ok. punctuation and capitlization? not so much. too much damn effort. that requires typing extra. you know, stretching my already overworked little pinky over to the shift button. and folks, that just ain't happening. so, if you can struggle through the faux emo-style writing, you can catch up to where i've been. one word:

working

yep. i wish i had something exciting to say like "i went on this faaaaaabulous vacation to aruba and managed to pick up a few inexpensive housekeepers!" (that would truly make my day, a housekeeper.)

anyway. but i didn't. so i'll move on and stop obsessing at the thought of a nice little lady in a white apron who would clean my house...

i'm stopping.

the woman i work with just moved to the east coast five or six months ago. she moved because her husband was dying of cancer and his family only lived a few hours from their new homehere. she wanted them to be near during his final days. other than his family, she had no friends, no family, nothing. (she is from hawaii.) they have only been married three years. one year after they were married, they found out he had cancer. his condition worsened, he started having episodes (the cancer had spread to various body parts, causing various dysfunctions.) she would work our ten, twelve, fifteen hour days, whatever. and rush home to take care of him. i started pulling a few longer shifts, just to send her home early. at one point, she called me in the middle of the night, he had been rushed to the hospital and she had... no one. i stayed with her the night, and generally was a friend. yay for me. his family? not a peep.

he gets worse and worse, i'm taking more and more work, he is dying and his family still hasn't visited. finally, when he collapses and is taken to the hospital and she has to take off from work, his family decides to visit. he is put into hospice, she takes off work and his family goes back home.

so, let me summarize my confusing writings at this point: the man is on his death bed, she has no one to support her and his family has left.

these past two weeks have been spent trying to do both workloads and then spending the evenings in the hospital with her. i forced everyone at work to write a card with nice words it it. that was amusing.

"here. write a card for annie."

"what?? why? what do i say?"

"i don't care. just write a card, dammit."

"naaaaah."

"write the card, or i'm writing one for you that says 'sorry i was such a fucking nitwit asshole to work with. i promise when you get back, i'll buy you lunch every day and always listen to everything you say.' there. i like that. i think i'll write one to ME to. heh."

"gimmie the pen."

i was the only person with annie when her husband passed away last tuesday. not a priest. not a family member. but someone who doesn't even know how to say hail mary's.

reaching out to someone and easing their pain has been an amazing experience. alot of it was small things, things no one will ever know about. fixing her mistakes after she left. extra work. longer hours. forcing people to write the cards and then have them pretend it was their idea. buying flowers and saying they were from "everyone". generally creating the illusion that everyone cared. it has been so rewarding to watch it work. to watch her feel supported and cared for. and, in turn, the rest of the employees blossom and grow under her gratefulness. a nice little cycle, it is.

but yes. that's where i have been. i'm very, very tired. i am so tired of work and my office. i'm tired of staring at my desk. i'm so tired that today i genuinely thought it was wednesday. "oh? it's thursday? fancy that!" it doesn't matter when my next day off is, cause i'll still be there.

i need to start a hobby, or something. but it's rather difficult to find legal things to do after the hours of 10pm and before 8am. i think i'll say sleeping is my new hobby. yes! i like that. i realize i'm becoming terribly one dimensional. conversation is even difficult

"so, what do you do?"

"work. and you?"

"well, i work at blahblahblah and i love to do blahblahblahblah!!..... you?"

"work. i work for fun. i work for recreation. i work for work. i work for worship. yeah. i work all the time. all the time."

"oh. well. *silence* you have fun with that!"

my mother took it upon herself to teach me how to play bridge as a hobby. which, i thought was fantastic. upon sharing my key to a potential two dimensional life, my darling sister, who lives a multi-dimensional, sparkling and generally social life wrinkled her nose and raised her eyebrow. "bridge? what's next?! canasta?" she said bridge the way a person's grandmother who was lying on her death bed might say "negrophelia" when her grandson announced that was his new hobby of choice. sorry, joy, you can't always chose your family.

bwahaha. bring on the shuffleboard.

in related news, i recently found out a large group of people i work with think i'm in my thirties. THIRTIES! dear lord. do i dress that badly?! my figure that dreadful?! apparently so. because when they discovered my real age. their response? "no wonder we thought she looked so good for her age." so your saying that i look bad for my age? yeah. i could have answered that question.

oh yes. i'm a redhead now. which means i can have a temper. hooray tempers! i recently lost it with a salesperson. wherein i informed him that yes, i found it perfectly acceptable to speak to him as if he were a child. because, when i tell him something seven times and he doesn't listen the first six, how am i SUPPOSED to speak to him?!

also, i've become quite unfunny. i've lost that trademark spirit and fire in my family that demands we go against convention. i've become afraid of the man. i find this very sad. where once i was a trouble maker and spent my time not giving a damn, creating harsh memos for everything and generally endearing myself to everyone by saying what they were thinking. now i am all miss conventional and middle aged and play by the rules. and just typing that out makes me hate myself. maybe i need to go to a family reunion or something to get my fire back. i have no idea. but i think red hair is a nice start, no?