I Got Nothing

I had the strangest dream about Matt this morning - that he'd come home, there was some weird stuff that I'm not telling about but I should remember the feather.

And then I got up and made coffee and read some blogs which mostly seemed to be telling me things I already know but apparantly my subconscious refuses to believe.

From Beaten to Death w/a Shovel...

The past couple of days I've been packing various and sundry things. Packing always seems to go slowly for me because I have to go through everything; I flip through books and reread favorite passages, I thumb through photo albums and laugh at my ridiculous history, but most of all, I sit down with my boxes of old letters and I reread them. They're like a portal to a different time, like reopening a path between the me I am now, the me I was then, who the sender was, and who the sender is now. Like we're all standing around a dim room having a cocktail, catching up on old times, whispering rememberances into one anothers' ears.

As I sat there in the floor rereading letters from the last two years, I wasn't just swept away on a sea of emotion; I was hammered by it, I slammed into it, I was smacked, stomped, bitten, scratched, punched, and spit upon by it. Endearments fade over time, and when you look at something with a view from a different room, you see that time and circumstance have made the words hollow.

And it was then I realized, and truly appreciated for the first time, that even if you can believe something you read, it's only true for that moment. After then, the meaning fades; I miss yous and I love yous and can't stop thinking about yous become mocking, lose their lustre, they fade like old photographs held close to a flame.

Don't believe everything you read.
The truth is mutable, not everlasting.

...and one of the latest postcards from PostSecret (what hurts more than losing you...is knowing you're not fighting to keep me).

And so, about 10 blogs through my blogrolls, I'm giving up before it gets any worse and going out to the porch to read a book.

Shifting

Someone asked me yesterday what I'll be doing in my new job and you know what? I have absolutely no idea.

I know that the three on-call calls I took in the last 12 hours will be some of the last ones I ever take (although I'll get paid 6 hours of OT, which is nice).

I know I passed my test yesterday (YAY!) so I can do the medical transcription. I know I work in the Medical Imaging Department between the 2 big hospitals. I know I have my first month of shifts which works out to about 30 hours a week. I know that those shifts are in two different areas of the department.

But as for what I'll be doing? Nope.

I do know that whatever it is a few people worked really hard to make it available for me. I know that it's during changing shifts in different types of jobs with different kinds of people. I know that the skills I need to do the job are fully accessible and ingrained so there's no need for me to be worried. I know that what they need me to learn I can learn. I know that for the first month I only have to commute an hour a day instead of two. I know that the stress level is about 1/3 and the hourly rate is only $2 less.

When it comes right down to it, what else do I need to know? All that is good enough for me.

It's funny sometimes that when we're younger we just want to get AWAY from shift work and work 'normal' days like the 'grown-ups' - like somehow an 8-4 or 9-5 job signifies somehow that you make more money or are more responsible but in reality, I think I prefer shift-work. Some days I don't start till 2 pm - some days I'm off by 2 pm and during the summer, that's just brilliant I think. I don't have to schedule appointments during work hours which is a pain. I'm free to meet up with friends who have week-days off.

The other kind of neat-o thing is that I can either wear regular clothes and a lab coat or a uniform! Ha! I can just go to Mark's Work Wearhouse and buy whatever hospital type things that look like pj's (or jammies or whatever) in whatever colors I want! I'm totally excited about that. If I work it right, between the military and my job, I will never ever have to decide what to wear in the morning for work again! That rocks.

And, strangely enough, from the A&W uniform to the 7-11 one I wore in my late teens, that's another thing you want to never have to do again.

Youth, so silly! I've come full circle and it looks far far better the second time around, I tell ya.

there are so many ways to wear
what we've got before it's gone

I Don't Think We're In Kansas Anymore, Toto

I've just totally spent the best years of my life trying to find a decent picture on the net to explain this next post.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't YEARS. And maybe it wasn't the BEST, although lately these days are pretty damn good and.... well, you just never know, right?

Now, with all that anticipation I've just spent 45 seconds building (because I can type 68 words a minute, thankyouverymuch - god - remember in high school and you had to get a whole 35 WORDS on those manual typewriters to pass the course? ha! and oh! that makes me think of the song they played on the radio this morning that took me right back to that high school dance and "our" song, the Beatles - "Saw Her Standing There" being right there again with Grant singing to me and all that feeling of standing on the threshold of the rest of our lives, that bright sharp pain of nostalgia and heart-quick-stop of how I'd hurt him, almost needing to pull over, 20 years later ...).... where was I? Oh right, the picture...

