In the purple box

2005-05-08 - 8:47 a.m.

I've been hand-writing journal entries at work for the past few days. I didn't have time to type any yesterday, so I'll catch up now.

**********

Written Friday, May 6th, in the evening:

I ended up not running yesterday. Instead I ate a whole package of fig newtons. Ack. I do that sometimes. It's not a big wonder why I'm fat. It seems odd that I can simultaneously be getting into the best shape of my life and creeping up there in the weight department. Isn't it weird how "getting into shape" really has nothing to do with your shape at all? I keep thinking that if I lost the extra weight then my knees would hurt less and I'd have that much less bulk to propel down the path. It would help with rockclimbing, too, not to have to carry all these extra pounds up there. And yet I continue to make incredibly unwise food choices even knowing the consequences. Why is that? What I need is a food dispenser at home that would dispense only the amount of calories I need and then quit functioning. I am definitely my own worst enemy. On the other hand, those fig newtons were fat-fre...

**********

Written on Saturday, May 7th, in the morning:

It's morning and I'm feeling tired and hungry but also definitely up for a run today. I doesn't feel like a Saturday at all to me. O'Malley and Lolo are working the 7am shifts today and they were both late. I'm supposed to be done doing order entry stuff at 7 when they take over but I was still doing it at 7:15. Not that it really matters, obviously, since I don't have anything better to do, but I gave O'Malley a bit of a hard time about it anyway.

Yesterday I didn't get enough sleep. I stayed up late, actually, typing yesterday's journal entry and then posting that picture. It's funny, I don't usually feel like I need to go to bed when I do, but then I get in bed and I'm immediately asleep so obviously I need more sleep.

I talked to my brother last night before work and he told me that he might be coming with us to Disneyland after all. Did I tell you that I'm going to Disneyland this month? Yeah, it's weird--it's like I haven't really gone anywhere for months and now suddenly I'm going all over the place. But yeah, I just so happened to have been scheduled a 3-day weekend for Memorial Day weekend and then I traded a shift with Banana to give me a 4-day weekend so I'll have time to spend two days with my parents at Disneyland. I had originally invited Duke to come too (that would've been interesting!) but he decided not to come for monetary reasons.

I have a small photo blog over at blogspot. I don't post much there that I don't also post here. I don't mind if anyone sees that blog--the only private blog I have is this one, I would definitely mind if someone I knew found this blog. My dad somehow found my blogspot blog. I have no idea how that happened. One day he left a comment on one of my pictures and I was so surprised! I should ask him how he find out about it. But then later, he sent me an e-mail with the subject "D-land." I just about shit a brick. I thought he was referring to Diaryland. I was so relieved to see he was actually referring to our Disneyland trip!

**********

Written Saturday, May 7, in the evening:

It's crazy--I have two hours at the beginning of every graveyard shift to complete my special duties. It never takes me the full time to do them, but since today is Saturday and all the clinics are closed, I have even less to do. It's not even 11pm yet and I'm already bored. I don't get to start being a pharmacist until midnight.

Recently this pharmacy has been looking to hire two new pharmacists. Apparently we interviewed a whole bunch of candidates and they all sucked. It actually makes me feel better to know that this pharmacy didn't just hire me out of desperation--they really do have some standards and I appear to at least live up to them. Anyway, they ended up hiring two of our interns who will be graduating soon. I'm kind of excited about that. Even though they've been working here for four years as interns it still feels like I finally have some people on my own level as new hires. I wonder how that'll work as far as seniority goes. Will they be above me on the vacation list? Will they be above me on the pay scale? I can't really decide what would be fair. It's funny, though, I sort of have this little fantasy in my head about all of us being friends and working together for the next thirty years and having our retirement parties together. I know I'm a big dork. A lot can (and hopefully will) happen in 30 years.

There's a giant fly that lives in this pharmacy. We've kind of jokingly started calling it our pet fly, Joe. Nobody can kill it. It won't die. It's huge. Joe just flew by my feet and I tried to kick him, but of course I missed. It made him a little crazy, though, and now he's beating himself against one of the light fixtures. Hmmm...perhaps he's not as happy here as he looks.

This morning after work I called Duke. I was feeling energetic and I was calling to ask if he'd like to run around Green Lake with me since it was Saturday and he wouldn't be working. I actually expected him to be asleep, but I thought I'd give him a try anyway. When he answered I was surprised. "You're awake!" I said. "Yeah, I'm on the train." My memory is so bad. "You're on the train? Did I know you were going to be on the train?" "I'm going to Portland..." "Oh yeah, it's Mother's Day, isn't it?" I'm so dumb. So then I felt even stupider because I had no reason to be calling him since I obviously couldn't ask him if he wanted to go running with me. I've never called him before just to say hi. Oh man, I'm such a dork.

So I went for a run by myself. And guess what, I ended up running my Green Lake half marathon. I went four times around the lake plus once around the track. I was so tired by the end and in pain too. My poor joints. I feel so old. I'm thinking of buying some of that glucosamine/chondroitin stuff--do you think it would help? I wore a brace on my right knee--which of course rubbed some raw spots--and I have to say that my right knee hurts a lot less than my left knee. It's sort of funny, though, when I first stopped running the joint that hurt the most was my right shoulder. Isn't that weird? I hold my arms funny when I run and I think that causes the pain, but when I try to hold them any other way it feels very unnatural. I've run this way for as long as I can remember. Anyway, I finished this course in 2:03:35. Pretty cool, eh? Not quite sub-2-hour, but pretty close. I have more hope now that I'll be able to achieve that particular goal by the time I run my next half marathon in June.

**********

Written Sunday, May 8th--this morning:

It's interesting the way morning always seems to sneak up on me. One second it's the wee small hours of the middle of the night and the next I'm rushing to get things cleaned up for the morning shift. Not that there's usually much to clean up. Last night the computer system was down from 3am to 6am. At 3am they were going to test the back up system. It's supposed to kick in immediately if our main network ever goes down. And if it didn't work, they promised us the system would be up again by 4am. Obviously it didn't work. Nor was the system running again by 4am. Luckily it was a very slow night. After three hours of down time we still only had thirty-something orders in the queue. With the help of the night shift wonder-technicians I had the queue cleared out by a little after 7am. Just in time for O'Malley to arrive and before Lolo showed up. Yes, it annoys me that they don't show up to work on time.

There's something wrong with my left eye. I think it's scratched or something, although I'm not sure. It hurts and there's a wedge section that's really red. It doesn't hurt any worse, though, to wear my contacts than to not. That's weird, isn't it? If it was scratched I'd think it'd hurt worse. Maybe it's infected? Oh I hope not! Hopefully this will all go away by itself. And soon.

There's a technician who works here, usually on day shifts, who is a big man from Russia. His English is decent but far from perfect and he has a very thick accent. Sometimes nurses who call on the phone have trouble understanding him, especially, I would think, the nurses who don't speak very good English themselves. When they can't understand him though, his reaction isn't to slow down and attempt to enunciate a little more clearly. No, his reaction is to get louder. This rarely helps. Pretty soon he's yelling into the phone. Often what he's yelling barely makes sense to me and I know already what he's talking about. In a way it's funny, listening to him. I know I can't talk him about it--he's not the kind of person to take advice about anything--so I just try to be amused. But mostly I find it embarrassing to the pharmacy department. When people call here and get someone yelling bad English at them, in their minds that's the pharmacy department. I wish we could do something to at least give the pharmacy the appearance of a bit more professionalism.