Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

I’ll write up the last bit of the trip to SF this weekend, promise, but first a foot update.

Got myself zapped yesterday afternoon at my podiatrist’s office. The worst part of the whole procedure was getting anesthetized by the doc, since he had to jab a needle in either side of my ankle to get to the nerves there and numb the bottom of the foot completely without affecting the rest of the foot. The inside took a while, where he found the outside right as he stuck the needle in. Regardless, I was pretty sore today from the jabbing around inside. I was especially annoyed at the “this should last for about an hour” when I was still mostly numb at midnight when I finally went to bed. Was back to normal this morning, aside from being very, very sore around the ankle.

The zapping itself was easy, I just sat there (and knitted) while the machine send sound waves into my foot, and the technician made sure my foot stayed in place for it. Not exactly exciting, which was fine by me.

Was slow going this morning, and I actually ended up leaving work a bit early today as well. Got a little nauseous, and had a nasty headache. Couldn’t take anything for the headache because the aftercare says no anti-inflammatories for the next month if they can be avoided. Part of the ESWT is to induce inflammation so the body will heal the foot, so negating that would be bad. So I left early and came home to do laundry. Well, came home after I got a replacement iPhone for the one I dropped while in SF and cracked the screen on. But that’s for the next update.

Well, I now have the dubious distinction of being the only person in my immediate family who has not had cancer. My brother had a spot removed from his back last week and got the news that it’s a melanoma. So he’s off to a surgeon soon to make sure they carved it all out. Luckily my father and his aunt have both had it and both survived (and are still alive now), so there’s a better than normal chance that my brother will also.

So I finally made a much-needed appointment to get a spot checked out on my face, as well as doing a full body check for spots on myself. Debating going back down home to my old (i.e., high school era) dermatologist, though – I really don’t care much for the guy I have here in DC, and none of the other choices I’ve seen/heard of sound much better. The guy from home was odd, but personable and accessible. And my brother tells me he takes my insurance, so it wouldn’t be a particular hardship to head down there (aside from the drive).

In other, better news, I spoke with one of my colleagues at work about post-employment ethics restrictions, and it sounds like I’m actually pretty well off vis-a-vis the post-employment restrictions, should I choose to leave the BGA. Have lunch tomorrow with a co-worker to chat about her experiences working on the Hill and in the private sector. Started updating my resume this afternoon (yuck!). This promises to be an interesting few months.

I think I finally pinned down what it is I’ve been feeling for the past day or so, and that’s lost. Something I considered an anchor (though whether I clung to that anchor for the right reasons is a whole other story) is gone, and I’m doing the usual soul-searching that comes from such an upheaval.

And it’s not particularly fun.

This on the heels of just having had a “what do you want to do with your life” talk with my supervisor, going over advancement possibilities, and thinking about what else I might want to do with my career. I’m fairly happy with my job, though I will admit these days to being somewhat bored with it, too. Same old issues, same old fights, and in some ways a new crew of managers coming in (not in my office, but in others I deal with) who are not quite as pleasant to work with as the ones I deal with daily now. Do I want to stick with that? But what else would I do? So frustrating.

It doesn’t help me that I’m horrible at cultivating a support network. I don’t reach out to folks as I might, and I don’t really go outside myself when dealing with a problem (save for venting here). “My problems are my problems,” my little brain says to me, “and they’re for me to deal with, alone, until they’re taken care of.” And that’s not always the best solution. In fact, it’s probably rarely the best solution. I work, maybe I go exercise, I come home, I veg, I maybe chat online, but that’s it. And I don’t think that’s enough for me.

I’m also very seriously reconsidering the IM in November. My parents are iffy, because Dad’s going to have some surgery around then and so they don’t know if they’ll be able to travel out. BC won’t be coming, obviously. And frankly, the idea of going out there for a week and coming across that finish line for something that big with no one there to greet me, celebrate with me, or just to see it happen is just not an appealing one. Yes, I wanted to do it because it’s a challenge, but I’m not sure if I like the cost at this point.

