't.
Although this time I can blame it on the Brexit vote. He was flipping between news channels, seeing the tallies and watching the markets' reactions. It was kinda cute. He's quite animated about things he is interested in. So that took some time and changed the ... dynamic, I guess, of the evening.
Why is it so damn hard to just spit it out? Three one syllable words. But, oh, the meaning behind those words when they are said sincerely, and not for manipulation. The vulnerability. It's easier for me to let people believe I don't care than to put myself, my true self, forward.
It is not, however, easier living with things unsaid. Now, he's in Florida for the next week or so, business trip. Can I text him? Send an email? Aside from the general etiquette of it all, if he doesn't respond, or drifts away, I'd have to wonder if he got the message, or if he did get it, does he not agree, does he not think the same, or that we don't have a future. Why do I keep torturing myself? It would be so much easier to just know. Maybe not at first, if it's not the response I want, but in the long run. If experience hasn't taught me anything else, it's taught me that.
So let's add another wrinkle to the whole thing. A former co-worker and I have started texting, I had a crush on him when he was here, And I missed him when he left the shift, and left the job. We've been playing Words with Friends, and, by the way, he's kicking my ass, and trading innuendos in the chat there. I guess it finally occurred to him that I didn't know he meant it and he sent me his cell number. Ever since, I've been really excited to get together with him, and I'm not sure where the absolute eagerness comes from. I'm ready to throw myself on my back, naked, in front of him and let him do what he wants with me. He's looking forward to the opportunity. If he's not exaggerating, he and his wife haven't been intimate for going on 4 years. That's a long time, and I can't imagine doing that, or not doing that, to my significant other, or me. But that's not for me to question.
I wonder how much of this is because I can't come to a resolution with M? Well, I can, but won't. Sometimes I irritate the hell out of myself.
On the plus side, I find that I'm enjoying water fitness, and almost look forward to it. It's still exercise and I still feel like a water buffalo, but I'm liking it. And, I'm really coming to understand why having sex in the water is so appealing to people.

I have to say that today is the crappiest day I've had in a long time.
Our formerly feral foster cat, Tara, left for the shelter today. She made remarkable strides in un-feraling herself and is a big love bug. I cried harder than I have for a foster in a long time.
Smedley's tumor is back. I did everything I could to convince myself that it was anything but, but it is. I haven't looked yet to see about how long we have, but I'm sure it's a matter of months. This sucks. So I cried about that, too. My eyes are swollen enough that it looks like somebody popped me a good one, minus the bruising.
So, just as the icing on the cake, I got diet coke instead of regular at the drive-thru. Blech. No cans of coke in the car, just Sierra Mist. Sigh.
Then I get to work and realize I forgot my antacid AND the naprosyn I'm supposed to take at 1. The accumulation of little inconveniences today has made for a majorly crap-tacular day. Tomorrow will be better. It better be.

Sometimes I think I'm a big, fat chicken. I had the opportunity to tell him my feelings tonight, and I choked. Maybe not the best verb in this situation.
To be fair, I thought he was staying the night. I still choked.
However, I am a little encouraged because he noticed that my hair was longer, and that I looked like I lost weight. Still not sure about that, the scale has given me two very different readings in 3 days. And we have sorta plans for a couple of weeks from now.
I think that despite how I feel right now, I'm probably stronger than I give myself credit for. It's okay, I guess, to stay with this feeling for a little while. Grrrrr.

WHY do I continue to pick at hangnails when I know it's going to end in pain and, sometimes bleeding? I continue on, even when it starts to hurt. And while I'm telling myself I should stop. This is really one of the reasons I took up knitting...if I have something to do with my hands, I don't pick at my hangnails. As much. But here at the wonderful world of work, doing stuff is not allowed. In fact, if I were caught doing this, I'd probably get fired since I'm on a final write-up for, you guessed it, doing stuff. There are folks who can do nothing and be happy and I am not one of them. Hence, this blog of sorts.
It's a boring night, and I'm probably going to regret saying that. My games are caught up for the moment-waiting for things to grow. I could start searching the classifieds, I guess, but I'm not sure what I want to do. And in some ways, it's better to stick with the devil you know. I honestly thought I would be over my teenage angst by now. It's a little early for the mid-life crisis. I think that it is mostly knowing what I want but not being able to overcome the fear to go after it. Although I have decided that the next time I see him, which should be Thursday, good Lord willing and the crick don't rise, that I love him. If that's it and he "breaks up" then I'll be devastated, but then I'll know. It will take some work and some time and then I'll be okay though. The "Band-Aid" theory of life - do it, get it over with and then nurse your wounds. And it's been long enough. He's still young enough to build a family, if that's what he wants. I'd rather it was with me, but if he wants kids, it's probably not me. Age is a factor there, I'm hesitant to inflict my gene pool on another poor kid. But mostly it's my aged eggs.

