One of the things that spirals out away from me, when I’m out of control, is my ability to handle my bills and other assorted finance related responsibilities.  Lately this has included my dealings with the EDD (Employment Development Department of the state of California).  My most recent round of fuck up may have cost me $800.  The jury, apparently, is still out.  I’m not holding my breath.  This particular bureaucracy seems to be terribly inflexible, which really sucks for a basket case like me.

Anyway, the out $800 thing is not exactly my shining moment in the sun, and I’m a bit less than thrilled about that.  But mostly I’m perplexed as to what to tell the EDD people when they call.  “You didn’t notice the check didn’t come?”  Well, yes, I did notice eventually, but my grasp of time is a bit fucked up, and it has a nasty way of slipping away from me.  But what do you say?  Last time I said nothing, just ended up crying into the phone.  How the fuck do I explain?  I’m thinking that if it happens again (and I *really* hope it doesn’t), that I’m going to tell them that my fucked perception of time is a side effect of one of my psych meds.  It’s not something I’ve seen listed on any of the side effect sheets, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be true, and god knows I’m on enough of the damn things that one of them has to have the option.

Anyway, I’ve finally quit beating myself up over this incident (it happened last week), and mostly I just find myself confused and concerned about my ability to cope with large, overworked, inflexible bureaucracies.

But mostly I wonder, what is it like to be a functional adult, and when do I start feeling like one?

Caremark can go fuck its self, then die.

There are no words to describe how angry I am.

No part of their website works (including the newly advertised mobile site), no one at their customer service can give a straight answer to a single fucking question, and they’ll use any excuse possible to cancel or deny your prescriptions.

The one working part of their god damn ass reaming, shit sucking web site is the one telling me how much more I pay for my meds than they pay for my meds. Welcome to Furious Rage, population: me. My favorite is the one they refuse to fill because “it’s a vitamin”. (A prescription only vitamin, fuck you very much…) Yeah, that one costs them about $15.  When I try to order it, it costs me $68, and that’s the cheapest price I can find.

The only savings grace is the psych meds. Those are costing them a fucking fortune, and that’s not even including the brand name only meds. I can’t wait to see what those fuckers cost them.

Of course, knowing them, they’ll deny them.  Again. And that’s when I’ll really go postal.  And when I finally lose my mind completely, you’ll find me in Woonsocket, RI trying to launch their corporate offices into deep space. Y’all are welcome to come.  BYOIoD. (Bring Your Own Implements of Destruction)

I finally got a new ATM card, as well as a refund from my bank for the European porn, but I haven’t received my new ATM code, so I can use it as a credit card, but can’t make deposits or withdrawals. Oops.

I waited to hear about the job, didn’t even get a phone interview. Oops.

I’m still waiting to hear about prop 8, but I guess I’m feeling more resigned. I alternate between anxious and hopeful. Except now I don’t even do that these days. I think I’m a little bit numb.

I’m glad tomorrow is the end of waiting about this election. I hope I feel the same way at the end of the day tomorrow.

The labels for work finally arrived. I remember now, I hate MS Word’s mail merge.

I waited long enough to finish one pattern, “Shut your whore mouth”. I then promptly started a new project, but it wasn’t even the one I wanted to start. But there was a reason: much like my beloved “whore bag cum dumpster” project, this is an ode to rage. I drove through a yes on prop 8 rally and promptly lost my mind: the project I’ve been working on for the last week is an Americana sampler that has had the phrase “Sweet Land of Liberty” replaced with “Gaping Assholes Inside!”.

What can I say, it seemed appropriate at the time. And it’s helped with the rage.

Life is in a holding pattern right now.

I can’t really shop for anything 1) because I’m broke, and 2) because I had to cancel my atm card because someone bought European subscription porn with it. (Read: someone other than me. If I have to pay for it, I want access to the account.)

I am losing my mind about proposition 8, which is the one that will determine if my girlfriend and I get to get married next year. I already chose not to do it this year, a decision that may give me an ulcer over the next two weeks.

I am still waiting to hear from the Monterey Bay Aquarium about whether or not I got an interview. See above statement about ulcers.

I am waiting at work for labels so I can finish the project from hell which we’ve been trying to get out the door for several months now. Blah.

I am waiting to start any new cross stitch/embroidery patterns until I finish any 2 of the projects I’m currently working on. It doesn’t even have to be the big projects. I have two I can knock out with about 15 minutes of work on each of them.

I also believe I understand why people sell their work. I didn’t used to, I always assumed that if you put that much effort into it, why would you give it away? But thinking about switching jobs suddenly made the light dawn: without the Bitch Scientist, “Fucking Cunt”, “Shut your whore mouth” and “Whore bag cum dumpster” would simply be funny, with no intrinsic meaning for me. I started thinking about what I’d do with them. Give them away? Perhaps. My coworker or my boss might be worthy recipients. And while I would definitely want pictures of the work, the process of making these items is really where the meaning is. Having a cross stitch on your desk that says “Fucking Cunt” is funny, but the process of making “Fucking Cunt” was the meaningful, or at least slightly cathartic part.

