This was going to be short, but it turned into a big dump of all the things I hate about my job right now. I think I'll put it behind a cut to spare you all. But if you stick it through to my footnote at the end, you'll be rewarded with a big basket of WTF that I just recalled from my training. So, there's that.

( I HATE MY JOB SO MUCH YOU GUYS )

With the whole H1N1 drama, Walmart's absence policy has come under some criticism. Since I'm sick right now, I think I'm going to talk about it. I feel like a lot of the anti-Walmart movements on the Internet come off as alarmist, and criticize the wrong sorts of things, leaving themselves open to attack. So, here's how I see it.

Walmart's absence policy is a little complex, so bear with me while I break it down. Employees get three absence "occurrences" in a rolling six month period. An "occurrence" can be up to three consecutive days off, if they're for the same reason. What Walmart doesn't advertise (my supervisor had to tell me) is that if those three days fall over a break in the work week (the Walmart week ends on Friday and begins on Saturday), it counts as two occurrences.

So, if I called in on Sunday and Monday, that would be one occurrence, but if I called in on Friday and Saturday, it would be two. Remember, I only get three in a rolling six month period--by having the misfortune to fall ill on a Friday, I've just used two of those three. (As a matter of fact, I did get sick yesterday, a Friday, and went to work anyway for that very reason.)

And it's a rolling six month period. That means that the three months I've already worked without a single absence doesn't mean anything to Walmart; my six months begins today. I could work without an absence for a year, it wouldn't matter--the six months begins the day of the first absence.

After those three "occurrences", any absence bumps you onto Walmart's "coaching" circuit. It has two levels--verbal coaching, and written coaching. If you manage to work through those, you get to a "decision day", which basically puts you on probation while Walmart decides whether or not to fire you. And you can get coached for a lot more things than just absences. (My former supervisor got coached for swearing.) It doesn't matter what you're being coached for--you're still on the road to a decision day.

I've had two higher-ups at my store tell me that Walmart's absence policy is extremely lenient--after all, assuming you haven't been in trouble for anything else, you can miss up to seven days before they fire you! I can't speak for other retail companies--I don't imagine Target is much better, for example--but I can say that there's a lot about this policy that strikes me as arbitrary and unfair. (Why should Friday/Saturday count as two absences if Saturday/Sunday only counts as one? It's not like we get a day off at the end of the week!)

And of course, all of these days are unpaid. That's one bit of criticism I don't quite understand--the very nature of hourly work is that you don't get paid for hours you don't work. I honestly don't expect Walmart to pay me if I'm not working.

But, that doesn't mean it's not devastating for me to lose a couple day's work. I make just under $69 for a day's work (8-hour shift). To give you some scale, I've budgeted $50 a week for groceries, and I pay around $200 a month in rent. I am barely making enough to maintain this (very frugal!) lifestyle (and still save a little money) if I work every day I'm scheduled. If I start missing days, I start having to cut things . . . I can't even imagine how someone with a family does it.

Which is why, although it's pretty tempting to go ahead and call in to work again tomorrow, since it won't count against me, I probably will go to work anyway. Because December is going to be a bad month, bill-wise (doctor bills stacking up against student loans coming due), and I need all the money I can get. Besides, I get paid a dollar extra when I work on Sundays.

But, all of this is why I would recommend washing your hands thoroughly next time you leave a Walmart. Or, better yet, don't shop there at all.

(I'm sort of waiting to see how long I can keep being candid on the Internet before I get in trouble with Walmart. It's a fun game!)

Someday, when I'm grown and have plenty of money (hahaha), I'm going to go to a local Walmart store and pick some really obscure item and buy their entire stock (like coconut milk, or canned artichoke hearts, or something) (probably over a couple days so they don't try to stop me), and keep doing that for several weeks, so they're all like, "Geez, why can't we keep this in stock?"

And when their computer system finally decides to start sending them more to meet with demand . . . I'll stop. And then they'll be like, "Oh geez, what do we do with all these obscure items?"

Yes, my money will be going to Walmart, but it will SO be worth it for the hassle and consternation. And then my revenge will be complete. *puts fingertips together and cackles*

I'm doing NaNoWriMo again! I missed it a lot while I was in college, so this is VERY EXCITING for me. Unfortunately, since I have Twitter now, it's led me to neglect the LJ (whereas, before Twitter, NaNo would have sparked Much Posting here). Ah well.

