So I should maybe pay attention more . . .

So I caught 'The Patriot' on TV today. I wasn't really a fan of it in the past because the first (and only) other time I saw it, I thought the movie was pretty disturbing. Not because of the deaths and war violence, but because I thought Mel Gibson's character fell for his sister. Incest isn't cute in my book, people. However, I may not have been paying very close attention to the movie, but I just assumed it was his sister because all the kids called her 'aunt'. This time around I figured out it was his sister-in-law. That small detail changes everything.

It's kinda like how all growing up I thought the second verse of the song 'I am a Child of God' started as, "I am a Child of God, and so my knees are grey," which led to several daydreams during primary where I imagined why someone's knees would be grey. Were they dirty? Was it because she was wearing tights? Was she playing with markers? Hence, I was never able to remember the rest of that verse because I was too busy wondering why someone would color their knees grey. Several years later I figured out the song is actually, "I am a Child of God, and so my needs are great."

I wonder how many movies I need to re-watch to make sure I actually hate them.

So, I'm abnormal. And now the people at work know.

Seriously it seems like embarrassing moments and a messed up body are like the themes of my life. And normally, those two will coincide with each other. Like yesterday.

So, at work I've been moved to Lead a brand spanking new team. It's a team of 16 individuals that do not know me at all, so we had a meeting scheduled yesterday where I would introduce myself. Well, I've already moved my desk so that I sit with them, so they are getting to know me by observing me, which is a little freaky. Especially lately.

I've been feeling more cruddy then normal and have some rogue infection which I have to take drugs for. Except for these drugs are a liquid that I have to hold in my mouth for about a minute. And I have to do it at work, because I have to take them like 72 (ok, 3) times a day. The thing with these drops are . . . they are what evil must taste like. And it burns. I feel like I'm holding nuclear waste in my mouth and then swallowing it. And I have a difficult time disguising my facial expressions, so when I take these drops, it is uber apparent to the world that I have nuclear waste in my mouth. It isn't pleasant.

Then, today right before I was getting ready to leave for the meeting, I got a bloody nose. Now, for a normal person this is just an inconvenience. (Ok, so I hate the word blood, and it sounds uber gross, so for this story I'm going to refer to the blood as Kool-Aid. Cool? Cool.) Except, my Kool-Aid noses aren't normal Kool-Aid noses. (Because apparently nothing about me is normal.) Mine are like I cut an artery. It is a LOT of Kool-Aid and fast and doesn't go away for a LONG time. So I had to run and tell the leader I support that I'll be late for the meeting, while I was stopping the Mt. Vesuvius that was my face. So I ran to the restroom and tried unsuccessfully to try and stop the Kool-Aid for 20 minutes. I decided I needed ice which meant I had to go to the nurse's office.

When I finally get to the nurses office (after passing at least 100 people that were rather alarmed by my Kool-Aid mess of a face - no wonder I don't get embarrassed easily) the nurse kept telling me to lean back and that'll stop the Kool-Aid. Yeah - that doesn't work for me. It basically forces all the Kool-Aid to go the other direction and I start choking. Yummy. When she finally saw how much Kool-Aid my nose was producing, she looked a little frightened and ran and got another nurse. That nurse came in, took one look and left to get someone else. (I'm not even kidding). That nurse then came in and sat in a chair and WATCHED me have a bloody nose. Honestly, that was all she did. And I'm pretty honest, especially with doctors, so I kept saying stuff like,

"I'll be okay. No, seriously, this is totally normal . . . . . All I needed was some ice. It's gonna be awhile, don't you have something else you'd like to do? . . . . . Well, this is awkward. . . . . Well, I'm gonna try to wash all this (kool-aid) off my face now, it's pretty gross, so you really don't need to watch. Unless, you know, I guess you want to watch. . . . . . . And apparently you do."

So I was basically performing a monologue while holding a dixie cup to my nose to catch all the Koo-Aid (because kleenex doesn't cut it, folks) and also trying to hold the world's largest ice pack to my nose. And then - when I finally got the grossness to stop, she wouldn't leave until she could inspect it herself. Seriously.

