Oh how I hate flurries!

Doesn't it always seem that bad news travels in a pack? I've certainly seem my share of personal (i.e. family) bad news, but when I broaden the scope, here's what I see scattered around:

• A dear friend whose doctor needs to have evil things done to him for ignoring her phone calls for weeks until she showed up in his exam room in early-stage organ failure because of medication he prescribed! [this brings up ghosts from my childhood and freaks me way the fuck out in very abnormal ways]
• Someone who is hospitalized tonight because of a fall a couple of days ago.
• A coworker who's father died just under a month ago.
• My sister needs a tuneup in her brain electrodes, but there are some issues there. Long story. Of course.
• Another friend who's mother died about 10 days before mine.
• And a couple of others' whose parents are at the stage my mom was at about 5 months ago.
• People forgetting the whole "innocent till proven guilty in a court of law" thing. Accusation doesn't equal fact.
• Ongoing medical issues with another friend who has, essentially, had a headache since November. Every day. Can you imagine dealing with a three-year-old 24/7 with a headache? Yeah. Doctors have no idea. Doctors suck.
• Gout in another family member. Though that's easing due to--of all things!--cherries.
• Stupid men involving themselves in extramarital situations and having their lives destroyed over it (not to mention the lives of their wives and families). Guys: KEEP YOUR DICK IN YOUR PANTS, and your pants zipped/glued shut!
• The legal maneuvering over my mom's broken leg is still hanging fire in our family. See footnote here.
• The economy is hitting home in libraries across the country. Ohio is slashing and burning its way through their astoundingly fabulous libraries. Our city is sending ominous links via email to articles about other communities' belt-tightening as we approach the budget planning sessions for 2010-11.
• Schedule Nazi just doesn't seem to understand that some of us never want to see her again.
• PTF pissed me off this week in a way that he hasn't achieved for months. Possibly over a year, in fact. Over something insanely stupid. Of course. What else is new?
• [whinge] I work Tuesday-Friday this week. I'm going to ALA on Saturday--just for the exhibits--all day. I work Sunday; Sundays S U C K! And then I work Monday-Thursday next week. So basically I'm working 7/7-16 every day.[/whinge] The problem is exacerbated by the feeling like I'm at work for 7 or so hours daily and get virtually no cataloging done. Since that's the part of my job I love the most, I'm getting whinier and whinier about it, not to mention behind-er.
• Our super-wonderful senior shelvers will be leaving for college in 5 weeks or so. WAAAAAHHHH!!! Am so sad about this. For me; not for them, of course.

There's also the fact that the new director, while starting to get her legs under her as far as the job goes, is still needing a LOT of information regularly. And we've undertaken to make some rather ginormous changes in some of of our major work procedures...there's a lot of stress. I like change. These will be good changes when they are all in place and understood...but it's hard.

This is the sort of mood where I probably could use a large glass of wine (or two), but I'm too afraid of using alcohol as a crutch (family history + ) so I probably won't. But the inside of my skin itches from all this drama and angst and things to think about that I don't even know where to start. Gah.

Sigh

Mood: OK
Hair: A little funky from yesterday's braid
Eyes: Tired
Listening to: Sparky doing his homework

In case that last line about homework doesn't give it away...this week is psycho. We are running pretty much non-stop.

I picked up Sparky directly from school yesterday. He and I stocked up the freezer by making 12 Dinner by Design meals. Then we went to Target for some more stuff from FIL--sheets, shower curtain, dishpan--and dishes to replace the Corelle we are giving to FIL to use. We ate...something...for dinner at home, but not one of the meals we just made. I worked on getting more of the embroidery done for FIL, but it's NOT going to be finished when he arrives.

Today, I think I'll be taking an emergency T.O. and coming home at 1:00 to clean up the house, make up the spare room, find the &!%*ing kitchen counter. Then I'll pick up Sparky again, along with our PK, take them to our new study group at church. We'll stay there long enough to eat, and then we'll head home to collect FIL's new TV and take all the stuff we've bought over to his apartment. At some point, I need to call parents about using their kids' labor for moving tomorrow after school.

BIL is staying with us for...awhile. I have no idea how long he's staying. I have no idea what the plan is for the weekend. This is really hard for me because I am very much a creature of habit and OCD planning. [This is also NOT a complaint!! It's just life right now.]

Gaaaah.

There are over 40 posts in Bloglines that I want to read, because they are by friends. If you are one of those people, just know that I have not fallen off the planet, and I will eventually come back and read and comment. Maybe next week.

Things

Things I'm trying not to dwell on. I seem unable NOT to dwell today, however; I don't feel good, I don't know what's going on, and the combination of the two makes me weepy and worried. Once the worrying thing starts, all the worrisome stuff jumps on the train eventually.

My sister Marie sent an email a few days ago that included the following paragraph:

We are waiting to hear from [Alan] and [Katherine] about their appointment with a maternal fetal specialist regarding advice about any future possible pregnancies. Her obstetrician recommended she not get pregnant and look at adoption or surrogacy. Her kidneys seem to be returning to normal but they would not handle a second trauma of any sort, according to the renal specialist.

This isn't entirely unexpected news, but I'm so sad. So sad. I don't even want to talk to her or anyone in my family, I'm cowering under a rock in fact, having cut myself off from them--and most everyone else--while playing the "end of the school year busy-ness" card. It's hard to see children, especially new healthy babies. I just want to crawl under by bed.

