Wow.

I actually got MAD at someone today.

You have to understand, for me that's a hugely rare thing. For all my ranting and raving and curmudgeonly behavior, I think I could count on both hands the number of times in my life that I've actually told someone off for something. My usual way of handling things is to "be the bigger person", swallow my anger (no matter how intense) and try to move on.

Today, though, that didn't happen.

I know I've mentioned that the whole depression/methadone thing has spilled over into my job; basically, what's happening is that I'm extensively drowsy much of the day, and I've been caught on several occasions nodding off at my desk. It's entirely beyond my control, at the moment, though I'm doing everything in my power to stop it--I've stopped eating sugar between the time I get up in the morning and the time I get home at night, I've had them reduce my dosage of methadone, I've had my Prozac dosage reduced, I've tried to sleep more at night...no help. Human Resources is involved in the issue now--as soon as I told my boss that it was a medical issue, not me being a slacker, in comes HR with their lawyers and their doublespeak. I had my counselor at the clinic write a letter--without even mentioning the words "substance abuse" or "methadone"--explaining what the symptoms were, what could be done to help, and essentially telling them "This is a temporary thing, and if you'll just be a little understanding, we'll get it under control shortly." That's not good enough, of course, and I'm starting to think that I'm on my way out here. That's fine, if it happens, but they'd better have a good lawyer if they do fire me--both mental illness and substance abuse treatment are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. I've done the research.

But that's just the back-story. Today had nothing to do with HR or even any of my bosses; today, one of the guys in another department crossed the line.

I was working at my desk at about 4:00, and unfortunately I'd nodded out again. (These episodes, just to be clear, last only a couple of minutes at a time; then I wake up and try to shake it off, though it usually returns.) Anyway, this guy--let's call him "Butthead"--walks past my cube. Our cubes have walls about 6 feet high, with the top foot being a plexiglass window. And my cube, unfortunately, is right off the main hallway, so everyone can see into my cube and see what I'm doing at any given moment. I could face my computer in the other direction, but then everyone would be able to see my screen--basically, it's a question of which of two evils I'm happier with.

So Butthead walks by and sees me sleeping, and he decides to wake me up. And how does he do this? By quietly saying my name til I notice he's there, which would be the humane and kind thing to do? Not Butthead. Butthead takes the flat of his hand and SLAMS on the plexiglass window as hard as he can, which makes a huge rattling BANG and--predictably--causes me to jump out of my skin. And when I look up, once I've managed to swallow my heart back down to its normal spot in my chest, he's laughing.(Keep this in mind.)

I didn't even think--I just very quietly and angrily said "Hey, Butthead. Come here for a minute." He comes into my cube, and I said to him--again, very calmly--"First of all--what you're seeing? Is caused by a medical condition. Second of all? Don't...EVER...do that again." And he tells me, "I was just trying to wake you before you got in trouble." (Yeah, right--that's why you were cackling like a damn chicken when I looked up. You were moved to an outward expression of glee by your overwhelming concern for my well-being. Yeah, THAT was it.) "That's fine," I said. "I'm already in quite enough trouble for this, so thank you very much, but don't...EVER....do it again."

He walks off, probably offended, which...yeah, whatever, don't care, kindly go to hell. And the adrenaline keeps me awake for the next hour, which is nice.

I've got my resume together. I totally understand the management's point of view: they don't pay me to sleep at my desk, and they can't allow that to continue. Understood. But also, at this moment? Completely outside my control. If I could control it, I would--believe me. It's embarrassing, and it's not the way I want to be perceived, and it's not the way I normally go about my work. I have a little more pride in myself than that. But this is medical. Side-effects of methadone include sedation and drowsiness. Side effects of Prozac include possible drowsiness. Physical symptoms of depression ALSO include somnolence, which is the tendency to fall asleep at inappropriate times. So I'm three-for-three. I've been taking caffeine pills (which help a teeny bit, but also give me heartburn) and drinking iced tea instead of Pepsi; I've given up my sweet rolls in the morning and exchanged them for Burger King's chicken sandwiches (yes, for breakfast--and I don't even eat the whole bun; I take the bottom half of the bun, which is less bread than the top half, and then I fold it in half til it rips, and then I fold the chicken-unit in half til it rips, and I make a stack of bun-chicken-chicken-bun, which is actually not half-bad and is quite easy to eat while driving. But I'd still rather have my pastry.) I don't drink any soda during the day except for a very occasional diet Sierra Mist, and if there's cake or cookies or whatever, I don't eat any of that either. I'm working my ass off to take care of this stupid little problem, and I've told the HR people this, and it irks the hell out of me that they're handling it the way they are. I've been told that I have to get yet ANOTHER letter from my doctor, containing information which I already gave them in the first letter; this is why I think I'm on my way out and they're just jumping through hoops to make it look legal. But it's not, and I know this.

