When in doubt, follow your duck

2003-04-07 - 9:42 a.m.

This morning I was in such a bad mood it was rather unbelievable. Especially for being a morning. Usually my moods get worse as the day wears on. I was in a throw-myself-in-front-of-a-fast-moving-bus bad mood. (Don't worry, that's not how I'd do it.) I dragged myself to work and into the office and sat myself down and did basically nothing except try not to cry or throw up. Then Slick came in. Recently I haven't been responding very warmly to Slick. I don't know why. I think I find her ambitiousness and smarts annoying because it contrasts so blaringly with me. I try to be nice, but that's about it. But this morning she came in and I asked her how her weekend was. She told me about how all weekend she had gone house hunting. She had intended to just find a rental but she and her husband had fallen in love with a house for sale and had been encouraged by several parties to consider buying. She was so excited by it all that it sort of pushed my bad mood aside for a while. It made me want to buy a house too. It was funny how that related to my song of the day (see below). Of course I don't want to buy a house in Sacramento like she is, but I could probably afford one in Quincy, if there are any. You know what? Fuck selling myself short. If that's what I want to do, I should do it. And I'm thinking I'd like my truck to be blue.

Little boys and little girls dream of big, big things
They�re taught at a tender age just what life should bring
Get a job, say "I do," and settle yourself down
But what about those of us whose lives are still spinnin� around?

Tell me what�s so great about picket fences
Paintin� them�s such a mess
And a big back yard where kids can play
I�d probably never get a moment�s rest
And settin� the table for five at five
Only means more dishes to load
What�s so great about picket fences
I guess I�ll never know

Here I am in my prime, at least they tell me so
And if I go to sleep at night I always go alone
I guess that I could have it all and someone by my side
But I can�t take the give and take, the price is just too high

Tell me what�s so great about picket fences
Paintin� them�s such a mess
And a big back yard where kids can play
I�d probably never get a moment�s rest
And settin� the table for five at five
Only means more dishes to load
What�s so great about picket fences
I guess I�ll never know

Tell me what�s so great about picket fences
I guess I�ll never know

**********

Shortly after I finished writing the above portion of this entry, something somewhat interesting happened. First I read the people on my buddy list who had updated since I last checked and then I actually did some real work. I was sitting here yawning capaciously when one of the medical residents from the family practice clinic saw me and waved. I waved back as I finished my yawn. She came over and asked me whisperedly what I was up to. I answered her briefly and then she asked if we could talk outside for a minute. I said sure and followed her outside. I had no idea why she�d want to talk to me. Did she have a medication question for me? When we got outside she told me her name. I said, �Yeah, I know.� It occurs to me now that she probably didn�t know my name and that was her way of asking. But anyway, she explained to me that she had locked her keys inside her car and she had another set of keys at home but she needed a ride. I thought that was a bit much to ask of someone she didn�t even know, but I will attribute that boldness to her foreignness. She is from Russia, went to medical school in St. Petersburg. She is also quite a bit older than me, at least old enough to have a twelve year-old daughter. I said I would give her a ride. I wasn�t in the mood to work anyway, but I didn�t tell her that part. First we had to walk to administration to get my car keys, about a ten minute walk, and then from there to my car, about a fifteen minute walk. Her home was about fifteen minutes away. So that right there is an hour of me alone with this Russian doctor. I didn�t particularly have anything to say to her, but that didn�t seem to be a problem because she had plenty to say to me. Even if I couldn�t understand it through her accent. And she insisted on giving me detailed directions when I was driving even though I explained to her that I have lived in Sacramento forever and her house is right across the street from the school where my dad used to teach. But she continued, �Turn on freeway where is green sign.� Thanks, dude. When we got to her house her mom was inside cleaning. We scared the bejeezus out of her. In an explosion of Russian she told us so. I smiled and said, �Hi.� The resident said, �She doesn�t speak English, don�t bother.� Ok�I was pretty sure a smile and simple greeting were universal, but what do I know. The resident led me across the kitchen floor to look out at her backyard while she went to get the keys. While she was gone the mother came over and exasperatedly pointed out that I had just walked across her freshly mopped floor and left footprints behind. �Oh! I�m sorry!� I said and stepped off the linoleum onto the carpet. The mother remopped the floor and then the resident came back and tried to lead me across the floor again. �She�s mopping the floor,� I told her, and she said, �That�s all right,� and walked right on across. I followed but took as big of steps as I could manage without looking like a complete idiot and the mother came by and remopped again behind us. I took her back to the hospital and dropped her off at her car. And that was my good deed for the day. That was me allowing myself to be taken advantage of at any rate. I think it was better than sitting here being bored and miserable.

