Back on the Sauce

I went to work, a little late, thursday and friday. I kind of made it through, but it tore up my throat more than I expected and I spent most of my time thinking about myself, not other people or my work. Fortunately my main job was to wade through the emails from while I was gone, reply to those, take a couple routine training tests (ESD: ElectroStatic Discharge, the unseen damage!), and update some documentation. All do-able. Also, I had to follow up on only 2 adverse events. My tools were mostly well behaved in my absence and one only really acted up
toward the end and my backup took good care with it.

In a weird quirk of fate, I wound up eating with our general manager (actually, I'm not really sure what his title is, but he reports to the CEO and is the top guy at our site). While I hear he's a republican, that hasn't gotten in the way of me respecting his work and attitude at work a great deal. He was in line at Wendy's just in front of me, with another manager who clearly hadn't ever eaten at Wendy's and was befuddled by the menu. I just went because it's close, they have a 99 cent chicken sandwhich which is cheap fuel, edible french fries which my throat tolerates, and Frosties which my throat seemed to require. All for less than $3.50. I wound up sitting with the GM and Mgr. What did we talk about? Tonsils and curly fries. Sheesh. I did try not to talk too much, plus my throat hurt. Besides what do you say when the response to saying you got your tonsils out is that they knew an adult who almost died from tonsil removal? That's a conversation killer right there.

At one point, the GM was doublefisting the phone text messaging and his Crackberry so I brought up my lesson never to invite my brother on a vacation at the end of a fiscal quarter due to similar behaviors. Finally, I just said, "hey, I need some state secrets here!" and we talked a little (a very little) about work and what his big priority is. I mentioned that if I learned one thing in organization and planning classes it's that almost invariably, the longer it takes to do something, the more it will cost. If you have a deadline it's better to pay more up front to meet the deadline than "stick to budget" and take longer because the second option almost always costs more and the first usually winds up saving money and/or opportunity cost. He came back with a super sarcastic, "Gee, I wouldn't know anyone who thinks that way" then when we laughed, a, "well, now the choir is preaching to the preacher". It was kind of fun.

Anyhow, I lived through work, but not well. I got the shakes and spent a lot of time wearing a jacket and freezing indoors. I came home and cracked open the Tylenol with Codeine and to hell with my bad attitude problem that it exacerbates.

You might notice that I'm posting this pretty late. That's because my sleep is all screwed up. I do hope that in the long run this will help. But in the short run, I'm just a dopey mess. I crashed, hard, on the couch last night despite knowing I should just go to bed. I slept through a couple of phone calls but roused enough to know they were happening. Finally, I dragged myself over to bed. Where I was suddenly AWAKE! I started reading Freakonomics. I like their blog and always intended to read more of it than the few pages I browsed at the bookstore. I did not intend to read it in its entirety last night. But I did. Then still couldn't sleep for two hours. I really could have used a good slap on the ass to while the time away but that didn't happen either.

So I finally got up around noon, cleaned and scrubbed the kitchen (hrm, except the floor. I should go do that.), hit the Codeine, read some stuff online, stretched a bit, then went out with flake boy. Flake boy? you ask. yeah. We had a big ol' conversation last week where I explained what I wanted in a relationship with him and told him to think about what he wanted and planned get back together after I recovered and see if there was enough overlap to keep this going. Then my mom insisted we invite him to dinner while I was on drugs and I agreed. He came and was pleasant while my mom nattered about any and everything that came into her head because I couldn't talk and he didn't talk much and she couldn't take the silence, I guess, so now he knows about family stories dating from the depression to when I was about two and a half and that my mom cannot handle more than 2 consecutive days of the same meal. (So that's where I get it from!) On the plus side, we did go out for dinner (Outback) and a movie (Taken) tonight, so he listened when I said that I need real dates on weekends.

Tomorrow, if I wake up, we plan to go to Griffith Park Observatory. (I had planned to drive to San Diego with a friend but I'm so not ready yet. My friend, who is a mom, was smart enough to figure that out for me.) Tomorrow, need to go early to get parking though. He's a morning person, I'm not. We'll see how that works out. Maybe I'll hear the doorbell and phone tomorrow morning, maybe not. I *do* need to get to bed and actually sleep soon. I would get to it if I had more of a sense that I would be able to actually sleep. (I have Predictably Irrational cued up next and ready to read.) In the meantime, I've been saving up "clever" things to blog about that aren't so much about me. You'll know I'm feeling better when the blog is more about things external to me and my personal grievances.