seventhe | Entries tagged with i do not travel well

so mike and i are going to pittsburgh this weekend for my brother's birthday. i had a full list of things to get ready for today - get things settled for the catsitter, clean the kitchen, do some laundry so i have something to wear, pack, rig up my bike for the weekend, sort out my medications (this takes about a half hour every week to load them into my "morning" and "evening" weekly pill boxes, ugh) ... there was a lot.

the thing is, i have been tired as actual fuck this week. because i end up overcharging my energy credit card during the week, i usually try to save up and pay it off on weekends, meaning i need lots of sleep, relaxing, and a good amount of alone solo-time. because of the recent messes (previous posts), i haven't had a free weekend to myself since the middle of june. this means not only am i exhausted, and carrying around the static background-noise of someone who hasn't been able to ground herself and clear everything out*, but of course the house is a mess and i am behind on everything.

(*i am also suffering from not having my Vicodin at the moment; those four hours of reduced pain help me clear out the static noise and ground myself like fuck, but because i have to go back to formal pain management (which is a process) i don't even have that tool in the toolbox right now.)

so anyway, i am tired and pretty strung out at the moment, but it's jim's birthday and mary wants us to be a surprise, so we'll be a surprise :)

so last night, i come home tired from the pain-load on my circuits. i take two tramadol and a glass of wine, which i'm sure my liver is mad cool about but it helps shut the pain up when i don't have opiates. i crash on the couch for a bit, with cats, and then slowly start hitting my chores. i make a pact with myself because i'm watching Chopped on tv, so every commercial break i get up and do a thing. this continues on, laundry and litterboxes and drugs, via Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay commercials (look, i love BBF, it's all fancy cooking and trash talk, that's my jam), until the second wind wears off and i get tired. well, i say, i'll get up early in the morning to finish it.

the alarm goes off at 5:00.

i am having a dream where a group of people (no one i know, which is surprising for my dreams) and i are hosting some kind of event luncheon thing with food and wine for fucking Donald Trump and some Republicans, I guess trying to talk some sense into them or come to an accord or argue with them or spy on them or, i don't know, it seems reasonable in the dream. and i'm some kind of power hostess but i'm focusing mainly on the cooking (thanks, fucking Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay), and trying to make points and break up fights while making sure everyone has food?, i mean at one point i fucking leave an argument to go make more fried cornmeal balls (hushpuppies i guess)???? so like: i'm already pretty discombobulated.
i finally manage to get out of bed, after some snooze buttons, at about 6:00
i head downstairs, turn on the keurig, head to the basement. pull the dry laundry out of the dryer and put the wet laundry in the dryer. yes, i went to bed with laundry in the washing machine. it was literally only there for like 5 hours, it didn't smell or anything
i get my coffee and sit down on the floor to fold the laundry but i'm tired as fuck and end up playing out my stamina in FFBE
i fold the laundry, while finishing FFBE/FFRK stamina, with Iggy and Potato helping. this literally hakes maybe an hour? i'm so tired i feel heavy, like i'm moving slowly because everything weighs 500lb, including my thoughts
i finish the laundry and go to get the cats ready. write a note, set out food, fill their dishes, give them wet food breakfast, get everything set
my brain finally processes that i had a dream about catering donald fucking trump, where i made him bruschetta and fucking hushpuppies rather than punching him in the face, maybe with a knife. i spend a good 15 minutes severely disappointed in my subconscious
it's starting to get close to when i should be leaving for work, and i'm starting to unravel a bit here. i go upstairs to pack. weirdly i fucking gained back 9lb in the month of july, i do not know how, so i'm also trying on everything i want to pack to make sure it fits. a lot of random shit just goes in the bag
i spend a half hour sorting out my pills. i have 20 empty pill bottles and at least 2-3 refills of each type, which makes everything more confusing than it should be. i do not know how it happened and my brain really wants to know rather than focus on getting each med in its appropriate pill box. eventually the boxes are full
i scramble to get ready for work, throw some shit on, the jeans are actually still damp but honestly i ignore it bc they stretch out better that way after a wash. hair goes up in a braid, fucks not given
head down to start loading the car. checking my important list on my phone. get jim's gift in the back seat, bike pump in the trunk because once it had a spider on it. look around the garage, and i don't have my bike rack
it must be in fucking mike's garage
i legit spend 20 minutes attempting to cram my goddamn bicycle into the back seat of my fucking honda civic
i mean, maybe if i take the front wheel off
the front wheel isn't coming off, the brakes are in the way
how do i undo brakes
maybe if i wedge it this way
fuck it we're gonna have to stop by on the way out and get my bike
head back in to wash the oil and smudge off of my hands. i am sweaty, and extremely cranky at this point
hands clean, everything else in the car, head out to get in and go to work
the bike rack is hanging from one of my ceiling hooks
someone was helpful and "put it away"
at this point i am decidedly sweaty, cranky, and obscenely late for work. there's a constant stream of "fuck you, fuck this, fucking fuck, fuck this shit, fuck everything" coming out of my mouth like i'm reciting the world's worst rosary
while taking the rack down the straps get caught in my hair and pull half of it out. everything is terrible
the rack is on the fucking car. the bike is on the fucking rack. go wash my hands again.
get into the car. what's on my seat? oh, it's the post it note of my to-do list. let's check it. i forgot to leave the key for the fucking catsitter
fuck you, fuck this, fucking fuck, fuck this shit, fuck everything
the key is safely in a plastic bag in its place
i am stopping at starbucks if it fucking kills me
literally i do not care if i am fired for being late i'm getting a goddamn starbucks