Of course, to sell something, I’d have to finish something. Damn.

…And I feel fine.

I do. The finance guy who has an office next door to me seems pretty shaken up/stunned, and the Bitch Scientist keeps whining about her finance/investment club that lost money, and I don’t quite dare look at one of my current mutual fund statements, but still, shit happens.

Honestly. I understand the finance guy seeming more than a bit shaken up about the whole thing. I assume he has some far deeper understanding of why our whole country is about to go to hell in a hand basket.

But Bitch Scientist can just shove her head up her ass where it belongs. Yes, sadly, your investment money is now either gone, or has paid for some very pretty pieces of toilet paper: please note that this is true for a hell of a lot of us, and could you just shut the fuck up?

Thanks. We appreciate it.

My nurse is a dumbass Apparently he missed the part of my chart that says “Coumadin”, & dropped a huge, open IV needle straight into my best blood draw vein. Blood started pouring down my arm, leaked down onto my gown, and off my knee onto the floor. The nurse turned turned pale. Watching his reaction made it funny.

Originally uploaded by Valued Sony Customer

Two days ago, Rita and I ducked out for coffee, I ran into the Bitch Scientist while getting said coffee, and we all came back to work to discover that the hospital had laid off 84 people. (For those not in the know, I work in the research institute, and am not part of the general hospital staff.)

Rita noticed that when I saw the Bitch Scientist, I tensed up. Drastically.

What can I say, I was caught off guard. I didn’t expect to see her there.

Anyway, Tuesday was a wee bit stressful.

At about 6 PM, Admin finally let us know that there was an all staff meeting at 8:30 Thursday morning. This would be considered an “ungodly hour” here at the research institute, where people are pretty much allowed to keep whatever hours they want as long as they get their work done.

We’ll get back to the meeting.

Flash forward to yesterday: life around here has been a wee bit stressful, financially things are a little strained at home, and the Bitch scientist and interns have made work a bit more high demand than usual. I’m paranoid about my health, the problems with my meds, and maintaining my weight loss. (I’m currently in the maintenance portion of the program, and apparently I’m not great at it.) So when I walked into fat camp, paranoid that I was going to have gained weight again, I was more than just a little stressed. I was late, and didn’t get weighed in at the beginning, but instead got shuffled off to group therapy. I sat down, and instantly experienced something I could only describe as a blood pressure spike.

I promptly excused myself, and asked to see the nurse to get my blood pressure taken. I’ve had this happen before, but I’ve never been in a place where I could actually check what my blood pressure was.

And apparently I still wasn’t in a place where I could check it. I was promptly asked to have a seat and wait. For about 15 minutes. By the time the nurse saw me, I’d quit having the symptoms, and was just stressed and concerned. She checked my blood pressure which WAS 20 points higher than normal for me, but my blood pressure is so low from the blood thinners that every says the number is just fine. I asked her if I should go to emergency. She told me that I didn’t need to.

For those of you who’ve heard the rant about last October, yes, this is the same nurse who said I didn’t need to go to emergency last time as well. (For those of you who haven’t heard the rant, last time I ignored her advice & went to emergency, I was checked in for a 4 night hospital stay when they found the half dozen blood clots hanging out around my lungs.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, ignoring the nurse. When I got out of fat camp (turns out I lost weight this week) I went down to my car, but I could still feel the tension/pressure in my neck & head, and I wasn’t sure what to do. Several semi-hysterical phone calls later, everyone sort of agreed that it would be better for me to go for no reason than be wrong.

Except for my dumbass nurse, the trip was uneventful. I had my first CT scan. I have a picture of my brain and brain stem at home. (If I get a chance, I’ll scan them.) The doctor couldn’t find a damn thing wrong with me.

The assumption is it’s probably stress. Which I have now confirmed.

That brings us back to this morning’s meeting. They talked about what happened at the hospital. They talked about why the current California state budget crisis is at the heart of the issue. (Short version: there’s a shortage of about $10 million a month because Medi-Cal is all jacked up. In that context I can’t believe they ONLY laid 84 people off.) They also how the hospital’s indecision about it where it wants to go in the long term has hindered relationships both for the hospital and the research institute… it was a stressful meeting. Things are not okay. Being grant funded, the first round of cuts for us is tiny, which is good. The problem is that they’re looking at a tremendous cut in grants next year because the available amount of NIH funding has gone down.

In other words, it was the kind of meeting you want to drown the memory of in a bottle of alcohol ASAP.

I spent the whole meeting with a re-surge of pressure in my neck, my head, and, now that I’m looking for it, slightly blurred vision. All the same symptoms I had last night. I had an anxiety attack.

