About my 70th Trip to the Center for Sight

I'm so tired of going to these checkups for them to tell me that everything is coming along great and my eyes are doing great, and then to tell me to continue to use eyedrops. It isn't even really the appointments and the time with the doctor that annoys me. I get very annoyed at the waiting...and sometimes I even get annoyed at the people that are around me while I'm waiting.

Anyway, there's a waiting room, then you go back and do tests that take like 4 minutes...then you are stuck in another waiting room with a big open ceiling and dividers that are about head high when you sit down. There's also a big screen TV that's ALWAYS on CNN...which is okay, until you've sat there for longer than 30 minutes and you're tired of the corporate news beating you over the head. Today I was particularly annoyed at a 20 minute segment of Larry King Live about Star Jones leaving the view. Like I care anything about Star Jones. DAMN. There were a few things I found very annoying on top of the CNN deal.

In the first waiting area...fat girl in less clothing than she should be in...clutching a bag of SONIC (it is 9:30 in the morning and she's got a ROUTE 44 of something)....we're going to give her the name "Edwina"
Edwina's father seems to have a cold...and I don't mean like the kind where you've just got the sniffles...I'm talking BARRELCHESTED COUGHING UP A LUNG got a cold. And he isn't covering his mouth.
In the second waiting area, Edwina and father were moved back before me but I got the pleasure of sharing this room with them too...and not only them but this (probably 55 but looked 70) lady...she'd done some hard livin. She's got age marks all over her skin, legs, arms, face, and she sounds like she smokes 4 or 5 cartons a day. We'll call her "Chimneylips"
So Edwina's father gets called back, and Edwina and Chimneylips strike up a conversation about of all the billion damn things it could be....BEING TAN. WTF? It was just disgusting.
About the time Edwina and Chimneylips shut up, a middle aged man and woman walk back, they seem like they are dating, and surely aren't married because she starts talking about "Tile or linoleum in her house?" And he's like "tile, totally tile"---but he's the one waiting on the doctor, and he goes back...before me. So middleaged lady is reading a magazine and looks up at me and I can tell she's kinda checkin me out. It was grossly flattering.
But then this guy on the other end of the damn waiting room starts clipping his fingernails...and it's really quiet but all you hear is "CLICK...pause....CLICK...pause" now keep that going for about 20 minutes...and I'm about to go insane. And I say outloud, not looking up from my magazine (sports illustrated) "Sir I don't think it's socially acceptable to clip your nails in public" (dude looked up and said "who said that" but it was obvious cause I'm the only other guy in the waiting room). I didn't reply....I didn't even look up from the magazine. He was so gross and old. We'll call him GRIZZLECLIP. So GRIZZLECLIP looks back down at his hands and decides they're done...so he bends over and starts taking off his shoes. He's going for the toenails. Imagine the grossness I felt when I saw his disgusting old feet and crummy toenails. But the toenails and fingernails are flying everywhere...and he doesn't bother to pick them up. And later on, some were on him and he just brushed them off in the floor. Damn I was annoyed and grossed out.

Finally, after 45 minutes of waiting I am called back. I am with the doctor no longer than 5 minutes. The time it takes to wait, and the time spent with the doctor...somehow it just doesn't equate for me. And as I'm leaving I am thinking..."how much of my short life have I spent waiting on stupid fucks?"--I don't know...but I'm sick of it. Then another question came to mind...how much of my life have I spent waiting period. I've repeatedly waited for girls that sometimes care a lot for me, but most times care nothing for me at all. So what's the point. I'm through waiting. I'm not waiting anymore. I am instituting a no waiting policy. I'm done with drama too. I'm just I'm done. To all you drama queens out there, you're done. It's over. Deal. Move on. just...just deal. And part of dealing is shutting up about it. No, I don't care about the last boy that hurt you, I don't care about the one that's hurting you now, and I don't care about the one that's going to hurt you when you don't choose to be with me...because it's vicious...and it's a downward spiral of stupidity and frailty. AND WE ARE ALL FRAIL...so just deal. I am hardened...cold, callous now. There's not a lot that a girl could say that would surprise me..."and did you hear about this? Can you believe he did that?"--yeah, I was thinking of doing the same thing...10 minutes ago...

Damn. I need a drink.

CA duty is WAY harder than RA duty...

Let's take RA duty...you have a pager and you respond to residents in two areas. North II, and Southeast...now that sucks if you have to do a lockout or fire alarm at 3 in the morning. But that's about the worst thing that's going to happen during the summer really...being realistic here.

Now during the year, you have a pager, you do a duty weekend twice, three times a semester depending on the size of your staff. And you have one duty night a week...once again depending on the size of your staff. You're responsible for one area. Big deal. The people in that specific area actually live there and have a working knowledge (hopefully) of the environment, and city. I mean dude, they go to school there. So they don't have questions all the time. Sometimes, but not all the time. They adjust, sink or swim...learn to float...whatever. They do this because they have the time to do this.

Now, let's take CA duty. You have a pager once every two weeks, and a duty weekend once during the summer. OH BUT IT'S HELL. You have three areas. Lockouts, stupid people, drunk teachers...and they all have the same questions week in and week out. And they all WANT something...like this is the fucking HILTON or something...Ritz-Carlton my ass...well, forget that shit. And when you have duty, you hold the pager from 9am to 9am...there's none of this 5pm to 8am bullshit. This makes weekends really long...because you hold the pager and deal with 300 needy people from 9am Friday morning to 9am Monday morning. AND YOU CAN'T GO ANYWHERE...and all it takes is you laying down to sleep...and BEEEE BEEE BEEEE BEEEEP...the NEMESIS.

