Just tired

2006-12-26 - 5:17 p.m.

I'm tired. Really tired. Sick and tired. This apartment is getting on my nerves. Don't get me wrong, I'm not even close to ready to give up and I still love Lolo dearly. But I'm so tired of this. The apartment is an eternal mess. As soon as one thing is cleaned something else is messy. I feel like I can't make any headway. It's like I took out a messiness loan when I moved here and I can't pay off any of the principle because I'm always working on the interest. Ugh.

I came home from work today and the apartment just plain stank. What could that bad smell be? The dishes that've been in the sink since before Christmas? The trash that hasn't been taken out in weeks? Something else entirely?

It feels like the dishes don't get done unless I do them. The trash doesn't get taken out unless I take it out. The floor doesn't get vacuumed unless I vacuum it. And Lolo's enormous pile of dirty laundry never gets any smaller--and I'm not doing his laundry for him yet! I don't want to be an annoying girlfriend, and I know that I'm making at least half the mess here, but this is starting to get to me.

And why does he always have to be late? I worked OR today while he worked EOR, I go home when he comes back from lunch. Wouldn't you think my boyfriend would make a special effort to come back from lunch on time so I could go home? Especially if he knows that if he's late I miss my bus and have to catch a later one? But no. And speaking of missing the bus, he missed his this morning! The bus picks us up literally across the street from our front door. He didn't have to catch it until sometime around 10:30 this morning. How could he miss that? It costs $9 a day to park at the cheapest places near our hospital. It costs $13.50 for a monthly bus pass. We're not exactly strapped for cash or anything but it still seems like a real no brainer to me and yet I have to struggle to get him to take the bus.

In the non-complaining news, I spent Christmas with Lolo's family. Around two o'clock Saturday afternoon Lolo's mom and step-dad picked us up at our apartment and we drove over Snoqualmie Pass to a tiny town in Eastern Washington where his grandmother lives. The house reminded me very much of my great-grandmother's house--small and very cluttered with knick-knacks and pictures. We spent the night there and then on Christmas Eve we mostly layed around and read or watched TV. Briefly one of Lolo's uncles and aunts came over. The uncle was missing his two front teeth and went outside periodically to spit his tobacco. Later we went to nearby Yakima for Lolo's step-dad to do some last minute Christmas shopping. We had roast beef for dinner that night on our laps on the couch in front of the TV. On Christmas we opened presents. It was so informal I could hardly stand it. In my family we all gather 'round the tree and open presents one at a time as everyone else watches and ooh's and aah's. Here, the festivities began with Lolo's mom handing each of us a hundred dollar bill. Then Lolo got up to get the presents he got for everyone else and his grandmother got up to get a few things too. They all unwrapped everything at the same time. Five minutes later it was over and we went back to doing whatever we had been doing before. With my family it takes like three or four hours for us to finish.

A little while later the front door opened and in walked two people and plopped themselves down on the couch without saying a word. I was the only one in the living room at that time and I was just hoping that somebody around here knew who these people were. I recognized one from the pictures on the wall as Lolo's cousin and eventually found out that the other was the cousin's wife. I never did get introduced to these people. We ate our Christmas dinner (again from our laps) as these people sat in the same room watching TV. Later some more people came over. It ended up being Lolo's other uncle, his uncle's long-time girlfriend, one of his uncle's girlfriend's sons, and one his uncle's girlfriend's grandsons (although not from the son that was there). This uncle was the only one that actually spoke to me of the bunch.

Later, and most exciting to me, Lolo's dad showed up. I'd never met him before. He was short, pretty chubby, and very meek. But from the nose up, he looked exactly like Lolo. He seems like a nice enough guy, just a little stuck in his own little world. He only stuck around for about fifteen minutes so it's hard to have too much of an impression of him. It's hard for me to not want Lolo to be more involved with his dad--I'm used to one's dad being a major part of one's life--and it seemed like his dad was trying to get Lolo to let him be more involved in his life--but really I know nothing about the situation so I'll just follow Lolo's lead on this one for now.

After that we left Grandma's house and went to visit Lolo's step-dad's family who mostly live nearby. First we went to Lolo's step-dad's ex-wife's house, a nice house where three of their kids and their kids' wives/husbands and children were. They're all quite a bit older than Lolo, and Lolo seemed pretty disconnected from them.

We stayed there for maybe half an hour before driving back up the freeway to Yakima where Lolo's step-dad's brother has a mansion, I swear. Enormous house with enormous rooms. I've never actually seen a room filled with taxidermied animals--read about them and seen them in movies, but not seen one--but this guy had a room totally devoted to this purpose. I didn't go in, but from the football room next door I could see a bear posed in the classic standing-on-its-hind-feet position, elk, elephant tusks, a swordfish, and all sorts of other stuff. Lolo says that if I were to go in I'd find everything I could ever imagine anyone hunting. Geesh. In their backyard was a large lake. Anyway, Lolo's step-dad's brother was there with several of his children and a whole slough of grandchildren and Lolo seemed even more disconnected from these people than he had from the others. The brother came over to talk to us, though. He knew we were pharmacists so he immediately started cracking Viagra jokes and then brought out bottles of his medications for some advice. He really wanted reassurance about how "three grams of that butterfly pill is the same as 12.5 grams of Amblien." He meant 3mg of Lunesta compared 12.5mg of Ambien CR, and we had a heck of a time trying to explain drug potency to him. He ended by asking us when we were getting married and then accusing Lolo of being a chicken for not asking me yet.

We didn't stay for too long there either before heading back over the pass to Seattle. I wish I could remember how everyone is related to everyone else. There was quite a lot.

Last thing to mention: a year ago today I made my new year's resolutions for 2006--my five points. I just thought I'd give everybody an update on how they went:

1. Exercise more consistently. Well...if not at all counts as consistently then I did ok, but it didn't by my definition. My goal was to run 780 miles in 2006. I don't know how many I ran, but I'm pretty sure it was nowhere near that. I've only run once since September. Point one: failed.

2. Read more. I definitely wasn't consistent about reading this year either. I read lots at times and not at all at others. I read 43 books last year and 45 so far this year. I think I'll read more in the coming year just because I've been reading every day on the bus. I don't think I necessarily failed this one. Point two: passed.

3. Learn to play the guitar. Ha ha ha! I think I picked up the guitar once or twice after making point three. Point three: failed.

4. Lose weight and eat healthier. My main goal in this one was no more binging. I think I've improved on that. I still have my moments but they are fewer and farther between. Plus, the scale talks a bit. When I made point four I weighed 160 with a goal of 135. As of this morning I'm at about 148. I'm not at my goal weight, but I did lose 12 pounds throughout the year and that's nothing to sneeze at. Point four: passed.

5. Get certified by the Board of Pharmaceutical Specialties in pharmacotherapy. I went to Monterey for the big lecture about this, but that's as far as I got. I never studied, never signed up for the test. Point five: failed.

So two passed (being generous) and three failed. Not so good, but somehow I still feel good about myself.