If I fell for you, what would it be like?
Hearts and flowers and bluebirds singing?
Would I know, would I believe,
that I am important to you, that you think of me
that you want me in the darkest of nights and brightest of days.
Would I finally meet your friends, they would meet me,
Would we make plans together, spend afternoons going
nowhere and everywhere, making memories
Laughing at secret jokes,
glowing with love for each other.
Looking forward with hope and excitement
Knowing each day is one we'll start together, and end together.
Would you woo me? Romance me?
Or take me for granted, knowing that I fell for you, and
there is no other.

One of the things I dislike intensely about my job is the assumption that they have some kind of dibs on my off time. I have to attend a stupid hour-long training on sexual harassment. I have been working long enough that this is a topic on which I do not need any more training. It boils down to: don't say anything to another person, especially of the opposite sex, that remotely implies that you notice anything about them that would make them different than yourself. There, I just saved everybody an hour.
In the grand scheme of things I admit than an hour is not much. However, my off time is precisely that, MINE. I have plans, and sometimes I don't have plans on purpose. Since pretending to be a functioning, mature adult at my job takes a lot of energy, I need down time. And it just so happens that I have an appointment that day, that was set 3 months in advance. It's not exactly going to make for a frantic day, but it's a lot for me to do. I'm already tired.
And you know what else? This is the kind of training that could easily be done via a memo, or training document. I got nothing but time during my shift. The Stupid runs rampant through here.

Waiting for the dam to break...

I feel like there's a lot trying to get out, but I'm having some kind of block, or it's an unwillingness to face what's going on up there. The brain, she is a mighty tool, an sometimes she can be a tool. Sometimes a simple thought (to occupy my time) turns into this torturous, circuitous path to the depths and darkness that I know is there, but try to keep locked away. Kind of like an unstable mine, it doesn't benefit anybody to go in there. While what-ifs can be beneficial for planning and avoiding danger, they can also lead to unlikely and negative events in the mind that just drag me down. A little like If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I think in the end the mouse moves in. I believe when it is thoughts, and not cookies, they call it perseverating.
However, through the perseveration, I am moving forward. Slowly, but I'm moving. I finally made a doctor's appointment to address my shoulder. Hello, shoulder! The pain is bad, the stiffness in my neck makes it hard to turn my head, and the sudden dropping of stuff is ridiculous. I'd like to be able to brush my teeth or write a letter without pain.
I also enrolled in a weight management class with Kaiser. Ten 2-hour sessions. Ugh. I'm not sure how helpful it will be, but you gotta start somewhere. And I suppose I can always stop if it's not helping.
Also found a swim exercise class. I have a couple of questions before I go to a session that I need to call on. Plus it turned cold the last week. Oh, and I have to shave my legs. I don't think anybody else dragging their butts to exercise in a pool at the butt-crack of dawn will care. I can't do it, though. It's not actually the butt-crack of dawn, that class starts at seven and I don't get off work until 7. I could do it on Thursdays, I guess, but that would affect my sleeping time, and then my knitting group, etc. Anyway, dragging my (painful) feet a little bit on that,
My feet are the reason for the swim class. I'm not supposed to exercise on them. Yet, if I lose weight, it's supposed to help. Sometimes my brain hurts. Hey! Full circle.
I had a sudden revelation that I don't want to feel this crappy in my golden years. I don't know how much better I can feel, but it's got to be better than this. I don't want to be a grumpy old lady that snaps at everybody because she's in pain all the time. I just want to be a grumpy old lady.
My grouchy old man cat needs surgery for a tumor, possible sarcoma. I am not happy about that. Well, who would be really? The vet called this afternoon and said is kidney values are a bit high and to start him on kidney food. I know he's senior, and getting up there for a cat, but I'm still not ready to deal with this. He's obnoxious, but I know there will be a giant hole in my life when he goes. Sigh.

