MY LIFE - SEPTEMBER

Monday, September 9, 2002

I'm still trying to recover from my bout with the flu, but today was a good step in the right direction. Okay, I didn't exactly wake up in a timely manner (alarm set for 11am, got up at 11:45), but I did manage to get the dogs back to the house then get to school at a reasonable time (ten minutes late for class).

Then I got to work tonight. That was fun. It's getting busy at work again so we've all had to adjust to the change in pace and tonight saw a new twist in the saga of #3035, of course involving Regina.

A quick refresher...When I first came over to the store in November of 2000, Regina was not talking to Steve at the time, nor would she acknowledge me because she was mad at something he did. She wouldn't even look at either of us, but as many know, that changed and now Regina and I are very much at ease with each other. Regina is responsible for several people quitting or getting fired and there are several customers who hate her with a vengeance.

Now then, tonight, she came in and was about to talk to Nate about this weekend's schedule (she and Nate work the same weekend, splitting the shifts) when Keith, our new pharmacist in charge, butted in and said that Nate wasn't going to be around. He then said that there was coverage.

Um, problem was the part that was covered was the part that she could work. She mentioned this and Keith's response was that it wasn't his problem since it wasn't his weekend to work. She shot back that him being PIC, he should be concerned about it, especially since he was the one writing the schedule. She then added that maybe she should write the schedule instead and that was because she had the seniority in the pharmacy.

The rest of us were dead silent, including Nate, while this was going on just working as quickly as we could. Regina then went on with her business for a while and then, probably about 20 minutes or so later, it was back to business as usual. I was able to joke around with her and she lightened up, then reverted slightly when Keith left and there was still stuff to type (Keith was entering today). He basically left a stack of scripts for one person and that's what miffed her the most.

After that though, it was pretty easy. There was enough help, the customers were being cooperative (which doesn't happen much), and it wasn't overly busy, just enough to keep us going.

To avoid any possible confusion as well, I do like working with Regina. I'm on her good side and I intend to stay on her good side. I do not have any issues with her or what she does as long as it doesn't involve me. So there was the whole debacle with her and Shelby, but there wasn't anything that I could do and it didn't end up hurting me.

That reminds me. I need to call Shelby. She'll yak my ear off about nothing for half an hour, but it's usually entertaining and I can fill her in on things with me and what not.

Back to the work situation, my take is that Keith wants to be in charge, but he's not really sure what he got himself into. I mean, there was a reason that Steve stepped down. Steve had been a PIC for years and this store finally drove him to the brink. Keith came in and was very brash, very up front with what he was doing which created a lot of backlash. Rightly, he backed off. He's still trying to change things, but it's in a more subtle way.

Keith, he's a nice guy, but he gets on my nerves. He's trying too hard to do too many things and I have a feeling it's going to blow up in his face. There's a growing movement to try and get Jim transfered back to our store, a move that would not only make everyone happy, but probably restore calm to the store.

We shall see what develops.

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The day in itself, it went by too smoothly. Yeah, Shade sneezed all over the back of my head three times while taking him and Anubis back to the house, but it didn't bother me much this time. I just was in a pretty decent mood most of the day.

What's been weird is I do not dread going to school. I do not sit in class wondering when it's going to end. Okay, so today I was but that's because my english class is dealing with poetry and I do not do poetry very well at all. I can't read it, write it, or analyze it. I just can't.

My philosophy on poetry is that it should just go away and never bother me again. I just can't deal with it. I don't want to deal with. I want poetry to go away and never come back.

Okay, some poems are good. Some poems make sense to me. That doesn't mean I'm going to be able to go in and figure out what the meaning is behind them or what some part of the poem meant. I just can't do it. I can look at an essay, a novel, or a column and pick it apart like nothing. But I can't figure out a poem.

I really hate those deep philosophical poems that have several meanings behind them that I'm supposed to go in and figure out. Poems that say one thing but mean another, those piss me off. I can't stand the long-winded poems that are about love, death, friendship, etc. There are good ones, but the deeper you get, the more the poem philosophizes, the more it gets on my nerves. Just say what you have to say and get it over with.

I guess that's just because I disagree with them so much. I know people who've written poems and I know people who like reading them. I'm just not one of them. I don't care for it.

Analyzing a poem is the equivalent of getting teeth pulled for me. It's painful, it's not pretty, and you'll probably need medication afterwards.

