I’ve been consistently… intermittently? … that seems like a contradiction even though it currently makes sense to me… nauseated for at least two weeks now. I think it’s stress. No matter what I do or don’t eat. Or when I do or don’t. It doesn’t matter. It’s miserable, and I am so busy that I can’t tell if sometimes it legitimately goes away or if I’m just too busy to notice it. There are so many progressive things happening, and so many things depressing me, they’re canceling each other out, except there is the excess of the negativity and it’s taking over.
Last year I felt so stagnant professionally it was starting to worry me. Then I worried it would start effecting the quality of my work and therefore my reputation, so I made the decision that from 9 – 6, since that’s all the time I’m allotted, I wouldn’t just be there physically but would actually be there and be present. I made the decision to show up every day, mine as well do everything to the best of your ability while you are there anyway. I’ve been called a mentor, I’ve had insane work (for a 40 hour period) dumped on me, I screamed for overtime to get it done and was denied, somehow still managed to get it done, appreciate those who helped me figure out how to rearrange and redo things to make it possible, and have tried to balance doing well without giving too much of a fuck.. that’s when it gets irritating. But it’s not my personality to not care in anything I’ve ever done academically, professionally, personal interest, everything. It’s in direct conflict with myself to not give a fuck. Otherwise I shouldn’t have any part in it. Well, I finally finished the project and a couple people noticed and that was cool. I finally got some recognition with a few peers, and it used to stress me out that this day hadn’t come. It came and went yesterday, and I don’t care about that anymore. I almost feel like I got nominated because my boss felt bad or felt some kind of guilt over other changes that were recently brought to light.
So I decided to shift my focus from work to school. I felt if I’m running up a hill a work, wow Kate Bush, to distract myself with another pursuit I’ve been wanting desperately. I went back to work months before I thought my health would allow last year… maybe I can do the same with university. It’s terrifying. Every time I’ve tried to push through this one my body has fought against me to the point of almost destroying itself. I’m not like normal person healthy either, I don’t think it’ll happen, I made peace with it years ago. But I think now my tolerance for pain and my threshold for activity has gone up. I’m still walking around fatigued, I just try to hide it better. Try to take better precautions to do as much as possible in a day without compromising the next. Sometimes I still fubar that estimate. I’m being given the impression that what I’ve been doing the last few months has been noticed by people in another office I never see, and that it’s supposedly planting seeds for opportunity in the future and there’s some verbal recognition. I’m tired of lip service. I see the illusion, I see the politics even if I don’t know how to play that game. I don’t want to. I should have been excited to get the thing I wanted last year. I’m not. I should be excited I’m starting university for the first time in 8 years in two weeks. I’m already exhausted thinking about it. But I still want it. How do I have this much energy driving me to obtain goals in two different directions simultaneously when I barely have enough energy to get out of bed in the morning, and it’s a struggle every morning? One thing I’ve been grateful is at least I already know what I’m doing at work and have established things so it’s not going to overwhelm me and conflict with my studies. That is a silver lining. I’m trying really hard here to find those.
Got home a little later than usual today since I had to work with contractors on busted TVs in conference rooms. They’re fun people, I actually enjoy working with them and don’t mind it, aaand I get to sleep in and go in later tomorrow because of today. Win. Random news thing in the living room regarding a cap in the state for selling solar freaked out dad. I explained it was a temp thing and they’re pushing for an extension tomorrow, and it’s not going to kill the industry. This was a lot of yes but here, have some logic. This conversation spiraled into a lot of other things like the recall notice on the car we got two weeks after trading it in last year. Earlier this week we got a post card saying the truck was one of the vehicles with a defect where if the airbag goes off shrapnel hits the occupants. That is freaking insane. What else is crazy is even though they offer to repair this at no cost, none of the dealerships have parts ready to fix it. So we’re waiting on a follow up notice in the mail of when parts will be available to fix the death trap on wheels. We ended up on a tangent about insurance companies and manufacturers deciding on how many deaths they’re potentially dealing with and the cost of lawsuits and settlements versus recalls, because the bottom line here is always about money, not life. Two out of the last three cars we’ve had, have been recalled for some crazy life threatening shit. I really hope my Asian car doesn’t have a homicidal streak like the last two American cars. Don’t let me down baby. Somewhere between car recalls and solar we got into how it’s illegal to go 100% off the grid even if you can sustain your property entirely on solar energy, or how it’s illegal to collect rain water, or in some places how you can’t grow your own food. The one that angers me the most is how it’s illegal to feed the homeless. That makes me so mad. People from Occupy would bring food and supplies and give extra to the homeless. I’ve seen people get yelled at and threatened, I know people who have been maced and arrested for this. How can people face fines and potentially jail time for any of the above? But it’s okay for corporations to not recall lethal products if settlements are more cost effective, even if they’re killing people. We talked legalities with insurance companies and somehow go to water tables being destroyed by old gasoline tanks and people drinking petroleum. Famous cases like Erin Brockovich and Pacific Gas and Electric. Dear lord, the downplaying of Fukushima. So this is great, tonight my dad randomly mentions the Superfund site for William AFB where I grew up. I asked him why he never brought it up before tonight and he said it just never came up but look it up. Threw it into Google and I’m looking at the EPA page on it. PCE and TCE were discovered in the ground water. LNAPL “in the form of floating jet fuel and VOSs from disposal of industrial solvents… PCBs, and pesticides form past disposal practices.. etc.” This stuff was going on while we lived there. This stuff is crazy. Earlier today while working on the TVs we were talking about the drought in California and agriculture and almonds. It apparently takes 1.1 gallons of water to grow a single almond. We Google’d it. One of the contractors has a major nut allergy, and we were discussing gluten and his household is careful to avoid it since they feel bloaty and terrible when they decide to consume it without thinking about it. I’m glad I don’t have celiac, but too much exposure still causes flare ups, I hate it. It’s better to avoid it. We talked about the documentary Fed Up discussing the World Health Organization‘s daily limit of 25 grams of sugar in a diet, and how even though no more than 10% of someone’s energy should come from sugar, a lot of products go way past the daily limit. I never even noticed how even though labels give percentages for things like sodium, fats, carbs, protein, etc, there is never a percentage next to sugar. The food is bad, the land is bad, water is bad, trying to control any of it personally without affecting others is bad. But if a large corporation or the government does it, it’s hidden, and when it’s exposed it blips in the news and disappears again. I probably sound like a liberal with a bleeding heart. I never thought of myself as a hippie, I’m not crunchy. It’s the lobbying, and money, and corruption, and broken policies that compound that leave me in awe. I wish more companies like mine would see this and do something about it, instead of continuing to exploit it. There are far too many. I consider myself pretty moderate politically. I am human. I believe in the human interest. I guess I’ve been so wrapped up in my personal drama and pain that I needed to focus on other problems that weren’t my own. But this laundry list is the world’s problem. That didn’t really help divert me from legitimate issues. I guess these aren’t my problems in the sense that they’re mine alone, those ones seem pretty trivial after all the above. These problems belong to every living breathing person, and every person who has yet to see a sunrise or experience rainfall, or know the warmth, love, and security of a mothers tight embrace. I am probably a fool, but I hope more people will acknowledge this before we are at the point of no return.
