The thing about mental health days, Pt. 2

One of the bad things about taking days off is that you lose track of what day of the week it is. For example, because this is my first day in the office this week, my brain naturally though it was Monday. Unfortunately, that meant that my late lunch ran into a meeting I had scheduled for 2pm, which I also naturally forgot about - since in my head it was Monday, and not Tuesday. Oops.

The thing about mental health days

For me, mental health days are rarely "days off," per se. Why? Because, the reason why I take mental health days is not to relax. It's to deal with the crap build-up at home, which is part and parcel with my mental instability.

So far today: I've filed away about 4 months worth of household and personal bills, insurance information, and all sorts of other mailing that one is really supposed to keep in some sort of organized system; cleaned my bathroom; cleaned my office; done laundry; vacuumed; and rearranged my underwear drawer (I know, you really didn't need to know that. But for completeness sakes, we'll go there, okay?). Again, hardly a "day off." More like a day of work at home.

I've been going since about 8:30 or 9:00 this morning. I haven't even eaten lunch yet. Let's see what else I can accomplish today.


Update: 3:15pm - baking brownies

Certainly not a surprise

Although brilliant may be a bit of an exaggeration...

Your Superpower Should Be Mind Reading

You are brilliant, insightful, and intuitive. You understand people better than they would like to be understood. Highly sensitive, you are good at putting together seemingly irrelevant details. You figure out what's going on before anyone knows that anything is going on! Why you would be a good superhero: You don't care what people think, and you'd do whatever needed to be done Your biggest problem as a superhero: Feeling even more isolated than you do now

What Should Your Superpower Be?

I still have a job

Whew. Now I don't have to start putting together my resume. By the time this thing is up for renewal again in 5 years, I will likely be a permanent hire and not have to worry like this again.

Living in the unknown

I guess one of the bad things about working where I do is the bureaucratic crap that comes along with it. It's been in the background for months now. But back then, I thought that the deadline was ages away, and there would be no way this would be a possibility.

This possibility has nothing to do with my performance over the past 2 1/2 years. Nothing to do with the quality of the work I do. Nothing to do with the time I've spent. And yet. Here I am. With the deadline rapidly approaching, knowing that if it comes down to it, I would be one of the people on the chopping block.

Define me

LadyNil -- [noun]: A lewd street performer 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Hrm... Not so sure about this one. Lewd? Thanks, CawfeeGuy.

Bumper sticker of the day

"The rapture is not an exit strategy."

Shit like that just makes me giggle.

Slowly creeping my way forward

God, I'm tired. And today it's miserable outside. All rainy and dark and humid. Blegh. I so did not want to get out of bed today when I saw that out the window this morning.

It's a strange thing, this tiredness. Obviously, it relates to work. More specifically, my not wanting to be here recently. It's not that I don't like my job. I love my job. I've just been so busy recently that I'm overwhelmed... you know, the so-incredibly-busy-and-have-so-much-to-do-that-you-don't-even-know-where-to-begin-so-you-feel-like-you-can't-do-anything, kind of deal. And on top of that, there's the neck pain that just keeps coming back - sitting in front of a computer all day has really been doing a job on my neck.

So I'm tired. I'm achy. And on top of that, I'm being all whiny about it.

Blegh.

Cleaning surfaces

I had one of those "cleaning surfaces" moment the other day. And it's pretty much been continuous since then... I'm in a "cleaning surfaces" kind of mood. What does this mean? This is a label MS gave to a certain type of behaviour. It's the point where you can't take the clutter anymore and start cleaning. For me, I usually just snap. Justlikethat. And start moving shit around and throwing shit out. JS was looking at me the other evening, at 9pm when I just started cleaning the apartment, like I was a total nutcase.

And it continued through the weekend. Yesterday, the surface of choice happened to be the car. I didn't take it to the carwash. I HAD to do it myself. It's a state of mind, I think. A physical manifestation of trying to clear out my head. Or maybe the apartment is just a mess. Who the hell knows.

I didn't get as much cleaned in the apartment as I would have liked... I feel like I'm drowning in clutter. At least the furniture is back where it's supposed to be - sorta.

Star light, star bright... times 2

If you haven't seen this movie yet, you should. It's based on the book by Neil Gaiman, one of the greatest comic book writers of all time. According to JS, the movie is a bit more loosely based on the book than I had originally thought. When the book originally came out as a 4 part graphic novel, I had only read part 1; and while not exactly the same, it's not wildly dissimilar. Apparently, more liberties were taken after the point I had stopped.

Regardless, the movie is great. Michelle Pfeiffer is totally hot as the witch queen. It's funny. It's charming. It's surprising. And I was so excited to see it again last night after seeing it with MS last weekend. This is definitely going to be a DVD purchase when it comes out, if only to hear Robert DeNiro's commentary (and hopefully there is one) about his role as the "fearsome" Captain Shakespeare.

Oh, boy. What a surprise.

Gee. Flight delays and baggage mishandlings increased in the month of July. And it's the worst since 1995. Hmmm. Why am I not surprised?

Baby on Board

Okay. Before you all start freaking out, I will say right now - IT'S NOT ME. Whew. There. Now on to business.