THEN - I went to the store later that day and I was wondering why this older woman that was an employee kept asking me if I was ok. I couldn't figure out why, because I was totally fine.

Then I got home and saw why. Apparently when I washed my face I forgot that I was wearing mascara (I rarely do) and because I haven't been feeling well, I've been sleeping worse than normal, which makes my eyes more bloodshot than normal. The result was someone that looked incredibly strung out/insane. Lovely.

So sleep is apparently necessary. Who knew?

So I've been having some super exciting (note:sarcasm) events which have been causing me to completely lose my sanity lately. So far, none of my co-workers or friends have noticed a difference . . . . which apparently means I'm always this crazy. Anyway . . . so I've been going to lots of dr appts lately and getting tests and stuff (because it's what the cool kids do). And this week my Dr told me I needed to get a blood test at 10 am today and I can't have any drugs in my system when I take it cuz it can throw the results off, which are important, apparently. So for most people this isn't a big deal, but for me it kinda screws things up. I'm super unique and apparently need an elephant size tranquilizer before my body decides to even consider the idea of sleeping. Every night I have to convince my brain that sleep is necessary and if it doesn't give the heck up already I'll be in major pain the next day. Sometimes this tactic works. And then sometimes my brain just says, "Screw you, I'll do what I want. So WHAT if I want to watch a Lifetime movie marathon? You're not the boss of me!" (My brain can be very rude sometimes.)

If I don't take any drugs to help me sleep it will be 72 hours before my body surrenders. Trust me, I've tried it and it's not pretty. So I knew that I didn't really have a chance of falling asleep last night. But I still tried. I kept coming up with the most boring activities that have put me to sleep in the past. I pulled out a book I could never finish because it was SO. BORING. - - -I ended up finishing the book. So that failed. Then I decided to watch something REALLY boring so that I would fall asleep. So I pulled out my trusty Netflix online and went to Discovery Channel and clicked on "Shark Week" because, well, I've never had any desire to watch it before and so now I'm sure I will be put to sleep with the sweet sounds of . . . . sharks eating their prey. So the dang thing backfired (go figure) and it was like really interesting. Did you know that you can like put a shark to sleep by touching their nose? You should try it sometime. It seems easy enough.

ANYWAY, so I went to work today at 5 am - this after a night of no sleep. I went and got my blood test done, and had to stay at work until 4pm . . . . so basically an 11 hour shift with no sleep. Good times. And I thought I was hiding it pretty well until just now when I told a colleague that I thought Netti Pots were for flowering your pants. Yeah, that's not at all what I meant, but that's how my dreadfully tired brain translated it.

So, that's the end of my story. I'm sure tomorrow I won't even remember or understand this post.

P.S. Doesn't the shark pic above look oddly similiar to a chin face? You know what I'm talking about? When you hang upside down and draw a face like this:

Admit it. It's eerily similiar.

So I'm surrounded by idiots

So last night I was at the airport picking up my parents at the airport. While I was waiting for my parents to land and get their luggage, I went to the "Cell Phone Lot". This is a very convenient parking area in the middle of nowhere that people can wait for their people to land. As I was sitting there contemplating my existence, (ok, so I was watching 'The Soup' on my phone) I noticed something ironic. There was an entire row of handicap parking spaces in the cell phone lot. There is nowhere for people to go - unless they want to walk around the runways . . . .but there is even a sign that says, "Do Not Leave Your Vehicle". So even if there was a handicap driver . . . why do you need a space? I can tell there was a lot of thought put into this parking lot.

