Did you know you could fly

This week has been hell sleep-wise. I got 4 hours of sleep Tuesday night, 6 hours Wednesday night, and about 5 last night. To give you an idea of just how tired I am --

When I was 9 I had spinal surgery to remove the extra half of a vertebra I was born with. Without that surgery I would not be able to walk today. However, it was a very risky and complex procedure, and during the process I suffered some minor nerve damage in my right leg. There's a patch of skin on my thigh that is permanently numb, and my right leg is generally (when I'm not dealing with sciatic tumours) weaker than my left. It doesn't show up much, except in the fact that my right foot turns in slightly and I can't control it so I wear out shoes like nobody's business. And when I get really tired - like having walked a couple of miles - my right leg starts dragging.

This morning, I noticed I was dragging my right leg. It takes a lot for that weakness to show up. But the exhaustion of this week has apparently been sufficient. I am sooo glad today is Friday. I plan to go to bed early tonight and sleep late tomorrow.

Luck? Notice anything about our luck lately? Some kinda pattern?

*sigh*

Seems like no matter what I do lately something, be it big or little, goes wrong. Took the turn into the work parkinglot too sharp this morning and drove over the curb. Scraped up my bumper and hubcap something fierce, and probably knocked the wheels out of alignment, not to mention possibly damaging the tire. Seems ok at the moment, but that kind of stunt can cause slow leaks so I wouldn't be too surprised to find it flat when I leave today. In a way, it's worse, because it's my own damn fault for being careless. I don't really care about the cosmetic damage - I plan on driving her into the ground like I've done for all my cars and a few scrapes just add personality - but dammit I can't afford any repairs, even minor ones, right now. I was over budget last month, and I'm over budget again this month already. And my budget doesn't have much in the way of wiggle-room so when I end up over budget it tends to come from the overdraft, which then sits there gaining interest until I get an under budget month where I can pay it off.

I can't help but figure the world's trying to tell me something, but damned if I know what it is.

Ok, first you need to know some background. There is a country song called "26 cents." When I was in college, I heard this song on the radio and sent a copy to my mother, and it kind of became a thing for us. It tells the story of a girl leaving home for the first time and being given an envelope by her mother. She opens the envelope on the the bus to find it contains a note and 26 cents. The refrain (which is the text of the note) goes like this:

When you get lonely, call me
Anytime at all and I'll be there with you, always
Anywhere at all
There's nothing I've got that I wouldn't give
And money is never enough
Here's a penny for your thoughts
A quarter for the call
And all of your momma's love


This'll be important later, I promise.

It's been a crappy month for me. I've been sick with a miserable cold that won't let up. My computer is a broken mess, and I've spent way too much time on the phone with Dell trying to get it to work.

Today in particular has been bad for several reasons. When I went out yesterday, I apparently didn't close the door to my bedroom all the way, which means a cat got in and decided to express their annoyance at me not being around to pay attention to them by peeing on my comforter. Which meant that I had to sleep last night with just a sheet, as the comforter was in the wash. So I was cold all night and didn't sleep well. Today was boring and I was tired and couldn't seem to concentrate on getting any work done. Then I come out to my car after work to find that somebody left an advertisement flier on my car windshield *covering* my parking registration tag. As a result, I got a $30 ticket that I now have to take time off work tomorrow to go contest, since the parking office closed the same time I left work.

So all in all, I was in a pretty foul mood before I ever came home.

Then I came home, checked the mail, and found a card from my mother. It was an "I'm thinking of you" type card, and inside was simply taped a quarter and a penny.

So now I'm still having a bad day, only now I'm emotionally conflicted because I feel both warm and fuzzy from the card and also guilty because I haven't called her in almost a month which why she had to send the card in the first place.

I think I'm going to go take a nap. (yes, I've already called my mother)

*sigh*

Ok, waking up at 5:30am for no apparent reason sucks. Plus I have to pay bills today, which always depresses me. Damn Mondays.

I'm in a really crappy mood today and I don't know why. I'm easily annoyed or frustrated, and I had to literally bite my tongue to keep myself from making a sarcastic reply to a person at the reference who as being particularly obtuse. I should go home early today, for everyone's continued sanity.

