the russian way

So Toni over at No Eye Contact, please asked how Russians drink vodka. Now this is purely hearsay, mind you, based on what my sister told me, and she did admit that the lessons got somewhat blurred.

Apparently, the first thing non-Russians do wrong is sip. And taste. Neither of which is supposed to be done to vodka. My sister tells me, in a strong accent aided by a few goes at the Russian vodka, that 'vodka is not for the mouth. Is for the stomach.' and that it is served in very large shot glasses, at least two tots she reckons. Having thrown it down your throat, one waits two minutes before having a second, and three minutes before the third. So that's about 6 tots of strong spirits in 5 minutes. After that you can settle down to a steadier pace for the rest of the evening - she wasn't too sure whether there were any other rules.

Guess I'd be banned from the pub for mixing my vodka with about 500ml of Coke lite!

Today was a drive-around one. Pick up a pet mynah who had been found in someones garden, pick up two baby doves, pick up dog and take her through to domestic-rehab centre for treatment, and back to pick up an unknown number of pigeons. Inner-city school, with contractors doing some remodelling, and not being comfortable with sealing pigeons into the roofing they were about to close up. So, there I am on a short ladder, sticking my hand into a gap just arm-width and 8 inches above my head, and feeling around for nests, and then for babies. All in a roof that hasn't been cleaned for about the last 30 years. At least 30 years, and with the nests that the current inhabitant's grandparents 20 times removed had left there, along with all the associated pigeon-poop. And an audience of about a hundred school kids. Not my favourite rescue scenario. Didn't manage to catch any of the parents, but brought home one babe of about two weeks, one of about two days and 6 warm eggs. Might be too soon for the eggs to be viable, but at least they will have a chance. It's unusual for builders here to call us - although some of the biggest, burliest guys I've seen have come in with little birds nestled in a hard hat. Mostly they just clear the nests out if it's easy and close up. And I've heard horror stories about some who just close up regardless - feral pigeons worldwide are regarded as vermin by many people. So, yucky as it was, I really appreciated the chance to get the babies out.

Most interesting pigeon fact? They always lay two eggs about a day apart, in almost 100% there will be one of each sex, and in about 78% of nests the male chick will be the firstborn. No-one has learned yet how they manage this so consistently - there are other species that generally have one of each sex, but none that manage the order quite as regularly. Reason for this apparently is that the male is stronger at birth and for the first two weeks, and if there is a sudden food shortage or some other natural hardship and the parents can only raise one chick, the male will stand more of a chance of surviving. Brings new meaning to loving one's brother....

weekends were made to be wasted

umm...in more ways than one. I achieved the basics - fed all the little birds, albeit both of Friday night's babies didn't make it. Washed the pigeons and slung them out into the aviary. Met rehab-boss at a 'body mind and spirit faire', comforted the body with two new t-shirts, some pure salt crystals (negative ions), and some incense. Green apple and cannabis. Hey..I had to. Don't think anyone in this country would believe that one would burn cannabis incense rather than the real thing. Swear, sometimes I really do think I stopped maturing at 15 - that is such a teenage thing to buy.

Other than that - afternoon nap yesterday and a wordwar with ex next-door neighbour. I figure that one of the rules of borrowing stuff - apart from asking nicely and returning it when requested - is to accept that just sometimes, people might have plans for their own possessions that include using them. And then don't get fucking rude and huffy about it.

So today's plans were so overladen with her resentment that after I'd checked out an injured dog in the informal settlement and made arrangements to pick it up tomorrow for a vet trip, I ended up not playing in the garden and slept most of the afternoon instead. Finished off with one of the most confused and overwhelming dreams I've had in ages. All sorts of people and crowds and feelings of inadequacy whatever I did. And pizza, lots of pizza in there. Not that sure I want to know what the dream interpretation guides would say about pizza-nightmares. Even ones with goat's cheese, rocket and sundried tomatoes.

My sister and BIL are just back from Russia, where she says that the tour matriarch's first task was to teach them to drink vodka like Russians. I suspect the guide had had a few to demonstrate when she came up with this wisdom : 'one bottle is too much, two is almost right and three is not enough'. So I'm about a third of too much, and a hundred percent ready for sleep....

yo...spadework!

...on two fronts has showed results.

First is extracting little animals from the local zoo, for rehab and release. OK, extract means that they give them to me, not that I lead commando raids over the walls at night. And it's only the ones they don't want anyway, so nothing exciting like the polar bears or others that I'd love to see released. Will save zoo-rant for another time - suffice it to say that (as with most things) I'm in two minds about whether they are good or not. So after about two weeks of innocently dropping hints and nuclear missile-strength stories in the ears of the zoo-hospital staff as well as enlisting my rehab-boss's aid, I got to fetch a meerkat, a banded mongoose (pic above, from wikipedia) and two 'padloper' tortoises - on the 'scarce' list in their natural habitat. All of which will be released as soon as possible. Cool thing was that when I took the whole bunch plus some little birds out to the centre, boss and I formed a new meerkat tribe out of the zoo "loser", two previously-pet females and a neutered pp male, and they settled in OK. There will still need to be at least one viable male added before the end of the year, but getting 4 of the little savages together without bloodshed is a good start. So we followed it up by introducing the mongoose to the other one at the centre, as they are also sociable animals, and - two for two...that also went well. I have a feeling that I also agreed to drive them about 500kms north to their putative release site next week...sucker.

Second spadework result is that late last night, the critical applications resource sent me a mail saying he's now available for the upgrade of my products, and let's move ass. Might have had something to do with scheduled meeting, because he had to have been assigned to this - which just reiterates that we should have had this meeting with the client two months ago. So now the big Q is whether between him, me and other DBA contractor, we can push, shove and otherwise mutilate this into happening before the change-freeze. And, of course, the Q for me is whether I really want to...knowing that if I do it will mean 6 weeks of bloody hell for me. Coupled with doing all-client standby will mean that by Nov I'll be suicidal, self-injuring, drinking litres of vodka, irritable as all fuck and all the other joyous responses to over-stress.

Actually, spade-work on a third front too. This one literally - the lavender bed to be has progressed substantially in the last two days, both horizontally (easy) and depth wise (micro-progress). And as a result of pick-wielding my wrists are in agony, while the small trowel work has given me a mostly skinless thumb. It hurts at the time, but that gets overridden by the obsession with seeing progress. It hurts a whole lot more a couple of hours later.

Weekend plans are mostly feeding 6 little birds every 2-3 hours, as well as washing two oil-soaked pigeons again (toothbrush and dishwashing liquid kind of micro-scrub), and meeting rehab-boss to buy tie-died t-shirts tomorrow. She needs the tree of life /Celtic knot one that I bought at the horse show I worked at two weeks ago for her b/f - I need more tie-died versions of anything. I have an inherent weakness for hippy-remnant clothing, especially when it is mixed with things like wolves and dragons. Even if the whole family celebrates every time one of them wears out from overuse.

Shit. For a day where I was lying in the bath crying for the first three hours of it, at least I got something done. Guess that is all I'm aiming for. Heading for the three year mark of this dip, and every day of it would be spent under the duvet or underground by choice. So I kind of have to hang onto every little bit that I get done. And every little bit of bad that gets put off until tomorrow....

big bad wolf ain't at the door anymore....

...he's in the house. Eating whatever he wants, sleeping wherever he wants. Taking over my fucking life, as if it were his alone. It is, I guess. Ain't mine anymore. Or if it is, I don't want it.

T-doc yesterday, who is being really sweet by fitting me and a couple of her other losers in around getting married and having people to stay and going on honeymoon etc. Appreciate her doing it, but almost wish she wasn't. I don't want to spoil things for her by howling on her shoulder. So instead I just keep things superficial - which means her making the time for me is even more of a waste. And then a few hours of hanging around that side of town before having dinner with a friend who used to live on the same farm way back when - was one of those invitations that can't be turned down, not without end-of-friendship results. She didn't even know that ex-B/F was dead. Almost 3 years now. I'd thought it was just going to be us and her daughter, but turned out to be a whole girly dinner-party. With a huge chunk of the dinner conversation revolving around the church that all except me go to, and the politics involved. So I spent a lot of time outside smoking and wishing I could just go home.

Today's highlight was being reminded that the advantage of not having a life is that when p-doc's receptionist phones and asks if I can make it for an appt in 4 hours, the answer can be yes - otherwise wouldn't have seen him this week. He got onto work somehow, and the meeting that should have happened months ago but that is now scheduled for next week. At which my company will try to proclaim innocence about screwing up my main client, and costing them at least a million in licence fees. I'm expected to go, stand up and present the position and plans for my products without mentioning that I've been telling management for at least three months that they need to be pulling finger. So once p-doc had finished pissing himself laughing about me doing presentations (he still doesn't believe that when it comes to faking it I am so fucking verbose), he asked what I was going to say to the client. I figure it depends on what client asks, but I'm not lying to him. Not just to cover the site management's asses. P-doc asks about likely consequences. Number 1 is that I get fired, which he seems to think I should care about. I don't.

Would give me one less obligation to keep hanging on for.....

late again

Last night ended up being another 02h00 in the morning blog-mission. Blame Cranky Professor over at The Cranky Epistles.
Awesome. Not only is she an English professor, but yo! she can cuss! I thought I'd been practicing hard for many years, but she leaves me standing in sheer inventiveness and versatility. Somehow I don't think she ever came close to the PG blog rating.

Don't know why, but I am so reluctant to go to sleep. Not having nightmares with the current meds (Seroquel.....dragons beware!, Nardil too), but just put off taking meds for ages, and no chance that I sleep without them.