My other sister, Jean, sent photos of their trip this month with all their kids and kids' SOs. In the first photo, you can see my oldest niece (in that family), Rosellen, her brother-in-law, her boyfriend, and my nephew Jesse. Way back to the right of the photo is my sister in her wheelchair.





This a closer photo of my sister on a different day of the trip, which looks like it might have been one of her "good days." She is sitting quite as straight as she can on her walker with a built-in seat. She looks a lot older than 57.

A good friend of ours just found out she has several messed up discs in her back.

We have friends who are out of work.

Beast is not enjoying his job (insert snort here).

I am woefully underprepared for the next six weeks of my life, both logistically and emotionally.

Church is doing what church does at this point in the year. I'm tired and want an extended vacation from it...

...and from the rest of my responsibilities.

Let's just not discuss my job. I love it; it's making me crazy.

Sparky's body has decided to grow again, so now we MUST shop for clothes for him. He needs pants for Monday's continuation, and shorts for summer, and possibly a million other things that I'm unaware of because he's a fucking clueless moron about everything clothes-related!

I've dropped so many balls all over the place in the past several weeks that I can't hear anything from the bouncing and caroming going on around me. I know people who are deeply hurting, and I can't do a thing about it.

And no, there is no out, no exit, no way around most of this. There is only through it, the Dark Forest of the Present, the World of Deflected Responsibilities.

Ugh. So wish I were ten years old.
{1:30 p.m. . edit: and I'm cranky over the concept of plagiarism right now...nothing like finding something you've done re-created on another URL...}

Bullets

• The sorting of baby stuff is done. Now Katherine and Alan need to work out exactly what should be returned.



• His mother called me last night and I didn't lose my temper. Thank God for voice-only phones! And a mute button, though I didn't need to use it last night.



• It took me 15 minutes to fully wake up in the living room this morning. Gaaahhhh, I don't want to do anything but go back to bed. I think I'll be ok, but I'm T-I-R-E-D.



• How do cats know I'm allergic to them?!?



• I had a very weird dream about work, during which MAS was leading a meeting of Our-Part-of-the-Consortium's catalogers, minus those who don't need to come anymore and those who are too afraid of Brownie to return. During the meeting we were told that only water was allowed at meetings and absolutely no food. She came and picked up Amy's banana peel as an example. At the end of the meeting, I discovered she had brought her dog, and I sort of went ballistic about the fact that I'm allergic to them (the words "I could die!" were part of the conversation--hyperbole much?) and it didn't seem fair to ban soda and coffee but have a dog in the room. I also remember saying under my breath, "This is bullshit." The dream ended with her leaving, and me tearing up the folders we'd been given during the meeting, and my notes.
  
  I wish I could say that this is far-fetched. Symbolic, yes; far-fetched, no. Sigh.



• Beast is driving all over the frozen north for the rest of the week doing sales calls. Pray for no snow, though his rental this week is an SUV.



• Talked to a good friend last night for the first time in months. Her marriage is a nightmare, has been for several years. However, new depths have been reached, and she has decisions to make that just suck. There aren't really any good choices available. Mostly, her husband needs to be taken to the woodshed and soundly spanked.



• Marie and Jan (sister and bro-in-law) are back home safe and sound.



• I gave blood yesterday, and for the first time ever, I beat Beast, finishing in less time than him! Small victories....



• Session meeting tonight. I need to rewrite the minutes. Yuck.



• We had an ambulance across the street one night last week. They left with the wife. We are worried that he beat her up. I don't know if she's ever come back. I hate winter; no one's outside to "run into" and ask what's going on.



• I need to stop the self-destructive behaviors I've picked back up: eating nothing but sugar, and biting my fingernails down to the quick. The sugar messes up my GI tract badly, and my fingers hurt. They also look fugly.

But mostly right now what I need to do is get ready to leave for work. Oh yippee.

You are what you eat

Which makes me a Cheeto. Or a pop-tart.

It also seems to be making me have weird dreams. I woke up yesterday thinking about a guy I knew while I was in college who was a friend of my roommate's. Great guy, totally not my type (whatever that was). He l o v e d Denver and since his dad worked for TWA, he would just get on a plane whenever he wanted. He flew in to see me once. Very weird. Just, very weird. He spent the night in the downstairs bedroom, and I slept in the room right above him. Weird.

Why was I thinking about Rich?? Do I not have enough to worry/think about??

I was noticing over the weekend that I have developed my usual winter fingernails: cracking, breaking, nasty-looking cuticles, the whole thing. Add to the fact that I'm biting on them incessantly, and you get the general picture of just ugly-ass, sore fingers. My face is breaking out too. Hello, adolescence. Can I just hibernate for a couple of weeks, please? Oh, except it's not cold enough; even the bears aren't hibernating this year!

Niece had to do dialysis again today, won't be released till tomorrow (we hope).

I could be a lot more freaked-out about all of this; on the other hand, everything has been put into perspective by recent events. Someone wrote me an email this morning based on something mildly whinging I'd written him, without getting into any details. Here's what it said in part:

Your "outlook" is what you decide it will be. It is not shaped by outside events. YOU are in control. Not others. ... And while it is true that there are days when "nothing good is happening" - those are your words BTW - there will always be another day....

I see his point, but...if I'm in control, I would be reallyREALLY happy to hand the joystick off to someone else, please. Anyone interested?