Chant of the overcommitted and chronically pained

Dishes,
              I will wash you
Clothes,
               I will fold you
Books,
              I will read you
Socks,
              I will match you
Bookshelves,
              I will dust you
Floors,
              I will sweep you
Bathtub,
              I will scrub you
Sun
              I will bask in you
Chair
              I will rest on you

if I make it through
this week

Time to go to bed - searching for a place

All the old houses I looked at today had floors
that sloped in places and threw people off
balance.  It was a familiar sensation to me, that

half-falling, the disorientation, the catching.  I
wonder if that familiarity would make it safer
for me to live in a house with crooked floors because I

am used to the dizziness and know the tricks not to fall
over.  Maybe I would get used to the crooked
houses faster.  At least  I would have something

to blame when I half-fell and caught myself for
no reason anyone else could see.  Unless the crooked
houses multiplied the half-falls into whole falls.  Then

again, I'll never know unless I live in one, and it seems
I can't currently afford anything in really livable
condition now.  The work injury and the debt it

generated have crippled me more financially
than physically, more than 110+ years have sloped
these floors, more than I care to dwell on while I am

searching for a place to live that isn't here.

right brain, left brain

I am at an awkward part of the pain spiral.  My left arm started going numb, so I shifted to carrying the heavier things on the right shoulder, but then that old subluxing injury started to flare up with intent.  Then I have to use the left arm, but then it starts to warm me that this is treatment up with which it will not put, and I am impaled on the horns of a dilemma.  I think I just need to learn telekinesis, so I can use my mind to lift things.  As long as I make sure to evenly use both the right and the left brain, I'm sure it will all work out.

quotes out of context

from Jeremiah 30:12-13 to OWCP
 
"Your wound is incurable,
And your injury is serious.
"There is no one to plead your cause;
No healing for your sore,
No recovery for you."

Yep.  My sense of melodrama is still doing just fine though, thanks for asking.  Reading Jeremiah makes me lean toward drama.  Being a prophet was never precisely easy, but wow, did he have a crappy time of it . . .

young and grey

I am moving much less
like a woman of 60
these days (except for
the left arm, hip, and
lower back), but the silver
is taking over my hair
that much faster.  An 

odd tradeoff, but not 

unwelcome, I suppose.

.

Things that hurt

Not sleeping
Getting up
Getting dressed
Driving to work
Work
Writing
Typing
Washing my hands
Drying my hands
Turning pages
Holding anything
Wearing gloves
Driving home from work
Getting a glass of water
Drinking a glass of water
Getting undressed
Lying in bed
Not sleeping

Why I'm glad week four is long over

Things I never expected when I agreed to teach a single online class

that I would have to put off cleaning and laundry and blogging and rest
that I wouldn't have access to my course until the students did
that the school would make so many assumptions that make my job difficult
that the logical resources a teacher needs would be missing, unavailable, not even considered
that a single class could add another 40 hours to my 40 hour work week
that I could get hoarse from dictating assignment feedback into my voice recognition software
that my left arm would hurt more
that my right arm would hurt a lot more
that I would sleep even less
that I would be even more afraid of what would happen if I get sick and lose my voice
that I would feel guilty for

• stopping for gas and a car wash
• getting physical therapy
• spending 15 minutes in a used clothing store to replace a pair of pants that were destroyed
• getting groceries
• exercising
• taking a shower
• eating
• going to the doctor
• meeting with my church small group

(because I could've been using that time to grade)
that I would have to stop reading and writing for pleasure to teach reading and writing to unscreened students who are not ready for this class
that this format does not allow the students who need to learn the most what they need to learn
that I would hate teaching this way this much
that I would want so badly to fix the papers even knowing how much time it would take
that I would be happy when students ignored my repeated pleas to set up conferences to prevent them from failing
that this happiness could make me feel more guilty
that I would not be able to catch up even after a month
that I would be so bad at boundaries

Birthdays, owls, kestrels

A friend recently had his 60th birthday at a nature center, which was a great idea because it gave the kids things to do and places to run around even in January.  Through sliding glass doors, I watched chipmunks and squirrels and hyperactive birds feed at the come hither station (complete with heated water hole that never freezes, even when it's 19 below). 

There were three live birds on display.  One was the most sullen, antisocial owl I had ever seen, a wad of irked fluff standing as far from the window as was possible with the tether.  Owl eyes are incredibly creepy, especially when they're radiating unfriendly vibes.  I found this amusing: reason the owl was on display: because it was unable to survive in the wild since it had been raised by humans, preferably really antisocial humans instead of abusive humans.  Maybe it was just in a bad mood.


My favorite was the red kestrel.

American kestrels are
beautiful more beautiful
when not gnawing on
recently living things
but still beautiful
even when they will
never fly (improperly
healed right wing
fracture) still
beautiful beak bloody

Confidence

"Confidence.  It's not something you keep just for yourself."
- Musashi #9 Vol. 16

I have lost all confidence in myself.  It didn't happen all at once.  It's been gradually wearing away like my energy and memory and ability to focus.  Its loss, like theirs, can be traced back to that injury working for the federal government in 2002.  I lost hope in the government and justice.  I started struggling more and more in school and at work, and I now feel mostly useless, crippled, and incompetent.