Anyway, I just wanted to stop in pat myself on the back for everything I did today. I got out of bed by 9, and I had a marathon and wrote 1000 words in an hour, which at least twice as fast as I normally write, and then I hurried down to Montrose, got a polio vaccination, and ran three other errands all in time to show up at work by 2pm. Also, I wrote a couple hundred words on my lunch break.

So, my wordcount is behind, but I don't really feel bad. It was a full day. Trouble is, tomorrow I have to get up do it again--I need to get 2000 words at least before I go to work at 2. I think I will sleep now!

Walmart publishes this newsletter for its employees. There are a bunch of copies in the breakroom, and the other night, I was really bored, because the book I've been reading at work (The Gangster We Are All Looking For, by lê thi diem thúy*) was boring and pretentious. And, on the cover of this particular newsletter, there was a photograph of a store manager, standing with his hands on his hips and his head held high in a field of solar panels. The article was supposed to be about Walmart and green energy, but I didn't bother opening the newsletter to read it.

Instead, I took out a ballpoint pen (all I had) and drew big feathery wings on the guy, and added the headline, "THE X-FACTOR: Mutants among us!"** I giggled, and went back to work.

Two hours later when I came back for my break, somebody had filled in my scribblings with a Sharpie, which made them look much better. They also drew over the guy's body to give him a big muscle-y chest and glowing eyes (and horns? I don't remember), and had added the headline, "We da mutants!"

I can't even tell you how happy this made me. Seriously, it was the ONE bright point of work that evening, to see that somebody else was somewhere near my own state of mind. From now on, I'm carrying a Sharpie in my purse so that I can more effectively graffiti the asinine newsletters in the break room.

I'm also sort of playing this game where I see how long I can keep talking openly about Walmart on my blogs and Twitter before I get in trouble. It's fun!***


* Who apparently is too good for capital letters in her name. And yes, I did just copy it from Wikipedia; I don't like the book well enough to figure out how to type Vietnamese diacritical marks. Even though the software I use to type in Greek can probably do it pretty easily.

** Earlier that evening, I'd been amusing myself by trying to read the French parts of a flier about pomegranates, even though I don't know French. So, this was a step up as far as entertainment went.

*** I have lots of games I play to keep myself from going crazy at Walmart. Like, I make up sordid backstories for my customers. Also, when we change watch batteries, we set them on the base of the lamp at the changing station, and then drop them into the recycling box later. So, I wait until things are really slow to put the batteries away, and then I have to recite a line of poetry for every battery I drop into the box. (It was going to be a line of Shakespeare, but I didn't like being limited to just one poet.) Also, when things are REALLY slow, I play the alphabet game. I have to find every letter in the alphabet consecutively on signs without moving around. ("Quartz" really saves my butt in this game. Also, "Timex".)

. . . yeah, basically, it's only been a month and my job is already destroying my will to live. It's gonna be a long couple of months.

I was going to come home and tell you guys a story about the old man from Texas I helped this afternoon, and how he wanted a small watch but his wife told him that when he wears women's watches he looks "like a homosexual", and how he also told me that he doesn't want to wear a gold band because he "sweats like a negro". And about how it's funny, because he was very clearly the sort of person who has a strong set of values--for example, I could tell he'd never have dreamed of swearing in front of me, since I'm a lady, even if he would casually drop the phrase "sweat like a negro". And about how weird it is to encounter someone whose value system is so jarringly different than mine.

I was going to, but the last hour or so at work was incredibly stressful. I had a customer who had to wait on me for the LONGEST time because first I couldn't quite help her right, so she's going to have to come back so somebody else can sort out the mess, and second, it took me FOREVER to finish taking a link out of the band of her watch (which she only bought because of the first thing I couldn't fix), and she had people waiting; and that took so long that I couldn't finish the other major project I was supposed to get done this evening, and I'm a little worried my supervisor will think I slacked off (which I didn't!), and I still had to rush to clock out in time (you get in trouble if you go over your time), and by the time I left the store, I was a big bundle of stress and run-on sentences.

Also, I yelled at my mom earlier (in public) because she said she'd go pick up my Peace Corps paperwork at my doctors for me, and didn't because she thought they wouldn't let her (because she didn't know I'd called them). Came home to find the paperwork on my desk because she went back to get it--which is a pretty significant inconvenience for her. Only, she couldn't have known but the office didn't give her the most important form, so I'm going to have to go back and get it anyway, which drives home the point that I should have just gone myself, and makes me feel like even more of a cad.