Fortunately, it's time to go home and I can forget about this hell-mouth til Monday morning, which makes me very happy indeed.

Update, 6:55 PM: Would someone care to tell me WHY, exactly, I thought that explaining my work problems to my mother would result in moral support? And would that same someone please, if I ever even CONSIDER such a thing again, please shoot me with beanbags til I recover my senses? Because...hell no. Bad plan. Now I have Mom in my business, worrying on my behalf, offering suggestions I've already tried, and expressing her tacit disapproval of my methadone program, which both the doctors and I agree is the best possible thing I could be doing for myself at this point. Argh.

Fretful Mother

I dropped Snick off at the vet this morning. It's time for that momentous event that comes to every young male cat: the snip-snip. My little boy is growing up.

He's also, after much soul-searching and consideration, losing his front claws. Three things combined to bring me to that decision, which I initially had no intention of making: one, he barely allows me to touch his claws, front or back; trimming them is absolutely out of the question. The minute he hears the clipper drawer open, he takes off; if I try to catch him off-guard, he yelps and flinches the minute the clipper touches the tip of the claw. He lets me pet them, lets me squeeze his paws to LOOK at them; but the minute I show the slightest inclination to clip, that's the end. It's not a pain thing, I don't think; the yelp isn't an "ouch!" as much as it's a "oh HELL no." Both his fronts and his backs, as a consequence of this, are now about to reach the point where even the cat can't stand them anymore. This has enabled him to learn a new trick, as well, which is the second reason for my decision:

The other night, I was sitting in the living room and suddenly Snick bolted across the room, leaped into the air, planted a front paw into the drywall on each side of the door-frame, about four feet off the ground...and just HELD there. He hung off the wall for a good three or four seconds before he let go. I looked at all the other doorframes in the house with that configuration; every one of them has a few sets of claw-marks etched deeply into the drywall on either side of the frame. This little guy is BONKERS, y'all. Between the drywall and the blinds, this is not something that I want to allow to continue, and the squirt-gun only stops him when he sees it in my hand. "Get him a scratching-post," I hear you say...yeah, but somehow I don't think that's gonna solve the whole problem.

The third thing that led me to decide in favor of declawing is that my vet told me they no longer do the old-style surgery; now they do laser declawing, which is much less painful to the cat and has a much faster recovery. (The neutering is done by laser as well, which leads me to hope that maybe he won't have to wear the silly lampshade collar; poor little guy needs his dignity, after all.) I don't want to put him through any more pain than strictly necessary...this is my little buddy--but so is Badcat, and he's getting the worst of Snick's claws, too. Poor Badcat...he used to be the undisputed king of the castle, and from the minute Snickers showed up, poor Bad has been on the run. At least this way he'll have a level playing field!

Needless to say, I'm worried about my little guy. I'll be plaguing the poor vet's office starting at 2:00, on the dot, when they said he should be out of surgery and coming up from the anesthetic. I'm a wreck. He obviously knew something was up, as early as last night; where he normally would have been cuddly around midnight, instead he roamed the house, tail lashing, looking for the food bowl (which I'd put away, since he wasn't allowed to eat after 10:00.) He was actually pretty docile about going into the carrier, and didn't raise too much fuss on the ride there; but then when we got to the office I noticed he was trembling a little. I felt awful, like a mother taking a toddler in for a shot. Mom knows the shot is good for him; the kid just knows it's scary and it'll probably hurt.

Then too, and I'm not terribly proud of this, I have some low-grade feelings of victimhood here; I'm scared because I love this cat so much, and I don't feel like it's safe to love anything because everything I love goes away. Which isn't true, but it SEEMS true, which--with irrational fears--is enough to make them seem real. Common sense tells me: I know this vet; every cat I've ever had but one has been cared for by this vet; all my cats but two were neutered at this vet, and declawed; and every one of them has come through with flying colors. There is no reason that Snick should be any different, and yet there's a little voice inside me that tries to tell me that because I love him more, he's in more danger. Now THAT is taking negativity and superstition to an entirely unecessary level.

