My Brain Has Fleas: Update

Back in the beginning of year I was losing sleep and sanity over the uncertain state of the efficacy of the flea treatment. I described this in My Brain Has Fleas.  Not with out reason, the first application at the hospital was not properly followed up with by me, and the house was contaminated.  Frequent cleaning with a better vacuum improved my state of mind.  Now that I am two months past the last treatment, I can report no behaviour or material evidence.  Some doubts still linger and I do watch how intensely or frequently The Baroness scratches any specific point.

Because of the lifecycle of the fleas and the repeated cleanings I think I have gotten rid of them for good. Since I am talking about my cat. Here are some pictures.

The Lady, Baroness von Softpaws of Gallifrey, wants something.

Toes. TOES, TOES!

A small update.

Greetings.

After yesterdays rather pathetic post I am of the opinion that I should do something rather than just whine.  As it happens I have been sitting on a cycling related project that both would benefit from other people partaking in it and exceeds my standalone ability to execute. So in an effort to see which wheels have already been invented I called up a cycling organization.  The plan is to go to the meeting next week and just see what is going on.  I am confident that they are interested in solving many of the same problems I am.

So here is me kicking myself in the ass. A bit. And here is to The Hub.

Notes from a bad day.

Greetings.

This should have been written yesterday.  Yesterday this stewed, adding to the thick and bitter broth that is my brain during such times.  Scribbled in a handful of note books, or rattling around in my head are countless  of the bitter sentiments expressed here.  It neither satisfies me nor interests you for me to repeat that, yet some of that will happen today.

I always knew I would be bad at the rat race.  Ambition does not come naturally to me.  What I did not expect was to be as bad at it as I am.  The one year anniversary of my lay off is around 6 weeks away.  I am now entering black mark territory, that is, the duration of my unemployment is looking worse and worse to anyone who may read my resume.  A more careful reading brings out the troubling truth that this episode is not alone.  Just for extra flavour the interlude between BCIT and my last long term post is dotted brief positions that raise questions about my reliability.

A resume can not convey the fact that I had enough.  I tried to get back into field work and core logging, the money was good, but at the end of the day it breaks me.  When the bitter only centred on work I had out grown because the lifestyle could not work for me, I could tolerate it.  Now I work at corralling it enough to function.  The mood gets fuelled through two distantly connected channels, and builds on my weak spots.

At one end, my media is a steady stream of environmentally minded and or leftist reading.  Constant reminders of the distal causes of my sporadic employment, and of the environmental crises we are in the middle of exasperating.  But you know what I read, Facebook makes sure of that,  too much of what passes through my brain starts from there.

The trouble has been I have felt burnt out from the beginning.  I have only had a handful jobs only three of those have lasted longer than two years, at the most two and half years.  I have looked for work too many times, it has not gotten easier.  I want to work, but I start to cease up when I start looking.  Being tired and burned out should be my mood at the end of a productive day not at the start of an unproductive one.  Yet today like yesterday I have wandered around getting far too little done and collapsing on the couch too early in the day.

I don't want to live like this. I don't know how to escape this.

A biography, A history and a character.

Come and visit Broken Rockets, we have a content.

Yes 3am there really is an Alexander.

This is not a real post.  Go here for a real post. Its not by me but it will make your day better.

Sleep did not come to me till near 3am.  When I am not certain, but there is a feeling of brain pain that only comes with less than 4 hours of rest.  A few things came to make that so.  Foolishly on my last big shop I picked up a 24 of generic cola, of which I drank a few in the evening because they tasted good.  The book I switched back to did nothing aide my rest.  I will have more to say on that in the next post, one that will require much revision and careful thought.

As has become my habit, as it often works I put down the book before I am too tired to read any more, it is still too easy to well past my bed time.  I failed at unwinding and going to sleep.  I was at the tail end of a cold, at last breathing freely enough for it to not fuck with my sleep much.  But my sheets were due for a change and my backup set was also dirty.  By the time I had put the book down it was well past when I should have been a sleep, and the gears were still turning.

My world view on a bad day. 

So in tangled sheets, caffeinated in dark I start thinking.  This can't end well.  Most of the thoughts have been articulated in this blog over the last year.  Boiling down to, I am still unemployed, I have a shameful lack of vision and ambition, and this is not the first time I have been unemployed for a overly long time  That last one is the worst.  The fact that I have never been anything but expendable and have failed so far to to become indispensable drives much of the bitterness, anger, and hopelessness that I have right now.   It makes me want to play a different game than wage earning serfhood.

This all of course degenerates into a feedback loop that does a mighty good job of getting to cry into my pillow while hiding under the covers, sometimes this even happens at night.  So what should have been good nights sleep leading to planning the week, turned into insomnia.  And just for extra fun my gut joined the party.  This at least was not personal, in response to my cold my main meal for several days running was variations on spicy noodle soup.  Thankfully at least one of my problems had a clear and immediately applicable solution.  My appeasing my plumbing unstuck my crap mood.  The rest of the journey to 3am was accomplished by reading too much.  Which lead me to thinking about writing about what I was reading.

I kept my 6:30 alarm set.  I did not get up till 7.  Vacuuming, much needed after a weekend sick on the couch, happened as the water for the coffee heated up.  This has been written while I wait for the laundry, in dress slacks because anything casual was in the wash.  I may yet crash today, but I don't want to fail first thing.  I tell myself that any day can be a good day and that any day can be salvaged into something productive.  I don't live by this often enough but there is still enough drive in me to want to.

And lastly I wrote this for me. For two reasons, one to be honest to myself about the bad days. Secondly to keep today from being a bad day.  Though it cost time to write this, having done so washed my mind of the worst of the anxiety and general crappitude I started the day with.