. . . so, basically, I'm ending the day feeling like a pretty horrible person. It's a terrible way to be going to bed.

Thesis: Customers are assholes.

Evidence: This afternoon, I was concentrating on some inventory task, when a very fat man in one of those motorized carts whistled at me to get my attention. (This already flustered and irritated me: I am not a dog.) I asked if I could help him, and he started gesturing, making a squeezing motion with his hands, then pointing at his ears and shaking his head.

At first I assumed he couldn't speak English (he was dark enough to be Hispanic), but it gradually dawned on me that he must be deaf, and I grew steadily more flustered as I tried to understand his sign language. I even asked him if he could fingerspell, since I have sort of an understanding of the ASL alphabet. He just kept pointing at his ears and gesturing.

Finally, he mimed writing. Lightbulb! I grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and watched, very earnestly attentive, as he painstakingly began to write--veeeery sloooowly. "C a n . . . y o u . . . t a l k."

"Uh . . . yes, I can talk." He points at his ears. Maybe he needs to find hearing aid batteries? Louder--and more confused--I say, "Yes, I can talk!"

And then he bursts out laughing. "So can I! I was just kidding with ya." And he continued to ask me where he might find a ketchup squeeze bottle.

So, I ask you, Livejournal: Where does confusing and embarrassing someone who is trying to help you, and wasting her time and energy, get funny? I was humiliated, and furious, and frustrated, and when he showed up later to pay for his damn ketchup bottle, I wanted to refuse to speak to him.

He pissed me off so much, I thought it would be worth the time to write a LJ post about it before collapsing into bed after an unexpected 16 hour workday. (Not Walmart's fault, for the record.)

In honor of Banned Book Week, I'm reading The Catcher in the Rye at work this week. I wasn't forced to read it in high school the way a lot of people my age were, and now that I'm out of college, I'm sort of trying to catch up on some of the important works of fiction that I somehow missed during my formal education.

Anyway, today one of the men who works in maintenance told me that after I read it, I can go shoot somebody, because loads of assassins have been obsessed with it. "The guy who killed Kennedy was really into it, and the guy who killed Lennon was really into it, and . . ."

. . . sigh. I was hoping that by reading it in the break room, I could explain to people about Banned Book Week and the importance of avoiding censorship . . . but he was too interested in what he had to say about the association between the book and murderers to hear anything I said about censorship.

Ah well.

Actually, I guess I'm not much better. I associate The Catcher in the Rye with the Five Iron Frenzy song "Superpowers" (which has the line, "I sometimes feel like Holden Caulfield").*


* This song has even more complex associations, because a month or two ago, I was in Goodwill, and was shocked to hear it on the radio. Usually the Goodwill radio plays oldies--lots of Beach Boys and Elvis, that sort of thing. So, it was really damned weird to hear FIF in there. REALLY.

Last night I went to bed at 8:00, and got up at 6:00, and I was STILL exhausted. Family drama REALLY takes it out of you. I hope I feel better rested tomorrow, but if I don't, at least I know it's my last Walmart day until Thursday.

I'm going to try drinking green tea at work tomorrow instead of coffee. We'll see how THAT works out. Possibly it's an experiment that's not well suited to my fifth consecutive day of work, but, eh.

Walmart finally has me working again. This is good, because I need the money very badly, and because I was kind of getting bored and crabby sitting at home with nothing do do*. This is bad, because . . . well, when was the last time YOU spent eight hours inside a Walmart?

It's led to a strange realization, though: even though I traditionally hate getting up early, I would much rather work the 7-4 opening shift than the 2-11 closing shift. Sure, I have to get up at six in the morning, but I get home by dinner time and I can spend the evening doing whatever I want. If I started work at 2, I wouldn't really be able to relax the same way. There would certainly be less wine involved.



* My definition of 'nothing' includes: learning how to sew; failing TWICE at making meringues; cooking shitloads of meals, including the world's best refried beans and some homemade tortillas; plus the usual knitting, spinning, and reading. I do not do 'idle' very well.

I'm not very good about posting here anymore, am I? You should probably blame my awesome friends, who hear most of the ideas and stories I have to tell via instant messenger, which means I'm not left with a strong urge to write about them here on my LJ. Also, when I'm not stressed out, I have less to process here.