Needless to say, morning was the stagger round like a walrus bit again, and only got out the bath finally at about 10h45. Bath naps are different to normal sleep somehow. Couple of collections on the way, and got to the rehab centre about 30 mins after the last oil-soaked bird was washed. Guilt then impelled me to go the very long way home, to drop a trap and pick up another, then to visit Andy's mom in the local informal settlement and drop off cat food as well as all sorts of shampoo and tick dips.

And then home, to feel like a total space-waste ever since. Still have no clue as to when if ever anything that I need to plan for will happen. Not tomorrow, I guess.

For tonight though, it's blog-browsing and Josh Ritter again, until I can talk myself into bed. Guess sleep is the cap on the day, the final sign off on another day of being a failure and an asshole....

invasion of the pc borrowers

poor cat-buddy is still without PC, so she spent much of the day and evening here doing her urgent work. As a result, I'm feeling deprived (of hours of surfing...nothing important!) and over-socialised. Even though she is probably the person I am most able to spend time with, today was just too much time with people. I went out to domestic-rehab centre today too, taking my rescue boy to see their clinic manager. Took him to the vet as well, while he was out in the car anyway - he now weighs 20.15 kg! I haven't noticed how much weight he's picked up recently, but in early July he only weighed 14.5 kg.

Feeling so unsettled at the moment. I know there are all sorts of things that will probably happen this week, but none of them have dates or times attached, except for seeing t-doc on Weds. Have to attend a work meeting with senior people at some stage, but no-one can tell me when. Will hopefully see p-doc sometime too, but don't know when either. Need to schedule rehab shifts to help wash birds. Just need to know what will be happening....

And am drinking way too much this week - started with being on call, and not being able to take enough sleeping tabs. So I'm now off call for a week. Yippee. Have remembered why I don't like the Ambien though - it might mean I can function in the middle of the night, but it really knocks me in the morning. Sleep through alarm, sleep in bath, only get moving by about 10h00...kind of knock. Hohum. Don't know what else to try, given that without something I am still lurking around the house at midnight.

I am so tired of feeling like this. I am so tired of defining my life by meds and appointments and what to try next. Nothing fucking works. I want out, one way or another. Just too long. Too dark. Too lonely. Too fucking pointless.

dead day

So after the 02h30 bedtime, I didn't go anywhere today. Didn't do much either. My attempt at an afternoon nap was irretrievably ruined by burns charity ex-neighbour who, as her least-tolerable attribute has a belief that running a charity means that she is entitled to whatever she wants at any time. She's pissed off with me already because when she wanted me to jump on Thurs and provide free transport to somewhere I didn't want to go anyway, I was miles away releasing animals. So today, after I ignored a phone call - because I had my eyes clenched shut, trying to stay asleep - she sends my ex-tenant with instructions to take my wheelbarrow "because she had already asked for it". Bull. Plus it would then mean having to nag repeatedly and eventually yell in order to get my own property back for me to use it. Not to mention that it was half full of dirt, and my plan was to continue filling it after my nap.

Which I did, so at least I managed my 90 mins pseudo-gym workout. I have a moral problem at the moment. There's a new gym opened reasonably close to home. Now, p-doc would be delirious if I started going to gym, and my one irrefutable excuse has been the lack of one that is convenient. My own interest is far more theoretical than real. So do I join and then feel guilty every day of my life if I don't go, or do I pretend that I haven't seen it. And seeing as it's an independent, and gyms in this country don't have a great record for staying open that long, can I convince myself that I can justify waiting 6 months to see if it lasts.

And now, I'm - once again - listening to Josh Ritter downloads, while I read blogs written by people who are funny and write well and actually have something worth saying. One of the strange of trivia though, is that almost all the blogs I enjoy are written by people in the medical field, across the whole range, or lawyers. I can understand the interesting topics, but it burns that they all, without exception, write so well too.....

"who will love a little sparrow....

....Will no one write her eulogy?
"I will," said the Earth
"For all I've created returns unto me
From dust were ye made and dust ye shall be"

Paul Simon 1964

Been loving lots of little sparrows this week. And pigeons, and doves, and oiled-up seagulls from a spill into a wetland reserve. Writing too many eulogies as well. It keeps me out of too much trouble, I guess. But adds a lot of hurt too.

Dinner with my folks on Weds - in town to look after my sister's kids while she and h/b are attending a conference in Russia. And dinner tonight with cat-buddy - with way too much wine and even way more too much Chinese food, because I wasn't feeling very sociable, would rather have had quiet evening and early bedtime. And quiet weekend has bitten the dust, between cat-buddy probably being here for big bits of it because her PC blew earlier and she has a book deadline to meet, so I offered mine as emergency aid. As well, I have to go out to domestic-rescue centre to drop some stuff off, SPCA to return a trap, and our centre to wash more birds. Even with contracting and working from home, weekends are different. Mostly because housekeeper isn't here and I can indulge myself by spending the day never getting further dressed than my bath towel.

Good bit for the last 4 days was seeing p-doc today. He wanted to know what sleeping pills I've been taking for last week if not the benzo, and conned me into admitting that I still had some Ambien in my collection. Tells me gleefully that he can always see when I'm trying not to mention something cos I get a strange little twist to my mouth. Damn, I used to be the best liar I knew. Although I never lie to him anyway, I'd like to have the option though at least. So he's now made a note in plain English - rather than code squiggles - that he will only give more Ambien when he gets something in exchange. And that when I'm on call, I have to take less. In return, when he wrote the script for the next week, I summoned up my most innocent face when it got to Ambien quantity and didn't say anything as he figured how much he'd give me - he stopped at 1 1/2 per night. Only taking one when I'm not on call, and a half when I am. Shit. I might as well enjoy feeling like I scored something for tonight, because I'll end up confessing next time.

And he wanted to know if I'm coping with the whole call thing. Said I was, sort of. I'm not. Tied up in knots half the time, feel like I'm not coping with anything, never mind work. Feel sick every time the phone rings. This is why I stopped working full time, and it's even worse now because I haven't been doing the stuff every day. Not sleeping properly doesn't help, and neither does not eating or stuffing my face.... and when I do eat, I generally throw up. Don't honestly know if getting paid lots is worth this, but I can't quit now, not with just having signed a years contract.

Shit, shit, extra shit....almost 00h30 and work has just called. For the client I know least about, with a problem I know nothing about because it's a result of other problems they had with the tape robot. Timeout while I throw up again. Guess this one is another wing and a prayer one...if anyone listens to atheist's prayers...

good/bad

the good bit: down to half an Ambien. Still wake up 5 times. But don't feel groggy, and woke up on time feeling clear-headed.
the rest: feeling clear-headed has no influence on feeling crap. Way down in the dungeons crap. Kind of a giveaway when you lie in the bath at 07h15 and cry because the day has already been too long.
and the stupid bit: sleeping in the afternoon for less than an hour. That's enough though to make me too awake to go to sleep early. So the crap day gets to be a crap evening too....

no-name post

Started off with one of the senior client-liason guys on my major account calling. I now know that it has been absolutely pointless sending a weekly report on the upgrade project every Sunday, because obviously, not one of the outsource-at-the- client team has read the bloody thing. So client tells them that client expects other product upgraded 3 times by Jan, even with 3 month change freeze over the holiday period. Outsource team wakes up. At last. Other product has been waiting on my upgrade for at least two months, which has been detailed every week in my report.
They call meeting with me and other tech-team leader for this afternoon. We tell them this again. They panic. How are they going to explain this to client. Solution is that they plan a meeting for next week with client very-senior-management for next week, and tell me that I need to come along and tell said VSM what the hold-up is (waiting on applications vendor staff to fix applications....) - presumably so VSM knows that it's not them holding things up. Good news; meeting with client doesn't scare me. Bad news; if client asks, I will tell him that this has been known for months and nothing has been done by managers to get it resolved. Very bad news; as of next week, it will also be costing client very large sums to run old version of other-product, and client is going to hit the roof. Oh well....I have documentation to support me, and it's been a long time since I've seen someone hung, drawn and quartered by this client, who has a particularly astute nature, a very ascerbic tongue and a huge dislike of being kept in the dark. Something to look forward to, even if I will have to find more officey clothes to wear for the meeting.

This anonymous way of not specifying client, my company, products involved or any other identifying details makes things very complicated, doesn't it.

That wasted most of the afternoon. Saw t-doc in the morning, who is regretting not taking her father up on his offer to pay for them to elope. She reckons that wedding planning and organising is way too stressful - having seen my sister's version, I agree with her. Highly unlikely, but if I ever find anyone stupid enough to marry me, I suspect I'll ask him if we can do the very very intimate foreign country version - just the two of us and the minimum legal requirements. Extra-highly unlikely, seeing as I am way too scared of my mother to try that!

Being tense about not seeing her and p-doc (possibly) for patches of the next month is enough to make me feel like Borderline is at least partly a match. Not that I want it to be, but there are still too many of the criteria that apply sometimes. The self-destructive behaviour, cutting and suicide, and this one...the fear of abandonment or perceived abandonment. Even though I know it's not, and that weeks and fortnights pass quickly with baby birds and standby and digging up the garden, it scares me that I still feel so tense about the possibility. Especially seeing as I don't actually even know whether p-doc will be MIA at the same time at all, and wouldn't consider asking him either. So stupid, given that he knows so much about me, but there are still subjects that I won't either raise or discuss.

Ah hell...let me try sleep, so that when Ops phone again they'll get me in full deep sleep mode. I am terrified about being on standby at the moment as well. Not only that I'll be too dopey to respond properly, but also because I haven't supported most of the clients or their software for 3 years now, and don't remember enough about either part to be comfortable. One client is a new one that I have never supported, which is even worse. And I've had too much of a break to trust my instincts anymore. I used to know that in spite of everything, I was a really hot DBA. Which was some consolation for stuffing up the rest of my life. Now, only the latter bit applies...

all around the town...