That sure was fast. I'm on a final written already. 2 in a week! Mostly because I work with big mouth tattletales. Although, on the other hand, if I get fired for something stupid, it will be easier to get unemployment.
I don't know what the big deal is, truly. If they want to get me a lobotomy so I can turn my brain off, I can sit there and do nothing. I stayed at my stupid post, I did not infringe on any customer service. Because other team members can't multi-task, I get punished.
The shame of the situation is that they have burned a quality employee. I no longer care about the friggin' company or their mission or values. I'm putting in the minimum to stay hired because I need the paycheck. Of course, I have to try really hard to hide the attitude. Cleaned out my locker. I'm ready, just in case I walk into another damn write up.
This sucks in the biggest way. All the crap I've put up with and tried to adjust to. I've been unhappy there for so long this should be a little bit of a relief.
So many words, and so many of them start with f.

So, if I haven't mentioned it before, you'll notice "I hate my job" will be a repeated refrain, both explicitly stated and implied. I try not to mention it because 1. it doesn't bear repeating, it is a given, and 2. nobody wants to hear it over and over, but sometimes it just gets to the point that I need to scream. Tonight is one of those nights.
I didn't get the job transfer, so I'm stuck doing menial tasks for the forseeable future. Yay, me. Plus, with the write-up, I won't get a transfer for the next 3 months. I suppose it's part of the company's way to make sure one department's screw-up isn't passed to another department, but it still bites. Tonight they informed us that mandatory OT is looming. This means 6-day work weeks. Color me pissed. Working graveyard means that essentially you only have one weekend day anyway.  So I'm supposed to give up what little (and precious) free time I have because the department staffing was allowed to fall so low. Ummmm, no, how's that work for you? I'm not the one that allowed so many people to transfer out. I'm not the one that delayed posting job openings. I'm not the one that promoted four people to slots that didn't really need to be filled. I'm also not the one that refuses to go to a 4-10 schedule. Another department has done it, I don't know why we can't.
I do realize that I'm not as "stuck" as it seems. I have alternatives, but being the responsible adult that I am (BUWHAHAHA!), just walking off a job, tempting as it is, is not really an option. It's come very very close some nights. It was really a matter of not doing something permanently stupid because I was angry. Maybe not permanent, but certainly long-term effects. And this place certainly has its fair share of permanently stupid. Some days I think being brain-damaged is a prerequisite to being hired. I have my own issues, which is why I work here. If you aren't weird when they hire you, you certainly are after being here awhile.

The trouble with social media is, that when you need to vent, you have to remember who's on your friends list. Not always a good idea to friend co-workers, even if you just need to vent about work in general. That kind of stuff can take on a life of it's own. No bueno. So, like many millions of other people, I hate my job. Passionately. Like, if the building were on fire, I would volunteer to bring the weenies and marshmallows. I'm also kind of stuck because the pay is good and the benefits are excellent. I suppose we all have complicated and conflicting reasons why we get up and go to work everyday, even at a job we hate.
So I was the lucky recipient tonight of a write-up. I deserved part of it, I won't lie, but the sequence of events started out messed up and I just dropped the ball on my end. It still sucks. Personally, I may just not be taking it seriously enough, but it's not like the Soviets got nuclear secrets or something. And I'm sure it's nothing everybody else hasn't done at one time or another, I just got caught. Lucky me. Yaaaaaaaay.
What really bites about this particular write-up at this particular time is that I'm trying to transfer departments and this might screw that up. Sigh. I've often gotten the feeling that the Universe is telling me that this is not the job for me and is nudging me to change my direction and career path, but I don't need a sledge hammer to tell me that. A gentle coaxing is sufficient, THANK YOU.
So what I really want to do is direct. Ha-ha.
I've changed my focus from teaching High School to elementary school, But I need to get the credentials changed around, I'm dragging my feet, though. Part of it is financial and part of it is inertia. When this body is at rest, it really does tend to stay at rest.