not good but not bad
Aug. 16th, 2009 10:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Nngh. Back is not good. Long day at work followed by roller derby-- I sidestepped the issue of sitting down because under the new rules the jammer refs report the score after every pass of the jammer through the pack, meaning we update consistently throughout the jam. Since I was doing both teams, this meant I had to pretty much constantly be chasing jammer refs. "Don't sit down," said the other stats guy, who has been doing scorekeeping for Rochester's last few bouts, with the new rules (went into effect after our season ended, so we're not used to them). So I didn't take a chair at all. But towards the end of the second period, with the un-climate-controlled building getting unbearably stuffy and the jammer refs getting exhausted, I was getting to be really uncomfortable standing around, and I started getting confused. Fortunately the scoreboard operators, whose job is NOT scorekeeping, but who are involved in it, were able to keep double-checking me. Also fortunately, they could do math in their heads, because I couldn't. I counted on my fingers a lot, but only to double-check. ("What's the score?" Mr Poison Ivy League would demand. "Fifty-two plus nine!" I would answer, and then I'd wait for him to update the score, and then I'd count on my fingers after I wrote it down to make sure he was right.) It ain't high-tech, but it's accurate. It was important, as it turned out-- it was a close game the whole time.
Then I helped with teardown. And things were starting to bother me more. And I lifted a couple of things-- nothing heavy! A box full of fluorescent light tubes, weighing less than ten pounds. I bent down and peeled one single piece of tape off the ground. That was it! But right towards the end of the night, it was starting to feel like someone was poking me kinda hard with something kinda sharp... in the side that had been hurting less. So I don't know if I favored one side, or what. I'm an idiot. I realized it had been over 5 hours since my last dose of ibuprofin, so I've come home and had some more of that. It's not helping yet, but it's not that bad either. I had to limp out of the place, and had to hold myself up with the rink wall. (Z walks really fast. It's been more obvious lately. He'll just amble off, with his ten-foot strides, and there I am hobbling along wondering where he even went.)
I did confirm with someone that I am kind of fucked in terms of health insurance. I am going to go downtown anyway, if I ever get a day off, and sit for hours in the social services department and see if they wrote down somewhere that I'm fucked, or if I can fool them. And if that doesn't work, I'm totally fucked.
I started writing a letter to President Obama in the spring. I'm considering going back and finishing it and sending it. I tried writing a letter to Hillary Clinton, back last year sometime, before the campaign (she was my Senator, don't look at me like that), and it helped a little, but not really. I felt better for writing it.
I don't have any days off anytime soon, though. Today was my fourth consecutive day of work. I have four more, and then I have seven consecutive days to get through. And I might be fucked-- the day I have off next week, I've noticed, one of the two employees who is supposed to come in no-call-no-showed this week, after calling in the previous shift because her cat was sick. And of the four employees who can work the sales floor, there's me, with my back, and there's another one in his late fifties who is in the process of undergoing radiation treatments for cancer. He's on five days. I'm on six. (And we're both, I might mention, "part-time".)
I took this job because it's fun, yes, but I also took it because I couldn't handle a whole ton of stress. I admit it. I have these anxiety tendencies and I can't deal with high-pressure shit, and I figured, a fucking retail job at a non-corporate place is just the ticket! Only instead of low stress, I'm just making $7.50 an hour to have no life. Yeah... I wish the people weren't so nice and the job wasn't so fun because I need to not love it there. But it's killing me.
Doesn't help that the weather's wretched. It's never cooler than 82 in the store, either. Good times!
Considering going back to ECMC tomorrow-- there's a free clinic from 11-7. Might see about getting a follow-up on my back. But it's been better, it's just that I overdid it today, because I couldn't not do any of the things I did. (I didn't even lift heavy things at work! I had the other guy take the lab down, for once.)
I don't get a day off until Friday, and after that, I don't get a day off until next Saturday. Somewhere in there, I turn 30. Somewhere in there, there are about eight parties I'm missing. Fuck.
Then I helped with teardown. And things were starting to bother me more. And I lifted a couple of things-- nothing heavy! A box full of fluorescent light tubes, weighing less than ten pounds. I bent down and peeled one single piece of tape off the ground. That was it! But right towards the end of the night, it was starting to feel like someone was poking me kinda hard with something kinda sharp... in the side that had been hurting less. So I don't know if I favored one side, or what. I'm an idiot. I realized it had been over 5 hours since my last dose of ibuprofin, so I've come home and had some more of that. It's not helping yet, but it's not that bad either. I had to limp out of the place, and had to hold myself up with the rink wall. (Z walks really fast. It's been more obvious lately. He'll just amble off, with his ten-foot strides, and there I am hobbling along wondering where he even went.)
I did confirm with someone that I am kind of fucked in terms of health insurance. I am going to go downtown anyway, if I ever get a day off, and sit for hours in the social services department and see if they wrote down somewhere that I'm fucked, or if I can fool them. And if that doesn't work, I'm totally fucked.
I started writing a letter to President Obama in the spring. I'm considering going back and finishing it and sending it. I tried writing a letter to Hillary Clinton, back last year sometime, before the campaign (she was my Senator, don't look at me like that), and it helped a little, but not really. I felt better for writing it.
I don't have any days off anytime soon, though. Today was my fourth consecutive day of work. I have four more, and then I have seven consecutive days to get through. And I might be fucked-- the day I have off next week, I've noticed, one of the two employees who is supposed to come in no-call-no-showed this week, after calling in the previous shift because her cat was sick. And of the four employees who can work the sales floor, there's me, with my back, and there's another one in his late fifties who is in the process of undergoing radiation treatments for cancer. He's on five days. I'm on six. (And we're both, I might mention, "part-time".)
I took this job because it's fun, yes, but I also took it because I couldn't handle a whole ton of stress. I admit it. I have these anxiety tendencies and I can't deal with high-pressure shit, and I figured, a fucking retail job at a non-corporate place is just the ticket! Only instead of low stress, I'm just making $7.50 an hour to have no life. Yeah... I wish the people weren't so nice and the job wasn't so fun because I need to not love it there. But it's killing me.
Doesn't help that the weather's wretched. It's never cooler than 82 in the store, either. Good times!
Considering going back to ECMC tomorrow-- there's a free clinic from 11-7. Might see about getting a follow-up on my back. But it's been better, it's just that I overdid it today, because I couldn't not do any of the things I did. (I didn't even lift heavy things at work! I had the other guy take the lab down, for once.)
I don't get a day off until Friday, and after that, I don't get a day off until next Saturday. Somewhere in there, I turn 30. Somewhere in there, there are about eight parties I'm missing. Fuck.