...starting later than planned, due to not sleeping much last night with meds "amendment". How come though, I could easily rack up hours if I start at about 06h00, but until then I sleep so lightly? I've always been renowned for my ability to sleep anytime, anywhere - albeit the naps that earned me the reputation have always been the ones that I've had in places that I shouldn't have. I know the theory is that you need less sleep as you get older, but I'm obviously out of step with myself, because I need more than I am getting, no matter how much that actually is.

And then out to a big horsy-stuff exhibition, where the rehab centre had been given a stand. Major achievement was buying 11 Christmas presents - hah! I break the December 20th curse at last! That's the one where you swear blind that you'll do all your Christmas shopping before July, and not only miss that deadline, but are then struck by a kind of idea-paralysis that only leaves you on Dec 20th, and normally means you do all your shopping in one shopping centre on one of the remaining three nights along with most of the population within a 500km radius. And vow never to leave it till the last minute again, only to be caught exactly the same way the following year. Of course, buying things now actually means that by Christmas I will have a)been overcome by wanting to give the gift sooner, so will only have about 3 of them left and b)the remaining 3 will be hiding somewhere sensible in the house where I won't be able to find them until about 28th Dec, so will have had to succumb to the Dec 20th curse all over again.

Apart from the delusional gift-buying satisfaction, it was a long day. Managed to scrounge some money and some possible new volunteers for the centre though, so not too bad. Offered to take the display stuff, including our educational owl, back to the centre on my way home, then offered to pick up an injured bird after that, so only got home to starving cats and dogs at around 18h45 (potentially-starving little birds had come with me), which is now having a knock-on effect on my evening. Don't feel that I have been home long enough to go to bed (even though I am yawning hugely), and by the time I do, will end up - again - not getting enough solid sleep, so will be tired in the morning. And agreed earlier to get up an hour before I have to, to wake the tenant in my cottage up because she has let her mobile phone go flat, doesn't have a charger, and doesn't have an alarm. Ummm, she's also 24, living in a foreign country with a responsible job....why am I having to act like a mommy? Oh, thinks jcat, and hasn't paid her rent yet either, which was due before the 1st...

However - as someone who even with alarms and reminders on the phone etc - still ends up with her t-doc phoning to make sure she is out of bed for time-critical wake-up calls before catching planes etc.....I can't really deny the universe some revenge!

Which reminds me that I get to see t-doc tomorrow. Good. Need it. And also brings an unwelcome thought that I am way too dependent on both t-doc and p-doc, and that the rest of this month is crappy from that POV too. T-doc has carefully made arrangements to see me in between getting married, hosting lots of visitors for that, being away on honeymoon etc, but just knowing that she is unavailable for much of the next 6 weeks is scary. P-doc is back from holiday tomorrow, and his receptionist has found me an appt for Fri, but then it's three weeks before the next scheduled one, so will be on the cancellation list, and I have a horrible feeling that he mentioned some congress that he's going to as well - just don't remember when or where, but there is a vague suspicion that it's the last week or so of Sept.

Sometimes I think that I should stop seeing both of them, and sink or swim on my own again. I don't like needing people. Especially not people with whom - no matter how intimate the relationship is - are intrinsically not supposed to be people that I depend on so much that the idea of them being simultaneously unavailable can worry me as much as it does.

I think the most appropriate phrase would be 'get a life'....

oh yeah, constructivity rules....

- another pair of days where I'm sitting here trying to work out what, exactly, I have actually done. Umm. Not much. Read lots of really interesting web stuff - blogs, and meds research, and news. Some great new blogs. How come medical blogs (many of which have nothing to do with psych stuff) are just so fascinating? And so....educational? I haven't wanted to be a doctor or nurse since I was about 8, but somehow it seems like almost all the blogs I hit regularly are med-related, either from a provider or patient perspective. With regular visits to Drugs.com to look up meds by their foreign names, and to Wikipedia for everything else I don't know. Seeing though, as I'm never going to be a healthcare kind of professional, that probably doesn't count as constructive.

News? Well, IOL had my favourite headline of the day. SA has always had full-service fuel stations, and no-one is going to change that - not only 'cos we're lazy - but it also does provide a lot of(albeit not well-paid) employment. But the editor who let the article about a wage increase slip through headed 'Hefty pay rise for petrol attendance' is due for a new dictionary....

Fetched 2 little pigeons. Collected a Fennec fox from the rehab centre and took him to his new home. Not normally a place we would rehome anything, being the city Zoo, but in this case, a far better alternative than his previous status as a pet, being kept in somewhat inadequate conditions. Although the "owner" had a permit, when NatureCon inspected the place, they withdrew the permit and requested that we find an alternative. The Zoo was delighted to get him, and had prepared a huge and exciting enclosure for him, and they've already started looking for a mate. Ok, bird and beast missions always count as constructive, so that gives me about 3 hours credit.

Oh - must remember to tell p-doc next week (it's one of his permanent nagging points) - I was sociable last night! And - second nagging point - almost sober with it. One single over about 2 1/2 hours, but I did drink a whole lot of green tea instead - had dinner with semi-sane cat buddy last night at the local Chinese restaurant. As always, we both ate too much due to our permanent inability to decide on what to eat, which means we end up going for either the set menus (knowing that they consist of too much food) or choosing 3 or 4 dishes to share (ditto on too much).

And I've now quit taking the midazolam as a sedative. Wasn't doing that good a job anyway, I was still waking up 4 or 5 times a night, but I was really uncoordinated and groggy when I did. Am going back onto doing standby for the IT job for all mainframe clients, not just my "own" one. Which means the likelihood of being called has risen dramatically, and it's all for software that I know really well but haven't been dealing with for 3 years. I can't take the chance on not being able to wake up enough to handle calls. Don't know what I'm going to use instead though. Even with Remeron being sedating, without an actual "sleeping pill", I'm awake till 04h00 - and little bird season is on the go, so they need first feeds anytime between 05h00 and 07h30 (at the latest and only for the bigger babies). And I don't function without at least 7 hours of solid kip. Last one didn't work at all, the two before that were OK, but not great. Guess I wing it for the week on those, seeing as I have a couple of each in the collection, and see what p-doc says when I see him on Friday. He'll probably snigger lots about me having dipped into my savings, and refuse to give me anything else until I give him back the midazolam remnants. And/or the other waifs and strays - I really hate myself for keeping them so obsessively. Only good point is that somehow having them makes me think less about using them, or anything else. Doesn't stop me from keeping the pool hose in the car though.....

backward day

- normally, on a day where I don't have any odd-timed appointments, I have a fairly static routine. Used to be that I went to the rehab centre every weekday morning, and then did other things in the afternoon. The last 18 months, though, I kind of dropped out. If it's possible to drop out from a voluntary job. I do shifts when they really need someone, and otherwise I'm available to fetch and carry, and catch anything anywhere. So most days, I get up before 08h00, feed cats and anyone else who needs it, wallow in the bath - depending on the meds, I often have a nap there too.

Before the bath, I check email; after it I settle at the PC, and either work or surf for most of the day. Meds-dependant again....I sometimes have a couch nap. Sometimes being every day on some meds, and never on others. At the moment, it's wouldn't mind but mostly don't. Around 15h30 or so, I have a break, and do some gardening, mostly until it gets dark, after which I have another bath with oils and foam and other good for aching bits stuff, and then go back to the PC.

At the moment I'm waiting for feedback from work, so it's mostly surfing. Today though, my team leader came to visit, to do site handover on all the mainframe database sites that I haven't been supporting. Somehow, I agreed to do standby, which was one of the things I swore I'd never do again, after I stopped working full time. Haha. With the 6-people team down to 1 and me, I have to give her some time off. It's not only being called - it's also things like never going anywhere where you can't leave abruptly, never drinking too much, in my case at the moment, not taking over-sedating meds like the benzo I've been taking. I wake up 5 times most nights, but when I do, I'm so uncoordinated that even having a smoke is difficult... I keep dropping it. Going to the loo is a mission impossible. My main client has very little overnight callout; most of it is either before 21h30 or from 05h30 on, so I've managed so far. But if there is a higher probability of being called at midnight and having to work, I can't be too groggy to log on. So - as of Monday night, no more benzo. Just don't know what else.

Funnily enough, alcohol might get me paralytic, but it has never stopped me from being able to work. Not debating whether I should have or not - the answer to that is almost definitely that I shouldn't have. Fiddling with production data for huge corporations when one can barely stand probably isn't the wisest choice. But I was a stand-alone DBA for those corps back in the '80s when it was mandatory for the IT (DP, then) teams to be able to outdrink anyone and still work all night, and for a woman in my position to still be 'one of the boys'. And I did, and I was. But never to the extent that I couldn't work when I was paged...maybe I couldn't stand too well, but I could still work. Things like that are why I don't mind admitting that I had a well-developed drinking problem. Nowadays, I'm out of practice - so as well as adjusting meds, I'm going to have to not drink at all. Will make p-doc very happy, as well!

The schedule though, meant that I was out at my lavender-trench for two hours this morning, and am consequently in agony again. The worst bit? Definitely, when I have been sitting with my feet in the hole and digging away, and it gets to having to get up. So my butt is on the ground, my feet are a foot down - not enough of a difference to be able to drop onto my feet and stand. Just enough of one so that I have to use my thighs and knees. Which, I keep finding, don't want to be used at all. And pushing off with my hands would entail using wrists, and those are distinctly unusable at the moment. Even using the mouse has become the smallest possible movement required....

