I'm a wuss.

Somewhere around Wednesday 2/22 I noticed I had a sore throat.   It felt like something more and I was right, by the weekend my sinuses were a mess, and I had unpleasantness coming out of everywhere and an ear infection (both ears) to boot.  The following Tuesday I went to the M.D.  I was prescribed an antibiotic for the ear infection.  Around that time I also got a cough.  Whatever it was also had made it to my lungs so I was coughing.

The sinus mess died down in about a week after the M.D. visit.  Still a runny / stuffy nose but nothing as pressure intensive as before.  The cough continued.  The antibiotics ran out a couple days later, and my ears have cleared of fluid so I can hear well again (yay)

Finally a few days ago the sinuses cleared like they do when I get a sinus thing, totally dry, uncomfortably dry.  The cough then got bad for a day and returned to it’s occasional coughing fit status.

Then came the sore throat again with the cough and that’s where I stand.  Throat is sore, not incredibly painful as Advil and a halls tends to mitigate it.  The nose is runny again but not end of the world runny like before.  I still feel generally ill above the shoulders.

Mysteriously a two nights ago I couldn’t sleep a wink.   I just laid there and just didn't sleep.  It was as if I was taking Sudafed (it keeps me awake like crazy) but I haven't taken any at all.  I’m guessing it was from cumulative lack of exercise and general inactivity.  Fortunately last night I was able to sleep well, and I should tonight although it will likely be propped up with some pillows.

Toss in the fact that the fiancé was doing her work at the theater and a full time job for a few weeks (always stressful) and received a you were not chosen gram from the University for a graduate program (I’ll talk more about that later) and it has been a rough couple weeks.

I just want to feel normal.  I'm miserable.  I’ve forgotten what normal feels like I think :(

Movie: Walk The Line

I saw Walk The Line recently.  It was a good film, but hardly the great film that I had heard about.  Maybe I’m a bit jaded but I’m tired of the musical person comes from difficult background, musical person deals with the difficulty of a music career, drug and alcohol abuse follows, family falls apart, musical person is saved.

It all seemed so generic I didn’t feel that I learned much about Johnny Cash, and I didn’t know much.  It was hard to point out anything wrong, the acting was good, and singing was great. 

Some nitpicking:

I thought some of the name-dropping got a bit awkward.  When Cash is living with Waylon Jennings the only scene you them together in seems purposely built to drop Waylon’s name and then it abruptly ends.  The same goes for the Bob Dylan references.  I think it would have been more fun to see those folks and Cash actually do stuff together to provide some context and meaning.

At one point in the film we see Cash at a bank having money problems, then just two scenes later he buys a huge house . . . . wtf? 

In the end the movie felt hollow, like a TV movie of the week but with better actors and good music.   It seemed to miss the mark and focus just on Cash’s personal life.  I didn’t feel I understood Cash, his music, or anything or much else about him than I did before I saw the movie.

Profit

My employer announced that they turned a profit, and a reasonable one at that.  HR has already began its assault on company morale by noting that the indecipherable profit sharing formula provided last month will not quite apply to this quarters profits in the way we might think in order to inflate the profits that we report. 

If anyone actually knew how to calculate our profit sharing we might actually know what we’re missing.  Instead we grumble ignorantly.  I because I think we should be able to decipher the mystery of the profit sharing formula without a protractor in the first place.  Most of my coworkers complain because they think they’re getting robbed of some cash.  We’ll all take the money regardless.

Meanwhile I got a super secret off the record offer of a job from elsewhere in the company.  I’m flattered by the offer, but it essentially boils down to a few more $, for a lot more work with even more insane hours, and working in a department whose position in the company I consider even more uncertain than my own.

Bad News: Graduate School

The fiancé got bad news from the university.  They turned down her application for the Speech Therapy program.  This came as a bit of a surprised based on the response she got from the folks she contacted who run the program and her honors she received when she attended the university.  We thought she had an excellent shot.

The fiancé was crushed by the news.  She is very sad, depressed even.  It didn’t help that she got the news at the end of one of those crazy working two jobs at once months where she’s burnt out as it is, toss in the fact that I’ve been sick and it’s all a pile of crud at once. 

Meanwhile here current employment the store (more ominously pronounced all the time) is not going well.  Like all retail outlets somewhere along the way the line between a fun place to work was crossed and after four years of being open all the established folk have gone, the management is bitter and turnover is high. 

The fiancé is one of those folks who really enjoys doing a good job.  Being reliable she gets assigned all kinds of things that need to get done ASAP, then when she gets behind she gets a bit demoralized.  Toss in the fact that the store is run by your typical retail management (inexperienced, unprofessional) and overlooked by your typical retail corporate HQ (people are overhead, do more with less) and you get the idea.

I suppose more change could be unsettling but she’s moving in at the end of next month and I look forward to being able to keep her spirits up and support her in finding what she wants to do next.