...

get to work. no one is here. half the group is traveling or on vacation, and the other half is off for 9/80 fridays. all my brain can come up with is "9/11" and i sit staring into space for 20 mins trying to figure out what the 9/11 schedule is
it is surreal
i don't know what i'm doing

so now i really just want a nap. and another starbucks

The first Christmas with the baby was beautiful. Hectic and crazy and not really relaxing, but refreshing in a way. I got up work-time Monday morning and drove in to Pittsburgh to pick up Gramma, then drove up to Buffalo to the tune of a Spotify Christmas station which worked for the most part but occasionally wondered if what we really wanted to be listening to was the Electric Slide.

Jim and Mar and Jos were already up there. This was the crazy hectic part: Josie's ~10 weeks; Gramma's 90; and I'm not sure which of them cried and wet themselves more. Both needed intense help. I love my little niece to pieces and am always happy to pick her up and bounce and BOOP her and walk her around, and I adore my gramma and am willing to help her stand and walk or carry on a conversation. The two overlaid upon each other occasionally makes it hard to breathe.

That's the refreshing part, though: there's something about being surrounded by these people you love so hard it hurts, and even in the middle of the chaos when all you want is a nap you know for a fact that you'd do anything for any one of them. I'm continuously amazed at how much I love a niece who has only been in my life for three short months. Jos has a great smile. I hear that's how babies survive.

Christmas Day was a gratuitously decadent celebration of gifts and ribbons and glitter.

I'm back in the Feymarch because I had to work yesterday. As often happens at this time of year I'm incredibly pensive about my life - more so this year since it's been so dramatic. I want to write about it, but not yet, so instead I'm going to play Final Fantasy Tactics until noon with no regrets.

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/360100.html

Cities/States I was in: 9/8 (Akron, OH --> Denver, CO --> Boise, ID --> Las Vegas, NV --> Tusayan (Grand Canyon), AZ --> Las Vegas, NV --> Phoenix, AZ --> Houston, TX --> Lake Charles, LA --> Houston, TX --> Detroit, MI --> Akron, OH)
Different time zones I inhabited: 4
Flights: 7
Drives: 4

In a 14-day period:
- Longest time period in any one time zone: 3 days
- Days on this trip I had to be up at 4 am: 3 (ugh)
- Days I actually got to sleep in: 1
- Days spent hermiting in a hotel room during which I spoke to no one except the Chinese food delivery person: 1
- Days that were technically vacation that I checked my email and worked: 5/7

Suitcase weight: 50 lb
Specific styles of dress contained in suitcase: 6 (formal dress for wedding; casual nice for rehearsal dinner; casual and hot for Vegas; hiking clothes for Grand Canyon; one business casual for plant visit; working casual for plant days)
Computing power brought: 3 pieces (laptop for work; iPad for DOINK; iPhone)

- - -

I won't call it a vacation. I'll call it a trip. It was fun, but it wasn't relaxing. But it was fun. The wedding was gorgeous, Vegas was fun, the Grand Canyon was amazing, and the week of work blew ass like I expected. XD

Maybe I'll put up some photos or something.

