Eye of the Storm

Lunchroom philosophy

2008-01-07T05:17:31Z

I wrote the following while on lunch at work. I have a few final thoughts that came to me later in the day that I wanted to include which will be at the end.

So I’m at work right now on lunch. I was thinking earlier today that I felt better today that I had been. Still not great, not sure if it’s even good, but less bad than I have been. For a few moments I was relieved that though I felt weak and my balance was bad, and the muscle contractions I’ve been having are there, I had at least a little bit more energy, I have nearly fallen several times (though made jokes that I was tripping over air), and had about 45 minutes of the twitching during the shrink meeting this morning, it was less bad than it had been, and I was happy about that and somewhat relieved. Then it hit me that I was happy about something that most people would consider horrible just because it’s less bad than it could be. It’s the same feeling I get when I see gas at only $2.99 because it’s at least below $3.00. The sad part is that gas was $0.87 per gallon when I started driving. I always feel stupid when I’m relived about the cost of gas because there’s no reason for it to be that high and I realize that I’m being gouged because I have no choice. And now I feel stupid because I’m happy about something that sucks that much. One of the guys I work with was asking how I was doing, and since he’s a nice guy who I get along well enough with I told him how things were. I told him about the starting the steroid injections sometime soon which will be sent into my system through an IV over the course of three days. He commented that it sucked, and I put a happy face on it, saying that it could have been worse, at least they can treat the symptoms, even if they can’t cure whatever is causing all of this.

I punched out for lunch and went to have a smoke, I was walking towards the front and managed to drop my cigarette pack. It’s silly that something that silly could upset me so much, but it drives me crazy that I have to focus so much just to be able to hold onto something that weighs a few ounces. I’m afraid that if this continues, I’ll get to the point that I won’t be able to pick up a computer, or monitor, or any of a number of things that I need to pick up just for my job. When I drop the same thing three or four times in a row because my hand doesn’t realize that I have too loose of a grip on it, it bounces me between being angry that I can’t hold something, and depressed that it may never get any better. That I may spend the rest of my life with it just getting worse and worse, with maybe a few bouts of it getting less bad. Now I’m beginning to sound like George Orwell. “It isn’t bad, or horrible, or awful, or catastrophic, it is less good.”

I’m on lunch, heated up my food, and I don’t even want to eat it. It smells good, and I know I should eat, but I just don’t care right now. But frankly I’m almost done with my lunch period, so I should head back. I’m tired of this already, and it scares me that the rest of my life might continue like this, on a steadily downward spiral. Today it just seems like it’s too much.

I was walking around work again, somewhat in a fog, feeling as if I were somewhat - no very - detached, and customers kept asking me things, which is, I admit, what I am there for. I was thinking as I walked, that there are three of me. One of them is the largely smiling individual at work, caring and helpful, the one who cares about the store and making every customer happy. Another is angry about all of this, that's the one that screams and wants to beat on something, or at least would if I felt like I had the energy. Then there's a third who is sitting in the shadows in the back of my head, she's sitting at a table in the almost darkness, smoking cigarette after cigarette and listening to sad music, or angry music, or happy music, but all the music of any type is doing is reminding her of what might have been, and how far her world is from what she thought she would someday have. I'm done for now, no wiser, no healthier, and no happier, but at least I have my thoughts out there.

I'll think of a subject line later...

2007-12-21T19:51:23Z

So I just finished writing an e-mail to a friend, and decided to put most of it in here. Partially because I'm too lazy to type it all out again, or maybe I just don't like repeating myself. Given how often I have to do it at work. No Sir, Windows XP and Office XP are two different things, Windows is the operating system, Office is the program which includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint, that sort of thing. Yes Ma'am, we did advertise that product for an obscenely low price, but this is the last day of the sale, and it does say supplies limited, so yes I am certain we're all out, I've had 5 people today who asked me exactly the same thing. No Sir, Windows is your operating system, whether it is Windows XP, Vista, 98, NT, ME, 95, 2000, or any other variety, Vista does not have Office on it, Sir. Sorry, slight work rant. Though while I'm on the rant, why is it that no one can read the fine print, and when they do, they can't comprehend simple words and phrases. A lot of the questions I get asked are understandable. What does "front side bus" mean? What's the difference between an Intel CPU and an AMD? What's the difference between Ultra ATA and SATA? But when I say that that laptop is discounted because it was returned, and the others are all at the normal price, asking me again won't get you the clearance price on a new in the box laptop. Okay, so I'll try to be done with the work bitches.