The worst of it is, because of where the vet is (north suburbs) and where I work (southwest 'burbs), I won't be able to make it there on Friday to pick him up after work. So I'm going to be without my little guy til Saturday morning, when I can go and pick him up from the vet's office. I'm going to miss him so much!

It's official: I've become That Person--the one who makes oojy-boojy noises and describes her pets as "fur children". (Okay, so I exaggerate; I've never used that phrase, and if I do I hope someone slaps me silly for it...but I -do- use baby-talk from time to time. :::sigh::: Baby-talking cats is definitely a setback to the way I'd like to see myself!!!)

Only two more hours til I can call them....

UPDATE, 2:05 PM: Snick is doing fine. (The vet said he "looks a little dopey", to which I replied "no, he always looks that way.") Apparently he's just waking up from the anesthetic, but he was alert enough to hiss at the vet when she went to check on him. I am incredibly relieved. And more good news: he won't have to wear the lampshade on his head, since he has no sutures. Lasers, man. That's some cool stuff right there.

Between Snick being okay, and something that happened this morning which thoroughly amazed me (It's hard to be completely cynical when people who are nearly total strangers can be SO FREAKIN' NICE!), I'm having a very good day. A very very good day. It would be a perfect day, in fact, except for stoopid Bravo, which in its infinite crumminess is making us wait another whole week for a new episode of Project Runway. Other than that, though? A thoroughly excellent day.

Progress Report

Since I've been quiet again, which is never my intention, I feel like I should bring everyone up to speed as far as what's been happening in my happy little world.

About ten minutes into this past weekend's appointment with Dr. J, once I had finished describing the tracks my thoughts have been taking lately--lots of feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt, the usual smorgasbord--she said, "I hope you recognize that these thoughts are just the depression talking, and that you seem to be moving deeper into the depression." Which, yeah, I pretty much knew that. Things have not been good on a lot of levels: I'm stressed because I'm having major financial problems (thanks, LJ!); I'm stressed because my medical issues have crept into the workplace and it's becoming a big deal; mostly I'm stressed because I can't get any sort of handle on my life at all. I feel completely out of control--rattled, constantly reacting, in a low-grade state of panic through most of my waking hours. My sleep is broken by weird dreams, and I wake at the slightest provocation--which means when I get up in the morning, I'm completely exhausted. Between that, the methadone, and the Prozac, I've been caught nodding out at my desk several times, and that's become an issue with Human Resources. Now, because it's medical, I'm covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act (I researched this years ago; if you're in medically-supervised substance-abuse treatment, you are covered by the ADA and cannot be fired for it) but that involves a) a lot of paperwork and b)disclosing more about my personal life than I care to have anyone know. So far I've managed to keep it very vague, telling them that the drowsiness is caused by "a combination of prescriptions I'm taking", and they've been really understanding about it. I totally see their point--they can't very well have an employee sleeping at her desk!--but I just wish it was something I didn't have to deal with, something I could control on my own. I've had the clinic lower my dosage twice so far, with no negative effects, but it hasn't had any positive effects either. I've also, at Dr. J's suggestion, lowered my Prozac dose to see if that allows me to sleep a little better. So far, no dice; I've become very conversant with the wee-hours television offerings (which will lead to another post, some other time, on the topic of "Boohbah". If you've ever seen this show, you will understand why, when I first saw it, my immediate question was "What kind of drugs are THEY on?").

Along with the job stress, money has been another major stressor--more than usual. For the first time in the three years I've owned this house, I'm behind on the mortgage. I'm working with them to pay it down, but again: I wish I didn't have to deal with it. I bear the blame, as I'm the one who can't say no to anyone, especially when I've got this stupid, rancid, impossible hope that if I give a little more, THIS time it will make him love me the way I want him to. I would have to say that about 25% of my last paycheck went to LJ, in one form or another: paying for parts for the truck, sending him a moneygram for his bus ticket back from Minnesota, "helping" with his cell-phone bill. This is in addition to paying for the things he's normally supposed to pay for: the truck payment, the part of my cellphone bill that belongs to his friend who's on my account, stuff like that. I can't do it anymore, and when he asked me for bus-fare back to Minneapolis, I lied and told him I didn't have it. I had it; I just couldn't spare it. He managed to scrounge it from his friends, and so now he's gone; I hope he stays there. I'm over it.