I am terrified to go to work tomorrow. Even though I've been checking my email and following work, I know I'm still behind because I haven't been in the office for two weeks. And the biannual meeting with the Japanese Overlords starts Thursday. UGHHHHHHHHHHHH

No wonder I've been playing so much FFXIII. I am in hiding mode.

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/316272.html

I'm always surprised at how many hours there actually are in a day.

I really shouldn't be, because I've experienced this phenomenon once before, when I was still working my full-time long-day 40-hr-week job and also attending a 20-30-hr-week graduate lab class: if you literally spend every spare minute you have doing something, it's a lot of work. (And I mean it. Sometimes I see people posting, "I'm soooo busy~!" but if I've seen you posting 10K in fic in the last week, or reblogging tons of stuff on Tumblr, or otherwise hobbying-- maybe you're busy, but that isn't actually spending every legitimate moment you have on work-like things. I realize this makes me a judgmental ass and I'm sorry.)

But really, I'm still continually surprised at how much you can actually work in one day. Because I have basically spent every free hour I have had in the last 7 days helping to basically remodel a basement which is my responsibility to fix. I don't even have time to tell you everything handyman that I've done. But I'm just still for whatever reason surprised at how BUSY you can actually get. When you come home from work at 6:15 and change and eat and then drive up to the house at 7:00 and work until 11:00 and then come home and make a lunch and do the dishes and go to bed at 12 and get up at 6:30 and go to work at 7:30 and then do it all over again, for an entire week? I mean it, there is busy and then there is, "life sat on me." They aren't even really in the same order of magnitude.

Had I known the level of fucked this problem was, I wouldn't have started it now. But you don't know what's under the carpet until you pull up the carpet.

I thought I was busy before. Turns out, there were plenty of hours in my day that could be filled up with things that make me miserable.

I am stressed as fuck, I have gotten absolutely nothing done this week, my exchange ends this weekend, I am leaving tomorrow afternoon and I have not yet finished packing. This week has been just awful.

Some day I will turn this experience into a "Handyman How-To" post because I've actually learned a lot of fun shit. Today is not that day.

- - -

I just printed out all my itineraries and reservations and flight info and blah blah and it's basically a short novel, I've killed a tree doing it, it weighs more than my laptop, etc etc.

This trip-- I am not even looking forward to it. i'll be honest. Work is so awful right now, and there are a bunch of due dates WHILE I AM GONE, so I have to work ON my trip, and just. ugh ugh ugh first world problems etc but.

I carry my stress in my shoulders and neck, and I nearly can't drive a car right now. I am pretty sure my back is about to leave me for another woman.

Whirlwind tour of the US is as follows:
- to Boise this weekend for my cousin's wedding
- fly to Vegas Mon with family, night in Vegas
- drive to Grand Canyon Tues, two nights in GC
-- work due Wednesday, have to work Mon and Tues to submit Wed
- return to Vegas on Thurs, night in Vegas
- Fri, fly directly to Houston, spend weekend weeping in a pillow fort
- Sun, pick up Japanese BFF at airport and head off to the plant
- Mon, tour of plant with guest
- Tues-Wed, work at the plant
-- work due Tues, will have to work the previous week to compile it
- Thurs, return home

- THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, submit a report of the work I did on the plant trip to the Overlords because
- THAT WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY, our biannual meeting with the Overlords begins

- probably every day forever: cry into beer, from stress and frustration

- date of freedom: 20 June
- 21 June: lose self in Diablo III for three consecutive days

I am trying for serenity now and I'm not sure I'll make it. OH GOOD. When can I give up on everything and be a crazy cat lady hermit hobo who never goes anywhere?

ON THE PLUS SIDE, I now have an app on my phone that can send a postcard photo from anywhere for $0.99, so if you want a really dumb postcard from Vegas or the Grand Canyon, email me your address.

ADDITIONALLY ON THE PLUS SIDE, I've written 4 Korra drabbles in the past few days. On my phone. While in meetings or otherwise working. Seeing as I haven't written a thing since December, this is cool.

I HAD ANOTHER PLUS but I have forgotten it so.