Hello, my name is Amie, and I am a giant Yo-Yo.

My knitting has been fairly uninspired this week. I'm sure partly because I want to play with my new wheel, and partly because I'm uninspired by just about everything, it seems like I get just a few rows done and them I'm bored with the project. The worst is the bamboo, which I'm sure will eventually become a summer sweater, if I could ever decide what pattern I want enough from the poor swatch that I've knit at least 17 times. I'm enjoying spinning on Fiona a great deal... until I do something wrong, and the strand breaks off and wraps all the way around the bobbin for the third time in a row. Then I'm frustrated. However, it's a level of frustration that is so low compared to all other levels of frustration in my life that it hardly bears mentioning. So why have I?

Well, because mentioning the other sources of frustration (I'm fat, I don't like a lot of the people I live with this week, my house is too small, I'm too poor, I don't like my job or my career, I'm tired...) would be too much demonstration of beating-a-dead-horseism for any one blog to take.

Oh, what the hell, how 'bout one more go.

If I'd know what work was going to be like today, I would have called in unconscious. The storms knocked out all kinds of exciting network features for us. Our engineer can't make it back up until Monday, which means that in order to schedule the commercials for the next three days, I have to connect to the internet on the computer in my office (the only one that has internet) and retreive the logs from the transmitting source, disconnect the internet, write down what commercials have to run and when, go into another room, open up the program and insert them all manually. Seems the internet connection is affecting the network connection, and the printer's just not working. That should only take three times as long as it normally does. I figure I should be done the logs by tomorrow morning, provided I don't eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom. While this is going on, the program we have on right now is playing Chinese music, which normally I respect but don't much care for. Today, it's making my ears bleed. And did I mention that I decided not to stop for coffee on the way in because I thought I could take a fairly short day and then just head around 6 pm and have a relaxing weekend?

Radio has really been an amazing experience for me. I love the idea that people can feel like they're friends with someone they've never met, never seen, often never even had a conversation with. I love the idea of theatre of the mind, where ideas can be implanted for entertainment (or otherwise) just with the suggestion of them. I love the creativity of sound, the layering of sound, so that by using sounds and sound effects subtly, an environment can be created, without the listener being aware of it. All of those things are what radio is supposed to be.

But for some reason the people that seem to gain "control" in radio don't care about any of that. They've figured out that enough of us have seen that side of radio that we want to be in it. They've figured out that with computer technology, there are many times more people who want to do it than there are jobs. And that means they can destroy people, work them until their hearts, souls, and bodies give up on them, because as soon as that one person gives up, there's another just dying to take that space. I begrudge no one "the bottom line" - I understand that money has to be made. I do NOT understand putting money above humanity, and sense of dignity.

I'm a "Type A" personality. I like things done right, I like them done quickly, and I like to multi-task. I do a better job when I'm working on three things at once than I do one-at-a-time. I have a strong sense of "do your best because it's the right thing to do" work ethic. Or I did, before I saw that doing your best seems to mean having your soul destroyed, when altogether too many people who don't give a damn are moving into high-paying management positions.

I never thought I would EVER think being a housewife would be enough for me. And I don't know that it would be. But I can't think of a single out-of-home job that I would love to go to every day. I'm done with beaurocrisy. I'm done with office politics. Unfortunately, I'm not done paying bills.

But I am done whining about work, for now.

I'm going to switch to whining about my eye.

(goodness, whatever could have happened to your eye? you ask)

I'm so pleased you asked.

I am allergic to cats.

I'm actually mildly allergic to anything blooming, budding, or with fur, but out of a greater love for those things, I usually choose to ignore the itchiness, and this story has to do with my cat allergies.

I am allergic to cats, and I am very loved by a few of them.

Some of them, the handsome blondes named Aslan, love me so much that just the action of my crawling into bed to snuggle at night causes relaxation, with a side of purring.

When Aslan relaxes, he drools a bit.

Yeah, okay, he drools a lot. A LOT. This cat's middle name is Bernard, as in Saint, as in that big, wet-gummed dog that sprays walls.

So there I was, eyes closed, drifting off to sleep as my sweet, loving Aslan purred, inching closer and closer to the mommy he loved.

And then, there it was. A large drip of oozing warm wetness on my eyelid.

If you were unaware, most people who are allergic to cats and dogs are allergic not to their furr or hair, but to their saliva (and dander, which is dried saliva that gathers on their skin and fur when they lick to clean themselves). That is the case for me, and when I have a reaction, it generally is similar to mild hives; swollen, puffy, red, and itchy skin.

Including when the saliva goes directly into my eye, apparantly.

I thought I was safe for a bit, that my eyelid had done its job... and then the itching got worse.

So I went and got eyedrops, and rinsed my eye out a few times.

Still pretty bad. More rinsing...

I ended up falling asleep on the couch, where I sat in the hopes that frequent Scarlett O'Hara-like blinking would work up enough water to wash my eyes clean. Scarlett was obviously never loved by Aslan to the extent that I am loved by Aslan. I feel sort of like I should be crying out "ADRIANNN!", since I look fairly similar to the final scene of Rocky for how swollen my eye is. To look at me, you'd see one sparkly green eye, and one softball.

At least the itching is mostly gone. And Aslan hasn't tried to apologize, which I fear would probably lead to even more drool.

But I suppose maybe (just maybe) some of my itchy-swollen-eye-lack-of-sleep syndrome might be affecting my general mood today as well....
Thoughts for the Day:

John Updike - “Life is a roller coaster, you have your ups and downs unless you fall off.”

John Updike - “Life is like an overlong drama through which we sit being nagged by the vague memories of having read the reviews.”