blueraccoon

AKA blueraccoon 101:

( The basics: Age, location, job, etc )

( Family & friends: Cast of characters )

( Stuff what goes on in my life: Major discussion topics )

Friending/Circling policy: You don't need to ask permission to friend me or subscribe to my journal; if you think I'm interesting, by all means, welcome. Likewise, if you think I've become boring, no hard feelings if you drop me.

I don't always subscribe in return, mostly because I have trouble keeping up with the people I do read (I don't filter; if you're in my circle, I read your journal), but most stuff I do post unlocked. The stuff I post locked tends to be more personal details about my meds or therapy or headspace, etc, so if that's specifically why you've added me, please do leave me a note so I can add you.

I try to answer comments right away, but sometimes it takes a few days before I can respond. Or longer, depending on life.

I think that about covers the basics. As always, if you have a question about something in particular, just shoot me a comment or a message or something. I'm pretty open.

Procedure this morning was pretty awful, as expected--no real pain, but tons of pressure and things and having to hold my jaw open longer than I wanted or was comfortable.

Came home after stopping for prescriptions and crashed, but due to being awake (sigh) am hanging out online for the moment.

My mouth is sore, definitely, and my jaw hurts a bit from being open for so long, but it's not throbbing the way it has been. I'll take it. (Of course, I am currently on a combination of oxycodone, tylenol, and ibuprofen, so that might have something to do with it also).

Dr. N was unable to get out the foreign object, though, and he says there was no real sign that it was pushing the bone spur up, so he thinks the best bet is to just leave it alone. I'm not thrilled about that, but neither am I thrilled about the idea of cutting into my jaw to get it, so in my head it will stay.

Mouth is very sore; the more I wake up, the more it hurts. Maybe this is my cue to go back to bed.

It's very convenient when I need to do things like make phone calls. My last job was an open work environment, so basically a cube farm with fewer walls, and I never felt comfortable doing things like returning doctor's phone calls or anything. But today I had to call two doctors' offices about bills and things so I just went into my office and shut the door and dialed.

I'm relaxing now, because my real-time shift is done for the day, my meetings are done for the day, and I'm finishing up some emails and things before I skedaddle. I've got music playing in the background and a bottle of water and am feeling fairly content, if tired, and my jaw still aches but I'm kind of getting used to that. Wish I wasn't.

Maybe I shall go home and nap.

Mitt, is This Wit?, by Maureen Dowd

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1. The Gusts of Gingrich, by Frank Bruni

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2. Free-Market Socialism, by David Brooks

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1. Survived my first Sunday at work without a problem, and even got out a bit early due to slow day and stuff.

2. Apparently I am not sharing my office after all? Since we're shuffling around in a month or so (maybe) this could change, but the office I am in now I am not sharing, which pleases me because a) it's not really big enough to share and b) I like having my own space. I thought I was going to be sharing with the new person on my team but apparently that is no longer the case. Whatever. I also thought we were getting reshuffled in mid-January but it's now late January and no shuffle yet.

3. I have business cards. Like, mine. With my name and office number and cell number and things on them. I feel ridiculously professional (it's totally all an act) and everything. Trust me, I'm a professional IT/OPERATIONS SERVICE ENGINEER, it says so on my card. Yes, that is in fact my official job title.

4. I like my job. I like the people I work with. I freaking LOVE being gainfully employed and being able to do things like go to Starbucks for a drink, or say to Morgan "Yes, I promise we can buy pillows", or "Yes, you can go to the British Pantry for Hob Nobs". Or whatever. Liking the job and the people is just icing on the "I'm employed!" cake.

It's a really good cake. Like Pinky quality.

5. I like that my job, while having real-time responsibilities, balances those enough that I can do things like run out to see the oral surgeon and complain because my jaw still hurts and they need to fix me (also tell me what's in my head). Yay for flex time, sort of.

It's a Monday, but I'm having a pretty decent day.

Sunday morning and I'm at work. Glee, joy, rapture, all that. I don't mind working Sundays so much--I like having a weekday off (or two) to do things like have doctor's appointments, run errands, and such. I just wish I didn't have to be here at seven in the morning on a Sunday.

On the plus side, I'm out at two today, so I can go home and do stuff with my day like go to the grocery store, or Costco, or (realistically) take a nap, or something.

Left game early last night due to having to be up at six this morning, but I did stay around for the giant boss fight, which was a good thing as I don't think the party would have survived had we been missing any member of it. One person did die and I was able to save him, and another person would have died had I not been able to heal her in time, so I feel like I did my job as party cleric.

Did not sleep well last night, though. Slept on and off from about eleven to about two, got up for a little while, went back to bed, woke up around five and tried to sleep from then on and failed. Shortly after six I gave up, got up, threw on some clothes and headed in to work.

( teeth stuff )

Massively bored today - Sundays are slow days. Feel free to leave me comments with things to pass the time.

Campus was open today, but I went outside to my car this morning, saw the rapidly falling snow, saw the inch and a half in the unplowed parking lot, looked at my small, lightweight, Mazda3, and said "Um, no." I went back inside, emailed my team and said I'd be happy to work from home but wasn't going to risk going in, and since I haven't heard back am assuming no one needs me to wfh and I can have a snow day. If I have to burn a personal day for this I can do that, but I asked my boss about it yesterday and he said not to do that right now, we'd talk about it next week.

I may just end up working an extra day at some point in the next week or two, or something like that. I'm okay with that.

I wasn't feeling well when I got home last night--I think, as Morgan suggested, it's because now instead of being in my office all day I'm in the operations center, which is a fairly dark room with a lot of screens, and I'm looking at three computer monitors all day, one of which is not ergonomically fantastic for me (laptop screen so I'm looking down), so it gets tiring. So last night I came home, took anti-nausea meds and a muscle relaxant, and fell down for three hours. Got up, had some food, stayed up for an hour, then went to bed.

I am not entirely certain the muscle relaxants are doing all that much for my muscles, but they are relaxing, by which I mean they make me very sleepy and out of it for a few hours.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to have a neurologist appointment but we'll see how the roads look. I'm unclear as to tomorrow's forecast--I was hearing snow then rain, now I'm hearing snow, or rain and snow. Any way you slice it it'll be a mess, the question is whether it'll be a mess in which I can drive safely or not. Makes me wish I had a pair of rubber rain boots, though. (I did just order winter boots, since my Uggs are not sufficient for this weather, and they're supposed to be waterproof, but you never know.)

Morgan also has today off. He had yesterday off, too, and Monday since it was a federal holiday and he's a state employee. Lucky him, except he's got cabin fever. I'd suggest we go for a walk except there's nowhere really to walk *to* and also, I don't have snow boots yet since mine haven't been delivered. Slight problems there.

( teeth owies )

Naps are allowed on snow days, aren't they?

Embracing the Pretzel, by Frank Bruni

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South Carolina Diarist, by David Brooks

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In my attempt to be more...I don't know, something, I've been commenting a lot more on the NYTimes site, mostly on the op-ed columns and political blogs. I'm actually pretty pleased with some of the comments I've made, so...would people be interested if I started posting links to my comments here, along with a link to the column or post in question? I may do it anyway just for my sake but can make the posts private if no one's interested in reading them.

Thoughts?