It's not a great time to be trying to find other jobs.  I can't sell myself because I feel like no buyer would want such damaged goods.  How can I, in good conscience, try to convince someone to hire me when I wouldn't hire me?  I admit I would get some degree of satisfaction if I managed to obtain another government job (this one without any of the significant physical hazards of the last one), but that desire to be petty hasn't been enough to motivate me to finish a lengthy government resume.

Oddly enough, I started feeling more optimistic about my chances as I was looking through a book about how to make a great government resume.  Focus on what you actually do at work; match it up to skills mentioned in the job announcement and questions (in one case, all 83 of them).  Research the agency to find out what the job really involves, and find keywords.  Use principles of graphic design to format a text resume that is easily readable, scanable, and usefully written.  It helps that the only job I am not too crippled for is fairly entry level, so much so that my grades in college could potentially get me hired at a higher pay band even with no practical knoweldge/experience. 

Yeah, so that last bit's unlikely, but it's possible on paper, and  I have been too chummy with impossible lately. 

When my parents, who feel helpless, even though they are doing way too much to help me already, talk to me, I stress the impossible to them because it's what I know.  Don't expect me to be able to do what I could ten years ago; I'm too broken to do those things now.  I am a different, lesser person, crippled in more than just body.  I hate this state of being even more than they do, and my face is rubbed in it every minute I am awake (and there are far too many of those minutes a day, which is part of the problem). 

So much is impossible for me that it's been a while since I've even bumped into the positive possible.  I've stopped looking for it, even.  It would take a miracle to save things now, and a miracle may not be what God is planning for me.  Maybe even more quietly epic failure is His plan for me, and, honestly, I had a great run there for 21 years, so who am I to complain?

Anyway, this past Tuesday, when I got past being sarcastic about all the skills and experience I lack and my crappy retail job and my incompetent boss who is now actively trying to fire me since we have yet another new store manager (my incompetent boss is trying to use the confusion of his ascendence in this time of holiday hell to her advantage to fire me without any oversight) and my discouragement over all the skills I polished in college and never got to use, I realized that completing this resume could be more of a writing and style exercise, like something I did in technical communication classes back in the day. 

I used to be good at learning a lot through negative examples.  Why couldn't I spin things at my current job in a more positive light now?  (Because I'm out of practice, is the simple answer.)  But the light was there, and I could see that maybe the tunnel had edges, a long way away.

Today I was exercising on a stair machine on my day off.  As usual, I was reading a book (Musashi #9 volume 16, which came out 19 months after volume 15).  As I had suspected, a particular character died, and after that story finally wrapped up, there was a short side story told from the point of view of a girl who was really unhappy with her personality and who wanted to change.  She encountered #9 and came to the realization I quoted at the beginning of this piece, so you'd realize the end was going to be uplifting.

"Confidence.  It's not something you keep just for yourself."

Oh.

I know I've been hurting my parents and concerned friends with my lack of confidence.  It made me feel guilty and a little irritated.  Why should my problems affect them?  And what was I supposed to make them feel better?  It was my problem in the first place, and I can't fix it, not as broken as I am.  I hate disappointing my parents, previous witnesses to most of my triumphs, bewildered long-distance spectators of my slow destruction and descent.  A recent phone call reminded me of this fact.

This quote and my pursuit of this job were kind of like a heartening, non-physical kick in the pants.  Maybe I'm too tired to fake confidence for myself, but I think I need to for my parents and other concerned people their age around me who are worried about me.

And maybe, just maybe, this time I'll be able to fake it first and long enough that it will grow to fill in the space I've left for it.  A person can dream, right?

Yet another one sails away

Well, that tears it.  My new friend at work had enough and left.  What a huge, stupid waste.  She was worth at least two of my incompetent sales manager.  There is very little justice in a world where I'm stuck with the stupid sales manager and have to lose a great co-worker because our management is . . .  Yeah, you've heard it before.  Sorry.

But I can't resist this great example of my sales manager's greatness.  Because of this sudden situation, I was asked to come in and work on my day off, and, because I desperately need the hours/money, I came in early in the morning after a late night leading a small group for church.  Then, that morning, I picked up another sick co-worker's shift for that night, but I could only work from 6-10 (so I could get some rest before coming in early the next morning for my next shift).  As I was leaving at 10:15, my sales manager got extremely snippy with me for having to leave before 10:30 .  Yes, she got mad at me after I came in and saved her bacon twice in the same day on my day off outside of my regular availability.  She is a real winner.

I'm looking for a new hopefully less crappy retail job along with my regular job hunting. 

Morale is just so shot right now at our store, and sales, which were up, are dropping.  It's sad because it doesn't have to be and shouldn't be this way.  I wish there were something I could do to make it better, but I really have tried everything I can.

