Nurse, to other nurse: I've never worn Danskos because I'm not a liberal.

***

Me, to patient: How old are you?
Patient, laughing but distressed... I don't know!
Me: Here, let me see your bracelet... you were born in 1919. So you're 87 right now.
Patient, with beautiful smile: Oh! Time to die.

I don't have the internet anymore at the house. The tenuous budget that I had going on got to be more of a strain than the dividends of internet and cable were paying me, and when the computer decided that it no longer had an operating system and declined to turn itself on beyond the blinking cursor screen I decided that I was not willing to both card a repair and continue paying for the internet, and while I was at it I axed the cable as well. We still have the local channels, and at 50 cents a day I do enjoy my guilty pleasure of the Today show when I get home from a night shift and, of course, Lost.

I do miss keeping up with my f-list but I'm at the public library right now and it's not that bad. It's funny, when I know I have but an hour to use the internet I find that I rarely use the entire hour.

However that might be partially because I am being driven from my seat by the overwhelming scent of body odor mixed with cheap cologne.

If I leaned over to the guy next to me and said "excuse me, but I'm a nurse and you smell worse than any patient I have ever taken care of in my life," do you think I'd be killed immediately, or just smothered in an armpit until I expired?

Date:	2006-07-15 23:31
Subject:	My subconscious cannot spell
Security:	Public
Mood:	bouncy
Music:	AC

I just had a long involved dream that I won't bore you with. It included several cool things that I kinda wish were real though-- like an interactive tabletop touch-sensitive map of the world that was as detailed as the GoogleWorld map. I played with that for a while, looking at waterfalls and dams of North America. I'm sure that says something about sex and me, but I'm not going to be arsed to figure that one out.

There was also an awesome tea shop and they had my favorite tea for sale but it wasn't sold loose or in bags-- it was sold in chunks that looked like tall versions of a honeycomb cereal piece, like little bales of alfalfa, and it would dissolve/steep in water with the leaves on the bottom and that was ok. Seems like it would be a cool way to have tea.

I was driving on the road too and it was summer and idiots had their dogs in their trucks and the dogs kept falling out! and it was Awful!

BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT I OPENED THIS TO TELL YOU ALL.

In my dream I was planning on going on vacation, and I had it marked on the calendar. Supposedly in dreams you cannot read, and you don't realize it until later, when you wake up, but I clearly remember my writing on the calendar in black sharpie, showing the dates I was going to be gone, and where, and in cursive I had clearly written QUEBEQUE.

Date:	2006-07-14 12:19
Subject:	America Runs on Dunkin
Security:	Public
Mood:	thirsty
Music:	PLENTY OF ROOM! PLENTY OF ROOM! PLENTY OF ROOOOOM!

I'm painting (staining, really, but it's opaque so it looks and feels like paint) the back porch and it's so hot right now that I wish I could fall into a swoon and be carried to a fainting couch to languish the rest of the afternoon away in peace. This is unlikely because 1.) the porch is in the back of the house 2.) No one ever comes down this one-way street anyway 3.) If I did faint the only people who would ever see me would be The Screamers, the children who live beyond the fence and scream their every piece of communication, ever, as far as we can tell and 4.) It's unlikely that anyone other than Paul Bunyan, the Brawny Man, or maybe My Dad could ever pick me up off the ground anyway. And I haven't a fainting couch here.

So I come inside for a bit of airconditioned refreshment and I'm drinking some iced chai that I made all by myself, when I spy a discarded Dunkin Donuts cup on my desk. And I start to wonder, are those jingles in the ads really They Might Be Giants? So I google it and They Are.

I'm not sure whether or not to be disturbed by this. On the one hand it means that when I'm bopping around work humming the "packing up a bunch of stuff to take to my uncle's beach house for a three day weekend, plenty of room! plenty of room! plenty of room!" I am in fact humming a song by one of my favorite bands ever. On the other than, One OF My Favorite Bands Ever has done a Dunkin Donuts ad. On the OTHER hand, I kinda like Dunkin Donuts anyway, so why not. It's not like TMBG did an ad for HealthSouth or something.

Here's the disturbing part. There's an ad about mowing the lawn when it's super hot outside. With an iced coffee. From Dunkin Donuts. So I spy the little icon-rific new logo for DD and I'm like huh, I think I will go do the grocery shopping now (because on a side note, there is seriously nothing to eat in this house-- I just ate the LAST BOCA BURGER on a STALE BUN, and my other choice was MINUTE RICE with KETCHUP, and it's not that I'm too poor to buy food, I just HATE THE GROCERY STORE) instead of later b/c then I can get an iced coffee on my way home and paint the porch when it's super hot outside.

Even tho I just drank a perfectly good iced tea that I made here in my home for a matter of cents.