Anyway, I feel like I should record the information that I am now officially a Sales Associate at Walmart in the Jewelry Department. I have . . . mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I need the money very badly. (Living on $200 a month all summer was . . . interesting.) And my coworkers in the Jewelry Department are all quite pleasant and fun. In fact, the work atmosphere is surprisingly pleasant, at least on the human end.

But then, you've got the corporate end. And that's not so fun. I've had to sit through hours and hours of what they call CBLs (computer-based learning)--it's basically a Powerpoint slide narrated by a very bored voice actor, with a quiz at the end. Some of them are to convey important information (like how to pierce ears or operate a cash register), but a lot of them are just corporate policies for convincing the employees that Walmart cares about them. For example, they REQUIRED me to go in and work up a 'career plan' for my time at Walmart. Sam Walton said, "You don't have to leave Walmart to change careers." . . . seriously, the rest of my life at Walmart? I would rather stab my eyes out.

Then there's the obvious downsides, like spending eight hours inside of a Walmart. Brr.

( What's going on in the rest of my life, in list format )

I'm working on getting certified as a substitute teacher for this school year. Today I spent 3+ hours running errands in town trying to get all the paperwork filled out. It's as bad as the Peace Corps, which made me wonder why I decided to apply to two government positions at once.

It's also bloody expensive to become a substitute teacher!

Printing forms at the library: $1.30
Getting the copy of my driver's license notarized: $3.00
Getting fingerprints done at the sheriff's office (AGAIN, since I had to do it for the Peace Corps as well): $5.00
Colorado Dept. of Education Licensing Fee: $30.00
Colorado Bureau of Investigation fingerprint processing fee: $39.50
Mailing fingerprints to CBI: $3.00

It totals at more than $80. My mom pointed out that I'll make that back my first day of work, but still!

It also looks like I'll be living at home for a while longer, because my brother's attempt at getting an apartment fell through. It's probably for the best, since neither of us could afford it, but I was kind of looking forward to living on my own and in town. I've been kind of vaguely frustrated ever since I got back from college, and I think I just need space to work it out. Oh well.

So, one day a week, I proofread the local newspaper. It's not a great job (a small newspaper in rural western Colorado is bound to be a little dull), but it's kind of cool, because unlike 90% of other humans, I actually care quite a bit about grammar and punctuation. The problem: I have to proofread to the paper's specific style guidelines, and sometimes these guidelines disagree with my own sensibilities.

The biggest offender is the serial comma.

It took me a while to decide I liked the serial comma. In high school, I thought it was redundant and senseless. But then, I dunno, something changed. It grew on me. I like its elegance. And its arrogance--the way it seems to say, "Yes, well, 'and' is all very well and good, but it isn't nearly so important as punctuation." By the time I got to college, I was a huge fan of the serial comma, and I've used it unabashedly ever since.*

But, the newspaper doesn't use the serial comma. It thinks that 'and' is quite enough, thank you very much. And, since it's a newspaper, there are quite a few lists of three or more items--it's just something that happens when your primary goal is conveying a lot of facts. This means that a very good portion of my job is removing serial commas from articles by writers who don't give a flying semicolon about consistent style.**

And this, unfortunately, means that now my brain is trying to mentally remove serial commas from everything I read. It's inevitable--you can't read dozens of columns of text searching for serial commas to remove them without developing an automatic serial comma alarm. And I have to be extra alert, because the other woman who proofreads, although she's much better than I am about catching formatting errors (spaces off, etc.), doesn't really care about punctuation the way that I do (but few people do; it's kind of a mania), which means that serial commas are basically my soul responsibility.

I'm quite worried that if I work at this job too long, I may lose my love of the serial comma. And that, my friends, would be a tragedy



* Admittedly, I've been known to abuse commas on many occasions. I do love those things.

** My first day at work, one of our reporters caught me removing one of his commas and told me, rather sternly, that I would find that he adhered to Strunk and White. I did not tell him that I think Strunk and White were idiots. I did tell him that I in fact quite love the serial comma, but I had been told that the paper didn't use them, so I was going to take them out. I don't think he liked me telling him that***, but really, I lost a lot of respect just hearing he was a Strunk and White follower. Which is really a terrible, judgmental thing for me to do, because he seems like a very nice and reasonably intelligent man. Even if I do mercilessly slash his commas every week.

*** Okay, either he didn't like it, or he wasn't quite sure what I meant by "serial comma". I know I confused the other proofreader by writing "STET" on my first day of work. It's likely I'm over-qualified for this job.


