Thanks all for the words of encouragement.

I had to call off sick again today; I didn't think my voice could get worse, but I went from odd squeaking noises to no noise at all. I've moved on to the "fuck it, whatever happens happens and there's nothing I can do about it" phase. They'll fire me or they won't. I did my best, there's nothing more I can do, and I can't just keep stressing myself out over it. I do know that as soon as I'm feeling better, I'll start looking for a different job just to be prepared.

Still a little bummed that any of it's happening at all. No, no one ever said life was fair, but no one warned me it'd be utterly ridiculous, either.

Right. So I break my leg. Two weeks later, the car breaks down (causing me to miss a week of work). Get the car back after a week, and I start having problems with coughing and hoarseness. Go to the doc to get it taken care of right away, because if I miss work again, I'm suspended (and probably off overnights)...a week later, the meds haven't worked, and I'm actually WORSE now, to the point that I have NO voice. I work at a friggin' answering service. NO voice = unable to perform the sole function of the job. Which means that if it's not back by tonight, I miss work and get suspended. AND! Just because this isn't quite enough... I can't really walk properly yet, not nearly enough to go to the store and pick up the new prescription that the doctor faxed in for me, so that's one more day that the healing will be delayed.

WHY?

WHY can I not just have a normal life? Why do I have to have constant miserable luck? WTF did I ever do to deserve to have fate shit on me repeatedly like this? Every single last bit of this has been completely and totally beyond any of my control. In NO way do I bear the blame in ANY of what's happened the last six weeks. I can handle it when stupid shit happens and I'm at least partly responsible, because at least then I can make changes to fix it. But this? This is such a pile of bullshit. This isn't even a matter of choice. It's not as if I can just "suck it up" and go in to work... I CAN'T TALK. All the "sucking it up" in the world isn't going to change that.

And people wonder why I'm an atheist? Aside from logical arguments... why would I even WANT to believe in a sentient being that would do this to me? And not just this time around, but over and over and over again. It's far preferable to believe that it's really just random bad luck than to believe in a god that hates me this much.

No wonder I suffer from depression and anxiety. Maybe I'll cling to the hope that somewhere there's a version of me that has nothing but wonderful things happening all the time.

For now, though, I think I'll just go cry myself to sleep.

Well then. As years go, this one wasn't half-bad.

Wasn't great, but certainly wasn't as bad as some previous years. I'd rate it about a 6 on a scale of 1-10. Might have made a 7 if I hadn't broken my leg toward the end of it.

I was still unemployed for a few months, but not nearly as much as the year prior. I ended up in a job I don't hate (which I'll now have to hope I can cling to). Still married, so that's good. Still happy about it, so that's especially good. Elected a new president, always a plus.

Downsides: Dave's grandmother's diagnosis, my broken leg, the time I've missed from work, the financial issues (as always).

Overall, though, the good outweighed the bad, and that's the first time in a long while I've been able to make that claim.

So, seeya 2008. Thanks for not sucking too much! And perhaps we'll continue the improvement with 2009.

( Whiny stuff. )

Merry holidays, folks, whichever ones you celebrate. And from me personally, happy blinky lights day.

So...

Nothing serious, just some internal bruising on the back of my leg from hitting it on the car door, which I'd completely forgotten about because my leg's so swollen, I barely noticed it at the time. He said the pain should ease off after a few days, which it has been doing, so this is good.

He also assured me that there's very, very little chance of me doing further damage to it short of the same sorts of trauma that broke it in the first place. No walking on it for four more weeks, since that'll slow the healing. But if I accidentally put weight on it, it's not going to cause any problems, it'll just hurt a lot. I can turn it, twist it, bend it as much as I "feel comfortable with", which is to say, I can shave my legs (yay!) and I can sleep on my left side if I want (super-yay!), but it's gonna hurt when I do.

Not happy about four more weeks of crutches, but a bit better knowing that I can put weight on it if I need to (should make stairs a little easier), and stop babying it like I have been.

Supposed to be an ice storm tonight, but if it ends up missing us, we're totally going out to Denny's or IHOP tonight.

So two weeks have gone by. Most of it relatively pain-free (well, a dull, aching pain, but nothing that wasn't easily managed with tylenol). Then I wake up Saturday night for work feeling like I'm absolutely gonna die. I give it awhile, pop some pills, the pain dies off a bit and I head for work. By the time I got home, I was barely able to stay upright. Slept off and on, woke up Sunday night in pain so severe that it actually made me sick to my stomach. Again with the food, pills... nothing. It still hurt. We're talking day-after-the-injury level pain here. So I try to get some more sleep, keep it elevated, all that, but it wakes me up around 6am. Sit around a couple of hours, 8am on the dot, I call the doctor's office, leave a message for the nurse. Couple of hours later, she calls back, tells me that she wants me to come in and have it x-rayed again because it shouldn't suddenly hurt this bad without something having happened to it. Says check with the insurance company that's paying the bill to get approval, and call back to try to get an appointment for today, tomorrow at the latest.