I haven't decided whether or not I'm going to give in.

I have long known that my life, while satisfactory, has lacked balance for some time. Take my working and resting habits. On work days I tend to work a lot. On resting days I tend to become a slug. The only reason I am wearing pants right now is that the doorbell rang at 1030 while I was ironing out the seams in quilt squares and I had to throw on my gym pants. Jehova's Witnessess, as it turns out, but at least they got me to put my pants on.

So far today I've ironed a number of seams and made two of the nine blocks for the quilt I'm making now. Miss Kitty has decided that the unsewn blocks are her domain and becomes as cranky as I have ever seen her if I reach for one to sew on.

So it's 5:30 and I've been working on one thing since 10:00 when I finally woke up. Which feels odd, in a way, because while I've been working steadily I still haven't finished the quilt. I keep seeing books about Quilt in a Day, and I wonder, is it just one big square of fabric? What are they talking about?

Wow, awesome post. Here we have covered

1.) The fact that I iron in my underthings and would carry on all day thus if not interrupted by well-meaning religious zealots
2.) I make quilts
3.) I have a cat.

You may conclude from the above that I am an eccentric old lady.


As for the patient that I was so worried about, we went from not being able to get him out of bed to not being able to keep him in his room. For the night time we put his bed by the nurses station so as to keep an eye on him lest he wake and take off. Not on my floor, but on others, people have been known to wander down the hill to the Dunkin Donuts, where, amazingly, they are served coffee and donuts. Do you not think that a bloody IV dangling from their arm, their attire, and their lack of shoes wouldn't clue someone in? But I digress.

So he goes to get up to urinate at one point and I am left standing there with a urinal bucket instructing him "no! Pee in your bucket!" and trying to help him while keeping him covered with a sheet. With a burst of strength he throws off his covers and rips off his nightie, then grabs the urinal and begins trying to place it in the correct spot, telling me "I'm fine! I'll get it eventually!"

Just then the family of a young car accident victim come up the elevator with a nurse from the ER and their child. Having waited long, stressful hours in the ER they cannot wait to see their family member placed in the safe and quiet room that he will recover in, and the first thing they see when they get up to the desk is a naked elderly man plying both a urinal and his penis, bed in the middle of the hallway, and me standing there cooing at him "Good, that's lovely, just use your bucket."

The expressions on their faces were priceless, and I have never been more grateful to not be someone's nurse.

Working both day and night shifts is kind of bizarre. I went to sleep last night at around 11pm, thinking I'd wake up at 7 and be able to squeeze in a pseudo day off before returning to work at 7pm tonight, but all night long I had nightmares about two of my patients. Basically they either died or got very sick because I couldn't perform the correct interventions for their problems. This is insanity, but only sort of. Consider my confused patient who had back surgery who is refusing to ambulate. He's not quite confused enough that I can just slide him into a chair to at least sit up without it being assault, since he still has the presence of mind to staunchly and eloquently refuse anything I try to do with or for him. However he's confused enough to continue to refuse to do anything even though it could, literally, kill him. (Not moving after surgery can lead to an ilius, where his bowels would just completely stop peristalsis in one or more places, or pneumonia, or open sores on his skin, etc.)

I managed to roll him back and forth in the bed and to my relief he still has sounds in his bowels, clear lungs, and mostly good skin. He had some creases in his skin from where he'd been lying on a wrinkle in a sheet but it faded after he'd been up on his other side for a while. I washed his back and did the whole lotion and powder routine, while he lambasted me continuously. However, unlike using a slide board to get him upright in a lounger chair, washing someone's back, changing their dressing, and making their skin all supple and sweet smelling is not likely to land me in court.

The thing is, the doctor doesn't know any of this. His primary care physician hasn't seen him at all, which is normal, since it's the surgeon and the neurosurgeon who have all the say in what happens within the hospital. His PCP could come in if he wanted and consult, but it's not his area of expertise. The surgeon was in to see him early in the morning before he was really ready and raring to go, and the neurosurgeon who is consulting was in 2 days ago. The Physician's Assistant for the neuro team was on the unit yesterday and I was like ok, my patient a.) Won't move b.) Won't turn c.) Half the time doesn't remember he's had surgery and wonders why his back hurts and d.) Hasn't pooped in five days. The PA is sympathetic to my plight but the thing is that all this was NEWS to him. Big news. He had never done a mini mental status exam on this patient-- since the patient converses easily and appropriately, since he is probably very intelligent and can therefore cover up his dementia, he didn't realize the depth of his confusion.