Anyway, so slightly edited e-mail is as follows:
I had my follow up neurologist appointment early this morning. Well, now he's not so certain that it's not MS. <Last time I saw him he said he was pretty sure I didn't have MS because my symptoms didn't match the spots in my brain. I've had additional symptoms resulting in more missed work and two more ER visits (One hospital didn't take my personal information until an hour after the symptoms had stopped. So I left.) My B12 is something like 227, and the normal range is 229-900, so technically my B12 is low, which is weird because it's found primarily in meat, so since I'm a carnivore, it shouldn't be low. That was technically low, though he doesn't think the number being low is anything that could cause these symptoms, but it could be caused by something which is also causing something else, he's just not sure. Though I did test positive for some sort of auto immune disease. My aunt has MS, my cousin and one of my sisters has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and there are a couple of other auto immune things in the women in the family, so... The radiologist also noted two places where there was an abnormality of the neck MRI, but no slipped disks or anything like that. Also, I don't have Lyme disease. So at this point, he's doing more blood work to try and rule out some other things that he's pretty sure it's not, but can't be certain until the blood tests are back. With Christmas and everything, it won't be until January that he'll have the results, but if they come back normal (or without saying I have something he doesn't think I have) then he's going to try giving me a steroid IV which is the normal treatment for MS to see if it has an effect. It's apparently an IV steroid injection over three days, so it doesn't sound like much fun, but if it helps, it might be a clue that that's what it is. Unfortunately since my body reacts strangely to a number of medications and such, he said that he might have to start me with a really low dose and then increase it to see if I just need a higher dose or a different kind. So all in all, it came down to "It's not the last set of things I thought it wasn't, but it might be one of the things I thought it wasn't before, or it could be something altogether different." But at least he's working on trying to get it figured out. At least that's a good thing though. At least he's doing his best to figure out what the problem is. :sigh: Doesn't really solve the issue thought, but at least I've mostly fallen into a state of resigned acceptance, which is something, at least I'm not panicking anymore. I dunno. I'm trying not to get down about it, but it's kind of scary. Wow, so I used the phrase "At least" three times in as many sentences. Guess I'm trying to find some good in it. Or maybe the worry and stress is kind of pulling me down despite everything I've tried to do to keep me cheered up. You know, after the accident, I had a lot of people tell me I was strong for making it through it. But I still don't think I am. I didn't have a choice, it was keep going or not, and not wasn't an option. But that doesn't make me strong. Though honestly I'm not sure whether it's a matter of choosing to not give up, whether it was too much apathy to stop my inertia, or whether it was just stubbornness. I dunno, I'm still wanting to hit something and take my frustrations out on it, but it seems like too much effort. So I sit and listen to music, and go to work, and continue with life.

Not Enough Obfuscate

2007-12-03T02:36:46Z

I feel like a ghost. Not because no one can see me, too many people can. That's all I could think at work tonight. I feel detached. Like I'm not really a part of the world. I feel like I'm flowing through life, not really living right now. No, that's not exactly it, just... I was walking around doing the paperwork for the sign changeover and I just kept moving through the people, through the aisles, and I felt like I was only half there, half somewhere else. Not quite real almost. I got home and as I was walking in to the apartment building, I was wondering why I keep going on even though I just can't bring myself to really care about much right now, and the only thing I could come up with is that I keep going because to stop would take more effort than to keep going. Not really a good reason to keep going, but there it is. That combined with remembering all of those people in the past who have told me that they think I'm strong for making it through the accident and everything, and the only thing I could say in response was that I'm not strong, I just either had to give up or keep going, and I'm too stubborn to give up, so that meant keep going. I wonder now that I feel like this if it was the same thing then. It wasn't that I was strong or even stubborn, I was just apathetic, and it was easier to keep going than it was to quit... I don't know. A part of me really just feels like I want to break down and cry, maybe hit something or break something, I don't know if it would help, but I haven't for two reasons. First and foremost because it would be a change, it would be too much effort to do something other than what I have been doing. Second because I don't have the opportunity. Maybe if I had it I could conjure the energy to do so, but I don't know...

Though I pulled up a playlist from a little while back, and the song Move Along came on. Seems to match how I feel...

Go ahead as you waste your days with thinking
When you fall everyone stands
Another day and you've had your fill of sinking
With the life held in your
Hands are shaking cold
These hands are meant to hold

Speak to me, when all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through
Move along
Move along

So a day when you've lost yourself completely
Could be a night when your life ends
Such a heart that will lead you to deceiving
All the pain held in your
Hands are shaking cold
Your hands are mine to hold

Speak to me, when all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through
Move along
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)

When everything is wrong, we move along
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)
When everything is wrong, we move along
Along, along, along

When all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through
[x3]

(Go on, go on, go on, go on)
Right back what is wrong
We move along
[fade out]

How much is enough?