Yesterday? Pretty much a waste. Between the heat, humidity, and the urchins I slept hardly at all, so was just in a daze for most of the day. Lots of mindless Xbox play, reading, and eventually some knitting and TV watching.

Today, on the other hand, I feel like I’ve biked half of DC. At least I biked the southern half. It was the first ride for our newbie triathletes today, so I was out on ye olde and venerable (and quite heavy) mountain bike. ‘Twas a lot of fun, and as usual I rode sweep so I got to have a good chat with the young lady at the back of the pack. We did an impromptu tire changing demonstration as well. Overall it went very well, and no one got lost or injured.

After that I zipped home, called the parental units, then it was off to Barracks Row for bike and LYS (Local Yarn Shop) shopping. I went a new route to get over there, which is slightly out of the way, but safer than riding across M street, which had been my usual route. This turned out to be a very good thing, as there is evidently a baseball game going on this afternoon, so there were tons of cars all around the stadium. That would have been most unpleasant to bike through. As it was, there were more cars on the “back roads” than there normally are, due in large part to the new temporary parking lots in that part of southeast DC. Strangely there were also a ton of cars unsuccessfully attempting to find parking on the southwest side where I live as well. I guess they didn’t see the “there is no parking except for the parking lots so take Metro, you idiots” advertising all over the place in the weeks leading up to opening day.

Finally home to some lunch and settling in for a bit. I hope to see BC at some point (dinner?) this evening, since he takes off to see his grandparents in England on Tuesday and will be gone until late the following week. Work has had us both stressed out like there’s no tomorrow, so we’ve not gotten together for a bit, not having a ton of energy left after legal writing hell for me and late nights fixing the bad accounting from his predecessor for him. Miss him lots.

Okay, when I said I was spent when it came to cleaning for the day, I so lied. The parental units called, and when I’m on the phone with them I generally have to wander the apartment and do minor straightening, which lead to cleaning off all the surfaces in my bedroom. That then lead to tossing out more crap, putting away the latest two medical devices I’ve picked up (the vertigo collar and the plantar faciitis splint), etc. Hell, I even cleaned up the pump bottles of lube by the bed so they aren’t dusty/lubey any more.

Yeah, it’s been that bad today.

I also finally tried out the screws BC got me for the PC’s CPU fan, and they worked. I had forgotten what fun it was to own a PC. Anti-virus software needed updating, there were 10 gazillion Winders updates to download, etc., etc., etc. It’s running a full scan now (not that it needs it, but Norton insisted), while I ignore the thing in the corner.

Thankfully TBS has been playing the Lord of the Ring trilogy all day, so there’s been some noise/distraction going in the background most of the day. Frodo’s just about to get gotten by the giant spider, so all’s right with the world.

Upgraded my install of WordPress, too, which managed to break the LiveJournal crossposter on the front page of the overall site. That’s what I get for following the directions and deactivating the plugins before I upgraded. I forgot to deactivate it on this portion of the site, and it’s supposedly still working. Hopefully that’s true, as I’ve liked having the dual-posting option, and the programmer who wrote the crossposter hasn’t upgraded it in a couple iterations of WordPress.

Heaven willing tomorrow at work won’t be quite as evil as it was the last two work days. I do have more writing to do, I know, but not nearly as much as this past week held. If not, I’m not sure what else I can clean.

Definitely on the upward side of a stress cycle today, as evidenced by a massive cleaning spurt this morning and early afternoon (washed curtains, put tons of things away, tossed a bunch of junk, scrubbed down the bathroom & microwave, etc.). The main bit of it was sorrow over not running the 10 miler this morning. I briefly entertained the idea of going ahead and trying it, but thankfully common sense prevailed and I sat it out, as I have no desire to kill my legs/knees/ankles. That said, I was in a massive funk all day yesterday over it. Damned vertigo.

Am decidedly spent now, at least when it comes to cleaning. And if I keep going I’m afraid my hands will pay for it this week.

Such a predictable reaction to stress. At least it’s a productive one.