I had a surgeon tell me something marvellous about foot care, I passed it on to a nurse who takes basic foot care to the seniors in the community, it's that good.
Thursday
330am: Drag myself to bed, as the person I was taking care of was finally asleep, and I'd judged my work done enough to last the next day
5am: Alarm goes off
530am: Finally get out of bed
630am: I'm showered, decided not to shave as I wasn't going to be meeting anyone today, car was loaded
7am: On the road, after wrestling the person I was taking care of out of bed finally, and all but carrying her to the car, the poor thing
4pm: A 7.5 hour drive finally ends, 2 hours late
FUCK.
430pm: I am convinced by people brighter than I am to not hit the road and drive home as I'd planned.
5pm: I lay down for some rest, protesting that there is no way I could possibly nap with all the caffeine in my system
645pm: After staring at the ceiling, reading a really great 80yr old book of fairy tales, staring at the ceiling some more, and stealing some cheese fromt he fridge, I actually fall asleep.
NOTE: I do not nap. I'm all but physically incapable of napping. Falling asleep is this situation was 100% proof that driving was the last thing I should be doing.
730pm: I am woken up and told that people are arriving for the party.
NOTE: I hate parties
NOTE: I was NOT supposed to be at this party
NOTE: I was NOT invited to this party
NOTE: There are people at this party that I have to impress, eventually
NOTE: Eventually was NOT supposed to come this soon
As you can probably imagine, I am wired and kittery on caffeine. I had fallen asleep while wired and jittery because my body is basically shutting down. I am not dressed for a party. I'm dressed for a long drive.
I have not shaved. In two days.
FUCK.
8pm: I realise that I'm stuck with this situation, and I need to be social. I secure a razor and go upstairs from the basement, heading to where the bathroom is.
805pm: I open the door out of the basement and am face to face with the three people that I need to impress most. While still unshaved.
FUCKETY FUCK FUCK.
I manage to apologise for my frightful appearance, explain why I look this way, and make something ever so slightly less than a total fool of myself.
830pm: Back downstairs, shaved, and feeling somewhere approaching human, I find out that the food is outside. Where all the other people that I also need to be social with happen to be.
Fuuuuck.
The saving grace was the next door neighbour, who was actually invited, unlike me. She was a sweet older lady that decided that I was interesting, and who happened to be an intelligent and engaging conversationalist and a good listener. I happily spent 30-45 minutes sitting there chatting with her, and talking to other folks around the table as a result. Thank goodness for people like that, as I would much rather have a conversation with one or two people specifically, and drag in the other quieter folk around, then trying to have some irritating series of five minute pointless small-talk garbage non-conversations.
It was still a freaking stressful evening regardless, and taxing of my system.
Other fun happenings:
I got threatened, literally and forcefully, by someone I did not know. He got in my grille and seriously threatened me if I did not do as he demanded in a given situation. Somehow, I was mature and patient, and blew him off with a smile and friendly tone. Un-fucking-real. I respond poorly to threats, usually, and make clear that I don't apreciate them, and that the individual had best be ready to make good on that threat. Bad habit of mine, as it usually involves me smiling and making clear that "here and now" is better than "if and when".
And I had a predatory piece of jailbait all but circling me at the water hole. I am the carnivore. I am not used to being looked at like I am the antelope. By jailbait. Set me back, and skeezed me out.
Oh, and jailbait was the younger sister of the hostile dude above. Aaaand his hostility had NOTHING to do with jailbait sister
I really did step into the Twilinght Zone last night with those last two.
Friday
1am: In bed
530am: Up, fuck.
6am: On the road again
330pm: A 7.5 hour return trip take 8.5 hours due to fucking traffic
915pm: Still crispy fried. Fuckety. Fuck. Fuck.
1. None of this will seem as bad to you when you've gotten a decent night's sleep.
2. If the people you need to impress have any appreciation for the kind of work you do, they will recognize your dedication and it won't matter that you hadn't shaved. And if they don't, they're morons. Or lacking compassion. Or both.