So this week inhaled profusely

This week has been the worst week work-wise that I have ever had. And that's saying something, considering I've had some CRAPPY experiences at work. Including (and I truly wish I was stretching the truth with all of these . . . but no. All true):

• When I worked at Water World as a lifeguard and fell into the wave pool and took down the entire wood siding with me. Good times.
• The time I worked at AMC 30 and was the only one that showed for the usher shift on New Years Eve for the entire theater. Which meant I had to clean all the bathrooms, all the throw-up in the aisles, all the spilled popcorn for all 30 theaters BY MYSELF.
• The time I worked as a massage therapist at Lavenders and the hydrotherapy room flooded so we spent the day carrying out all the furniture of the entire spa and sweeping out the water without being paid (because no clients=no pay). Oh, and the electrical sockets were ON THE FLOOR so they were covered in water that we were wading in. Slightly dangerous.
• The time I was a manager for Geppedos porcelain dolls and I spent an entire night by myself in the dark in a storage unit organizing impossible inventory whilst several rats ran around.
• The one day I worked as a tele-marketer selling trash bags in some creepy hole-in-the-wall office in downtown Phoenix with 15 skeevy men that smoked the entire time, leaving me nauseous and wondering what life choices I made that led me to a job where I sold TRASH BAGS. (Wow, that is a long sentence.)

Yeah, this week tops all of those. It is THAT bad. I can't really go into details, because I kinda don't want to be fired, but take my word for it, it's pretty dang horrible. And after looking at this list I'm wondering . . . does everyone have such bad luck with jobs?

So this JUST HAPPENED.

So I started bringing my lunch to work (I'm on Day 2, go ME!) because apparently I don't eat enough (go figure). But I generally eat one meal at the end of the day after work and that's it. This is apparently bad for you. So I've been bringing breakfast, (because I won't wake up early enough to eat it at home) 2 snacks, and a lunch to work. It feels like I'm bringing the entire contents of my fridge to work every day. It is SO MUCH FOOD. But I'm on Day 2 and I've thought it's been going pretty well. Until just now.
So I brought one of those Smart Ones pasta imitations to work today. I heated it up for like 7 minutes because I never look at the directions, and the tomato sauce was like lava. I brought up a spoonful of the pasta up to my mouth to blow on to hopefully cool it down to slightly less hot than lava temperature, and on the first blow I blew the SCREAMING HOT PASTA into my . . . chest. It completely bypassed my shirt and went INTO the most awkward spot you can get pasta stuck in and like buried itself so it was no longer visible. And did I mention that the pasta was hot? Because I'm pretty sure I have 2nd degree burns going on because I couldn't exactly go mining for ziti in front of my colleagues.

Lesson learned: Stop bringing food to work. It's dangerous.

So this is what I've learned this week.

• Moving is no fun. As in an evil, no good, hateful activity that does not get easier the more you do it. (Oh, did I not mention that I moved? For the 11th time in 7 years? Well, I did.)
• Things that are broken before you move will be completely unusable by the time it reaches its destination. (cough, cough, like this side table)
• Things that weren't broken before will break in the process of moving. Nothing a little hot glue can't fix, right?
• If you leave your hot glue sticks in your car in Phoenix for 2+ days, they will become one large glue stick.
• No amount of candles/febreeze will cover the stench of smoke from previous occupants.
• It's a heck of a lot easier to live in a first floor apartment vs a third floor apartment.
• Talking to people in call centers SUCKS. Especially when you work in one and can pinpoint what they've done that is against call center regulations.
• There is a point that your brain will stop remembering yet another address, apt number, and mail box number. Which will make it a little difficult to to change your address with eleventyhundred different companies.
• If you don't buy a router for your internet, you will be tethered to a wall whenever you want to use the internet, causing you to stand next to the tv to access it.
• After purchasing a router, you should kidnap a smart person to set it up for you . . . .because setting up a router is hard.
• Living .5 miles from work doesn't mean you'll get there earlier.
• Navigating a 12 seater van at Sky Harbor airport at 6am is no fun.
• Procrastination hits whole new levels when you procrastinate a surgery. (Yeah, I need surgery on my ear. And I've decided to pull it off until next year because I can't take that much time off from work right now.)

On a side note, if you or someone you know lives in the Thatcher/Safford area, you should check out my sister's preschool. She's enrolling kids right now and does a pretty awesome job. Check out her preschool blog here or email her @ chantel.allen@hotmail.com