Ok, ignore this post if you don't want to listen to me whinge.

Let's see . . . on Saturday I was sitting on my balcony in my hammock chair (which has been hanging from the same hook for several weeks and never gave me any cause for concern before), when the hook holding it suddenly came out of the ceiling and plopped me butt-first on the concrete floor. Then the wooden cross-bar fell on my head. It hurt, but once I got over the shock and picked myself back up the pain faded to a dull ache and I figured I was mostly bruised. It actually got better for a few days, until yesterday it started getting slightly worse again, and by last night and today I'm having extreme amounts of pain every time I change position - from sitting to standing and vice versa. And don't even talk to me about lying down. Sure it feels great while I'm doing it, but getting down and getting up again are excruciating. Now I'm beginning to think I've actually cracked my tailbone. Of course, my doctor's office is closed because of the hurricane and the only other alternative is the Emergency Room which takes forever on a good day, which the week after a major hurricane is not. And it's not like they can do anything about it except tell me to move as little as possible and maybe give me crutches, so I basically have to wait for my doctor to open so I can get it confirmed. shadesong, this probably means I won't be able to dance with you at the Flogging Molly concert, which really sucks because Flogging Molly is not the kind of band you want to stand or sit quietly for, which is about all I'm going to be able to do :-(

What else? Monday I went into work for the first time after Gustav and it took me a little over an hour to get into work and over an hour and a half to get home. This is for a commute that usually takes about 15 minutes. Several major traffic lights are still out and traffic is beyond horrendous. After getting to the limits of my frustration I managed to convince my boss to let me work from home yesterday and then today I'm working from home so I can get stuff done on my laptop while lying on my stomach on my bed to prevent any further aggravation to my abused coccyx. Tomorrow I have to go in because I have a desk shift and a few other things that need to be done in the office, so I'll be bringing pillows to sit on and hoping they've fixed the traffic lights by now.

Oh, and lately I've noticed a bunch of those little black ants hanging around my computer desk. This really bugged me so I traced them back -- they're coming out of the electrical outlet!! What the hell?! There's nothing for them to eat over here and they don't seem to be after anything in particular, they're just hanging around. I'm worried they're going to get in the computer and mess things up. Everything I've heard about getting rid of ants says you're supposed to target your spray or whatever around the place where they're entering the house, but when it's an electrical socket I can't exactly spray that, now can I? Liquid and electricity don't mix. *sigh*

Ok, I think that's all my whinging out of my system now. I think. If I come up with more I'll let you know. At least I have power.

It figures that on a day when I'm exhausted and just want to go home, I find my car has a flat tire which delays my departure 45 minutes and puts me smack in the middle of the rush hour I *usually* avoid by going home at 4pm.

I'm even too tired to think about watching the lovely Johnny Depp movie that showed up from Netflix today.

So last night I. and I saw Cloverfield. Pre-warned, we sat in the back and that was enough for me to be fine with the camera-work. It started out rather slow, but once things got going they *really* got going and it was great! I thought it was very well done.

Of course, then we came home and there were police all over the place because some guy had been caught trying to mug someone in my apartment parkinglot, right in front of my building. I. actually felt worried leaving me there, but I had to work today, and they'd already caught the guy, so eventually I convinced him I'd be fine and promised to lock my doors, which I did. Everything was fine, of course, but it's still kinda creepy. The area I live in is usually pretty crime-free.

Anyway, today I'm here at work, which is annoying because I'm *still* somewhat sick, but I switched my shift last week when I was *really* sick for this one, so there's not much I can do about it other than sit here for 6 hours hacking. Why is it that the cough is always the thing that lingers on for *weeks*?

Even in as little as 10 days I'd forgotten how much my back can seize up and ache when sitting in front of the computer for 4+ hours at a time. Welcome back to work *sigh*

This weekend has sucked so far. For the last two days I've been dealing with periodic bouts of low-level nausea and major insomnia. I was out of work yesterday, and after about 3 hours of sleep last night and nausea this morning I even had to call in and not go to work today, and I really try not to do that when I work on the weekends because it means someone else has to be called in, but I really wasn't up to 7 hours of working the reference desk.

I really hope this goes away soon.