11/17/08 - LEX

Today is the L. It stands for late shift and means I'm at work until 10 pm tonight. Tomorrow is the E. It stands for early shift and means after getting home around 11 and going to sleep around 12:30, I have to wake up in 6 hours so I can be at work by 8:30. The good news is I'm out at 6. Finally Wednesday is X. X stands for nothing and means I have a day off. This scedule changes from week to week, but somewhere in my rota, there will be LEX. I like LEX. It's a nice progression. Each day is better than the one before and the hope of a tomorrow where I won't be hocking diamonds until 10 pm bouys my mood and helps me maintain my will to live. Especially today.

It was a tough week. Sales were down, Ian's debts were called in, an entire paycheck was extinguished after one trip to Tesco, and my period was late. When I finally got out of work on Saturday my mood should have improved. After all, I had Sunday off and was meeting the Bernstones crew at Wetherspoons, a tradition I had been missing lately. Instead all I could think about was that damn missing period and ended up responding to Ian's assurances that "It wouldn't be so bad having a baby," with "Bullshit, you can't even support us. He was upset, I was upset. We got home to our shoebox of a flat. He fell passive agressively asleep while I made dinner so I chucked the whole of it into the fridge and fell asleep on the floor. 

Sunday wasn't much better. After tying and failing to find a manicurist to fix my 3 broken nails I self medicated with marijuana and went for a walk around London. This activity is generally the most pleasant moment of my week and it did make me feel a little better, though my mind kept comming back to baby. I met the Bernstones crew at Wetherspoons again, though the company was a bit anemic. In the end it was just Ian, Russell, and me. We drank from 2 on through the evening and I finally had to flee back to the flat while I could still walk upright, seeing I had already missed the opportunity to flee while I could still walk in an approximation of a straight line.  Eventually Ian came home with a pregnancy test, I went to take it, and my body proved once again it has a fantastic sense of dramatic irony and timing. That is to say, my period promptly began. Like, right then.

So here I am monday morning, L shift. Obviously I'm relieved my womb remains barren, but my mood can only be described as glum.  I'm exhausted from the emotional and chemical trauma I put my body through on my day of rest, I'm losing blood at a rate that leaves me lightheaded, and I have a shift that lasts til 10 to look forward to. Also my nails are still broken because manicurists don't come into salons until after lunch. I hate their ilk. I do, however, like the word "ilk". Anyway, I feel like crap, so I'm clinging to LEX. Today may suck, but it's the big push. Live through it and you have two full days of improvement.  I'm taking this one day at a time or I'll dissolve.

11/26 - The Point

Today is L. It stands for late shift. Tomorrow is an E, but LEX has to wait, because then Friday is an L, Saturday is E, and finally we complete the triad with a Sunday X. Sucky? Perhaps, but my mom and sister were in town so I had to cram my off days in together. It was definitely worth it. We ate out, went shopping, saw sights, and caught the matinee of Phantom of the Opera. I have to say, coming out of that show last night I felt the most uplifted I've been for weeks, months if you don't count my pot-enhanced walks. It didn't last long though. It takes a floodgate a little sturdier than a show to keep the life from crashing back down on you after a half hour or so. That analogy might be a bit mangled, but you get the idea.

It was good to see my mom, but it was hard. She's worried about me and really a bit skeptical about my current job. She wants me to teach, and that seems like a better and better idea. I'm beginning to see the appeal. The whole corny bit about "making a difference" really does count for something. Its a very simple answer to when you throw your arms up in the air and shout "What's the point?!" Right now I don't have an answer to that. I don't know the point of working until 10 on a Friday, or working for 10 solid days before Christmas and then coming in the day after. Money, I guess. That's kinda hollow though. Especially when there's never enough anyway. 

It's not the hours at this job that kill me. Not even the job itself. It just the progress, the progression. There is none. Maybe this is all jobs, but I'm new to this. Give me a break. School was nice like that. You go to class, you write essays, you take tests, you're scored, assessed, graded, and moved up. See? I'm yearning for school. Why fight the whole teacher thing? I'm making that choice of career sound to easy. I've been doing some research on my good buddy the World Wide Net and the results are down-heartening. I can take a course for a year, which starts in September and has applications due next month. It's unpaid and highly competitive. I can apply for a student teaching role. It pays minimum wage, is even more competitive and requires I apply to about 15 separate institutions. Add to that the fact my work permit dies in 3 months, my University grades don't translate to UK education lingo, and my current ratio of "time spent working on applications" to "interviews received" is approximately "4 months, 18 days, 14 hours and 29 minutes" to "3" the whole mess just adds to that great big sinking feeling that is my life.

I feel old, and unaccomplished for my years. Do people spend their lives like this? What's the point?