Hell, at this rate, I don't need to get old, I'm having all the joys of being a decrepit 90-year old already.

sore for a reason today

...so, to work out some of my general bad mood, I spent about 2 hours yesterday wielding a pick and a teeny little spade. The pick is to break up the shale that makes up my entire garden from about 6 inches down, and to remove the old bricks that I think might have been a patio a few centuries ago - judging by their cohesiveness, they would last for another few as well. These guys weren't shy with the cement. Unfortunately, the edge of it is right in the middle of where I want the first row of lavender bushes to go, in the famous lavender bed-to-be. The teeny little spade is because it's the only way of getting any of the dirt out without hitting unbroken bits of shale and feeling as if your wrists have just shattered under the impact. So it's pick, pick, pick, and then remove the results one half-cup at a time. A very slow process, and very sore biceps, shoulders, wrists, hands, back, thighs (no, I can't understand that one either...) even after a hot bath with everything that said muscles or relax that I could find in the bathroom cupboard.

Aqua says that her Mom trained her dog to dig holes for her. Mine, although exceedingly fond of digging holes where they aren't wanted, remain completely uninterested in assisting with trench-digging.
The only one who was remotely interested was CJ, and that was only because he kept dropping a chocolate-coloured (from the mud and slobber that coated it) half tennis ball into the hole as I swung the pick. Damn dog nearly got a new hole in his head numerous times, as I suddenly had to abort the swing halfway. And then he lies down with half of him just about in the hole, making little excited whimpers as he waits for me to throw the revolting soggy ball for him to chase and bring straight back.

It's a half ball, by the way, because the first thing he does with a new ball is bite a hole in it. Then he drops it in the pool, so that it can choke the pool-cleaner. When he gets it back again, he tears a few pieces off, and then plays with the remnant. So far this week, I've given him 5 new tennis balls. Weird dog....

cold and lost and sore

...no good reasons. Just am. Which is why I am listening to things I shouldn't be. Like Tom Waits' The Road to Peace.. And Josh Ritter, thanks to GG over at Red,Red Whine. And a couple of other local artists that are equally as sad.

Kind of strange, listening to Waits singing about the Israeli conflict, given that the first time I ever heard him was in Israel, listening to a mixed tape from one of the American volunteers on the kibbutz I was at. She couldn't tell me what the song names were, or the albums, and although I've bought a few of his CDs from about the right time, I've never found them again. But found some other good songs, anyway.

Israel is the only other country I have ever found that I have even considered living in. I like the US, haven't been to Canada, like most of Europe, and a lot of Africa and the Mid-East. But Israel is the only one I could thrive in. And I'm not even Jewish. Then again, neither are a lot of Israelis.

I'm an '80s child, politically. Almost got kicked out of school for 'free Mandela' graffiti. Had politically-aware parents. Migrated across the spectrum from left to centre. Still sitting about centre. Mostly because the government we all wanted so much has proven to be a corrupt ostrich. Head in the sand about AIDS, TB, over-population, crime, economics... so many other issues. Corrupt and hamstrung by alliances and politicking from before I was born. Mbeki and I share a birthday, he and my parents used to socialise together. He is amazingly intelligent. And the worst possible leader this country has ever had and that includes a whole lot of real dickhead pre-94 leaders. At least most of the universe could agree on them being bad. And fight them. Any criticism of Mbeki is waved off as coming from anti-ANC (pick your category here...only thing any of them have in common is not being overly impressed with the current government). Doesn't matter what your beliefs are, or your colour, or your history. The far left, the far right, business, trade unions, rich, poor, homeless or middle-class suburban... All tarred with the same label - the whole if you don't like the current regime, it automatically has to imply that you are an anti-SA apartheid sympathiser. Sucks. I want so much more for my country. I am proud to be South African. I'm not proud of my government and what they are doing to us all. And it's going to get worse long before it gets better.

Anyway - I digress. Israel. I went there in '95/'96, for almost the full two years, across two separate trips. In between I learned Hebrew, so that I could talk to people more - would have learned more Arabic too, if I wasn't so bad at languages - as it was, I found myself sticking Afrikaans words into whatever language I was using because my brain got stuck on finding a not-English word and just grabbed the first alternative available. The original trip was supposed to be 2 months to learn about hydroponic farming from the guys who invented it before I started up on my own here. First place I worked was a kibbutz on the Green Line about the middle of the country. We were a mixed bag. Holocaust-survivors who walked from Poland to Israel, Israeli Jews, Muslims and Christians, so-called Palestinian Arabs. And me. As the only woman in the greenhouses, I was automatically expected to cook the breakfast (the first first thing the guys had in common was a huuuge dose of sexism!) - we started work at between 06h00 and 06h30, worked until the first orders were done or 09h00 if there weren't orders, and then ate at work. Because of me being South African, politics was a common subject. The first thing I learned was that there was just about no difference between the men who were born in the area. Israeli Jew, Israeli Arab, Palestinian...we all lived within a kilometre of each other. It was further from work to my room than it was to cross a paper border. The Palestinians lived on the other side of the chickpea field. That was all that separated us, and I walked home across the line to meet their families and have dinner with them. To the guys, the line was an abomination. They were living where they were born, but because of a line on a map they were meant to be citizens of some arb political entity. As one of the guys, who was also my boss, told me...there are no Palestinian men. Only cowards whose parents were cowards, abandoning their land and their future for religious lies. I thought this a bit harsh, and told him so. He reiterated - they ran for no reason, and stayed for even less; bigotry and prejudice at the cost of their children and their children's children. That thanks to them, he was regarded as a migrant worker, and that he and his family were targets for extremists. That he didn't care whether he carried an Israeli passport or a Palestinian one. What mattered was that he lived where he did, and worked where he did, and had the freedom to do both. As his father had done. One of the harshest things he told me was that there would never be a solution. Because a few hundred thousand had run, and a few million expected to claim their 'inheritance', and he blamed the surrounding nations for creating and fanning the conflict. And for maintaining it against all rational beliefs. He was a proud man, and above all he was proud of who he was - an Arab man who was above religious and political schisms. Who owned his home, and supported his family by working at a job that he excelled at. No-one in the greenhouses cared who had what nationality.

Unfortunately, a bunch of hot-heads did. I heard a year or so later that the border that we had all ignored was now enforced. Not by the Israelis, but by a bunch of kids on the other side of a line on the map, and that the guys I had worked with, and for, could no longer walk across the chickpea field to work....not if they wanted their families and homes to be there when they walked home again. Guess I'll never know whether the sweet-faced kids I knew have seen their dreams come true or not. Somehow I doubt it...

Twelve years on: listening to Tom Waits singing about 18-year olds on the opposite sides of an insurmountable divide. If I wasn't so sad already....if I didn't fear for the country of my birth in some of the same ways....ah hell, anything that involves peace on earth obviously doesn't involve the human race.

So why should I be dumb enough to expect that any individual one of us can ever achieve it for ourselves?

oh dear, how boring can i be?

Very, very boring indeed, if today is an example. After waking up to feed everyone, I lay in the bath for two hours more asleep than not. Then I read 'Jonathan Segal Chicken', which I got hold of yesterday. After 20 years of trying to find it, I walked into the local 2nd-hand bookshop, and asked the owner if he'd ever heard of it. After correcting me on the name, he reached over to a shelf behind him - and gave me a copy! Not finding it might have had something to do with calling it 'Jonathan Livingston Chicken'.

And after that, I spent two hours lying on my stomach dusting the rocks in my one flowerbed (that I'm still digging etc), and another hour positioning 60kg more of round river rocks. The plan was that the dogs wouldn't like walking on them. The truth is that they derive extra pleasure from hurtling across the bed. And then I have to go rearrange the rocks so that they aren't squashing plants and that there's no exposed ground.

I don't think that even Robert Pirsig would find much Zen-ness in that. Dusting rocks. Especially when they are next to the huge dust-bowl that my dogs have created in the garden. Never fear, I have a plan. Namely, 400 kg of pink rose-quartz, which will cover the lavender bed - this will happen after I have a)dug the bed and b)gone and bought lavender, and c)could involve mutilating any dog who puts paw on it. Point A is taking a long, long time though, and an awful lot of pick-work to break up the shale that lies 4 -6 inches below the dust. And I am very lazy.....

spoke too soon....

Baby doveling was dead when I went in for first morning feed at 07h30. I hate it when that happens. We kind of expect, and grow into coping with losses in the first couple of days, particularly with the very young babies that come in. So there's an inbuilt protection mechanism that says "don't get too attached yet...at least some will die", and even so, it still hurts a bit. But after a week, or ten days, there's not only a whole lot of love and caring attached - you can't feed and care for a tiny thing every hour and not start caring about it - but there's also an expectation that if something was wrong with it, it would have died already, if it was just too young, it would have died already, if we weren't giving it what it needed, it would have died. By ten days, you've seen it (in birds) treble in size, get eyeballs, pick it's head up when you go near it - it's a responsive, thinking creature. And it hurts big time to lose them. I don't do baby mammals as a rule, after having a baby meerkat (ok, an already seriously compromised baby, after being burned out of the burrow and sold on the side of the road way before weaning) die in my arms one night. Not only because of the attachment. I also have way too many sleep issues, and when I am sleeping, wouldn't trust myself to give a bottle or a syringe to anything. Waking up for IT work is different - I actually CAN do that in my sleep! And have, many times...