2007-11-30T03:47:30Z

So it's been a while since I posted on here. I suppose maybe just because life got busy. You get into the humdrum of life. You get up, shower, dress, go to work, come home, eat dinner, maybe watch a movie or play computer, and then go to bed. Even games become habit. A world outside of this one that we are all caught in. A world in which we can forget working retail or health service, forget problems with family or friends or coworkers, forget all of those things and just be a hero or a villain. I like to play the heroes though. Anyone who has known me should know that. Or be the storyteller. I like to create a world in which I can control what happens. I want to give people a happy ending because there are so few truly happy endings in this world. And maybe it's just because there are so many things in life that I cannot control that I feel almost as if it is necessary to have something I can control. But once in a while something comes along that makes me feel so powerless that even running a game can't offset. I run the Anywhere game covering every creature type (basically) in the White Wolf system. Most everything anyway. It spans the world. Characters have gone to Japan, England, all over Canada and the US, I have created NPCs that push the government and corporations and society into being what they wish them to be.

Tuesday I went to the doctor. He sent me for an MRI. I went this morning. Luckily I'm not claustrophobic. They did the first part, and to keep from moving, I just meditated and lost myself in it. Then they stuck me 5 times before getting a vein so they could dose me with the radioactive dye to complete the test. Wasn't too bad though. I got dressed and came home. I made sausage to eat before work, and then Sam and I did some downtime before I left. I got changed and went to work. Long story short, I started feeling very strange for about half an hour and realized I couldn't stay at work. I called the hospital to see if it was just a reaction to the dye used. They told me to go to the ER, but that it shouldn't be the dye. I got a ride to the ER, and I just got home. They couldn't get the results of the MRI yet because it's not done, but they found out it was abnormal. Which means that there is a list of things it could be. The doctor said that it's almost certainly not Lyme Disease since I haven't been bit by a tick. Probably not Lupus, though it's a possibility. They can't say for sure, but she said that fairly high on the list is Multiple Sclerosis. They have to do more tests, but I have to call a neurologist tomorrow, because they can't definitively say that it's MS without more tests, according to the ER doc. So I'll have to have another MRI, one of the spine to look for spinal lesions and then probably a spinal tap.

So I have a sixth hole in my arms from blood draws and IV and I just want to break down and cry. Jan and Sam came to take me to the hospital from work, and they had gone for food when the doc came in to give me the results about it being abnormal. I nearly broke down crying. Sometimes I wonder how much is enough. Let's see, steel rod in my femur, arthritis, fibromyalgia, high blood pressure, endometriosis, how much is enough, and how much is too much. I think I would have broken down then and there if the two of them hadn't been there to keep me cheered up. But now I'm home. I came in, told Chris, and got into pjs. Then I took my sleeping pill and blood pressure medication and am typing this. If I hadn't taken my pills I know that I wouldn't sleep tonight, even though I was up at 6 am.

I pulled a song out of my library that I haven't even heard in a few years. Runaway Train by Soul Asylum. Most of it seems really appropriate right now...

Call you up in the middle of the night
Like a firefly without a light
You were there like a slow torch burning
I was a key that could use a little turning

So tired that I couldn't even sleep
So many secrets I couldn't keep
Promised myself I wouldn't weep
One more promise I couldn't keep

It seems no one can help me now
I'm in too deep
There's no way out
This time I have really led myself astray

CHORUS
Runaway train never going back
Wrong way on a one way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here no there

Can you help me remember how to smile
Make it somehow all seem worthwhile
How on earth did I get so jaded
Life's mystery seems so faded

I can go where no one else can go
I know what no one else knows
Here I am just drownin' in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train

Everything is cut and dry
Day and night, earth and sky
Somehow I just don't believe it

CHORUS

Bought a ticket for a runaway train
Like a madman laughin' at the rain
Little out of touch, little insane
Just easier than dealing with the pain

Runaway train never comin' back
Runaway train tearin' up the track
Runaway train burnin' in my veins
Runaway but it always seems the same

I don't know, I sort of wish I could run away from this, no I do wish it, but I can't, because if I run away, it comes with me. So running would do no good. I just have to ask "How much is enough and how much is too much?" And for anyone reading this who might be worried about me, I'll tell you the same thing I told two managers at work today. "I'm not dying, and as long as I'm not dying, it's not that bad." Wish I felt as certain about that as I sounded.

