GTT: I told work ‘No.’

Hello laydees and laydee-like gentlemen.

Today I feel close to hysterical. As you know this has been a tough week for me, including Thursday when all I could do was sit on the couch and cry rather than go out and see Nicola perform and generally have a good time rather than a shit one.

Gif is apropro even though Artie, ugh.

Still, I’ve been thinking of myself as coping. I’ve got my schedule nicely written out and I keep referring back to it to remind myself of the time I have to complete work and socialise and reach my dreams. (The reaching of dreams is a more abstract one, it’s not actually written in my diary like ‘April 10th: Reach for the stars and every mountain higher’).

Yesterday my 2IC called me and asked me if I wanted to work today. I said no, for two reasons. Firstly, I had earmarked today for uni work and it’s important that I stay on top of things this year because they take me longer when I’m feeling like shit (ie, all of the times). Secondly, he has been messing me around for weeks with my roster, including yelling at me when I queried my lack of shifts and telling me I had no right to question it because I’m a casual. Up until that point I had been working five or six days in a row, despite my health issues, which my managers are well aware of, and always turning up on time and ready to work.

Basically, I am a great employee and they are really, really taking the piss by cutting my hours so heavily and not working with me because I have uni now.

So, even though the money would be nice, because (see above) I am getting pretty much no work, I just said no. And it felt great! I’m so used to just bending over backwards to help people and do as they ask and normally what happens is that I care too much and then they chew me up and spit me out with not so much as a thank you (again, see above).

I feel even better about the decision today because I feel like death warmed up and oh my god if this exhaustion doesn’t stop soon I may need to go back on anti-depressants because already things are starting to seem like they’re just not worth it.

I guess the happy point of this post is that I have decided my mental health is more important than my managers at work, which is important and good.

~ Lois

PS.

Moneh!

SO as we are all aware, I have little to no money, and so I am gonna do a spending fast. Which seems ludicrous when I have no money to spend anyway but bear with me.

Also, just to clarify, I’m not trying to be all “OH WOE IS ME I AM SO POOOOOR TAKE PITY ON ME”. Particularly with this post I feel like if I post it here I am more accountable, and generally its just something in my lyf that I can blog about. So if I seem whiny I apologise, thats not my intention.

Anyway, I came across this blog a few months ago and I always thought it seemed like a good idea but that was before the 6 week holidays and when I was like “Oh but I have money and no debt so this isn’t a problem!”. And now I still don’t have debt (small mercies!) but I don’t have excess money to just be like “What? Joseph Joseph utensils on sale? I SHALL HAVE IT”. Side note: good purchase, so I am glad I had the money for it at the time. But that weekend was really my last weekend of having money and that is SCARY and boring.

So basically this spending fast is only buying essential things for a period of time (the girl from the blog did it for a year, I am thinking more along the lines of Lent – celebrate finishing with chocolate, etc). I feel like that will be enough time because its not *really* a problem with overspending (except on eating out/jam and cream donuts from Brumby’s) so its not like I have to overhaul my brain and teach myself to cut back, but just if I impose these limits on myself I can’t make exceptions and then I should be able to save a bit of money and start looking at flights to the UK and NY and such. Cool? Cool.

(as a side note, when I put money in my savings it gets labelled “Sweet Potato Felafel at Leon’s” or “Herbie’s Garlic Bread” or something else England-specific that I will want to use it for.)

SOOOOOO this is what I am allowed to spend money on:

Rent
Groceries
Petrol (but not much)
Phone credit
Medicine and doctors and physio
Haircuts
Edit: I forgot volleyball

I think thats it.  I’ll probably add shit if I need to, but basically no clothes or kitchen things or jam and cream donuts. So hopefully I can still see people during this period because I don’t want to be that guy who is like “Oh I can’t go”, but I can’t because RULES. Rules are how I will be reunited with my favourite garlic bread.

HFRGH.

So today hasn’t been swell. I went to the doctors about my weird stomach ache and I have to get an ultrasound and an x-ray tomorrow. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but drinking a litre of water and then not peeing for an hour and a half is not exactly fun. Also last time I had an ultrasound (for the same thing) they ran 45 minutes late and I nearly DIED.

Then I emailed about the animation I just did because I was meant to hear back if I had to change anything and I just wanted to send them my invoice and be done with it, and I need about another 20 hours of work to go into it now. After uni has started. When I already have assignments to do and hate everyone. GRR. I know it has to be good if I’m getting paid for it but panto and uni and work and no free time grggrh.

Also work gave me a new student after I explicitly said on Tuesday I can’t take any more students. I was like ‘Bro I can’t make it by 4pm I’ll be late’ and he was like ‘Well then run 10 minutes late all evening’ and I was like ….que. Thats not what I want to do. How is that going to go down with my students? “OH GUYS. Get here on time every week but I’ll probably be late. I say probably, if you get here 10 minutes late and I’m on time, you only get a 20 minute lesson”. Like… what? WHAT. EVERYONE SUCKS BAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLS.

A word of caution

If you are going to write a blog post on how being in love makes you superior to the rest of the world, just don’t. Ever. I will throw my computer at your damn smug face.

An Open Letter To My Work.

Hi Work,

So remember when you said my pay would go up in term 2, and then I wrote you a note on my first invoice of the term (which I know you’ve read because uh, I was paid for it) asking what the dealio was with that and you didn’t even reply to say its staying the same? And when I bought a book from you and then realised it had already been used, with pencil marks and dirt marks down the spine and everything, and you did nothing about that? And then called me on Tuesday to say I had two new singing students on Saturday?