So, basically, the PA didn't order a stronger painkiller (not that there really is one that wouldn't also make this man completely whacked out beyond all possiblity of doing him any good) and he didn't get too excited about the bowel thing. Because that's a nurse's province. I get to decide what kind of laxitive he has, what kind of intervention. I decide when and where and how, to a large extent. In the doctors' orders it just says "laxative of choice." There are a dizzying array, some better than others, some that are oral and some that are not, and I can just imagine the scene if I attempt a suppository with this man, who would a.) scream and yell as we turned him on his side b.) scream and yell as I gave him the suppository and c.) scream and yell when it was time for me to put him on a bed pan.

Possibly, tonight, there will be no bed pan. Just a bed full of poop that he will then (you guessed it) scream and yell as I try to clean him up and change his sheets.

So, most of the nightmares were about him.

So I slept until noon.

Now I have to leave for work in about 5 hours. Do I just go back to bed? Do I go grocery shopping? Do I go to the gym?

I like working nights, but mixing them together with days in the same span of 2 days is nuts.

So, I don't write here much anymore. The reason is quite simple-- I don't have much going on that feels like it needs to be written about. I find that when I write about nursing I just get tied up in knots and it makes me feel like I can't leave work at work. Part of me thinks maybe I should go ahead and be analytical outside of work, but the other part of me just thinks that no, it's far far better for me to be sane and not dwell on things that happen inside the hospital. I will say this-- I'm in a good unit, my patients are all safe and as comfortable as they can be after being cut into and their brains/spines/bones rearranged. No big stories about anyone being an arse. And the things that would be interesting? Would involve me either rehashing things that I'm over or else risking identifying one of my patients, and I just don't want to, even with f-lock. It's a small world and people who merit being blogged about are pretty recognizable.

Anyway, I'm still reading lj, just not on a daily basis. Pretty much, if it has to do with current world events, someone else is blogging more eloquently than I am and probably, given that there is nothing new under the sun, with a similar slant.

That being said, the night shift is good for catching up on news. I like bbc.co.uk. Caught up on the elections in Chad, since I knew my cousin was fleeing the country (that's what my whole family said, not "she's going to Camaroon" but "she and the children have fled," which is like a whole different thing) and I wanted to get a bit of a handle on why. Quite pleased that she already has a job lined up in Guinea.

Her small, erudite, and charming children were at my dad's wedding on Saturday along with her husband, while she was still in Camaroon, for reasons I'm not clear on.

I'll probably wait until I have another night shift to read the news again.

Anyway, hi. I swear I had something of import to say, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. I'm staying up because the air is cool and I feel... teenagerish, for lack of a better word. My brain is humming along at the same frequency it did when I was 17 and that's a nice feeling. For me, anyway, might be unsufferable for people around me. But at the moment, I feel like I'm living the fantasy of what it's like to be an adult. Like, tomorrow is Saturday and I have a car. Where will I go? Will I go buy some groceries? Will I drive somewhere? The possibilities are endless! I can have cookies for dinner if I want! Oh the freedom!

And speaking of that, thank goodness I didn't have an lj when I was 17. I had unlimited time. I would have been (more) unsufferable than I am now.

* Interview with Resources Coordinator Etc went very well! (He had 2 beta fish (Siamese Fighting Fish) in the same tank, and before we got started I just had to ask him about them. "I had a girl in there and she was kicking ass, eating their fins. She died, and now they're fine. They don't fight at all, it's like Brokeback Fishtank." Fish in love, how sweet.)

* Visited Grammie and she has a private room and a nice view of the skyline of Portland, Back Cove, and the side of Munjoy Hill. She looks well. I visited for just about 15 minutes, and then she had PT.

* Class today is student presentations, so no reading for it! Hopefully it'll get out early so I don't have to stay at school forever working on this presentation.

* Watching BBC World News last night, GWB pronounced "heinous" as "hey-knee-ous." And now I'm questioning whether I've been saying it wrong all this time, of if it was him.

* New Alan Rickman icon.

Oddly enough, though I've had a pleasant several days off, my heart is heavy. I guess I could blame it on the weather but I normally like rainy days.

Exercising at the gym wasn't the cure that it usually is. Perhaps it is because I had to spend part of my time there on a glider instead of an elliptical machine (and it was evil! Evil! My thighs are going to hurt for days I just know it!) or perhaps it's because I made the mistake of watching the news while I exercised.

Had very pleasant lunch today with friend. Did the NYT crossword puzzle, but couldn't finish the Boston Globe one, while bunya was in physical therapy. Seems odd. Surely New York Times should be the more challenging puzzle? Boston's paper offers the solution on the opposite page and I had never heard in my life some of the words that were the answers. Who knew that a wen is a harmless cyst? And that's not even the half of it.