Last night, I was writing in my paper journal and it led to a conversation in my head. I asked myself: What would make me happy?
To have a normal life.
What, exactly, do you consider a "normal" life?
Orderly. Non-chaotic. Respectable.
Respectable? What's that?
As in, "like people I respect and admire".
Okay...so what kind of a life would that be?
Organized, for one. Neat. I would have a place for everything and be able to put my finger on any item the minute I wanted it.
All right: "organized."
And clean. There wouldn't be dishes in the sink or trails of kitty litter across the floor or tumbleweeds of cat-hair under the desk.
Okay: "clean".
And financially solid. Not that I think most people are well-off, but I used to be able to pay everything each month, and I liked it, and I hate it that I can't do it now. And I especially hate it because it's my own fault, for trying to buy LJ's love. Again. I've been down that road before and it didn't work then; what made me think it would work this time?
So then: "financially stable". Define that.
Able to pay all my bills every month. No collectors calling; nothing on my credit report that's in collections. Maybe able to put a little money away in a savings account. That's all I ask...I don't need to be rich; I just want not to be scared.
We've got "organized", "clean", and "financially stable". Anything else?
Not really--not for the moment, anyhow. If I had those things I would be able to enjoy my life whether or not someone was in it, because I'd have the time to do things that I'd enjoy. Or rather, the motivation; I have the TIME now, but no way to use it, because I feel like I ought to be doing other things. I feel harrassed and I can't enjoy myself.
Well, that's a start. Organized, clean, financially stable. None of those things sounds impossible...

And they're not. I've realized that a large part of my misery is exactly that feeling of having no control over even the most basic things--feeling like I don't know where things are except in the vaguest way--"It's in that pile, somewhere, maybe." Or walking in the door to find that all the things I've left on the desk are now on the floor, courtesy of a small gray cat who shall remain nameless. If they were put away, he couldn't scatter them; thus, no stress. So I'm going to spend the next few nights trying to get my shit together--filing, organizing, cleaning up. (First, though, I have to get caught up with my recaps for Reality News Online; Gene Simmons' antics have gone un-recounted for about three episodes now, and I've been feeling very guilty. God, how I hate guilt; it makes me want not commit to doing ANYTHING, ever, for fear of having to deal with the consequences.) Hopefully, once I've got the house under control, I'll feel better, and maybe when I feel better, I'll feel more motivated, more able to care.

At least, that's the plan.

As Promised, Spiders

I don't know why we have so many spiders lately; the coming fall, perhaps, or maybe we're just a spider-friendly house. Most of them are the teeny little yellow-brown kind--good entertainment for the cats, not much trauma for the resident arachnophobe. I can deal with those.

But the other night, I walked into the bedroom and turned on the light and there, on the wall, was this HUGE black-brown spider. The leg-span on this baby must have been two inches across, and it had that figure-eight body peculiar to really BIG spiders--the one where the thorax is actually distinguishable from the rest of the body. He was big, is what I'm sayin' here.

I am not proud; I yelled for LJ. He hadn't been home for an hour, even, from his last out-of-state trip, and he was crabby at the interruption, especially for something as girly as my fear of spiders. I didn't care; this was--as I believe I have mentioned--a BIG damn spider.

He grabbed my house-slipper (deduct one point from the Excellent Boyfriend Scale right there!) and I looked away as I heard the "thwack". He calmly walked out of the room and came back with a wad of tissue, and informed me that he'd only smashed it, not killed it, and that it had run away under the dresser somewhere. As though that was fine; as though that wasn't an unthinkable, terrifying outcome. As though the spider would not now be lying in wait, spider-guts hanging from its horribly mangled body, plotting revenge. As though it were somehow OKAY that he had failed utterly in his mission to protect me from this vile creature. Fine, I said, whatever. "If you see it, kill it," he helpfully advised as he closed the door behind him. Gee, THANKS, mighty hunter.

Reluctantly, I went to sleep. And since I did not wake up choking, I assumed that the spider had perhaps gone to meet his multi-legged Maker instead of crawling down my throat. (Hey, they say it HASN'T happened. That just means it hasn't happened YET. That anyone KNOWS OF.) Anyway, I began to relax, and went off to work and forgot the whole thing.

Ah, complacency. Ah, trust.

Because at about 2 AM the next morning I woke up to go to the bathroom, and I blinked out one of my contact lenses and as I turned the light on in the bedroom to put it back in, I saw a blurry thing on the wall. I wasn't terribly worried; without my contacts, everything is "a blurry thing". Could have been a shadow, could have been a smudge, could have been a thundering herd of bison or the oboe section of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra--it all would have looked the same to me.

