I'm Glad I'm Not Superstitious...

If I believed in omens I'd be really worried right about now.

This afternoon the power went off at work. We were told that we could go home at 3:30, but that since the other building had power (but no network, since the network is housed in our building) that they had to stay. In solidarity with my oppressed comrades (okay, okay, I really just wanted to ride home with the Brit) I stayed til 5.

So during the downtime, I'd gotten the call from the recruiter telling me that my itinerary was in an e-mail, which I couldn't read from our building--no power--and couldn't even check at the other building--no network. And this was at about 3 PM--I'd been waiting for two days to hear, but I guess the travel department (this place has a TRAVEL department, y'all) were having trouble getting me a flight or something.
I'd been stressing about it all day, checking my e-mail every ten minutes in the hopes of something coming up.

Also during the downtime, spurred on by the it's-only-June-7th-and-I-now-have-$9.47-to-get-me-to-the-end-of-the-month status of my bank account, I called my mother and told her I finally knew what I wanted for my birthday: the clothes I bought on Sunday. Which came to nearly $170. So we made arrangements for me to meet her at the Pulaski Orange Line stop, roughly halfway between her home and mine.

With all the stress--the itinerary being only a small, small fraction of today's fun and games--I had worked myself into a major tension headache. My shoulders were up around my ears. So I rode out to Pulaski trying to make it go away, and--as usual--pretty much only making it worse.

I got into the car, and as Mom is driving me home I start to have a familiar sensation. Oh hell no, I told myself. I am NOT going to have one of those stomachaches. Not tonight.

But I was, and I did. By the time Mom dropped me off I could already tell it was going to be a very long night. Every time I took a deep breath it hurt. I did my usual head-it-off-at-the-pass maneuver--three or four Rolaids and a simethicone tablet; even though it never works, the Rolaids take the edge off the acid, which I've learned is an important benefit once the inevitable puking starts.

It lasted the usual two hours--but what a two hours. This one was ROUGH, is what I'm saying here. First of all--it may be nice outside, but inside this house it's still really hot. So all this barfing and yacking was done in the ghetto equivalent of a Turkish bath. My stomach muscles feel like I've just used them to lift a small industrial building; my throat is raw; and as an extra bonus, I now have little red spots around my eyes where the capillaries popped from heaving. At least I'll get to see how well my new concealer works in extreme conditions.

Not that anyone will notice, because my left eye looks like I've been the test subject for a new eye-care product: Jalapeno Visine. Apparently sometime during all the peristaltic violence, my left contact lens detached a little crumb of itself, no larger than a pinhead, and said pinhead is floating around in my eye regardless of my best efforts to flush it out with saline. This has happened before, so I know it will eventually go away. It doesn't hurt, but it makes its presence known. And my eye looks like fresh hell.

After my stomach quieted down--two hours of bile and battery-acid later--I fell asleep for about an hour and a half, to be wakened by a phone call from Tim. Who is, and who has been for several days, an inmate at the Will County Jail. That's a whole 'nother story, but suffice it to say he's gonna be there for a while. $300 to him might as well be 3 million, and I can't do a damn thing to help right now, other than maybe put $20 on his books for commissary or something. So instead I'm answering his collect calls, and passing info along to his other friends, none of whom can help him either.

I fly out from O'Hare at 9 tomorrow morning, which will necessitate leaving the house at 6 (I'm catching the train) and my return flight lands at 8 PM. The recruiter says I'm up against one other person, who's also flying out tomorrow, and that they'll have their decision Thursday.

I've had no dinner--obviously, and I'm not prepared to take the risk of trying to eat right now. My clothes are ready--but nearly nothing else I'd planned to do (paint my nails, put together some CD's for the plane, spend some time doing some more research) got done.

If I were superstitious, I'd say these were bad signs. As it stands, I think they just indicate that finally, just for a change, something's GOTTA go right tomorrow.

At least, I HOPE that's what it means.