So bigtime bummer. After which the weather picked up on my mood and just stayed grey and miserable all day. I couldn't nap because Gil the handyman was here. I couldn't do anything because of that. Except spend lots of time reading up on oxytocin, as instructed by p-doc yesterday. Interesting stuff. I think though that rather than the artificial versions, I'd prefer what came up # 1 on the ways to produce it: good sex and lots of orgasms. Umm. Blush. Not something I'll get into discussing with him, I don't think. And the other interesting alternative is Ecstasy. Somehow don't think he meant me to try that either. I'm also not terribly excited about things that are given to lactating women to increase milk production. Hey, just call me Daisy. Or Buttercup. Moo...!

best thing about today...

...was getting the last appt with p-doc before he goes away for 10 days. I needed meds as well, but seeing him also grounds me in some way, stops me from going overboard. Weird appt though, in that he is normally not really into therapy, more of a medical doctor. He asks the standard Q's, as an opener, but after that it's usually 'how's t-doc?', as in 'have you seen her this week?'. Tonight though, he kind of pushed me to tell him what exactly was crap about the week, and when I eventually did, he gave a lot more feedback than he generally does on non-biological stuff. Strange, but I liked it. I admire him so much, that having him tell me what he thinks I should do is kinda nice. Less nice when he crapped on me for drinking too much, but then he did once tell me that no-one should drink more than half a beer every six months - any more than that is too much. And I drink way more, although I figure that a bottle in 5 nights is not only a lot less than I was drinking before him, but also within the range of 'normal'.

The (have to have at least one) funny bit was when he asked what I'd brought him - a prelude to most scripts - and I hauled out the Nardil bottle. He did a kind of double-take at getting anything, says 'whats this', looks at the bottle and says 'Nardil. Oh great, my birthday present', and it's so obvious that he's completely forgotten the whole devious bit from last week, so I reminded him that he'd conned me into giving them to him based on having someone who needed them. 'Oh I do!', he says, and then gets the very confused look, and says 'I know it was someone I saw today....but who?'. I think the rule is that he will remember forever the things I'd rather he forgot, and vice verse.

I guess not killing any of my little birds also ranks up there with good things.

On the downside though, my team leader - and good friend - phoned me at 12h10, to tell me that I was supposed to be at the office for a 12h00 meeting. Subject : my performance appraisal. Bummer! I had totally forgotten...after boss had shifted it twice, so at least I had a bit of a let-out. And he would have had to leave after about 15 mins anyway, for another unplanned meeting in the centre of town - at least 35 mins away. Sometimes it's not so good not having my diary synced to the work server.

And now, given that my 17h30 appt with p-doc only happened about 18h30, and we talked (well, he did, at least. He still gave me a hard time as well about not being talkative. Doesn't believe me that most people think I talk too much. But then, I don't fake it with him, which is kind of normal opmode for me with almost everyone except him and t-doc) a lot, so only left there at almost 19h30......I'm cold and tired, and it's late. Bed seems like a good option. I slept so badly last night, awake at least 5 times that I remember. More that I don't. At the time, I'm awake for long enough to know that I am, but not long enough to get up or smoke. By the morning those mostly blur together. The countable ones are longer and distinct, and normally involve getting up either to drink water (has to be cold, from the tap), pee because of all the water I've drunk, and smoke. And wait for the cats to rearrange themselves on me afterwards....good thing I really love them, damn furballs!

around town. and again. and again.

- the circuitous path being a result of heading from one side of town to the other to fetch pigeons, heading back again for another one, etc.... Current brood consists of baby doveling, 5 baby pigeons, 1 adult dove with a broken wing, 1 fledgling dove and a fledgling Rock pigeon. Will try to take all but the babies to the centre tomorrow - after I've picked up another one in the morning....

So apart from seeing t-doc, didn't do much else. Went to the centre to collect a pigeon, and as I arrived, talking to a vet on the cellphone, one of the senior volunteers came running. She stood by the car looking as if she was jumping from one foot to the other mentally. When I eventually got off the phone, she tells me that bosslady is out at a vet with an injured buck, and there are meerkats escaped - that got me hopping too. Towel and net, no shoes available so flip-flops it is, and off we go. I caught two of the four, and then got them back into the cage where the rest were by now really aggro. And then, chicken that I am, I looked at the tunnel that needed to be blocked from within the cage, looked at my vulnerable toes - and sent a newer, braver volunteer who'd already been bitten twice by the one she was bunging back. Working on the theory that she already needed an anti-tetanus shot anyway. Nothing like a bit of nasty little mammal-chasing to get the adrenalin pumping for the day.

DB sent an sms yesterday, saying she wanted to return 2 CDs that I'd lent her, and that she'd made something that she wanted to give me. Refrained from sending the 1st two replies that came to mind, namely to toss the CDs (they are compilations that I burnt to use in the car), and to ask whether whatever she had made contained arsenic or not. Ended up not replying. She sent another this morning while I was with t-doc asking whether I'd received her msg yesterday and saying she really wanted to give me whatever she has made whenever I see p-doc. Resisted the immediate thought to tell her to bin that too, and ended up not saying anything. No point in being nasty. Won't help anything. Won't make the things she said on Sunday go away - guess it won't take away the things I retaliated with either - and it won't change anything. I know that eventually I will think of her, think about the nicer side of things. At the moment though, when my phone beeps to signal a message, I flinch, and look at it reluctantly. Kind of waiting for the next shot to be fired. And as evidenced 3 days out of 4 since Sunday, I am still dumb enough to read them anyway.

Yawning lots, and have an early morning bird pickup, so to bed I guess.

what a highly constructive day

OK, so I fed baby doveling every hour roughly, and the four screaming pigeon babies every three hours. Apart from that I.....umm, I did what all day? Umm. Virtually nothing. Started an oxtail stew cooking for tomorrow night - about 20 mins. Scanned in 5 cards, changed sizes and printed them out again to use as CD covers - hours and hours (must have been). Cut one CD, ran out of disks because other 4 all got errors. Note to the universe - don't buy Sony recordable CDs ever again. Even on slowest most error-free speed, they all bombed. Have never had a problem with TDK. Read fave blogs, read Cybershrink and Cybervet postings for the day - must also have been hours. Updated med calendar for Friday - a spreadsheet that shows what meds I'm taking, how many days I have on hand, how many days I have repeats for at the pharmacy. Currently I'm taking 6 meds at 4 times, for a total of 12 lots for the day. And every single one of them runs out on a different day. And on 4 of the meds, we've changed dose at least 3 times. No wonder the pharmacist gets confused. And I use a spreadsheet to keep track, and recount pills often.

Feeling guilty about meds, because at the same time as I took 120 Nardil out of my collection to give to p-doc on Friday, I weaseled 9 15mg midazolam - benzo - tabs and one or two Inderal, Remeron, Pexola/Mirapex and Neurontin. All except the midazolam are tail ends, where I don't have enough for another dose - the midazolam is a deliberate squirrel. Which is why I feel guilty. I whine about not sleeping if I don't have a sedative, I whine about waking up 4 to 6 times a night, I whine about too-vivid nightmares - all of which is true, and all of which I've had for about the length of this down. What isn't is that the previous med wasn't working (just about all of them seem to have the same limited effect), and he's forgotten that I have 20 Stilnox/Ambien and 46 Zopimed/Imovane from previous scripts anyway. So he gave me two weeks of the benzo at 30mg, of which I have stashed 15 tabs. The sedatives are the only ones I don't take as prescribed, normally only taking half the dose. In this case 15mg is the top end of the range anyway. Even if I take 30mg (along with the Remeron, Neurontin and Inderal...Pexola 3rd dose is at 16h00), I still have the same sleep profile. It's not enough to stop me from saving them, but it does make me feel guilty. I've given him the entire collection twice so far. And shit - within a week I start it again. Only thing I don't hand over are the Zofran, for severe nausea. Only have 4, but am holding those just in case it ever gets to using the collection. Even though CO poisoning would be the primary method. Know how, know where, keep hoping I never find out when.

Cannot believe that I've been awake for about 14 hours, and can only account for about 6 of them, and most of that can't be classified as constructive anyway. At least though, work isn't expecting anything from me this week. And have to be moving early tomorrow for t-doc appointment, so hopefully will do some of things that I should have done today. So guess I should head for bed now.

trying to think of good things for the day...

...to stop me thinking about DB, the fact that I have gotten through a somewhat large amount of vodka, that rehab boss was very cross with me, DB....So :

1. Saw t-doc today, who reckons even allowing for her being partisan in her opinion, she still thinks that DB was unnecessarily vicious without provocation. Even though I got vicious too, after that. And also found the whole 'none of this is true' bit really weird.
2. Rehab boss has now said that feral pigeons will all be seen in the clinic first, tested for trich, and breaks and things will be assessed by her before I get called for them. And euthanased if she makes that call. Which is good, because it means that it will all be open and aboveboard. And she's happy that they be headed off before they get to the clinic, but if they come onto the property - as yesterday's pair did - they will also come into the clinic. Seeing as she can tell when I'm hiding something even if I don't feel at all guilty (and I don't feel the least guilty about saving pigeons, even if the world has enough), I much prefer it this way.
3. I signed off my timesheet at 272 hours for last month. And until various other people do things, I have just about no work. Which means I will probably do just about zero this week. Think I need a break anyway.
4. P-doc's receptionist phoned, and I have appt for Friday, before he goes away.
5. All my babies are alive, and little dove almost has eyes! Well, working ones at least, I know they have been there all along, just not accessible to the outside world.
6. Linked to a blog by a Canadian lady, Aqua, who apart from sounding uncannily the way I feel often, also has about the same list of bad habits, and writes really well.
7. Got to laugh at something - GG's latest post over at Red, Red Whine. Read it!
8. I have drunk an awesome amount of vodka. I know it's not a good idea, and I'm going to have to justify it to p-doc who will be totally unamused, but for the moment it works. I am blurred, I don't hurt, I haven't given in to the temptation to use the blades, and I'm going to take meds and sleep. Probably snore like an irate volcano too, but the cats don't normally complain - a warm body to lie all over seems to count more to them than silence in bed.
9. Oh, and I finally finished James Frey's 'a million little pieces' in spite of having been totally annoyed with him from about page 10. And that was before I found out that he'd lied about most of it anyway. Somehow I don't think I'll bother with the second one though.

from ugg to ugly....