But when I got my contact lens back in I discovered: it was none of those things. It was...a GREAT BIG SPIDER, just as big as the one LJ had "smashed" the previous night. Oh my god, we've got a full-scale infestation, I thought, already making plans as to where the cats would stay while we fumigated the house...

I looked more closely. Something was not quite right about this spider. It looked...different. Off-kilter.

Seven-legged.

Apparently LJ's definition of "smashed" differs substantially from mine. The spider, except for that one leg, was perfectly whole and exactly as menacing as he'd been the night before when I'd asked LJ to eliminate it...and this time, LJ wasn't home. It was just me and the spider.

Snickers made a valiant effort, I'll grant him that. He leaped and leaped and launched himself at the wall a couple of dozen times, but the spider was about six feet up and Snick couldn't make it any higher than four feet or so off the floor. (He still gets points for trying.)

But that left me with a dilemma: either I could say "live and let live" and go back to sleep (yeah RIGHT)or I could come up with some way of taking care of the problem myself. Finally, after a few solid minutes of dithering, I settled on: the Swiffer.

A Swiffer, for those of you who've never experienced one, is like a small flat-bottomed mop. You take a dustcloth and adhere it to this flat rubberized block on a handle, and the dust clings to it when you sweep it over the floor. I told the spider "Wait here," and ran for the closet. I put a fresh dustrag over the Swiffer pad, so as not to have to clean up any more bug-guts than strictly necessary. I aimed the flat of the pad at the creature, drew back, and...

...missed. Entirely. The impact knocked the spider off the wall to the floor, where I actually FELT it thump body-first as it scuttled away. I let out a hoarse, guttural scream of total panic, bashed the Swiffer wildly against the floor in the general vicinity of the "thump", and--of course--totally missed the spider. Who ran behind the dresser.

I haven't seen it since. I'm living in fear of the repercussions...unless Snick has dispatched it in my absence, which--if he has--he hasn't told me.

Baby Grows Up (Return of the Crazy Cat Lady)

I think Snickers may be part-fox, judging from these ears.

Last night at about 3 in the morning, my bed-partner and I were in our usual conditions for that hour (me, splat on my back and dead to the world; Snick, curled up under my arm with the tip of his tail in his mouth, fast asleep) when all of a sudden he sat bolt-upright. He's usually the most sedentary of sleepers, so the motion woke me up too.

He started making the gacky-face; tongue darting in and out, eyes squinched shut, looking like he was trying to spit out something unpleasant. If you've ever given a baby something sour, you know the gacky-face's human equivalent.

Of course, paranoid cat-owner that I am, I was instantly worried. Did he eat a spider? (We've had a minor infestation lately, including The Biggest Damn Spider I've Ever Seen--about whom more later.) Did he swallow a feather from one of my cheap-ass pillows that's now stuck in his throat? Or does he just have a piece of fur caught in his tongue?

He hopped off the bed and stood in front of the closed door, still making gack-face, still trying to clear whatever it was. When I bent down to look, I couldn't see anything immediately, so I picked him up and put him on the bed and opened his mouth and stuck in a finger, which (being a normal cat) he promptly bit. He looked at me, very calm, and said "Ptooey."

There, on the blanket, was a very small, very pointy baby tooth.

Snick had a short bath, put the tip of his tail back in his mouth, and went to sleep; apparently, this growing-up stuff is exhausting work for a little cat. Of course, by the time I was ready to go to work this morning he'd turned back into Butthead the Wonder-Kitty:



I've mentioned, haven't I, that I adore this little devil? (Also, take note of our good friend BadCat, sitting on the table in the foreground, looking innocent--or at least, as innocent as a cat can look, especially a cat with glowing eyes. BadCat has evolved into the sedate elder statesman of the house--of course, that may be because he's put on a bit of cat-fat in recent months and can't leap as nimbly as he could when he was a lithe young tiger.)

I found out yesterday that Snick's momma-cat has had another litter. I was sorely tempted, but I reasoned that a second Snick might be Too Much Of A Good Thing.

Yowch

Now, I don't care HOW annoying you are, or how many exotic animals and hapless TV-watchers you irritate over the course of your life--NOBODY deserves to die by having their heart punctured by a stingray barb.

Crikey.

If You Found Me Through An Image Link

I notice in my stats that a lot of people have been finding me through the links to my pictures which I placed in this post. Would you please all do me a favor? Leave me a comment--anonymous if you want to--about how you found those images, what you were looking for, and what you think of them? I'm really curious as to how these images are drawing the level of attention they are, especially since I didn't place them anywhere else. Thanks!