That was around 10am. I called back at 10:15, left a message for the person who handles the appointments. Four hours later, still hadn't heard anything, so I called back. She was at lunch and wouldn't be back for an hour. At this point, I know there's no way I'm getting an appointment today, and I still hurt like a bitch, and since it hurts even worse when I wake up, I go ahead and call off work, explain the situation. She places me on hold, comes back, says the manager wants to talk to me and will call me later today. I'm going to guess this isn't good. And if I lose my job just because some company couldn't bother with putting down salt because it was a weekend, I will be severely pissed, and will probably skip right past dealing with their insurance company and hire a personal injury attorney instead.

So now I'm stressed as fuck, in a whole world of pain, and can't even go sleep because I'm waiting now for two phone calls.

This is not shaping up to be a good holiday season.

[Update: Called yet again, talked to someone else, finally got an appointment for 2pm tomorrow. Still waiting for the boss's call.]

Posting entirely too much lately, partly because there's not much else to do to fill the time between drug-induced naps, and partly because this is likely one of the most interesting things that's happened to me. Which is sort of sad.

First, the leg update:
It's gotten worse, but I suppose that might be normal. Really, the only thing that's "worse" is the swelling and the pain. The swelling can probably be attributed to the fact that I haven't been wearing my brace as much as I should during the day, yet still keeping the leg immobile. Dave-the-former-nurse says this is a bad thing, and that if I'm going to keep the brace off for mobility, then it needs to actually BE mobile. I think that's also where the pain's coming from. When the leg is braced, it's more uncomfortable, but hurts less. So I've hit a compromise that if it starts to swell/hurt too much, I lay down with it propped up for a few hours.

Weekend update:
Have our train tickets purchased and ready to go. A bit worried about trying to travel under the circumstances, but I only see my family once a year, so I don't really want to miss it. Still have to get stuff for the gift exchange, will hopefully have time to do that on the way to the train station tomorrow. Keeping my fingers crossed that the weather cooperates, since there's no way I'm going to try to maneuver on ice just yet.

Back to work on Monday. Looking forward to it in the "not being bored" sense, but not so much in the "going up and down the stairs and hobbling down hallways and not being able to carry anything" sense.

Changed my default pic to something more seasonal. Added countdown ticker to my "sticky" post. Woo, gonna have to slow down such massive productivity.

Now I'm off to find socks, 'cause my feet are friggin' cold.

Meh. It hurts.

Of course, everything hurts now. Crutches + no upper body strength = lots and lots of aching.

I also hate having an insanely smart cat. He knows he gets fed at 8am. He knows which leg is injured. He knows that walking up and down that leg is going to wake me up. He knows I can't sit up quick enough to grab him and toss him off the bed. Though, I don't think he counted on being startled by the scream of pain.

Have managed to figure out how to get up a set of stairs. Have not managed to figure out how to get down them. At the moment it involves throwing the crutches to the bottom of the steps, sitting down, and sliding down each step, one at a time.

Twenty days to go.

Here. Have a picture of my bones .

( Note, not for the squeamish. )

Went to the orthopedic surgeon today. More x-rays, this time on my ankle. No soft tissue damage found, so I won't need surgery. And best of all, I don't have to be in a cast. Hooray! I wear the brace as needed (which is to say if there's too much pain and I need to stabilize my leg), and will be on crutches for three weeks. But other than no bearing weight on the leg, there's no movement restrictions beyond what the pain limits me to. I could even return to work immediately, except that I'm still getting used to crutches and still on medication that makes me sleepy, so they said to go ahead and keep the order for being off work for 7 days and then back to work with light restrictions.

I am a very happy panda.

So I go outside for my break this morning, and I notice the ground's wet. I step over to a wet patch and carefully slide my foot over... nope, no ice, just wet.

Two hours later, was definitely ice. I know this, because I assumed it wasn't, and just took an ordinary step out onto it. Much, much, MUCH pain was had, to the point that I couldn't walk without something to lean on.

Soooo...

Five hours in the ER (lots and lots of people fell or got into accidents this morning), to find out that I officially have my first broken bone. Fractured fibula, left leg. I have an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow (I think he's the one who does the cast, since it's just in a brace right now). Crutches. PAIN. Omg, the pain. And 7 forced days off work. Not overjoyed about that. Waiting to hear back from the company that owns the building, since their insurance should be covering the cost, and I'd really like to get my prescriptions filled so the pain will stop.

[Edit: And now that I have no access to a vehicle (which I'm not supposed to be driving anyway) and no desire whatsoever to go back down the stairs on crutches, I find out that the Rx for the painkillers is only $14. Will have to beg Michael to go get that filled tonight.]

This absolutely disgusts me:

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/ny-limart1129,0,4523298.story

Jdimytai Damour of Jamaica, Queens, was pushed to the ground by the 2,000-plus crowd just before 5 a.m. as management was preparing to open the store, which is located across from the main Green Acres Mall building. Hundreds stepped over, around and on the 34-year-old worker as they rushed into the store.

...