....with a repeat of part of yesterday's afternoon. Namely, the part where I wanted a nap, was limited again to less than an hour at a time in order to feed baby dove, and ten minutes after I slept, the sms from Duckbuddy bit started again. This time I responded, to say that I was trying to sleep and was turning phone off. Which she knows I can't do, because of work. Got a nasty one back, ignored it for two hours, and then sent one saying timeout. Enough of friendship. Enough of nagging and whining. But ended off with a polite enjoy your life. Got back a blistering nasty referring to stuck pigs as more exciting company, and bringing in p-doc - as in only thing I have in my life is obsession with him. Which really got me annoyed, and after that it got really ugly. Until - out of the blue - after 3 more truly vicious msgs from her, I get the all-innocent 'Leave me alone. None of this is true. If you don't stop harassing me...'. Umm - harassment would imply that I was the only person sending msgs, leave me alone would imply the same (ignoring the fact that I'd already told her to piss off and stop sms-ing), none of this is true - nope, 50% is my opinion, 50% is what she herself has told me numerous times. Truth hurts, I guess. Both ways. I'm not denying most of it though - yes, I adore p-doc (but admiring his butt is as far as it goes), yes, I am way down and have been for longer than I've known her (but wallowing in a cesspool of terminal self-pity, while she is working at getting better? Don't think so..maybe the wallowing bit. But her working at anything? Not even in her dreams!), being a bolshie cow (almost definitely), etc etc. Just what I needed to make a crappy weekend even better.

Cool bananas, as my goose-catching buddy is known to say. The friendship has been adding stress since it was revived (at her instigation) after it was killed (at her instigation)....and with work creating even more, I've been battling with DB for the last month. It's just constant complaints about how anxious she is, how tense she is, how miserable she is - albeit she keeps asking how I am, what I'm doing, when I'm seeing p-doc or t-doc, every last detail of my appts with them. The last bit is mostly something I don't share. I don't want to. Will tell her med changes, and maybe one or two funny bits, but not much more. I don't need details of hers either, or of the rest of her weird behaviour. In between meeting for coffee bits, I often find myself almost hating her. Even more than me (and I berate myself for this often enough), she has just about everything. Young, beautiful, skinny, married to good looking, rich, hard working young excutive HB who insists that she doesn't have to work (not that she could hold any kind of a job for more than a day or two before weirdness would become obvious), small kid (who is in daycare for mornings and with full time maid in afternoons). But the downside is that she varies from severe social phobias all the way into full-on psychosis. HB, on 7th anniversary, when she asked him if he thought marriage was good, responded 'its OK'. Daughter is way behind developmentally and is showing all the signs of incipient OCD and social affective disorder - DB has said many things in the past about things that worry her about daughter's behaviour, but guess I'd be slaughtered if I repeated them back to her. Or I'd just be told 'none of it is true'. Well, if it isn't then why the f**k did you lie about it in the first place?

And yet, when I see her, even with all the complaints, I somehow like her all over again. She's smart and funny. And sweet, and oh so vulnerable.

Just can't handle the constant demands though - I grew up in an age where if you want to talk to someone, you meet them, or phone them, and you have a conversation. And after that you continue your life. Not this 20 or 30 (think the worst one was 37) text messages a day, so that there is constant interruption of whatever you're doing. I've been keeping it down since the reinstatement of friendship from her, by not responding immediately, which limits it to around 10 a day. But it's intrusive - even if, according to her I don't have a life anyway other than my 'obsession'.

This morning, as I should have expected but didn't, there was a horribly sad apology, saying she wishes she could take back everything she said, that she wishes it hadn't happened and she's sorry for hurting my feelings. I'm sorry too, Duck. I would have rather it didn't get as ugly as it did, and I didn't start it off like that. But it won't go away just because she is sorry, and even though I was equally vicious and regret that immensely, a lot of what she said is going to fester away for a long time still. Which I really don't need. At least I can talk to t-doc about it tomorrow, maybe pull some of the thorns....probably just cry about it. Have been crying most of today already. Guess the bit about no-one can hurt you like the ones you love is very true....

ugg day

starting off with having to leave the house before 08h00. On a Saturday. OK, I would have been up at about the same time to feed littlest bird, the 5 day old dove, but would have been able to veg into wakefulness at a more weekend-ish pace. And, of course, when I got to burns-charity buddy, nothing was anywhere near ready. It hadn't even been sorted yet. And then it was out to the deepest depths of a township known for it's poor safety and violence, and the number of hijackings in the area, to deliver blankets to 14 families whose shacks had burned down in a fire caused by someone leaving a stove on and going out. Delivering aid was good, but I can't help feeling that it is so frustrating to see people wilfully building unsafe structures to house themselves when our glorious government doesn't bother, and then having 3 or 4 kids apiece. Not that I generally have much good to say about our government, but in this case, I can see the problem they face. If they can't keep their promises of '94 to the then-population, how on earth can they ever catch up to a population that's in total explosion? Unfortunately, providing a "children's grant" that nowhere near covers what should be spent on a kid, has served only to create a whole child-popping industry, where if you have a few and then don't spend the grant money on clothing, feeding and schooling them, you have enough money to stay at home and still visit the local shebeen for a few beers every night. And then the government is in dwang for not being able to keep up with building classrooms, hospitals and houses for all. It's a lose-lose situation, made even worse by the number of families where one or both parents die of AIDS - and seeing as they won't use condoms for saving their own lives, contraception is even more irrelevant - leaving children of 8 or 10 to bring up a range of siblings from babies on.

And then this whole expanded population ends up in a situation where one person's carelessness destroys a dozen makeshift homes because they are built illegally in someone else's backyard - all adjoining, reached by a road where a fire engine couldn't fit, and a pathway between structures where even two skinny people can't pass each other without becoming very close friends....

Followed by handyman - whose planned workday had necessitated the earliness of the delivery mission - phoning to tell me he hadn't brought any of the tools needed to do any of the jobs planned. Now seeing as he had the list, and was quite able to tell me how much he wanted to be paid for the jobs on it, he can't tell me that he didn't know what was involved. Or what would be needed to do it. And to add to my ire, he then told my housekeeper that he was completely finished in the bathroom. Umm...no. I don't regard having underneath half the bath full of rubble and not closed in, taps sticking out of bare concrete, and a huge chunk of old lintel sticking out of the wall as completely finished. When/if he appears next weekend, I think it is time for a serious chat with young Gil about what is needed if he thinks he can run his own business, and that based on his performance over the last few weeks I can't recommend him to other people, especially not my friends.

After which the electricity went off. And stayed off from 13h30 till after 18h30. I can manage being caffeine-deprived and reading by candlelight, but I have an inch long doveling who almost died as I watched - baby birds need to be kept warm, and have a higher body temperature than we do, and without power none of my heating methods are usable for a small bird. I was almost ready to start phoning around for someone to take him and the two pigeons of about 9 days who were also chilling down, when I came up with a temporary method which entailed running the hot water till it reached max temp, and then surrounding the babies with small plastic containers of hot water, and changing them every 40 mins or so. TG the power came on before the geyser got too cold to do that, and birdlings were all still alive - won't know until the morning whether the cold impacted their body functions too much or not.

Couldn't have the afternoon nap I wanted because of the water changes, so was trying to manage little power-naps. Every single one of which was interrupted by a whining text message from DB because she was bored - her hubby was playing golf, and she is incapable of amusing herself for even half an hour. Bit my fingers to stop myself from rude replies like read a fricking book, or watch videos with your kid, but just do something that doesn't involve nagging me!

Guess it's clear that the meds haven't transformed my mood yet...

post between yawns...

....past my bedtime anyway, but for some reason I've been yawning all day. Maybe because yet again, the slow and leisurely start to my day that I've gotten to need was interrrupted. This time, to go and assess a rabbit catch. Yep, those wild and vicious feral bunnies are at it again. This lot have established residence in a stormwater drain, and produced 7 cute and fluffy offspring. And a whole bunch of people are really worried about what will happen when we start getting spring rains, as well as the probability of them getting run over when they sit in the road sunning themselves, or being turned into rabbit pie by vagrants who hang out in the park across the road. Conned cat-buddy into meeting me there this afternoon just before dusk to have a go at catching them. Only definite answer is that rabbit pie is unlikely - these babies know very well that safety is at least 6 ft into the pipes, and make themselves very scarce very fast. The rest of it they'll have to take their chances on. Best part was when cat-buddy started describing what we must look like - two fat middle-aged ladies lying in the road with their heads stuck into a drain, and how she could just picture the cartoon of us with a tyre track across all 4 of our legs. And when I phoned rehab boss to tell her of the notable lack of success, she started snickering as she told me that we had obviously failed because we weren't making proper carrotty-noises (which cat-buddy then told me was something she'd told boss earlier, that came from a Noddy book in her childhood, and which had had boss in convulsions for most of the afternoon).

After the morning's bunny-recon mission, it was out to the cat and dog welfare group with the lady who lives in the informal settlement up the road whose cat got me involved in the animals there when he was hurt over Easter. She wants to learn more, so that she can serve as a central contact point between the welfare group and the residents. So I took her through for a lesson in basic handling and initial assessment, which was really interesting for me too. And then back to not catch bunnies. After which cat-buddy and I convinced each other that going for a quick meal together was a good idea. It was, apart from the quick bit.

