quest for a faerie child

freedom is mine

Today is a day of firsts.  Not only is it my first day back in the office, but it was also the first day I decided to jump on the vespa since the end of last August, when I finally had to give it up due to my expanding belly and aching hips.  I had honestly thought it would not start, because I foolishly did not start the poor thing after we parked it in the garage.  However, trusty it is and after a few faulty tries, it started up like a trooper.   Of course, the tires were nearly flat and I  had a precarious ride to the gas station to fill them up.

Filling up the back tire on a scooter is the hardest thing I've ever had to do.  It's incredibly easy to burn a poor unsuspecting hand and visibility is next to nothing unless you were to lie flat on the ground.  Of course, it was sprinkling when I left and must have been throughout the night because the ground was wet. I did not lie down on the ground, but utilized a towel I had in the storage compartment to get down on my knees.  After many many tries, I was finally able to fill the damn thing and then get the front filled, which is distinctly easier.  I then pulled way and forgot the poor towel lying there on the ground. 

Ah well... such is life.  Things could have been a great deal worse and in my world when one thing goes wrong, many many things go wrong.  So, I'll take the leaving of the towel and be quite pleased and satisfied that I made it into work without getting soaked and that I do not have to wait around for public transportation at 5pm on a Friday night.  Yey. 

Freedom is mine once more, in the form of my lovely little vespa.  I love you, I do.

When I left the house, Max was awake and quietly alert in his commander chair (aka the carseat, which happens to be one of his favorite places) and Moose was dosing on the couch beside him.  I was filled with such an intense love seeing both of them there that it was incredibly difficult for me to walk out the door.  Even now, I find myself longing to call them, but I don't want to wake Moose up if he's managed to catch some sleep.

I'm exhausted this morning, even though I get a stretch of sleep from 1030pm - 315am, which almost never happens to me.  Yesterday I got the same stretch because of the pain incident and while I felt really good all day yesterday, today I'm feeling like I'm running on empty.  Perhaps it's just the emotional aspect of leaving my baby, from whom I have not been separated for a moment since we brought him home (save for the redo surgery).

Kim says it will get easier and perhaps it will.  However, I honestly don't want it to get easier.  I would rather not have to leave him at all.  I should count my blessings, though.  Working a single day out of the home is not really anything to sneeze at....

Honestly, sitting here, though... I can't think what to do with myself.  I know I have stuff to do.  But, I can't wrap my mind about the work process.  Perhaps it will get better...

Perhaps it will...

Cease & Desist

Dear Faculty,

We, the undersigned, ask you to cease and desist with the incessant knit-picky changes to the fall course schedule, as it is seriously beginning to infringe upon our mental stability, not to mention our time.

After numerous chances to view and make changes to said course schedule, your failure to pick up on room assignments deemed unacceptable by you, does not constitute an emergency on our part.  There will be no more changes, regardless of how horrible it is to teach in X room.  This hard and fast decision is a direct result of your absolute disregard for deadlines and requests.

We apologize if you view this as a 'tough love' situation, but are willing to grant it is exactly that. 

Shape up or you will be relegated to the hellish rooms, you so vehemently abhor come Winter term.

Sincerely,

Your friendly neighborhood princess of all things program related

p.s. Try to go over my head and I will pull out each and every hair on your head, one at a time, while forcing you to learn how to unjam the copier. change a toner cartridge and last but not least, how to string a coherent logical sentence together.

enraged

There are days when I literally despise my job. This is one of them.  I just caught myself screaming at my monitor and wanting to tear out my hair in frustration.  Thank god I'm the only one on the floor this early.  Though, my volume level could have easily carried to the floor below or above.   I'll not think of that. 

Instead, I'll try to count to ten and make my heart stop racing around in rage.

One, two, three, seven, ten....

right.

faerie of all trades

Working from home always makes me realize that I get so much more done when I am not in my office at work.  I decided to stay home and work on some complicated database reporting things that I've been putting off for months and which need to be analyzed and completed before next week.  There is absolutely nothing like procrastination, is there?

And I.am.the.queen.of.procrastination.yo.

However, I'm happy to report that I've managed to fly through about 90% of what I had set out for myself to do today and I've worked less than half of my normal day, so far.  If I were at work, the constant distractions of people at my door, on the phone and email ---would have turned this project into about a week long deal.

I am exhausted, though.  I'm thinking about taking 'lunch' where lunch = 'noontime nap'.

I'm playing around with the design of the blog.  It's been months and months (actually probably a year) since I touched photoshop and it completely shows because somehow, as I was playing around with the banner above (something I created several years ago with my own photos, etc.), I realized I can't remember how one moves from .psd to .jpg.  What the hell?  I got too frustrated last night to really figure it out.

Ah well... I'm truly a faerie of all trades and master of none...

trading your yup life in for the old fam

I'm absolutely freezing this morning.  I honestly thought you were supposed to be hot all the time while pregnant?  Ah well, I was pretty hot last night when I woke up in a pool of sweat, jumped up and made sure the window was wide open and then turned the ceiling fan on high.  It's not that I really enjoy being hot, because I despise sweating.  But, I am just so cold in the mornings these days.