I'm going to read for Tuesday's class, then prepare for the interview I'm doing tomorrow morning with the Resources Coordinator for juveniles in the criminal justice system for my county. Then I get to go to class and then meet with my research partner and then it's off to work on Wednesday morning for 3 twelve hour shifts in a row. Bleargh, I say. Actually, at least at work I know who I am, what I'm there for and, most of the time, what I'm doing. Outside of there, I pretty much have no idea.


Wow, this has turned into a real CHEER UP EMO KID kind of post... but since my sister says that I don't post often enough I'll leave it.

Happy news: 18 of the 25 vertical stripes for the Around the World quilt for dad's wedding present are done. This coming weekend I'll press and sew them together and then all that will be left will be to put on a border, fill the middle with a blanket, put on a back, stitch that closed, and tie it throughout.

If you have a passing knowledge of both or either Rent and/or Harry Potter, you must see this.

Even if you don't, it's superb. Go watch.

Since I'm in a media-ish mood, you might also enjoy Mad TV's parody of "Speed of Sound," I'm the Only Important Part of Coldplay. the video and sound are a little unsynched, but it's ok.

1.) I just found a scrunchie on my desk, and I am going to wear it in my hair to work tomorrow.

2.) Grammie is still in the hospital. I did not go see her today. a.) I doubt she knows it's Easter today. b.) I saw her yesterday and I shall see her tomorrow, as I am working 2 floors above her. c.) I go just to make sure she's comfy and she knows that someone from her family is looking out for her, but I get the uncomfortable feeling that the nurses on her floor think that I'm checking up on them. Maybe I'll throw a sweatshirt on over my scrubs when I go tomorrow.

3.) Today I spent the day cutting squares for an Around the World quilt and then stacking them together in order for being sewn. And that sentence sounds a bit like Engrish at the end, but I can't think of how else to put it. The quilt is for my Dad's wedding present.

4.) When I'm sewing I like the reverse feature on the machine for going over the end of a seam. I like to do it more than strictly necessary. Like, RAR! SEAM STRONG! RAR! I don't know why but this pleases me.

5.) I have a scrub top done that is not finished as the finishing will require an iron and I don't, at the moment, feel like ironing another single thing as I ironed about 16 yards of fabric today in preparation for cutting squares.

6.) I have scrub pants that aren't sewn together yet as I have a fear that they will just barely not fit me and I don't feel like being disappointed.

7.) Since New Years the only conversation I have had with my mother has been once when she called on the phone after I sent her a number of letters and cards... I don't count the encounter we had in Grammie's hospital room, as she wasn't quite coherrant. I feel oddly like I'm persuing someone in High School (as in, back when I was in high school) who doesn't really wanna go out with me... which brings me to my next item.

8.) Is this weird-- sometimes I hear songs that are ostensibly about the difficulties of human relationships between men and women and I think, well, that could be about my mom. Sure, it sounds weirdly Freudian, but hear me out. "She Hates Me." (la la la la) That one's a no-brainer. Then there's "I got a Girl." I used to replace "girl" with "Mom" and parts of it worked out really well. "I got a mom who loves good soul... I got a mom who dances to disco... I got a mom who wears cool shoes... I got a mom who speaks her mind, I got a mom who will argue anytime, I got a mom she is so small, I got a mom she'll knock down any wall... GET A LOAD OF THIS SHE'S ALWAYS BITCHING AT ME WHEN I'M FEELIN' DOWN ASKING QUESTIONS WITH HER LITTLE FROWN, I'm out..."

Well, replace "knock down" with "punch through" and it works really well.

9.) Ok, next! Um. Bunya cleaned the bedroom. Now the floor is all clear and we can walk without tripping. So the cat took the oppurtunity to puke right in the middle of the rug. You'd think, being an animal of the veldt, the cat would try to find a secluded, sheltered place to do this, not retch in the middle of the plain, but apparantly we have very, very stupid cats.

10.) The coolest thing ever this week is that bunya did the grocery shopping and made a list of the possible meals from the foods... but instead of just making a list she made a menu. So when she picked me up from work Saturday night she handed me a menu. It's nice because thinking of what we should have for dinner is occasionally hard when one is tired from working all day... and that, my friends, is a sure sign that I am wealthy and living in a first world country. I do not think "how do I eat?" but rather "what do I eat?" And occasionally, even "where shall we eat for brunch?"

Yes, I've arrived, and if I ever feel poor I will consult the menu that is hanging on the fridge and remember that I have a choice every day of what to eat. It's humbling and fun. And with that thought, I will close for the evening.

10b.) On Easter my dad and I would sometimes listen to the album of the original Broadway cast of Jesus Christ Superstar. Today while I was quilting I watched/listened to what happened to be in the DVD player, and it was Return of the King, and I thought, "how appropriate." All arguements as to the fact that Tolkein didn't actually truck in allegory will be ignored, as the thought still pleased me.