And to round off the evening, a phone-call from burns victim charity ex-neighbour, to tell me that there was a bad fire in one of the township areas, and to twist my arm into transporting her there tomorrow early with a load of blankets and other aid for the people who lost their homes. Which then means racing home again, because Gil the handyman will be here tomorrow, and I didn't get to buying the kitchen cupboards I was supposed to have bought this afternoon.

Shit....sometimes I remember how much I used to accomplish before I started feeling so down. And marvel that I regard a day in which I do (adding it all up except for supper) about 4 hours of stuff as being completely full and chaotic. I used to do a full shift at the rehab centre and still accomplish more than I do now. And still fit in some other work and going out. I want that back, soon. P-doc yesterday reckoned that we give current mix another week at different dosages, and then move on to plan # can't even remember what number this would be, if I was counting. His major achievement for the session though was conning me into giving up the unopened bottle of Nardil, which is 120 of the 274 - when I realised that he'd finally come up with a reason to give them to him that I couldn't ignore, I told him he was way too devious. Yes, he said happily, he's the most devious person I'll ever meet, but it's taken him years of practice and he only does it to achieve good things. Couldn't argue that either, so I guess next week he gets the bottle. Told him as well that he's the biggest giveaway as to whether something is worth keeping in the collection - the more he wants it handed over, the more likely it is to hurt, and the less likely he is to get it. On the other hand, if he doesn't nag, he's not going to get it either.
To bed, while it's still today.....

and again.....

...still sore, tired and stressed. At least I managed to put in a solid 9 hours or work, in spite of my satellite conn giving me glorious speeds of 3K on upload and (wow!) a whole 37K on download for most of the day. And having phoned their help desk on Monday to complain of similar bad performance...it's not worth even trying that route. Thick as pigshit? Nope, much much worse. It was like one of those jokes about support desk calls, only instead of the support desk dude having to be really patient with the user, it was the other way round. He had his list of questions, and oh boy, he was going to ask them all regardless of the answers I gave.

But managed to get a couple of things accomplished, anyway. No garden labour again, I am just too sore. After 3 days off, am beginning to think that maybe it's not all
self-induced by hard digging and hard typing. Am wondering whether some of it might be meds-related. I'll have to remember to ask p-doc tomorrow after I hobble down his long passage and yelp when I sit down.

One of the things I really dislike about his rooms is the long passage from the reception to his office. It's probably about 40ft or so, but he always waves patients ahead of him, so that he follows you all the way. And, thanks to DB, who pointed out that that's a long walk with nothing for him to look at except the patients fat ass wobbling ahead, I am so self-conscious about it! Not, of course, that I do anything different on the rare occasions where I take so long picking up birds that he goes ahead. Hell no, seeing as I think he has a pretty cute butt anyway, I take full advantage. Even though I know that I will automatically then blush when I sit down and look him in the face. Loser....

sore, tired, stressed...

- kind of a frustrating day. I took yesterday as garden timeout, because I hurt so much. And only spent 8 hours working at the PC. So today was supposed to include a good bit of garden labour and IT labour - I managed neither. This morning got interrupted by a call while still in the bath to go catch a genet. By the time that was done, I needed to go through to the rehab centre to drop him/her off, and then to see t-doc. Miserable appointment - all I wanted to do was just cry on her shoulder, but knew if I even started there was no ways I'd stop...just too low to go there at all. And then coffee with Duckbuddy. Which she insisted had to include a second cup, even though I really didn't want to - not because I didn't want to spend time with her, but because of timing. So ended up going straight into rush hour, and taking about 75 mins to get home. Feed cats, feed dogs, have a large drink. Give up on probability of anything constructive for work, and on gardening because it was already getting dark. Have another large drink, and cruise the net for nothing in particular.

I'd kick my butt for wasting an entire day on not having fun, not getting a physical workout and not doing any paid work either - but my knees hurt too much to get my foot that high, and my hands, shoulders and (I discovered today when DB and I were joking and I tried to flex biceps....)arms all hurt too much to find a way of getting my butt down to foor level!

So for today, signing off as an aching all ways loser....sleep well, y'all.

oh, my aching thumbs.....

....although it's my own fault, I guess. I knew I should have done typing at school instead of biology! Being a 4-finger and 2 thumbs typist is OK most of the time, but after a humongous number of 70-odd hour work-weeks, almost all of which is spent at the keyboard, my hands have now reached 'enough' status. My wrists, biceps and knees ache from digging in the garden and/or carrying rocks around for between 30 mins and two hours almost every day. My shoulders are a combination ache, from working and gardening. My thumbs though, are entirely due to too much keyboard time. Told my boss I was going to claim for whatever kind of massage included thumbs, but then told him as well that on second thoughts I couldn't bear for anyone else to even touch them... Even carrying four kitty-dinners through from the kitchen needed extra thought so as to hold the bowls without involving the thumbs. My most erotic fantasies now involve a massage before anything else - yeah, right. Not that anything else is that likely either.

I am sore, and tired, and should have a bath before bed 'cos I'm kind of sweaty from this evenings garden workout - how is this for practical? I managed to perfect the split today so that I spent two hours carrying rocks and paving stones from the front to the back garden, placing them all, and even doing some other small jobs, all at the same time as I worked. Just a question of leaving all the biggest systems re-compiles for the same time, so that while I my keyboard was locked running them, I could leap up and out and do 15 mins outside, and be back to catch the results, cut and paste them into reports, and start the next one running. Technically, they could be done in batch - if only someone could tell me the f-ing format for the commands! Can't log a call for it, because part of the motivation for the upgrades is that the product is about 6 years out of support. And when the office moved, no-one is too sure of where my manuals went. They definitely got packed, but haven't been seen since. So until they are found, and I know the right sequence for about 30 alternating 'x's and commas, I can only run them online. Tried about 15 different combo's in batch against a small system, but couldn't find the magic one.

It amazes me that work both makes me omnipotent and has me throwing up almost every day - sometimes both the same day. Goes back to my Jon-days...1992/93, when I perfected the facade. Not that management then or now know about the puking bits. It worked a lot better then, being a 27-year old, 58-kg toned and muscled, super-fit wearer of short suits, high heels and make-up. But even now, I have enough experience, and enough history to prove me right, and to get away with it. And in some ways, the fact that I am the only person in the office who gets away with wearing nothing but denims, t-shirts and slip-slops (and no make-up at all) - oh yeah, and carrying little birds into meetings, and stopping halfway to feed them - somehow reiterates the fact that I must be good at this. Otherwise they wouldn't tolerate me. Often, I wonder why they do.

Actually, I know why. They tried really hard, twice, to find someone to support my major client on an unpopular mainframe database, for a limited number of hours most months, with a limited future, at a fairly cheap rate. There are permanent people available, there are very expensive, highly skilled short-term people available, but there's no-one as flexible and as cheap as me, there's no-one who can provide this support as well as being backup/coverage on two other m/f database products across 6 other clients, there's no-one alive who actually wants my current job. The first time, the replacement stuffed up, and the client insisted that they see if I'd come back. The second time, they managed to get a higher-paid, much more knowledgeable guy in for this project, but he has set limits on what he does, and will do - which is why they are now paying him for half the upgrade, and me as well for vastly more hours. And this for a project I really tried not to be involved in... I am such a loser. Don't want to do the other coverage either. But I can't explain to my current boss why not - shit, if he had any idea of my emotional instability, I don't think I'd even touch ground on the way out........

wicked duck!

- met DuckBuddy for coffee....she begged, nagged and twisted rubber arms till it turned into a glass of wine. Then she did the same again, because she only had half an hour before having to be at home - until I went to see her new house. And split a bottle of wine with her. Which - entirely my fault - was followed up with another two glasses when I came home. And no work. And I can't handle wine anyway - numerous double vodkas do way less damage than one glass of wine. Something to do with sulphur and anti-oxidants and colourants....even the best of the best will nail me.

And then , adding insult to injury, she msg'd me to say she was listening to Tracy Chapman, so I did the same. Sore head, sore heart, mood to slit wrists by.

T-doc is away for the week after p-doc, and then again for a week at the end of Sept. She said today though that she will be specifically seeing me - and I guess a few others - in the interim. Phew. No long, long month.

What was strangely unsettling though was that she said she has another patient seeing my ex p-doc. And patient phoned her in a total state because she'd called his rooms to make an appointment - only they weren't his rooms anymore. He's gone. So t-doc phoned, didn't get any more detail except that he has left the country, presumably with practice/life partner, cos some doc no-one knows is taking over practice, and moving it halfway across town. No-one is saying where they went, but rumour has it he had a couple more bypass ops - and health is what was given as the reason why he wasn't emigrating to the Netherlands, a few months ago. Part of me wants to say yeah, cool, it wasn't something I did wrong that made him act so horribly after I called him. Most of me though, just feels sad. T-doc said she still has a number of patients seeing him, and none of them heard a word from him about going. And that, in similar circumstances, she has always had a phonecall, or an email, if not a formal notification of the departure. Weird, really weird.

sleepy day..

...reduced remeron or not, (and upped pex and neurontin too), today was soooo sluggish. Even my supposed-to-be-fast VPN to work was almost one line download at a time. So had a bath-nap, worked for a while, had an afternoon nap while I left jobs running, and now, after having semi-sane cat buddy over for supper, am about to sleep again. Mostly due to the very rich oxtail stew that we've been talking about for 3 weeks as the ideal winter supper. Finally made it yesterday, and it's been brewing away all day.....about 9 million calories per serving, of which at least 70% are pure fat - it's a tossup whether I get sick before bed, or have to leap up in an hour or two. Both from the richness, and because I feel guilty about not having done enough work this week.