Amid the chaos in Valley Stream, shoppers were asked to leave by other store workers, some of them crying, said Cribbs. Others ignored the pleas that they stop shopping, move to the front of the store and exit, she said. "They kept shopping. It's not right," Cribbs said.

Okay, first of all, it just proves that people are insensitive, selfish assholes, which I've pretty much thought all along.

And second, how much more of this kind of stupid shit has to happen before stores just go "no, we won't do this anymore"? And yes, I know a lot of you are big fans of Black Friday. But really, why? Why get up at godawful-o'clock in the morning, take days off work, push and shove and fight, just to save a few bucks? And really, most folks aren't "saving" anything because they're buying things they wouldn't otherwise be buying, just because it's cheap and they want a good deal. These people tore the doors off of their hinges and killed someone to get their hands on such bargains as a DVD of Rush Hour 2 for $2.

It's just sick.

Thanksgiving will be about the same as it is every year. We don't do dinners here, family lives too far away to bother with doing it there, and frankly, it's November and November blows in so many ways, so I'm just peachy not having to feel obligated to rush around and try to get to different houses or cook food.

I do, however, work. This is the delightful part of third shift, in that while the other shifts rotate holidays, this is not possible with ours. I don't mind, though. My normal day off is Wednesday, which means on the actual holiday, I work for about half an hour (since I go in at 11:30pm). And even if I did work in the morning, eh. Time and a half for a holiday that's just another day to me isn't such a bad thing.

BUT...

There is one thing about the holiday that I love. Which is that it's the point where blinky lights on everything becomes acceptable.

Hooray for blinky lights!

Things are okay.

Nights are a lot harder to adjust to than I thought. The worst part is waking up if Dave's not home to wake me. It's so noisy around here in the day and evenings, the alarm clock is just another noise to blend in with the rest. And sharing a car with Michael is proving tricky. I have to leave at 11ish to get to work on time, but he didn't get home until 11:25 last night. Thus, my perfect attendance this month is ruined. Alas.

Oh, right. And Dave's working now, too. At the same place I work at. He'll be on evenings, though, and due to him taking the bus and the last one leaving at 11:15, our schedules will never overlap. I do get amused when I run into people at work that I don't really see much anymore 'cause of my shift, and the first thing they say is, "Oh, I saw your husband. He's TALL. And I love his accent." Shocking, that. No, really.

Only downside is that I'm trying to get time off to go to my family's Christmas party, being as it's the only time I see them at all during the year, and of course, no one can work that shift. Might end up missing the party for the first time in however many years.

Other stuff's going on, but I'm mostly pretty content with my life at the moment, which worries me a bit, because usually when things are going well, something happens to mess it up. Pessimistic viewpoint, sure, but haven't had it proven wrong yet. So I'll just cross my fingers and hope.

Okay. I know some of the ones who color their hair fun colors are blonde to start with.

But what about those of us with black hair? I mean, I can use that Loreal fuchsia stuff and get a neat dark magenta color, but is there a way to get pink without bleaching it first?

There's a product called 'N Rage Mix & Go that's supposed to lighten and color to bright pink, no matter what color it starts out. Not sure if I buy that.

And if I DO go ahead and bleach my hair, is this something I can do myself without royally destroying it? If not, what sorts of prices am I looking at if I have it done professionally?

OR! Should I just go with the dark magenta color (which is easy to do) and have a professional throw on some white highlights that I can then manic-panic into a bright pink?

http://lunameow.blogspot.com/2008/11/redefining-democracy.html

I've more or less decided to keep politics over there, since hey, I need to use that blog for something anyway.

I opted not to post my thoughts on the election over here, as I'm not really up for having the same arguments with the same people.

If you do happen to be curious, though, there's a post on my website, lunameow.com

While I feel that McCain very graciously conceded, and I genuinely felt bad for him when he looked so embarrassed as his supporters nearly booed him off the stage for congratulating Obama...

I also can't let the opportunity for a joke pass. That said:

McCain should look on the bright side; at least he won't have yet another house to keep track of.

No matter which one you support, this is funny. Especially if you're just sick of the whole campaign.

http://somehedgehog.livejournal.com/245807.html

So tired. Always around this time of day.

I switched to third shift at work, which is sort of a promotion, I guess. I'll have more responsibility and stuff, and a raise. I work now from 11:30pm-8am, which means I get to borrow Michael's car every night except Friday. Off Tuesday and Wednesday. And I've determined that having two full days off during which you're awake and no one else is kinda blows. I mostly just count the hours until it's time to go to bed. Or mess around with facebook apps.

Dave's still not working, but had an interview last week at the same place I work. He said it went well, and the boss did seem to like him, so hopefully he'll hear back on that. At this point, I'm about to point him in the direction of the grocery store or somewhere else nearby. My paycheck mostly takes care of the bills, but we're squeaking by. Even if he was making minimum wage at a part-time job, it'd help.

Life is mostly good at the moment. A few bad things here and there. Dave's grandmother found out this week that she has cancer, so we're sad about that. But for our own little corner of the world, we're doing okay.