So, in bullet points.

-- Grammie is doing well, which is... weird. Good, of course, but weird.

-- My mom was in town all Sunday and Monday and apparantly today, and despite having both house and cell phones, and being called by me, didn't call. I know, her mom is sick, it's a tough time, but I haven't seen her since Christmas. Oh well.

-- Working Wednesday night. Sleeping most of Thursday, I presume. Then working Friday, Saturday, and Monday. Ewww. Sunday off would be good but it's Easter so I think I'm going to my sister's house in MA so. Meh.

-- Thursday morning I can't go right to bed as I must go do an interview at the juvenile jail here for a project.

-- Saw Grammie yesterday. Today I sewed her a patchwork pillow. Partner just did the hand sewing part for me. So much love. Will see her tomorrow too, unless she's already been transferred, in which case, thanks for telling me, family of mine.

-- My dad called and gave me an abject apology. He was all "I won't give you reasons or excuses" but then of course he did. Well, whatever, I am peeved about that but not really, as I am tired and it takes work to be peeved. Zen through tiredness, that's my motto. I should have told him I'd forgive him after he apologized to my partner, my sister, her husband, and our future step sister, but I didn't think of it until too late.

-- That is all.

So, here, for her pleasure, is a nice entry about what happened today. I don't feel like writing a whole big thing, so I am cutting and pasting an e-mail I sent a friend, with the names carefully changed to be pseudo-anonymous, not that it matters, because practically everyone on this thing now knows me in real life. Right? Right.

So.

Worst birthday ever, bar none.

So, I wake up this mornign and work on paper. good. I go to brunch with partner and best friend. good. and bookstore. good. [ed note: "this morning" was really more like 11:30. Which accounts for why after this modest amount of activity I get to get ready for dinner.]

come home to shower and dress for dinner. Sister is here sans husband. they're going to dinner in separate cars-- husband will be along later.

we get a call from my aunt saying that grammie is in the hospital and doing very poorly. so about this time its 330 and dinner is at 4. (well, last time dinner was "at 4" and we sat down to eat at 6, so I figured that the gathering was at 4) [family dinner, instated in march, is the 2nd sunday of the month]

so Sis calls my dad and he's all "well, dinner is at 4, I think you're being very rude."

and Sis is like "grammie is in the hospital we just want to go see her."

and my dad is all "be here by 445 and I still think you're being rude."

so we go see grammie and it turns out that she'll probably die tonight. [eta: or not-- the younger doctor was not so keen on making that kind of prediction, but it's pretty certain that she's not going to get better and go home.] no big shocker there. I do feel some sadness that I wasn't able to do all the things with her I ever wanted to do but I got the life story of our family and spent a lot of afternoons with her and she passed on to me a lot of pictures and docuiments... or she was going to. now my aunt will probably take them but you know what? i don't care. she's a librarian so they're probably better off in her capable hands than in mine.

anyway.


jeez, I just realized, when I go back tonight I should take the big picture of grammie that I had done. I never showed it to her. [I showed it to her later, when we went back to the hospital, and she was very very pleased. she was also pleased to see me knitting and told the people who came into the room that i was knitting. awww.]

she was still coherrant at 430 but obviosuly VERY sick.

SO ANYWAY we leave the hospital after Sis and I change her sheet and make sure she's all comfy (her nurse is really good, we just happened upon a litlte messiness) and I'm like "ok, onward to 42 pissy bitch street" and we plan to return tonight after the dinner.

so I get there and everyone is like hello, hi, and my dad is like how is grammie, and I'm taking a chip and I say "well, she's probably going to die tonight."

Sis is getting a cuddle from husband and looking very sad about things.

and my dad goes "oh, really." like, totally nonplussed.

and I'm like "thanks for throwing a fit about letting us see her."

and he goes "do you want to leave right now?"

and at first I think he's just being nice, like do I, and i open my mouth to say "no, I think we can stay here for a while" and he continues "because if you're going to be a bitch, you can just leave."

and I'm like woah, that was unexpected, so I try for lightness and say "well, you started it," and he's like "no, if you're going to be a bitch, I'm serious, get the fuck out."

so I said fine, you can call me when you're ready to apoligize.

and he's yelling at me GET THE FUCK OUT.

and I'm scared, frankly, because dude is he having a STROKE? because this is not like him.

So now I'm crying and sad.

boo hoo.


so, that's the e-mail. My future step-mother followed me to our car. Because partner is not walking fast as she usually does because of a long standing injury she caught up to me before I could zoom away. She was like "you must come and spend time with me without your dad, I want to see you" and i was like "no, I won't even though I'm pissed off with him I don't think I could do that becauase I don't want him thinking I'm ganging up against him with you," but you know, I wonder if that kind of thinking that I have to be loyal to him is pathological or what.