One of the reasons for changing the pexola times and quantities was the puking thing. P-doc is so much the kind of guy who eats stress and thrives that when I told him last week that I'd been throwing up almost every day since I got hectically involved in the upgrade project, he gave me this really bewildered look. It is a stress thing - hey, you should see me and my Blonde workbuddy over actual upgrade implementation weekends. We literally take it in turns to go throw up out of nervousness. The best thing that happened when we worked together was that she married a very funny, very possessive guy with adult ADHD symptoms. Possessiveness meant that he couldn't bear to not see her over weekends so came with her to work whenever possible, the ADHD kept us distracted, and the funniness meant we relaxed a bit. P-doc found that hard to comprehend - that I could do a job that literally made me sick. Before I dropped out to go farming, I threw up at least twice a day for 18 months. I know IT professionals who have done that for 20 years - it's only when they reach management levels that it seems to stop. Go figure....there's more feeling of responsibility as a peon than when you are really in charge.

At least, one way or another, this can't carry on beyond the end of October - client has a change freeze over the year-end peak trading period, so if it hasn't happened by then, it won't happen until next Feb. Only 12 weeks of being sick almost every day. I'm drinking a stupendous amount less, eating at least once a day (aiming for twice, sometimes even three times) and eating healthy stuff - tonight excepted - and even getting some exercise in the garden. And I have knots in my stomach, nightmares, can't sleep properly at night but could nap out all day.....didn't feel this crap physically when I was casing 4 or 5 bottles of vodka a week! P-doc still mutters every week about excess, and that he's sure 17 doubles (once, only once!) would actually kill him.

up and down, down and up...

...with the meds, that is. I just get the straight down all the way bit. Last week we dropped the Pexola by 0.25mg, and upped the Remeron to (would be) 90mg from 60mg.
Except at 75mg, I still sleep badly at night, but fall asleep in the bath and could sleep all afternoon too if I allowed it.

This week, we go from 0.25mg Pex bid to 0.5mg am, and 0.25mg at 16h00, with that going to 0.5mg after 5 days. Drop the Remeron back to 60mg. Up the Neurontin, which I've got up to 300mg on to 800mg asap. Change sleeping tabs to Dormicum. Lendormin did zip - only interesting thing about it as that it's widely used for anorexic cattle. Nope. No idea why. And keep the Inderal at 20mg tid, and the NAC at 500mg tid.

Chemist is going to love this one - I have 2 weeks each of Inderal and Pexola not yet dispensed, but the Pex is at a different dose from the one I'm now taking. I have a new script for two weeks of Inderal (same), Remeron (less), Neurontin (double) and Dormicum (new), and for 15 days of Pexola split into 0.75mg for 5 days and 1mg for 10 days. Plus I have varying quantities left of each anyway.

I'm back to using a spreadsheet to calculate what I need to take when, what stock I have, whether I have any not dispensed at the chemist - 12 med columns, 3 colours, 9 different dates that I run out on...

If I wasn't a psych patient already, working it out would be enough to make me one. Oh, and somewhere in the middle of most of the dates, he goes away for a week, so I need to work out before then what script I need to cover me for everything from 23/8 - 06/9, given that he doesn't trust me with huge quantities (but I think he's lost track himself), that it's quite likely to change next week anyway and again the week after....

Feeling insecure about him going away. And somewhere around then t-doc gets married, so will also be away. Haven't even asked her about dates yet - even the thought of them maybe both being away simultaneously terrifies me. Been reading an interesting book that as a sideline covers quite a lot of the initial theories on transference. Mostly I don't feel that they apply - until I think about this. Except that then there's also the whole 'am I borderline or partially so' question - mostly not, in my opinion, but I do have some of the markers some of the time. And the fear of abandonment one sticks it's head up right here. Ah hell - all true Gemini's are both bipolar and borderline, I think. And probably a bit schizo as well.

Meds about two hours ago, and I'm starting to feel that maybe I could sleep now. Adios all. Although all seems to be confined at the moment to one lonely reader from somewhere in the top half of SA. So night-night, solitary reader...

just don't know anymore

...maybe it's just running out of energy, maybe it's the med change, maybe it's getting wasted last week on weds and fri, maybe it's PMT, maybe it's the solar calendar. Or the lunar one. Or the gregorian or julian or octavian calendars.

Maybe it's just being a born loser.

Maybe it's payback for every bad thing I have ever done.

Maybe it's that I've outlived any usefulness I've ever had.

Maybe it's just having been here too long, too alone, too dark.

Too much. Too scared. Too lost. Too sore.

And when it gets down to the line, too chickenshit....

What if I'm wrong? If there's a hell I think I might be there already. Heavenly life, if only I didn't have to be here with myself....

What if I'm right? And this is all there ever will be?

Wish there were answers to all the stupid questions.

good intention, but oh what a follow-thru....

my favourite local live music venue has me on their sms gig-guide list. So just after seeing p-doc on thu, they sent me a msg saying my fave local band was playing on friday night. Impulsively, I booked.

Safe to say no-one there has forgotten me, although I haven't been there for over a year. I'm just not sure it's that good a thing, to be remembered at a pub kind of place. The car guard hugged me, the manager hugged me, 3 of the waiters hugged me. By the time I got to my table there was already a drink there. A double,and before that one was 3/4 gone, the next one arrived. The band was excellent, I got nicely blurred, but not too trashed. Got to hear their new song all the way through for the first time. Got to cry in public listening to it. What fun.

It's just I've lost the ability to go out and have a good time on my own. It's not that there is anyone I could take with me either. Wish there was, wish there was someone to come home with. Really wish there was someone to hold at night. Yeah, right. Like anyone with half a brain would put up with a miserable fat loser. Stupidest thing is that it's entirely my own fault. All my life, I've lived in such a way as to put off the only kind of man who I'd be able to live with. Hard to explain that it's only because I don't have one in my life that I do things for myself, on my own. That I'd drop the pretence of self-sufficiency in an instant if I didn't have to fake it just to keep going.

Guess this is what they mean by older and wiser. Not that it helps - being able to see what you should have done twenty years ago, but didn't is just a way to hurt yourself even more. What you could have had, who you could have been. If only. Yeah, if only.....

work hard, play hard....

...which for me means other than a brief foray to the bank (I got paid, TG TG TG!) and the chemist, spend most of the day at my desk doing boring but necessary stuff for the upgrades, cause a moderate amount of kak while I do that. Outside at 15h30, dig my hole some more - which means use pick, shovel, trowel and repeat - until it was deep enough to plant out the potted palm it was meant for. Unpot palm, discover it has spiky bits, get bitten by them lots, eventually just cut pot off with clippers. Put compost in hole, go to get another bag from behind house, come back to discover collie dog eating compost like he'd never been fed before. Put dog-doo in with plant and more compost - some urban legend says that burying their own turds in holes stops them excavating to explore - buried plant deep enough that anyone who tries to eat it or dig it is going to get spiky bits in their nose. Yeah, like that would really deter the dog who has been waiting in vain to eat a cat for five and a half years. Can only hope that it was his turd that I planted, not one of the others that he then feels obligated to uproot. (I cheated, I put in about 6 of different colour, size and shape - in the hopes that I'd include one from everybody!!)

And then mad cat-buddy called - her invoice for the past month's work had just been accepted without quibble, negotiation or outright refusal, and in about 10 days she will get an income of more than she has ever earned in a month before. Same as I did.
She wanted to celebrate though, by going out for fish and chips. I didn't. I wanted to stay at home and die. I owe her one though, for being around when I need to celebrate something, so went out for f&c - and in my case a couple of double vodkas.

Home early, worked lots more, pushed my luck by asking the client IT manager who scares the shit out of almost everyone I work with - except me, cos he's always been nice to me, possibly because he has a similar quick and evil sense of humour, which most people find offensive, but which had me laughing out loud the first time I was exposed to it - for a 'client appraisal'. Either he sends a note to 10 levels up saying tell the upstart cow to piss off, or he gives it to me. If he does it, and its only two pages of select 1 to 4 where 1 is dead and 4 is superman type Q's, about 14 in all......my ass is toast - with beluga caviar! When the topic was mentioned briefly a couple of months ago, and I said that the only client employee I knew - everyone else works for outsourcing agencies - was H and I'd have to get it from him, my boss nearly choked. Just the idea of me mailing this hugely bad-tempered very senior customer to ask him for a favour was enough to make my boss, who came off worst in all their dealings in his previous job, feel weak. Hey, if nothing else, he was the one who ordered my company to hire me as the one and only DBA for their m/f work on his site - but that was about 2.5 years ago, and since then he hasn't spoken to me at all, mostly because my side of things has been problem free. Hope he remembers that night as vividly as I do....

And now, about 6 double vodka's down, and with a p-doc appt tomorrow, guess I should go to bed. It won't have any effect on anything except my BP, but I don't lie to him, so will admit it anyway. What can I say. It's been slow and steadyish, so I'm basically sober, but just a tad less wired. I didn't even throw up tonight, even after eating a whole supper. That's more than the meds do. Given that my personal rules say that after even sniffing an old cork, there's no SI or suicidality allowed anyway, even if it's a downer, it isn't hurting me more than being sober does. Way less so, I figure. Been quite a while since I felt like I didn't want more than anything to just....duck out of here. I'd still like to, it would be so sweet to just be gone, but it doesn't have the imperative drive that every sober night for the last two years (minus 6 weeks and 4 days for good moods) has had. And p-doc wonders why alcohol has so much appeal. How does one explain that even though it might be bad stuff overall, sometimes it's just so nice to not want to die?