POSTSCRIPT FOR THE GRAMMATICALLY INCLINED: I'd just like to make it clear that I don't blindly slash every serial comma I see. In some cases--mainly in lists where the individual items are several words long or are particularly complex--removing the serial comma would make the list very difficult to understand. In those cases, I leave it in. Just wanted to clarify, in case any of you are as nerdy as I am and might have felt inclined to comment.

I'm at that place where my head is full of blog topics, but I can't find it in me to write any of them. I wanted to write about my road trip with Jessica, which was a TON of fun (there's something very satisfying about camping . . . facing all these tiny challenges like gathering wood and lighting a fire and cooking dinner)--I decided I want to live in the Southwest for sure eventually. (I'm already kind of Southwest, but I'd like to be south-er and west-er.)

And then I wanted to write about my first day on my new job (proofreading the local newspaper). It's pretty cool, because it's basically like being a Classics major, except I get paid to pay attention to tiny details and talk about grammar. I think I may be a little over-educated for the job, though. I got teased for writing "STET", and when I started talking about serial commas, people just kind of stared. On the other hand, all the people who work there are really nice, so I think I'll enjoy the job. If nothing else, it's nice to have a job that actually uses my skills.

And then I wrote most of an entry about the memorial service for the man who was my youth pastor, but couldn't bring myself to finish it. I don't really want to talk about it here, either, because it feels strange and sort of wrong to lump that in with the other little inanities that I've been thinking about. Suffice it to say that it was very sad (he was only 37, with three young kids), but also very inspiring.

And now, if I wanted to, I could write about spending the past few days at the Palisade Bluegrass Festival, where I was delighted to discover that I wasn't the only fiber-lover who skipped the Estes Park Wool Market this weekend--there were two alpaca farms in a booth, and I scored 7 oz. of beautiful brown alpaca, which I've been spinning rabidly all day. I'm super excited about it.

(By the way, this entire post is an example of praeteritio. Cool, huh? And they tried to convince me I wouldn't use my Classics major!)

My friend Jessica from school is visiting me. It's really cool to have somebody from Sweet Briar out here in Colorado! Tomorrow, we embark on a four day camping trip in the southwest--mostly in southern Utah, with a little visit to the Grand Canyon. It should be a lot of fun! We are all packed, and should have lots of good food to eat along the way. I'm really excited about the whole thing.

Today, in addition to preparing for our trip, we sort of hung out in town. (I'm trying to give Jessica the Small Town, CO experience, which involved hanging out in my brother's coffee shop and visiting the Egyptian Theater. We saw UP. It was awesome. The dog was the best part.) I interviewed for that proofreading position with the local newspaper. I start Tuesday! And, well, only work Tuesdays, since it's only a one day a week job. But, it's good experience, and any income is positive.

We will be returning from our camping trip on Sunday, but I will not resume my normal internet presence until Tuesday, which is when Jessica has to leave. Until then, I'm going to go have FUN, and I hope you all do the same.

The only thing more annoying than not finishing the day's work until nearly 11pm is having that happen to you on a day when everyone else you know got the day off. Bah.

This morning, around 10:30, the schedule for the ARC was finally sent out. The e-mail began, "Here's the schedule beginning today." This did little to improve my mood. I did get exactly the hours I wanted, though, so that's okay. I'm a little sad, because I'll be working with basically the only worker I don't think is totally awesome. I've worked with some great people at the ARC, and had some really great conversations--I don't forsee that happening this semester. Ah well.

My day started with a visit to the health center. You guys know how I had to get on a train before I was fully recovered from bronchitis--well, my ears clogged up going over the mountains, and have remained resolutely clogged since then--over a week now. So, I went to the health center. At this point, the nurse practitioner there knows me pretty well. She asked about the prescription the doctor gave me last semester, and I admitted I hadn't been able to afford it. Unlike the doctor who comes in, the nurse practitioner knows me and sympathizes with the lack of money. She told me to go and get some Afrin nasal spray and Sudafed and use them together to try to clear things up. (I got the generics and only spent a few dollars.)

If it doesn't improve by Wednesday, I'm supposed to come in to see the doctor (he visits weekly to handle stuff beyond the scope of the health center), because I might need an antibiotic. I'm really hesitant to do that, though. Last time, he gave me a talk about how he wanted to hear from me if the situation didn't get better, and if he didn't hear from me, he'd assume it was better. Instead, I didn't buy the prescription he gave me, and just kind of ignored the problem. (It seemed to mostly resolve itself a few months later.) So, I have guilt. I also don't want to get slapped with another $200 prescription that I won't be able to buy. That's so frustrating.

