chalk one up for the hormones

9-28-99

7:30 am

I'm irritated when I come in after a day off and so-called "top priority" tasks are left on my desk by someone who was "too busy" to do them, when the task in question could have been finished in less than two minutes, even while on the phone, and supposedly "needed" to be done ASAP.

I'm irritated when I am carelessly and poorly trained, and then scolded or condescended to.

I'm irritated that I'm here ten hours a day to do three hours of work.

I'm irritated that I'm given a bit of a task to do simply because it's a tedious part of some larger task, but the larger task is not explained, so I have no big picture and cannot make relevant decisions based on repetitive or outdated material, and the task itself takes less time to perform than the explaining of the task, making my performance of that task meaningless and ridiculous.

9:00 am.

I've been in the foulest mood this morning. I woke up slowly, contemplated calling in but decided to save it for next week when John's home. I hung around the house until he had to leave, just watching him assemble his uniform, reminding him of stuff he'd forgotten. I was 15 minutes late for work, and couldn't have cared less. Didn't matter much; three of my six coworkers were even later.

Within thirty minutes I'd scratched out my grievances (above) and I was ticked off. I've been near tears all morning. Several times I've had to stumble out to the bathroom and sob quietly in the corner stall.

I'd like to blame it on John's leaving, but I'm on more upset by this than usual. I'm sort of looking forward to getting things done around the house and going to bed on time. If anyone catches me crying, though, John is my number 2 excuse, right after "Not feeling well."

No, it's not from John leaving.

My mood is colored partly from the state of my mind when I went to sleep last night. I got to bed late after a fairly crappy day: not sleeping well the night before, getting hassled over my car registration, not eating well, and babysitting. When I got into bed I must have whined a little. John gave me a much-needed lecture on my increasing neglect of music. The truth is, I haven't practiced in weeks, I haven't written music or anything about music, I haven't even listened to art music, at all. John's concerned, rightfully, that I'm well on the way to forgetting I'm a musician.

It hit home. I need to shape up before it's too late.

Off to the bathroom again.

6:30 pm

Wow. Must be my hormones talking.

I'm still not in the greatest mood, though my polite smiles, over the course of the day, turned from completely fake to grimly wry. I must have gotten over something. I also stopped running to the bathroom every hour or so.

There is one person in my office who is making my time there unbearable. She has, technically, the same status as me, and we are supposed to be doing the same job. Since she has seniority, she condescends to me and picks at me when I do something wrong.

I never do anything wrong unless it's something I wasn't correctly trained to do. And she's the one who trained me.

The babysitting thing went okay last night. I was too exhausted to write an entry about it. Things went really well, actually, with a few minor exceptions. Nobody told me that the red sipper-cup caps meant formula and the blue cup caps were chocolate milk. I accidentally gave the baby some chocolate milk before bed. (just a little bit--shhhhhh.) I figured out the diaper thing pretty quickly. And dinner was okay once I remembered to feed them. Altogether, I'd say I passed my first BABY-sitting experience.

I'm trying something new here. Inspired by John's harsh (but necessary) words last night, I decided to write my journal right after I get home. This is the time when I can't seem to force myself to do anything; I'm tired from work, hungry, and I end up sitting on the couch for a while. Then I eat dinner. Then I laze until it's time to write my journal entry, and then I go to bed. Tonight I'm using my after work laze around time to write my journal, since I enjoy doing that. When I finish, I can eat dinner, then practice my horn for a little while.

If that doesn't work, then something will have to go. I can't do everything, and I can't let my euphonium sit in its case for another two months. The other thing taking up my time is this journal. I want to hear everyone out there cheering on the euph, 'cause if I fail this one, I'm going to have to update less frequently. Maybe every few days, or on the weekends, or more e-mail entries. I don't want to do that.