So, Moose's friends E&G had their baby on Tuesday night, a boy.  I would post the vitals, except that Moose is absolutely terrible about details.  In fact, this is how the conversation with him went last night:

Moose:  Oh, E&G had their baby last night.
Me:  Really??  What was it? (I'll admit this was a little self-absorbed question because if they were having a girl, they were going to name the child Sofia and that is one of the names Moose and I can both agree on.  I was praying they had a boy, instead).
Moose:  It's a boy (yes!), but they knew that.  Hugh William.
Me: They did?? I thought they weren't going to find out what they were having?
Moose:  Yes they did.  I told you they were going to name him William.
Me:  No, you told me that T&D were having a boy and were going to name him William, not E&G.
Moose:  Oh... I must have that mixed up.

This conversation ended with me deciding not to ask what the weight and length were, because I quickly realized, once again, that details like that mean nothing, especially when you can't recall who was having a boy and who didn't know before they gave birth.

Later, I did manage to get out of him that she was in labor for 20 hours.  Of course, I wanted to know if it was active labor or?  No, response on that.  He just doesn't know what questions to ask.  Not that I do, necessarily.  I just pretend to.

Lately work is driving me crazy.   Actually, lately isn't really a correct term.  Work always drives me crazy.  However, lately I've found myself less equipped to deal with it and well, quite frankly, bitchy beyond belief.  I work in one of the craziest places with a bunch of crazy people.  How many times can I use a form of the word crazy in a paragraph?  This is something I would get docked for if this were a creative endeavor.  However, thankfully, it is not.  It's just me running on a the mouth (or fingers, to be more exact).

I work in higher academia at a health sciences university/hospital system.  If you've ever worked at a university then you have a tiny clue about what I go through on a regular basis.  However, if you've ever worked at a professional university, where you only educate doctors or nurses or healthcare professionals, then you really know what I am talking about.  In fact, my coworkers and I have recently been brainstorming about the idea of creating an independent short about our experiences here ---it-is-THAT-insane, and/or writing a memoir book.

I originally started working here because I was tired of the computer/IT industry and the way in which it sucks the life force out of its employees/worker bees.  I had had enough of the 80+ hour work weeks and not having a life.  I wanted a crappy little job, making crappy money, that I didn't really care about, where I could just coast around and get healthcare insurance because I'm incapable of ever carrying insurance privately on myself (I have MS).

However, I am a capricorn and we goats...we be some over-achievers.  We strive.  Gawd, do we strive.  So, in the space of four years, I've held no less than 7 different titles and more than doubled the amount of money I make.  Of course, all this money and change in titles means a little more responsibility (just a tad) and with that comes the crazy-making insanity that I used to think was amusing (because I was kind of on the outside, looking in) but now find assinine and which makes me want to contemplate the old knife across the wrists occasionally, if I could tolerate the pain and the blood.

I have a boss who is now one of my best friends and who keeps promoting and giving me more money because she is terrified that I will leave after the bebe.  Damn her!  There is nothing worse than becoming more and more dependent on the cash-flow when you are attempting to contemplate no longer having it and trading in your yuppy life for a decidedly more simple 'family life'.

Gah.... the decision is horribly difficult to contemplate.

I need a new tune, dude

Coming in to work on Monday mornings is always an exercise in frustration, as well as an incredible act of willpower.  Coming in to work on Monday mornings while pregnant is nothing short of an act of god.  It is literally all I can do to get myself out of bed and into the shower, where I stand, somewhat dumbfounded for several minutes, until the steady stream of hot water begins to awaken me enough for the realization to dawn that washing myself is the task at hand.

After the shower, I stumble back to bed and tell myself that I am allowing the towel to soak up enough excess water in my hair to make drying it a more manageable task.  However, truly I am still caught in disbelief that my weekend could actually be over and that work is before me.  Inevitably, I go through a whole series of excuses as to why I not only could stay home, but should stay home.  On a good day, I remain lying in bed for the remainder of the morning.  On a guilt-ridden day, I haul myself up and begin the task of drying my hair, as well as dressing.

Today was a guilt-ridden day.

I am nauseated this morning, as well as bone-tired.  I've also got the hazy shade of brown/pink going on every so often and sex is not the culprit.  But, at this point I've stopped frantically worrying about this.  It seems as if this is just happening during this pregnancy for some unknown reason.  My symptoms are still strong and getting stronger so I don't think things are decreasing in the HCG arena.

I'm doing absolutely everything I possibly can to make sure that the baby is getting every nutrient it needs, that it has enough water, that I'm not putting toxins into my system.  I'm exercising (albeit -- easing into it) and I'm resting.  What more can I do?  It's either going to be healthy or not.   I've just got to wait it out and see.

There's one more thing I despise about Monday mornings and that is --email.  I abhor it so much that I give myself about 15 minutes before opening it and then when I actually do open it, I log in and then walk to get coffee before coming back to wade through it.  Today was no exception.  There was a great deal of it and I was irritated after the second email.

I'm really not pissy today.  I'm just tired.  I'm not overly hormonal, --at least I think I'm not.  I'm just exhausted and feeling sick.  I'm a broken record.  I feel as if every time Moose asks me how I am, my stock response is tired and nauseated.  It's grating on my last nerve.  I need a new tune, dude.

Seriously.