Well, that was awkward when the two sisters came in, the youngest was first and said she didn’t want to sing and I was like TOUGH, THATS WHY YOU’RE HERE and then half an hour later the oldest came in and was like “…. We’re meant to have piano lessons.”

That was a low point in my day.

Bonus: I talked to the Mum and apologised, and she was like “Oh, no problem, we just wanted them to have some sort of commitment and I don’t care if its singing or piano. Hey, can they do both?” so possibly less Saturday free for me but more dollar.

 

Also I didn’t even mention my RAD MIX TAPE KARMA, I made Chris a mix CD on Monday to cheer him up and then I got one from my Theatre Studies buddy on Wednesday. Karmaaaaaaaa.

 

Also this is my life right now.

Oops

So I uh, forgot to go to work today. That was awkward. Like, even when I got the call from work, it didn’t click that I should have been there fifteen minutes ago. This is why I really hate going in for half an hour on Saturdays, I had *just* finished making pancake batter.

However, I had a swell day babysitting yesterday (not even swell in a sarcastic sense), and then Tara and I came home and watched Garth and Kat and Stefon clips and I got a new recipe program for my Mac (my third this year) because I was DRUNK ON BABYSITTING MONEY.

GTT: Resolutions

I slept until 4.30 this afternoon so I did nothing with my day. Then I got yelled at on Facebook by someone who used to be a friend. And then I felt sad and cried a lot. But seriously, why am I letting people be mean to me? I should be better than that.

So, ladies, I have a new resolution. I am simply checking out of people’s lives unless they specifically ask me. Even then, I’m probably not going to get involved.

To achieve this, I am going to hold my breath for ten seconds before I go and say something that could be construed as controlling or snappy. I think that will condition me not to do it, as I find holding my breath extremely uncomfortable.

~ Lois

GTT: Home!

I came home for my birthday. Well, I came home the day after, but nonetheless. I had a delicious meal with Mama and Dad and Levi (which I’m sure offended his vegetarian sensibilities because I had a pork belly entree and kangaroo for mains), Mum had made my favourite birthday cake (!!!!!), and I’ve kicked this ethics essay in the nutsack.

IN THE NUTSACK, I SAID.

I also had a phone call from Chris on my birthday at about 6:45pm, when I thought he had forgotten my birthday, because he thought facebook was too impersonal. So many <3s.

Now I’m having delicious carby pasta for lunch. Ommmm nom nom nom nom.

Out of Office

So I had a pretty rad Easter. I got to see my extended famalam (always fun), made chocolate brownies (and forgot to take a picture for my blog, BOO), didn’t eat that much chocolate because – to be honest – I don’t like it that much, and fell asleep at 7:45pm.

The falling asleep bit came after I cried for about half an hour about how everyone keeps dumping their problems on me and expecting that I can fix them. I did write a post about this the other day but deleted it because I suspected it made me sound like a right cuss word. However, last night when I was crying after I had explained the whole situation to Levi, I just kept repeating “I DON’T CARE” until I stopped crying and went to drink my cup of tea before it went cold. Pragmatic! Thats not entirely true. I do care, and I think that is why I let myself get so upset, because most of my responses are filtered through the “Well, when I felt like this/similar to this, would I have wanted someone to say what I’m about to?” part of my brain. And normally that means I spend hours sending frustrating messages like “But you are pretty/beautiful/gorgeous/inspiring/worth it/a good friend”. And I mean taht bit, I really do, but when people continually say “NO I’M NOT I’M WORTHLESS AND I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU DON’T HATE ME”, well… thats more likely to make me hate you than you being sad is. So this is my new defense mechanism that will hopefully stop me from getting frustrated and crying myself to an early sleep.

(Ngl, though, that sleep was amazing.)

Hopefully I’ll get the balls to actually use it as an ‘out of office’ type reply instead of feeling like I should be a good friend and respond. Because being a good friend means taking care of yourself as well so you don’t snap and punch people in the face. Right?

Dear (name),

I love you, and you probably know that by now. I can’t respond to you at the moment because of other circumstances, but please remember how delightful and gorgeous you are and that I would prefer to not live without you in my life, you darling little ray of sunshine!

We’ll speak soon,

Em x

I’ll never have my own babies.

In February it was confirmed to me that I’ll never have my own children.

Here’s the simplest way I can describe it. The medication I have to take reduces the size of my tumour. Smaller tumour means working hormones means working ovaries etc. This means I menstruate (isn’t that just the best upside of having a shrinking tumour?!) and my body is working properly sexually (ooer!).

So now, I can physically get pregnant. I have to use contraceptives if I eventually ever end up having sex again (forever alone yada yada). But! If I get pregnant I will miscarry due to the chemicals being pumped into me by the meds. Come off the meds, same deal because my body freaks out and doesn’t know what’s going on.

I DREW YOU A DIAGRAM.

Right. Clear as mud? Good.

Initially I was devastated. I’ve always been one of the few of my friends who wants kids. I adore kids, especially little ones and babies. It felt like my life was being completely ruled by this tumour, a thing which I never asked for and didn’t want in my life.

Ok I just re-read that sentence. Derrrrr. No one wants a tumour. My point is that I had a hissy in my own mind about how unfair it all was.

Now, I see it as my life taking a different turn. I’m reconsidering what I want to do as a career and thinking about all the things I’ll be able to do if I don’t have children. Although part of me will be sad about the children I won’t be having, I’ve adjusted to the idea. I’m feeling good level about the whole thing.

Take that bad news!

~ Lois

PS.

Gala Darling wrote this great article on how not having kids makes people want to make you feel like a freak. Excellent points made.