On the other hand, the nurse said that if this problem persists, I could get a secondary bacterial infection on top of it. I don't really want that to happen either. I'm also chewing gum, but I don't expect it to help much.

On top of all that, it looks like I've picked up some ringworm on my arm. At least I've got some cream left from that debacle with the rash last winter. It's like my body suddenly thought, "Hey, minor medical issues! Awesome! Want!"

Okay, that . . . could have gone better.

I called last night to tell work I couldn't come in, and because my boss wasn't in, I talked to the pseudo-manager (psuedo because she's not exactly the manager, but the actual manager walked off the job one night and never came back, and she's next up on the chain of command). And it really sounded like she had it all taken care of--she told me that was fine and I hung up with the understanding that I wasn't expected to come in. And I felt good, because they would have some time to find someone to cover the shift.

My shift would have started at 5:00. At 5:10 this evening, my boss called to say, "You never called me, what's the deal?" I tould him I called and talked to the pseudo-manager last night and he hung up before I could say anything else. He sounded irritated.

I'm trying to convince myself it's her fault, not mine, but of course most of me isn't buying that. It's your own responsibility to take care of that sort of thing, you know? Heck, at my job on campus, we have to find someone to cover our shifts ourselves--our supervisor doesn't have anything to do with it. So now I've got that terrible "You Screwed Up" feeling in my stomach, which has led to me being depressed and jumpy every since my boss called. (Jumpy, as in I had to make myself a cup of chamomile tea just to calm my heart down. Didn't help that the wind kept blowing the porch door open.)

Aaaand . . . since my boss hung up so quickly, I still have to call him back to tell him I can't work tomorrow. Given that I'm already in the throes of dread and despair, this concept is just about the last thing I want to do ever. Phonecalls are bad enough, but phonecalls when the person you're calling is irritated because you screwed up, and now you have to tell them that you can't help them again? When I was in Greece, we stayed at a hotel in the mountains that had a small swimming pool. It was June, but the pool wasn't heated, and it was ICE FREEZING COLD. I've never been that cold in my life. I had an asthma attack starting seconds after I jumped in, and it took me hours to recover.

I would gladly jump back into that pool if it meant I could get out of calling my boss tonight.

So, I was feeling lots better, and also feeling rather guilty for not going to work tonight--which is pretty much par for the course for me, because I always wonder if maybe I'm not really sick--when all of the sudden . . . wham. Suddenly the congestion is ten times worse, and I'm coughing and wheezing and feeling sort of weak and dizzy and . . . is that a fever? Hard to say, because we don't have a working thermometer in this house, but my skin feels a lot warmer to me anyway.

So, I guess I'm glad I called off work, but . . . meh. I'm not sure what I've got, either. Any other time, I'd label it as bronchitis, since that's pretty much the only thing I ever get sick with. But this time it's been accompanied by occasional nausea and dizziness (which get much, much worse if I go out into the heat), which is new, and also a killer headache at the very beginning, which hasn't returned since then. So I'm like, bronchitis? Flu? Just a bad cold? Who knows? I do know, at least, that I probably brought it on myself by stressing myself out a bunch the other day.

And somehow, I have to decide whether I can afford to work tomorrow and Sunday. This was going to be my last weekend, so I feel really creepy about not going--it's got to look suspicious from my boss's end, especially since my mom isn't here to drive me to work. Also, it seems like almost everybody took this weekend off to go camping, which means he's probably already extremely short-staffed. But, on the other hand . . . if I'm sick, I'm sick, you know? I can't work if I'm sick, and I can't make myself better. And, to make matters worse, without my mom here to give me a ride, I would have to get a ride to town early in the day. Even if I could handle a three or four hour shift, that doesn't mean I could handle a three or four hour shift plus hanging out in town all day and walking to work.

So . . . I really don't know what to do. And I have to make a decision pretty fast, too, so that my boss will have time to find someone to cover the shift . . . if there is anyone.

Even better, I'm home alone this weekend because my mom and Clay went to a bluegrass campout. I like the solitude a lot, but . . . sometimes I get freaked out. I locked both the doors, but I keep hearing things and having to go check them out. Makes me sound paranoid, but it's kind of scary being alone. Especially when I'm sick. So, basically . . . not doing so hot.