Last night I spent $50 and 4 hours in the emergency room for an anxiety attack.

Dumbass.

I have successfully irritated my girlfriend. Go me!

I didn’t actually mean to irritate her, I just happened to remember that I needed to get a check from her after she went to bed last night. So I had to ask for it this morning. Which irritated her. She doesn’t like having random alterations to her morning routine.

Which, oddly enough, I can actually appreciate.

But I’m supposed to pony up $2,250 in cashiers checks tomorrow (to get the keys to the new house… *Squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!*) , and I figured she’d be really pissed if that fell through because I hadn’t been able to come up with the money because I was $20 short.

Plus, I told her I needed this on Tuesday. And it was a check for her half the bills. So I’m not feeling like I was really over-stepping any boundaries here, I just need to make sure that everything works so we actually have a house to move into next week.

She’ll thank me just as soon as the irritation passes, really.

So Ici has been blogging daily since the new year started. I know that doesn’t sound like much (since it’s what, the 4th?), but that would be more posts than I’ve done in the last 6 months.

So I decided I should post something. And once again I have absolutely nothing to say.

Let me think.

I’ve lost 89.2 pounds. And I should want to talk about that. But I don’t find I have a lot to say. I’ve switched from eating to shopping, which I really can’t afford. I have actually discovered I like clothes shopping, but there’s no point in buying a lot of clothes because I’ll just get too small for them. I do like the change though.

Work is getting really stressful because we’re getting ready to move next month. But there’s not really that much to say about that either.

Life is good, my relationship is good, the electric bill because of all the reptiles is obscene, and I spent too much on Christmas, but it was a lot of fun.

Christmas was rather amusing… My dad’s family was wonderful. My mom’s family was a train wreck. Even though there was no actual family gathering planned for that half the family, names were drawn. Apparently I was the only person who actually figured out how to get the presents to the people my girlfriend and I were chosen to give gifts to. My mother and her sister have decided that my cousins no longer get to be in the gift exchange because they didn’t get gifts from them this year. Please note: they have screwed other people in the gift exchange before, this was just the first time it was the two of them.

My girlfriend got screwed too when my uncle got her a gift, but then told her it would cost her $50 to have it. Then when he tried to install it, he broke one of the plastic pieces on her car. In the end the installation didn’t work out, so he never really gave her anything. (I told him what to get her: a bloody Starbuck’s gift card. Those make her obscenely happy.)

But really, other than the fact that my uncle is a tacky little fucker, none of this is that big a deal; most of this just shows the bad blood that happens to be running through the family right now. Funny. All the deaths in my dad’s side of the family brought everyone closer together. Grandma’s health issues seem to be slowly tearing the family apart.

I should care, I really should, but I don’t. Whenever I get sucked into doing anything with that side of the family I usually regret it, and this slow degradation means I never have to see them all in mass. Frankly, it just seems like a bonus.

New Years was special: my girlfriend got the flu on New Year’s Eve, The main sewer line backed up on New Years Day, and last night’s storm blew a chunk of the fence down in the back yard. But A is better now, and we don’t have to pay for the fence or having Roto Rooter come fix the sewer line.

And may I just say, I was pleased with my Roto Rooter experience. They said someone would be here in an hour, the guy was here in 20 minutes. He had the house back up and running in 30 minutes. It was very nice.

I don’t really have any New Year’s resolutions. I do have 2 goals though:

1. No unplanned hospital stays.
2. Fewer trips to the emergency room.

Granted they’re not exactly things I can control, so perhaps it’s more of a wish list. But a girl can dream.

Happy New Year, y’all!

What I *should* be doing right now is figuring out how I’m going to pay for fat camp this week.

Instead I’m blogging, so clearly that project is going well.

I kind of don’t care if I can afford fat camp right now anyway. They’ll just give me more ass flavored shakes, and I’m really sick of ass flavored shakes.

Not that I’m quite ready to be done… I love the part where I lost 70 lbs in twelve weeks. On the other hand, I really REALLY adamantly hate the shakes at this point. I’m down to three flavors that I can stand to drink, and two of those are at the point where I can only drink one every other day or so, or else they make me want to puke.

When I get to the point where I can’t drink strawberry anymore I may starve.

At this point, I think I’m actually okay with that.

You know, I was going to blog about this, but I’m not sure I want to think that much about it right now.

Suffice to say, I currently feel ashamed about my body, I’m confused and concerned about money, and I’m stressed about a phone call from my aunt, indicating that there’s something I either need to sign or contest. Last time there was something to sign or contest I got screwed. If it involves the same parties as last time, this will be ugly. And the issue where I feel like shit about my body is still waiting for me in the office when I get back.

I can’t believe all this shit right before I leave for vacation. I seriously doubt that 4 days will be enough to let go of it and relax.