Anyway, I'm just griping.

If I have to fold another piece of linen in the next two days I'm going to shoot people. I mean there are going to be murders.

Thirteen dollars and fifty cents...

The library wants their money. The library can deal. And part of dealing is shutting up about it.

Damn it. Just damn it. There's got to be some kind of resolution.

So, here we are no one else...I drove Danielle to Scottsboro for a change in routine, because we never leave this damn campus...and we got the day off. I didn't replace anyone. How can anyone be replaced? If you put another person in someone's place...they aren't the same as that person. Everyone is unique, so it's damned pointless to say that you've "been replaced." Fuck that...and fuck you too while we're at it. I don't care. I still don't care...and I'm not gonna care. So deal. And part of dealing is shutting up about it.

Dani and I ate lunch at Payne's with my father, and then we came back to the house to put the boat in. Now, when I say we put the boat in, I'm not saying that we hooked up a motorboat to a trailer and backed it into a river...no. We tied a flatbottom boat with no motor to the back of the tractor and drug it down to the river. We had paddles. We paddled. Through the milfoil. Flash backs of a horrible canoe trip...they forced my hand when infact, my stupid dog...the stupid thing...Rascal...gah...We're about 45 yards out in the river and Rascal comes bounding down the shore, into the water, and swims out to the boat, and proceeds to swim around the boat and will not stop, and won't go back to shore...and we can't lift him into the boat...so I'm scared he's going to drown because well, I'm paranoid about that shit now. So Dani and I start paddling back to shore, and whenever we take a turn, Rascal ends up under the boat. Stupid dog. I was just yelling at him, not in a mean way but like gah, "stupid...you stupid...what are you going to when you can't touch bottom? Do you feel better now? You got us to stop and pay attention to you." But it was cute in a way because he didn't want to be left behind--and I don't blame him. Who wants to be abandoned? We pulled the boat back in. I drug it up the hill through the woods. Dad went to Decatur...Brian was playing video games. Danielle and I watched TV. Then, we finally decided to go rent some movies. While we were out...I picked up some alcohol. Dani doesn't drink...but hell, I was gonna because...I was off campus and well, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. But I can't pay attention through Capote, and I don't remember any of Identity...but we played scrabble too...and Dani and I were both kicking ass. Like 7 words we'd spelled and we were already at 115 and 154...she was winning. Then I got a phone call about being replaced...but it isn't like that. Dani's my friend...and I'm just your 'friend,' and you're 20 damned hours away...and like you've never "replaced" me. You're such a hypocrit. And just because I'm drunk doesn't mean I don't care. And just because the first words out of your mouth are "Joshua is being stupid" and I'm drunk, doesn't mean I care that he's being stupid either. So while I'm at it, fuck it, and fuck him too...because neither of you have done a bit of good for me. And you wanna get mad at me, and talk about being replaced when you replaced me repeatedly so... You know...just fuck it I'm done dealing with this... What right do you have to get pissed at me because I'm having a good time with a friend of mine. And just because I'm typing this doesn't mean I'm not going to regret it either. And just because I know I'm going to regret this doesn't mean I'm not going to post it...because damn it, it's my blog...and I'll write what I damn well choose to write. So deal with that. And I don't want to hear anything about it. If you call me about this and bitch at me...I'm going to bitch at you. And I'm going to hang up. And if you comment about it on here, I'm going to delete it. So deal.

Sidenotes will be added later. Yeah sidenotes, and I dont' care if you think they are stupid. I like them. And this is for me not you.

And Sonny Liston rubbed some tiger balm into his glove

some things you do for money and some you do for love.

Ah yes, 7:04AM and working the NCRH front desk for the first time in many moons. I find it most strange that at one of the most interesting times of my life I find myself with fewer words than ever imaginable. I can say that the routine is beginning. Run, work, eat, work, run, eat, sleep....somewhere in there I hang out with people. Mostly Danielle. She's hilarious, and is becoming a good friend. As for the running, I just realized that I'm going to have a hard time hitting the amount of miles I want to this week when I have the pager for three days in a row. You can't run with the pager. I was hoping to hit 50 miles this week. Currently, it is Thursday morning and I'm at 22...no big deal, still got friday, saturday, and sunday to run...oh wait, only friday because of the stupid pager. It looks like I'll run 10 miles tonight, and then 10 tomorrow morning, which will only put me at 42 and then maybe someone out of the goodness of their heart will hold the pager...but I doubt it...I wouldn't want to hold the pager to let me run...so I don't see why anyone else would.

My air conditioner went out a week ago. I've been living in a hellish nightmare...it is a constant 81 degrees in my room...morning, noon, and night...no big deal really, except that I sleep there...FUCKING SHIT, it's a HUGE DEAL. I know it's a problem with the whole building and the contractors are supposed to fix it but HOLY LORD, it's been out for a DAMN WEEK! Ok, now I'm dealing. And part of dealing is that you shut up about it.

I hurt my back a little bit while playing volleyball monday. It probably wouldn't be so sore except that after volleyball, I went and ran 10 miles, and then biked three. I haven't been able to go and lift this week and I'm missing some fitness 6:45. I can tell Nick is too. I took tuesday off from running but the dern job had us all moving furniture for about 2 hours...so fat lot of good it did me to not run.

Watched Bottlerocket, and The Big Lebowski last night. It was fantastic.