Oh, and also, the doctor's office called me this morning. Apparently my x-rays are normal, and so are "some of" my tests. Unfortunately, the phonecall woke me out of a sound sleep, so I was very far from alert and didn't think to ask which tests came back normal until after I had crawled back into bed. Now I'm all paranoid that all of them will be normal and we'll be back where we started. You'd think, "You don't have any of these diseases!" would be a good thing, but . . . telling me I don't have X doesn't mean I'm going to magically stop experiencing Y symptoms. I think this new doctor understands that . . . at least, I hope she does. I barely have any time left here at home . . . I don't know if it's enough time to resolve this.

Today at the restaurant, I ran a man's credit card through the machine, and when the receipt printed, I noticed his name was Virgil. "Oh," I said, "Virgil is one of my favorite Roman writers!" (Why, yes, I am a nerd.)

"Really?" he said. "I'm an English teacher--I teach Shakespeare and Chaucer and things like that."

"That's so cool!" I said. "I'm a Classics student!"

We proceded to talk for a minute or two, then he sat back down. A little while later, he came up again. "Do you know the first lines of the Aeneid?" he asked.

"Arma virumque cano . . ." I began, and since I didn't know any more, he picked up from there.

"Troiae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus . . ." And so forth. It was all I could do to keep from jumping up and down squealing, I kid you not. He asked if that was the first time I'd had someone quote Virgil to me in the restaurant--I told him it was the first time I'd had someone quote Virgil to me in this state.

It was so cool. Definitely the most exciting thing I've ever had happen at work.

What I really ought to be doing is going to bed. But I figure I can make a LJ post before I do that.

I survived the bluegrass festival! It was actually fairly pleasant . . . I'm not a big fan of festivals in general, because they involve both being outside and being around a lot of people, neither of which I like to do for very long. But, as festivals go, this one was fairly pleasant. Partly that's because it had a focus--it was a bluegrass festival, and by golly, those people were there because they loved bluegrass. Now, I have no idea why anyone would lay out $60 odd dollars to sit around for three days listening to bluegrass, but, hey, if that makes you happy, go for it. Other local festivals are usually more along the lines of "Cherry Days" which translates to "Our Excuse to have a Festival Days", so there it's more like people are there because they love festivals. Which is incomprehensible to me--I can understand loving bluegrass, but just loving festivals for the sake of it? Don't get it.

Also, bluegrass people are in general pretty pleasant and good natured, especially when they're all excited to be at a festival. And, while I wouldn't want to pay money to sit around listening to the music (I got in free), at least it wasn't obnoxious, most of the time. It all kind of blurred together to where my entire weekend had bluegrass music playing in the background, quite literally.

There was one band though that actually stood out. I'm not sure whether or not I should be worried that I've heard enough bluegrass to actually have an opinion, but I did actually sort of like the main headline band they had playing. That would be Adrienne Young & Little Sadie. Mom says that the reason I liked her is because the sound is more like Nickel Creek (upbeat but mellow, good vocals) and less like your other type of generic bluegrass band (all heavy banjo and tinny, obnoxious voices). She knows more about it, so I'll trust her. Anyway, if you're into that sort of thing, you could check out Adrienne Young, I guess. Apparently she won an award, not for her music, but for her cd packaging--I guess it's all organic, or something like that.

Had a crazy, crazy, crazy night at work, on account of the festival. I was running at full speed and multitasking like nobody's business, all night. I can still feel that running around in my ankle, which is hurting even when I don't stand on it, and my hip, which is quiet unless I abuse it. I tell you what, I can't go on like this--if I'm in this much pain after every shift, it's almost not worth working. (Well, okay, it is, because I absolutely have to have the money, but . . . good grief. Enough is enough, you know?) I keep meaning to get a doctor appointment, but so far I haven't gotten the chance. Especially since I'm not sure it'll do any good.

I finished Rakkety Tam, too, and maybe it's just because it's been so long, but I enjoyed it a lot more than the other later Redwall books I've read (that would be Taggerung, Triss and Loamhedge). It rekindled my desire to go live at Redwall Abbey. That life would be just about as perfect as it could get.

So, yeah. My life is still pretty much what it has been since I've been home--reading, working, and still in pain. No change, yet I still find ways to reword it all into more LJ posts. Go figure.