So, I have three of these things, right? One in the kitchen, one in the bathroom (with a cutie little spinning fan which just flings water about) and one in the bedroom. They have a little errrr... forgive the technical terms here.... doohickey that you uh, turn to make the er, lid go up and down.

Are ya following me here?

So, in this little valley-kindof thing we live in it's like a freakin' wind tunnel and when the wind begins to blow I usually 'roll' the little vents down so that they are only open about 2 inches so the wind doesn't catch them. Right? Right.

Last Saturday, I managed to sleep through tree bits crashing all around me, random stuff bouncing off the sides of my tin can and large metal farm implements throwing themselves off the other side of the barn wall five feet from my head during a tornado with Mach 10 winds. Blissful zzzzz's.

It wasn't until THREE NIGHTS LATER that I felt a bit chilly and got up at 3 am to wind my bedroom thing-ma-jig closed and couldn't figure out why the handle just spun and spun. I stumbled down the three steps to the living room for Matt's flashlight and ... yes... you guys are so good at foreshadowing!....

The wind had gotten right under that two inch lip and torn the damn thing (and the entire winding mechanism) right off my roof.

I found it on the other side of the sheep field the next morning.

I hope it doesn't rain soon.

and the way she looked was way beyond compare
so how could I dance with another
and I saw her standin' there
well she looked at me, and i, I could see
that before too long I'd fall in love with her

The Good Ol' Days

I just went back to add a right-hand link to my vault page from RG, (although it needs a little bit of work) and it struck me again how much I miss it. How much I mourn it's clean lines, three columned loveliness and all the things it stood (and stands) for to me.

I have a ton of 'grandfathered' space over there that I'm not about to give up so I'll start to utilize some of it from now on. For now I've brought a little of it back and I think I will link to some more of the old pages over the next few days. There needs to be a 'bio' page and my '100 things' should come back as well, I think. I'm working my way through naming all the pictures and then you'll have the entire-life gallery back again. Is there anything else any of you want to see over on the right hand side as a link? Do you miss the bumper stickers?

I doubt I'll bring back the archives for public consumption but they will be a part of the final site, even if only by private login.

I should be studying. I can't. Do you know the feeling? The one where you are in the path of something you can't control? When you know you have to do what you can and then just let it go? I've learned what I can and the outcome will be seen tomorrow after the test.

After a conversation today I found I also need to visit Calgary. There are people there who need me right now and how can I not be there for them when so many times, they were there for me? When so much of the time they propped me up and suddenly, I'm the happy enthusiastic one - who can finally, for once, do the same for them? If anyone sees a cheap flight from Victoria to Calgary or a cheap rental car, let me know.

My 'old' boss today let it slip that she'd already made arrangements on how to pay me if they needed me to come back for additional training on the system I designed for them.

Sometimes, life has such unexpected colors, yes?

where are you now?
i'm trying to get by with
never knowing at all

Question For You

I always feel bad when I don't comment back to your comments. It's not because I don't want to or that I'm a bitch but because when *I* leave comments there's so many blogs that I rarely remember where to go back to see if there was a response....

You know? Back to that whole toooooo many blogs thing.

But, if you wanted me to - I would.

So, there's the question. Should I comment back more often? Would you like me to drop you an email when I think you've been particularly insightful or witty or just darn cute? Or are you happy and content in the knowledge that I love every one of you, all the time, and even more so when you comment?

You! There! Speak up!

Three Dressed Up As A Nine

(there's no hidden reason for the title other than it's an old song that was the last thing I heard on the radio this morning.... but it's been a while for lyrics, hasn't it?)

So, you know when sometimes you go to the doctor and you can't make him understand the urgency of your concern but then when they're the one's freakin' out then they get you all stressed as well? Like having a police car driving behind you and spending the whole time totally paranoid and running your entire life through your head?

Me, I had this doctor when I was a kid who ALWAYS said, "Well, let's just leave it a bit and see what happens." He told me I had a cold for a year once and it was asthma. Then he told my god-mother for two years she had the flu and then just residual chest congestion and she died of lung cancer from that asbestos factory she worked in for 10 years. Nice.

Inevitably, if I asked him about anything 'prematurely' it would mysteriously resolve itself within days. I had a wart one time that I'd had for 10 fucking YEARS which was gone when I got up on the day I went in to have it frozen off. I shit you not. Even the lump in my ear I had for 7 months that the doctor, when I finally asked, said was just a pimple - four days later, it popped (hey, I didn't know, I couldn't SEE IT). It's freaky.

