Expanding into new territory

I think I've talked about my 'friends' situation.  I don't have many.

Realistically, if I count the people that I'd feel comfortable calling up and hanging out with, I have three friends.

I've never been a friend collector.  In fact, I believe three has been my ideal number for a long, long time.  In high school I had three close friends.  Those same friends lasted for the first two years of college.  The year away for college reduced that number, but I did get a temporary friend up there keeping me more or less at three (lets call it 2.5).

Photo school was probably my high water mark.  I kept one of my old high school friends, added a work friend, and met a new high school friend.  All three of these friends had several semi-friends involved.

In Chicago I had one friend there, and two long distance friends.  Back at home I was reduced to two friends.  Photo work brought that number back up to 2.5.  Those two friends are still friends.  The longest lasting friendships I've ever had.  During trucking school I met another friend that still occupies that space.  Nursing school did not introduce any friends, and work hasn't introduced any new friends.

Another Family Story

Mike Hart once famously said about Michigan State "Sometimes you get your little brother excited when you're playing basketball and let him get the lead. Then you just come back and take it back."

That was said after a big comeback by Michigan in 2007.  It was the last time Michigan beat Michigan State at Spartan Stadium.  Michigan has only beaten Michigan State one time since then.  And no... they didn't beat them yesterday.

And while it might prove helpful for me to talk about my love of Michigan football and the agonizing repeated defeats to our 'little brothers' in East Lansing... I'm here to talk about MY little Brother.  B.

Yup, this is the next installment of my family story where I talk about family members.  I previously talked about R my Big Brother.  B, my little brother, is an all together different story.

I've heard it said that the eldest sibling has it the hardest.  They get all the 'mistakes' from the parents, while the youngest sibling gets the whole 'Oh I don't care' attitude from their parents.  Well, that's just no the case with my brothers and I.  My parents were fairly even handed in our upbringings.  There weren't a lot of hard and true rules.  Grades in school were considered important, and if we got a D or less in a class we were grounded until that grade got raised.  We had a curfue that extended each year until we graduated high school.  Come home late, and get 'going out' privileges revoked for awhile.

Quick Hits - Glasses, Time Off, Unions, Shame/Guilt, Newsroom

No long write up today, just a couple odd things on my mind.

I got my new glasses yesterday.  I picked up my new sunglasses yesterday.  The sunglasses are... well they're kind of meh.  They look better than my old ones, but aren't as dark.  It's nice to have the ability to wear them on cloudy days as they are often too bright for my regular specs, but not bright enough for my old sunglasses.  And we've had quite a few cloudy days lately.  But I still find myself squinting on really bright sunny days and I fear how they'll work on bright sunny days with a few inches of snow on the ground.

My everyday glasses aren't all that different from my old ones.  They're the 'thick black plastic frames' style that I've been wearing for near three years now, but this time they have a brand name.  Oakley.  Technically they are "Oakley Currency" frames.  An appropriate name as this pair of specs cost me just  under $500 WITH insurance.  For comparison's sake I paid less than that for both of my old pair (regular and sunglasses) withOUT insurance.  It's going to take some time to get used to how the Oakley's hold on to my head.   Instead of curling behind the ear, these ones continue on straight and have a vice like grip on my head.  The fit is correct as before they were adjusted they'd fall off, and I don't have any complaint with the tightness on my head.  Unfortunately I DO have a complaint with how they actually cut into my ears.   I'll get used to it, but for now it's not comfortable at all.

A Family Story

You know, I've talked quite a bit about various people in my life.  And while I've tip toed around being obvious (like using their names), I'm not sure if I'm doing either them or myself a disservice without truly introducing them.

So, I may or may not continue this, but I was thinking that I'd introduce you to my Big Brother.  For the sake of consistency I'll simply call him R.

R is 2 1/2 years older than me.  He's the oldest child of our parents.  Our relationship is... complex.  I can say in the same breath that I love him with all my heart and that I loath him to my core.  I rarely feel either emotion that intensely, but I DO feel both at almost all times.  Lemme start by giving a quick history of R.

As a child (before high school), R was the defender and commander of my younger brother and I.  It's more or less like that old adage... no one picks on my family but me.  Up until I got into college I always looked up to him.  But as I try to wipe off the glossy nostalgia from my childhood memories, R was always more stand offish with family.  Less emotionally... there.