I'm going to go watch West Wing and go to bed. I know, ironic to be watching it considering that Bartlett has MS, but that's the way the universe works sometimes. Sometimes coincidences happen, and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Been busy

2007-01-29T07:13:32Z

So things have been crazy lately. Let's see, had twice as many players at the first game as I had at my biggest game in Missoula, and had an extra 4 players join, and one more who had made a character make it to game this week. Wow. Almost overwhelming. Then this last game the players were bitching because I was running an important plot scene with three players, but frankly none of them post on the boards to have gotten involved in this sort of thing, so it's not my fault they weren't involved. Though the scene would have been done in maybe 1/4 of the time if it weren't for two things. Players interrupting us was one, the other was the fact that Jason's kids kept coming in and interrupting us. Gah. I told him before first game not to bring the kids, but he brought them anyway. :sigh: I hate it when people don't listen.

On the other hand, the game seems to be going well, though I can see myself getting buried if I don't make sure to occasionally take a day long break from it completely or something. I guess I just didn't expect this many players to be interested. I'm honestly feeling really intimidated by it. So many people looking to me to set the scene, and I'm the only one who really understands every level of the city. I had a player compliment me and say how impressed he was with the level of detail I've put into the city and the NPCs and such, and now I'm thinking that the problem with that is that I'm the only one who really understands it. If I did nothing else for maybe a month or two, I could probably get everything written out on all of the NPCs and all of the locations and all of the plots. Maybe. There's just so much of it. So it just feels like I have to be there for every scene that happens every game. And it just seems like so much. Between that and school, and everything else I do, I'm just afraid of burning out. Though honestly there is one thing that's helping me hold off on stressing too much.

There's a part of me that dislikes talking about my relationship on here since bluegreenviper reads this. There's always a part of me that wonders if I am changing what I might otherwise say because I know she will read it, but I suppose that considering it's on the internet and anyone could read it, I guess there's not much I can say about that, so... Anyway, going to go call my love and will add more another day. Goodnight all.

See-Saw

2007-01-12T02:39:48Z

Well, I've made my second post, or I am, I suppose that shows that I'm more reliable about this sort of thing than I used to be. Of course I have always managed a few in a row, just not with any long term frequency. We'll see if anything has changed.

It's been a busy week or so. Let's see, my father (or possibly step-sister) broke into my computer to read my message logs, because that's the ONLY way he could have known some of the things that he knew. Found out today that I screwed up on my classes, so I need to re-register again. I feel like an idiot, but... :sigh: Ah well, I can only try to fix it and accept it if it doesn't work.

My first game is tomorrow. Well, not my first, but the first game that I'll be running in Rockford, and I've never been this nervous about a game before. Maybe it's because I actually care what a couple of the players think of me. One is the ST for the game I play in every Tuesday. The other is my girlfriend. I've been role playing with both of them for some time, and I think they're both wonderful role players, and I guess the self-doubt that has always resided in me makes me worry that I won't stand up to their expectations. Of course the second game will likely be even worse, partially because there will likely be more players, and partially because my boyfriend will be coming too. And so, rather than trying to finish up the House Rules for Changeling on the boards, I'm taking a few moments to post on here.

I get paid tomorrow, so that's good. Might even finally get a checking account. What a concept. Then I can actually get my own I-Pass to make it into the Chicago-land area without having to either have the cash for all the tolls or fight with my dad to get a chance to use his.

But the strange part is that no matter how frustrating all of the other things have been, there are a few things that make it so that none of those matter that much. First of all, I really do enjoy my job. I like the people I work with and my bosses, and when I'm at work, I'm about as happy as I can be without the second thing. The second is that I am in love with two wonderful people who love me in return. My father isn't pleased about it, but I'm an adult and have been for some time. And most importantly, they make me happier than I have ever been before, I feel more like I fit that I ever have before. They're even looking at moving closer so we can all live together. This is the first time I've ever dated anyone who was willing to move for me, it has always been me moving. I admit that every so often, I worry that something will come up that will take the two of them away from me, or that they will decide that I am not good enough, but these are the quiet voices that whisper in the night when I lie in my bed alone in the dim flickering flashes of some tv show or movie on my computer screen. These are the whispers that are fading day by day... I suspect it won't be long until they are silent completely.

Live Journal Account

2007-01-04T08:07:52Z

Well, not sure when anyone I know will realize this is up, but here's my first post. You know, some people consider the beginning of a notebook, a diary, a live journal to be a thing of beauty, one that can be molded into a thing of wonder, but it seems as if it is nothing but emptiness which exists only for me to fill it. Once it has been begun, it is okay, it is continuing what already exists, sustaining it. Perhaps it relates to fearing change, because I have always hated change, and yet craved it, needed it. But even if you want something, you can fear it. Really that's something I'm quite good at, but that is a story for another day. Perhaps it is fear of failing to put anything interesting in the post for the first time, or for simply sounding like an idiot. But I suppose whatever shall happen shall happen, whether you like it or not. Luckily, the directions Fate has been pushing me lately has been for the best, and I am loving it, despite how I got here in the first place.