Spent from about 6 to 10 at the hospital. Good times.

Now I'm home and I think I have a UTI but I'll be damned if I go to the ER right now.

Maybe one of the NPs who I work with would prescribe me some cipro.

The End.

I haven't been updating with every little development, because just thinking of it made me tired and despair-like.

Finally I have been hired, in 2 places, actually, which seems to be the way of all Americans. One place is per diem, at a nursing home. Excellent pay, no benefits, of course. Then I was offered a few more per diem positions but I didn't really see the point of taking yet another job with no benefits. Finally I was hired by Maine Med for a benefited position, but it's 20 hours a week, so I'm keeping the per diem one.

I haven't actually worked yet. I'm not starting at either job until March, on their say so.

I'm working at the eye doctor's office until then.

I finished an Irish Hiking Scarf over this time, and I'm starting on a purse to go with it.

That's pretty much all the news that's fit to print.

Oh, that and my dad and his fiance announced the date of their wedding, and it's smack dab in the middle of the long weekend in May I was planning to take to go visit some friends in Toronto (well, Grimsby, but close enough) so I had a snit fit, you might say, and booked a last minute deal through Travelocity to go this Thursday instead. So that'll be fun.

Also have started going to Planet Fitness. Greatly enjoy having own flat screen TV with cable for when I'm on a cardio machine. Have found that laughing and exercising are pretty much mutually exclusive. Most people around me have it on CNN or MSNBC while exercising, while I usually am on a re-run of an old Saturday Night Live or some mindless show on VH1. Am idiot of the gym, clearly.

I hate shopping, for the simple reason that most of the time it makes me sad. There's a kind of desperation that comes over me, in most stores, seeing the veritable islands of junk that are offered for sale in any mall store. And the thing is, someone is buying it, obviously, or the market wouldn't bear it.

On the other hand I sometimes go to a store for a simple need, ie, I need a pair of black trousers. And I see all these things laid out in ways that match and look so sharp and professional, and I feel like a fraud or a bad immitation of a successful adult, trying to get by with the same knit or collared shirts I've had for years and just rotating a new pair of pants underneath.

Then I feel dumb, because hello, I'm not a failure, I'm a pretty normal young adult (or, I was before I was in school again), and therefore who, just who, is expected to buy this stuff? Not quite high-end enough for the rich or the comfortable middle-class, but out of reach for the working class, new graduates, and the students to which it is marketed. So clearly, someone wants us to use our credit cards. And that bums me out too.

So, it's been established, then, I hate shopping, in general. But Ikea has a shelf that I desperately want, so yesterday I went about 2.5 hours away to the Ikea outside of Boston.

Ikea, for those who have never been, is set up explicitly to make you walk in a uni-directional path through displays of all the various items that are for sale. All of the furniture is flat-packed and unassembled for purchase, but it's set up all through the enormous showrooms, and the showroom is composed of a series of rooms showcasing not only the furniture, but lights, rugs, textiles, accessories, toys, and art, mostly photographs. It's almost like Ikea is a museum. In fact, there's a very museum feel to some of it, as in the places where they've set up tiny little apartments labeled with signs that say things like "LIVING in 457 square feet. Come steal our ideas-- we want you to! Come in and see how you can live well in a small space-- and well within your means." Mostly this means making use of vertical space and wall space (one apartment was 254 sq feet and featured a loft bed over the sofa) and lots of light, white, and natural-colored surfaces. I didn't find the matchy-ness of it depressing, but actually kind of delightful. It was fun.

As I wandered through Ikea with the other people who seemed happy enough to wander (I imagine I'm not the only one who made the trip with one specific item in mind... and technically I could have walked right to the flat pack area, selected the thing, and hit the road, but no one else seemed to be doing that either) I realised that really, if I find it this charming, it's not because I've had some change of heart about shopping. It's not luck. It's something planned. The minds behind Ikea knew who I was before I walked in, and they got me.

I surrender.

(The shelves were too big by a few inches to fit into the Best Friend's car, so we left them for another day, when we can come with a truck. But we did get a nice hamper for the bathroom, some accoutrements for the kitchen, and a few things that I am squirrling away to be used as presents later. In the Swedish Marketplace we bought salmon, rye bread, lingonberry mousse, and coffee. That is easily more than I've bought just for the fun of shopping in a day in years.)