I was thinking about good companies and how they value their employees.  Maybe I'm still kind of an idealist, but I thought companies wanted to hire good employees and use their strengths as individuals and team members to help the company prosper.  My RetailEstablishment never read these books, I guess.  They would rather try to force everyone into the same (bent) mold and break them. 

We're all breaking. 

It's rough to watch.  I have so much to give, and they don't want it.  It's . . . frustrating not to be able to use any of your skills, talents, personality, etc. in a way that helps people.  It's worse when you can't just quit, when you're too damaged already to be sure you'll ever be able to find another job.  Being so invested in one place used to make me sort of stubbornly determined to do my best to help things change for the better, but when you have resistance and an endless landslide of dumb policies coming from your district manager to your store and thus know that the "open-door" policy is a quick way to get fired, it just grinds you down.

At least I'm proud I've hung on for over 6 years.  :)  Find your sunshine where you can, I guess.


Do you have any suggestions for retail jobs that would be good for a cripple?

Tire pressure and sinus pressure

I have discovered another way I am like my car: sometimes we don't do well when the weather changes. 

Last year when fall and winter fought, and the temperature dropped, a warning light burned bright in my car, and the same thing happened this time.  The pressure in my tires was off, so I went to a gas station and tried to fix it.  I learned several valuable lessons from this experience.

• There is a 75% chance that when I am unscrewing the air valve cap,  I will drop the air valve cap into the tire.
• It is easy to pop part of the hubcap cover off to retrieve the cap.
• It is easy to pop the hubcap cover back on if you know the trick (which does not involve kicking).  (I learned this one after cracking one hubcap cover with the help of a nice guy who was also at the gas station and noticed my cluelessness.  I hold him blameless.)
• You can't tell if any air is actually going into your tire; you just have to believe.
• Even if enough air goes in, you won't know until you drive your car for 15 minutes, according to the nice guy from the tire shop that was, in fact, still open.
• There are nice people who will let you into the tire shop (the nice guy at the gas station pointed you toward) even though it is 5 minutes until closing, and they will stop vacuuming and come outside to check your tire pressure and fill the tire that is still low even though the freezing cold wind is blowing.  And then they will not charge you because you are obviously too pathetic, and, for once, you won't mind.

Why I don't go to a chiropractor

Because it might work, and I might feel better.  And then I wouldn't be able to afford it.

Dependence and Dependents

I technically qualify for government-subsidized housing.  When I went to the office to get an application, I found out why they were so vague on their government website: they're backed up by about five years and don't even let people fill out applications anymore.  On one hand, I appreciate that they don't want to waste my time and get my hopes up.  On the other hand, it makes me sad to think that my situation isn't as unique as I thought it was. 

I was told that they often make exceptions for people who pay more than a certain percentage for rent, but I left that information and my contact information, and they never even called me back.  From what I could tell, they don't even work at the office they're supposed to work at any more because there's nothing they can actually do.  It's impressively bad.

I've been a drain on my parents' finances since I got hurt, and I was willing to go on government assistance to prevent them from having to help anymore, but that's apparently not an option.  I feel bad for my parents.
 
It's funny: my mom was always afraid I was going to become a starving artist, but it was the completely non-artistic, government job that's going to lead to me starving without their help.  It just seems wrong and ironic in bad and obvious and unsubtle ways.

I'm really blessed that they are able and willing to help me out so much; it's incredibly humbling how kind they are about it, but I really wish they didn't have to be. 

Things I wish:

• that I wasn't crippled and basically unemployable.
• that the government would take a bit of responsibility for this situation.
• that I could find a good job with health insurance very, very soon.
• that I can somehow pay them back.

They say I can just be the one who takes care of them when they get old, but I'm more decrepit than they are, so I don't think I'll really get the chance . . .

Chicken

I volunteer at the State Fair every year; volunteers get a free ticket to the fair and a free meal. Our Dining Hall does not serve any "fair food."  There is nothing fried or on a stick.  We sell fruit, salads, and posh deserts like tiramisu and sometimes cheesecakes (and recently something chocolate and peanut butter that was out of this world).  We are famous for ham loaf, and our Swedish meatballs are deadly in a good way.  Pardon my drool. 

I have been volunteering at this booth for years, even after I left the organization that sponsors it, so I have tried nearly everything on the menu.  The one food I was never able to try was the baked chicken.  I can't cut meat off a bone anymore because of my disability, and my family lives a long way away, so they can't cut it for me. 

For some reason, I find it difficult to ask others to cut my food for me.  I can't imagine why it's embarrassing to have to do as a not-quite-30-year-old.  Long story short: it's easier to eat something else, so I usually do.

Today was my lucky day.  My partner at the cash registers (the only job someone as handicapped as me can do) teaches pre-school and has 7 grandchildren.  When I joked about wanting to try the chicken but being unable to eat it, she said, "Well, I'd be happy to cut it for you."

It was sooooo good.  It was worth the laughs I got from certain others.  Many thanks; I couldn't have done it without you, G!  You were an excellent meat cutter. 

Maybe that'll teach me to keep being a chicken.