I just try to get through the period of poems with as little pain as possible and then make up for my pitiful performance with the rest of the year. I'm hoping that it works again this year since I did miss three classes from the fight with the flu, all of them dealing with poetry.

Ah, the flu. Seems a few people have still misunderstood what I meant by the flu. I've had at least three people tonight say that the flu isn't that big a deal, you get it for a couple days and then it's gone.

Let me explain one more time. There is only one kind of flu contrary to popular belief. It is not the flu where you throw up or feel nauseated. No, the flu is a very powerful illness. That's why they have flu shots for it. Symptons include body aches, chills, high fever, congestion, sore throat, and can include nausea, although it's not required.

The the flu where you throw up is NOT the flu at all. It's a stomach virus. There's a big difference. I had the flu. I could not move. I had aches. My fever was over 100° for five straight days. I was in bad shape. I almost checked myself into a hospital, but I didn't have to in the end.

I'm better now, other then the allergies. The dry and hot summer has led to a very bad allergy season and of course, this is the time of year when I have my worst allergies. I still can't breathe as a result. I'm still trying to get my sense of taste back completely, but that's a different ballgame.

I also still have the annoying cough. It will not go away. There's just enough of a tickle in the back of my throat to cause me to let out a roar of a cough. I must have been a major distraction in school today. Every time my professor got going on a topic, I'd let out a sound similar to a person who was dying from smoke inhalation. It was loud, it was obnoxious, and it threw him off every time.

Words of advice, don't get what I had. It isn't pretty.

I know I haven't written in five days either. In honesty, nothing's happened that has really compelled me to write. I was sick for a while, so I don't think writing about the huge amount of kleenex I was going through would really stimulate you to think. Nor would the incessent whining that was coming out of me for that week I was sick. Believe me, there was nothing worth saying for a while.

There still isn't much to write about. I could write about how the house is, but the truth is, there isn't much to say on that. Work is going on, the roof is up, and the exterior walls are going up, but it's still a ways off from being finished. On another note, there are now little boxes all over the inside where the outlets are going to go. If I get a chance, I'll go in with a camera and take pictures.

Oh, I do have recent pictures. I just haven't felt like or really had the time to go in and scan them. In the pictures, you can see the framework in place and how it's going to look. When I take the next batch, you'll see an exterior wall up and a roof on the house.

I'm hoping by the end of the year, I'll have pictures of a completed house.

Go ahead and laugh. It's been almost four months now. I'm getting just a little tired of living in this suite. This whole driving the dogs back and forth thing got old about three months ago. The air in this place has made me sick four times in four months. I'm this close to losing my job from illness. I want to have some privacy back. I want to be able to sit in a room by myself and not worry about someone walking in on me without notice. The cleaning people are nice, but I can do without them somedays. I mean, if you're going to vacuum, for god's sake, do more than just a couple of small sections. Oh, and please provide me with some new fucking sheets already. Thanks.

So yeah, I'm ready to move back in. I will be so happy to be back in the house, back in my own bed, and not have to worry about the dogs like we have to. It will also be nice to be back in a central location like the Old Brooklyn neighborhood instead of Westlake. No knock on Westlake, but our house is close to everywhere I need to be.

The final thing to mention is that I did finally hear from Erin, albeit a two-line e-mail in which she apologized for not getting back to me sooner. She said she was real busy with work and babysitting, so I'll just have to sit and see what happens next. In the meantime, I'm still going to talk to new people if I meet them. I really can't sit and wait for her to suddenly make herself available if she's not going to have any time for me, which isn't her fault. Then again, I have to talk to her and find out what's going on with her. I'd like to see her again, but if something isn't going to happen, then I can't sit and put everything else on hold.

At the least, I'd like to stay friends with her and at least hang out with her every now and then. Hopefully I'll know more soon. Chances are, I won't. Don't stay tuned on this one.

In the meantime, I need to get my ass in bed. It's approaching 1:30 and I have class at 8:30am tomorrow morning. It's chemistry lab, so hopefully I won't blow anything up. Just keep the dangerous chemicals away from me.

One more thing, let's please tone down the plans for remembering 9/11. I know it was a tragic day in our history and I know that everyone has good intentions, but just how many specials do we really need? Every channel on tv is doing something when all we really need is just a few moments of silence, a short video montage of the events, and then someone to say a few words in regards to the day.

I'm sorry, and I know people are going to read this and be offended, but I really have no desire to turn on the tv on Wednesday and see nothing but things to remind me of that day. Once was bad enough.