3. Walk away from the computer and get some rest!
Any job that permits me to sit in my favorite chair, listen to jazz while I work and take breaks to bs around at Lit and still get paid, is a pretty damn good job.
Oh. Family. Well, they'll accept you. They have no choice!
Thank you. This boy was fond of my skull, too. I was someone he really liked. Poor kid.
Lol, if you can edit and have any teaching experience, you might be able to get a gig scoring student writing samples like I do. It's stultifying but I can think of jobs that are much, much worse and you get to do it from home. Same with my freelance editing work. Any job that permits me to sit in my favorite chair, listen to jazz while I work and take breaks to bs around at Lit and still get paid, is a pretty damn good job.
Actually I used to work for a big company and do all that (except for the Lit part). I had convinced my bosses that I needed a quiet spot, so I had this big old office away from everyone else where I could blast jazz and edit. Lol. People used to come into my office and ask "They pay you to do this?" But it was a long, hard commute. It wasn't perfect!
I would have stayed with them if I could have worked at home. Freelancing feels sort of like being retired to me. I had to take a big pay cut to do it, but I'm a lot happier now and it's a funny thing: I can get by on much less "stuff" than I seemed to need when I had a real job. 
Oh. Family. Well, they'll accept you. They have no choice!
Thank you. This boy was fond of my skull, too. I was someone he really liked. Poor kid.
Writing and editing freelance is a great gig. When I worked for the corporation, I wasn't allowed to telecommute because the project I was assigned to worked on a federal contract--there was something in our contract prohibiting it.
I volunteer to tie him up and to pass out the feathers. Ladies? Think he's ticklish?
Hm. Maybe I should take lessons from Homburg first.
If you could get together with, oooh, I don't know, say, three friends then I think you could finally bring one of my young adolescent fantasies to fruition. It has been sadly ignored for years.
A girl like me ALWAYS welcomes lessons--so impressionable.
A girl like me ALWAYS welcomes lessons--so impressionable.
Stuff, dear Sis, is highly overrated. I went nuts a few weeks ago and tossed a ton of stuff. Unfortunately, one of the stuffs that was tossed was my cookbook with my pickled pepper recipe. Now I'm really screwed, but the place feels much free-er, fuck, that's not a word. It feels better. Yeah, I can almost breathe now.
Oh I am so wearing school girl gear in the Bistro today!
Ditto you and that brain of yours, bro. Anyway, the thing about family (mine, anyway) is even if they don't accept you they won't be mean to you. When I got married, I had one aunt in particular who was uttery freaking about my goyish husband.For a while she was calling me and my parents every few days to tell us how I was ruining my life (turned out I sort of was, but not because he wasn't Jewish). But she was always friendly to him, just never showed him how she really felt. And as often happens once I had a child she was fine. And I always figured with relatives that's enough "acceptance" for me.
PS A few years later, my cousin (that aunt's son) married a shiksa, so there is poetic justice lol. She got over that, too.
So far no one has really protested about the goyim thing. The grandma that I met is apparently not happy about it, but hasn't actually complained to MIS. I think that the age difference occludes it
That said, her ex is Jewish, but is an atheist and rabid about it. I'm totally fine with it, heck, I've told her that I would go to Temple with her if she wants me to. He would bitch at her for saying prayers and observing Passover, and would deny her the chance to do religious observance any time he could. I find it amusing that goyish me is friendlier towards her faith than her Jewish ex.
We sometimes say that when we are married we will be "McJew." Ahem. But yknow faith is faith. Sometimes I go to church with him and he has gone to temple with me, not because either of us are interested in converting--haha neither of us is really practicing the faiths we were born into. It's just good to be in a community of faith sometimes; who cares whose it is? And it's good to experience the traditions each of us grew up with--it's a love and sharing thing. 
Oh I am so wearing school girl gear in the Bistro today!
Mmm, oh the things that makes me want to do...