By the way, I�m doing well sticking to the no M&M diet. I haven�t had a single M&M since Saturday. Can you believe it? It�s almost been two days! No weight loss to report yet, though. Ha ha, oh well. We�ll see how long I can last.

In two weeks I will be in New York. It is currently 31 degrees and snowing in New York City according to weather.com. Ok, snow was not part of the deal. Everyone says April is the best time of year to go to DC, right? All the trees in bloom and nice and sunny without the humidity. That's when I'm going and it had better be nice when I get there!

Yesterday I worked a 12-hour ops shift. I can think of two specific cases that may make you be nervous next time you're in the hospital. First of all, you're taken care of by nurses who, when confronted with a bottle of liquid medication that is running low, send a requisition slip to pharmacy stating, "Only 15cc lefted! Please toob!" Secondly, you're in the hands of doctors who write for things such as amiodarone patches. If that doesn't scare you, you must have a lot of confidence in your pharmacist.

Pretty soon it will be late enough that I will be able to leave this place. I managed to get very little work done today. Tomorrow I will have to work very hard to finish up all the projects I was working on for Cheesecake because I have a meeting scheduled with him for Wednesday to go over it all and get my evaluation. I know my evaluation will suck because I suck and that's the way it works. I hope he doesn't make me come to the next management meeting to present the P&P I didn't present because I was at jury duty. That would really suck. Especially since Slick will be there. I don't want Slick to watch me suck.

There's this one pharmacy tech who often sits just on the windowsill outside the back exit to the hospital right outside radiology for her smoke breaks. I pass by there when I'm going between the library and the hospital. She seems to get her kicks out of making me talk. It's so annoying. She's one of those loud obnoxious types of people. Today when I passed by I didn't see her, admittedly because I didn't look because I knew she might be there, and she called out after me, "Hey, Euc, what's up?" I waved and said, "Hey, how's it going?" and she nearly rolled off the windowsill laughing. What's so funny? I don't get it.

**********

Today has been an opposite from normal day. Usually I start out the day happy and finish up the day pissy. Well, my day is coming to an end and here I am, while not particularly happy, I'm certainly not grouchy either. Maybe it's connected to my eyeballs. My eyes were bugging me all day today. And then today after I got home I took my contacts out and put on my glasses and I felt much better.

Today I ran my 5k outside. I went with my dad and we ran around the neighborhood. I run in tight black volleyball shorts. I'm not terribly fond of running around in public in my tight pants. But I endured. Why don't I run around in normal people shorts? Because I'm not a normal person. No, I've got very large thighs that rub together when I run. This causes normal people shorts to ride up in front and be very uncomfortable. But the point is, I went with my dad. For the first two miles, all was well. But then I started going slower than he wanted to go. Instead of ditching me or running with me, though, he decided to run about two strides in front of me. I found that very annoying. We ended up finishing in a little over 32 minutes. And I did run the whole way, so yay me.

Unfortunately, though, I didn't make it through the no M&M diet. See there was this clause I didn't tell you about. This clause to the M&M diet states that it is ok to eat M&M's given to me by someone else unsolicited. So technically I didn't break the no M&M diet. I think every single one of those M&M's banded together, though, to form a fat roll on my chin.

Oh, I almost forgot! I put new pictures up at Eucalia's Place. I took these pictures when I was out on a walk with my parents in Folsom on Saturday.