Shows where some loud-mouth comes into your house and whines about how everything looks thrown together from a bunch of different styles and years, though, bug me. I was thinking about it, as the shelf won't really match anything in the living room, and I'll certainly never be as matchy as the Ikea model rooms. (An ad for Ikea a few years ago showed an obviously divorcing couple throwing each other's things around, and ended with the Ikea logo and the question-- Starting Over? Starting over from nothing is pretty much the only way you'd ever get to be that matching, I'm guessing, that or you'd have to have a plan from the time you moved out of your parents' house and do without as you carefully assembled a collection piece by piece.) The kitchen table is from my parents' house, the shelf was made by my dad and I from unfinished lumber and then finished, another book shelf is apparantly made from a discarded church pew and inherrited from a moving neighbor, the table the TV is on was from a garage sale. It all works. Some day I might be able to go back to Ikea, buy up all the stuff that will match my wonderful shelf, and chuck everything else, but wouldn't that just be a total waste? It's not like I'm living in squalor. Just not matching. All the stuff comes from different times and moments in my life. At the time I got most of the stuff, I'd worked hard for it, "crappy" though it may be, and in a way it represents various moments in my life and bunya's life and the life we have together. And, as a character in a Kevin Smith film would tell you, life is a series of shared moments. So I'll stick with my non-matching house, and just use this stuff until it crumbles into scale.

The end.

Just applied to Goodall Hospital. Of all the hospitals I've applied to (Maine Med, Midcoast, Mercy, Southern Maine Med, Goodall) my mother has worked at 3 of them. One of the floors I didn't get an interview on was one where they actually know I'm her daughter, and most of the women there still remember her. It was one of the places she worked for the longest time. Everywhere else, my name is different from what hers has ever been when she worked there.

Goodall is almost an hour away from where I live. So is York Hospital, but they're requiring 1-3 years of experience for any of their positions. I can't say that I blame them. Portsmouth, NH is also just about as far away as Goodall but I'm not liscenced in New Hampshire. Also, I don't think things are quite that dire. Still, I'd prefer an hour of highway driving to the 30 minutes of highway/30 minutes of "highway" that it takes to get to Sanford.

I'm going to work today for a few hours. All I want to do prior to that is take a nap. A long one. But that is not healthy. No, this takes us down the road to the BAD PLACE where people go when they aren't finding a job as quickly as they'd like. AS IF that's the worst thing that's ever happened. I know it's not, but meh, I seem to be reacting in a distressingly typical way.

The other thing I want to do is go shopping, which, perversely, I only ever want to do when I have basically no money. When I'm making money I like to save it. So ironic.... wait, is that ironic or just stupid? Anyway, last night my sister was wearing a cashmere sweater and I think it would be lovely to knit with. The Stitching Mantis calls to me but I won't answer.

ETA: Bunya just came home and tried to whack me in the head, telling me that I'm not to work at Goodall. Just for this I think SHE should go buy me some cashmere yarn. Because clearly, she is sabotaging my good efforts. (Honey, it's a good effort, but you shouldn't work at Maine's sketchiest hospital.) Awww, she does love me.

So, the URI is gone now, except my ears have been plugged for the last 6 days. It's getting to the point where my hearing is noticably impacted. For example, today I thought I heard my boss ask me "what's with this bra?" and declare "I have to find a way to controll my bleeding." (In truth he'd said "what's with this drawer?" and "I have to find a way to controll my drooling," which, in retrospect, might be worse....)

Had the following exchange, sans irony.

Me: Oh well, at least the congestion moved up into my head instead of down.
Coworker: Why?
Me: Because instead of being half deaf at the moment I could have pneumonia.
Coworker: Oh, I'd way rather have pneumonia. You lose like, 20 pounds.


Employment:

Resumes and cover letters to:

Maine Veterans Homes-- was offered interview via e-mail, called, left message as recruiter was out, haven't heard back.

New England Rehabilitation Hospital

Piper Shores, a very hoity toity collection of campuses ranging from luxury condo living to skilled nursing home facillities.

Spring Harbor Hospital, a mental health facility. (The name strikes me as horribly bizarre... if they're going to name it after a body of water, why not just choose a real one? Like Casco Bay Hospital. Does that sound so bad? Portland Harbor Hospital... sure, it sounds like you'd be receiving your treatments inside a lobster trap, but whatever.)

Phone call to floor at Maine Med that Best Friend swears her boss totally said she'd hire me, but I'm not holding my breath.

Phone call to recruiter at Midcoast who had told me they might make a decision by the end of this week. Left message-- have tried again, woman never answers phone. VIEW MY HANDWRITTEN NOTECARD AND HIRE ME.

Ahem.

That is all. So for the time being I am stumbling around an optometrist's office, (because along with hearing being nill, I've got no balance to speak of), doing endless filing and asking people to read me the lowest line they can see without squinting.