When he was tasked with watching over my younger brother and I, he always wore his "I'm in command" hat.  One incredibly visceral memory was of us warming up supper one night.   I don't know why, but I told him flat out that I wouldn't be eating any of his cubed and fried potatoes.  He told me in no uncertain terms that I'd either eat them or he'd stuff them up my nose.  I didn't eat them.  After much chasing, I ended up with soft warm cubed potatoes up both nostrils.

A Pain In The....

I have a headache.

I'm probably going to call into work because of this headache.  Yeah, I feel pretty small when I say that, but this headache is bad.

I think I've mentioned that I have a lot of headaches.  It's not as though I have one every day, but it's more than every other day.  Most often they come in series... I'll have a headache for several days in a row.  They range from small annoying headaches that don't really stop me from doing or enjoying anything to ones like today that make me stop and just unable to continue doing what I started, to ones that are truly debilitating.  And when I say debilitating, I mean debilitating... I mean going to bed at two in the afternoon and crying because I the extreme pain in my head is keeping me from the one thing that will give me peace... sleep.

I'm not at that 'cry on my pillow' stage, but it's still bad.  I guess what makes it bad is the fact that it's always there. It stops every train of thought, it stops every unconscious action making things like pouring a cup of coffee a sudden and terrible exercise in futility.

Seriously... I failed at pouring coffee this morning.  I failed at putting bread into the toaster, buttering said badly toasted bread, and clicking off a notification on my phone.  These aren't brain surgery tasks.  I shouldn't have to concentrate to tilt a carafe of warm liquid into a firmly planted on the counter mug.  And it's not as though my stream of consciousness is simply being interrupted by thoughts of "ow ow ow OW" (I just misspelled "ow" five times in a row).  It simply interrupts muscle memory.

Best of times?

A couple nights ago I was winding down after a day's work.  I was planted in front of the TV but not really watching it.  As I often do I grabbed my phone and was catching up on some web browsing.  News, weather, sports, facebook... stuff like that.

For one reason or another I ended up at this blog.  It's at that point that I started wandering down the rabbit whole.

I keep this blog, at least partially, as a reminder of how I felt at particular times about particular things.  I know from previous journaling experiences that it's hard to believe that I ever felt so low.  So depressed.  On the flip side of that coin, it's hard to remember just how joyous certain things feel.

For example, after passing the NCLEX I was over the moon, jumping up and down, singing my lungs out happy.  How do I know?  Well to be honest, it's not because I remember it that way.  Sure, I remember being happy, but THAT happy?  Not really.  But when I go back and read my post "I PASSED" I can relive that moment.  Not through my words... I really can't express myself that well.  But reading my own words I can remember writing them and just how excited I was.

Robots, Empires and Foundations

Asimov.  You really can't talk about Science Fiction without mentioning Isaac Asimov's name.  The Three Laws of Robotics?  Faster Than Light space travel?  Hyperwave?  Psychohistory?

The man wrote over 400 books!  Many of them firmly in the Sci-Fi realm.  I had previously read several of the Robot Series books.  I Robot, Caves of Steel, and the Naked Sun.  I'm not really sure why I stopped there.  Maybe I just wasn't in my 'binge' mode.  There are actually two more Robot Novels, two more Robot short story collections (one of which includes the short story version of 'Bicentennial Man'... one of my favorite movies), and that doesn't even include the rest of his magnum opus universe which includes the Empire books and the Foundation books.

Well... here and now I plan to fix that.  Er... well maybe 'now' is to strong of a word.  But over the next year or so (between new Stephen King Books) I plan on fixing that.

Overtime... not by choice

Yesterday was a boring one at work.  No transfers, a small handful of 'easy' call outs.  No urgents.

During the med line, when I can't see any inmates, I was slowly finishing up all of my charting.  Slowly because I had nothing else to do.  The two previous days were also slow, so I had done most of my 'busy' work then.  When I finally finished up I... well... I'm not to proud to say that I fell asleep at my computer.

Now, every time the phone rings in the clinic, there is a moment to be afraid.  Afraid that someone is in real danger... that I'm going to be called out to someone in cardiac arrest, or a suicide attempt, or a very serious injury.  I didn't like phone calls before this job, but I'm really starting to hate them now.

Yesterday the phone was going off more and more.  Up until nine o'clock they were all from other nurses in the facility.  I traded shifts with one nurse, I helped another with a difficult patient decision, I helped hunt down some paperwork.... all good calls.  But that pesky law of averages screwed me and karma caught up to me in a big way with that last phone call.  That last call was from one of my supervisors saying that the night nurse had called in sick.