I haven't made this announcement beforehand, simply because I didn't know how to approach it. (But if you've been paying attention to the comments section of the blog, you would have picked this up.) However, I got a picture from the expectant mother, so this makes things so much more fun. Introducing my future niece or nephew (still too early to tell):


That's right people. Jay and Angy are expecting!!! Not only are they expecting, but the baby has the coolest due date ever - February 29th. Yep, New Baby Kiang may be a leap baby.

I'm soooo terribly excited! I love babies. But so much more than that, I'm totally excited for Jay and Angy and to welcome a new member of the family into our lives. So that brings the total to 3 nephews, 2 nieces, a Hauser and... sex unknown New Baby Kiang.

YAY!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Totally. Swamped.

After a week in Beantown, I'm back to the grind and totally swamped. I have a whole bunch of things due out this week and only 4 days to do them because I'm taking the day off on Friday to visit MS (YAY!).

Boston was great. The conference was good and very educational. It was really really cold while we were up there. I did not become a Red Sox fan (don't you ever worry about that Jay). Saw my dear nephew and his lovely wife. Ate and ate - A LOT. Definitely will go back to Boston soon.

But for now, I have to concentrate on work so I can totally concentrate on fun this weekend!

Beantown

Going to be in Boston until the 23rd. So, I'll be MIA. Don't miss me too much.

One of those days...

Let's re-live a blast from the past. The details have been changed since then in terms of the morning routine. The part that didn't change from this post from the past: my mug of tea committing suicide from the roof of my car. And me standing there, blank-faced and staring as my tea was running through the crevices of the asphalt.

Thank god it's not Monday, or else I would have just gone back home and ridden the rest of the week off.

Shiny new toys

It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to buy for myself. But once I decided on a laptop, I became single minded. I big on getting bang for the buck. My laptop has been dying a slow and painful death for a while now. I bought it so that I could write my thesis a million years ago. It had the features that I needed and not much more. It didn't even have an internal wireless card.

So, I'd been searching for a new laptop for while and was becoming disconcerted, since everytime I thought I found the one I wanted, by the time I finished researching and reading reviews, when I got back, the price went up. UP! Since when do computer priced go UP these days?? Seriously.

Anyway, I finally found the laptop for me. I'm very happy with it. It's shiny. It's fast. And most importantly, it doesn't overheat and crash in the middle of things (see slow and painful death). So here she is:

I've tentatively named her Nymphadora (obviously still on my Harry Potter kick). I think it suits her for now.

The Dwarf of the Day is...

Sleepy.

And to answer your question MS - yes. Absolutely, we can both be the same dwarf.

It hot. Really effing hot. And humid. Did I mention humid?

As in 102 degrees, record high kind of hot. Like being in someone's mouth. Hot, humid and gross.

Man. The office just sucks compared to the pool.

... or the rainforest.


Where gods sleep...


And the water comes in falls...



There's a heatwave in DC right now. I think I prefered the heat in PR than in DC. It was somehow more... satisfying.

American Airlines SUCKS!

And I am never flying on them again. Now, nothing can ruin the fact that I had a fabulous vacay with my fabulous girlfriends (more on this later, with pictures). But, I did come home on a very big downer. My flight was supposed to be at 5:35pm Tuesday. When I got to the airport, I was told that the flight was delayed until 7:20pm. That sucks, but I can deal. By the time I got to the gate, the flight wasn't leaving until 7:45pm. Also, a little bit longer, and I'm getting more agitated, but I can deal. Then comes the announcement, first in Spanish. The only things I recognize are 6:30 and mañana. Then it comes in English. The flight has been canceled for the evening and will not leave until 6:30am the following morning. The pilot has gone over his flying hours and the only plan they had was to beg the pilot to do the last flight. Yeah, THAT was going to work. So we all have to go downstairs, get our luggage and they would put us all up in hotels for the night.

I go to get my hotel voucher. Ask the guy what hotels they are putting us up in. He says the Best Western, why? I give him the "Oh, God, you've GOT to be kidding" face and say, "Well, there are certain hotels I would just rather not stay in, being a woman traveling alone and all." He books me at the Marriot. I wake up at the ass crack of dawn to get to the airport. Take a million years to get through security. Make it to the gate in time to hear the last boarding call. But get on the plane, get myself an emergency row seat with more leg room and quickly fall asleep. It's no time before we're landing in DC. I'm nearly home. It's 10:30am.

I go to baggage claim to get my one checked bag. And wait. And wait. And wait some more. There's a couple minutes pause. Then bags from another flight start coming out. WHAT THE EF?!? Where is my bag??? I go to the counter and find out that they have no idea where my bag is. It was never scanned. They assume it's still in the San Juan Airport, but they don't know for sure. This is the point I completely lost it. Standing at the counter crying my eyes out, totally frustrated with the whole ordeal.

I finally got home at about 1pm yesterday. Slept for almost the rest of the day. The good thing is they called this morning and have my bag at Dulles. They'll be delivering it later today. I'm glad for that. But this is the second time in three years that American Airlines has left me stranded overnight on the way back from Puerto Rico.

I'm never flying American Airlines again. They suck.

Update 12:55pm: My bag has been delivered. All is right. American Airlines still sucks.