Today I:

Mailed thank-you notes to people who interviewed me
Mailed handwritten note to nurse manager as suggested by RN friend who knows her (felt schmoozy writing "I'm writing at the suggestion of our mutual acquaintance," but oh well. Used best stationary. Actually sat there trying to decide which stationary made better impression. Correction. Used Bunya's best stationary. Thank you, dear.)
Applied to position at Mercy's Express Care center.
Applied to position at Midcoast's Maternity Care Center, even though it's only Part Time-- I'm beginning to be flexible.

The other day:

Mailed resume to Maine Veterans Home
Mailed resume to Southern Maine Medical Center

Tomorrow:

Mail CV and resume to New England Rehab (orthopaedic, not drug/alcohol) as everyone who works there swears they're hiring, though they're not advertising any open positions.

Went to work today for 4 hours. Real shifts tomorrow through Saturday. Still coughing hard, but at least not short of breath anymore. Not as much, anyway.

Today Bunya hung curtains in our room. They're navy tab-top panels.

The effect is amazing.

This is the bigger bedroom of the 2 in this house-- the other one now holds a table, a sewing machine, a bureau with yarn and one free drawer for the sister (that is in danger of being taken over by yarn) and the futon. It's a very nice, Zen-feeling room for crafts, reading, and, occasionally, napping. It gets the brightest and earliest of the morning sun.

This room now holds the bed, computer and desk, and another desk, and one bureau. It also has 2 closets, one of which has a kick-ass organizational system in it that was never properly used until the other week when we moved in here from the small room.

ANYWAY, there are 2 windows here that look out over the parking lot and they get the later morning/early afternoon sun.

So the curtains are AMAZING because for some reason they make the room seem so much bigger than it really is. It's like now you walk in and you see the curtains over the windows and you think

hmmm, look at that. I wonder what's back there.... space, perhaps. Or maybe floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over some kind of buccolic view... hmmm, I don't know, but it's certainly intriguing, in a quiet sort of way.

The bed is directly at my back, and it's made, which makes all the difference in the world. So there's this colorful around the world quilt on it, plus one cat, and then, right next to the other side of the bed, the curtains. The bed looks huge. It's the magical land of counterpane.

Seriously, if this is what curtains can do I'm all about hanging them on walls where there isn't even a window.

(Also, most of the walls in this room are a deep red, the one at the head of the bed is navy, and it's the same navy, by happy coincidence, as the curtains, which are perpendicular to it.)

Seriously, they're so awesome I keep turning around to look at them.

You know, when people post to livejournal and say "ha ha I'm on cold medicine" I alwasy think WHATEVER, no, you're really just that way. And I'm not sure at the moment what it is. In my case. But I'm keeping this. Curtains rule. Vote curtains!

Typed up 2 more cover letters today and will mail tomorrow with resumes, to 2 of the places that aren't actually listing any nurse jobs available, but may well be hiring some.

Applied on-line to a job in the PACU of Southern Maine Medical Center-- I'm probably grossly underqualified for that job, but it's been on-line forever, so we'll see if they're desperate enough to just take someone who hasn't ever worked in a PACU except as a CNA.

Feeling less sick. Applied big giant brain to the task of selecting OTC cough medicine. Stood in aisle at Rite Aid pondering such things as "will this make my secretions thicker?" and "do I really want to diminish a cough that is consistantly productive?" Essentially it came down to "can I live one more minute like this?" and I bought some pills for roughly what I make in an hour at the office. If someone waved a box of pills at me and said "answer the phones for an hour and I'll give you these shiney pills!" I would tell them to get stuffed, but as you can see, I essentially do that every day.

Talked to my mother. She called me yet seemed annoyed to hear me. Whatever. She did tell me that her own URI took over 3 weeks to resolve-- that's not unheard of, but gee, thanks for the cheerful message, mom.

At Target yesterday I was looking for a good insulated mug. I didn't find the one I wanted, so I was leaving and a product in the beauty aisle caught my eye-- a little mirror that magnifies your skin 10X. So you can, and I quote, "pluck the hairs you didn't even know needed plucking." Now, plucking hairs from one's face has everything to do with aesthetics and almost nothing to do with health. So, seeing the things you couldn't see and plucking them? What is the point of nipping these in the bud? Seriously, if you can't see them, you, who are leaning into a mirror, no one else can see them either, so you may as well, for the sake of appearances, let them be, not pluck them out so they can grow back with the approximate appearance and texture of a hairbrush bristle instead.

If it had said, "eases eye strain" or something that would make sense, but the emphasis was on all the hair you didn't know you had, as if each follicle contains a secret demon which must be exorcised at all costs. If I can't see it, and it's not killing me, I don't care.

Hell, for most of America, and most of the world, if they can't see it and it is killing them they don't care.

I changed my icon to Pippin-as-portrayed-by-Billy-Boyd. Fool of a Took is about how I feel lately.