Then again, have you come to expect anything less from me? Seriously, be glad you're not Matt or someone who knows me in real life - I'm exhausting.

ANYWAYS, after years of him I got into the habit of leaving things for like, 6 months to a year before I asked about them.

So, you know when you go to the doctor with something you think is tragic or skin cancer or the beginning of the end and they are just all totally unconcerned? Lacksadasical? Lassiez faire?

Like, remember? - when I went to LFD (little funny doctor, I miss him) and did the ... "MY GOD DOCTOR, WHAT IS THIS LUMP ON MY LEG? This red under-the-skin hard thing that's up here on the front of my thigh. It's been there for two years and SUDDENLY THERE'S A MATCHING ONE on the other leg. My life is over, it's spreading! Should I call a lawyer and make a will? Can you get me off work for the rest of my short little life? HEEEEEEELP!"

And he's like, "erm, they're little fat cysts. We could cut them out but then you'd have big scars. Like that one they cut out when you were 15 and left that big mark on your arm? Is it like bugging you? Does anyone see it? It's not like you're having sex or anything."

Nice.

Anyways, a few weeks ago during the extremely ill-advised 'weaning' and subsequent car wreck of the Jenster from the drugs, I mentioned that I'd been all kinda sweaty at night for the last 8 months or so.

HOLY SHIT. You'd think I'd suddenly just stood up, exploded and sprayed everyone with infected blood and spit. Pieces of paper started flying. There was muttering and forehead rubbing. Some squinting. A little doctor-restrained-like arm-waving.

I walked out of there with requisitions for five blood tests and a chest x-ray. Including FSH (for boys, that's the girly hormone) - even though I haven't YOUKNOW since Matt left in December, so you know I'm not preggers.

He made me promise not to look up on the internet what he was testing me for so I didn't frighten myself.

(Yeah, right)

Wow, this is getting to be a long story hey?

So, I went for the tests (and since it was two days before my birthday, got wished Happy Birthday in three different labs by a lot by people waving needles around) and never heard back. You know, that whole "we'll call you only if something's wrong" thing? My fantabulous GP's been on vacation but you know, I was completely unconcerned since I don't think there's anything wrong with me, apart from the obvious.

During my regular visit yesterday he went over the results with me.

Let's just stop a moment here and take a look at what I can remember of what he was testing me for..... Early menopause. (hello? just what I need). HIV. Pregnancy. Every blood cell count problem known to man. My thyroid levels. Some sort of rare thing to do with my joints or something that's really nasty and started with an S. The chest xray was for TB and da canca' (which means I can skip the September one this year, yay!) Nothing simple or MINOR, mind you, but all the huge big scary mo-fo nice-knowing-ya shit.

He says, "Well, there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with you. You're really healthy. Every single test is in the normal range and your chest is clear."

(actually the report said "unremarkable" but I choose to believe there is nothing unremarkable about me or my chest thankyouverymuch so I let that one go.)

I said, "I KNOW, big guy, I KNOW I'm healthy. Do you think I might just be sweaty at night because I live in a big tin can in a rain forest?"

well you can say what you like
be what you wanna be
you can suit yourself, baby
but you don't suit me
you're just a 3 dressed up as a 9
you're only, wastin' my time

Can Someone Call & Wake Me Up Next Time, Please?

I was just looking for something to watch on TV tonight (I seem to only be able to study during commercials, must be some weird throw-back to high school) and there isn't anything that's not some terrifyingly pathetic reality show on....

Seriously. And I'm so icked out that I'm tempted to list them but I think I'd run out of words to describe them after the first three or so. Besides, I think I am more disgusted by this instead...

The history channel and it's documentary entitled Third World War

Hey, I know I've been sleeping a lot lately, but how could I have missed that? Was it last month? I could have missed last month altogether I think, I was pretty stressed. Did we win? Are there action toys? Was there actually a bad guy? Did we all band together and get 'im? Wow, I feel sort of bad that I missed an entire world war. I guess I'm pretty glad we didn't nuke each other and the THIRD WORLD WAR wasn't our last one like they've been predicting all these years.

Oh, right, though, is that the one where most of the world didn't show up? I know Canada didn't bother - George Bush told me so. What makes it a world war then? Who decides these things? Wait a second, the History channel is a Canadian channel.

On second thought, DON'T wake me up for this shit - give me a call when someone nukes the media, I'm going back to bed.

Update on Tuesday, August 2, 2005 at 06:55PM by Jen

I think my final Hep B shot made me a little snappy there, eh? tee hee