Oh Brother, Where Art Thou (or Here We Go Again) - depending on how you look at it

As I sit here, typing away, at the office, at 12:11 am on a Sunday morning, I find myself with time to reflect. If only because I cannot leave till I charge my blackberry a bit, so I can access my work accounts from home first thing in the morning (because, really, God forbid that I spend more than six hours at a stretch not working).

Things have gotten so harried, everything on such an as needed basis, that I can't even keep my electronics charged. They have to sputter and die before I pay them any mind. My cell phone was dead for 2 days because I kept not remembering to charge it. So much the better, one less way for the office to reach me (yes, I get cell phone calls from work people while I am sitting in my office). The blackberry holds a charge pretty well, so like the cheapskate who hates buying gas and thinks they can make it to the next filling station just a few miles away, I tempt fate and see how far I can stretch the battery. And when it dies, well, again, so much the better. One less way for the office to reach me, because yes, even when I am in the office, I am told I should carry my blackberry around in case someone needs to get a hold of me while I am in a meeting, or happen to flagrantly be eating lunch or some other such nefarious activity.

It is really pretty breathtaking to survey to ruins of my life. In two and a half short months, my schedule has divorced me from everything that I know and even remotely care about. I have nothing to look forward to. Nothing makes me happy. I am a shell (a big, and getting bigger, shell) that is simply moved from home to work to travel for work as is necessary. I have always alluded to being tired. I am fairly certain that that is to be a lifelong condition for me, but the degree of weariness I feel is indescribable. I am so tired it hurts. My head throbs in the morning, my limbs feeling like they are filled with sand and water. I keep hoping that my bodily pain will translate into some actual ailment such that I might be saved, if only for a couple days, from the horror.

I was informed today that what I am doing means that, after taxes, I am making 24 bucks an hour. This is, of course, a good wage. But it flies in the face of the convention that it is okay to do this because you are handsomely compensated. Basically, I am selling my soul and my personal wellbeing on the cheap.

It makes me sad that I do not look forward to tomorrow. I have always thought that tomorrow could bring a new development and turn things around, even in the darkest of times. But now, I dread tomorrow, because it is just to be more of today.

Yesterday, for the first time in the five years that constitute my working life, I got yelled at. Well, to be accurate there was no "yelling" per se. There was simply a raised voice and a dressing down for "fucking questioning" the partner. Indeed, I don't deserve to take up space in his presence. Yeah, whatever. Fuck him. My life is a cesspool, he is still taking 2 hour lunches. He can kiss my ass.

Lucky me, I get to share a plane ride with him this week.

I am trying to recall ever feeling this level of desperation before. I suppose it was only during the trial that comes closest to this. I just have fear about making it through the day, let alone the week. I don't know how long I can keep doing this. But I will keep doing this till something gives. I am just that stupid.

ProActiv

You know how when you will yourself to ignore something it becomes impossible not to think about it? Mysteriously, attempting to pay no mind to a tiny zit on your nose makes it impossible to eradicate its ever-growing presence from your peripheral vision. In somewhat the same vein, trying to quash and cram one's complaints about this, that and the other into a dark, invisible and unfrequented place always fails and the petty gripes and their gaudy abauble studded Liberace-evoking soap box always end up taking centerstage.

I am a complainer. I admit it. Not that there would be much use in denying it. Plausible deniability went out the window about three years worth of blog posts and 100,000 dollars worth of higher education ago.

I do not like being the complainer. I am always cognizant that it is my way, and it makes me feel ashamed. Guilty. Contrite. Overwrought. Weak. Consequently, I am the squeaky wheel, quick with the all-purpose diminishing return apology, who therefore never gets the grease. And thus, I continue to squeak.

If I am going to bitch, I may as well bitch effectively. And yet, I want to be a well-liked complainer. So I moan and groan, and tack on a smile and a wink and a nod just often enough.

Just often enough.

Just often enough that it ensures that I am tolerated, or even, on good days, well liked. But this is the secret to why no one can love me.

My complaints, if they do not make me outright unlovable, at the very least make me unpleasant. Who would want to spend their life hitched to the female equivalent of Gilbert Gottfried (without the lucrative Aflac endorsement deal nonetheless)?

I have, as of late, decided to make some vain attempts at being pleasant. To pretend that everything is perfect, if only for the day. Every time I fail miserably. I don't know why.

My pretending muscles must be fatigued.

Again, I have failed. I was going to write a pleasant post.

Oh dear.

Problem is that there isn't too much that is pleasant to write about. Life is tough lately, at least in my little narcissistic world. Hoping for some good news to come my way. Yes, I gripe too much. Yes, I don't deserve it. But I would still really appreciate it nonetheless.

The Simple Life

A simple list from a complex (or so she believes) and tired (tiresome?) girl:

- I took the afternoon off. Not enough, but it is something.
- My fatigue is unshakeable, it hangs over me and leaves my limbs feeling heavy. It is beyond tired. It is Tired.
- Had doubling over cramps this afternoon, but treated them with Advil, Diet Vanilla Black Cherry Diet Coke and Law & Order re-runs. Worked pretty well. Maybe I can patent that.
- I went to the grocery store, and bought actual food to put in my long-bare refrigerator. It was lovely.
- Went to the gym, pushed through the Tired and crampiosity and despite the chest pains I was having last night, and found the oft-discussed zone for the first time in a long, long time. It was a pleasant sign that, even through all of this, my body is not yet completely decimated and can achieve some normal function. Also lovely.
- Was all psyched to do laundry, but my change cup full of pennies made that a no-go. Ah well, hopefully, I have enough underwear and socks to get through the next couple weeks (at least).
- I have breathtaking views from three directions from my house. I took a moment to enjoy each of them today, in dazzling sunlight and splendor.
- I know that my most important task at this point is to get my life together, to find a path that I can travel safely and productively for the long run. Something other than what I am doing. And I understand that till I do this, I am not in a position to be trying to hitch my life in any way, shape or form to anyone else's. And, truth be told, I really have no desire for anything romantic at all at this moment. I think my psyche has jettisoned loneliness from its lexicon, for now, because there is too much else to worry about.
- Despite the above, I do miss him. All of the time. Not the idea of him, or what he might represent. Just him.
- iPod was on shuffle. Last three songs - More Than A Feeling (Boston); Kiss From A Rose (Seal); Won't Back Down (Tom Petty & The Heart Breakers). What is the Pod trying to tell me?
- I am afraid to go to sleep, because then it will be tomorrow.